MR. JUSTICE MAXELL.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 230, 28 September 1922, Page 12

MR. JUSTICE MAXELL.

By _,GAR WALLACE.

i HAPTJiII Will. ( nelnyn Ifll Timothy with something in I ink aliont. Who was Madame f^erpim!. lliis old lady vrho had such :•>! Pitrivs! :n Mary travelling alone? Am I v, :.\. oil. way 'had she left Paris ■ •■r M"nic Carlo at the fa? end of the -va-.'a. IVr he and Mary had priviii:\ dei iUed between them that Loniluii iiiir! l\ui- should only be stopping i ;.!...» ~:■. the route to the Riviera. Why .-'i.r,,M Madame Serpilot have changed !'■■ ['Inns at the same time? Tiiere was -rnj-■: 'lin™ more than a coincidence in •hi-. Ai lunch time he had Mary to iiini-.'if, !:er chaperon having a head"Mary." he said, "can you tell mc why up changed our plana on the boat ;::■ I decided to go straight on to Monte Car!" instead of staying in Paris?' , "\ es," she said readily. "Don't you reiui'iiilier my telling you about tlioee b.-aui iiii! books of views that I saw on the -iiip';" "Where did voti see them?" asked limiitisj. "I fiiunil tiieni in my cabin one day. 1 think the steward must have left them." -he sa.jd. "They were most wonderful production?, full of coloured I rim- iiiid photographs—didn't I tell j-ou about them?" "1 remember." said Timothy slowly. "Fuuwl them in your cabin, eh? Well, nol'iidy Iff 1 any beautiful or attractive pi.-tur.-- ..f Montr Carlo in my berth. Dm I think that, won't stop mc going It wn- an opportunity she had been seeking tor a week, and she seized it. "J want to ask you something, Timothy." she said. "Jlrs. Renfrew told mc the other day that they call you 'Takc-A-Chance' Anderson. Why is that. Timothy?" '■Keause I take a ehaojee, I suppose." he smiled. "I've been taking chances all my life." "You're not a gambler, Timothy, are you?" she asked gravely. "I know you bei and play cards, but men do that for «.mu?ement, and somehow it is ail right. But when men start out to make a living. ;md actually make a living, by panics of chance, they eomehow belong to another life and another people. He was silent. "You're just too good to go that way, Timothy,"' she went on. "There are lots of chances that a man can take in thie world, in matching his brains, his strength and hi* skill against other men, and when he wins his .stake is safe. He doesn't lose it the next day or the next month, and he's picking winners all the time, Timothy." His first inclination was to be nettled. She was wounding the tender skin of his vanity, and he was startled to discover how tender a skin that was. All that sne said was true and less than true. She. could not guess how far his mind and inclination was frora commonplace labour, and how very little work came into the calculations of his future. He looked upon a job as a thing, not to be held and developed into something better, but as a stopgap between two euceessful chances. He was almost shocked when this truth came home to him. The girl was nervous, and painfully anxious not to hurt him, and yet well aware that she waj; rubbing a sore place. . "Timothy, for your sake, as well as for mine, for you're a friend of mine, I want to be pround of you. to see you past this present phase of life. Mrs. Renfrew-speaks of you as a gambler, and says your name, even at your age, is -well known as one who would rather bet than 'buy. That ien't true, Timothy, ie it?"

She put her hand on his and looked into his face. He did not meet her eyes. f think that is true, (Mary," he said fteadily. "How it comes to be true, I don't quite know. I suppose I have drifted a little over the line, and I'm grateful to you for pulling mc up. Oh,no, I don't regret the past—it hae all been usefuJ— and I have made good on chances, but 1 sec there are other chances that a man can-take than putting ibis money on the pace of ia horse or backing against zero. Maybe, when I get back tn London I'll sottle down into a respect. aWo citizen and keep hens or something." He was speaking seriously, though at fir«t she thought he was sarcastic.

"And you won't gamble again?" she ask^d.

TT<- hesitated to reply. "That isn't fair," she said quickly. "1 mean it ien't fair of mc to ask you. it is almost cruel," she smiled, '-to'let you go to Monte Carlo and ask you not to put money on the tables. But promise mc, Timothy, that when I tell you to stop playing, you will stop." '"Here's my hand on it," said Timothy, brightening up already at the prospect of being allowed to gamble at all. "Hereafter—" he raised his hand solemnly. "By the ivay," he asked, "do you know a lady named Madame Serpilot?" She shook her head. ■'No, I do not," she eaid. "I have never heard the name." "'Ti ou have no relations or friends in France?" 'None," she replied immediately. "'What made you go to TYance at all?" he asked. "When I heard from you, Mary, you talked *bout taking a holiday in Madeira beforfe «etting up house in Batli, and the first thing I knew of your intention to go abroad again was the letter you sent mc juet before 1 started for Madeira."

"I wanted to go a year ago, after Sir •Tohn's death," she said; "then Mre. Renfrew couldn't take the trip—one of her younger children had measles."

"Has chat woman children?" asked Timothy in an awed voice.

"Don't be absurd. Of course she has children. It was slie who decided on making the trip. She writes little articles in the "Bath County Herald"—a lu<al paper—on the care of children and all that sort of thing. She's not really a journalist, she is literary," "I know,"' said Timothy, "sometimes they write poetry, sometime* recipes foi- iop cream —'take tlhree cups of flour, a pint of cream in which an egg has been boiled a'hd a pinch of vanilla , ——"

TV girl smiled. Evidently Timothy had hit upon the particular 'brand of journalism to which Mrs. Renfrew was addirt.^l.

"Well." sakl tlie girl, '-there was to have been a -ort of Mothers' Welfare MiTtiiiff in Paris next week—an lnteriiHtiriiiiil affair—and when we were in -M t<l ha -he received an invitation to an :■:;<] with a free return ticket—wasn't lliw: splendid!" SjOmUJ," 6aid Timothy absently. Viar.Mllv you thought it was an excel-k-iit opportunity to go also." Tlia girl nodded. •And ikmv you have arrived here you tin-1 that the Mothers' Welfare Meeting has l>ooll postponed for ten years?" She looked at him, startled.

"How did you know that the meeting had been postponed?" she asked.

"Oh, I guessed it," he said airily things have happened before."'

•The truth is." *aid the girl, 'nobody knows anything about this meeting, and the letter which Mr.-. Renfrew sent to the Mothers' Welfare Society in l'aris was waiting for us when we arrived at the Carlton. It had been returned— 'Addressee I 'iiknown.' Mrs. Renfrew had put the Carlton address inside.' . Here was ample excuse for speculation of an innocuous kind. Mrs. Renfrew had been approached because it was known by tins mysterious somebody that ehe would take the girl with her. and this sinister somebody had hired two thugs to shepherd her from Madeira and to put Timothy out of action, should he decide to accompany the party to France. The situation was distinctly interest ingr.

Three day,- Inter the party crossed the Channel. Timothy ha<l high hopes of adventuto. wlik'h were fated to lie more than fulfilled. They stayed three days in Paris, and lie had the time of his life. He went to the rates at Maisoiis Lefitte, and came hack glowing with a sense of his virtue, for he had not made a bei. He drifted into the baccarat rooms at Enghien, watched tens of thousands of francs chanffe hands', and returned to Paris; that nipht with a halo fitted by Mary's own hands.

"I think you're rpallv wonderful, Timothy," she said. "You know you are allowed one final flutter."

"I'm saving that up for Monte Carlo," said Timothy.

Since his arrival in Paris he had lost the title to his name, for lie was taking no chances. If he went abroad at night he kept to the brilliantly illuminated boulevards or the crowded cafes. He kept clear of the crowd—especially crowds which formed quickly and for no apparent reason.

He was taking no chances because he felt it wae not fair upon the particular genius who presided over his destinies that he should squander his luck in a miraculous escape from death or disablement. Only once, when dining at the Scribe, did he think he saw the familiar face of Mr. Brown. With an apology he left the two ladies and made hrs way with difficulty through (the crowded restaurant, only to find that his man had disappeared." "These cafes have as many doors as a trick-scene," he grumbled when he came back.

"Did you see a friend of yours V asked the girl. "Not so much a friend ac one who has a financial interest in mc," replied Timothy.

Mrs. Renfrew had thawed a little under the beneficent influences of Parie. She was busy sending off picture-post-cards and had written to Bath her first impression of the French capital to the extent of three columns. She had also written a poem which began: "'Oh city of light that shines so bright," and went on rh3'ming "vain" with "Seine," "gay"' with "play," "joy" with "alloy," through twenty-three stanzas.

"I rather pride myself." said Mr*. Renfrew, "upon that description of Paris— 'the city of light.' Don't you think it is very original, Mr. Anderson?" "It was," said Timothy diplomatically. "Parisians have called it the 'Ville Lumiore' for about two hundred years.' , "That's almost the same, isn't it?" said Mrs. Renfrew. "How clever the French are!"

Mrs. Renfrew did not speak French and took a more generous view of the young man when she discovered that he did. It fell to Timothy* lot to order tickets, arrange cabs, pay bills and act as unofficial courier to the party. He was anxious to be gone from Paris, impatient for the big game to begin. For some reason, he did not anticipate that any harm would come to the girl. This struck him as strange 'later, but at the moment all his thoughts were centred upon the match between himself and this old French lady who had set herself out to separate him from ManMaxell.

No unpleasant incident—the crowded condition of the dining-car excepted— marred the journey to Monte Carlo. There was the inevitable night spent in a stuffy sleeping-berth in a ear that rocked and swayed to such an extent that Timothy expected it to jump the line, as thousands of other passengers have expected it to do; and they came with the morning to the Valley of the Rhone, a wide, blue, white-flecked stream flowing between gaunt hills, past solitary chateaux and strunge walled towns, which looked as if they had been kept under glass cases for centuries, that the modern world should be reminded of the dangers under which our forefathers lived. .So to Marseilles, and a long, hot and slow journey to Nice. To the girl it was a pilgrimage of joy. She would not have missed a single moment of that ride. The blue sea the white villas with their green jalousies, the banked roses over wall and pergola and the warmscented breeze, and above all the semi-tropical sun, placed her in a new world, a wonder world more beautiful than imagination had painted.

There is something about Monte Carlo which is very satisfying. It is so orderly, so clean, so white and bright, ■that you have the impression that it is carefully dusted every morning and that the villas on the hills are taken down weekly by tender hands, polished and replaced.

There is nothing , garish about Monte Carlo, for all its stucco and plaster. Some of the buildings, and particularly the Casino, were compared by the irreverent Timothy to the White City, 'but it was a refined White City and the Casino itseU, with its glass-roofed porch, ite great solemn hanging lamps and its decorous uniformed attendants, had something of the air of a National Bank.

Timothy took a room at the Hotel de Paris, where the girl was staying, and lost no time in seeking information.

"Madame Scrpilot?" said the concierge. "There is a Madame who bears that name, I think, but she is not staving here, monsieur.' .

"Of whom should I inquire, I pray you?" asked Timothy in the vernacular/

"Of the Municipal Council, monsieur," said the concierge., "or, if the madame is a wealthy madame, of the Manager of the Credit Lyonnais, who will perhaps inform monsieur."

"Thanks many times." said Timothy. He went first to the Credit Lyonnais. and found the manager extremely polit* but uncommunicative. It was not the practice of the bank, he said, to disclose tho addresses of their clients He would not Fay that Madame Sernilot }vas his client, but if gne " were . ue could Lcrtainly not give

her address to any unauthorised person. From this Timothy gathered that Madame Serpilot was a client. He went on to the Mairie and met with better fortune. The Mairie lmd no respect for persons. It was there to si.'pply information, and what the Mairie of Monte Carlo does not know about Monaco the cleverest detective forer , in the. world would be wasting its time trying to discover.

■\ladaine Serpilot lived at the Villa Condamine. The Villa Cotidanrne was not, as the name suggested, in the poorer part of Monte Carlo, but in that most exclusive territory, the tiny peninsula of Cap Martin.

"Has madanie been a resident long?" "for one hundred and twenty-nine days," replied the official promptly. '"■Madame hired the villa furnished from the agent of the Grand Duchese Eleana, who. alas, was destroyed in that terrible revolution.' .

He gave Timothy some details of the family from which the Grand Duchess had sprung, the amount of her income in pre-war days, and wae to her eccentricities when Timothy took hie departure. He was not interested in the Grand Duchess Eleana, alive or dead. (To be continue-d daily)