Lowe High School - Towers Yearbook (Windsor, Ontario Canada)

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T HE TO W ERS Pago Sixty-Seven could remember a telephone call about five- fifty in the afternoon to room 317, which was Jon ' s room. I didn’t have much hope that she would remember, but I had to check everything. To my great surprise the girl answered, “Yes, I do, I remember that call particularly. A man caine up to me—he was quite good looking—and as(:ed me what room was Jonathan Harding’s. I told him the number and then he went over to the pay phone and rang the hotel number and asked to speak to room 317. I thought it was peculiar because he could have gone up to the room in less time than it took him to phone”. I then asked her for a description of the man. She couldn’t give me a very good des¬ cription but it was fair, since she only had a quick look at him. I thanked her and was on my way across the lobby to see the bell boys. They were standing over in a corner in a group. I was very happy, and the way things were happening, I thonght we would have this problem solved shortly. Apparently, Irene re¬ ceived a phone call from a man, and she probab¬ ly came down and met him, and either they went off together or the man forced her to do so. It was only my guess, but 1 had to check with the bell boys. The first two remembered seeing her around the hotel but they never bother with women much because they don’t tip heavily, so they said. The third bell boy remembered her, by my description, and said she was talking in a very high voice to a man he had never seen before. That was all he could tell me. The fourth boy told me he remembered the two ar¬ guing as they went out the door and got into a cab. “Was it a cab that services this hotel?” 1 asked. Yes”, he replied, “as there are only four, it would not be hard to find if you’re looking for it”. By luck, the cab which took Irene and her (riend to their destination, was outside. My questioning of the cabby didn’t get me very far, for he wouldn’t talk. After I gave him a five dollar bill he told everything. He remembered the two by their arguing with each other. He took them to a hotel about a mile away, the Palm Arms. I asked him to drive me there and on the way he told me of their argument. He said he only caught a few phrases but they were ar¬ guing about money. The cabby said the man wanted money from the girl. She refused, and he said that he would tell the girl’s husband about a little incident unfavourable to the girl. That was all the cabby knew, but that was enough. We were at the hotel by the time he had finished his story. 1 thanked him again and 1 got out of the cab and went into the hotel. Now, 1 was stuck. As I didn t have a very good description of the man, how was I to be sure who was the right man whom I wanted to see. I went up to the desk-clerk and flashed a phony badge, which I had won at a track meet in my younger days, and told him I was a detective. I told the clerk I wanted to know if a certain man lived here. 1 gave him a brief description. He said that there was a man here by the name of Mr. Barkley in room 728. I thanked him. 1 arrived at the room in a few minutes, but on the way 1 asked the elevator boy if he had ever seen Mr. Barkley with a certain young lady, Irene to be exact. He said he had, but only once; this was the day before—about six- thirty, when they entered the hotel together and when she left alone at about six-fifty-five. Well, I thought, as 1 was about to knock at the door, Mr. Barkley seems to have had something to do with Irene’s disappearance. Barkley opened the door, and the des¬ cription of him was very fitting. I asked if 1 could come in to see him for a few minutes. 1 said I was an inquiring reporter. Once 1 got into the apartment I sat down and made myself at home. Barkley sat down across from me as 1 started my barrage of questions. “What do you know about a young lady called Irene Young?” I asked him. He looked at me in astonishment, and didn’t say anything. “Alright”, I said, “let’s tell everything we know about her. I know you met her last night at six-fifteen, and brought her here to your apartment, and that you were probably black¬ mailing her. I’ll tell you something else, too, Mrs. Harding is missing, and if anything hap¬ pened to her you are in a pretty bad spot to be accused as her abductor”. “1 admit that I met her and brought her up here”, he replied, “but all I wanted was money to keep me quiet about her past. You see, two years ago she had an affair with a married man. The newspapers never got news of the affair”. But”, he continued, “she left here about half an hour later”. “That’s right”, I replied, “but did she tell you where she was going ?” “No! I asked her for money but she re¬ fused to give me any. She said she wanted that past affair closed for she was happy now and wanted to forget about it. She left in a hurry and said she had to go to the garage to get the car which she had been getting repaired. This was something new to me. Jon hadn ' t mentioned about the car being repaired. But I guess it wasn’t necessary if he got the car him¬ self. But if Irene brought the car home, this had a different light on the subject. I put this thought out of my mind as an impossibility. I excussed myself for rushing in this way and thanked him for his help. 1 told him not to leave town, for he was still very much invol¬ ved in this mystery. He said he had nothing to hide about himself. This was fine. I returned to Jon’s room to await for his arrival. I had a few things to ask him about Irene. As Jon was not there, 1 thought it would be best if I waited for him. While sitting there, the telephone rang. The man introduced himself as a Mr. Wilson and said that he wished to speak to Mr. J. Harding. I told him that Jon

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Page Sixty-Six THE TOWERS LITECACy Honeymoon — No Wile -By GEORGE NUTT I awoke one morning to find my doorbell ringing very loudly. Being very much perturbed by the noise, I wrapped my robe about me and hustled off to the door. To my great delight there was my good friend Jonathan Harding. We had gone to school together and had always chummed around in our younger days. I had not seen him for eight years. “Jon”, I said, “what are you doing here, 1 thought you were in California”. “I just came from there, George”, Jon re¬ plied, I’m going to get married tomorrow to a New York girl. I came in on the plane this morning and I thought I’d drop by and see you”. “Well, it really is nice to see you, Jon, come in and have a cup of coffee”. I offered him a cigarette and we both had a quick cup of coffee. We sat down and dis¬ cussed each other’s life for the past years. This girl he was going to marry, used to go to school with him in college. Jon continued with ex¬ periences out in California and how he finally came up to be advertising manager of some big firm. 1 didn’t catch the name for my mind was th ' nking of breakfast. “Well”, Jon said, “how have you been making out? From the looks of this apartment, I would say fine”. “Not bad”, I answered, “the ‘newspaper’ is paying fairly well now. Two hundred dollars a week is nothing to sneeze at”. “I guess not”, he replied. “Well, I guess I’ll be going”, he continued, “1 have to meet Irene at some beauty salon on Park Avenue”. ‘Irene’, 1 guessed, was his fiance. We rose, and I thanked him for calling , and said I’d be seeing him shortly. As he left he said I’d receive an invitation to his wedding. 1 said that 1 would be delighted. After he had gone, I dressed and went downstairs for my breakfast. Jon was married a few days following, and to a very lovely girl if I do say so. The two were off on their honeymoon the next day. “Well”, I said to myself, “there goes an¬ other bachelor out of our world”. I didn’t give the matter of Jon’s marriage another thought until I received a telegram, but I wondered why in the world he needed me in Niagara Falls. As I stepped from the plane in Niagara Falls, 1 was greeted by Jon. “Jon, why in heaven’s name do you need me?” 1 asked. “Never mind now, I’ll tell you everything as we drive to the hotel”, he replied. We got into a car and Jon started to ex¬ plain why he called me down here. “Irene has disappeared”, Jon remarked, quite calmly. “Last night about six, 1 left the hotel room and went downstairs for a New York paper. Irene seemed gloomy and depres¬ sed and seemed worried about something. I stayed downstairs for about half an hour and, when I returned, Irene was gone. She left no letter or note to explain her disappearance”. “It is quite peculiar”, I replied, “but maybe she got homesick and went back to her mother”. “Irene couldn’t have done that, because I’ve phoned her mother and all her friends, and they haven’t seen her”. “Did you two have an argument or any misunderstanding that would explain this?” “No! Nothing whatever. Wait a minute, she did receive a phone call about ten minutes before I left; but that didn’t seem to bother her”, replied Jon. “Well, it might have had something to do with it, but maybe she went out for a few min¬ utes and she might have met with an accident. Have you checked the hospitals ?” I asked. “Yes, it seems I’ve covered everything there is to cover”. “Did she take any clothes with her?” I questioned. He said that she only took her hat and coat and that he thought the whole business was crazy. “Obviously then”, 1 said, “Irene thought she was going out for a few minutes, probably to some store for some article”. “Yes, that seems probable, doesn’t it”, he replied. “Jon, I’ll leave you now to get something to eat for yourself, while I check up on a few things. “Fine”, Jon answered, “I haven’t had any¬ thing to eat since yesterday”. I left Jon and went downstairs. On my way down I described Irene to the elevator boy and asked him if he had seen her. The elevator boy said she had checked into the hotel with her husband a few days ago. He had taken her up to and from her room a number of times, and the last time he had seen her was last night at six fifteen. Well, I thought I was doing fine, at least I discovered the time at which she left her room. I thanked the boy for his informa¬ tion and handed him a dollar for his services. In the hotel lobby now, I went over to the switch-board operator and asked her if she

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I’age Sixty-Eight THE TOWERS wasn ' t in now, but if he would phone later he would catch him in. “Well, you see, it’s very urgent that I talk to him , Wilson said, “I have business to close and must talk to him at once. I have only a few hours left in hown. I phoned Mr. Har¬ ding last night but he wasn’ t in. If you ' ll tell him to call this number when he comes in, he can reach me here”. I took the number of his telephone and was just about to hang up, when the remark, ‘T phoned him last night, but he wasn ' t in , echoed in my ears. 1 then asked Mr. Wilson very abruptly, “Could you please tell me at what time you cal¬ led?” “Oh, I’d say about seven thirty”, he replied. “Why, is anything wrong? “No, not at all,—and thank you very much”, I replied, “i’ll have Mr. Harding phone you as soon as he comes in”. I put the phone down and began to won¬ der it Jon really had anything to do with Irene’s disappearance. I then headed for the garage. A man was in the office smoking a largs cigar—he was half asleep. As I opened the door, the man jumped up, very startled. “Please excuse me for bothering you, but has anyone called for Mr. Harding ' s automo¬ bile?” I asked. Why yes”, he replied, “last night, to be exact”. “Could you please tell me if Mr. Harding called for the car, personally”. “No, not exactly—his wife called for it, but she remarked she was supposed to pick him up outside the garage”, the man replied. “Did you see Mrs. Harding pick up her husband outside”, I asked. “Why all the questions”, he asked, “did someone get murdered?” “Not exactly”, I replied, “but there might have been. Now tell me, did you see Mr. Har¬ ding get into the car ?” “Yes, I guess he did”, he answered, “he got in the car just as Mrs. Harding pulled away from the sidewalk. At this admission from the garageman, Jon could be put in jail for murder on circumstan- cial evidence, if we could find Irene’s body. 1 left the garage in a hurry and hopped into a cab and sped over to the city morgue. As I entered the morgue, I asked the attendant if there was an unidentified corpse in here. The attendant said that there was only one woman that was unidentified and that I could look at her if I wanted to. “1 would like to see her very much, if you don’t mind”, I replied. “Okay”, he answered, “it’s up to you”. 1 looked at the woman, but it was not Irene, it was a much older woman: she was about forty-five or so. This was odd; everything added up against Jon in Irene’s disappearance; except that there was no Irene — alive or dead. The only thing left was that Jon had hid Irene’s body some¬ place. But 1 still couldn ' t find a reason for Jon to kill Irene. I decided to go back to Jon and throw all the facts in his lap and let him try to squirm out of the noose that was hanging over his neck. 1 still didn t believe that Jon had killed his wife, but justice had to be done. I was back at Jon’s apartment in fifteen minutes. He let me in, but said nothing. He had a sly smile on the edge of his lips, as if he were trying to hide something. “Jon”, I said, “1 am going right into the thick of this”. “I ' m afraid you re going to have a shock, when 1 accuse you of the murder ol your wife”. “It certainly does, George”, Jon replied, “but would you please explain all the tacts to me, before 1 make any statement”. I told Jon everything, and that if it wasn’t for the fact that there was no body he would be in prison now, with an open-and-shut court hearing. 1 said 1 was sorry, but that’s the way it looked, and 1 couldn’t do anything about it. “Now wait a minute, George”, Jon said, “shall we have a cup of coffee before we con¬ tinue with this?” On this cue, guess who walked in? You probably guessed it-Irene! She had been waiting in the the kitchen for this cue. I really did need a drink, now. Jon burst into laughter, from the look on my face. 1 guess I must have looked stunned. Suddenly it dawned on me that this was all a joke; there had never been a murder. No body would ever leave so many clues. I remem¬ bered now that Jon was the biggest practical joker in our whole school. “I’m sorry to make you feel this way, George”, Jon said, “I can just imagine how you feel”. “We heard so much of your technique in crime reporting, we thought we would test you out in our own way, just to see how good you really are”, remarked Irene. “And you did a very good job too, George, don’t think you didn’t”, Jon said. While Irene and Jon were talking I didn’t pay much attention to them for I was still too dumbfounded with the outcome of this whole affair. “Do you mind if 1 have that cup of coffee now ?” “Sure”, said Irene, you may have as many as you want”. After this little episode 1 have decided not to interfere in any cases which have to do with my friends, especially, those who arc like Jona¬ than Harding and his wife.