Evening Star Newspaper, September 29, 1929, Page 115

- L THE SUNDA Thrills and Hazards of a Lady Private BY MARGARET SUFFOLK. KIND FATE, and not a streak of adventure, sent Mrs. Turner out upon her first assignment as lady detective. No, excuse, please, Mrs. Turner is not a lady detective, she's an lnvesugntor. Be very careful about that. It seems there’s & fine line of distinction there. And although her job is of the guaranteed “not a risk in a dozen cases” variety, Mrs. Turner manages to get quite a thrill out of her work. It was sometime before the war that she found herself stranded in a big city, a widow without a great deal of money and with a small boy who was delicate. She spoke to her physician about work, and he asked the most logical question in the world. “What can you do?” A sense of utter tragedy swept over Mrs, Turner. “Why, nothing,” she responded helplessly. The doctor studied her carefully. Character, intelligence, charm. Surely there must be something she could do. Quiet, too. Most women talked too much. And then he remem- bered. Without a word to Mrs. Turner, he went to the telephone and called the claim attorney for one of the largest railroad companies in the city. “Think I have just the woman you were wishing for this morning, Bert,” he said. “Shall 1 send her over?” The man called Bert sent Mrs. Turner upon her first job. And he didn’t tell her she was about to become a lady detective, either. If he had. she would have calmly replied that she couldn't do it. What he told her was that a woman had been injured while alighting from a passenger train and her attorneys, who were handling the case on a contingency basis, had ordered her to give no information concerning her condi- tion to any one. As a result, several repre- sentatives of the railroad company had been unable to learn definitely just to what extent the woman had been injured. “She’s running a boarding house, we think,” the man told Mrs. Turner. “We want to be certain about it. We also want to know just how much of the actual housework she does herself.” de suggested that Mrs. Turner take her child and spend a week at Mrs. Platt’s board- ing house—"Mrs. Platt,” by the way, is not the woman's real name—sending him daily reports of conditions there as she observed them. Her expenses were paid in advance, and she was assured that she would be amply paid for her services upon her return to the city. The country! Pure air and sunshine for Sonny! Mrs. Turner’'s heart was very light as she walked down the station platform of the little country town and inquired about Mrs. Platt's boarding house. Even if she had been trained for her work, it is doubtful whether she could have sent more ° complete reports. She seemed to have a natural talent for picking out just the bit of informa- tion which would be most valuable to the com- pany, and then leaving out everything else. FTER a three-day friendship, Mrs. Turner was able to report that Mrs. Platt had confided that the operation she had undergone, and for which the railroad company was paying, was one she “shoulda had for years and years but which she just kept putting off.” On another day, when Mrs, Turner was help- ing the woman with her housework, Mrs. Platt remarked that “when she got that money out of the railroad company, she was going to have some nice silk pillows for her davenport.” In her bill of complaint against the company, Mrs. Platt claimed that since her accident she had been unable to perform her household duties, but the investigator's report stated that in one day she had washed 12 sheets, five table- cloths and 24 napkins, cooked three meals, washed all the dishes, besides putting the house in order and carrying home a heavy sack of groceries from the market. Several months- later, Mrs. Platt's case came up in court. She had been carefully drilled in the answers she should make to the questions asked her, but when counsel for the railroad company, early in the case, shot this question at her: - “Isn’t it true that the operation which you underwent shortly after the accident, and for which the company paid, was one you should have had years before?” Mrs. Platt looked fussed, remembered that she had sworn to tell the truth, so admitted that it was. “For the life of me,” she confided to her attorneys when they advised her to settle with - the company at a much lower figure than that named in her suit, “I can't imagine how they found that out, unless I talked when I was coiing out of the ether.” And so Mrs. Turner had made a success of her first job. After that, the company sent her regularly upon other assignments. Some of them were very small, requiring only a few hours, but each of them made her more shrewd, more quick to detect important details. As she added other firms to her clientele, she was busier and happier and when her son was a tall young man ready for college, she looked even younger than she had when she went out on that first case. i DRESSED in a dark tailored frock, close- fitting hat and fox furs, Mrs. Turner sat in the outer offices of Keith, Carter & Shipley, a law firm which made a specialty of solving the problems of very large corporations and very rich individuals. When she rose and walked demurely into At- torney Shipley's private office, he might easily “ove been mistaken for a ctennoranher looking Y STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., SEPTEMBER 29, 1929. k2 r 15 l To Mrs. Turner's amazement, the Hindu doctor went into a trance behind Q pair of portieres, with only his feet protruding. Here Are the True Adventures of a Woman Who Had to Work and Found Her Job Investigating Freak Damage Cases for a Firm >o'f” Corporation Lawyers. =~ .= for a better position or a charity worker for a donation. “Did you get anything, Mrs. Turner?”. queried the big man, in a tone which implied that, of course, she hadn't. “I swear this case has me about licked. Do- nati could face any jury in the country and get any verdict he asked, purely on sympathy. Even the war left no more hideous physical wrecks.” . The man passed a hand over his eyes as though trying to wipe out the memory which haunted him. “One arm completely gone, all the fingers off the other hand and that scarred, disfigured face—Oh, my God!” Donati, whom he described, was the victim of a purported gas explosion. ‘The City Gas Co., Shipley's client, was being sued for negligence to the expensive tune of a $500,000. ) “I suppose one glance at him was enough for you, too.” d “It might have been, but I was spared the glance.” The look of disappointment derpened upon the man's face. So she hadn't even seen Do- nati. “However,” she added. “I did see Donati’s sweetheart. Worked beside her in the garment factory for a week—and——" Mr. Shipley’'s hand had touched the button which summoned his secretary. His eyes had brightened slightly. From her purse Mrs. Turner produced a small square note-pad on which were a few dozen notes, which she translated into a report. Monday. WENT to work as stitcher in garment factory. . Learned that Rose Buzza, a pretty Italian girl, worked just behind me. Formed a speak- ing acquaintance at lunch time and walked home with her at night. She was quite flat- tered when I told her she seemed superior to other girls and became friendly. Tuesday. Told Rose Buzza about a quarrel I had with a boy friend and she was quite sympathetic. Said she'd been having trouble with some Span- ish fellow she’d been going around with since her own carling was tied up in the city on his lawsuil. Seemed quite surprised that I knew nothing about Donati’s case, and went into elaborate detail. Wept when she described Do- nati’'s injuries and saide she'd stick to him through hell. : Wednesday. Rose seemed much pleased when I told her of an attorney friend who might be able to help Donati win his case. Tdbk me down to see his house. pointing out his room with the window through which Donati was blown and showing me the location of the gas connection, ete., in the room, - Thursday. Rose Buzza was very blue all day and cried some in the afternoon. Said life was very cruel and the only thing she had to live for was the money Donati was getting from the gas com- pany. Said that they would go into some good business and be able to live swell. Suggested we go on a date some evening, which I agreed to do Priday. 2 I persuaded my son to go with me on this date. Rose was delighted, and teased me about my handsome young sheik. Her Spanish boy friend was extremely jealous, so she played up to my son considerably, asking him about his work. TFortunately, my son told her he worked in a drug store. ' He has a job after school at a soda fountain. That seemed to please Rose, and she told him that some day he might become a chemist. She said Donati was a chemist and, later, that he had invented a cleaning fluid which one of his friends who was in the dry-cleaning business told him was worth a fortune. Rose said that she had the formula, and they would have the - invention patented and make some money on that if Donati lost his case against the gas company. I asked her where he had worked on this invention, and she said at home in his own room. 4 : Saturday. I questioned Rose further about Donati’s in- vention, asking her if she would let me take the formula and get some of the cleaning fluid for my own use. At first she agreed to do this, "but later remembered that Donati had warned her 3pecifically against showing the formula to any one, so she gave me the name of the dry- cleaner who is using it, and said that if I tald him of our friendship he would be glad to do my cleaning reasonably.” Lawyer Shipley was quick to seize upon the possibility of the explosion’s having been caused by the cleaning fiuid, and called in a repre- sentative of the gas company. Between them they got at the truth, and Donati lost what.at first appeared to be his perfect case. BUT Mrs. Turner's efforts do not always meet with such immediate success. Sometimes it is necessary to call one of the assistants whom she now employs to visit people who seem suspicious, and who refuse to respond to her personal overtures. ? : Dr.. Muntefik, who ‘called himself the Hindu medicine man, recognized her instantly as an enemy. The doctor, whom police suspected of being a clever imnoster, responsible for several gruesome murders whose mysteries remain um~ - solved, was accused of selling opium. Mrs, Turner was sent to get some samples of his - medicine. E } , To Mrs. Turner's amazement, when she pre- sented herself in his stuffy little home on Gif- - ford court, the Hindu doctor went into a trance behind a pair of filthy portieres with only his huge feet protruding, and when he finally - emerged made the woman a Jow ‘bow and reported that the spirits advised him she needed * no 3 o N He gave her a charm, charged her $2 for . his services, and asked her to leave by a cellar . door which opened onto a back street. » So she called in Terese, a little colored girl who worked in a beauty parlor and who had _ assisted on a number of cases where it was impossible for Mrs. Turner to work without . being suspected. “Terese,” she sald, “I wish you'd go down to the Hindu medicine man and see if you can get some of his headache powders, and - any other kind of medicine he may have.” “It isn't that I'm afraild, Mrs. Turner,” ge replied, “but I just don't like to go down there. men one time, and when their wives fo Why that doctor put an evil charm on two r them they were sitting in two chairs facing each other and both of them were absolutely dead. The doctor had charmed their eyes . right out of their heads, and charmed their ears off, and he had charmed off all their fingers and all their toes. And there they were stone dead.” 5 s : . x So Mrs. Turner appealed to her other assisb- ant, an elderly woman who had a talent fox visiting hospitals and learning all about peopletp injuries. . Ve “Sure, I'll go,” said Mrs. Pringle, who could talk about her lumhago as fluently as though she really had it, and who thoroughly enjoye@ feigning a heart attack. “I'll drive you down in my car,” said Mrs Turner, who was just a little afraid to send the woman into Gifford court alone, “and I'll drive up and down the street which parallels Gifford court every 15 minutes .or so. If he . puts you out the cellar door you won't have so far to walk.” Then she patrolled the narrow streets of. . that netorious neighborhood for two soli@ . hours, even daring as she grew more and ‘more anxious, to drive twice down Gifford court and stare at the house—a black, sinister thing,. ° with a pale light shining. through a window - like a wicked eye. * Finally when she had resolved to park in the next block and go back the front door opened and out stepped Mrs, Pringle, chatting 'pleas- antly and turning, actually, to shake hands Xr Y with the old monster. She drove discreetly oh around the corner and waited. “My dear, what in the world were you doing all that time?” she cried, noting with intense relief that the woman carried a package of medicine, ' a ; “Just telling him all my troubles and listen- ing to all of his.” “Really?” . 3 “Yes. He told me it's just awful the way the police are always hounding him, and him a good man and trying to help people and all.” “What did he give you?” “Tea for my rheumatism.” Mrs. Turner sighed -happily, and turned her car into the more brightly lighted streets. ~ - -