THE PURPLE DIAMOND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21098, 4 February 1932, Page 16

THE PURPLE DIAMOND.

By RALPH TREVOR. Author of " Under Suspicion," ** The Deputy Avenger," etc.

CHAPTER IV.—(Continued.)

If Clement had only confided in her that would have made a difference. Not that he was by any means as dumb as an oyster. In fact, he chattered away quite pleasantly when he was at home, but Mabel had a shrewd suspicion that he was talking merely for the sake of it, and not because he wished to be particularly companionable. For the past two nights he had been working late at the office. A month ago Mabel Antiss would never have dreamed of doubting her husband's honesty, but she was worried —desperately worried. She seemed to be obsessed by a strange, elusive and quite inscrutable fear; a kind of nameless dread that all was not well with her domestic happiness. She felt that a man whose habits have been changeless for nearly twenty years does not suddenly change them without apparent reason and good cause. Yet Clement had changed. Thore were no two ways of looking at it. He, no doubt, was oblivious of the change in him, but to Mabel it was obvious.

There were moments when sho felt rather like weeping. In her own homely and maternal way she loved him, and she had believed that he loved her. But now she was not so sure. If there was anything worrying him why couldn't ho confide in her? Surely he knew that she would understand ? But when sho had asked him whether there was anything wrong at tho office, ho had patted her quite affectionately on the shoulder and said: "Of course, not, my dear. There's nothing wrong at all."

But there was something wrong—something distinctly wrong, and the more Mabel thought about it the more worried she became.

Then, one night, as the clock on the narrow mantelpiece chimed eleven o'clock and Clement had not come home from the office, the truth burst on Mabel in a flood-light of understanding. There was another woman.

Mabel clenched her hands and bit her lips to prevent herself from- screaming. That was it. That was the solution of the problem that had been worrying and disturbing her for days. Clement had grown tired of her. He had found someone who was more vital to his existence than she was.

tor a moment she closed her eyes in an effort to get her discovery into the correct perspective. Then she opened them again and her lips were quivering. Little had she dreamed when she had married him that such a thing as this could happen. For years she had been content to go on in her own care-froo wav looking after the house, and attending to his wants, darning his socks, cooking his meals, and giving him all the devoted love that the marriage service said she ought to give him. And now he had found another woman.

Mabel was aroused from her contemplation of the tragedy by the arrival of her husband. Instantly, and entirely from force of habit, she arose from her chair and set the kettle back again on the fire. She heard him depositing his hat and coat in the hall. In a moment he would be beside her kissing her cheek and looking around for his slippers. What should she do ? Should she challenge him to deny the allegation; give him a chance to clear his honour? For one riotous moment of indecision she stood there, and just as he opened the door she decided that such a course might be a trifle too precipitate. She would wait. She would gather her proof and then . . . visions of a Divorce Court turned her eyes liquid.

Clement Antiss came into the room. He kissed her on the cheek and smiled. Then just as she knew he would do, he dropped into a chair and reached for his slippers. " Sorry I'm so late, my dear, but you know what it is at balance time. We've got the auditors coming in next week and everything has to be ship-shape for them. Very exacting fellows, auditors, you know. If you've made a slip in the books, they bother you for hours about it, even if the explanation is quite a simple one."

Mabel smiled. Of courso she was expected to believe him. As she busied about with his supper she kept shooting little glances at him as he studied his evening newspaper. But there was no trace of a hair on his black jacket and not a speck of face powder to enable her to bring the charge home to him, and Mabel did not know whether to be glad or sorry, so she consoled herself with the thought that when a man's not quite what be ought to be he's usually scrupulously careful not to leave any evidence behind him or carry any about with him. And as she watched him eating his supper Mabel did not know what to think, but there was one thing sho was determined on. She would find out. She would get to the bottom of this mystery, and she would do so without Clement being aware of it.

CHAPTER V. THE PLOT BUILDERS.

While Clement Antiss was sitting at home eating a quite appetising supper of cold ham and pickled onions, brown bread and butter and hot, refreshing tea, and while Mabel was still harbouring doubts as to her husband's fidelity, a discussion of considerable importance was taking place at a house set close to Hampstead Heath.

It was a large house standing with grim isolation in its own grounds; a grey house with heavy grey curtains concealing the windows. For. years it had remained a derelict of more prosperous times and its owner had long since despaired of letting it to anyone, and no one was more surprised than he when a month ago his agent had telephoned to say that a foreign gentleman recently arrived in England find wishing to settle down adjacent to London had taken the place on a six months' tenancy. The owner —a retired broker of stock from the city—was quite content for the rent had been paid in advance. The tenant of the house had given his name to the agent as Count Koris—a soldierly looking man with dark eyes and a moustache that bristled almost truculently. The house, seemingly, had suited his purpose admjjgably. Jt was not overlooked; there wore no neighbours within half-a-mile who would be likely to have gossiping tongues. The members of his household could come and go as they pleased without exciting undue curiosity. To be quite truthful Count Koris was by no means the tenant's rightful name, but it had served its purpose. It had excited no suspicion in the agent's mind which it most certainly would have done had the prospective tenant announced himself as Prince Paulparatus of Karonia, which was precisely who this stranger to London was. The curtains, were drawn across the windows of the long and spacious room with its large table in the centre, and its dozen or more chairs exotically upholstered in purple. An atmosphere sf tension prevailed. Prince Paulparatus strode up and down the thick-piled rug in front of the large fireplace where a roaring fire blazed merrily away. It was obvious that he was in a thoroughly unpleasant humour. His entourage sat grouped around the table exchanging meaning glances. They were five in number. There was an elderly man who had the bearing of a patriarch emphasised by his small, pointed white beard. Ho was invariably addressed as

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Vladimir. Next to him sat Count Joacim, much younger, rather lean in the face and with the eyes of a wolf that has had nothing on the menus for several days. Then there was Brisser, a stolid Teuton —a man who found life more profitable among the Karonian aristocracy than he did, for instance, in his native city of Hamburg, which he had vacated soon after the end of the war to seek his fortune elsewhere. Finally, sitting a little apart, was Alys Vrigantua, a fashionable Karonian beauty, one of the Court favourites, a leader of Karonian fashion and definitely and opportunist. Alys was certainly striking. Her small, oval face with . its slightly pointed chin had an ebony frame of rich, luxurious hair, bobbed rather low and hanging straight at the back and sides. The alluring waves of Monsieur Marcelle would have been quite out of place here. It is possible they would have made her look as so many women invariably do; but that straight hair, dark as a raven's wing, gave her an appearance almost of classical beauty and distinction. Neither was she old. She could not have been more than five and twenty, but into that quartor of a century she had already packed a life-time of experience. Scores of eligible young nobles had fallen pnder her spell. Two of thein had, under a hopelessly mistaken idea of allegiance, thrown themselves from the Pont Destigma into the cold, gloomy waters of the Nida. Another had offered her a castlo in the Caucasus, while an infatuated son of New England, whose Poppa had made a million from canning crabs, had sworn to buy Broadway for her.

But Alys had merely laughed in her coquettish little way, and somehow that laugh had a significance all its own. It meant quito definitely a conge. \ou see, Mademoiselle Alys was a Diana of much larger garno. She had an idea that providence had destined her to occupy a throne, and as the only throne on the market at that moment chanced to bo the throne of her native land, Karonia, well —one throne was as good as another to Alvs.

But to return to His Highness Prince Paulparatus of Karonia. It has been mentioned that ho was in an unbecoming temper, and when Prince Paul was in a temper it meant that he was furious and the members of his suite exhibited a quite natural apprehension. Things had not been going quite right. In fact., they were all wrong. He paused in his perambulations to confront his henchmen. " Don't sit around looking like lot of blithering idiots," he stormed. (This of course, is rather a rough translation. In his native Karonian it sounded much more expressive.) The " blithering idiots " shifted uneasily in their seats. " I don't think we can possibly do more than we have done, Your Highness," ventured the venerable Vladimir, curiously conscious that his words lacked the conviction he intended to convey. " I understand that Metrovitch is looking after him all right." "But why isn't he here?" stormed Prince Paul. " It's eleven o'clock, and he promised to be here at ten." " Something may have happened. He may be the bearer of news, Your Highness." This, from Joacim, uttered with all the unquenchablo optimism of his youth. Something in the younger man's tone seemed to placate His Highness for the moment.

" Then I wish he'd bo considerate enough to let us know," he said curtly, and once more resumed his athletics.

Throughout this small passage of arms Alys sat there with eyes that roved' ever so slyly. She was watching Prince Paul shrewdly. What a handsome figure of a man he was, and what a pity he had so few imperial ambitions. Why should he be so anxious to turn Karonia into a Republic when he had been born a monarchist? Surely the georgeous pomp of the Karonian Court was better than the uninteresting robes of a President-General which was what Prince Paul had set himself to become.

Silently she sighed. She had, however, one consolation. She had done her best to lead him from the path of absurdity; she had cajoled him; exercised all her potent powers of feminine exorcism on him, and to what purpose ? He was implacable—implacable as a rock, and, she reminded herself, in his present mood just about as interesting. Suddenly thero came the faint tinkle of a Bell. The sound had an almost electrical effect on the little company. Prince Paul stopped abruptly* just as he was about to turn. All eye* were rivetted on the door opening out on the the wide hall.

The brown face of Mr. Antiss' acquaintance entered the room and bowed circumspectly before His Highness. " I regret being so late, Your Highness," he began, in a thin, contrite voice, " but the fact is I have been having a spot of trouble. That damned Englishman did not leave his office at the usual time. I thought I had missed him and went up to his house to make sure. He was not at home. I returned to the office but on the way the taxi-cab I chartered met with an accident and a stupid policeman insisted on taking me to the polico station where I had to give him a long statement as to what had occurred. These English policemen, Your Highness, are mosaics for detail. I had even to give an account of myself." " Did you give this address, you fool ?" His Highness was now irritated beyond measure. " Oh, why did providence destine me to be surrounded by so many hog-headed idiots?" " But no, Your Highness. I gave the address of Antiss." This with an unmistakable touch of pride at an achievement.

A low growl of approval came from the table.

" Well, and what about Antiss ? Did you get him?" " I regret to say, Your Highness, that I did not. When I eventually returned to liis office, it was to find it in gloom. A thousand pardons, Your Highness. I am sorry."

" Pardons your grandmother," stormed His Highness.. " You've got the brains of a gnat and the imagination of a dulcimer. You've got to bo hit before we get any kind of a tune out of you."

In response to this regal witticism came a pianissimo chorus of applause from the table.

Metrovitch coloured slightly, but, being a loyal subject, he smiled and bowed again. " Well, what's to about it? I suppose there's no doubt about his having the cursed diamond ?"

" No doubt at all, Your Highness," responded Vladimir. "As you know, we are certain that Stolicquaram gave it to him in the restaurant. We've been watching Slavim, Your Highness. If the jewel had been returned to him he would no longer be in London. He will not return to Karonia without it, you may be sure of that."

His Highness seemed appeased somewhat at the old man's assurance.

" Well, I'll give you all another chance. Deliver me this Antiss by to-morrow night, certain. I don't much mind how you get him, but get him you must." "Alive or dead, Your Highness?" This from Brisser who had an amused smile on his lips. "I don't "eat dead Englishmen," retorted His Highness in tho approver! idiom of his country.

" And supposing we fail, Your Highness? What then?" asked Joacim, anxiously. His Highness juggled trickily with his larynx, at the same time drawing his finger smartly across his throat. And once again his entourage, familiar with the customs of Karonia, understood. (To be continued daily.)