The Daily Alaska empire., 1933-07-07

anne's black hair shining near the
 tea table,
 Sue followed my glance and lifted
 her eyebrows inquiringly. and 1 |shook my head Yet it didn't seem possible that it had been 'Lovschiem in that wardrobe. s ei
 Later" said rapidly to Sue, re- Herring to my wish to, learn just
 what Francis had said. She un- derstood me, but she looked trou- bled. Mrs. Byng passed a little ahead of her at the top of the stairs. and in the rustic of that lady's numerous garments Sue leaned toward me and said quickly Soon. It's important" She start led to follow Mrs. Byng. looked back at me. hesitated. ahd then added with a kind of catch in her breath. Be very careful"
 Then she ran lightly down the stairs, and l watched her shining bright hair.
 l went down the service stairs which led from beyond Marianne's room. and straight thrt ugll to the ground.foor storerooms of the north wing. 3s
 knew that thes e storerooms had been searched, net once. but sev- eral times. by the police. l knew that their only connection with the floor above them was by way of that narrow passage and up the service stairway. knew that they were, practically unused and that neither the police nor Lorn had connected them in any way with the strange affairs that had taken place in and near my own room. @
 THE rooms were large. dark, and
 ! silent. gave the first few rooms, which were bare and empty. only a glance and went farther along to the room which lay directly under the White Salon and under ny own room. One large room stretched tshadowily along what 1 judged was the full length of both the upper rooms. and here 1 managed to open a shutter.
 The ceilings, unfinished and with rough beams. were very low. The pipes for the furnace which pre- sumably supplied the upper floor of the north wing ran openly Ethrough these rooms, and looked with some interest at the spot whers they passed into the radia- tors of my own room and to the White Salon.
 | But it was among group bar lrels in corner of the room that | found what found. something Lorn would have immediately discovered had he given my statements any weight in his own mind Tn Lorn's mind 1 played an entirely different role than that of investigator. Not that tile thing 1 found was discriminating to anyone. But it did go far to prove possibility that was in my mind3 For it WIS an feiderdown. a new. little-used eider.' down covered with red silk. and it
 was wadded up and thrust into the
 bottom of one of the barrels which was then turned upside down. e I For some time l@stood there hold ling the thing in my hands. follow | ing a terse train of thoughts. Sues
 abductor had been. she thought. slender-lean. Someone had used an eiderdown in that room very recently. The odor of tobacco
 smoke very late one night had
 floated up through the hole in the; ceiling where the heating pipes went through.
 But could that strange sigh we
 had heard so clearly that very Emorning in the White Salon just tabove have come from such dis tance? The tobacco smoke had
 been not quite tangible: 1t might
 have been not quite tangible; it
 might have been explained by only a strangely shifting current of air.
 But that sigh had been wholly tan- fgible. Someone near us had sighed. and there was no one near. -.a t r But dared not finger too long
 in that empty. rapidly darkening
 storeroom. had seen. ! thought.
 what was to be seen. didn't like
 the feeling of the place. with the
 dusk increasing in it's corners and
 crawling steadily nearer me: and
 with the approach of night the
 wind was beginning to whisper and lmurmur and wall around the old
 dark building. And there was the
 urgent matter of Sues token.
 | l made my way back not with.
 out qualms. for during my' short stay in the cavernous lstorerooms
 twilight had fallen, with the com. plete suddenness of winter. and the
 whole place was hollow. black
 stiffness with shadows that seemed
 to move, and my footsteps echoed
 against the old walls.
 | fCopwioht. i9ss. Mionon c. Eberhorfl
 ,'~~, fre,1A 9r-