THE FOURTH MAN

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 116, 19 May 1933, Page 13

THE FOURTH MAN

By R. A. J. WALLING. Author of "Tho Merafleld Wlyrtwy," «Th» Third Deflree," «to., eto.

CHAPTER XXXIIL— (Continued.) «I never see more than I wish to » Pinson replied. "That's a sound man. The poor devil who's g° ne —I 1301-6 no ma^ce - He was a waster, but he was a friend of mine when we were young. He paid hard fnThis ill-doing. Both Selwyn and I were rireoared to treat him handsomely if he loidd keep away from England and from ! PO ple he could bring to misery. But you there never was a chance. He was Suite unbalanced. His letter was a mad letter His conduct that night was the Lduct of a madman. In prison his eyes must have got much worse. He wanted to Soot me, not Selwyn. But he shot Splwth, and no doubt thought it was I i, had killed till the newspapers came nut with the fact. I don't suppose,he tnew one garden from another, or which «rden he was in, fumbling about in the Mm light. Mad! Think of him going to gelwyn's funeral on the chance of ehootjnff me there.' "How did he trace you to Cornwall?" * "As I said just now, through Juan— but no fault of Juan's. He lias letters from the Argentine addressed to the post officc at Bodmin. It was easy for a man hent on discovering Juan to find that out in Buenos Ayres. And I expect our car cave us away about the journey to Porth Ouintle. He was making inquiries about us in Bodmin on Saturday. Juan heard it at the garage. You must remember that, poor and mad as he was. Goggles had 'been a clever chap in his day." _ Marple leaned back as if the subject Tvere done with. He took another cigar and began to smoke. "You know, Marple," said Pinson, "Selwyn must have been a very fine type." "The best man on God's earth," said Jfarplc simply. "I knew him intimately, as I thought —the model of propriety, the pattern of ail npright solicitor, and a highlycultured man. He was a member of my own club. I met him constantly. But I had no idea of his heroism."

"Well, we don't know people half as well as we think we do. Here was young Olver— thinking me a cynical and perhaps a pernicious person, at any rate an enemy of his, and a thoroughly nasty piece of work." "If he only really knew —" "He must never know!" exclaimed Marple. "I've gone through hell in order that he shan't know. Selwyn lost his life so that he should not know. You two have discovered this frightful thing by accident. I won't try to swoar you to secrecy. But if either of you ever liberate the secret you deserve to be cursed in this world and the next. Think of Selwyn. Out of friendship for me and sympathy for the boy, he took him into his firm and gave him a partnership— set him up for life. Gratitude! Simply because Selwyn did not want Evelyn dragged into it before this wretched business was straightened out Olver forgot all about his benefits and went off the* deep end with Selwyn. Poor Selwyn— he nearly let out the secret in his death throes, too. But Olver has not seen the significance of those words. He thinks Selwyn was off nis head at the time. Let Mm think so. Selwyn tried to warn us all through Evelyn. But she did not understand him, either. Let her remain in ignorance." "Rely on us," said Pins.in. "There is no reason why we shouM say a Word of it to anybody." "Good! So that's that." Marple came out with his old formula. "The past is dead. Let's bury it, and look to the future. Selwyn and I had our day, though it was not the bright day we hoped for. I'm past fifty, and I never had a romance. But I love a romance. I see one in the love story of Bernard Olver and Evelyn. Out of evil, you know. Akaster'g daughter and Olver's eon—• nice, clean children, reconciling old quarrels, wiping out old wrong 9, starting again where we started nearly 30 years ago, innocently, with no shadow of the past on them. But if anybody were to show up this secret that romance would be blown sky-high. Why should we insist on visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children?" "It would be a crime," said Pins on. "So, then, it is agreed that the man who killed Selwyn at Waller House was one Pedro Estevan, who sought to kill me in a feud that originated in Buenos Ayres, but killed Selwyn by mistake; that he pursued me here and tried to shoot me; that he confessed to the murder of Selwvn; and that he committed suicide." "Agreed," said Pinson. "Then, let's go to bed now, and hear what Lomax has to say in the morning."

CHAPTER XXXIV. I need not labour the tedious formalities through which we actually were dragged by Lomax and the local police. In the end they adopted the theory established by the confession of Pedro Estevan, and put an end to all the profeedings they had started. Needless to 8a y> the Becond half of the letter of "which they possessed the first was never discovered. Nor is- it necessary to describe the horror we all experienced in the sensational light of publicity that beat 011 us whon the suicide of Pedro Estevan, after an attempt on the life of Marple, became known. Within a few weeks it "*d all been forgotten, and once more we were mere private citizens whose affairs did not interest the newspapers. 1 I drove Olver back to London. He said a great deal about the Way in which had misjudged Selwyn, and Marple, | of> ' I told him he was confoundedly Jucky to have possessed two such friends. "Yes," said he, "but I can never make ®ut why. Why did Selwyn do so much lor foe? Why did Marple run such risks for met I never did anything-for either °f them. There's a mystery, Quitter." I made some appropriate remarks on the folly of looking gift-horses in the niouth, and guided liim away from the forbidden ground. "Call it jose, as Marple would, and be th&nkful you have such an irresistibly fascinating personality," I said, and declined to go any further into speculation.

Thd one troublesome business to get ® ver in London was the last sitting of the Coroner's Court. It returned a verdict of murder against Pedro Estevan, •Argehtiiift seaman. No coroner's juty sat on the body of Pedro Estevan. The Atlantic never gave it up. Evelyn and Joan were anxious for a double wedding. Evelyn had some doubts about the propriety of a wedding ]| | September, bo soon after her guardian's death, and it was in the course I of discussions about tills that Mrs. Olver introduced me to a Mrs. Weeks, "a friend pi Me, [The

uprising of Mrs. Weeks into our little world frightened me. The area of possible discovery of Selwyn and Marple's secret -was being enlarged. A week or two later I trembled again. Marple had invited us all to Milton House to a eort of tea party. And there again I found Mrs. Weeks, with Mr. Weeks into the bargain. I suppose Marple must have seen my astonishment. Across the table he called to me: "I. heard from Juan to-day, Quilter." "How's the shoulder?" I asked. "Quito sound. Do you know what Juan says is the best rule in life, whether you're well or ill, married or single, wise or foolish?" "I expect," said I, "it is 'Calles tu pico.'" "Precisely," said Marple. "I always observe it myself." "But what is it, Mr. Marple 1" asked Joan and Evolyn together. "Tell you one day," he teased them. "It doesn't apply to ladies. They couldn't keep it: Some time or other I'll introduce you all to my little dago philosopher.' But now, what about weddings? I hear matrimony is becoming an infectious disease. As the only confirmed bachelor in the place I feel nervous. I'm itching all over. What a thing it would bti if, after all these years, I should catch it, too!" "Oh, Mr. Marple!" cried Joan. "How lovely." "Look here, Weeks, you're an old Benedict. What say?" Mr. Weeks, a rubicund little gentleman of sixty, with a very deliberate manner, put down his teacup. ' "What do I say, Marple? I always say a bachelor is half a man. But it's never too late to mend." "And you, Bessy?" Mr. Marple turned to Mrs. Weeks. ~»>»«• "I say you're awful, Murdoch, Mrs. Weeks replied. "And vou, Evelyn?" "I say any happiness you could get out of matrimony would not be more than you deserve," said Evelyn cryptically. , . . "Joan has already given her opinion. I'm not going to ask Quilter ; he s a matrimonial monomaniac —judgment quite unreliable. Now, Bernard, speak up!" said Marple. . Olver, seated by his mothers side, put his hand on hers.

"Well," he said, "Marple has asked us all to come to-day so that we may congratulate him. . All tins palaver about our opinions is eyewash. As 1 1C would take the slightest notice o anybody's opinions! Marple has asked my mother to marry him. She has said she will." "Oh!" cried Joan. "My mother has been a widow ever since ! was born, and I never knew my father. Now that Mr. Selwyn is dead there is 110 man in the world I 1> "e better than Marple, and nobody I would rather have for a father. It seems that he knew my mother a great many years asro—before lie wont abroad—and 'lie has been thinking for a long time about plucking up courage to ask her but he hasn't done it till now. 1 m aure he will make my mother happy. And I congratulate them both. "Learned counsel then resumed hi seat after speaking for three hours and a-lialf," said Marple, on a note of gaiety. "Thank vou, Bernard. I couldn t ha\e said it better myself. So now you all The girls squeaked their delight. Knowing what I did, I felt the fu import of this strange manner of making the announcement. Marple and Mrs. Olver were joint possessors of a secret which must at all costs be kept from her son. They had enlisted his sympathy and taken this way of cnfoldhV him in a merciful veil. Pedro Estevan was dead, arid at the bottom of the sea. His ghost must never rise to yex the life of Bernard and Evelyn. I looked at Mrs. Olver, sitting by her son's side. A faint co our her cheeks; but She was the sam °^ ict ? self-possessed woman I had seen that evening when the hue and cry was out for Bernard. She must have a powerful reserve of character, this mother of Bernard Olver, who had fought a hard world for him so many m a ducnprnte single-handed battle for his S had bidden her deserted life under a cloak of widowhood, and even now joining in' a pretence to shelter him from the tragic truth. lUsivnle This autumnal romance of Mai pie and Mrs. Olver was a delicate and to me a pathetic thing. Both of them had earned so much more right to happiness. But Marple's sanguine temper rose above all pathos and made a festival ot his betrothal. He was for that hour tbc ..gayest TTwn, in the ®orld.

The double wedding came off at Kensington in the first days of October. While Joan and I were on our honeymoon in France a letter from Marple overtook us. He said he had been married to Mrs. Olver early one morning at the Register Ofßce, and was motoring in the West. He invited us all to visit him at Polteath, where he had taken most of an hotel. We joined him there at the end of November, and found Mr. and Mrs. Weeks staying with him. The morning after our arrival he gave us the last link in the mystery of Waller House. Having sent Bernard and Evelyn with his own wife and Mrs. Weeks, to explore caves, he engaged the rest of us to smoke with him on the verandah of the hotel.

"I wanted Pinson and Quilter," said he, "to know Weeks and to understand why a man of such irreproachable character outlied Ananias when I told him to. And as there should be no secrets between husband and wife, Mrs. Quilter is welcome to the confabulation." He bowed ceremoniously to Joan. "You ought to know what a husband you've got, Joan," he went on. "Desperate character, dark conspirator, firstclass liar and compounder of felony! And what company he keeps, too! Pinson here—who wouldn't stick at anything to worm out the secrets of his fellowmen and tip the skeletons out of their cupboards! These two fellows with a perfectly diabolical cunning, discovered the identity of the man who killed Selwyn, and tracked him down here, where he tried to kill mc. They dug out the roots of a very old story in which Selwyn and I were both concerned. Wliat I want you to know, Joan, is that, having done it, they agreed like deccnt Englishmen to keep it dark. 'C'alles tu pico,' the pliraso you were so curious about, means simply, 'Keep your mouth shut.' Now, I wanted to marry my wife nearly thirty years ago, but I couldn't because she . wouldn't; she preferred Bernard's father. Bernard's father turned out a bad egg. He deserted her before Bernard was born. And it was Bernard's father who shot Selwyn and tried to shoot me and drowned himself not far away from hero." Joan gazed at him with dilated eyes. "Oh, how horrible!" she said. "So you will see why Selwyn and I were very anxious that, when Bernard's father came threatening trouble, he should not burst into the life of his deserted wife and wreck the happiness of Bernard and Evelyn. And why we were prepared to do or pay anything to get him out of England again. _ And, as we didn't succeed, and all this sorrow came, you will see why we were so set on keeping this knowledge from Bernard's ears and Evelyn's.- The motto foi all of us is 'Calles tu pico.' " Joan shuddered where she sat beside "It's very dreadful','' she said, "but very fine of you." "Fine fiddlesticks!" Marple cxclaimed. "I'll bet there's only one thing Pinson has not got hold of, and that is why friend Weeks was willing to perjure his soul for me." 4 « . . "I'm not a bit curious," said Pinson.

"There is nothing at all in it," said the sententious Weeks. "Marple exaggerates. I am greatly indebted to him. I like him more than commonly. My wifo is Olver's sister —a good deal older than Olver was. We married when he was a boy, and I hardly knew him. But when he went wrong immediately after his marriage my wife thought it her duty to do what she could for the deserted wife. It was not much, because I Was a young man in business, with not too much spare money. Then I had a stroke of ill fortune a few vears after, and Wo could do nothing at all. My wife went to Selwyn and told him how things were, and lie wrote to Marple. Since that day Marple has—" "That'll do, Weeks," said Marple. "That's the end of the story. Supplements barred." "Since that day," Mr. Weeks ploughed on. "Marple has provided everything for Mrs. Olver, and done it all through my wife, unknown to anybody else. We feel guilty of taking credit that's not our due, but Marple would not have a word Baid," "And what's more you've said a lot too many words already, Weeks. I only wanted Pinson to see the last link in the story he guessed so damnably Well. Now/Joan, what's the motto?" Mum's the word," said Joan. "But, oh, Mr. Marple, you are a dear!" Marple took the whole party, before we broke up, to see Tregeaglc's Pool and make the acquaintance of Juan. The little man was overwhelmed by the compliments Marple had to translate for him on his fight with Pedro Estevan. But of all his visitors, the one he chose for reverence was Mrs. Marple. "Deseo toda felicldad a la ama lionrada," he said, bending over her hand. "He's wishing good luck to his honoured mistress," Marple explained. Where Mrs. Marple went Juan's eyes followed her like the eyes of a devoted dog. We walked along the shore of the lake and came to the tiny bay where Pinson and I had found the footprints of Pedro Estevan. They had long since been washed away. Our eyes met as the girls ran chattering across the tiny beach, and the words, "Calles tu pico" formed themselves on our lips at the same moment. (The End.)