. forked tongues of flame leaping into
y from the direction of his son’s home.
om where Lycheluk parted with Mike
ete it’s a mile and a half to Ledur’s,”
ed Day. “The road’s all rutted and
nd the going would be tough. That
; he wouldn’t reach Ledur’s till mid-
It looks to me, Bob,” he turned to
- Black, “as though the fiend who did
vas lying low for Lycheluk to include
n the clean-up. As soon as Lycheluk
d up he must have done some fast
with his gun, set fire to Ledur’s build-
‘o cover his crime, even hanging around
while as is shown by these oxen he
|. Then he high-tailed it for Belek’s
et the fire there.”
1 that case,” Black was frankly doubt-
“the killer didn’t have more than ten
tes to murder six unoffending people,
ve fires—some of them three quarters
mile apart—see they got properly
>d, and hang around long enough to
k down those escaping oxen. It doesn’t
> sense, Jack”.
n the face of it it seemed incredible, yet
facts were undeniable. The whole
ch congregation attested to the time the
ce ended. A dozen witnesses were
lly definite as to the time the three men
left the neighbour’s after partaking of
e-brew, while Day had definitely
ked the distance himself.
Well,” Day explained, still mystified,
ve got the movements of most of those
d up in this mess pinned down. The
thing that’s missing is a clue to the...
pulled this off.”

Il search for the presence of any
ager who might have committed the
ders proved unavailing. It seemed
1in, therefore, that the mass murder and
n must have been done by someone

aay

Ledur Skelov’s peaceful farm at Yavo, Saskatchewan, before it became the scene of one of the most
mystifying and gruesome mass-murders in Canada’s crime history.

actually living in the vicinity. In all prob-
ability, Day reflected, the eyes of the
murdering Frankenstein had been following
him as he delved amongst the ghastly evi-
dence of the awful crime. A killer who
wouldn’t hesitate to strike swiftly and with
awful vengeance again if he felt his security
imperiled by the activities of the redcoats.
There had been a terrible and awful com-
pleteness in the destroying hand that had
taken time to clinch each horrible deed with
a bullet in the brain and another in the
heart of each victim. No hasty hand had
left a spark of life to whisper the name of
the human monster who'd run amok with
gun and torch.

With a creeping sensation in the base of
his spine at the thought that he might be
under the veiled scrutiny of the murdering
monster, Day delved into the background

of the Skelov family. Somewhere there must
lie the clue to the motives that had culmin-
ated in the charnel house with its blackened
corpses. Money seemed definitely out since
everything of value had been destroyed.
No! the wanton brutality of the crime, with
its toll of women and children, pointed to
something deeper and more terrible—to a
bloody véngeance such as only the twisted
mind of a foreign-born sadist could con-
ceive. Could it, Day wondered, be the work
of the green-eyed monster—the tragic pay-
off of the eternal triangle involving, perhaps,
the pretty and pulchritudinous blonde,
Pauline—or even Mary, Ledur’s seductive
and popular wife? Recalling the French
adage, cherchez la femme, Day pointed his
inquiries towards the possible woman in the
case.

John Skelov, he learned, had emigrated

enter & Hanna

Limited

“uneral Directors

(Established 1893)

2 YEARS IN VANCOUVER, B.C.

mcouver, North Vancouver, Powell River

and Ladner, B.C.

OUR MAIN OFFICE, 1049 WEST GEORGIA STREET

URTEENTH EDITION

Page Forty-seven