THE LONG LANE OF MANY WINDINGS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19280, 19 March 1926, Page 18

THE LONG LANE OF MANY WINDINGS.

BY LOUIS TRACY.

CHAPTER Xl—{Continued.) The lawyer appeared to be strangely unready for the conference to which his client had been bidden. Again he had to search thoughtfully for the right phrase. "Mr. Furneaux told me something of this," he said slowly. "He is a man of remarkable intelligence. He displays a sort of phenomenal intuition, a gift of which the law takes no cognisance." Frensham laughed. The reservation, cautiously adroit as it was, did not escape him.

"He astounded me after a few minutes' talk by sweeping aside the strong circumstantial evidence which chance had compiled against me, he said, so I cannot blame you if tho legal mind is slower to admit that I may have been more sinned

against than sinner." Thrn the other laughed in his turn. "I deserved that," he cried, with a new frankness. "The fact is, Sir Arthur, I am burthened by knowledge which has been withheld from you. As a lawyer, 1 am tempted to tre;id warily and make sure of my ground by questions rather than statements. I apologise. Now let us get to business. Sir Hubert was insured many years ago under an age-limit policy for twenty-five thousand pounds. That expired three years ago and he exchanged it for a paid-up life policy of thirty-five thousand pounds. Then, the mortgagees of tho estate were protected by a separate life poLicy for fifteen thousand pounds, which is considerably more than the amount of the mortgage. But that is not all. Sir Hubert had ten thousand pounds invested in an oil company. For some reason, which he did not disclose to me, he did not approve of the management recently, and. about a week before his death, compelled his co-directors to buy him out. He got the money, I know, because I re-invested it for him in approved trustee securities. I don't know how he contrived it. From what I have been told about the company in question it was a rather remarkable achievement. All this means that when the succession duties and other charges are met you will benefit by something over fifty thousand pounds, and the Frensham property is left absolutely unencumbered." The younger man was so astounded that he literally could not speak for some , seconds. "It's —it's a ridiculous—thing —to say," he gasped, "but are you really serious 1" "This is not even a legal joke, which can be distinctly serious," was the smiling reply. "I mean exactly what I have said, Sir Arthur. Your capital, properly invested, will bring you in close on three thousand pounds a year. If you do not choose to saddle yourself with an expensive establishment, you can let The Lodge for a term of years and pick up another five hundred annually. Your chief perplexity will centre in your income tax schedule, and I advise you to leave its preparation in our hands, as your income will be derived mainly from revenues taxed at source. To use your own word. I am so 'serious' that I shall be glad to advance, say, five hundred pounds, to-day for ; your immediate necessities. If I were you, I'd keep my expenditure within a couple of thousand pounds per annum for a few years. Then you will have some additional capital to play with, so to speak, in case you wish to undertake any enterprise or even set up housekeeping in your own place." Then Frensham broke into a laugh which may have been a trifle hysterical; but "was genuine enough. "My luck has changed with a vengeance," he cried. "Last Saturday a ' charming young lady pressed five hun- • effect pounds on me. To-day, Thursday, experienced lawyer offers me the same surr> * I declined the first, with thanks, and the second I must defer acceptance of, for the time being, at any rate I don't want to walk round London with all that money in my pockets,, and, if I Eaid a cheque into my bank, I would reak my promise to Furneaux." "Ah! Furneaux! Wonderful little man! He realised you were wanted here. Well, now that I have seen you, and can identify you personally, I must take steps to protect your interests. In the first place, write me a letter authorising this firm to collect the insurances, pay off the mortgage and the succession duties, and generally pot matters on a proper footing. If you cars to add instructions that tie proceeds are to be invested in trustee securities it will save time, and your income will begin so much the sooner. If you don't want five hundred, why not fifty?" "Mr. Morgan," said .Frensham earnestly , "if you hand me fifty pounds in real money I shall begin to believe I am not bewitched. Wizards of the orthodox type don't deal in currency notes. But, if possible, do not produce the packet out of a box which exudes blue flame when opened, or anything>exerting like that." The lawyer touched a bell, and a clerk appeared. "Have we fifty pounds in tire rash-box, Mr. Wilkins V' he inquired. "Very, well, bring in notes'to that amount." So, about ILIS a.m., Arthur Frensham walked out into Lincoln's Inn Fields with a compact bundle in one of his pockets which assured him that he was living in this everyday world and not in a realm of fantasy. He could not go to his own tailors, so compromised by visiting a shop in Oxford Street and buying a small outfit more in accord wi£h his usual guise than had been obtainable in the Isles of Scilly. He looked longingly at a decent hat, but forebore, and had it sent with the rest of the consignment to Furneaux's address. Then he noticed the open door of a church, and went in, though momentarily incapable of prayer, or of any sort of consecutive and reasoned thought. He felt simply that the atmosphere of a church would be helpful._ It was calm, healing. Something so inexplicable had occurred that he needed nothing so much just then as the all-pervading spirit of God's house. " . Out in the air again he wandered in the ■direction of the Embankment. It was still far too early to call at .Scotland Yard, so he found a seat in the pleasant garden beneath the Adelphi, and forced a cer- . tain concentration on actualities. His thoughts were turned that way by the passing of a trim little woman who resembled his wife in style and carriage. Her high heels clicked on the asphalt just as Hildn's had done oh the parquet floor of The Lodge and tho smooth path m Battersea Park. The recollection brought a mist to his eves. Poor girl! How telf-confident she had been, how sure of her own mind! What was her retort to his father's threat to live twenty years—that his wicked old heart would wither long before that? How could she guess that she herself would die within a few hours of the man at whom she gibed! » A queer notion peeped up suddenly in Frensham's consciousness, a notion so repliant that he crushed it, at once, for he recalled how Hilda's biting words might, in view of subsequent events, be construed into threats. That was absurd, of course. The sprightly little actress was not made of the neurotic material which blazes into unexpected crime. If anything. she erred on the prosaic side. She had not married for love, but for ambition. When ambition was thwarted she resolutely thrust even the shadow of love oat of doors. Her death was a mere physical result of shock. It might have occurred were she mixed "up in a collision between taxis, or startled in any similarly unforeseen and terrifying way. But why should a man, who not only enjoyed a fair pension, but seemingly had a t, command many thousands of pounds, insist on the lack of means in the family and the necessity of his son marrying a •wealthy bride? Sir Hubert had actually thrnjsk khe comparatively large sum pf twenty-five thousand pounds- that it

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might increase by ten thousand when he died. A poor man, one who needed hundreds rather than thousands, would not have done that. He vowed, too, during that las! trying scene, that* he would leave his son a heavily-mortgaged estate, vet seemed to have provided against any such grievous wrong hy another insurance. And, then, to cap all else, there was this large investment in some oil company. Ah! In the excitement of life in the lawyer's office Frensham had failed to shares by his fellow-directors with the connect the "buying out" of Sir Hubert's Burmese oil undertaking mentioned by Sheldon. Queer, wasn't it, that Caere. Sir Hubert's financial guide it would seoni. should also be pretty Mrs. Frensham's theatrical god-father! Again did the thinker wriggle uneasily on his bench. This combination of circumstances was rather absurd, but he must let Furneaux know all about it. That diminutive person was a genius of sorts. His acute brain bad the knack of anticipating what other men would do or say the day after to-morrow, or had probably done or said a fortnight ago. It demanded some such faculty in a detective to acquit him, Frensham, of any complicity in his father's murder after the briefest examinations.

This review of motives rendered so battling by events, went back to Sir Hubert's definite statement that his financial position was not a sound one. With all his faults the general was scrupulously accurate in such matters. He would annoy people by his over-devo-tion to detail. Not until he was taught a species of wisdom by losing three cooks in quick succession could he be stopped from checking the number of eggs used in the kitchen!

Then, with a gleam of real divination, Frensham discovered the solution of the problem—at any rate of the greater part of it. His father's family pride would no permit that the heir's marriage_ should be wholly mercenary. There might be little money in the bank, but there would be plenty in reserve. At some time, when fate decreed, the seventeenth baronet would be well-to-do. Happily, since the paternal ghost was becoming more and more benignant to a son's spiritual vision, the methods whereby matured insurances can be disposed of for cash did not suggest themselves at the moment. Indeed, "Frensham knew little about such financial intricacies. Nor had the laifryer told hirn all that was planneu by Sir Hubert, whose ultimate projects were quickly discernible by the legal eye when certain preliminary measures were discussed as between solicitor and client. Even the draft of a new will had been mentioned, but the testator had postponed it for a few days. "I want to settle a good many other things first.," he had said carelessly, "and I don't suppose I shall pass away before the end of the month!"

Legal advisers seldom or never reveal every known fact to the layman, and laymen* square the account by trying to hide the really vital facts from their legal advisers. In this statutory game of seesaw the limb of, tho law invariably mamtains a strong grip on the solid ground of precedent. Be that as it may, Frensham's mind was clarified by that half-hour's self-com-muning. It happened that his absorption made liim a few minutes late for his appointment, so he was duly apologetic when shot up to the third storey of New Scotland Yard and shown into a welllighted room where Furneaux was seated with a big, bullet-headed, blue-eyed man whom Sheldon's vignette labelled as Chief Superintendent Winter, even if the great detective's name had not been painted on the outer door of a set of offices - . , • j "Sorry I'm behind time," he said. "My excuse is that I was trying a quite unusual experiment. I have been thinking "Splendid!" cackled Fureanux. "Let's have tiie result- before you think some more, and decide not to tell us everything."" "I should hate to beep you gentlemen waiting for your luncheon."

(To be continued daily.)