The Halifax Comet. — 1904-07-16 (Halifax, West Yorkshire, England)

CHAPTER XIX.  ELEANOR'S QUEST.  When the charge agn inst Frank Holt was dismissed, Eleanor Tremaine felt she was free. While that horrible accusation hung over him she could think of nothing else. Some subtle influenee, into the cause of which she did not trouble to inquire, compelled her to remain at Tremaine Court. Otherwise its melancholy and tragic associations would have driven her away. Now that the police had been compelled to abandon their only line of pursuit they were completely at their wits' end to know what to do. At first paragraphs, headed "The Epping Forest Mystery,' appeared day after day in the papers. The public one morning were assured that the police were untiring in their efforts to track the murderer. The next morning they read that Scotland Yard was following up a clue which it believed would be successful. As nothing came of these statements the despairing paragraphist, anxious to whet his readers' curiosity, now becoming languid, ventured to assure them that "some startling dkortentelit " might shortly be expected, and followed this up by the safe assertion that the Epping Forest mystery was likely to enter into a new phase, the police being about to take steps which were as novel as they were. unprecedented. But no fresh facts were brought to light, and nothing appeared to justify the imaginative ventures of the reporter. Meanwhile, Eleanor was continually pestered by:visits from detectives, who wearied her by their:questions, going over the same ground with tiresome persistency. She was well aware they could do nothing of their own initiative; she had told them all she knew with the exception of one thing, and she could do no more.  About this one thing she dared not say a word—indeed, it was by no means certain it would have assisted them. No one knew better than she that the solution of the mystery lay in the past life of her father. She had had ever in her mind Hargrave Denton's threat, and she determined to lose no time in ascertaining what it meant. But she would do this alone. No eyes but hers should rest upon the page which, if Hargrave was to be believed, contained some record of shame. Least of all would she have it conned over, criticised and discussed by the police. Hargrave Denton had gone down to Cornwall, but was there any necessity for her to do this? Alight there not be old files of Cornibh newspapers in the British Museum library which would tell her all she wanted to know?  Bo the day following her visit to Frank Holt she entered the imposing but chilling portals of the British Museum and found her way to . the reading-room. The officials were all courtesy, and gave her every assist-ance,, and. soon she was sitting at a table with a portly volume reared up on a desk in front of her.  She determined to start thirty years before and work backwards, and slowly she turned over the leaves, going down column after column until her eyes ached and her brain was 'dizzy. The pages, like those of most country newspapers years ago„ were of enormous • size, and the movement of the /suedes of her neck became after a while a painful effort. . No mention .of the name of Tremaine did she see in the first volume. She looked it through,. and throurh. then .beenn nnother.  with the same result, and when she finished it she found only an hour remained to her befote theitime of closing. She felt sick and faint and weary, for she had been working without intermission since eleven, and it was now seven o'clock, but she went on with her self-imposed task. She had turned over but a few leaves of the fourth volume when her eye caught sight of a paragraph of a few lines, headed "The Tremaine Case," at the bottom of a column. Her heart gave a wild bound, and for a moment the letters seemed to dance before her eyes. Then she summoned sufficient courage to read.