The Japanese Parasol

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1010, 28 June 1930, Page 22

The Japanese Parasol

U COPYRIGHT PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT I _ _

A Powerful Mystery Story, Superbly Told,

CHAPTER I. It was the bright blues and reds of the Japanese parasol, gleaming in the August sun, which first attracted Hugh Monro’s attention. Beneath it, stretched out in the moored punt, seemingly, very much at her ease, was the slim outline of a girl. Hugh could not see her face. It was hidden by the parasol. He walked a few yards farther on along the bank of the backwater, and then, manlike, gave a brief glance to see if the girl’s feature fulfilled the promise of her lissom form—and instantly he stopped short with a queer contraction of his heart. The face that he was now able to see—her dark head was resting on a pile of crimson cushions —was undeniably beautiful, but it was the cold and pallid beauty of a statue. Her eyes, visibly blue even at that distance, seemed to stare ahead into nothingness. She took no notice of the man on the bank. Not a muscle of that strangely immobile face twitched, and Hugh saw tlyat what at first he took to be the slight stirring of her limbs was but the play of the breeze about her light white muslin frock. “Violet Chichester!” he murmured. A moment later he was descending the bank toward her, and with every step that he took his perturbation became more patent. “Miss Chichester!” he addressed her, and then, more sharply, “Miss Chichester! ” Still the rigid figure In the punt made no movement, and with a face almost as pallid as her own, Hugh knelt down and placed his hand upon her heart. Then he started back in sudden fear. “My God!” he muttered, “she’s dead!” “Hugh, what on earth are you doing?” A clear, astonished voice hailed him, and looking up the young man saw the girl whose promise to meet him here he had forgotten in the horror of the last few moments. He rose from his kneeling position, and went to meet her slowly. “Gwen," he said, “something terrible has happened. That is Violet Chichester in the punt, and she is—dead.” At the significance of his words dawned upon her, Gwennie Bourne’s cheeks blanched also. For an instant, indeed, she gazed at him almost as if she did not comprehend, and then there came into her eyes an expression that was queerly enigmatic. “Violet Chichester?” she echoed. "You mean the actress? Dead —how do. you know that she is dead?” “There ;is no doubt about it,” he

answered sombrely. “She was there in the punt when I came, and, at> traeed by her unnatural stillness and rigidity, I went to see what caused it. Her heart’s not beating.” The girl who had just come upon the scene was younger than the woman in the punt, and at twentythree was in the full tide of her glorious youth. Nevertheless, she possessed a courage and resource that not every girl of her age would have evinced. Before Hugh could think of stopping her, she was down the bank and bending over the motionless form. She, too, placed her hand over Violet Chichester’s heart. Then, withdrawing it she took from her handbag the tiny mirror which in these days every woman carries, and held it to the other’s lips. It came away bright and unclouded, and Gwen glanced at Monro. “You’re right, Hugh,” she assented, and there was a catch of pity in her voice, “the poor thing’s not alive What on earth’s to be done?” “Only one thing,” he answered; "get a doctor here at once—and, I think, the police,” he added after a percept ible pause. “The police? But surely you don’t think—?” “I don’t know what to think,” Hugh exclaimed, with a harshness that surprised her. “It may be the result of heart trouble, or it may be—” “Foul play? ” she whispered. “Possibly, or possibly suicide. In any case, the authorities ought to be informed. Got your bicycle here, Gwen?” She nodded. “I rode over on it,” she told him. “It’s just behind those bushes there.” “Then you had better mount and go into Hengrave. I can’t leave you here alone. Fetch Dr. Marshall—he’s about the most level-headed of the medicos _ round here, and let him arrange with the police. I’ll wait here in the meantime.” For a moment she hesitated, and again the enigmatic expression was visible in her face. For an instant she seemed about to ask him another question, and then to think better of it. Finally, without further argument, she pedalled away down the lane which led to the main road, but as she went there was trouble in her countenance, and her eyes were hard. Left to himself, Hugh took his seat oil a grassy stump from which he could look down on the punt, with its grim burden beneath the garish parasol, and gave himself up to his own reflections. His face was pale and set. That scene of death—for that the woman before him was dead he had not the

slightest doubt—seemed to mock the brilliance of the summer sun and the peace of the Thames backwater. It all seemed so unbelievable, too. Only the day before he had met Violet Chichester in London, careless, gay, full of that hectic joie de vivre which marked her butterfly existence. And now, with crumpled wings, the butterfly lay finished, her little day done, her soul fled to that mysterious future which in life she had so steadfastly refused to face. So Hugh mused, and then his thoughts went to that other girl, so different in essentials to the one upon whom death had laid so premature a hand. Dear little Gwen —she was a good pal, and one whom he wished to be something more to him than a pal. It was to put this to the test, to find out if she loved him. that he had asked her to meet him this afternoon. She liked him. he was sure of that, and there were times when he fancied that she had been jealous of his recent friendship with the actress. If so, there was now grim reason why she should feel that jealousy no longer. Immersed in his thoughts, he rose to his feet, and, with bent head, walked slowly down the bank. A bend in the latter took him presently out of view of the punt, even if he had looked back, which he did not. It was some minutes before he turned and retraced his steps. For an instant or two, as lie came round the bend again, the subtle <U ference of- things as he had left them did not strike him. The dead girl lay still and rigid as before, but all at once Hugh uttered an exclamation and broke into a run. During his short absence something startling indeed in its unexpectedness had occurred. The Japanese parasol had disappeared! CHAPTER 11. Hugh’s first thought was that a gust of wind must have blown the flimsy article overboard, but reflection promptly showed him the futility of that idea. In the first place, the breeze had died down until not a single ripple disturbed the placid, sky-reflecting surface of the backwater. Secondly, had the parasol gone overboard, the lack of current would have kept it floating at the point where it had

entered the water. But actually, neither inside nor outside the punt, was there any sign of it. It had removed itself —or had been removed —bodily. Hugh’s eyes narrowed. Had been removed —that no doubt was the explanation of it, and that meant human agency, someone who for his or her own purposes must have watched him out of sight and then slipped down and carried away the parasol, someone who might actually have been concealed while he and Gwen were discussing the affair. He looked round him and his brow furrowed. For opportunities of concealment close at hand seemed scanty. All round was oi>en grassland, save for the small clump of bushes near which Gwen had parked her cycle. He walked up to these and examined them, and then shook his hetd. Apparently thick a little distance away, they were in reality thin and scat-

tered. Anyone crouching in their shelter would inevitably have been seen by the girl when she went for her machine. The grassland certainly sloped upward to woods, but these were a quarter of a mile away and it would have been impossible for anyone to have crossed the intervening space and been back in their depths in the few minutes that Hugh had strolled along the bank. Bur for them, the only cover was a copse a hundred yards farther along the backwater in the opposite direction. This, Hugh decided, must be the solution of the mystery. He walked over to the copse and. repeatedly turning as he went, found that the punt remained in view tile whole time. But at the copse itself lie met with another difficulty. It formed part of a riverside estate and formidable spiked railings with a veritable cheveux-de-frise of barbed wire above the spikes rendered it an almost impossible proposition as regards entry. Nor, on this side of the copse, at any rate, was there any sign of a gate. “Well, I’m blessed!” he murmured helplessly, as he went back toward the i punt. | Once more he seated himself on the I grass, and the pathetic figure in the moored craft, more stark and dreadful still without the semi-concealment of the parasol, absorbed his thoughts in irresistible fashion. His mind went back to his first meeting with her, little more than a week ago. She liad been in her dressing-room at the theatre then, clad in some wonderful kimono, flushed with the triumph which was her nightly due, and of which she never tired. Her room was a mass of flowers and while he was there more kept arriving, together with other gifts from her countless admirers, to be carelessly thrown aside by the 'spoilt beauty to whom they were addressed. “Idiots! How they pester me,” she exclaimed, but Hugh knew well enough that all this was the breath of life to her, and that her very tolerance of him, and of what he had to say, was engendered by the thought that he might afford a fresh diversion, a fresh conquest. For he had attracted Violet Chichester —-without conceit, he recognised that. “You may take me out to supper, Mr. Monro, when the show’s over,” she had told him graciously, with the ! air of a queen conferring a favour | upon one of her subjects, aud Hugh had taken her. Moreover, that supper had been repeated more than once in the next few days, but Hugh guessed that her interest in him would not last long, and he had his own reasons for wishing it to continue for the time being, at any rate. ! He had made no mention to Gwennie Bourne of these suppers. There was no need to, he told himself. His acquaintance with the actress was strictly bn a business footing, and he was planning a little surprise for the girl when tlie business had gone through. Moreover, he was afraid that if he told too much Gwen might put two and two together, and make —five. Therefore, he merely men- ! tioned casually that he had met Violet ] Chichester, and left it at that. It did j not strike him that his tone might I have been too casual, and that Gwen, j noticing it, and also his frequent jour | neyirigs to London of late, might still | put two and two together—aud make | the answer five. j (To Be Continued on Monday)