FIVE CROOKED CHAIRS

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20403, 6 September 1934, Page 18

FIVE CROOKED CHAIRS

By the Author of

"Speed Boat,"

By

FAREMAN WELLS.

CHAPTER Xl.—(Continued)

In the half-liour that had to elapse before he started for the Alensbridgc train they discussed further the coincidence of a second attempt at robbery within only a few days. Norval seemed firmly convinced that someone was intent on his ruin. “It's not only the robbery of the cashbag and the peculiar affair to-night,” he argued. “Jt is a question of attacks on my credit and the scaring away of some of my best customers. I only learnt by accident a week or two ago that one of them had been privately advised to be careful what he bought from me. as the bulk of my stock was the proceeds of burglaries. -4n absurd suggestion in itself, because furniture is not attractive to the housebreaker. It is too difficult to get away and to hide. Still, the rumour was enough to scare my customer until it got luckily to my ears, and I was able to scotch it. How many cases there may have been that have not reached my ears it is impossible to say, but certainly trade has been phenomenally bad for months now. It is a puzzle what interest anyone can have in trying to destroy* my little business.'* Adam was silent. In his mind he was trying to reject the absurd idea that the whole thing was being engineered by Mr. Corvillc Perkin to secure the chairs. An absurd suggestion, since not even that man could be suspected of engaging in so complicated a series of villainies to secure the commission on a purchase of about £IOOO. # yet it was a suggestion that persisted, even after ho* had /caught his train, and throughout the journey and the walk from Mensbridge. He was still puzzling about it when he arrived home, worn out, and he did not cease puzzling until, almost at the moment of his head touching the pillow, he fell into an exhausted sleep too deep for any problem to pursue him. That week, the influenza epidemic so much dreaded by Mr. Brewster, struck the office of Perkin, Paramour and Perkin, though much to that gentleman’s surprise Adam was not one of its victims. As the trouble coincided with a rush of work, it became necessary for the survivors to work late. At five o’clock the clerks were given half an hour off for tea, but, in exchange for the privilege of the two free nights a week he required for his technical classes, Adam worked right through the tea interval. One evening while he was so engaged, Mr. Perkin’s door opened to a sound of expostulation and weeping. A neat shabby little woman was being ushered out by Mr. Perkin himself, and the task seemed to be causing him considerable difficulty. “It’s no use, my good woman, no use whatever. You must make it clear to your precious husband that unless he does exactly what he is told I shall wash mv hands of his case altogether. Then instead of an easy stretch of perhaps twelve months he’ll probably go down for three years.” The woman wailed afresh. “I wouldn't mind so much if he was really guilty this time,” she blubbered. “But he's been running straight, you know he has, Mr. Perkin, and he ought to get off this time.” “Now that’s enough. I’ve told him what he lias to say, and he’s got to say it, and if you like to take your case elsewhere, you’ve only to say so.” “But Hagar’s so sure,” she persisted desperately, “that if you'll only get the barrister to ask him . . “Mcriston. show Mrs. Hatrar out. please,” Air. Perkin cut in and closed his door with the slam *of finality. The woman stood noisily weeping in the outer office as Adam approached her. “Come along, Airs. Ha gar,” he said as kindly as he could. “It doesn’t do any good to go against the advice of your legal adviser, you know.” “But he’s so set on being asked just* that one question, sir,” she whimpered. “I seen him only yesterday and he made me promise I’d get it asked for him. Seems to me as he ought to know what it is’d do him a bit of good with the jury.” Adam endeavoured to assure her that Air. Perkin knew best, and laying a hand on her greenish black sleeve began to steer her towards the stairway. “You can’t go against Air. Perkin's advice in ; these matters, you know. Look at the number of people he has got off,” lie cajoled her. The woman suddenly ceased her weeping and looked up at him shrewdly from her red-rimmed eyes. Her face had gone cunning. “But suppose Air. Perkin don’t want to get him off this time?” she whispered. “Nonsense. If I were you I'd go straight home and I’d have a cup of tea when I got there. If anyone can get your husband off Air. Perkin is that man. You ought to feel certain about that.” She reached out a shiny rdd* hand and grasped his sleeve. “ ’Ere, step outside with me a moment,” she said. “You’re a kind-spoken gentleman, and I’d like a word with you.” Alevcly to humour her Adam stepped into .the eorridoy .and pulled the door to behind him. “Now lovey,” she wheedled, “couldn’t you manage, to get one of them notes through to the barrister in Court “It would be as lm'icli as job was worth, and I’m not likely to be in Court either.” “Isn't it worth risking a bit to save a bloke what's had years' on years of clink and been going straight now for a twelve-month? If he goes down this time it’ll be the end of him, and just as we were getting a nice little ’omc together along of ’im running straight. “For your own sake I wouldn't do anything that was against Air. Perkin’s advice. *" Whfot ie it be wants to be asked, anyhow?” Curiosity was mastering Adam’s not over-spontaneous sense of lovaltv to his employer. “What* Hagar says they did ought to ask him is where did lie last see Air. Alontada.” She paused cunningly and watched for the effect of this extraordinary question on Adam’s face. “He says if they’ll only ask him that it will all come out, and the judge'll see it’s a frame-up. Now, couldn't you just get a little note about that through to the barrister? If it don’t do no good it’ll make Hagar’s mind easier.” In spite of the perplexity in his mind Adam bethought him to ask why the man could not mention Air. Alontada himself. She had her answer" ready for that. “You ought to know, sir, as a poor bloke like Hagar can't say what he likes in the dock. They shut you up cruel if you says a word outside the book, them judges and barristers. What’s more. Hagar ain't what you'd call a clever bloke with liis tongue, like you legal

gentlemen that talks so easy. What he feels is that if he was given a start it'd all come out natural like, and they couldn’t stop him, same as they would if he was to try to bring it out himself. There, you see how it is. Do poor Hagar a bit o’ good, won't you ? ProHe refused to promise, and at last got rid of her, still pleading and beginning to whimper again. Nevertheless, ho was far nearer to making her the promise she had desired than his manner had indicated. He seemed to smell roguery of some complicated sort, and if any action of his could upset roguery he doubted if his official loyalties ought to be allowed to stand in the way. However, he reflected that leading barristers are not easily got at by junior clerks out of solicitors’ offices, and in any case it was extremely unlikely that anyone from the office would accompany Mr. Perkin to the Assizes. It was a slight chance that influenced him ultimately, merely a glimpse of Mr. Montada’s chauffeur when leaving the office late one evening shortly afterwards, and then an unexpected opportunity. Mr. Moutada’s gleaming saloon was standing at the kerb that evening, and Mr. Montada’s chauffeur was leaning over the open bonnet. Interested to see if the near front axle-cap had been renewed, Adam moved to pass as near as possible to the part on which the man’s attention was engaged. As lie sauntered past, the bendingchauffeur straightened as sharply as lie could, not entirely straight, for that was impossible. He was a hunchback. He seemed to have been rendered suspicious and he shot a glance of sharp inquiry at the hatless stranger. There was a perplexed frown on his face in the light of the street lamps, and there was an equally perplexed one on Adam's face as he moved away. The man at once turned and bent muttering over the engine once more. And Adam walked on telling himself that lie had seen that very person crouched at the corner of Grail Street on a certain miserably wet night only a week or two before. All the way home he was trying to put two and two together. It was a complicated calculation—Mr. Montada, the important client for whom Mr. Perken was making a matchlight inspection of a disused warehouse. Mr. Montada, the owner of property in Grail Street —Adam had had a chance to verify that. Mr. Montada, the client whose car had so nearly dashed into Adam later on the same evening. Mr. Montada, who was concerned in the alleged frame-up that was likely to turn out so badly for the ex-burglar, Hagar. And now Mr. Montada, the employer of the hunchback who had taken part in the robbery at Grail Street corner. He pondered this sequence of events, blit he could get no connected theory out of it; finally he put it from his mind. But it came back a few days later, and with greater force. CHAPTER XTI. “ Not a Word to Anyone ! ” Adam had been sent with a brief to one of the few barristers who had chambers in the town. The particular barrister for whom this brief was marked did a good deal of work for the Perkin firm. Adam was frequently at his chambers, and although Adam was not a “good mixer,” lie had struck up a friendship with this barrister’s clerk, a man named Meopliam. Though always carrying a worried expression, suggesting; that the entire- burden of his master's practice fell on his shoulders, Meopliam was a kindly fellow, easy to get on with when once you accepted liis belief that he was the indispensable pillar of hi* “bloke’s” practice. To Meopliam, Adam mentioned the Hagar case. Meopliam, who knew the details of the evidence, announced with an air of assurance, “Hagar has a good chance of going down for three years, I should think.” “His wife’s a queer one,” continued Adam. “She’s been trying to get our ! old man to have him asked a certain question in the box. When he refused j she fastened on me.” “They're often like that,” said j Meopliam, judicially. “Fancy they know I a line of defence that’ll lick anything, j What sort of question was it?” He coughed drily, burying bis face in a coloured handkerchief. “Well, apparently all she wanted was i to get the defence to ask him when he ! last saw Mr. Montada.” “What?” The inquiry was sharp and explosive. He stared a moment and i resumed: “Of course, your bloke wasn’t going to have him asked that?” “I don’t suppose he thought it would ' do any good.’’ “I'll bet he didn’t, either. Look here, j drink with me. No, I’m not going to 1 pump you. I’ve heard enough, and you haven't so much as said a word to anyone, see. But you can watch out for my bloke asking that question.” He cojughcd wr.etehedly for a few minutes while he found his hat, and as soon as he had ceased coughing he chuckled as if •it had been the most amusing exercise. Adam normally would have been the last man to take a drink during business hours, but somehow now he was feel in-* conscious that there was something unusually important behind the other’s knowing look. They drank together in a little bar, and ten minutes slipped very pleasantly away until Adam feit ho really must get back to the office. Ho was almost beginning to feci as if there might be something attractive in the legal profession, something that hitherto he had missed. “Xow not a word to anyone, mind yon,” the other told him as they parted. “If we don’t see some prettv fireworks before this Hagar case is finished I shall be disappointed, that’s all.” Adam went Back to the office in a puzzled dream that had nothing to do with the glass of mild ale. he had imbibed. An evening or two later when be was hurrying off late to the Technical College lie came face to face with Mr. Montada for the first time. A very small, wizened man with a great hooked rose that projected like a talon from his yellow face, and little hot brown eyes that pierced like a stiletto, he seemed so obviously to be Mr. Montada that it hardly required the sight subsequently of the big car below to confirm Adam’s instinctive guess as to his identity. Mr. Montada was about to pass along the corridor to Mr. Perkin’s private door when the two became mixed up in one of those absurd manoeuvres that occur when two hurrying people endeavour to : make way for one another. It seemed doubtful if Mr. Montada was as politely

j disposed as his manoeuvring might have indicated, for when the two had cliassed ineffectively for the third time, his thin, long upper lip lifted viciously, and he spat out a foreign word, Spanish presumably, that sounded not at all complimentary. Adam stood still at once, and the little man moved round him and scurried down the passage. Adam heard Mr. Perkin’s door slam a moment later, and judged that the client had walked in without so much as a knock. An imperious man, this little Mr. Montada, who owned derelict property, kept a chauffeur capable of highway robbery and of trying to run down respectable citizens at night, and who was somehow concerned in what Mr. Hagar alleged to be a frame-up. It was . in a very puzzled state of mind that Adam hastened along to t lie college reflecting on these things as he went. Once in the laboratory Adam forgo! . all about Mr. Montada in listening to the professor’s account of .the splendid ! progress lie had made with his investi- . gations on the valve. It was certainly I an interesting account. The professor [ had, among other things, stampeded the . members of a visiting committee from . the Town Hall just as they were beeom- ” inrr a nuisance to the teaching staff, . induced in his own wife a very elaborate . attack of hysterics, and had also induced | one of the harmless old ladies who ’ cleaned the building after lecture hours to drop her bucket of soapy water in the middle of his office carpet and dash away to lock herself in one of the cleaner’s cupboards, a refuge from which • it required a professional locksmith to * extricate her. There was no douUt that the professor ( had been enjoying liis work on Adam's invention, but it was more satisfying to learn that, in addition to these scientific j pranks, he had found time to write the famous Dobson and had that day . received a reply. ; It was not until he had. as he put it, ■‘got the rabble started” that they were r able to adjourn to his room and study | th© letter from the famous neurologist. . It expressed the utmost interest in the ’ phenomena and went at great length ' into an analysis of the probable explana- ’ tions. Its most interesting feature, , however, was a series of suggestions for . the shielding of certain of the nerve- ' centres with metal plates. Once they . had experimentally decided for him [ which centres, if any, could be so pro- ' tected, Professor Dobson promised them further enlightenment. ■ For the rest of the evening, therefore, f the two busied themselves plastering Adam’s person with strips of tinfoil, and exposing him to the rays with each ) of the various protections that the neurologist had suggested. It needed only a few seconds’ exposure under most of ’ these conditions to decide Adam that the current must be switched off imnic- ' diately. I “Off, for heaven's sake!” lie would , cry as the sense of fear seemed to soak into him, and then a little later: “That's , better. It seems to get worse every time.” But one method that consisted . of a sheet of foil running over the head , from ear to ear seemed to be completely effective until the foil slipped. “Switch - off!” he cried. i The professor humanely . switched off, though there was a twinkle in liis eyes . as he did so that showed how much he enjoyed the infliction of a little terror. 1 He crossed the room to some coat-hooks and took down a greasy old felt hat. ' “Put this over it,” he suggested. On complying Adam was able for the first time to resist the effects completely. “Looks as if a fellow had only got to line his hat with foil to be immune,” lie commented. “A most important step, Meriston. A most important step?” agreed the professor. “I must write Dobson to-night about it. Meanwhile if you only knew how delightful you look in my hat you would be wanting to scream with laughter instead of with terror.” He chuckled delightedly.- • • • (To be continued daily.)