The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-02-06


 M adjoining the court and stared
 down at the hurrying throngs while one nervous hand beat @ devils tattoo against the somewhat grimy pane.
 It had been raining, and the identity even the sex of the crowd was sub- merged beneath a sea of bobbing black umbrellas between which the wet and shining tops of the motor cars darted like huge black beetles. But the prose- cutor saw neither the crowd nor the traffic--he saw only Mary Page! She had become almost an obsession with him now, and though it was not yet time for court and there were other clients besides the State whose busi-- ness claimed his attention in his other office, he had drifted here, as he had drifted unwittingly each morning to mentally test the links in the chain of his evidence against her.
 It SHOULD be strong enough to bind her upon the merciless wheel of the law, and yet he was conscious that more than one of it's links was weak so weak, in fact, that not even his :rasterly summing up for the jury had been entirely able to gloss it over. He did not doubt for moment that Mary
  vid Pollock, but he had not PROVED her so to his own satisfaction. The in- tricacies of what had at first seemed so simple a case had multiplied with al- most incredible rapidity, and each clue that it had seemed must throw an il- luminating light upon the labyrinth of mystery had proved in turn to be mere will-o' the wisps that led deeper into the maze.
 He had shown that Pollock was in her eyes an enemy; he had proved that the dead man was a wooer whose pur- suit was unwelcome; he had shown that twice during the recent years Pol lock had forced Mary to promise to be his wife, but that once the necessity for that step was removed she had claimed her freedom again. She had everything to gain by his death, which was surely motive enough; added to which, if she were not guilty he felt she would not have fled that night after the murder. But that fight-that com plete disappearance within those few short moments, presupposed confed erate-someone who had either let her into another room in the hotel or into one of the houses whose backs looked up across the narrow street. A confed- crate, on the other hand, meant a pre- meditated crime, and the bellhop and those at the banquet had testified that Mary had not expected to see David Pollock when she went into the room.
 Time after time as he went back to the testimony-to the fact that Mary had had the revolver in her bag, HAD gone into the room and HAD been found beside Pollock's body, he strove to glimpse some faint clue that would give a chance for fresh evidence" In the meantime, it was Langdon's turn, and the keen-eyed District Attorney wondered curiously just what defense he would bring. Langdon's continual refusal to cross examine the witnesses for the State had naturally kept his defence wonderfully well hidden. Yet when so much of the testimony had concerned Langdon himself, cross animation must perforce have been a farce, and the prosecutor did not be- lieve it's absence part of any deep laid scheme.
 The newspapers were, however, full of theories as to what the defence would be. Several claimed that it would be the "unwritten law" the guarding of Mary Pages honor; another that it would be proved that Pollock shot him. self when he found that not even his support of her stardom could make Mary marry him; while still a third said that the real criminal would "con- fess" when put upon the stand. Ab- surd all of them. and yet the third the- ory brought a frown to the lawyers face. Suppose Langdon himself con- fessed to the murder! He didn't be- lieve Langdon had committed it, but he loved Mary and he might perjure him. self to save her.
 Hello, Chief" A voice from the door interrupted his revery and he turned quickly.
 Hello. Sheenan. Have you got any thing?"
 The detective came in and shut the door.
 ''No," he said, mot thing along the lines you spoke of. Shade doesn't know anything except what he told, and I've traced Langdon's movements for three days before the murder, down to each minute, and there's nothing to hang a dogs hair to-
 Did you find out about the automo- piles parked on that night?"
 "Yep: but Casey was on the job at that corner, and there wasn't as much as ghost of a motor went into the street back of the hotel. The back gates of the houses were locked--had