The House of the Whispering Pines by Anna Katherine Green Page A

appearance:
    As he pointed this out, he remarked:
    "Elwood is not so common a baptismal name, that there can be any doubt
as to the person addressed."
    The other scraps, also written in pencil and by the same hand, contained
but two or three disconnected words; but one of those words was
Adelaide
.
    "I spent an hour and a half in the yards adjoining the station before I
found those two bits," explained the young lawyer with a simple
earnestness not displeasing to the two seasoned men he addressed. "One
was in hiding under a stacked-up pile of outgoing freight, and the other
I picked out of a cart of stuff which had been swept up in the early
morning. I offer them in corroboration of Mr. Ranelagh's statement that
the '
Come!
' used in the partially consumed letter found in the
clubhouse chimney was addressed to Miss Carmel Cumberland and not to
Adelaide, and that the place of meeting suggested by this word was the
station platform, and not the spot since made terrible by death."
    "You are acquainted with Miss Carmel Cumberland's handwriting?"
    "If I am not, the town is full of people who are. I believe these words
to have been written by Carmel Cumberland."
    Mr. Fox placed the pieces back in their envelope and laid the whole
carefully away.
    "For a second time we are obliged to you," said he.
    "You can cancel the obligation," was the quick retort, "by discovering
the identity of the man who in derby hat and a coat with a very high
collar, left the grounds of The Whispering Pines just as Mr. Ranelagh
drove into them. I have no facilities for the job, and no desire to
undertake it."
    He had endeavoured to speak naturally, if not with an off-hand air; but
he failed somehow—else why the quick glance of startled inquiry which
Dr. Perry sent him from under his rather shaggy eyebrows.
    "Well, we'll undertake that, too," promised the district attorney.
    "I can ask no more," returned Charles Clifton, arising to depart. "The
confronting of that man with Ranelagh will cause the latter to unseal his
lips. Before you have finished with my client, you will esteem him much
more highly than you do now."
    The district attorney smiled at what seemed the callow enthusiasm of a
youthful lawyer; but the coroner who knew his district well, looked very
thoughtfully down at the table before which he sat, and failed to raise
his head until the young man had vanished from the room and his place had
been taken by another of very different appearance and deportment. Then
he roused himself and introduced the newcomer to the prosecuting attorney
as Caleb Sweetwater, of the New York police department.
    Caleb Sweetwater was no beauty. He was plain-featured to the point of
ugliness; so plain-featured that not even his quick, whimsical smile
could make his face agreeable to one who did not know his many valuable
qualities. His receding chin and far too projecting nose were not likely
to create a favourable impression on one ignorant of his cheerful,
modest, winsome disposition; and the district attorney, after eyeing him
for a moment with ill-concealed disfavour, abruptly suggested:
    "You have brought some credentials with you, I hope."
    "Here is a letter from one of the department. Mr. Gryce wrote it," he
added, with just a touch of pride.
    "The letter is all right," hastily remarked Dr. Perry on looking it
over. "Mr. Sweetwater is commended to us as a man of sagacity and
becoming reserve."
    "Very good. To business, then. The sooner we get to work on this new
theory, the better. Mr. Sweetwater, we have some doubts if the man we
have in hand is the man we really want. But first, how much do you know
about this case?"
    "All that's in the papers."
    "Nothing more?"
    "Very little. I've not been in town above an hour."
    "Are you known here?"
    "I don't think so; it's my first visit this way."
    "Then you are as ignorant of the people as they are of you. Well, that
has its disadvantages."
    "And its advantages, if you will permit me to say so, sir. I have