THE FULHAM MYSTERY

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 113, 16 May 1927, Page 17

THE FULHAM MYSTERY

BY HILDA HINE.

CHAPTER XIX.

A Betrothal. A moment later the door opened and Bainbridge, looking pale and agitated, entered the room. The eight of Dr. Blond and Adela facing each other in the centre of the room evidently took him by surprise. "Adela," he gasped. "You here?' The woman looked at him for a moment and then said, "Father!" Bainbridge laughed nervously. "What do you mean?" he asked. "I don't understand." Nobody seemed disposed to enlighten him and there was an uneasy silence which Blond was the first to break. "This lady is not to blame for my having got away from captivity. 1 obtained my release by false pretences by .giving her an incorrect report of what you and her husband told me." "Her husband?" gasped Bainbridge. "Yes; I understand that the gentleman who seems to be variously known as Parkyn and Rawlings is the lady's husband." Bainbridge turned fiercely to the woman. "Is this true?" he demanded. "What does it all mean; tell me?" But Adela's endurance had been stretched beyond the breaking point. She reeled backwards and Blond caught her in his arms and laid her on the couch unconscious. Totally ignoring the presence of the other man, he looked at the unconscious woman with a professional eye and satisfied himself that it was nothing more than a simple fainting attack. "She will be all right presently," he announced. "Tell me," persisted Bainbridge. "Why did she call me 'father,' and what is this about that man being her husband?" "I told her that you were her father," Blond replied, "and she told me that Rawlings was her husband." "Great heavens!" ejaculated the other, "and how did you know—l mean why did you think that I was Adela's father?" "That was a matter of simple observation," said the doctor. "But the othei news seems to have surprised you." "It horrifies me," Bainbridge confessed. A movement on the couch cut short their conversation. Adela was returning to consciousness and Blond promptly went to her side and was rewarded by a smile which went far to compensate him for all the agony he had recently experienced. Their eyes met and he had the blessed assurance not only that he loved her, but that she returned his love. It was Adela herself who re-started the conversation. "I think it is time we had all round," she said. "We cannot keep Dr. Blond here indefinitely, and I have learned a lot in the past week. I think we should treat the doctor as a friend. He will certainly be a better friend than some to whom we have given that name." "But what is this about Parkyn bein« your husband ?" asked Bainbridge. " "Oh, I spoke wildly. I wanted—well never mind what I wanted. I told a lie? . This answer made Blond feel so absurdly happy that he had difficulty in restraining an impulse to leap and sing. The next-few sentences iihat passed bertween father and daughter entirely eecaped him, so pre-occupied was he with his own joy. When he regained his hold on the conversation, Adela was askin" why she had been kept in ignorance. " "That," replied Bainbridge, "would take to long to go into now." "Where is Parkyn?" asked Adela. That I would rather not say at present."

"Oh, I am tired of mystification," broke in the woman. "Didn't you get my note ? Parkyn is a traitor. He tried to murder me and probably thinks he succeeded." "What!" "I found him in Dr. Blond's house. He had found the secret drawer and had a packet of papers in his hand. The last thing I remember was his pressing his hand3 T On my eyeballs as hard as he could until I lost consciousness. He ™"*S™«g «™ V I went out to the next room and there was an old woman there. I think she took me for a ghost. She went off into hysterics." "And what did you do?" "I just walked out of the house and went to Parkyn's, but I got no answer there." "Has Parkyn any medical knowledge?" asked Dr. Blond, his profesisonal interest keenly awakened by this recital. "He was a medical student," Bainbndge explained, "and acted as unqualified assistant to a doctor for some time But what does all this mean?" "The explanation is simple," said the doctor, "if you know one or two physiological facts. The heart is under the control of a very important nerve called the Vagus. Its function is to slow down the beating. A drug which paralyses the nerve will make the heart beat violently. Belladonna is a drug of that class. If on the other hand you greatly stimulate the vagus nerve you can slow down the heart's beating even down to stopping point. Now hard and prolonged pressure on the eye-balla is a vagal stimulant, Parkyn calculated that in this way he could kill his victim and there would be nothing to show that she had not died of heart failure in the ordinary way." * "My God," said Bainbridge, horrified. "The villain! The unspeakable scoundrel." Adela turned deathly pale and looked as though she would faint again. She pulled herself together however. "And what was the flaw in his argument?" she said. "He was mistaken in thinking that you can cause death in that way. If the heart is weak you may do so, just as you may by fright. A sound heart, however, will escape from the nervous control and beat again. Death is not the same thing as cessation of the heart or there would be no such thing as artificial respiration. Adela looked dead, Parkyn thought she was, just as I did, though I am a doctor. Thank God we were both mistaken." This extraordinary conversation had created a wholly new atmosphere in the room. It scarcely seemed strange to Bainbridge to hear Blond speaking of Adela by her Christian name. The doctor was hie prisoner. He had been brought to the house in an inexcusable fashion after a brutal assault. Yet these three people felt that they were all friends, .nited in a common reprobation of an abominable act. Moreover the two men were united because each loved the same woman—one as a father, the other as a lover. "Now," said Adela, "wlil you tell me where Parkyn is" A groan was Bainbridge'e answer. "And will you tell me why you came to my surgery and what all this myittrr

But Bainbridge interrupted. "We have no time for explanations," he said. "We have to act promptly. I am going," he a Med, turning to Dr. Blond, "to put myself in your hands. I have broken the law. I have done things to you which place me at your nurcy. I shall leave you.and the law to take what course you will. Parkyn is on hsi way to Paris. If we go to the police we can have him arrested when he arrives on a charge of attempted murder. Rather than let him escape " "Wait a moment," counselled Blond. "I do not know what all the facts are, but if you ask the police to interfere everything will come out. Parkyn's attempt, thank God, did not succeed." "You have nothing to fear whatever comes out," said Bainbridge, "your hands are clean." "Whatever hurts Adela, hurts me," retorted the doctor. "But how do you know Adela? What is the meaning of all this?" "Except for a, few moments in my consulting room I had never seen your daughter until this day, but if I do not love her with all that is truest and deepest in me there is no such thing as the love of man for woman." Adela stood silent during this outburst, tears shining in her eyes and 1 a look, at once proud and tender on her face. Bainbridge looked from one to the other bewildered. "Are you Adela?" he asked, "what have you to say to this?" Her only answer was to stretch out her hand and grasp that of her lover. Bainbridge stood amazed. "I should have thought this incredible in real life," he murmured. "You see," said Blond gaily, "we are a family party, and we must hold a consultation. We withdraw all the charges and recriminations against each other. We have to find a common way out. As I am completely in the dark you shall begin by telling me all about it." "You have guessed," Bainbridge began, "that we have been trying to get certain papers in your house. Parkyn, it seems, has got them, and I like a fool have allowed him to go to France with them." "I question that," put in Dr. Blond. "Where was the drawer at which you saw him, Adela?" "Above the fireplace, a little to the left in your upstairs room." "Then the bundle of papers you saw in his hand was nothing more exciting than a set of old examinatior papers. That is a hidden drawer, certainly, but not a secret one. If Parkyn had found what.he was looking for that night he would probably have disappeared at once." "That seems reasonable," admitted Bainbridge, "especially as he had, as we know, a good reason for making himself scarce." "But tell me all about the papers," said Blond.

CHAPTER XX. Bainbridge's Story. "The story I am about to tell you," said Bainbridge, "is a very remarkable one. It touches upon big things, very big things. There are still several matters to be cleared up, and it will be for you to eay how far you are prepared to work with my daughter and myself. "I daresay you know something of Italian politics, you know what fierce passions have been aroused. What I am going to tell you now will be partly news to Adela as well as yourself. She is the daughter of an Italian lady and I am her father. She has been brought up in the belief that her father died when she was a baby. That is not true. He went out of her mother's life at that time because he committed a great wrong. He has since bitterly repented, and he received the free pardon of his wife on her deathbed when she committed her daughter to his care. That is so, Adela?" The girl, deathly pale, nodded her assent. She and Dr. Blond waited in silence for Bainbridge to proceed. "Adela had one brother," Bainbridge's voice trembled as he came to this part of his narrative, and seemed to have difficulty in going on. Adela's face was bent forward, and Blond saw that there were tears in her eyes. "A brother," Bainbridge continued, "a little more than a year older than herself. He was a brilliant young man, full of energy and touched as we all thought with genius. While Adela has little of the Italian in her appearance, her brother Giuseppe took after his mother, and might have been pure Italian. He was as impetuous as he was brilliant. In his early youth he wrote poems. I think they will one day be famous. One day you will hear Adela read them to you." "Well, he was not content with poetry. Would to God he had been! He took up with political ideas. He became a revolutionary idealist, the most dangerous thing on earth. I have seen a big crowd of Italians, men and women, hanging on his words, as he pictured the Italy that he believed in, a new Italy forming a Roman Empire, based not upon might and conquest but upon brotherly love. It was all a dream. All idealism is mockery in the hard world." Bainbridge hissed the words out with an intensity that gave his face a very unlovely appearance for a moment. Blond felt uneasy, and he noticed that Adela, unable to command words, was shaking her head in protest against this doctrine. "It thrilled his hearers," Bainbridge went on, "and I was one of them. I felt proud that this was my son, and 1 would have given much to be able to come forward and claim him. Men said that he would be the maker of the new Italy. He had the enthusiasm of a Garibaldi, the moral force of a Mazzini, and the statesmanship of a Canour. I am hie father, and you may think that 1 am raving, but I believe Giuseppe is the one man who would have saved .Italy from anarchy without plunging her into a brutal tyranny. "The world never heard of him. He lived near Ceglie in the south-east of Italy. Not far from the Gulf of Taranto. "I remember the first time I saw him., I had wandered in many countries and lived a life of which I am not anxious to say anything now. God knows I am not a good man, but I don't think I am entirely a bad one. For two years the desire had been growing upon me to see once more the wife and children I had so cruelly wronged. I didn't expect them to see me or acknowledge me. I had taken steps to be kept assured that they were alive and well, but it was years since I had seen them. I landed in« the Gulf and set out to walk to Ceglie. It was there in the market place that I saw a crowd being harrangued by a young Italian whose ges ticulations appeared to me to be extravagant even for one of his race. I am not very fond of public meetings and speakers, but his voice was extremely musical and there was some personal magnetism about him which made me itop at it seemed to arreit everybody who came witfcixi found of hii rolce. 1

and then suddenly he made use of a gesture which electrified me. It was nothing very elaborate, just a little trick of j throwing up bis arm and throwing back his head. In a moment it brought up before me the face and figure of a proud Italian girl that I had wooed and won many years before. "Trembling from head to foot I turned to an Italian at my side, who was drinking in the words of the orator. •Who is he ?' I asked. I got no answer for my neighbour was absorbed by the silver-tongued orator. I repeated my question and he looked at me in amazement as if wondering at the ignorance of his interlocutor. " It is Giuseppe di Romani,' be replied. "Then I was right. It was her son. When Marie de Romani ordered me out of her presence on that terrible night and I went away like a whipped cur she threw off the name of Bainbridge and became again de Romani. She took her two children down from Piedmont where we had lived, to the South-east and there she and they had lived as di Romani, honoured and loved by the neighbourhood. "After the meeting the crowd hung round in little groups discussing the orator. I went in the cafe and over a flask of chianti I talked to the proprietor. " 'That was a very remarkable speaker in the square to-day,' I said. " 'You may well say eo, , he replied. 'This is his last speech here, for he is going up to Rome and we will hear great things of him. , " 'They say,' I replied, 'that the Faseisti are going to march on Rome. Will he be one of them?' " 'No,' said the proprietor of the cafe, 'for he docs not hold with their ways. They have not enough love. He will teach them a better way.' '"Do you think they will listen?' I asked. " 'But yes,' was the immediately reply. 'Could you help yourself listening today? We shall petition the Mother of God and all the saints for him.' "Now I had seen something of the rest of Italy. I knew the fierce passions that were tearing men's hearts and although I admired the simple faith of these people of Ceglie I felt a sinking at heart. " 'Is he of these parts, this Giuseppe di Romani?' I asked, in a voice that I tried hard to keep steady. "'Si signore. He is the son of the good Marchessa di Romani, who lives on the hill. , "And his father?" "He has no father, the marchese died before they came to these parts. There is a sister.' " 'She is a good woman, but cold. You would almost think her foreign. She reads many books in English they say and that is not good for a woman!' Then fearing perhaps he had been indiscreet he added:—'The signore is perhaps English. He will know that I speak only of an Italian woman.' . "I did not hear Giuseppe speak in public again. The next day he left for Rome and a crowd of cheering people saw him off. But in the morning I accosted him in the street, I told him I was a stranger who was much interested in the affairs of Italy and in the gospel that he was preaching. He heard me courteously but, I thought, with a certain restraint. I suggested to him that perhaps he did not care for the northern races" "He disclaimed this with rather excessive emphasis! 'The same God , he said 'had made us all but it was eot easy for us to understand each other. Italy could only save herself by being Italian. It was a bad thing when one race sought to copy the manner and methods of another just as the curse of God was on the marriage of men and women of different races.'

"I was able to appreciate, though he did not know it, how much of personal experience lay behind this attitude of his. Unlike his sister, he had not been brought up in ignorance of the wrong done to his mother. I was to know afterwards how every time that he saw his sister reading English books and betraying by a thousand and one small signs her northern blood, had pierced him to the heart. He was a big man, and never said a word to Adela about it, but he resolutely crushed everything in himself that was not Italian. The extremist nationalism is always the work of men with foreign blood. "Well, he went up to Rome, and I stayed on at Ceglie- In a day or two I saw Adela in the street. I recognised her at once, and I understood what the good cafe proprietor had meant in describing her as cold as foreign. She was an English woman." It was nearly a week later that I saw the Marchessa. Wβ came face to face with each other at a corner. Recognition was immediate. "'Maria, , I exclaimed. "She went deathly pale, but made no answer, and walked on. "For the next two days I lived in misery. Lone, remorse, and a hundred and one emotions were awakened end battled within me. I debated within myself whether I should present myself at her house. It seemed hopeless and yet it might be that some flickers of that fierce love we had borne each other might linger in her heart. , "My debate was cut short one morning by the arrival of a man servant with a note. It consisted of the word 'Come , in Italian and was simply signed 'Maria'. "I shall not describe that interview to you. Like the great tragedy of my Me it belongs to me alone. I have told you that she forgave me everything. Giuseppe she told me knew everything but Adela was ignorant. She foresaw difficulties with her son who had nourished a deep hatred for his unknown father. When he came back from Rome she would tell him what she had decided and we could take up our common life again. "I can't analyse the feelings with which I left her. How impatiently I waited for the return of Giuseppe. News was hard to get and wild rumours were in circulation every day. One morning I decided to go into Taranto to see my friend who was calling there on a cruise. I expected to be absent two days but as a matter of fact I was away three. On my return I was struck by the sombre faces, I saw around me. In the square where I had heard my son speaking a fewweeks before there was little groups of people talking solemnly among themselves. "Something gripped at my heart. "'What is the matter?' I said in Italian to a woman down whose cheeks the tears were trickling. "'Santa Maria! , she sobbed. They have murdered him—in Rome—the Fascisti have killed our Giuseppe. Madre di Dio he is dead. , " (To be continued daily.)