The Fortune-Telling House

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LVI, Issue 41, 24 May 1935, Page 7

The Fortune-Telling House

By AIDEN de BRUNE (Copyright) Author of "The Dagger and Cord," "The Shadow Crook," "Grays Manor Mystery."

AN INTRIGUING STORY OF MYSTERY AND ROMANCE

The lethargy that had held Sam bound during the past minutes was suddenly relaxed. Knowledge came quickly. In that one glance the second man had cast at the old house, the newspaper-man had seen his features. He recognised him— the murderer of the Jay Bird.

"By God!" he exclaimed suddenly. "He's killed him!"

And, as he spoke, the scene changed again. Sam found himself standing by the well, but there was no dead body at his feet, and the moonlight had disappeared. Long evening shadows lay across the gardens, and over the west wing of the house glowed the deep colours of a setting sun.

CHAPTER XVI

"Steady, boy!" A heavy hand fell on Sam's shoulder. He started, struggled, and swayed. Firm hands caught him under the armpits and held him erect. .

"Sam! Sam!" Leslie's voice pierced the mists that still clouded his brain. Shaking his head, in the effort to restore coherent thought; Sam looked down at the girl clinging to his arm, her frightened face raised to his.

"It's—it's all right, Leslie," he said shakily. "I —I've "

"You've been walking in your sleep, young feller." Sergeant Adson's strong voice awoke the echoes of the garden. "Where on earth have you been to? We've searched the house through and through— and then came out here, to find you trying to get' under that group of figures!"

Walking in his sleep! Had those mad phantasies he had witnessed of the years that had passed over the old house been but dreams? They must have been dreams, in spite of their seeming reality. ,

'Leslie was beside him, and she was real and belonged to, his age. He could not doubt that. And Sergeant Adson was real —certainly he was not of the stuff1 of which dreams were made! Yet, m, some strange dimension he could not explain, he had witnessed the building of the well in the garden court; the sealing of it, and the murder of the Jay Bird.

Curiously he looked about the little circle of faces that watched. He looked at Leslie, standing by "his side, her hand slipped in the crook of his arm—and he pressed her hand to his side. Before him, a look of friendly concern on his big, red face, was Sergeant Adson, and beyond him and around them were the faces of the constables the police officer had brought from Southbury for the search when he had learned that he, Sam, was missing.

"You've had a shock, boy," continued the police officer. "Don't you know where you've been?"

"In the attic." Sam spoke without thought. "The woman, Nyall, took me up there after I had been knocked insensible in the cellars."

"Attics? Cellars?" Sergeant Adson looked bewildered. "We haven't found attic or cellar in the place, although we've searched the place again and again for hours."

"I know them." Sam, his nerves quickly steadying, grinned down on the girl. "Leslie, I know more of your old home than you do. Presently I'll show you— —"

"That's all right, boy!" Sergeant Adson spoke soothingly. His glances and actions showed that he thought some chance blow or fall had bemused the newspaper-man's mind. "You've been walking in your sleep,

y'know."

"Nyall gave me something to drink—some drug; that was after she had carried me from the cellars to the attic. She left me asleep— and I must have got up and found my way downstairs, and out here. I "

"Yes?" Leslie spoke softly, holding up a warning hand against the sergeant. "Sam, what did you see?"

"I saw- " Sam laughed suddenly, irresponsibly. "Leslie, you'll think me mad, but I'm stating the simple, honest truth. I saw your ancestors, living in this house. They were celebrating the opening of the well, and the house was furnished and lit, and there were crowds of guests about, all garbed in the costumes of Rufus Darrington's day, and these gardens were full of colour and glory. Then I saw—watched them—as they drank the new water and "

"If they sank a well here and found water, why did they close it?" asked Adson sceptically.

"Why did they close it?—why, because the water was bad." Somehow Sam had not considered that point

before. He had seen Rufus Darrington turn from the well, spluttering and choloric after his first taste of the water, and the reasons for the gestures had not registered on his mind. Up to this moment he had looked upon the varying scenes of his dream as on a passing panorama —but—what meaning lay behind those incidents?

Why had the old well been closed ? Because the water was bad. Rufus Darrington, despotic and hot-headed, had given orders to seal the well and conceal its site with the group of statuary—because the waters drawn from it were undrinkable.

But, if the waters from the well were undrinkable, why had the Jay Bird wanted to re-open the well— and to open it in such a secret manner that what he discovered should be known only to himself? Why had he dug that tunnel to the well, piercing its walls and cutting steps in the under-soil to reach its bottom? Why had he come up to the gardens in the middle of the night, and examined the stone capping of the well?

Suddenly the meaning of the whole phantasy—the meaning behind the Jay Bird's actions—was clear in his mind. He knew! All the pieces of the strange mosaic of mystery he had gathered fell into place and the complete picture stood out, dazzling and amazing in its conception.

"I know!" Sam seized Leslie round the waist, whirling her about in a sudden frenzy of delight. "I know, Leslie! I've solved the whole mystery—the mystery of the Jay Bird's death, and the secret of your old home—the secret of your fortune "

"Five hundred sovereigns!" Sergeant Adson grinned. "That's a fine fortune for a young lady! Why, it won't do more than buy a trousseau."

"There's more than that in it." Sam released Leslie and faced the police officer squarely. "Adson, I want you to keep a strict guard on this house and these grounds until we can get the law to work. There's a fortune here —a, fabulous fortune— and it's all Leslie's! We've all been fooled, thinking the Jay Bird had found five hundred pieces of gold and was hunting for more. He wasn't. That gold,, I believe, belonged to the Jay Bird. He had hidden it here, and in some manner had forgotten just where he had hidden it. When he found it, and I guess he needed it badly then, he became almost delirious with glee, and ran down to the hotel. No, the fortune "

"Here!" The police officer seized Sam by the shoulders and shook him. "Wake up, Laske! You're still dreaming!"

"No, I'm not!" The newspaperman wriggled from under the police officer's clutches. "Let me try and get this straight.",

"The Jay Bird knew he was going to crash financially. Yet, at some date a little before this, he had come acrpss Darrington House. The place had intrigued him and he had read up its history. The story of the opening and the sealing of the well intrigued him. Perhaps he came down here and made some sort of a search, trying to discover why the water had been proclaimed bad. Anyway, he had his suspicions and, knowing that he was going to be I declared bankrupt, he gathered those five hundred sovereigns together and hid them here. He crashed, and faked a suicide, then came down here to hide. How he came to forget the location of his gold horde, I'm not going to try and explain— but that's the only theory that fits into facts. I guess he wanted it for boring machinery—and when he couldn't find it, went absolutely mad for his dreams of a new fortune, one much greater than his old, vanished with his gold. Then, a couple of days ago, he suddenly located his gold and we got on the trail of his secret "

"But what was he after?" asked Adson, in perplexity. "What is there in this old place that's so valuable?"

"The Jay Bird wasn't after yellow gold," said Sam solemnly. "He was after black gold—the black gold that gushes out of the earth in thick streams "

"Oil!" One of the listening constables exploded the word. "Then there's oil at old Darrington House?"

"There's oil here," Sam answered gravely. "The Jay Bird suspected it and went far to prove it. Old Rufus Darfington's action in sealing down the well of 'bad water' shows that the water was contaminated in some manner. Of course, they didn't sus-

pect oil gushers in Australia in those days."

"The Jay Bird had suspected that 'bad water' might be water contaminated with oil. To test his theory—the only way he could test it secretly—he bored the 'tunnel from the foundations of the house to the well. He tapped the well and found the water. He found out. that his theory was right, then set to work to put down some sort of a bore—and it was for that necessary machinery he had cached the. gold. He came up here, to this garden, the night he was murdered, to see if this stone sealing the well was strong enough to form the head of a derrick."

"What's all this about?" A loud, gruff voice spoke from outside the interested circle about Sam. "I'm not going to have all you people trespassing about my property. Get that! Policemen, you? Well, if you're policemen you should know better than to come trespassing on a man's land!"

Jess Markham, closely followed by Arthur Parkinson, thrust through the group beside the old well. Pushing a man aside, he came face to face with Sam.

"You? I told you to keep off my property! Now, get out, or I'll throw vou out on the main road myself! Here, you " He turned viciously on Sergeant Adson. "Don't you know your duty? Turn these people off my land and take your policefools away—or I'll have something to say to your superintendent next time I go to Southbury."

(To" be Concluded)