Part 30 (1/2)

Miss Helm died as the police were carrying her into the Chicago Union Hospital, and the man from Kentucky died later in the Alexian Brothers' Hospital. Before he went he told Detective William Rohan that he was a tobacco salesman and a professional card player.

”I drew for a queen to fill a bobtail flush,” he said, with a queer smile, ”but I didn't better my hand.”

_CHAUFFEUR'S FEET BURNED OFF_

Herbert T. Middleton lives on Anderson Avenue, at Palisade, N.

J. While driving his automobile along the avenue he saw an overturned car burst into flame at the roadside, about half a mile south of Fort Lee. Two men and a boy were struggling to lift the rear end of the car, and shouting for help. Middleton hurried to their aid and found that the legs of the chauffeur were pinned to the ground by the back of the rear seat and flaming gasoline running over his limbs was burning him like a torch.

The chauffeur, Amendo Alberti, 32 years old, raised himself to a sitting posture and tried to direct the efforts of his rescuers. With the aid of another autoist and several drivers of pa.s.sing wagons, they finally got Alberti free. The burning gasoline had spread upward to his body. It was smothered by rolling the man in lap robes from the cars.

Dr. Max Wyley of Englewood Hospital, who came with an ambulance, found that the chauffeur's feet had been almost burned off, and the burning fluid had seared his limbs and body as far as his chest. At the hospital Doctor Proctor a.s.sisted Doctor Wyley in an effort to keep him alive. They decided he had one chance in five of living. If he survives he will be a cripple.

_BLAMES ALL ON WOMAN HE KILLED_

”The woman Thou gavest me tempted me and I did eat.”--Adam, thousands of centuries ago.

Shortly after the world began, Adam sinned--and blamed a woman.

What Adam did in fear of G.o.d, a twentieth-century Adam did yesterday in Chicago--blamed a woman.

Here is the story:

Attaches of a saloon and cafe at 714 North Clark Street were startled early yesterday afternoon by revolver shots just outside the door. Rus.h.i.+ng into an alley at the rear, they found the bodies of a man and a woman.

The man was Was.h.i.+ngton Irving Morley, son of a wealthy contractor of Kansas City. The woman was Mrs. May Whitney, 29 years old, cabaret singer and mother of a 3-year-old child.

As they picked the bodies up, a letter dropped from the man's coat. It told everything that need be told about the dead man, the dead woman, and the dead man's deed.

It was addressed ”To Anybody,” and read:

This is an awful deed, but this woman is and has been ten thousand times worse than the vampire of fiction, and may G.o.d have mercy on her soul and mine. Yes, I guess I am crazy and have been for a year, but she has driven me to it. I left her in K. C., but she followed me to Chicago and then to Green Bay and all over.

But it is too late to cry about our mistakes.

I have had my chances, but I have thrown them all away.

Oh, if I had only taken the advice years ago of that grandest of all men, my father. But I let the three W's get me--wine, women, and w--. But, young men, remember, do not get infatuated with a woman of doubtful character.

They never can lead to anything good.

I have had my fling, but now I am going to the great beyond and I'm going to take the creature with me that has caused me more bad luck, heartaches, and everything else. I cannot live with her and I cannot live without her.

Good-by all. W. S. Morley.

P. S.--My belongings are all in her trunk, which is at Spangenberg's. I think her mother's address is 123 Pinckney Street, Somerville, Ma.s.s., Mrs. D. T. Whitney.

The bodies were taken to Gavin & Son's undertaking rooms. There a second letter was found in the man's pocket. It was addressed to his father, P. J. Morley, in Kansas City, and read as follows:

You no doubt will be horrified, but I couldn't help it. I have been crazy for a year, and this woman has driven me to it. You have been the grandest father in the world to me, and if only I had taken your advice, what a change it would have made in my life! But it is too late. Good-by, and may G.o.d have mercy on my soul. Yours, Irving.

P. S.--Father, if you want to do anything, take care of that boy in Hamburg, Iowa. He will be some boy if he doesn't inherit too many of his parents' bad faults.

Until recently Morley was a partner in the expressing firm of Ryan & Morley, Fifth Avenue and Randolph Street.