The Washington herald., 1914-02-08
THE STRANGE CRIME OF JOHN BOULNOIS
Sir Claude Champion was known to

Sir Claude Champion was known to
the readers of the Western Sun as well
as Mr.. Boulnois. Kidd had written
about Sir Claude Champion as zone of
the brightest and wealthiest of Eng
lands Upper Ten" as the great sports
man who raced yachts round the world ;
as the politician who swept constitu-
encies with startling sort of Tory
Democracy, and as the great dabbler in
art, music, literature, and, above all,
acting. Sir Claude was really rather
magnificent in other than American
eyes That faultless falcon profile with
purple-black Italian eyes which had
been snap-shotted so often both for
Smart Society and the Western Sun
gave every one the impression of
man eaten by ambition as by fire or
even disease. But, though Kidd knew
great deal about Sir Claudia great
deal more, in fact, than there was to
know-it would never have crossed
his widest dreams to connect so snowy
an aristocrat with the newly unearthed
founder of Catastroptism; or to guess
that Sir Claude Champion and John
Boulnois could be intimate friends.
Such, according to Dalroy's account,
was nevertheless the fact. The two
! had hunted in couples at school and
college, and, though their social des-
TIMES had been very different. they still
kept in very close touch with each
other. Indeed, Boulnois' cottage stood
just outside the gates of Pendragon
Park-as close as it could be without
being actually in the grounds.
But whether the two men could be
friends much longer was becoming a
dark and ugly question. A year or two
before, Boulnois had married beauti-
full and not unsuccessful actress, to
whom he was devoted in his own shy
and ponderous style; and the proximity
of the household to Champions had
given that Eighty celebrity opportunities
for behaving in way that could not
but cause painful and rather base ex-
element. Sir Claude had carried the
arts of publicity 10 perfection; and he
seemed to take a crazy pleasure in be-
ing equally ostentatious in an intrigue
that could do him no sort of honor.
That evening, marked by Mr.. Kidd for
the exposition of Catastrophism, had
been marked by Sir Claude Champion
for an open-air rendering of ROMEO
i and Juliet" in which he was 10 play
Romeo to a Juliet it was needless to
name.
q don't think it can go on without
smash" said the young man with red
hair, getting up and shaking himself.
Must you be going on? / shall be
following, myself, in minute or two"
But Calhoun Kidd, having finished
milk and soda, betook himself smart
ly up the road toward the Grey Cot
tage, leaving his cynical informant to
| his WHISKY dHu lOOdCCO.
The Grey Cottage, which stood in
trenched, as it were, in a square of
stiff, high thorn hedges, was so close
under the pines and palisades of the
Park that Kidd at first mistook it for
the Park Lodge. Finding the name on
the narrow wooden gate, however, and
seeing by his watch that the hour of
the Thinkers appointment had just
struck, he went in and knocked at the
front door. A dog kennel and bee
hive stood outside, like symbols of old
English country life; the moon was
rising behind plantation of prosper
GUS pear trees, and the plain, elderly
manservant who opened the door was
brief, but dignifed.
"Mr. Boulnois asked me to offer his
apologies, SIR" he said; 'but he has
been obliged to go out suddenly"
But see here; l had an appoint
ment," said the interviewer, with a ris-
ing voice. do you know where he
went to"
ITO Pendragon Park, sir" said the
servant rather sombrely, and began to
close the door.
Kidd started little. Did he 60
with Mrs.-with the rest of the partys"
he asked rather vaguely.
mo, SIR said the man shortly; che
stayed behind, and then went out alone"
And he shut the door, not brutally, but
with an air of duty done.
The American was annoyed.
'1f that's the way he goes on, he
deserves to lose his wife's purest de-
votion," he said. But perhaps he's
gone over to make row. In that case,
reckon a man from the Western Sun
will be on the spot
And, turning the corner by the open
lodge gates, he set off, stumping up the
long avenue of black pine woods that
pointed in abrupt perspective toward
the inner gardens of Pendragon Park.
! More than once, as he went I'D that
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