Evening Star Newspaper, December 13, 1931, Page 94

- . S & - e THE SUNDAY STAR, WAY Katharine Millard’s Jewels —7 s First Publication of This Unusual Tale of the Brothers Who IWere Rivals and a Woman Who Wore Her Wealth in Precious Stones —1rouble Was Almost Certain to Followo--and It Did. ATHARINE MILLARD was pointed out to me the first time I had dinner at the Soundview Golf Club, and I was at once enchanted by her appearance, I watched from a distance almost as fascinated as were the two men who sat with her at the little table under the oak tree. It was easy enough to see that both of them were in love with her. Once she leaned over and touched the sleeve of the one op- posite her as she made some remark. He look- ed down at the jewels on her fingers and moved his arm away so slowly that the gesture seemed scarcely noticeable had there not been a sug- gestion of furtiveness about it. Glancing up, he met the other man's direct look. Their eyes narrowed slightly., The situation was elec- tric. I turned to my companion. “Exactly who is she?” I wanted to know. “Well,” Norman Strain replied, “she is Kath- arine Millard, herself, that's all, and the most charming woman at Great Neck.” “Miss—or Mrs.?” 1 persisted. “Don’t he a dumbhead, Norm. I want to know all about her.” “Mrs., of course,” returned Norman. “Patricia Kelly, you don’t suppose a woman as fascinat- ing as she is could possibly attain the age of 30 withuut having been nabbed by somebody, de you? She is a widow now, however. Jack Millard was thrown from his polo pony three years ago and instantly killed, leaving her with a house, a remarkable collection of jewels—and very little money.” “She is wearing a remarkable collection right now.” I laughed. “Regard those flexible dia- mond bracelets on her left wrist and the emer- ald-cut whale of a diamond on her fourth finger! Ye gods, it must weigh at least 12 “Undoubtedly,” agreed Norman. “And she'll probably have to sell it next week for a third of its value in order to pay her household ex- penses. All jewels and no cash, poor darling. She ought to marry some nice fellow—-" “What's the matter with either of the two she is with?” I demanded. “Both look like ‘nice fellows’—and heaven knows they are interested “Interested enough,” Norman repeated. “Gad, yes! Brothers, you know. Therein lies the tragedy. George and Peter Elkins have been mad about her for the past year and ready to go to any length to get her—but that very col- lection of jewels scares them off. They don't know that it is all Katharine has. She adores both—not sure which she prefers, and that doesn’t help the strained feeling between the two brothers. George probably figures that his $20,000 a year is not enough to ask a woman who has that much money represented on one of her fingers to marry him. Peter, it seems, has had the offer of an excellent position some- where in South America, but he still stays on. Things won’t continue as they are now very long. Something must break soon.” ATER that same evening some one intro- duced me to Mrs. Millard, and I learned that she was spending the Summer with the Nortons Great Neck. A few days later we met again at lunch at Piping Rock, and as the weeks wore on we got to be very good friends. It was during the latter part of August that we were compelled to spend the night at Katharine’s house on Sixtieth street. We had gone to see a new play. It seemed that George Elkins had bought the tickets sometime before, but had been called out of town and I was asked to go in his place. We were caught in a storm. A washout had stopped all trains. Katharine’s town house had been closed since the first of June and she hadn’t gone near it. “But the beds are made up,” she explained, *“and I'll get the key from the Elkins, who live next door.” So half past 12 found us, damp and bedrag- gled, on the Elkins stoop. There was light in their hall and we felt it no imposition to ring the doorbell. Mr. and Mrs. Elkins, Miss Ar- buckle, an elderly maiden cousin, and Peter Elkins were bending over the bridge table in the drawing room. Mr. Elkins, a distinguished Jooking, white-haired man of 65, and Peter rose to greet us. Katharine gave both men a be- witching smile. I doubted at that moment whether the absent brother George stood first in Katharine's heart. Perhaps Peter realized it, too, or had suspected it for some time. His smile seemed to have a strange, wistful quality. They implored us to stay all night with them, but Katharine refused. “But won’t you be afraid to spend the night in that big house?” asked Miss Arbuckle. “No servants, nobody to protect you. Why, Mrs, Millard, you haven’t even been near the place for two months.” “No, Miss Jennie, I haven't,” laughed Katha- rine, “but neither has any one else, for that matter. I am sure that no burglar could pos- sibly wish to bother such a dreary old house.” “I'll go over with you and see you safely in,” volunteered Peter. Once again I studied with & keen glance this brother of George Elkins. He was tall and thin, like George. In his eyes mx adoration and a certain daring reck- “All right, Peter,” said Katharine. “If you want to open that heavy front door and break the ice, as it were, come along. There’s not a thing in the world to be afraid of, however, You know I've slept in that house night after night with the maids two floors above and quite beyond the sound of my voice.” A few minuwves later Peter turned the knob of Katharine’s door and by the illumination from a match, we stepped into the long, cold hall. A musty smell smote our nostrils and as I gazed into the black stretch beyond, and up the walnut stairway, I suddenly and fervently wished we had gone to a hotel. Katharine was fumbling for the electric light button in the hall, however, and talking gayly to Peter. I feared she would consider me cowardly should [ now suggest a change. A feeble light at last shining in one bulb of the chandelier, we started up the steps, Peter Elkins leading the procession. “What room are you going to sleep in, Katharine?” he inquired. “The one at the top of the steps, there, Peter, and to the right,” Katharine replied. “Ye gods! This house is cold,” she added with a shiver. “No one would know from this temper- ature that it was August. Here, Peter, let me go in first. The light button is over there by the bed.” I looked about the bed room as the light went on, and again an unconquerable desire to run possessed me. It was the typical old-time New York master bed room, square, high ceilinged, and with long narrow windows bereft of drap- eries; at one side a hideous marble fireplace, at the other a four-post walnut bed. All the fur- niture was of heavy walnut of impossible pat- tern with the exception of an exquisite and most convenient dressing table, which I sur- mised had been demanded by Katharine's very necessity. A lamp which consisted of a bulb under a lady doll's pink taffeta skirt graced the right chifferobe of the dressing table and when Katharine turned on the light it cast a cheerful reflection about the big, cold room, and for an instant made me feel a bit happier. “Everything all right?” asked Peter. “Sure you're not afraid?” “Of course, everything’s all right,” Katharine returned with a touch of asperity, and began (o remove the counterpane from the bed. “Peter, will you snap off the hall light on your way out? The front door locks as it closes.” ETER loitered in the doorway to the hall, and for a second I had a wild desire to fol- low him from the house. He must have sus- pected the turmoil in my mind, for he turned and smiled at me. “You are perfectly safe here, Mrs. Kelly. Well, guess I'll run along.” His eyes lingered longest on Katharine with that same daring recklessness. Then he said hastily, “Good night. Pleasant dreams.” “Great heavens!” I thought. dreams in this tomgb?” He ran down the steps and a second later we saw the hall light extinguished and heard the front door pulled to with a mightly slam—a slam that to me sounded like a death knell. It seemed to be this signal by which Katharine and I were cut off from the world and all that was living and safe and happy. I undressed and got into bed as hastily as possible. Covers seemed to add an element of safety. I pulled them up to my chin and lay watching Katharine disrobe. She had found nightgowns and negliges for us both and now resurrected a brush from the depths of a drawer. Seating herself before her dressing table, she began leisurely to give her glossy hair the prescribed number of strokes. “What do you think of Peter Elkins?” she suddenly inquired, and I looked at her suspi- ciously. The question and the tone in which she asked if it were like those of a young girl who derives satisfaction from the mere mention of some one she admires. “Why, he's all right,” I replied hesitantly. “Very good looking, even better looking than his brother George and with an adventurous slant to his nature.” “He is considered enormously attractive,” Katharine remarked reminiscently. “He distin- guished himself in the war, and, poor boy, got wounded in the right arm. George didn’t even go; had a broken leg or something which pre- vented it. As a result, Peter has been the fam- ily favorite ever since, the younger brother, good looking and a war veteran.” A silence followed, a silence which, I could have sworh, was consumed, as far as Katharine was concerned, with thoughts of the Elkins men. Was it possible, I asked myself, that I had been mistaken; that while both of them adored her, she preferred Peter? Or was it George? ‘The room seemed to be getting colder and I began to wish that she would come to bed and we coudd get settled for the night. “Katharine,” I said uneasily at last, “is the door into the hall locked?” “No, it isn’t,” Katharine replied, continuing to brush. “I haven’t cleaned my teeth yet, and the bath room is across the hall.” “Oh, dear,” I exclaimed, “must you clean your teeth?” “Well, well, well, was it a little coward?” she “Pleasant inquired, flashing me an amused smile. She was a lovely thing to look at as she sat there in her creamy silken neglige. She had” turned off all the lights with the exception of the pink lady lamp which shone up in her eyes. “Was the blessed little Pat afraid of the dark?” she teased. “She was and she is,” I replied petulantly; but my petulance had no effect on her. She went on brushing her hair. But suddenly her arm, brush in hand, stopped in midair., With widening eyes she stared into the mirror and as she stared her nostrils dilated with quick and terrified breathing, her pupils enlarged with horror. “Katharine,” I gasped, as I saw the color die from her face and léave it gray. “Katharine!” As 1f hypnotized she continued to gaze into the mirror, “Katharine!” I shrieked. “What are you lsoking at!” She answered me. “I’ll tell you,” she whis- pered in a voice that almost froze on her lips, “if you swear not to make a move.” And then, taking my frightened silence for consent, she said, ‘Patricia, there’s a man looking at us through the transom of the hall door.” I tried to say something, but my lips were too stiff to form words. I tried to scream, but, instead, I uttered a gutteral moan. I tried to continue to look at Katharine, but my eyes, wide and horrified as hers, turned as if mag- netized to—the—transom. And what I saw there made by heart contract as if squeezed by a bony hand. Two eyes were gazing under pale brows through the glass oblong. That was all T could see in the peculiar light of the room, pale brows and white eyeballs. Some dread- ful, sulking creature, a criminal, a murderer, perhaps, was on the other side of that un- locked door, O rush to the door in an attempt to lock it was out of the question. The man would see either Katharine or me advancing and rush in on us before we could turn the key. Screaming for help was equally impossible. The windows were closed and the rain beat wildly against them, drowning even what reassuring sounds might have come to us from the street. “Katharine,” I breathed, “what are we going to do?” As I watched her, Katharine began to strip the bracelets from her wrist and remove from the fourth finger of her left hand her jeweled wedding band and the brilliant square-cut dia- mond. She did this with hand held shoulder high before the mirror. Then, with studied de- liberation, she dropped these baubles, worth a king’s ransom, into her needlepoint bag. “I am going to put these things on the man- tel,” she whispered, her lips dry and gray. “That man is coming into the room. It is inevitable. Let us pray, Patricia, that all he wants is jew- elry. I am making it easy for him to get it, so that he will be satisfied not to molest us; that—that he will not find it necessary to harm us.” She staggered to the fireplace and with & TR =SSN { “Katharine!” I s wide gesture placed the bag on the end of f] mantel nearest the door. Then, rushing to | electric button, she switched off the light plunged through the velvet black into bed. caught her in my arms and pulled the cov over her and there we lay, not daring to spet not daring to breathe, icy with a terrible feaxn waiting—waiting. It may have been 20 seconds, 20 minutes 20 years. I had lived so long in that last ha that I felt sure my bhair had turned gray. B the knob turned, as turn we knew it must, a a furtive footstep sounded on the soft cary of our room. My heart stopped beating then, with a great wave, the blood returned it and, to my dismay, the pounding almd deafened me. I wondered if the man co hear it—I wondered—— He was moving—and for a mad moment) thought it was toward our bed. Xatharin cold arm tightened about me as for an ins there was no sound at all. The creature h: stopped stock still, deliberating, no doubt, what step to take next. Suddenly I thoug of my wedding ring—the only bit of jewelry, the marriage band can be termed jewelry, I wore. Perhaps he had glimpsed its mod sparkle and wanted to include that in his hat Great heavens! Why hadn’t I placed it w Katharine’s things? Why hadn’t I though —Then, he moved—toward the fireplace. Some time later the door into the hail clos behind him. And there we lay, the rain a ing frantically against the panes, the room pitch darkness, that man beyond the door but how far beyond we did not know Perha) he was listening at the keyhole, perhaps he tended returning to the scene of plunder, n satisfied with the spoils Katharine had la out for him. Hour after hour Katharine’s body pressd against mine, her lips trembling on my ched her labored breath came and went in fif leaps. Hour after hour we lay there—lay the —and then at last a gray dawn crept into heavens, a cold, bleak dawn, but still a ligy the light of day. Night was over, night with velvet black, its creeping footsteps, its lurkid terror. The day had come. Katharine’s viselike grip about my shoulde loosened and feebly the blood began to fid again through her chilled body. I looked in her face and saw eyes as black as ink spots on sheet, eyes a million years old. I got out of bd and, going to the window, ran the shades the top. A milk wagon clattered through the s below. Sounds at last. Beautiful, huma noises. “Let’s get dressed,” I said, and my ow voice startled me. Neither of us had spokd all during that dreadful night. With shakin hands we put on our clothes and, unwashed, ui combed, moved toward the door that led ini the hall. Katharine placed her hand on the kno drew it hastily away; then with lips stiffen into a firm line of determination, again clasp