THE MAN OF A HUNDRED MASKS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13996, 31 August 1907, Page 2

THE MAN OF A HUNDRED MASKS.

[Published by Special Arrangement.]

• I By W. A. MACKENZIE, lulhor of "Tho Bite of the Leech," "Hit Majesty's Petcock," " Tho Drexol * Dream," "In tho Homo of tho Eyo," "Tho Glittorine Roid," &C, lio.

[Copyright.]

CHAPTER XVII. - MR ARTHUR SACHEVEREL HAS A VISITOR. There, was an agreeablo clatter of tea-things, and sum white-aproned lady attendants flitted hither and thither with heavily-laden trays. Indigestion in many shapes and under many colours reposed on delicate china plates; indigestion, at a shilling a pot, bubbled and steamed.; but daring youth laughed at tho phantom, and increased the receipts of the Thibetan Tea Rooms, the last word in tho season's commercial ventures. Margaret Armour pushed away her teacup, and looked across the tablo into Lucian Falconer's eyes. Ho was good to look upon—tall, fair, a man who should havo been a soldier surely. He would have been, indeed, had he not been plucked twice running, his gifts being too original for the routine work of the jurtiorservico. As she looked at him tears welled into her eyes. She loved him, and she was going to-cause him pain. She would 'spare him the least small pang, and she was about to stab him to the heart—stab tho man sho loved more than-her own life. But belief that sho was right in what she was about to do sent the tears I back to her heart, there to increase tho constriction that held it as in a vyce. , " Lucian !" she said. "Well, Peggy?" he answered, smiling into her eyos. "You know that I love yo&?" " There's a question to ask me in a public place! How on earth can. I answer you here? Of course you love me, apd, of coarse, I know that you love me. You might as well ask me if I know that tho sun is shining outside, silly girl!" "'l'm not silly. I'm very serious." " I see you are. Are those tears in your' oyes? What on earth is tho matter?" "I am going to hurt you." ."You couldn't if you tried," "I'm not trying, Lucian, but all the j. same I must try. It's very hard;' I. had it all planned out—what I was going to say,—but somehow, with you thcro in front of mo, 1 can't find the words in which to say it." '' Don't find tho -words, and don't say it, then." "But I must. You must say goodbye' to me." He looked at his watch. Ho knew well enough by her face that sho was in deadly earnest, and he understood quite w'ell the significance she was attaching to the word "good-bye"; but ho simply would not , help her, he would ignoro her intention, " A quarter past 4," he laughed, "is a bit oarly. I looked to have you with ine till 6; but if you havo another appointment " "Oh, you know what I mean, Lucian —good-byo for ever!" "Upon my, word, Pog, I believe you could play tragedy just as well as you can comedy. That 'for ever' had tho true ring!" ".Lucian, Lucian! don't make it harder for me, Don't you see—oh,'but yoii must see that I am in deadly earnest." They pormrtted smoking in the Thibetan Tea Rooms. Lucian took out his cigar-otte-case, showed it apologetically to Margaret, received her nod of permission, and lit up. "Yes," ho said, " I see you are in deadly earnest, which is a state one should not bo in when one is only a very littlo over 20 and one is in love. I'm not poking fnn any more than I was disrespectful to your earnestness when ' J nsked to be allowed to smoke. For proof let mo say that I know all you want to say. to me. No —no—hear me out! You are going to tell me that, after the perfect understanding arrived at between us, you mean to go back on your word : you want your freedom, or youwaiit to give mo mino. Well, I don't want mine: I couldn't thank you one little bit for it; I have no use for it—it would be a nuisance to mo if I had, it. Therefore— no—no, you promised to hear ine out.Remember that wo have talked over all this before. Yon told me that your father was a thief; von hinted even that: your father is"not dead; you said that■ until your father had cleared his namo or purged his offence you could not.and would not marry me. What did I reply ? I said that it did not matter if your father ■ were a murderer." A spasm of pain shot into Margaret's oyes, in spite of her strong effort at selfcontrol. " Aiul I say now," went on Lucian " that it does not matter if your father is a murderer." He spoko with such meaning that Margaret ■■ could not but see that her lover knew more than she had suspected. She gave a littlo gasp, and turned away her head. , " Dearest," ho continued, " I am certain that tho man who calls himself Lancelot Armour is your father. lam certain, too, that it was he who did poor Stella Gordon to death." " Hush! Hush!'' ' "You know you think the same, Teggy. Oh! why can't you bo, reasonable jind confide your fears and worries to me? Don't you see that I am only wailing for one word from you to try and help vou? Can't you understand that I love you. and that. I: want to share your troubles? I'm no fine-weather lover, dear, and I'm only waiting for you to give mo tho word to show you that I'm not;" " What do you want mo to say, Lucian?" " Give me tho right to protcct you, to shield von from your own fantastic ideas of honour, to try and keep you sane."

"Am I not sane?" said Margaret,with a weary smile, " I am not sure about it," answered Lucian, quickly taking advantage ot Iho opening sho gave him. "You have worried so about your father that you aro getting into the state of thinking about nothing else. After all, Peggy dear, you have your own life to live. Your father—let us admit that he is all you think he is. Cut him out of your life. He has disgraced the name of Armour. Take another one. Let me recommend Falconer as being not a bad substitute, I shall make no objections to your taking it. Because your father was a thief, and is a murderer, if you will, that's no reason for regarding yourself as a possible thief, a possible assassin." "But until my father " "Well?" " Until he does the right thing—" "Until he confesses, you mean!" "Yes, and makes restitution."

"Don't count on him doing anything of the kind. My own idea is that your father is mnd—iniid as a March liaro, and that all ho has done has been done under the empire of some mania." "Do you really think so?" Margaret clutched at the feeble straw.

"I do, most assuredly. And that being so—come now, Peggy dear, let us get married. Be my wife, and let me protect you in the future. If your father molests you now I have no legal right to come. to your aid. As your husband I will be there for him to deal with." Somehow tho strong resolution with which Margaret had entered the Thibetan Tea Rooms Was fast melting away, liXti frozen snow under the ardonr of the spring sun. Tears filled her eyes. She bowed, her head over her plate to hide her weakness. Lucian devoured her witlv his eyes.' He was not morely awaitig her reply, lie was pouring into her, H if he were a hypnotist, his will that si™ would answer " Yes."

Neither of them noted that a gentleman came and seated, liimscl f at the l-iny table next them. They sat in silence for three or four minutes.

Suddenly a strange voice broke in upon their preoccupation. It was their neighbour who spoke. "Pardon m 6 for intruding on your tete-a-tete," he said, "and permit me to ask if I havo not the pleasure of addressing Miss Margaret Armour?" Margaret looked at him wonderingly, saw something in his face that seemed to startle her, for she grew very white; and then turned appealingly to Lucian. "Yes," said I.ucian, "this is Miss Margaret. Armour."

" Then," went on the stranger, " will yoa permit mc to' introduce myself? 1 have ju«t been to the Thespis Theatre to inquire for you. A young lady who entered the stage door at the samo time as I told ino' she had seen you coming in here, I have hastened here at once." * He paused for a moment, and Lucian broke in.

"You spoke of introducing yourself?'" The stranger smiled.

"I am one of Dickens's characters, he said. " I am the rich uncle from Australia who turns up unexpectedly I am -Lancelot Armour, your father's brothor."

Had a bombshell suddenly fallen into the Thibetan Tea "Rooms, scattering multi-coloured indigestion to tho four winds and flooding the place with a deluge of. tea, the consternation that seized ' Margaret arid Lucian could not have been greater. ; The stranger, or, as we may now call him, Lancelot Armour, affected' not to see their surprise. Ho went on in ' his pleasant, reassuring voice: i "You may have heard of me, or you may not. I was a bit wild in my youth, and I left my country, certainly for my own good, and perhaps for my country's also. Under these, circumstances your father may never have spoken of me; being a stern business man, he tool: that course, I should imagine. So much the better—l can come to you with a clean sheet, and tell you that as soon as I had heard, in my far-off home in the Dominions beyond the Seas, as the phrase goes how, of your father's death and of your noble action in giving up all you possessed to his creditors, I packed my earpet-bag and came home."

There was a ring of sincerity in his voice that left no doubt iu Lucian Falconer's mind that this was the real Simon Pure. But he had a duty to perform towards Margaret, '' Forgive irie for interrupting you," he said, " but I hope you have come to England furnished with adequate proofs of your identity."

" Before I answer, may I know who you arc?" ' / '

"My name is Falconer. Miss Armour is to honour mc by becoming my wife." " Indeed! Well," and the vagabond uncle laughed, "in that case I may tell you that I havo proofs which arc more than adequate. But why do you ask for them? In England wo are not obliged to do as the poor benighted Continentals havo to—go about with their full description in their pockets. Why do you ask ?"

" Because there happens to be another Lancelot Armour in the field." "What?" "Exactly what I say?" " It's impossible." "Ask Miss Armour."

Margaret nodded her head affirmatively. "Hum! Look here, will the two of you come down to Whitehall with me now? The Agent-general for Queensland's word should lie good enough for you, shouldn't it?"

"Surely?" "Aud then I shall go on to Scotland Yard aiitl—-—" " Don't trouble," began Lucian. "Trouble!' trouble!' Tt will be a pleasure to run down this fellow who has 'borrowed my namo." "Only'the half of it. Look here, sir —let's get to the Agent-general's otlice at onco. If he assures us that you aro really Lancelot Armour, and Margaret's uncle, then wo shall tell you all about tho other Lancelot. When you have heard all. I don't think you'll want to go near Scotland Yard." '■"Come, then." " I don't thinlc I want to come," said FHUHUiiaXPiWiHwiffptTOr!—

Margaret. " I fee! a trifle upset by what has happened. I'd like to go home for a little and rest. If this gentleman is really my uncle, Lucian, bring him round to supper to-night after the theatre." On that Falconer saw her into a hansom. She had not gone a hundred yards when she pushed up the trapdoor in the roof and directed the cabby to drive her to 79, Jermyn street. Arrived there, she inquired for Mr Lancelot Armour. The butler of the Select Boarding Establishment informed her that Mr Armour was out, Yes, knew where Mr Armour had gone, but had no authority to divulge. Very possibly the young lady might be Mr Armour's niece, but it was more than.his place was worth—still,"as the young lady was so generous,—he had lost a halfsovereign that very morning (did • not mention it was on a horse), and this was liko Providence—he would risk his pface and tell her that Mr Armour had gone down to the Temple to consult his lawyer. The lawyer's name? Yes, he could tell her that-more, lie could even give her the address: it was Mr Arthur Sacheverel, 1 J3lm Court.

Margaret considered her half-sovereign well soent.

Now, when she tapped at the door of Mr Arthur Sachevflrel's chambers, their occupant was expecting a visitor—a man, In response to the decided knock, Mr Sacheverel came and opened the door. When he saw who his visitor , really was, his jaw dropped,, lie stared with round eyes, and do what he' would he could not provent himself from crying out, " Margaret!" CHAPTER XVITL"— MR ARTHUR SACHEVEREL HAS SEVERAL VISITORS. John Joseph Armour loved his daughter very dearly; but at the moment when she appeared before hiin at No. 1 Elm Court he could have cursed her very heartily, for she was interfering with a carefully-elaborated plan. The visitor whom ho was awaiting was Gaetano Zticclii, and the carcfullyelaborated plan was to apply to him. it would bo satisfactory to that gentleman, after all, that did liot concern John Joseph Armour. It was a question of a knife, and a Saratoga trunk, and a Carter Paterson's man who would call sharp at 6. Zucchi was worrying tho man of many disguises, and the cutting of a Gordian knot is so much simpler than tho unravelling of it, And now,here was Margaret come to interfere.

More, he had betrayed himself by his cry of surprise. H c strovo to recover his lost ground. The moment ho had cried "Margaret!" he saw his mistake, and ho immediately added "Armour," and then "Miss Margaret Armour." The daughter looked the father straight in the eyes. "You know me, sir?" she said. "Everybody in London does," said.he, stammcnngly.

"I wish to speak to you," she went on. "You are Mr Sacheverel, of course?" There was meaning v in the "of course."

"That is my name. Will you come in ? I should like to apologise for my rudeness of a moment ago. A lady visitor in the Temple is the rarest of things. I " She threw herself into a chair and cast a swift glance round the room. " You know Mr Lancelot Armour, my uncle ?* she interrupted.

"I am his man of busiueas." "You have known him for a lons •time?"

" For a very long time—before he went to Australia." ■ ,

He was. beginning to recover his sangfroid, and believe that Margaret had not penetrated his disguise. But she knew him by his voice; a man may change his skin, his hair, even- the very shape of his face, but the voice remains. True, lie may alter it slightly, and he may be able to keep up the change for many minutes, but at the critical moment the original timbro sounds through the artificial intonations and inflections, and the true man stands revealed. Outwardly, Arthur Sacheverel was as unlike what her father had been as a stater-man is unrike a scavenger; it was the "Margaret" that had betrayed him.

"1 have been to his boarding-house in Jermyn street. The butler told me I should find him here. It would seem that he lias left, 1 will therefore give you a message for him—<i message which 1 would ask you to transmit to him as soon as nossiiile."

"I shall be very pleased to charge myself with your commands." ' . " Tell him, then, that lie had better go back to Queensland as quickly as he can, to Queensland or wherever S|Jis he- fame from, for'if he does not he runs' great risks of being arrested." > r

" Arrested! Good heavens! Miss Armour, you must be' joking! Whatever has my friend done that he should eonie into the clutches of 'the law ?" '

"He knows that best himself," " I cannot believe it." " Tell him, too, that there is another Lancelot Armour in the field.' "What?" "That another man, calling himself Lancelot Armour, has arrived in London from Queensland, and is at this moment at the Agent-general's otlice in Whitehall confirming his identity.";

" Impossible!" " And that this new Lancelot Armour means to take action against the other, who calls himself my uncle." "This must be some great hoax!"

Tlie calm way in which this man took her warnings irritated Margaret. That her father should treat her fio- was the last of insults, Her heart, which had softened to such an extent as to allow her to come and give him direct warning, began to' harden again, began to rebel. She rose to her feet, and she drew herself up. Her father remained sitting. "You need not attempt .to deny it—you are my father. You have passed yourself oft' as Lancelot Armour; you call yourself also Saclievere!—why, I lciiow not, nor do I want to know, You arc a thi:f, you are a murderer, and you continue to live. I loved yon—l believe I love you still; blood is .thicker than water.. I. would go on loving you if you were to take the honest- court- of making restitution of all you have' stolen, of confcising to Stella Gordon's murdor, and of executing justice 011 yourself. That sounds quixotic;. "I see by the curl on yonr lips- that you tliink so. Well, perhaps it is quixotic.' Hut I was brought up to look upon you as all that was good and great,'l was taught to reverence you ; I loved you because you were good and kind to me. For yeans I lived with that pciturc of all virtues. Tlic.n came the awakening—my father was a criminal.

"Think, if you can, what that means to a young girl: lo have her ideal shattered, to have all her past swept from her, to find that the adored father was only a sham awl a villain."

"'My dear young lady, pardon me for int erupting you; but really 1 do not s«e what- nil lliis has got, to do with me. My name is Sacheverel. I am a solicitor, ar.d I am «. bachelor. Why you should treat me as vour father and call ma a thief and a murderer, passes my comprehension —unices, indeed, I am to think, you are mad. You come here to toll your uncle, Mr Lancelot Armour, a story that on the face of it seems to me, if not impossible, at least highly improbable. Having confided that amazing story to me, whom you have never met before, you next proceed to call me your fnthei.. And so on. Honestly, it is a trille disturbing to a quiet, "pettifogging lawyer-fellow, who most certainly has not been in the sun 10-dav."

Margaret- was' st.ifY with anger. The voico was her father.'s; tlis eyes were her father's; the bands were her father's. "You have been warned," she said." "I came prepared to help yon to do the right thing. Now—l do nothing, for you liava forfeited all claim to love or esteem."

With that, and without turning Iter head to look at him, shs swept- from the room. She was wounded to the very quick. She had acted out- of affection, the old affection of blood iliat will out-; and she had been rejected. The love was deed: it was not hate vet, but- it might soon degenerate into that.

John Joseph Armour rat- back in his chair a prey to the most poignant emotion. His mind went round and round in a vicious circle, ever coming, back to this— that his daughter had told Itirn he wafi a

thief and a murderer. His memory went back to the days when he liad dandled lier on liis knees, a happy, smiling child, the child that had become this grave-eyed young woman who spoke to him as though she were -his Conscience made manifest. He would havo run after her and called her back, but his limbs refused their office. He was struck with that temporary paralysis which sometimes affects criminals after tliey have perpetrated their crime. Who has not heard of murderers found fast, asleep beside the dead body of their victim'/ The body inert, liis brain was active, liis senses were superscnt-itive. Thus, he heard a stealthy footstep in his dressing room—a. step light and cautions as that of a. panther. the curtains-dividing the dressing room from tiho sitting room were drawn aside and in the aperture appeared the saturnine face of Gactano Zucelii, The London director of the Black Hand laughed a trifle melodramatically.

"I have a curious trick, Armour, havo I , r '?V'" ' le sa '' turning up at the critical moment-. A few minutes earlier and I might have been carried downstairs in a Saratoga trunk by the CaTter-Pater-son's man, whom I now hear clumping up. You will allow me to go and tell hinAhat Ills services will not bo required?" Zucchi entered the room and passed immediately into the passage. He went to the "oak" and confronted the carrier. " You've come for a trunk, haven't you?" "Yes, sir. Is it'ready?" " No. I have changed mv mind. I shan't want you. There's a'shilling for youreelf."

"You see, Armour," he went on, reentering the room, " that I am the sort of man who does not- allow himself to be surprised. The man who can be taken unawares is never successful. I confess that it is sometimes difficult not 'to be taken unawami; but with the resources at my command I can meet and beat- even so clever a rascal as John Joseph Armour." Ho threw himself into a chair opposite tile miserable father of Margaret and lit a cigarette.

" From the first moment of our acquaintance you have been watched pitilessly, lou have been the fly—l have been tJio spider. The knife tliat is lying ready in your admirablo dressing room was purchased at Grimshaw's, in Holborn. The Saratoga trunk which reposes there also was bought at Alley's, in the 'Strand. Both were destined for me. How did 'I divine that? How does t'he poet- conceive the idea of his glittering epic? 'It comes, doca it Jiofc? My divination was confirmed "when I called at your rooms in Jermyn street, and was told to como on here.

" You were to liave—stuck inc; you were to have packed mo into the Saratoga; you were to have delivered 1110 to Owtcr-Pntcraon's man; and by tlio label which I have just eeen on your dressing room table I waG to have been deposited at the Metropole, Brighton—a pretty present for an unoffending hotel! "Well, my dear Armour, I'm not- going to Brighton this trip. When I visit the Queen of t-he South Coast watering-places I shall travel by Pullman and not hi a goods, van, thank you." "Have you nothing to say?" No, John. Joseph Arbour liad notliing to say; but, if ever hate spoke out of blazing ayes, it did then out of the unmasked miscreant's, and what it said was diabolically to the purpose. "Thank you," G&id Zucclii, who could translate the tool;. " I ani much obliged to you. I came prepared in any case." • With a swift g&siure he unbottoned his waistcoat and opened the front of his Ghirf.

" Milan is still famous foi its coa,ts of mail," he eaid, with a smile. "This only weighs ten ounces, but it will turn the otlgo of your admirably efcosen knife as if it were a bit of latli or a slice of butter."

As lie was buttoning, up again a knock sounded on the oak.

"I forgot to fell you, Armour, that I have invited a few friends—you will Snd them congenial—to pass the evening with us. With your permission I will draw t-he blinds Mid turn-on the lights. There!" (To be continued.