THE GREEN-SPECK CLUE

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12185, 9 July 1925, Page 12

THE GREEN-SPECK CLUE

I Thrilling , S Sorlal I Story

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Ernest Treeton

(Pibliiltd by Special Arcangament.)

CHAPTER XXIX—RESTORED TO THE HAND OP THE LIVING.

Gradually, in his progress alongside the dead train, Wedge left the engine of the scratch forty, or fifty, yards behind him. For the skeleton was long—sixty vehicles in all. Then, as suddenly a 3 before, he paused again. Not an engine, but a first-class carriage, stripped of all its cushions and linings, was speaking to him. Yes, 'speaking! For his quick eye had detected that the doors of each of its four compartments, except the last one, were as they had always been—openable. But the last door, together with its window, was screwed fast and immovable!

Returning to his former side of tho train, Wedge looked at the compartment’s other door. In all but its window, it was screwless. But it had screw holes! And the footboard below it bore traces of the tread of recent feet! 1

Wedge mounted to the footboard', opened the door, and entered the bare carriage. There was nothing in it, save the skeleton frames of its seats; but its floor was covered with a lajer of straw.

For what creature had this box been used as a hutch? A dog? An inquisite eye would have seen Wedge, down on his knees, turning over the straw, with his magnifying glass in hand. Midway in the carriage, against the partition of the next compartment, he found a ringstaple, screwed into the floor. He scanned the* straw closely, apparently without reward. Then he turned to the corresponding spot on the opposite side of the compartment. But before disturbing the straw, he scrutinised the litter intently with his glass. Presently, with his thumb and finger, he appeared to pick something invisible from the straw, and to lav it across the forearm of his coat sleeve. Then followed another—and another. Each was a long thread of human hair! The hair of a woman 1 And each was of the colour of Anice Harden’s tresses!

■ J n , a fl u ' c k strokes, Wedge finished his search, and then left tho straw as he had found it.

'Em! he said, as he again stood beside the track, and looked up at the re-closed door; “there is more in you than meets the eye, at any rate!!-’ . From this spot onward, for a distance of twenty yards, or more, the grass betrayed signs of more frequently. passing feet. But' at the limit of the twenty yards the impressions turned aside, and ascended the embankment until they passed through a thin growth in the boundary hedge of the cutting.

It would not have been Wedge if he had not ascended the embankment alio. Step by step, with listening ear, f j S’ ance * he rose warily, until his head reached-the level of the brink of the cutting. Then he paused and looked through the root stumps of the hedgo. And the vision that awaited him riveted his eye.

fifty yards away, on a grassv downward slope, stood a substantial old farmhouse, with a flanking of outlodges—for it was the back of the homestead that was presented to M edge’s view. The coach-house doors were open, revealing the head-lamps and radiator of a motor-car; and near by, in the open, stood a dog-cart, from which, evidently, the horse had recently been unharnessed. But. for Wedge, the supreme interest of all was a human figure. A man of somewhat morose face, and of taciturn air, manifestly the master of the place, was crossing the open sward trom the near paddock to the back of the house.

Quickly Wedge drew a photograph from the inner pocket of his coat. It was the portrait which he had, traced in his Convict Registers on the morning of Nicholas Harden’s first visit to Scotland Yard—the one against which he had rend the name and record of ’James Mallingworth!”

‘Tml” he said to himself, with an ominous snap. “The same—at last! I’ve no need to ask what you are doing here, Mr James. In the short time you have been in Shalecomhe End Farm you have done a great deal more than change its narael” Five minutes later the spot where Wedge had stood was He himself was down tho embankment, across the dead track, ui> the opposite sandstone cliff of the hollow, and out again on the country road. Though he never seemed to move in a hurry, not the least surprising thing about him was the rapidity with which he covered ground. And there was now no pause in his stride. Presently his road wandered into another cluster of houses, and he knew it for the little village of Melridge, from the direction of which, as Jack Rollinghnm had said, the hoof-sounds of the* driven horse had seemed to come on the evening of Anice Harden’s vanishing. A broader main road passed crossways through the reposeful nook. On the /right. where Wedge’s hy-wav joined the wider track, a finger-post, set in the grassy wayside against the corner hedge of « cottage garden, pointed to “Aimerhurst.” Wedge was come very near now ! Before he had taken many steps on the Almerhurst road, the whir of a moter-car sounded from behind him. He paused, and held up his hand. “I am a police officer.” he announced to the pausing driver, with the weight of the King’s service behind him. “If you are driving to Almerhurst would you mind obliging me with a. Mite' 1

“With pleasure.” replied the man in the car.

And then it was speed! A minute ur two later the corner finger-post of n leafv lane on his left hand told him that he was passing the Bretchley road. From that point onward, as the car spun along all his attention was given to the wayside on his right hand. And presently, for the first time, he was

gassing through the gates of Almerurst Place.

Still, aa of old, all around the houst and gardens was sunlit peace. Yet here was Wedge, with a search warrant m his possession, obtained from magisterial authority so far back as Monday—two days aeo! Ho was not sorry that Tony Warmington should be absent, for he disliked the pain which his taskwould have forced upon her. And, still more to his purpose, fe could pursue his intentions with far greater freedom without her presence than with it. “Is Mr Harden at home?” he asked of the butler who answered his summons as he stepped into the house. “No. sir,” the man replied wondering; for thore had been few visitor* to Almerhurst of late, and even the cook-housekeeper was taking her peep at the caller from the far end of the cool hall. “He is in town to-day.” “Well.” said Wedge, incisively, “1 am Chief Inspector 'Wedge, of Scotland Yard. You see this—a search warrant,” he added, indicating the magisterial authority. “Which is the study, library., or .room, in which your piaster does his business?” tinder this pressure the butler the way to the study, and Wedge looked around it. Every cabinet and every was locked. But Wedge took from his pocket a thin bunch of peculiar keys, iu every range of size. They were skeleton keys. One by one the polished bupboards and drawers answered to the magic of his Open Sesame. But it was the drawers of Harden’s writing-table which yielded most to him. Here, though all the family stationery was richer and was embossed “Almerhurst Place,” he again found the watermarked notepaper, ; “Ryland Superfine.” Here he again found the “Bagster” hand-writing, though the signature %vas not “William Bagster.” but simply “Stephen,” attached to a note —dated from “Shalecombe House,” and written on “Ryland Superfine”— requesting the despatch of ten pounds! Here he found some Turf correspondence. And here he discovered the letter of the Capital and Provincial Bank in answer to Anice Harden’s reputed instructions for the transfer of five hundred pounds to a separate account in tho name of her husband !

Nor was this all. In the lower cupboard of a bookcase Wedge found a number of lost Anice’s old letters written to Nicholas. And keeping them company were some sheets of foolscap. which quickened his curiosity and suspicion. For they were covered with obvious tracings of Anice Harden’s handwriting! Mounting a chair he felt with his hand in the hollow along the top of the bookcase. His fingers struck against something slight and wOoden. He drew it forth from its hiding place. It was a tracing pentagi'aph. “Uhl” he said drastically, as he stepped back to the floor and collected together his treasure trove. >‘Now your master’s bedroom and dressingroom!” Again the confounded butler led the wav—this time upstairs. But now Wedge’s work was quick and short. He went rapidly through Nicholas Harden’s wardrobe until he held in his hand a pair of. tweed knickerbockers, possessed of an oud brace button. Then he took Jack Rollingham’s hair-brother-and-Riggs” button from his waistcoat pocket. Each knickerbocker button, except the nameless odd one, tallied with it Descending again to the study, he secured his seizures in a cabinet cupboard. Then he locked the study itself from outside, and sealed it with wafer seals. , c “You understand the law meaning of those seals. I suppose,” he warned the butler. “See that nobody enters that room until I return.” Ten minutes later he was standing in the village post office of Almerhurst. He asked for a pennyworth of every kind of notepaper that the shop possessed. Eight different varieties were handed to him. But not one of them bore the “Ryland Superfine” watermark ! Without a word he pocketed his purchase. Then he went to the unpretentious ledge against the shop wall, which served for a public desk, and began to write on a telegraph form. When he had finished, the. message which he handed to the staring postmaster read:

“Superintendent of Police, Radleigh. •—Anice Harden at Shalecombe End Farm, Shalecombe. Send enough men to remove her and to arrest ex-convict James Mallingworth, proper name Stephen, Harden, now passing as William Bagster. I will await you here, Almerhurst Post Office. Watch Radleigh Station, and arrest Nicholas Harden, brother of Stephen, on his arrival from London.- Charge, conspiracy against the person of his wife (in conjunction with his brother), fraud, and attempted murder of Mr John F.gerton Rollingham. of Courtleigh Park, first independently, afterwards in complicity with his brother. Have evidence and proofs in both ■ cases. Stephen, desperate character. Wire Chief Constable, Lewes, for all extra assistance necessary. If Nicholas has arrived meanwhile I will arrest him as he passes through here. Haste. Reply.— Chief Inspector Wedge, Scotland Yard.”

While the telegram was in transmission, Wedge', strolled the drowsy village “street.” Then he re-passed the pest office, and entered the foot-gate opening into Courtleigh Park on the slope of the village hill road. “Well, Mr Rollingham,” he said to himself, queerly, ae he looked at the spot where Jack had fallen: “I don’t think Nicholas Harden will trouble you much longer!” Then he returned to the post office and a few minutes later the reply from Radleigh was handed to him. “Coining.; self, two cars, and six men,” he read. “Have wired Lewes, and have arranged watch at liadleigh. Station.—Superintendent.”