TO-MORROW'S OUST

Manawatu Times, Volume 64, Issue 136, 12 June 1939, Page 9

TO-MORROW'S OUST

Synopsis of Preceding Instalments: Va 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 bost seller; Leslie Crawford, Bret’s half-brother, and Winifred Sperry, who aro starring in Hugh's “End of Tears,” and Guy Williams, who inherited millions and has a small part in tho play. Bret, engaged to Kate, married wealthy Evelyn Garfield. He hates Leslie after losing a will contest and Leslio resents Hugh’s interest in Winifred. Guy takes Val to Pete Gaboriau’s luxurious place near Philadelphia. Louiso (Leoze) 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 ho was just leaving ihe cigar store when she saw him. Aunt Mahala sends her trunks to Kato’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. She accepts now and soon learns Hugh loves her. Greeley tells Val her aunt has forgiven her.

Vul saw that Hugh was displeased to find her in his apartment at one o’clock in tho morning. When she had thought of coming here, sho had takeu it for granted that he would receive her with open arms, that ho would kiss her, do his level best to let her know he was glad to have her here. Val wanted to tell him, “Darling, I’ve come just so you’d know that Robert means nothing to me—that no one can ever mean anything to me again—no one but you, Hugh. ’ ’ Sho had felt—back in Kate’s apartment—that sho had to see him to-night and tell him that, to let him know that though she had not committed herself definitely to Robert and had actually been puzzled for a time as to what she ought to do, sho had no intention of letting him down. Hugh said, “Won’t you sit down, Valf” and marvelled at the almost formal tone of his own voice. He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her close and tell her how much he loved her. But after all she had been engaged to Robert and Robert had come from New Manchester to see her and Hugh felt that what sho had to tell him about Robert was nothing he wanted to hear. After a moment, Val said, “Robert says Aunt Mahala wants me to como back to New Manchester, Hugh.” He nodded, but said nothing and Val went on, ‘ 4 l suppose 1 ought to go—in spite of all that’s happened. She's old and she hasn’t been well and she hasn’t another blood relation in the world.” Surely, sho thought, he would be able to meet this argument, to point out that she had been inexcusably abused and that she owed it to herself to find such happiness as she could. But again he nodded, and waited. Val lifted her hands, studied the soft lines of her palms. “It doesn’t mean just back to New Manchester, of course,” she said. He understood that. “No, I suppose not.”

Her lashes came up. She looked at him with parted lips. Why didn’t he go on—tell her she mustn’t go, that he wouldn’t let her go? . . .If she went back to Aunt Mahala she would go back to Robert as well.

A bell jangled and Hugh went to tho door.

Winifred Sperry came into tho room, talking, her eyes fixed on Hugh’s, not seoing Val. “I couldn’t sleep until I’d talked with you, darling. There was so much to say that I didn’t say at the hotel. I. thought perhaps you were coming back, but—” Something in Hugh’s eyes stopped her; she turned and saw Val getting into her coat. Then: “Oh, I’m sorry ... I hope I’m not intruding ...” “Not at all,”' Val said, pulling her hat on. “How are you, Miss Sporry?” Winifred said drily, “Very well, thank you.” There was a little silence. Hugh said then, “Keep your things on, Winifred. Wo’ll take Val home.”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” Val told him with a forced smile. She hurried to the door. “Good-night, Miss Sperry. Thanks just tho same, Hugh. I promise not to be kidnapped.” She was closing the door of tho selfservice elevator when she heard Hugh come out into the corridor calling her name. She pushed the main-floor button, still hearing tho echo of Winifred’s voice . . . “There was so much to say that I didn’t say at the hotel. I thought perhaps you were coming back . . . ” It was all very clear now. Hugh had gone directly from Kato’s apartment to see Winifred, had stayed there for hours ... “I couldn’t sleep until I’d talked with you, darling ...” Kate was reading in bod when Va: reached the apartment. Val thought Kate had been crying, but she couldn’t be sure. Val sat on the foot of the bed and they talked for a little while.

“I think,” Val said, suddenly, “I’m about ready to take that, job *at your office, Kate. If it’s still open.” “What’s the matter, honey. Hugh acting up again?” “Oh, no . . . ” lightly, “but I want a job with some system and something to do. I begin to wonder how I ever accepted his proposition in the beginning. It doesn’t make sense when'you stop to think about it.”

By Julie Anne Moore

Instalment 19.

“It does, though,” said Kate. “What you want to stop to think about is that Hugh made over eighty thousand dollars out of 4 Moons for Babies.’ He’s one of tho biggest money-makers in the business because ho has a genius for comedy that is somehow both smart enough for the sophisticates and elemental enough for hoi polloi. You’d say it couldn’t bo done, but he does it and he relies pretty largely on character. That’s why he can afford to pay you a good salary just to sit around and let him see you occasionally. Frankly, I think ho’s barking up the wrong tree on this *To-morrow's Child’ thing . . . but sooner or later ho will consciously or unconsciously put you into a play, and when he does he’ll realise a large return on his investment.”

“I hope so,” Val said, impressed. Then: “But posing for a character study is too much like work. I want something easy like eight hours a day in an office and a salary to fit the job.” Kate surprised her by asking, ‘ 4 When do you want to start in?” “When? Why, Monday, I suppose. I'd like to have this police rehearsal of Leslio Crawford’s murder off my mind. That’s to-morrow night, isn’t it?” “Yes . . .I’ll speak to Agnes Burns about you in the morning and you cau go in with me Monday. You ’ll probably find the work rather unexciting at first, but if you stick long enough you’ll bo going places.” “You’re being awfully docent to me, Kate,” Val said, and instantly thought, “I suppose I ought to tell her about Robert . . . ” but remembering Rob-

ert’s face when she told him sho would not let Aunt Mahala change her will, she decided it was unnecessary. “Run along to bed,” Kate told her, smiling. “And don’t worry about tomorrow night. I’ve an idea tho police themselves don’t know what they’re going to do.” But Kate was wrong. Tho police knew exactly what they wore going to do because tho district attorney had worked out the plan to tho last detail and the police had promised full cooperation. A 3 Kate loarned from Hugh at lunch Friday. “I’ve been in Walter Kellogg’s office all morning,” Hugh told her. “Everybody who was on the stage tho night Leslie was killed will be on the stage to-night, and the storm scone will be repeated. Only the audience will be missing and Val and Guy Williams will provide even that, in part. ’ ’ “I wish Val were out of it,” Kate said.

“She’s not in it. I mean it’s perfectly obvious that certain persons in the theatre that night could not have killed Leslie. It would have been a physical impossibility. Val and Guy aro two of these unfortunate persons. But the very fact that saves them from suspicion makes them excellent witnesses . . . They were looking at Leslie when he was killed. Tho rest of us were either backstage or out of the building. The few backstage who were watching Leslie through the scene necessarily followed tho action from one of two pointa—either near tho back window or near what the police are calling tho “west” window of the shack. In either case, the combined testimonies of all those backstage gives only half the picture. Val and Guy are able to supply the other half.

“But the shot that killed Leslie,” Kate said, ‘ 4 was fired from backstage. ’ ’ Hugh nodded. 41 That is one of the points they hope to check to-night.” Hugh pushed his salad plate away and rested his hands on the table. “Let’s assume this was a real storm and Leslie was in a real shack. At the moment of tho sharpest flash of lightning, Leslie was standing with his face to the back window—that is, with his back to the audience—and it was in this position that the audience last saw him before the stage was darkened. Two panes are missing from the back window', left out to give the place the aspect of an abandoned shack. And one of these open spaces in the window sash was on a level with Leslie’s chest . . . The police therefore reason that the shot was fired from backstage, passed through the hole in tho window and struck Leslie in the heart ... in that instant before the stage lights were cut off.” “The couldn’t,” said Kate, “very well reason any other way.” “That’s what they thought at first,” Hugh replied. “Now Walter Kellogg isn’t so sure. At least ho is now willing to concede that Leslie could have been shot after ho turned from the wiudo’w, when tho stage was dark;” He was silent a moment; tkeh: “Since the autopsy showed that the bullet entered the chest, passed through the heart and flattened itself, against a rib in the back, that theory, ii the correct one, would necessarily mean that Leslie was shot by someone in the audience.” Kate caught her breath sharply. “From the audience—but who—?” And suddenly, watching his face, sho knew why he had asked her to lunch—to prepare her for a shock, for some distinctly disagreeable development in the police investigation. Fingers twisting the thin stem of his water glass, Hugh asked, “Kate, that night you and Bret left the theatre just a few minutes before the shooting, didn’t you?” Nodding, Kate began, “Yes, but—’ and stopped short, waited. “Did you see Bret get into a taxi?” She considered that. “Actually see him get in?” Searching his eyes. “No . . . He must have gone to the station immediately, though. He couldn’t hare made his train if he hadn’t.” Hugh looked at her, dropped his eyes and watched the movement of his fingers on tho stem of the glass; “By his own admission,” he said quietly, “Bret did not enter a taxi when you left him. Nor did he take the train he had previously said he had taken. Under pressure at police headquarters this morning, he admitted that ho was in the theatre when Leslie was killed . . ” (To be Continued.)