The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-06-10

hear your experience" He looked at ! the maid"
 q saw the men before ever they
 came into the house." said she. "As I sat by my bedroom window I saw l three men in the moonlight down by | the lodge gate wonder, but I thought | nothing of it at the time. It was | more than an hour after that I heard to find her. poor lamb, just as she says, and him on the floor with his blood and brains over the room. It was enough to drive a woman out of her wits. tied there. and her very dress spotted with him, but she nev- CT wanted courage, did Miss Mary Fraser of Adelaide, and Lady Brack- ensta1 of Abbey Grange hasn't learn ed new ways. You've questioned her long enough, you gentlemen, and now she is coming to her own room, just with her old Theresa to get the rest that she badly needs.''
 With a motherly tenderness the gaunt woman put her arm round her mistress and led her from the room.
 She has been with her all her lfe, said Hopkins. 'Nursed her as baby. and came with her to Eng land when they first left Australia eighteen months ago Theresa Wright is her name, and the kind of a maid you don't pick up nowadays This way, MT Holmes, if you please!'
 The keen interest had passed out of Holmes expressive face, and I knew that with the mystery all the charm of the case had departed. There still remained an arrest to be effected, but what were these com monplace rogues. that he should soil his hands with them? An abstruse and learned specialist who finds that he has been called in for a. case of measles would experience some in my friends eyes. Yet the scene in the dining-room of the Abbey Grange was sufficiently strange to arrest his attention and to recall his waning interest
 It was a very large and high cham Der, with carved oak ceiling, oaken paneling, and a fine array of deer's heads and ancient weapons around the door was the high, French win dow of which we had heard. Three smaller windows on the right-hand side filled the apartment with cold winter sunshine. On the left was a large deep fireplace, with a, massive overhanging oak mantelpiece. Beside the fireplace was heavy oaken chain with arms and cross-bars on the bottom. In and out through the open woodwork was woven a crimson cord, which was secured at each side to the crosspiece below. In releasing the lady, the cord had been slipped off her, but the knots with which it had been secured still remained. These details only struck out atten- ton afterwards, for our thoughts were entirely absorbed by the terrible object which lay upon the tiger-skin hearthrug in front of the fire
 It was the body of a tall, well-made man. about forty years of age. He lay upon his back, his face upturned, with his white teeth grinning through his short, black beard. His two clenched hands were raised above his head. and a heavy, black-thorn stick lay across them. His dark, hand some, acquiline features were con- vulsed into a spasm of vindictive ha- tred, which had set his dead face in a terribly fiendish expression. He had evidently been in bed when the alarm broke out, for he wore a fop pish, embroidered night-shirt. and his bare feet projected from his trousers His head was horribly injured, and the whole room bore witness to the savage ferocity Of the blow which had struck him down. Beside him lay the heavy poker, bent into curve by the concussion. Holmes examined both it and the in describable wreck which it had wrought
 He must be a powerful man, this elder Randall" he remarked
 Yes, said Hopkins ''I have some | sort Of record of the fellow. and he is rough customer
 (Continued1