The Key West Citizen

TUESDAY. MARCH 13, 1934.

Judith Lane

Mrs. Norris: Judith Lane. From Evvin's secretary and Norman Dale return from Rio Diablo engaged. Bevins is about to build a dam at Rio Diablo to reclaim a huge quantity of land. They are met at Galveston by the Bevins yacht, on which is Clia Sanford, Judith's reporter friend. Clia tells Judith that Mathile Bevins will try to make trouble between her and her newly acquired fiance, and that Morton Lampere, senior partner of Norman's Houston law firm, is out to queer Bevins' dam project.

Chapter Eight
LAMPERE'S PLOT

JUDITH LANE, slightly astonished at the change Clia Sanford had evoked in her appearance with ruffles, peach powder and rouge, stared into the stateroom mirror and digested the fact that the girl who practically owned this yacht (Big Tom's interest was merely paying maintenance bills) hoped to marry Norman Dale.

And then her attention was rudely switched from her own personal feelings to concern over her chief.

"It happened this way." Clia settled into a deep chair and lighted a cigarette with a deliberation which Judith recognized as a forerunner of something important.

"Letty Canfield decided to take a post graduate course in matrimony, and I was sent over to the court house to check on her first mistake. It was closing time, but I slipped in and promised to latch the door when I left. You know how those files are, don't you? If ever I want to commit murder I'll hide the victim in there and go free the rest of my days.

"I was back of one tending to Letty's business when I heard voices. I peeked around and found that Morton Lampere and Judge Maritellan had shinnied in through the crack of the door and were doing a confidential.

"They looked so guilty I felt duty bound to find out what they were talking about. This was it. Lampere was trying to force Maritellan to get some friend of his in Rio Mar county to issue an injunction against the sale of any additional dam property to your boss."

"Oh..." Judith had forgotten Norman, the yacht, her lovely frock. She was the stenographer ready to act as a medium between Big Tom and a danger which threatened his dam.

"But, Clia, I'm sure he bought all that was necessary: bought the dam site from the State for delinquent taxes last winter, and the limitation date has already passed, so they can't question his ownership of that.

"At the same time he bought all land deserted by the homeseeking owners, for delinquent taxes, in order to protect those very home-seekers. After the irrigation is available they may have their land back, providing they will live on it and cultivate it, by simply paying what Big Tom paid the State."

Wouldn't Lampere know all of that?"

"Of course... I have it." Judith, who had sat down opposite her friend, arose. "It's the new dam... the upper one. Clia, I trust you implicitly or I wouldn't think out loud. For some reason Lampere is trying to check Big Tom's control of the upper flood basin... I remember sending a wire to the Company Board telling of the new plans... Lampere read it... he was probably called to the board meeting.

"BUT, Clia," she stood before her friend. "why should he fight the firm retaining him?"

"You're asking me." commented Clia. "However, Jude, he didn't intend that Bevins should find out he was behind the injunction. He threatened the judge with some kind of an expose if Big Tom learned of it through him."

"I don't understand why he's doing this," mused Judith, "The dam is only a hobby of Mr. Bevins. Of course it will make money in time, everything Big Tom touches does and for that reason he has complete support of our board of directors... he's ready to build it with his own cash, if there is any dissension...

Clia," she asked suddenly, "why should Lampere and the judge discuss such a thing in a public file room?"

"Afraid if they went to either office, some smart reporter like Clia Sanford would see them and smell a political mouse... you remember my estimable news-sheet nearly put both of them on the scandal spot after the last election."

"I must get hold of Big Tom. He should know about Lampere before he reaches Houston. Wait... there's someone at the door."

"Well, girls," Mrs. Dale stood in the doorway. "Aren't you coming up?"

"When I was a girl," observed Clia, with the affectation of an ancient crone, "my hostess escorted me-"

"Times and hostesses have changed." laughed Mrs. Dale, but there was apology in her voice, "so under the circumstances come along."

The hostess met them on the main deck and propelling Judith gently along by a delicate pressure on her arm, came to a stop on the after deck where the crowd had gathered.

"Folks," Mrs. Bevins' voice was genial, friendly. "I want you to meet Tom's stenographer, Miss Lane."

"Having been catalogued," observed Clia, laughing, "suppose you come along over here and sit with the only other working girl aboard."

Judith followed Clia, slightly bewildered, while the crowd laughed good-naturedly. Judith noticed Norman wasn't on deck, nor was Big Tom. She sank into a wicker chair which was pushed out from somewhere, and then saw Norman approaching, an exquisitely lovely girl smiling up into his face.

The girl accepted a chair, directly opposite Judith's and she noticed with a start that this was Mathile Bevins, a Mathile who had changed tremendously since she had last seen her.

Her eyes, artfully shadowed, seemed dark instead of pale blue, beneath the crown of platinum hair. She wore a dark blue organdy, cut on exaggerated sailor-suit lines with silver braid and buttons for trimming. It was unquestionably smart.

JUDITH sought for a simile to express the change in the plump, dowdy girl she had known and the gently rounded, beautifully sophisticated one before her. She had it. She was as different as the Tilly her father had once called her, was different from the Mathile he called her now when he didn't forget.

Norman seated himself near Judith, a proprietary air about him which caused the Bevins eyes to narrow.

"Miss Lane," she began with a patronizing note in her voice, "you look badly. Has father been working you too hard, or have you been dieting for the former fashionable figure?"

"Forced dieting," barked Tom Bevins who had come up behind Judith. "all of us were. We found the natives down there about starved and this child," with a fond pat of Judith's head, "slipped her poor share to the kids."

"Really, tell us about the trip, Miss Lane," suggested someone.

"Help!" gasped Mathile delicately, "not that. I've been bored with tales of surveying trips ever since I can remember."

"You wouldn't have been bored with this one, or on it either," her father suggested comfortably. "I've had the kind of a storm, Tilly, which used to send you scurrying under the bed."

Tilly flushed scarlet and the crowd hooted at the idea of the elegant Mathile on all fours seeking shelter.

"Peculiar how danger brings out the primitive in us," remarked someone.

"Danger," retorted Mathile, her voice brittle, "brings out a lot of strange emotions... storms especially.

"For illustration. During one of my earlier trips abroad we spent some time in Italy. I managed to shake my chaperone... oh, yes, mother tried to have me properly duennaed... and take a cruise on the Mediterranean.

"It was an Italian boat with an Italian captain, young fellow... handsome in a plebeian sort of way. We ran into a tremendous storm. Now of course under ordinary circumstances I would never have spoken to the man but that storm worked on my emotions so thoroughly it took me a fortnight ashore to realize I loathed, instead of loved, him."

Judith's eyes were no longer grey, they were blue-black with anger. She looked at Norman, who was smiling easily, as though amused at the story, then she looked at Clia.

The girl's red lips had parted to show the gleam of white teeth, her figure seemed vibrating with anger, but when she spoke her voice was filled with laughter.

"My word, Miss Bevins," she chuckled. "one might almost think you were inferring that Mr. Dale decided to fall in love with Judy because they ran into a small hurricane."

Norman sat up with a start- "Oh, no," he protested, "Mathile's always reminiscing over affairs."

(Copyright, 1931, by Jeanne Bowman)

Tomorrow, Judith sees her future home-