The Bozeman courier. (Bozeman, Mont.) 1919-1954, 1922-07-12
The Lady of the Night Wind

Thus Katherine uttered the first
iie-why soften it by substituting the
word untruth THAT she had ever
told to her husband.
When the door was closed and she
was gone, Katherine moved about the
room in her final preparations for
bed, m~ethodically; automatically is
perhaps a better word.
She turned down the bed-clothing,
snapped off the lights, returned to
her bed, got into it, pulled the covers
over her. Struggled into her pillows,
and closed her eyes.
But-she was another Katherine;
she was not the same personality
that she had been a little, just a very
little while before.
She mad told her husband a lie.
Sleepless, although m~otionless and
with closed eyes-for she was trying
to sleep-the events of the night
since she came to her room from her
veranda passed in review before her.
She mentally vizualized everything
chronologically.
Again, in retrospect, she put on her
negligee, snapped off her lights, and
stepped from her window to the little
balcony to enjoy the night air.
Again Belknap made his appear
ance beneath her window, and dared
to address her intimately, by her Civ
en- name, and by another one which
only an extremely favored few were
permitted to use; again the senorita
-Roberta-came to her room,
frightened, or pretending to be
frightened, by burglars.
Katherine had not believed, then,
nor did she believe while she thought
it over, in the -genuineness of that
fright. She had thought then, as she
still thought, that it had been simu-
lated. But why-for what purpose?
In the light of what had happened
afterward-with the appearance Of
real burglars and the attempted en-
trance to the room of Nine. Savage;
with the absence of Belknap from
the SCENE that followed, and with
the sencrita's too reluctant reappear-
ance, lowering at the edge of the
partly clad group of startled guests
there could be only one answer to
those two questions.
Katherine opened her eyes wide,
and sat up in bed, startled into sud-
den revelation when that answer oc-
CURED to her; and she whispered it
breathlessly, in a hushed whisper.
"That attempt at burglary upon
Nine. Savage was real; it was genu-
inc. Belknap knows who those bur
glars were, and was expecting them.
He went from the veranda into the
paths among the shrubbery and trees
to meet them. They saw him under
my window, and they q%uarreled; per-
haps that accounts for his bruises.
Roberta is Belknap's accomplice-she
knows why he is at Myquest-what
he intends to do and she came to my
o to warn me by the only method
she dared to USE
Instantly, when she arrived at that
solution Of the mysteries Of the night,
katherine sprang out Of bed, seized
her discarded negligee, and without
switching ON the lights, thrust her
feet into her bed slippers and ran
literally Tan-tc the door.
She opened it softly, passed to the
outside, closed It noiselessly, and
glided ike a ghost in pink to the SEN
orita's door.
She hesitated there for an instant,
listening. Then she tapped softly
upon it. and waited.
There was nc answer, even when
she tapped q second time, more loud
ly, SO she grasped the knob, turned
1t, discovered that the door was not
locked, and entered the room.
Senorita Cervantez was not there.
The bed had not been disturbed.
Katherine had gone to the senor-
ita's rooom impulsively, with out Sec
oud thought regarding the wisdom of
the act, but with the settled deerm-
nation o shave it out" with the wo-
man accomplice of Conrad Belknape
with the beautiful pianiste who pre-
tended to be voiceless, who was at
onc to beautiful and so double
faced, so lovable and yet so deceitful.
If Katherine had needed any added
conviction of Roberta's connection
with Belknap and his aims, she found
it in the senorita's absence from her
room-and it was equally plain that
only one reason could have taken her
from it at that time; she had gone
from it to seek her master-to find
Belknap.
"Shaii 1 follow? Shall 1 seek
them?" Katherine asked herself men,
tally; and shook her head slowly in
a negative.
81 will wait" she told herself
~voicelessly; and she sought a chair
in the darkened room for none of the
| lights was turned ON, and only a