THE STOLEN PEARL

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1610, 7 January 1903, Page 6

THE STOLEN PEARL

By Gertrude Warden and Robert Eustace.

£Axi, Rights Reserved.]

CHAPTER XXXIII

VENGEANCE IS MINEI

Not until eight o’clock on the evening of Damien’s journey to Wiltshire did his friend Felix Hunt return to Oulverb street from Hampstead, where he had been detained far longer than he had expected. He found the telegram summoning him to Berlin; he read Damien’s message, hurriedly scribbled on a half-sheet of note paper, to the effect that he had been “called away on business,” and wished his friend hon voyage to Berlin; and he learned from the two Gregorys of the arrangement made for his immediate departure thither. “It’s too late to start this evening, anyhow,” Felix observed, as he glanced at his watch; “and I can’t understand what business took Mr Sayre away. He left at half-past five in a hansom, you say, after he had read a letter brought him by a messenger-boy ? Did you hear the direction he gave the cabman?” But Tom Gregory could only recall that it was Fleet street, and that the man had been told to drive fast. The messenger-hoy had been, dismissed Joy Mr Sayre, he declared, with the information that the letter would he answered in person. “Itfs all rather mysterious,” said Felix.

His friend had, however, only been absent two hours and a half, and according to the message he had left with the servants, he. intended returning to Richmond at the end of his “business interview.” The on© thing, therefore, that struck Felix as singular was that he himself should have been summoned away to Berlin that night, just as he had been summoned to the House of Commons on the memorable night of the fire at Elm House.

Was it by any possibility part of a new plot invented by Dr Michael?

Even while he was still hesitating and wondering, a hansom drove at a frantic pace along Culvert street, and stopped with a jerk before the doors ox Messrs Hunt and Sayre. Forth from it sprang a lady in a long black gown and cloak, thickly veiled, who knocked and rang with agitation and haste at tlie door.

“By Heaven! I believe it is Lady Cary!” The words were hardly out of Felix’s mouth when he had flung open the door and faced his visitor, -who, throwing back her veil, proclaimed! herself as Linda Cary indeed.

Her first words were not reassuring.

Ignoring all conventional forni of salutation, she whispered with dry lips the inquiry:

“Where is Damien?”

“I have no idea. He left at half-past-five this afternoon. I myself have not been in ten mnutes.”

“We must find out where he is; we must follow him immediately !” she cried, wringing her ungloved hands, which he now perceived to he tom and bleeding. “Dr Michael must have enticed him away to murder him !” “Dr Michael! Come in here and explain yourself, I entreat, Lady Cary. And your hands P What has happened ? Where have you come from?”

“There is no time for explanations now,” she cried, in feverish excitement. “Dr Michael himself told me at six o’clock this evening that Damien would be dead at daybreak. I have been very ill for months past, and since I got well I have been kept a prisoner in Craven House.” “In Craven House!” . .u->

“Yes. After what passed here in Culvert street, I would not let Dr Michael attend me; I would not even let him feel my pulse. For Damien’s sake I fought against his influence, and at last I conquered. Then he showed himself in his true colours. For weeks I have been kept a prisoner, watched and surrounded by spies on all sides—spies employed to tell me 1 was mad! I mado no attempt to escape; I awaited my time. But to-night, after he had told me that about Damien, no prison could have held me. Dr Michael had left the house; I was alone in my room a short time. I tied the sheets together and let myself down somehow. Then I ran to a cab, and that is how I got here. For Heaven’s sake! Mr Sayre, do not let us lose a moment in following Damien !”

“But we haven’t the slightest hint as to his destination, and he has had two hours and a half start,” cried Felix. “One moment, though!” Summoning the two Gregorys, he questioned them again concerning the messenger-hoy. To his joy, Tom Gregory recalled the number on the metal badge worn on the messenger’s chest. “I could almost swear it was 222, sir,” he said.

“Why in the world couldn’t yon say so before?” cried Felix, as he helped Lady Cary into her cab, which still stood <©*

at the door, and directed the man to drive to the chief office for messengerboys in the West End. “It doesn’t seem much to go upon,” he explained to Linda, “but if the hoy can tell us what number in Fleet street Damien went to, it may help us amazingly.” In five minutes they arrived at the chief office, but the discovery of number 222 was a longer matter, and entailed a drive, first to a branch- office in Chancery Lane, then a wild rush to a hot-el in South Kensington, to await the coming of the boy in question, who had just been sent there with a letter. Not one word did Linda and Felix interchange as they made these hurried journeys across the hot London streets side by side in a hansom. Th© interests at stake were too precious to both to permit of conversation. Now and then Felix glanced at his watch, but the tension was far to great for words. At length the slim figure and sharp cockney face of the boy of whom thqy were in search appeared to them where they waited by the entrance of the hotel. Number 222 jumped out of a cab. and was running up the steps of the hotel when Felix laid a hand upon his shoulder. **’

Half a sovereign if he conld tell all about a letter he had taken from Fleet street to Culvert street that evening! The hoy’s eyes brightened. He gave the eating-house address, described the grayheaded man who wrote the letter, Damien’s perusal of it, his inquiries concerning the writer, and finally, his announced intention of answering it in person.

“Then he drove off, sir, and gave the address of the eating-house to the driver. Thank you, sir!” The eating-house in. Fleet street was reached by ten minutes past nine. Here another difficulty awaited them. The place was almost deserted, and the proprietor quite ready oblige them. He remembered perfectly the gray-headed man, who looked like a countryman, and who remained nearly two hours over his tea, his newspapers, his letters, and his chat with a gentleman with dark eyes and heard, “rather foreign-looking, and a bit of a dandy,” who drove away with him in a hansom, and gavS the driver direction, “Waterloo for Salisbury.” But the waiter who attended upon the gentleman had, the proprietor explained, gone home. “Waterloo for Salisbury!” repeated Felix, with blanched lips. “Then he has- left London! This is even worse than I feared. But one hear one word of what passed between these two men ? I will give five pounds to anyone who -will tell me of anything overheard ” “Wait a bit,.sir!”

An elderly waiter, who had_been hovering in the rear of the “two swells” who had alighted from a hansom in order to question the “guv’nor,” was now moved by the offer of reward to speak what he knew. ' “I wasn’t waiting on the gentleman from the country,” he explained, “but as he was paying his bill ± I was seeing after some people at the next table. And the dark young gentleman with a beard, he says to the other, excitedlike, Tf you can put me up, Mr monk,’ he says, T will go down to Whittington along with you.’ Them was his words, sir, as I’ll swear to.” “Monk! Whittington!” Felix repeated blankly. “And Waterloo for Salisbury! There is no place called Whittington near Salisbury. Stay a moment,” he added, as tiie recollection of to-day’s news concerning the robbery at the Duke of Ulster’s flashed into nis mind. “It wasn’t by any chance Whitelington, was it?—Whitelington, the place where the gold salt-cellar was found yesterday? You must have seen about it in the papers.” The waiter admitted that it might have been Whitelington, though it sounded to him like Whittington; but that,- the name of,.Damien’s companion was Monk he had no doubt, as he had heard it more than once in passing the pair, who talked in low tones, so he declared, about and a house in the country, and somebody called Graham. '

To give the man his fee, and then spring again into the hansom and redirect the driver to Waterloo for Salisbury was the work of a few seconds only. But at Waterloo Felix and his companion were faced by the intelligence that although a train for Salisbury was on the point of starting, and was timed to arrive at its destination at twenty minutes past two in the morning, there was no communicating train to°take them on to the village of Whitelington. All that could be done was to telegraph to the station-master at Salisbury to expedite them on - their journey.

As to who “Monk” was, or where he lived, they had no idea. But given the fact that Whitelington was a sparselypopulated village, Felix had great hopes of being able to trace him. The journey seemed interminable to Damien’s friend, and to the woman who loved' him. Both were convinced of the awful danger Damien ran in letting himself be thus lured into a lonely spot in the country, and neither had the slightest doubt but that he had fallen into Dr. Michael’s hands, by the

aid of some confederate passing irndeff the name of Monk. f In his secret heart Felix entertained veiy little hope of being able to save his friend. So convinced was he of Dr Michael’s almost superhuman cunning and subtlety that, in his opinion, thing short of a miracle could deliver Damien from his enemy’s hands at this juncture. Much as he mistrusted the entire female sex, and disliked Linda in particular for the troubles she had been the means of drawing upon Damien, Felix could not help admiring her quiet fortitude, her self-control and determined hopefulness, at this crisis in Damien’s affairs. 1 X .

“Wo shall save him!” lyfus, all she said, as she leaned hack with clasped' hands in a corner of the carriage facing Felix, her great gray eyes aglow with an expression of inspired hope. Wbiteliugfon was reached at ter£ minutes to three, the graybearded sta-tion-master all agog with excitement over the unprecedented event of a special train from Salisbury* at such an hour, and the telegraph order for a fly waiting on the station to receive them. Did he know a grayhaired gentleman called Monk? Certainly he did; and! Mr Monk-had returned home that evening *by the train which arrived at Whitelington at half-past ten o’clock. Had. lie anyone with him ? Why, yes, a gentleman with a dark beard “who looked a London gentleman, every inch of him.” The two had driven off for Bradley Towers in Mr Monk’s trap. What did he know of Mr Monk? Well, nothing much. He was *ery cnilspoken, but he “kept himself to himself,” the station-master declared, and had no servants at the tumbledown place he had bought three years ago. Folks said Mr Monk was an astronomer; what was certain was that he was generally away, and very often didn’t go near Bradley Towers for weeks together 1 .

“That’s all I know about him,” the station-master explained, v “and I don’t suppose there’s anybody iu Whitekngton as knows any more.”

Spurred by Felix’s offers of reward, the driver of the fly whipped up his horse He was a local man, hue, with the usual ignorance, did not know of the short-cut by which Damien had been conducted to Bradley Towe rs, and it was close upon half-past three before Lo at length drew up before the iron gates and stunted stone pillars winch marked the entrance to the property. Felix sprang down and endeavoured vainly to effect an entrance. The useless hell-chain hung limply; the ledge, with its broken windows and ruined roof, was clearly empty; and the gates were secured with a padlock. In this emergency, Felix called to the driver, who was young and active, to assist him :n breaking down the fence; and by the man’s help he succeeded in a few moments in effecting a sufficient for the entry of himself and ris companion.

Telling the flyman to wait, Felix hurried into the dark avenue of beech-trees which led to the house. Swift as his movements were, those of Linda were swifter still. She flew rather than ran over the uneven ground, carpeted with dead leaves, up which Damien had so lately passed to his destruction. She was first at the house, from the diningroom windows of which a faint light was visible, and before Felix could reach her she had aroused the echoes with a thundering knock at the door, followed by a violent ringing at the bell. Shuffling footsteps answered her imperious summons. Then came a halt, and through the closed door a thick voice inquiring ' nervously: “Is that yon, Michael?” “Yes.” “Is he dead yet?”

“Open the door!” Slowly the holts were withdrawn, and Monk’s face, white and quivering with the combined excitements of fear and alcohol, presented itself in the aperture. He held in his hand the small halllamp, hut at sight of the two strange faces he almost dropped it in his alarm. Felix seized his arm.

“Where is Damien Sayre?” lie asked. “At the observatory with Dr. Michael. On my soul I had nothing to do with the murder! I tried my utmost to get him off, I —” “Show us the way. On my honour, if we are in time you shall get off free!”

Without another word Paul Kaiser, otherwise Monk, seized the lamp, and with staggering walk but surprising quickness for a man in his condition, led his visitors along the winding garden path into the little wood. Before the tower he paused, -and drew from his pocket a key. * “Keep hack while I open the door and put the key in the inside,” he whispered. “I will try and get Michael’s man Dietrich outside; then you must slip through and- lock yourselves in, and. go straight upstairs. After the first flight take to the iron staircase. Thank God, the sun hasn’t risen yet! But it soon will. Here, take this knife—you will want it—and this flask of brandy. I hope to Heaven you will be in time -o save him!” With trembling fingers he unlocked the door and inserted the key on the other side. Then, placing his lantern, on the floor, he called Dietrich’s name

aloud in the echoing room the while Felix and Linda, breathless with anxiety, waited behjmdthe door. In a few seconds the heavy lurching form of Dr. Michael’s servant appeared at the aperture. Apparently the call had awakened him from sleep, for he seemed not more than half awake. Hardly had he stepped free of the tower when Felix seizing Linda’s arm, darted into tho room Dietrich, had vaca/tea stfici looked the door. A moment later the two were hurrying up the staircase at breakneok speed. Not a groan, not a sound from above reached them. Felix, who preceded Linda up /the iron staircase, perceived at - length, 'by tho light of the lamp he carried, the trap-door which led to the battlements of the tower. Flinging it up, he stepped out upon them, followed closely by Linda. Never did either of these two forget the sight that met their eyes in the cold grayness , T before the sunrise. White and motionless to all appearance dead already, Damien lay, bound within the hollow of a great metal cup- while at a little distance, gloating over him m fiendish anticipation, towered the figure of his enemy, his eyes fixing themselves alternately upo-n the still face of his victim and on the bands of rose-colour-ed light in the eastern sky that were the harbingers.,of cfav/n. At the sudden sight of Damien’s friend and the woman Damien loved rising, spectre-ilke, fro-m the grounu beneacli his feet, Dr Michael fell back a step uttering a curse in Russian. Seizing the knife from Felix’s hand, Linda "to tho rescue of Damien; but Felix, before the doctor bad recovered himself, recalled his prowess as a boxer in his old college days, and dealt his enemy _ a blow between the eyes which sent him staggering hack, sightless for the moment, until with a gurgling cry, he fell heavily from the battlements of the tower to the earth below.

Felix could hear the dull thud of his body as it strurk the giound; but as to what became of him at that moment he cared nothing at all. The one point of overwhelming importance was the rescue of his friend. Not a moment too soon had help come. Already the valley of shadows was closing around Damien. But when, half an hour later, a glorious sunrise flushed the sky, it lit the figure of a man creeping back to life in the arms of the woman he loved and tended by ills best friend. And, lower down, the shafts of light struck the giant frame of one who had been a king among men by right of intellect and power, but who henceforth was'doomed to a death in life far worse than death Dr. Michael, maimed and mad, lying at the feet of his servant, Dietrich. Long before Damien, under devoted nursing, recovered wholly from the culminating shock of his experience on tne Devil’s Tower, Dr Michael, the fashionable nerve specialist, bad silenced tne ugly stories that were beginning to be circulated about him by vanishing wholly from the world of Loudon. ot until months later did his patients learn the truth, that the man who, while affording them an ecstatic new’sensation, was undermining thedr whole mental and physical natures, the man whom they had enriched without question, and obeyed puppetlike, revolving as satellites around him, was now a paying patient in a private asylum. An extremely interesting case, the doctors said, the result of a fall, causing “no gross lesion of the brain substance, but a minute molecular change in the gray matter, bringing about trophic changes.” That is the scientific description of •the state of the white-haired, whatebearded old man who, incurably lame, limps round the gardens of the asylum on the arm of his servant Dietrich, intent upon making a marvellous collection of pebbles from the gravel path, pebbles whicb be carefully hides away and gloats over in secret as unique, or that ho sometimes spends hours in stroking with curious, catlike movements, believing that by the process he influences thorn to do his will. At the sale of Dr. Michael’s celebrated collection sufficient money was realised to enable him to exist in comfort so long as he might live ; but two priceless objects, bidden away from all eyes but his, were, by his solicitors’ arrangement, restored to their owners. The Duke of Lister in this way recoived bis Cellini cup, the only portion of his lost gold plate he evor saw again; and Mr Damien Sayre of Culvert street became possessor of the Gresham pearl, which he had been forced to purchase from the Prince de Ligne. As to Linda and Damien, before the latter had become himself again Felix Hunt expressed himself with his usual slow authoritativeness. “Of course they will marry,” he said, pushing his spectacles up on his broad forehead looking out with whimsical, half-regretful eyes. “Then, as things always balance themselves, tney will pay the penalty for having been deuce dly interesting and romantic by being extra-commonplace as long as they live. Imagine the ethereal Linda stout and puffy, hurrying the children off to church with her on Sunday morning! Or Damien, with his ideals, his enthusiasms—Damien, that dark-eyed preux

chevalier of romance, willing to fight the world for his “fayre’ ladye’s” sake, grumbling at Tommy’s school bills, and taking a furnished house on the front at Eastbourne for liis wife and children in tho momh of August! Ye gods, what a falling off that will be! And yet it will come, it would have come to Romeo and Juliet had they lived long enough. To be consistently romantic a pair must part or die young; there is no other alternative!” Thus Felix delivers himself before he turns again to his cruicibles or his collection; but in his heart he knows that in this fragmentary life Linda and Damien have caught hold of happiness, (The End.)