The Diamond Bullet Murder Case.

George F. Worts.

CHAPTER 1. THE MYSTERY WOMAN.

THE whiteness of the girl's face was so startling that Gillian Hazeltine almost dropped his newspaper. The express elevator was slowing for the floor where his law offices were located. The girl's eyes, as black as two spots of night, were staring at him as if some shutter behind them had been tripped, letting him see her naked, terrified soul.

Gillian thought she was ill, perhaps on the verge of fainting. Then he recognized her as the girl who had been following him. It had been going on for days. He had first seen her, in his waiting room; white and tense and terrified, sitting stiffly in a chair with her hands clasped and pressed between her knees in a fold of her dress.

It was a cheap blue dress and showed signs of wear. Her small black, hat looked cheap. So did her shoes. And Gillian had noticed that her silk stockings were darned and that a run in the back of one of them had been painstakingly studied.

The mysterious, frightened unknown had sat in his outer office for two hours. Gillian's secretary, questioning her, had reported that the girl said she wanted to see no one, but merely, wanted to rest. She wasn't feeling well. At the end of two hours, the girl went away.

Gillian had seen her again, later the same day he had almost collided with her when he had left the building for the night. The white-faced girl was standing on the sidewalk, just around the turn of the wall. She had flattened herself against the wall and stared up at him with trembling lips.

Two evenings later, Gillian saw a white face at one of his dining room windows as he sat dining alone. Vee, his wife, was visiting some friends in Chicago. Glancing up, he had seen the white face, the terrified eyes, of some one staring in at him. But the afternoon light had faded. It was dusk. He could not be sure that it had been this girl.

It was altogether very disturbing. Gillian had countless enemies. Plots had been laid against his life. Unscrupulous women had tried to blackmail him. But he could not believe that this girl was bent upon such an enterprise.

She did not look like the blackmailing kind. She looked to him like a country girla"her hat, dress, stockings, shoesa"all carried out that impression. He concluded that she was in some kind of difficulty, but for certain reasons, was reluctant to approach him.

As the elevator stopped and the heavy bronze doors silently shot open, Gillian thrust the Greenfield Times under one arm and, on the point of leaving the car, turned quickly to the girl.

"You were in my office the other morning," he said. "Did you have something to say to me?"

The girl looked up at him with terror and dismay. She shrank back against the side of the elevator. He had evidently taken her so by surprise that she was speechless. A small, work roughened hand flew to her trembling mouth. The fingers opened and moved down her chin to her throat. She gulped, choked, shrank away. Her eyes were glittering with fright.

Gillian sniffed faintly. He was more than ever convinced that she had some problem to lay before him, but was afraid to talk about it.

He walked out into the corridor. From the tail of his eye he saw the girl's hand dart out in a fluttering gesture to detain him. Then the doors clanged.

Gillian proceeded thoughtfully through his outer offices and on through his law library into his private office. He was disturbed by the girl's obvious terror. And he was curious to know why she was following him.

He opened the golden humidor on his deska"a gift from a grateful client whom Gillian had saved from the electric chaira"extracted a long blond perfecto and, walking to the window which overlooked a reach of the Sangamo River, lighted it.

His brisk and efficient secretary, Miss Walsh, came in with an open notebook and a determined air. It was her private opinion that, without her, her famous employer would never get a stroke of work done, but would devote all of his time to gazing dreamily out that window, pondering heaven only knew what attractive but unproductive visions.

"Come back in an hour," Gillian said, without turning from the view. "I want to do some thinking."

"But you promised Mr. Kelly-"

"Kelly can wait. Miss Walsh," Gillian turned to look at her, "do you remember that little derelict who sat in the waiting room for two hours the other morning, looking as if she were scared to death?"

"Yes, Mr. Hazeltine."

"That girl has been on my trail for days. I'll swear she was staring through the window at me the other night at dinner. I b.u.mp into her on the street. I find her staring at me from the sidewalk when I get out of my car. Just now she rode up in the elevator with me, staring as if I were something in a zoo. I asked her if she had something on her mind. She said she hadn't. What do you make of that girl, Miss Walsh?"

His competent secretary lifted her expressive eyebrows. She uttered what sounded like a sniff.

"Mr. Hazeltine, if I showed you a fraction of the letters that come to you from hero-worshiping girls you'd be positively ill. You are the idol of the ma.s.ses. These silly girls must have some hero to worship. And you," added Miss Walsh, with an impish twinkle in her eyes, "are the romantic typea"strong, handsome, fearless."

"Rubbish," Gillian snorted. "Do you think this girl is one ofa"uma" those?"

"I shovel them off the doorstep every morning, Mr. Hazeltine! Have you forgotten the girl who used to bake a chocolate layer cake every week and send it to you? Have you forgotten the flapper who sent you the platinum cigar lighter with your initials and hers woven together in a diamond monogram?"

Gillian was blushing.

Miss Walsh said, "If you'll dictate the rough draft of that brief for Mr. Kelly-"

"d.a.m.n Kelly," Gillian barked. "I want to know more about this girl."

Miss Walsh groaned. "Won't you rely on my feminine intuition?"

"No! Why is she so terrified?"

"Because she adores you and must be near you, but is terrified at the thought of your discovering it."

"But-" Gillian grunted. "You would never make a detective. I'll give you that brief for Kelly in an hour," he said with finality.

Miss Walsh briskly withdrew. Gillian sat down at his desk and opened his Times. His real reason for dismissing Miss Walsh was not to reflect at his leisure upon the mystery of the girl with terrified eyes, but to give that agile mind of his the recreation of probing about in an absorbing murder mystery.

It was known to the newspapers as the Diamond Bullet Murder Case.

The press, with its propensity for summing up any situation in capsule form, had so described an absorbing tragedy that had occurred near the agricultural community of Clinton, about forty miles north of Greenfield.

Gillian loved a good mystery, and this promised to be an exciting and absorbing onea"the kind that brings forth some fresh and shocking development each day.

It had begun modestly, as most good mysteries do, with a small item on the back page which briefly mentioned that a wealthy farmer named Amos Grundle had mysteriously vanished and that his wife, Sarah, had committed suicide by cutting her wrist arteries, both events coinciding with the disappearance of the Grundle servant, a girl named Nellie Hearthstone.

Gillian had at first drawn the obvious conclusion. The wealthy farmer had run off with Nellie Hearthstone, and his wife, rather than face public humiliation, had committed suicide.

That had been about a week ago. The next development had taken the story to the front pages. Several people had seen the Hearthstone girl board an interurban street car for Greenfielda"alone. She had been seen in Greenfield twice sincea"always alone. Foul play was hinted at.

A search was inst.i.tuted for Farmer Grundle. In the course of the search, the flooded pit of an old quarry a half mile from his house cooperated with certain laws of nature and gave up Farmer Grundle's swollen body. A rifle was found in the bushes near by.

The Grundle case now acquired a sensational note. The tabloid press, always hungry for lurid details, pieced together a story of a strong man's l.u.s.t and a helpless girl's revenge.

Nellie Hearthstone was, it appeared, an orphan. She had been found one bitter winter morning eighteen years ago bundled up in a ragged old blanket on the hearthstone in the parlor of the Clinton Orphan Asylum. That was how she had come by her name. She had been taken from the asylum a year ago and employed as a maid of all work in the Grundle household, which consisted only of her and Mrs. Grundle.

The girl was said to be very pretty and a hard little worker. Prominent men in the village vigorously denied that Amos Grundle had tired of his aging wife to become infatuated with the lovely orphan.

They pointed out that Amos Grundle was a man of flawless character; was a prominent churchgoer and a power for good in the civic life of the township. They condemned as vicious gossip the theory that a love-making scene between Grundle and the girl on the edge of the old rock quarry had resulted in the murder. And they hotly resented the implication that Mrs. Grundle, aware of impending scandal, had committed suicide. She had committed suicide, they declared, because of ill health. She had been a sick woman for years.

These various explanations were slightly complicated by the discovery that the rifle, which was identified as Grundle's, was a modern United States Army riflea"loaded with blank cartridges.

The case was given an exotic touch by the statement of an elderly spinster named Nettie Jarvis, who declared she had seen a tall man with a black beard follow Grundle into the woods toward the old quarry on the morning of his disappearance. Nettie Jarvis was a seamstress.

Gillian accepted this with a grunt of skepticism. Old women were always seeing tall men with black beards at or near the scene of murders. A murder would be incomplete without a mysterious stranger.

A new batch of rumors next brought a handsome young farmer, one James Truman, into the spotlight. Truman's farm adjoined Amos Grundle's. It was a.s.serted by village gossips that young Truman was himself infatuated with the lovely orphan and had been seen kissing her in a motion picture theater, James Truman, Gillian guessed, knew more about the murder than he was admitting.

This morning's development capped the climaxa"sent the story shrieking to the front pages of the press of the nation and made the sleepy town of Clinton the Mecca of long lines of automobiles.

Even the sedate Times gave the new development a seven-column screamer: DIAMOND FOUND IN GRUNDLE'S HEART!.

A diamond weighing approximately four and one-half carats had been found by the Clinton coroner embedded in Amos Grundle's heart. The leading jeweler of Clinton gave his testimony. Diamond, said he was nothing but white coal, and, given the opportunity, would burn like coal. The flash of rifle powder had started to ignite the diamond, as its scorched edges proved, but before it could burn, the diamond had plunged into Amos Grundle's astonished heart.

Who owned a diamond of such value? Why had it been used as a bullet? What connection could there possibly be between such a fine stone and a poor but beautiful orphan? The old woman who had seen the blackbearded stranger was interviewed again. She stuck to her story. He was a giant of a man with a sinister, foreign air.

Further down the pages was another sensational development. The county prosecutor, a man named Elton Dawbridge, had brought charges against the elderly superintendent of the Clinton Orphan Asylum, accusing him of flagrant misuse of his office; charging him, in so many words, with nothing less than white slavery.

The asylum superintendent, declared the county prosecutor, was empowered to let his orphans, go to work in respectable homes as servants when they were old enough; but it was now unearthed that he was disposing of the most beautiful of the orphans to those farmers who paid him the highest premium.

A fiery denunciation of this distressing practice was quoted in the Times in Mr. Dawbridge's eloquent words. And Gillian, who seldom believed what he read, was of the opinion that Mr. Dawbridge had selected this opportunity to thrust himself into the limelight with a bright and eager eye on political advancement.

Mr. Dawbridge promised startling disclosures in the Grundle mystery before to-morrow morning. It was now tomorrow morning, and Gillian's interest in the Diamond Bullet Murder Case was so feverish that he was tempted to drop all work and drive out to Clinton and do a little investigating for the fun of it.

Gillian's efficient secretary drove this whimsical notion from his mind. She was standing before him now, with an opened notebook, a poised pencil, a grim expression about her pretty lips and the word Kelly fairly snapping in her eyes.

And Miss Walsh saw to it that Gillian was so busy the rest of the day that his lunch had to be sent in. He did not have another moment to spare for the Grundle Diamond Case until it was time to go home for dinner.

His favorite newsboy met him with a copy of the Evening Bulletin. Gillian, seating himself in his coupe, glanced at the headline.

TRUMAN HELD AS GRUNDLE DIAMOND OWNER!.

A glance at the opening lines of the, story a.s.sured him that his yesterday's guess was correcta"James Truman had been arrested. It had been proved beyond doubt that he was the diamond's owner.

There was still another startling disclosure. On the afternoon of the murder he and Nellie Hearthstone had applied for a marriage license at the county clerk's office. The State law required that an avowal of matrimonial intentions be filed a week prior to the marriage.

Gillian read no further. He wanted to digest the story at his leisure, while he was digesting his dinner.

He drove to his home on the hill overlooking the river, and drove on into the garage. He opened the newspaper to steal another glance at the Grundle story before going into the house.

Now the Hazeltine garage was a somewhat s.p.a.cious affair, with ample room for Gillian's coupe, his wife's roadster and her limousine. It was a two-story building. Upstairs was a loft for the storage of odds and endsa"gardening tools, discarded furniture and the miscellany which will be found in such a catch-all.

As Gillian glanced again at the headline, he distinctly heard a thump overhead. He knew that today was the gardener's day off, so he presumed that the thump had been caused by his j.a.panese servant, Toro.

"Toro?" he called.

There was no answer. Gillian, listening, heard further sounds, as of some one moving about.

He climbed out of his coupe and called firmly: "Who is up there?"

Still no answer.

A little irritated at receiving no answer, Gillian shouted: "Come down out of there!"

A pair of slim, silk-clad legs appeared at the top of the narrow stairs. Gillian next saw the hem of a blue serge dress. The feet began to descend. He now observed that the stockings were darned in several places.

He waited, with suddenly accelerating pulses.

The white-faced girl, who had so mystified him during the past few days, climbed down and into the light of the opened garage doors.

Her eyes, as she stared at him, were dark with terror. Her mouth was quivering. For some unaccountable reason, she selected this moment to s.n.a.t.c.h off her small black hat, and her hair came tumbling out and down almost to her shoulders. It was thick, rich, curly, brown hair. Her eyes seemed to swim.

In the cool light of evening, her face was beautiful. It had the pallor of some martyred saint, and considerably more beauty.

There was a newspaper in her hand a copy of the same edition that Gillian had been reading a moment before.

"What," Gillian asked in astonishment, "were you doing up there?"

The girl caught her hand to her heart.

"Please," she whimpered; "don't you know who I ama"now?"

Gillian's eyes grew suddenly dark with understanding.

"One guess," he said crisply. "Nellie Hearthstone."

The girl pitched forward unconscious; would have fallen on the cement floor if Gillian had not swooped down and caught her by the elbows.

CHAPTER 2. HOT WATER.

HAZELTINE lifted the limp orphan in his arms, dismayed at her lightnessa"the poor little thing was hardly more than bones and carried her into the house, fervently wishing that his wife were at home. Fainting women terrified him. He never could remember whether you elevated the head or the feet.

He transported Miss Hearthstone into the comfortable living room, arranged her on a settee and shouted for Toro. As he had come in by the side-door, he had missed Toro, who was busy in the kitchen preparing his master's dinner.

Toro came noiselessly in, gazed with Buddhist gravity at the tableau, and inquired in his impeccable English: "Did you call, Mr. Hazeltine?"

"Bring some water!" Gillian said hoa.r.s.ely. "Bring some brandy! Bring a bowl of ice! Bring a towel! Bring some smelling salts! Do something Get busy! Act! Don't stand there like a stalled car!"

Toro fled, to return promptly with a decanter of brandy and a liqueur gla.s.s. Gillian filled the gla.s.s and forced its contents between Nellie Hearthstone's gray lips.

She quickly revived. Eyelids trembled and lifted. Gillian pulled up a chair and began to rub her hands.

The beautiful orphan gazed up at him with the dim, vague eyes of semiconsciousness; then intelligence fully returned and, with it, the black, stark look of terror. She shrank away from him.