THE LUCK OF THE DARRELLS

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8608, 19 December 1913, Page 2

THE LUCK OF THE DARRELLS

[Published by Special Ann am cement. J

BY ERNEST TREETON, Author of “The Instigator,” “Her Double Lite,” “Tire Saving _oi Christian Sergison,” “The Goring Mystery,” etc., etc. COPYRIGHT. CHAPTER XX. When anotiier day passed, and Stafford did not appear in the land of the living, Doris reached the end of her power to endure torment. For it was torment that clung to her. From the hour of her strange contact with ae Brocas she had borne ceaseless unrest. Surmise and doubt, suspense and anxiety, whipped her like thongs from wonder to fear, and from fear back to wonder, until she could bear ub more. “Father,” she said suddenly, while the thought was still quick in her mjnd, “somebody must go to Cloistoi street. Every hour will make it aarder to find Dick. I can’t rest any longer.” ■ Glyndale was startled. For a moment his memory was scattered, and ho could not understand by what magic Doris had oome to know of hia Westminster transaction. It was a business that he had desired to keep from her knowledge. “What do you know of Cloister street?” he asked. “How did you come to learn there was such a place r And Dick,” ho added, not liking the turn things had tahoh; “what could he have to take him there?” “You forget, father,” Doris explain od, ner face as worried as his was mystified. “I beard Mr Wedge gaj that siewtb and Laidlaw had not returned, but you only laughed it off when I asked yon who they wereAfterwards I heard him ted you that Number 4, Cloister street, was still as empty as a ‘house to let,’ and I wondered whether they had had anything to do with the death of Dawkins. .

Then Glyndale understood, and biamtd his own' folly for not having been more careful to keep his doors sealed against tho comings and goings of Doris when he received Wedge in audience.

“But that does not explain Dick, bo remarked uneasily. “What can ho know of Cloister street? Or, raihe,, what can he have had to take him there?”

“I told him,” Doris confessed in distress; for she had seen already the misfortune "which her revelation to Dick Had probably brought about. “1 am afraid he has been trying to find the Luck, and has com® to harm. If there was any hope of finding the men who stole it, it would be just the thing he would try to do.’’ “You did a very foolish thing, Doris,” Glyndalo commented, with some anuyoance. “Not. that Dick is likely to encounter any mischief. I have been to Cloister street myself, and only experienced some little eccentricity from the doorkeeper. Dick will be safe enough there, but he may put the work being done out of gear, air Slewth is looking for the Luck. If Dick begins to make inquiry too, ho may only get in the way, and confound everything.” Glyndale had now revealed the information which ; in the beginning, he had deemed it wiser to withhold. But it was not the necessity to enlighten Doris that gave him the regret which he was already feeling. He was grave with the feeling that a first instalment might be coming of the ill-fortune of the Lnck. Although h!s .reply, gave Doris a little relief, she was still far from being able to rest. •'Still we must send there, if only to see whether he called,” she said. ‘‘We should know the hour when he was last seen, and he might have spoken words showing the way he intended to go. Since his father gave information that he was missing, there has not been a sign of him, as you know. The police say they have searched every conceivable place. There is nothing but silence, so wo must do something.” “Wo had better send to Cloister street, if there’s a possibility of his having gone there,” Glyndale agreed. “I will get Inspector Wedge to inquire.’* Acting at once upon the decision, he wrote a note, and sent it by a groom to the undemonstrative but eminently practical Mr Wedge, who returned a verbal message in five words: “Tell his lordship very well.” The words of Wedge were habitually few and his method of locomotion and his movements generally appeared to be about as limited as his words. But, as his colleagues had frankly to confess, he had a way of “getting there.” In a very few minutes he stepped across Parliament square, and was in Cloister street outside the door of Number 4, and rang the bell. When the door opened. Inspector Wedge and the Hunchback of Westminster looked at each other. But natural law did not remain on the opposite side of the street • it was here at the door, and it did not vary. Acute mind was in contact with acute mind, uncommon power with uncommon power, and, as such, their recognition was mutual and instant. As always they looked for each other’s measure. There was going to be craft, and there might be war. “Well,” piped Sloop, peering up at Wedge from under his bent brows; “who do you want? Who are yon?” He had no need to ask the last question. “Inspector Wedge—and you are Jasper Sloop,” replied Wedge, laconically. “Mr Slewth’s not at home; 1 want to see you.” “Omni Well, I don’t want to see you,” rejected Sloop, with the eccentricity of his usual manner. “No; hat you’re a greater mac than your master, and I want to see you. I’ll come inside,” Wedge "decided. “How far has he got with the buck business, do yon know?” "Olil it’s that, is it?” squeaked Sloop, as Wedge laid his hand on th door. “Well, come inside, if you wan; to.” 1 The next moment Wedge stood inside the house, and Sloop closed th door, giving quick, careful attention to his button in the lock. “M’yee—well—you bad better com, this way,” he piped; and he led the way to the room in which the agreement between Glyndale and Slewth bad been signed. The eye of Wedge did not seem deliberately to take stock of its surroundings; it was just the passing eye in a house of call; hut it missed nothing. It had not missed even Sloop’s carefulness with the door but-

.on, though it had seemed to be tuni-,-d towards the stairs. Arid the brain of Wedge was just .is awake as his eye. Quick though it was, the carefulness of Sloop with .ho doorlock added to the sum of sig.nlicant matter which Wedge now possessed. Ho was quite easy. Jibe ■voids of Maiiler had been reported to him by his emissary, and at last re was finding indications of the way .n which he should go. Maiiler, Puruue, and Naylor were now being watched, with his own constructive ends in view, even while ho himself was remote elsewhere. And here was .tiloop, enlarging by his acts the significance and range of Mailier’s words. But Wedge knew that the game now to be played would be one of dia-mond-cut-diamond. CHAPTER XXI. Wedge lost no time as soon as ho and Sloop were settled in Laidlaw’s waiting room. “You know Mr Richard Stafford, of course,” he began, seeming to have made a complete i'ace-about from Slewth and the Darrell Luck, though ne had done nothing of the kind. ■‘What brought him here to see your” The question was a shot fired at long range. In Glyndale’s letter was a surmise that Stafford might have called as the house, but that was all. Wedge had no knowledge of his own. But he was ready for the hunchback’s reply, with all his insight keen to penetrate it. In his acute judgment, one thing he knew already. If Stafford had visited the house, Sloop would not deny the fact The one call upon him would be for winged perception to distinguish and understand the things behind the crookback’s reply. “His legs—hoe! bee!” squeaked Sloop, amusedly, in answer. “Ho might have gone away on his head, if I could have given him the answer ho wanted. M’yesl Pity, that was. I have never seen people walk on their heads.” “How often do you speak like a book?” suggested Wedge pointedly. “Always that way,” Sloop chuckled again, with a touch of crankiness. ‘‘My father was a bookseller—m’yes.” “Which way did Stafford go?” •Wedge demanded promptly, in a sudden right-about “He’s missing, and you, saw him last.” As ho spoke, ho looked keenly, for a man gi bis casual kind of eye, into the hunchback’s down-crooked face. There was something in it that impressed his sense, of strangeness. On » prompting, be put his hand on the crookback’s right shoulder. “Can’t you get your head higher?” he said. “Your face is worth looking at—when you speak.” “Don’t you touch mel’’ Sloop shrilled, drawing back. “It will bo - the worst day’s work yon over did, if you dol” Both of them were plying their tactics, and both of them were learning each other “You are not so cranky as all that,” returned Wedge, curiously and significantly. “You’ve no complexion to spoil. Have you remembered what Stafford came for, and which way ho went P” “Hurr!” Sloop noised in his throat, in the manner of an oddity. “He came for Luck, which he can’t find—like you. Even Mr Slewth can’t find any Luck—not yet. But he’s the right ferret for fixing his tooth on it, heel heol” “Where is he?” Wedge asked at once, keen for the humpback’s reply. “Slewth?” queried oloop, waimsically “He’s at Penrith.” Penrith was in the mind of Wedge when he asked his question, and “Penrith” he received for an answer. Here, at any rate, he had not caught Sloop napping. The hunchback’s reply agreed exactly with the revelation dropped by Maiiler. In his shrewdness, Wedge knew that Maillcr’a knowledge mush have been derived from Sloop, and he found himself wondering whether Sloop never forgot his parts, or himself. “He wasn’t there yesterday,” he pounced at once. Sloop peered up at Wedge unconcernedly. “I didn’t say lie was,” he returned. “I shan’t know where he is till he \vrites again.” ' “Then, where’s Laidlaw ?” “In Paris,” answered Sloop, shortly. “If you think they have heard of your Mr Stuffer,” he added, miscalling Stafford’s name, “you are raking the wrong moon. They would have let Sloop know, if there had been any important news for callers —rn’yes!” “Ha!” Wedge exclaimed. “You’re a ’cute man, Mr Sloop! You knew I was going to ask you that question, ph? Then, which Way did Stafford go from here ?” “I suppose you don’t see much,” Sloop asked candidly, "or know much? Not yet, that is. If you knew 'uere your Mr Buffer, or tue Luck. ■v.:s, you wouldn’t be here. : You veil'd be making arrests.” “That’s got to come,” Wedge rejoined, with his driest approach to pleasantry. “Then yon expect to beat Mi death, eh?” chuckled Sloop again. For a moment Wedge did not answer. Inspiration and induction were now at their height with him. But what they were telling him could no more be read in his face than the secret thoughts of Sloop could be traced in his waxen feature*.

“Do you know of anything to prevent?” he asked quickly, when he spoke. At that moment his eyes took in the whole of Sloop, from head to foot. “No,” piped Sloop in reply; "you’ve both got a nut to crack.” “Ah!” remarked Wedge, his tone faking an enigmatic turn; “I see you know a great deal about your master’s business, Mr Sloop.” Then ho paused, and the next moment he sprang n surprising question upon the crookback, himself being keen-eyed as before. “Do vou know Mr Aubrey de Brocas? Has he b°PT> here?” “Aubrey de Brocas?” repeated Sloop, oddly reflective. “ No, he hasn’t been here.” “ With all you know, I should have thought you would have known of him,” observed hedge suggestively. “Whatever comes up against Jasper Sloop he knows,” Sloop squeaked conclusively. “There’s been no Aubrey do Brocas here.” ■ “ You ought to know.” Wedge rejoined ambiguously. “ You say you don’t know which way Stafford went, or where ho was going? Didn't he say?” “ No; that’s the only time he came —m’yes, the only t.me—and I don’t want to see him again.” Well, now I’m here, I should like to look round,” Wecge concluded. He had reached his end, but only himself knew what that end was. “You can look down the chimneys if you like,” Sloop squeaked. Being as good as his concession, the hunchback obtained his keys, and led Wedge from top to bottom of tho house. But Wedge saw nothing mys-

terious, and went the round, with nothing more to say than an occasional “ That’s a quaint arrangement,” or “ That’s odd.” Raps mid soundings toJ-d him nothing. The hearth in, Siewth’s room gave back a solid sound whoa knocked. In the basement l Wedge stood with the hunchback it* the middle room, but there was not 31 murmur —uot’ia sound. He opened the door above Stafford's Black Hole, but he looked into only an empty cupboard. There was nothing more left t<» be seen or to bo examined. “ It’s an interesting old house. Mr Sloop,” he said at last. “Thanks for the time you have given mo.” The end being reached, they returned to the hall. Sloop limped end shuffled to the street door, with Wedge behind him. Perhaps Wedge thought of a final question to put before the unfastening of the door; for he stretched out his hand, and tapped Sloop’s, bump. And perhaps it was the sensitiveness of the crookback to his deformity that made iiipi swift to spring, into rage. He was round in an instant; and Wedge, with a blow under the j.ioiut- of his chin, stretched his' length on the lloor of the passage. For n policeman. Wedge took hi* knockdown sirangojy. Ho did not take Sloop into custody lor assault; ho did not even retaliate. Perhaps he regarded himself as having been somewhat of an aggressor. When the hunchback opened the door, he contented himself with the simple process of walking! out. But, once outside, he seemed rather to enjoy having his chin cracked than otherwise, for ho permitted himself to» indulge in his nearest approach to m chuckle. And, behind the door, Sloop chuckled, too. (To be continued.)