"The Anderley Affair”

Taranaki Daily News, 10 June 1930, Page 14

"The Anderley Affair”

By

JOHN LAURENCE

CHAPTER XXXVHL ’ THE REUNION. An unhealthy pallor spread over the faces of the prisoners as the inspector pronounced the charge against them. Oster appeared the most composed of the three. He was the only one who had not been handcuffed. A bone in his wrist had been broken by the bullet from Arnheim’s revolver, and one of the police had bound the wound temporarily with a handkerchief. * “Marley dead?” he inquired. “You had better take them away, Inspector,” said Chalmers, ignoring the question. “I shall be here or at Sir Henry Anderley’s place for the next few hours, and will attend the court. There will be other charges.” Oster’s face grew grimmer, and then with a shrug of his shoulders he turned and followed the others out of the room. “Any objection to my being released?” asked Sir Henry. “I’m getting cramp.” As the rope which bound him were cut he swayed forward, and it was some minutes before he wias able to stand up. “This is Ritherdale of the Monitor,” said Chalmers, turning and indicating the journalist. “You must be careful what you say in front of him. I could not keep him out of it at the last.”. He crossed Aver to one of his men and whispered some instructions to him. “You have given me a bit of a scare, Sir Henry,” he said as th© other disappeared. “I was more scared myself,” confessed Anderley, rubbing one of his wrists. “Especially when the shooting began. I couldn’t very well dodge and Entleman would have put a bullet through me*as soon as look at me. What happened ” “We ran into a fire engine and wrecked the car,” replied Chalmers. We got held up. I got one of my men to telephone the garage as being the 'quickest way to stop Oster making a bolt for it. I had a feeling something would happen despite the fact he had been knocked out. He’s a slippery devil. Mrs. Sanders had telephoned to me- that Entleman and Arnheim had gone off in a devil of a hurry in a taxi and had -told her to follow to Putney in the morning. That was why we came here after we found Oster had got away. I never reckoned on them going to Randock Mews. What happened to you ?” “Entleman gbt me,” said Anderley with a laugh. “I can feel his hairy hands on my neck now. I think that was about my worst moment.” He outlined what had happened in the Mews. : “I knew you’d been there, apart from the fact you telephoned,” remarked Chalmers. “We found your black scarf and skull cap in one corner. As a minor charge they’ll be had up for assaulting the police. One of them knocked a policeman off the running board and he broke a leg in the fall.” “That was Oster,” said Anderley. “You telephoned Chalmers that Oster was at Randock Mews?” askd Ritherdale, who was puzzled by what he had heard. “Did you know that Anderley had confessed that you were safe?” “Don’t answer that yet, Anderley,” said Chalmers, laughing. “I warned you to be careful. I’d forgotten for. the moment you were in the room, Ritherdale, as a journalist. Qutie frankly, if you want to stay you’ll have to shut your journalistic ears to a lot. Some things must not be allowed to leak out.” Ritherdale nodded his agreement. “I’m making guesses,” he said cheerfully. “Give me what you can before the rest of Fleet Street get hold of it and I’ll shut my mouth about anything you want me to. But I think',” he added dryly, “that Sir Henry’s whereabouts wasn’t quite unknown to the authorities, despite the warrant out against him and the apparent efforts to' find him.” ‘Well, that’s a bargain,” agreed Chalmers, ignoring the other’s innuendoes. “You shall have your scoop all right. I think we’d better adjourn to your place, Anderley, and we can get the story straightened out for Ritherdale’s benefit.” “Telephone, sir.” ,

Chalmers tollowed Ills man out and came back in a few moments. “That was Haynes,” he remarked. “Oster and Co. have been searched but the police haven’t found —” “The maps,” interrupted Anderley. “Queer, I’d forgotten about the maps in the excitement of being rescued. That was what the shooting was all about. I fancy they must be in that vase in the hall.” “Your fancy was right, Anderley,” said Chalmers, when he' returned from taking Sir Henry’s hint. His face showed the satisfaction he felt. “There’s a tracing of some kind with them.” “That’s the key of sorts to the riddle. I saw Oster using it down at Newdigate. It’s got invisible writing on it, brought out by heat. But let’s go across to my place and make ourselves comfortable. There won’t be much sleep for any of us to-night. The door was opened to them by Jennings, and his usual imperturbable calm for once was shaken as he saw his master with Chalmers and the journalist. “I am glad to see you, sir, but—” He loked suspiciously at Sir Henry’s companions. “I’m not under arrest, Jennings,” interrupted his master smiling. ‘"The murderer has confessed. Get Mrs. O’Shea to cut some sandwiches and make some coffee. And bring some glasses along to the library, Jennings.” The news of Sir Henry Anderley’s return spread quickly throughout the house, and the three men had hardly entered the library, when there came an agitated tap on. the door and it opened without any interval and O’Shea came in. “Oh, sorr, an’ it’s a glad man I am this night,” he exclaimed joyfully. “An’ the villain’s confessed, an’ all.” He spoke in the privileged tones of an old retainer and his master held out his hand and smiled affectionately at him. “Everything’s coming out all right. O’Shea,” he said quietly. “I don’t know what I should have done without you and Mrs. O’Shea. You have saved my life. To-morrow I will tell you all about it. To-night I must talk to

these gentlemen. Go along and help your .wife and Jennings to get things going again. We are famished.” There were tears in O’Shea’s eyes as ho turned away, tears of gladness. “There goes a fine fellow,” said Sir Henry as the door closed. “Impulsive, generous, but above all faithful. He’d have taken my place on the scaffold if necessary. That kind is fast dying out, I am afraid. He could have told you where I was at any time you wanted to know, Mr. Ritherdale, that is if you could have got him to talk.” “The whole affair began in this library, and it looks as though it will end here,” said Ritherdale, and then added, “Hallo, who’s driving up here ta this time?” The noise of a car could be heard outside, and the answer to the question was given almost immediately as Floyd came running into the room, followed by Alan Hunter. She flung herself into her father’s arms with a glad cry, and clung to him for some moments .without speaking. “Oh, daddy!” she whispered at last, looking up into his tanned face. “I thought you were never coming back.” “Mr. Chalmers telephoned us and we came straight away,” cried Htinter, wringing the other’s hands. “Floyd wouldn’t wait till the morning.” Floyd nodded her head without speaking as Mrs. O’Shea came in carrying a heavy tray, and sat down happily beside her father. Her heart was too full at that moment to say anything. Behind Mrs, O’Shea, through the open door, stood two or three of the servants. It was unusual for the housekeeper to bring in a tray herself, but this was an unusual occasion, and she had not had the heart to keep the servants from following her to welcome back their master. “And now, I think, explanations,” said Sir Henry gravely.

CHAPTER XXXIX. EXPLANATIONS. Sir Henry finished his cup bf coffee and lighted a cigar. “This is the first real smoke I’ve had since that night before Oakes came,” he said. “I should have given myself away if I’d smoked •before.” “Oh, daddy, where have you been all this time?” asked Floyd. “I think I had better begin at the beginning • and not in the middle,” continued her father, “and you can all fill in the gaps as I go along.” “The story really begins in May, 1917. I had been appointed at the beginning of that year as Governor of Yandan. My predecessor had' been killed in the guerilla fighting with the Germans who had invaded the colony, and it was part of my job to help in rounding them up and keep things going till the war was over. In May the British Government consigned £3,000,000 in gold bars to South Africa in the sailing shop Organdi. Off Yandan she was held up by one of the U-boats under the command of a Captain Paul Croner. '

“The crew were allowed to take to the boats and to row to the land some five miles away. Croner transferred the gold to his submarine and then sank his capture. Exactly what happened next is a matter of conjecture, but there is little doubt that the officers of the U-boat, tempted by the enormous sum which had fallen into their hands, decided to steal it for themselves. They murdered the crew with one exception, a man named Maximilian Dunks, who managed to make his escape by jumping overboard and swimming for his life." “Dunks and Oster are the same man,” interposed Chalmers. “Marley told me the same thing,” added Ritherdale. “I know the story, of course, though it never leaked' out in the newspapers.” “Croner and three of his companions landed one night 'on a deserted part of the coast,” continued Sir Henry, “and spent the next three days carrying thebullion inland and burying it, with- the help of some of the natives, all of whom, afterwards, were brutally murdered. “They then made a map of the country, or rather used an ordnance map, and cut it into four. You might have thought that each would have remembered where the gold was buried, but if . you knew the. country you would understand the difficulty of finding any exact spot again, perhaps some years afterwards. Near the coast, and for some., miles inland, are dense jungle forests, intersected by narrow paths used by the natives. One path is very much like another, and only the natives themselves could pick any individual one out. A good many of the socalled roads on the. maps are nothing more than narrow ways through the forest where it is only possible to walk in single file.”