Indianapolis Times, Volume 40, Number 241, Indianapolis, Marion County, 26 February 1929 — Page 13

FEB. 26, 1929

THIS HAS HAPPENED Thf body of “HANDSOME HARRY’’ BORDEN. promoter and ladles’ man. murdered betwen half-past one and four o'clock Saturday afternoon. Is found beneath the closed afrshaft window of his private office Monday by his secretary, RUTH LESTER. j ... DETECTIVE McMANN discovers that at least five people had opportunity, access to weapon and posslb.e motive for the murder. These are MRS. ELIZABETH BORDEN, estranged wl f e of the victim: Ruth Lester, who admits ownership of a pistol which has disappeared from her desk: BENNY SMITH, office bov JACK HAYWARD, insurance broker with offices directly across the alrshaft. and RITA DUBOIS, a dancer. Because of Borden's attempted familiarity with Ruth on Saturday. Hayward had threatened to kill the promoter. Although the alrshaft window Is closed, the bloody footprints of a. pigeon Inside and outside the window indicate it was open until after Borden s death. BENNY SMITH, who has not reported for work, is sent for, as are MINNIE CASSIDY and LETTY MILLER, scrubwomen for the seventh floor. Bui COWAN strengthens suspicion against Hayward by telling of a telephone call to Hayward's offices Saturday at 2.10, when he was plugged In on a busy wire and heard Borden’s voice raised In anger, presumably against Hayward. Ruth Les er tells McMann about CLEO OILMAN, recently discarded mistress of Borden. She is sought by police. Rita Dubois at rives, admits to McMann she had planned to go away for the ■week-end with Borden, but he failed to meet he- at the station she had telephoned him. /ound his line busy at 2:: 10 .then got him and was requested to come to hi* offi'e. ( , (¥ , rtT>Tr NOW GO ON WITH THE STORY CHAPTER xx;n (Continued) Ruth could hardly suppress a gasp of relief. Now, at least, Rita Dubois was lying. Micky Moran, the elevator operator, had testified that after taking the dancer to the seventh floor he had spent at least ten minutes in the telephone booth in the lobby of the Starbridge building, in conversation with his girl. But, of course, Rita could not know this — Suddenly an incident which she had completely forgotten until that moment recurred to Ruth Lester like a flash of lightning across and dark sky. “Please, Mr. McMann,” she cried, her voice quivering with excited hope, “may I speak with you privately for a minute?” The detective led the trembling girl to a far comer of Borden's office, while Rita stared after them with enormous, frightened black eyes. # u “T’VE just remembered something, 1 Mr. McMann ” Ruth whispered as the big man bent low to listen. “Saturday morning, when Mr. Borden was in the outer office with Rita, he waved goid-by to her with the torn half of a yellow-backed bank note. I didn’t see the denomination, and I didn’t think much of it at the time, but now I believe I know what had happened, and what Mr. Borden meant when he said that about keeping his part of the bargain if she kept hers.” “Yes, yes,” McMann urged hopefully, as Ruth paused for breath. “I’m sure now that they had been scuffling playfully, Rita trying to take the bill away from him, and tearing it in two. I'm sure—sure! —that he let her keep half of the tom bill, and had promised to give her the other half after she’d kept her promise about —about going away with him.” “Well?” McMann grunted, frowning in deep concentration. “Oh, don't you see?” Ruth implored. “If she’s telling the truth—if she really didn’t see Mr. Borden again, she still has her half of the bill! But I belieye she's lying! I believe Mr. Borden was alive when she came, and that he either gave her the other half of the bill, as he had undoubtedly promised he would, or that—that they quarreled because he wouldn’t, and she —she—” Her whispering voice faltered. She could not bring herself to utter an accusation of murder. “Oh, Mr. McMann, please believe I'm not just talking wildly, to—to help someone else! I know Rita must have been desperate for money, and yet I don’t think she's just a gold-digger either—” McMann frowned. Then, "was Borden in the habit of carrying bills of large denomination?” "He was. he was!” Ruth replied. “He was terribly vain about money —loved to flash hundred-dollar bills. Just last week he showed me a SSOO banknote—told me to take a good look at it, as I might never see one again. I told him he was foolish to carry such big sums on his person. but he just laughed at me and looked pleased with himself. Maybe —maybe he showed it to Rita Saturday morning—” She faltered. McMann nodded slowly, the fr 'wn slowly clearing. “And Borden's half of the bill was not on his body this morning. Os course, whoever took the SSOO in smaller bills might have taken the useless, torn half—” “It wouldn’t have been useless to one person—Rita. Dubois!” Ruth reminded him. “And she could have passed it, no matter how she got it, for she would have thought no one knew of Borden's having had the other half! Please ask her for her half of the bill, Mr. McMann! If she still has it. I'll believe she did not see Mr. Borden when she came back Saturday afternoon.” Detective Birdwell interrupted the whispered conference. “Headquarters on the line, sir. The Golden Slipper safe was robbed sometime between closing time early Sunday morning and noon today. The manager of the club has some sort of tip about a SSOO bill ” As McMann reached fer the extension on Borden's desk Rita Dubois rose, looked wildly about as if for a way of escape, then braced herself against the desk, her enormous black eyes fixed in an agony of suspense upon the detective. CHAPTER XXIV •f_TELLO. captain!. McMann V speaking.” the detective in c’Y -re of the investigation into the m der of Henry P. Borden greeted his superior on the other end of the wire. •The Golden Slipper's safe has been cracked, eh? . . . Lose much? . . . Hmm! Guess I know

The High Spot Today and Wednesday mark the high point of the “Black Pigeon.” Both cnapters are the largest of die serial. Because of lack <>f space, “Saint and Sinner” chapters for today and Wednesday will be run Thursday.

what graft to get into when I retire from this game! . . . What’s jhat? A SSOO bill, eh? . . . When did she get it changed?” and McMann raised his brows and smiled his sinister, crooked smile at Rita Dubois, who was leaning toward him, her lovely face white and drawn with suspense. “Listen, captain, is the club’s manager there now? ... All right, ask him if he remembers whether the bill had been tom half in two and pasted and pinned together.” The words were uttered with slow, dreadful significance, the detective’s eyes never leaving Rita’s stricken face. The answer, when it came, brought a grunt of satisfaction from the detective, who quickly concluded the conversation. “Well Rita?” McMann grinned, as he hung up the receiver. Suddenly he leaned forward and addressed the pitiably frightened dancer, his pencil tapping staccato periods on his brief sentences: “No use wasting time! Saturday morning Borden gave you half of a SSOO bill. He kept the oth r r half. He had bargained to give it to you when you had kept your promise to go to Winter Haven with him. “In addition to the tom half of a SSOO bill, Borden had more than SSOO in small bills to pay for the week-end jaunt. No money was found on his body this morning! “You say you did not see Harry Borden Saturday afternoon, yet Saturday night, when the Golden Slipper opened at 11 o’clock, you were there with a SSOO bill which had been torn in two and pasted together, and which ybu had the club manager change into smaller bills for you. “Now—that’s all true, and there’s no use your denying any of it. What I want to know is—how did you get the other half of the SSOO bank note? Come clean, Rita—and no hysterics!” U 8 “■"COTES—it’s all true. I lied. I did X see Harry Borden Saturday afternoon.” “Dead or alive—or both!” McMann pounced. RitaV voice was the monotone of a woman who is restraining hysterics. “Alive. I didn’t kill him, if that is wnat you mean. He was alive and when I left, after having been with him only about ten minuies.” “Thank God!” Ruth cried, in a voice shaking with laughter and tears. “At half-past two, when Rita left Mr. Borden—alive, alive?—Jack and I were in the lobby of the Princess theater, Mr. McMann!” ‘And the curtain did not rise until 2:45,” McMann reminded her, but almost absent-mindedly. “Os course someone may remember seeing you and Hayward there at halfpast two. Did you ask the box office man when the matinee was to start?” “No, of course not,” Ruth admitted reluctantly. “There was a sign in the lobby giving curtain time, so we just walked about for ten minutes, as Jack told you.” “I remember,” McMann granted, that twisted smile on his lips again. “But Rita has the floor now. Weil, Rita, how did you get in Saturday afternoon at about seventeen minutes after 2? Did you use the key Borden had given you?” Ruth gasped her surprise, and the dancer, apparently, was no less startled. “I—l didn’t have a key,” she retorted defiantly, her agitated hands instinctively gripping her handbag. “Oh, yes, you "did!” McMann laughed harshiy, as he rose, strode to the girl and forced the expensive alligator bag out of her desperately clinging hands. Ruthlessly, without apology, he dumped its contents upon the desk top. until a key clattered upon the polished surface. “And here it is! You amateurs are always so sloppy,” he reproved the dancer jocularly. “An old hand at the game would have remembered to throw this thing away. “How did you know I had a key to Harry's office?” Rita demanded. “Because of a little momo that Borden jotted down on the envelope that held his railroad tickets,” McMann enlightened her. “ ‘Get key from Rita.’ Now, Rita, why didn’t Borden 'get key from Rita’ if he was alive when you entered these offices Saturday afternoon?” Ruth saw only too clearly the drift of McMann’s questions. He undoubtedly believed that the promoter was dead when Rita arrived, that he had been shot immediately after his telephone conversation with her, in which he had told her to come to the office, that she had arrived, knocked. re ived no answer, entered with the key 'Borden had lent her, had found her would-be lover dead, and had, in her desperate need for money, robbed the body. If only Rita had not had a key, could not have entered unless Borden had been alive to admit her, then Jack Hayward would automatically have been eliminated as a suspect. But Rita was answering, and Ruth forced herself to listen. 8 a a “T_TE forgot to ask me for the key, XT I suppose.” Rita retorted defiantly. “Anyway, he made a date to meet me at the station for the 5:32, the next train for Winter Haven. He wouldn’t have needed the key before then 'anyway, since he told me he was going to stay in his office all afternoon. “He'd given me the key Friday when I was having lunch with him —breakfast for me, lunch for him. I was to meet him at the office about six Friday evening and go out to dinner with him, and he said as I he might not be in when I got there, ; I’d better take the key and let myself in with it, so I would not have to wait in the hall. “Later he phoned me to meet him , at the Crillon, instead, and I did, and forgot to give him the key. But I didn't use it Saturday—didn’t even remember I had it “I knocked and he let me in. He was expecting me, of course but before he opened the door he asked who it was and when I shouted •Rita,* he let me in." “And then?” McMann grinned

skeptically, as Rita paused. “What explanation did he give you for missing the train?” Rita hesitated, flushed, then seemed to choose her words carefully. “He didn’t give any explanation—just apologized, and promised to make it up to me. He—he seemed to be in a hurry to get me out of the office, as if he were expecting someone. “I thought he’d been having a row with Cleo Gilman over the phone and that he was afraid she’d come while I was there. Harry and Cleo had been—friends for about a year before I met him. He had told me about her, said he was through with her—” “Did he mention Miss Gilman Saturday afternoon?” McMann interrupted. “No, he didn’t mention anyone’s name, except Jake Bailey, who was always hanging around* like a bodyguard or something. “I jokingly asked him if Jake was going to Winter Haven with us, and he said no, that Jake had left Friday night for a week-end visit with his people somewhere upstate—he didn’t say just where,” Rita answered, still in that careful, hesitating manner which was branding her as a liar in McMann’s eyes, as Ruth could clearly see. Her fear was confirmed when McMann asked, smiling twistedly: “You’re sure he told you that Saturday afternoon, Rita? Wasn’t it Saturday morning or Friday evening?” “It was Saturday afternoon,” Rita replied stubbornly. “Borden was in a hurry to get rid of you but you took time to joke with him about Jake Bailey, eh?” McMann grinned. “All right, Rita, all right! Go on with your story. How did he happen to give you the other half of the SSOO bill? Why didn’t he wait until you were in Winter Haven? He wouldn’t give it to you Saturday morning, remember!” 8 8 8 AN ugly splotch of red suddenly glowed on the slim throat of the dancer. “I asked him for it. I was pretty sore, because he’d missed the train, and he wanted to make up with me, so he gave me the other half of the bill. I told him I might miss the 5:32 if he didn’t—so he gave it to me.” McMann chuckled. “Just like that, eh? You make an awfully poor liar, Rita. . . . Here! Keep your shirt on!” he commanded, as the dancer sprang toward him, her teeth bared, her slim, long fingers curved into talons. “So you went to the station to make the 5:32, did you, and he stood you up again?” Rita hesitated again, then answered, desperately, angrily, “Yes, I did! ” McMann leaned back in his chair, grinning and nodding with what seemed, to Ruth, like ghoulish satisfaction. “What do you think the police department has been doing all day, Rita? I'll tell you one little job they’ve cleaned up; you beat it fiy.m here, after stopping in the lobby to telephone someone, straight to the station, got the bags you’d checked there, and took them to your hotel. And you didn’t take them out again Saturday afternoon! “You did take out a small overnight bag about midnight Saturday, on your way, to spend the night with your girl friend, Willett Wilbur. Now how about it, Rita?” “I was only going away with him to get the 500. I—l needed it, and I won’t tell you why, if you kill me! After he’d given it to me, I didn’t care what happened between him and me later. I was just happy that I didn’t have to—to pay for it, by—by—” She choked, and suddenly began to cry, horribly, without hiding her convulsed face. “Listen Rita,” McMann urged, almost gently. “You’ve admitted you need SSOO in a whale of a hurry, that you were willing to do almost anything to get it: Now admit just a little bit more and tell me the whole truth. “I’ll put it up to you straight: either Borden was alive when you came and you killed him—wait till I'm through!—killed him to get the money that would come too late if he waited until night to give it to you, or he was dead when you got here. “No, wait! Isn’t this what happened?—you came, got' no answer to youi knock, used Borden’s pass key, found him dead on the floor—yes! just where you’re looking,” he interrupted himself, as the dancer’s eyes involuntarily shot a glance of horror toward the spot where Borden had lain in death—“you remembered that he had the other half of the SSOO bill he had given you; you looked for it, found it, and more than SSOO more in smaller bills, took it all —over a thousand dollars counting your half of the bill ” “No, no!” Rita screamed, beating the air with frantic, clinched fists. “I didn’t rob a dead man! I’d die first! He was a live, I tell you—alive! He gave me his half of the bill, and not a cent more; Not a cent!” Birdwell's weary, bored voice from the doorway interrupted Rita’s passionate avowal. “Ferber’s here with pictures of the fingerprints, sir. And Borden’s man-servant, Ashe. Mrs. Borden’s come back, too, sir.”

(To Be Continued) EVANGELINE FAILS TO SEE GENERAL BOOTH Prepares to Sail for Home Without Greeting Deposed Brother. Bp Unit id Press LONDON, Feb. 26. —Commander Evangeline Booth, head of the Salvation Army in.the United States, prepared to return home today without seeing the brother she helped depose as general. Commander Booth published correspondence with her" sister-in-law, Mrs. Bramwell Booth, which Monday revealed her attempts to see General Booth, who had been 111 since last summer. A letter from Mrs. Booth refusing permission for the visit hinted the general would take further legal action regarding his Army position.

THE TXDTANAPOLTS TIMES

OUR BOARDING HOUSE

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THE BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE

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OUT OUR WAY

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SKETCHES BY BESSEY. SYNOPSIS BY BRAUCHEB

PAGE 13

—By Williams

~v Martin

By Blosser

By Crane

By Small

By Cowan