PAGE TWO
A CASE Fflfeo?nntCTiyES I
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V COPYRIGHT B> IEO PRCCE, RELEASED BY CENTRAL PRESS ASSOCIATION
“You, all of you, know these literary murders.”
CHAPTER 1
I CANNOT pretend that there
was anything sinister in the at
mosphere that evening. Nothing
of the sort that is supposed to pre
cede a crime. Nobody walked
about looking furtive, no whis
pered quarrels were interrupted,
no mysterious strangers lurked
near the house. Although after
wards, as you may imagine, I went
over the events of the day again
and again in my mind, I could re
member nothing which might have
served as a warning, nothing at
all extraordinary in anyone’s be
havior. That is why the thing
came as such an abominable shock
to me.
I remember, of course—l have
good cause to remember —that we
discussed crime over our cocktails.
But we discussed it in general
terms, and how could one have
guessed that there was any rele
vance in the discussion? And I
could not say for certain who had
brought up the subject. Perhaps
if I could have done so, if anyone
could have done so, it would have
helped us later to understand. For
that discussion was relevant, ap
pallingly relevant, in a very spe
cial sense. As you shall see.
But at the time —well, at the
Thurstons’ week-end parties, crime
might be discussed* or religion,
politics, the cinema, or ghosts.
Any topic of general interest which
arose was sure to be pretty well
threshed out. That was the kind
of party which the Thurstons gave,
a party at which everyone talked
a great deal, shouting opinions
which he would afterward have
denied, and trying to shout them
as cleverly as possible. I do not
mean that it was all rather self
conscious and arty, like those aw
ful parties in London at which
women with unpleasant breath ad
vocate free love and nudism. But
at the Thurstons’ conversation was
enjoyed, and not treated as a tire
some stop-gap between dinner and
bridge.
Dr. Thurston himself was no
conversationalist, though he en
joyed listening, and could put in
an incentive phrase now and again.
He was a big,« bespectacled man,
rather Teutonic in appearance, and
in manner, too, for he showed a
jolly German simplicity and senti
mentality to everyone. He liked
pressing his guests to food and
drink and cigars, with booming
emphasis. He had been the local
doctor in that Sussex village, till
Dominican Choice
KffrajMßflk- • ••;•. .<••••*.. s ’..•••.*
Jacinto B. Peynaldo, brother of the
late Francisco Peynaldo, one-time
Dominican Minister to the United
States, is pictured above. He has
been nominated by President Rafael
Trujillo as successor when Trujillo
retires from presidency in August.
(Central Press)
SAVE AT
BILLETS
CLEARANCE
SALE
he married, and although he no
longer practiced he had kept on
the house, because he liked it, and
allowed the new practitioner to
build afresh. It was understood
that Mrs. Thurston had money, at
all events they had been very well
off since their marriage, and en
tertained a great deal.
She, too, was amiable, most
amiable, but not very intelligent.
Although I stayed with the Thur
stons many times, and must have
spent hours in the same room with
Mary Thurston, I cannot recall a
single sentence that she uttered.
She was stout, and spent a great
deal of money on her clothes, a big,
blonde, rather painted woman,
easy-going and quite unpreten
tious. I can see her clearly
enough, even if I cannot remember
words of hers, beaming round on
us all, filling quite a wide arm
chair, giggling like a girl at flat
tery, obviously overflowing with
kindness. “The Goddess of Plenty”
someone once called her, aptly
enough, for as a hostess, from the
practical point of view, she was
supreme. The food was really ex
quisite, the house beautifully kept,
and Mrs. Thurston had that im
portant gift—a memory for
drinks. She was a good woman.
Whoever may have started dis
cussing crime, it was Alec Norris
who did most of the talking,
though he pretended to be con
temptuous of the topic.
“Crime?” he said. "Can’t we
talk about anything else? Don’t
we get enough of it in books and
films? I’m sic!: to death of this
crime, crime, crime, wherever you
turn.”
Dr. Thurston chuckled. He knew
Norris, and knew why he spoke so
bitterly. Norris was an unsuccess
ful writer of novels very different
from murder mysteries—rather in
tense psychological books, with a
good deal of sex in them. Dr.
Thurston saw his chance of mak
ing Norris excited.
“But is it crime in those books?”
he asked. “Crime as it really hap
pens?”
Norris might have been a diver
on a springboard. He hesitated
for one moment, blinking at Thur
ston, then he plunged. “No. I’m
damned if it is," he said. “Liter
ary crime is all baffling mystery
and startling clues. Whereas in
real life, murder, for instance,
nearly always turns out to be some
sordid business of a strangled
servant girl. There are only two
kinds of murder which could ha file
Motto WuMSKUU.
■Jfi'j ■UN PAW-^^OpET
DEAR. NOAH=“ jS IT TRUE. <
THAT HUSBANDS OF
NAGGING WIVES RANK
HIGH IN ENDURANCE
TESTS “?
MRS. HAL.. /VMLX.E.R.
CBT.SBARD, SPAK.
1 "™"*—' ■
DEAR. NOAH* IS A HOUSE
IN A RUN-DOWN
CONDITION BECAUSE ITS
WINDOWS HAVE A PANE
NOW AND THEN 7
LOUISE. E.. WE.BE.fE '
Ttauaipo, QHiq ,
come, on folks !
MAIL. TOUR. IDEAS OiRL*T TON IT K.
-T° NOAH CARE OF THIS fARCM.
Wife Preservers
To prevent accident In the
home use a sturdy stool of ap
g™* type whenever you must
climb to a high place. Be sure
hIS are flecurel y locked ut plaoe
Kl yOU , mOUnt [t ’ * ft y* Good
Housekeeping Institute.
the police for one second. One it
that committed by a man with a
victim who cannot be missed —like
the recent Brighton murder. The
other is the act of a madman, who
murders for the sake of murder,
without another motive. No pre
meditated murder could puzzle the
police for very long. Where there’s
a motive and the victim is identi
fied, there’s an arrest.”
He paused to swallow the rest
of his cocktail. I was watching
him, thinking what an odd-looking
fellow Alec Norris was—narrow in
head and body, with a bony face
in which jaw and teeth, cheek
bones and forehead protruded,
while the flesh seemed to have
shrunk till it barely covered the
skull.
Another guest spoke then.
Yound David Strickland, I think it
was. “But an arrest doesn’t al
ways mean a verdict of guilty,”
he said. “There have been mur
derers so desperate that though
they knew beforehand they would
be suspected and probably charged,
they took the chance. They were
clever enough not to provide
enough evidence.”
I did not look with much interest
towards Strickland, for I knew him
quite well. He was younger than
any of us, a thick-set fellow, fond
of. sport, particularly of racing.
He was apt to try to borrow a
fiver from you, but bore no malice
if it was refused. He was some
sort of protege of the Thurstons,
and Dr. Thurston sometimes spoke
to his wife of him good-humoredly
as "your lover, my dear.” There
was nothing in that, however,
though I could imagine Mary
Thurston helping him out of diffi
culties. Nothing of the gigolo
about young Strickland, a hard
drinking, gambling type, fond of
smutty stories.
Alec Norris brushed aside his
interruption. “The police will find
the evidence, when they know
their man,” he said, and returned
to his condemnation of detective
fiction. “It’s all so artificial.” he
said. “So unrelated to life.« You,
all of you, know these literary
murders. Suddenly, in the middle
of a party—like this one, perhaps
—someone is found dead in the ad
joining room. By the trickery of
the novelist all the guests and half
the staff are suspec£. Then in
comes the wonderful detective,
who neatly proves that it was in
fact the only person you never sus
pected at all. Curtain.”
(To Be Continued)
New Red Chief
• ■ • • m
i
Andrey A. Andreev, veteran Com
munist official, pictured above, was
selected as the first president of
the first Parliament of the Soviet
Union. Only 43, ho was formerly
commisaar of transportation.
fCentral Press)
Wife Preservers
For a change serve whole
kernel corn, with dioed, cooked,
buttered celery, or add a can of
corn to buttered onions.
HENDERSON, (N. C.) DAILY DISPATCH FRIDAY, JANUARY 14, 1938
Urges More Relief
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...
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Secretary of Agriculture Wallace is
shown as he testified before the spe
cial Senate committee investigating
farm unemployment. He declared
that demands for rural relief were
steadily increasing, and that neither
local nor Federal agencies have the
means to cope with the situation.
(Central Press)
College Head Quits
A
Dr. Edmund D. Soper
. . . retires as college prexy
Resignation of Dr. “’Edmund D.
Soper, president of Ohio Wesleyan
university at Delaware, 0., since
1928, has been announced. Friends
of the 61-year-old president said
Dr. Soper planned to retire be
cause of illness. In campus circles,
however, it had been reported that
there had been dissatisfaction
among certain alumni over some
of Dr. Soper’s appointments and
administrative steps.
Pin in Lung 9 Years
Mrs. Catherine George
.. . had pin in lung nine years
Nine years ago Catherine George,
21, of Chicago, swallowed an open
safety pin. She forgot about it
until she developed symptoms of
bronchitis a few days ago. Sur
geons now have removed the pin,
found near her left lung.
— Centra l Press
Mustek’s Wife
1
'• Above is a recent picture of MrsJ
Edwin C. Musick, wife of the skip
per of the Samoan Clipper giant
Pan-American airlines, wreckage of
which was found in the South At
lantic by searchers. .
(Control
First to Get Unemployment Compensation Check
J. D. Shelton receives check from B. W. Cason, left, of Louisiana labor department
An unemployed painter of Baton Rouge, La., J. D.
Shelton, 37, receives the first check paid in the
United States under the unemployment compensa
tion program established by the federal social se
Removing Victim of a Freak Accident
—mmmmmmmmmmam v ,^y
s ... .. .
Dr. Louis Mackler and his wife, of Atlantic City, N. J., were driving near Bradshaw, Pa., when their car
skidded off the road and landed in a five-foot stream. Rescuers who rushed to the scene saw the couple,
uninjured, trying to escape. By the time they were able to pry off the jammed door the couple were
drowned by the rising waters. State troopers and rescue worker are shown removing Mrs. Mackler s body
(Central P>t’°s ‘
Newshawks Journey on Their Last Assignment
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The flag-draped coffins of E. R. Sheepshanks, British correspondent, and Edward J. Neil, American news
paperman, are shown in Paris, one awaiting transfer to England, the other to be returned to America.
The men were killed when their automobile was hit by a shell near the Teruel front in war-torn Spain.
antral Press)
Leading Industrialists Confer With President
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Colby Chester, Ernest Weir, Lewis Brown, Alfred Sloan and M. H. Clement
Five of the leading industrialists in the United
States are pictured after conferring with President
Roosevelt are, left to right, Colby Chester, presi
f-tof General Foods corporation and chairman of
the National Manufacturers association; Ernest T.
vvej-, president of the National Steel corporation;
i-evvis Brown, president of Johns-Manville corpora
curity act. B. W. Cason, left, commissioner of the
Louisiana department of labor, is personally pre
senting the check for $14.20 to Mr. Shelton, whose
family stands at his side.
tion; Alfred P. Sloan, chairman of General Motor*
coloration; M. H. Clement, president of the Penn
sylvania railroad. The five reported “a better un
derstanding” between government and business and
predicted “closer co-operation” in attempts to check
the recession. Sloan said business was showing
signs of improvement.