Plentywood herald. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1908-current, 1928-08-09

for an instant he examined it.
"Good Lord" he exclaimed. you
have found it after all. Do you
know what those spots are?"
mo"
They're blood. It's convincing
proof. And it's Ahmad's shirt, too"
Swiftly he compared the laundry
mark on it with the mark of the
other garments in the drawer.
didn't dream that this austere man
was capable of such e~xultation. His
eyes actually suffused his lean, dark
face. | thought Of a hound hot on
the trail.
"It's the final proof" he cried.
"Well get him now. I'll wiring a
confession out of him."
Then both of us drew up sharply
"Ahmad is coming into his room,'
| whispered. For | was sure that
the faint sound ! had heard had been
the fall of Ahmad's light feet in the
corridor.
Both of us instinctively braced
ourselves. We didn't know what
frenzy of desperation we would have
to face if Ahmad saw us with that
c%ondemning evidence in our hands
A long moment dragged away.
Then Freeman stole to the door
He looked up and down the corridor
Must have been a rat he ex-
claimed.
Rather noisy for a rat"
maybe the wind. But we'd bet.
ter get out of here. He'll come
back any moment"
| started to pin the dinner shirt
into even folds, just as | had founC
it.
IN. Dupin did the same with The
envelope of the letter." | explained
Then the criminal didn't know i
had been found"
81 do believe you've got the max
ings of a detective!" Freeman tolt
me with a little amazement.
Then we crept down the stairs
He took the shirt into the room tina
had been given to him for his use
and rejoined me in the library.
"I've got a hunch," he said.
His face was clouded. Little wrin
lies were Pickering between his eyes
| waited for him to explain.
1--WE got an idea that some one!
been following me this last thre,
minutes. Pm not an imaginativ,
man, Long, but I've had that huncf
before. | never believed it; but once
| woke up in the hospital with ;
bump as big as an egg i've one eye
where a billy had hit me-and knew
hat it had been so It's a queer
hing; yet felt that way when | was
.oing to my room just now. The
Disc we heard in the corridor seem
d to bear it out. But it isn't Ahmad
[ stole out and took a look at him
lis hands are buried in flour. There
S no one in the servants quarter:
but a colored man or two and tha'
ong-legged whiskered bird tina
brought out the rowboat. Robin,
believe you call him."
There was no answer worth max
ng. So we sat and watched the dark
Tess steal over the marshes. i
'eemed to me hat the waters hat
already begun to recede. The floot
had been the sole result of the ten
inches of rain; now it was done, ant
he river was quickly falling.
The Florida darkness is Away!
worth watching. 1t comes so gently
o like a dark mist that the wine
Flows up. The color of the watei
hanged and deepened. The shad
,ws that were the jungle grew black
Again we heard the sounds of wilt
ife that the storm of the previou.
light had stilled.
We smoked cigars and talked. AM
after a while one of the colored mei
anne to tell us of a discovery.
A flat rock jutted from the hill
tide about fifty yards from tn
scene of the murder, he said. Just a
Wright he had walked near it, an,
lad noticed a queer discoloration OF
he stone, he thought, and what look
ID like flesh fragments.
"You don't mean-human flesh?
His eyes narrowed, ever so slightly
It vas evident that the colored MAJ
vas terrified almost beyond power 0
peech.
"Yes, sub. / couldn't tell fo' sho.
| But it was some kind of flesh, sub.