OCR Text |
Show THE MIDVALE JOURNAL Thursday, April9, 1931 THE STORY public dance Martin a Forbes, a newspaper man, cuts At I , In on Rhoda White's dance with Max Lewt~. whom Martin lnHe overstinct!vely dislikes. hears a conversation between Lewis and a woman, which he realizes concerns Rhoda. He recalls a "blind ad" Inquiring the whereabouts of "Rhoda Mcl''arlar.d" and senses a newspaper story. He . believes that Is Rhoda's real name. She refuses to deny or admit lt. However, It recalls her childhood in California. Her mother dead, she had been happy until misfortune befell her father, Professor McFarland. Associated with the blow is her un<'le, William Royce. They move to Chicago. where her father is engaged in mysterious work. Rhoda takes up stenography. Her fathe•· dies suddenly, vainly trying to give her a message about "papers'• in a trunk. Rhoda goes to live with a fellow-worker, "Babe" Jennings. Martin learns that "C. J." of the "blind ad" Is Charles J. Forster, uncle of Lewis. Rhoda admits her name is McFarland. A mysterious '"Claire Cleveland" asks Rhoda for a certain paper belonging to her whit'h, she claims, wao In McFarland's possession. Rhoda's trunlt is stolen and she suspects Claire. She trails Claire to the Worcester hotel, where Forster lives. Martin eees Lewis check the trunk at a depot. Babe Jennings gets the trunk check and flees. CHAPTER IX-Continued -9H!s little gimlet eyes had been bor- Ing right into her all the while she tall{ed. Now, at her first pause, he barked out, "Who was this woman?" ''She told me," Rhoda answered, .. that her name was Claire Cleveland." A sudden suffusion of blood in his face turned it purple. He beat feebly but furiously upon his desk with a loosely clenched hand. "So you've joined up with that blackmailing woman, have you?" he said. "I haven't joined up with her at all," Rhoda retorted. "l'\·e just been telling you I think she stole my trunk. She talked to me about you quite a lot at lunch-after she'd come back from the telephone; that is. She said she'd fieen your adYertisement for me in the newspaper." He pounced upon her here with a question. "l\Iy advertisement? How dld she know it was mine? It wasn't l!!lgned. Come to that, how did you know yourself?'' "A friend of mine on the paper found out for me," Rhoda said. "But I WIIS wrong in saying that Claire knew. She said she thought It prob· ably was you." "Call her Claire, do you," he commented, "when you never saw her betore today?" This slip bad rattled Rhoda. She'd been aware of it as it left her tongue. .. She,asked me to call her that," she explained, "and I did, though I hated to because I hated her. And the real reason I came t() see you was because she urged me so strongly not to. I thought she must have some reason of her "own for not wanting me to come. She said that you'd been the cause of all her trouble. She said you were a terrible person that liked to get ' young girls." He broke in with an ugly laugh. ••And on the strength of that you thought you'd come." Rhoda felt her face burning and didn't know whether her voice would obey her or not, but she answered the ..Como to That, How Did You Know Yourself?" sneer as If it had been a real question. "I thought she was lying. I didn't think you were like that. I'd seen you this morning when you took u to work in your car." He dismissed that explanation with .a mere snort of contempt. "Well, go on," he continued. "What else did she tell you?'' "She told me that you'd been in llusiness, In a way, with my father, .ltnd that you'd played some sort ot trick on him. She said it was her personal opinion that you were responsible for my father's trouble out in California." "California I'' He fairly yelped the word ott her. "Now I know you're lyIng, This Cleveland woman worked in m7 omce. For a while she was my private secretary. Then I found out what sort she was and fired her. She may have known that McFarland was working for me but I don't believe lt. I don't believe she ever saw him In her life. Anyhow, she didn't know he She didn't came from California. know that until you told her about it while you were working up this plan between you to blackmall me. Come across now! Tell me the whole story, and I'll let you go. But If I catch you in any more lies you'll spend the night In jaiL-And to begin with," he wound up after a long stare into her face, "who are you, anyway?" Bewildered now by thQ suddenness of his attack she could only echo in amazement, "Who am I''' Thought you'd cooked up "Yes. something pretty good, did you, when you got together and swapped stories with a discharged employee of mine, faked up tlle red hair, and came aTound here pretending to be Rhoda McFarland." "I am Rhoda McFarland," she tole] him furiously. "I don't know who you think I am. I don't know what you're talking about." "I don't mind telling you what I'm talking about. I'm talking about what happened to Professor McFarland sE!: years ago, when he got on a train here In Chicago to go .back to the coast. lle'd been ~ast to. read a paper before the Oil Chemists' institute, and he found a young girl on the train across the aisle from him crying because she'd had her pocketbook stolen after she'd got on the train. "He was sorry for her and paid her fare, pullman and all, so they \vouldn't put her off the train. According to his story that was all he And she promised him her did. friends would pay him hack the money as soon as she got to the coast. But what she did was to make a complaint before the district attorney out there that he'd taken advantage of her. "He claimed It was a frame-up, and when It went to trial the jury acquitted him, although he couldn't show any reason why anyone should want to frame him that way and no one else could, either. And the scandal of the trial cost him his job at the university. "So he came back here and told me his story, and I belie>ed him and gave him a job. He felt disgraced about it. He was like a mao hiding out from the police; didn't want anybody to know who he was· or what he was do· iog. Well, I could see how he felt so I never told a soul anything about it. I even paid him his wages in cash every week. "Claire Cleveland couldn't have found out anything about him, even if she'd tried to. He never came dear He my office nor where I lived. worked at a place I fl::s:ed up for him, and I used to go around there once a week to see bow be was getting on and to pay him his money. rm dead sure he never told his daughter anything about that California mess. She was nothing but a kid. He'd have kept !t from her if he'd been telling everybody else in sight. And if you want to know who I think you really are, I don't mind telling you that either. I believe you're the one person alive today who really knows whether Walter McFarland was telling the truth or not." Untll he'd finished she hadn't seen what he was driving at. And when she did sile could do nothing but stare at him, confounded by the mere monstrousness of his mistake. To complete her discomfiture she found she was beginning to cry. "You can cry, can you' Well, it worked with him !tnt it won't with me. So you may as well . . . " He broke off there and what had Interrupted him both made her blink away her tears and checked their coming. A sort of little trap-door in the front of Napoleon had silently fallen forward and revealed, as he reached toward it, a telephone instrument inside. Forster seemed rather startled by the message he was getting. "What's that?" he barked. "\Vho does he say be is? All right," after listening for a minute, "I'll see him, but not in here. Have him shown up to the library. I'll see him there. And find DeGraw and tell him I want him." He put the telephone back and clicked the little trap-door shut upon it. Then he pressed an electric button on his desk. "I'm going to leave you here for a while," he said to Rhoda, "to think things over, and you'd better think straight, if you can. I'm g'olog to get this Cleveland woman. I've got her now, as far as that goes. But I've. got nothing personal against you. And if you can make up your mind, by the time I come baclt, to come through clean and tell me the whole conspiracy, I'll 1et you go." His ring had been answered while he was speaking, not by Conley, but by a sort of overgrown page in livery He helped the old man to his feet and conducted him to the door Rhorla had come in by. Rhoda sank back In her chair. What possessed her mind was the story Forster had been telllng her about the girl he'd preposterously taken her to be. Did he really belleve that' Was there a scrap of genuine doubt !n his mind that she was Walter McFarland's daughter? Wasn't the whole thing a blu1T to put her on the defensive and frighten her Into doing, eventually, whatever It was that he wanted her to do? It would have been a rather satIsfactory explanation Lt ahe could By Henry Kitchell Webster Copyrig-ht by The Hobbs-Merrill Co. WNU Service whole-heartedly have adopted tt, H for no other reason than that it brought hlm out 1n a clearer, less am· blguous light. But she found she couldn't adopt it. He wasn't 11. much better actor than she was. His manner while he hnd been trying to convince her that he hail been led by nothing but disinterl'steil benevolence in tr~·ing to find her had been sleek and sh~·. utterly uncon· vincing. But some of the thin;:s he'd told her she knew to be true. Her father had been paid every week r·egularly, through the whole four years they'd lived at the hotel, In cash. Forster woul(ln't have known that unless he'd paid him himself, or It wasn't likely that he would. What he'd said about her father's feeling dis~raced and having lived pral'tically in hiding was confirmed, too, by Innumerable memories of his having cautioned her not to talk to people, nor answer their questions. nor make friends with them. Claire Cleveland, somehow, had found the secret out. She'd spoken with perfect confidence of the labora· tot·y where her father had worked. Had she really worked for him there -evenings, as she said she had?· It was possible, but tt didn't seem very likely. At any rate, tt was flatly un· believable that he would have confided to her at those times, as she said h!O' had, the story of his California disaster. And yet it was clear that she knew about that. She'd spoken of the trial and the sensation that it created. There'd been hardly anything else in the papers at the time, she said-at least in the San Frnocisco papers. Rhoda sat erect and held her breath. Why, why hadn't she caught that slip at the time? All it meant, all it rould possibly mean, was that it had been in the San Francisco pa. pers that Claire had read about it. She'd been in San Francisco, then, during the trial. She hadn't said so. She hadn't meant to give that away. She'd pretended that it was from Wal· ter McFarland's own lips that she'd heard this story, long afterward, I1ere in Chicago. Of course! Claire Cleveland was the girl on the train. She recalled her first Impression of Claire, her momentary belief that she couldn't be the woman because she looked rather nice, and young-not much over twenty. Six years ago she could have looked convincingly like an Innocent young girl crying forlornly over the loss of her ticket and her money and the propect that they'd put her otT the train. She had something of that look left even now. Martin had described her as looking younger than her voice sounded. Why hadn't her voice given her away to Walter McFarland? Of course It was hard to tell where the truth left off and where the lies began. Claire's professed hatred of Forster was true, though as yet specifically unaccounted for. She had. tried to convince Rhoda, though with a suspicious insistence upon her own lack of knowledge, that Forster was the person primarily responsible for the plot against her father. That felt like the truth though !t obviously wasn't. Forster had stopped being frightened and had burst Into a rage of pure relief when she had told him that Claire had said that. 1.'hat disposed of the possibl!ity that he could be the man who had compelled,, or persuaded, or coldly hired, Claire. And yet he couldn't. be left out of the pattern altogether. He had advertised for Rhoda McFarland and no one but an idiot could doubt after seeing him and hearing him talk, that he had done so In the furtherance of some mean purpose of his own. Claire, who had once been his private secretary, and l'IIax Lewis, who was his nephew, knew, or thought they knew. what that purpose was, and had tried • to forestall him lly finding her first. It was her father;s papers Claire had tried to get a chance to rummage through, and at her own mention to Forster of the theft of those papers he had started. There must be something among those papers that he wanted pretty badly; something that had nothing to do with the California episode, but with the work he bad done here in Chicago. Was there, or did Forster believe there was, amorig her father's papers some precious secret formula? Was that what with his dying breath he'cl tried to tell her about? And was that what Claire and 1\lax had been trying to steal so that they could sell it to Forster on their own terms? \Vas the conspiracy to ruin her father at the university an entirely unrelated thing except for the coincidence of Claire's co.nnection with It? What should she do when F'orster came back to question her further? Stick to the truth, which she wouldn't be able to make him belie>e? If he were honestly convinced that she was an impostor and a confederate of the Cleveland woman, she was in for a pretty bad time when he came back. If only she'd thought of telephoning to Martin befot·e coming up here. Her thoughtful gaze came suddenly into focus upon the bust of Napoloon. If she could find the way to open that little trap door she might be able to reach Martin. Babe would be at home by now, and she might be able to get word to him. Tbat was the thing to try. anyhow. It must have been some sort of electrical connection that opened the little trap door. She went over and sat down in his chair ancl looked about. It wouldn't do to press the wrong buttoo. She studied Napoleon intently. He had several buttons but none of them looked ns if they pushed in. She was guiltily restless, sitting In that chair. She couldn't help 'illJ>ndering whe•her some one mightn't silently have entered the room from one of those two doors behind her. She could almost feel the gaze of a pair of eyes boring Into her back, and at last, half invtluotarily, she started to turn and see. As she did so her knee came in contact with the Inner face of one of the pedestals to the desk and the little tt·ap door fell forward. She had found the telephone button by pure accident. Heartened by this bit of good luck, she picked up the telephone ancl, speaking as softly as sl1e could, asked for an outside line and gave the studio number. The luck held. Babe's voice answered almost instantly. She asked if Babe knew where l\Iartin was, and gave a gasp of relief on being told that he was right there In the stunlo. Buy why was he so long about comIng? Why didn't he hurry? From where she sat In Forster's chair she faced the prlnclpal door, the one sbe had come In by. She was still waiting for Martin's voice to come over the phone when she saw this door being quietly pushed open. The mao who came In was Max Lewis. Hts look ot astonishment when he saw her sitting In his uncle's chair would have been ludicrous if It had not been fol· lowed so quickly by a glare of anger. "You're here, are you?" he said huskily. He added, "Put up that phonf' !'' and snatching the door shut behind him he bore furiously down upon her to enforce his· command. She didn't obey him. She clung to the instrument and tried to say, in the hope that Martin was near enough to hear, "I'm at Forster's at the 'Yorcester hotel.'' But before her tight throat could utter the words, l\lax had got the telephone away from her, and one of his thick beefy hands was over her mouth, his thumb and forefinger pinching her nostrils together so that she couldn't breathe at all. CHAPTER X The Ogre He held her so until he had replaced the telephone in Napoleon's *****************"************************************ Old St. Augustine Still Spanish in Character The fact tbat St. Augustine wa<J already an old town before the Pilgrims landed in New England, Is rarely considered in comparing the respective antiquity of these two events. Yet, to be exact, St. Augustine had been in existence 55 years when the ;\layflower made its famous voyage to New England's shores. In modern terms, when Plymouth was settled in 1620, St. Augustine was already older than many of our western cities are today. In 1648, almost a century after its foundations, St. Augustine was reported to have 300 householders besides a FranL'iscan monastery and a garrison. On Its one hundredth anniversary St. Augustine was again visited by mls· fortune in the person of Captain Davis. a roving English freebooter. While the Inhabitants fled to the fort f'or safety, he sacked the town, but failed , to find much booty. In 1784, St. Augustine again passefl under Spanish dominion and continued undisturbed Its dreamy e::s:istence, lit· tie affected by the events of the out. side world: Although In 1821 It was embraced in the territory of the United States, It remained distinctly Spanish In character, and even today retains much of' this foreign atmosphere. Today St. Augustine is one of the most lnterestlnJ;: historic cities of thi United States, its 'quaint narrow streets aud shaded plaze eloquent of centuries of existence. One can not visit this city without strangely feeling the romantic charm of this rich historical background. Nicotine in Tobacco The quantity of nicotine cont<tlned in tobacco varies from 2 to 8 per cent, the coarser kinds containing the larger quantity, while the best Havana cigat·s selrJom contain more than 2 per cent, and often less. Nicotine does not ap· pear ln tobacco smoke. It Is split into pyridine and cellodioe. Of these the latter Is said to be the less active, and to preponderate !n cigar smol>e, while the smol{e from pipes contains a larger amount of pyridine. The percentage of nicotine varies with the kind of tobacco and with the district in which it is grown. ---- -Nothinc At a trial tn a fraud case Ill an adjoining county to Indianapolis the receiver o! the company in the case was asked by counsel to state In as few words as posslhle what the company had, what he sold and what be received as receiver. "Well," he snld, "thev had nQthing-, I S'l!l'l nnthlng, I got nothing.'' chest and shut the little trap door upon it. Then he released her, saying as he did so, "You can yell if you like but it won't do you any good, in this room.'' He was still standing over her so that she couldn't get up out of the heavy chair. "What I ought to do," he concluded, glowering down upon her, "is to wring your neck.'' It came to her that down Inside be himself was frightened; bewildered, anyhow, like a bull with a lot of darts in his shoulders, gazing about the ring not knowing exactly. 1\'ho his enemy was. If she could just keep out of his way. Anyhow, Jt was plain he didn't quite know whnt he wanted to do with her. She scrubbed her lips vigorously with her handkerchief beforll' she spoke. ''I wish YQU'd sit down where I can see you," she said. "What harm do sou think I've done you?" "Vi7 hat did you come here for?" he asked. "Unless to make trouble for me," she supposed he meant. "You mean," A DOCTOR'S ADVICE for Stubborn Bowels "Drink at least six glasses of wa• ter daily-preferably before meals. Eat bulkier foods, such as vegetables, fruits and course breads. Use a mild la:xati>e as needed." That is Dr. Caldwell's advice to people with stubborn bowels. He specialized on the bowels; treated thousands for constipation and its ills. The prescription he used over and over In his practice has become the world's most popular laxative! "Syrup Pepsin," as it ls now called, was tested by more than 47 years of practice. Today you can get Dr. Caldwell's Syrup Pepsin at any drugstore in America. It is always the same; made exactly according to the original prescription, from laxative herbs, pure pepsin and othervaluable ingredients. Nothing ln it to harm even a baby. It does not gripe, sicken or cause any discomfort. But it moves the bowels; it gets rid of all the souring waste which clogs the system; makes you bilious, headachy, gassy, bloated, weak, half-sick. A doctor should know what is best for the bowels. Syrup Pepsin is a famous doctor's choice of a safe. pleasant, effective l'axative for men, women, older folks. babies and children. DR. w. B. CALDWELL'S SYRUP PEPSIN A Doctor$ Fami!J' Lo»ative Rooater "Firehug'' He Was Almost Inarticulate With ·Fury, but Finally Managed to Stutter, she said, "you're afraid I've come to tell your uncle that I think you stole my three hundred dollars and my trunk." He was almost Inarticulate with fury, but finall:v he managed to stutter, "Never mind about that. What did you come here for?" She decided to evade that. "Your uncle sent for me," she told him. If she'd been a practiced deceiver she'd hav~ stopped there. Not being one, sh-e felt that the explanatton sounded rather bare and added to it, "I don't know how be found out where I lived'! Did you tell him? Because of course ~·ou did find out from Babe.'' He sat down in the chair that she had sat in during the talk with Forster. "No," he said, "I didn't tell him, but I happen to know how he found out. I guess I'm beginning to catch on to some things, too," be went on, still eyeing her Intently. "She's quite some girl, that Babe Jennings. How long have you known her?" "Quite a while," Rhoda told him. "Got sort of an idea she's a friend of yours?" "No," Rhoda answered, "I know she is.'' He gave a slwrt laugh. "Did you know," he asl>ed, "that she left for New York· this afternoon.'' She smiled as she shook lier head. "Well," he asserted, "I saw her oft on that train, myself.'' The lie was so childish that Rhoda almost laughed as she said, "That'~J very interesting.'' "Don't you believe it?" "No.~' Her skepticism didn't seem to Irritate him. He stared at her thoughtfully a few seconds and then said, "'Vel!, maybe I've got you all wrong. I tllought you and she were teamed up In this business. Now I've got a notion that she's burned you just llke she did me." "How did she burn you?" Rhoda ' asked. "11\,ever mind about that. That's my end of it. Say, what kind of a trunk 'wa!!l it you lost? Because she took a trunk with her. I helped her check it.'' "What sort of trunk was It that you checked?" Rhoda asked him. It didn't seem possible that even he would be fool enough to fall into that trap. He did give his answer a little uneasily. "Why, I didn't notice it especially," he said. "It was sort Of a square leather trunk.'' She sat for a while tn puzzled silence. How could he have hoped she would believe a story like that? Why hadn't he seemed more dlsap.. pointed that she didn't believe it? Was it possible that be really thought Babe had taken a train to New York? "When did all this happen?" she asked at last. "What time dld the train leave?" "Five-tlllrty .'' "What did she do? Call you up and ask you to see her off?" The question startled her a little as she asked it. It made her think of the anonymous telephone message that had come to Claire Cleveland just as Cilaire had locked her In the bathrool.o. (TO Blil OONTINUBlD.) A Brunswick (Maine) farmer has a fit·ebug on his farm in the form of a rooster. He reports that while on the way to the barn he smoked a cigarette and placed the lighted end on a well curb before entering the barn. A moment later the rooster entered the barn with the cigarette, still burning, in his beak. The farmer shouted and as the rooster turned and ran it dropped the cigarette into chaff, whicll llurst into 1!ames. The blaze was stamped out before it had spread far. tiere eCOUCiHS tr:y First dose soothes ,,. .otanthJ. Relief GUAR- -~~ ANTEED. • 1Qt~ a At all druggists ' "' ~ith Boschee's Svi·up Welcome Prohibition Friend-Of the two apartments we looked at the other one s· ~mea much the better. Why did you choose this one? Young Bride-S-sh! In this one th<'Y forbid all cooking.-Boston Tr<> nscript. Some youthful "acting the fool .. does no harm. Indeed, it may be necessary to ripen judgment. PILES Pile sufferers from Protruding, Bleeding, Itching or Blind Piles, can now get relief from very first treatment by using Q. R. Pita Ointment Q. R. (Quick Relief) Pile Ointment is a new remedy for the treatment of pile sufferers no matter how long aiHicted, guaranteed to give satisfactory relief or money refunded. Before placing this pile ointment on the market for sale, it was put to the acid test in both mild and severe cases, never fail· ing to produce wonderful results. If yon are troubled with piles, do not experiment. Get Q. R. l'ile Ointment. If your druggist does not carry it in stock, fill out the blank beluw and mall it to Q. R. OINTMENT MFG. CO. 3?3 South 5th East foalt Lake City, Utah -----------------------· Q. R. Co., Gentlemen: Inclosed find $1.00 P. 0. Money Order for One tube of Q. R. Pile Ointment to be malled prepaid to Name ........................ . P. Q. Address .................. . On conditions that if I am not satisfied with results obtained, I am to receive money back upon returning tnbe to your laboratory. |