THE MAN GALLED GILRAY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14928, 28 February 1912, Page 5

THE MAN GALLED GILRAY.

[PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT]

BY FRED M. WHITE, Author of " The Crimson Blind," " The Cardinal Moth," " Blackball," " Craven Fortune," " A Front of Brass," etc., etc.

COPYRIGHT. CHAPTER - Vl.—(Continued). There were other witnesses to follow the postman, but for the most part they had little to say. There were tradesmen in the district with whom Mr. Gilray had dealings, but he always ordered everything himself, and in no instance did he omit to pay for it on the spot. There were agents for theatres and concert-halls who had the same story to tell, and later on they were corroborated by the proprietors of certain hotels where Mr. Gilray was in the habit of dining.. Ho had always dined alone, and he was always correctly dressed, and he never spoke to anybody. His manner was always perfectly quiet and correct, and nobody had ever seen anything to which the- faintest objection could be taken. At the end of two hours' hearing the inquest was adjourned for a week, and the spectators filed slowly out, utterly baffled and bewildered, and with a feeling that they knew no more about this matter now than they had done after the perusal of the morning papers. And amongst them was Temple, who, with all his astuteness and knowledge of the shady side of life, was bound to admit that ho was as much at sea as the casual man in the street. He turned out and walked along with Sparrow. "Well, what do you make of it?" he asked.

"Oh, don't ask me!" Sparrow said dejectedly. " I've had some tough jobs in my time, but never anything to equal this. First of all, there is an utter absenco of motive, and in the next place we know nothing whatever about this man. He has managed to conceal his identity perfectly, and unless some of his relatives como forward I don't know what to do next."

" Oh, they'll turn up, won't they?" Temple asked.

"Well, to tell the truth, I don't know. Now, this man is evidently a gentleman. He was obviously well-bred and born, and used to good society. Possibly he was connected with some very good family indeed. StilL with all his respectability, there is something wrong somewhere. And that is why it is just possible that his relatives will keep silence. By now this crime has been talked about from one end of England to another, and if the relatives of the dead man come forward they cannot possibly escape the widest publicity. Therefore, they may deem it prudent to remain in the background. If by any chance they are dragged into the light of day they will be able to escape any sort of censure by saying that they Hadn't the remotest idea that the unfortunate man was any connection of theirs. And they'll bo justified in this course by the absolute certainty that Gilray is an assumed name. Indeed, I am taking that for granted. His real name was no more Gilray than it was 'Sparrow.' And you see the poor man had money in the house. He had jewels and a lot of valuable furniture. Therefore, there will be enough and rnoro than enough to bury him comfortably. His relatives will argue all this out, and decide to remain silent. Really, there's no reason why they shouldn't. Why should they bo dragged into a scandal? Why should they bo talked about, when it's "a million to one that a disclosure of their identity will not lead us an inch in the direction of the murderer? The r.'.ore i think of it the less I like it, Mr. Temple I've had a good deal of experience of this kind of thing, and you mark me if this isn't going to bo another of the undiscovered crimes of which the recluse is so frequently the victim. Of course, 1 will do all I can, and I'm going to have another look round the study now. One never knows how some trifle is going to lead to some important results. Perhaps you would like to come along with me? "Can't possibly do it," Temple said crisply. "As a matter of fact, I have wasted a valuable morning already. I am a prettv busy man, as you know, what with my work on two papers. And I shall have to be at it from now till two o'clock to-morrow morning making up the Southern Weekly Herald tor the week after next. And I've got a heap of manuscript to go through, too." All the same, it was late in the afternoon before Temple found time to get up to the email office at the top of the big Herald buildings where he edited the weekly edition of the paper. He found a couple of assistants in the outer office up to their eves in work. The floor was littered with* clippings from various exchanges, and the whole atmosphere was redolent of paste and cigarette smoke. He did not sit down to work at once as he usually did. In the ordinary course of things he plunged at once into his task with real and enthusiasm. But now ho was disturbed in his mind. In the first place ho had a pretty good story to write, and he could not quite see his way to the arrangement of the various details. He wished this sensational crime had not happened just now. There were so many other matters to worry him. There was the business of those letters, for instance. The more he thought about this the more 1 the mystery deepened. Ho was veiy par-

ticular about that desk of his; it was a desk in which he kept every private paper, and this being so ho had been very careful to have a lock upon it that nobody could possibly tamper with. Tie had been assured by the maker that nobody could pick the lock without betraying the fact that it had been tampered with, in fact it would not be possible to make another key to fit it. As yet the lock had not been touched. Temple used his desk too frequently to have tho smallest dcubt on that score. And, strange to say, nothing else was missing. Why had "these particular letters been picked out, he wondered. There were other things that tho thief would have found quite as useful for the purpose of blackmail. Anyway, the letters were gone. And Lady Silverdale was paying a fearful price for her indiscreetness. It would be necessary to find without delay • the name of the rascal who was playing upon the feelings of an innocent woman like this. Phil Temple's heart beat faster as he thought of it, the blood tingled to the tips of his fingers. He pushed his paper away for the moment, and strodo into tho outer office. No doubt a little later ho would be able- to compose himself to the work before him. It was a frequent habit to stay long after the rest of the staff had gone." His mind was too full of Oilrav and the turmoil of the troublo over Lady Silverdale to care much about the manuscript of the wouldbe' novelists that lay like a litter on his desk.

"Anybody been here?" Templo asked. " Only one visitor," tho senior assistant said, "looking after a manuscript. Seems to want to have it back again." " Oh, I know them," Temple said. "The sort of person who sends in a story the day before yesterday and wants it published the same week, with ;. cheque by return post." " He didn't seem quite like that," tho assistant said. "He said that ho had sent it here by mistake. I understand that ho had a commission for it, and that he had put two stories in the wrong envelope. At any rata, ho kicked up a deuce of a fuss because I couldn't find it. I told him that it hadn't been read, and that it was locked up in your desk, and other picturesquo fictions of the same sort. He wasn't very nice about it, either. He said he would come here again this evening." " Oh, will he?" Temple said. "I hope you stopped that game. I hope that you told him that I make an invariable rule to see nobody after two o'clock on Thursdays. What was ho like?" "Oh, cadaverous-looking chap, with a lot of long hair all about his face, and dark spectacles. Sort of unchained poet of about fifty. By tho way ho carried on anybody would think it was the manuscript of another ' Paradise Lost' that ho was after. I told him that it was not the slightest use calling again to-day, and probably he would be able to see you tomorrow morning. In the excitement of the moment I forgot to ask him the name of the precious manuscript, but he left his card. It's on your deck."

A somewhat shabby piece of pasteboard which looked as if it had been cleaned with breadcrumbs lay amongst the litter papers on Temple's table. The card bore the name of Mr. Edward Seymour Scaff, 99, Sarsenet-street, London. Temple tossed it contemptuously aside, and plunged into his work.

He toiled on till eight o'clock without intermission, when he rushed out for a hurried mouthful of dinner, intending to return later on and work alone till midnight. He was detained, however, in the editor's office downstairs, and it was nearly eleven before he got back to his own journal. Through the glass door with the black lettering upon it he could see that the light was burning. "That's very odd," Temple murmured. "I could ha/>3 sworn that I switched out the- electric light. If one of the staff is in there playing a practical joke on —" Temple crept along, slowly and grimly. He opened the door quietly and looked in. At the desk a total stranger was rummaging the papers about as if searching for something, furtive, silent, in deadly earnest. Temple stood there waiting.

CHAPTER VII. THE AtmiOß'S QUEST. A grim smile flickered over Temple's face. The idea of anybody attempting a burglary at a newspaper office amused him. It would bo the very last place in the world where the midnight marauder had any chanco of obtaining any adequate return for his trouble. And then in his mind's eye Temple could see himself making quite an interesting little story out of the incident. He could tell it at the meetings of tho Press Club, and later on make a -smart special of it for the Herald. He stood thero contemplating the unconscious thief who was searching among the papers with a certain amount of feverish haste. He had turned out two drawers apparently without success, and was now trying to pick the lock of another with something exceedingly primitive in the way of a tool. It needed no practised eye to see that the intruder was an amateur at the game. So far as Temple could see, tho stranger was a man of about 50 years of age, and was shabbily dressed in rusty black, an old-fashioned Inverness cape was about his shoulders, and his hat was the traditional hat of transpontine melodrama. His face was half hidden in a mass ofblack hair, and his eyes were concealed by spectacles. Then it flashed upon Temple who the man really was. Undoubtedly this was the lunatic who had called at the office earlier in the day in search of his precious manuscript. Temple knew tho tribe too well to feel in the least alarmed. Ho had encountered hundreds of specimens in his time. Sooth to say he had no great opinion of the average writer of fiction. There were a good many exceptions, of course, but for the most part Temple regarded the craft as a ragged regiment. No doubt this man was no more eccentric than the rest, and possibly he had an exaggerated view of the value of his work. He might, too, be possessed with the idea that there was a conspiracy on the part of the Weekly Herald to rob him of his work of genius.

He was still turning over the papers on the table and trying the drawers. So deeply engaged was he in his work that he quite failed to see that he was no longer alone. " Not a bit of good," Temple said jocularly, " you won't find anything of the least value in the office unless it happens to be the shears or the stamps which come with the contributors' manuscripts. And as to the manuscripts themselves, I always keep them locked up in the safe. I don't do that because they are the least valuable, Hut simply because the writers esteem them so highly. I wonder if yours happens to be amongst the rest?" All this sarcasm seemed to be lost upon the man at the table. He looked up quickly, and his eyes gleaned behind his spectacles. It was a wild gleam, and just for a moment Temple was serious. He did not like it at all. After all said and done, strange things had happened in newspaper offices before now, and it was just possible that tho intruder was armed. He stood there with lis hands on the table, glaring at Temple, who discreetly waited the next move on the part of his visitor. " You are tho editor?" the stranger asked.

"It's not generally known," Temple said, " hut I am mainly responsible for the paper. Arfl now, what may I have the pleasure of doing for you? You seem to be an original type of genius." All this had no effect on the i- .ruder. He was in deadly earnest beyond a doubt. "People say so," he said. "But we needn't go into that now. I called here thin afternoon for a manuscript of mine, and your assistants declined to part with it. They made- the excuse that they did not know whce to put their hands on the story, but that was not true, Mr. Temple. They could have given mo the manuscript back if they had liked." (To be continued on Saturday next.)