Citadel of Fear

live here no more. Drop the case or keep on with it as you like-its a matter of no further interest to myself.'

This annoyed MacClellan. It annoyed him more than O'Hara's insistence that he solve the previous case. There could be drawn an inference that the Irishman had lost all faith in his ability to solve anything whatever, but in that he was mistaken. O'Hara could not lose what he had never possessed.

'We shall continue to investigate,' he declared with stolid dignity. 'We have sent word down the line to round up every hobo between here and headquarters, and — '

'Hoboes!' The ejaculation had a quality of bitter scorn that dissipated the last of MacClellan's patience.

'Yes, hoboes!' he snapped. 'If you're so sure that I don't know anything, then you have some good reason for being sure! When you get ready to tell it, let me know. I'm going back by train. Good day!'

Colin viewed his retreating figure with wide, amused eyes.

'And that's the only really clever thing he ever said in his life! Good day to you, Mr. MacClellan! Sure, I'll let you know-but not until I'm ready!'

The detective, on his early morning visit, had again called out a patrolman to stand guard over O'Hara's possessions, and there he stood, MacClellan having departed in too great a rage to remember his patient sentinel.

'Go or stay as you please,' said O'Hara to the officer. 'I'll send up a man presently to pack what's left worth packing and ship it in town. I doubt if I'll return here myself.'

'I'll see that your man makes a good job,' volunteered the policeman agreeably. O'Hara had just slipped a bit of green paper into his willing hand-extended for that purpose, perhaps from habit, discreetly and with back half turned.

'Thanks. I wish you would.'

As Colin climbed into the driving seat of his borrowed car he gave a last glance about the now desolate hilltop. Here and there strayed some idle and amateur seeker of 'clues.' A reporter or so, ruthlessly repelled by the gloom-stricken Irishman, still hovered hungrily in the offing. One individual hurried toward him as he started the car. Had Colin looked he would have seen a lean, worn-looking man, white-haired, with the mark of an old scar across his lower forehead.

'Mr. O'Hara!' he called. 'Hey, there! O'Hara! Wait a minute!'

'Go to the devil with the rest of 'em!' muttered Colin without even a glance, and fairly shot out of hearing.

He wanted to get away from it all. He had by no means surrendered hope of achieving a final solution-in fact he was grimly certain that the solution would not be much longer delayed. But he was sick of the bungalow-sick of everything.

No matter if he exposed Reed as the deus ex machina of these lawless manifestations; no matter if in exposing him he discovered the reason of Reed's grudge, if he had one. No matter, even, if for one reason or another the killing of Marco should be publicly applauded as a righteous act-though that last seemed to him unlikely enough. No matter for anything. Was he not indeed linked by a 'golden thread' to the one girl in the world for him-and was she not hopelessly, unquestionably insane?

He determined that he would not go back to Green Gables. She was safe in his sister's keeping, and he determined that before yielding himself to the police he would have one final interview with Reed-providing that is, that he could easily locate him.

Yet before going on that errand, he brought the car to a halt before Bradshaw's shop, entered and with a nod to the storekeeper made for the little telephone booth. But Bradshaw halted him.

'Say, Mr. O'Hara, your sister called up a while ago. Said the bungalow line was out of order. Did you find out — '

'Did Mrs. Rhodes want me, then? How long ago was that?'

'Oh, about an hour, more or less, the first time. She's called twice since and says for you to phone her right away. Did that detective fellow — '

'Why didn't you send up the hill after me?' demanded O'Hara indignantly.

'Nobody to send. Been looking around for a boy, but they're all up round your place, I guess. Did you find out — '

'I did not!' O'Hara disappeared in the booth, banging the door in poor Bradshaw's aggrieved face. That is, he tried to bang it, but the booth never having been built for his bulk, the attempt was a miserable failure.

In an uncomfortably stooped position Colin went through the customary struggle to get Green Gables from Carpentier through a matter of three exchanges, and in the end was rewarded by Cliona's voice on the wire. She had been waiting anxiously for the call and before he could ask a question she imparted her news.

'Colin-she's gone!'

'What? Who's gone?' But he knew very well.

'That Miss Reed, or whoever she was. She's gone-and I've been trying to get you for nearly two hours. Where have you been?'

'Here.' Colin's voice was a trifle hoarse. Of course they would find her again-she had wandered away, but he would find her —

Again Cliona was speaking. She had, it appeared, seen her guest safely bestowed in the bedroom assigned to her use, and herself gone to lie down for a short time. When she returned to offer the girl a cup of tea the room was empty. She was nowhere in the house and her coat had also disappeared. And-'Colin, she had taken that dreadful green dress again!'

'Taken it? She didn't wear it?'

'I–I'm afraid she did. The clothes I gave her were on the bed-they were laid out very nicely and in order, Colin dear-she must have had a beautiful bringing up — '

'Never mind consoling me, Cliona. What have you done to find her?'

It seemed she had sent every one of the servants to search the neighborhood and had tried to get in touch with him before notifying the police. And three reporters had been there already about the bungalow-and the servants had all returned with nevus, and she had waited and waited —

'Yes, to be sure. But do you tell me, darling. Did she say anything to you before you left her? Tell me word for word all she said. I may get some trace of her by it.'

'Let me think. I asked her about her father, but she would tell me nothing. She said that already she loved me, but only to you would she speak. She said: 'I have seen kindness in the eyes of others than you, but it has been as the mockings of the shadow people. They went and returned not. But between me and my lord hangs a Golden Thread, and therefore there is trust between us.' Something like that. I'm trying to remember exactly, but — '

'You've a wonderful memory, and you're doing fine. And then?'

'Well, she seemed disturbed because you had gone to Carpentier, and asked me to take her and follow you. Then she said she left the reception hall because you disliked the fat, clean man-Mr. MacClellan, I suppose-so much that you were making her hate him. She hates Marco and you-you struck him. And she thought that striking Marco had made you sad, she knew not why. So she went away lest you strike the fat, clean man also. Forgive me, Colin, but you wanted to know exactly.'

'And so I do. Then?'

'That was all. When I wouldn't take her after you, she asked to lie down in her room and she did. She wad so perfectly nice and-and pleasant that I never-never thought — '

'And why would you? There's no blame at all to you, darling.' His exoneration of Cliona was quite mechanical, a matter of habit, for in truth his thoughts were not on her.

From head to foot he thrilled with a bitter, uncanny joy that shocked but refused to be banished by his reasoning mind. She had felt his dislike for MacClellan, sensed and sympathized with it to the point of hatred, in the same way that he had flamed to deadly, unjustifiable passion for her sake!

What fire was this in which fleshly barriers melted and their two spirits fused? A dangerous blaze, surely, that expressed itself only in hate! No, that was the chance of unlucky circumstance. What opportunity had there been for happiness to, leap between them? Oh, all madness, madness!

Somewhere in him there must lurk a weak, abnormal strain that responded to her insanity. He forced thought of it from him as something to be faced another time, and resolutely set his mind to the present