Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 36, No. 4, October 20, 1928

“No accounting for what a woman will do,” Jim remarked sagely. “As for her, I’m frank to say that she has only been fooling herself about Flash. Tommy took the only course open to him, as she saw it. He absented himself, leaving a note bidding her good-by forever. Smart kid. Figures that will bring her to her senses. And it will.”

“How do you know what was in that note?” I demanded.

Jim merely grinned.

“I forgot that you had it in your keeping all day,” I remarked. “Hope you opened it expertly.”

“I did.”

That settled that. I somehow felt that Flash Santelle would not be in the best of moods that evening. He wasn’t. Very glum, though he tried to appear very gay. He wasn’t doing any moonlighting with Marthe that night, I noticed.

Miss Bailey had copped herself another young man among the guests, and was making him entertain her. She kept pretty well to the front lawn, watchful, hoping, no doubt, that Tommy would show up.

I sneaked around quietly among the shrubs and trees, watching. At about ten o’clock I took notice that Spence and the rest of the male servants, with the exception of the footmen who were busied with the guests, were also doing some scouting on the premises.

Were they looking for the lilac woman to appear?

I was. Also watching for something else to happen. So long as the servants remained on the premises, well and good. If any of them tried to sneak away — well, there were four of my men watching, ready to trail them wherever they might go.

If Flash meant to pull a big job that night, the Kaw Valley meant to be in on it.

But it might be on the cards that Flash was too much occupied with his two female complications to do much else but keep an eye on them. He had blundered in two places. The names of the two blunders were Ayra and Marthe, and in the order mentioned.

So Flash Santelle, having mixed up with women, had ceased to be a smart crook. Had become merely a crook. Sometimes it happens that way.

By losing sight of his original purpose in locating at Willow Bend, and going after a girl worth millions, Flash had with his own hand thrown a monkey wrench into his own machinery. And the first woman, Ayra Banning, whom he probably had regarded as of little moment — just a weepy woman who could be stalled off with promises — was about to heave a second monkey wrench into the same machinery. Flash now realized all that. No wonder he was not in a good humor.

The evening passed very quietly I kept on the prowl in the grounds, and Jim Steel trailed Flash as much as possible. Eleven o’clock found most of the guests indoors, but the servants still guarded the lawn.

Uncle Cato played host in the drawing-room — instead of searching for the lilac woman as he had the night before. Flash was nowhere to be seen.

Neither was Jim Steel in evidence, so I rested easy about Flash.

Nearing the summerhouse at the foot of the lawn, I was about to turn back when Jim Steel suddenly broke from the shadows, running toward the house. I called, and he stopped.

Chapter XIX The Chase

“The woman, Tug!” he exclaimed. “They got her!”

“Who?”

“Spence, the two chauffeurs, and Flash! I was tagging Flash, lost him. Then I broke into a patch of moonlight, and saw them. Flash had hold of her, choking her. Then he swung her up in his arms and beat it toward the river. I ran back to get you. Too many for me alone!”

Just then the sputter of a motor caught my ear from the river.

“Round up the boys,” I ordered. “Detail two to arrest Cato and the footmen. Follow to the river with the others. Quick!”

I was off to the wharf. Reaching there, I caught sight of a motor boat heading up the Kaw. One other motor boat remained, but I leaped into a skiff, the motor being too noisy. Besides, Jim and the boys would need it.

A quarter of a mile up the river could be seen the bulk of a small, wooded island which cut the stream in two parts. The motor boat seemed headed for it. I shot my craft into the stream and sent it after the motor.

When I had covered about half the distance the motor boat merged into the shadows of the trees of the island, and I hastened. A few minutes later I landed just below it, and leaped ashore.

I listened, but all was still. Then I started inland, to come up standing in the brush at the edge of a moonlight flooded open space.

There were five of them, four men and the woman. I heard the voice of Flash Santelle — cold, hard, merciless.

“You would have it,” he was saying, deadly calm. “And you have only yourself to blame for it. Quite likely you have wrecked everything here — and you can’t wreck Flash Santelle’s schemes and get away with it!”

“But, Cletus!” came the woman’s voice chokingly. “You promised!”

“And here is how I fulfill the promise!” Santelle snarled. “For, remember, I also promised death if you betrayed me!”