The Mansion of Mystery | Page 4

the police?"
"A little before."

"What did you see?"
"Just what I have told you. The doctor had been trying to bring Mr.
Langmore around but had suddenly been taken sick and could do
nothing."
"Humph, sick, eh? Did he say what made him sick?"
"He did not know. He thought it might be from leaning over the dead
man, or from working in that position. I think the sudden sickness
frightened him a little."
"When the police arrived what did they find of importance?"
"Nothing."
"Had anything been stolen?"
"Nothing, so far as they could learn."
"Of course, you must have known these folks pretty well to take such
an interest."
"I knew Mr. Langmore very well and I was acquainted with his wife."
Adam Adams knit his brow for a moment and tapped lightly on his
desk with his forefinger.
"Have the police any idea as to how the murderer got into the house
and got out again?" he asked.
At this question Raymond Case's face flushed.
"They do not think the murderer left the house," he answered in a low
tone.

CHAPTER II

LOVE UNDER A SHADOW
Raymond Case dropped back into his chair and buried his face in his
hands. Adam Adams eyed him curiously and with something of a
fatherly glance.
"It is plain to see what his trouble is," thought the detective. "He is in
love."
He was right, Raymond Case was furiously, desperately, hopelessly in
love. He had met Margaret Langmore at Bar Harbor but a few short
weeks before, and it had been a case of love at first sight upon both
sides. A few automobile rides and a few dances, and he had proposed
and been accepted, and he had counted himself the happiest man in all
this wide world. And now--
"Then they suspect the servant girl?" queried Adam Adams, knowing
they did nothing of the sort.
"No!" came sharply. "They suspect Margaret--Miss Langmore."
"Ah!"
"Yes. It is--is preposterous--absurd, but they insist. And that is what has
brought me to you. I want to prove her innocence to the world. Do that,
and you can name your own price, Mr. Adams."
"You have a high regard for the young lady--you are close friends?"
"More. I may as well tell you, though so far Margaret and I have kept
the matter more or less a secret. I love her and we are engaged to be
married."
"Did Mr. Langmore know of his daughter's engagement?"
"He did, and he approved of it."
"And what of Mrs. Langmore, didn't she approve?"

"She did not know of it. Margaret did not tell her."
"Why not?"
"Because--well, the young lady and her stepmother did not get along
very well together. Margaret wanted to be friendly, but Mrs. Langmore
was very dictatorial, and besides she loved her own children better than
Mr. Langmore's."
"Let me ask, was the daughter on good terms with her father?"
"Yes, excepting on one point. He wished her to obey her stepmother
and that she was not always willing to do. This brought on a run of
petty quarrels which fairly made Margaret sick."
"And this is the reason why the police think Miss Langmore the guilty
person?"
"It is. Their theory is that she first quarrelled with her stepmother and
murdered her, and then struck down her father to cover her guilt, he
having discovered what she was doing."
"How old is Miss Langmore?"
"She has just passed her twenty-third birthday."
"Humph! Rather young to commit such a cold-blooded crime as this."
"She never did do it--I'll wager my life on it! Oh, it's absurd--insulting!
But what are you going to do with a lot of pig-headed country police--"
"How did they come to suspect her? Was there nothing else?"
"Yes, there was. Mrs. Bardon, the woman who lives next door, is a
great gossip and one who is continually poking her nose into other
folks' business. She told the police that she was out in the garden
cutting a bouquet early in the morning, and she heard a violent quarrel
going on at the breakfast table between Mrs. Langmore and Margaret,
and that Mr. Langmore took his wife's part. Margaret wished to give a

small house party and Mrs. Langmore would not listen to it."
"Did Mrs. Bardon hear all that was said?"
"No, only enough to make her run to the police with the tale."
"Is any other house near by?"
"The Harrison mansion, but it is locked up, as the family is in Europe."
"Did you hear if Mrs. Bardon and her son were home all morning?"
"They were, excepting when the doctor went out to make some calls,
between nine and eleven."
"Did they see any suspicious characters around the Langmore
mansion?"
"Not a soul."
"Did Mary Billings, the