Page:Under three flags; a story of mystery (IA underthreeflagss00tayliala).pdf/23

 wires early this morning, and the whole county is in a fever of excitement.

"No clew?" muses Ashley, and his interest in the affair grows. Then he thinks of the man he encountered on the brook an hour ago. "Seen any strangers around here?" he inquires of Mr. Howe.

"No one 'cept you," replies that worthy, contributing a broad grin.

"Oh, but I can prove an alibi," laughs Jack. "I came down from Raymond on the early evening train, and everyone was alive in the town then, I guess. Are the police of this village on the lookout?"

"Well, rather. The local deputy sheriff is on the alert as never before in his life."

"It is not impossible that my early morning friend on the brook was mixed up in last night's affair," thinks Ashley. But he says nothing of the meeting. What is the use? If the unknown was fleeing he must be pretty well into the next county by this time. But in what direction?"

The Raymond murder is the one topic of the day at South Ashfield. The villagers are gathered in force about the hotel veranda and Ashley fancies that they regard him a trifle askance as he hunts up a chair and kills an hour while waiting for the up-train, in listening to the rural persiflage of the group and the ingenious theories of the local oracle.

"At what time did the killing occur?" he inquires of one of the loungers. Somewhere around 8 o'clock the night before, he is informed.

"And no clew to the murderer," he meditates. "Now, if this was New York I'd take hold of the affair and work it for all it was worth."

He little dreams what effect the "affair" is to have on his future. Yet as the train bears him to Raymond the instinct of the newspaper man tells him that it is a cast possessing phases of peculiar interest. And he is not wholly unprepared for the telegram that is thrust into his hands when he leaves the train.

"One of the disadvantages of telling your paper where