Indianapolis Times, Volume 42, Number 207, Indianapolis, Marion County, 7 January 1931 — Page 9

JAN. 7. 1931_

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BEGIN HEBE TODAY SPECIAL INVESTIGATOR DUNDEE believe* thfct both JUANITA SELIM end DEXTER SPRAOUE were murdered because thev were partners In a blackmail scheme, while the police theory is that thev were killed to avenge SWALLOWTAIL SAMMY" BAVELLI. whom they are supposed to have betrayed. Os Dundee’s six possible suspects his case is strongest against FLORA MILEB. He thinks It possible she killed Nita, thinking Nita had told her husband of some scandal involving her. and that TRACEY MILEB killed Sprauge to protect his wife from a charge of murder. He learns that Flora rushed Tracey into marriage, and that he. a "male wallflower. was very flattered. ..... In New York. Dundee finds that the dress in which Nita was cremated and which he thinks is a wedding dress, was bought in January. 1818. At the Forsyte School, where the women involved attended and where Nita was director of the Easter play, he learns that Flora lef; school and became a chorus girl in 1918. and that the rumor was that she had been living with an “85? parents brought her back.' and the storv vas hushed uo. He learns that SERENA HART. Forsyte girl and successful stave star, recommended Nita for the lob. She tells him that she met Nita who was very kind to her. in th* season of 1917-18. and that Nita was married and deserted before the show u'at ovfr NOW GO ON WITII THE STORY CHAPTER FORTY-THREE “*ikjO, I never met Nita’s husl\ band,” Serena Hart replied. ‘‘As a matter of fact, she told me extraordinarily little about him, and did not discuss her marriage with the other girls of the chorus at all. I got the impression that Mr. Selim -Mat, she called him—wanted it kept secret for a while, but I don’t know why, “This was early in 1918, as I’ve told you, though I have no way of fixing even the approximate date, and New York was full of soldiers. I remember I jumped to the conclusion that M ita had succumbed to a war romance, but I don’t think she said anything to confirm my suspicion.” “When did she tell you of her marriage—that- is, when—in relation to the date o', the wedding itself?” Dundee asked. “The very day she was married,” Serena Hart answered. “She was late for the matinee. Our dressing tables were side by side, and as she slipped out of her dress ” “This dress?” Dundee asked, and handed her the photograph of dead Nita in the royal blue velvet dress she had kept for twelve years. “Yes,” and Serena Hart shuddered. “Her hair was dressed like that. too. although she had been wearing it in long curls, and had to take it down before she could go on for the opening number. “She whispered to me that she had been married that day, that she was terribly happy, very much in love, and that her husband had asked her to dress her hair in the French roll, a favorite hair-dress with him. “Betweeh numbers she whispered to me again, telling me that her husband was ‘so different,’ ‘such a lamb’—totally unlike any man she had met on Broadway, poor child. . . . For she was a child still—only 20. but she had been in the show business since she was a motherless, fatherless little drifter of 16. . . . “No, she did not tell me how old he was, where he came from, his business or what he looked like, and I did not inquire. “As the days passed—weeks, probably—she became more, and more silent and reserved, though once or twice she protested she still was terribly happy. “Then came a day when she did not show up for the performance at all. The next night she told me that her husband had left her, after .a quarrel, and had not returned. It seems that she innocently had told him how she had vamped Benny Steinfeld, the big revue producer, you know, into giving her a “spot” in his summer show, and that her ‘Mat’ had flown into a rage, accusing her of having been untrue to him. She never mentioned his desertion to me again, but——” a a tt YES?” Dundee prompted. "Well." Serena Hart went on, uncomfortably, “I’m afraid I rather forgot poor Nita after ‘Teasing Tilly’ closed, for my next work was in stock in Des Moines. “After a year of stock I got my chance in a legitimate show on Broadway, and one day I met her on the street. Not having much to talk with her about., I asked her if she and her husband were reconciled. “She said no, that she never had seen him again. Then, in a burst of confidence, she told me that she had hired a private, detective out of her meager earnings to investigate him in his home town, or rather the city that he had told her he came from. “The detective had reported that no such person as Mat or Matthew Selim ever had lived there, so far

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as he could find out. I asked her ts she was going to get a divorce and she said she was not—that being already married was a protection against getting married in haste again. “After that, I rather lost sight of Nita, and practically forgot her, our paths being so very divergent.” “And you never saw her again?” Dundee asked, very much disappointed. “Oh, yes, two or three times—at openings, or on the street, but we never held any significant conversation,” Serena Hart answered, reaching for her hat. “Oh, yes! I was about to forget! “I had quite a shock in connection with Nita. One afternoonlet’s see, that was when I opened in ‘Hullabaloo,’ in which I mad” my first real success, you know—l bought the New Yosk Evening Star, which devotes considerable space to theatrical doings, to see what sort of review the show had got, and cn the first page I saw a picture of Nita, beneath a headline which said, ‘Famous Model Commits Suicide’ ” “What!” Dundee exclaimed, astounded. “Oh, it wasn’t Nita Leigh,” Serena Hart reassured him. “There was a correction the next day. You see, an artist's model named Anita Lee had committed suicide, and, as the Star explained it the next day, the similarity of both the first name and the last had caused the error in the photograph. “There was a picture of Nita Leigh, with Nita’s statement that ‘the report of my death has been exaggerated,’ and a picture of the real Anita Lee.” “When did the mistake occur?” Dundee asked, in great excitemnet. “Let me think!” Serena Hart frowned. “ ‘Hullabaloo’ opened in —yes, about the first of May, 1922. . . . Just a little more than eight years ago.” Dundee reached for his own hat, in a fever to be gone, but to his surprise the actress stopped him, a faint color in her pale cheeks. “Since you’re from Hamilton, and are investigating the muredr, you have undoubtedly met little Penelopo Crain?” tt a a “T KNOW her very well. It hapX pens that she is private secretary to the district attorney, under whom I work. . . . Why?” “I saw her as lead in the Easter play at Forsyte four or five years ago,” Miss Hart explained, her face turned from the detective as she dusted it with powder, “and I was impressed with her talent. “In fact, I advised her father, who had come from Hamilton to witness the performance, as proud parents are likely to do, to let her go on the stage.” “So you met Roger Crain?” Dundee paused to ask. “Oh, yes ... a charming man, with even more personality than his daughter,” the actress answered carelessly, so carelessly that Dundee had a sudden hunch. “Have you seen Mr. Crain recently? He deserted his family and fled Hamilton, in rather unsavory circumstances.” “What do you mean?” Miss Hart asked sharply. “Oh, there was nothing actually criminal, I suppose, but he is believed to have withheld some securities wnieh would have helped satisfy his creditors, when bankruptcy was imminent,” Dundee explained. “Have you seen him then— January, that was, I believe?” “January?” Miss Hart, appeared to need time for reflection. “Oh, yes! He sent in his card on the first night of my show that- opened in January. It was a flop—lasted only five weeks. “We chatted of the Forsyte girls who are now in Hamilton, most of whom I went to school with or have met at the Easter plays.” “Do you know where Mr. Crain is now?” Dundee asked. “I have a message for him from Penny, which I should like to reach him.” “Why should I see him again?” Miss Hart shrugged. “And I haven’t the least idea where he is living or what he is doing now. ... Os course, if he should come to sec me backstage after ‘Temptation’ opens— What is the message from Penny?” “That her mother wants him to come home,” Dundee answered. “And I am sure Penny wants him back, too . . . The mother is one of the sweetest, gentlest, most tragic women I have ever met

and you have seen Penny for yourself. “The disgrace has been very hard on them. It would be splendid if Roger Crain would come back and redeem himself.” Half an hour later Bonnie Dundee. in the file room of The New York Evening Star, was in possesion of the bound volume of the newspaper for the month of May, 1922. Under the caption, on the front page of the issue of May 3, which Serena Hart had quoted so accurately, was a picture of a young, laughing Nita Leigh, her curls bobbed short, a rose between her gleaming teeth. And in the issue of May 4 appeared two pictures side by sideexotic, straight-haired, siant-eyed An.ta Lee, who had found life so insuppoi table that she had ended it, and the same photograph of living, vital Nita Leigh. tt tt tt WHEN he returned the files he asked the girl in charge a question: “Does this copyright line beneath this picture”—ano he pointed to the photograph of Nita which had appeared erroneously—“mean that the picture was syndicated?” The girl bent her head to sec. “‘Copyright by Metropolitan Picture Service’, ” she read aloud. “Yes, that’s what it means. When the Evening Star was owned by Mr. Magnus, he formed a separate company which he called the Metropolitan Picture Service, which supplied papers all over the country with a daily picture service, in mat form. “But the picture syndicate was discontinued about five years ago, when the paper was sold to its present owners.” “Are their files available?” Dundee asked. “If they are, I don’t know anything about it,” the girl told him, and turned to another seeker after bound volumes of the paper. “It doesn’t-matter,” Dundee assured her, and asked for a sheet of blank paper, on which he quickly compared the following telegram, addressed to Penny Crain: PLEASE SEARCH FILES ALL THREE HAMILTON PAPERS WEEK OF MAY FOURTH TO ELEVENTH NINETEEN TWENTY TWO FOR .J3TORY AND PICTURES ON SUICIDE ANITA LEE ARTISTS MODEL SAY NOTHING TO ANY ONE NOT EVEN SANDERSON IF HE IS BACK STOP WIRE RESULTS HOTEL. In his hotel, while impatiently awaiting an answer from Penny, he passed the time by scanning all the New York papers of Thursday and Friday, on the chance of meeting with significant revelations concerning the private life of Dexter Sprague or Juanita Leigh Selim, united in death, by the press, at least. There was much space devoted to the theory involving the two New Yorkers with the murder of the racketeer and gambler, “Swallowtail Sammy Savelli,” but only two pieces of information held Dundee’s interest. The first was a reminder to- the public that certain theatrical columns of Sunday, Feb. 9, had carried the rumor of Dexter Sprague’s engagement to Dolly Martin, popular ‘baby’ star of Altamont Pictures, and that the papers of Tuesday, Feb. 11, had carried Sprague’s own denial of the engagement. “So that Is why Nita tried to commit suicide on Feb. 9—and her attempted suicide, with its tragic consequences for Lydia Carr, is probably the reason Dexter Sprague gave up his picture star,” Dundee mused.

(To Be Continued)

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TARZAN AND THE LOST EMPIRE

Furiously jealous of Von Harben’s easy success in the eyes of the lovely Favonia, Fulvus Fupus clambered from the pool and donned his garments. Forthwith he sought an audience with the emperor, Validus Augustus. “There is & stranger in Castrum Mare,” he said, “who is a spy frost Castra Sanguinarius.”

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Impressed by the patrician’s story, the emperor ordered Erich von Harben brought before him. Favonius and Lepus accompanied him, introducing Erich as a chieftain from Germania. The tales that Erich told of modern Rome so interested the emperor that he commanded the young German to write a history ’for him.

—Bv Ahern OUT OUR WAY

“There Is no evidence of this man being a spy,’ the emperor said to Fulvus Fupus. “Get out. I shall attend to you later.” Overcome by mortification, Fupus departed, vowing revenge, while Eric was escorted in honor to the emperor’s library, where he was to come every day to consult the parchments.

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—By Edgar Rice Burroughs

From these parchments Von Harben learned that in the year 90 A. D., Marcus Crispus Sanguinarius, Roman prefect in Africa, had struck down with a dagger a messenger sent by the Emperor Nerva and caused word to be spread that the man had been an assassin sent from Rome aid that Sanguinarius had killed in selfdefense.

PAGE 9

—By Williams

—By Blosser

—By Crane

—By Small

—By Martin