Page:Top-Notch Magazine, May 1 1915 (IA tn 1915 05 01).pdf/84

 he had accepted her resignation so promptly, in view of our relationship, ordered the motor and went out to see her. But—good heavens!"

HE loud rat-tat-tat of a cane had shaken Trant's door and; cracked its ground glass from corner to corner, and the door was flung open to admit a determined little man, whose carefully groomed pink-and-whiteness was accentuated by his anger.

"Winton, go home!" The elder Edwards glared sternly at his son, and then about the office. "Mr. Trant—you are Mr. Trant, I suppose—I want you to have nothing to do with this matter. I prefer to let the whole affair drop where it is."

"I reserve the right, Mr. Edwards," the psychologist said, rising, "to take up or drop cases only as I myself see fit. I have heard nothing yet in your son's story to explain why you do not want the case investigated."

"Then you shall have it explained," Cuthbert Edwards answered. "I called on Miss Silber last Sunday, and it is because of what I learned there that I want Winton to have nothing more to do with her. I went to Miss Silber on Sunday, Mr. Trant, feeling that I had been too hasty on Thursday. I offered her an apology and was reasoning with her when I heard suddenly, in an upper room, the same noises that had so disturbed the quiet of my office on Thursday afternoon!"

"You mean the hammering?" asked Trant.

"Precisely, Mr. Trant; the hammering! If you had heard that sound yourself, you would know that it is a very definite and distinctive blow, given according to some intentional arrangement. I no sooner heard it and saw the uneasiness it again caused in Miss Silber, than I became certain that the same disreputable man who had been to see her at my office was then housed in her very home. I insisted, as she was my son's promised wife, on searching the house."

"Did you find him?" Trant inquired sharply.

"No, I did not, Mr. Trant, though I went into every room and opened every closet. I found only what appeared to be the usual inmates of the house—Miss Silber's father and the woman who keeps house for her."

"Miss Silber's father! Has Miss Silber a father?" Trant interrupted.

"He is hardly worth mentioning, Mr. Trant," the younger Edwards explained. "He must have suffered at some time from a brain trouble that has partly deprived him of his faculties, I believe. Neither he nor the housekeeper, who is not in Eva's confidence, is likely to be able to help us in this matter."

"The man may have slipped out of the house unseen," suggested Trant.

"Quite impossible," Cuthbert Edwards asserted. "Miss Silber lived, in a little house west of Ravenswood. There are very few houses, none within at least a quarter of a mile of her. The ground is flat, and no one could have got away without being seen by me."

"Your story so far is certainly very peculiar," the psychologist commented, "and it gains interest with every detail. Are you certain it was not this second interview with your father"—he turned again to the younger man—"that made Miss Silber refuse you?"

"No; it was not. When I got back yesterday and learned from father what had happened, I went out at once to Eva at her home. She had changed utterly; not in her feelings toward me, for I felt certain even then that she loved me—but an influence—the influence of this man—had come between