Evening star., 1928-11-18

was as much a mystery as on the day
when Jimmy first dubbed it the best
murder of the year"
| Motivei The doctor was righk With
out understanding what pulled the wires
in peoples heads. clues were nothing
| but a meaningless tumble. And motives
themselves were queer mlXture--eVen
! Peters own.
| What these people did and why they
did it was, strictly speaking, none of
his business A month ago he did not
! O'Shay's frequently published photo
graph in rotogravure sections and news
pages constituted acquaintance. Yet
here he was, losing sleep, forgetting
meals, working uncounted hours OF
overtime" in the attempt to find out
who had killed Sheila O'Shay and why.
| 1t was partly sheer human curiosity
and pride an unwillingneSs to confess
/ himself baff1ed; partly the desire not
only that solution be found. but that
| the Herald have hand in finding
| it-and partly the need of setting
Barbara somewhere in clear sunlight,
of brushing aside from her, always,
anxiety and doubt and trouble and folly.
1t was because he cared so much Tor
| Barbara that Orme must have fair
| shadows, no thruSting of guilt upon a
possibly innocent man. If there were
any chance of that, Barbara. he knew
as surely as if he had known her all
her life, would throw caution to the
winds. even to her own mortal hurt.
And she had need of caution-that
much abundantly clear 1t flashed upon
Peter with the force of complete con-
viction that though Barbara might con-
ceivably have killed Mrs. Ellsworth
because anyone might conceivably do
almost anything, perhaps by fatal ac-
cident in circumstances that would not
bear explanation-and could not nave
taken that body to the marsh and
burned it.
With a sigh of audible relief Peter
seized firmly on the supposition that she
was protecting someone else with her
quixotic loyalty She might even have
known, or suspected. what was going
to happen. But in either case neither
uuixoticism nor loyalty would wipe out
the ugly, hard legality of the phrase,
accessory to the fact"
Peters whirring thoughts stopped
short, as suddenly as the cutting off
of a motor. He had drifted to the
corner where the side path joined the
main driveway, and saw Barbara her
sell at the CQrD, SetLlng OUT OF neT CdT
He stood and watched her with sheer
unthinking delight-delight in the SUM-
shine that made of her hair a gleam-
ing cap on her bare head; delight in
the child like unconsciousneSs and swift
agile grace OF her movements. He
smiled as ne noted that she had evil
IDENTIFY forgotten her handbag. She
leaned far forward into the car, poised
with one foot on the curb and CROPPED
in the crevice between the seat cushion
and the back upholstery
Slowly she withdrew her hand and
stood staring with bent head-not at a
handbag, but at something that cleaned
and flashed with row OF tiny green
lights that caught the sun. 1t was a
large amber comb of the Spanish type
flaring fan-shaped to the double row OF
emeraldS that curved. fully 6 inches
from end to end, across the top.
Peter thought that he had cried out,
that he had run toward her; but there
was only a slight choki sound in his
throat, and his hand reached out auto
matically and clutched the hedge for
support.
! That comb was famous from a hun
| dred descriptions. familiar from a hun
/ dred photographs. The story had been