Show Midnight Beard Again Invades Fiction Realms By SELMA MILLER Death to fictions fiction's villain of the black beard Will wm readers never be spared that pestiferous individual who is always laughing in his midnight beard Jeannette Helms Helm's latest detective offering Without Clues promises a most satisfying mental repast But alas there thero are aro disappointments disappointments disappointments disappoint disappoint- ments After the inviting red cover corer coveris coreris is flipped lipped back right there In the first chapter sits the mustachioed crook laughing like a hyena hyena ln in- in his midnight beard His His merriment might have ha been occasioned by be beIng being belog be- be ing log trotted out for introduction so sosoon sosoon sosoon soon in the story Stephen Keene writer of detective detec detec- I tive tire fiction is talking with friends In a cafe lIe He boasts that there Is no master criminal out of fiction that no crime can be committed that doesn't leave a clue At a nearby table sits the owner of or the spade-shaped spade midnight beard with friends The Tho swarthy villain laughs laughs laughs-In in his midnight beard beard beard-at at Keenes Keene's boast That outburst cuts Keene to the quick and starts things It also forms the tho foundation for the plot When Keene arrives home sore as an old wet hen over the dark strangers stranger's derision he ho finds a mysterious mysterious mysterious mys mys- note note signed A Z Z which he knows is the handiwork of his enemy the perpetrator of the laugh A Z wagers that he ho can commit a crime and leave no clues and Keene snaps up the challenge Of Ot course courso there Is a girl who Keene loves at first sight and who I is coveted by her of the midnight beard It is the girls girl's uncle that the swarthy villain Intends to perpetrate perpetrate perpetrate per per- t the e clueless crime upon Romping from cover to cover ovet Is Toyo Keenes Keene's Japanese servant Toyo In almost every o chapter Is discovered In acts of ot disloyalty to his master yet ct to the tho utter disgust of or tho reader Keene Instead of kicking that slant-eyed slant on his ear only says sas Naughty naughty Toyo When hen the owner of ot the beard turns out to be no dastard villain main at all one wants to weep copious tears But when the murder of the uncle turns out to be suicide Instead and that Is solved by the foolish Toyo who woo has been playing amateur detective It Is too much to bear It Isn't a desire for blood that prompts one to get peeved wh when n they are cheated out of a n. book murder but after aCter being dragged lit literally literally lit lit- by tho the hair of the tho head through chapter after alter chapter then not get the promised bauble isn't tho the most mOlt satisfying thing Without Clu Clues Is somewhat of ofa ofa ofa a misnomer The Tho reader gets the most Important clue long before the end enel of the story Thero There are too man many plot elements and altogether too man many surprises and one feels after finishing the story that time has been wasted in reading about an Insane insano man as the uncle apparently apparently apparently was The Tho story seems too faked taked To erect a plot on so o trivial premise as a man roan laughing at you OU In his heard beard Is tho the fault flagrant Liveright New V York I |