“THE SKELETON FINGER."

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16405, 20 April 1921, Page 2

“THE SKELETON FINGER."

❖ By

■M* * HEAD-ON HILL •*<

i •£* 4* •J* <Anf.ltr*r ©f " MfHfomp of ►J* ►Jn " Tbe Crimson Honeyrono'o,” ►Jt* rj< " The Man from Egypt,” »£■« I Etc. Etc.) *J* { i *F dr* ‘v* d« *J* "I - ' dr- *i* *J« I* •i* d* *2* *i* d 5 ’F 'I I | CHAPTER, XXV.—Ooui inued. An ugly spasm creased the baronet’s j I unwholesome faco. Ho look two st.»*ps ' 1 forward, which brought him into line I with the window . “ ] fow many times must J repeal that I did not kill Gcorgo Glenister?” ! | lie complained. j i; If you repout it a hundred times i ! l shall not believe you,” .Kathleen i j dor-larod with spirit. *‘ Arid even j • were l sufficiently gullible. 1o swallow I the lie it would make no difference to ! jmv decision. lam going to marry : Norman Sdaler who. by the way, will I j chastise you for this treatment of me ( ! a good deal more roughly than ori the I last occasion.” j Somehow the envenomed threat j ! missed its mark. Instead of goading I ! her captor to loose-tongued ox a ape r- j I ation. it scorned to have a steadying , ! effect l»y affording him considerable I amusement. “ You are expecting your knight i errant t.o come tilting to the rescue?” he cackled. * l You left a trail by which lie could follow vou P” ! Kathleen made no reply, but for tlm j fraction of a second her face denoted dismay. What an idiotic emission lo J bat e made ! How she wished that she , ! had left word for Norman nt The Bull i .at Beaconsfield where she had gone. | The fleeting thought wan evidently ! ! Ah. well,” the. hateful voice cotjI tinued. “everybody makes mistakes, j ' niy lair cousin. lint sometime- a. kind j friend steps in and rectifies them, and ; 1 expect the gallant Captain will trace ; you all right. 1 should not he. ?ur- j j prised if he has done so already.’ Kathleen, glancing up for an explanation of that sudden ron.ioMirc. j saw that Sir Dudley was gazing out of i tlie window and instinctively she turned j : and followed the direction ot his gaze, i ! Slio was just in time to catch the ! second of the flash signals la hind the j j blind in the window of the Grimes s ! living-room- After a brief interval ; there came the third. When she look- ; cd round the baronet had disappeared j i and the sound of the key in th.e lock told its tale. The squeal of a startled 1 : rat and the creaking of the stairs ( 1 confirmed tho fact that she was left I I alone. , ! ! Tho brave girl was really frightened ; now. Not for herself, hut for her I , lover. Her cousin's sinister sugges ; I tion that a train had been laid for | Norman to follow her acquired a hide- , i o;is significance hv indicating that not j | only had she walked into a trap heii self, but that she had been used as n ! hail to lead Norman into it also. She i ! had a vague recollection of Mrs Grimes j ; at the telephone after she had been j drugged. The moving light behind j ! the red blind at Grimes’s cottage was. ' almost certainly a signal that the | 1 second victim was nibbling at the trap : ! Dudley’s hurried departure must mean j 1 that his presence was needed at the ; 1 springing of it. | Full of vaguely growing apprehen- { sion. she* started out into the night. ! But the last, of tho twilight had faded f and clouds had drifted up before the i wind. Tt was impossible to distinguish j anything in the clearing but the dull j red of the lamp-lit blind at the | keeper’s cottage. She could not he I sure, hut a secondary gleam, gone as | soon as seen, might have arisen 1 rom i the opening and shutting of the cottage ! <loor. and that could only mean that . Dudley had entered. She watched j j for shadows on tho blind, but. the dull j red eye continued to burn, as it had j burned from the first, nnblinkinglv. Those spasmodic flashes had been the ; only break in its steady glow. j AVhen. suddenly, the light wont out i and only the velvet pall of night re- j warded her straining eyes. Doubtless 1 she was in sorry plight hersef, but that j could go bang if her fears for Norman had been unfounded. What puzzled : her more than anything was how John j Grimes could have allowed himself to ■ bo made a tool in onv scheme directed : against a. Glenister. even if instigated l»v one of that name. Was it. possible j that she had been misled hv a false I alarm and that the extinguishing of 1 I the light had no greater significance i than tlie keeper and his wife had gone [ to bed? 1 This agreeable solution was quickly ! negatived by the remembrance op her j i own experience earlier that day. and j of the drugged tea administered by Airs Grimes on her arrival at the cot- j t-nge. And as if to strengthen the j blacker alternative. ominous sounds ! reached her from tho clearing -hushed voices, one louder than the rest, issu- j ing directions; the clink of an iron- i heeled hoot on stone; and. a moment i or two later, heavy breathing down j below and a little to tho right- of her j window. Snob a sequence of widely differing j sounds was not to he attributed to j feverish imagination, at hi eh wa.s the ; xery last qunlitv "Kathleen could he j accused of. And. finally removing all j doubts, there fell on her cars the trampling of feet, on the ground floor • of the mill, followed by the opening j and shutting of n door. The whole j gamut of muffled noises was as a riddle j that is read t<> the lonely watcher at j the upper window. Kathleen knew as surely as if she j had witnessed the proceeding in broad ! daylight that Norman had fallen into j the trap and had been carried by felonious hand si across the steppingstones and along the hank of the millrace into one of the damp and rntliaunted chambers in the basement of the ruin. tTo he continued).