DANCING BEGGARS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21273, 29 August 1932, Page 15

DANCING BEGGARS

AN INTRIGUING DETECTIVE MYSTERY

SYNOPSIS John Gosling, a curate, and Arthur Janes, n writer, free for a while from the city, are enjoying the country lanes of England, and certain little unimportant discussions, They meet Molly Lupin, of few wordß, whose mother is a well-known novelist. Gosling and Janes talk of Molly's mother, who asks them to lunch. Sho discusses a mutual friend named Bentley, a millionaire, who has recently departed from their midßt. The rector of the parish becomes interested in the millionaire, and suggests that he be asked for a subscription toward the fund for the restoration of a tower of the church. John Gosling continues his narrative in the fc.llowing instalment. CHAPTER I.—(Continued) I pulled twice round the Dido before anyone answered my hail. Then a coloured man poked his head over the stern, stared at me solemnly for a moment and vanished. I gave them a minuto and hailed again. This timo an elderly, grizzled fellow in a yachting cap appeared, frowning in tho reflected glitter. " It's a priest," I heard him say, as thuagh to someone behind him. " A deacon, sir," I corrected him. " Is the owner aboard ?" He did.not reply but another man joined him at tho rail; a youngish, fair-headed man without a hat. J drew in closo and shipped my oars. " Perhaps you'll throw mo a ladder," I suggested rather curtly. Tho grey-haired man\ spoko at last, but not to mo. " What about it, Mr. Valina ?" he muttered. " Why, sure," said the other heartily, and grinned down at mo, " Sorry they kept you waiting, Padro. That lascar should havo known better. Como right aboard while I tell Mr. Bentley you're here." My first feeling when I had scrambled on deck was disillusionment. One reads in novels of tho spotless appointments of rich men's yachts, but the Dido could not really bo called spotless. She was no moro than decently clean. Bentley's cabin camo much nearer to my mental picture. It had books and flowers and a j couple of Japaneso prints—one of that marvellous " Deep Sea Wave " of Hiroshige —and tho place spoke pleasantly to a visitor. So did the man, after a moment's doubtful scrutiny. I havo an idea that ho took to mo at onco. Ho offered me, with just; tho right degree of hesitation, a whisky and soda. " Or, I've some rather nice brandy," he said. I choso tho whisky, and wo must havo talked for an hour. I had somehow expected the man to have a foreign accent, or at least a trace of Yajikeo twang, but he spoke English as well as you or 1. He talked with attractive modesty about himself and his possessions, as though he knew just the points on which Polblaze would wish to bo informed. Ho came, he said, of an English family settled for a hundred years in the Argentine, but I suspected at least a dash of other blood, for the man was as dark as a Spaniard and had the easy Latin dignity, and tho air of romantic melancholy with which that hardheaded breed confronts tho world. I asked him his plans. " Why, I haven't any," he confessed. " You see, I'm idling, under doctor's orders. I've ai taine physician on board, but tho truth is I'm as fit as a fiddle. Swam a mile this morning and was good for another. Between ourselves, this is going to be my last port of call." What it seemed that he was really hankering for was a game or two of tennis op an English lawn, which is as no other lawn in the world. That was a diversion that I could promise him with confidence. And at tho end ho made my beastly job easier by inviting himself to seo the Church. " I should love to show it you," said I. " I'd rather you didn't." He smiled disarmingly. " Tho fact is, my dear fellow, that I like to savour an old building by myself. I've been doing Sicily, and you know how one's plagued with guides there." I did not much like being classed with an Italian cirerone, but his tono was perfect and I could not take offence. I warned him, though, that wo had to keep the tower locked. " Then I'll send for the key ono day," ho said, " if you'll let me." I gave it him on the spot. I thought the fund had better wait until he had seen tho crack. I was pleased with the result of my mission and I liked the man. When I was leaving he introduced me to the grey-h aired man, who was Dr. Brookes, and to his secretary, Mr. Valina, whose fair head belied his name. I saw very little of Bentley between that date and tho day of my guest's arrival. Janes and I were taking a last stroll on tho quay before turning in. It was one of those summer nights that are somehow darker than the blackest nights of mid winter, but the air was exquisite. Wo were turning home to my lodgings when a man came running and calling my name. " A telegram for me," decided Janes, all a-tremble. " No," I said. " It's too late for that. What is it, Pasco?" " You're wanted on the harbour road at once, Mr. Gosling. There's been a gentleman hurt." We hurried along with him. It was the gentleman from tho Dido he said. Dr. Tempest was with him and said he could not bo moved, which sounded pretty bad. It was Bentley himself. They had laid him on a couplo of coats by the side of the road. Dr. Tempest looked up in the light of a bicycle lamp and beckoned mo. " Ho asked for a priest, Gosling. I .suppose you'll do. It's a matter of minutes." The man's head was bandaged. 110 was dying. I leaned close to him but could hardly catch the words that he was trying to say. He said: "Keep your arm round me," though nobody was holding him. Ho lifted a hand and I thought ho wanted mo to take it, but lie smiled, with a ghost of his living smile, and pointed upward. I nodded and said such words as a clergyman can say in that hour, but I think ho was already dead. I looked at Tempest and ho nodded. " I believe it was a peaceful end," I said. The doctor snorted. > " It wasn't. It was a violent end. The man was murdered." I did not stay to tell him tho kind of peace I meant. Janes roused me next morning with his telegram. All was well, and it was a boy. I looked from my window at tho Dido, riding like a gull on tho glassy swell beyond the jetty. As I watched I hoard tho rattle of cords as the Bluo Peter was hauled down. Then the ensign at tho stern camo down too, but rose again a moment later and waved lazily at halfmast. CHAPTER 11 " EPITAPHS " Dominic Bentley had died of a fractured skull. He had been struck down with a forcible blow, delivered, according to Dr. Tempest, with an instrument resembling a hammer. Death had followed, in tho doctor's opinion, within ton minutes of tho assault. It had been tho merest chance that tho doctor was thero at all. The dying man had been found by a farmer called Pasco, who farms tho upland by tho church, and a moment later, Tempest had happened by on his bicycle on his way from a case. Otherwise, the poor follow seemed likely to havo lain undiscovered until morning. It may havo been chanco too—l don't think it was —that allowed mo to comfort tho murdered man on tho threshold of eternity. Bentley's movements on the night of his death were not in dispute, lie had come ashoro about 7 o'clock and had

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By E. BRETT YOUNG Author of "The Murder at Fleet," "Undergrowth," "The Medlar Tree," etc., etc,

dined at the bungalow with Mrs. Lupin and her daughter. After dinner ho and the girl had played tennis for an hour in the failing light, and he had said good-night—and good-bye, for he was to sail tlie next day—at ten o'clock. The girl was clear about tho hour, for they had both heard the Dido's bells across the water as they stood .on the doorstep. He told her: "I shall catch it hob from Brookes if I turn in late." The night had grown so dark that she had offeired him an electric torch to guide him down the steep path to the harbour road, but the torch was not in its usual place in the hall and he would not wait while she hunted for it. Ho had boasted of his catlike faculty of seeing in the dark, and she had no reason to doubt that he could descend safely. She heard him singing as lie went. She .was presumably the last person to see him before the blow fell. As to tho blow, Dr. Tempest's evidence was conclusive and it was supported by tho dead man's own physican. It was im- j possible to say what weapon had been used, but the examination suggested nothing so much as the pointed end of tho usual sort of coal hammer. There were no traces of dirt in the wound. Dr. Brookes, medical officer Of the Dido, agreed with every particular of Tempest's ovidence. Tho blow, he said, could not havo been either accidental or self-inflicted. Tho suggestion that Bentley might have fallen from tho cliff that overhung the road would not bear examination. Such u fall would certainly kill a man, but at this point the cliff top was covered to its edge with a dense thicket of gorse and bramble, inaccessible even in daylight. There Was also tho evidence of Molly Lupin to show that tho deceased had at least begun tho normal descent of the hillside by tho path that met tho harbour road a quarter of a milo from tho spot whero he was found. It was ten minutes past ten, by Tempest's watch, when ho arrived and found Bentley dying. The man Pasco could not swear to the hour when ho happened along tho harbour road, but ho had passed tho Ship Inn as tho bar was closing at ten and had walked slowly. Ho had stumbled over tho body and lie had not been there more than a minute —lie had not recovered from his agitation and dismay—when tho light of the doctor s bicycle appeared. It was ho who had come running back to tho villago in search of me. . These are tho baro facts of tho affair as they afterwards camo out at tho inquest. So many strange things have happened, that I find it hard to recall my own impressions. I think my chief feeling was a kind of petulanco against fate for choosing our obscure and decent village as tho stage for so black a crime. And I j-emember wishing that I had not grudged Bentley his brief heyday of popularity with tho ladies of Polblazo; his tea parties and his sets of tennis. I reinemer too, very clearly, my struggle to persuade Janes that it was his duty to stay and seo the thing through. Ho had promised his wife, his doctor and me that ho would stay in Cornwall for at least a week. I found him on tho very morning after his arrival, fumbling with tho pagos of a local timetable. " You're not going! " I challenged him. " Oh, but you can't go now. We need you. And surely this is a mystery after your own heart." Ho smiled and shook his head. " My heart's elsewhere," he said fatuously. . , T i i j "They're born every minute, 1 told him. " And they die at about tho same rate. Anyway, I hato mysteries," said 'Janes. "I am a decent family man." " So was poor Bentley, ion all I know to tho contrary." " Possibly. That wasn't quito my impression of him, but you knew him and I didn't." "At least," I begged him, you 11 visit tho scene of the tragedy before you decide ? " , „ _ "If you mean tho harbour road ne began. " Whero else should I mean ? •' Where indeed ? I'm only protesting against your jargon. You'vo been read-* ing detective stories." /"Will you go?" I insisted. " No, I won't. If it's any satisfaction to you, I don't mind telling you that I took a walk along tho harbour road this morning while you wero still snoring. " And you found? " I cried. " Nothing/' said Janes, 14 Or at least, nothing to tho point." ~ t , I went on bothering him until ho showed me what ho had found. I recognised it at onco as a flint arrowhead such as I have found in dozens on my own Berkshire downs: one of those cunningly fashioned flakes with which the man of tho stone age somehow killed his meat. Tho country people call them " fairy arrows." These relics aro pretty rare in West Cornwall, which is two hundred miles from the chalk, and I was interested, Janes had picked it up, he said, on the beach. " But I can't see," I confessed, it has to do with Bentley's death." Janes put it in his pocket. " Unless," I went on, " you're going to suggest that, ho was attacked by a gang of pixies." He said that ho would keep the theory in mind. This was before medical ovidence had shown us that Bentley was killed by a very different kind of weapon. In the meantime ho was determined to go to London. All this was sadly disappointing. I thought I knew my Janes, and I had taken it for granted that Bentley's death was just tho kind of challenge that it would be a point of honour with him to take up. Yesterday ho had seemed interested in Bentley. He had built up a picture of the man from indications that most people would not havo even noticed. I suppose I had been hoping that from some overlooked fragment of evidence along tho harbour road, he would bo able to reconstruct an equally clear portrait of Bentley's assailant. He had visited tho harbour road and found nothing to tho point. Tho fact remained that he had visited the harbour road. I turned on him quickly. " If you're not interested," I challenged him, " why did you take tho trouble to got up CJ\rly ? " He .nodded encouragingly. " Now you're beginning to' uso your powers of mind," ho said. It dawned on mo then that ho was playing with mo and that ho was as keen as I to get at tho truth About Bentley's death. , " But in that case," I protested. " I don't seo why you want to go." Ho shrugged his shoulders. " You must let mo set to work my own way." I spent the morning in parochial duties. In other words I discussed Bentley's death with half tho parish. Polblaze is always ready to hunt for a woman behind any local disgrace, from poaching to tho embezzlement of chapel funds. Rumour's voices agreed on one point; that Dominic Bentley had been in tho habit of swimming ashore after dark. That was tho story, but I quito failed to bring it to tho test -of observation. None could say that they had seen him land. No 0110 had encountered him in tho streets or on tho hillside. Nobody could even hint which of our damsels had played Hero to his Zander, Knowing my villago I was incliircd to dismiss the story as a spinster's dream. It smacked too much of ono of Claire Huntly's novels. But it was strangely persistent. (To be continued daily)