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Show By BE 11 iiilES tUILlinfilS C Ben Ames Williams. .. I SYNOPSIS Barbara Sentry, seeking to sober up her escort, Johnnie Boyd, on the way home from a party, slaps him, and attracts at-tracts the attention of a policeman, whom the boy knocks down. As he arrests him, Professor Brace of Harvard comes to the rescue and drives Barbara home. On the way they see Barbara's father driving from the direction of his office at 12:45, but when he gets home he tells his wife it is 11:15 and that he's been playing bridge at the club. Next day Sentry reports his office has been robbed and a Miss Wines, former temporary tem-porary employee, killed. The evening papers luridly confirm the story, and Sentry takes it hard. Mary, elder daughter, daugh-ter, in love with Neil Ray, young interne at the hospital where she works, goes off to dinner at Gus Loran's, Sentry's partner, with Mrs. Loran's brother, Jimmy Jim-my Endle. Mr. and Mrs. Sentry call on old Mrs. Sentry, and Barbara, alone, receives Dan Fisher, reporter, who advises ad-vises her not to talk. Phil Sentry, son , at Yale, is disturbed at the possible implications im-plications and suspicion of Miss Wines' absence from her rooms for three days during August. He goes home to help. Sentry Is arrested and booked for murder. mur-der. Dan Fisher explains the evidence against him that the robbery was a fake, the safe opened by one who knew the combination, changed since Miss Wines' employment there that a back door key, a duplicate of Sentry's, was found in the girl's purse, and that Sentry, Sen-try, too, had been away those three days in August. Brace calls, and backs up Barbara In her denial that Sentry could have done it, because of the discrepancy of time between the slaying and their seeing Sentry on the road. Phil, show- . ing the police over the house, finds his strong box open and his gun, which only his father knew of, gone. Mean-while, Mean-while, the police find the stolen money burned in the furnace. Mrs. Sentry sees her husband, who swears his innocence, and tells her he had known of the robbery rob-bery and murder the night before, but failed to call the police, and came home at 12:30. Mary quarrels with Neil Ray, and runs away with Jimmy Endle to the Caribbean. Linda Dane, friend of Barbara Bar-bara and Phil, tries to comfort Phil. CHAPTER VI Continued 14 A curious crowd stared at them as they came out, and Phil said, as they drove away, "You can wear a veil next time we come, Mother." "I shall not wear a veil," she answered, an-swered, fighting to forget Arthur, to forget how gray and lifeless the flesh on his cheeks had seemed, and how dull his eyes were. She must forget, so that she could be brave enough to come to him again. At home, Barbara was waiting with questions. They told her he was fine; was cheerful, confident, and unafraid. They brought her back to comfort for a while. Dean Hare, a day or two later, brought Falkran to see Mrs. Sentry Sen-try and Phil. Phil was not at first favorably impressed. The lawyer was a big man, bald save for a fringe of red hair above his ears, with the wide, loose mouth of the natural orator; and Phil thought he studied the rugs and the furniture with a shrewd appraising eye, and he saw his mother visibly conquer her distaste for the man. She asked, after introductions were done. "Are you familiar with my husband's case, Mr. Falkran?" "I see the newspapers have convicted con-victed him?" Her eyes hardened. "You think him guilty?" Falkran, suddenly, smiled; and Phil at that smile felt a quick liking and trust for him. The lawyer said. "Mrs. Sentry, no man was ever electrocuted on a newspaper verdict." ver-dict." v( Her eyes closed at that word, then . opened again as he went on. "If I could have my choice," he said, "I should choose to defend men who have already been convicted in the newspapers. When everyone is convinced con-vinced a man is guilty, the smallest grain of evidence in his favor has a tremendous effect In provoking doubt of his guilt." He added, "And from the practical point of view, such a situation makes it easier to disqualify jurors, easier to get the jury we want." Mrs. Sentry had not surrendered her question. "You think him guilty?" she insisted. "No man is guilty till a court has found him so, niter a trial by due process, and till all appeals have failed." "I asked whether you think my husband guilty?" He smiled again. His smile had won many a jury. He said reasonably: reason-ably: "Mrs. Sentry, I haven't even talked with him. I don't know his side of the case at all. I only know the published facts. Mr. Hare has told me nothing. The evidence is damaging, diilicult; but there are a thousand explanations that might meet the situation as it appears." Phil saw that his mother too was being won to liking. She put her question in another way. "If you thought him guilty, would you de- fend him?" Falkran smiled again. "Even a guilty man is entitled to his day in court, to a fair trial, to all the protection afforded by the law." Then he answered her directly: "Yes, Mrs. Sentry. Even if I knew Mr. Sentry guilty, I would defend him with all my powers." Mrs. Sentry nodded, surrendered her point- "You said." she suggested, suggest-ed, "that any one of a thousand explanations ex-planations might cover all the evidence." evi-dence." "An infinite number, yes." "Have you anything in mind?" "Mr. Sentry may suggest something." some-thing." She started to speak, to tell him that Arthur had found the girl dead; then remembered Phil was here and caught herself. Falkran went on: "You see, Mrs. Sentry, until I talk to your husband, hus-band, remind him of small circumstances circum-stances he has himself forgotten, I can make no plan." They talked a further while; and Mrs. Sentry said at last that she would let him know her decision next day. She used the interval to consult Arthur's mother. Old Mrs. Sentry said: "Falkran? Oh, yes. I've heard of him." Mrs. Sentry explained: "I should have preferred one of our friends, of course. I hoped for a certain dignityl But Mr. Hare says we must have a good criminal lawyer, and he recommended Mr. Falkran." The old woman said harshly: "Dignity! Ellen, sometimes you " Then she caught herself, spoke almost al-most In apology. "Of course you'd prefer some fine name; but Falk-ran's Falk-ran's a clever man. Arthur will need a good lawyer. Better take him." So it was decided; but Mrs. Sentry Sen-try thought, driving home: Even Arthur's mother knows. The whole world knows, I expect. All my friends know; all of them are feeling feel-ing sorry for me. Oh, hateful! And she thought again, desperately: desperate-ly: Perhaps Mr.'Falkran can persuade per-suade some woman to say she was Arthur's mistress, that he went to her that night. Pay her to say it, perhaps. No price would be too high, to save him! And she reflected that by thinking this, she was admitting to herself her actual opinion of Mr. Falkran; and she felt a contamination of the spirit. Felt herself unclean. To be pitied by her friends, to seek the help of scoundrels . . . Nevertheless, for all their sakes, if Arthur w; to be saved, Mr. Falkran Falk-ran it must be. The weeks that elapsed before Mr. Sentry could be brought to trial were long, but they were curiously empty; and Mrs. Sentry, used to activity, came in the end to accept this emptiness, to understand that their world would hereafter be thus constricted, whatever the outcome of the trial. It was not so much that her friends dropped away. Some did so; yet others, upon whom she had not counted, surprised her by their understanding loyalty. But the larger world in which she had been active, all the organized benevolence in which she had taken tak-en a vigorous part, now though with polite expressions of regret nevertheless closed its doors against her. The resignations which she felt it her proud duty to offer were accepted. She hid as she could her fierce resentful pain. She missed Mary dreadfully; clung passionately to Barbara and Phil. Linda came often to the house, and Mrs. Sentry thought: Perhaps Linda will marry Phil, even after this. I had hoped Ann Waring . . . The Warings are so fine. But Linda is nice. He might do worse. And she thought: Barbara will marry, too. She's a child. After this is over, she will forget, as children do I must be sure she marries welL The right marriage means so much, especially for a girl. Once I get Barbara married, I can rest, can surrender. For me there can never be a new beginning. I am too old, old, old. And I can never face people peo-ple again without knowing their thoughts, imagining their whispers whis-pers . . . She would have nursed her hurts . in solitude; but certain friands per-. per-. sisted in their friendliness. Mrs. Dane came often, quietly loyal, never nev-er insistent; and when Mrs. Sentry suggested, in the tone of one doing a conscious duty, that Linda might . better stay away, Mrs. Dane said simply: "She'i very fond of Barbara and Phil. And so are we. We're glad to have her come to you." And Mrs. Urban. Mrs. Sentry had always thought of Mrs. Urban as a mouse of a woman, with no mind of her own; yet she found in her now strength and loyal understanding. Of the others, Mrs. Furness invited Mrs. Sentry to luncheon, but she declined. I will not be made a show of, she promised herself; and Mrs. Harry IWirr's persistent advances ad-vances likewise she put aside. There was one loss which hurt her keenly. She and Mrs. Waring had been closest friends; and the families fami-lies were intimate. The two mothers moth-ers had even discussed the possibility possibili-ty that Phil might marry Ann Waring. War-ing. But a week after Mr. Sentry was indicted, Mrs. Waring took Ann away to Europe to school there. The decision was sudden; Mrs. Sentry knew it had not been planned in advance. ad-vance. And Mrs. Waring left without with-out even a note to say good-by. Mrs. Sentry never spoke of this hurt to anyone. In the same way she ceased to resent the curious groups of people who drove past the "I See the Newspapers Have Convicted Him?" house in cars, and even alighted to pluck flowers or break down branches off the shrubbery for souvenirs. sou-venirs. Only when one night someone some-one dug up a young tree in the front yard and took it away did she accept ac-cept District Attorney Flood's suggestion sug-gestion that a policeman stand guard in front of the house night and day. For all these things, Mrs. Sentry found strength and courage; but one thing she could not face. She could not read the newspapers, or look at them. Since the first few days, reporters re-porters had been kind. Carl Bettle had been of service in that respect. He had put through with the publishers pub-lishers of the other papers an agreement agree-ment not to print photographs of Mrs. Sentry or Phil or Barbara, and to use their names as little as possible in news stories. When Mrs. Sentry thanked him, he said: "I don't deserve all the credit. One of our reporters, a young man named Fisher, suggested it." Barbara Bar-bara was in the room and he looked at her, smiling a little, and explained: ex-plained: "He had met you, he said. I think he had you particularly in mind." Barbara nodded. "Yes, I like him," she agreed. "We've seen each other since, once or twice." Mrs. Sentry protested, "Seen him, Barbara? Where?" "In town," Barbara confessed. "He has tea with grandmother and me, sometimes. It's perfectly prop- I er, mother. Grandmother likes him." "But a reporter, Barbara!" Carl Bettle chuckled. "Whoa, there, Mrs. Sentry!" he protested. "Reporters aren't so bad, nowadays. nowa-days. You're prejudiced!" "I'm prejudiced against any young man who meets my daughter secretly." Barbara cried: "Oh, now, mother, moth-er, that's silly! It's not secretly, with grandmother there; but even if it was " Mrs. Sentry said, yielding: "Of course, dear. I'm afraid it really Is prejudice. Ask him to have tea here too, Barbara, if you wish." "I'm at grandmother's now more than I'm at home," Barbara reminded re-minded her; and this was in fact true. Old Mrs. Sentry had since her son's arrest surrendered to physical immobility. Her mind was as keen, her tongue as sharp as ever; but she stayed in her room at the hotel where she lived, had her meals served there, even submitted submit-ted to an indignity she had long declined, de-clined, and hired a companion who was also nurse and masseuse. And Phil had used the old woman's wom-an's helplessness to dissuade Barbara Bar-bara from her desire to see her father. fa-ther. "You and I have to make it as easy as we can for mother, Barb," he pointed out. "And mother moth-er can't be with father and with grandmother too, and she can't go to the jail without me, so grandmother's grand-mother's your job! Don't you see?" So Barbara yielded Phil thought she yielded very easily and spent much time with her grandmother; and old Mrs. Sentry by degrees forgot for-got to use toward her that tone of sharp disapproval which had so long been her habit toward both girls. There was during these weeks something some-thing deeply and wistfully appealing appeal-ing about Barbara. She was thin; her eyes seemed larger; her color had faded; she looked at people eagerly, anxiously, as though hoping hop-ing someone would say what no one ever did say. And Grandmother Grandmoth-er Sentry was very gentle toward her, warned Mrs. Sentry once: "That child is ready to crack, Ellen. Look out for her." Mrs. Sentry nodded. "I do all I can!" Grandmother Sentry sought in her own ways to serve; she welcomed Barbara, and welcomed Professor Brace, or Dan Fisher, when one or the other came with Barbara to be with her. The old woman did not like Professor Pro-fessor Brace, and she told Barbara so. "He's a Middle-Westerner, of course, but he's a rank Puritan at heart, Barbara. Believes in the mortification mor-tification of the flesh or something of the kind. Believes in duty. The wrong kind. If he were a Spartan he'd nurse a gnawing fox to his bosom. Any man with sense knows that you ought to dodge suffering when you can. He's the 'grin and bear it' type." "He's been sort of nice," Barbara Bar-bara argued. "Standing by." "I know. 'The boy stood on the burning deck!' Anyone but a fool would dive overboard!" " 'Whence all but him had fled,' " Barbara reminded her. "But there are a lot of us still on the burning deck, grandmother. And he doesn't have to stay. He's just doing it to be friendly." "Like him, do you, child?" "It's sort of nice to have friends " The old woman saw in the girl's eyes a secret terror, a mounting fear she had seen there before; and she was silenced. Whenever they spoke of Mr. Sentry, and Barbara cried, "He didn't do it, grandmother!" grandmoth-er!" old Mrs. Sentry always assented, assent-ed, always spoke quick reassurances. reas-surances. Barbara was grown so pitifully frail . . . (TO BE COXTIWED) |