THE NOVELIST.

Otago Witness, Issue 3339, 13 March 1918, Page 48

THE NOVELIST.

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No. 7 SAVILLE - - SQUARE.

By WILLIAM QUETJX. CHAPTER VIIL—THE PHOTOGRAPH. Bravington listened with the closest attention. He had been brought unexpectedly into the world of mystery, and he began to exhibit the greedy appetite of the novice who has supped briefly on horrors. Temple continued \his narrative. "I told her everything about myself, mentioning names, places, and circumstances in a lavish fashion, that could leave no doubt as to my sincerity. I did this, of course, in the hope that I should stimulate a corresponding confidence on her part. . "For the first half-hour —by this time we had grown very intimate —she maintained her reserve. Then, suddenly, the barriers were broken down—whether from impulse or design, I do not know to this hour, —and she told me /portions of her history. "According to her statement, delivered as I told you, in the frankest manner, she had been left an orphan at a very early age. Her parents she scarcely remembered. She had been adopted by an aunt, her mother's sister." " Did she ever mention the aunt's name?" queried Bravington, who, by this timej was getting a bit of a detective himself. "She did; but as the name she gave was the common one of Smith, that did not help me much. Well, I am relating the story as it was told me. This 'Miss Smith had a decent income of something like nine hundred" a year. Unfortunately, to the extent of seven hundred and fifty, she* had only a life interest. When she died, this went back to certain relatives, and there was only a' hundred and fifty a year left at her own disposal. ' ' When I met her, her aunt had been dead about a year. During Miss Smith's lifetime they had practically lived abroad, coming" to England at infrequent intervals. They had lived in cheap pensions and hotels in the various cities of the Continent. This was sufficient to account for the self-possession and. general air of cosmopolitanism that pervaded her. A girl who travels about from pillar to post on the Continent soon forgets to be conventional." James Bravington, struggling bravely with all these new circumstances, admitted that his x friend was probably rignt. Still, he had his doubts. He could not think of his dear Lilian, even if 6he had been roaming the best part of her life over the Continent, going off to Boulogne Casino with a stranger, and telling him all her life history the following day. " This small income-of one. hundred and fifty a year had been left her by" her aunt, under the trusteeship of her brother, a Mi* George Smith, who resided in the neighbourhood of Balham; the capital was to come to her when of age." "And Mr Smith, I suppose," interrupted Bravington, " had an imposing villa, with a small carriage drive in front?" Temple did not heed the interruption. " Since her aunt's death she had been living about with friends of her aunt, mostly, I gathered, foreign and hotel acquaintances." Bravington was beginning to warm to detective work. " Did it strike you as strange, Jim, that nobody should have be*n at Boulogne to see her off?" Temple waved his hand impatiently. " My dear chap, are you trying to teach me? Do you think I didn't see the weak points in her story as well as you do? I forced myself to swallow it because I was falling in love." Bravington retired abashed. "Please forgive me, old man ; that makes all the difference. I'm only trying to prove to you that I have a small measure of brains." Temple bestowed on him a kindly glance. " You're a good sort, Jim. Let me get on; it eases me ~to talk to-night. Well, on the boat, I forced the pace. By the greatest of lucK, on the train, we got a first-class compartment to ourselves." " That," said the genial Bravington, " was a great opportunity." " It was. I went the pace then. I wasn't such a fool as to pretend that I had never fancied a woman before. But I vowed to her, and it was the absolute truth, that I had fallen desperately in love with her, and I should bo miserable if I never saw her again." "And what did she say to that?" Bravington was getting deeply interested now. " She behaved just absolutely as a pure and straight girl would do under similar

unconventional circ-distance*. , She did not fail into my arms«like a ripd piam. She just' admitted she liked me very much. My poor little Nellie!" ■ He broke down for a moment and turned his face away. Bravington, the most sympathetic of mortals, turned away too. There was present before both of them the .vision of that huddled form on the bare floor of No. 7 Saville square. " I asked her, naturally, to allow me to call upon her uncle, so that I could satisfy him of my position, etcetera." "And, of course, she demurred," interjected Bravington. " She explained that her uncle was a very peculiar man, and afflicted with a violent temper. She did not know how he would take it unless she prepared him. Would I wait until she wrote to me? Of course, I said I would." At this juncture Bravington made no comment. He was but as wax in the hands of Lilian. Dick Temple had been but as wax in the hand of this siren. It was not fbr him to criticise. We can all see when our brothers are blind, but can we .always see more clearly than our blind brothers? "Wc got to, Charing Cross. She gave me the direction very clearly, and I gave it. to the driver of' the taxi. She promised to write in a week or a fortnight at the latest. I waited a week, I waited a fortnight. I was so mad with longing to see her that I was half on the point of disobeying her injunctions, and storming her uncle's house." "It was what I should have done at once," said the lieutenant, in his amateur wisdom. " I had promised her to wait. Well, at the end of three weeks I had rather got into the don't-care stage. She had led me on, she had played with me, she could go to the devil. But she was always in my thoughts. One moment I hated her, the next I longed for her more desperately than ever. I should see her again, and there would be an explanation of her silence." Bravington nodded judiciously. He was becoming not only an amateur detective, but a student of psychology. "I quite understand, old chap. It was very natural. Go on." "After that second week—and this was the -time I had" made up my mind not to believe in her at all—l thought I would test that little matter of her uncle's address. He lived, according to her directions to the taxi-driver, at No. 7 Palmeira Gardens, Balham, b-.W. I went to this rather out-of-the-way suburb, and turned up the local directory. The tenant of this particular house was no Mr George Smith, as she had led me to suppose, but a blameless citizen rejoicing in a name that I now forget. There was an obvious lie here." iiravington thought deeply for a moment, then he burst out with a great inspiration. "And, having in your mind all the while a rooted distrust of the girl, do you mean to tell me you never noted the number of the taxi in which she drove away?" Temple hung his head almost humbly. "Jim, old man, you have scored. It was, under, the circumstances, an unpardonable omission." " I should think so," retorted Bravington with fine scorn. "As soon as she was beyond earshot, she put her head out of the window, and • told the chauffeur to drive to the proper destination." , Temple looked at him with gathering admiration. He had a little despised his old 'school fellow in the past for the lack of certain showy gifts. He began to recognise that behind that somewhat slow, unimpressive manner there was a mentality which expressed itself more in action than speech. In love, or out of love, Bravington, the embryo builder of Empire, would not have forgotten to take the number of that taxi. Dick Temple, the quicker and more profound brain, forgot to take it, because he was in love. " Well, let me get on with my story. At the end of the third week I had a letter. She asked me to forgive for not having written before, but she had experienced a very trying time with her uncle. He was a man of the most irascible temper, and they had mutually agreed to part. She was living in apartments in a rather mean street in the Bloomsbury quarter, and would.l come to see her any afternoon I liked. I was to make my own appointment." And,' of course, you went next day," said Bravington with a sympathetic smile! If he had only received such a letter from Lilian! " Yes, I am afraid I did not exhibit a vestige of pride. I counted the minutes, the hours, till I could see her face to face. And there was still that infernal lie about her uncle's address between us." How did she get over tnat?" asked the lieutenant. " Oh, very easily," Temple smiled a little bitterly. " I am afraid, poor darling, she had a native talent for intrigue. At first, of course, I was so overjoyed to see her that I could not bring up anything to cast a shadow over our reunion. She chatted away about her uncle and her cousin. Mr George Smith was a widower, and she mimicked a queer old butler in shabby clothes. It aonearcd sha loathed the whole establishment." " Well, well, Dick," said BtavLigK-n a little impatiently/. "I quito understand all you nayo told me. What I want to know is this—how did she get over that faked address to the taxi-driver?" Tempi •» leaned back in his chair and half-closed his eyes. Bravington was growing very subtle, but he much preferred his friend in his usual mood, that of calm indifference to things which did not immediately concern him. " Old chap," he said. "I can see you are rapidly developing into a Sherlock Holmes. But be merciful. But be merciful, and don't forget"—there was a little break in his voice here—-" please don't forget that she was very dear to me." He paused a second, then repeated: " Please she was very dear

to me-—in spite of her faulty, her follies, perhaps even her wickedness." Bravington reached out® his hand. "Dick, old man, I havs been a beast. Please forgive me. I have been trying to air my cheap wit at your expense. 1 '" Temple accorded him a forgiving nod. " Well, I taxed her with it, of course, and she explained it in that sort of way that left no chance of cross-examination. She said she was ■ convinced I was so desperately in love that if she had given me her proper, address I should have been on her uncle's doorstep next morning, and that, she said, would have spoiled everything." Again Mr Bravington interjected his wise remarks. "And you believed all this, Dick?" Temple shook Lis head. "No, I wanted to believe, but I was still doubtful. You're in love yourself, Jim. You would stretch a point in favour of the lady, eh?" Bravington drew himself up stiffly; he assumed a little of the quarterdeck manner. He did not want to hurt his friend's feelings, but he felt that Lilian Paske was not to be put in the same category with this poor little girl whom Temple, with his emotional temperament, had come across at the hotel in Boulogne, and exalted into a heroine. " I'm sorry, old man, if I hurt your feelings in any way, but I think there is a little difference." Temnle understood the view his friend took, but, on the other hand, he could not fail to appreciate the rather shamefaced way in which Bravington had insisted upon the difference between the two girls. However, he took no notice and went on with his narrative. - " Well, given a young man ,and a young woman, the young woman apparently leading a lonely life—for months I believe I was her sole companion,—you can guess what was likely to happen." " Of course, you became lovers," said Bravington. " I was desperately in love with her; that you have understood from the beginning. Whether she was really.in love with me I could never be sure of. She was swjee't and charming and affectionate. Perhaps she was grateful that I shed a little brightness upon what must have been a very dull time." " How did you know ifc was so very dull?" queried Bravington. /'You are a busy man. You saw'her at lunch or dinner, a few hours out of the working day. She had many idle hours on hand. You did not know how she disposed of them." The naval lieutenant was coming out with a vengeance; but Temple waved his hand a little wearily. "My dear old Jim, you are uttering words of wisdom. But please don't imagine that all these things did not occur to me then, as they are occurring to you_ now. Love is blind in many cases, but he had not absolutely bandaged my eyes so that I could not see a yard before me." • • Bravington nodded his youthful head. " That t was wise of you, old man, not to let your eyes be bandaged." "She was very clever, very subtle, marvellously so for a girl of her extreme But I was subtle, too; I set a few traps for her. But when I thought I had got her cornered, she was always ready with a plausible explanation. I did not always believe the explanation; but I could not say so, for. the reason that I had no proof. I only felt she was lying." ; "Did she give you her uncle's proper address?" asked Bravington. "No; over that she was fairly clever. She told me her uncle had given up his house, and was going abroad for his health. This time she gave me the right address." "Then, Mr George Smith was not an absolute invention?" "Oh, no, there was absolute proof. I ferreted it all out. The house was td, let. I made inquiries of the house agent. A Mr George Smith had lived there, and had just gone abroad." There was a moment's pause, and Dick Temple proceeded. "Now -you know practically all up to to-night. I urged her to marry me several times, and she always put me off in that baffling way of hers. I was a poor, weak Bohemian. She was much the stronger, perhaps the more clever of the two." . There was a long silence, then Bravington spoke. "Do you think you have any clue, Dick:'' Temple smiled a little sadly. "I have something in my pocket which I always carry about with me, which I did not show Smeaton to-night. I want, if possible, to have the pleasure of tracking to his doom the murderer of my poor little Nellie, without the assistance of Scotland Yard. He showed Bravington a picture of the murdered girl, taken by a well-known photographer in a big foreign town. "That does not help much," he said; "but here is a snapshot which I saw one day—-she said it had been taken by her cousin—it is a portrait of herself and her uncle, Mr George Smith." He handed it to Bravington, who examined it carefully. Then, still keeping it in his hand, he looked at Temple, and spoke deliberately. "Dick, will yon let me. show this, photograph to Miss Paske. I can return it to you in twenty-four hours. The uncle is, hi this photograph, a short, squat man who wears glasses." "And what is in your mind?" asked Temple. . Only this—that from Lilian's description this protograph exactly fits her description of the man George Rathburn, who was the tenant of No. 7 Saville squace." CHAPTER IX.—A VISIT TO THE LANDLADY. "I found that photograph on the mantelpiece one day when I called at her rooms to take her out to tea," explained Temple. "I was a little early, and the servant told me she had gone out for a few minutes to buy some stamps. Would I go up-

stairs and wait for her. She occupied the drawing room floor." "It is really good, although evidently a snapshot, taken by an amateur," said Bravington. ■'Well, I -was looking at this, having taken it from the mantelpiece, when she came in with apologies for keeping me waiting. She flushed a little when -she saw what I had got in my hands. 'Fancy your having discovered that wretched thing,' she said lightly. 'I intended to tear it up. Doesn't it make me look a perfect fright?' "She tried to talk naturally, but it was obvious to me that there was something strained in voice and manner. I was quite certain in my own mind that she had left it there by accident, and that she was upset to find I had spotted it. '* Who is the gentleman with the glasses;' I asked, imitating her forced lightness of manner. 'Not a rival, I hope. Anyway, he doesn't look very captivating. But I shall have to be jealous, if you don't tell me who he is.' "She hesitated a moment, or, anyway, I thought she did, before she answered: 'That is my Uncle George —George Smith.' "And who took the photo? was . my next question. "Again I was conscious of hesitation in her reply, and I could have sworn she was not telling me the truth when she spoke. She told me it was taken by her cousin, his only daughter.' "Well, I told her that, though I did not take greatly to the gentleman with the glasses, it was a capital portrait of her. The operator, whoever it was, had caught the charm of her expression exactly. " 'Look here, Nellie,' I said, 'you told me you were going to tear it up, so it is no good to you. I have got one likeness of you, the one taken in Rouen; but that certainly does not do you justice. I'm going to keep this.' "She laughed and tried to snatch it from me; but I put my hand behind my back, and she could not- get it away. We argued about it for a few seconds, and then she gave in. But I am certain she was awfully anxious that I should not have it." And, of course, you concluded her anxiety was on account of her uncle, if he was her uncle, not on account of yourself?" queried Bravington. "Precisely," answered Temple. *Her nervous, hesitating manner led me to suppose there was a mystery about this man with the glasses. It was one small incident in a series of similar occurrences that always left me with an uncomfortable feeling. Whenever she did explain anvthing, her explanation always left me, unsatisfied." And you were as unsatisfied at the end as you wer-e at the beginning. Is that not .so?" Temple nodded his head. "Granted a certain faculty of observation, it is always easy, when you are intimately acquainted with a person, to tell, by certain tricks of phrase and manner, whether that per-' son is speaking the whole truth, or part of the truth, or telling an absolute falsehood." • > ._'•;• Bravington agreed. "I'm not half as clever as you, Dick, in these things. But if I knew a woman well, I think I could generally tell whether or not she was speaking the truth." Then he rose, and stretched out his hand to his old school-fellow. "You are tired, old man, and you have had a great shock. I'm sure you'll be glad to get to bed. I shall run down to Miss Paske by an early train to-morrow and show her the photo." - % "Right," said Temple. There are thousands of squat men wearing glasses in the city of London. But if this man turns out to be George Rathburn, we have got something to go on." The two men parted. Next morning Bravington sent an early wire to Lilian to say that he was coming down to lunch. He added that he had important news for her. The morning papers were full of the murder of the girl done to death in the back kitchen of an empty house—the discoverers of the tragedy being the wellknown detective, Smeaton, and a certain Lieutenant Bravington and Mr Richard Temple, the famous writer of sensational fiction. A romantic touch was ■ added by the fact that Mr Temple had recognised the dead woman, and that her name was Ellen Deane. Lilian Paske was so excited by what she had read in the papers that she ordered the motor and drove down to the station to meet him. Mr Paske had takeD the matter more calmly, although the murder had occurred in his own empty house. "It's a dead loss," he muttered philosophically. "Nobody will ever live in that place again. I wonder what has become of old Rathburn and his son?" Bravington flushed with pleasure when he saw Lilian waiting for him at the station. Her interest in him was probably due to her interest in the murder; but still it was pleasant to see her. He was not seated in the car a minute before she bado him tell her every detail. He related the whole circumstances; his long vigD. with Smeaton and Temple in the square, the sudden appearance and vanishing of the mysterious lights, the entrance into the empty house, the discovery of the murdered girl. She listened in a state of breathless excitement. Then, when he had finished his narrative, he drew from his breast pockot the photograph and handed it to her. "Thase are the portraits of the murdered woman and her uncle, who she said was a Mr George Smith. Look at it well, Lilian. What about the man? I wonder if I am right." But she cried out "But, of course, it is George Rathburn, our lata

tenant, -with his heavy glasses. Jim, what does it all mean?" Then Bravington told her in full the love-story of his old school-fellow, Dick Temple. He told Lilian how the two had met, how Dick, had always been suspicious of her, and under what circumstances they had 'parted. He added that Dick had been terribly cut up, although it was pretty obvious now that she had been mixed up with some infamous gang. The sympathetic Lilian felt inclined to cry. "Poor fellow, how terrible for him! It must have, been an awful moment when he looked on her dead face ? and knew that his suspicions were justified.;' They were nearing the house, and Bravington suddenly recollected his_ friend's last injunctions -when they said good night. "By the way, Lilian, Temple enjoined upon me that this matter of the photograph was to be kept absolutely secret. I think, if you don't mind, until I have his permission, we will not tell anybody, not even your father, that I have shown it you and that you have recognised George Rathburn." "Why, of course, Jim, if you wish it. I -wonder what motive, though, he has for secrecy. You would think he would like to collect all the evidence he can, and /proclaim it from the housetops. I should, were I in his place." "So should I," agreed Bravington. "But I fancy Dick prides himself on being .an amateur detective, and would like to score against Scotland Yard if he could. And this, you see, is his own private evidence, ne doesn't want—at least that is how I read it—to let Smeaton into it yet." Lilian nodded her pretty head. "I think I see. Well, anyway, we'll say nothing the photograph, and only talk to father about the case in general terms." At lunch, of course, there was but one topic of conversation—namely, the murder. Lilian explained -why Bravington had been brought into it, through ner curiosity about the mysterious lights. But Mr Paske was not in a questioning or probing frame of mind. The chief thing that concerned him was the fact that No. 7 Saville sauare -would never find another tenant unless he came across some strongnerved person 'who would rent it at half its value. Then, after lunch, Lilian bestowed a kindly smile upon the faithful Bravington. "Jim, are you in a, great hurry to get back?" Bravington assured' her that time was no object to him. "Well, I am going to catch the 4.30 to Waterloo. I am staying with my old school-fellow, Mrs Washburn, in Chester square. They have a dinner party on, and I shall stop the night. I shall come back to-morrow morning. We might go up together." The lieutenant "was delighted. He knew Mrs Washburn well, a little vivacious, fluffy-haired woman, a bosom friend of his dear Julian. . He would escort her with the greatest pleasure. He drove up with her to Chester square. She was very kindly disposed to him, for had he not obeyed her behests up to the present? She pressed him to come in, saying that Mrs Washburn would be delighted to see him. But he declined. He had had Lilian alone to himself for quite a few hours in the day. He would carry away those memories with him. He had shared her with her father at lunch. He would not share, her now with the vivacious Mrs Washburn. "No, thanks; I have had a lovely time with you quite alone. And I want to give old Dick his photo. You'll remember not to breathe a word about recognising George Rathburn till Temple gives me leave." "Oh, Jim, I've given you my word. And you were really a darling to go into all this for me." The lieutenant, as she uttered these words, would have liked to take her into his arms and kiss her. But Tie remembered their compact, and forbore. '.' An unsatisfactory handshake could be their only farewell. Meantime, Dick Temple had experienced a busy day. At eleven o'clock he was rung up by Smeaton. "Good morning, Mr Temple. Smeaton of Scotland Yard is speaking. Ellen Deane's landlady has just been down here. She read the description of the murder in the morning papers, and recognised the girl's name, thanks to you. This saves us a lot of trouble. lam going up to her at two o'clock. Would you like to come with me?" Of course, -Temple snatched at the chance. At one-thirty he was in Smeaton's room at Scotland Yard. "She seems a genuine sort," explained the great detective. "A motherly kind of woman about fifty. She could hardly speak for crying. Miss Deane, it appears, had lived with her for some months, had been a nice, quiet lodger, and had always paid her punctually. A fortnight ago she told her she was going to live in the country with a relative. The day before yesterday she had taken her boxes down to the station to he sent on. She understood it was Waterloo, and she left herself last night, leaving behind a few things she was going to fetch to-day." "And you have sent down to Waterloo, of course, to see if any boxes were despatched in the name of Deane?" asked Temple. "Of course," replied Smeaton a little impatiently. "I should not be likely to miss such an obvious thing as that. As I anticipated, I drew a blank. I inquired at all the London termini. Of course, you can guess the result. No luggage had been sent from anywhere in the name of Deane." Temple groaned. "The poor child was in the hands of an unscrupulous gang, who exploited her for all she was worth, and put her up to all these tricks." In his own mind, Smeaton had very little doubt that the poor girl had proved a very apt pupil. But he was much too delicate-minded to give a hint of his opinion to the man who was half a judge, and half a lover.

"Well, Mr Temple, we'll take a taxi and drive to the house. I gather it is in rather a mean street in the Walham Green district. Anyway, there will be some odds and ends left behind, and we may discover something that will give us a clue. I suppose you have not thought of anything that would help us?" "No, said Temple calmly. The only clue he had was the photograph of Ellen Deane and her uncle, and he had not yet established the identity of the man with the glasses. When he had, it would be time enough to take the detective into his confidence. "I -have not been thinking over-much of the detective element. I have been thinking of the poor murdered girl herself." "Naturally, naturally," said Smeaton hastily. He did not want to appear unkind to 'a man who had loved not wisely, but too well. At the same time he had made up his mind about Ellen Deane. Temple would see it presently as he saw it; but it was no use hurrying him to the inevitable conclusion—that she was first an accomplice, and finally a victim, of an unscrupulous gang. The taxi drove them swiftly through the somewhat puzzling neighbourhood that landsi finally in Walham Green. "A ' good place to be lost in," commented Smeaton as they turned from one squalid road into another. The taxi driver had to ask a few times before (he could locate the particular street. Then he drew up at No. 12, and the two men got out and knocked at the door. The landlady opened it. She was, as Smeaton had described, a kind-looking, motherly woman. Her eyes were still red from crying; it was evident that she had been fond of her pretty lodger. "Come in, gentlemen, please," she said in a rather quavering voice. "I have got everything ready for you. There's not much, but just a few sheets of letters, and a telegram or.two." Smeaton and Temple ascended the narrow stairs. The murdered woman's rooms had been on the first floor. "It is by good luck we in last night," whispered Smeaton to his companion, as they went up. "If we had not startled the murderer or murderers, by now she would have been buried beneath the floor, and there would have been no chance of a clue. This woman would never have thought of speaking if she had not read of the murder in the papers. People in great cities disappear every hour from houses like this, and are never inquired for after." The landlady ushered them into the sitting room. She pointed to the table. "I have put everything here that beloncre- to the rvoor soul." There was not (very much: an old blouse, a worn petticoat, a pair of delapidated slippers, a few fragments of letters which had been forgotten to be destroyed, a cour>le of telegrams. Smeaton hardly gave a glance at the cast-off clothing. He gathered up the papers at once. * "We'll see if we can make anything out of these, Mr Temple," he said, as he settled himself in a worn-out easy chair. (To be Continued.)