Indianapolis Times, Volume 40, Number 242, Indianapolis, Marion County, 27 February 1929 — Page 12

PAGE 12

Vhis has happened The body ot "HANDSOME HARRY "BORDEN, promoter end ladies' man. murdered Saturday afternoon, is found beneath the closed airshaft window ot I,ls private office Monday by his secretary. RUTH LESTER. DETECTIVE McMANN learns of five • people who had opportunity and possible motive for the murder:: MRS. ELIZABETH BORDa’N, estranged wife; Ruth Lester, who rdmlts ownership of a pistol, now missing from her desk; .BENNY SMITH, office boy: JACK HAYWARD. insurance- broker, with offices directly across the airshaft, and RITA DUBOIS, Borden’s sweetheart. Suspicion fails ncost heavily on Hayward. Ruth’s flatice. because of over!.ard threats against Borden, his presence in the building Saturday, the loca--.011 of his office, and the disappeaiance -•of his own pistol from his desk. .. Bloody footprints of a pigeon inside -.no onisiue the airshaft window indicate the window 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. , . BILL COWAN, strengthens suspicion against Hayward by telling of a telephone call to Hayward’s offices Saturday at 2:10, when he was put on busy wire and heard Borden’s voice in anger, presumably against Hayward. Ruth tells McMann about CLEO GILMAN. recently discarded mistress of Borden. She is sought. Rita Dubois arrives, admits she had planned a weekend trip with Borden, but had tilephoned him from the station when he had failed to meet her. Rita says she went to the office but his door was locked. . , Ruth tells McMann of Borden having given the dancer the torn half of a yel-low-backed bill. Borden’s half is missing from the body, as well as SSOO more in smaller bills. Rita admits, under grilling, that she saw Borden, that he gave her the other half of a SSOO bill, but insists that he was alive when she left him at 2:30, promising to meet him later. Bcrden’s man servant. FRANK ASHE. Is sent for by police for questionins?. NOW GO ON WITH THE STORY CHAPTER XXV * \ LL right, Birdwell,” McMann x\. nodded to his subordinate. “I told Mrs. Borden to come back at 2 How’s her sick child? .1. , Better? That’s good!” and oddly, Ruth Lester thought, the item detective seemed to be genuinely pleased. - "We won’t keep her from the kid longer than necessary. Sick, all right. I talked to the doctor myself. Tell Ferber to come in. Hold Ashe out there till I’m ready for him. And send around for Mr. Hayward. He’s in his own office.” Ruth’s eye dilated with fear. Was McMann going to arrest Jack now, convinced, as she was sure the detective was, that Hayward had shot Harry Borden through the open windows facing each other across the airshaft, and that Rita, arriving very soon afterward, had robbed his body? If so, how was McMann accounting to himself for the disappearance of her pistol? Or did he still stubbornly hold to his belief that she, Ruth, fearing trouble between the two men—Hayward and Borden —had taken the too-handy weapon away with her on Saturday? Ferber, the fingerprint expert, was entering the private Office, a large portfolio under his arm, when Mcmann shot another question at Rita Dubois: “Was that window Open or closed when you came in this office Saturday afternoon?” And he pointed to the window looking out upon the airshaft?” Rita’s terror-stricken black eyes went blank. "Window? . . . I don’t know. . . . Yes, I do? It was open, because I noticed some pigeons—or at least one black pigeon—walking up and down the window ledge.” ft tt tt “T YELLO. Ferber! Let’s see what 11 you’ve got there. Good, clear prints?” “Lots of ’em, McMann,” the fingerprint expert answered cheerfully, smiling and nodding at Ruth Lester. He spread the sheaf of enlarged photographer fingerprints upon Borden’s desk. “Here’s one peculiar set—found it half a dozen places,” and he pointed to a picture. “Look! The middle, finger of the right hand is a stub—about half an inch of it missing, I’d say.” Ruth started eagerly toward the desk. "Those are Minnie Cassidy’s fingerprints. Half of the first joint of her middle right finger was cut off in an accident when she was a child. She told me about it when she was dusting my desk one afternoon.” “Thanks, Miss Lester,” McMann grunted, as he bent over the photographs, studyng them frowningly. He looked up as Jack Hayward entered the room, jerked a nod at him. which Jack answered with smiling courtesy before he crossed the loom to take his place beside Ruth Lester. "Send Mrs. Borden in. Birdwell,” McMann called through the door which Jack left ajar. When Mrs. Borden was shown into the private office by Birdwell, McMann stuck his hands deep into his pockets and regarded his collection of "guests” .with upraised brows and that now familiar twisted smile. He looked at each in turn —Elizabeth Borden, the murdered man’s widow, whom he had tried, earlier it the day, to bully into a confesuon; Rita Dubois, dancer at the Golden Slipper night club, and the mu'dered man's last love—Ruth his secretary, who, to protect herself from her employer’s am--oro’is nature, had disguised her beauty with ill-fitting clothes; slicked back hair, and yellow spectacles, only to reveal it disastrously on the day. of Borden’s murder; John C. Hayward, Ruth’s fiance, the man upon whom suspicion of that murder now lay hexviest. Now. folks.” MdTann said at last, "I’m going to ask all of you to permit Mr. Ferber here to take your fingerprints. It is my duty to tell you that none of j ou is compelled to do so—unless you are placed under arrest as a suspect,” he added, with slow, significance. ‘How about it? Anybody got any objections?” "I have no objection,” Mrs. Borden answered promptly. "It’s all right with me!” Rita Dubois answered defiantly. Ruth and Jack agreed almost simultaneously, and five minutes later the ugly, shameful business was accomplished. Seated at the desk again, McMann compared the fresh prints with the enlarged photographs of the fingerprints which Ferber had found in the “death chamber.” , "Mrs. Borden, you were wearing gloves Saturday, I presume? Did you remove them during either visit?” the detective sergeant asked. “I was wearing gloves on both my visits, of course, and I did not remove them,” Mrs. Bordori answered. __

“That accounts for it!” McMann muttered to Ferber, who was bending over him. “You, too, Rita?” he asked casually, without looking up. “Yes! I was wearing gloves and I didn’t take them off.” “Then how do you account for the fact that the print of your right thumb was found on each drawer of Miss Lester’s desk?” McMann demanded. 8 a a JACK’S hand closed so hard over Ruth’s that the girl winced,, but she was not conscious that she was hurt; she only knew that here was evidence that Rita Dubois bad been searching her—Ruth’s—desk for something! Had Rita found the thing she was looking for—the gun with which to kill Harry Borden, perhaps? “Oh! I forgot!” Rita was answering, defiantly. “I wanted to paste together the two halves of the SSOO bill Harry had given me. I was looking for paste, and had taken off my glove to do the job.” 'With Borden in a hurry to get rid of you?” McMann reminded her. “It was Harry who suggested it,” Rita answered. “We were in the outer office, saying goodby—” She glanced, ashamed, at Mrs. Borden, who was looking steadily at her own clasped hands. “I’d just stuffed the two halves of the bill in my handbag and Harry said I might lose one of tham, and suggested I paste them together. I looked for the paste and couldn’t find it, and he was in such a fidget that I went on without bothering about the paste, and later bought a little tube at the drug store.” “There’s a paste pot in plain sight on Benny’s desk,” Ruth could not refrain from telling the detective. McMann glanced at her and smiled slightly, as if to assure her that he was very much on the job. Then, with the suddenness of a cat pouncing upon a mouse: What did you do with the gun, Rita? Os course, we’ll find it sooner or later, but you might as well save us the trouble!” Ruth gasped, tried to realize all that McMann’s question meant, as Jack’s hand again closed with fiercely exultant pressure upon hers. “Gun? What are you talking about?” Rita almost screamed. "The .38-caliber Colt’s automatic that you found in the bottom drawer of Miss Lester’s desk,” McMann inteiTupted coolly. “You were looking for it, and you found it. Borden had told you, as he had told several other people, that Miss Lester owned a gun, kept it in her desk in case of a holdup. Borden wouldn’t give you the other half of that all-important SSOO bill, and you were desperate for need of it. “You couldn’t wait till Saturday night. You quarreled with him, pretended to be leaving, went into the outer office, got the gun out of the drawer, and—shot him.” Rita had gone dead white as the detective summed up against her, j but when he had finished she laughed, her vividly rouged lips twisting in an ugly loop of disdain. “Sounds simply well, don’t iu? But listen here, and get this straight: I didn’t know Baby-face had a gun in her desk; there wasn’t one in the bottom drawer when I looked for the paste, and I didn’t kill Harry Borden! That’s the truth, and you can third-degree me till hell freezes over if you want to!” “Then—someone 'else had ulreday killed him with that gun when you looked for the paste to stick together that bill you’d taken off his body?” McMann shot at the defiant dancer. “Wrong again, big boy!” Rita answered insolently. “He' was alive when I came and alive when I left, as I seem to remember having told you before!” 8 8 8 TT'ERBER said something tr Mc- -*• Mann in a low voice ard the detective frowningly studied two photographs of fingerprints. Then: “I suppose Borden helped you look for the paste tube, Rita?” The girl flushed. “No. he didn’t. He went over to the cooler and got a drink while I was going through Miss Lester’s desk.” “He didn't touch the desk?” McMann persisted strangely. “No!” “And yet.” McMann said slowly, to no one in particular, “Borden’s fingerprints—or rather his right thumbprit—is on top of the wooden handle of the bottoom drawer of Miss Lester’s desk. The other four fingers would *be inserted beneath the long wooden handle, of course. That right, Ferber?” “Yes. I didn’t photograph the underside of the handles, but I can, by removing them,” Ferber answered. “Not necessary,” McMann assured him. “Miss Lester, did Borden, to your knowledge, open the bottom drawer of your desk on Saturday?” “No,” Ruth answered. “To my knowledge he never opened a drawer of my desk during the entire time I worked for him. but he may have when I was not there, of course. Benny Smith, the office boy, opened that drawer Saturday morning. He was looking for a towel, he said, when I asked him what he was doing at my desk. I’d just come out of Mr. Borden’s office after having taken dictation.” “That accounts for these prints.” Ferber said to McMann. pointing to a picture. “Found a number of them on the kid’s desk.” “Anyone else touch your desk Saturday that you know of?” McMann asked Ruth. “No, I did, of course. I opened the bottom drawer, as I have told you, to get a paper cup to give Mrs. Borden a drink. She started to help me, but didn’t toueh the draw-er—-and she had on gloves, I remember,” Ruth answered. “One of Borden’s thumbprints half obliterated by Rita’s thumbprint,” McMann mused, in a low voice, that was 'just loud enough for Ruth's straining ears to catch, ‘"that means he opened the drawer first—” / , “Well/ if he did, he did it before

I came!” Rita cut in. “He certainly didn’t touch that desk while I was with him.” 8 8 8 RUTH’S head spun with conjectures. If 3orden had opened that bottom drawer on Saturday afternoon, after her departure, and before Rita’s arrival, was it not possible that he had done so to get the gun, to protect himself against some threatened trouble —trouble arising from that mysterious telephone call which had kept him so long that he had missed his train? But Bill Cowan had testified that Borden had been connected with Jack Hayward’s number! Had McMann, whose ability she was beginning to respect as much as she feared it, arrived at the same conclusion? If so, he had again arrived at Jack Hayward as the most likely suspect. . . . Ruth forced her mind away from that, too terrible possibility. Supposing Borden, fearful of an attack of someone who had not yet come into the investigation—for she herself was convinced that Jack had not talked to Borden over the phone or across the airshaft—had taken the gun from her desk. When Rita came—Ruth went on building up her suppositious case —the gun was on top of Borden’s desk, handy for his defense against the person from whom he undoubtedly feared a visit. Else why should he have planned to remain all afternoon in his office instead of spending the hours between trains with Rita? But that, she told herself despairingly, was built on the theory that Rita was telling the truth about the agreement between her and Borden to make the later train. Why suppose Rita had told the truth? She had lied so much! No. it was oetter to hold tight to facts. Borden had undoubtedly opened the bottom drawer of the desk. In all probability he had done so to get the gun kept there. Rita had come. She had quarreled with Borden. She had seen the gun on his desk. She had shot him to get the money he would not give her. Then Rita had robbed the body. Perhaps she was telling the truth about the paste—or part truth, who could say how Rita’s mind would function after she had killed Borden? The bill was all important. It was torn in two. In an office there would be paste. She had hunted for the paste in the outer office, and in the meantime the black pigeon—or one of his flock—had flown in through the open window, dipped his tiny feet in the freshflowing blood of the dead man, leaving tell-tale tracks behind. But why had Rita come back into that death room to close the window? Ruth knit her brows in a terrific effort to think straight. Then light burst upon her. Rita had heard the flutter of the pigeon’s wing or the sound of its body caroming again the glass of the uper sash and had run back into the private office, frightened half to death. She had seen the pigeon—or maybe several of them—on the window ledge, and had a sudden horror of the feathered creatures pecking at Harry Borden’s dead face. Cautious instinctively, even in her panic, she had closed the window with her gloved left hand, so that there were no fingerprints. Ruth started to draw a deep breath of relief, when suddenly the whole structure toppled and fell, stricken by one question which her relentlessly logical mind insisted upon asking: If Rita had done all this, where did Jack’s missing automatic fit into the picture? 8 8 8 THEN hope thrust up its heJkd again! Why try to fit Jack’s gun into any theory of the murder? It was missing—true. But wasn’t it entirely possible that Jack’s gun had been stolen by a petty thief, prowling through the almost deserted office building, glad to lay his hands on anything of value? The long arm of coincidence, of course, but wasn’t real life full of just such amazing coincidences? But Ruth knew, even as she consoled herself with this philosophic reflection, that Detective Sergeant McMann would emit a loud roar of derisive laughter if she told him her theory. He might be trying, with true police conscientiousness, to bully Rita Dubois into confessing to both murder and robbery, but Ruth was sure that in his heart McMann believed that the dancer had done nothing worse than rob a dead man’s body, after Harry Borden had been killed by Jack Hayward, in a jealous rage. The newly-discovered evidence that Borden had had Ruth’s gun in his possession that Saturday afternoon would do much, Ruth realized sickly, to confirm McMann’s suspicions against Jack. He would argue, undoubtedly, that Borden and Jack had quarreled over the inexplicable one-sided conversation, of Borden’s which Bill Cowan had overheard when he had called Jack Hayward’s number at ten minutes after twp—and that consequently, fearing an a, tack upon his life. Borden had possessed himself of Ruth’s gun. had gone to the open window with it in his hand, and had been shot down by Hayward before he could aim Ruth’s weapon. But—Ruth argued with herself desperately—if McMann believed this to be the truth about Borden’s murder, how could he account for the disappearance of her gun? Would he be so stupid as to try to convince himself that Rite Dubois had stolen it, too, along with the money on Borden's body? Ruth herself was sure that if Rita had come into Borden’s office and found him dead, with a gun lying on the floor, she would have concluded that he had committed suicide, would not have dreamed of touching the weapon with which he had done it, for fear of its being found in her possession and incriminating her. (To Be Continued) A new character to be reckoned with—Cleo Gilman. Will she lead thess to a satntfoa?

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

OUR BOARDING HOUSE

% \ueu, I tm TkAr'fZ WflMlJf,/, jj J////M „V \ H f— if ts iSki'it euou’en JM// I wA uSLe Y . VotJ Aajd The matoß. r y.. M uwiNr miHo if mo*SK r TvJITWoU-f "BRiaSsiMG WITH ME \ i IKi A RBLATioiS { ~~ I ,vs~~ HE’LL SHARE I 1-Gef iWA-r cousin imvSf -M "Room wrrW me ajj 9 g r? DOVO4 rzofA TUeae, fH’ MAifoß, ***— VWAf I AUD our OF TftlS /(frSSaf IS, VP "ft* MotfK DoSStfY 1 7 House /•***• amd ] osJecf To Him / 1 gysKuourij ev -tub ® I maM ~FukikW TUuJ6,~y'kuotjj w\ Co * HE KEEPS,-THIS MOUK Holds J ' Bur 1 Po/J'r i glf HiNNSetF v/ERV alooT \ * eAKi "fitAr as a j 1/ l fro/a THose other J ///\ f " ’ y BAffooUS 7 \ y^jPjjfr

BOOTS AND HER BUDDIES

BOY'. LOOKYT THR t*<x! 1 WOULD NOU.WSt- | OH .DON'T ASCUT'j WOULD I UXE YTAVX. A CO LOOK. | REALLY ? 6EE , . j ME-ff YOU MUST HI YOU'RE REGULAR’ S YWMK, EOC\K> OU .... .w. -

FRECKLES AND HIS FRIENDS

Wy, SAY/ FBECkXES \ X-7&U_YOO,7AS-~l M I luue. a surprise ' MULL BE SO HAPPY J YOU <3O IN NJUEB.6 H For yoO, FRECKLES"* JUST \ TO I4NONO YOU'RE ) AND TELL Bj sum* KfcyjQ cvcc t MERE THAT UE'LL /TO SMUT MIS EYES- M PATQIOA almost jump our ) I}W ' You mane a ■ rLrji K°,, J,? , Ti penelcpe pitts OF MIS SKIN ”s4 LITTLE SORPBISE r' ■ { 'CT. .7, U '7 )> I DCWfT'WANT

WASHINGTON TUBBS II

J MGLL, ADMIRAL OLD ToPPER,) HT 1(f IT’SA FRAME UP-A DIRTS FRAME OP - [ EFFRTTiNCi ISS SETTLED. | £ } I 'AT GUN SAID ME’D GET ME— HE'S 60T ME- ) PAW AFTER TOMORROW AT J y-'X / l HANEM'T A CHANCE - I’M A GONER, r"' (SUNRISE ISS PER DUEL MIT / JO, / (. Ort OH OH! ME AGAINST Tt-V BEST J

SALESMAN SAM

MY POP SENT ME AFTER \ You'Re HOT SO IfOOYOO HAPPEN TO \ Vl. sovie. cahoy,mister, aw ) ounib, arc hams, any Pcamot, / certainly HE. AWT GOT AWT TefeTH- J Ya, KID? (AARSH Hi ALLOW, CHOC- ) HAVE, HAOAM l GIMMG A POUMD O' A-*- ' OLATe FUD&e? X„

MOM ’N POP

■ WELL,OF ALL THINGS*. CAM YOU BEAT It! MY STARS! ALL THIS \ COME TO POP-DA. HULLABALOO'. POLICE ,wopdy/\ GO into the. AND WETTING ABOUND FOR TEN) CLOSET TO Days ovep soo that you J chase that cat MIS

i’HE BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE

ft was after a great battle in which Francis I. the | new king of France, was victorious, that Bayard was One of Bayard’s great called upon for a signal honor. The king, desiring to be exploits was in defense made a knight, knelt before Bayard and the brave of * castle at Brescia soldier placed a sword upon his shoulder creating him against an overwhelming J*Sbw.si <A fits we*,. <.< w^ t of attackers.

By Ahern

OUT OUR WAY

E /wouOof ‘TH’ 1 j! _ / etßAUiwr svovnvT i ( Oown PORtV GOOD, i \ TP HT ! 7 \ boT vnmere vou’rb II \VWEAV< IB ON TM' J T 1L \TtjRWS. HE.POES ARB MADE - KicrT SOffKl

h'ULBABE -how’© |ii tAHMMM SWtIA.! 1 WWE if you GET AlOtCXb ? } A GU6AR UA\E UOW EOR Yt\' , i I HOW WAG BOEAWIG6? ■ DRAG TOMORROW RW- U f . §L §jip-,r{ AUOTKER OWE TOR A TALKIE J k f M i2 P[A MCT ' ' TH’ NEXT OARVUEVb -AM’ OKIE A j a Lr\ y/m kjr emery evje nexi week- pJ .)

HC WCLE HARRY 7 / &T|| 7 X kAJEVN 7MAT rr // swell.' / 1

((($//% I f HOME WITH (jOli? X .. yJPLS? *** • Aim wt mu mmec. me. ta. u * **t. err '

OH,m M *LAO\ TUATS MY WWORVTt f MUSOSK.IADY! IT COULOM'T POSSIBLY CAWOY, RNO ITIS WGWTY HAROTb PINO Be ANY HARDER THAN IT IS w hn e „ a™„ , KiaH^WK’

WHOOPEE! POP. STOP THAT NONStNSt WHAT! SUN THAT PUSSY IMToY^WELL OF ALL I -WM . -ft.TA* J WILL YOO? AMD CHASE / THE STBEEt! DON’T YOU \ THINGS? ONE f A tA'U-yf ’ lW *‘' T CAT °° T 09 ™' s / PCALUC THAT IF IT HADN’T BEEN/ MINUTE YOUPE l A J V UOUSE tWGHT NOW BEFORE | FOO TWAT CAT \ MIGHT NEVER /READY TO KILL \' T BRINGS ANYMORE BAD VIAWC FOUND TH\S * SOO?THAT /IT AND THE NEXT

B Bayard met his death, which was worthy of/ his whole life, while with a few men he was holding back he" eeuid capture ‘the Spaniards from pursuing the Frew* army which euoh a “crary pigeon was retreating from a difficult position. Raising his house." he replied "there sword to his fee, he commanded his followers to v?rn JL i* " and face the foe. (Next: Carlo Sorromeo)

SKETCHES BY BESSEY. SYNOPSIS BV BKAUCHEB

JFEB. 27. 1929

—By William*

—tiv Martin

By Blnsser

15 v t iaue

By Small

By Cowan