Radio mirror (Nov 1937-Apr 1938)

RADIO MIRROR Mary slipped out of the hotel, carrying her heavy suitcase. At the platform she looked around and loved every inch of the aggressive ugliness. It was Sanders, it could have meant the end of her trail, peace. Mary slipped out of the shadow of the wide eaves, ran with her suitcase to the train. Her heart was doing strange things. She could not get her breath. She could not see to find the step. But she must make it. In a second the train would pull out. She reached blindly for the handrail, tried to lift her suitcase. But her suitcase was slipping, slipping. her hand closed over thin air. Her eyes saw only black around her. A voice in her ears, Danny's voice! She opened her eyes in her own familiar room of the bridal suite. Danny was saying, "Doctor Benson, look. She's comin' round." (Continued from page 54) But one setback was just enough to sting the Sanders spirit into action. It was a simple matter for those who owned the town of Sanders including its legal processes, to prove that the mill had been robbed of exactly the bills that Danny had carried to Jerome Sanders. And Danny went to jail. It was Mary's turn to go into action. She called on Jerome Sanders. A little of what she knew of him, of how he made his millions he had brought to this town, came out in that conversation. Little as it was, it was enough. Enough to throw open the gates that barred Danny in. "Yes," Mary told Dr. Benson when he made his regular call, "Sanders did agree to let him out. But if you could have seen him when he promised — I had the feeling 1 was facing a cornered animal — as if he were making one concession to give himself time to figure out a real way Back from his vacation, Richard Crooks is once more the star of Monday night's Voice of Firestone on NBC. Above, with Mrs. Crooks, Dick, Jr., and Patricia. "She is," said Dr. Benson, and Mary turned to look into the face of a man who was tall and lean and dark. "John!" Dr. Benson sent Danny out, but not before Danny had become aware that this was no ordinary meeting of young doctor and new patient. These two had know^n each other before. When later they did not choose to take the town into their confidence as to how and when, it added one more mystery to be chalked up against Mary's desirability. "Yes," he answered to Mary's question, "I've made my diagnosis all right. But don't worry. Doctors don't tell." "But won't people — " "Why should they? You were in a state of excitement, unhappy at leaving, rushing to catch a train, on top of a period of stress and exhaustion — " Mary breathed easier. "You're kind, John." "You don't know how glad I am that I'm where I'll have a chance to be. That's all I've ever asked of this old world. You will — you will let me be your friend now?" "I will, John," Mary said. "1 need friends, I'm afraid." "Well, you'll never lose this one," John said. And Mary slept that night. Somehow she felt strength from John Benson's presence in Sanders. He'd help her straighten things out. And he did. Together they hatched a plot to get the mortgage paid. Daddy need not know, no one need know, where the money came from. Danny took care of its delivery. And Mary became part owner of the hotel. 56 to get rid of me. And John — John, I have the feeling he's so scared of what 1 know he wouldn't stop at anything — " "Nonsense," Benson said, smiling at her seriousness. "You're letting your nerves run away with you. You need to get outdoors more. As a doctor I prescribe a trip this afternoon to a deserted lake where no one eyer goes. I'll show you — " "Oh, are you in the prescription?" Mary asked. She lay looking up at him fondly. "I'm in the prescription all right," Benson said. An hour later she lay back in the old rowboat against a bank of cushions. The oars made a rhythmic lazy creak as Benson slowly pulled them back. But Mary kept hearing other sounds. "That was an automobile," she said. "I thought you told me no one ever came here." Benson listened. "I don't hear any car," he said. "I don't think you did either. It's your nerves again." "Maybe," Mary said. "I'll try to stop hearing things." She leaned back once more and tried to think only of the beauty of the day, of the remote dim spot. John smiled at her as he pulled the boat steadily along the edge of the lake, in the cool shadow of the overhanging boughs. Then it happened. The bushes parted, and hands reached through. Not only hands, but a gun. John lifted an oar, the boat rocked, he brought the oar down to steady the boat and in that minute, even as he reached for her, Mary was dragged through the bushes by strong, hard hands. A gun roared once, in her ears. She heard a splash. Then there was a cloth over her eyes and another binding her mouth. A rope cut into her wrists. She was in a car, bumping over the old mill road. Time stopped, then. The ride went on forever. The road was smooth and swift for a while, then turned tortuous and slow. It was dusk when she felt the bandage being taken from her eyes, the gag from her mouth. She could not speak. The man at the wheel stared straight ahead, his hands big and hard on the wheel, his jaw set in grim lines. As she looked at him, his lips relaxed. He grinned. "Please," Mary cried out. "Please take me back. If we can just find out what happened to John I promise I'll come away with you again." He laughed. "Promises from girls is what got me into this line of work." "But I've got to know — " "Listen, cluck," he broke in calmly, "if I was wearin' those cute little 4-B's of yours, I'd worry about Number One." Mary caught her breath. "V\<nat do you mean?" she gasped. "What's Sanders going to do to me?" "Nobody said anything about any Sanders," he said. "You needn't bother to put on that show," Mary said. "I know there's only one person who'd want to do this to me." "What's Sanders got against you? Did you get him goin' and then make him pay off?" |ulARY felt an unreasonable anger. But "■why should she worry what a gangster said to her? She bit her lip and answered quietly, "Do I look like that kind?" He turned and looked at her for the first time. His eyes were a curiously clear blue, the kind she would have described as "honest" if she didn't know whose they were. "No," he said slowly. "You don't look like that kind." Then he turned back to his driving. "But you can't tell. I've seen dames — " "You've seen dames?" Mary prompted. "Nothin'," he said. "We're not here to tell each other hard luck stories." At the end of a long lane they reached a bleak, dreary frame house. It had once been white but was now a dreary gray, the paint hanging in peeling strips. The lock was rusty but under the man's skillful hands it gave way. They went in. "Well, toots," he said cheerfully, "this is your home for a while." Mary knew suddenly that she was aching with weariness. She sank down on a lumpy horsehair sofa. "Could you open the windows?" she asked. He eyed her suspiciously. "For air," he asked, "or for excape?" She laughed. "Not for 'excape'," she said. "I don't think I'm up to escaping right now." "Huh? You mean every time I thousht I was scaping from a jail I've really been ^scapin'?" "Yes." Mary said smilins. "Say, that's bad. I might make a real mistake sometime. I oughtta have you around to keep me straight." "Do you want to be kept straight?" He looked at her. His clear candid blue eyes stared into hers. There was something laughable, ingenuous, yet something more — Mary felt she must be getting lightheaded from strain. "I'll let you know about that later," he said. "Something tells me if I answered that question right now 1 might let myself in for somethin'." He opened the window by her. "Sa-ay, you don't look so good." He looked at her hands. The tender white, blue-veined skin inside her wrist was flushing a painful pink where the rope (Continued on page 58)