THE SOLUTIONS OF RADFORD SHONE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8998, 7 December 1907, Page 2

THE SOLUTIONS OF RADFORD SHONE.

CcnnitNICATHII TO AND KIMTI'.I) 11V [Published By Special Akrangemkm.] [A.ll Rights Reserved.]

CHAPTER Vl.—Continued. I went down to them over the "approach," tricky by reason of the stunted heather. "Ah, here is Inspector Peters," cried Mr Chetwynd. "Now you will Hut the man on his stomach twisted round and shook his head reprovingly, while the fat gentleman in his wake held up a warning finger. So I halted in my tracks till, some three minutes later, Mr Radfoul Shone saw fit to rise to his feet, pocketing the lens with which he had beon examining the ground. Mr Chetwynd introduced us formally, also the other man, whose name he gave as Mr Samuel Martin. There was. an ingenuous honesty and earnestness about Mr Martin which endeared him to me there and then. That, by the way, for Mr Radford Slions naturally claimed my chief attention. Running the measure of my eye over his 1 lean face, I was at once struck by the singular mobility of his protuberant eyes. I had expected something of what fiefcionists call "latent fire" in the eyes of the celebrated expert, which would probably be deen-set in cavernous sockets; but Mr Shone's orbs were like large glass marbles, never still for a moment, rolling and goggling after the fashion of "transparency" advertisements on the underground railway.- His skin was sallow and none too healthy-look-ing, and I wondered how those spindly arms and legs would serve him in rough-and-tumble with an ugly customer. But, after all, it was his brain that I was most concerned with,and he was not long in giving me a sample of its quality. "Well, Inspector," he began in a high-pitched kty, after he had extended a thin, nervous hand for me to shake, "still groping in the dark, eh?"

"Still groping," I assented with a laugh. "But you have had better luck, I trust, Mr Shone." "Do you hear that, Martin?" he said, turning on his stout friend so suddenly as to make him jump. "Can you be surprised at the failures of the official executive when one of their principal men talks about luck in connection with a simple case like this?" "Very crasr," I heard Mr Martin murmur in respones. He plainly did not intend the remark to reach my ears, but Shone gave him away ruthlessly by repeating loudly—"Crass indeed. You are merciful in your phrases, Martin, and just a little silly. I should have issuedquite another word if I had wanted to be rude —honestly rude—to Inspector Peters."

And he cold-shouldered the crestfallen follower in order to pulverise me still further. "Luck, Mr Peters," he said, "does not belong f,o the equipment of the skilled investigator, and I use the word killed as distinct from the term experienced. A man may have all the experience in the world and yet be devoid of skill. Now I will give *"■ you a lesson in what I mean. Do you see those two mole-hills, one on either side of the green?" "Yes," I answered curtly, for I was beginning to be nettled by his discourteous assumption of superiority. "Good," he proceeded. "Exactly between those two mole-hills, at a spot in the middle of the green, I hope to find confirmation of the only logical explanation of Colonel Chetwynd's death. Martin!" The stout young man, who had been drinking in his words, stepped forward. "What is it, Shone?" he asked nervously. "This is one of the rare occasions

when brute strength may come to >the aid—the supplementary aid—of the art of subtle deduction. Down .ongyour hands and knees, my friend, and tear up the turf along the line IJJshail indicate—here, and here, and .here."

He pointed with his skinny forefinger ttf the ground, and Mr Samuel Martin, panting with responsibility, fell upon Lis alloted task. Mr John Chetwynd, who had not ceased to glare balef L illy at me, drew nearer, and I mytelf, impelled by a genuine curiosity, followed suit. Mr Radford Shore's detective methods were certainly impressive to my work-a-day mind, and thero was no reason why they should not be brilliant. In other words, they might arrive by a short cat at the "result for which I had bien striving in my plodding way through three days and a half. Martin grubbed and tore at the turf, his jeliy-bag cheeks shaking with excitement, and then, suddenly, Radford Shore gave him a pause, pushing him unceremoniously aside, and Dinging himself down at the spot where the last sod in the rrnle track had been tunied. For a .long time he remained fiat on the examining the uncovered "run" with his iens. Then he rose with an air of assured triumph, the tails of his frock coat fluttering in the breeze from t:. - -ea. "Mam..," he said, his thin lips curling in a satisfied smile, "you remember my monograph on the habits and customs of the mole—the talpa euro[,oea of the ancients?" "Oh, yes, I read it—splendid," Mr Martin 'replied, picking the earth from tv'? lir.ger-r.aily. "You proved, I think--th;u I i ,eai!v for f' et what \cu didn't nrove. They are funny little beggars. I know I gathered that." "It is something to learn that you gathered anything," was Mr Shoue's severe verdict, on this fatuous remark. And with incredible swiftness he shifted the gaze of those prominent eyeballs to me. "Inspector Peters," he addressed me impressively, "the object lesson which I

BEING NARRATIVES BY OFFICERS OF THE CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION DEPARTMENT, AND OF THE PROVINCIAL POLICE, IN RESPECT OF DEALINGS WITH THE EMINENT EXPERT, MR RADFORD SHONE.

promised you is complete, and it has led up to the axiom never to despise apparently immaterial things. The knowledge, long since acquired, of the way of the little four-footed animal who«e track lay under the green has furnished a clue pointing straight, to the murderer of Colonel Chetwynd. It is now ten o'clock in the morning. If you will call upon me at eight this evening, at the King's Arms, I shall be in a position to enable you to arrest the culprit." The three moved away, leaving me planted on the green and feeling several sizes smalbr in my own estimation. Shone was so assured of success that I could not but believe that by some marvellous method of deduction he had arrived at the same conclusion as myself, but that, unlike myself, he had discovered the means of proving it. It galled me intensely, for my own chain of evidence only lacked one little link to change suspicion into certainty. And ; Mr Radford Shone'? genius must I have soared above ordinary details, for I had observed that he had not i once looked in the direction of the larch grove, which to my humbler intelligence had been a source of lively interest. Returning to the village, 1 spent the morning in a search for the missing link, and then, after a hasty lunch, I left the cottage where I had secured lodgings and strolled up the main street to call on the doctor who had made the autopsy. Having obtained from this gentleman a few additional points as to the injuries of the de- \ ceased, I had just quitted his house in somewhat of a brown study when I heard my name called softly from behind. Wheeling round, I was confronted by a tall girl, dressed in deep mourning, and heavily veiled. "May I walk a little way with you?" she said in a voice quivering with emotion. "I am Mona Chetwynd, and oh, Mr Peters, lam in such trouble." She raised her veil as she spoke, and in the beautiful anguished eyes I read a grief greater than for the loss of her father. It was more than grief—a hauntng dread as well—that searched my face so pleadingly as she preferred her request. "By aU means let us walk together, Miss Chetwynd," I replied. "And you may count on me for any assistance that I can render without a breach of duty, for you know, I presume, that I am a police-officer?" "Oh, yes,.l know that; that is why I want to speak to you," the girl faltered as she paced at my side. Suddenly she looked up at me. "You don't believe it, do you, Mr Peters, that Everard Neil and his father killed papa?" she asked. "You are not really going to arrest him tonight?" "Who says so?" I demanded, with official caution. "That wretch, Radford Shone, in whom uncle John is so—what shall I call it—wrapped up," Miss Chetwynd replied. "Mr Shone was at the Grange this morning, and put questions to me which showed plainly that he thought Everard guilty, and afterwards--was it very wrong, Mr Peters? I listened at the door of the study. They -said' dreadful things about you-- that you were an idiot and a bungler, but that you would have no option but to arret>t my lover after something / they were going to do to-day. Then they all talked at once, and I could makeno more sense of it" "Hush," I said, noticing women coming to their cottage doors to listen. "What is it you wish me to do, Miss Chetwynd?" "To tell me that Radford Shone is mistaken, and that my dear, good Everard is in no danger of such a horrible indignity, the reply. I comforted her as best I could, but it was not possible forme, to give her any real assurances, much as I longed to do so. "We must hope that Mr Shone, for all his great reputation, is not infallible," I concluded lamely. I think that she recognised that I [ was friendly, if more or less incapable; for sne heard me with several | impatient little nods, and' held out 1 her hand abruptly. "Go and see Everard Neil," she said, drawing 1 her veil over the tear-stained eyes. "You won't find him quite that sort of man, Mr Peters." And she whisked round and was off up the village street before I had time to tell her that 1 was then on my way to call on the Neils—father and .son. And, mere rough-hewn product of "the Yard" as I am, I chuckled a little at the simplicity of that country 'maiden in trying to pit me against the emineij! person who had called me idiot and bungler. That battle was nlready :-:et, and his abusive epithets could not add to my desire to be beforehand with him. The trouble was i that the clay was slipping away and I the vital link in the chain, which j should give me the pull over him, i was still unfounded. J (To he Continued).