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Show A BLACK mSmBM ife $OMBREROffJ SaSWty CLIFFORD KNIGHT J I the earth, he moved calmly and, deliberately. He seemed almost to potter about the ball; and therr away it soaer, eluding skyward-reaching skyward-reaching arms by fractions of an inch. "I try to live with the fundamentals," funda-mentals," he had said one night at Dwight's. "Simple things are more satisfactory. The world is befud-; died with needless things, complexities. com-plexities. They are so many that there is no longer room in life to i live. I must have time for the contemplation of beauty." "Finding beauty?" I asked, slapping him on the shoulder. He ; turned his gaze upon me, reaching reach-ing slowly for my hand and said: "I've just seen one of our slaves off for Mazatlan Chesebro's slave. A mining engineer." Somehow his words brought back that dreamy, sun-baked town far down the western coast of Mexico, and a vague wind of prescience stirred uneasily within me as at the prospect of some horrible thing. It was one of those strange, unaccountable experiences; experienc-es; it caused an inward shudder which Reed Barton detected, for he looked at me inquiringly. But instead, he asked, "Can you give me a lift out to Hollywood?" "Yes, glad to have your company." compa-ny." We walked out to the car and climbed in. "Living in Hollywood Hol-lywood now, Reed?" I asked as we rolled on out Sunset Boulevard. Boule-vard. "Yes, since father died, in Pas- friend of mine, had asked me if I wanted to try my hand at the problem. One usually dashes into a railway rail-way terminal. In the taxicab as one approaches, the demoralizing discovery is made that it lacks but three minutes until the 4:36 is due to leave, or the White Mountains, or Seattle, or wherever wherev-er it is you are going. By not waiting for your change, commandeering comman-deering a red cap and prodding him along, you gain the gate just in time to be numbered among the passengers. It is all right, of course, if you have the sporting instinct. Only fixed ideas occupy the mental processes once you enter the terminal. You grasp thoughts like luggage, tickets, gate, kiss somebody goodbye; and your legs do the rest. I had just seen my sister and her .two boys off for New York. I had driven them down in my own car, so there had been four minutes min-utes instead of three, and the boys had entered into the spirit of the thing. Therefore, we made the gate with a full minute to spare, which accounts for the word Anne was able to put in about Reed Barton. "Where?" I asked, turning to stare back through the crowd which closed in behind us. "Over by the information booth. Here, kiss me good-bye, quick! Don't forget to write." The gate slammed and they all went running run-ning down the platform, boys, Anne, red caps, boiling and bobbing bob-bing in a last melee. SYNOPSIS CHAPTER I: Margaret Nichols and her husband Dwight talk to Huntoon Rogers, detective, and amateur sleuth, Barry, in their i apartment in Los Angeles. They discuss Aunt Kitty Chatfield, her brother Sam Chatfield, and Kitty's Kit-ty's niece, Elsa, who had been disinherited dis-inherited at Aunt Kitty's death. While they are talking Elsa drives up in a jalopy and joins the party. Huntoon Rogers asks what Aunt Kitty died of and is told an overdose over-dose of morphine. CHAPTER II The tires rippled on the pavement pave-ment as we dropped down off the ness that vibrated in Elsa's voice. We had started off from Dwight's amid laughter, Elsa in her working girl's suit, which proved to be one of Margaret's street dresses. She. carried an overnight ov-ernight bag the lightness of which she explained by saying: "Just pajamas, Barry. I have to have something." We had moved off down the- curving driveway and entered the road which descended Hollywood's backdrop of hills. "The great wide world," she answered clapping her hands together to-gether before her face, and then, as an afterthought, looking intently in-tently at her slender wrists in the moonlight, as if wondering whether wheth-er or not they were capable of all she expected of them. "But more practically tonight, say, and tomorrow, and next day." "Dwight lent me fifty dollars." "And when that's gone? Don't you think you ought to go down to your father's in Mexico?" "Don't be medieval, Barry! I'll have a job tomorrow morning before be-fore you've thought of starting your day's work." She was very sure, this young woman with the almost golden hair, and eyes I believed to be gray, and which Dwight called blue. I "Put me down anvwhere on I didn't say anything more just then, remembering the shock of his father's suicide. Beaten and penniless after a lifetime of comfort, com-fort, the soft-spoken, courteous old gentleman had leaped into the Arooyo Seco from the Colorado street bridge. "Oh," he said after a moment, "you asked me at the station if I were finding beauty. I've found her." He motioned with his fingers fin-gers as if he would wipe out the miles of pavement, the street lights, the December night itself, and bade me contemplate an address ad-dress in Hollywood. "It's only a (Continued on page eight) The fact that Reed Barton was standing still had caught Anne's, attention. He would be doing just that n the station when others were rushing about like ants in a distrubed anthill. For time was something Reed Barton seemed to have in greater abundance than others had. There was a nice calculation cal-culation in his every act which left about him a sense of leisure almost. That last game of his college col-lege career . in the Rose Bowl, when he dropped back to punt and the ball was snapped and the line broke and mad opponents came charging down to grind him into "Put me down anywhere on H0II7-wood H0II7-wood Boulevard. hills behind Hollywood and came presently to Laurel Canyon. Other cars flashed past. Laughter, song, earnest voices in wisps and snatches snat-ches fell upon our ears and were swept away, but in none was there the note of deadly earnest- Hollywood Boulevard," said Elsa. We had emerged from the winding wind-ing canyon road and were speeding speed-ing into Hollywood. "I start from there." "It's eleven o'clock," I reminded remind-ed her. "It doesn't matter. Time never meant anything to me." And so I dropped her on the boulevard. She flashed me a smile, patted my cheek with a soft, caressing car-essing hand, and skipped out to the sidewalk in that working girl suit and carrying the overnight bag with just pajamas, because she had to have something. The crowded sidewalks swallowed her up. I got into a traffic snarl. After Af-ter a while it was broken up and I moved on. Near Vine street the crowd opened op-ened for a brief moment on the sidewalk and there went Elsa, the working girl suit and the overnight bag. Then crowd, night, and the moving traffic contrived to shut! her wholly from sight, and I drove onward' reflecting upon things like bravery and courage and marveling marvel-ing at what we call youth. Wondering, Won-dering, too, about Aunt Kitty's overdose of morphine. For the district attorney, who was an old Black ; Sombrero I By lS Clifford Knight WNU Feature,. (Continued from Page 5) step or two off the boulevard, ft. j place smells a little. They ail with the cabbage of yesterye And of course there's chintz-.-"There, too, is the hunt of beat ty?" "Chesebro sent me with papers for her to sign. Had to T with her aunt's estate. But it difficult to track her. She'd ped out of sight, and I'd hunting her for several weeks'1 -: made mental note of the addres a as Reed Barton went on talk . "Ink on her fingers. Some on he '. nose, too. Hair you know how i; '. would be I mean, beauty won! yield even to disorder. That's Ka-tures' Ka-tures' way. But the color-It -still trying to. decide what it .', Drawing like mad. There wer; sketches all over the place. Clev' -"er things commercially. They" ' get by easily. Probably make hs , a living. She signed up the thing! I brought without looking a: ' them. 'Get out!' she said. "K I Jimmy the Creese (meaning m '' boss), to let me alone.'" ' (To Be Continued) |