Evening Star Newspaper, March 30, 1930, Page 93

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, MARCH 30, 1930. appselsinwly. A woman in evening dress might bave smudged it there. ‘Then she hurried to see Mme. Artois. “I've come to ask if you've missed any clothes you've been cleasing in the last few days.” “Clothes? And what business is it of yours, to ask that?” “—an evening gown of pale coral color with silver lace trimimngs and a rhinestone beit. Also a set of handmade French underwear ¥ “I have not missed anything,” Mme. Artois sat up very straight and menacing. “Why you come ‘ere asking that?* “Because a woman wearing those clothes was found dead last night. She had been shot.” AS one impeiled by many small firecrackers, Mme Artois bounced to her feet and out of the room. She was gone for 10 minutes. When she returned, she was puffing like one about to fall of apoplexy. “Evereee one gone! Just the articles you say. Nevair before 'ave we been robbed.” Then with a quick sly gleam, “Where you say that woman was found dead?” “In Mr. Seeton Well’s apartment.” Oh! But how could she possibly get there?” “That’s what we're trying to find out. Have you been employing a girl with reddish brown hair, quite pretty, about 5 feet 7 in height, large gray eyes? She’s about 26——" “I know!” She bit her under lip, then said, “The Allison girl?” “Charlotte Allison. She was a good girl, I think, but very :irange in the head. I gave her piece work she could do at ‘ame. But this morning I expect her in wit'. 4 job. She did not come. I send my .aiece to her place. Charlotte had not been there last night., I think she would go some way like that.” “What made you think so, Mme. Artois?” “She had something on her mind that was making her crazy. She tell the girls ’ere that Gen. Well, who was Seeton Well's father, stole a great cityful of real estate from her family. She say her mother die from hunger and tell Charlotte that the Well family owe her $10,000,- 000. Only last week I think Y must send Char- lotte away. She read in the papers about this wedding Seeton Well expect to have and it make her talk strange. Maybe that man put her up to things.” 2 What man?” A new character had entered the case. “Man? “She was married to somebody: I do not know his name. He speaks with a cockney twang.” “Madame, I've got to hurry and get all the information I can.” Doll rose and made her- self forceful as her slight person would permit. *If I go round to the place where Charlotte Allison lived and see her room before it is dis- turbed I think I may learn what I want. Will you take me there?” “Certainlee.” ‘To the landiady of a boarding house just off Third avenue, it was necessary for Doll to repre- sent herself as Charlotte’s sister with an ap- pointment to wait in Charlotte's room, before the two were admitted to the little box on the second floor back. There wasn’t much to find. Poor garments and two shabby dresses in a wardrobe. But in the waste basket were frag- ‘ments. A fragment cut from the real estate page of a newspaper; the engraving of a hand- some office building, and scrawled across it in fountain-pen ink the word “ours.” Scraps of letters, torn to bits, told nothing. But a shred of letter paper showed a few words written in pencil—a round cramped hand: “. . . can take the car again when he is baving din. . . " These finds seemed to mean nothing, but in & bureau drawer, Doll found a cheap little note- book. It was Charlotte Allison’s book of ex- penses. Poverty-strigken items were set down carefully, so that her week's extravagances would never exceed her week's earnings. Page after page the mean figures went on like a limping processions of beggars. Then there were blanks until two appeared in the very back of the book. These were written in the same hand, but with a flourish: “Future Expenses.” That was interesting. More in- terésting still was the nature of the expenses 80 luxuriously written down. “Cabin on Mauretania . . My clothes in Paris . . . Ed’s clothes in London . . . Buy car in Italy . . . Expenses at Monaco . . . Proposed house in Paris “She's been trying to keep account of her expenses,” smiled Doll, dropping the jewel of price into her handbag. “I'm going to phone the office. Won't you look through all the clothes? Sometimes you find clues that way. DOLL found a drug store booth in Third ave- nue, and was fortunate in getting Hector at Cheever’s. “Hec bring Seeton Well up here in his own ear. In his own car, understand.” “But, Doll——" “And dump in all the district attorneys and detectives and cops the thing will hold. And come like a fire wagon.” “All right, dear.” Doll was at the door of the boarding house when Well’'s car stopped at the curb. Mr. Dolliver, a young assistant district attorney, seemed to have matters in his hands. When Doll asked to have one of the detectives stay in the car, Mr. Dolliver smiled and permitted it. Doll, who had several things to manage in a few minutes, wound Mme. Artois up to the pitch of telling her story. Meanwhile she had taken ‘her husband aside and told the same tale in a paragraph. Rapidly she told him how she had found a streak of powder on a coat Huntington had brushed the day before. The closet was about 8ix paces from the chair where Charlotte Allison had been sitting, waiting for Mr. Well to come out. In an instant she could have slid into that closet and hidden away. Undoubtedly there had been some sort of plot to get Huntington out of the house. And vhat did the expensive items in Charlotte’s n~ - ook mean? “We have found,” said Hector, rejoining the other group, “that this woman, Charlotte Alli- son, did not leave Mr. Well's apartment, but hid in & closet waiting for him to go. This notebook % A AL \ St \\ \n Seeton Well, heir to the late Gen. Pontius Well, came home on lhemo[hiaweddingday’m.d fjound a richly gowned lady shows that she had hallucinations of grandeur. It is easy to reconstruct her movements during the few minutes while Mrs. Well finished dress- ing. The minute he was gone she came out, took Mr. Well's revolver from its drawer——" Hector’s diagnosis stopped abruptly. Doll was pinching him. But it was too late. “It was a spite suicide,” said Mr. Dolliver. “Mr. Well was on the eve of his wedding. Nothing in the world would worry him more than having a dead woman found in his room. This Allison girl was crazy. She was perfectly willing to die, so long _as people would think. . . " “But how did she know where the closet was and this gun was?” Seeton Well asked. “I've never set eyes on her before. “Haven't I said that a thousand times?" They had all gone down the stairs and gath- ered to argue on the chipped brownstone stoop. “I don’t want to be cleared in this way.” Seeton Well was protesting. “I demand further investigation. It's all very well to wave it off, call it suicide—" But Doll was clutching at Mme. Artois’ arm. “Is that the man?” Purtively she was pointing to Well's automobile. “Yes! It is him™ “Hec, arrest Cummings before he shoots or something.” “Arrest who?” 5 “Cummings. He’s Charlotte’s husband. He planned the whole thing. He killed her. Get him, Hec.” stone dead on the rug beside his bed. Hector plunged down sthe steps toward the car. Cummings must have scented trouble, for he stepped on the self-starter and would have shot away, had not Hector seized his head from behind in a break-neck hold. “How did you know Cummings was the man?” Hector waited until breakfast to ask that question. They had both had 12 howurs' sleep and felt 12 years younger. “In the first place old Huntington said that the man who telephoned to tell him that story about his sick son had a funny accent. Then Mme. Artois said that Charlotte’s husband spoke with a Cockney twang. Now look the way things happened. It was Cummings try- ing to send everybody to the electric chair. He started the whispering campaign about Mr. Well’s having known the woman a long time. Then, when that didn't work so well he began talking about how Huntington had got the old pistol fixed. The minute I set eyes on Cum- mings this morning I just plain didn’t like him. I talked to him for a moment and no- ticed that he tried hard to speak like an Eng- " lishman. But his effort was very clumsy. His accent wasn’t right.” “But I can’t see how you connect Cummings with the crime,” said Hector. “Where was he on the night of the murder? Mr. Well had to call a taxi to go get those etchings. And I found a scrap of paper in Charlotte’s room written with a stub pencil. It said something about taking out the car, and I knew that somebody around Charlotte was a chauffeur. In her account book you Caricaturist in the Senate. Continued from Third Page ines which is most interesting. It shows Sen- ators Jim Watson and Wesley Jones, of the “Five and Ten” prohibition enforcement law fame, seated on a bench talking about the tough breaks the G. O. P, has been getting lately. Watson, the party leader and fixer, is doing the talking, of course, and has his arm around Jones, who is a perfect picture of a Gloomy Gus. The embonpoints of both are obvious features—Watson’s covered with a broad expanse of fancy gray vest and Jones’ marked with the ungraceful line of his high- waisted trousers. Senator David Reed of Pennsylvania is caught in one of his most familiar attitudes— is shoulders hunched as he leans on a low “desk and talks. The arm on the desk is spread outward in a gesture, while his left elbow is akimbo, his hand on his hip. His clothes are dark, except for his white collar and his white spats. His high forehead and the deep lines of his face are accentuated. Senator Caraway is shown barging along in a very light tan suit, which he has worn con- siderably this Winter, his hands jammed down in his trousers pockets, his head and shoulders traveling far ahead of his legs. “As every one knows, he is a most aggressive type,” Miss Rogers said in comment, “and he evidently thinks better when he is walking up and down. Hundreds of times I have seen him striding back and forth at the back of the Senate chamber. I am sure he has worn a path in the carpet thinking of new ways to torture the Republicans.” Senator Harrison, the amiable wit of the Senate, is shown as the serious and powerful orator he is. Both arms are extended, one fist is clinched. “He was talking about sugar at the time I caught him,” Miss Rogers said, “and, of course, he reduced the tariff on sugar by that speech. I felt he should be shown as the ready and forceful speaker he is, but, of course, I have exaggerated his intensity.” ; Senator Smoot is depicted vigorously defend- ing his wool schedule, which he holds in his outstretched hand. “Senator Smoot usually seems so mild and quiet, and most of his speeches sound like whispering debates between himself and Senator Simmeons across the aisle,” Miss Rogers explained, “but once I heard him get excited and he yelled and yelled. It was just fine. I didn't know he could do it.” She has Senator Norris challenging every- body and everything, as usual, his peculiar eye- lids pulled far down at the corners and his snowy-white hair in its usual perfect marcel. Senator George, always so polished as %o sentences and well groomed as to person, is raising the roof about the synthetic-camphor tariff, and Senator Johnson is laughing under his hand. The amusing little figurines can be thor- oughly enjoyed by any one who has ever looked over the gallery rail at the interesting drama " which goes on in the Senate chamber when Congress is in session. And the impression lingers that Miss Rogers probably had a lovely time making them. (Copyright, 1930.) Talc Widely Used, TM.Choneotthuematerhlsnntm to have a figurative finger in a good part of the industrial pie of the country. Powdered, it finds its way into paper, paint, roofing, rubber, foundry and textile industries and into the manufacture of toilet preparations. Taken in slabs, it ultimately finds its way into gas burner tips, spark plugs and blanks for electric insulation. It also is used in ¢érayons and pencils, and as a polishing agent. It is found in this country chiefly in New York State, with other sources in Vermont, California and Georgis. The slab type from grit is largely imported. yaieg Bl newvtbogd & could see she was hatching a plot to make money. And somebody was helping her. Who? I picked Cummings as the man. “Gee whiz!” Hector sat awhile in thought. “If you're through with that paper,” said Doll mildly, “would you mind—" He handed it over to her. The front pagy carried the confession of Ed Jameson, aliag in the uncouth style of talking to a stenog: I told her I was working as a feur temporary, “But I had a good idea to work a up on the Well family. She ha much I knew she would do an played the game for nearly a year got a job with Seeton Well. That But I spent six months showing him I good reliable guy. When I learned he getting married and moved into the floor apartment, I seen my chance. I showed Charlotte how we could clean up a.million may be and get revenge on Wells at the same time. I fixed it with her so she could get into his place, by some bum excuse or other, on the night before his wedding. : “So I drawed a plan of the place and showed Charlotte just where to hide. The idea was for me to come in right after Mr. Well did and say why is my wife here? I told Charlotte t help herself to a lot of party rags off the madam. But just before Charlotte started ou§ to Mr. Well's place she began to whine somee thing awful. She said Mr. Well wasn't to blame for his old man's deeds and she didn'§ want to get mixed up in blackmail. I sor§ of had to seare her into coming along and took her over in Mr. Well’s car. I sat outside walting and was glad to see she didn't come out. to the apartment and she had on the fancy coat she I'm going home. What are for I asks, and she says I tol nasty game. I says you're a welcher got to come clean with me or you don’t leave her alive.. Well, one thing led to another. I knew where old Huntington left Well's toy can- non in the bureau. Since I'd phoned that fairy story about Huntington's boy sick in Brooklyn I felt sort of safe to do what I want, So I took out the gat and swung it a couple times. Not meaning to hurt her. she says I'll go straight to Mr. Well and him what you're trying to do. She starts the door, and I pulled the o darned good detective.” “Thank Heaven for you quavered and wept openly into her second of coffee. ; r!%"m"yl,.-”i!. it odginditgd lugow