SNOW-BOUND

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21597, 15 September 1933, Page 18

SNOW-BOUND

A BRILLIANT ROMANTIC STORY

CHAPTER XIX. —(Continued) " Then Walker was actually inside the room when Constantino first tried to rouse Carew?" exclaimed Stuart. "He must have been. Anyhow, I took it for granted he was. If I hadn't I should have pome out then. I wish now I had. I heard Dr. Constantino go along the passage, and a few minutes later I heard Mr- Soames' voice. I was a fool not to have gone out then, but I simply couldn't as long as I knew that that man was in the next room. Then, about three o'clock, 1 hoard the snap of the light-switch in Carew's room and stood listening by my door, thinking I should hear the man come out. But ho didn't. I heard a window open somewhere down below, but there wasn't a sound from the room next door."

" Any idea what time it was when \you heard the window?" " About three, I should think. Five minutes or so after I heard the lightswitch go in Carew's room." , " That must have been when I went out on to the balcony the first time. Then all that time Walker must have been inside that room with the door locked." " From what I could hear I feel certain of it. It must have been at least twenty minutes after that that I heard the key turn gently in the lock, and knew he had come out at last. It must be a stiff lock or I shouldn't have heard it."

" Why didn't you come out then?" demanded Stuart. Melnotte cast him a look of horrified protest. " How was I to tell he wasn't lurking in the passage? I'd run into him once already, and.l wasn't going to risk doing it again now that he knew I'd seen him. I just sat tight and waited for one of you to come back." "1 suppose it didn't occur to you that Walker might do one of us in if we came on him unawares in the passage?" Stuart could not resist asking. Melnotte coloured painfully. " I know it all sounds pretty beastly," he moaned. " But you don't realise the position I was in. I didn't know then that the man had killed Carew. I simply thought ho was a thief. But there was murder in his face when he saw me in the passage, and I'm certain, now, that he would have done me in if he'd been able to get at me."

It seemed more merciful to change the subject. "Did anything else happen? Before we arrived on the scene, I mean?"

" Someone came along the passage and knocked again at Carew's door. I'd looked at my watch a minute before. That was just on three-fifteen. I nearly opened my door then, but I thought it might be a trap of Walker's to get me out. After that, no one came near me, and I sat waiting, expecting every minute that that brute would somehow manage to get into my room, for two solid hours. It was past five when I heard your voices in the corridor and came out."

" But why on earth didn't yon say anything when you did come out?" You were safe enough then," exclaimed Stuart.

" Was I ? Try to put yourself in my place. All the time I'd been sitting there waiting, I'd been putting two and two together. Before that it had begun to strike me as odd that nobody seemed able to rouse Carew. Either his room was empty or something was the matter with him. The thing I couldn't determine was whether he was hand in glove with this other man and was lying low on purpose, or whether he'd been drugged, or hurt, or possibly killed. If I gave the show away, and Carew was 'istening in that room, I should be for :t, sooner or later. You must remember that the other man was still at large, and I didn't know who he was. He'd seen me, and whether he was a confederate of Carew's or not, he was free to get his own back whenever he chose. As it was, I knew he'd got his knife into me, and what I didn't know was whether he was lurking around a comer of the passage, waiting to see what I'd do.* Of course I meant to tell Bates or someone later, when I could be sure of not being overheard; but I simply didn't dare do it then." , " Then that's why you've been so anxious to get away all this time!" exclaimed Stuart. Melnotte nodded. . v " I haven't had a decent night's rest since Carew was murdpred," he said simply. And it was obvious he spoke the truth. " It was bad enough in the daytime. I tried to tack myself on to one or other of you, because I was terrified; you weren't any too friendly, you know, and I couldn't make out to what extent I was suspected of being mixed up in the murder. You see, that key was on my conscience, and I was terrified Bates would try it on the communicating door. And the nights were awful. I didn't dare let myself sleep."

" I should have thought you'd have felt much safer if you'd made a clean breast of it and put yourself in Bates' hands," said Stuart bluntly. " What earthly protection would Bate's have been? He never even succeeded in hampering Walker's movements. Besides, once I knew that Carew had been murdered, I'd got my own safety to consider. I'd no idea whether Bates suspected me or not, but Mrs. Van Dolen's attitude was pretty clear, and, in • any case," I couldn't produce any kind of proof that the man I had seen existed. Even if Bates had believed my story, he wouldn't have , let me go,, and as long as that man was in the same house with me, I didn't dare give him away. I suppose I behaved like a Cowardly fool, but you must see that my hands were tied." Stuart did not argue the point. One thing he could not resist saying. " And yet, as it turned out, you were safe enough. Nothing did happen to you." Melnotte positively glared at him. " Didn't, it? What about the night Walker got into my room?"

Stuart sat up. " That clears up one point," ho cried. " That masked man story was true, then?" "It was true that he came. He wasn't masked. Miss Adderley's story put that into my head." " What did he want? Was he just searching for the emeralds?" " Ho came to kill me," stated Melnotto, simply and with the utmost conviction. CHAPTER XX Melnotte, in spite of his little affectations, struck Stuart as an essentially truthful person. That he could lie convincingly, to save himself from physical hurt, ho had proved conclusively enough, but he showed none 'of the gusto and fluency of a born liar. When he set out to tell the truth ho told it, and Stuart felt convinced that his account of what had happened was substantially correct. This being the case, ho could not bo said to be exaggerating when ho declared that Walker visited him with the intention of killing him. Not only did he hold Walker's life literally in his hands, should ho choose to speak, but, in Walker's eyes, was of all the people in the house .the one most likely to have robbed hiin of the emeralds. There could be no doubt that Walker had all along been quite unaware of the indentity of the Misses Adderley. But he knew that Melnotte had seen him, and, very shortly afterwards, had heard of the theft of Mrs. Van Dolen's jewels. What could seem more likely than that he had watched AValker, and, later, gone himself to the barn and taken the girdle. Melnotte had been right in his assumption that only extreme vigilance on his part had saved him from Walker's vengeance. All through the following day and night he" had been baffled in his attempts to get in touch with the dancer, and it was not until the second night

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By MOLLY THYNNE Author of "The Red Dwarf,** "The Murder on the Enrlquetta," etc.

that he conceived that idea of trying the key of Carew's room in the lock of Melnotte's door. As Melnotte, unfortunately for him, did not discover till afterwards, the three locks were indentical, though, as Walker confessed before his death, he had tried the same dodge both on Mrs. Van Dolen's room and the boxroom in which ho had hidden the spanner, and found that it did not work. It was their bad luck from Melnotte's point of view, that the key should nave opened all three doors, and he was only saved by the fact that, when Walker stealthily opened the door and slipped into the room he was sitting up in bed trying to read, with his revolver on his knees. , The instinct for self-preservation mußt have given him sufficient courage to defv Walker. The fact remains that he held him covered all through their interview, and apparently, succeeded in more or less convincing him that he knew nothing about the emeralds Walker had been forced to confine himself to threats, and had evidently succeeded in terrifying Melnotte. The dancer was a little vague as to what had passed at their interview, but by dint of patient and tactful questioning, Stuart elicited the fact that he- had definitely given his promise to Walker not to breathe a word of what he had Been. Walker's last words, before he removed himself, were to the effect that, if Melnotte gave him away he would never rest until he had tracked him down and taken his revenge. This was enough for Melnotte, who was already almost in a state of collapse, and whose vivid imagination pictured a life of menance and uncertainty before him should Walker escape the death penalty. There was no doubt in Stuart's mind that he had been only too eager to promise silence, and would undoubtedly have held his tongue to the end if the predicament of the Gearies had not weighed upon his conscience. As it was, when Constantino, awakened by the sound of the door closing came to see if he was all right, he was hard put to it* to invent a plausible story without giving Walker away. It was obvious that, even now, he was in terror of the man.

" Do you suppose they'll hang himP " he asked Stuart fearfully. " I should think your evidence would be enough to convince any jury," answered Stuart. " Did he molest you again? " Melnotte shook his head. "He never had the chance," he answered. " After that I jammed a chair up against the door every night and sat on it." Stuart stared at him in amazement.

" You don't mean to say that you sat up every night? " "What else was I to do? " asked Melnotte drearily. " There was no bolt to the door, and I'd no guarantee that he wouldn't come back again. I wonder none of you noticed the amount of sleep I put in in the daytime. I had to be jolly careful too, that there was someone else in the room, before I allowed myself to drift off. I've never gone through such agonies of sleepiness in my life as I have here." " Why didn't you sit up with one of us? " demanded Stuart. You knew we were watching, didn't you? You'd have been safe enough theij." Melnotte cast him a swift, sidelong glance. " You'd have been pretty sick if I'd suggested it, wouldn't you?" he said. " You Bee, I had a sort of obsession that none of you liked me, and, toward the end, I was sure that I was under suspicion. Also, I didn't want Walker to get into his head that I was hobnobbing with any of you. I didn't know what construction he might place on it."

Stuart read,the notes he had made to Melnotte, who declared them to be correct.

" I suppose I'd better wait here," said Melnotte, looking the picture of misery.

Stuart reassured him as best he could and went in search of Arkwright. As it happend, Arkwright was so elated at getting the evidence he needed that he was inclined to regard Melnotte with a contemptuous sympathy. " Poor devil," was his comment. " He seems to have given himself such a thin time that there's no need for me to add to it."

In spite of which Melnotte emerged fr'om his interview with Arkwright badly shaken. He did not accept Stuart's offer of a lift to Redsands, but took himself off to London, and they saw no more of him until the Gearies and Walker came up for trial at the assizes.

Stuart's sympathy with Miss Amy Adderley persisted until he saw her and her mother in the dock. It was not till then that he realised to the full how clever their impersonation had been, and how thoroughly he had been deceived, by it. The Miss Amy he had known had vanished utterly. Belle Gearie's face was still ridiculously small and round, but she had exchanged her look of cloistered innocence for one of youthful sophistication. Her closelyshingled brown hair gave her a misleading air of girlishness, and Stuart would have put her down as being in the early twenties had he not known that she would never see thirty again. In her mother it was easier to trace the Miss Connie of the " Noah's Ark." Her hair, too, had undergone a transformation, this time to a metallic and obviously artificial yellow, but the plumpness remained, though there was hardness now about her eyes and lips that repelled him. They took their sentence stoically and never at any period during the trial attempted to incriminate Walker, though they obviously knew that he had killed Carew, and would have had little mercy on them if he had suspected they were in possession of the emeralds.

Walker was the least interesting of the three prisoners,, in spite of the florid epithets bestowed on him by the press. After hia conviction he confessed, declaring that he had never intended to kill Carew, but had hit him with a spanner in a moment of panic. No doubt he hoped by this to escape the extreme penalty, but the appeal made on the strength of his statement failed, and he was hanged, just three months to a dax, after he had driven in his role of Grimes, the chauffeur, into the yard of the " Noah's Ark." The most interesting comment on the whole affair, from Stuart's point of view, was made by Constantino, who walked into the little bunshop where he and Angela Ford were having tea on. the last day of the trial. He accepted their invitation to join them, and, when they were leaving, drew Stuart to one side.

" I dined with Lord Romsey last night," he said in a low voice. "It's astonishing how his son's marriage has taken the stuffing out of him., But I expect you've heard all about that from Angela. It took him some time to realise that it was a choice between losing Geoffrey or accepting his wife, but ho has given in at last, and gets on amazingly well with his new daughter-in-law. I have an idea that Angela will marry where sho pleases." Stuart looked him firmly in the eye. " I hope so," he announced brazenly. Constantino turned to go. " Well, it's been an ugly business," he concluded. " But, as others have said before me, 1 it's an ill wind that blows no one good.' One thing I can congratulate you on." Stuart eyed him warily. He suspected the twinkle in the old man's .eye. . " And that is?" he asked. " You're not what Lord Romsey calls ' a Papist,' " answered Constantino, as he made his escape. THE END