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Show BKATHLEEN NORRIS ViL NORMS W.N.U.REIEASI" Stt III . "WKBSS THE STORY SO FAR: An orphan, Charlotte (Cherry) Rawllngi knows almost al-most nothing of her early history when, acceding to the wishes of her guardians, Judge Judson Marshbanks and Emma Haskell, she becomes the secretary of Mrs. Porteous Porter, wealthy San Franciscan. Fran-ciscan. . Busy as she Is, Cherry sees the judge from time to time and meets the members of his household; his dictatorial dic-tatorial old mother; Amy Marshbanks,' debutante daughter of his dead brother t Fred; and Fran, his gay young second wife. Shortly afterward Cherry learns (Emma tells her) that her mother (never (nev-er married) had been Emma's sister, Charlotte; that her father had been the judge's brother Fred Amy's father; and that shortly after Cherry and Amy were born Cherry's mother bad switched the two babies. Cherry is really Amy Marshbanks. Marsh-banks. The Judge confirms the story but to protect Amy his mother burns certain papers that would have proved it true. Meanwhile Cherry has become engaged to Kelly Coates, a young artist (who for a time had been infatuated "With Fran Marshbanks); and Amy Is determined to marry Count Mario (Gogo) Constantino when she Is twenty-one in a few days. When Kelly calls to see Cherry after returning re-turning from Honolulu where be had painted a portrait. Cherry is jealous and hurt because she had inferred from a telephone conversation of Fran's she overheard that Fran had been to lunch at his Sausalito studio. Cherry is happy when he says he hasn't seen Fran in weeks. Old Mrs. Marshbanks tells Cherry Cher-ry she resents her presence in the house and tells Amy that Cherry is a false friend. Amy pretends to think her grandmother grand-mother Is in her dotage, but talks privately pri-vately to the judge in his library. After she leaves the judge is killed with a bullet bul-let through his heart, and everybody in the house Is under suspicion. Now continue with the story. "Well, so we have a countess in the family," Mrs. Marshbanks said grimly. "I imagine so. I believe she said that there was a curse on the family." fam-ily." 'I believe there is!" Fran said gloomily, staring into space. "They'll never find out who murdered mur-dered Jud. But," she added, "you can be pretty sure that the police are keeping' an eye on that precious pre-cious Gogo." "Gogo had a motive," Cherry said. "Not only was the judge violently vio-lently opposed to Amy's marrying him, but what he was discussing that very night with her and with his mother and with me was you knew something about that, Fran?" "I couldn't be in this house without with-out knowing something about it. It was some claim that your aunt made something she said about Fred Marshbanks' will? Of course, that was all long before I came into the family, but Jud did tell me did tell me about his brother Fred, and that yOu don't triiiid my mentioning men-tioning it?" "That Fred Marshbanks was my father? Oh, no. I seem to have known that for a long, long time. But there was more to it than that. There was a will, drawn up by Judge Thomas Comstock. Nobody knew what was in that. But Mrs. Marshbanks burned it. She wouldn't risk Amy's being hurt or any of her money taken away." "So," Fran said musingly, "Amy and Gogo had their motives for getting get-ting rid of Jud, and certainly old Mrs. Marshbanks had. If you believe be-lieve what some old dodo of an English Eng-lish judge once said, I had. He said that between married couples there might always be motive. I don't-see that you had." There was a pause, then Fran said suddenly, "Kelly might have had a motive." "Kelly!" Cherry echoed, her voice suddenly failing. "Well, if you're searching for motives. mo-tives. And that wasn't quite what I meant anyway," Fran said. "What I meant was that Kelly didn't have an alibi." "But, Fran you certainly don't think you certainly can't think that Kelly ..." "No, I don't," Fran interrupted promptly. "The police didn't hold him; just took his statement and let it go at that. You can tell by the way he acts that Kelly doesn't know anything about it. And at the same CHAPTER XV They had decided not to tell anyone any-one the news immediately. Amy and her Gogo had flown to Reno that morning, had been married in the afternoon, and it was the Countess Count-ess Georgio Francisco Marion Alexandra Alex-andra Stanislaus Constantino who seated herself upon Cherry's bed and poured forth the thrilling tale of her day's adventures. "There was a balance at the bank, you know," Amy confided, "and it was so cute! when, we went there yesterday I said, 'Of course half of that's yours.' 'How do you mean, you crazy, generous baby?' he said. T mean that half of everything I have is yours, Gogo,' I told him. It was money that had been piling pil-ing up since my grandfather died, and some of the Porter money. Most of it, of course, they invested as it came in, and half of that'll be his, too. But this was just a few thousands," thou-sands," Amy went on carelessly, "eleven thousand and some hundreds, hun-dreds, and so he got his half and really I think he was touched, I mean, he didn't say much, but when we were back in the car he told me it was because he couldn't say much." "Oh, Amy, I hope it all goes right! When when are you going to tell people?" Cherry asked. "I'm going to tell my grandmother grandmoth-er tonight." " "She'll have ten thousand fits." . "It will only be one more thing to fuss about," Amy said indifferently. indiffer-ently. "I am going off with Gogo tonight. to-night. I am not sure where. But anyway, he's calling for me at half past seven, and I have to see Fran and have a scene before that." So confident, so pretty, so insolent! inso-lent! Amy had a four day's seniority seni-ority over Cherry, but Cherry felt the older by that many years. "Did they find any will of your father's?" she asked almost involuntarily, invol-untarily, out of thought. For Amy had recently had long sessions with lawyers. Amy shrugged indifferently. "No. No will." "But, of course, there was my grandfather's will," she said. "What my father left wasn't so much, it'll only bring me in oh, maybe three or four thousand a year. So that his aligned upon hangers was in great agitation. . Cherry went in and shut the window, win-dow, and coming back, picked up the negligee that had fallen and restored re-stored it to its hanger. She hated the sight of it; that was what Fran had worn on the night of the tragedy; trag-edy; she had had on this negligee as she ran downstairs ahead of them all. Cherry stopped short, stood with a suddenly arrested breath, with icy fear touching her spine. The negligee negli-gee was slightly rumpled in one of its folds. It had been squeezed together, to-gether, loosened again. It had wiped something oily and dark, something metallic, something thick and liquid that was stained with black. A trifling discoloration, the size of a woman's finger possibly. Not noticeable at all, unless one happened hap-pened to look straight at it as Cherry Cher-ry was looking now. A crumpled tiny circle, as if the cloth had been forced into a small tube, a tube as small as a pistol barrel, a finger-sized finger-sized smudge that might have been made by the oil from that barrel, by the blackness of gunpowder. When Cherry went downstairs old Mrs. Marshbanks had had breakfast and was sitting by the fire reading the papers that announced the marriage mar-riage of Amy Marshbanks to Count Constantino the day before. Greg was reading the sports news. "Well, so we have a countess in the family," Mrs. Marshbanks Marsh-banks said grimly. "She had said she would," Cherry said. "And I suppose that under the circumstances she wouldn't have wanted a big wedding." "He wouldn't have wanted a big wedding," the old woman said darkly; dark-ly; "the less publicity the better for him!" "He may really be in love with Amy," Cherry offered, feeling that now the mischief was done there was no particular object, in maligning malign-ing him. "It'll cost Amy just about a hundred hun-dred grand," said Greg, from behind the paper. "Fran says he's asked her for money already." "No, he didn't ask her, really; she made him take it. She told me so. She had a balance at the bank, and she split it with him." "The most generous little heart in the world," mourned Amy's grandmother. Unbelievable as it might appear, Cherry and old Mrs. Marshbanks were amicably conversing. Only yesterday Cherry had learned of the existence of those love letters from Kelly to Fran. Cherry was heartsick. He had told her that he loved her, but only a few months ago he had loved Fran, too; how could matters ever be straightened straight-ened out now, so that her trust in him could be restored? Yesterday's second shock had been the discovery that the gown Fran had been wearing upon the falal night of the murder had been stained with unmistakable marks of gunpowder and gun oil. Fran must have been living in terror of its discovery. Lying awake in the night. Cherry had seen that fatal little stain in her mind's eyes, had remembered detail by detail the horrors of that dark night when the judge's shout had rung through the house. Had Fran had on that negligee then? Cherry asked herself. Yes, she thought she had. Certainly she had not had it on a short while afterward, when the police arrived. This morning Fran came downstairs down-stairs while Cherry was finishing her breakfast. Like the rest of the household Fran was showing the strain. She sat down and looked at her grapefruit, pushed it restfully away. "Those letters worry me," she said. "What letters?" asked Mrs. Marshbanks, eyeing the younger woman over her glasses. "Some letters Kelly Coates wrote me silly, perfectly harmless letters, let-ters, but wait until you see what the papers make of them!" Fran answered, impatiently. (TO BE CONTINUED) having left a will or not didn't count." A few moments later Amy went to her grandmother's room, and when she emerged Cherry saw that her face was flushed and her eyes wet. "I hate her!" she whispered, concluding con-cluding with angry jerks the packing pack-ing that she had commenced earlier ear-lier in the evening. "She and her theatricals! She thinks 'there's a curse on this wretched family!' If there is, she's it. Gloves and my coat, and Martin will come up for the bag" Amy murmured in rapid review. And then, with a sudden kiss and hug: "Good-by, Cherry darling, dar-ling, take care of yourself and graduate gradu-ate at the top of the class! Write me all the news. But I'll see you before we go, anyway; this rotten investigation may continue on for weeks! Oh, and Cherry, you tell Fran. She's out." "She's back." said Cherry. "I just saw her come in." "Well, you tell her anyway!. Good-by!" Good-by!" Amy was gone in a trail of excited laughter. Cherry heard Gogo's rich, low voice in the lower hall: then the front door closed, and Martin walked back alone. "What's the excitement?" Fran called through her half-opened door. Cherry went slowly in. "Amy was married today in Reno." "She wasn't!" Fran exclaimed. "Yes, she was. The morning papers pa-pers will have it, if the evening ones don't. There's no hiding a title ti-tle like that." "Pitiful little fool!" Fran said in a whisper. "Of course he's a complete com-plete rotter. Jud would have killed him. Old lady know?" she asked, with a jerk of her head in the direction di-rection of Mrs. Marshbanks' room. "Amy just told her." 'Wild?" time that's what's bothering me," she added. "What's bothering you?" Cherry asked apprehensively. "Oh, it's making me sick! I don't know whether to tell you or not." "Tell me what?" Cherry managed to ask, with a sinking heart. "You might as well know. After you went out this morning the man named Mullins asked me to step into the library. He had a flat little packet of letters in his hand; he asked me if I recognized them. 1 said yes, certainly. They were the letters Kelly Coates wrote me last year. About a dozen of them. Love letters." Cherry felt faint. "How'd they get them?" "I haven't the slightest idea," Fran said. "1 hid them 'two weeks ago, the day after Jud was killed. I slipped them into the lining of my dressing case. It had come loose, and that morning I complained to Molly about it, and while she was right here in the room I pasted it with glue." "What sort of letters are they?" Cherry asked, with the world gone suddenly black. "Love letters. Letters that will look bad if they're given to the newspapers, news-papers, I can tell you that. What he and I could do if we were free, frantic sort of letters. He said Mullins said that they were very incriminating." "But they couldn't suspect Kelly!" "These letters won't help Kelly," Fran said dryly. She had finished the slow business of oils, pastes, powders, rouge for her face, eyelashes, eye-lashes, brows. The ballooning of a negligee distracted dis-tracted her. The door of Fran's big closet was open, and within the closet the window must be open, too, for the row of garments neatly |
