J~NUARY 13. 1944
Fallen Petals
<>
By JAMES FREEMAN
ksSeel~ ted Npwspapers.
WNU Features.
LIE'. riLLZ, according to
Y:::a'nircr Cerson, had
dead for at lcazt five days.
,ra appcarav.ces the old man
his own life.
John Bucknam, assigned
stigate the case, listened to
matter-of-fact statement,
turned to Yeaton, the
ong were you away on your
Week, sir."
Upon coming into this room
Mr. Melville--as we
now?',
es, sir. I called the police im-
ately The man Yeaton bent
"L--I knew there'd be
use m summoning a doctor."
nodded and turned to ap-
:he room. It contained sur-
little furniture. There was
facing the east wall, on
a scattering of papers,
'ell, a vase with a bunch of
roses; there were two
divan and nothing else.
mSpect6r turned back to the
"treplaced'the papers and bent
v scrutinize the vase of with-
roses. The water had partial-
evaporated, and what remained
had been dead for
days.
a yellowish hue. Five or
officer guessed, would
Such a condition. And
about to face the but-
Mr. Melville partial to
es, sir. I always brought him
each morning. In fact,
vase on his desk the
You were here to serve
that day?"
""Bucknam crossed the
you mind taking us
room?"
Watched the policeman,
about the room.
stopped before
stood for some minutes
on which there
a fine covering of dust.
Yeaton. I'll have to
deucedly clever,
most amateur criminals,
OVerlooked one or two little
ry
Poise was superb. It sub-
Bucknam,s remark that
Was deucedly clever.
see where you get
for such a remark."
met Bucknam's stead-
shrugged, turn-
"You were careless, Yea'ran, wnen
removing the vase of roses from
this buffet to the desk in Mr. Mel-
ville's study, not to clear up the
evidence. You see *.here is a ring
mark in the dust which shows clear-
,ly that a round-based object, which
I hazard was the vase, has been sit-
ting here."
"Yeaton stiffened. "I hardly see
what that has to ao with Mr. Mel-
ville's death."
"A good deal, Yeaton. A good deal.
But I see I must tell you the whole
story in order to convince you that
my suspicions are justified. To be-
gin with, I don't think~ Simon Mel-
ville was the type of man to have
a vase of roses on his desk. I hazard
that, because of the bareness of his
study. In the second place, you have
already told us you placed the v~se
of roses on the desk yourself. But
now I suspect you placed the vase
there this morning. Why? Well, the
fact that they were withered would
give the impression to an observing
man that they had been there four
or five days, which, in turn, would
lead the observer to believe the room
hadn't been entered in that time.
"Clever, Yeaton. Deucedly clever.
Of course, you couldn't suspect that
I would come into this dining room
in search of a mark in the dust on
a buffet. Otherwise, you would have
obliterated the ring mark, even as
you dispensed with the rose petals
which must have fallen from the
roses on to the buffet--after a five-
day rest." Bucknam paused and
smiled faintly. "Unfortunately, Yea-
ton, i.~ didn't occur to you that those
same rose petals would have fallen
off, no matter where the vase was
located. For example, if all you
say is true, if you placed the vase
on the desk before going on your
vacation, if you didn't touch a thing
in the room after you entered It this
morning--then why weren't the rose
petals lying on the desk where they
should have been?"
HERE AND THERE:
THIS AND THAT:
To disregard what the wcwld thinks
of us is not only arrogant but utterly
shameless. -~Cicero
Civilians may soon be able to obtain
a substitute ,for pure penicillin in the
form of surgical dressings, inoculated
with the healing mould, according to a
report from the Journal of the Amer-
icaa Medical Association.
Forty-eight persons, 3S of them al-
ready in war work, are takin:z speciM
training in optics at Cooper Union Col-
lege, N. Y. to learn higher skills and
productivity in making telescopes, peri-
scopes, camera lenses, range-finder's
and other "eyes" of modern war.
The Japanese at Midway lost more
ships, in tonnage, than the Germans
lost in the classic battle of Jutland.
Front starch chemists obtained lev-
ulinic acid, a needed chenfical in a
soldering operation. More active than
resin, the acid is blended with it to
form a flux that eliminates the custom-
ary post-washing process in its appli-
cation to certain metals and alloys.
Tarakan Island, Borneo, was one of
the Netherlands Indies chief petroleum
sources~--it is now in Japanese hands.
Wartime precautions of ,*.he Boston
Museum of Fine Arts include an elec-
trical system of commu:nication to
permit constant check of galleries.
China has recently received 150 pure
bred sheep from New Zealand ,to be
used by the government~ in improving
wool production; this is the first batch
of a considerable number ordered.
S * S
A new recording spectrophotometer
is helping our ,fighting forces to de-
ceive enemy observers by matching
camouflage colors so that they cannot
be detec:ed by the enemy's infra red
cameras.
PAGE THREE
Chewing gum ishdpind[
to relieve nervous tension
--keep mouth moist--make h
work seem easier ---J ard
for millions -,~u pleasanter
Complete Selection of
Y CA
Is|and Pharmacy
I IIII 'l I I II '1
0
A service and work that will be appreciated by the customer
and also be a recommendation to your friends
115
Marilla
Phone
SINCE ,907 60
Ill[~ Ill I I
One entomologist recently suggested
that insects could be trapped by play-
ing to their preferences for different
colored lights.
. ca
More than 700,000 persons have been
trained in Cali[ornia schools for work
in war industries, reports the State
Superintendan: of Public Instruction.
Cashew nut shell oil, imported from
British India, and used in break lin-
ings, has been drastically restricted by
OP ~rI"
California collected $490,752,364 in
state revenues in the fiscal year ending
June 30, 1943. This equals the reven-
ues collected by the United States
government in 1900.
To keep our warplanes flying high,
the General Electric Company has
twenty - one turbo - supercharger spe-
cialists on duty with America's aviators
in service in foreign lands.
An estmated 1944 lumber shortage
of several millions of board feet has
.prompted the W'PB to order a 16%
cutback in ne~ year's wooden furni-
ture. Articles such as "lazy susans"
and "bird cages" are off the list. Odd-
ly enough the lumber shortage is be-
coming acute just when the steel head
ache is becoming curable.
For action "beyond the call of duty"
fifty enlisted men stationed in the
jungles of New Guinea were awarded
the Legion of Merit. These men vol-
unteered as hnman guinea-pigs and ex-
posed themselves to malarial iMection
for a .period of six weeks in the mos-
quito infested areas; tests proved the
necessity of taking malarial prevention,
The fact that*it * *
takes t)ver 1,000 dif-
ferent chemicals to produce materials.
for construction of a battleship, over
800 ,for a tank, and about 300 to make:
an airplane, emphasizes the importance:
of chemistry in waging a modern war.
Scientists say advances in chemistry
will play an even more important role
in our post-war civilian economy.
Climate in Japan is controlled in win-
ter by the winds from Siberia, and in
summer by the winds from the mid-
Pacific.
Over a six week period, more than
8000 pounds of scrap metal were pick-
ed up in the parking fields and yards
of a large eastern plant by new mag-
,~etic scrap pick-up built almost en-
tirely of scrap itself. The only cost .of
the four ton collection was for 60 gal-
lons of gasoline and the time of the
opera.'or.
--~-.ON 1"0 VlCTOrI-.-
Put an adlet to work for yo~.
