THE WOMAN IN RED

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20519, 22 January 1935, Page 14

THE WOMAN IN RED

SPENCER KAYE HOLDRON.

(CHAPTER Vll.—Continued.) “Quite so,” agreed the marquis, grimly, “it lets Dick out completely; but —wliat about Phillips ? 1 would say that it shoves him pretty deeply into the vacant place. Eh —what ?” “Phillips!” she echoed, aghast. “But — but how? I saw him go up ■ ” “You certainly did. And you saw the woman go up—and no one else —the top flight, which you had just come down without meeting anyone else. You hid in a doorway, and would have seen if anyone had passed you.” “Oh,” she broke in, vehemently, “you don’t know Phillips. He has been with Dick ever since he left school. He is the nicest man in the world. I would trust him with anything.” “Hum! There was a man once named Judas, who was trusted with money bags—and there you are, my dear girl! One never knows. And I sincerely wish I didn't know, what you’ve just told me. What an escape von had! It—it might have been you who was killed. Whoever the muiderer was, the poor victim was killed on the very mat on which you stood while you rang that bell twice?” “I know,” she agreed, shivering at the thought, “and it has made me a coward for life. I was too pleased to sec Dick, and I had such important things to tell him, that I had no time to waste on saying that I had seen Phillips or the woman go up the stairs. That seemed so trivial. And how was I to know that Dick would find a dead body at his door? But it explains how I can be quite—quite sure that he had nothing to do with it. If anyone had tried to connect him with the crime, I should have come forward at once and told all I knew; but no one accused him of anything, and the following morning I received an urgent message from him, forbidding me to let anyone know that E had been out so late, or near his flat, saying that Mrs. Grundy would be scandalised. So, as nothing I could have said would shed any light on the ghastly tragedy, T obeyed him, and you are the only person who knows about my horrid little escapade, and I know it is quite safe with vou.”

“Quite,” he repeated, emphatically, “but I’m sorry you’ve told even me. It would have been the very deuce if you had been mixed up with it, and 1 agree with you that the idea of Phillips and murder is incompatible. But your silence has certainly saved him from a very serious situation. If the police had had a whisper of what you've just revealed, they’d have worried him iike a terrier does a rat. You see, my dear, those two—the woman and the man—were apparently alone on that top landing, but—well, it’s all over now; the poor creature is at rest in her grave, and the very tragedy itself almost forgotten. We’ll let sleeping dogs lie. If it’s true that ‘murder will out,’ time will hang the man who did the deed. After all, we really know nothing. The place was in darkness when you left Yorick Mansions, and anybody might have slipped in as you slipped out, or some other tenant in the block might have been expecting some troublesome visitor on blackmailing bent, and lain in wait for her! Don’t worry.” CHAPTER. VIII. Having received another invitation from Mr. and Mrs. Watkins to take tea with them, and go on to a melodrama at the Grand to follow, Mr. and Mrs. Jorkins set off in high spirits, reaching their destination about live o’clock, where a tasty and ample meal awaited them, the only drawback to their pleasure being that again Watkins, was called away unexpectedly on urgent duty, and was compelled to leave them, after making profuse apologies for having to keep his nose to the grindstone—in other vyords, to forego the pleasure of their company, and the theatre, to attend to his work as usual.

Again his “work” took him to No. 7 Yorick Mansions, where he looked forward to another long, exhaustive search through Richard Dane's private papers, among which lie fully expected to find further proofs of that individual’s connection with, and knowledge of, the woman in red. For the last month he had been burning with desire to obtain this opportunity, but until now he had been constrained to possess his soul in patience, for it was impossible to attempt it while the flat was occupied, a<> it would injure him seriously m his profession if he were caught in someone eke’s house at night without official sanction, or due authorisation for his presence there. He had heard of a constable found in similar circumstances, who had actually been sent to prison for “burglariously entering premises!” Watkins could not afford to risk anything of tiiat kind, and so had been forced to wait until he heard from Jorkins, that Dane and his servant were out of town, and the coast clear for his investigations without fear of interruption. That time had at length arrived, for Watkins had elicited by a little judicious questioning that Dane was going to spend that week-end with friends in the country, upon which his wife sent another of her pleasant little invitations, and over the cheery, but not inebriating, cup, he had ascertained that Dane and liis servant had started early that morning, and would be away until the following Tuesday evening. Thereupon Watkins set off with a good heart, reached the Mansions at dusk, and entered No. 7 unobserved, when he proceeded to draw the blinds, slipped a bolt in the door as a guard against possible surprises, turned on the lights, and then set to work in earnest. The old bureau, in which he had found the photograph on his previous visit was the special object of his attention, for, if there was one secret drawer, there might be two! Or, for that matter, a whole dozen, each containing some deadly secret of its owner? It was a task which required infinite patience, tact and care, for it had to be done in a way which left not the slightest trace behind that any hands but the owner's had been there. The detective berated himself for his stupidity; try as he would he could not find the spring which opened the secret drawer. He could not even remember its exact situation, so ornate was the interior of the bureau, and so profuse were the carved roses, knobs and headings.

.So certain wa? he that it wm in one particular spot that he used all hie strength iu pressing it, and then swore audibly as it broke under his touch, without, however, disclosing any hidden space behind. Fortunately for himself, in view of any possible little accident, he always carried a small tube of adhesive cement in his pocket, so he proceeded to repair ilie damage as quickly as possible, laying his notebook down for a moment on a small table, just behind which was a long, heavy velvet curtain, placed to conceal folding doors between that room and an adjoining one. These doors, he had ascertained on a previous visit, were kept locked, and never used, which accounted for his having omitted to look there this time. While he pressed the piece of hr >ken wood back into its place, a hand shot silently out from the side of the curtain farthest away from the kneeling figure, picked up the note-book, and then vanished with ib> prize, while the detective. having neatly covered up the traces of the damage, proceeded more careful)} than before with the taek of finding tli • secret drawer. All at once, and quite by accident, as on the first occasion, he must have found a spring, for again there was the strange whirring sound of rusty mechanism in action, followed a second later by a drawer jumping out from its well-contrived place of concealment. It was not the same drawer, however, out a much larger one; it was not in the same place either, but right on the other side of the bureau, and in it lay a long packet of papers, tied together with pink tape, while written in a round, distinct text-hand on the outside wrapper the detective’s greedy eyes read the exciting words: “Story of my life—my secret. To be read after my death.—R. Dane.” “Got him!” shouted the detective in a frenzy of triumph. “The cord’s as good as round his neck, that is”—pausing for" a moment as a sudden recollection flashed across his brain —“I reckon I’ve got both of ’em. They’re both in it. In this confession will he found the motive, and that poor devil, Phillips, was his tool! It was a planned thing to be done together—an appointment with the woman for midnight, timed to a minute. Phillips Mas to be there to let her in, his master was to be there to receive her, but was stopped by the other girl at the door and delayed. The woman in red asked for Dane, and when he didn’t turn up refused to enter the flat, thinking she was being tricked, and turned to go away, when the man sprang at her and struck out—” stretching out an eager, trembling hand to seize his prize when — He could never explain afterwards to himself or anybody else what happened but the lights went out, the room was plunged into darkness, and he had a feeling of nausea, suffocation and utter complete helplessness—he could not breathe or move or see —his arms seemed glued to his sides.

After a few ineffectual efforts to call out ami to free himself from the strange entanglement which held him, Detective Watkins felt the last remnants of consciousness desert him. and he sank gently down to the floor in a dead stupor. CHAPTER IX. Some hours later Watkins awoke with a sense of chilliness and discomfort, and it was quite a considerable time before he remembered where he was or why he was there. When recollection at last came to him he felt hurriedly in his pockets for matches, and quickly lighted a candle which stood on a table near him. By its aid he looked at his watch; then he uttered an exclamation of amazed dismay when he saw that it pointed to half-past three o’clock. “It’s impossible! There’s some mistake!” he muttered. But the timepiece on the mantelshelf corroborated his watch, and he had to allow himself to be convinced against his will. He realised at once what an awkward predicament he was in. There was lie, a police official, an illegal trespasser in a gentleman's flat during that individual’s absence from town, which reliable witnesses—to wit, the Jorkins, husband and wife, could prove he was well aware of, and had planned their absence for that special time. He was a prisoner in Yoriek Mansions until the front door was unlocked in the morning. What had happened? For the life of him he could not make head or tail of it. Mechanically lie turned to the electric switch and" pressed the button, but it refused to wbrk. “Something must have gone wrong with it,” he reasoned to himself. “There may have been an accident at the power station, and I just got a shock by comin" in contact at that moment. Never had one before, and never want or.e again. Now where was I when it happened? It couldn’t have been lightning, because it’s the wrong season of the year for it, and there was no storm, so it must just have been that—an electric shock. Where was I when it took me? At the bureau, of course. And—yes,” he went on. with growing excitement, “I’d just found a new secret drawer, with piles of incriminating evidence in it against R.D.” Hurrying towards the bureau, candle in hand, he saw the secret drawer still out, and a neatly-tied packet inside, exactly to all appearance, even to the written description outside, as he had seen it before lie received that shock which left him unconscious. He seized upon it with avidity, and half slipped oil the pink tape, then replaced it again, and put it in his 1 “Best set things straight first,” he muttered. “Looks too much like a burglary to be safe at present. Wouldn't do to be caught like this.” It took him quite a long time to arrange the contents of the bureau to his and even then lie' was not quite sure whether certain papers were in their correct pigeonholes or not. As for closing the secret drawer, he really did fear at one time, that he never should be able to do it, but, just as daylight began to peep through cracks and crevices, and the early milkmen began to go their first rounds, the obstinate spring consented to work, and, when he least expected it, the drawer shot back into place. The blinds had to be drawn up, and one or two other little things attended to. The detective caught sight of his notebook lying on the table, and hastily put it in his inner pocket, together with the new bundle of papers he had found

that pight, and then, as a last thought, he went over the entire flat, examining closely every niche and corner. “And now I'll get out of here before anything happens,” he muttered to himself, giving the place a glance round as he spoke, and noting that everything was in apple-pie order. “The reading of the papers will keep until I get home. Somehow the place here gives me the creeps; never had such an experience in my life before, and never want it again. Struck silly, that’s what I was; and my head aches something awful, even He went downstairs as noiselessly as a eat, watched his opportunity when Jorkins, having opened the door, had returned to the basement for bucket and broom to wash down the front steps and pavement, then darted out into the clear, cold morning air. “I don’t know that I'd go through it again for a hundred pounds,” he said aloud, as he boarded an early ear going in the direction of his own home. “Xever knew I had nerves before. Shan’t be myself again until I’ve had a good long sleep.” One trifling point had escaped his notice, namely, that, although everything in the flat seemed the same when he left it as when he had entered, hie personal valuables undisturbed in his pockets, and no sign of any presence in the place but his own, yet the bolt he had shot to prevent anyone’s entering and taking him by surprise, was back in its place, so that, if anyone had been concealed in the flat when he went in. the intruder must have gone out and drawn the door to after him, unobserved; while he (Watkins) slept! (To be continued daily.)