© Ben Ames Williams,
SYNOPSIS
Barbara Sentry, seeking to sober up her
escort, Johnny 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 Har-
vard comes to the rescue and drives Bar-
bara home. On the way they see Barbara's
father driving from the direction of his office
&t 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 employee, killed. The
evening papers luridly confirm the story,
and Sentry takes it hard. Mary, elder
daughter, in love with Neil Ray, young in-
terne at the hospital where she works, goes
off to dinner at Gus Loran's, Sentry's part.
ner, with Mrs. Loran's brother, Jimmy
Endle., Mr. and Mrs. Sentry 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 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 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 dis-
crepancy of time between the slaying and
their seeing Sentry on the road. Phil, show.
ing the police over the house, finds his strong
box 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 Mary quarrels with Neill Ray
and runs away with ro Endle to the
Caribbean. Linda Dane, friend of Barbara
and Phil, tries to comfort Phil
CHAPTER VI—Continued
—14
A curious crowd stared at them as
they came out, and Phil said, as
they drove away, “You can wear a
veil next time we come, Mother.”
“I shall not wear a veil,” she an-
swered, fighting to forget Arthur, to
forget how gray and lifeless the
flesh on his cheeks had seemed, and
how dull his eyes were. She must
forget, so that she could be brave
enough to come to him again.
At home, Barbara was waiting
with questions. They told her he
was fine; was cheerful, confident,
and unafraid. They brought her
back to comfort for a while.
Dean Hare, a day or two later,
brought Falkran to see Mrs. Sen-
try and Phil. Phil was not at first
favorably impressed. The lawyer
was a big man, bald save for a
fringe of red hair above his ears,
with the wide, loose mouth of the
natural orator; and Phil thought he
studied the rugs gnd the furniture
with a shrewd appraising eye, and
he saw his mother visibly conquer
her distaste for the man.
She after
were done, ‘““Are you far
my husband's case, Mr.
“1 see the newspapers
victed him?”
Her eyes hardened.
him guilty?”
Falkran, suddenly, smiled: and
Phil at that smile felt a quick liking
and trust for him. The lawyer said.
“Mrs. Sentry, no man was ever
electrocuted on a newspaper ver-
dict.”
Her eyes closed at that word, then
opened again as he went on. “If I
could have my choice,” he said, “I
should choose to defend men who
have already been convicted in the
newspapers. When everyone is con-
vinced a man is guilty, the smallest
grain of evidence in his favor has a
tremendous effect in provoking
doubt of his guilt.” He added, “And
from the practical point of view,
such a situation makes it easier to
disqualify jurors, easier to get the
jury we want.”
Mrs. Sentry had not surrendered
her question, “You think him
guilty?”’ she insisted.
‘““No man is guilty till a court has
found him so, after a trial by due
process, and till all appeals have
failed.”
*1 asked whether you think my
husband guilty?”
He smiled again. His smile had
won many a jury. He said reason-
ably: “Mrs. Sentry, I haven't even
talked with him. I don’t know his
side of the case at all. I only know
the published facts. Mr. Hare has
told me nothing. The evidence is
damaging, difficult; but there are a
thousand explanations that might
meet the situation as it appears.”
Phil saw that his mother too was
being won to liking. She put her
question in another way. “If you
thought him guilty, would you de-
fend him?”
Falkran smiled again. “Even a
guilty man is entitled to his day in
court, to a fair trial, to all the
protection afforded by the law.”
Then he answered her directly:
“Yes, Mrs, Sentry. Even if I knew
Mr. Sentry guilty, I would defend
him with all my powers.”
Mrs. Sentry nodded, surrendered
her point. “You said,” she suggest-
ed, “that any one of a thousand ex-
planations might cover all the evi-
dence.”
“An infinite number, yes.”
“Have you anything in mind?"
“Mr. Sentry may suggest some-
thing.”” She started to speak, to tell
him that Arthur had found the girl
»
asked, introductions
w ith
ha ve con-
dead; then remembered Phil was
here and caught herself,
Falkran went on: “You see, Mrs.
Sentry, until I talk to your has-
band, remind him of small circum-
stances he has himself forgotten, I
can make no plan.”
They talked a further while; and
Mrs. Sentry said at last that she
would let him know her decision
next day. She used the interval to
consult Arthur's mother,
Old Mrs. Sentry said: “Falkran?
Oh, yes. I've heard of him.”
Mrs. Sentry explained: “I should
have preferred—one of our friends,
of course. I hoped for a certain—
dignity! But Mr. Hare says we must
have a good criminal lawyer, and
he recommended Mr. Falkran.”
The old woman said harshly:
“Dignity! Ellen, sometimes you—""
Then she caught herself, spoke al-
most in apology. ‘Of course you'd
prefer some fine name; but Falk-
ran’'s a clever man. Arthur will need
a good lawyer. Better take him.”
So it was decided; but Mrs. Sen-
try thought, driving home: Even
Arthur's mother knows. The whole
i} Mite
Phil. And so are we. We're glad
to have her come to you.”
And Mrs. Urban, Mrs. Sentry had
always thought of Mrs. Urban as a
mouge of a woman, with no mind of
her pwn; yet she found in her now
strength and loyal understanding.
Of the others, Mrs. Furness invited
Mrs. Sentry to luncheon, but she
declined. I will not be made a
show of, she promised herself; and
Mrs. Harry Murr's persistent ad-
rances likewise she put aside.
There was one loss which hurt her
keenly. She and Mrs. Waring had
been closest friends; and the fami-
lies were intimate. The two moth-
ers had even discussed the possibili-
ty that Phil might marry Ann War-
ing. But a week after Mr. Sentry
was indicted, Mrs. Waring took Ann
away to Europe to school there. The
decision was sudden; Mrs. Sentry
knew it had not been planned in ad-
vance. And Mrs. Waring left with-
out even a note to say good-by.
Mrs. Sentry never spoke of this
hurt to anyone. In the same way
she ceased to resent the curious
groups of people who drove past the
world knows, I expect. All
friends know; all of them
for me. Oh, h
And she thought again, de
ly: Perhaps Mr. Falkran
suade some woman to say she
mistress, that he
Pay
price
im!
my
»ful!
sperate-
can per-
was
{fo
her to say it,
would be too
went
her that night.
perhaps.
to save h
“r
i800
And she reflected that by thinking
this, she was admitting to herself
Falkran;
Felt herself unclean. To be
pitied by her friends, to seek the
help of scoundrels . .
Nevertheless, for all their sakes,
if Arthur was to be saved, Mr. Falk-
ran it must be.
The weeks that elapsed before Mr.
and Mrs. Sentry, used to
activity, came in the end to accept
this emptiness, to understand that
their world would hereafter be thus
constricted, whatever the outcome
of the trial. It was not so much
that her friends dropped away.
Some did so; yet others, upon whom
she had not counted, surprised her
by their understanding loyalty.
3ut the larger world in which she
had been active, all the organized
benevolence in which she had tak-
en a v#ogous part, now-—though
with polite expressions of regret—
nevertheless closed its doors against
her. The resignations which she
felt it her proud duty to offer were
accepted. She hid as she could her
fierce resentful pain.
She missed Mary dreadfully;
clung passionately to Barbara and
Phil. Linda came often to the house,
and Mrs. Sentry thought:
Linda will marry Phil,
this. I had hoped Ann Waring . . .
The Warings are so fine. But Linda
is nice. He might do worse.
she thought: Barbara will marry,
too. She's a child. After this is
over, she will forget, as children do.
I must be sure she marries well.
The right marriage means so much,
especially for a girl. Once I get
Barbara married, I can rest, can
surrender. For me there can never
be a new beginning. I am too old,
old, old. And I can never face peo-
ple again without knowing their
thoughts, imagining their whis-
Pers . . .
She would have nursed her hurts
in solitude; but certain friends per-
sisted in their friendliness. Mrs.
Dane came often, quietly loyal, nev-
er insistent; and when Mrs. Sentry
suggested, in the tone of one doiug
a conscious duty, that Linda might
better stay away, Mrs. Dane said
simply:
“She’s very fond of Barbara and
and even alighted to
or break down
ches off the shrubbery for sou-
Only when one night some-
ip a young tree in the front
did she ac-
Attorney Flood's sug-
stand
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that
it away
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all these things, Mrs. Sentry
found strength and courage: but one
thing she could not face. She could
not read the newspapers, or look at
them. Since the first few days, re-
porters had been kind. Carl Bettle
| had been of service in that respect.
{ He had put through with the pub-
| lishers of the other papers an agree-
| ment not to print photographs of
Mrs. Sentry or Phil or Barbara,
and to use their names as little as
possible in news stories. When Mrs.
Sentry thanked him, he said:
“1 don't deserve all the credit.
One of our reporters, a young man
named Fisher, suggested it." Bar-
bara was in the room and he looked
{| at her, smiling a little, and ex-
plained: *“He had met you, he said.
I think he had you particularly in
mind.”
Barbara nodded. “Yes, 1 like
him," she agreed. ‘We've seen each
other since, once or twice."
Mrs. Sentry protested, ‘‘Seen him,
Barbara? Where?”
“In town,” Barbara confessed.
‘““He has tea with grandmother and
me, sometimes. It's perfectly prop-
mother, Grandmother likes
him.”
“But a reporter, Barbara!”
Carl Bettle chuckled. ‘“Whoa,
there, Mrs. Sentry!” he protested.
‘“‘Reporters aren't so bad, nowa-
days. You're prejudiced!”
“I''m prejudiced against any
young man who meets my daughter
secretly.”
Barbara cried:
er, that's silly!
with grandmother there;
if it was—"'
Mrs. Sentry said, yielding: “Of
course, dear. I'm afraid it really is
prejudice. Ask him to have tea here
too, Barbara, if you wish.”
“I'm at grandmother's now more
than I'm at home,” Barbara re-
minded her; and this was in fact
true. Old Mrs. Sentry had since
her son's arrest surrendered to
physical immobility. Her mind was
as keen, her tongue as sharp as
ever; but she stayed in her room at
the hotel where she lived, had her
meals served there, even submit-
ted to an indignity she had long de-
clined, and hired a companion who
was also nurse and masseuse,
And Phil had used the old wom
an’'s helplessness to dissuade Bar-
bara from her desire to see her fa-
ther. “You and I have to make it
as easy as we can for mother,
Barb,” he pointed out. “And mothe
er can't be with father and with
grandmother too, and she can't go
to the jail without me, so grand-
mother’s your job! Don't you see?”
So Barbara yielded—Phil thought
she yielded very easily—and spent
much time with her grandmother;
and old Mrs. Sentry by degrees for-
got to use toward her that tone of
sharp disapproval which had so long
been her habit toward both girls.
There was during these weeks some-
thing deeply and a aut
ing about Barbar
her eyes seemed
had faded; she
eagerly, anxiously, as
ng someone would
one ever did say.
er Sentry
her,
“Oh, now, moth-
It's not secretly,
but even
appeal
She was thin;
te her color
looked at people
though hop-
say-—what no
And Grandmothe-
was very gentle toward
warned Mrs. Sentry once:
hat child is ready to crack,
Ellen. Look out for her.”
Mrs. Sentry nodded. *“I— do all
I can!"
Grandmother Sentry sought in her
own to serve: welcomed
Barbara, and welct Professor
Brace, or Dan Fisher, when one or
the other came with Barbara to be
with her.
The old we
fessor Brac e,
80. ‘He's a terner, of
but he's a rank Puritan at
, Barbara. Believes in the mc
tification of the flesh or s
of the kind, Believes in duty
wrong kind. If he were a Spartan
he'd nurse a gnawing fox to his
bosom. Any man with sense knows
ways she
med
mea
like Pro-
told Barbara
man did not
and she
ETT
Middle-Wes
when you can.
bear it' type.”
“He's been sort of nice,”
bara argued. ‘‘Standing by."
“l know. ‘The boy stood on the
burning deck!’ Anyoné but a fool
would dive overboard!”
* ‘Whence all but him had fled,” ”
Barbara reminded her. ‘‘But there
are a lot of us still on the burning
deck, grandmother. And he doesn’t
have to stay. He's just doing it te
be friendly.”
‘Like him, do you, child?”
“It's sort of nice
friends—""
The old woman saw in the girl's
eyes a secret terror, a mounting
fear she had seen there before; and
she was silenced. Whenever they
spoke of Mr. Sentry, and Barbara
cried, “He didn’t do it, grandmoth-
er!’ old Mrs. Sentry always assent
ed, always spoke quick reas.
surances. Barbara was grown so
pitifully frail . .
(TO BE CONTINU ED)
He's the ‘grin and
Bar-
Two thousand years before Christ
the Chinese knew the principle of
the calculating machine: they used
the Abacus, that educational play-
thing not seen so often now as a
few years ago, says London Tit
Bits Magazine. They invented gun-
powder and used it in brass car-
ronades long before the western
bow and arrow stage. They found
their way across vast oceans by
using a form of compass.
The Arab pearlers of long ago
forestalled modern science, too:
they discovered a way to examine
the ocean bed. They used a glass
bow, or funnel with a glass bottom,
which they pressed down into the
sea to enable them to locate pearl
shell beds.
The ancient people called the
Cholos, of Peru, knew and prac-
ticed something that is today only
a theory, much debated among doc-
tors and laymen. Fierce wordy bat.
tles are being fought on the question
of Euthenasia, The Cholos had an
official named the Despenador, free-
translated ‘Putter out of Pain.”
Despenador was a woman, and
her duty, when all efforts to save
the life of a pain-wracked dying
person had failed, was to thrust her
elbow into the breast or stomach
of the patient until the merciful
relief of death resulted.
One may wonder what was the
basis of Shakespeare's suggestion |
(“Hamlet,” Act III, Scene 4):
Come, come, and sit you down; you
shall not budge;
You go not till I set you up a glass |
of you.
as X-ray photography?
Antaeus, Giant Wrestler
]
{
a gigantic wrestler (son of Earth
and Sea, Ge and Poseidon), whose
strength was invincible so long as
he touched the earth, and when he
was lifted from it, his strength
renewed by touching it again It
was Hercules who succeeded in kill- |
ing this charmed giant, by lifting |
him from the earth ard squeezing
him to death.
|
ODANTHE, N. C., easternmost
town in America, celebrates
Christmas twice each year. “New”
Christmas comes December 25 but
just as regularly on January 5 the
inhabitants of this isolated town ob-
serve ‘Old’ Christmas, a carry-over
from the days before our current
calendar was generally accepted.
Christmas trees must be imported,
for Rodanthe has only one tree (see
below), a gnarled oak. But the kids
enjoy this plan, because Santa Claus
visits them twice. Their parents,
fishermen and coastguardsmen on an
island that is little more than a shift-
ing sand dune, participate enthusias-
tically in both celebrations. Sut
around Old Christmas centers most
of the tradition.
13
Mate P. A.
iggest man in the
vain s
Fourth of July.
generation
to come
their
On
after generation
iSO
nd wi
4
-
:
don't
the
18