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 indepen-
dent 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-night by a party of automobilists re-
turning from a fishing trip. The skull was crushed back
of the left ear. The position of the body as well as the
marks in the road beside it indicated that the man had
been hurled from a rapidly moving automobile. The fact
that his pockets had been rifled led to the assumption
that he had been killed and robbed before being dumped
upon the road.
Now there were those in Oakdale, and they were
many, who endeavored to connect in some way these
several events of horror, mystery, and crime.
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