Page:Under three flags; a story of mystery (IA underthreeflagss00tayliala).pdf/65



"These things I charge you fail not, Cyrus Felton, at the peril of your good name.  Roger Hathaway."

"Jove! It reads like an accusation!" cries Ashley, dropping back into his chair.

"It is an accusation!" declares the detective, with the ring of triumph in his voice.

CHAPTER XI.

A SIFTING OF EVIDENCE.

Both men smoke on in a brief silence that Ashley breaks with an inquiring "Well?"

"Much," is Barker's smiling response. "Now, my boy," he adds briskly, as he extracts a bunch of writing paper from his grip and sharpens his pencil, "tell me everything you know concerning the dramatis personae in this drama. We will get our facts together, and then I'll give you my theories—for I have more than one. Go ahead."

When Ashley has exhausted his stock of information and has hazarded one or two ingenious theories, the detective leans back in his chair and for the space of five minutes says not a word. Finally he turns to Ashley.

"This Hathaway mystery," he begins, "is either simplicity itself or it is shrouded in a veil that only the patient search and unceasing effort of months will lift. My first glance at the case led me to believe that the murder was the work of a professional, so swiftly had it been accomplished and so completely had the work of the operator been covered up. But the most earnest search has failed to discover the presence in town on Memorial Day of any person who could possibly be regarded as a suspicious character, except Ernest Stanley, of whom more anon.

"Then the deed must have been committed by some