Tragedy Trail

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Tragedy Trail
A Terry Trimble Murder Mystery
by Johnston McCulley

CHAPTER I.
A QUEER DEATH.
SWEAT seemed to cover the buildings, the air was stagnant, the gathering darkness had a peculiar quality, somehow suggesting coming tragedy. So thought Mrs. Burke as she opened the front door and stood at the top of the small flight of steps, wiping her hands on her apron, and looking up and down the street, and then at the threatening sky.
The street was not unlike scores of similar side streets in the city. Old houses, that once had been mansions owned by persons of refinement and wealth, now were converted into stores on the ground floor and rooming houses above. Here and there between the stores was a short flight of steps that led to a heavy door with a plate glass upper half. These doors invariably opened into boarding houses.
Mrs. Burke operated one of these houses, and had for some years. She admitted to fifty summers, and was a woman of ample bosom, wide hips, stringy red hair, and kind smile. Mrs. Burke could smile even while ejecting an undesirable boarder.
As she opened the door and stood on the top step this particular evening she sighed--which was unusual--and could not explain why she did so. It had been sultry all day, and now rain threatened. It was an oppressive evening, one to cause uneasiness to human beings, the sort of evening when a man seems to feel a premonition, grows nervous, dislikes to retire and yet does not want to remain up, and, in short, has a feeling that there is "something in the air."
Mrs. Burke catered to young women who were employees in shops and offices. She called them "my girls." Many a young wife, happy in a flat of her own, could look back at her days at Mrs. Burke's place and give thanks that she had met that sort of landlady.
For Mrs. Burke had the happy faculty of reading persons aright. If a girl was deserving but in momentary hard luck, Mrs. Burke knew it and gave what help she could. If a girl spent money unwisely for clothes she did not need, and then attempted to put off paying her board, Mrs. Burke knew exactly what sort of sermon to deliver.
"There'll be a storm," Mrs. Burke said to herself now, as she glanced down the street. It was her habit to do this each evening just before "her girls" came home from their work. It was her little moment. She knew that every boarder would be wondering what would be the foundation of the evening meal. Mrs. Burke never allowed her table to grow monotonous, but she did not go to great expense to give variety. "She can take five cents' worth of meat and an onion and make a dish that a French chef would strive hopelessly to equal," one of her girls had said not long before.
The landlady's face grew brighter now, for a young woman hurried around the corner and approached the flight of steps, walking briskly and without a hint of fatigue, though she had been standing behind a counter the greater part of the day, battling bargain hunters. Mrs. Burke welcomed her with a smile.
"On time, as usual, dearie," she purred. "Always come straight home, don't you? And how is pretty Miss Alice Patton this evening?"
"Hungry!" Alice Patton replied, laughing and flushing a bit. She knew that she was pretty. Even other women told her that. "Is Mabel home yet?"
"She came home at noon." the landlady answered. "She has one of her sick headaches."
"Oh! I'm sorry!"
"Too much embroidery," declared Mrs. Burke, shaking her head. "It isn't good."
"I know that it's bad for our eyes--and heads," Alice Patton replied. "But this is a special occasion, and we haven't much time. Jessie Simpson used to work with us, you know. The three of us were pals. And when she let us know that she was going to be married, you can bet that we wanted to make her a present."
"Naturally," said Mrs. Burke.
"And we didn't want to buy her something that anybody can buy in any cheap shop. So we decided that we'd make her a centerpiece--and it's going to be a beauty! We have to do most of the work at night, of course."
"You've been working on the thing for more than a month."
"Well, it is almost done. Mabel and I both knew a little about embroidery, and Mrs. Roberts showed us a lot more. You know about Mrs. Gordon Roberts, don't you? She's rich--class!--and president of the working girls' club. She's always at the club at the noon hour, during luncheon. Oh, she's great!"
"I know all about her," said Mrs. Burke. "She's a widow, same as I am, only she's rich, and about twenty-eight, and moves in the highest society.