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Can You Beat It?l
By Hershfield.
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Polly and Her Pals
Pa's Desk Was Made Useful for Once
By Cliff Sterrett
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Eaglebeak Is Safe from Skinny Shaner
R*C*«red United State* Patent Office
By Tom McNamara
OH MR. it LE*£aK I HEARD) YOU <?AU WON Ft)l
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A OOOMPUU6R" GAMS AS THAT,
SK1NN1 SHANE R'S
6006L1 DEPARTMENT
SPaTOESQUE
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BOX STANDING'
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‘CAOSE IT'S AT 7HF END
OF PORK, AIN’T iT?
THE ns was a catcher!
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Holmes at His Best ®vt>
CLEEK
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A Detective Story of Thrilling
Interest, Love and Mystery
By T. W. HANSHAW.
Copyright by Doubleday, Page & Co.
TO-DAY’S INSTALLMENT.
‘ Yea- a lady; in about a quarter ;>f
an hour.” replied Narkom. “Show her
out to ua when she comes. Which -s
the way? Straight through? Thanks!’*
And took it forthwith, walking out
of the shop by means of a rear door,
nftd down avenues of crowded bloom
to a very wilderness of roses, where
he came upon fuk, with coat laid
aside, shirt sleeves stripped up. a
bidding knife m one hand and a bit of
woolen string in the other, engaged
In the task of budding foreign roses
upon English briars in a manner
which brought Joy to the heart and
gladness to the eye of an elderly
Dutchman, who bent over and
watched the operation.
• On time to the tick. 1 see. ’
said C leek, pausing in hi* op
erations to pull out an open-
faced watch and glance at it. then,
having introduced .Mr. Narkom —in
tiuei t Dutch—to the aged florist as
• Th* gentleman I spoke of: the one
who has invented the new system of
hybridizing orchids’*—be added in
English: “You can ."'peak without re
straint. dear friend—the old chap
doesn’t understand a word; but if you
are not alone- '*
**A lady will join us presently. 1
fancy she would prefer the interview
to be a little more private ”
“Ah. I see Then that’s a gray
horse of another color, as the Irish
man said. Walk down the path to its
end. There's a summer house there;
we can have it all to ourselves Just
give me time to finish binding in this
cion, rlease, and I’ll be with you”
carefully Inserting a thin sliver of
green wood, with a “bud” attached,
between the lifted edges of a “T”
shaped slit in the bark of a sturdy
briar. ' What is it this time, may I
ask? Robbery or something worse?’*
Much Worse-^-It's Murder.
"Much worse—it s murder.” replied
the superintendent. Wholesale and
most diabolical murder—that affair
of the five men a' Hampstead Is n
fool to it for mystery and infernal
cunning That’s what took me.out of
town—I’ve been gathering data to lay
before you. Come as quickly as you
can. will you. Cleek? Time is of the
utmost importance.”
"I judged that from what you said
over the phone. That is why I asked
you to come here. I should have
chosen some other place but for that.
Perhaps it would have been wiser if I
had. This is my little ‘corner of
Eden,’ where I spend my odd times
and hide the savor of the Yard under
the cover of James Redway, an enthu
siastic amateur gardener. 1 shouldn’t
like to lose it—as I shall do. if you
have been followed. What’s that?
Boyce and Hammond and the old red
limousine? My good friend, don’t
count too long on the efficacy of that
paltry trick. Neither Margot nor—
well, the other party, is a fool. We
deal with clever people, not with mere
muffs into whose eyes you can throw
dust with impunity Mr Narkom.
Sooner or later they will find out how
they are being had’ and then the new
limousine will be no greater safeguard
than the old one. They mean to have
me, that lot—if they can."
"Gad! You take ii calmly. Clock!”
“Whj not? if one lore one’s nerve
one parts with one’s wits. And mine
are my stock in trade. ‘Who steals
my purse,’ etcetera—you know the
rest. What? Yes—straight along the
path In front of you. I’ll be with you
in a minute's time.’
He was; for Narkom had no sooner
entered the little summer house to
which he had been directed than he
caught sight of him coming down the
path with his coat and hat on and.
with his handkerchief, composedly
flicking specks of dust from his cloth
ing as he advanced.
"Well, now what. Mr. Narkom?” he
queried as he entered—and forthwith
began to tie up a trailing vine which
had broken loose from its fastenings
and sagged over the doorw ay. "Whole
sale murder. I believe you said? Gad!
that’s a nice order to throw into the
lap of a peaceful citizen on a splendid
day like this. Let's have the details—
1 can listen whilst I'm working. But
first of ail, who's the client?”
“Dadv Jennifer, of Crown Mansions.
Holland Park”
• Jennifer? Jennifer? Any relation
to that Sir Gilbert Jennifer who was
Lord Mayor of London some six or
seven years ago?’
"Yes—his widow. As she was mere
ly knighted, of course the title does
u : descend, so, his son is simply
plain Mr* Rk hard Jennifer and noth
ing more. However, that doesn’t
seem to cause him any regret, for he
is a level-headed young chap—study
ing for the Bar—and, as his father
left plenty of money, with nothing
on that score to worry over, either.
A pity the father didn’t have a bit
of the boy’s cool-headedness and com
mon sense. He might have risen to
be anything before he died, if he
had; for there was influence behind
him, and he had ability, too, of a
sort. But his peppery temper and
his utter lack of diplomacy spoiled
everything. As a matter of fact he
was once appointed to an extremely
high post in connection with the
British Embassy at St. Petersburg —
even to the acting as deputy at the
time when the Ambassador himself
was stricken down with illness. That
was his chance—but the beggar was
a fool and muffed it.”
"I wnow; I know,” interjected
Cleek. "Interfered in politics, the
ass; stirred up the Nihilistic pie by
jabbing an Impertinent finger into it;
criticised the Government after the
manner of a Trafalgar Square ora
tor; was ‘recalled’ in double-quick-
order and had to be smuggled out of
Russia to escape getting a Nihilist
knife-blade slid between his ribs or a
Nihilist bomb from scattering whit
little brains he had. It was a mar
vel that they did not get him some
how, at some time, the donkey.”
"Lady Jennifer is beginning to o >-
iiava that they did—to question it,
for all he died in his bed from what
seemed clearly an attack of pneu
monia, they may not have been at the
bottom of that death and brought it
about by some secret and unsuspected
means At all events' she seems to
fancy that upon one occasion he came
home with green chalk upon his
sleeve; and, although this may have
been nothing more significant than
just evidence of a visit to the billiard
room of his club ”
Nine Sets of Them.
“Certainly.” interjected Cleek, as
senting. "Many billiard rooms use
colored chalk these days. But why
does that fact distress her ladyship?
And what possible difference can it
make whether the chalk mark in
question was white, blue, salmon-
colored or green?”
“A great deal. The mark on the
doorstep of the fiat building in which
she and her son reside was made with
green chalk—in fact, all the Three-
Seventeens were written with green
chalk, I have discovered.”
" ‘The Three-Seventeens?’ What on
earth are the ’Three-Seventeens.’
please? I’d like that put clearer.”
"Well, to speak correctly, it would
certainly have been more proper to
say ‘The Three-Hundred-and-Seven-
teens.’ dear chap." replied Narkom;
"for they are simply the figures three,
one, seven set down in a row (three-
seventeen, as one would say), and up
to the present 1 have discovered nine
separate and distinct sets of them;
and out of all the cases of sudden
death which 1 have been investigating
during the past two days—In the ef
fort to sound the probability of Lady
Jennifer’s theory before 1 brought
the case to you—the fact remains
that, whereas a number of those
deaths have been unattended by the
preliminary* 'warning’ of the green-
chalked Three-Seventeen, in no place
has it been marked upon a man’s
doorstep without that man’s funeral
following within the space of a fort
night!”
"What’s that? What’s that?” rap
ped out Cleek, screwing around on his
heel. "Let’s have that plainer, plea-se.
Do you mean to say that somebody
goes about marking ‘Three hundred
and seventeen’ upon people’s door
steps and that within a fortnight
afterward the head of the house dies
suddenly? That’s it. is it? Good
God! and you mean to tell me that
you have discovered nine case? of
that sort—nine of them! and yet i
wait until now to consider the matter
worthy of investigation. Why wasn’t |
a combination so suspicious looked j
into before?”
To be Continued To-morrow.
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