THE JEWELS OF DEATH.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 144197, 13 September 1913, Page 5

THE JEWELS OF DEATH.

BY ROBEET HALIFAX.

CHAPTER X.—Continued. The Brazilian, too, watching with his gleaming eyes from a safer distance, had realised something more. She had passed into the Tube station, just as Bernard Galilee had done only half an hour ago. “She must have passed him on the line. Er—eight-thirty at London Bridge, we told him. He’ll he there, waiting her train, and she’s going straight back. It’s one and the same platform for in and out—they’re bound to meet,”

’’Almost bound to—yes,” confirmed Chown.

“Curse it all I He could prove to her in a breath that ho has been there while all this happened—show her the telegram—prove a,plot!” The Brazilian, staring and muttering, wiped some sudden sweat from his forehead. “A taxi—quick!' That mustn’t happen—shan’t! Double fare if it beats the train!’ ’

It did—by the margin of a few precious seconds—while Valerie, all unconscious, crossed the network of corridors to her platform at London Bridge. Her eyes unseeing in a rigid, wliito face, she passed wuhin a lew feet of the man who had waited there in a fever of love and longing. For that crucial instant his attention was arrested by the unknown man who had E anted forward, caught his arm, swung im' round, and gabbled something unintelligible but etfectivo. “What is it?” Galilee queried. His mind, his whole horizon, had been filled by one dear figure-image, to the ex-, elusion of all else. “What do yon say?” “X—l beg pardon 1” Chown stammered. “My mistake! I made sure you were the friend I looked out fmexcuse me!”

“Certainly!” Bernard forced the ghost of a smile at the man’s impetuosity, then turned for his fixed, fruitless staje down the long, broad platform.

In’a blotch of deep shadow near by, tho Brazilian had occasion to wipe his forehead a second time. For that moment, while he stood grinding his teeth in suspense, nothing had seemed bo gallingly clear as that he had overreached himself to tho point of irretrievable disaster. It had passed; but the animal-like impulses herd his body in a tingle still. His masterful mind bounded from possibility to possibility. Galileo’s tall, strong figure stood motionless only a few paces sway. A sudden rush past, a collision as by accident, a blow unawares—no, it could bo hustled through successfully in South America, but not hero in London, where tho law-and-ordor safeguard was reduced to an exact science. And Galileo would bo morally certain to recognise at a glance his fellow-passenger—the mining magnate who was hero in England to secure control of the Blue Emerald shares. Above all, he must keep the dust flung in Galilee’s eyes as long as possible—-keep from him the revelation that the man who had inspired that vital deal in Little Goliaths was identical with the man who had wrested Valerio from him. No—no! He chafed and burned, with his primitive passions and methods, at tho necessity; but tho line of conning and safety-play must not be crossed yet. Ho had the man in his web’; the spider must not dart from its retreat too soon.

Raw uncertainty apart, the exquisite irony of the position appealed te his tastes. Upon his finger was the blue emerald ring—the stono turned inwards. Close by was the man who, in a reckless moment, had sunk in “Blue Emerald” shares which, when trebled by the “boom,” was to save Sir Godfrey from social and financial min. And, almost as oloae, was tho woman in love for whom t!ho sacrifice had been made, and who believed that, through herself, tho priceless gem lay now like a haunting reminder in somo corner of Sir Godfrey’s grounds. And he, Jago Ponson, stood there—tho living bar for over between them.

What to do? How. to meet a recurring emergency? For once his wits worked in vain.

She was out of sight. She had passed straight into a waiting-room. But she might emerge at any instant; at any instant the man might be impelled to walk past tho waiting-room window, and realise what he had all but lost. Ohown had sauntered by and whispered from tho corner of his month that the Worthing train was due in eight minutes; but the lino of waiting passengers had not thickened to any appreciable extent. Did Galilee catch one glimpso of his dear figure, the odds were that the train might travel without her, and all was lost. “Keep close!” be sent through his set teeth, as Chown re-passed with a questioning lift of his eyebrows. It was the final spell. The train was forging slowly in from tho loop line. The row of waiting passengers took life.' “Watch him—foul him—my risk!”

He, himself, was watching the wait-ing-room with bursting anxiety. To move either way was te risk a perilous recognition by either Valerie or the man. There she camel queenly, composed, the veil just’ lifted sufficiently to show tho resolute set of her pallid lips. “Lewes! Worthing!” came tho strident shout of tho guard again, above the rumble of many small noises blended. “Aro you right there?” “Yes, all right—all right!” 'the Brazilian said tensely to himself. She bad taken her place. The couplings had begun to strain. “Ay, it’s all—’ “Look out!” came a warning breath from Chown. Bernard Galilee, watching only an outgoing train as it started to forge past him, had given a convulsive start taken an involuntary step, that was checked by the twist of some man passing him. Yes—yes—the dim, pale face under its veil beyond the moving window was hers. “Valerie(’’ broke incroduoudy again in his throat. On—on—out of his sight and reach the train slowly bore her. He stood, as though wounded to stupefactionpoint, and then sprang _ for the last section of the moving train. “Away! Away!” came the roar of tho guard. Ho had grasped a door handle, wrenched open the door, missed his footing, and sprang determinedly again. Deaf to the babel of warning shouts, he was in—no I

Through tho lamplight tho Brazilian’s massive figure, moving warily level, suddenly launched itself. With his left hand he plucked at Galileo’s coat, the fingers of the other closed like a steel vice around Galilee’s neck from behind. It was compassed in a second—a confused flash; but into that opportune clutch ho condensed all the derisive hate and chagrin that seethed

in him. Galilee’s grasp upon the door was torn away; the terrible fingers tightened around his throat—sank deeper and deeper. He fought to turn and get to grips, but all swam crimson before him. He was suffocated —strangled. His senses reeled; he was flung headlong with a crash—semiunconscious—like a man plucked back from destruction in spite of himself. “A close shave 1” muttered the Brazilian, breathless but tranquil. The guard’s van of the out-going train had just swung by, and a little knot of onlookers and officials had crowded around. “The man was drunk. I should take him somewhere where he could bo looked after for tlio night.” Ho shrugged and turned away. “Close shave for us!” ho observed to Chown, as they left tho station together. “But-1 don’t fancy there’s any danger left in him to-night.”

“Drunk? Nonsense; this man is no more drunk than I am,” testily said the doctor int« whose surgery, close by, two constables had nartly led, partly carried, Bernard Galilee. “Leave him; ho will be sober enough, a.t /any rate, in half an hour.”

For that space, perhaps, Bernard lay stretched upon a couch. Then the' doctor, who had stood and looked at him keenly several times, bent over him. “Better?”

“Better I” Bernard said, struggling up slowly, his jaws still contracted as in tho agony of that malignant grip. “Thanks—thanks! I didn’t know I had troubled any one,” *T Should think not! Know anything about these prints on your throat?—that’s more to the point. Been in any trouble? No? Well, I’ll call you a cab. When you feel like it, cast your thoughts about dor a man with a right hand big and strong enough for a gorilla’s—and minus tho top of tho thumb. Take this glass—have a look!”

It was nearly am hour later when Bernard Galileo went heavily up the stair to his chambers in Oswald Mansions.

On the landing ho paused. Till now, ho had not oven tried to think; tlio dead weight of mystery, tho sense of a suspended sword of evil, had lain upon him, deadening all volition. But hero he was n/ido. to pause, a hand to his forehead. What was it? Tho lingering soent of a cheroot—a peculiar, pungent aroma that, once smelled, never forgotten, caught upon his nostrils and seemed to urge him toward a recollection of where and how he had met that scent before—once in his life, at least. No, he could not tiink sanely. His heart was calling to Valerie. She had gone without a word—passed him as silently as ships pass in the night. Unsteadily he turned his key, groped into tho inner room, and switched on a light. Ho felt like a starving man who had dreamed of wondrous food piled within his reach—to awaken suddenly and find all empty darkness and desolation.

Ho had been writing to Frank away at Oilmen; but 'that small recollection would not come until later, lie looked dizzily round. There was the chair from which ho had leaped as ho read his telegram, and there A knot gathered in bis swollen throat. A little electric-like shook ran through his slack nerves. He heard the doctor’s far-off voice again: “Cast your thoughts about for a man- - •” Mystery incarnate transcendent I Maybe there had accumulated upon those folding door-panels a strata of dust, that there had been no woman’s eye to detect arid remove. One door was open! There, upon the panel of tho , one , that remained clooed, dearly outlined, was tihe impress of a big right hand, with the top of the thumb missing—a duplicate of the murderous, inexplicable imprint showing upon his own throat as he stood. (To be continued.)