t page of Oakdale's ordinarily dull daily. Never had
Oakdale experienced a plethora of home-grown thrills; but it came as
near to it that morning, doubtless, as it ever had or ever will. Not
since the cashier of The Merchants and Farmers Bank committed suicide
three years past had Oakdale been so wrought up, and now that historic
and classical event paled into insignificance in the glaring brilliancy
of a series of crimes and mysteries of a single night such as not even
the most sanguine of Oakdale's thrill lovers could have hoped for.

There was, first, the mysterious disappearance of Abigail Prim, the
only daughter of Oakdale's wealthiest citizen; there was the equally
mysterious robbery of the Prim home. Either one of these would have been
sufficient to have set Oakdale's multitudinous tongues wagging for days;
but they were not all. Old John Baggs, the city's best known miser, had
suffered a murderous assault in his little cottage upon the outskirts
of town, and was even now lying at the point of death in The Samaritan
Hospital. That robbery had been the motive was amply indicated by the
topsy-turvy condition of the contents of the three rooms which Baggs
called home. As the victim still was unconscious no details of the crime
were obtainable. Yet even this atrocious deed had been capped by one yet
more hideous.

Reginald Paynter had for years been looked upon half askance and yet
with a certain secret pride by Oakdale. He was her sole bon vivant in
the true sense of the word, whatever that may be. He was always
spoken of in the columns of The Oakdale Tribune as 'that well known
man-about-town,' or 'one of Oakdale's most prominent clubmen.' Reginald
Paynter had been, if not the only, at all events the best dressed man
in town. His clothes were made in New York. This in itself had been
sufficient to have set him apart from all the other males of Oakdale.
He was widely travelled, had an independent fortune, and was far from
unhandsome. For years he had been the hope and despair of every Oakdale
mother with marriageable daughters. The Oakdale fathers, however, had
not been so keen about Reginald. Men usually know more about the morals
of men than do women. There were those who, if pressed, would have
conceded that Reginald had no morals.

But what place has an obituary in a truthful tale of adventure and
mystery! Reginald Paynter was dead. His body had been found beside
the road just outside the city limits at mid-ni