A DAUGHTER OF MYSTERY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1747, 30 August 1905, Page 5

A DAUGHTER OF MYSTERY.

[Ail Rights Reserved.] BY R. NORMAN SILVER. CHAPTER LI. THE CAPTAIN SMOKES A CIGARETTE. “'Circumstantial —purely circumstantial !” The words were spoken to Julius in a grim apartment at Holloway—'the room sacred to soLicitor-and-client' interviews. Through the large glass pane of the door a warder looked in occasionally. The Captain’s consultant was a thin, youngish-locking man, with quiet eyes and a smart frock-coat bound with deep black braid. He might have been in mourning for his clients-, and not without reason, for he had a wide criminal practice. The fact had . its melancholy side. “You see,” said Julius Blake, “I caught the beggar forging my name and forgave him. But there was that queer business about finding the copy of the jewel-safe key in his box together with a file. We let him down gently, but of course I didn’t take him on again. The magistrate, at Bow Street was very severe on him, though we .stopped all proceedings, seeing that our original charge had. been incorrect.’’ “All that helps,” his adviser assured him. ‘Yen suggest that Gage planted the seal there himself after discovering that the body was that o<f his brother?”

“Exactly,” said the Captain; “the scoundrel came to see me after his appearance at Bow Street and threatened me with a life-preserver. But I made allowances for his state of mind—he was an old and once valued servant.”

The solicitor made a note and got up to go. “I think you may rest perfectly easy, Captain Blake,” he said; “you see there won’t be, in a case like this, any option of manslaughter, and even if the grand jury didn’t throw out the bill of murder, or the judge rule that there was no evidence, the jury would be certain to shirk the responsibility of a conviction on such trivial grounds.” Julius Blake sighed; he was unmistakably relieved. “It’s a pity,” observed the lawyer reflectively, “that neither the police nor ourselves can make anything of that second cipher document found on Peter Gage. The diary is nothing much to the purpose, except as showing that the deceased hoped to blackmail you in some way. Both the Gages are evidently pretty .accomplished scoundrels. They may even have worked together—it is not inconceivable that they had a thieves’ quarrel, and that your man did away with the other. I must see if the idea can be made use of. Good-bye for the present.” Be went away, pocketing his notebook, and Julius Blake was returned to his ceil. Here he relieved himself of a long and silent paroxysm of laughter. Something had evidently struck him as vastly amusing. Aa hour afterwards he was disturbed

and ordered to follow a warder. Through passages and corridors he was led into the cobble-stoned yard of the prison, and commanded to .fall into a line consisting of a varied assortment of humanity under „ remand, some decently, some miserably clad. “What the dickens is this for?” asked the Captain, but was merely warned not to talk. The line of men swayed in the morning sun that — stole sadly down from the high walls and towers about them.

Presently there /came out into- the prison yard a couple of fellows in. civilian costume. -With, them was a young girl, simply dressed, very nervous and pitiful. The three came before the waiting rank and the girl studied it- To Julius Blake she was absolutely unknown. A single second she stood and them pointed—at the Captain himself.. One of the civilians wilfully mistook her and touched the Captain’s neighbour on the chest.

“This man ?” he queried, but the girl shook her head and with a reluctant finger indicated most unmistakably Julius Blake. Without knowing why, the Captain trembled; there was something at once so pitiful and so shrinking about the innocent young figure. Puzzled and indefinably anxious, Julius Blake was again escorted to his cell. A trifle later in the day he was recalled a second time to the outer world, put into a cab with the same two civilians whom he had seen in the morning, and driven under the frowning archway of the prison, into the free air.

The Captain sought to question his escort, but his inquiries proved fruitless. All that he succeeded in learning was that they were bound for Bow Street. He could not help connecting the sudden journey with hiis experience of the morning.

“There’s something wrong somewhere,” he told himself; “I don’t know the girl from Eve—it’s a case of mi&taken identity, that’s what it is.” But he was terribly uneasy all the same. As the cab sped along Julius Blake gazed with a novel interest at the sunny streets and the moving, crowds, so indifferent to their greatest boon, liberty. A pair of fine roans bowled by, a smart victoria behind them, a pretty woman in it with a gay parasol. A sense of his fettered condition seized upon the Captain, and he could have shrieked aloud. He put Up his chained hands to his eyes; life had been sweet after all. He pitied himself; under his grey moustache he gnawed at his lip. His custodians regarded him * impassively. “Can’t you say something,” he cried out suddenly; “give me a cigarette, one of you.” The detective on his right sighed—the love of tobacco is a masculine bond! —offered him the slender thing and lit it. Julius Blake drew in the white smoke hungrily. “Tell me,” he asked, “what won the Jubilee Stakes?”

“Asterisk,” said the fellow who had given him the cigarette. s

“Where was Impudence?” demanded the Captain. “Third,” he was answered. “Curse my luck!” said Julius Blake; “I should have backed it both ways.” He said no more, but finished hi* cigarette in silence. At Bow Street he was put in a room at the rear ol the Court. Ten minutes later he was entering the dock.

Astonished, he gathered the significance of what was going on. He was being liberated—no evidence was to be offered ; the charge was withdrawn. The magistrate seemed oddly indifferent, he thought; not a word about there being no stain oa his character. Well, what were the odds, so long as he was free? ~,-p

He went out of the dock a trifle dazed—the whole thing had been so unexpected. As he reached the floor, one of the two civilians who had accompanied him in the cab—the man

wiho given Wm the cigarette touched him on the shoulder. . . “You are my prisoner, Oaptaim Blake,” he said; “I am an inspector in the Berkshire County Police, and 1 arrest you on a warrant.” “What’s the charge now ?” snarled the . Chptain“Murder F’ answered the other producing the document. “You are accused of murdering the Honourable Hector Sanderson, of Capetown, South Africa, on November the second of " last year, in Ducie Park—look out, ' Bob,” he interrupted himself to warn his assistant. - •The two men caught at Julius Blake’s tottering body as it pitched over. He had fainted. ' # ■, ‘ 1 CHAPTER LH. " A ORE3A.T SHADOW LIFTS. v “What are you thinking about, Angela dearest ?” Mrs Armstrong asked the question from the depths of a wicker loungechair that stood on the lawn at Oedar Bodge. The pleasant shade of 1 the tall tree from which the villa took fits title swept across her as she sat : with her. book in her lap. Angela stirred in her hammock-—a fresh, young figure, all white muslin, , save. for. the roses crowning her big Leghorn hat. • “Of—of Prank, dear Mrs Armstrong,” she said softly. "-" Her hostess smiled a little sadly. "Oh, you young married people!” was her tolerant answer. Angela abamdon‘ed her hammock and came to settle herBelf upon a cushion at the elder woOman’s side. - V : “I am very selfish,” she whispered ; “I keep on forgetting your trouble, in my own happiness/’ ' ' -“Not my trouble,” said Mrs Armstrong slowly; “the little tragical last "act to. my drama, 'the end of my ' troubles. Thank heaven that Vivian did not succeed in spoiling your life; ' thank heaven that he failed to blot his own as deeply as he . wished. You have married a good man, my dear, be >- very glad all your days - Angela sighed and fell into a reverie. When she roused it was to cry out joyfully. “Here they, are, Mrs Armstrong!” she exclaimed, and springing up, ran across the sunny garden towards the wicket-gate.. Mrs Hannibal Skinner had entered it and was flying no less eagerly towards Angela. Dottie hugged her friend ecstatically. ->• “I . came over alone,” she said. “Mr Orme and Hanna had to stop at the station for something or other—to telegraph about your luggage, Angela, the boxes that went wrong, you remember them, coming from Bournemouth. They are taking a fly here—our husbands, not the boxes/’ Angela noticed the tremor in Dottie’s usually firm tones, but attributed it to embarrassment at Mrs . Armstrong’s presence; she began to put the visitor at her ease with that person. Mrs Armstrong chatted pleasantly—

she liked Hannibal Skinner. But she was astute enough to perceive that Dottie had something • on her mind, and •wondered what it might be. Instead of vanishing, Dottiie’s nervousness grew visibly, she talked disconnectedly and stared at the wicket gate across, the lawn. Angela bantered her. t • * “I declare, Dottie,she avowed, “you’re as impatient to see Mr Skinner as I am to see Frank.” “Well,” retorted Dottie, “I’ve not been married all that long, have IP” She was still straining her eyes to the distant entrance. Suddenly the tall form of Francis Orme appeared at it. Angela forgot forthwith everything hut the fact that they had been parted for more -than a week. She ran impulsively to l meet him. Dottie leant to Mrs Armstrong’s ear. "Mr Orme asked me to ask you,” she Baid, hastily and with a mixture of emphases, “would you leave Angela alone with him for a few minutes —he has something to tell her.” “Certainly,” assented her hostess, ui*derstanding now Mrs Skinner’s preVnyus state of mind ; “let me show you ■what Cedar Lodge is like inside. We take the opportunity to postpone tea for half an hour.” She rose and they passed round the spreading branches of the tree. Orme, teeing them go, blessed Dottie for a diplomatist“l am glad you have come back to tne, dearest,” murmured Angela; “I really didn’t know how much I oared for you till you sent me down here all

in the middle of my honeymoon. Well, is everything fixed up now?” - “Ye®, darling,” Baid her husband, putting her into a chair and bending over her. “If you were not Lady Angela Holland you would be Lady Orme without the Angela, in a few days I will take you on a tour of inspection. You shall see your house in town, your villa at Cowes, and your place in Norfolk—the apple of my poor tele’s eye. I do not love dead men’s shoes, hut I am glad to be able to give the world no reason for dubbing me for-tune-hunter.” Angela laid her hand over her husband’s mouth. “You are very foolish,” she told him—“l am sorry you have a penny of your own, so there!” Orme caressed her fingers for a moment in silence. “Darling,” he said, “I have some news for you—strange news, terrible, in a way, and yet news to be. thankful for. Angela blanched. “What is it?” she asked simply; “you are safe, so 1 don’t care.” Orme sat down beside her and drew her to him. “It is about your mother —to begin with,” he said. “You remember Harper telling you that your mother was —was guilty of a dreadful crime?” “Y-yes,” whispered Angela, “He didn’t explain,” went on Francis Orme, “the nature of that crime. It was even more fearful than you could guess. She had a quarrel with her father—it was on the discovery of her secret marriage—an old and violent man. In the course of a stormy interview he struck her. She, then a young, passionate, headstrong girl, picked up an antique dagger and vowed that if he offered to repeat , the insult she would defend herself. A moment later she. fainted, and on recovering consciousness found the Earl, her father, stabbed to the heart.”

“Oh.” murmured Angela. “All was hushed up,” said her husband —“some day you shall hear the whole story. But the true reason for the Earl’s death was known to Captain Blake, and for many years he has held her crime over the Countess’ head, using the power which it gave him to plunder mercilessly her and her estates. Your mother’s life of agony and remorse you can imagine.” The barrister hesitated.

“When the Captain was first arrested on the charge of murdering our unhappy. friend Sanderson, he had evidently some hopes of am acquittal. Those hopes were dashed by the discovery of the strong case against him. Despairing of any attempt to evade justice in that way, he sought to evade it in another. He-—he has succeeded; he is dead—by his own hand.” Angela shuddered aad hid her face. “Yesterday,” continued Francis Orme, “he was found lifeless in his ceil. There was no sign of the manner in which he had met with his end. The prison doctor noticed, however, that one of the dead man’s thumb-nails was strongly discoloured at the tip, otherwise'' his hands were well kept. With great difficulty they ascertained that the discolouring substance was a deadly vegetable poison ; he had scratched himself with the nail on the flesh of his' gums and had died almost instantly. The night before be had sent for the chaplain, and, it now appears, made a startling confession. It was not the Countess who killed her father; it was Julius Blake himself.”

Angela looked up quickly—a weight had roded from her heart. “He had spied upon the interview between father and daughter,” said the baronet; “indeed, it was he who betrayed to the Earl the fact of your mother’s marriage. When she fainted the dagger fell from her hand—Blake rushed in, picked it up, and used it with terrible effect. This done, he left the dead man and the unconscious woman alone. Your mother -recovered her senses to imagine herself a murderess.”

“My poor, poor mother!” whispered Angela; “how she must have suffered!” Her husband sighed—a sigh of relief. '

“Angela,” he said tenderly, “one more surpise and I have done with surprises altogether. Your mother has heard of her own innocence, and is eager now to call you her daughter. Be brave, my darling, she—she is here.”

He crossed the lawn with long strides, opened, the wicket gate and motioned reassuringly. There was the rumble of a fly drawing to the entrance, and in another instant the Countess of Skye, leaning heavily on Hannibal Skinner’s arm, entered the garden. Ckrme helped her to one of the lounge-chairs and stole behind the thick branches of the cedar. As he did so Angela raised her head and looked at the bowed and desolate woman before her. Then, with a sudden pitiful sob, she moved to her mother’s chair and fell on her knees beside it. • * * Not half an hour but an hour and a half later tea was served in the garden of Cedar Lodge. The slant sunbeams of the June afternoon fell warmly on the group near the table. Over the back of a lounge Hannibal Skinner, affected by the unusual conditions in which he found himself, was flirting openlv with Dottie. Mrs Arm-

strong talked gravely with her new guest, the drooping Countess. Orme and Angela had withdrawn a little—the sunshine glorified the figure in the white 1 muslin and the strutting peacocks that came about her to peck at the crumbs of cake she had tossed to them.

“My darling,” said Orme, regarding worshippingly the glowing face under the big hat, “tell me, are you quite happy? Has the past left no solitary trace, no lingering shadow?” For answer Angela lifted her band and pondered the small gold symbol upon it. She would have looked rallymgly at her husband—for women love to veil their emotions. But the smile faded into a glance of such ardent contentment that it outshone the sunbeams. At least Orme thought so. THE END.