CRIPPLED AND TORTURED.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10231, 14 August 1911, Page 4

CRIPPLED AND TORTURED.

Rheumatism made this Woman as Helpless as a Baby.

Carried about from Room to Room by her Husband,

As a public Duty she tells how she was cured by Dr. Williams' Pink Pills.

I Mr and Mrs J. H. .Dixon, of 136, Pilgrim Street, Foolscray, Melbourne, think it their duly to inaJto public tho facts concerning Mrs Dison'i? remarkable cure from Rheumatism by Dr Williams' Pink Pills. Mrs Dixon was suddenly overcome with Rheumatism, and for months was crippled and as helpless as a baby. Her husband had to carry her from one room to another when she was able to get out of bed, and neighbours had to do h,?r hair. Mrs Dixon graphically told a reporter of her illness and euro. She said: " I had influenza and after that Rheumatism set in, ajid quite suddenly toe.." said Mrs Dixon. " I went to bed all right, and in the morning: I woko up quite unable to move. The Rheumatism was down all one side. For a fortnight then I had to stay in bed. I had to get in help to do the housework and look after the children. I was quite helpless mid the agony was dreadful. Later it set in in both hands, feet and arms. When the first acuta attack eased a Irifie I was juc-t able to totter round tho house holding on to the furniture or helped with a stick. My mother would call and fairly cry to sec mo so crippled, and I would cry myself, I was in such agony. My husband would carry mo from bedroom to sitting room. I had no sleep night or day. I lay between blankets, of course, but I dare not, move. I would just lie like a log and pray for the daylight. I was always feverish and very thirsty. The ekin, especially about the joints, was red and shiny "and tight-looking and burning to the touch. I used to lie at nights with pillows under my knens. I eould not straighten them, and sometimes pillows at the feet to take off the preasuro of the bedclothes. I had the joints rubbed with every liniment you could hear of, turps, eucalyptus, eto., and had on all sorts of poultiooß with hot vinegar with bran, all to no good. I fell away to a- perfect skeleton. I simply could not eat. I was always in such torture. I could not stand anyone coming near me for {car they would happen to touch ma; I would scream out, "Don't come near me!" You could dent tho swollen places, and quite an improaaien would be left. I could not dream cf raising my arms up. Neighbours would have to come to do my hair or give me a hand. My fingers were so . stiffened and dreadfully Bwollen that I could not hold a needle cr even a bo-ok to read with any comfort; I could barely cut or handle the little food I took. To sit down on a chair was quite an effort; it was slowly done, and when I got up I would have to use my hand 3 as best I coulcl to help raise mo, and then some- ! one would come and lift me by tire arm. It was as if I were glued to the chair. My husband would put rugs down in the garden 30 that I might lie and get c-omo air and sunshine; but I could not raise myself, I always lia*i to be lifted. For months I did not leave the house, for, walking was boyond me. It broke my heart to see people from the window walking easily. I was doubled up; I could not stand erect. Not one day in all these months was I free from pain, I looked forward to being perpetually crippled. After everything else failed, I rond. about Dr "Williams' Pink Pills and tried them. By alow degrees the pain and stiffness wore away. I was overjoyed with tho result gained from the third box. Every day I began to feel a little easier and to move mv limbs more and more. Presently I was able to discard support and to do a few jobs about the house, and it was a great day when I was able to open my piano again and notico the stiffness and swelling gone out of my fingers. The eighth box saw every symptom gone. I had begun to eat and fill out now the pain had ccascd. My husband and I think it our duty to give this testimonial to help others." Dr Williams' Pink Pills are 8s a box, 6 boxes 16s Gd, of all dealers, or from the Dr Williams' Medicine Co, of Australasia, Ltd., Wellington. 2907

u I've made him as comfortable s«5 .« could," he said, in. a suppressed voice, " but it seems to ins that he's sinking pretty fast-. The ladies having gone to bed, 'l've com© hack for my—orders." " What's the matter with you?" demanded Slade. " Have you bsen drinkins?" " No, sir, I have not been drinking," answered the man. " But it seeing to me —and perhaps that'a what I've ■worked myself up to—that the time has cores for an explanation between you gentlemen and myself. Iff: a good time, hew use we're not likely to be interrupted." The man took a step or two forward, and loaned the knuckles of one hand en the lab I '.', a.ud looked from one to the other of the two startled faces. He was perfectly self-posscrscd. end was evidently weighing .'lis words carefully as he wont on. Ard the strange part was that neither of them made any attempt to interrupt him.

"There's been a good many things going on. one way and another, that we might care to tails ahout. gontlomon," said the man, looking with those dull eyes of his at Litchfield, probably as the weaker man. " Soma of them we know about—some of them I m.av find it necessary to remind you of. This is not a question of roaster and servant; it's a question cf one man to another."

"What do you mean, you dog?" demanded Si ado.

"This is no time to call names," retorted Adams calmly. "We r.re in_ a difficulty, gentlemen. You will_ notice that I say 'we' advisedly, which is only another way of saying that, under certain conditions, I stick by you, and I see the thing through." Litchfield was about to burst in hotly, but Slade checked hi 111 with a movement. "Better let him alone," he said quietlv, " and hear whpt he has to say." To Adams he rdd"d. "Let's have all these wonderful things that seem to he troubling you. - '

"I'm not going to refer to length o? service, or anything of that sort," went on the man: "but I am going to refer to things that I've seen and things that I know. And mark you, gentlemen both "—he brought down his fist lightly 011 the table, and leant forward and looked from one to the other—"'marie you. I : ni going to have my price for what I know.' 1

" I thought you should como to that," remarked Slade, coclly. " Ynu need not raise your voice; we don't want to disturb the ladies." The man went on, without heeding him. "This is an ugly business tonight, and it may happen that more than one of us may get into trouble over it. Eut even that won't matter to mo, if I can see something to ho made out of it."

"You put the thing crudely. Adams," retorted Slade. with a half smile, "but I will see that you arc adequately paid for your services. There is something yet to be done, and we have no time for talking. We must be clear away from this place in tho morning with our work finished." "I haven't finished yet," said the man, moving a little uneasily from one foot to the other, and evidently speaking with a great effort. '' There's something else." " Let's hear it, and be quick about it," said Slade impatiently. " I don't know who it is that you've got up there," said the man in a hoarse whisper, and with a dramatic gesture towards the ceiling, " but I can almost guess. If it's the man I mean, there was something very peculiar about the war that man committed suicide, and the*,) was something more peculiar still about something that happened on the night beforo ho disappeared. Murder was done that night, and tho truth about that murder has never been discovered."

For some strange reason Murdoch Slade suddenlly stood rigid, dropping on the instant a certain restless, impatient movement of the hands and arms that had been going on since the man began to speak. Into his face, too, came a tense look, and all the blood seemed to go out of his skin, leaving it chaJk-coloured, with grey streaks here and there.

" It sometimes happens that I take a night walk when there's nothing particular to keep me inside," said Adams, speaking always in the same dull, level, steady voice. "On the particular night I'm speakirg about I happened to be taking a night walk in a neighbourhood I'm not partial to, because I don't like low neighbourhoods, not having been brought up in that way. I'd just made up my mind to turn back home, when I see someone that I'll be able to pick out, even in the twilight of a London street, among a thousand. It's a gentleman called Mr Murdoon SMe, and if I don't know him I don't know who should."

The man paused to take out a handkerchief, and to rub his lips and the palms of his hands with it, as though something in what he had to say had put him almost in a sweat of fear. Neither Litohfield nor Blade made any attempt to interrupt him; only it was noticeable that Litchfield had drawn a little apart from the other men and watched him furtively, as though to see the effect of the servant','? words.

"I make up my mind that I'll se» the end of it, and know where my gentleman i 9 going. I go on, with perhaps a dozen yards between us, until I como to a place which, by the name/ on the earner, I see is known as Leech. Street. Mr Blade knocks at a door, very softly, but with a certain knock, as though it might he a. signal; and presently a young lad comes down, and after a little parley lets Mr Blade in. It's evidently only going to be a brief visit, because they do not even take the trouble to close the door. I begin to wonder what it's all about, when I am startled by two things happening. I've taken the precaution to move away from the door, and to stand rt the other side of the street in a doorway, watching." At this point Slade muttered some quick exclamation and turned away, only to come back a moment later and to stand listening once more. " T see si young ladv I know come up to the house, and, after waiting for a moment, go in quickly; that young lady is Miss Hester Wako. I sec a man I don't know at first come up to that door, which seems to be attracting; everybody to-night; I try to see his face, hut can't. Then, a moment later. I see that man go up to the door and stand there, and by the light of a street lamp I see who it is, and. T beein

to wonder what he has to do with it. It's Mr Rodney Mannors." " What?" Slnde did no more than breathe the word in his astonishment, but his face was a study.

" Then the most remarkable thing of all happens," went on Adams imperturbabiy. " From where lam standing I can see into tho little passage of the house, and can see a light fliokering at the far end of it. And presently someone comes l acing out of that house as though death itself was behind him,, and that, someone is Mr Murdoch Slade. Now, what do you make of that?"

Tho man. with his hands planted on the table, leaned forward, and looked from ono face to the other in a sudden triumph that lighted up his dull eyes and sent some colour into his sallow cheeks.

" I make this of it: that either you are lying or you" vo invented, the tiling out of your own imagination/' saitl Blade. " I'll admit that I was in the neighbourhood that night, and that I did go to visit the boy—on a matter of business. But I did not come rushing out of the house as you suggest; I only heard, long hours afterwards, that the boy was dead. If you think you'll make capital out of such a bungling business of putting two and two together and making five of it. you're very much mistaken." " There's something else," said Adams quietly. "It was said in all the papers that the lad must have fought hard for Ids life; and the next morning, while you lav a-bed, I came into your room, and I saw your hands a3 they lay outside the coverlet. They were scratched and torn, just as ono might have scratched and torn at them to get them awav from one's threat. It took quite a. time for the marks to die out."

There was silenco in the room for a moment or two, and in that silence it seemed as though Slado stood, like a man at bay, planeing from one man to tba other. Litchfield never took his eyes from him, and Litchfield's face was a horror-struck one. It was upon him, as the weaker, that Slade turned at last, almost with a snarl. " Weil, and why do you look at me like that?" he demanded savagely. " I deny nothing, I admit nothing. The hoy had to do with our work, as vou J v© heard me say to-night; he was the spy in the camp.' I had nothing to do with the killing of him, that I swear. You can believe me or not as you like; it's all one to me. But. he's out of the way, and I think it would go hard with anyone who tried to prove that I had anything to do with it." " i'lr Rodney Manners was there that night," said Adams slowly. "He may know."

''Rodney Manners is dead," broke in Slade in a whiapor. " Not yet," was tire man's reply. '' I had a good look at the man up-stairs, and it seems to me I know who he k, and why it became so necessary to getrid of him. And now just one other word and I llave done. The one other word is this: that you've nothing to fear from me, provided always that what knowledge 1 have gets its fair price. T shouldn't do any good if 1 carried what I know to anyone else; hut I can do some good if I'm paid to keep quiet. We're all hi this, gentlemen, and it seems to me that without me you can't do much." "How much do you want?" asked Slade after a gloomy pause. "Now you're talking, sir," said the man. " I want ton thousand pounds." Slade whistled, and then laughed. "That's out of the question, because I won't pay it : you can go and toll all you know, and do your worst. Halve it."

There was some more haggling and then at. lust the bargain -was struck. Ado ins was for having t-he tiling; put in writing then and there; with tho cunning of his cla-ss, lie felt that that way lay safety. Siade. on the other hand, refused to put anything down in blaok and whit<\ and told tho man lie v/oukl

have to b<? content with the promise. And all the while Litchfield said nothing, and stood at one side of tho rorm. ivu-h his pale lips working and hi:> iiyht ews Irani on too man whom ho now treaded ns he would have dron'i.ed dentil itpeir. " And now that that is settled, and you fee! that you are really one of us," s,aid_ Made at lust with a note of irony in. his tone, ' perhaps we can see about thin other business of the man upstairs, bornethinf; bar; to lie done, because in t!if' morning we shall have vacated tiLi.s n'aee and gone back to London." At this point they were interrupted.

by a sort of suppressed scream from Boyd Litchfield. Indeed, the nerves of that weakling had been strained i'or some time to breaking point, us horror upon horror had been revealed to him; he saw that ho had touched hero a iriijre desperate business than he had originally contemplated. As they turned to look at him they saw that he was close against the wall, with one arm hold up, schoolboy fashion, as though to shield himself from some impending blow. " 1 won't do it—l can't," he answered. " Sladc, you've got to let me out; I won't go on with it. I never meant it from the first —not to go into such a matter as this. For the love of Heaven let me go; i : J! never <-Hy m word to anyone of vrhat I've seen or what I've heard. I'll starve on the roads; I'll break stones for a living—only lot nie gol"

"It won't be necessary for you to break stones for a Jiving," retorted Siade. " \*e shall all do better than that. But courggs is needed, and any whimpering or faltering now may undo all that wo havo tried to do. You're in this with us, Litchfield; it's too late to try to get out of it now. Courage, man !—by the morning we shall be far awav from this place, with out work finished, and a future freed from doubt and uncertainty. Courage 1" It was strange to see the servant joining with his master in that business

of encouraging Boyd Litcfcheld to go through with the work; tragedy brings men into strange companionship. So afraid were they both of what- Litchfield's sheer panic might say or do, that they would not let him go for an instant; they kept him with them, staying his whimpering, and even at-tempting-iu a ghastiy fashion to laugh him out of his fears. So they got him out of the room, and cut into the silent house; and there the three conspirators stood listening for possible noises. There was no sound anywhere, and they presently stole up to that room above—Slade leading, and Adams •bringing up the rear. Slade unlocked the door, and they wont in, and got a light; a moment later Slade was beaming over the man upon the floor. Alter a moment's inspection he turned impatiently to Adams, and r-poke in a harsJn whisper : " You've bandaged him!"

" It, would scarcely have been well for him to bleed to death," said the man in a surly tone.

" I suppose you're right,'' said Slada in a whisper. " Now. Litchfield," he added in a peremptory tone, " .yen can carry the light; it's about ail you're good_foi\ and even that yairll do badly. 1 know whore to put liim; I've thought it ail out carefully." Litchfield carried the light in a shaking hiind, and went in front, bearing the light aloft; the two men followed, with Manners between them, bo they went down the stairs, pausing sometimes at a quick whisper from Slade, or at some imagined danger indicated by Lit-chfiekl, to listen: and so at l&ot came out into the ground.?. There the fluttering light had bows exchanged for a lantern, the whereabouts of which was indicated by Litchfield. And so, with Slade directing the way, they set

off across the grounds to where the trees were thickest. And as they went Litchfield, who had been looking back from time to time at Slado, as though wondering wh?t purpose was in the man's mind, cried out excitedly: "The old workshop!"

" I wonder you didn't think of that before." panted Slade. " He can lie there and rot: it'll take a long time for anyone to find him." This old workshop, when they came to it, proved to be little more than a rather substantially-built outhouse in which at somo time or other some former owner of tho place had probably carried out amateur work of some description or other as a hobby. It was strongly built, but the door which Slade kicked open with a blow of his foot appeared to have no latch upon it. On the floor inside they laid down their burden,, and Slade called impatiently

to Litchfield, who was hovering m tho doorway. "Can't you keep that light still? 1 know every inch of this place; I vent oyer it one day when I was down hero. I probably know ft better than yon do, Litchfield'," he peid. "It's no use leaving him iu this room; lie might mr.nsge to crawl out and raise an ala-rm. But whor-ver built this place built for seme reason or other a sha 1 - iow cellar underground; I came upon it quite by accident. .Hold the lantern. S ia.de bout upon one knee, as Litchfield held live lantern aid ft, and after some. KCrapi'.if; with Ins hands in the rubbish and rid shavings found nn iron ring attached to a trapdoor; this door he threw back, disclosing a square opening. He snatched the lantern from Litchfield, and held it down into the cellar. There was a short flight of wooden steps lending down into the darkness. " Ko'll lie there, sr.fcly hidden, until some day someone finds a skeleton and wonders what my&tery h p. It ached to it." said Slade, ss he got to his feet. "Held the lantern, Litchfield." he added, with a. short laugh—"and hereafter, when you think of this night, hold your peace." Litchfield., clinging to a carpenter's bench, held the lantern, and averted bis face; Slad© and Adams took the uneonrcicus man between them, and went with difficulty down tho steps into that underground cellar. There they put Manners down in a corner, and, without pausing for anything, climbed the step? again, e.vA pulled the heavy trapdoor into its place. Then, at a gesture of command from Slade. Adams put Ids woight against, the heavy carpenter's bench, and between them they pulled it across tho trapdoor, and left it there. As they came cut into the pounds Slr.de stopped and snatched at the lantern, and blew out the lifht. "I don't think Rodney Manners will trouble the world again," he said in Litchfield's ear. (To be continued.)