LITMIR.BIZ

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not of this type. Therefore you must look further for his motive.”

      “Did he receive any bequest from Mr. Bruce’s will?” asked Hardwick, wonderingly.

      “Certainly not,” asserted Landon. “He didn’t know Mr. Bruce until we came up here, and that would have been no motive for his killing Vernie. Nor can there be any personal motive, Mr. Wise, for that. Shall we not have to ascribe it to some form of degeneracy, whether that seems plausible or not?”

      “No,” decreed Wise, looking sternly from one to another. “No; John Tracy’s motive for those two inhuman murders was the motive that is oftenest the reason for murder—money lust!”

      Eve Carnforth gave a scream and buried her face in her hands.

      Milly Landon turned white and swayed as if about to faint, but her husband caught her in his arms and supported her.

      “What can he mean?” said Norma, turning to Braye, “how could Mr. Tracy have done it for money? Who would give him money?”

      “Hush, Norma,” said Braye, in a low voice, and Norma remembered it was the same tone he had used, when she had before asked questions of him. She had thought over his words on that occasion, and had concluded he meant she must not say anything that seemed to throw suspicion toward Wynne Landon. She looked at the sobbing Milly, and the pained, strained face of Wynne, who was trying to soothe her, and then Norma turned to Eve.

      Eve was using all her will power to preserve her poise, but Norma saw at once that she was having difficulty to do so. In kindness of heart, Norma went over to the suffering girl.

      “Come with me, Eve,” she said, softly, “let us go off by ourselves for a while.”

      “Yes, do,” said Penny Wise, looking kindly at the two girls. “Zizi, perhaps you can be of use.”

      Zizi followed the other two, and they went to Eve’s room. With all the deftness of a nurse, Zizi found some aromatic cologne, and a fresh handkerchief, and in a moment was bathing Eve’s temples, with a gentle, soothing touch.

      “What a funny little piece you are!” said Eve, looking at the small sympathetic face, and speaking in a preoccupied way.

      “Yes,” acquiesced Zizi, while Norma sat by, lost in her own thoughts.

      “Tell me,” said Eve, suddenly roused to energy. “Tell me, Zizi,—you know as much as Mr. Wise does,—tell me, who paid Tracy money?”

      “What!” cried Norma, “Eve, hush! don’t say such things. If anybody did, we don’t want to know it!”

      “We’ll have to know it,” said Eve, simply, “and, Norma,——”

      But Norma interrupted her; “No, Eve, we don’t have to, at least, we don’t have to ask about it, or inquire into it. The detective will do that.”

      “You’ll soon have to know,” said Zizi, quietly; “indeed you know now, don’t you, Miss Carnforth?”

      “I asked you!” cried Eve, hysterical again. “Tell me, tell me at once, girl!”

      But Zizi shook her head, and continued to bathe Eve’s brow. “Try to be calm,” she whispered, “there will be much for you to bear, and you must be brave to bear it.”

      Eve looked at her wonderingly, and seeing deep compassion in the black eyes, she ceased questioning and closed her own eyes.

      After a few moments, she opened her eyes and rose from her couch. “Thank you, Zizi,” she said, “I am all right now. I am going back to join the others. Will you come, Norma?”

      Dazedly, as one in a dream, Norma rose, and the three went down stairs. Apparently little had been said of importance since they left. There was a tense silence, and Pennington Wise said, “I find I must speak out and tell you the truth. I had hoped for a confession but I see no signs of it.

      “I was not, strictly speaking, employed by any one of you. I asked to be allowed to investigate this case because it seemed to me the most remarkable one I had ever heard of. I wrote to Professor Hardwick for information concerning it, and finally I arranged to come up here. I brought Zizi, because she is invaluable to me in collecting evidence. Her quick wit, and her dainty personality can compass effects that I can not. I feel, therefore, that it is to Professor Hardwick that I should make my direct report. But as you are all interested, I will ask any of you who choose to do so, to remain and listen. The others may be excused.”

      “Of course, we’ll all stay!” exclaimed Landon. “We’re all quite as much interested as Professor Hardwick can possibly be. More so, indeed, for the victims of the crime are not relatives of his.”

      “Very well,” returned Wise, “stay, then, all of you. The story is not a long one, though it is a deeply sad one. John Tracy was hired,—basely hired, to commit those two murders. The man who hired him is, of course, the greater criminal, though his hands are unstained with actual blood. The man who hired the assassin, is, naturally, the man who desired the large fortune of Gifford Bruce, and who realized that unless two people were removed from earth he could not inherit. Need I say more?”

      “You need not,” said Rudolph Braye. “I confess. The plan was Tracy’s, the suggestion was his. He tempted me, by telling me that he had read of a plan by which people could be put to death and leave no possible trace. He said that I would eventually inherit the fortune, and that I ought to have it while I was young enough to enjoy it. He said he would do the deed and I need know nothing about it, nor be present at the time. I am not shifting the blame, I am merely telling you the facts.”

      Braye spoke in a monotone, his eyes on the floor, his hands nervously twitching.

      “A hundred times I regretted our plans, a hundred times I begged Tracy to give up the project, but he held me to it, and said if I petered out he would tell the whole story.

      “When the plan for coming up here was started, Tracy made me get him invited saying it was an ideal opportunity. I didn’t think he would really carry out his intentions, and as the ghost seemed really to appear, I watched to discover the means. I did see Stebbins enter through the revolving column and had no difficulty in discovering how it worked. I showed this to Tracy,—he made me do so,—and when I went to New York, he played ghost and appeared to little Vernie.

      “Again and again I plead with him to give up the fearful scheme but he refused to do so. The day I went to East Dryden with Milly I had no idea that he intended to do the deed, but—he did. I had promised him half the fortune, and he had declared that there could be no suspicion of either of us,—he said, if there were any suspicion it would be directed toward Wynne. I make no excuses, I voice no cry for forgiveness or for leniency, but I hereby pay the penalty.”

      Braye swallowed what was evidently a portion of the same poison that had killed Gifford Bruce, and in less than a minute he was a dead man.

      John Tracy was arrested and received his just deserts.

      Wynne Landon inherited the fortune, and though it had painful associations, he and Milly went away from Black Aspens never to return and in time lived down the sad and awful memories.

      “You see, Penny,” Zizi summed up, “a criminal always slips up on some minor count. If the Tracy person hadn’t oiled his door and the door of that haunted room so carefully, or if he’d had the wit to oil some other doors too, we might have overlooked him as a possible suspect, eh?”

      “I don’t think so, Ziz.”

      “Neither do I, Penny Wise.”

      THE MAN WHO FELL THROUGH THE EARTH

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       I. Moving Shadow-Shapes

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