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THE BEE: OMAHA, SUNDAY, JULY 31, 1921.
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!' BOGIE
Pj - -- -- - jii i y nil , .,11
THE 8T0RT. t N i
ALLATN8 GUERNSEY has inherited the Ciuern
try millions and an Inborn dread of scandal. Her
besetting fear of being talked about leada Mr. at
twenty-four, to magnify trivial quarrel with
SPENSER BOURSE, her fiance; break the engage
Bent, and rush Into a needles marriage with
BENNETT HALSEY. a smooth crook, who Is at
the end of hia resourcei and needa Allayne's money.
At the i tart of their honeymoon the couple are in
tercepted by a woman known aa
ROSA HALSEY, who has been the crook's con
panion in crime. Allayne's suspicions are quickly
aroused, and before their Journey is fairly started (he
tells Halsey sbe is through with him. The train oa
which they are passengers is wrecked and Halsey, in
despair at the failure of his scheme, conceives the
Idea of " playing dead " by exchanging papers wtib
one of the wreck rlctima. Allayne has been corned
from the wreck by Spenser Bourke, their romance
is renewed, and, supposing Halsey to be dead, tliey
are married and find themselves supremely happy.
Then Halsey, who has been traveling about with
Rosa, reappears In the rftle of blackmailer. Allajus
is panic-stricken, for she has put all ber money iut
Bourke's business, and when Halsey commands ber
to loin htm at a roadhouae she obeys without ques
tion. What she does not know is that the crook
has bad a heart attack, knows hlraselt to be at the
point ef death, and baa turned bis thoughts from
greed to revenge. He pro
poses, be tells Allayne, to
bill hlmulf mnA lt tl1 Vl
found in the locked room
with bis body. Meanwhile
Ross has provided herself
with a revolver and. crazed
with Jealousy, has made her
way to the rosdbouse. She
enters the room through a
window, and, as Halsey
raises his own weapon, she
kills him. The two women
face each other and Rosa
starts to scream, but Al
layne restrains ber.
FIFTH INSTALLMENT.
The Getaway.
ALLATNE'S breath exhaled in a sigh ol
relief. Rosa's voice was petulant, al
most whimpering:, held also a hint of
fear. Hysteria, for the while at any
rate, had been banished.
" Be quiet," she ordered. She rose, releas
ing the woman. Her eye lighted upon Rosa's
pistol; swiftly she bent over and picked it up;
with the same movement of her other hand
she retrieved Halsey's weapon. Then again
she turned to Rosa.
Always Rosa had played a subordinate
part. She was the one who took orders, who
obeyed. It had been Halsey who made the
decisions, formulated the plans. If Halsey
said Paris," Rosa Tacked their things with
out protest.
And now the fire that had burned within
her had worn itself out. She was ready to bw
led once again. She had killed Halsey and
would not feel remorse. Her love for him
had been slain as definitely as she had slain
him. But the passion of hate was only em
bers now; it could never blaze furiously
again. Already fear of the consequences
crept into her soul.
" The police? " she whispered. She looked
up at Allayne pleadingly; the petulance had
gone. She recognized that Allayne was of
some superior clay; to the behests of that su
perior person she would defer.
Allayne shook her head. " No one knows
yet." She sat down and eyed Rosa curi
ously. This woman had killed a man. She
had committed murder. Had some one told
Allayne yesterday morning that she could
have gazed, with an impersonal curiosity, at
a murderess whose victim was as yet not
cold, she would have been scornful of the
speaker's absurdity. Time and events change
us.
" Why did you U1U him? " she asked.
" To save you," said Rosa. Her voice was.
dull. She had climbed heavily to her feet,
all her catlike grace gone, and then sunk
into a chair. Her hands were folded upon
her lap. She was as meek as some servant,
long out of work, applying for a position. All
hate of Allayne had gone from her heart
Indeed, she could not have told whether she
held any hate of the woman who was with
Halsey. Whether or not, having slain Hal
sey, she would have turned her gun upon
Allayne had not emotion overwhelmed her
consciousness, neither she nor any one else
could hav told.
" To save me? " asked Allayne. She asked
the question with no purpose. She was try
ing to think, trying to conceive of some way
out of an impossible situation.
Faintly Rosa colored. Her eyes avoided
Allayne, rested upon the dead man. Into her
eyes came a faint gleam of wrath.
" But I intended," she said, " to kill him
anyway."
" Why? " asked AUayne.
The voman" looked at her.
' He had a day to live. He knew it. Yet
he went to meet another woman. O, he had
dene" that often before. And I had forgiven
him. But this time I gave up every-
th'ng for him. I was decent, honest, until I
married him."
Allayne stared at her. " Manicd him?"
Once again a faint flush stole over Rosa's
Checks.
"Iam bad." she bald simply, " but not that
way. He was my husband."
Allayne sank back Into her chair. "Then
then he was not my husband," she cried.
Rosa stared at her.
" of course not! I carry always with me
ur wedding certificate." From her bodice
V tt IVeapons. j
liq tfotWn
I 'd upon the
4 dead
J a; man
fj& forehead!
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she brought forth an envelope. She held it
out toward Allayne.
" I am not bad not that way!" she cried.
Allayne waved the envelope away. Her
hand went over her eyes. She did not wish
even to see the dead remains of this man who
had tried to shame her. So! She had never
been Halsey's wife! Therefore, she was
Bourke's wife. If only she had defied the
man, telephoned Spenser. . . . Now, be
cause she had feared a lie, she was face to
face with a situation more dreadful than any
thing that her fears could have imagined.
"Tou thought he was your husband?"
Rosa asked.
"Why else would I have met him here?."
countered Allayne. " He demanded money
money which I could not raise. I came here
when he telephoned me, to tell him that my
my husband would kill him if he knew that
I had been blackmailed, and that I intended
to tell him. Then that man told me that
he was going to kill himself, that my pru
dishness had robbed him of fortune and life
Itself. He said that I would be found here,
with his dead body beside me, unable to ex
plain. . . .' "
Rosa stared at the body of Halsey.
"He was worse than I thought," she said.
" I did not dream you thought yourself a
widow when you married again? Of course!
And when Benny came to see you I under
stand. But he to wish to shame you he
must have loved you," she said.
Allayne glanced quickly at her. But there
was no jealousy in Ro3a's heart. Her love
had been lost in her hate. No shadow of
regret, no tinge of remorse did she feel. She
had endured the ultimate of emotion, and her
endurance had culminated in Halsey's death.
She had come here intending to murder him.
She had fired to save Allayne, she thought,
but had Allayne been in no apparent danger
the bullet would have struck Halsey just
the 6ame. She was born of two emotional
races; for love she could murder, for hate
she could kill. But when emotion hai
reached its climax little but indifference re
mained. Halsey had wronged her, deceived
her a score of times; he had paid the price;
that he might have loved Allayne, in his own
peculiar fashion, did not antagonize Rosa
now. Halsey was dead! She was finished.
She made the statement perfunctorily almost.
"I will testify," she said, "why I killed
him. I will not mention you." She rose
suddenly to her feet. " No one has come,"
she cried. " Go quietly. I will remain. No
one will ever know. Hurry."
Allayne shook her head. She was swept
by the desire to obey. It was a way out.
But, no matter what Rosa's intentions had
been, the fact remained that she had fired
the shot that killed Halsey in order, as she
believed, to save Allayne's life. So Allayne
could testify upon the stand, all In honesty.
Any one looking at Halsey would have
thought as Rosa had thought. Allayne could
not desert the woman.
But Rosa's words opened up a pathway
of escape. What Rosa said was true. She
could leave the room. And so could Rosa!
She, Allayne, was heavily veiled. She had
never been in this Inn before. It was cer
tain that febe had not been recognized. Her
car, the little roadster, was a common model.
Its number may have been noticed, but
that was a chance that she must take.
For she had not learned that what we fear
will always overwhelm us until we cease to
fear. Had she defied Halsey at the outset,
yesterday morning, she would not be In this
dreadful predicament now. Halsey had
cowed her with threats that had no founda
tion. She had yielded to them enough to
come here. . . . And now, instead of
facing the facts, trusting to truth to illumine
darkness, she thought of fleeing the facts.
"Why," she asked, "should either of us
stay? Listen! Tou came through the win
dow. Did any one see you?"
Rosa shook her head. Allayne walked
swiftly to the window. A feeling of falnt
ncss swept over her as she passed Halsey's
body. But she mastered herself, or, rather,
the strong spirit that her ancestors had
transmitted to her helped her to mastery.
It was still dark, still blowing, still rain
ing heavily. On the windswept road not a
car, much less a pedestrian, could be seen.
She turned back to Rosa.
"If we go down together, the waiters
some one might think it odd. Tou are not
known to be here. But if you go down the
steps outside and slip across the lawn I'll-
get my car. I'll pick you up "
Rosa shrugged her shoulders. " It means
nothing to me," she said. " Why should I
run away? Where shall I run to? 1 have
no money nothing. I do not fear death.
That is the worst that can happen to me."
"Why should you die? Why should you
go to prison?" demanded Allayne. She was
not thinking of herself now. She was think
ing of this poor thing whose soul,by vicious
treatment, had been misshapen. She had
killed yes. But, no matter what her inten
tions might have been a second before the
killing, the fact remained that she had
killed justifiably, to save), she thought, an
other's life.
Rosa shrugged. " It does not matter."
" It does matter," cried Allayne. " If you
stay here then I must stay, too. Tou can
not run the risk here!" Upon the woman
she pressed the money that she had brought
for Halsey. " Have you no bag?" she asked.
Apathetically Rosa replied: ' It is on the
steps outside. I threw it there. I never
expected I meant to kill myself." Her voice
suddenly rose. " I shall do that now."
Allayne seized her by the shoulders. Once
again, by the sheer force of her own per
sonality, she conquered the hysteria im
minent in Rosa. " Tou will do as I say," she
said, harshly.
Meekly Rosa nodded. For years she had
yielded to a stronger will; she could not
resist one now.
The eye for detail that had been one of
her father's great assets came to Allayne
now. She forced herself to look upon the
body of Halsey. He was lying upon his
right side, his left hand curled beneath him
and his right hand reaching forward. From
the tablye Allayne took the pistol that Rosa
had fired; she placed it on the floor a few
inches from the dead man's fingers. Then
she rose to her feet and confronted Rosa.
" Tou are a young woman," she said. " Tou
have years of life before you. Tou have a
right to live them, to be happy. If you
stay " Her own future rose blackly, awe
somely before her. She, Allayne, had done no
wrong. Should this man be permitted from
the grave to reach forth and defile her?
Should his malign spirit be allowed to wreck
the happiness of Bourke? Must he, who had
done nothing, bear the shame of a murder
trial in which his wife must testify, from
which her own( personality must emerge al
ways vaguely smirched?
Hadn't a person a right to fight for se
curity, of mind as well as of body? There
was the law yes. The law was uncompro
mising. A jury should decide whether or not
Rosa had Justly slain. So the law maintained,
would maintain. But were there not higher
things than the man-made law? If it was
inevitable that Rosa should be set free and
common-sense told Allayne that it was
then the law would exact no recompense from
Rosa for her deed. Rosa, then, in the eyes of
the law, was an innocent person.
Why, then, should an innocent person be
harassed, tortured? Why should another
innocent person herself be stained, humil
iated, shamed? What ffood would it do for
her to summon the employes of the Inn,
await the arrival of the police? No good
whatsoever. Then why do It?
There were things that superseded the
law. The law was a generality; Justice was
a specific thing. The law, after all, was an
instrument made by man for the creation
and preservation of Justice. Like all man
made instruments, it worked imperfectly.
To admit the law into this room now meant
to admit injustice. Injustice to Rosa, injus
tice to herself!
She would not admit.
"Go down those steps. Get to the road
wait for me," she commanded.
Mefekly Rosa arose. She adjusted her hat,
and Allayne opened the window. Silently
Rosa passed through.
Now that action had been taken, Allayne
found herself strung to a pitch that she
had never known before. She could visualize
the life of a criminal, ever alert, fearful lest
around the corner be a waiting officer of
the law. . . . She felt that if Rosa fal
tered, even for a moment, the tension to
ber nerves would kill her. in the mtment
that Rosa disappeared on the steps Allayne
suffered a thousand torments. But then
and now carrying in her band her bag
Rosa reappeared, Allayne saw her cross the
turf, reach the driveway, turn down it, turn
to the right along the main road and then
the hedge hid her.
She breathed freely again. Her own part,
infinitely more dangerous, did not alarm
her so greatly. Still, there was need for in
finite caution. If the waiter should come.
. . . Well, she must risk it.
Tightly across her face she adjusted her
veil. She forced herself to look again upon
the dead man. Tcs: it would deceive she
thought any one. Suicide! Inchdately the
thought possessed her that it was fitting
ironic Justice that Halsey, who had intended
to kill himself, should seem to have done so.
Then she was through the door, carrying
the key in her hand. No one was in the cor
ridor outside. She locked the door with the
key that had been on the inside. That would
gain for her at least a moment. Nor was
there any one on the stairway; she descended
rapidly.
Behind a counter, before his desk, sat the
clerk who had told her the location of the
room where Mr. " Carver " had been awaiting
her. He did not look up as she approached,
but after she had passed by him and had
reached the door Allayne heard him stir.
In another moment a waiter would be knock
ing on the door upstairs.
Tet, because it was vital, she mastered
panic. She managed to impart to her stride,
as she walked through the rain to where her
car was parked, that exact appearance of
haste which the rain justified, yet which
would not look like the panic of guilt.
She was sufficiently mistress of herself to
spend a half minute draping a handkerchief
over the front number plate. She had not
another one, so she scooped up in still-gloved
hands, mud from the driveway and spattered
the rear plate. It would have to do!
Then she stepped into her car. The engine
turned over immediately; she let in the
clutch and started down the driveway. As
she did so she heard a cry from the main
door of the Inn. She slipped into high and
pressed down upon the accelerator. The little
car bounded ahead; she was going a bit too
fast around the corner into the main road
and her rear wheels skidded. She dashed,
before she could straighten out the wheel,
into a post, a-top of which was a letter box.
She saw the post go over, saw a flurry of
white articles blown in the breeze, and then
she was speeding, reckless of the slippery
surface, down the road.
A hundred yards from the driveway she
reached Rosa. She stopped the car, leaped
out, and took off tho handkerchief from the
front plate. It was dangerous, but not so
dangerous as to leave it there, exciting in
stant suspicion in the mind of any motor
policeman, if such a one was abroad this tor
rential afternoon. Then, urging Rosa into
tho car before her, she drove swiftly toward
town.
On the outskirts of the town Rosa insisted
on being put down. Apathetic at first, will
ing even to die, Rosa had become trans
formed. Now she wanted to live. Halsey,
though she didn't know it, had been a spir
itual weight upon her soul. That weight was
gone now. The fact that she had killed him
would substitute no other weight. She was
elemental, a thing of terrific primordial pas
sions. Superstitious, mystical though she
undoubtedly was, Halsey's end would not
haunt her. In her blood was the impulse to
slay that which had wronged her; it was
righteous, just. So she was made. t
Suddenly she was callous.
"Nice getaway we made," she said. "All
I got to do now is grab a triin and for
get it."
" Can you?" demanded Allayne. For she
was sustained by no callousness; she was sus
tained only by the primitive impulse of self
preservation, and that impulse covers name
and fame as well as body.
" Can I?" Rosa almost laughed. " I'll say
I can."
Allayne shrank from her. The woman
sensed it and touched Allayne's arm.
"Tou and I are different," she said. "Tou
got what they call pride. You're a lady.
Well, I'm a woman. I'll rwallow all the pride
in the world; till I can't swallow any more.
Then well, you know what I'll do. You saw
me do it. And I won't worry about it. Benny
Halsey jgot a lot less than was coming to
him. I stood it for years I loved the man.
Then I hated him. Now I don't even do that.
He's nothing. Not even a memory."
And Allayne, though she could not under
stand, believed her.
"But what are you going to do?" she de
manded, as she stopped the car.
"Do?" echoed Rosa. "Well, I'm going to
do what Benny and I have done a coupla
hundred times beat it. By the time the po
lice have tied me up with Benny I'll be so
far away that it'll take a telegram four years
to catch up with me. Thanks for the money.
Good-by."
Allayne stared at her. There wore a hun
dred pieces of advice that she wanted to give,
but Rosa scorned them. Halsey was only
half an hour or slightly more dead. Yet
"Well, I'm going to beat it. Thanhe for tho money. Good-by."
AUayne itared at her. There were a hundred pieces of advice
that the wanted to give, but Rosa icormd them.
to Rosa, apparently, the deed was something
already dim in antiquity. It was baffling, be
wildering. Allayne did not know, could not
know, that the criminal mind and Kosa pos
sessed It Is the mind of a child. And noth
ing is of moro than passing importance to a
child. Students of criminality know that
what we call callousness is merely lack of
understanding; for only a mental cripple is
a professional criminal.
Rosa's walk had resumed its springy, cat
like quality as she moved away. Her troubles
were over. But Allayne's troubles and
vaguely, although she felt that she was
secure, she seemed to sense this were only
Just beginning.
Hillstown was a thriving little city. It had
two dally papers, one morning and one eve
ning, fivo banks, a country ciuh, and a re
form administration. It was this last that
proved that it had definitely emerged from
tho village chrysalis and had spread its
wings as a city butterfly.
Much has been written on the difference
between tho rural and the urban community.
Growing towns shriek blatantly about the
number of moving picture theaters, the quan
tity of business done each fiscal year, and
the demand for building lots east or south
or west or north of what was the town hall,
but is now the municipal building.
And the dweller in the community that
lias been acknowledged for some years as a
city smiles patronizingly. To him these
things provo nothing. But when a com
munity has progressed so far away from
rurality and toward cosmopolitanism that it
boasts a civic administration that has been
elected on a promise of municipal reform,
then it is admitted, unquestionlngly. Into the
brotherhood of the cities. It belongs.
The present administration of Hillstown
had been swept into office on a platform that
differed in nowise from a thousand other re
form administratlo.ns. It promised that the
city affairs would be administered econom
ically and honestly, and that a moral purifi
cation would begin when the new administra
tion took office. It had kept the latter pledge
as well as such pledges can be kept. Hills
town, due to the sudden industrial expansion
brought on by the war activities, had within
its borders, during tho present industrial
slump, an clement largely foreign to whom
the law meant something inimical, something
to be frustrated and challepgcd. Now that
work was less easily obtainable, this element
had inaugurated a rfgime of ftJme that was
not always petty.
That regime, three months after the in
stallation of the new administration, still en
dured, but its rule was not so bold as it had
been. Little by little the professional crooks
had been rounded up and the amateurs had
become frightened by the determination of
the authorities to enforce the law.
And it was due almost entirely to the abili
ties of the new chief of police that the moral
pledge was being so well observed. His
name was Jenkins; he had inherited wealth,
consisting of a half interest in a leather
goods factory not very far from the Hills
town Chemical company.
His bent, however, had not been toward
business. He had adopted the law, and, to
the amazement of his legal and social friends,
had chosen the criminal branch of the law
as his specialty. It interested him. There
was eternal drama in the conflict between
the forces of righteousness and those of evil.
He made no' money from his practice. As
a matter of fact, he1 refused to take any ease
in which he was not convinced of the inno
cence of hia prospective client. Little by
little his reputation grew. Those friends of
his who had been wont to sneer at his career
began to discover that Randolph Jenkins
" Kannio " to his intimates was a force for
civic decency.
For, from beginning by aiding the unfor
tunate, he ended by attacking conditions that
created misfortune. The saloon, the brothel,
the gaming house; without being a bit of a
prig, Rannie Jenkins fought them. And the
result-was that the reform mayor offered
him the command of the police force.
A lawyer politically ambitious or legally
ambitious would have preferred the district
attorneyship, but Jenkins had no personal
ambition. He knew bow easily a police forc
can becomes an instrument for evil; how
crooked politicians, once they get a police
department in their clutches, can bend it to
uses diametrically orposed to the enforce
ment of the law.
Rannie Jenkins did away with all that sort
of thing. Hillstown's force consisted of only
forty men, but he organized it on big city
lines. He even had a detective bureau.
And this was his especial pride and joy. His
criminal law experience had given him a
certain knowledge of the principles of de
tection, and several vicious assailants of
society were learning that Hillstown's p'ain
clothes men were as efficient as any in the
country.
Needless to say, Jenkins, along with the
rest of the reform administration, encoun
tered opposition. The evening paper was
financed by a group of politicians who had
thriven on lax law enforcement. So that
anything that could possibly be termed in
efllcl?ncy was spread In huge type before th
public each day.
So it was that when a mvsterlous killing
occurred at Hillcrest Inn Jenkins, realizing
that failure to apprehend the criminal might
have fur reaching political effects, himself
took charge of the case.
The killing had been discovered within a
moment after Allayne had left the private
dining room. The waiter had knocked again
bpon the door. Finding it locked and receiv
ing no response to his knock, he called the
clerk. On the arrival of the latter the two
men had forced tho door. They might have
entered the room from the outside stairs and
would have done so but for the inexplicable
effect that death has.
For they sensed the tragedy beyond the
locked door. Man Is not yet entirely re
moved from the animal stage; his instincts
are still strong. The two men, moved by a
common impulse, pressed against the door.
Something seemed to tell them that they
must not delay.
So it was that the clerk a moment later
shrieked from the inn door to Allayne, speed
ing down tho driveway. The man watched
her skid Into the letter box and then turn
down the main road. He saw that pursuit
on foot was useless. And while the owner
of the inn owned a motor car, he was not
present. Thero were no other patrons this
stormy day whose cars might be pressed into
pursuit.
He ran to the telephone and called up
police headquarters. But the sight upstairs
had unnerved him. He could give no coherent
description either of Allayne or of her motor
car; he couldn't even tell whether the woman
who had been with Halsey had driven away
in a limousine or an open car. So that the
policemen on their beats, to whom the news
was flashed, had nothing on which to work.
They couldn't hold up every automobile that
contained a woman. Moreover, by the time
that the news had been relayed to them
Allayno had sped up her own driveway and
into her own garage.
It was the first murd r that was not an
ordinary killing following a drunken brawl
that had occurred in Jenkins' tenure of office.
His secretary told him of the crime as soon
as the news had reached headquarters. And
Jenkins, jamming a soft hat on his head and
wriggling into an overcoat, ran downstairs
from his private office to the street, whero
a car was always In readiness for him.
" Hillcrest Inn, Sam," he eaid to his chauf
feur. Behind him came a sergeant of tho
detective bureau, followed by two plain
clothes men and a police surgeon, but Jen
kins did not wait for them. They followed
in another machine, but their chief was on
the scene several minutes before they ar
rived. Allayne had never studied criminal law;
no books on evidence had been included in
the curricula of the schools that she bad
attended. Otherwise she would have known
how hopeless it is for the most astute crim
inal to endeavor! to deceive the trained mini
of the criminal investigator. Sho had thought
that if she left a revolver close to Halsey's
fingers tho natural assumption would be that
he had killed himself. She realized, of course,
that the presence of a companion in tlie
room with the dead man would arouse polict
suspicion, but that the fashion of Halsey
death should be doubted never occurred to
her.
She did not know that when a man kills
himself with a revolver the wound is burned
by the powder's flash. And, of course, one
glance told Jenkins that the dead man had
not fired the shot. There were no marks of
powder, no burn upon the flesh.
But the gravest error that AUayne had
made was the fact that two weapons were in
the room. She had left Halsey's own revolver
upon the table!
This does not argue that Allayne possessed
a mentality below the average. On the con
trary, her brain was far superior to the aver
se one. But the greatest criminals in his
tory have made faux pas equal to this of
hers. Crime is abnormal; all natural processes
of thought are swept away in the emotions
aroused by crime. Allayne was defying -he
law for purposes that seemed Justifiable to
her. And the moment that she embarked
upon that abnormal course of defiance her
usual reasoning powers were swept away.
She had an eye for detail, inherited from her
father. But there never has been a skilled
criminal whoso eye for details was so all
observing that it saw them all. Her mista'te,
glaring though it was, was one that might
have been made by the most crafty law
breaker in the world.
Two weapons! No burn upon the dead
man s forehead! Murder beyond the remotest
question Jenkins decided in his first glance,
a glance that swept the room.
(Continued Next Sunday)
(Copyright, 1H21, by Arthur Somers Rcche)