Miss
Achelis
THE CHINA MAIL, MONDAY, MARCH
wants
to change your year
I
New York, me pitage
N an office in a Fifth Avenue skyscraper sita a white-haired, Aquiline-nosed Woman wearing amethyst rings and an amethyst bracelet to match her Amethyst- coloured wool dress,
She might be an English downger planning the next parish bazaar.
She is Miss Elisabeth Achella, the wealthy American spinster who wants to reform the world by giving it a new calender.
"Thirteen
MISS ACHELIS
months would be
calamity."
•
lectures
on
D
Now, after 25 years of cam- vacation at the Lake Placid Club paigning, Miss Achells (pre in the Adirondacks, where holi- nounced A-kay-lisi think she day reluxations are painlessly India's injected her mily
with get
way,
ken up her variety of cultural subjects. Premier Nehru has taken up idea, and has got her World One day she heard a Dr Melvil Calendar put up for discussion Dewey talk on "How to Sim- by the United Nations Economie plify Life." and Social Coune when they meet in Geneva next July.
He
mittee on Calendar Reform, with
a membership of British MPs, and took the committee to Geneva, since America was not o member of the League and an American millionairess's calendar could hardly carry weight,
"Looking back," says Miss Achells, it was a phenomenal success. Yugoslavia and Canada were for the 13-month calendar: Greece and Switzerland voted for the World Calendar. That 13- month calendar would have been a calamity."
Miss Achells has distinguished Lord support in Britain with Merthyr is chairman of the association's affiliation in London. enthusiastic One of her most
supporters is Sir Harold Spencer Jones. the Astronomer Royal.
With al her preoccupation with dates, there is just one en which the calendar woman keepa silence absolute. That is Age does of the date of her birth. hind three themes,
simplified not matter, she thinks to the mo Favourite heroine at Brooklyn- which the first was
"I was not interested progressive, 14 Florence spelling, born Miss Achielis Nightingale, and the Ludy with in that," said Miss Achelis. Nor the Calendar, too, is a declented did she pay much attention to
doctor's the
to plan person.
She take no holidays beyond wrights and measures. His third Occasional leng week-end, point was eulendar reform.
50 000 dollar
511
Sume
unity
fascinated
"For a
she pruns
immediately 11 (£17.800) a year into her pr me," Miss Achelis sarı.
She thinks and dreams of long time afterwards 1 thought jeet.
but the time which about it. But there was some nothing
Premier Nehru
'5 Dr Dewey according
thing wrong. eght to start
January un
1.
13-month calendar. I was for a 1950-when every quarter will
didn't like that 13 at all." 91 have procisely
days, and
calendar that so displeased Miss Christmas will rlways fall on Achalis was the Eastman Inter- Monday.
national Fixed Calendar backed ::
Piercing Eyes
a
wth her piercing value trans she demanded: "What 119 werk were you
1.
plan
The
by millionaire Kodak king George Ensimon, which provided for 13 28-day months and one extra day.
Her Dismay
-Evelyn Irons
Come and see Fancy-pants-all dressed up and nowhere to go."
London Express Service
Continuing the DEPTFORD HORROR by Adrian Conan Doyle
WHAT HAS HAPPENED SO FAR
A frightened young woman, Janet Wilson, lives in hor family's big tumbledown house in Deptford, There have been three mysterious deaths. Her father was found drowned in the Thames. Hor mother and 'her' brother died apparently of heart attacks-but there was a look of terror on her brother's face when ho was found. Now Janet wants to sell the property. Hor uncle, Theobold, who also lives in the house, and trains canaries, calls in Sherlock Holmes to calm the girl's fears. Dr Watson tells how they arrive in
Ο
Deptford..
N descending from Our four-wheeler. we found ourselves in
Then, two months later. Mira
n:w3 Achei saw a letter in a
from Mr Lowly E She wened disconcerte 1 when paper
of Denver Colorado. Asuaugh. I told he i w: Sunday
a 12-month per- "Most people don't know," she It advocated
calendar
equal sad. "But the new generation petunt That will grow wo with the quarters, and, said Miss Acholis, Wld Calendar will have true f knew that was for me.
th-DAYS not
birth- just PEATED A we do. For the date will sit n the same day every
She read every book she could Elisabeth Achelis ist
She beard the and on calendars, Fritz that late Lise daughter
the League of Nations Achells, who was a millionaire would consider calendar reform businegemRI with ancestrul
at their Geneva meeting in 1931. roots in Schleswig Holstein. To my dismay." she said. "this How
did she come to be discussion was to be on the 13- lower end, to calendar-reformer?
happened la
she recalls.
year
summer,"
on.
ان
in charities
month calendar."
an
and so 1 had never in my life pondent thought calendar
of
with wide
Morris
mean
Was the
a lane of houses stoping, siatternly so far as I could judge from the yellow mist that already creeping up,
the river's edge. AL one side was a high
its own gurden.
an
The NEW Exploits of SHERLOCK HOLMES
all
my
career. with the stoves professional From
floor to ceiling it was bedrooms? festooned with scores of enges, and the little Holden-coated singers within filled the air with their sweet warbling and trilling.
"Daylight or lamplight, It's all the tame to them. Here, Currie, Carrie!" he whistled a few quld notes which I seem- es to recognise. The bird took them up into a lovely cadency of song.
"Precisely. As I said before, the Fringilla i properly train-
In the other
"In one bedroom."
"No. There was the same arrangement in the adjoining room where the mother died."
"I see nothing in this save an old-fashioned system of heating flues."
"And what of the marks on the efling?"
"You mean the whirls of
dunt."
"I mean the whirls of sobt." "Soot" Surely you are mis-
ed are the supreme imitators." taken, Holmes,""
ME'
'YOU FRIGHTEN
SAID THE GIRL
let me take you to the bedrooms."
"Perhaps I may see the room
re where your brother died." quested Holmes as we reached the top floor.
"T
10
confess that
wero
She peered at us across the light of the candle in her hand.
Through the mist, Ine dark gloom of the house was broken 电路 by a single feeble light in upper window. "It is Miss Wilson's room," sald Holmes. "Let us hope that this handful.' of gravel will rouse her without ·
not I do
"I touched them, smelt them, alarming the household." 1920.
"You will laugh at a woman's are finished, wall of crumbling
recognise that song," I remark- examined them. They
An instant later, there came fust. περντά Thereafter sho "I was
intuitions, sir."
and lines of wood- the sound of an opening window. "By
as one of the birds broke speckles ΠΟ means. They are
ed, Just an ordinary society woman, She engaged Mr Charles Morris, brickwork pierced by
"Who is there?" demanded a into a low rising whistle ending 5001" Interested
of Provi- American foreign cerres- iron gate through which we
the signposts often dence. Understand clearly that
in a curious tremolo. European caught a glimpse of a sub-
"Well, there is probably some tremulous volec, you will go or stay as you see
"It is Sherlock Holmes," my changing the experience, to fight the League stantial mansion lying in
Miss Mr
a towel perfectly natural explanation." Wilson threw "It is here," replied t. But perhaps, as- am here, I was quite Fatialled propozul with her. (Mr
"It is the song
back softly, "I For a time we sat in silence. felend called her righthand la still
man.}
It might, relieve your mind with the calendar as it is."
Wilson, throwing open the door, over the cage. show me over the house."
large chamber fur- of a tropic nightbird," he said Our cab had reached the begin must speak with you at once, It was A In this unregnerate sinte. Tazy helped the formation of
Is there a site- I have the mings of the City and I was Miss Wilson.
* "An
taste and shortly, and, as with some Miss Achelts went to spend a the British Parliamentary Com-
nished
two foolish pride to prefer my birds gazlug out of the window, my door?" even luxury and lit by
sing the songs of the day fingers drumming idly on the "There is one in the wall to deeply-recessed windows flank- 10
which was your lett.
But is day, we will punish half-lowered pant,
what has hap- stove while ing another pet-bellied
In already befogged with moisture, pened?" decorated with yellow tiles to Peperino by putting him
when my thoughts were recall
"Pray descend immediately. harmonise with the tone of the darkness."
ca by a sharp ejaculation from Not a word to your uncle." room. A pair of birdcages húng trom the stove pipe.
HOURS
OF BUSINESS
WITH THE APPROACH OF THE SPRING AND SUMMER SEASONS OUR HOURS OF BUSINESS WILL NOW BE AS FOLLOWS
HONG KONG STORE
MONDAYS TO FRIDAYS
SATURDAYS
8.45 a.m. to 5 p.m. 8.45 a.m. to 1 p.m.
KOWLOON STORE MONDAYS TO SATURDAYS
9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Whiteaways
HONGKONG & KOWLOON
•WHITEAWAY, LAIDLAW & CO.LTD•
To clear stock
1954
DIARIES
DAY POCKET & APPOINTMENT
HALF PRICE
from
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST LTD.
was
Dm
not
was an
admirable suggestion!" creid Theobald Wilson cheerily "Come, Janet, we will soon die pose of your shadows noises."
а
and
we
*
the
"Where does that side-door lend?" asked my friend.
"It communicates with my room, which was formerly used by my mother," she answered.
"I am surprised that you my companion. He was staring prefer an open fireplace here to Axedly over my shoulder;
stove," observed Holmes. "The glass he muttered. "There draught.**
must be considerblo
"I have not noticed one. Dear
me, the fog is indeed increasing.
you."
"Then
way."
As
Over
the
hos known "The old house better days," said our compan- ion as we followed him through the gate and up the path. "It the year that built in Peter the Great came to live in Scales Court, whose ruined park can be seen from the up- per windows."
In Usually 1
unduly
little processton affected by my surroundings, trooped from one over-furnished but must confess that I was room to another on the ground aware of a feeling of depression floor.
We felt our way along the at the melancholy spectacle that "I will take you to the bed
though rooms," sald Miss Wilson as we
clouded surface wall and reached the door just lay before us. The house, though
last before the
I am afraid, Mr Holmes, that there
now lay an intricate as It opened to disclose Miss of dignified and even imposing paused at
you have a bad journey before tracery of whtris and lines Wilson. She was in her dress- was faced with staircase. Proportions,
weather-stained pinster
where my finger had wandered ing gown, her hair tumbled "Are there no cellars in
For a few minutes, Holmes
we must be on our almlessly.
about her shoulders and, as her which
had fallen away in places house of this antiquity?"
Holmes clapped his hand to stariled eyes peered at us across to disclose ancient
the
brick- There
is one cellar, Mr prowled around listlessly. work
that lay beneath, while a
"perceive that your brother
we descended the stairs his brow and, throwing open the light of the candle in her Holmes, but it is little used save
wood and was addicted to night-reading," and paused in the hall while the other window, he shouted hand, the shadows danced and mass, of ivy covering for the storage
Theobald Wilson fetched our an order to the cabby. The trembled on the wall behind one wall had sent its long some of Uncle's old nest-boxes. he remarked. tendrils across the high-peaked This way, please.".
"Yes. He suffered from sleep- hats, Sherlock Holmes leaned vehicle turned In its tracks and; her,
over towards our young com- with the driver lashing at his around roof to wreathe ilseif
It was a gloomy stone-built lessness. But how
"Tut, the pile of the carpet panion.
horse, wo clattered away into "What is it, Mr Holmes?"! the chimney stacks.
chamber in which we found
Miss the thickening gloom.
she maped, ourselves. A stack of wood was on the right of the armchair is "y would remind you,
thick with traces of candlewax. Wilson, of what I sald earlier "Ab, Watson, Watson, true it piled against one
wall and a
What have
All will be well, if you carry But, hullo!
we about a woman's intuilion," he is that none are so blind $95, Dutch pol-bellied
stovc, Ita The garden
hero?" over- Iron pipe running through
Laid quietly. "There are occa those who will not see quoted out my instructions," my friend bitterly, sinking back replied quietly. Where is your grown wilderness, and the air of
Holmes had halted near the sions when the truth can be Holmes ceiling, filled the far the whole place reeked
staring in sensed more easily than it can into his corner. "All the facts uncle?" with Through a glazed door reached window and wan
were there, staring me in the damp musty smell of the by a line of steps and opening tentis at the upper wall. Then, be seen. Good night,
face, and yet logic failed .to "He is in his room.!!). respond,"
Gobd. While Dr Watson and There are nine. Four plonie move into your late brother's Icecupy your room, you will fortably furnished drawing keenly, and I was myself aware sniffed at his fingertips. There. A moment - Jater we were room. A young woman with of an increased imustiness from was
down the should have sufficed. Here is 9 bedchamber. If you value your puzzled frown on his face teemg our way auburn hair and A freckled
he clambered.
down and garden path to where the lights man from Cuba, who not only life," he added solemnly you to circle slowly
canaries in a singular face, who was sorting through the nearby river.
"Like most Thames side commenced
Our waiting four-wheeler trains some papers at a writing desk, houses, you must be plagued by around the roam, his eyes uxen chone dimiy through the rising manner but knows the calli· 57! will not attempt to leave it.'
the celling
tropical nightbirds and keep a upon rats," he remarked.
fireplace in his bedroom. There "Most singular" he muttered.
companion was sunk
In "IS anything wrong. My thought
as we rumbled west is devilry here, Watson, Stop.. Holmes? faltered Miss Wilson. ward through the mean atreels cabby, slop!"
""I am merely interested to whose squalor was the more "We used to be. But, sinco
under the garlsh account, for those oddwhirls and aggressive Uncle came here, he has got rid fines across the upper wall and light of the gas-lamps that flared
wore passing a junction We of them."
plaster."
Kand whistled outsido the "Quite so, Dear me," he con-
numerous public houses. The of two busy thoroughfares, with The young lady faced us tinued, peering down at the
night promised to be a bad one, the golden balls of a pawnshop bravely enough, though I noted floor. "what busy little fellows!"
and already through the yellow glimmering above a streetlamp, and put him with the other Following
his gaze, twitch and tremor of the lips that spoke of a high nervous that his attention had been "It must be those dratted vapour thickening and writhing Holmes sprang out. But after a birds in the cage in my room.
recommented
our night at home I should have tha tension, am leaving tomor
by a few garden ants cockroaches, dragging the dust above the pavements the occa few minutes he was back again. He ontd that as it was my last
exclaimed sional wayfarer was nothing and we
journey. A row, Uncle, she cried,
across the floor from all over the place,
best entertainment that he had apologetically, "I've more
more than vague, hurrying it is fortunate that we are the power to give me nothing that these gentlemen- can say will alter my decision, and
leading to the the
the told you before, Janet, stopa up Here, there is only sorrow and gardes door. It is as well for would be better employed in could have wished, my all in the City he chuckled fear-above.all, fear!"
"Fear of what?"
Wilson
led
river.
Into the garden, dim light mounting the sill, he stretched Theobold
니콘 Altered
out an arm and, touching the the flag out down upon through a small hall into a com- stones, Holmes sulfed the air plaster lightly here and there,
aprang to her feet at our trante.
On-
Here аго Mr Sherlock
Holme and Doctor Watson," announced
companion our This is my niece Janet, word
Interests you are here to pro- tect against her own uhrezson- ablo conduct/
a
I saw
"and scurrying edge of the stove Wilson
under
the
that
of.
TOSAS
delicted
a
What facts?”
to
golf-clubs.
the
་།
"You frighten me" she whimpered
Rest assured, that wa wllt inko care, of you And now two Anal-questions before you' ro- tiro, Has yours! uncle visited you this evening
this
"Yes. He, brought Paperino
Wetson," he chuckled, point- supervising the servante work dear fellow" I remarked, "that pawnshops are unlikely to run KAN Ing with
what now, Mr Holmes" you had been spared the alick at
Good heavens-I began, With which they were My friend who had crossed to to uselessly waste your energies, d"fiaty, we are not the side-door, and glanced with-which, are, wilson sufficiently only to lapse into silence, while "Haf Quilos. Your Jaat
sócessity
Jugging in now closed -.. 16- again, and well, well, Watson. I fancied lick which he had thrust into do you suffer at all
EYENNE. I stared down at the heavy nib- night, Tell mo, Miss Wilson, The girl passed her hand over along our sinners brice her eyes,:"I—I canhội "own
It is a lesson in My visit has bom a useless that the affairs of the Wilson my hand. The first shadows of same malady at your
vague and monstrous and brother?" I hate the hudos aplain paleessa Hell Lapas to into one said he, and as ser family would prove no concern some funny little noises," märts ellence, staring thoughtfully at that the fog in ring, 1 foot of ours. And Jan
we must take our leave. back absorberMary (he sank, horror, seemed to rise up A Haweoke hearty woth he floor, "A lesson in dem Vollared. I supporó, your in-hill own Boughty, aikana veti falare too baris:fo
You have Inherited money and property, Jahet, peated slowly,
BRid Me Wilson: cornerlly, "Will you because of shadows, desert the of your father?
Bo
*We are here, only to serve. you, young lady said Holmes
foars
„Me: Wilson's thin lips
ed. "What Zooktry exclaimed. The
our strolled across to the windows
-famous" canaries?"", hendded, it is wrong,
pointing to the cages above the 1, herra, him mutter
breath
moment creep over my mind say than
all wrong!" ed Holmes, consulting under his, sandwich and a wii Fg whisky at the first pub nazoʻyi, will not come amise"
Confess ye
wa
must