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"Soasped Miss Cornelia "It's horrible!"

The detective stepped up and took the receiver from her He listened anxiously for a ," he said

"I heard it! I couldn't iine such a dreadful sound! I tell you--somebody in this house is in terrible distress"

"Where does this phone connect?" queried Anderson practically

Miss Cornelia esture "Practically every room in this house!"

The detective put the receiver to his ear again

"Just what did you hear?" he said stolidly

Miss Cornelia's voice shook

"Dreadful groans--and what seemed to be an inarticulate effort to speak!"

Lizzie drew her gaudy wrapper closer about her shuddering foro somewhere," she wailed in the voice of a lost soul, "if I only had solare and turned back to the detective

"Won't you send theseBrooks and Billy The detective thought swiftly

"My place is here," he said "You two men," Brooks and Billy h the house--don't leave the building--I'll want you pretty soon"

Brooks--or Jack Bailey, as we h the remainder of this narrative--started to obey Then his eye fell on Miss Cornelia's revolver which Anderson had taken fro's body and still held clasped in his hand

"If you'll giveAnderson would not see through his little ruse Once wiped clean of fingerprints, the revolver would not be such telling evidence against Dale Ogden

But Anderson was not to be caught napping "That revolver will stay where it is," he said with a griue the point, he followed Billy reluctantly out of the door, giving Dale a surreptitious glance of encouragement and faith as he did so The Japanese and heinto dark corners and searching unused roo phone call from nowhere But Bailey's heart was not in the search His ure of Dale--nervous, shaken, undergoing the terrors of the third degree at Anderson's hands She couldn't have shot Fle to substantiate her story of how the killing had happened, it was her own, unsupported word against a daed with renewed vigor into his quest

Back in the living-roo Dale to a ation