Boy's Cinema (1939-40)

8 end Hoviaul led tlie transformed girl to the appointed chair. "Are yoii going to make a little statement for the boys?"' wheedled one of the reporters. "Uuh." responded Mollv instantly. "I want to tell the world that " '■ Molly 1" Howard silenced her with a ges- ture. "Any staieinont from Miss Herkimer," he said, " must pome through me. Are you ready to have vour picture taken, my dear?" "Uhuh!' Camera:" were trained upon her, flashlamps bla/.ed. "Oh, I can't see a thing!" she complained, rubbing her eyes. As the days passed. Molly Herkimer became more and more satisfied with herself, and her cell came to look like a cross between an editorial office and a gown shop—except for the bars. Advertisers and sympathisers were showering fenn'nine articles of apixirel upon her, face creams and what not. and she had taken to pa.sting newspaper cuttings concern- ing herself upon the walls. But Mary Lou did not like any of it„ and one afternoon she practically said as much to Steve. "Listen, honey." enjoined Steve, leaning over her at the table in the office where she had been typing, " this means fame—money— everything we've always wanted. It means paid-up advertising for the paper. It means a new printing press for Pi. It means a real career for Howard, and a practice for Peter. And, more than that, it means a nice little home for Mr. and Mrs. Steve Lewis—you and me." "Oh. I know. Steve," nodded Mary Lou. " But have you taken a good look at Molly's shoes ?" "Molly's shoes?" he echoed blankly. "What about her shoes?" "Wliy. they're nothing but sandals! There's hardly enough weight in them to squash a fly, and certainly not enough to kill a man!" "And that's what vou've been worrying about?" "That's one of the things—yes." "So she was wearing another pair of shoes that day." The subject was not pursued, because just then Peter bvnst in upon them with the news that Tucker Tyler had decided to take up the prosecution and was going to apply for an indictment. "Tucker Tyler?" Steve found it difficult to believe. "Yes. old chicken-blood Tucker himself!" declared Peter. Steve decided that the news was good enough for an extra edition and shouted for Pi. Molly was duly indicted, and the date of the trial was fixed. The town became filled with .strangers, hotels and lodging-houses be- came overcrowded, and so many people flocked to Mike Casey's lunch-stand that he doubled bis prices without losing any but his logular customers. And then, the day before the case was to oome into court, a blow fell. Steve, in his shirtsleeves, was dictating some copy to Mary Lou in tlic press-iooni. and Howard and Peter were looking on and nuiking occasional sug- gestions, when !Martin Collins knocked on the door in the partition and was admitted. His manner, as he hailed everybody, suggested that lie bad been drinking. "How's everything going?" Howard in- quired. "Terrific, boys, terrific!" Collins plunged a hand into a coat-pocket and brought forth something in his fist. "Have you seen my liltest sensation? I've sold three gio.ss of 'em already!" The fist was openedand a tiny slipper was disjjlayed with exultation. "The Cinderella clipper in niinicher!" pro- claimed Collins. "The murder weapon itself! The one official souvenir! It's my own idea, too." "Marty," said Howard dryly, "you'd make a great talent scout for a mortuary." "He's jealous," laughed Collins, putting away the slipper. "Now let's get down to business. I gotta great proposition for you—gonna letcha all in on it. It's a beauty! We all chip in twenty-five bucks apiece, build a fence around January 20th, 1940. BOY'S CINEMA the Herkimer place, and charge the tourists admission." He fliuig out his hands and held forth like a showman : "Here y'are, folks, here y"are! Step right up and see the spot marked 'X'! See the house wheie the big fight started—see the barn where it finished! Right this way, folks— right this way!" He dropped his voice and held his hands palms upwards. "Well, come on, bovs—put it on the line! Feed the kitty!" "No, thanks," said Steve disgustedly. "But it's a gol' mine!" "Four days from now," said Howard, "the trial will be over and there won't be a tourist in town." Collins became aggrieved. "Aw, so you lost your confidonce in me, eh? I put this town on the map—I thought up the biggest thing in Fanesville. And what happens? You lose youi' confidence in me." "Oh, it isn't that, Marty," protested Steve half-heartedly. "Yes, it is. Nobody appreciates my genius. Go look at Main Street—all hustle and biistle. I did that! I did it—and with what? With nothing!" "Nothing?" cried Mary I^ou. "A man was killed, wasn't he ?" Collins grinned. "You were here when Mollj- made her con- fession," said Steve. "Here?" drawled Collins. "Why, of course I was here. I'm the guy that talked her into making it. Not only talked her into it, but figured it all out for her—every word of it, slipper and all." "What's that ?" roared Steve. "Fooled everybody in town," boasted Collins. "Even you !" "Marty, you made up that confession?" gasped Petei'. Collins nodded. "Genius!" he bragged. "Pure genius!" "You mean that confession was a fake?" lasped Howard. "Just among the five of us—it was." Howard grabbed him by the arm and wrist. Steve locked his other arm in a hold that was agonising, and he said fiercely: "I ought to break your neck!" "There's gratitude!" howled the captive. "Who pulled your newspaper out of the mud? Who gave you the .story of the year?" "Get out of here !" They propelled him towards the door, and Peter opened it. The gate in the rail swung violently backwards and forwards as the front door also opened and Collins was thrown out on to the pavement. DESPERATE MEASURES FOR the better part of an hour thereafter the four unhappy victims of Martin Collins' "genius" di.scussed amongst them- selves the situation in all its bearings; and then they went to see Molly in her cell. But Molly, clad in a gorgeous fur coat sent her by some sympathetic fool, and opening telegrams from other sympathetic fools, was enjoying herself so much, and was so certain she would" be acquitted, that she refused to retract. "I said I done it," she persisted ungram- matically. "I signed a paper that I done it. That's all there is to it, and neither you nor anybody else in the world can make me take back a thing!" "Molly, you've got to own up," Howard told her. "I can't argue self-defence if you didn't kill him." "I don't luiderstand vou guys!" she flamed. "You were tickled to death when I made my confession." "Yes." said Steve, "because we thought you were telling the truth." "If the jury finds j'ou guilty," warned Peter, "you might have to go to prison for life." "I don't care." She tossed her blonde head. "I'll stick by what I said, no matter what happens. I'm not going to have everybody laughing at me!" "But nobody \vill laugh at you, Molly," said Mary Lou pleadingly. "Oh, yes. they will !_ All my life they've been laughing at me—if they noticed me at all. The first day I went to school the kids Every Tuesday laughed at me because I didn't have any shoes, and I went home cryin'. I never went to church 'cause I never had no decent dresses. I never went to picnics, nor nothin'. till I coultl buy my own things—and what I did buy people laughed at. I never was nobody—just ' that Herkimer girl.' The town drunk's kid!" She held her chin high, and she pointed to the cuttings she had pasted on the walls. "Well, I'm somebody now—really some- body!" she went on. "I've got my name in papers all over the <'ountry—and my picture, too. Look—see? Chicago—New "i'ork—San Francisco—everywhere! People who never heard of Fanesville know who I am!" She turned to the narrow table on which Mary Lou had put her handbag, and she scooped up the telegrams that were on it. "And look at the mail I've got! Telegrams —me that never got a letter in all my life! Guys askin' to marry me—people wantin' to adopt me—people sendin' me clothes and presents! Moro stuff than I ever dreamed of havin'! D'you think I'm gonna give up all that? No! Not in a million years! I'm some- body now!" Tiiey realised that the whole wretched business had turned her head and that argu- ment could not prevail, so they left lier to her illusions .-ind went back to tbe office of the "Bee-Clarion " to confer all over again. At ten o'clock that night they decided in desperation to go and seethe enemy—in other words. Tucker Tyler and his father. They went, they rang the bell, although the house was in darkness, and they were admitted to the hall—but were not itivited anv farther—by Tucker Tyler himself. Dr. Tyler was with his son. and both were in ilressmg-gowns and slippers. "Well, what do you want me to do?" barked Tucker Tyler, after the remarkable circum- stances had been explained. "There's only one thing to do," Howard replied as a lawyer. "Move for a dismissal." "But she's been indicted!" "On what? On the strength of a phoney confession! You haven't another shred of evidence against her, and you know it." "I'm not so sure of that." sneered Tucker. "No, we're not so sure of that," his father echoed like a parrot. "But you can't prosecute an innocent girl," stormed Steve. "Innocent?" scoffed Tucker. "Do you think I'm stupid enough to fall for so obvious a trick as this ?" "But it isn't a trick!" cried Howard. "It's the truth, I tell you !" "Then put your client on the witness-stand and l«;t her convince the jury—if she can!" Mary Lou stepped forward. "Why don't you come down to the jail with us and talk to her yourself?" she suggested. "If you'd only hear her as we did-——"' "Miss Carroll," Tucker interrupted scath- ingly. "I'm afraid I'm not quite that gullible." ""You're afraid to listen to her!'' blazed Steve. "Not at all, not at all. But I'm not going to be trapped into a charge of subornation. Tucker reopened the front door and shivered slightly in a draught. "Now, if you will excuse fatlier and me, we're far too tired to stand here arguing." The door was slanuned before the four had left the porch. "This is one situation they never mentioned in law school," said Howard dismally, on the way to the gate. "A client I know to be innocent insists that she is guilty, and I can't prove she's wrong!" Peter and Howard went home with Mary Lou because—like Steve—they were her mother's boarders. Steve went back to the office of the paper to see the morrow's issue off the press. The night was sultry, but that was not why Mary TjOu found sleep impossible. She sat on the side of her bed for more than an hour, thinking and thinking till thought itself became intolerable, and then she slipped out from her room. Down in the hall, she put on a hat and macintosh, and nobody heard her leave the house. It seemed a long way to Herkimer's farm on foot, and the way was dark under a clouded sky across which li'ghtning occaslonallj;