THE SPIDER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20958, 22 August 1931, Page 15 (Supplement)

THE SPIDER.

CHAPTER XVlll.—(Continued). ' -" Like all suburban trains at that hour, the 4.44 was crowded, and it was not until ihey were walking up the road from Cliffe station to the village that they were able io discuss things freely. * " I'm going to book a room somewhere for the night, first of all," Longridge announced. " Thert we can take our time, Rowing we shan't be hurried." Rex nodded. " That'll do me," he agreed. " But ghat's brought you down here at all, .Inspector?" " I wish I knew—definitely," was the somewhat rueful confession. Then, taking the younger man into his confidence, he briefly ran through the train of argument he had been considering in the restaurant. " Manezra crops np so markedly all the va y through," ho ended, " that I made up iny mind to have a look at his haunts for myself." " But Manezra's now dead," Rex objected, // " Vanished, at any rate, I grant you that—and so huv.o several other people Jatoly." Rex glanced at his companion inquisitively, and tho latter interpreted the look. <*No," ho smiled, "I've got nothing pp my sleeve —I only wish I had." In tho village, they booked rooms at a small but tidy-liking hotel, and then Loflgridge inquired th"o way to tho. police station, where lie spent ten minutes in conversation with tho scrgeant-in-charge. " Come along, Morley." ho said, when they emerged, '' we'll take advantage of jvliat daylight's/ left." So, following the instructions of the sergeant, they presently found themselves traversing the path taken by the ill-fated Jameson, and, like him, when they reached the bluff paused to gaze over the wide extent of marsh and river. Long-j-idge pointed to the small brick house in the middle distance. " Manezra's, Morley—that's our goal." " What, by the way, had the local ■police to say about him, Longridge ?" " Nothing derogatory—a weird-looking bi/d, who kept himself to himself, and pow'undoubtedly drowned." Descending the bluff, they _ proceeded along the lonely pathway leading to the house, and neither of them noticed the figure which observed their approach from the-shelter of the distant ruins. -Lurching under the archways, he opened the trapdoor in the floor:, " Two men coming along the path from Cliffe," he announced 'gruffly, and reclosed j£,he trap. "" Whereat, below, the lights went out, jfhe panels of the interconnecting rooms vrere closed, and only the outer cellar remained, empty and open to inspection by anyone who cared to" raise the trap, and .bravo the descent of the break-neck Stairs. / . Oblivious to all this, tragically unaware »f Norah lying bound and gagged on her bed in the in/ier chamber, and of Simon Manezra, very far from dead, lurking spider-like in the adjoining room, Rex and Longridge walked up to the house and at the door. . It was opened by Timothy, the dwarf.

CHAPTER XIX. J The round eyes in the babyish face Stared inquiringly- -at the-- two men, blankly as regard Longridge, but with idawning recognition in the case of Rex. Ho held out his hand and. smiled at the latter, though there was a veiled watchfulness about him that was cunningly concealed. . . ;• "You come to see..Toothy,' he asked. ' S* It's nice of you to visit Timothy." As the one addressed, Rex carried on the conversation. "My friend""and I happened to be in Cliffe," he answered, " so we thought we'd come and say how sorry we were to /hear about your father, Timothy. J)rowned, wasn't he, poor man ?"

The dwarf nodded. " Yes," he said, " fell inio the river—plop! Timothy not see him any more." _ " Bad luck!" Re went on sympathetically. "So you s vv him fall?" Timothy shook his'head. " Only heard him—plop ! —like that. • £Too dark to gee." " You must miss him." ' The queer little object shrugged Ins Shoulders. " Timothy not mind! Sometimes he cruel to Timothy—beat him with big gtick. Timothy rather glad he's drowned." ' " The callous little beggar!" Longridge muttered, and was about to address Jlanezra's dutiful son iu his turn, when there came a diversion. Heavy footsteps "sounded, and round the corner of the house stalked the man whom Rex recognised as the steersman of the barge at London Bridge. With a surly motion he / touched his cap./ " Evening, gents !" be said. " What fan I do for you V Rex repeated the reason for their coming that he had given Timothy, and the fellow nodded. . "Aye!" ''lie corroborated. "Mr. 'iManezra went overboard all right. There one minute, and a bit later he was gone. Kever a sound, either." " Though Timothy thinks he heard the splash," Rex commented. The man threw a glance of contempt at the dwarf. i " 'Im!" he said. " You can't take no * account of what 'e says," and he touched his forehead significantly. " But won't you corne in and rest a minute, gents ?" he invited. Rex hesitated, but Longridge promptly accepted, and they all entered what was evidently the " best parlour " of Manezra's abode. " How about the potato farm ?" Longridge asked. " That going on ?" " Yes," the, newcomer acquiesced, and jerked his thumb in Timothy's direction. / "" 'Twill all come to 'iin, I reckon, if the old man don't turn up—and lie won't, except as a corpse somewhere on the foreshore. I were the old 'un's foreman, and 1 guess I'll carry on for the young 'un 110 v. T ." " Excellent," the inspector observed. •*' Timothy's lucky to have a reliable man to fnII back upon," he added, politely. All at once be sat up in his chair, in the attitude of one who listens. "Who's that upstairs?" he asked abruptly. Timothy and the foreman started, and 'exchanged disquieted glances. "Upstairs?" the latter growled. I No one! There can't be." . . " But there is,.'.'. Longridge insisted. "I'm positive T heard a footstep, and knowing from what you say that you and Timothy are alone- " By this time the foreman was on his " feet. ' > " There can't lie," he asserted again, this time almost angrily, " but—l'll go and see " .He left, the room m haste, and they neard him ascending the staircase, and before lie had reached the top Longridge bolted from his place and rushed after him. "If it's u,tramp," he exclaimed, "he ®iav want help." . Rex stared after him in astonishment. Personally, he hadn't heard a sound, but he. too. rose to his feet. and, involuntarily it seemed, lie arid Timothy followed JD the wake of the inspector. Running upstairs in their turn, they arrived to hear the foreman protesting jl fiercely that he didn't want any help, but, • Seeing the whole party bearing down upon him, he relapsed into sulky silence, and the end of it was that a solemn procession wended its way through the upstairs ■rooms, to discover—nothing. v Longridged looked chagrined. ««r * oou ' ( l have sworn," he muttcrqd. I thought "

" Got a touch of nerves, ain't you, gov'nor?" the foreman grumbled, as they descended to the ground floor. " A-racing about a bloke's house like "

Apparently a simile failed him, for he relapsed into silence, and the chagrin deepened 011 the inspector's countenance. " I must apologise," he said, almost humbly. " Can't think what 1 imagined I heard."

" You didn't hear nothing," was the uncompromising retort, but there was a wealth pf suspicion in the glance he turned on Longridge. The latter, after this fiasco, seemed on.y too anxious to be gone. " Cau we get down to the river ?" he asked. " I'd like a glimpse of it before returning." " Follow the path along, and it'll take you straight there," was the surly response. " Not as there's anything lo see!" " Rivers and ships always fascinate me," Longridge explained. " Come along, Morley; time wo were off." The latter • was secretly of the same opinion, and when they were clear of tlie house he turned to the inspector. " What on earth possessed you inside there ?" he asked. "Why, there was'i t a sound from upstairs." Longridge grinned slyly. " 1 kuow there wasn't," he admitted, " but 1 wanted to examine those upstairs rooms—and, well, we managed to, pretty thoroughly, didn't we?" "Oh!" said Rex, "I see," and could have kicked himself for having failed to understand the other's little ruse. " Well," Longridge asked presently, " what d'you make of things?" ** They're a queer pair," Rex answered. "Do you think I hey heaved old Manezra overboard between them ?" " 1 wonder," the detective answered, and relapsed into an enigmatic silence. Glancing at him, Rex also wondered —what was at the back of his companion's mind. He would have liked to pump him, but refrained, judging that when the time came for Longridge to tell him tilings he would do so. He could not S'So that they had achieved much from this visit to Cliffe himself.

In due course, 'they came to where the path ended at the junction of creek and river. Moored in tho former, were still the barge and dinghy that Jameson had seen, but of the launch that had come creeping in at the grey hour of breaking dawn —the launch which would have toid them that they were hot upon the scent —thore was now no sign.

Staring across the ebbing tide, Rex idly stirred with his toe a sodden matcn box that lay upon the ground, and kicked it down the bank into the oozing mud. What, one may ask, would his thoughts have been had he known that this was the identical box left behind hixn by Jameson., the absence of which had directly contributeci to his death V' " Nothing here," Longridge said at last, " let's go back." Whereat they began to .retrace their steps, and because Longridge lacked the acute perceptions of the murdered Jameson, and Rex himself was but a tyro in these matters, both passed by Uie group of gaunt and sinister ruins without a thought, tragically unaware that not a hundred feet from them in the darkness of the cellar there writhed and struggled vainly with her bonds the girl whom it was their mission to find and save. CHAPTER XX. For Norah the hours passed leadenfooted, a repetition of those upon the launch, but more protracted, even, perhaps, more fraught with terror. Manezra, she believed, was mad; but on that account a.U the more dangerous, the more likely to put into operation whatever his orazy brain might dictate. This very scheme of his that she should marry his stunted and deformed son must be the outcome of insanity, but for her at all events, it held the elements of horror on which her mind refused to dwell. More than ever, did the whole affair, since her abduction from the ' Silver Pathway, take upon itself the asj pect of a hideous nightmare from which I she must presently awake. Yet the grim fact remained—she did not awake; the thing was only too real. With the passing of time, she elapsed into a kind of weary coma. She had long ago exhausted herself by vain and repeated efforts to loosen the cords that bound her wrists and ankles, and rid herself of the suffocating gag, only desisting when she was utterly worn out. But, though her body ceased to strain, her mind remained only too active, conjuring up inexorably the perils of her position. And chief among her fears was the knowledge that at any moment the sliding panel in the wall might roll back—to admit the hideous presence of Manezra. Desperately, she tried to thrust the thought from her, to turn her thoughts to other things, even to wonder whether they would bring her lood that evening. But starvation was part of Manezi'a's scheme to bring her to a more accommodating point of view, although it would be long, ol course, before its pangs began to assail heir. So the hours went by, and no one came near her, and presently even her mind wearied and ceased to torment her with visions of what might be. She fell into an uneasy doze. A hand upon her arm awakened her, and, but for the. gag, she would have screamed, for it seemed to her that her fears had been realised and that Manezra had stolen in. Then a voice whispered in her car—the voice of limothv. "Don't be afraid, Norah; Timothy will help you." She lay still while she felt him fumbling at the knots, and presently, with a"blessed relief, found that her hands were free. A moment or two later, he had the cords from her feet as well, and once more she heard hun whisper: . ... , "Poor Norah! Timothy will take out the gag, but Norah mustn't speak. She herself, from the moment that her hands were free, had been trying to do this, but her numbed fingers relused to act and she was obliged to let the dwarf complete the operation. It was some time, however, before her circulation returned and she found herself able to stand. ' All this had taken place in pitch darkness, for tlie dwarf had not attempted to use a light, but the girl was now aware of a current of fresh air that was dissipating the normal stuffiness of the room, and it seemed to her that the further wall wus no longer uniformly black, but that -about its centre *it lightened to a more visible giey. It was in this direction that the little man now proceeded to tug her by the arm. " Norah run away," he announced, " and ' Timothy go with her!" The grey patch resolved itself into an opening—the place soeined honeycombed with them, the girl thought, and she understood now how her suitcase had been brought into the room—an opening which led into' a kind of area from which a (light of stone steps rose steeply to ground Jevel. With Timothy in the van, they ascended this, and for the first time for many hours Norah found herself once more in the open air. " Oh, thank Heaven! " she breathed. "Thank Heaven!" > I But Timothy .was dragging at her hand. . "We must run," lie insisted, " quickly." Yet, before she obeyed him she glanced round her with something approaching awe. The gaunt pile of the ruins reared themselves like some gnome's castle; low grey clouds scudded overhead before the drive of the wind that "soughed across the unseen marshes; from the further reaches of the .river the moan of a syren .sounded like the night-call of some prowling monster. " Come," said Timothy again. " Norah must hurry.'s

(COPYRIGHT.

Author »t "The Japanese Parasol," "The Girl in Yellow," "The Camoden Mill Mystery," etc. y By ELLIOT BAILEY. ,

A POWERFUL WORK OF MYSTERY, SENSATION AND ROMANCE.

She knew thai this was so, that it was no time to ask the natural question as to her whereabouts that trembled on her lips. Only one thing mattered —to get away before Manezra should discover her flight. And already it seemed she was too late. Suddenly, from the foot ol the steps they had'just ascended, there rose a hoarse shout of frenzied anger._ "Joe! Timothy! She's gone the girl's gone! " Then came the scuffling of boots on stone, a harsh breathing that was more like a snarl than anything else, a huge, squat form that loomed above the steps. ... And, hand in hand with Timothy, Norah lied. CHAPTER XXL All night long, Simon JManczra had paced his apartment, the evil stream of his thoughts busy with his helpless caplive beyond the intervening wall. He had much to 'occupy them. r l he report that Joe, the bargeman, and Timothy had brought him ol their interview with Rex and Longridge had disturbed his equanimity more than a little. True, that interview had ended in the befooling and discomfiture of the visitors, but it showed hiin that they were closer on the track than was exactly pleasant. What, he asked himself, had brought them down to Cliffe? Had that fool, Joe, left any traces of his handiwork? Furiously, his mottled face working, lie had questioned his selt-styled foreman on the point, only to meet with a stolid denial. Probably, the latter said, they had already returned to town, baffled—and that would be the end of that.

• Manezra hoped so, but it seemed to hint politic to alter - his plans somewhat, and certain instructions to the bargeman were the result of this decision. To-morrow would see those altered plans in operation, and then. . . His veiiow fangs showed vilely. With head thrust forward, and uncouth swinging arms reaching almost to his knees, 'lie paced backwards and forwards in tireless progression, his cunning brain weaving, planning, anticipating. And presently, there came to him a great desire to see again the girl who was in his power. How sweet slie would look lying there, her eyes perhaps closed in sleep, perhaps open and filled with apprehension. Iti would be liko standing in mockery before some caged bird, gibing at some trapped animal. lie tiptoed to the wall, and slipped back the panel. For a moment he debated whether to approach her in the dark, startle her by laying his huge hand upon her, while she slept, but in the end the wish to see her proved too potent. He reached out and switched on the light. At first he found it hard to believe the evidence of his eyes. Iho bed on which l)o had thrown her was vacant, the room itself was empty, and cu the floor were the cords with which he had bound her. She had gone—and she could have only gone one way. Treachery! He realised it at once, knew that someone had played him false. Yet, as he plunged across the room into the area beyond, he called mechanically to the only two of his assistants who were within hail. "Joe! Timothy! She's gone—the girl's gone! " And was it treachery? The doubt assailed him almost as it occurred. He remembered Ilex and Longridge. Had he under-rated them ? Had they achieved the impossible after all 1 Were his secrets known. So, with anxiety as well as fury gnawing him, he stumbled up the steps, and at the top the explanation was revealed. Flitting away in the darkness, ho could see two unmistakeable figures—Norah's slim outline, and the stunted silhouette .of his dwarfish son. So Timothy had done this ? Wild anger consuming him, he started in pursuit. Fear lent the fugitives wings. Timothy had not started down the path that led direct to the river, but in the opposite direction, branching off presently to the right by a way that would take them round the head" of the creek and down its further bank to the jetty which stood opposite the point where Jameson, and, later on, Rex and Longridge had looked across the river. He had an object in view—the dinghy that was fastened to fhe stern of his father's barge.

With Manezra's pounding footsteps behind them, they tore on. At first, Timothy outpaced the girl, but once she got into her stride his short legs failed him, and he began to lag. Whereupon she clutched his hand, and by main force tried to make him keep up with her.

All at once she checked herself, with a cry of consternation. A bulky figure had thrown itself across their path—it was Joe, arriving from some haunts of his own.

" 'Ere," he cried, " just stop, you two. What the 'ell. . . V " The end!" flashed Norah's despairing thought, for it seemed to her that they could never hope to pass the bargeman, standing with outstretched arms across the narrow path. With him in front and Manezra behind, and on either ide of them at that spot, a tangle of rough and almost impassible ground, they were caught between two fires. Nothing but capture, it appeared, remained. But she reckoned without Timothy. The dwarf, goaded perhaps by the spur of his own fear, acted with a quickness and resolution she would not have expected in one of his "child-like mind. Not for a second did he pause in his run, but just lowered his head and charged like a goat. There was a thud, and a gasp from the bargeman as Timothy's lowered skull caught him right amidships, and then, with the breath knocked out of his body, he went sprawling to one side, while the fleeing pair dashed on. The panting girl hoped that Manezra behind them might stop to attend to his hench-maii, but it was soon evident that he meant to waste no time on him. He came on doggedly, and he began to gain. . It was then that iortuue, hitherto on their side, seemed to desert them. Timothy stumbled and fell, and though he was on his feet again in an instant it was with a whimper and an obvious limp that showed that he was hurt. He lagged more than ever now in spite of Norah's frantic tugs. A clatter and a curse behind them, however, told them that Manezra, too, had tripped over something in the dark, and they were still some yards ahead when they reached the jetty.' But here the dwarf evidently twisted his already injured foot, for he collapsed altogether in a heap upon the ground. " Timothy finished!" ho groaned. "Run, Norah; you'll find a boat. . And then, almost from beneath Manezra's feet, he squirmed into the shelter of some mouldering casks. For a second the girl hesitated. Even in her cxtrmeity it went against the grain to leave him, but so quickly had he squirmed away that she could no longer sec him. She know that she could do nothing—and Manezra was now very ciose.

So once more she turned and ran—to the very end of the jetty, which spelt finish to her further progress. Below her, the dark water swelled, and sho could make out the vague outline of the barge moored against the piles. But boat there was none. The jetty was a cul-de-sac, and she was cornered! Like an animal at bay, she prepared for the last vain struggle, picturing Manezra's great arms around her, his breath upon her face. And then there flashed into her mind an alternative—preferable far to that hopeless fight. She poised herself on the very edge of the quay, arid dived headlong ■ into the liver beneath,

CHAPTER XXII. It was not until the water's cold embrace closed about her that there came to her any definito perception of what she meant to dp. More than anything else, that leap from the petty had been a last instinctive attempt to avoid the seemingly inevitable, the outcome of a terror and aversion to Manezra that were beyond words, the acceptance of the fiual chance o[jen to her to escape his clutches. lint, (lie plunge once taken, all the instincts of the born swimmer that she was asserted themselves in her. There was no going back —she knew that —and to land anywhere in the vicinity would be to play into Simon Manezra's hands. Very well then —she would swim the river! No sooner had the thought occurred to her than she prepared lu put it into execution, slipping ol'l" her skirt and underskirt so that they would nut impede the ireedom of her movements, and then her shoes. .She would make an unconventional figure when she landed on the further side, but that, for the Lime being, did not trouble her. Letting her discarded garments float from her on the stream, with a deep breath of resolution she started on her way, actually smiling as she did so, for it seemed to her that. in her unusual swimming powers sho possessed a trumpcard that Manezra had overlooked. Omy one possibility clouded this satisfaction—the launch. If they pursued her in that, sho was done. Lut there had been 110 sign of Lhe launch. And then something occurred that brought home to her, in her turn, an eventually that she had overlooked, ifrom the direction of the jetty there came a sudden plunge, and, looking back, she glimpsed a dark object breaking in her direction. Manezra! So ho, too, was a swimmer, arid bad nut yet given up the pursuit!

Whereupon, for a ghastly moment, something like panic gripped her. It appeared to her as if this terrible man could not be shaken off; that, inexorable as fate itself, his persistence must prevail; that, after all, her last desperate throw had been in vain.

This panic expressed itself in her actions. Never an unduly fast swimmer, though her powers of endurance bordered 011 tne marvellous, her strokes grew shorter and llustered, so that although they were quicker her actual speed was less —while to her fevered imagination it seemed that the launch itself could not have bettered Manezra's pace. His mighty arms flailing the water in a fierce trudgoon stroke brought him up with her yard by yard. Every instant she expected to find him draw up alongside. But fortuantely this momentary panic spent itself as quickly as it had come. Her normal poise and resolution returned to her, and with set teeth she settled down to a steady, sweeping side-stroke that was not without its effect.

Manezra no longer gained. The fierce energy of his first effort to overhaul her could not bo kept up indefinitely. It had already to a large extent spent itself, and the blur of his head and shoulders camo 110 closer.

For the first time, then, she began to review her position. She liad. of course, only the vaguest idea of her whereabouts, but in her rush down the jetty sho had formed a rough estimate of the river's width as delined by a scattered light or two on the opposite bank. As regards the actual distance, she had nothing to fear —it was negligible, for instance, compared with her successful channel efiort of the year before; but there were more than one adverse factor to be taken into account. The strength of the current, was one. The tide, in the first hour of its ebb, seemed to her to be running out like a mill-race, and this would carry her down stream and so add materially to the length of her swim. Then there were the manifold dangers of passing traffic — the tratiic of the greatest waterway in the world. And thirdly—and this was already causing her concern—she had to reckon with tiie coldness of the water. It was only early spring, and consequently the deadly winter chdl still remained. From Lhe events of the past twenty-four hours she had felt physically exhausted betore she set out, moreover, and she felt that it was questionable whether her reserve of strength would be sufficient to carry her through the task she had essayed.

But to dwell on these things would be to succumb to them, so she thrust them from her mind. Alter ail —save thi question of physical strength—they applied to Manezra as much as to herself. And Manezra was still plugging doggedly behind.

She did not try to swim directly across the current, but Look a diagonal course which she hoped might get her to land two miles or so down-stream. Could Manezra, she wondered, last that far 1

Could she hersfelf'{ The deadly cold was taking its toll of her stamina all too soon. Once more she quickened her stroke in the hope that the physical exertion would tend to keep the warmth in her limbs.

Except for the implacable being in pursuit, it seemed as if she were alone upon a waste of waters. The shore sho had left faded quickly into the darkness, and only those scattered lights marked the one that was her goal. Time merged into nothingness; she based everything upon the growing numbness that cast its slow blight upon her body.

She was somewhere in mid-stream when she sighted the steamer, the throbthrob of whose engines—as before in tho launch—had reached her ears long before it bulked dimly into view, or before even she had noticed its masthead light. It was some distance away, proceeding, out-ward-bound, down the deeper channel near the farther shore, but IS" or ah could feel the pull of the water toward it, and shuddered as she pictured herself—had it been nearer—drawn into that fearful suction—to perish horribly, perhaps, among the blades of the revolving screw. Then it had gone, leaving her battling with the broken waves proceeding from its wash.

Engrossed with these, and with the grim thoughts conjured up by the passing of the big cargo boat, she had for .the time being actually forgotten Manezra. Possibly the cold, too, was numbing her faculties, obliterating tho fear that had impelled her to the swim. But, whatever the causo, she came back to grim reality with a shock of horror. Something was holding her foot! She turned her head and screamed. Her pursuer had taken his chance. *\Vhile the girl is front of him had been watching the steamer, he had spurted noiselesely, using the fast over-arm stroke with which he had commenced the chase. He had drawn up almost level, and, stretching out his hand, had seized her ankle. Not a word did he litter, but, as if he had shouted it aloud, the girl realised his purpose. lie would force her beneath Hie surface, and then, when the water had rushed into her lungs, he would carry her unconscious body back in triumph to his lair. And she knew that she would not escape again. All seemed over. In the grasp of those great muscular arms she would be as helpless as a child. Site choked as a breaking wave splashed full in her eyes and mouth.

But sometimes terror forces tlie action that reason fails to suggest. So it was now. Drawn hack inexorably toward him, she could actually make out Manezra's distorted features glaring at her through the dark. Then with her free foot she kicked, kicked and kicked again. It was sheer instinct, nothing more, but had she planned it beforehand she could not have done better. For her toes struck Manozra full in one of his eyes, and with the sudden pain of the blow he flinched and released his hold—and before he could regain it she was away.. (To bo continued on Saturday next.)