WHY DID SHE DO IT?

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19879, 24 February 1928, Page 18

WHY DID SHE DO IT?

BY CORALIE STANTON AND HEATH HOSKEN.

! CHAPTER XXll.—(Continued). Molly looked ever so much older. The reaction had come. The truth was out. She was quite calm. "I will tell you," she announced in a monotonous voice. "Now nothing seems to matter. Now I know that Dick might have died, and I wouldn't have been there. I won't care about anything now." "Tell me," he said. "I had a letter from Lord Shelmerdine —that day—the morning of that day. I had never met him. Neither had Dick. I had only heard Dick say that Loid Shelmerdine was a very important man in politics and was going to help him. in his letter he said he would like to meet me first, and asked me to tea to talk over what he was going to do for Dick. He said it was the age of women, and lie thought we ought to meet first. I didn t, tell Dick. It seemed rather fun, sort of exciting, you know. As if I could leally do something to help Dick myself. I was lunching with Lady Varne. Dick knew that. I arranged to meet him at Rumpelmayer's at five. Lord Shelmerdine had asked me for half-past three. He said lie knew it was early, but he had to go up North later in the day. Lady Varne and I did some shppping and parted. I -walked to Lord Shelmerdine's rooms in Pall Mall. I went- upstairs and knocked at the door of his flat He opened it. I thought he was a very queer man from the very first. Oh, Howard, it s so horrible to talk about! * He started to make love to me at once—l'd hardly been in the room five minutes. I was terrified. I thought he must be mad. I—can't talk about it. I hardly remember, except trying to get out, and his following me with the most awful look in his eyes. He caught hold of me, and then I went mad and caught up the first thing I found on a table and hit at him with it. It was a knife of some kind. He let go and staggered and fell back on the floordead. I didn't know what to do. I don't remember what happened except that I was afraid to go." She stared at Lake with distraught eyes, and wrung her hands. "But—Molly—it sounds so impossible! How could you hs.ve had the strength to kill him ? He was a big, powerful man." "I did kill him, Howard. He was dead. I stayed there quite a long time. He didn't move. His heart wasn't beating. At last I managed to crawl away—and for a day or two I don't know what I did. I liad some money with me. I wandered about and went into a fihop somewhere in the suburbs and bought some clothes. And I took a train to Folkestone and got into an empty compartment, and changed my clothes and threw them out of the window. And then, you know—l stayed in E olkestone for a time, I never can remember how long, and then I went over to Boulogne— I took a day ticket because I had no passport with me, and the:: I hid over there, and went on to Paris. And I met you. And I got frighteniHl and you got an aeroElane and wo flew back. Afterwards you now what happened to me." "Not after you left Clayshire, Molly!" "Oh, since then I've been in several places. I didn't dare to go back to Filmshanger. It doesn't matter about me. Howard, I want to know about Dick. You must find out everything about him."

"As far as I can make out, he's quite himself again," Lake assured her. "You know, he won't have anything to do with me now—he found out that I had seen you in Clayshire. You left a telegram from me in your room, and Clough's daughter gave it to Sirs. Crome. The detective chap, Clayson, was after you, of course, and he came and interviewed me, and I told him what was the truth —that I didn't know where you were. Then—when your father died —of course, they ;were sure you would come back. She hung her head. "I didn't see about my father s death for more than a week, Howard. It was too late, and I wouldn't have gone back anyhow. I can't go on like this,- though; you're right. As soon as I know for certain that Dick is all r>.ght, I must get out of the country." "Molly, go back to Dick —and face it out!" "Howard, who is this wicked man who stabbed Dick ?" "Major White? I hardly know anything about him. Some chap who was in Africa for years. They think he's mad. I believe he's in a hospital. I kept the papers for the few days after thing happened. I'll show them to you." He opened a drawer and took out a bundle of newspapers. "Here's a photograph of Major White," he said, opening one of the illustrated dailies. "He has rather the face of a madman, I thought." Molly took the paper from him. And then she gave a scream. "Howard ! What do you mean ? Major White! That's the man I -killed —Lord Shelmerdine!" He stared at her. "Shelmerdine! No, Molly—my dear, what can you be thinking about? Shelmerdine was utterly different—years older —a great big man, with a wonderfully handsome head!" "That's the man I killed!" repeated Molly, pointing to a very good likeness of the dark, flat-faced, small-headed Leonard White. "You certainly didn't kill him, Molly! Let's ring Dick up at once! There's something the matter here, This man lived in the same building as Shelmerdine. And there was a queer story told in the proceedings in Switzerland that he had the power of shamming deafti. My dear girl, you've been making some terrible mistake!" "How could I? He was dead—l know he was dead." "He's alive at the present moment! He obviously must be mad, since he behaved as he did to you, and Eince he tried to murder Dick. My dear, don't let's lose a minute!" She could not prevent him. She lay back in her chair, dazed, while Lake put through a call to Dick's flat. It tranEpirea that Dick was dining with Mrs. Guy Crome in Rutland Street, and Howard telephoned there. All he said, when put through, was:— "Please ask Mr. Heritage to speak to Mr. Howard Lake at Nottingham." Dick came to the telephone. "Your wife is safe—she is here," Howard said. "There has been a horrible mistake. Will you come up at once, or shall I bring her to London ? She is rather weak. "I'll get the car and come at once," Dick replied. Dick arrived about four o'clock in the morning. Molly was fast asleep. Howard's housekeeper had put her to bed as if she had been a baby. Howard and Dick sat in the library, and Molly's husband heard the extraordinary story of his wife's adventure and of her subsequent delusion that she had killed Lord Shelmerdine. At seven o'clock they rang up Scotland (Yard, and a message was sent tcr Inspector Clayson and to Sub-Inspector Morgan. Both these officers left London for Nottingham within an hour or two, as Howard Lake's housekeeper was quite sure that Mrs. Heritage would not be strong enough to travel that day. Howard was not present at the meeting between husband and wife. He met Molly in the hall, as she came downstairs, about bine o'clock. „ '' Dick is in the garden," he told her. I told them not to wake you. You Were pretty worn out last night. Look—go by that door and across the terrace und down the steps!" Molly went. Dick was smoking a cigar, walking up fend down the lawn. They saw each other and stood still. A>ick threw away his cigar and ran to"er * Molly ran to meet him. as a Woo( *ed plantation beyond fcppewedL* court » into whicll they dis-

A CHARMING STORY BY POPULAR WRITERS. (COPYRIGHT.)

CHAPTER XXIII. " What a lot 61! trouble that s>oor man has caused V said Inspector C layson. It was a week later. The detective was seated in Dick's study overlooking the Embankment. It was eleven o'clock at night. "I trust Mm. Heritage has quite recovered, sir," (,'layson went on. " Almost —I ;.m glad to say," Dick replied. " I am just waiting until you are quite sure '-here is nothing more she can tell you tD take her down to the South of Italy sor a holiday." _ "I think we can almost say we have got to the bottom of it, sir," the detective replied. He had a look of modest satisfaction. " Although I suppose there are some things w<: shall never know." " How is Major White ?" " Much the same. He has shown no sign of life since the day when Signora Palchi, the curiosity dealer's daughter, identified him as the man to whom she sold the green-handled dagger. I doubt if we shall ever know his exact'motive for killing Lord Shelmerdine. fnbInspector Morgan has been quite wonderful." I think we may say he has shown genius. Ho has got all sorts of things out of Major White by clever questioning—more in the Continental way than in ours, I must say. But the trouble is that his mind has all but gone. On the day he confessed to the murder he would only say that he. hated Shelmerdine because he had refused to give him a job on his newspaper. But we reconstructed the crime, as you know, with him pressent, under hypnotic treatment by that wonderfnl Swiss professor. It was rather nerve-racking, Mr. Heritage. We began in Major White's rooms, and it became clear that on the arrival of the officer who was impersonating Mrs. Heritage, he pretended to be Shelmerdine. It was weird the way he conveyed to us that he was wilfully deceiving the lady who had inadvertently come to. the wrong rooms. Then he was seized with a sudden impulse—l won't go into that, it was painful—and then he fell down, as he must have.done at the time. Of course, the knife that Mrs. Heritage picked up never struck him. He must have known that the game was up and shammed death. When we picked him up, and the Professor continued to make passes, he led us downstairs to Lord Shelmerdine's rooms, and went through a pantomime of rage and the entire process of the murder, standing just where the tea table was under which Lord Shelmerdine's body was found. He then made movements of pulling the dagger out of the wound and taking off the rubber glove, and putting them in the fireplace. And then he went out, shutting the door behind him, taking the key, and locking the door after him from the outside. What he did with the key is one of the things we shall probably never know." " The finger prints taken from the rubber glove were no good, were they?" asked Dick. " No. They wore only confusing. The experts told us from the very beginning that they would have little value. But there can be no doubt, sir, that Major White was the murderer. The motive is the trouble, but this Swiss professor, who has gone into the subject of this peculiar type of madness, is of opinion that the slenderest motive would be quite sufficient —such as Lord Shelmerdine refusing to give Major White this job that he had very much wanted as a correspondent in the Balkans during that little trouble over there." Dick shivered with a reaction from all the excitement of the last few days. " What does the professor call this madness ?" he asked. " A certain lust for blood that nobody knows enough about to explain," replied Clayson. "He says that in remote bush in Africa he has come across whole villages going wild like that.- And they were the natives who possessed this power of simulating death." "It is horrible," said Dick. "It doesn't seem to belong to ordinary life. By the way, inspector, Mrs. Heritage's cousin, who inherited her father's place, thinks you a wonderful' man for discovering that it was that discharged Housemaid who stole the Holbein Miniature and my wife's clothes." Clayson smiled.

" That was a bit of luck, sir. It was finding out by accident that that housemaid had a grudge against Sir Lionel, and that she afterwards took a place as ladies'. maid to a lady who went to live in Venice, and that she was afterwards arrested for stealing her mistress's jewellery. Well, sir, it's getting late now. I'd better be getting off. That's all I have to report to-night. Major White is still in a state of coma, and the doctors don't know what is going to happen to him." Major White recovered his senses the following day. It was a sudden return to a state of normality. Ho revealed a different personality—that of an ordinaryman of sense and conscience. Professor Sauerwein took advantage of it to tell him that he could not possibly live, and he made a full confession. His attack on "Dick Heritage he could only explain by supposing that, in the clouded state of his mind, he knew the young man to-' be the husband of the young woman who had nearly been the victim of his madness. He explained very precisely that he was filled with feelings of the deepest rage against Lord Shelmerdine, and that the encounter with Mrs. Heritage having roused the madness within him, he rose from his simulated I death with murder in his soul, and proceeded to carry out his purpose, meeting with practically no resistance from the dead peer, who was completely taken by surprise. His subsequent statements to the police about seeing Mrs. Heritage with Lord Shelmerdine, which were pure inventions, he put down to the instinctive cunning of his brain, working to prevent himself from being suspected. Having made his confession, he sank once more into a state of suspended animation, or simulated death. This time he did not recover from it. He lay, guarded by police ofjieials, for a week, with doctors and scientists registering his pulse and heart beats and temperature. . In the end he passed from the false death into the real one, one of the physical mysteries that science has yet to solve. Anna Crome and Molly Heritage met the day before Dick was taking his wife to the South. After luncheon, at Rutland Street, Anna took Molly to her room with the ostensible object of showing her some Paris frocks. " I haven't told Dick about finding you in the flat that night," said Anna. " I suppose that was right." " Thank you ever so much, yes, Mrs. Crome," the girl answered. Hero is the money you lent me. I do feel that you are a real friend, and you have done so much for my Dick. Ido feel so grateful to you." "Then tell me something! Who was in your flat with you that night ? When I telephoned—l heard you talking to somebody." " You didn't," said Molly, and into her lovely shot the shadow of fear'again. " You heard me talking to myself. It was what terrified rne more than anything, I think. I was afraid I was going mad." " You poor child!" said Anna. " I shall tell Dick everything," Molly said. " When I feel I can. Thank ycu—thank you—ever so much." Anna Crome went to see them off at the station the next day. She saw them looking at each other, radiant, in spite of all their sorrows and fears; she saw them united, absorbed in each other, going down, hand* in hand, into the sun. She was sympathy itself. She stood on the platform as the train steamed out, a lonely woman. Dick Heritage would never be hers now. She had been badly beaten. But she took her beating welL THE END,