The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1921-07-22
The Man With the l visited Lip
By
 with The Mcclure Newspaper Syndicate.

by rare good fortune, met, in Fresno Street, a number of constables with an inspector, all on their way to their beat. The inspector and two men accompanied her back, and, in spite of the continued resistance of the proprietor. they made their way to the room in which MT. St. Clair had last been seen- There was no sign of him there. In fact. in the whole of that floor there was no one to be fOund, save a crippled wretch of his home there Both he and the baScar Stoutty Swore that no one else had been in the front room dur ing the afternoon. So determined was staggered, and had almost come to believe that Mrs. St Clair had been deluded, when, with a cry. she sprang at a small deal box which lay it Out there fell a cascade of chn- dren's bricks. It was the toy which he had promised to bring home.
 This This diseovsry, eye and the evident made the inspector realize that the matter was serious. The rooms were carefully exadmned, and results all pointed to an aborninabie crime. The front room was plainly furnished as a sittingroom, and led into 8 small bedroom, which looked out upon the back of one of the wharves. Be- tween the wharf and the bedroom
 
 dry at low tide, but is covered at high tide with at least four and a half feet of water. The bedroom window was a broad one, and opened from below. On examination traces of blood were to be seen upon the window-Sil and several scattered drops were visible upon the wooden floor of the bedroom Thrust away behind a curtain in the front room were all the clothes of MT. Neville St. i Clair, with the exception of his coat His boots, his socks, his hat. and his watch-an were there. There were garments, and there were no ofher traces of MT. Neville St. Clair. Out of the window he must appare ntly have gone. for no other exit could be l discovered, and the oninous blood stains upon the sill gave little prom ise that he could save himself by swimming. for the tide was at it's very highest at the moment of the l tragedy.
 And now as to the villains who seemed to be immediately implicated in the matter. The Lascar was known to be man of the vilest antecedents, but as, by Mrs. St. Clatr's story, he was known to have been at the foot | of the stair within a very few seconds of her husbands appearance at the window, he could hardly have been more than an accessory to the crime. His defense was one of absolute ig- norance, and he protested that he had no knowledge as to the doings Of Hugh Boone, his 1odger, and that he could not account in any way for the presence of the missing gentlemans i clothes.
 .'so much for the Lascar manager. Now for the sinister cripple who lives upon the second floor of the opium | den, and who was certainly the last human being whose eyes rested upon l Neville St Clair. His name is Hugh | Boone, and his hideous face is one l which is familiar to every man who goes much to the city. He is pro- 1 fessional beggar, though, in order to | avoid the police regulations, he pre- | tends to a small trade in wax vestas Some little distance down Threadnee- dle street. upon the 1eft-hand side there is, as you may have remarked,
 a small angle in the wall. Here il is that this creature takes his daily seat, cross-legged. with his tiny stocl
 of mAtches on his lap. and, as he is z pfbeoYs spectacle. a small rain oi chari V descends into the greasy 1eath.