The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-02-05
SYNOPSIS

family by killing his son and then him. self, thus ending the criminal curse of the Red Circle birthmark. But the Red Circle appears on the hand of June Trav- is, wealthy girl reformer, and she robs a loan shark to aid poor debtors. It develops that June is Jim Borden's daugh- ter Mary, June's old, nurse, is trying to divert the suspicious of Detective Lamar, finds herself in precarious situation
 She had donned Junes coat and Lamar seeing the familiar black, pursues and corners her in a garage, her coat having caught in the door.
 While Lamar awaits permission to force the door, Mary slips from the coat and escapes. Lamar asks forgiveness from June for suspecting her and hur- ries to headquarters with the coat.
 With a set purpose purchases some mans apparel and wig.
 In this strange attire she goes to police headquarters and by clever ruse secures the discriminating coat.
 Fearful of losing sight of the precious coat, the policeman also broke into a numbering run, protesting:
 Hey! Go easy there! Whats your hurry? Want me to break my neck?"
 Even as he spoke June planted her feet firmly on one broad step and came to an abrupt standstill. Meeks could not check his own speed as suddenly. So he lunged ahead step or two.
 As he lumb cred past her, the girl deftly swung her stick; holding it by the ferrule end. The crook handle caught Policeman Meeks neatly around the left ankle.
 At the same instant, June braced her. self, and jerked backward with the stick.
 It was a trick she had seen hockey play CTS use, when the referee was not look ing. Always it had worked, to charm; but never before as completely as now.
 Policeman Meeks' six feet of height and Policeman Meeks' ITO pounds of weight, driven on by his impetus, shot forward into space; his balance irretrevably lost.
 Policeman Meeks' body smote the stair way about six steps farther down; bounded in air; missed step or two; then struck the stairway again and proceeded to roll rapidly down the remaining "A steps, stopping only when, at the bottom, it rolled into stone bench with a force that drove nearly every cubic inch of breath out of Policeman Meeks' inflated lungs.
 For a bare half-second the patrolman lay there, half stunned and breathless. Then he scrambled groaningly to his feet, sore all over. Before he was fairly off the ground he drew his revolver
 A glance above showed the white stair way was empty Limping, swearing, moaning, he hobbed upward to the boule. yard above, pistol in hand.
 But at the summit, the street in both directions lay vacant and silent under the flood of moonlight.
 "Gone!' croaked Policeman Meeks still catching his breath with difficulty Gone, An now wottinhell will the chief say to me. Lord, but sure must "a been born on a Friday!'
 Yama, the Travis Jap butler, was a sentimental soul. Moonlight affected him as it is supposed to affect tomcats But, instead of yearning to sit on a back fence and howl, he had a less feline and more picturesque fashion of greeting fair Luna's rays.
 It was Yama's custom on moonlit nights to take his Japanese flute from his tin trunk in the storeroom and to fare forth into the farthest reaches of the Travis garden; there to lean pensively against a tree in the midst of a clump of shrubs, and, his eyes on the moon, to play sentimental and hideous Japanese melo- dies to it.
 The sound was horrible, but it soothed the heart of the eXiIed Yama; and always brought up before his mental vision a picture of fragrant cherry blossoms, of sWaying temple bells, of homeward- wing ing white storks against blue Nippon sky--of home-and of Kyoto gesha girl who wore her sash with a bow in front and who had robbed him, on one blissful evening, of F yen
 Tonight Yama was footing away right dreamfully, when the sound of cracking bushes broke in upon his music He low cred the long flute and looked about him. He heard the cracking sound again-this time near the house.
 He stepped out of the shrubberv clumn to investigate. Then, the flute fell from his nerveless fingers and he stared goggla eyed
 Across a patch of lawn figure was running; it's feet sounded on the turf. The figure reached the house. It paused, at the bottom of a vine trellis; then skill fully began to climb the trellis.
 It reached second-story balcony; stepped over the railing and began to tumble with the long French window of room The window opened and the figure glided into the room; soft ly closing the window behind it. Continued in tomorrow's Age-Herald.)