THAT CAREFUL ALIBI:

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18203, 2 March 1929, Page 9

THAT CAREFUL ALIBI:

(BY SELWYN JEPSON.)

•5* v GORDON JAMES FORESTALLED f

The baronet helped himself to marmalade. “Well, what do you think of that, cousin of mine?" Gordon James read the letter carefully. “I shouldn't care to have received it myself," he said. “But then I’m not a millionaire. I dare say you get used to that kind of thing." his voice there was none of the bitterness which was in his heart. He felt that bitterness whenever the wealth of Sir Robert James obtrudsd itself to remind him of his own insolvency. He handed back the threatening letter and stared gloomily out of the long windows at the wide Langley lawns. They were gracious in the autumn sun. “If every man who promised to kill me," said Sir Robert, “kept his promise I would die several times a year. Naturally I have enemies. There isn’t a rich man who hasn’t. The mere fact of his being rich is sufficient reason for quite a number of people to want to put him out of the world." He laughed easily, and crumpling the sheet of notepaper in his strong hand he flicked it into the fire. “Look here," he said abruptly, “I’ll pay off that man for you, Gordon.

said last night that I wouldn’t, but I’m damned if I can sit around anti see your long face.” Gordon James turned quickly. “You will?” he cried, inexpressibly relieved. The baronet nodded and smiled. “You’re my only relative and heir, and I suppose I'm responsible for you. 11l give you a cheque after breaklast. How much was it—with the interest ?” “Twelve thousand.” “All right. But you’ve got to give me your word that you’ll c ut out this rackety life. These expensive women, and so on*. It’s not good enough. Gordon, old man, you know it isn’t—and there’s always a money-lender waiting for men like you—men with Gordon James examined his buttered toast. He resented the dissertation on morals that always accompanied these debt-paying incidents, hut he would have* to sit through it. He reflected that as a “prospect” Robert was a failure; the man at lilty-two was young, with half an energetic lifetime in front of him. “. . . but this is definitely the last time 1 shall help you, Gordon.” he was saying. “You have got to learn to stand on your own feet.”

His tone was firm but kindly. He did not find it comfortable to talk to a man, a friend and cousin, like that. Gordon James made a vague gesture of assent. Half a lifetime in front of the man . . . unless one of those letterwriters kept a promise. At that moment the idea of killing the millionaire came to him. He regarded it calmly, with no sense of horror, while Robert changed the subject with the air of a man who has successfully discharged an unpleasant duty. Gordon James, however, did not notice it. He was fascinated by the thought of a dead Robert. Dead; out of the world . . . with the law of inheritance. Even when the estate duties were paid there would still be well over a million for his heir to play with; to enable him to gratify the expensive tastes which so far had been his only possessions. The risks of murder need not trouble an intelligent man. Motive? As far as he was concerned the payment of that twelve-thousand pound debt would remove the possibility of his guilt. Would the police seek to fasten the crime on the man who had just been helped so generously by the victim? Besides, there were the threatening letters, several a year. Why look farther for the murder than in the author of one of them? Everything conspired to make the project feasible. He finished his buttered toast. “Must you return to town tonight?" Robert asked. “I am going to pick up a few partridge to-morrow over at Stourey, if you would care to come along. Just ourselves." hesitated a fraction of a second. The invitation suggested a remarkable opportunity. Shooting accidents occurred sometimes ... It would be so easy. But there would be people to hint at things. No; he decided to rely on the anonymous letter writer and the twelve-thousand pounds’ worth of rescue. “I should have liked that,” he said regretfully, “but I must get back." After dinner Sir Robert wrote the cheque, and Gordon James posted it. A thought struck him. If Robert died before that cheque was cleared, payment on it would be automatcally stopped. Anybody but a fool would wait a day or so before he committed the murder. He would be that fool, and dispel the last shred of possible suspicion. He shook hands cordially with the baronet under the observant eyes of Terrington, the butler, climbed into the Rolls, and was driven the two miles t<s the station in time to catch the seven forty-eight, the express which did not stop before reaching Euston. To the porter who put him in an empty first-class compartment he gave a florin that he might in case of need be easily remembered, and settled himself down for the three-hours journey.

The moment the train was out of the station, however, he took his suit-case from the rack and moved closer to the door. The town of Langley lay in a valley, out of which the railway track climbed by a steep gradient through a cutting in the hills. The engine, with no distance in which to gain speed, would labour considerably before reaching the top.

He waited for this, and when the high walls of chalk came glimmering in the light of the carriages he turned the handle of the door. As the train came to the stiffest part of the gradient he threw out the suit-case, stood on the steps a moment, judging the drop, and then jumped. The momentum flung him off his feet, and he lay still until the train had passed and thick darkness enveloped him. He rose, rubbed his knee, and walked down the cutting, groping for the suitcase. Ho found it, and sighed with."

relief. One of the most difficult stages in his plan had been accomplished, and he paused for a moment to listen to the remote song of the train as it gathered speed again on the downgrade for its sixty-miles-an-hour run to London. That train was his alibi. No one at Euston could ever swear, in the unlikely event of questions being asked, that he, one passenger in several hundreds, had not passed through the barrier. He left the track at the Langley v end of the cutting and crossed a

field. In the corner he found a gate and a footpath, along which he made his way quickly in spite of the dark. Years ago, as a boy on holiday from school, he had explored this countryside, and to those early memories he entrusted the task of guiding him to Langley Court. He knew that he had about six miles to go and that he must cover that distance inside two and a half hours if he was to arrive at the house before Robert retired for the night. He must walk as far as the ground would permit and keep to the shortest route. The weight of the suit-case began to trouble him, but he did not make the mistake of hiding it. He hurried as best he could and paused but once, and then only when the remembered his railway ticket. He tore it into minute pieces and buried them under a tree in the wood through which he was passing. He strode on through the murk of the October night with a sense of approaching triumph and success strong upon him. At a few minutes past ten he crept up to one of the library windows on the terrace of Langley Court and pressed himself into the thick ivy which grew round it. A light burned in the room, and at the sight of it he was greatly relieved. Robert had not yet gone to bed. He put down the suit-case and leaned against the wet ivy leaves to regain breath. He knew that half an hour ago Terrington had asked if there was anything Sir Robert required, had been bidden good night and was now in his quarters, leaving his master to retire in his own good time. The household would not learn until morning that Sir Robert had not slept in his bed. Until morning no one would go near the library. Once again Gordon James relied on his boyhood memories and inserted the point of his penknife between the double floors of the window, which was hidden from the view of anyone sitting in front of the fire by a Queen Anne bureau. To his surprise, however, the catch was not down and the window opened :i<uselessly under the pressure of his hand. He put away the penknife and, in the’diffused light, looked at his watch. A train left Marlesby Junction, 12 miles away, at 2.15. and he hau got to travel to London in it. He could catch it, walking steadily. He stepped into the room on to the heavy carpet and waited a moment behind the concealing bureau. He held his breath and listened, wondering a little at his coolness. His heart was heating unhurriedly. There was no sound save the occasional creaking of the fire. Robert would be reading. He moved slowly to the edge of the bureau and looked round it. Robert’s bald head* showed half an inch above the back of the easy chair in which ho always sat. Gordon James lifted a gloved hand, took a Spanish dagger from the wall where it hung with other mediaeval weapons, and began to crawl slowly, infinite attention to silence, toward the easy chair, moving always in the shadow cast by it from the reading lamp. Even if Robert looked round there was every calmce he would not be seen. But Sir Robert did not look round. He did not stir. Gordon James reached

the chair and rose slowly from iiis knees. He stood upright and gripped the dagger tightly. He changed his position slightly so that he would see his cousin's side and the point on the black velvet smoking-jacket under which the lowest rib lay. Below that rib he would drive the sharp blade. He marked the spot ,and poised the And hesitated. He leaned forward suddenly, and stared at the place where he had been about to strike. “God!" he cried in a thin scream. The millionaire still did not stir. Gordon James leaned closer; peered with bulging, terrified ej'es. The hilt of a knife already protruded from beneath that lowest rib. The next moment his wits returned, and he realised, with a gush of triumph that what he had intended had already been accomplished for him. Those millions were his. Robert was dead. The Spanish dagger was not needed He became frightened of it, and ran to the wall by the bureau, where he hung it to its nail. An enormous weight seemed to have lifted from his spirit; he could have danced. Better make sure the man was quite dead. Must be, with that knife in him, better take another look. . .

He went reluctantly back 10 the chair. Yes. Dead! Dead! Dead! He stood or a moment, looking. . . Horiibic! Better get out of here . . . . Marlesby Junction. . . Long tvalk. . . But he did not walk to Marlesby Junction that night. During the small moment he was .standing by Robert’s chair the door of lue library opened and Terrington appeared. “1 thought 1 heard a noise—" he began. “Good gracious. You here, MY Gordon ?" Behind the butler was a footman ; a young. poAverful footman with good eyesight. “Sir Robert! Look!’’ he cried, and took possession of Gordon James’s wrist and arm before the unfortunate : man could think of an adequate explanation or his presence. “Good Lord! You don’t think I did it, do you?" he said angrily, and wished suddenly that Sir Robert hao not burnt that threatening letter. “Well," said the footman, “it’s a case for the police. It’s them you have to convince." ‘l’ll do that easily enough," retorted Gordon Janies. But when it came to the point he und he could not convince them. Nor the Jury.