CHAPTER XXXIL—THE LITTLE DISCUSSION BETWEEN THE SEVERAL PARTIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2467, 26 June 1901, Page 65

CHAPTER XXXIL— THE LITTLE DISCUSSION BETWEEN THE SEVERAL PARTIES.

That night we held a consultation — we four. It was getting dead low tide with us. If we didn't light upon those treasures of the temple, we should have -to find a ship instead — and that before long — if •we had to go aboard of her as cabin boys. It seemed to me that something might be got out of Mr Paine, in the way of information. Things pointed that way. The more I thought the more they seemed /to point. I told the others. We decided to wait upon him in a body ; and man the rpumps for all we were worth. If he proved dry, if nothing could be got out of him, then we should have to admit that the tide was low, and that we were stranded. But we had hopes. The morning . after we were in Mitre Court, where his rooms were, betimes. The idea was that he shouldn't escape us ; that we would see him as soon as he was visible, and so play the part of the early ftrird that catches the worm. But when ] we found that the door into the street was j open, I, knowing the lay of the land, with- j out any parley led the way upstairs. And j it i\as well for him we did. For we came | upon os lively a little scene as ever we'd en countered. There was a larger company assembled thin we had expected. Quite what, was j fonppening we couldn't st once make out. 'Ihe first thing I saw was a girl tied down "upon a table, and — of all people in the j /vorld — that cursing gentleman .leaning j over her with a knife in his hand. Having I itora her clothes oj>en at the throat, he ! flooked as if he was going to write his i "■mame on her nice white skin with the point j of his blade. , | He got no farther than the start. I introduced myself, and landed him once. 'He didn't seem to know whether he was glad or sorry to meet me. I loosed the girl. When I looked round I saw the 3-oom was in a mess, and on the floor, /trussed like a fowl, was Mr Paine. But ; jwhat made me almost jump out of my j eskin for joy was f&e sight of our dear ' tfrend Luke tied up beside him. I released that excellent first officer. Then things were said. When he understood that we were spoiling to cut him up Into little pieces, and that it seemed likely i fchat he had fallen from the frying pan into ' the fire, he explained. Whafwe wanted to ' know was the present address at which Mr I Batters could be found. It seemed, ac- • cording to him, that he was aching to know . it too. my beautiful eyes !"' He spat upon ' the floor. "Do you think if I knew where jthe hearty was that I'd be here? He used me shameful ; he did that."' "It seems incredible that he should have used you badly, Mr Luke."' "It does — after all I'd done for him. But he did. After we "' | He coughed. 1 finished his sentence. I "Had taken such a ceremonious leave of fls. all on board the Flying Scud yes, go on." "We got picked up by a liner as was making Suez." j "As you anticipated* you 1 would be. I | see. You're a far-sighted person, Mr Luke." - j "Thay landed us at Suez. • We stopped ' there two or three days, getting packingcases to— to " " | 'To pack the treasures of the temple in. They must haye been rather conspicuous cbjeets to carry about with you, . anyhow. Ho on." "Then hang me if one evening I didn't •wake up and find that I'd been senseless for close on two days. The devil had liocussed me!" "Hocussed you? Impossible!" "He had. Then he'd slipped away, him and his blessed daughter, while I was tnore dead than alive, leaving me with as good as nothing in my pockets. What I had to go through no one knows. If I ever do set eyes on him again I'll "

The peroration was a study in adjectives. "Then it appears that you are just as j eager to have another interview with Mr Benjamin Batters as we are. lam sorry ( ' your venture was not ..attended with better ; fortune. It deserved success. Pray, what ' were you to have had out of it?' j "I was to have had half the blooming lot, and the girl." i "And the girl? Indeed! And the girl ! Mr Luke, I should dearly like " Mr Paine interposed. j "Excuse me, Captain Lander, but if it is of Mr Benjamin Batters you are speakin w, if it is to him so many mysterious references have been made as the Great Joss, then I may state that, to the best ' of my knowledge and belief, that gentleman is dead." "Dead? To the best of your knowledge and belief? What do you mean?' | As I stared at him a remark was made . by the young lady who had so narrowly [ escaped being made the subject of an experiment in carving. Although evidently : very far from being as much herself as she might have been, she had pulled herself together a little, and was holding both hands up to her throat. j "You're forgetting that Pollie's lying per- ' haps worse than dead in Camford street." Mr Paine gave a jump. j 'I naJ forgotten it — upon my honour !" i '•What's that?"' I askeS. | "Miss Blyth, to whom Miss Purvis refers as ' Polhe,' is the niece of the Mr Batters of whom we have bee» speaking. She's his heiress in fact." "His heiress?" "Yes; hie sole residuary legatee. Among other things he left her "a house in Camfovd street — No. 84 — an somewhat mysterious conditions. For instance, she was to allow no man to enter it." . i "No man?'' | "No ; only she and one feminine friend were ever to be allowed to put their feet inside the door." "Oh!" i I began to smell a rat. Mr Paine waved j hi? hand towards the young lady the curs-5 , ing " gentleman had been about 'to practise j on. . ' - ■ "This is Miss Purvis — the feminine friend I whom Miss Blyth chose to be her sole com- ' pfiiiion. Other conditions were attached . to j the bequest equally mysterious. Indeed", it ! would really seem as if "there were something in that hou«e in Camford street the existence of which the late Mr Batters was particularly anxious should be kept concealed from - the world. Miss Blylh only entered on the occupation of her property yesterday, yet Miss Purvis came at an' early hour this morning to tell me that something j extraordinary happened in the middle of the j night. Something, she doesn't quite know what, but fancies it was some wild animal, made a savage attach upon Miss Blyth with- j out the slightest provocation^ And when ! Miss Purvis recovered from the shock which the occurrence gave her she found that she herself Ixacl been thrown into the street." "Mr Paine!" I laid my hand upon the . lawyer's shoulder. "Do you know what's in- • side that house?" I "I haven't the faintest notion. How should I have?' j "It's the late Mr Batters !" "The late Mr Batters?" "The thing the existence of which Mr j Batters was most anxious to keep conj cealed was Mr Batters himself-*-for reasons. j So he's put about a cock-and-bull' story, : making out he's dead, and then hidden himI self in this house of which you're talk1 ing." j j "Captain Lander!" ' I "Mind, it's only my guess, as yet. But , I don't think you'll find that I'm sailing very wide of the wind. The more I turn ' things over, after listening to what you've said, the more likely .it seems to me that the Great Joss, whom we've .all been on, ' tiptoe to get a peep at, has hidden himself j in that house, which he pretends to have .left { to his niece, and is waiting there for us to find him. And I'm off to dc it!" j "Someone's had the start of you." j The interruption came from Rudd. The absence of the cursing gentleman and his I two friends explained his meaning. • I "They've gone hot-foot after him," I cried. "What's good enough for them is j good enough for me !" I j We journejed in three cabs. Speed was a -consideration, so we chartered hansoms. I went in front with Luke. He didn't seem J over and above auxious for my society, but I didn't feel as if I could be comfortable ' without him. So we went together. Rudd, Holley, and his chum came next. Mr Paine and the young lady last. I liked his manner towards that young lady. 1 In a lawyer, whom one naturally looks upon • as the most hardhearted of human creatures, j it was beautiful. He could not have treated her more tenderly if she had been a queen. j And, though she was still in a very sad condition, I have a sort of idea lhat. when they were once inside that cab, speed with • them wasn't much of a consideration. j And though those hansoms did rattle

us ulcng hi style we found that someone had got to that house in Cainfoid street in front of us. CHAPTER XXXIII.— IN THE PRESENCE. The cursing gentleman and his two friends were awaiting us upon the pavement. I said a word of a kind to the long 'un. "Look here, my bald-headed friend, I don't quite know who you are, or what you want, but I've seen enough of your little ways to know they're funny; so if you take my advice you'll make yourself scarce before there's trouble." He held out his hands, looking, on the dirty pavement of that shabby street, like a fish out of water. "The Great Joss! The Great Joss! He is in there ! Give him back to vs — then we go." 7* I reflected. After all there was some reason in the creature. He was almost as much interested in Mr Batters as I was. Considering how Mr Batters had treated me I didn't see why he shouldn't learn what an object of interest he really was. It might occasion him agreeable surprise; the fellow was in such dead earnest. It beat me how he and his friends had got where they were. Reminded me of the flocks of migratcry birds which one meets far out at sea. Goodness only knows by what instinct they pursue the objects of their search. I turned to Mr Paine. "This gentleman was high priest, or something of the kind, in the temple in which MiBatters was Number One God." "Number One God?" "That's about the size of it. . He was agod when I first made his acquaintance. This gentleman's own particular. Since he and his friends have come a good many thousand miles to get another peep at him, I don't think there'll be much harm in letting them have one — if he's to be got. So, so far as I'm concerned, right reverend sir, you can stop and see the fun." Mr Paine stared. He didn't understand. The look With which he regarded the foreign gentleman wasn't friendly. The experience he had had 1 of his peculiar methods was a trifle recent-. ' Perhaps it rankled. I turned my attention to the house in i front of which the- lot of -us were standing — cabs and all. ** "The question is, since no one feeems inclined to open the door, how are we going tp get in to enable us to pay our little morning call?" Rudd practically^ suggested one way by hurling himself against the "door as if he had been a battering-ram. He might s i well have tried his luck against a stone j wall. As much impression would have been ] made. When I ran my stick over it ifc sounded to me like a sheet of metal. Luke proffered his opinion. "You'll want a long chisel for this job. Or , a pair. Nothing else'll do it. That door's been put there to keep people out — not to let 'em in. It'll be like breaking into a strong room." Luke proved right. All our efforts* were unavailing. That door had been built to ! keep folk out. - ? | "If this is going to be a case for chisels, "' | said Rudd, "we'd bettei ■ start on it at ; once— before those police come interf ering. " j We were already the centre of attraction tr* a rapidly-increasing crowd. Our goingson provided entertainment of a kind they, didn't care to miss. Kong before we had put that job through the police did come. What is more, we were glad to see them. Rudd fetched a pair of ' crowbars from, aa ironmonger's shop close by. With his ( assistance, and acting under his instructions we started to shift that door. We never got beyond the starting. We might as well have tried to shift the monument. He rigged up contrivances; tried dodges. There was the door just as tight as ever. And just as j we were thinking of breaking the heads of j some of "the members of that interested crowd, up the police did come. Mr Paine explained to them what we were after. Then Ec and the young lady and Rudd went off with one of them to the station, while another stayed behind. In. course of time they returned — together with an inspector, three more policemen, and two specimens of the British working man, who were wheeling something on a barrow, j The interest of the crowd increased. The new arrivals were received with cheers. j ""Those workmen, in conjunction with Isaac Rudd, fitted up a machine upon the pavement. It was some kind of a drill, 1 believe. Presently not one, but half a dozen holes had been cut right through that door. Into these were inserted crowbars of a different construction to those we had been using. We all lent a hand, and the door was open. The crowd pressed forward. "Keep back!" cried the inspector. And the police kept them back. The inspector entered, with the young lady, Mr Paine, Rudd, and I. The rest were kept out, including the cursing gentleman and his two friends. Which seemed

hard on them, alter all they must have ' gone through. But it was little that they 103t — at the beginning anyhow. !For as soon as we set foot inside the passage we found that there was another door defying us. It seemed to lead into a room upon our left. Rudd called one of the workmen in to consult with him. They ■ sounded the door, they sounded the wall, and concluded that the shortest way into j ti^i room was through the wall. Soon i the house was being knocked to pieces be- | fore our eyes. There was sheet iron on the other side that wall. But they were through it in what seemed no time. And there was a great hole, large enough to admit of the passage of a man. And on the other side of this hole stood Susie ! I She stared at us. and we stared at her, , neither understanding who the other was. I But when I did understand I felt as if my legs were giving way. And something . inside me set up a clamour which was deafening. And when she saw it was me she called out "Max!"' She was through that wall like a flash of lightning. I had her in •my arms almost before I knew it. "Susie .'" I said. "My sweet !" I could tell by the way of her that she knew more about wives than she did when I saw her last, and that she had , grown reconciled to the idea of being one. J And perhaps a bit more than reconciled, , the Fates be thanked. Miss Blyth was in the room with her, j alive and sound, and, indeed, unhurt, j They had been frightened out of their wits ' when they heard us, and at the noise we made, thinking they were going to be murdered, at the least. . i "Where's your father?" I asked. | I "When he brought her in," she answered, ' ' meaning Miss Blyth, "he went out, shutting the door behind him, and taking the key. He left us prisoners. We've been prisoners ever since. We've heard and seen nothing of him. Where he is I don't know. Unless he's above." . j He was above. In a room at the top j of the house, with another door to it. j "So that we had to get through the wall j ! again. ■ j He had had a sorfof ..throne rigged up ; j ""intending, maybe, to have an., imitation of j the one- which he nad occupied' when^l had '• firsts come upon him - in- the temple. 'It that was so the imitation was a precious poor one. But he was on it — dead, and coid.- He had been gone some hours, j Whether, he had committeed filicide, or < whether Jthe end had come to him in the ; ordinary course of nature, there was no- i thing to show. I A colony of snakes was in the room — j ! those favourites of his. One shared the ; 1 throne with the Great Joss. It was on '■ the seat, in front of him ; where his legs J ought to have been. My idea was that | the thing had killed him. But it seemed [ ' that that was not the case. The crea- -j tures were declared not to be venomous, j And there -«-as no mark of a snake-bite I about him anyhow. j While we stood looking at the throne, . ' and what was on it, there was a movement I I behind. The cursing gentleman and his , I two friends came in. At sight ~of the ! ! Great Joss they threw themselves on their ! ! faces, and bit the floor. I never saw men jso scared — or so surprised. I had a sort ! j of notion that they had supposed him to be immortal ; and that he couldn't die. ! -When the body came to be examined, and i 'it was discovered what a torso it really ' was, and to what prolonged and hideous tortures the man must have been subjected, one began to understand that they might ' i have had reasons of their own for thinking so. It might very well ha.ye been incomprehensible to them why, if he could die, he hadn't died. I At the foot of the throne was the little i doli-like thing 1 which I had seen perched I -on the head of the fifty-thousand pound ' | monstrosity. He had called it the God j of Fortune ; saying that where it was he : was not far away. | The case seemed to present an illustration , of the truth of his words. The doll was , broken to atoms. The Great Joss and the God of Fortune seemed to nave come to { an end together.