Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-10-14
MARY Roberts Rinehart' 81
Thrilling Mystery of
"The Curve of the CatenarY"
Continued From Yesterday

1 felt, rather than saw, that she
touched the ribbon around her neck.
I patted her hand and let It go. It
came over me like seasickness that she
belonged to him and that I'd better
get used to doing without the hand.
1t couldn't belong to me.
"I've got the camera, you see,"
told her. "At least l know where 1T is.
It's damaged a bit, but the glass af-
fair-that plate, is not broken"
Well, it was worth the price of ad-
mission to hear the relief in her voice.
She didn't cry, I think, although she
gave a dry little sob.
"Then everything Is all right" she
said. "Except-what can never be
made right"
/ turned around on the bench and
faced her.
.'There is nothing that can never
be made right, except death, Hazel
1 said.
THAT is what mean"
But even when I'd got her story,
and was wondering why l hadn't
known it all from the first, for it was
so simple, I knew l was not at the
end of things. Where did the robbery
come in?
Here was a straight and direct
story, an accident and its results.
There was not break in 1t; cause
and result, both were there. But
was not satisfied.
I'd better tell Hazels story my
self. 1t took long time. We heard
her father come in from his walk and
enter the house. 1t got cooler, and
I put my heavy motorcoat around her
shoulders. She was so intent that ]
don't believe she knew it.
This what had happened.
The old man liked to take pictures.
He had a lot of time on his hands, and
he used to sit on the brow of the hill
and take views of the city. 1t grew
on, him. He experimental, tried color
work, went through all the phases,
even to making cameras Of his own.
He turned pantry into workroom,
and pottered about all day.
Then one day he saw some boys
with kite, and he tried fastening a
small camera to a kite and swapping
the shutter by pulling the string.
He used to get the kite out over the
edge of the hill, and the day he got q
view of steamboat from above he
couldn't eat from excitement.
| But the string system was bad. The
string jerked the camera. So for
months he worked on an arrangement
to set off the spring automatically.
Did you ever, when you were a kid
send message up to al kite?
You put a bit of paper or some
thing light on the kite string, and il
crawls up and up. I did it when
was youngster-named the kite fol
my governess, and used to send UP
notes saying L wish she'd die, or take
scarlet fever, or something. I made
quite reputation on 1t among the
children in the neighborhood
| He made what he called a messeng.
| er, but 1t was too heavy. 1t wouldn't
climb, or the string broke Somethine
was always wrong
1T was pathetic" Hazel said. "He
got box kites. and the camera would
have done the work. But the mes.
senger was the trouble. He designed
1t to touch the camera and make the
exposure. But he lost several cam.
eras in the river, and even when II
did take the picture the messenger
set 1t to oscillating, and the plate was
useless"
Then the war came, and he got the
idea OF patenting an arrangement fol
sending kites at night over the enemy's
trenches and taking photographs wher
the sun came up. He worked day and
night.
1t woud be smaller target than
an aeroplane. he insisted, and the
camera did not make mistakes. With
an observer on an aeroplane the
human element had to be figured on
He planned to discount the human
element. Crazy? 1 don't know. II
didn't sound crazy to me when she
told me.
He got to be quite kite flyer. He
connected box kites in a series. and
once he darned near got carried over
the hill and dropped in the river. Or
quiet days he worked at the mes.