Illinois Valley News, Thursday, September 13, 1945
All Over But the
Rie ha rei Powell- Shooting
A N
IKINtR
SANCTU m
fWYSTERY
STARRING ARAB‘"»ANDY BLAKE
THE STORY THUS FAR:
14. Andy
Blake ot Operations was Joined In Wash-
imton by bis wife. Arab, who took a Job
with Ordnance. Arab secured a room on
“Q” street, which she believed to be the
headquarters of German agents.
Andy
fot into a fight with Joey, one of the
roomers, and a neighbor. Jones, knocked
Joey out.
The neat night Andy went
over to the house to look around.
He
checked on Joey’s ear and found out that
Joey was using considerably more gas
than bls A card would allow. He then
heard a scream across the street, ft was
Renee, and when Andy rushed up. Jones
rushed toward him to attack. They start
ed to fight. Renee stepped In and made
them stop.
CHAPTER VI
I felt his fingers strike across my
wrist and miss a grip.
A woman's voice lashed at us.
"Stop it!”
I danced back a couple of steps
and saw her come out from behind
the tree. It was Renee Fielding. She
gripped the man’s shoulder and
shook him.
He straightened and
turned his head slowly to her, al
most as if he had been wakened.
Pale starlight washed over his round
polished skull and glittered blankly
on his glasses.
It was the man
Joey Raeder worked for; the man
who had laid Joey out cold two
nights ago.
He dropped his hands to his sides
and turned to me. •I beg your par-
don, Lieutenant," he said, “I was
very hasty. You came at me fast
and I failed to note your insignia.”
“A woman screamed,” I said.
“Who was It? You, Mrs. Fielding?”
“Yes. Something ran through the
bushes. A rabbit, perhaps. Or a
cat. I am nervous.”
“Good night,” I said, and started
to leave.
“Wait a minute," the man said.
“Wait, Lieutenant." His voice was
calm now. The urgency had drained
out of it. "Please wait. I have not
apologized properly for my actions."
“It” O. K .” I said. “I stumbled
into something that wasn't my busi
ness.”
“But really,” he said. “I am very
sorry. It might have been bad. I
tried to throw you into that tree.
It might have broken you. I do nat
think that your body missed it by
more than a foot.”
“Better luck next time."
“Oh, but there will be no next
time. You acted very gallantly and
it is too bad that there was no lady
in distress. But you were also very
foolish.”
“You’re telling me."
“Yes, foolish, Never run at an
enemy that way. Come more slow-
ly. Otherwise he may use your mo-
mentum to throw you or . .
He
paused, picked up a dead branch.
“Can you break this?” he asked.
It was an inch thick and the wood
was still sound. I tried to snap
in my hands, failed, then started
break it over my knee.
"Oh, no,” he chuckled, taking
from me. ‘ 'Let us pretend that this
branch is a man's neck. You can-
not reach it with a knee while he is
on his feet, We must do this." He
braced one end of the branch on the
ground. The edge of his right palm
chopped at it. There was a crack.
Hie branch snapped.
He dropped the broken stick, lost
interest in the subject. “1 believe.”
he said, “Renee called you Lieuten
ant Blake
My name is Jones.”
I was so wrapped up in my men
tal game that I said automatically,
“Glad to meet you, riain Mr
Jones.”
“It is Mr. Jones! Not
Not
Professor Jones.
Mr Jones!”
I grinned and said, “Sorry.” But
now 1 was happy. I had him prop
erly tagged. I could make people
sit up and take notice when 1 talked
about a guy with the sinister name
of Plain Mr. Jones, He had carried
the thing too far. You would im
mediately sus|>ect a guy who called
himself Plain Mr. Jones, just as you
would start counting the silverware
if somebody introduced himself as
Honest John Smith.
Renee said, "Lieutenant Blake
comes over to visit one of my girls I
—Miss Reynolds."
He said, "Oh, yes," and nodded
Tben his shiny forehead creased,
and he asked. "You . . . you visited
her tonight’”
It was interesting He knew who
Arab was and he knew she was out
tonight. The worried note in his
voice hinted that he was getting sus
picious of me
1 didn't care for
that
“No," I said hastily.
"I
haven’t seen her tonight I was out
this way visit ing friends and 'hought '
I'd give her a hail on my way back.”
"I believe that she is out with
Joev." Renee' said.
"Oh."
"1 am sorr y that we had a mis-
understandini; about the house rules
last night." s he said
"We do have
to hat e rules. you understand ”
'Yes. sure. Well, if she isn't in
1 1
Flam Mr Jones said, "Why do
you not Invit«: the Lieutenant to the
picmc tomorrow night, Renee?
“Oh. Do ... do you think
“Of course. Tell him about it."
She said, almost reluctantly, “The
weather is still so nice that I de
cided to give the girls and their
friends a picnic supper in Kock
Creek Park tomorrow night
We
have picnics there every once in a
while and the girls seem to like them
very much
All of us go
Even
Sadie, to help with the servuig. 1
Would 1 »e you to come ”
"I’ll try.” I said, "but of course
work might pile up and—"
"Please do try.” She gave me
directions how to get there, and add
ed, ‘There are always extra girls,
so if . . . if . . .”
“Sure, I understand. Joey’s giv
ing me tough competition, isn’t he?
I’ll make it if I can. And thanks."
After dinner in the cafeteria I got
the car and invested part of my A
ration in a drive to Rock Creek
Park. A car would be handy for the
program I had scheduled. I parked
some distance away from the picnic
site, and crept close. My woods
manship would probably have deaf
ened an Indian, but at least I got
close without dislodging any boul
ders or snapping any dead trees un
derfoot—and besides nobody at the
picnic was paying any attention.
Everybody from the house on Q
Street was present. I peered out
from the shadow of a tree and spot
ted Renee and my pal Sadie and all
the CAF twos and threes and Arab
and Joey. A fire blazed in the dusk,
Arab had her head thrown back.
laughing at Joey, and her hair
tossed rippling golden reflections
back at the fire. Joey looked like
the kind of guy they fix up with a
coconut palm and a sarong and a
featured role opposite Dottie La-
mour. He seemed to be doing all
right in the role he had right now.
I went back to the car and drove
down Rock Creek Parkway toward
the turnoff to Q Street. My recon
naissance had produced the infor
mation I wanted: the house on Q
Street was deserted.
A block away from the house I
pulled to the curb, switched off the
motor, and began to change cos-
I shivered.
tume. A service cap flaunting a big
fried egg. a blouse with lots of shiny
brass, and freshly pressed pinks
weren’t regulation for this sort of
work
I skinned out of the pinks
and into a pair of dark O. D pants
I swapped the blouse for a field jack
et without insignia and left the cap
in the car. I was out of uniform,
but the way I was going they'd over
look little details when they court-
martialed me.
The first window I came to. on the
ground floor, was unlocked. 1 could
have raised it and climbed in easily,
but I didn't.
Sneaking into dark
houses is the sort of thing I tend to
put off. like going to the dentist. I
circled the place and found quite a
few unlocked windows
Just out of
curiosity I decided to test the front
door I climbed over the porch rail
ing and crept to the door. Its latch
moved under my thumb. I shrugged.
Everybody was away and the front
door was unlocked. Things couldn’t
have been arranged more conven
iently. I started to open the door—
and then my nerves began snapping
like old rubber bands
Things couldn’t have been arranged
more conveniently. Uh-huh. And
maybe they had been arranged
I backed away from the door and
my foot skidded on something round
and hard. I picked it up. Probably
it wouldn’t have bothered anybody
but a guy with the reflexes of a
rabbit. 1 stared at it and almost
shuddered a shoulder out of joint.
It was a dead branch about an inch
thick, neatly broken in the middle
Not the one I'd handled the night be
fore I held the thing like a person
taking lesson number one tn snake
charming
Plain Mr. Jones had
been practicing.
The branch was a plus sign which
added up everything for me. The
fat man and his friends suspected
that somebody was unusually inter
ested in the house on Q Street Per
haps Arab had been prying around
and had left traces, or i>erhaps they
wondered why I was
hanging
around. At any rate, one of them,
possibly Joey, had coaxed Renee to
stage a picnic in Rock Creek Park.
1 crept off the porch and into the
WNU FtATURtS
! shelter of the shrubbery. I found
myself starting to yawn. It had been
a long day. I needed to be fresh
and alert for my job. It was really
my duty to go home and get a good
night's sleep and quit bothering peo
ple who didn't want company. The
trouble was
that
going home
wouldn't settle anything . . . and I
owed Plain Mr. Jones a few bad
moments.
I made a wide circuit across the
street, across the grounds of the big
estate, and then back across the
street to the side ot his house
away from Renee Fielding's place.
His house was a Victorian type with
gables at each end like ears pricked
up to listen. No lights wer* show
ing. It wasn’t likely that his house
had been turned into a booby trap,
too, and besides it wasn’t a pleasant
thought and the hell with it. I didn't
have to worry about Plain Mr. Jones
spotting me.
There was enough
space and shrubbery between the
two houses to insure privacy.
I
walked onto his porch and immedi-
ately found one bit of information.
A small brass plate beside the door
announced:
JONES NEWSPAPER CLIPPING
SERVICE
I tilted an eyebrow at the sign. It
was an interesting business for him
to be operating. I tested the front
door and checked all the ground
floor windows. No intruders were
expected or wanted; everything was
locked. I didn’t mind that. After
my experience next door an un
locked downstairs window would
probably have sent me screaming
home. I climbed onto the porch rail
and found that I could get a good
grip on the roof.
Surprisingly
enough, I could still chin myself. I
pulled up, hooked an elbow and then
a knee over the edge, and finally
made it. After that feat I deserved
to find an unlocked second-floor win
dow, and I did.
Before getting too involved in any
thing I carried out the operation
known as securing one's lines of re
treat. I went downstairs, unlocked
the front and back doors and all the
windows. If things got bad I was
all set, as the Axis communiques
say, to disengage the enemy in a
rearward direction. Then I began
snooping around.
After returning to the second floor
I examined the room I had first en
tered. It was just like the down
stairs setup except that no clippings
were lying around. Only one, that
is
I found it inside the leather
reinforcing corner of a big desk-size
blotter. I had been looking in the
corners because people often tuck
notes there, and then the notes slip
in out of sight and are forgotten.
The clipping was a short personal
item, stamped with a date over a
month old. and it had been clipped
from a small-town weekly. It an
nounced:
NO FURLOUGH FOR
BILL DWIGHT
Corp. Bill Dwight, son of Drug-
gist and Mrs. Arthur Dwight, wrote
his mother this week that he could
not get home as expected because
all furloughs were canceled for his
outfit.
Mrs. Dwight had to call off a
party arranged for him, much to
the disappointment of several of our
prettiest girls. Bill wrote that he is
mighty fit and that his Second Ar
mored Division will give a good ac
count of itself whenever it is called
to go into battle for freedom. Good
luck. Bill, and here's hoping you get
that visit home soon.
I tucked the clipping away in my
billfold. There should have been a
couple of twenties to keep it com
pany instead of a pair of wrinkled
dollar bills and a dry cleaner's tick
et. In certain quarters a clipping
like this would be worth plenty, al
though you might have to take pay
ment in reichsmarks. A fortune tell
er wouldn't have to squint at Bill's
palm to chance a prediction that he
was about to make a trip across wa
ter
If the Second Armored were
canceling all leaves it was either go
ing on maneuvers or heading for a
staging area. The Second Armored
was pretty hot. It had been on lots
of maneuvers and its next battle
problem was likely to be for keeps.
There were a couple of bedrooms
on the second floor, and a big side
room fixed up as a study. The lat
ter was furnished with a big mahog
any desk, a leather couch, two up
holstered chairs, and a couple of
straight ones.
A bust of Caesar
scowled from a table; it was the
same one which used to sneer down
at me in my Episcopal Academy
days as I murdered sight transla
tion. One wall was paneled with
books: history, psychology. Haushof-
er's study of geopolitics. Clausewits
on war, Mahan on sea power. Ho
mer Lea's once-forgotten bo >ks on
Jap and German militarism, de
Gaulle's analysis of tank warfare
(the one which the French General
Staff had snooted but which had
greatly influenced the Germans).
Rommel’s hard-hitting book on mi
nor tactics, and the like
Washington Digest;
Allied Occupation of
Germany Thankless Job
Life-Sized Doll Can
Wear Tot’s Clothes
Methods for Restoring Normalcy to Reich
Meet With Criticism From Smaller
Liberated Nations of Europe.
By BALKHAGE
A rms
Analyst and Commentator.
WNU Service, 1616 I Street N. W., 1 America has a big waiting demand
Washington, D. C.
With the fanfare accompanying the
first steps of the occupation of Japan
now dying on the Pacific breezes,
some hints of the heavy responsibili
ties of Uncle Sam’s European
problems begin to appear.
Already the small nations which
were occupied by the Axis and
whose peoples resisted the Nazi-Fas
cist yoke are being heard from in
a rising chorus of complaint and
criticism against the Allies.
Belgium and Holland are perhaps
loudest in their charges of what they
feel is discrimination against them
in favor of their former enemy-
neighbor, but voices are raised as
far away as Greece and Yugoslav-
ia. which say that Germany and
Italy should not receive material
assistance on the same basis as the
once-occupied countries.
The charges from Holland are the
most specific. The Netherlands gov
ernment has presented claims for a
share in both the external and in
ternal assets of Germany as repara
tions. The note handed the Allies
asks for immediate return of loot
now within the occupied zones in
Germany, which the Dutch claim is
listed and identifiable They say that
parts of their country were stripped
bare of capital and consumer goods;
that some of the former, such as
machinery, is now being used to the
advantage of the Germans.
In addition to the formal protest.
Col. J. C. A. Faure, deputy chief of
staff of the Netherlands civil affairs
administration, was quoted in Lon
don as saying that the Allied mili
tary governors were playing into
German hands when they prevented
the Dutch, Belgians and French
from reclaiming immediately ma
chinery and other property stolen
from them by the Nazi armies,
He said that protests to SHAEF,
while it existed, were fruitless “and
when the new child (the British and
American occupation organization)
was born it was too young." He ex
plained it was understandable that
since the Allied commanders in their
respective spheres have their hands
full in creating order out of chaos in
Germany, each wants to do a good
job. and for that reason doesn’t want
to lose any material aid that will
help. But that doesn’t provide much
comfort for the Dutch or Belgian
farmer who looks across the fron
tier and sees a German peasant driv
ing home a cow which he swears he
knows is his by its crumpled horn
and the spot on its rump The same
applies to the factory owner who ¡3
positive bis property is turning
wheels in Germany.
Army Aim:
Speed Job
From sources in close touch with
conditions in Germany I heard this
example which pretty well echoes
Dutch explanations but doesn't solve
their problem. For instance: An Al
lied commander moves into a Ger
man town. One of the first things
he wants is light and power. His
men repair the power plant. Later
it is claimed that the main dynamo
was stolen from Holland. That is
not the commander’s affair Light
ing the town is. His job is to re
store the place as nearly as possible
to a self-supporting community.
But that is not the end. for the
restoration of European economy as
a whole is of vital importance and
naturally those nations which suf
fered under the German heel feel
they should have first call on the
sinews of normality,
especially
when those sinews were torn from
their body economic by Nazi hands.
On this score there have already
been rumblings of complaint against
the American occupation. Already
the wheels of German factories are
turning in the American zone The
purpose is to manufacture goods
and provide services required to
keep the occupation forces going and
to supply the minimum needs of the
com munity
The Germans have to have shovels
and hoes and rakes if they are to
till their fields and cultivate their
gardens in order to get enough food
to live on These tools, if made and
sold, would be in competition with
goods the Americans make
But
there are not enough ships to carry
a vast supply
f such products
across the Atlantic and besides
r
B A R B S
of her own. Therefore, in many
cases German capital may be used
to resuscitate German factories and
Germany money will buy its prod
ucts. The Americans are doing ev
erything to facilitate this type of re
construction (light industry and
manufacture of household equip
ment). If necessary and they can
do it, they will see that a missing
shaft or flywheel is obtained some
how. They permit the Germans to
combine partly damaged factories
into one complete plant. They en
courage reconversion of certain
plants from wartime to civilian use.
It so happens that of all the occu
pied zones the one which the Ameri
cans control is capable of creating
most easily a balanced economy.
It is a land of small towns and vil
lages, most of which were not im
portant
enough
to
have
been
bombed. It is a land of cattle and
of orchards, of fields and meadows.
It is highly probable that with
American organization to guide the
people this area will be the first to
regain a fairly normal life.
If we don’t help the Germans,
we’ll be criticized for fumbling; the
occupation will be made more dif
ficult. If we do help, we will be
under heavy criticism from the peo
ples of less fortunate areas and
charged with treating the former
enemy better than we treat our
friends.
The British operate in a far less
favorable area, for they have the
bombed-out Ruhr on their hands and
they control a territory whose exist
ence depended on industries which
no longer exist and which will not
be permitted to exist in the future.
Such factories as they can operate
to make the community self-sup
porting may well be equipped in part
with stolen machinery.
Russ Strip
German Industry
The pattern of Russian occupation
is quite different. The Russians know
what they are doing in their zone.
They are treating the “little people”
with kindliness, assuring them that
they need have no fear of oppres
sion. Their apparent intention is to
divide up the land and give the Ger
mans a chance to win a livelihood
from the soil, meanwhile giving
them a thorough indoctrination in
the advantages of the Soviet form of
government. At the same time they
are removing every movable piece
of machinery to Russia.
Meanwhile. Poland will be allowed
to scrape together such German ag
ricultural equipment as she can sal
vage tn East Prussia. Disease is
rampant in Poland; there are short
ages in all kinds of equipment. The
Germans took most of the agricul
tural machinery; much of the rest
was destroyed and the whole coun
try wrecked. The other next-door
neighbors have not even such an
opportunity to recuperate their
losses.
And so the Americans will prob
ably bear the onus of helping the for
mer enemy most of all. although
their only intent is to carry out the
program agreed upon by the Allies.
America wants no loot. She does
want all she can get in the way of
important formulae; all she can
learn of German methods; all of the
ideas which can be adapted success
fully to American life.
Already
some valuable scientific information
has been obtained and in many
cases the German scientists, with
that disinterested attitude chaiacter-
istic of their profession, are quite as
willing to work in an American lab
oratory as they were in one run by
the Nazis. America also wants to
finish her occupation job and get
out. A part of that job is to make
the Germans self-supporting.
’S as big as life and twice as
S HE
natural! Wears the size 3
clothes that a youngster has out
grown — has yarn hair that kids
can braid.
♦ • *
A real life-size playmate — 32
inches tall in stocking feet! Pat
tern 527 contains pattern of doll
only; complete directions.
Due to an unusually large demand and
current conditions, slightly more time is
required in filling orders for a few of the
most popular pattern numbers.
Send your order to:
Sewing Circle Needlecraft Dept.
Box 3217
San Francisco <, Calif.
Enclose 16 cents for Pattern
No________________
Name
Address
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’ ASK ME
;
;
ANOTHER f i
? A General Quiz
<*. e- <v.
tv. <a. rv. <v. rv. <v. rk.
«a. <a.rv. a - r^. r^. rC
1. Does an ostrich bury its head
in the sand in order to hide?
2. In playing the flute, the
velocity of air necessary is equiv
alent to that of a hurricane, or at
the rate of how many miles an
hour?
3. "God made the sea; we made
the shore” is a proverb belonging
to what nation?
4. The temperature of the moon
drops 400 degrees at sunset. Why
doesn't the earth’s temperature
drop considerably?
5. For what purpose was the
Leaning Tower of Pisa erected?
6. Are the words "key” and
"quay” homonyms?
The Answers
1. No. It grubs for food with
its bill.
2. Seventy-five miles or more.
3. The Dutch.
4. The earth is blanketed by air
which holds they heat caused by the
rays of the sun.
5. It was erected as a bell tower
for the Cathedral of Pisa.
6. Yes, they are pronounced
identically.
Sideways Through Canal
Although the larger floating dry
docks of the U. S. navy are too
wide to enter the locks of the
Panama canal, the job of towing
one through this waterway was ac
complished recently by filling one
of its hollow side walls with water
and tilting the huge craft on its
side.
Thus, it is quite likely that an
other complaint will be raised that
we are forming too friendly a bond
with people of a nation the world
came to detest so thoroughly
• • •
In the years 1940-43. a total of
7.851 persons were killed in farm
accidents in the U. S. Machinery
caused 47 per cent of the deaths,
livestock 20 per cent, and all other
causes 33 per cent Wisconsin was
the most dangerous state for farm
workers, with 502 killed in four
years; and New York had 456 acci
dental farm deaths
b y /»’ a u k h a n e
On one shelf was a collection of
New that wc can get e^n by the I Business Week predicts a boom by
leather-bound multigraphed letters. •arten. a lot of us will go back to next summer
Remember '29 —
They were all datelined from Wash • rack a day and be satisfied
what goes up comes down Mean
ington. addressed to "Dear Sub
• • •
while there may be tough going.
scriber” and signed “Observer.”
Which is another good argument for
The administration is approach
They contained alleged inside dope ing the proposed labor • manage keeping those war bonds and buy
on Washington politics, economic ment - government conference with ing more.
trends, tax plans, and predictions gloves on — not boxing gloves, but
about national and world affairs.
that is what they are afraid they
The honeymoon may be over in
It was ti e type of news letter to
might need unless the animals are Washington bi t the bills are just
which many businessmen subscribe
coming in to c ogress.
tamed in advance.
1TU BE CONTINUED)
MERCHANDISE
• «r- •
• - •—\-
j _ - z - y ■ . jr ->■
Adust Be
GOOD-
to be
; Consistently Advertised
BUY ADVERTISED GOODS