"Oh, aunt, here we are."

"I saw you coming because I was watching," said his aunt, coming forward, the personification of dignity. She held out her arms, and Agnes felt herself being embraced and kissed. Her head was in a whirl.

How could _she_ readily become accustomed to such without displaying awkwardness.

Arm in arm they mounted the steps, were met by the butler, who took her bags, and a moment later she found herself in a large, richly furnished room.

"Come now, dear," he said, and led her to a couch. She heard his aunt going upstairs to prepare her room, and the next moment she felt him draw her to him, and whatever difference there was in this convenient life, all men loved alike.

Jean Baptiste lingered late at the Keystone bar. He was alone in the world, he felt, so company of the kind about seemed the best, and was, at least, diverting. It was twelve o'clock and after when he left. He still retained his room at the attorney's residence, and to this he strolled slowly. He attempted to formulate some plans in his mind, and after a time it occurred to him that he should go back West to Gregory.

He had hired more than seven hundred fifty acres put into wheat. He hadn't heard how it was, or whether there was any wheat there or not.

But he had seen in the papers that a drought had affected much of the crop in Kansas and Nebraska. He half heartedly assumed that it would naturally hit his country also. If so, there was nothing left for him to do but leave that section. But he would depart from the city on the morrow and see what there was up there, and with this settled in his mind, he quickened his step, and hurried to his room.

He turned into the right number, as he thought, but upon trying to insert the key in the lock he found that he had made a mistake. He glanced up in confusion and almost uttered a cry. It was not the attorney's home, but that of the Reverend McCarthy.

"Chump!" he said to himself as he turned and started back down the steps. "I'll never sleep inside that house again," and laughed.

Upon the walk he heard steps, and when he had reached the street, looked up to meet Glavis and a strange Negro just turning in. Glavis glared at him as if to say, "Well, what business have you here, now?" But Baptiste mumbled some word of apology about having turned in at the wrong number, went directly to his room, retired and forgot the incident.

He had no idea how long he had been asleep or what time it was when he was awakened suddenly by a drumming on his door, and the attorney's voice, saying:

"Heh! Heh! Baptiste, wake up, wake up, you're wanted!"

He turned on his side and drew his hand to his forehead to assure himself that he was awake. Then, realizing that he was, he jumped from the bed and going forward, opened the door.

Two officers, the attorney in a bath robe, and Glavis stood at the door. He regarded them curiously. "What is this?" he managed to say, as they came into the room.

"Seems that they want you," said the attorney.

"Me?" he chimed.

"Yep," said one of the officers. "Will you go along peacefully or shall we have to put the bracelets on. You're arrested for murder."

"For murder! _Me_, for murder?"

"Just go with the officers, Baptiste. If you'd been a little earlier you might have gotten away; but it so happened that I met you coming out just as I was going in."

"But I don't understand what you're talking about--all of you,"

persisted Baptiste. "Who has been murdered, and why am I accused?"

The lawyer had been observing him keenly, and now he interposed.

"Why, your wife and her father have just been found murdered, and Glavis here and another assert they met you coming out of the house at midnight or a little after."

The incident of the night came back to him then, "Well," he muttered, and began to get into his clothes. When he was fully dressed he turned to the attorney and said:

"Glavis is right in part, White." He was very calm. "I'll call you up when I need you." And then he turned to the officers and said. "I'm ready. The cuffs will not be necessary."

CHAPTER XVI

A FRIEND

Because she feared that rising as early as she had been accustomed to might serve to embarrass her fiance and his aunt, Agnes took a magazine from her bag, returned to bed and tried to interest herself in a story the morning following her arrival in the city. About seven, some one knocked lightly at her door, and, upon opening it, she found the maid with the morning paper.

"Would you care for it?" she asked courteously.

"I would be glad to have it," she said as she took it, returned to the bed, and once again therein, turned to read the news. It was but a moment before she started up quickly as she read:

STRANGE MURDER CASE ON VERNON AVENUE

NEGRO MINISTER AND HIS DAUGHTER FOUND MURDERED ABOUT MIDNIGHT

JEAN BAPTISTE, WHO HAD LOST SUIT AGAINST PREACHER, ARRESTED AND HELD WITHOUT BAIL AS SUSPECT. WAS MET LEAVING THE HOUSE JUST BEFORE DISCOVERY OF THE MURDER.

Jean Baptiste, Negro author and rancher is under arrest at the county jail this morning, accused of the murder of his wife and father-in-law, the Reverend N.J. McCarthy, at 3---- Vernon Avenue.

The dead bodies of the preacher and his daughter were discovered shortly after midnight last night by his daughter Ethel and her husband, upon his return from State Street where he had seen Baptiste leave the Keystone saloon a few minutes after twelve.

The murder appears to be the sequence of a long enmity between the preacher and his son-in-law, Baptiste. Some years ago Baptiste had the preacher's daughter take a homestead in the West, on which he had purchased a relinquishment for her. Some months later they were married and went to live on the claim he had secured. It seems that bad blood existed between the preacher and Baptiste, and some time after the marriage the preacher went on a trip West and when he returned brought his daughter back with him. It is said that the rancher visited Chicago several times following in an effort to persuade her to return. About a year ago, the daughter sold a relinquishment on the homestead and Baptiste accused the preacher of having influenced her to do so. He also accused him of other things that contributed to the separation, and finally sued the minister in the circuit court of Cook County for ten thousand dollars for alienating his wife's affections. The case was brought up, tried, and, yesterday, the minister was adjudged not guilty by the jury. The rancher and author made a strong case against the minister, and it was the consensus of opinion in the court room that the minister was guilty. But it was his daughter's alibi that saved him: she testified that she did not and never had loved her husband, and because the plaintiff was unable to prove conclusively that she had, the jury's verdict was "not guilty."

E.M. Glavis, also a son-in-law of the dead man, testified and was corroborated by another, a minister, that just as he turned into his yard last night, he met Jean Baptiste coming out. He moreover claims, that a few days before the trial, he tried to dissuade Baptiste from going through with the case, and to settle it out of court. But that Baptiste refused to consider it; that he showed his bitterness toward the now dead man, by declaring that if he hadn't wished to observe and subserve to the law, he would have killed the preacher long ago.

It is therefore the consensus of opinion that Baptiste, disappointed by losing the suit, entered the house and murdered his wife and father-in-law while they slept. The circumstantial evidence is strong, and it looks rather bad for the author. Only one phase of the case seems to puzzle the police, however, and that is that the preacher and his daughter were found dead in the same room, the room which the minister occupied. Both had been stabbed with a knife that had long been in that same room. The minister's body lay in bed as if he had been murdered while he was sleeping, while that of the daughter lay near the door. It is the opinion also of those who feel Baptiste guilty, that he entered the house and went to the preacher's room, and there killed him while he lay sleeping; and that the daughter, who was sleeping downstairs near her mother, was possibly aroused by the noise, went up to the room, and was murdered as the intruder was about to leave.

Baptiste refused to make any comment further than that he was innocent.

"Accused of murder!" Agnes echoed, staring before her in much excitement. "_Jean Baptiste accused of murder!_" She read the account again. She arose and stood on the floor. "He _is_ innocent, _he is innocent_!" she cried to herself. "_Jean Baptiste would not commit murder, no, no, no! No, not even if he was justified in doing so._"

Suddenly she seized her clothes, and in the next instant was getting hurriedly into them.

She completed her toilet quickly, opened the door and slipped down the stairs. The maid was at work in the hall, and she approached her, and said:

"Will you kindly advise the lady of the house that I have gone downtown on some very urgent business. That I shall return later in the day?"

She stepped outside, crossed to State Street, inquired of an officer the way to the county jail, and a few minutes later boarded a car for the north side.

She had no plans as to what she would or could do, but she was going to him. All that he had been to her in the past had arisen the instant she saw that he was in trouble. Especially did she recall his having saved them from foreclosure and disgrace years before. She was determined. She was _going_ to him, he was innocent, she was positive, and she would do all in her power to save him.

It was rather awkward, going to a place she had never dreamed of going to, the county jail, but she shook this resolutely from her mind, and a few minutes following her arrival, there she stood before the bailiff.

"I am a friend of a man who was arrested in connection with a murder last night," she explained to the officer. "And--ah, would it be possible for me to see and consult with him?"

"You refer to that case on Vernon Avenue, madam?"

"Yes, sir."