The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-01-20
THE BRIDGEPORT TIMES MAGAZINE PAGE
.UNSEEN HANDS
A Bepildering DetectiUe Story
 s By Robert Orr Chipperfield
xxx SYNOPSIS

IT & xxx
 N SYNOPSIS
 Mrs. Richard I,orne and her
 eon, Julian Chalmers, are mur- dered, and Isorne himself is the victim of 8 strange accident, |, when Barry Ode1l, a detectiye, is
 called to find the author of the 'f. mysterious crimes. Nearly every 3. | member of the household is un- q, der suspicion and Odcn goes to, .. Horne: confined to his he'd, for e An account of Mrs. Lorne's death. tx Lornc is speaking, quoting his q wife, when he says:
 9 "+Oh, won't you believe? Isn't there going to be any help for me? f4ends to be kind, boe she makes me hsuffer more all the time. and there's Eeomething-someth diabolical in Finer eyes For Gods sake, keep her taway from me! tell you she means yan7y death!"
 z For Jan instant there swept across kthe detectives mind that sentence ut ftered by Gerda: watch their eyes!" EWas it of Miss Risby that she had Ebeen trying to warn him? But Miss kI2isby had already gone.
 .'Mr. Lorne, did your wife mennon kMiss Risby's name? Could she not khave been speaking of the day nurse ~ "No. Her eyes were fixed on the Risby woman all the time; and when Eshe turned and came toward the bed
 
 k1s far as she could get, holding to fnny hand with all her feeble strength. Dick" she cried out and her voice was hoarse with terror, "I inn kplore you! Do what I ask! I am mot mad. I know! Then that con- kfounded nurse intervened and virtu- kaIly ordered me from the room, and faike a fool went My poor wife's teses had been so wild, her words so E1ncreaible and her manner so violent kthat it did not occur to me for ,;, a possession of her faculties. I sup tDosed as matter of course that It kwas all a mere figment of her dis kordered imagination.
 ''When I look back now, sergeant, H could kill myself. I feel as guilty Eas though I myself had caused her kdeath- My, God. if had only Hs- ktened and believed!" He threw his 1space lay very still. When at last his farm dropped to his side once more H&he detective saw the trace of tears ,Son his fat cheeks.
 "Yet I have nothing even now fagainst that nurse except my poor fwife's gaccusation;! and I would hes- f1tate to accuse any woman of so Evile and purpose1ess crime It is HonIy that could not put those words ffrom my thoughts and they were the blast my wife ever spoke to me. The fnext time I saw her she was raVlng yin delirium; then the state of coma tensued which continued until the end. fAfter the death thought of men, stioning my misgiving to the doctor; fbut I knew that he would not give it. ia moments credence, and I tried to fput it from my own mind. But l jcouldn't; shall hear that pitiful, des- sperate appeal ringing in my ears
 -'sDid both the nurses leave imme- fdiately after Mrs. Lorne assed away?' sOdell asked.
 within few hours; as soon as the doy-t to1r Tao T y1ta iGS Meade to keep the other one, Miss Brown, with her for a day or two, as 5she was so terribly broken up by :my wife's death that was afraid she would be i'll herself; but she said Ithat she wanted to be alone with me :and the children. Of course. Miss lRisby could have had nothing to do with the further events which oc- bcurred here in this house; and I ? lcan't even now bring myself to sus- fpect her of causing my wife's death, fbut that warning must have meant Isomething. My poor wife must have skuown instinctively that she was be- Ting done to death, and mistakenly suspected the Risby woman. Then sJuIian up there with his throat cut, EApd began to feel that fear of a sdamnable conspiracy at work against lall of us!"
 .alone would have justified official in- syestigation,. MT. Lorne.'' the detective .remarked "In view of the fact tha t&he specialists themselves could not 4Agfee as to why she had not re- sspondedN to treatment, they seem par eticularly significant
 sI know; but I thought I should xorfy be laughed at and I shrank .from the idea of the notoriety which would ensue." Lorne flushed again t'I didn't even tell Titheredge of what amy wife said. He's a man of sound common sense with a trained Iega Lrx,iv, Jyh ha rid ha .zyestion that there could be anything Emore than coicnidence in the two ! deaths, realized the reception evvould probably receive from the au ,thorities if I went to them with my \ story. I was getting. desperate, though tand I would have summoned you peo ple( that night before the portrait fell if Titheredge hadn't stopped me-
 "How? Why should he have stop Sped your" Odell noted the chang (which came over the face of tn finiured man at his query.
 t't1He said that my theory presup . Sposed what he called an inside job land the thought that suspicious should sber directed against any of the famil
 was too monstrous tO be borne.
 .couldn't force myself to consider sucl
 "a hideous possibility, great wa
 smy inner conviction that those death - --tHvere more than accidental. The
 lGene came in with the letter and tn
 picture fell. After I saw the severe
 lends of the wire cable which ha jhe1d it in place, knew that ther
 tcould be no more. lodging of the is
 tsue, no matter what it might brin ito all of uS.''
 Until then you had absolutel
 nothing to sustain that conviction eX tcept what Mrs. Lorne said in tha
 Hast conversation with her? Nothin
 tangible, I mean. There were no cir
 tcumstances connected with the deat
 ;of your stepson which you considere
 suspicious save the fact itself fol
 Lowing so closely upon your wife z a1eath 2"
 k ''Nothing. Julian was in a highl
 nervous condition. He had gashe
 himself badly only a day or two bt
 fore while trying to shave, owing | the uncomfortable tremor of h AA hands What proof have vou seI