“THE WAY OUT”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 492, 23 October 1928, Page 5

“THE WAY OUT”

Or “ HEMING’S PROBLEM. ”

3y

H. Maxwell.

CHAPTER ll.—(Continued)

But a few minutes later he took up the story at the exact point he had left off. “On the day of the trial the indictment was altered from murder to manslaughter, for which I was devoutly thankful, for the establishment of my innocence meant the sullying of a woman’s fair fame, and, conversely, my condemnation implied the saving of her reputation. If my life had been at stake I should have made a desperate fight for it, but I was willing enough to sacrifice a few years of freedom to secure her memory from dishonour. Thus when the verdict of the jury went against me I was not without consolation. There is a very real satisfaction, Lady Elizabeth, in suffering for the woman you have loved and lost.” “You must have loved her very much,” she murmured. "Well,” he answered in a detached, reflective manner, “yes, I suppose I did Still, looking back. I'm inclined to regard my feeling for her less as love than a boy’s blind infatuation. If we had married I do not think we should have been happy together; I think our joy in each other would have been shortlived. Y'ou see, I can speak of the matter quite calmly. I beg you will stop me if I am boring you,” he added courteously. The servants came and went, the conversation proceeded in snatches, but it was of such enthralling fascination that Lady Elizabeth resumed it at every opportunity. “And the girl was actually murdered?” “I think so,” he said; “in any event morally murdered, but whether she took the poison that killed her or whether it was administered by the man she ran away with I am not quite clear. The jury took the view that 1 had persuaded her to take it, which was quite wrong, though there was evidence to support the view.” He spoke as one who strives to be strictly fair and impartial. “And what about the other man?” “Oh. undoubtedly he was responsible for her death.” “But why—why should he wish her dead if he loved her well enough to run away with’ her?” “Ah, I forget to mention that. He was a married man at the time, but he pass.ed himself off as unmarried. Either he poisoned her to be rid of her when he could no longer con-

ceal the fact of his marriage or else she discovered the fact and poisoned herself, I daresay I shall find out the truth some day.” “And you know the man?” “I know him now,” he said, “but I did not know him then. I mean I did not know he was guilty then. He was a friend of mine. I had no suspicion of the truth till his guilt was revealed to me by another Dartmoor prisoner who had procured the poison for him and was subsequently sent to prison for a crime of his own; hut oven he couldn’t tell me whether the girl had perished by her own hand or my friend’s.” “And d.°es, this man, your friend, know you know the truth?” Roger Temple did not immediately reply. His eyes had been veiled by the dropping lids while he recounted his tragic history. But suddenly they were opened wide, and Lady Elizabeth was amazed at their supernatural brilliancy “I’ve only seen him once since my release,” he said, “and I did not directly challenge him, but I gathered from his intense disquiet ill my society that he guessed I knew. What I shall do I can’t tell you. The girl’s dead. My reputation is still dear to me. The wound to my heart is healed. If 1 denounce him I shall hring undeserved misery on the innocent heads of his wife and children. If I refrain he will suffer justly enough the perpetual torments of acute suspense, probably the cruellest of all punishments. What would you advise?” “The man ought to be denounced,” she answered, with quick, eager emphasis; “what do you say, Edward?” “The position wants thinking over.” he said; and then: “For God’s sake let’s talk of something else.” “Ah,” said Roger Temple with his brightest smile, “your husband is right. We must think it over. It was for the special purpose of consulting him that I invited myself down here.” The dinner came to an end, and Lady Elizabeth retired to the 4raw-ing-room. When the men resumed their seats Temple said: “I like your wife, Heming.” Conway Heming said nothing. He had abruptly collapsed in a dead faint. CHAPTER lII.—THE PROBLEM. Recovered from his swoon, Edward

Conway Heming was alone in the library. There had been but the briefest explanation between the two men. "What are you going to do?” “I am not sure.” “Do you want money? Tell me what you want.” And then Roger Temple had replied in a perfectly passionate voice: “1 think I want to demonstrate that there is a just God in Heaven, who sees and knows everything, who punishes iniquity and compensates the victim of undeserved suffering. I have no personal desire for revenge, no longing to exact retribution, no feeling of vindictiveness against you. At the same time I have no pity, no compassion, no sentimental weakness or sympathy. In those long ago days you cajoled Mary Barstow, a fresh, innocent country girl, into running away with you, I loved her and she had promised to marry me. You coaxed her with a lie, you were not free to marry her, then you destroyed her, body and soul. If there is a God, there must he atonement to save her honour and her memory from desecration. That is all I could do; it was my uttermost. Now it is your turn, and I am here to see that you, too, do not flinch from doing your uttermost. I leave it to you to chose your own way, and I shall not interfere unless I must. Maybe you will choose to take your own life; maybe to give yourself up to the law; maybe to bring upon yourself and your family the crash of social ruin; which it is I care not, provided only your expiation is proportionate to your sin. I do not wish to hurry you, but until satisfaction has been rendered I shall be ever at your side, a ruthless yet passionless avenger, deaf to mercy, but no gloating over my triumph, equally unstirred by your downfall as I am uninfluenced by malice or hatred. I leave you to think it over.” And with that Ttoger Temple, unhasting, with face serene and tran-

quil step, had walked to the door and gone to the drawing room to join Lady Elizabeth. Three-quarters of an hour had passed, and Edward Conway Heming was still thinking it over. His body and mind were an odd relief was not the least conspicuous. It seemed as if he had always known the blow would fall, and now that it had fallen he felt curiously eased and comforted, for there are many worse things than a certain knowledge of the worst. He knew, too, that he had always been unconsciously preparing and arming himself against the day of Nemesis. His very faults and failings, which had disillusioned nis wife, were not natural to his temperament and character, but contracted instinctively as a shield to ward off the discover} l - of jumble of sensations, among which his fatal secret. His mordant humour, his gift of irony, was but the expression of an inner fear warning him of the risk of making an intimate friend of any man or woman, lest intimacy should breed disclosure. His petty miserliness was not a craving to hoard money, only a prudent precaution to .have a reserve fund to draw upon when the pinch came. Most men ; s mouths can be stopped with money if there’s enough of it; it is said that every man has his price. His snobbery was not due to arrogant pride in his own position and birth, but merely to a desire to keep his circle of acquaintances narrow, for fear one who knew might intrude within it. His habit of telling only half-truths was the outcome of a stern resolve to be reticent, lest in an unguarded moment he let fall something which would resuscitate the memory of his forgotten crime. He thought of all these things and 'wondered at the clarity of his thought. But what was he going to do? So far as he understood Roger

Temple’s purposes he was offered the choice of one of three lines of conduct. He might confess publkdy —that is, go to the police, make his statement, and let the law run its course. He might commit suicide' by any form of death that pleased him. Or he might confess privately, sacrifice wealth, position, friends and family, and become a social pariah. Of all three the last was the hardest, and he ruled that out at once. What about the others? What about giving himself up? He considered the possibility with all the subtle wiliness of the trained lawyer versed in every move and shift of the tortuous legal game. There w r ere chances here: he could make out a case for himself; he could disdain responsibility; he alone knew how Mary Barstow had died; it was all part of a buried past; in the hands of a clever advocate —and it is a tradition at the Bar that the best and keenest intellects are at the disposal of an honoured member of the - profession in distress—he might emerge scot-free, honour and reputation saved, crow’ned w’ith a halo of chivalry as one whose fastidious scruples had prompted him to imperil life and career unnecessarily at the dictates of a too-punctilious and incorruptible conscience. The idea was extraordinarily fascinating; it stimulated all his professional pride; what a cause Hall's Sulphur and Sarsaparilla Salts. A great Spring and Summer Tonic, in the form- of an effervesing and delightful drink. Large bottle posted for 3s. —E. W. Hall, 117 Armagh St., Christchurch. 2.

to win! what a dramatic situation to i < be the hero of! And then he suddenly dismissed it. j It would not satisfy Roger Temple. i i It would not get rid of the ruthless, j ] passionate avenger. And so it ap- < peared he had no alternative. ! s The taking of his own life was the ‘ one way out. ’ “Well, well,” he murmured, “after all, perhaps it’s the easiest and the best.” In these days of hurry-scurry and craving for frantic speed, fatalities that look like accidents are not difficult to engineer. There are many means of shuffling out of the world ; without incurring the opprobrium which attaches to a felo de se. In a few* minutes he had pondered 1 the pros and cons of various methods j of self-destruction, and formed a defi-1 , : nite plan. i! He rang the bell for his butler, and L asked for a cloth and some oil. He ; j proposed, he said, to clean his revol- | [ ver, which he had disinterred by . chance from a forgotten draw’er. He ! gave the order in his normal steady l voice, and the butler would subse- i • quently be able to swear that his mas- i l ter was in hiS ordinary sane and L sound senses, w’ith nothing queer or > suspicious in his mien or manner. ; There are no accidents so frequent - j as those connected with long-disused ! | firearms, which are invariably supi posed not to be loaded. The cloth and the oil in a saucer •were brought to him, and he proEvery tin of “Radium’' Boot, Floor, | or Metal Polish contains a QUALITY . polish. Save the Coupons. 20.

ceeded to arrange a suitable and convincing mise-en-scene. He cleared a space on his writingtable, and spread out a newspaper. He was of notoriously tidy habits. He dabbled the cloth in the oil, and smeared it on the barrel, and then carefully wiped his fingers. And now he was ready. “Dad,” cried a happy laughing voice behind him, “what are you doing? Can’t I help you? Where’s Mr. Temple? Didn’t he come?” It was his daughter Cicely. Obsessed by his task, he had not heard her enter. Clad in the daintiest of summer frocks, she presented a vision of rare English beauty—airiness and grace and mirth and innnocence personified. The exquisitely moulded lines of her figure, the poise of the head, the perfect oval of her face, with its broad low forehead surmounted by a wealth of hair the colour of old gold, her large blue eyes tw’inkling with fun, ! yet in their translucent depths signify, j ing aw’akeness to life in its fullest I meaning, the life of the mind and the ! spirit as well as the life of youth and | joy—all these traits combined to make an arresting picture, in comparison with which mere loveliness would have seemed insipid. Character and beauty of soul, and lofty ideals, were written on these fair features. The broad brow’ and the fine eyes suggested j intellectuality as surely as the lips i and the Cupid's bow-shaped mouth | suggested kisses. (To be Continued)