Newspapers / The Chatham Record (Pittsboro, … / May 30, 1929, edition 1 / Page 5
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THURSDAY, MAY 30, 1929. l! The ■ jl RED I LAMP I I 1 |||| MARY ROBERTS RINEHART Copyright by Geo. H. Doran Company WNU Sc price July 16. I am facing an unusual quandary, which is: shall I or shall I *ot attend poor Carroway’s funeral tomorrow? There is an old theory—l would like to question Greenough about it, if I dared —that your true murderer has an avid curiosity as to the work of his hands; that, against all prudence, he returns to it. Under these circum stances, what shall I do? Compromise, probably, send more flowers than I can afford, and stay at home. The same sort of compro mise which I effected with my soul yesterday, when I gave Jane a rather larger amount than usual for the col lection plate. . . . One of the reporters who has been hanging around the vicinity since the recovery of the body approached me today on a possible connection be tween the murder and the attack on llalliday. He pried me with polite question?, but I evaded him as well as I could. ‘•But don’t you, personally, believe there is some connection?” he in sisted. “I imagine you know at least as much about it as I do. Have you found any?” Perhaps my attitude had annoyed him, or perhaps he merely had the dis coverer’s pride in achievement, for he put away the handful of yellow paper on which he had made no notes, and smiled. • “I havenfound any connection,” he said. “But' I have found something your detectives missed, Mr. Porter. I have found where the fellow hid after the crash, when the other car was res cuing Mr. Halliday.” But the odd part of that discovery to my mind is not that hiding place, nor Greenough’s failure to locate It. As a matter of fact, I doubt if Green ough has ever looked for it. He seems to have taken for granted that Halil day’s assailant merely escaped the wreck and made off in the dark. No. The point that strikes me, and struck Halliday when I told him is the intimate knowledge of that loca tion shown, and the quickness with which he took advantage of it Crossing the road, according to the reporter, and about fifteeD feet from where the car was ditched, is a small culvert. Hardly a culvert, either, but a largish clay pipe designed to carry the drainage of the higher fields on one side to the lower on the other. “Have you searched this pipe?” 1 asked. “I looked in. If I’d had a pair of overalls I’d have gone in. But as the only clothes I have with me are on me—” he smiled again. “It’s a good job for a ferret,” he paid. He gave me up reluctantly, at last, and prepared to go. “So you think it’s only an ordinary case of holdup?” he asked. “I think it’s a d—d unpleasant case of holdup,” I replied, and he went away. But I have been thinking of his phrase since his departure. How much of the present world dis organization lies in that very use of the word “ordinary!” Time was when no holdup was ordinary, and an act of physical violence or a murder caused a shock that swept us all. It is true, then, that one cannot turn the minds of a people to killing, as in the recent war, and then expect them at once, when the crisis is over, to regard life as precious? And is this the reason Greenough spoke of its being a “queer time in the. world?” For the rest of this afternoon, I hove made my will! “To my dearly beloved wife. Jane Porter, I bequeath, etc.” There is something strangely com forting in making a will; it is as if one has completed the last rites, and now, with such complacence as may be, faces whatever is to come. Like lshmael in “Moby Dick,” I survive my self; my death and burial are locked up in my desk. I am “like a quiet ghost with a clear conscience, pitting inside the bars of a snug family vault.” A ghost, too, I begin to feel, among other ghosts. . . . Ignore it as I will, there is a cer tain weight in the slowly accumulat ing mass of evidence at my disposal, a weight and a consistency which have commenced to influence me. I am bound to admit that, if I were able to conceive of the survival of intelligence beyond death, I could alpo conceive that poor old Horace has been on hand during some of our recent experiences. Not Thomas’ “George,” the spirit evoked by Mrs. Riggs and still sur viving in the lamp; not some malicious demon, frightening honest folk by ringing bells and pinching women in the dark. But a mind like my own, only greater in its wider knowledge, and painfully trying in its bodiless state to communicate that knowledge to me. The pum total of evidence is rather startling. (a) Jane’s photograph, taken on class day. (b) Jock’s refusal to enter the main house, persisted in to this time. (c) My own curious telepathic mes sage, relative to the letter. (d) Jane’s experience under the red lamp in the pantry. (Doubtful.) (e) Hallida.v’s lights over the marsh. (Again doubtful. It may have been the unknown, finding the boathouse occupied and seeking away to the beach.) (f) My own experience in hearing Uncle Horace’s peculiar cough and smelling the odor of his asthmatic pastilles, or cigarettes. (g) Jock’s peculiar conduct at the same time. (h) Peter Geiss’ vision on the sloop and his identification of it. (Yet Peter is a staunch supporter of “George ” Had he been looking for ?uch a visi tation would he not naturally have seen George?) (i) And the fact that this vision corresponds in time with the attack on Halliday. In this attempt to refresh my mem ory I have not included Jane’s pre monition the night Carroway was mur dered, or her dislike and distrust of the house. Nor have I included the vague stories of haunting told by Mrs. Livingstone, Annie Cochran or Thomas. Os the latter, they are not only be yond my personal experience or con tact, but they are, if the word may he used in such a connection, apparently without motive. July 17. Ido not like young Gordon. He has little enough time to himself —only, I gather, an hour or so after luncheon while Mr. Bethel sleeps—but he spends that here, if possible. Edith snubs him, but he is as thick skinned as one of the porpoises which rolls itself in the bay. “Why. if you’re so clever,” 1 over heard her today, “don’t you go out and do something? Use your brains.’ “It takes brains to do what I’m do ing,” he said, “and don’t you forget it.” But as to what he is doing he is discreetly silent. There is a book under way, but he parries any attempt to discuss it. Also, he seems to de light in investing Mr, Bethel with a considerable amount of mystery. “The boss is having one of his fits today,” he will say. “What sort of fits?” “That would he telling,” he says craftily, and ostentatiously changes the subject. Edith, who has a very feminine curiosity, has questioned Annie Coch ran but without much result. The “fit” days, so far as we can make out. are merely days when the invalid is less well than others, and mostly keeps his bed. Annie Cochran, how ever, has her own explanation ol them; she believes that those days fol low nights when “George” has been particularly active, and when presum ably Mr. Bethel has not been sleeping on his good ear. And as proof of this, she produces the fact that twice now, having tefi her tea-kettle empty on top of the stove, she has found it full in the morning. As Mr. Bethel cannot get downstairs unassisted, and as the sec retary has always stoutly maintained that he has not left his room all night, Annie Cochran falls back on “George”; and, one must admit, not without rea son. . . . Poor Carroway was laid away yes terday, after the largest funeral in the history of these parts. And so ends one chapter in our drama. Ends, that is. for him. What Is to come after no one can say. One thing has tended somewhat to relieve the local .strain. No sheep have been killed for eighteen days, and the altar in the field still remains without oblation. There are, 1 be lieve, one or two summer people who still make it the objective of an early morning excursion, hoping to find on It who knows what horrid sacrifice. But they have only their walk for their pains. Maggie Morrieon, who passes it every morning in her truck, makes a daily report of it to Clara, and so it filters to the family. It is Maggie, too, who brings us much of our local news. Today, for instance, she informs us that the de tective has gone away, “bag and bag gage,” from the hotel, and probably this accounts for the lighter tone ol this entry. I am reprieved, at least until some other are killed. . . Later: Halliday and I, late this afternoon, made an examination ot the culvert, or pipe, in which our un known hid after the accident We must have presented a curious study for any observer, working with guilty haste, and I in particular emerging from the pipe covered with mud and a heterogeneous collection of leaves and grasses. Not only was Halliday too broad in the shoulders for easy ac cess, but his injury forbade the neces sary gymnastics. There was a time when, half in and half out of the pipe. . I could hear him laughing consumedly. - But I found nothing, save that un doubtedl.v some one had preceded me into it. A man skilled in such mat ters might have read a story into the various .marks and depressions, bui they where not for me. The net result ol the search was not encouraging. True, Halliday picked up. outside the pipe, half of the lens of an eye-glass, bu there is no proof that it belonged to his assailant. On rlie other hand. 3 myself had made n discovery of a certain amount of i?n porta nee. Halliday had said that the man he had picked up had seemed to he a heavy man. broadly and squareli built. THE CHATHAM RECORD. PITTSBORO, N,- C. j But my experience showed me that i no very heavy man could have entered I the pipe. We have, in effect, to recast j our picture of the murderer; a man of j medium size, we will say, compactly if j muscularly built. Tonight, sitting down to make this i entry, I have missed my fountain pen, j and as it has my initials on it we must j recover it tomorrow if possible. It. would he extremely unpleasant under ( the circumstances for Starr, for in stance, in a burst of zeal to find it in the pipe. True, Peter Geiss could swear that, at the moment Halliday was attacked he and I were looking for a ghost in the fore-rigging of the sloop. But I am at this disadvantage, that they give me no opportunity to defend my self, for they make no accusation. Their method is that damnable one of watchful waiting; GreeDougb’s psycho logical’idea that, given enough rope, a criminal will haiag himself. July 18. Edith and Halliday went this morn ing to recover my fountain pen, Edith in spite of our protests determined to; crawl into the pipe for it. To this end she put on my mechanic’s overall In which I oil and grease my car, and very sweet indeed she looked in it. But the pen was not there. She found the cap of it, embedded in the mnd, but not the pen itself. It looks as though Starr has lost no time! Edith, I believe, suspects something. I There is a growing gravity and ma turity in her; she tries to show me, by small caresses and attention?, that she believes in me and loves me. But she knows that there is something wrong. And she has, I think, quarreled with j Halliday. There was nothing on the j surface to show it. on their return to* i day, hut he declined her invitation to luncheon and went off, whistling rather j ostentatiously, to his bacon and beans at the boat-house. This afternoon. | while Mr. Bethel slept, she accepted young Gordon’s invitation to go canoe ing, and had the audacity to take the canoe, so to speak, from under poor Halliday’s nose. According to Jane, she needs a good shaking. There is, I understand, no definite, engagement between them. I must not forget to enter that Halli- j day last night believes he saw the red lamp burning, in the den behind the library of the main %ouse. He told me the details this morning ns he waited for Edith to don |ny overalls. It was his first night, after bis ac kLrv _ Jl vHhl ■l/ Made an Examination of the Culvert cident, at the boathouse, and he could not sleep. “I had a good bit of pain,” he said, “and at one o’clock I got up and went outside. There was a sort of dull red light coming from the windows of the library of the other house, and I watched it fbr awhile. It was extreme ly faint, and at first I thought it might be a fire; then, as It didn’t grow any. 1 saw it mtist be a light of some sort.” He knew the stories of the red lamp, but he also knew I had locked it away, so after a time he started up toward the house. He was about half way up the lawn when it went out, suddenly, and left him staring. But he was curious, and he went on. He made a complete circuit of Itoe building, but there was do movement or sound from within, and so he turned and went back again. He be lieves the light was in the den, not the library, for he saw only a dif fused reddish glare, as though It came from behind. He could not, through any of the three long French windows which open onto the terrace, se€ the source of that glare. Here, then, is corroboration of my own impression of few nights ago, but with a difference. .For I saw the light itself, a momentary flash as though a breeze bad for an instant pushed open the heavy curtains at the den windows, and then had let them fall again. I am convinced that young Gordon has never seen the light, or he would have 'spoken of it. He is fluent enough about what he calls ’ the “spooky” quality of the house. It is unlikely that Mr. Bethel, imprisoned in his up per room, can have any knowledge of it Yet here we have two dispas -1 sionate observers, seeing at different times and under different circum stances, a light apparently of spon -1 taneous origin and no known cause. (CONTINUED NEXT WEEK) If poverty has its inconvenience, it has also its independence and se curity. LAND SALE NORTH CAROLINA, CHATHAM COUNTY. By virtue of the powers contained J in a certain Deed of Trust executed | on the Bth day of August, 1927, by j Frank Alston and his wife, Lenar J Alston, to the undersigned trustee, I securing certain bonds mentioned . therein, the same being duly register )ed in the office of the Register of Deeds for Chatham County in Book G.R. at page 125-26, the default having been made in the payment of the bond and the interest on the same, and the holder of said bond having made application to the un dersigned trustee to sell the same according to law, and according to the terms mentioned in the Deed of Trust, I will, on Monday, June the 17th, 1929 at twelve o’clock noon, at the court house door in Pittsboro, North Caro lina, sell for cash to the highest bid der the following described tract of land in Center Township, Chatham County, North Carolina. Beginning at a stake, white oak pointers, W. L. London’s corner; 'thence North 37* East with W. L., London, J. 0. Clark and Nathan Thompson’s line 76 poles; thence North 35* East with Nathan Thomp son’s line 35 poles; thence North 53* East 24% poles; thence South 67* ' East 26 poles to a black gum, Nathan Thompson’s corner; thence North'24* I East 48 poles with C. Holder’s line | to an ash in a bottom; thence down said drain in a bottom about North 22* West 32 poles to a stone and pointers in the Jones Crane line; thence South 60* West to a stone and pointers in Jones Thompson line; thence South Thompson’s line 69 I poles to a stake and pointers Thomp son's corner in Yarboro’s line; thence | East with Yarboro’s line 25 poles to j the beginning, containing 53 acres more or less. , This the 16th day of May, 1929. A. C. RAY, | Trustee ADMINISTRATORS’ NOTICE Having qualified as administrators of the estate of *ie late A. D. Bur nett, we hereby warn all persons hav ing claims against said estate to pre- I I sent them duly proven on or before jthe first day of May, 1930, or this [notice will be pleaded in bar of their »recovery. All persons owing the 'estate will please make early settle ment. This May 1, 1929. ; T. A. BURNETT : A. J. NORWOOD (May 2,9, 16, 23, 30, Jun 6) NOTICE OF MORTGAGE SALE Under and by virtue of the power conferred upon me by a certain deed of trust executed, by W. S. Robert son, dated January 14, 1928, regis tered in the office of the Register of Deeds of Chatham County, N. C., in Book G. W., at page 90, to secure the indebtedness therein, described, and default having been made in the payment of said indebtedness, and having been requested to do so by holder of the note evidencing said indebtedness. I will offer for sale, at public auction, to the highest bidder, for cash, at the Court House door in Pittsboro, N. C., at 12:00 o’clock M., on Friday, May 31, 1929, a one-seventh undivided interest in j the following described land, viz: Lying and being in Chatham I County, on the waters of Haw River, and more particularly described as follows: FIRST TRACT: Beginning at a birch on the bank of the said river, i Oliver Lamb’ corner; running North J with his line 215 poles to a rock in John Ferguson’s line, and Lamb’s other corner; thence West with said Ferguson’s and Jackson Stone’s line 248 poles to the river; thence down the various courses of the said river to the first station, or beginning, containing 240 acres, be the same more or less, the said land being the j same mentioned in the deed from! James J. Teage to S. W. Cotten, re corded in the office of the Register of Deeds of Chatham County, N. C., in Book B. N., Pages 238 and 239. SECOND TRACT: Beginning at; a stake on the said Haw River, Cot-; ten’s corner; running East 190 poles to a rock; thence North 105 poles to a post oak; thence West 166 poles to a white oak on the bank of the River; thence down the various courses of the same to the first station or be ginning, containing 115 acres, more or less, the said last mentioned tract being the same mentioned in the Saturday Last Day The Sale in progress for the past two weeks at the Hall Department Store closes Saturday. The store room leased to the Ben Franklin Chain Store will be vacated by Mr. Hall Monday. BARGAINS SATURDAY There will be odds and ends practically at your own price Saturday, while the regular 20 per cent dis count on all goods will be continued. What goods are left will be taken over by the Chain Store. According ly, it is of very little concern to Mr. Hall whether you buy or not, but it does concern YOU. If you want the Bargains, get them. HALL’S DEPARTMENT STORE Pittsboro - -- -- -- -- -- North Carolina deeds recorded in the office of the Register of Deeds of Chatham County, N. C., in Book B. N., pages 237, 238, 239, and 240, made by B. Roberson and wife to S. W. Cot ten, and J. F. Freeland and wife to C. B. and Rod Cotten. Sale will be held open for ten days to receive increased bids. This 23rd day of April, 1929. M. E. HOGAN, Trustee j (May 2,9, 16, 23, 4tc) EXECUTOR’S NOTICE. Having this day qualified as the I executor of the Last Will and Testa- 1 ment of W. A. Glenn, deceased, this ; « The Color of Your House Decides the Color of Your Roof Your roof is a part of your housfe—a very vital part, architects say—and the roofing you put on should be selected so as to harmonize pleasingly with the walls, trim and architectural style. This is a matter of great importance easily attended to. A Budd-Piper roofing expert is ready to help you make the proper selection. Before you roof or re-roof, let us show you the newer creations available for your particular type home. See the many color ful shingles Richardson Roofing Company offers through Budd-Piper Roofing Com pany. THE BUDD-PIPER ROOFING CO. DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA WANT TO SUCCEED? Would you succeed in life? Then study the lives of successful men and women. Without exception their progress has been made through industry, economy and perseverance. Success in money matters comes from EARNING, SAVING, and INVESTING. In all these lines we are j in a position to help you. We will guard your savings and advise you about investments. It will pay you to open an account and identify yourself with a good, strong, conservative bank. We want you with us. THE BANK OF GOLDSTON HUGH WOMBLE, Pres. T. W. GOLDSTON, Cashier \ GOLDSTON, N. C. | ? —————— ■—i ™**—^ is to notify all persons holding claims against said estate to present them to the undersigned on or before the 7th day of May, 1930, or this notice will be plead in bar of their recovery. All persons owing said estate will come forward and make immediate settlement. This the 7th day of Ma:/, 1929. J. F. GLENN, Executor. W. D. Horton, Atty. Many a fellow has married a girl | whom he thought as pretty as a pic ture to find out after the honeymoon that at best she was only a talking picture.—Hudson Star. PAGE FIVE
The Chatham Record (Pittsboro, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
May 30, 1929, edition 1
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