THE ANNEXATION SOCIETY.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 49, 26 February 1916, Page 19

THE ANNEXATION SOCIETY.

CHAPTER XTX MR CUfiTIS, OF XE.W YORK. Jimmie took the memorandum book jroin the man's liauds and looked down the column to which he pointed. But j, c was not looking at the entry made »<ijunst his own name, he was looking for any other entry referring to another packet from Paris. "One," he 6aid reflectively. " Suro Here weren't two?" "Certain, sir—as I say, I took them all in myself. The only registered thing 3 tlat came in yesterday morning were your packet, a square packet in brown paper, with black seals, Mr. Trikett —a letter for Captain Danvers, and another • letter for Mrs. Wellesby." "Ton didn't see another packet from (Paris, about the same size as mine, that tame in here for anybody, not for mc?" asked Jimmie. "So, sir, I did not! Those were the only three registered things that came." "It"mightn't have been registered, that," said Jimmie, more to himself than to the porter. "There was no other packet of any sort, sir. Tour registered packet was the only one. I took the mail myself, aa I said; everything beyond your paciut was letters, sir, ordinary letters, except the two I've mentioned." Jimmie handed the book back without further question. He went upstairs to lie rooms and bade Kentover get him seme tea. Then he threw off coat and lat and gloves and dropped into a chair. Well, Schmidt had been wrong about tipse registered postal packets, anyway -quite wrong. What was it, now,"that Schmidt had said so positively? That tiro packets, both registered, rriust have bees, sent to his, Jimmies address from Paris; that one was marked, the other not; that some person employed by this mysterious gang, or combine, had been instructed to change them, taking the real packet, leaving the false. Well, that was all wrong, utterly wrong. Ihere had only been one packet. That was—fact. But here Jimmie found himself faced iy some other facts which were just as absolute. There was the fact that the package which Kentover had brought to him at Dover contained, not the missing valuables, but certain lumps of eoap, certain wads of cotton wool. Thero *as the further most important fact that the package had come by post from Paris; had been duly registered in Paris. It was impossible to deny these facts, they were incontrovertible. How, then, lad the packete been exchanged—how lad the false one been substituted for the true one? In the post office, in the train, at the hotel—where? There must hate been an exchange. Jimmie dismissed as impossible the idea that tha tine packet had been opened the conthe s.qap_a,nd the wool tulKtiffited. would argue a lot of thiigajthat seemed en the face of them entirely, outrageously impcsaole; it argued that there was collusion on the part of some postal em■jlayee in Paris, en route between the tifo countries, or in London. This idea tertainly entered hia mind; it certainly I dwelt there for a time, only to be dismissed. The more he debated the situation, the more he was convinced that there had been, as Schmidt had affirmed, two packets; he was convinced, too, that —also as. Schmidt had said—there had been an exchange, a substitution of one for the other. But the two packets had not been addressed to him at the hotel —how, then had the exchange been made so that the dummy one fell into Kentovers hands. By the time Jimmie had sipped two cups of C? ma tea he began to see what he called daylight. It seemed to him that the dummy parcel had arrived in this way—it had been sent under cover to some person in London who had instructions on receiving it to substitute for the parcel addressed by Jimmie to himself. ■ Sow that pre-supposed several things. The person employed in this transaction must necessarily have taken up hk quarters at the hotel. That wae easy enough.- He must have made himself acquainted with the method of the delivery and distribution of letters and parcels at the hotel. That, too, waa easy enough. Jimmie began to see how things could be done. The telephonic instructions from Paris were probably given soon after he, Jimmie, had visited the police commissary; that would be about six o'clock. By eeven the London agent could have presented himself at the hotel, booked his room, and cleared iaa field for action. He could easily ascertain all about the hotel's postal arrangements during the evening. Next morning he could be down in the hall what time the mails were delivered. He could hang about, as visitors do han£ about the halls of hotels, looking at the newspapers, taking a glance at the street, examining the state of the weather, until he caw his chance of ' slipping into the litle side-room where the letters were deposited in their boxes «nd pigeon-holes. Jimmie made a mental picture of that little room. It was very conveniently placed for such a purpose as he was imagining. The office of the hotel was just within the inner hall; the room in which the letters were placed was next to it. But there was no window opening out of the office into that room, nor into that room from the hall; it was lighted by a roof window, being really built out as an annexe. Consequently, it would be an easy thing for My person who entered that room when ft was otherwise unoccupied to substitute one packet for another or to eteal letters—the easiest thing in the world. Certainly, he was beginning to ccc how the thing could be done, had been done —escept in one detail. How had the agent—whom he concluded to have been in the hotel overnight— got hold of the dummy packet? It could not have been delivered to him inder another wrapper, because it bore the various postal marks, stampings, labels, all the signs of having been through the post. He picked up the ■wrapper now, having carefully brought it ■with him from Dover, and looked at it: there all the marks and signs were, and for the life of him he could not have sworn that the capital letters of the address, penned in imitation of print, were not his own. Well, the dummy packet could have been addressed to some place of call close by; the agent could have slipped out and fetched it. But then Jinimie again came up against a blank ■wall; in that case the address would have been that of the supposed place close by, whereas the address of the hotel was there, plain enough, jusfc as it had been written in Paris.

(ALLJRIGHTS RESERVED.) .

By J. S. FLETCHER.

..TV. ? a licker! " soliloquised Jimmie. That a enough to settle anybody. Yet —how did this infernal thing come into this hotel and get, substituted for. the real packet? Now—how— how? That's the question!" He got out of his eaey-chair after a while, and carefully put away the wrapper and its string, with the bits of broken sealing wax still attached in a drawer fitted with a special lock. That done, he went downstairs to the office. He Had an idea, and considering it a good one, he wanted to act en it at once. Having lived in the hotel f or nearly three years, Jimmie was well known to the management. All the principal members of the management took a personal interest in him. He was known to be a young man of very great wealth of unassuming manners, and of a genial die- ■ position. He frequently chatted with the various officials; he was free-handed in his dealings with" the staff; he was, in short, a highly desirable tenant. And everybody liked him and had smiles and kind words for him. There was one per- , son in particular who always beamed 1 upon him, the principal clerk in the ; office, a sharp, capable, good-looking, J middle-aged woman named Mrs. Bywater, who by virtue of her position controlled much of the hotel's businesa. J"immie had this lady in his mind's eye I as he strolled, hands in pockets, down I the stairs. I Mrs. Bywater was alone in the office, J busily engaged in posting up books. She : turned a welcoming eye on Jimmie aa he entered. ''Good afternoon, Mr. Trickett," she said genially. "So you have come home J again 1" I "I'm here," replied Jimmie. He walked I up to the desk, looked down at its occu- ! pant and immediately broached the subi ject of his business, "took here," he I said, "don't you always chuck your work up about six o'clock?" 'I chuck it up, as you call it, from six o'clock until nine," answered Mrs. Bywater, "in order to get my dinner and take a rest." "Well, I'll tell you what," said Jimmie. "I want you to come out and have dinner with mc to-night—say six-thirty. Will you?" "Dear mc, that's very kind of you, Mr. Trickett," answered Mrs. Bywater, looking somewhat astonished. "Not at all," asserted Jimmie. "Ifll be very kind of you. The fact is—l want to have a bit of quiet talk with you. I've been away, as you know, and I want to ask you some questions about, well, about something that happened in my absence. If you'll be ready at the front door, at a quarter-past six 111 be there, and we'll go and have dinner quietly." Mrs. Bywater scented mystery, and, womanlike, leapt at the chance of being entertained by it. "Ail right," she answered. "I'll be ready, Mr. Trickett. A quiet dinner, mind!" A quiet dinner in a quiet corner of a quiet place was precisely what Jimmio wanted at that juncture, and as he knew his London i»timately, and had a faculty of gratifying his immediate desires, he speedily "conducted Mrs. Bywater to an old-fashioned hotel-restaurant not a hundred miles from Piccadilly, wherein it is still possible to find carefully-selected wines, the perfection of English cooking, and the opportunity of eating one's dinner without the accompaniment of music discoursed by a foreign band. And having played host to hie guest's satisfaction, and amused her with such gay conversation as rose to his lips, he turned te business over the coffee and liqueurs. "I take you, Mrs. Bywater," he said looking narrowly at his companion, "to be a woman of more than ordinary common sense." "Common sense," replied Mrs. Bywater cheerfully and readily, "is supposed by those who know mc, and also by myself, to be my chief characteristic, Mr. Trickett." "The sort of woman to keep secrets when they are entrusted to her?" observed Jimmie. "As if they were in a Milner'a Bafe," replied the lady. *Tra going to tell you one," continued Jimmie. "It's for nobody but you. While I was away something was stolen from me—at the hotel." "At the hotel!" exclaimed Mrs. Bywater. "From your rooms?" "Not from my rooms. From my pigeon-hole in the room where the letters are placed after they're sorted." Mrs. Bywater looked shocked and surPr " What—a letter—letters?" she asked. "A registered postal packet," replied Jimmie. "Containing something of great value. Something worth—well, a great many thousands of pounds. Six or seven thousand pounds, anyhow." "You don't mean it I" exclaimed Mrs. Bywater. "When was this!" "Yesterday morning. It was cleverly done. The head porter saw that packet —he took it in—signed for it—put it in my pigeon-hole. The thief watched his opportunity—took it out—substituted a dummy packet, exactly resembling it. See?" Mrs. Bywater nodded. "Clever!" she said, thoughtfully. "Yes, I see how that could be done. I've often said that our little system ought to be revised, improved. Have you any idea who the thief was, Mr. Trickett?" "None of his or her personal identity;" replied Jimmie. "But I'm certain that he or she came specially to the hotel for

that night (may be there now for anything I know) on purpose to appropriate my packet. Now, Mrs. Bywater, I want to know what strangers there were in the hotel that night, what people, if any, came to the hotel that night? I suppose yov can tell mc that as you keep the books?" "That's easily answered," said Mrs. Bywater. "Let mc see, night before last. Of course, I remember everybody whp came in that night, and during the afternoon, too. There was Major Leycester and his wife—old customers. There was Sir John Kemp and his two daughters—they're old customers. There was Mies Clarriford, the actress —she came in for a week while her flat's being redecorated, and she's there now. There was only one stranger, Mr. Trickott, a gentleman who registered as Mr. Curtis, of New York." "I reckon that's my man, then," said Jimmie. ."What time did he come?" "During the time I -was off duty, between six and nine. I can find out the exact hour. But he dined in the hotel." "Did you ccc him that night?" . "I did. iA tall, clean-ehaven, Americanlooking man—middle-aged, sallow complexion— decidedly American. He came to the office to aek mc where he should find any letters." "Just eg. And you showed him?" "I ehowed him the room whore the letters are kept. He went in there." "That's it!" exclaimed Jimmie. "Lay a thousand to one that's my man. Well, when did he leave?" "Yesterday, about noon. I heard him tell the porters to get him a taxi for Waterloo Station." "And that was all you saw of him during his stay?" "So," replied Mrs. Bywater, "it wasn't. By mere chance I saw him early yesterday morning. I saw him go out of the hotel at half-past eight. And outeide he met another man." (To be continued: daily.)

ECHO ANSWERS "WHY?" The opinion of the Government Is that the "Times" and the "Continental Mall" liaTc seriously damaged the Allied cause. Then, asks the ".Nation," why were they not .prosecuted un<ler the Defence of the <Itealm Act, whose enactments they have, on this reading of their policy, clearly contravened? Why at least was not the "Mali" prohibited access to the troops, whose morale, in Sir John Simon's view, It lias seriously affected?