ADVENTURE MYSTERIOUS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23010, 11 April 1938, Page 5

ADVENTURE MYSTERIOUS

(COPYRIGHT)

By FRANCIS MARLOWE World-famed author, traveller and dramatist.

; CHAPTER XI. murder! Examine the extraordinary situation, as he might, Dick Leslie had to acknowledge himself completely baffled by the mystery that surrounded it. That the key to the enigma it presented . was in the letter he held iu his hands lie <vas convinced, and feeling so, sure of this he found it not easy to, restrain himself from stripping the letter of its envelope. He would be quite within his rights, he told himself, in doing this. He had tried to deliver it to the man to whom

it was addressed and failed; Patricia

had told him that lie must not now give it to this man, or to anyone,

and then, without any explanation, she had voluntarily disappeared. Ob-

viously—what other conclusion could he come to?—she had as definitely thrown the letter overboard as she had cut herself adrift from him, and her only concern with its fate was that it should not pass out of his possession. Or was it —he had hit upon an idea that startled him, but was too plausible to be rejected—was it that the non-delivery of the letter had endangered her in some way, that her disappearance was an attempt to save herself from imminent peril, that he must blame only himself for losing her? He pondered long over this aspect of the problem, and though it appeared to be a. far-fetched solution, he had not found a more fitting one when his secretary's return rousod him to the passage of time. For a few moments still he sat staring frowningly at the mysterious letter, his decision as to opening it or not yet in the balance. Finally, however, he replaced it in the pocket from which he had taken it. It might or might not hold the key to the mystery—lie was still convinced that it did —but 110 had not yet been able to persuade himself of his right to open it. But he was resolved that 110 scruple or quixotic sense of honour would prevent him from doing so should he decide that in no other way could he hope to trace Patricia/

Thoughtfully, his mind still gripped by the riddle with which it had been wrestling, ho looked at his watch, then, suddenly purposeful, he took up the letters he had earlier left unopened on his desk. When he had read them through, the last was still in his hand, he pressed his desk "buzzer" for Miss Jonas, hfs secretary. ''l want you to take three letters and let me have them for signature as quickly as you can," heitold her. After a brief period of dictation, while the <iirl was typing, he occupied himself /with looking through and making notes from a document which had accompanied one of the letters. "I don't expect to be back to-day," he informed Miss Jonas, when he had signed the letters she brought him. "I'll probably be here in the morning, but if not I'll telephone you some time during the -day, and tell you when to expect me." All pressing business disposed of, he looked at his watch and found that it was a quarter past three. He frowned impatiently. Free completely now to make his first move in his search for Patricia, it irked him to be forced to nearly an hour of inactivity. He had remembered, of course, that Patricia had given him an address at Hampstead, but as he could hope for nothing yet from a cast in that direction he had not troubled to refer to it. He knew that the earliest train by which sue could reach London was not due at Liverpool Street till ten minutes past four, and it was with the very faint hope that, she had left Norwich on that train that he proposed to make Liverpool Street Station the starting point of his search for her. A very faint hope indeed it was; he regarded it. in fact, as a forlorn hope. If. as seemed certain, she wjshed to avoid meeting him again, it 'was scarcely likely that she would travel London by the first train leaving Norwich after her disappearance from The Antlers. It was a point in his favour,, of course, that she would not know, though she might have guessed, that Stone had telephoned to him. If this possibility had not occured to her nothing was more likely than that she would reach Liverpool Street at fourten, but, and this was a happening that Dick Leslie greatly feared, almost certainly she would arrive in the custody of Inspector Nailhead and his men.

When lie reached the street it occurred to him that he could not spend his surplus time to better advantage than in satisfying a somewhat clamorous appetite. A cup of coffee and a bun, or something of that nature, he decided, would stay it until after he had beerf to Liverpool Street. He walked to the Gracechurch Street end of Lombard Street, and was about to turn into a near by teashop when a bill carried by a passing newsbov caught his attention. "DEATH OF A CITY FINANCIER" was the placard. Not with any expectation of finding particular interest in the item, but rather to occupy the half-hour which he had to spare, Dick bought a paper and passea into the teashop. When he had given his order to the waitress, he opened the paper, and,, then remembering the news-bill, he turned to the "Stop Press" column. Here, in about ten lines of matter, the story of the tragedy was told. Briefly, it was that the senior partner of a city financial firm had been found' dead in his office. Dick, having read the item, was just, about to turn over the page, when with the suddenness and shock of a thunder-clap, he realised that the,name of the dead man was that of the man to whom a few hours earlier he had been trying to deliver Patricia's letter. Somewhat dazed bv ti&iK amazing and startling fact he took the letter from his pocket to satisfy himself that he had made no mistake., and a quick comparison with the paper placed the matter entirely beyond doubt. "Edward Tuscan." was the name. on the envelope and in the "Stop 'Press" item, and the paper's report (Suggested the ugly word "Murder." Dick returned the letter to his pocket, and. iieglectful of the coffee and biscuits .the waitress had just brought Mm, sta'red at the paper, trying hard to make "a comprehensive whole out of vibe scraps he held of the very strange mystery into which lie had stumbled. It was in vain he tried to persuade himself that he had hit on nothing inore than an extraordinary coincidence. The name "Edward Tuscan" was certainly an uncommon one. but it was not impossible, or improbable, that there were two men in the City of London who owned it. The office address, too. W as. Old Broad Street, not London Wall, but even this discrepancy could n«>t kill Dick's intuitive belief that the Edward Tuscan who lay dead in the Old Broad Street office was the Kdward Tuscan whom lie had sought for in London Wall ,tbat day. He turned to his coffee and biscuits in an attempt to shake off the. uncomfortable eerie sensation that was creeping over him, b'lt while lie ate. he read again the sinister "Stop Press" paragraph. It was; a little more than a bare detail that the paper had printed. It ran:—

"Shortly after two o'clock to-day Mr. Edward Tuscan. senior partner of the well-known financial firm of Tuscan and Salter, was found dead in his nffiee in -Old Broad Street. Mr. Tuscan hiWl reached his office soon after 12 0 clock and was to have been 3'one in his private room, until his

STRANGE MYSTERY SURROUNDS A BEAUTIFUL GIRL AND HER LIFE IS IN DANGER, BUT A DESPERATE AND DETERMINED LOVER APPEARS.

secretary entered to announce a caller. On the discovery of his death the police were at once called in. No explanation of the tragedy has been made public, hut the police have issued the description of a man who was seen leaving the office corridor shortly before it was discovered."

Murder! This was the word that Dick Leslie breathed apprehensively when he had finished reading. It was a word, that had not been used in the report, but very plainly indeed was it suggested. To Dick Leslie the suggestion was a dreadful one. It thrust 011 him an appalling sense of responsibility for the tragedy. He could not rid himself of the feeling that Edward Tuscan would not have been a dead man at that moment had he not failed to deliver Patricia's letter to him before noon. It was, he told himself, a fantastic, perhaps a mad thought, but he could not free himself from it. His unintentional dilatorincss in keeping his promise to Patricia had perhaps brought about a man's death, and—an even more distressful thought —it had entangled Patricia in the fringe of a crime and might drag her into the heart of it. His thoughts running thus, it was with a very sore heart and uneasy mind that he left the tea-shop to look for Patricia at Liverpool Street. CHAPTER XII. PATRICIA RE-ArPKARS —AND ACTS STRANGELY

The train that was due at Liverpool Street Station at 4.10 drew into its platform precisely 011 schedule time. Patricia Langley was a passenger on it and on? of the first to alight. Dick Leslie, standing outside the platform gate, saw her and recognised her directly she stepped from her carriage. He saw her, and had an anxious moment until he was sure that she had travelled unescorted by either Nailhead or one of his satellites. Though the well-filled train was emptying itself about her, and Dick could only get an occasional glimpse of her through the hurrying throng, there was 110 mistaking her graceful carriage, the gallant poise of her head. She carried her travelling case easily with her right hand, and Dick saw that she rejected a porter's offer to relieve her of it. She wore a close-fit-ting black felc hat, whose only trimming was a small paste ornament; her coat (Mrs. Stone's loan to her) was a slightly too large tailor-made, knee length and fur trimmed. The fur collar of her coat was turned up about her neck so that little more than her eyes and the tip of her nose were to be seen But Dick would have known her had she worn a yashmak.

She saw Dick just as she reached the barrier. She saw him, and Dick knew she saw him, but there appeared not a gleam of recognition in her eyes, not a trace of surprise in her face. She looked at him, straight into his eyes, as serenely as though he were a piece of furniture that had caught her momentary attention. Then her glance parsed from his face as casually as it had lighted on it. Dick, hurt terribly, puzzled beyond understanding, checked the impulse which in another instant would have brought him to her side, but simultaneously this restraint was overborne by a surge of determination to overlook Patricia's obvious desire to ignore him and force her to deliver in words the snub she apparently intended. Hot with this resolution, he would have thrust himself forward, but that, just as she passed through the barrier, Patricia looked his way again. It was the merest glance she gave him, with no more expression in it than before, but somehow in the encounter of their eyes hers flashed him a message which halted him and which, while it leithim 110 less puzzled, gave him peace ol heart, if not of mind. Somehow, how he could not have told —perhaps by the flicker of an eyelid, by the contraction of the pupils of her wonderful, starry eyes—she had managed to convey in that lightning glance her imperative need for his obedience to it. With it, too, even while she warned him not to approach her or betray recognition, she had entreated patience and understanding. Mystified though he was, Dick was as yet enough master of his wits for swift understanding that Patricia had a motive, and not an unfriendly one, he believed, for her strange behaviour to him, and on the instant, as she passed within a handshake of him,, the impetuosity which might have wrecked whatever she had designed, was under iron control, and he was outwardly as indifferent to her or her movements as, to all appearances, she was oblivious of his existence. When she was less than a dozen paces from him Dick fell in among the following crowd of street-bound passengers. He had no intention of breaking their unspoken pact, but having found her he was resolved that he would not lose sight of her again, or at least, that he would make sure of her destination, and with knowledge of that keep in touch with her movements till he knew that danger 110 longer threatened her That she had escaped Inspector Nailhead's attentions was very welcome news to him, but he was quick to realise that this was perhaps merely a temporary victory for her, and that, especially in view of Tuscan's death, there might be still greater dangers threatening her from the malevolent web of mystery in which apparently she was enmeshed. Though temporarily he had to suffer for it, it was very satisfying to him to know that Patricia was so much on her guard against possible danger, yet, since she had apparently eluded Nailhead and his men, he could not imagine what immediate peril it was that she feared so much as to take the extreme course of denying him recognition. Being so much in the dark, however, he realised that unless events demanded action from him lie could do no better than rely on her judgment and take up unquestioningly the minor part in her affairs that she had allotted to him.

Since she had looked ;it him .is .she passed through the barrier, Patricia had not once turned her face in his direction. Apparently unconcerned and carefree, she was making her way as quickly, and by as direct a route as possible to the station yard. Dick, seeing to it that he did not lose ground, steadily in her rear, content to have her in sight; His attention was focussed always on her, but, nevertheless, sensing that somewhere in the crowd which enveloped thein there might be the menace which Patricia feared, or, at least, suspected, he was alert with eye and ear for anything which might give him a hint as to where to look for it. Hut it was not until Patricia had reached the station yard that lie had «i definite reward for his watchfulness. A moment or so earlier he had noticed that one of two men who had been betweeen him and Patricia had suddenly forged ahead of her and then, as abruptly, had dropped hack and rejoined his slower-moving companion. Had this occurred sooner it. is probable that .Dick would have dismissed it from his mind, and the men with it, but it happened that he was still examining the manoeuvre for possible motive when he saw that Patricia was making for a taxicab in the station yard, and that the two men had halted a foot or two ahead of him, and that one of them was signalling to a taxi-driver. (To be continued daily)