Logansport Pharos-Tribune from Logansport, Indiana • Page 22

own CUV EL LAND of ri I 1 CHAPTER body of 'acob Benton is, found murdered on toe lawn near his house. 11 111 and IV-Miaard HendricKs. a detective, tines up the case. R-, a notebook on the i lawn belonging Montcast.e, a revolver near the body, partly bumed match and leadini? bat a abort distance fr.ro the --here they Bucidenly end. 1 and Vll-HendnckB Benl for a blood bound.

A clock whioiVftoppod lit 2:30 a.m. indicates I hai left the bouse at thai time, ana n0 Slph the dog- and Ralph Bentoa seems to avoid him The tracks the murder only a BDort distance" X-lt IB discovered that Benton had a large amount of Insurance In favor ot Ralph MlhsHastWs owns her (jagementto alpb. -Hendricks and Dr.Lampkln consult.Karn- hall Beaton's lawyer, is concerned about missing papers of Benton's. CHAPTER XVL CON FES 5 OB. pf BY WILL They found Ealph and the policeman In the small library in the rear.

It was lighted only by a low burning pas jet which swung over the center table. Balph sat on a divan, the chain of his handcuffs hanging between bis knees. i woodshedi The tall, heavily built policeman leaned in the doorway. Ealph langbed as Hendrioks entered. "I can't complain at this treatment, Hendricks," he said, "and, as to the cab, I'm glad you are not going to haul me ofE in the black maria.

As it is open at both ends, one would be liable to sit in a Hendricks smiled, but did not reply. He turned to the policeman. "Go get a glass of beer and wait on the stoop." he said. Balph begun to fumble in the pocket of his waistcoat and produced a quarter of a dollar. "I say, Hendricks," he said, rising and tossing the mouey on the table, "yon won't mind if I stand treat, will you?" "Not at all," was the answer.

The policeman grinned as he picked up the coin and touched his hat to the young man, who had resume! his seat on the divan. Heudrick.s sut down and drummed on the table with his fingers. Lainpkiu and Kola stood near the door. "I say, Heudricks, all jokes aside," said Ralph, "are you fellows with names that are household words, as it yon ever badly mistaken?" "Seldom when we get along as far as I have with you," answered the detective. "At any rate, you are an agreeable prisoner.

You make it a pleasure instead of a task. I may say you fill the bill ideally." The fire ot Ralph's wit seemed to die out. His face grew serious. "There is no use going further with this," said he. "Tell me frankly what evidence yon have against me." Hendricks took a cigar case from his pocket.

He passed it first to Balph, then to Lampkin and the adept. Ralph was tho only one to accept, and he became amused again when he tried to get a match from his pocket and was prevented by the handcuffs. "You maj as well unchain me," he eaid. "I promise not to breakaway. It would be folly for me to try to down the man at the door, you three nud yonr hosts of hidden demons, who are the genii of' the master's' dark "I don't thinkl shall run any risks," said the detective, striking a match and holding it to the end of the young man's cigar.

"'A bird in know, Kaipn "Well," he said, "go ahead." "It suddenly occurred to you," continued Hendricks, "that the sand was taking the impression of your feet, and you sprang to the swing. "Eou climbed one of the tow ropes to the boughs to which it was fastened and then drew the swing up after yon. After this yon unfastened the rope and crammed it Into the hollow of the tree." "What did I do then?" asked Ralph coolly. "I swear, you have as many eyes as a water beetle. I wonder if even you could tell what I next did." Lampkin, who had had considerable experience with criminals, decided admiringly that this was the coolest culprit he had ever met.

He glanced at the adept and was astonished to Bee a broad grin on his face, "Yon crawled out on a long bough bent down to the roof of the answered Hendricks. "This reached, you next went from it to the roof of the wellhouse, thence to the roof of the veranda, thence into yonr room through an open window." "Pretty good!" said Ralph calmly. "But has it occurred to you, Hendricks, that some one else might have done all this?" "I went into your room and searched it," went on the detective. "I found Ms worth two on the as the Germans put it." Ralph nodded. "The only thing that puzzles me," he said, "is ruy arrest.

It is incongruous. I am the stono that spoils the mosaic. I ought not to be in it, but it seems that I am. Hendricks, I have had a queer sort of admiration for you in the past, but I have never thought yon could be stupid enough to arrest the wrong mini under any circumstances. If you don't unchain me before I explain, yon shall cease to be my ideal detective." "I should dislike that," answered Heudricks, "but I presume my pride must is, if yon are the wrong man." Ralph puffed two or three times to keep his cigar alight.

Suddenly he bent his puzzled gaze again on Hendricks. "Tell me exactly why yon have arrested me," he demanded. "You are off the track. Honestly, that's a fact." "Am Hendricks shrugged his shoulders and glanced slyly at Lampkin, whose eye he caught "I know that on the night of the murder you came in at the side gate and crossed the grass in a bee line for the north walk. I fouud your tracks, the only footprints not explained by others, near the body cf your father.

These tracks I traced to a certain point on the walk, "Where the maker of them vanished in the air like the nightmare we saw just now," pnt in Ralph, with a smile. "So it seemed at first," agreed Hendricks, "but the other day Wilson, the gardener, recalled the fact that in order to surprise the young ladies, who had expressed a desire to have a swing, you had yourself late in the afternoon hung one from a bough of a big oak. The night yonr father was killed it was hanging at the edge of the walk, not five feet from the spot where the footprints ended. What had become of the swing Wilson could not imagine, but I found it in the hollow of the tree above the lower boughs." Hendricks paused, knocked the ashes from his cigar and took two or three draws at it, his eyes the while fixed on young man's face. "I don't ttiink I shall run any risks." the dress suit you bad worn that evening, and on it were fragments of tow from the swing." "I presume it would be hard for me to prove that some one else had worn my suit of clothes that night," said the young man.

"Did you find out where I had been in the city that evening?" "To your club first, then to the Casino with Van Alston." "Exactly," said Ralph. "How uncomfortable to know that one has been traced like that! And to be suspected of such a crime! I don't fancy it at all, Hendricks. I am not a lawyer by any means, but I am not such a fool as to believe you could hang me with that chain of circumstances." "You are heir to a large fortune left by your father," went on Hendricks impressively. "Only a short while before she heard the report of the revolver, according to the testimony of Miss Hastings, she overheard your father say to some one: 'You are no child of mine from this day forth. I shall disown you You and your father had recently quarreled." "Stop!" cried Ralph, rising in excitement.

"She did not testify that. I did not hear her." "Shedid," asserted Hendricks firmly. Ralph turned to Lampkin. you understand Miss Hastings to testify to that?" he asked in a trembling tone. "I did most certainly," answered the doctor.

"Mr. Hendricks quoted her exact words." CHAPTER Ralph leaned back on the divan and for two or three minutes said nothing. Suddenly he pulled himself together. "Miss Hastings must have been mistaken," he said. "My father made no euch remark to me, The young man hesitated and stared into the" face of the detective.

"Miss Hastings has duly sworn to that fact," said Hendricks. "Mr. Benton had but two and yonr sister. If yon are not guilty, suspicion may fall on her." The color ran into Ralph's face. He clasped his hands together, and his handcuffs rattled.

"Rot!" he exclaimed. Neither of ns is guilty. Hendricks, yon are on the point of making an ass of loud, braying, conspicuous ass. You have not made many mistakes during your career, but you have made one in me, and when I have told you all you will admit it. I would have come to this at once, but to be frank I did not think it would be necessary or that what I was trying to keep concealed was anybody's business except my Ralph paused for breath, for he had been speaking rapidly.

He glanced suspiciously at Lampkin and Kola. "These gentlemen are your confidential friends?" he added. "They are," responded Eendriclcs. "You need not fear them. They can be trusted." Ralph's face had become serious.

The bantering quality had left his tone. "It it a humiliating thing to hare to knuckle to you, Hendricks, but there seems no other way. Yon can become unpleasant if I don't show my hand. You are going to have a big surprise. Yon are going to find that you ait away ott the track.

I'diS iiot want to tell all I know about my father's death. I was afraid if I did it would be impossible to keep a certain fact connected with it a secret. I have a sweetheart, Hendricks, and I don't fancy having her name brought into the papers as my fiancee while 1 am under suspicion, nor do I particularly relish being arrested for the murder of my own father. So here gojs: "On the night he met his death I was coming home from the city at about ten minutes past 1 o'clock. I was jnst turning the corner of the fourth street from our house, on the way from the station, when I heard a report of a revolver and saw a red flash in the direction of the north walk in our garden.

You know there are few houses in that vicinity, and I had a clear view across the vacant lots. "fearing that something had gone wrong, I hastened home. I entered at the side gate because it was the shorter way to the north walk. I crossed the grass and came my father lying exactly as yon saw him on the morning of the inquest. The revolver you found in the shrubbery was by his side.

"I had no sooner seen him than I knew he had committed suicide. I had heard him threaten to do it often arid knew that he had at last given way to what seems a family failing. My father's father took his own life, and so did one of my father's brothers." Ralph Benton studied the faces around him. "Yon are all surprised," he went on. "I knew you would be.

In bending over my father to see if life were extinct I noticed an envelope pinned to the underside of the lapel of his coat. I tore it off, strucii a match and hastily read the contents of the envelope. It was a.short statement to the effect that nothing had lately gone to suit him; that he had quarreled with Mr. Allen; that his own children did not love him and wanted him out of the way to get his money. He said he was obeying an uncontrollable impulse to end his life by his own hand, that he believed the inclination was hereditary and that he bad not been free from it one moment since his brother had killed himself in Harlem five years ago.

He ended by a few words tc his sister, my Aunt Martha. He told her that he knew she had been contemplating suicide for the same reasons that had actuated him and begged her to hold on as long as she could, but that she need not count on ever defeating the will of Providence, which had decreed that every one bearing the name of Benton should die by bis own hand. My father was really not in his right mind." A white, desperate expression had captured Ralph's face. He drew a deep breath and then continued: "I don't know what the law is on this point, Hendricks, but I deliberately took it into my own hands. It occurred to me that no one else had heard the report of the revolver and that I was the only one who knew of the accident.

Like a flash it came over me that I could do a good deed in covering up the fact that my father had killed himself. My sister and I have read several books by a certain philosopher who claims that hereditary beliefs, such as my father possessed, can be overcome with reason and a constant habit of banishing all morbid thoughts. I believe you teach something of that kind, Dr. Lampkin, in your practice," said Ralph, directing his words to the doctor. 'I think I have seen something of it in the papers." Lampkiu nodded.

"You and your sister were certainly doing the correct thing," he answered. "It seems to "Go ahead with yonr story," interrupted Hendricks, a little look of displeasure in his eyes. You can guess the rest, "said the young man. "I remembered my aunt's peculiar tendency and was sure she would take her life, in spite of all we could do, if she discovered the manner of my father's death and his insane message to her. I noticed that my feet were making impressions in the sand and just then saw the swing.

I did, of course, a thoughtless thing when I tossed into the grass the revolver my father had used, but it really did not occur to me at the moment (I was frightfully agitated) that it would throw suspicion on any one in our house. I did not think of that till I was safe in my room, having reached it in the exact manner you described. That's my story. I did not want to tell it, but it seems to me that I had to do it to prison." Hendricks' face held an expression of vast incredulity. For a moment he sat silently looking at the floor.

"I thought you were going to confess something really incriminating, in a lesser degree than murder, however," he said. "I presume it did not occur to you that in covering -up what you Hendricks looked at ms watch, called ont: "Kola." "Yes, sir." "Is the cab at the door?" "It is, sir." Ralph rose, leaned on the table and bent forward. "Look here, Hendricks," he said desperately, "yon are no fool. You are a judge of men aud of men's: hearts. I don't believe yon can look me in the face and say you think I killed my father." "I have not said so yet." said Hendricks; "but, judging from past experiences in such matters, I must say that if the facts as they now stand go before a jury you will get a quick verdiot of guilty." "You really think so?" i "I'd stake my reputation on it" "What am I to do?" "The simplest thing in the world." As the detective spoke he caught Lampkin's wondering eye and held it for a moment 'Produce the note yon claim to have found pinned to your father's lapel." "I burned it the day you were in my room.

I washed the remains away in the running water of my basin." flendricks stood up, looked again at his watch and went to the door leading into the passage. "If that is true, young man, and you can't produce the murderer, you have signed your own death warrant. Every circumstance points to your guilt. I never saw a more perfect chain of convicting circumstances. The note, however, would have saved you.

It is a pity you destroyed it." Ralph hung bis head for a minute, then raised it and smiled doggedly. "I presume innocent men have been condemned before. I really fear I have got myself into an awful pickle. I was a fool, but I meant well. I am ready to go with you." Hendricks took a key from his pocket, inserted it into the lock of the handcuffs and drew them from the young man's wrists.

"As I remarked just now," he said, "I know that your father did not commit suicide, but I did not say you killed him." "Y-ypn don't accuse me?" stammered Ralph in astonishment. "No; I have no charge to make against you except that you have been constantly hindering my investigations by concealing some of the facts. In order to proceed further in the case I was obliged to wring your secret from you. Some one shot your father, and you have almost defeated justice by the stupid role you were playing. If my method was severe, you deserved it.

You Lave caused me to lose a good deal of tirue." "But the letter father wrote," insisted Ralph incredulously, "and the fact that I found it pinned on him and the revolver at his "That's too long a story, and it's late," answered the detective. "Now, go home and let that sweetheart of yours know you are not in 'durance The doctor and I are going up town in a cab." "That's what you ordered the cab for, then?" said Ralph. Hendricks laughed. "By the way," he said, "shall you be at home tomorrow night about 10 o'clock? I shall want your assistance in some experiments, if you don't object." "I shall be delighted to be of any assistance," replied the young man. "If you can prove that ray father did not commit suicide, it will take a big load from my mind." "That will be easy assured him, "but if it is all me'd Ralph rose, leaned on the table and oent forward.

the same to you I'd a little rather you you that covering up yuu did not mention to yonr sister or any of cfcim was suicide von were fraudu- the folks out there wha has passed be- lently making certain life insurance tween us since they companies liable to you and your sister for over $100,000, which, owing to certain clauses in the policies, would not be collectible except in case of death in an ordinary manner. "I never dreamed of such a thing!" gasped Ralph. "I knew nothing of the policies or the clauses." "I only mentioned it, of course," said Hendricks, "hut it would have been better for your case if yon had put it that way. Yen see, a jury would regard it as more plausible than the reasons you have stated. Such a motive, just that sort of consideration for yonr aunt, is too fine, too psychic, for the mind of the ordinary juryman." Ralph's startled eyes were fired on the face of the detective.

"Do yon mean to say, Hendricks, that yon do not now believe that my father killed himself?" "I do not," said Hendricks. Lampkin stared at his friend. He was unable to understand the detective. "My God!" exclaimed Balph. "Then I presusw I shall have to go to jail and stapd trial to prove EOT innocence?" "Very well; I won't mention it," promised Ralph.

"Even if they question you," went on Hendricks, "you can make up some excuse. I can trust to the inventive genius of a man who can faint as artistically as you did on a certain occasion." Ralph flushed. "It struck me all at once," said he, "that I was to be the next witness and that I'd have to own up to the whole of my scheme or swear a "It certainly worked," smiled Hendricks. "I thought yon were a goner and turned two somersaults to get water for you. By the way, how's that hand getting along that you bruised in the gymnasium at the club where they haven't one?" Ralph grinned.

"I lied there outright," he admitted. "I rubbed the skin off climbing the rope. It cut lite a file." "Well, don't forget tomorrow night," was Hendricks' parting injunction. "Kola, give him a stiff drink of your native brandy. Goodnight," BE a Control Afirtcm.

We learn from a London Interviewer that Zomba, the capital of British Central Africa, is quite a civilized place, in which tie visitor may require dress coat. "If the commissioner aska you to dine, you will find thai he lives in luxurious mansion built high up on the shoulder of a lofty mountain. Your dinner will be cooked by a Hin- doo chef of exquisite cunning, you Till be waited upon by deft servants as black as night, the table will be decorated with flowers such as no British duchess could buy, the view from the will delight your eye. After dinner you will step out into the veranda, perhaps, and smoke your cigar with, the roar of the cascading river in your ears, or fall into luxurious chair and read the last novel from Mudie's or the last batch of papers which the post- main has Just delivered. Then early to bed and early to rise, your bath, your coffee, and a little fruit perhaps, a in the delightful garden, full of fruits and flowers, a peep at the commissioner's private menagerie, then Star.

Mr. Cleveland Worth Bx-Preeident Cleveland, who resides in Mercer county, X. was asked by the assessor recently, for a statement of his property so that he might be taxed. He affixed tie value or' his new- home at $20,000 and his personal property at $130,000. He says in his remarks that this is as near as he can at tie value of his securities, because the uncertain condition of the market and fluctuating value of i A i Jiws got in at 1 a.

no drunk he couldn't see. A notion into hoad kare a drink of tea. are you doing?" yeltod his meekly told hia whim; to she fot up and it aot for him. -B. T.

The Wayi of the Moneymaker. Penny-in-the-slot machines are noir being made to inflate bicycle tires, an air tank being fitted with flexible rubber tubes to be attached to the valve in the tire, after which the money is placed in the slot and the air flows into the tire, the act of unscrewing tha tube from the valve closing the machine again. tqnelcbea. do detest seeing women luring along streets on a bicycle. And not half of.

them enjoy It, though they may pretend to. course we doc't enjoy it! But what is a woman to do when she can't ever get a seat in Enauirer. And I suppose you find comfort in the thought that you mada your husband happy while he lived. Toung yes. I'm sure George was in heaven up to the time of his death.

A Meaning-. Grover bass that got away was at least three feet long. You may think I'm crazy, but- Friend I don't think than think you're only an angler-maniac. There Are lamp wasn't so wonderful after all. do you think so.

any night I can make a policeman sippear bf almply blowing out my laap. In che Vernacular. "And you want to marry my daughter, do you?" said Mr. Stockbroker. "Well, not right away, sir," said tie timid youth; "but I'd like to an on bar." An Old Sinner.

I see Johnson I am reminded of the proverb that good die young. he's 75 i If he's a day. That'i Just my point. A Sample What He Emma, I "Stop! Before you offer youreelf for jood and all, wait till you hear me plar the Blatter- That Amblsrioux Jim do you do? Jack- we get up a quiet game of poker with some stranger, and Jim Wabashe morn- ins, then. few weeks ago I read oC a Missouri man who traded mis a mule.

What a terrible bargain, should say he still kaa a kick coming. The Do the Work. Many wrote a poem to-day. Besta wrltln' poetry a deal like work? Many In dls case. It was a zaaffaeiae ooem.

Poker on the Klondike. The most exciting game at Klondike IB when the miners play poker with beans for chips. The man who wias twenty beans is sure of a mea.L A Wheelman's Definition. "What's garroting, George?" "Why, it's where they get a turiK oa your neck tubing and puncture yowr backbone Plain-Dealer. Tery Likely.

The always taking water; why don't you brace up and skow some grit?" The would if I only had your sand." Kubbex JCecks. Mrs. believe that new hat of Mrs. Pughe's has turned her head. nearly so much as it haa other women's.

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