"STAR" TALES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8101, 29 August 1904, Page 4

"STAR" TALES.

STORY OF THE BROKEN GLASS. (NewYovlc Sim.l It was young David Thurston himself Who informed Judge Marosllus that his lather, Percival Thurston, was 'anxious to consult him at the family seat. The lawyer lost no time in obeying this summons or an honoured and valusd client of the firm of Marcellus and Beavers. He found the old gentleman in bed. feeble of body yet ■vigorous of mind, and eager to plunge into the midst of affairs- from tho habit of years. "You remember. Judge," he began, "the will you drew for me about three years ago, shortly after my second marriage?' Why, of coures you do. Well, then, in order that I may be straight and. above board with my son here, I want you to recapitulate briefly its principal provisions." David made a deprecatory gesture. "Oh, father," he nWmnred, "whatever you choose to do with your own will be right in my sight and far beyond my deeerts " ; but the old man sternly motioned to tho lawyer to obey. " Briefly, then," replied the Judge, " you left a generous gross sum to your wife in lieu of dower, and all the rest and residue of your estate outright, to David." "I want to chance that," exclaimed Mr Thurston, his naturally deep voice growing resonant from excitement. " I don't intend that the fortune I so painfully accumulated shall be squandered in riotous living You will add a codicil, putting David's portion in your hands as trustee, with discretion to pay over a part or the whole whenever you become couvinced that he has mended his ways." " That is just, Jud^e Marcellus," said the young man quietly. "I have i»iven him ample cause for such restraints." "And I want it done right away," rumbled old Thurston, as if ansry at not meeting with resistance. "The will is in that safe over there. Here is the key hanging from my watch-chain. Now, open the inner compartment, and under that pile p* bills you will find it in your own original j package." "My dear sir," remonstrated the Judge mildly, "however secure this safe may ba, I do not thick it prudent for you to keep co large an amount of money in the hove?." "You don't, hey? Well. I do; boKh prudent and comforting. When you are bedridden and out of tho running you will find a certain satisfaction, I can tell you, in knowing that you have a tidy little sum right at hand to keep any possible wolf from the door. But about that codifil?" "Hum," reflected the Judee; "I will go right back to the office and draft , it and bring it down on the nine o'clock train in the morning?" - . " Can't you draw it here, in the library ; or, if not, return this evening with it? 1 ' "Father, you really ought not to. . tax your strength,"- interposed David ; 'but his words fell unheeded. The Judge shook his head. He had an old lawyer's fondness for working with his own tools in his own workshop, and for eeapinsr to work, wh-eu once they were put away for the night. He thought, too, longingly, of the hand at whist that would be waiting for liim at the club, directly dinner was over, but before he could fra^a:© a reason, not an excuse, an unexpected ally came to his relief. . ; ; The door of the adjoining room opened and closed quickly, and a woman, older' looking than her years, glided to the bedeide. She was fragile and wasted, and white, and there was an appealing light in tier great brown eyes that seeemd to crave, ■ympathy and consideration for admitted Weakness. . The plaintive lines of her poise •nd carriage Tevealed her as a gentle creature, shrinking front the untempered- %vind, as if through bitter experience. She placed her finger on her lips. ; ' ■•' "Hush, dear," she warned, smilingly. "How loud you have been talking. You know the doctor said you should avoid all excitement. I must really ask our good friend, the Judge, to d«fer any business aot yet completed." Percival, Thurston took the frail, translucent band in his own, deep-veined, sinewknotted. "You see how it is, Marcellus," he said ■with a mock sigh, "we young fellows, if ■we marry, must pay the penalty of obedience. Well, -vyell, 'Alice, th© Judge will visit with me for a* while longer, but no more business, I promise you, until to-mor-row." And he smiled tenderly, rough and gruff fighter in the world's van that he 'had always been, as David, placing his arm around his step-mother, went with her from the room. " A good, a noble woman, Marcellus," continued the old man, "I marvel at 'her devotion to me. Do you think she is holding her own pretty well, or does she seem worried and wan to you?" v "Mrs Thurston at "her best is always delicate looking," replied' the Judge.-diplo-matically. "I confess her expression at first seemed strained and excited to me, but it passed away, the mere reflection, doubtless, of her sensitiveness oa entering so abruptly." " The past comes back to- her in times of anxiety," explainGd Mr Thurston. " She is worried about David's escapade, and .hoped to make mo easy with him. She is .worried about me, too; and, on the other hand, my sickness prevents me from diverting her thoughts. Confound it all! Why should death be so powerless against the memory? Why should /that pitiful crea-. ture, her first husband, and that wretch, their son, bo able to torment her from the grave, despite my love and protection? But there; I needn't go over that old story •with you again. It serves, at all events:, to make it clear why, with such an objectlesson of weakness, cruelty and wrong before me, I am so solicitous for David's future. He is a good lad, Marcellus; but easily led and overfree at times with the social glass. This proof of my dissatisfaction will be a lesson to him, and I know that under your charge he will be as well off as if I continued to live. So, good-bye until to-morrow. I have talked so much that I think too much. I am weary and •would rest." The next morning when the Judge, all rosy from bath aaid shave, hurried. -to th« station, the newsboys were crying an extra. Buying one, he felt both alarm and consternation when lie saw the news. His professional conscience constrained him, even in the 'fulness- of the shock, to scribble "a-line, which he despatched to his office, •marked "Immediate," and then he boarded his tra.in, looking careworn and aged-, as well he might, for he was bound to a house of death and crime. During the night Percival Thurston had been murdered- in bis bed, and already the police had arrested David Thurston as his murderer. . ] The Judge found the high police offi-

cial m charge of the case courteous but convinced. " It is really a simple matter," he explained, " when impracticable and impossible theories are eliminated 1 , and known facts brought into orderly sequence. What, then, are th-ese known facts? Mr Thurston, bedridden, but not in a precarious state of health, fell asleep last night about ten o'clock in his roonij on the second storey, front. His wife, who had been sitting by him, retired to her own room adjoining, leaving the connecting door open, but locking the hall doors of the two rooms. About four hours later, it must have been, she was awakened, in a fright, as if from the sound of a call or a blow, or 'both. She spnung up and lit the gas. The door to her husband's room was closed. She tried it ; it was locked. She rushed 1 to the outer door and out into the hall, and to her husband's hall door. TThatt t too^ was locked. Then she screamed, alarming the house, bo that ail the servants cam© nocking ; but it was only after repeated rappings on the , door of the third storey front, where David slept, that hs joiDed them t confused, halfdrossed, his feet naked and bleeding. " His manner was so wild, his directions so incoherent, so contradictory, that seveial moments elapsed before the door of Mr Thurston's room was burst open. When at length this was done there lay the poor old gentleman dead in his bed, <■• his skull crushed from ai blow with some blunt instrument. On© window was open ; and on leaning out, it was apparent how an intruder might have ascended' by means of.the great Virginia creeper which runs up the front. "The police came quickly and instant search was made ; but no sign of a fugitive could be found. This was the more remarkable, as there were gangs of men doing : emergency work on the water mains in the neighbourhood. But daylight put a different phase on the matter. In the first place, there were no footprints leading to or from the house. You will object oi course, that the ground was too hard from the frost ; and I will sustain the phjection, though there is a possible argument against it. Then the vine below the second storey showed 1 no signs of disturbance. Here, again, you may objec. that the stem is so thick "and the sfcoziecourses so projecting that a ligiit, acave man would not require sufficient support irom tho vine to displace it in any way. 1 grant that objection, too ; but what do you say to the vine above the second storey, the vine leading right past David's room, swinging half-torn from the wall? To whom doss such a fatal circumstance point, if not to the unhappy young man, tho las. to answer an alarm in his father's house, whose feet were cut as by the rough stones?" "What did David say?" asked the Judge. "He said that he broke a glass before going* to bed, and was too sleepy to gaiher up the pieces ; and that when he sprang up at the alarm he stepped on them. I admit, too, there were such fragments on the floor of his room; but mightnt h« have broken the glass before he came downstairs in the wild exigency of discovering that his feet were cut? But beyond aIV these facts is the motive, a most damning one, Judge, as you, as lawyer, must concede." "The motive?" repeated the Judge, wonderingly; " what motive?" "Why, to prevent that change in his father's will, which would make him your ward, instead of the independent owner of jo. fortune. Mrs Thurston says that he dissuaded his father from making such a change yesterday." " Does Mrs Thurston think that David is guilty?" " She is sure he is. Not at first, though ; he consoled her in her grief j he persuaded her to go to her room and rest, while he pretended to search. But later, aiter she had reflected, she became suspicious ; and when she heard about tho vine she accused him to his face. How could she help but do. so, Judge? Who else is there, and what other motive? Truly, you may instance the large sum of money in the safe ; but it is still there, without a sign that it was the object sought." "May I see Mrs Thurston?" asked the Judge. "Certainly," replied the officer, "and now, isn't there something I can do for you? You will no doubt appear for young Thurston ; and we are all as anxious as you can be that the full truth should be revealed." " My man may be down from the office, and in that event, I would thank you to jxtend to him every facility ;" and bow--ing his acknowledgments, the/Judge proceeded to Mrs Thurston's apartments. If Judge Marcellus hoped for good from, this interview that hope vanished at first sight of Mrs Thurston. The woman had changed in the night into another being ; her mobile, sensitive features, once revealing every emotion were set into grim determination ; her tearless eyes flashed .mgrilv at the faintest intimation that a mistake had been made. "You w«re always more than ready to condemn my poor dead boy for mere youthful faults," she cried, " but now,, when the son of your dead friend stands charged with his nrnrder, you dare defend him. Shame, I say, on such disloyalty to the old, such loyalty to the new. Shame, I say', on such expediency that can induce a man of your reputation to disregard both reason and conscience. Th© paid advocate of that wretch is no adviser for me; I would be alone with my sorrows;" and, impressive in her new stateliness, she swept like a tragic qireen into tho inner dressing-room. The Judge was perplexed. Tiere was something forced in this pose to his trained eye; there was something else in this declamation to his trained ear. He did not doubt her grief ; that was evident, comprehensive, a very part of her personality; but this abandonment of one for whom she had cared, this defence of the dead son whose life had been a torture to her — what could they <both mean? Serious as were, the fact* against David, they were not so conclusive as to cut off natural sympathy and confidence ; and why should they suggest, even to that distracted mind, the justification of one for whom the forgetfulness of the grave had long been kindly? So the Judge pondered, confusedly, the transient lights in the darkness, a« he made bis way to the gaol where David was confined. Here, again, there waa nothing but gloom, mysterious, pathless. The young man, livid, almost inanimate, as if stunned by the reflex action of his father's fatnl blow, stood before his old friend like one awaiting condemnation. "My God David, speak up," exclaimed the Judge. "Say you are not guilty." "I don't know," said David in slow, monotonous tones. "I was wretched last night and I drank to drown my sorrows. 1 only remember breaking the glass and then tumbling into bed: Did I get ap in

my sleep in my drunken stupor, incited by imagined wrongs, never real, believe me, to my right mind, and, oh, horrible! do what they say? I don't know; I never can know." " You are a fool," retorted the Judge angrily. " Such an unspeakable crime could not be committed unconsciously. Of couree, yoir didn't do it, since you had no malign thought why instinct alone would have restrained you. Be a man, then, and maintain the innocence which I am going to prove." The Judge returned to the houee. About the grounds and in the hallways police officers were still stationed, protecting the scene of the tragedy until the Coroner's jury should come. Abe Cronkite, the detective, met him at the door and invited him up into Mr Thurston's rooms. "I have certain observations to submit," said the detective, when liis patron and he were alone. " Notice, please, the position of the dead man's hand outstretched as if- to strike the alarm on the table by his side. Notice, too, his watch in that old-fashioned case. The key on the end of the chain has been half drawn off. Now, •come to the window and look at the vine, j Here is an untouched branch ; test its tenacity and see how readily it yields. A light, active man might, perhaps, pass over it ouce, but a second time it would not sustain a child. " Now, about that broken glass upstairs. Some of the pieces had been crushed fine, as it under a heavy heel. I examined tiiis dust with a glass, and found traces of blood. What does all this prove? Why, the intruder was after the money in the safe. While he was getting the key, Mr Thurston awoke and tried to give the alarm, as he never would have tried had he seen his son standing by his side. Thin followed the murder and Mrs Thurston's outcry. Can you not imagine the guilty man, by the window, wild to escape, yet dreading pursuit? He hears David spring out of bed. He knows of one sure refuge in this house, and so /he climbs \ip the vine, and through David's room, crushing with his heel the broken glass on which David had cut his feet." "A sure refuge in this house," repeated the Judge. "What do you mean?" "Why, in the next room, sir; the only room that has not been searched." The transient lights gradually combined and illumined the Judge's mind. "Then you think," . he reasoned slowly, "that Mrs Thurston'e son, still alive, though long reputed dead, learning in some way of the money in the cafe, plotted to steal it, and on being discovered committed this murder? You think that he threw himself on his mother's mercy, and that even now she is concealing him? Great Heavens, what a situation ; and what, oh, what, ought I to do?" The door of the adjoining room opened, and Mrs Thurstdn, once more gentle as she had been, threw herself at the Judge's feet. "Be merciful," she entreated. " Think of my joy, yesterday, on having my dead son come back to me ; think of my anxiety on seeing the effect on him of the conversation he overheard. Think of pmy relief when he went away promising to be good ; and of my agony when I found him hid in my apartments, after that terrible shock, confessing, entreating his mother not to betray him to death. I only ask his life; only the chance to send him far away whence he never dare return. I will cx 7 plain as soon as he is in safety ; I wiU tell the truth and free the innocent from suspicion. David would wish it, I know. Even Percival himself would wish it; and oh, Judge, bloodstained and irreclaimable as he is, he was my baby; my very own!" " Hum," said the Judge, reflectively, "I'm not engaged in the apprehension of criminals myself, and even if I were I should not drive to deepair the beloved wife of an old client for the sake of a mere question in ethics. We will return to town, Cronkite, at the same time suggesting to the police that further watch hers is unnecessary ; and if you, madam, wh«n you feel yourself constrained in the interests of justice to reveal your knowledge

of thia meet deplorable affair^ will comnvunicate with me I will take such steps as will relfas© David from custody a ni } reetoro him to his former standing in tha community."