The Japanese Parasol

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1023, 14 July 1930, Page 5

The Japanese Parasol

|piiiiiiiiiiiii!iiiiiiiiii!Hiii)iiiiii!iiiiiiiiiinnniinii(iniiiiiiuiitii([iiiiii!!!iiiiiiiituiiiiiiiiiiiiiHiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!iiiiiiiiM H COPYRIGHT PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT M

:J A Powerful Mystery Story, Superbly Told. p iminiminuM

CHAPTER XXVII. For an instant Winilirop stared down at Gwen’s prostrate figure as if nonplussed. Then he did a curious thing. With a sudden jerk of his arm he flung the snake away from him and, hissing angrily, it glided rapidly away, disappearing through the low arclrway in the wall which the girl had previously noticed. Stooping down he lifted her as easily as he had done the night, before, and began to carry her back along the passage, not pausing until he came to the room in which she had slept. Bearing her inside, he laid her on the bed and then, without making any attempt to revive her, he withdrew, but this time he produced a key from his pocket and locked her in.

Going back to his own room, ne busied himself feverishly for several hours and his occupation would have proved of absorbing interest had* there .been anyone to see him at it. Finally he emerged into the tunnel again, by the light of his electric torch following the route which both of them, pursuer and pursued, had taken that morning. On this occasion, however, he did not pass the opening in the wall. Instead, with some difficulty, he squeezed through it and continued his progress along a similar tunnel to the other which in its turn presently divided into two. Choosing the left-hand turn, he plodded steadily on. Eventually, as before, a flight of steps appeared to mark its end. Winthrop ascended these and began to run the tips of his fingers across the surface of the wall at their summit until they encountered a small projection. This he turned and immediately, as in the pagoda, a portion of the wall slipped back. A moment later he was in Hugh Monro’s study. Closing the panel behind him, he advanced into the room, making straight for the desk which stood m the farther corner —and scarcely had he reached it when Hugh himself entered through the door. What followed has already been told. The astonishment of the two men at seeing the other was mutual, for up to that instant Winthrop had genuinely believed that Hugh had perished on the reef. But the colonel’s superior coolness stood him in good stead. By means of the candlestick he laid out his younger adversary aud his subsequent disappearance through the panel was calculated to foster the illusion that he had never been in the room at all. For the time beino- bo bo/1 triinnnhorl

once more, but he found it easy to imagine what Hugh’s escape portended. His face was ominous and he muttered continuously to himself as he strode, like some denizen of the lower regions, down the tunnel. Outside Gwen’s door he stopped and listened. His fingers twitched and his mutterings increased, but in the end he went into his own apartment, lit two caudles and commenced to write.

For close upon another hour the scratch of his pen alone broke the vault-like silence. Then he blotted what he had written and scraped back his chair.

“A masterpiece,” he murmured. ‘‘The confession of the world’s greatest criminal!” Tilting back his seat, he read through the manuscript from beginning to end, with ah ever-increasing complacency which seemed to restore his good humour. When he reached the end he took up his pen again and in block letters inscribed as its title the very words he had just uttered. “Now,” he murmured again, ‘‘for the envelope.” It was a foolscap one into which he pressed the written sheets, and in his neat, firm hand —which nevertheless here and there showed a curious and significant inclination to straggle—he addressed it to

Detective-Inspector Walter Lucas, New Scotland Yard.”

‘‘lf only,” he sighed, ‘‘l could be hei e to see him read it!” Lighting a cigarette, he rose, and paced about the floor, and his new found mood of good humour still seemed to remain witii him. More than once he chuckled, es pecially when he picked up an object which stood in one corner of the room and regarded it whimsically. “Dear little girl,” he laughed. “She will never be able to resist my wedding gift.” The cigarette half smoked, he suddenly crushed it out between his fingers and threw it away. Then, stiil carrying what he had just picked up, he approached Gwen’s door and inserted the key. For some time after Winthrop had laid her on the bed her faint had continued, but she had come round a f last—to a shuddering realisation that if these terrors were to continue they must inevitably reduce her to a physical and mental wreck. The very darkness of the cell wracked her nerves until she felt that she mus* scream and scream again. It was only a supreme effort which enabled her, with trembling fingers, to light one of her candles, expecting as she riiri bo orow moment to see the glar-

ing eyes of the cobra regarding her from some cranny of the room. Yet with the advent of the light something of her poise returned, and with it the desire to make one las* and supreme bid for a freedom which she told herself she must, at all haz ards, attain. Assuring herself that che snake was not, after all, in the room she approached the door—only tc make the crushing discovery that it was now locked. Thereafter apathy seemed to settle down upon her.' She sat on the edge of her bed, dully pondering, and somehow not greatly caring, what was to happen next. The remembrance of that fatal news item in the paper crushed her spirit. Nothing, she be gan to feel, could henceforth intervene to save her. Yet the grating of AVinthrop’s key in the lock instilled her with fresh fear, for she knew that sooner or later a reckoning with him must come. Involuntarily she shrank back at his approach, but he was no longer the grimacing semi-maniac who had thrust the snake in her face. His manner had gone back to the more normal fashion of the early morning when he had brought in her breakfast. He smiled amiably—but all the same neither the object he held out to her nor his words did anything to allay her uneasiness. “See, my child,” he exclaimed, “my wedding present to you.” She could not suppress the cry of astonishment which rose to her lips and for the moment she forgot the significance of his phras# in her amazed contemplation of what he called his wedding gift. It was a familiar obje'-i indeed, one that sent her thoughts back with a rush to the beginnings of all these mysteries. IT WAS THE JAPANESE PARASOL Familiar and presumably harmless though it was, she drew away from it on account of its association. When last she had seen it, it had been shading a dead woman’s face, and had bec -i grasped in a dead woman’s hand. It was too symbolical of poor Violet Chichester’s end for Gwen to do otherwise than regard it with aversion. She recalled its mysterious d'sappearance. Dimly, she began to realise how his possession of it must connect Winthrop with that griirscene at the backwater’s edge. Was there after all a more sinister interpretation of the actress’s death than foreshadowed by the verdict at the in quest, and, if so, was this Indian soldier involved in it, too? She shuddered. “Take* it away,” she begged, “I don’t want it.” Winthrop laughed, much as one would at a child whose new toy does not meet with the approval expected. “A silly old parasol, isn’t it? A foolish wedding present? But take it, twist the handle, and you will see what you will see. A gift fit for a queen, and you are—you will be—my queen, Gwen.” Unwillingly, she took it. Indeed she had no option, for he pushed it into her hand, although she had a wild desire to throw it on the floor. “Turn the handle!” lie repeated. “Turn the handle!” Impressed by his urgency, and by the instinct that she must humour him, she did as he told her, and at once the otfter casing of the handle came off her hand. “Look inside,” Winthrop chuckled gleefully*. “Look inside.”

She did so. There was a piece of rolled paper, which crinkled as she opened it out. She stared at it as if hypnotised and a cry of utter disbelief followed her perusal. It might well do so. for she held between her fingers a bank note for one million pounds. “There, darling," came the colonel's triumphant chuckle, as he placed his hand upon her arm, "there is my present to you—and I have plenty more—hundreds more.” He dropped his voice. “I am,” he stated solelmnly, “the richest man in the world.” His grasp on her arm tightened. “Tonight,” he declared, “we will flit’ away from here, you and I, flit to a country of which I shall be king and you my queen. Money will descend upon us like rain from heaven—for have I not the power of calling up money at will. A wave of my magic wand, and heigh presto, we have money and more money, and all that money can buy. We shall buy the world, you and I. We shall ” His voice, which had gradually been rising to a crescendo of wild excitement, suddenly ceased. He relaxed his intolerable grasp of her, and sprang to his feet, and, white-faced and distraught, Gwen did the same — as far from him as the confines of the room would allow. From outside in the passage came the staccato sound of a pistol shot, echoing weirdly in those narrow limits and then repeated. CHAPTER XXVIII. On leaving the Hengiave police station for what Detective-Inspector Lucas had not inaptly called the "tiger’s lair,” Hugh saw that the latter meant to rely on the assistance of men from the Yagd. Two accompanied him, one of them. Lucas told Hugh, being an ex-mem-ber of the Indian Police. It was quite obvious that Superintendent Blagdon would have liked to have made one of the party, and that he resented being left behind, but Hugh could understand the inspector’s point of view. Against such a quick-witted antagonist as Winthrop, Blagdon. with his slow-moving and none too brilliant intellect, might well prove more of an encumbrance than a help. At all events, he was left seated in dudgeon in his office while the others moved off to what they all hoped would prove the last reckoning with the wily Anglo-Indian.

Wondering where the colonel’s “lair” would prove to be, Hugh was ! surprised when he found Lucas leading them over the familiar ground ■ toward the spinney, which had al- 1 ready been the scene of so many bizarre events. Two plain clothes men stood at the gate, who saluted Lucas as he came up. “Anything to report?” he asked. “Nothing, sir; not a sign of anyone.” Their chief nodded, as if their intelligence was what he had expected. Passing through the wood. Hugh saw when they came to the pagoda that a boat containing more police was afloat on the backwater. These, too. had nothing to report, but the ininspeptor was in no way put out. “Excellent!” he murmured, as if the news pleased him. Thereafter the four men trooped into the summer-house, where Lucas took from his pocket the plans he had copied from the book in the Museum. He examined these carefully, and then commenced to run his hand along the wall. Nothing happened at first, but all at once, under the pressure of his fingers, the sliding panel rolled back, and Lucas’s jaws champed in triumph on the inevitable gum. The secret stairway was revealed, j “Good lord!” Hugh breathed. "So this is what you meant by his lair?” His next thought made him go white. “Heavens!” he muttered. “Can he have Gwen immured down here?” Lucas overheard the almost frantic exclamation. "Steady.” he said encouragingly. “If so, we'll soon have ■ her free.” One by one, they descended the steps into the forbidding depths, Lucas leading, and, by mutual consent, speaking in whispers, began to grope their way along the passage which to Hugh seemed as endless as it had done to the girl when carried down it by Winthrop. “Where on earth does it lead to?” he asked the inspector, who was just ahead of him. “As far as Grange Hall, and probably elsewhere as well.” was the replv. “but I expect you'll get a chance of exploring it thoroughly later. In the meantime- "

“Yes?” “Don’t talk more than you art obliged to just now.” Feeling snubbed. _ Hugh relapsc4 into silence, and they plodded on umit they came at length to the two oakcS doors set in the wall. With one a» cord, they baited, and Lucas, holding up his hand as a warning that they should, if possible, be even quieter than before, pressed his ear against the panels of the first. A grimace of disappointment had just signified that ho could hear nothing, when from the second there came the distinct, if subdued, sound of voices. Again Lucas crept on. and paused to listen, and it was quite clear to him now that there were two persons behind this second door. The thickness of the oak rendered their actual words inaudible, but one of them —a man—seemed to be speaking with increasing noise and urgency. It was Winthrop, telling the fantastic story of his wealth. Presently Lucas beckoned to the others. "Two on each side of the as he comes out. You with me, Monro—the others opposite. Good, door.” he whispered, "we'll get him now all we have to do is to wait.” Easy enough for Lucas to talk like that. Hugh thought bitterly. The lmter felt convinced that the girl he loved was behind that closed door. an.l as Winthrop's voice rose higher he looked appealingly at the Scotland Yard man. Goodness alone knew what was going on inside there: what threats were being uttered. Lucas interpreted his glance, and shook his head. While he had been listening, he had tested the handle with infinite care. (To be Continued Tomorrow.)