New Britain herald., 1929-06-29

to begin-on case In which I have a friendly, personal interest. you know - not some horrid. bloody murder trial. It was really vuits interesting. The judge is an old dear. He had the press photogra- phers snap us together = said he wanted to be sure HIS picture would get in the papers! Of course he was joking. And, oh. by the way. an artist for the Morning Sun sketched me. I begged him not to. but he insisted-'
 Isn't attending the trial going to interfere with your Christmas shopping?" Nan suggested. going on with her typing.
 "Oh, I finished that ages ago." Iris assured her. My packages are all wrapped and addressed. I do hope you'll like your gift. Jack left the selecting of it to me this year. because of the trial. do think they ought to have put the case over until after New Years. so poor Bert could have had a nice Christmas. But the jury will give him the best Christmas present of all. if that awful Brainerd doesn't take pp so much time that the case will have to so over until next week. Jack says the defense probably won't take more than two days. Oh I hope it will all be over by Saturday! Bert's promised to play Santa Claus for Curt. but only if the trial is finished"
 Nan made DO attempt to answer or to comment, for the lump in her throat was too large to permit words to pass. Iris, not John Cur tis Morgan, had selected her gift. Always before, at Christmas time, Morgan had bought and presented her gift personally, and now that she knew she loved him. her hungry heart had fed upon the certainty of receiving another proof that he held her dear as friend. studied her tastes and wishes to give her pleasure. And now-probably Iris had bought her a bottle of toilet water or perfume, and she never used the stuff.
 During the next few days. how ever. she had little time to think 'of Christmas. for the Crawford trial was hurting on toward eli max. Thanks to the revelations of Alice Benton and his own thorough investigations, Morgan, as defense counsel had suffered few shocks Brainerd presented his case to the judge and jury.
 It was unquestionably a weak case, depending largely upon the unsupported testimony of Gladys Payne, who claimed that Ora wforJ had instigated and financed Roy Bland's sudden departure for South Americas and that Bland had told her that he lad drawn the large checks against the bank account or the Mid West Packing Company at Crawford's order and had turned the cash over to Crawford.
 On cross examination Morgan had. so nullified Cashier Wolfe's testimony concerning his alleged telephone conversation with Craw- ford, in which Crawford was sup posed to have given his o. K. to the last check for $1O0,OOO, that re- porters and feature writers were freely predicting a quick vindica- tion for the defendant.
 Even Nan was shaken in her in- t,litive belief that Crawford --s guilty. A man might be scoun- drel and a wife-stealer and yet draw the line at embedding a quar- ter of million dollars from the he had organized. And then. at the 11th hour, Fate, using SO strange and ironic an instrument that even that hardened old harri- dan must have chuckled, put con- elusive proof of Crawford's guilt into the hands of the secretary of the man who was defending him. the man who had staked his profess sional honor on the innocence of his friend"
 (TO BE CONTINUED