w " Hrr' nr i ~i ~i ir>r>m i in ~ —11 1 n rni—i ~ r ' i— i—in ~in *"*‘‘^*r*******^*^*****' " ■ ■ * ■ MURDER Bv An I Mi"non I ARISTOCRAT _ Eberhart j I 1 They were Janice and Allen Carick. And now that I’ve come to tell it I find that after all there is very little to tell. The significance lay en- , fcirely m their look, and that I was only a kind of stillness, as if they shared some tre mendous and vital under standing. I’hey didn’t speak; they Just stood there for a moment. Then Allen put out his arms, and I thought he ; was going to take Janice into them. He took her hands, however, instead, and looked at them for a moment as if he might never see them again in all the world, and then held them against his eyes. And Janice lifted her face with all its beauty in full flame, and yet so white and Bpent-looking that I did not Bee how the man could gently relinquish her hands and step back. But he did just that, although he too was white under his tan, and he watched her turn and mount the stairs with a look of such sheer agony in his young eyes that i I felt indecent witnessing it. ! Then he was gone; beyond the J screen I saw his hand on the latch and then heard his quick steps across the porch. It had lasted only a mo- . ment. And I felt shaken and ; pitiful, as if I had seen the , sacrifice of something living and very lovely. Which was, I told myself Impatiently as I continued on my way, not only sentimental and maudlin, It was entirely without morals on my part. While I have never married and in all likelihood never 6hall, still I have my views about matrimony. I have al ways felt that flirtatiousness In a married woman is due to a sort of compound of vanity, Idleness, and not enough gpanklngs as a child. But that moment in the hall had been real. And I sup pose people do fall in love sometimes whether they want to or not. And how can they know it until It’s happened? This untimely reflection threatened my own self-re spect, and it was with fur ther chagrin that I found I had brought up at the door of the room which had been Bayard Thatcher’s with my hand on the doorknob. I drew it away sharply. The hall was long and empty and but dimly lighted. Was it only last night that I’d stood there watching in that mirror the reflection of a door closing? Since then murder had been at large in the silent house. Had ravaged the peace of a summer day; had charged the tranquil dignity of the house with fear and violence. Where there’s been murder there will be murder. As if by physical motion I could remove myself from that unwelcome thought, I stirred and walked hurriedly to Adela’s door, knocked, and at her word entered. It was not more than an hour later that I came upon the letter. Dr. Bouligny. in leaving, had ordered me to give Adela a rather heavy opiate to in-* sure her rest during the long hours of the night, and I was fumbling in my instrument bag for the case which held a hypodermic needle when my fingers encountered an en velope, tucked well out of sight. It was not addressed. I opened it and took out the sheet of paper it held. It was part of a letter. I never knew exactly why it was In my bag, although I was to surmise with, I think, a fail degree of accuracy. I did not realize what it was until I’d read a portion of it, and then I could not stop. Not that I’m making apology for what I did; still it was quite evident ly a letter meant for only one pair of eyes. The first of it was gone; the written words leaped to my gaze: 0 . freedom and taking love when it comes and liv ing your own life. But it’s all wrong. It doesn’t take into account—well, just integrity. One’s measures of honesty and pride. I can’t leave Dave. Though God knows I’ve rea son to, poor Dave. “You must go. I can’t bear seeing you. It’s terrible to write that and to know that my moments of living are those moments when I can see you. expect you, hear you speak. Such a few moments out of all the years and years, so brief—all the rest such a dreadful waste. “I’m growing hysterical; I must stop. I’ll put this in a pocket of your coat. You left it on the porch. I loathe my self for doin^ it in such a way. But I must make you under stand, and I can’t say all this - not while you’re near me. Believe me, there isn’t a way out of it; not any way we can take. “After all, we’ll forget. Peo ple do. That’s worse than any thing. But it’s true. Janice.” For a moment I stood there holding that sheet of paper under the light. Then deliber ately I read it again. It was without doubt a com promising letter; I was torn with disapproval and a kind of reluctant pity. After all, she had tried to be honest; it was a bit hysterical, but emotion is apt to sound like that. And it was sincere and direct and entirely lacked that theatrical quality of artificial romance with which women so often Invest their letters, as if they were seeing them selves in some romantic role. somenow i assumcu wiuo the letter was meant for Al len, and I was feeling sorry for them all, Dave and Janice and Allen, caught in such a tragic mesh. But was it Al len? Could it have been Bay ard Thatcher— Bayard, dead now, his harsh smile gone? He had had access to my in strument bag, not Allen. Bay ard also she might conceiv ably have begged to go. Per haps Dave had discovered it. He seemed to be a neurotic type: A man who would act first and reason afterward. But Dave and Allen had been fishing together all the after noon. And I had seen Janice with Allen there at the foot of the stairs. No, the man she loved was Allen. But Janice herself — Janice herself had been in the house alone with Bayard for fully five minutes before the murder was dis covered!, Until that very mo ment I had forgotten it. Upon their return she and Adela had got out of the car to gether, but she had gone di rectly into the house, while Adela lingered among the flowers and talked to me. It could have been only five min utes at the longest, possibly less than that, but it does not take long to send a bullet speeding to its target. It was incredible—but who else was there? There was a light knock on the door of the adjoining bedroom. I heard Adela speak and then scream. It was a sharp, sucking sound, that scream; like taffeta when it tears. Then I was in the bedroom, too. Adela was sitting upright in bed. Her eyes were blank and hard, and her mouth tight. You’d never have guessed she had just screamed. Emmeline stood near the bed. In one hand she carried the brown wicker egg basket. There were still some eggs in it. In her other hand she held a revolver. “I found—" she said, and saw me and stopped. CHAPTER VI Afterwards it seemed strange to me and a little sad i that the curious understand ing which had existed prob ably for so many years be tween mistress and maid should have failed at that crucial moment. For Adela opened her lips and said in a hoarse kind of whisper: “Take it away.” And I’m sure Emmeline thought she asked where she’d found the revolver, for the woman said: “It was in the egg basket, in the refrigerator. It’s Mr. Dave’s. There’s two shots out of it.” She held the revolver almost at arm’s length, looked at it reflectively, and added, “You ought to feel how cold it is, being in the icebox.” Adela closed her eyes. "Put it on the table, here,” she said. “That’s all, Emme line. After the maid had stalked away again, bearing her bas ket of eggs, Adela lay there for a moment, marshaling her forces, and then opened her eyes and said wearily: “It’s strange that Dave’s re volver should turn up in the egg basket. But it means nothing. Nothing. The re volver was likely in the coupe when Janice took it out this afternoon, and she dropped it into the egg basket, intend ing to take it into the house and put it away, and then she forgot about it. Yes, that’s what happened. You can see for yourself, Miss Keate, that it couldn’t have been the re volver with which—” a small spasm contorted her mouth as she said stiffly—“with which Bayard was shot. But I’m go ing to ask you to say nothing of this, please. Dr. Bouligny is a good man, and he means well, but he’s a bit stupid. He might think— Well, it’s best, I think, not to confuse tmngs. “A ballistics expert would soon know whether that was the revolver that killed Bay ard, if that’s what you mean," I said crisply. The variety of experience which falls to a nurse’s lot has given me some slight acquaintance with crime. Besides, I read newspa pers. My comment did not please Adela. She looked coldly at me. “Surely you don’t think a burglar would not only use Dave’s revolver, but would hide it in the egg basket in the kitchen refrigerator,” she said frigidly. “Besides, he wouldn’t have had time. If you’ll give me the medicine Dr. Bouligny ordered, I’ll go to sleep.” And when I stood beside the bed a few moments later with the hypodermic needle ready in my hand, I glanced at the table. The revolver was gone; I knew she must have placed it in some drawer in the room, and I could certainly have found it—could find it later on, if I felt it my duty to bring the matter to the coroner’s attention. She went to sleep almost immediately. I was adjusting the window preparatory to leaving her when Pansy scratched and whined at the door. I let her in; she waddled breathlessly over to the bed, gave Adela’s hand which lay on the edge an abstracted lick and retreated to a cushion in the corner. She was still ner vous and watched me suspi ciously and with not too flat tering attention as I moved about the room. It was with a touch of un easiness that I entered the room next door, which I was to have, and snapped on the light. I remember I glanced rather quickly about, under the bed and into the old ward robe and back of the screen, before I closed and locked the door. Yet I can’t say there was any definite thing that I feared. It was something im palpable; quite intangible. Murder as a word is only a word; but murder as an ac tuality, dragged into the calm circumference of one’s own living, is a violent and cy clonic experience. The Thatchers were what we call nice people. They were temperate, self controlled, proud. They did not lack cour age, they scorned dishonesty, and their emotions were or* 1 derly. People cf that sort do not breed murderers. But Bay ard Thatcher had been mur dered. Even that night, before I had time or inclination to try to arrive at any conclu- , sion as to who had murdered ! him — even then, I felt in- i stinctively that it was one of the Thatchers. Otherwise it would not, perhaps, have been so terrible and so profoundly exciting an experience. It is true it seemed entirely in credible to think that under that placid, calm, well ordered surface strange and turbulent and violent emotions were seething. Emotions which must have had their roots far, far beyond the somewhat paradoxical but rigidly or dered state of affairs we call civilization and which ex cludes murder. Contrary to my expectations I fell at once into a heavy, : dreamless sleep; I was, of course, desperately weary. The night—clear and moonlit— was, so far as I know, entire ly peaceful. I do not believe there were, even, any tears for Bayard. It was morning when I \ awoke with a start and a con- 1 viction that I had heard the continued barking of a dog somewhere n e a r. It had ceased, however, by the time I was thoroughly awake, and I did not hear it again. It was a warm, placid summer morn ing, too warm even at that hour, but pleasant and quiet. The horror of the thing that had happened swept back into my consciousness with a kind of incredulous shock. I hurried a little about dressing. My fears of the night seemed unreal as I unlocked and opened the door on a peaceful sunlit hall. Adela’s dbor was closed, and she did not respond to my knock, so I went quietly away; it would be a good thing to let her sleep as late as poss^le. Not a soul was about upstairs, though I met Florrie in the lower hall. Her green cham bray was fresh and clean as always, but her cap was crooked, and she gave me a rather sullen good morning. I stopped for a moment in the doorway, I remember, to glance out across the porch ahd the lovely sunny lawns. When I turned she had ar ncstid herself in the very act of dusting a table and was looking fixedly over her shoul der at me. She dropped her eyes at once and began to wield the duster vigorously, and when I said, ‘‘A pleasant morning,” she muttered some thing unintelligible and turned into the library. I walked on down the hall. As I reached the diningroom door something made me turn. The girl was standing half in, half out the library door watching me. She bobbed out of sight, but not before I had caught a strangely sul len look in her plain face. It vaguely disturbed me; it was as if she were accusing me of something. Evelyn was sitting behind the tall silver coffee service. Apparently she had not gone home for the night, for she still wore the light summer gown, a flowered chiffon, which she had worn the pre vious afternoon. It looked gay and out of place, especially when Janice, who followed my entrance by a moment or two, appeared in a crisp white linen morning frock. (TO BE CONTINUED) Chicago Population Increased 49,000 Chicago —UP)— Chicago’s pop ulation was increased 49,000 in 1932, bringing the total number of resident’s in the nation’s second largest city to 3,524,000. it was disclosed by J. E. Vesley, research director of the Association of Commerce. The increase was under the av erage annual growth of 67,500 of the past decade, Vesley pointed out, but added that it was com paratively greater than that of other metropolitan centers. Vesley estimated Chicago’s un employed at 656,000. approximately j 38 per cent of the city’s total ! workers. Railroads Must Speed Up, Major Declares Ogden. Utah. —(UP)— Railroads Of the nation must speed up their sc. vice If they are to compete with air travel or