SEALED LIPS.

Thames Star, Volume LXI, Issue 16991, 30 September 1927, Page 3

SEALED LIPS.

CHAPTER THE LAST. THE TONGUES OF CHILDREN. At the London railway station it never occurred to him to look around in quest of a possible spy upon his proceedings, nl his earner days he had taken most intricate and elaborate precautions not to be followed and watched, but of late years his security had become to him a matter of course, so that he had practically censed to feel nervous,' lest it should be threatened. He started for home this afternoon, therefore, without a trace of apprehension, and consequently he did not, not tice that the trusty rogue whom he had appointed his manager at Southampton Row. was impertintently following him. Not that if would have made any difference had his little, furtive eyes directed their keen, inquisitive gaze into every nook and corner of the terminus, for Kridge was no fool. By long practice in the shifts and tricks of his mean calling he had learned all the caution of the habitual criminal, and his movements had been cleverly calculated to evade discovery. Down to Stoke Peverel proceeded the train, with, Caleb in one thirdclass carriage and his manager in another. The money-lender would almost have died rather than pay for a firstclass carriage. He liked h'is wife and daughter/ to have luxuries, but he rigidly eschewed them himself. On this occasion, when he alighted on the Stoke Peverel platform, Kridge alighted cautiously from the other end of the train, and with much inward self-con-gratulation at having come so far with so much discretion, continued to dog the steps of his employer—or rather, of his employer's cab; for Caleb would never allow the carriage to be sent for Mm—until with growing amazement, he turned in. at the majestic gates that gave admission to the grounds of Applecross Hall. So this was whero the monev-lender lived, was it? In this splendid house, with a lady for his wife, with horses and carriages for his convenience, and a crowd of servants at his beck and call? More and more astonished, Kridge slapped his knee as he realised what an enormous sum he would be privileged to demand as blackmail. Owing, no doiibt, to the fact of' 1 the children's party being in progress, he got into the house without being stopped and questioned by the servants. Upstairs he went giving an audacious reply to a footman who inquired his business there, and presently ran his employer to earth in his dressing-room, i "So here you are?" he said, with ! matchless impertinence, i "Dear me, . what a sillv fool I was not to find out ; all this before!"

The money-lender turned his face towards him with a consternation which was presently deepened into a sort of baffled horror.

"You?" he gasped. "How have you come here?" "By the train," the manager answered coolly. "Best way to, come, wasn't it? I'd a mind to find out what sort of a figure you cut in private life, and now I've found out. This being th*» case, you've got to fork out a thousand who only deserves to be kicked! Yes; that's what I said—kicked! Kicked for a dirty, sneaking mongrel cur of a money-lender, who only escapes gaol by the skin of his teeth! So you've got to pay me hush-money or else have all this blazed about the place. Which are ycu going to do?"

OUR SERIAL STORY

By MARIE CONNOR LEIGHTON. Author uf "Convict 99.")

pounds straight off, and give mo a written promise to raise my salary to the amount of two thousand a year, with a good percentage on the profits of the business. Otherwise, I point out to the world to-morrow —juid to this particular world of Stoke Pe'verel in particular—that you're no gentleman at all, but a Scoundrelly moneylender. Yes, and a thief, too; a thiei : A murderous gleam came into ouu old man's shifty eyes. But he was in this- man's power, and he knew it. He could pay him out later, but in tins present moment his first concern must be to ston his mouth.

"Very Avell," he agreed; "I'll give you the money, you infernal cur, because I can't help myself. I'll pi e you the thousand down, and the written promise about the salary.; I'uii wait here while I fetch pen And ink and paper." "He's been calling 'im ' awful names!" said a small voice, from the direction of the room door. "'E said he was a money-lender and a thief!" Caleb and his manager both looked. round. A small boy and a small girl were standing together just within tbe doorway. They must belong to the party of children who were being entertained to tea by Mrs. Gray. They must have opened the door quietly and listened. Evidently the boy had been telling the girl a few of Kridge's remarks which had escaped her younger ear.

"Hang them!" Kridge muttered with an oath. "It's no good now! The gat's in the fire!" He advanced towards the children with the evident intention of doing them bodily injury, but they ran away. Then the two old man and the young, the master and the servant—looked at e->ch other in mute questioning. Kridge first put into words the answer to these questions.

"There's nothing on earth that can tie the tongues of children!" he said, in a tone of enraged resignation to the inevitable. "It's no good trying! Better make'the best of an infernally bad job, and give up the game!" He was right. And so it came to pass that, through "the chatter of two children the world came to know thyt Caleb Gray,, the muich-resoeoted, wealthy country gentleman, who h'jict married into a still more respected and highly aristocratic family, was nothing more nor less than the most omninoifrnt, brutal, .and pitiless of all that hated and hateful gang of thieves whom society knows as money-lenders. Consequently, he came down very much in the popular esteem, and was shunned by those who had hitherto taken his hand in friendship. Sympathy for his wife, however, led people to show him more mercy than they would otherwise have shown; but when, presently. Mrs. Gray died—killed by the shock ov dicovering whence the monev came which he had dispensed with such lavish grace—the widower was abanone of all except men and woi"«ri of fl lower class, with whom he would previously have scorned to associate. When it came to be known that the reason, for his son's alienation from him more mercy than they wolud oth«rthe money-lending business, and his revulsion from profiting bv it. young Dr. Gray received much favour from those who could best help him to do the work which he had set himself to As for the secret of the Lady Kitty'? birth "and parentage—well, no one of the outside world ever knew it. Bv in her own person, the title which had no male inheritor;

do. And when presently he married Lady Katarine T'eruLosi;, no slightest surprise was felt at his supremo good fortune. JbJy reason of this marriage there were no bounds to the ambitions which he might entertain. It was known to bo- practically certain that, on the death of the Earl, Lady Kitty would obtain, through the favour of the Sovereign, the privilege of carrying on, the wish of Lord Frome, who for so long had believed himself to be her father, she continued to be regarded as the Lady. Kitty Tempest. Those who knew the truth guarded it closely. Mrs. Mortimer was satisfied to live with her daughter as a distant connection of the Countess of Frome, and so all things went well.

Miggs, the. bootmaker, used to permit himself to say that, from various 1 indications, he believed that some 'startling event had recently occurred, and been kept quiet in the Tempest family; but as this guess received no confirmation, people paid no „ attention f to it. The bootmaker ever afterwards looked upon himself as a semi-aristo- ' cratic personage, simply by reason of j the fact that he had once loved and aspired to marry'the Mrs. Mortimer; who now lived in the Earl of Frome's family as one o fits legitimate members. Certainly it occurred to him now and agree that it was odd that the degree of her membership should never have been quite clearly specified. But he held his tongue about this, being quite ready to acquiesce blindly in anything that was done by people mov-. ing in high social circles. He was ; troubled with Miss Priscilla to the end | of his days, by reason, of his refusal to endow her with money sufficient to. v make her practically desirable in Lofan the gardener's, eyes. As for the family of Warburton, it ,;' came to misery and extinction." Cld,, Samuel never survived the double blow :« of his starved daughtr's death and his son's hanging. For, although Wilfrid*: Warburton was an impostor, yet he met his death pluckily for the =, n of the man whose life and whose name he had taken. And none but old War- ; 'mv+oti "nd •''hat oth"r shady Madeleine Lysart. knew that it was / Body Slater, and not' Wilfrid Warburton, wo met his death'on the scaffold, on that morning when the murder of Lord Grampton was avenged. . y • (THE END.)