Serial Story The Jade Token

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 427, 19 November 1930, Page 12

Serial Story The Jade Token

Ralph Trevor)

(By I

(Author of “Under Suspicion,” etc.) (All Rights Reserved)

INSTALMENT NINE.

SYNOPSIS. A murder is committed in the surgery of Dr. Wallace Langley, he being decoyed from the place at the time. The police find the murdered man, named Conrad Ricks, has come from South America, and had recently asked Jules Conn, an antique dealer, to value a piece of jade set with a Valuable ruby and inscribed with hieroglyphics. This Jade token is now missing.

Scotland Yard have been perplexed by a series of daring jewel robberies. Curtis Burke, a brilliant young detective, who Is given control of the case, connects these robberies with the murder of Conrad Ricks.

Inspector Ames, an elderly detective, assists Burke. Ames is hostile to Dr. Langley, and feeling that he is under suspicion, Langley consults Sir Garvice Watkin, a great criminal lawyer. Langley is engaged to Sonia Cranston, a niece of Sir Garvice.

Sir Garvice tells the young dot cor that there is something suspicious about Inspector Ames.

Sir Garvice Watkin invites Burke to his country house for the week-end. and he there meets Ann Marvin, a friend of Sonia Cranston.

There is an atmosphere of mystery about Ann Marvin and Burke, although attracted to her, suspects her of being a criminal.

A gold crucifix belonging to Sir Garvice is stolen during the night. Looking for clues Burke finds a black bone button of an unusual type. There was only one man he knew who wore buttons like that, and that was Detective Inspector Ames, of Scotland Yard.

Burke visits Professor Browning to try and learn something of the history of the ancient jade token which was stolen from the murdered man.

Another murder is committed, and jewels stolen. Finger-prints lead to the arrest of one Joe Denver.

Sir Garvice Watkin offers his services in the defence of the accused.

At the. trial it transpires that Denver has been a member of '‘The Long Arm,” a criminal association with an unknown head who directs all its operations.

CHAPTER VIII. — (Continued.) “I have been caught that way so many times before,” lie said. ■ That Youcumatz has been found by hundreds of explorers during the past three hundred years, and each one has been genuine. No, 1 don’t believe that the jade token will ever be discovered. I believe it lies buried beneath the forests that man has yet to penetrate. This man Ricks had an idea —so he mentioned in the letter he sent to me—of forming a syndicate for the purpose of exploiting the treasure, and wanted to know’ whether 1 could see my way to take up a hundred one pound shares.” ‘•Then you believe that the man was an imposter?”

“What else could he have been? You can’t get the public interested in schemes of that sort. They don’t ring true enough. Tell them you’ve found oil, certainly. That sounds more in keeping with probabilities. But tell them that you have the key to a vast treasure, hundreds of years old, and, well—they quite naturally assume you are insane. That sort of thing is pleasant to read about in fiction, but when you have come to the end of the story, well, you are satisfied perhaps that it has been a good tale, but you don’t take it seriously. This man Ricks had probably heard about the jade token, and, finding something that might, in his own imagination, resemble it, had traded upon the belief that it was genuine. That is my candid opinion, Mr Burke.” “There is no possibility that Ricks had by some chance stumbled upon the genuine article?” “It is just as remote as Professor Low finding the Philosopher’s Stone among the dust heaps of London,” smiled the old man whimsically. “And I should say,” he added, “that whoever murdered our friend Ricks got a very bad bargain if he really thought that his Jade Token was the .genuine one.”

“I’m very much indebted to you, Professor,” said Burke, as he rose to depart. “You’ve opened my eyes a good deal, and I m sure that what you have told me will prove exceptionally helpful.”

“My only regret is that 1 can't tell you more,” intimated the professor. “I haven't concentrated as much as 1 should have liked to have done on the Incas, but if you really wish to carry the subject further I am sure my old friend Sir Garvice Watkin could help you. He has always been interested in ancient South American lore.” “I am rather intrigued,” Burke told him. “Next time I see Sir Garvice 1 shall certainly mention the mailer to him.”

Burke arrived back in London in time to catch Mr Jules Conn, the antique dealer of Bond Street, before that gentleman closed his salon for the day. Conn, Burke was aware, was the only person, as far as they knew, who had actually seen this mysterious piece of jade, and he was anxious to get the dealer's own description of it.

But though Mr Conn went to great pains to describe the token in detail he could not materially add to the description he had previously given to Inspector Aines. “You see,” he said, “I was more interested in the ruby than in anything else.”

“1 suppose, Mr Conn,” challenged the detective, “you have a perfectly good alibi for the night the murder was committed?” Conn shifted uneasily.

“You don't suspect me?" be cried in amazement. “Inspector Ames did not suggest ” “That means your alibi is foolproof, eh?” said Burke. “Well. 1 may want you to prove it in less than twentyfour hours, and in the meantime 1 would warn you not to attempt Io make a getaway. You won t, find it easy. Good-night, Mr Conn.”

And that gentleman watched the retreating form of the detective as it quickly became obliterated among the crowd of pedestrians parsing up and dowu Uie klrecL

“Damn the man!” he muttered as he spread the long piece of baize upon his glass-topped counter. “And I have an urgent, appointment in Rotter* dam on Thursday morning.” CHAPTER IX. The Murder by Night. After Burke left Mr. Jules Conn in a state of considerable agitation, he decided that no good object could be served by his going down to the Yard, so he made his way to his modest, yet tastefully furnished, chambers in Sioane Street.

He settled comfortably' in an armchair before a cheerful fire, garbed in his grey dressing-gown which he invariably donned when he sat by himself, and with his well-filled tobac.ro jar conveniently handy on the little antique table with its black lacquered top adorned with gilt transfers.

Curtis Burke believed that quiet thought and concentration before a comfortable fire was much the best means of bringing the human mind to bear intelligently on the problems of life many of us are called upon to face. Burke's life was a vast, succession of problems. It gave him incredible satisfaction in making strenuous efforts to find solutions. He had first been introduced to the subject by way of the acrostic to which he had frequently applied himself during what leisure was permitted him during his college days, and the habit had so grown upon him that he felt that life would be robbed of much of its charm and purpose were he completely exiled from the opportunity of exercising his nimble wit in this way.

No other profession in the world, he felt sure, would have satisfied him so thoroughly and so completely as detective work, and in this respect Burke had his own ideas as regards method. He felt that in solving the problem that was now before him—the mystery of the jade token and all that it meant—the matter had to be viewed, not from the narrow angle of ordinary deduction, but from the wider sphere of imagination plus fad. In the present case the facts were simple. A man in possession of a particularly valuable piece of jade which, as lie had discovered, was supposed to be of great value Inasmuch as it was the key to a great treasure lying hidden in*the unexplored tracts of South America, had been found slabbed lo death in a surgery by someone acting as locum for the medical man who owned the practice. That was the first step.

Leaving out of account altogether his friend Dr. Wallace Langley, whose story of abduction he felt in honour bound to believe, the salient fact about all this was that whoever impersonated the doctor at the surgery must, have been aware that Conrad Ricks, the dead man, was in possession of the jade Loken at the time he visited the surgery.

How many people, therefore, were aware of this fact? Jules Conn had admitted that Ricks had actually shown him the token. That was number one. Then there was Professor Browning. He had said that Ricks had written to him intimating that the Loken was in his possession. Could it be possible that the Professor had deliberately spoofed him when he had said that he had ignored Ricks' communication? Burke fell that Professor Browning had 100 much at stake in the way of his academic reputation to indulge In murder for the sake of something he considered to be worthless. But was the jade token worthless? Had the Professor merely led him to believe it was in order to throw suspicion from himself? That had to be considered as a possibility. Who else besides these two knew of the token’s existence? Then his mind revolved in the direction of Ames. Might not Ames have been aware of it long before the murder was committed? It was true there was a mystery about Ames, and yet. . try as he would, Burke could not bring himself Lo believe that the Detective Inspector was at fault there—that he was a criminal.

Then there was the question of the succession of robberies which he had been investigating up to the time the murder was committed. These robberies were curious. They were not ordinary depredations. Burke knew that they were aimed at valuables that were irreplaceable. Ordinary jewels, no matter how valuable, were not. taken. Here, he fell, he had a slight connecting link with the mystery of the jade loken, and it was here, too, that he realised that imagination must be brought into play if he was to evolve some sort of water-tight theory regarding the case as a whole. Might it not be a fact that whoever was behind all this was a person with a passion for collecting rare jewels and ornaments? Someone who elected to remain in the background and organised a gang of expert jewel thieves for the perpetration of these robberies?

How, if this were true, did it fit in with the crime in the surgery? Assuming that Conrad Ricks was a gentleman with a wealth of innate caution and that he never allowed the jade token lo be otherwise than on his person, robbery would be of little avail. Therefore the only method of obtaining it was by direct means such as had been taken.

It was a tangle to be sure—a tangle so vast that the thought of it unnerved Curtis Burke as he contemplated it. But he was sure that a slip would be made before long. Such a run of luck as this person seemed to be having must break. It wasn't natural that it should continue for ever. There was nothing else for him lo do but to wait.

Curtis Burke rang for Mrs Shepherd the matronly woman who attended lo his wants, and ordered supper.

By the time he had finished his meal and had waded through several chapters of a novel he had obtained from a circulating library two days ago, it was well past, midnight, and Burke was contemplating turning in when the telephone bell rang irritably, us telephone bells sometimes will. (To be oonduued.)