The Vestibule Limited Mystery — page 50: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE VESTIBULE LIMITED MYSTERY. 41 There is only one thing Iam uneasy about, and this is Robert Hammond himself. If he takes it into his head to be ugly he can give us a great amount of trouble. When the time comes for the denouement we must handle him gently, in a manner befitting his peculiar frame of mind. The colonel and myself talk it over a little longer, and have about decided how we are to keep watch and watch about, when the door of the car is thrown open to admit the steward of the hotel-car, who announces, passing through: “Supper ready in the dining-car!” As we have arranged it, I go in first, and when I come back in half an hour or so, Acton is to take my place. Thus, by dividing our forces, we can keep the people ander surveillance. Nothing new transpires during the progress of the meal. The three come in before I am done, and I see Acton seated ere I leave. I notice one thing. Evangeline is a woman, with all that implies, so far as love for gems is concerned. She has been © unable to resist the temptation longer, and when ‘she enters the brilliantly lighted dining-car I notice that she has on the diamonds wise Robert has recently given her. They show to great advantage on her lovely per- son, and add to her charms, seeming to increase his mad worship. ; Lalmost think he will eat her up, for his gaze when looking at her is certainly of the devouring order; and she keeps leading him on with the most exasperating little tricks, that [do not wonder some men have gone crazy with love and murdered their Gomichboo cS mn