Radio digest (1922)

Thirteen am (9ne cQJill Little Thinks He Sees a Ghost as an Unexpected Guest Comes to Life In Nemo's Bed — a Haunted House By Jackson Gregory Illustrations by Dudley Gloyne Summers PRECIOUS stones, including the Nonius Opal, and the famous gem from the Orient known as the Flower of Heaven, and a million dollars in cold cash had brought together an unusual assortment of connoisseurs and adventurers. They were assembled in the storm-bound mountain retreat of Mainwaring Parks at Lake Tahoe. Including the servants there appeared to be just thirteen persons beneath this roof on that momentus night. As the guests dispersed to their various rooms there was a cry of murder. The host and his bodyguard were found dead or dying. An explosion in another part of the house sent the guests scurrying from the room. They found the safe robbed. Returning to the scene of the tragedy it was discovered the bodies of the two murder victims had been spirited away. No trace could be found of either of them. Two detectives mysteriously appeared from out of the night. Gateway immediately set upon Dr. Andregg and promised to get a confession from him. Then it was found that Nemo, another of the guests had disappeared from his room, leaving no trail. Several of the guests, headed by Captain Temple, prepared to hunt for him at a vacant cabin some distance away. But Paul Savoy, who strangely had predicted the arrival of the detectives, laughed and said they would not find their man. "All we need think on now, he said, is: Where are the bodies? . . . Good night, gentlemen." The door slammed, and the searchers departed into the night. IT WAS all very well for Paul Savoy to sing out his cheery: "Good night." But no consummation was to materialize from the wish. It was a thoroughly bad night for several of the household; especially Andregg, who lived through a night of horrors. Gateway exerted pressure cunningly, crushingly, cruelly, and he was past master of administering that incredibly hideous treatment known so widely as the Third Degree. . . . Laufer-Hirth spent hours again with his hands full, ministering to Will Little. The secretary had made his fight against weakness and had his finger nails in the edge of victory, poised above the abyss of terror, when the new shock of Mr. Nemo's disappearance had come to play havoc with his young victory. He sincerely believed this grim and sinister old place was haunted by dead men and by the spirits of unlucky stones. 'It's Detective Dicks' body, lying here in Nemo's bed!" He begged, he came close to futile threats in his desi: have Laufer-Hirth rid himself of the opal. "It's bad luck, I tell you!" he shrilled. "We know there strange, unexplained influences hanging about many prec: stones. . . How did the thing come on the table downsta Who put it there, and why? ... Go get rid of it; else you'll next to go. You or I . . . For God's sake!" Laufer-Hirth took the thing out of his pocket and stared at il with a most peculiar look in his eyes. Superstitions? Wil Little shrank back and fell to shivering as though with a chil that bit to the bone. Laufer-Hirth shambled away, going intc his own room. He was gone not over three or four minutes but when he came back he announced, "I've hid the thing.' And from his look and tone it might have been gathered thai he, almost as fervently as Will Little, was relieved. NOTHING, it appeared, would drag Gateway away from hh present post at Andregg's bedside. Temple, Mcintosh and the sergeant bent their heads against the night's wild buffetings. They carried two flashlights, I bunch of keys, an ax, a handful of candles and a fresh supplj of matches. Somewhere, far above, beyond the thick massed clouds, da> was breaking when they came to the beach in front of the empty house. An hour and a half after they had left the home of Mainwaring Parks they were stamping the loose snow from theii arctics on another veranda, dark and bleak and piled higl with drifts. They sent their two circles of light dancing here and there until the outlines of door and window were revealed The window was heavily shuttered; blown snow, caught by ar inrush of the wind, had been swept up over the threshold oi the door. The three men began seeking signs of Mr. Nemo's passing here on the roofed veranda; but even here, had he come this way during the night, the spraying sleet must have obliterated all traces. Mcintosh held a light focused upon the keyhole while CaptainTemple's numb fingers fumbled with the key he had inserted The door, heavy and inclined to drag at an outer corner, creaked dismally. The three stepped in, shoved it shut against the wind, and began a hasty striking of matches. The dark in here, having the effect of being aided and abetted by a thick, musty atmosphere, was like 2 A weight on their spirits. Ghostly little spurts of flame rose from the match1 ends; a more genial yellow glow spread? out from the three candles which they had lighted. "Smacks of the tomb in here," observed Mcintosh, fiolding his candle . high and staring about him interestedly "I think we're going to find something. Something dead and cold and unlovely." V UWHAT'S that!" whispered the serVVgeant, suddenly rigid, leaning toward the gloom, chin thrust out. One clutched another and altogether pointed. It was the thinnest, palest line of light under a door at the end of the hall. On tiptoe and as noiseless as phantoms they crept to the closed door, being of equal mind to burst without warning upon their quarry. Captain Temple set his hand to the door, turning it ever so softly. He found the door fastened from within. The three put their ears close; never a 1 sound. They drew back at Temple's uige, listening to his i whispered word. "That door's a flimsy affair. . . . The three of us rushing