PAGE TWO
:!; The
I RED
ill LAMP I
I! T |
lij: B *
MARY ROBERTS RINEHART
Copyright by Ceo. H. Doran Company
WNU Senrica
August 18.
Gordon came back early this morn
?lng. I invented an errand to the
/house soon after breakfast, but found
that Mr. Bethel was still sleeping—as
well he might—and that preparations
ffor tomorrow’s departure were well
/under way.
While Gordon was busy on the low
er floor, Thomas and I made a tour of
the house, with a view to closing it. 1
took advantage of my legitimate pres
ence on the upper floor to examine
the locked closet in which I had stored
the red lamp. It is still there, and ap
parently has not been disturbed. . . .
Halliday today advised for me a
period of masterly inactivity. Not
that he calls it so, but that is what
he means.
“I have an idea, Skipper,” he said,
“that this calling Greenough off the
case was sheer bluff. Every move he
made was being watched, and unless
U miss my guess you’ll find he's at
IBass cove, or some place nearby, un
der another, name. I thought I saw
his car a night or so ago.”
What I finally gathered is that Uni
liday wants to eliminate me from rlie
case, for my own sake.
“Just now,” he said, “you are sit
ting very pretty. Bur one more bit of !
bad luck and he's ready to jump.”
Although he smiled. I have an idea i
that he is deadly serious; that he !
knows Greenough is not far away,
and that for some unknown reason he
-expects another bit of bad luck. His
face is thin and haggard these days,
and from the fact that he sleeps a
great deal in the daytime, lam in
clined to think that he sleeps very llt
♦tle at night.
Between him and Edith, too, I sur
mise some sort of mysterious under
standing. At the same time, there is
a noticeable absence of those three
angled conferences in which, some lit
iJe time ago, we were free to air our
theories.
Willy nilly, I am consigned to in
nocuous desuetude.
Hayward started yesterday on his
iracation.
I
August 20.
4:00 a. m. Mr. Bethel was murdered
between eleven o’clock and midnight
last night. Gordon has escaped. . .
7:00 a. m. Jane is at last asleep,
and I have had some coffee. Perhaps
if I record the events of the night it
will quiei me. After all, one cannot
forget such things; the only possible
course is to bring them to the surface,
to face them.
But I will not face that room.
Murder. The very word is evil
But no one has ever known how evil
until he has seen it. Such things
cannot be written; they should not be
seen. They should not be.
We have had this murder. We have
gone over, inch by Inch, the scene of
■ it. We have been spared no shock:
the evidence of the struggle is on the
walls, the floor, the furniture; w«
have the very knife with wh'ch It
was committed. We have even gone
further than that. We have followed
TEST YOURSELF
—® —
By Rev. J. E. B. Houser
1. What are the mystical numbers
of the Bible and what do they
signify?
2. How many miracles did Christ
perform ?
3. What is the shortest and the
longest verse in the Bible?
4. What was a Nazerite?
5. What were the four principal
offerings of sacrifice made un
der the Mosaic law?
6. What was preserved in the Ark
of the Covenant?
7. To whom did Jesus appear after
his resurrection?
8. What is the devil called in John
8:44?
9. Why is Jesus, the Christ, called
the W ord ?
10. For what purpose was the first
land bought, as recorded in the
old testament?
®
ANSWERS
By Rev. J. E. B. Houser
1. 3 Diety, 7 fullness or complete
ness or perfection, 10 royalty.
2. 39.
3. John 11:35. Esther 8:9.
4. A person “separated” unto the
Lord, Numbers 6:2-21.
5. Self-dedication, sin, tresspass,
and peace.
6. The Golden Por of Manna.
Aaron’s rod that budded, Ta
bles of Stone revealing the Ten
Commandments, Hebrews 9:4.
7. Mary Magdeline, the Mother of
James.
g. A liar and the father of lies.
4). Because he is the revelation of
God.
10. The burial place of Sarah, Gen
esis 23. i
<#•
Secrets are a mortgage on friend
ship.
It outside, along the drive to the ga
rage, and from there by the car to
the salt marsh beyond Robinson’s
point.
And yet, according to Halliday, 4iin
til we have gone still further, we have
had no murder, according to the law.
Ever since daylight, I have been
struggling to see the justice of a law
where, when Gordon is found —and
Greenough believes he will he found
—we cannot convict him unless we
also find that bit of old flesh and
blood and bone which was once Simon
Bethel. i
Is it only necessary, to escape jus- j
tlce, that a criminal artfully dispose j
of his crime? i
And by how narrow a margin he did
escape it! A matter of minutes. Be- j
tween my calling Halliday on the
telephone and my meeting him at the i
terrace; perhaps even between that i
and our entrance into that wrecked
room. A matter of minutes.
In one thing only did he make an
error, and even that may not have
been an error. He may coolly
have abandoned his suitcase, packed
and hidden in the shrubbery; may
have stood there a second or so, con
sidering it, and then decided to let it
lie.
The most grievous thing to me is
that I should have given him the
warning. And the most terrible pic
ture I have is that, when I called Hal
liday, he stood listening in at the tele
phone, craftily calculating; “Can I
make it? Can I not?” With that be
hind him. . . .
Crafty. As old In crime as crime is
old, for all his youth. Out on the bay
disposing of his horrible freight, and
watching the lanterns as they searched
for the boat; seeing them scatter,
looking for other boats with which to
follow’ him out onto the water, and then
quietly heading back, into the creek
again, and escaping through the wood.
Crafty, beyond words.
August 21.
The excitement is still intense. I
have hardly seen Halliday since our
trouble; he is working with the po
lice, of which a number have come to
assist Greenough. Curious crowds
stand outside our gates, which we
| have been obliged to close and lock.
! A few of the more adventurous, gain-
I ing admission by the lane, are turned
I back there by guards who are on duty
day and night.
Thomas, standing at the gate, has
orders to admit only the detectives
and duly accredited members of the
press.
On the bay we have once more the
familiar crowd of searching boats. Off
the Point, dragging has been going on,
but with no result. Owing to the fact
that no guards were placed by the
boat, a large portion of it has already
been taken away by morbid individuals
who will place their trophies. I dare
say, on tables or mantlepieces, and
thereafter gloat over them.
Truly, just as the lunatic always
insists that he is sane, so do the sane
often demonstrate that they are mad.
And so far, nothing.
Nothing, that is, which leads to Gor
don’s apprehension. From the time
he turned back in the boat and land- t
ing. made his escape info the woods
above Robinson’s point, he disap
peared entirely. Here and there a
clew has turned up. to end in disap
pointment. Greenough believes that
he will he found, that he cannot es
cape the police drag-net, hut I am not
so sure. . . .
Although forty-eight hours
have passed" Jane, has not yet opened
up the subject of the telephone, and
because of her morbid reserve on such
matters, I have not told the police.
Asked how I had happened to be at
the telephone and thus receive the
alarm, I have replied that the bell
rang, that 1 went to the instrument,
and was immediately aware that one
of the receivers was down, either at
Hallida.v’s or at the main house; that
1 heard a crash over the wire, fol
lowed by a second and nearer one, and
after that a silence; that following
that 1 heard, near the receiver, the
sobbing breath of exhaustion, and that
immediately after that the receiver
went up, and I called Halliday fran
tically ; and that, on his replying, I
told him my suspicion that something
was wrong at the main house, and to
meet me there at once.
But there is a discrepancy here
which may cause me trouble if they
come back to it. A telephone such as
ours does not ring if one of the re- j
ceivers is down. And the plain fact j
is that our telephone did not ring at
all that night.
As I have not yet recorded the j
events of that tragic evening in their j
sequence, 1 shall do so now.
Halliday had dined with us, and
had been more like himself than for i
some time past. After dinner he and '
Edith sat on the veranda, and going !
to lower a shade I saw shat she was i
holding a match while he drew some- |
thing on a bit of paper. But the |
match went out almost at once, and I
would have thought no more of it,
had 1 not heard Edith say:
“And the cabinet was there?”
“In the corner,” he replied.
I am no eavesdropper, so I drew the
shade and turned away.
He left at something after ten, and
Edith joined us. She was very quiet, j
and sat watching me play solitaire j
while Jane sewed industriously. At j
half past teu or thereabouts. Jane sud !
denly said:
“The telephone Is ringing.**
Both Edith and I looked up in
amazement; the instrument was In the
small hall, not ten feet from where I ;
sat; it would have been impossible for
it to ring without our bearing it, and
we had heard nothing.
! “You’ve been asleep. Jane!” Edith
accused her. But i glanced at her*
and I remember that ehe was oddly re
THE CHATHAM RECORD, PITTSBORO, N. C.
laxed in her chair; her face looked
white and her eyes were slightly fixed
“It is ringing,” she said, thickly.
And that is how I happened to he
at the telephone that night. And how.
too, I gave the alarm which enabled
the murderer to escape, by calling
Halliday.
“Get your revolver and meet me at
the main house,” 1 said. “There’s
something wrong there.”
I know that had I not rung the tele
phone, had I gone for Halliday in
I
He Drew Something on a Bit of
Paper.
stead, we would have caught the crim
inal. But to ring the one house was
to ring the other; he may still have
been standing there gasping. He had,
for all he knew up to that time, the
rest of the night in which to finish his
deadly work; to dispose of the body,
to gather up his suitcase, waiting out
side, and get away.
But I called Halliday, and the crim
inal listened. He knew then that in
stead of hours he had only minutes.
He must have worked last, in that
ghastly shambles of a room; the car
was probably already out, in the lane.
He-may even have stood there, at the
corner of the lane, the engine turning
over quietly, and watched Halliday
running up toward the house. And
perhaps he laughed, that secret laugh
of his which had always rather chilled
me.
Then—he simply got into the car
and drove away. Cool and crafty to
the last. No body, no murder. He
made for the boat.
He left behind him only two real
clews; the knife, which Annie Cochran
identifies as one taken from the
! kitchen, and his paoked suitcase. Not
intentional, this last. He must have
needed clean linen. And certainly that
, diary of his, in cipher—he would not
want that in the hands of the police.
But what would the diary matter,
after all, if he himself escaped?
August 22.
As time goes on the cr.se is compli
cated with the eagerness of all sorts
of people to bring in extraneous eir
cumstances which they consider im
portant.
For instance, Livingstone’s butler,
the one who bought the knife in Oak
ville and caused s<» much excitement
by so doing, has been over to get a
description of Gordon, preserving an
air of mystery which under other eir
cumstances would he vastly entertain
ing.
Another story concerns a middle
aged man of highly respectable ap
pearance and of a square and heavy
build, who was seen walking uncer
tainly along the main road near the
Livinstone place at 1 :00 a. m. the
night of the murder. A passing car
seeing his state, stopped and asked if
he was in trouble.
He replied that he had been struck
by a car an hour or so before, and had
been lying by the road ever since.
His condition bore this out, as he was
stained with blood and dirt. He ac
cepted the offer of a lift, and was left
at the railroad station at Martin’s
Ferry to catch the express there for
the city.
There have been many similar ones;
an innumerable number of people are
: convinced that they have seen Gor
1 don. and apparently almost any dup
; per youth of twenty or so, with what
I Edith calls patent leather hair and
I an inveterate cigarette habit, is likely
| at any time to be tapped on the shoul
! der and taken to a police station. . . .
! Os clews of other and lesser sorts
. there has been almost an embarrass
! ment. Both the library and that por
| tion of the hall near the telephone
f have furnished finger prints. But as
Greenough says:
“Finger prints do not discover
! criminals; they identify them.”
I Nevertheless, great pains have been
taken to preserve them. On the white
l marble mantel a very distinct imprint
; in blood was photographed without
1 difficulty; others, less clear, wore
dusted with black powder before the
camera was used. Detailed pictures
i were made of the library and hall, lie
{ fore any attempt to put them hack to
i order was permitted, and these prints
i have been enlarged and carefully
j studied. One of them with a strange
j result,
{ Greenough. handtng it to me, gnht:
i “This print is defective. You ca „
j Keep I*. H you care to.”
j But I wondet ii it is defective
ruqre is what Greenough calls a tight
streak in the lower corner, but it re
«{litres very tittle imagination te *ive
to this misty outline the semblance
ot a form, and to the lower portion of
it rue taint but recognizable appear
ance of brocade.
I have said nothing. What can I
say? ...
One thing which puzzles the police
is the violence of the battle; it seems
incredible that Bethel could have mad»
the fight for life which he evidently
did. At the same time, they have two
problems to solve which repeated
searching of the house and wide pul)
licity have not yet answered.
One is the disappearance of the man
uscript on which Bethel had worked all
summer. Annie Cochran has testified
that this manuscript was kept locked
in a drawer in the library desk; when
Halliday and I entered the house this
drawer was standing open and the
manuscript was missing. It has not
yet been located.
But perhaps the most surprising is
the failure of any friend or relative
of Simon Bethel to interest himself Id
the case. Cameron’s note to Larkin
before Bethel rented the house ex
pressly disclaims any previous knowl
edge of him.
“Here is a possible tenant for Mr.
Porter’s house,” he wrote, “of which
he spoke to me some time ago. I
have no acquaintance with Mr. Bethel,
save that he called on me a day or so
ago, in reference to a statement In a
book of mine. 1 imagine, however,
that he would be a quiet and not trou
blesome. tenant.”
Halliday brought up this curious
situation yesterday, in one of the rare
moments be has given us since the
murder.
“Has >it occurred to you, Skipper,”
he said, “that it is strange that no
one belonging to Mr. Bethel has
i turned up?”
“I dare say a man can outlive most
of his contemporaries and most of his
friends.”
“He wasn’t as old as all that.” And
he asked, apparently irrelevantly a
moment later: “The two evenings you
saw him and talked to him, how did
he impress you? I mean, his state of
mind?” >
“The last time, of course, he was
frankly frightened. He said as
much.”
“And before that?”
“He didn’t say so, but he was more
or less on guard. He had his re
volver. Os course, those were rather
parlous times.”
As a matter of fact, the case is any
thing hut a clear one against Gordon,
as it develops. Greenough has been,
all along, as convinced of Gordon’s
guilt as he had previously been of
mine. But Benchley is more open to
conviction, and a conversation be
tween Halliday and him this morning,
on the lawn near the terrace, Is still
running in my mind.
Halliday had been protesting against
Greenough’s method of “following a
single idea until it went up a blind
alley and died there.”
“Os course,” he said quietly, “you
can make a case against Gordon; it’s
all here. But you’ll have something
left over that you won’t know what to
do with. We know that it was Mr.
Bethel who hit Gordon and knocked
him out p'ome time ago, but who tied
him? Where’s the boy’s owd story
about seeing a man at the gun-room
window? Mr. Porter here later on
finds that same window open, and
sees a man in the lower hall. Who
was that? The same hand tied the
hoy that tied Oarroway, and Gordon
hadn't even seen this place at that
time. What are you going to do with
that?”
“Then where’s Gordon now?” Bench
ley asked, practically enough.
“1 don’t know. Dead, maybe.”
Benchley stood thinking.
“1 think I get the idea,” he said.
“The fight, you think, was between Mr.
Bethel and this unknown of your.®;
the boy either saw it and got mixed
up in it, or knew he’d be suspected
and beat it. Is that it?”
“Well, I would say that a man
about to commit such a crime doesn’t
pack his suitcase, with' the idea of
escaping with it.”
A thought which, I admit, had never
occurred to me until that moment."
As a result of this conversation
Benchley has advanced a theory of his
own which accounts at least for the
failure of any relatives to make in
quiry. This is that the old man was
in hiding under an assumed name;
hiding, in the most secluded spot he
could find, from some Implacable
enemy who had finally caught up with
him.
How he reconciles this with the
Carroway murder and the disappear
ance of Maggie Morrison I do not
know, but certain facts seem to bear
out this idea. He was, in one sense,
a man of mystery. His accounts were
paid in cash; the automobile In which
he arrived had been bought at second
hand a few days before, by the secre
tary and in the same manner. And
all identifying marks had been care
fully removed from his clothing.
In addition to all this, there is the
puzzling report on the knife itself.
Examination undei the microscope
shows fibers of linwi as well as frag
meats of cellular tissue. But it also
reveals minute particles of tobacco
leaf, showing it had gone through a
pocket.
But Mr. Bethel was not a smoker.
At some one time, then. Bethel clear
ly secured the knife and wounded his
assailant. Not seriously evidently,
-nice after that tie was able to do
what lie did do. but sufficiently to turn
the minds of the police toward the
rimti who claimed to have been struck
by an mrforoobite.
This Clew, however, lias developed
nothing. The night was dark, and his
rescuers have no description of him
save of h heavy-set figure and.a dazed
manner of B|M*ech. They carried him
• tu Man in’« ferry, bui the conductor of
the night express remembers carrying
no such passenger. . . •
Greenough today showed me Gor
don’s diary, rescued from the suitcase.
It has at some time been dropped into
water, and certain pages are not
legible. If indeed that word may be
used where nothing is legible; where
each page presents such jumbles of
iarge and small letters as the follow
ing sentence, which I have copied as
a matter of interest:
“Trn g.lv. GTRgg UnMT aot LmGl
MotrT”
The record is not a daily one, but
apparently was used for jotting down
odd thoughts or ideas. It continues,
however, at intervals, for the entire
period ol his stay at Twin Hollows,
the last entry having been made on
August 17.
Certain entries are neat and method
ical. The one on July 27, however,
after his injury, is by hand, and shows
erasures and changes. Once or twice
in August the record is Iqng, cover
ing more than a page, while the July
entries are all brief. On the last page*
however, and without comment, he has
drawn in, rather carefully, a smaH cir
cle enclosing a triangle.
Greenough, while attaching a cer
tain interest to it, has not yet sent it
to be deciphered by the code experts
of Ids department. As a matter of
fact, I suspect him of holding it out,
with the idea of being able to claim
the reward of he finds Gordon.
Which reward, by the way, now
stands at ten thousand dollars.
(CONTINUED NEXT WEEK)
<g>
ONE DAY AT A TIME
By “Miss Polly’*
God in his wonderful wisdom and
goodness saw fit to make his people
live only one day at a time. What
a wonderful blessing that He has
bestowed on us l
When we are blue and despondent
and feel all down and out how sweet
it is for night to overtake us and for
us to sink into oblivion and forget
our troubles for a season and be able
to get a fresh start each morning.
There is Sunday always so beauti
ful regardless of weather because
it is our Lord’s Day. There is such
a sweet sacredness about it that we
seem to be able just by looking out
into the sunshine to tell that it is
Sunday even if we didn’t already
know it. JVe look forward to Sunday
with so much eagerness that we can
hardly wait sometimes for it to come
and find ourselves wishing the Sab
bath Day would last always, but we
only live one day at a time.
And there comes so often Blue
Monday. We can not see anything
to look forward to. We become so
down hearted that we actually think
we are tired of life and think it
wouldn’t matter if God would take
us away and we almost make our
selves believe that we would like to
die and see what effect it would have
on our friends. When our dearest
friend on earth mistreats us (and
never seems to care or realize the
fact) then it is that we’d be willing
and glad to die to prove to that
friend how he has stepped on our
heart with such weight. But thanks
to our Heavenly Father that He
never' lets us live more than one day
at a time.
$
My Favorite
Stories
toy Irvin Cohto
The Purification of Johnson
Sides
JOHNSON SIDES, official peacemak
er of the Plates in Nevada, one!
cold Janaary night got lost in a snow*
storm and was induced by a cowboy
who found him to take a tong swig
out of a whisky bottle. This was
Johnson’s first offense and It tipped
him over completely. In a delirium
he walked into a burial place and
staggered through the musty portals
of an ancient and abandoned tomb.
There he lay down to sleep it off.
The chilly temperature sobered him
up. He returned to Carson the next
morning penitent and terrified at taav
ing broken the law.
The legislature happened to be In
session. A humorously Inclined mem
ber got hold of the Indian, heard his
story, and drew up a bill as follows:
“SENATE BILL 6521.
“Section I—Be it enacted that the
drink taken by Johnson Sides in the
Carson City graveyard Monday night.
January 3rd. be hereby declared null
and void.
“Section ll—This act shall go Into
effect immediately upon its passage
and approval by the governor.”
With much pomp and panoply uod
with great wads of red sealing war
and a mass of red ribbon affixed to
the document, this h«*ax was solemnly
passed by the senate without a die
scntlng jvote, then was taken
assembly »aud there passed uuanituous
ly, and after the governor had signed
It the precious paper was bestowed
upon Johnson with an elaborate
speech. He took Hie document to the
outskirts of the town where bis tribe
whs encamped, translated it and an
nounced that the White Father ban
called the big souse off.
The next morning m drunken Biufvs
were gathered up out of the eeme
very t>\ the *t-»*t constabulary.
M'-NtUiKfct (not
THURSDAY, AUGUST w .
***********
** d 5 !fe j,
* ■
J THE GARDNER * 1
************
By PANTHA VASHTI HARR EL s 0n
The gardener came i n w it}-,
troubled countenace the other j I
the other week in fact. He wanted
to know if I had noticed the p ear ,.
I had. A more beautiful sieht
rarely seen than a giant pear tret
bowing to the earth with gro\vi n
pears. The long graceful limbs re
mind me of runners on the last lap
of a long race. Every ounce of
strength conserved in the tired body
and yet nothing crude or useless in
the movements made. My heart is
uplifted when I see one. It j Ust
seems to come up' in my throat and
say the unextpressaible things that
are there. My spirit reaches up f or
a new kinship with God as I see a
fruitful pear tree.
The gardener was not thinking 0 f
the beauty of limb and fruit, how
ever, when he asked me about the
! pears. .He had noticed that one by
one they were beginning to drop to
earth while they were yet green
I too noticed that this was happen
ing and as the days have gone I
have noticed it mere and more. Now
the earth underneath the tree is so
well covered with fruit that a step
will cover many, the foot can
scarcely be put down without bruis
ing one or more.
At random I have stooped to pick
‘ them up and always I find the same
’j thing: wilt, rot, juandice. Smali
! wonder they are falling off. The wilt
and rot are disease, maybe the fruit
| could not help that. It is pitiful.
But what of the juandice— the knot
ty place, the gnarled, unshapen spot
—could that too not be helped? No,
the storm did that. Here is the mark
of a hail stone; there is the healed
over bite of a wasp; here blight front
the cold of that late spring’s near
frost; there the sunken scar healed
to be sure but scar nevertheless from
a hard knock against a nearby big
limb; here inbroken skin, smooth ex
terior but broken at heart. Surely
| these could no more be helped than
j the disease attacked pears.
How pitiful! Life has beaten
| these potentially beautiful ones into
shapeless things, unfit for maturity,
which one by one are falling to earth
while their more favored kinsmen
are coming to a rich maturity. Some
of them will grow on until frost. In
imagination I can see now their rich
satiny skins of soft dimpled yellow
and feel their luscious tenderness as
I sink my teeth into their mellow
sides. Why could not all of them
have been well favored and fine\
Pears and their troubles make
think of men and theirs. They too
are falling one by one. Here is one
attacked by disease; there is one
keeled over by the blast; all around
those who cannot come to maturity,
j I pity those struck by disease. It is
j the common lot of man. I pity more
those made unfit by the blows of
life. The twisted foot, the gnarled
hand, the hunched back, make me
ache when I see them. I feel as
though I literally had the same con
ddtion in my own body. How much
more I pity the dwarfed mind, the
still-born spirit. Here is a body hav
ing the markings of maturity hous
ing the spirit of an unborn babe
spiritually.
I ask myself what kind of pear
shall I be. Am Ito be one that falls
before I accomplish God’s purpose
in me or shall I come to a rich ripe
maturity? And you? In men years
alone do not mark maturity. Some
have accomplished their purpose in
a short span. The Christ was only
33 as years go, only worked 33 years
and yet he. could pray: “Father, I
have finished the work which thou
hast given me to do.” Others use
long years ere they come to theirs.
Milton was 57 years old ere he* com
pleted his “Paradise Lost.” The long
er the period of maturity the fi ner
the workmanship of the man seems
to be the rule in many activities or
life. Look at our statesmen. o' c
men rule the world is the way sonic
one puts it. Look at our bishops; |
they are all men of years. Where |J|
knowledge must be combined with I
understanding age and its aecom I
panying wide experience maturity
ever comes late. More transient I
values may be accomplished in short
er time. In pear language some
ripen at the beginning of the season, I
others at its close but those that
ripen hang on until ripening tlm?
and do not let disease or the vicissi
tudes of life crowd them off b< H
their time.
. - Ma
Irvin Love, nine-year-old Ch< * r ' f I
S. C., boy, suffered injury B
when he was kicked in the face
nfcule. The iron shoe struck , j
squarely on the nose, driving t B
nose back into his face and M
: ng the base of the skull. Ho I
f aken to a Chester hospital wb # ’-
i.t is believed he has a chance a
recovery.