Evening Star Newspaper, December 16, 1928, Page 104

THE SUNDAY - STAR. WASHINGTON, C., DECEMBER 16, 1928—PART T. Art Was Avery’s Life; Then She Fell in Love. LL the way up, Avery Madden d had a hard, grim fight. Right out of high school, she'd 'THE TYRANT » By Sophie Kerr A end responsibility than usually falls upon a 17-year-older. That was ‘when Pg" father, Lundy Madden, gental waster, came home one night comrplaining that he did not feel well, Xt 10 oclock he was in spasms of palm. At 11 he was in the hospital, .#nd the surgeons were busy. At 12 he was dead of peritonitis. His -em- loyer paid for his funeral and gave the widow and her daughter a month’s | salary, $600. It was lucky that the yian was so generous, for Lundy Mad- den had no life insurance, and his as- sets amounted to $5.60 in cash, the furniture in the apartment, and a air of diamond cuff links that had _gelonged to his great-grandfather. Mrs. Madden was a frail little blue- ieyed woman, who had lived only to ‘spoil her roistering, good-looking hus- band. After his death she could do nothing but lie in bed and cry. So it v was to Avery that the problem of her |, own life and her mother’s was pre- sented for solution—to Avery, with all her youth, her inexperience, her igno- rance, her grief and bewilderment. Avery took hold bravely—but the next seven years of the Maddens were spent in constant shadow. Avery left ‘high school and the weekly art class ithat was her greatest joy, moved her- self and her mother to two cheap rooms in what Mrs. Madden rightly called & slum, and went to work in a factory, for that was all she could find to do. Yet the factory held a bright gleam | welfare | for Avery—Edna Galey, a worker, a colleg>-trained young woman. Imagine with what joy Avery welcomed | , this new friend, who told her that there was a way out from her drudgery. | “Classes! All that Avery asked of her ,-changed world was that she might go on studying art. She didn't mind wori, she didn’t mind her mother’s perpetual moan, she didn't mind the hole they lived in, she didn't mind anything, if she need notd{nu a future that held no paints and crayons. Egna Galey saw, to begin with. that Avery must have H%hier work in better surroundings. So she went out and got her' an easier job. The hours were shorter than in the factory and Avery had energy enough left after work to get ‘dinner when she got home and then 1o dash madly out to the thing she loved, her art class. Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty. twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-thre twenty-four! Seven years of the hard- est kind of hard work. Only once had she interrupted her art study, just long enough to learn shorthand and typing. since she could earn more money as a secretary. Then back to pencil and brush. As soon as she could, she began to use what she had learned. Lamb- ghades decorative boxs, hats, scarfs, Christmas and birthday and place cards, frames, trays—she did them all with a fantastic charm and a technique that struck just the right mean between “ spash and niggle. She sold some of Wese things o the girls at the office " and they begged for more and brought her orders. Then she took a sample tray and some shades to a decorator. More orders. Avery was 24 when she saw that she could actually support herself and her mother by her painting. Her faith in herself was re- warded by commissions for two screens and an overmantel in the first month of what her mother called tearfully her “obstinate idleness” . THER commiscions followed. She found she could drop the little things, boxes and the cards and the shades, and she did so. Then came the order for her first room. That crazy- rich Mrs. Doerrs saw a yellow lacquer screen that Avery had sold a decorator and she iracked the artist down. i “I want a room for bridge in my Florida house,” she ordered. “Apple green, with pagodas and storks and Jjunks and foo-dogs ‘and peonies and bamboos in gold and black and scarlet. Hurry it up; it must t2 done in two months, or I won't pay for/it. If it is done in two months, and I like it, you can name the price.” It was done in two days less than two months, and Mrs. Doerrs’ check was a generous four figures. “I love it,” she declared. “I'm mad about it. Il show it to everybody, and everybody will want one, bul you must ncver do an- other like it.” “I'll do what I please,” answered ~ Avery, “but I hope I've got ideas enough :3t T'll never have to use the same one ice.” Mrs. Doerrs looked at Avery, who was skinny and pale from overwork, red- _-haired and spunky by nature and had _on the shabbiest serge dress and the ..dirtiest old cotton smock. Mrs. Doerrs Jaughed. “You'd be rather good-look- if you had clothes worth the name,” she said. “Oh—clothes! I don't care about clothes.” “Don’t say silly things. Of course, you care about clothes. And, if T send for you to come to Florida and paint rooms for half a dozen of my friends, don't' come looking like a scarecrow.” Mrs. Doerrs kept her word about showing her bridgeroon—she could hardly help it, since she played practi- cally every night and all night, and Avery found herself in Florida with orders for two more rooms to be painted directly on the walls, and. while she was doing them, she picked up a com- mission for a couple of screens and a set of ‘overdoor panels. Mrs. Madden went south with Avery and they lived in the cheapest boarding house they could find, which wasn't so very cheap. All day long Avery worked, and at night she and her mother walkcd out in the magical Florida nights of blue chiffon ragged out with stars far larger and brlslr.,hm' than stars have any business e. One afternoon as she was reluctantly putting the last touches on a room de- signed to bring indoors the great tropi- cal garden just outside she heard a| man’s voice speaking behind her. He said—and she never forgot the words nor the voice—“It’s (hl:flous! The artist should be given a banquet of roasted flamingo, served on a dish of lapis lazull.” As she turned slightly, and the speaker perceived that the one he'd spoken of was present, he added, smiling, “I beg your pardon—but it's true. This is beyond imagination.” Avery =miled a polite, stiff little smile and made the slightest nod. Her rich | patrons ignored her socially, so she had | become equally remote. But this man | sounded different, interesting. She | watched him stealthily as he looked | over the room, and the woman with him fluttered and exclaimed. He looked real and he looked strong and he looked proud. e ] HE was gone in ten minutes, but he stuck in Avery’s memory. She wondered if the tinkling little blonde with him was his wife. Probably. The thought was unple: t. That man deserved something better than a piece of tin. . . . She gave her work a last critical survey—and was through. The check was already in her pocket. Now, suddenly, she was discontented. She walked back to the boarding house, haunted by a perception of the great gaps in her life, of warmth and beauty and human relationship she had never known, and limitations these lacks imposed on her. She wanted something —she wasn't quite sure what it was— but she wanted it. She counted the money she had made, and the sum cr{lstamz:d her vague longings into action. “Mother,” she said to Mrs. Madden as soon as she reached the boarding house, “I'm going to Paris. You can come along or you can stay in New York, wherever you think youwll be most comfortable and happy.” Mrs. Madden wouldn't have missed going to Paris for several blocks of Florida real estate. Once there, al- though she considered French coffee a personal offense and shuddered at the price of a comfortable fire, the magical city bewitched her. She began to make friends with such Americans as she could find. Mrs. Madden was, though loath to admit it, having the time of her life. So Was Avery. She had enough money saved for two years at the modest rate she and her mother were living so that she was not hag-ridden by poverty. Something of the natural gayety of her youth came back to her, and the cleverly dressed French women were a challenge to her dowdiness. Avery had not been in Paris two weeks before she was clothes. Avery in straight russet crepe, with a whop- t buckle on a black t, a cape of russet wool, a rowdy little black hat on her red hair, was a re to make heads turn along the boulevards. Avery in the evening in a slip of reseda green and a string of beads that pretended to be crystal, but were only clear glass (but oh how superlatively Parisian was the pretense!)—this Avery was a personage. After a little she began to study under the stiffest martinet in the whole art world of Paris, a man who believed that drawing is the backbone of all art, and who was reputed to say his prayers to Michelangelo. Though Avery had little French and M. Roulaix no English at all, he saw that here was a pupil who had the en and the will to work and the intel nce to guide it. With M. Roulaix her staleness vanish- ed, her confidence returned. She begai to think of murals and to work toward * K % % VERY was established in this rou- tine when Mrs. Doerrs descended on Paris for ber season’s wardrobe and {'with sports, hunted, flown, explored, her season's round of the restaurants and dancing places. Things immedi- ately began to happen. She summoned Avery and shrieked for joy over her appearance. “I knew it! I knew it! I told you so! What a little fool you were to wait so long!” That was her frank comment. Whereupon, she in- vited her to lunch at the Ritz, intro- duced her to various American resi- dents in Paris; and browbeat one of them into letting Avery do the music room in her big apartment on the Ave- nue Kleber. Other commissions inevitably fol- lowed. But they did not have to be rushed and jammed and hurried over. Avery worked steadily, but she found time now to hear music, to go to the theater, to make social contacts, and she brought to it all the keenness that comes from being previously starved. Mrs. Madden had begun to hope that they were settled permanently in Paris when Crane Kiehler, the architect, chanced on some of Avery's work and urged her to come back to America and Jjoin forces with him. “It’s time you got out of here,” sald the great Kiehler. “If you stay too long, Paris will do something queer to you, just as it has to a lot of other Americans with talent. There’s no future here for you—you can exhibit, and so on, but, with that, you're done. In America you can have the big things, the public buildings, the new sort of business bulldings—you’ll be in at art in the making there. Come along with me and do things. I've been hankering to get a lot more color into architecture, but I never found the per- son to put it over. You can.” To go back to America with the prestige of an association with Crane Kiehler was to go trailing clouds of glory. Avery knew that such a chance comes but once in a lifetime. At their table on the boat, Avery and her mother found a honeymooning couple, a fat man, and a man who was protesting to an apologetic steward that he had ordered a single table weeks before. “But for dinner tonight, sir—" “Every time I sail on this line, the same thing happens—" began the man, but he spoke lower as he neared the table. That voice—it stirred memories in Avery. She glanced up at the speaker as he pulled out the chair be- side her own. It was, surely, he of “flamingo- served on lapis lazull.” And, at the conventional exchange of names, he said. “I'm sure I've met you, or seen you, Miss Madden.” “We've never met, I think,” said mry. She wasn't going to remind Presently she was rewarded. “I knew I'd seen you. You did a room in the house of a cousin of mine, and my sister and I went in one day, and you were working there. Afterward, I asked Mary Townsend about you, and she caid you'd gone., So I never had a chance to tell you what a stunning piece of work I thought it was.” His voice was more deep and delight- ful than she had remembered. “I'm either going to be seasick, or I'm falling in Jove with him” ‘she thought, and n‘:;ed scornfully, “I must be stark star- crazy.” In the morning, when she came on geck. Robert Frazer was waiting for er. They walked. Avery was silent, and willing to listen. She learned that he had but one sister, married, and not very happy. There seemed to be many cousins, * ok ok % 'HE whole fabric of his life unrolled before her. He had been every- where, done everything that had to do played about with all sorts of people everywhere. He touched deliberately on ‘these things. Avery, listening, smiled. He was telling her what he could offer her, and there was an en- dearing quality in his thus showing her his possessions, a_sort of humility, as if he had said, “I'm not so much myself, but maybe you'll like what goes along with me.” So he was stark staring crazy, too. She had only to put out her hand, only to make one least gesture of un- derstanding. But she did not do this. She waited, content. There was fair weather. He was with her every moment of the day. On the last night out, Avery and Robert Fraser walked the shadowy deck together. “I can’t pretend any lenger,” he sald. “You know what's happened, don’t you?” “Why—of course.” “T've sfludmmylelt that I was “You're not original; I said it, too.” His arms were 'round her. “We're going to be married as soon as we land. Avery, tell me we are. Say you love “I do love you.” She hesitated. “And I've never been in love before. I can't quite believe it, even now.” “Neither can I. I've been so afraid— you're so different from all the women I know. You're so marvelous—oh, how I wish there were other words to tell you in, Avery. I say ‘marvelous’ and ‘wonderful’ and ‘glorious’ and all the other hackneyed old stuff, because I'm not clever at the poetry and romantic sort of thing, but I feel the other words, words of color and fragrance.” “Dear Robert, I don’t want words. Just your loving me is enough.” “That—that seems nothing to offer you. You know, Avery, I've never cared about money, but now it's something to me, because I can give you the things you haven’t had, the things you ought to have; I can make it possible for you to stop your work—-" A pang of dismay shook her happi- ness. “But I could never——" she began weakly, and he did not hear her. He was raving on in the fashion of happy lovers the world over. She listened and forgot the phrase that had startled her, But the next day, as they were leav- ing ‘the pier, he said, “My car will be ; T'll take you wherever you go. Avery, I don't even know where you do g “I thought we'd stop at the old Veda House, until I can find an apartment. We've been there before; they know us.” “My dear, you mustn’t go there— it’s a grubby old hole.” “I can't afford the big places.” “But just for a_ few days—it's not suitable, the Veda, I mean. I can't tell the family you're there.” Still she did not take alarm. “Don't be bossy,” she said, smiling. “The Veda isn't elegant, but it’s respectable, almost painfully so. I simply can't pay the prices at those others,” “But, Avery”—he began, and then stopped. They had agreed that his first eve- ning must be with his sister, but, as he left Avery at the hotel, he said, “T'll be here early tomorrow. We'll have the whole day together.” ‘This startled her into reality. “Oh, Robert—T'll have to be at Kiehler’s office early. I promised him I'd not lose a minute, and I haven't the least idea how long I'll have to stay. Let me telephone when I'm through.” His look of shocked remonstrance shocked her also. “You forgot my con- tract,” she added. “I've got to keep it.” He hesitated, looked with distaste about the dingy lobby of the Veda. “This isn’t the time or the place to discuss, well, what we must discuss. T'll phone you. We must come to some sort of understanding about—certain things.” Yes, Avery was sure they must. She went on up to her rooms with the feeling of one who has been making a long and beautiful 4ir flight and has suddenly landed on a cobbled street. Robert actually resented her work. He had said that he was glad she need not keep on working. Not keep on working! That life, the life of her former patrons, a network of trivialities ex- alted into duties, of strict laws as to where one lived, of what one wore, of how one spoke and smiled, of the peo- ple one knew—what had she to do with this life? Nothing, nothing at all. And yet this was Robert’s life. If she be- came Robert's wife she'd be a Fraser, too. With a shock she realized that she might have considered this be- fore,” she told herself. She did not reflect that this was the first moment she had been out of the glamour of Robert’s presence. EREE BASKET of flowers was at that moment delivered at her door. It brought Robert back to her with a rush. Good heavens, what was ail her worrying about! What did anything matter but Robert? She glanced at the clock—it was not quite 6. She would just call up Crane Kiehler's office, on the chance that he'd be in so late, and tell him that she'd got herself engaged, that she was going to be mar- ried veflry soon, and that their contract was off. ‘The words never left her lips. “Great Caesar, young woman, I'm glad you're here,” shouted .Crane Kiehler. “Stick on your hat and hustle down. I've got the most interesting thing that's been in the shop for a thousand years. It's the chance of your life.” Once in his office, the long tables, the men stooping over them, the blue prints, the drawings, the very instru- ments and lights made her feel at home. This was the world she knew, this was Timinary greeting, A big bank, and, when you see the chance for g:ct;:fimn you're going to be tickled to went over the plans. At last me.” ‘They the telephone on Kiehler's desk buzzed ONE AFTERNOON, AS SHE WAS RELUCTANTLY PUTTING THE LAST TOUCHES ON A ROOM DE- SIGNED TO BRING INDOORS THE GREAT TROPICAL GARDEN JUST OUTSIDE, SHE HEARD A MAN'S VOICE . . . “I'S GLO- RIOUS ... so long and so persistently that he heard it. “Good heavens!” he said, as he put it down. “I forgot all about my wife's party. Well—you be on hand at 8:30 tomorrow and we'll finish up, and then you better rent a studio and fly to it.” Avery looked at her watch. It was 20 minutes of 8. On the way back to the hotel she realized that she had not said a word to Kiehler about her marriage. She hadn't had a chance, she assured herself—but she knew that the truth was that she had forgotten it. And, in further bleak honesty, she admitted that she wouldn't give up the chance to decorate that bank for any- thing—or—anybody. With this, she found herself back at the hoel, listening to her mother: “Mr. Fraser’s telephoned half a dozen times:; he’s afraid something’s happened to you. I didn’t know where you'd gone.” The telephone, ringing again, silenced ger. }t w;:e Ro‘bert.u "Oll}. Avery, my lear, I've been frantic. ou hadn’t been bacl S k this time, I was coming right | down and notify the police, search the hospitals—" His solicitude tempered her answer. It was sweet to be cared for. But what a fuss about nothing, as if she were a child or a pet dog. “I'm terribly sorry. 1 was at Kiehler's and forgot the time, his plans were so wonderful.” There was a strained pause, then his voice again, angry, cold. “It's beastly to say so, but I'd almost rather you'd been in an accident.” * K ok X THE morning brought more flowers from Robert, and then his voice, contrite and eager and anxious, on the telephone. “I'm ashamed of the way I spoke to you last night. But it seem- ed as if you'd gone away from me, that you'd forgotten all you said and all you promised on the boat, that there wasn't any reality in it. Tell me, I'm a fool, tell me it isn't so. I want to hear you say it.” “Of course, it isn't so.” She had to say it, but—was it true? He went on explaining, apologizing, excusing himself. Toward the end, she began to feel impatience. She did not want her emotions played on. The” morning with Kiehler, a repeti- tion of the hour of the night before, gave her a lift, restored her. It swung her away from emotional disturbance, pat her on the heights of confident cre- ation. She snatched a sandwich and a glass of milk, and commenced her search for & studio, From this she went back to the old Veda House at 7, tired to numb stupidity. Robert was waiting— with a bunch of orchids. Orchids, when all she wanted was a bath, a bowl of hot soup, and her bed! Tired as she was, it made her want to laugh. Avery dressed as quickly as she could, whipping up the remnants of her energy to do it, but when she got into the waiting car she sighed with fatigue. Fraser heard and was silent. He had already ordered dinner and it was_promptly served. “I told Nancy about our engage- ment, Avery. She wants to come and see you as soon as you'll let her; I could hardly keep her from rushing down there today. What time tomor- row can she come?” She tried to think. The remem- brance of tinkling, trivial Nancy, and the prospect of her unlimited com- panionship, dismayed and irritated her. “It will have to be in the evening. I'll be all morning at Kiehler’s, and looking for a studio again in the after- noon.” “Why can't you put off your studio until a day after, and see Nancy to-| morrow and have dinner with her and me in the evening?” “Oh, but, Robert, I can't lose a sec- ond getting into that studio. If you'd see the gorgeous piece of work Kiehler's got for me.” He faced her squarely. “Do you mean that nothing else matters but your work? What am I to think? Avery, you must give it all up. Where will you find time, my dear? We've got S0 many things to do together. I want to take you all over the world, I want to do everything all over again with you—we'll have a yacht on the Medi- terranean, and play round the Riviera, we'll go camping the Canadian Rockies, and then there's Southampton and the ‘farm in Virginia—you'll ‘love it. We'll take a house in town, too, if you like. Don’t you see, darling girl, what fun we'll have, and what it will mean for us to be together, doing all the jolliest things in the world?"” With every word he became more alien to her. “Robert, don't you ever work?? she asked at last. “Why, of course, I look after the estate, and that’s not such a small job, you know. But it's not especially exact- ing. I can direct everything by wire or cable just as easily as if I were on the ground. And I've very competent people.” “But my work is the sort no one can do but me. I must think it out, I must work it out, actually shape it with my hands.” “Yes, but, dearest, there isn't the slightest necessity for you to go on with it. I couldn’t bear the idea of you slaving away in a smelly studio at the beck and call of any architect who's building something and wants you to decorate it. It's not suitable for my wife.” * k% % SHE waited again before she answered, and, though she spoke to him, it was as much to herself, slowly, a shap- ing and an expression of her deepest 1 feeling: “We're as far apart as the poles. I love you, yes, I do love you, but we don’t speak the same language. You say things that seem so monstrous to me that I know you have no cen- ception of what they mean. You speak of my work as if it were a sort of con- venient meal ticket, as if I worked only because I have to support myself, as if I ought to be glad to get rid of it, almost as if there were something to be ashamed of in it. It wouldn't be suitable for your wife to work. There are, in your world, suitable hours for this and that, little conventional laws and rules you must live by. Oh, all very well. You're used to it, you ac- cept it, it doesn't irk you. Only—it doesn’t happen to be my world. In my world there’s only one rule, one law, and that is, if you have any gift—and I have, T know I have—you must not cheat it or play with it. You must give all your strength, all your power, all your devotion to making it as honest and as great and as beautiful as you can. I think my world is a better world than yours. Robert—I can't do it. Every moment since I landed I've known I couldn't.” “You mean,” he said at last, “that you can't give up your work? Why, Avery, what sort of marriage will we have, if you don't?” “If conditions were reversed, if you had an exacting. jealous, hard profes- sion, you'd not think of leaving it be- cause you married. You aren't going to give up the management of your prop- erty because you marry.” “No, of course not. That’s different. You can't argue from that premise.” “Talent has no sex, Robert. And I will tell you this: I've had a_poor, meager life compared to yours, I sup- pose, but it taught me what I can do | by. witnout, znd what I must have. I can 1o more give up my work and be only a contented, casual traveling cempanion, a hostess for your friends in your big houses, a well dressed, smiling wife, and, if we have children, a thoughtful, attentive mother, than—than I can sing like Galli-Curci. I think it will kill me to part from you, but I know it would kill me to part from my work. It is my life, it is me.” “But, Avery, be reasonable. And don't talk about us parting, for we're | not going to. I'm trying to understand | you, but you give me a ridiculous part. I'm to sit at home and wait until you're through with your daily toil, and, you're not too tired, we might go out, or entertain—oh, Avery, that’s all so absurd. It isn't marriage, my dear.” “It isn't your idea of marriage, I know. My work isn't ridiculous, I don't see how it can make you so. But that's no matter. something I have not the power to give you. My work, my necessity to work— 1 wish I could make you sce—it’s as re- It’s just that you want lentless as thirst, or hunger, or passion, and as strong. It's the fox that gnaws the Spartan boy—only, if it gnawed me, I'm afraid T wouldn't be very Spartan.” She smiled at him wistfully, but there were tears shining behind the smile. “Oh, Robert, why didn’t you fall in love with a woman who hasn’t a taskmaster like mine? We'd better part right now, cut everything off clean, let it be as if we'd never seen cach other. I'd rather make you—and me—a little unhappy now than a great deal later.” X% w E said no more, but called the waiter and paid him. They went out to the car. “You really mean, Avery, that, when we are married, I'm to have only the scraps and edges of your time, that painting the walls of banks and so forth means more to you than the life I can give you? If you do mean that, I know that you don't love me.” “I do mean it, and yet I do love you. 1 can see you'd never be content, that it would always be a fight bstween m: work and you. I cculdn't live like that, Rebert.” “Then what are we going to do?” Avery gave a lont weary sigh. She must _choose, and, having chosen, she must hoid fast to her choice. But it was very hard. ‘“We're going to tell each other pood-by.” she said at last. worked too long, Robert; it's in my bones, it’s in my soul. I ean't stop.” As the car stopped at h~r hotel, he put his hand over hers, and ths warm, firm touch set her trembling. But she held her voice steady. “Good-by.” she $31d, “thank you for—everything. .Good- Oh, it was hard. She did not dare look after him, for fear she would call him back, he looked so proud, so angry, and yet so lonely and so htirt. She hur- ried in, away from him. To get away, to cry, to let her heart break in solitude, that was what she wanted. It killed her, this parting. And yet, through all the pain, she knew an exultation. The way was clear again. there would be no more clutter and fret of emotion, no pulling back from her task, no compromising her greatest need. If she was less woman, she was, she knew, more artist. She raached her tired arms skyward In a if | gesture of triumph. “Now,” she said, “now, I can work.” (Copyright, 1928.) _ Postponed Ablution. Mother—Junior, you didn't wash your face this morning. Efficiency Expert’s Little Boy—No, Mother—I heard you say we were going to have grapefruit for breakfast. ‘How New York “Laundryman-Detective” Fell Into a Police Net A Curtain of Pistol Fire Lifts to Clear Up the Robberies on Riverside Drive With the Capture of a Dangerous Criminal. “THE COAT AND THE HANDBAG?” SHE 2 SURE, I'LL TELL YOU. THE BOY FRIEND GAVE GET THEM? THEM TO ME.” CRIED. “WHERED 1 BY PROSPER BURANELLL of swank, dog and moneyed pride. was a certain notice and interest. ‘The newcomer was an employe of 2 clothes-washing concern that did a in the neighborhood. He made the rounds with the wagon. called for the bulging bags of dirty shirts, socks and lingerie and was in large business URING the mild, moderate days of last Autumn a new figure appeared in the course of life and affairs along Riverside Drive and West End avenue, in the nineties, a neighborhood of poc- ket-emptying rents, paunchy, weil fed apartment dwellers and a great de;: was no case of a brilliant personality flashing on the scene, master of finance, social lion or celebrity of the arts, but merely this—a new laundry man was on the job. Whatever notice or inter- est occesioned was to be found in the circle of elevator boys, ladies’ maids, janitors and cooks—and, indeed, there every respect a capable laundry man, A pleasant and amiable laundry man, too. He was a talkative fellow, who would stand and chat with elevator boys, janitors, cooks and maids—ospe- cially the cooks and maids. He cut quite a_dash with the girls in kitchens and hallways, and doubtless there were romances that went their moonlit way. However, this is no love story of humble hearts, no sentimental idyll of affection on the back stairs, but rather an affair of pistol shots and of death yawning in the darkness, and the love story in it is passing strange. Several robberies occurred soon after- ward in the high apartment houses with carved entrances and emblazoned halls. They were what in technical language are called movie jobs, bur- glaries done during the favorable hours No. 580 West End avenue, and the Silbermans, at No. 230 Riverside drive, were the victims. In each case a good haul was made, and in the Silberman case the thieves made away with quan- tities of Mrs. Silberman’s jewels, trin- kets and furs, including a spectacular fur coat. Two crime-hunting sleuths of the local station house, Sergt. Hogan and Detective Schnaible, made an in- vestigation. They discovered little, save that two crooks were operating to- gether and that they were a flashy smartly dressed, flambuoyant rogues. Ten days later Mrs. Silberman strolled over to Broadway and then along that legended street. “What?” she murmured. “Am I She dreaming?” She saw a splendorous coat. could have recognized it among a mil- lion. It was her own coat. The glorious piece of raiment was moving slowly along. It was cloaked around the slen- der form of a smart, handsome young woman. And dangling in the young woman's grasp Mrs. Silberman saw a dazzlingly beaded handbag, her own handbag, that was among the things stolen. ol - RS. SILBERMAN kept a cool head. ‘The girl, with another trim step- per, was sauntering along slowly. Mrs. Silberman, reasoning that they would keep on their leisurely way, darted into a drug store and telephoned to the sta- tlon house. Sergt. Hogan on the wire, and it was arranged that she should keep after the two beauties while Hogan and his partner, Schnaible, hur- ried to meet them further up the street. Thus it happened that the girl in Mrs. Silberman’s fur coat found her- self in the uncouth, unlovely surround- ings of a police station, where grace and beauty are as if in a desert. She said she was Gertle Smith, an in- structress in one of those bl dance palaces with gaudy walls and shiny floors, where the muse of the tripping toe is served with a paddling of flat feet. She was shapely and blond, with a face a feast for the eyes. Her pro- tests were loud and fervent. Indeed, she made angry fun of the two stal- warts of the law. “The coat and handbag?” she cried scathingly. “Where'd I get them? of evening, when inmates of households are' at the movies. On one particular night, that of November 9, two flats were turned off. The Rosensteins, at Sure, I'll tell you. The boy i gave them to me. Who's he? it’s the laugh. I'll tell you who he is, and yowll feel foolish, Why, he's one of | time you boys. He's a detective, He's a plain clothes dick down at headquar- ters.” Hogan and Schnaible paused for thought and then pursued—the name of the boy friend detective. “No, I won't tell you,” she re- sponded with a precise asperity, “and you two guys, you're dicks, pals of his, and you wouldn't want me to tell you. 1t might get him into trouble. You'll understand. He pinched a girl for something or other, but he didn’t lock the kid up. He took her coat and handbag and turned her loose. So he gave the stuff to me. You wouldn't want to get him into trouble, would you?” Hogan and Schnaible paused Xo.x breath. The girl in Mrs. Silberman’s fur coat observed the perplexity in their faces and mocked and jeered. “Do you guys suppose I'd have a burglar with the cops after him for a boy friend? I did once, a husband. But never again. I'm on the other side of the fence now.” Continuing her ex- clamations of scorn for the two de- tectives, she unfolded a tale of curious romance. * ok kK FEW years before she fell in love with a handsome, magnetic man who was a robber. She did not know of his fession, which was automobile stealing. After an idyllic honeymoon and a joyous beginning af housekeep- ing, the cops walked in and seized th bridegroom. They sent him out fo the West, where prison walls closed about him, Gertie liked all of this not a bit. It had been a bitter experienced. She was left humiliated and disillusioned. All she could say was “never ain” and that she was off crooks for life. In time she met a tall, '““,},"‘f chap —ul:‘er detective. It was a thrill, she said. robber the law had more than its usual majesty for her, and this broad-shoul- dered, 'wugzr light of the law stood a glamorous in fler eyes. He be- sought her with gallant wooing, and she elded. His being a member of a po- lice organization fascinated her. How different this love, the very poles apart, from the first. If you have bad luck with a crook, try a detective. It was indeed the other side of the fence. At the station house the girl in Mrs. Silberman’s fur coat finished off her story with a laugh and a flourish. “1 l!n-de a f :im.n once, but this 6. After her misadventure with the | j; Hogan and Schnaible listened and wondered. They were men of dark and devious doubts, and into their conniv- ing heads came a suspicion thdt seemed too ironical to be true. It was common enough for crooks to pose as detectives. Could it be something like that now? ‘They murmured their vague surmise, planissimo e con espressione, to Gertie. She glared at them. She stamped her foot. She waxed wrathful and con- clusive. They thought they were wise guys, a couple of foxy bulls. Well, she’d show them. They could look her boy friend up—if they promised not to be mean enough to get him thto any trou- ble. They promised fervently. Well, his name was McLaughlin. It took little looking up. There was no McLaughlin on the New York police force who fitted the part of Gertie's boy friend. On the other hand, the description Gertie gave of the sugpoud officer of the law matched that of one of the robbers who had looted the West Side flats. The false detective, as it turned out, was a notorious and dangerous criminal who had a long record and was wanted for various misdeeds, including the shooting of a policeman. In the course of his evil scheming he often posed as a plain clothes man. It was in his con- stabulary guise that he met Gertie and wooed and won her. She told him many a time of her disastrous marriage with a crook and how she was off crooks for life, and was so happy on the other side of the fence with a detective for her boy friend. He kept up his pretense. The fake dick, likewise, was the laun- dryman who had beguiled cooks and maids in the big West Side apartment houses. He had got a job with the clothes wnshln’ company and used it as a means of scouting for robberies. As a laundryman he could readily study the layout of houses and the habits of !l‘r’n‘lll. o that he could arrange movie jobs. The girl in Mrs. Silberman’s coat had indeed been uuflght in a tragic net. When Hogan and Schnaible con- vinced her of it, her anger brought the case to a rapid, violent conclusion. Ordinarily it is hard to get a squeal out of a woman, but Gertie's feelings were so sorely wounded and outraged that she told everything she knew. * ok % K HE was to meet the sham bull that night at her partment after she was through at the dance palace. Hogan and Schnaible left her at the police station and waited in front of the house. A figure came along the street. It was their man. He entered the house, and, after an interval, they followed him upstairs. They heard his door open and close. They kept on and down the hall to the door. There was a loud banging inside, as if furni- ture was being thrown about. Hogan tried the door. It opened a few. inches, The light in- Hogan forced his out. He felt He crouched BY THE LIGHT OF PIS SHOTS, THEY COULD SEE TUMBLED CONFUSION. 'OL A to the floor and began to shoot. Schnaible plunged into the black room after him, shooting. By the light of pistol shots they could see a tumbled confusion. The crook had grown sus- picious at Gertie's not being at home, and then had heard the footsteps of the two detectives down the hall. The sus- s faed s i a then swi tly&urled the other furniture to form a batricade. the light, d i h{l‘l:u‘l‘ln to o . an . S B, B = La® N G fight it out, shot for shot. He threw | p: block it, and Crashing detonations in the dark room and the sudden, brief illumina- tions of pistol flashes. The two detec- tives, sheltering themselves on one side of the furniture barricade, fired con- tinuously at their obscure mark on the other, and he fired back. EE o5 »ds