Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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i I 7 i f \ Thursday, November 3,1931 McCORMICK MESSENGER, McCORMICK, SOUTH CAROLINA PAGE NUMBER THRHf imr EEN i 'V MARY ROBERTS RINEHART • » ™ _ _ _ x L. AjtArtxj r>r\ac DT C DiaiFhAOT COPV&K3m /Q.?/ y/ MARV QO&E V If SIXTH INSTALMENT SYNOPSIS Six people, Horace Johnson <who tells the story), his wife. Old Mrs. Dane, Herbert Rob inson and his sister, Alice, and Dr. Sperry, friends and neigh bors, are in the habit of hold ing weekly meetings. At one of them, Mrs. Dane, who is hostess, varies the program by unexpectedly arranging a spir itualistic^ seance with Miss Jeremy, a friend of Dr. Sperry and not a professional, as the medium. At the first sitting the medi um tells the details of a mur der as it is' occurring. Later that night Sperry learns that a neighbor, Arthur Wells, has been shot mysteriously. With Johnson he goes to the Wells residence and they find con- firmatKm of the medium’s ac count. Mrs. Wells tells them her husband shot himself in a fit of depression. At a second seance. Miss Jeremy adds details about a summer resort where Charles Ellingham was known to have been at the same time that Mrs. Wells was th- re. She also speaks of a pocketbook being lost which contained some im- portart car tickets and letters. Mrs. Dane, alone of the women, seems thrilled by the investiga- NOW GO ON WITH THE STORY hole beneath, a bullet-hole, if I knew anything about bullet-holes. Then I heard the dragging nove- ment above, and what with alarm and my insecure position, I sudden ly overbalanced, chair and all. My head must have struck on the cor ner of the table, for I was dazed for a few moments. The candle had gone out, of course. I felt for the chair, righted it, and sat down. I was dizzy and I was frightened. i i was afraid to move, lest the drag- for on my return to the office I Once mside the houoe the door vO ^ thing above come down and was at once quite certam that Mrs. the outside dosed ar d a g ^ ^ ^ in the da rkness and Johnson would telephone and make j alternatives, to go on with it or oO ^ the inquiry. cut and tun, I f0 ^ a o ^ 0f < i^' | A nd sitting there, I remembered After some debate I caUed my perate courage, clmch.d my t.eth yery thingg 1 most wished to secretary and told her to say, if and felt for the nearest li 0 no forget _ y the black curtain behin;l such a message came in, that Mr. switc . . t Miss Jeremy, the things flung by Forbes was in town and that I had The electric light had been -ut ^ room> the an appointment with him. As a off! matter of fact, no such inquiury NOVEMBER Farm Calendar THINGS THAT SHOULD BE DONE THIS MONTH i should have expected it, but I W my watch had .slid over the icame in, but as Miss Joyce, my sec- had not 1 re ^ , a S hice n that a time 1° know there is a. retary, knew that Mr. Forbes was m the back hall and debating wheth madness of coura born of terror Europe, I was conscious some er to go on or to ge, out. X wa- ^ be more intolerable months afterwards that Miss not only in a hl 8‘^ nc ™^ than t0 sit ther e and wait. It is Joyce's eyes occasionally rested on state, but I was ^ badly handi- same lnsa , nity that ;Jrove mer i me in a speculative and suspicious capped. However, aa the moments out of the trenches to the charg , manner. wore on and I stood there, w almost certain death rather Other things also increased my the quiet unbroken by no myster- ^ ^ ^ ^ wait for wh ' at might uneasiness as the day wore on. ious sounds, I gained a ceitain con p There was, for instance, the matter fidence. After a short period of c a daresav I charged the of the back door to the Wells house. | readjustment therefore my ' ^ way. ^ ^ Nothing was more unlikely than way to the library door and into t know that candle in that the key would still be hanging the room. Once there, I used the hardlv sane I ran ud there. I must, therefore, get a flash to discover that the windows f and ’ “ d ^ int0 ' th „ r0Q ^ kev were shuttered, and proceeded to tne staircase ana into tn. room Going through my desk I found a take off my hat .and coat which I . ov ^ ^ ddenl ^ ^ P S anity had number of keys, mostly trunk keys placed on a chair near the dooi. It returned to me The sight and one the key to a dog-collar, was at this time that I discovered by side a But late in the afternoon I visited that the battery of my lamp was ° f *®° s ” a “ table ’ a rb w of tovs'on a client of mine who is in the hard- , very weak, and find mg a cancUem the y man ; te ece was calming Here ware, business, and secured, quite a a tall brass stick on the mantle- children . s nlght nursery , a selection. One of them was a piece, 1 U f hted ^ white and placid room which could I find that the solution of the skeleton key. He persisted m re- Then I looked about. The hous. nothin g hideous. Arthur Wells mystery—for we did gardlng the matter as a joke, and had evidently been hastily closed. humiliated and ashamed. I. £ 0 l ve it takes three divisions in my poked me between the shoulder- Some of the furniture was covered mind. Each one is a sitting, fol lowed by an investigation made by Sperry and myself- # ' But for some reason, after Miss Jeremy’s second sitting, I found that my reasoning mind was stronger than my credulity. And as Sperry had at that time deter mined to have nothing more to do with the business, I made a resolu tion ta abandon my investigations'. Nor have I any reason to believe that I would have altered my atti tude toward the case, had it not been that I saw in the morning paper on the Trursdfty following the second seance, that Elinor Wells had closed her house, and gone to Florida. I confess I had an overwhelming desire to examine again the ceiling of the dressing room and thus to check up one degree further the ac curacy of our revelations. * After some reflection, I called up Sperry, hut he flatly refused to go on any further. “Miss Jeremy has been ill since Monday,” he said. “Mrs. Dane’s rheumatism is worse, her compan ion is nervously upset, and your own wife called me up an hour ago and says you are sleeping with a light, and she thinks you ought to go away. The whole club is shot to pieces.” But, although I am a small and blades as I went out. “If you’re arrested with all that hardware on you,” he said, “You’ll be held as a first-class burglar. You are equipped to open anything from a can of tomatoes to the mis sionary box in church.” But I felt that already, innocent as I was, I was leaving a trail of suspicion behind me: Miss Joyce and the office boy, the dealer and my wife. And I had not started yet. i I dined in a small chop-house where I occasionally lunch, and took a large cup of strong black coffee. When I went out into the night again I found that a heavy fog had settled down and I began to feel again something of the strange and disturbing quality of the day wfiich had ended in Arthur Wells’s death. Already a potential housebreaker, I, avoided policemen, and the very jingling of the keys in my pocket sounded loud and in criminating to my ears. I do not like deserted houses Even in daylight they have a sin ister effect on me. They seem, in their empty spaces, to have held and recorded all that has happen ed in the dusty past. The Wells house • that night, looming before me, silent and mysterious, seemed the embodiment of all the desert- witb sheets, while part of it stood Horace Johnson, a man of dignity unprotected. The rug had been and reputation, even in a small folded into the center of the room, and covered with heavy brown papers, and I was extremely start led to hear the papers rustling. way, a successful after-dinner speaker, numbering fifty-odd years of logical living to my credit, had been running half-maddened tow- A mouse, however, proved to be the ard a mythical danger from which source of the sound, and I pulled myself together with a jerk. It is to be remembered that I had left my hat and overcoat on a chair near the door. There could be no mistake, as the chair was a light one, and the weight of my overcoat threw it back against the wall. Candle in hand, I stepped out in- I had been afraid to run away! I sat down and mopped my face with my pocket handkerchief. After a time I got up, and going to a window looked down at the quiet world below. The fog was lift ing. Automobiles were making cautious progress along the slip pery street. A woman with a bas ket had stopped under the street to the hall, and' was Immediately | “eht and was rearranging her par- met by a crash which reverberated through the house. In my alarm my teeth closed oh the end of my tongue, with agonizing results, but the sound died away, and I con cluded that an upper window had been left open, and that the rising wind had slammed a door. But my morale, as we say since the war, had been shaken, and I recklessly lighted a second candle and placed it on the table in the hall at the foot of the staircase, to facilitate my exit in case I desired to make a hurried one. Then I climbed slowly. The fog had apparently made its way into the house, for when, halfway up, I dui,, * «*** - ed houses I had known. Its empty turned and loked down, the candle not a courageous man, the desire and unshuttered windows were like light was hardly more than a spark to examine the Wells house clung to me tenaciously. Suppose there were cartridges in his table draw er? Suppose I should find the sec- blind eyes, gazing in, not out. surrounded by a luminous aura. Nevertheless, now that the time I do not know exactly when I be- had come, a certain amount of gan, to feel that I was not alone in courage came With it. I am not the house. It was, I think, when ond bullet hole in the ceiling? I no ashamed to confess that a certain I was on a chair on top of a table longer deceived myself by any ar- part of it came from the anticipa- in Arthur’s room, with my candle gument that my interest was pure- tion of the Neighborhood Club’s upheld to the ceiling. It seemed ly scientific. There is a point at plaudits. For Herbert to have to me that something was moving which curiosity becomes unbear- made such an investigation, <y stealthily in the room overhead. I able, when it becomes an obsession, I eV en Sperry, with his height and stood tl^ere, candle upheld, and like hunger, I had reached that his iron muscles, would not have every faculty I possessed seemed point. ' surprised the club. But ( was centered in my ears. It was not a Nevertheless, I found it hard to plan the necer^ary deception to my wife. My habits have always been entirely orderly and regu lar. My wildest dissipation was) the Neighborhood Club. I could not recall an evening away from home in years, except on business. Yet now I must have a free even- m > ing, possibly, an entire night. In planning for this, I forgot my nervousness for a time. I decided finally to tell my wife that an out- of-town client wished to talk busi ness with me, and that day, at luncheon—I go home to luncheon— j ^ v ^ ^ I mentioned that such a client was in town. “It is possible,^ I said, as easily as I could, “that we may not get through this afternoon. If things should run over into the evening, I’ll telephone. s\ The Wells house loomed before me, silent and mysterious. She ^took* it calmy enough, but aware that while they expected in- . footstep. It was a soft and drag- Mix only enough for one feeding cels. The clock of the city hall, visible over the opposite roofs, marked only twenty -minutes to nine. It was still early evening— not even midnight, the magic hour of the night. x Somehow that fact reassured me, and I was able to take stock of my surroundings. I realized, for in stance, that I stood in the room over Arthur’s dressing room, and that it was into the ceiling under me that the second—or probably the first—bullet had penetrated. (TO BE CONTINUED.) 1X1 » Fed With Wet Mashes Pullets Lay More Eggs CLEMSON COLLEGE, Oct. 17.— The trend in egg prices has con tinued upward and a flock in 50 per cent production now is just as profitable as a flock laying 80 per cent through the spring and sum mer months when egg prices are lower, says' P. H. Gooding, exten sion poultryman, urging that pullets be so fed as to bring them up to 50 per cent production or more. Undoubtedly the pullets are housed, and have had time to ad just themselves to new conditions so they should be ready to produce high price fall and winter eggs. It is generally conceded that feeding a wet mash has a tendency to in crease feed consumption and thus stimulate egg production, and Mr. Gooding advises: “The wet mash should be mixed with skimmilk if it is available. Do not make a sloppy mixture but I use only enough water or milk to make the mash crumbly. Feed it to the birds at noon in troughs. Some poultrymen fed it about 1 p. m. and get good results. Other poultrymen are keeping grain be- I fore the birds and feeding a wet mash just before they go to roost. She took it calmy enough, dui 7 ^ later on as I was taking an electric telligence and even humor, of a' ging movement. Had I not been at a time—three to four pound:; - . ’ .. _ *, i,„ii sort, from mp thpv rfiri not, antici- near the ceiline I should not have per hundred birds, which thev will flash from the drawer ol the hall sort, from me they did not antici- table and putting It in my overcoat pate any particular bravery, pocket she came on me, and I The flash was working, but rath- er feebly. I fould the nail where near the ceiling I should not have per hundred birds, which they will heard it. Indeed, a moment later clean up in 10 to 15 minutes.” I was not certain I had heard it. 1 Urging plenty of grain in addi- My chair, on top of the table, was tion to the regular laying mash, the she looked siiroriscd. aac**.* ^ ^ 9 ° ^ ***vvo**, During the afternoon I was beset | the door-key had formerly hung, none too securely balanced. I had specialist suggests a grain mixture vith doubts and uneasiness Sup- j but the key, as I had expected, was found what I was looking for, a of 70 pounds of corn and 30 pounds smn aouots ana uneagiueas. i - ’ * ' , . .. , . . , oovse she called my offlc- and found gone. I was less than five minutes part of the plaster ornament brok- £at the chent I had named was I fancy, In finding a key from my en away and replaced by a whit- uot in town? It is undoubtedly collection that would fit. The bolt ish substance, not plaster.. I got out true that a tangled web we weave phen first we practise to deceive, of wheat, or yellow corn alone, add ing that if plenty of grain is fed it will lessen the danger of a neck VAVJAl UllO-U WUUlVi AAU« AAV- M w vs » ~ O slid back with a click, and the door my penknife and cut away the molt which often lowers the year’s opened. I foreign matter, showing a small profit. Agronomy jCotton left unprotected from weather may lose five to ten dollars per bale in value. It’s much cheap er and wiser to put it in a ware house. Fall plowing of heavy clay land makes spring work easier. Oats can still be planted. Put m a few more acres as your contribu tion to the return of prosperity. South Carolina wheat makes good biscuit. Have you planted any? Horticulture Prepare land for setting fruit trees in November and December. Order trees and heel them out in moist soil until they may be prop erly transplanted. Make cuttings of grapes and figs and set them out. Plant sweet peas in a well pre pared trench, covering the seed five inches deep. Plant strawberry and raspberry roots. Sow lettuce in coldframe for use in January and February. Make hill selection of sweet po tatoes for seed at digging time. Insects and Diseases Pick up and burn twigs of pecan, hickory, and persimmon that were cut by twig girdlers. Fumigate weevil infested grain. Disk and plow under stalks of to bacco, cotton, corn and all crop remnants. Overhaul spray equipment and* purchase material for dormant sprays. Agricultural Engineering Repair and construct farm build ings while materials and tabof- are available at low cost. Plans can be had for the asking. Store corn an d other grain in buildings made rat-proof and tight enough to fumigate against weevils. A special type cutter bar with metal seed pan behind is an inex pensive metho d of harvesting les- pedeza seed. Give the tractor proper lubrica tion and attention to the air filter to save expensive delays and repair bills. Animal Husbandry Breed sows for spring litters. Feed weanling pigs liberally. Plant winter forage if not plant ed. Feed cull sows liberally for 30 days and market them. Provide shelter for the winter months. Feed beef cattle on cheap feeds but do not allow them to lose much weight. Turn beef cattle on velvet beans and let them graze until December or January. Dairying Increase the barn feed as pas tures are killed by frost. Let the cows clean up the corn and hay fields after these crops have been gathered. Gather about 500 pound s of vel vet beans per cow to use in grain ration. Provide warm, dry, clean stalls for fall-born calves. Use a carefully selected purebred dairy bull. Poultry Select now the best hens for next year’s breeders. Purchase male birds for next year’s breeding flock. Feed pullets a wet mash now that the days are getting short—about three pounds per 100 birds. If electricity is available, keep all-night lights on the laying flock. X mm \ iH JOE GISH 0^ |[t}uSINE$S t>A^S\S UKE/WArtRiAQt- THEIA TMAT5 in WANT to GET OUT AND WM TrtAtS out va/anT to GET IN. 6t N0INt jPHILUPS- * For Troubles due to Acid INDlGESTlO ACID STOMACH HfARTBUB* When _ AIN ► Comes * W HAT many people call indiges tion very often means excess acid in the stomach. The stomach nerves have been over-stimulated, and food soars. The corrective is an alkali, which neutralizes the acids instantly. And the best alkali known . to medical science is Phillips Milk of Magnesia. , , . , , One spoonful of this harmless, tasteless alkali in water neutralizes instan-ly many times that inue« acid, and the symptoms disappear at once. You will never use crude methods when once you learn the efficiency of this. Go, get a small bottle to try. . , Be sure to get the genuine Phillips Milk of Magnesia prescribed by physicians for 50 years in correcting excess acids. 25c and 50c a bottle— any drug store. Even the finest con struction sometimes fails to withstand fire. The only certain protection against financial loss is sound ✓ insurance. Be pre pared. This agency represents the Hardford Fire Insur ance Company an in stitution that has been serving property owners faithfully since 1810. Paul J. Robinson Insurance Agency PHONE 66 McCormick Calf Clubster Wins Some beef-cattle breeders think that too much silage harms the breeding qualities of a bull. A bull weighing about 1,400 pounds should keep in excellent breeding condition during winter if fed a ration of about 30 pounds of silage, 10 pounds of good-quality alfalfa or other legume hay, and 12 pounds of grain mixture. CLEMSON COLLEGE, Oct. 31.— Wayne Sawyer, Aiken, won the Jersey - grand championship and junior championship, Doris Sawyer the senior championship; while Robert Lemmon, Fairfield, won the Guernsey grand championship and senior championship; Branson Wig gins, Florence, the junior champ ionship in the 4-H club show at the recent State Fair, in competition with 128 high quality animals con stituting this year’s calf club show, according to records of the state boys’ club agent here. First prize winners in the vari ous classes were as follows: Junior calf—Jersey, Gordon Moon, Greenville; Guernsey, Allen Wise, Saluda; senior calf—Jersey, Sarah McClure McLendon, Lee; Guernsey, Branson Wiggins, Flor ence; junior yearling—Jersey, H. W. Sawyer, Aiken; Guernsey, Rudolph Jones, Florence; senior yearling— Jersey, Sylvian Epting, Newberry; Guernsey, Mary Desportes, Fair- field; cows two years old and under three—Jersey, Bernard Phillips, Greenville; Guernsey, William Law- son Love, Chester; cows three years old and over—Jersey, Doris Sawyer, Aiken; Guernsey, Robert Lemmon, Fairfield. The 4-H calf club bam was crowded to overflowing, and mapy visitors, familiar with quality dairy cattle, stated that the 4-H calf club show, which has shown steady progress for several years, was greatly superior to that of last year. Thirty 4-H boys, under the sup ervision of Otis Bowen, a former clubster now a junior at Clemson College, cared for the 4-H calves during State Fair week.