: p— SE
. he Jug the A Month age.
“If you want my opinion,” Mrs.
| Moriarty Sud said to the second-
WE —— _— floor fron March, “that younger
Bellefonte, Pa., September 25, 1881. | gister the ome hey called Nicky,
4 a been the
T's They discussing
vee You ig Byney of the JHoment.
vice while the s | Mrs. Moriarty & nose for news.
You can take ad while rary Iai de fof
As to things you shouldn't do, things headlines as she had found in her
you should
But this must always be understood
(It's knowledge from wisdom's shelf)
That the final word as to what you do
And whether you choose the fuse or
Bride and Groom Mysteriously
Slain on Eve of Wedding
true No detail had esca her, and if
—You've got to decide yourself! the police had consi it'a mys-
In luck or trouble that fortune sends. Je) ire Moriarty uy oot She
You may have plenty of loyal friends,
Who boost you on in your aims and
ends,
And help you to fame and pelf;
But when you come down to the old
and they soon became strong enough
to convict.
chair in a minute,” she had told the
second-floor front.
bed rock, And Mrs. Moriart didn’ ean
Your friends may cheer and your foes y n't m
maybe, either.
may mock,
rthel of all her
It is you alone that will bear the shock, AR oon -. en it
You must stand the Jaf yowmelf! [354 ver to oceur to Ber that even a
young and brazen murderess would
Jie Wo muy sulle or the world gand | 1% the nerve to hire a room from
frown |
May strive to lift you or keep Mn that: Shes. 35 view |
down, riart fo this |
But whether you climb to high re- | az OTHE that 3
nown wl was i
Or stay on the bottom shelf, (any decent, self-respecting person
The crucial battles you cannot share, 0 be up and about. |
Alone you do, alone you dare, | This morning had already brought
Bach mortal's cross is his own to bear, her one of those insufferable in-
And it's up to you—Yourself! | juries fate visits upon even the
By Berton Braley most virtuous and vigilant of lodg-
|ing-house ladies. The colored wo-
I
|
y man who came in by the day had |
THE GIRL IN THE 5TH FLOOR announced the r.
BACK. Plumbing done gone bust,” she
But then, it was not her plumbing.
Nor was it Mrs. Moriarty's lodg-
rs' plumbing. :
“They throw anything they want
to get rid of down the pipes,” Mrs.
Moriarty bitterly assured the plumb-
er when he ap N
It was not the plumber’s plumb-
ing, but he managed to look sym-
patheticc. He was a ung and
lithe plumber; the sort of plumber
that might have quickened some-
thing in her, had Mrs. Moriarty been
younger. But she was not to be
80 quickened nowadays.
“Where are your tools?’ she ask-
Mrs. Moriarty believed that plumb-
ers never brought their tools.
“In the car,” he replied. “Where's
your plumbing?”
“You get your tools, and then I'll
show you my plumbing.’
The young plumber grinned. He
had met Mrs. Moriarty, as a type,
before. “I've got about half a ton
of the finest first-aid-to-plumbing
equipment you ever saw in the car
outside,” he retorted eguably. “But
I'm not going to lug it all in here
until I find out what the trouble is.”
“You do as I say,” snapped Mrs.
Moriarty, ‘“or I'll call your boss.”
“You are talking to him right
now,” he said. “Bill McMasters, in
person. I hepped over because all
eaves suspected as much. But then, 'the other men are out on and
jobs
Mrs. Moriarty, having run a lodging r call soundeed like an 8. O. S.
house in Boston's South End for it isn't—'
Except for her but |
none-the-less decorative head, the |
girl who occupied the rented room ¢
under the eaves was not visible to
the naked or any other sort of eye
this April morning. The rest of
her sixty-two inches, clad in gay
and Sulgetal pajama was decorously
obscured under drab bedcoverings.
And that was quite as well, consid-
ering that a strange young man
was about to walk into her room—
and her life also.
She lay there, staring straight up
at the discolored ceiling, and con-
sidered her immediate past, her un-
palatable present and her impene- ed
trable future, with no enthusiasm.
“I suppose,” she mused, “I was an
idiot to run away. Now, of course,
‘everybody knows I'm guilty.” The
perverse, provocative line of her
mouth twisted defiantly, mockingly.
“As if anybody ever doubted it!"
To the lady who had rented her
the room—and anybody who called
‘Mrs. Moriarty anything but a lad
would get at least a verbal smac
in the eye-—the girl had given her
name without hesitation.
“Miss Jones-—Jane Jones,” she
said, her eyes a shade challenging.
The girl's name was not Jane
Jones, ever. And the lady to
whom she had paid four dollars in
advance for the room under the
i
i
i
i
twenty years, never trusted any. It was. Mrs. Moriarty ted |
body. defeat. “You might as well look |
“If you want my opinion,” Mrs. at it so long as you're here, she
Moriatry had assured her second-
floor front the night before, “there
is something funny about the fifth-
floor back.”
Of course, she did not mean the
physical proportions of the room,
somewhat diminished by the pres-
ence of a huge water tank, part of
the house's antiquated plumbing sys-
tem. Nor did she refer to the fur-
which were, in Mrs. Mor-
iarty's opinion, all that anybody
could expect for four dollars a week.
sey " she would have said,
“can’t be choosers.”
And anybody who couldn't afford
more than four dollars a week fora
room came in that class, so far as
she was concerned.
The second-floor front—the occu-
t, again, not the room—was a
blonde. By bottle, that is
rather than by birth. By day she
functioned as a saleslady; one of
those goddesslike creatures who
wither ordinary people.
“What do you think is the mat-
ter with her?” she had asked.
“I don't know,
confessed.
her.”
snapped.
The look at it was to carry him
upward to the room under the
eaves where, in addition to Nicky,
the tank that fed the plumbing sup-
ply was lodged.
ed Mrs. Moriarty. “She isn't up yet,
but it's time she was.’
Upon that her lips set uncom-
promisingly. Even her knock was |
perfunctory, the merest matter of
form. There was, she knew, no
key on the other side of the door.
There never was, if Mrs. Moriarty
could help it. i
“What is it?” demanded Nicky,
and if there was the snap of irrita-
tion rather than the tremulo of
‘alarm in her inquiry, there was a
reason.
Four days before, at two o'clock |
in the morning, she had slipped out
of the house in which she had been |
born. At the station she had board. |
ed a train for New York. This she
‘had done many times before, al-|
| though never at that hour. Andall
the public notice previously taken of
‘her departure had been a squib in
the Newfield Enterprise. Such as:
Janice Judson, known to her many
friends as “Nicky,” left for New
York Thursday, to shop and take in
some of the new plays.
The sort of personal that no one
i
i
|
y, nose as
, “She didn’t
out to dinner and she didn't cook
her room, either. I smelt around the
hall to make sure.”
ae Deuido “Jane Jones" would
ve s wryly at that. ewfi could conceivabl
hadn't eaten the night before, be. | Jie of uN Head nesvably
cause— -
0 ge. Tm ma my | This time, however, she had shift
a forty-two of them,” she might
ve explained in the half-mocking,
half-defiant tone that was the index
of her attitude toward the world.
She was only twenty-two but, like
Mrs. Moriarty, she no longer trust-
| field.
1a hotel and
In Boston, she had taxied to
red as “Jane
Jones, of New York.” That was
against the law, but none the less
wise. For that afternoon the pa-
i
ed anybody. | pers carried the inescapable head.
Of course, she might have pawn. | Ine:
ed her smart suitcuse or her toilet | Nicky Judson Flees Her Home
set. But she didn't know how, and |
would have been afraid to if she And such is the power of the
had. They might, for instance, Press that nobody needed to be told
notice the initials and guess what Who Nicky Judson was, or what
the “J. J." stood for. To the girl home it was she had fled.
in the fifth-floor back nothing was | on way" Nicky had summarized
preposterous; anyth could hap- de y.
pen. It had Svining a weird ord No definite charge had ever been
fantastic world. | made against her. She had been
“If,” she had assured herself, questioned repeatedly by police of-
when she had decided upon flight ficers, state detectives and reporters.
and had assumed a new name, A picture of her taken four years
“there is anybody in these Uni 2d b:fore—and fortunately, before she
States who duesn't konw the name [had begun to let her hair grow in
‘Janice Judson’ it's not the report-|again—had been widely published.
ers’ fault.” “And I'd like to mu whoever
To be a Judson in the little New Sug at up,” Nicky had told her in-
England town where she had mates.
born was to be somebody. To| This had been in the beginning
have, in brief, that prestige that before Willie Johnson, the town’s
comes from power and pride of an- man ol all works, had jumped into
cestry and to become a target for | the limelight with his story. Willie
the envy of those who lack both. |was another whom Nicky could have
They had christened her “Janice,” murdered when that a .
that being her great-grandmother’'s Afterwards, she real that she
name. t she, being of this gen- hed been suspected from the first.
eration, had inevitably been rechris- She came to that realization when a
tened “Nicky.” state detective said abruptly:
She was that sort of a girl and| “There is a rumor around town,
she looked like that sort of girl. Miss Judson, that you were extreme-
Precisely the type to be condemned ly ous of your sister. That you
by all the Mrs. Morlartys in the not spoken to her for some
“I would send that Nicky tc the |the hands
| unknown.
| anybody's eyes,”
“There's a girl in there,” explain- | jarty
/ed to a train for Boston at Spring- | Bill
The implication had momentarily
stunned her. Then: “Are you sug-
gesting that—that I gave them cy-
anide?” she had .
“Of course not,” he had assured
oy
t at every repo rumor.”
8 have told you I
know,” Nicky had said. did not
commite the murder. That had
preven unwise, for it gave the news-
papers another :
Sister of Slain Bride-to-Be
Denies Guilt
Nicky had set her teeth on that.
If the authorities would only come
out into the open!
legal
port of coroner's jury:
We find, therefore, that Brecken-
ridge Tyler and Mary Judson met
death by cyanide of potassium at
of a person or persons
The jury of her peers— the Mrs. |
Moriartys of this world—rendered a
different verdict. Even in New-
field.
“If I stay in the house it's be-
cause I'm guilty and afraid to meet |
Nicky had inform-
that flippancy that
she wore like armor over every
other emotion these days. “And if
I don’t stay in the house it's be- |
cause I'm just brazening it out” |
No member of her family had
known that she was going, nor did
they know where she was. She had
started with fifty dollars and a fan-
ed herself, with
|
tastic idea that she might find
work. How fantastic that was she
now knew. |
“Have you had previous exper-
fence?” she had been asked, again
and again.
Nicky hadn't. And when she
might have landed,
block had been,
quire references.”
So there was no reason why she
should be up at eight o'clock. Life
had become a nightmare;
the wit to
the stumbling
“Of course we re-
made in any other direc
If, as was possible, a police officer
stood outside the r she didn't
give a darn. She had reached the
But it was Mrs. Moriarty who en-
tered. The way she always enter-
e without waiting for an invita-
on.
“The plumber wants to look at
the plumbing,” she
‘The plumbing ?"
“The tank--over in the corner,”
lained Mrs. Moriarty.
icky's eyes went back to the
ceiling. “Well, let him,” she said.
The etiquette of the situation did |
not, obviously, worry her as it did
Mrs. Moriarty. In Mrs. Moriarty’s |
opinion no decent, self-respec
| point.
bed. |
Mrs. Moriarty could not
have said, but she ached to argue |
it. But not, she abruptly re -
bered, while she was paying &
plumber for standing
Fe in," she directed Bill
came in, a bit abashed. But
he paid no attention to Nicky. He
examined the tank. Then: ’
‘The ball is out of order,” he an-
nounced. “You need a new ome but |
I can fix this one so it will carry
=, I'll get a special wrench I car-
He departed, leaving Mrs. Mor- |
i
better get up |
“I think you had
Mrs. Moriarty |
and get dressed,” said
oity. |
“ ?" Nicky replied,
i not in ot > us ue
“No self-respecting, decent girl
“What makes you think am,
anyway?" suggested Nicky.
“I don't,” snapped Mrs, Moriarty.
“I knew the minute I set eyes on |
you was something wrong
with And I'll thank
Miss, to leave my house. I don
tend to ”
“You forget,” said Nicky, “that I
paid you four dollars for the week." |
“That makes no difference.” |
“Oh, It does,” Nicky assured |
Ben a io put me out.” i
. a lice! ” {
Me Moriarty, Dan,
{
i
you, |
'tin- |
quivering with rage,
|
Bill interrupted her. “There's a
coal man downstai 2
of tons of coal,” he informed Mrs. |
Moriarty. “At least he says it's
a couple of tons but it looks Hort
Mrs, Moriarty |
to me. You'd better—"
He did not finish.
Ta roned, let
to the ceil
was already on her
Nicky, no longer
ng.
bei ignored.
feel Th med,
her eyes go back
was obviosuly
But he did not
y.
Nic glanced at him 1
enough to ta, Jost _lobg
ods you tis concentrating on
umbing ?” she suggested coolly.
“The plumbing is functioning.
was before I started downstairs,” he
amu Bet, 2 coolly.
“Then w! are u here
now?” she dentanded. doing
Bill grinned. It was one of the
nicest things he did. “1 just came
back to see if you would be inter.
ested in a job. Because if you are,
I can put something in your way.
Not much-—eighteen or twenty a
ee It might tide you over,
though.”
“Tide me over what?” demanded
icky.
“Temporary financial st cy,”
he assured her ut gen
ont Fret ak
i what your charming
landlady said about you just mow—
and I guessed the rest. You are
out of a job, aren't you?”
Nicky hesitated. In a way she
was. “Yes, she “but—"
“Okay, then,” he broke in. “I'm
offering you one.
It was preposterous, fantastic.
But then life was preposterous, fan-
tastic.
y need somebody?”
‘and
with
“You haven't
ed my name,” spe remind-
“Does that matter?” he replied.
“Rather,” she assured him. Her
heard of it.”
She saw at once that he had.
“You mean—" he began.
Nicky nodded. She could not
speak. She felt that if he turned
aside, withdrew his offer that—
well, what would be the use, any- |
way ?
He didn't. “Good Lord!" he said,
his voice warm with sympathy.
“The newspapers have certainly
crucified you. I've—" He broke off
short. Mrs. Moriarty was return-
ing. “Here's one of my cards,” he
added abruptly. “Come around as
soon as you can.”
He turned to confront Mrs. Mori-
arty. “You're fixed for the mo-
ment,” he informed that lady. “But
it's only a temporary job. I don’t
guarantee it.”
“How much is it?” demanded
Mrs. Moriarty in a tone that sug-
gested battle.
“One and a quarter.” i
“It didn't take you fifteen min.
tes,” protested Mrs. Moriarty.
“If you'll forget the fifteen min-
find the charge
And if you don
Just as I found it, and you can try
your luck elsewhere.”
To Mrs. Moriarty and to Nicky as
well, it then becam
basically a darn
Bill McMasters was
good business man, whatever his
lapses into altrusim might
temporary
8 est.
icky was even more convinced
of that before the day was ended.
Bill was at the phone wai for
a connection when she entered his
office just before ten.
yo!
you watch me
find out what
i
The
began speak
Montgomery.
fectly—Well, wh
chance to bid? e
Specifications OF course, I under-
; You want to be sure—Thanks
awfully.”
He hung up and turned to Nicky.
“That was an old customer,” he ex-
plained. “I've done odd
for some time. Now she's building
a new house and wants green bath-
tubs and purple shower
and"
The phone shrilled again. * ?
Wait a minute.” His eye ran over
penciled memoranda attached to the
e. Then: “Thirty-two Mayfair
treet—diamond ring in sink trap,”
he announced.
He hung up, turned back to Nicky.
i
jobs for her
“That is to be one of your duties.
assigning men to jobs. Instead of
having them come all the wa
to the shop when they're h
with a job I have them call up, and
if anybody has phoned in the mean-
time from that neighborhood I shoot |
them off in that direction. Saves
time and reduces costs both ways.”
Mi ced up ata an 2 over-
0 appeared
“Come in, Sam,” he directed, “and
meet Miss Jones. She's going to
handle office detail from now on.”
stated To Nicky he added as Sam sham-
bled in, “Sam's my right-hand man
—boss when I'm not here.”
to meetcha,” stuttered
Nicky liked him, overalls,
Ww! grizzled head and all.
As, miraculously, she liked the of-
fice and its activities. |
Or perhaps not so miraculously, |
after all. It gave her a sense of
solid ground under her feet, a
chance to forget Newfield for the
moment. |
She hated Newfield, that tight, |
narrow little New England town |
that her ancestors had had so much
to do with. The Judsons had own-
Village
rs with a couple Sam
awk.
ed e almost—the
water supply; the gas plant Nicky's |
ther had buil what
t—and
did not own they dominated. |
eve it or not,” Nicky had
told her intimates at school, |
“but at home we still use just |
because m ather built the |
Vans fought to keep elec- |
gas works
tricity out.”
“How quaint!”
mented.
“You mean how darned inconven-
fent,” Nicky had corrected. ‘Elec-|
tricity did get in after my
father died and every house has it
except ours—just because he made
Father promise he'd never wire it.” |
And that was what it meant to
be a Judson aon of Newfield To have|
mone; to live anywhere, but |
to live in a house built in the
‘seventies that was architecturally a |
horror; to be able, if one chose—as |
Nicky certainly didn't—to point out |
the Judson Memorial Library to
visiting friends; to have a car of
her own, but never to be able to use |
electric curling irons at home. {
“But when I'm home,” Nicky had |
added, “the things the neighbors say |
about me are enough to make my
hair curl anyway. But I refuse to
one had com-
“Do you reall
“Or is it just—"
demanded eke.
“Charity ? ell, Tm 4d nice-
world, on general principles. In fact, | weeks.”
let them Sap my style.” To
which: she might have added that |
| Newfield was a challenge to every
, met hers.
| you believe all
. sions of innocence, withho
detail
invent. “And,” she confessed inall| “I'd like to see
sincerity, “it bores me to death.”
The office did not bore her. Bill
was in and out of it, always on the go, said Nicky.
la
in his o
galvanic,
“and paying you the
first week in advance.”
Before she thank him he
was gone. And hard-boiled
som
“He is
Eventually five Flock. came, with
the men finishing up. Nicky linger-
ed. She had no idea what her
hours were and did not care.
At half past five Bill loomed over
hanged
was evident
|—is Janice Judson. Perhaps you've that his tailor was well chosen.
“I wonder if you will go to din.
ner with me,” he said “I know
that sounds awfully crude but—
well, I want to talk to you and I
don't get much chance around here.
You—you won't misunderstand?”
“Of course not,” said Nicky.
How could she? He was going
to ask her about the murder. She
felt it in each of her two hundred
bones.
He had a car outside; a good car.
He helped her in, swung in himself.
As he drove he talked about many
things and when finally he stopped
his car, its hts illumined a
stretch of harbor and ships at their
moorings.
“I hope you like fish,” he said.
“This place is famous for it.”
The restaurant was actually built
on an old fish wharf, he explained. Sh
The atmosphere had been preserved:
even the electric lights were set in
old ship lanterns.
“Care for lobster?” he asked
when they were seated, and when
Nicky nodded, added, “Then that's
our dish.”
His reason for bringing her was
not referred to until they had fin-
ished their dinner. Then his eyes
as possible,” he promised. “I hate
to bring it up at all but you will
have to face it sooner or later.
That landlady of yours looks as if
she'd e to worm the secret
out a the Sphinx.”
“She won't get an out of
me,” said Nicky. Yihing
“But she may put two and two to-
gether—and get six or eight. Where-
as I—well, I'm wondering if I can't
put two and two togehter in some
way that may help you out.”
“I doubt if anybody can help me.”
This he preferred to ignore.
“Your sister,”
married to some man who"
“Who,” broke in Nicky, “was at!
one time all but engaged to me, if
you hear.”
“Was he?” he asked.
“No,” said Nicky.
“You—weren't interested?”
Nicky didn't dodge. “Oh, some;
at first. He was an eligible—one
of the Breckenridge Tylers of Phila-
delphia.
brought him back to
Trophy of the chase, I suppose.
And"—her lovely lips twisted—-
“was, according to town gossip,
promptly jilted. Which supplies a
motive.”
She didn't want to talk to him
80, yet couldn't help it.
touching raw
he
“I don't agree that it's a motive,”
you wouldn't care for the gossip.”
Newfield.
“I didn’t,” she admitted. “Would
any guy
e hesitated, as if considering a
question.
“And I—X wasn't on particularly
jeod terms with—with Mary,”
icky added recklessl “Sisters
y.
aren't sways, We often squabbled.
She Mopped there. If he chose to
r—and she knew how
convict
damning the facts were—then let
him. She would make no profes-
“In fact,” she added defiantly,
“she id Sather rub Breck in.”
e pass. “They were to
be married on—"
“March twelfth,” she supplied, that
being one date she'd never forget.
“And on the afternoon of March
eleventh he came to the house, and
he and your sister were together in
Your mother
and there was
no answer. She opened the door
and found them both—dead. She
called your family physician, who
said death was due to cyanide
tassium taken in some liquid.
et nobody believed it was sui ”
’ was not the sort to com-
mit suicide,” Nicky assured him,
“and neither was Breck.”
“And so,” he commented, “it be-
came a murder mystery.”
“But not so much
at that,” gibed Nicky. y you
saw Willie Johnson's story.”
“Tell me what pe think about
Willie Johnson,” .
“I wouldn't dare to,” said Nicky.
“But doesn't his story—that
‘happened’ to look in the window
ay saw me giving Mary and Breck
something in glasses—make it less a
mystery?”
’ |
“I have a feeling that isn't true,”
he said quietly.
“Glasses such as he described
were found in the pantry,” Nicky
reminded him. She let her eyes
meet his and shrugged her pretty
shoulders; then added, “What's the
use? Isn't the evidence too damn-
ing?"
“The police don't seem to think
least—"
“They haven't arrested me—yet?”
so. At
she supplemented. “Anybody in
Newfield will tell you why. ey'll
tell you that money and political |
| influence are protecting me.
That
it just shows that a Judson can get
away with anything.”
“Tell me something about the
house,” he interrupted. “I read
somewhere that it had never been
wired for electricity; that you still
use id
ly, thank you, but I haven't reached | perverse caprice her youth could | Nicky explained that.
y figure
. His men—he em- let his hand lie over
ployed eighteen in all—both liked | symp
“I'll make this as brief |
he said, ‘was to be
I met him there and.
He was
said. “Of course I can see where
of
he at the
that house,”
told her when she had finished.
“lI never want to see it
He reached out and for
s all been published. Wha!
could I add?”
”
| more
“As a detec
| h to set me
retorted. He grinned.
(tive, I'm a good plumber, you see.”
| Nicky didn't at all. But he ha
risen and stood read he:
later they were back
' headed toward Boston. He did no
(refer to the murder again.
| “I hope I haven't bored you stiff,
| he said, as he deposited her at Mrs
Moriarty's door.
“You've been,” Nicky answere
impulsively, yet very sincerely
“about the nicest man I'ever knew!
Mrs. Moriarty did not hear that
naturally. But she did hear Nick
enter. “Just as I expected,” sh
(commented to the second-floor fron:
“Sleeps all day and up all hours ¢
the night. I'll see that she marche
at the end of this week.
The second-floor front was not ir
terested. “Did you see,” she aske(
“what the papers said tonight abou
the girl that murdered her siste
and her beau? They think she
hiding in Boston.”
“Boston?” echoed Mrs.
And then she quickened li
ke a houn
that has caught a rant sc
“I wonder—" YF n
In the room under the eave
nicky sat on the edge of the be
It was as chill as the tomb ther
‘yet she felt—well, curi warr
Moriart:
then she thought of the sho,
the reporters she had eluded.
“If they will only let me alone f
a little while,” she thought. “If
can just stay on, get my breath.’
She had not seen the
papers. The second-floor front hs
and was exhibiting one to Mrs. Mo
iarty. ‘The latter read:
Believe Nicky In Hiding Here
Bill had seen
he didn't want Nicky to see it.
In Own room, this April nigt
he sat considering what she hi
A had a hunch—possib
a wild one, he admitted—but |
was going to play it and at once,
“Because,” he mused, ‘““Mrs. Mo;
arty will see that headline, too—a;
she strikes me as a Sherlo
Holmes of sorts herself.’
That hunch, at least, was corre
mind to call the police
y was saying.
“But there's no warrant out f
her,” protested the second-flo
Boat thie
"“ . re ought to »
nounced Mrs. More y. yh >
momentarily balked. Just t
same, “I'll put it up to her in t
morning. And if, as I suspec
is that Nicky Judson—" hes
The program she visioned was fi
ther postponed, however, for Nici
arising at seven the
Moriarty realized it.
“But she left her
her,” the latter informed
ed hand-maiden, who had alrea
been told there was a murderess
the house, “so she'll be back—a
I'll be ready for her.”
na es alive!”
ly exclaim rolli
“Ain't you ed, ng
behi
cols
Led, :
me—and tl
they'll be all over the sh
They won't give me a chance
| V or an else.”
|" But Bill
‘when she got there.
| “He must have been in early,”
plained Sam. “He left a note s
i Bias hes gute out of town
| inspect a e says he ho
| be back sometime this afternoon.
Nicky felt sunk.
wanted to give notice,’ she prot
ed. ‘T've—I've got to leave
| once.”
| 0 echoed Sam, astonis
" good , you can't go w
‘out seeing boss! Why, he'd
‘me fits if I let you go, miss.
‘was saying yesterday how you t
‘hold. He said you were just
| girl he'd been looking for.”
| Nicky wavered. The tribute &
|& thrill through her.
“Besides,” added Sam,
ne a note fo
| guess.”
Nicky turned swiftly to her d
| found the note and set her fing
envelope. Sam watched
i
“x kr
being here.
r you; instruction
| Whil
e:
i
| Dear Miss Jones (read Nicky):
i I'm leaving you and Sam
| charge today. I know you
| handle the office end perfect
't worry about anything.
Perhaps, in case you have
| Seen the papers, I'd better warn
| that the reporters are on your f{
| . If they locate you befo)
get back tell Sam to take the
| gest wrench he can find and c)
| them out.
Don’t worry. Just remember v
| I said—that as a detective, I'r
| darned good plumber.
Yours very truly,
Bill McMaste
Nicky read it twice and then
came conscious of Sam's anx
| scrutiny.
3
!
{
| “I'll stay until he comes b
| anyway,” she promised, folding
| note.
But she knew, in her heart,
(Continued on page 3, Col. 4.)