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Show THE CITIZEN 52 The Cost is Small Protection Absolute The matter of Absolute Protection for your valuables is so important that you cannot afford to overlook it. When you keep them in your home in an office safe or strong box made of tin not only are you in danger of losing them, but you are also in danger of losing your life. Be prudent ' Rent a Safe Deposit Box In the chrome steel vault of the Tracy Loan & Trust Co. Fireproof, burglar-proo- f, waterproof and dustproof. Centrally and conveniently located, on the ground floor. Boxes, $2 and up per year. Special vault for storage of silver, trunks, etc. You may not have many possessions, yet those you have are of value to you. A place of positive safety for securities, wills, deeds, mortgages, insurance policies, jewelry and other valuables is of the utmost 'importance. Organized to Serve the Public TRACY LOAN & TRUST CO. 4 151 MAIN STREET ON SAVINGS you see, but it was all part of the role All that helped out the part he I knew well enough how the boys took its especially young Wilkins and some others. I couldnt help knowing. You see, he was building up that air around me all the time getting everybody to think wrong. It went on. "Two or three times he talked, to a woman over the telephone in the local room intimate kind of talk. Once he said, All right Bess; Ill be there. All the time he was talking about women in that abominable way And he was talking to young Wilkins and some others about her. I could see it in their eyes. Cochran put a hand up to his brow She wanted to be nice and again. friendly to everybody. She was nice to him. I suppose a nice woman cant understand a fellow like him. Dont see through em as a man does. For one thing, he wouldnt talk to a woman as he talked before men. She didnt understand. And yet, I think he must have got some sort of hold over her, someway or other, or even she wouldnt have acted as she did. I tried to think it all out last night, and thats the way it seemed to me. For she was friendlier toward him than she really needed to be on general principles. He came up to our flat sometimes. And she did meet him sometimes taking lunch with him twice, Im sure. You see, three times this last three weeks, he brought her up to the newspaper office walking into the local room with her as though he were handing her back to me. was playing before the boys and before me. I suppose he is plausible and more or less entertaining with women a lot of gossip to tell and all that: Probably he can be what theyd call good company. Probably a nice woman wouldnt see any harm in going with him. And yet, I think he must have got some hold over her or she wouldnt have been as friendly to him as she was. Thats the way I thought it out. You see, Mr. Hinton, I wouldnt say anything. I knew he was trying to make me think wrong, too. He was trying to build up that air. And I hated like sin to see her even speak to him knowing him as I did. But I wouldnt say anything. When she married me, I didnt at all deserve it. It was like giving a million dollars to a beggar. I said that whatever she did was going to be just exactly right exactly right to a hair. I wasnt going to suggest that anything at all was less than just right. If a beggars been given a million dollars his business is to be grateful, and not to act as though he thought he ought to have a million dollars and fifty cents. What- ever she did was going to be just right; I wouldnt say a word to her. he was playing. .. "Of course, I saw what Tower was trying to do knew he was talking to the boys and all that. And I said Id pay no attention to it not let it influence my thought at all just throw it out of my mind and keep it out. He was playing a part, but he couldnt make me play the other part. The city editor smiled slightly and wanly in apology and continued with a sort of helplessness, A mans mind is a queer sort of convenience. He thinks hes running it but maybe he isnt. This Moon cafe had come up before in connection with an item of police news. Tower had said they better let the Moon cafe alone, for he approved of it himself. He said it waq a very convenient place to meet a lady if she was shy, because she could slip down the alley to the back door and nobody would see her. Young Wilkins sort of gasped at me in that fishy way he has after Tower said it, and I knew there was something in his mind. Well, Tower came into the local room yesterday afternoon and talked a while as usual. Then he said he had to go because he had a date to meet a little lady at the Moon at a quarter to four. He said it with that sort of half secret grin and leer at me, you know. Some of the boys called Bessie, the little lady. I was working ' away at my desk, and I kept on after he went out. But somehow I couldnt keep the Moon cafe out of my mind a dirty kind of a place, you know, and Tower a dirty kind of a dog. Shes so sweet and clean and dainty and that joint and Tower. Something seemed to break. All of a sudden I saw red. A year or more ago the police gave one of the boys a fine revolver that theyd confiscated, and he gave it to me. I put it in my desk and practically forgot it. I saw red and slipped that gun in my pocket and put on my hat and coat and went out. Of course, I meant to go down there and find and kill him, if it was so. I wasnt running my mind as much as I thought Id been. I must have gone over to State street and down to Van Buren. Anyway, thats where I came to, as you may say. I was going to cross the street there. It was murky, you know; you couldnt see far. There were some people going out from the curb to take a street car. One of them was a woman. She had on a sort of faded brown coat and a cheap hat. She was holding a little boy by the hand leading him out to the street car. He had on a coat that was too big for him, as though an older child had worn it, and a round cloth cap. He had a toy in his hand a little five cent jumping jack his face was round; he had brown eyes. They were poor, you see. I had to wait a minute, for the street car was coming up. The boy looked up at me and held up his jumping jack for me to see. It seemed to me he looked like my little boy. It seemed to me he was my little boy and the woman whose face I couldnt see was his mother. Cochran smiled wanly, in apology, and rubbed his brow. I know that sounds crazy, but its so. It seemed to me just that way. It gave me a big jolt, as though Id been hit by a train. I felt a terrible pity for everybody in the world. What I was doing seemed terribly sad and foolish. Probably I cant make it clear to you. I kept right on in the way Id been going but slowly, my mind all confused. .When I came to the alley where I had meant to turn down I just kept on over to Michigan avenue and across it. I kept saying to myself; You mustnt act this way; shes sweet and good; youre as bad as Tower. But what was going on In my mind didnt seem to connect up with my actions. My legs just wandered on up Michigan avenue and. pretty soon I went over and sat on a bench in the park. It was cold and I was half frozen, and I kept saying to myself: Youre wrong to act this way. But somehow I didnt dare go home for fear she might not be there. I sat on the bench until after five. Then I went over to the elevated and home. When I opened the door Bhe was there, and when I saw her I knew she was sweet and good, and something terribly wrong had happened in my mind as though a man thinks hes in perfect health and a doctor lookd him over and says: Your full of bichloride of mercury; youll be dead tomorrow. I lay awake most of the night thinking of it. Thats the absolute truth. Of course, this morning I saw he had been, killed. Hinton listened to this recital in an amazement so profound it seemed he could never get out of it but must remain engulfed in a bottomless chasm of astonishment the rest of his life. His office was at the angle of The telegraph editors' the halL office was next to it. Then came the belittered den of Pop Farrell, the exchange editor, and after that the local room, with the city editors desk in the corner. From Hintons desk to the city editors desk was not much more than fifty feet; from the north wall of his room to the south wall of the local room was a matter of eighty feet or so. He had lived under the illusion of being in intimate touch with all that went on in that space and of having its occupants always under his eye. Yet just there, under his nose, a poignant tragedy had staged itself and unfolded, gradually, act after act, to a bloody climax all unknown to him, although he had been almost holding hands with the actors in it. It seemed he could never get over the amazement in which the discovery plunged him. But the problem was existent; he had to think. He believed Cochran thought he was telling the absolute truth. All the same there was a question in the back of the editors head namely, when a man is in the state that Cochran had been in the afternoon before, how accurately would his mind register his actions? Might he have turned down that alley, lurked and fired a shot and his disordered mind afterwards have palmed off on him the illusion of a woman and boy? That question lay in the back of the editors head. But in any event he saw how slim a defense this Btory would be. Cochran knew where Tower had gone; he had put a gun in his pocket and started down there and then just disappeared in the murk. A reasonable man could hardly expect police and states attorney to swallow that. The city editor spoke again, with When I went infinite reluctance; you see, I still had that gun in my |