Her Day of Adversity

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 2314, 5 December 1925, Page 12

Her Day of Adversity

By MBS. HATBICK MacGILL

"If thou faint in the day of adversity thy strength is small." —Proverbs

FOR NEW READERS, A .1 tho characters in this story are purely fictitious. CAROL OLIVER got into the toils of JACOB STONE, a moneylender, by borrowing £lO from him to pay the funeral expenses of her mother, ■who died suddenly leaving' her alone and penniless. The man had, by carefully-laid plans and outward display of kindliness and generosity got,her'into his house nominally as a social secretary, but really as a gambling decoy. DAVID MURRAY was in love with Carol, but had lost sight of her, because Lottie, the little maid at the Y.W.C.A., had lost his card Carol, frightened and disgusted by the happenings in Stone’s house tried to get away, but he told her he intended to marry her. David ran across Lottie serving in a pub-lic-house while in Bermondsey searching for Carol, and took her into his confidence. He also intro- ' duced her to a big music-hall man, Gus Halkin, who was struck by her lightning impersonations. He fixed up an engagement for her to appear at Stone’s house. The moneylender instructed Carol to please Harvey Lester, as ho was a rich young lumberman, who would be easily fleeced. At the close of the hateful evening of gambling, dancing and vulgar entertainment, Lottie’s turn came on. Horrified to find Carol in such a position she simulated a faint, in order to get a few words alone with her. She planned for Carol to meet David at Swan and Edgar’s next day. Har. vey Lester sent Lottie homo in a taxi then took Carol into the garden. * He proposed to her and took her in his arms, to be immediately felled to the ground by a blow from an assailant who appeared from the garden. CHAPTER nil, (continued). ’*-* L "Tho Fellow’s Dead.” It had all happened in the space of balf-a-minute, and when Carol recognised David Murray, her nerves keyed to breaking point for so long, suddenly gave way, end she screamed —the wild, uncontrolled screams tall., ing on the quiet night with ear. piercing shrillness. “Fetch Carslake —he's a doctor’. Run, damn you—don’t stand then* like a post! Stop that confounded noise—here, somebody clap a hand over her mouth—we’ll have the /whole neighbourhood round.” :■ Carol heard her employer’s low. but urgent, excited voice; she felt a band—it was Bundy’s—press so firmly against her mouth that her soft Bps ere bruised against her teeth. And before she finally lost consciousness she heard the somewhat foppishly affected voice of Carslake, the rising young nerve specialist, who was also an inveterate gambler, say with horrible- distinctness, ‘‘The fellow’s dead.” His temple struck this piece of marble at a " very nasty angle.” CHAPTER IX, "It Rests With You.” Carol came up slowly from the sea of ink into which she seemed to nave fallen, and wondered why her throat felt as if it were filled with warm cotton wool that tickled and annoyed 'her every time she tried to get her -.breath. It was not until she looked down at the crumpled, crushed ruin of a frock that recollection, and consequent realisation, came. ■ No film actress could ever hope to achieve for screen purposes such a ivlvid, memory-searing expression of horror as that which settled like a ’mask on the air young face of the : glrl who was remembering, bit by ibit, with ghastly accuracy the scene ■which had taken place in Jacob Stone’s garden in the early morning 'hours—for it .was now* full daylight, End the sunshine was penetrating the chinks between the heavy velvet curtains which had been drawn across the window. Apart from the horror that stared nakedly from her eyes, Carol’s little face was livid with cold, and hei teeth chattered as her nody shivered beneath the eiderdown which she pulled closer and yet closer about her terror.chilled body. With sickening clarion-like clearness she recalled Dr. Carslake’s mincing voice suddenly sharp and 'serious ,as he said "The fellow’s dead, Hiss temple struck this piece of marble, at a very nasty angle.” Once again she felt somebody place a restraining hand, over her mouth, and all her recollections were in a mad, chaotic whirl, beating and beating in upon her brain like the wings of imprisoned birds, making reasoned thought impossible when a tap founded at the door. Carol tried to say "Come in,” nut ■the hot cotton-wool sensation in her throat prevented her from uttering a rsound. Only her young eyes,, with that terrible expression of haunting flread, looking out of ner maroiewhite face, told Jacob Stone, who entered, that she was awake. Stone, iu his way, was as sad to look upon as Carol, but the terror in Ws beady eyes, putty-coloured face, and drawn lips was not provocative of the least thought of sympathy. His hands were. in his pockets as be crossed the box of a room with a couple of strides, and stood by the couch, looking down at the piteous spectacle that Carol presented. A single glance was sufficient to ■ffogyince him of the fact that he

could not hope to talk to Carol in her present condition. And he badly wanted to talk. He pulled out a brandy flask. "Here, take a nip of this.” he said holding the silver mouth of the flask to Carol’s lips. She shook her head and turned aside; but Jacob Stone twisted hei face round with a none too gentle hand, and forced a fair quantity ot the burning liquid down th e unwilL ing throat. "Confound, It you and I have got to lave a talk, and this is the onlj stuff that will help you to listen You ye done me 100 much harm to allow , of my standing any more damned nonsense. The’’ tone in which Jacob Stone spoke was such a gross insult that it acted in almost as stimulating a fasl.ion as the brandy. Resentment whipped a colour mil Carol’s cheeks ,and she even opened her mouth to voice what she felt but Jacob Stone cut in, anticipating her intention. "No need to ask U you remember what has happened to young Lester through that accursed fellow that’s keen on you?” Carol, sickening, shuddered. All the fictitious courage imparted by the unaccustomed stimulant departed in a single moment of time. Jacob Stone bent down and thrust his heavy jaw forward, almost Into the young face, and in a low voice, which was almost in a whisper, answered his own question ‘He’s lying dead upstairs—killed by your lover” The horrible silence which followed his words would have delighted the soul of a dramatist if it had occurred in a theatre as the result of his art. The voice in which Carol Oliver broke the tension might have belonged to an old woman, weary with world-sorrow, whose soul was on the rack, as she asked, "Where is Mr. Murray?” Jacob Stone shot her a peculiar look. "He’s in the house, too," ho said, and waited to see the effect of his words. It was exactly what he expected. Carol jumped up from the coucn as if some magic had galvanised her into a different being. David was in the .same house! Before she quite realised her action, she had her hand on tho handle of the door. . "Let me go! Stand out of the way, I tell you!” she cried, stamping her foot. But Jacob Stone flung the light little body aside as easily as if ho had been handling a baby. "Sit down, and listen ,and if you’ve a grant of sense, you’ll do as you’re told,” he said, savagely. "It rests with you whether David Murray swings or whether lie goes scot.free,” were the next words which the amazed girl heard. CHAPTER IX. (Continued THE BRIBE. Carol could only look; it seemed as if her tortured brain must soon give way under the strain that was being placed upon it. As a matter of fact, although she had heard, she had yet fully grasped anything except that David was in the house, and her immediate supreme desire was to bo with him. "Mr. Stone, if it is a matter of the money that is owing to you, I am sure that Mr. Murray will—” Jacob Stone cut across the breathlessly spoken sentence, and his voice was raised a little as he spoke. "Money? A matter of money, did you say?” The thick lips parted and stretched in a ghastly travesty of a smile. "There’s no money that can buy a man off the scaffold, my girl, and the sooner you realise that the sooner we’ll understand each other. Sit down Hardly knowing what she did Carol obeyed . It was Carol who broke the ensuing silence, purposely imposed by Jacob Stone, who wanted the fact of David Murray’s guilt to penetrate her consciousness. The hoarse tone of voice, the livid features, and horror-filled eyes of the young girl told him his plan had succeeded. Do you mean you are going to send for the police—that David will be tried for murder?” asked Carol, leaning forward and staling up at the man’s uncomely face as if it fascinated her. Jacob Stone made a strange clicking sound with his tongue, and gave an emphatic nod, but his eyes avoided Carol's as he made reply . "That’s the size of it,” he said shortly “But as I have already told you, whether I give him up to justice or not rests with yourse’f.” he added slowly, sitting down beside Carol and taking one of her cold, little limp hands in his. “With me? There was a sharp, upward inflection in Carol’s usually rather quiet voice, due to the sudden clutching sensation at her throat which she experienced. * She jerked away her hand that Jacob Stone held and placed it across her throat, fee’lng a pulse beat beneath her fingers like some tortured living thing. "Listen, Carol. Hero, don’t shrink away like that. Damn ft all, I’m not poison.” as the slight young body shrank from the arm that had placed around it. "To begin with, do you want to see poor Lester’s body? It’s upstairs in my bedroom. If you-do Bundy will 'take you up.” Ha avad Carol keenly as ho spoke,

ful.y expecting the effect which his words propuced. “No—no —good heavens, no!” cried Carol wildly. "All right, though it Isn’t a very terrible Just a bruise on the temple, that’s all. It was an unlucky spot to hit.” uiuw aiiuddered. She could hear the love-thrilled voice of tho young Colonial begging her to let him take her away across the sea, far from London and such associates as Jacob Stone and his kind.

"It’s just sheer luck that it is possible to hush the thing up, though there’s a big nsk attached to it, mind you—a risk for mo, 1 mean.” Jacob Stone paused to let his words sink in. When Carol grasped them, one looked up witn a new ugnt in her eyes.

"is —is such a thing possible?” she breathed, rainer tiiau said. . Jacob stone nouucu, and, getting up, commenced to pace the tiny room all the wiule that he was speaking avoiding ward s agonised eyes.

"In j ouug Lester’s case, just poss. ible,” he said, in a curiously mattci-of-fact voice, considering tile subject oi ineir conversunon. "He toid me quite a lot about himself,” he continued, pausing in his walk to look out’ of the window, vvh.ch commanded a v.v... me garden.

Carol fixed her eyes on the broad back and waned, waited for the words which were to mean David’s immunity from arrest, from standing his trial for taking the life of a fellow creature. fc>n 0 had never been inside a court of just.ee in all her life, and Knew next to nothing about the law, but, like most other girls, she had followed the course of lamous trials in the newspapers, and, recollecting tneni, am ami, terrified from the prospect of David Murray being in a like position. Jacob Stone was speaking again, and .fie wfiite-iaced girl on the couch brought her mind back with a jerk from the contemplation of dreadful crimes about which she had only read to listen to the man who could find a way of escape for him whose life now seemed ixuin.te.y more precious than her own.

"Lester was a lonely sort of chap, and lived a wandering kind of life, settling nowher e for long. Nobody knew about this trip to England, which' was the outcome of a sudden whim as he was passing a shipping office. He’d left his hotel before coming here last night, intending to have a look at Scotland before he went back to Australia—his trunk is here —so there will be no inquiries from that quarter. And he wasn’t much of a hand with women—a.ways preferred men until he met you,” finished Jacob Stone, abruptly, wheeling round and look'ng at Carol for the first time.

"He wanted me to marry him. That was why David Murray knocked him down. I suppose he thought that 1 was being insulted,” finished Carol bitterly.

“The young fool had no right here at all. How did he know where to find you? I suppose you discovered his address and wrote to him?” There was an ugly note in the thick voice but Carol took no notice; she did not attempt to answer. "And so as you can see for yourself. Lester’s sudden disappearance will occasion no comment, and Bundy, for a price, is willing to dispose of the body, providing the matter is left entirely in his hands and no questions asked. As I’ve said before, it’s a risk, but it’s a risk that I’m more than willing to take with you as the prize. and as he edged nearer to Carol and fixed his small,, greedy eyes upon her youiig face, lovely e ven in its terrified whiteness, some dim glittering of what was running in his mind, communicated itself to her understanding, and she pulled herself away crying "No! No! No!” as. if the mere reiteration of the word would have th e ,effect of frustrating Jacob Stone’s object. ■ But he simply waited until ho thought that he could continue without the risk of wasting his breath, and then h e went on. quite quietly, to tell Carol the reason for his offer to save David Murray from the awful consequences of his crime. And, listening, Carol learned how vengeful a man can be when a woman erects a substantia' barrier between him and the gratification of his passions. "When you see a lovely specimen of fruit on a tree and your mouth waters for the taste of it, what do you do? Let somebody else have it? Not if you can possibly get it for yourself, by any manner of means. A short excited laugh finished the sentence. The man came and put both hands on Carol’s shoulders, and her eyes—full ot an infinite appeal to a better nature that was non-existent — looked into his, which wore gleaming with a passion which was the strongest force that his life had ever known. “The condition on which David Murray goes free, is that you marry me,” he said, thickly. (To be Continued.)