T HEODORE WING had no known enemy in the world. He was a man of forty; “well-to-do,” as they say in New England; a lawyer by profession, and already “mentioned” for a county judgeship. He was unmarried, but there were those who had hopes, and there was scarce a spinster in Millbank who hadn’t a kindly word and smile for him—at times. He was not a church member, but it was whispered that his clergyman was disposed to look leniently on this shortcoming, for Wing was a regular attendant at service

I N addition to the ill-fated lawyer, there were but three people in the Parlin household—the widow; a general house girl, Mary Mullin; and the hired man, Jonathan Oldbeg, a nephew of the Mullin woman. Oldbeg was about thirty, and his aunt forty. The widow’s room was in the northwest corner of the second floor, while that of the Mullin woman was over the kitchen. The hired man slept over the woodshed. All the windows of the three rooms gave to the north, excepting two in Mrs. Parlin’s room, whic

A N hour after the close of the day’s session, Mrs. Parlin was in her sitting room, with the door closed and the shades lowered. On the opposite side of the small light-stand sat a rather undersized man, plainly dressed, and of somewhat insignificant aspect. Distinctly, the woman in her was disappointed. “I have sent for you, Mr. Trafford,” she said, slowly and apparently reluctantly, “because both my husband and Theodore—Mr. Wing—had the utmost confidence in your ability. I want you to find Mr.

T RAFFORD sat in his room in the hotel at Bangor the next evening and studied the copy of Judge Parlin’s statement. “Her brilliancy of mind has carried her far,” he said; “has aided her husband politically; and it was this influence that defeated him for the chief justiceship. It’s so easy that I can’t believe the solution. By George! I wonder if the old judge ever wrote that paper? I wish I’d examined the original more critically. If I’d been one of your inspired detectives, such as you find in

T HE inquest reconvened with an increase rather than a decrease of interest on the part of the public. This was due in part to the renewed attention aroused by the funeral, which had been one of the most imposing ever had in Millbank; and in part to the rewards for the detection of the murderer offered by Mrs. Parlin and the selectmen of the town. In addition, the County Court had instructed the county attorney to be present at further sittings, to assist the coroner, and the town had employed i

T HE wife of former Governor Matthewson was prominent—that is, respectably prominent—in church matters, as in all good works, and the booth over which she presided at the May Church Festival was one of the most attractive and profitable, albeit there was many another that had proved a centre for the younger men and larger boys. Mrs. Matthewson sat in the curtained space behind the main booth, for she was really tired. She was a tall woman, of commanding presence, who had just touched her sixtiet

M ILLBANK cherished its tragedy as something that gave it pre-eminence among its neighbours, and half the male population turned detectives on the spot. To many members of the community, however, the affair bore a most serious aspect, heightened by the conviction that no actual progress had been made towards the solution of the mystery. Such men as McManus, the county attorney, and the town counsel, looked upon the testimony which tended to implicate Oldbeg as a concession to the public demand t

T RAFFORD sent a hasty note to McManus, postponing the afternoon appointment, and made ready to visit the logging drives at work along the Kennebec. It was certain that no physician in Millbank had set a broken shoulder or arm within the twenty-four hours; no man of the character sought had left by any of the trains or stages, and the river afforded the only unguarded means of escape. A canoe or river-driver’s boat could easily come and go unnoticed, and it tallied with other points in hand that

T HREE men sat in conference in the small library at Henry Matthewson’s residence at Waterville, the morning after the bridge incident. These were Henry Matthewson himself, three years younger than his brother Charles, opposite whom was the man who had come from Millbank by the midnight train, Frank Hunter, brother of Charles Hunter and himself an attorney in the late Mr. Wing’s office. “The papers are not in the office,” Hunter was saying. “I was nearly certain he did not keep them there, but I

“ M R. McMANUS,” said Trafford, after they had completed the re-examination of Wing’s private papers at the office and in his safe at home, “was Mr. Wing of a peculiarly secretive disposition?” “If he had a fault,” McManus answered, “and since he was human, he must have had, it was his excessive frankness and openness.” “And yet we find him lugging papers on some affair, which he shared with no one, back and forth from office to house, and when not so doing, keeping them locked in a safe in his

“ I WON’T consent to any further chasing of this woman.” It was Charles Matthewson who spoke, standing in front of his brother in the library at Waterville, where the original interview regarding Cranston had taken place. It was a long time since Charles had spoken so positively to Henry, and the latter looked up half amused and half irritated, yet with an ugly expression on his face. “You have suddenly become very much concerned for this—woman. I’ll use your polite term,” he said. “I’ve suddenl

T WO days later a message came which necessitated a trip up the Dead River branch, traversing the ground over which Trafford had gone ten days before. Already, however, the camps he had visited were deserted, the drivers having followed the body of logs moving towards the river itself. At the Forks, Trafford was joined by the assistant who had warned him that morning in Millbank. They had a long conference, in which there appeared no small amount of differing opinion. The assistant had tracked f

T HEY had their dinner that day at Nic’khal’s, at the Forks, eating in the shed that later in the season becomes the “summer kitchen.” The meal was primitive in material and cooking, but the sauce was hunger. An elderly priest, weary-looking and sad, was their sole companion, and he watched them through the meal, with a look that Trafford read as expressive of a desire to have talk with him. So, after the eating was over, Trafford put himself in the way of the clergyman, who quickly availed hims

M RS. MATTHEWSON entered the little parlour, where she had met Trafford, for the purpose of keeping another appointment—one that she had not wanted to make and which she had not yet dared refuse. When she visited her son, she knew the name of the man who, under his direction, was hunting down Theodore Wing’s mother, but she did not know the man. Now she was to meet him face to face. She was afraid, and she bore herself with the air of a queen about to grant a favour to her humblest subject. Cran

C HARLES MATTHEWSON read with impatience the name on the card just brought him—Isaac Trafford. It was a breach of the understanding between them, that this man should trouble him further. He was on the point of refusing to see him, when he recalled Trafford’s possession of the papers taken from Theodore Wing’s desk after his murder. This he had not known at the time of their previous interview. It was possible that here was the opening of negotiations for their sale. He ordered him admitted. Sti

“ I GUESS I didn’t make any mistake in staying,” said Trafford, more to break the embarrassing silence which followed Cranston’s withdrawal, than with any definite purpose. Matthewson glanced up with the air of a man who had half lost consciousness of surrounding circumstances in a line of painful thought. “I am under deep obligation to you,” he said slowly; and then, apparently tracking back to his thoughts before Trafford spoke, he added, as it seemed, irrelevantly: “You said he could tell not

T RAFFORD went back to Millbank more seriously alarmed than at any time in his whole professional career. Matthewson would unquestionably inform the others that he had not the papers; and as certainly warn them he was after them, with the determination to secure them. It was well within reason that they would regard it as safer that they remained in the hands of a murderer whom they protected, than that they should fall into those of a detective, who would use them to convict and thus make them

M cMANUS was unmarried and lived at the Millbank Hotel, where he indulged in the extravagance of two rooms, a sitting room and a bedroom. Trafford saw him at supper and arranged for an evening interview. “I’ll come to your room,” he said. “I’ve got nothing but a six by nine closet on the highest floor.” Supper over, he went for a short walk, to pass the time until the hour of appointment. He walked out on the river road where Charles Hunter’s great house stood, and found himself running over ite

M cMANUS had sprung to his feet as the accusation came from Trafford’s lips. His left hand was in the side pocket of his sack coat, and as Trafford also rose, there rang out the report of a pistol, fired without removing it from the pocket. The bullet just missed Trafford, cutting the sleeve of his coat. “Throw up your hands, or I’ll shoot,” came from the window, and there stood Trafford’s assistant, with pistol drawn and aimed at McManus. At the very beginning of the story, he had raised the wi