“TO-MORROW’S CHILD”

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 118, 22 May 1939, Page 5

“TO-MORROW’S CHILD”

By Julie Anne Moore

Synopsis of Preceding Instalments: Val Clarke, soon to marry Robert Greeley, a young lawyer, goes to New York from New Manchester on a shopping trip with Mrs. Warren, her Aunt Mahala’s housekeeper. Val’s cousin, Kate Hollister, fashion magazine editor, gives a party where Val meets Hugh Malcolm, successful young playwright; Bret Gallishaw, a New Manchester boy, who while on a New York newspaper, wrote a best seller; Leslie Crawford, Bret’s halfbrother, and Winifred Sperry, who are starring in Hugh’s “End of Tears,” and Guy Williams, who inherited millions and has a small part in the play. Bret was engaged to Kate but marries wealthy Evelyn Garfield. Bret hates Leslie after losing a contested inheritance and Leslie resents Hugh’s interest in Winifred. Guy takes Val to Pete Gaboriau's luxurious place near Philadelphia. Louise (Lecze) Cameron, who is with Crandall Scott, greets Guy with kisses and later strikes Val who defends herself so well that Guy has to assist Leeze from the dining-room. Pete’s gambling rooms aro raided, Val gives bail for herself and Cran and he drives her back. To please Kate, Val goes with Guy to Hugh’s play. During a storm scene Leslie is to drop to the floor in terror, but this night he falls dead, shot through the heart. When Guy goes to investigate, not knowing Leslie is dead, Val hurries out and sees Hugh who says he’s just come from the corner cigar store. Bret had left the theatre to catch a train for New Manchester. Val agrees when her aunt and Robert suggest an earlier wedding.

Monday morning Val received a telegraphic order for one hundred and fifty dollars and a brief message from Cran. She hadn’t wanted him to return the money she had put in his pocket after their arrest at Pete Gaboriau’s. That was her contribution to the most exciting night of her life and she’d had more than her money’s worth. Still, sho was not surprised. Cran was that sort —a little wild, perhaps, but straightforward and meticulously honest, young, alive, sentimental . . . and sweet. She would remember that ride back to New York as long as she lived, Gran’s arm encircling her shoulders, Cran’s warm lips softly pressed to hers, her own quick response that had frightened her a little when she thought of it. Cran’s message made her suddenly realise that she had not severed her ties with the New York interlude as cleanly as she had thought. She read the message a second time: “Ignore Court summons. Stop. They had rather have your dough anyway. Stop. Leeze and I may see you soon. Stop. Love, Cran.” It was that last that startled her. Could he mean that he and Leeze were coming to New' Manchester? But why should Leczo want to see her again?

. . . She wondered, whimsically, how Robert would react to Leeze . . . “ This is the blonde I fought in Pete Gaboriau’s resort, Robert. Cute, don’t you think?” And Leeze, impertinent and shockingly frank, holding Robert’s eyes with her gaze: “Loosen up and give us a grin, Bobby. Scowling doesn’t make you seem the least important to me.” Sho thought, amused, that it would be just as well if Robert and Leeze never met.

Val watched the papers closely. Every day there was something about Leslie Crawford’s murder, speculation, theories, a statement by the police, the district attorney’s assurance that the murderer would be found. But nothing really new—and never a word about Hugh. And she had half-expected to read of his arrest the day after her return.

What she could not know', of course, was that Hugh had virtually been arrest since the hour after ho had left Kate and her at the station. Not iD gaol, because the.polieo were not prepared to actually charge him with the killing and had been warned agaiust too great haste by the district attorney who had know r u Hugh for years—but constantly watched, under surveillance twenty-four hours a day until such time as the district attorney should be forced to admit that the evidence against the young playwright was sufficient to convict. •

As Hugh had anticipated in his talk with Val, the cigar storo clerk readily remembered that ho sold Hugh cigarettes on Thursday night and could pJace the hour within ten minutes of the time of the murder. Had he been able to reduce that time to two minutes, Hugh would have had a perfect alibi; but he could not, of course, since he had had no occasion to look at a clock at the exact moment Hugh entered the store. The fact that Val had seen him outside not more than two minutes after the fatal shooting ho put out of his mind. For one thing, he knew that when Val saw him, he was in front of the theatre and that she could not have known whether he had just come out of the theatre or was returning from the cigar store; and even had he been quite certain that her testimony would be accepted as positive proof of his innocence, ho would have hesitated to expose her to the unfavourable publicity by asking her to come back to New York and submit to questioning by the police. “There’s nothing she can say that will help,” Hugh told Kate wheu she suggested that Val ought to come back and tell what she knew. “ —and I’ll not have it on my conscience that I spoiled the child’s life by dragging her into a nasty mess.’’ ‘‘All right,” Kate said. “If you can wiggle out of it without her, go to it. But I’ll not have it on my conscience that an innocent man had his life spoiled when I might have prevented it.”

On the following Monday Val strolled downtown to acquire some of the “odds and ends” she had not purchased in New York. It was Armistice Day and

Instalment 10.

presently she found her way blocked by a parade. In a limousine drawn up at the kerb were seated a man and a small child, its yellow head framed in the panel of glass. The curly head moved to one side and Val recognised the angular profile of Bret Gallishaw.

Quickly she moved toward the car, but then took a step back and was suddenly hurrying off, not knowing what

curious turn of mind had caused her to alter her decision to speak to Bret. It may have been an instinctive dislike of the man, or the thought of what he had done to Kate, or —“If I spoke to him he might feel that he had to call on me or have his wife invite me to their place and —well, I’d rather not.” She hurried on, telling herself that seeing Bret and the curly-haircd child was an incident of no possible consequence —and was a little disturbed because the mentaj picture of the two in the limousine would not leave her. On Wednesday afternoon Robert’s sister Lucy took Val to a recital by a violin prodigy. Lucy was two years older than Robert, conspicuously tall and flat-chested with a long, sharp nose like her mother’s, and she was one of these people who must either talk continuously or not at all. Ghe and Val had never been congenial, but out of a sense of duty she made it a point to “do something for Val” at irregular intervals.

She was in one of her talking moods as they walked homeward until something seemed suddenly to dam the flow of words. It was an odd thing, that silence. A warning. Val felt it and wondered . . . and waited. Then she was talking again but slowly now, looking at Val at first, then deliberately avoiding Val’s direct gaze. “Robert told me about his talk with your aunt,” she said. “He seems to be very fond of her, Val.” Val said quietly, “Yes, he seems to be.”

With extreme caution Lucy proceeded: “I suppose she feels you are all she has and it’s no more than natural that she wants to keep you near her as long as she lives, but —” A deliberate break there, an invitation for a question that did not come. They walked on. Then, abruptly, it came: “It does seem unfair denying you and Robert a place of your own—insisting that you stay with her as long as she lives.” There was a silence, then Val, “I can understand Aunt Mahala’s wanting that, but Robert and I plan to take an apartment.” “Have you talked with Robert since Sunday?” “No.” “Then ho hasn’t told you. He had paid a deposit on an apartment at The Dresden, but he notified them yesterday he wouldn’t take it . . . He really hadn’t any alternative, Val. He tried to argue with your aunt, but she finally told him flatly that the day you moved out of her home, she would rewrite her will and cut you off without a dollar . . .’ ’ Val felt the blood rushing to her face, fought her anger down. She said, evenly, “I’ve never been interested in Aunt Mahala’s money, Lucy.” “But, my dear, you can’t simply shut your eyes to tho residues of several comfortable fortunes. Your aunt has inherited from both sides of the family. She is rich, Val. Robert says she is probably worth as much as anyono in New Manchester. If she changed her will, you know where the money would go-*—to charity.” They had come to the Elm Street corner where Lucy turned off. She said quickly, ‘ ‘ I know how you feel, Val, but —-well, your aunt isn’t a young woman. In a year, perhaps a few months, you and Robert will be free to live where you like. We have to be practical about these things, Val.”

Val had barely stopped. Now she walked on again, said over her shoulder, ‘ ‘ I enjoyed the recital, Lucy . . . Goodnight. ” Alone, she slackened her pace, tried to adjust her mind to this unexpected development. Obviously, Kobert had commissioned Lucy to break the news. He and Aunt Mahala had agreed that they would Jive with her—and he hadn’t had the decency to ask her about it . . . “And I’ll stand for it because 1 haven’t the courage to fight them,” she told herself dismally. A car was parked at the kerb in front of the house. She stopped to look at it and knew suddenly that Cran had come to see her. Cran and Leeze . . . The thought of wild young Leeze encountering Aunt Mahala sent her hurrying to the house —running to prevent what had already tfaken place. As she opened the door, she heard Aunt Mahala ’a raised voice, shrill and angry, “I won’t have a woman smoking in my house . . .! ” Val stood ia the doorway, saw Leeze facing her aunt, biting her lips . . . Cran, watching, humiliated . . . She went into the room, smiling determinedly: “Hello, Leeze.” Holding out both hands, pretending not to know anything was amiss, trying to persuade herself that perhaps Aunt Mahala hadn't realised this girl and this boy had come aJ.J the way from Washington to see her. She gazed admiringly at the wine-red frock cut so very low at the neck. “I’m awfully glad you’ve come.” She looked at Cran, fighting desperately to keep the little smile. “And you, Cran . . .?” Her aunt’s voice cut through the little silence: “I’ve asked that girl to 1 get out of my house ...” Val turned, still holding to Leeze. She said, quietly, “They are my friends, Aunt Mahala.” Aunt Mahala’s little voice suddenly rose to a loud screech: “Then take them away and tell them never to come back. This instant . . .! ” ; All tho blood had gone from Val’s ' face now, but she would not let herself go. Turning her back on her aunt, she said in a strained voice, “Cran, you and Leeze wait for me in the car,” and as they walked past her toward the door,

sho swung around and went up the stairs. When she came down again, she was wearing the green velvet she bad worn at Kate’s party and carrying her coat ou her arm . . . Mrs. Warren was standing by tho door, wringing her hands. “Your aunt says you’re not to leave the house, Miss Val. She says you’re to come into the library at once.” Val looked at her, not really seeing lxer. After a moment sho put a hand on tho housekeeper’s arm, managed a taint smile. Then she turned, opened the door and went out. (To be Continued.)