The Daily Alaska empire., 1934-05-18
Chapter Eight CRIME SCENE

\ EFT us go back short time ant
 follow the adventures of Bandi Chaser No. IS.
 With Hlleary driving and Con nally calling the turns. the speedJ little car headed for Officer Ham lll's territory. They had to drive slowly. for the headlights could no cut very deeply into the teeth of tho storm and the automatic windshield wiper just about held its own agains the fiercely-driven snow.
 Connally kept a sharp lookout. bu In vain. At every street intersection Hilleary sounded the whirring sirer call. familiar to every patrolman's ear as the signal of the Flying Squad"
 Hilleary brought the car to hall beside the call-box from which am Ill should have reported. It bore 8 conical cap of snow. leaning crazily to one side from the force of the wind. All around was a white wilder. ness. inches deep, and gaining stead fly. Unbroken in its smooth. wind 1rifted reaches. only q gentle bulge showed where the curbstone was set.
 Connally borrowed the heavy q 0 ar'z tyr ay,f and got out of the machine. The DO. liceman turned on the beam and flashed 1t in circle. Here and there were unmistakable ridges and filled. h hollows which roughly outlined he imprints a shoe had left earlier in the storm.
 By going :. little farther afield he could distinguish two sets of the old tracks. presumably made by Ham. lll's coming to the pillar for his earlier pull" and his subsequent departure.
 There were a few tire-marks in the street. but no other tracks along the sidewalk. and. having struck the scent. Connally automatically start. ed along the trail. Hilleary drove the car at a snail's pace oI a parallel line. For two blocks they continued so. when. upon crossing an inter. vening street. Connally found that he had lost the trail.
 Retracing his steps. he found that radical alteration had taken place in Hamill's course. The old tracks showed that Hamill had crossed about third of the width of the street. when something had induced him to set off at sharp angle. The almost obliterated footprints led along the intersecting street.
 The trailers followed this tangent but had not proceeded very far be fore they became aware of boom. ing sound. Puzzled. they came to a halt, awaiting a repetition of the noise. When 1t came again, they rec ognized the sound at once. The front door of one of the houses near the far end of the block was un latched and the wind was banging 1t to and fro with thunderous force COME prompting of instinct in O duced Connally to break into 2 run. He pulled up. panting. at the entrance to the front lawn, a fiat desolate level of virgin snow. bound ed by bare hedges and skeleton bushes. The flashlight showed tha the footsteps had turned in there It also picked out the bronze nu morals. "34," on one of the stone pillars ot the gate. The massive front door, after It's f1tful booming stood open invitingly. due to lul in the wind.
 Hilleary got out of the car. and side by side. the two policemen walked up the path and scanned tn, front of the house, a three-stor. stone mansion standing in It's owl grounds. There was no light. n, sign of life anywhere about tn place. The hall beyond the yawninl door was merely black cavity lead inH into the unknown.
 T guess we followed the wron tracks," Hilleary suggested: "thes are just from somebody goin home."
 "What about that door?" Connall countered. People don't leave thei front doors banging in a storm. We better look into this. Come on!"
 Connally pulled oil a glove an pressed the electric bell buttor holding 1t down with his finger There was no answering sound. A ter waiting suitable time. Gonna ly stepped gingerly across tn threshold. The inner vestibule door were closed.
 He turned the knob and peere into a still deeper well of darkness. -Helloi Hello!" he shouted, an 1 --