HIS FATHER'S SON.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13874, 7 October 1908, Page 10

HIS FATHER'S SON.

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

BY TOM GALLON, Author, of "Tatterley," "Dicky Montoith," " Kiddy," " A Rogue in Love." " Fate's Bcggrar Maid." "The Charity Ghost." etc.

CHAPTER V—(Continued.)

John -Baxendalk nodded quickly, in token that ho understood, and the two men crept forward so as to bo able to spring out upon the road and intercept Rufus Cridgc. But when that unconscious individual was within twenty yards of them another figure sprang out from the shadows and made towards .the reeling man—and this time it was the figure of a woman. Her face showed clearly in the moonlight, and John Baxendale, with a gasp of surprise, sprang at her ami seized 'her and clapped a hand over her mouth as sho was on the very point of crying out.

She wriggled herself partly free and looked at him; struggled fiercely to get away. But he held her tight, until the man, who had hesitated for a moment on the road as the sound of that slight scuffle floated to hi* ears, had gono on again; and only when Cridsje was out of siyht and hearing did Baxendale take his hand from the i woman's lips. "Well, Bella." he said, sternly.."so you j meant to plav a trick on me, did you?'' "Yes, I did," she retorted, sullenly. "I meant to warn him. I didn't want him caught in a trap. 'And I'll do it yet if I get the chance." "This is the woman I told you about," said John Baxendale, turning to Dick, ami still keeping his grip upon her. '.'She's got a game to play as well as others, it seems; she's dangerous." "What are you going to do to him?" demanded Bella. " That depends," said Dick, speaking for the first time "You'd best keep out .of it; it isn't work for a woman. It 11 be bad for you if by any chance you interfere." "My man's worth two of you," said the girl, looking at the shabby figure of John Baxendale contemptuously. "He's done you once and he'll do you again, and yet again. If it comes to his matching his wits against yours, I ksow who'll win." The business was desperate, and every moment of value; it became a question first of expostulations and then of threats to the woman. Finally she promised she would not interfere—-without in the least meaning to keep that promise. And so at last thev left her and crept on together towards toe great house. , Events had certainly taken a strange turn when, for tho second time within a matter of days, that man who might have been called Rufus Cridge by any who met him broke into the house of the Baxendales. This time, however, the now Rufus Cridge was not without support. Dick Munby, listening carefully.for any chance sound in the house, followed his' friend along the silent corridors until they came to the door leading into the smoking-room; and there they listened for a moment or two, hearing nothing; and so decided at last that the usurper had gone to bed. John Baxendale opened the door cautiously and went in; saw that the windows were curtained, and so put up the lights. "So far, so good," whispered Dick Munby. "Now, what's the next move? What are we to do now." "I,think our friend is going to solve it for himself," whispered Baxendale, in reply. "At all events, I can hear someone coming cautiously down the stairs." "Then in that case you'd better get one side of tlie doorway, and I'll get the other then we can pounce on him when he comes in," suggested Dick. And adopting that plan they waited for the man, whose steps they could now hear with some distinctness. ■■■• ■ ; -:> ■•■.;.' : ' x ":• v The door opened at last, slowly, and a man walked quickly in. Not Rufus-Cridge, but, astoundingly enough, to their eyes, at least, Felix Goode. :In a moment Munby had clapped to the door; and as the old man turned, with a faint crp of surprise, he faced the two young men. "What's this?" he demanded, suspiciously. " What are you doing here, Mr. Munbv, at this hour—and who is this fellow?'" : ~ < Baxendale. stepped forward and looked the old man squarely in the face. "Don't you know me?" he asked. And in a moment Felix Goode had seized him by the hand, and was shaking it vigorously, and calling him his dear boy, and thanking the good God that had sent him back again. After that they sat down and proceeded to discuss the situation from every possible point of view, rejecting" this idea and tentatively touching upon that as a mere possibility—and all in the ■' manner of earnest and desperate men. For the man sleeping above in his room was a force to be reckoned with, and must be fought with his own weapons. "If I could get him into these clothes, and myself into my own again,, all would be well," said John Baxendale more than once. " I'm of a mind to go up to the room tliat is mine and drag him out of bed, and compel him' to dress in these things"—he touched his own clothes as he spoke—"and then bundle him out of the place, neck and crop, to tell What story he liked." "And have him rouse the house with his cries, and bring the servants down upon us, with impossible explanations to follow," said Felix Goode. I've a better plan than that, and a simpler one. Come with me and 111 show you." Guided by the old man they went upstairs until they reached the door of John Baxendales bedroom. After listening for a moment the old man turned to them, and, murmuring, " In a drunken sleep,'' opened the door and went in, followed by them. There the,bed 'ay Rufus Cridge, sleeping heavily,' and beside him—tossed upon the floor, or anywhere else where he had happened to fling them—were John Baxendale's clothes. "Now,"whispered Felix Goode, "here's your chance.. Change now, and leave these shabby garments of his beside the bed. Then I will unscrew the bulbs from the electric light, so + hat he may switch away for an hour,' and he won't be able to get a light of any kind. Leave the rest to me. Lock the door of your dressing-room, so that there is no possibility of. his getting any other suit. Now come" away and leave him."

Very rapidly Baxendale changed his clothes, leaving Cridge'a deplorable garments handy by the ' bedside; then, wondering a little .what, was to happen, came away with Felix Goods and Munby. But when ; they got down ; into the emokingroom again the lawyer explained his purpose. ' ' '. y ' ' : "Go out, Mr. Munby, to the stables, and ring the great alarm bell that hangs in, tho turret there. Ring as .-.you never rang before, and rouse the house." In a couple of minutes the silence of the house was broken hideously by the clamour of the bell. Doors were flung open, and frightened voices cried to each other. There was much knocking; at John Baxendale's door, and shouts, to him to get up, for tho house, was on fire. Rufus Cridge, waking hazily from that drunken slumber, tumbled out of bed, and pulled on hie clothes in the darkness, staggered down somehow in the confusion into the open air, and ran on wildly, scarcely knowing what he did, through the ground*... So presently it happened that, in the moonlight, with the clamour of the bell ended, he stood in the silence, and looked at himself and woke to the full consciousness that he was Rufus Cridge again— homeless, with the great silent house of the Baxendales closed and dark before him. CHAPTER VI. It took time for the full measure of the catastrophe to enter into the. mind of Rufus Cridge. He had been so secure, so utterly safe; and now, in a moment, as by 'a miracle, he found himself stranded on tho world, at dead of night, in the old and shabby clothing that properly belonged to him, and with the great house ho had so cunningly taken by assault barred against him. In a halting, frightened way, he crept round the place, trying doors and windows, in the hope that ho might be able ip get inside, and so again take up the position he had usurped. But for the fact that the miracle that had happened had shaken his wits a little he would have gone hammering at great door of the house, and demanded, admittance. Bat ho tahw. in, this

sudden change of affairs something beyond his immediate comprehension, some -trick he had not vet fathomed. He was outside iu the world, with the whole position completely reversed • he must, make up his mind what to do.

Glancing at' the dark house over his shoulder, he went down through the grounds, and across the high road into the wood in which John '.."Baxendale and his friend Munby Had been hidden that night; and there, curiously enough, he was watched. He lay there for a long time looking at, (lie house and trying to decide what was best, to ha done: cursing his luck at being turned adrift -at that hour with all that he had tried to do undone in a moment. And near him among the trees crouched the girl Bella, watching, as sho supposed. John Baxendale, and 'gleeful in the thought that he had failed in what he meant to do. For this man was dressed as she knew John Baxendale had been dressed. And' she told herself that- Rufus Cridge was in the house, in the disguise in which she had seen him staggering down the road; she told herself that tho plot had failed. Rufus Cridge, all unconscious of her presence there, presently saw the dawn growing in the sky, and knew that this was no place for him to be discovered in. He must set away. In that hour he seemed to need help as ho had never needed it yet. ■Some trick had been played upon him. These people against whom' he had plotted were stronger than himself, and must he fought with more subtle weapons than anv he had vet found.

The .shock of that alarm that had flung! him from his bed and sent him flying out ' into the niijthl had sobered the man": lie j began to think over the- whole matter, and ! so to arrive, at some conclusion as to what i had been done. The one thing thai puzzled him was that ho should be wearing again those deplorable clothes that had belonged to ihim as Rufus Cridge, and which he had seen being put upon John Baxendale in the room in Middleton'.s Rents. IV.' could not for the life of him understand how lie had got hold of them, or how contrived to dress himself in them at the time when the clamour of the bell had startled him from sleep. There could be but ui fc meaning attached to that: that in soiny fiii'lrion John Baxendale or the clothes had been removed from Middleton's Rente) and transferred to Baxendale Hall. _ "We've changed places again; but how's it- been done?" he muttered to himself. "There's been treachery somewhere; somebody's sold me. It can't be Baxendale; they never let him go— And yet I left, him in these clothes*! Well, it's a puzzle! But I'll get back somehow to what I was. What a fool I was to let the drink soak my Drains away like that. Someone's caught me naprring, that's what it is. He came to the rapid decision" that ho could do no good by hanging about there, ' The trick he had played in the first place on Baxendalo had spoilt any chance of compromise : there could bs ho question now of the division of the fortune; it must be, as ho had first su""Tes<ted, all or nothing and in all probability it spelt nothing. Within an hour he was on the road to London, with grimly-set face, and the determination in his heart to find out exactly what had happenedand, above all, where the real John Baxendale was to be found. Surprisingly enough, there was money in the pockets of his ragged clothing—some of that leant to John Baxendale Dick Munby— so that the journey to London was not a difficult matter. Ho landed in due course at the great London terminus, and melted into the streets, and so came by devious ways to Middleton's Rents, Lam-, beth, and climbed the stairs of the house in search of Johanna Cridge. He was.to learn again how extraordinary; was. that likeness between himself , arid the other man when, on entering, the room unannounced, he came face to face with Amos Voice, who had paid an early morning call on his patroness. Amos looked round as the door opened, sprang to his feet, and stared at Cria2o. . "Youyou've como back?" he gasped; for, of course, he imagined that this was* the man about whose disappearance from the cellar of the house < they had been so deeply concerned. '""'•' "Of course I've comeback, you idiot! 7 exclaimed Rufus Cridge., striding into' the room angrily. " Where's Mother Cridge?" But Mr. Voles did not answer. ? This was tho chance, as he thought, of his lifetime, to secure, single-handed, ; this desperate man. While the .other moved across tho room towards the witidow, Mr. Voles, executed a flank movement which placed him at the door. In an instant he was outside it, and the key was turned in the lock. Rufus Cridge twisted round just in time to see the locked door and to take in the situation. ' He sank into a chair with a roar of laughter. "He takes me for the other one!" he exclaimed. "Which means, of course, that, the other one has really got away. Well— I suppose we shall get an explanation presently," ho added, philosophically, as he stretched himself in the chair and looked down at his broken boots. "It looks very much to me as if the game was up. I suppose I started with a bad hand, and didn't even know how to play that." The key turned in tho lock presently, and Johanna Cridge walked in, and faced him. She, at least, was not afraid of ; him, although she saw in him that John Baxendale who had managed to get away from the house after his capture. But a glance at him, when she got nearer, was sufficient to assure her that this was, after all, Kufu<: Cridge, and not John Baxendale. His careless, casual nod to her, and his dejected attitude, showed her so much at least. She bit. her lip, and sat down opposite him, arid asked the one question the situation seemed to demand. "Well—how have you failed?" ; ! "Tell me first. what has become of the | man I left here—that precious brother of mine," said Cridge. " See for yourself," he added, starting to his feet arid indicating jby a gesture the clothes he wore. "I've come back to you dressed as I left him dressed."

"He got away. He ".was let out from the cellar in which we'd locked him," replied Johanna Cridge, savagely. " Perhaps you can. guess who did that?" The man took a step nearer to her, and stared into her eyes. " You don't mean—" The woman nodded. "I mean Bella Ogden," she said. " She stole my keys and crept down there and let the- man out. The keys were found in the door. Perhaps you can give me some idea of why she should do that?" ; ..." ,;..:, * "A bit of revenge, T suppose," implied Rufus. "But she shall pay for this— jove! she shall pay a big price. She's been pestering me for months past to marry her —and, 1 might have done it if this bigger gam© hadn't come along. But there's some, thing else afoot now,, mother—or there was until this disaster" happened. I see it all now. I understand that this man—let loose by her—has got back to the place I took, and has contrived to get me out into the world again." \ . The woman looked at liim contemptuous, ly for a moment or two, and then spoke her mmd with characteristic energy. "I can guess pretty well what has happened," she said, bitterly. " You never could keep your head in any sudden prosperity. You were a poor creature always. I might have known you'd fling away your chances. Didn't; I warn you that you must first establish yourself before you began to play rack and ruin with their smug respectability? Tell me v how it happened." So he told her, sulkily enough; and she listened, nodding from time to time as she let each point sink into her mind. She saw, as ho did, that they must begin again; she saw, as he had failed to see, that so much was lost by reason of this first mishap. But while she thought that, the man s mind was turning over and over that thought about the woman who had betrayed him; for in Bella's act he saw onlv one of revenge against himself. He stood there grinding his teeth and beating one clenched band into the palm of the other "What are you thinking about?" demanded Mother Cridge at last. (To. be continued daily.)