Indianapolis Times, Volume 42, Number 208, Indianapolis, Marion County, 8 January 1931 — Page 11

VTAK 8, 1931

Murder At Bridge /(Sts hu ANNE At 'ST IN _gu£Aay 0 £ 'the black pigeon* §) °i ’TUE avenging Backstay- \J

VHAPTER FORTY-FOUR “Did Nita let him persuade her fco go Into the blackmail business, to hold his wandering, mercenary Affections?’’ The second bit of information *hlch the papers supplied him was gleaned by Dundee himself, from a new summary of Nita Leigh’s last year of life as chorus girl, specialty <iancer, ’double’ in pictures, and director of the Easter play at Forsyte- on - the - Hudson. “If Nita got a divorce or even A legal separation from her husband after her talk a year ago with Oladys Earle, she got it in New York and so secretly that no New York paper has been able to dig it hp,’ Dundee concluded. “And yet *>he had promised to marry Ralph Hammond! ’ A bellboy with a telegram interrupted the startling new train of thought which that conclusion had started. The wire was from Penny. nun WITH a sharp exclamation of excitement and triumph, Dundee finished reading Penny’s telegram: • HAMILTON EVENING SUN DATE OF MAY FTFTH NINETEEN TWENTY TWO PUBLISHED STORY OF SUICIDE ANITA LEE ARTISTS MODEI. BUT PICTURE ACCOMPANYING WAS NITA LEIGH SELIM STOP NO CORRECTION FOLLOWED STOP WHAT DOES IT MEAN “What, does It mean?" Dundee repeated exultantly to himself. “It means, my darling little Penny, that eny one In Hamilton who had any interest in the matter believed Nita Leigh Selim was dead, and that the spelling of her name was wrong, not the picture itself ! . . . The question is, who read that story and gazed on that picture with vast relief?” Two hours before he had dismissed as impossible or highly impractical, his impulse to investigate the eleven-year-old scandal on Flora Hackett, who now was Flora Miles, as told him by Gladys Earle of the Forsyte school. Even more difficult would it be to find . out why Janet Raymond's mother had taken her abroad for a year Os course—he ruefully liad told himself—Nita Leigh might have been lucky or unlucky enough to run across documentary proof of one of the scandals of which Gladys Earle had told her, or had dared to blackmail her victim by dark hints, as Miss Earle unconsciously had suggested. But this new development could not be ignored. A picture of Nita Leigh as a suicide had appeared eight years ago in a Hamilton paper and • the paper either had remained unconscious of the error, or had thought it not worth the space for n correction. ... Eight years ago in June three weddings had occurred in Hamilton! The Dunlap, the Miles, the Drake weddings. And within the last year and a. half Judge Marshall, after proposing season after season to the most popular debutante, had marlied lovely little Karen Plummer. Suddenly a sentence from Ralph Hammond’s story of his engagement to Nita Leigh Selim popped up in Dundee’s memory: “And once I got cold sick because I thought she still might be married, byt she said her husband had married again, and I wasn’t to ask questions or worry about him.” "If Ralph Hammond had reported Nita accurately she had not said she Was divorced. She had merely said her “husband ' was married again!- - Why was Ralph to ask no questions? Divorced wives were not usually so reticent , . . Had Nita planned to commit the crime of bfgamy? If not, when and where and how had she secured a divorce? nun f’T'O Serena Hart, years before, she A had denied any intention of getting a divorce, for two reasonable she did not know where her husband was, and because, being married although husbandless, was a protection against matrimonial temptations. To Gladys Earle, a year ago in April, she had confided that she could not marry again, because she was hot divorced and because she did hot know the whereabouts of \iei\ husband. And so far as New York reporters had been able to find out, Nita Leigh had done nothing to alter her status as a married woman during the last year

BRRnD HDra - Ifpip* 1 ' ““ “■ i^T 1 ?6 zT ||§|r &gjßljT"" £? 5!

"HORIZONTAL 30 Stitched. VERTICAL Lawrence 1 In what coun- 31 Deposits. 1 To knock. who won try was a 34 To harden. 2 Custom. fame In treason trial 37 Dri P s ' vatcr 3 Mineral Arabia? broadcasted 38 T ° H * nder ® prl " g ; 15 Amend* .. , about. 4 Particle. proofs. •C? 1. 41 Yellow bugle. 5 Hurried. 17 To become BMaUnisdjc- 42 To piece out. 6To frost, exhausted, tator of 43 Beer. 7 Epoch. 18 Male an* the—? 44 To mend. 8 Thick shrub. cestors. O Snake. 45 Large Polish 11 Egg-shaped. 19 Skip. ; 10 Spinning toy. city. 14 Title of T. E. 20 Coin. >*C.n r. YESTERDAY'S ANSWER >ri... y . IM!A : DIAIM SILI IT S 24 Dined. ‘•SSBE* |teiaiii|iNEPii“^Mild - -ffIAXEBS AI L Final.. NjQMfefcdwfcriQ UW 17 Hair oint- lojß AjN DpMNBIOjNISIEITi 32 Xobleman. • ments. ID J_ V _ 33 Twist. 10 Mean hut. T AißllP A R PIDMA/laTm] 34 Courtesy 22 Living, v. A P EBS C A PEBA L E tlt,e * . v '“. P £'£r • ■ E Tfci|S E i rlfig S rc. tueL u 40 MoisturCb. I v ~

Moreover, if Nita. had secured either a divorce or a legal separation, her maid. Lydia Carr, certainly would have known it. And Lydia vehemently had protested more than once to Bonnie Dundee that she knew nothing of Nita’s husband, although she had worked for the musical comedy dancer for five years. Surely if Nita, loving and trusting Lydia as she did, had entered into negotiation of any kind with or concerning her husband during the last year, her maid would have been the first to know of them. And yet— Suddenly Dundee Jumped to his ! feet and began to pace the floor of his hotel bedroom. He was remem- ; be ring the belated confidence that John C. Drake, banker, had made to him the morning before—after the i discovery of Dexter Sprague’s murder. He recalled Drake’s reluctant i statement almost word for word: “About that SIO,OOO which Nita dei posited with our bank, Dundee. . . 1 When she made the first deposit of , $5,000 on April 28, she explained it with an embarrassed laugh as“‘back alimony,” an instalment of which she had succeeded in collecting from her former husband. “And, naturally, when she made the second deposit on May 5, I presumed the same explanation covi ered that sum, too, though I con- ! fess I was puzzled by the fact that both big deposits had been made in ! cash.” In cash! Had Nita, by any chance, been telling a near-truth? Had she been blackmailing her own husband—a husband who had dared marry again, believing his deserted wife to be dead—and justifying herself by calling it “back alimony”? But—wasn’t it, in reality, no matter what coercion Nita had used in getting the money, exactly that? . . . Back alimony! And the price of her silence before the world and the wife who was not really a wife? In anew light, Bonnie Dundee studied the character of the woman who had been murdered—possibly to make her silence etermaL a a a LOIS DUNLAP had liked, even loved her. The other women and girls of that exclusive, selfcentered clique of Hamilton’s most socially prominent women must have liked her fairly well and found her congenial, in spite of their jealousy of her popularity with the men of the crowd, or they would not. have tolerated her, ’•egardless of Lois Dunlap’s championship of her protege. Gladys Earle had found her “the sweetest, kindest, most generous person I ever met"—Gladys Earle, who envied and hated all the girls more fortunate than she. Serena Hart, former member of New York’s Junior League and still listed in the Social Register, had found Nita the only congenial member of the chorus she had invaded as the first step toward stardom. And Serena Hart had the reputation of being a woman of character and judgment, a kind and wise and great woman. . . . Finally, Ralp Hammond had loved Nita and wanted to marry her. Was it possible that Nita Selim’s only crime, into which she had been led by her infatuation for Dexter Sprague, had been to demand, secretly, financial compensation from a husband who had married and deserted her, a husband who,- believing her dead, had married again? But who was the man whose picture—to spin anew theory—Nita had recognized as that of her husband among the male members of the cast of “The Beggars’ Opera” when Lois Dunlap proudly had exhibited the pictures of that amateur performance? With excitement hammering at his pulses, Dundee took the bunch of photographs which Lois Dunlap willingly had given him, and studied the picture that contained the entire cast—the picture which had first attracted Nita’s attention. And again despair overwhelmed him, for every one of his possible male suspects was in that group. But he could not keep his thoughts from racing on. . . . Men who stepped out of their class and went on parties with chorus girls frequently did so under assumed names, he reflected. Serena Hart was authority for the information that Nita’s" had been a sudden marriage. Was it not entirely possible that the man who married Nita in 1918 had done so half-drunk, both on liquor and

infatuation, and that he had not troubled to explain to Nita his motives for having used an assumed name or to write in his real name on the application for a marriage license? Had Nita’s private detective journeyed out to Hamilton in a fruitless attempt to locate “Matthew Selim?” Bonnie Dundee lay awake for hours Friday night turning these and a hundred other questions over and over in his too-active mind, and slept at last, only to awake Saturday with a plan of procedure which he was sensible enough to realize promised small chance of success. u a tt AND he was right. Not in Manhattan, or in any of the other boroughs of New York City, did he find any record of a marriage license issued to Juanita Leigh and Matthew Selim. Not only was It entirely probable that Juanita Leigh was a stage name and that Nita had married conscientiously under her real name, but it was equally possible that the license had been obtained in New Jersey or Connecticut. When he gave up his quest at noon Saturday and returned to his hotel, he bought at the newsstand a paper whose headline informed him that Sergeant Turner was, at that moment, even more discouraged than himself. For the big type told the world: JOE SAVELLI “GETS” BROTHER’S SLAYER. And smaller headlines informed the sensation-loving public: “SWALLOW-TAIL SAMMY” SAVELLI’S DEATH AVENGED BY BROTHER, WHO SURRENDERS TO POLICE: “SLICK” THOMPSON. ALLEGED MEMBER OF SAMMY’S GANG, SHOT TO DEATH ON SIXTH AVENUE. Still smaller type acknowledged that Joe Savelli, after giving himself up, with a revolver in his hand, had disclaimed any knowledge or connection with the murders of Juanita Leigh Selim and Dexter Sprague. Two hours later, Dundee received, a long telegram from District Attorney Sanders h: INFORMED BY EVENING SUN AND CAPTAIN STRAWN THAT SAVELLI ANGLE IS COMPLETE WASHOUT STOP HAVE ' YOU MADE ANY PROGRESS ALONG OTHER LINES STOP HAVE INFORMED REPORTERS YOU WORKING INDEPENDENTLY WITH STRONG CHANCE SOLVING BOTH CASES STOP WOULD LIKE YOU HERE FOR ADJOURNED INQUESTS ON BOTH MURDERS MONDAY STOP MOTHER IMPROVED AM ON JOB AGAIN, Since Dundee felt that there was little chance of following through either on the scandals which Gladys Earle had hinted at, or on Nita’s strangely secret marriage of twelve years before, he immediately dispatched a wire to Sanderson, assuring him that vital progress had been made and that he would leave New York, on the 4 o’clock train west, arriving in Hamilton Sunday morning at 8:50. Sanderson's wire, with its confession of an interview on Dundee’s trip, to New York, had upset him and left him with a cold feeling of fear that, stumbling half in darkness, the district attorney unwitting had warned the murderer of Nita Selim and Dexter Sprague that his special investigator was on the right track. An hour before he reached his destination on Sunday morning he went into the dining car and found a copy of the Hamilton Morning news beside his plate. (To Be Continued!

STICKEP.S AEIOU . Can you find a word In the English language that contains the five vowels, in alphabetical order? Each vowel must appear but once, and in the order shown above, but other letters may be in between them. g

Answer for Yesterday

HTML ' \rtL) The fetters at the top* when properly arranged, form the swastika, famous oriental symbol of “Good Luck,” shown in the circle.

TARZAN AND THE LOST EMPIRE

1 . Li

Reporting to his lieutenants and centurions that Nerva was sending a large force to destroy them, Sanguinarius led his army in retreat up the Nilus. A caravan was approaching with women slaves from the east and the Romans set upon It and captured it, Sanguinarius taking the fairest of the slates as his'wife and riding off with her. . -

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

OUR BOARDING HOUSE

hUG W MV StfUrFU£ ! U&'A’T Tme S You -WfT I WAV** IHA X KMOW ABctrr lU STOCK )( j You UIEPE RS >IuAILEP o*l FIF-TEEM Hi /i NEARS AGO -w'-fR* (4> A ' A-r 7 uoriH Americam viilp 'JL pop-euAii f T You j PUCK AMP GEESE f YAPPS’ l COPPOPA-flOSi 7-w f JiBBOAi A, —•'EAcrf SvIARS WAS w.orr. Siaai tewvrcr- rwe ?- B “ j

FRECKLES AND HIS FRIENDS

'A>OV9 <SOIWS To ) V&S, A U\C& AkKSEu f AU£L FCOQ CAWS '.! 1 \v WI/IM& BAIZE A CAtce R* \ R3OD CAWS-AWO W SEE.... THAT'S KKV \\ WWmM Boy.' Jf*** beat the 'white fayobite caize, J X HAV6MT HAD VOF E<3<SS OWTiI. T&O.-I CAM ALMOST S . CAIzE FOB. YEAI2S. STIFF... -TASTE IT AU2EA ay....’) rr seeds'.’ ' J JZS g-.V.

WASHINGTON TUBBS II

B C WUM 6U J,LOP V EU L£ ' S 50 TrtOSE V ! HEYI HHtUT’S Vbo NOT RESIST,Y u2tSo\Sssf Juaa. uJt GETS W&LL AVIT> 60,105 Ulwo ro WMOUJTIONtSTS. \th E 816 IDEA, IsENOR. I HAF S 1 E S’ S ruc 7 &MoTher ome - ThEV ' R£ \ BUMP 0S OPF - Foc T^T A<ATT E R >jv soldier? /orders for your SSS /SS BOUND TO—WEU.ters) I THINK (THIAS ThO. AMO SO ARREST. 1- —'

SALESMAN SAM

OF E&&S, t-YR-S. 7"^ L( - HtCA TO BE. Y /p.NO BREAK AMY 1T& , Y ( - t'LU. BE Y WHOOPEE' OEsV X Vess’e-t t’u_ ■semo S verv CFiß.eFuc.-tTs oommp, e>e 3-ust too baoi / careful! U ( Few slides torso SfttS RIO4TT* OVER VO - ~ |j— -r ? - -

BOOTS AND HER BUDDIES

f T ; prr ""i ; N K WtCE | Gtfc.Tt\XM- 1 VftW‘VSE& , 6°Oo J A l\l’ TWtKtfER j \’M So*<3.V VaW I \ CfWv kWORO 1-i. *. ,~ VCT V. j *

For five years Sanguinarius led his troops and their wives further into Africa until he discovered the hidden canyon, where Castra Sanguinarius now stands. There an assassin’s knife put an end to him as the culmination of a revolution among his followers. The rebels founded the city of Castrum Mare.

—By Ahern

So for eighteen years, von Harben learned, the two city-states with separate emperors had been in almost constant warfare. But the fascination of history became irksome, when he realized he was a virtual prisoner in the emperor’s library. He was thinking of escape when he looked up into the face of lovely

OUT OUR WAY

/Meres a y / jtsT uwe. \ /coat OV j / \ / J\jkaDikj' t*sTO \ j G.PAVJ PAQS L : A feather \ -fM* CQCW", ABOOT y-.HTTT.ra *: AV I " I BED . pi FteauwAßW AKJ \Y; ! YOU E.IVJK* -r_c COv-O ATEC? VYP'-' ! xva \T - x COwD . P CouPvA <E>MEE-TE> CUOS.R 7 lrw . J.ST / * I&VIT Ivi AOvjc>T ' 7/ \ E'-'Ew Part o' YOo

I^—^, ... "J

VA CAwV U 01' MAW ’TOOWaSTO** ] [ WJSVX/WW* \\ \ Itu 'em STCAWH-T Ala Af*o-OHOrto } |J &ch ( AVtr ATTO9D rwef U*>ew me \ y*' ov* Gtttft r.avs., n!e!t£ L I ’“' WOW • r-TTVr Mfc OOWW VOR VfTPAViAeA*ST GOS*!! 6 A c — -s rt 'aw*' mk vaovx ,\Ye * ct% m* t 1 , *' w ...

—By Edgar Rice Burroughs

In the company of Favonia von Harben had no thought of anything except to be always in her company. So while Tarzan of the Apes was being dragged into the dungeons of Castra Sanguinarius, the young German was blissfully wooing the lovely Roman maiden under a summer moon. And Fulvus saw them and planned his vengeance.

PAGE 11

—By William*

—By Blosser

—By Crane

—By Small

—By Martin