Evening star., 1926-11-10
AXF|GURES GIVE
THRILL TO MORBID
Reproductions of HalI-Mi|ls
Bodies Do Not Upset De-
PENDANTS, However.
BY DOROTHY DIX.

|
endured hours of grinding boredom
| listening to the experts and the law
yers wrangling over the f1ngerprints
on the card found at DR.. Halls feet,
got their compensation thrill when
| Senator Simpson, late in the after
noon, introduced as evidence a wax
model Of Mrs. Mills, showing her
head and throat.
Ostensibly, of course, 1t was to Wis
ualize to the jurors just how she was
dealt the wounds that killed her, but
psychically 1t was tremendously more
significant than that. You could not
look at it without thinking of the old
medieval trial by ordeal when those
accused of murder were forced to look
upon the corpse, and it was super
StitiouSly believed that their demeanor
under this test would prove their
guilt or innocence.
! ASsuredly Senator Simpson is too
shreWd q man to think that Mrs. Hall
and her brothers would be Influenced
by any such childish hocus pocus, and
as matter of fact, they seemed to
| regard the exhibition with as calm
and dispassionate curiosity as any
one else in the room. They sat side
| by side, as they always do, dignitied,
| utterly quiet, masters OF themselves
| and their nerves. I have never seen
| any people who fldgeted SO little.
| Nearly all Of us Shift continually in
| our seats, we twiddle with pencils,
we tear up bits of paper, we move
our hands almost continually.
Sit Like Statues.
But they sit hour after hour, almost
as immobile as statues, their hands
| quiet, in their laps, their faces still
and composed, with hardly O change
| of expression fitting across them.
And SO they viewed the ghastly
wax figure with no outward show
| OF emotion whatever. 1t was only
| when DIR. Schultze, the coroner's ply
| sician from New York, who had made
the autopsy and who was explaining
where. indicating the spot on the head
with his pencil. the bullets entered
that slew DR.. Hall, that Mrs. Hall
| turned her head away and looked
down at the floor for a few minutes,
AS If she were hiding the tears in her
| eyes and had seen all that she could
bear to look upon.
| And 1t was, in truth, a gruesome
enough exhibit. Speaking very slowly
| and clearly, and impassively, that
| somehow made what he had to say
| oddly dramatic, DR.. Schultze indicd>e,d
where the three bullets had been fired
into Mrs, Mills skull, within a range
Of four inches. and any one of them
could have snuffed out the life of
| that little 90-pound woman.
Then, running his pencil around the
throat, as if it were the finger of
fate, DIR. Schultze told how the head
had almost been severed from the
body by one ferocious slash of a
sharp knife, and how the tongue, the
larnyx and the windpipe had been
cut out. And finally, to pile horror
| upon horror. the abdomen had been
ripped open in a last and obscene
| gesture of maniacal rage and re-
venge.
Mutilations of Fiend.
1t was such crime as Jack the
Ripper committe. 1t was a crime such
as only a degenerate could commit,
and it left one wondering. as one
| listened to the CORY details. If it
was done by some sex maniac pass
| ing by, or if in this quiet, law abid-
ing community there still lives some
man wearing the mask of respectable
ity, who at times turns into raven
ing beast-a man cursed with the
dual personality of q DIR. Jekyll and
Mr.. Hyde.
And If there is, how is it pos
sible that he has gone for four years
undetected? And how does it hap
pen that the blood lust and the sex
! lust have not again sent him out,
as it has sent other degenerate Grim
inals, to slay and mutilate again?
1t but adds another turning in the
dark maze Of plot and counter-plot
! in this most mysterious murder story,
whose solution may be as far away
| at the end of this trial as it was at
the beginning.
Charged to Mrs. Hall.
| Never was there a case that had
so many clues that run into blind al
| leys in SO short a time. Mrs. Hall,
| for instance, Is accused of having
committed the crime, and yet, aside
from the improbability of woman
| Of fine family and high social con-
nection, q dignifled self-controlled
woman who has lived a blameless
| life for 50-odd years suddenly turn
! ing into murderess. 1t is physical
| impossibility for q woman of ordinary
strength to have slit the throat, cut
| out the tongue and mutilated another
woman as was done to Mrs. Mills.
Also, Mrs. Hall has been charged
with having assisted at the murder
of her husband and his affinity at 10
| o'clock and at 2 o'clock, to have been
seen still weeping over them. Yet the
most hardened criminal In the world
could not have borne to have spent
those ghastly dark hours with his
victims. Nor would any murderer
! linger so long at the scene Of his
crime where he might at any moment
be detected.
Likewise, Mrs. Hall is accused of
having strewn the love letters written
by DR.. Hall and Mrs. Mills to each
| other about their bodies, yet the
greatest fool in the world would know
| that would be to point suspicion
| directly at her, and Mrs. Hall Is a
| highly intelligent woman.
And Mrs. Hall Is accused of know
ing of her husbands murder. and
yet going at 8 o'clock on the
morning after he did not return
home to the husband of the woman
he had gone off with and told him
that they were both dead, which
would have been equivalent to pub
licly announcing her own guilt.
| And so it goes. mystery upon
mystery. contradiction after contra
diction, until 1t makes the plots of
all the mystery story writer's, from
Poe and Gaboriau to Oppenheim and
Anna Catherine Greene, seem as
easy to solve as a crossword puzzle.
Tenderness Missing.
The strangest thing, perhaps. in
all this strange story is that there
| is no element of tenderness in it, no
pathos. Horror there is in plenty,
but there is no love, no tears, no
breaking hearts. Hardly a trace of
any human emotion. Not even a
| desire for revenge.
The policemen and detectives who
cross-questioned Mrs. Hall the day