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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 <iven the automobile.
Mayor Louis Marcus of Salt Lake
City, told the General Contractors
of America intermountain branch.
By reducing trains to two or
three cars, pulled by steam, gaso
line or electric locomotives, driven
by propellors, Marcus said, the
railroads could maintain an av
erage speed of 125 miles per hour.
There has been little development i
In the railroads during the past
20 years, and trains move at about !
the same speed. They have not
met the changes of times and will
soon be driven from competition,
he asserted.
Aged Men Are Worst
Drivers, Sergeant Avers
Kinston, N. C. — (UP) — The
worst driver on the road?
It isn’t the youngster In a hurry
to get nowhere; nor the “mutton
headed Negro from the country”
nor the woman who doesn’t look
where she's going.
No, says Sgt. Arthur Moore, of
the state police, you won't find
the worst driver among those
groups.
He will turn out, Sgt. Moore
told the Rotary club here, to be
the man who learned to drive at
an advanced age; who drives very
slowly and sees only the things in
front of him and is apt to be
thinking about his cotton crop.
LOSES DIME—FINDS $100
I Houston, Tex—Mrs. E. M. Brat
i ton. bank toller, unfolds a auee."
i tale. A Jobless plumber recently ap
! proached her, an anxious look on
his face, and asked her whether
] a one hundred dollar bill he had
! was a good one. After Mrs. Bratton
assured him the bill was good, he
told her that he had found it—
after losing a dime. The dime, the
last coin he had. slipped and rolled
into a crack in the floor of his
bathroom. In searching for it with
a piece of wire, he pulled out the
bill. He was able to send his sick
' wife to a hospital with the money.
Female grasshoppers will lay
from 600 to 800 eggs at a time.
MODERN LIFE TOO
MUCH FOR “BIDDY”
Intimations are not lacking that
nature is weary of the incessant ef
forts of science to introduce the ele
ment of supersalesmansliip into tier
processes, forcing her to multiply her
old, leisurely productivity a hundred
and a thousandfold. She tins been
pushed too far. It is now 25 or 3Q
years since egg-laying contests in
New England began to attract gen
eral attention. Poultry breeders from
across the sea brought their flocks
here to compete with our native
strains. Amazing records were es
tablished. the result of scientific
feeding, of splitting up large flocks
into small colonies. Unless memory
is at fault Mrs. Ignnce Paderewski
paid $2,(XX) for a champion layer.
Settings of eggs of certain prolific
breeds fetched fancy prices.
Up to that point the egg laying
faculty of the hen had been stimu
lated along the line of her hereditary
instincts—proper food, favorable sur
roundings. But now, science stepped
in. More and more the mother hen
wns bereft of her clutch so that it
might be hatched in an incubator
and the progeny be reared in a
brooder. The hen was reduced to
the condition of a mere egg laying
machine. All her maternal solici
tude was denied an outlet. Not only
that: the science-crazed poultrymen,
in their eagerness to get the very
last egg from their layers, began to
try to fool the birds by flooding their
houses with artificial light an hour
before dawn in the morning and for
an hour after dusk at night. P.y thus
lengthening their apparent day it
was hoped to get ttie birds to work
unnaturally overtime—lay seven eggs
a week apiece where four were laid
before.
But in spite of all the dreams of
science, it was not long before there
were signs that the limits of a hen’s
laying capacity had been reached.
The hen began to ask herself wlial
she got out of it. Life, which to her
ancestors had been one of Infinite
rariety, was for her nothing but one
confounded egg after another, and
every egg snatched away just as she
felt the fever of incubation coming
upon her. Lovers of nature are not
surprised, therefore, to read the ad
missions of a Massachusetts author
ity on poultry that “the intensive life
of the modern hen is terribly increas
ing the mortality in model poultry
plants; the birds are worn out be
fore their time.” A hen which under
the conditions prevailing formerly
would have gone on laying well for
several years is now done for at the
end of her first season—good only
for the pot, and with lillte meat on
tier bones at that, so wasted is she
from tier labors. Perhaps this les
son of the futility of forcing the hen
beyond her powers may not be lost
upon those who are leaving nature
out of the account in some other
fields of activity, human and other,
wise.—Exchange.
POISON
in Your bowels!
Poisons absorbed into the system
from souring waste in the bowels,
cause that dull, headachy, sluggish,
bilious condition; coat the tongue;
foul the breath; sap energy, strength
and nerve-force. A little of Dr.
Caldwell’s Syrup Pepsin will clear
up trouble like that, gently, harm
lessly, in a hurry. The difference it
will make in your feelings over night
will prove its merit to you.
Dr. Caldwell studied constipation
for over forty-seven years. This long
experience enabled him to make his
prescription just what men, women,
old people and children need to make
their bowels help themselves. Its
natural, mild, thorough action and
its pleasant taste commend it to
everyone. That’s why “Dr. Caldwell’s
Syrup Pepsin,” as it is called, is the
most popular laxative drugstores sell.
I AT THE FIRST SNEEZE |
Essence of MUt&l
YOUR HANDKERCHIEF
AND PILLOW _
IT’S NEW
+ SAFE Hr
The popularity of Bayer Aspirin is due in large measure
to its speed. There is no quicker form of relief for a bad
headache, neuralgia, neuritis, or other severe pain. But
even more important is its safety. Anyone can take
Bayer Aspirin. It does not depress the heart. It does
not upset the stomach.
No one need ever hesitate to take Bayer Aspirin be
cause of its speedy action. Its rapid relief is due to the
rapidity with which tablets of Bayer manufacture
dissolve. You could take them every day in the year
without any ill effects.
For your pocket, buy the tin of 12 tablets. For economy,
bottles of 100 at the new reduced price.
And Bayer has Speed!
WOMAN LOST 10
LBS. IN A WEEK
lira. Betty l.ucdcke of Dayton writes:
•*1 am u»*inr kruM'hen to rfdoce weight—
I lost 10 pounds in one week and cannot
say too much to recommend It.'*
To take off fat easily, SAFELY
and HARMLESSLY—take one half
teaspoonful of Krusehen in a glass
of hot water in the morning before
breakfast—it is the safe way to lose
unsightly fat and one bottle that
lasts 4 weeks costs but a trifle. Get
it at any drugstore in America. If
this first bottle fails to convince
vou this is the safest way to lose
fat—mone” back.
But be ' sure and get Krusehen
Salts—imitations are numerous and
vou must safeguard your health.
Jioux City Ptg. Co., No. 12—1933
I
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