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i ask no questions by beldon dvff synopsis annasxa west teases brides house in connecticut agreeing to the condition ask no quentious the ttrst week of her tenancy one of the graves in the private burial jrojid is opened her stable boy otto being murdered she ealls in a deputy to kuard the house and the first nlkhl he is killed annassa and her hguheteeeper hy for aid to or eran- sui but be is seen dragging a woman in black across fh cleartnft ann sinks in the marsh and is rescued by a stranger who disappears the newspapers bill the story as two leths in rweuty- kour hours chapter x contd in fact the office was still in an uproar when cropsey had left it at six oclock that morning and the only possible reason he could think of for all the exeitencnt on diamonds pai t was that the redheaded miss west was just as determined to remain at 1 rides house now s she had been beorc well women were funny creatures the longer you knew them the less ji a understood hem thank god hed bad the sense to remain a bachelor all his life take the occasion in hand for example ths jane didnt live who onld gum up a vacation for him how- many married men could say as ntich cropsey packed a fly rod by the vay that terhune fellow hadrt call ed up the office must have had the lette- hours ago too special deliver ies were delivered on sundays or in the middle of the night for that mat ter but hell if the architect didnt are enough about his exfiancee to find out whether she were alive or dead that was nobodys business but his own the next thing that wentinto the bag was a box of fishing tackle those spoons were going to be good for bass the man in the sportinggoods house had said they would hold a twelve- pound but was it nobodys busi ness miss west was not the sort of girl who ought to be let down by a man at a time like this were the circumstances reversed and mr gate- ly terhune in danger no one would have had to write to her shed have been there at his side fighting hke a wildcat yes whatever faults the redheaded kid might have a lack of loyalty was not one of them the manager of the daily free press moved a little uncertainly to ward the bed where his clothes lay in neat piles all ready to go into the suitcases was he going to need one sweater or two surely that light sweater would be enough with a leather jacket but then the nighs in canada were always cool espe cially on lake winnipeg he decided to take both sweaters if this west girl had a valid rea son for staying in the haunted run nels house and by this time there could be no doubt but that she had it wasa safe bet shes stick till a cer tain wellknown winter resort froze over illadvised and plucky hang it all a man couldnt help but admire such gameness especially man whod ever done any bass fishing laying aside the hip boots with which he had been toying cropscy reached for the telephone book after be had found what he wanted give me plaza 83203 i said 203 not 303 whats the matter with you has the hot weather affected your hearing or i beg your pardon a female voice at the other end ol the wire had remarked somewhat tartly this is plaza 83203 and my ears arc quite all right thank you my mistake i as trying to get mr gately terhunos aprrtment must have given me the wrong num ber said the voice less tartly this is mr terhunes apartment what do you want so thats how the cat jumps grunted crops y to himself aloud id like to sperk with mr terhune if i may well you maynt came the prompt reply he isnt here then in more conciliatory tone and if youve got any idea where he is i wish youd tell me because i havent seen anything of him since night be fore last cropsey waited a moment before he asked and who are you if thats not an impertinent question there was something which sound ed like a simper im just a friend visiting mr terhune for a day or two cropsey hoped rather grimly that she was having a nice time be proud of your baking youll got a great thrill out of preparing new delicious ton- omlcal dishes theblg new rurlty cook book contains 743 tested family reclpet each with u simple stcpbyslep method which assures success a complete course- in homo cookery bread pastry cakes meats salads desserts everything opens flat at any pagj easily rep j typo grease proof cover took two ears to complete very popular everywhere thousands have alteady ecen sold well worth 1z00 n copy address western canada flour mills co limited dipt 207 toronto ontorl- sent postpaid for 50c issue no 50 32 well im not volunteered his un seen acquaintance im having a rot ten time that dirty bum has jet me flat not a nickel to buy myself a package of mints with and as though the weight of her wrongs had grown too heavy to be borne any longer alone got me to give up my job before 1 left the theatre satur day night without notice whats that yeah im an actress with georgie- white i was the blonde on the left as they come down the stair case in the last act next season i mighta got a line to speak too the managing editor did some rapid thinking i dont blame you siste for getting sor at terhune a man has no right to make a woman give up her career even over the phone one could feel the crushed lower raise its droopin head just what 1 told he girls when called them up a little while ago me kissing a job like that goodbye and not even a wrist watch to show for it relieve it or not i hadnt been it this house twenty minutes when the tele phone rings and after mr terhune had answered it out he goes like a wild man jumps into his isotta- fraschini and beats it without even telling me whether im to wait till he comes back or not what time was that asked crop sey oh 1 dont know a little after twelve maybe a quarter to one we came straight ere after the show- and that was saturday night you say sure it was saturday night whats catin you and this is mon day two whole days and me with nothing to do but play mah jongg with the chink who does the cooking cropsey did some more thinking as a result of which he said not un kindly if youre the blonde i think you are youll go straight to mr white and say youd like to have your job back again hell take you on all right and without waiting to hear whether his advice was acceptable to the ditched damsel or not he hung up the receiver so terhune had been called away suddenly saturday night he had left with every appearance of agitation and he had not been back since this put a somewhat different face on the matter just what the purport of that mys terious telephone message had been it was not difficult to imagine but from whom had it come the same person who had called up the free press office ah that was a nice question and one that led to several avenues of conjecture abruptly cropsey began hurling things out of the suitcases unless one were going to canada all this heavy stuff was superfluous but there was a place in connecticut kept by his stenographers cousin where a man properly introduced might get a room and board for two weeks night rest and sleep do a little cast ing look about a bit only a couple cf miles or so from hales crossing too if hed understood miss sinnott correctly which would be handy in case the chief should need him for any reason the suitcases by this time had been repacked not as neatly as they were accustomed to being packed but with every requisite for a two weeks stay in a sleepy new england town chapter xi like all intellectual men alva crop sey cherished the delusion that the world had lost a second lecoq when fate saw fit to turn his talents into other and more prosaic channels once the fishing trip had been defi nitely given up and his canadian res ervations cancelled he began to feel actually elated the mystery hanging over brides house had fired his imag ination from the start not only be cause it had baffled the police for al most a quarter of a century but be cause in all the annals of crime it stood unique a history of sudden and unexplained death four to be exact and one disappearance the man who solved it would prove himself clever at deductive reasoning and cropsy had a passion for deductive reasoning the next morning the editor of the daily free press sat down to break fast in the apple blossom tea room with the businesslike air of one who starts a muchanticipated enterprise under auspicious circumstances strawberries in thick cream an ome let so light it all but floated from the plate hot biscuits and coffee that actually smelled and tasted like coffee with a curiosity that bordered on awe he stole a look at the author of all this toothsomoness miss malvina uptcgrove was a maiden lady tarrying somewhere on the shady side of forty years before she had fared forth from the hills and valleys of her native state with the avowed intention of painting her way to the beaux arts and paris unhap pily for genius in the bud greenwich village say her coming and thrust out a metaphorical foot as a stumbling- block in the path of progress europe- spots are in a coat of black rough wool with puff sleeves and scarf col lar and muff of leopard is a popu lar number in paris an antelope beret completes the outfit ward the foot proved efficacious in less than six months miss malvina was back in connecticut again sad der wiser and humbler to the extent that she was willing at last to take her stepmothers advice and turn the old family home into a tea and gift shop of that excursion into art how ever not all was loss instead of can vases the walls of the apple blossom received the outpourings of their owners thwarted soul murals that gradually spread from floor to ceiling extraordinary cows lunchings off vio let buttercups humming birds that resembled in size and spread of wing the american eagle a pair of puvis de chavannes females dancing over what looked like a forest of tomato plants that crazy uptegrove house the neighbors called it but of late the young intelligentsia driving out to tea and dinner had seen fit to set the seal of their approval upon it and the place enjoyed a certain vogue nor was its popularity undeserved for in addition to the decorations the food was such as only miss malvina knew how to cook and serve to be continued who wants fog londons worst ever last ed from november to the following february the latest achievement of science in soviet russia is the manufacture of artificial fog in a leningrad labora tory writes london answers it is one wheih will arouse- no enthusiasm outside russia to londoners fogs dame nature produces are enough or rather too much the popular supposition is that the banishment of coal grates would elim inate the fog nuisance as it happens that isnt true foj is prevalent in the country as well as in town and it would still occur even if coal flres were abolished it caused in a variety of ways one of the most frequent being the sudden cooling o the air that is saturated with in visible water vapour part of till vapour then takes visible form and tiny drops or particles of water be come suspended in the air actually then a fog is a cloud that has formed on ground level instead of in the sky and the water in it is quite sufficient to blanket out the sur roundings without any assistance from smoke or soot november is the worst month of the year for fogs in britains big cities after this month is over the number of fogs declines gradually until the middle of february but at least once in 1s79 london experienced a win ter of almost continuous fog it start ed in the beginning of november and lasted practically until february 1ss0 another such winter is not likely to occur again and even when the weather forecast predicts fog things may not be quite so bad as they sound officially it is a fog if you cant see a house or tree against the sky at a distance of 1000 metre thats a good bit over a thousand yards so the condition might easily be fulfilled without pedestrians or even motorists being unduly worried and at sea november is one of the clearest months of the year the worst time for ocean fogs is spring and sum mer rainy night in the country over the rose garden the rain falls softly the warm rich earth flowers in odors of sweetfern and blossom a bird calls hidden in green from slow showers a first lamp kindles in tho raingray night trees shimmer in tho moist silver misty and cool meadows fall over the low roof of light patter of rain is music quiet and beautiful carl edwin burklund in the gypsy -x- superstitious are you superstitious do you for instance avoid walking under a lad der if so do you know why it is said to be unlucky this is the rea son given by sir charies igglcsden in those superstitions the dread of passing under a lad der has been looked upon by many in a material sense the avoidance of anything falling from the hands of the painter the bricklayer or the man with the hod when ascending the ladder but the superstition arises from the fact that when the ladder leans against the wall it forms a tri angle and is thus symbolical of the trinity the ordinary layman of olden days would therefore consider himself debarred from passing through this sacredarch the superstitious thief a scotland yard detective once gave sir charles an extraordinary ex ample of the ladder superstition a theif who was oeing chased suddeily found that he had passed under a ladder although the police were close upon him he turned quick ly came back under the ladder and then rushed into the road to pass it this delay was fetal he was caught and his remark laconically uttered was well its better to be copped than have bad luck all my life possibly he did not know that all would have been well if he had crossed lis fingers after passing under the ladder some people say you should keep them crossed until you see a dog this same detective told sir charles that most criminals are superstitious and that few wellconsidered crimes such as burglaries take place on a friday sir malcolm the fatalist sir charles once asked sir malcolm campbell whether he was supersti tious sir malcolm said that he wasnt but added that he believed in luck and was a fatalist he said that every time he started on a speed trial he felt that fate had already deter mined if it should be his last nothing could make him swerve from the feel ing that his end was foretold nobody who has passed close to the valley of death could believe otherwise but i am no fool fatalist he added when i cross the street i look on either side before driving my car i personally inspect every bit of the machinery irving and the peacock feathero the stage even today possesses all kinds of strange superstitions whist ling says sir charles is barred in most dressingrooms and if a first night happens to be on a friday act- irs and actresses step out of their dressingrooms left foot firt a pea cocks feather in a theatre i regard ed with horror and sir henry irving once caused a sensation by seeding a polite note to a lady in the stalls at the close of the first act of othello on he slip of paper he wrote for gods ake take your peacock fecther fan out of the t eatre to prevent disaster the good lady meekly called an attendant and handed her the fan but the girl drew back in horror the lady herself rather than make a scene w iit to the entrance of the theatre and threw her fan into the road as a contract to irving here is a story of lord riberts and the super stition about the illluck that follows a dinner party of thirteen people he ised to tell how he and twelve brother officers dined together just before the afghan war and although they fought in that cam aign all were alive eleven years fte aids again as a contrast sir charles says that he was speaking to one of our bestknown authors ad he told me that for very good reasons he d ended to see a black moth in his hou c twice the advent of such a moth had preceded a death in the family courting bad luck some of those who read this book will find that they have been courting bad luck all their lives if a girl sits on a table while talking to a man she will never be married a girl is also running the risk of spinsterhood should she fail to look towards the north when she goes cut of the house before breakfast if you trip when going upstairs it means a wedding in the house tho bride or bridegroom be ing the next single person to follow the tripper again if when dressing you place a button into tho wrong buttonhole it will bring bad luck just as hooking the wrong eye is disastrous should cither of these accidents occur however you can ward off illluck by taking off the cnrment and putting it on anew sir charles tells us that he came i oss a curious old scottish custom which is said to bring good luck to a bride and bridegroom during the present year a fcoltish policeman was to bo married at strathspey and friends on the eve of the wedding went to his house and the house of the bride he two were stretched full length upon tho floor their feet made bare and then smeared with soot and blacking afterwards they were commanded to stand up and receive similar treat ment to their fa i afterwards tho same ceremony was carried out with tho best man and the bridesmaid an equally old cus- j torn in a staffordshire family was for a bridegtoom to take his young wife the household word for tea ardens an understanding of children from very early college days b gan to emerge that beautiful side of lewis carrolls character which after wards was to be next to his fame as an author the one for which he was best known his attitude to wards children and the strong at traction they had for him 1 shall attempt to point out the various in fluences which led him hi this direc tion but it 1 were asked for one comprehensive word wide enough to explain this tendency of his nature 1 would answer unhesitatingly love i think children appealed to him because he was preeminently a teacher and he saw in their un spoiled minds the best material for him to work upon in later years one of his favorite recreations was to lecture at schools on logic he used to give personal attention to each of his pupils and ono can well imagine with what eager anticipation the children would have looked for ward to the visits of a schoolmaster who knew how to make even tho dul lest subjects interesting and amusing opinions it is an awful thing for a man to go through life without developing all the talents within himself john erskiue the restoration of trade holds not only the economic but the social sal vation of the world owen d young if you put the channel there things always flow in the right direction lady reading we have emerged from our diffi culties before and we shall do so again advancing to ever higher stand ards of wellbeing charles m schwab it is hard for an imaginative per son to be very happy peter b kyue i have no belief in inspiration william liutler yeats again children appealed to his l arouu faculties for ho was a keen n tter anythns to romance any more 1 hey think its fashionable to in every form poetry music the drama all be h unc delighted him but pictures more than lho umv eal for a wls reexamination of our national purpose aesthetic admirer cf all put together 1 remembet his once showing me the lady with the lilacs which arthur hughes hadf painted for him and how he dwelt with intense pleasure on the exquisite contrasts of color which it contained the gold hair of a girl standing out against the purple of lilacblossom but with those who find in such things as these a complete satisfaction of their desire for tho beautiful he had no sympathy again tho reality of children ap pealed strongly to the simplicity and genuineness of his own nature i be lieve that he understood children even better than he understood men and women civilization has made adult humanity very incomprehensi ble from the life and letters of lewis carroll by stuart dcdgson collingwood down the handrail of the ancient stair case in the hall stood the best man and it was his duty to catch the couple in his arms and then slide astride as they ended the journey a dis astrous end of the ride shoud the best man be a little fellow and the newly- married couple somewhat sulky 1tchings itchings in various parts o the body are said to have certain significances ii the left palm of the haid itches you will have to pay money if the right ou will receive money if the knee itches you will kneel in a strange church if the sole of the foot you will walk c er strange ground here is a rhyme on the same subject if youi nose itches your irouth is in daiger you will see a fool or xiss a stran ger the white specks on the s1gerrail5 too have special meanings assigned t them and moles are said to mean all kinds of thing according le their po sitions on the body sabbath twilight a sabbath stillness broods oer all the land the softly misted hills afar are blue the sunset llres by fairy hands are fanned the hazy marshes cold and wet with dew a cricket chirps a plaintive robin sings and gleaming where the sun has sunk to rest beneath the sombre twilights wide gray wings a single brilliant star shines in the west a vague windwhisyers to the nod ding trees while night in sable robes comes out the west and like a priestess chants on bend ed knees her rosary that puts sweet day to rest natures cathedral filled with fra grant balm i feel his presence in this holy calm annette thomas botha alberta honesty a saints life yi one man may bo less than common honesty in another from us whose consciences he has reached and enlightened god may- look for a martyrs truth a chris tians unworldly simplicity before he will placo us on a level even with the average of the exposed classes j ii thorn we must learn to despise petty ad versaries no good sportsman ought to shoot at crows unless for some spe cial purpose two good rules life is a battle as every human being finds out somewhere between the beginning and the end of it every man and woman who is worth anything has fought through more than one discouraging struggle along the way the publisher of a big modern magazine who has fought his own way to success quoted the other day two rules which he said he has learned from an eld cavalry captain and had found to be the best 011 guiding aphorisms first when in doubt charge second admit nothing to be a hardship the first rule applies to action the second to thought to a soldier ly attitude of mind taken together they equip a warrior to enter any struggle with more than a chance of victory they are equally valuable so the publisher assorted to the modem business nan struggling in the press of work and worry and they are certainly applicable to the daily difficulties of life the worst obstacles which grow as one looks at them often melt away before a determined charge upon them a man is more often beaten by his fears than by his enemy as for hardships many young people cheerfully endure when on a camping trip or an ex cursion discomforts by which they would bo completely discouraged in doing church wok for example al most nothing bearable is a hardship to a determined and cheerful will and very few really unbearbale hard ships ever confront the average per son j to learn these rules and apply them will he a help toward victory herbert llo tho united slates bad better taka warning now from the fate of several european countries roger w uab- sori a conservative is a fellow thats 1 office ami wants to stay there huey p long it becomes more and more clear that individual competition needs to be supplemented and guided by pub lic or collective planning sir james arthur salter we may come on a new golden age if we get fear out of the world and get a new economic equilibrium established john drinkwater in new york marriages arc too short anil novels are too long paul morand i am sure of one thing unless we get some step in disarmament there is chaos ahead lord astor there is no record in human his tory of u happy philosopher they exist only in romantic legends h l mencken the business world is no place for a woman alice foote macdougall one should always learn to love oneself for that is the onl- lifeions romance gabriele dahnunzio with the exception of capitalism there is nothing so revolting as re volution george bernard shaw man lives only when lit lives dan gerously sir arthur keith the present is the invisible brid over which the achievements of the past walk toward the shaping of the undetermined future alfred noyes god is clever but not dishonest albert einstein there no short ut to prosperity through the provision of governmental credit in huge amounts what is need ed primarily is not credit but busi ness nicholas murray butler chrjn is sexual virility joseph hergesheimer j there j no swift and royal road 1 universal prosperity thomas w lamont feminine talent is altogether too latent fannie hurst arguments which draw her de monstrations from probabilities are idle and unless one is on ones guard against them they are very deceptive plato miss jones of course youvo read the mill on tho floss mr smith cant say that i have i dont care for pugilism loves nobility fo this is loves nobility not to scatter bread and gold goods and raiment bought and sold but to hold fast his simple sense and speak the spech of innocence for he that feeds men serveth few ho serves all who dares be true ii crown brand coriyyrup j jii trifling cost bl ihe most nourishing and delitiousfooa a j canada starcir cft tl wont1uu1 c8 from a chinese junk it was raining when the ship slid out from under the eaves of hong kong hong kong is like the great shadow of a chinese temple upon tho sky its sunset is nearly always ruled i straight by a high horizontal cloud its slopes have the optimistic con cavity of temples and only lack a titanic dragon and a curled lion or two to make the temple suggestion complete at night so absurdly is hong kong tilted it loses its out line the lights of the peak clim so high and the stars so low but it was morning when my little ship deftly extricated herself from the shadows and ships in the har bor- at last hong kong itself was dim and loops of silver cloud blew across the great harbor and obscured the faces of the gaunt hills of the new territory when hong kong slipped over tho grayglass rim of the sea the changshing seemed all alone like a guest at a strange deserted feast a great company of remote islands stood about her and without wel come watched her pass u have never been so much alone on a ship before the changshing carried only indigo and by courtesy me sho was only smart in comparison with some of the junks and per haps in order to show herself to advantago for the first two days ot her voyage north she rolled snort ing proudly up the rough ruts of a plunging avenue of junks china with hills dull red or dunes bleakly white ran by us to the west there was never a sign ot lifo on tho coast and at night never a light we passed a lighthouse on the third day white and sophisticated it sprang up in a lonely dreamland world a man waved from it could it be a man how terribly the sea must count to him tho changshing did not touch at so sophisticated a port as shanghai but one evening at sunset on a sea of glazed crimson sho passed the mouth ot tho yaiigtso river stella benson in tho little world a mant life is an appendix to his heart