FICTION.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1248, 30 January 1896, Page 40

FICTION.

{NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.; LADY TURPIN. ♦

BY HENRY HERMAN, Author of ' Eagle Joe/ ' Scarlet Fortune/ &a, &c, and part author of the play, 'The Silver King/

(All Rights Reserved.) (Continued.) CHAPTER VIII. MR INSPECTOR BENDER. Mr Inspector Bender was a man inspired "by a full appreciation of his own qualities, and of those special attributes which he thought were required'for the making of a detective. He was a tall, wiry man, who had learned his boxing, his single-sticks, his rowing, and all his general physical exercises at his college, and who, being possessed of a fair, all-round education and coming from a good family, stood well with the authorities at Whitehall Place. He had a considerable amount of control over his features, and no one could ever guess whether or nay he really meant what he was saying, but, being duly impressed with a full sense of his own importance and of the importance of an inspector in the Criminal Investigation Department of the Metropolitan Police to the State and to the world at large, he lost no time on all and various occasions in proclaiming his

identity with a suitable nourish of elocutionary trumpets and of holding short *""" dissertations on the importance to the commonwealth of the Detective Department of the Police. He arrived at the Rook's Nest shortly after 6 in the morning, and being an active man and one little disposed to let the grass grow under his feet, started his investigation at once. Poor Winnie, who had dropped off to sleep by her father's bedside barely an hour before, received a message that Mr Inspector Bender wished to see her, and though generally the most patient and good-tempered of young ladies, sent the maid back to tell the inspector that she had only had an hour's sleej>, and wanted rest, and that the inspector was to come back at 9 o'clock.

Mr Inspector Bender got on no better with Endalie and Sanscrome, from both of whom he thought that he might elicit some special information. Endalie sent a message to him closely resembling that conveyed to him by Winnie, and Sanscrome sent him word that on the next occasion he wished to see him, if he would send a telegram overnight that he was coming, he, Sanscrome, would be sure to make preparations for his early reception, but that usually he never saw anybody before 10 o'clock. He liked daylight for his business.

Being thus repulsed, and the high, oflice of Scotland Yard detective being regarded as of little importance, Mr Inspector Bender -withdrew within his shell and walked about surlily with a little plaster cast on a leather base in his hand, which he compared with every footprint he came across. He walked through the grounds, he walked outside in the high road, he walked in the shrubbery, he walked on the giavel path, he walked on the path beneath the balcony, he walked on the lawn, putting down the little plaster cast and taking it up again with the most scrupulous care, going so far as to kneel on the wet grass and the wet gravel—and finding nothing. Then - he went out on the byroad, and there he put his little plaster cast down again, and on a sudden he set up a halfhearted cry of joy. He knelt down, and, producing a little box of powdered plaster of Paris and a small case of instruments, brushes and bottles, he a/rranged a brass edge over a v portion of the ground and, carefully painting, first of all, an oily substance over the ground, followed this- by mixing a quantity of plaster of Paris, and then spreading that thinly over the painted surface. The whole was topped by a piece of leather, and Mr Inspector Bender sat by and waited for a space of time. This over, he withdrew his cast from the gravel.

'The same man!' he said to himself. ' Exactly the same,' comparing the two casts, ' and the same rascal is baffling me everywhere. A rascal in hobnailed boots. A man who wears boots like those cannot be a swell. The same exactly. The same at Clarebridge, the same at Moray Lodge, the same at Benchief House, and the same here. He ought to be findable. Not a large man, I should say, though big-footed. These boots are eights or nines. Let me see. Which way did he go ?' The footprints were not very clear. He had come across the best indention of them, where a little mud puddle had existed the day before, and had dried during the evening and the night. Still, it was easily perceivable that the footmarks, as far as they went, proceeded in the direction of the high-road. He followed them, and in the high road he lost them altogether. The road had been very dry and dusty, and Mike, in running lightly, had made but small impression upon it. Mr Bender walked about for the space of a quarter of an hour or so, and then gave up the task with disappointment. • ' He went in the direction of Windsor, I daresay/ he said to himself. ' I must enquire at the station and along the road.' When Mr Inspector Bender returned to the Rook's Nest he received the message that Miss Theveney would be glad to see him at breakfast at 9 o'clock, and that after that he would be able to examine Miss Theveney's and the adjoining rooms. * I don't care much/ he said to himself. * I know who's done it. I have only got to find the man/

Endalie had seen Mr Inspector Bender engaged in his work of making a plaster cast of the footprints in the road. Knowing full well all the dispositions of Mike ■Roan's journeyings with the -jewels in his

possession, she could not help smiling at Mr Inspector Bender's childlike and bland endeavour to trace out Mike.

' There's one thing I shall have to do/ she said to herself. 11 shall have to get all those disguise-clothes destroyed immediately. Not that there's any danger, but nevertheless one never knows.'

Poor Sir Peter, in 'the meantime, had shown no signs of improvement. The jmysician, who had stayed at the Rook's Nest overnight, had seen Sir Peter early in the morning, and had given strict orders that upon no .account was he to be disturbed by any mention of the business which was uppermost in the minds of all the household. Whatever became of Winnie's jewellery, no mention of it was to be made to Sir Peter.

[ Of course, all the servants and the memj bers of the family were unanimous in the opinion that entrance had been effected into Winnie's room by means of the ladder used by Mayes the gardener ; but Mayes was shrewd enough to be able to prove by the evidence of a fellow-servant and by the implied evidence of Miss Winnie herself that he took away his ladder from the balcony before Winnie and Endalie had left their rooms. When Winnie and Endalie came to their breakfast at 9 o'clock they found Mr Inspector Bender already in possession of the breakfast table.

' I have to present my excuses, ladies/ said Mr Inspector Bender ; ' but I air a busy man, and just now a hungry one. I didn't wish to lose time, because in matters of this kind a minute or two may spoil the whole business.'

' Your pardon is granted, Mr Bender,' said Winnie. 'I hope you bring good news for me.'

' I have good news for you/ said Mr Bender, 'if it is good news for you to be assured that I know who stole your jewels.' Endalie pricked up her ears.

' I know who stole your jewels,' continued Mr Inspector Bender, 'and I have only got to find the man/ Endalie became less interested.

'And who is this dreadful person, pray?' she asked, with well-assumed nonchalance.

Mr InsjDector Bender produced two plaster casts and put them on the table. ' These are two casts of footmarks/ he said. ' I took one of them yesterday at Bencbief House, near Richmond, and the other one this morning in the road outside here. They're both exactly the same. They're the footprints of the man who stole Lady Benchief's jewels, and they're the footprints of the man who stole yours.' Endalie looked a little closer, recognising the footmarks immediately as those of her own well-used bluchers, which she wore two nights previously, and which Mike wore with his disguise of a sailor on the previous night. She could not help smiling at Mr Bender's statement that he knew who committed both burglaries. She quickly repressed her smile, though, and became as stony as the Sphinx.

'I shall have to write to ami tie/ she said to herself, 'to burn all those disguiseclothes of mine. I don't want them any more, and nobody else need want them. They shall bo out of Mr Bender's way before to-morrow/

Breakfast was soon over, and Winnie, Endalie, and Mr Inspector Bender proceeded to Winnie's room for the purpose of enabling the detective to make a thorough examination of the place. The disposition of the room and the arrangement for its safety seemed to meet with Mr Bender's approval. ' You say you locked all the fastenings and the door, Miss Theveney ?' asked MiBender. ' Quite sure.'

' Then I can see but three ways in which the burglary could have been effected. One, that you were mistaken in the idea that you locked the window fastenings, and after all left them open, or that somebody opened them again after you had closed them, or that a duplicate key existed of the lock of the door. It' anybody opened the window fastenings after you had closed them, or if you had closed them yourself, the person who wanted to steal your jewels would still have to be in possession of the key of the wardrobe. That he was in possession of the key of the wardrobe there is no doubt, because the door of the wardrobe was closed again after the jewels were taken out of it, and if he was m possession of the key of the wardrobe, why not; in possession of a key of the door? Did you have this key made yourself, Miss Theveney?' he continued in his questioning, and received a negative answer. 'Who had it made, then ?' 'I think papa had it made,' was the reply. 4 Of course,' continued Bender, ' it was easy to reach the balcony and obtain entrance to the room if the fastening was in any way loose. It was also easy to reach the balcony by means of the ladder which Mayes had used, if Mayes did not put it away safely out of reach. Mayes gives no decisive explanation about that. He says that he put the ladder away while the two young ladies were still in the room, and he says that he did not put it away very far, and he points to a spot on the othei side of his cottage as the place where he pxit it, and where he found it again affcer the alarm about the jewels had been given. I have found footprints, which I believe to be those of the man who stole your jewels, on the little byroad, but I can find none anywhere about the grounds which lead me to suspect them as being those of a man likely to have had anything to do with the burglary. There were, most probably, two men concerned in it, if not to throw pursuers off the scent, in any case to help one another with the securing of the proceeds—a large amount, mind you. I shall have to follow up the clue I have obtained this morning, and trace the man whom [ know to be connected with most of the burglaries that have occurred lately, as far as I can. When I once get near him, I promise him that he will not escape me/ LJgo you think that there,is any hope of

my ever getting any of my jewels back again ?' asked Winnie. ' That is quite another matter. People generally labour under the mistaken belief that diamonds, and that large diamonds especially, are as easily recognisable as pictures. Of course, if anybody were to take a quantity of stolen diamonds to Bond street or to Hatton Garden, the chances are that he would be immediately given into custody, but the people connected with this class of robbery know better than that. They have excellent markets for their stolen wares in foreign countries, in Vienna, in Madrid, in Florence, and especially in the East, Constantinople, Alexandria, Calcutta and Bombay, and there exist a hundred places were diamonds of any kind and any value can be sold without any questions being asked. There are more stolen diamonds in Persian and Tunisian harems than the world dreams of, and even nomadic Arabs have been found rich enough to purchase a fine gem, and they don't care a rap where it comes from, as long as it is cheap. Endalie had been handling the casts of the footprints with a careless hand. ' That man who wears these boots,' she said, ' must have a lot of diamonds in his possession if everything we hear about him is true. Why, I have read of at least twenty robberies which you say have all been committed by him. Quite a genius in -his way. What a glory it will be for you, Mr Bender, if you capture him !' Mr Bender bowed, as if the capture was already an accomplished fact. Endalie bowed in return, in smiling and genial defiance. ' Eirst catch your hare, Mr Bender,' shesaid to herself, as she was walking down the stairs, ' and you will find the game a pretty fast one this time.'

A telegram awaited her. It was from Mrs Hill, and ran as follows : Have just been to see Mrs Angelo. The mother-of-pearl buttons are all right.

The despatch told her that the booty had reached Mrs Hill, and had already been disposed of. Endalie sat herself down, and wrote a few lines to Mrs Hill, asking her at once to destroy all the disguise-clothing at the Well House. This letter she securely sealed and took with her own hands to the pillar-box in the wall about one hundred and fifty yards away from the Rook's Nest. Then she breathed a sigh and said to herself— ' Now, Mr Bender, we are quite ready for your operations.' CHAPTER IX. sir peter's illness. Shortly after breakfast, Winnie and Endalie, who was with her, were sorely alarmed by the statement of the physician who was in attendance upon Sir Peter that the old gentleman was seriously worse, and, in fact, in a dangerous condition. All intercourse with strangers, even conversation of any kind that was not absolutely necessary, was strictly forbidden, and only a trained nurse, who was specially sent for from Windsor, was permanently admitted to his room. Winnie begged and prayed to be allowed to remain with her father, but the doctor was stern and unbendable.

' No, Miss Theveney/ he said, ' it cannot be. You are too excitable, and naturally so, and your father would be, and remain too excitable with you in the room. We must have somebody there whom he does not know, and who will not be influenced by his improvement or retrogression.'

To Endalie the announcement came as ithe bitterest shock she had yet known. Callous and heartless as she was, she had not thought twice in robbing her own friend of her jewellery, and in using Sir Peter's gratitude for her small favour of long ago as a means of exacting her nefarious toll from him. But she was not prepared that Sir Peter should suffer in any other way but in that of his property through her. She greatly admired the old soldier, and. if the truth be told, in her J own stolid manner she loved him. That he should be stricken down, nigh unto death, and be in danger of his life through her nefarious act, pained her deeply, and Winnie herself could not have felt Sir Peter's condition more than Endalie did. It went farther than that even—it unnerved her; and had not the whole affair been prepaied befoiehand with the most scrupulous exactitude and the utmost cunnin<?- and daring, the chances were that Mr Inspector Bender would most likely have found the owner of the boots the prints of which Le had in his pocket. She had never before been thus affected, and it soon made an appreciable difference upon her appearance. Good luck would have it that everybody in the household, from Winnie and Sanscrombe to the last servant, put it down to affection, goodness of heart, and devotion to the Theveney family. Mr Inspector Bender was among those who were so easily deceived as to Endalie's real state of mind. Mr Bender had taken a great fancy to Endalie. 'A handsome girl,' he said to himself, ' and as straight as an arrow. What a wife she would make, if she would only marry a man like me. Why, with her for a wife, I don't know what I might aspire to—Chief Commissionership, perhaps, and what not! There's no saying what may be done in this world, when you have only got the courage and the luck to be in the proper place at the proper time.' ' You must not take this business so to heart, Miss Verpoint/ he said to Endalie during that afternoon, as he met her on the lawn, white-faced and with red eyes. ' Sir Peter is a hale man, and strong for his age. He'll get c>ver it all ri^ht/ 'I am very much obliged to Mr Bender,' replied Endalie, 'but the> Jhole thing goes to my fcieart so. Poor Wi. n j e I is so brave. She nfever says a word ho v it i affects her, and Anly speaks about er } father. 1 do wish &here were no jewels [ the world. WKat'aithe good of them, an, •■ how ? And what afsrood thing it is tni

we have people like you who help us in our I troubles!'

Mr Inspector Bender pulled down his shirt cuffs, arranged his tie and twirled his moustache.

' You're getting 1 on, George/ he said to himself, when Endalie was gone j ' you are getting on. You have made an impression there, and nobody can tell what may come from that impression if you mind your p's and q's/ Winnie and Endalie had not long been banished from Sir Peter's room before a terrible rumour spread through the household. It seemed go awful that those who mentioned it spoke about it only with bated breath ana in half-terrified whispers. The servants were saying to one another that Sir Peter suspected his son Gerald of being the author of the robbery. The nurse had been compelled to tell the doctor that that seemed to be the one thing that principally weighed upon Sir Peter's mind and that he repeated over and over again, day and night—- ' It was my only son who did it; Gerald, my boy !' And they stood about in little knots, with blanched faces, not knowing what to do, not knowing what to say, each and all too frightened to breathe a word about this to Winnie, or to Lady Mexey or Mary Mexey, and it was reserved to Sanscrome to break the terrible news to poor Winnie, who was so sorely stricken already. Sanscrome had never liked Gerald. Long ago already there had been no friendship between the two, and when Endalie turned lip at the Rook's Nest, and Sanscrome thought that Gerald was likely to step between him and her, he positively hated the young man. At the same time, he was not a heartless fellow, and fully appreciated the added pain which the publication of Sir Peter's suspicion regarding young Gerald would bring upon the Theveney household. The family were at dinner that night, and nobody spoke a word. Had they all been dumb, no more oppressive silence could have prevailed. At last Sanscrome, who was sitting next to Lady Mexey and opposite Winnie Theveney, broke silence by saying—- ' I think it will be wise, Miss Theveney, if after dinner you will go and see the nurse in Sir Peter's room. She will have something to tell you which may surprise you, but which it is absolutely necessary that you should hear.' Winnie, of course, had heard Sir Peter's statement during the time she was his attendant, but she had brushed it aside like the idle moanings of a sick man. ' I know what you mean, Mr Sanscrome,' she said. ' I have known all along; but I do not believe it; I do not believe a word of it. My father suspects poor Gerald wrongly ; of that I am absolutely certain. Gerald is as pure and as true as a babe newly born. Had he wanted my jewels, he would have come to mo and asked for them, knowing full well that if ho were in trouble I would be only too glad to help him with them. No, Mr Sanscrome, poor dad is wrong there. What do you say about it, Mr Bender ?' she asked the detective, who was seated at the table at the same time. ' I have no doubt you have heard the silly story.' ' I say you are quite right, Miss Theveney/ replied the inspector. * Your brother, indeed, left Windsor Station by the 8.40. But so did also another man, a fellow dressed as a seafaring petty officer. Your brother could not possibly have committed the robbery. He left the Rook's Nest about 8.10, and the robbery was not committed before 8.20, and I am sure it was committed by the same man who stole Lady Benchief's jewels on the previous night, and who may have been the seafaring man who went away by the same train. I have compared the footmarks today. Your brother has a long, slim foot, and the man who committed the burglary has a short, broad one, totally different shape and particulars. Endalie had listened to the detective's assertion with great attention, and when he had delivered himself of his opinion she felt relieved in her mind. It would have been too horrible, she thought, if that wretched young man had in any way been made to suffer for her misdeeds. For anybody else she would not have cared a rap, but it would have grieved her terribly had he been compelled to undergo any trouble on her account. She was a brave girl, and quite prepared to face out the consequences of her own act. Fear she knew nnt, and Mr Detective Bender she despised heartily, like most other men she encountered. They all seemed to be thoroughly below the intellectual level she had set up as a standard for herself. She regarded most men as only fit to be playthings, but Gerald seemed to her to be above them all. He was not a clever man —that she knew—but he was good and sincere in what he said, and with a sterling appreciation of what was right which struck and charmed her, who had so little appreciation of what was due to others. All Mr Inspector Bender's decisive opinions notwithstanding, the rumour about Gerald's connection with the burglary was not to be kept from spread- J mg through the household and the neighbouring residences, and Winnie's and Endalie's fears were principally directed to the fact that Gerald himself might get to hear of it and be disturbed by the assertion. The house itself became as one of mourning, and though it had originally been intended that the party invited should stay until Winnie's marriage with Christopher Churn, first one and then the other departed, Sir Peter in the meantime growing rapidly worse. Gerald naturally heard of his father's illness, and came to the Rook's Nest to learn precise news. The doctor's orders, of course, applied to him as to anybody else, and lie was not permitted to see Sir Peter. As he was very popular in the house, and the servants all liked him, whilst his sister and Lady Mexey and { Mary did not believe a word of the rumours | that were current against him; he did not j

hear anything of the scandal that was afloat concerning him and the burglary. It had long been Endalie's purpose to live in town, and she had made up her mind to take a residence there as soon as her last coup was affected. This being over and done with, Mrs Hill had taken a small fiat in Harnewood Gardens, Earl's Court, and Endalie had offered the excuse to Winnie that she had to see to the arrangements for her new habitation to leave the Rook's Nest for awhile, promising to return as soon as the necessary business was over. Endalie and Gerald went as Richmond by the same train, and here they parted, Gerald promising to come and see Endalie on the first afternoon he had to spare. During the journey from Windsor to Richmond, Endalie was moved by a variety of emotions. Here was a man who loved her, that she kne-w, and she wanted a man who loved her, a good man, a man with an unblemished name and with a small fortune of his own. For might not some day retribution in the shape of discovery of her crimes come to her ? Mrght it not be well for some honoured name to stand between her and justice, like a shield of steel ? But bereft as she" was of all honesty and truth, and steeped as she was in the morass of crime, she still nurtured some foible that she ought to love the man who'ii she honoured by allowing him to become her husband, and she asked herself over and over again during that journey whether she ever would be able to love Gerald ? The answer did not come readily, and she left the young man and shook hands with him without any further emotion than that she was glad that he was not burdened with any criminal prosecution through any act of hers.

(To be continued.)