Evening Star Newspaper, December 6, 1928, Page 42

MARSH MURDER BARR MAVITY @ Copyright, 1928, by Bell Syndicate, Inc THE STORY THUS FAR. Don Ellsworth's wife, © mous _actress, Sheila O'Sha: leaving no _trace. Dr. Cava criminal psychologisi, ~ learns married life has been’very unhappy. . a reporter on the Herald, tries to see Dr. Cavanaugh. meets Barbara Cavanaugh. the attractive daughter, finds that she was engaged to Don Ellsworth before his marriage. nd in_the tule marsh outside Cavanaugh e gre their knows something about the murder, his_instinct is to_protect her. Mrs. Kane, Shella O waiting woman, is arrested and ‘admits that her forced Don Ellsworth to marry mistress er. Peter and Dr.’ Cavanaugh find in the boudoir of the murdered woman a threat- ening letter signed “David Orme.” ~ Peter traily Orme and finds him. But he is an onsible artist who does not seem capa- ble of the murder. Dr. Cavanaugh asrees to_examine Orme. Peter learns that Barbara’s car was used in the murder. He determines to save her At any cost. They discover their great love for each other, but Barbara will not Jet him help her. and he realizes she is protecting_some one else. The trial of Orme for the murder of Sheila_O'Shay begins. Mrs. Kane. on the witness stand. states that Orme is Sheila Shay's real husband. He disappenred and she had never divorced him. = Orme. on the stand. tells of the tragedy of his life and his marriage to Sheila O'Shay. Dr. Cavanaugh then testifies that Orme was & victim of amnesia when he left his wife, that he had office on the night of the murder clears Orme and he i5_acquitted. crime is still unsolved. and not a trace of _the murderer has been found. Peter. thinking it over and over. comes at_last to the conclusion that there can only ‘be one person behind it—the master mind of why Barbs Ross to visit teds Peter the anewer to the crime. himself is the criminal. and He (Continued from Yesterday's Star.) CHAPTER LIL R. CAVANAUGH drew a pre- scription pad from under the desk blotter, -scribbled upon it briefly and passed it across to Peter. “There!” he said. “That is a signed indorsement of what I am going to tell you. You may want to have it to give to your editor.” ‘To—Jimmy?” “Oh, I know that you are not going to turn me over to the police! You are going to give me my own way out. That is one of the foolish little words you are bound by.” Peter's jaw jutted forward. "g’ss:‘ he sald. “You're damn right “The solution of the ‘Ellsworth mys- tery—the last case of Dr. Cavanaugh— is my little legacy to you for your paper. I think it is what you would call an important exclusive.” Peter tried to smile back, but the cords in his throat hurt him. “I—I won't use it,” he blurted. “Oh, but you must! I don’t want to be remembered as a failure. My last Instead he-| case must be a success. I shan't know it. of course, where I am going—but I know it now. And your editor will like it. You ought to be pleased at that.” “Damn _the paper!” Peter choked, uttering the worst blasphemy of which he was capable. “Damn everything! btut if you'd rather have it so, I'll take it “The man of no mistakes, tor said with musing irony. made. just one, I did not, after all, understand myself. I accounted for everything—and I did not know that the one thing I could not face was failure. I have scorned the world's Jjudgments, but I am bound by them after all. I could not have the world say that I had mef one case which I could not solve. There was one other thing. the doc- “Well, 1 “I did not foresee that Barbara would | find out. Barbara could not under- stand that crime was merely the logical response to an emergency. The burden of my guilt was too heavy for her. Her suffering was altogether irrational. But I couldn’t let her go through life with that hurt. ful and I couldn't ruin the beauty I had given her. “You see, when all's said and done, I couldn’t pull out my thread quite to the end. That is my weakness.” The doctor paused and lighted a cigar. He smiled, a rare, quizzical smile, at Peter. The match in his hand | was ‘trembling. He shook it impati- ently, extinguishing the flame. | He shrugged his massive | “You see?” shoulders. But that’s not your story. That, if you please, Is the part you will leave out when you write it. It begins with the day I found Orme on the doorstep. That part is quite true. All that I said was true. I was far too clever to lie. Facts can be concealed, but they cannot be obliterated. “Orme came to see me daily. When he talked with Mrs. Kane he told her that Sheila could reach him through me—there was no telephone at the auto camp, of course. And she did tele- phone me to arrange a meeting. You remember that I asked you whether you noticed where, in the telephonc directory, Sheila had placed Orme’s letter?” Peter nodded. “Yes, it was near the front of the book. Of course! The C's!"” “Even there everything was playing into my hands. I was safe from even °| the remote chance that, finding that letter* between the ‘C’ pages, you would connect it with the name of Cava- naugh. You missed your only clue. “Well, T always said that clues were relatively unimportant. When Orme and Sheila left the Ellsworth house on the night of March 18, they came to my officc for a conference. Orme really did suffer a retroactive amnesia for that interview. I was not sure of that until I examined him in jail. It did not matter to me greatly—my plan THE EVENING STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C. THURSDAY. DECEMBER 6, 1928 was complete without it—but I could readily adjust my arrangements to this new_circumstance.” “‘Orme insisted that Sheila should a knowledge their marriage. He was will- ing to give her a divorce—but that wasn't what she wanted. She knew that if Ellsworth were subjected to the publicity of a divorce her hold on him would be loosened. He would never re- marry her. And she wanted the status of his wife; she wanted his millions. She was approaching 40, you know. She | was through with adventure and wanted securlty. She told me that I would have to get Orme out of her way—if necessary, by having him committed to an asylum. “You remember that I have never denied my previous acquaintance with Sheila O'Shay, in the days when she was on the stage. That was a number of years ago—before I had learned that the world cannot bear to face honesty; that its pretty words must be taken with mock seriousness. “Sheila had a roommate—a dancer just rising to fame. Her name was quickly forgotten—you would not re- member it. I had never pretended that my passing attachment to her was more than—what it was. I certainly could not afford to have my name linked with hers: a doctor must avoid scandal. “When she lost her job because she was going to have a baby and could no longer dance, it was strictly her own business. But she let her emotions run away with her. In a fit of depression she jumped into the Seine. But she left a letter behind her for Sheila, telling the whole story. “Why do suicides always want to ex- plain themselves. I wonder? That would | g h, T’ TN miane her Meitenuti: | be a good subject for a monograp! I'm doing it myself, when it comes to that. I may even be quoted as a case in point. But the monograph won't be as good as if I had written it.” Dr. Cavanaugh neatly deposited an unbroken inch of cigar ash in the tray. Peter noticed for the first time that he had been puffing strenuously for a long time at a dead cigarette, He flung it aside and lighted another. “Of course Sheila had kept that letter. She would. She was the kind of fool that keeps everything. But not quite & fool. For once in my life I had met a person like myself—one who let noth- ing stand in the way of what she want- ed. Though with her what she wanted was determined by her emotions instead of her intelligence. “She threatened me with exposure if I didn't dispose of Orme. And I knew what the silly world would think of that story. My carefully constructed mask, tudied adjustment to the world’s foolish hypocrisy, would slip with a ven- geance! “The world cannot look on the face of reality, and live. Honesty is the one thing it cannot bear. It shrieks for vengeance. And, once started on the track, it would find other incidents of the past to dig up. No, I couldn't af- ford to let Sheila O'Shay keep that weapon in her hands. It would always be there, giving her power over me. If she did not use it then, she might later. I said very little—I was considering the problem and how to meet it. “Then Orme unexpectedly met it for me. That threat of railroading him to the asylum set him wild. She was con- temptuous, as if he were a rag to be thrown into the gutter. It was her con- tempt more than her ruthlessness that made him see red. She was standing up, looking at me, presenting her ulti- matum. Suddenly Orme seized the metal elephant from the desk and struck her with all his force on the point of her chin—a perfect upper cut, though he did not know it. She fell backward, striking her head against the corner of the desk. He stood look- ing at her for a moment. “‘I've killed her,’ he said. “I bent over her, and when I looked up he was gone. “She was not dead, only stunned, but there was the answer to my problem. I could finish the job, and remove the danger of Sheila permanently from my path. I could conceal the body. In case Orme were found and connected with the case, he would believe that he was the murderer. He would either think that he himself had disposed of the body in a daze or that I had tried to protect him. Either way, he insured my own safety. If necessary, I could get him off on a plea of insanity. i “I though of all that at the time, but | of course, as things turned out, it was even simpler, for Orme did not even know that he and Sheila had been pres- ent in my office. The repetition of the act which was of such profound emo- tional significance to him set him tem- porarily off balance again. “So I put Sheila out of the way. I saw to it that the police should suggest that I search her boudoir. I found the | letter in her desk, when I was rum- maging through her papers, and slipped :: into my pocket. Later, I destroyed “I took the body to the marsh in Bar- bara’s car instead of my own, to avoid any chance of being recognized. The one thing I hadn’t counted on was that I should meet Barbara in the hall when 1 was carrying out the body. ‘She had been aroused by the sound of our voices, and had heard the crash of Sheila’s fall. She stood there on the steps, her hand on her throat, and looked at me. She said absolutely nothing. But she knew. And she couldn’t see it as I saw it, as merely the necessary adjustment to a problem. “I saw the horror in her eyes. And yet, she said nothing. She would have gone through life in the shadow of that horror. I knew that I could trust Bar- bara. The words that I had cast aside meant too much to her.” “Yes,” said Peter. “You could trust Barbara.” “Of course, the horror in her eyes should have meant nothing to me. Her loyalty should have been merely one of those useful weaknesses of humanity which I had learned to count upon. Pretty playthings!” ‘Yes,” Peter said again. “The useless, impractical virtues — incorruptible beauty. Barbara is like that.” “And T discovered my own weakness. It was hard to live with that horror in Barbara's eyes. I hope you can make it clear to Barbara that I loved her.” “Yes,” sald Peter, “I will make it clear.” “It won’t matter to me, of course. I shall not know. And yet, somehow, it does seem to matter.” “I think it matters. You can count on me.” “I know I can count on you. You ! live by words—they mean something to you. ~Queer, isn't" it? Honor, loyalty, | trust—just words. And yet you live by them. They are your reality. And in the end, I have to count on them. And yet, I was the master of them all. I could save myself. Only, if I carried it through, if I saved myself, I should be branded as a failure. I should have to admit that for the first time I had taken a case which I could not solve. You were with that.” “I'm sorry,” Peter said, painfully. “I'm sorry I put it to you like that.” “Oh, but I had already put it to my- self. And if I let myself fail there would always be the horror in Bar- bara’s eyes.” “You" see,” Peter exclaimed, “you were not the complete egoist after all!” ‘There was a flaw in your crystal. Or perhaps the flaw was the other thing— the thing that enslaved your intelli- gence to one narrow personal ambition. I don’t know—-" It’s rather an academic point,” isn't it?” the doctor smiled. “Don’t!” Peter cried. “Ican’t bear it!"” “But it's nothing to make such a fuss about! And I rather fancy I've written a thing or two which will be remembered when all this has dropped into_the limbo of forgotten news. After all, I've done some good work, Peter.” Dr. Cavanaugh methodically tamped out the stub of his cigar against the side of the ash tray and half drew another from his pocket. Then he slipped it back again. “No,” he murmure right when you taunted me “there isn't time. I don't suppose, Peter, you'd care to shake hands with me, for good-by? Silly of me to care about a thing like that!" Peter rose stiffiy from his chair. His lips were pressed tightly together and his throat ached unbearably. Dr. Cav- anaugh opened the drawer of his desk. Peter’s eye caught the gleam of a shin- ing cylinder. Peter set his jaw, but it was too late. The tears were on his cheeks as he held out his hand. “Good-by,” my friend,” he said. Then it came to him to add the words the doctor would most wish to take with him—“the world will remember you as a great man.” The pressure of the doctor's hand was firm and warm. ‘Good-by, Peter,” he said_cheerfully. “You'd better go and find Barbara. I think she’s in the little sitting room. :hdgr}'t want her to be startled by the ot (Continued in tomorrow's Star). . 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