A TRAGIC SALVATION.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXI, Issue 4366, 25 May 1901, Page 3 (Supplement)

A TRAGIC SALVATION.

During one of the Finchley War Fund Carnivals a strange thing happened. While it was at its height—when the procession had passed a certain house lying somewhere between Wnetstone and the end of the route, a mail was stabbed and apparently thrown back- 1 wards behind some hushes into a garden. He was a tall man, well dressed, wearing a gold chain aud a diamond shirt-stud, and carrying in his pocket a bundle of bank-notes.

Nothing had been touched. Appar* ently not a penny piece was missing. Ho was Henry Deverell, diamond merchant and millionaire, a man whose face was quickly becoming familiar to Park lane and Piccadilly, one of the biggest financial celebrities of the year. VYlio ho really was no one seemed to know ; but that ho was enormously rich aud meant to get into the best society was apparent to everybody. But .somehow he had not succeeded as wcil as most millionaires have done. People did not like him. Something about him seemed to make one avoid him instinctively, and somehow even the fortunehunters fought shy of him.

Perhaps lie was not rich, after all? Perhaps tile million was a myth? People wore beginning to look askance, when suddenly it was announced that he was engaged to Ethel Simpson. Sho was neither rich nor titled nor anything of importance—only the daughter of a stockbroker living at Pine-nicy—a little, pretty, light-hearted girl, who, everybody expected, would marry Dick Morris, who had been im vaiided home from Africa, and was ex* poctud to turn i:p any day. Everybody behoved that there was a secret engagement between them, but tills last announcement seemed to put an end to everything. It appeared in tho morning papers—just a feu- lines — “An engagement is announced between Mr Henry Deverell, the wellknown millionaire, and Miss Ethel Simpson eldest daughter of Edward Simpson. Esq., of Finchley.” Dick Morris came home, spent a week in hospital chafing at the delay, and writing letters to Ethel when he was allowed, and wondering wretchedly why she never wrote or came to see him.

Then at last he got out, and made his way up to tho old. well-known house, the memorv of which ho had car* ried to Africa and back, and walked up the long garden path and rang the boll.

Before it could be answered Ethel herself stood before him. He was startled at her thin cheeks and white lips, and he cared nothing that a servant had come to the door and was waiting for him to turn. He field out his arms to Ethel, and the servant promptly retired.

She shrank a little. “lias no one told you—didn’t father toil you ?’ she cried. “Oh, Dick, I shall never bo able to marry you now. Father said he would tell 3 T ou all about it. I’m ho marry the millionaire— Henry Devercll if i don’t—oh, U.ck, if I don’t father will be ruined, and the children—May and Dob and Doris—will all bo turned out of house and homo. It’s some business affair. Fo one knows what is going to happen, and father lost a lot of money before, and this is worse. He wilt be utterly ruined unless someone helps him, and I—Mr Dtverell is going to see him through, and I—l’ve got to marry him, Dick.” She broke off. 'lire sobs in her voice choked her, and Dick stared half stupidly at her pretty white face and quiver; ing lips. Only one thing to do! To marry Deverell! He turned away, and then fell back again. A man was coming up the garden path—a tall, well dressed man in well fitting clothes—a man with a dark, fierce face—aii ugly face, out of whicn two sharp, ugly eyes seemed to gleam with a malicious light. Ethel whispered that it was Devercll, and Dick stared This Deverell—the man who had stolen the girl he loved? He set his teeth. Ho felt a wild desire to spring at his throat, to choke back the life in it—to kill him. He turned again and strode away. He could not stand it. He could not face him. Ho wont with a sudden angry rage in his heart. The day of the carnival was cold and wet—a grey sky. spitting rain on to the mud that already lay thick ou the roads. It spoiled the carnival, and threw a gloom over the huddled groups of people who watched the procession pass. But things changed at night’ A fine breeze cleared the sky and brought out the stars, and the bicycle riders came out in all their finery for the lantern ride. They had passed the old white house whore the Simpsons lived, and straggling crowds of neople were walking disorderly to and fro. The children had gone in with their nurse, and Ethel and Deverell stood at the gate, Ethel apparently forgetting that Deverell was with her. She roused herself at last with a start, and looked at him with both loathing and fear in her eyes. Then turned back. But Deverell was not looking at her. He did not even know that she had gone. He had forgotten her. He was watching the movements of a man in a Pierrot dress who was standing in the shadow at some distance. He had been there for at least ten minutes. He bad riot attempted to fob low the cyclists, and he had no machine and no collecting box. His Pierrot dross was slightly dirty, and his shoos turned up in an odd way.at the toes. His face was whitened, and he wore the regu'ar white 'cap, but on close inspection his face sefimed to have a vel!ow r tinge v and his eyes were almond; shaped and dark. Deverell stood still, and the man com' ing forward, looked round, and seeing that the road was quickly emptying, peered into his face. “Yen no fikee mo? You no likos John come findee you?” he asked. Deverell shrank back. “I don’t know what ' - nu mean,'’ be said, roughly. The Chinaman shook his head, and i.en suddenly reaching forward stroked Doverell’s hand. Deverell drew it away shandy. with a crv. “Curse you, keep your pins to yourself!” he said. The Chinaman Miooh hihead. “Me no pin,” he declared. wantee money. Me come to you. Mar many dollars—all stole .” Ho «pre>d his hands, and looked up into Devereb’s face with a strange cunning in his brown eves. Deverell flung out his arm. “Bah!” he cried. “I’ve heard enough of that. “You’d better try to prove it in a Court of Law.” He laughs “Eobbed you, did I? Well, what if I did? Fools were made to be robbed, and if you’ve followed me right across from China you’re a bigger idiot even than I thought you were. You’d better Co hack where you came from. It’s no use coming to me.” He turned on his heel, but the Chinaman caught his coat. A savage look had sprung into his eves. There wa.s something ugly and dangerous in his face now. He broke into sudden, rapid Chinese, and then into his pidgen English again. "Chinaman not so ranch fool as lie look,” he cried. ‘‘Ho brings punish-

raent to the Englishman who robbed him. Lo, it is done! —-Another’s (lavs sun will see the Englishman no more.” Deverell gave a short, hoarse cry. The fear had come back to his face. The Chinaman spread his hands again. “It is done, lo! I said, it is done. The pin-prick I gave you just now will grow to-night into ten thousand dancing devils.” Deverell gave another cry, and snatched up his hand and looked at it. There wa.s nothing to be seen except a faint nink mark like the scratch of a pin, but he had not lived in China for nothing, and lie knew what a horror a poisoned pin could bring. Ho stood aghast, his red, coarse face growing grey as he thought of all ho had heard and known of Chinese poisons. The very thought of them made him sick.

The Chinaman laughed, showing his yellow teeth. A strange face for a Pierrot’s cap.

“Y’ou know the poison,” he whispered. “You saw a man die of it once The Englishman will remember how his skin swelled ; lie laughed ever so. ana Chang i'Ti he fight and scratch.” Deverell made a sudden dash forward, and then drew back again sick and desperate. All the horrible things be had hoard, all tho ugly things ho had seen, came flashing across his brain. He looked at tho scratch again. Was it his lancv that it was redder —darker?

Ho was while to tho lips now, an- his hand shook as he held it. He looked up. Tho light or ihe lamp close by fell full on the grinning Chinaman for an instant, aud then ne had gone. The pat, pat of his shoes came across the gravel and died away. Deverell called to him. There was no answer.

He looked again at the little poisoned scratch. It was just the -same —just the same, yet the most deyilisn torture that human ingenuity could devise might he the result of it. He remembered tlie man Chang Fu, who had died of the.poison in a Pekin alloy, aild even tho thought of it made his eves red with horror. He remembered the dying man’s eyes, and ne stumbled back helplessly to the garden gate. Good Heavens! To think that he was to undergo all that! He! Ho luu. been outwitted at last; ouhvitteu ,xa the veriest fool, and nothing could be done. It was no good sucking a Chinese poison of that kina, and a doctor might only prolong the agony. *IIe could not stand it. He took a sudden, hurried step forward, and shut the gate behind him. The garden was emntv. Tho big laurels threw long grotesque shadows across the lawn, and the light from the lamp outside streamed over the wall. He shrank back out of it into the darkness, and crouched bemud some thick hushes. Then he put his hand iu his breast pocket, and pulling out a small Chinese dagger, plunged it deep into his breast. ***** The news of the suicide was kept very quiet. No one knew until tho inquest what had caused DeverelTs sudden death, and then an odd thing happened. A policeman, who haa come on purpose, stated that an old aud crazy Chinaman had been found wandering about tho Embankment, who had a queer story to tell, no seemed quite crazy, but lie had brought him, he said, to tell it for what it’was worth, and before the coroner the old man made a rambling statement, which no one know whether to believe or not. It was that he was responsible for Deverell’s death. Ho had not stabbed him oh, no, but he had put on his hand a little scratch. He hac] told Doverell that it was from a. nmsoned nin. He had done it to frighten Deverell, for he was a swincaer aud a robber. He deserved death, for he had ro-ued many, poor men, and he (the Chinaman) had come to be revenged. As for the scratch, let them look. They looked, and all that could be seen was a faint mark, no deeper, no darker than it baa been two ni"hts ago. The doctors looked into it cr.rtfr.llv., and could fin,, no trace of poison. It was only a pin prick after all!

After the inquest Dick went to tho old house again. He met Ethel again, and clasped her hands in his, and Ethel’s eyes brightened, and Dick smiled.

What did anything matter—poverty, bankruptcy, or work? He had Ethel, and he cared for nothing else. And, indeed, nothing else seems to matter now. Her fatnor will have a struggle, he will have to move to a smaller house, and economise severely, but there is no reason why ho should not win in the end, and, after ail, to his surprise, it doesn’t hurt him as he thought it would. —“Illustrated Mail.”