THE DOUBLE PROBLEM

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22860, 15 October 1937, Page 19

THE DOUBLE PROBLEM

(COPYRIGHT)

II CHAPTER XXVll.—(Continued) Keith Darrell , raised incredulous eyebrows and looked at him admiringly, f "Jove; you'd some nerve!" Then, with an irrepressible chuckle: "Supposing they'd come across .you—they'd have been scared to death!" ''After burying me—yes," agreed the I other,' "but I'll just tell you briefly all that did take place when I, so to speak, I came back to life. 1 promised you details, didn't I. after you'd hit on the | • main facts ? I He paused to light a cigar, and : pushing the box toward his companion I leant back in his chair with his eyes I fixed on the ceiling, i "On recovering consciousness and | finding myself entangled in a red tablo ! cloth with that overcoat wrapped in § oilskin on the top of me, I could tell 1 ri-as about dawn by tho light that filtered through on either side of a narrow plank that had been thrown E carelessly over the mouth of the well. | Naturally it took me some time to I gather myself together and realise that I Maine and Bradley, in their guilty panic, had mistaken my unconscious 1 state for death. My plan to get even with Maine was formed while I was still huddled up on that heap of brushwood, go you will understand why, after thoroughly examining them, I left both cloth and coat in the well, so as to give the impressidn that my bodv was gtill' concealed there. The coat, as you know* I afterwards removed when I excavated the well, and after cleaning it up a bit and freeing it from damp,

I put it in the oak chest in the blue room. I was naturally surprised at finding myself in another man's clothes, but I-remember feeling glad the boots didn't pinch met Also very much relieved when, feeling in the pockets I came across a £1 note that Maine in lis • agitation must' have overlooked. That note helped me in various little ways, one being a journey to Charing Cross to recover my belongings. Now the climb out of the well would have been/airly easy -if it hadn't been for thajfc knock on the head, but I'm very strong, and, apart from tearing my finger nails badly, I managed all right, only it took me the very devil of a time, and I was on tenter hooks lest Maine and Bradley should come to btury me before I'd time to get out and conceal myself. .' 7 "However, as you know, I got on 0.K., and the very first thing I did | after getting in through one of the ; broken grimy windows, was to hunt up j that cosy, cheerful little room of the ; night before to pee if there was a tot j of whisky left. 'l'here was. So after satisfying myself that the house was empty of all human occupation, I helped myself freely and stuffed my pockets with biscuits. What mattered it if whisky and food were missed ?. Michael Enderbv was "dead" and in the well in the garden, and so immune from suspicion! "Well, when 1 began to feel a little less shaky . I went out, but not. through that; little gate at4he front. -I-discovered anothof that, apparently was formerly used by; tradespeople, and an hour later I was sitting in a barber's shop having a thick curly beard I had brought to England with me shaved off. I kept a cap that I found in , the suit of clothes I was wearing, on, for I was not anxious that the man's suspicions should be aroused by the congealed blood round the wound on my head which I hadn't attended to then.'* Enderby carefully removed the ash from his cigar. \ "I think the rest you can fill in for yourself, Darrell. I may add that my : outgoings and incomings while remain- | ing in this Eouse were mostly at night, ana that I slept in 'the basement. You ■ tee, I've been used to roughing it, and I cac sleep as soundly on a bare board ; as on feathers, in fact, more so!" ! A smile broke and crinkled up his face. "Yes, that's all I think, but it may interest you to know that I witnessed my own funeral through a small iron grating inset in the wall of tLfl coal cellar; also," leaning forward, "I heard the whole of the confab between Maine and, Bradley. You see 1 i was nearer than you when they were •hovelling earth into the well, but J little,, thought there was another spectator besides myself."

Keith Darrell was about to speak when an electric bell' sounded suddenly through the house with a prolonged whir that suggested a matter of some urgency. The two men startled, stared wonderingly at one another. Neither had heard any approach on the gravelfed walk outside. A moment later the door opened to admit Michael Enderby's housekeeper. Her face, showing great agitation, was wHite and scared looking, and behind her loomed the bulky form of a police officer." "Oh, sir, something terrible —" she was beginning, when the officer gently Poshed her aside, and entering the room closed the door, leaving her on the other side. The officer saluted and sent a glance of recognition toward the young defective. "I thought I'd; best come to you wst, sir," he said, addressing himself to Michael Enderby, "being as the gentleman used to be a friend of ijottrs." gentleman ?—do you mean | Enderby paused, his eyes startled :|*na apprehensive, for already a sus- • picion of the man' 3 errand had leapt Dra'n"4 Maine do you mean?" ilif man n °dded. "Yes, sir. He shot ifflfflttelf an hour' ago to avoid arrest —

|»t his fiat, sir, in Camden Town." -§v; • cco followed the announcement |Qlirrag. which Keith Darrell looked Piously at his host. The news did not gWrprise him one little bit, but he could that it had hit Enderby hard. |Jr®® r chap, he thought. taking it like Ijuat after Maine's brutal and callous Ijreatinent, but he supposed it was his |? ne lv life abroad and his lack of rela,PJes and friends that had made him | wag to a "ne'er'do well. " Personally toe anaself thought that Maine had pnosen the best way out before bring--1 trouble into the lives of other People. He had lived the life of a .coward, and j n choosing the death of he had at the same time ridded v r, w °rld of a dangerous man. y the time Darrell reached his own IntHi- a B l )ec ' a l edition of the Daily |«it'-^ enco was being sold broadcast jS'*] l startling headlines of the Stantonmystery./Keith, knowing that Clavers was dotermined not to let

§B e matter drop, had 'passed the word taL* youn g journalistic friend xvho had ftw a SCOO P f°r the paper in quesggjjl, In an early evening edition there jyilon-ed the announcement of the sui- • * °f one' of the principal actors in ft i" fa ma, that read more like fiction fact, and for weeks afterwards Hampstead Heath mystery which tr"*? regarded as one of the most senof sensational occurrences in ggrfit years, provided the public with and food for surmise and ithX tieoffr ey Stanton, whose good were almost completely restored satisfactory treatment of the scar had so marred, them, married rats 16 ag6 s * x tooths later, public lowest in the event was more than

v By FRANCES BROWN ' Author of "Anne Sinclair's Love Story," etc.. etc. |

A BRISKLY-MOVING STORY OF MYSTERY AND ROMANCE

trebled because of the tragically romantic story attaching to the bridegroom. And Keith Darrell's marriage 'about the same, time to that comely little matron who had captured his heart at the Empire Cottage Hospital, attracted a proportionate amount of attention. And when, a year afterwards, the man who had once confessed to being a confirmed old bachelor began to take a more than ordinary interest in a pretty sister owned by the said matron, those who read rumours of an approaching marriage began to recall the famous Stanton-Enderby case when the prosecution had fallen through owing to the suicide of the man who had once been Michael Enderby's best friend. Only a. few there wore who knew that William Bradley had been spared owing to the eloquent pleadings of Natalie Page, who wanted Nada to be as happy as she was going to be with Geoffrey, and to Natalie's pleadings Michael Enderby had certainly added his quota.

CHAPTER, XXVUI. THB TBINKET BOX Nada Bradley looked critically at a little trinket box of cut glass clamped with oxydised silver inset with jewels and turned it over and over in long, slender fingers. It had been returned to her months ago when Natalie Page had sent back to different donors their beautiful wedding gifts. "So Miss Natalie was right, William," she said, lifting large dark eyes to her husband's face. "The gems are real; but, just imagine this little thing being worth two thousand pounds I" He nodded "Yes, and imagine my getting it for less than a pound note," he said. Nada's face shadowed. "You're sure, William. And you're sure the old man you bought it from is dead, and that we can really look upon it as our own now that Miss Natalie refuses to have it back?" ,The man flushed and a feeling of resentment stirred him, but only for a moment. For wasn't it natural that Nada should be suspicious ? Hadn't he already—heaven help him!—given her more than sufficient cause? "I've told you the truth this time, Nada," he said doggedly, "and—you needn't be afraid —I shall never lie to you again." She looked at him steadily and her face cleared. "What will you do with it?." sh<» asked, holding it in the sunlight so that the gems flashed with a myriad dazzling lights. "Sell it," said Bradley, "and pay Mr. Enderby back the five hundred that I had out of my share of the nuggets when I made up the defalcations at Sharpe and Hobbs." Nada nodded, but she shivered at the vision Ijis words conjured up. Putting down the box, she walked toward the window and stood looking out. "Yes. and then—?" "Then," echoed tho man, "then t think, we'll take Mr. Enderby'a advice and go out to Australia. Mr. Chesson's opening out a cattle ranch there and Mr. Enderby says Mr. Chesson will put me wise until I've mastered the job in all its technicalities and then I can set up on my own. He says—Mr. Enderby does—that it will make a newman of me, the open air life, the great spaces-and the freedom-and—being with you, Nada." ~L . v... J : J • "And—being right away where the shadow of the past p'raps won't follow us, William —yes, Mr. Enderby's right —we'll go out there and begin a new life." • '

■ : r'ENTOi; ■ Five years later on a fragrant June evening, if a stranger had chanced on a certain little ranch known as Bradley's ranch, not two hundred miles north of Brisbane, he might have seen a women come out of a low-roofed, white-stoned verandah house. Parsing on the topmost of a flight of steps, she shaded her eyes from the rays of a sun sinking low in the heavens. In the near distance he might also have described the form of a man striding along with a free swinging stride, while balancing on his shoulder with or;e brown, weather-tanned arm a sturdy youngster of some two years or thereabouts, with a mop of fair curly hair and large dark, velvety eyes that lit up with sudden delight at sight of that waiting figure on the verandah.. Then a chubby fist was clapped to a button of a mouth that sent forth a shrill coo-ee of welcome, the sound being echoed a second later in a deeper masculine tone.

The woman, smiling, moved forward with a grace peculiarly her own, and waving a hand, descencfed the steps and waited. No need to ask if Nada Bradley had attained the happiness once so passionately craved. It showed in every line of the beautiful vivid face she lifted as the man, his features sun-tanned and aglow with health, swung his little son to the ground and bent his head to receive the kiss that had once been given with such contemptuous indifference. Michael Enderby had proved right This country with its great open spaces, its freedom and its glorious climate had made a man of William Bradley—that, and the love and newborn loyalty of his wife. Nada no" longer regarded him as a door-mat. He was her man —her mate. . . . THE END