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Show Pita. Sealed Tmiinic II Copyright by The Bubbs-lfsrrlll Co. VTNU Strvtea- THE STORY At a put-lie da. nee Martin Forbes, a newspaper man, euts In on Rhoda Whitt'i dan'. with Max Lewla, whom Martin in- tlnctlvely dlallkes. lit overhears over-hears a conversation between Lwla and a woman, which he realizes concerns Hhoda. He recalls re-calls a "blind ad" inquiring the whereabouts of "lihoda Mc far-land" far-land" and senses a newspaper story. He believes that is Rho-I Rho-I da's real name. She refuses to deny or admit It. However, It rscalls her childhood in California, Cali-fornia, Her mother dead, shs had been happy until misfortune befell her father, Profenaor Mc-Farland, Mc-Farland, Associated with the blow Is her uncle, William Royce. They move to Chicago, where her father Is engaged In mysterious work. Rhoda takes up stenography. Her father dies suddenly, vainly trying to give her a message about "papers" In a trunk. Rhoda goes to live with a fellow-worker, "Babe" Jennings. Jen-nings. CHAPTER III Continued Babe sang out a rather knowing hello to the two of them, but, even It It wa late, came on unhurriedly. Rhoda called back over the lnter-Tenlng lnter-Tenlng heads, "Martin's coming to supper sup-per with us tonight," and then with a nod vanished Into the entrance to the building. The Implication he'd perceived In that last remark of Khodn's disturbed Martin so much that he forgot to be polite. "Look here," he said to Babe as she eame up, "did that bird Lewis that I Introduced to you last night find out where Bhoda lived from you?" "You two make a pair, all right, yon nd Max. It seems you both went gaga ga-ga about Red last night. Why, Mai took me home, and since I told him she and I lived together, I suppose he knows. Why shouldn't he?" "He was too A d anxious to find out, that's all. He's a bad boy if I know one when I see Ulm. How much more did you tell him about her?" "Why, we talked of little else, dearest," dear-est," said Babe. "He wanted to know all about her, and I tried to be accommodating ac-commodating like I am now. Look here, who elected you Red's guardian? Tve known her about seven hundred times as long as you have and I'm not trying to get her In dutch with anybody." any-body." He didn't know what to say to that, but the look In his face must have answered an-swered for him, for with a complete change of manner, she went on. "What Is It, Marty? Is there anything wrong with him? Do you know anything about him?" "No," he told her, as they entered the building together. "But I think he's np to something queer and I'm going to try to find out what It Is. And If you happen on anything that gives you a line on It let me know." He thought she hesitated as though he had something on her mind, but all she did was to nod assent and say as she walked off that they'd see him for supper tonight about sev&i. Martin's own day's work was yawning yawn-ing for him in the local room, but he didn't go there. He went Into the "morgue" Instead, on the chance that he'd find there some scrap of Information Informa-tion about Max Lewis. The search was much better rewarded than he'd expected It to be. Max had had his promenade In the public eye by virtue of a breach of promise suit for one hundred thousand thou-sand dollars that had been brought against him by a chorus girl. He had written her the usual half-dozen im becile love letters. All that gave them Interest, either to the public or to the chorus girl herself, had been the fact that Max, though It wasn't clear that he had any property of his own, had a vested right, 80 to speak, In an authentically au-thentically rich bachelor uncle who might be expected to come down and settle the girl's claim. The only direct find for Martin In the mess wos the uncle's name and j address. It was "Charles J. Forster," i and he was spoken of as a capitalist with large oil Interests In various parts of the country Charles J. Forster, For-ster, "C. J."! That practically tied It np, but not quite. Not well euough for Martin, who was a good reporter. He went downstairs, stopping on the way to copy the want ad in the personal per-sonal column for the address of Rhoda McFarland. "I think I'm on a story," he told Snow, In charge of the advertising file. "If I'll promise to be discreet about It, will you find out for me who the X-203 Is who's been running this ad?" Snow thought he might do that and went off to look it up, coming back within five minutes with the name written on a slip of paper. X-203 was C. J. Forster. just as Martin had thought he would be. His address was the Worcester hotel. The next step would be to Interview Mr. Forster and try to persuade him to tell why he was advertising for Rhoda McFarland. This was a step he didn't want to take without Rhoda's j permission. So he made his way to the local room and went to work for I the newspaper. At half past five that night he arrived ar-rived at the address Rhoda had given him and paused for a survey of the premises from the outside. It was a remodeled dwelling with a converted basement which was now an antique shop, and a first floor, guessing from the sign painted on the glass, that housed a dressmaking establishment. It served some commercial purpose during the day, anyhow, but It was now dark. It must be a rather lonely place at night, he thought. Something had happened In the studio stu-dio ; at least something had happened to one of Its tenants since he'd seen them that morning. lie sensed It the moment mo-ment they let him In, and he grew Burer he was right as time went on. There was no lack of cordiality about their welcome. They were trying hard, he saw, to keep up the festive spirit of a party. They'd got up a really good supper creamed sweetbreads with fried bacon was the foundation of It. The studio was an attractive place to live In, once you'd got Inside the door, and It was plain the girls were proud of It. But tonight something some-thing had gone wrong. It might, of course, be nothing more than some small domestic quarrel that had flared up between them, but It didn't seem like that. All that Rhoda betrayed was a lack of the buoyancy he'd felt In her last night and again during their brief encounter en-counter this morning. He noted that when he and Babe were keeping things up between them and she went, so to speak, off duty, she seemed to be listless and depressed. As for Babe, she seemed to be bursting with something. some-thing. She was excited and she was trying to be mysterious. Martin found himself getting rather Imaginative, One minor episode while they were at supper made him wonder whether he was Imagining the whole thing: The bell rang from downstairs and the rather nondescript visitor whom Babe admitted announced himself as a name-taker for the new city directory. He wanted to get the names and occupations occu-pations of everybody who lived In the apartment. Babe recited them while j he wrote them down in a little leather bound notebook. He had to have Rhoda's name spelled for him. There was no real reason for doubting doubt-ing that he was what he pretended to be, yet Martin did doubt the man almost to the point of asking him to show his credentials. Also he thought the man turned a rather penetrating look on him. But he didn't want to do something officious every time, he was with Rhoda, nor to do anything tonight to-night that would add to her disquiet. It was probably nothing but imagination. imagi-nation. It wasn't, though, Imagination that something had happened to npset the girls. Babe eventually gave that away completely. It transpired that she had a fairly heavy date at nine o'clock and she seemed worried over the Idea of leaving Rhoda in order to keep It. She even offered, In what she meant for a confidential aside, to break this date so that Rhoda, if Martin Mar-tin went home early, should not be alone In the studio. Rhoda vetoed the proposal with a vigorous shake of her red head and the cloud over Martin's spirits lifted as he realized that she meant to let him stay on and have a visit alone with her after Babe had gone. The last thing Babe did before, In full panoply, she left the studio was to go to Rhoda and hug her. "Don't you worry any more about It, precious," pre-cious," she said. "Something nice Is going to happen soon that'll make you forget all about It. I've got a huncli about that that's strong enough to bet money on." Martin bit down the question he wanted to ask the moment Babe had really gone and said something nice about her Instead: what a good loyal sort she was. "Oh, she Is 1" Rhoda assented with a shaky laugh. "But she's about as easy to see Into as a goldfish bowl. She promised she wouldn't let you suspect that anything had happened here, and she's gone off now without the faintest Idea that she's given anything away." Before Martin could think of anything appropriate to say to that, she went on, "I'll tell you what it was : there was a burglar here this afternoon." "Did he get away with anything Important?" His choice of that word seemed to strike her but she didn't comment upon It then. "He got three hundred dollars of mine," she said. She went on In response to Martin's start of astonishment, as-tonishment, "I'm ashamed to admit I was so silly as to keep a lot of money like that in casli In my room. I'd had It a long time and I thought it was safely hidden." Martin asked if they had any idea when it had happened or how the man had got In. "It would be an awfully easy place to get into any time during the day," she admitted ruefully. "The dressmaking dress-making people like to leave the outer door unlocked so that their customers can come right up. Our door wasn't broken, but I suppose a burglar could have picked the lock easily enough." "Was the three hundred dollars all he took?" Martin asked. "Wasn't it enough?" she countered with a sober smile. He was afraid it was thin Ice, and he didn't want to get her angry with him again, but he ventured to answer, "No. That Is, I wasn't surprised at the burglary but I was surprised that he took money. Haven't you missed auything else? A document of some sort, or a letter or perhaps a photograph? photo-graph? I'm Just guessing, you see." She remarked, "I don't think you're exactly guessing. You're thinking about Mr. Lewis and the tilings you heard that woman telling him, last night. But I haven't any document or any letter I mean I haven't lost any and I don't own any photographs, photo-graphs, except of Babe and Doris and Isabel." "I was thinking about Lewis," he confessed. "I know a little more about him than I did last nlcht. I "It Would Be an Awfully Easy Place to Get Into." wanted to find out what he was up to, especially after .Babe told me he'd taken her home last night and asked her a lot of questions about you." He saw her face flame at that and he thought she held her breath while she waited for him to go on. "He Isn't what anybody would call a valuable valu-able citizen but, at that, he doesn't seem like the man to break In here and steal your three hundred dollars. He wrote some indiscreet letters to a chorus girl once, and she sued him for a hundred thousand. Probably she wouldn't have done It If he hadn't had a rich respectable uncle she hoped would buy her off. His name's Charles J. Forster. He lives at the Worcester Worces-ter hotel. Did you ever hear of him?" Apparently she attached no impor tance to the question for she answered It with a mere absent shake of the head. Her thoughts were somewhere else. "I want to tell you one other thing I did this morning, Rhoda," ho went on, and this brought her focused Inquiring In-quiring look back to hts face. "I got them to look up, in the want-ad file, the real name of the man who's been advertising for the address of Rhoda McFarland. It's the same man. Charles J. Forster. 'C. J.' do you see? The man they were talking about last night." The flash of Incipient pain he'd seen In her face changed to a look of mere perplexity before he finished speaking. "But I don't know who he Is!" she told him vehemently. Then, suddenly intent, she asked, "Did you do anything else?" "There was only one thing left to do, and that was to look him up and ask him why he was advertising for her. And and I didn't want to do that unless you said you wanted me to." "You might have asked him," she said. "After what I told you last night you might have argued that it was no nffair of mine what yon found out about her. But I'm glad you didn't. Please don't do It, Martin. Let me tell you a little, and then don't try to find out anything more. "I'm Rhoda White now but I used to be Rhoda McFarland. The only person who'd try to find me would be my uncle, William Royce. Mr. Forster must be working for him. He frightened fright-ened me so when I was a little girl that I've never got over being afraid of him. He was cruel to my father and wanted to take me away from him then. We ran away so that he couldn't. "I was only sixteen when my father died and I was afraid that if Uncle William heard about it and knew where I was, he'd get me, then. There wasn't any one else, you see. So I changed my name and pretended I came to Chicago from Denver, and got a Job on the News. "And, Martin. I've loved It. I've loved It all. The whole two years. I've been happy. And I don't want anything changed. You won't do anything any-thing to change things, will you?" She was looking rather blurred and he blinked In order to see her better. "No, I won't do anything you don't want me to," he Baid. Then he did a little rudimentary arithmetic. "If that was two years ago you're only eighteen now." "Do you mind?" she asked him seriously. seri-ously. "No," he said, "I don't mind at all." After a while she said, "You must have worked awfully hard today, to have found out all that about Max Lewis and the chorus girl. How did you do it?" "It was all In the 'morgue,' " he told her. "It took about ten minutes." She'd been working for the paper two years and she didn't know what the "morgue" was. Martin, with a true reporter's pride In the whole news-gathering side of the organization, organiza-tion, told her all about It. He was startled when a sudden movement of hers, a sort of shudder, roused him to look around Into her face. "What's the matter?" he gasped. "I think It's horrible," she said shakily. "It means that there's no forgiveness at all. Anything that anyone has ever done or that people think he has done Is kept there, waiting wait-ing to be got out and told all over again. Anyone who wants to go and open a drawer can find it. And they call It the 'morgue.' Martin, I didn't know anything could be as cruel as that!" "But you've got It all wrong," he protested. "A newspaper doesn't keep a 'morgue' for the purpose of Intimidating In-timidating people wfth their pasts. Nine times In ten the file's used for writing handsome obituary articles. When a man dies they want to be able to tell how Important he's been." But nothing he could say on the subject seemed to change her feeling about it. "Let's try to forget about It," she said at last. On his agreeing to that and he'd have agreed to almost anything Just then she pushed her advantage a little further. "Let's forget about everything that's mysterious and depressing, de-pressing, will you? Will you agree that the burglar was just a plain burglar bur-glar who was perfectly satisfied with my three hundred dollars, and that Mr. Forster and Mr. Lewis were only trying to find me to settle a bet, or for some silly reason like that? And then, Martin, will you take me somewhere some-where for the rest of this evening where we can dance?" "You bet I will," he said. 'Til agree to the whole program for the rest of the evening If you'll let me say just one thing first" She considered this request a little dubiously, but finally said, "All right; Just one. though." "If you're really eighteen years old . . ." "I really am," she interrupted, " almost. al-most. My birthday's In two weeks; October thirty-first; Halloween, It is." "Hurrah!" he said. "We'll have a party 1 Well then, on Halloween you'll come of age and you'll have no more reason to be afraid of your uncle than I have. He'll have no more authority over you than he'll have over the king of England. And even In the meantime I don't see that he could do very much. That's all. Now let's go to the Alhambra. And heaven help Leander Higglns, or anyone else who tries to cut in on us tonight!" Downstairs in the tiny vestibule she noticed that there were some letters In their mail-box. The postman had come, she remembered, while they were so excited about the burglar that they both forgot to go down and get the mail. She didn't want to be 4i-5r bothered with it now, though. All she wanted to do was dance. She forgot the letters again when she came home from the Alhambra, but Martin remembered them and went downstairs with the key to bring them up. When he came back he'd merely said, after looking nt her a minute, "tlood night, Rhoda," and gone away, although the idea of a kins had hung palpubly between them for an Instant. She wouldn't have minded mind-ed his kissing her good night, but she j got a real thrill out of the fact that he didn't, although he evidently wanted want-ed to. She realized that when he did kiss her he'd mean more by It, and there was a touch of real Scotch thrift about Rhoda that appreciated the economy. It wa3 the same quality In her that made her put off letting herself drift away Into a pleasant day-dream over the hours Just passed until she should have finished her evening tasks and got Into bed. Otherwise she wouldn't have looked at the letters at all. One of them was addressed, in an angular feminine hand she didn't know, to her, "Miss Rhoda White." It was with a rather Indifferent feeling feel-ing of perplexity that she sliced open the envelope. But with her first Incredulous In-credulous stare nt what was written on the stiff folded sheets of note-paper note-paper It contained, she felt a frightened fright-ened wish that Martin hadn't gone home, for the thing began: "Dear Miss McFarland." She was trembling so that she went over and sat down on the couch before be-fore she read any further. She felt as if things were closing in on her somehow; the way a bird feels, perhaps, per-haps, when the beaters are driving tt toward the wall behind which a man Is waiting with a gun. "I hope I haven't frightened you, beginning like that," she said, "but you do not know me you may never have even heard of me and I wanted to make sure that you would read this letter, because It Is Important to me whether it Is to you or not. "I am going to ask you a great favor. fa-vor. It has got nothing to do with money. I have got money enough, thank heavens! to put this through even if it costs a whole lot But I am simply desperate for something I am sure you can help me find. It was a paper that I asked your father to take care of for me when I was working work-ing for him in hts laboratory. "It makes too long a story to ten this way and I want you should have, my whole confidence in this matter. Will you come to lunch with me to. morrow In the Tip-Top inn? I will be there from twelve o'clock on, at the table to the right of the door In the Dutch room. I will be wearing a black hat and a dark blue dress. "Yours most slacerely, "CLAIRE CLEVELAND. "P. S. I want to say this In addition. I think it will be as much for your advantage as mine if you come. The man who treated me so shamefully is the same man who played a meSn and treacherous trick on your father and practically ruined his life in order to make himself rich ; and I think if you and I work together we can force him to make things right for you as well as for me at least as xar as money can make anything right. Let me warn you of one more thing, and I hope It is not too late. Do not answer an-swer any communication of any sort from any stranger until you and I have had our talk. 'I have reason. to believe he now has designs on you, too. You may not have found out yet what some men can be like, but believe me (not slang) I know I "Yours, CLAIRE." (TO BE CONTINUED.) ItltZL |