The Waterbury Democrat., 1935-04-08
SYNOPSIS


 MILLICENT GRAVES, sccre.
 taey to GEORGE DRIMGOLD,
 finds her employer in his office dead. Millicent has notebook in which DrimgOld had begun to dictate a confession.
 In panic she rushes away, reg. fstcrs at hotel under an as- susfleti name.
 JARVIS HAPP, a stranger, of- fers to help her. He sends her to 9 beauty parlOr where she is transformed into brunei, then tskcS her home and introduces her as his secretary. She meets Happ's son. NORMAN; his step- son. ROBERT CASE, and MRS HAPP.
 Millicent falls asleep and wakes to find a note under her door reading, '9The woman in black ermine is here" Milliccnt dresses, sees the woman in black drive away and follows in RO- bert Caise's car but runs out of gas. She goes to the chauffeur's quarters and finds him dead.
 Next morning Millicent meets VERA DUCHENE, Mrs Happ's maid. Millicent goes to Vcra's room and sees her with sone- thing that looks like black ermine coat.
 CHAPTER XIX
 Vera Duchene whirled, regard ing Millicent with eyes that were suddenly cold, hard and viciously yengeful.
 'What are you doing. snooping around here?" she asked.
 Millicent said, "I wasn't snoop- ing. I came to warn you of some thing"
 well, what was it?"
 "This isn't going to be an ordi- nary Investigation Millicent said. sSThere are elements involved which are going to cause trouble. If you didn't get in until late hour this morning, as you started to say, you'd better tell the police so now, because otherwise they'll check up on you"
 "And what makes you think l didn't get in until this morning?'
 Because you started to say so down there at the table,"
 And you came all the way up here just to tell me that?"
 "Yes."
 BBaloney."
 sAll right. Why did I come up here?" Millicent demanded angrily
 "You came up here to snoop be- cause Jarvis Happ has been sus- picious of me ever since started to work for his wife. Go back and tell him that his spying didn't work"
 "Don't be too certain it didn't work" Millicent said. "I saw what you threw in the closet"
 And with that, she turned around and banged the door angrily be- hind her.
 She ran down the corridor and Bought her own room, trying to analyze her conflicting emotions. Had she really gone to the room <0kspy on Vera Duchene?
 Suddenly she realized that she had. She was suspicious of Vera |Duchene, had been from the mo- Iment she had seen her. There was about Vera Duchene suggestion of that power that some women wfeld over men, applied selfshly and consciously to advance their own ends.
 Vera Duchene had been out the night before. She had returned early in tho morning. She. then must have been tho one who had driven the sedan Millicent had en- eountered when leaving Felding's 8 room. Had she also been the one who led Harry Fielding on the chase which ended in his death? Was Vera Duchene the woman an the black ermine coat?
 Millicent could not. of course. be certain, but she did know that the form and figure of Vera Uuchene were similar to the form and figure of the woman who had worn the black ermine. and the single swift glimpse Millicent had had of the woman in the tea room had shown her cold, gray eye schefning, hard, wary and watch 2uI.
 Vera Duchenes eye could well have taken on such an expression ArilIIcent. herself. had been filled with alliiring Invitation when they FeBfed upon the officer. Then later,