THE NOVELIST.

Otago Witness, Issue 1951, 11 April 1889, Page 29

THE NOVELIST.

A STRANGE STOBY OP A DEAD MAN'S GOLD. ♦ ■ ■ By JAMES SKIPP BOBLABE. Axithorof "Darker than Death," "Who Killed John Cameron?" "Both Princcßß and Police Spy," "Nina the Nihilist," "May Mortimer's Mistake," &C, &O, [ALL EIGHTS BESEBVED.] Chapter XLVII. Winny Makes a Terrible Discovery, and is Tortured With Cruel Doubts and Fears.

M BALLINGER did and said all that he possibly could to appease his cousin's grief, and he was assisted in the task by Mrs Desble, Nelly FarrelTs landlady, as soon as she returned home from, teaching her class at Sunday school, and was sobbingly informed by Winny of w>iiat had occurred during her absence. She, good worthy soul, endeavoured to make the best of things for Nelly's friend's sake, whom she declared that she should treat exactly as though she herself was Nelly, until the latter came back again, which she affected to believe would certainly be on the morrow. She then urged Jim Ballinger to staj and spend the evening with his cousin, believing that his companionship would tend more than anything else to comfort her : and Jim, nothing loth, said that he would stop until half-past 9 o'clock, bub that he must not offend again by staying out of barracks after 10. He kept his promise, and succeeded in his object tolerably well, Winny certainly experiencing a great deal of comfort in having near her, under such trying circumstances, one whom she had known all her life long, and had ever loved as a brother, even if nothing more. When he had done, her fadness and sorrow returned in their full intensity, and though Mrs Deeble again visited her, and did what she could to cheer her, Winny found it such hard labour to pretend to be comforted, when, in point of fact, she was nothing cf the kind, that she expressed a desire to retire to rest, and breathed more freely when she found herself alone in Nelly's pretty bedroom, with no need jto keep up the appearance of being soothed or resigned any longer. She undressed, got into bed, and put out her candle as quickly as she could, lest, seeing the light burning, well-meaning Mrs Deeble should come in and subject her to another intended comforting exordium ; but when some hours had sped by, and she had every reason for believing that the rest of the household had gone to bed also, she could bear her distracted and almost maddening reflections no longer, and relighted her candle, in the hope that she would be able to find some book whose perusal would force her thoughts into another channel. Almost at once her gaze rested on a photograph album, which lay on the dressing table, actually within reach of her hand. " This will do to begin with," she thought, and taking it up she commenced turning over the leaves. The portraits did not interest her in the least at first, they being of the most ordi-nary-looking people possible, with the solitary exception of one most lovely and plump six-year-old boy, having nothing on but a pair of fictitious wings and a quiver of arrows, one of which he was just fitting to the string of the bow that he grasped in his left hand, whilst he knelt on one knee to take better aim, the delicious rounding of his exquisite little limbs and body richly deserving to be immortalised in alabaster, which could not have been more white or fair. Such a lovely human snowdrop is infinitely more charming to the eye than tb9 fairest lilies "that in garden grow," and Winny kissed the pictured presentment and was loth to turn the page She would have been more reluctant still could she but have guessed what kind of face would meet her eye upon doing so; and when, a minute later, she did look upon it, she uttered a stifled cry and dropped the photograph album upon the bed. She could nofc help but take it up again though, after a few minutes had elapsed, and she was able to remove her hand from her painfully throbbing heart. Biting her lips until they bled, though she was utterly unconscious the while of doing anything of the kind, she this time looked at the portrait fixedly, and also at the words which were written underneath it, in a fine, ornamental hand, and which were "From your ever fondly attached, Loftus FiTZGEBALD." Yes, there was the writing, and, there was the face, both of which she knew so well. The writing finical, and yet pretty, expressing so plainly a petty mind and indecision of character, and the face her husband's exact own, beyond all possibility of mistake, such as it had been ere his mysterious visit to London and his return to Buttercup Farm with the trumped-up story of how his personal appearance had been altered whilst he slept by a party of practical jokers ; save that in this carte he had only an upwardpointed moustache, and not a carefully trimmed beard and whiskers in addition. After gazing at the portrait steadfastly for at least five minutes, Winny closed the album with a groan, and sank back on her pillow. Gone was her very last hope now that, despite every seeming proof to the contrary, her husband was after all Amos Robinson, her father's faithful partner and mate. That he was merely a needy and unscrupulous adventurer, who, whilst loving another woman, had wooed and married her in order to become possessed of her £50,000, and for that object only, she could no longer even doubt, and oh, by what a horrible "means had he attained his base and selfish ends ? Ly robbing and by personating the dead at the very least ; but why should she not believe, accused as he was of murder, that he had also killed or contributed to the deaths both of her father and his partner, with a view to the carrying out of his infamous schemes for his own aggrandisement ?

Then quickly, there came to her the.giravd doubt— Would she be authorised in expending a single penny of the fortune her father had left her in the defence of a man who might have been his assassin— despite the fact that he was her husband— her husband throngh fraud? "He could never have loved me in even the slightest degree," she reflected bitterly. "If he had done so he would not have left me to spend the first evening in a strange land all alone, and have hurried off to see Nelly, for what could he have gone into that special hotel for but to see her 1 and had he really and truly loved either- of us, he would not in turn have gone straight away from Nellie to a common casino, and there have danced with and treated to champagne* a girl who could not have been even respectable." " Oh, Jim, Jim," she moaned half aloud in conclusion, " how mean and cruel and foolish I was to throw away a diamond, though in the rough, such as you for a bit of glittering, worthless glass like this man whom I am for ever bound to I" After this her mind became almost a complete chaos as to what she ought and oughfc not to do, but she finally decided that she would take the advice of her solicitors upon the matter ere deciding on anything. Chapter XLVIII. Deserted and Doubted by All, Eveu by His Own Wife. By the morning, however, Winny had changed her mind, and had determined to nerve herself to see her husband in the first instance, and to be guided in her future conduct by what passed at such interview. She forced herself to partake of some breakfast, feeling that she should require.al the strength that she could obtain, and as soon as she had done she dressed as neatly as she could, and accompanied by Mrs Deeble, who kindly volunteered her companionship, took one of the regular line of cars plying between Emerald Hill and Swanstone street, so that less than half an hour saw her outside the police station. On stating who she wished to see, and that she was his wife, no objection whatever was raised to her having an interview with her husband, and she was conducted to, his cell, the policeman who went with her warning her that she'd have to say all she had to say in a quarter of an hour, for that was the utmost limit of time allowed to visitors in any case. A minute later she stood within the dark, bare cell, face to face with her husband, and with the door closed and secured on the outside behind her. The prisoner rose from the wooden plank which was both his chair and bed, in order to receive her, timidly, sheepishly, and with eyes that did not dare, apparently, to seek her face. " Winny," he however managed to stammer out, " this is indeed kind of you." "Why kind, Loftus FitzGerald?" was the retort. "Am I not your wife 1 " " Assuredly you're my wife. But why do you call me Loftus FitzGerald 1 You should be the very last to give me any names but those of Amos Kobinson." There was something of defiance in his tone now, for he resented the coldness of her speech, as well as that she did not come forward to clasp his hand and to kiss him, as he had expected she would do. " I call you by the name that you rightly possess. I have found a very true and dear friend in Melbourne already ; she is called Nelly Farrell, and I have seen your photo in her fllbum, with Loftus FitzGerald written underneath it, and each letter was as familiar to me as was each feature and characteristic in the face of the sun '» portrait, an<d which told me plainly why you altered yout appearance as much as possible ere you dared to venture out here again," replied Winny, firmly, but calmly. The wretched prisoner made no attempt to deceive his wife after that, for he knew at once that the possibility was for ever past and gone. 11 I've been a villain, Winny, to you at all events," he moaned out, " but, 'pon my soul, though I have deceived you most atrociously, I have always intended to make you a good and kind husband by way of amends. I never calculated upon bringing this crowning disgrace upon you, through getting bowled over in such a foolish fashion : but when you're a widow, Winny,. 'twill be an easy matter, I do believe, for you to conceal from the world that you were ever connected with me. You might even return to Buttercup Farm, and say that Amos Kobinson was dead, and had left you his widow, instead of that Lof bus FitzGerald left you- through his being hanged, as he assuredly will be. Jim Ballinger will keep his mouth shut for your own and for the entire family's sake, and folks don't read the Australian news In those parts." "Amos— Loftus I mean— lsomehow or other don't believe that you committed the crime that you are now charged with, but what I want you to tell me is — aye, andfto swear it to me as well, by your every hope of salvation — that you did not take — I mean did .nothing whatever to hasten either my poor father's or his friend's deaths, in order that you might ♦ carry out your scheme ' to win me for your wife, and so obtain my fortune 1 Until I know for certain that you did not, I can neither kiss you nor give you my hand, nor can I even assist you with my father's gold, Speak then, and rest assured that I shall be able to tell from your voice and manner, knowing you as I do, whether you are telling me the truth." "I don't ask for any help from your father's gold. I would rather die, now that I am so disgraced, than I'd live on, merely to hang like a mill-sfcone around your neck, Winny. But for all that I swear to you most solemnly that I did nothing whatever to hasten either your father's of his friend's death. The horror of being the .last man left alive on board that horrible raft would- have alone deterred me from such crimes, Surely you can believe that ? People don't think of scheming for a fortune when they are starving on a sailless sea out of the supposed track of all ships. Your father died exactly as I have more than ence narrated to you, atid Amos Kobinson bled to death thiough his lower limbs having beenliterally torn oil him by a sharkj,. yet even then my villainous scheme lay dead within me, until. I saw a vessel in the distance, and realised the joyous fact that it was bearing straight' down upon

me. Then a love of life-~a, life of wealth and «n;jbyraerit Came back to me with a rush, and the means presented itself in what . I knew was strapped around Amos Eobinson's Another moment and I had despoiled him of it, together with his watch and chain, and his diamond finger-ring and scarf pin, and when, not a quarter of an hour later, I was* hauled aboard the Hen and Chickens brig, and was asked my name, I gave it as Amos Robinson, and have stuck to that cognomen ever since. But — but, gracious heavens, what is the matter with you, Winny ? Oh, God, I forgot myself— the ring and pin are said to have been the murdered MrSfcurtfs. How could I have been such .•an itnbecile as to have mentioned them to you? ' : She looked so pale that he sprang forward to support her, believing that she was about to faint, but as he advanced towards her Winny shrank bask with such evident abhorrence that Loftus FitzGerald came to a sudden' standstill, and again inquired anxiously what he had said to terrify or offend her, to which she rejoined : ' "It might have been almost excusable to have defended yourself with falsehoods, but you have basely endeavoured to ca?t the blame of the crime that you are charged with upon the dead; upon my fathers faithful friend moreover ; aye, upon a man who was the very soul of probity and honour, and who can no longer defend himself against the foul and undeserved charge." As she concluded a kind of terror of her companion Beemed to fill Winny's breast, and rushing towards the cell door she beat at it with her fists, at the same time shrieking forth, "Oh, let me out I let me out! For God's sake 'let me out ! " Her appeal was responded to, The door was quickly opened. A hand and arm were extended to her and assisted her forth, The door was then reclosed with a slam, and with a clatter and a crash the bolts and chains once more secured it behind her, and as they did so the hapless prisoner within raised his hands to his head, muttered, " Deserted and doubted by her too. The rope will after all prove my truest friend, for it will at least give me forgetfulness and perhaps also oblivion," and so moaning, he tottered, reeled, and fell with a crash on the damp stone floor of his cell. Winny heard both cry and fall, and her heart smote her for what she had said and done. She had been actuated by momentary indignation and disgust, and they had impelled her, as it were, to do as she had done ; but now the reaction had already set in ; and she regretted her impetuous action and speech more than words can tell. She asked piteously to be allowed to return to her husband, pleading as an excuse that she had forgotten to tell him something ; " something that it was most essential he should know," but she was informed courteously that such a thing would be quite against the rules, and could not be entertained for a single moment. Then, suddenly and for the first time remembering Nelly Farrell, and bitterly censuring herself for not having done so before, she asked to be allowed to see her, but was told that as the 'barmaid and FitzGerald were implicated in the same crime, no possible communication could be allowed between them, for that as she (Winny) had just come out of the cell of one of the prisoners she could not be permitted to enter that of the other, lest she might be the bearer of some message of warning or advice. In vain did Winny aver that it was not so ; her asseverations were met by the remark that " it would be so in many cases, and when rules were made to defeat such projects it would be both unfair and dangerous to allow of any exceptions being made." Ere Winny could make any answer to this very plausible proposition, she felt something clutch the skirt of her dress and gave it a hearty tug, and on looking Bomewhat nervously round, she saw by the gaslight (for the sun never threw its cheerful a.nd healthful rays into that dark and grnesome corridor) little Jock Murray, standing inside the iron gate of one of the cells in which ordinary prisoners, charged with comparatively light offences, were confined, and perceived that he had caught hold of her by thrusting his hand and arm through the bars. "My poor little man, is that you?" Winny said kindly; immediately adding, " I heard that you were here, but couldn't learn wh&t for. I trust that you haven't got yourself into any serious scrape 1" "I dunno. Jones the trap [colonial for policeman] tyried to turn me into a pump, but work the handle how he would nothing would come of it. Then, when he lost his temper* and swore he'd run me in, I darted between his legs, and tripped him over nose forempst into the kennel. If I hadn't looked round to enjoy his plight it would have been all right enough, but that made me run right into the arms of- another trap, and that's mainly how I'm here. But, I say, what's the other purty lady locked up for — she as asked me to breakfast ? She was taken past my door yesterday afternoon, and I knew her in an instant." ' " Oh, nothing much. She a^d you will be both let out to-day, I hope. Indeed I feel lure of 'it, so keep up a brave heart, my little lad, and all will yet go well," replied Winny encouragingly.' " Lor, Miss, I'm only too thankful that you srten't come to lodge here yourself, for I'd begun to think that maybe you was. I believe that oid Jones got me locked up so that I shouldn't find out about that diamond finger ring and scarf pin that they say Mr FitzGerald stole from the man he's accused of killing, but which I'll take my davy that I' saw two diggers, and by the token one of them was called Robinson — Aaron Robinson I think it was " At this to Winny most intensely interesting point of the boy's narrative, the policeman who was in attendance on her evidently thought that ifc was his duty to interpose, for he exclaimed angrily, " Shut up, youngster, and I'd advise you to be careful that your tongue don't win you from three to seven years at Pentridge Stockade for wilful and corrupt perjury. Now, Mrs FitzGerald (turning round to our heroine), this really can't be allowed you know, and you'll get me into precious hot water if you try to continue it. Come along, do." " Never you mind, miss. You get me out

o' this and. all the rest will come easy enough," Jock sang out after her, and five minutes later Winny was standing outside the police-station in the bustling sun-lit street, almost dazed by her distraoting and Conflicting thoughts. Chapter XLIX. Mr Stephens Promiseß Winny a Decree of Nullity of Marriage. j The one thing that she could clearly make j out in her state of most painful bepuzzlement j was that Jock Murray's story fully supported her husband's statements concerning the dead man's diamonds; whilst it was most certain that there could have been no collusion between the boy and the man. J This made her more sorry than ever for the manner in which she had acted towards her husband, and caused her to almost forget, or at all events to entirely forgive the way in which he had treated her. Anxious as ever now to serve him, she looked at her watch, and upon discovering that it was five minutes to 9 o'clock, she hailed a car and drove off at once to her solicitors. She learnt that Mr Stephens had just arrived, and was disengaged, and on being shown into his private office, he rose from his chair, and received her with the most respectful and evidently deeply sympathising courtesy. " Very sad occurrences have happened since we met yesterday, and I wish from my heart that you were as little pained as I am sursurprised by them. You have been the innocent victim of £he most cruel and heartless fraud that perhaps was ever perpetrated, but, my dear madam, there is not the slightest need that you should ever become a murderer's widow, for there will be no difficulty in the world in getting you a decree of nullity of marriage, whereby you will recover your maiden name and your full liberty." " My husband has been very kind and good to me, and I do not for a moment believe that he committed the murder whereof he is accused," said Winny. "My dear madam, there cannot be the least doubt but that he did. In all my professional experience I have never come across a clearer case. The evidence against him is overwhelming ; there is not so much as even one weak link in the entire chain. I would bet a thousand to one that the jury will find him guilty without so much as leaving the box. You mustn't deem me cruel for being so blunt, because the fact' is that lam so for your own good. If I wound you it is not wikh a dagger, but with a surgeon's knife, and in order to cure you. For your own selfrespect's sake, and in order not to dishonour ycur good father's memory, you should shake yourself wholly free from this most degrading connection," said the lawyer persuasively, and yet with grave and impressive dignity. " I do not say that I will not seek release 1 from him when once he has escaped from his present peril," answered Winny, ," but I assuredly will not desert him whilst he stands on the very brink of the grave. Let me pluck him back from that, if only for the sake of one who loves him well, and has been the kindest possible friend to myself, and thenthen it will be ample time to think about severing my own connection with him. For the present I want to retain you and your partner's services to defend my husband." " Madam, we should be no true friends of yonrs did we undertake any such matter at your request, and permit me to add that it would be the most mistaken action of your 1 , life ; indeed, lam not at all sure that the law would not regard such a proceeding as a condonation on your part of the fraud perpetrated by this man, who calls himself your husband, upon yourself. There is the individual who you believed that you were marrying. I received the photograph last night from his solicitor, Mr Crook, of Bendigo, who I telegraphed for on my own responsibility after you left me on Saturday, little anticipating at the time the tremendous incidents that were on the point of happening, but determined, nevertheless, to confront the mock Amos Robinson with the legal adviser of the true one, so that the fraud should be knocked on the head as soon as possible, and you yourself set free from the coils that a scheming villain had enclosed you in." Winny looked at the cabinet portrait which Mr Stephens had laid before her, and beheld the presentment of a big and somewhat un-gainly-looking young man, clad in loose and ill-fitting clothes, and wearing a very " loud" necktie. He had certainly a handsome face, yet it was nevertheless the face of a goodlooking clown, and she felt that had he presented himself at Buttercup Farm he would have experienced a deal more difficulty in winning her than his fraudulent prototype had done. " I am still determined to do what in me lies for my present husband, whatever comes of it. As I said before, I believe him to be entirely innocent of the murder of Mr Sturt, added to which— and now I shall perhaps astonish you even more than I have done yet —I believe that that man, my father's friend, was the possessor of the diamo.id finger ring and scarf pin, that form such heavy items of evidence against my husband, up to the very moment of his own death." 11 On what earthly grounds?" commenced Mr Stephens, with his voice /and face expressing the most utter amazement, but ere he could get out another word Winny broke impatiently in \\ith : " Pray listen to all I've got to say and I will tell you everything ; then, having heard me, you can decide as to how you will act, though I tell you plainly that if you refuse to serve me in this matter, I shall go straight away and find another solicitor who will. Loftus FitzGerald has treated me very ill, I am willing to own, but that is no reason why he should be hanged for a crime which he ! perhaps never committed— aye, which I feel : perfectly sure that he never committed ; for though it would take very little to make me believe him guilty of forgery, robbery, fraud, or indeed of any crime against property, his is not a cruel nature, and I cannot credit that a man who I have seen, as it were, boiling over with indignation at witnessing a dog wantonly kicked, and at beholding boys stoning a donkey, would take a fellow creature's life under any temptation j whatever." This advocacy of Winny's had an evident : effect upon Mr Stephens, and he rejoined:

( " "Well,, say your say and you shaH'have, at all events a patient listener. Now, don't hurry or flutter yourself in the least, for I've nothing of much importance to attend to this morning, so that I can give you my time with a clear conscience, if nothing more." Thus encouraged, Winny told him everything that had happened since leaving his office on the preceding Saturday afternoon, and also of all that she had gathered concerning her husband from Nelly Farrell and Jock Murray, whom she also begged of him to do all in hii power to serve. When she had done Mr Stephens said to | her t " Well, you have persuaded me that your husband may, after all, be innocent of the murder of Mr Sturt. The tale that he told the barmaid on the very night of 1 the crime is, at the very least, plausible, and Sturt was j just the man to have acted towards him as FitzGerald accused him of doing. ' What the newsboy says about ', the ring and pin is certainly very remarkable, but I might think j it one of the olumsiest possible cock-and- [ bull stories did I not know the little lad to be both truthful and honest — honest sometimes under very great temptation to -the contrary, and loving truth even more tbafrbis own back, for I saw him once endure a very severe flogging that he might easily have escaped had he chosen to tell a clever falsehood which a less scrupulous companion whispered in his ear. I also happen to know that Miss Farrell is much respected by her employers, in whose service she has been almost ever since her arrival in the colony, I believe." "Then, sir," exclaimed Winny earnestly, " you will now act for all three prisoners, I feel very sure, and be kind enough to look to me for the costs in each of the cases." " Miss Farrell can very well afford to pay her own, and F>e no doubt will insist on doing so, for she is in receipt of a very good salary. As for Jock Murray, I will do whatever I can for him for the lad's own sake and without any thought of gain whatever. But as regards FitzGerald, I'm sorry to say that he's such a scoundrel, viewed in whatever light, that I can only bring myself to feel a very negative kind of interest in him ; nor, did I act for him, could I look to you for the costs. At all events, I could not allow you to spend on the fellow a single penny of the fortune that your poor father worked so hard to accumulate for your own sole benefit. Has j he no money of his own, this husband of | yours ? " " Oh, yes, he has more than a hundred, pounds of his very own still remaining," answered Winny. ; " Then, in that case, I'll act for him, and he shall pay me out of them. Out of them did I say ? My word, to defend him properly it will take them all. We must retain Aspinall on his behalf, for if anyone can get him off he will. A wonderful fellow is Aspinall, but he expects a big fee. Well, the labourer is worthy of his hire, you know. If you wish it I'll go and see the prisoner at once, and offer to do my best for him under the conditions that I have named? If I have to speak to him very plainly it'll be his own fault, for I shall consider it my duty to make him clearly understand that I'm not going to let your fortune be even dipped into in the matter, though I may all the same let him know that you're acting like a perfect angel of goodness towards him." " Serve him, and save him, sir, upon your own conditions ;. I place both him and myself unreservedly in your hands," responded Winny with grateful fervour. j " Then I'll get me gone at once, fcr there's not a minute to be lost, since the court will be sitting in another half -hour, and it looks as though nearly half the cases that will have to be tried there have suddenly fallen upon my hands. How do > you intend to spend your morning may I ask 1" " Can I not spend it in the court house ? " "If your nerves are well-strung, certainly. I warn you, though, that your husband will most certainly be committed to stand his trial. The cleverest attorney or counsel in the world couldn't get him put of that. Indeed, I shall advise him,, to reserve his defence. Reserve it ? , By Jove* we haven't got a defence yet, and the Sole chance of our getting one that'll save his neck seems to rest upon that mere child, Jock Murray. With only a week left to do it in too. However, sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. Bull, come along, for I want you to get this lady a good place in the .police court, and to put. yourself at her service there. Now, madam, we will be off." Five minutes later they had all arrived at their destination.

(To be continued.)