A CHANGE AND A CHANCE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20929, 20 July 1931, Page 14

A CHANGE AND A CHANCE.

By L. G. MOBERLEY. Author of "A Year at tho Outside," "Tho Voice," etc., et'e.

CHAPTER XHl.—(Continued). " I am sorry to have annoyed yon, sir," ho said civilly, " if tho lady had been tho person for whom I took her, ought Ito say mistook her ?" his very shrewd eyes raked her face again, " I should have had every right to address her. My card will show you that I am not accosting a lady haphazardly." Ho handed a card to Derek, who, having read it, glanced with a startled expression from tho stranger's face to Betty's innocently puzzled and smiling countenance. " Scotland Yard," ho said, " of course I apologiso for having shown annoyance, but you will understand that I was naturally annoyed by your addressing my cousin as you did." " Quite so," tho clean-shaven man seemed to gather a complete impression of Derek, docket him, file him and put him away .in some safe corner of his mind; all in a moment of time, and all to his entire satisfaction. Then his keen eyes rested reflectively again upon Betty's face. " You must forgivo me, sir. Tho likeness is so remarkable, that anybody might have been mistaken." " This lady is certainly not Miss Lancer, or Miss anything," Derek said, with emphasis, " she is the widow of my cousin Mr. Drummond, and has not been in England for very long." " A thousand apologies," the other answered, lifting his hat, " I hope you will forgivo me, Mrs.—Drummond?" Betty's voice, tho girlish, deprecating voice, which still gave Derek a curious sensation of amazement, answered quickly; "Why, of course! It's just a funny mistake, isn't it? Perhaps I am rather like tho lady you know, Miss Lancer ? I. wish I could meet her. It would bo so funny to seo somebody exactly like oneself!"

" Possibly you may meot her some day." John Titharidgo 'of the C.I.D. bowed onco more, looked sea,rchirigly once more into Betty's face, as though stamping its features upon his memory; and moved away. " Who. is he ? Why did ho pretend ho knew me?" Betty asked, "ho looked so fierce, he quite frightened me." "Silly ass!" Derek answered indignantly, " just tho sort of fool thing the police would do." "Police? Oh—Derek!" sho shrank close to him, and put a hand through his arm, " \Vhy should anybody in the police call me by a strange name? And why wasn't ho dressed like a policeman?" she added, her eyes opening wide. " You little innocent absurdity," Derek laughed down into her puzzled face, his own grown suddenly tender, " that man wasn't the kind of common or garden bobby who patrols the streets. Ho was a Criminal Investigation Department man— Scotland Yard."

The innocently puzzled expression remained upon Betty's face. " Oh," sho said, " I suppose it's because I'm an Australian that all you tell mo is so much Greek to me. I'm none the wiser."

" I'll explain it all to you another time. We've let two 30 buses go by, whilst we've been arguing over your identity with that ass. Now, if you really want to go to your friend, you had better take this bus—" a number 30 pulled up with a jerk at the moment. "I go down to Rabley to-morrow," Betty called out lightly, as Derek helped her into the bus; and the next moment she was borne out of sight. Sho sat very still, still with a sort of tenseness that showed itself in an almost rigid attitude of her body and tight clenching of her hands; and her thoughts were going at racing speed. Those racing thoughts resolved themselves into action by tho' time tho bus had reached King's Cross. Here sho alighted, although it was far enough away from Flossie Dempster's lodgings—her original objective; and going into the Underground station took a 'ticket for Edgware Road, making her way back from there, to the dull and decorous hotel at which sho was staying. Before sho went to bed tha,t night sho wrote a short note, which had neither beginning nor ending—and ran thus:

Don't expect me for tho present. Safety first. If you meet Mise Denison at the club, get an introduction to her. . The letter was addressed to

Miss Florence Dempster, 107, Pratt Street,

CHAPTER XIV. LAN TAKES A HAND

"My dear lan—what a joyful and heavenly surprise! But why didn't you let us know you were coming?" " Just because I rathor liked joyful and heavenly surprises." lan Robertson put his hands 011 his sister's shoulders and kissed her affectionately. "By jove. Eve, you don't < look a day older; and where's that old ruffian Colin 1 And are you settled for good and all in this spot which strikes me as being joyful an 4 heavenly too ?" He looked out of the open window toward the view—his artist soul drinking in the - loveliness, " frightfully unpaintable, though I long to try my hand at it! And who's the little lady walking up your terraced garden ?" " If you hadn't been wandering over Europe, leaving no address for letters from your devoted sister, you would have heard all about her," Evelyn said, with mocking severity, " you will bo interested in her. because she is mixed up with all your Carstairs' tragedy." ' " For goodness' sake don't call it my Carstairs' tragedv." lan sat down, on the window-seat, and spread out deprecating hands, " I simply loathe having a murder committed in a house opposite my own. It disturbs tho peaceful atmosphere, and upsets all one's sense of values." " You silly boy." his sister laughed, as her glance met tho answering glance in his blue eyes, and, rested affectionately upon his lean brown face, " I have heard your praises sung within the last few weeks, by someone vou helped over that tragedy of the villa." " Someone I helped ?"

" Miss Enid Denison came over hero the other'day with her people. They live not, far away—at Donersloy. Sho told us how good yon have been to her, and to Mr. Carstairs' sister."

" Miss Denison ? I'm glad you've met her," lan's shrewd sister realised that the indifferent tone did not signify real indifference, " I told her you lived here, and I hoped you would meet." " She struck mo as very charming, lan. I liked her eyes. They aro so steady and reliable." But lan was not to bo drawn!

She was very good to the poor lady with whom she came to tho villa, a helpless soul who would have been lost alone, more especially as the caretaker —a certain Suzanne Rocher—was tho last word in astuteness. Old Sauvago was too much for her, though," lan ended with a chuckle. " Too much for her ? llow ? But you know you aro talking more or loss in riddles. I don't know very much about all that murder business, excepting that Mr. Carstairs was supposed to be murdered by his wife—or the woman who passed as his wife." " What on earth' do you mean by ' tho woman who passed as his wife ' ?" lan, who had been lounging comfortably among the cushions on the windowseat, sat upright. " I'll explain my exact meaning presently,'' Evelyn's glance 'turned toward the lower terrace of the garden, along which she could see Christabel walking slowly, " tell me about your Suzanne Rocher, and Sauvagc—whoever he may be.".

(To be continued daily.)

(COPTItIGHT.)

AN ADVENTUROUS STORY, FULL OF DRAMATIC EPISODES.

" Ho is tho official in charge of the case—and Suzanne Ilocher had been servant to tho Carstairs, and was left in charge of the villa after Carstairs' death, and tho disappearance of his widow."

Again Evelyn's glance followed the slight form moving along tho lower terrace, stooping now and again to pick a flower.

" Weil—Mrs. Nestley and Miss Denison stayed in the villa; and on tho first night, Suzanne appeared in Miss Denison's room, through a door in the wall —a door skilfully concealed by wall-paper—-and appeared to tako something from a bureau in the room."

"Goodness! How perfectly horrible for Miss Denison. Did sho do or say anything ?" " Sho very wisely lay still, and protended to be asleep. But the odd thing was that next day, wo could not find any sign of a secret drawer in the bureau, or make out .what tho woman Suzanne had been doing. • However, to cut a long story shorty- one of Sauvage's experts finally unearthed a drawer behind a sliding panel, but tho drawer was empty!" "Oh! what a pity. Then nothing came out after all?"

" Wait a minute! After Mrs. Nestley had gone—old Sauvage had Suzanne up, and gave her a thorough good taste of what we should, I suppose, call thirddegree methods. Anyhow, ho questioned and cross-questioned, and—l expect—bullied her, until finally, after hours and hours of the process, she confessed that sho had taken from > Mr. Carstairs' room after his death a little diary which she had hidden in that bureau drawer—thinking tho room would not bo used. Her object in hiding the diary appears to have been some obscure idea, of using it to blackmail Mrs Carstairs; though as Mrs. Carstairs was killed in a railway accident-r-it seems a futile- sort of scheme."

" Then did the diary contain evidence against the wife?" " Damning evidence, I gathered from Sauvage, who was bubbling over about it all when I saw him. However, what's tho use of evidence, however damning, against a woman who i 3 dead?"

" lan, I want to talk yards and yards more to you about all this, because in an odd and indirect sort of way, I feel we are mixed up in it too." " What ?" lan nearly bounded from his SQat. " Tea is just coming in, so that I must put off explanations until later, also would you mind not talking about tho Carstairs' tragedy, or anything to do with it, whilst our guest is in 'the room ? Sho is coming into tho house now." 4

Before sho could explain herself in detail, tho door opened and Christabel came in, ar.d was introduced as Mrs. Elmers. Evelyn adroitly turned. the conversation into safe and ordinary channels, and kept it there; and when Colin presently returned from town, with what his wife called " batch of London gossip" _to tell them, all thought of the Carstairs' murder was dropped into tho background. Not until very much later in tho evening, after Christabel had gone upstairs to bed, and the Tarrances and lan were alone, did lan reopen the discussion with his sister.

" What did you mean, Eve, when you said you were mixed up with the Carstairs' affair 1 How could you be mixed up in it ?"

Colin, lying back in his arm-chair smoking his pipe, looked across at his brother-in-law—back on the cushioned window-seat—with a lazy smile.

"We come in at the other end, as it were," ho said, before his wife'could speak, " tho end belonging to that chap Carstairs' legal wife.'' " Legal wife ?" lan broke in mystified, "but—she undoubtedly did the poor chap in, and was killed herself in that smash up near Lyons."

" I'm not concerned with the woman who poisoned Carstairs, and was in that ill-fated express. I am * talking of Carstairs' true and lawful wife. That woman was nothing of the sort," " Have you chapter and verso for that statement ?" lan's face was still full of mystification.

" Chapter and verse, and all the proper punctuation friaries," camo the prompt reply. " Directly I found out the truth, I set to work to put things on a proper footing—hunted up certificates—found out .facts, etc.- I saw that the unfortunate little lawful wife must bo helped to get her lawful'rights." " Who in the wide earth do you call the ' little lawful wife-' ?"

Tho lady to wh&m you have been talking this evening—the lady known here as Mrs. Elmers. I've gone into the whole thing with the utmost thoroughness; and there is not a doubt that she was wife of Harry Carstairs, and is his lawful widow—entitled to inherit his property."

Lan gave vent to a low whistle of amazement.

" Our old nurse used to talk of being knocked down by a feather. I feel rather as she must have done! Do you mean to tell mo that little lady with the sorrowful eyes is Harry Carstairs' widow ? I never thought very much of tho fellow, and had as little to do with him as I could whilst we were neighbours; but I shouldn't have imagined ho was tho sort to desert a harmless littlo thing like Mrs. Elmers." " Got sick of was tho long and short of it," Colin said, " calmly shot her off to England, settling enough 011 her to enablo her to live; and obviously made up his mind that there his obligations ended. This, poor woman has her marriage lines, and my solicitor says they are absolutely correct. In fact, if you hadn't turned up, I meant to tako a further step and interview Mrs. Nestley." " What has my turning up got to do with it ?"

" Well, you know Mrs. Nestley. You were helping her over her brother's concerns. You seem indicated as tho person who should break to her that her brother left an—unacknowledged wife. Mrs. Nostlcy will see, as plainly as we do, that Carstairs' property must go to his wife. Did he leave a will, by tho way ?" "Yes; and in his will, he arranged that all his property should go unreservedly to his wife." " Moaning the beauty who did him in?" Colin asked grimly. " Well, •of course, that will hold good, and the property should all come to poor Mrs. Elinors, who is none too well off."

"Why aro you looking after her?" lan asked, in some perplexity. " She happened to be living in a cottage at the bottom of our place; her maid suddenly went off her head, and wo went to tho rescue. That's all," Evelyn interpolated, as though taking entire charge of a lonely lady was an overy-day part of existence. " I say—you two are priceless pets," lan exclaimed, "do you mean to tell mo you have simply landed yourselves indefinitely with the care of that little woman ?"

" I don't know about indefinitely," Colin's lazy voice explained, "Eve has taken her under her wing for the present; but this money coming to her from her husband ought to ease things for her and set her up comfortably."