THE BEGINNING OF A MYSTERY

Here indeed was an adventure, less romantic than tragical. I was locked up in the back room of a village shop in company with the corpse of a dead woman, and some thief had gone off with my motor car. Undoubtedly the person who had stolen the Rippler, was the one who had locked the door. Indeed it would seem that the person had laid a trap, for in the first instance the door had been locked; in the second, it had been open; and in the third, it had been locked again. But the individual who had gone off with the car--as presumably was the case--had not lured me into the trap, since the moan of the now dead woman had led me on to exploring the back premises. But the unknown might have counted upon that. If such was the case, why, then--here in the darkness fumbling for the handle of the locked door a terrible thought flashed into my mind, a vague elusive thought, which I could not put into words. With a sudden terror knocking at my heart, I shook the door and cried for help.

"Hi! what's that?" asked a rough, uncultured voice in the shop; "what's wrong wi' ye, Mrs. Caldershaw?"

"Open the door!" I shook the flimsy boards again. "Open the door!"

There was a grunt of astonishment, and I heard the key turn in the lock. A moment later and the door opened, when at once I flung out past a burly man, who was blocking the way. He gripped me before I could pass him, and I heard hard breathing in the darkness. "Not so fast," said the man harshly. "What are you doing here in Mrs. Caldershaw's shop? and----"

"Don't stop me; don't, confound you!" I interrupted, and wrenching myself away I ran to the door of the shop, crying out explanations. "Someone's gone off with my motor car. There's a dead woman in there, and----"

This time it was the man who interrupted and with something more than words. As I dashed into the deserted road, looking up and down in the darkness for my Rippler, my liberator plunged after me and gripped me again. Before I could say a word or make a movement, he had borne me to the ground by sheer strength of muscle, and holding me down hard and fast, bellowed at the pitch of his voice an ominous word. "Murder! murder! murder!" shouted the man with surprising volume of tone.

Again the fear knocked at my heart, for now the elusive thought had been put into concrete form by this yokel, as I took him to be from his roughness and accent. Anne Caldershaw--I believed the body to be hers--had been murdered by the assassin, who had escaped with my motor car. He--I naturally thought of the assassin as a "he"--had waited until I was bending over the corpse of his victim, and then locking me in, had made use of the Rippler. By this time he would be beyond any chance of recapture, and here was I placed unexpectedly in a compromising situation, with the chance--and upon very good circumstantial evidence--of being accused of the crime. And yet, as even then I thought confusedly, there was nothing to show that the woman had really been murdered, as I had seen neither wound nor blood.

"Let me up!" I gasped, striving to throw off the dead weight of the big man.

But he only continued to roar for help, gripping my arms and pressing his knee into my chest. Had not the villagers arrived, I verily believe that there would have been a second, if unconscious murder, so brutally did the fellow bear on my prone body. But I heard distant cries, and shortly there came the flash of lanterns borne by men and women running round the corner of the road. As by magic, I was surrounded by an alarmed crowd all asking questions at once and turning their many lights on to my face. My captor gave a breathless explanation.