The Web.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 65, 16 March 1907, Page 14

The Web.

Author of «<The Eagles."

CHAPTER I,

On all sides pandemonium raced. The promenade -s. as crowded. Tor two hours John Strangways had gazed in a sort of delirium on a medley of gorgeous costumes and flushed faces set in the bizarre framing of the Imperial Music Hall. There was a stage somewhere he knew that, but nobody on the promenade thought of the performers who extracted thunders of applause now and again from the house.

The promenade itself was a stage providing -an entertainment far more interesting and enthralling than the costly show on the boards. It was equaUy artificial, equally unreal. The gentleman in evening dress who strolled into an imaginary restaurant from the wings, and instead of soberly and decently eating his dinner began to juggle with the champagne bottles and the table silver, was not half so unactual as the men who hung over the bar or lolled; laughing and shouting, on the promenade.

And to-night of all nights this part of the Imperial seemed to be possessed with a spirit of madness and unreality. It was 'Varsity night. That day Oxford and Cambridge had fought out their annual struggle on the Thames, and the partisans of both Universities were celebrating the ewent after the manner of generations of undergraduates. A party of friends at- dinner —more wine" than •was wholesome, perhaps —a cohort of bansoms to the Imperial—and there more wine, until 50 per cent were fighting mad and the remaining 50 "per cent were maudlin. Fired with youthful excitement and champagne the mad section ran amuk. Many a struggling mass of immauity si_atg:g'e_-Gcl «__otv_i the grand sta__rc_-=e _____-fco *__.€. ____.11- ______ -fc__e_-_. sep__Tatfjd i\,sell into its component parts—

_l tall, po-cverf—l young undergraduate in disheveUed. evening clothes and. two perspiring, good-natured commissionaires, who knew well enough that a handsome tip awaited them from the boy Who hut a moment before had been flying at their throats. The maudlin section were lured. o_t into hansonis, murmuring incoherently.

To John Strangways the scene was familiar enough. For three years past he had seen the same thing, and now in his fourth year he had witnessed for two mortal hours a repetition of the annual mad carouse. His ears were singing with raucous yells of " 'Varsity 1" " Ox—ford!'' " Cam—bridge! " His brain was dizzy with the wine he had drunk to keep himself up to the pitch of enthusiasm demanded by his party of friends. He had been enjoying himself after the manner of the opium-eater in. a sort of drugged delirium. He was possessed with a perfect vacuity of thought. Neither the past, present, nor future concerned him. He was plunged into a mental fourth dimension, where the ordinary interests of existence had no place, and was standing by a little side-bar that obstructed the promenade, when the crowd by the balustrade suddenly opened, allowing him a clear view of one of the boxes. He gazed dreamily at first at the occupants, and then his vision cleared —his eyes became fixed, rivetted in wonder on one face in the box.

It was the face of a girl about twenty. She was sitting with an elderly lady and •o-entleman, looking abstractedly at the stase, and by a trick of chance her features were framed in the distance against the purple curtain that was draped at the further side of the box. Against this background her pale and beautifully moulded face, crowned with a mass of blue-black hair, stood out like a portrait in a picture. Strangways gazed and gazed in wonder, and as his eyes feasted on her beauty the realities of life came back to him. His brain cleared. Memories of every day flocked thickly into his mind. The" realisation of the night's folly brought him. to himself with a suddenness that was almost a shock. He put down his glass untouched on the bar, with his eyes still fixed on. the figure in the box. " Buck up, Strangways! " said the voice of young Lord Kiktwiek at his elbow. " What the deuce are you moon-gazing about?" Standing by his side, and holding on to the edge of the bar, the boy followed the direction of Strangways' eyes, and, as he caught sight of the group in the box he gave vent to an exclamation of surprise : "By Jove! It's my uncle and aunt, «__d Violet. Awfully nice girl. Used to be very fond of her at one time. If I wasn't so beastly jolly I'd go round an see her. Deue-d good fun old Uncle Ripley. Wonder what he's doing here. Gay old dog —depravity of age, and all that sort of thing. Let's have a drink." Sitrangways stretched himself as if waking from a dream. •Avvfully sorry, Kildwick. to bust up the show,"but I must get on. The governors coming up to-night, and I've got to meet h-im at my chambers.'' Kildwick and the four other young men protested emphatically. "Wny. it's only just ten o'clock," said Charlie" Dalrymple of Caius, looking at his watch. With difficulty Strangways tore himself away, got his coat and cane from the cloak-room, and left the promenade. As he reached "the" top of the'staircase, a commissionaire touched his hat and bade him good-night. Strangways asked him the time, and hearing that it was only just ten, slipped half-a-erown into his hand, and passed out into Leicester Square. Getting into a hansom, he was about to tell the driver to take him to his chambers, when an almost uncontrollable desire to get away from all association with his everytiay self took possession of his mind. He paused so long in deciding his destination that the cabby, looking down at him through the half-open trap-dbor, coughed discreetly to attract his attention.

"Drive to Westminster Bridge," Strangways ordered, hardly knowing why he gave such a direction. All he was conscious of was a desire to get away to some spot where he could think. As he lay back in the hansom, Trafalgar Square and Parliament-street passed dreamily before his eyes like a scroll of pictures, merged one .with another in a visual mist. But he saw little of the people and buildings. His vision was fixed upon an elusive something far away *** distance. As if seared upon his sight, the face of the girl he had seen in the box at the Imperial, floated, outlined against every object at which he gazed. He saw. it in the lamplight; :he saw it against the Ifmed 1 Btpn-work M * he houses pi Pa_.

By PAUL URQUHURT. Author of "The Eagles."

liament; he saw it in the dark, silent, splashing waters of the Thames when, having dismissed his cab, he leant over the parapet of the Embankment. It seemed to beckon him to a new consciousness of himself,; to raise him to a higher level than that of the mere sensual existence he had been living for so long.

As if his mind worked under the influence of some exterior association, he began to look back on his history of the last few years. He had gone up to Cam- | bridge a healthy young schoolboy, full of energy and spirits. His father had | given him his blessing in his simple, old-fashioned -way—had told - him to cherish the Bible, not to be ashamed of being a Methodist, to say his prayers every night, and to take as much openair exercise as his studies would permit. Of all this--adviee", only the last item had Strangways- followed, and 'that only in the letter. For never having devoted any time worth mentioning to 1 study, he had plenty of • opportunities for exercising, his young-, strong six-foot body. HacLthis but been the extent of his failing* away .from the .paternal ideal, matters would not have been so bad. But unfortunately,, he had fallen into more or less bad company, and altogether behaved in such a way as to cause the old millionaire-worsted manufacturer, his father, a great deal of grief and pain. He thought his son was on the path of perdition, and wrote to him letters on the subject, until the young man, driven desperate by these paternal admonitions, gave himself up wholly to a life of pleasure, though in his heart of hearts he despised the life. He loved his father in his way, He was certainly proud of him: proud of liiis essentially ~_T — _-___■_. .re characteristics —his plain, sturdy talk, his nose of brus- . I I quesness which -veiled —. sensitive and tender nature, his strength of decision, even of his habit of uiakiug hard-and-fast distinctions between right and wrong, of mapping out the heart and nature of man into clear-cut shades of black and white. But the younger John ■belonged to a more liberal'age and generation. He was prepared to forgive his brother seventy times seven. The difference in the attitude of father and son raised a barrier between them which had grown month by month and year by year, until tbe estrangement was almost complete. All these things Strangways thought of as he gazed into the gloomy, mysterious river. His mind went back to the days of bis early childhood. His mother had died shortly after he was born. He thought of her as a child thinks of an angel or a fairy, as some wonderful structure of- light and beauty belonging only to the land of dreams.

As a- fact. John Strangways the elder loved his son in his own rough way. He had also loved his wife. Immediately after her death he had gone to America on business, leaving the child to the care of a maternal aunt. For three years he. had stayed away, and the people in the neighbourhood would say, "Old Strangways was fair brooken-oop with Missis' death, and weren't bound to coom back till he'd gotten hissen rate like." Then he had suddenly come back, sterner, greyer, and sadder. Of what he had been doing in the States he never spoke to any living man; only, it was noticed, he often wrestled in prayer. On his own son the result had been inevitable. As soon as emancipation came in the shape of University life and an allowance of a thousand a year, Strangways had "gone the pace." His father had stormed, threatened, and finally had sent him a letter that morning to say he was coming up to town and would see him at his flat, a proceeding which the millionaire's son

rightly translated to mean that he was either to bend to his father's will and continue to receive his allowance, or to go his own gait and be cut off with the proverbial shilling.

However foolish Strangways might have been, he retained a healthy sense of pride and self-reliance. He had deliberately decided to accept the alternative of poverty, believing that the struggle for existence would be a better moral tonic than the cramped line of conduct approved of by his father. To make the parting with bis parent absolutely certain—to prevent any falling away from the course of conduct on which he had decided—he had deliberately accepted the invitation to dinner and tbe Imperial, knowing it would nerve him for the meeting.

The moon had crept up over the horizon. On the opposite bank the mudflats, against which some stranded vessels stood out like monstrous lumps of darkness, glowed silver-grey in the night-shine. In almost uncanny silence a deeply laden barge swept by on the flow of the tide, her sail drawing to tho slight breeze that had sprung up. Strangways watched the man standing at the helm immobile as a statue. He never moved,-or uever seemed to move, until he had shot Waterloo Bridge and was swallowed up in the reaches beyond. Dreamily Strangways began to speculate on who he was. What were the thoughts, the aims, the ambition of this man who was gliding like a spectre through the night towards the sea? What was the strange fate that brought such a man within the circle of his contemplation? In all probability he would .never see him again. Death would come to both of them before either learnt anything of the other. He was a shadow from another land—a phantom of the river, formulated from another existence, to pass him in this manner for some unknown purpose, hidden deep in the Master Mind of Providence. He began to speculate upon the mysteries of the Web, wrought on the loom of Fate, which wove so many human threads together, crossing and recrossing them, and before they came to an end, deftly fastening on new threads, so that life from its very earliest stages was but one vast fabric, stretched ready for completion, to the confines of Eternity.

The face of the. girl gradually forced its way back into his dream. He was beginning to lose himself in contemplating the memory of her beauty, when the silence of the embankment was broken by the sound of a man running. Strangways turned quickly, as a tall elderly looking gentleman with white hair rushed hatless past him. So nearly did he touch him in his flight, that Strangways instinctively leant backwards over the parapet to avoid a collision. As he did so, his opera-hat, which he had pushed far back on his head, toppled off into the water.

He turned round with a hope to grab at it, before it fell, but he .was only.

- in time to-sec it being-carried swiftly t away by the tide. In the distance the J patter of the running man's feet on the I pavement gradually grew less and less, until it was lost altogether. fflThe incident had finally awakened Strangways from his dreams. He looked up at Big Ben. It was already after eleven, and - the recollection that his father was waiting for him made him turn briskly towards Northumberland Avenue. As he neared his chambers a policeman looked at him suspiciously, and as soon as he had passed began "to follow him at a dignified pace. At the entrance to the block of buildings where his flat was situated, ho noticed » man, who as soon as he caught sight of him disappeared up the stairs. He climbed the steps two at a time. On the landing all was darkness. With his latch-key in bis hand, he felt eau-

tiously for the door. As he touched it, it swung open under the pressure of his finger. Puzzled by this, he pressed down the switch for the electric lamp in the hall. It refused to act. He struck a match and looked around him. Everything was as he had left it. He advanced towards his sitting-room door. As he opened it, the match burnt out to his fingers. Suddenly a sense of terror seized him. Something unknown and intangible seemed to be in the room. He peered forward into the darkness, possessed by a sensation of horror for which he could not account. He strained his ears and listened. It seemed to him that he heard the sound of a man struggling to hold his breath. For a second or two Strangways listened with every nerve tense. But only that sound as of a man trying to conceal himself reached his ears. With something like an effort his hand felt for the switch, and turned on the electric light. He hardly knew what he expected to see in the sudden glare. What he did see was sufficiently startling. The light disclosed three men, one a policeman. They were standing in front of the sofa at the further end of the room, gazing motionless at "him. Strangways looked at them in amazement for some moments speakrngThen, at last, he broke out '•'What the dickens does this mean ?" 3For answer the policeman moved towards him, at a sign from one of the other men. As he did so, Strangways caught sight of something on the sofaHe sprang forward, white in the face. The policeman caught him and thrust —irn back. "You'd better take it quietly, sir," he said. But Strangways had seen enough. He had seen the face of his father masked by death; he had caught a glimpse of an ugly -wound in the temple, and a mass of matted hair and blood. He sank back into a chair trembling with horror, unable to do anything but gaze at the men with frightened, anguished eyes. And all the while not one of the three spoke. At last Strangways found strength to rise to hi? feet. "Who did it?" he said in a quavering voice, looking towards the sofa and its awful burden. For ansAver one of the men stepped forward. "I arrest you," he said, "for the murder of. John Strangways." In another moment he had slipped tbe handcuffs on the prisoner's wrists.

CHAPTER 11.

Life for the next few weeks was for Jack Strangways one awful, unending nightmare. He "lived through it mechanically, like a man in delirium. The preliminary proceedings at the police court, the endless remands asked for by the police, the final inevitable decision that he should be sent for trial for murderall these events seemed to happen, as far as Strangways was concerned, in another world. He viewed the proceedings with a detachment which made everything seem unreal. Solicitors, barristers, magistrate and police appeared to him as so many lay figures in a vast marionette show. His mind was stunned by the awful discovery on the night of the murder. He could think of nothing coherently. Before his mental vision there floated but one picture, the figure of his father lying on the sofa with a ghastly wound" in bis temple. It was not until he was placed in the dock at the Old Bailey that he seemed really to realise the dangers of his position.

Meanwhile, the whole country rung with the story. Long before the shadow of the Criminal Court closed round him he had been tried by the free and enlightened Press of his countrymen. One half the papers found him guilty, the other half argued that the probabilities were in favour of his innocence. But, however much they migth differ as to the author of the crime, the newspapers were agreed about one thing, that the " hat" murder was the most sensational tragedy that had ever harrowed the minds of the public and thrilled the nerves of their morbid readers.

The case had received its title as a result of the ingenious taste in headlines of one of the sub-editors of the "Daily Wire," who had seen, with the quick perception of a highly-trained journalistic eye, that the innocence or guilt of John Strangways depended entirely upon the fact whether the ot.era hat found in his fiat belonged to him or was the property of some other unknown, mysterious personage. Between the magisterial proceedings and the opening of the case at the Old Bailey, the discussion of the tragedy had led to many by-agitations. Strangways' share in riots that had taken place in the Imperial Theatre on the night of the murder induced certain enterprising papers to thunder against the license of music halls. Reams of sensational copy were turned out regarding the doings of 'Varsity men when let loose in town. MoTe careful supervision of the halls, a stricter regime for undergraduates at the Universities were clamoured for. "Disgusted," " Paterfamilias," and " The Mother of Ten," wrote their inevitable letters to the papers, saying that their sons should never be allowed to don the cap and gown of either Oxford or Cambridge.

The first day of the trial was almost entirely devoted to the setting forth of the case for the prosecution. Mr. Frank Richardson, the eminent K.C., had been entrusted by the Crown with the prosecution. Mr. Walter Riddall, who had made his mark in the Cliffe murder case, had been retained by Messrs. Penfold and Holmes, for the Strangways' family solicitors, Walford, Walford, and Rawlins, had refused to touch the case.

As Strangways listened to the opening speech of Mr. Frank Richardson he felt himself a doomed man, for as the eminent __.<_.' step by step developed the outline of the story as understood by him, the prisoner wondered how the ingenuity of any man could release him from the toils which were being spun round him.

" It will be shown," said Mr. Frank Richardson, "that the relations between father and eon .were p£ a most unfortu-

nate kind. It was the common knowledge of his friends in Cambridge and in London that theprisoner had been leading a life which had caused his father pain. He had gambled and drunk, and, despite .the exhortations of his father, he had persisted in this course of conduct. Again and again his father had paid his debts; again and again he had told him to what his conduct must lead him. Inspired by the natural love of a father for his son, the murdered man had shown the utmost restraint. Again and again the prisoner had sought and obtained his forgiveness; but in the end his father reajised that there was only one means by which he could hope to win him from the path of ; destruction, and bitter as it must have ; been for him to adopt this course, his sense of duty was strong enough to dej termine him to put its efficacy to the test. j Accordingly he wrote to his son—the letLter should be read to the jury—informing : him that he was coining up to town to have a serious conversation with him on "the night of March 17, that he would meet him in his flat at nine o'clock, and that unless.he obtained.some satisfactory assurance that his son intended to lead a new life he must refuse to make him any further allowance, and that he must learn, alone and unaided, from the bitterness of experience, the folly of his conduct. It will be shown that so little did this impress his son that the very night of his father's arrival he had spent in a boisterous dinner party with his friends, followed by an equally boisterous visit to' the Imperial Music Hall.

_Ir. Frank Richardson then proceeded to relate how, on the night of the murder, a gentleman, who had the flat immediately below that occupied by the prisoner, had heard above him a sudden shriek, half moan, half cry, and then the sound of a body falling heavily on the ground.- For some seconds he had listened intently, then, alarmed by what he had heard, he mounted the staircase to the prisoner's flat. The door of the fiat was open, and all lights, even that on the landing, were turned out. For some seconds he listened at the open doer, and then, after a natural hesitation, he felt it his duty to enter. On the floor of the sitting-room he discovered the body of the murdered man. Hor--ified l3>- *._»e discover.- lie laaidL nasbed -or the police. On tbe arrival of the authorities ike body was placed on the sofa, and a. careful search was made of the room. This search led to an important discovery, the discovery of an opera-hat, which had evidently fallen off the murderer's head and was lying underneath the table in the centre of the room. The murdered man's own bowler hat was on" the table itself, with his stick and gloves. -_ communication was immediately made to Scotland Yard, and by 10.30 Detective Inspector Brown and Detective Medhurst arrived. After again carefully searching the room, Detective Medhurst left the premises for the purpose of making preliminary inquiries in the neighbourhood. It was then about 11.15. As he passed into the street he saw the prisoner approaching, dressed in evening clothes and without a hat. Concealing himself in the doorway, he watched him ascend the steps of the building. Acting with commendable foresight Medhurst came to the conclusion that the prisoner was returning to regain his hat. the one piece of damning evidence he had left behind him. He thereupon hurried up to the flat before the prisoner had ascended the steps leading to the building, and warned his comrades. To conceai themselves they turned off the electric light in the sit-ting-room. Presently they heard the prisoner softly enter the flat. For some thirty seconds they heard him listening outside the open door of the sitting-room. Then, believing the room to be empty, he had stepped in and switched on the electric light.

Counsel went on to narrate the circumstances of Strangways' arrest, making his conduct appear in the worst light possible. He then elaborated what had come to be known as the "'hat" theoryHe declared that the man who owned the opera-hat was the murderer of John Strangways, and he concluded by saying that it would be his duty to demonstrate to the jury that trie owner of that hat was none other than the prisoner.

Evidence was then called for the prosecution. But the chief point on which the prosecution depended was tbe hat. It fitted the prisoner like a glove, and having impressed this fact upon the jury, Mr. Frank Richardson left the field to his learned brother.

When Mr. Walter Hiddall rose, Jack Strangways had given up all hope that his innocence could ever be proved. But before his counsel had been long on his legs hope revived. He took the attitude of the man of the world. He assumed that the judge and jury were men of the world. Having carefully rubbed this point in, counsel went on to declare that the jury knew and everybody knew, what young men were, especially young men from the universities.

The witnesses that he called included Lord Kildwick and the commissionaire at the doorway, to whom had given half-a-crown. Both declared that the prisoner left the Imperial at ten. The cabman who drove the prisoner to the Embankment also corroborated this evidence. Strangways then elected himself to go into the witness box, and in a half dazed tone narrated the events of the night, creatine some sejisation by saying that his hat had fallen off his head while he was leaning over the parapet of the Embankment. ° Then the trial closed for that day. The following morning was devoted to the final speeches of counsel. Then the judge summed up. He weighed the probabilities for and against the innocence of the prisoner with absolute impartiality. He showed the jury that the prisoner had made an appointment with his father on the night of the murder at 10 o'clock. At a quarter to 10 he was found dead. By his side was an opera hat. The owner of that hat was undoubtedly his murderer. It was for the jury to decide whether that hat was the property of the prisoner or not. If it was, he was guilty of the most awful crime in the world, the murder of his father. The learned counsel had told them the motives which might have prompted him to such an act. An estrangement had sprung up between father and son, due to the folly of the accused. The jury must say whether those motives were sufficient to induce the prisoner to commit such a crime. If the accused was the murderer, it appeared to him the construction placed upon his conduct by the counsel for the prosecution was justified. In the excitement and horror which would naturally awake in his mind after commuting such a deed, it was conceivable that he might have fled from the flat with no other thought but to get away. After some reflection in the streets his mind would naturally turn to ways and means of escaping the penalty of his crime. Realising that he was without his hat, and that the discovery of this article would lead to his identification, he might have determined to risk all by returning to regain possesion of this

damning piece of evidence. He was seeh to enter the building without a hat, to go cautiously into the room as if fearing arrest, and to have conducted himself in the face of his fathers corpse in an excited manner which might or might not be the result of a guilty conscience. On the other side, evidence had been given to show that the prisoner did not finally leave the music hall until 10 o'clock, a quarter of an hour after the deed had been committed, though a calculating murderer might have purposely gone out and come back before finally departing. They must decide •whether they were prepared .to accept 'the evidence of his companions, but they must not forget the evidence of the commissionaire and the driver, who were both positive that it was a few seconds after 10 when the prisoner left the Imperial. He concluded- by warning the jury that if they had any doubt in their minds as to the guilt of the prisoner having been absolutely proved, they must give him the benefit of that doubt. With this parting admonition he dismissed them to decide upon their verdict. They were absent half-an-hour, and when'they filed again into the box, dead silence fell upon the Court. Few people present thought that, after the judge's summing-up, there could be any doubt as to the verdict. But the sense of uncertainty which hangs over the working of the human mind, even the human minds of 12 good men and true, kept everybody in a breathless tense excitement. Strangways seemed the least concerned of them all. He did not hear the judge's question All that struck upon his ear were the word* of the foreman: — '•'Not guilty." (To be continues next Wednesday.?