The cover used in this ebook was created by the transcriber and placed in the public domain.

THE
THIRTEENTH LETTER

By NATALIE SUMNER LINCOLN

Author of
“The Cat’s Paw,” “The Meredith Mystery,” “The Red
Seal,” “The Unseen Ear,” etc.

A. L. BURT COMPANY

Publishers New York

Published by arrangement with D. Appleton & Company
Printed in U. S. A.

COPYRIGHT, 1924, BY

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

Copyright, 1923, 1924, by The Constructive Publishing Corporation

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TO
HARRIET BROWNSON HUSSEY
The Thirteenth Letter is affectionately
inscribed in memory of many happy
hours together

The author desires to express to
ALAIN CAMPBELL WHITE
of Litchfield, Connecticut,
her sincere appreciation of his
cleverly devised stamp code utilized
in The Thirteenth Letter.

The
THIRTEENTH LETTER

CHAPTER I
THE EVENTS OF A NIGHT

The white-capped nurse dropped the curtains in place so that they completely shut out the night and equally prevented any ray of artificial light penetrating the outer darkness. Her eyes, blinded by her steadfast gaze into the whirling snow storm, were slow in adjusting themselves to the lamp lighted room and for some minutes she saw as in a blur the spare form of the physician standing by her patient’s bed. Doctor Roberts turned at her approach and removed his finger from about the man’s wrist. He met her glance with a negative shake of his head as he replaced his watch.

“Abbott!” he called softly, bending over the patient: “Rouse yourself and take some nourishment. You will never get your strength back if you don’t eat.”

Slowly, languidly Abbott’s dark eyes opened and regarded the two figures by his bedside. They lingered in some curiosity on the trim figure of the trained nurse and then passed on to the physician.

“I’ll eat later,” he mumbled. “Leave me alone, now,”—and the heavy lids closed again over the eyes under which dark circles of pain testified to hours of suffering.

“Very well.” Doctor Roberts spoke more crisply. “Miss Ward will be here to look after you. You must do what she says. I’ll see you in the morning. Good night.”

His remark met with no response, and picking up his bag Roberts started from the room. At the door he paused and motioned to Miss Ward to follow him. Stopping long enough to arrange Abbott’s pillow in a more comfortable position, the nurse went into the hall, only to find that Doctor Roberts was halfway down the staircase. With a doubtful look behind her, Miss Ward ran lightly down into the lower hall which, lighted only by oil lamps, was long and rambling and used as a living room. Doctor Roberts walked over to a table and put down his bag.

“I am glad that you are here, Miss Ward,” he began, courteously. “I feared the storm would detain you. You have not nursed for me before?”—with an inquisitive glance at the pretty woman before him.

“No, Doctor.” Miss Ward’s tapering fingers pressed out a crease in her starched gown. “This is my first case since my arrival in Washington.”

“Oh! You are a graduate nurse?”

“Yes. I trained in New York.” Her hazel eyes met his steadily. “They told me at the hospital of the urgency of this case and I took a taxi out here.”

“Quite right. Add all your expenses to your bill,” directed Roberts. “Paul Abbott has ample means. He should be in a hospital.”

“But his condition, doctor.”

Roberts nodded. “That is out of the question,” he agreed, “now. Had his caretaker sent for me in time I would have had Mr. Abbott moved from this God-forsaken location to the city. As it is”—he pulled himself up short—“we must do the best we can ten miles from civilization.” His smile vanished as quickly as it had come. “I am no lover of the country in the dead of winter. What time did you get here?”

“An hour ago. Have you any orders, doctor?”

“You can give him a dose of this through the night”—taking out a small phial and handing it to her—“the directions are on the bottle. It is essential that Mr. Abbott have sleep; if necessary, give him this by hypodermic.” And he handed her two pellets.

“What stimulation do you wish me to use in case of sudden collapse?” Miss Ward asked as Roberts picked up his bag and walked toward the front door.

“Strychnine, twentieth of a grain,” brusquely, as the hall clock chimed ten, but his hurried exit was checked by a further question.

“Has Mr. Abbott any family to be notified in case his condition becomes dangerous?” asked Miss Ward.

“No immediate relations.” Doctor Roberts was manifestly impatient to be off. “There’s a girl—Betty Carter—but I’m not sure that the engagement isn’t broken. Good night.” The high wind drove the snow, which had drifted up on the broad veranda, in whirling gusts through the front door and half blinded Roberts as he held it partly open. With a muttered oath he dashed outside to his automobile, parked under the shelter of the porte cochère.

Miss Ward heard the whir of the starting motor, the grinding of weed chains and the shifting of gears before she closed the outer vestibule door. It was with a sense of reluctance that she turned back into the silent house. The storm and her surroundings oppressed her.

The old homestead, turned from a large-sized, roomy farmhouse into a hunting lodge, with its wide entrance hall converted into a living room from which ran numerous twisting passages, was a gloomy place in winter. Through darkened doorways Miss Ward obtained a vague impression of larger rooms beyond which she judged to be library, dining room, and possibly a sunparlor.

Paul Mason Abbott, Senior, had prospered in his real estate business, and had acquired, in one of his deals, the country property, twenty miles from Washington, the National Capital, which, with a substantial fortune, he had bequeathed to his only son, Paul. The latter’s career as a promising young architect had been interrupted by the World War. Paul had borne his share of the fighting, returning to his home with health shattered and a morbid desire to live alone.

He had closed his bachelor apartment in Washington in the early spring and spent the following months motoring about the country. Just before Christmas he had appeared unexpectedly at Abbott’s Lodge and announced that he would reside there indefinitely. Corbin, the caretaker, had given him but a taciturn welcome, and neither he nor his wife had done more than provide Abbott with three meals a day and such heat as was absolutely necessary to warm the house.

Miriam Ward felt that even Corbin’s presence, disagreeable as she had found the caretaker in her one interview with him upon her arrival, was preferable to the grotesque shadows made by the furniture as she hurried across the living room and up the staircase to her patient. Paul Abbott paid no attention to her as she moved about making her preparations for a long night’s vigil.

Abbott’s bedroom stretched across one wing of the house. Miss Ward was conscious of a touch of envy as she subconsciously took note of the lovely old pieces of mahogany with which the room was furnished—the highboy with its highly polished brass handles, the fine old bureau with its quaint mirror hanging above it; the antique desk in one corner and last, but not least, the carved four-post bedstead with its canopy and its long curtains. The handsome rugs on the floor deadened her footsteps as she moved about, and it was with a sense of shock that she heard the grandfather clock in the hall chime the hour of midnight. The sudden sound in the utter stillness aroused Paul Abbott as he seemed about to drop off to sleep and he lifted his head. Instantly Miss Ward was by his side, but he pushed away the glass of milk she offered him.

“Has she come?” he asked eagerly.

“She? Who?”

“Betty.”

Miss Ward shook her head. Then observing his feverish condition more closely, she hastened to say soothingly: “She will probably be here as soon as the storm lets up.”

Abbott looked at her appealingly. Thrusting his fingers inside the pocket of his pajamas he drew out a crumpled piece of paper.

“Betty wrote that she would be here to-night,” he protested. “And you must let her in—you must—”

“Surely.” Miss Ward again offered the rejected glass of milk. “Drink this,” she coaxed, and obedient to the stronger will Abbott took a few swallows and then pushed the glass away. His head slipped back upon the pillow and Miss Ward deftly arranged the curtain of the four-poster so that it sheltered his eyes from the light of the wood fire burning on the hearth at the opposite end of the bedroom.

An hour later she was about to replenish the wood for the third time when a distant peal of a door bell caused her to drop the kindling with unexpected suddenness in the center of the hot ashes. As the sparks flew upward, she heard Abbott call out and turned toward the bed.

“It’s Betty!” he exclaimed, with a feeble wave of his hand. “Go—go—let her in.”

“I will, but don’t excite yourself,” she cautioned. “Lie down on your pillows, Mr. Abbott, and keep yourself covered,” drawing the eiderdown quilt over his shoulders as she spoke.

Another, and more imperative peal of the bell caused her to hasten across the bedroom and into the hall. She peered ahead expectantly as she went down the staircase, hoping for a glimpse of the caretaker, Corbin. Evidently the bell had not disturbed his slumbers, for she could distinguish no one approaching in the semi-darkness. Unfamiliar as she was with her surroundings it took Miss Ward several minutes to let down the night latch and turn the old-fashioned key in the lock of the vestibule door. As she swung the latter open she was pushed back and two figures stepped across the threshold, closing the door behind them. The first, a tall slender girl, her handsome fur coat covered with snow, stopped halfway to the staircase and addressed Miss Ward.

“Where is Mr. Abbott?” she demanded. “And why have you kept us waiting so long?”

“I presume the caretaker is still asleep,” replied the nurse. “Otherwise the door would have been opened more promptly. Mr. Abbott is ill in bed. Very ill,” she added, meeting the girl’s imperious glance with a steady gaze. “This is no hour for visitors for a sick man.”

“Oh, the hour!” The girl turned disdainfully away. “I must see Mr. Abbott; it is imperative. You are the nurse?” with a questioning glance at her white uniform.

“Yes, and as such in charge of the sick room,” crisply. “I cannot permit—”

“Just a moment,” broke in the girl’s companion, who, until that instant, had busied himself with closing both the vestibule and inner front door. As he stepped closer and unbuttoned his heavy overcoat Miss Ward caught a glimpse of his clerical dress. “This is Miss Elizabeth Carter, Mr. Abbott’s fiancée, and I am Dr. Nash of Washington. Miss Carter received word that Mr. Abbott is alarmingly ill—”

“With small hope for his recovery.” The words escaped Betty Carter through quivering lips, and looking closely at her, Miss Ward discovered her eyelashes wet with tears. “Don’t keep us standing here when time is so precious,” and turning she ran up the staircase, followed by the clergyman and Miss Ward.

An odd sound far down the corridor caused the nurse to hesitate before accompanying the others into the sick room, and for several seconds she stood poised outside the door, her head bent in a listening attitude. The sound, whatever it was, and Miss Ward could have sworn it was a faint whimper, was not repeated. She was thankful to turn from the contemplation of the dark, winding corridor to the companionship of her patient and his two belated visitors.

Dr. Nash had paused by the solitary lamp, but his efforts to induce it to burn more brightly resulted in extinguishing it entirely, leaving the bedroom illuminated by the firelight only. He turned at Miss Ward’s approach and addressed her in a low voice.

“Get the lamp from downstairs,” he whispered. “This one is burned out.”

Betty Carter, paying no attention to the others, halted by the bedside just as Miss Ward started for the door.

“I’ve come, Paul,” Miss Ward heard her say as she darted out of the room. “I am here to keep my word. Dr. Nash is with me.”

Miss Ward’s mystification lent wings to her feet, but when she made the turn of the last landing of the staircase her foot slipped on some snow left on the hardwood by the clergyman’s rubbers, and she went headlong to the floor. Considerably shaken by her fall, it was some moments before she could pull herself together and get to her feet. Taking up the lamp with a hand not quite steady, she walked upstairs. As she entered the bedroom she saw Betty Carter standing apparently just where she had left her and Doctor Nash closing his prayerbook.

“... I pronounce you man and wife.” The solemn words rang their meaning into Miss Ward’s ears as she took in the significance of the scene. “Come, Betty, we have no time to linger,” and stepping forward, Doctor Nash laid his hand on the girl’s arm.

With a gesture as if awakening from a dream, Betty Carter raised her head and faced Miss Ward. The nurse almost cried out as she met the full gaze of her tragic eyes.

“Surely you are not going?” she exclaimed. “Now—after—?”

“Yes.” Betty’s beauty was of an unusual type and Miss Ward’s heart gave a sympathetic throb as she came under the magnetism of her personality. “We—I will be back,” and before Miss Ward could gasp out a question, she hurried swiftly from the room, the clergyman at her heels.

Her mind in a daze, Miss Ward stood in the doorway of the bedroom holding the lighted lamp so that they might see their way to the staircase, but her half-formed intention of carrying the lamp to the head of the stairs altered when she saw that the clergyman was provided with a powerful pocket searchlight. She stood where she was until she heard the front door close with a distinct slam, then went thoughtfully into the bedroom.

Placing the lamp on a small table by the side of the bed, she drew back the curtain of the four-poster and looked down at the sick man. He lay partly on one side, his eyes closed, and one hand tightly clenching the eiderdown quilt. For one long minute Miss Ward regarded him, her senses reeling.

The man lying in the bed was not her patient.

CHAPTER II
CAUGHT IN THE WEB

A long-drawn sigh cut the stillness. Slowly Miriam Ward raised her head and struggled to a more upright position. Her limbs felt stiff and cramped and she moved with difficulty. Without comprehension she watched a beam of light creep from underneath a window curtain and extend across the floor, its radiance widening as the sun rose higher in the heavens. The current of air from the opened window blowing indirectly upon her overcame her sense of suffocation, but her wild stare about the bedroom did not bring recollection in its train. The first thing to fix her attention was the fireplace and the darkened hearth—no heat was given out by the dead embers. Suddenly conscious of the chill atmosphere, she involuntarily grasped her dress and dragged it closer about her neck. The touch of the starched linen caused her to glance downward. She was wearing her uniform, therefore she was on duty!

Miriam Ward’s dulled wits slowly adjusted themselves. She had reported for duty at the Registry; a call had come—from where? To attend whom? Roberts? No, that was the name of the physician. Ah, she had it—Paul Abbott. The chord of memory was touched at last and the events of the night crowded upon her. The man in the bed—

Stiffly Miriam scrambled to her feet and made a few halting steps to the bedside. It took all her will-power to pull aside the bed curtains and glance down. Paul Abbott lay partly turned upon his side, his fine profile outlined against the white pillowcase, and his right hand just showing outside the eiderdown quilt.

Miriam’s hand tightened its grasp on the curtain and she leaned weakly against the side of the bed; but for its support her trembling knees would have given way under her. She had been the victim of a nightmare! The midnight visit of Betty Carter and the clergyman, the substitution of a stranger for her patient—all had been a hallucination conjured up by a too vivid imagination. She had slept on duty. That, in itself, was an unpardonable offense.

Raising her arm she glanced at her wrist watch—the hands registered a quarter past eight. Then nearly nine hours had passed and she had lain asleep. A wave of color suffused her white face and she grew hot and cold by turns. Her heart was beating with suffocating rapidity as she hurried to the windows and drew aside the long, heavy curtains and pulled up the Holland shades. The storm of the night before was over and the winter sunshine brought a touch of warmth to the room and a sense of comfort.

A glance at the fireplace convinced Miriam that it would require both time and fresh kindling wood to start a fire. It could wait until she had summoned the caretaker; the room was not so cold now that she had closed the window.

Retracing her footsteps she again paused by the bed and gazed at her patient. He still lay on his side, motionless. Miriam Ward caught her breath—motionless, aye, too motionless. A certain rigidity, a waxen pallor, indistinguishable in her first glimpse of him in the darkened room, held her eyes, trained to detect the slightest alteration in a patient’s condition. Her hand sought his wrist, then his heart, then dropped limply to her side. Paul Abbott lay dead before her.

Her low cry was smothered in the bed curtain, which she pressed against her mouth, and for a moment she swayed dizzily upon her feet. Paul Abbott had died while she lay asleep within a few feet of his bed. Overwhelming remorse deadened every other feeling and held her spellbound. Fully five minutes elapsed before a sense of duty aroused her to action.

Wheeling around, Miriam staggered rather than walked to the telephone standing on Abbott’s desk. She had jotted down Doctor Roberts’ ’phone call the night before, but it took her several seconds to get the central at Washington, and still others passed before a man’s voice told her that the physician was out making his morning rounds. At her urgent request the servant promised to locate Doctor Roberts and send him at once to Abbott’s Lodge.

As Miriam replaced the receiver on its hook she was conscious of a feeling of deadly nausea and she stumbled as she walked across the room and into the hall. She must have aid. Her repeated calls brought no response. What had become of the caretaker and his wife? A noise of some one moving in the hall below caused her to run down the staircase to the lower landing.

“Here—here, this way!” she gasped, and saw vaguely outlined a woman’s terrified face in front of her while the sound of a heavy tread coming down the staircase echoed in her ears. “Mr. Abbott—I—” Voice and strength failed her simultaneously, and before any one could reach her she lay in a crumpled heap on the landing, unconscious of the loud ringing of the gong over the front door.

It was approaching noon when a timid knock at her bedroom door brought Miriam Ward into the corridor and face to face with the caretaker’s wife.

“If you please, Miss, the doctor says do you feel better?” The question came in a gasp, characteristic of Martha Corbin. A gray ghost of a woman, timid to the verge of cowardice, she seldom spoke unless addressed.

“Much better,” replied the trained nurse. “Where is Doctor Roberts?”

“In there,” with a jerk of her thumb over her shoulder. “He wants to see ye.”

“Very well.” Miriam Ward closed her bedroom door with a firm hand. She had regained some hold upon her composure as her attacks of nausea ceased and the throbbing in her head lessened. Doctor Roberts had left her two hours before with the admonition to remain in bed until he saw her again, but her anxiety of mind had prevented her following his directions. She paused involuntarily outside of Paul Abbott’s bedroom, then, gathering courage, she stepped inside. Doctor Roberts turned at the sound of her approach and put down the telephone instrument.

“So you are up,” he said gruffly. “Well, how are you? Feeling stronger?”

“Yes; thank you, Doctor.” In spite of her determined effort to keep her voice expressionless, Miriam was conscious that it was not quite steady. “I—oh, Doctor, I don’t know what to say.” Her pent-up emotion was gaining the upper hand. “How to tell you—”

“What?” as she paused.

“That—that—I slept on duty.”

Doctor Roberts eyed her steadily for what seemed an interminable minute. “So that was it,” he remarked dryly. “Well, what then?”

The nurse’s pallor was intensified, but her eyes did not falter in their direct gaze.

“I was asleep when Mr. Abbott died,” she admitted, her hands clenching themselves in the pockets of her uniform.

Doctor Roberts’ stare grew prolonged. “And this was your first case in Washington?” he asked, with marked emphasis.

“Yes.” Miriam Ward moistened her dry lips with the tip of her tongue.

“Hardly a successful début,” commented Roberts. His glance strayed beyond the nurse to a man standing in the shadow of a window curtain. “Give Miss Ward a chair, Alan.”

Somewhat startled by the presence of a third person, Miriam accepted the proffered seat with relief; she was weaker than she had at first realized.

“Miss Ward,” continued Doctor Roberts, “this is Mr. Alan Mason, of the Washington Post. He arrived here in time to carry you to your bedroom and then summoned me.”

Miriam glanced upward and encountered the gaze of a pair of deep blue eyes fixed upon her in concern.

“You should not have gotten up,” Alan declared, and the human sympathy in his voice brought a lump in her throat. She saw his clear-cut features, wavy dark hair, and whimsical mouth through a mist which she strove to wink away. “I’m afraid you have overdone things a bit.”

Miriam shook her head. “I could not rest in my bedroom,” she said. “There must be something that I can do, Doctor Roberts; unless you distrust me too much.” Her voice shook with feeling, and she paused abruptly, unable to go on.

The two men exchanged glances, then Roberts rose. “There, there!” he exclaimed, a trifle awkwardly. “Just take things quietly, Miss Ward, while Alan asks you a few questions. It is his business, you know.”

“Just so.” Alan Mason nodded reassuringly. “I’m a reporter and also a cousin of Paul’s; in fact, his nearest relative. How did Paul seem last night—before you fell asleep?”

“He—” Her pause was infinitesimal. “He appeared much excited, even irrational, but at times his mind was perfectly clear. He took a little nourishment.” She stopped and passed one hand before her eyes. Her dreams still haunted her. Could she truthfully say where imagination had dovetailed with reality? Was Betty Carter’s visit, her marriage to Paul Abbott but a figment of her overcharged brain? Would her hearers think her a lunatic as well as criminally negligent if she went into details?

Doctor Roberts broke the pause. “I have looked over your chart,” he stated, “and find that the last entry was made soon after midnight. You made no record of any marked change in his condition.”

Miriam swallowed hard. “The collapse must have come suddenly,” she said. “At what time do you think he died?”

Roberts eyed her in silence for a minute. “Come over to the bed,” he directed, and not waiting for her, turned on his heel.

The long side curtains of the four-post bedstead were stretched across it, and as Miriam laid her hand on one of them to draw it aside, Alan Mason checked her.

“I found this wad of cotton under the bed,” he began. “Had you any occasion last night to use chloroform?”

“No.” Miriam looked at him in startled wonder. “No.”

“Then,” Roberts scanned her closely, “how comes it that you, a trained nurse, are unaware that you were chloroformed?”

Slowly Miriam took in the meaning of his words. “Chloroformed?” she gasped. “I?”

It was Alan Mason who answered and not Doctor Roberts. “I detected the odor of chloroform when I carried you to your bedroom,” he said. “So then I came in here—found my cousin, Paul, dead—and this cotton under the bed.”

Miriam stared at her companions in dumbfounded silence for a moment. “My attack of nausea—” she faltered.

“Was the result of the chloroform,” declared Doctor Roberts. His voice deepened. “We also detected its odor about Paul Abbott.”

“Good God!” Miriam drew back. “Was Mr. Abbott anesthetized?”

Roberts’ gaze never left her face in the lengthened pause.

“In Heaven’s name, why don’t you answer?” Miriam looked piteously from one man to the other. “Was Mr. Abbott chloroformed?”

“No,” replied Roberts. “He was stabbed in the back.”

Dragging aside the curtains, Miriam gazed in horror at the bed. The bedclothes had been pulled back and Paul Abbott lay upon his face. Under his left shoulder blade was a dark and sinister bloodstain.

CHAPTER III
COMPLICATIONS

Alan Mason stopped his restless pacing back and forth and looked at his watch—two o’clock. Surely, the autopsy must be over! He had waited for what appeared an interminable time for the County coroner, his assistant and Doctor Roberts to join him in the living room as they had promised. The afternoon papers would soon be off the press and distributed to the public; it would not be long before the reporters from the other local papers and even the representatives of the great news services located in the National Capital would be at Abbott’s Lodge in search of the sensational. And they would find it! Alan’s lips were compressed in a hard line. Only six months before he and his cousin, Paul Abbott, had been the closest of “buddies,” then had come the estrangement and now death.

Paul had been a social favorite, liked by one and all, and while he had absented himself from Washington during the past year, his tragic death would come as a great shock to his many friends. And Betty Carter—what of her? Alan raised his hands to his temples and brushed his unruly hair upward until it stood on end. The action did not bring any solution of his problems, and with a groan he resumed his restless walk about the living room.

In remodeling the house, Paul Abbott, Senior, had thrown several small rooms into one, also taking down the partitions which inclosed the old-fashioned square staircase, and made the whole into a combination of hallway and living room. He had shown excellent taste in furnishing the old house, using in most instances the mahogany which had been in the family for generations, and when necessary to purchase other pieces of furniture he had hunted in highways and byways for genuine antiques.

But Alan was in no frame of mind to appreciate rare pieces of Hepplewhite, Sheraton, and Chippendale. Tired of the monotony of his surroundings, he strolled into the dining room and walked moodily across it, intending to pour out a glass of water from a carafe on the sideboard. The room was square in shape, with two bow windows and a door leading into a sunparlor which, in summer, the elder Abbott had used as a breakfast room, as the large pantry gave access into it as well as into the regular dining room. From where he stood by the sideboard, Alan could overlook, through one of the bow windows, the garden entrance to the sunparlor. The snow had formed in high drifts, covering completely the rosebushes which, as he recollected, surrounded a plot of grass in the center of which stood an old sundial. It also was blanketed in snow.

As he gazed idly out of the window, Alan saw the door of the sunparlor swing slowly outward. The piled-up snow caused it to jam and he watched with some amusement the efforts of Corbin, the caretaker, to squeeze his portly frame through the partly open door. Once outside Corbin used his snow shovel with vigorous strokes until he had cleared the topmost step. Closing the door to the sunparlor, he leaned his shovel against it, took out his pipe, lighted it, tossed away the match, and drawing on his woolen mitts, he wiped the snow from one of the panes of window glass. Pausing deliberately he glanced about him, and then, cupping his hands, he pressed them against the window and peered inside the sunparlor. Something furtive in the man’s action claimed Alan’s attention, and he drew back into the protection of the window curtain. The precaution was unnecessary. Corbin straightened up and without a glance at the dining room window, took from his pocket a small metal case. Whatever its contents it drew a smile so evil that Alan stared at the man aghast. He had not been prepossessed in the man’s favor on the few occasions when visiting Paul Abbott, Senior, and his son before the war, and had wondered at Paul retaining him in his employ after his father’s death.

Returning the case to his pocket, Corbin cleaned the snow from the remaining steps and commenced to shovel a path toward the kitchen. He had almost completed the distance when he paused, stared thoughtfully around him, and then walked back to the sunparlor, clambered cumbersomely up the steps to the door and again peered inside. Fully two minutes passed before he stepped down and walked along the shoveled path.

His curiosity piqued by the man’s behavior, Alan waited until Corbin had disappeared from sight, then, turning on his heel, he entered the sunparlor. Evidently Paul had used the room as a lounge, for the wicker furniture, with its attractive cretonne covering, looked homelike and comfortable. Magazines, several books, and a smoking set were on the nearest table, while flower boxes on two sides of the sunparlor added a touch of the tropics, with their hothouse plants. Alan walked past a wicker sofa and several wing chairs grouped at one end and halted abruptly at sight of Miriam Ward lying asleep in one of the long lounging chairs. She had not heard him enter, for she slept on—the deep sleep, as Alan judged from her heavy breathing, of utter exhaustion.

Alan turned and stared about the sunparlor. Except for himself and the trained nurse, the room was empty. What then had absorbed Corbin’s attention? Could it have been Miss Ward? He easily detected the particular pane of glass through which the caretaker had peered so intently. Miss Ward was seated directly in its line of vision. What was there about the nurse to make Corbin evince such interest in her?

Alan drew a step closer and stared at the sleeping girl with critical eyes. A little above the medium height of women, slender, well proportioned, her small feet shod in perfectly fitting low white shoes, which showed a very pretty ankle, she lay snuggled down in the cushions. He noted the clear olive of her skin, the deep dimple, almost a cleft, in her chin, the long, heavy lashes, the delicate arch of her finely marked eyebrows, and the soft and abundant hair, which she wore low on her forehead. He judged her to be not over twenty-six and wondered at the pathetic droop of her small mouth. Even in repose there was a suggestion of sadness, of hidden tragedy in her face which, recalling the beauty of her dark eyes, rekindled the interest he had felt in Miriam Ward at their first meeting.

His impulse to awaken her was checked by the thought that she needed the nap—probably the first sound sleep that she had had since coming on the case. It would be cruel to awaken her unnecessarily. Turning about he tiptoed back into the dining room. The sound of his name being softly called caused him to hasten into the living room. Looking up the staircase he saw Doctor Roberts leaning over the banisters and beckoning to him. Taking the stairs two at a time, Alan was by his side in an instant.

“Well,” he asked breathlessly. “What news? Have you performed the autopsy?”

“Yes. Come into Paul’s bedroom,” and as he spoke Roberts led the way across the hall.

Two men were in the bedroom and they both glanced around at the opening of the door. The County Coroner, Doctor James Dixon, Alan knew but slightly; the other, Guy Trenholm, had been his companion on many a hunting trip in the past. Trenholm was of giant stature, with the arms and brawn of the prize ring. There was a certain look in his gray eyes, however, which indicated power of mind as well as physical strength. The son of the town drunkard, Trenholm had spent the first twenty years of his life doing odd chores for the farmers thereabouts and gaining a checkered education, finally acquiring enough money to see him through four years at the University of Maryland. He had been one of the first to enlist upon the entrance of the United States into the World War and at its close had returned to Upper Marlboro with an established record as a “first class fighting man.” For nearly a year he had held the office of county sheriff. He greeted Alan with a silent nod and a handclasp, the strength of which made the latter wince.

“Hello, Mason!” exclaimed Coroner Dixon, hustling forward. “I’d no idea you were in these parts again. Your cousin’s death is most distressing.”

“And a great shock,” added Alan soberly. “I was very fond of Paul. We were pals, you know.”

“I understood that you two had quarreled,” broke in Roberts, then observing Alan’s frown, he added hastily: “Forgive me, I did not mean to hurt you by alluding to a painful incident.”

“Whatever my feeling in the past, I can harbor no resentment now,” retorted Alan, his quick temper ruffled by Roberts’ mention of an unhappy memory. “Well, gentlemen, what is the result of the autopsy?”

“Are you asking as a newspaper man or as next of kin?” inquired Coroner Dixon, regarding Alan’s flushed countenance attentively.

“As Paul’s cousin,” quickly. “Whatever you tell me I will consider strictly confidential.”

“In that case,”—Dixon selected a chair—“we held the autopsy in a spare bedroom at the back of the house,” observing Alan’s eyes stray toward the four-post bedstead, the curtains of which still remained drawn. “The undertaker and his assistants are there now.” He sat back and regarded Alan. “We can consult together here without being disturbed. As you know, Mr. Abbott had been ill for several days with an attack of bronchitis and threatened pneumonia; this, coupled with heart complications, made his condition very serious.”

“But did either cause his death?” asked Alan.

“No,” responded the coroner. “We probed the wound in his back and found that the weapon had penetrated the left lung. In his weakened condition, death must have been instantaneous.”

Alan drew a long breath. “So the wound really was fatal!” he exclaimed. “The lack of much blood led me to believe that possibly the weapon had not struck a vital point.”

“The hemorrhage was internal.” Coroner Dixon’s expression grew more serious. “There is no doubt, Mason, but that your cousin was murdered.”

Alan passed his hand across his eyes. “My God!” he groaned. “Who harbored such animosity against Paul and how was the murder committed?”

“That is what we have to find out,” cut in Sheriff Trenholm. “Where is the nurse who was with Mr. Abbott last night, Doctor Roberts?”

“In her room, I presume—”

“No, she is asleep downstairs,” interrupted Alan hastily. “Shall I call her?” A nod from Trenholm was his only answer, and Alan hurried from the room, but at the head of the staircase he caught a glimpse of a white skirt disappearing around the further corner of the hall and he changed his direction. He caught up with Miriam Ward just as she was turning the knob of a closed door, a number of towels in her left hand.

“You are wanted by the coroner,” he explained, as she stopped at sight of him.

Miriam grew a shade paler. “Very well,” she replied, “But first—” she handed the towels to the undertaker and closed the door again. “Where is the coroner, Mr. Mason?”

“In my cousin’s old bedroom.” Alan suited his long stride to her shorter one. “I hope you feel a bit rested,” glancing down at her with some concern, but it was doubtful if she heard his remark, her attention being centered on a figure coming up the staircase. Alan stopped short as he recognized the newcomer and his face grew stern.

“Betty!” he exclaimed.

She stared at him for a long moment, then without a word of any kind she walked by them and through the bedroom door near which Doctor Roberts was standing, waiting to greet her. Without halting Betty made at once for the four-post bedstead.

“Wait, Betty!” Alan had gained her side and laid a compelling hand on her arm. “Paul is not there.”

Betty regarded him in utter silence, then faced about and looked at the small group in the bedroom.

“Paul is dead—dead!” she spoke with great difficulty, one hand plucking always at the collar of her fur coat. “You shall not keep me from him. You—” for a second her blazing eyes scanned Sheriff Trenholm—“you dare not.”

“Hush, Betty!” Roberts took the overwrought girl’s hand in his. “You shall see Paul later, dear, that I promise you. Sit down and calm yourself.”

“I have your word?” Betty’s great eyes never left Roberts. “I shall see Paul?”

“Yes. There, sit down,” as Miriam Ward pulled forward a chair.

“Perhaps the young lady had better withdraw to another room,” suggested Coroner Dixon. “We are about to start an investigation—”

“An investigation?” Betty’s high-pitched voice, carrying a warning note of approaching hysteria to Miriam Ward’s watchful ears, reached to the hall beyond and a figure crouching near the bedroom door, which had been inadvertently left open a few inches, leaned forward, the better to catch what was transpiring in the room. “What do you mean, sir?”

Coroner Dixon contemplated her for a second in silence. Betty’s unusual beauty generally commanded attention, but something in her expression focused the Coroner’s regard rather than her good looks, marred as they were by deep circles under her eyes and haggard lines about her mouth. He answered her question with another.

“Your name, madam?” he asked. “And your relation to the dead man?”

“This is Miss Betty Carter,” broke in Doctor Roberts. “Mr. Abbott’s fiancée.”

“Is it so?” Coroner Dixon’s interest quickened. “Then Mr. Abbott—”

“Was very dear to me.” Betty’s tone had grown husky. “I must know all about his death.” Her gaze swept Guy Trenholm, standing somewhat in the background. “It is my right.”

Coroner Dixon turned and glanced in doubt at Trenholm. At the latter’s reassuring nod he faced about.

“Very well, Miss Carter,” he began. “Since you insist I will tell you what we have learned.” He cleared his voice before continuing. “Judging by the condition of the body, Mr. Abbott died between one-thirty this morning and three o’clock. He was stabbed.”

“Stabbed!” With a convulsive movement Betty gained her feet, her face deadly white. “Stabbed!”

Doctor Roberts laid a soothing hand on hers. “Be quiet, Betty,” he cautioned. “Or you will have to go and lie down.”

She shook off his hand. “Go on,” she directed, and the urgency of her tone caused Dixon to speak more rapidly.

“Mr. Abbott was stabbed in the back,” he stated. “We know no more than that, at present.”

Without taking her gaze from the coroner, Betty resumed her seat. Then she turned to Roberts. “I heard yesterday that Paul was very ill, and that you were attending him professionally. Were you with him last night?”

“Yes; until Miss Ward came and then I put her in charge of the case,” replied Roberts. “She can tell you what happened after my departure.”

Miriam Ward faced their concentrated regard with outward composure. Caught by chance in the web of circumstance, she was keenly alive to her unhappy share in the tragic occurrences of the night before. Having a high regard for her profession and throwing her heart and soul into her work she felt, however little she had been to blame, that the stigma of neglect of a patient would be laid at her door.

“Before leaving, Doctor Roberts gave me full instructions,” she began. “And I carried them out. My chart shows that—”

“But your last entry was made shortly after midnight,” pointed out Sheriff Trenholm, picking up the chart from the table at his elbow. “Why was that, Miss Ward?”

“I was interrupted by the arrival of Miss Carter,” she replied, and the unexpected answer brought a startled exclamation from three of her companions; then their gaze left the nurse and centered on Betty. The latter raised her eyes and regarded the trained nurse. If chiseled from marble, her white face could not have been more devoid of human expression.

“God bless my soul!” ejaculated Doctor Roberts. “What were you doing here, Betty?”

The girl paid not the slightest attention to him; instead she addressed Miriam, and the others were startled at her tone.

“Go on with your story,” she said. “Speak quickly,” with a glance at her wrist watch. “Time is passing.”

“Miss Carter was accompanied by a clergyman.” Miriam spoke more slowly, weighing her words. “I—I”—she hesitated for a brief moment—“I cannot recall his name—”

“Continue,” directed Dixon, as she paused. “Did Miss Carter and her companion see Mr. Abbott?”

“I think they did;” she hesitated. “I feel sure they did—”

“Why are you in doubt about it?” demanded Trenholm quickly. “Weren’t you in the room with them?”

Miriam shook her head. “Not all the time,” she admitted. “The clergyman sent me downstairs to get a lamp as the one in this room had burned out. When I came back—”

“Yes—what then?” Sheriff Trenholm could not restrain his impatience at her slow speech.

“The clergyman had just completed the marriage service.”

Her words created a sensation. Doctor Roberts’ eyes fairly started from his head, and Alan Mason’s excited ejaculation drowned Dixon’s more softly spoken exclamation. Only Guy Trenholm gave no voice to his feelings. With eyes fixed steadfastly upon Betty, he remained as emotionless apparently as she.

“What transpired next?” inquired Dixon.

“They left,” tersely. Miriam’s heart was beating quickly, and her cold fingers were playing a devil’s tattoo on the arm of her chair. Before she could say more, Betty leaned forward and held up her hand.

“Just a moment!” She spoke slowly, distinctly. “What were you, a trained nurse, doing when your patient was stabbed to death?”

Miriam whitened, but faced her questioner with quiet courage.

“I was lying near the bed unconscious,” she admitted, “having been chloroformed.”

Betty rose to her feet. “I have heard that a person under the influence of chloroform or ether is subject to hallucinations,” she said. “I prefer to believe that than to think you are demented.”

“Demented!” Miriam sprang up, her eyes flashing with indignation.

Betty addressed Sheriff Trenholm directly, ignoring the others. “The nurse is either demented or drawing upon her imagination,” she declared. “I was not here last night.” She faced Miriam and her glance was impersonal, unfaltering. “Nor have I ever seen you before.”

CHAPTER IV
THE BLACK CREST

Martha Corbin laid down the brass fire tongs and turned to look at the wood-basket by the hearth. The logs were both long and heavy. Before attempting to lift one her attention was caught by the sound of a familiar lagging footstep going in the direction of the back hall.

“You, Charlie,” she called, shrilly. “Come ’ere and fix this fire.”

A snarl was his only response, and a second later a door banged shut behind her amiable spouse. Martha’s thin lips compressed into a hard line. Stooping over she tugged and pulled at the topmost log and finally lifted it up. She let it fall in the center of the burning wood and then rested one hand against the stone chimney to get her breath. It was some seconds before she felt able to take up the hearth brush and sweep the ashes back under the andirons. That successfully accomplished she dropped on one knee and held her chilled hands up to the blaze. She was grateful for the heat.

As she crouched there the firelight, which alone illuminated the living room at Abbott’s Lodge, cast fantastic shadows on her face, exaggerating her fixed expression to one of almost fierce determination. Still in her early forties, Martha Corbin had once been extremely pretty, but ill health had destroyed her good looks and whitened her hair, which, worn straight back, intensified the gray pallor of her appearance.

Her prolonged stare at the fire wavered finally, caught by a piece of white paper protruding from a crack in the tiled hearth. One end was singed, but it had fallen on the outer edge of the bed of hot ashes and escaped entire destruction. Reaching down she picked up the piece and turned it over. It was evidently the upper right-hand corner of an envelope, for the flap still bore traces of glue as well as a perfectly formed black seal—the wax unbroken except at the edges. Martha had no chance to read the printed lines on the reverse of the paper.

“What have ye there?” demanded Corbin over her shoulder and seized her roughly.

With surprising swiftness she broke from his grasp and got to her feet.

“A bit of torn paper,” she replied; “from the scrap basket, there,” touching it with her foot. “I was emptying it in the fire.”

“And didn’t the sheriff say you wasn’t to touch nothing?” She met his alarmed look with a timid shrug of her shoulders. “Have ye no sense at all?”

Martha favored him with a blank stare as she stood twisting her hands in her apron.

“I had to build up the fire,” she mumbled. “’Twas only an old newspaper and such like rubbish.”

“Ye hadn’t oughter touched it,” he growled. “Suppose Sheriff Trenholm or one of his men ask for the basket?”

“Well, here ’tis.” With a swift glance about them, she darted over to a chair and taking up a newspaper lying upon it, crumpled it up and thrust it into the scrap basket. Hurrying to the mahogany desk she jerked open one of the drawers and drew out a bundle of letters and tossed it into the basket also.

“Have a care, Martha!” exclaimed Corbin, who had followed her rapid movements in startled silence. “There’s to be a search and everything in Abbott’s Lodge examined by the sheriff.”

“He’ll find the newspaper and the letters in the scrap basket as easy as if they were on the chair or in the drawer,” she remarked, smiling shrewdly. “’Twon’t matter where they find ’em.” She smoothed down the torn hem of her large apron and drew closer to her husband. “What do ye ’spose he done with it?”

“Sh!” He clapped his scarred hand across her lips. “Hold your tongue, woman. They’ll hear, mebbe.”

“Nobody to hear,” she replied tersely, drawing away from him. “Mr. Alan is seeing Coroner Dixon off and Miss Betty Carter is still upstairs in the room with him!” She shivered. “Ain’t it awful the way she’s taking on?”

Corbin nodded, half absently, his eyes intent on scanning the living room and its staircase at its other end.

“Surprising, after we know what happened,” he admitted, speaking in little more than a whisper. “But, recollect, Martha, ’tain’t up to us to talk. If ye do”—His look caused her to catch her breath. “Well, ye know what’s coming to ye. Ye understand”—and he seized her arm and turned it until she winced with pain.

“Leave me be!” She winced again as Corbin, with a final twist, released her arm. “You’ve no call to handle me so.”

Corbin’s only answer was a vicious scowl and Martha shrank back, one hand to her trembling lips.

“I don’t need to speak twice,” he commented. “You know me.”

She nodded dumbly as she retreated behind a chair.

“Did ye hear when the nurse was leaving?” she asked.

The question went unanswered as Corbin, his attention attracted by voices on the floor above, slipped noiselessly down the passageway through which he had entered some minutes earlier unseen by his wife. Left to her own devices, Martha picked up a box of matches and lighted one of the lamps. She had succeeded in adjusting the wick when she looked up and caught sight of Betty Carter regarding her from the lower landing of the staircase.

“Light the others,” Betty directed. “All of them—every one”—indicating with a wave of her hand the standing lamp at the foot of the stairs and several reading lamps placed on small tables near comfortable lounging chairs where Paul Abbott and his guests had been wont to pass the long winter evenings. Betty waited on the stair landing until her peremptory order had been carried out, then slowly approached the fireplace. She turned back on reaching there and addressed Martha.

“Take my coat,” she said, extending it. “And my hat”—She removed it as she spoke. “And prepare a bedroom for me.”

“A what, Miss?”

“A bedroom. I propose staying here to-night.”

Martha gazed at her as if she had not heard aright. “Here, Miss?” she faltered. “Here?”

“Certainly.” Betty regarded the frightened woman more attentively. “Do as I tell you.” Her sharp tone aroused Martha from her startled contemplation of her. “You can take my hat and coat upstairs as you go and hang them in the bedroom closet. Come, what’s the matter with you?”

“Nothing, Miss, nothing.” Martha reached out a reluctant hand and took the proffered coat and hat, then without further word she hastened up the staircase. So great was her speed that she stumbled breathlessly into a bedroom halfway down the corridor of the second floor, the door of which stood partly open.

Miriam Ward turned at her unceremonious entrance and regarded her in astonishment.

“What is it?” she asked, alarmed at the woman’s pallor. “Are you ill?”

Martha shook her head as she advanced to the closet and, opening the door, disappeared inside, to reappear the next instant, empty-handed.

“No, ma’am, I ain’t ill,” she volunteered, resting one hand on the chair-back. “But I think she are.”

“She? Who?”

“Miss Betty Carter.” Martha breathed more easily. “She says she is going to stay here all night.”

Miriam stared at the woman. “Well, what of it?” she asked. “Why shouldn’t she stay if she wishes to?”

“All by her lonesome and Mr. Paul lying here dead!” Martha’s voice of disapproval registered a higher key than her usual monotone. “Who is going to watch after her? That is,” catching herself up, “look after her?”

“You, I suppose,” replied Miriam. “Are you not accustomed to doing the housework?”

“Sure.” Martha’s voice grew more natural. “And Mr. Paul always said I was a prime cook. Say, Miss Ward, ye ain’t going, are ye?”

“Very shortly, yes.” Miriam Ward returned to the table on which stood her leather bag which she had been packing when interrupted by Martha, and laid in it her neatly folded white uniform. The metal case containing hypodermic syringe, thermometer, and small phials of stimulants was next tucked carefully inside, and then Miriam closed and locked the bag. “Have you seen Doctor Roberts recently?”

Martha shook her head. “He is still about the place with Mr. Alan,” she responded. She cocked an inquisitive eye at Miriam and took in appraisingly her trim, well-cut wool house gown. She had a dim, preconceived notion that all nurses were dowdy, and to find Miriam a becomingly dressed, extremely pretty, well-bred young woman was a distinct novelty. “Are ye going into Washington with Doctor Roberts?”

“Yes. He asked me to wait for him.” Miriam was conscious of a feeling of repulsion under the steady stare of Martha’s oddly matched eyes—the iris of one was a pale blue, while the other was a deep brown. “I have not slept in the bed, Martha; so it is not necessary for you to remake it”—as the housekeeper laid her hand on the white counterpane. “But perhaps it would be just as well to have your husband bring up more wood. The room is a trifle chilly.”

“There’s some in the wood box in the hall; I’ll get it”—and before Miriam could utter a remonstrance, Martha had hurried away. She was back again in an instant, her arms full of small blocks of cord wood. Not waiting for Miriam’s quickly proffered assistance, she let them fall clumsily on the hearth, and then gazed aghast at a long rent in her apron in which still hung a sliver of wood. Her name, called with loud insistence in her husband’s unmistakable accents, caused her to start violently. Pausing only long enough to untie her apron and toss it aside, she hurried from the room, jostling Miriam in her haste to be gone.

Miriam stood in thought for a few seconds, then moved over to the pier glass and put on her hat. She regretted having accepted Doctor Roberts’ invitation to drive to the city with him. Had she followed her own inclination, she would have ordered a taxicab immediately after her scene with Betty Carter and departed. But, confused by Betty’s, to her, incomprehensible behavior, she had listened to Coroner Dixon’s urgent request that she remain a few hours longer at Abbott’s lodge, until, as he expressed it, Betty had had time to pull herself together. Coroner Dixon hinted that hysteria explained her conduct. Miriam’s expression grew more thoughtful. The shock of finding her lover dead might account for much, but was that alone responsible for Betty’s denial of her midnight visit to Abbott’s Lodge?

Sheriff Trenholm had summed up the situation in one brief sentence—“It’s one girl’s word against the other.”

And she, “the other girl,” was unknown and without money, while Betty had hosts of friends and an assured position in the world!

If she could only recall the name of the clergyman who had accompanied Betty! He would substantiate her statement. But try as she did to clearly remember each event of the night, his name eluded her. Undoubtedly the chloroform, with which she had been anesthetized, had much to do with her loss of memory. With proper rest, its effects would undoubtedly wear off; until then—

Miriam fingered the string of blue beads, which she was wearing, nervously. Neither Coroner Dixon nor Sheriff Trenholm had given her an inkling as to whether they really placed faith in her statement. They had listened with deep interest and without comment. In the face of their silence, she had hesitated to tell them of finding a strange man and not her patient in Abbott’s bed just before she lost consciousness. With no proof to offer them, she feared the hard-headed Sheriff would consider her demented indeed.

Turning from the mirror, Miriam walked across the bedroom toward the chair on which she had laid her coat and inadvertently trod on Martha’s discarded apron. As she lifted it up, intending to put it on the chair, a piece of paper rolled out of a rip in the hem of the apron and fell at her feet. Instinctively Miriam stooped over and picked up the paper, but instead of laying it down on top of the apron, she continued to hold it in front of her, her eyes caught by a black seal. The wax impression of the crest was distinct and unmistakable. With a sharp intake of her breath, Miriam turned over the half burned envelope. The Canadian postage was intact, but the name of the person to whom the envelope had been addressed was entirely burned away.

Miriam continued to regard the piece of envelope with fixed intentness. Slowly she deciphered the blurred postmark—it bore a recent date, of that she was positive—but then, how came the black crest upon any letter? Who dared to use it? Miriam was conscious of a feeling of icy coldness not due to the temperature of the room.

An authoritative tap on her door brought the red blood to her white cheeks with a rush and as Alan Mason looked inside the room at her low-voiced, “Come in,” he was struck by her air of distinction and the direct gaze of her hazel eyes, which were her chief beauty.

“Doctor Roberts is about to leave,” he said. “Let me carry your bag,” as she made a motion toward it, “and your coat.” Not listening to her murmured protest, he gathered up her things and waited for her to precede him through the doorway.

Miriam’s hesitation was imperceptible. Opening her handbag she dropped the half burned envelope inside it, then composedly walked down the corridor. At the head of the staircase she paused and addressed her companion.

“Have they made any plans for the funeral?” she asked.

“It is postponed until after the preliminary hearing of the inquest,” Alan replied, keeping his voice lowered.

“And has that been called?”

He nodded. “For to-morrow morning, I understand. There is some technicality which is causing unexpected delay.” They were almost at the bottom of the stairs when he caught sight of Betty Carter standing in front of the fireplace talking to Doctor Roberts. Alan ceased speaking with such abruptness that he drew an inquiring glance from Miriam, of which he was totally unaware. Doctor Roberts gave her no time for thought, however. Coming hastily forward, he reached her side in time to help her on with her coat.

“I am sorry to have kept you waiting,” he said. “But there were certain matters.... Bless my soul, Alan, more reporters!” as the gong over the front door sounded with startling suddenness. “Betty, my dear,” turning to address the silent girl by the fireplace, “you had better disappear if you don’t wish to be interviewed.”

“I’ll see them; don’t worry,” exclaimed Alan, as he swung open the front door. But instead of the anticipated reporters, he was confronted by a small familiar figure bundled up in expensive furs. “Mrs. Nash!”

“Just so!” Mrs. Nash lowered the high collar of her coat as she came further into the living room, and collapsed in the nearest chair. “Let me get my breath. Dear me, I’m half frozen!” and she chafed one cold hand over the other. “Come here, Betty, and help me off with these things.”

“Why, Aunt Dora!” Betty hastened to her side. “How imprudent of you to come all the way out here! You will surely be ill.”

“I haven’t a doubt of it,” declared Mrs. Nash, through chattering teeth. “I got out of a sick bed to come here, and Pierre, the wretch, ran out of gasoline a mile away and I had to walk through the snow or sit in the car and freeze to death. Good gracious, Alan! don’t stand there looking at me; get me something warm to drink. I am having a chill.”

“A hot water bag, also,” added Doctor Roberts, hastening to her assistance as Mrs. Nash struggled out of her coat.

“I can find whisky more easily than the latter,” answered Alan, and sped for the dining room. Miriam Ward was close behind him and helped him pour out a generous allowance from the carefully concealed decanter.

“I saw a hot water bag hanging in your cousin’s bathroom,” she said. “I will get it and have it filled if you will give this stimulant to Mrs. Nash.” She paused by the door. “Is Mrs. Nash’s husband a clergyman?”

“Yes. Why?” glancing keenly at her flushed cheeks.

“Nothing—that is,” avoiding his gaze. “Don’t keep Mrs. Nash waiting,” as she hurried away with a fast beating heart. She had recalled the name of Betty’s companion on her midnight visit to Paul Abbott—Doctor Nash.

Mrs. Nash accepted the proffered whisky with relief. “I need a bracer,” she admitted. “Indeed, Betty, the shocking news of poor Paul’s untimely death bowled me over; and then to be told that you had raced out here in a hired taxi, without either your uncle or me,—it—it—took my breath away.” A shiver which she could not check shook her from head to foot and Doctor Roberts helped her to a couch, while Betty brought a heavy laprobe and threw it over her aunt. As she turned away Mrs. Nash caught Doctor Roberts’ coat sleeve and motioned to him to bend down.

“Is it really true,” she questioned him in a whisper, “that Paul has been murdered?”

“Yes. Hush, no details now,” as Miriam approached the couch. He addressed her in his customary tone of voice. “Ah, a hot water bag; just the thing. You are fortunate, Mrs. Nash, in having a trained nurse right here at your elbow.”

“Thank you!” Mrs. Nash’s piercing black eyes took in Miriam’s appearance in a pronounced stare. She permitted Miriam to make herself more comfortable, before addressing her again. “Have you been nursing Mr. Abbott?”

“Yes.” Miriam stepped back from the couch and turned to Doctor Roberts. “I think I had better telephone for a taxi.”

“And my aunt can return to Washington with you,” broke in Betty Carter as she joined the small group. “It will be an excellent arrangement.”

“I make my own plans, thank you,” retorted Mrs. Nash, whose high color betokened a touch of temper. “Do you suppose that with this attack of flu I can venture out of doors again?”

“You don’t mean to say you propose to spend the night here?” asked Alan, returning in time to hear her last remark.

“Certainly. My husband and I have been frequent visitors, and I know there are plenty of bedrooms.”

“But, my dear Aunt, suppose you get sick?” Betty gazed at her in utter disapproval.

“I am sick already,” declared Mrs. Nash. “Chills and fever—where’s your thermometer, Doctor?”

Roberts looked grave as he prepared the small instrument for her.

“Your niece is right,” he said. “This country place is isolated from Washington in winter, and with illness—” he paused to put the thermometer in Mrs. Nash’s mouth; then he addressed Betty. “I think you also had better change your plan, and return to Washington.”

“I am the best judge of what I should do,” she huffed and turned away. Roberts eyed her in speculative silence as he took out his fountain pen and wrote a prescription.

Alan, who had been watching Betty also, turned to Miriam. “Where can the coroner reach you?” he asked. “You have not given me your address? Or let me have your bill?” he added, lowering his voice to a confidential pitch.

Miriam colored warmly; the commercial side of her profession always embarrassed her. “I was engaged for an eighteen-hour duty,” she stammered. “I suppose the charge is seven dollars.”

Alan drew out his wallet and pressed some bills into her hand. “And your address?” he asked eagerly.

“You can always reach me through Central Registry,” and with a nod of gratitude she passed him to go to the telephone.

From her couch, Mrs. Nash watched her opportunity. With a gesture of surprising quickness she removed the thermometer from her mouth and tucked it unseen against the hot water bottle. When Doctor Roberts closed his notebook and turned back to her, the thermometer was once again held firmly between her lips. He took it out, looked at it twice, and then at Mrs. Nash’s scarlet countenance.

“Miss Ward,” he called, and his voice was grave. “Don’t order a taxi—I think that you had better remain and prepare a bedroom for Mrs. Nash,” and then, in an undertone, as Miriam gained his side, “it will never do to take Mrs. Nash out in this weather—her temperature reads 103°.”

CHAPTER V
SHERIFF TRENHOLM ASKS QUESTIONS

A distinct and unmistakable snore from the bed caused Miriam to approach her patient. Mrs. Nash, her head unevenly balanced between two pillows, was at last asleep. To place her in a more comfortable position would undoubtedly awaken her, and Miriam backed away on tiptoe from the bedside. She had spent three weary hours at Mrs. Nash’s beck and call; she had run every conceivable errand the sick woman’s fancy had dictated, had prepared her for bed, and finally induced her, on threat of departure, to swallow the medicine prescribed by Doctor Roberts.

Martha’s scanty wardrobe could not provide clothing for Mrs. Nash, and the housekeeper had been dispatched to Upper Marlboro, the county seat, in the Nash limousine which had finally put in an appearance, to purchase such necessities as the country stores could supply. Betty Carter had taken little part in the discussion, contenting herself with the request that Martha buy a wrapper, bedroom slippers, and a night dress and bring them at once to her room, whereupon she had gone upstairs and locked her door. Martha had carried her dinner to her upon her return from the shopping expedition.

Miriam had been too intent upon her professional duties to pay much attention to the other members of the small party, but she had gathered from Martha’s remarks that Alan Mason and Doctor Roberts had left for Upper Marlboro in the latter’s car shortly after dinner. Martha, with a sidelong glance which Miriam was beginning to associate with the housekeeper’s personality, had overheard Alan tell her husband that he would return in time to “sit up with Mr. Paul.”

“Ain’t it awful, Ma’am—Miss, to think of that poor gentleman lying in t’other room dead,” she went on, with a shiver. “And him so sot on getting well. Poor Mr. Paul!” And she wiped away a few tears with the hem of her clean apron. “He won’t rest easy in his grave.”

The housekeeper’s words recurred to Miriam as her gaze, which had been wandering about the room, rested on a small, black-bordered sketch of what appeared to be a group of neglected graves. The picture was well executed, but Miriam wondered at its selection for a decoration in a bedroom. From the drawing Miriam’s eyes wandered to several paintings on the wall, and, from the likeness of one of the portraits to Paul Abbott, she judged it to be that of his father. Evidently the room given to Mrs. Nash had once been occupied by the elder Abbott, whether as bedroom or sitting room was hard to say, for the remainder of the pictures on the wall were hunting scenes and, except for the bedstead, the rest of the furniture was such as is found in a man’s “den.”

Miriam selected the most comfortable of the easy-chairs and, taking care to make no noise, pushed it around so that from its depths she could have an unobstructed view of her patient. Her fatigued muscles relaxed as she sank back in the chair, but her brain—ah, it was on fire! For a moment she looked with envy at the slumbering woman. If she could only sleep as soundly with no visions of the past to disturb her! The present was bad enough in all conscience—who could have murdered Paul Abbott and what possible motive could have inspired the crime?

The cautious turning of the door knob and the slow opening of the door caused her to bend forward in her chair. Sheriff Trenholm leaned inside the door and, catching sight of Miriam, raised a beckoning finger, and then placed it against his lips, enjoining silence.