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

Moreover, II Mia had secured
either a divorce or legal separa-
ton, her maid, Lydia Carr, certainly
would have known it. And Lydia
vehemently had protested more
than once to Bonnie Dundee that
she knew nothing Of Nita's husband,
although she had worked for the
musical comedy dancer for five
years.
Surely if Mia, loving and trusting
Lydia as she did, had entered into
negotiation of any kind with or
concerning her husband during the
last year, her maid would have been
the first to know Of them. And yet
Suddenly Dundee jumped to his
feet and began to pace the floor of
his hotel bedroom. He was remem-
bering the belated confidence that
John G. Drake, banker, had made to
him the morning before-after the
discovery of Dexter Sprague's MUIR
der. He recalled brakes reluctant
statement almost word for word:
About that $40, 900 which Mia de-
posted with our bank, Dundee.
When she made the first deposit of
$1,000 on April %, she explained It
with an embarrassed laugh as back
alimony," an instalment of which
she had succeeded in collecting from
her former husband.
"And, naturally, when she made
the. second deposit on May 5, 1 pre-
sumed the same explanation COW
cred that sum, too, though I con-
fess I was puzzled by the fact that
both big deposits had been made in
cash"
In casEfl
Had Mia, by any chance, been
telling a near-truth? Had she been
blackmailing her own husbands
husband who had dared marry
again, believing his deserted wife to
be dead-and justifying herself by
calling it back alimony"?
But-Wasn't it, in reality, no
matter what coercion Mia had used
in getting the money, exactly that?
Back alimonyl And the price
Of her silence before the world and
the wife who was not really wife?
In new light, Bonnie Dundee
studied the character of the woman
who had been murdered--possibly
to make her silence eternal
r OI5 DUNLAP had liked, even
Il loved her. The other women
and girls Of that exclusive, self
centered clique of Hamilton's most
socially prominent women must
have liked her-fair1y well and found
her congenial, in spite of their
jealousy of her popularity with the
men of the crowd, or they would
not have tolerated her, regardless
of Lois Duniap's championship of
her protege.
Gladys Earle had found her "the
sweetest. kindest, most generous
person L ever met''-Gladys Earle,
who envied and hated all the girls
more fortunate than she.
Serena Hart, former member of
New York's Junior League and still
listed in the Social Register, had
found Mia the only congenial men,
Der Of the chorus she had invaded
as the first step toward stardon1.
And Serena Hart had the repu-
tation of being a woman of char
acter and Judgment, a kind and
wise and great woman.
Finally, Ralp Hammond had
loved Nita and wanted to marry
her.
Was it possible that Mia Selirn's
only crime, into which she had been
led by her infatuation for Dexter
Sprague, had been to demand, Sc
cretly, financial compensation from
a husband who had married and de-
serted her, husband who, believ-
ing her dead, had married again?
But who was the man whose pic
tureAto spin a new theory-Nita
had recognized as that Of her hus-
band among the male members of
the cast Of 1.-THE Beggars' Opera
when Lois Dunlap proudly had ex-
hibited the pictures of that amateur
performance?
With excitement hanl1nering at
his pulses, Dundee took the bunch
Of photographs which Lois Dunlap
willingly had given him, and stud
led the picture that contained the
entire cast-the picture which had
first attracted Nita's attention.
And. again despair overwhelmed
him, for every one of his possible
male suspects was in that group.
But he could not keep his
thoughts from racing on. Men
who stepped out of their class and
went on parties with chorus girls
frequently did so under assumed
names, he reflected.
Serena Hart was authority for
the information that Nitas had
been sudden marriage. Was it
not entirely possible that the man
who married Mia in 1918 had done
So half-drunk, both on liquor and