THREE MEN AND A MAID.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 13661, 27 March 1908, Page 6

THREE MEN AND A MAID.

BY ROBERT FRASER.

[caratiGHT.]

published by Special Arrangement.

CHAPTER IX. Inspector Winter.

Suddenly, as -Slarjorie dressed that morning, a thought from nowhere leaped up in her mind. '^Suppose Philip hasn't done any wrong, [after all! Suppose he not only did not kill Robert Oourthope, but is wholly guiltless, and is merely the victim of some entangled doom whose nature no brain can dream!" It seemed wild enough, but out of the dark depths of the heart hope was born in her, bringing a light to her eyes, a little flush to her cheeks once more. She- dressed in a hurry, yet hardly knew ' whither she was going, feeling only that it was necessary to consult some one, to do something. When she rap down, , the stairs to eat the first meal, she had tasted since she last saw her lover, her intention was to go to the Vicar, but she went instead to the small inn down the street near the church, where Inspector Winter was staying. She knew that he was officially her enemy, the hound of the law let loose to track Philip Warren; but she had noticed his face during- the first day of the inquest, and had thought well of it. She sent up her. ttaraife. Winter was still a young man of thirty-five, plump, bullet-headed, bulleteyed, with an actor's mouth and a trim 1 moustache, whwh he ever nibbled when he was not smoking. * "I am glad to see you." he said, as Marjorie stood before him; "I wanted to have a talk with you. Please take a chair," and Marjorie felt at once; in his personality, in his hard, quiet smile, a sense of power which pleased her. "I'm afraid. I am rather early she began. "Never a bit, Miss Neyland," said he; "never too early to do good, for I can see you have something good to tell me." For answer Marjorie handed him the red-spotted envelope, marked "To the County Coroner," with its enclosure. , She expected him to look startled, but his eye steadily twinkled upon it, though he now ttfok up again the cigar which he had put down, and, going to a window, impiigated the envelope and letter with vehement puffs, while be studied them. &s back turned to the room.- That was Winter's way; with him it was a case of no smoke, no thought. But within three minutes he had turned rouud with a laugh in • his ' eyes, and put down the envelope and the cigar again, saying: j "Sa you had a fight to get it, Miss Neyland?" '•Yes," answered Marjorie. -. "Got it from your Bister?" - "JHoY-can you — know?" ' ;1; 1 don't know, but should like to. You teU nae everything straight out^ and you may find that that will be the best in the end." '♦I moan to." ' "Good." Then' 1 she told him of the dropping of the envelope from Hannah's pocket, of the struggle in the dark. "It must have been a sight worth seeing," he remarked. "I should have bet on you, and I chcrald have wok.*' "But how could my sister possibly com.-* by this thing?" she asked. '•Nothing more simple," he answered, as though the affair were an excellent joke. , n You will find, when she comes to explain it in the court this afternoon., that she was wandering about Lancault, say the day after the tragedy, and picked up this note somewhere in the thick of the bracken. Wait and see if that does not turn out to be^the explanation." ,'iWell, I suppose that something of the sort may be true. But why did she hide it?" "Simple,, simple," said Winter, his chin between "bis finger and thtuwb, his eyes fixed quizzingly on Marjories face. "She didn't wish it to be known that any morbid craving hadi been causing her to wander about «f< spot which joverybody in the village is shunning.' You'll find that that's it, I'm certain." "No, no. There must be some other motive, or she would at least have mentioned it to me, to some one, in confidence."" "No, the same motive with regard to you as to anybody elso — sheer diffidence. , . She said to herself : . 'I don't want to be mixed up in all this row any more thajft, „I, anj already. J've found this thing, trot I'll keep it to mysolf.'".. ; - "Are you seriqus?" asked Marjorie. "My sister is riot usually so reticent! And could any such paltry half-motive-keep tier from revealing the proofs of another human creature's innocence?" "•Proofs? Innocence?" asked .the Inspector, with a fine assumption of wor.dor. "Innocence of what?" "Of murder *at least? Doesn't this thing prove that there was a, duel?',' *Ir one man kills another in a duel, isn't that murder? Not a very ugly murder, perhaps, l>ut still murder — mi Enaland. And why do you suppose that this letter and envelope constitute a proof that there, was 'a duel? They don't,." 'They do — to me" "To you, no- doubt. Others may be harder to convince. Suppose that { Warren did assassinate the Squiro, J what waa to prevent him, aftor the deed, from scribbling in pencil that thfre hud been a duel, then enclosing it in an envelope out of the dead man's pocket?" 'But what marvellous luck to find in the dead man's 'pocket an envelope in his own handwriting 1" said Mar-, jorie. "and an envelope directed to," of j>ll appropriate people, 'The County Coroner!'" "Queer, isn't it?" said the Inspector, smiling. "Tt couldn't have happened!" she cried. "Well, what do you think did happen ?" he aekod, with a quick side-look at her. "I believe that before the duel Mr. Warren wrote* the declaration, and then the. Squire put it into an envelope and wrote £h£ f address on' it as" a kind of confirmation of Mr. Warren's statement^-" Tho inspector chuckled. "Do- you think that the Squire carried a bout blank, envelopes in his pocket ? And where . did he get the ink in Lancault Ohuroh " "A fountain-pen "

"Where is the pen ? . Warren would have had no Wore motive for taking it away than he had for taking away the Squire's sword. On the contrary, he had a motive to leave them, to show that there had been a duel. But there was no pen, and no sword. So, you see, . there was no duel. What have you got to say to that, now?" "There was one sword, at least," said ! ( Marjorie, "and that one_ is as strong a disproof of assassination as two would have been a proof of a duel. For, if Mr. Warren were an assassin, why leave that one sword, which could be identified as his, stuck in the body? Why not take it away with him? or —bury it?" "Shrewd question," said Inspector Winter, who smiled again delightedly. "I soe you really believe that there was a duel." Marjorie made no answer, not from displeasure at his bantering tone, but because she was lost in thought. Though the detective argued against her, and seemed to treat her opinions with the irony of a father toward a precocious child, she had a half feeling of some mine of meaning at the back of his brain, which, if she but knew it, might yet prove to be not against, but for hef. i At any rate , / Inspecto r" Winter dfd not mean to give her time to think, as he wentf on Jblandjy. "We must never be too sure of anything. It is only you and a few prejudiced people who fetiU seem to cling to the idea of a duel. There is the question of that riiyg, for instance. You seemed to try to suggest in your evidence that the absence of the ring and tha scratch oiv Warren's hand may have had the same origin, namely, the stroke of a. rapfcr,' and that tho absence of tho' ring meant a duel. Quito so — but in that case we should expect to find the ring on the spot, since Warren, by your suggestion, was in too great flurry 1 of mind to search for and pick it up. But it isn't there. No ring — no sword-— no pen." "I am now; fairly certain that tho ring is there]," spid Marjoric. "I have a sure feeling that the loss of it was the cause of at least part of his distress when 1 saw him running away, and, if so,-'*it should be there still among the. grass in the' church! "It isn't, though," 'said tho inspector. "Every tuft of grass in that j church, every square inch of it. has been examined under the. lens " "It may have fallen into a hole j between the slabs v '^_ ! "If oyly there j^ere any holes — but there are none."' "* ' "I should say that.it is there," was her stubborn answer. "Men cannot find lost things. r> ' I mean to give a year of my life, if j necessary, to seekirig that jing> starting from to-day." "A year is#a long while," said the inspector^; "bfyt it .was about this ring that I was thinking of paying you a visit. I shall be obliged if you will describe it to me.'* j Marjorie sketched for him a picture of the signet of did . Thomas de War- j renne — the dragon's head on its helm, j and explained the njeanings of "gules," \ of "chevron agr." * (To be continued.)