A WOMAN’S HATE,

New Zealand Times, Volume XL, Issue 9096, 15 July 1915, Page 10

A WOMAN’S HATE,

Published by Special Arrangement.

BY A. RENDER POPE, iuthor of “Bedcairn’s Redemption/ “The Wages of Sin,” etc., etc.

("Copyright.] CHAPTER XX—-Continued. The owner of this delectable establishment stood for a moment gazing from the window. The house was sec obliquely to the road, the sitting-room commanding an extensive view over the downs. It .was screened from the highway. No one passing along could see into the room. As Shafto gazed out of the window, he caught sight of something which arrested his attention- E'or a moment, he stared down at the ground beneath him. Then he left the room, and, passing out into the garden, he made his way to the exterior of the window. The laurel , bush, some seven feet high, half obliterated the glass. It grew from bare earth, and Shafto, pushing the branches back, bent down and examined the ground carefully. Footprints, close by the wall, were embedded in'the soft soil That someone had been standing there, hidden behind the laurel; but having a full view of the parlour, was evident. The footprints, or which there were several, were well defined. ' The thick leaves above had protected the earth from rain, • but in the clayey soil the marks would, in any case, have been difficult to obliterate. From the depth of the footprints, it seemed that the person who had made them had stood there for some considerable time. A close scrutiny of the ground suggested that the mysterious visitor had crept more than once to the place of concealment. The footprints were small and broad —the footprints of a woman, one would say. What bearing they had oh the tragedy it was impossible to .imagine. But there they were, definitely graven. Shafto returned to the cottage. This time he entered the kitchen, poking about in different cupboards. From one he pulled out various boots. They were heavy boots, of a medium size- Evidently the major’s. He went upstairs into the man’s bedroom. There he found another pair of boots, corresponding in size to those te had procured below. Ho invaded another bedroom—clearly Mrs Moriarty’s, From this apartment almost everything lad been (removed. A worn, faded dress hung inside a wardrobe—too threadbare, apparently, to be worth taking away. The floor of the wardrobe was stacked with cardboard boxes. Shafto kicked them out on the floor. With them came a pair of spring-side boots,, burst at the front and the tops gaping with long wear. Picking up the boots, he returned te the laurel hush, and knelt down outside- the window. As he expected, the boots fitted the urints almost perfectly. They were not the same that had been worn, but the owner of them was undoubtedly the person, who, for some reason or another, had hidden herself behind the bush in* such a position that she could, without being observed by the occupants of the room, see what was going on inside. With a laugh, Shafto threw the boots through the open window. That Mrs Moriarty was the watcher who had employed the laurel screen was obvious, but, even with this fact established, where did it lead him!' The foot?rints, unfortunately, bore no date 1 o connect them in any way with Tankerville’s death was ridiculous. “And,” Shafto murmured to himself. “just a trifle melodramatic!” . But, somehow or other, the idea fascinated him. That Mrs Moriarty, if she could be frightened into speaking the truth, would have something practical to relate, ne was well assured. Whether or not her vigil outside the major’s window had any bearing on the evidence he hoped to elicit, it was impossible to say. It might have, conceivably, for, as far as he could tell, there was no reason why, in ordinary circumstances, she would resort to this peculiar method. For the greater nart of the time, when her nephew was absent, she lived alone with the man. She would have ample opportunity to dis-

cover his secrets, and to overhear his conversations with casual visitors. She had already admitted that when Gerald came she was in the habit of listening at the keyhole. What, then, was it she wished to overlook? The barrister walked through the r«nk grass around the laurel bush, surveying it from the other side. It scarcely tended to assist his deductions. There was no way of getting into the hiding-place from hero, so that the woman, in seeking concealment, must have crouched under the window..;to prevent her passage from being observed He was turning away, when sometning white in the branches caught his eye. He prodded at it with his umbrella, dislodging it so that it might fall to the ground. - Then he hooked it out. As ho picked it up, ho whistled with amazement. This, surely, was fortune too good' to be believed I What he had found was a small canvas bag. And on it, in blue letters, were the words, “Metropolitan Bank. Law Courts branch.” Closing the window from the, 'outside, and slamming the door, Shafto walked briskly down the road towards the station. Here, at last, ■ was. ample proof of Mrs Moriarty’s complicity in the crime—for that a crime had been committed he was now toler-. ably sure. The money Gerald had left behind him had certainly passed into the housekeeper’s possession. It was equally to be assumed that she had taken her spoils to the laurel bush, and not exclusively with the idea of disposing of the little canvas bag. There was something, beyond that. All the way back to town, be gave the problem his most intense thought, and the more he inquired into it, the more he was convinced that Gerald, at any rate, was saved. Numerous theories commended themselves to him,, only to be discarded as mere conjecture. He was no believer in the value of cases founded wholly on speculation or deduction. They usually had a most damaging kink, somewhere near the beginning. It was sufficient for hjm that he had established two facts. One was that Mrs Moriarty had purloined the gold which Gerald had brought down from London for his father, and which, oocording to his own account, he had left in the sitting-room. The other was that, after stealing the money, she had hidden behind the laurel bushes to discover what was happening in the room. Knowledge such as this would, he realised, materially strengthen bis hand, when it fell to him to examine the miserable woman in the witness bqx. All things considered, His afternoon’s adventure had borne fruit well worth gathering. (To be continued.)