Evening Star Newspaper, October 25, 1931, Page 82

STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, OCTOBER 25, 1931, THE SUNDAY A strange story of a crime that happened only in the imagination, but nonetheless took an awful toll VIRGINIA TERHUNE VAN DE WATER UTH PRATT had always been afraid of firearms. As a child she had hated the Fourth of July with its firecrackers and torpedocs. She had often been ridi- culed about this failing. That was the reason she said nothing of it. But silence dces not lessen fear. Only once did she tell her husband of this pearticular dread. It was when she saw him bandling the shinning little pistol that he kept tn the top drawer of his chiffonier. “Oh, take care!” she exciaimed. He glanced at Ler with amusement that ghanged to astonishment at her pale face. “Why, dariing, surely you are not afraid of a revolver?” “No—of course, not,” she tried to lie, re- membering with shame the ridicule of her childish days. “Only—somehow I don’t like pistols.” He kissed her. “Then we will put it away,” he declared. “But it is really a very handsome revolver, darling.” “It is an unusually small one, too—and looks almost like a toy.” She managed to smile, yet she breathed more freely when he wrapped the weapon in a square of white flannel, laid it in the box from which he had taken it, then placed the box in the drawer. 'HAT had been three years ago, when she and Tom were first married. And now Tom had been dead for a whole year. A whole year! She was still living in the little apartment they had taken at the time of their marriage. Her brother, Fred Vilas, had suggested at first tkat she might be happier somewhere else. “The associations here must be sad,” he warned her. She shpook her head. “They are sad—but sweet, ,” she insisted. “Fred, I have enough money to keep this little place. Please let me 8he must do as she thought best, he said. It was evident that he was uneasy about her liv- ing alone. Yet there was no help for it. Be- ing with other people would not make her sad- ness less. Tom had been her world—and he was gone. Somehow she had never thought of his dying. It was all so sudden and inexplicable. “I see no solution to my life,” she said piti- fully to her brother. “The only way I can ever be with Tom again is to die—and, Fred, I am too much of a coward to try to die! I do not see”—with a shudder—“how any one dares shoot himself.” “Why speak of shooting oneself?” the brother asked. “There are other ways of committing sulcide. You haven't a pistol here by any chance, have you?” How silly of him to fancy she would touch it! “Tom had one,” she answered frankly, “He showed it to me and told me to use it if I ever needed to defend myself. I have never touched it from that day to this. It is there in that top drawer.” “Let me see it,” Fred commanded. 8he handed him the box without opening it. He took out the small pistol and stood, turning it over and over in Lis hand, as if studying it. There were some cartridges in the box with the weapon and he dropped them into his pocket. “Why do you do that?” she asked. “I'll get you others better than these,” he replied lightly. “I'll bring them the next time I come. He did bring them to her the next day, and put them into the box with the pistol. She noticed that he read the directions on the lid of the box before clesing it. “Where are you going to keep this?” Pred asked. “I suppose vou'll move Tom'’s chiffonier now, won't you?"” “Yes,” her voice broke as she replied. ““The chiffonier can be taken out of this room now. As for the pistol—I shall keep it in the bottom drawer of my desk—where,” with a faint smile —*“I need not look at it again. I have old letters and keepsakes in there.” She locked it away out of sight, and dropped the key into one of the small upper drawers of her desk. It had lain there for a year . She remembered this tonight as she dressed for the evening. It was her birthday. Fred bad asked her to go to the theater with him. When she declined, he suggested that it might be pleasant for her if he brought a few friends in to spend the evening with her. “It will be just a little celebration for you,” he remarked. *“You mustn't sit and brood on your birthday night.” She did not care especially about having any one come in, but she did not like to wound her brother. HAT a dear he was! For a whole year she had kept him from suspecting all her hideous loneliness. She did not want any one to live with her. Better—far better, to be in her own little hime by herself than share it with some one else. There was only one per- son the wanted—and that was Tom. And she could not go to him except by getting rid of life. Ofien when she was saddest she would think of it, and always with a knoweldge that it was the remedy for loneliness, but al- ways also with a sickening recoil from the remembrance of the shining, terrible thing. Yes—she was just as much afraid of it as she had always been. She had never summoned courage to look at it since she had laid it there in the box with Fred's cartridges. “I think it is the only tangible thing in the world that I am actually afraid of,” she mused now. “That and death. But for those fears I would be a free woman."” By one of the c@nci- dences which are too com- mon to be strange, her guests that evening dis= cussed a recent suicide. “I cannot understand it!” Ruth said vehemently. “How could any one take his own life? It is abso- lutely incomprehensible.” “It is not to me,” one woman said. “Nor to me,” echoed a man. “I wouldn't indulge in it as a pastime,” Dr. Jack- son, a young physician, laughed. “Yet I might be tenipted under some circumstances— such as prolcnged mental or physical anguish— to make use of my trusty revolver and end things.” “I certainly would not do anything with a revolver!” Ruth tried to laugh, too. “Which only proves what a coward I am!"” “It shcws you are brave enough to face life —which is more courageous than dying.,” the physician assured her. “I hope you are right.” thanks at the comgliment. “I know he is right,” one of the men re- marked. “By the way, Doctor, speaking of suicide, what is the easiest method of accom- plishing it? The pistcl that Mrs. Pratt hates? For my part, I would be afraid that I might not aim at a vulnerable spot. Then I would be worse off than before.” “There are several pretty sure points which one can hardly miss,” the young physician said lightly. “For instance, there is a spot here on the temrple,” touching the right tem- ple at the edge of his curly hair. “If you aimed there the shot would go right home— and so would you, too.” Again Ruth tried to laugh with the others. Her lips felt stif and dry. If these people would only talk of something else! Fred sprang to his feet. “For heaven's sake. cut out the tragedy and let’s get busy with the chafing dish and coffee percolator!” It was past midnight when the last guest went home. Fred Vilas lingered to help his sister set the place to rights. Then he went to the door of her bed room and turned on the light. “It was a nice birthday party, darling.” she said, putting her arms about his neck. “I do thank you for it.” “I thank you for letting me have it, honey,” Vilas said tenderly. “I hope this is the begin- ning of a good year for you, Ruth.” “If,” she rejoined, “the surety <f your love can make me happy I shall be happy.” “You are pale, dear,” the brother remarked. “You must be very tired. Are you certain you are not nervous—or lonely—or anything?” She kissed him and he turned away. “I am never nervous,” she laughed lightly. “As to the vague ‘anything’ you suggest—no, I am not that, either. Good night, dear!” When he had gone she switched off the hall and drawing room lights and returned to her own room. Glancing at herself in the mirror she saw that, as Fred had said, she was pale. She must be mcre tired than she had appre- ciated. She would go right to bed. Undressing, she slipred on her nightgown. then sat down upon the edge of the bed to re- move her slippers and stockings. Ruth smiled her HE small clock on her desk pointed to 1. It was the little clock that Tom hade given her when he gave her the mahogany desk. She loved this desk. Tom and she had ar- ranged her papers in it. “In the lower drawer,” he had said, “you’d better keep the things you are not likely to need often—old letters, family papcrs, etc. Do not put there the articles you use regularly—for it is not pleasant to have to bend dcwn to get something you are in a hurry for.” She -sat very still new, recalling Tom’s words and the sound of his voice, her eyes fixed on the drawer in question. By the way, that was the drawer the pistol was in. It had been there, untouched, for a year. M-tionless she sat thinking. How still her apariment was! supposed this was the guietest hour of the night. Yet even now she Hllustrated By PAUL KROESEN could distinguished the pe- culiar hum that never ceases in a great city. She started toward her dressing table, then stopped and looked again at the lower drawer of the desk. Where had she put the key? Oh, yes—in one cf the small upper drawers. Why did she ask herself this question when she had not forgotten for a moment where the key was? Slowly she opened her desk and the small drawer on the upper left-hand side and took out the little key. Carefully, and still slowly, she clcsed the top of the desk. She stood for an instant, then, with a swift movement, knelt down in front of the lower drawer. Pitting the key into the lock she turned it, opened the drawer and looked in. The box lay in plain view. She lifted it cut, rose, crossed the room and sat down in front of her dressing table. As she opened the box she remembered how Tom, then Fred, had wrapped the small pistol in a bit of white flannel. As if handling scmething breakable., she removed the wrappings from the pistol. She laid it on the palm of her hand and looksd at it. She tried to remember whether Tom had told her how to load it. Not that she wculd want to load it. But—ah! Here were the printed directions pasted into the inside of the top of the box! She read them carefully. Of course, she wculd never have any need o load the revolver—yet it was foolish not to know how to do it. She laid the box open on her dressing table and re-read the directicns slowly, making her actions follow the words. She counted the chambers revealed by the opening of the weapon. Five. Fred had left five cartridges in the box. Of course she would never use even one of them. But she fitted them into the empty chambers. She clcsed the pistol, starting slightly, then smiling as the barrel catch clicked into place. That noise was proof that it was closed. With another glance at the directions she read 2gain—“The revolver is now ready for use.” She whispered the words. The apartment was so still that she did nct like to speak aloud. She turrned the revolver over and over in her hands. Noting that her fingers had blur- red the shining surface of the barrel, she took her handkerchief from the table and polished the surface until not a cloud rem-ined. Such a little thing to end 2 life with! How tecolish she had been to be zfraid of it! She was afraid no longer. She almost laughed as she appreciated suddenly that now she . copld think even of suigide without a shudder. Her two aversions had been conquered! At that instant she ssw her own image in the glass. Her face was as white as the nightgown she wore and from her, pale face there looked out the darkest, mildest eyes she had ever seenm, ATURALLY, nobody would ever want t@ commit suicide. Some one had said this evening that living tock more courage than dying. She had never been afraid of life. Bu$ she had been afraid of death. The thought of self destruction had held a horror for her. Sude denly that horror wes gone, and her silly avere sion to insensate firearms was vanquished, tco. At last she was absolutely free—indepen= dent! What a glorious thing life was under such conditions! She laughed aloud, throwing back her head as she did so. At that instant she saw her own image in the glass. Her face was as white as the nightgown she wore. Her dark hair fell about her shoulders, and from her pale face there looked out the darkest, wildest eyes she had ever seen—hef own eyes. Fascinated, she sat reering into those ree flected eyes. Then her gaze dropped from the eyes of the image in the glass to the reflected hands. They grasped a shining pistol. She could see that the fingers were so tightly shut that the knuckles stocd out white and sharp. Why did she hold that pistol so tightly? Her glance returned to the mirrored face. The lips were bloodless. Why? Was it because of that pistol?> What had Dr. Jackson said about a spot cn the forehead at which one could aim? r Again she studied ti:c face in the glass. Om the right temple was a littie sunken place, just below the hair. With difficulty she loosened the grasp of the fingers of one hand on the pistol and pushed back a lock of her hair that she might the better see the little spot. : Her eyes fixed on thz compelling eyes in the mirror, she lifted the right hand that still grasped the pistol. She glanced away from these piercing eyes long enough to be sure tha$ she was making no mistake. The pistol was pointed directly at that sunken spot on the right temple. The cold barrel end touched her asin. . o, i She pulled the trigger. 11\/OUR sister had evidently been dead fof some hours when I reached here,” th# coroner was saying to Fred Vilas. *“The super« intendent telephoned me as soon as he discov= ered what had happened. There were blick pcwder marks on her face—and the skin was slightly abraded, as you have seen. But, my dear sir,” gripping the brother's arm and low= ering his voice, “the strange thing is that there was no hole in the temple. She was dead. But no bullet had entered the brain, for none had renetrated the bone.” Fred Vilass glanced about the little living room befcre speaking. Only last night Ruth and her friends had been discussing suicide in this very room. And now He was conscious that the coroner was wait= ing for him to say something. Of course, there was ncthing for him to say but the truth. “There was no bullet hole in the temple,® he explained hoarsely, “for there were no bule lets in those cartridges. I myself supplied the cartridges for that pistol. . It was one of them that my sister used. And they were all blanks.”