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Show The WEDDING MARCH MURDER by MONTE BARRETT Copyright. 1933, by the Bobbs-Merrlll Oo. W.NU Service, SYNOPSIS "Waiting in the minister's study, Jim Frankiin, about to be married to Doris Carniody, is stabbed to death. Peter Cardigan, novelist, and amateur detective detec-tive of some note, with Sergeant Kil-day, Kil-day, begin the official investigation. Franklin, while waiting, had visitors, among them his mistress, "Choo Choo" Train; his intended wife's father, Ambrose Am-brose Carmody ; her brother, Rylie: Daniel Bullis, politician, and a woman in a blue frock, who had quarreled openly with Franklin. Rylie Carmody admits trying to stop the wedding, after aft-er being informed by Webster Spears that Franklin was still friendly with Choo Choo, despite his approaching marriage. Kilday secures the dead man's keys. Callis Shipley, one of the bridesmaids, is contradictory in her answers to questions, but the investigators investi-gators learn, nothing of importance. An interview with Bullis is also fruitless. fruit-less. Webster Spears admits informing Rylie Carmody of Franklin's relations with Choo Choo, for Doris Carmody's sake, in the hope of preventing the wedding. Fletcher, Franklin's man-eervant, man-eervant, is reticent. An interview with Milo Dunbar, Franklin's law partner, reveals nothing of importance. CHAPTER IV Continued 10 "Jim wasn't much of a hand to keep such things," said Dunbar. "But we'll see." It turned out that the attorney was right. Nowhere In his office were they able to find papers of a personal na-'ture na-'ture that even hinted at helpfulness. His business correspondence was all filed, with scrupulous neatness, in cabinets cab-inets in the anteroom adjoining his office. The private office contained only a desk, several chairs, a telephone tele-phone stand and an elaborately carved cellaret, convenient to the desk. A careful search of the desk yielded nothing. Peter turned his attention to the cellaret. It was not locked, but beyond an elaborate array of liquors and necessary tumblers, revealing Franklin's tastes in intoxicants, It was devoid of clues. It looked like a stalemate. "Where else could he file papers of a personal nature here?" the sergeant asked vexedly. "I'm afraid we've looked about everywhere." every-where." Dunbar glanced searchingly about the room. "How about the safe?" suggested the novelist. "Could it be there?" "We only file papers of rather unusual un-usual importance In the safe," Dunbar demurred. "I don't think it likely that we'd find what you are looking for, there." "But didn't he have a private compartment, com-partment, anywhere in the safe?" Peter was reluctant to admit defeat. "Yes," said the lawyer. "We each had a compartment in the safe for our own use. He had a key for his, and I had one for mine. Walt and I'll show you." Dunbar searched through the middle drawer of his partner's desk. "I thought I saw Jim's keys here," he began be-gan doubtfully. Then he found it. "Ah ! This looks like it." Kilday and Cardigan followed him luto the corridor, which separated the partners' offices, to a large wall safe. The attorney twirled the combination knob, and presently the heavy door swung back slowly. He Indicated a smaller door to the novelist. "That's Jim's compartment. Here, you open it." He pressed the key into Kilday's hand. The sergeant, was elated. For In a subsection of the compartment, he found evidence that Franklin had used this as his personal file. There were letters there, signed "Choo Choo" In a round immature scrawl. But there was no hint here of any other woman, nothing that would help in the Identification Identi-fication of Franklin's mysterious visitor vis-itor in the study that afternoon. Both Teter and the detective were disappointed. disap-pointed. "I'm sorry," declared Dunbar. "I hoped that I might be of some help." "It isn't your fault you weren't," declared the sergeant ruefully. "Franklin "Frank-lin was Just too methodical. We found the right place, but he had destroyed de-stroyed the evidence, before we got here." Tlioy were successful, however, in Identifying three more of the keys here. With the two Identified by Fletcher, this made five one to the apartment building one for the npart-i npart-i ment Itself a third to the outer office tf Dunbar and Franklin a fourth to the slain man's private office. One of the smaller keys was found to fit his desk, which had, however, been unlocked. un-locked. For a moment, Kilday thought he had identified the other small key. It was very similar to tha one, found In the desk, which opened Franklin's private compartment in the safe. It seemed to fit, when inserted in the lock, but It failed to turn the bolt "That would have been too much luck, I guess," the detective grumbled, pocketing the keys. Only two of the seven now remained to be Identified, however, one large, like a door key, In addition to the one he had just failed to Identify. Peter suggested a call on Choo Choo Train after they left Dunbar; but It was late, and a telephone call to her apartment elicited no response. "That'll have to wait till morning. I guess," Kilday complained. "There are lots of times on this job when I wish t was twins, so I could get around faster. If you aren't tired, though, drop ly the ollice. Something new may have turned up. And." he added. 'I'm going to nave those license olates checked tonight, to find out who was calling on Webster Spears." On their way, they reviewed the evidence evi-dence as It had developed thus far. Of the- eight people who had seen Jim Franklin at the church, at or near the time of his death, most could be proved to have had a motive for the crime; Ambrose Carmody to prevent his marriage to his daughter, after discovering dis-covering Franklin's relationship with Choo Choo Train ; Rylie Carmody for the same reason; Choo Choo Train because be-cause of jealousy; Daniel Bullis because be-cause of the investigation Franklin had been conducting into the political scandal and which was proving menacing menac-ing to him. The motive for the woman wom-an in blue seemed to have been Jealousy, Jeal-ousy, but all efforts to identify her so far had met with failure. There seemed to be no motive, as far as Nick Royce was concerned, but the investigation had brought out the fact that Royce was aware of the situation existing between Bullis and Franklin. Fletcher had revealed that. Nor was it logical to believe that Doctor Abernathy could have had a motive for the murder. mur-der. At most, he might have refused to identify Callis Shipley as the woman wom-an in the blue dress. Neither of the men was able to identify this girl's place in the drama which had resulted in Franklin's murder. Admittedly, she had been in the sacristy once. Had she been there twice? She had worn blue. Was she the woman in blue whom the rector had seen? She had apparently known of the murder at a time when it seemed impossible to have possessed this information with- "I'm Just the Woman in the Case." out having had some guilty knowledge of the crime. She had admitted lying to them, when they first questioned her. In view of this admission, how much of her later testimony could they believe? In addition, they had questioned Fletcher, who seemed reluctant to talk concerning his master's affairs; Milo Dunbar, the slain man's partner, and Webster Spears. The latter, also, might be shown to have had a motive for the crime if he still lovoj Doris Carmody. Certainly he had attempted to halt the wedding. Of course, he denied de-nied having been the author of the anonymous telephone call informing Ambrose Carmody concerning Choo Choo Train. Yet neither of the men was sure he had told the truth. He denied, too, the story told by Callis Shipley concerning his remark that Rylie would have stopped the wedding, had he been present. How to weigh his evidence remained a puzzle. "The trouble," complained Kilday, "is too much evidence. Usually we're groping around In the dark for It This time we've got too much." At headquarters, there was one important im-portant bit of evidence. Examination of the revolver found in the rectory garden had revealed a thumb-print on the barrel. "Rood," grunted the sergeant. "Now look up these license numbers right away. I think perhaps the owners of these cars had something to do with It." It did not take long. An assistant returned with the information in a very few minutes. One car was registered under Webster Web-ster Spears' name. The other belonged be-longed to Callis Shipley. CHAPTER V Choo Choo Train With the exception of the mysterious mysteri-ous woman in blue, whom they had been unable to Identify, Cardigan and Kilday had questioned every one known to be connected with Jim Franklin's murder, except Choo Choo Train. Her apartment was their destination the following morning. The actress was having breakfast In bed and. upon learning their errand, er-rand, had the maid usher them In without formality. Before her, on the coverlet, was a confusion of newspapers. She brushed them to the floor, and leaned forward, her chin cupped In a slender hand. "I was reading about Jim." she said. "Tell me what happened." Kilday sat uncomfortably on the edge of his chair. "I guess you know as much as I do. If you've read all those papers." The actress shrugged Impatiently. "If I believed them," her tone was contemptuous, con-temptuous, "I'd believe he wag sun dered by a dozen people, Including myself. I see I'm supposed to be the woman in the case." "You've been reading Topics," declared de-clared Kilday. "Half a million other people have, too." Choo Choo clenched the coverlet cover-let "My press agent thinks it's a great stunt. He woke me up this morning, to gloat over the front-page publicity. He'd been reading Topics." "And what do you think?" Peter inquired gravely. The woman shrugged. "1 guess I'm not supposed to think," she said slowly, with no attempt to disguise her bitterness. "Me, I'm Just a showgirl. show-girl. A dead lover isn't supposed to mean a tiling in the world to me but front-page publicity and more customers cus-tomers at the box office. "I'm just the woman in the case," she repeated, with an ache In her I voice. Both men were silent. Kilday, sitting sit-ting very erect, was looking out the window, plainly reluctant to gaze upon the woman's pain. Peter was uncomfortably aware that he had not expected anything like this. The Choo Choo Train he had pictured as Jim Franklin's mistress the woman who had quarreled with her lover in Doctor Abernathy's study had been very different in his Imagination. The clink of china, as the maid brought additional cups and another pot of coffee, was a welcome Interruption. Inter-ruption. Peter, who had already breakfasted, accepted the cup gratefully. grate-fully. "Good girl, Marie," their hostess praised the maid. "You made that entrance just In time. I was about to emote." She held out her cup for more coffee with a hand that did not tremble. "And now," she continued, after the maid had left, "let's have it. What did you want to see me about, Sergeant Kilday?" It was Peter who took up the questioning. ques-tioning. "You went to the church to see Franklin yesterday," he said gravely. "Why? We need to know that, first." Choo Choo shrugged. "I wanted to see the wedding," she replied simply. "If you were a woman, you might understand. un-derstand. I'd never been to a wedding wed-ding like that. And then, yon see, Jim Franklin was my man. That made a big difference, too. "Oh, of course," she hurried on to say, "I could have stood out in front with the crowd. But I wanted to see the whole thing wanted a grandstand grand-stand seat After all, that wasn't such a lot to ask." "I see." Peter thought he did see. "And Franklin didn't want you to be there. Was that it?" The woman nodded her head. "Then how did you happen to go? You must have discussed this with Franklin, before the wedding, didn't you?" "Yes, we had talked about it, of course. As a matter of fact, we had a couple of pretty stormy scenes over it. Jim couldn't understand why I should want to go, unless It was just to humiliate him. There were a lot of things he couldn't understand about me, I guess." "But just the same you went, yesterday." yes-terday." "Yes, I went. But he asked me to, or at least, I thought he did. Yesterday Yester-day afternoon, Fletcher that's Jim's man-servant phoned to say that Jim had changed his mind, and I went." "But when you arrived," Peter continued, con-tinued, remembering the story that Nick Royce had told, "Franklin was angry. Evidently he was not expecting expect-ing you. Is that correct?" The actress nodded reluctantly. "I went to the side entrance, Just like Fletcher told me to. Jim was standing stand-ing just Inside. Nick Royce was there, too. " 'What are you doing here, Choo Choo?' Jim said. T thought I told you to stay away from here.' " 'Yes, but I got your message,' I told him. " 'What message?' Jim demanded. It was easy to see how angry he was. "And then of course I told him about Fletcher's telephone message, and he was angrier than ever. He told me I was lying. After that, I lost my temper, too, I guess. We were talking pretty loud, both of us, because Nick stopped us. He said he was afraid they could hear us inside the church. 'What do you want to do, stop the wedding?' Nick said. " 'That's exactly what she'd like to do,' Jim said. But he knew better than that. I wasn't trying to stop the wedding." "But after that you went Into the study, didn't you?" Peter made no attempt to disguise his interest. "We went into the room behind the one we were In," replied the actress guardedly. "I'm not sure whether It was the study or not." "What happened then?" "Nothing. Jim swore that he hadn't told Fletcher to telephone me. He said somebody was just trying to play him a dirty trick. By that time, I guess I had cooled off a little, too, because I finally promised to come on home, and I left That's the last I saw of Jim." "now did you leave? The way you came?" "No, I went out a door at the back." "Why?" This time It was Kilday who asked. "Because Jim asked me to. He was afraid I might be seen If I left by way of the side door." The detective pulled the key-ring from his pocket, bouncing It In his palm, where the actress might see It "These were Franklin's," he said. I "Does one of them fit this apart- J ment?" I (TO BE OONTINUED.) |