Glacier County chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1931-1940, 1939-09-08
The Bab4 at Number Sixteen@
By ELIZABETH JORDAN
copyright 1899: BY News Syndicate Co.. Inc,
IN TWO PARTS-PART ONE
GRACE DARROW'S SYMPA-
THET1C ACT UNCOVERS
AN AMAZING CRIME.

Mrs. Darrow was relaxing. She
had just finished an ambitious
strip of mural painting and the
muscles of her back and right arm
were tired. So were her ewes. She
sat in big chair facing the wide
north windows of her studio,
leaned back, and looked out at the
twilight sky and the long lines of
Greensboro bridge etched against
it. A little later the bridge would
have all its jewelry on. lust now
there were only few scattered lights,
dim IN the summer haze. This was Mrs.
Darrow's favorite hour and her favor
lite view
By turning her chair she could face
another window and see the East river
and watch the passing boats on it.
At this hour that was too strenuous.
1t suggested action. What she needed
now was complete repose.
She was on the eighth floor of the
big studio building in which she lived.
There were houses on the opposite
side of the street but they were not
tall enough to spoil her view. 1t was
now the oath of June and most of the
houses were empty. Their residents
had locked and shattered them and
departed for the country.
Only one house-No. 16, directly op-
posite her .studio-looked occupied, and
only on its top floor. Two windows
there were lowered an inch at the top
and the dark green shade of one win
dow was only little more than half
way down. Even that must make it
dark in the room-dark and hot, for
the days temperature was So.
Odd that the caretaker. or whoever
it was, didn't want more light and air
this hot afternoon. Very odd, for there
was child there-a child that knelt
on chair and stared down at the
street: An odd looking child, with
blue. handkerchief wound around its
head like a bandana. Mrs. barrow had
first seen the child yesterday Several
times today she had again noticed it
at the window, the top of its head
almost touched by the lowered shade.
An unsmiling child-a baby-2 years
old, perhaps p. 1t seemed to live in
She came to the window occasionally
and jerked the dark green curtain fur
Their down. or lifted it a trifle. The
other window was curtained its full
length. When she appeared the child
turned and looked up at her unsmil-
ngIy, perhaps queStiOningly. Once or
twice Mrs, barrow thought it turned
very YEARLY.
Why in heavens name, she Won
dered, didn't that woman take that
child out of that hot room under the
roof and give it some exercise and
fresh air? Why did it wear that tightly
tied little bandana when the weather
else enter or emerge from the for
bidding front door of the house, which
had always looked, she remembered,
as if it had been shut and barred
for years?
1t hadn't been. She had seen men
opening and shutting it, going in and
out; out, There had been very few Of them,
not seen more than two or possibly
three men use that door during the
winter. Staring idly at the door, she
even remembered how some of the
men looked.
One of them was big and dark,
stout and middle-aged. The second was
small and thin and younger. She had
And-the fact suddenly interested her
she had never before seen a woman
in that house, or entering it or leaving
it. But woman was there now-and
a child.
1t was a dingy house, a brownstonc
building that had seen better days.
1t had fallen into neglect and even
into dLsrepair. Still, it was not bad
enough to cast discredit on its more
prosperous neighbors. 1t was just an
old New York house in which a few
human beings lived negligently and
sporadically
Mrs. barrow asked herself why she
was paying any attention to it. She
had never done so before, though it
was SO directly under her north win
dow that she had seen it every time
she looked out. Or probably she hadn't. |
There had been nothing there to catch !
her attention, except rare glimpse of .
two men entering or leaving, neither |
of them striking in any way.
unusual to look at-the child with the /
bandana. The child with the pale little .