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Show MURDER BY IIICHES By Bess Leeke SAM had to break in the door to reach the body of Mrs. Ambros Creighton. With the door locked from the inside and the only other exit from the room two windows overlooking a sheer drop of 60 feet to the Pacific below, it could only be suicide. She had stood on the chair, looped the rope over the ceiling beam, knotted it around her neck, kicked over the chair and that was it. Sam picked up the chair and moved it out of the way. He frowned, grabbed the chair and pushed it under the gently swaying feet. The feet cleared it by four inches. "I went to call her for lunch," Ambros Creighton had said a few minutes before. "The door was locked and when she didn't answer an-swer I called you." The other members of the household house-hold were Mrs. Bernice Smythe, the victim's middleaged sister, and Eric and Freida Smythe, Mrs. Smythe's thirty-year-old son and twenty-six year old daughter. Joy Burton was waiting for him In the hall when Sam came out and closed the door, "It's all right to say Mrs. Creighton committed suicide?" "No," he told the pretty reporter, report-er, "It Isn't suicide." When he questioned Mr. Creighton, Creigh-ton, Mrs. Smythe, Eric, and Freida he learned Ambros and Mrs. Smythe had both been In the house at the time of the "suicide." Eric had been out in the garage tinkering tinker-ing with his car. Freida had driven Into town earlier and returned just before Ambros called the police. Letting them believe, for the present, it was suicide, Sam drew Joy aside and asked, "What do you know about these people?" "Well," she answered, "The money all belonged to Mrs. Creighton, Creigh-ton, inherited from her first husband. hus-band. The others are poor relations, so to speak. "It's rumored that Mr. Creighton Creigh-ton has been seeking other interests inter-ests at a certain apartment building build-ing up-town. "Mrs Smythe. a widow, has fallen fal-len for some man with no money and not much reputation Her sister sis-ter didn't approve." "Well, Eric is quite a gambler He made a trip to Las Vegas a few weeks ago. Since then he's been seeing a big-time gambler. "Freida and her aunt have never gotten along amiably She's gone in for sports a good bit tennis, golf." Sam asked thoughtfully. 'What about swimming?" "I don't know." "You get on the phone and find out if any one of them. Creighton or any of the Smythes are good swimmers or divers. I'D be back in a minute," he told her. Sam met her in the hallway later with a bundle under his arm, "What did you find out?" "In his day, about thirty years ago, Mr. Creighton did some swimming. swim-ming. Mrs. Smythe doesn't go In for it at all Eric is .the bathing beach type swimmer but Freida won a swimming contest about three years ago." "What about diving?" "She won second place a couple of times In high diving Sam. you aren't thinking " "That I ami Want to come along and hear?" "You bet." "I couldn't have killed her," Freida cried, "The door was locked from the inside. I wasn't even here." "You did leave the estate, but walked back, came through the back, knocked her out, locked the door, hanked her, then kicked over the chair. You dived out the window, win-dow, swam around to the beach and your car, dressed, then drove back." . "That's crazy. It's 60 feet or more to the water," she screamed. Sam held up the bundle, "A wet bathing suit, cap, and towel in the trunk of your car and your high diving record that and four inches make you a murderess." "Sam. darling, you're wonderful," wonder-ful," Joy beamed. |