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Zurich Herald, 1933-01-19, Page 2wP . Murder at Bridge By 4NNE AUSTIN. SYNOPSIS. Juanita Selim is murdered at bridge. Suspicion rests on Lydia Oarr, the maid; Florof the murder r reading a notecloset at shelthiniks is from her husband to Nita, but which is from Dexter Sprague, probably Nita's lover and partner in blackmail, and on Ralph ]Hammond, engaged to Nita. Investigating the sio,000 Nita receiv- ed, probably as blackmail, Dundee asks di trl Crain, attorney's secretrmer ar, 1girl,noytlof the girls were in a scandal at the For- syte School, where Nita directed the Easter play. She assures him none was. Dundee questions Lois Dunlap why Nita same to Hamilton and learns that she came after seeing photographs of the crowd as they appeared in "The Feggars' Opera." CHAPTER XXXII'.. "I hat. to hunt quite a bit for them," Lois Dunlap apologized as she resum- ed her seat at the tea table and spread the glossy prints of half a dozen large photographs for Dundee's inspection. "Do you know 'The Beggars' Opera'?" "John Gay --eighteenth century, isn't it? .. As I remember it, it is quite—" and Dundee hesitated,grin- ning. "Bawdy?" Lois laughed. "Oh, very! We couldn't have got away with it if it hadn't been a classic. ie.s it was, we had to tone down some of the naughtiest passages and songs. But it was lots of fun, and the boys en- joyed it hugely because it gave them an opportunity to wear tight satin breeches and lace ruffles... This is my husband, Peter. He adored being the highwayman, `Robin of Bagshot,"' and she pointed out a stocky, belliger- ent -looking man near the end of the long row of costumed players, in the photograph which showed the entire cast. "You say that Mrs. Sel.m accept- ed your proposal that she come to Hamilton to organize a Little Theatre, after she saw these photographs?" Dundee asked. "Had she refused be- fore?" "Yes. I'd gone to New York for the annual Easter play which the For- syte School puts on, because I'm in- tensely interested. in semi-professional theatricals," Lois explained. "Nita had done a splendid job with the play this year, and I spoke to her after it was over. She was not at all in- terested then, but polite about it, so I invited her to have lunch with me the next day, and showed ner these photographs, in the hope that they wouldmake her take the . idea moire. seriously. We had borrowed a Little. Theatre director from. Chicago, and I :'.ew we had done a really good job of 'The Beggars' Opera.' The local reviews-" "These 'stills' look extremely pro- fessional. I don't wonder that they interested Nita," Dundee cut in. "Will you tell me what she said?'' "She rather startled rue," Lois Dun- lap confessed. "I first rl owed her this picture of the whole cast, and as I was explaining the play a bit—she didn't know 'The Beggars! Opera'— she almost snatched the photograph out of my hands. As she studied it, her lovely black eyes grey.' perfectly enorxnus. I've never seen her so ex- cited since—" "What did she say?" Dundee in- terrupted tensely. "Why, she said nothing just at first, e en she began to laugh in the queer- est way—almost hysterically. " asked her why she was laughing—I was a little huffy, I'm afraid—and she said the men looked so adorably conceited and funny. Then she began to ask the names of the players." "Did she show more intereet in one man than another?" "Yes. When I pointed out Judge Marshall as 'Peachurn,' the fence, she cried out suddenly: 'Why, I know him! I met him once on a party;' "Do you think her first excitement was over seeing Judge Marshall aln- oig the players' pictures?" Dundee asked. "No," Lois answered, after consid- ering a moment. "I'in sure she didn't notiee him until 1 pointed hien out. The face in this group that seemed to intereet her most was Flora Miles', Flora played the pat of 'Lucy Lookit,' the jailor's daughter, and Karen Mar- ear: ar ear t e) Sleep 1 rN: �cti at an® yes, fog ''; vaeve s cto'3gad �. boa`I atter. 1=4 *este ve �'-' 'j y Q� p0\11s' cas1eie 7 shall the other feminine lead, 'Polly Peachum,' you know. But it was, Flora's picture she lingered over, so I showed her this picture," and Lois Dunlap reached for the portrait of Flori. Miles, unexpectedly beautiful in the 13th century costume—tight bodice and billowing skirts. "She questioned you about Mrs. Miles?" Dundee asked. "Yes. All sorts of questions—her Lame, and whether she was married and then who her husband was, and if she had had stage experience," Lois answered conscientiously. "She ex- plained her interest by saying Flora looked more like a professional actress than any of the others, and that we should give her a real chance when we got our Little Theatre going. I asked her then if she was going to secept my offer, and she said she might, but that she would have to talk it over with a friend first. Just be- fore midnight she telephoned me at my hotel that she had decided to ac- cept the job." Dundee's heart leaped. It was very easy to guess who that "friend" was! But he controlled his excitement, ask- ed his next question casually: I that very person? No! Of anyone "Did she show particular interestelse but that particular person! It in any other player?" 1 was easy to picture Nita, her head "Yes. She asked a number of ques- whirling with possibilities, hitting tions about Polly Beale, and seemed upon the most conspicuous player hi, incredulous when I told her that Polly and Clive were engaged." "I don't see you among the .. cast," Dundee said. "Oh, I haven't a grain or talent," Lois Dunlap laughed. "I can't act for two cents --can I, Peter darling? .. Here's the redoubtable 'Robin of Bag- shot' in person, Mr. Dundee—my hus- band!" "You're the roan from the district atteeney's office?" Peter Dunlap scowled, his hand barely touching Dundee's. "I suppose you're trying to get at the bottom of the mystery of why my wife brought that Selim woman—" "Don't call her 'that Seliur woman,' titer!" Lois Dunlap interrupted with more sharpness than Dundee had ever seen her display. "You never liked the poor girl, were never jus•;. to her." "Well, it looks as if my hunch was correct. I told you at the beginning to pay her off and send her back to !eel Rork-;'.: 'unix knew I couldn't do that. But please don't let's quarrel about poor Nita again. I want to do anything •I • can to bring her murderer to jus- tice." "There's nothing you can do, Lois, and I hope Mr. Dundee will 'not find it necessary to quiz you again." Dundee reached for his hat. "I hope s:, too, Mr. Dunlap. By the way, you are ; resident of the Chamber of Corn - melee, aren't you?" "Yes, I anis' And 'we're having a meeting tonight, at which that Spra- gue man's bid on making . historical movie of Hamilton will be turned down—unanimously. Dexter Sprague will have no further business in Ham- ilton—unless it is police business!" "Thanks for the tip, Mr, Dunlap. I hope you enjoyed your fishing trip. Where do you fish, sir?" "A tactful way of asking for my alibi, eh?" Dunlap was heavily sar- castic "I left Friday afternoon for my own camp in the mountains up in the northeast part of the state. I drove my own car, went alone, spent the week -end alone,' and got back this noon. I read of the murder ina paper I picked up in a village on my way home. I didn't like Nita Selina and I don't give a damn about her being murdered, except that my wife',3 name is in all the papers. . . , Any que..tions?" "None, thanks!" Dundee answered. The detective's angry resentment of Peter Dunlap's attitude lasted until he was on the road into Hamilton. Then common sense intervened. Free of anger, his mind reverted to the story Lois Dunlap had told him. For in it, he was sure, was hidden the key to the mystery of Nita Selin.'s murder. Not at .all interested in the proposition to organize a Little The- atre in Hamilton, Nita had been seiz- ed with a strange excitement as soon as she was shown photographs of a large group of Hamilton's richest and most prominent inhabitants, Bit there was the rub! A large group! Of course there was Judge Marshall, but if Lois Duniap's memory was to be trusted Nita had not notleed the elderly Beau Brummel's picture until after that strange, `hysterical excite- rnent had taken possession of her, And if it had. been Judge Marshall whom she had come to Hamilton to blackmail would. Nita not have guard- ed her tongue before Lois? The salve was true about her unusual interest in Flora Miles. , . . Dundee tried to put himself in Nita's place, confronted: suddenly ,with a group picture containing the likeness of a person—man, or woman ---agabast whomi at:, knew sot teth1i g l3reaks World Record Only a junior—but hebroke a world record. Art Judice of Brooklyn, who set a new high run of 43 in his. game 'with .Henry Auerbach of Neiv York in the re- cent pocket -billiards tournament., the grcup—dark, tense, • theatrical Flora... But of whom had she r3 ly been thinking?" Dundee, paying more attention his driving now, saw ahead of hi the hotel where Dexter Sprague had; been. living. On a sudden impulse• he parked leis car and five minutes later'. was knocking upon Sprague's door. ,"Well, what do you want now?" the unshaven, palid man demanded. Dundee stepped into the room and closed the door. "I want yin to tell me the name of the man Nita Selirr came here to blackmail, Sprague." "Blackmail?" Sprague echoed, his pallid cheeks going more yellow. "You're crazy! "" Nita came here to take a job—" "She cable here to blackmail some- one, and I am convinced that she sent for you to act as a partner in her scheme. But 1'll snake a trade with you, in behalf of the district attorney. Tell.mc the name of the person she blackmailed , and 1 will promise yogi: immunity from prosecution as her ac- complice. " "Get out of my room!" • "Very well, Sprague," Dundee said. "But let Mt give you a 1riefidly warn- ing: arn ing: Don't 'try to carry on the good work. Nita got $10,000, but she also got a bullet through her heart. And the gun which fired that bullet is safe- ly back in the hands of the killer, ..` You're not going to gel that movie job, and 'I was just afraid you might be tempted! . . Good afternoon 1" (To be continued.) Say This of Horses Across the ages they • come thun- dering On faithful hoofs, the horses man disowns, Their velvet eyes are wide with won- dering; They whinny down the wind in sil- ver tones Vibrant with all the bugles of old wars; Their nostrils quiver with the sum- mer scent Of grasses in deep fields lit by pale stars - Hung in a wide and silent firma- / merit. And in their Hearts they keep the dreams of earth Their patient plodding furrowed to the sun Unnumbered springs before the en- gine's birth Doomed them to sadness livion, Across ' the swift new them go Driven by wheel narno. Latest Findings Of Science Judging Distance of Stars Tasting By Electricity The New York Times published last week an enthusiastic endorsement by Professcr Barlow Shapley of Harv- ard College Observatory of the work which Professor Joel Stebbins has been doing in judging the distances 4f stars. "Judging" is the only word that can be used.. Measurement by suryeyor's methods is out of the ques- tion' when stars are so remote that there is no apparent shift in their positions' in the course of centuries because of their staggering distance. There is nothing for it but to jedge distance by brightness, In this. geld Stebbins , has made an international reputation for himself. When the intrinsic luminosities, of nearby stars of known distance have een determined, a yardstick, based on ight, is at the disposal of the astron- mer. Thereby gauge he can the re- 'moteness of stars of the same lumin- ous type. Thus, if one star of a given olor and brightness is known to be fty light-years away, it follows that a star of the same color but of only half the brightness must be four times as fa-' away, since the brightness of any light falls off as the square of the distance. By carefully measuring the brightness of. stars with the photo- electric cell Professor Stebbins has laid down the probable distances of many stars with what is regarded as a high degree of accuracy. EFFECT OF DUST IN SPACE Recent studies by Professor Steb- bins have co-ivinced him that there is an absorbing medium, probably dust, in space.. 'Jest as the setting sun appears red because the amount ' f air we look• through near the hori- n is greater than the amount ough which we look when sun is erhead, so do the stars ar„d clusters r the central line of the Milky Sr appear reddened," explains Pro - tor -Stebbins. Because of this dust gas in space, he reaches the con- sioii that the distances of some ob- ts, stch as globular clurtets, are ply a quarter as far off as astron- ers supposed they were. At right gies to the Milky Way, where there •e fewer stars and where we can see tter out in the open, the obsorption light is not nearly so =eked, so at the old distances need be correct - d by only 10 per cent. , Dr. Shapley is a specialist on the ''size of the universe. He has devoted ears to a study of the subject and 7ias laid out a program of research for Harvard which can be carried out only in many years more. In his eyes the results and the technique of Pro- eeessee Stebbins are of the highest im- portance in carrying out the Harvard program. ELECTRICAL TASTING•. While he was sitting at .luncheon in the Westinghouse Laboratory in East Pittsburgh, Pa., it flashed on R. C. Hitchcock that an ordinary apple is acid and that the acid must have some electrical response. Out of sheer Curiosity he inserted the two dissim- i1ar pine of a very sensitive recording ' neter.into an apple. "I got the shock of my life When -.the meter began to register," he says. "I immediately conducted the same experiment on an orange and a lemon with the same astonishing results." Physicists will of course realize that Hitchcock had extended the dis- covery which Volta made 130 years go and which ended in the invention the battery. The two dissimilar `ins were simply the poles of a bat- tery, and the acid juice of the fruit the solution, or electrolyte. It needed a very sensitive meter to register the feeble electrical currents thus gener- ated. Fortunately Hitchcock had been working on a meter to measure the minute currents that flow in the photoelectric cells used in sound mo- tion picture projectors and in televi- sion. With: an intrument that could record one millionth of an ampere, or about one-tenth the wing -power of an ordinary house fly, it became possible to test fruits. Testing in this case is more accur- ate than tasting. There is a distinct relation between acidity and flavor. With accurate charts of the current generated by the most luscious fruits and by the best foods with . an acid dontent, possibly the whole system of testing and simpling will be revolri tionized. A fruit with a sour taste has a high electrical reading, while a sweet fruit will register few micro- a^.peres. It is even possible that,with fur- ther development, patients will no longer exhibit their tongues to the doctor. The prongs of the electrical instrument will be placed in the nnouth and the acid contdfit of the saliva of the tongue will be recorded on a meter. HOW THE UNIVERSE BEGAN It was at the 1031 meeting' :of the British Association for the Advance- ment of Science that the Abbe Georges ',maitre promulgated a new theory to account for the beginning of this expanding universe, the cosmic rays and a few other mysteries that are uppermo3t in the minds of physicists. The theory was briefly presented in this department soon atter it was announced. Apparently itdid not make nearly the impression that its ingenuity nrierito.t, So the Abbe hatbeen presenting it again in Saythis of horses; hind No glorious legacy of waving manes And wild proud hearts, and heels be- fore the wind. No heritage of ancient Arab strains, Blazes within a cylinder's cold spark; An entine labors with a sullen fire,, IHoarding no dreams of acres sweet and: dark; NO love for man has ever Surged • through wire! Along the farthest slopes I hear the rumble Of these last hoots—tomorrow they will be still; Then shall the strength of countless horses crumble The stanchest rock and level the highest hill; • And man who made machinee to gain ati hour. Shall lose himself before their ruth» lens power; Oso dreadful and so secret that her sil- emce would be worth thous�.3ndn' oil � —Minnie :trite Moody, ilk 7Clz,� and day ob- I watch and gear and dy- engines leave be - iSS'UF. No., -K i dollars, Would he have chattered of Hon. ORANGE PEKOE L: • SEA "Fresh from the Gardens" American' universities. Lemaitre ae- cepts, the expanding universe as an astronomical fast, because of the dis- covery that the outermost nebulae are 1 -.:ping away with the explosive speed o:." 12,000 miles a second. This expan- sion began not less than 1,400 or more than 2,000 millions of years ago. It t certain, however, that the si ars are much older. Here we have a dis- crepancy that relativists' and physi- ciets have been trying to reconcile. '.he Abbe asks to imagine the uni- verse beginning in an extraordinary a torn,, It had more weight than any star, and it was more fiere ly radio- active than radium. "The whole uni- verse would be produced b; the dis- integration of this primeval atom," seers the Abbe. A world fu-: of radia- tion transforms itself into natter., which it does by condensing into stars, The original atomic star soon ac- e:ired an atmosphere. After that its more highly penetrating rays were imprisoned. We seen in the cosmic rays that puzzle physicists those that escaped in the first place. The Abbe bids us also look for other products of primeval" disintegration, such as fast: beta rays (electrons), alpha par- tiaes and even rays still u -_discovered. According to this theory the uni- verse ha not been expanding at a constant rate. In fact, it is only by invoking some such supposition that it is possible to account for stars inuch older than the universe they consti- tute.—Waldemar Kaempfi•'ert in The N.Y. Times. Human Brain is Usecl 25 p.c., Says Scientist New York—The age of the human brain was placed by Dr. Frederick Tilney, of Columbia University, at 2,000,000 years in a neurological sur- vey published recently, Dr. Tilney's findings, submitted after a five-year research for the neurological institute, said that the opossum is approximately 80,000,000 years old, and in that time the brain has developed "practically not at all. A rat's brain is placed at 40,000,000 Tears and a cat's at, 25,000,000. The human brain, Dr. Tilney re- ported, is but 25 per cent used, the rest Iying dormant awaiting develop- ment. "Man has jumped ahead of the other animals by leaps and bounds," the report said, "because of the de- velopment of his cortex, particular- ly in the front part of his brain. This frontal area has enormously devel- oped and has become an added in- strumentality which man possesses and the other animals do not. This is the seat of reason, judgment, learn- ing and the higher processes of thought." LEVITY There Is always some levity, even in excellent minds; they have wings to rise, and also to stray.—Joubert. Each IDa:y I goes to chunser on Sunday an' 1 listens to de text, It sbo'ly helps' my feelins when my mind is getting vexed. De Sabbath religion puts a calmness in de heart— But everyday religion needq a chance to 10 its part. Dar's de Monday religion «lieu you's got to go to work. 'And de Tuesday religion when musn' stop to shirk. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday an' Sat- urday as well Needs everyday religion 'thout arc Magill' of de bell. Jon One day a learnin' 'bout do goodnees an' de -light; De other six a-sbowiia' dat you cot de lesson right. Suuday brings us comfort wif, de beauty an' de rest,, But de everyday religion is what pats you to de test, --Selected. Dinnertime hi. Java Margaret Holloway, writing in Overseas Magazine of Javanese fond. says: - "in Java T bad the biggest meal 1 ever enjoyed. Seated at a large table 20 odd Javanese waiters silently boar down on us, carrying shoulder high groaning dishes of food. As a faun - dation, 1 take my share of the moun- tain of rice, then portions of .lava rooster submerged in a sea of curry sauce. Now a taste of the vegetable dishes as the 'boys' file past In quick succession—cabbage, beans, young corn, and many others. 'This nice, Mem,' said the hearer of the heart of a coconut palm, fearing I may over- look that delicacy. Then liver,. min- ced meat, sausage, small fish, 'ikan kering,' delicious prawns, and a fried egg to crown the formidable .plate- ful. Beware of the man now stand- ing at your side and take sparingly of the biting pounded chiles, hot chutney and highly .flavored ancho- vies, grated coconut, and 'hell -Errs , sauce.' And, still they come with farther additions to the feast, which etiquette. demands to • be placed on one's small plate. Rumor has it that the Chinese duck's, eggs have been buried for, 20 years, but their Pres• ent piquant flavor soon overcomes any question of their past. Stuffed scarlet peppers, salted monkey nuts, fried bananas, `kroeboeks' . the end is in sight .......,a stick of pork 'sateh' and a wedgle of cooling, refre- shing cucumber as the last 'boy' leaves my side.. 'The Mem hal enough?' asks an attentive waiter," A Mother'sLove Youth fades; love droops; the leaves of friendship fall; A mother's secret hope outlives thele all. Holmes Get Rid of That SORE THROAT! Any little soreness in the throat grows rapidly worse if neglected. Crush some tablets of Aspirin in some water, and gargle at once. This` gives you instant relief, and reduces danger from infection. One good gargle and. you can feel safe. If all soreness is not gone promptly, re1eat. There's usually a gold with the sore throat, so take, two 'tablets to throw off your cold, headache, stiffness or other cold symptoms. Aspirin relieves neuralgia, Neuritis, too• Use it freely; it does not hurt the heart. P TRADE -MARK RCC. IN GANAtDA