The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-05-18
. SERIAL STORY
 DATE WITH DANGER ...s! BY HELEN s. ". cs1sN asEs ~

, the editorial ofiices of the Gazette as Mary walked in. She had left Ladd in the hall. The hurly-burly and fever of a fictional newspaper was missing. Here, on New York'S biggest paper, city, a nation and world were being covered with serenity and precision.
 The editorial offices were the antithesis of the mad, helter-skelter movie version of the crowded, to- bacco- o-smoke filled city room in which copy paper covers the floor, reporters sit with feet on desks and hats pulled down over their eyes, an editor bawls everybody out and copy boys play poker.
 The Gazette city room was large and airy. Sound-proofed ceilings gave it the quiet of library.
 The Society section lay directly back of the Wall Street department. But neither staff was down at this early hour. Only the lobster shift, the skeleton staff that came on at midnight and left when the first edition went to press, was there to assemble early news.
 Crossie, his lanky body telescoped like a jack-knife, sat at the mam desk, editing copy. Pecking away at nearby typewriters were re-write men and general reporters. Like most of them, CroSsie wore 8 green celluloid eyeshade and from behind one ear protruded the stub of yell low pencil. His soft shirt was open at the throat and a nondescript vest fiapped about his lean body. He glanced up as Mary came toward him.
 DO the Janice French story from the suicide angle" he said. Play down the night club slant and don't mention the Duke. We're waiting Tor the copy" he added.
 Tired as she was, Mary smiled. Crossie was always waiting TOT copy. Like some benevolent Simon Legree, he nagged his staff forever into producing more copy.
 It was also characteristic of him that he asked nothing about the nights happenings. Shut up in the office of the Gazette, he seemed to know more than the reporters who'd been covering the story. When he apparently knew least, he'd suddenly surprise them by a question that revealed the crux of the whole sit- uation.
 Dawn was breaking as Mary sat down at her desk. She fitted carbon and copy paper in her typewriter, lt a cigaret and began tapping the typewriter keys.
 'The body of the girl in the pink chiffon dress which was brought into the morgue late last night has been identified as Janice Frencn of e02 Fifth Avenue. Police Com missioner Arthur Fenelon believes it a suicide case, but an inquest IS to be held. Miss French, who is the daughter of MT. and Mrs. sohn French, made her deou' in
 Rolling the final sheet out of the machine, Mary called Copy" lit another cigaret and leaned back m her chair.
 Iadd had gone to his office when he left Mary in the hall. Now, as Mary called for the copy boy, ne stuck his head out the door.
 Let me see what you've written before you hand 1t in."
 She walked across to his ofhce, the typewriter sheets in her hands:
 One or two of the reporters looked up as she passed, their inquiring expressions changing to apprecia- tive stares. In spite of lack of sleep, over-excitement and the strain on her emotions, she was more than pretty. Her evening gown, sloped provocatively of her shoulders, and as she walked, her feet, in delicate gold sandals, showed gracefully from beneath the hem of her gown. Ladd's eyes, like those of the men in the outer room, frightened as he saw her. "You can certainly take it," he said.
 I'm running on nerves"
 While she talked, he was studying her copy, pencilling it occasionally. As he leaned on the desk, his aag- ular form bent down the better to read the piece, Mary's dark eyes, oil guard for the moment, rested af- fectionately on him. There had never been any sign of intimacy be- tween this hard-boiled editor and herself and, so far as Ladd had shown, it had always been NEWS that concerned him when he was with her, but this morning for the first time Mary allowed herself to wonder about her boss. Though he had never paid her any particular attention, he was type she liked. Now and then in the past he had stopped at her department to ask some question and once month she had sat across from him at the inter-ofilce meetings but this acquaintance had never gone fur