CHAPTER XVI—Continued.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 13483, 24 July 1907, Page 6

CHAPTER XVl— Continued.

Raymond Stennard retired without further protest. Ho was holding his head higher now; there was method in his movements. " So that's all right," said Ronton. " Now for our man again." They were back in the evil-smelling eating-house. The shabby little man they were after was engrossed in his paper. With a grim smile Oathcart stood before him. Then he struck the grimy newspaper aside. " Any interesting suicides?" he asked grimly. Seth Powell looked up in a vague way, his blood-shot eyes were /terribly vacant, there was a blue tinge on his cheeks. As life and sense came back to him, he began to shake in a grotesque, jelly-fish kind of way. A film that might have passed for tears fflled his eyes. "Why, it's Mr. Cathcart!" he said hoarsely. "Mr. Cathcart!" " Well, there's nothing strange about that," George said impatiently. "I never disappeared from the countinghouse of a distinguished capitalist. I never committed a picturesque suicide, to be subsequently identified by my employer, and finally buried at the expense of that generous individual." "Mr. Mostyn was mistaken," Powell said with a tentative laugh. "He -" " You mean that he honestly thought he had found you?" Bcnton asked. " Well, yes, whoever you are." " I am the owner of the ' Lone Star,' ■ if you must know," Itenton replied. " Come out of this." Powell protested tearfully that he was doing nq harm. If he chose to disappear, and remain modestly anonymous in future, it was nothing to anybody so long as his recent employer Ronton cut him shopfc • " You have heard what recently took place at Lewton Assizes?" he asked. Powell shook his head thoughtfully. Lowton he knew, because Mr. Mostyn lived near there, but the assizes conveyed nothing to his mind. Renton snatched impatiently at the greasy paper that Powell had been reading. " You are a poor sort of liar," he said. " Why, you 'were actually reading the account of the proceedings when we came in! Now, listen to me. You are supposed to have robbed your late employer, and committed suicide when found out. You also know all about the i letter in the pocket of Mr. Cathcart's pass-book. If I call a policeman and tell him, you are Seth Powell, who is • mixed up in the celebrated Cathcart case, the 'consequences are likely to be ) awkward." ) The seedy little man collapsed at once. He averred tremblingly that he was the victim of circumstances ; he meant no harm to anybody. On his honour, he knew nothing of the Cathcart case until he had read it a few minutes ago. And seeing that Mr. Catheart was now, happily, free, there was no reason for him to interfere. " If I can help you I will," ho said fawningly. " You can help us a great deal," Renton replied. "In the first place why did you leave your comfortable rooms in Bardell Street, saying that you were going into the country for a few days, and hire a wretched garret here?" Powell sighed gently. The tale he was mentally concocting was useless with a manlike this, who knew all about him. " I had a warning," he said ; " a telegram from a friend telling me that I was not safe. So I went at once." " Afraid of the police, I, suppose?" " Well, yes, sir, if you like to put it that way." " You fled hurriedly, leaving all your things behind you, saying that you would let the people in Bardell Street \ know when you were returning. Well, I you are going to return there now." j "But, then, the police?" Powell I gasped. < "At present the police are not coni corned with you. They deem you to be J dead and buried. We are the people who are "likely to set the police upon you. Your sitting-room at 74 Bardell Street is behind the dining-room, I believe." Powell nodded. He was drifting helplessly 1 with the tide now. "It is connected with the front room, by folding doors," Renton went on. " In fact, it is practically a double din-ing-room. The front part is occupied by a clever and ambitious young doctor, who uses it partly for a Consulting and partly for a sitting-room. His plate is on the door." " Your knowledge is wonderfully accurate, sir,'^ Powell said humbly. "I fancy I am pretty woll posted," Renton wont on drily. "This young doctor — «who is pretty certain to get on — is out all the afternoon, because he has lately succeeded in getting a parish appointment.- He is quite up to date, and thorefore has a telephone in hte room. Useful things, telephones, eh?" Powdll gasped again. His watery c.yes were regarding Renton attentively. " You are pretty friendly with the young doctor. When he is out you have the use of his room, as being more cheerful. Are you ready?" Powell was quite ready. He would do anything that the gentleman required. Thefo was a trembling, fawning oagerncss that filled up the measure of Cathcart's contempt. " Where are we going?" the latter asked. "Back to Bardell Street," Renton explained. " Come along." A little later and the ill-assorted associates arrived at Bardell Street. The little back sitting-room occupied by Powell was stuffy, but the air was pure and sweet by comparison with the eat-ing-houfce near the docks. " Now go and make yourself respectable," Renton commanded. " And if you try to play me false But I don't fancy you'll do that." The little man smiled and writhed I out of the room. " How long have you known about this?" Cathcart asked. " A day or two before your trial," i Renton explained. "When Syrett found out about v that letter in the ponket of your pass-book he naturally told me. In the first instance I thought | the letter was a forgery."

'•But. my dear loliov/, i.orLwoc.i Mostvn forced it." "Nothing ci tiio kind. Feth Powell wrote it. Alter the supposed suiculihe must have <j;one to isicstyn's oirkv late one night by appointment — the night of the day when young Stennard handed over your pasb-book." " Tn that case, why the 'suicide' at all:-" Cathcart asked*.

" Don't you see the diabolical ingenuity of it' all?" exclaimed Renton. ""Powell's suicide was a tacit admission oi his guilt — and yours. At first I believed the letter to be a forgery. But to our surpru-o, when we handed it to an expert wilh a vouched copy or Seth Powell's handwriting, he pronounced it to be genuine. Thai being so, Powell couldn't be dead, you see."