Adventure, June 1911 — page 168: what you’re looking at

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

354 CHAPTER VI I ADVISE MISS TEMPLE AS I DID not suppose that I should be wanted, I left the house and started out across the beautifullawns. I met Miss Tem- ple coming along the porch, evidently pre- pared for a walk, so I suggested, rather awkwardly, remembering her look of an- noyance during the examination, that I should be happy to accompany her. Some- what to my surprise she accepted my offer at once, and we started briskly off. She was silent all the way down to the entrance to the grounds, but as we set out along the main road she said with surprising suddenness: “Do you believe, Mr. Morgan, that I had any part in this terrible affair?” “Certainly not,” Isaid. “And if you will permit me to say.so, Miss Temple, I think you would have been wiser had you been entirely frank with him.” “‘What do you mean?” she asked in- dignantly. I felt disappointed somehow, at her man- ner, ‘Miss Temple,” I said gently, “TI am sorry you were not frank about your leaving the house, as he believes you did, early this morning.” ‘“‘Why does he believe that?” she asked spiritedly. ““Because he found the footprints of a woman’s shoe in the gravel walk, from the west corner of the porch to the main en- trance. They lead only one way. He found the skirt and shoes you wore, wet and covered with mud. ‘The footprints were made after the rain, or they would have been washed away and obliterated by it.” “The brute!” said Miss Temple in- dignantly. “To enter my rooms! But suppose I did go outside at that time— suppose I had decided to run away from the wretched conspiracy against my happiness? I came back, did I not?” “Why,” Linquired, “did you come back?” She glanced quickly at me, with a look of fear. “I—I—that I refuse to explain to any one!” “Vou will remember, Miss Temple, that the footprints lead in one direction only and that was foward the house. Mr. McQuade does not believe you left the house in. the same way you returned to it.”’ “What on earth does he believe, then?” - she inquired with a slight laugh, which was Adventure the first sign of brightness I had seen in her since the night before. I could not help admiring her beautiful mouth and her white, even teeth as she turned inquiringly to me. Yet my answer was such as to drive that smile from her face for a long time to come. “That whoever committed the murder reached the porch roof by means of the win- dow at the end of the upper hall, and after entering and leaving Mr. Ashton’s room, descended in some way from the porch to the pathway, and reentered the house by the main entrance. Your footsteps are the only ones so far that fit in with this theory.”’ Vag “IT IS ABSURD!” said my com- exes panion, witha look of terror. “How *.could the window have been re- bolted? Why should the murderer not have reentered the house in the same way he left it? How does he know that there was any one upon the roof at all?”’ “He. claims that some one interested in the murderer’s welfare might have rebolted the window upon entering the room. That would mean either your father or, myself. Whoever committed the crime feared to enter the hall by the window after the house had been aroused. There is positive evi- dence of some one’s having been upon the roof,’ ‘““What evidence?”” Her clenched hands and rapid breathing indicated some intense inward emotion. “The faint print of a hand—in biccd, upon the window-sill. Miss Temple, you will, I’m sure, see the advisability of ex- plaining fully, in order that the investiga- tions may be turned in other directions, where the guilt lies, instead of in. yours, where I am sure it does not.” She seemed suddenly stricken with terror. *“‘T can say nothing, nothing whatever!” she answered pathetically, her face a picture of anguish. I felt-alarmed, and indeed greatly dis- appointed at her manner. Limiting the crime to three people, one of whom must have been upon the porch roof a little before daybreak, I saw at once that suspicion must inevitably fall upon either Miss Temple or her father. Yet there remained one other possibility—the Chinaman, Li Min. His hands, small and delicate, might possibly have made the tell-tale print upon the window-sill, but in that event, why should Miss Temple hesitate to tell of it, had she COnmmiclbooks (©