“THE BLACK OWL”

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17834, 30 April 1926, Page 16

“THE BLACK OWL”

“ STAR'S ” NEW SERIAL

[By

William Le Queux.]

CHAPTER XVII. Attwood waited a little, observed Marsden attentively, to note the effect made upon him by this surprising announcement. There was no doubt as to his astonishment. “So she is not Winterton’s legal wife after all?” he cried. “When she married him, she committed bigamy?” “Obviously!, since Pearson was alive at the time, and is living at the present moment,” was the reply. The blackmailer added with that air of pompous dignity which he assumed on certain occasions. “I told you. Mr Marsden, that when you have heard all 1 can tell j*ou, you will consider your friends have made a good investment. This is the first of mv surprises, but it will not be the only i "Please go on. Mr Attwood, lam all attention.” The man was certainly » carrying out his bargain in the most straightforward manner. He was evidently not going to spare Mrs Winter- , ton m his revelations, her refusal to i supply him with further money had | aroused all the vindictiveness in his i nature. Disgusted as she might be with his extortions, it seemed to Marsden that the woman was pursuing a very dangerous policy in provoking a j man of such a temperament. I Pearson was doing well now, having accumulated the capital from the lack of which he had suffered so grievously in his previous strenuous years. He installed his wife in a comfortable house at Beckenham and provided her with a maid. Attwood, who visited them from time to time. regarded them ns a fairly happy couple. Pearson was very devoted to her. with regard to her feelings for him he was not quite so sure. She was the sort of woman whom it is not easy to read, she did not wear her heart qn her sleeve.. Still, her life had changed lor the better, she was not living in splendour, but she was free from earking care. It was a great change from the dark days when she anxiously counted up her tips in the suburban tea-shop, and could see nothing but the same « r fV dull life stretching in front of her. Time, however, showed she was far from satisfied with her lot. that all the while she hid a restless heart- under an apparently calm exterior, and that the old ambitions were still stirring within her. They had lived together about eighteen months when the catastrophe came, Pearson was away for a week at a big race meeting in the north of England, and he had left in the house money to the extent of a hundred pounds. lie so implicitly trusted his wife that he had left with her the key of the safe in which the notes were {dared, so that she could get at them immediately if any accident befell him. The meeting was a very successful one from his point of view, at the end of it he found himself in possession of »'< fair amount of cash. Returning home, full of pleasant anticipations, ho found no emptv house. The servant had born , dismissed with a month's wages on the I dav he started for his journey. His wife had helped herself to the hundred ! pounds, and left a note in which she > told him that she was fed up with this humdrum life, that she was going back to America to try her fortune afresh, and that the best thing he could do was to forget her as she was resolved never to return to England, a country she had loathed from the moment she set foot, in it. She excused herself for taking the money, but as she had none of her own there was no alternative. It things turned out well with her she could send him back that money with generous interest.

It whs a terrible blow to the young husband. 11 is was a hard nature, but this handsome woman had found the soft spot in it. Ho missed her terribly, but his pride prevented him from making any attempts to follow her and bring her back. lie sold up the home

and came to life with his people in Fulham. But for a long while he seemed to lose his interest in life, grew morose and brooding, and drank a great deal more than was good for him.

Of Mrs Winterton’s life in America after she lied from her husband there were only very meagre details, chiefly furnished by the ladv herself in occasional bursts of confidence. Anyway, she had not been there long before she came across Hugh Wintertou who fell violently in love with her and asked her to marry him, which she did, A less rest‘lute woman would hardly have taken the risk, a more scrupulous woman would by some means have got into communication with Pearson, with a view of inducing him to divorce her, Probably she thought that here at last was the .opportunity for which she had been longing, and that she hail better snatch at it without the least delay.

At this point in the narrative, Marsden interrupted the lluent reader, "One moment, a little matter 1 want to clear up, Mv chief tells me Mrs Wintertou's account of herself is, that although born in America, she lived very little in her native eountrv, l think a matter of a few years. That Iter father was fond of travelling on the t'ontinent, and that she travelled with him. Of course that is all lies."

" I hire camouflage, l suppose, to cover up her tracks From the day she was born till she left f»*r that visit to England she never sot foot out of her own country. She went back there when she (led from her husband, mid she admitted to me it was there she met Win* lorton. After her marriage, 1 believe it is quite true that her time was passed abroad, with perhaps an occasional visit to England which must have caused her considerable perturbation. And now. Mr Marsden, 1 switch off Mrs Win* ter ton for the moment and give you

some particulars of myself under the name bv which you know me.”

Attwood was getting as much fed up as his half-brother’s wife. With the existence he was leading. The wages he received from his father for assisting him in his small business were contemptible. He was promised that business when the elder Pearson died, but he was a hale, and heartv man of not. much over .ifty, likely to live for many years, during which his son would be working at the same miserable remuneration. When ".his was put to him in a serious conversation, the father admitted the justice of the young man’s contention, with the result that Attwood was given a sum of money -with which to try his Kick abroad.

So Attwood went to Chicago, considering this the best centre from which a young and enterprising man might push his fortunes. At this point the narrative touched very delicately on certain

matters, but with the knowledge he already possessed Marsden could read between the lines. The youthful adventurer probably set out with the intention of making money honestly, but luck was against hir.i. By chance, when his affairs we; e at their lowest ebb, he made the acquaintance of some crooks. These individuals soon perceived in him a man of their own kidney, and after a very little persuasion, induced him to join them. He fell in with the life readily, it was money easily earned and stated his adventurous temperament, better than the monotonous routine of honest business. lie became in due course a prominent member of the organisation, and later on went to New York to practice operations in that city. Of course, he kept his eyes open for his half-brother’s wife, but never came across her. Then at last a meeting came. He had now been promoted to the higher branches of the profession and it became part of his duties to stay at big hotels on the Continent, to survey the ground for the operations of the gang. Some three years after his departure from his native country he was staying. of course, for professional purposes, at the Terminus in Paris. What was his astonishment one evening, when eating his dinner in the diningroom, to see a couple enter, a tall, aristocratic man, evidently an Englishman ; the woman, smart and handsome, dressed in the height of fashion, the pair exhaling an air of opulence not to be mistaken. In the woman he immediately recognised his half-brother’s wife, Julia Pearson. Her glance met his as she moved towards the table reserved for them. She was just a little behind the man, and, as if accidentally, she put her finger to her lip. .Attwood understood that signal to mean he was not to make any attempt to speak to her before her companion. He learned from a waiter that the couple had registered as Mr and Mrs Winterton, and gave their address as Florence. Later on he met her alone in the lounge, and there she briefly confessed that she had gone through a ceremony of marriage abroad with Winterton, who knew nothing of her previous union with Pearson. She imimplored him to hide the truth from his half-brother, Winterton was so attached to her, she. assured him, that he would forgive her her deceit even if the truth did come out. But what necessity was there for it to be. divulged? Pearson had forgotten all about her by now, and would certainly not want her lsick. She had eased a small part of her conscience by sending him a coup to of hundred pounds to repay the money she had stolen from him. If Attwood kept his counsel everybody would hnppv and comfortable. If he told what he knew, misery would be the result all round. Which was ho going to do? Would he or would he not let sleeping dogs lie ? Of course, the woman was absolute!v nt his mercy, she had confessed to a bigamous marriage. So was the wealthy and eccentric, but blameless gentleman whom she. had entrapped. But having by now grown into a quite full-fledged crook himself, he had a certain sympathy with crooked ways. He felt a decided admiration for the intrepid and unscrupulous woman who had seized her opportunity with both hands when she. got it. heedless of*the risk she ran, of the retribution that might come. Besides, at the present moment he w\as doing very well, he was making money hand over fust, ho did not. need to apply to anybody for help. In the end he gave his promise with the reservation that it should onh hold as long as Winterton lived. If he died, ho thought the position with regard to her real husband might have to bo more fully coonsidtvred. So things went on till Wintert on’s ( death, which occurred early in their’ married life. Twice Attwood had mother abroad, and on one of these occasions had been introduced to her supposed husband as an old friend of her youth, and was received by him in a most cordial manner. Once he had paid them a visit at their villa in Florence, where they lived in the most sumptuous state, and been invited to luncheoen served in a style that provoked his amusement, when he contrasted the Julia Laming of the old days counting up her tips in the suburban teashop, with the regal woman who sat at the head of Winterton'a table.

Then the supposed husband died, so far as he knew, in ignorance of the true facts, Julia Pearson was hardly the sort of woman to confess her sins even at the deathbed of the man she had so egvegiouslv duped. This event cans ed Attwood to take a totally different view of the situation.

He had not corresponded very much with his family since he left England, and he had carefully withheld from them all knowledge of the kind of life he was leading. In his last letter from home he had gathered that Pearson junior had fallen on bad times, that his betting business had gone to pieces and he was finding the greatest ditfi* cultv in making both ends meet, lie resolved to pay a living visit to see l'or himself how things actually stood.

He found them as bad as could bo. The once prosperous bookmaker had been compelled to take the "knock" and was living in one poor room, earn mg a precarious livelihood by acting as tout for a member of his former profession. In his interview with his relative he admitted that he had joined a small band of inferior crooks who went in for petty business, but that he was not clever enough for it, and it was too risky for the small return it brought in. At this time Attwood was fairly attached to his half-brother, and he was very shocked at the position. It seemed monstrous that the wife should be. sitting in her luxurious home at Florence. in control of great wealth, while her husband, who had rescued her from poverty in the first instance, was unable to keep body and soul together in his London garret. As briefly as he could, he told him the story of his accidental meeting in Paris with Julia, of her bigamous marriage to Winterton, of the latter’s death and her inheritance of a very considerable for(To be continued.)