Part 18 (1/2)

Mine ode is finished! Tut! It is a slight one, But blame me not; I do as I am bid.

The editor of COLLIER'S said to write one-- And I did.

What the Copy Desk Might Have Done to:

(”Annabel Lee”)

=SOUL BRIDE ODDLY DEAD IN QUEER DEATH PACT=

=High-Born Kinsman Abducts Girl from Poet-Lover--Flu Said to Be Cause of Death--Grand Jury to Probe=

Annabel L. Poe, of 1834-1/2 3rd Av., the beautiful young fiancee of Edmund Allyn Poe, a magazine writer from the South, was found dead early this morning on the beach off E. 8th St.

Poe seemed prostrated and, questioned by the police, said that one of her aristocratic relatives had taken her to the ”seash.o.r.e,” but that the cold winds had given her ”flu,” from which she never ”rallied.”

Detectives at work on the case believe, they say, that there was a suicide compact between the Poes and that Poe also intended to do away with himself.

He refused to leave the spot where the woman's body had been found.

(”Curfew Must Not Ring To-night”)

=GIRL, HUMAN BELL-CLAPPER, SAVES DOOMED LOVER'S LIFE=

=BRAVE ACT Of ”BESSIE” SMITH HALTS CURFEW FROM RINGING AND MELTS CROMWELL'S HEART=

(By Cable to _The Courier_)

HUDDERSFIELD, KENT, ENGLAND.--Jan.

15.--Swinging far out above the city, ”Bessie” Smith, the young and beautiful fiancee of Basil Underwood, a prisoner incarcerated in the town jail, saved his life to-night.

The woman went to ”Jack” Hemingway, s.e.xton of the First M. E. Church, and asked him to refrain from ringing the curfew bell last night, as Underwood's execution had been set for the hour when the bell was to ring. Hemingway refused, alleging it to be his duty to ring the bell.

With a quick step Miss Smith bounded forward, sprang within the old church door, left the old man threading slowly paths which previously he had trodden, and mounted up to the tower. Climbing the dusty ladder in the dark, she is said to have whispered:

”Curfew is not to ring this evening.”

Seizing the heavy tongue of the bell, as it was about to move, she swung far out suspended in mid-air, oscillating, thus preventing the bell from ringing.

Hemingway's deafness prevented him from hearing the bell ring, but as he had been deaf for 20 years, he attributed no importance to the silence.

As Miss Smith descended, she met Oliver Cromwell, the well-known lord protector, who had condemned Underwood to death. Hearing her story and noting her hands, bruised and torn, he said in part: ”Go, your lover lives.