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BE STA es 'Fresh from JAPAN TEA the gardens' 00 ~N $. S.V THE STORY THUS FAR: Skeel's finger Finks were found in the apartment of the murdered Mar- gare; Odell, but Vance does not be- eve him guilty. It is proved later that three other possible suspects had been lying about their whereabouts the night of the murder. The truth comes out that Mannix had been call- ing on a young lady in the apartment adjoining the Canary's"; that Cleaver had been in the building around mid- night, and that Dr. Lindquist, know- ing Spotswoode was calling on Mar- garet Odell, had planned in a jealous fit to kill him when he came out. But this plan was frustrated when Spots- woode jumped into a cab, Skeel tele- phones that he will come to the district attorney's office and tell who commit- ted the murder. They wait for him. He does not appear, and when they go to his room they find him dead-- strangled, just as Margaret Odell had een. CHAPTER XLI. (Sunday p.m., Monday a.m., Sept. 16-17.) The investigation into Skeel's death was pushed with great vigor by the authorities. Doctor Doremus, the med- ical examiner, arrived promptly and declared that the crime had taken place between ten o'clock and mid- night, Immediately Vance insisted that all the men who were known to have been intimately acquainted with the Odell girl--Mannix, Lindquist, Cleaver and Spotswoode--be interviewed at once and made to explain where they were diring these two hours, Markham agreed without hesitation, and gave the order to Heath, who at once put four of his men on the task. Mallory, the detective who had shadoved Skeel the previous night, was questioned regarding possible visitors; but inasmuch as the house where Skeel lived accommodated over twenty roomers, who were constantly coming and going at all hours, no information could be gained through that channel. All that Mallory could say definitely was that Skeel had returned home at about ten o'clock, and had not come out again. The landlady, sobered and subdued by the tragedy, repudiated all knowledge of the affair. She explain- ed that she had been "ill" in her room from dinner time until we had dis- turbed. her recuperation the next morning. , The front door, it seemed, was never locked, since her tenants objected to such an unnecessary inconvenience. The tenants themselves were question- ed, but without result; they ware not of a class likely to give information to the police, even had they possessed any. The finger-print experts made a careful examination of the room, but failed to find any marks except Skeel's pwn, A thorough search through the murdered man's effects occupied seve eral hours; but nothing was discover- ed that gave any hint of the murder- er's identity. y A 38 Colt automatic, fully loaded, was found under one of the pillows on the bed; and eleven hundred dollars, in bills of large denomination, were taken from a hollow brass curtain rod, 'Also, under a loose board in the hall, the missing steel chisel, with the fis- pure in the blade, was found. But these items were of no value in solving the mystery of Skeel's death; and at four o'clock in the afternoon DINE AUTHOR 97 THE BENSON MURDER CASE ooo dy CASE the room was close with an emer- gency padlock and put under guard. Markham and Vance and I had re- mained several hours after our dis- covery of the body. Markham had taken immediate charge of the case, and had conducted the interrogation of the tenants, Vance had watched the routine activities of the police with unwonted intentness, and had even take. part in the search. He had seemed par- ticularly interested in Skeel's evening clothes, and had examined t*em gar- ment by garment. Heath had looked at him from time to time, but there had been neither contempt nor amuse- ment in the sergeant's glances, At half past two Markham depart- ed, after informing Heath that he would be at the Stuyvesant Club dur- ing the remainder of the day, and Vance and I went with him. We had a belated luncheon in the empty grill. "This Skeel episode rather knocks the foundation from under every- thing," Markham said dispiritedly, as our coffee was served. "Oh, no--not that," Vance answer- ed. "Rather, let us say that it has added a new column to the edifice of my giddy theory." "Your theory--yes. It's about all that's left to go on." Markham sighed. "It has certainly received substantia- tion this morning. . . . Remarkable how you called the turn when Skeel failed to show up." Again Vance contradicted him. "You over-estimate my little flutter in forensics, Markham dear. You see, I assumed that the lady's strangler knew of Skeel's offer to you. That offer was probably a threat of some kind on Skeel's part; otherwise he wouldn't have set the appointment a day ahead. He no doubt hoped the victim of his threat would become amenable in the meantime, "And that money hidden in the curtain-rod leads me to think he was blackmailing the Canary's murderer, and had been refused a further dona- tion just before he phoned you yester- day. That would account, too, for his having kept his guilty knowledge to himself all this time." "You may be right. But now we're worse off than ever, for we haven't even Skeel to guide us." "At least we've forced our elusive culprit to commit a second crime to cover up his first, don't y' know. And when we have learned what the Can- ary's various amorists were doing last night between ten and twelve, we may have something suggestive on which to work. By the bye, when may we ex- pect this thrilling information?" "It depends upon what luck Heath's men have. Tonight some time, if everything goes well." It was, in fact, about half past eight when Heath telephoned the re- ports. But here again Markham seem- ed to have drawn a blank, A less satisfactory account could scarcely be imagined, Doctor Lindquist had suffered a "nervous stroke" the preceding after- noon, and had been taken to the Epis- copal Hospital. He was still there under the care of two eminent physi- cians whose word it was impossible to doubt; and it would be a week at least before he would be able to resume his work. This report was the only definite one of the four, and it completely ex- onerated the doctor from any par- ticipation in the previous night's crime, By a curious coincidence neither Mannix, nor Cleaver, nor Spotswoode could furnish a satisfactory alibi, All three of them, according to their statments, had remained at home the night before. The weather had been inclement; and though Mannix and Spotswoode admited to having been out earlier in the evening, they stated that they had returned home before ten o'clock. Mannix lived in an apartment-hotel and, as it was Saturday night, the lobby was crowded, so that no one would have been likely to see him come in, A | of the most desirable things to 8 fluence for quiet and spaciousn these two crimes are part of a whole he Canary' am I However, the main th --integers of the same problem. They adi complement each other. The latter was conceived in relation to the first --was, in fact, a logical outgrowth of it." Markham nodded. J "That's reasonable enough. Any- way, I've passer the combative stage. AI think I'll drift for a while on the stream of your theory and see what happens." "What irks me is the disquietin' feeling that positively nothing will happen unless we force the issue. The lad who manoeuvred those two obits had real bean in him." As he spoke Spotswoode entered the room and looked about as if searching for some one. Catching sight of Mark- ham, he came briskly forward, with a look of inquisitive perplexity. "Forgive me for intruding, sir," hs apologized, nodding pleasartly to Vance and me, "but a police officer was here this afternoon inquiring as t my whereabouts last night. It struck me as strange, but I thought little of it until I happened to see the name Tony Skeel in the headlines of a 'special' tonight and read he had been strangled. "I remember you asked me regard- ing such a man in connection with Miss Odell, and I wondered if, by any chance, there could be any connection between the two murders, and if I was, after all, to be drawn into the affair," "No, I think 20t," said Markham. "There seemed a possibility that the two crimes were related; and, as a matter of routine; the police question- ed all the close friends of Miss Odell in the hope of turning up something suggestive, You may dismiss the mat- ter from your mind. I trust," he added, "the officer was not unpleas- antly importunate." "Not at all." Spotswoode's look of anxiety disappeared. "He was ex- tremely courteous but a bit mysterious. Who was this man Skeel?" "A half-workl character and ex- burglar. He had some hold on Miss Odell, and, I believe, extorted money f om her." A cloud of angry disgust passad over Spotswoode's face, "A creature like that deserves the fate that overtobk him." We chatted on various matters until ten o'clock, when Vance rose and gave Markham a reproachful look. "I'm going to try to recover some lost sleep. I'm temperamentally un- fitted for a policeman's life." (To be continued.) Garden Fails If Based on Chance Ideas A good way to go about the plan- ning of the garden is to think of it from the house qutward. How, for in stance, does it look from the living room window, and how do you reach the garden; is it from a piazza outs side the living room, from a porch at the end of the house, or must you walk from the door across a stretch of drive and around the corner of the house? If the garden entrance can be re- lated to one of the main outlooks from the house--placed, for instance, op- posite the door from the sun porch or in line with the main window of the living room~--it will fall imto what is a natural line of sight for the eye and the result because it is easy to follow will be pleasing and gratifying. The mistake of disregarding the relation of the garden to the house is very of- ten made because the owner thinks of the two separately. The location of the garden is de- cided upon, the space bisected and the design made about this central axis regardless of its relation to the house, with the result that viewed from the porch or living room it may be just annoyingly off centre with the line of sight, or make an inharmonious angle with the house. It is far more im- portant to have this relatio. of house to garden right than to have the space within the garden itself divided sym- metrically, In fact the latter con- sideration is of no importance at all because planting may be so arranged as to disguise almost any discrepancy and balance very nearly any awkward shape. The First Consideration. The first consideration as previous- ly indicated will naturally be the en- trance to the garden, and this point having been established the gardem designer should ask himself where he wants to go in the garden, Can a pleasant objective such as a seat un- der a fine tree be arranged? Does & central point with a sundial to mark it seem desirable, or is there to bel a fountain at the back of the garden to which the paths should lead? Hasy| circulation about the garden fs vide and a path that comes to d is always a A ppoTermen © A central panel of grass is nished with Every Pattern. A rough surfaced tweed in orange and brown mixture with intriguing Princess lines, It is suggestive of coat vype, so utterly chic for street and spectator sports. Inset plaits at front and godets at either side of back, contribute skirt fullness, The deep revers and button closing create a marvelous tailored and slen- derizing effeat. 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EDDY COMPANY LIMITED HULL "we UT CANADA "ONLIWON" Finest Sterilized Tissve, Served from sanitary, dustproof cabinet In nickel or porcelainfinish « « « oo oo . a Y70 "NAVY" 'DREADNOUGHT* sheets of soft, safe, Seven ounces of Ster- Sterilized paper, = ilized creped tissue. 7 SAFE, STERILIZED TISSUES T. y N.A. 371 Bay Street 'Toronto, Ont. great power are scattered with all its beams. -- Minard's--50 Year Record of Success. |' 1 Needless Pain] Some folks take pain for granted, | thing in the world. i I know an od man who, in Mr, 'Edison's youth, taught him telegraphy. work at a nice inventive problem. He protested it was far beyond him, but in the end he invented a set of simultaneous alarms which had been T ted. And he thought he was finished. The Quickest Way to Die One thing that keeps old people fib is dancing. It is fine for them. [It gives them exercise, I have known old people who were so timid and con. sclous of their age that they were sure they couldn't dance. With much urging they got up and could hardly, move their legs, but once the embare ragsment wore off they started having fun. Now they dance and dance and dance. It you are old, don't sit still. . That is the quickest way to die.' Keep active. Old people should try and apply their experience, instead of taking it with them on a shelf. When I look forward to old age I look forward to but one thing--that is to be chock-full of doing constructive things, to be active, to do somebody, good. That is the only happiness. Everyone is looking for happiness, and it is always somewhere else. People forget they are living in the present. They cannot live in the past or in the future. If you are interested in what you are doing now you cannok hélp but be happy. That is the only kind of happiness I know. Women always want to know how they can be happy. On way is to have interesting ideas, but I find usually that ideal love is the happiness wo men long for and dream of. The Great Power of Lasting Love Love is a conglomeration of every. thing on earth. That is why it is the greatest thing on earth. It has more elements than anything else. That is why it is so lasting--it is everything expressed in the relation of two Leo. ple toward each other, It is physical attraction: yet this has something deeper behind it, and that is love. It is the possessive ine stinct, yet that goes, and love re mains. It is youth, yet that goes and love remains. Love is more than a passion or & dream--it is dynamic force. All its counterfeits pull their victims down, but love builds its possessors up, strengthens them, purifies them, and makes them keener, Between a true man and a true woman {it creates the perfect human personality and thought, Women talk of love, and think that love automatically brings happiness. That is a kind of selfishness, No one is happy unless he is doing something all the time--I mean doing something active physically, It does no good to sit back and think about things and not act. You must set your thought in motion. Though without activity and fruition encourages. discontent, and is a blind ally to the spirit. The Lazy Kind of Tiredness We have had too much vmphasis on thinking and not enough on action as the result of thinking. If people think and do not act, they want te sleep. They get tired easily, and think something is wrong with them. 1 can tell that kind of tiredness. It is the symptom of a drugged person. When people are tired, when they health or circumstances, yet the fault think they need a lot of sleep, they 'really need less sleep and more ace tivity, They blame life or their is in themselves, and the remedy, too, No one ever became unhappy except | by his or her fault. That holds true for emotional disturbances as well. To live fully in the present--in any given present--Is the greatest happiness and. experience I can think of. And that 3 is in reach of every willing it--the trouble, ls, it's 'too simple. person on earth, That's all there is to