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188

Diamonds Win Hearts

the road by automobiles. Undoubtedly, we would find several big high-powered cars when we got to the house.

The District Attorney, Hunky and I went into the caboose after checking up the loot which proved to be over one hundred cases. Some of the crooks were stretched out and some sitting up. Two of them would never do any more robbing in this sprightly existence.

One was sitting hunched upon a stool and a mighty evil-looking bird he was. His black eyes scowled all kinds of malevolence at us. He looked vaguely familiar and when I caught his eye I recognized him.

"Hum. Changed your sex, I see," I snapped at him.

He didn't favor me with a reply—just glared at me.

"Recognize our old pal, Hunky?" I said to my friend. "This is the old lady who gave us the scare in the farm house."

"By George, you're right," said Hunky. "What was the idea of the masquerade?"

But the fellow wouldn't tell. And he never did say, as far as we ever could learn, why he had chosen to play the part of an old woman. Perhaps he figured that in that role he would be better to avert suspicion if he had been seen around the deserted farm house. Perhaps it would have worked too, had he not made the mistake of holding us up with that suspiciously new and modern gun.

ings in front of the mummy-case. Suddenly the front fell forward, and Annette uttered a terrible cry.

In the case, thus revealed, sat the girl who had been Beatrice Vane. She was nude, the chaste beauty of her lovely form standing out against the dark interior of the case. So wonderfully had the madman done his work that no scar marred the grace of the firm bosom, the long rounded limbs, the head set proudly on the ivory neck. She sat as might the Princess Hora, had she so wished, beside the PharoahPharaoh [sic] himself on his Egyptian throne.

Sims drew back and bowed his head reverently as Annette, stumbling forward, laid her head on her dead sister's knees in a grief too terrible for tears.