INVITATION TO MURDER

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 11, 13 January 1934, Page 8 (Supplement)

INVITATION TO MURDER

♦ ♦»♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»»♦ <By J. R. WILMOT♦ ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦»♦«♦♦»'

CHAPTER XX. Who Is Birtles ? Inspector Curtis Burke looked at the watch on his wrist and compared it with the clock on the mantel. "Ten-fifteen," he grumbled. "Our young friend appears to have changed his mind." "You expected him to come?" inquired Sergeant Forster, in a noncommittal tone. Burke nodded. "Yes," he admitted. "I thought he would have come through." Just then came a knock on the door of the room, and in response to Burke's "Come in," the landlord entered. "You're wanted on the telephone, Mr. Burke." "That Mr. Burke?" a man's voice asked from the other end. "Inspector Burke speaking. Who are you ?" "This is Grenville, Mr. Burke. Can you tell me what's happened to my eon. I understand he had a talk with you yesterday. Did he or did he not?"

"He certainly did," Burke told Sir John. "In fact, he said he would meet me this morning at ten o'clock. I haven't set eyes on him since yesterday afternoon."

"I went to bed early last night," Sir John told him. "He hadn't come home then. I didn't think much about that — he's often late. But this morning when my housekeeper told me he'd not been to bed, well, Burke, what's to be done about it? lan's not the sort of boy to go off like this without a word , ." Burke was silent for a moment. He was thinking, quickly. "I shouldn't worry if I were you, Sir John," he said. "Lan can very well look after himself. But if it will prove any comfort to you, I'll have inquiries made immediately. • I'm quite sure in my own mind that nothing serious can have happened to him." "lan Grenvillc's vanished! . . . not been home last night . . . not seen since he left here yesterday to all accounts," Burke told Forster as he re-entered the room.

"What do you think, sir?" Forster looked apprehensively at his chief. "Is it an accident, sir, or just sheer dirty work?"

"That's what we've got to find out, Forster," said Burke. "I can't help thinking that the young man's disappearance is due solely to the fact that he knows more than we do. He knew something when he was here yesterday; I could swear to that, and it'e something to do with the case. Well, this is where you do a spot of work, Forster. Circulate this description to all stations and then make your usual inquiries in the neighbourhood. I'm off up to the Grange. I wonder how Miss Pamela will take the news?"

For a moment or two Burke busied himself giving Forster a meticulous description of lan Grcnville, and, as a test of his observation, gave an even more minute description of the clothes he had been wearing when last seen by the detective.

Leaving the sergeant to get on with his job, Burke made his way to Blacon Grange. The first person he met (the first person he moet particularly wanted to meet, in fact) was Birtles. Burke did not share his colleague's pessimism about Birtlee. "Good morning, Birtles. No, not yet," as the butler moved away towards the lounge, "I want a word or two with you." Birtles paused, mystified.

"I suppose, Birtlee, you are aware of Sergeant Forster's suspicion about you. Is there any truth at all in this?" Birtles looked relieved. "None whatever, sir. Clinton Birtles is my halfbrother, bo to speak, sir. People used to make funny jokes about the similarity in our appearance. As I told Sergeant Forstcr, sir, I was in South Africa at the time my half-brother was sent down from Manchester." "And you have not seen or heard from him ... for how long, Birtles?" "Just after the Armistice, sir. Wβ met in London. He was a 'con' man. I was invited to join the 'syndicate,' sir. I refused. Was it Mr. Vance you wanted to sec, sir, or Miss Pamela?" Burke laughed. "You're priceless, Birtles. I think I will see both of them this morning." Burke was shown into the lounge, where once again he sensed the atmosphere of tension. "Good morning," greeted the detective, "I'm so sorry to trouble you two good people again. I know you consider me an infernal nuisance, but I've lost someone. I suppose you haven't seen him, have you?" "Seen whom?" aeked Pamela. "Mr. Grenville —Mr. Lan Grcnville!" Pamela's eyes opened wider. "Ian!" she cried. "What do you mean, Mr. Burke? What do you mean when you say 'lost' him ?" "That's what I want to find out, Miss Pamela. I understand that yesterday morning you two had a good talk together. What you talked about is your own affair and doesn't concern me in the slightest, but if I may venture a guess I rather fancy it concerned your engagement to Mr. Delisle and also the trouble we all find ourselves in. Now I put it to you, Miss Vance, that if you gave Mr. Grenville information which you have denied me it is possible that, by so doing, you have placed his life in very real danger." The girl was breathing, heavily and her eyes strayed towards her father, who sat in his deep upholstered chair listening quietly but intently to the dialogue. "But I don't see how my conversation with lan could have done any harm. It eecins incredible, Mr. Burke."

"The fact remains, young woman, that he's gone. He disappeared apparently last night. His father 'phoned me half an hour ago to say that he had not been to bed. In fact, he has vanished as quietly and as mysteriously as it is possible to imagine. And what is more, we have not the slightest clue ae to his whereabouts." "But why should they try to get Ian?" asked Pamela. "He didn't know anything until ..." She paused, realising that already she had said too much. Burke fixed the girl with a steady stare. "So there was something to know, eh?" Pamela crossed to where her father was seated and sat on the wide arm of his chair. "There was and still is, Mr. Burke, she replied. "But you haven't yet told me the reason for lan's disappearance." Burke dropped down on to a divan 'facing father and. daughter.

"There are several reasons why he should disappear, but I will deal with only one of them. Has it not occurred to yon that whatever you told him yesterday has been the means of placing perhaps his life in danger? Pamela strangled a cry and her father placed his arm around her waist. "Supposing, Miss Vance, that what you told him gave him an idea. Suppose it suggested to him the identity of the person who had killed Martin Stone, and further than that, the murderer, realising that Grenville knew, decided, for the sake of his own safety, to remove the young man from a sphere of activity which might make him a danger." "I see what you mean," Pamela admitted in a quiet voice. "Everything does seem in an awful tangle. What shall we do, Mr. Burke?" "The solution is a simple one. There is etill time for Mr. Vance to tell me the whole truth about last Tuesday. I'm here now to hear all about it." Vance leaned forward in his chair. "I think you're right, Mr. Burke. I can see now that I've been a fool. Yes, I'm going to tell you—everything. But when you have heard it I am sure you will agree that my silence—our silence, perhaps, I should say—had at least the merit of good intention."

Burke heaved a sigh of relief. At last he was going to get at the truth. He looked at the girl. She remained passive, apparently in agreement with her father's belated course of action. Curtis Burke listened intently while John Vance told his story, and with the telling of it the inspector's interest grew. Mentally he pictured each small incident, and when the recital had finished Vance remarked, "So you see, Mr. Burke, what an awkward position I was in. I suppose my telling you does not alter the seriousness of the situation so far as I am concerned."

Burke pondered the problem. It was certainly an amazing story . . . the neatest plot he had ever encountered —a plot conceived by a master mind.

"I shall have to think things over," Burke told him, "but I still think it would have been wiser to have been perfectly frank with me from the beginning. You see now I have the addition of Grenville's disappearance, which I am convinced is not unconnected with the story you have just told me. Now let us get down to facts. You will let me have the weapon, of course. That is vitally necessary." Vance nodded. "Well," proceeded the detective, "can you tell me anything more about this Mexican society ? You see, Mr. Vance, whichever way we look at it, we cannot absolve Mexico, whether it be oil or purification." Vance explained in greater detail the facts about the eociety to which he had belonged.

"And you know of no one to-day who was also a member of that society?" "I have thought over the matter every day since receiving that letter, Mr. Burke, and I cannot recall anyone who might have returned to England." "Yet someone must have the information," Burke persisted. "Someone must have knowledge of your connection with the movement. We have got to find out who that 'someone' is. Now, when you heard Stone's voice over the wire, did it sound apprehensive?" "I knew Stone well, Mr. Burke. At one time wo were bosom friende, but during my final year in business we had a disagreement. I did not like some of the stock he was handling and made no bones about making known my dieapproval." " And have you seen him since then ? " " Never. I did not wish to see him and I am equally certain he had no desire to see me." "The disagreement, then, was a serious one?" "Wo almost came to blows. Stone threatened to fling me from his office." "As bad as that! It strikes me, Mr. Vance, that there's someone who knows a whole heap about you and your relations with Stone. You can't think who that can be?" Vanco shook his head. "I've been trying for a week," he said, despairingly. "And now may I see the weapon?" asked Burke, rising. Together they ascended the stairs to Vance's bedroom. Vance crossed to the bureau and took the weapon, still wrapped in the bloodstained handkerchief, from the back of the desk calendar and landed it to Burke. Carefully the inspector unwrapped it, until the dagger lay on the handkerchief. He was careful not to touch it, and after a moment's silent scrutiny he wrapped it up again and placed it in his pocket. "What is the next move, Mr. Burke?" "I shall, of course, have to send this to Scotland Yard," Burke told him. "I shall, too, have to place all the details before the Assistant-Commissioner, but if it is any comfort to you all, I will say this, I believe you are innocent, Mr. Vance, and innocent men need have no fear. You have given me a great deal of important information and I shall act immediately. But there is one thing I want you to promise me, and that is that you will divulge to no one the fact that you have told mo this etory. That is of the utmost importance, especially if the case is such as I visualise it for the moment. I want you to go about your life hero at Blacon just as if you are still hugging your secret, for there is someone who knows that secret as well as you do yourself. Sooner or later that person will come out into the open and show his hand. Until then we have got to wait." Vance gave his promise readily enough. Down below in the hall Pamela was waiting for them. "What arc you going to do about Ian?" she asked Burke, anxiously. Ho drew her aside and epoke quietly. "You don't want any harm to come to lan, do you, Miss Pamela?" Slowly the warm colour flooded her face.

"I love him, Mr. Burke," ehe said, simply. "And Dclisle? . . . You haven't told me about your engagement," he reminded her. "I was intending to tell you, Mr. Burke. I told lan yesterday." Briefly she told him what had occurred, and when she had finished there was a grim setting to his jaw. "Just one word of warning to you, young lady," he said, seriously. "You must on no account tell Delisle that I know anything about it or about what your father has told me, but any further suggestions he may make to you must be told to me as quickly a« possible.'' The girl's eyes widened. "You don't mean . . ." "I don't mean a thing, Mies Pamela. I just want you to do as I ask." Burke left Blacon C4range and went down to "The Sickle." £To Aβ continued gatorday ; Mrt.^;