I was the tenth day and I was wearied with the strain of waiting. The still hunt was producing nothing. I was groping in the dark, hoping against hope that the circles of my clues would gradually narrow to the midnight assassin, and abruptly I awoke to the fact that I had been trusting to luck and not logic.

       If I were to name the hand that had sought the life of Carolyn West I realized I must change my tactics — at once.

       With my sudden decision lending a new vigor to my steps I made my way to the plainly furnished room which served as the office of the sheriff. The plump hand of the official good naturedly waved me to a vacant seat and his crossed legs descended apologetically from the desk to the floor.

       "I have come to announce a change in my plans," I began without preamble.

       The sheriff took the long, black cigar from his lips in plain astonishment. "A change?" he repeated.

       "Exactly. Carolyn West was shot two weeks ago. Our efforts to locate the attempted assassin are producing nothing. To be blunt, we know no more about the why and wherefore of the case now than we did when the affair was first discovered."

       I drew my chair closer to the sheriff's desk. "Let me give you the original facts of the crime, and we will see if the two weeks have added to them." The officer nodded doubtfully.

       "On a certain sultry night two weeks ago," I began, "a loud rifle shot was heard in the West home, apparently from the apartment of Miss Carolyn, a popular school teacher — young as well as popular. When the family reached her room the girl was found in a dying condition, with the blood from an ugly bullet wound in her neck already crimsoning the pillow and sheets of her bed. She had evidently retired some time before.

       "Her bed had been drawn under an open window, the lower half of which had been raised a distance of fully eight inches. It was an unusually warm season and she had apparently sought every breath possible of the sluggish breeze, her pillow resting perhaps three or four inches above the sill.

       "The room was located in the second story and faced a wide, open lot, stretching off into the darkness. There was not another house within a distance o fully one hundred and. fifty feet, at which point stood a small cottage on a somewhat abrupt hillock.

"I Have Come to Announce a Change in My Plans."

       "In the first horror of the discovery, the relatives began a frenzied search for the murderer. Escape from the door was impossible. The assassin would have bumped squarely into the members of the family had he attempted this exit. There remained only the open window, but there were no footprints on the newly turned soil below, and no marks of rope nor ladder on the sill above.

       "Again, had the shot been discharged from a close range the victim's face would have been grimed with powder. But there was not the slightest discoloration. With the exception of the deepening circle of blood, it was as white as the pillow on which it rested.

       "The shot, then, had been fired from a distance and from the outside. The murderer had taken aim from the deserted lot below the window and the sleeping girl above, unconscious of the peril which threatened her from the darkness, had received the bullet before a cry could leave her lips.

       "It was a clear, moonlit night. Doubtless her form could have been traced without difficulty by a person familiar with her habits. Undoubtedly the assassin had waited for some minutes for his opportunity, waiting with fiendish patience until nothing could stop his deadly bullet or prevent its reaching its human target.

       "At a point midway in the vacant lot towered a huge oak tree, whose heavy branches formed a wide canopy over the ground. Had a surveyor located its position, the line between it and the sleeping girl's window could not have been more straight or exact. If the confused mass of footprints on the ground did not lie, it was here where the assassin had taken his stand. Under the black shadows he could have aimed and fired in perfect security.

       "From this point the case was plunged into a darkness which showed absolutely no ray of light." I paused musingly and the sheriff took another of his long, black cigars from his vest pocket.

       "It was comparatively simple to explain how the crime had been committed. To show the Identity of the criminal, however, was another and a deeper question. We were confronted with a crime without a motive or without a clue. Nothing, had been stolen and apparently there was nothing to steal.

       "Carolyn West was without an enemy — a public enemy. She was popular in and out of school, a favorite among both her pupils and their parents. She had reached the age of twenty-eight without a love affair or the hint of one. If she was without an enemy she was also without a suitor. If we had hoped to establish a suspicion of jealousy from a rival of either sex we were disappointed. The girl had been shot by a midnight assassin, crouching in the darkness beyond her window, who had fired at her sleeping form apparently as he would have fired at a wooden target.

       "If she could speak, of course, she could name the would-be murderer and his motive. The assertion was made with confidence and answered in bewilderment. Contrary to the first expectations her wound was not immediately fatal and she rallied sufficiently the next day to use her voice.

       "Two eager queries were at once put to her. 'Do you know who shot you?' Miss West shook her head wearily. 'Do you know why you were shot?' Again the girl shook her head.

       "And that is the situation today," I finished crisply. "I have talked to the young woman repeatedly and I am firmly convinced of one central fact."

       The sheriff smoked for a moment in silence. "And that fact is —" he queried finally.

       "That Carolyn West knows as little about the case as I do," I said positively.

       "You are convinced that she is telling the truth?"

       "Most emphatically."

       "But a young lady, pretty, popular, accomplished, is not shot for — nothing."

       "Certainly not, and I am confident she is puzzling over the problem as much as you or I."

       "what does the doctor say of her condition?"

       "She may recover," I answered cautiously, "if her nurse does her work well. The bullet missed a fatal vein by the fraction of an inch. It entered her neck just under her chin and spent its force in the fleshy part of her throat. The murderer aimed well. It was fate, luck, Providence — call it what you will — that swerved the bullet and saved the girl's life."

       The sheriff rose from his chair and slowly paced back and forth across the office. "What do you suggest in your treatment of the case?" he asked finally.

       "A complete change in my tactics," I answered promptly. "When I was engaged by the citizens' committee, our plan was that I should work quietly and secretly. I have done so and have brought up against a stone wall. You will remember that when I appeared in the village I came in the character of an insurance solicitor. I have followed the character patiently and I believe that I could call by name all of the villagers who have been at all intimate with Miss West for the last five years. The assassin may be among this list — and he may not. We must bring him out from cover."

       "But how?"

       "He has given us no clues to date. We must force him to show his hand again. If he feels the chase is getting warm, unless I am very much mistaken his present confidence will be changed to nervousness — and he will bungle. Now, he is convinced he is safe. We must give him the impression that he is not."

       I arose from my chair in my turn. "Announce boldly that the case has been placed in the hands of a noted detective," I said quietly. "You may say also that she has been in town for the past ten days — and that she has found an important clue."

       "An important clue?" the sheriff repeated in a puzzled tone.

       I nodded. "To make the statement stronger, you might add that she expects to apprehend the attempted murderer of Carolyn West within the very near future!"

       The official stared in bewilderment.

       "Do you catch the idea?" I continued. "We will build a hot fire under our man — and roast him out. The person who shot Miss West is a resident of this village. The chances are ten to one that we meet him and talk to him every day. We know that the young woman has never traveled extensively. She has not spent a month away from home in ten years. The man who sought her life must have known her well, much better than would have been possible in any of her scattered visits. Therefore it is logical to search for him here, is it not? This is a case of supplying the motive to fit the prisoner. When we find our man, we will find our motive."

       The sheriff was watching me now with renewed interest. I pressed my point home quickly.

       "The assassin is undoubtedly cocksure of himself. We must so prey on his nerves that he will betray his identity. I will do my part. Will you do yours?"

       The sheriff hesitated. I walked to the door.

       "Yes, yes," he called after me hastily, and when I returned to the street a quarter of an hour later he had made his words good in actions. I was no longer the humble insurance solicitor. I was a Chicago detective, with my reputation colored with all of the adjectives of the village press. News never travels so rapidly as in the community that appears to be in a perpetual doze. I could feel everywhere that my changed reputation had preceded me by the attitude of the curious crowds before the "general store," and the increased air of respect which met me at the village hotel.

       I had played a bold card, and to tell the truth no one was less sure of its effect than myself. But half a dozen hours had not passed when it produced its first result and supplied me with my first real clue.

       It came in the form of a note — a soiled, rumpled bit of paper dropped in an out of the way path near my hotel. Across its outer surface my name was sprawled in a rough, uncouth hand and curiously enough it was myself who found it. With a lively curiosity, I read the remarkable communication —

       "Arrest Martin Munson. He shot Carolyn West. I saw him and will appear at the trial!"

       I digested the note with puckered brows. It gave me the first name that had been mentioned in the case, and it was a strange one. I was confident that I had not met it among the girl's intimate associates. I sought the sheriff only to discover that the tangle was deepening.

       The official glanced up from the wrinkled paper with a frown. "Munson is a newspaper reporter," he said in a puzzled tone. ""You will find him at the Herald office down the street."

       Obviously he was more nonplussed than his words indicated. "Is the man a friend of the West family?" I asked thoughtfully.

       "Not that I am aware. In fact I doubt if he has more than a speaking acquaintance with the girl."

       I left the office more puzzled than when I had entered. A half a dozen motives, it is true, might be advanced for the attempted murder. That the girl had been shot by a stranger, however, was impossible unless — and I stopped suddenly. Could the assassin have been mistaken in his victim. In the darkness could she have been taken for another person.

       I glanced again at the note. It had clearly been written in a disguised hand and an unnatural backward slant had been given to the words. There was more than a hint that it had been prepared by a person of some education, seeking clumsily to conceal the fact. Also I would have staked my reputation that the pen had been held in the left hand.

       The following day was a quiet village Sunday and I spent the morning in a long ramble through the outskirts of the town. The end of a winding street brought me abruptly to a narrow, sluggish stream, spanned by a rustic bridge. A group of men were leaning over the railing, casting stones at a line of frightened "mud hens" below. I paused idly on the opposite side, watching the sport.

       A man in the center, with long arms and wide shoulders, caught and held my eye. As he drew back to throw a rock, I saw that he used his left hand. I turned curiously to a pedestrian who had paused near me.

       "Who is that chap?" I asked abruptly. The reply came like a dash of cold water.

       "The man in the middle? Why that is Martin Munson! Quite clever with his hands, don't you think?"

       I walked slowly across the bridge. It was surely a curious coincidence that the writer of my anonymous note and the person whom it accused were both left-handed. Was it a coincidence? I glanced at Munson as I passed. I saw a somewhat stolid-faced young fellow, perhaps in his latter twenties, with eyes as restless as his hands.

       I found myself vaguely wishing for a sample of his writing. My wish carried me again to the sheriff's office.

       "Do I know Martin Munson well enough to secure a note from him?" the surprised official repeated. "I can do better than that. I can give you the note now." His hand disappeared in his desk and the next moment I was confronted with the second staggering surprise of the case.

       The sheriff's communication from Munson — a triflling business letter — and the anonymous note I had received were written by the same hand. The writer had deliberately charged himself with murder!

       The officer and I glanced at each other in a bewilderment almost too strong for words. The fire I was building to dislodge our quarry was giving us more than we had bargained for. I broke the silence first.

       "You know the man and I don't. Is he a notoriety-seeker?"

       The official shook his head. "I should say he is much too dense. I would as soon think he was a hero."

       The last word started a new train of thought in my mind. A hero! Could the stolid-faced young fellow I had seen on the bridge be shielding some one else?

       When I rang the bell at the West home that afternoon I was still hopelessly at sea. I had traced the writer or my strangely worded note only to find myself more be-fogged than before.

       As I shook hands with Carolyn West, I plunged into my errand without delay. "Do you know a newspaper man by the name or Martin Munson?" I asked swiftly, with my eyes fixed on the girl's pale face to catch any unusual emotion. But there was none.

       "Munson?" the young lady said with a smile. "I have met him now and then, but not at all often. I don't think he has been in town a great while. Why do you ask?"

       I took the chair she offered me before I replied. I was confident her attitude was not assumed. Martin Munson was indeed a stranger.

       "I thought possibly he could tell me something of interest in connection with our case," I said slowly. "What do you think?"

       The girl gazed at me in frank surprise. "Why should he know anything?" she said peevishly. "I don't think I have exchanged a dozen sentences with him in my life."

       Her bewilderment was intensified several times by my own when I finally left the house and took my way slowly back to the hotel.

       It seemed as though each day was destined to bring its surprise. Monday was a dreary program of inactivity, however, until the incident of the man in the shadows effectually quickened my interest and brought my doubts and surmises again to a fever point.

       I had strolled to the door of the village roller-skating rink and was watching the whirling figures within when I felt a light, nervous touch on my arm. I turned sharply, to confront a man with a white face, blood-shot eyes, and a shaking hand.

       "Are you Mrs. Holland?" he demanded hoarsely. I nodded.

       "The detective?" Again I nodded, while I endeavored to place him between myself and the light.

       He hesitated an instant and then burst out nervously, "I have a statement to make to you in the Carolyn West case — an important statement."

       "Good," I replied. "What is it?"

       "If you will go with me tonight, I will take you to the paper. It is not far. I have hidden it under a hay mound that you will find beyond the woods to the right. I have a horse. We can drive there and back in a little over an hour."

       As I stood silent, he ran on eagerly: "I have written it all out with a blue pencil on a big sheet of foolscap!"

       "Written what out?" I cried sharply.

       "How Carolyn West was shot!" was the startling answer. "Now will you go?"

       Again I reviewed the details of his wild, haggard figure and then I snapped open my watch. "It is half past ten," I said crisply. "Do you expect me to drive ten miles through the woods at this time of night?"

       The fellow turned away sullenly. "Will you go in the morning?" he growled.

       "As early as you wish," I said cheerfully. "By the way, what is your name?"

       "Waters, was the surly reply.

       I stared at him with added interest. "You are the brother-in-law of Carolyn West, aren't you?"

       "I have no reason to deny it," he snapped. For a moment he hesitated, and then he disappeared in the darkness as I gazed musingly after him.

       Even in that brief interview, the man seemed on the ragged edge of nervous prostration.. He was either a person who carried an ugly secret or too large a dose of drugs. Was there a skeleton in the closet of the West family that was about to be revealed?

       I had not finished breakfast the next morning when Waters made his appearance at the hotel. The night's sleep had smoothed out some of the lines in his face but his eyes still wore the look of a haunted man. I mentally determined to slip my revolver into my pocket.

       Waters had brought a buggy and I hastily ended my meal and stepped out to the vehicle. It was a clear, invigorating morning, with a fresh breeze blowing the scent of newly mown hay over the country roads. It was not until we turned into a stretch of deserted woods at the right that I could reconcile the suggestion of crime with the peaceful landscape.

       I had opened my lips to speak when the horse paused and my companion leaped from the buggy. We had reached our destination. At our right, was a high, well-rounded, yellow stack and Waters pointed to its base significantly. Waters sank to his knees and began scooping up the moist earth with his hands. He was acting as a man dazed, who is not sure of himself or his surroundings.

       A sudden cry came from his dry lips and as I peered over his shoulder he straightened, with a mud-daubed paper in his hand. For a moment we stood facing each other silently. Waters was breathing painfully as a man who has finished an exhausting race.

       "You will tell her I did all I could to shield her?" he cried with a sudden fierceness.

       "Her?" I returned blankly.

       "Do you remember the house which stands on the hill at the other end of the West lot?" he asked abruptly.

       It was my turn to stare. "You mean beyond the oak tree?"

       He nodded. "You can see it plainly enough through the branches. It belongs to Mrs. Johnson, a widow. You may have called there?"

       I shook my head. "I think I have heard of her though," I responded vaguely, "but what of the house?"

       Waters thrust the paper into my hand. "You will find here the account of what happened there on the night Carolyn was shot. I think it will interest you."

       As I smoothed out the wrinkled paper, he seized my arm with a return of his aggressiveness. "I have also written down the name of the greatest blackguard this town has ever held!" he cried hoarsely.

       "Blackguard?"

       "I mean Martin Munson," was the scowling answer.

       I had expected that the buried paper would prove a curious document — in fact as I watched Waters feverishly scooping up the earth at his knees I was anticipating a startling revelation — but I was not prepared for the amazing statement I found before me. It was the history of a dark night's drama, with the sombre stage set for three actors.

       "For months I have loved Mary Johnson," began the statement in my hands the product of Waters, it was easy to understand. "Her past has not been laid in pleasant places, but I thought it known only to herself and me. Three weeks ago, we learned that a third party had learned something of its details — Martin Munson, the newspaper man.

       "He knew that she was worth a considerable sum of money, and for his silence he demanded a large slice of it. On the day before the tragedy, she received a final note from him, stating that if the sum were not deposited under the walk before her home, he would publish her history.

       "She asked my advice and I urged her to defy the man. She consented to do so, but the incident made me nervous and I spent the evening in the neighborhood of the house, watching for Munson to appear. In due time I caught sight of his tall figure in the darkness, just above the point he had mentioned in his note. For a moment he fumbled under the walk and when he straightened. I could see that he was wild with rage. He hesitated a moment, and then knocked loudly on the front door of the house. Mary had seen him, however, and did not answer. I was about to interfere when he circled around to the rear. I was just starting after him when I heard a shrill cry and then the report of a rifle.

       "I rushed past the corner of the building, and found Munson in flight and Mary holding a smoking gun in her hands. He had attempted to force an entrance and she had shot at him — in self defence. The vigor of his retreat, however, showed that she had missed, and I left for home, feeling that an unpleasant incident had not ended badly after all. It was not until the next morning when I learned that the bullet intended for Munson had sped across the deserted lot and found a lodgment in the throat of Carolyn West, that I saw the problem before us. To avert suspicion, I even trampled the ground under the branches of the oak.

       "If Mary must stand trial, I will stand with her. I am certain that no jury of sane men will ever convict her."

       I read to the last word twice. When I looked up finally, Waters was beckoning to me from the buggy.

       There is little more to tell. Mrs. Johnson was, of course, arrested, but the case against her was dropped when she settled $1,500 on the girl who had been her unconscious victim. Munson disappeared and I do not believe has ever been heard from.

       What of his anonymous note charging himself with the crime? It was the act of a man with a failing intellect. We found later that Munson had shown signs of a feeble mind for years, and I believe that if the asylums of the country could be scoured, he would be found in one of them. What foible led him to send me the mysterious communication I have never been able to explain. Can you?

---

       EDITOR'S NOTE — This is the first of a series of thrilling Detectives Stories, from the note book of Mrs. Holland, which will appear in the Illustrated Sunday Magazine. Each story is founded absolutely on fact. Associated with Mrs. Holland, in the preparation of these stories, is Mr. Hugh C. Weir, one of the best known of the younger magazine writers. The next story on May 2d.

[THE END.]

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