Indianapolis Times, Volume 41, Number 160, Indianapolis, Marion County, 14 November 1929 — Page 16

PAGE 16

OUT OUR WAY

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BEGIN HERE TODAY SHEILA WILBER, daughter of WILLIAM WILBER Indianapolis manufacturer aid inventor, gives a dinner party at her Maple road home lor SAMUEL ENDERBY and JAMES WESTERVELT. electrical experts who are negotiating fat the purchaae of Wilber s invention, anew type of electric light. Enderbv Is accompanied by a 9-year-oid son. DICK. Other guests Include JOSEPH SMEDLEY. Marlon county assistant county prosecutor. Sheila's fiance, and FRANK SHERIDAN, wealthy youn,r lawyer, whose hobby Is solving crime mysteries. Sheridan meets and Is attrac erf to EDNA ROGERS. Sheila's chum. Edna's widowed mother. MARY ROGERS also Is a guest, as is ANDY MASTERS, Sheila's wayward cousin. who wani c 'ii nrrv Edne. but is entangled in a love affair with MERCEDES RIVERTON a stenographer in the office or HOMCR MENTON. an unprincipled criminal lawyer. A few days before the dinner party. a safe In Wilber's experimental home laboratory was looted, and a diary of Wilber's wife, now dead, stolen. The diary holds a secret of Sheila's birth and Sheridan, in the ro.e of amateur defective, is or. the burglars trail. The stolen diarv falls into the hands oi M'.iton. wno sees a chance to blackmail Wilber. Through a loan to Andv Masters who has squandered his fortune, he gains the youth’s consent to atd him In this sc ieme. Unknown to Masters. Menton also makes a deal with RILF.Y MORGAN again to rob the Wilher laboratory and steal Wilber’s invention. At the dinner. Westervelt recognises LENA SWARTZ, a maid as a woman who had been dismissed from his employ for theft Following the dinner. Wilber demonstrates his invention for the visiting experts. After other guests have departed. Smedlev and Sherldn arc ronversine on the veranda with Wilber and Sheila when CLARA the Wilber cook, runs to them screamlnK HOffVo on With the story CHAPTER EIGHTEEN CLARA swayed unsteadily on her feet and crumpled into a chair. Sheila ran to her and, kneeling on the floor, threw an arm about her shoulders. The terrified woman was trembling violently and her breath came in great, convulsive sobs She was unable to answer the volley of excited questions which rained upon her. “Keep quiet, you men!’’ Sheila said sharply. “Clara, what’s the matter? What’s happened? What about Lena? Where is she?” The woman lifted an agonized face and turned her head to the hallway that bisected the rear of the house. “The laboratory!” she gasped, "m the laboratory!” Wilber's face was drained of color. He leaped into the hallway with Smedley and Sheridan at his heels. At the laboratory door Sheridan pushed Wilber aside gently. “Let me go first,” he said, and entered the brightly lighted room. It was as they left it a few hours earlier. except that on the floor in front of the bench and almost parallel with it lay the still form of the Wilber maid. Sheridan, stepping carefully across the floor, leaned over and touched the WTist of an outflung arm. He hud it a moment, then turned his hJfld slowly. “Cold.” he said, “dead, without a doubt. No pulse. Joe, phone at once for a doctor: there might be a chance of resuscitation.” Smedley hurried back to the living room. Wilber, who had sunk limply into a chair at Sheridan's words, stared helplessly at the young lawyer. “Oh, no. no.” he whispered, “it can't be!” His eyes traveled slowly around the room. Suddenly he leaped to his feet. “The switch. Sheridan! The switch.” he cried, pointing to the panel above the bench, it's closed!” “And look. Sheridan,’.’ he continued excitedly, “the cylinder is gone! My God. what's been going on in here!” Sheridan. following Wilber's pointing finger, saw’ the closed circuit of the high-power switch which Wilber had used last in his demonstration of the Demorel experts. He remembered that the Inventor had thrown it off. He also remembered that Wilber had replaced the cylinder in the clips after it had been examined by Enderby and that it still was in place when they left the room. Now the clips were empty. He scowled. Standing by the side of the prostrate girl, he looked sharply about the room. “There’s the cylinder,” he said to Wilber, nodding toward the corner of the room nearest the bench. Wilber bent over to pick it up. Before he could touch it, Sheridan spoke Sharply: “Leave it alone; there’s something trueer in all this, and I want to get to the bottom of it before any of the trails are obliterated. First, we’d better attend to this." He stepped gingerly across the girl’s body and threw back the high-power switch, •That’s safer." "jpff be said to SmedleJ who

had returned to the room, “before the doctor comes I’d like to make a thorough examination of this room. Please close the door and lock it. ‘ On the face of things, this looks like an accident, but I don’t know — too much has happened in this room lately. First, the burglary of the safe and then this to top it off. I’m not much of a believer in coincidences.” He knelt on the floor and examined carefully the innocent-ap-pearing grey cylinder, rolling it over with the rubber ftp of a pencil. He gave a sudden start, rose to his feet and went over to the bench. Taking care to touch nothing, he made mental note of everything within the range of his eyes. He gave particular attention to the jig and clips which had held the cylinder, to a gluepot that stood nearby gnd to a number of thin strips of rubber cut in short lengths and piled in a small heap at the base of the gluepot. “What are these?” he asked Wilber, and pointed to the rubber fragments. “A rubber composition I use for insulation,” Wilber replied. “Why?” “I think we will agree that Lena has been the victim of electric shock,” Smedley said. Ignoring the question. “How did it happen, Mr. Wilber?” Wilber bowed his face in his hands. After a long moment he lifted his head. His lips twitched. “Poor Lena!” he cried. “It is all due to my inexcusable carelessness. Never before have I left the door unlocked when I was not in this room. And yet, I can’t understand it. “I have repeatedly warned that poor girl never to touch anything on the bench. What cleaning it had was done by me. She was a stolid sort of girl—never seemed interested in any of my experiments. Why she should come in here at just that time and throw the switch and then take hold of the glowing cylinder—it’s incredible: I can’t believe it. . . I. . . ” There was a hesitant knock on the door. “The doctor’s here,” Sheila's voice called from the other side.

“Oh, dammit!” Sheridan exclaimed, crossing the room. He lowered his voice and said: “Let me do the talking.” Grave, portly Dr. Race, carrying the inevitable black medicine case of his profession, nodded to the three men and briskly went about his business. He knelt beside the stricken girl whose body was sprawled out face down with one arm flung high over her head. He lifted the arm back and turned over the silent form. He felt her pulse, lifted an eyelid and held at ear to her breast. He rose, dusting his hands. “Nothing I can do here, gentlemen.” he said. “The woman is dead: rigor mortis already is setting in. How did it happen?” Sheridan explained Wilber's experiments and told briefly of the demonstration he had given to the Demorel experts and how the room had been left unlocked inadvertently. i “Curiosity evidently overcame the girl,” he said. “She probably was passing through the hall, the door open, and, peering in, noticed that thq cylinder was in the jig. Os course, she had heard of the invention, and I believe she was curious to see for herself how it worked. “She cleaned this room regularly every few days in Mr. Wilber’s presence, and knew how the switches were operated. After pulling the switch she must have touched the cylinder and received a fatal shock. The cylinder was jerked from its place in the jig as she fell. There it lies on the floor." “Ah. that explains a slight burn I noticed on her hand.” said the doctor. “Um, hum, electrocution, undoubtedly. A most distressing accident! Most distressing! Have you notified the coroner? You know, that must be done in every case of sudden violent death.” “No, we called you immediately after we made the discovery and awaited the result of your examination,” Sheridan replied. “Quite right, quite right,” agreed Dr. Race, "but he must be told at once, as you know, Mr. Smedley. With your permission, I shall noti-

—By Williams

fy him as soon as I return to my office. Please leave the body of this unfortunate woman as it is until they arrive.” Sheridan accompanied the physician to his car. As he re-entered the living room, Sheila stopped him. “I have just succeeded in getting Clara to bed,” she told him. “The poor thing’s nerves are shattered and I’ll have to return to her. She says she’ll be seeing ghosts if she’s left alone. “She says that after the caterer’s men had gone, she and Lena started to put the kitchen and dining room to rights, but a man who has been attentive to Lena was waiting for her out on the kitchen porch, so she let Lena go out to him. “Later when she went to look for Lena, she was not on the porch and neither was Mr. Riley.” “Who?” Sheridan asked quickly. “■Why, Mr. Riley, Lena’s beau. He had been hanging ’round all evening. Clara then looked through the hall and seeing the laboratory door open, glanced in and saw Lena lying on the floor. She said she didn't touch her, but she knew somehow she was dead. Oh is it really true, Mr. Sheridan? Is Lena dead?” “Yes, Dr. Race says she’s been dead several hours.” When Sheridan returned to the laboratory he asked Smedley: “What was the name of that burglar whom Captain Hunting identified from the description I gave you?” “Riley Morgan,” Smedley answered, “alias ‘Ratface’ Morgan.” “I thought so,” said Sheridan. “Now, we've got to work fast, and get some understanding of what we are going to do and say when the coroner arrives. I have my grave doubts that Lena met death accidentally, but I think it would be best for the present that the authorities look upon it as an accident.” “Great heavens, man, what do you mean?” Smedley exclaimed. “I mean that Lena did not throw that switch. The power was thrown on before she entered the room. I don’t know who did it, but I want to be unhampered in finding out. “I believe there is some connection between her death and the burglary of the safe. If that is so, we want to avoid publicity as much as possible.”

(To Be Continued) STORMS TAKE 3 LIVES Shipping Along French Coast Disrupted by Severe Gales. By United Press PARIS, Nov, 14.—Severe storms throughout France continued last night and early today, causing some loss of life and wide property damages. Shipping along the coast was disrupted. Three fishermen were drowned off Saint Valery en Caux when the storm wrecked their dory. A gale sweeping the British coal ship Astoria was reported to have blown the captain of the vessel into the sea off the French coast.

THE RETURN OF TARZAN

All day long Tarzan crouched in the Chamber of the Dead's grewsome shadows—waiting. And waiting, hopelessly too, on the lonely beach where they had oeen shipwrecked, the three castaways managed to live a month. The two men built a crude shelter in the branches of a tree, gathering fruits and trapping small animals. |

THE INDIANAPOLIS TLVIES

BOOTS AND HER BUDDIES

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FRECKLES AND HIS FRIENDS

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WASHINGTON TUBBS II

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SALESMAN SAM

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MOM’N POP

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Savage denizens of the jungle made hideous the hours after darkness. Jane’s thoughts often reverted to her former experience on this wild shore. Ah, if the invincible forest-god cf that dead past were but with them now. No longer would there be cause to fear the prowling beasts or the bestial, sinister attitude of the disguised Russian.

—By Martin

A scant five miles north of their Jungle shelter, all unknown to them, lay , the snug cabin cf Tarzan of the Apes. Still farther up the coast lived in romparatve comfort a little oartv of eighteen souls. These were the occupants of the other three lifeboats saved from Lord Tenningtop’s sunken yacht. None of them now waa much the worse for tl\e experience.

OUR BOARDING HOUSE

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r HI POP? tOOT A NEW I'LL WY WE L f cg T QLIT WITH VOUP "'"V INVENTION FOR VOO. \ WILL AND YOU'RE PVONEV INVENTIONS. AND IF VCW J HERE'"* THE MODEL. IT* ) THE FIRST ONE H S&r KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU S A GREAT IDEA AND WE'LL / VM CtCUNG TO , YOU WONT STOP RONNING^X

—By Edgar Rice Burroughs

Nearly two months of desolate existence had slowly passed for the ragged, fear-haunted trio, when the great calamity befell. Jane sat looking out to sea, always hoping a vessel might be sighted. She did not hear the Jungle grasses part behind her nor see the grotesque creeping form. A filthy paw stifled her screams and sh was bom swiftly into the Jungle.

NOV. 14, 1929

—By Ahem

—By Blosser

—By Crane

—By Small

—By Taylor