Picture-Play Weekly (Apr-Oct 1915)

PICTURE-PLAY WEEKLY 9 his bureau, from another drawer he took out a legal-looking document.' "This is my will, Parker," said he. "I am showing it to you, and I want you to observe where I place it, in case anything should happen to me." At that moment three Hindus had stopped on the street outside, and were looking up at the number above Captain Herncastle's door. '"In case something should happen to you. sir?" repeated the valet, surprised. "Why, sir, what could happen to you? Unless youVe not feeling well " "I have a presentiment of evil, that is all." said Captain Herncastle, with a shrug, though his face was set in the same sober lines. "Fill my bath for me." The valet did so. Captain Herncastle entered the bathroom, and closed the door behind him. His manservant went downstairs, and entered the dining room to set the table for his master's breakfast. The door leading out into the hall ■(vas open, the valet noticed ; frowning in perplexity — for he distincth" remembered to have closed it not a half hour before — he crossed the room to shut it again. The hall into which the door ga\e was that into which the front door of the house opened ; and Captain Herncastle hated a draft. A pair of sinewy arms encircled the vaiet's waist, and he was jerked back\.-ard and thrown at full length on the floor. In a twinkling, almost, so expert ■were his unknown assailants at the work, Parker's mouth was gagged, his hands tied behind him, and his legs bound tightly together. Five minutes later there was a ring at the doorbell. Franklin Blake had come to pay a call on Captain Herncastle. Receiving no response to his repeated ringing, Blake, perceiving of a sudden that the door was not latched, pushed it open and entered the hall. He passed down it to the dming room. And there he discovered the mute and helpless Parker. "Quick !" the young lawyer commanded, when he had freed the valet of his bonds and his gag. "Where is j-our master ?" Parker stopped to work the stiffness out of his jaws before he could speak. "He — he's in his bath, sir, I believe." he stammered out at length. "At least, that's where I left him wiien I cam; down here, to be attacked — by what parties 1 don't know." Blake ran upstairs, through his friend's bedroom, and knocked on the bathroom door. There was no response. He seized the knob, and turned it. And then, standing on the threshold of the bathroom, he gave a gasp of horror at the sight that met his eyes. Captain Herncastle lay queerly doubled and half submerged in the tub, the water around and over him pink from the deep slash across his throat, extending from ear to ear, through which his life's blood had long since flowed away. "Captain Herncastle showed me this, ' said he, holding out the ^loonstone for Blake's inspection as he spoke, "just — just before it happened. And here is his will. He wanted me to see where he put it, he said, in case anything should happen to him. He even said he had a presentiment of evil. Those were his exact words, sir.'' Blake stared at the diamond w'hich the valet had placed in his hand, in speechless amazement at its size. Then he read the will, doing so perfunctorilj% Captain Herncastle, disguised as a Hindu, had joined the worshipers in the Temple of the Moon God — to watch for a chance to steal the diamond from the idol's forehead. \\'ith Parker to help him, Franklin Blake carried the dead man to his bed and laid him on it. "The same parties who attacked me," said the valet, "must have done it. Don't you think so, sir?" "It's quite possible," answered Blake, looking sorrowfully down at his departed friend. "But I can't understand it," he muttered. "He didn't have an enemy in the world, that I know of." Parker touched his arm. since he himself had drawn it up. He knew that it left everything Captain Herncastle possessed to his niece, Rachel Verinder, when she should reach her twenty-first birthday. This diamond, then, had become her property — or it would be hers, in less than two months. An examination of Captain Herncastle's room showed plainly that a search had been started in it, probably after his murder , but also that Blake's rin"