© Ben Ames Willams, SYNOPSIS Barbara Sentry, seeking to sober up her escort, Johnnie Boyd, on the way home from a party, slaps him, and attracts the attention of a policeman, whom the boy knocks down. As he arrests him, Professor Brace of Harvard confes to the rescue and drives Barbara home. On the way they see Barbara's father driving from the direction of his office at 12:45, but when he gets home he tells his wife it is 11:15 and that he's been playing bridge at the club. Next day Sentry reports his office has been robbed and a Miss Wines, former temporary em- ployee, killed. The evening papers luridly confirm the story, and Sentry takes it hard. Mary, elder daughter, in love with Neil Ray, young interne at the hospital where she works, goes off to dinner at Gus Loran's, Sentry's partner, with Mrs. Loran's brother, Jimmy Endle. Mr. and Mrs. Sentry call on old Mrs. Sentry, and Barbara, alone, re- ceives Dan Fisher, reporter, who advises her not to talk. Phil Sentry, son at Yale, is disturbed at the possible implications and suspicion of Miss Wines’ absence from her rooms for three days during August. He goes home to help. Sentry is arrested and booked for murder. Dan Fisher ex- plains the evidence against him—that the robbery was a fake, the safe opened by one who knew the combination, changed since Miss Wines’ employment there—that a back door key, a duplicate of Sentry’'s, was found in the girl's purse, and that Sentry, too, had been away those three days in August CHAPTER IlI—Continued eB Flood rubbed the knuckles of his left hand with the palm of his right. Then he said gravely, ‘Your hus- band suggested that I come and— tell you the situation, Mrs. Sentry.” He added, “Ex officio, you might say.” No one spoke, and he added, “I regret to say that Inspector Irons has booked Mr. Sentry on a charge of murder.” He hesitated, ex- plained, “The Inspector tried to find me beforehand; but I was out, and he thought it best to act without delay.” “Didn't he—exceed his authori- ty?” Mrs. Sentry asked in dull tones. “No,” he admitted. *“‘And—I'm bound to say that I should have act- ed as he did, in his place.” “You mean you would have ar- rested Arthur?” She seemed to choke, then added coldly, “You im- ply he—is guilty?” “I'm afraid there's enough evi- dence to hold him.” “That's outrageous! Have decent citizens no rights?” His color rose at her tone. “You must understand that your husband is accused of murder,” he retorted. Mrs. Sentry closed her eyes and let her head rest against the back of the chair; and he added, more gen- tly: “But of course, I want to do— everything possible to protect you, to see that you are—annoyed as lit- tle as possible. There will be—" Barbara, who had been in a deep abstraction, cried now as though suddenly remembering: “Oh, wait a minute! Father didn't do it. Fa- ther didn't kill her. I know he didn’t!” She leaned forward sharply, and Mrs. Sentry’s eyes opened in swift hope. The District Attorney said sympathetically, “I know it must seem incredible to you all, as it does to me! I've known Mr. Sen- try—"" ‘““No, no!” Barbara cried. “I don’t mean that. I mean, I really do know he didn’t. I just realized that he couldn't have. It said in the pa- per that she was killed a little after one oclock. A night watchman heard the shot. Don’t you remem- ber, Mr. Flood?” “That was in the paper,” he as- sented. ‘“‘But-" She interrupted him. “But father was home before then!’ she cried triumphantly. “We saw him! Pro- fessor Brace and I came up from Essex through the East Boston Tun- nel, and father passed us in his car right outside the entrance. We fol- lowed his car, stayed behind him all the way out here.” She appealed to Professor Brace. ‘You remem- ber, don’t you?” The District Attorney looked at the other man. He asked in a curi- ously quiet tone, “Is that right, Pro- fessor Brace?” Brace, after a moment, “Yes. Yes, that's correct.” “And what time was that?” “That was before one o'clock!” Barbara said eagerly. “I looked at my watch as I came in the house, and it was quarter of one. So fa- ther couldn't have, don't you see? He was already at home before she was killed!” The girl's eyes were shining, her cheeks bright with triumph. But Mrs. Sentry, while Barbara spoke, felt all her muscles slowly contract. Her body was like an empty shell, and her ears rang. She heard, as though at a great distance, District Attorney Flood tell Barbara in an even tone that this was very interesting and would be considered; but more real to her than Mr. Flood's word® were other words, spoken that night when Ar- thur came home from his bridge game, and she half woke to greet him, and asked him, murmurning drowsily, “What time is it?" And-—she remembered with a ter- rible and conclusive certainty--he bad replied, “Quarter past eleven.” But if Barbara told the truth, then said: Arthur had lied. And if he had lied— Her thoughts recoiled, refused to answer the hideous, damning ques- tion. CHAPTER IV Mrs. Sentry slept not at all till a little before dawn; she woke to face a naked sun just rising in a raw and aching glare above the eastern horizon, leering at her through the trees whose foliage had thinned even during the night and now would soon be gone. Her eyes opened, but not to full consciousness; she lay for a while, turning her head sidewise to avoid the glare, watching small shadows shift and change on the rough plastered wall. Then she turned to look toward Arthur's bed, and saw the spread and pillow cover rumpled as though someone had lain there; and she remembered that Mary had come in to her last night, weeping in furi- ous and passionate revolt, in hurt, tormented pride. And little by little she remem- bered all the rest, picking up this fact and that circumstance, and set- ting them in their proper relation to one another. I'm glad I'm alone, can be alone for a while, she thought; and she decided that if any- one came to wake her she would pretend to be asleep. Mary had seemed to blame her father, with a raging bitterness; had been filled with anger more than grief, like a mother robbed of her child, a girl of her lover. Thinking of Mary, Mrs. Sentry thought of Neil Ray. Mary had not mentioned him last night; yet there had been something like terror as an undercurrent to her wrath.«Mrs. Sentry wondered what Neil Ray would do or say to all this. Re- membering his anxiety to escape from the house the other night, she thought there might be something of the prig in that young man, a tendency to deplore— Deplore? The District Attorney, she remembered, something last night. ‘““Deplored the necessity!” That was it. He had asked her to promise that the chil- dren would all remain available as witnesses if needed; and he had her to testify, but she had said of course she would stay near Arthur. “Near my husband,” she had said, and remembered now that when Ar- thur gave her the new ring, the emerald, on her birthday three or four weeks before, he had signed the enclosed card “Your Husband,” and she had felt a sense of strange- ness at the time, because he usually used his name, just Arthur. And also the ring had been a lavish pres- ent, without precedent in recent years, so that she had smilingly accused him of a guilty conscience. Her birthday in September! Miss Wines had worked for her husband's firm during the summer; and that mysterious absence of which the pa- pers spoke, when the girl was sup- posed to have gone to New Hamp- shire, was in August; and then when they all came home from York Harbor for Mrs. Sentry’s birthday, in September, Mr. Sentry gave her that beautiful emerald and signed himself “Your Husband.” She understood now. He must have sought to ease his conscience so, and she thought with more ten- derness than she had felt toward him for years how unhappy he must have been since then, playing a part, suffering through sleepless nights. Insomnia. I wonder, she thought, whether I'll have insom- nia now. I slept last night, a little, I'm still half asleep. It doesn’t hurt, so I must be. Why am I so sure Arthur did it? If I were a young girl, his bride, I should be loyally, blindly sure of his innocence; but I'm an old woman, old, old. Bar- bara is sure he is innocent. Does Mary know, I wonder? And Phil? 1 wonder whether I shall see Arthur today. I can’t help him. It's the children who need me now. I won- der if they're awake. What time is it? I ought to keep my traveling clock on the bedside table here, so that if Mr. Flood asks me how I knew it was quarter past eleven, when Arthur came home that night, I needn't say Arthur told me. I needn’t actually lie. I can say, “There was a clock on the table be- tween our beds.” I needn't say I looked at it. She rose at the thought and went to fetch the clock from her dress ing-room and set ft on the table here beside her bed, but she did not lie down again. The household, the servants, would be excited when they saw the morning papers. She must control the situation. She iressed, and rang, and when Nellie came, pale and shaking, she asked crisply, “Are the children down, Nellie?” “Philip is.” “Neither of the girls?” “No.” Will you ask Oscar and Emma to come up here, please, and you come with them." Five minutes later they ‘filed in and faced her. Oscar stood stolid. ly. Nellie wrung her wretched hands. Big Emma, the cook, was crying openly, her lips mumbling nervous blubbering sobs. Mrs. Sentry said, “That's not nec- essary, Emma!” And she added: “We are all going to have an un- pleasant time for a while. Of course I shall not be surprised, or blame any of you, if you wish to leave.” She felt grateful for their quick ex- pressions of loyalty. Grateful for the loyalty of servants? Was she already brought so low? “You're quite free to go,” she insisted stiff- ly. “But please understand, if you stay, I shall expect a perfectly nor- mal household-—as if nothing had happened.’ She hesitated, then went on: “You must, of course, help the police in every possible way, be completely frank, truthful, hide nothing!’ It was useless and dangerous to try to drill the servants in lies or de- nials; and-—there was nothing they could really know, or tell. She add- ed: “That is all. I count on you.” Emma wiped her eyes, and they filed out. Later, after she was dressed, Phil came in and said, “ "Morning, mother.” He kissed her awkwardly, an unaccustomed ges- ture. ‘“‘Dean Hare's downstairs. I wasn’t sure you were awake." “Perhaps he will have breakfast with us,” Mrs. Sentry suggested. “Is Mrs. Hare with him?’ Mrs. Hare was a cheerful, chuckling, loy- al friend, but—Mrs. Sentry hoped she was not here just now. Phil said, “No, he's alone.” They went downstairs together. Dean Hare was in the living-room, and Mrs. Sentry greeted him almost with a smile. “Good morning, Dean,” she said. “I hoped you would come." “l came last night, after I left— Arthur,” he explained, ‘‘but the hous was dark. I thought, if you were asleep, better not to wake you; so I didn't ring.” “How is Arthur?” He said slowly, “Shocked and shaken, but—all right." He added, “1 arranged about the telephone at once, after Phil called me, so you won't be bothered.” He told her the new number. “You can give and continued, ‘‘Then I went to him, to Arthur." He hesitated, said thought- fully, “You know, Bob Flood and Arthur and I played bridge together that night, Thursday night.” Mrs. Sentry started to speak, then said to her son, “Phil, tell Nellie Mr. Hare will have breakfast with us.” “I've had breakfast,” the lawyer replied. “A cup of coffee, at least,” Mrs. Sentry insisted. “And you may change your mind. Go on, Phil.” Phil went toward the kitchen, and Mrs. Sentry said, in a lower tone, as soon as he was out of hearing: “Yes, Arthur told me. He got home a little after eleven.” Phil last night had heard Barbara tell the District Attorney that her father had come home just before one; he must not hear her say this now. Hare nodded. ‘Yes, he told me he came straight home; and that of course makes it impossible that— he could have done this. He couldn't have left the Club when he did, and --gone to the office, and still got home so soon.” She said, “You don’t need to con- vince me, Dean!” But she was thinking: So Arthur has lied to Dean Hare as he lied to me. I suppose he thinks--hopes—no one saw him come home. Then Phil returned to say break- fast was ready. They went into the dining-room, sat down. "I must see Arthur today,” she said. The lawyer hesitated. “It might be as well to—wait,”” he advised. “In fact he told me to ask you to wait; that he wouldn't be there long, that it would be unpleasant for you.” “Nonsense! I'm no—timid girl! I shall see him today. Will you ar- range it?” Phil said, “I'll go with you, moth. er.” ‘No, Phil, hear. Dean Hare said tentatively: the—reasons the police give for the arrest. Of course, the papers—"' er; but—let Dean tell her wished. talked. pers!” Hare nodded. on: “You see, the girl had a key to the back door. Inspector Irons came Sunday morning to or three years ago. janitor down there, put it on, and gave Arthur and Gus Loran keys. “The Inspector took Arthur's key, an's. Gus was in New York, went till late last night; but Mrs. Loran found his key book and Irons picked out the key. He found that the key thur's, and from the one in Miss Wines' bag. But hers was a dupli- cate of Arthur's; and her seemed pretty new, but Arthur's was older than the other two, more worn, the keys. They all worked in the lock. He asked lke Tory why they were different. It turned out that when lke put the new lock on, a year or so ago, only two keys came with it; so he took an old key that was something like these, and filed it down himself till it fitted the lock. Ike takes pride in saving money for the firm; did it to save having a new key made, to save 75 cents or whatever it was. And he gave Arthur the key he made, kept one of the originals himself, gave the other to Gus Loran.” He hesitated, and Mrs. Sentry said automatically, “I don’t see anything in that." Hare was uncomfortable. “Well, Irons believed,” he told her, *‘that the dead girl's key must have been made from Arthur's, because they matched perfectly, while her key didn't match Loran’s; so he had all the locksmiths canvassed, and late yesterday afternoon they found a man who remembered making the key. He remembered it, because he cate; and the customer said Yes.” and he concluded: He picked your father out of a line- made." him who to pick!” Mrs. er told us all this. member, Hare said regretfully: “Well, Ar- cate key made. He said he kept it in his desk in case he lost the other. He thinks Miss Wines must have stolen it.” (TO BE CONTINUED) Strokes of lightning are preceded by ‘feelers’ which guide the main bolt to its objective, according to Karl B. McEachron, high voltage nectady (N. Y.) United Press cor- respondent. The lightning stroke which ap- pears to be a single one-way dis- charge is met part way by a small flash. originating from the earth, he said. This preliminary discharge attracts the main stroke and draws it to the ground. In some cases the leader stroke shoots upward to a cloud, to be im- mediately followed by several suc- cessive flashes over its exact path from the sky downward, McEach- ron said. The discoveries of lightning habits were made through a three-year ob- servation of the Empire State build- ing in New York city, the best and most frequently struck lightning conductor that could be found. The study was conducted by the Gendral legit company to solve problem better protection to transmission lines and other elec- trical apparatus. Hundreds of pictures taken by & high-speed camera aimed at the 1,025-foot tower from another sky- scraper displayed strange phenom- ena in lightning conduction. “We learned that leader strokes which precede all lightning flashes move toward the ground in a series of hesitating steps of approximately 200 feet in length,” McEachron ex- plained. “The streamers progress this short distance, substantially die out, and after a wait of a few mil- lionths of a second proceed in a second step, repeating until they reach the earth. Suceeeding flashes move without hesitation at speeds of 10,000 miles per second or faster.” Dr. B. F. J. Schonland in South Africa, using a camera similar to REMEMBERED INSTRUCTIONS Little Johnny, aged four, had been receiving a lesson in politeness. His father told him: “And remember when you are in a bus and a lady A few days later they were in a bus. It was very crowded. Johnny sat on his father's knee. People lady was standing, Johnny jumped “Take my seat, miss,” he said. Economy Smythe-Brown arrived one eve- business affairs were in a sad state. His wife was helpful. “Well,” she said brightly, “there's only one thing to do. We must cut down expenses. Now, how can I economize—] know! 1 won't wear that new diamond necklace to the theater tonight!''—Vancouver Sun. MAKING A GUESS “Charles says there is an intan- gible something about me that makes him love me.” “It's probably your suit.” A Proxy on Duly It was an Irish judge who, just about to deliver an elaborate sum- ming-up, noticed that there were only 11 men in the box. “Where is the twelfth juror?” he asked, irritably. “Oh, that's all foreman, genially. away on business ing, but he's left me." right,” said the ‘““He was called early this morn- his verdict with Just Like That Lawyer—Then you admit that you struck the dafendant with malice aforethought?” Defendant, indignantly—You can’t mix me up like that. I've told you twice I hit him with a brick, and on purpose. There wasn't no mallets nor nothin’ of the kind about it— just a plain brick like any gentle- man would use.” Not So Easy A little girl was showing a visitor over her father's farm, and proudly pointed to a cow which, she said, was her very own. “And does your cow give milk?” “Well, not exactly,” replied the “You've sort of got to take Some Mistake Rastus—Is yo’ sure, Mr. Johnsing, dat was a marriage license yo’ sold me last month? Clerk Johnson—Certainly, Rastus. Why? Rastus—Becaus’ I'se led a dog's life ever since. Imperfect She—I1 was dreaming of the ideal machine—just press the button and He—Yes, but who presses the but- SILLY QUESTION men’s wages?” “Great gosh, lady, ain't they bin gettin’ 'em since the year one?” Poetic A pupil was asked to write a short verse using the words analyze and anatomy. Here's what he produced: “My analyze over the ocean, My analyze over the sea, My analyze over the ocean O, bring back my anatomy!” First an O. T. C. (preparing say)—What do you call those tablets te Gauls used to write on?” graph Topics. Favorite Recipe of the Week ~ HILLY fall days and cranberry relish go together. Tart rel- Raw cranberries and per are simple to prepare and in- expensive. No cooking and can be put up for future use in sterilized glasses covered with paraffin, Cranberry Orange Relish (No cooking) The aristocrat of relishes, Par- ticularly good with all meats, hot or cold, 1 pound (4 cups) cranberries 2 oranges 2 cups sugar Put cranberries through food chopper. Slice oranges, remove seeds and put rind and oranges through chopper. Mix with ber- ries and sugar. Let stand for a few hours before serving. This easy, popular uncooked relish can be put up for future use in steri- lized glasses covered with par- affin. Cranberry Horseradish Relish Mix chopped raw cranberries with grated fresh horseradish in proportions of #5 cranberries to % horseradish. Serve with meats. HOUSEHOLD QUESTIONS \ / meses i Bright Silverware.—When your silverware becomes tarnished, place it in potato water and let it stand one hour. Take out and wash and it will look like new. - ® » Keeping Mustard Moist.—Dry mustard mixed with milk instead of water will not dry out but will keep moist until it has all been used. - LJ » The Singing Kettle.—~When a coal stove is used it is foolish to allow the teakettle to be empty at any time. One always can find a use for boiling or very hot water, A mother may save a few pennies giving her children unknown prep- arations. But a child's life is pre- cious beyond pennies. So—Ask pour doctor before you give any remedy you don’t know all about. And when giving the common children’s remedy, milk of mag- pesia, always ask for “Phillips” Milk of Magnesia. Because for three generations Phillips’ has been favored by man physicians as a standard, reliable and proved preparation — marvel- ously gentle for youngsters. Many children like Phillips’ in the newer form — tiny peppermint- flavored tablets that chew like candy. Each tablet contains the equivalent of one teaspoonful of the liguid Phillips.’ 25¢ for a big box. A bottle of Phillips’ liquid Milk of Magnesia costs but 25¢. So—any- one can afford the Jeanine. Careful mothers ask for it by its full name “Phillips’ Milk of Magnesia.” PHILLIPS’ MILK OF MAGNESIA * IN LIQUID OR TABLET FORM Reign of Ages At 20 years of age, the will reigns; at 30, the wit; and at 40,
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