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The Brussels Post, 1926-9-22, Page 7V N. At THE RIMS ELS POST Th (Copyright) by MARY ROBERTS RINEI-TART . e Red LEM .?,0' tJ.1h:t. Edith, who has a very feminine curiosity, haa,questiened Annie Coch- ran but without much result. The "fit"days, so far as we can make out, are merely days when the invalid is less well than ether's, and mostly keeps his bed. Annie Cecilia', how- ever, has her own explanation of them; she believes that those days follow• nights when "George" has been particularly active, and when presumably Mr. Bethel has not been sleeping on his good ear.. And as proof of this, she produces the fact that twice now, having left her tea -kettle empty on top of the stove, she has found it fedi in the morning. As Mr. Bethel cannot get downstairs unassisted, and as the secretary has always stoutly main- tained that he has not left his room WI night, Annie Cochran falls back on "George"; and, one must admit, not without reason. . Poor Carroway was laid away yesterday, after the largest funeral in the history of these part;, And so ends one chapter in our drama. Ends, that is, for him. What is to come after no one can say. One thing has tended to relieve the local strain. No sheep have been killed for eighteen days, and the altar in the field still remains with- out oblation. There are, I believe, one or two summer people who still make it the objective of an early morning excursion, hoping to find on it who knows what horrid sacrifice. But they have only their walk for their pains. Maggie Morrison, who passes it every morning in her truck, makes a daily report of it to Clara, azul so it , filters to the family. "Clara says the altar is still emp- ty, "r suspect her of longing to lay a chicken on it, herself. There is something pantheistic about hei." Jane—or Edith, as it may be --is silent, reflecting• on the 'meaning of pantheistic. It is Maggie, too, who brings us much of our local news. To -day, for instance, she informs us that the de- tective has gone away "bag and bag•• gage," from the hotel, and probably this accounts for the lighter tone of this entry. I am reprieved, at least until some other sheep are killed. . Later: Halliday and I, late this afternoon, made an examination of the culvert, ar pipe, in which our un- known hid after the accident. We chose a late hour in order to avoid the procession of cars which winds along our back roads --the further back the better—during the after- noons. In this we were successful, for al- though, like my own, the general sentiment is one of reprieve, there are few who will trust themselves out after twilight. Mr. Logan, the rector of the Oakville Episcopal church, Saint Jude's, had an exper- ience in point the other night: Call- ing late on a dying parishioner he ran out of gasoline on the main road, some six miles from home. He endeavored to stop various cars as they flew past, but in the general terror no one would pick him up, and after being fired at by one ex- cited motorist he gave it up and walked back to the rectory. We must have presented a curious study for any observer, working with guilty haste, and I in particular emerging from the pipe covered with mud and a heterogenous collection of leaves and grasses. Not only was Halliday too broad in the shoulders for easy access, but his injury for- bade the necessary gymnastics. There was a time, when half in and half out of the pipe, I could heitr him laughing consumedly. But I found nothing, save that un- doubtedly someone had preceded nee into it. A man skilled in such mat- ters might have read a story into the various marks and depressions, but 44 G1 Letterheads Envelopes Billheads And all kinds of Business Stationery printed at The Post Publishing House. We will do a job that will do credit toyour business. r b css. Look over your stock of Office Stationery and of it requires replenishing call us by telephone 91. The Post Publishing Nouse they were not for me. 1 I retreated, inch by inch, and was again free as to my legs but a 1n'is- 1 ones as to the remainder of my body when Halliday called that u car was coming. t had three choices;- one was to remain in my present shame- ful state; another was to emerge end face the ,public eye, looking as though I had been tarred and feath- ered; and the third was to retire into my burrow. I retired. With that peculiar ven- ous with which fate has been pur- suing nu, the car stopped over me, and Starr spoke. "Looking over the scene o2 your trouble?" he said. "Looking for the clues you fel- lows can't find," Halliday retorted, easily. I could hear Starr snort, and then chuckle drily as he let in his clutch again. "I'll give you a dollar far every clue you find," he called, and the ear moved on. When Halliday gave me the signal I emerged feebly into the open air, and stood upright. "That was a narrow squeak," I said. But he. was looking after the dis- appearing car. "Yes," he said. "But I think it was a mistake, I "should have told him you were there." The net result of the search was not encouraging. Trne, Halliday picked up, outside the pipe, half of tip lens of an eye -glass, but there is no proof that it belonged to his as- sailant. On the other hand, I my- self had made a discovery of a cer- tain amount of importance. Halli- day had said that the man he picked up had seemed to be a heavy man, broadly and squarely built. But my experiecne showed me that no very heavy man could have en- tered the pipe. We have, in effect, to recast our picture of the murder- er; a man of medium size, we will say, compactly if muscularly built. To -night, sitting clown to make this entry, I have missed my fountain pen and as it has my initial's on it we mist recover it to-mnrrow if possible, It would be extremely unpleasant, under the circumstances, for Starr, for instance, in a burst of zeal to find it in the pipe. True, Peter Geiss could swear that, at the moment Halliday was attacked he and I were looking for a ghost in the fore -rigging of the sloop. But I am at this disadvantage, that they give me no opportunity to defend myself, for they make no accusation. Their method • is that damnable one of watchful waiting; Greenough's psychological idea that, given enough rope a criminal- wilt hang himself. July 18th. Edith and Halliday went this morn ing to recover my fountain pen, Ed- ith determined to crawl into the pipe for it. To this end she put on my mechanic's overall in which I oil and grease my car, and, very sweet irdecd she looked in it. But the pen was not there. She found the cap of it, embedded in the mud, but not the pen itself. It looks as though Starr has lest no time! Edith, I believe,suspects some- thing. There is a' growing gravity and maturity in her; she tries to show me, by small caresses and at- tentions, that she believes in me and loves ate. But she knows that there is something wrong. And she has, I think, quarreled with Halliday. There was nothing on the surface to show it, on their return to -day, but he declined her invitation to luncheon and went ofi', whistling rather ostentatiously, to his bacon and beans at the boat- house. This afternoon, while Mr. Bethel slept, she accepted .young Gordon's invitation to go canoeing, and had the audacity to take the canoe, so to speak, from under poor Halliday's nose. According to Jane, she needs a good shaking, There is, I understand, no definite engagement between them. "Much as I—care for her," Halli- day said to nye, while he was still invalided here; "and 1 guess you know ]row it is with me, Skinper--•. I'nn not going to tie her down until I've .something to offer her beside myself, She's young, and I'm not going to take that advantage of her." "But you do tate for keg?" "Care for iter? Oh, my God," he said, and groaned, poor lad. Three years, he has figured may- be four, "Throe with w n h Iuck n And what Edith cannot -understand is that he cues not dare trust kinlsalf for that texgth of time. The urge that is in him is so different :Froin iters; gentling/It and attachment; on her side, and strong young passion on this. Heigh-ho! When one things that n mere ten thousand dollar's or so would atop al these heart -aches, and that there ar men •to whom ten thousand dollar is only a new car, wall �neigh••h again! , I must not forget to enter that Halliday last night believes he si,w the red lamp burning, in the den be- hind the library of the main house. He told me the details this morning as he waited for Edith to don my overalls. It Was his first night, after his accident, at the boat -house and he could not sleep. "I had a good bit of pain," he said, "and at one o'clock I got up and went outside. There was a sort of dull red light coming from the windows of the library of the other •house, and 1 watched it for awhile. it was extremely faint, anri at first I thought it was a time; then, as it didn't grow any, I saw it roust be a light of some. sort." He knew the stories of the reel lamp, but he also knew that I had locked it away, so after a time he started up toward the house, He was about .half way up the lawn when it went out, suddenly, and left hint staring. But he was curious, and he went on. He made a complete circuit of the building', but there was ne move- ment or sound from within, and so he turned and went back again.- He believes the light was in the den, not the library, for he saw only a diffused reddish glare, as though it came from behind. He could net, through any of the three long French windows which open onto the ter- race, see the source of that glare. Here, then, is corroboration oii my own impresison of some few nights ago, but with a difference. For I saw the light itself, a momentary flash as though the breoza had for au .instant pushed open the heavy curtains at the den windows, and then had let them fall again. I am conviececl that ••eu•tct roe - don has never seen the light, or he would have spoken of it. He is flu- ent enough about what he calls the. "spooky" quality of the house, It is unlikely that Mr. Bethel, impris- oned in his upper room, can have any knowledge of it. Yet here we have two 'dispassionate observers, seeing at different times and under different circumstances, a light ap- parently of spontaneous origin and no known cause. Cameron says (Note: "Experi- ments in Psychical Phenomena," a book I had sent for some days be- fore) that the production of lights is very common; he quotes the ap- pearance of bluish -green lights in the experiments with Mary Outland, the brilliant star -like white lights of Mrs. Riggs, and the luminous efful- gence which was frequently seen hanging over the head of the Polish medium, Markowitz. But in no case is the production of red light mentioned, and in every instance this spontaneous production of light is in the presence of a med- ium. In the case of Markowitz, for in- stance, I find on referirng' to him: "Following the appearance of the effulgence, usually came the mater- ialization. Sometimes there emerg- ed from between the curtains of the cabinet, while the medium was in sight and securely held,— a large white face; again it would be a small hand and arm which apparently cane, not from between the curtains, but through the material itself." But this is no field of conjecture for a man about to go to bed. My nerves are not at their best, anyhow, .and in spite of myself, I find that from behind the slight breeze which is waving my curtains, I am expect- ing something extremely unpleasant to appear. July 19th. A sudden and terrifying storm out- side. Above the howling of the.wind I can hear the surf beating against the shore. Halliday repoxts, over the telephone, that the .float is in danger and that the run -way hag broken loose. But there is nothing' to do. I have just been out, and I do not prrorose to be soaked again, (Note: The approach of the storm had made Jane very nervous, and I had driven in to Doctor Hayward's for a sleeping medicine .for her.) Jock is as bad as Jane, and should have a narcotic also! He Is moving uneasily from place to place, now and them emitting a dismal ho vi, end Clara is sitting forlornly at ,.leo foot of the staircase, under the inipros- elan that it is the only place free from metal in the house, and thus less likely to attract the lightning, It is indeed a night for dark deeds. And for dark thoughts. . I wonder if 1 have any justification for my suspicions? Why should Hayward, rep armtoouttoan go Y , p p g obsetetric case, start me along a new and probably unjustified line of thought? Surely, of all wton in the world, he has the best right to carry ether. I must be careful not to do as Greenough has dome, aliow my necesisty for finding • the guilty man to run away with my judgment. 1 I ®+4++I'4+`+++++4+4+44 0 111 HE N Si e 119/ Lp AI ell) i e Highest market prices I • paid. +. s See me or Phone No, 2x, Fermi- a cele,, and I will call and get +r + 9 G jour Hens, 4.click t "; i s 4 t And yet, in spite of myself, I can- not help feeling that Hayward ful- fills many of the requirements. He alone, of all people hereabout, is free to move about the country at night without suspicion. Ile knew Uncle Horace "as well as anybody." Ile is—and God forgive me if I - sin wrong—enough of a sailor to know the half-hitch. There are other points, also. He is about my age, if anything older, but he is a muscular man. And he is, like all general practitioners in the country, by way of being a sur- geon also. He would know how to find the jugular ,vein of a sheep. • I have re -read this. Possibly Greenough is right after all, and I am a trifle mad. For why sheep, Sheep and a stone altar! - And only an hour ago he was saying to ane, in his profesisonal voice: "Tell her to take plenty of water with it, and not to be impatient. These things take an hour or so to get in their wont." "In all earnestnoets I appeal to you to consider the enormity of the idea," wrote 'poor old Horace, more than a year ago. But while killing sheep is unpleasant, even sad, there is no particular enormity im it. I by a leg of spa' t -ci' ,- lee—,t, without consicleritag the a tragedy lies behind it. The murder of Car- roway, too, cannot come under the strictures of that letter; it was done as a matter of protection. Nearest of all to the possibilities suggested by the letter comes the attacks on Halliday, and if the sheen - killer did that, why not have put his devilish symbol on the car during that silent ride of a mile before he prepared to strike? Why have crept in and clone it? . But here again the doctor had access to the car, after Greenough had examined it. He went in alone, according to Clara, and was there some time. Was it, then, the doctor's type- writer which] wrote the cipher over which Halliday has been puzzling. The GeLTr, IC. 28 July 20th. Maggie Morrison disappeared last night; disappeared as completely es though she had been wipe -d from the fa,,e of the earth by the storm. Livingstone telephoned me the facts at seven this morning and Halliday and I took the car and went over. We have been out with the searching party all day, but with- out result. After luncheon young Gordon joined us, sent by Mr. Bethel, who had not heard the news until that hour. It was -all we three could do to keep Edith from starting out al- so, but it was not work for a wom- am To -night the search is still going on. Starr has sworn in more depu- ties, and the entire country -side is aroused. Jane has been i11 all day, and has kept her bed. July 21st. No trace of the unfortunate girl to -night and all hope of finding her alive is being abandoned. . I can now record such /acts as we know, relative to the mystery. The girl went into Oakville yester- day to do some shopping, and re- mained for dinner with Thomas and his wife. In spite of Thomas' proph- ecy of a storm site insisted on stay- ing over for a moving picture, and It was therefore. ten -thirty when, al- one in the farm truck, she started out of town. Nothing more is known of hos movements, save that site got as lar as the Hilburn Road, abort two hun- dred yards beyond the Livingstonos•' gate. The truck was found there yesterday morning at daylight by an early laborer on the Morrison form, who however thought that she .had abandoned it there during the storm the night before, and neglected to report it. At the faun house itself there was no uneasiness, as the family stip- posed the girl hacl remained in town. Butwho i t the hour came he n for r to start outwith her intik i w m lk deliv0 y, and she had not arrived, inquiries were set nn foot. The truck shows no signs of any struggle, and that robbery was not the motive of whatever has happened is shown by the fact that tate missing girl's peeled book was fotmd ltebihd the seat of the truck, wllc'te slie 1is- WEDNESDAY," SEPT. 22, 1926.. ually placed it. Greenough and the Sherif were on the ground when we got these :te well tis a small knot of country folk, kept at a distance by a deputy or two, and already a small posee, hastily recruited, was beating the wood nearby. Such clues as there may have been, however, iiod been obliterated by the storm. There is, no trans of the dreaded symbol in chalk. . Halliday has reconstructed the +lacy, in view of his own experience, '1 "Jhe fellow was waiting," he said, "and hailed her, as he hailed are. IIe knew nobody would pass a man caught out in a storm dike that. He got in, and closed the storm curtains, and of Bourse she hadn't a ••hence in the world." He does not therefore ager, with the general conviction, that w,. are dealing with a sexual crime. And that word "general" does not include all of the population; there are many I understand, among the more ignor- ant who have put together the abuo.st uncanny violence of the elements that night, a night indeed for dem- ons, and the complete disappearance of the unfortunate girl, and are building out of it. and their own sup- erstitious fears a theory that the gir•1's body never will be found; that she has been, indeed, spirited away. It has its elements of strangeness at that. Possibly five hundred men and boys have been searehing stead- ily since yesterday morning'; the back country, where it happened, is fair- ly open; the' sea, with its salt marsh- es, both of which would give unlim- ited opportunity for concealment, is fully six miles by road from where the truck was found. . . Much talk is going round as to a story from the light -house on the extreme tip of Robinson's Point to- day. As is to be expected, the sup- erstitious are making considerable cenital nut of it. And I me -self rr•i not disposed to di.<miss it wi.h,,ut considerable thought. The story is as follows: On the night of the tragedy, a flying night bird of ,some sort broke one of those windows of the light -1 house which portect the light it- self. The keeper and the second keeper repaired it as best they could, but the terriffic gusts of the wind made them uneasy and they remained on watch. (Note: In light -houses of a cer- tain type there is a small aperture, running down through the sueceesive floors of the building, and through which, as the light revolves, the weights of the cluck -work nu'chanism of the lamp slowly descend. It should also le' said that the Robinson Point light is a red t!aeh, timed at ten .se c oud.) They sat, high in the air, in the room just beneath the light, now and then glancing: up to see that all wag well. The storm increased in viol- ence, and as the sea came up the surf heat on the rocks below with a crashing only equalled by the thunder itself. As is usual in the high tide of the full moon, the low portion of the point to landward, and the keeper's houses, the engin,, shed, boathouse and oil storage tank were soon cut off from the mainland by a strip of angry ocean. Nevertheless, they were comfort- able enough, and the under -keeper had actually fallen' asleep when there came a sudden lull in the storm, It was that time, which I well remem- ber, when there came one of those ominous and quivering pauses in the attack which seem, not a promioe a£ peace, but a gathering' together of all the powers of wind, sea and sky for one Anal and tremendous effort. And in that pause Ward, the light -keeper, heard something below in the tower. He touched his assist- ant on the shoulder and he sat up. Both of them then distinctly heard footsteps on the lowest flight of stairs, five floors below. They were alone in the tower; cut off from the mainland by a rush- ing strip of tide, and no boat could have landed through the surf. And outside was that unearthly quiet which was more sinister than the storm itself. Neither one of them re- members that, as the stops cane on inexorably, a cold air began to eddy around the small circular room, and that he looked up at the rod Light apprehensively. The act, one sees, was the habit of a life -tinge. Even then. with his body fairly frozen with terror of what was on the staircase, he looked up. At the top of the second flight the steps paused, and both ketipers drew a breath. Then they beard u ,small dry cough, and the steps reamnimerle- ed on the third level. Up and up. The stairs curved round the inside wall of the tower, and they knew they would not see what was climbing until it was fair- ly on them. They sat there., their eyes glued to the door, and heard the steps coming up the last round, Whatever it was, it was on thein. It reached the top, and the next step would bring it into view. (To Be Continued), BUSINESS CARDS y'HE Industrial Mortgage and Savings Cornpany, of Sarnia Ontario, are prepared to advance money on Mortgages an good lauds. Parties deeming money on faun mortgages Will please apply to James Cowan, $e,ifort,+Ont., who will tar ,doh ,sates and other particulars. Tho Industrial Mortgage and Savings Company afiZaNIP✓ . aarl[ex? AGENT FOR Fire, Automobile and Wind Ins. COMPANIES For Brussels and vicinity Phone 647 JAMES M'FADZEAN kgent Howick Mutual fire lesurance Company Also Hartford Windstorm and Tornado Insurance Phone 42 Box 1 Turnberry Street, Brussel* JNO. SUTHERLAND & SON LIMITED bJV 4 er Reta'rr'v [6i4 D. M. SCOTT PRICES MODERATE For rerarenree ennealr any person whose sales 1 h,,ve efrieint.d as. Phone 2326 T. T. .M' RAE M. Et., M. O. P., @ S. O. M. O. H„ Village of Brussels, Physician. Surgeon, Acoonoheur Oaae at residence, opposite Meiv file Church, William street. Fr. X. Strt'agatfe BARRISTER, SOLICITOR, CONVEYANCER, NOTARY PUBLIC LECKIE BLOCK - eBRUSSELS 0r, as ere-Mln <4:.J. Time's Cas da'9 Value Modern methods and appliances have set a new standard for a day's work. Time is one big factor. This is true in the factory, on the farm, in the home or what not. Time is money to -day. And anything that mul- tiplies the value of an hour is increasingly valuable. Advertising is an annihilator of time. It pro- vides a short cut between a manufacturer or mer- chant and you. It makes it possible to tell in a few minutes all you want to know about the services or articles you need. A quick glance through THE BRUSSELS POST, en- ables yon to sift the things that interest you, and in a min- ute you can know just where and when to go for what yon want. Figure out how much valuable time advertising saves yon if you use it properly. Think hots much needless walk- ing and talking itisaves you and your neighbors. Yes, Advertising; has a Big Value to You—Don't Fail to Read It ! THE BRUSSELS POT ":4,41;:r",a` 1 o ry .0,011 i7 e'+t' 11110 r,,..:428)241;