Picture-Play Weekly (Apr-Oct 1915)

12 PICTURE-PLAY WEEKLY to the seashore. Walking out on three rocks which stood before a dead pine tree, she removed an emptied cracker tin from its hiding place under her cloak, and with it a stout line. One end of the rope she tied around the tin. The other she fastened to a goodsized stone. Then, lowering the tin into the water, she placed the stone, as an anchor, upon the rock, covered that portion of the line which showed with seaweed, and went back to the house. That evening Godfrey Abelwhite sought out Lady Verinder, his travehiig bag in hand. "I have to return to London on important business,'' he explained. "But, due to the unfortunate situation which exists here, I shall of course insist upon having my luggage thoroughly searched before I leave." Detective Cuff, who was present, stepped briskly forward to perform the search. But Lady Verinder stopped him. "The very idea of doing such a thing in your case, Godfrey, is ridiculous," she warmly declared. "You are my daughter's guest, and mine. Do you suppose for one moment that I would subject you to such an indignity? Sorry as we are to have you leave, you are at perfect liberty to do so, and to take your luggage with you, unquestioned." An hour after Godfrey Abelwhite had taken his departure. Franklin Blake appeared before Lady Verinder to inform her of his intention of leaving the house, also. "I think you ought to know," lie informed Rachel's mother, "that Rachel has given me back my ring, and broken her engagement to me. I can't for the life of me understand why. And she flatly refuses to discuss the matter. So I am going." As he was about to board his automobile at the foot of the mansion's front steps. Detective Cuff hurried up to him. "I beg pardon, Mr. Blake," apologized the sleuth, "but would you answer just one question for me."' I may tell you that, due to a sudden whim of the young lady who owned the diamond that was stolen, I have been called off this case. She asserts that the loss is hers, and she wishes the matter dropped. I have nothing to do but to obey her orders in the matter. But there is one thing I should like to find out, for my own sat isfaction, before I go. Do you mind? Well, the question I wish you would answer is this: What is Rosanna Spearman to you?" Blake's eyebrows lifted in surprise over the mention of the maid's name. "She is nothing whatsoever to me." he answered candidly. "Thank you," said Detective Cuff, stepping back from the automobile. "That's all I wanted to know." It was enough for Rosanna herself, who had overheard the sleuth's question and the answer that the man she loved gave to it. Unperceived by either Detective Cuff or the young lawyer, she stole into the house and mounted the stairs to her own room. There she wrote a letter — only a brief one — and addressed it to Franklin Blake at his law of!:ce in London. She took the letter to the village and mailed it. And then she walked slowly away in the direction of the seashore. Franklin Blake, arriving at his office, repacked his bag, gave his office boy and his stenographer a vacation on full salary, and then, pinning up a card on the outside of the office door which read, "Will be Back in a Month," departed from London — to try to forget his inexplicable jilting by Rachel. Thus, it was four weeks later before he received the letter which Rosanna had written to him. He tore open the envelope with its unfamiliar handwriting in surprise, to read, with increasing perplexity, these lines : "If you care to know why I have done away with myself, come to the three rocks by the dead pine tree, and lift the stone which you w^ill find there. I overheard you tell Detective Cuff that I was nothing to you. "Rosanna Spearman." The spot mentioned in the letter was a familiar one to Blake. Summoning his motor car, he drove out to the Verinder estate and walked down to the seashore. On the rocks before the dead pine tree he found the stone, and lifted it. The line attached to it was revealed. He pulled the cracker tin at the end of it up out of the water, and pried it open. He found his own pajama jacket rolled up inside, with a smudge of paint on its left sleeve. To the garment was pinned a note. He read, in Rosanna's hand: "I was making up your bed, the morning the diamond was stolen from Miss Rachel's room, and I came upon this paint stain on the sleeve of your pajama jacket. I knew then that you had stolen the gem. But I w-anted to save you because — I loved you. So I bought material just like this, and made you another pajama coat, to put in place of this one, w-hich I hid here so that no one would suspect you '' Blake lowered the letter, his brows uplifted in utter bewilderment. Had the girl been mad ? And yet this was his own pajama jacket, right enough. Pressing his lips together in sudden determination, the young man turned and walked back to the Verinder mansion. He found Rachel seated on the bench of the sundial in the rose garden. He told her of the two letters he had received from Rosanna, and of finding his pajama jacket with the smudge of paint on its sleeve where the maid had concealed it. "What does it all mean?" he questioned Rachel. "And has this anything to do with why you broke our engagement ?" "Yes, it has," Rachel answered. "I saw you come into my room that night and take the diamond out of the jewel case on my dressing table " "But " "You don't deny that you did it, do you ?" "Deny it? Why, I never stole anything in all my life If 1 came into your room, as you say I did, and as this smudge of paint from your door on my pajama jacket seems to prove that I did, I must have been walking in my sleep. And yet that's something I've never done in my life. Nor has there ever been the slightest trace of somnambulism in my family. I know enough about medicine to know that a man who's never walked in his sleep up to the time he's reached my age, doesn't start in The voice of Doctor Candy, who had approached them unnoticed, cut in : "What do you know about medicine, young man ? Nothing at all. I'll tell you how you could have walked in your sleep, easily enough. Do you remember what you said to me on the night of Miss Verinder's birthday? That you believed medicine could not help your nerves? You may also remember that you told me you had stopped smoking