THE SOLITARY HOUSE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16895, 6 July 1918, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE SOLITARY HOUSE.

BY E. R, PUNSHON, Author of " Arrows of Chance." etc.. eta . PART I. (COPYRIGHT.) CHAPTER XI -(continued.) Keith said aloud i "Good day; you wished to speak to mo?"

He spoke calmly and coolly, for by now lie had quite regained his self-possession, and it seemed that his quiet manner slightly disconcerted, the other. " Yes," he said, ''yes, I did." Won't you sit down?" Keith asked, pointing to one of the deck chairs and

at the same time occupying one himself. "Thank you," the other answered, and seated himself cautiously and a little as if afraid that the chair would break J~wn under him; and as Keith watered his slow and slightly clumsy movements lie thought agah to himself:

"Nor is this tho man who tried to strangle me and who attacked Esme—he hasn't the quickness and activity that fellow must have."

Aloud he said, as still the other did not speak : " Your name is Wentworth, I understand

" The same as your own, is it not?" the stranger asked quickly. •' Quite so," agreed Keith, and added pleasantly: "And yet we are not relatives, I think?"

The other did not answer, but he shot at Keith a sudden look from his sunken sharp little eyes that was full of doubt and menace and fear, as though this remark puzzled and even intimidated him. Like a flash of lightning the idea came to Keith :

"Why, the fellow does not know who I am or what I am doing here any moro than I know who he is."

He felt his confidence greatly increased by this sudden conviction. Ho lay back in (his ohair as if quite at ease, and looked calmly at his visitor, who was still silent and hesitating. "Yes?" he said, as though inviting him to state the object of his call. " Yes?" The stranger still did not answer. He sat scowling and doubtful, pressing hia great bony hands together, and now and again darting at Keith a quick and questioning look from under his shaggy brows.

" May I ask . . ." began Keith and paused. "'I understood you wished to say something to me?" "I expected to see another Mr. Wentworth," answered the stranger. " Of course," answered Keith politely; "I am exceedingly sorry for your disappointment." The stranger lifted his eyes and looked full at Keith, and there was in them a menace and a malignity quite extraordinary. Keith realised to the full that this was a dangerous and perhaps a desperate man, but he smiled lightly as he looked back and waited. All at once the stranger leaned forward and touched Keith on his knee with one of his great bony fingers. "Where k he?" he asked.

Keith did not answer. 'Where u he?" the other asked again, his manner now full of deep and fierce passion, of a bitter anor consuming hatred. A dull flush had crept under the Jailor of his dry and tightly drawn skin nd he said again : " He isn't here, where is he?"

Keith had an inspiration. " If you care to leave a message ..." he said and left the sentence unfinished. " Then he isn't here?" the stranger asked, flashing a quick look at Keith. "As I think you said just now," remarked Keith. " Did I? Perhaps I did," said the other. " Are you a friend of his? Has he left you in charge here ?" ' " Well, I suppose," mused Keith, v" I suppose I may say I am in charge here for the time being. But before I answer any more questions I think I am entitled to ask for the reason of your visit and your object in questioning me. I may as well tell you," he added, " that I do not at present feel very much inclined to prolong this interview." . / " You are on his side?" the stranger asked.

"As I say, I 'do not feel inclined to answer any more questions till I know what they are for." " Well, let me ask you one more," retorted the stranger. "Are you rich "Not as rich as I -should like to be anyhow," answered Keith. "Would a thousand pounds be any use to you?" asked the other slowly. "Are you hinting at a bribe asked Keith directly, "No. a reward for co-operation," answered the stranger. " I appreciate the distinction," smiled Keith. "Would the amount you mention be raid in money or in—jewellery?" " You* could have it any way you liked—when you had earned it," answered the stranger, looking puzzled. And Keith thought to himself that he at least knew nothing of the hidden hoard of jewellery the house had contained. "What should I have to do to earn it?" he. asked. "You must excase my curiosity, but when a perfect stranger drops in and offers one a thousand pounds one naturally wants to know the details." " You would have ... to help me," the stranger said. "Indeea, in an important matter presumably," Keith remarked. "In what way? I like to be precise." "First of all by telling me where Dick Wentworth is," the stranger said, and he pronounced the name with a certain accent of hatred and suppressed rage and with a gleam in his small sunken eyes. ' ,: Sorry, but I am afraid I can't do that." answered Keith, "for the simple reason that I don't know." " You don't expect me to believe that," said the other roughly. "Or Mrs. Wentworth then, where is she?" " I don't know that either; haven't the least idea," Keith assured him. The stranger got angrily to his feet. " You lie, he said. Keith rose to his feet, too, and they faced each other. "No doubt it's purely prejudice," he said lazily., "but there you are, we all have our little fads, and it's one of mine that I don't allow people to use that expression to me l'ou will apologise thereforeor " " Or what?" the other sneered. "Or there is going to be a bit of a dust up between us, Keith answered. , There was a moment's pause, and the two men eyed each other closely. Keith was powerfully built and exceedingly ao tive. an-J he had never yet. met an adversary to whom he could not render a good account of himself. But ho recognised that ho was now faced with a man whoso great height- and remarkable length of limb were likely to render him no mean adversary. His eyes, too, wero those of a fighter, fierce and hot, and Keith, watching them intently so as to be ready for any swift attack, held himself prepared for a struggle that he felt would bo no easy one. But on a sudden the other laughed, a harsh, disconcerting laugh that had the remarkable quality of leaving his pale and cadaverous features quite unmoved. , . „ , ~ ' "Oh, all right, I apologise, he said. " After all, you are not the game I ami after; you are not my meat. So you refuse me your,help; you don't want my thousand pounls I offer?" ,_..,. "I never said eo," answered Keith; "but I can't earn it by answering questions I don't know the answers to." " Well, if you get to know,' said the stranger,' "or if you feel you are willing to do some work for good pay, just tie a b;t of white rag or a handkerchief, or sometfiing like that, to one of those bushes under the trees there. You will eoon hear." , " Very likely," answered Keith; I can quite believe iij but might it not be dangerous?" and as he spoke, watching the other closely, he put his hands to his throat with a gesture as if effecting strangulation. Not a muscle of the stranger's face changed, but a light flickered in his eves for a moment and Keith saw lie understood. . ■,"'

N/> danger at, all, I assure you," he answered; " those who are my friends are friends to each other." ,'.' S Yi- !s a friend of yours, * s it," exclaimed K,oith angrily, stepping nearer to mm, "who is dodging about over there?" "I don't know what you mean," retorted the stranger; and all at once, for Keith's looks were very threatening, a revolver showed in his hand. "You had better keep off," he said coldly. _ Keith hesitated, tempted to dash in and risk it, for bullets miss often enough. But he thought of Esme most likely watching from the house, and he remembered" that he was the only link that existed between her and tho world. Again for a moment tho two men looked at each other, their eyes fierce and alert, thoir breathing short and quick, and then all at once, tho stranger put back his head and uttered his harsh, disconcerting laugh that never seemed to affect his features in the least. Come," he said, "don't let's be such tools. What have we to fight about? I dare say you know this is a big business. If you stand in with mo, you share. If not, you don't. That's all" <« "I was only wondering," said Keith, if I ought!, not to keep you and hand you over to the police." "The police?" repeated the other and seemed genuinely surprised. "What for? I think this an affair we shall all want to keep away from the police. Good day, and think- over what I said. If you feel you want vhat thousand pounds—" "I should like to see it, anyhow," retorted Keith with a cortain emphasis on the word "see."

You think I haven't got it?" tho stranger asked. " Man," he cried with a sudden note of exultation, "I shall be worth a million before this is over," and with a sudden gesture full of an indescribable exultation and the fiercest energy ha turned away and walked away with his long, quick, clumsy stride. • '

CHAPTER XII. TWO DATS.

Keith watched him go till he vanished beneath the shelter of Alio trees, and the thought came to him that it would be wise to follow and seo where he went and if he communicated with whoever or whatever it was of mystery that lurked there. But though Keith made a step to carry out, this intention, then ho stopped, remembering that he dared not leave Esme alone, even for the shortest time. It seemed to him that on the whole this interview had only served to make still more obscure the strange and bewildering situation in which he found himself, and what puzzled him most of all was his conviction that his own presence here was equally puzzling and mysterious to his visitor, who yet had not dared to challepge it in any way. Still, Keith was convinced that the man knew something, probably indeed a great deal, concerning these events, and in especial he was sura he knew about the being, whoever* or what ever it might be, that lurked and watched and waited in the wood about the house. It was equally plain, however, that he knew nothing of the existence of that hoard of jewellery, to obtain which Keith felt convinced had bean the aim of the attempt] made upon his life. Another puzzling point was that while Esme must undoubtedly be linked in some way with the house and ite vanished tenants and the mystery that hung about them, and while precisely the same must be true of the stranger who had just gone away, yet he and she apparently knew nothing of each other, since he did not seem to nave recognised her and her memory had been stirred in no way by his coming. With the feeling then that the darkness and mystery all around were deeper and more puzzling even than before, Keith went back slowly to the house and to the drawingroora, where he found Esme sitting with some needlework in her hand. She was making little pretence at working, however, and as he entered she looked up very quickly and eagerly, but witliout speaking. Plainly' she was hoping that the stranger's visit had thrown light upon things and perhaps upon her own unknown identity, and she seemed greatly excited and disturbed. Sitting down beside her Keith said:

"I don't know what he wanted. I couldn't get anything out of him." She looked very disappointed. "But didn't he . . .?" she began and paused. "You were talking a long time,' she said. " I"was trying to get something out of him," Keith repeated. " I think he knows something about what's going on in the wood yonder, but he would not say anything. I hinted at going to the police, but he never turned a hair. I am almost sorry I let him go. I wish I had kept him here." , "How do you mean? How could you?" she asked.

" I believe he is up to mischief of some sort; I didn't like the fellow's looks," answered Keith moodily; " and there's lots of room in the cellar." " Good—gracious," she exclaimed, staring at him in frank amazement. " You don't mean ... but you aren't serious?" "Yes, I am," he answered. "I feel desperate enough, goodness knows, and lam sure he knows something. After he had been in the cellar a bit with nothing to eat or drink he might have grown communicative. Or his friend over there in the wood might have come to ask about him." She considered this very gravely and with cheeks that had become a little pale.

She had laid her needlework down and tier hands were clasped tightly together. "Why do you feel desperate!" she asked gently. When he did not answer she continued i "You kaow you have never told me anything; why you are living here all ilone, or who was here with you before I :ame. I don't even know if you are marked. I thought you were at first. Someme was here with you before me?" "No," ho answered, "no one at all las been here with me except you, and 1 im certainly not married," and as he said this he looked up quickly and their >yes met, till she looked away with a lush rising on her pale cheek. " I hops o be some day," he said and stopped, applied all at once by his own words as a swift realisation of his position and of lers came into his mind. "Do you?" she remarked coldly and ndifierently, taking up her needlework igain. " I suppose lots of people have ,hat idea." All at once she sprang to her eet. "Oh, I shall go mad, she cried. ' I think I am mad. I must, I must, I nust remember. Oh, why can't you find jut something about me?" She sat down as abruptly as she had sprung up, hiding her face in her hands md quivering and trembling from head a foot with the violence of her emo"ions. He sat quite still, staring moodily in front of him. In truth, he did not enow what lie could do, considering his >wn situation was what it was, and that 10 had no right even to the clothes upon lis back; and he understood also that 'or some time she had realised that there yas something strange and unsual about lim and his position there. Without looking up she said in accents of intense and jitter reproach : " 1 have been so hoping you would tell tie and you have never said a word, not a word." "There is only one thing I can tell you," he answered, deeply stung, and feeling that she had cause for complaint against him, "and that is that you were here once before You camo the night before; you seemed very angry and upset about something—l don't know what; and you asked me where your sister was" "My sister! I have a Bister I she criod excitedly, forgetting for the moment her anger with him. " Oh, then there is someone; I'm not all alone"; there is someone. What else did I say?" He told her quickly the story of her first visit to the house, and she was very excited indeed and easterly interested. It seemed to be a great comfort to her to her to know that she had spoken of having a Eiater, for she had apparently conceived a secret fear that she might be as lonely and desolate of all friends and relatives in reality as she was in appearance. " Where can she be? Who can she be?" she kept repeating. " I was looking for her, that is why I came here?" "Yes," he answered, "and I think myself that most likely she is the lady whose things are in your bedroom." "Yea, yes," Esme agreed, " but then you . . . yoji • • •" she looked at him with doubt and wonder. "This is your house; you must know," she Baid, 1 (To bo continued on Wednesday next.)