THE TANGLED WEB

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19117, 9 July 1930, Page 16

THE TANGLED WEB

[Published by Special Arrangement.]

By

ELIZABETH YORK MILLER.

Author of “ The Runaway Wife/* “ The Road That Led Home/’ “ A Cinderella of Mayfair/’ etc., etc. [Copyright]

CHAPTER XIX. Leonora, for some inscrutable reason of her own, chose to parry Jim Tremlett’s pointed remark. “ I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean. Who is Captain Saunders?” Jim indicated a framed photograph on the mantel-piece, and the dressmaker had grace enough to blush. “ Well, what of it?” she blustered. “ What’s Captain Saunders to do with you?" Jim bit his lip vexedly. More and more was he convinced that Leonora was hiding something, but that perhaps wild horses would not drag from her the information he sought. He remembered what she had said about money, from which it was pretty obvious that she had intimidated Meriel, and he used it as a weapon against her. “ You have threatened my wife and now I’m going to threaten you. At least you can tell me where this man Saunders is, and I will thank you fo do so.” “And if I don’t?” Leonora asked pertly. “If you don’t and anything serious has happened to my wife, then I promise you I’ll leave no step unturned to discover your share in it and see that you are punished.” Jim spoke with rare passion. He could scarcely lay hands on the woman and shake the truth from her, but his words had some of the desired effect. “ I don’t see what could happen to Mrs Tremlett—unless she’s gone b*.ck to Captain Saunders,” Leonora said. “ It’s plain that you’ve frightened her badly,” Jim went on. “She may do something far worse than go back to that scoundrel.” “You mean—do herself in?” Leonora whispered. Jim nodded, his lips pressed together. “ Oh, my God, I never thought of that!” “ I daresay you didn’t but you can think of it now.” “ Mr Tremlett, honestly I don’t know a thing about it. Captain Saunders has rooms m a lodging-house in Folkestone, a house kept by my mother. That’s how I happen to know him—and Mrs Tremlett. It was there she came to—to ” “You needn’t spare my feelings. I know all about it. My wife was married to Saunders from your mother’s house, I take it?” “Yes, sir,” faltered Leonora. Curious, she thought, that he should keep calling that girl his “ wife”. “ And now Saunders has come back. Did he put you up to this blackmailing business?” “ No, sir. And I never meant it that way. Captain Saunders will be terribly angry if he gets to know that I told Mrs Tremlett he’d come back. He’s a very kind gentleman, Mr Tremlett, and he wouldn’t want her to come to any harm. A kinder gentleman never lived.”

Jim controlled a sneer. “So you’ve fallen under his spell, have you?” he asked drily.

Leonora gulped down a lump in her throat and turned away her head. Sha did not want him to see the tears in her eyes. “ Mr Tremlett, let me explain to you The captain’s an ill man. He wasn’t at all strong when he came back, and he’s been getting steadily worse ever since. I don’t think he wants to live. He’s heard, of course, that Mrs—-that she’d married you, and I was able to give him some particulars. As it happened I was outside the church when you were jnarried, and it gave me a shock, I can tell you, when I saw you come out together, Mrs Tremlett dressed like a girl bride and all. The captain said to me, ‘ Keep your tongue behind your teeth, my girl. It’s all over and done with now/ And I haven’t said a word to anybody, except to Mrs Tremlett herself, although it just slipped out awhile back to some friends of Mrs Tremlett’s that she had once been married to Captain Saunders. Only at that time I thought there must have been a divorce, and I not knowing anything about it. Mrs Tremlett put some money into my business because I asked her to. Perhaps I did frighten her. I didn’t really mean to, but I needed some money badly, and I’ll pay it all back in time, with full interest.”

Jim took out his notebook and demanded Mrs Begby’s address, which Leonora gave him reluctantly. Shortly afterwards he bade her good-night. It was with a very heavy heart that he emerged into the street again. He could scarcely imagine that anything was to be gained by communicating with Eric Saunders. In such circumstances, one is apt to think the worst, and it did not seem to Jim that the worst which could befall Meriel was to return to her old lover. Jim’s nature was too practical and his love for her too strongly rooted to allow him to be driven to despair by the torturing thought of his old rival. No, he feared what he had intimated —that she might have taken her own life. Merry was so young and m many ways so ignorant. Who could say what terrors had not gripped her? By the time he got back again to St John's Wood, Jim was in almost as collapsed a state as John Rayp.es had been. Yet he could not help hoping that some news had come during his absence. Sure enough, there was old Johnny on the steps rushing to meet him, and looking quite gay and cheerful. “ It’s all right—all right! ” John called. “ She's gone to Julia’s. I’ve talked with Julia on the telephone.” Strange they hadn’t thought of that possibility. And Jim had a two-fold reason for being glad to hear this. It meant first of all that Merry was safe, and it almost meant that it was her baby and not Eric Saunders who had called her. “Oh, thank God!” Jim exclaimed. They went into the house, and he de-

manded to be told all about it, every word that Julia had said. Did Julia know why Merry had run away? “No, she thinks she’s just a bit hysterical and silly. It seems that Merry said she’d had an overwhelming desire to see young John, and finding herself near the station, walked in, bought a ticket, and got into a train. She had to say something like that, I suppose to account for having no luggage. Julia says she’d better stay a few days, and we must send down a dressing-case and some things for her to-morrow.” “ I*ll take them down myself,” Jim replied eagerly. John regarded him in an uncertain “ Somehow, I wouldn’t if I were you,” he replied. “ Why not? She’s my wife ” “ Better wait, Jim ... is Merry your wife?” The young man flared up and banged his fist on the table. “Understand once and for all, Daddy John, that I won’t concede one inch on that point. I’ll fight for her and for my son’s name if it takes every penny I’ve got in the world and my very last breath.” “Bravo! That’s the spirit. AD the same. . . .” “ Well, out with it.” “ Tulia said that Merry sent a message begging for both of us to leave her alone for a few days. Julia thinks you and Merry have had a bit of a tiff. She’s put her to bed and says she’s going to make her stop there and keep perfectly quiet.” “I must talk with Julia,” said Jim. But he followed his father-in-lav/’s glance to the clock and hesitated. It was well past midnight. “ Ada’s put out some sandwiches and a few tit-bits,” John suggested. “ I must admit I’ve found an appetite for them. What about you, Jim? And then don’t you think you’d be all the better if you went straight to bed? We know she’s safe and that’s enough for to-night. I shall sleep as I’ve never slept before, and I won’t forget to say my prayers, either.” Jim nodded and agreed somewhat reluctantly to take his father-in-law’s advice, although he doubted if he should sleep as well as John expected to do. Relieved of immediate anxiety as to Meriel’s safety, Jim was none the less oppressed by what the future might hold. For all his vehemence on the subject, he knew well enough that whether or not he could keep and claim Meriel depended on such a lot of things which were still hidden from him. Of course she would never go back to Eric Saunders, he told himself over and over again. No power on earth could compel her to do that. . . Yet there was that uncertain quantity in Meriel’s own nature which no one could ever calculate. Merry was capable of strange things. No, Jim Tremlett did not sleep very well. He tossed and turned unhappily with nightmarish visions of a lost Meriel—lost to him forever. The empty pillow beside him seemed somehow to be a symbol of his bereavement. What would Merry do? That was the real question; much, more vital ' than any the lawyers could raise. :J« * :jt Nor was Jim the only person concerned in this drama who passed a turbulent night. Leonora Begby was up well before her usual early hour for rising, a grim and haggard Leonora with a thousand and one things to do before she could reach the goal of her heart’s desire that day. This was only Thursday, and she meant to do something she had nevei dreamed of doing before since setting up her little establishment in London, that is to say, take a holiday in the middle of the week. She was one of those peole who have an idea that the earth will stop revolving if they arc not on hand to push it along, and she saw her business going to smash if her vigilance were removed for an instant, but there are occasions when one must take risks. So she flew through the house from top to bottom with broom and duster, wrote lengthy instructions for the blonde beauty and the sewing-women, finished off a tricky bit of cutting-out, and was all packed and ready for departure by the time the milkman had deposited the daily pint on her doorstep. Even so she had to wait another two hours before the workpeople' arrived, an interval which was by no means fully occupied in preparing and consuming breakfast. But it was impossible to leave before seeing her employees and adding verbal supplements to what she had written down. Yet all things come to an end in time, and to Leonora Begby that end was fairly achieved when bag in hand she toiled from the Central .station in Folkestone to her mother’s house on the Leas. Mrs Begby, whose own morning had not begun so early, and who was jiursuing her daily activities in a more leisurely fashion, stood dumbfounded at one of the front windows with a duster in her hand, at the sight of her daughter hastening along towards the house with the well-known week-end bag dragging at her arm. “ Whatever’s happened?” Mrs Begby cried as they met at the door. “ You’ve not been took sick have you?” “ No, I just thought I’d give myself a bit of a holiday,” Leonora replied as nonchalantly as she could. “ Kind of run down, that’s all. London does take it out of a body. Everything all right here?” “ What should be wrong?” asked Mrs Begby: “ Oh, 1 don’t know. Thought perhaps you might have got a new lodger for the top rooms.” (To be Continued).