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Show THAT PIECE OF IRON PIPE. (Sequel to the "Cubs Scoop." Written for Goodwin's Good-win's Weekly.) "After this, young man, when you turn in a story at this desk, you will please be more careful care-ful as to your facts." This was the greeting I got from Murphy when I reported for duty at the Times office the morning after the Thurlow murder. I was dumbfounded. The whole town was agog over the story of tho murder, and I had expected everyone about tho office to pat me on the back for my scoop. "I don't understand," I said when I found my tongue. "Well, there's nothing hard to understand about it," retorted the city editor. "It is simply that all that stuff in your story about the Thurlows being killed with a piece of iron pipe is tommy-rot, fake, pure and simple. It adds nothing to the value oj the story and it makes the paper appear ridiculous when the facts are known. Bear in mind that this is a serious matter, and in handling it there is no call for an exercise of imagination, " "But this was not imagination," I cut in hotly. "No, I suppose not. The police, a gang of reporters re-porters and half the people of the town have been at Thurlow's this morning, and no one has seen a piece of iron pipe. What's wrong with their imagination?" "I can't help what they found this morning; I know that pipe was there last night" "Well, if you are so cock-sure and know more about it than all the others put together, you may just start out and find this pipe." I was in a rage as I left the office. This was tho first open break I had ever had with Murphy. I threshed the matter over in my mind as I went direct to the scene of the murder. No. 357 Olive street was in charge of the officers, and there was little to be learned there. No one had seen the piece of pipe, and no one believed that part of my story; the Journal gang was getting in some good knocks on this point I went home to a late dinner thoroughly disgusted. But as I ate an idea struck me. I recalled that one end of the pipe had been newly cut This fact had not appeared in my story in the morning. This was a slender thread, but I determined to follow fol-low it I put in the evening calling upon the plumbers of the city. As it was Sunday night I had to call at their homes, and it was late when I found the man I was after. I had to rout him out of bed. It was John R. Greely, whose home was far out in Vernon Court. Yes, Greely said, he had been doing work in that part of the city. In fact ho had finished a piece of work a few days before for P. J. Lorimer; that was at No. 338 Orange street. Yes, he remembered, too, about cutting off some short pieces of two-inch pipe, but he felt sure he took all the scraps to his shop. Tingling with excitement, I made all haste to Lorimer's home; it was just across the block from Thurlow's, up on the hill. I was agreeably surprised sur-prised to find a light in the house, although it was then after midnight Just as I reached the gate Lorimer came out the front door and we met at the steps. He had a grip in his hand and an overcoat over-coat over his arm. If I ever saw fear in a human face it was in Uorimer's when he got a good look at me under the electric light on the veranda. But the look was gone in an instant. "Well, sir," he demanded, "what can I do for you?" On the spur of the moment I decided to try a little bluff, common to older reporters. "I represent the Times, Mr. Lorimer," I said. "We are anxious to get the straight of this murder; mur-der; we understand that the piece of pipe used in killing Mr. Thurlow came from your house, and ffe would like very much if you would tell us what you know about it." "Who told you I knew anything about this murder?" mur-der?" he demanded, and he gave me a look that did not like. I was about to explain, when he said: "Just a minute, let us go inside." He opened the hall door with his pass-key as he spoke, left his coat and grip on. the veranda and led the way in. In the hall he turned on the light, swung open the dining-room door and stood aside to let me pass. , When I came to my senses I was in black darkness dark-ness with a fearful pain in my head and a feel-mg feel-mg of damp suft'ocatiun upon me. After lying still .for a time I began groping and found that I was in a cellar. I found the steps and climbed up. The door was locked and as it opened in there was no hope of forcing it. I pounded till my fist was sore but got no response. Then, in feeling about I found the switch for the electric light and turned it on. Below I found an outside door but it was locked; I found two windows, but they were barred so that I could not crawl through even if I broke the glass. I was still looking about for a means of escape when my eye caught a trap door in the ceiling. It had evidently been used as a means of entering the cellar before the house was remodeled. The ceiling was eight feet high and I was rolling a barrel from the corner to enable me to reach the trap when I noticed that the dirt in the floor under the barrel had been disturbed. "With my bare fingers as my only tools I began digging, and six inches below the surface found the piece of pipe with which Daniel Thurlow had been murdered. Strange as it may seem, this discovery gave me no shock. After my experience of the night I was prepared for anything. Since recovering consciousness conscious-ness I had one thought that crowded out all others. That was that Lorimer had murdered the Thur-lows; Thur-lows; that he had seen me at the house the night before; that he had struck me senseless as I entered the dining-room and had thrown me into the cellar to give me no chance to escape. I looked at my watch. It was 12:50. Lorimer was aiming to catch the 1:15 on the T. R. & N. for the north, the only B train out after midnight, with the ?3000 stolen from B the Thurlows in his grip. B What could I do? I was a prisoner here in the B collar two miles from the station and the train B uould be gone in less than half an hour. In an B instant I was on the barrel and had hammered the B trap-door loose with the piece of pipe. In another B instant I had reached the pantry above, and had B groped my way out into the hall. I was trying to B reach the front door when I bumped into the tele-B tele-B phone. Here was a chance! But even as I rang for B Central the newspaper instinct rushed in upon me, B and instead of calling the police station I got Mur-B Mur-B dock of the Times and told him what I knew and B what I suspected. Before my story was half done B the receiver was slammed up at the other end and B Murdock was gone. B "I have brought you a little paper-weight," I B said to Murphy, with an air of triumph, twenty B minutes later, as I laid my piece of iron pipe on his B desk. Then, for the first time, I noticed the few B gray hairs caught in a flaw in the iron. Before B anything more could be said Officer Miller, who B was seated in -the office as I entered, stepped up B and said: B "I've been waiting for you, Mr. Dunlap; I have B a warrant for your arrest for the murder of the B Thurlows," and he pulled out his paper. B "What do you mean?" I demanded, and I shook B his hand off my arm. B "'Come, sir," he said sternly as ho grabbed me B again; "I mean business." B "Why, my Lord, man," I said as I looked at B Murphy and the little crowd of the boys that had M Bothered; "I know all about this murder; who B Aid it; where he is" B I stopped. Once more the newspaper instinct B Eavetl me. Everything I told here would go to B tne Journal through the police station. I bowed B my head and walked out with the officer without B Mother word. B In my cell in the city jail I wrote my story; B Morrison and Curtis carried it to the office, Darby and Dolliver pestered me in turns for a statement and I took special delight in telling them that I had nothing to say for publication in the Journal. V The Journal the next morning wab a sight for the gods. It seemed as if the' whole force of the paper had been turned loose to convict me of the double murder. Lurid, rhetoricr flaring headlines, diagrams, half-tones of myself and the Thurlows, sketches and a long interview extracted from mo by Darby in which I made some damaging admissions admis-sions made up the first two pages of the paper. It was even hinted that there was talk on the street corners about lynching. The story in the Times was complete. It was the greatest scoop in the history of the paper. Murdoch had done his work well. He had jumped from the telephone on receipt of my message. Then he caught a hack at the corner, drove like a demon to the T. R. & N., picked up Officer Mann at the station and nabbed Lorimer as he was about to board a Pullman. Luckily for the Times the train officials alone witnessed the arrest. Riding up in the hack, Lorimer broke down and told the story. He had been ruined by the slump in Ingomar Consolidated; he had learned on the Exchange of the Thurlow deal; had started in to rob him and wound up by murdering him and his wife. He agreed that if he were taken to his home he would make a clean breast of it all in writing; turn over the money and produce the iron pipe used as a weapon. As the officer had no warrant for his arrest and as Murdock was above all else anxious to keep him away from the Journal, this was agreed to. This explains why the prisoner did not arrive at the station till after 4 o'clock, after the reporters had gone. It also explains how the Times scoop came to be so complete. M. F. CUNNINGHAM. |