THE MARK OF THE THREE FISHES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20902, 18 June 1931, Page 18

THE MARK OF THE THREE FISHES.

CHAPTER XIII. GEOFFREY TAKES A HAND,

It was not long before Sam heard the Step of his friend on the stairs; he went to'tho outer door to meet him. " Either you've done a successful flutter on the Stock Exchange, Sam, or you've been drinking. Which is it ? Neither. I've news for you. When (Can you start?" /■'" Start? Where?" " Hunting overcoats." " To-morrow, if you like." /" Right! Then, I've something you can take with you. This is a tab off one of the sleeves of the coat, we've got to trace." " Good God! How did yon get it?" " It's past five, and my mother is expecting me to tea. Como along, and I'll tell you 011 tho way." Thev found Mrs. Wrench entertaining

n little party. She had persuaded Mrs. Mayne and her son Jackie to stay for /tea, and Betty Herbert had joined them. It, was the first time that Geoffrey had seen tho " claimant." " I don't think you have met Mrs. Mayne." said bis hostess, making the introduction. .Geoffrey found himself looking at the lady with curiosity. Ho saw that his presence had disturbed her. Her colour had heightened. He felt that if he were alone with her the interview would be painful. She would bring him back to that tragedy in tho farmhouse; would implore him with those sad. appealing eyes of hers to search his memory; would hang upon his words, until, in sheer pity, he would be tempted

to draw upon his imagination and invent j, words that he had never heard. He wan fain to admit that Betty Herbert wan justified in believing in this tender, fragile creature who seemed almost afraid of he:: own voice, and would certainly never liavu had the. courage to como forward with u fraudulent claim. He took the chair bp'•ide her.

" Mrs. Muynr lias just been (oiling us what happened this afternoon, Sam," sail] Mrs. Wrench. " What was it. ?" asked Geoffrey. " I mustn't lie left in the dark." "I forgot thati you didn't know, Mr. Stevenson. She wont to see a woman on the chance that she might turn out tc ' / be her former maid. She wasn't." "Susan Ogden ?" asked Geoffrey quickly. " Yes." said Sam. " Was it a great disappointment, Sam 1" Bsked the mother. "I scarcely know yet, mother. ![t knocks the bottom out of one of my theories, hut 1 ought to ho grateful for being- kept on the right track." He turned to Mrs.Mayiic: "Wo shall have to find that maid of yours somehow. D:d you ever hear where she went after she / left you ?" " No. She wrnlo mc one letter—a rather horrid abusive one—but there was no address, and I didn't notice the postmark." "Perhaps Sir Charles' relations are trying to find her ? You told them about her?" She 'flushed. . " No, I haven't seen any of them. .After Mr. Donaldson sent his lawyer to sro me [ resolved never to sec any of them until I had my proofs ready, but—how am I to get them ?" she added with a sigh. " We shall have to jrot into touch with Mr. Donaldson," said Sam. Betty broke T in for the first time. " Don't laugh at mc, Mr. Wrench. Why shouldn't I go and see him ?" "Elizabeth!" exclaimed Geoffrey.• "You talk as if you instructors of youth can get leave of absence whenever the fancy takes you." "Nonsense! As it happens 1 have to go up to London next week with Miss ' Parley for an exam. Surely 1 can find time to go round to the bank, wherever it is." " Good. Then I supyose that you will walk into the bank, give one look at i;he obese figure in the managing director's -chair, and offer to cure it with a course of Swedish drill. Hut I warn you; it will he a had beginning. Elderly bankers always object very strongly to being made to touch their toes." Betty tossed her head. " You '."an safely leave all that to me, Mr. Stevenson." I shall know perfectly well how to approach him wh mi the time comefi. What do you think, Mr. Wrench ? Will you let me try?" " I think that it's quite a good idea. , Find out if you can what line he is taking." " And while you're about it," naid Geoffrey, " you might trace that missing overcoat. Quite a lot of people wear overcoats in London at this time of the year. You might make a habit of stopping a few in every street, and asking them whether they came by thrir overcoats honestly, and take down their replies in shorthand." Belty slewed round her chair to present her back to him, and began to talk oagerly to Wrench in an undertone. Airs. May no rose to take leave. The solemneyed little boy was carried down to thefront door by Geoffrey, and his mcther recovered him bubbling with merriment. She put out her hand. " I have wanted so much to meet you, Mr. Stevenson, and -we have not had a moment together. 1 wanted to ask you " "My hour is come," said Geoffrey to himself.

" They tell me that my poor husband spoke to you just before lie died. Did he say ?" " lie was trying to say a great deal, but. I could only catcli four words—the words they told you of." " I hoped that he had sent some message for me," she faltered. " I think that he did—only lie was dying, and those were, the only words 1 could catch;" and then, seeing her distress, he added, " 1 believe that those •words were intended for you, and that, if wo can get Sam Wrench to take tip your case, as I hope, he will make them plain. Good-night." Geoff rev found Mrs. Wrench and Hetty Herbert putting on their wraps. " 1 am coin" to take Betty round to my club, she said. " I know that Sam wants to have a talk with you." "Thank heaven that's over. cxclaimed (jeoffrev. when the two men were

clour. " What's ovor?" "My reckoning with tho poor widow. I'vp offered you up. Sum." 71 is friend".stopped filling his pipo, and Stared at liiin interrogatively. " She wanted ;i Inst dying message from her hushand airJ T liad none to give her. I said (hat the words I did catch were intended for her, and that if you could be induced to lake up her case, you would make the message clear. Sam's eyebrows rose until they nearly joined his hair. " Well, you really ought to take up her claim, old man," continued Geoffrey. " It will help the defence of Wfstern. I've been thinking a lot about that poor ivife of his Suppose that we find that her son's the guilty man, as I think he is, shall we make things anv better for her ? If we've got to hang either her htisbpmi or her son, it doesn't seem to rue I bat she'll net much change out of the transaction."

"You are forgetting your pet theory—that the man who tied those knols was a sailor. Young Western has never been to sea. nor in any school where beys arc trained for sea. What about those naval deserters of voins?"

Geoffrey dived into his pocket. ' Dash it! I'd almost forgotten them. Thelusson gave mo a copy of the list this morning. You said that we were to look for n little man. The only two absentees from Devonport that Monday were both small. I have their descriptions hero—marks and all." " Was one of them an oflicei'6 servant ?"

"Why <lo yon ask that?" Because I've a theory that the man y.'<s arq : looking foi was an officer's servant.""' ■ ''

By MARLEY CAMERON.

(COPYRIGHT.)

A THRILLINGLY-TOLD STORY OF ABSORBING INTEREST.

" The list doesn't say, but I can find out. But I'm afraid, Sam, that we shall find it was young Western. He knew the farm; he'd plenty of time to get down there, and, no doubt, he was the Western that Tremayne was referring to. As to his not having been to sea, you needn't build on that' He may have learned to tie sailors' knots in prison, or he might have gone on coasting voyages. You told me he was a violent young ruffian. I put my money on him." " Well, don't forget to find out about those two deserters, whatever opinion you may have formed. Whether it was young Western or someone else, we've' got to trace that overcoat." Sam rose and wentr to thb writing-table, returning with a road map of South Devon. " The overcoat was stolen as a temporary disguise and the thief would want to get rid of it as soon as he could, because it was evidence enough to hang him. He would not dare to give it away to a friend; he would not (are to waste a good overcoat by throwing it away or burning it, but he might sell it to a second-hand clothes dealer, or change it for a suit of clothes. At any rato the second-hand dealers are the people to go for—preferably tho dealers on his line of march."

Well, let's look at the map." I've marked out a suggested route based on our theory that ho was a sailor with a strong motive for getting to sea at the earliest possible moment. ' Geoffrey studied flic map. " You've made him cover a lot tif ground that first night, Sam." " Yes, because if I'd committed a murder and expected pursuit, I .should walk as I'd never walked before."

" Moretonhampstead at four miles an hour—ten o'clock. Ves, it's a good nine miles. Then you make him sleep under a hedge during the day?" " Yes, the man must sleep and he would be shy of meeting people by daylight." "Right. Then you make him walk fifteen miles to Teignmouth on the Tuesday night. There's very little shipping to be found at Teignmouth."

" T#ue, but I've assumed that he didn't stop there; lie would stick to the coast, though." " Dawlish, Exmouth, Sidmouth, Lyme Regis, Bridport. Wouldn't he get lid of the coat before that?"

" I think we shall have to begin our search nearer home—say at Dartmoor or Brixhani—and work eastward. I expect he would have got rid of the coat on the Tuesday or Wednesday morning at somo point that he thought was just out o r reach of the polico who were searching for him." " .Right ! Jane and I will take on this job on one condition—that if I come bant with the coat, you'll let mc hunt the blighter who pawned it." CHAPTER XIV. visitors ron Donaldson. Mr. Donaldson was sitting in the phair that had been his for twelve years past. His sedentary occupation had not converted him into the personage of Geoffrey Stovenson's playful imagination. " Miss Carmichael is downstairs asking to see you, sir," said the bank messenger. Very well. Show her in." The expression on Mr. Donaldson's face boded ill for his visitor, but he suppressed it as she came in. She was a tall, angular young person, whose figure had defied the skill of the most expensive dressmakers. She was too narrow in the shoulders and too broad in the hips to do credit to any of them. She was high; high in the shoulders, in the heel, in the cheek-bones, in the bridge of her nose and, worst failing of all, high and strident in voice.

" Good morning, Violet. Please sit .down." Mr. Donaldson pointed to the armchair reserved for clients of the bank who had business with the managingdirector. She did not at once accept the invitation; hut perched herself on an arm of the chair, a habit which always irritated the methodical banker. She addressed him in a voice that set his teeth on edge, for whenever she was a,nnoyed her voice assumed a peculiar stridency. " Have you seen this paragraph in the Daily Advertiser?" She took a cutting from her bag and thrust it toward him. " No, I never see that paper. I should take no notice of it, if I were you." " Take no notice of it ? Why, you haven't read it."

Mr. Donaldson took up his pince-nez and read the paragraph.

It is rumoured that the lady who claims to be the wife of tho late Sir Charles r l reniayne obtained leave from the Coroner to see the body of the murdered baronet just before the inquest and that she positively identified it as that of the man who had married her under the name of Mayne and ufterward deserted her.

"Yes; it's a very improper paragraph, but then it's a very improper paper, and no one with any sense would care what it said." "Not care! When everyone is going about saving what a narrow shave I had of committing bigamy, and people nudge one another and point me out in the street. One woman actually had the impudence to ask dad why ! wasn't wearing mourning. I never knew that there were so many cats in the world. Who is this woman?"

" I'm sure I don't know. My solicitors had an interview with her and warned her oi what might happen if she made a false claim."

" Did they say what she was like V "Only that she was young and goodlooking—rather pathetic-looking person they seemed to think —the sort of person who would have an effect upon a jury."

" Not if I, or any other sensible woman were a member of that jury. We d make short work of her little arts and graces. We shouldn't be taken in as you men are." " I suppose not," said Donaldson with a bland smile. " What do you suggest that I do in the matter ?" " i suggest that you should help slop it. You might frighten the editor ( and mak- him withdraw the paragraph." " I am not quite sure how one goes to work to frighten editors. I feel sure, my deal Violet, that you would do it much better than I." " I'shaw! I'm'not afraid of any editor, if I can get to see tho beast." " I have always understood that editors are timid and retiring—except, of course, on paper. He might consent to see you though, just to give him material for another paragraph. What does your father sav about it?" "Oh! Dad talks very much as you do. He says that the rat; is not worth powder and shot; that it will soon tired of the case and switch off to somo new sensation. But I'm not going to let the matter rest. Don't you see that this paragraph is a libel on me? It's tantamount to taking away my character." "Do you think so? I never considered it ill that light. Perhaps you had better take legal advice and let your lawyer deal with the editor." " Then you will do nothing?" " Well, what can I do beyond what 1 am doing—trying to get to the bottom of the claim ?" Her voice rose shrilly, and Donaldson winced, wondering whether his doors were thick enough to keep the noise from reaching tho ears of his clerks. " I want you clearly to understand your position," .went on the girl. "It was you who brought about this engagement —you who first suggested it to Dad. I had no say in; tho matter at all, and now, when Charles goes off and gets himself murdered, and drags all our names into the papers, so that [ scarcely dare go out to a dance or anything—you sit there- and fold your hands and say that you're not going to do anything. It's scandalous." (To be continued daily.)