HIS FATHER'S SON.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13866, 28 September 1908, Page 3

HIS FATHER'S SON.

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAIi ARRANGEMENT.

BY TOM GALLON, j Anthor of " Tatterley," "Dicky Monteith," " Kiddy," " A Rogue in Love," " Fate a Beggar Maid," "The Charity Ghost," etc. SYNOPSIS. Tim guests have separated after the dinner which celebrates John Baxentlnle's inheritance 01 his fortune, and ho lias told Evelyn Kaylor, lie beautiful girl he is to many, that he has nob a care in tho world. Yet there -is. * »M -anc foreboding of comin? 111. lie feels practically certain that someone is prowling about -me grounds. When the last guest has retired Jfoiii Uoode, the family lawyer, begins the unfolding of the sinister secret which is to alter the whole tenor oi John. Baxendale'* lift. In revenge tor a. wrong which hi.i father did to a woman named Johanna Cridge she had stolen away one of twin sons, leaving the awful message that, just an iim life had passed into darkness and evil, so_ should his. He should be educated, and yet trained to a life of infamy. That brother of John Baxendale may now at any time confront him. This story is told him at his father's request, under Ins dyitifr injunction that it shall be preserved a secret. . . Baxendale, when on the way to his room, hears a sound in the drawing-room. Entering, and going to one of the windows, he confronts and ■cite, a burglar, to find himself face to face With a, man ill his owu likeness. CHAPTER 11. John Baxkndalk's other self—the man who had sprung in so strangely out of the darkness— but a poor opponent. After but a momentary struggle ho dropped to his knees, and cried for quarter. "Look out, you're choking me! Take your hands away, curse you!" John Baxendale Hung him aside with something of loathing, and turned to the open window, standing there, half in and half out of the room, the better to get a breath of fresh air, and looked back at the man slowly rising to his knees and to his feet. And more than ever he saw himself, in some shabbier,, more degraded form, crouching there before him, and as yet wholly unconscious of who he was, and what ho was, in relation to Baxendale. Baxendale had had a. momentary shudder when first he heard the man's voice ; there was so little difference between that voice and his own; it was, in fact, almost like a huskier echo of his own tones.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" he demanded. The man got to his feet, and tugged for a moment at his neckcloth where Baxendale's hands had been. " You can call mo what you Like," he retorted; "burglar— thief—or anything else. You can pretty well guess what I came here for. If it comes to that, we're both young menpretty much of an age, I should fancy. Why in this rotten world should you have the best of everything, and me nothing? Tell me that." " I suppose you wanted to equalise matters a bit, eh?" suggested Baxendale. "That's about it," said the other man. "Take me all round, I've been trying to equalise tilings a little all my life— a, hundred different fashions that you wouldn't •understand. If I've failed this time—" He had been but watching his opportunity. Ho made a sudden, crouching rush now, with the intention of slipping past Baxendale out into the darkness. . Ho aimed a swinging blow at the other mau as he reached him, but Baxendale was too quick for him. He caught the man's arm and gripped, and flung him back into the room. "No, you don't," said Baxendale, quietly. "I've something to say to you." He stepped into the room as he spoke, and so stood in the full light. Tho man wavered, with his arm up, as if to protect himself, and looked at John Baxendale with a new interest; then lowered the arm, and touched himself here and there in a vague, faltering way, as though to be euro of something. Finally, he came quite close to John Baxendale, and looked at him as a man might look at something weird and uncanny. Heavens!" he whispered. "Who are you?" " That's what I'm going to tell you," replied the other, closing" the window and fastening it. " I'm not going to hurt you. Come with me—aud make no noise." The other man pulled his shabby clothes about him. and again adjusted his neckcloth. He looked sharply round, as if suspecting a trap, or seeking a way of escape. Baxendale opened the door of" the room, and jerked his head as a sign to the other to go out; followed him closely, and pointed the way to the smoking-room. The man, with glance* over his shoulder, went a pace or two ahead, and so entered that room in which that night his story nad been told. Baxendale followed, closed the door, and turned the key in it. He had time now to examine the intruder had opportunity, with the remembrance of that story in his mind, to note, line by line, the exact and startling resemblance the man bore to himself. In a ghastly fashion, he even «aw the man give a little quick turn to the corner of his moustache— -a, trick for which Evelyn had often laughed at; hint. The man was thinner, aud not so well nourished as John Baxcnd.i.l'.}; and the eyes had a hunted, •nifty look, as of one who had lived much by his wits, and had been something of an Ishmael. The man glanced round the well-furnish-ed room, and shrugged his shoulders, as though, in a sense., lie contrasted the place with soma surroundings of a very different character with which he had been acquainted. Then ho glanced at John Baxendale, and once again touched his own face, and looked down at his own body, as though contrasting liimself with the man with whom he had been so strangely brought face to face. Baxendale, watching him, saw him turn swiftly, as some thought assailed him, and look keenly in the mirror then looked with equal keenness at Baxendale himself. . "Strike m * dead!—but we might be twins! he exclaimed, in a sort of whisper. « ' Irue—wo miirht bo twins," said John Haxendale, steadily. And it seemed then as though .for a moment Baxendale had a vision of the young mother in whoa* arms aa babies this man and himself had hit. . I here are strange likenesses between men in the world," he added. The man pondered that question stupidly for a moment or two, looking at Baxendale suspiciously, as though ha thought his senses might be playing him a trick. Then he seemed to dismiss' the idea, with a careless shrug of his shoulders. He glanced at die table where the decanters and glasce3 were set out.

Before you ring for your -servants, or send for the police,, or whatever you mean to do, you might let me have a drink," he said. " When a man's been tramping miles, as I have, and lying in ditches, and what not; when a man's heard • your infernal ,dogs straining at their chains with the longing to get at his throat—he's apt to have a dryness. So, by your leave " Help yourself," said John Baxendale. The man poured out a generous quantity, and drank it down smacked his dps, and nodded. In the very act of sotting down the glass he paused, and looked again at his captor; then set down the glass, and laughed. " Yes—we might bo twins, guv'nor," he said. " Though, if that was the* case, you'd have to hav« been born twenty-five years ago to-night. _ They tell me this is my birthday— if birthdays mattered anything to .me!" " I was born twenty-live years ago tonight," said John Baxendale, quietly. " I've been celebrating my birthday to-night." "I saw the lights, and heard the music," said the other, with a nod. Doesn't it strike you this is rather curious— mean you and me, as like as two peas, born the same day, standing face to face here, at this dead hour of the night? Rum go, isn't it?" " There's nothing so very strange about it," said Baxendale, slowly. " I told you just now that I had something to say to you that's why you're here now. You've nothing to fear; I'm not going to do you any harm—and, above all, I'm not- going to lock you up. When I have told you what I want to tell you, you can walk out of this place —a free man." " Sounds all right," said the man. " Any conditions?" " One or two," replied Baxendale. " There are questions I want to ask you—things you must tell mej. After th.at, c I'll judge what is

best to be done. In the first —your name?" John Baxendale knew that if the man gave the name of "Rufus" the matter was settled for all time. He waited in an agony. "My name isn't a pretty one," replied the man. "It's Rufus— Cridge.' ' John Baxendale; bowed his head. He knew the Worst now, at all events. ■ ',' How have you lived?" he asked. "You are a young man. What has your life Been?" " The sort of thing that you wouldn't understand," retorted Cridge, with a. grim laugh. " I began badly—and I've gone on worse. I'm not whining about it, you'll understand," he added, with some fierceness. " It's the only life I've known, and there are few of my trade that can work as well as I do. I was caught' to-night because I was taken by surprise; otherwise you wouldn't have got me." "You speak —almost like a gentleman," said Baxendale. "I was carefully brought up,' said the man, with a sneer. "At any rate, I went l to school; and what I didn't learn there I was taught —well, never mind who taught me. At any rate, it was a woman." " You've led this sort of life as long as you can remember?" said Baxendale. " I have. It's the only life I've known. I've lived in' the under-world. I've mixed with forgers and thieves a.nd others of that kidney from'the. beginning. Young, you say? Yes, I'm young enough, but I've seen the inside of a prison more than once. That's funny, isn't it? Born on the sain© day—and looking as like each other as two pens—and yet you here, cradled in swansdown, and living soft and easy; . and me with a number, and warders to watch me —caged like a beast! It's a funny world!" " Do you believe in justice?" demanded Baxendale, suddenly "Answer me!" " Not from men," retorted the other. " Well, you're going to see an act of justice done to-night," said Baxendale. " While you've been talking, I've been making up my mind about you. There's something in you that calls to meheart to heart—as no other man could call. Come here!" The man shambled to his feet, and strode across the room towards where John Baxendale stood. And now, indeed, the two faces, side by side, in that silent room, furtively watching each other, were dreadfully alike. Baxendale took the man by the arm, and twisted him round; and so stood with him, side by side, before the mirror. "Look there!" exclaimed Baxendale. " Did you ever see a likeness like that?" The man shuddered and laughed a little hysterically, and put an arm before his eyes. "I don't half like it," he muttered. "I feel as if I was bewitched." He tore away his arm from the other's grasp, and went back to the table, putting the length of it between Baxendale and himself.." Who the deuce are you?" he snarled, like a frightened dog. "I am your brother," said John Baxendale, turning away from him with a shudder. * . '■

" Brother? You?" The man laughed in a queer fashion, and looked at Baxendale, and at the costly room, and at his own shabby garments." "What are you talking about? Are you one of those socialist follows, levelling everything up or everything down? Is that the sort of brother you mean?" John Baxendale shook his head. " No. I mean a flesh-and-blood brother—born of tho same mother. Rufus, you and I are each twenty-five years of age to-night; and you have lived your life— " The life of a dog," broke in the other man, bitterly. "While I have lived a life of ease and plenty. To-night we meet for the first time since our babyhood; to-night we stand face to face, with our roads meeting once again." Rufus Cridge stood looking at him with a puzzled expression on.his face. He seemed to be arranging the details of this extraordinary business in his mindturning it over and over. When at last he spoke, it was half to himself. "That was what she said — and yean ago," he muttered. " But 'I didn't take any notice of it then; I didn't believe it was anything but her ravings. A child lost and mourned for—some old vengeance only half completed! Yes, that was what she said." "Who was it said that?" asked Baxendale. - "Mrs. Cridge—my mother," said the man. ■ " She was not your mother at all. She stole you when you were a baby. I've heard the story for the first time to-night. Scarcely an hour ago I heard for the first time that you had even had an existence. And now you break into my house— " Hold hard! Hold hard"!" exclaimed the man, with a cunning grin. "Not -so much of my .house, if you phrase. Twin brothers, it seems to me, should share. More than that, there should be a bit over for me, seeing that you've had fivo-and-twenty years of it, while I've gone on short commons. Your house indeed! It seems almost to me as if I'd broken into my own." " I have told you that I moan to do justice to you after all these years. I mean to let you understand that I 'am going to right an old wrong, and make reparation.' But it must be done in secret." "I don't see there's anything to be secret about,'' retorted Rufus. " You and me have only gob to stand .sido by side, aud anyone will believe what wo say. It's a rum sort of world, when you come to think about it. Half-an-liour ago I was cracking a crib, on the chance of lifting something, and with tine prospect, if I got caught, of landing myself in gaol, again. And now I'm standing with my own brother, in my own house, and no one has the right to say anything to me about tonight's work. It's lovely!" He broke off with a short laugh, and helped himself insolently to the spirits on the table. Yet there was about him still something of the old furtive look—something of tho fear that he might by some strange chance return in a moment to what he had been before. He still watched Jolm Baxendale, and still seemed to listen for any sounds in the house. " I am so strong about the necessity for secrecy," said Baxendale, " that I have made up my mind that only on mv own conditions shall you enjoy what' is yours byright. If you refuse those conditions I turn you out of this place, and leave you to go back to your own life. The likeness I shall declare (even if we are ever brought face to face again) to be an accidental one. Now, what do you say?" " Let's hea.r tho conditions," said the man, a little sulkily. "After all, it's a poor way to treat a brother whom you haven't seen for five-and-twenty years. But I suppose you're top dog, and you must do lis you like." _ " The thing has been kept secret all this time on account of my fatherl should say, our father. It was an old wrong, and the woman, Johanna Cridge, did her best to avenge it. But that wrong must not be •dragged out into the light of day now. For five-and-twenty years there has been one Baxendale—there must be one still, and one only. Do you understand that?" "Not quite; but you can go on," said the man. " I am so eager, to do what is right that I intend to have the whole of my property valuedeverything that I possess in the world, down to the last farthing. When that is done, it shall be divided into two equal parts; and one part shall be yours. With that you shall go abroad, to 'whatever country you select, and shall start there under fresh conditions, and as a rich man." " You seem pretty anxious to get rid of me," said the man after a moment's pa.use. " Why ca,n't I live quietly in England?" " Because there is always the danger, now that you know the secret, of others knowing it also," replied Baxendale. " But for such an accident as has happened tonight you would never have known at all, unless the. woman yen have believed to be your mother—Johanna. Cridge—had told you. Doubtless she meant, to tell you some day, for her own purposes: but it rest? with us now— and I, Rufusto do the thing decently, and yet save our father's name. I'll deal justly with you, and your fortune will ba a, large one, but for everyone's sake you must not remain in England, now that you know the truth." (To be continued daily.)