THE MYSTERY-MAKER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20131, 17 December 1928, Page 5

THE MYSTERY-MAKER.

BY SEAMARK.

■* " SYNOPSIS. Colonel Joha Stayue, although thiTty-one years ot age, has already gained a rcpulation by ins remarkable worn" with the Anti-Kspionaiie Corps, tie had resigned inn position suddenly, However, and become a rnyßtery figure, moving vaguely on the outskirts ol more than huu ol tue u.gyeat criminal coups of post-w.-.r years. To Scotland Xard he was kno,wn as the " MysteryMaker." They had tried in vain to place him, but had at last given up, content with the knowledge that John Stayne, if carefully watched, would lead them on the truck of the next big crime. Stayne is seated in one of the rooms of his luxurious* house, discussing with his young assistant, Vai Tenibndge. the details of a recent jewel robbery. Lady Demorval had left ilentone to return to London. The same night jewels to the value of £IOO,OOO had ueen stolen from her chateau A week later, while staying at a London hotel. Lady Demorval recovered two ropes of her famous diamonds in a peculiar way. One evening a noise was heard in the baggage room of the hotel. The manager 'phoned for the police, and Lady Demorval's secretary. Templei Varris, was discovered with the jewels in his possession. He was arrested after an unsuccessful effort to escape and v/as sentenced to five years' penal servitude. Stayne feels sure that Templer Varris ws.il shielding someone, for the man made practically no effort to defend himself. Whilo they are talking a lady is announced. It is Marienne Varris, Templer Vairis' beautiful sister. In considerable agitation she tells Stayne that her brother is innocent, and only did what he did to save from disgrace members of the Demorval family. Bhe says that she hail heard that Stayne is the only man who can get Tsrupier out of prison, and bens him to help, as it is impossible for her to make known her story until her brother is free. Stayne asks the girl who sent her to him, but she refuses to say. CHAPTER 11. Miss Varris shook her head helplessly. " How do I know anyone to go to ? " she said. " Then how did you know to come to me ?" Stayne put his hand on her shoulder and pressed her upright. " Miss Varrig," he went 0n,." would it interest you to know that 1 am not unaware of some of the facts behind this case? Until recently mv duties took me a good deal to the French Riviera. As a brother member of the Diplomatic Corps, Lord Demorval was known to nie. And the Secret Service, my dear, travels along byways that are not even known to Scotland Yard. .Would it surprise you to know that I could go straight to France this very day and challenge Monsieur Flocard, the French waiter, his right to his French name—to ask him why he •widowed Lady Demorval so recently, to ask Lady Demorval herself why her diamonds were not in the Mentone chateau, to arrange a prison meeting with Templer Varris and to ask him point blank why—" But the girl had risen and was clinging to him desperately. "No! No!" she gasped. " Please—please ! There is no need—Templer is—" " Yes, yes, I know that, too. Now—who sent you to me ? " " Lord Demorval himself." The girl looked at him blankly for a moment and then collapsed over the arm of her chair. Stayne, with two deeply-drawn furrows down the centre of his forehead, sank slowly back in his and his hands were trembling. Tembridge was staring at the girl as though she .had suddenly gone mad. Then he caught John Stayne's eyes boring into him. There was a flood of newer—and greater—understanding blazing in them and perhaps just a hint of the fear a man gets when he gazes full face at something that transcends the credible.

"Tembridge," he said, soberly, but with deadly conviction in every syllable, " we 'iave got to get 'Templer Varris out of hat cell within forty-eight hours—and vithout the permission of the authorities ! We've got to abduct him from under their noses! Quick —some brandy for Miss Varris—she's fainted." Tembridge was already on the way to Marienne Varris. In a minute or two she had recovered sufficiently to sit back and try to force a little shamefaced smile. Stayne slipped out a little notebook, and, while Marienne was dabbing her eyes, he jotted down a few questions, taking meticulous care to verify certain names and dates from the cuttings in the dossier. " Do you feel like concentrating on a few of the finer points of this unusual story?" he asked at last. The girl looked up with an emotional surge of relief in her eyes. " Tes, Mr. Stayne, I'm quite ready to do anything you wish," she said. " And to be perfectly candid in your replies to these questions?" inquired Stayne, tapping his notebook. He was looking directly at her, and she flushed a little. For a few moments her fingers wandered nervously over her forehead, and then she said quietly: " I vpill answer any question you care to ask me—provided my answers don't implicate iny brother any further. You probably realise already that there is one aspect of this matter on which I can shed no light at aU " ' ■ , ~T J Stavne nodded primly. I understandj" he said "It is possible to clear a man of one serious charge only to get him into worse trouble than before, isn t it? Please don't look so unhappy. Your secrets are safer with me, perhaps, than with his own lawyers." A reminiscent chuckle came into his voice. " The same sort of thing might have happened to ourselves any number of times during the past few years. Tembridge, to my knowledge might have cleared his good name at the expense of his neck. Let us not refer to the matter again. I'll promise not to embarrass you any more than I can help. At the same time, we can hardly break through granite walls without tools of some description. Now then he tapped his teeth with the butt of his pencil—" I'm taking it for granted that, at the time of his ' death, you knew that Lord Demorval was occupying a high position in the Corps Diplomatique. Perhaps the highest of all the Continental appointments." " I knew that—yes. He was a very important Secret Service agent. Stayne's eyes narrowed. "We don t usually publish that sort of information to the world," be said. "How do you come to know that?" " I was Lady Demorval'x companion, and I could hardly kelp knowing. A great many code messages came to the house —both here and in France. And all sorts of queer people called—tramps and beggars and mechanics and street vendors. I've seen Lord Demorval himself leave the house dressed up as a telephone linesman, ns a clergyman, a? a Lascar sailor, and—all sorts of tilings. ' " H'm. Was that before your brother became private secretary to Lord Demorval ?" " Yes. It was through me that, he got his appointment." "Are. you still in Lady Demorval s employ?" - .j, "No; I resigned some months ago. 1 couldn't stand the strain of it any longer. I could see something dreadful happening like tins—l could see it coming." " Why ? What made you suspect a crash was'coming ?" Marienne looked away into the fire, " I—l'd rathe • not answer tbat'queation," she said after a long pause. Stayne smiled, just n little wisp of a smile- that flitted across his mouth for a moment and was gone. ."Does it occur to you that you have already answered that question ?" he asked. The girl shou him a .quick glance of apprehension. " I don't think I understand."' she said hurriedly. " You, as companion to her ladyship,, would know considerably moro abc.ut her affairs than his," came the qniet rejoinder. "If you resigned it would bo in consequence of something you feared on her account. It would seem that, all i is not well with Lady Demorval's affairs., j Still, we will let that matter slide. Now, tell me, when did you last see Lord Ee morval ?"

"Three days ago, in Paris." " That wm when he recommended vow to come and see mo ?" , " Recommend is a very weak word. Ho begged me to."-

A ROMANCE OF THE SECRET SERVICE.

(COPYRIGHT.)

'* Ana .where was this V "At th: Credit Lyonnais. It is one of Iho many pseudo appoi nt ments he holds in Pari3 ] th.nk he was acting as a bank cleru at ti.j grille. At least, that was where I saw him." " Ana hew about Flocard." " Emil Flocard 1 J'v« never seen him personally. All I know about him is that he, too, is attached to the staff in Paris. He is a waiter." "Where ?" " At Monsieur Sebillon's cafe in the Boulevard Pereire. It is a Very fashionable restaurant a little way out of the main centre of— *' " I know it. Expensive, too. But the cuisine is perfect. Let me see now. Lord Dcmorval has been ' dead ' now nearly three months has. lie riot ?" " Nearly four. Lady Demorval was in mourning" for 6var three months at the Meiatone Chateau." • " And Lady Dcmorval actually believes him dead ? Yes So did I. So did we all. He went into a private nursing home, and died there. It was as perfectly arranged .is only the Secret Service can possibly hope to arrange such things. I went to the funeral. I went over specially for it when I read of his dea.th in the English papers. It happened aljout a month after I had left the Demorval employ. I remember thinking he had found a happy release from the crash that was coming. The coffin was buried at Chantilly with full official honors." " Just one more question, Miss Varris." Stayne leaned over and eyed her keenly from under his dark brows. " Where did Lady Demorval go for her little gambling flutters t" He witched the ouestion directly at her and his eyes never left her face She started badly, and the old hunted look leapt back into her eyes. Her body tensed and she crouched back into ber chair. " I nevei said she gambled !" she said breathlessly. I never mentioned it—never even hinted it !"

" Probably not," said Stayne drily. " It isn't necessary to have facts written down in headlines before they become visible

" Miss Varris," ho siiid, with the cold bite of steel in his words, " your brother is in prison vrith five years betvreen him and liberty. He can clear himself onlj at the expense of uncovering one of the biggest scandals that ever endangered the financial stability of this country. Now listen carefully. A little while ago a man was murdered in one ol' the private gambling hells in Paris. The whole matter was one for the French police, but somehow iti was fiercely hushed up. No one. on this side, for instance, ever knew exactly where it happened.

"We do know, however, that there was a terrific fight going on at the time, atid that it was only through the mad heroism ot an unknown man in the room that a certain Englishwoman of title escaped before the gendarmerie broke in. He held the whole place single-handed till t:!ie lady got clear. He did it at the expense of a Hmashed skull—somebody else's skull.

" When the police forced the doors the lady was gone and her honor was saved. Also there was a dead body on the floor, its head battered in with a champagne, bottle—and the valiant unknown was hauling himself out through the window with a. clear twenty-foot drop to the ground. He made it and got clear. " That Englishwoman of title was 'Lady Demorval, a!id the man who pulled her through was Templer Varris. Varris is now in the sweet position of ■only being able to clear himself of a five-years sentence by offering bis neck to the rope on the murder charge. Now\ —I want that address and I want it now 1 Where did Lndy Demorval go for her little gambling flutters ?" Marienne had been listening to Stayne's grim recitative with eyes that slowly filled with fright. Stayne pacified her. " Dear lady," he said, " I assure you that until you came in here I did not know one-tenth of what I've just told you. You tell me a little and I infer a lot. I knew there had been a scandal in a roulette club over there. I 'knew that a man, at the risk of his life, had saved a lady's name. I knew that Lord Demorval was dead ; in common with the rest of the world I honestly believe it. Then you tell me that you resigned her ladyship's employ because you could not stand the strain of the anxiety. You tell me that Lord Demorval is not dead —that he quietly withdrew oul; of life and left nothing but a faked funeral behind him. You tell me that Templer Yams it your brother, and that he is incapable of such an act as stealing valuable diamonds. "5 ou tell me that it is impossible :for him to clear himself without seriously implicating others. And that the moment he tries to he is letting himself in for worse trouble than before. . " Dear lady, isn't is rather a simple effort of logic to unite tire details and to assume that oue is the direct cause of the other ? Who else would your brother risk his neck for but thu employer who had .befriended him when he was down and out"? What else would keep his tongue silent when nothing but five years of prison misery stared him in the t face ? " No, Miss Varris, yon need not be frightened Your secrets are not quite such public knowledge as you might think. I know, for instance, from your own reluctance to give me such « simple piece of information as the addross of'that club that you are frightened of haying the place investigated. Ysur agitation precludes any other conclusion. That means that there is something fsr worse than murder going on there. Consequently I knew that Lady Deinorval is seriously implicated in that, too One affair is simply the outcome of the other. Now—please !" Marienne Varris opened her bag hurriedly, and with trembling fingers as though too frightened tc> listen to more of that cold logic. She took from it a small visiting: card, and passed it over with a hand that shook. It 'bore the neatly printed inscription. CLUB TABARIN, Rue Pigalle,, Laisser passer. " Thank yon," said Stayne. He glanced at it and handed it back. " I don't know the place, and I didn't know that gambling clubs were beginning to appear in tht Montmartve district. Still we live and learn. Tembridge, are you getting tired of London ?" " Passports ar« all 0.K.," said Tembridge shortly. The Mystery Maker nodded. As soon as we have arranged about Varris we will nin over,'* he said "There should be some interesting, hours'in the Rue Pigalle. Show Miss Varris out, will you, please!" Stayne turned to Marienne as she rose with a look of surprise and relief on her face. He was smiling. "It's quite all right," ho said. , can now get out of the dentist s chair. Not a verv pleasant quarter of an hour 10 . you, was it? But mosft troubles have get a little worse before they ? et a better. Let me see now; to day is Tuesday. If you come round here on nuns day afternoon Templer will beberetomeet you. Mind-not a word of this to a liv in ?'olwl-I promise!" she said with tears My heart is nearly bursting with gratiin'de You'll never know what— , ffliyne took tor by ft. .m f «p.lot«d !>« rt i°"il oJfr," he' 3d Sberlv "Believe me, there is o lot inore in this affair than even you dream-and I think vou have a prutty shrewd susuicion. 'There are quite few : hoctjc ours to be lived before this matter passes out of fte danger zone. Don't forgot™; Thursday, about tea-tim e. He squeezed her hand and opened ths door. (To be continued daily.)