Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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% ’f J f The Barnwell People-Sentinel, Barnwell. S. C, Thuraday^ AugUHt 6, 1936 UNCONFESSED CHAPTER XI—Continued —10—• Ten minutes later I was in my room, feellnp as stunne<I and bewildered an If I had Just run, raclnj*. full tilt against a wall. The thing that I had found out In those last ten minutes, the thing that my (lash of Inspiration had led me to, simply did not fit In. Sheer accident must have Intervened. Another maid. . . . I felt as if I were sinking In one of those morasses where everything you lay hold on slips out from under your clutching fingers. The death of Anson had so filled my mind that I had been forgetting the menace of all that had gone be fore, but now It reiHMSsessed me very completely. I was not so frightened for myself as I ought to have been; I knew my own Innocence so well that 4 was naively sure I could make It clear, but my forebodings deepened when I thought of Deck, high-strung, defiant, confronting Donahey’s hard, alow-focusing distrust, and llarrlden’s outspoken hate. I wondered If they had decided to arrest him. The finding of that dia mond must have seemed to them con clusive. They might have arrested him at once, I thought, hut for the finding of Anson's body. That death had be wildered and distracted them for a time, but now they must he all the keener for some decisive action. I could see Deck held up before the public as an unscrupulous spendthrift making love to a rich woman, trying to trade on her afTections, drunkenly threatening her when she refused some* sum, then murdering her for the pos session of her diamonds. He would be represented as having tried to hide the chain with me but as having retained possession of the big diamond that might, more easily, escape a search. It all fitted together. Now that the diamond was found Ilarriden must be surer than ever that his suspicions had Ven right. ... He would make every body else sure. I was glad I had spoken to Donahey •bout Kanclnl and Anson, rerhap* I bad roused enough suspicion In Don- • hey'a mind to delay his action against Deck If only my clue had not failed me—If only I had found what I ex pected to find. . . . Well, I hadn't. All right then. I thought determinedly. I'd •ee what sort of case 1 could build up, •nyw ay Nora Ilarriden had Iteen quarreling with a man In her room altout seven- thirty Kanclnl might have been the man for all hla wife* testimony that ha had been In hla own room. . . , l^ter. tfter Ilarriden had gone down. J ha had atriqied Into Nora ■ room again Mary Hastings Bradley Copyright by D. Appleton- Century Co., Ine. WNU Service CHAPTER XII Darkness and emptiness greeted me; the curtains hung closed against the light, their heavy folds forming black oblongs along the shadowy reaches of the walls. The darkness played on my nerves, and I reached hastily for the electric switch. The opening of a door at the far end of the gallery made me straighten and whirl about and started my heart to hammering. I 'told myself to be wise and wary. ... I told myself that this was my chance to learn something. It was not Kanclnl who came In that door. It was Alan Deck. He was the apparition of the first night I had seen him there, his handsome face marked with tormenting bitterness. Impulsively I started towards him; we met In the middle of that vast room. He murmured, a wry smile on bis lips, “I was afraid you might not come.” I stammered my surprise. “Oh, did you—did you send that note?” "Who else?" "But—in Italian?” “Did you think It was Kanclnl?” he grinned. “I wrote In Italian because I knew you knew it, and I didn’t want Wa Baqan to Walk Up Dawrn That Hug* Gallery. Nora bad lM*rn atabbr*!. Kanclnl had the arrvanta to reed It. . . . However. • cane, with a Blabbing knife me real ad that pa Mr a fellow lagged toa. Be*a Jaat In one end. He had *l|»*d It off with eutslde" a handkerchief - I aald la • Mr towe. -Well, he knows Not hla o«n Ilia own dl«l n*>( match we are here together. That can't he that bloodstained one lie had ph'hed helped . . . Kut he rant hear what we up one of l»ana to wl|ie off the bl«MH|. ^ say If we stay away from that door.** He had locked Nora In the rhmet. lied ba< k to hli room, naabed out the hand kerchief and apn-ad It on live radiator to dry Then, selred with the thought of making the muriler appear a aul ride, lie had ahp|«ed ba« k again, thrust . her out the window, after slutting the | So wa began to walk ap and down that huge gallery. *1 expect It Isn’t very helpful for you to be seen with me—hat I had ta are you somehow." Tbey'vn linked na ae In awaplrtoa I tkat It would be only natural for us to dlatuotola In hla po« krt. and hurried talk thlnga over." | aald stoutly, down to dinner. | that the auepMon can do you any real harm." he declared. “They During the M-arcb for Mrs Ilarriden. Anson had hapie-ned to notice the dry Ing handken blef. . . . iVrhape the prince had notli-ed if. later, and stuffed It In hla |MM'ke| wtlh the diamonds. That night, he had torn out the Initials and Molrn up with the diautomls to my room. He had rho»eo me. I thought, be rause if he were discovered there hla fertile Imagination would twnceive the Idea of saying that It was a rendes- vous. If 1, alone, discovered him, he would try to make love to me. ... It would 1m? Juat what he would think of . . . Aa for the big diamond, he had hlddeu that, but after Anson's death — and my suspicion Insisted that he had killed her—he had realized the danger ae waa In, with that body In his closet, and so he had hurried to get rid of the pendant and at the aame time to throw more of the suspicion upon Deck. Some things I could not explain to myself. Why had Letty Van Alstyn fainted at Hurriden's dreadful words? If she were guilty, then I could credit her with a moments faltering weak ness as she saw the fate she was bringing upon an Innocent man, hut if she were not guilty, if she had no rea son to know Deck Innocent — I could hardly believe, after Mitch ell s words about her, that she would faint out of sheer compassion. And what about that crescent? Why had she wanted It buck from Anson? And how had Anson come to have It again In her hand? But these did not seem to me the es sential questions. The thing was to establish my suspicions of Kanclnl. A knock came on my door. One of the butlers, draff, it was, stood there with a note on the house uote-paper. I came back into my room, pressed on the lights and tore open the stiff paper. Scrawled across the sheet was a single line, written in Italian! "Please be in the picture gallery in ien minutes.” Some of those minutes I spent In brightening up that scared looking girl I saw in the glass. ‘‘You’re not afraid,” 1 told her. “He isn’t going to choke you to death." Before 1 left the room 1 wrote In English, below that scrawl on the let ter, “I have gone to the gallery to meet Banclni," and signed my name with Then 1 went to the picture can't do any thing Is yon aim ply b+- rwuae I hr diamonds wera found pinned in )<Hir drr«a They’ll have to believe y«»ur atory. The publicity may be deuc ed I y annoying for you. hut that's all." I hoped he was right "They may end by proving that I pinned them there!** Ilia laugh waa ragged. He groaned out. "It'a this dr- rumatantlal stuff that gets met First my threats, then Anson seeing me out- •hie Nora's door—coming out of It, as a matter of fact, but ahe can’t tell that now—then the diamond hidden In my cigarette eaae, and now Anson's being choked off. In an empty room, while I was conveniently at hand, around the corner. God, I almost believe In my guilt, myself!" •'But who did it?” I demanded des perately. ’’How do I know? 1 don’t give a damn who killed either of them,” he said, his voice roughening "Just ao Ilarriden stops riding me. ... He came downstairs again when I was with Donahey.. . . Those letters have driven him crazy.” "Letters?" “My letters," he said with Indescrib able bitterness. “The fool love letters that I wrote—oh, months and months ago. The letters that she threatened to show him.” I was stupid with surprise. “To show him—? Why—what for—” “She wanted to "play hell with me! That was what for.” He remembered to lower his voice to a hard undertone. "To make me marry her. To make Dan divorce her. I was through, but she wasn’t going to let me off.” Well, I knew then. I had always known, hut I had been wilfully trying to hold truth away from me, to imagine a hopeless, romantic Infatuation. . . . But It was a curious sort of shock that he had been “through." In a more guarded voice he went on, “She’d made a scene that afternoon— that was what Elkins overheard. Swore she’d get a divorce and make me marry her. Said Dan would divorce her like a shot if he found out, and she was going to tell him. I told her I'd give her the lie, and she said she’d show my letters. That was the first time I knew she hadn’t burned them, as she liad said. "She showed them to him all right," Deck muttered. "He was quoting from »e went ermsy —when they found the diamond. There were phrases that he’d gotten from them. About having compassion on my lovesick soul—about drowning myself In her eyes!" “They were beautiful eyes,” I said stonily. Suddenly I remembered something. I remembered those slow, blunt fingers of Hurriden’s moving about In his wife’s dressing case, searching the key to the Jewel case. I remembered their pause, their feeling over and over the silk lining, and the queer, Indefinable look that had passed over the man’s face. ... I had thought him recollect ing some association. Quickly I spoke. "I don’t believe she showed them. I believe that he found them where she kept them hidden—un der the lining In her dressing case.” I told him, In a carefully lowered voice, all the details. He nodded. “That might be. More likely than for her to show them. Tell ing him about me would be enough. He’d see red. Anyway It’s the same thing now. He’s read them. Probably been reading them all these nights.” I felt sorrier for Ilarriden than I had ever felt for any person In my life. “He loved her—terribly,” I said. "Oh, he was a fool about her. 1 was a fool, too, In my time,” he ac knowledged grimly. “The damnedest fool alive. I always am about beauty. You know that thing of Cecil John’s— ‘Oh, I am Beauty’s fool?' I thought her Aphrodite herself, all love and loveliness.” Harshly he pronounced, “And she was a cheat and a wanton—and a dom ineering devil. What’s worrying me Is that one of those letters, the very last, was written In a rage. I’d been breaking away and she'd started threat ening—she might have known she couldn't make me come to heel! I told her I’d see her In hell before I married her. I wrote her that That would supply the motive, wouldn’t It? All that the case larks now. Doing away with her before ahe made the scandal." I couldn't speak for a moment "It waa—definite." I said then, a little shakily. After a minute he brought oat: "She might not have kept It. Her pride might have been too great And Dan's pride may k«ep him fma using It He’d hale the world to know I chocked hla wife." "I like him for that" Something la my toa# moat have •lung him. for he aald quickly. “Deaf think any worn* of me thaa you have ta. I saw him Aral aa a Jealous bruta and ah* aa a lovely amrtyr | thought wa were eat It led to our lose ... I didn't know her " He weal ee talklag to hla teuae aa dertnao. the peat ap emotloa aeethlag out la him. *T waa mad with worry that Aret eight I met you here. I'd coma ap ta try aad cool off-to plea a way out ... I waa wuodeviag how to get hold of those letters , . , Wow- dering If I could play a game with her . . , Then | saw you aad I thought. Thima It. there’a a girl thet’e real—a girt I uaat to kaow.* aad I kaew If I made a move te you that Nora would rip the* roof off. I felt tied hand aad foot. That made me hotter thaa ever." "Hat you asked a»e to go «p to her—" "I kaow. There uaa wmetklag a boot you—" He broke off and added. “It would ha«e bee# all right > com I eg ulth that awuaaga. Aad I waa dru- perate." He broke out aow. "If Daa thought that letter would aend me te the elec tric chair, he'd sink hla pride aad uaa IL He'd ■ bow me up. Brat aa the se ducer of bis wife, then as the a baa doner. If that last letter got to a Jury I wouldn't kata a Chlnatnaa'a chance." He turned on me bla bitter, desper ate eyea. “I must get tboaa letter#. That’# my only way. ... Ha can’t be carrying them about with him, they're too bulky. They must be somewhere in the room." I suggested that they were probably still In the hiding place In the case. "That’s right. . . . Look here—can you, think of any way of getting hold of them for me?" He stopped short, gripping hold of my arm. "The funeral is tomorrow—he’ll leave In the morn ing and take all the stuff with him. My only chance is now. ... Do you think you could work on your maid?” “To do what? To steal them?” “I'd pay anything I could." I knew It was folly to Imagine brib ing that sensible maid of mine. . . . But there must be some way. I could see that his very life might depend upon getting hold of them. I said again that the thing to do was lo find out who really had done It, then the letter wouldn’t matter. At the look In my face he flung out, not unreasonably, “How can I find out —overnight?” And then, “I don’t give a damn who did It, I tell you, so I get out from under. Once I’ve got that letter—I’ve got to get that letter I If I thought I could knock him out and get away—” CHAPTER XIII It was a thoroughly shaken Leila Seton who went back to her room, to the tray of dinner waiting on a little table drawn close to the rose cush ioned chair. The soup had chilled, the food cooled, but the coffee in the ther mos pot was hot, and I drank It grate fully. My mind was Just a sounding board for the words and phrases of that past boor. Too flung myself Into yoor Mends. . . . I thought her Aphrodite herself. ... 1 was sick of Her. ... I don't fife s d—n who killed either of them. . . . I told her I’d give her the He. . s . It wa* more pique than passion. ... To play hell with me. ... i And I thought that Nora Ilarriden, dead, had chminned to play hell very thoroughly with the living man. I wanted to see Monty Mitchell. He. at any rate, was concerned with the problem of finding the real killer, and I hoped he had made some discoveries that would bolster my suspicions against Kanclnl. Down the stairs I started, pausing, on the second floor, to glance along the main hall to that closed door behind which Nora Har- rlden lay. Tomorrow that door would open and her body would be carried to Its last resting place. Ilarriden had decided against having It moved to their home. He wanted no ceremony except at the grave. There she would be left, under her mound of costly flow ers. Finis for Nora Ilarriden. Finis, too, for Sonya Anson. There would be an inquest for her tomorrow, and afterwards a simple funeral serv ice In some undertaker’s chapel, prob ably. Fewer flowers on her grave— fewer headlines in the press. Elkins for chief mourner. I went on downstairs. The house there was a blaze of lights. In a few minutes Monty Mitchell came down. “I wanted to see you," I confessed. ‘T’ve been hoping that you’d found out something.” He put his hand through my arm, leading me over to the deep divan where we had first talked It all over. “Give me a little time, my dear," he was saying. Then, “You know I’ve got an Idea—a very luminous Idea.” I waited, eagerly. “But not a word till I have put a foundation under It." After a moment I said to him, ‘‘I’ve Just been seeing Deck. We’ve v Meen talking up in the gallery togethe^* He raised his head and blazed out, “You pair of fools!” “Deck needed some one to talk to," I retorted, defensively. “Yes, and he needed some one yes terday afternoon. . . . Hasn't the man got enough on his mind without having to have you entertain him?” “Yes. but tonight It was about the case—It was because he had so much oo hla mind, lie wanted to talk It over with me.” I hesitated, then I thought there could be no harm In telling Monty Mitchell about Deck’s letters aa long as I did not mention the one which cava any mot Da for murder. Deck had not wanted Monty to know about that, bat Moety had already shows hla knowledge of thetr love affair. So I told him. "Ilea afraid—he’s }, really —that llarrtdea has f. md of hts old letters ta Mrs. liar- ridea—letters wrlttea eum# time are Ha aays that Harrldre was qwotlaq from them veaterdav—aad a gala tw- Pattern No. 1916-B This clever dress features a flattering yoke which dips to a point in front and is equipped with twin slashes a few inche- be low thd neckline to accommodate a ribbon bow of any color you wish to use. Most women like several different ones to which they match their accessories. Radiating tucks at the yoke and waist contribute a smooth fit and flattering effect, while center seams in front and back termi nate in two kick pleats for re served fullness where it will do the most good. The pointed pockets with shaped turned over flaps are novel. You’ll want to make more than one dress, be cause thq pattern is so easy to follow and the fabrics so numer ous to choose from. How about seersucker, novelty cotton, Unen. crash or silk Barbara Bell Pattern No 1A1M-B is available for sues 12. M. Id. !• and 30 Sue 14 requires ) 1-2 yards of JA inch material. Send IS cents in corns Send for the Summer Pattern Book containing IUQ Barbara Bell Praise well-planned, easy-to-make In terns. Exclusive fashions for children, young women, and ma trons. Send 15 cents for your copy. Send your order to The Sewing Circle Pattern Dept., 367 W. Ad ams St., Chicago, 111. © Bell Syndicate.—WNU Service. LLtcIe PlulQ SajjA: Perhaps It's Plated A man may be born with a sil ver 'spoon in his mouth and still make no stir in the world. If you don’t like the picture of Mona Lisa or a Wagner opera or Milton’s poetry you are not necessarily uncultured. Culture is a matter of knowing morq than of liking. To rule one’s anger is well; to prevent it is better. Some people tell the truth to shame the devil, others just to make trouble. Democratic Aristocrat We congratulate ourselves on being a democratic people, but any man is pleased by being told he is aristocratic. Why not? An aristocrat can be democratic. A life without affection and sympathy could give orJy a very negative kind of happiness. It’s easier to love an enemy after you get the better of him. Perhaps money talks, but it sel dom comes when it is called. Clf TUX OBISSIV Hits PERFECT HOME DRY CLEANER 30<.40<,65< Bottlcs all onucciar* MUST! SHOC WHITE mmt/w* mH. f»«Ai ■» Aw* tm rww % fi/AA «».» aw« Fortify Yourself Best way to resist a temptation is to get yourself disgusted with it. I ET*S prataa each other now and then. Give credit when s til Let s help the downcast heart again To tackle life anew. Let s pay the debts of love we owe. Forget the debts of hate. Let's say the kindest sards we know Before it Is too late L" VERYTHING changeth. Man ^ const thou remain alone Careless of betterment and changeless as a Stone?— Sibelius. Watch Your Kidneys/ Be $o»e They Properly Cleanse the b z od Doans Pills Letty Juat Llkaa a Littla Patting Whan Sha'a Law Spirited. day. He tblnka that Jealousy will makt Ilarriden determined to saddle him with the murder." “He's darned tooting It will They’ve •ent for the district attorney already." And then Mitchell gave hla auddeta. Ironic chuckle. “Do right—and fear no man. Don't write—and fear no woman.” I was chilling at the thought of that district attorney. “Do you think he’ll be Indicted?" “Aa sure aa God made lovely wom en—and Jealous husbands.” “Then do something!" I besought “If you’ve any Idea—If you can prove more than I can about Kanclnl.” At his unresponsiveness I flung out heat edly, “You’re his friend, and yet you sit here Joking about It, when he’s In such danger!” “I do like you when you’re mad,” said Monty Mitchell equably. He pat ted my hand. “Don’t look so startled^ *» • • • He must have thought I looked wan, then, for he told me that a little food and drink wouldn’t do me any harm. “They sent up trays, but there must be something lying about the dining-room. Let’a look." At the door he swung me lightly about again. But not before I had seen Deck wlthtn'the room, having a drink with Letty Van Alstyn, an arm about her shoulders. “He doesn’t look worried," said Mitchell cheerfully. “What say we leave them and come back to our couch? ... Letty Juat likes a little pet ting when she’s low spirited." “I thought she was all for Har ridan?” I murmured as detached!j as I could. Within 1 was resentfully won dering if Deck was telling Letty that ha was patting'himself In her hnnda 35c & 60c bottles 20c tins prw. A T A H IL MILNE? 1 *- WAFE. j f M ILN ESIA WAFERS Mia ptsoMHit Milk of Mo Ithc pewriev’awVMCjW M , I L dt M .u' f 1 The Original Milk of Magnesia Wafers rro n comwotDL