The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1931-01-09
Murder Al BRIDGE
xI-N h, ANNE AlSTIN .o4z1ol Ack PIGEON q
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asked. his voice steady and kindly
in spite of his excitement.
"Nossuhl 1 amt. teched tt"
And you did not put the cover
over my parrots cage, although I
had tipped you well to feed Cap'n
and cover him at night" Dundee
said severely.
Il gotta heap O. wuk to do"
And you say that Mr.. Wilson,
one Of the two young men on tie
second floor, left the front door
unlocked when he came in last
night?" Dundee asked. Does he
admit it?"
"Yasuh," Belle told him sulk-
lily. He say he was tiahed when
he got home long bout midnight,
an he clean fo'got to turn de key in
de do an shoot de bolt"
Thanks, Belle. That will be all
now" and Dundee did a great deal
to dispel the chambermaid's gloom
by presenting her with dollar bill.
When she had gone, the detec-
tive read the note again, then
looked at it and its envelope more
closely. They had strangely ia
miliar look.
Suddenly he jerked open a drawer
of his desk, on which his new noise
less portable typewriter stood, Sc
lected a sheet of plain white bond,
AMI rolled it into the machine.
Noiselessly he tapped out a copy OF
the strange, haunting message.
Yesl The left-hand margin was
identical, the tipping and its de-
gree of hlackness were identical,
and the paper on which he had
made the copy was exactly the
same as that on which the original
had been written.
TINE truth flashed into his mind.
u It was no coincidence that he
had a copy Of the very book to
which his unknown correspondent
referred him
For the note had been written In
this very room, on stationery con-
veniently at hand, on the noise
less typewriter which had been far
more considerate about not betray-
ing the intruder than had the par
rot whose slu1nbers had been dis
turbed.
But why did my unknown
friend risk arrest as a burglar if
he wanted to give me an honest
tip?" Dundee remarked aloud to
the parrot. who croaked an irrele-
want answer:
bad Penny! Bad Penny!"
I'm afraid, my dear Watson,
that those words will not be so
helpful in this case as they were
when your mistress was murdered"
Dundee assured his parrot absently,
for he was studying the peculiar
situation from every angle.
Another question, Captivity
did the unknown bother to take
my Who's Who out of the book
case, where I normally should have
looked for it, and put it on that
particular shelf"
Warily, for his scalp was prick
ling with a premonition of danger,
Dundee crossed the room to the
shelf, but his hand did not reach
out for the red book, which might
have been expected to solve one
problem, at least.
why the shelf" he asked him
self again. Why not the desk top,
or the mantelpiece, or the smoking
table beside the big armchair?
The shelf, with its drapery of
rather fine old silk tapestry, Of
fered no answer in itself, for it held
nothing except the red book, a
Chinese bowl, and a hunidor of
tobacco. And beneath the shelf
was nothing but the old-fashioned
register, the opening covered with
a screwed-on metal screen which
was a mass of big holes to permit
the escape of hot air when the fur
mace was going in the winter.
Suddenly Dundee stopped and
stared with eyes that were widened
with excitement and a certain
amount of horror. Then he rose,
and, standing far to one side, picked
up the fat volume which lay on the
shelf.
AS he had expected, a bullet
whizzed noiselessly across the room
and buried itself in the plaster of
the wall opposite bullet which
would have plowed through his own
heart If he had obeyed his first i'm
pulse and gone directly to the shelf
to obey the instructions in the note.
But more had happened than the
whizzing flight of bullet through
one of the holes of the hot-air reg
lister. The who's Who" had been
jerked almost out of Dundee's hand
before he had lifted the heavy vol
ume many inches from the shelf.
Coincidental with the disappear
ance of bit of white string which
had been pinned to a thin page Of
the book was a metallic clatter, fol-
lowed swiftly by the faint sound of
a bump far below.