The Waterbury Democrat., 1935-09-27
'L BLUE DOOR
 E Rachel Mack . p's MEA Service he
a 0 I93s NEA Service, loe.

Otherwise you're different. have n't seen her in years"
 Ruth smiled. i've been passing for her with Bertha Gibbs" She thought again. T must keep him talking!'
 "So it's you I've been dodging," he remarked. You've given me a good deal of annoyance by being here. I'd expected to have the house to myself. Will you have a cigaret?"
 "If you will" answered Ruth. Presently they were smoking to- gether, with the tenseness be- tween them lessened. Ruth said, provocativeIy, You came very quietly, but I know exactly when 1t was. It was--wait now, let me count back--it was Tuesday night about supper time. Wasn't 1t, MT. Hunter?"
 He nodded. The day you made the excellent cake with the pink icing. I'm greatly indebted to you for that" ,
 Ruth laughed. "so Bertha was cutting 1t for you! What a big ap- petite you must have had that night"
 He said evenly, T had travelled quite a distance.'
 Ruth saw his face grow grim and shuttered again. She said quickly, And 1t was you who took the Stevenson set, then! You'll never know how I looked for those books"
 "Sorry!" He was smiling again. You like Stevenson, toow Then, incredibly, they began to argue about their Stevenson fa- vorites. Ruth held out for The Master of Ballantrae"-excep for the ending. T think that's con- trived horror, written to please the publishers"
 Horrors happen" Duncan Hunter stated. Life produces them without contriving. Greed spawns them"
 Take me-" said Duncan Hunter ironically. "A perfect sample of what greed can produce in the way of horrors. My brother-in-law wished to swallow a railroad, stock holders and all. I reminded him that he didn't need such large meal and might develop indigcs- ton. And it was my fathers rail road, at that, my dear girl. l was proud of 1t. Felt a paternal interest in the stockholders. When my brother-in- Jaw wouldn't drop the idea, struck him down in nice, mahogany-pa -paneled confer n C 0 room. It was the wrong place to start a fight, of course. Doormen pulled me from him, and the gen.
 tlemen sitting around the long table immediately lost confidence in my judgment. My brother-in- laws, remembering I'd been fool ing with tropical plants in the Brazilian jungle, decided to elect me for insanity. Matter of fact, was running one of those jungle temperatures. Out of my head oc- casionally when the fever climbed, but clear as a bell the night of the meeting"
 Ruth exclaimed, What a cruel set of circumstances"
 And worse to follow, my un- known little friend. They put me in one of those private sanitariums where rich people are permitted to bury undesirable relatives. A doctor used to come to me every day for long talks-a psychiatrist, hired by my brother-in-law, the impeccable MT. Deal. By every im- plication known to man this paid fiend tried to teach me to consider myself insane. By suggestion. By persistent hammering. By God knows what perverted use of psyche analysis. I grew to dread and loathe him. My mind sickened under his tutclage while the jun gle fevor I'd contracted was neg lected. Eventually, my child, l tried to kill him."
 gro kill him. cried Ruth in horror.
 "Quite 50. By the simple process of seizing his throat. After that 1t was not hard for them to have me declared dangerously in- sane and locked away. l supposed that had killed the creature. That's why never tried legal means of winning my freedom. Bertha Gibbs tells me my victim lay at the point of death Tor weeks, and then recovered. How ever, that's a mere technicality. l meant to kill him, so it's one and the same"
 NO" Ruth said, tits not the same. I think 1t means you can