HER SILENCE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21755, 21 March 1934, Page 19

HER SILENCE

By MRS. A. M. WILLIAMSON Author of " The Moat House," " Behind Double Doors "

A GRIPPING MYSTERY SERIAL

SYNOPSIS Early on a foggy, February morning, a lovely girl wearing an obviously expensive chinchilla cloak enters an hotel on the outskirts of London and engages a room. Clearly ehe is someone of importance, but she has no luggage and insists upon paying in advance after registering as " Mary Brown"—a name, the attendant decides, which is not her own. Peter Tyrone, a young doctor who resides at the hotel, hearg her engage a box for that evening's operatic performance at which a famous singer, Guido Carino, is to appear. Later, she has difficulty in obtaining a taxi, and Peter offers her the use of his car—an offer which she rather hesitatingly accepts. During the performance many admiring eyes are turned in the direction of the lovely girl sitting unaccompanied, and Peter, who has a seat in another part of the house, is not alone in thinking that Carino has been singing to her. only. She leaves before the end of the performance, and when he sees her again it is from his own window, which has a balcony adjoining hers. Glancintr casually across the intervening space to her window, Peter realises to his horror—that " Mary Brown " is in the act of drinking something from a bottle which his professional experience tells him contains poison. Her attitude, too, is expressive of the blackest despair. He leaps across to her balcony—risking his life in the act—but by the time he reaches her side, ehe has achieved her purpose. He finds that she has taken laudanum, and for hours fights for her life, aided only by a porter—the only person other than Peter himself, who is aware of what has happened. CHAPTER lll.—(Continued) Tyrone loved her and pitied her and scolded her. He knew that anger, if he could rouse it, would run through her veins like a flame. " Don't he a fool," he said roughly. " You'll die when your time comes, and not before. That time's not now. Behavo yourself. You're a woman; you're not a child. There's not a thing in the world to be afraid of, I tell you. Nothing shall hai-m you. I won't let it. Don't be a coward. Don't give me trouble just to make things worse. You've got to live —get that fact into your head." "I —I hate you! " the girl whimpered. Tyrone laughed. " Hate away! It'll do you good," he taunted her, to her talking and angry, for she wasn't out of danger yet. If she should fall asleep, her will to die was so intense, her despair so heavy a weight that he might not be able to waken her again. Whenever he thought the rebellious patient could bear the treatment, he ruthlessly forced upon her a few more sips of the coffee which Dorley, silent but efficient, was keeping hot at the electric fire. "Now I can do without you," Tyrone said to the porter at last. " You'll be needed downstairs, and it's better to go. We don't want questions asked. I shall spend the rest of the night watching with Miss Brown," he added. "She's in no state to be left alone, and I don't know when sha will be. How long are you supposed to be on duty?" " Till seven o'clock in the morning, sir," said Dorley. " Very well. At six-thirty call up 88A, Dorchester Square—you'll find the number in the book—and say that Doctor Tyrone wants a good nurse sent as soon as possible to the Palace Hotel, Golders Green, to look after Miss Brown, who has-been taken ill with a serious—er—nervous attack, in the night. 88A is a nurses' cljib, and the matron there knows I'd like to get Nurse Chivers, if she's available. Say I don't think it will bo a matter of many days, but I can't be sure yet. Till the nurse comes, I'll be on gufyd. If a call to a case comes for me tonight, I'm out, and Doctor Desmond will take over for me." " You'll be. tired, doctor," argued Dorley. " I expect you've had a busy day, liko you always do. I saw you come in from a case and go out again, early this morning before I went off." "Oh, I shan't feel tired!" Tyrone answered, and with truth. He was so absorbed in the case of Mary Brown, alias —he wondered if he would evetknow what—that fatigue after overwork had fallen off him liko a garment. Ho believed that he could watch over •her for 24 more hours at a stretch without food or sleep, without knowing the need of either. She seemed to belong to him. Her beauty, her untold anguish had, he said to himself, " pulled his heartstrings out of shape." Still, other patients would have to be visited in the morning, and his charge must then be handed over to a nurse. It was now only one o'clock, however. He would have more than four hours alone with the girl, watching over her, protecting her from herself, comforting instead of scolding her, when kindness rather than harshness became the right medicine for her case. CHAPTER IV THE TELEPHONE RINGS "I'm so tired, so tired!" the girl sighed when, as if in a dreaful dream, she had walked up and down a lighted room which she seemed never to have seen before; walked beside a fiercely determined man, who was a stranger. " For htaven's sake let me rest or I'll fall." " You shan't fall," the man said. " But I'll risk letting you rest awhile. Only, mind, if I see you going to sleep, up you get and begin your march again!" The tears of an hour ago had dried, but now they fell once more. " I don't know who you are," she sobbed, as he lowered her to a sofa, and placed himself at her side. " Why should you be so cruel? Why do you hate me so?" (If she only guessed how far ho was from hating her!) " It's you who hate me, according to yourself," Tyrone said, laughing a little. " A while ago you told me you hated me. Well, maybe you've forgotten, but you did; and about 20 times you've accused me of being cruel. You've heard of the old adage about being cruel to be kind. Well, I had to save your life, you know." " You had—you have no right over me," the girl reproached him. " This thing will only happen all over again. If it hadn't been for you, by this time I'd have been out of the reach ... I mean, I'd have been out of the world, out of all my troubles." Now, thank heaven, the moment had come when ho might begin to be gentle without lulling her to sleep with his softness! Though hysterical, and far from being in a normal state of mind, the girl was wide awake. The effect of the poison had worn away. " We can't be quite so sure as all that, about shuffling off our troubles by leaving the world, if we shove ourselves out by our own act," he said. " I'm not a particularly roligious fellow, but I have an idea that the Great Power beyond puts us here first in order to have certain experiences. If we avoid them . . ." " You don't know —you don't know what you are talking about!" tho girl broke in, with such passionate anguish that Tyrone abandoned his lecture. " No, I don't know," he admitted. " Is there anything you'd like to tell

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me, so that I could help? You do remember that I'm a doctor, that it was my duty as well as my desire to saveyour life? You rail away from me at tho theatre when I hoped to bring you home, but I . .

"Oh, the theatre!" she cried. "It seems a year ago since then. I'd almost forgotten . .

" Well, let yourself forget, anyhow for to-night," Tyrone advised. " Think only this, that you are safe and that you can trust me if you wish to speak." " I have nothing to say, nothing to tell —I never shall have," the girl answered. "It may have been your duty as a doctor to save me, bub you did mo a very bad turn. Something a million tiino9 worse than tho quiet death I'd hoped for may happen to me now when, as you say, I am ' saved " Let me tell you once again, if it's the twelfth time, that no evil shall happen to you," Tyrone insisted. "With all the power I have I will protect you — Mary Brown." She laughed bitterly. "My name isn't Mary Brown." " I guessed that," Tyrone said. "But what's in a name? I don't care what your name is. All I earo for is that you are yourself and that you shall be safe. Are you afraid of someone? Can you tell mo as much as that?" " I have reason to be afraid," she answered, almost with defiance. " Not here, in this hotel?" " I'm not sure. I can't be sure." " I'm sure," said Tyrono. " I'm sure because I'm going to see to it that you are safe. When I have to go out a nurse of my own choosing will come." " You think if I'm left alone I'll try again," tho girl cut in. " And so I would. Even though the only way you've left me now is to jump out of the window. That would bo horrible, but I could do it." " You mightn't be killed, you know," Tyrone said with pretended coolness. " You might only be maimed and liu- • ger for years as a hopeless invalid — perhaps disfigured, too. You wouldn't like that." " I'd loathe it." she cried. " But T loathe everything. Life, the world; all that's ever happened to me or may happen if I have to go on living, hiding—" " I've thought of a good, safe way for you to hide," Tyrone told her. " It wouldn't really be hiding. Maybe it would prove a solution of your difficulties, whatever they may be." "What do you mean?" she asked, sharply. " You're not in a fit state to discuss tho plan to-night," ho said. " Some time to-morrow, if you're better and rational, I'll explain, and we'll talk it all out together. Meanwhile, just say this to yourself, ' Doctor Peter Tyrone ' (that's me!) 'is staying with mo or having somebody else stay with me, not only to see that I do nothing foolish, but to protect and comfort me as well as he can.' I had to bo pretty brutal, and make you feel ill before I could begin to make you better. But that's over now. You ought even to be hungry." "Hungry?" the girl who wasn't Mary Brown echoed. " I never expected to bo hungry any more. But I believe I am. Not that it matters. I suppose it's natural, though. I've eaten nothing, except a little consomme for dinner, for more than 24 hours. This morning I had a cup of cofi'ce. It tasted good then, but after all you have made me drink, I think I shall hato it all the rest of my life, and I was thankful to sleep part of tho day. Strange that I could! But I did; strange that I can be hungry now —yet I am." " I'll call good old Dorley to get hold of a few biscuits, and make some milk hot," proposed Tyrone. " He'll do it." " Why trouble? It's of no importance," the girl said. " I'm starved myself. We'll both have a little meal. Now, don't say 1 Go and have one by yourself,' because I won't. Here I am, and here I stay till your nurso shows up." She didn't answer. She sat in silence beside him, thinking, but ho saw that her heavy eyes had brightened. She looked a littlo more like a living girl, less like a beautiful sad ghost. "Good!" Tyrone thought. "I've aroused her curiosity. She's wondering about my plau for her future. In spite of herself, she's looking forward to hearing it. Hope isn't quite dead in her yet. It dies so hard. This will help." Ho phoned, and presently tho faithful Dorley brought tho biscuits —about a pound of them—and a huge jug of boiling milk. How he had got these things from a closed kitchen none save himself knew. " ' Carry on!' is your motto,' Tyrone praised him and pressed two pound notes into his palm. " For tho kids," ho added, when the porter would liavo drawn back his hand. Sorry and anxious for her as lie was —this most interesting patient he had ever treated —Tyrono felt unreasonably happy as ho poured a cupful of milk for the girl and fed her with morsels of biscuit. "I'm not cruel now, am I?" ho asked. " You don't mean to be," she answered. " To-morrow, when you've heard my plan, whether you like it and consent to it or not, maybe you'll take back that word ' cruel, ' " ho persisted. Hours passed. Now that ho no longer feared tho effects of the laudanum, Tyrone allowed the girl to doze for a few ininutes now and then. Her head fell on his shoulders. In his nostrils was tho faint, sweet perfume of her hair. His pulses beat fast. As lie had boasted to Dorley, he was conscious of no fatigue. On the contrary, he had never felt stronger and more alive. Tho girl's nearness, her childlike—no longer reluctant—trust, thrilled him. He wondered that for a moment lie could ever have imagined himself as half in love with another woman, while somewhere in tho world existed this perfect creature, being pushed slowly toward him by Fate. Of courso, he had admired girls. Ho had even made love to them. But never till now had he fully realised what a great passion might be, and this knowledge had como to him practically at first sight. Ho wouldn't have believed such emotion possible twenty-four hours ago. Now he could not imagine himself as not feeling it. " This is for always and for ever," he thought.. Yet what of her? She might love some other man. She might even bo married for all that he could tell. Possibly toward the last he dozed a littlo himself, with his arm round the girl, so that she could not move without arousing him. Then he started at sound of the telephone. She started, too, and warmed his heart by clinging to him anxiously for a second. " It will be the nurso," he said. "It's night still in here, because the curtains are closed and tho electric lamps are burning; but, see! The clock over your bed says seven o'clock. It's morning!" He released himself from the lovely arms hidden in the thick unsuitable dressing-gown, and walked to tho desk where the telephone stood. Though he had spoken just now with confidence, saying, "It will bo tho nurso." ho couldn't shake off a slight chill of anxiety. The girl must, somehow, be in deadly danger or believe herself to be so. What if she had been tracked by a person who hated her? What if the police had como to take her away? How could even he save her from tho police? His hands were cold, and sweat broke out on his forehead. . (To bo continued daily)