Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-01-13
ny JOSEPH CALLOMB.

APPS n most amazing muroef II
the annals of crime. Ands wha
makes its brilliant uniqueness stand on
all the more is its shabby setting ant
actors, some of them sordid, all OF them
commonplace in the main. In Shake
speare' time, even in the pages Of the
great playwright himself, a story was
not considered worth presenting unles.
1t had royalty or at least nobility parti-
cipating in it. Here Is a true tale OF ar
Edinburgh slum; but I venture to be-
lieve that even to On Elizabethan audi
ence it would have had something to
saw with its tragedy of blood, its white
hot passions and the warping of the
human heart that gives it its outstand-
ing place in the records OF extraordinary
crime.
William Shaw had been a soldier most
Of his adult years, a private and finally
a ncn-commisSioned officer in the Brit
ish Army, hardened by many years OF
campaigning in India and Africa. He
was a S~iX-footer and the fact that he
survived the wars, the fevers, the saw
agery and the jungles, the deserts and
the pest holes Of his many military
campaigns tells something of his vitality
and strength. When he finally retired
on a pension and came to Edinburgh to
live with his daughter he was not con-
tent to idle, but worked up a trade as a
free-lance locksmith.
BY nature and from his military life
he derived a simple way Of looking at
human relations. The world was di-
vided into two classes of people, those
whom you had to obey implicitly and
those who had to obey you. The first
part of his creed had to be knocked into
him with musket butts, fists and courts
martial. For when Shaw first Joined the
army he had a temper that needed a
lot OF curbing. 1t took years before he
learned to keep it in check when a mill
tary superior got him angry. He never
did learn to swallow resentment when 1t
was a fellow private who reused it. And
nov that he was back in his native
Edinburgh, the years had only added
the character of a military tyrant to the
temper which all his army years had not
stbdued.
his daughter Catherine. now a young
woman of 10, was the fruit of a hasty
marriage into which Shaw had plunged
when he was IN leave and full of liquor.
On his return to Edinburgh Shaw
searched and found the offspring Of his
debauch. She was a slim and pretty
thing with her mothers wanton eyes
and hair, her fathers temper eloquent
In l.er ripe, sensual lips, and her nature
was a fairly even mixture of the worst
traits of her parents.
She consented to come and live with
her father solely because it would cost
her no money. Otherwise he was to her
only a stranger IN whom she had a sort
of claim through the accident of birH1.
Shaw, on his side, saw in his daughter
the image of her mother, a oma of
the streets who had trapped him into
marriage.
Now, however, that he was a father,
support her. She did not need to work
If she did not want to-and she did not
want to work. But she would have to
obey him, and his orders were to be
carried out with as little argument as
orders were obeyed in the army.
TT was not long before a pitched bat
L tie ensued between father and daugh-
ter. They had taken a small four
room fiat on the top floor of a wooden
tenement in a huge block of other SIM
liar tenements. It was ar old house,
with cracks in ceiling, walls and floors,
wherever plaster Of boards could no
longer Withstand the drying and warp
ing Of age.
In such a house privacy in quarrel
ing was hard to achieve, but apparently
neither Shaw nor his daughter cared
how much their neighbors heard of
what went on when they clashed. The
one who was most acquainted with
these quarrelS was their next-door
neighbor, Andrew Morrison.
One day he heard the usual sounds
of bitter recrimination from the Shaw
fiat. This time, however, the argument
ended with a cry from Catherine, fol-
lowed by bitter Sobs. Shaw had won
the argument by giving his daughter
the beating of her life. Then he went
out on his daily search for locks to
mend and keys to make.
Morrison went into the Shaw nat and
found Catherine on the floor shaking
with sobs and rage. One of her pretty
blue eyes was almost invisible, SO hard
had her father hit her. Her face was
splotched from blows and weeping, and
altogether she was not the pretty sight
Of which Morrison was so fond, for he
was among the men who had shared
GATHERINGS favor.
&. "Iu tell your father what I think of
him for this!" Morrison said indig-
nantly.
Tell It to him with a chair leg or
he'll do all the talking!" ragged the
daughter.
Feeling it up to his manhood to re-
monstrate with Shaw, Morrison waited
for the ex-Soldier to come home that
night. When the two men met before
Shaw's door, Morrison read him an
indignant lecture. He should have
taken GATHERINGS advice more serious
!ly, for Shaw did not like to be lectured
on his duty as a father by a man he
suspected was one of his daughters
lovers.
The whole tenement resounded with
the roar Of resentment Shaw let out.
Then he simply knocked Morrison down.
Catherine heard 1t from inside their
nat and came out to see how Morrison
had championed her.
The sight did not arouse her admit
ration, and as Morrison crawled back
into his own fiat GATHERINGS derisive
laughter told him that he could no
longer count On her favor.
To Catherine love was something that
troubled men, not her. She had liked
scores Of men, but had never given away
her heart. She was too fond of herself
to give any n that. She saw from the
way men-and other women-behaved
that If you loved any one you lost your
6en-posseSSlon; you were at the mercy
OI ailotIleT, you maze Sacrl1CeS at the
altar OF love-and Catherine did not
like to make sacrifices.
X X X X
,RUT one Sunday in a dance hall she
met a sleek young man by the
name OF Lawson. His speech was
smooth, his hair was glossv. his clothes
professionally attractive and the young
man himself was good looking and per-
tsuasive. He danced ingratiatingly and
wooed swiftly.
He told Catherine she was the one
woman of his life, and whether she be-
r1ieved it or not 1t set her heart pound
ing. For the first time in her life
Catherine felt she loved some one more
than herself. The realization of it left
her breathless and robbed her of her
sense of self.
He asked her about her home life
Qnd che told him hopinu IN v,,o,,I-