The evening world. Newspaper, July 8, 1922, Page 14

_ OETA EES | | .@0 sure you'd go East as we'd Ye, Chief of Britisn Criinap The Most Stupid Woman Spy Eva de Bournonvitte had none of the qualifications for success as a secret agent. She was ingenuous but never shrewd, Hived for $150 a month to risk her life In the German service. Women spies who wrote letters that could not fati to incriminate. Mrs. Smith, who thought that writing of aeroplanes as ecagtes was suf tly clever to escape detection VA DE BOURNONVILLE was — E probably the most incompet- Was continually plying her host with ent woman spy ever re- questions about the anti-aircraft de cvuited by the Germans, She was a fenses. Could sho be taken to sec Swede, of French extraction, well ed- the nearest gun? How many guns weated and a linguist Life had not were therein London? How far could prospered with her. She had been a they shoot up in the air? And once, governess in the Baltic Provinces, an when she accompanied the family to actress (I should Finsbury Park, ghe said: ‘Oh, this think, a very bad is Finsbury Park! Where are th» one), and a secre- Zeppelin guns placed here?"’ At last tary and typist she asked her host to recommend her employed occas- to the postal censorship, and here he ionally at foreign put down his foot and said: “You see, legations. In the if anything went wrong we should get autumn of 1915 into serious trouble." On this she she was out of dropped the family at Hackney, who work when she remembered afterward that she had was approached said on one occasion: ‘The Germans by one of the 8PY know everything that passes here recrufting agents you cannot in Scandinavia. It them." chanced that she — She failed in her application to join had an acquaint the Censorship, chiefly on account of ance in Scotland the lack of satisfactory Hnglish ref. whom she had met orences. She told the lady who inter- To this lady she wrote viewed her how her father had been hide anything from in Sweden. that she was coming to England for (General in the Danish Army and her the sake of her health and proposed to grandfather n music-teacher to Queen pay her a visit Alexandra, while an aunt was still Provided with a Swedish passport. acting in that capacity to the Danish she had no difficulty in entering the joyal family. country. She was, moreover, @ lady — She left Bloomsbury for lodgings in of birth and her manners were per- South Kensington, and-iater for a cer- fect. tain ladies’ club. Then she returned On her arrival tn London she put to Bloomsbury and put up at a pri- up at a cheap hotel in Bloomsbury vate hotel in Upper Bedford Plac and wrote to her friend in Dumbar- where army officers were wont to tonshire saying that after a good yest spend their leave. She was unremit- she proposed to apply for a post in ting in her questions to subalterns. the censorship, for which Hid friend A TRAP CLEVERLY SPRUNG. : ommendation. be Lah Mohn ey For some time letters, afterward ‘The Scottish lady ‘sent her the ad- his 3 _ proved to be in her handwriting, con dress of some acquaintances in Hack- ‘aiting information that would nat ney and advised her to call UPON save been of much use to the enemy emy them. She did so and, finding that 124 ne received it, had been inter- they were not at-home, she left @ (ooteq: put beyond. the SECRETS OF SCOTLAND BY SIR BASIL THOMSON THE EVENING WORLD, SATURDAY, INVESTIGATION De 1921 told to Eva de Bournonville and on the following day @ letter was inter- cepted containing this very informa- tion which, if It had reached the Ger- man spy agent, ought to have caused his remaining hairs to rise in their ni De Bournonville was arrested on the 15th of November, 1915, She expressed great Surprise and made no admissions. In my room on the following day she made a brave show of innocence until T produced her letter and showed it to her, with the messages in secret ink between the Hines developed. She opened her eyes very wide and sald, “Yes, it is my handwriting, but how did you get it?” I told her that T had a good deal more. She then asked to be allowed to see me alone, and the room was cleared of all but a military officer HIRED AT $150 A MONTH, “you may think it curious,’ she said, “but I always wanted to work for you and not for the Germans. 1 am very fond of the English and the Helglans and 1 do not lke the Ge mans at all ver have I forgotten their behavior to Denmark in 1864, My idea was to make the Germans believe | was working for them until 1 was fully In their confidence and then offer my services to you. 1 only did this for adventure,’* It then appeared that the German Military Attache in Sweden, acting with an agent of the secret service, had induced this wretched woman to imperil her life for £30 a month, A check tor that amount was actually found in her possession on her ar- rest, and she asked to be allowed to keep it je was tried before Mr. Justice Darling at the Old Bailey on Jan. 12, 1916, and was sentenced to death by hanging. Following our uni- versal practice of not executing women, the King commuted the sen- tence to one of penal servitude for life. She was sent to Aylesbury to si her sentence and was repa- triuted in February, 192% It trans- pired in the course of this case that the Germans were instructing their spies to address her letters to non- existent Belgian prisoners of war. THE CASE OF MRS. EVELIN. In April, 1916, there arrived in Cali- fornia a Mrs. Gertrude Evelin, a woman of German birth, married to handwriting a very respectable American, accom- card on which she had given the there was nothing that wo uld give th Danish Legation at Pont Street, W., pablo identity of the writer. At last certair as her address, for it appears that opservations in one of the letters offices whe had made arrangements to have pointed to a particular hotel in Upper Steamship Company. remittances sent to her through the Danish Legation. On this she re- were more than thirty guests, and it cetved an invitation where, however, she soon began to them was the spy. excite uneasiness in the minds of her new acquaintanees, With all her education, she was re- Bedford Place, but in that hotel the A certain officer who was employed on the case determined to test the matter in the simplest possible way. panied by her young child. ‘She had been employed in the San Francisco of the Hamburg-Amerika Her story was that she was going back to Germany for a holiday, but we had already re- to Hackney, was impossible to determine which of ceived information that her passage money was being paid by the Ham- burg-Amerika Company itself. When we pointed out to her that it is unusual to undertake holiday ex- tMarkably stupid at the business of He selected one or two of the most cursions without any money and that espionage. She called again and likely of the guests and whispered to she was destitute she said, ‘Oh, but again and went out walking with the them incredible stories about secret | shall have £30 waiting for me when family. There were a good many engines of war that were in prepara. [ arrive in Hamburg." Zeppelin raids in those days and she tion. The most incredible of all was - BY HUGH I do not know why the Germans should have fixed KAHLER. + PARTMENT upon the fatal number 30 the for amount of their remittances unless it was a subconscious reminiscence of a certain spy who accepted just that number of pieces of silver and came and cast them at the feet of his em- ployers. We came to learn afterward that Mrs. Evelin was a message carrier in the employment of certain German Americans acting as German Consuls @ho were afterward _ put upon their trial, It was clear that she must be detained, but there was the complica tion of the child. It was boarded out at Government expense in Aylesbury to be near its mother, who was al- lowed to see it two or three times a week, She wrote many hysterical letters threatening suicide, but though she gave the officials as much troublr as she possibly could we detained her until April 11, 1019, when she was sent back to America, INGENUOUS MRS. SMITH. Toward the end of 1917 the Ger- mans had ceased to employ agents in England for obtaining naval and mili tary information. What they were then concerned about was the public morale, | suppose, because thelr own was giving premdnitory symptoms of crumbling. We first became awar: of this through the letters written by a Mrs. Smith to her relatives in Ger- many. Mrs. Smith proved to be a working housekeeper. Originally she had been a German nurse in Switz- erland, where she had married one of her patients, an English doctor, not long before his death. Having thus acquired British na- tionality, she came to Engiand, where she found herself obliged to eke out the slender provision her husband had made for her by taking work as a housekeeper. Her letters, written in German, contained gems like the fol- lowing: “Tell Uncle Franz that Fritz perturbed at seeing so many of the trout in his fishpond eaten by the pike. If more pike fei into the pond there will soon be none of his trout left. It makes him very angry and frightened And In another letter she writes: “On Sunday I went out to see the place where the big birds roost, It was full of birds and some of them are very big indeed. It is said that they will soon take longer flights. I do not think that the great eagles that fly over us are frightening these birds; they only make them angry.” * Mrs. Smith made a brave attempt to explain these letters away. She had, she said, an uncle named Franz who bred trout in a fishpond, and who had written to her about the depreda- tions of pike. And about the great birds she ventured the suggestion that they were herons, but when we put before her our own interpretation of this simple code she became silent and resigned, and she retired into in- ternment at Aylesbury with a philo- sophic heart. Illustrated by Will B.Jobnstone AIR CASTLES, {4 UT he suspects. He's wait- Set SE alae see ing on the upper deck till yegt to deceive me, weren't you? You T come back. He saw you. ought not to mind my having deceived Oh, why did you have to yon." ghoose this boat, Dads, when I was — Thorne reddened. Miss Lawton, “It's not that, I--I was fool enough aR to think that you were letting me planned?’ ) come with you because you—because Lawton's response was inaudible, you wanted me to escape—because but the girl's sharp exclamation was You bgt yin Speuat io. ce to run a risk’’—— le stumble Ope= matinet sant. > Lthougni Healy. Color came into the girl's ‘What? On this boat? I thoug' cheeks, but she laughed lightly a enough. Another inaudible answer from her "You surely don't object to my hav- f -,. ‘D8 regarded you as something other father, and then a laugh, half bys- than a fugitive criminal, Mr. Thorne? terical, from the girl. “It's too funny. | was trying to draw you off the track He doesn't dream that I know, of I admit, but it was both easier and course, { was going to keep him over harder than it would have been it you had not turned out to be exceedingly here in: the talands su loge as Toould aigerent from what I imagined The —til you had all the chance you Tracker must be like. I was sorry to needed to escape so that not even he play a shabby trick on you, and I was could follow you, It was all I could glad that the circumstances didn't do; but I thought it would be useful Make it necessary for me to feign gh ore _ nin the country £iendiiness toward a bloodthirsty, re- wet the me em ¥ lentless brute who tracked human be- far off the track. I felt you might ings to the death for sheer love of the get away from the others, but I was sport. Won't you shake hands and terribly afraid of him, It was he who Call it quits?" guessed that you'd lead the way to‘ ‘Feign fnendliness'—that's what I meant." Thorne held his place. “It Parrot if you got out, He was the tan necessary for you to do that any most dangerous one of'’—— more, Miss Lawton, I don't have to “Good girl! Quite right. As it be hoodwinked, now'’— happens, it may be all right, He's ue in goed tas, Ratlinn” out in wton quickly, “It may be just as bound to find me, of course, but if Wan for Thorne to stay in the dark you can keep him busy until I""—— about that, fur 9 little, If he knows Thorne yielded to « sudden, over- he'll have to aci, and I've work to do powering impulse. He opened the first,"’ door and stepped inside the state- Thorne stared. ‘The girl spoke room, to face the blank, startled stare quickly, “Hut he wouldn't have to of father and daughter. He bowed act, He's out of the service—free to formally. do as he likes. Tell him, Dads, It “Miss Lawton, I want to set your isn't fair to keep him in ignorance mind quite at rest. 1 decided before another minute, thinking you're @ we left Amesville to help you get runaway murderer when you"'—— away and to help your father, too, if “On, stop talking nonsense,"’ she in- 1 had the chance. I've been relieved terrupted mare wasn't pretend- of duty as a police officer, and I have ing at all—about that. I was trying the right, now, to use my own judg- hard to keep from liking you all alung. ment. I'm sorry I didn't tell you long There. Let's be sensible. Dads has ago, but I didn't dream that you sus- news for yeu." pected my identity,” He turned to A load lifved suddenly from Thorne's Lawton, “You needn't have the least mind. Mven the discovery that Esther anxiety, Lawton, I'm not tracking Lawton’'s frienaiiness had not been a you, or anybody. I'm through with sham had only deepened the shadow that profession forever. I only ac- which hung cver her in her father's companied Miss Lawton so far be- guilt and peril! If, by some miracle, cause 1 believed that she was leading Lawton had not killed Parrot’'—— me to you, and I wanted to help you ‘‘Parrot's on board this boht, get clear if I could. Thorne. 1 trailed him straight across Lewton'’s face brightened slowly. the country and nearly | him, f He held out his hand, but Thorne just did catch the steamer gwally, He doesn’t know. He thinks he's shaken me off. And to-night he and I are going to have the talk I've been wait- ing tor for six years, After that if you want him, somebody else can take him back to Hamilton to answer for the murder of his valet, George Mer- rick. I caught him almost in the act. Thorne stared in a daze of bewild- ered relief, Lawton wasn't a murderer, after all; Esther wasn’t a murderer's daughter! And the trivial detail of the escape from Hamilton and the re- mainder of a sentence for embezale- ment still to be served, failed to lower his spirits. Those things could be ar-- ranged. He had a powerful weapon in his hands, at last—a club which could force the Governor himself to be open to persuasion in the matter of a pardon. “Shake hands on it," he said. And they did, all three. After which they digcussed ways and means very earn- estly indeed, The gray-haired man in the lower berth looked up calmly as Daniel Law- ton came into the stateroom. A faint smile crossed his lips, and the eyes which met Lawton's fearlessly ‘vere bright with malice. “So you've put your head noose, after all, Lawton? Don't stir. in the I thought I have you Lawton shrugged his shoulders and dropped casually on the cushioned locker that faced the berth. He laughed gently. I'm not armed, and I'm not here to kill you, Parrot. I'm offering you a chance at a bargain: Your life against a full and complete confession exoner- ating me in the embezzlement bus! ness—a confession that will hold water im court, I mean, and''—his voice hardened—"‘and the full truth about my daughter, Dora. Satisfy me on those points and I'll hold my tongue ‘Try to lie or evade and I'll go to the captain with the whole story. “And get yourself hanged for your pains,"’ said Parrot, smoothly, “Or I believe it's electrocution, now. You fool, Lawton! ~~ Lawton laughed pleasantly, ‘You're pretty clever, Parrot, but you're not superhuman, and you've made two or three mistakes that you don’t know about. The first one was trusting im- pilcitly in your hold on poor Merrick. He kept us on your track right along, terrified as he was. He'— “He's not likely to interfere any more, however." said Parrot com- fortably, ‘‘I admit a certain want of discretion in my attitude toward him. But £ fancy 1 have corrected that. You will find it very difficult to prove that the body found in my rooms at Hamilton was that of Merrick “Perhaps. But you forget that be- fore Merrick broke jail they had taken his Bertillon measurements and fin- ger-prints and |t won't be hard to es- tablish his identity when they know where to look. Also, if you reflect, you'll realize that Merrick was under arrest at the time you were very busy in Chicago, so that you won't be able to claim that he was Timothy Parrot. I don't think I'm overestimating that mistake, Parrot. But it doesn't mat- ter. You've made some othe Parrot's voice was still even and calm, but his eyes wavered and the pink of his face whitened perceptibly. “For instance, please?" Lawton leaned toward him, ‘You've left finger-prints on four of the let- ters you sent to the police—and they've all been kept, It's a very simple matter to prove that you wrote them. I think you'll admit that that is really a serious one, Parrot. “Perhaps, But not wholly conclu- meee evidence. 1 think I could evade that. There's a very clever detective at Pittland who has an idea that Timothy Parrot merely claimed credit for other men's crimes. I shall take the hint and plead guilty to that folly. It is not punishable, you will find.’ “We'll see. I think I've made out a case. And now we'll come to the bar- gain again. I've had the confession drawn by some excellent lawyers, and it's ready to sign. But first I'll have the whole truth about Dora, Where is she, Parrot?” . Parrot laughed. “It won't work, Lawton. You don't interest me, I'm willing to hold my tongue and give you a chance for your life, but that’s all. You can’t did high enough.” No? Then listen to this: a man named J. B. Smith was killed while I was still in Hamilton Prison by & partner of his who went by the name of Rawlings and who made his es cape, Rawlings doesn't know- that Smith recovered consciousness before he died and left a full ante-mortem statement, declaring that Rawlings Killed him because he had accidentally discovered that Rawlings and Tim- othy Parrot were one and the same. But it’s @ fact. And it's also a fact that there were a number of finger- prints on different things jn Smith's room which agree exactly with those on the letters I mentioned, go you see, Parrot, I have a little murder charge to match yours. And you'll tind it a hard one to evade too.” There was a tense pause, Then eee Statistics, Like Other Products, Are Gov- erned. Entirely by the Law of Supply and Demand as In- fluenced by the Dii- ferent Societies. The Statistics of Au- tomobile Accidents Great Reading for the Men Who Hate the Sight of a Rub- ber Tire. By Montague Glass. T’S terrible the number of Statistics they are publish- ing nowadays about auto- mobile accidents, Mawruss,” Abe Potash remarked to his partner, Morris Perlmutter, as he looked up from his newspaper the other morning. “ The statistics is al- ready three times as. big as the statistics was for the same month two years ago.” “For that mat- ter, Abe, all kinds of statis- tics has increased a whole lot in recent years,” Morris Perlmutter said, “which it’s a matter of sup- ply and demand, Abe, on account of the number of Societies for the Enforcement of This and Associa- tions for the Prevention of That which has sprung up since about five years or so. “All these here societies and as- sociations is employing men to get up statistics for them, y'under- stand and naturally they ain't go- ing to pay good wages to statistic collectors unless they turn in enough statistics to show that they ain't loafing on the job.” “Then you don’t believe that all these here statistics of automobile accidents is genwine?” Abe asked. “Sure I do," Morris replied, ‘but an automobile accident where a $5,009 car gets totally wrecked is one stati tic and an automobile accident wher: ten cents’ worth enamel is scratched off of a mudguard is also a statistic, y'understand, which you take a hun- dred such statistics, Abe, and if thers would be three out the hundred which puts a single automobile out of com- mission for more than ten minutes, that would be big already. “It's the same way with the statis ties of people who get injured in auto mobile accidents, Abe," Morris con- tinued. ‘A poor fellow nebich who gets struck by an automobile and end. up in a hospital’for six months while he is-having his spine fixed up is onc statistic, and a feller who gets struck by an automobile and ends up in a tailor shop for ten minutes while he is having his pants fixed up is also a statistic. “But when it comes to tho paid sec- retary of a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Pedestrians holding down a $5,000 a year job. y'under- stand, a statistic is a statistic, y'un- derstand, and when he shows in his annual report that in the Northern Tier counties of Pennsylvania alone 28,436 people were injured by auto- mobiles in the year 1921, he is oser going to ootz himself out of a good job by stating that 18,396 of the casu- alties were allowed to go home after not more than ten stitches were taken in the right or left pants leg and that of the remaining 56,000-odd the only surgical instrument used in com- pletely restoring them to the con- JULY 8 On One Statistic After Another . SA a black hearts that they w! their engine exhaust. dition they ywere in before the accl- dent, y'understand, was a whisk- broom." MAKE PEDESTRIANS CARRY A LICENSE. “For that matter, Mawruss,"' suggested, “they might just print statistics that in the Connecticut in the first six months of 1922, 4,886 people went crazy from trying to understand the traffic regu- lations of the City of Stamford alone, ‘nd that at least 20,000 more got nervous prostration from thinking that everybody in a brown suit riding on a motorcycle is a traffic cop.” “Them statistic fellers never both- ers their heads about statistics of carefulness, Abe,"’ Morris said. ‘The statistics they are collecting is the kind that is calculated to get money for the support of them anti-automo- bile socteties, out of people which feels so sore at automobiles that they almost wish they was dogs so that they could jump out into the road and try to bite the tires. “There is thousands of people POOR fellow who gets struck by an automobile and goes to the hos- pital for six months is one statistic, and a fellow who gets struck and ends up in a tailor shop for ten minutes is also a statistic. Ji L would be Commissioner of Licenses 1 would make it a rule that pedestrians should ought to take out operators’ licenses to cros: streets in cities like New York, Chicago or Los Angeles, y’understand. As soon as a bank president gets behind the wheel of an automobile he ain't @ bank president no longer. He is now a statistic. The truth of them arrest statistics is that out of 26,999 drivers arrested, y'understand, 21,000 of them had sneh lost to any idea of decency and respectability and let too much smoke escape frv: mitted. “I got pretty near knocked down by an imitation Yellow Taxi from trying to remember while croas- ing Fourth Avenue if it was this Tuesday or next Tuesday that Rosie id she was going to the Sammets for dinner."* ire T know,"? Morris said. ‘You are like a whole lot of other people, Abe. . Seemingly you couldn't find peace and quietness enough to think out-your troubles except in the middle of Fifth Avenue during the height of the uptown traffic rush hours, which if T would be the Commissioner of Li- censes, Abe, I would make it a rule that pedestrians should ought to take out operators’ licenses to cross busy streets in towns like New York, Chi- cago or Los Angeles, y'understand. SAUCE FOR THE GANDER. “Then after a feller gets pretty near run down for the third fime, y‘understand. I would take away his lie upon the grounds that no pedestrian has got the right to en danger the lives of automobile drivers by giving them heart disease, Abe. se “THE ONLY SURGICAL INSTRUMENT USED IN COMPLETELY RESTORING TO THE CONDITION THEY WERE IN BEFORE THE AC- CIDENT, Y'UNDERSTAND, WAS A WHISKBROOM.” which still regards automobiles like Old Man Baum. That feller couldn't wait till Monday morning to read the “Also, Abe, if it's counted as an accident when one car liberally priced at $200 backs into another car worth account of the accidents to the poor™at the outside $166.66 and bends a people nebich which got injured driv- ing on Sunday. He gets more pleas- ure out of the list of the killed and injured when an automobile gets run into by a railroad train than most people do out of Mutt and Jeff or George Ade, and the chances is that he would get apoplexy already if anybody would show him statistics where in the City of New York every afternoon 23,690 people would be killed and injured from acting as if they was walking in their sleep while crossing Fifth Avenue If it wasn't that 28,690 drivers of autgmobiles has got presence of mind enough to stop their cars by jamming on both brakes at once." “T figured in one of them statistics myself yesterday, Mawruss,"’ Abe ad- mudguard so badly that it takes all one man can do with his five fingers to bend it back into shape again—why ain't it also an accident when an old lady which nobody would miss, and least of all her relations, y’under- stand, steps in front of an expensive limousine and only escapes with her life because the driver burns. fifty dollars’ worth of rubber off of his rear wheels bringing his car to a stop." “Well, these here anti-automobile societies don't want to make the sta- lstics any more favorable to the car owner than they have to, Mawruss,"* Abe said, ‘otherwise when they give it out that 26,999 drivers of auto- mobiles were arrested in the County of Richmond during the month of July, y'understand, they wouldn't ————— busy leave it to the newspaper readers to believe that every one of them 26,999 drivers were chased by motor cycle policemen for miles and miles while they was racing through crowded city streets at a rate of speed greater than forty-five miles an hour, leaving be- hind them 3,456,777 chickens—-or enough chickens to make a dish of paprika chicken mit knockerf 5,280 feet long by 31,416 inches broad. “Whereas, Mawruss,"" Abe con- tinued, “the truth of them arrest sta- tistics is that out of the 26,999 drivers arrested, y'understand, 21,000 of them was pinched for having such black hearts that they was lost to every idea of respectability and decency anid let too much smoke escape from thete / engine exhaust \ Stil] another 5,000 was the kind of low-down, contemptible crooks wl have such little regard for the Ia of the country in which they live, understand me, that they would ac- tually forget to jold out their haggt when turning the corner of a street where there ain't a soul in sight for miles and miles with the exception of one motoreyele cop. “The otive is about equally di vided among them unhung murderers who park their cars where there is No Parking sign and hardened erin inals who draw up at the curb within 9 feet 11 inches of a fire dydrant when the legal distance is 10 feet, understand,” “And then, Abe, if you want to go further with them statistics," Morris said, “you could show how ont of 999 drivers arrested in the County f Anywhere at any time, 26,999 out talked to in such 1 way by the traffic policeman that if it happened to be a Russian peasant in the old country, you would say ain't it terrible the acks be have toward the common people and how glad we should ought to be that we live in America where disgrace - ful things like that are impossible." WHEN A BANKER BECOMES A STATISTIC, “Well I don't think traffte potic men means any harm at that, Maw- Abe said, ‘which outside «/ hours with their uniforms o a traffic policeman would be just polite to a bank president as you an me, Mawruss, especially if the bank president was sitting in his bank and not his automobile, y’understand, bui |) just as soon as the bank president f puts on a cap and sits behind the wheel of an automobile, then that’s something else again, especially if the traffic policeman has now got his unig |) form on and is standing in the midi of the street " “The bank president ain't a bank , president no longer, Mawruss. He iss , now a statistic. He becomes one of the 549,678 drivers who has got to §1 carry in their head 286,167 traf: |) laws, statutes and ordinances, y’un- )/ derstand, and if Gott soll huten th bank president should forget just one of them traffic regulations when » traffic policeman is around, Mawrus he will get precisely the same treat- ~ ment from the policeman, the court officers and the Judge as if instead of ? a bank president accused of breakin - a traffic law, he would be a pari ! bench loafer accused of being drunk and disorderly and insulting ladies an little children,"’ “Except, Abe, that once in a whil a Judge would let off a park benc! loafer with a warning, because pai bench loafers has got their constit:: tional rights the same like murde and highwaymen,” Morris said, ‘bic with a decent, respectable sitson w; drives an automobile, the law would! stand for no monkey bisiness like giv ing him the benefit of the doubt. Th law presumes he is gullty as charged, just 80 soon as he signs @ contract | f to buy the car.” } am { Copyright, 1922, The Bell Syndicat 1» Ine. Parrot spoke in a harsh, strained whisper, ‘*What do you offer?" ‘Just what I said. My silence against your silence—and the confes- sion and the story of Dora, Only you will have to confess the Hamilton murder now. My price has gone up since I came in: I mean to be abso- lutely clear. Confess the whole plot and I'll agree to say nothing about you to any one until the ship reaches port and for ten days afterward. Then I'll surrender and file the confessions and give my evidence. That's my best offer. I'll give you one minute to take It. After that I'll talk-to the captain and take my own chances. ‘Where's Dora, first of all.”’ DORA. “Dora died long ago. I—I cared for her, Lawton. You don't think so, but that was real, that affair. Go to Hel- ena, if you like, and look up the ree- ords in the hospital there. They'll tell you whether I suffered when she died I loved her." “That's enough.” Lawton's voice shook a little. For years he had hoped that his daughter might have died, but the knowledge hurt him sorely, meme Uae less, And he be- of his hate for the that he hai Heyed, in spite mah who faced him, heard the simple truth, ‘Now the confessions, if you please. I'll add to the one I've prepared so that it’il cover the Hamilton affair, too.” He wrote a few moments and car- ried the paper to the broken man ir the berth. Timothy Parrot read the paper deliberately, his face expres- sionless, ‘Do you really think I'll sign my life away like this, Lawton?" He flung the confession carelessly on his coverlet. “I wondered how fa your lunacy would carry you, “you won't sign, then? It's your last chance. I've given it to you be- cause, scoundrel as you are, I think you really told me the truth about my daughter. But’’—— Parrot torched the button at the edge of the berth. ‘When the stewara answers that | shall give you tn charge for the murder of ‘Timothy Parrot—if you're still in the room, he announced. ‘‘We shall see who wins.’” im “That's your last word "The very last." “Pm almost sorry. Parrot, Baesause it doesn’t matier & bit whethey you - half to himself sign ov not. You've condemned your- self a dozen times since I've been in here, and every word of this conver- sation has beer recorded by the ship's stenographer, the hearing of Capt. Anderson and of Thomas Thorne of the Pittland police. Come in, gentle- men."" He opened the door and Thorne and the Captain entered, Parrot did not move. His eyes rested steadily on Thorne, "So you're The Tracker," he said, “T've often wondered when you'd take up my trail. I didn’t think you'd find me. I seem to nave miscalculated generally, There is a price to pay for such errors, I'm will- ing to pay it.” His hand moved quickly as Thorne flung himself across the narrow room. A shot reverberated deafeningly in the cramped space, and then Thorne wrested the gun from the futile hand ot that way, Parrot, I'm afraid.” Another error,” said Timothy Par- rot, “I'm rather clumsy to-day “Well, you showed us all up, after all." McNamara clapped Thorne’s houlder as he sp good to hear the ¢ “It did my soul ef saul Ls talk, in there. I had it coming to too, but he was in worse than I wi It wasn't Mac who suspended The Tracker, I thank my lucky stars, This means the top for you, old man—ani I wish you luck. You've earned any-| | thing you get “Oh, I've resigned,” sald The Tracker casually, ‘‘I'm through, us ~ soon as Lawton's pardon is fixed up. I've had enough man hunting to sai- > isfy me for the rest of my life. F's going out to the Philippines and start | ' in all over again." There was a chorus of expostulatio: as the others crowded about him. Me Namara expressed the sense of th meeting when he summed it up. “You're raving, Tom—when you'y pulled off the Wiggest thing that been done in years—-to go and throw! yourself away on a sugar ranch ‘i, | the islands where''-—— ty “Oh, said Thorne gently, ‘thir, sugar plantation isn’t the only thin in the Philippines. 1 don’t think I'l. #4 exactly go to waste out there, boy( €% And he smiled at « parttoutarty 2" posing air castle which begaf to loo: very much, indeed, like a real one. The End, > wr