THE NOVELIST.

Otago Witness, Issue 3338, 6 March 1918, Page 48

THE NOVELIST.

[All Rights Reserved.]

No. 7 SAVILLE - - SQUARE.

By WILLIAM QUEUX. CHAPTER VI (Continued).—AN EXPLANATION. The detective kept his keen eyes upon Temple. He had known Temple for some time, and' had a good opinion of his intelligence. But, after all, Temple was only an amateur. Who was he to match his intelligence against that of a trained detective? Temple went on in his quiet voice. " I think I told you that I turned up on this adventure to-night on account of my friend, Mr Bravington. Well, -when I started out on it I was not'greatly interested. My friend had heard the story of the moving lights, etc., which was accidentally corroborated by Brown, who is now watching in the back garden. When I saw those lights there seemed something in it." Smeaton nodded his head. ' "I quite agree. Tnere was something in it, then, and there is more in it now." " There is more in it now, Smeaton. The long arm of coincidence reaches very far. Well, I, a writer of blood-curdling mystery stories, and an amateur detective to boot, have had to-night the shock of my life." lie paused, and for a second turned away his face. Bravington, always sympathetic, knew that his friend was struggling with the emotion which he did not wish to reveal to this keen-eyed detective. umeaton waited,' but made-no comment, joravington did not think he was the sort of man who would help a lame dog over the stile. He lacked imagination; he simply confined himself to hard facts, the harder the better. And Temple quickly recovered himself and spoke to the Scotland Yard detective. "As I have already told you, I did not anticipate any remarkable results from my adventure to-night. I thought we should all go home to our beds, thinking my friend Bravington and myself were a couple of fools." The detective kept his keen eyes upon him, but still refrained from comment. He knew, of course, from the man's strained manner that something more was to come. "Well, we come to this dreary square. We watch, and just as we are giving it up as a bad job we see the moving lights. We get into the house, and we find on the floor of the back Kitchen the body of a murdered girl." Smeaton repeated slowly, " The body of a murdered girl." ' Temple paused a moment before he could trust himself to speak. " When you went upstairs after Brown, you left your lantern ; my friend and I did not want to look upon that ghastly figure. But I, the bolder of the two, turned the light on her, and I recognised a girl that I have known for some time, a girl I loved, and from whom I parted twelve months ago in anger because another man had oome between us." "You, then, have a clue," cried Smeaton in an eager voice. Temple shook his head. He was going to be open with Smeaton to a certain point, but not beyond. He would wait till he found out more. "Unfortunately, none," he answered quietly. " I became acquainted with her in a very strange and romantic way, and I knew next to nothing, of' her antecedents or connections. She was very reserved, and I always felt that there was a mystery about her." *'You know where she lived, anyway. You have given me to understand you were lovers?" queried Smeaton. " I knew where she lived twelve months since, when I parted from her in temper. A few weeks later, after my first anger had passed, I called at her lodgings,, with the intention of resuming our relations. The landlady told me she had left suddenly about a month before I called." " Did you endeavour to trace her?" asked the detective. Temple's smile was a little ironical. "Of course I did, Smeaton. Even an amateur detective would do that. But, as my own efforts were unavailing, I called in the services of a professional. He was no more successful than I. Ellen Deane had disappeared, and left no trace behind." "She was pretty clever, then," was Smeaton's comment. Bravington thought he saw his friend wince at the plain-spoken comment on the dead girl. "Yes, she was as you say, clever. _There was no clue. For weeks I haunted every likely place in which she might be found. I knew her favourite shops, the neighbourhoods in which I had been with her. But 1 never *set eyes on her again till to-night, in this lonely house, done to death by an unknown assassin." Smeaton reflected for a moment.- "How did she live?" he asked presently. "You will excuse my asking the question. But you know, I am not prompted by any idle spirit of curiosity. I want to get at the heart of this mystery." "I quite understand." He could not but appreciate the delicacy of the apology. Smeaton might not be a very sensitive man, but he understood that the murdered girl had been dear to Temple, and he did not wish him to be unduly harassed. " I quite understand Smeaton. We both want to bring home this crime to the dastardly hound who committed it. I was curious, naturally, about this point myself, and questioned her several times about it. She always stuck to the same

explanation. Her aunt had left her a small income, which was just sufficient to keep body and soul together." " Had you any reason to doubt her statement?" _ s "In a way, no—that is to say, I had no actual proof that she was telling an untruth. But she always dealt - very quickly with the subject, and never dronned any details. Some inner sense told me that she was not frank; in short, that there was a mystery about her, young as she was, that she would not explain. You have, many times, seen in the box a reluctant witness." " Hundreds of times," assented Smeaton with a grim smile. " Whenever I got on to private or personal matters, her attitude was always that of the reluctant witness." " And yet you were lovers ?" queried the detective. "We were, in an undefined way," answered Temple. " Half a dozen times I asked her point-blank to marry me. And, although she vowed she returned my affection, she managed to put me off with one excuse or another." ■. " And you asked her to be your wife, knowing nothing of her antecedents, and aware that she was a mysterious person?" Poor Smeaton, the man of hard facts and common sense, could not quite understand a sane man acting in such a fashion. Temple smiled a little forlornly. " The artistic temperament, Smeaton, is a very queer one.', I had intelligence enough/ all the time to know I was a fool. But I preferred my folly." "And then you broke with her on account of your suspicions of another man?" The detective was resolved to keep to the point. Temple went on with his reminiscences. " Yes; we had made an appointment for lunch on a certain' day, and I was to call for her at her lodgings in a very humble quarter of Bloomsbury. I looked in at my club about twelve o'clock, and found a wire from her. It said she was going out shopping; that I was not to call, and she would meet me at one at the restaurant where we usually lunched." fameaton lifted his eyebrows. "Of course, you smelt a rat." '* Yes; I felt there was.something behind it. I hesitated for a few moments, then my mind was made up.- I jumped into a taxi and stopped at the end of the street in which she lived. Within a few yards of the house I saw a man come out, closing the street door carefully and quietly behind him."

The detective spoke a little excitedly. "Would you know the man if you saw him. again." "I should know him out.of ten thousand; his face is imprinted on my memory. I let him get out of the street before I knocked at the door. The servant told me Mis 6 Deane was in. I burst into the sitting room, which was reeking with tobacco smoke —the man had a half-con-sumed cigar in his mouth when I met him, —and demanded to know the name of her visitor, and why she had sent me that Iving telegram." Both Bravington and the detectives were listening with the deepest interest. Temple's voice broke with emotion, his eyes flashed, as he recalled that memorable day. "It was a terrible scene. My growing suspicions had justified themselves. One moment I overwhelmed her with reproaches; the next I promised her forgiveness if she would make a clean breast of it and speak the truth." " And the result?" It was the hitherto silent Bravington who spoke this time. " What can easily be guessed. At first she lied and_.declared that nobody had been there, forgetting that half-a-crown would have bribed the servant to tell the truth. I pointed out to her the smell of the cigar, which she had probably forgotten. Then she broke down, and at last admitted she had received a visitor." " Vvnose name, of course, she would not disclose," remarked the astute Smeaton. "Of course not. She took what, I suppose, was the only course open to her. She assumed an attitude of injured innocence, declined to cive any explanation. If I refused to trust her, it was better we should part. I took her at her word. •I left the house, and never saw her again till to-night." There was a long pause, and then Smeaton spoke in his most impressive accents. "It is early yet, and we may find the murderer on the premises. But have you formed any theory in your own mind, Mr Temple?" And Dick Temple answered slowly: "I have an idea, rather call it an instinct, that if we can put our hand upon the man I met that morning coming out of the house in which she lodged, we shall find the murderer of Ellen Deane." CHAPTER VII.—LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT. Smeaton, having extracted as much as he could from Temple, and noi finding it of much practical use, proceeded to make a systematic search of the empty premises. On the basement they found a scullery window-open. It was a goodsized window, and a fairly slender, active man could have escaped through it. Smeaton made his comment upon the fact. "It is pretty evident the murderer went through this window after doing his work. And he must have been fairly thin and agile to get through it. Don't you say so, Mr Temple?" Temple looked at it critically. "Yes," he said at length. "I think it could be done if it were the only escape left. On the other hand, it may be a blind, and he has got out by other means. Personally, I doubt if he- went out by that window."

" Then, .in that case he is hiding somewhere in this empty house," said Smeaton sharply; " Possibly," assented Temple, rather coldly. He did not appear from his judicial manner to either endorse or question

the inspector's statement. "We shall know that in a few minutes from now." Smeaton seemed to rather resent his calm manner. "Come now, sir, have you formed any theory? If so, in the interests of justice let us have the benefit of it."

But Temple was not to be drawn. " I haven't had time to invent a theory yet. I'm only going for the moment on destructive criticism. And, I take it, the murderer, whoever he may be, was quite as clever—perhaps a little bit cleverer—than we are. My opinion is, h e left that window open to lead us on a fake scent." They examined every nook and cranny in the basement. Brown kept watch in a miserable patch of yard that marched back to back with the yards of a square just behind. The constable on duty kept ward in front. If the murderer was still in the house, and tried to escape, he must fall into the hands of y one or the other. And, inside, the three men would hold Jiim safely.-. At the end of ten minutes they came down, baffled and disappointed. Every room, every cupboard had been searched on every floor. As every, room was empty, the investigation was not very difficult or prolonged.

And Smeaton spoke triumphantly. "He must have gone out through that scullery window, and'jumped or climbed over the low walls till he reached the end of the square. He might have had a vehicle waiting for him. Anyway, he is far enough away by now." "Your theory seems right," answered Temple quietly. But he remembered the flashing lights and the short time that there had been for the murderer to escape. Somehow, he could not quite believe in that scullery window. They went out of the street door and stood for a few moments till the ambulance arrived. It came, and the body of the poor murdered girl was lifted into it. It drove off, and the three men were left chatting on the pavement, discussing the horrible tragedy. Suddenly the door of No. 6 was opened and a somewhat fantastic female figure stepped out and approached them. She was evidently over middle age, but even in the dim light they could see she was made up to look young. She spoke to Smeaton, as being the elder of tlie party. " Excuse me," she began. She spoke English quite perfectly, but her voice had a foreign accent. " But what is there going on here? I looked through the window a little time ago and saw a constable and another man talking together. And then an ambulance drove up, and I saw something lifted into it. What has taken place?"

Smeaton answered in his blunt way. '' Murder, madam, nothing more nor less. I ancT my two friends were watching the house for certain reasons to-night, and we made up our minds to break in. We found a young woman lying on the" floor of the kitchen, stabbed to the heart." The strange-looking woman lifted her hands with a gesture unmistakably foreign. " Mon Dieu,!" she cried, relapsing into, her native French tongue. " Do you mean to tell me this poor creature is dead, murdered, in this peaceful city of London? Mon Dieu!. It is terrible. What motive? In an empty house! Can such things be?" Smeaton regarded her with that tolerant indifference with which the average Englishman regards' a foreigner. She was an emotional Frenchwoman 'who had been peeping through the blinds, and curiosity had driven her forth. Bravington took no notice of her. Temple observed her curiously. " You are Madame le Coq, I think," he said shortly, " and you live here with your nephew, Mr Raymond Jay?" She turned to him the elderly face full of wrinkles that even the resources of art could not hide. " Monsieur is quite right. Does monsieur know my nephew, Raymond Jay?" " I have not the honour," replied Temple. " I have only learned your names from a constable on the beat here, as being neighbours of the late tenant, Mr Rathburn." "Ah yes! Mr Rathburn, an old gentleman with glasses; his son lived with him." She shrugged her capacious shoulders. " We never spoke with either of them, but I heard this from my servants." She turned from Temple, who did not seem to interest her, to the burly detective. " Tell me, monsieur, this poor child whose body I saw lifted into the ambulance. Are you sure she is dead? Will they not be able to make her live at your hospital, or wherever they may be taking her?" " Life is quite extinct," explained Smeaton gravely. Again the hands went up with that unmistakable foreign gesture. " But, gentlemen, how terrible, how awful! Excuse me if t leave you. I am unnerved, desolee. To think of such a thing happening next door." She bowed gracefully and withdrew into her own house. Bravington scarcely noticed her. Temple followed, her with his shrewd, scrutinising glance. The three men walked a little farther on to a stand for taxis. Smeaton, having the matter in hand, took one. Temple and his friend got into another and drove to the club. Arrived there, Temple led Bravington into a quiet corner of the smoking room and ordered drinks. Then he spoke. "I've been terribly upset to-night, Jim, and I want somebody to talk to. I didn't wish to say more than I could help before that pompous ass, who thinks himself the embodiment of detective wisdom. You're in love yourself, aren't you?" With a slight heightening of colour the gallant young lieutenant admitted the soft impeachment. "Well, you'll make the better listener to what I am going to tell you. I loved that girl with every fibre of my being. I worshipped the ground she trod on. My. heart was a doormat for her feet to trample on." " Oh, oome, old man," ' expostulated

Bravington, who felt a little shocked when affection was expressed in such vivid terms, devout lover as he was. "You've no imagination, Jim. You shy when one expresses actually what he feels. If you really knew it, your heart is doormat for Mis 3 What's-her-name— l beg your pardon, Miss Paske, to trample on, when she pleases." Bravington made no answer, and Temple went on in his quietly vehement _ way. " Well, as soon as the waiter brings the drinks I am going to tell you the whole history from the start —the end you have seen to-night—of my relations with that poor murdered child." The waiter brought the drinks. The two men lighted up their cigars, and Temple began his narrative in low tones. "It is about eighteen months ago that I was crossing from France by the midday boat. I had been to Paris for a couple of days on a bit of journalism for the Sundial, and, finished the job sooner than I anticipated, put in twentyfour hours at Boulogne, a place which I am extremely fpnd of. " T put up at my usual hotel. It was very late in the season, and when I went in to dinner the room was nearly empty. There was a Frenchman and his wife at a table at the far end. The only other occupant was an exceedingly pretty, graceful girl, dressed quietly but very becomingly, who sat by herself, and was obviously English. The few French words she addressed to the waiter from time to time, in a very clear voice, were spoken with a decidedly British accent. " My table was next to hers, and we sat facing each other. I looked at her as often as I could, when I could be sure that her eyes were on her plate, and was much struck with two things—her extreme prettiness arid a-self-possession that seemed unusual in so young a girl. I guessed her age at something over twenty." " It seemed to me rather ridiculous that two compatriots in a foreign country should be sitting silent at separate tables, when they could have enjoyed a sociable meal together, if only through the introduction of the waiter. "If I had only known she was going p to be there, I think I should have bribed my old friend, Francois, to put me at her table. Then I could have asked her if she objected to my presence, and the rest would have been plain sailing. " However, to strike up an acquaintance in the dining room was now impossible, so I had to wait for a later opportunity. She got through her meal very quickly, and rose, asking the waiter to bring her coffee in the lounge. "When she was gone I called Francois. ' Do you know who the young lady is?' I asked him. "'I only know she is a Miss Deane,' was the answer. I may mention that my friend Francois speaks English perfectly, with a French accent, of course. 'I fancy,' he went on, ' she was here a few months ago with an elderly gentleman whom she called uncle. I could not swear to it; we see so'many people here, ae monsieur knows, but.l am pretty certain.' " I did not make any inquiries about the elderly gentleman ; I was not interested in him. But I was more than interested in this pretty girl, who seemed so young and so self-possessed for her age. "I raced through the rest of my dinner as quickly as possible, lighted up a cigar, and bade Francois bring me my coffee into the lounge, too. The girl was young, but she could not have acquired that solfpossession without mixing with the world. She would not be alarmed, or frightened, at a stranger picking up a brief acquaintance with a compatriot at a foreign hotel. " I strolled into the lounge. She was sitting with her coffee on a little table before her, turning the pages of an American magazine. As I strolled slowly in her direction she lifted her eyes, and our glances met. " I took the bull by the horns at once and made some trivial remark about the emptiness of the hotel. She seemed quite as readv for conversation as I was. I regretted the half-hour or so that we had wasted observing each other furtively from our respective tables. " ' I call it positively mournful,' she said with a smile. 'lf I had to stop here a week under the same conditions, I think I should go melancholy mad. Thank heaven, I am crossing to-morrow." " I informed her that I was doing the same. In five minutes from my accosting her we were chatting away as easily and merrily as if we were old acquaintances. "At length I ventured to ask her how she was going to kill time during the ■evening. She shrugged her shoulders. 'I suppose I shall read till it is time to go to bed.' "I ventured to make a suggestion. I could see that she was quite unconventional, and utterly free from maiden shyness. But there was not a suspicion of fastness about her. " I told her I was going over to the Casino, and said that it would give me great pleasure if she would allow me to escort her there. For a moment she seemed dubious; then she smiled with that pretty, sunny smile which I knew afterwards so well. 'lt is very kind of you; it would certainly be much better than sitting here in solitude till the clock strikes ten.' " I told her that I already knew her name from Francois, Avho was an old acquaintance of mine, and would vouch for my respectability. Then I drew my cardcase from my pocket and handed her a card, which gave full information as to who I was and where I lived. I didn't want her to take me for an adventurer." Bravington interrupted the flow of conversation for a second. " And did you form any impression of her?" " Nothing very defined. The one thing I felt sure of was that she was not, in any sense of the world, a fast girl. There was a somewhat cosmopolitan air about her, as if she might havo spent the greater part of her life m foreign cities. It came out in the course of conversation that she knew Paris, "Vienna, Pome, Berlin. To me this accounted for her lack of conven-

tionality. You see, I was very attracted. Of course, I knew later that it was a genuine case of love at first sight. But I did not want to probe overmuch at this early stage of our acquaintance. "" Well, we went to'the Casino. We did a little mild gambling on the horses. In the end I lost, and she lost, too, insisting upon paying her losses out of what seemed a pretty-well-filled purse. "We camo back to the hotel. I smoked a last cigar, had a little more conversation, chiefly concerned with our recollections of foreign capitals, and then we said good-night. I noticed that, on the topic of these foreign places, I did most of the talking; she only chimed in occasionally." Braivington nodded his head. " Did she at all give you the idea that she didn't want to be too precise as to details?" " Yes ; in spite of my being fascinated, I could not resist that impression. Well, next morning we met at breakfast, and this time sat at the same table. Afterwards, to kill time till the boat started, we strolled round the town. In the course of our walk I said to her: ' By the way, Francois tells me you were here a little time ago in the full season.' " I thought I saw a slight flush come to her cheek, but she met my gaze perfectly candidly. ' Yes, I was here for a few-days -with my uncle; I am going back to him now.' If she had denied it I should have felt a trifle suspicious. Still, there was this peculiar reserve about her, the careful avoidance of mentioning anything that could lead to more particular identification, which certainly puzzled me. " This attitude was maintained till we got on board the boat. Then, during the crossing she told me her history. And, I must say, told it with every appearance of frankness. I am now going to tell you what she told me." (To be Continued.)