Evening Star Newspaper, September 23, 1936, Page 27

5 I’ - - S INSTALLMENT XIIL . AWRENCE FENTRESS laughed. “You should try being a crim- inal lawye:, Riley,” he said. “It's always that way. Trails that cross and recross and drive you crazy. Clouds of witnesses, each one telling a different and more amazing story. Truth and falsehood and con- Jecture inextricably mixed. “A murder touches a great many lives in one way or another. It's like & stone tossed into the water—sending out little circles of disturbance that keep forming and spreading in & sort of mathematical progression.” He shrugged his broad shoulders. *If this Jones reptile would only walk n at the door there and give us a hint of what it's all about it would certainly be very helpful.” It was Monday morning and there had been no whisper from the missing announcer. The newspapers, how- ever, were feverish with false reports. He had been seen in Indiana, in Iowa, in Minnesota, and even in New York and Pennsylvania. He had been seen in street cars, in automobiles, in air- planes and on railroad trains. His! portrait was probably on the front page of every newspaper in the Na-| tion. “Well,” said Blackwood, “I ’““i dropped in to see if there’d been any | word of him. You'll be the first person notified. Even if the police get him he'll scream for you. You haven't! told them that you saw him,” I hope. “This morning,” answered the law- yer. “It had to be done, Riley. There's a squad of men questioning all taxi drivers right now, I fancy.” Blackwood was discouraged. Then he brightened. “Probably they won't find anything,” he commented. “They never do. You know, I had a thought about that last night.” “About what?” “The taxi journey. me that he might have been going back to the aunt’s place. I mean wherever it was they picked up the kitten. Somewhere south of where 1t occurred to | THE EVENING ' STAR, WASHINGTON, D. O, WEDNESDAY, SERTEMBER - 23, 1936, - L{'/vmczm STARRETT ! garded the apparition with dismay. He had no time for dilettante detec- tives. His own reporters were entirely competent and were less likely to plunge the paper into a libel suit. “We heard you were mixed up in this, Riley,” he said reproachfully. “As a matter of fact, Ashe thinks you killed the woman yourself.” Ashe was his star police reporter. “Seriously, there's no reason to be- lieve the police are holding out on us, if that's what you mean. They haven't got him and I don't think they know where he is. Dallas found a bunch of letters in the fellow’s rooms—from every female in the city apparently— and there’s the usual crop of rumors. Why don’t you read the Chronicle?” “Does Ashe think Percy committed the murder?” “Sure he does. So does everybody. Dont you?” “No, I don’t.” “Then who did?’ “I don’t know—yet.” “You're a great help,” said the city editor. Mr. Blackwood strolled into his own office and shut the door. After a moment he tried again to reach the elusive Zelda Lansing, and to his amazement heard her voice at the other end of the connection. “Riley Blackwood.” he said. Miss Lansing was faintly ironic. “How charming of you to call!” she answered. “Isn’t it?” said Blackwood, crisply. “You've been waiting for me, I sup- | pose! Look here, Zelda—how about | lunch in 20 minutes. At Dalzell's.” She hesitated. “All right, in 20 minutes.” “No fooling, you know! been enough of that.” He thought hé heard her laugh. “No fooling, Riley. I'll be there.” There's ‘ute. Blackwood, elated, was in .the | best of spirits. “How jolly!” he said. “Our first luncheon together, I think? Sit over you met him maybe.” | “It's possible, I suppose” admitted Fentress, “but & little optimistic, I'm afraid. Why should he be going back to the aunt’s?” “I don't know. He was going some place.” “No doubt. But that's the wildest sort of guesswork.” Fentress crossed his knees and knocked the ash from his cigar. “I suppose it has occurred to you, Riley, that if this Lansing woman knows the Hindu in the case ghe probably also knows the aunt and all about the house you're looking Tor>” “I'm not forgetting it. Just wait 111 T get hold of Zelda Lansing!” Mr. Blackwood smiled in baleful anticipa- tion of that pyrotechnic moment. “But the case of Janice Hume is even more mysterious. What the devil can the woman have been searching for?” “She obviously knew the Wingfield woman,” said Fentress. “That's clear enough. But it’s all you're safe in guessing. It's suspicious, of course, that they were in the same building, | but you were there at the party.| What chance had she to—" | “Plenty!” interrupted Blackwood, | with conviction. “We all had. We weren't watching each other. I could have done it myself, as I think it over.” - “Did you?” asked Fentress, smiling. | “I did not. When I commit my | first murder, Luly, it will be & master- | plece.” | The lawyer’s smile widened. “This one isn't exactly a primer perform- ance,” he pointed out. “Your kitten deduction is ingenious, but I'm afraid it wouldn't make much of an impres- | sion in a court of law. My private opinion is that your friend Percy is Just a first-class chump.” | “Mine, too,” said Riley Blackwood heartily. He was rapidly revising his opinion that no member of the eleventh-floor party could possibly have had a hand | in the crime. Pattern or no pattern, | there had been opportunity and quite | possibly motive. Janice had even | mentioned murder at the party—apol- I‘ ogized for not arranging one. He created some excitement in the offices of the Morning Chronicle by his appearance in the local room at an hour when usually he was known to be in bed. He had a question to ask. Was it entirely certain—quite posi- tive—that the police had no definite line on Percy Jones? Or on the mur- | derer of Rita Wingfield ‘The city editor, a gray-haired young man with weary, cynical eyes, re- CONSTIPATION FLUSHED AWAY IN 1 HOUR! Thousands of Doctors Have Advised This Method Which Works Quickly, Yet Gently Yes—when you need a laxative DO | B. of Indiana says: “I have prescril Pluto frequently and think it the best aperient solu- tion yet found.” Dr. A. C. T., Arkansas, writes: * is nothing better than Pluto.” Works in 1 Hour With Pluto there are no hours of overnight waiting, which allow dan- gerous poisons to be absorbed by the system, often resulting in that tired feeling—dull headaches—too often causing pimples, boils, colds. Simply mix 1/5 of a glass of Pluto Water with 4/5 of a glass of hot water. You'll find this mixture pleasant, gentle, quick. It will give you a thorough bowel flush in 1 hour or less, and you'll feel worlds better. ) Try This Doctors’ Way Pluto Water is bottled at the famous | French Lick Springs, Indiana. Itis | & non-habit-forming saline mineral | water. Two hun million bottles have already been used, largely on _doctors’ advice. Get Pluto from your di ist—either in the 25c size or ! the large 50c size which contains three times the quantity. In 1 hour or less, your constipa- tion_will be relieved and you'll feel like & million. She was there precisely on the min- | fall on your face. It's an old trick with us detectives, you know. To spot people who have told us fibs. It's in all the detective stories. What will you have to drink?” “Nothing,” she said and laughed. “You're such an idiot, Riley! That's why I came. I had to—to keep you from making some kind of fool of yourself. Me, too, perhaps!” She shrugged her shoulders. “You saw me at that confounded Hindu's place and now you think I am connected with Percy’s disappearance—or the mur- der—or something. There's 1o telling what you think!” | He ordered rapidly for both of them and waited for the waiter to de- part. After a moment he pushed his cigareite case across the table. “Well, aren’t you?” he demanded. “Of course, I'm not. I was at the Hindu's on the same errand you were, I imagine. Trying to get & line on Percy.” He considered her explanation in silence for a moment. It was very in- genious. And very simple. “Did-you get it?” he asked at last. “I didn't. He swears he knows nothing about Percy. Says he was on the south side of the city Saturday night. I believe him, too. Percy’s story was simply insane; he made it up, I suppose. I didn’t believe him that night, and I don’t believe him now. But the papers scared me. I had to investigate a little.” “Why?"” | “I like Percy. Jealous, I suppose! ! And right now—scared.” | “Scared of what?” “You—the police—everything!"” fraid he committed the mur- der?” “A little—yes.” He launched his formidable ques- | tion: “You know he committed it, | don’t you?" But if she had answered “Yes” he would have been bowled over. She shrugged a little hopelessly. |“I was afraid I might not get any place with you,” she answered. “I don’'t know anything of the sort. |1 don't know anything about it. | That's what's so terrifying.” | It was remotely conceivable that she was telling the truth. It might | have occurred to him that she was only sleuthing, he supposed. He eyed her, grimly. “Then why the devil did you dodge | | here, won't you—where the light will | me at the Hindu's? Why not wel- | come me with open arms—as an ally?” She smiled a twisted little smile. “Are you an ally, Riley? You're not an enemy—TIll hand you that. Not even Percy’s, so far as I know., But you'd pin it on him in a minute, if you thought you had the evidence.” “And you wouldn't,” said Black- wood, nodding. “Well, that's under- standable.” (To be continued.) BAKERS PAID $2,572,914 ‘The District’s 94 baking establish- ments paid 1,699 employes $2572,914 in wages in 1935, the Census Bureau reported yesterday. The value of their product was $10,422,615, with ex- penditures of $5,105,596 for materials, containers, fuel, and purchased energy. The whole State of Maryland did little more than twice the business of Washington, $23,598,896. The State had 4,349 wage-earners whose bakery mcome totaled $4,667,186. Virginia, with 122 establishments employing 2,100 wage-earners, paid wages of $2,200,167, less than the District, and did a business of $11,484,792. GREYHOUND FARES sverage ESPIONAGE CHARGE S CALLED INVALID Barring U. S. Employes From Farnsworth Grand Jury Complaint Ground. Two . indictments charging former Lieut. Comdr. John 8. Farnsworth with espionage were attacked as in- valid in District Court yesterday by Defense Attorney William E. Leahy on the ground that no Government employes served on the grand jury which returned them. It was Leahy and another attorney, Robert I. 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