IT HAPPENED TWICE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 42, 29 November 1940, Page 7

IT HAPPENED TWICE.

(Copyright). \

i By T. C. BRIDGES. :: A Story of Mystery and-Prison.

CHAPTER XII. Mi,ss Rivers’s house, Alderley, was on the opposite hill. It was not so large as Hound Courts but a far pleasanter place. “It belonged to an architect who built it himself,” Miss Rivers told Peggy- “He died and I took it ever with all the furniture and pictures.” Peggy was certain that Miss Rivers could never have furnished a room like this, with its delicate pastel shades, its dainty chair coverings and well chosen water colours.

ing table in the drawing room. Her fountain pen ran dry, there was no ink in the room and she got tip intending to get some in the library. Dinner had been cleared some time ago and the servants were all below stairs. There is seldom very much traffic in Belgrave-Square, and on this night of fog there was noiie. The house was silent as a tomb so silent that Peggy was able to hear a clinking sound which seemed to come from overhead.

It was faint hut Peggy’s hearing was exceptional and she patised at the foot of the stairs, listening keenly. It came again. Its very faintness was suspicious. Of course it might be one of the maids, but there was no reason for any maid to be upstairs at this hour. Some stranger in the house — someone after Althea’s necklace!

Miss Rivers did most of the talking as they sat in the drawing room. She disclosed that she was now twentyseven and mistress of a very large fortune, most of which had come to her from her-father. -■ - Dinner was simple But good, and the waiting was done by a competent, middle-aged- maid named Parker. It was tli© first meal of its kind that Peggy had seen since leaving Coo mb e Royal, and she frankly enjqyed! the deft waiting, the fine silver glass and quantities of well-arranged flowers. Flowers, it appeared, were the one hobby of her hostess. : They had coffee in the drawing-room, served ili. Sevres cups. Again they talked. Peggy told about her early life , and managed to avoid any mention of the last three years. “You came to see Mrs Reieves Fareham about a post as companion, didn’t vou, Miss Fletcher?” * “I did.” Peggy told the circumstances. and of her disappointment, but Mrs Fareham was going abroad. “Then you are still looking for a post?” Said Miss Rivers at last. “I am,” Peggy answered. “I have to earn my living,” The other leaned forward. “Would you. come to m<e ? J J she asked. “Mary Berry, my personal maid, is leaving to get married. I. am not suggesting you should talas her place, Miss Fletcher. Please don’t think that.”

Peggy did not hesitate. She went straight upstairs. On the thick, sott stair carpet her light slippers made no sound, and her movement along the corridor above was equally silent. She stopped outside Althea’s room and put her ear against the door. Suspicion changed to certainty. Someone was there.

Peggy paused. Her heart was beating rather fast. Her first impulse was to run back downstairs and call Cummings, the butler. But Cummings was old and stout. He would never face a burglar. All he would do would be to go out in search of a policeman. And what a chance of finding one—on a night like this! There was the telephone, of course, but that would mean delay—delay enough to give the thief a chance to get away with his spoil. No, if the necklace was to be saved it was up to Peggy to save it. Very cautiously she tried the door. It was locked. That she had expected. She had read somewhere that any burglar who knows his job first fastens on the inside the door of the room where he is working. She paused for a moment and thought hard. Althea’s bedroom windows faced the front of the house, and there was a balcony outside. It was almost impossible for the man to haye entered the house by a door, so Peggy felt certain that he must be a cat burglar and that he had climbed to the balcony under cover of the fog. If he left the same way the only chance to catch him was to go outside and wait for him. A bit of a risk, to put it mildly, but Peggy was determined to save that necklace. She turned quickly into her own room, got a torch, and was turning back to the door -when she heard Althea’s door open softly. She made a rush and reached the corridor just in time to flash her light in the face of the burglar. The man was Leonard Mason, her sister Isabel's husband!

“I wouldn’t mind,” said' Peggy, with a smile.' “No. no! My idea is this, that you should come here as . my companion and to drive my cars. I should feel safe with you, and —and, you sen. I like you, Miss Fletcher.” Peggy, for her part', liked Miss Ravers, and for that very reason it seemed to her hardly fair that she should accept this offer under a false name, and! with a. cloud hanging over her. Miss Rivers mistook her silence, and went straight to the question of salary. That was easily Settled. In spite of the comfort of a perfect room, Peggy lay awake that night for a long time. She wfis thinking of John Arkwright, -wondering sadly how he was faring, and if she would ever see hila again. CAT BURGLAR. Olive Glyde was delighted to hear of Peggy’s new post. Mrs Ashe was equally but when she got Peggy into her sitting-room she said that she had news for her. “And news, I’m afraid, you won’t like, Miss Peggy” she added, frowning. “'Miss Isobel has got married again.” ‘ ‘Married! To whom ? ’ “It’s that Mr Mason- you saw and told me about.” “Mason! Oh, but that’s impossible, Mrs Ashe.” , . “It’s.time, Miss. IF happened at the Register Officer in Chelsea yesterday.” POggy sadly felt that she • had seen the last of; Isobel and Isobel was her only near relation. She had no aunts or uncles, no cousins. -But the tie between herself and her sister had never been: close. The two had never seen much of one another and they looked -on J life from very different angles. Peggy wrote . to Mr Meakin, telling him of her new post and had a reply in which the old lawyer warmly congatulated her. j' “John Arkwright is quite fit again,” he wdnt on. “He has got back to work. I am forwarding a letter for you which he has sent me.” Peggy thrilled at sight of John’s bold handwriting. She thrilled still more as she read this, her first real love letter. It was hard to believe that stolid, unromantic John Arkwright could have written it. “I’m a one-girl man, Peggy,” he ended. “If I have to wait for you as Jacob waited for Rachel I can do it-. But it won’t be as long as that. Some-, how I’ll get to the bottom of this cursed mystery. Take care of yourself, my dearest. Yours ever, John.” On Monday Peggy went to Alderley. Miss Rivers herself met her at the station.

(To be continued)

The characters in this story are entirely imaginary. No reference is intended to any living person or to any public or private company.

“I told Gertrude Fareliam that you were coming to me,” she said. “And she was pleased.”

“You will miss her, Miss Rivers.” “Dreadfully. She was my one real friend here.”

Peggy soon found that this was literally true. Her new employer had “got off on the wrong foot.” Hbr friends or rather acquaintances, were the wrong people altogether, and she did not know it. Many were impecunious flatterers who hang about wherever money may be touched. The mischief of it was that Peggy could do nothing about it. As Ruth Fletcher she was forced to keep her lips closed and herself in the background as much as possible. So far as her work went, it was child’s play compared to what she had done at Coombe Royal, until they moved to the old town house in Belgrave Square tvhich Althea had mentioned during their first drive. Althea had had the place modernised. There was central heating and excellent furniture, and Peggy found much to do. They went to many theatres and films, and Althea danced a great deal. But Peggy flatly refused to go to places like The Green Lantern. She was desperately afraid of running into Edgar or Mrs Jar dine. Al±hea_,. Rivers had some _ good jewellery, the best piece being an emerald necklace worth a great deal of money. Peggy, who retained a vivid recollection of Chesham’s attempt to steal Mrs Trelawney’s rubies, had urged her to get a modern safe. time, the jewellery was kept in a jewel case in a locked drawer of the dressing table.

One foggy night in November Althea had gone out to dance and Peggy was busy with household accounts at a writ-