THE FIRST LAW

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume LXIV, Issue 6579, 25 October 1939, Page 4

THE FIRST LAW

HT C. C, ANDREWS,

(Our readers are informed that all characters in this story are purely maginary, and if the name of any living person happen* to be mentioned no perional reflection ie intended,) ALL BIGHT RESERVED

Antbff o« "Beggar My Lady," "Hi* Hour," 'The House of Murgatroyd," Etc. .

CHAPTER XXI

MISS FOLIOTT SPEAKS

"As for dreaming, Mr Jarrett, I've made a sort of habit of going to bed before I begin! If you haven't heard how Mr Glyde is you haven't, and I'll go back and tell Nurse Bayley so. I daresay they'll send from Black Watch presently; they did yesterday, it's early yet. And another time don't try to snap my head off, will you be so good? I find it quite handy." Nurse Laura Browne whisked the brisk little curtesy in her pink cotton frock that looked as if it ought to have the footlights before it, and turned away. Martin Jarrett, standing outside the door of the little houcc, stopped her

"Wait," he said quickly. "I didn't mean to spaak roughly, you know that; but I'm' bewildered. You know that I didn't get back from that busi - ness I had to go to at Plymouth until late last night. For all I knew Mr Glyde was here, in his room. I started before Miss Romayne came—just after; never mind that. You say you saw him take her horse and ride off on it?"

•'Gallop off on it. With not a thing on his head. Enough to give him his death of sunstroke. No wonder he's ill!"

"She must have sent him!" ; *Miss Romayne? That she didn't. She came running out looking perfectly thunderstruck."

''And Colonel Strickland found him on the moor?"

"Fainting, or something. And that he'd taken him home in his car, and he was to stay there for a day or two; that's the message that was brought. I must go, Mr Jarrett, or Nurse Bayley—l say, isn't that the groom from Black Watch?"

Laura vanished into the hospital. Nurse Bayley, who was the head nurse possessed sharp eyes and a tongue to match them. Jarrett advanced to the Colonel's groom as he came in at the gates.

"How is Mr Glyde? I have only just heard that he is not here. Is that letter for me':'

"Yes, sir. I believe he's a bit better, but he's not up yet. There's no answer, I think."

"There may be. Wait a moment," said Jarrett, and tore open the letter.

"You will have heard that I am ill," Adrian Glyde wrote; "hardly fit to see you, Jarrett, even if it were necessary. But it is not necessary. I can write all that I should say. I do not know whence you got the preposterous suspicion of which you spoke to me. I don't ask to know it, From whatever source it came dismiss it from your mind as the impossible thing it is. Personally, I refuse to hear another word on the subject, and you will breathe it to anyone else on the penalty of instant dismissal from your post. When I see you again let it be with the understanding that the thing is buried —buried. I will hear nothing, know nothing—nothing! And I will ask no questions. Your friend still—if you choose it.—A. G."

"My Glyde said there was no answer?" he demanded.

"Yes, sir; I understood so." "And he is remaining at Black Watch House? For how long?"

"I think it's to be for the next few days, sir. It seems he had a nasty sort of faintini fit the day before yesterday, after Mr Foliott xound him on the moors, ?.nd "

"What?" cried Jarrett, harshly "Colonel Strickland found him!"

"The Colonel came along in the runabout afterwards, sir. Mr Foliott was riding back from Oakhampton, and came on Mr Glyde first. He looked about as bad as he could look when they brought him in. I heard Mr Foliott say he'd begun to think he should never bring him round. He was leading Miss Romayne's mare. Any answer, sir?"

"No," said Jarrett,

of the fellow who brings this infamous charge against me. What about his credentials? Because I happen to have heard, in a roundabout way, that he once served a sentence of eighteen months' imprisonment." This, or something like this, indifferent and noncommittal, who could doubt that it had been said? 'I will ask no questions, Your friend still—if you choose it." The words spoke for themselves; the hinted threat was clear. The consideration, vhich would have struck a man of keener brain, that Glyde could have 110 reason to make terms with, veil threats to, one from whom he had nothing to fear, and who had everything 1 to fear from him, did not occur to Martin Jarrett. He thought of Clitheroe ay he had faced him outside the dr-or of the paying shed, defied, taunted, mastered him, and swore a savage oath. Then he thrust the letter into his pocket and went out of the hospital yard. He had used hints he would use plain words to-day. If Glyde would see him. If not

He walked straight to Black Watch House. Miss Lamotte, hearing his deep voice in the hall, appeared at the door of the breakfast room, her heavy black hair hanging in two great braids almost to her knees, over her pale pink wrapper, and gave him her long, slim hand with her usual elaborate graciousness. What did Mr want so early? Could he see Mr Giyde? Really, she couldn't say, but would send up a message with pleasure. He .stood stolidly and list- [ ened to the young lady's slow, sweetly ' rippling talk, without comprehending ! a syllable of it until the maid returned i and handed him an envelope.

'"There could be no purpose served by my seeing you," Clyde wrote. "I should only confirm and endore every word of my letter. I do so now. You understand? Every word."

That was all. Jarrett slowly tore up the paper and walked out. One sentence of Miss Lamotte's he did remember. She had said that Colonel Strickland had walked up to St. Cuthbert's Abbey.

It was a walk that the Colonel often took on the mornings when Camilla Foliott went to hear mass at the convent. There was no sight with which the village had for years been more familiar than that of the Squire's daughter, with her black robes and lace draped head .passing through it to and from Llansladrone, the squareshouldered old soldier erect at her side, and Dorcas Wade stepping solidly behind her. Martin Jarrett, mounting the gently ,rinding road, and entering the abbey precincts, his face set as doggedly as his mind was set, as implacably as his powerful hands were clenched, mentally rehearsing what he was resolved to say, saw him standing in the shadow of an ivied buttress, close to the chapel door, where he always waited at such times. He turned with a start and stared as the secretary paused before him.

Hullo!" he exclaimed. "You, Jarrett! What bring you here? Nothing wrong with Mr Glyde, eh?"

"I have not seen Mr Glyde, sir."

'Oh I thought you might have stopped up to Black Watch to see how lie >.va.< this raining. He'll be all the better for a few days' rest and quiet, if y<;'o ask in* 3 Racks himself to death up at that blessed Hospital and Camp of youv c; :--01ivor '-ays s > -and no more fit to aland it than an infant. What [ the deuce he was doing on the moor t'other day is what I should like to be tcld Faiiued away like a girl, you kiK'W. Mr Foliofcl found him. You don't know vvnaL he was after, I suppose, th" "T said I ',ao not seun him, sir. I <:anu to syeak to you." "Oh? L that so? Yes?" ''n our capacity of magistrate, sir." ' The dickens jou did! My good fellow, surely it <-ould have waited an hour or two? What's wrong? One of Mr Glyde's pet lambs broken out, I suppose? No? Then what is it? Put it as short as you can, if you'll be so good. What d'ye mean?"

He stood looking at the letter as the man went out, the bewilderment that it had awakened dying down, the r age rising. To him, considering it, what had happened on the moor was plain. Something said by Miss Romayne had sent Glyde riding to stop the messenger dispatched to Prince Town. Probably he had stopped him. Clitheroe had come upon him, questioned him, got from him the truth, or something like the truth, and he, with his infernal cleverness and coolness, had laughed at the thing as a mad yarn, lied, made his tale good, and, still further, to make it good had betrayed him, Jarrett, or partly betrayed him to the only man whose feSpect and trust he valued, the man for 1 whose sake he had been willing to betray himself. "You would be wise td inquire a' little into the antecedents

Martin Jarret said what he meant in a couple of sentences. And the Colonel, starting back, flushed wrathfully red to his iron-grey hair.

"Are you raving mad ? he demanded loudly. "Or drunk? Which is it?"

"I am in my sober senses, Colone Strickland."

''In your sober senses? And dare to say such an utterly outrageous——? You're mad, mad —mad! 1 '

"I am not mad sir. I will repeat what I said. The man who calls himself Everard Foliott is Miles Clitheroe,, the corivict who' escaped from Prince Town. I stood in the dock with him, on the same charge, when he was tried and sentenced, and I was acquitted. Bring me face to face with him, and if he denies it to you, as he has already done to me, send to the prison and see if they recognise him

there."

"You're mad!" cried the Colonel again. He was .stammering with rage, bewilderment, amazement. "You—— you've got some—some outrageous delusion in your head, man! You mean that you brought this infamous charge against Mr Foliott to his face, and—"

'.'I brought it against Miles Clitheroe, sir. I knew him the moment I