@ Ben Ames Williams,
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 comes 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 fells 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 tempo-
rary employee, ki’od. 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. Sen-
try call on old Mrs. Sentry, and Barbara,
alone, receives Dan Fisher, reporter, who
advises her not to talk. Phil Sentry, son at
Yale, is disturbed at the possible implica-
tioi's and suspicion of Miss Wines’ absence
from her rooms for three days during Aug-
ust. He goes home to help. Sentry is ar-
rested and booked for murder. Dan Fisher
explains 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. Brace calls, and backs up Barbara
in her denial that Sentry could have done
it, because of the discrepancy of time be-
tween the slaying and their seeing Sentry
on the road. Phil, showing the police over
the house, finds his strong box forced open
and his gun, which only his father knew of,
gone. Meanwhile, the police find the stolen
money burned in the furnace. Mrs. Sentry
sees her husband, who swears his innocence,
and tells her he had known of the robbery
and murder the night before, but failed to
call the police, and came home at 12:30.
Phil and his mother are doubtful of Sentry’'s
innocence, but keep silent,
CHAPTER V
11
While they were at lunch, a little
later, Dean Hare telephoned to say
that Inspector Irons had decided to
postone his interrogations, so for the
afternoon they were free. Mary was
to see Neil Ray when he went off
duty; and as they finished lunch,
Linda came to propose that Phil go
for a drive with her.
“I have to go out to those mills in
Norwood to get some homespun,”
she explained, “and I hate to go
alone.”
Phil looked to his mother for con-
sent. “Go along,” she said. ‘“‘Bar-
bara and grandmother will be
here.” So Phil went, and found a
measure of peace and forgetfulness
in being thus with Linda. But when
she brought him home, in late after-
noon, he was reluctant to face them
all; instead of going directly in-
doors, he walked around the house.
He heard voices by the muddy
stream beyond the pergola and went
to look down over the bank. Police-
men were there in boats with
things like hinged rakes, dragging
up debris from the bottom of the
stream. One of them saw him and
spoke quietly to the others, and they
all looked up, silently. Phil went
back toward the house, trembling.
He found his mother alone.
“Mary's dining with Neil,” she ex-
plained, “and I sent Barbara in to
stay overnight with grandmother.
Professor Brace called, drove them
in.” She smiled reassuringly. “So
we'll have dinner together, you and
1”
“Professor Brace?” he echoed.
He remembered warily that the Dis-
trict Attorney had questioned Pro-
fessor Brace, but he did not say so.
“Funny for him to—hang around.”
“1 suppose he’s naturally interest-
ed. The scientific mind, you know."
Her tone was edged. ‘‘We're under
his microscope, like insects.”
“He introduced himself to the re-
porters,” Phil recalled. “Almost as
if he—wanted publicity.”
“1 see you don't like him either.”
“Oh—I like him all right.”
Dinner was served and they went
in; and since they might here be
overheard they spoke of other
things. Phil talked at random,
steadily, fighting down his thoughts:
that his father had taken his gun,
that his father had tried to burn
money in the furnace, that his fa-
ther was a murderer! He must not
let his mother guess his dreadful
certainty.
And she, as intent to hide her
thoughts from Phil as he was to
conceal his from her, helped him
keep talk alive; but when they left
the table and went into the living-
room and were alone, silence
crushed them; and Phil noisily light-
ed a fire, and Mrs. Sentry tele-
phoned old Mrs. Sentry’s apartment
to say good night to Barbara. She
reported to Phil, when she left the
phone, that Professor Brace had
stayed to dinner with them.
“I suppose he’s taking notes,” she
reflected. ‘‘Like that German tutor
at the foot of the table in ‘War and
Peace.” Remember? There's just a
paragraph about him, but he’s per-
fectly clear cut, a complete char-
acter in your mind afterward.”
Phil did not remember. “But
speaking of Russians,” he suggest-
ed, “how about some Russian
Bank?” So they played till Mrs.
Sentry said at last that they might
as well go to bed. The house seemed
very big and empty when they went
upstairs, and parted for the night.
Later, Mrs. Sentry, still awake,
heard Mary come in; but the girl
did not come upstairs, so her moth-
er went down, a dressing-gown over
her night garments. She found Mary
in the living-room, standing by the
hearth, her lips bitten red, her hands
twisting.
And Mrs. Sentry tried in an awk-
ward way—they were not a demon-
strative family—to take the girl in
her arms, but Mary said, ‘Don't,
please!"
So Mrs. Sentry sat down. ‘Shall
we talk for a while?” she suggest-
ed. “Or are you sleepy?”
“Sleepy!” The word was flerce
with scorn.
“How is Neil?’ ’
“Very sensible!”
Mrs. Sentry said,
would—help you.”
“Oh—help? Of course!”
‘‘He didn't, then?”
Mary said: “Don’t worry about
Neil! We were practically engaged,
but I told him tonight we must for-
get that. That after all this, I was
hopelessly disqualified to be a mis-
sionary’s wife, even in China!”
Mrs. Sentry waited. Mary said in
a flat voice, passionless as ashes,
‘“‘He agreed with me.”
After a while her mother spoke,
“lI knew he
On the homeward way-—Barbara
returned with them-—they heard
mewsboys calling late editions, and
one bawling youngster jumped on
the running-board when they
stopped for a traffic light to thrust a
paper before their eyes. A head-
line, inches high. “Sentry Indicted.”
Mrs. Sentry closed her eyes, and
the light changed, and the car
leaped ahead.
At home a knot of people scat-
tered from the entrance to the
drive, gaped at them as they drove
in. Phil saw that one woman had
broken off a branch of rhododen-
dron, and he thought bitterly: For
a souvenir!
Indoors, Barbara asked in a shak-
en whisper, ‘“Mother, what does ‘in-
dicted” mean?”
Mrs. Sentry sald, ‘““Hush, dar-
ling!" And she asked, ‘Do you know
where Mary is, whether she'll be
home to dinner?’ She felt cold as
iron. Barbara shook her head.
“I think Mary's rotten!’ Phil said
angrily. “We've got to—stick to-
gether!”
“She's pretty unhappy, Phil"
tentatively. “I wish I could—hold
you in my lap, dear, as I did when
you were little and were hurt.”
“No, thanks. I'm not little any
more.” The girl stood before the
hearth, rigid and still, her eyes
fixed, her hands clasped behind her.
Mrs. Sentry thought of a martyr at
the stake surrounded by flames,
burned without being consumed. She
began to talk, of casual, healing
things.
“Some people called this after-
noon,” she said. “Mrs. Harry Murr,
bulging with questions she wanted
to ask and didn’t quite dare. And
Mrs. Furness brought Miss Glen.
You could see her memorizing ev-
ery stick of furniture, every picture
on the walls, to use in her next
novel"
The girl cried: “Mother, don't!
How can you stand it?”
“And that young professor, Mr,
Brace, dropped in,” Mrs. Sentry
persisted. ‘‘He took mother and
Barbara to town.”
“You're driving me crazy!”
Mrs. Sentry sighed wearily, sur-
rendering. “I'm sorry about Neil,
Mary. Yet—if he couldn’t—stand
the gaff, isn't it a good thing to
know?"
“No it isn’t!” Mary cried. “What
does that matter, if you love a man?
What does it matter if he's weak, a
sniveling coward, a drunkard, a
thief?” Her eyes widened. "Even
a murderer,” she whispered. “You
go on loving him just the same.”
And she cried: “Oh, why is love
so deep a part of women, mother?
Why can’t we be reasonable, sensi-
ble!” She spat the word. “Like
men!” And suddenly, seeing the old-
er woman's face, she stopped, said
then curtly: “Good night! I'm going
to bed.” The still room ached when
she was gone.
When Mrs. Sentry came down-
stairs in the morning, Mary had de-
parted, leaving no message; and
the older woman felt a deep con-
cern that was half despair.
But she hid it from Phil. They
stayed at home, together and yet
each one alone. Phil wondered
whether his mother knew that the
Grand Jury might act today; he
thought of a group of strange men,
in a secret room somewhere, hear-
ing evidence against his father, and
trembled as though he were ill. He
thought his mother might suggest
that they go again to see his fa-
ther, and knew that he himself had
no strength to face the older man
and to pretend he did not know
what he did know. But his mother
did not make the suggestion; and
after lunch they drove in to see old
Mrs. Sentry, and heard newsboys
shouting the name of Sentry, and
Mrs. Sentry shivered at last and
said with a weary smile:
“I think we'd better stay at home
hereafter, Phil.”
Mrs. Sentry explained. ‘Neil Ray
broke their engagement.”
“Engagement? I didn't know they
were engaged.”
“They would have been, in time.
Mary loved him.”
“I'd like to knock his block off!"
Mrs. Sentry said: “Don’t be a
child, Phil. I'm afraid you'll find a
good many people take the same at-
titude. Now get ready for dinner,
both of you.”
She thought at dinner, while Phil
and Barbara talked to her, bravely
cheerful, that the world of which
they were a part must be just now
full of buzzing tongues. Her own
tongue had never been under a curb.
From the security of an assured
position she had spoken as she
chose, rigorous toward those who
transgressed her code. Now others
would have their turn. She tried to
imagine what people would say,
what their attitude would be. Would
they speak to her of Arthur? Pro-
testing they believed him innocent,
professing friendship and sympathy
while they watched her with sly, av-
idly curious eyes? She shuddered,
and she thought: I might take the
children abroad, live the rest of our
lives abroad, perhaps assume an-
other name. But someone who knew
them would find them out; there
would be whispering, whispering . ..
She tried to tell herself: He did
not do it! Of course, he had lied to
her about the time, that night, know-
ing she was too sleepy to recognize
after that dreadful moment at the
office when he found the dead girl.
to herself that Arthur did find the
girl dead as he had told her, refus-
came skulking home,
And Mrs. Sentry hoped suddenly
covery and craven flight.
was better than that shame. She
thought that if he did not speak
murder occurred. That crime at
least would be robust, masculine;
not weakly cowardly . . .
But of course anything, any story
convicted of murder.
pened, she could never lift her head
again,
worth fighting for.
dinner, and Mrs. Sentry welcomed
her,
bridge. She clung to Linda's friend-
ly loyalty.
bara would not:
“I'm sorry,” she said, trying to
smile. “I'm afraid this is my
were tremulously brave.
myself and cry for a while.”
‘No, Phil. Let her go!”
They heard Barbara's door close,
upstairs.
ran somehow, and a little after nine,
a car grated on the drive.
out laying aside her hat.
try realized that the car had not
girl was flushed.
incredulously,
drinking.
Mrs. Sentry saw,
defiant.
She said to Linda, curtly. *“This is
carelessly, “Oh, stay if you like, of
course."
talk like that!
drunk!”
She laughed derisively.
not it's not for lack of trying.” And
she asked Linda: “Going?
ashore that's going ashore!
ship's sinking!”
Linda said quietly: “No, Mary.
I'll stay.”
passion;
sion bound her tongue. “Mary,
ly
shrill way. “Myself? Who am I?
Who are you? Who are any of us?"
And she said furiously: “Oh, I
thought I knew! I thought we were
so secure, and settled, and decent,
and good.” Her laughter rang mad-
deningly. “Decent? Good? No de-
us now."
“Mary!”
(TO BE CONTINUED)
Quartz, which looks like glass and
is a sort of glass, is the last mate-
rial most of us would use to make a
spring. But the scientists in the
General Research laboratories find
nothing but quartz will do for
springs in making precise measure-
ments, says a writer in the New
York Times.
Steel springs rust; quartz springs
don't. Steel springs are affected by
changes in humidity; quartz springs
are not. Steel springs begin to lose
their temper at about 250 degrees
Centigrade (482 degrees Fahren-
heit); quartz springs never lose
their temper except at temperatures
not attained in ordinary practice.
A quartz spring has a sensitivity
of one milligram. In other words,
it can detect a difference of weight
as little as one 28,350th of an ounce.
And it always snaps back, after
stretching, to exactly the original
point of rest.
Suppose it becomes necessary to
measure the amount of moisture
absorbed by cotton or cellulose. The
cotton is suspended at one end of
the spring and the weight of the
sample determined by the stretch of
the spring. By introducing more
and more water at varying pres-
«rag it becomes possible to deter-
mine just how much moisture cotton
can absorb.
Making a quartz thread is some-
thing of a fine art. The first step is
to spin a fine thread no more than
six one-thousandths of an inch in
diameter. This is done by heating a
fused quartz rod to more than 3,000
degrees Fahrenheit and pulling
threads from the rod. The threads
are measured by calipers. All with-
in a quarter of a mil of the desired
six-mil size are saved. (A mil is a
unit used to measure the diameter
of a wire. It is equivalent to a
thousandth of an inch.)
The final step is to place the
thread in a long brass trough which
leads to a mandrel (technical term
for a drum of the right diameter).
As it passes over the mandrel the
thread is heated to 1,800 degrees
Fahrenheit. The mandrel makes
GETTING OVER IT
Pat was being shown over a new
house by the estate agent, who was,
perhaps, a little more inclined to
candor than some of his tribe.
agent, ‘“‘that there is one drawback
to this house.
Still, I'm
notice it.”
said:
“Sure, an’ ye needn’t worry. Oi'll
DON'T BELIEVE SIGNS
“What do I do when I go to the
“You be careful about the zoo,”
“You'll see foine ani-
It's a fraud, and it's
to look at
STEAM-ROLLERED
“Welcome home, Bob, 1 suppose
you?”
“Well, as they flattened me com-
pletely, no doubt I've gained in
breadth."
Our Censorious Civilization
“Why do people find fault with a
mistake and so seldom encourage
good deeds?”
“It's due to natural requirements
answered Mr,
“A traffic cop, for in-
He wouldn't be any good at
around to compliment cautious driv-
ers.”
Observation
The witness was on the stand dur-
ing an important trial.
attorney,
The witness shrugged.
Among the ‘Mizzen'
the sea.
asked:
“Where's the mizzenmast?”
man.
zen?”
IN PLAIN VIEW
po.
Ss >)
— was love at first sight, eh?”
“" es."
“Why didn't you marry her?”
“The second sight was a close-
up.”
Modern Idea
“How did Tom manage to get so
much of his uncle's estate?”
“He married his lawyer's only
daughter.” 8
A Friendly Warning
“1 realize I owe a lot to my coun-
try,” declared the orator.
“Not too much of that, mate,”
Crochet This Set and
Tot Will Be Delighted
Pattern 6224
She'll be proud as a peacock to
for decoration. The muff is a
grown-up and stylish! Pattern
To obtain this pattern, send 15
Ask Me Another
@® A General Quiz
The Questions
1. What does the phrase “by
2. Who are the Jukes?
3. What is a consanguineous
4. In writing the international
distress call signal S O §, are pe-
riods used after the letters?
5. Which country is known as
6. Why is a book called a vol-
The Answers
1. Comprehensively, on
whole.
2. The Jukes are a celebrated
family of imbeciles and criminals
to whom students of heredity have
given this fictitious name.
3. Marriage to a person who is
related to you.
4. No. The letters were chosen
the
do not represent words.
5. Cuba—the largest and richest
of the West Indian islands.
6. Egypt developed papyrus,
which was then rolled and tied.
This accounts for the word vol-
ume, which comes from the Latin
word meaning to roll.
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A man of sense may love like a
but not as a fool.—
Rochefoucauld.
How Women
in Their 40’s
Can Attract Men
Here's good advice for a woman 4 ber
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"ll lose her appeal to men, who worries
bot flashes, loss of pe
That Naggin
ni Lh 1