The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-10-25
CHAPTER xxx

Disconsolately Bob Tait sat in hi apartment, tearing the wrapper from a photo magazine. It was on' to which he had mailed, some week. before, a set of pictures snapped with his miniature camera in th' Golden Bowl on the night that Lud' den Dombey was murdered. Out of { job and not yet well acquainted with Myrna, he had in mind to sel . few pictures and augment an in' come which, at that moment, hae seemed nebulous to say the least
 Now as he tore the wrapper from the magazine he was startled to see a printed ribbon across tht face of the cover, and on this rec strip were black letters proclaiming
 ON THE SPOT PICTURES OF THE MURDER or A SWING KING!
 With nervous fingers, Tait turned to the pages. He gazed at them now with a feeling of bitter loathing. But 1t was too late for regret. The in. exorable world of printers ink and presses and Headlines had put those pictures there-out of reach Of re- grets. Almost against his Will Tait xazed at the three prints repro duced on the large facing pages ot the magazine. One was of the Gold en Bowl early in the evening Lud- den Dombey had been muroereo' The "tom of the swing cats'' was on the platform, very much alive and in characteristic form. Between nm and the camera were swaying fig- ures. the jitterbugs and the ickies and the whackies, lost in the rhythms woven by The Swinga- teers. The second picture was a shot in the Golden Bowl just after Ludden Dombey had been killed. IL was a picture of confusion' oi momentary chaos, of men and wo- men in that awful moment when tragedy is dawning on their befud- dled minds. The third picture had had been snapped a few moments latsF-showing one mob rushing to- ward the exits, and another mob, morbidly curious, pressing It's pulK toward the body of Ludden Dom- bey.
 Those pictures were, as the mag. arAme's caption writer had pointed out. masterpieces of candid photog- rsphy. They were examples or the aYertness of mind, the daring, the athletic coordination, of your per- feet photographer in the news sense They were examples of the reason Robert Tait was rated the best modern photographer in seven states and why more of his photos were syndicated in a week than were those of average news photogra- phers in month
 But as Tait looked at them now they seemed nothing more to him than a tangible evidence of his be- trayal - his betrayal Of lovely Myrna Dombey. He knew, with the sure instinct of those who work in the world of newsprint, how ef1ec- tive those photographs might be against Myrna Dombey. In sudden self-disgust he nipped the pages, and then was drawn back to them despite himeslf. |,
 Tn a trance of preoccupation he began studying the picture he had taken just after teh fatal shooting of Ludden Dombey. Suddenly ne noticed something that he had not seen in the print itself, something that in the blowing up" necessary for the magazine reproduction stood out in startling relief. It was d slender, wisp-like pillar oi smoke. Tait held the page nearer to his eyes. He went to this desk and took out an engraver's mag nifying glass, studied the repro duction again. That snake-like wrath was not, he discovered from a cigaret or a cigar. In the