FICTION

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1745, 16 August 1905, Page 3

FICTION

A DAUGHTER OF MYSTERY.

[All Rights Rbskrved.] BY R. NORMAN SILVER. CHAPTER XLVI. IN WHICH SOME SHOTS ARE FIRED. “Captain Blake, a word with you.” The words were murmured in Julius Blake’s ear as he sat solitary in the smoking-room of his club._ The interrupter of his reverie was Vivian Harper. “I am going, my dear Blake,” said Mr Harper, sitting down and ringing the bell, “to give you a bit of a surprise. By the way, will you have anything to drink ? I feel like a whisky and Schweppes.” “I’ll have a B. and 5.,” growled the Captain. “Well, what’s up now?” Vivian Harper gave the order, and talked provokingly of indifferent matters until it had been executed, and they had been left alone in their secluded corner —a' corner illuminated by a single shaded pende.it. “Your case, my dear Blake,” he began, “(for of course it was your case) against Miss Holland—l gather that you are being pretty badly beaten.” “I suppose so, curse it,” snarled Julius Blake ; “the hussy’s had *ll the luck.” “It hasn’t been all luck,” retorted Mr Harper. “Would you like to know who has really out-manoeuvred you from the start?” “I should,” said the Captam, with a terrible oath. Mr Harper took a sip at his whisky and soda.

“I have,” he answered- • Julius Blake started. “You’re pulling my leg, Harper,” he decided; “though I don’t see/ what the deuoe good it’s going to do you.” “I am speaking the truth,” said Mr Harper, imperturbably lighting a cigarette. “Let mo go into details. You would have made Angela fight for her position from the beginning; the Countess, playing into Sanderson’s hands, prevented you. Who made her play into Sanderson’s hands? I did- You thought it was you "who mad© things look so black for Angela at the start. It was not you at all, but I, for my own purposes. All tlie time I held the letters which told of the accident to her shoulder.” “Ha! ha!” laughed the Captain discordantly; “and it was your idea to X-ray the girl, wasn’t it?” “As it happens, no,” confessed Vivian Harper; ■ “that counts one to Orme, or that other fellow, what’s him name, Skinner. But I could have dished you from the beginning if I’d wanted to — if I didn’t it was only because I wanted to settle our friend Orme’a bash. It was he who gave me the trouble, not you.” “And what the dickens interest have you in it ?” demanded Julius Blake, realising that the other was in earnest. Mr Harper drank some more of his whisky and soda. “I am.to marry Angela,” he said. Captain Blake whistled. “So that’s your game,” was his retort. “Exactly,” continued Vivian Harper; “but as it turns out, I want a little assistance in—in overcoming the last of Angela’s.—well, let us say, reluctance.” “You’ll get no help from me,” Julius Blake told him.

“Not directly,” admitted Mr Harper, “hut from your step-sister, yes; you will only aid me in obtaining her goodwill.”

‘Til be !” cried the Captain, but Vivian Harper cut him short. “Captain Blake,” he said meaningly, “an accessory after certain events is a criminal, and may be punished as such, however long ago those events occurred. "Why should you compel, me to became impolite? I bear neither you nor the Countess any ill-will, and if I should ultimately ask her to proclaim the secret marriage which took place between her and James Holland, it will only be that I may have the pleasure of calling my wife Lady Angela Holland. I shall not be indiscreet enough to require or to make any further revelations.” Julius Blake’s lean hands worked convulsively; he bit savagely through his cigar.

“I see that you understand,” pursued Harper indolently; “aiad now let me tell you what I wish (he laid a significant emphasis upon the word—it was as if he had said “command”), “I wish you to represent to the Countess, who is quite aware of my knowledge, and of the means by which I acquired it, that she must now admit to Angela her real relationship. As a matter of fact, Angela has already been informed of that relationship—by me. The Countess may be as affectionate, as maternal, in short, as she pleases—but with one object, to influenoe Angela in my favour. She may quite truthfully say that I will only keep her secret—and, I may add, yours—on. condition that

Angela marries me. Play any game, Captain Blake, and I will not be ungenerous—a thousand or two paid on my wedding-day would not be unwelcome, would it?” . Julius Blake sighed. ‘You promised to surprise me,” was all he said, “and, by Jove, you’ve done it.” Vivian Harper called tile waiter and began to settle for the drinks. This done, he sauntered off. “Don’t forget to speak to the Countess for me,” he turned back to observe with a casual air. “By the. way, if she should have any message for me I shall be here all the evening; I have promised a fellow his revenge at ecarte.” Nodding surlily, the Captain ordered a glass of liqueur brandy, tossed it off, threw the waiter a shilling, and marched out of the club. A few strides brought him to St James’ Square. Here he entered Skye House, commanded a fire to be lighted in the library, found a French novel in which he could prebend to be interested, sat over it for an hour, and then went to his bedroom, yawning ostentatiously. Here he summoned his new valet, delivered some instructions for the morrow, sent the man down for another novel and a siphon of soda, and gave orders that he was not to be disturbed. Having thus created an impression that he intended to make a quiet night of it, he rose and took from a locked box the same shabby suit- in which he had visited the Gallaghers. Hastily donning it, he put on also the dingy pair of spectacles which he had worn on that occasion. From another care-fully-secured coffer he took a case of pistols and lifted the baize-covered mouldings. In. the hollow beneath was a curious blade —a long, thin, threecornered slip of steel with a slender handle and a small hilt. It was a stiletto —the ideal weapon of the assassin.

Hiding this in his sleeve, and giving a final review to his disguise, Julius Blake extinguished the light, stole out at his .door and fastened it behind him. Cautiously he crept from landing to landing, until lie had gained the draw-ing-room, and passed into the glassroofed winter garden beyond. At the further extremity of this he kneeled down, felt for a ring in the flooring and drew up a heavy trap. It yielded admittance to the potting-house by a flight of iron steps. Softly the Captain descended, opened the window of the potting-house, and slid out into a dark courtyard, which he crossed to a low portal in a brick wall. This he climbed, to drop deftly upon the other side and slouch off in tile direction of St. James’s.

An hour or two later Vivian Harper left his club and walked leisurely towards his chambers. As he turned into King Street a vague figure glided out from the shadow of a temporary hoarding and aimed a blow at him. Vivian Harper saw that his assailant was tall and ill-dressed, and wore spectacles. He dodged, sprang into the roat and whipped out his revolver. “Stop, you blackguard, stop!” he cried. But the man with the spectacles ran like a deer. A shot rang loudly in the silent street; another followed it. Something fell from the runner’s hand, tinkling upon the pavement—he caught convulsively at his right arm. But still he fled, diving this way and that among the alleys of St. James’s.

CHAPTER XLVII.

MICHAEL GAGE GROWS IMPATIENT.

“What I want to know, Mr Skinner, is when I’m to be allowed to put the coppers on to the Captain.”

Hannibal Skinner leaned back in his chair and knitted his brows.

“I’m afraid, Mr Gage,” he answered apprehensively, “never.” “Never!” he repeated; “come, I don’t mind waiting a bit longer, as long as he doesn’t show no sign of doing a guy. But never!—Mr Skinner, you’re not treating me fair; Miss Angela’s safe to be declared the heiress all right, and Blake’s dead out of your game. Let me have him now, you know what it is to me; I dream about poor Peter, and always he’s asking me, ‘ls he took yet, Michael, will he swing for me ?’ ”

The solicitor’s clerk sighed heavily. “I’m awfully sorry, eld chap,” he said, “but the fact is, I’ve made out that other cipher, and I’m dashed if your brother hadn’t got at a very ugly story indeed, one which could hang, or at least clap into prison for manslaughter, no lees a person than the Countess of Skye. Ay, and the Captain along with her, as an accessory after the fact. Now I don’t care a fig for the Captain, but the Countess is really Miss Holland’s mother, and we can’t have a scandal.”

“That,” observed Michael Gage intelligently, “was why Peter had a hold over the Captain V “Quite so,” said Hannibal Skinner; “and you see, if you set the police prying into your brother’s death, they may find out too much, ' and go for the Countess as well.”

“But what price us being accessories after the fact for keeping her secret?” queried the ex-valet. Hannibal grinned. “Solicitors must keep their clients’ seorets,” he retorted, “and you can't be said to know what I’ve only told you. But you’ve

got to spare the Captain, Gage; we can’t have any exposures that’ll involve Miss Holland.”

“It’s well it’s you as asks me, Mr Skinner,” said the ex-valet; ‘Td tell anyone else to go to the ” “Exactly,” cut in the solicitor’s clerk; “and, of course, I’m grateful. But really, I must be adamant. If you could nab the Captain without implicating the Countess it would be another matter. But that would be to prove the Captain guilty of murdering your brother without proving why he did it. That’s not possible, Gage, I’m afraid.”

Michael Gage shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll have him yet,”. lie replied. “What if the police were to make out them ciphers—-how do you know they haven’t ?”

“Well,” . opined Mr Skinner, “it’s a thousand to one they’ve made out the easiest cipher—the diary—already;, but that won’t tell them much.” “It’ll tell them that Peter had an appointment with Captain Blake near St. James’ Park on a date that might have been the day of Peter’s death,” said the ex-valet. “And it’ll tell ’em, besides, that Peter knew a secret of the Captain’s. Isn’t' that good enough?” f “Not quite good enough to hang a man,” he was told. with my oath that he came home late that night all muddy and queer?” persisted the ex-valet. “No,” said the authority; “the ‘Captain drinks—perhaps he had only been out on the ran-dan and had a fall. Besides, your hands are not quite clean, are they? He might give you away over that forged cheque that put you in his power. Look what trouble we’re having to dodge the question of who faked Ellen Silvester’s ‘confession.’ If that Gallagher woman hadn’t had a face like a graven image both she and Blake might have been in prison by now, and then you’d have had to skip*.” “Curse it!” muttered Michael Gage; “but I’ll have him one of these days, Mr Skinner, be sure of that/” ‘ Time will show,” was Hannibal’s reflection, and with that the ex-valet left him, a trifle indignant. \ Michael Gage took a penny ’bus to Whitehall, walked into St. James’ Park, and approached the singular hollow mound where the body of his brother had been discovered. The place had a morbid fascination for him; he had taken to haunting the neighbourhood. A gardener was working near, he recognised the ex-valet and nodded. “Good day,” he said sympathetically; he knew Michael Gage’s stake in the St. James’ Park sensation.

“Good day,” answered the ex-valet briefly. “Police found nothing out yet?” pursued the gardener, to be answered by a silent negative; “dear, 1 dear, it seems as though they was only good to chivvy cabbies and frighten kids.” Michael Gage sat down on a bench and coaxed to him a little maiden of some six summers—the gardener’s daughter. The spring day was bright and the warmly wrapped. Sihe was playing with a curious toy, a thing of gold and cornelian; it struck upon the ex-valet’s eye familiarly. “What have you got there, little one?” he inquired. The child held out a careful palm, jealous of her treasure. The ex-valet gazed at it. “Is this—this thing yours ?” he demanded of the gardener; “this that the child has?”

The workman straightened himself up —he was trimming the grass border. “No,” he said, “it’s a toy she found by the toolhouse in yon; I wanted to take it from, her but she cried, so I left it with her.”

Michael Gage drew out a handful of bronze.

“See, little one,” he wheedled her, “you can buy sweets and. a doll with these; let me have the pretty thing and you take the pennies.” Nothing loth, the possessor of the seal consented to the\exchange. The ex-valet examined it closely. The stone was eng Laved with a heraldic device, an owl, holding a spur in its mouth.

“It is,” he whispered, “it is the Captain’s. He must have dropped it here that—that night.” (To be continued.)