The Trail of His Vengeance.

Southern Cross, Volume 18, Issue 10, 18 June 1910, Page 13

The Trail of His Vengeance.

(BY HEADON HILL).

[COPYRIGHT.]

CHAPTER VII

Downstairs the police had taken charge, and were pursuing their inquiries in the workmanlike fashion characteristic of the city force. An inspector and a detective-sergeant were questioning- the commissionaires —the mystery being- greatly increased by their assertion that Mr Grant had passed through the' entrance hall and left the building a few minutes before Solomon Bede discovered the body. A most material witness was Gregg, the boy who had brought the corrected proof up to the composingroom after waiting outside in the corridor while Grant was at work upon it. He was positive that it was the junior sub-editor who handed him the proof. His-clothes were the same, and he was wearing the green shade which he _always used to protect his weak eyes from the glare of the electrics. To this testimony, however, the medical man who had been called in gave a direct negative. Whoever had handed the proof to Gregg, it could not have been the deceased, for the all sufficient reason that he must have been dead for an hour when the doctor arrived, and for at least half that time when Solomon Bede discovered the body.

ONLY HALF A HUE AND CRY

Having" assured himself that the sub-editor was dead, Solomon Bede went quickly along- the corridor to the swing doors communicating with the great entrance hall. His first thought was that nothing must be allowed to interfere with the issue of the paper, for which a million people, would be looking- for in a few hours. Yet he recognised that his first duty must be to the law. The offices of the Lynx were well g-uarded. A stalwart commissionaire stood sentinel at the street entrance; another watched over the swing doors, which Solomon swung open.

"Rogers !" he cried, addressing the inner custodian. "Mr Grant has been murdered —stabbed through the back as he sat in his chair . Fetch the police and a doctor, and you'd better 'phone to Sir Charles and Mr Western. I must get back and send the paper to press whatever happens."

He turned away, biit the commissionaire stopped him. "Half a moment, Mr Bede." he said. "Are you sure this is right ? Mr Grant came out these blessed doors not five minutes ago, and bade me good-night, same as usual, as he passed. I'll swear he didn't come back. Clinver there, at the main entrance, will tell you the same. 'And here's a chap here was worrying me abotit some mustard for your sandwiches saw him too. I'll be shot if I can make head or tale of it all." Half dazed, Solomon became conscious that Timothy Fang had been hidden behind the large janitor. The little "liner," white-faced with excitement, scented such a "scoop" as had never, come his way before.

Matters had reached this apparent deadlock when Sir Charles Killerby's motor-car rushed up and stopped at the main entrance; The proprietor of the Lynx had been at a ball at the Countess of Truro's with Augusta and Ruth Walcot, and the telephone message which ultimately found him there having said nothing about murder —only that he was urgently wanted at the office —Augusta had insisted on accompanying him. She had been piqued because Lance Western had not been at the ball, as she had expected, and was glad of an excuse for leaving early. There is no place in the world where, in the middle of the night, a crowd will collect quicker than in the purlieus of Fleet street, and noticing the throng outside the Lynx offices. Sir Charles bade the two girls descend and enter the building with hhrn. A strange sinking at his heart told him that Simon Marwood had struck another blow, and if his daughter and her companion were to receive a shock it had better not be in the public street.

"What Mr Rogers says is quite true," he exclaimed, grasping his opportunity. "No one doubts your word, Mr Bede, but hadn't we better make sure it is Mr Grant in there ?" The commissionaire settled the matter by starting up the corridor, with Solomon and Timothy at his heels. In the wild whirl of the moment neither of the two Lynx men demurred to the intrusion of an outsider not on the staff, so that without hindrance Timothy joined in the inspection of the body, which all three identified beyond all doubt as that of the sub-editor. The "liner" remained but half a minute in the room, his practised eye taking in every detail then he sped off to sell his news to a rival journal which he knew was always dilatory in going to. press, enabling it to achieve the unique feat of chronicling a tragedy at the office of a contemporary,

The commissionaire at the outer door saluted gravely as the three passed in, and purposely abstaining from questioning him. Sir Charles requested the girls to sit down in the luxurious hall while he found out what was wrong. At the swing doors Rogers, the custodian of the corridor, gave him the first hint of the nature of the trouble.

which the latter was unable to announce it sell.

"You will find Inspector Ballantyne " and the others in the sub-edi-tor's room, sir, along" with the body. Mr Western has been sent for, but he hasn't come vet."

For, leaving the commissionaire to raise the alarm, Solomon returned to the composing-room and calmly locked up the last forme and sent it down to press, subjecting the holdover article for the one which had led to the prompt discovery of the murder.

Subduing' his emotion with the force of will that had made him the man he was, the great journalist strode to the scene where yet another of his staff had paid tribute to Simon Marwood's blood-lust. The police officials received the proprietor respectfully, quickly putting him in possession of all particulars. He had hardly mastered them when Lance Western came in, and had to be apprised of the gruesome tale. "It seems to me, gentlemen," concluded the inspector, "that if the witnesses are to be believed, someone must have personated the deceased to gain a temporary control here. The killing was probably a mere incident in the attainment of that end. Can you suggest any person who would have had an interest in such a scheme ?"

But, having saved the situation bygetting the paper to press, the old man felt the tension which had sustained him snap, and when he descended to the ground floor again he was, as he told Dolly when he got home, all of a tremble. In the urgency of, in technical phrase, "putting the" paper to lied," he had not even tried to grasp the meaning of the ghastly scene in the sub-editors room or to fit it with a motive. But now, with his brain free to work, he began to wonder if there was a connection between that amazingly altered proof, and the fate that had overtaken its reviser. He decided that under any circumstances it was his duty to hold his tongue about the proof till someone in authority arrived. He had not served the morning Lynk for n quarter of a century without gaining an insight into the methods of its conductors. The paper was a power in international politics, and the brilliant article that had apparently been mangled out of all shape had dealt with that delicate subject, striking the first note of warning against a danger that might bring. England low.

Sir Charles ' exchanged a glance with Western, the eyes of the two men assuring each other that they dared not take the police into full confidence. There was too much at stake for them to throw away the secret work of months and play into the hands of.the enemy by premature disclosures.

"There are many people who would like to run the Lynx, but I cannot name anyone who would murder an unoffending member of the staff in order to do so," was Sir Charles's non-committal reply. He had caught

Author of "The One Who Saw," "The Duke Decides," "Her Grace at Bay," "The Kiss Of The Enemy," Etc., Etc.

[PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.]

a glimpse of Solomon Bede's face, which told him that the old man had something for his ears alone, and he cut the interview with the police as short as he could.

Leaving- the inspector and th e doctor a free hand on the scene of the crime, he withdrew with Lance Western to the private room at the end of the corridor. Thither, as he expected, Solomon followed them after a minute's time, for the first time in his life omitting- the ceremony of knocking for permission to enter. "I expect that's what it was done for, sir," said the foreman, producing the altered proof. "The wretch that struck Mr Grant down wanted to got that blessed mix into the paper. Changed the meaning entirely, you see. With a few cunning insertions and deletions the man who sat at Mr Grant's desk with Mr Grant's dead body at his feet, turned the warning into an assurance that foreign invasion was impossible'Tisn't the policy of the paper, sir. I haven'!- been on it for five-and-'twenty- years without learning that." It was a, moment pregnant with possibilities for the conductors of the miighty journal. The rumble of the machines in the basement told them that whatever had been done was irrevocable. The paper had gone to press. Would they have to commit the unpardonable sin of missing- an issue, and stultify themselves by publishing a recantation of their accepted policy. Solomon saw the consternation in the two clever faces, and smiled.

"It's all right, Sir Charles," he said, with a glance at the door. "I took upon myself to make "up with the American Trust leader instead of this perversion of your views. You see, I set the paper for a wage, but I read it for my pleasure—just as I used to read every word you wrote when we were thirty years younger—me an ordinary hand in the compos-ing-room, of the old Clarion, and you a smart writer beginning to feel your feet."

The proprietor's hand shot out and grasped that of his faithful retainer. It was good, with a tireless enemy at his heels, to know that he was so well served,

"Thank you, Solomon," he said, simply. You acted with the judgment you always show. I will see you in the morning. Like the rest of us, you are over-wrought with this trouble, and you had better get home to bed. .Not a word of that article to a living soul."

"We have to thank Simon Marwood for this—Simon Marwood in alliance with our foreign adversaries," continued Sir Charles as soon as the door had closed on the foreman.

"Yes," responded Lance quickly, "but the Lynx has come out on top. When they look for that garbled article in the morning they will find that they arc not invincible—even with that fiend's help. I should reassure you that they have put themselves within the pale of the law and have failed in their purpose." "But the blood of these two young fellows is on my head, Lance — that is what cuts me," Sir Charles groaned in reply. "No place soems impregnable to Marwood's devilish ingenuity. He was always an adept at disguise, and he must have made himself up to resemble poor 'Grant exactly. Why, there is no limit to the mischief he might have done alone in the editorial rooms after working hours. Now I wonder " Taking a bunch of keys from his pocket he strode to the small safe in which he kept his most private papers. Unlocking the door, he flung it open with a metallic clang. An eager scrutiny of the interior was followed by an exclamation of anger and dismay.

"The safe has been opened V he cried, "And, yes ! —the last four letters from de Castries on the invasion business have been abstracted."

"But they were in cipher, and 3?ou and I carry the key to that cipher in our heads," said Lance, peering over his chief's shoulder into the despoiled cavity. "They cannot decide the cipher, unless Simon Marwood is equal to decapitating us and photo-

graphing our brains," he added,'' with an uneasy laugh. Even on his unshaken nerves the unseen but everfelt presence was beginning to tell. "■But the- safe ! How can he have opened it without my key ?" said Sir Charles. "It has never gone out of my possession tor a single second—except —unless But no ! a thousand times no. That cannot be the explanation. The girl is as staunch and true as steel." Ao-ain he broke off, and hurriedly loci-Ting the safe, curtly bade Western switch off the electric light and follow him. Like one beside himself Sir* Charles walked down the corridor, past the room where the doctor and the police were still busy, to the entrance hall. The thousand silver plashets were tinkling into the marble basin, and Augusta, with Ruth Walcot at her side, was yawning impatiently on one of the velvet lounges.

Divining the wishes of their employer, the commissionaire and others'had taken care that no breath of the tragedy should reach the young ladies, but Ruth Walcot's fair face was touched with an anxious concern, which deepened when Sir Charles addressed her directly. "Ruth, dear," he said. in the voice that was always kind to her, "you borrowed my keys a few days ago, if you remember, to get some notepaper out 'of the cabinet in the library at home. The keys didn't go out of your hands, did they ? You were not persuaded to lend them to anyone else ?''

The girl had risen, and, pale as death, stood confronting her interrogator. "I —I am afraid I did," she faltered.

"To whom?" demanded Sir Charl.es, his tone as he spoke the two words a masterpiece of self-restraint. "I cannot tell you ; I gave my word that I would not." came the fluttering answer, as Ruth's frightened eyes sought comfort from Lance Western's stern eyes, but found it not.

Sir Charles seemed on the point of putting a further question, but thought better of it, and with a shrug of his shoulders turned on his heel." "Come, you two." he said, with unwonted roughness. "I'll take you home on the car. No use offering you a lift. Western, I suppose." "Thank you, no ; my place is hi re tor the present," replied Lance gravely, as he walked back to the swingdoors, where he paused for a moment, and looked around at the tall figure of his chief conducting the two girls to the main entrance. As he did so Some compelling influence in his gaze caused Ruth also to turn, so that their eyes met, the man's iull of a pained reproach, and those of the girl eloquent with a wistful pleading like that of a dumb animal praying for release from a trap.

"It is too horrible that she should be involved,'' muttered the second in command. at the Lyiix. as he made his way back to the editorial rooms. "The poor darling must be innocent of everything- but a misguided love for an unworthy object. But I believe it has given me the clue I have been searching- for —the clue to The traitor who is selling England for foreign gold." CHAPTER VIII.

FELINE CLAWS

The murder of the junior sub-editor of the Morning- Lynx was only a nine days' wonder to the world at large. Like all modern sensations it. \vas so quickly replaced by others of equal general interest that it was only among those touched by the shadow of the heartless crime that the horror of young Grant's untimely fate endured.

It was small blame to the police that they failed to hit on the slightest clue that might lead to the arrest. .Everything material was withheld from them. Ignorant of Simon Marwood's feud of vengeance against Sir Charles Killerby, and equally so of the campaign in which the Lynx was engaged, they had nothing whatever to go upon as a base for so much as a. theory. They knew nothing of the altered leader article, or of the code written letters stolen from Sir Charles's safe. All they knew was that someone had got himself up to personate the unfortunate sub-editor, and in his guise had. freely entered and departed from the building, after committing a crime which appeared devoid of important motive.

Reluctantly they had to fall back upon the surmise that Mr Grant had had some episode in his private life which had ended in his being made the victim of a cunningly devised vengeance. There may have been certain

shrewd old heads both at Scotland Yard and the Old Jewry who suspected deeper depths in the mystery, but. the Ijynx was a power in the land, and not to be lightly fallen foul of, and they locked such thoughts away for future use if opportunity should arise.

It was not overlooked by one, at least, of these knowing' experts that the obvious murder of the subeditor was the second violent fatality within a week that had occurred among the members of the Lynx staff. But there was nothing to connect the death at Victoria Station, brought in "accidental" by a jury of average intelligence, with the glaring crime at the offices of the paper. If there was any link between the two events it lay far below the surface.

While officially the midnight tragedy was being consigned to oblivion, Sir Charles Killerby and his able lieutenant were more concerned in preventing fresh outrages. . They were both agreed that the quickest way to terminate the reign of terror dating from Simon Marwood'a release would be to bring- their campaign against the foreign conspirators to a successful conclusion. The great exposure once made, and the sting of the Continental Power once drawn, there would be no further need for secrecy about Mar wood. The protection of the police could be invoked, and their aid enlisted in bringing the human vampire to justice.

Greatly to Lance Western's surprise, Sir Charles Killerby did not again allude to the suggestion that his keys had been tampered with by the most trusted member of the household. INTor did Lance himself moot the strange refusal of Ruth Walcot to disclose to whom she had lent the keys. But he was sil->.n'-,ly working on the lines of the insight he believed himself to have gained from that scene in the entrance hall of the Lynx office, and he was sanguine of obtaining early results.

That the bunch had been handed to someone who had taken a wax impression of the key of the safe, from, which a duplicate had been made, he had no doubt, and though it wrenched his heartstrings to admit it even to himself, he had a direct suspicion as to who Simon Marwood's agent had been. In the big" mansion in Grosvenor Square a week passed without any ostensible change in the mutual relations of its inmates. Sir Charles was grave and preoccupied, but thathad often hampered them before, and now indeed was but natural after the murder at the office. Augusta flippantly made light of what she called her father's " solemnity." Ruth watched with an agony of doubt and apprehension the man who had given her a home- and protection. One morning Sir Charles was going through his private correspondence in the library before starting for Fleet street, when he opened the following note, undated and unsigned :

"You escaped last time, thanks to the sagacity of the worthy Solomon. But there is another rod in pickle which won't fail."

Putting- the note away in his pock-et-book, he buried his face in _his hands and sat for a long' while considering. Then, sighing deeply, he rang the bell and told the servant, to ask Miss Walcot to come to him. As the girl entered she was moved to a great pity by the grey, ashen face. For the moment she forgot she was probably to be arraigned. Yet it was as a suppliant that Sir Charles addressed her, in low, pleading" tones.

"J want to beg you, Ruth, to help me," he began, motioning her to sit near him. "It is about those keys.I have not pressed you about it because I have been hoping that you would come and tell me of your own accord. But now that there may be other lives at stake " "Other lives ?" Ruth interrupted in a low jie'nse voice. "You do not mean that the keys were the cause of that terrible affair at the office ?"

"Not exactly the cause, perhaps, but they were interwoven with the circumstances of young Grant's saddeath," replied Sir Charles, perceiving that he must not frighten her. "I do not wish to pry into your secrets, Ruth,, but is it possible that you have been played upon—made use of. I had made up my mind to let the matter rest, but I have received an anonymous warning that there may be more trouble. It would help me to prevent it if I could distinguish among my friends the traitor who played into the hands of the enem v."

Ruth heard him with bowed head and brimming eyes. "I cannot believe that there has been intentional treachery," she sob^

'bed. "Certainly, I myself never dreamed that "

Rising, Sir Charles laid a gentle hand on her heaving shoulder. "I am sure you did not contemplate any evil consequences," he said kindly. "I am going into the city now, and if you like to come to me" on my return this evening- and give me the true history of the deception practised on you, and through you on myself—well, you will not find me unforgiving, my child."

As soon as he was gone Ruth went slowly upstairs and tapped at the door of Augusta's boudoir. This was a formality on which the haughty of the house always insisted, though in earlier years the two girls had shared the same nursery together. Sir Charles had from the first insisted that the servants should make no difference in their treatment of the young ladies, but he had no control over " the petty tyrannies of his daughters towards her companion when they were practised not under his own eye.

Augusta was reclining on a couch, idly turning the leaves of a French novel, when Ruth entered, but she became apparently absorbed in her reading after one glance at the troubled face of her companion.

"I am not going out this morning, if that is what you want," she said petulantly. "I have got a rippingbook and' I'm going to finish it." "I am afraid I must ask you to put it aside for a while, rejoined Ruth with quiet firmness. "Augusta," she went on, her voice cat'ohing a little, "you simply must release me from my promise about the keys, rt is only fair that you should take the responsibility. Sir Charles has been so good and kind in not pressing me, but he sent me just now to say that something has happened which makes an explanation necessary. It is a matter of life and death," he said. Miss Killerby raised herself on one elbow and favoured her companion with a supercilious smile. "My dear Ruth, if you allow yourself to be worried by any twaddle my father chooses to talk about the keys you will prove yourself as silly as he is himself. You can see that he has got a bee in his bonnet about that wretched journalist person at the office, who probably got himself killed through some vulgar love affair. Anyhow, you promised me on your word ..of honour not to split that you brought the keys to me. and to that promise I must hold you."

"I gave the promise under a misapprehension : I did not imagine that the keys would leave your possession for a moment, as they must have done to plunge Sir Charles into such distress. There is evidently some clue to Mr Grant's murderer to be obtained through your having passed on those keys to a third party, when at your instance I obtained them for vou."

"Augusta picked up her book, and shrugging- her shapely shoulders, affected to resume her reading. "You are melodramatic, which is equivalent to calling you a nuisance,' she sneered. "Leave me alone, dear, and remember that you have always prided yourself on your word being as good as your bond. I do not believe that the keys had anything to do with the death of .Grant, but if they had it strengthens my resolution not to release you from your promise." Ruth stepped forward, her slender, graceful figure towering over the statuesque beauty on the couch. Ati-

gusta's studied insolence had fired J her gentle spirit to a sense of injury that blazed into revolt. "Then I shall feel justified into releasing myself," she cried. "I am not called upon to bear the blame of your secret doing. When Sir Charles returns this evening I shall inform him that I procured the keys for vou."

Augusta laughed mockingly up at. the indignant face bending over her. "If you do, you mischief-making little cat, it will hot be me who will be the chief sufferer." she retorted. "The man for whose sake I fooled you into fooling my father ;vas the man I love, and who loves me—Lance Western !'' (To be continued).