| Show adventurers club two tickets to terror by FLOYD GIBBONS famous headline hunter IT T WAS just a couple of tickets that started the whole thing those tickets played the major role in the yarn were going to hear today and along with them went ten minutes of grade A terror and on top of that a surprise that will knock you for a row of box offices its louise addelson of new york city who is telling the story but the adventure happened to her aunt it was the tickets that started it au all but it was a letter that dragged auntie into the affair auntie had a daughter helen who had recently married she was living in a furnished apartment in montreal montrea and one day she wrote that her husband was away on business and s was lonesome and auntie like to come and pay her a visit auntie went she got there in october and a few days afterward on the of the month the tickets showed up tickets for helen helea and Herl her mother Hother it happened this way the apartment directly over helens was occupied by a young couple the chesters with whom she and her husband had recently struck up an acquaintance on the afternoon of the twenty third mrs chester came downstairs to call she said her husband had purchased some theater tickets and now a telegram had called him away to the sick bed of his mother in another town they go to the show so they wanted to give the tickets to helen and her mother mrs chester insisted that they take them and hear of letting them pay for them auntie really want to go to the theater some time before she had lost her husband and shortly after that her son had died she been to a show or any other place of amusement since and didra dida 1 l really have any desire to go she only agreed to go this time for her daughters sake and she was immensely relieved when while they were dressing that evening her son in law returned unexpectedly from his business trip and took her place the young couple went out auntie is an old fashioned mother and no sooner were they out of the house than she set the ironing board up in the kitchen and began ironing the underwear and linen that had been washed that day she was still busily at work when she heard a strange buzzing sound at the front door she still had the hot iron with the iron still in her hand she walked to the front of the apartment there was a large hole in the door and someone even then was boring another for an instant she was puzzled then as she k A hand groping to release the catch realized what was happening she almost collapsed with fright someone was trying to break into the house for whole minutes she stood rooted to the spot incapable of moving even so much as a muscle she watched while a tiny saw blade was inserted through one of the holes watched it while a larger opening was cut in the door it was only when the opening was completed and a hand reached through and began groping to release the catch on the inside that she could move at all then suddenly she became aware ot of the heat of the iron in her hand almost instinctively she lifted the iron without se seeming eming to form any plan in her mind she acted tiptoeing across the hall ball to the door she pressed the iron down hard on th the reaching f fumbling lin hand there was a yell outside that was loud enough to be heard half a block away the hall was filled with the odor of burned flesh the hand was jerked out of the opening and she could hear the footsteps of its owner scurrying away she heaved a sigh of relief but still she was badly frightened what it if the man came back she stay alone in that apartment for another minute so she took refuge with the chesters the only people she knew in the house were the chesters upstairs mr chester would be out of town traveling to the bedside of his ailing mother she know whether mrs chester had gone with him or not if she if she was home maybe she would come down and stay with auntie until her daughter and son in law returned she ran out the rear entrance scam scampered perel up the stairs and knocked on the chesters back door then without waiting for an answer she tried the door the knob turned the door swung open and auntie burst in on a tableau that gaye her the second shock of the evening and the big surprise of her whole life acate in a chair in the kitchen was the supposedly absent mr chester and standing over him was mrs chester applying salve to a bad burn on his out stretched outstretched right handl hand the scheme was exposed u 1 T mr chester scrambled to his feet mrs chester ran to the c coor and banged it in aunties qunties face for a moment she was too dazed to think then the whole explanation came to her the chesters had planned to get her and helen out of the house so they would bs be free to rob helen of her wedding gifts and a few valuable jewels she owned the theater tickets were just a trick to get them out for the evening and leave the apartment empty and only the unexpected return of helens husband had with the scheme As soon as she could get her wits together auntie called the police but auntie never saw the chesters again they too lived in a furnished apartment and by the time the police arrived they had packed up their f few ew personal belongings and fled Q service |
