Indianapolis Times, Volume 38, Number 22, Indianapolis, Marion County, 7 June 1926 — Page 8

PAGE 8

“Business Kisses^ By BEATRICE BURTON ■ Author of “Gloria, The Flapper Wife”

(Continued From Page J)

Mary Rose nodded. “Well, that night I was limping out of the building when who should come along but Mr. Dexter in that wonderful car of his!’’ Flossie began her story. “He offered me a ride home, and T got in. And, of course, I raved about the car. So he drove me ’way out in the country to show me its speed. "It goes like the wind,’’ she went on. “And before we knew it, it was nine o’clock, and we stopped at some little inn along the road for a sandwich —” "And then what?’’ asked Mary Rose, as she paused. Flossie raised her eyebrows. “Well, nothing, except that he said he hadn’t had such a good time in years,” she said. “And the next day he gave me a little cigaret holder —a souvenir of a happy evening he said.” Mary Rose smiled grimly. “I knpw. I saw it in your handkerchief box tonight,” she remarked. “My stars!” cried Flossie, “did I leave that thing in the drawer? I sure thought I’d locked it up where Mother couldn't find it! She’d have seventeen fits if she knew I ever smoked, wouldn't she?” “She’d have seventeen fits If she knew you'd been out with Mr. Dexter —that’s certain.” Floksie considered this. “I suppose she would,” she said. “But honestly, Mary Rose, there’s nothing so awful about it. We just have an awfully good time together. He calls me his ‘Little Pal.’*’ She threw out her hands in sudden appeal. “Oh. Mary Rose, I do get so tired of eating stew and bread pudding in the kitchen every night with you and Mother! Or else going to a serve-self with Sam Jessup!” she said pathetically. “If you only knew what it means . to me to get out and have a little fun, you wouldn’t be so cross with me about Mr. Dexter! If you only knew what it means to me to have a gold vanity case and some of the nice things that other girls have —” “I know what it’s going to mean to you, all right!” Mary Rose broke in. "It’s going to mean a lot of trouble for you, sooner or later. Probably sooner!” She went on with a wisdom far beyond her twenty-two years: “Just suppose that a certain girl is running around with a certain married man, and people find it out? There's sure to be a big scandal, and the girl lose her good name. But the man goes scotfree. He always does —always. "Now promise mo that you’ll return those presents from Mr. Dexter first thing to-morrow morning,” she added. "And tell him you’re never going out with him again.” % Tho younger girl tossed her fluffy head wilfuly. “I'll do nothing of the kind!” she said bluntly. “And just you try to start anything with me, Mary Rose Middleton, and I'll leave home! I'm not going to have you butting in on me and my affairs! If you do, I’ll go with Alice James in her flat! I'm getting sick and tired of being treated like a baby in this house, anyway.” She snapped out th 4 lights, opened the windows and got into bed. Mary Rose said nothing more. Flossie’s daily threat to leave home and go to live with Alice James, her chum, always silenced her. She was dreadfully afraid that Flossie would. For Alice James was not all that she ought to- be, in Mary Rose’s opinion, at least. It was she who had taught Flossie to smoke cigarets and to paint her lovely mouth with scarlet lipsticks. Flossie blindly ■'dored her, copied her clothes and borrowed her slang. Just as Mary Rose was dropping off to sleep, Flossie’s voice roused her. “Did Sam Jessup call me up tonight?” she wanted to know. “Yes, he did, and I told him I didn’t know wheye you were.” There was another long silence. Then Flossie spoke again. “I wish you hadn't told him that,” she said. “He gets so peeved if I go out anywhere except with him. And I'm pretty crazzy about Sam Jessup, if anybody should happen to fall off a freight train and ask you about it.”

Promptly at seven the next morning Mary Rose Middleton yawned, stretched and opened her eyes to a new' day. For years she had been training herself to waken at this time and she needed no shrieking alarm clock. Her first thought was of John Manners. It was as if the thought of him had been in her mind all night, as she slept. “I love him,” she said to herself as simply 'as she might have said "the world is round.” It had become one of the facts of life to her. She went on thinking about him as she bathed and dressed and set to getting breakfast down in the neat little kitchen. ‘lt’s wonderful that I’m his secretary,” she thought, cutting thin slices of bread and filling the coffee pot, "because I can see -Jblm everyday. It would be terrible not to see him every day. I don’t know how J’d get along. if I didn’t." She sighed and looked at , the clock-. Twenty minutes to eight— In another hour, she would be in his thee, trying to look indifferent and ,business-'ike. And he would never guess that under her plain black dress her heart was beating, “I love you. I love you.” “Mary Rose, the toast’s burning!” Her mother’s voice startled her and she ran 'to pull the smoking toaster from the oven. "I’ve been trying to get Flossie out of bed for the last ten minutes,” Mrs. Middleton went on in a complaining tone. “Here, I’ll scrape that toast, and you run up and see v/hat you can do with her. It’s almost eight o’clock.’*' Flossie lay sleeping as Jf she had been drugged, In her little iron bed. Her face was flushed, and her yellow hair lay In little damp rings along

her forehead. She looked like a beautiful, healthy baby. Mary Rose shook her. “Flossi-ee, wake up!” she said. Flossie opened one blue eye, moaned and shut it again. "Flossie!” Mary Rose said again. “It’s almost eight o’clock! You’ll be late for work again! Wake up!” “All right! All right! Don’t shake me to pieces! I’m awake,” Flossie said crossly. She sat up and began to rub her eyes. “I’ll get up.” Mary Rose left her and went back to the kitchen. Her mother had poured out the coffee, and was sipping hers as she looked over the paper. “My goodness, but I wish that girl would stop running around with that Sam Jessup!” she said without looking up from the printed page. “There she was, out with him till twelve o’clock again last night! Os course, she's too tired to get up this morning.” “If only’she had been with Sam!” thought Mary Rose. Aloud she said: “You’re all wrong about Sam Jessup, Mother. He’s really a mighty nieq fellow.” She rinsed her soiled dishes at the sink and turned to go upstairs. At the door she paused. “How would you like to go to the movies to-night with Floss and me?” she asked gently. “We haven’t had an evening together for a long time.” Mrs. Middleton shrugged her shoulders. “You’ll see that Flossie won’t go, when the time comes,” she predicted. “She’ll say she will and then at the last minute she’ll go chasing off somewhere with that Jessup.” Her tone changed suddenly. “Why, yes, Mary Rose, I’d like to go,” she said more cheerfully. “But don't pick out one of those wild west films. I like to see somo love making and pretty clothes when I go to the movies.” "Love making and pretty clothes you shall have then,” she laughed the girl. Upstairs Flossie was still in bed —and sound asleep once more. But at the sound of 'Mary Rose's voice she flounced over in bed and opgned her eyes. • “Dear me, I must have gone to sleep again,” she murmured, “put I should worry. I don’t believe I'll go to work to-day.” Mary Rose stared. “Flossie Middleton, do you realize you’ve been late every day for the last week?” she asked. “First Thing you know, Miss MdtFarlane will be giving you your walking papers.” Flossie laughed. “And then do you know what would happen to Miss MacFarlane?” she asked. Without waiting for Mary Rose to speak, She answered her" own question: “She'd get hers.” Mary Rose shook her head. “Not a chance,” she said. “The Dexter Company never could fill her place for- one thing. And for another, she’s worked there for eighteen years. She’s a fixture.” “I don’t care if she's worked there for fifty years,” Flossie said deflajHly. “If I went to Mr. Dexter and told him I wanted him to fire her, he would, or anybody else in the place!” “What makes you think he would?” Mary Rose asked, tucking her hair up under her tiny black felt hat. “I don’t think it. I know it.” Flossie’s voice was filed with calm assurance. “He’d do anything in the world I wanted him to! He’s absoultely dippy about me." “Last night you said that you were just good friends —you and he,” the other girl reminded her. “This morning you tell me he’s in love , with you. Now, which tale am I to believe? You never seem to tell the same story twice about anything, Flossie.” Flossie had the grace to blush. But she refused to make any answer. She got out of bed and called downstairs to her mother. “Dear, will you phone the office and tell them I’m sick with a sore throat?” she asked. “And bring me up my breakfast. I’m going to stay in bed for a while.” Mary Rose went downstairs. “Are you going to tell that lie | for her?” she asked her mother, j “She hasn’t a sore throat any more | than I have one!”

CHAPTER 111 Mrs. Middleton frowned "Mary Rose, I do think you’re hard on poor Flossie, sometimes,” she said in her mild way. "I’m sure she has a sore throat -or she wouldn’t Say so.” "Oh, wouldn’t she!” thought MaryRose, exasperated. She watched her mother spread a clean napkin over the coffee tray and set Flossie’s breakfast on it. She poured the steaming coffee into a little silver pitcher that had been one of her wedding gifts, years before. And instead of the toast that she and Mary Rose had had for breakfast, she took three cinnamon rolls froA the cupboard and put them -on a fancy plate. "There! Maybe that’ll tempt her," she said. "Flossie’s not very strong and I don’t think she eats enough.” "Not very strong?” Mary Rose repeated. “She’s strong enough to gad around half the night, I notice. And what makes md so,- cross is that she expects to sleep all day and let you wait on her, hand, foot and finger, Here, give me that tray. She took it from her mother's worn hands, and marched upstairs with it. Fldssle was propped up again 4 the pillows of her bed, turning tho pages of a fashion magazine. She had evidently been making her morning toilet, for a comb, a powder puff and a bottle of perfume lay on the coverlet. Her hair was fluffed out around her head like the halo of a Christmas tree an§el. And around her slim shoulders /Was a 'pink bed jacket, made of an old party dress. "Thanks, for the kind attention,” she said flippantly, as her sister

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banged the tray down on the table besides the bed. “It’s so darling of you to be so sweet to me when I’m sick,” She giggled. Mary Rose glared at her. "I know you’re not sick at all —just

SANDY

CHAPTER CXVI ,All that he feared was realized. They would pin it on her —on Sandy. They would lock Sandy in a cell —a dim, stilling cell. They would charge her with Ramon’s murder. So he stood up. Desperate, he stood up. He out a hoarse, broken phrase: "She didn’t! I—” It was clipped in the middle by the hammering of the bailiff and the. shouting of Norman Wood, i Wood, with his hands shoving I Douglas vigorously to I shouted: "Just, a moment! Don’t 1 answer that, Mrs. Murillo! You’re not required to answer questions | incriminating yourself.” v ; Sandy, turning to him with that j white, pitiful smile —with-4.hat clear, fluty voice now slow and husky: “I —am going— 4a answer. I came—to answer ” * The prosecutor slowly rolled a paper. "Your honor, the questions are in order. Murder has been done. I am attempting to show motive; to shdw that this witness goaded the defendant into the killing when she saw that she could not escape the attentions of the deceased. She goaded the defendant

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

plain lazy, Middleton." she said. "You may fool mother, but you can’t fool- me! And I only brought your breakfast to you to save her a trip upstairs!” (To Be Continued)

by ELENORE MEHERIN, * Author of “CHICK IE”

into the killing, or, in a moment of despondence because she must leave the defendant, she killed Worth and turned the gun on herself ” Furiously: “The w’tness is not on trial!” "No! But the witness has been brought into this court in a most irregular manner. She has attempted with smile and weakness to play on the sympathies of these jurors. "She has been /-ushed in here at the eleventh hour when the case against the defendant tVas practically proved and a verdict of guilty would certainly have been returned. At this crucial moment the witness breaks into the court and in a sensational manner arrests the proceedings. “Your honor, I move that the entire testimony of this witness be stricken from the records! This woman may be an actress brought here by a defense admittedly without a word to say for himself—the desperate maneuver of a man facing the gallows. It has not even been that this witness is the woman wounded in the office of the deceaseu.” Sandy) stood. She stood with her

SALESMAN SAM—By SWAN

BOOTS AND HER BUDDIES—By MARTIN

FRECKIJCS AND HIS FRIENDS—By BLOSSER

hands resting arm of the chair. The sunlight fell on her face... .making it luminous like the face of an ungel shining from a stained glass window., ,\ She swept out one hand —breezily as when she had tossed the shawl so brilliantly about her shoulders. She raised her face, the eyes closed. "But I am the woman.” So quietly that Only then the judge—and only then the prosecutor saw her... Audience and jurqrs leaned forward. Thqy drank her words. “I am the woman. Her^e —he shot me hefre— ’’ • * * She sank down. She rubbed her hands very anxiously against her throat— The judge watched intently. He pushed a book so hastily. It fell from the bench. “Very well, Mr. Prosei cutor. We’ll allay your doubts. I order a recess. Det the finger prints of the witness be taken. Let her wound be examined by physicians. I order a recess of half an hour.” Then Douglas buried his face in his arms. He sat immovable, not stirring even when she touched his hair with her fingers. "Douglas, look at me—oh, Douglas, dear." He was led away. And he dared not look at her. She had cleared him. The moment it was shown that she was the woman wounded he would be cleared beyond a doubt. For it was admitted that he stood outside Ramon’s office at a quarter of eleven. Hg stood there impatiently waiting—ptvfaaps two min-

OUR BOARDING HOUSE—By AHERN

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utes. And three m.nutes later he was seen leaning over the woman—appearing to caress her —stanching her wound. This woman had already been wounded. She had already crept with laborious slowness from that far corner where the blood stains were to the door. She had fumbled with It and let him in. Sandy had shown this. The testimony of the five people who identified Douglas bore her out. So she had cleared him. But at what a cost! Cost of her own life, her own freedom. Sandy in a cell —a stifling cell! He was led away—his head down, teeth sunk In hip lower lip. Judith, overborne —Judith, with her head thudding and sick, watched him led away like this, brown, bonny head lowered. And she pushed Sandy to a chair. She ran after him—she caught his arm. He mumbled with despairing accusation: "Don’t, Jude! What did I tell you? They’ll do It to her. They’re going to do it to her." Douglas—they can’t—they won’t—l’ve thought—” Then she flung herself at Norman Wood: "Listen —can I see that pistol? I’m thinking. Didn't they say it’s an automatic? And you have to use pressure on the handle and the trigger? Both at once? Oh, listen —I know where she fc was wounded—the angle, of it.” "Yes —the pistol—l’m going for it. . . . Come here! You say you know where she was wounded? And yyou think it will be clear she could i not have shot herself?”, Judith' steadying hej-self against

his arm: "Let me see the pistol.... Let me try and see If she could do It. . . . Oh, Douglas—she didn’t —I know—l know Sandy ’’ Wood brought Judith to the judge’s chamber. He put the pistol In her hand. • • • Sandy was shot in the left breast, the bullet entering at a sharp, acute angle. And the bullet coming out through the back in a direct line with this angle. The bullet came out through the back under the right shoulder. Judith took the gun. She tried to manipulate it. She tried again—a dozen times. She said to Norman Wood: "Could it he done? Could she have done it?” “You’re certain the mark of entrance is just there?” "I’m certaig.” “Then she fTldn’t do it.... She couldn’t have done It unless she had ,gn arm half again as long as it is and with extra Jolnti.” "She didn’t do it!” Judith closed her eyes. She handed the pistol to Norman Wood. She rubbed her hands together. They were terribly cold. / “She didn’t do it. Will you go and tell this to Douglas? Go and tell him no?y —at once.” Judith came back smiling—came back to Sandy. Shg sent a messenger for milk and forced Sandy to drink this. 'Sandy looked at her with trembling lips: "He’s all cleared, Jude—isnt’ he. He’s all cleared. Os course they are my finger printa-V’ Judith thought: "Oh, would It was

JUNE 7, 1926

I who was dying for hhn—would Jt was I who could die—l and not Sandy." • • • Half an hour later Sftndy sat again in the witness chair. As tho judge sat down, she turned with a childlike? smile and murmured: "They are my finger prints—you know, of course, they are—”, She smiled at the judge and at tho jurors— Norman Wood took up the pistol. He handled it to Sandy. He said: "She has been wounded hero. Here is the mark, Now, Mrs. Murillo, will you please try to pull this trigger .’ No —hold the weapon Just over tho mark. Now you must press the handle —and press tho trifljer both at once—” I’But I can’t —not keeping it there—” “No—you can’t—and no human being could —” • • • Heedless of prosecutor—heedless of judge, she rose. She flung out her hand and called: "Douglas—you hear? "Douglas—you hoar—not I! 1 didn’t do it—look, Douglas— ’’ She swayed. He flew to her then—he caught her In his arms. He wrapped his arms about her and sobbed with his face against her shoulder. • • • Six o’clock —all the testimoney In— Douglas leaving the stand. Six o’clock, the jury instructed—the Jury filing out. Two minutes pased 6, the jury coming back. (To Be Continue^