THE DUPLICATE DUKE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12506, 19 December 1918, Page 8

THE DUPLICATE DUKE.

(By HEA.DON HILL) CHAPTER fV, (Continued.) Tho young lawyer rose end welcomed the visitor with a few words of congratulation on his narrow escape. “How perfectly rotten I” was Kis comment when Raynham finished n, graphic description of his struggle® in the water before he was picked up- “ But sit down, your Grace,” he added, pulling forward the clients' chair. " You don’t want to live an experience like that nil over again, . It was good of you to oomo to us before going down to your relatives at Ax© Castle, Is there anything wo can do for you P If so, you bavo only to command us.” Raynham did. not notice that, the flashlight shutter was at work, being a little puzzled by the appellation ’of “Your Grace.’’ But ho soon remembered the courtesy title addressed to English dukes, and lip, recovered himsolt without an awkward pause. ‘ I deemed it. advisable to present my credentials w you before presenting myself at Axe Gas tie,” ho smiled, producing tit© pocket-book lull of sodden bank notes and letters.

“Quito unnecessary,” said Rupert Prince, nevertheless taking the pocketbook and glancing at the contents before handing it, buck. “ In tho ordinary coutse my lather would have received you, but ho is at home ill for a few days. No doubt ho will wait upon your Grace at the Castle as soon ns lio is well enough to travel. He is most anxious to give an account of our stewardship.” ■Raynham politely deprecated any need for urgency in that respect. “ And now, Mr Prince,” ho went on, “I only knew my English relatives by hearsay. I am most anxious not to disturb or inconvenience any of them who may ho living at the family scut, I gathered from your firm's letters that my paternal grandmother, the Dowager Duchess, has been residing there for some years With my late father.”

"That is so,” smiled Rupert. "But. I think you would find that her Grace, your grandmother, would ho a. very difficult person to disturb or dispossess —un'fess you married, when the whole, household would of course be on a different footing.” “ And my nnele, Imrd Arthur Oombpyne, is there, is he not?” Mr Rupert pursed his ling. "If vou TOn ,t Rul'd Arthur out I am afraid yon II bare" to chuck Mm out—from what Ito heard mv father say. I am sure I beg Tour Graced pardon.” the junior partner hastened to add in apparent confusion. 11 T ought to have used such an expression. Extremely disrespectful of me. The fact is that I do not, except on the occasion of Mr Ambrose Prince’s rare absences from the office, attend to the more important clients.”

"Pray don’t apologise. Mb? • don’t Use ceremony where I come from,” Roynham hastened to reassure the penitent. ” Lord .Arthur is my heir, I presume?”

Heir presumptive is the technical name for it, which’ means that he will inherit if your Grace predeceases him without leaving a son lawfullv begotten.”

Thank you, Air Prince. You have made the position quite'clear. Shall 1 be putting them out, do you think, if I go down to the Castle to-day?” “On the contrary, they arc expectlug yon. I telegraphed the nows of your escape and arrival last night and received a reply to that effect. • There is a goods train from Waterloo at| halfpast two. If your Grace approves f will send another wire for a car'to meet yon at Axminster, which is the station to book for.”

‘' G you will be ao kind,” said Raynham, rising. “As you see, I have some shopping to do to make myself presentable before the tailors can rig me out finally. Jxmdon roady-to-wear clothing will at any rate be an improvement on this abomination, which Was all I could procure at Queenstown. And as regards a tailor. Mr Prince,” added the impostor, with an admiring s.yc on the Junior partner's irreproachable suit, “could you recommend, a sartorial artist—your own, for instance?”

Greatly flattered, the young lawyer scribbled an,introduction on the firm’s headed paper, and the two parted with tho proper amenities—cordial on the part of “ his Grace ” and mildly deferential on the part of “Our Mr Rupert.”

\Vhen the new duke had departed the junior partner walked to one of the windows looking out over the dingy greensward of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. His late visitor _ had crossed the roadway and was striding along in the direction of the Strand. The young lawyer’s gar,e was sympathetic, for though ho had been a little puzzled by his manner he liked what little he had seen of Ills distinguished, client. If Raynhamhad known it he ought to have felt flattered, for Rupert Prince had broken away from his usual practice. He did not, as a rule, lake much interest in clients, much to tho grief of his father. Asa matter of fact, it Was the human touch about the tailor which had appealed to mm. Mr Rupert was fond of his clothes and he liked other people to bo fond of theirs.

Rut one could not be a Prince of ” Princes” without inheriting a certain alert shrewdness of mind in spite of what the senior partner was prone to call modem degeneration, “ Quite a decent chappie. T wonder what the governor will think of him,” Rupert was musing as he watched the receding figure. Then, suddenly, he •became aware of another figure, which had been standing in a doorway and which now, leaving its post of observation, moved off in the wake of the first. There was something furtive about this second figure’s movements, and the men’s countenance, with its unhealthy skin and spiked moustache, gave him an evil look.

.Mr Rupert touched a hand-bell. A sharp office boy dartotl in.

“Charles, see that fellow on ■ the opposite pavement?” ho f&id; "Well, eut. along and shadow him to where he lives. Don’t lose him till he goes to ground, as von value your job. Here’s five shillings for exes. I shall stay here till ten o’clock if you don’t report sooner.’’

Bnl Mr Rupert did not have to piny at the office so late ns that. ft was only a little after three when the boy returned.

"Bell, hip employer demanded, "did you run the chan to ground?” " Couldn't, sir. You didn’t gi"e me money enough for inv faro. He’s gone hr rail. Bast train.’ Runert whistled. "Just where did lie lead you. Charles ”

" In the Strand he stopped quite a while outside Solomon’s, the readymade. clothiers. Then lie walked to Bond Street and dodged about Sanntlerson’s—your own tailors, sir—for halt an innn nr so. after which he went into Piccadilly and strolled up a.ud down under the Green Bark railings, opposite the Hotel Gigantic. Suddenly a taxj comes driving out of the hokel' courtyard. My man hops into another I hat was plying for hire- 1 hops into a tlurd and off wc go—regular procesh—to .mam line booking office, Waterloo." " Did you hear where he booked for?”

"No, sir. couldn’t get near enough in the queue. But I shadowed him to the ticket barrier. He travelled by the ‘West of England express.” Questioned as to whether he had noticed the occupant of the first' taxi, the boy admitted that ha hadn’t. He.’imtl been too engrossed in the task act him that of following tho occupant of fffip second. Mr Rupert commended Jipij for the wav ho hod done his work, j(p(( took tho bh.mc, op hhimej)' fup his ability to complete it, (Jimies retiH ed. the junhm portlier ri»t for u io,,g while engrossed in thought, " ’ "The beggar must ei|im« imy.-,' li P -p a deUwUvc cm a wrogg ’gg,” kg m-uiy

inured et length. “If ho is a detective Mjo Duke s career in the Slates cannot havo been immaculate; if a, wrong ’u.n tho Duke will have to look out for wjnnlls. It i s a point whether f ought to warn him by wire Mint he has been shadowed to his ancestral halls. On l,lu ? } chc>lf! I think not. Ho looked like a. johnny able to take care of himself, and his pact in no concern of ours.”

CHAPTER V. TBK WELCOME, “ home."

You can see the hoary turrets and on- grey frontage of Axo Castle from the aouth-Westeru Railway almost at tho point where tho lino passes from Dorset into Devon. Standing in a hollow off the rolling uplands against a background of wind-riven pines, its mullioned windows, when the sun shines on them, bate been likened by romantic travellers on tho iron road, after lunch in the restaurant car, to a clustor of diamonds in an emerald setting. Though visible from the railway, tho castle is a long five miles from-the nearest station.

On the late afternoon of the day when 'Wallace Raynham had interviewcd Mr Rupert Prince at the office of Princes ” in London, four people were assembled in the great panelled en-trance-hall. As they ore oil deeply concerned in the difficulties of the approaching impostor, action must bo delayed for a few lines in order to introduce Hi cm severally and have done with it.

The aged lady seated stiffly In a highbacked chair on one side of the cavernous fireplace was Sarah, Dowager Duchess of Axminstcr, mother of the nobleman whose death two months ago had brought his only son and heir from America, only to fall a victim, to the blood-lust of the Huns. In her ignorance of her grandson's fate, she was awaiting the arrival of his self-au-pointed substitute with intense but rigidly-curbed eagerness. Sho was looking forward to ruling-Kim, as she ruled most of her circle—-benevolently if she liked him, but in any case witb a rod of iron. Only the ceaseless movement of her blue-veined bauds betokened her excitement.

Tlie dapper middle-aged man pacing restlessly to and 1 fro, now and l again stopping to gaze from the onen nail door up the avenue, was Eortf Arthur Oomhpyne, her second son, uncle of him who should have , been the new duke, and the latter’s heir presumptive. Lord Arthur’s nickname at Eton had been ” The Rabbit,” not on'account of his appearance, but because of a supposed similarity of brain power to that of tbo bumble animal. He had been “ a man about town ” in bis youth and was credited' with extravagances which had shocked London in the declining years of the last century. He wore a monocle for no particular reason, and he thought a good deal about his neckties. He was prepared to be civil to the new head of hji s family, and promised himself amusement from the solecisms of a Yankee duke, bub secretly ho was very sorry for himself—that ms nephew bad not gone down in The Gardenia., and so given him the title and estates.

J bus gentleman’s wife now makes her bow—Lady Arthur Combpyue, the one figure who struck a discordant note in the expectant assemblage. A showy, handsome woman in the early forties, deep-bosomed and large of limb, alio had arranged herself in an elegant -attitude on a couch nt the upper end- of the entrance-hall; Unkind rumour attributed her origin ,to a gipsy caravan, but in fact at the time of .her marriage she had been running a palmist and crystal-gazing establishment \iu Bond Street. 'I he Arthur Combpynes, chronically impecunious, had been practically living, at the castle on the charity of the Into duke, in spite of protests from the highly-born, austere Dowager, to whom the presence of her flashily vulgar daugbter-in-law was a source of constant irritation.

,Lady s Arthur’s sentiments towards the coming stranger were those of a subdued but furious resentment-—first that hia existence prevented her from ousting the Dowager as mistress of the Castle, and secondly that he had not got himself drowned in The Gardenia. All she could hope for now was to be allowed to remain as a pensioner of the new duke, and she also looked forward to a modicum of consolation from the jolt the American-bred heir would give to the Dowager. “ My cue is to be sweet to the creature. Maybe he’ll knock the old gal off her porch,” she had told herself fifty times since the telegram from “Princes” had'announced the Duke’s safety.

The remaining occupant of the hall was in striking contrast to the couple last described, although he was their only son. Tom Combpyne, sitting opposite his grandmother by the empty hearth, was-just-a fresh,, clean English boy, whose soiled khaki uniform and a pair of sticks showed that even a.t that early stage of the war he had been ini the thick of things. He had gone with the first expeditionary force as a lieutenant in the Grenadier Guards, had fought hjs way back in the historic retreat, and had got his wound at the check of the German onrush at the battle of the Marne. He wasn’t worrying about the now Duke except .so far a» he hoped that he would be a good chan who would be a. cheery companion to Rim so long as he remained at thd Castle. Tom’s chief concern waste heal his shattered limb and rejoin his regiment at the front. One of tho Dowager’s pearls of wisdom was that bo was a “ throw-back ” to an earlier type of his race, partaking neither of the traits of bis vapid father or of his flamboyant mother.

Suddenly Lord Arthur, stopped his restless pacing. “I can hear the car at the,lodge gates,” he said in his piping treble voice. The Dowager stirred In her highbacked chair, sitting a little more erect. Lady Arthur rose from the couch and, sailing down the hall joined' her husband at the door. Tom, hobbling to his feet, dropped one of his sticks, but retrieved it before it touched tho floor, muttering an uncompromising Damn I”

“I '> e g. jour pardon, Granny.” ho added quick]v. %t Mustn’t forget my beautiful manners, eh?” A gleam lit. the stern old face. "Never mind,” said the Dowager. "I should have thought the w r oid if I had not uttered it. Go to tho door, my hoy. I want Asminster to see you as soon ns your—as the others.”

The avenue was a mile long, but there was a. telephone from the lodge to the servants’ quarters, and by the time Tom had limped to the front door the butler and four footmen, flanked bv a stately housekeeper in black silk, jiad tiled into the hall, taking up their positions to the rear Outside, on cither side of the massive portico, wore ranged a score of gardeners and gamekeepers, an imposing army which confronted Rayuham a-s the caw swept up to the grand entrance. But he had schooled himself to the unexpected, and those who were'watching his demeanour so jealously saw no trace of surprise; or indeed of anv other emotion, in the self-possessed good-looking man who stepped out of the ear with a. pleasant smile for the retainers. One of the latter started a cheer which gathered force ns he went forward with outstretched hand to play a scene mentally rehearsed a hundred times since the morning. (To be continued.)