"MURDER BY LEGACY

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 38, 14 February 1931, Page 12 (Supplement)

"MURDER BY LEGACY

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. DICK TARLTON was left a legacy. It consisted o£ certain concessions in Nevada and had to be claimed by a given date. He decides to go to Nevada j and claim it. He is accompanied by his friend, CARL RAYNER. They leave for Paris, but on the day before they are due to sail for America Tarlton wakes to find the body of a man, who has been stabbed with his tiepin, in the room. Although he protests his complete innocence, Tariton is arrested for murder. Rayner appeals to a wellknown lawyer, and with his help Tarlton is released on bail. But the boat-tram to Cherbourg has already left. In desperation they take a car. They are approaching Cherbourg when, suddenly, there is an accident. Another car appears out of the night, however, and its occupants, a man and a girl, offer to take the two friends to Cherbourg. They arrive at the docks to see their ship steaming out of the harbour. Tarlton and Rayner return to London. Then follows a series of mysterious happenings to Tarlton. CHAPTER VII. Strange Happenings in London. This is to tell of some odd occurrences which took place in London after Dick Tarlton and Carl Rayner came back from Cherbourg. Tarlton told me them long afterwards, in their order of sequence, and though he -understood their true and complete significance at the end, this series of_ "accidents" puzzled him at the beginning'. The first thing was the affair of the building. Every morning Tarlton was m the habit of walking from the Cecil, where he stayed, when in London, to his club, The Rovers. He had noticed vaguely on one of the first mornings after his return to London that the top part of one of the Strand buildings, by which he passed, was in course of reparation or enlargement. About a week after his Cherbourg adventure he was passing along to The Rovers one forenoon, when a, portion of the masonry fell on to the pavement and, though it was not of huge dimensions, might have caused a serious accident. As it was, it missed Dick by inches, and gave several passers-by the shock of their lives. That was the first thing—though _at the moment he regarded it as nothing more than an ordinary accident The second queer incident happened about three days later. He was at the club with Carl, one night, and they had been talking as usual, over the mystery of the murder in the hotel in Paris, and the whole bizarre business. Dick looked at his watch and found it was half past eleven. He decided to go home. Outside it was raining, a thin drizzle, and he decided to refresh himself by walking to his hotel, as he liked walking in the rain. He strolled along Pall Mall till he came to the corner of the Haymarket, where he decided to cross the street. He stepped into the road, and the next instant leaped back slipped and fell. He picked himself up, wiping the mud and water from his hands, and looked after a large car which was disappearing in the night. The car had come behind him at a terrific speed. It had narrowly missed killing him and it was impossible that its driver had not observed what he had done. Dick Tarlton went the rest of the way home by taxi. A couple of nights later, at the club once more, he was telling Carl about this. "I'm nearly certain," lie finished up, '•'that that car must have accelerated, suddenly, just as I stepped into the road. What do you make of it?" "I expect the driver was drunk," said Carl. "There doesn't seem to me to be any other explanation. What other explanation occurs to you?" Dick puffed thoughtfully at a cigarette. "No, I suppose you're right," he said, at length. "But Ido seem to have been having my share of accidents lately, don't I?" "Lord knows, that's true enough, old man," said Rayner. "Both of us have had our share of thrills, for the matter of that. All the same there's no sense in dramatising ordinary happenings because of that legacy business." "No, I suppose not. Anyway, I don't see how the legacy can have anything to do with anything that happens now. The legacy is definitely off." "By the way, have you informed the French police that you didn't go to America, after all?" Dick nodded. "I wrote to Duval. He's doing the necessary." "It's somewhat odd they haven't a clue to the murderer of that man yet. Of course the English newspapers give the thing no more than an occasional paragraph, in any case." "I've seen, the French newspapers, too. There's nothing fresh, though, no doubt, the police' are working in their own mysterious way. I was grateful to Duval for managing to-keep, my name out of the Press accounts of the ghastly business, anyway, though how he managed to do it is beyond me. It couldn't be done in England." "He's very clever, that bird," said Carl, judiciously, "find he has so much influence in so many different directions that he seems to do what he likes." Dick rose. "I am going home. You staying?" >;• . "For a while yet. I haven't far to go when Ido go, you know. I hope you get a taxi in this fog." • "So do I, though it won't be any faster than walking to-night" The club porter found a taxi and Dick told the driver to go by the Embankment as the lessened traffic there might enable them to get along a little more quickly and with less danger of accidents. Tarlton pulled up the windows and. lit a cigarette. It was a first class London fog. It was yellow and penetrated through chinks and crannies into the eyes and nose and lungs. The car went along slowly, every now and then meel'mg something shadowy which appeared out of the mist, suddenly, with what looked like two burning eyes and crawled past them. Tarlton could barely distinguish the outline of the Embankment and the lights in the lamps seemed suspended, mysteriously, without support in mid-air. It was a real brooding, all-enveloping "London particular" thought Dielc, looking out towards the river, a perfect night for tho Spirit of Mysterious Crime to creep forth from his hiding place and stalk abroad without fear of detection. And then something on the other side of him attracted his attention. Something dark and shadowy had. come out of the fog on the left side of his taxi,

By W. A. SWEENEY.

travelling slowly, in the same direction. It fell back for a minute and then drew alongside again, this time dangerously close. Dick was wondering, amazedly, if it were possible that, the driver of this car did not see his taxi or its rear light, or was in some way misjudging its position, when, suddenly, the thing happened. The interior of the car alongside was in darkness while Dick's was lit up. As he looked he saw the window of the other car go down and a hand stretch forth, mistily. There was a dull 'plop," a noise of broken glass and the next moment Dick Tarlton was lying on the floor of his taxi. At the sound of the breaking glass his driver stopped, jumped out and stood staring stupidly at his fare lying on the floor while a trickle of blood was staining the carpet of the car. . "Good God, sir!" he ejaculated. '"What's wrong? Are you hurt?" Dick picked himself up and smiled cheerfully. "If I didn't possess a charmed life I would be," he replied calmly. He looked ruefully at his finger, from which a small piece of flesh had been neatly chipped away by a bullet. "It is also quite certain that if I hadn't dropped the way I did I should now be seriously hurt, my friend." He glanced out, but there was, of course, no sign of the mysterious car whose occupant had tried to shoot him with a revolver fitted with a silencer. "But what was it?" demanded the mystified taxi-man. "Only somebody who doesn't like me," replied Tarlton. "I'm sorry about your window, though I believe that glass may have saved my life. But that bullet made a mess of the cigarette I had in my hand. Would you please continue, driver. I don't want to breathe this fog any longer than I can help." The driver, completely bewildered, and not a little shaken, got upon hi 3 seat again and Dick Tarlton, wrapping his handkerchief round his finger, sat back, hi eye-lids contracted in a fashion he was accustomed to adopt when he was doing a bit of particularly hard thinking. "Another accident," he said softly, "I wonder what the next one will be and what the devil it means." That night before going to sleep he came to a certain decision. CHAPTER VIII. What Happened in King's Road. The next day was still foggy, and Dick Tarlton stayed indoors, lunching in his hotel. In the afternoon he rang up Carl Rayner, and asked him if- he could come to dinner with him. "Righto. Where?" said Carl. "Meet me at Sloane Square Tube Station. We'll eat in that restaurant in King's Road where we used to go when I lived up that way. Be there at seven. We'll dine early." "Very good. Till this evening." The little restaurant in King's Road was one of the relics of the days when Dick was passing through the artistic phase (before he took to travelling about) common in the lives of young men of his stamp. It was not, however, an inexpensive Bohemian resort for young people in side-whiskers, queer-looking trousers and lots of hope and unsold pictures. Bohemia appealed to Dick Tarlton for a while, but inferior food never did at any time, and, with the means he possessed, he was sadly out of place in Chelsea. As the artists who received thousands of pounds for a picture do not, as a rule, live in Chelsea (any longer than they can help) the restaurant where he and Carl proposed to dine saw but few of them, and those few were personages of international reputation, giving ladies of doubtful reputations the evening of their lives at a cost which would have fed one of their poorer brethren for two or three weeks. Carl, muffled up against the fog and cold, was waiting for him at Sloane Square Station. As they walked up King's Road, he said something about coming such a distance to eat. "Well, this place is quiet and out of the way," said Dick. "I'm rather tired of the great open spaces of the West End ■ and I wish to talk in comfort. I've a lot to tell you." When the dinner; was ordered and the wine • selected, Tarlton said, "I had aijothr accident last night." He held up his bandaged finger. "What do you mean? You cut your finger?" • "No," said Dick, cheerfully. "I never need butt in in my accidents. They're always arranged for me. This was done by a bullet intended, no doubt, a more important part of my anatomy. "Good God!" said Carl, staring at him. "What's the story, Dick?" Dick then told him of the adventure of the taxi-cab the night before, and his friend listened gravely. "Now," said Dick, "you can hardly say, Carl, that I am dramatising ordinary occurences, when I suggest that it is hardly commonplace for a man to be shot at from a car when he's going home peacefully to his bed. If it were in Chicago I'd say it was simply one of tlni gangs taking an evening's practice; but this is London. And this sole, by the way," he added taking up some on his fork, "is excellent." "But what in the name of everything does it mean?" asked Carl "You take it all more lightly than I should, assure you." ' "I can't tell you exactly what it means but I can tell you something else interesting. It is this. I nave come to a decision. I'm going to America, in any case, just to see what that legacy was all about." "You're going to America? For Heaven's sake don't do anything of the kind." ''Why not?" demanded Tarlton, helping himself to wine. "But why go? It's too late now, anyway, you say. If I were you, Dick, I'd clear off into the country somewhere and forget about that damned legacy for a few months. Your thirst' for adventure seems to me to border on the morbid, so say the least of it." "I wish to go now through curiosity," said Dick, calmly. "Since I of that legacy my young life has become as eventful as a schoolboy's idea of what should win tie novel prize for 1 literature. Therefore I wish to satisfy ■ my curiosity regarding the legacy. How- ' ever, I'm not asking you to come, Carl, , if you don't wish to." ,

"Why, of course, I'll come," said Carl, "if you wish me to come, but upon my soul, I think that legacy is best forgotten." "But don't you see," said Dick, leaning forward over the table, "that I can't run any greater risks by going to Nevada than I seem to be running by staying in London?" "That's true enough, and that's why I advise you to go into the country somewhere. By the way, have you gone to the police about that affair of last night?" Dick shook his head. "I've had as much to do with the police recently as I want, thank you." Carl Rayner ate in siience for a while and then he said, "And you're determined to go?" "I am. And immediately'" "Immediately? But why this hurry?" "Well, when I say immediately I don't exactly mean after the coffee. The day after to-morrow, possibly, if the sailing arrangements suit. And you'll come with me?" "Oh, yes, I'll come with you as I started on the thing with you. But your curiosity rather reminds me of the pastime of going swimming among sharks for the satisfaction, intellectual or otherwise, of studying the formation of their jaws when they open them." Dick Tarlton laughed. "Well, that's settled," he said. "I'll look up the sailings to-morrow and—Good God!" He had stopped suddenly and was staring at ,the doorway of the restaurant with an expression of sheer amazement on his face. Through the doorway two people were passing. They entered and, preceded by the headwaiter, turned to the left and made their way to the upstairs dining room. "What's up?" asked Carl, looking at Tarlton in bewilderment'. Then he turned his head and looked in the same direction as the other. "What are you looking at?" he demanded again. Dick had now taken his eyes from the doorway. "I was just looking at two people who have gone upstairs." he said, quietly. "What about' them? You looked as if you had seen two ghosts." "Well, for a moment they certainly did seem something like that to me. Do you know who has just come in to thite quiet restaurant, Carl, out of the fog?" "No, I don't." Tarlton sipped his coffee, and then said: "The Frenchman and his girl companion who gave us a lift on the road to Cherbourg that night." Carl Rayner sat without Saying anything for a while. He was looking at Dick with his mouth slightly open. And. then Dick Tarlton leant back in his chair and laughed long and loudly. "What the devil are you laughing at?" said Carl, at last, his own face wearing a rather scared expression. "How do those two come to be here?" "And how do they come to be in this particular restaurant out of the tens of thousands of eating establishments in London? Ask me something easier. I suppose you'll say it's an accident," said Dick, cheerfully. "It's damned strange," said Carl, and then he turned his head again as if ho expected the Frenchman and the girl to be peeping at them over the staircase. "Drink up your coffee, and well go," said Dick. "I'm going to walk a bit, fog or no fog. And I would certainly like to know why that couple happened in here to-night, my dear Carl. I certainly would like to know that. There's a cheery little public house further down the road, and we'll go there and sit among honest men, and drink ai whisky hot by the saloon bar fire, and see if we can get any nearer to a solution of all these riddles." The public house down the road Avas truly a comfortable establishment; the landlord being constructed, physically, on lines suggesting the cooper's art rather than anything else. Moreover, his w r ife also brought memories . of old engravings, depicting cheerful scenes around enormous barrels in tap-rooms of the seventeenth century. Here, many a night, had Dick sat, in his artistic days, and drunk with the young men who dream dreams and the old men who see visions, especially visions of what they did not do in their youth'. "The fog is lifting," said Dick, as they walked round King's Road. "It will have gone to-morrow—or before that." "There doesn't seem to be much difference to me," said Carl. "It's a beastly night, anyway. But, Dick, why do you ' think, have those two come here ? I remember, now, you saying something in Cherbourg about that Frenchman making us miss the Honoria on purpose. Frankly, I thought you were talking nonsense. The fellow had seemed to ine extraordinarily decent. But—" "I don't say he wasn't extraordinarily decent," said Dick. "He's got a right to come to London if he wishes to." "It's extremely odd that they should : happen to come in to the very restaurant where we were," said Carl, "They i said nothing about coming to England, did they?" "They didn't. But then neither did we. But I've a little theory, my dear Carl. I'm getting good at theories now, after the events of the past week. I'll 1 let you know it when we get to our comfortable armchairs down the road." Carl was fumbling in his pockets. "I've got a theory," he said slowly "that I've no cigarettes." He searched a little longer and then his eye ; caught the lights and sign, faint in the fog, of a tobacco shop on the other side of the street. "Look here, wait for me, Dick, by that lamp post there while I nip across and get. some cigarettes. Don't go farther away than that otherwise I'll lose you in this cursed fog." He crossed the street rapidly and Dick Tarlton strolled on. In spite of his outward calm and cheerfulness he was suffering from an interior tense excitement, not unnatural in a man on whose life there had been an open attempt the night before .and who had come through all he had come through during the past week or so. The arrival in the restaurant of the Frenchman who had appeared out of the night, a revolver in his hand, on the road to Cherbourg, was a startling and, taking into consideration all the recent, nerve racking episodes connected with this illfated legacy, very mysterious happening. Too mysterious, said Dick, to himself, to be accidental. Presently, he would tell Carl all that was in his mind —and there were strange thoughts seething through his mind, confused but definitely there, so that he felt like a madman considering the riddance of a granary infested by sinister vermin, nevertheless, which had to be contemplated bravely in the open. He had stopped by tho lamp and was wondering why Carl was taking so long. Dick was in a hurry to get to the comfort of the hostelry down the road. I From where he stood he couW see its lights—though not too brightly on this night—in the distance. He glanced across at the tobacconist's to see if he ' cou ld distinguish Carl's tall figure com-

' ing towards him in the fog, but saw nothing but an occasional taxi pass and the mist and the light of the shop beyond. Finally, Dick grew 'impatient and crossed the road. Carl could not be all this time buying cigarettes unless he were stocking up for a polar expedition. In any event, if he left the shop and came straight towards the lamp post they could not miss each other. He arrived at the tobacconist's, entered and looked around. There was no one in the establishment but an old man with spectacles, behind the counter, who came forward to serve him. "I'm looking for my friend," ■ said Dick. "I've been waiting for him aciy>ss the street by the lamp post. How the deuce have I missed him?" The old man smiled. "Ah, in this weather, sir," he said. Then, "But how long have you been waiting for your friend?" "About ten minutes," said Dick. "When did he leave here?" "There has been nobody here within the last half hour, sir," said the old tobacconist, mildly, adjusting his spectacles the better to look at Tarlton, and drumming gently with the fingers of one hand on the counter. " But he left me a few minutes ago — just across the road," said Dick. He came straight across here to buy cigarettes. He must have come in here—a tall fellow, in a heavy overcoat." The old man shook his head. "I can assure you, sir," he said, patiently, " there has not been a customer of any kind in here within the past half-hour. And even before that, nobody answering to that description." He stood, there looking at the bewildered Tarlton and still drumming the counter gently with the fingers of one hand. - ' Dick took a deep breath. " Thanks," he said, " I'll see if I run across him outside." He walked rapidly down King's Road to the public-house they had intended to go to. Perhaps Carl would be there. After walking a few yards he turned back to the lamp-post again to make sure that he was not waiting there. But Carl Rayner was not there. Dick turned again and made for the public-house. Why Carl had not, at least, entered the tobacconist's after crossing the street he was utterly unable to conjecture. Perhaps he discovered that he had cigarettes after all, and had turned back. But where had he got to? In any case it was not the moment for conjecturings or- explanations. He must be somewhere about. Dick pushed open the door 'of the saloon bar of the Four Steeples and stepped inside. One glance sufficed to show him that Carl Rayner was not there. To be quite certain, however, he inquired' of the landlord. No. No gentleman answering to his description had come in recently. Carl Rayner, it seemed, had disappeared. (To be continued Saturday next.)