Evening Star Newspaper, November 3, 1927, Page 43

THE BLACK JOKER BY ISABEL OSTRANDER. (Continued from Yesterday's Star.) |ed it, and I tell you the place is in a LA Lt Lt AL G M CHAPTER XLIV. The House of the Secret. HEN Janet suggested the purchase of a pack of| cards on the train it had| been merely with the idea of providing herself with #nother seven of hearts in case of need in the future and the miraculous ndvent of Ten of Hearts had been an | unhoped-for turn of fortune, but it changed again when they reached Mineola, for Nat and his plane were gone and another flyer at the han #aid he had received a telephone call and left at dawn. { Ten of Hearts wrote a message for | him saying he would be back with a | passenger at midnight and signed it,| Janet observed, “Ranny & | They rode to the village | their taxi and went to . | restaurant for dinner, and there she | wsked: | “How f: r. Sawyer? E e A trifle over 3 miles,” He smiled #You saw the note 1 wrote? 1 don know whom we're likely to run into there, but are you armed?” She nodded and felt of the small re volver which Philip had given her, at her belt, beneath the coat. “Norman himself won't be there nor three of his men nor a woman named Crole. I'm sure of that, but there’s a younger woman called May Carlin | and a fellow known as Bill, who poses s a taxi driver sometimes. I may en- counter them, but I'm going to t it to Norman's cottage, | | She mess. It looks as though they'd left in a hurry—scared off.” Janet’s heart sank with the thought that after all she might be too late, but she cried quickly: “Let's go! You can wait for me under the willows and whistle if any one is coming.” Do you honestly think you'd better v it tonight?” Sawyer asked doubt- fully. “Why not?" Janet turned impatient- Iy in the road. Well, if they've i 'of something, it beaten it, isn't a 2l i by our own crowd, or they'd| whoever | ay and comes and think that you're gang, he replied fact, if there's lik at all, we have as avoid it as they rom the authoritics, you mean?” hrugged. “I'll have to chance that, Mr. Sawyer, and what you've told me makes me feel that I haven't a minute to lose!” He made no further effort to dis- suade her and they hastened along the lane together, but when they came to the driveway leading to the door he halted her “Be as quic] like it myse fight it, and finds you in_there will one of Norman's | hesitatingly. “In 1y to be any trouble much reason to | " he urged. . got a funny hunch something’s liable to happen! h you'd let me go in with you!” vou must watch to see if any one net replied. “Did you put that candle back on the shelf? Are there matches near it?” “Yes, just at your right hand, and 8 | T opened the window wide; it’s the very good care mot to. You see, I|I opene thought we'd wait till a little later and | T then hire a_small car from some ga- rage bLere, if vou drive, and go to the head of the lane. ve vou there, | but if I'm not ba “Not a chance!” shook his head decidedly. know what ur object i Dane, but I couldn’t let you go alone. I've got a gat with me and it may be ne essary to use it.” “But I must!” Janet urged gently. She was touched by his concern for |Your her, but unprepared to take him into it. Listen, Miss Danc; do you the hoot of the little brown ! , I'm afraid 1 hook her head, It goes like thi: | Whoo-o! Who-o!" ed the call of the Janet listened. don't.” Janet erly he imitat- | S woods' bird and “Now, if you hear |put out your candle quick and feel| way down to that pantry win- T'll be waiting just outside, and |2 fi second from the back door, you can't [relaxed mouth. G TAR, WASHINGTON, D. o, MUTT AND JEFF—Mutt Congrutulnm Jeff Erom tl,;e Bottm of His Heart. ; IT'S ComMmon &osSIP AT THE LIV TAMERS CLUB THAT JGEF'S GNGAGED To Be MARRIED & brought the truth home to her, - al- though she had never seen death be- fore. Advancing with bated breath and horrified, staring ey down into the opaque, glassy eyes of Bill, the taxi driver, who with May Carlin had been the first to abduct Shuddering, she stooped and touched his hand, then ank back; it was icy cold and as hard as though carved in stone! A huge, brownish stain had spread and dried upon the front of his torn shirt, and brown stains, too, led in thin lines from the corners of his Sick and dizzy with her terrible dis- overy Janet backed away, shaking in limb, the impulse to turn and fly from that thing of horror almost Durxled) overmastering her, but she fought it own. She must not go while her mis- ion remained unfulfillea! Creeping step by step past that still form she reached the window at last that three times one after the other, [4nd rested her left hand on the wall beside it, with her small fingers spread to the utmost. There was no plaster nd only shreds of mouldy paper hung rom the laths, scratching like dried THe PoOR EUSH 1S INA PARADISE AJow WHILE HE'S SINGLE BUT He's TOO DUMB To ReALIze \TL WeLL, 1T'S His FunERAL! with the dead man to keep her com- pany would be horrible beyond all things and yet she must, for the cry came again insistent Shutting her eyes tightly as though to keep out the knowledge that the light was gone Janet blew out the candle and stood motionless, wai Had Sawyer been mistaken? had come no sound of entrance from below and as the minutes lengthened she felt that she must scream aloud. ‘Then, all at once it came, and Janet stood as if turned to marble, the very breath stopped in her throat, for some one was creeping slowly, stealthily, up the stairs! CHAPTER XLV. Mariott Returns. HE dragging steps came on more and more slowly, but without hesitation, and Janet realized they must be coming straight to that room, and that the intruder was sufficiently familiar with the house to find the way in the dark. Were they coming because of | you! | to the pantry and pushed her through | the low window, climbing after her CONGRATULA 1EEFL T HeAR YOU'RE GOMWA G&T MARRIED! STILL, BEING HiS BEST €Rend T GUEsSS \T's LB T ME To WISH HIM Luck AND A LoT 0F THAT Bunk! about the thing she had just found|whers the small car waited, the crles the candle fell with a soft thud upon |from the dark cottage growing fainter the floor! in thelr ears, and while Sawyer Instantly a thin streak of light |cranked the engine Janet concealed darted blindingly in her face and the | the woft limp object -vhich was the voice of May Carlin sounded in her |result of her search in the breast of her gown, i Ho took his place beside her, but not until they had gone a mile or through the fresh night breeze t had sdmewhat recovered omposure did he speak. “Tell me about it, if it isn’t golng to work you up too much. How was he_killed?"* (Continued in Tomorrow's Star,) OLDS Take 1 or 2 Anti-Kamnia Tablets and the quickly goes. K" Tablets almost instantly banish pains from rheumatism, headaches, nmlll'l-le’h“e‘.lnmblfo. ete. Relieve women’s pains; nervousness. Prescribed by doctorsfor: “’:l"l: So you've come back for it, You'll never get away this time!" But Janet with the desperation of utter, insensate terror had darted for |a her, and in that moment the wavering light of the electric torch fell upon the figure lying on the floor. With a dreadful, walling cry May Carlin took one tottering step forward and Janet slipped past her like a shadow and flew down the stairs, straight into the arms of a man who was rounding the newel post to ascend. ! “Thank heavens!" Ranny Sawyer's' voice breathed. “I thought she had Come!” He half led, half carried, her back with the hideous, moaning cries still faling upon their ears from above. “Oh!" Janet gasped. “There's a dead ‘man up there! It's Bill, the 1008, By BUD FISHER CONGRATULATIONS! For tea of amber hue and rarest bouquet her confidence. “Two of us would only | double the risk, and I really ought not to be in the house ten minutes if all goes well. 1 only want to get a mes sage that's been left there for some one clse and I know where to find i “I'm going in with you!" Sawyer in- sisted. “I couldn't ever face the rest of them if I allowed you to walk un- protected into that house. Are you sure you couldn’t tell me where that message is and let me get it for you?” “Oh, no!” Janet shook her head, but compromised. “It's just some- thing that I've promised to do myself, but if you like you can go ahead of me and look it over, then wait for me near the cottage.” So it was arranged and in an hour they were rattling along the country road in an ancient flivver. The stars were out, but Janet would not let her- self look at them, for only two nights before she and Philip had watched them together on the rocky shore of the island, knowing that help was com- ing on the morrow, but none too sure ©of escaping safely. Now she was here, on the eve of her greatest adventure, and Philip— “. . . So I said to Durant, ‘No, Frank, Miss Dane's safe. If she came through all that on your crazy ma- chine without a scratch, nothing in the world can hurt her now! " “What did you say?’ Janet came suddenly from her reverie at the men- tion of a familiar name to realize that her companion must have been taiking for some time. “When—when did you see Mr. Durant?” Yesterday, in Boston. I told you he’s patrolling the Post road between here and there looking for you.” “Oh, I'm so glad!” she cried. “I| xever could learn anything about him after I left him with those dreadful planes descending in a circle, but he made me go. Norman told me they'd got him, so I supposed he was—was dead! orman told yo It was Saw- yer's turn to be amazed. “You haven't been in his clutches again?” “Yes. You see, he captured Mr. Ma- riott and me together.” She was forced to give a sketchy account of her adventure, and when she finished they had reached the head of the lane. No lights shone any- where along its length, though it was not yet 10 o'clock, and Sawyer shut ©off their own lamps. “Wait here.” he said. “I'm going to -reconnoiter, but I'll be back in a few minutes.” His footsteps died away quickly on the soft, springy turf at the side of the road and Janet sat listening to the gently stirring sounds of night life in | the flelds and woods with every nerve quickened and jaut in suspense. It was a good half hour, however, before Sawyer returned. “The house is empty, shut up?” he announced. “I waited around to make wure, and tried every door and window. A small one in the pantry has been Jeft open and a bit of candle stands on one of the shelves. I got in and light- hasn’t the easily digested, easily prepared breakfast that America now has in ‘Wheatsworth Cereal, the typical American ou don't come in a minute I'll be there's lookout here where I can see both front and back.” She left him standing under one of the willows which lined the little brook where Alford had been shot down in 1iding her escape, and hurried up the path to the back door. The window from it was opened w Sawver had said, and Ja nimbly in. The candle, still warm and ftened, was lying on the shelf ‘with box of matches beside it and, light- ng it, she shielded its guttering flame with her hand and started for the front hall and stairs. ‘ The cottage was so still that her footsteps, light as they were, seemed to reverberate through a profound emptiness, and the scurry of a mouse in the wainscoting made her stop, clutching at the banisters, but the next moment she was running up, with a little smile for her own weak- ness. To have gone through the ex- periences which had been hers within the past fortnight and then to be afraid of a mere mouse when she stood on the very threshold of suc- cess! Yet there was something queer and horrid in the silence! She had crossed the kitchen in order to get to the front hall and had seen soiled dishes with fragments of stale food on them still on the table, and soot-ringed stains on the floor about the stove showed that water had been used to extinguish its fire, but when she en- tered the first of the bedrooms on the second floor Janet came upon unms- takable signs of sudden and agitated flight. Drawers were pulled half out, their contents scattered on the floor, the closet door stood wide, and the bed left tumbled just as it had been slept in. Janet gave a quick glance about and went on to the next, to find it in even greater disorder, but the third had evidently been long in disuse. The first door at the head of the stairs on the other side of the hall opened into the room she herself had been kept prisoner in, and Janet did not bother to turn its knob but opened the cne beside it. Here she found the greatest con- fusion of all. The very bed had been torn apart and a flurry of white feath- ers rose in the sudden draft from the door, to settle again on the ripped pil- lows. The pitcher from the toilet set of flaring pink porcelain on the wash- stand was shattered on the floor and the mirror of the dresser was cracked across. It looked to the girl's amazed eves as it the destructive frenzy of | some madman had been at work here, | but she started to pick her way over to the single window when her candle flame shot up, revealing a motionless figure lying outstretched before the wardrobe. Janet recoiled, stifling the scream which rose to her lips, but still the figure did not move and something in the stark rigidity of its outline skin as she moved her hand again and vet again. Finally it pre gainst a loose board, and, shifting the candle to her left hand, she pressed the right with all he: ight against it. Tt gave, ending inward with a sharp, warning cra and in the aperture beneath she saw something soft and wrinkled, quite shapeless and the color of the dust that had silted down upon it. Drawing it out with a sinking heart, Janet felt it, squeezing it between her fingers close to the candle flame and then suddenly she uttered a little cry of profoundest amazement. As if in answer the warning call of the owl came from the garden below and Janet hesitated. To extinguish her candle and wait in the darkness _ |TAKE SALTS FOR A : KIDNEY BACKACHE | Drink Lots of Water All Dayl Long to Keep Kidneys Flushed. Too much rich food forms acids | | which excite and_overwork the kidneys in their efforts to filter it |from the system. 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