New Britain Herald Newspaper, June 24, 1929, Page 12

CHAPTER 1 At three o'clock of a sunny, crisp November day Nan Car- roll was happy. Not just content, or happy in a pallid, negative sort of way, but happy with that upwinging of the spirit which is akin to ecstasy. A 4 S S And yet no man, opening the outer door of the suite of three o!fiouia door bearil:nez the dignified sign, “John Curtis Mor- an, Attorney-at-Law”’—and peeping in upon her could have iscovered any outstanding reason for her happiness. Just a pretty young stenographer or private secretary, and a busy one at that, he might have thought. R ; But if it had been a girl who had peeped in and seen Nan's flushed, pretty face, she would have deduced instantly that Nap's happiness was born of the consciousness that she looked extremely wellin her new fall dress of russet silk crepe, a simple little slip of a dress whose short skirt dipped demurely just over the caps of rounded, slim knees. Certainly Nan had reason for happiness over the fact that the russet silk crepe was almost exactly the color of her bobbed brown hair, that the velvet of her narrow brown pumps was subtly matched in the velvet of her round brown eyes. Such harmonies are not accidental, but with Nan they were instinctive, and not sufficient reason for the joy that had suddenly flooded over her so that her small body almost visibly vibrated with it as she sat erect in her narrow-backed chair before her typewriter. Her ringless hands played rapidly over the keyboard of the machine, as if endowed with a consciouness and intelligence of their own, for certainly there was nothing the legal docu- ments she was typing from shorthand notes to bring that high luster into her brown-velvet eyes and that joy-flush into her | cheeks, . % 0 ¥ “Three o'clock!” She glanced at her tiny, octagonal white- d watch as she reached the end of her shorthand notes. ith an expert twist of her wrist she took the crackling sheets of legal-sized bond paper and carbons from the machine, sort- ed them swiftly, combined them with the other pages of the brief, scanned their flawless typing proudly, then added clips from a little box that had its place in the meticulous order of her top desk drawer. And as always, whenever she touched it, her finger tips caressed the exquisite little box, which John Curtis Morgan, attorney-at-law, and her employer for three years, had given hgr as a Christmas present the first year she had worked for him. He had laughed at her for using it as a clip box, re- minding her that he had expected her to add it to her dress- ing table knicknacks, and she had defended herself lamely, unable to tell him that she kept it here in the office because her heart was here, rather than in the furnished room she rented by the week. “He said three o’clock, but that means any time before half past,” Nan reflected indulgently, as she added the original copy of the brief to the stack of letters she had typed earlier in the day. “Court had adjourned early. That means that the prosecution ‘rested’ before Mr. Morgan expected them to— He'll be dreadfully tired and all keyed-up. Maybe—" and oddly enough her eyes sparkled and her flush deepened at the thought—*he’ll want me to work tonight- So much to do— last minute stuff; witnesses to subpoena; his notes to be writ- ten up—" LI . _Entering the office marked “Mr. Morgan”—the other of- fice of the suite was shared by the middle-aged clerk and the young lawyer who worked for Mr. Morgan on salary—Nan deposited her tray of finished work on the desk, made even straighter a neat stack of unfolded letters received that day; [VALoWIVE © 1929 SERVICE “I've ordered a pint of half-and-half a day for you—half milk and half cream,” she confessed. “You need it, really you do, Mr. Morgan. You work so hard and forget to eat until someone shoves food at you— Now, tell me what Brainerd did today. I'll get my notebook and we'll get your notes on his witnesses into shape, I'm crazy to htar what Brody festi- fied.” e A minute later they were hard at it, Morgan's sensitive hands hovering over his scribbled notes, his deep voice re- counting in detail the story of the dny in court- He was de- fending a young girl, formerly the switchboard operator of a fashionable country club, indicted on a c_hal'ge of b!acl;magl- ing members of the club. The board of directors, believing in the girl's innocence, had retained Morgan to defend heg‘ and, incidentally, to vindicate the management of the club in the eyes of the public. “It’s an ugly mess,” the lawyer frowned. “Cornell looks as if he could kick himself from here to Jericho for ever having brought the charges, and Brainerd is up against a stone wall himself, trying to get a bunch of witnesses to testify that would rather be shot than be dragged upon a witness stand. But it looks pretty black for Grace, Nan. I wish I were sure—" “Oh, Nan, Nan! If I've gone a little further than I had secretary in the country.” “I'm sure she's innocent,” Nan interrupted yehemently. L wouldn’t have begged you to take the case if I hadn’t been positive. There's something big behind this scandal, Mr. Mor- oh, by the way, draw me a check for a hundred, she band. “And bags at the Petite Paris Shoppe!” which Iris Morgan demanded, | eagerly, | please: | “That so, you that I'd not be a very good judge of shoes or bags.” defeated and quivered a little. trembled with anger and he was its legal possessor. Jack has in the bank when this month’s bills come in! And, won't you?” added in a tone she might have used to a servant. “I hate to be limited to the shops where I have charge accounts when I'm on a buying orgy, as I am today. Some of the cunningest shoes at Martin’s, Jack,” she turned explanatorily to her hus- Nan, forced to listen as she obediently wrote the check heard her employer answer like a boy flattered at being noticed and anxious to sweetheart? I hope you find just'what you want. I wish I had time to go with you, but I'd be so busy looking at “Silly Jack!” Iris Morgan shrugged and moved away so that his hand, which was stretching out to close upon hers, was Nan saw the quiver, and her own hand, busy with the check, sympathy. Not that John Curtis Morgan was angry or conscious of need for her sympathy, she told herself fiercely: He was conscious now of nothing in the world but his wife’s breathtaking beauty. And, as always, it hurt Nan intolerably to see him humble aand eager and ab- any right to, it's been because I've had the breaks, and—the best ject before that beauty, as if he could never quite believe that Iris Morgan let her tall, graceful body sink languidly into you, Sonny-boy ?” g “Don’t wanna stay with Nana,” the little boy protested, his great black eiru mournful, his beautiful mouth silkky. - - “Be sweet, lover, and Mother will give you a great big plwlo' of chocolate cake with your ice cream for dessert tonl?t. Iris promised in her lazy, sweet voice as she accepted her hus- band’s check without thanks. A “She’s ruining his stomach with her ‘great big pieces of chocolate cake’ and all the candy he wants,” Nan thought dis- gustedly. “And she doesn’t care! It’s less trouble to her to indulge him than to discipline him. And 1 believe she ace tually likes for him to be thin and frail, because he's prettier then red-cheeked, robust children. Oh, I hate her!” Aloud she said, in a 1lat, even voice which she scorned to make coaxing: “Come along, Curt. I'll let you write on your own special typewriter. We'll both be busy. Nan's got an awful lot of work to do, and so has your father.” “You're such a good little thing, Nan,” Iris thanked her carelessly, in a tone Nan had frequently heard her use toward Curtis’ nurse. b As Nan left the private office, with Curtis’ hot, dry little hand in hers, she told herself despairingly, contemptuouslys “She doesn’t even know you hate her, you little fool! And she doesn’t hate you at all. She rather likes you, 1 your place, and your place, Nan Carroll, is, in her estimation, that of an efficient upper-class servant. And as long as she’s in the of- ai.ce. that's the way he thinks of you, too, because she makes m. “She blights him, blights me, takes all of our real worth and significance away from us, so there won’t be anything of importance in the place but her beauty. And he doesn't know what a fool she makes of him, doesn’t know anything when she’s around except that he’s mad about her and that she's the most beautiful woman in the world. But what do I care?” she blinked furiously at the tears in her brown eyes. She was establishing a whining, dictatorial child at a table on which she had placed an old typewriter reserved for the purpose when Iris Morgan came out of the private office, ad- Justing her smart black hat at an enchanting angle, so that red-gold curls were pressed against the cream and rose of her cheek. “Ill call for my two boys at six, Nan,” she announced, with superb indifference to the fact that Nan was su roted to be free at five. “Be good, sweetheart, and Mother will bring you something nice.” “Want stuffed dates with lotsa nuts,” Curtis specified | threateningly. Iris laughed from the doorway. “Greedy little pig. It's a wonder you don’t get disgustingly fat. But I suppose no child of mine could be fat,” she added complacently, glancing down the long, slim lines of her body—the kind of figure for which modistes design “confections” and “creations,” not mere dresses. . “And oh, Nan dear, please get me a couple of matinee tick- ets for Saturday. ‘The Constant Lover’ with the original New York cast—so the advertisements say, though they’re sure to be second-rate hams, worse luck!—is at the Woodleigh this week. Don’t let my bad child bother you, or Jack will blame me if he loses this scandalous Grace Cox case. Why he can’t be a corporation lawyer and be respectable is more than I can see! Just vanity, I think! He adores ranting before a jury and saving murderers from the gallows. But I mustn’t get off onto my pet grievance or the shops will be closed before I get a thing bought. Good-by, lover.” She blew a kiss to the child and was gone, After five minutes of bored pecking at his typewriter keys, gan! That Fleming woman—listen! When you get her on the stand, ask her—" She was off then, reviewing the evidence from memory, her pencil tapping out her points excitedly, her eyes glistening with zeal, her cheeks carnation-bright, and the man on the other side of the pulled-out leaf of the desk listened with 'flat- tering concentiation, his own pencil making an occcasional note. When she paused for breath, Morgan nodded slowly. “I| believe you're right. Of course I wouldn’t have taken the case | if I hadn't believed, beyond a reasonable doubt, ,that she was | innocent. I've never yet defended a crook ard I'd rather | starve than begin. The afternoon papers are going to say that | Brainerd’s got the case sewed up in a sack but I'll be damned if he has! That Fleming woman, as you say—" “You'll bust his case wide open!” Nan boasted staunchly. “Remember, the jury half believes in her innocence to begin | with, just because John Curtis Morgan is defending her. Every voter in the county knows that you turned down a hundred- | thousand-dollar fee to defend those pavement contractors just because you knew they were a gang of crooks, and that you tc'd Havemeyer that all his millions couldn’t buy your serv- ices when he was trying to keep his son out of the pen. You know what, John Curtis Morgan?” she challenged him- ““What ?” he tcased her, obviously pleased but trying to pre- tend a vast preoccupation with the notes on his desk. “When you’ve won this case—as you're going to do!—the papers are going to begin calling you the greatest criminal lawyer in the state, and that’s a pretty big honor for a man only 36 ycars old to have won! Why, most men your age are | still fiddling around hoping for a junior partnership in an| established firm!” “Oh, Nan, Nan!” he admonished her humorously, shaking | the chair which her husband had hastened to draw up to the desk for her. And Nan was not too busy filling in the stub of Morgan’s checkbook to see that Iris disposed her body as if she were sitting for an artist, the picture to be entitled, “Por- trait of Lady of Quality.” Long white throat arched as the head, freed of its close- fitting hat, rested in profile against the high back of the chair; | glittering tendrils of red-gold hair curling against the polished walnut; the one eye which the profile pose revealed surveying her husband with lazy indifference but not without challenge that he appreciate the picture she made. Three years had not been long enough to accustom Nan Carroll to the amazing beauty of Iris Morgan's eyes. Strange eyes, that had a color alll their own; the vivid blue-green that poets ascribe to tropi- |cal seas. “If only she would be nice to him I wouldn't hate her so!” | Nan told herself fiercely as she laid the check before Morgan | to sign. *“‘Silly Jack!” she quoted in silent fury. “Imagine calling him Jack! She makes him silly, makes him small— and he’s big, big! She doesn’t dream—or care!—how big he is! Oh, I wish he wouldn't look at her like that!” And she could have cried out with pain at the spectacle of the man she believed to be great gazing with humble, pleading, love-sick | cyes upon the woman who wore his name as nonchalantly and insolently as she wore the clothes he paid for. ¥ o cast a measuring glance at the heavy onyx ink well; blew a few grains of dust from the shining surface beyond. the spot- less new green blotter; adjusted the window shade so that the slanting rays of the November sun should not strike into the eyes of the man who would soon sit at that desk, held a spread palm over the concealed radiator to make sure that heat was coming up— She was interrupted by the sound of the outer door's open- ing and closing. In a flash her small body was across the room, her hand upon the knob of the dividing door. “Hello, Nan! Blake back yet? Did Preston call?” The very tall, very thin man tossed his hat upon a knob of the “tree” and shrugged out of his grey tweed topcoat. His black hair, winging upward in a natural pompadour from an extremely hlqh and broad forehead, was shot through with threads of silver. Nan never saw a silver fox pelt without thinking, with a sharp contraction of the heart, of that silver- ked mane of John Curtis Morgan's. His black eyes shone now with the brilliance of fatigue and excitement. Nan Car- roll thought—and had thought since the first day she saw him —that he was the most distinguished-looking' man she had ever seen. @ “Mr. Blake isn’t here yet,” Nan answered eagerly, her eyes sweeping over him an.d noting every sign of fatigue, “He tele- Yhoned from the sheriff’s office, where he’s waiting for Buck. belgphoned Mr. Preston when I had not heard from him by 12 o'clock, and made an appointment for you for half past four—here,” she added triumphantly. “I knew you'd be tired.” A humorous smile zigzagged across Morgan's thin face, twitching the wide, sensitive mouth, and settling in his deep- set eyes. There was tender, teasing friendliness in his deep voice as he answered: “Good girl! I don’t know how you do it. T honestly believe As Iris Morgan rested picturesquely in the high-backed chair her six-year-old son leaned, just as picturesquely, against her knee, as if he were subconsciously obeying his mother’s {command to fit into the picture. Nan thought, with fiery con- tempt, that Iris Morgan would never bother to be seen with | her scn if he were not the handsomest of all the ornaments | with which she decked her beauty. But since little Curtis * o x In !ess than a minute Nan was back, stepping softly, and carrying a tall glass of milk on an octagonal plate of pale green glass, which also bore a stack of crisp raisin biscuits. “Drink every drop and eat every crumb!” she commanded, with a greater show of ascurance than she felt. “I'll bet mv next week’s salary you didn't eat a bit of lunch. It's a crime the way you neglect your health.” John Curtis Morgan stared at her blankly for a moment. then broke into a series of delivhted chuckles. “Funny little Nan!” he gibed at her fondly, but he reached for the ~'ass and drank half of the milk before setting it down r~ain, drank eaverly, hungrily, so that Nan almost ke ~~A herself with delicht at the success of her latest scheme (or her great man’s comfoit. Curtis was at Nan’s elbow, jogging it impatiently, so that she struck a wrong key—‘a tragedy to Nan Carroll, who prided herself on pages of finished work which had never been in- sulted by the rasp of an eraser. “Want paste and scissors and colored crayons,” the little boy demanded petulantly. . While she was getting them for him, he climbed with impish quickness into her chair and began to strike letters helter-skelter upon her beloved typewriter, spoiling the half- sheet of beautifully typed notes. For the next half hour she wrestled desperately with work, a small boy’s irritable de- mands, the telephone, which rang three times, and the swiftly rising tide of her anger. “I'm going to tell him a thing or two if he fires me for it!" she stormed in her hot heart. “Letting his silly wife impose on me and turn me into a nursemaid! I won't put up with it another day!” But when the buzzer sounded to summon her into his pri- vate office, her face cleared, became eager again. He lFud never needed her that she had not responded eagerly— “Say, Nan, I wondered if it had occurred to you that Mar- tha Fleming herself wrote those blackmailing letters?” All her anger and resentment was forgotten for the mo- ment. He was himself again—John Curtis Morgan, the greate est criminal lawyer in the state, and she was herself again— his efficient and valued secretary- “Occurred to me?” Nan laughed joyously. “I've known it all along and was sure you'd feel it, too. Why, look—" And they were hard at it again, brown bobbed head close to silver- and-black, arguing, interrupting, contradicting each other in the blessed good-fellowship of work which was dearer than life to Nan Carroll. Sdhewa;s_ so'ela‘teed ove&'1 tl;‘g Krogrefi:fshe and the lawyer had you'd make Cal Coolidge come heo | \ his head: “You're sceing me too big, much bigger than 1|Morgan, was, in his way, as beautiful as his mother, she haa |ade in 15 minutes on the itherto baffling case that not even consult him about song;ething, Areb‘lfs;v, hf,,‘,’g.f?ffnf"m‘;f,m“fi‘; am! And if I don't watch out you're going to gige me such a|Worn him, from his babyhood until now, as another woman e hla \trolc v:]hlcth Cufit . }}:ad UL In Sin oSt oEtS R Preston — Oh, this is splendid, Nan! 1 didn’t think you'd |swelled head that I'll be laughed out of court. But, seriously, | Might wear a corsage of orchids, or lead a prize-winning ‘g?:tngfeoiy fefhn»arlg appmestg.thl{% ha;i c:'t lf.ml:l?tml‘ke: have time to finish this brief before I got back. That clears | Nan,” and his voice changed, became simple, dircct and sin- | Pekinese upon a leash. it . : ek Yo b i c‘;’pl?";l eldnl: e 80 b;td ; the decks for us to work on this mass of stuff I brought from |cere, while his eyes held hers unwaveringly, “if I have gone The child’s eyes were large, liquid-black fringed with such | he had oursreg _\pet:n el llcx lfwo‘l'll sn s hone g:::: court. Brainerd sprang two surprise witnesses on us this af. |a lttle farther than I had any right to, it's been because I've |Iashes as a chorus girl would sell her soul for, and curiously he had smeared paste over half the surface of her desk; ternoon, and didn’t call three I thought he was banking on. had the breaks, and—the best secretary in the country- I'm {mournful, even when he was being his most devilish. Nan glor an’s swank ltn gemalnn e Rested at half past two and caught me not ready to open—" |not such an egotistieal ass that I can’t see how much you've | had watched him develop from a fragile baby of three to fra- | Lf befi e Ye ?(p(le‘s. i Nan followed him into his private office, her small round |helped—" |gile little boyhood, and she loved him, in spite of the faults | ntg horetes:]x oActofl If oy Ao BB face alight with excitement. “T'll bet he didn’t call Barker and| Above the pounding of blood in her ears Nan Carroll heard | Which his mother seemed to delight in encouraging, loved him af?os 5 a};s by .Bl g g Bt iy Ao that Fleming woman. I told you he wouldn’t! He didn't a quick, imperious tattoo upon the door. That particular |because there was so much more of John Curtis Morgan in 0h s Ean g B }; younf akfiimd o dare! Of course you're going to subpoena the Fleming wo- | knock had a peculiar magic of its own, for instantly the two (him than of Iris Morgan. Loved him, too, because Morgan 8 g{e ;afigéh R e“co;lx R i? ik oiltselt and saake her talle " | people within the private office were transformed. Happi- |2dored him and because Iris, for all her lazy indulgence of “l‘-ll lis }:’“ 'eT;gcel_veiIo Mt - hook and il shrilling into it: “Am 17" Morgan_laughed, but his tired eyes shot her a ness, which had glowed in Nan's eyes like twin candies on an |his constant irritable demands, did not truly love him, was |“Hello: hiela: This 1s My, Morgan's office!”, glance of respect. “I suppose I'll have to, if you say so. Tell | altar, vas snuffed out, leaving her round, childish face pale merely proud of him because he was an ornament to h"‘mi«hteh 0| peé‘ ho' % “rt'l: g e o Blake to attend to it, when he comes in, won't you? Now, and tzut. In that instant she became the model secretary, or, beauty. 5 5 . | blazed a;veh'sap h. o, ahs N o e e iy gfi'»’ down to work.” he sighed, a long, thin, sensitive hand | rather, the model secretary as that gart of the world unfa- ! }E:fn;hsllg was urglms: a demam«til upgn his t‘xoth.ert in g}}ow, ‘h ::ss at him as she snatched the instrument out of his reaching automatically for the stack of new mail on hi _ 'miliar with the camaraderie of the office pictures her, She W gsong: "l wanna see the dog in the picture show, "5 n.- . Nan?” ) i i “Not quite vet,” Nan corrected him britkly “Youlsj:setS];it became “Miss Carroll,” a little prim, very impersonal, sub- | Moth-er. I wanna police dog just like the movie dog, Moth- | l’Ijhat 3"3; Nan? a“?anaco'mpuslomte voice came sooth. there and rest for a minute. Shut your eyes and don’t dare servient, remote. Her back stiffened and automatically she er! 1 wanna— . . e llng) ovgred ihwlrg . o on't haye Sl bl e n.buly. think of a thing until I get back.” ; poised her pencil above her notebook in the respectful attitude | Iris’ blue-green eyes swept him with amused indifference. h recodgmz '_eh_\oung op Ale voutes UL yowrs S BY She paused at the door, to make sure that her commands |of a secretary awaiting dictation. “Mother’s going shopping, lover. Curt’s going to stay with ax(e)h uwg‘l]"m; mei'!-f:;}ember.'led “I! were obeyed. The long figure relaxing in the big swivel chair; | And in that instant John Curtis Morgan, attorney-at-law,| Nana, like a good boy. He loves staying with his Nana Car. to keel § ls’b car;‘“. 10 P lwal: 1 s e o with a deep sigh, as if he were expelling the poison of fatigue, |disappeared. It was the eager voice of a lover-husband who roll, doesn't he?” And she rumpled the silky black crest of | do ;lep et d_usy " TG & Dee ol L ssow John Curtis Morgan closed his eyes, but his wide mouth |called out joycusly, welcomingly: “Come in!” It was an his hair—so like his father’s—and smiled lazily at Nan. | a.v‘er kit m;er} ” - i twitched humorously. : |ardent boy, in spite of 36 years and a silver-fox pelt, who| Dismay and anger flooded Nan Carroll, as they had flooded ou can and will,” Willis Tod assured her. “Then Ly sprang to his fect, forgetting Nan Carroll, forgetting Grace her heart a hundred other such miserable times in the last |0 to & movie to pass the time till you're through slaving. I'm Cox, forgetting his fatigue, thinking only of the woman who|three years: “Nana!” As if she were a nursemaid! So she| not going to be cheated out of my date so easily, young WO~ had knocked imperiously upon his door. : was to take care of him again, while her employer's wife ‘ man. I've ?9‘ a lot to say to you, Nan, honey, and you'd better “Come in, darling! Oh, hello, Sonny-Roy! Out shopping shopped in untrammeled freedom! Was Morgan going to Make up your mind to listen. . . . with Mother? It's aieat to see you both—" permit the outrage, when he knew as well as did his secretary | , Amazement and amusement fought with fatigue in Nan's Nan's cnosmous brown cycs, apparently as unsceing and | that there was enough work to be done to keep them both | face as she hung up the receiver. So Willis Todd was sud- blank as circles of brown velvet, took in every detail of the | busy until nine or 10 o'clock, if the lawyer was to go to w“"‘\deflly csils ot Hiills BNy, It swist= o0 " family ccene that was being enacted s if she were not present. | the next morning properly prepared to defend his client? But | Nana, 1 wanna bottle of ginger ale! I want it right now! She saw Morean kiss his wife, fiinched a little as she noted | —why ask? Of course he was! He had never in his life de- | Curtis woke her from her reverie, his voice shrill and petu- |Iris Morgan’s casual, arrogant acceptance of that mark of nied his wife anything she wanted, whether it was a mink coat | 13'}}; o . her husband’s adoration, felt a throb of pity for her employer or the scrvices of his secretary. e Nall:l‘repeated.the hlte}i e o e as she saw the six-yoar-old boy refuse petulantly to be kissed.| “We're pretty busy,” Morgan deprecated .“That Grace Cox |Wwith loathing. *‘Nursemaid Nana! Iris Morgan's servant!” Then she braced herself for Iris Morzan's greeting. | case, you know, darling. The prosecution rested today, but ‘ilf shp llsf:ened to Willis Todd, she need never hear that de- “How do you do, Nan? Gorgeous day, isn’t it? I'm simply | of course,” he hastened to reassure Iris, whose eyes were flash- grading nickname again— mad for new clothes. Be prepared to pay out every penny | ing green-blue fire at him, “Curt will be very good. Won'tl (TO BE CONTINUED)