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ite, wee Aim LEYBURIAN Page 7 THURSDAY, APRIL 27th, 1933 r = LACK MONDAY By Leslie McFarlane CHAPTER ONE The Calendar The house, no doubt, had once €en considered magnificent. Now it was hideous. The archi- tectural bad taste of the Gay Nineties manifested itself from the iron dogs on the lawn' to the Otnate turrets and cupolas on the toof. There was a great deal of fretted woodwork, like the frost- ing on a wedding cake, and the glass of the front door shone barbarically in diamond panes of red, yellow and blue. A taxi slithered off down the drive, back toward the city. Don Lueas, on the verandah, his club bag at his feet, felt that the maid who answered the ring of the old- fashioned door bell was out of character. She should have worn puffy sleeves and a high collar; her hair should have been in a pompadour. Instead, she wore a neat black short-skirted dress with a white apron, and her hair was bobbed. "Colonel Bland is expecting me," said Lucas. "I am his nep- hew."" "Will you come in, please. T'll tell the colonel you are here, Mr. Holt." Don Lucas stepped into the gloomy, heavily carpeted hall and the maid ushered him into a par- lor that looked as if it were only opened on Sundays. It reminded him of the quaint, formal parlors of his boyhood. The shades were drawn and there was an odor of dust and old leather. The carpet was thick and of an atrocious design; the ,wallpaper was an offense to the eye, with huge' ,impossible red flowers against a yellowish back- ground; the room was cluttered with inhospitable horsehair fur- niture ,a grim sofa, straight-back chairs, precarious little tables, and an old organ in one corner. Here and there the wallpaper was hidden by steel engravings in enormous frames, and one glossy oil painting of a dead fish and two decea > ¢ ducks. "All we need¥§ a coffin and a few wreaths," reflected Don, as he looked about him. The house was silent, bearing out the funeral atmosphere. He sat on the slippery sofa and gazed at the engravings, which unanimously represented scenes of battle and sudden death. He meditated solemnly on the moral oi the gaudy, framed motto: "Honesty is the eBst Policy.' He wondered why the generation of the Nineties felt that a parlor was incomplete without a sea shell and a family album, Then, although he had not heard a sound, he became aware that someone was looking at him. He glanced toward the curtain- ed archway leading into the hall and there he saw an old lady. Lucas was startled. The old lady had appeared between the curtains as silently as 'a ghost. She was very small, with sharp features and bright her skin was like wax; she was clad in an old-fashioned dress of black silk, with a high collar, and she wore a little cap on her white hair. The old lady became a part of the room and Lucas felt as if he had slipped back into another decade. "Are they coming?" she asked, in a whisper, her bright eys fixed anxiously upon him. Lucas stood up. "I beg -your pardon, ma'am?" is eyes; "Are they coming?" "Tm afraid I don't understand" "You know," said the ol woman, impatiently. "The Ger- mans. They can't be far away now. Oh, dear. Oh, dear." She sighed and shook her head. "TI don't know what's to become o us all." She must have been nearly ninety years of age, stooped and wasted by the years, but still im- bued by a vital force. Her high, cracked voice was plaintive. "Germans?" said Lucas, blank- ly. . "No hope. No hope, now" went on the old lady, mounrful- ly. "We are lost. Millions of them, Millions and millions." She patted the little white cap with tremulous fingers. "I don't know what's to become of us all. I really don't." The black skirts rustled and then disappeared beyond the cur- tains into the gloom of the hall. Lucas gaped, wondered if he had imagined her, and sat down again. "Millions and millions of Ger- mans!" he muttered. "What the heck?" The heavy silence of the house oppressed him. After a while he heard quick, nervous footsteps in the hall, and a moment later a tall, ascetic old gentleman, with snow-white hair, swept aside the curtains. The old gentleman looked very fierce and military, with stern eyes beneath shaggy brows, drooping mustache be- neath a hawklike nose, and he fumbled at a black string tie. "Sorry! Sorry!" he rasped. "Didn't mean to keep you wait- ing. I'm Colonel Brand. You're the chap from the Devenant Agency, aren't you?" "Lucas is my name, sir." "Not in this house." The old gentleman chuckled, and tugged at his mustache. "Your name is Holt--Frederick Holt, and you're my nephew from Chicago. Think you can remember that?" Yes; sine "Too bad I must use subterfuge to get you into the house, but it seemed best. You were highly recommended by Mr. Devenant. But you had better come with me. This is a ghastly room. I don't know what that fool girl was thinking of, to show you in here. Come to my study. It's more comfortable there. Never mind about the bag. The girl will bring it up to your room. Come!" Colonel Brand turned on_ his heel and Lucas followed him out of the partlor and down the hall to a bright, comfortable little study redolent of tobacco smoke, and furnished with deep leather chairs There, when their pipes" were glowing as they sat before the fire in the grate, Lucas learned why he was in the house, posing as Colonel Brand's nephem. "This is not my -house," ex- plained the old gentleman, abrup- tly. It belonged to Jacob Gar- diner, an old friend and comrade of mine, and I have lived here for the past twenty years with Jacob. He never married. Neither did I. Just two old bachelors--friends. I lost the best friend I ever had when Jacob died last year." The colonel shook his head, sadly. "He provided: for me rather handsomely, I may say, in his will and insisted that I was to retain my quarters here as_ long as I wished. The real heir fo the estate, however, was his brother Jonathan." "Ts he living here now?" "Yes. We get along very well together. A fine man, but--if I may say it--a bit eccentric. The reason I asked Devenant to send a good man out here is because Mr. Gardiner's-- ah --eccentrici- ties have taken a more serious turn, of late." "Do you mean he is becom- ing--" Lucas tapped his forehead flap. The envelope was pay pe been torn froma different ed to Jonathan Gardiner. - page?" onel. this." drawer again another calendar page. trifle larger in size and had evi-;was marked by a neat cross in red ink. "Do you mean," he said, "that Mr. Gardiner receives one of these calendar pages every day?" "Every morning," declared the colonel, firmly, "And on each and every page the current date is marked in red ink while the date of next Monday is blotted out in black." (To be Continued) calendar, but the page was for "Nothing else but the calendar|the current month of April and 'the date of the coming Monday, "Nothing else," replied the col-|the twenty-eighth, was complet- "And now, take a look lle! blotted out. "That," said Colonel Brand, His lean hand darted into the|"came on Tuesday of this week." and he producedi' Lucas saw that the date of It was.a, Tuesday, April the twenty-second meaningly. "No. Not that. I'm quite sure it isn't that. Somehow, I believe there is a definite reason behind his actions." Colonel Brand look- ed toward the closed door. He lowered his voice. "As a matter of fact, I have come to the con- clusion that Jonathan's life is in danger. If I thought otherwise I wouldn't have called in a private detective." "What basis have you?" asked Lucas. 'No basis beyond an extraor- dinary change in his manner, and the fact that he has been receiv- ing some very strange communi- cations in the past few weeks. However, I'll tell you about it from the beginning: "When Jacob Gardiner died he left the greater part of his estate as I said, to his brother. We had considerable trouble finding Jon- athan as he has been more or less ot a wanderer and had not been in touch with the family for a good many years, but he was fin- ally located in Nebraska and im- mediately came back home to claim his inheritance. "He is a man of about sixty- WHERE SIX WINNIPEG ATHLETES DIED IN AIR CRASH 72 =r = Here is the battered wreckage of the tri-motored plane which crashed at Neodesha, Kansas, killing six and in- juring eight of its occupants. Ten of the victims were members of the Winnipeg Toilers, championship Cana- dian basketball team, who were returning from Tulsa, Oklahoma. The tragedy occurred'on the second anniver- sary of the crash that killed Knute Rockne, famous Notre Dame football coach. five and I imagine he has seen a bit of the world in his day, but at the time we located him he was engaged in business in Omaha. As a man, I liked him very much indeed. He has many of his brother's good qualities, he has been the sould of kindness to me and he has even sent for a nephew and a niece to come and live here. "The girl's name is Jane Gar- diner and the young man is Jacob Wirth--both in rather poor cir- cumstances, I understand, and they have been living here and attending university in the city. I tell you this to show you that Jonathan is really a kind man and a good man." The colonel puffed furiously at his pipe. "Within the past month a great change has come over him. He has lost weight, he seems in bad health and he has become very neryous and irritable. More than that, I happen to know that he has taken to carrying a revolver CAMBRIDGE'S NEW LIBRARY TAKES SHAPE | q Our picture shows the progress which has been made in the building of the new library at Cambridge University. When this huge library is completed it will house about forty-seven miles of book shelves. and that he locks the door of his room every night. And then, there are the letters." "You said that he received some strange communications," remarked Lucas. "Have you seen any of them?" Colonel Brand leaned forward and opened a drawer of his desk. (He produced a small slip of paper rand handed it to the young de- tective. "What do you make of that?" Lucas looked at the paper with interest. It was nothing more than a page from a calendar pad. The date of the previous Satur- day, the nineteenth of the month, was marked by a neat little cross in red ink. More noticeable, how- ever, was the heavy black square that completely blotted out the date of the coming Monday, Ap- ril the twenty-eighth. "Tt came by mail," said Colonel 3rand,, "Last Saturday, and it came in this envelope.' He 'handed over a cheap, com- monplace envelope with a type- written address. It had been posted in the city on the night of the previous Friday. There was a blob of black wax to seal the TWO ROYAL VICTORIES AT OPENING OF THE RACING SEASON His ing the for Majesty the King scored! two early victories with a couple of his racing horses at the beginning of the rac- season in England. Our picture on the left shows the Wing's horse "Fox Earth" (extreme left) leading in Swaffham Plate race at Newmarket which he won easily. The picture on the right show the second win His Majesty when the royal horse "Limelight" won the Newbury Spring Cup in a close finish with Solenoid | The Family Next Door Commendable Economy vitNn, HONEY: I OR ANYTHING , BU NOTICE OUR FOOD lam, -- -- Sc 2 WANT TO BE AN OLD KILLJOY ae ARE MUCH MORE THAN THEY. nae MONTH. aN ben GS + A . Ss Na DONT +r BILLS SAVE A BOUGHT ARMY -- {o "WHAT OF \T2'? GREAT Scot , WOMAN! I THOUGHT WE WUZ GONNA TRY TO ON THESE SORTA. THINGS!- YOU'VE UTTLE MONEY = CUT DOWN ENOUGH STUFF TO FEED AN WHY @ THAT'S WHAT UKE TO KNow! NOW WAIT A MINUTE, SASSY! LET ME SAY A WORD --THIS ALL CAME FROM ONE OF YOUR BRIGHT SUGGESTIONS =" 1 BOUGHT MORE SIUEE San > --| -- -$o Y CcouLDdD ECONOM:ZE ON LEFT - OVERS |