The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-02-05
Unseen Hands
A BeWildering DetectiUe Story By Robert Orr Chipperfield

place as the chest where the other l tools were kept ought to have led me I viously suggested that your stepson | sit beneath that loosened portrait, no ! matter how. unlikely such a supposi- l ton would seem.
 | Miss Meade had had access to the | incubator in which Fannie kept his | bacteria and to the medical books | of which he had a store, and she had been the only one to listen to his ] talk on the subject; she had been ! been with her sister when Mrs. Lorne
 pricked her finger with the infected needle, and she was the only mem | Der of the family who was constant
 ly at her bedside. with unlimited opportunity to reinfect her until she | died. She as well as another might l have slipped up to her oldest neph- l ews room and, catching him off I guard, slashed his throat with the razor. The thing which kept me pecting was the supposed fact that struggle must have taken place. and l only a powerful person could have ] overcome MT. Chalmers strength; 1 trained athlete in spite of the tenn porary nervous condition which had pulled him down.
 "Only a phenomena1ly strong per l son. too, could have pried that pie i ture from the wall and filed away 1 the supporting wires, to say nothing l of welding a saw heavy enough to
 cut the long, sweeping strokes which l I noticed in the top step of the stairs.''
 'I recall now" Titheredge remark 1 ed, '@that you asked me when we ex- amined the stairs together if I ob- | served anything else, and when re-
 piled in the negative you said noth-
 ing more. What did you mean?"
 'The almost entire absence of saw | 1 1yt all ln1 a1 it afterward and learned how it. had I been disposed of. Another thing
 which led me off the track was the
 gruffness of the voice which spoke to | Kenny the carpenter over the tele-
 phone. Miss Meade's was low and
 clear and softly feminine until she | gave that cry outside Rannie's door
 when she thought he was about to I swallow the poisoned broth.''
 "But how did you first come to sus- pect her Gene asked.
 ''I did not, until a few hours be- fore tried that little experiment.; but
 I had already decided that a crazed mind was back of the series of nlur- | ders and attempted murders. Some | one whom may not name had hint | ed to me that member of the
 household was unquestionably insane.
 and a little talk which had with
 a,1,t1, MT: Titheredge here conf confirmed the the
 attorneys eye and shook his head re- l assuringly. Down at headquarters Peters had told us of a mysterious 1 intruder at the hour of Mrs. Lorne's | death, who passed up the stairs to the
 attic and whom he firmly believed to 1 be a ghost. He did not see it but caught a glimpse of the light it car | ried and heard it say: The first one gone! So shall they all go, one by one!"
 '"The she devil." Lorne groaned. "But what was it that happened a few hours before you tricked her into betraying herself?"
 with Rannie's help I proved yes terday that your eldest stepdaughter was being slowly poisoned by ad-
 mixture of white arsenic in her food; i;
 and that narrowed the possible sus- poets down to Miss Meade, MT. Gene Chalmers and the three servants. During the morning I heard foot steps ascending to the very top of the house, and something in their steal thy, almost noiseless tread recalled Peters story of the ghost to my
 mind.
 ''On an impulse I followed; but the person ahead was always just be- yond my range of vision until halted
 in the doorway of the storage room, the one with the barred windows.
 Then I saw Miss Meade. With her ffail, slender arms she was nov
 ing two huge, heavy trunks which
 were piled one on top of the other;
 and she seemed to put forth effort
 in a task that would normally re-
 quire the energy of two husky men.
 I did not see her face at once; but
 when she turned it toward me the
 mask was off, and I knew that my
 search was ended even before heard her insane speech: Eat that, my pretties. I have enough left for Cissie's last dose. I'll fool them , an!''
 "I made my escape before she was , aware of my presence and decided of you of her guilt would be to trick l her into betraying herself. The greatest thing in her life was her : love, or obsession, for Fannie; and , I determined to play upon that. ! gathered you in witnesses, laid my trap, and sprung it as you know.
 'I would feel cu1pa'ble in having 2 brought on the scene which resulted l in Miss Meade's death, but there was no other way to bring her machin- ations home to her; and Dr. Adams T has since informed me her case was incurable and that future existence ,, would have meant for her a mere tor s strength was, of course, a part of he, ' madness"
 sshe is better dead" Titheredgt a observed in his dry judicial tones. 'I
 is only a pity that her malady die , not manifest itself a few short week r ago; but we have you to thank, ser n geant, that she was prevented iron , | carrying out her hideous scheme t. ,e eXterminate the family
 e ''We owe you our Hves,' Richar'
 lLorne declared brokenly. "Whel l. I think of my poor wife I could g 1T mad myself, and it is as well perhap 1t that her sister is beyond my reach ,t Sergeant Odell, I shall not speak o $ reward at this moment; but you vii = not find me unappreciative of tn n masterly way in which you hay d handled this case and brought it to
 successful conclusion, nor unmindfu l. of the debt that I and mine owe t l; you.'
 Is Odell rose.
 D 'It was only in the line of m st professional duty. sir, he sai
 quietly. My one ~egret lies in tn 1t solution of the problem-that an al er hicted unfortunate member of you it own family should prove to have Del
 formed the dreadful. self-appointe n work of those unseen hands,
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