'You have read your uncle's message?' asked Tremaine.
'I have.'
The lawyer smiled.
'It was to be read by me,' he said, 'in case that you failed to abide by the terms of your uncle's will. I am glad that you have seen fit to conform to his desires. Your uncle was my friend.'
He walked to the door with Bruce.
'Did any one talk with my uncle before he died?' asked the young man.
'No,' said the lawyer. 'He talked very little the last few days while you were on your way from Japan. I should have notified you sooner. He was delirious several times.'
'Who came to see him?'
'I don't just recall any one person. Hopkins could tell you. He was your uncle's attendant. He had lived there for several years, you know. A faithful servant and a willing worker.'
Duncan recalled the old gray-haired retainer who had lived with his uncle. He had a card in his pocket now, with the man's address on it. Hopkins had gone to live with his sister after the death of Harvey Duncan.
A telephone booth was Bruce Duncan's first stopping place after leaving Tremaine's office. He found the card with Hopkins's number and decided to call the old man.
A woman's voice answered.
'Mr. Hopkins?' questioned Duncan.
'Who is calling?' was the reply.
'Bruce Duncan. Nephew of Mr. Harvey Duncan.'
'Oh, Mr. Duncan,' came the voice. 'He asked for you. Mr. Hopkins died two weeks ago. I thought you had been notified. It was so sudden - a heart attack in the night -'
Duncan speculated on this strange coincidence as he drove homeward. A theory had formed in his mind.
Some one had visited his uncle, and had been left alone with him by Hopkins. In delirium, Harvey Duncan had given the secret which he had intended to retain for his nephew.
Poor Hopkins! Bruce had almost suspected him when he had made the phone call.
Suddenly, a horrible suspicion filled the young man's mind. Perhaps his uncle had been murdered.
Perhaps the death of Hopkins had been planned!
Some fiend was at work; that was certain. Why then had his own life been spared by the creature of the night? The answer came to him. The malefactor behind all this had not known of the envelope in Tremaine's office. The criminal believed that no one knew Harvey Duncan's secret. He, Bruce Duncan, had been drugged so that the paper could be stolen at night. Had he moved while the enemy was in the room, his life would have been taken.
He began to detect the mystery of the peppermints. Each night, Bruce had sat by the window reading, with the peppermints close at hand, as he smoked his cigarettes. He had rarely drawn the shades. Some one had observed him; a clever person had opened the package from the drug store as it lay on the steps. The doped peppermints had been substituted.
Some criminal mind was at work. It possessed the knowledge that belonged to Bruce Duncan as the heir of his uncle.
Duncan realized the difficulty of his position. He had no clue except the gaping space beneath the hearth.
He did not even know the time or place of the meeting. He did not know the names of the six men who could help him. He was sworn to secrecy by his uncle's message, and no provision had been made for this dilemma.
CHAPTER IV. VINCENT REMEMBERS A FACE
THREE weeks had passed since Bruce Duncan's visit to his uncle's lawyer. Adventures had apparently ended, so far as Duncan was concerned. Unless new factors developed, episodes of the past would pass into oblivion.
New factors, however, were already entering the game. Oddly, strange incidents were beginning many miles from New York - incidents that chance, alone, was guiding. Budding events had begun aboard a train on the Pennsylvania Railroad, during its day trip east from Pittsburgh.
The Eastern Limited was swinging along the curving roadbed as it followed its course on the mountainside above the river. The scene from the window of the sleeping car was one of rugged grandeur, but it held no interest for a passenger named Harry Vincent.
He was the only person seated in the car; the other passengers - of whom there were very few - had gone either to the diner or to the observation car.
For three hours during that afternoon, Harry had been watching a closed door. It was the door of the drawing room at the end of the car, and his interest in what might be behind that door had kept him in his seat.
At three o'clock, Harry had first discovered that there was a passenger in the drawing-room. The conductor had gone to the door of the compartment and had knocked upon it. The door had been opened slightly; the conductor had not entered. He had merely checked a ticket through the partly opened door and had gone on his way.
Harry had observed a dim face in the drawing-room. Then the door had closed. From then on, he had been puzzling over the matter.
The train was not so fast as some of the other limiteds that ran from Chicago to New York. Why should a single passenger - and Harry held a hunch that there was but one person in the drawing-room - have chosen a compartment all alone, on a car nearly empty?
With nothing to do but while away the time during the long day trip, Harry had pondered on this matter.
To him it spelled mystery. There was only one solution. The person in the drawing-room must have chosen this train and taken the available compartment because it would mean seclusion from observation.
Twice, between three and six o'clock, the door had opened slightly as though some one within were studying the car to see who was there. There had been several persons in the car both times.
THE train stopped at Altoona, and Harry still sat alone in the car. He realized that they had passed the famous Horseshoe Curve without the sight even attracting his attention.
Now they were on their way again, and it was growing dark. The closed door still intrigued Harry Vincent, and he watched it more intently than before. He detected a motion. He buried his head suddenly behind his newspaper.
Peering upward over the top of the paper, he saw the door open wide. A man stepped out, turning quickly so that his back was toward Harry, and the door closed. Then the fellow disappeared along the passage that led to the door of the car. Harry dropped his paper and followed. He reached the next car, but no one was in sight when he came to the aisle. He walked through rapidly and entered the second car. By this time he should have gained on the other man. But there was no one in the aisle.
He was puzzled for the moment. Then he retraced his footsteps. It was obvious that the other man had not gone through the train.
When he reached his own car, Harry pushed back the curtain of the smoking compartment and entered.
A man was seated by the window, staring into the outside darkness.
The stranger had assumed a position that confirmed Harry's suspicions. The man had his forehead pressed against the window, with both elbows on the sill, and his hands against his face.
As Harry sat down beside the man and lighted a cigar, the stranger relaxed himself. He did not turn in Harry's direction. But as Harry sat drowsily looking at the floor, he was sure that the other man was studying him in the mirror across the smoking compartment.
Harry spoke without looking at the other man.
'It's a long trip.'
'Yeah,' confirmed the other.
This was encouraging to Harry. Evidently the secretive passenger had satisfied himself that Harry was simply an ordinary traveler.
'Do you make it often?' questioned Harry in a casual way.
'Once in a while,' came the reply.
HARRY turned his head slightly toward his companion. Now he saw the man's face. It was a sallow, smooth-shaven face. The man's eyes were dark and shifty. He did not seem intent upon hiding has features now,
