2 D
THE BEE: OMAHA, SUNDAY, AUGUST 14, 1921.
m
m
JJn-MaiiiufflUliiwiauui
ihAtihar Somers Roche
of F
3fr BOGIE
THK STOBY.
AIXATNB GUERNSEY baa Inherited the OueraW
Bullions nd an Inborn dreed ot scandal. Her beset
tint fear ol belni talked bout ha led her, t ,
to miynlfy a trivial Quarrel with
SPENSER BOURSE, her Banc, break the engage
ment, and rush Into a heedleaa marriaae with
BENNETT HALSEY. a smooth crook, who la at
too end of hti resources and needa Allayne'e money.
At the atari -of -their honemoon Allajrne learna el
the existence of a woman known aa ...
ROSA HALSEY, whom the crook dieearded t
Bake bla marnare poaalble, and ahe promptly telle
Halsey she la throuth with him. The train on
which they are paaeenjere la wrecked and Ualaey,
eeeinf hia scheme a failure and fearinc the police,
who are alwaya on kit trail, conceive the idea of
'playtnr dead " by excbansln paper with on ol
the wreck victims. Allayne' former romance la
renewed, and. auppoainc Halter to be dead, abe and
Bourke are married and find themselves aupremely
happy Then Halaey, who baa been traveling about
Main with Rosa, reappeara in the r61e of black
mailer. Allayne baa put all her wealth into
Bourke' buaineaa and ia at her wita' end when the
crook aaks for money. Therefore ahe compile
without question when he demand that (be meet
him at roadhouee known a Hi Korea t inn. Mean?
while Halaey haa had a heart attack, knowa htm
elf to be at the point of death, and haa turned hia
tbouthta from rreed to revente. He propose, be
tella Allayne. to kill himself and let her be found
In the locked room at the roadhouse with hit body.
Aa he ia about to carry out hie threat, Rosa, who
haa pro Tided herself with a revolver, enters the
room throurh a window and kills bim. Allayne,
terror-stricken at the tboufht of further scandal,
,piakee her escape from the roadhouse with Rosa,
aopint that Halsey'a death will be thouxht a case
of sulfide, and with her mind in a whirl over Rosa'
revelation that ahe had been Halsey'a wife, and that
therefore the dead man had never really been
Allayne'e husband at all. Rosa ia killed In an
automobile accident aa ahe la getting- away from
the town, and the Identification of her body seems,
at Drat, to clear up the mystery of Halaey' death.
But the solution doe not aatisfy
RANDOLPH JENKINS, the town's chief of police,
who la confronted by several puulinc phasee of
the case. One ot these ia the testimony of a wa'tcr
that Halaey had riven him a letter to mall, ad
dressed to the chief himself. Halaey wrote it to
snake sure that Allayne would be found at the inn
with hia body, but Jenkins does not know this.
And the letter haa disappeared, knocked out of a
mail bos at the roadside by Allayne aa she drov
way from the inn in her roadster,
SEVENTH INSTALLMENT.
Allayne Faces the Future.
A CLERK entered, with word that a
chauffeur wished to see him. Jenkins
had him admitted at once.
" i thought I o-ght to tell you somethln'
about a dame usln' my car yesterday," he
aid.
" Tes?" Jenkins encouraged him.
" She hailed me on Dunne street," said the
man. " She wanted to go to Hillcrest Inn.
I took her out there and a little way from the
Inn I got a blow-out. Then, when I changed,
I found the new tire didn't have no air. I
didn't want to cut it to pieces, so I tells the
lady I'm sorry, but she'll hafta walk. She
done It in the rain. And she was dressed
like the paper says the dame what was In the
room with this Carver ' guy was dressed. I
didn't know It was any Importance, still, you -can't
never tell."
"Indeed you can't." exclaimed Jenkins.
"What time was this?"
"What time did she get out ot the car?
Well, I know that all right," replied the man.
" I looked at the clock on the dash just after
' she left me, because I was ftgurin' to myself
. that I'd prob'ly hafta wait a coupla hours for
some one to come along with a tire pump.
It was exactly six minutes after one. And I
don't wait but ten minutes before a guy
comes along and loans me his pump."
" Tour clock correct?" asked Jenkins.
The man nodded emphatically. "Tes, sir.
I set It by the railroad clock yesterday morn
ing." " H'm. What's your name and address?"
" Peterson, sir. Henry Peterson, 128 West
ern street," said the taxlman.
" Much obliged, Peterson. Toull hear from
us later," said Jenkins. Then, as the man
started to go, a memory of Kennedy's mock
ing smile came to him. " Have you told any
one else?" he demanded.
Peterson colored. "Well, Chief, the news
papers "
" Which one?" demanded Jenkins, sharply.
" Evening Bulletin," said the man. " You
see, they pay for "
"It's all right; good morning," said Jen
kins. He understood now why Kennedy had
smiled. This afternoon the Bulletin would
flay the force, would talk about its incom
petency, about its smug ' self-satisfaction.
. . . Mentally he writhed, as he antici
pated the tenor of the Bulletin's charges.
And they would be true. He tad been smug,
self-satisfied. But now. ...
He left his offlde and once again was driven,
out to Hillcrest Inn. On either side of the
driveway groups ef morbid, curiosity-driven
people stared at the Inn. But, until the In
quest was over, the police were keeping the
cujlous away. . Ateo, under the pretext of
keeping traffic clear two uniformed men were
preventing cars from,parking along the road
side. Fortunately, by this time, the men who
ought the missing letter had covered thor
oughly all the ground adjacent to the Inn,
and were now working in the wopds across
the street, where they could net be seen by
the curious. Or, If they were occasionally
glimpsed, they posed as engineers surveying
the property. Bv a policeman Jenkins sent
word to them to guard carefully the real
reason for their" search. .For the Hillcrest
mystery was not,, he had decided, so simple
of solution as it bad seemed an hour ago.
And if the papers should print that a letter
written by "Carver" to Jenkins was being
sought, some one, reading the statement,
might take alarm and disappear.
For suddenly Jenkins had decided that two
women had been at the Hillcrest Inn. He
would know In a moment -
He entered the office of the manager, now -occupied
by that perturbed Individual, who
had been away yesterday, tout was now pres
ent to bemoan the tragedy that would not
enhance the charm of his resort He willing
ly surrendered the room tff the Chief of
Police. And Jenkins sent again for the clerk
and the waiter. - ,
Carefully he questioned them.. And he
learned. beyond a shadow of doubt, that the
woman who had been ushered by the waiter
' Into the private dining room had not merely
driven up in a car, which she had parked out
side, but had arrived not later than
o'clock.
"Tell you how I know," said the clerk.
" The clock struck one while she was on her
way upstairs. And I set that clock every
morning by Western Union time. I tele
phone their office."
Jenkins pursed his lips. The railroad and
Western Union time would not, vary. The
woman of the taxi must have arrived later
than the woman of the motoi whick had
parked outside. -
Of course, granting that there were errors
in the time of the two clocks upon which he
based his theory, hi theory fell to pieces, y
umy now aia it nappea, on uuo loueiy ivmu,
over which on such a day as yesterday little
traffic passed, that the woman of the taxi.'
the dead woman, had managed to acquire
another machine? Could she have had it
waiting for her? That was pretty far-fetched
reasoning. Jenkins could not accept it
But only one woman had driven away
from the Inn. Even sol There were tain
leading to the balcony outside the dining
room windows. He leaped to his feet and
almost ran upstairs to the private room. A
detective on guard unlocked the door for
him, and he entered. The murdered man's
body had been removed, but in all other par
ticulars the room was as it had been yester
day, and it would so remain until after the
coroner's Jury had viewed it
Jenkins opened the French window
and stepped out upon the balcony. The
sun was shining brilliantly today. He
looked toward the road. How easily, if
a person knew that the one he or she
sought was in this dining room be
hind him, for that person to leave the
driveway, cross the lawn, mount the
teps. . . . That would account for
the fact that only one woman was men
tioned by the clerk, by the waiter, by
the other employes. ...
He descended the flight of steps.
There, at the foot of them, were the
imprints of heels. Why, in the soft
earth, one could trace where a woman
it must have been a woman by the
size of the footprints and the depth of
the heel holes had come across the
turf. ...
He turned back to the Inn, got into
his car, and drove to Headquarters. He
had made that commonest of all police
or detective errors he had leaped to a
conclusion, adopted a theory, and com
placently assumed that it must be correct
But he was not wedded to it' Or, if he
. had been, he got a speedy divorce. And,
because he desired to serve his city more
than he desired any personal aggrandize
ment he swallowed his pride and telephoned
Kennedy of the Bulletin. Had only himself
been concerned he would have let Kennedy
write any condemnation of the administra
tion of the police force that occurred to that
young man's fancy, looking forward to the
moment when, laughing last be might laugh
best But any and every attack upon the
force hurt more than the force; it hurt the
other city officials, who were endeavoring
"to give Hlllstown a clean and efficient ad
ministration. "Oh, Kennedy," he said, "I have some
later stuff on the Hillcrest matter,"
"Shoot it" said Kennedy. The Chief
thought that he detected chagrin in the re
porter's tone.
"You may state," said Jenkins, "that the
police have discovered and identified the
body of the murdered man's wife, but that
from evidence in their possession they have
reason to believe that there were two women
concerned in the killing."
" Peterson talked, eh? " said Kennedy. He
made no effort to hide his chagrin.
"Tes he talked," laughed Jenkins.
"And we wasted a good twenty dollar
bill," said Kennedy. "Oh, well, it doesn't
matter. Anything else. Chief? "
"Well, we expect to locate the missing
other woman shortly," said Jenkins.
Kennedy guffawed. "Expect is good.
Don't mean hope.' do you, Chief? All
right much obliged."
The men on the Bulletin played fair, even
though they fought the administration. The
Bulletin could not now claim to have
achieved more than the force, and thus dis
credit even though slightly, Jenkins' de
partment He turned back to his desk and
applied himself to the problem of the dis
covery of the second woman in the case.
But he could do nothing more than have the
city's garages visited to ascertain, if pos
sible, if any woman had left a car there.
He hoped for no result from this, but it was
worth trying.
But, while he was willing to try this, his
own belief was that the woman who had
driven that car away from Hillcrest had
not stored it in any public place. 8he'd be
too clever. So, because the case interested
him beyond anything else going on at the
time and because he must be actively en
gaged in it, he went out to the Inn again
to superintend the search for the missing
letter.
He came back to town a couple of hours
after the Bulletin had appeared upon the
street :te read it relieved to And that Ken
nedy had learned nothing not already known
to the police.
Allayne read It too. A night of horror,
miserable, fearful, had followed upon her re
turn to her home. At breakfast she had
read the morning paper and had breathed
easier, even though a suicide theory had not
been adopted. But now, at the tea hour, she
one X" ' """V W .aW"" as.
' 'i, E v..v,a.v.v.MaaMMF W
4'Aji C till
Not tcanjal now itood at
A r;.,.'. .I.iiMm. It
n.SMf.v m -
was Terror! Htr tea grew
cold whil; at last, the read "
onJ re-read the Bulletin's itory.
received from her Jap butler the Evening
Bulletin. She opened it eagerly. And as she
glanced at the headline black fear gripped
her. She read.
Carver's Wife Killed in Accident
Another Woman Sought.
It was minutes before she could read what
followed. For if the polio? were seeking an
other woman that woman was herself and
Bosa was dead! The onl7 witness who could
prove that Allayne had not killed Halsey
could not testify in her behalf.
Not scandal now stood at her shoulder; it
Was something worse. It was Terrorl
Her tea grew cold while, at last she read
and re-read the Bulletin's story. The morn
ing paper's account had given her a sense
of security. Even though the glaring error
of leaving two weapons in the room had
been committed, still, the fact that it had
been assumed that the wom-n ith Halsey had
been his wife, had made it seem to her that
only the capture of Rosa could. par dize her.
Mo one could possibly be more unfamiliar
with the methods of either police or crimi
nals than Allayne. She did not know that
there Is absolutely only one kind of crime
which does not by the very act of its com
mission, create numberless clues. And that
is the unpremeditated crime.
Rarely does it happen that a crime of
magnitude, whose commission shows fore
thought and planning, goes forever unde
tected. The crimes whose perpetrators re
main out of custody are suddenly conceived
crimes, usually of violence, committed, al
most always, by. nonprofessional criminals.
Every effort made by the professional
criminal to hide his presence, his connection
with the crime, can be discovered if shrewd
enough eyes are engaged on the case.
Only the man who suddenly decides to rob
the stranger coming toward him has any
chance of perpetrating hia action without
leaving evidence behind him. He flashes
noon the scene and disappears. Later in
caution may result in his captu.-e, but his
crime itself ordinarily Is not productive of
,. - v V
clues. But if he had planned the deed. . .
If he has been rendering himself familiar
with his victim's habits, some one will have
noticed him, and the fact that he wore a
mask at the time of the robbery will not
save him from suspicion, if the some one
who noticed him learns of the crime, and
has quick wit
Now, Halsey had planned the crime of
suicide. That he had not committed it did
not affect the fact that in his planning he
had created clues. One of them, of course,
was the fact that he had arranged that a
woman Allayne should visit him at Hill
crest. That, alone, had puzzled Jenkins even
before later developments had convinced him
of the importance of the discovery. Halsey
had set a certain time for the arrival of
Allayne. That time, when Jenkins studied
It out conflicted with the testimony of the
taxlman, Peterson. Halsey, unwittingly, had
given a clue there.
Allayne had thought that if she and Rosa
escaped without Immediate observation and
identification, the police would be confronted
with an Impossible task. She knew better
now, and because she knew better her limbs
shook and her eyes were glassy.
All her hopes had been predicated on
Rosa's escape. Rosa had escaped the law,
but death had descended upon her. Forget
ful, for a moment, of herself, Allayne'f mind
dwelt pityingly on Rosa. For whatever Rosa
had done, whatever she had planned to do,
she had been goaded to it
A few days ago Allayne would have found
little charity In her heart for a woman like
Rosa. Today she found it And yet she
was wrong, perhaps, to pity the woman.
She was beyond all fear; life could have held
little for her. Perhaps death held more;
some brighter world. ...
The police eought another vxrmant Back
to herself, to her imminent and terrible dan
ger, her mind raced. If the police should
discover the Identity of that other woman,
should charge her with murder, the fact that
he had fled would militate against the ao
ceptanc of her story of the killing. Mora
than a nasty notoriety, than a scandal
freedom was. in the balance t .
Keenly she weighed the facts as they ap
peared in the Bulletin. The identification
of the body of Rosa by the Longrldge Hotel
employes; the testimony ot Peterson and th ,
Hillcrest waiter and clerk: this last
vital. . . . She threw the pap from
ber. Things that it did not print, but that
might ba known to the polios, flashed
through her tortured brain.
Rosa had carried with her a wedding cer
tificate. If she and Halsey had been mar
ried under that name, the connection of Al
layne with the case would be instantaneous.
Not a person in Hillstown, who knew Al
layne, but also knew of her previous mar
riage, it. Sne picked up the paper
again.
"... the clothing of the woman was
partly destroyed in the flames from the
gasoline tank, and a handbag which she
carried was entirely consumed, only the
charred remains of some bills surviving the
blaze.
The wedding certificate, then, that pathetle
proof that Rosa was not entirely unmoral,
had doubtless been destroyed. Otherwise,
surely there would have been mention of it;
surely by this time the police would have
called upon her, to aak her if she could offer
ny explanation of the strange resemblance
between the name of the dead man and her
late husband.
She could afford, then, to dismiss this
particular fear. But now that she was
doing something that she had never done
before analysing the evidence, the possible
evidence, in a murder case, other matters
leaped into the forefront of her thoughts,
Halsey was a criminal He must have a
wide acquaintance among his kind. Suppose
that one of them knew of the trip to Hllls
town, knew the name under which he was
traveling? Still, had there been danger of
that, Rosa would not have walked so confi
dently away from the roadster yesterday.
. . But there were other things that
could not be dismissed so easily. Halsey had
telephoned her. . . . the number
were traced. ...
' Then she remembered that she had heard,
when he had called her up. the voice of
"Central" ordering him to drop Ave cents
to the box. He could not then, have called
up from the hotel. Unless the operator had
listened in, and heard his command for her
to meet him at Hillcrest that call could never
be traced.
Slowly hope revived in her. After all. sup
pose that the police did know that another
woman had been at Hillcrest? Was there
anything to connect Allayne with that wom
an? Her natural courage asserted itself.
She would not yield to unfounded terrors.
She would continue her natural mode of
living, of tWnWnej, even.
And in pursuit of her sudden
resolve, she rang for the servant
Her tea was cold; she would
have fresh tea brought in. She
would drink it
As she rang she heard tinkling
faintly the door-belL All that
high courage swept away from
her as a wave recedes from a
sandy beach. If only Spenser
were here! To lean upon him, to
tell him, at this late date, the
threats of Halsey, and what they
had led to. . .
The Jap entered.
"Man to see the lady," he stated.
Allayne felt the blood leaving her face.
" What what sort of man?" she asked.
The Jap shrugged slightly. "Taxlman,"
he said.
For a moment Allayne could make no
reply.
Why should a taximan come to see
her?
And then shj knew why. If one taxi-
man could remember having conveyed Rosa
to Hillcrest why should not another remem
ber having brought Halsey here?
She reached for the cup of lukewarm tea.
Nervously she drank it
" Sh ehow him in," she told the servant
A moment later, his hat twisting embar
rassedly in his fingers, the chauffeur was
ushered in by a somewhat scornful Jap.
" Tou the lady of the house?" he asked.
Allayne nodded. She could not trust her
self to speech.
"I brought a gent here day before yea
t'day." said the man. " S'pose you could
help me locate him, lady?"
Allayne eyed him. There was nothing
threatening in his manner. Nor was there
in his embarrassment anything of the fur
tiveness of the blackmailer.
" Why?" she asked.
The man wiped his forehead with a grimy
hand.
He grinned sheepishly.
I'm a good famly man, ma'am, and I pay
my bills reg'lar, and there ain't nobody can
say my meter ain't correct!"
He looked at her aa though expecting her
to deny his statement; embarrassment made
him affect an air of defiance. And, as his
was not the attitude of a blackmailer, or one
who threatened, Allayne managed a smile.
" I'm sure of that," she said.
"It's true," said the man. "And when
any one leaves anything in my car, believe
me, lady, they get it back If I can locate
them."
"I'm sure of that too," agreed Allayne.
"Did did the gentleman leave something in
your cab?"
" Not exactly that ma'am. But he wasn't
feeling particularly well. Leastwise, he gets
out at a drug store downtown and pays me.
He looked like he needed medicine or some
thing. And he slips me a bill and say keep
the change. Well, ma'am, Just as he gets
out another gent Jumps In, so I don't look at
the bill unUl that night. Then I And out
that your gent him what I brought here
had slipped me ten dollars, prob'ly thinking
it was a two-spot. Tou see, the meter aatd
a dollar and a half, and he mlghta figured on
givto' me a fifty-cent Up, but he wasn't
dreaming of giving me no tip of eight-fifty.
It ain't natural."
" And you earns here to return the money?
asked Allayne.
" Tes'm."
"How do you know that he was the one
who gave you that bill?"
I Jammed it, being In a hurry to start off
with this other gent into my outside pocket.
That's how I know. .That was the only bill
there. I'd been round before only I been
busy. Here's the money, ma'am. That la,
if you want to hand it to him."
"That would be better," said Allayne,
" For for the gentleman isn't in Hillstown-
any more. Onljr you see I think he prob
ably meant you to have the money and
anyway I want you to have it"
The chauffeur stared at her. There was)
no particular reason why his honesty should
make a lady almost cry. Still, women were
funny creatures; he was married and knew
that
" Just's you say, ma'am, so long's you dont
think he'll think I'm some sort of a short
change artist"
"I'm sure he won't," said Allayne. The
ghastly Jest unnerved ber. She could hardly
wait for the man's departure to let loose the
flood of tears that welled in her eyes.
But when she had wept, from sheer net-
ous reaction, she felt better, saner. She had
in the brief interval between the Jap's an
nouncement of the chauffeur's presence and
his entrance Into the room, suffered a thou
sand agonies. And the man had come on 'h
simplest most honest errand in the world.
She rang for fresh tea, drank it thought
fully, proud of her steady hand as she lifted
the cup to her lips. Refreshed, she began to
ponder upon the most Important matter of
all, more important than possible evidence
that might be brought against her.
She thought of her husband. Thank God
for one thing: he vat her husband! The word
of Rosa had convinced her of that Should
she tell him?
Not a minute of the past forty-eight hours
but had found her wishing for his presence,
longing for his strong arms about her. Yet
though she had longed for him, she had been
glad, night before last that be was away.
The situation was so preposterous, so dread
ful. But now that she knew that she had
never been married to Halsey, she wanted
Bourke. Tet, if he were here, uhon ha
should be here what could she say?
She must think only on whether or not
Spenser, so long as she had a fighting chance
to avoid suspicion, should be compelled t
bear a share of her burden.
She knew that an accusation against her,
a danger threatening her, would weigh in
finitely more upon him than any fear for
himself. Her own cowardice her dread of
scandal had brought her troubles upon hen
was it fair to shift them to another?
This was not specious reasoning on her
part For, with the departure of the taxi
man she became con vine ' that even though
the police sought her, they would never find
her. Had she been recognised as she sped
away from Hillcrest detectives would hava
been here before this. Had Halsey's so
qualntance with her been known, she would
have heard of it by now. When one stopped
to analyze the situation carefully, coolly, one
came to the conclusion that unless she ber
self, by some incautious word or deed, gava
a clew to her presence at the Hillcrest Inn,
that presence would never be discovered.
Had Rosa lived and been captured, com
mon decency would have compelled Allayne
to come to her rescue and the world would
have known of Allayne's connection with the
affair. But now that Rosa was dead, there
was no slightest chance of her being com
pelled to come forward.
Fear entirely left her. She felt that she
had analyzed the affair from every possible
angle, studied every bit of probable or pos
sible evidence that might be discovered. She
was In no danger, save from herself, and
that, by being eternally on her guard, she
could discount.
But her husband! What right had she to
withhold from him her troubles? The best
right in the world: the right to save him
from worry, from fear on her behalf. So .he
decided, and as she decided she would act
If, always, she must bear a burden, must
eternally be wary, there was no reason why
Bourke should also bear that burden. Her
own fears had caused the assumption of the
burden. Well, she'd be Just enough to bear It
She glanced at the watch upon her wrist
Bourke had not telegraphed, but she knew
that he would be here within twenty min
ute. She did not wish to meet blm at the
train. Even bad there been no weight upon
her soul she would have preferred that that
first moment of rapturous greeting be unob- '
served by Indifferent strangers.
And so she washed away the traces of her
tears, put on her prettiest tea-gown, and in
the living room downstairs, awaited bis
coming.
She heard the warning signal of a motor
horn and leaped to her feet and peered
through the window. He was not la a taxi;
he was in a limousine, driven by a man who
wore the uniform of the police
i,. I - v)
by Arthur Somer Roch)
(CepyrlKht, 1921,