The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1931-01-13

Il8nJ pump Tor the slight bulge
under the rug which indicated the
position OF the bell used for sum-
orning the maid from the kitchen.
With a strangled cry Tracey
Miles lunged across the few feet
Which separated the woman and
himself. seized her arm and whirled
her violently away from the table.
DO you want to kill my wife,
too?" he painted, his usually ford
lace the color Of putty.
THAT would be impossible,
4 Miles, Your wife is already
deadl" Then, silencing the hoarse
oaths of the men and the screams
OF the women, came slow, terrible
words: Tracey Arthur Miles, I ar
rest you for the murder Of your
wife, known as Juanita Leigh
Selim, and for the murder of Dex-
ter Sprague. And it is my duty
10 warn you that anything you say
may be used against your
Tracey Miles lifted his ashen face
and stared at the detective blankly,
as though he had gone deaf and
blind. "All-over-isn't it. May
--have-a drink?" he managed to
articulate at last.
Poor devil He needs it," the too
soft-hearted young detective told
himself, as Tracey Miles poured a
drink from the almost empty whisky
decanter and raised the little glass
to his lips.
Il have-nothing-to sayl" the
murderer gasped thickly, then fell
heavily to the floor.
t was three-quarters of an hour
Il later. District Attorney Sander
son, Captain Strawn and Dundee
were alone in the house where
Mia "Selim" had been murdered
and where her husband had con-
tessed his crimes by committing sui
eide. The morgue ambulance had
como and gone.
I should have known" Dundee
admitted ruefully, as the three men
entered Nita's bedroom, "that so
ingenious a criminal as Tracey Miles
would not have failed to provide
against the possibility of discovery.
He must have snatched an OPP
portunity to spill cyanide of potas-
simp into the decanter when my
eyes were off him for a moment
and upon Lois Dunlap"
I'm glad he did" Sanderson said
CURLY. But it was CHASTITY that
poor Lois had to know that it was
she, in all innocence, who fired the
gun"
ut was" Dundee sighed "But
I believed that the only way I could
make Miles confess was to brighten
him into thinking Flora would be
killed
Captain Strawn and I still are
in the dark as to exactly how Miles
managed his wifes murder" San
derson reminded him. This morn
ing you chose TO tell us nothing
more than that Hamilton man
had married Nita Leigh in New
York in January, 1918, and that
eight years ago, when he saw her
picture in The Evening Sun, along
with the story that Anita Lee had
committed suicide, he had felt free
TO marry again.
You said then you knew who the
man was but you would not even
tell us how you knew"
Because I had very little actual
proof then" Dundee answered. LAS
to who he was, the salient clew had
been staring me in the face the
whole time, but it was not until
was fooling With a set of anagrams
last night, idling spelling out the
names of all the men who might
have married her and then muir
dered her, that I saw it"
"CAW what?" Strawn demanded
- irritably
THAT Selim is simply Miles
spelled backward" Dundee ex-
planned. Possibly because he con-
Eidered it the sophisticated thing
to do, Miles used an assumed name
at the party at which he met Nita
Leigh.
EVEN the first name, Mat by
which she knew him, was only his
initials reversed"
"Simple-but clever" Sanderson
commented.
Just as all of Miles schemes
we're after Nita, egged on by
Sprague, turned up in Hamilton to
demand back alimony' as the price
of her silence. But let me
show you how he killed his wife"
He strobe to the big bronze lamp.
ut took me less than an hour today
to reconstruct the death machine so
that 1t would be almost exactly as
1t was when Miles finished his work
Just before 2:30 last Saturday-and
as it remained until he had an OPP
portunity to come back here and
dismantle 1t. Trust him to find out
that the guard was removed from
the house Thursday"
AS he spoke, he was unscreWing
the big, jewel-studded bowl of the
bronze lamp. Wedged, at a down
ward slanting angle. inside the bowl,
which was II inches in diameter,
was Judge Marshall'S snub-nosed
automatic and Silencer, the end of
the Silencer projecting slightly from
hole whose jewel was missing.
There's a blank cartridge in the
gun now, of course, but Miles, in
his panic, took my words literally.
See the electromagnetic strapped
TO the gun butt? He got it from
the bell Sprague had installed from
here to Lydia's bedroom.
THE magnet was connected with
the electric wire in one of the two
lamp sockets, as you see it now, and
the long cord of the lamp was con-
nected with the wire of the bell in
the dining room-So connected that
when any one stepped on the two
little metal plates under the dining
room rug, the kitchen bell would
rims and the gun would be fired
simultaneously.
But if you Will examine the
jewel hole" he suggested, as he
removed the gun, you will see that
Miles had to enlarge it considerably,
using a reamer. which I found in