Prescott-Russell en Numérique

Russell Leader, 24 Dec 1931, p. 3

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r > | TULE MARSH MURDER STORY OF A MISSING ACTRESS AND THE TAX ING OF WITS TO EXPLAIN HER FATE. BY NANCY BARR MAVITY. SYNOPSIS Don Ellsworth's wife, the former act- ress Sheila O'Shay, disappears. Dr. Ca- vanaugh, criminal psychologist, learns that their married life has been very unhappy. Peter Piper, a Herald reporter while trying to see Dr. Cavanaugh, meets Bar- bara Cavanaugh, and finds she was en- gaged to Don Ellsworth before his mar- riage. An unidentified body found in the tule marsh is identified as the body of Sheila O'Shay. Barbara faints when she hears this, Mrs, Kane, Sheila's maid, is arrested and admits that her mistress forced Ellsworth to marry her by threatening a brc :h of promise. Peter and Dr. Ca- vanaugh find that the breach of promise papers have been taken from Sheila's safe, but discover a threatening letter signed "David Orme." Peter finds Orme at a tourist camp. CHAPTER XXXi.--(Cont'd.) Forgetting caution, Peter's gaze shifted, startled, from the man's hand 40 'his face. It was a surprising voice to come from a ragged fugitive, hid- fing under an alias, with murder in the background. It was low, vibrant, modulated, giving to the simplest words a hint of music. Peter knew with instant absolute assurance that a man with a voice like that might commit murder, but he would never stab an unarmed man with a dirty knife. He slid into a seat on the bench beside Orme and leaned his elbow on the table. "It would be," he smiled compan- jonably. people who change their names al- ways keeping the same initials. In fact, the tendency is so familiar that I should think by this time everyone would take pains to-avoid it. By the way, why didn't you clear out?" "I didn't have the yroney/" the man said simply. Peter groanca. There surged over him an irrational impulse to protect this man from the trap which he him- gelf had laid, and into which the vie: tim had stepped with such blind, un- hesitating promptness. It was toc easy! "You ought to have a guardian!" he exclaimed almost angrily; and then, almost gently, "It's a good thing I found you." Suppose this babe had been pounc- [commen MOUNT ROYAL ! HOTEL [al Make It Your Home J When In Montreal BREAKFASTS Table d Hote 50c, 75¢, $1.00 DINNER Table d Hote $1.50 It v. @. cARDY, 3 Managing Director ISSUE No. 47--'31 "It's a funny thing about{s | "But I'm just as bad. -o- ed upon by men from the homicide squad, with their "sweating" meth- ods and "strong-arm" tactics--it would be like seeing a rabbit torn piecemeal by dogs. Peter quite forgot that the man beside him was sought as a dangerous character--a slayer. "But you haven't told me yet why you wanted to find me." There was not a trace of fear in the low voice, nor any combativeness. Peter leaned forward and peered at the face before him with his bright, near-sighted gray eyes before answer- ing. It was a worn and sensitive face, young and yet ravaged; a face with delicate, clearly modelled features and dark sunken eyes. The perfectly shaped head had the smiting beauty of a profile on a Greek coin, And this was the man whom Ethel! had dismissed as a "sickly looking fel- low!" If sickness was there, it was a sickness of the soul. The curved lips, drooping slightly at the corners, the dark, steady eyes with their depths of pain, did not suggest weakness so much as the helplessness of one who is an alien in the world where he inust live, There was.a permanent bewild- erment in those eyes--the eyes of a baffled poet thrust into a world of ugly prose in which he could never be at home, bruised and broken and still wondering. A man like that, wounded beyond endurance, might strike to kill--and st.1l rot understand what it was all about. "Surely you know,' Peter said at last, speaking patiently as if to a child, "that you are under suspicion of the murder of Mrs. Ellsworth." The curved lips tightened into a hard, straight line. The face before him became as still, as expressionless as if it were chiselled in stone. "I don't know any Mrs. Ellsworth." | The voice took on a remote metallic ring, as if each word were the drop- ping of a coin. . Peter stared a moment. Then he remembered something -- something that had puzzled him. "But you knew Sheila 0' Shay?" he asked breathlessly. "Yes, oh, yes--Sheila O'Shay." The words were hardly more than an aud- ible sigh. "A great many people knew Sheila O'Shay!" : His hands were suddenly flung out- ward on the table in a singularly de- fenseless gesture. The knife, un- noticed, slid across the boards and fall noiselessly to the ground. The fa: woman and her tumultuous offspring had wandered away out of sight. "Yes," Peter said sternly, "but you wrote [heila O'Shay a threatening letter. I don't know why you didn't take any pains to disguise it, but' you didn't. Then you hung around out- side the house, lying in wait for her. Sheila .0'Shay was found murdered -- and you are out here, hiding under an assumed name. You're absolutely no good as a fugitive, I'll admit--I could have done a lot bettor myself--but that's no sign you didn't do it. You trembled all over when I spoke to you." "Oh, but that was before I knew you!" Orme's Tage broke into a ra- diant, confiding smile of sheer delight. | "You're so fery likeable, you know!" By the way, I don't think you're a po- liceman, are you?" "No. I'm not," Peter said harshly. take you to jail." . Ee able young man by "the shoulders and shake him--shake him into a realiza- tion of the seriousness of the situa- tion. It was like seeing a child watch the house burn down and clap his hands at the pretty fire. "Weil, that can't be helped, I sup- pose," Orme acquiesced. . "You'd have done better to face the music in the first place, if you couldn't get away any better than this," Peter said crossly. "You've made an awful mess of things." "Yes," the young man nodded his head gravely. "I know--I do that often. I'm always making a mess of things." "But hardly with your life in the balance!" "Does it matter? Not a great deal, I think." Orme's tone was not in the least bitter. He might have been commenting on the prospect of rain. "I'm afraid you'll wake up too lale and find that it does!" Peter raged. Lray--er, potential funeral, after all!" Again that winning, sunny smile, like a child watching the mounting flames. Against his will, Peter found himself smiling back. "I won't say that whatever you say will be used against you, because youll be just putty in the hands of the police, anyway. But would you r 'nd telling me--did you really kill her?" "Maybe so," the you ® wnan raid. "But that will be for the police to find out." And this, through all the long drive back to town, was the last word thal P ter had from him. CHAPTER XXXII. "Did you put up any money on me?" Peter threw his hat into the nearest armchair and leaned forward to ex- amine the top of the desk, but the fa- miliar nickel was not in evidence. "No," said Dr. Cavanaugh. "The sporting element would be lacking, unless I elaborated a system of odds. I'd hate to have you on my trail, young man--or perhaps this is what you call being on my trail already?" The doctor's clear brown eyes smil- ed with warm friendliness into Peter's as he pulled forward a chair. of consulting you. I.hope I'm not making "a nuisance 'of myself." "I've -no. -doubt. you: hope: it, ==But even if you wefe a 'nuisance, you would regretfully persist." "I suppose I would," Peter admit- ted. you, I'm really not particularly busy. at the moment and you may help yourself to the cigars. It's rather lucky for me that I've retired from active practice--you might not leave me much opportunity to collect from my. patients." "I'm glad I'm not bothering too awfully" Peter said cheerfully, ignor- ing the box of cigars which Dr. Ca- vanaugh extended and pulling forth his inevitable crushed package of cig- arettes. "Because, you see, I do feel sort of responsible for this babe in the woods I turned over to the police." Dr. Cavanaugh smiled ever 50 slightly. in the woods?' he inquired. "They do not,' A Peter said Ph ally. prised at him' myself. Honestly, = TI felt as if I were 'thréwing him to the' 'wolves It" Kad*t-be done, of course, but I didn't think they'd need to be 'half a5 -would be, on gengral. principles, to get everything out o him. And yet there he sits and says absolutely nothing. to gain his confidence. They've donc everything but light a bonfire under I'm going to him, and they're getting annoyed." "You seem rather pleased about it," the doctor observed noncommittally. "Well, don't let it bother you. It's! "Qh, no, I've just got into the-habib}- = "Well, then, if it's any comfort to, "Do. the police. took on him as a oake "As a matter, of fact, Pm sur- Z violént' a they probably | "They've questioned him in relays, | 24 hours at a stretch. They've planti- | ed 'a man in the same cell with hin' Quality has no substitute ca "fresh from the gardens" grit. It's a perfectly useless line to take, and it'll only make it harder for him in the end. The district attorney has got to the point where he's out for blood. Why, they even held be- fore his eyes a copy of the 'Herald' with headlines about Sheila's murder and made him stare at it for hours-- 'Butcher' Joe crumpled under that stunt two years ago, you remember-- and he just sits there, looking as if he were somewhere else. "Tt isn't as if he were an old hand; a 12-year-old child could have done better at covering his tracks. He really needs a 'guaraian, and since I found him, I sort of feel that I'm it. At least I want him to have a fair show. He isn't the ordinary mm type at all." 2 "Among all the things wes know about Sheila O'Shay's nem ur or," Dr. Cavanaugh murmur--ee----d tween puffs of his cigar, "we le-- knw this onc thing--that he was --mn't an ordinary criminal." (To be continued.) Wheat Is Up The price of wheat has riz And glorious news it is. It means, you see, There will shortly be Some farm relief for biz. - The farmer ir the dell Will soon begin to yell For sugar and spice And everything nice, And radio sets as well. The wheels of trade will tmme=-- an So city folks can earn, And every one here Will whoop and cheer, As far as I can learn. --The N.Y. T™ Imes. So Picture Language A story has come my way c= oncerns ing a high dignitary of the Ch --=march--} will not mention his name--v~ Io wa spending a holiday in Spain before that country plunged into revo === =tion. 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