Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Thursday, November 19, 1931 McCORMICK MESSENGER, McCORMICK, SOUTH CAROLINA PAGE NUMBER THRER SiohtJUnseen MARY ROBERTS RINEHART COPYRIGHT lQ3i 6y MABV 0OB£DTS QiNEhART / EIGHTH 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 firmation 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 ••nfnk* 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 tion. Johnson goes alone and in vestigates the deserted house. He is frightened by strange noises, as of an intruder in the house, but completes his in vestigation. He leaves the house and in his excitement carries off the fire tongs, leaving them in his own hall rack where his wife discovers . them the next morning and reproaches him for his nocturnal wand erings. He also forgets to bring away his overcoat, which is carried off by the ■mysterious stranger. Mrs. Dane learns of his peculiar actions and charges him with possess ing an unsuspected sense of linmor. HOW GO ON WITH THE STORY “I am not aware ” I began stiffly. “I have always believed that I furnished to the Neighbor hood Club its only leaven of hum- or. v "Don’t spoil it,” she begged. “Don’t. If you could know how I have enjoyed it. All afternoon I have been chuckling. The fire- tongs, Horace. The fire-tongs!” Then I knew that my wife had been to Mrs. Dane and I drew a long breath. “I assure you,” I said gravely, "that while doubtless I carried the wretched things home and—er—placed them where they were found, I have not the slight est recollection of it. -And it is hardly amusing, is it?” "Amusing!” she cried. “It’s delic ious. It has m^de me a young woman again. Horace, if I could have seen your wife’s face when she found them, I would give •cheerfully almost anything I pos sess" V But underneath her mirth I knew there was something else. And, af ter all, she could convince my wife if she were convinced herself. I told her of the visit Sperry arid I had made the night Arthur Wells was shot, and of what we discover- invariably parting from its moor ing. She drew out a newspaper clipping. “On going over Clara’s notes,” she said, “I came to the conclu- like a human being, you could have house that night. But the lact them. I know where the walking remained that a man, as yet un letter, and the situation, so far as it had developed, was before the Club. Were we to go on, or to stop? We broke into animated discus sion. The letter to A 31 was the rock on which all our theories foundered, that and the message the governess had sent to Charlie 1 Ellingham not to come to the Wells house that night. By no stretch of rather excited imaginations could Spencerian, and if it lacks char- we imagine Ellingham writing such acter I am inclined to believe that a letter. Who had written the let- its weakness is merely the result of ^ er ' then, and foi whom was it infrequent use of a pen. meant? You know who this is from. I As to the telephone message, it sion, last Tuesday, that the matter 1 have the bag and the letters. In a seemed to preclude Jie possibility of the missing handbag and the safe place. If you would treat me Ellingham s having gone to the letters was important. More im portant, probably, than the mere record shows. Do you recall the note of distress in Miss Jeremy’s voice? It was almost a wail.” I had noticed it. “I have plenty of time to think,” she added not without pathos. “There is only, one Monday night in the week, and—the days rfte long. It occurred to me to try to trace that bag.” “In what way?” “How does any one trace lost articles?” she demanded. “By ad- ! vertising, of course. Last Wednes day I advertised for the bag. I was too astonished to speak. “I reasoned like this: If there was no such bag, there was 1 no harm done. As a matter of fact, if there was no such bag, the changes were that we were all wrong, any how. If there was such a bag, I wanted it. Here is the advertise ment as I inserted it.” She gave me a small newspaper cutting: “Lost, a handbag containing pri vate letters, car-tickets, etc. Liberal reward paid for its return. Please write to A 31, the Daily News.” I sat with it on my palm. It stick is, also. I will tell you this. I have no wish to do her any harm I won’t have to pay up in the next world, even if she gets off in this. The way I reason is this: As long as I have the things, I’ve got the identified, was undoubtedly con cerned in the case,,had written the letter, and had probably been in the Wells house the night I went there alone. In the end, we decided to hold whiphand. I’ve got you, too, al-i one more seance, and then, unless though you may think I haven’t. About the other matter I was in nocent. I swear it again. I nev er did it. You are the only one in all the world. I would rather be dead than go on like this. It is unsigned. I stared from the letter to Mrs. Dane. She was watching me, her face grave and rather sad. “You and I, Horace,” she said, “live our orderly lives. We eat, and sleep, and talk, and even labor. We think we are living. But for the last day or two I have been seeing visions—you and I and the rest of us, living on the surface, and un derneath, carefully kept down so it will not make us uncomfortable, a world of Passion and crime and crime and |.0(.?-n SHRDL SHRDL violence and suffering. That let ter is a tragedy.” But if she had any suspicion then was so simple, so direct. And I, a as to the writer, and I think she lawyer and presumably reasonably acute, had not thought of it! “You are wasted on us, Mrs. Dane,” I acknowledged. “Well? i see something has come of it.” “Yes, but I’m not ready for it.” She dived again into the bp,g, and brought up another clipping. “On the day that I had that in serted,” she said impressively, “this also appeared. They were in the same column.” She read the sec ond clipping aloud, solwly, that I might gain all its significance: “Lost on the night of Monday, November' the second, between State Avenue and Park Avenue, had not, she said nothing, and soon after I started for home. In one way, Mrs. Johnson’s refus al to speak to me that evening had a certain value, for it enabled me to leave the house without explan ation and thus to discover that, if an overcoat had been left in place of my own, it had been taken away. It also gave me an opportunity to return the fire-tongs, a proceeding which I had considered would as sist in a return of the entente cor- diale at home, but which most un justly appeared to have exactly the opposite effect. It has been my experience that m f ‘This young lady is going to marry me,” Doctor Sperry said. possibly on an Eastern Line street the most innocent action may, un- ed; of the clerk at the pharmacy car ’ a black handbag containing der certain circumstances, assume And his statement, and, last of all, ke y s > car-tickets, private 'letters, an appearance of extreme guilt. . . of my experience in the deserted and a smaI1 sum of money. Reward I By Saturday the condition of af- house. She was very serious when I fin ished. Tea came, but-we forgot to hriOik it. Her eyes flashed with .excitement, her faded face flush- and no questions asked if returned to Daily News office.” She passed the clipping to me and I compared the two. It look ed strange, and I confess to a ting- «d. And with it all, as I look back, ling deling, that coincidence, that there was an air of suppressed ex- e ^ emen ^ 80 much to be feared in •citement that seemed to have no- any thing to do with my narrative. I solution her e. But there was such remembered it, however, when the a chance ; and I spoke of it. denouement came the following week. ,. She was a remarkable woman. Even then she knew, or strongly fairs between my wife and myself remained in statu quo, and I had decided on a bold step. This was to call a special meeting of the Neigh borhood Club, without Miss Jere my, and put before them the situa tion as it stood at that time, with a view to formulating a future course of action, and also of publicly vin dicating myself before my wife. Coincidence rubbish!” she re- i In deference to Herbert Robin- torted . “I am not through, my son’s recent attack of influenza, friend.” we met at the Robinson house. She went down into the bag Sperry himself wheeled Mrs. Dane the further developments were such that we must go on, to let the affair drop. That my wife had felt a certain bitterness toward Miss Jeremy, a jealousy of her powers, even of her youth, had not dawned on me. But when on Sunday, in her new hum ility, she suggested that we call on the medium that afternoon, I real ized that, in her own way, she was making a sort of atonement. Miss Jeremy was out riding with Sperry, but arrived shortly after we got there. Sperry Was glad to see us. It was not hard to see how things were with him. He helped the girl out of her wraps with a man ner that was almost proprietary, and drew a chair for her close to the small fire which hardly affect ed the chill of the room. Sperry looked at the girl and smiled. “Shall I tell them?” he said., “I want very much to have them know.” He stood up, and with that un conscious drama which actuates a man at a crisis in his affairs, he put a hand on her shoulder. “This young lady is going to marry me,” he said. “We are very happy to day.” My wife, to my surprise, kissed the girl. Tea was brought in by Hawkins! I knew him immediately, but he did not at once see me. He was evidently / accustomed to seeing Sperry there, and he did not recog nize my wife. But when he had put down\ the tray and turned to pick up Sperry’s overcoat to carry it into the hall, he saw me. The man actually started. I cannot say that he changed color. He was always a pale, anoemic-looking in dividual. But it was a perceptible instant before he stooped and gathered up the coat. (TO BE CONTINUED) Destroy Corn Stubble To Control The Borer CLEMSON COLLEGE, Nov. 14.— Control measures against the larg er corn-stalk borer, which in its larval form, feeds on com, sor ghum, Johnson grass, and sugar cane, must be directed against the overwintering larvae, advises Alfred Lutken, extension entomologist, be cause poisons applied to the grow ing crop are not effective. While damage to these crops other than corn is seldom severe, thgy must be considered in control measures. “Late in the season after the corn is mature, the larvae^, migrate to the lower part of the stalks and bore down to the last joint below the ground, where they pass the winter in the larval form, and can be found easily by pulling up the stubble and splitting it,” Mr. Lut ken explains. “Where practical, the stubble should be pulled up and burned. In large fields or where labor is scarce, deep fall plowing, carefully done, to cover all stubble with several inches of soil will pre vent the emergence of the moths the following spring. It is advis able to destroy the stubble of sor ghum and the larger grasses, since some larvae might pass the winter in them.” As further precaution Mr. Lutken suggests that the next planting of corn be in fields as far as possible from present fields, making it more difficult for the moths to find suitable plants on which to deposit their eggs, so that many of them will die or be killed by birds before reaching the corn fields. Then it is well to harvest the next crop early, cutting the stalks at the sur face, before the larvae have Enter ed their winter-quarters/ x Grow More Strawberries NEED FOR QUALITY PRODUCT FOR MARKET AND HOME USE, SAYS HORTICULTURIST Don't wait too long before making sure of your insurance. Fire gives no warn- ‘ ing often comes like a thief in the night. Are you fully protected? This agency represents the Hartford Fire Insur ance Company an in stitution that has heen serving property owners faithfully since 1810. Paul J. Robinson Insurance Agency PHONE 66 McCormick investigation,, was not the and which #he did not divulge,until the end suspected, the thing that the. rest , a => ab ^* and I expected nothing less over, and made a speech, of us had missed, the x of . the P°cketbook, letters and) “We have called this meeting,” equation. But I think it only fair a11, to a PP ear - But she dragged up, he said, “to determine whether the to record that she was in posses- amon g a miscellany of articles wo- Neighborhood Club, as a body wish- &ion of facts which we did not have carry, an envelope. ies to go on with in investigation, or “Yesterday,” she said, “I took a to stop where we are.” taxicab ride. You know my chair j H e paused, but, as no one spoke, You haye been so ungenerous ge ^ s tiresome, occasionally. I stop- | he went on again. “It is really not wjtb rii*," she said finally, “that j P®^ 4 a t the newspaper office, and a s simple as that,” he said. “To am tempted not to tell you why I. the bag had not been turned stop now, in view of the evidence &:ut' lot you. Of course, I. kriow in ’ ^ ba ^ there was a letter for lWe intend to place before the Club, I am only, a helpless old woman,. 31, . ® he held,out the envelope i s to.leave in all our minds certain and you mwi are people of affairs. - • t . suspicions that may be entirely un- But now ai^fl then I have a flash of “Bead it,” she observed. “It is a just:,/ On the othfer harid, to go on intelligence; I'm going to tell you, curious human , document. You’ll is very possible to place us all in. a hut you don’t deserve it.” probably be no wiser, for reading it, position vyhere to keep silent is to She went,down into the black but it shows.one thing: We are on be &i acce^sofy after Crime,” bag at ner side which was as the track of something.” | He then proceeded, in orderly much a part of her attire as the I have tyre letter before me now. fashion, to review the entire sit- false front she wore with such It is written on glazed paper, rul- uation up to then, careless about it and which, brown ed with blue lines. The writing Is Mrs. Dane then read and ex- Jn color and Indifferently dyed, was of the flowing style we used to call plained the two clippings and the ‘ t 3 RULES big help to BOWELS What a joy to have the bowels move like clockwork, every day! It’s easy, if you mind these simple rules of a famous old doctor: 1. Drink a big tumblerful of water before breakfast, and several times a day. 2. Get plenty of outdoor exercise with out unduly fatiguing yourself. 3. Try for a bowel movement at exactly the same hour every day. Everyone’s bowels need help at times, but the thing to use is Dr. Caldwells’ Syrup Pepsin. You’ll get a thorough cleaning-out, and it won’t leave your insideS' weak and ,watciy. This family doctor’s prescription is just fresh laxa tive herbs, pure pepsin, and other helpful ingredients that couldn’t hurt a child. But how it wakes up those lazy bowels! How good you feel with your system rid of all that poisonous waste matter. Dx. W. B. Caldwell’s SYRUP PEPSIl\l A Doctor's Family Laxative CLEMSON COLLEGE, Nov. 14.— Several areas in the coatsal coun ties could profitably develop small commercial acreages of strawber ries if emphasis be placed on qual ity product, says E. H. Rawl, exten sion horticulturist, who explains that quality production would call for the adoption of the narrow hedge system of culture, and for berry plantings rotated to follow such soil-improving cover crops as rye and velvet beans to be turned under previous to transplanting. At the present time only a few cars are shipped from the state an nually, while Florida ships annual ly approximately 2,000 cars, and North Carolina almost the same amount. The commercial crop amounts to about forty or fifty thousand cars annually in the United States, and among the fruit crops ranks fifth in gross value, being exceeded only by apples, oranges, grapes, and peaches in the order named. Com pared with the ten leading truck crops of the country, the gross value of the strawberry crop per acre ranks second, being exceeded only by celery. Small plantings of strawberries should be included in each home garden to supply the farm home, Mr. Rawl thinks, and additional plantings could be made to supply the local markets, which are ap parently unappreciative of this commodity largely no doubt be cause of lack of supply of high quality fruit. VtfiY L/MARY MARSHALL There is no doubt about the fact that the dresses we buy ready made are much more ornamented with buttons of some sort than, they were during the decade fol lowing the war. You may buy metal buttons to- match or to contrast with your dress or you may use fabric-cover ed buttons to match the dress or of the contrasting trimming material. You may have buttons covered with the material of your dress at no very great cost at • dress-maker Properties in 16 states protect Telephone Bond and Share First Preferred. But it for Safety. Ask any employee of the South Caro lina Continental Telephone Com pany.—Advertisement. j New Speaker of House Eyes examin ed. Spectacles, Eye . Glasses, and Artificial iCyes fitted without Drugs, Drops or Danger. DR. HENRY J, GODIN OptometrisU •56 Broad Street .... Augasta, Ga. p-.- # 9 service places or with a little dili gence you may cover them your self. It is best to use wooden but ton moulds, but on a pinch you can use those very inexpensive bone- buttons of the sort that are used on children’s underwear. If your material is very ’ sheer you should first pad the buttons with a coarse cotton or sheer wool material of somewhat the same? shade. Cut the padding and the outside covering in the form of a circle with a diameter nearly twice- the diameter of the button. Gather first around the edge of the pad ding and slip the button into the little bag thus formed. Draw up the draw strings and overcast to give a flat foundation. Gather up the button cover with, matching thread, insert the padded button, and draw up the draw strings, overcast, trimming off any rough edges, and the button is ready to sew into position. Buttons may be used on cuffs, belts, col lars, or they may follow the ,diag onal line of the bodice of the dres.s as shown in the sketch. NOTICE OF FINAL SETTLE MENT AND DISCHARlGE On the 20th day of November, 1931, I will make a final settlement in the of fide of the Judge ofPrd- bate at McCormick as administra tor of the estate of Samuel Minor, deceased, and ask for a discharge. , All persons holding claims should John N. Garner, Texas Democrat,: present them before that date, will be the new Speaker cf the House , properly attested. of Representatives: as a result of vic tories by his party in the by-eketions., SAMUEL MINOR, JR., Administrator. October 20, 1931.—4t, J • ’ )