Jasper County Democrat, Volume 16, Number 91, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 February 1914 — WITHIN THE LAW [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WITHIN THE LAW

By MARVIN DANA

FROM THE PLAY OF BAYARD VEILLER Copyright, 1513, by the H. K. Fly company.

CHAPTER XVI. Who Shot Griggs? FOR a few minutes longer the two men discussed the details of the crime, theorizing over the baffling event. Then Cassidy entered. “I got the factory at Hartford on the wire,” he explained, ‘‘and they gave me Mr. Maxim himself. He said this was surely a special gun, which was made for the use of Henry Sylvester, one of the professors at Yale. He wanted it for demonstration purposes. Mr. Maxim said the things have never been put on the market, and that they never will be. I got this man, Sylvester,” Cassidy went on, “on the phpne too. He says that his house was robbed about eight weeks ago, and among other things the silencer was stolen.” “Is there any chance that young Gilder did shoot Griggs?” asked Demerest. “You can search me!” the inspector answered. “My men were just outside the door of the room where Eddie Griggs was shot to death, and none of ’em heard a sound. It’s that infernal silencer thing. Of course, 1 know that all the gang was in the (louse.” “Did you see them go in?” “No, I didn’t, but Griggs”— “Griggs is dead, Burke. You’re up against it. You can’t prove that Garson or Chicago Red or Dacey ever entered that house.” “Well, then, I’ll charge young Gilder with murder and call the Turner woman as a witness.” 1 “You can’t question her on the witness stand. The law doesn’t allow you to make a wife testify against her husband. No, Burke, your only chance of getting the murderer of Griggs is by a confession.” “Then I’ll charge' them both with the murder,” the inspector growled vindictively. “And. by . they’ll both go to trial unless somebody comes through. If it’s my last act on earth. I’m going to get the man who shot Eddie Griggs.” Burke, after the lawyer had left him watched the door expectantly for the coming of Aggie Lynch, whom he had ordered brought before him. But when at last Dan appeared and stood aside to permit her passing into the office, the inspector gasped at the unexpectedness of the vision. The next instant the inspector forgot his sur prise in a sincere, almost ardent admiration.

The girl was rather short, but of a slender elegance of form that was ravishing. Her costume had about it an Indubitable air, a finality of perfection in its kind. On another it might have appeared perhaps the merest trifle garish. But that fault was made into a virtue by the correcting inndence of the girl’s face. It was a childish face, childish in the exquisite smoothness of the soft, pink skin, childish in the wondering stare of the blue eyes, now so widely opened in dismay, childish in the wistful drooping of the rosebud mouth. “Now, then, my girl,” Burke said roughly, “I want to know”— There came a change, wrought in the twinkling of an eye. The tiny, trimly shod foot of the girl rose and fell in a wrathful stamp. “What do you mean by this outrage?" she stormed. Her voice was low and rich, with a charming roundness that seemed the very hallmark of gentility. “I demand my instant release.” “Wait a minute!” Burke remonstrated. “Wait a minute!” “You wait!” she cried violently. “You just wait, I tell you, until my papa hears of this!” “Who is your papa?” “I shan’t tell you,” came the petu lant retort from the girl. "You would probably give my name to the reporters. If it ever got into the newspapers my family would die of shame!” “Now, the easiest way out for both of us is for you to tell me just who you are. You see. young lady, you were found in the house of a notorious crook.”

“How perfectly absurd: I was calling on Miss Mary Turner!’’ “How did you come to meet her anyhow?” “I yeas introduced to Miss Turner by Mr. Richard Gilder. Perhaps you have heard of his father, the owner of the Emporium.” “Oh, yes, I’ve heard of his father and of him too. [ f “Then you must see at once that you are entirely mistaken in this matter.” “You see, young lady, the fact is that even if you were introduced to Miss Turner by young Mr. Gilder this same Mary Turner herself is an ex-co.nvict, and she’s just been arrested for murder.” “Murder!” the girl gasped. “Yes. You see, if there’s a mistake about you you don’t want it to go any further—not a mite further, that’s sure. So, you see, now. that’s one of the rea-

sons why I must know just who you are.” “You should have told me all about this horrid thing in the first place.” Now the girl's manner was transformed. She smiled wistfully on the inspector and spoke with a simplicity that was peculiarly potent in its effect on the official. “My name is Helen Travers West? she announced. “Not the daughter of the railway president?” “Yes,” the girl admitted. “Oh. please don’t tell any one,” she begged prettily. “Surely, sir, you see now quite plainly why it must never be known by any one in all the wide, wide world that I have ever been brought to this perfectly dreadful place—though you have been quite nice. Flease let me go home.” She plucked a minute handkerchief from her hand bag, put it to her eyes and began to sob quietly. The burly inspector of police was moved to quick sympathy. “That’s all right, little lady,” he exclaimed cheerfully. “Now, don’t you be worried, not a littlekbit. Take it from me, Miss West. j\st go ahead and tell me all you know about this Turner woman. Did you see her yesterday?” The girl's sobs ceased. After a final dab with the minute handkerchief she leaned forward a little toward the inspector and proceeded to put a question to him with great earnestness. “Will you let me go home as soon as I’ve told you the teenty little I know?” “Yes,” Burke agreed promptly, with an encouraging smile. He added as one might to an alarmed child, “No one is going to hurt you, young lady.” “Well, then, you see, it was this way," began the brisk explanation. “Mr. Gilder was calling on me one afternoon, and he said to me then that he knew a very charming young woman who”—

Here the speech ended abruptly, and once again the handkerchief was brought into play as the sobbing broke forth with increased violence. Presently the girl’s voice rose in a wail. “Oh, this is dreadful—dreadful!” In the final word the wail broke to a moan. Burke felt himself vaguely guilty as the cause of such suffering on the part of qne so young, so fair, so Innocent. But his well megnt attempt to assuage the stricken creature’s wde was futile. The sobbing continued. “I’m afraid!” the girl asserted dismally. “I’m afraid you will—put me—in a cell!”

“Pooh!” Burke returned gallantly. “Why, my dear young lady, nobody in the world could think of you and 'a cell at the same time —no, indeed!” “Oh, thank you!” “Are you sure you’ve told me ali you know about this woman?” “Oh, yes! I’Ve only seen her two or three times,” came the ready response. “Oh, please, commissioner! Won’t you let me go home?” The use of a title higher than his own flattered the inspector, and he was moved to graciousness. “Now, you see,” he said in his heavy voice, yet very kindly, "no oue has hurt you—not even a little bit, after all. Now, you run right home to your mother.” The girl sprang up joyously and started toward the dbor, with a final ravishing smile for the pleased official at the desk. It was at this moment that Cassidy entered from the opposite side of the office. As his eyes fell on the girt at the door across from him his stolid face lighted in a grin. And, in that same instant of recognition between the two the color went out of the girl’s face. The little red lips snapped together in a line of supreme disgust against this vicissitude of fate after ' all her maneuverings in the face of the enemy. -

“Hello, Aggie,” the detective remarked, with a smirk, while the inspector stared from one to the other and his jaw dropped from the stark surprise. The girl returned deliberately to the chair she had occupied through the interview with the inspector and dropped into it weakly. It was after < minute of silence, in which the two men sat staring, .that at last she spoke with a savage wrath against the pit into which she had fallen after her arduous efforts. “Ain’t that the —est luck!”

"Cassidy, do you know this woman?” asked Burke. “Sure I do !” came the placid(answer. “She's little Aggie Lynch—con woman. from Buffalo—two years for blackmail—did her time at Burnsing.” For a little time there was silence, the while Burke sat staring at the averted face of the girl. Then he set his features grimly, rose from his chair and walked to position directly in the front of the girl, who still refused to look in his direction. “On the level, now,” the inspector demanded, “when did you see Mary Turner last?” “Early this morning. We slept together last night because 1 had the willies. She blew the joint about half past 10.".. “What’s the use of your lying to me?” "So help me,” Aggie continued with the utmost solemnity, “Mary never left the house all night. I’d swear that’s the truth on a pile of Bibles a mile high!” “Have to be higher than that. Mary Turner was arrested just after midnight Young woman, you’d better tell all you know.” “I don’t know a thing!” Aggie retorted. f Burke drew the pistol from his pocket and extended it toward the girl, “How long has she owned this gun?” he said threateningly. “She didn’t own it” “Oh, then it’s Garson’s 1” “I don’t know whose it is,” Aggie replied. “I never laid eyes on it till now.” “English Eddie was killed with this gun last night. Now, who did it? Come on, now! Who did it?” “How should I know? What do you think I am—a fortune teller?” “Now, Aggie Lynch, you listen to me. Tell me what you know, and I’ll see you make a clean getaway, and I’ll slip you a nice little piece of money too. Now, what do you say?” “1 say you’re a great big stiff! What do you think I am?” Aggie wheeled on the detective. “Say, take me out of here. I’d rather be in the cooler than here with him!” ’ (To be continued.)

“On the level, when did you see Mary Turner last?”