All Rights Reserved.] WHO SEARCH FOR STARS

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 218, 15 September 1925, Page 16

All Rights Reserved.] WHO SEARCH FOR STARS

BY MARJORIE BOWEN.

CHAPTER XVI. The story of the brother and sister was, reduced to very plain and bare facts, this: They were the children of a small merchant of Antwerp, a man-hardly above the rank of a shopkeeper, but With a certain address and appearance above his class, attractions too often associated with disrepute in the uneducated who do not know how to use them, and with danger in the ignorant who, elevated above the station in which they aTe bora, are always unable to fill -any other. Such was Mr. "Vintimille, whose, gifts and talents, flimsy enough, had served to disgust him with the life of a Flemish "bourgeois," and had achieved for him a marriage far higher than he might have hoped for; on a business visit to England he had managed to get into what was then called —forty years ago—Bohemian Society, and there .had met and married an girl of indisputable gentility, a Miss Sarah Beauclerc. whose talent for music had been sufficient to carry her off the beaten track of her clas3 into rather dubious company, ibufc not sufficient to carry her to any fame or even proficiency. Parents and relations were duly vexed at this marriage, and, though there was no violent break, there was a complete, if gradual estrangement, and by the time the two children were born there was no communication whatever between the Beauclercs and the Vintimilles. . ' Madame Vintimille had been, of course, disappointed in her marriage; she discovered her husband meretricious, and life in Antwerp extremely dull; disappointed in her hopes, forced into an alien. and rather sordid way of life, she lapsed into a fretful, uninteresting woman, who made no effort to check her husband in practices that became daily more disreputable, and that might any moment end in disaster and scandal.

One thing, however, she did do; she i had in her own right about five hun- j dred pounds a year, and this she spent entirely on the children, sending them away early from the unhappy home, and giving them a sound, if modest, education in Brussels, Paris, and London. At first this use of the money was the cause of endless quarrels between husband and wife, but, in this instance, the Englishwoman showed the firmness of her race, and absolutely refused to give in, and, as her husband sank lower and became more absorbed in dubiousways of making money, he .was not sorry to have his children out of the way. \ The end of this curious situation was that, while Anne Vintimille, a clever, good-looking, elegant girl, was. finishing her education in Paris, and Sebastian Vintimille, who had all the appearance and mental outfit of a gentleman, waß entering for his Army exaniinations (this was just after the War of 1914-18, for the five years of which the two young people had continued quietly their studies in London), his father, who had seen many upß and xlowns during thisfwar, reappeared' from some ob.Beeper, of at .doubtful wine shopYrilai' the With Jiift slatternly; and' ; dull?- English wife in" the background.'v Jf? By this time Anne, the "daughter, knew a good deal more than what- had ■been taught her out of lesson -books. A visit to Antwerp acquainted her at once with the whole situation; she immediately demanded from her mother the moiety bf the * English income which had hitherto gone, to pay for her education,' and with -'this retreated to Brussels;'the Other half-of the five hundred pounds went to support Sebastian, who duly entered the Belgian Army. About this period of the 1 life of Anne Vintimille there was considerable obscurity; even the police, raking up every possible scrap of evidence against her at -t-lto time of the trial, had found out very little as to how she had lived in Brussels.

• Meanwhile disaster had overtaken the cafe-keeper of Antwerp; coming into open. loggerheads _with the law at last, he had only been Bayed from a sharp term of •imprisonment' by a desperate suicide, which was followed by the col--:lap||>e r -.:: , ;.<''a%d;-4ehl^'' : wife. These matters Were' never, brought to the lie .-.notice;"-./ and both ■■< the young officer and his sister managed to conceal their connection with the- obscure and iwretched Vintimilles>f- Antwerp; this seemed entirely oWin£ to the'cleverness. | of Anne,-.who; was hy now a fairly • \ accomplished young woman. | About, a .year after the death she i achieved a successful marriage, espousing a wealthy banker, considerably older than herself, a certain Martin Landerzeel. She had- from the first to contend, naturally enough, with the dislike and hostility of all her husband's relatives; torn by these disputes, Mr. Landerzeel began to fail in health, and remained, more and more enclosed in his chateau in the Ardennes, attended only hy his wife, and, whenever thiß was impossible, by her brother; but, as Mr. Landerzeel became worse, they took him away altogether from his own country, and rented a villa in the south of France in'a ■ little-known town, Le Hanne. Courtoys had at Wee known this i name as that of the residence of his Uncle Jasper; doubtless it was he that had made the acquaintance of the. Lan-der-eels.. Sebastian Vintimille spent much of his spare time in England, and from one visit returned with an English wife, who joined the party in the .villa on. the sea. These four people then,_; brother and sister and the wife and husband of these, remained quietly in this obscure, rather dull place, leading a humdrum sort of an existence. '.'-"• '"" The details of this life were not available even at the trial, for only a stupid daily servant and a rough gardener had been employed, and these people had noticed nothing beyond the very ordinary details of a quiet domestic routine. '. • '■ ";'',%,:';;..'• -'.i-V .* And that it should be quiet was understood to be the express-desire of Mr. Landerzeel, who chose, despite his great wealth, to live in this retirement; " - He had but one diversion," in' his; state of semi-invalidism, and that was collecting old maps; he was in touch with all the dealers, of-London,' Brussels, and Paris, and' hardly arday without being sent by registered post Villa;lrene, as it'Was--called. , Tufl 7 illa Btpod a mile from the £Uie town, on! a' pleasant 5 Blope I sur--aceW ft_?frW* and yiUe. terraces and thick Woods of ilex aid oak:.

It was through these groves and woods that Madame de Vintimille (Sebastian long since added the aristocratic' "de" before his name) walked one summer day into the little town of Le Hanne and, asking her way to the Pre* fecture, lodged there in English-French a statement that .her brother-in-law, Martin Landerzeel, had been hurdered by. his wife and her husband, Anne Landerzeel and Sebastian Vintimille. She declared that the old man had died a few hours before, that he had been poisoned by antimony, that he had been forced to make a will leaving. everything to his wife, and that she, hefself, if they suspected ;that she guessed', would be in fear of her life; and the unfortunate young woman described with passionate frankness the misery of her days at the Villa Irene. Her statement,, though given with emotion, was clear enough, and the, local police were sufficiently impressed to suggest an instant visit to the Villa Irene. But she was terrified, even now, to appear* as the informer, though she was told that she must necessarily bear witness; later on; she had, she said, one or two little valuables in the fatal houße that she wished to take with her before she finally left, and while a couple of "gendarmes" cycled round by the main road, Madame de Vintimille returned the way she had come, through the olive and ilex woods. Half way the police met Sebastian de Vintimille; stopped and questioned, he said he was going for a doctor, as Mb brother-in-law was extremely ill, almost, he feafed, past hope. With the BWift measures of French law, he was at once arrested and taken back to the Villa Irene; he at Once suspected his wife, and gave a plausible account of her hysterical, demented condition, which, he declared, was one reason for their residence here; he, having so little time frord his military duties, .had resigned-her, to the care of his sister, who had lately found the charge almost impossible.' On arrival at the Villa Irene, Anne Landerzeel with the daily servant, was found .in charge of the body of her husband.

She confirmed her brother's tale of his wife, but was at once put under arrest and the villa sealed up. Now came the most mysterious and sensational part of the whole affair. Madame de Vintimille, Sebastian's English wife, was never seen again. CHAPTER XVIT. There Were, of course, various theories pht forward to account for Madame de Vintimille's disappearance, the prosecution declaring that the prisoners had contrived to make away with their most dangerous witness, and the defence urging that Madame de Vintimille, actuated from the first by malice, had purposely absconded. Both were unlikely, the first because both the prisoners could practically supply an alibi; the second because it was practically, impossible for the young woman to have gone away without someone seeing her, nor did it appear that she had any money with her beyond a few-francs. . The most plausible explanation, indeed the Only one which sensible people could entertain, was that the unfortunate creature in her emotion and terror had lost her foothold on the narrow bridge crossing .a. ravine in the olive wood, and had been swept away in the dark torrent underneath which roared away into impenetrable caveß. This short cut to the village was usually avoided on account of the danger, though the water falling over the bluish rocks under the. shade' of the ilex and masses of bougainvilkm and roses, always circled over by flights of rock pigeons, was extremely picturesque, and a pdint of interest for tourists.

And it was not known even whether Madame de Vintimille and returned this way, or by the longer path through the Woods; still this, 'owirig'to the" Impossibility of exploring the falls and the subterranean cares, did remain the only satisfactory explanation of .her disappearance. As to the trial itself, neither Anne nor her brother, as Mrs. Mead had remarked, cut a very good figure; .they had had between them the greater portion of Mr. Landerzeel's fortune, and ft large part of this had been sent regularly to a disreputable young man of whom Anne appeared to be extremely fond—one Georges Legros, of Brussels. This was, of course, worked up by the prosecution as an additional reason for the rturderV 'however, With every appearance against them, the prisoners, after a long; .-tiresome, and emotion?' for sheer lack of definite'; evidenced And, despite his interest in the whole affair, find this long-drawn out triai v boring, and merely skimmed most of it—doctor's evidence, servants' evidence, evidence of police: officers, etc. -*-but he carried away ft very complete idea of the business, the most notable point of which seemed to be <hp disappearance of Madame de Vintimille. What remained of the Landerzeel property had obviously been expended in legal expenses, and Courtoys realised that the brother and. sister -could have little left beyond that original English income, which, at the present rate of taxation, would provide barely enough for them to live on.. , , That they had disappeared after the trial, that Sebastian had resigned his commission, that they had taken another name, all this was understandable to Courtoys; but he could not see why they should have come to Whethamstede, nor why Sebastian should have continued his dead brother-in-law's passion for map collecting. It also seemed curious that a woman of the type ofAnrie was not already adventuring in one of the capitals of Europe in search ,of another matrimonial prize, or at least some gayer way of living than her present seclusion..

Despite her cloudy past, with the one terrible episode, Anne was still Surely audacious enough, clever enough, and attractive enough to have again embarked Ofr some active career* ■ ■ Courtoys returned to Whethamstede more convinced than ever that the Fardels must leave his place. „ No doubt they would make it very difficult for him, but, after all, the final say was with him, and he intended to exercise his power. To say the least of it, the woman was the heroine of no very savoury story, and-to say..the worst, there was the suspicion .- that she might be implicated in a double murder, that pf a helpless old man and-an innocent young woman. For Courtoys had finished" the account of the trial by no'means satisfied with the verdict. He could see that there was not enough evidence for any jury to convict, at the same time some very unpleasant doubts must have been left in the minds of all concerned. - It was the kind of case, Courtoys thought, that in Scotland would have had a verdict of "Not Proven"—that blighting verdict worse than a sentence oidcawo ,„'■ '''■■.-' .-,' '.- •'":-.'"■'•

Courtoys, before the tribunal of his own judgment, held this verdict--"Not Proven"—for these two" people. Certainly there was not very much motive for the murder, for Anne to have had a free hand in dealing with her husband's affairs, and had, indeed, got through most of his money, and in the ordinary course of :events he could not have lived very long, as he was nearly seventy, and suffered from a heart disease which might easily prove fatal. it; was always possible that the accusation was really invented by Madame de Vintimille, who appeared to have been an unbalanced, emotional, perhaps hysterical, young woman. No relations of hers came forward at the trial, and Sebastian said that he' had met her in a London tea shop where she was serving as a waitress.

It seemed rather a foolish marriage for a young man with his Wits about him, and it must certainly have annoyed the shrewd Anne, but Sebastian had evidently yielded to a weak fancy for the : girl's English prettiness. Courtoys had before known of men roguish enough and ambitious enough who had yet made these kind of "love" marriages with some frivolous pretty girl, that usually turfa out so disastrously. Courtoys thought in this instance that a great deal more might have been discovered about the whole affair had Madame de Vintimille been a person of sqme distinction instead of this poor little nobody who was scarcely missed and certainly not lamented, unless in secret by the impressionable Sebastian. All this, of course, was nothing to do witt Courtoys; they had been acquitted, and, if anyone dared to hint a disagreement with the verdict, would be able to claim very substantial damages for libel. B>ut Courtoys had his own account with Anne. The assumed name was perhaps pardonable, but she need not have told him lies, she need not have taken him for so simple, stupid, and unworldly a man that he would never investigate these lies. And he was shrewd enough to'see that a woman of her type would not take any interest in a man in his position without some good reason of her own. She must know that he had no money, end, therefore, must have some other object in view- Courtoys felt very much on his guard. He regretted more than ever that he had told her about Elizabeth Skalkeld, but cool reflection told him. that thia could not lead to very much harm; there was nothing in that piteous little story that Anne could use for any purpose whatever.

As the last train bore him to Whethamstede, Courtoys recalled another little side issue culled from those pages of print; absurd enough, even amusing. It had opined during the trial that Anne Landerzeel was given to occult practices as a diversion; "black magic," the prosecution had roundly called it; and Courtoys remembered the ugly medieval book of devils that Anne had dropped the first evening he surprised her in the terrace-room at Whetamstede Manor House. While Courtoys was looking for an opportunity to speak to the Fardels asd definitely tell them that they must leave the Gate. House, Sebastian presented himself before him and asked for an interview. •„.'"' And then Courtoys, partly -because nt was difficult suddenly to throw in ..this man's face all that he knew of him, And partly through a desire to see how far the fellow would commit himself, decided to hold his tongue and bide his time for a little. They met in the room directly under the attic that contained the maps. Sebastian was really very much as Courtoys would have imagined Captain de Vintimille had he to conjure up a fancy : portrait of that gentleman, from the account of the trial in the newa'paperss This - sleek, dapper plumpness, this neat blonde smoothness, these small features touched to effeminate good looks by the bluish eyes and clear complexion, were all such as might: have been; supposed to belong to the shallow, rather weak,; affected and' commonminded young man that Sebastian de Vintimille had appeared when he was on trial for his life. Ho was just the sort of man that a good conventional education would make of the son of; the: disreputable flashy Belgian innkeeper, and the flighty, stupid, well-born. English girl; that is, he had all the veneer of good breeding, even a certain distinction of manner on top of an inherent -vulgarity of nature— the double . vulgarity, of' the low-born rascally father, and the showy, Undisciplined, vain Upper-class mother. Courtoys could imagine also that he would be very likely to turn the head of a tea-shop, girt with what she would term his "foreign ways'Y no doubt he had called himself "Count," and spoken of his sister's 7 castle in ithe: "Ardennes, and Courtoys felt a pang of pity for poor Rose. Naylor (that had been Madame de Vintimille's 'maiden name) when she found how her ignorance had been deceived,.and:in what ft depressing life She had-involved herself*

A great deal, Courtoys thought, must have gone to lead up to that wild fit of hysterics in the police-station at Le Hanne, and ho could not keep some coldness out of his manner to hla visitor. (To be continued daily.)