"SCOUNDRELS AND CO."

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11056, 6 May 1899, Page 3 (Supplement)

"SCOUNDRELS AND CO."

[PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.]

BY COULSON KEKNAHAN, Author of " Captain Shannon," " A Book of Strange Sins," "A Dead Man's Diary." etc., etc.

[COPTEIGHT.] CHAPTER XXIII. It was .1 windy day, and as Number Two spoke, we distinctly heard the gate at the end of the garden blow to with a bang. " Who's that, I wonder?" said lid chief. "I latched the gate myself just .low very carefully. Some one must have opened it." He rose as lie spoke, and crossing to the side that faced the garden, put his eye to one of the many spy-holes that he and Hubbocl; had made. Then he turned to us in alarm. "I don't like the look of this, boys," he said. " There's a man coming up the path who looks and walks uncommonly like a plain-clothes policeman. And what i:iakes the thing all the more fishv is that Uicie's another hiding behind the hedge outride as if on guard. Ah! there's the knock.' Sure enough an authoritative "rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tal"told us that some one was making free with the knocker on she door below. "What had we better do, Hubbock?" asked the chief, looking anxiously at his factotum. "Let them knock, I think," was the answer. "They'll think there's no one at home. And even if they effect an entry and search the house, they'll never find us here." "Perhaps you're right," replied Number Two, more nervously than was his wont, as the visitor below began to ring the changes with a series of sounding blows that reminded one of a blacksmith plying his hammer upon an anvil. "He's playing 'Rule.Britannia," on it now," said lie of the ingrowing nail with an uneasy laugh. "I suppose you don't know anything about this caller, Mr. Hall? You were mightly sure about our being safe here, and about the police thinking you to be a respectable resident, and nothing's happened since to change their opinion. I can't think it of you that you'd play us false."

Hall's reply was to take a revolver from his pocket, and to offer it, butt forward, to the speaker. " It is loaded in the six chambers," he said. "Keep it, and if I give you cause by as much as a finger stir to suspect that I'm in league with the police, blow my brains out where I stand." "I ask your pardon for fearing for the moment that you'd rounded on your pals," said the fellow, not without dignity, " and I'm quite satisfied. Keep your shooting irons, Mr. Hall. Yon may nave need of them, and I've got a brace of my own in my pocket if they're wanted." The knocking ceased, and was replaced by a low whistle. At a signal from Number Two, Hubbock crossed to the spy-hole and looked out. " I thought so," he said. " The man outsido the gate is coming up the path. That's what the whistle meant. I fancy they're going to break in."'. He was right, for, before long we heard each of the windotf doors on the ground floor being tried in turns. "They're all fastened," said Hubbock, " and they won't get in that way. Listen! they're breaking a window. Ah, now they're in. I hear their footsteps and voices in the hall. They're searching the ground-floor room, I expect." " Keep still, every man of you," whispered Number Two sternly. " You three and Hubbock and I are the only living souls who know about this room. What cause the | police have for suspecting me, and what | they've come after, I can't think, lint, whatever . they have got to know, they don't know about the room, and if we keep perfectly still, the chances are after they've satisfied themselves that no one is in the house, that they'll go away again. And if they do find us out, and it comes to fighting, so much the worse for them. We're five to two, and after all the risks we've run we're not going to be taken by a couple of Tarborough bobbies." "They're coining upstairs now, sir," intepolated Hubbock warningly. "We must be very quiet when they're in your room below, for I believe I left the cupboard door open,. and when that's so, the sound of what is being said or done in t hat'room comes up surprisingly clear. Number Seven, you're

nearest to the trap-door that opens into the cupboard. Would you mind standing on it in case they should happen to try it if it pushed up." 1 tip-toed to the spot indicated, and took up my position as desired. The next moment we heard the two searchers enter the room below. "This is the last room, Stocker," said a voice, "and now I think we've pretty well satisfied ourselves that no one is in the house. All the same, we're sure of our man. 1 think. Mr. Hall is a gentleman—everybody knows that—and directly he hears who the villain is that he's been employing as a servant, and what he's wanted for, he'll be only too glad to assist us to make the arrest." "There can be no doubt about that, sergeant,'' was the reply, "and lucky for him too that he hasn't been murdered in his bed before this with that fellow about the place. How so pleasant-spoken a gentleman as Mr. Hall could a-got imposed upon to take such a devil into his servieo I can't think. A forged character done it, I expect. That Hubbock 'd stick at nothing. Fancy him being the man as is wanted for those murders, and all the country a-wondering who it was as done it, and crying out against the police for not finding out. This ought to mean promotion for you, sergeant, when you've made the arrest, and I shouldn't be surprised if Mr. Hall came down with something handsome as well." An exclamation from the sergeant checked the voluble Stocker.

" Some one's been a writing in this room, and not very long ago," explained the officer excitedly. " The blot on this sheet of paper ain't dry. See, I can smear it easy with my finger. I don't like the look of this, Stocker." "No more don't I, sergeant," was the answer. "It's very suspicious about those two doors both being fastened on the inside. The windows was all bolted, too, as we know, because we tried 'em. And if the doors was fastened on the inside and the windows too. It looks as if them as fastened 'em must be in the house too. Ay, Stocker?" " It does that, sir," acquiesced the admiring Stocker. "By Jiggins, what a headpiece you've got!" " Stocker, I'm going to see this thing through — that's what I'm going to do. Hush I what's that?" "Cistern in the roof a-guyrgling. I ' iiink, sir. That's what it sounded like." "Perhaps so. Why, there it is again. It is a most extraordinary noise It certainly was. liven to us overhead who saw it coming— one may be permitted to speak of" seeing" a noise come—and knew to what it was attributable, the sound seemed wend and unearthly; but to those who heard the noise without knowing its origin, the effect must have been mysterious in the extreme. The day was, as I have already said, windy, and when Hubbock's eye was applied to the open spv-hole in the roof, it was apparently "struck by a squall." So at least we assumed from the red and watery aspect which the organ in question presented when he returned to his seat. That, however, was an infliction winch the rest of us could have borne with becoming resignation; but when certain hideous distortions of the patient's face apprised us of the approach of a seizure which we hoped at first might mean only sudden death or a fit, but which we were alarmed to see developing into a sneeze, we felt thai the situation was becoming—in a diplomatic sense—strained. With admirable presence of mind the nearest man to Hubbock handed him a handkerchief to put to his nostrils in place of that which the sufferer had already stuffed in his mouth. Then— brave men who, having done their best and failed, sit down to wait death calmlywe sat and waited for that sneeze. It was a long time coming. At first it seemed so long that Hope told a flattering tale, and we began— except Hubbock, who still had the handkerchief stuffed in his mouth— breathe again. That he shou'd breathe again was a matter of only secondary importance, and had he had the decency and the consideration then and there silently to give up the ghost, he would assuredly have carried our good wishes with him wheresoever he may have gone. But Hubbock's breath, so far from passing away in a last low sigh, seemed, as we watched, to swell up suddenly within him. His cheeks became hideously distended, the spaces about his now-protruding eyes puffed up like blown bladders. With a great effort he hunched his straining shoulders, toadwise, to his ears, and then— I cannot describe it, even if the remnant of conscience which stiil remains to me would allow me to do so. I got so far as to try to swell it phonetically, but when I saw the unholy thing which 1 had thoughtlessly called into existence. I tore the paper inuo fragments and then chewed them into a pulp that no other eye but mine might look upon it. again.

As the sound died away, we sat, as if frozen into dreadful silence, staring at Hubbock with eyes of horror and reproach; but when we saw by his fixed, upwardturned and prayerful eyes, dropped jaw and outstretched, imploring hand that a second seizure was impending, we quailed as the soldier in the trenches quails before tile coming shell. When it was all ovor, there was a deadly silence for half a minute, and then we knew that the game was up. " Did you hear that, Stocker?" said a voice in the room below. " Did you hear that? And if so, what d'ye make of it?" Stacker's mumbled reply was not audible, so we were not enlightened respecting bis views. " Quite 50," went on the voice. "It didn't sound human, did it? And if I'd heard it at night, I should have said that this house was haunted, that's what I should have said. But being in the day-time, it can't be that. What's that you say? ' Very likely a bird that's got a nest in the roof?' Don't tell me. iiirds don't make noises like that. No, and it isn't a wild animal that Mr. Hall's brought home from his travels, unless it's an animal by tne name of Hubbock, and he's wild onough from all showing. Only I don't call him an animal. I call him a murdering savage brute. Anyhow, I'm going to see what's under that roof, if I break my neck in doing it. There's a ladder leaning against one of the fruit trees in the orchard, and if we stick it up on top of the portico, we ought to be able to reach the roof. Anyhow, we'll have a try, bo come along."

The fellow with the ingrowing nail, the Silent Councillor, Hall, and myself must, I suppose, while this was going on, have been looking the reproaches which we dare not speak, for as soon as the policemen were out of hearing, Hubbock said snappishly: " It's quite incompatible that you should all look askance at me as if I was infected with African leprosy. I was in no way cognisant of committing mischief." "Quite so, Hubbock," assented Number Two; "you couldn't help sneezing, my good man, any more than you can help getting the African leprosy, which I trust you never will. The only mercy is you didn't yawn, for yawning, like the African leprosy, is catching, and sneezing isn't. But the question we've now to consider is,' What's to bo done?'" "I think," said the appeased Hubbcvk more deferentially, "if the council doesrnt think the course too ignominious, that it, would be advisable to ensconce ourselves under the table. If the policemen climb up on the roof and extract a tile to look in, they can't see us there, and they may conclude that the room is uninhabited." "By extracting a tile, our friend doesn't mean annexing somebody else's hat," explained Number Two good-humouredly; "all the same, I think he's right. They couldn't see us under the table, and if they come to the conclusion that the room's empty, they may decide to sheer off altogether, or to leave one on guard here, while the other goes on to Tarborough to report pi ogress to the superintendent. The situation is not very serious at the worst, for it would be the easiest thing in the world for us to overpower the two bobbies, and either silence them altogether or leave them here gagged and tied up, while we make off. I don't know that the former course wouldn't be the kindest, for the room might never be discovered unless they could manage to make themselves heard; they'd stand a good chance of dying by slow starvation. But if we can work things to get clear away without coming to blows with the bobbies, I'd rather that it were so. They may think tins is only an ordinary billiardroom that I've contrived up here for a fad, and that they couldn't find the entrance to, and that as Hubbock and I seem away, there's nothing to be done but wait until we come back to arrest our friend here. Apparently it's him they want, not me, whom they still appear to look upon as a [ reputable member of society. I thick our

friends outside are propping the ladder against the wall, in which case it will be time to adjourn to under the table." Before very long we heard the sound (f someone clambering from a ladder to the roof, and cautiously picking his wav, apparently on hands and knees, towards the top. By-ana-uy the sound of a moving body ceased, and then we heard the working and wrenching, which told us that tho "newcomer was engaged in removing some tiles. Meanwhile we " lav low," ensconced ignominiously" as Hubbock phrased it, well nut of sight under the billiard table. The position was so cramped that I was, if anything, relieved to know, by an exclamation of astonishment irom the "extractor rf tiles" overhead, that the secret chamber of Heath Cottage was a secret no longer. "Hi! Stocker! are you there Trailed an excited voice which 1 recognised as the sergeant's. "I'm nere, sir," came the reply from below.

" I always did think that Hall was a bad lot, for all his seeming so quiet and respectable," said the sergeant. "It's always the quietest ones as is the worst. What d'yo think he's wot up here. "Fowls':' suggested Stocker lamely. He was not a man of many ideas, and, having lately covered himself with glory by the brilliant arrest and capture of two small boys wiio were robbing a hen-roost, the prevention of poultry pilfering filled a very important place in his conception of the duties of a constable. " Yes, fowls, I expect," he added more confidently; "least-way, stolen ones that he's kept up there to to out of the way. It sounded like fowls when ha heard that noise just now." "Fowls!" retorted his superior officer contemptuously; "fowls, you fool! You've got fowls on the brain since you got those boys convicted. No, it's something worse tnan fowls, I can tell you. I always did think that Hall wasn't all he should be. And him so quiet too! Well! well! there's n° ) knowiin* what any one's character is till he s found out. It's a harem, that's what it is. Iye seen a picture of one in the Windsor Magazine, and recognise it easy. There's hanging lamps that don't look as if they was meant to burn respectable oil in decent houses. And there's couches without any legs, like a bed made up on the floor—divans, don't they call 'em?— in stripes and gaudy colours, and heaped up with soft pillows. Downright heathenish I call it. J here s a big table in the middle that's got a big white cloth flung over it as if there was something on it that was too wicked even for Hall to look at long. We shall find something pretty there, I'll promise you, when we get down. Well, well, it a wicked world we live in." "Is there any wimmin there?" inquired the intelligent Stocker with more interest than lie had previously manifested. "A harem's a place where they keep a lot c.f lovely women, ain't it? I've seen one ;t the 'Quarium when I went to London. Tliej had golden hair, and wore trousers mado of gold and stuff, and lay about in couches and looked cross. " No, that's what I can't make out-," replied his chief. "There ain't no women, but there soon will be, you mark my words. Hull and Hubbock have gone to fetch em now tnev have got 'it all ready. That's why there's no one at home to-day. A pretty pair of rascals they are, a-bringing their Roman Catholic ways into a Christian country. I'll harem 'em'before I've done. You go and see if you can find me a bit of uupc so as I can fasten it to the chimnay stack and let myself down into the room, I'm going to see what's on that table, harem or no harem."

■ lue search for a rope was apparently successful, and as the sergeant had in the meanwhile been working hard to make the hole in the roof large enough to admit his body, ho bade Stacker come up upon the ' roof and hold on to the end which was hitched to tihe chimney stack, while he lowered himself into the room. Curiosity getting the better of discretion, I very guardedly inclined my head outwaid an inch or two beyond the projecting rim of the table, and twisting my neck round, looked up. The sergeant, hanging on to the rope, had just got clear of the hole in the roof, and was preparing to lower himself down hand-over-hand. Through the opening over his head the red and bovine face of Stacker was staring. He was watching the sergeant's progress with eager interest, but the movement of my withdrawing head apparently attracting his attention, lie craned througu the aperture, and catching sight of mo pointed down with an excited yell to where I was lying. Whether the shout so startled the sergeant as to cause mm to lose his hold, or whether what, happened was caused by the letting go by Stocker of the end of the rope which was hitched around the chimney stack, I cannot say. All I know is that the unfortunate sergeant fell with a crash upon the table, pulling down with him one of thj lamps that lighted the table. This lamp, though of oriental and ancient manufacture, had been prostituted by Hall to so base a use as the burning of paraffin ; and as artificial light was a necessary even during daytime in Hall's prophet's chamber, it was unfortunately burning at the time. As it fell it struck the edge of the table and cannoned—a terrible tongue of lire—against one of the walls, which, as the reader knows, were draped, tentwise, from floor to ceiling with some Indian fabrics. The room, being directly under the roof, was always hot, and this fabric had evidently become as dry and inflammable as tinder. There was, as I have already twice mentioned, a strong wind blowing outside, which doubtless played no little part in bringing about what followed. (To bo continued on Wednesday next.) ======