Page:Under three flags; a story of mystery (IA underthreeflagss00tayliala).pdf/31

 effects, was left as usual and gave no indication that he contemplated a hasty departure. Even at the office where he was employed he left some personal effects and half a month's salary was to his credit.

"In the case of Miss Hathaway, also, there are absolutely no indications of premeditated departure. Her sister states that she has taken not even a wrap, only the clothes she wore that afternoon as she left the house. Neither man nor maiden was seen by any person to leave Raymond. No vehicle was secured for either of them, and no one answering their description boarded the train at the Raymond Station. They have disappeared as completely, as suddenly and as mysteriously as did the murderer of Cashier Hathaway.

"The knowledge of these circumstances has intensified the excitement occasioned by the murder and robbery. The coincidence, if it be but a coincidence, of the unpremeditated elopement of Helen Hathaway upon the very day, nay, perhaps the very hour, that her aged father was stricken by the bullet of the assassin, is sufficiently startling of itself to cause the most intense excitement.

"Is there any connection between the disappearance of Derrick Ames and Helen Hathaway and the shooting of Cashier Hathaway and the subsequent looting of the bank vault? Why did the couple, if they simply ran away to get married without the parental sanction, do so manifestly on the spur of the moment, without any prearranged plans, without notification to even their intimate friends? And why, if they went innocently away, have they failed to acquaint any one with their present whereabouts, when they must be aware of the cruel murder of Miss Hathaway's good father, the details of which have been published far and wide, not only in the provincial newspapers, but throughout the metropolitan press?

"There is not a resident of Raymond who will hint at even the possibility of any guilty knowledge of the taking-off of her father by Helen Hathaway, before or during her hurried flight. For although regarded as unusually high-spirited and impetuous, she was loving and lovable