The Daily Alaska empire., 1933-10-30
Chapter 37
HALE PLACE AGAIN

H 1 l night when Caroline came to Hale Place again.
 Out in the dark, with the damp air blowing in her face and the trees of the avenue making soft swishing sound overhead, Caroline had her first chance to think over the events of the afternoon. The more she thought about them, the more they frightened her. If Elmer Van Berg died and Susie went to the police with her story of Jim's finger-prints =. Caroline simply couldn't force her thought any farther. It encoun- tered an icy wall of fear and shud- dered back.
 She passed to the scene in Caro- line Bussel's room. The woman ter rified her with her smooth voice, and her hints, and her pool of ink. But she hadn't looked into the pool while she described the Blue Room. Caroline wondered. shivering, whether she knew what room it was, and where. She felt sure that Nesta didn't know.
 How could Susie Van Berg's emer- aids be at Hale Place? How could they be in the Blue Room? Caroline Russell had never said that they were there. but shc had described the room. She lad described the rasm, and she had begun to describe the bed. Vas it possible? Neeta haa stopped her. If che had only known. "No, it's silly to feel SO fright cncd. She decent know she docsn't! Suppose Caroline Russell tells her. -. She mustn't-oh. she mustn't! HuTry-hurry and tell Jiml" She ran the last part of the way and came breathless to the back door.
 It was wide open, and that halted Caroline. She had brought fash light with her this time, and she sent the little bright ray questlng ahead of her before she entered.
 ALL at once she felt that the ray of her torch was danger. Sup pose yesterdays burglar had re- turned. Suppose Jim were not here. She did not wait to suppose any more, but turned off her torch and went through the hall and up the stair in the dark.
 The house had an empty, friendly feeling. It did not frighten her to be alone in it. Generations of her own people had gone up and down these same stairs, had been born and married and had died in the dark rooms on either hand.
 She came to the door of the Blue Room and, feeling before her, found it open too. She knew that the room was empty before she crossed the threshold. She stood in the middle of the floor and switched on her torch again. This was what Caro- line Russell had seen with those pale, fixed eyes. T am in the middle of the room-I am turning" That was what Caroline Russell had said.
 Caroline Leigh stood in the mid de of the floor and turned slowly, counting the windows as Caroline Russell had counted them-one, two. three, four, five narrow win dows like slits. Then the fireplace two candlesticks on the shelf, one of them broken, with the candle lying beside it.
 She went on turning. Caroline Russell had said, "I am still turn ing" The door came next, then a space of wall, and then the recess that held the bed. The torch shone on the wall and flickered over the bed foot and the two carved pillars.
 Caroline sent the ray of her torch straight to the head of the bed, piece of massive carving supported by pillars. The pattern of the cary- ing was an apple-tree with Adam and Eve on either side of it, and in the middle of the tree shield, with the arms of Ralph de Burgh, whose heiress had married Randall and brought this bed with her.
 The arms should have been there, . castle and three spear-heads, but Caroline caught her breath. The beam wavered in her shaking hand. With both hands on the torch to steady 1t, she came up to the bed, THE shield stood out at an angle' like . door and showed dark cavity behind it. Caroline knew the -