"T0-SORROW’S CHILD”

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 135, 10 June 1939, Page 9

"TO-SORROW’S CHILD”

Synopsis of Preceding Instalments: Val Clarke, engaged to Robert Greeley, goes to New York from New Manchester to shop. At Kate Hollister’s, her cousin, a fashion magazine editor, she meets Hugh Malcolm, playwright; Bret Gallishaw, New Manchester boy, who on a New York newspaper, wrote a beet seller; Leslie Crawford, Bret's half-brother, 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, engaged to Kate, married wealthy Evelyn Garfield. He hates Leslie after losing a will contest and Leslie resents Hugh 'a interest in Winifred. Guy takes Val to Pete Gaboriau's luxurious place near Philadelphia. Louise (Leeze) 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 out. Cran drives Val back. During a stage storm scene Leslie drops dead, shot through the heart. Hurrying from the theatre, Val sees Hugh who says he's just come from the corner cigar store. Bret had left to catch a train. Leeze goes with Cran to see Val and Val's aunt orders her out for smoking. Val goes along. Returning she finds a wire from Kate, goes to New York and clears Hugh by saying he was just leaving the cigar •tore when she saw him. Aunt Mahala sends her trunks to Kate's apartment. Val's personality had inspired a play and Hugh had offered her a salary to remain in New York so he could study her. Bhe accepts now and soon learn Hugh loves her. Greeley tells Val her aunt has forgiven her. Standing there by the window, Val though of Aunt Mahala as she had so often seen her ... a shrunken, bent little figure in the big chair with the adjustable back in the living room in New Manchester ... a pink shawl about her fragile shoulders, her wasted anus resting on tho wide arms of the chair, her small, bright eyes staring into space. Always, Aunt Mahala had looked terribly alone, terribly embittered at fate's holding her in the flesh long after those she loved had gone . . . Long ago there had been life in that memory-haunted house, a meek little man with frightened blue eyes, a girl who looked like her father, a tall thin boy sickly from birth. Not an exciting family, Val imagined, but someone to love and look after and dominate. And when these had gone, there had been Val’s mother and after seven years another heartache for Aunt Mahala . . . A succession of tragedies stretching out over fifty years—and then life in the old house again . . . Val. The muscles of Val’s throat contracted as she looked back over those two years with Aunt Mahala . . . Young,

By Julie Anne Moore Instalment 18.

grieving over her father’s death, submitting to Aunt Mahala's will in all things, letting herself be made over as her mother had been made over to conform to Aunt Mahala's notions of dignity and respectability, knowing she was all that Aunt Mahala had left ia the world . . . Two years, and now Aunt Mahala was alone again—regretting what she had done in anger and wanting Val to come back. If it had been as simple as that, Val would have had no alternative. Prom a sense of duty, if for no other reason, she would have known she must go back to New Manchester, to, Aunt Mahala . . . inevitably, to Robert. But it was not as simple as that. There was the necessity of admitting fault where she saw none, of promising that she would not again be guilty of doing what she knew very well she would instinctively do if occasion arose. Val came back from the window, put a hand ou Robert's arm: "I can't decide to-night, Robert. Before you go back, perhaps—but not to-night." When he opened his lips to protest, she lifted a hand, said quietly, “Please —” and led the way to the foyer. Coat on, liat dangling from his hand, Robert faced her: “Where does Malcolm fit in? He didn’t come here to see your cousin. '' Though Val had not been prepared for this abrupt reference to Hugh, she was not in the least troubled by it. But she told him, “A question like that can't be answered in a word, Robert. Come back to-morrow—or when you find it convenient.” Then, as she held out her hand to him: “I may decide to go back with you—but if I do, it will ba on the one condition that Aunt Mahala let her present will stand as it is. I've never wanted her money . . .” His face suddenly drained of colour, Robert stepped out into the corridor and was still standing there, staring, when the door closed. Leaving Kate and Bret, Hugh Malcolm had gone directly to Winifred's hotel apartment. An hour later as he stood, coat on arm, hat in hand, Wini--1 fred was lying face downward on the couch, her lovely head in the crook of her arm sobbing softly. Hugh said, “Unless you had something to do with Leslie's death, the Truth can't hurt you, Winifred. You didn't kill him. But you've lived a lio for three years and somewhere in that lie may be the key to the murder. Buck up and take your medicine. Whether you realise it or not, I am still your best friend and when you need me. I'll be ready ...” It was after 10 o'clock when Hugh sat down with the district attorney in the latter's Long Island home. “I've come,” Hugh said, “to give you what I consider an important bit of information, Walter. Leslie Crawford was married. I’ve just had a talk with his wife.”

Kellogg stared. “You have?” “Yes—Winifred Sperry. They had a

child, a boy. Two or three by now, I should say.” He could see the district attorney was going back over the evidence to see where it fit in—if it did tit in. “Poor devil. I can understand now why he was so devilishly jealous of her.''

Kellogg nodded without thinking about what Hugh had said. “Where's the child now—did she tell you?” “I told her. On a wild guess. And she admitted it. He's in New Manchester, Connecticut. Living in a small apartment with a nurse and a goverThe district attorney smoked his cigarette in silence. Hugh waited, wanting his harassed friend to think this out as he had thought it out, make his own discovery. “By the way,” Kellogg said abruptly, “ Gallishaw comes from New Manchester, doesn’t he?” “You've got it,” Hugh said 4 ‘ That's the connection. ’' He leaned forward. “Winifred says Bret lias been looking after the youngster for three or four months, but she refuses to tell me why. Bret and Leslie had no love for each other, you know.” Kellogg tapped out his cigarette. “You’ve made a more important discovery than you realise, Hugh. We've been re-checking Gallishaw's alibi and we've found a weak spot in it. We inaj find more. But this kid ...” Hugh nodded. “He doesn't seem tG have a logical place in the puzzle, does he? I couldn’t make anything of it. '* He sat silent for a time, thinking; then, “I don't want to appear to be putting Bret on the spot, Walter, but it 's a matter of self-preservation with me . . . Bret gave his hand away this evening at Kate Hollister's apartment. Val Clarke happened to say she had seen him in New Manchester on Armistice Day and that he had a small boy in the car with him. He denied flatly that she had seen him—said he hadn't had a child in his car in years. Then, for no reason at all except that Bret seemed to be rather uneasy, I happened to think about the boy’s picture Leslie was looking at when Val saw him in his dress-ing-room the night ho was killed. And that called up the report that was going around a few years ago to the effect that Leslie and Winifred were secretly married . . .I'm not much of a detective, but after all, I couldn't very well miss the connection and I decided to try a bluff on Winifred ...”

“And it worked,” Kellogg said, smiling. “Good boy.” He instantly regretted that, seeing in Hugh's eyes what for the moment he had forgotten. “Miss Sperry,” he said, irrelevantly, “is a very charming woman.” Hugh didn't say anything.

Across the little table in a corner of the glassed-in roof, Bret Gallishaw looked at ICate-and asked himself the old question. Why did he persist in thinking of her as the girl he once thought he loved? He did, always, when he was away from her. Then he came back to her and found her cold and disillusioned and cynical. Perhaps she felt the same way about him. He had, he confessed to himself, given her ample reason to hate him. The curious thing was that she did not hate him, that she was as unhappy as he was when they were ' not together. The illusion that had held them years ago had never quite left them and now they were repeating a scene they had been through a hundred times in the last two years, facing each other across the little table, one of them 1 .

at least, seeing things as they were. But that one had made a final decision. A young couple, not at all aware of them, danced around their table, heads close together, talking softly. Kate's eyes followed them. “Envious?” Bret asked. Shu said, smiling, “Who wouldn't be?” And then she looked at him with an old hope in her eyes. “Bret, we can't go on like this forever and ever. In spite of all that's happened, we're still in love and we will be to the end of time. Why can't your wife see that. A divorce—” Bret said, “I'm glad you brought it up, Kate. There's something I wanted to tell you, but—l didn't just know how to go about it . . . ” The spark of hope burst into flame. She leaned forward, waiting. “You've heard me say a good many times we ought to accept the inevitable and I'm saying it again. But this time I mean it. It's the only decent thing to do. Evelyn and I are sailing for France next week. We're going to Paris to live.” Kate sat rigid, staring at him. Fo? the second time she had bared her heart to him—and for the second time he had turned from her. And this was final j Already she could feel the loneliness j closing about her. Suddenly she told j herself she hated him and out of that revulsion of feeling came a question: j “Why did you lie to Val about the j little boy in your car, Bret?” His lips became a thin line. “Youj seem very positive,” he said, j “"Wouldn't it be a good idea to ask me! if I lied?” She shook her head. “It was too ob- • vious to mistake—the way you looked at Val when she mentioned it. Bret, j why was it so important to you that we did not know that on Armistice Day you had a small boy in your car watching the parade?” “Because,” he said, angrily, “I still have some regard for the truth. I was not in New Manchester on Armistice Day and as I said before, I haven't had a child in my car for years. What possible difference it could make to you or anyone if this was not the case, I can't Kate shrugged. “Very well, then. 1 owe you an apology. Forgive me.” But her voice was cold. He nodded gravely, stared at her for a moment, then dropped his eyes to his plate. Hugh returned to his apartment shortly after one o 'clock. He snapped on the living room lights, and was going to the bedroom when he saw Val reclining on the couch, an open magazine held above her head, her face at tho moment turned toward him, smiling. “See here, young lady—do you realise what time it is?” He crossed to the couch, gave her his hands and pulled her to her feet. Val said, “I've been waiting for hours, darling ... I had to see you, Hugh—to-night. About Robert ..." (To be Continued.)