The Bradys Beyond Their Depth Part 12

"Did you tell him so?"

"Several times. I told my father about it, too."

"How did he seem to take it?"

"Well, he forbade me marrying Mr. Mason and told him the same thing."

"Then with your father out of the way, so he could no longer object, Mason might have figured that he would have better success winning you."

"No matter what he thought, it wouldn't do him any good, sir."

"So I presume. However, it shows an incentive to get rid of your father. Now, there's another consideration. I refer to money."

"How could he gain money by killing my father?"

"Well, he told us your father's fortune was to go to both of you."

"Then he did not tell the truth," said the girl, contemptuously. "My father often told me that every cent he had was willed to me exclusively."

"Have you seen his will?"

"Yes. He once showed it to me."

"Then you know what you said to be true?"

"Of course I do. Mr. Mason had no claim on my father's generosity."

"What lawyer drew up the will?"

"Oh, he's been dead several years. His name was Evan D. Russell."

"Where was the will kept?"

"Hidden. No one but papa knows where."

The Bradys questioned her closely for a while longer.

While this was going on, Young King Brady had been holding the negro by the arm. But they became so interested in what Lizzie was saying that neither one paid much attention to him.

Sim soon observed this.

Filled with a desire to escape, he suddenly wrenched his arm free.

Quick as a flash he seized a chair, swung it around and knocked Harry down.

Old King Brady heard his partner's warning cry and turned around, but ere he could do anything the chair crushed down upon his head and he fell upon his back in the middle of the floor.

The delighted negro rushed to the open window and leaped out.

Up scrambled the chagrined detectives.

Both smarted from the blows, but were otherwise uninjured and they rushed to the window and jumped out into the front yard.

Rushing out to the street they gazed around, but failed to see anything of the fugitive valet.

He had hidden himself so completely that they could find no trace of him, although they scoured the neighborhood for an hour.

When they met again, both looked very much disgusted and Harry said:

"He has eluded us, it seems."

"Completely," Old King Brady answered, angrily.

"We may as well give up hunting for him."

"Yes. It's a waste of time at present."

They returned to the house and told Lizzie the bad news, and the old detective said:

"I expected to pump some valuable information from him about Ronald Mason. But that hope is gone. We shall have to watch out for that pair.

In the meantime, if you wish us to recover your father's body, dead or alive, you must maintain the utmost secrecy of what we said, Miss Dalton."

"You can depend upon my discretion," replied the girl, quietly.

The detectives promised to exert every effort to find her father, and finally took their leave of her.

On the following day the Bradys went to the office of Solomon Gloom, the undertaker, on Seventh avenue, and met him in his office.

He looked nothing like the man who personated him.

It was just as the Bradys suspected.

Having described the man who had the wagon and carried off the body, Old King Brady asked the undertaker:

"Did you give that man one of your business cards?"

"I certainly did," replied Mr. Gloom.

"And rented out your wagon to him?"

"Yes, sir. I also got them a Health Board permit for small-pox, so they could remove their relative's body. The party died of small-pox."

That satisfied the Bradys to the means the abductors employed to personate the undertaker and carry out their plot.

The officers next went to the Union Club and made an effort to secure the telegram which brought Mr. Dalton from the clubhouse the night he was summoned away and vanished from view.

The steward found it in the rubbish-basket and gave it to them.

The message was worded as follows: