Indianapolis Times, Volume 40, Number 249, Indianapolis, Marion County, 7 March 1929 — Page 13

MARCH 7, 192°.

SHE BLAGK RIGEOW qgjy 01929 By NEA Service. Inc. 6c/ ANNE AUSTIN W%,

CHAPTER XXXl—(Continued) RUTH did not even raise her head when Letty Miller was dismissed, with the usual instructions from McMann, but she had the impression that Letty’s nearsighted, dull-brown eyes peered at her pityingly, asking her to forgive her for not having been able to clinch Jack Hayward’s alibi. But she could not look up, and Letty was gone. “Detective Carlson wants to report, sir," Birdwell announced from the door. “All right; show him in,” McMann replied curtly. “Hello, Carlson. Any news? You’ve seen all the stock salesmen that showed up, haven’t you?" “Yes, sir,” Carlson answered cheerfully, as he lowered his fat body into the chair vacated by Letty Miller. “Four of ’em blew in, with alibis all neatly wrapped up and ready to deliver. That accounts for all of Borden’s boys except Adams, and Grant, one of the salesmen, just received this wire from him. “I’ve checked his alibi with his landlady. He’s been renting a room in an apartment, of which he gave the address, and I called ths woman on the phone. Looks straight, all right. Here’s the wire.” McMann accepted the yellow sheet and scanned it frowningly, then, with courtesy which Ruth was not too utterly tired to appreciate, passed it to the girl. It was a long day letter: “Have just read of Borden’s murder. Saw him Saturday, left office about one-ten. He ordered me to Chicago, because he thought I was spending too much thought and time on my girl. “Went directly to my room, Mrs. London’s apartment, 128 West Sixty-fifth street, talked with Mrs. London for half hour and packed my trunk and bag. Had lunch with Mrs. London. Called my girl, made a date with her, and left apartment about 3 o’clock. “Met girl downtown half-past three. Was with her till my train left for Chicago eleven-ten Saturday night. Don’t give my girl’s name unless necessary. “Miss Lester knows Borden was sore at me and I don’t want police to think I quarreled with Borden and killed him. I did not. He did bawl me out for falling down on job, but gave me another chance. Show this wire to police if they haven’t found real murderer. “Am stopping at Drake hotel. Will come back immediately if necessary. Adams.” Ruth read it, and let the sheet flutter down upon Borden's desk.

“TTTTELL, Miss Lester, what do V V you think?” McMann asked. “I think he’s telling the truth,” Ruth answered dully. “It had not ■occurred to me to suspect Mr. Adams. I think it was fine of him to volunteer this information so promptly.” Or very clever,” McMann said Elowly. “Get the name of the girl from that chap Grant, Carlson, and go see this Mrs. London personally. I don’t quite like the looks of this. Too pat. Give the girl the works, too. . . . Did any of the salesmen have keys to this office, Miss Lester?” he added, when Carlson had left. “No. No one was supposed to have a key but Mr. Borden, Benny Smith and myself,” Ruth answered. “Rita Dubois had Mr. Borden’s key from Friday until today, but I never knew Mr. Borden to trust any one else so far.” “Os course, Borden would have admitted Adams, unless they had quarreled so violently that Adams had threatened Borden’s life,” McMann reflected aloud. “After Adams left—assuming that he has told the truth about Borden’s having ordered him to Chicago—he may have decided to make another appeal to his boss, to be allowed to stay here —” “In that case, he would have ridden up in the elevator,” Ruth pointed out drearily. “And Mickey Moran did not bring hihi up. Micky knows Adams well. He would not have forgottea if Adams had returned.

T7TP A/JrjV Salnt-Sinnor

Harry Blaine stepped gingerly over the threshold of the Hafnaway living room, feeling exactly like a foolhardy tourist, who insists upon peering over the crater of a volcano scheduled to erupt at any minute After greeting Faith rather absent mindedly and reassuring her about Tony's condition—for Faith had been the only one who sensed that the girl had almost fainted—the reporter took a seat on the big couch near Crystal’s wheelchair and surveyed the apparently harmless scene with a frown of concentration. There was George Pruitt, talking to Crystal again. “Ive been telling Faith that I want to paint you, Crystal,” he heard George Pruitt say eagerly, urgently. “You've made my fingers itch for a brush for the first time in months.” “You want to paint a portrait of me?” Crystal answered. “Why?” Before George Pruitt could answer Harry Blaine saw that he was not the only shameless eavesdropper of what should have been a private interview. Cherry Jonson, dragging Alan Beardsley by the hand, had come up behind Crystal’s wheelchair. Even though he was not at all under her spell, Harry Blaine could not help paying Cherry the tribute of a long measuring glance of admiration. Cherry forestalled George Pruitt's answer to Crystal's wondering “Why?" Her musical laugh tinkled out. “Why Crys, darling? Don't you really know why? It’s because dear old George has fallen in love with you. He always pays his lady-loves the tribute of paintihg their por-

“Os course if Adams came back with the intention of killing Mr. Borden, with the gun he knew was kept in my desk, he would have walked up, but if the quarrel had been so bitter as all that, Mr. Borden would not have admitted him, and Adams had no key.” McMann regarded the girl steadily through narrowed eyes, and slowly -a smile twitched at his grim mouth. “You’re anew experience to me, Ruth Lester! You’d give your life to save Jack Hayward's, if it comes to that* but you won’t throw the weight of a word against any other person that you don’t believe is guilty.” “I want the truth to save Jack,” Ruth answered quietly. “I know he is innocent, but I can’t blame you for suspecting he is guilty—except for one thing. All this long, dreadful day, Mr. McMann, no matter how much I wanted to help Jack, I have told you the truth, and have suppressed nothing—nothing! “And I asked you now not to forget that I have corroborated Jack’s alibi—that he rejoined me at the Chester hotel at ten minutes after two, and did not leave me again. According to Bill Cowan’s story, Borden was alive and talking over the telephone at ten minutes after two—” “With Jack Hayward!” McMann reminded her, with curious gentleness. “No!” Ruth cried desperately. “Perhaps with someone in Jack Hayward’s office, but not with Jack Hayward! I’d stake my life on that. I’ve pointed out the similarity of Jack’s and Mr. Borden’s telephone numbers. Either Cowan or the operator could have got the wrong number. And though I know you don’t believe her, believe instead that she robbed a dead man’s body, Rita Dubois has told you that Borden was alive until half-past two—when Jack and I stood in the lobby of the Princess theater.” “Then you believe that Rita killed Borden?” McMann asked suddenly. #u , n RUTH struggled with temptation, then raised her head to meet the narrowed, probing gray eyes of the detective. “I—don’t—know,” she answered despairingly. Then, desperately, her voice like a sob: “No, I don’t believe she did. But I know Jack didn’t!” “I don’t think Rita did it, either,” McMann said quietly, “because of—this,” and the detective thrust a hand into the pocket of his coat, brought out something which he extended toward Ruth on the palm of his hand.

CHAPTER XXXII T> UTH LESTER’S hand crept out, but her cringing flesh rebelled. She could not force her fingers to close upon the small, flattened-out lead bullet which lay upon the palm of Detective Sergeant’ McMann’s big hand. “The—bullet which killed Mr. Borden?” she gasped. “But I—don’t understand. . . . It’s—flat.” “Yes, it’s flat,” McMann agreed, with dreadful significance. “And it’s not the bullet which killed Borden. It’s—the bullet he fired in defenseof his life—but jast an instant too late.” Ruth shrank into her chair. “Please tell me. I don’t understand.” McMann’s hard, gray eyes dropped. “Detective Carlson found this bullet while you were out to lunch with Hayward. He found it on that strip of cement seven flights below,” and McMann pointed to the window overlooking the airshaft. “And after Carlson found this flattened bullet to his pocket and rose from Borden’s desk—“l found something else. Come here!” Ruth followed him jerkily, on ice-cold feet, to the window. Two pigeons, strutting about on the window ledge, took flight, but she scarcely saw them. Her wide, frightened eyes followed the direction of McMann’s pointing finger—a spot in the brick wall beside Jack Hayward’s window. “See?” McMann persisted, but without triumph. “Anew scar In

traits. Sweet of him, isn’t it? Faith was so flattered—” Harry Blaine was caught fast in the paralysis that gripped the whole room, for Cherry’s high voice had penetrated to every ear. The deathlike silence held for a full minute, and was broken by the swish of Faith's long taffeta skirt as she brushed past the couch on her way to her sister. So this was the eruption which Tony Tarver had foretold, Harry Blaine thought, the blood pounding hotly in his cheeks. Rather a minor eruption, but beastly—absolutely beastly. Was the little red-headed devil so insanely vain of her beauty that she could not endure that the slightest tribute should be paid to any other woman? “Bedtime, Crystal dear,” Faith was saying, her shame-flushed face bent over the girl in the wheelchair. “I am tired,” Crystal acknowledged faintly. Then. “Thank you, George,” she added non-committally, as Faith began to wheel her away. Cherry appeared to be entirely unaware of the fiendishness of her behavior. Lifting her beautiful and apparently innocent little face to Alan Beardsley, she commanded eagrly: “Come! You really must see the portrait that George painted of Faith. Asa Madonna, with MY baby in her arms. It’s in the sun parlor.” As she passed her husband, Nils Johnson, dragging Alan. Beardsley by the hand. Cherry laughed—a shrill, excited sound—that made Harry Blaine's scalp prickle with foreboding. The little fool! (To Be Continued.)

one of these old bricks. I’ve examined it—and it’s new all right. That is where this bullet struck—harmlessly. “It was aimed at Harry Borden’s murderer, who stood in Jack Hayward’s window, but the finger which pulled the trigger was that of a man mortally wounded—or the shot would not have gone so wide of its mark. Do you understand now, Miss Lester?” Ruth raised her trembling hands to her face, pressed her icy fingerstips into her throbbing temples “No! No!” she cried. “I don’t understand! All I know’ is—the person at whom that shot was fired was not Jack Hayward!”

U tt u M’MANN turned from the window, strode to Borden’s desk, took his seat again. Ruth followed unsteadily, her knees so weak with fright that they could scarcely support her small body. “What became of your pistol, which we know from fingerprint evidence that Borden had secured after you left Saturday, bothered me considerably until this evidence turned up,” McMann said slowly. “I believe that was shot as he stood against that open window, that, as he fell, mortally wounded, his pistol—or rather, your pistol— clattered out of his hand to the cement below. His murderer retrieved it, disposed of it along with the weapon with which he had killed Harry Borden.” “Retrieved it?” Ruth cried, suddenly electrified. “How? How? If you mean Jack Hayward when you say ‘his murderer,’ how could Jack have possibly retrieved my pistol on Saturday? “Otto Pfluger, the elevator operator on Jack’s corridor, has told you that Jack descended in his car, not more than ten minutes after Otto had taken him up. There is no way of entering that court below except through a basement door. I know,, because I once dropped my handbag out of that window and had to go clear down to the basement and through a door leading from the basement to get it. ‘lf Jack had done that, he would have been seen. Moreover, he did not have time to walk down seven flights of stairs, counting the basement stairs, and all the way up again, in the ten minutes he was in the building. And there has not been one shred of evidence from either of the cleaning women or any tenant, to confirm your earlier suspicion that Jack used my office key to get into this office after-'Mr. Borden was killed, to retrieve the pistol provided it fell tc the floor instead of out of the window.” ■McMann frowned thoughtfully as the almost hysterically triumphant girl made each of her points. Then, when she had finished, he asked slowly: “What about Saturday night or Sunday? Knowing that the pistol lay there, he could have taken his time about coming back for it.” “And there is no record of his being in the building Saturday night or Sunday,” Ruth told him triumphantly. “I havent’ seen the register for those days,” but I’m sure you have, and since I know Jack wasn’t in the Starbridge building after 2 o’clock Saturday until 9 this morning, I know his name is not on the register. That’s true, isn’t it?” “Yes,” McMann admitted. “But he could have walked down to the basement without using the elevator, or without being seen by the one man on duty after four o’clock Saturday.” “And that exit door to the court is kept locked,” Ruth cried. “It had to be unlocked for me. The porter in the basement had to send for Mr. Coghlan, the superintendent, in order to get the key to unlock it. Furthermore, Jack never had the key to this office, so he could not have come here Saturday night or Sunday and gained access to Mr. Borden’s office, even if he could have entered the building and left it un* observed by the elevator man. “You must believe me when I tell you that the key which the waiter picked up and handed to Jack was the key to my apartment, not my office key. No, Mr. McMann, you’re on the wrong scent. Please believe me, please keep an open mind for some theory which will explain all the facts.”

a a a “ A ND one of those facts,” McjlJl Mann pointed out, “is that Harry Borden fired a shot which grazed a brick in the wall beside Jack Hayward’s window.” “And what does that prove—against Jack?” Ruth challenged. “I’ll grant that Mr. Borden was standing near that window when he was killed, but how can you be sure that he was facing the window when he took aim? ‘lf his murderer—or murderess—fired at him in office, isn’t it easy to picture Mr. Borden’s arm flying out, after he was hit, so that the bullet with which he had meant to kill his attacker, was discharged through the window? Why assume that he had aimed at someone in Jack’s window? There was simply nowhere else for the bullet to go—” “Just a minute!” McMann interrupted. Detective Birdwell opened the door between the private office and the outer office. :, What is it, Birdwell?” “Commissioner Weeks on the wire from headquarters, sir.” McMann reached for the instrument on Borden’s desk, but before he removed the receiver, he spoke to Ruth: “That’s all for the present, Miss Lester. “Please remain in the outer office till I need you again. You might open and sort the afternoon mail. I’ll take charge of it and go over it later, of course.” As Ruth slipped through the door which Birdwell held for her she heard the detective sergeant greet his superior, the police commissioner. a a a SICKLY she realized what that call from the head of the police department meant. Commissioner Weeks was famous for his choleric temper, his impatient demand for quick results, especially in sensational cases, like the murder of “Handsome Harry” Borden (To $e Continued)

THE INDIANAPOIJS TIMES

OUR BOARDING HOUSE

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BOOTS AND HER BUDDIES

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MOM ’N POP

THE BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE

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OUT OUR WAY

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SKETCHES BY BESSEY. SYNOPSIS BY BRAUCHLB

PAGE 13

-—By Williams

—By Martin

Bv Rlnsser*

By Crane

By Small

By Cowan