THE MAMMOTH MANSIONS MYSTERY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19302, 15 April 1926, Page 14

THE MAMMOTH MANSIONS MYSTERY.

BY HEADO2I HILL.

CILAPTER XXlX.—(Continued.) The parlourmaid wondered if the installation had been rigged np so that it might form that pretext or whether it had been designed to render some darker service. She meant to find out. • Mainprice and Alma adjusted their headpieces. For some little time nothing happened. Then, suddenly, at the bidding of Dan Godfrey's distant baton, the orchestra crashed out the overture. There followed a song of sentiment by a < famous contralto, and then a cackle of laughter announced the preludo to a performance by a low comedian. Thero is 110 need to give the whole of his song but at the iourth verse Mainprice stiffened. The words, cleverly improvised so as to spring naturally from the preceding context, ran: "Where's the constant one, where oh where ? Vanished into thinnest air? I will tell you; I have found her. Dead Man's Gap. The cave around her. Grabbed again, let's hope not quite. Like a dove pursued by a cruel kite." To/Alma this sounded the merest doggerel, then she was mystified by the local reference to Dead Man's Gap. But for Mainprice the message interpolated at the i instance of Larry Crowle conveyed a meaning all too clear. "The Constant One meant Constance Eden, and Larry J Crowle had traced her to the cavo by Dead Man's Gap, where she was either in hiding or was being held prisoner ! against tier will. The onlv crumb of comfort in the lines was tnat she had "not quite been grabbed again." The { words "like a dove pursued by a cruel 1 kite" left nothing to the imagination of I one having Mainprice's knowledge. Simon Kite, was at the back of the ' trouble. i What chiefly puzzled the amateur investigator was that Constance should have I won through so near to the haven of the Rectory and yet be remaining aloof from it. That certainly pointed to her not being a free agent. Sno must have intended to return to her former occupation, or the would not be in the neighbourhood. She could not have been transferred to the Hampshire coast from the metropolitan area by force and in secrecy. Her journey down at any rate must have been voluntarily undertaken. Onp thing towered above all others. The cave by Dead Man's Gap would have to be visited again and thoroughly searched without delay. Alma and Jocelyn would have had no eyes and ears for anyone but themselves at the interview of last night. Constance Eden might have been concealed in the cave without their noticing thing.He waited for the interval at the end of the comedian's ditty, and then, removing his headpiece, looked at Alma. " When you were with Jocelyn in the cave last night you saw and heard nothing to lead you to suppose that the cave held enother tenant?" he asked. "No indeed?" was the reply. "We weren't looking or listening for any such. It doesn't follow that there was no one there, though. Jocelyn flashed his electric torch and I saw that the cave ran back , a considerable way, with subsidiary caves, or alcoves at the far end." Mainprice nodded. " I know those alj coves," he said. " Cellars of the old-tjme smugglers. Thank you, Lady Eversley, for reminding me of them. They will have to be overhauled, for I think it possible that there was an unseen witness present at your interview with your husband." The parlourmaid crept noiselessly from the keyhole. She was smart enough to 1 have recognised the artificial ring of the improvised verse and it fed her suspicions ; with fresh fuel, though, being ignorant of Miss Eden's adventures, she was unable to fit the lines with their true significance. She, however, took the precaution to memorise the - verse, scenting a hidden meaning in the final word " kjte." She was a great singer of hymns, this pious parlourmaid, and as an expert in minor poetry, it seemed to her that the " kite" had been dragged in. She remembered, too, that she had heard her master, in conversation with his lady guest, refer to a man named Kite. If ever she came across the owner of the name her memory of that funny verse might be useful. It might even be turned to pecuniary advantage. In the meanwhile Mainprice, feeling a man's crave for feminine sympathy, laid hare to Alma the history of that strange versification, telling her of his attachment to Constance Eden and of the girl's disappearance while in London for her father's funeral. He got the sympathy all right, sweet and womanly, but little else. Alma's was not the order of intelligence calculated to probe the dark corners of such a mystery. She'agreed that the inner recesses of the cave 'would have to be thoroughly explored, but she begged that the search might be postponed till daylight on the morrow. With an unseen enemy lurking about it would be simply courting danger to venture down to the beach that night. It was Lady Eversley's pitiful assertion that she would not sleep a wink if she thought that he was searching the cave that induced Mainprice to give his reluctant promise to wait for the dawn of a new day. On which promise great issues were suspended

CHAPTER XXX. h AN trNHOLT ALLIANCE. Inspector Coyle leaping at the crackle of the bushes, felt out of his element, except in one vital point. Ho had an overwhelming desire to arrest his . man. If he had been on a London pavement he would have had no doubt as to his ability to do so. Or in> the slums of Whitechapel, in blinrl alleys of evil repute. But here, among leaves and beastly brain-splitting tree trunks, he was not so sure. Matted grasses and a tangle of weeds on the floor of the shrubbery clutched at his feet and hampered the impetuous dart he had made upon his prey. He was a tenacious customer not to be baulked when bent on catching a fugitive, find ho got his hand on a man's collar at 'the edge of the shrubbery. The pair closed and fell together on to the gravel of the carriage drive, the inspector uppermost tafter a prolonged rough-and-tumble. Practising a trick of which he was a master, he snapped the handcuffs on the captive and then surveyed his features with the aid of a pocket-torch. His own face registered keenest disappointment.

" Why, you are not Sir Jocclyn Eversley after all!" he declared ruefully. "I made sure 'twas him. You are Simon Kite ain't you ?" " And you are Inspector Coyle," was the whimpering admission. " I recognise you by your voice, sir, and I take leave to tell you that you have got nothing against me. You've just said it was Eversley you wanted." Coyle confessed his error by unlocking the handcuffs. But policemen who make mistakes never apologise to the victims of their errora.

" You and I have got to have a chat, Mr. Kite," he said. " I can easy slip these cuffs on again if you can't explain vhy you are prowling on private property- after dark." Kite laughed unpleasantly. For the same reason that you are," he said. "To keep the tabs on a certain noble_ baronet. Only, as a 0,1, D. officer, iyou have the pull over a poor privato practitioner." " What for have you got your knife ,into Sir Jocelyn Eversley?" Oovle demanded. "You have no powor to touch him if you run him to ground." " Worse luck," conceded Kite. " But I can make hirn pay for sundry little' tilings he has done to mo—notably impersonating me at my London office and committing crimes of which I believo myB , to be suspected. You know better .than I do, inspector, that I only escaped hostile verdicts at those threo inquests 'by the skin of my teeth. Your presence j here me that you were no bungler m tna Mark Hoyden case. You won't co "wrong if you pinch Eversley for the mnroffice and at the Cormorant ££iltib .as well." "That Is for me to judge," the G.I.D pan wan restive under friendly criticism it flow, you are not bound to answer this] |u .

(COPYRIGHT).

Kite, because it may be the basis of a charge against you. Is this the first time we have met this evening ? Are you the blackguard who violently assaulted me in this park not two hours ago? " In his foulest vocabulary, which was very foul, Kite denied the impeachment. " As God is my witness, it wasn't me; I am much too scared of the Yard, to do such a thing," hi bleated in conclusion. " I will accept that denial," said Coyle stiffly. " Now that parson Mainprice alleges that he was shot at on the beach this evening. Can you also deny that you were at the busines end of the pistol ? " " I haven't been on the beach for a week, and then only to admire the view. What's more, I haven't got a pistol." " You lie there anyhow," said Coyle. " You think you are deceiving me, but you ain't really. In our little rough-and-tumble just now I felt tho outline of an automatic in your pocket and I took the liberty of relieving you of it. I have it here. But if you did pot at Mamfrice I shan't quarrel with you over that. le is a meddling fool who deserves all ho gets. Though all this leads us nowhere. T have a proposition to make." " Say on," replied Kite. "My ears are open, as an Indian chief would remark. And it wouldn't commit him any more than it does me." " It would not suit me to have Eversley cleared of Aylwin's murder any more than it would you," said Coyle. " I want to justify my conduct of the case and you want to make him pay for a real or fancied affront. Why should we not join forces, you and I? " " I'm on," responded Kite readily. He would have given anything to be able to laugh loud and long. That a scallywag liko himself should be offered an alliance with Scotland Yard tickled his fancy. " The first thing to be done before we get busy on Sir Jocelyn is to find him," Coyle proceeded. "That's where we have to commence ' co-operation, and I fancy •we have each done a bit of our own already. I have formed the theory that he is lying doggo at the Towers and that Mainprice is aiding and abotting him." " Same here," replied Kite. " You have been accusing me of all kinds of mischief, inspector, but trying to find the joker in the pack has been the sum total of my iniquity. That was why I carried the pistol you lifted off me. I was afraid our baronet friend might assault me." "Likely he would," the official detective agreed. "If it. wasn't you that beat me up it must have been him, and if he would go for me he would go for you. As to our co-operation now. How shall wo begin ? One of us ought to obtain admission to the Towers. Your resemblance to the owner seems to single you out as the pioneer, Mr. Kite." The Villiers Street spy chuckled. " I can do better than that, inspector," he replied. " You can't exactly call it cooperation, because I have done the work already—all on ray lonesome. I will take you to Sir Jocelyn Eversley if you will honour me with your company for half an hour. I have him roped to a tree in the hedge opposite the Rectory gates." The language of both these new-made allies, when they came to the tree and found nothing but a rope with charred strands, was quite unprintable.

CHAPTER XXXI. IN THE TOILS. The story told by Larry Crowle to Mainprice about Constance Eden was true. It was not without misgivings that she entered the car which the cross-eyed chauffeur brought for her to her aunt's flat in Mowlem Street and these misgivings became stark fear after she had called on her aunt at the library. That good lady had been insistent that the car was a trap, not, as it purported, sent by her employer to take her to meet him at Waterloo, where neither of them had any business that* morning, but designed to get her into the power of her enemies. Mrs. Barstow had tendered the sound advice to have nothing more to do with the car or its driver, but the girl had thought that if she refused to re-enter the vehicle she would put the chauffeur on guard prematurely and very likely defeat her own ends. She had therefore practised the mild stratagem of feigning faintness and sending Crowlo into a public house for brandy, quitting the car during his absence. It was not for her to know that the ruse had been witnessed by Simon Kite, who had followed the car in a taxi, having far too much at stake to leave anything to chance. Constance, yearning for a sense of security, indulged the instinct by diving into a hostel which proclaimed itself in large gilt letters as a branch of j the Young Women's Christian Association. She engaged a room at a most moderate sum.

There she remained for a couple of days in perfect safety, but when she left the sanctuary two trailers went separately behind her—Simon Kite and Larry Crowle. The latter, true to his promise to Mainprice, had "combed London" for her, his knowledge of the haunts of transient females ensuring a quick success. Homesick for Eversley Rectory, Constance made for the terminus of the Southern Railway, her two shadowers taking seats in adjoining compartments of the corridor train, the one in front and the other to the rear of the compartment she herself occupied. A glimpse of Kite passing along the corridor during the journey caused her to alter her plans. On reaching the village, instead of going straight to the rectory, she tried to throw Kite off the scent by seeking the cave at Dead Man's Gap. Sne did not mean to remain there, but she was stricken with panic lest Kite should learn of her employment at the rectory and so bring trouble to her beloved master. She was familiar with all the short cuts from the station to the beach„ and she choose the shortest of them, stopping now and again to listen for sound of following footsteps. Once she thought she heard something, but it was too dark to Verify the notion, which was perhaps as well, since Larry Crowle of the dreadful visage was one of the two men gliding behind her as she crossed the fields. She would indeed have been comforted could she have known that the intentions of the hideous chauffeur were as friendly as those of the other shadower were hostile. She arrived at the cave without hindrance, and. plunging into its inner recesses, waited with a fluttering heart for the advent of possible pursuers. There were no developments of that kind, though at the end of an hour her returning tranquility was disturbed by voices under the arched entrance' of the old smugglers' haunt. But they were the voices of a man and a woman, and she could think of no such combination among the forces arrayed against her or interested in the stupendous discovery she had made in London.

Men in plenty, probably, were on her track; one, in any case. But she could not put a name to any woman who had a hand in Mark Hoyden's death. For it was the secret of that death that she had brought back with her, one which it wyuld take all her nerve and honesty of purpose to divulge. Her straining ears soon told her the Identity of her fellow-tenants in the cave. Their intimate talk left that in rio doubt for a minute. They were Sir Jocelyn arid Lady Eversley, reconciled after their misunderstanding. Lady Eversley was pleading for forgiveness for suspecting Sir Jocelyn of her first husband's murder, and afr Jocelyn was comforting her with the assurance of his complete pardon. What Constance ovprlieard seemed to knock the bottom out of her world and shatter her prospect of happiness. TTie 1 dreadful discovery she had made in Lon- 1 don rendered it impossible for her to return to the peaceful dwelling that sheltered the kindly clergyman who was Sir Jocelyn Eversley's lifelonct friend. As it was, a 'sense almost of guilt oppressed her, but she felt that it would become the real thing if she resumed her employment at the rectory without making a full revelation, And that alia could noveT screw tip ner courage to do. (To be continued daily.)