OCR Text |
Show her husband's aupposed. co-worker at the Foreign Olfice that night, came in alone. The taxi she called pulled up outside the Club Sirene just as Sarrou and David were leaving. Her driver lost their car in the traffic but she was sure they had gone to the Quay D'Orsay. "To th Foreign Office," she commanded he astonished jehu. Sarrou, experienced, had plotted every detail of the dangerous undertaking un-dertaking in which he and a not-too-reluctant David were engaged. David's penknife, thrust into a lamp socket, blew a fuse after the guard had passed him into the Foreign Office building without question; his confederate slipped through in the resulting darkness. Sarrou, under Monsieur Talbot's tutelage, twirled the combination ? of the little safe in David's office and extracted three times his j wanted million francs! Suddenly he whipped the beam of his flash- light towards the door at the al- help me escape Dy someone whc 4 drove me to the train at Marseilles by Michele Alla;ne!" "Xhen Mme. Al! Sine who is present here was an accessory to the murder, Monsieur?" asked the magistrate. "I am only repeating what I was told!" replied the prisoner quietly. "It's a lie!" shouted Michele. I swear I never saw this man until three weeks ago!" David Talbot or Jean Pelletler snatched the locket from around Michele's neck; it fell open as he; tossed it onto the desk before thsi magistrate. "You never saw Mon-, sieur until three weeks ago, Ma-; dame?" the police officer observed quizzically as he carefully ex-, amined the picture of Michele and her "sweetheart" the locket contained. con-tained. The girl gave a frightened look at Sarrou who was making no move to help her. "All right . . all right!" she cried. "I'll confess . j , , ; ' ,v M ; k- : n k Hill y 1 t -" -y -y fM ' , ' " i ; s i fa - 1 i The office was suddenly flooded with light the police arrived CROSSROADS Adapted from the Metro Goldwyn-Mayer Picture by RANDALL M. WHITE CAST OF CHARACTERS David Talbot - - . . William Powell Lucienne Talbot Hmdy Lamarr Michala Allalna - Claire Trevor Henri Sarrou - - Basil Rathbonm Mme. Pelletiar - Margaret Wycherly Dr. Andre Taislor - Felix Bressart Dr. Alex Dubroc SlgRumann Prosecuting Attorney H.B. Warner Commistaire Philip Mervafe) Carlos L Due - - - Vladimir SokoMt mony. If so, she wanted to pay him and put an end to the unpleasantness. She asked me to find out." Doubt in his own mind that had been fanned to a flaming fearful conviction burst forth in David's anguished words: "She thinks I'm Pelletier," he cried. "And you even you you think I'm Jean Pelletier, don't you?" Andre tried hard to comfort him and he seemed calmer when he left the office. But SYNOPSIS: Preying on him through a past an accident has swept Jrom his menuiry, Henri Sarrou, Michele IAllaine, and "Mme. Pelletier" are attempting to extort a million , ,'rancs from David Talbot, young French diplomat, who is happily i married to Lucienne de Couville, I daughter of a wealthy and so-) so-) dally prominent family. They i have convinced him that he is j lean Pelletier who murdered a . man in Marseilles. Michele's locket which contains a snap-I snap-I thot of her and her sweetheart '. Pelletier is documentary evir- dence David finds it impossible I to refute. The efforts of his friend Dr. Andre Tessier to help I him are failing. ; to blackmail but not to murder!" mur-der!" Then there were confessions all around. Sarrou, Le Due, and Pelletier Pel-letier had committed the Marseilles Mar-seilles murder. Fleeing to convert their loot into safer currency, Pelletier Pel-letier had taken the Paris-Marseilles Express and been killed in the wreck. Sarrou, seeking hi accomplice, had found David Talbot, Tal-bot, amnesia victim, in Dr. Tessier's hospital and been struck by his resemblance to Pelletier. j David's recent marriage to Lucienne, Lu-cienne, socially prominent, had recalled re-called him to Sarrou and the blackmail plot had been born. Michele and "Mme. Pelletler", Le Due's actress wife, had been recruited re-cruited to help convince the young! diDlomat he was really Jean Pelletier. Pel-letier. David's "confession" was equally startling. Until only a few hours before he had been convinced that prior to his loss of memory he had been the criminal Sarrou said he was. The snapshot in Michele's locket seemed Irrefutable evidence. H had decided on flight to save Lucienne from bitter disgrace. There, in that weird setting of a Paris police court at night, David turned to his old friend, Dr. Tessier. Tes-sier. "You remember, Andre," he said, "the trouble we had switching switch-ing the part in my hair from the right to the left side because of the scar I sustained in my accident? You can readily understand that no single detail of Michele's 'sweetheart' 'sweet-heart' picture the only documentary docu-mentary evidence Sarrou had escaped me in the several times it was flaunted in my face. Early this evening my Guardian Angel made me notice that, quite naturally, natural-ly, in my passport picture, taken recently, my hair is parted on the left and made me recall that picture' had been made before my accident, it just had to be a fake! You've heard Michele confess that it's a clever job of superimposition my head on a pose Sarrou and Michele had taken for the pur- most imperceptible rustle of a garment. Lucienne, in a dinner gown, stood revealed! ' "David I can't believe it!" she cried. "We could have managed, darling . . . I'd have sold my jewels our house, anything! It's not too late yet put the money back!" "No no, dear . . . there's no other way!" was her husband's hopeless answer as he took her in his arms. "Go . . . please go!" "I won't go I'll call the police . . . they'll understand it wasn't your fault!" Lucienne declared. "Call the police, Madame and your husband will go to the guillotine guil-lotine . . . for murder," was Sar-rou's Sar-rou's mystifying threat and David's expression malle Lucienne think it was true. "What do you want me to do?" she asked dully. "All this can be arranged, Madame," Ma-dame," replied Sarrou quickly. "Your husband wants you to help tie him up in this chair." The master crook took gag and ropes from the brief case he had brought and replaced them with sheaves of banknotes. removed from his friend's benign counsel, the troubled man's own frantic determination returned. "Whatever you do my boy," his friend had said, ". . . you and Lucienne Lu-cienne must do it together." But he'd take himself out of Lucienne s life completely. He had plane tickets for two, to avert suspicion when he reached home. Sarrou couldn't hound him in Africa! Monsieur Talbot delayed dressing for the evening engagement he knew he wasn't going to keep in company with his wife. He heard her hurrying to her room upstairs as he sat dejectedly, their joint passport open in his hands. It too, had pictures of two sweethearts. He'd been happy, he thought, when that picture of him was taken. Suddenly the picture took on dramatic interest. While he stared, the telephone rang. "Listen, Monsieur Talbot," he heard Sarrou's bullying voice say, "you're not taking the plane tonight to-night for Saigon or any other place. I've been watching you. Be at La Sirene at ten and bring one million francs!" David still stared at the passport pass-port picture as he listened. His answer to Sarrou was entirely satisfying. "Yes . . . yes," he said quietly, "it's all quite clear ... I won't be going any place now!" Lucienne heard more excuses and went to the dinner party alone. "I'll join you about ten," her husband hus-band promised. But at ten David joined Sarrou and Michele at the Club Sirene. If he'd been a few , minutes earlier he might have visited again with the gentle "Mme. Pelletier" who had showered him with "mother love" in the tenement tene-ment in the Rue Blancheau. Monsieur Talbot seemed completely com-pletely subjugated. "But I can't pay, Sarrou," he said desperately. ". . . even if I liquidate everything we have!" Strangely, Sarrou didn't press for the sale of the Talbots' personal possessions. Tactfully, he suggested a better plan. "At the Le Duo trial," he observed observ-ed slyly, "your obliging character witnesses made much of the fact that you and you alone disburse dis-burse government funds to your foreign agents . . . entirely without with-out written record. It is not uncommon un-common I believe they said for you to have as much as five million francs In your own private office safe." "What are you thinking of?" exclaimed David. "Don't make me laugh, Jean," replied Sarrou lightly. "Your present pre-sent problem's not half as tough as some others we have solved together!" to-gether!" Lucienne left the dinner party 'shortly after ten when Martin, Chapter Three Tired eyes were no match for ijucienne's heart and mind in turmoil; tur-moil; they would not close, even 'xt hours with leaden feet limped on into the night. "Is anything wrong?" Dr. Tester Tes-ter asked when the telephone fin-Ally fin-Ally rang. "Oh, Andre ," sobbed Lucienne, "something has happened something some-thing about the trial!" She heard footsteps in the hall. "David's coming com-ing now I'll see you in the morning." David had just fought the hardest hard-est battle of his life and won, The dirty black waters of the Seine, as they whirled beneath old Pont Neuf, had failed to claim him. 'I'm tired, darling," he said grimly. In the morning Lucienne asked Dr. Tessier to see Sarrou and offer of-fer to pay him anything he asked ;o release the man she loved from .lis haunting fears. Before the day was over David knew his wife suspected sus-pected his dilemma and was trying W help him. Sarrou sought him out at 'vi cheon. "What do you mean, JcMi . sending that old goat, Dr. Tessier, to me?" he demanded. He didn't believe his victim's sur-r-; ise was real. David answered: "I'm getting Impatient," Sarrou replied ominously. "Pay or the police will soon have the solution to a murder that has been bothering bother-ing them for years!" David's over-wrought nerves made him rude when he burst into Dr. Tessier's office. "Why did you go to Sarrou?" he demanded. "By what authority are you meddling in my personal affairs?" His old friend showed the hurt he felt. "By Lucienne's authority," he answered calmly. "I've never before violated a professional confidence con-fidence but I'm going to do it now . . . because I feel it's best for both of you!" "How much does she know?" uked David abashed. "Sit down, my boy," answered th discerning little doctor patiently. patient-ly. "Lucienne came to me because shi thought you were in trouble. She well, she . . . ah . . . thought Sarrou wanted money for his testi- pose!" " , David turned to the astonished Lucienne. "Yes, I know darling," he said, "it was a desperate undertaking, under-taking, but the 'robbery' at the Foreign Office tonight seemed the only way to provide the complete solution to the Marseilles murder mystery and almost surely a way to make someone confess to attempted blackmail to .escape a murder charge. Sarrou, as well as Michele, was forced into a choice a happy one for us but Sarrou and Le Due are still going to die on the guillotine!" De Lorrain had been listening aghast. "Well, you gave me a tough assignment, Talbot," he finally roke " in. "The prefect thought I was pulling his leg when I insisted that he send police to your office to arrest you tonight!" At the crack of doom, police procedure in any city like Paris will keep rolling on in its grimly appointed routine through the opening blasts of Gabriel's trumpet, perhaps. "Pardon, Monsieur," interrupted inter-rupted an officer with some little show of impatience. "You and Madame Ma-dame may have your personal effects ef-fects if you will come with me." "For the records, please," said the policeman at the property desk, ". . . your name, Monsieur?" "Oh, please!" replied David plaintively plain-tively as he squeezed the hand of a radiantly happy Lucienne beside him, ". . . let's not get started on all that again!" THE END Printed la U. S. A. Copyright 1M1 by Loew' Int. Lucienne and Sarrou were on their knees tieing the last knots when the office was suddenly flooded flood-ed with light and police took all three actors in this bizarre drama into custody. Lucienne must have wondered at the strange assemblage she found in the cheerless office of the committing com-mitting magistrate. De Lorrain and Martin, of the Foreign Office, were there and Dr. Tessier. Michele Allaine, whom she had met before, was hustled in for questioning and another woman she didn't know, the timid, genteel-looking "Mme. Pelletier." David seemed over-anxious to talk. The whole room gasped when, asked his name, he responded in a ringing voice: "Jean Pelletier!" "But . . . but, Monsieur!" stammered stam-mered the magistrate. "For thirteen years I have used the name of David Talbot," explained ex-plained the man before him with quiet assurance, "but I am really Jean Pelletier! I robbed that safe tonight because I needed money a lot of it to buy the silence of the only people who knew my secret In 1922 I shot and killed a messenger of the Bank of France in Marseilles!" "It's not true . . . you mustn't believe him!" shrieked Lucienne hysterically. "You must ignore this man's statement!" cried Dr. Tessier with equal agitation. "He can remember nothing prior to waking up in my hospital the bank robbery took place before that!" "It's true I can't remember," continued con-tinued David, "but I was told tnld bv someone kind enough to |