THE KNIGHTSBRIDGE MYSTERY BY CARLTON DAWE

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 23 January 1926, Page 16

THE KNIGHTSBRIDGE MYSTERY BY CARLTON DAWE

(Author of “Desperate Love.” 4 ‘Euryale in London,” ‘ ‘ V irginia, ’ ’ etc.)

(Chapter 2d Continued.)

Hot- mo fninp to tluit last fatal Sun-,l-iv 1 Rail determined to make one last" appeal to her, ami with that end in view wrote asking her to see me. She ignored the letter. I wrote again., with a like result. Then I decided -o act. 1 knew all about Parkgate Mansions; Frankford, Lovita, you everything. I had you watched; knew of your going away to Brighton for the week-end; knew that she was remaining behind. I saw Frankford arrive at the Mansions; I watched him go. Never had I felt so like killing my man; no, not even over there in France. For, don't you see, he was killing my sister —he and his kind. I knew, it being .Sunday, that at least half the staff would be off duty. If L could elude the porter, Wrightson who probably knew me, who had good cause to know me, I might hope to reach her flat unobserved. Fuck favoured me. or so I thought it at the time. The other entrance was unguarded. I slipped in and up the stairs, meeting not a soul’ by the way. Quickly she answered my ring, and before she had recovered from her surprise I. slipped in and shut the door after me. . A strange meeting of orother ann sister! I looked at her without speaking; noted the change in her; the make up: the suspicious droop about the corners of her mouth. Already the life .she lived was beginning to tell its tale. “What do you want with me A” she asked.

“I have come to talk with you.” “I refuse to listen." “I'm afraid you must. Have you forgotten everything?” “There was so muen worth remembering,'' she sneered. Hut I saw hoi nervousness plainly through her annoyance. “Come,” I said, “we are brother am. sister. I owe a uuty to you ns well =.rto myself.” bo preached at!” “1 won 't preach, but I must ox pm i i . You see, I. know everything.” “Spying on me. Well?” This defiantly. “It’s my own life, isn’t it, and I’ll lead it my own way. I owe you' nothing, and I won’t be dictated to. ’ ’ “But you are forgetting what you owe to yourself. This way you .rc going—do you realise what it means'?” “You naturally' think the worst; y-u would. But I have my way to make in the world.” “You are making it, Poppy.” “ In my own way, which is entirely mv affair.” '“Not entirely. You are my sister, and L must try to save you from yourself.” Then she said: “Who the devil are you to regenerate the world! It doesn't want regenerating—it won’t be regoi: oral oil. It’s a beautiful world for some people, and if von try to alter if they’:! crucify you. Haven't you leniat that inttii yet, or are you quire a fool;’ •‘This man Frankfort!? 1 saw him go jus! now.” •‘Spy —police spy!” she sneered. I “What is he to von.”’ j “A friend.” “Nothing more?” “This is intolerable,” she said. “Will you please go?”

“Constantine Levita another fricnl ’ Black Q.?" She paled under the rosy tint of her make-up.

“I don’t know what you mean.” “I’ll soon have them both under lock and key.” She looked up at me wPli strained anxious eyes. “ Cocaine,” 1 said. “Dangerous friends for a voung girl.”

“Is there no other crime you can charge me with'.*” “Poppy, listen to me. Let them all go; cut. it all out. I am your brother; come and live with me. We are all that’s left, you and J. I’ll make you happy yet. For the sake of our dead mother,” I implored. I believed this appeal had struck home: she seemed to hesitate. It may have been only my fancy but I thought the hard look in her eyes softened. Then she drew herself up stiffly with the old insolence. I saw her father then; saw him and shuddered.

“The proposition does not appeal to me,” she answered coldly. “But to continue this life; do you realise that it means shame, degradation, death?” (She made some wild retort. but I went on: “I know how you are living, and it is useless for you to attempt a denial. You think you a»o mistress of your fate, that you can pull up or go on at will. But you < you can’t! The way you are going m oil ns a life of shame and a degraded death. Already the drug has a hold on you; 1 can see it in vour face.” “ You lie!” she said.

“ You know I do not lie; you know what lam saying is the truth. I have seen many go that way, Poppy; oh, so many. Young girls like you, just beginning life, and brought down so low, so dreadfully low. My dear, see me as you used to see me when you were a child. I think you loved me then: I know l worshipped you.’/ “Oh. have done with this sickening rot.’’ she said. “What can you give me, what do for me—a policeman! I should be ashamed for my friends 'o know 1 had a policeman for a brother That’s how proud I am of your position in the world; so proud that I have never dared mention the unpleasant fact, and I hope you won’t either. And stop this platitudinising humbug, this revolting cant. I. won’t liste tell you I won’t listen to it. And don't look at me like that with tno.-e damned lunatic eyes. I alwavs hated them.’’ Feared them, too, a little, I thought but 1 said: “I have seen many go the wav vou are going; the way'that- leads to 'the death of the soul as well as the body.'' “Oh. my God,” sli'e screamed m auger, “am 1 to be forced to listen 1o such childish twaddle! Death of tne soui! Do you still believe in all that rubbish?” “ Doji ’t you?” “><n. ! don’t; never have since I had ;e:ise enough to think things cut. Wru. •oeld but a fool?” “This is even worse than f thought.” "Then give up thinking; go away; -cave me alone. I don’t wish to see v.m again, to know of your existence. ! ’ll go liiv own way to’the devil if 1 ill to.” ■ ‘ 'i hat you shall not, if T (-an prevent it.” “ You can’t prevent it.” “ I would rather see you lving dead it my lee* .’ ’ So;..ething in iny eves must have frightened her, for she suddenly shrunk from me as though I had struck her. “Go away,” she said, “Those hate ful eyes!”

The End

• ‘You are going straight to hell, and I, your brother, must save you in spite of vourself. ” “1 alwavs thought you were mad, now I’m sure of it. And I’ll go Ul hell if I want to, or anywhere else. < Has the drug already such a hold on you that, you are lost to all sense ot decency?” . . “And I’ll drug, too, as much as 1 like; do what I like; go where I like. There, is that enough for you? ’ “You don’t know what you re say“l know quite well wnat I’m saying and what I’m doing. I don’t interfere with you; why should you try to interfere with me? I tell you I won t. allow it.” . . . ... “That man who has just lett you; does he know what you are?” “He would marry me to-morrow it no could,” she cried triumphantly. “But does he know what you are, She came close to me, eyes ablaze with something more than naturaanger I had seen the like before and knew what it meant. Fiercely I caught her by the arm aud drew her to me. “You are doped now!” “Let me go,” she screamed. “Damn you, let me go!” But I swung her closer, laying born my hands on her shoulders, making her look at me. Such sum delicate shoulders! Like a child’s they seemed in mv grasp. But suddenly th ,j stiffened; became shoulders of steel. Hack they bent under the pressure of m y hands', and the next minute she ha l struck me full in the face. Cod knows how it happened. . I only know we struggled fiercely, brutally; she tearing mid clawiug at me like a wild cat. I have tried since to think iv out: join piece to piece; gather up the varied threads. But my mind is a blank, or a confusion of vague and terrible images. I think I must have gone mail, for there lingers in my memory : soi't of nebulous thought that I was doing what someone had to do; that 1 was saving a soul from hell? She hung limply in my hands', eyes staring blankly up at me; a dead inert mass. Then, and then only, I regained mv lirst glimmer of reason, aid in the revulsion of feeling that swept over me my grip on her throat relaxed. instantly she fell to the floor and lay there very still, dreadfully still. I knelt by her, took her in my arms, called to her to open her eyes and look at me; to speak if it were only to upbraid. But to my frantic appeals she made no response. Once her breast seemed to heave. I pressed my ear to it. There was no movement that 1 could detect-

1 gathered be.r up and laid her on the sofa. All that was possible I did to restore consciousness, but without avail. Frantic endeavour; intolerable agony of thought! She was gone, gone oeyond recall. To me it seemed there was nothing left now but- to take my own .life, i was iiiot afraid of facing the punishment ! had incurred; .1. do not think I even gave it a thought. Something far ether urged me to the act. I had , ...ed the thing 1 loved best on earth, .- .'id knew there could be no- more peace me this side of the grave. I even uiow -out mv levolver and laid it

! ..gainst my temple. Then, looking once j more at lier lying there so still, so calm, i I thought of those who had brought her to this; of what she had been, 'lucre was time enough for me; plenty o! it. The power was in mv hands. ! could do it when and where 1 p'eased. Therefore would it not be better to live until I had brought to justice those who were indirectly responsible for my crime? I knem them all; in time I crime;-' I knew them all; in time I if J were to go, if I were to be found dead by her side, only one conclusion could have been come to; and they—those hateful ones —would Jiave gene on their way of destruction making a mockery of life and death. For me there was plenty of time. My work accomplished, I should not hesitate to join her wherever she was. Acting on this impulse, J. stole her levels and the little money she had in her possession—merely a few pounds—to make jobbery appear the motive. Then I knelt beside her and begged forgiveness; again 1 kissed the face that had once been so dear to me. No repulsion now, no hatred; just awful stillness. Did I regret? An odd question, yet one I put to myself again and again as 1 looked at her, but could not answer. However unpardonable my sin I knew 1 had saved her from a life of shame and degradation. Perhaps there is something in this; I don’t know, I leave it to others. When my day came, which I hoped might not he far off, 1 could make such atonement as was in my power. Nothing should prevent this. I was as fortunate in getting away unobserved from the Mansions as I had been in entering. The devil’s luck, for T cared nothing now, and took less precaution. Late that night, from the centre arch of Westminster Bridge, I flung her money and her jewels far into the river. Then I met you, Marjorie. At first T loathed you as one of the damned. You were sullen, insolent, provocative, and I -was brutal. You see, I had no conception of the inner you. I thought of you as a nauseous thing, one of those flaunting creatures who are a discredit to humanity, a disgrace to their sex. How the change came over me I cannot even now pretend to tell, for selfanalysis has failed to produce the key to the problem. I only know it came, dawning slowly, like the breaking of retarded daylight. Was it pity for myself, pity for you? I don’t know. But little hv little your true character was revealed to me. You did not know what you had been doing, or what you might he about to do. What if my sister had been no wiser? Never had 1 .so great a fear for myself -as when I knew that J loved you. Assured that I had no right to your love, to. the love of anji woman, to the love of any human being, 1 experienced the most extreme pangs of misery. 1 would never go near you again, never see you; you should be blotted from mv memory with my hopes of heaven. Bnl von called to me. mi' dear; your ever called to mev your voice. Alii the. sweet gracimiMicsiS of you had crept

i" t'v my iblood: become a nart of me. the spiritual, the greater, better oart. Then it was I permitted myself to d e in of hanriness. Was if an impossible dream? Js it? SMowily she let the leaves fa 111 into her Imp'as with an is tv eyes she sat staring into the fire. Inextricably woven th o--igh the dreadful truth was the all- „• -v-oie-iin: knowledge that lie had loved her; in death, if the dead live, he would sti.ll love her. Michael. Michael! Ais her soul called to him, so e.allle l hi>s soul to hers. Deliberately, sheet bv sheet, she placed his eonfesisioti on the fire: watched if burn, curl, to charred blackness. Then when all was over -she turned to-vg'-;1.- the door behind which lay her beautiful dead hopes.