Chapter II: Part 2

Horseshoe Lake rippled with golden sun. Sid Malloy, the bridge-tender, collected toll and Captain Tucker, grim and dour, with a ghastly black hole in the top of his cap, inspected the inside of every car. He frowned at sight of Dr. Stone, the boy and the dog.

"Doctor," he said bluntly, "this is no place for a blind man; and as for a boy----"

"Go inside, Joe," the doctor said mildly. "Keep out of the way. If trouble starts, duck low and hug the floor. Is your gun handy, Captain?"

"I always have my gun," Captain Tucker growled.

"Presently I may speak to one of the cars that stops to pay toll. Never mind questions. Have your gun out and cover that car."

The captain had had a bad day and was nettled. "Wild west stuff?" he asked.

"You wouldn't want the next bullet to go a little lower than your cap, would you, Captain?"

Joe sucked in a gasping breath. If there was shooting, what chance would a blind man stand? The question had a sobering effect, and the police captain's voice shed some of its bad wire.

"You're waiting for a car, Doctor?"

"Yes."

"What kind of car?"

"I don't know."

"Can you describe whoever'll be in it?"

"No."

Temper flamed suddenly in the harassed man. "Look here, Doctor, if you don't know what car it is, or what whoever's in it looks like, you'd better leave this business for those----"

"Who can see?" Doctor Stone asked mildly. "Sometimes the blindest persons have eyes."

A car stopped at the toll-house and, while Sid Malloy collected the toll, Captain Tucker opened the doors and inspected the inside. A clock in a village church tower struck three, and the midafternoon traffic thickened and converged upon the bridge. Cars rolled upon the bridge approach, and stopped, and rolled on again, and the sound was like the beat of some large machine.

Forgotten by Captain Tucker, for there was much work to be done and the police officer was busy probing into automobiles, Dr. Stone and Lady stood just outside the toll-house door. The smoke of a seasoned pipe drifted blue and fragrant with the breeze. Joe, trembling inside the toll-house, could see his uncle's face. It was stamped with the calm, bland, inscrutable patience of the blind.

Automobiles shuttled past, and there was a delay as each car was scrutinized. A line formed, and horns began to honk impatiently. Joe, twisting his head to see how far back the line extended, was frozen by the cold crack of his uncle's voice.

"I'm ready for you, Tucker."

The boy wrenched himself around. The movement had changed his position; the sun, slanting in through the doorway, was in his eyes. The blurred outline of a car was in front of the house, and he was conscious of his uncle moving toward the car. Fire burned in his throat, and the world hung in a stark silence. And out of that silence came his uncle's voice.

"Rog," Dr. Stone drawled, "I'm afraid you're going to miss your breakfast in Baltimore tomorrow."

There was an oath and a movement in the car. Joe, frozen, forgot to crouch and hug the floor. When would the shooting start? And then another form was beside his uncle, and the sun glinted menacingly on cold, blue steel.

"Keep your hands up where I can see them," Captain Tucker ordered.

Joe, sick with relief, felt his knees begin to buckle and bend.

Two hours later he sat in a room in the red-bricked Town Hall with his uncle and Captain Tucker. The captain, putting down a telephone, leaned far back in his chair and gave a sigh.

"That was New York calling," he announced. "They've picked up John. He worked for the New York bank that shipped the money. The bank here has counted the shipment and it's all there down to the last nickel." His eyes went slowly from the boy to the dog and to the blind man. "Doctor, I don't know how you did it. We were all looking for that shabby car----"

"That car had me fooled for a while," Dr. Stone admitted. "Joe had me convinced it was motored for a quick getaway. This morning the car stopped at our place and the driver asked for directions. He wanted a bad hill, and I sent him to Kill Horse. When Joe came along with news of the hold-up, I started here to tell you where that car could be found; but when I learned that the hold-up took place at twenty minutes of twelve the shabby car was washed right out of the picture."

"Why?" Captain Tucker demanded.

"Because within a minute or two of 11:40 the driver of that car was asking me for directions. He couldn't have been in two places at once."

"Why were you sure it was the shabby car?"

"A blind man's ears, Captain--the sound of the motor and the driver's husky voice. And all at once I knew why he had surrounded himself with so much mystery--afraid to have Jerry Moore look under the hood, hiding down behind the cottonwoods when he did lift the hood, anxious to find a steep hill little used by other cars. The man was, without question, experimenting with a carburetor of his own design, and afraid somebody would get a slant at it before he was ready to have it patented."

Captain Tucker pursed his lips and rocked in his chair. "I follow you that far, Doctor, but how did you pick up Rog?"

"I didn't," Dr. Stone said mildly; "he dropped into my lap. Let's begin at the beginning. I met Rog and his companion at Jerry's garage, and Jerry had seen that storage-box under the car. It struck me as strange that a fisherman should try to keep fish fresh by placing them under a car and next to a red-hot exhaust pipe. Later, while Joe and I were on the lake----"

"That was last night?" the captain interrupted.

"Yes. A boat passed us; I recognized the voices of Rog and his friend. I learned that they knew there were few fish in the lake. Now, why had these men come prepared to pack fish in ice if they knew there were no fish? I found they planned to leave today--roll into line about three o'clock, they said--and that they wanted to avoid somebody named John. Coming ashore, Ike Boles told us of a telegram that had come from John. Now, if this was their John, why should they tell him the fishing was good if they knew it wasn't? On the other hand, the telegram was directed to a Carl Metz, and nobody knew a Carl Metz. Who was Carl Metz? The driver of the shabby car spoke with a German accent. Was he Carl Metz? If so, why was he never seen fishing? The thing was rather complicated."

"I don't see yet how you figured it out," Captain Tucker complained.

"I didn't," Dr. Stone chuckled. "It burst upon me. After the elimination of the shabby car, Rog lingered in my mind. I stopped at Jerry's garage; talking to Jerry might bring forth some overlooked fact that might prove illuminating. But Jerry was not there, and his mechanic dropped a bomb-shell--there was eight thousand dollars in silver in the stolen money. I began to wonder if there might be two Johns: the John who sent a telegram from New York, and the John whom Rog mentioned, an entirely different John----"

"You mean----" Captain Tucker broke in suddenly.

"Yes; John Law. The crook's name for the police. Why should they run from the police? Was it this hold-up? Eight thousand dollars in silver is something you cannot hide in your vest pocket or under your hat. They wouldn't ride with it thrown into a car; a police drag-net would probably be searching cars. That silver would have to be carried where it would defy search. Where better than a storage-box hidden away under a car, particularly if we remember two things: First, these men had said it was an ice-box for fish. Second, they knew they weren't going to get any fish. It held together except for one weak link."

"What was that?"

"Had they received word from New York that this money was coming? That stuffed figure lying in the cobbled road meant just one thing--the highwaymen not only knew that money was coming but they knew it was coming on No. 5. In order to know that they must have received a message. That telegram came into the puzzle again. I called Ike Boles. He had not found Carl Metz; he had watched the train that should have brought John and no stranger had got off. John had said he would leave New York on the 8:11. The 8:11 was No. 5."

Captain Tucker scratched a puzzled head. "But if nobody got that message----"

"Captain, let's suppose they know whatever message was sent would be filed in New York at a certain time. What better safeguard than to send it to a name unknown here? What's to prevent the one to whom that message is really intended loitering about the station and listening for it to click into the office?"

"You're assuming they know telegraphy?"

"I wasn't assuming, captain; I knew. Last night, when I walked into Jerry's while he was looking over that storage-box, fingers began to tap a window. It was a message. It said: 'Too much attention; let's scram.' I knew those men could read Morse."

Captain Tucker stood up. "Doctor, any time you'd like a job as a detective----" He broke off short. "What made you so sure they wouldn't make their getaway up-country?"

"I heard Rog say they'd roll into line. There's only one spot in this village where a car has to roll into line. That's at the toll-bridge."

Out in the village street Dr. Stone filled his pipe and puffed contentedly. Rog's car stood in the police driveway beside the Town Hall; and the steel storage-box, wrenched loose by crowbar and hammer, lay upon the ground.

"You took a chance, Uncle David," Joe said hoarsely. "If that car had slipped past----"

"Rog threatened us on the lake path last night," the blind doctor said mildly. "If I had released the harness-grip Lady would have torn him down. I knew only two persons in town who had met the car, or Rog: Jerry, and he was up-country. You; but it was dark last night and you wouldn't have recognized the car. That put it up to Lady."

Joe blinked.

"If you owned a dog," Dr. Stone went on, "it would be your dog. I'm blind. Lady knows it. Lady believes she owns me, and she never forgets. To her Rog will always mean danger--to me."

"Oh!" Light broke upon the boy. "Then Lady----"

"Yes," said Dr. Stone. "I knew when Rog's car stopped at the toll-house. Lady growled."

THE UNKNOWN FOUR

Dr. David Stone, walking rapidly beside Lady, seemed unaware of the penetrating chill of the pale, thin dawn. His broad shoulders swung with his stride, his coat was open, and no hat covered the white hair of his magnificently-formed head. But Joe Morrow, his nephew, huddled down into a turtle-neck sweater and shivered.

"Joe," said Dr. Stone, "I shouldn't have let you come along on this. You've never seen a dead man before."

Chill shook the boy's teeth. "A dead man can't hurt anybody."

"True; but this may be nasty business. Captain Tucker says old Anthony was murdered."

The boy sucked in his breath and was momentarily sorry the telephone that had called his uncle had awakened him. Crows, cawing faintly, loomed against the early light of the cold sky. The grass was wet, and saturated the bottoms of his trousers.

"They--they don't know who did it?"

"That's the trouble, Joe. So many persons might have wanted to." Since turning into Meadow Road the doctor had been counting paces, and now his voice changed abruptly. "We should be near there."

"It's right ahead, Uncle David."

Dr. Stone said, "Lady, left," and the great, tawny dog turned obediently. They went up a weed-bordered path to a house that had once been noble, but which now lay in peeled-paint neglect.

Captain Tucker let them in. Four men sat in a room off the hall, and they watched the doorway in silence as Dr. Stone and the dog appeared. Joe, crowding at his uncle's heels, was conscious of a studied ease and a cautious wariness in all of them. He identified them as Police Captain Tucker made them known to the blind man--Ted Lawton, marked by a certain furtiveness; Ran Freeman, cool and self-contained; Fred Waring, silently grim, and Otis King, dapper and assured. Lady, restless on her leash, suddenly gave an eerie, dismal whine.

Waring flared. "Stop that confounded dog."

"She knows," Dr. Stone said quietly, "that there has been death here--by violence."

Ice ran in Joe's veins. Otis King lit a cigarette and calmly meditated the glowing end. The doctor said, "Lady, chair," and the dog led him to a seat. Freeman, sitting on a stool in front of a piano, dropped one arm and the elbow awoke a crashing, jangling chord.

Lawton jumped. "Did you have to do that?"

"Better take something for your nerves," Freeman said mildly, and ran one hand soundlessly over the keys of the piano.

Captain Tucker's voice bit into the silence. "One of you four has every right to be nervous." He turned to Dr. Stone. "I sent for you, Doctor, because I am baffled. All four of these men came here late yesterday. Cagge says----"

"Who's Cagge?" the doctor broke in.

"Old Anthony Fitch's servant. He says all four quarreled violently with Anthony last night, and that the old man cackled at them, and goaded them, and invited them to remain so that today the comedy could be resumed. About eleven o'clock he went off to bed, holding to Cagge's arm, after telling the servant to show the visitors to rooms."

"And then?" the doctor asked.

"Cagge says he awoke about three o'clock this morning and heard groans. He went to Anthony's room, and there he found the old man crumpled on his bed. He had been struck on the temple by a heavy brass candlestick that lay on the floor. Cagge says he tried to speak, and muttered one word several times before he died."

"That word was?"

"Four. Over and over again. 'Four, four, four.' What do you make of it?"

Slowly Doctor Stone filled a pipe, struck a match, and puffed in unhurried contemplation. "It may be, Tucker, he meant that all four were concerned in his murder."

Otis King laughed. "Doctor," he said easily, "that shot misses the target. There isn't one of us trusts any of the other three. You couldn't get us into a combine."

"You must know each other," the doctor observed.

Fred Waring jumped angrily to his feet. "Look here, Doctor----"

Lady growled deep in her throat, and Waring slumped into a chair and watched the dog.

"Then," Dr. Stone said slowly, "if all of you are not concerned, one man's hand is stained with blood."

Freeman still continued to run his hand soundlessly across the keys. Lawton gave the doctor a quick, sidelong glance, and stared down at the floor.

"Which one?" King asked coolly; and now, for the first time Joe noticed that he alone, of the four in the room, was fully dressed.

Dr. Stone's hand touched the dog's head. "I may tell you--later. First, I should like to know how all of you happened to arrive here yesterday. Did the old man invite you?"

"No," Otis King drawled; "but I rather fancy he expected us. Did you know he was writing a book? It was to be one of those brutally frank things--fire the gun and let the shots hit whom they may. Anthony dropped each of us a letter. We were to be in the book. So, knowing Anthony, we all raced for the Grand Central and met on the same train."

"And killed him," Dr. Stone said.

"Some one did," King admitted blandly. "And I'm not denying that any of the four of us had reason to do the job."

Fred Waring spoke bitterly. "You always did talk too much, Otis." He lapsed into silence, and presently spoke to the doctor. "If you knew Anthony Fitch--"

"Perhaps I do," the doctor said mildly. "For several years he was mixed up in shady transactions, but managed to stay just inside the law. Slippery, and clever, and unscrupulous."

"That was Anthony on the outside," Waring said passionately. "Inside he was vindictive, and cold, and merciless. Those claw-like hands of his were the talons of a hawk. He took a pleasure in refined torture. Years ago we were all tied up with him, and--"

"You don't have to go into that," Ted Lawton cried warningly.

"I'm not going to. Anyway, we broke away, and one of his schemes failed. He told us then that some day he'd pay the score. Lately he set out to write a book. It was to be called 'Confessions of a Rascal.'"

"I see." The doctor's face was expressionless. "Naturally, you gentlemen objected to being included in the book."

Waring ripped out an oath. "He had gone back fifteen years to rake open old sores. God, man, do you know what that meant? We thought we had lived down those old mistakes. We had established ourselves. I am cashier at a manufacturing plant. King is manager of a branch brokerage house. Lawton is in business for himself. Ran Freeman is engaged to marry Lilly Panner----"

Dr. Stone sat up straight. "The Calico Heiress?"

Freeman's fingers still played imaginary music. "Exactly, Doctor," he said quietly. "The newspapers have made the family fairly well known. Fine old traditions--that sort of thing. Let this book of Anthony's appear and my marriage to Miss Panner would be overboard."

"And with it the Panner fortune," the doctor observed dryly.

"That, too," Ran Freeman admitted without emotion.

The pipe had gone out. The blind man ran the bowl absently along one sleeve. Dishes clattered in the kitchen.

"It seems," the doctor said, "you've given yourself sufficient motive for murder, Freeman."

"We all have sufficient motive," Freeman said frankly. "How long could Waring remain a cashier if his past were dug out? How long would King be manager of a brokerage house? How long would Lawton have enough credit left to stay on in his business?"

The room fell into silence, and Joe felt sweat on the palms of his hands. These men discussed murder as other men might have talked of the loss of a button from a coat. Dr. Stone put the pipe away and turned his sightless eyes toward the spot from which Waring's voice had sounded.

"You say Anthony wrote you?"

"All of us. A devilish letter telling what was going into the book concerning us. Do you get that? Paying off, after all these years, the old score; ramming in the knife and turning it around. Giving us the prospect of months of anticipation and worry waiting for the book to appear. So we came up here----"

"And threatened him?" the doctor asked.

"Yes," Waring answered after a momentary hesitation. "He laughed at us. He said the only way to stop that book was to kill him, and invited us to do it. He said there was a blind man in the village with the very devil of a dog and that the man who killed him would be tracked down." Waring's voice rose. "But, for once, Anthony was wrong. He forgot----" The passionate flow of words stopped with startling suddenness.

"What did he forget?" Dr. Stone asked.

Waring said nothing.

"Did he forget that there was such a thing as the manuscript being stolen?"

Captain Tucker spoke. "What good would that do? The old man could write it again."

"Could he?" Dr. Stone mused. "I'm not so sure. A man who has to lean on a servant's arm is a sick man--perhaps a dying man. By the way, Tucker, did you look for the manuscript?"

"Yes. He kept it in his bedroom."

"And?"

"It's gone."

"Waring," Dr. Stone said slowly, "you checked yourself too late. So Anthony forgot--and the manuscript _is_ stolen. That unfinished sentence could convict you."

"Of what?" Waring snapped.

"Of murder. The man who stole that manuscript killed Anthony Fitch."

Lady whimpered uneasily, and, in the hard silence, the sound was like the wail of a ghost. Joe's temples throbbed, and he was conscious of Lawton watching his uncle in a sort of bleak dread. Slowly he came to the realization that the blind man, sitting there in a handicap of darkness was the dominating figure in the room.

Softly, almost soundlessly, a man wearing an apron appeared from the kitchen. This, the boy guessed, was Cagge.

"I've made coffee," the servant announced in a nasal monotone. "Anybody want some?"

Freeman's hand came away from the piano. "What's the matter with the bacon and eggs?"

Lawton gave a grunt of distaste. "Ugh! Who could eat food now?"

"Is Anthony's death supposed to fill any of us with sorrow?" Freeman asked blandly.

"Fry mine on both sides," said Otis King. He stretched his legs and smoothed his trousers. "Cagge, you were with Anthony how long?"

"Three years."

"Any trouble collecting your wages?"

Joe saw the servant's face flame. "Trouble? Why, the tight-fisted, old skin-flint----. Do you know how much he's paid me this last year? A couple of dollars here and there when I could wring it out of him. And now he's dead, and where am I going to collect the four hundred dollars he owes me?"

"Did you say four hundred dollars, Cagge?" King asked softly.

"I said four hundred dollars and I mean four hundred dollars." Like a shadow, almost without sound, the man was gone. The clatter of a pan came from the kitchen.

Otis King tapped a cigarette against a silver case. Joe's hands had gone dry. Somewhere in the house a clock struck seven.

"Four!" King said thoughtfully. "What would you call that, Doctor, coincidence or--something else? Many a man has killed for less than four hundred dollars."

Dr. Stone stood up. Holding to the harness-handle of the dog's leash he spoke to the four men who watched him intently. "Would a murderer first tell that his victim kept muttering 'Four, four,' and then add that the slain man owed him four hundred dollars? Lady, upstairs." The shepherd dog guided him across the room skillfully preventing him from bumping into chairs and furniture. With his feet on the first tread he spoke again. "It wasn't Cagge, gentlemen."

"Do you always leap at conclusions?" Otis King asked insolently.

"I usually keep off paths other men mark for me," the doctor said quietly.

Joe followed his uncle up the staircase. He kept close to the dog, afraid, in this house of terror, of he knew not what. In the upper hall Captain Tucker halted and clutched his arm.

"Doctor," he said rapidly, "there was something I did not want to tell you downstairs in front of them. I found something in the room."

"Finger prints?"

"No; the candle-stick had been wiped clean. A plain, silk handkerchief. It had evidently been used to cover the lower part of the murderer's face. I found it in the center of the floor."

Joe saw the familiar tense lines form around his uncle's mouth, and a soundless whistle came from the blind man's lips. "So! I hadn't expected that. King was right. They had reason not to trust one another."

"What's that, Doctor?"

"Nothing, Captain; nothing. Lead me in."

A huddled figure was twisted grotesquely upon the bed. Joe, with a sudden spot of ice in the pit of his stomach, backed out into the hall. Presently there were leisurely footsteps on the stairs, and from inside the room his uncle's voice said, "Lady, trail." The footsteps came on. But the boy's ears were held by the softer pad-pad-pad of the shepherd dog's feet.

Lady came out into the hall, ears back and nose close to the floor. Sniffing, she veered this way and that, but went steadily along the passage. And then, suddenly, Joe's heart gave a choked throb, for the tawny shepherd had swung in and came to a stop before a closed door. True to her training, she stopped with her head below the lock; and Dr. Stone, reaching out a groping hand, touched the knob.

"Who's room is this?" he asked.

"Mine," came Otis King's voice from down the hall.

The tense lines were back around the doctor's mouth. "The trail clouds again, Tucker," he said; but Captain Tucker, triumphant, held out the silk handkerchief.

"Ever see this before, King?"

"No."

"It was found near Anthony's body. The dog, taking a scent from it, followed a trail to your door. How you explain that?"

"Seeing that this is the first time I've been upstairs, I can't explain it. Cagge brought my bag to this room, but I did not follow. When Anthony went tottering off to bed I went outdoors and tramped the roads for hours."

"What for?" Captain Tucker barked.

"I was trying," King said, "to hatch a plan by which I might get my hands on that manuscript."

"And then you came back, and came up here----"

"I came back, but did not come upstairs. I went out again at once."

"Still plotting, I suppose?" Captain Tucker said in sarcasm.

"No," King said coolly; "the second time I acted. I destroyed Anthony's book."

Joe found it hard to swallow. Uncle David said the man who stole the manuscript was the man who had killed! Dr. Stone's face was expressionless:

"I thought so."

"Look here," King burst out angrily. "I told you I went out. When I came back the house was dark. As I opened the front door I heard someone run up the stairs. I snapped on the light, and a bundle of typed papers lay on the floor. I had to read only half a page to know it was Anthony's manuscript. Would I be apt to tell voluntarily that I destroyed the book if the fact would link me to the murder?"

Captain Tucker seemed a bit taken back. Lawton's voice came from downstairs:

"Breakfast, Otis."

"You might have built this up," Captain Tucker said suspiciously.

"I might," King agreed. He was once more dapper and assured.

But when he came down stairs to the table, Joe saw that he had hardened into cold watchfulness. Freeman said, "Sorry you won't eat with us, Doctor." Lady, walking restlessly around the table, stopped at Freeman's place and the man offered her a strip of bacon.

"Quite a dog, Doctor."

"Quite," Dr. Stone agreed; and Joe, reading something in the word, gave his uncle a sharp, expectant glance.

Cagge came in from the kitchen with more coffee. His hand shook as he refilled the cups, and the spout of the pot chattered against the china.

"Cagge," Dr. Stone said suddenly, "how did you sleep last night?"

"I didn't--much," Cagge answered in his nasal monotone. "I didn't like the look of things."

"Did you hear anybody go out?"

"Yes." The servant put down the pot. "It was blasted queer. I heard somebody go out twice, and I heard somebody come back three times."

"That doesn't make sense," Captain Tucker said irritably.

"Everything makes sense when you understand it," the blind man observed. Joe, catching a movement of the hand that held Lady's leash, followed his uncle into the living-room.

"Joe, was the window of King's room open?"

"Yes, sir."

The meal was over, and the four men came back through the doorway. Dr. Stone found his chair. Ran Freeman dropped down upon the piano stool, but Lawton seemed to seek a seat far from the blind man and the dog. Waring paced the room, and Otis King was still cold and watchful.

Freeman's fingers, once more running soundlessly over the keys, struck a faint note. As though the sound had broken a barrier, he banged a chord. The next instant, swinging about on the stool, he faced the instrument and began to play, freely and without restraint.

Joe found it hard to swallow. Music, in this house of death, sounded ghastly, almost sacrilegious. He looked at his uncle. The calmness was gone from Dr. Stone's face. Around the sightless eyes, around the serene mouth, strange, intense lines he knew well had suddenly formed.

Captain Tucker had gone out into the kitchen to talk to Cagge. Freeman ended with a crash of sound. Seconds passed, and nobody spoke. The silence seemed no more ghastly than the music.

"Ran," Otis King drawled, dangerously quiet, "your veins must be filled with ice."

"Why be hypocrites?" Freeman demanded. "We're not mourning Anthony, are we?"

"We can be decent about it," King told him.

Dr. Stone's voice was again a calm stream. "There was one part, Freeman--Tum, te-tum-tum, tum-tum-te-tum. Toward the end. The execution was fast. Tum, te-tum----"

"Oh, this." Freeman faced the key-board again and began to play. "This what you mean?"

"Play it," said the blind man.

Ran Freeman played. He was an artist, and he knew it. But Joe no longer gave ear to the music. Something quiet--something too quiet--had been in his uncle's voice. Something that suggested a cocked trigger about to be fired. He shivered, and gripped the ends of his sweater, and held them tight.

For the second time the music ended in a crash of chords. Freeman, swung about on the stool.

"Like it, Doctor?"

"Beautifully done," the blind man said. He lay back against the cushions of the chair, loose and relaxed. "In fact, it would have been perfect if----"

Freeman chuckled. "Are you a music critic, too, Doctor? If what?"

"If," Dr. Stone said quietly, "if many of those rapid notes had been struck by a living touch."

Joe screamed, "Look out, Uncle David." For Freeman, no longer self-contained, had leaped from the stool and one hand had gone toward a pocket.

The blind man did not move. "Lady, get him."

A tawny form hurtled through the air. There was the sound of a falling body, a scream of terror. Captain Tucker came running in from the kitchen.

"What----"

"It's all right, Tucker." Dr. Stone's voice was once more a calm stream. "Lady will merely hold him. He's your man."

Ten minutes later Lawton, King and Waring were gone, glad to be free and away. Ran Freeman, white and sullen, sat handcuffed in one of the big chairs. Captain Tucker, having telephoned for a policeman to relieve him until the Coroner arrived, came back to the living-room.

"I still don't get it, Doctor," he said ruefully. "After Lady trailed to King's room----"

"That was a laid trail," Dr. Stone told him. "Anthony had warned them there was a dog that could track. Would a man deliberately invite detection by leaving a trail right to his door? However, some one of the four had been in the room. Which one? Probably the one with most at stake. Lawton stood to suffer in a small business. Waring and King would have lost their jobs. But Freeman stood to lose the Panner fortune.

"King told us he had not been in the room, or unpacked his bag, or been to bed. So far as the bed and the bag were concerned it had to be the truth, for it was a story too easily disproved if he had lied. By the same reasoning, knowing that there was a dog in the neighborhood that could follow scent, he would not have made a trail to his own room if he had committed murder. Therefore, when the trail led to a room in which there was a rumpled bed and a bag partly unpacked, one fact was obvious. King was not the man.

"He said he had gone out twice. But Cagge said somebody had come in three times. Did you notice the open window in King's room? The ceilings down here are low--a blind man can feel these things. The second floor wouldn't be far from the ground. Whoever killed Anthony knew King was out of the house. Therefore, after the crime, he purposely left the silk handkerchief to give the dog a scent. Then, going to King's room, he mussed the bed, dragged clothing out of the bag, and dropped out the window. No doubt you'll find deep footprints where he dropped. Going into the room and out the window, he probably reasoned, brought the trail to King's room and ended it there.

"He was the third man Cagge heard come in. He must have brought Anthony's manuscript back into the house with him intending to dispose of it later. But King must have come back almost on his heels. Not wanting to be found with the manuscript he dropped it and fled. Perhaps he reasoned that King, finding it, would destroy it, anyway. If I had any doubts at all they were gone when we came downstairs. The four men were eating. Lady, circling the table, stopped at Freeman's chair. She had found the scent again. I don't think Freeman meant to kill. His idea was to steal the book. But Anthony awoke. Am I right?"

Freeman had recovered some of his nerve. "Do you expect any jury to convict on the testimony of a dog?" he demanded.

"Tucker," said Dr. Stone, "will you look at his right hand?"

Joe shrank away from the prisoner's violent struggle to free himself of the handcuffs. Captain Tucker, holding Freeman in the chair, turned a startled face toward the blind man.

"Why, Doctor?----"

"Exactly, Tucker. I had the testimony of Lady, but I needed greater proof. Freeman gave it to me when he played the piano. All through the music something kept recurring. Perhaps, were I not blind, did I not have to depend so much on hearing, I would not have noticed it. A hesitation on certain notes, an almost imperceptible break in the rhythm, a faint click upon the ivory of the keys that could only be made by something foreign, something that was not living flesh. Freeman has an artificial finger."

Freeman had slumped in the chair. Captain Tucker straightened up.

"Doctor," he said curiously, "your brain travels too fast for me.... Much too fast. Just what does that prove?"

"Everything," Dr. Stone said quietly. "Modern surgery does miracles these days. Freeman has an artificial finger that can be taken off. Do you remember Cagge's story? Old Anthony kept muttering 'Four, four.' That's what he had seen. Four! Four fingers on the hand of his murderer."

BLIND MAN'S TOUCH

Dr. Stone, reaching into the closet, found the gray suit that needed pressing. He knew it was gray because his fingers felt the three sharply-ridged lines of thread sewed on the inside of the collar. So, to the blind man, was every suit, shirt, tie and sock in his wardrobe marked for exact identification. One raised ridge of thread for blue, two for brown, and three for gray.

He came down the stairs with the suit. Joe Morrow had put a leash on Lady, and she whined eagerly.

"Ready to go, old girl?" The blind man patted the dog's head and took the leash. "All set, Joe? Got your money?"

"Yes, sir." The boy felt for the two dollars he had earned weeding a neighbor's garden. "I'll have fourteen dollars saved," he boasted.

"Wealth," the doctor chuckled, and snapped open his watch and touched the exposed hands with a finger. "We'll be back in time for dinner."

But that was a dinner they were destined never to eat.

Roses bloomed in the summer heat, fields of corn tasseled in the sun, and a dog ran out of a yard and barked at them furiously. Lady, intent only on the blind man in her keeping, pricked up her ears but did not change her rapid pace. The village was busy with its Saturday morning trade, and the tawny brute carefully maneuvered the doctor through the crowds. Joe clutched his two dollars and his bank-book. They left the gray suit at the tailor's and came out to the street. And at that moment a man, coatless and hatless, ran out of the Pelle Canning Company building and went past them, panting.

Dr. Stone said: "Did you hear that man's breathing, Joe? He's frightened. Who is he?"

"Mr. Pelle," the boy told him.

"Where did he go?"

"Into the bank."

The doctor said: "Lady, right," and followed the dog across the roadway to the bank side of the street. A small door in one of the two-story brick buildings opened suddenly, and a girl hurried out. The door was marked: "OFFICE, MIDSTATE TEL. CO. UPSTAIRS," and the girl was Tessie Rich, one of the telephone operators. In her haste she almost ran into the blind man.

"Oh! I'm sorry, Doctor."

"No harm done, Tessie," Dr. Stone said, and chuckled slyly. "We're on our way to the bank. Any message you'd like me to give Albert Wall?"

The girl colored rosily. "I usually give him my own messages."

The wail of a siren filled the street and a police car went past them, traveling fast. Instantly the girl was across the sidewalk and through the telephone company door. The car stopped at the bank, and Joe saw a figure in blue uniform and brass buttons get out.

"Captain Tucker?" the blind man asked.

"Yes, Uncle David."

"The bank?"

"Yes, sir."

"Tessie gone? I see. And Tucker and Pelle both in a hurry." The doctor whistled an almost soundless whistle. "We'd better get on, Joe."

Something had gone wrong at the bank. The boy saw that at once. A score of depositors clung together in knots on the main floor, uneasy bank clerks stood behind the bronze grille of the teller's windows, and from some inner room came a roaring, bull voice shouting in anger. Bryan Smith, the president of the bank, agitated and flushed, appeared in the doorway of the little room, saw the blind man and cried out:

"Doctor! Doctor Stone! This way, please."

Joe Morrow, still clutching his two dollars and his pass-book, went with his uncle and the dog, and the door closed upon them. Inside the room three men stood about the bank president's desk. The veins in Mr. Pelle's neck were swollen with rage; Albert Wall, the cashier, tapped his fingers against the desk and frowned, and a third man, who looked lost and bewildered, held on to the back of a chair near the window. This third man, whom Joe had never seen before, smelled of antiseptics and carried his right arm in a sling.

"Doctor," Bryan Smith sputtered, "this bank has been robbed of five thousand dollars. Robbed right under our noses. Not fifteen minutes ago."

"By whom?" the doctor asked quietly.

"We don't know. Somebody put a forged check through the window. At least Pelle says he signed only one check and----"

"What do you mean I say I signed only one check?" the canner roared. "I tell you I signed only one. I should know! If you were fools enough to pay----"

"But I telephoned you, Mr. Pelle," Albert Wall broke in. "You said----"

"I know what I said. I told you I had given a check to Fred Hesset for five thousand dollars. If you paid five thousand dollars to another man on a forged check that's your funeral. The real Hesset is here." Mr. Pelle pointed to the man with bandaged arm. "Pay him."

"Not so fast," Bryan Smith fumed. "One check has been paid already. Now we have another and you say you signed only one. Which one?" The bank president held out two slips of paper.

Joe had a glimpse of them. Both were dated that day, both were made out to Fred Hesset, both were for five thousand dollars, both were signed "Paul Pelle." The canner stared at them for a long minute.

"This one," he said, and pushed one of the checks across the desk.

"How do you know?"

"Because this one is number 1046. I gave Hesset check No. 1046."

"How about your signature on this other check?"

"I tell you that isn't my signature."

With a quick movement the banker scrambled the checks and then laid them side by side partly covered by a blotter so that only the signatures showed.

"Now, Pelle," he snapped, "which one did you sign?"

The canner's neck swelled again. "What is this," he roared; "a trap? I can't tell them apart. That's what you're supposed to be able to do. I tell you----"

"Gentlemen." Dr. Stone's voice was mild. "Let's stay with facts. As I understand it Pelle gave a man named Hesset a check for five thousand dollars this morning. What for?"

"Damages," Mr. Pelle snapped. "Hesset owns a butcher shop at Arlington. One of my trucks got out of control and skidded into the front of the shop. Hesset was caught in the wreckage; broken arm and broken collarbone. I don't carry liability insurance. I settled with him and gave him a check at eleven o'clock this morning."

Captain Tucker said: "Where does this second check come in?"

"Tell them, Albert," Bryan Smith ordered.

The cashier's fingers ceased to tap the desk. "At 11:13--I happened to glance at the clock--a man pushed a check through the window. It was a five thousand dollar check, made out to Fred Hesset and signed by Mr. Pelle. The man couldn't identify himself, so I called Mr. Pelle and was told he had given the check a few minutes before. I cashed it. Ten minutes later another Hesset check for five thousand dollars came through the window. It looked queer. I called Mr. Pelle again." Albert Wall made a gesture with his hands. "Then I telephoned for Captain Tucker."

The captain cleared his throat. "That first check was the forged check?"

Again the cashier's hands moved. "So Mr. Pelle says."

The canner's face was livid. But before he could roar his wrath Dr. Stone's voice sounded quietly in the breathless tension of the room.

"May I see those checks?"

"Why--" The idea of sightless eyes trying to examine handwriting staggered Bryan Smith. "Why--why, of course, Doctor," he said weakly.

The checks crinkled faintly in the blind man's hands. Joe, watching his uncle's face, suddenly saw a sign that sent a hot needle through his spine. Tight, puckered lines had gathered around the sightless eyes.

"How many persons knew this check was to be paid today?" Dr. Stone asked.

"No one," Mr. Pelle answered shortly. "Things not connected directly with the buying and selling I keep to myself."

"But if you wrote Hesset surely your stenographer----"

"I didn't write. I telephoned."

"When?"

"Last Monday evening--seven o'clock. I was alone in the office. I told him to be here promptly at eleven this morning."

Albert Wall said: "If you'll excuse me a moment--" and was gone. Joe felt the warning pressure of his uncle's foot upon his toe. The door of the inner room had not been tightly closed. Craning his neck, the boy saw the cashier at a telephone. Presently Albert Wall came back still with that slight frown upon his face.

"This thing was planned ahead," Captain Tucker said slowly.

"Forgery is always planned ahead," Dr. Stone agreed. "Somebody knew that at eleven this morning Pelle was to give Hesset a check. By the way, Pelle, when you telephoned Monday evening did you tell Hesset what the amount of the check would be?"

"Certainly. No man settles a damage claim without knowing what he's going to get. I offered five thousand dollars; he accepted."

"So somebody knew three important facts--that you were going to pay a check at a certain time, the exact amount of the check and to whom it was to be made payable."

"Nobody knew it," the canner insisted.

"Except you and Hesset," the blind man said mildly.

The bandaged man, holding to the back of the chair, seemed to grow even more bewildered. Mr. Pelle's face was thrust across the desk.

"Doctor," he rasped, "are you insinuating----"

Lady gave a low, deep-throated growl. One of the blind man's hands touched the tawny head.

"Pelle," he asked, "how did you come to pick a Saturday morning to settle with Hesset?"

"Any law against it?" Mr. Pelle demanded.

"No." The doctor's voice was bland. "This is a small bank. It has only two really busy hours in the week. There is a rush from eleven to noon on Saturday just before the week-end closing; another rush from eight to nine Monday morning with business men coming in with their Saturday cash. During the week there would be leisure for a cashier to scrutinize a man; perhaps to telephone and ask, among other things, for a description. But on Saturday, after eleven, there is pressure and haste. And in this hour of pressure a check went through."

Mr. Pelle wet his lips nervously. Captain Tucker stood very still.

"Anything else, Doctor?" he asked.

"Why, yes." The blind man took a pipe from his pocket and filled it slowly. "Why did Hesset bring his check here to be cashed? Why didn't he take it back to Arlington and deposit it in his own bank?"

"Well, Hesset?" the police captain barked.

Joe saw the bandaged man grip the back of the chair with his good hand. "I know nothing about two checks, Captain. I saw only one check. I wanted the money in my pocket. Cash is cash. Sometimes a check you think is good----"

Mr. Pelle's roar filled the room. "You dare say that to me, Hesset?" Captain Tucker sprang between the two men, and Joe shrank out of the way. Dr. Stone said: "I had better take the dog out of here. Come, Joe." It was long past noon, and the bank was closed. Albert Wall went with them down the long, deserted floor to open the front door and let them out.

"What do you make of this?" he asked in an undertone.

"Pelle?" the doctor asked mildly.

The cashier hesitated. "Well--yes. Five thousand dollars is a lot of money. I know the condition of Pelle's account; business hasn't been any too good of late and five thousand dollars might hit him hard. If he could pay five thousand dollars with one hand and manipulate a forged check with the other and get five thousand dollars back from the bank--. For that, though, he'd need a confederate, somebody to go to the window with the first check. It doesn't seem probable."

"A possibility though," the blind man said. "A great many possibilities," he added. "Let's not forget Hesset. Either Hesset or Pelle could have worked this with a confederate. Or some person, unknown and unsuspected, might be the criminal. Good day, Albert." He held out his hand.

"Good-bye, Doctor." Their hands met. The heavy door of the bank closed.

The puckered lines had come back to the sightless eyes. Man, boy and dog came down the stone steps of the old-fashioned building. On the sidewalk the doctor spoke.

"Joe, you could see them. How did Pelle strike you?"

"He was wild," the boy answered.

"A man may protest too much or too little," the blind man observed dryly. "Hesset?"

"He was scared."

"So! That leaves Albert Wall. Could you see him when he left the room?"

"Yes, sir."

"Where did he go?"

"To a telephone."

"Good lad!" The doctor knocked the ashes from his pipe and walked beside the dog in silence. "The telephone office," he said suddenly.

Joe wondered what unseen tangent of the case could bring them there. They went up a narrow mountain of a stairway. Lady, leading, slowed and swung her Master to the left, stopping him at the counter.

"Can you tell me," Dr. Stone asked, "what operators were on duty at seven o'clock last Monday night?"

"We have only one girl on duty after 6:45," the manager told him, and consulted a record. "That was Tessie Rich's night. Any complaint, Doctor?"

"Merely a matter of information," the doctor smiled. Back in the sunlight Joe saw that the smile was gone and that the puckers around the sightless eyes had become intent. Dr. Stone said absently: "You must be hungry, Joe," and they went toward a restaurant. But before they reached it there was a rush of feet and a woman's breathless voice.

"Doctor!" It was Tessie Rich. "Why did you want to know if I was on duty last Monday night?"

"I didn't."

"Oh!" The girl was nonplused. "But--but you asked----"

"I asked who was on duty," the doctor said gently. "Did you have any reason to think I was asking about you?"

Subtle, hidden undertones filled the question, and the hot needle was again in Joe's spine. The girl raised a handkerchief to her lips.

"Why--why, of course not, Doctor? Why should I?" There was something of hysterical panic in her voice.

"Why?" the blind man asked, blandly.

In the restaurant Joe Morrow chewed on food that all at once stuck in his throat. Why had his uncle gone to the telephone office? What hidden spring had that visit touched and what had frightened Tessie Rich? Were Mr. Pelle and the girl both involved? Had the canner actually signed two checks? What about Mr. Hesset? Who had gone to the bank with the first check and walked out with five thousand dollars in cash?

"Do you know who did it, Uncle David?"

A pipe came out of a pocket; blue smoke spiraled fragrantly about a face that had become placid and bland.

"Joe, the bank is built on a corner--at an angle to the corner. How far up the street can you see?"

"Quite a distance."

"As far as Pelle's factory?"

"Yes, sir."

"I know who didn't do it," the blind man said, and stood up. "And," he added quietly, "I think I know who did."

Joe hoped it wasn't Tessie Rich. They walked out of the village and up along the dirt road. The doctor said aloud: "If I could pick one more link--" and left the sentence unfinished and said no more. Tree toads made metallic clamor in the afternoon heat, and the earth smelled as though it were baked.

A clock struck three as they entered the house. Dr. Stone paced the porch and Lady stretched off in a patch of sun and watched him steadily. Joe brought up a tool from the cellar and prepared to trim the hedge.

A light delivery truck stopped in the road and a young man carried a suit up to the house.

"You're prompt," Dr. Stone said. The suit was on a hanger; the coat brushed against his knee with a soft crinkle. He ran one hand into a pocket and pulled out a paper. Strange! There had been nothing in the pockets of the suit he had carried away. His hand went up quickly to feel inside the collar. The three sharply ridged lines of thread were not there.

"Joe!" he called. "Stop that tailor's boy----" But the driver had already discovered his mistake. He came up the walk with the suit of gray. Joe laid down the clippers and followed him in.

"I'll carry that up to your room, Uncle Da----What's Lady got?"

The dog had found a paper on the floor. Now she carried it to the doctor. It crinkled in his hand.

It was a small paper, no larger than half a sheet from a note-book. Joe watched those hands move, gently exploring, over every inch of surface. And as the hands moved, Dr. Stone's face changed. Joe had seen that sharp, alert expression before. It was a silent sign that, some place in the eternal darkness of his world, the blind man had found light.

"Joe, there is writing on this paper?"

"Yes, sir." The boy looked closer and drew in a hot, throbbing breath. "Uncle David! The same thing's written all over it. Paul Pelle, Paul Pelle, Paul Pelle."

Dr. Stone said a soft: "Ah!" and folded the paper and put it in his pocket. "The criminal always slips," he observed; "there's always something forgotten." He stood for a moment whistling softly. "Care to stretch your legs? I want a word with the tailor."

Joe's eyes, fascinated, were on the writing. That paper had fallen from the suit delivered by mistake, and now his uncle wanted to know to whom the suit belonged.

"Couldn't you telephone him, Uncle David?"

The blind man's mouth twitched. "The call might pass through Tessie's switchboard," he said dryly.

The boy groped, and stumbled, and sought to find the meaning. The afternoon sun was low; the first cool breath of evening breeze blew over the dirt road. He waited outside while his uncle talked with the tailor; when the man came out he was whistling.

"Police station," he said.

Captain Tucker was at his desk. "Doctor," he burst out, "this thing is baffling. Lay those two checks side by side and you can't tell the signatures apart. I've talked to New York. There isn't a forger known to the police in this part of the country."

Dr. Stone asked: "Did Albert Wall give you a description?"

"Of the man who cashed that first check? A lot of good that does. Five feet eight, about 155 pounds, dark, clean-shaven, blue suit. It fits a million men."

"It would," the doctor said blandly. His face was inscrutable. "You heard Pelle's story and Albert Wall's. Get statements prepared."

"For what?"