Boy's Cinema (1933)

16 into the interior of the cab and thought' hard. She knew Che officer on guard at the door. No; all her smiles wouldnt' get her past him. Her decision was quickly taken. "Drive to the first dry-goods store on the avenue," she directed the driver of the cab. Ten minutes later another cab halted outside the Wayne mansion. From it emerged a frail, girlish figure, bowed with grief. Her stockings were black, a black scarf was thrown round her neck and a black veil obscured her features. As she turned her back on the watching newspapermen to pay the cabman, her whole body appeared to be shaken with sobs. Curious and wonder- ing, the men made way for her as she came up the steps, a black-bordered handkerchief held to her face. The tall policeman barred her path. "No one to enter or leave the house ■without Lieutenant Mitchell's orders," he said respectfully but firmly. The young lady appeared too distracted by grief to understand. "Oh," she sobbed, "it can't be true! The coroner just telephoned me that Uncle Silas has been murdered. A month after losing my mother! Why does the coroner want me? Oh, officer, tell me it isn't true!'' "Say, miss," said Rosmer, coming forward, "do you say you are Mr. Wayne's niece?" The reporters whipped out their note- books. Officer Kelly immediately waved them aside. He extended a protecting arm round the pathetic, black-robed figure. "Is it tryinig to make a newspaper story ye are out of the poor young creature's sorrows ? Shame on yez! Go along in, missie." He opened the door with the key he had taken from Jeff. "The coroner is a mighty kind gentle- man, and maybe your uncle has left you something in his will." He pushed her inside the door of Silas Wayne's house and shut it behind her. The warm-hearted Irishman would have been painfully shocked if he could have seen through that substantial door, and the grief-stricken damsel executing a dance expressive of triumph on the doormat. Taking in her surroundings with the quickness required of her pro- fession, she walked boldly up the great staircase. Half-way up she came face to face with a negro butler. "Not much to fear from him," she said to herself, with a glance at his terrified visage. "Coroner upstairs?" she asked ■ .illy. "Yes, missie. And dc police, too. And all the family." "Well, I've been sent for by Lieutenant Mitchell. Say, did you see Mr. Wayne die ?" Yes. missie, with these two eyes of mine Ah seed him die. He was reading his will, missie, and all of a sudden he tumbles forward dead, a dead corpse, missie. Ah lets a yell, and (lev all lets a yell. lint Doctor Bailey, he won't allow no one to touch him, and he picks him up and he finds a great knife that sticks inlo him." 'A knife? But how could anyone slick a knife into him with all those around?" 'I'l'.' butler showed the whites of his "Dai's whai nobody can't understand. missie. Ah don't like this house. Ah'm a groin' home to Alabam. Ah'm not slaying here. It. wasn't none of his folks that killed Mr. Wayne. No, missie. It «as one of them spooks. Maybe it was him." And Jeff pointed with a trembling February IStli, I0B8. BOY'S CINEMA hand at the figure of an armed man that seemed to mount guard on the landing immediately above. For a moment even Toodles, as she remembered afterwards with surprise, felt a tremor of fear. Certainly it was uncanny a man being stabbed by an unseen hand in the presence of a crowd of people. What a story! She gave a second uneasy glance at the man in armour, and then forced a laugh. "You run along," she said. "No spook is responsible for this. I'm going to lend the lieutenant a hand. Before long you'll see the spook that killed Mr. Wayne with the bracelets on him." She passed on upstairs, then quickly withdrew behind the armed figure. A crowd of people were issuing from the room above, marshalled by two burly officers. Behind them came a man she recognised as the coroner. With him, clutching him by the arm, was the man she more than liked, and whom she had most reason at this moment to dread—: Police-Lieutenant Mitchell. The two men went along the corridor. Quick as thought, Toodles slipped through the door behind them and found herself in a vast, sombre room lined with book-shelves. On the great leather-covered table in the middle a number of documents were outspread. On the back of one she read, "Last Will and Testament of Silas Wayne." With a purr of delight, the girl seized upon it. The next moment her slender wrists were pinioned in a grip of steel. She found herself staring into the stern face of Ned Mitchell. "Hallo, Ned!" she said, smiling her sweetest smile. "Is this your latest way of proposing?" Mitchell's face relaxed into a grim smile. But his grip did not relax till he had extricated the document from her slender fingers. He placed it in his breast-pocket and looked at her. "Ah," he said, "I thought you would butt in somehow. Now, kid, get this straight. I'm handling this case, and I don't need any assistance—not even yours, tlet that? How you got into this house, I don't know, but you are going out again mighty quick, if I have to carry you out myself!" "Guess I'd rather like that, Ned," said Toodles saucily. She seated herself on the edge of the table. Her eyes smiled at the young officer. It was a captivating smile, and the more so because Toodles was not putting on that smile in the way she could on occasions when she wanted something badly. She liked Ned Mitchell; liked him quite a lot, and that, too, in spite of the fact that their business relations had sometimes been strained. For nearly the space of ten seconds the detective and the girl reporter looked at each other. Then Ned Mitchell took a step nearer to the charm- ing representative of the "Morning Sun." He gripped both her hands. "You can stay, kid, if you give your word that you'll say nothin to that pack outside," he whispered. " That's a promise, Ned," she answered. "Anything I get will be a scoop for the ' Sun.' They pay my salary, arid, although it isn't much " "I guess they pay you more than headquarters pays me," interrupted Ned banteringly. " I wish I had gone into the reporting game." "You need real brains for that, Ned," murmured Toodles. Lieutenant Mitchell burst into laughter. It was Toodles' quick wit as much as her feminine charm which had captured his heart. Every Tuesday The Will of Silas Wayne. AT once Ned Mitchell became again the police chief. Seeming to for- get the girl he loved, he con- centrated all his faculties upon the case before him. "I wonder," thought Toodles, "if I were to ruffle his hair, whether I could get a look at that will?" She decided not to try. But though she sat silent, her keen e3es roved round the big room, taking in its every detail. A policeman brought in a letter and handed it to his chief. Mitchell broke the seal, and for a moment seemed to ponder over what he read. He looked across at Toodles. "This is the coroner's report," he said. "He has analysed the contents of the glass from which Silas Wayne drank a few minutes before his death. There was no poison in it. Death was due to the knife." "But how " began the girl eagerly. Mitchell checked her. " Don't talk. Think if you like, and look. Two pairs of eyes are better than one, and I want you to note the re- actions of the people I'm going to interrogate to the questions I put to them." He touched a bell." " Bring 'em all in," he said to the officer. Toodles selected a projecting book- case for her point of observation. Through a chink between the books she could see without being seen. She had hardly seated herself before the door again opened, and one by one admitted the people who had witnessed the death of Silas Wayne. "Now, ladies and gentlemen," began Mitchell pleasantly, "I'm going to ask you a few questions. I've no doubt that between us we shall be able to clear up this mysterious affair. It will assist me if you will resume the exact positions sou occupied at the moment of the fatality." No one, so far as the watcher behind the bookcase could perceive, displayed any reluctance to do this. There was a shuffling of feet and of chairs, and everyone, except Jeff, sat facing Ned Mitchell. Toodles studied their features. The most nervous of all appeared to bo the dark, good-looking young man already known to her by sight and re- pute as Claud Wayne, the dead man's nephew and secretary. A lovely girl of about her own age was seated very close to a sulky-looking young man. Robert Wayne, the other nephew for whom, it was rumoured. Silas had 3 manifested a peculiar antipathy. Stephen Boulter and his smart, over- dressed wife made no secret of their in- dignation at being subjected to an ex- amination. Most agitated of all—except the negro butler, who remained stand- ing, moving his lips as if in prayer—was the woman, Mrs. Sheen. It seemed to the observer that she derived support from the presence next to her of the sad- faced Doctor Bailey, who sat with folded arms and hall-shut lids. There was a long pause. Mitchell looked at the housekeeper. "Now. Mrs. Sheen—you were the deceased's housekeeper. How long?" " Thirty-five years." "Thirty five years. That's quite a while." "A lifetime. A lifetime of,—Hell!" The bitterness of those words was reflected on the woman's bitter face, which still retained somo vestiges of beauty. "llcll, eh? Yet you stayed with Mr. Wayne all those years. Well, well— you were married once, I think. Mrs. Sheen?" "Yes. My husband is dead." "Well, let's get on to the tragedy. Mr. Wayne bad a glass of medicine