Page:The achievements of Luther Trant - Balmer and MacHarg - 1910.djvu/336

304 "Yes."

"Amazing!" Trant leaped to his feet, with eyes flashing now with unrestrained fire, and took two or three rapid turns up and down the office. "If I am to believe the obvious inference from these letters, Miss Waldron—coupled with what you have told me—I have not yet come across a case, an attempt at crime more careful, more cold-blooded and, withall, more surprising!"

"A crime—an attempt at crime, Mr. Trant?" cried the white and startled girl. "So there was cause for my belief that something serious underlay these mysterious appearances?"

"Cause?" Trant swung to face her. "Yes, Miss Waldron—criminal cause, a crime so skillfully carried on, so assisted by unexpected circumstance that you—that the very people against whom it is aimed have not so much as suspected its existence."

"Then you think Howard honestly believes the man still means nothing?"

"The man never meant 'nothing,' Miss Waldron; but it was only at first the plot was aimed against Howard Axton," Trant replied. "Now it is aimed solely at you!"

The girl grew paler.

"How can you say that so surely, Mr. Trant?" Caryl demanded, "without investigation?"

"These letters are quite enough evidence for what I say, Mr. Caryl," Trant returned. "Would you have come to me unless you had known that my training in the methods of psychology enabled me to see