Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 62, No. 2, October 3, 1931

An Amazing Revelation in the Case of the Mill Wheel Murders Starts Tom Grant Looking for a Jealous Man

It was the weird roll of the death drums in the old mill that drew Ed Delander to the quaint mill and led to the discovery of Paul Nicolay stabbed to death and lashed to the mill wheel, and a woman believed to be Mrs. Walter Cleet lashed to the under side of the wheel and drowned.

The old mill was being converted into a tea room, and the African war drums were part of its unusual decorations. There were also a number of pieces of pewter there. And on the same night the pair were found murdered, police in a near-by city picked up Bill Brasson driving a car full of that pewter from the old mill. Brasson admitted to Detective Billy Farrell that his accomplice had been Jack Morse, denied any knowledge of the murders, but said he had heard the death drums mysteriously beating.

Detective Tom Grant went to the home of Paul Nicolay. He found a strange household there composed of Ann Malliett, Nicolay’s sister-in-law, Edgar Malliett, her brother, Dorcas Nicolay, the murdered man’s daughter, and a distant cousin, Louise Lee, who had strangely fled from the house.

Into this complicated drama of love and hate and murder came the revelation that Enid Cleet returned the love of Larry Devore, orchestra leader at the Walnut Club, and that Edgar Malliett was in love with Francine Yocum, pretty hostess at the same place. And while Detective Farrell of the city police was finding that out, Tom Grant was discovering that Edgar Malliett was involved with Brasson and Morse in a burglary racket, and that the headquarters of the gang was in the same farmhouse where Paul Nicolay told Seymor Carson, his attorney, to meet him the night he was murdered.

Chapter XXVIII Malliett’s Attempt

For a brief moment Firth and Tom Grant looked at each other, too astonished to speak.

That a man like Malliett from such a good family should stoop to this sort of thing seemed impossible. Yet Tom took another look at Malliett’s face, at the weak, peering, cunning eyes, the sagging mouth, the cruel possibilities the oddly assorted features seemed to predict, and understood. This man could not only have filled the little cellar at the deserted farm with his loot, but it was not beyond belief that he had killed his brother-in-law and Enid Cleet! He was the sort to tie the two to the wheel; yes, and possibly to beat the death drums as they died!

And here he was doing his best to place blame for those two hideous crimes on his crook associates!

“Come to headquarters now, Malliett,” said the chief as he rose. “We’ll leave Tom here to guard this stuff until I can send a man out to move it. You realize that we shall have to hold you for robbery, if for nothing else more serious. That must be determined later. I’ll want a list of the places your men broke into.”

“Oh, I shan’t make you any trouble,” grinned Malliett as he rose. “I know when my game is played. But I had a good time. I got a thrill out of life while it lasted. I got out from under Ann’s rule. That was enough to live for, even if it was short.”

“Nobody else in your gang, Malliett?” asked Tom as he followed the two men up to the garden. “Just Brasson and Morse?”

“That’s all,” said Malliett. “Just us. Mind telling me how you spotted me to-night?”

“A boy saw you vanish into the earth and thought you were a ghost,” said Firth. “Have you got a car here?”

“Yes, out on Willow Road. I never drive in here. None of us ever did. We park and sneak in. It has been a good game. I’ve enjoyed it. But I never thought those two boys would get themselves into a murder.”

For some reason Tom recoiled from Malliett, who was nodding his head and wetting his loose lips. Tom fancied that the man wished his two accomplices to be held for the crimes at the mill, and he looked at Firth significantly.

“Watch yourself,” Tom whispered. “And hold this man. He knows more than he’s told us.”

“Don’t worry,” said Firth. “This will make a fine stir-up. I’ll send some of the boys out right away.”

After the chief of police led his prisoner out the lane to the police car. Mugs Sorrel crept from the bushes, and wide-eyed and shaking, sat down at Tom’s feet where the latter had seated himself on the upturned flagstone at the opening of the hidden cave...

When Tom reached headquarters he found Malliett closeted with his chief in Firth’s private office. The prisoner did not seem to realize his position. He sat there in the stifling heat smoking cigarettes placidly and answering every question Firth put to him.

“We’ve notified the city police of Mr. Malliett’s capture and of the statements he has made regarding their prisoners, Morse and Brasson,” the chief told Tom as he entered the office and sank into a chair. “Farrell is coming out here right away. Those boys certainly do not sleep on the job. He says with our permission he will take Malliett back with him to face these two boys. And he didn’t talk quite so smart.”

Tom grinned wryly.

“They’ll respect us before we’re through. I want to know one thing. Malliett. Where were you last evening, the hours between eight and midnight?”

“I was at home,” said Malliett slowly.

“You were not,” said Tom. “Those lads will tell us the straight of it and then we can prove it. You had better be fair with us. Morse stole the Canbeck car at about nine o’clock. If they had nothing to do with the crime at the mill, they stole the pewter before Nicolay and Mrs. Cleet got there. Where were they during the time between nine and the theft? Darbyville is only twenty-five miles from the city and the way those birds drive they would make it in no time at all. Now, what did they do with their spare hours?”

“How do I know?” asked Malliett, but an apprehensive look flashed for a moment into his bulging eyes.

“You know,” said Tom. “And you better tell us about it.”

Malliett shook his head. “I don’t know anything about the boys last night,” he denied.

“And you can’t tell us how Morse got a key to the mill?”

Again the cunning look passed over Malliett’s dark face.

“Yes. I can tell you that,” he admitted. “I had one made myself from the key Walter Cleet had.”

“You what?”

“Yes. I knew Walter was making a model of the mill and the wheel for that place of Wilthams, and I heard somebody say there was a lot of old silver in the mill. Walter himself showed me the key he had made like the key to the mill. He never knew it when I took its impression in wax. I had done a dozen things like that since we had been in the business. I had entrance to houses that my boys could never enter, except at night through a window. I gave the key to Morse and told him about the silver. That’s all I know. I never had a hint that the silver was really pewter, and the boys don’t know anything about pewter. They just took it, I guess, because it shone.”

Tom shook his head. There was something here, too, which he could not reconcile with common sense. Malliett would, of course, know that the stuff in the old mill was pewter. Why, then, would he send those boys to the mill? And on the murder night?

“Something else,” he said after a moment. “If your boys were in the habit of taking their loot to the farmhouse, why were they captured with the pewter in the city?”

“You can ask me another,” said Malliett helplessly. “I’ve told you all I know. I didn’t know they were going after pewter.”

Tom and the chief got nothing more out of Malliett after that until Farrell drove up in a cloud of dust, having taken a short cut over a side road.

The city detective looked grim and annoyed. Tom guessed this was because of the big capture the Darbyville police had just made and which the Darbyville Needle, local paper, would make much of.

“This was very good work on somebody’s part,” Farrell said, looking about the office from the chief to Tom Grant. “I want to hand it to you. I was after Mr. Malliett myself to-night to get him to face those lads, and found he had left the house. And this was where he was. About the last place I’d ever think to look!”

“Oh, in a case like this you never know what will turn up,” said Tom.

Farrell gave him a suspicious look before he turned to Malliett and demanded his story.

Firth did not interfere while the prisoner again went over his story, but Tom had to admire the incisive way Farrell’s questions dug under all Malliett’s foundations and brought out the man’s guilt, far more guilt than he confessed to.

“A lie, Mr. Malliett!” snapped Farrell when he had got the story. “You knew it was pewter at the mill. You gave the key to those tools of yours and sent them there on the murder night for a purpose — a purpose of your own. You wanted them to be implicated in this crime, which you knew was going to take place. You knew it. How... we will find out. These boys are afraid of you because of that murder. They’re scared to death now. They think you planted the double killing on them somehow. You didn’t copy that key to the mill and give it to Morse for nothing, Malliett. Come, now, why did you do it? Why did you send those boys to the mill?”

“I’ve told you all I can,” said Malliett stubbornly. “And I’ll say nothing more until I see a lawyer.”

Farrell looked annoyed. He was about to fire one of his questions at Malliett when Tom broke in.

“Mr. Farrell, did you find a woman’s wrist watch set with diamonds on either of these boys, Brasson or Morse?”

“A wrist watch? No! Why?”

“Because Enid Cleet was wearing one just before she reached the mill last night.”

“She was? But you found two diamond rings on her that had not been touched!”

“Yes. We didn’t find any wrist watch, however. And she had worn one.”

“How do you know?” Farrell looked at Tom sharply.

Carefully then Tom related to him his work with the car of the murdered man while Firth looked on with a smile twitching at his lips. He was delighted to see his pet detective get a rise out of this smart aleck, as he called Farrell.

“That was clever of you, Grant,” said Farrell curtly when Tom finished. “But it doesn’t get us anywhere, does it?”

“It gets us two things,” said Tom. “First, that Enid Cleet wore a valuable wrist watch which was missing from her body; and second, that Nicolay and Enid had an appointment and were afraid they would be late. That appointment could not have been with Carson at the farmhouse— Oh, I forgot you didn’t know about that!”

Tom told Farrell about his discovery of the lawyer’s presence at the farmhouse the night before.

Farrell looked frankly bewildered.

“Good heavens, where are we going to get with all this!” he groaned. “Malliett, how much do you know?”

“Only what I told you,” insisted the prisoner dully.

“Who is Bill Brasson’s high-toned girl?”

Malliett brightened for a moment into sardonic satisfaction.

“Hah! I knew yesterday after I mentioned that that I had made a slip,” he nodded. “You were onto me then, Farrell. I don’t know who she is. Never heard her name. Never saw her. I know he has a girl he thinks a lot of — some society dame, from what Morse and I could get.”

Farrell and Tom noted how Malliett’s association with the two crooks had colored his speech.

“When Francine Yocum met you to-night, Malliett, she warned you that I had been to see her?” went on Farrell.

“Yes. Francine was in it with us. She liked nice things and I wanted to give them to her,” boasted Malliett. “I couldn’t travel with a girl like her without cash, and Ann wouldn’t let me have any. Neither would Paul. Francine didn’t care what game a man was in just so he spent money on her.”

“I can believe that,” said Farrell dryly. “And what about this Devore baby, the jazz leader at the Walnut Club?”

“Well, what about him?” asked Malliett sullenly. “I hardly know him.”

“He knew Enid Cleet. She used to sneak out there to see him. Don’t suppose you were onto that?”

“No. I didn’t know about her affairs.”

“And Louise Lee — where is she?”

Again the cunning look dropped like a shadow across the man’s unpleasant features.

“I don’t know,” he muttered. “She’s away.”

As he spoke he suddenly heaved his body up from his chair and lurched across the chief’s desk. Farrell, who had been watching him closely, sprang at the same time. But he was not quick enough to prevent Malliett from gashing his wrist with the paper knife which lay upon the blotter.

Tom Grant grasped the telephone to call Dr. Wilson.

As he waited impatiently for the number, watching the wounded man groaning and falling limply into a chair, the fact that Malliett had suddenly attempted suicide kept pounding at his brain for explanation.

Why had the man done that? Was it because Farrell had just asked him about that mystery girl, Louise Lee, or was it because he knew himself to be in a hot spot, hotter, perhaps, than the police yet realized?

Chapter XXIX An Evil House

Edgar Malliett, fastidious crook and spendthrift, had had no sleep when, two hours later, in the humid atmosphere of Superintendent Merrill’s office in the city, he faced Jack Morse and Bill Brasson.

Weak and pallid from loss of blood, his wrist bound, Malliett wore a silly air of bravado which, after his suicide attempt, puzzled Farrell and Tom Grant, who had gone into town with the prisoner.

Merrill, obeying Farrell’s request over the telephone, had interviewed Morse and Brasson prior to the arrival of Malliett. He had informed them that their game was up and that Malliett had talked, even that the newly taken prisoner had told the police the name of Bill Brasson’s “high-toned girl.” This ruse, to the chagrin of the superintendent, had got nothing at all from the surly young men. Being able to rouse only grunts and frowns from them, he had finally given up and had returned them to their cells to await the coming of Farrell and Malliett.

Rumors of the whereabouts of Louise Lee were pouring in. It was always the case when any one in a murder case was reported missing. Merrill, who had snatched a few hours’ sleep early in the previous day, saw no rest for him that night. Farrell was a driver. He knew that as long as anything was breaking in the case the detective would not stop. And the heat was getting the superintendent. When at last Morse and Brasson were confronted with Malliett, Merrill’s nerves were on the ragged edge.

Morse and Brasson, glaring at their confederate, maintained their stubborn silence, and Malliett, grinning and mopping his face, insisted upon the police sending for Seymor Carson.

“He was Paul’s lawyer, and he’s good enough for me,” he muttered.

“You’re Mr. Grant’s prisoner,” Farrell told him with a twist of his lip. “You men have all got to be taken out to Darbyville.”

“We can’t refuse him his lawyer,” said Tom mildly. “Send for Carson by all means.”

He would get quite a kick out of confronting the clever lawyer summoned on this case. What did he know about the various robberies which had been committed by these men, and the rich loot hidden in the old cellar at the farm which he had visited on the murder night? It would be interesting to see.

“Now, you boys have got to tell us what you did with your time last night,” said Merrill sharply, irritated by the continued silence of the prisoners. “What did you do with your evening? Come across now. We’ve been pretty patient with you.”

“If they don’t tell us, the girl will.” Farrell winked at Tom.

“You don’t know anything about a girl,” growled Bill Brasson, fear in his eyes.

Farrell paid no attention to him.

“Come on, Malliett, you’ve got brains,” he prodded. “You know it is no use holding out any longer. This is a murder case we’re investigating.”

“I don’t see any use, boys, in keeping back anything that has to do with our adventures,” grinned Malliett, as he looked from Morse to Brasson. “I’ll tell if you won’t. The boys stole that car and came to me at the farm. We went down in the cellar, where the police found me, and talked over our campaign for the next week or so. We did that every once in a while. Nobody ever went to Paul’s old farm. The boys left the little car on the highway, and we decided on several jobs which looked good.”

Here, to the amazment of the officers, Jack Morse sprang to his feet and started toward Malliett, but Tom seized his arms and forced him back in his chair.

“Say, you, you know what we talked over mostly!” he growled. “You sent us to that mill. You were onto something all right. You knew those murders were going to be pulled off and you sent us there to get mixed up in them! You told us there was old silver in the mill and you could get a pretty price on it. You gave me the key to the damn place.”

“Of course I did,” said Malliett mildly. “I’ve told the police that. I thought it was silver.”

“Yeah, you thought it was silver,” growled Brasson, his eyes feverishly bright, his hands working. “You knew damn well it was pewter! You sent us to the mill for some reason of your own. We’ve been double crossed, Jack. This guy has ratted on us. We don’t know a thing more than we’ve told you cops. Work it out for yourselves.”

“I don’t believe you do,” said Tom Grant suddenly and with emphasis. He was looking with increasing interest at Malliett. Was it possible that this man had planned those murders and sent these young crooks into the midst of them that suspicion might be drawn from himself? But with the arrest of Morse and Brasson he must have known that his series of robberies would come to light.

“What have you done to my girl?” Brasson demanded of the foolishly smiling Malliett. “If you’ve touched her I’ll—”

“What girl?” asked Malliett, looking squarely into Brasson’s face.

There was a moment of silence, during which Brasson’s aggressive air slowly vanished and he subsided in his chair.

“We know what girl,” said Farrell quietly. “And we are waiting to question her until you birds come across with all the facts you have. You don’t realize that you may be held for murder. None of you has an alibi.”

As Farrell spoke there swept over Tom Grant a sensation of futility. He knew that in that sweltering little office they were wasting time. They were coming no closer to the solution.

“I shan’t say another word until I see Carson,” grunted Malliett and slumped into an obstinate heap. “Ann would say that was the thing to do and I shall do it.”

As he spoke the telephone on the superintendent’s desk rang and Merrill answered it. He showed small patience with the person he spoke to, and swung about almost immediately from the instrument to glance at Tom Grant.

“Grant, there is a woman on the wire who wants to speak to you,” he growled. “She called Darbyville first, she says, and now she insists on talking to you. She won’t give her name.” As Tom rose to cross the room to the desk, he sensed a sudden tenseness in the attitude of the three prisoners. What woman would call him at police headquarters at that hour in the early morning? Did those men know? He kept an eye on them as he lifted the receiver.

Maida Malone’s sweet, high-pitched voice spoke to him, and it was evident to Tom that the girl labored under great agitation.

“Mr. Grant? I’ve hunted you everywhere!” she cried. “This is Maida, Maida Malone, the parlor maid at the Nicolay house. Do you remember? I didn’t find those gloves, but I am so scared I am afraid to go back to bed. There is somebody in the attic of this house! I know it! I think Hallston knows it. It is an evil house, Mr. Grant! I’ve got to get out of it! I’ve been to bed a dozen times to-night, and up again. I keep hearing it, and it is so hot — I can’t rest. I’m scared! Can you come here?”

“Oh, this is Maida Malone,” repeated Tom, his eyes on the prisoners. “Why, yes, I can come at once. At once. Watch for me and let me in. And don’t say anything to anybody.”

Replacing the receiver on the hook, Tom felt a vast sense of satisfaction, although the puzzle seemed to grow even deeper.

Bill Brasson’s high-toned girl, he felt certain now, was Maida Malone. Bill Brasson’s expression betrayed him.

Chapter XXX In the Attic

On the way to the Nicolay home through the early morning, along almost entirely deserted avenues, Tom Grant did some heavy thinking.

He was not sure whether or not the manner of the three men in the superintendent’s office had told Farrell, as it had told him, that Maida Malone was the girl they were all shielding so carefully. He would rather the men were not questioned about her until he had talked to Maida.

The sense of fatigue was heavily upon him and his eyes drooped as he climbed out of the taxi before the imposing doors of the Nicolay house, yet he was determined to force from this pert, pretty maid all that she knew before he gave in to the sleep his weary mind and body craved.

Somebody in the attic. What could that mean? From the hidden cellar of the old Nicolay farm, to the attic of the exclusive Nicolay mansion! Tom grinned wearily as he climbed the front steps, and said a few words to the officer who emerged from the side lawn at his approach. He was admitted silently to the wide cool hall by Maida Malone herself.

The girl wore a little white dress, and her lovely hair was in attractive disarray, while her big eyes were wide with fright.

“It was good of you to come,” she whispered to Tom as she drew him into a small reception room off the hall. “This house is possessed! I think we are safe just now, for everybody is asleep except me and... and the person in the attic.”

“Now you tell me about this person,” said Tom soothingly. “Isn’t it just your nerves?”

“No. Do you know who I think it is?” Maida bent close. “I think it is Louise Lee!”

“In the attic? Are you crazy?” Tom looked at the pretty, determined young face with searching eyes.

“No. I feel sure she is up there, and maybe her little dog with her.” Maida shivered slightly. “I have imagined that Hallston, the butler, knows; he takes food there. But I’m not able to catch him. He is pretty clever.”

“You mean to say this girl is held a prisoner in the house?” asked Tom sternly.

“Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know. The house is strange,” whispered Maida.

“And so are you,” said Tom involuntarily. “Have you ever worked as a maid anywhere else?”

“No— I—” Maida caught herself and gave Tom a demurely reproachful glance. “For goodness’ sake, don’t talk about me! Will you come to the attic with me now? I cannot bear to think of her, if it is Miss Lee, up there in this heat, alone, with nobody knows what horror for company!”

“You would not go to Miss Malliett or Mr. Malliett with your fear?” asked Tom.

“To them? No! They are capable of anything, those people.” The girl shuddered. “Have you got a gun?”

“Oh, yes,” said Tom, amused. “But why not call to the officer who watches this house?”

“I wanted you to come,” said the girl. “And now you waste time in talking. She may be dying up there! Who knows?”

“And Dorcas Nicolay — where is she?”

“In her room, where she has been ever since the murders,” whispered Maida. “Do you know what I think? I think she is perfectly well, but that she is afraid to be questioned. She is afraid her prince is mixed up in the thing.”

“Good heavens!” gasped Tom, staring at the girl in the dim light of the upper corridor as she hurried him along toward the rear of the house. “Who the devil are you?”

Maida did not reply. Her slim fingers in Tom’s, she led him to a narrow flight of stairs at the back of the second floor hall, up those in silence to another flight just like them in the third floor hall.

“Come,” she said then, looking back with starry eyes from under her mist of hair, “it is at the top of these stairs. My room, you see, is right under the part of the attic where I heard the movements and the steps.”

As Tom followed the silent feet ahead of him, he wondered dully how on earth this girl could throw off the character of parlor maid so expertly and become the delightfully pretty young lady she was at that moment. Maida Malone, with her association with the three prisoners then at city hall, was certainly a mystery. And Tom found her an absorbing one.

At the top of the final flight of steps there was an unpainted door, and against it Tom, at the girl’s bidding, laid his ear. The scuttle of little feet and a low whine reached him. There was a dog inside that room.

A shiver passed through Tom’s weary body. What would they find when they opened that door? Little enough account had been made of the disappearance of the Lee girl.

Without glancing at Maida, Tom tried the door, and it opened noiselessly, admitting him to a long apartment into which the pale light of dawn was creeping through two wide open windows, and in the center of which a small young woman, holding in her arms a Pekingese dog, stood upright, staring at him out of large, defiant eyes.

“Miss Lee — it is you!” cried Maida, hurrying past Tom and seizing the arm of the girl. “How you have worried everybody! I heard some one moving up here and I was afraid.”

Tom, in amazement was staring at Louise Lee. Wearing a loose silken bedroom robe, the girl was a charming picture, her light ringlets a mass of gold over her small head.

The little dog, cuddled in her arms, growled deep in its throat.

The room was furnished sparsely with old furniture which looked as though it had been discarded long since from the lower section of the mansion. A tray with sandwiches and a thermos bottle stood on a table beside a couch on which dainty bed coverings had been thrown back.

“Miss Lee, I’m a detective from the Darbyville police department,” said Tom. “You probably know about the death of Mr. Nicolay and Mrs. Cleet at Darbyville.”

“Yes,” said Louise Lee through stiff lips. “Why have you come here to drag me out where people can question me?”

“Did Hallston know you were here?” asked Maida eagerly as she drew the girl to a seat on the couch.

“Yes.” Louise nodded dully. “He has always been my friend. I had to have a friend after... after that happened.”

“But why did you hide away up here?” asked Tom.

“I hid from the rest of them,” said Louise. “From Dorcas and Ann and Edgar and the prince. They are a fine lot, all of them. I had no chance after Paul went. I hid here for Walter Cleet’s sake.”

“Walter Cleet!” Tom glanced at Maida and met only her brilliant, knowing gaze in reply.

“Yes.” Louise sank back wearily on the couch. “Walter and I are in love with each other. We have been for over a year. If I had not held him back he would have divorced Enid long ago, Enid with her sordid affair with that jazz leader out at the Walnut Club! Walter had no alibi for last night. He left that Wiltham house out in the country and came back here to see me. We were together until terribly late, until almost morning, riding about in his car — it was so very warm. And when he brought me back here and Hallston let me in, sneaked me in as he often did, he told me about the murders. The police had just called the house. I knew the woman was Enid Cleet, for Paul had taken her with him the night before.”

“But why didn’t you stay and swear to Cleet’s alibi?” asked Tom in amazement.

“I didn’t dare.” Louise shook her head. “Walter told me when he left the Wiltham house he bribed the chauffeur at the garage not to tell any one he took his car out. The chauffeur sleeps over the garage and he couldn’t get away and return without him knowing it. He just didn’t know then that those terrible murders would be committed while he was with me. It was just a precaution like he always took when we were together. Not a soul suspected our affair. And it was a perfectly innocent one. It was for me that Walter wanted Paul’s farm. Not for Enid.”

Tom was too amazed to put in a question, and the girl’s sweet, slightly petulant voice went on:

“You must see that if I told the police and reporters that Walter had been with me and they found out that he had bribed the Wiltham chauffeur and that we were in love, it would give him a powerful motive!” said Louise sharply. “The only thing to do, Hallston and I decided, was for me to disappear until the truth about the murders came out.”

“Good heavens!” groaned Tom helplessy, wiping his perspiring face.

Enid Cleet and this handsome Devore fellow at the night dub — Louise Lee and Enid Cleet’s artist husband. This little Maida and those three prisoners at the city hall — a maze, all of it. And where did Paul Nicolay enter the thing?

“You speak of Enid Cleet and her lover at the night club,” said Tom at last. “Where does Paul Nicolay enter into the affair? He was interested in her, wasn’t he?”

“I don’t know,” said Louise with a frown. “I never understood that. He took her out now and then and I didn’t want him to. I liked Paul. He was kind to me. I’ve been starving and crying up here alone ever since he died.”

Her beautiful eyes overflowed as she spoke, and she sobbed.

“Now I have ruined Walter!” she cried. “And he had nothing to do with it. If Paul had only listened to me last night. I knew he was going out with Enid again and I asked him not to. I was afraid.”

Tom sat up with renewed interest.

“Why were you afraid?” he asked quietly.

“Afraid that Edgar would fly off the handle and do something wild,” was the astounding reply.

“Edgar Malliett?”

“Yes. He didn’t want Paul to pay much attention to Enid, for some reason. I never understood that, either, for he wasn’t in love with Enid. Edgar couldn’t love any one. He isn’t responsible entirely. He has what you would call a criminal streak. None of us trusted him. Ann watched him as much as she could. I was always afraid of Edgar. For the past month he has been furious whenever Paul paid any attention to Enid.”

“But I don’t see why Nicolay should pay her attention,” said Tom, frowning. “They were so different. And if she was in love with this Larry Devore, this—”

“That’s it, I never understood it, but Paul was crazy about Enid,” sighed Louise. “I don’t know why. They were together a lot.”

“Well, Miss Lee, you must come down to your room now,” said Tom sternly. “You can do your lover no good by this sort of thing. The police are looking for you, too. Carson got them all worked up about you. He’s worried.”

“Carson?” Louise lifted her brows. “The lawyer? Why would he worry?”

“I don’t know, but he does,” replied Tom. “Now you come down to your room and be comfortable. And tell a straight story to any one who asks for it. The truth can’t harm any one and if Cleet is innocent it will all come out right.”

“I loathe this house,” said Louise. “I hate the people in it. And I don’t trust that prince. He is after Dorcas’s money. If I were you, I’d be interested in the prince.”

“Why?” asked Tom.

“Because he never brought Dorcas in this morning until after three,” said Louise. “I heard that from Hallston. You could find out if they were at that Bartell swimming party at Myron until that hour. It was close to four when I came in myself.”

“My gosh!” groaned Tom. “Doesn’t anybody ever go to bed?”

“I don’t,” smiled Maida. “That is, I don’t... often. I was up myself most of last night. I heard Dorcas come in and I heard you, Miss Lee.”

“But you didn’t tell—” began Tom.

“No.” Maida shook her head, smiling strangely. “Now, Miss Lee, if you will just go down to your own bed — I want to talk to Mr. Grant a little while.”

After a little more persuasion Tom and Maida succeeded in installing Louise Lee and her dog in her own cool, capacious room on the second floor of the house, and Tom waited impatiently for Maida Malone.

Chapter XXXI Maida Helps

“I want to know how you can shed your character of maid so quickly,” smiled Tom when the girl came to him through the cool shadows of the reception room.

“I am not a maid at all,” said the girl gravely. “I work for the Atwood Detective Agency, and Mr. Nicolay engaged me a month ago to keep an eye on Edgar Malliett. That is why I am in this house.”

“Paul Nicolay!” Tom gasped. “Well, I’ll be damned!”

Maida nodded and sat down by Tom on a small divan.

“My name is Maida Strathwyn,” she told him. “And I’ve been fairly successful since I’ve been with the Atwood Agency. That’s been about ten years now. I’m thirty.”

“You?” Tom looked his amazement. “You can’t be. Why, I’m thirty myself, and look at you, and then look at me!”

“A waste of time,” smiled Maida. “And now here is the case as far as I know it. Mr. Nicolay came to us and said he fancied that Edgar was playing some crooked game. He had seen him with a couple of young men several times whom he knew to be crooks and loafers. Just youths beside Edgar. Well, I came here as maid, with no one knowing except Mr. Nicolay. I looke’d up these two young men and found that One worked in the Underwood grocery store. By offering to run errands for the cook, I got acquainted with Bill Brasson. I led him on and tried to pump him. I finally got everything out of him that I wanted to know. But that was not until recently. I found out—”

“I guess I know,” said Tom, and in as few words as possible he gave Maida the events of that night.

The girl nodded when he finished, her lovely eyes intent and eager.

“Yes, that is what I learned from Bill,” she said. “And I think Edgar got onto the fact that I knew Bill. He was making himself very unpleasant. I was about to report to Mr. Nicolay and drop the job, when — this terrible thing happened. By the way, I had the telephone call traced, the call that came from the woman just before Nicolay went out last night. It was Enid Cleet who called, or at any rate, it was from her home.”

“Well, you are good,” said Tom warmly. “And it was swell of you to let me in on this instead of Farrell or one of the city police.”

Maida colored.

“Oh— well—” She tossed her charming head.

“You knew Louise was in the house, I suppose,” Tom asked.

“No, I didn’t. I knew when she came in this morning, and I guessed that Hallston was helping her in some sort of stunt. Of course I knew of her affair with Cleet. But I never did think of her staying right here in the house. The silly little thing! She may have done him a lot of harm by that act.”

“Do you think Cleet is a murderer?”

“No. But you never can tell. I think his wife was a clever little vamp, and out for a good time. I never understood her at all or the interest of Mr. Nicolay in her.”

“That has got me from the first,” agreed Tom. “It just won’t gee somehow. And Malliett. What about him?”

“I don’t know,” Maida frowned. “He is a strange person, not just normal, and yet cunning and smart. He did this wild thing because he felt that he was restrained, and he had no spending money. It never occurred to him to work. I dare say he can’t.”

“Farrell tells me that Miss Ann slipped out last night to the garden. Did you see her do that?”

“Why, no. I must have missed that,” smiled Maida. “I was never much interested in Ann. Before this crime, I didn’t care what anybody, except Edgar, was doing.”

“Could you tell me anything about Enid Cleet? Her past or anything at all that I could work on to-morrow?” asked Tom as he rose. “I hate to go away from here, but Hallston will be coming down and we’ve got to get some rest. I’ve been up for a couple of nights now.”

“I know little about her. As I said, I didn’t bother with her. I did know that Ann didn’t like her, and one day I heard her say to Edgar that for a girl who had graduated from Miss Emerson’s School, Enid Cleet was a mighty careless young woman! I don’t think this family, outside of Mr. Nicolay, knew a lot about her at all.”

“But that’ll be a great help,” said Tom excitedly. “Miss Emerson’s School! That’s the fashionable place on the river, isn’t it?”

“Of course. Oh, ever since this murder broke I’ve been wild to dig into it! Now that Louise has been found and Edgar and the boys locked up, I can leave here. Maybe my agency will let me work on the case a little—”

“Do you know where Jake’s restaurant is?” Tom asked.

She nodded.

“How about meeting me there at one o’clock?”

“O. K.,” smiled Maida.

Chapter XXXII Why Nicolay Paid

The head mistress of Miss Emerson’s School for Young Ladies took her platinum rimmed glasses from her aristocratic nose and looked at Tom Grant as though she felt tried beyond her refined endurance.

“This is a matter which I had hoped would not come up, Mr. Grant,” she sighed. “When we saw this horrible thing in the papers, we feared that the investigation would work back to Enid Clark’s girlhood here with us. We have never had the police at Emerson, Mr. Grant. It is not easy for a girl to find admittance here. And when she does—”

Tom glanced about the handsome study into which, after great effort and patience, he had been admitted. He did his best to curb the boyish eagerness and excitement he was feeling.

“You understand, of course. Miss Waldmar, that the matter is a gravely important one,” he said quietly. “And everything you tell me, unless it cannot be helped, will be regarded as confidential. You would wish to avenge this poor girl’s death. If you had seen her slender body strapped to that wheel—”

Miss Walmar flung up shocked hands.

“Mr. Grant — I beg of you!” She shuddered. “I knew Enid Clark well. I assure you that the entire faculty has been grieved and horrified by this thing. I also knew Mr. Nicolay very well.”

“You did?”

“Why, yes. Mr. Nicolay paid for Enid’s schooling here.”

“He... he what?”

“Certainly. He entered Enid at our school when she was ten. She boarded here until her graduation, when she was eighteen. During her summers she was at our summer camp. Naturally we knew her well. She was a girl of great charm and ability. When she left, I believe, she took a position as French instructress in the Harbison School. She was only there for one season, when she married Walter Cleet. That is all that I can tell you about Enid.”

“But... but why did Nicolay pay for her?” asked Tom, stunned.

“He told us simply that she was a child of a dear friend of his, and that she came from a splendid family,” said Miss Waldmar stiffly. “Of course, Mr. Nicolay himself was enough reference for any one. No one questions the standing of the Nicolays. Years past his wife, Mabel Malliett, graduated from this school.”

“I see,” said Tom slowly. “And when he put Enid here, it was how many years ago?”

“The child was ten. She graduated when she was eighteen, that is, in 1925. Fourteen years ago, Mr. Grant, Paul Nicolay brought the little girl to us. Enid must have been twenty-four at the time of her death.”

“Yes,” said Tom, still feeling dazed. “Of course, Mr. Nicolay did not tell you the child was any relative of his family?”

“Not at all. He said she was an orphan, the daughter of his best friend, and that he had been left in charge of her affairs and her. It was quite usual. Those things often happen. We have a girl here now who—”

Tom committed the dreadful blunder of rising while Miss Waldmar was speaking. But he felt that he had no time to waste. He was through with this fishy-eyed, haughty woman, and with a few muttered words of gratitude and apology, he got away.

At the Harbison School, twenty miles away along the river, he learned little more, save that Enid Clark had met Walter Cleet at a dance, and had soon become engaged to him, and that twice Paul Nicolay had driven out to see her while she taught at the school.

Always the shadow of this man across her life. What did it mean? Did Cleet know what it meant? Did any one in that strange Nicolay household know?

“I bet I can talk to a man who does,” Tom told himself, as he hurried to his date with Maida Strathwyn.

Maida was waiting for him, sweeter than ever, in a smart little blue suit and little close hat, and Tom brightened at sight of her.

Over a table in a corner of Jake’s they talked.

“You haven’t a minute to lose,” she told him. “Carson is the man. I bet he knows. Make him talk! Don’t sit here while I eat this ice cream. I’ve been to headquarters and I feel like a wreck. If you could have seen Bill Brasson look at me! But that’s all in the work. I’ve got to rest a while. You go on, Tom. I’m eating my three meals a day right here now, and if you want to see me or we have anything to tell each other, we can meet here.”

As Tom went out into the blazing sunshine he thanked the fortune that had brought Maida across his path in this strange case. If he ever got time to stop, he would make love to her as she deserved to be made love to.

Seymor Carson was in his private office when Tom went up in the elevator to the top floor of the towering Wallace Building.

The detective had to wait a short time until a man emerged from the lawyer’s office, but he possessed his soul in patience. He felt that Carson and the city police would respect him now, and he was making strides in the case.

“Why, Mr. Grant,” said Carson as Tom approached him, “I’ve been anxious to see you. A horrible scandal, this affair of Malliett’s.”

“Yes,” said Tom casually. “He has retained you?”

“I should say not!” snapped Carson. “I would not take his case, the little crook! He has another lawyer.”

“We have a long list of robberies against that bunch,” said Tom. “You didn’t, by chance, have a suspicion that they were in that underground cellar when you called at the farm last night?”

“Certainly not! I saw no indication of any one else being there.” Carson looked indignant. “And they say they never knew that I was there. It is quite possible. None of us made any noise.”

“Yeah, I see. Now, I want you to be frank with me. I want to know several things. First, how Paul Nicolay was going to change his will, second, who the witnesses were whom he was going to take to the farm with him, and third why he paid Enid Clark’s way through the Emerson School.”

Carson frowned, looking at the detective through narrowed eyes. After a moment the lawyer looked away, tapping on the desk top with polished nails.

“Mr. Grant, I see there is no use trying to keep this thing quiet any longer,” he said presently with a sigh. “I hoped that no one would have to know. It cannot help — now.”

“I guess I’d better be the judge of that,” said Tom gravely.

Carson nodded. “Yes. If I do not tell you, you’ll get it from somewhere else. Enid Clark was Paul Nicolay’s daughter.”

Tom was on his feet, aghast. The man’s daughter! Now he understood the seemingly incongruous relationship.

“You mean—”

“Yes,” said Carson. “She was his child and the child of a girl he had married years ago. The girl was beneath him in station, in everything. She died and left Enid. No one here in the East knew anything about the thing, for the little wife remained in the West where Paul had met her. She was the one woman he ever loved and it was her own wish that she stay West and not leave the ranch where she was fitted to be. I have heard from Paul that she was even more charming than Enid and far more beautiful. However, Paul took the child and cared for her. That’s all. If Mabel Malliett had known of it, she would not have married him, and Paul needed her millions. Mabel thought she was the one and only.”

“Then Nicolay was about to change that will and leave Enid his fortune,” said Tom slowly.

“I don’t know,” said Carson harshly. “He had already settled enough upon her to care for her. She had had it since her graduation. And in his will he leaves her one hundred thousand dollars. I did not tell you that. I feared it would cause plenty of talk as it was.”

“He loved her more than he loved Dorcas,” said Tom.

“Who wouldn’t?” Carson shrugged. “You haven’t seen Dorcas? A spoiled, domineering beauty. Like the Mallietts. A rum lot, the Mallietts.”

“You were in Nicolay’s confidence, Mr. Carson?” asked Tom.

“Yes. I think I knew him better than any one else did.”

As he spoke, Carson rose and walked restlessly about the office.

“I fancy you know that that silly girl Louise was found hiding in the attic,” he blurted after a moment.

“Rather,” grinned Tom. “Did you know of her affair with Cleet?”

“I certainly did not!” denied Carson, frowning. “This is an outrageous thing, Mr. Grant. The Mallietts and the Nicolays are two of our finest families. If they had obeyed me and sent Edgar Malliett away for mental treatment long ago, instead of babying him in that house under Ann’s eyes, this entire thing might not have happened.”

“Do you mean that you think Malliett capable of killing those two people?” asked Tom, watching the lawyer closely.

“Who knows what he is capable of? you’ve seen him, haven’t you?” flared Carson. “Is he normal? I don’t think so. Paul didn’t think so. Look at him, a member of such a family consorting with such filthy young crooks as Brasson and Morse! It is an unhealthy house. It drove Malliett into crime and Louise Lee into a love affair with a married man. It has taught Dorcas to sell herself to a mockery of a man with a title! Ann is the only one there now with a keen, healthy mind, and she is a devil.”

“Did you know Nicolay had engaged some one from a detective agency to live in his house and watch Malliett?” pursued Tom. He felt that there was more here than Carson was giving him.

“No. He told me several times he was going to. Perhaps he had a more desperate reason than just to keep an eye on his brother-in-law. He may have feared this thing which has happened.”

“Do you think he did?”

“I don’t know. He never said. I’ve been frank with you, Mr. Grant. I know no more now than I have told you. And I have one thing to suggest. In your investigation don’t overlook this cheap jazz boy whom Enid Cleet loved. This Devore fellow. He came in to see me several weeks ago and I booted him out of the office.”

“Devore! the chap at the Walnut Club?”

“Yes,” Carson nodded darkly. “He is after cash. He came in here and tried to pump me about Paul Nicolay’s interest in Mrs. Cleet. He did his best to find out what it meant and whether or not the girl would be remembered in Nicolay’s will. I don’t know what he was onto, but he was suspicious.”

“I’ll pass this on to Farrell,” said Tom. “He knows Devore. And now something else, Mr. Carson. Did you ever see Enid Cleet wear a diamond-studded wrist watch?”

“No, but Paul gave her one,” said the lawyer quickly. “Last Christmas. I helped him choose it. She was supposed to have bought it for herself.”

“Did she know that she was Nicolay’s daughter?”

“Certainly. She was quite devoted to Paul. I know that she even wished to move away from the city, but Paul would not hear of it.”

“When Mrs. Cleet drove with Nicolay a short time before she was killed, she wore that watch,” mused Tom as he rose. “And we did not see it when we found the bodies. Now, I wonder who would take away that watch and leave the diamond rings on her hands?”

Carson walked to the door with the detective, his brows drawn together in deep thought, his head bent.

“I will tell you what I should do if I had the case,” he said at last. “I should look for a man who was insanely jealous of Nicolay, who knew that he had given Enid the watch, but not that he was her father!”

Chapter XXXIII Miss Ann Speaks

As Tom Grant opened the door of Superintendent Merrill’s private office a short time after his interview with Seymor Carson, he collided with a nervous young man who was just backing out.

“I hope I haven’t done any one any harm, sir,” this person was saying unhappily.

Merrill’s cheerful voice followed him as he muttered an apology to Tom and vanished: “No, indeed. You’ve done us an immense service!”

When Tom entered the office where Merrill and Billy Farrell sat alone, the detective greeted him delightedly.

“Hello, Grant! I’m glad to see you. The young man you just passed is a salesman in the Dixie Sporting Goods Store on State Street. We traced the gun which was found in the Nicolay brook to this store, and Mr. Martin, who just went out of here, sold it. Neat work, eh? And neater still, he identified Edgar Malliett as the man who bought it! Of course he would remember Malliett. That bird doesn’t look like any one else out of captivity. But that’s good, eh?”

“It’s great!” agreed Tom. “But where does it get you? Nobody was shot.”

“No, they were not,” agreed Farrell. “But they might have been, see? And Ann knew it. And she hid the gun bought by her crook brother. He planned to do away with this girl and Nicolay, and Ann knew it. She looks like the head of the ladies’ guild or the missionary sewing society, but she has a lot more than that in her aristocratic bean.”

“But you don’t think Cleet and Malliett both killed the two?” asked Tom mildly. “They wouldn’t agree on anything.”

“Maybe not, but Cleet bribed that chauffeur all right, and he won’t say where he was last night. We’re holding him for further questioning.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what I think about Malliett,” offered Tom. “I think he bought that gun when he decided to be a crook and organize these robberies. That’s more like it. I don’t think that Malliett is a killer.”

“He’s a moron, and a moron will do anything,” snapped Farrell. “You’ve done great work so far, Grant, and we have to admit you have. And you certainly won’t let us keep that family out of the tabloids. I’m going up to the Nicolay house now and question Ann. It’s time she talked.”

“Just a moment, I have something to tell you,” said Tom, and gave the two an account of his morning’s work. The superintendent forgot the heat and bent forward eagerly, and Farrell forgot that he didn’t like Tom and sat listening absorbed as young Grant’s level voice went on.

“You’re not thinking of leaving Darbyville, are you, Grant?” asked Merrill, when he finished. “Because I sure could use you here.”

“No,” replied Tom with a broad grin. “Thanks.”

“His daughter!” groaned Farrell. “Who would have thought of that?”

“I couldn’t see from the start why those two were such friends. I couldn’t get it. It didn’t seem like a love affair, and yet... well, it had me stopped.”

“I’m off to call on Ann,” said Farrell grimly, reaching for his straw. “Come in, Grant. I’ve got to find out why she hid that gun and I still protest that Malliett intended to kill those two. Since I know that Enid was Nicolay’s child I bet a dollar Malliett was onto the fact that he was going to change his will! Tying them to the mill wheel and beating heathen drums sounds like brother Edgar to me!”

“That act wasn’t idiotic,” said Tom as he followed Farrell from the office. “I think it was brilliant. And thereby hangs our case, if we ever solve it!”

Miss Ann Malliett received the two men in her own sitting room. Seated beside a couch upon which reclined Dorcas Nicolay, she glanced up at them with cold disapproval.

It was evident that her brother’s arrest had shaken the lady’s poise badly, but she still maintained her frigid air and her calm seemed undisturbed.

Dorcas, a petulant, dark-eyed young beauty, made no pretense at courtesy, but stared at the police with flashing, resentful eyes.

“You have been here once before this morning, Mr. Farrell,” said Miss Ann acidly, “interviewing Miss Lee.”

“Yes,” grinned Farrell. “And the reporters are anxious to see her, too. She did a very spectacular thing by getting our department to look for her while she hid in your attic.”

“She did a ridiculous, childish thing!” flared Miss Ann. “But what is wrong now? Does Edgar need me?”

“I think not,” replied Farrell dryly. “I came to ask you again about the gun which you once denied ever having seen before. That gun you hid in your own brook. Your brother Edgar bought that revolver in the Dixie Sporting Goods Store on State Street a month ago. The man who sold it to him has identified Mr. Malliett. Are you still going to deny that you ever saw it?”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Aunt Ann, tell them!” pouted Dorcas angrily. “Nobody was shot. Nobody did anything with that gun.”

Miss Malliett laid down the knitting which she held in her jeweled fingers and let her cold eyes sweep over Farrell as though he must be looked at, though the sight was disagreeable.

“Very well,” she sighed. “The story is not as bad as the one you already have. Edgar could not be in a much worse position. I was afraid, and so was Paul, that he was up to something, and we really should have put him in charge of a specialist, in some sort of nursing home. However, to a family like ours that is a hard step to take. Paul never confided in me to any great extent. I did not know that he had applied to a private agency to send a spy into our home. I did, however, watch Edgar as much as I could, and I kept money away from him. He was not really vicious, not really bad. He—”

“He was a nut,” said Miss Dorcas flatly.

“And so you knew he had the gun,” prompted Farrell.

“Yes. I found it. But only yesterday. I watched my chance when he was out, and hid it in the brook. Such an idea as the nursemaid of my neighbor spying upon me never occurred to me!”

Miss Ann’s cheeks colored angrily.

“Miss Malliett, how long have you and your brother known that Enid Cleet was Paul Nicolay’s daughter?” asked Farrell in a pleasant, conversational tone.

All color drained from Miss Ann’s face and she sank back in her chair, looking suddenly haggard and spent.

Dorcas lifted herself on her pillows, a young flame of rage and fear.

“How the devil did you police get that?” she wanted to know furiously.

“How long have you known, Miss Malliett?” Farrell asked coolly.

“Since last week,” whispered Ann through stiff lips. “Edgar overheard Carson talking here in the study to Paul, and he ran to me with the news. He was shivering and in a dreadful state.”

“Why?”

“I think he loved Mrs. Cleet and he was shocked. He isn’t just... just what he should be, poor Edgar.”

“Loved nothing!” roared Farrell. “He was afraid that meant that he wouldn’t get any of Nicolay’s money! A daughter and one that Nicolay loved was a pretty serious obstacle.”

“How dare you!” cried Miss Ann, flushing furiously.

“Oh, let them rave!” said Dorcas with a yawn, as she subsided on her pillows. “They’ll either find the lover of Enid’s who did for Dad and Enid, or they’ll get tired badgering us after a while.”

“You think she had a lover?” asked Farrell.

“Sure she had. She was crazy about that jazz leader at the Walnut Club. And dear knows how many more. Enid was a siren.”

“Miss Malliett,” said Farrell, turning back to Ann, “after your brother heard of this relationship between Paul and Enid didn’t he plan to do something desperate to the woman? Wasn’t that why you hid the gun?”

“No, no!” cried Ann. “He bought the gun, you just said, a month ago. That was three weeks before we knew about Enid.”

“Did Paul know you knew about Enid?”

“Not that I ever heard of. Paul would have packed us all out most likely.”

“He was so fond of her?”

“He was wild about her,” sneered Dorcas. “He never cared a rap for me.”

“Yet you were prostrated when you heard of his murder,” said Farrell slyly.

For a moment Dorcas hesitated.

“Why wouldn’t I be? He was my father.”

“I don’t think you were prostrated,” said Farrell evenly. “I think you and your prince were two more folks who had no alibi and that you were just plain scared and stayed in your room, scared as badly as Louise Lee.”

“Well, what you think and what you prove are two different things, aren’t they?” asked Dorcas insolently.

“Not always,” said Farrell, not at all disturbed by her attitude. “Just what time did you get home this morning?”

“We came in at midnight.”

“I know, that’s what you say, but wasn’t it a good bit later than that?” asked the detective pleasantly.

“I expect that servant girl spy told you that!” flared Dorcas, sitting erect again. “Idiots in this house and detectives spying on them and us, and unrecognized daughters coming in for part of the inheritance! It is time Carl and I got out.”

“Just what time did you come in this morning?” persisted Farrell.

“Tell them, Dorcas; you’ve done no harm,” advised Miss Ann.

“It was after three,” said Dorcas defiantly. “I suppose Hallston or the detective or that nuisance Louise Lee told you. Some house this is to live in! Carl and I only drove out to the yacht club and back. It was so darn hot.”

As she spoke, Tom wondered if she and her precious prince had any guilty knowledge of the tragedies. Dorcas seemed frankly to hate Enid, her half-sister, and the prince sounded like a bounder. If Nicolay was about to alter his will in favor of the unacknowledged daughter on the eve of Dorcas’s brilliant wedding to Prince Carl, what then? Who were the two witnesses Nicolay had told Carson he would bring to the farm? But beating inexorably through the muddle in his mind came the drums. Those death drums! If he could account for them!

And Enid Cleet’s body had been turned under on the wheel where she would not hear the drums, but Nicolay had not been tied tightly to the wheel at all. He had died with those drums beating in his ears.

Chapter XXXIV Banes Offers an Alibi

As Tom Grant and Farrell reached the entrance hall of the Nicolay mansion on their way out, the sedate Hallston approached them.

“Mr. Banes is in the reception room, gentlemen,” he said with a patient look in his harassed eyes. “He came here to see you. At headquarters they told him you were both here.”

“Banes!” Tom frowned for a moment and then remembered the handsome man in knickers who had been seated on the porch of the Cleet house after the murders.

In the center of the little reception room, where in the early hours of that day Tom Grant had had his interview with Maida, Roger Banes was standing, his hands thrust in the pockets of his well-fitting coat, his face pale and drawn.

At sight of the two detectives he started forward eagerly.

“Gentlemen, I want a few words with you without delay,” he said. “I went to headquarters, but the superintendent was out and neither of you were there. I had to talk to somebody. I just found out a short time ago that you are holding Walter Cleet for questioning in these crimes. That is ruin to a young man with a career like his! The chap is an artist, a man with a future! He can’t afford this sort of thing! And to be dragged into it by this little blonde, Louise Lee!”

“But Cleet is in love with Miss Lee,” reminded Tom.

Banes made an impatient gesture.

“Love means nothing to him beside his career,” he said. “If it had he could not have countenanced Enid’s behavior. And now she shan’t ruin him!”

Tom and Farrell exchanged glances.

“But at first you spoke mighty well of Mrs. Cleet,” reminded Tom.

“Certainly I did,” flared Banes, swinging about. “What man wouldn’t? But I didn’t foresee this. Walter had nothing to do with her death. She is well out of the way. Now, this is what I want to say to you men. I know where Walter was last night. It had nothing to do with this Lee girl. I was with Walter Cleet myself in his study at his home. He bribed that Wiltham chauffeur to say nothing about his absence, and he drove into town and went home. And the reason he did it was because this old crank of a millionaire, Wiltham, had sprung on him at dinner some new idea about his place in Maine which he thought he had told Walter about, but which he hadn’t, see? And Walter knew him so well that he kept mum, and skipped home and altered his plans. If the old fellow had known Walter didn’t have them drawn up in that certain fashion — don’t ask me what it was, I’m no artist or architect — he would have thrown down the entire contract, swearing that Walt was undependable. That is the kind of gink he is.”

Banes mopped his damp brow as he talked and walked about the dainty room.

“But why couldn’t Cleet change those plans at the Wiltham house?” asked Tom, amazed.

“I don’t know. He said he couldn’t. All his stuff was here in his study. He certainly was worked up about it.”

“And how did you butt in on his work?”

“I saw him come home. I was smoking on the porch. I just ambled over, that was all. The servants were in bed and we had the study to ourselves. I often used to sit up there with him and watch him work. It didn’t bother him and it fascinated me. I watched him make that cursed mill wheel.”

“And what time did Cleet get home?” asked Farrell with obvious disbelief.

“About eleven thirty. Old Wiltham goes to bed early and he came away as soon as he could.”

“And he left here, when?”

“Oh, it must have been four o’clock,” replied Banes. “I waited until he had altered the plans and we went out of the house together.”

“You sat up with him all that while?” Farrell voiced his surprise.

“Yes. It was frightfully hot. I couldn’t sleep anyhow.”

“Well, Mr. Banes, I fail to understand where Louise Lee comes into this,” said Farrell, gravely. “Hallston bears out her story, too.”

“Can’t help that,” shrugged Banes. “Hallston is crazy about that girl. I mean, he will do anything for her because the women in the house are so mean to her.”

“But he wouldn’t lie to involve her in a murder!” said Tom. “Something funny here, Farrell.”

“Funny! It’s cock-eyed!” grunted the detective, glaring at Banes. “And I don’t believe a damned word of it, what’s more! I’ll drop down now and talk to Cleet.”

“He probably won’t say a word,” groaned Banes. “He won’t involve the girl and he wouldn’t admit this about his work for Wiltham. That contract in Maine means a lot to him.”

Tom shuddered.

“How he can go on with his work on that old mill after his wife died on the wheel, passes me!” he said.

“You don’t understand an artist,” said Banes. “His work first, his career before everything else. Walter is all genius.”

“Well, Mr. Banes, it is mighty fine of you to wish to get your friend out of a nasty spot,” said Farrell as he turned to the door. “And he is in one, all right. He visited the mill and copied the wheel and he made a key to fit the door. He lied about an alibi and bribed a chauffeur to lie for him. His wife died with another man on the wheel. Yes, it looks bad for Cleet. And worse if he’s in love with another woman himself.”

“That’s why I thought I’d better speak up,” said Banes gloomily as he followed the men through the front door, which was gravely held open by the much-tried Hallston.

At the curb Tom Grant touched Farrell’s arm.

“Quiet about this daughter business,” he said. “Don’t let the papers get it, yet. I’m going to get supper and go back to Darbyville. I got a few things I want to do to-night before the inquest in the morning.”

Farrell nodded, extending his hand with a touch of warmth.

“All right. We’ll be bringing those fellows out to you in time,” he promised. “This seems to be your case, after all, Grant, and you’re doing good work with it!”

Chapter XXXV The Snake

Jake’s was not yet filled when Tom Grant entered it, looking about for the little figure which had already become so very attractive to him.

Tom found a corner table and sat down, hoping for the best. Telling a perspiring waiter that he was waiting for some one, he buried himself in the evening paper, relieved to note that the latest and most vital developments in the mill wheel murders had not yet got into print.

He was beginning to fear that Maida would not be in for dinner, when she came, looking sweet in a gray suit.

“You’re late,” he said, as she joined him.

“I’m glad to be waited for,” said Maida, smiling. “I’ve been to Darbyville.”

“Darbyville! What for?”

“For information.” And Maida would say no more until he had ordered supper.

“Tell me.” He bent across the table.

“Well, of course I was dying to look at the mill,” she said. “Like a few thousand other people. And after telling your chief who I was and that I was an old friend of yours, and so on, I got in. I’ve been chilled ever since. What a dreadful place to die! And those drums! They’re at headquarters, you know. Exhibit B or something like that. They fascinated me.”

“They have fascinated me from the start,” said Tom gravely. “They’re the story. And I’m glad you called me an old friend.”

“It was the open sesame,” said Maida. “And then I saw the two Delanders.”

“Yes? What about them?”

“I don’t know.” Troubled eyes were lifted to Tom. “Honestly I don’t know. They interest me. Young Delander has something to hide — but maybe it’s his gambling habits — from the girl he wants to marry.”

Tom nodded. “Yes. We’ve trailed him about for a while and I think that’s all that’s wrong with him. He plays cards too much. He’s in debt everywhere and doesn’t want his dad or his girl to know. I think that’s all.”

“Perhaps,” said Maida slowly. “Isn’t it rotten that all of us have something to hide? Well, and then I got interested in Papa Delander.”

“Jones?” Tom was honestly surprised. “Why, he’s all right. He’s a bright chap, got money, and educated. Has been to plenty of interesting places. Lately he has got fat and kind of settled into a rut on his farm. But he knows a lot.”

“I wonder?” mused Maida. “Did you ever see the skin of that huge snake he has in his trophy room at the farm? You did? What did he tell you about it?”

“Why, that he caught it himself one day when he was walking in some spot down in Bermuda,” said Tom. “I don’t remember. He has quite a collection of snakes he has picked up in his travels.”

“Yes? He told me the same story. But, they don’t have snakes in Bermuda! How about that?”

“They don’t?”

“I figured that maybe he didn’t get those death drums in Africa,” said Maida demurely. “And if he didn’t, then it is possible that Enid Cleet got hers where Delander got his. See? A little matter of deduction. And a lot of his antique stuff is phony. I’ve studied that line. Take it from me, Tom, your local celebrity, Jones Delander, is a bluff. I bet anything that he never saw all these places he talks about and that when he was absent from Darbyville he wasn’t so far away.”

“But—”

“That snake,” went on Maida, “that reptile he showed me, is nothing more or less than a harmless water snake which resembles the moccasin, but isn’t even that. I say this because it makes me think he has fooled everybody about other things, principally the drums. If we could find out where Enid Cleet got her drum, and why she bought it—”

“You’re a wonder!” said Tom. “By George — that’s clever. The drums have it. We’ll run them to earth.”