Feathers left around

“The sort I like best,” and Loft looked interested. “I eat up Detective Stories, and I like better the How Was It Done? or the Who Did It? kind better than the Why?”

VALENTINE LOFT was of most courteous even genial demeanor, but he also had an air of dictatorship about him that somehow made any request of his seem a command. And this with no...

Anna, as chaperon, graced the head of the table, and Curran sat at her right hand. This left Pauline for Loft’s guest of honor, and as she took her place beside him, he thought...

“Look at his face--cyanotic. Eyes wide open,--signs of bloody froth on his lips,--teeth tight clenched,--this man--” the doctor stopped to sniff at Curran’s mouth,--“yes, this m...

Detective Kinney was logical and consequent in his questionings and Doctor Gilvray was keen and shrewd in his comments and deductions, but when it was over nobody seemed to know...

“I’d laugh at your suggestion, Knox, only it does seem as if that might have been the method used. The doctors could easily have overlooked the tiny scar it would make. And, do...

“BUT you see, Pauline, darling, Ned Knox is impulsive, belligerent and pig-headed. If he found Anna out on the balcony flirting with Curran, he would kill him just as soon as he...

“IT’S all very well,” said Roly Mears, “for you people to stick by one another, and to shield one another. But the truth of this thing has got to come out. I’m friendly enough w...

KINNEY, away from the lure of Anna’s presence, wondered how he had been so subjugated by her. The man was soft-hearted but hard-headed, and, thinking it all over, he began to wo...

“But there’s more to this than meets the eye. You see, Angel, if Ned killed Curran because he flirted with Anna, then Anna is going to use every means to turn suspicion from Ned.”

“I don’t know,” Loft returned. “In fact, Angel, she went without my knowing it. I tried to find her just now, but she has gone off in the little car.”

BY noon next day no word had been heard of Pauline. Loft called up her New York home, and inquired, guardedly, as to conditions there. He learned that Pauline’s aunt was not wel...

“I HOPE to Heaven you _will_ be able to find her,” said Loft, agreeing to the detective’s wish, but staring at him still, with that blank, unseeing gaze. “But just now, Mr. Kinn...

AS the car rolled smoothly up the long drive through the tree-shaded lawns of Valhalla, Fleming Stone and his able assistant, young McGuire, gazed in silent admiration at the be...

FLEMING STONE stood on the veranda waiting for the car which was to take him to see Doctor Gilvray. Fibsy stood beside him, quiet of manner but with his quick-darting eyes takin...

But now that she had had time to think matters over, she was not quite sure she had been wise in coming. She had told kind-hearted Mary her whole story, and Mary had sympathized...

“Mary Malden,” he said to himself, as he hung up the receiver. “I might have guessed it! Just the place for her, too. Now, let’s see--” He looked at his watch. “Just about twelv...

Pauline, now that there was no longer any secret about her past, blossomed into a happy bride, and except for the cloud of tragedy that still hung over the household, all was se...