“THE WAY OUT”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 509, 12 November 1928, Page 5

“THE WAY OUT”

Or “HEMING’S PROBLEM. ”

By

H. Maxwell.

|—_._—_____4 CHAPTER XVII.~JANE FINLAY‘S REMARKABLE SENTIMENTS In the second week in December. a fortnight after these events, Lady Elizabeth received a very cheerful letter from her father‘s doctor saying the! Lord Redderton had now reached a degree of convalescence which would enable him to a conlidenble extent to resume his ordinary pursuits. The old Earl. in fact, has made an astonishingly good recovery; his right leg trailed a little Vhen he walked, and his right hand and Inn remained weak, but he could I" about quite well with the help of two sticks. he was clear-headed. amt he had fully regained his faculty of IN.

But the point of the letter was a special request that Cicely would go and stay at Redderton Hall. “1 am expressly charged by Lord Redderton to invite his grand-daugli-’er to come and pay him a long visit. a nd I hope Miss Heming will accept the invitation. Young and bright society is exactly what he most needs. Her companionship might work won ' ters for him; and his general health is s ° Sood that it would not imply any undue strain on her nerves or any unfair taxing of her strength. Tf she were able to come, I think I can s afely promise her an enjoyable visit.*’ 1 shall go of course, mother.’’ said lcelv when she was shown the letter. do you think. Edward?” I can see no possible objection to er going,” Heming answered. .J m afraid it will be very trying.” ' H 'd Lady Elizabeth, ‘‘l’m inclined to ’nink it would be better if I went ir.- * ? ead of Cicely ” . I'm inclined to think it would better for you to wait, till you’re aske d* snapped Heming. 1 shall go. mother.” said Cicely, and that settled it.

Wa . s a strange household now, or a uer it was an estranged and utterly fetched household; father, mother, Pd daughter had never a word to say ° each other. Lady Elizabeth was ' e Ptle and reserved, Heming irritable • n!J ? lorose - Cicely alternately listless talk- ‘s veris bly active. But they all iced to Carstairs, and in the pres- °* arsta i rs they all talked to brin of ber. Carstairs seemed to ng a glow of genial warmth to the j . ' lse * w hich it sadly lacked at other es and in his absence. Ycfr n< * yet ou tw*ardly things were going ; j, - w ell for the Heming family. P threatened political scandal had en ssniffed, iffed out by the Governments! asterly move in cancelling Roger's j al , et-of-leave. That had silenced 1 tongues. Jane Finlay had been ' need to tell the police what she j 1

knew, and her sworn statement had effectually proved Roger’s innocence of Compton’s murder. The “Wilchester Gazette" had printed a public apology to Sir Edward, in which abject regret was expressed for the article which had caused all the trouble. Alexander Stone had been given notice of dismissal by the proprietor and was hunting a new job. Even Roger's rearrest and relegation to Dartmoor was thought to redound to Sir Edward's credit: hew else, his friends asked, could he have checkmated his daughter’s infatuation for an unworthy lover? He had been cruel bnly to be kind; he had done a fine,

strong thing which a man of less lofty character would have shrunk from, and Cicely would certainly live to be grateful to her firm, wise father. Cicely, out of touch with her own intimates, found some solace in a daily visit to her old nurse, the only person to whom she could or would talk freely. Jane Finlay had been ailing of late; there was no specific malady, the panel doctor said, only the inevitable creeping on of the infirmities of old age. An old woman, who has maintained her vigour to an advanced period of life often breaks up suddenly at the last, and Cicely feeling anxious about her had mentioned her case to Dr. Carstairs, who, with his usual readiness to help others, had been to see he. jiice or twice; not, of course, in a professional capacity, because, as ne explained to everybody, he had no licence to practice, but merely to satisfy Cicely. Carstairs reported to Cicely that the panel doctor was treating Jane very skilfully, and that there was no danger. Going to see her old nurse on the morning of the day on which she received the invitation to Redderton Hall she unexpectedly encountered Alexander Stone.

"I’ve been waiting on the chance of seeing you, Miss Heming. Would you mind coming a little way into the wood? I don’t want to be seen from Jane Finlay’s windows.” Stone had been crouching in the hedge bordering the high road, and now passed quickly through the swinggate into the wood, beckoning to her to follow him. His request and his manner of making it were so unusual that she complied with distinct reluctance.

“What is it?” she asked when they were safely screened from the view of anyone passing to and from the cottage. "I’m watching for Carstairs.” There was a grim, dogged look and an air of suppressed excitement about Stone which made Cicely intensely uncomfortable. a fact which he immediately noticed and commented on. "You needn't be afraid of me. Miss Heming; if I’m a bit wild-looking, it’s because I’m thinking of the wife and children who'll be homeless inside of three weeks. I’m not the man I was; nobody wants to employ a discredited editor. I’ve got to keep my job by hook or crook, or see the mother of my girls starve; nothing will save me but another coup, and I think I know who murdered Raymond Compton.” "I am very sorry for you, Mr. Stone.” "I know you are, but I want help,” he answered brusquely. "What’s Carstairs got to say to Jane Finlay? Why is he there every day? Why does he come and go so furtively? It was I who persuaded her to make her sworn statement to the police, and you ought to be grateful to me for that. But she don't like me; she won’t talk i'Y me; that's where you might help: you can persuade her I'm her friend and a man to be trusted."

"But are you her friend?" said, Cicely uneasily.

“Oh, I’ve nothing but friendly feelings for her, but a man who is on the threshold of the workhouse is his ov> friend first. I’ve got to find out who murdered Compton, and I’m certain Jane knows; if she’d tell me, my job'% safe. 1 think it’s Carstairs," —he gave a helpless shrug of his big shoulders—

“but what’s the use of thinking, I’ve got to have definite and absolute proof if it’s to do me any good.” Cicely was shocked, but not frightened. It seemed to her that Alexander Stone was out of his mind, that his notion was that of a mad man, that in his despair at his own circumstances he was actually trying to fasten guilt of murder on a man against whom there was not a title of suspicion. “I can tell you why Dr. goes so often to see Jane Finlay. He goes because I asked him to go, Mr. Stone; there’s no secrecy about it.” "Then you won't help me with Jane, Miss Heming?" he replied dully; "she knows, I know the knows.” He shook his head slowly from side to side. “But if she knows, why shouldn’t she tell?” "Country people who live solitary lives have queer ideas about many things. Why shouldn’t she tell what she’d seen in the wood at first. Heaven knows, I don’t, but she wouldn’t. 1 know she knows, Miss Heming, and it would save me if I could find out,” he added tiercel}'. And now Cicely’s chief anxiety was to get away from him. “I will ask her myself, if that will satisfy you. hut I am sure you’re wrong.” He snatched eagerly at the offer. "Will you?" he said, “and you’ll tell me afterwards?” “Yes, if there’s anything to tell.” she answered, and began moving toward ! the gate.

He followed her for a step or two, and then: “I shall he somewhere here when you come out, you’ll be on the lookout for me. Carstairs may be along at any moment, you won’t let him suspect. I’ve looked up Carstairs’s record, and It’s all lies about his partner trying to defraud him; he embezzled his partner’s money, he had no defence, the Judge described it as a heartless fraud. Miss Heming,” he said, and caught her suddenly by the wrist, “why does your father admit such a blackguard to his friendship?” His eyes were glowing like live coals. He muttered: “Br-r-r-rum! Br-r-r-um!” but dropped her wrist, before she had time to say: “Don't touch me.” "That’s worth thinking about, Miss Heming, eh?”

"I’ve given up trying to account for my father’s friendships," she replied steadily. “Ah, well,” he said, relapsing into his dull, hopeless manner, “I shall be somewhere about when you come out.” He went back into the wood, and she went on. At the swing gate she turned to see if he were still in sight, but he was nowhere to be seen; he had no doubt concealed himself. She turned down the road, and only breathed freely when she was inside : Jane's cottage with the door shut. “And how are you getting on, Jane?” “Oh, slowly, dearie it’s what that fool doctor what comes when he’s time to remember me calls a decline. Eat well, he says; keep up your strength, he says; sleep well, he says; and you’ll never be much better, he says, unless you go into the infirmary Me in a decline! Me what’s got money in the bank go into the infirmary! I says to him it’s my stomach’s out of order, I’m eating too much, and sleeping too much. Give me something that'll make my legs what they was, ! I says, then you can go and hang yourself. He didn't like that,” re- j marked Jane superfluously, grinning! all over her lined and wrinkled face.' If the old woman could joke about her health she could not be so very ill. Cicely thought, and yet she was obviously very feeble, and her skin showed a curiously livid tinge which was both unnatural and alarming. “And my hair’s tailing out; that never happened to me before.” said Jane querulously. “I’m a'most afeard

to use my comb these days. There s one or two bald patches on my head as big as penny pieces, dearie." She was a vain old body in some things, and especially proud of her hair, which was long and abundant and had wonderfully preserved its colour. Cicely noticed it had faded and was greatly thinned. “Dr. Carstairs comes to see you regularly; you like him to come, Jane?” “Yes, dearie, I like him; he does me a power of good compared to what the other chap does with his talk of declines and infirmaries. He sits there and keeps me laughing with his funny whims and oddities, but he never gives me nothing to take; not so much as a single drop of medicine has he ever given me,” she said resentfully. This was so evidently a grievance that Cicely explained that while Dr. Carstairs could not interfere with another doctor’s patient he thoroughly approved of the treatment Jane was receiving, and had prophesied that she would soon be well. “I don’t know, indeed.” replied the old woman dolefully. “Sometimes I think my time has come to be took,

and sometimes I don’t know what to think. Not that I’m what you'd call really old; seventy-two isn’t old for what folks live to in these parts. There’s old Dick Dawson, who'll never see eighty again, yet he can do a full day’s work road-mendin' six days on end.” It was too pathetic listening to Jane disclaiming that she was old, and to change the conversation Cicely introduced the subject of her impending visit to Redderton Hall. “I’m sorry you be going, dearie, but I suppose you’ll be seeing him,” said Jane with a sly chuckle. Cicely briefly replied that she would not be seeing him. “You’ve forgotten, Jane, that I’m no longer engaged to Mr. Temple.” “I’ve heard you say so, dearie, but I don’t pay much heed to it,” Jane remarked composedly. “Y'ou wait till he comes out of gaol and you'll be flying into his arms. I’d take my Bible oath he’d never done nothing to be ashamed of. Not, I dare say, that he hasn't broke most of the Ten Commandments one time or another, but what's that? A man can’t help hisself,

and so long as he doesn’t break ’em after marriage I’ve not a word against him. Seen a bit, and done a bit, and suffered a bit; that’s a man, and that’s your Mr. Roger. Good luck to him." Now these sentiments, although mysteriously comforting to Cicely, were so unregenerate, particularly when coming from an old woman with one foot in the grave, that Cicely felt bound to combat them. (To be continued.)