The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1931-01-08

Did Mia let him persuade her
70 go into the blackmail business,
70 hold his wandering, mercenary
affections?"
The second bit of information
which the papers supplied him was
cleaned by Dundee himself, from a
new summary Of Mia Leigh's last
year Of life as chorus girl, speciality
dancer, double in pictures, and di-
rector Of the Easter play at For
syte-on-t the Hudson.
II Mia got divorce or even
a legal separation from her hus-
band after her talk year ago with
Gladys Earle, she got it in New
York and 50 secretly that no New
York paper has been able to dig it
up Dundee concluded. ."And yet
she had promised to marry Ralph
Hammond"
A bellboy with a telegram inter-
rupted the startling new train OF
thought which that conclusion had
started. The wire was from Penny.
MYTH a sharp exclamation Of
w excitement and triumph, Dun
dee finished reading Penny's tele-
gram;
HAMILTON EVENING SUN
DATE OF MAY FIFTH NINETEEN
TWENTY TWO PUBLISHED
STORY OF SUICIDE ANITA LEE
ARTISTS MODEL BUT PICTURE
ACCOMPANYING WAS NITA
LEIGH. SELIM STOP NO COR
RECTTON FOLLOWED STOP
WHAT DOES TT MEAN
What does It mean?" Dundee re-
peated exultantly to himself. ut
means, my darling little Penny, that
any one in Hamilton who had any
interest in the matter believed Mia
Leigh Selim was dead, and that the
spelling of her name was wrong, not
the picture ITSELF The ques-
ton is, who read that story and
gazed on that picture with vast re-
lief?"
Two hours before he had dis
missed as impossible or highly i'm
practical, his impulse TO investigate
the eleven year old scandal on Flora
Hackett, who now was Flora Miles,
AS told him by Gladys Earle of the
Forsyte school
Even more difficult would it be to
find out why Janet Raymond's
mother had taken her abroad for
a year. Of course-he ruefully had
told himself-Nita Leigh might have
been lucky or unlucky enough to
run across documentary proof Of
one of the scandals of which Gladys
Earle had told her, or had dared
to blackmail her victim by dark
hints, as Miss Earle unconsciously
had suggested
But this new development could
not be ignored. A picture of Mia
Leigh as a suicide had appeared
eight years ago in a Hamilton pa
per and the paper either had re-
manned unconscious of the error, or
had thought it not worth the space
for q correction.
Eight years ago in June three
weddings had occurred in Hamilton!
The Dunlap. the Miles, the Drake
weddings And within the last year
and a. half Judge Marshall, after
proposing season after season to the
most popular debutante. had mar
ried lovely little Karen Plun1nler.
Suddenly a sentence from Ralph
Hammond's story of his engage
ment to Mia Leigh Selim popped
up in Dundee's memory: "Ard once
got cold sick because 1 thought
she still might be married, but she
said her husband had married
again, and wasn't to ask questions
or worry about him.
IF Ralph Hammond had reported
Mia accurately she had not said
she was divorced. She had merely
said her husband was married
again Why was Ralph to ask no
questions? Divorced wives were not
usually so reticent.
Had Mia planned to commit the
crime OF bigany? If not, when and
where and how had she secured a
divorce?
" serena HART, years before, she
4 had denied any intention of
getting divorce, for two reasons
becausce she did not know where
her husband was, and because, be-
ing married although husbandless,
was a protection against matri-
rllonial temptations.
To Gladys Earle, year ago In
April, she had conflded that she
could not marry again, because she
was not divorced and because she
dir not know the whereabouts of
Ter husband.
And so far as New York reporters
had been able to find out, Mia
Leigh had done nothing to alter her
status as q married woman during
the last year.