“HIGH DOOM”

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 8, 10 January 1936, Page 9

“HIGH DOOM”

(By J. L. Morrissey)

The Intarvlew, Every inch a mother, he thought, with a certain wistfulness in tils eyes. Glarlco was a luclcy young dog. Married to a girl like this, and with a happy home, how far couldn’t a young man go? Was he himself missing something in life? he asked himself. He considered Paula’s rapt attention as she hung over the mite of humanity In her lap. For her the world did not exist. . . . She and Brian lived in a world apart with their child. . . . He gave a sign and thought of his own comfortable bachelor life. Snug and free, with no worries or anxieties. What It is to be a bachelor, he thought bitterly. An empty apartment at night, restaurant-cooked meals, and a newspaper for a fireside companion I

“What about this painter chappie?" spoke up Bill, and his words cut across Mc'Knight’s self-pitying soliloquy. The medallion was burning a hole In his pocket, and at Bill’s words his mind leaped over the barrier of thirty years, and he saw a vision of live young men pledging themselves to be true to the symbol on the backs of those medallions. What a queer yarn. ... Was it true? It sounded like fiction, and demented fiction at that. . . . 'Five boys—five grown men. . . . One young girl—one ageing woman. . . . “I'll take you along there this afternoon if you uike,” offered Brian, and Mclvnight sat up suddenly. “Are you going to see this artist, Bill?" he asked in surprise. “I’m thinking I could get a bit of an interview' out of him," was Bill’s reply. “He’s quite a character in the world of art—goes in for cubism and so on. While I’m down here I don’t' like to miss him. Sort of silly-season topic, you know. Fill up an odd six inches."

“I see,” said his uncle thoughtfully. “Do you think I too might go along Brian?" “Why—er—l don't see why not,” said Clarke in surprise. “How are you interested in him? Have you ever met him before?"

Baok to Town.

“I once saw his photograph, that’s all," said McKnight, smiling. "Well, we can all three go along there after lunch," said Brian. “We can go in the boat and land at the stage. He always seems glad of a yarn with me, and he’ll take to you on my recommendation." “What about the egg factories?" asked Bill. “Won’t they miss their nursemaid?" “Oh, I can look after that, if you’ll wait, half an hour for me," said the host. “To think you got out of I hat job I had for you this morning, after all I threatened ” He shrugged his shoulders humorously. “You'll come back for tea?" said Paula as they rose from the table; and Bill nodded for them all. “I'm getting back to town afterwards,” be said. “I’m on duty at ten o’clock, and I’ll give the uncle a lift wherever he’s going." “Oh, but your uncle must stay the night with us," protested Paula; but McKnight apologised with a smile. “If you don’t mind, Mrs Clarke,',” he said, “I feel I’d rather not trespass on your hospitality any further. Besides, I may want to go to town myself. in that case, I'll have to trust myself to the tender mercies of Bill’s car all the way, if my nerves can stand it."

“ ‘Mrs Frequently’ is so quiet she’s the ideal car for ladies," declared Bill stoutly. ‘‘Did you ever hear of a ten-ton load of empty tins being upset over a cliff side consisting of sharp flint rocks?” "No. Why?" “That would be abyssmal silence compared with the cacaphonous uproar in the interior of your car when it’s in action.” “Repeat that, please,” said Bill patiently, and his uncle shrugged his shoulders. “nil! What’s the use?" he asked of tha surrounding landscape. CHAPTER XXII. Art and tho Detective. Mr Gerald Marker looked slightly surprised- when Brian Clarke led his little party from -the punt up the pathway in the middle of the lawn of his house, “Green Gables,” but-he bore up well under the strain. He was busy in a potting shed at the back of the house when they came, and he emerged into the sunlight with a smile and shook hands all round Brian introduced them as friends ol his, without reference to their professions. This was at McKnight’s request, and though it had nettled Bill a little he had seen reason. “You can get your Interview all right without him knowing it,” was his argument. “You can always sub-

mit him a proof before printing it. And as for my profession, well, I often think most people class detectives with hangmen, undertakers, gravediggers, and other very useful craftsmen, whom it is nevertheless not very nice to know.” “You do yourself less than Justice, Mr McKnight," Brian had laughed, but he had given way, and Barker welcomed them as merely two friends of his neighbour’s staying over the weekend. “I hope your young friend has quite got over his nasty fright of last night,” the artist addressed Bill. “Have you any idea who could have done it?” ‘Not the faintest I” replied Brian. “We’ve been over the ground this morning and found nothing." McKnight was watching the other’s face as Brian spoke, but the artist seemed to be scarcely interested. It was obvious that he had asked the question merely from politeness. The detective’s eye went to the man’s watch-chain, and he gave a slight smile as he saw that there dangled from the fob a black onyx seal. , “Not so obvious after all,” he murmured to himself. If Barker had dropped that medallion—and wasn’t he one of the Five-of Hearts?—he had been mighty quick to replace it. But Me- , Knight chided himself at this point. ' This was going on too fast. Did he i suspect this mild, respectable artist of ( attempting to murder his nephew? Must his every thought be of suspic- [ ion and distrust? Not for the first ' •Jme did he find himself experiencing'

Instalment 19.

Symbolism

a faint dislike for some of the aspect* of his profession. Modern Interior. “I've brought my friends over to see if you will let us have a look at your prints and some of your other treasures," said Brian, and a smile lit up Marker’s face, lie stroked his while beard with pleasure. It was evident that here was a man with a hobbyanxious for an audience. “Of course, of course, I shall be delighted," he said, and at once he showed them inside. Bill gazed round him apprehensively as they entered. It was doubtful what he expected to see, but in the _ room they entered he was plainly disappointed. It was tastefully furnished in modern style, but not too modern. A few pictures hung round the walls,

'but their host passed them without a 'glance. When they entered the next room lit was evident that it was his studio, i for it was an addition to the house, and ' light streamed into it from a sloping 'glass roof. i “This is my little workshop,” he ‘said, rubbing his hands together. “You 'may have heard something of me, Mr , McKnight," he went on naturally adI dressing the eldest of the three. “I am ■an example of a man who went wrong rin his youth. I began my career with the idea that the beautiful and the (formed were the plastic materials of , art. According to the world, I succeeded in it, but of late years I have , been beginning to think that perhaps I have been barking up the wrong tree. 'I have been but gilding the surface, t whereas it is the artist’s function to ; go below the surface to see the form 1 that is hidden in seemingly formless /things, to distil the essence that is in i everything whether it lives or is inani- : mate as a dead stone.” ■ “I see,” said McKnight simply, and he

■ cast a glance round him at' one or two > of the canvasses that stood round the room. "I' know nothing to commend it. ’ After all, Nature paints enough pici turcs for us to look at. Iler pi lures tare simple and clear; the heart and marrow of the emotions is concealedbeneath a happy, smiling exterior."

"Exactly, exactly, you take my meaning perfectly," said the artist with delight. Bill was listening to the conversation with a gaping jaw. He surreptitiously touched Britan’s foot and tapped his forehead. Clarke was looking at McKnight in puzzlement. Why was he playing up to this artist crank ? “Now' take this, for instance," Barker swept on leading the way to a , pedestal on which rested a lump of i grey modeller’s clay. At least, it look- - cd like a lump of clay, but closer ex- • animation showed that by one or two l curves and angles it was intended to represent something. I “I imagined a native of West Africa i brought suddenly to Piccadilly Circus. See liqw the lower half of his body ■ seems to be dragging him backwards i into the primitive bestiality from t which he sprang. His legs and thighs are fast caught in the mire of his > racial upbringing. But see the line of ; his shoulders, of those extended muscles, the jutting-out of the jaw and the distended nostrils. He sees ; the light, he sees all things that man . has made, and his poor, primitive sou! . lejoices in the evidence of the migh! I of mankind—his fellows, his brothers. ; It- is all nebulous and formless, of i course, as such a creature’s impressions would of necessity lie. But that i is how I saw it." I McKnight gazed at the lump of clay thoughtfully. It rested there, grim

and squat on its pedestal, and now that its symbolism was exposed to 'him he could sec, ignorant though he was of the niceties of art, that it was instinct with power, with an inarticulate and

sullen power perhaps, but yet a strength that seemed to disdain the futility of its instruments. He looked at Harker with a new respect. His

gaze swept round the room, from the pressed-steel chairs and the square, uncompromising chests to the halffinished canvasses and pieces of sculpture that crowded the room. “You’ve got something here, sir,” he said sincerely, and the artist flushed at the tribute. McKnight guessed that it was usually the other way round. Admiration was not what the artist expected. Still Convinced. “I must give expression to what I see,” he replied simply, and McKnight was impressed by the sincerity of the words. He Angered the little medallion in his pocket. He thought of that ’piano hurtling downwards with the dead body of this man’s old school chum strapped into his flying coffin, and there seemed to he no connection at all between the two. And yet that clump of shrubs had held the man who had tried to kill Bill Cleveland and who was quite evidently connected with that band of schoolboys known to themselves as the Five of Hearts.

Of course he was admittedly jumping very far at a conclusion even by beginning to suspect that Harker might have had something to do with the shooting of the previous evening. All he had to go upon wa-s the little silver medallion, which seemed to him conclusive evidence that the old joke of the five schoolboys had been made into fact by a tangible token. Then there was the fact that the artist had certainly been out of doors and on the river when Bill had fallen, and according to Brian Clarke, not in their sight at the moment. Against this he had never met Bill before; could have had no knowledge of him, and therefore what earthly reason could he have had for wishing to strike him down? He smiled a little grimly at the recollection that if he were right in thinking that this little incident and the murder of Sebastian Martin had any common denominator, then the motive was not so much earthly as heavenly. In a way, he decided that it was just as well that this whole case was a holiday job and undertaken not officially but for his own satisfaction, for it was altogether too fanciful for orthodox police methods. Once or twdee during the past few days he had been inclined to pinch himself to ensure that he was not building on too fantastio a base, and to ask himself whether his unconventional methods of crime detection were not leading him too far off the beaten track. But always he had been forced to the firm conclusion that his notion of how