OSMUN VAIL doesn’t come into this story at all. Yet he was responsible for everything that happened in it. He was responsible for the whistling cry in the night, and for the Thing that huddled among the fragrant boxtrees, and for the love of a man and a maid—or rather the loves of several men and a maid—and for the amazing and amusing and jewel-tangled dilemma wherein Thaxton was shoved. He was responsible for much; though he was actively to blame for nothing. Moreover he and his career were int

AMONG the two million Americans shoved bodily into the maelstrom of the World War were Thaxton Vail and the Creede twins. This story opens in the spring of 1919, when all three had returned from overseas service. Aura and the summer-colony were heartily glad to have Thaxton Vail back again. He was the sort of youth who is liked very much by nine acquaintances in ten and disliked by fewer than one in ninety. But there was no such majority opinion as to the return of the two young Creedes. The twi

THAXTON VAIL was eating a solitary breakfast, next morning, when, wholly unannounced, a long and ecstatic youth burst in upon him. The intruder was Willis Chase, who had roomed with Thaxton at Williams and who still was his fairly close and most annoyingly irresponsible friend. “Grand!” yelled Chase, bearing down upon the breakfaster. “Grand and colossal! A taxi-bandit is dumping all my luggage on the veranda, and your poor sour-visaged butler is making awful sounds at him. I didn’t bring my man

YET luncheon was a gay enough meal. All the guests were old friends, and all were more or less congenial. Thaxton’s duties as host were in no way onerous, except when Willis Chase undertook to guy him as to his anomalous position as hotelkeeper—which Chase proceeded to do at intervals varying from two minutes to fifteen. In the afternoon, Miss Gregg was forced to drive across to Stormcrest, to superintend the first touches of the decorators to her remaining rooms. Clive made some excuse for reti

FROM a roadhouse two miles away Thaxton called up Mrs. Horoson, his housekeeper. Without giving her a chance to protest he told her there would be six, besides himself, for dinner that night and that a Mr. and Mrs. Mosely were occupying the violet room. He bade her break the news to Miss Gregg, on the latter’s imminent return from Stormcrest, and to Miss Lane. Then he hung up, precipitately, and rejoined Chase in the road. “Let’s hustle!” he adjured. “She may find where we are from Central and f

TEN minutes later they trailed downstairs from a mournful inspection of the violet room. There could be no doubt as to the truth of what Joshua Q. Mosely had told them. The smallest of the traveling bags heaped in a corner of the room had been broken open. So had the flimsy lock of the chased silver jewel box it contained. The thief, apparently, had made brief examination of the various bags in the jumbled heap until he had come upon the only one that was locked. Then with a sharp knife or razor

THE lanky chief did not appear at all excited. Indeed, he and his assistant went about their work with a quiet routine method that verged on boredom. They made a perfunctory tour of the robbed rooms; then they convened an impromptu court of inquiry in the living room, Quimby bidding Vogel and Mrs. Horoson to collect the entire service staff of house and grounds in the dining room and to herd them there until they should be called for, one by one. Then after listening gravely to Vail’s account of

AT first glance the man was Clive Creede. And Doris wondered how he chanced to have left the house and to have approached the veranda in such a roundabout way. Then, as he stood before her, she saw he was not in dinner clothes, but in a dark lounge suit. And as he lifted his soft hat at sight of her, she saw his forehead was bald and that he wore spectacles. Also that there was a sagging stoop to his shoulders and the hint of a limp in his walk. Clive’s twin brother was the last man she cared to

“MR. CREEDE,” said he, “look carefully at this watch. Do you recognize it?” “Of course I do,” replied Clive. “It’s mine. How did—?” “This watch, Mr. Creede,” said the chief, slowly, “has just been turned over to me by your brother.” “My brother?” asked Clive, surprised. As he spoke his eyes searched the room, peering into the farther shadows in quest of Osmun. “He has gone,” said the chief, reading the glance. “But before he went he pulled this watch out of the vest pocket of—Mr. Thaxton Vail. Y

DORIS LANE followed him with her admiring gaze, noting how lightly he bore the invalid and with what tenderness he overrode Creede’s petulant remonstrances. “Yes,” said Miss Gregg, as though answering a question voiced by her niece. “Yes, he is splendidly strong. And he’s gentle, too. A splendid combination—for a husband. I mean, for one’s own husband. It is thrown away, in another woman’s.” “I don’t understand you at all,” rebuffed Doris. “No? Well, who am I, to scold you for denying it, just a

DR. EZRA LAWTON had come home an hour earlier from enacting the trying rôle of Stork’s Assistant. He had sunk to sleep wearily and embarked at once on a delightful dream of his unanimous election as Chairman of the Massachusetts State Medical Board. All Aura, apparently, celebrated this dream election. For the three church bells were ringing loudly in honor of it. There were also a few thousand other bells which had been imported from somewhere for the occasion. The result was a continuous loud

“MR. VAIL,” spoke up the chief, a new smoothness and consideration in his manner, “it is my duty to mention for the second time this evening that anything you may say is liable to be used against you. I merely speak of it. Now that I’ve done so, if you care to go on answering my questions—” “Fire away!” said Vail. “The slayer of Willis Chase,” said the chief portentously “was outside the house. He climbed in by an open window. His deed accomplished, he climbed hastily out again. In other words h

SHE glared defiance at the chief, then, in placid triumph, let her eyes roam the circle of faces. The Moselys were wide-eyed with interest. Doris avoided her aunt’s searching gaze. Her own eyes were downcast, her face was working. Clive Creede gave a great sigh as of relief. Vail came forward, lifted one of the little old lady’s hands from the Book and kissed it. He said nothing. It was the chief who broke the brief silence which followed the testimony. “You—you are certain, Miss Gregg, that the

CREEDE had changed his dark habiliments of the preceding night for a suit of flannels. His sagging shoulder and slight limp were accentuated by the outdoor garb. Doris drew back from the doorway at sight of him. But Vail stood where he was. “I met Clive down the road,” began Osmun, with no salutation, as he mounted the veranda steps. “I was driving here to see him—to try once more to persuade him to come to Canobie with me. I made him drive on home in my runabout—he wouldn’t come back here with

THE inquest had come and gone. Its jury of Aura citizens and two summer folk, duly instructed by Lawton as to the form of their verdict, gave opinion that Willis Chase had met his death at the hands of a person or persons unknown, wielding a sharp instrument (to wit, a punch blade of an identified knife) and a blunt instrument (i.e., a similarly identified metal water carafe). That was all. Willis Chase’s sister and his brother-in-law came over from Great Barrington, where they had an all-year h

IN the moment of stark dumbfounded hush that followed Dr. Lawton’s verdict the collie created a diversion on his own account. For the past few seconds he had stood once more at gaze, muzzle upraised, sniffing the still air. The impulse which had sent him charging toward the house had been deflected at sight of the body on the brick pathway, and he had checked his rush. Perhaps it was the all-pervasive fragrance of the boxwood bushes on every side, bakingly hot under the sun’s glare, that confuse

TWO days later, at Vailholme, Dr. Lawton stumped downstairs to the study where Thaxton and Doris and Miss Gregg awaited him. Miss Gregg, by the way, chanced to be in an incredibly bad humor from indigestion. Every one knew it. Thrice a day had the doctor come to Vailholme since he and Thaxton had borne the unconscious Clive thither from Rackrent Farm. A nurse had been summoned, and for forty-eight hours she and Lawton had wrought over the senseless man. This morning Clive had awakened. But, by t

YES, manfully Vail climbed the stairs to the anteroom, where the severely stiff and iodoform-perfumed nurse sat primly reading while her patient slept. Across the threshold of the sick chamber lay stretched a tawny and fluffy bulk. There, since the moment Clive Creede had been carried in, had lain Macduff. At nobody’s orders would he desert his self-chosen post of guard to his stricken master. He ate practically nothing, and he drank little more. Several times a day Vail dragged him from the doo

“I ’M just as glad Doris wasn’t here to listen to this,” commented Miss Gregg, breaking the awed pause which followed Dr. Lawton’s recital. “For a perfectly innocent and kindly girl she seems to have stirred up no end of mischief. After the manner of perfectly innocent and kindly girls. She’d be the first to grieve over it, of course. But a billion Grief-Power never yet had the dynamic force to lift one ounce of any bad situation one inch in one century.” “Well,” said Lawton, reaching for his ru