The Bannatyne Sapphires

Taranaki Daily News, 6 September 1929, Page 14

The Bannatyne Sapphires

By

FRANK HIRD

He was standing in the middle of the room, very ■ puzzled and perplexed, when the sound came again, and so close to him that he jumped. It was distinctly uncanny and unpleasant. Meredith had never’heard of the tower being haunted. He didn’t believe in ghosts. Besides, he had slept in that same rooifl heaps of times and had never had this experience. There it was agaiii. This time with a hideous gurgle fit the end, which sent a chill running all down his spine. He wa's getting frightened, yes, positively frightened. That was silly. There must be some explanation. He sat down on a settee at the Toot of the bed, and. waited, more perturbed and wondering than he cared to admit. The whole thing was so unaccountable, so uncanny..,'At. the end r of ten minutes, there still being silence, he went back to bed But aio sooner had lie switched on both the lights than the sound eyer more, wailing and more anguished, echoed through the room. Meredith switched on the lights and leapt-out of bed. Sleep had: now become 1 impossible. Close to the fireplace was a big easy chair, and beside it a spider-lagged table on which stood a brass candlestick with an electric light under the pink silk shade. Wound round and round the stem of the candlestick was a long piece of wire with a plug at its end. Meredith knew that this plug went into a wallsocket ?.t one side of the fireplace. So he'got his book, fixed the plug, lighted a cigarette, and sat down in the easy chair to read beneath the pink silk shade. • But reading was n"t easy. He sat waiting, waiting, for the eerie, mysterious sound. At last it came, and again with the blood-curdling gurgle at the end. “It’s just as if someone had had his throat cut,” he thought, shivering in spite of himself, and throwing his cigarette into the fireplace. Five, seVen, ten times, the sound wailed through the room—Meredith counted as it came each time. With each wail he had a sickening physical sensation of fear such as he had never experienced in all his life. Whether the sound was ghostly or not, it was unendurable. He could feel odd little tremors running all over his. body. There was nothing for it but to take a blanket and his eiderdown and sleep on the sofa. in the smoking-room. He confessed to himself that he was in “too blue a funk” to stay in the bedroom. He was stooping down to pull the plug of the silk-shaded light from its socket, when he noticed smoke rising between the logs laid across the iron dogs in the fireplace. A small rim of light was itinning quickly along some newspaper beneath a bed of twigs on which the logs rested. In a moment he realised that his cigarette had set the paper smouldering. " Stepping over the .stone kerb -which surrounded the fireplace, Meredith knelt down and tore the paper from beneath the twigs, pressing out the smouldeiing parts with his hands. Smoke was rising in thin, long spirals, right Qt the back of the logs, and creeping up -the- iron fire-back. Putting his head under the stone canopy, Meredith leant over the logs and pulled out a large piece of smouldering paper which had been firmly wedged between the fireback and the twigs. It was so near to bursting into flame that, not caring to risk his hands, he rubbed it vigorously on the top log until all signs of smouldering had gone. Stooping over the log, his head and shoulders were immediately beneath the chimney. Just as lie rubbed out the last sign of fire, the eerie sound came again. It° seemed to come from immediately above his head. .He moved into the wide space between the end of the logs and the wall, of the fireplace, and looked upwards.' All was black and cavernous. He could see nothing. But the sound came almost continuously, and as he listened Meredith’s broad ' shoulders began to shake .with laughter. , The mystery was solved. The bloodcurdling noise which had given him such an unpleasant sensation was Maxwell Wryce snoring in the room above. Meredith knew that in many old houses one chimney sometimes served for several rooms on successive floors. This, then, was the explanation. Beneath the stone canopy the noise was nothing but a snore, distinct and unmistakable. But out in the room it was weird and uncanny, with a note of agony which Meredith had found particularly horrible. Clearly, the same chimney served his room and the one above. Maxwell Wryce’s prosaic snores, by some means or other, had penetrated to the chimney, and the big open fireplace had acted like a megaphone, distorting and lengthing the snore and stertorous breathing into long drawn-out wails. Remembering his alarm, Meredith laughed aloud. He must tell Maxwell the next time he saw him.

As he carne out from beneath the canopy he saw that the heap of paper he had put on one side of the fireplace was still smouldering. Taking it up in his hands he rubbed it on the topmost log as he had done the wedge of paper from beneath the fire-back. As he did so, distinctly down the chimney came the sound of a closing door. Instinctively Meredith looked up and saw a ray of light shoot across the chimney ihaft, far above his head. It remained stationary and shone so clearly that he could sec the soot clinging to the bricks above the ray and where it struck the opposite’ side of the shaft. He noticed that the ray of light came from a point in a dii - ect®line with the fireplace in which he was standing. That meant it came from Maxwell Wryce s room.

“Maxwell! Maxwell! Wake up!” Julia Wryce’s voice came down the chimney as clearly and distinctly as if she had been speaking in Meredith’s own room. It was odd, he thought, that Julia should go to her brother’s room at that hour of the night. Not wishing to play eavesdropper he was moving from beneath the canopy when he heard her say, her voice sharp with anxiety, in answer to some mumbled words from Maxwell Wryce: ! * „ . l “I’m certain that man Grelkin suspects something. Where is the necklace?” Wryce’s answer was just as clear: “Safe in Ajaccio bv now. Leofalda took it when he and Bartwell went to. Paris But what makes you think suspect; anything?” _ . “Something Grelkin said to me to-

Meredith heard Julia say. “I met him in the hall after I’d taken Alice up to bed. He asked me if you. and I were staying at Ossingford Park when Lady Claverton’s jewels were stolen. It was no good denying it, because I knew he remembered seeing us there. Then he asked me if I remembered a game Lord Claverton started one night.- You remember, when he insisted on all of us putting our fingers on a blackened paper and then pressing them down on a piece of white paper?” “Yes, I do remember, and it made me feel beastly uncomfortable. Although Claverton said it was to read character by finger-marks I felt there might be a catch in it.” . “And there was,” Julia Wryce said.. “Grelkin told me so to-night. He said lie suggested the game to Lord Claverton in order to get the finger-marks of everybody in the house.” There was an exclamation from Wryce, followed by soim words Meredith could not catch, ending with: “But what on earth did he tell you that for ?” “That’s what frightens me, Maxwell. He told me Lord Claverton gave him the finger-marks and that he had kept them.”

“But that proves nothing.” Julia Wryce had apparently moved, for her voice sounded fainter and farther but it was still quite clear. “It might, here, at Brentland. I hadn't a chance to get indiarubber'gloves when I watched Alice and Patricia put the necklace away on the night of the ball. It was a case of seizing a moment that might never come again. So there are my finger marks, and Bartwell’s, too, on that bookcase! And on the dummy book as well! I took it’ down, and he put it back whilst I was cramming the necklace into my bag. / Suppose this Grelkin finds pur fingermarks. You know Bartwell was at Ossingford. He told me they-had just the same -game of finger-marks in’the servant’s hall, and. you may be. sure Grelkin has kept those as well.” “What’s there to be frightened about?” >

“Oh, Maxwell, don’t you see? You and I are guests at Ossingford, and Bartwell is a footman there, when Lady Claverton’s jewels disappeared. You and 1 are guests here, and Bartwell is footman, the last time Alice Bannantyne wore her necklace. And there are my fingerprints and Bartwell’s on the hiding-place where she kept it! Won’t a man like Grelkin put two and two together?” > -“He may, but he can prove nothing.” “Y’es, I know, but Maxwell, you’ve always said the one thing we must avoid was suspicion. Grelkin, I’m convinced, suspects us. 'I felt it all through my bones when ho was talking to me.” “This is the nastiest’ jar we’ve ever had,” came Wryce’s voice after a pause. “But Grelkin can do nothing on the fin-ger-marks in the game at Ossingford and the same finger-marks on the place where Alice Bannantyne kept her necklace —nothing. The only thing that rather rattles me is, are you sure nobody saw you and Bartwell go to her sittingroom ?”

I’m certain nobody did. As I told you, on t' e night of the ball for Patricia and Guy Meredith, Bartwell and I were in Henry's gun-room. It was the only chance I had io get his report, and the only place where nobody was likely to come. He’d spied and searched everywhere, but all he could find out was that Alice Bannantyne didn’t keep the necklace in her bedroomi As usual he made ■love to her maid; and she told him so. “When he went out of the room he didn’t close Ihe door behind him. The minute after he had gone I heard Alice and Patricia talking, just outside the door, about the necklace, and Alice saying that she kept it in her sitting-room and must put it away before she went to bed. You know how I crept to the door of the sitting-room and watched them work the secret springs. “When Bartwell and I went there later and got the necklace there was nobody anywhere near the room, and, anyway, I locked the door. So you needn’t be rattled about that.” “And you reedn’t worry about Grelkin. But, the same, what he said to you shows we’ll have to be very careful. We’d better be doggo for a bit.”

Wryce’s voice tailed off in a yawn. There was a silence. The basket chair creaked as if Julia Wryce was moving about in it nervously. Meredith looked up at the beam of light striking across the chimney, straining his ears, 'and after a little while Maxwell Wryce’s voice came clearly. “We can’t stop, Julia, until I make up that fifty thousand I had to pay Guy through Leofalda. Damn Guy and the Sangolanto people. I’m certain that one or the other found out we’d’ struck oil in our secret borings on old Daynesford’s property.” z “I’m sure Guy didn’t know. Patricia told me that he stuck out because Leofalda was so insistent, and went on bidding against the Sa'ligolanto people.” “I was too certain he wouldn’t get the money for the taxes. If I’d told Leofalda to offer £IO,COO instead of £5OOO that afternoon I sent him to Guy after he had been lunching with us, and had asked me for a loan for the taxes, I believe Guy would have made the bargain on the spot. And in the end I’ve had to pay £50,000. That’s upset all my calculations.”

“Oh, Maxwell, can't we stop now? The way Grelkin spoke to me to-night terrified me. Surely we have enough? And if we were found out —oh! I can’t bear to think of it—what would be the use of al! this money then?” “All this money! Do you know, Julia, getting that £50,000 in a hurry for Guy —damn him!—practically cleared Leofalda and me of liquid cash.” “What’s £50,000?” Julia Wryce asked, her voice slightly raised, “in comparison with the risk «.’c being found out?” “It's £2500 a year at 5 per cent., and a good deal more if it’s invested in South America.” “Maxwell, Tin certain it isn t worth it. For God’s sake let us stop now!” “Now, old girl, don’t upset yourself,” Wryce spoke soothingly. “But you re right, Julia. We’ve always pulled things off because w - e took no risks. M ell giie England a rest and see what we can pick up in America.” “Thank God!” exclaimed the sister, adding with fervour. “That’s a load off my mind. Now I shall be able to sleep. ’ ' “Who knows,’ said Wryce, “if I get a top price for the Mexican property, nerhans we needn’t have to trouble peo-

pie’s safes and jewel-boxes over there?” “Then I hope to goodness' you will get a top price, Maxwell. I’m certain this Grelkin business is a warning, and we ought to stop, not only here, but everywhere. Maxwell, let’s give up the American idea, too.”

“Oh, that’s a long way ahead. Plenty of time to discuss that when we see how much the stuff at Ajaccio will fetch.” This was followed by an odd booming sound down the chimney. It came again. Wryce was yawning. “Good-night, old girl, I’m awfully sleepy. By the way, have you seen Patricia?” “No, I went to her room, but the door was locked and she wouldn’t let me in.”

“I saw Guy downstairs. It’s all over between them and the Bannanty'nes. He and Patricia are leaving to-morrow morning early. Grelkin was a blundering ass, wasn’t he, to let Henry go so far against Patricia? Imagine him not enquiring at Yestborough’s what sort of necklace it was she pawned!” “Perhaps he did enquire and said nothing about it ” “What on earth for?”

“To keep Henry’s suspicions from us. I believe Grelkin knew all along that the necklace Patricia pawned wasn’t Alice s. but said nothing just to put Henry on the wrong scent.” “I never thought of that.” said U ryce. “Well, if you’re right he’ll have to wait and wait and wait, because we’re to be reformed characters in England? Good-night, old girl!” “Good-night.” Meredith heard the closing of a door, followed by the click of an electric light switch. The ray of light across the chimney-shaft suddenly disappeared. In stooping to-come from beneath the canopy Meredith hit his foot sharply against some hard object. It shot across the hearth stone, hit the stone kerb, and bounced out on to the hearth-rug. .It was a small red brick, the side lying uppermost covered with soot. Here, he realised, was the explanation of the ray of light across the chimneyshaft. A brick, broken away from the mortar —and this was the bride —had fallen from out of the fire-place in Maxwell .Wryce’s room, into his own fireplace. And by one of those mysterious laws which govern sound, and of which we know no more than we know of the origin of electricity, the hole the brick had left in Maxwell Wryce’s fire-place had served as a sort of microphone for his snores, and for the amazing talk between the brother and sister. Meredith sat down on his bed. looking at a sooty mark on his leather slipper where he had kicked the brick. Then he pinched both his legs, hard, through is pyjamas; pinced harder still. The pinches hurt. Yes; he was awake! He hadn't been dreaming! (To be continued.)