MEMORY'S PRISONER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13095, 7 February 1906, Page 2 (Supplement)

MEMORY'S PRISONER.

BY TOM GALLON'.

Author of " The Rogues' Syndicate," " The Dead Ingleby." " Tatteriey," " Dicky Monteith." *' The Lady of the Cameo." etc., etc.

[COPYRIGHT.]

CHAPTER V.—(Continued)

Miles dived into his pockets; fumbling about in his shabby clothes, until presently he brought out a scrap of paper, and smoothed it out. and looked at it with his head on one side.

"You talk of my danger of my being suspected," he said, tapping the paper with his finger and staring across at the old man, and lowering his voice to a whisper— " why— scrap of paper would hang that woman, as sure as my name's Miles Blatcher. There's a statin here in the corner," he went on—" a stain of blood. The fool dropped it actually in his blood as she stood there."

. " Let me look at it," said the old man, stretching out, a hand for it. " Thank youl'll look after it myself," said Miles, folding it carefully and putting it back in his pocket;. " You* know i ucn't trust ycu, old gentleman." The old man rose, and shrugged his shoulders; still smoothing his beard, and looking distrustfully at" the man astride the chair, he made a movement to war is the door. And instantly the face of the girl disappeared, and melted away into the shadow of the house. But when a moment later, the old mini resumed his seat on the bed, the face was there at the door again, and the girl was listening. " I don't see why you shouldn't trust me," snapped Ryland. " Come, lad, I've always been your friend; I've kept you here out of charity— after your money was gone." " Don't forget who had the money, old gentleman," retorted Blatcher. " Besides, you always believed that I should have more —didn't you? I believed that myself; the money was due to me. But now the goose that laid the golden eggs is dead." " Stop a minute," urged Ryland, leaning forward towards the other man, and speaking in an insinuating tone. " There's lots of things that might be done. This woman, for instance; this woman to whom Lifford's death meant so much?" Well— of her?" " Suppose we let her know what we know ; suppose she understood that we had that evidence against her; that you had caught her, in a sense, red-handed then?" "Well—what then?" retorted the other, watching him. "Why, dear boythe thing is as simple as simple. This man had treated her badly, had pretended he was dead —and had suddenly come to life again. Doubtless in the meantime, as ladies will, she made other arrangements for her happiness." —you're right there; she had made other arrangements," exclaimed Miles, with a. chuckle. "1 found out all about that; she was ..o marry another man. I shouldn't be a bit surprised if, deeming herself secure, she hadn't married him, too."

" Dear boy —don't you see what it. means'.'" went on the old man, with eager hands beating softly together. "She kills the one mangets rid of him silently by night, slip* away again, and marries the other. She had made her arrangements because she thought the first man was dead ; the note you took— that note with the blood-stain upon itthreatened to topple her new castle about her ears. She goes to reason with No. I—arid No, 1 won't listen to reason. There is a squabble ; it is in the darkness and the silence of the night; she leaves him dead. Dear boy"— the eager old hands were beating together swiftly now —" there's money in —there's tons of money in it!" Miles Blatcher jumped up, and thrust aside his chair. "Be quiet," he exclaimed — I won't sell any woman at such a price. He was a brute; let her go. I've talked too much; let there be an end of it. I'll get money somewhere or somehow —but rot that way." As you will, dear boy," said the old man, rising from the bed—" you will. What are you going to do?" "My head's heavy—and I've got the horrors on me," said Miles, after a momentary pause. "Give me a little of the stuffonly a little— let me sleep." " Not a morsel—not a scrap—not so much as would cover a threepenny piece!" snapped the old man savagely. "You shall starve for it; you shall starve for food; you shall die in the gutter. I'll teach you to defy me— tell me what you will do, and what you won't do. I'll leave you to think about it."

As he turned savagely towards the door that face outside glided away again and was gone. The old man paused at the door for a moment to look back at the vounger, saw that he stood leaning with one "shoulder

against the side of the window, looking moodily into the street. Old Ryland shrugged his shoulders, and went out, closing the door after him. The room was stifling; and,the man was desperate. He went out presently into the streets, blinking at the strong sunlight, and swaying as he went like a drunken man. The craving was upon him for the opium that had been his ruin; already he was beginning to waver in his determination. More than that, weird and horrible pictures seemed to float before his brain; he seemed to crouch again in that room where the dead man lay, and to hear the woman shrieking in her terror, as she leaned against the wall and watched the body. Old Ryland had said that there was money in it;"and old Ryland only possessed that stun" which should ease Miles Blatcher's aching brain, and give him rest and peace. What was the woman to him''

Meaning always to go away, and so to sjiare the woman, he yet found himself tending, by devious ways, back to the house in the mean little street in Lambeth ; came at last shamefacedly to it, and knocked. The girl Amy opened the door and stood aside as he went in; she was watching him intently. "Where's the old man'/" he asked in a low tone.

" Father is upstairs," she whispered, as she closed the door.

The man did a curious thing. Standing for a moment with bowed head he suddenly turned in the darkened passage and caught the girl in his arms, and held her close. She did not speak; she only looked up at him, ana waited.

"Little girl," he said, in a hoarse whisper —" if by any chance I should ever do a mean or blackguardly thingif I should lie, to save my own skin—it would be for youand only for you." She made no verbal reply: she raised her face, and kissed him on the lips. Then she scurried away somewhere into the dark house, while he stumblingly climbed the stairs.

But lie was not to lie. Above, in that upper room, the old man waited; he knew his man, and knew that he would surely come back. And here he was, slouching into the room, with a propitiatory smile, and with an eager request on his lips. " Old man," he began with a little quick chuckle, " I was wrongl was rude. We'll be friends—won't we?and I'll tell you all about it —every sacred syllable. And first"he swayed across the room in a couple of strides, and clapped the old man on the shoulder" first, as iriends morsel of the stuff, a pipeful—half a pipeful—eh?" " You shall have your til!," said old Ryland, with a grin. The younger man flung himself on the bed, and rested on an elbow as he watched the other go from the room. In a moment or two Ryland came back carrying a small pipe and a little tin box with some moistlooking brown stuff in it. Miles watched eagerly with a curious light in his eyes as the old man rolled a little of the stuff between his ringer and thumb, and pressed it softly into the tiny bowl; then he handed the pipe to the young man, and held a light for him. As Miles sucked greedily at the stem Ryland. kneeling beside him, whispered insinuatingly : "Talk to me, dear boy —talk to me!" he whispered. "1 —hours and hours—expecting that she would come," said Miles, dreamily, as he sucked at the pipe. Then 1 became afraid that if she did come I should be nowhere: he'd have got what he wanted, and would kick me out. So I waited for him ; I went up once or twice —might have been three times, and the devil was in me. Fill it up, old man." He held out the pipe, and Ryland rapidly and skilfully filled it. By this time Miles Blatcher was down flat upon the bed with his eyes closed; a curious change had come over his face. Outside in the passage the girl crouched with her ear against the door listening as eagerly as her father, who still knelt beside the bed.

"Goon, dear boy,'' murmured Ryland. " Last time there was a row. I swore— swore I wouldn't go; be got me by the throat" —he moved the pipe for a moment to give vent to a chuckle, and put it back again in his mouth—" but I was too— good for him. I snatched the knife from a table behind me; I stuck him like a pig. Gad ! —you should have seen the blood!" " Yes, yes, dear boy?" " Then I heard stepsand I bolted— inner room. Woman—came in—screamed— Fill up, old man!" The pipe dropped from his nerveless fingers., and he slumbered heavily. CHAPTER VI. OLD 11YLAXD SMELLS GOLD. For some little time Mr. Rylaind knelt beside the unconscious man; and as he knelt he smoothed his beard and smiled, and looked at Miles Blatcher. His brain was busy with a scheme to turn this new knowledge to advantage. It was no policy of his, to hang a man who had hitherto proved of value to him ; on the other hand, in such a complicated matter as this there was obviously something to be made out of the business.' Mr. Ryland turned over the various points in his mind one by one: studied the face of the sleeping man; and presently began to see his way more clearly. By way of an experiment he touched the hand of the sleeper; but Blatcher did not move.. " He's good for some hours yet!" muttered old Ryland to himself. " Ah, well, it's good to be generous sometimes, although opium's costly stuff. Now, where did he put that paper?" Gently he felt about under the man's shabby 'coat, watching the face of Miles Blatcher always. He presently touched the paper in the man's pocket and drew it out delicately between his finger and thumb. Still watching the sleeper he folded the paper quietly, and put it into his own pocket; then crept from the room. Shut away in another room of the house ho examined the thing at his leisure, and began to see more clearly the power he held. True, the woman would have to be sacrificed, unless things came out as Mr. Ryland hoped they might; but that was a minor detail which did not affect the old man. What he chiefly counted upon was the fact that a woman in such a position must have rich and powerful friends who would be eager to protect her and to shield her from the consequences of her supposed crime. It was obvious that Miles Blatcher, after striking that fatal blow, would have hidden, as he had suggested, at the first sound of approaching footsteps; so far, so good. The woman, on the other hand, was the one person apparently to whom the death of Owen Lifford meant release and happiness; for had she not, according to Blatcher, married another man immediately, believing that Owen Lifford had been dead? Surely the man she had married would do anything—(which meant, so far as old Ryland was concerned, that he would pay anything)—to hide her from the law? The only difficulty would be to find this woman ; for" it was obviously impossible to question Blatcher, or indeed to refer to the matter again. As a, matter of fact, old Ryland had a wholesome dread of Blatcher and of any violence he might display. For the present he put the blood-stained paper in his pocket, telling himself that there was plenty of time and that he could afford to wait.

Meanwhile, we have to return to Mr. Gideon Clint, staring dumbfounded at the smiling, gracious figure of Grace Lifford, standing beside her husband and shyly giving Mr. Clint welcome. If ever eyes shone with truth and innocence surely the eyes of Grace did at that moment Mr. Clint did not know whait to make of it. Either this woman had a twin sister or she was the woman lie had helped downstairs into his room in Folley's Buildings, Gray's Inn, on the night of the murder; the woman who sobbed hysterically, and whom he had with difficulty revived. Mr. Clint controlled himself as well as he could, and decided to await developments. He was grateful to think that the room was lighted by a shaded lamp, which did not very fully reveal his perplexed face. At the invitation of Philip he sat down and accepted a cigar. Grace lounged in a deep-chaar near the open window, and joined occasionally in the desultory conversation of the two men. (To be continued on Saturday next.)

The view of some English matrons, that hospital sisters, and nurses should not indulge in evening frocks, does not find favour at the Antipodes. The nurses in that country have not, as they put it, much time for frivolity; but they object to being deprived of the right to indulge in it— when thev have the ODDortunitv. The Hospital.