The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1910-04-01

| Ol Tic CONGIlelS anu WHAT LAY upon
them. Her fingers had barely touched
the sheet when a noise from THE far
Their corner made her turn. At sight of
what was there Mrs. Desterle tossed
her apron over her head, and scream
ing, shrieking, bowling, ran into the
hall, tumbling down flight after flight
Of stairs, to fall in helpless, frothing
heap at the feet of her husband, gasp
ing incoherently:
Upstairs, upstairs; at once! My
God! My Cod"
Doherty, the block policeman, who
did extra watch duty on the Desterle
premises for the daily luncheon that
came from Armies kitchen, had that
instant arrived for his diurnal nibble
AT sight of the calm Mrs. Desterle
thus Frustrated, Doherty made for the
| telephone
lis a riot call / should be sendin'
in with Annie knocked out like this"
unused Doherty. For tits never she
loses her head"
helped the little Frenchman carry his
stricken wife to her bedroom.
Annie Desterle lay still till they
reached the second floor. At the land
ing she commenced her writhing
again.
Upstairs, upstairs!" her blood pur-
pied lips commanded, and she vainly
tried to motion towards the third story
front
I'D better be seem what's wrong in
the top of the house." suggested
Doherty, as they lay Annie on the bed.
Who could be up there now?"
Inc policeman stepped blithely past
MISS Gentry's room, with but a casual
glance into its domestic depths,
straight to the wide opened portal of
the third story front and across the
threshold.
The perfume of the room was the
first greeting. An odd penetrating odor
that savored of things forgot, and
| things undOne, a fragrance belonging
to the mystic places of shadows, and
not to one of the clean, we'll soaped
and better busted apartments Of An
ME OBSTETRICS boarding house. On the
cheap oak table that had been drawn
close to the bed was a great bowl Of
dying violets By the flowers still burn
ed drop light and beside this an
l
had baited sleep with story. A gold
| cigarette case half emptied was under
the table, and the stubs of the re-
mainder of it's contents sprinkled the
floor.
On the bed, clad in soft gown, lay
a young and beautiful woman. Her
lips were softly parted. the dark lashes
touched the curve of her cheek so
gently that in spite of her pallor Do
herty, who had looked on the dead
many times in his fifteen years of DO
lice duty, pinched the thin white arm
again and again and patiently held a
mirror to the cold white lips before he
could believe that it was the girls body
only, and not her body and soul that
were outstretched before him, and that
she was quite dead.
He looked around the room and saw
no empty walls, nor boxes, nor even a
tattling white paper that might have
held those silence-bringing powders
women suicides affect.
On the bureau was juggle Of wom-
ans clutter-hairpins. half dozen
long jeweled hatpins, and one thick
gold bracelet set with a very large
ruby. The combs and the brushes
were elaborate specimens Of the gold
smiths craft, and from an overturned
and broken bottle of fragile glass
heavy scent was slowly trickling.
Rouge, cold cream. and savory rice
. powders were jumbled in sore disorder
with the collars and cleaned and soiled
handkerchiefs. Even a silk stocking
small of foot and delicately green OF
tint, had found a resting place upon
the neat linen cover Of the bureau