Indianapolis Times, Volume 41, Number 295, Indianapolis, Marion County, 21 April 1930 — Page 11

APRIL 21, 1930.

\Mmmm I mmm I * jj ur tin copyright By nba service.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT INTO the twilight of the room stepped a woman's figure. The soft closing of the door was followed by the click of the light switch beside it. In the dazzle of light from the four wall brackets Mrs. Letitia Lambert was revealed, leaning against the door, as if she was too exhausted to take another step. From her lax left hand hung an afternoon paper, so folded that a two-column picture ol George Berkeley was plainly visible to the detectives watching from the clothes closet. Slowly she lifted the newspaper. Her closed eyes opened, fastened upon the picture with agonized intensity. With sudden fierceness she crushed the paper against her lips, low, dreadful moans throbbing in her throat, her usually serene face a masfe of agony. “Motive!” Captain Strawn breathed in Dundee’s ear and the younger detective pinched him to warn him to silence. The woman could not have heard, but she lowered the paper, lifted her breast in a tearing sigh and slowly started to cross the room. Her right hand, from whose wrist her handbag dangled, went up automatically to remove her close-fit-ting black hat. Dundee held his breath. The supreme moment was upon them. For as he had known they would, those tortured eyes flew’ to the dressingtable. Not once since Saturday morning —he felt sure—had Mrs. Lambert returned to her room without casting a terrified glance at her dress-ing-table to make sure that the black-and-gold perfume bottle had not betrayed her, that it was still there. How many times she must have seized it, wildly casting about for a means to ,hide It or to destroy its tell-tale contents, only to realize each time that she was safer with it in plain sight, in the place where Della, the iflaid, had been accustomed to see it. In its rightful place, it looked supremely innocent, for the black glass concealed the fact that, once nearly empty, it was now’ full. Missing, destroyed, it might betray her. Handbag, newspaper and hat slipped from her nerveless hands to the floor. Jerkily, as if she were half paralyzed, Mrs. Lambert crept to the dressing-table. The detective saw her stare at the label, which Dundee had printed and pasted upon the face of the bottle. A shaking hand went out to touch it, then shuddered away. Only then, it seemed, did she see the grayishwhite remains of her tennis oxfords.

OUICK! She's going to faint!” Strawn whispered urgently. Dundee was in time to catch her as she fell, but she was not unconscious. For a long minute she Jay passive in his arms, her eyes still fixed in a blind trance of horror upon a vision of ruined shoes and a grotesquely labeled pierfume bottle. Finally the paralyzed lids relaxed and curtailed the dawning agony of realization In her eyes. Dundee was merciful to her. Motioning to Strawn to stay in the closet, he rose with his burden and carried it. to the bed. She lay as if dead until he had gone to the bathroom, mixed a dose of aromatic spirits of ammonia and held It. to her gray lip>s. After she had drunk the dose, she closed her eyes again and lay motionless, except so; the rising and falling of her breast in quick, gasping sighs. Finally she spoke, her voice a gusty whisper: “I wasn't sure until today,” he answered gently. "At first I couldn't believe that you, who said you loved Doris, could kill her.” “I did love her!” the woman cried, beating her breast feebly with clenched hands. "That is what made it so—horrible . . . Oh, I'm glad it's over! Glad, glad! Do you hear? I couldn’t have gone on much longer, trying to be natural, having to talk of—her ... I was going to kill myself tonight. Why couldn’t you have given me time?” "Wouldn't you feel better if you told me about it?” Dundee suggested, very gently. "I am not trying to trap you, Mrs. Lambert. You realize that the evidence is conclusive. without your confession.” “Evidence? What do I care about evidence now?” she moaned, her hands still feebly beating her breast. "I warn you now that I'll not live to stand trial. I’ll find a way somehow—soon! . . . But you shan't go on thinking I lied about being fond of Doris!” “You killed her in a frenzy or terror. Mrs. Lambert, because she was determined to expjose you. not only as Mrs. Berkeley's would-be murderer, but as Phyllis Crosby's blackmailer,” Dundee told her euiet.lv. “Blackmailer?” she whispered, her eyes enormous. "I—never called myself that, but—l suppose it s true . . . We all lie to ourselves, justify ourselves, don’t we, Mr. Dundee?” she asked pitifully. She was silent for so long then

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I that Dundee was afraid he had pushed her too far, that she would not confess. But at last she cried: “Oh, what does it matter? It > will hurt Seymour less to know’ the truth than to go on being tortured with doubts of Phyllis’ love for him.” “I am sure of that, Mrs. Lambert,” Dundee encouraged her. a a a “T) LEASE try to understand — -L not to judge me too harshly,” she began, in a weary, flat voice. “All my life until my husband died ! I had more money than I needed —and all the pleasant things that go writh money and high social position. “When my husband’s estate was settled, I found that nearly everything was gone. You see, a woman had been blackmailing him heavily for years. Disillusioned, sick at heart, for I had loved my husband, I faced the world almost penniless. Forty-four years old . . . “The thought of marrying some middle-aged or old widower for his money was abhorrent to me and I I was not trained for any sort of work. “The only position I could possibly fill w’as that of social secretary and the idea was unthinkable —then. I was too proud, . . . “But to go back a little. A few I weeks before my husband died—he | was killed in a polo accident—l met ! and took a great fancy to Phyllis ! Benham. ! ‘‘lt amused and delighted me to force her upon society. My nephew, Tommy Cavendish, liked her immensely and I rather hoped he would fall in love with her. But Phyllis fell in love with Seymour Crosby. “Seymour did not have much money; he hesitated to ask the child to marry him, for fear her father would regard him as a fortunehunter. “One Monday morning Mr. Benham telephoned me that his daughter was ill and hysterical. I went. Phyllis told me a wild, almost incredible story. “She had a friend who had joined the chorus of a musical comedy, opening in Atlantic City >,ie previous Friday. Asa lark, Phyllis accompanied her friend, staying backstage. When the show was over two young men, thinking both of ' hem were chorus girls, invited them to go to a roadhouse. “Phyllis thought it would be fun to accept. There was some drinking —not much, she insisted to me—but several hours later Phyllis awoke, to find herself in a hotel bedroom with her escort of evening. “She began to scream. Guests reported the disturbance. The hotel detective came and was about to take them both to the police station. The man in the case equated it w’ith the detective, however, and left as soon as he could dress. “Phyllis had not given him her right name the night before and I tried to soothe her hysterical fears —told her she would hear no note about it. that it was not her fault, and that she must try to forget it. “Then she showed me a letter she had received that morning from Seymour Crosby. It was a proposal of marriage. She protested that she could not accept, although she loved him with all her heart. “The feat- of blackmail, she said, would hang over her head for the rest of her life . . . May I —have some water, please?” she gasped. a a a "QO it was Phyllis herself who suggested blackmail to you,” Dundee said thoughtfully, as he held the glass to her lips. “Yes. But at the time T told her that it might be best for her or for me to tell Seymour the whole ugly story, trusting to his love for her. But that idea frightened her more than the other. “The next day my husband was killed. I saw almost no one for weeks and had almost forgotten poor Phyllis' dilemma until I saw her picture and Seymour’s on the society page of a New York paper, announcing their engagement and early marriage. “Phyllis called on me just before the wedding and confessed that she was in terror lest her companion of that dreadful night had seen her picture and had recognized it: that he would blackmail her. knowing that her father was a very rich man. “Again I advised her to tell Seyrmour, but she said she could not; that she was going to beg him to take her to England to live for a year at least. “As you know, that is what happened. I visited in their home in London, then went to Monte Carlo, where I lost almost my last penny in a frantic effort to win enough to live on for a few months, at least. “It was then—in January—that I conceived the idea of—blackmail. Phyllis had told me the man's name, or at least the iame he had given her. I typed, a letter to her. signing the man's first name and asking her tc serd e. thousand pounds ir banknotes to ‘W. L. Parker.’ care of the American Express Company, in Paris. “The money came. I asked for mail for Mr. and Mrs. W. L. Parker,

representing myself as Mrs. Parker, and received the package without difficulty. It was—so easy ” “That you tried it again and again.” Dundee suggested softly. “Yes. But the last time I was frightened, fpr I had her send the money to the American Express Company in London. Doris saw me there, but I was sure she believed me when I remarked casually that I was asking for my own mail. “Phyllis told me that her worst fears had been confirmed: that she was being blackmailed and that her father had refused to cable her any more money. “She could not meet the blackmailer’s last demand. Seymour had sent for me, you know, to try to cheer her up. Me!” Tears forced themselves out of her closed eyes and slipped down her pallid cheeks. “I was the night she died. I told her. begged her, to end it all by telling her husband the truth. “I hated myself, wanted to sin no more, but so long as Seymour didn’t know, I knew I would be too weak to resist the temptation. “Phyllis thought the man had followed her, of course, that it was he who was bleeding her. Doris knew as much as Phyllis herself knew; the mistress and maid were the closest of friends. “At last Phyllis agreed to tell Seymour, and I left Phyllis on the roof to give him the message. You know the rest—that she died rather than tell him the truth. “At the inquest Doris exonerated Seymour, of course, but she confided to me that she would avenge her adored mistress if she had to devote the rest of her life to the cause. Her plan was to hire detectives to trace Phyllis’ blackmailer and make him pay for his crime. That is why she wanted the beauty shop —to make money more quickly. She never suspected that it was—l. She trusted me, was fond of me, until ” a a a “T TNTIL Friday night when she * J saw you pouring wood alcohol into Mrs. Berkeley’s perfume,” Dundee finished the sentence for her. ■’Yes,” Mrs. Lambert agreed dully. ‘I did not hear her come in; she moved so quietly always. “She must have been watching me for a minute or two, for she said: ‘So it was you—you!—who killed Miss Phyllis!’ I knew then that she would have no mercy, would not try to understand why I was planning to murder ” “I believe I do, Mrs. Lambert,” Dundee interrupted. “There were three reasons why you wanted Mrs. Berkeley to die. First, you loved her husband, and wanted him to be free to love you and marry you ” “But he didn’t know! He never, by a word or a look ” “I know. But you hoped he would marry you for Gigi’s sake, then come to love you for yourself. And Gigi knew you loved her father. Friday night, in a fit of hysterical resentment against her mother, she begged him to divorce her and marry you.” The drawn face softened, glowed. “Did she? My precious Gigi! Thank you for telling me. But oh, what will she think of me now?” “The second reason, of course, was that you adored Gigi. the child you told yourself you should have had.” “Yes,” Mrs. Lambert whispered and hid her face with her hands. “Third: The same reason you blackmailed Phyllis Crosby. Money. You could not endure the though> of poverty, of working for your inferiors, of being humiliated daily by a woman like Mrs. Berkeley.” “She deserved to die!” Mrs. Lambert cried suddenly, rising on her elbow to stare at him with wild eyes. “A drunkard, a fool, a selfish and cruel mother, a nagging wife to the finest man in the world . . . But I gave her her chance to live! Even after she had slapped my darling that night. I made her promise not to drink the perfume Seymour had given her. I told myself then: ‘I shall poison it tonight. If she breaks her promise, she deserves to die.’ ” “But it was Doris who died,” Dundee said. He rose and signaled to Captain Strawn, chief of the homicide squad. THE END. Oldest Resident Dies TSu Titnrg Special HORTONVILLE. Ind., April 21. Mrs. Amy Waller, 91. widow of Jacob Waller, died at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Dora Tingle, here. She was the oldest woman in Hamilton county and had lived at Sheridan until she came here a few years ago to reside with her daughter. Other children besides Mrs. Tingle, are Perry’ Lovell, Hamilton county, and Mrs. Harold Brooks ana Hamilton Lovell. Indianapolis.

THE SON OF TARZAN

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The feel of the long spear shaft in his hand and the sight ot the thorn tree beyond the lion gave the lad ar. idea. It was a forlorn hope, but his only change So. not waiting for the beast to charge, to the astonishment of Akut. he leaped swiftly toward the crouching lion. For a brief second was the lion motionless with surprise, and in that moment the son of Tarzan used an ac- . complishment of his school days, this time to sa\e his life.

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OUT OUR WAY

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Stra ght lor the savage brute he ran. his spear held butt foremost across his body. Akut shrieked in terror and amazement. The lion stood with wide, round eyes awaiting the attack, ready to rear upon his hind feet and receive this rash creature with blows that could crush a buffalo's skull. Just in front of the lion the boy placed the butt of his spear upon the ground. Before the bewildered beast could guess the trick it w-as too late.

—By Williams

gosh’, amothcr cuosecall 1 what arc. vou doin’ in TKaTS ABOUT Th' TeWTH I “Otis BURG- OUSTV?

For the boy gave a mighty spring and sailed over the lion’s head into the thorn tree-safe, but bruised. Akut had never before seen a pole vault. Now he leaped up and dowm within the safety of his own tree screaming taunts and boasts at the discomfited Numa. The boy, torn and bleeding, waited a full hour before the angry brute gave up his vigil and strode majestically away. Then he came down from his painful position.

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By Eclerar Rice Burroughs

Several days the boy and the ape rested. The great anthropoid licked the tortured flesh of his human friend, lacerated by the tree's sharp thorns, and it soon healed. But never again did the son of Tarzan uselessly tempt fate. When he felt fit once more, they continued on to th coast and at last his much-dreamed-of moment arrived. Passing through the tangled forest ho discovered something that set his heart leaping for Joy.

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—By Martin