The Bangor Daily News du lieu suivant : Bangor, Maine • 28

PACE FOUR LADY OF NIGHT By Jerome Barry called him as soon as Bess had told me what had happened lie lived In a building just off Park Ave in a street not far uptown this is Chick been murdered? Have the police come yet? I believe I feel well enough to go over there mysell and take a look" All it needed was the hint of a homicide to make the old man hanker for action even yet You couUI see why In his day he'd been the best chief medical examiner the New York City police had ever had He'd retired on account of his heart When I was plain vanilla I urd to carry a lunch tray into Iis office ftnm our 53rd St store As we stood there 1 said woman in black the one I called Lady of Night" 1 said the one wkos been sitting staring at Miss -Courtray every evening Last night the girls tell me she actually made an open threat to stick with a sandwich kmle I haven't been around the store myself for a few nights since Be lo well took hold of things so well that it gave me a chance to get caught up jjh my job of supervising some of the other stores 1 dropped in tonight though and as soon as she told me what had born going on I telephoned you and cutno over after you 1 left word that the woman wasn't to be allowed in the store again I see followed my orders" The traffic lights changed the car got out of the way and all of a sudden 1 was running going to begin to make sense Move just a little nearer the I leaned farther forward over the little table and she looked even better from there your point of view it's I said have a job right here behind the counter where you can ready yourself for real advancement when the Knowles chain needs a new soda supervisor oil account of Varney having army trouble Also you'll be near the sister you're worried about she lives upstairs and comes in here every day You'll have a chance to watch and see what's wrong with her And from my point of view not so bad too 1 get someone intelligent to run the counter evenings and herd Azalea and the rest of the dumb bim-boes into line so say 'May I lake your order instead of want She laughed and stood up and I got up too was a nice try Mr she said She started for the front door The woman in black the one that we came to call Lady of Night later was just disappearing through the door The girl stopped stock-still looking after her It seemed to me that the sight of that strange woman had brought back to her suddenly and fully the shock of odd doings the queerness of her half behavior and that curious threatening gesture the woman in black had made with the table knife She came back toward me extending a hand frankly Varney sold a bill of goods This is strictly right When do I start?" now Bess I'll show you While I strolled about with her showing her this and that I was patting myself on the back this is our new soda chief on the evening shift Miss Lowell meet Miss Concepcion Alba to her close pals" Connie poised her atomizer "A sample of Dama de Noche Miss Lowell? It means of In my native Philippines but not on the coat collar please I like perfume up around my face or on my clothes Spray just a little on my palm Then I can raise my hand and catch a fresh whiff of scent whenever I want to Mmmm delightful isn't I took Bess over to the counter and showed her the lay of the land She changed her things back in the little rest room by the kitchen and then came out and took her place at the sandwich board I sat on a stool at the counter and watched while Ruthie Sanderson at the end station sang out an order for a BLT That's a bacon lettuce and tomato sandwich It did my heart good to see the way Bess put it together -The girls at the counter knew what was happening They didn't need to be tol(i that Bess was going to be running the counter evenings after this Just a week from that night I was walking through the dim-out along Madison -Avenue toward the store with Dr Parrish Well we were only a little more than a block away when it happened In spite of the dim-out we could see her pretty distinctly for a moment The door of the store had opened and across the slant of light that it let out there was a flash of a black dress moving quickly Then she was lost in the darkness I said wouldn't let her in I told them not woman you telephoned about earlier this evening of i do you call her that?" the tag the girls behind the soda counter have hung on her On account of the book and the "What book? What perfume?" The traffic light at the corner turned from green to red and we waited while a car started up and passed in front of us It was a 'warm evening for so early in the year and neither of us wore a topcoat It 10 o'clock yet but Madison Avenue looked like 2 in the morning half the street lights were turned out and all the store fronts were dark need to boom questions at me like that Dr 1 said not acting as your legman in a murder case tonight This is strictly from pleasure 1 wanted you to visit a new store of ours for once while everything was still jam-up and hunky-dory And I wanted -you to help me keep it that way" 1 remembered his reaction when She sat down and I took a chair opposite her The little round table was well away from the one where Lady of Night was calmly eating her sandwich of I said worried about your "Mr Varney terribly worried about her Something has gone dread- fully wrong with her It's more than a year since I saw her last and in the meantime she's changed It's a teitify-ing change You see her often don't you? Do you know what's wrong?" "I know that she takes too many neau-ache She gave me a quick half-angry glance and started to get up "Don't think I'm kidding" I said sit down What I said about her taking too much of that stuff was serious Her nerves are badly upsdt by something been dosing herseif so heavily trying to keep quieted down that in the end the stuff sets up a nerve irritation that has her more wildly nervous than ever why she flared up so excitably tonight Bess Lowell said "What made her so nervous in the first Diace? Have you figured that cut Mr Soda "Have you ever read her magazine Miss In spite of herself she laughed to tell you the truth I try reading Tellus before it disappears from the stands That's as far as I go on your first my other She flushed but she did you seen I said start for the door on their way out and then they stop and think wondering 'where going and how they're going to get as I i as you "What do they do then?" they come back and hit the soda man for a dime or else they go on cut into the darkness Sometimes he sees them again Most in either cose he do they Lodging House Bowery Mission Aid She picked up her purse and gloves' give a girl such gay I said of them ever asked me for advice and I never slipied them any I'm breaking a record having a bright idea about you sure bright Mr Varney? Those summers at the drive-in someone was always having a wonderful idea It was usually dbout my having a tryout in funny you mentioned that because my bright idea is along those lines It about pictures though about the drive-in Ever cut sand-wiches indeed I learned that it's quite art Has a technique of its can say that again I said cause talking to a guy been through the mill One rainy day in the Fifth Avenue store when there was 'a parade 1 stood at the board for two hours and Cut a hundred and sixty-five worth of She looked over carefully and said do you keep it?" they give you for an exploit like that Chevrons? A service stripe? Not a sister getting to the answers ahead of me What am I doing out of uniform you mean tell you why They talie me in the ngvy on account of a 4-20 eye In the d'raft I'm 1-B But got a hunch that before the year is out they'll be shoving all us 1-Bs into 1-A and the Knowles stores are going to need a new soda supervisor Where do we get "Promote I said living in the past All our good men have gone to the war The few we have left like old Val Schwartje can cut sandwiches 'like nobody's business but that lets them out They're at the top of their careers rights BESS LOWELL frowned at me waitrjust a you were cutting a three-decker into four would you twist it with your fingers to put it into place for the second have it fall apart all over the board? No I'd let it lie there while I shifted my stance and got the knife on it from another have I been worrying I said knows the technique She's the answer to the $04 Varney in a minute counter ithout a glance at Res Lowell as if she resented seeing her half -tr there behind It ruting undsidwi cheerfully or sending a LUh cf Nr4 through the loasirr But Min Courtray ml uHrg upright in the booth She was leaning forward with her forearms on the la ie and her head rest'rg on her hands Well that wain unusual either Recently the heavy de rf robins that she been taking for parried nerve of her lad teen that effect No tlrere was only oi-e Ihrg in the least unusual about Anne Courtray A knife wss stcku out of ter hark By the looks of the handle it was tee of our sandwich knives "I lele hored the j1 Ch-ck a voire said quietly into my ear through the bumbling ef talk Bat was for eat in the crowd It was IXe Platt the laitnanil I Li i iced around at Ins thin icd fare how it ha ataed I was making up a preset pt-on and I Just happened to glance out through the glass partisan Thai fanny-looking bag they call of N-gM came straght In through the front and went right over ta the hrt-'h and stabbed Miss Courtray limit let nit yell and tried In top her ty ni gmg a side please ThsA big policemen pushed thor way past Doc Platt They must hive eeene from a radio car that had been sent answer to the pharmacist call 1WAS glad to see them but 1 was twice at glad to see Dr Partih peer along behind them in the lfle lane they'd opened for him fus big head and shoulders towering above the crowd ILt hat was shoved bach on head and crinkly white hair tsuif-ed out excitedly from under the front of tt He stopped besde me and hacked at Anne Courtray The khjfe stuck op out of the left side of her bark the -re la-ward the soda counter 5he was I sc toward the front door She hadnt ween her sealskin Because of the warm night she'd put on a dark tlue cloth mat The deep sum around the krfe wws smaller than 1 have expected "Anybody wee this happen a pot man from the patrol car asked druggist did I want are you Mac" supervise the store Dr Parrish said Varney" an old friend of mine Nomirki Hell da all he can to help The p-lcmug had his tebook out I Oe Doc Platt said saw the woman stats her and then run rsut of the store dame In black that's been haegng around here for the tail week else see it hssrer girl must have CL It answered Jerking hi thumb at Lews IjOWcII Who was Holding her face against Arthur Garry's shwitjrr happened Just a she was bring rg a tray to tha tsooth The woman In blech almost ran Into her And there another girl must have seen it Name of Ikitu She tried to stop the killing Threw a knife at the on an that d-d The policemans broad red face came around with a snap a anife Aralra Butts stuck her bead fur under elbow in the nnsd behind ua Hey cap was tiecSol over one eye and she was shit beasirg occasional sob She wriggled into the cleared space and stood up straight In doing so she almost knocked Connie violet panuclo eff bey shoulders Connie snapped at her 1 be stenped-on cat your hards cut if my fere Butt They ameir They ss-s-rj ef hesw and cheese and and 1 fell Dr Parrh tnde me uffrsi a little as if bed tissilM cf sner-rCS rg now the pod said wearily it easy The qms-ton is who pegged that goes 1 Russia r-therf Aniess nose was to stuffed wih tearful rmn that lie snnin hbe a if head cold seen t-ady N-gM a gonna stick nee I heated a umfsrfli knife I thought ro-iU iraste tee in the arm that she had up in isy a ready lo do the ttalhr wn On missed I amt so good yrt at krfe throw 1 been pearl sn c-n ICO-1 -my old man saytn" vawds-ihe twnm" bark hi hack gel hi by a truck before be ecu Id learn me -d few the knife you threw dunrvo I beard it attic to ue table Maybe its cm the rc The other pohenr-an itexped i- CHAPTER VI STABBING I WAS running because the woman in black was already diagonally across the street passing In front of a bar and grill where the dull lights from the window outlined her for a second She was running like mad Id coveted half a block before I got some sense and stopped 1 quit for two reasons In the first place 1 couldn't see her any more the black dress was gone into the darkness In the second place she'd been running so Ia-1 I knew I make up enough ground to get within seeing range of her again Indore she lost me by turning down some side street She held her dress high and she was getting her knees up well in front of her and striding out but fast hen I reached the door of our store it opened and a girl stood in the doorway screaming She had on the uniform our soda girls light green with narrow dark maroon piping I grabbed her by the arms and shook her a little to keep the hysteria from climbing jmy higher in her voice rotvg Butts?" Azalea's pug-nosed squarish face was and shaking her! She did It! She 1 tiled But she did It" Night That one in black that sat in here every night And last night she said "What happened Just Azalea suddenly began to cry in big sobs "1 missed her" she blubbered couhia made a big name for myself In the cwtaer an all But I really half lenrned on account my oM man was hit by a truck I pushed her aside From outside you couldn't see much through the glass of the front doors except the cigar stand but as soon as 1 made my way inside 1 realized what a turmoil was going on Between the booth and the soda counter there was a crowd shovirg ana standing on tiptoe to look at some-tlii I foiled my way into the jam singing out it uj now break It up" They weic customers and clerks all mixed together gathered around a small clear space by one of the booth Three persons were standing there Connie Alba in her violet panuclo and close-fitting black-and-white balmtanak skirt was looking with an expressionless face and intense black eye at the other two Aithur Garry was holding Bess Iaiwell in his arms Her face was white and her head sagged back "Don't look again honey" he said gently "Come away and sit down for a minute somewhere" I took a quick glance around to see what it was he shouldn't look at again Miss Anne Courtray was sitting In the booth nearest them That wasn't unusual She'd been coming In at her regular hour all week stalking past Ue.