The Girl a Million Knew

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 56, 13 April 1914, Page 11

The Girl a Million Knew

(By HERBERT SHAW, author of "'The House of Many Secrets," etc.) v [Copyright.]

CHAPTER XXVII. (continued.) THE MAN WHO KNEW. Florence Kent burst out at last: * 4 You 're talking wildly, my man." "I am that," returned Scrubb, calmly. "For I wanted to see how you'd take it before I got to facts." "This story of yours," she went on, fighting desperately to get the upper hand of things —"if you've any suspicions, why didn't yon go to the police with them, eh?" '' Police again,'' exclaimed the man, contemptuously. '' With a bundle of pretty silver on mv shoulder? The police! I 'as vro dealings with the: policy, lady. Would they hand me out a thousand quid for telling 'em anything? What?" He paused a moment, and then resumed: "My job that night was to get notes-, lady. Just in case they might be useful. I had the devil's own job to find you in Londoni, or we 'd have had this taik long before this." '"How did you find me at last?" asked Florence Kent, instantly. Serubb Jones slowly winked. He always kept things to himself. Not for him to disclose that chance meeting with Christine in the garret at Peasemore Buildings. '"' What, does that matter to you? I'll come to facts now, lady. I'll put you wise to what I saw and heard that night. I heardyevervthing you said to that nurse and what she said, between her tears, to you. Stie was as frightened as a chased' rabbit. . That was after he had died, yon recollect. And what slie said frightened ,you, though j;o« didn't show it. You 'r.e fl a sport, as X told you before. You Ve showing it now, though, " laughed Scrubb Jones. "An' when shei ups and says to you, straight out, 'You murdered your husband, that's what it is/' I told myself pretty quick I'd better lie low and do a bit more watching." "You were in the house all that night?". " You bet I was. I was there till day popped up, bright and sunny, as though there was no man dead, and women with the fear of hell in them, £ind all the rest of it. I was there when the nurse comes with a mouthful about the old cove that was your luisband havin' left a letter behind 'im." Florence Kent moved restlessly in her chair. It did not escape the beady eyes of her tormentor. %\ "That's where I begui& to see something in it for yours truly. .'Jiminy, you was frightened theft, and you 'showed it. You'd bluffed the nurse before —you couldn't bluff her then. Jiminy, no." s"ou 're Ivi ng,'' she cried. '' How could you know all this?' frotv could you have been there all tliQ .fcjine, without our discovering you —eveu-iif what you say is true?" J!>espaii' showed plainly in her cry; it was weak and forced; y>: I '' P'r 'aps von'd better iet me finish, 'P said the man, quietly. "I moved about that liouse just as' I liked that night. You was far too busy to go searching round, an' I'm as good as a cat when I'm on the job. There ain't a bluff left you, lady''—he patted himself appreciatively on the chest —"not with ffiis child. You can make up your mind fo> that. If you've got no further frtoopid remarks', I'll go on,'' lie added, enquiringly.

Arid now; there was-no denial from the.womHn' opposite him. Remorselessly it was driven in upon her that the man was speaking the truth. "Right-o!" observed her visitor, cheerfully. ' 1 Now. we comes to real' business. Up comes the nurse with this yarn about a letter.. An' you sends her to hunt for it pretty quick. She comesback with a face aven longer than before. She'd put it inta a buryoh* says she, but it had gone like a wisp of smoke. Sure thing,, lady, for I sees lietput it there. An',, jest for fun, as it might be, I moves that letter. When she goes, I whips- it out." "Have you got it now?" The cry came in* spite of herself.

Scrubb Jones shook his head. "Now we touch business," he observed, calmly. 1 ' Real business an' real money. I keep all I know about that night to myself, and I* tell you where the letter is that your husband wrote, 'for a thousand -pounds down. Else I go to the police. They 'd forgive a little burglary for a good murder story like that, I'm thinking. To be straight; with- you, lady, I don't want to go to the police. There'd be no money for me that way." "How was this letter you arc talking of addressed?" asked the woman, sharply. Scrubb Jones smiled. "It was addressed to Miss Christine Kent,'' said he. "Then why didn't you go to her with your story?" "Because I know she's got no money, and you've got a pile." A sudden rage possessed the little man. His face darkened. "I'll have no move questions; the price has gone up. It's two thousand now, d'ye hear'?" he cried, venomously. '' Five minutes more, and I'll clap another thousand on! " Face to face with it at last, the woman he threatened had regained her self-possession. "One more question you must have," she retorted. "Supposing I agree to your demands, how am I to know you won't ttirn up to blackmail me again?" "My'word," answered the man, decisively. " The word of a crook —of one crook to another. I'm in a little line compared with, you—you play the big •game —but my word always goes. You give me my brass, and I've dropped it. I've sold 1 out—you* needn't fear. Take it or leave it, as you please. Why, you can give me a cheque if you like, for I know you daren't play the goat with me. Now then, what is it to be —do you want to know where that letter is, or not?" "I accept your terms of a thousand pounds?" said Florence Kent. "Two thousand'," the man shouted. "Two thousand on the spot." CHAPTER XXIX. THE TERROR OF THE FLAT. Florence Kent, standing upright, lifted her hands above her head, and, 1 with a yawn, slowly brought them down again. "This business is becoming expeur sive,'' she remarked; '' But, once we get hold of that infernal letter we're 'safe." i Leila made no reply. Ten minutes had elapsed since Jones, two thousand ['pounds richer, hatf' left the place. The elder woman opened the doors of the

great wardrobe, and began to take out somethings. "What are you. going to do?" "I shall; ring up. the garage for the car," replied Leila's mother, her magnificent sable coat already on her arm. iParr sleeps above the garage. I'm go;ing down to Englefield straight away to get hold of that lettei*. I shan/t rest till' I've got it. And, anyway. I shouldn't sleep a wink to-night. Coining?'" ' "I don't know, ' said Leila; "E'm very tired. But I'm like,you—l sha 'a't slqop if T go to bed.-

Her eyes brightened. The Gipsy strain in both mother and daughter welcomed the idea of a ride, in th.; summer night, along deserted roads, t-he electric headlights of the car forcing: that avenue of brilliance for their purpose. Her mother was already before the telephone on the table by the bed. in a minute or so she replaced the receiver. "Poor Par," she smiled; "his vok:3' was very grumbly,. but he's coining round in twenty -minutes. Well, how you feel about it? Will you come? It'll do us both good, and we can sleep all the rest of the daw" "Right you are." ' Leila stirred herself. "I'll make some coffee, and then I'll feel fre?h enough for anything. It's a good job you didn't lofcthe house, isn't it, or the letter miyht have been found?" "It is, indeed. As it harmens, 11 thought of using it next year, if -X couldn't, let it, so I didn't even bother about a caretakbr." Both women began to busv themselves with little preparations "for theji* escapade. Leila exclaimed gaily that they would ? sce old • Maybev again and have a regular old-fashioned breakfast at the Bear Hotel. Scrubb Jones's story, in all its details, had been too circumstantial to admit of disbelief of any part of it, and with mother and daughter, both capable of quick recovery from-a time of strain, was the happy thought that by the morning ihey would have regained possession of the last damning accusation of Durham Kent, and the threatening shadow that had hung over their days since that fateful night would be re moved for ever. -Disturbed- in the act of taking the letter from the bureau where N'.ir?e Hayes had placed it, the man Jones had hastily pnt it up the big square chimney of the old-fashioned lire-place. A few days afterwards, less than a week after Durham Kent's funeral, the house had been shut up and deserted, and, although Florence Kent, its own."/, had advertised in a desultory fashion, it was far too old-fashioned and rambling a place to be attractive to outsidecs, and there ,'iad not been a single application to view the premises. "Say," exclaimed Leila, when the coffee was made, "it's rather slow doing this trip on our own, don't von think? Isn't there some man-thing would like the trip?" Iler mother laughed. "Any of the crowd at our partv would luiv-e beer, only too glad. B'lt they're all tucked away in bed by now." She glanced at "the clock—it was nearly three. " What about Max Fawcett, though? He is a real nightdwl. This is just about his usual time lor turning in. He'd come like a shot. He did think of buying the'place; I (might do a deal with him." Without waiting- for any reply, she took up the telephone. "Good idea." Leila clapped her hands. All the instruments in the buildings had an attachment that is not so common nowadays—a little round auxiliary receiver in addition to the ord'nary one, so that two people can hear the message. As she spoke, Leila took up the additional receiver. "Is that Mr Fawcett's fiat, pleasef"

There was a long' pause before any answer came.

Going to bed at last, still without: any news of Christine, terrified to distraction by the thought that something might have happened to Tier,, Dick Tempest had tossed wakeful; through the slowly passing hourSi Scenes from the hist few days wer? vivid in his memory. More especially from the last day of them all. Once he did manage to drop into a troubled sleep, but it was of very short duration. For the large smiling face of Mrs' Briggs, Christine's landlady, suddenly appeared through the, mists of doubt and dream, and Diclc sprang up with a start.

The idea of sleep was useless. He rose, and mechanically, very' slowly, he dressed himself. With a shudder of distaste, he thought of Leila; and her- threats and insinuations against Christine and Max Fawcott. Great heavens! how had lie ever been attracted by Leila? Why, in the name of goodness, had' he not definitely broken \vill: her before? Anger, red and vivid, purged into his heart, as, with an intensity as .sharp as a sword edge, there ' came 'again into his mind the 'triumphant sneer with which she had coupled the name of Max Fa wee it with the girl lie loved —with Christine. There couldn't be any truth in it. If was ii rt evil lie.

But her words burnt in him, and, thinking of them again as he sat on the edge of his bed, every single •word' a power for torture, Dick Tempest clenched his hands fiercely. "Fawcett's marked her down marked your Christine down. You haven't any chance. What Fawcett's out to get, especially, if it's a pretty girl, he'll get in time." Something like that Leila's words had been. If it should be true, and not merely words of a jealous; audi dangerous woman, (lung with no aim but to wound their hearer! If, when he did find Christine again, he should find her too late That there was some truth in it, DU'k knew only too well. Had not Christine'" gone to Fawcett 's fiat the very day she had come to. Londoi:, or at least the day after? An:l. dismissed, from the' theatre where all her ambitions weave centred, dit;]iir.ited and angry, the world against her, might• not Christine have 'taken Konie desperate resolve? The temptation was so great where a very rich i".ian was concerned. That road was so casv. and to fight London aloue, barred by lies and evil scheming from further chance of employment, was so hard for a giri. A solemn oath came from liim. "I'd kill him," he muttered. "Before Heaven, I'd kill ha my as I told Leila." - He -hardly knew how, a few minutes •later he. foand himself in the silent* streets of London. He knew only that, for a long time, he wandered up one deserted street and' down another, and the names of them all—not one name of them all —he could not tell. .Policemen looked at him with professional euriositv. One or two of them spoke a good-Viglit to the young man. But they got no answer. Presently he found himself ' in: Piccadilly, and along the western highway, from the outlying place-: whe v e the "aniens wove,, slow carts ranibieii past "him, op. their way to Coveni; Gar den, laden with .produce for the ncodb of the city. The noise w'oke him slightly. He stop]';''; an:! Parr-cd a hand across his forehead. (To be continued to-morrow.)