The Hemlock Avenue Mystery

by Lily A. Long

It was merely from curiosity, and with no idea of the discovery he was about to make, that Lyon went to Hemlock Avenue that evening at ten to retrace the course he had taken the night before. He wanted to fix the scene in his memory definitely, and to take note of what he had seen and what he might have seen if he had looked. He stopped at the place where he had seen the running girl, and looked about. Certainly she had come from Sherman Street, and, cutting diagonally across Hemlock Avenue, had crossed the field of his vision squarely. He shut his eyes for an instant to recall the scene. She ran well,--he could see now that swift, sure flight. Was it possible that the statuesque Miss Wolcott could ever forget herself in that Diana-like run? Somehow the picture, as he now looked at it, was not like Miss Wolcott. It was lither, quicker, than he could imagine her. Yet there was no question about her running in at the Wolcott house. Stay, was he so sure of that? He had not seen her enter. She had simply run in by the walk that led to the side door. Could she have gone through the Wolcott yard on her way elsewhere? If the running girl was not in fact Miss Wolcott, then his whole theory fell down. Trusting to luck and the inspiration of the moment if he should be challenged, Lyon coolly followed the concrete walk past the side door into the Wolcott back yard. It was a sixty foot lot, running back about a hundred feet. At the front it was unfenced and open to the street, but at the back and on the two sides back of the rear line of the houses it was enclosed by a close board wall six feet high. By the posts and the clothes lines here, it was evident that the back yard was consecrated to Eliza and wash day. So far as might be seen, there was no gate in the enclosing wall. Was there an alley beyond or did this lot abut on the lot which faced on the next street south,--Locust? Lyon felt that might be an important question, and he went down to the corner of the lot and pulled himself up by his hands to look over the top of the wall. He satisfied himself of two points,--that there was no alley between this lot and the adjoining one, and that the board which he had laid his hand upon was not firm. He bent down to examine it. It was a broad board near the left corner of the wall. It was fastened to the upper cross-piece of the fence by a single large spike, and the lower end was unnailed. The effect of this was that while it hung straight in its place so long as it was untouched the lower end could be easily swung on that upper spike as a pivot, leaving a triangular aperture at the bottom quite large enough for a slender person to squeeze through. To test it, Lyon pulled himself through, and swung the board back into its place. He found himself in a large enclosed space, boarded in on all sides except the front, where a high wire fence separated it from the street. With a certain astonishment, Lyon recognized his surroundings. He was in the enclosed grounds of Miss Elliott's Private School for Girls on Locust Avenue,--a highly select and exclusive establishment. Was it as easy to get out as to get in? He hesitated a moment before deciding on further explorations, but the trees in the yard gave him the aid of convenient shadows, and he cautiously followed the wall around the lot, trying each board. There were no more secret panels. Everything was as firm as it looked. He had thought to get out by the gate on Locust Avenue, for it somehow touched his dignity to crawl out by the little hole that had admitted him, but to his surprise he found that the wire fence, which enclosed the lot on the front, came up to the house itself in such a way that no exit could be made on that side except through the house. Moreover the fence was too high to jump, even for him. Emboldened by the fact that the house was as entirely dark as though it were vacant, Lyon made another and even more careful examination of the enclosing wall. There was no break, and he was forced to make his way out, as he had come in, by Miss Wolcott's back yard.

He regained the open street with a tingling pulse. Perhaps his discovery meant nothing,--but perhaps it meant everything. It might enable him in time to tell Lawrence that the running girl was not Edith Wolcott. The sudden recognition of that possibility excited him keenly. Could it be that Lawrence had mistakenly jumped to the same conclusion that he had? Were Lawrence and Miss Wolcott both keeping silence, each to shield the other, while the guilty person made her escape through the sacred precincts of Miss Elliott's select school? He would interview Miss Elliott to-morrow.

[CHAPTER VI]

It was two o'clock in the afternoon of the next day before Lyon found it possible to carry out his plan to interview Miss Elliott. As he approached the Select School on Locust Avenue, he noticed a doctor's runabout fastened before the door, and, as he came up, a young physician whom he knew well. Dr. Barry, came down the steps. Lyon had often found it useful to assume a curiosity when he had it not, and he at once seized his opportunity.

"How is your patient?" he asked with an assured air.

"What do you know about my patient?" Barry asked in obvious surprise.

Lyon in fact knew so little that he deemed it advisable to answer this question with another.

"Will she be able to see me?"

"You newspaper men beat the devil! How did you find out she was here? She particularly wanted to keep it quiet. Miss Elliott called me in with as much secrecy and mystery as though her guest were a royalty traveling incog., and here I find you on the steps ready to interview her for the benefit of the whole public."

"You don't understand," said Lyon quietly. "The only way to keep things out of the newspapers is to take the newspaper men into your confidence. By the way, is her ailment serious?"