a big, broad-shouldered man in the blue uniform of a policeman.
"'Come, lady,' he said, in a kindly, although deep-toned voice, 'I feared you had come to harm. My pounding on the door brought no answer from you, and I had to make entrance by force. Who killed Jack Robbins—and how? What has happened here?'
"I did not answer him. I could not find voice to reply. Leaning on his arm I was led out of the room and through the study. As I passed through I saw my husband on the floor. A doctor was bending over him. As I passed close I heard the man of medicines saying, 'Dead, dead as a door-knob, but for the life of me I can't determine what killed him.'
"'I know, I know!' I had found my voice: 'I killed him with an enchanted bolt from beyond the grave.' Then I told my story.
"The doctor looked at me for a moment, his mouth dropped open, he scratched his head, then smiled sadly.
"'Poor soul, she's insane; something terrible has happened here. Here is the enchanted bolt of which she speaks. It weighs less than three ounces. As for the bag of gold, if it ever existed—where is it now? You gentlemen, who knew Jack Robbins, respectable cashier in the Mauginsville Bank, will hardly consider the incident of the yellow-haired woman and the bag of gold. Take her away, we will look after her later.'
"They did look after me. I fooled them. I escaped and came to this place! And now, you writer of tales, you have your story. Go make fun of me—and if you do, and if you come back here to the waterfront in search of yarns, I'll scratch your eyes out!"
As I have said, I only tell what Kittie told. She may have been "stringing" me. She may be crazy, I'm going back some of these times to see if she's still there. I may ask her what became of the bag of gold. I imagine Kittie knows a lot of interesting yarns.
BEETHOVEN
A few weird chords of music,
Riding the midnight winds,
Snatched my mind away from me
And out where the dawn begins.
My mind came back with fantasies,
Like cobwebs' gray festoons,
Looped across my consciousness
To sing of gibbous moons;
Of new graves seen by lightning,
And skulls in the seashore's sand;
Of black ghouls' lairs in gloomy woods
Where crumbling tombstones stand;
Of tortured stars that faint and fall
A billion miles through space;
Of moaning ghosts in haunted caves,
And snakes with maidens' face.
When the weird chords ceased, my mind came back,
Like a vampire flapping home
In the dim dawn light from a ghastly night,
No more, I hope, to roam.
