The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1939-01-09

l saw AOd1l JdoL O0LS40C si1C SotCS
wrenching open the door Of Eliza
beth's car-what had once been
Elizabeth's car, now a crumpled
toy listing against a tree by the
side of the highway. Colonel
Wright was with him, and the two
sentries. did not see Charlie.
Then from the little knot Annie
detached herself, ran to Elizabeth
and wound her arms around her
in gesture both restraining and
cherishing.
Don't look" she was saying
compassionately as I came up with
them. "He's dead-put a bullet
through his head. 7 seen him make
off with the little car and ! did
me best to catch him. But there
I'm no driver. All, Elizabeth, the
poor little carl"
Elizabeth looked past her with
death in her eyes.
81 can get another car" she
said and, turning, stumbled back
toward home.
Annie went after her and stood
there alone, hanging to the fence,
staring out through the closed
bars, whispering. "Not Charlie"
On the plain behind me the
cannon doomed once for reveille,
or for requiem. Then cars came,
and the ambulance. And they were
lifting him out-a fair-haired man
in olive-drab Stacks and a khaki
shirt; and / saw what I had been
waiting to see and remembered
Elizabeth stumbling toward home.
Not Charlie. Barney, the hand
some Morse giant, with a bullet
through his head.
Eleven O'Clock
\ NNIE and I sat in Elizabeth's
"A living room and talked, trying
not to think of the girl upstairs
who had asked to be left alone.
There were questions in my mind
and l asked them, and Annie told
me what she knew.
Hours before, the Sentries had
been ordered to let no one leave
the post without a written pass
from Adam. Barney must have
known of the order, or suspected
it, when he chose Elizabeth's car
in which to make his getaway.
The sentry had seen it coming,
weaving uncertainty along the gar
rison road, and had thought Miss
Wright was at the wheel. He had
challenged, standing in the mid
die of the road until an instant
more would have encompassed his
destruction. Then, from the side of
the road where he had leaped, he
saw the drivers face and realized
that he had been hoaxed.
He had fired at the tires of the
accelerating car, seen it crash into
the tree; and before he could reach
it Barney had shot himself with
his own gun. Why he had lost his
nerve and fled she did not know
unless there were things that
Anne could tell.
Remembering that struggle be-
side Anne's bed, my cheeks burned.
I asked Armies pardon and she
asked mine.
"Sure and it was all could think
of they could do to her, Gagged up
there-put poison in her glass or
change the medicines. So says to
myself, There'll be none of that
And then, when I saw it was you,
/ could hardly believe me eyes.
For I said to mesef, why would
she be killing the child? Not on
account of her young man, for
wasn't Anne decided to marry the
other one?"
Motive" I said. 'That's what
couldn't figure about you. But
what earthly motive did Barney
have? I thought he was in love
with her."
Armies face grew grimmer.
maybe he was, to begin with.
Maybe he was all the time. He was
a queer one-no making him out.
| told Elizabeth he was a wrong
'un, him THROWN cigarette butts
in me clean Sink-no bringin' up,
said, and her well rid of him.
But there, the poor lass had her
heart set on HINT was to meet
him for the last time that she came
back to the house tonight. And
me own fool fault that she didn't
have the alibi he'd planned for
her, what with me coming up the
front row and seeing the car and
thinking she'd left it home after
all and deciding I'd have one turn
around the post in it"
Then it was you drove past the
club?"
"Who else? You didn't think
Elizabeth would lie to you? And
of course Barney had counted on
me being in by eleven as always
am. She told me about it while
we was lying awake in the dark up
there awhile ago. Eleven o'clock
he wrote on a scrap Of paper and
left it in the chair where her eve
ming bag was while she was dane
ing, for Anne wasn't letting him
get word with her all evening""
'But why? Are you trying to
tell me that Barney was in love
with Elizabeth and was going to
marry Amer"
81 can't answer for who he loved
Pm thinkin' he took that secret
with him. But it was Elizabeth he
wanted to marry-maybe it was
for love, maybe he had his own
reasons"
Then what happened?"
(Copyrioht. 1858. viroInsa Ha.soH1