THE MYSTERY OF THE PEARLS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21233, 13 July 1932, Page 17

THE MYSTERY OF THE PEARLS.

By JOHN LAURENCE. Author of "The Riddle of Wrnye,** "Mystery Money," "The Double Cross Inn," etc.

(COPYRIGHT.)

THRILLING STORY dF MYSTERY, ROMANCE AND ADVENTURE.

CHAPTER VH. Morton was the first to recover himself. i

" Were they in this kind of bottle ? " he asked..

Reeves nodded. He was feeling that the world was collapsing round him, All his clever schemes to save Mary Reynolds had suddenly come to nought. While he had been up at the White House the police had taken the opportunity to make a thorought search. He had underestimated their cleverness, like many another criminal, he reflected bitterly. After all they had been in the game for years, had organised and knew all the tricks. Who was he to pit himself against them , with his silly little futile schemes'! All ha had done was to let Mary down, to make it more sure than ever she would bo arrested. Reeves wished now that he had thrown the pearls into the river. He had been so obsessed by his own cleverness that ho had given the police credit for none! " I don't think this is the police," broke in Merton on his thoughts. " They wouldn't have substituted a new bottle. It looks to me like someone who knew you had put the pearls there, who had deliberately placed a fresh bottle on the table you would not notice. He wanted to gain as much time as possible We'd better go and ask the landlord who has beon here. We've got to catch up time."

Reeves pulled himself together. Anything was better than that the police should have found the pearls. Merton's explanation seemed perfectly reasonable. " But no one saw me make the exchange!" he exclaimed. "I am sure of that."

Merton replaced the bottle and moved towards the door.

" Come, we've got to find out. And step warily."

Reeves did not want any hint to do that. He was now all keyed up. It was Mrs. Brackenbury who served them with beer, and he seized upon that as an opportunity to introduce the subject of the pills.

"No headache, I hope, Mrs. Brackenbury ? You tried the pills ? " " They're magic, Mr. Reeves," she declared.

" Why didn't you keep the new bottle ? I don't take them so often that I would have missed a few pills." Mrs. Brackenbury began nervously to wipe down the counter. She appeared disinclined to offer any explanation when her husband appeared. -

" Evening, Mr. Reeves. Evening, Mr. Merton. Lulu tell you about them pills, Mr. Reeves ? "

" I was just asking why she had given rae a full bottle for the one I'd opened," said Reeves.

" Why, she lost it," declared the land lord.

"Lost it!" exclaimed Reeves,

The excitement in his voice, which he could not suppress, despite the warning look Merton gave him, was overlooked when Mrs. Brackenbury began ah indignant protest.

" I never lost them, Mr. Reeves, aftor all your kindness. They were stolen from me, and as Jim was going into Roigate I says to him, you get another bottle of them pills for Mr. Reeves." " They were stolen from you ? " asked Reeves. " Why should anybody want to steal a bottle of pills?" " I don't think ho meant to steal them," put in the landlord. " I think he just slipped them into his pocket casual like, thinking they might do him a bit of good."

The landlord of the Seven Sisters was always inclined to minimise other people's failings. To both Reeves and Merton it was maddening the \vay the story was being dragged out, wasting precious minutes. But neither dared hurry tho leisurely tale, for that would have drawn too much attention to tho pills, would have caused too much talk later. Tho episode would undoubtedly bo discussed at length that evening with Joe Stevens; and the village policeman might, wonder why all that fuss was being made about a bottle of pills. Reeves seized on the opening. "What was he like? I quite, agree he'd no right to take them like that. If ho took one thing he might take another." " Just what I told Jim, Mr. Reeves, only he sticks to his fancy he just slipped 'em in his pocket. Stealing I calls it. If he'd asked, I'd have given him half a dozen as soon look at him. I said to Jim afterwards I never did trust men with a cast in their eye. His left eye it was. But, of courso, what can you expect of one of these circus men ? " " Not much," agreed Reeves. " Had he got a headache?" "It was toothache. I felt sorry for him," said the landlady inconsistently. " His jaw was swollen something terrible. That's why I gave him a pill. I was called away to a customer and forgot him for tho moment. And when I found they'd gone he had driven off." " What a circus man in a car? " said Merton.

" I never seed such an underfed pony in all, my life,'* continued the landlady, now thoroughly wound up. " All skin and bones. I'd have had the Society after him .if I'd had time. ' That won't travel far,' I says to him. ' lie was always on the thin side,' ho replies. He's bin like that for years.' He's going to Hatcham termoircr."

" There's a fair on at Hatcham to-mor-row," said Merton. " I remember reading about it in tho paper this morning." " An' a fine one it is," said the landlord; " I daresay it's one of the best. I remember —'' Reeves broke in hastily. Onco tho landlord of the Seven Sisters began remembering there was no saying when he would stop. 1 " Was he wearing a cap and a dirty black overcoat ? " ho asked at random. "I thought I saw.a man in a pony and trap—" "It weren't him, Mr. Reeves," said tho landlady. " He'd got an old bowler on. Green with ago it was. It ought to havo been rusty to suit his ginger moustache. I always thought red-haired people wero honest." " I don't' suppose ho thought what he was doing," said the, landlord. " Slipped it—"

" Go on, Jim, tell me ho slipped it in his pocket without thinking. Excuse me, Mr. Reeves, but I ain't,got no patience with him always defending people. A thief's a thief."

"I agree,. Mrs. Brockenbury. But there, don* let it worry you. After all I've got a now bottle of pills and you're welcome to them all if you want them. I'm going along to Reigate this evening. I must be getting along." " Well, what aro wo going to do about it ? " he asked Merton, when the two had driven a-quarter of a mile along the road toward Reigate and had pulled up their cars by mutual consent. " Lord knows," answered Merton gloomily. " When I think of that man wandering about with five thousand pounds' worth of pearla in his pocket,

(To be continued daily.)

which he'll swallow for toothache if we don't find him, I feel inclined to go off the deep end. Likely as not he'll get fed up with the bottle and chuck it away where it will never be found save by the sheerest accident." " I'm sorry," began Reeves. " Oh, I'm not blaming you. I'd have dono the same myself. And if it hadn't been for you we shouldn't know where they are. Not that we know now, but there's just a chance we might find him. We've got a' description. Red-haired, red moustache a cast in his left eye, and a bowler hat green with age. We ought to get him." " We'll get him all right," said Reeves confidently. " He'll be at Hatcham fair. I remember going to it when I was a boy." " How long's it last ? " asked Merton. " Two days." " We've got to waste to-morrow at that inquest, at least the morning." Then we can all drive over in the afternoon," suggested Reeves. • " It's not going to bo so easy when we do find him. If we ask him outright for the pills—" " Leave that part to me," said Merton. " He'll be glad to hand them over when I've finished with him. Pity we can't do anything to-night." Reeves shrugged his shoulders. Ho had thought of driving in the direction of Hatcham, but the chances of finding the man they were aftor were too small to make it worth while wasting time searching. He parted from Merton with the feeling that he was going to have an uneasy night. Nor, indeed, did he sleep much. Just when he had become friendly with those at the White House, had seen Mary looking at lain without the scorn and suspicion in her eyes which had been there, everything had gone wrong and the situation had become a hundred times more complicated. Even if all the luck in the world was with them it was not going to be easy to take the pearls to Shrewsbury. He awoke and wont down to breakfast, feeling thoroughly washed out. Nor did he find the occupants of the White House in much better shape. , "It seems as though we were fated not to get them," said Mary, who sat beside him as he drove to Grinstead. " Poor Tommy was terribly upset when he came home."

" I blame myself entirely," Baid Reeves bitterly. " I ought to have taken them up to my room myself, and then Mrs. Brackenbury would have known nothing about them."

Mary's hand rested for a moment on his arm and thrilled him.

"Wo know it's not your fault, Mr. Reeves. You did what you thought best. We might, all of us, have done exactly the same. Let's not talk about it until we go to the fair this afternoon. If we find them we'll celebrate by going on the roundabouts, shall we ? " From that moment her mood changed. She talked about the inquest; spoke as though she were looking forward to the novelty of it, ignored Reeves' suggestion that she might not find it plejisant to bo the focus of everyone's curiosity. He was thankful that nothing had appeared ip the paper that morning about the search which had been carried out. But the police had allowed the information to be published that a valuable string of pearls was missing from the murdered man's safe, and somehow this was disquieting to Reeves. The houso which Whiteoakes had occupied was a rambling, late Victorian structure standing in three or four acres of rather formal-looking garden. The driveway to the house was flanked for the greater part of the way by laurel bushes, and the neat pathways between the flower beds had the inevitable little box hedges of the Victorian period. A number of cars were already drawn up outside the house. The sergeant who had warned them to attend was standing by the door and immediately came forward. " The inquest's in the dining room, the first door' on the right," he an nounced. Mary Reynolds looked steadily ahead of her as she entered tho room which might mean so much to her; the room Merton had entered in the hour before dawn. A policeman stood by the door and indicated four chairs on one side of tho room. A sergeant was busy arranging some papers on a table at which an inspector was silting talking in low tones to the coroner, a hatchet-faced man who tapped in an- irritating fashion on the table with his pince-nez. Reeves sat between Mary and Merton. He felt uneasy, partly because of the very fact that ho had been summoned to attend the inquest on Whiteoakes, about whom he had certainly known nothing save what he been told by his companions, -and partly because-Mary was sitting there so tense that to Reeves slio seemed hardly to bo breathing. Merton, on the other hand, looked round with frank interest. "The inspector who brought the search warrant," he whispered to Reeves, with a slight nod in the direction of the coroner's table. " See that girl among the servants, the .second from the left? that's Sanders' sister, the girl who let me in. Slio hasn't dared look at us since we've arrived. Five to eleven. Wonder who will identify tho body ? The coroner's evidently going to sit without a jury." Save for the inspector and the sergeant, Reeves recognised no one. He looked round the dining room and for the first time noticed one corner had been roped off, tho corner containing the safe. And in the farther wall was another door, the door through which, if theory was true, the murderer of Whiteoakes must have passed. The thought gave Reeves a thrill. As tho clock pointed to eleven the inspector stood up. " Silence, ladies and gentlemen." The coroner looked round tho room for a moment before he began to'speak. Reeves fancied that his gaze lingered longer in their direction than in any other. _ . "Wo are here to inquire into the death of Mr. Jasper Whiteoakes,he began in precise, dry tones. " This is a preliminary meeting only. lam calling evidence only of identification and the inquiry will then bo adjourned until this day fortnight. All witnesses will be bound over to attend on that day, when, I understand, the police expect to offer important evidence." There was an uneasy shuffling of feet as the coroner lookod down at the papers on his table. " Mr. William Benson," ho called. , " That's Whiteoakes' butler," whispered Merton. An elderly man, with iron-grey hair and a slight stoop, rose from a chair where tho servants wero sitting and cam? forward and stood near the table. He nervously took tho bible the sergeant handed to him and in jerky, high staccato voice repeated the oath. " Mr. Whiteoakes was your master? " " Yes, sir." " How long have you been in his employment? " " Four months, sir."

" When did you last see him alive ? " "About half-past, ton, the night before his death, sir. Last Wednesday night, sir."

" You havo seen his body? " The butlor gripped tho edge of the table.

" I found him, sir," he answered, his voice dropping, " lying on the bed—" " Nover mind that," interrupted the coroner. " You have identified the body as that of your lato employer ? " " Yes, sir." " That will do for the present. You will bo recalled." said the coroner. " Call Dr. Rawlins."