THE SOLUTIONS OF RADFORD SHONE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8996, 5 December 1907, Page 2

THE SOLUTIONS OF RADFORD SHONE.

BEING NARRATIVES BY OFFICERS OF THE CRIMINAL. INVESTIGATE - DEPARTMENT, ANP OF THE PROVINCIU, POLICE, IN RESPECT OF DEALINGS WITH THE EMINENT EXPERT, MR RADFORD SHONE.

COMMUXICATKI) TO AXI> V l>r[T.J> liV

[Published By Special Arrangement.]

[All Eights Hkskiiaed.]

CHAPTER V.—Continued

Thirty feet lower I touched ground, and slipped out of the knotted rope. There was no water, but the bottim was covered with a couple of inches of slimy mud, so stiff in consistency that footprints would have shown plainly. None such were visible. Here and there the broken bricks displace.] trom above lay smothered in the ooze Keeping my own feet firmly planted in their original position, so as not to create a false trail, I lit a fresh and looked for other traces. The flamn had nearly burnt to my fingers when I caught sight of a brown-paper parcel embjdded in the mud, and so similar in colour that it had escaped my first observation. Throwing aside the match, and careful not to light another, I groped in the darkness for the package, and, having secured it, glanced intuitively upwards. Far above me, seen as though through the wrong end of a telescope, the heads of Radford Shone and Martin were craning over the brink. But I knew that down there in the inky blackness of the nether pit I was invisible to them, it was the work of a few seconds to undo the parcel and stow the contents in my various pockets. Then, after a last look round by the light of ano<h:r match, I shouted the word to haul me up. Shone eyed me curiously as I topped the parapet and scrambled to solid ground. I am no adept at hiding my emotions, and something in my face may have presaged important discoveries. It was, however, to Harold Sterling, mopping his brow after his exertions, that I turned. "I am very sorry, Mr Sterling, but for the present I must ask you to consider yourself detained on suspicion," 1 said. "I need hardly say that I hope there will be some explanation—after we have seen her : Grace." j The young man's features bard-1 ened; in ten seconds he seemed to have grown as many years older. i "You don't mention the charge," he said, in a voice cold and stern, but without a tremor. "Is it theft or murder?" "For the present there is no charge, but you are detained on suspicion of receiving the Duchess of Granton's rubies," I replied. "Very well, Foster. Have it your own way," he said in a milder tone, after reading the friendly sympathy in my eyes. "I will go quietly with you. That is the correct phrase, 1 believe." Radford Shone's indefatigable historian had pulled out a note-book and was .vriting busily in it as we all moved off towards the Abbey. Shone himself ranged up alongside me, and with a wary eye for the suspect, from whom my bulky form separated him. "You seem to have worked wonders below there in establishing the correctness of my contentions," he whispered. "Confirmed all my deductions, eh?" "I have confirmed one of them," I answered, without troubling to lower my voice. "Ah, then you have as good as confirmed them all. The murder charge will fodovv as night follows day. But you are not communicative, after the valuable assistance I have given you.'' "I haven't much wind for communications after going down that well," I replied abruptly. Shone fell back and joined Martin, and I heard him use the phrase "official jealousy," as if he were dictating a new line for his literary adviser's chronicle. Our way from the orchard led us by a flight of store steps to a broad terrace, where a plainly-dressed but sweet-looking girl was walking with two little maids of seven and eight. Till this trouble arose 1 had not known her by name, but only by sight as the governess at the Abbey. She grew pale on seeing the little procession with its sprinkling of police uniforms, but she slightly quickened her pace, stepping firmly enough to meet us. "What is it, Harold?" she tajd. "Have the police believed that wretched lie?" "It seems so; I am in the anomalous position of being detained on suspicion, without being actually in custody," Sterling replied, with a queer laugh. "As the result of Lupin's testimony to Mr Radford Shone?'' the girl proceeded, shifting her steadfast gaze from her lover to me. "Entirely as the result of that," I made answer. "Arid I regret to have " "To place me in the same position as Mr Sterling?" Miss Percival took the words out of my mouth. "That is quite as it should be, for if you are relying on the paper parcel story, I am concerned as deeply as he is. What are you going to do with us, sir." "I was about to lay the matter before herGra:e; if you will be so good aa to accompany us, we shall be the ne... .-r to clearing it up." The to.. Iv Martin began 1o mutter to his chiei: "What's the numskull shilly-shallying for—why'she so civil to 'em?" But Shone was silent. I think that his superior intelligence grasped that I had carried the case into regions beyond his ken. Miss Percival turned and joined us, and, when we had all passed into the mansion, bade her puzzled charges run away to the nursery. At my request one of the footmen hovering in the eturance-hall went to infrom the Duchess of my wish to see her, and she did not keep us waiting long, in less than a minute we heard the swish of her dress, and then she appeared on the first landing of the grand staircase. She paused and utttred a little cry as she saw Ster-

ling mid Miss Percival at my ;udc: then *be ran down, two stop'-' at a time, arid Hung open the dining-room door. "Inhere, please—all of you," the said in a strained voice. We Jollowed her i'i and faced her, as she stood with one hand resting on the white-draped table and the other placking more nervous'y than ever at the buttons of her pretty silk blouse. "What does this mean, Mr Foster?" she demanded. "Surely you have not arrested those two after what I said to you this morning?" "They are not under arrest at present, your Grace," I replied. "But I have verified an important detail of the case as formulated by Mr Radford Shone, and unless there is an explanation of it it will be my painful duty to bring them before the magistrates. are your Grace's rubies. I found tham in a paper parcel at the bottom of the well" With which I produced the gems from my pockets, spreading them in all their blinking splendour on the damask table cloth, and placing at their side the paper and string with which they had been packed. Radford Shone and Martin emitted gratified chuckles. "The parcel theory, *■ your Grace will perceive, is justified," Shone purred unctuously. "It was because of the information that I extracted from the unfortunate Lupin that these persons are detained on suspicion, Mr Foster?" "Without that there would be absolutely nothing against either of them," I replied in a matter-of-fact tone. Shone beamed all round. He even looked at Sterling and the governess as though claiming their applause. Martin wrote in his note-book at furious speed. The two young people on either side of me exchanged glances in which a dawning apprehension could be discerned. Then, suddenly, peal after peal of half-hysterical laughter rang through the room. It came from the Duchess, who was nearly exhausted before sh& mastered herself and said: "Mr Foster, you must take me into custody if you take anybody. That is, for the robbery of my rubies —not for the murder of the tutor." "There has been no murder. Lupin's death was due to accident. There is indisputable evidence that he was alive when he descended the well," I interposed. "Thank God for that!" her Grace proceeded. "As for the rubies, I did them up in the parcel and thrdw them down the well myseif. You will never guess why—except that it was the act of a very foolish woman who would never have confessed her folly but for the danger to which it has brought Madeline Percival and Harold Sterling. I suppose that, to satisfy you, 1 must tell you why I did this silly thing?" "If your Grace pleases." "Well, I am tired of bridge—that's all," she went on, turning her troubled face from one to the other of us. "I am a martyr to the latest fashionable craze, whatever it may be, and I thought it would be good fan to nave Mr Radford Shone down to the Abbey and set him a nut to crack. But I never dreamed of his making such mischief as this.'" "Madam! Your Grace!" Shone began to splutter, but the Duchess checked him with a gesture. "I do not blame you, sir, f-u- your credulity in accepting the dead man's spiteful tale," she went on. "I blame znyself entirely —nay, I shall never forgive myself —for subjecting you to a test too strong for your powers, and I shall see that you do not suffer financially for an error that is more humiliating to myself than to you." A movement behind caused me to look round. The expert and his chronicler could stand no more. Muttering together, and with their very backs eloquent of indignation, the pair were hurryin? to the door. When it had closed on them, the Duchess tearfully begged forgiveness for the consequences of her whim. "Of course, I ought to have confessed directly Lupin hatched the false evidence," she faltered. "But I trusted to my position to overawe Shone into accepting my assurance of your innocence, deferring my explanation till to-day to see what he would do next. Then Lupin's death and the calling in of the police upset all my calculations, and frightened me," (To be Continued.)