The MYSTERY of No. 13a

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 210, 6 September 1927, Page 18

The MYSTERY of No. 13a

CHAPTER XXVI. 'Allow me." remarked Dampierre quietly. % He crossed the room to the bed where the body lay, inert and s£ill, and, bending down, plucked off the pointed, black ! beard with a jerk and revealed the smooth-shaven countenance which was underneath. There was a look of hopeless terror and despair on it which death had already fixed forever. "I must." Dampierre confessed, "admit that the sight of the beard gave me an ugly sense of shock for a moment. It was wonderfully life-like." "Wonderfully," Inspector Pym agreed as he stood looking down at the bed. "It is Mason, of course?" Dampierre nodded. "It was disguised like that," he explained, "that he would allow himself to be seen occasionally in order to create conflicting reports. For instance, he went one afternoon and stared in at the window of his tailor's until someone there happened to notice him. At that distance and through glass, you see, it was quite impossible for anybody not to be deceived."

There was a silence for a moment. All three men stood gazing down at the body on the bed until Inspector Pym abruptly cleared his throat. He was too accustomed to the sordid and tragic in life to be impressed by what had happened. He turned to the constable with a gesture of impatience. "Fling a sheet over him," he. said brusquely. "The man is dead and there is nothing else to be done so far as he is concerned till the inquest. The house, of course, will be guarded "by constables detailed by the division. I the meantime I think we had better see what we can find. The accomplice seems to have succeeded in getting away." The constable saluted. "Is it necessary for me to remain on duty here, sir ?" he asked. "No, no, of course not , . Merely see that everything is securely locked and wait downstairs till you're relieved or the body is removed to the mortuary," Pym replied. He led Dampierre out of the room and started descending the stair, looking round him curiously. In the daylight, feeble though it was, the neglect and need of attention was evident everywhere. The paper was loose on the walls, there was dust on everything. Pvm shrugged his shoulders. "I should have noticed it that afternoon we came here," he muttered.

Dampierre said nothing. It was a truth which required no answer. He lighted a cigarette. "I presume," he remarked presently, "that we will be able to take some steps with regard to Miss Chilton's investments, which this man appears to have converted quite generously to his own

use." "Oh, yes, merely a matter of form. "I'm afraid there won't be much left.' Inspector Pym made a gesture with both hands. "A good deal of the money, he declared, "can be easily traced. I • have already sent some of our people CI J), "to make inquiries in the city.

Dampierre nodded. "That is excellent, Inspector," he said. Wondering about the girl who had passed him on the stair when he had crept into the house two nights before, Dampierre puffed at his cigarette without speaking as they continued their way downwards. She was, he felt, more a tool than an accomplice in spite of her calm assurance, and he fotund himself hoping a little that she had indeed managed to make her escape, when he saw her waiting in the custody of the constable who had been left in the basement, at the foot of the stairway. It was, oddly enough, the first time he had really looked at her, he reflected, as that afternoon she'd answered the bell when he had called with Pym he had not even noticed her, and he now gazed at her curiously. She was a tall, slim, foreign-looking girl, dressed in a dark blue coat with fur collar and cuffs, which emphasised the dusky pallor of her skin and the depths of her sombre eyes, and Dj-mpierre observed that she was carrjing a dressing-case of alligator skin. Evidently, they had been interrupted at the very moment c«f flight, and her glance, as it encountered his, was sullen and vindictive. She was quite undeniably beautiful, very beautiful, but there was something exotic and sen'suous, even dangerous about her. "Hullo!" exclaimed Pym. stopping short oft the last.step. "Where did you pick up this lady, Larkins?" "'lding in the basement, sir. In a cupboard at the back o' the "ouse." Pym looked at her sternly. "Well, my girl, whoi are you, and what are you'doing here?" he demanded. She shrugged her shoulders scornfull/. 'Is there," she asked, "any particular reason I should tell you?" "Look here. Tin a long-suffering man," said Pym slowly. "I've got to be. But if fou can't remember that the game's up* I think you will be rather sotry in the end." . He handed her his card. "I suppose." he went on. turning to Dampierre. "this is the woman?" Dampierre nodded. The girt looked from one to the other. She seemed suddenly older, haggard. "Tell me," she said in a low voice, "has —has he got away*" "I'm afraid he's dead." replied Dampierre as gently as he could. He was sorry for the girl, tremendously scirry, now that she had been left alone to face the consequences of the whole affair entirely by herself, in spite of the fact that it had been she who had first proposed having him murdered ouietly in cold blood. She seemed so utterly friendless and alone. He saw that there were no tears in her eyes as she faced him. incredulously almost, her bosom heaving, but there was a look of despair on her fac-e which was infinitely more t'-fl.sie and terrible. "It is. perhaps, the Wst thing that could possibly happen." h? went on jVjndly. "I do not wish to bo unkind. b u t remember the alternative." She turned awav with a dry sol) wliiel: rai-ked her brclv like a shudder "Dead, dead," she murmured brokenly. "It is my duty to warn yon that any statement "you may make may be used as evidence* against you," Inspector Pym declared, "but I think that if you were to assist us in clearing up tiie last tew details it would probably be of service to you later." She stood for a moment with Her head bowed, her face averted, without speaking. Then she shrugged her shoulders.

"What is it that-you-want to know?" she asked dully. "Now he is—he's dead Sf%,not care' what happens to me.

Again she shrugged her shoulders

Inspector Pym brought out a note book from his breast pocket.

"Perhaps you would be good enough to tell what happened the night Sir Bartie Armstrong met his end? - ' he asked.

"They had a row, all three—Huntley. Sir Bartle and—and Harry. It was .Tbout some money, and in a lit of drunken temper Huntley struck Sir Bartle over the head. He thought he'd killed him, and rushed madly out into the fog and left us to do what* we could."

She 'broke off to look up at Pym. 'Do you think I could sit down?" she asked. "I am not feeling very well." "Certainly," replied the other. "We will go in the dining room, and the constable here will fetch vou a "lass of water." * °

When she had drunk a little of the water she was given she put down the tumbler and continued.

"I had been living here with Harry for months as his wife, but posing to callers as the maid, for we did not want outside, inquisitive servants here to spy on our actions and betray us," she explained, "so there was nobody in the house. Somehow or other we got Sir Bartle upstairs on a bed in one of the rooms at the back. On regaining consciousness he threatened us, and—Harry killed him. I had gone downstairs by then, and Harry came down immediately to tell me what he had done, and we decided we must get rid of the body without the least delay. As it happened,* it was a foggy night, very black and dense, and as it was also very late we were probably safe from interruption. Harry had a stiff drink, and then we went out to the garage together for

his car. I went with him because I did not want to be left alone in the house with the dead man upstairs. 1 was afraid," she added unemotionally.

The inspector nodded. "And then what occurred?" he prompted.

"In our haste we must have left the door just off the latch, so that when that man there came here by mistake he got into the house before he discovered that the key he had was not the right one, and that he was in the wrong place. He was gone, of course, by the time we came back—it had taken us, you see, over an hour in the fog. Wrapping the dead body in a big fur rug, we put it on the floor at the bottom of the car and drove down into the country to a remote farmhouse Huntley owned, which he used sometimes as a shooting box and sometimes for other things. It was a long, difficult drive, for we had to go terribly slow, and with the greatest care. The lights seemed quite useless, and it was only by feeling our way along the road "that we finally arrived at all. However, we did, and buried the body under the floor of one of the outhouses by the light of a lantern we'd found in the house. We managed to get away without being seen, for the farmhouse is a lonely one, and it is several miles to the nearest village. Though it was light when we left, we saw no one either on the road or in the.fields, and we drove some distance before we stopped for breakfast and a wash. Wlheu we saw Huntley that evening we continued to let him believe that he had kiUed Sir Bartle in order to keep him quiet, as he was getting rather tiresome and out of hand." She stopped again and covered her face with her hands. A sob shook her, and she seemed so desperately friendless and tragic that Dampierre was moved to fresh pitv.

"I think," ho murmured, "that the Inspector would allow you a' few minutes' rest if you find the strain of gonig on too much for you just now." She looked up and shook her head. "It is nothing," she declared. ''I may as well linish and get it over with. There isn't a great deal more to explain, anyway. Harry, who was wonderful in such tilings—ah, he was always wonderful, Harry!—used to make himself up so thet he looked just like his halfbrother and then let himself be seen occasionally by people who'd known him—though always at a distance to avoid the risk of being spoken to. It was done with the purpose of gaining time, so that Harry could collect all the money he could before we escaped forever lroin this land of fogs and cold, and went off to the home far away we'd made a long time ago. And we would have succeeded, too." she-added, "if that man there had not blundered into the house on that night of fog. It was his chance intervention and persistence what taede Uβ f*il."

But, with 'a nod to Pym, Dampierte had already stole quietly from the room. He could do nothing more, he could be of no further assistance, and he knew that Enid "wa* still waiting outside in the taxi for him. She smiled at him as he opened the door. (To be concluded.)