“The Devouring Fire”

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 192, 15 August 1931, Page 11

“The Devouring Fire”

SERIAL STORY

BY

LORD GORELL

CHAPTER xxxviil- ! So the days struggled heavily by, W fatal half-hours with empty torK«nt and unrealised, but ever-in-creasing, fear, until the sun rose on the last day on which Farrant would further endure the ordeal, June 16th. the anniversary of Mr Grimwade’s end. He and Latham went into the library, where they Crst scrutinised the Unger print and made certain that It was once again an exact repetition of the mark of the preceding month, and then, with great precaution stepped out on to the lawn and searched all about. Latham showed Farrant exactly where the vague figure that he had seen had stood; no rain had fallen for days and the grass yielded no signs, but close against the house ran a narrow bed, and in it, next to the edge of the window some flowers were crushed and broken apparently by heel marks. “Some one—or some thing has here, beyond a doubt,** remarke‘i Farrant. “Facing the window too, is far as it’s possible to tell. You weren’t imagining, sir.’*

He straightened and looked about him. As he turned towards the library, on his left stretched the lawn away towards the drive and the trees under which Latham’s car had stood on the night of June 16 a year ago, on his right it stretched away towards the beginning of the big wood in which Ella Tressway had waited, according to her story, for the man who never came. “When you found those marks a month ago,’’ asked Farrant, “did you I search along the edge of the house • here by any chancel’’ “No. It never occurred to me.’’ ' “Nor to me a year ago: we none of - us then had any reason to think of • some one coming out of that wood to here and from here away across that i bed, as Tressway in fact did. Now, what I’m thinking is this: for lome reason, whoever or whatever comes, human or ocult, . takes that same line. It seems to be i pretty exact re-incarnatlon business: . that’s what’s so damnable about the ♦ hole thing. Let’s take a look round | Up by the wood first.” They walked slowly, with eyes in 3ent on the narrow bed and the edge tf the grass, along the lawn towards the wood. “Neither of us heard a sound last eight.’’ Farrant said, thinking aloud. That’s suggestive of a ghost, of course, but there was a bit of a wind in the trees and it’s all on grass, pine needles, and roughness in which tracking, except after heavy rain, is Idle. “It comes this way,” he said; [ “that’s certain, as Tressway did. ■ That’s why the marks we found only ' lead outwards. 1 Why didn’t IJ cast around here last \ tr?” He knelt down and examined the | footmark narrowly. “I ought to have,” he said at last, rising, “but It didn’t matter. If I had, I could have tight- ■ ened the rope on her still more, and that wasn’t necessary. I wouldn’t like to swear to it in court, as I haven’t the old measurements, etc., with me now and this is pretty faint, but I feel positive all the same that this is her mark.” “Her mark?” Latham stared at him blankly. “I mean, the same as the marks she left in the bed last year. It Is an uncanny business, sir. It gives me the creeps, even here, in broad daylight. Let’s go back to the bed.” The bed itself told them nothing they did not know. “Nothing more to be learnt here,” said Latham, looking about him ruefully. “I’m not so sure,” remarked Farrant with slow significance. “This is something more at any rate.” Hang- : A fag down on the further side of the palisade, caught on a nail, was a long • strip of old greenish gray tweed. “Left by our visitor last night,” he • said; “iPs edges, 1 see, are fresh. It • was in a hurry and there’s no gap > now; jt had to scramble over some- | how. This looks a bit more human I altogether, doesn’t it? At all events : H’s the first thing we’ve come on which is an addition to last year’s programme.” He detached the strip carefully and put it away in his pocket. Frances came towards them across the lawn. “I’m just going down to ■ Mr Birch’s,” she said; “it’s probably the last time. Mrs Fitchett’s awfully bad at the telephone and 1 couldn’t catch half her words, but I gather the poor old man is dying. He keeps asking for me, she said, and it’s the least I can do to go. There’s nothing you want me for here, is there?” “No, and I’ll be coming down myself,” answered Farrant, "as soon as I ever I’ve finished here. I was meaning to see Mrs Fitchett whilst I was this way: she may remember something about Mary’s old hat. But I’m awfully sorry Mr Birch is so bad; he’s been a good friend to me.” “And to me.” jPT Mrs Fitchett greeted Frances with tears and an exuberance of relief and drew her quickly into the kitchen. “It is good of you to come right away,” she began, but I’m at my wits’ end about him. He won’t have a doctor, and he won’t stay in bed; I can’t do- nothing with him any more. He keeps walking up and down in his room and asking for you. ’Where’s my girl?’ he says, ‘why doesn’t she come? It’s all right now; she can come and be easy,’ he says. “I am sorry,” murmured Frances. ••I'ii go in and see him.” mo, mum, and just say something and encouraging; that’s all <4,y oa « can do for him now, I’m taking.” they left the kitchen there was • rap on the little front door. Mrs hustled to it. “That’ll be s knock,” she said: she opened 1 to Farrant and Latham who stood together without. “Oh, Harry,” she went on, finding MJef In pouring out her thoughts to I any listener, “I'm glad you’ve looked 1* Terrible queer Mr Birch is. He ww. so queer all yesterday I didn’t to leave him, but he wouldn’t let . IM help him to bed. Drove me away awore at me, Harry. 1 came down <4 a<*lb. 1 waa that worried, and he'd ’gtne out." "•Gone out’" 'Yel, but come and jee h:m for

1 yourself. I don't know what to do I with him. He's turned queer alto- ; gether.”

I Mrs Fitchett made way in the little ! passage and laid her hand on the door ■ of the sitting room, but Farrant did 1 not stir. With dilated eyes he was ' staring at an untidy, heterogeneous j assortment that lay on the small table ■ in the passage beyond —an old skirt, a torn, old greenish-gray tweed coat, a pair of double shoes very curiously contrived, and a queer, little, rounded, reddish object. “What in the name of God are these?” he asked thickly, stretching a shaking finger to them in almost uncontrollable agitation. “Them? I don't know. I don't know what he's up to. He come in carrying them last night about eleven. He's gorn mad. poor man.” “Great heavens I” said Latham Ina low voice. “His mind's given way and he’s been acting the thing over again, is that it?" He turned pained eyes towards the door of the sitting room, whilst Frances stared at Mrs Fitchett witli horror and Farrant’s Intense gaze on the assortment did not ■ alter. “Poor man,” stammered Frances pallidly. “He was too old; we ought never to have worried him.” With a sudden shake Farrant came out of his stone-like fixity: his face was so grave that he looked years older all in a moment. “You think the problem's been going round and round in his old mind till all unconsciously he's turned performer this last month or so and | frightened the lives out of us in so i doing?" he asked, and his voice was Iso odd that it caused a shiver in i Frances. ■ “Yes; what else?" said Latham, i “We've laid the spirit at last, thank ' God. Poor old chap I"

“Poor <Ud chap,” repeated Farrant, and his tone was as witherlngly cold as death. "What in hell, then, do these mean?" His voice rang out with a trembling, almost a ferocity he could not control. He stepped forward and picked up the strange shoes and the queer little rounded, reddish object.

; “A pair of Tressway’s shoes,” he ; said, turning over the first, “very cunningly fastened underneath his own, tied, strengthened and stuffed, so that he oould wear his, which are larger, and .leave her marks. My God I And this —d'you know what this Is?” He held up the queer little object with a getsure so grimly denunciatory that they all shrank away, blanching. “This is Tressway's right thumb 1" "What I" almost screamed Latham. “Oh, devilish, devilish I It's a model: it’s what they call Stent’s im- ! pression composition, If I’m not mis- ■ taken, the stuff doctors and dentists ' use. By itself it wouldn't leave a I mark—l understand the dirt now. ( ye gods, what a hellish contrivance i | That unhappy woman told the truth. I I see it all now. She went to the wood, as she said; she went back to • her house, as she said, and he—he," Farrant waved als hand wildly at the sitting room door, “he went to the library!” The door opened suddenly. Mr .Birch stood within. Emaciated, unshaven, shaking, with his deep-set 1 eyes gleaming with a strange frenzy from under his shaggy eyebrows, he supported himself with his left hand against the lintel and stretched out his right to Frances: with an indescribable thrill of horror Latham recognised again the shrunken, talony I fingers that had so terrified him emanating from' the dark shape outside the library. Mr Birch was breathing with great difficulty; he appeared utterly oblivious of everything save a single idea. His gaze leapt out of him, as it were, and fastened Itself on Frances: he ; neither saw nor heard any one else. “Anne!” he cried in a high, unna- ! tural voice. “You have come at i last:" j "Anne?” gasped Farrant, bewild- • ered. I"His daughter that died,” answered Mrs Fitchett tremblingly. “I might have guessed, but I didn't. He's meant I her ail along.” CHAPTER XXXIX. Impersonation. Be Anne!” whispered Farrant Instantly 'to Frances who had shrunk back in unconscious panic from the ' terrifying figure of her former friend. “I can’t! I can't!” she muttered. ’ You must—for the unhappj Tressway’s sake. We must know the truth.” "It's—it's so mean, somehow.” “Mean? With a deed like this before us? And he's dying, we must ge: at the truth before it’s too late. It won’t hurt him now." “Anne! Anne!” repeated Mr Birch, his shrunken right hand stretched out to her in infinite appeal, and his haggard, bloodless face contorted with an agony frightful to see. "Don't be afraid. There's nothing to be afraid of now. Justice is done and you can come to me." “Go to him: ask him about it,” urged Farrant, in a low, Insistent whisper. Trembling Frances came forward with slow faltering steps. Then something of the frenzy that writheci behind those old, flaming eyes penetrated to her understanding: sue knew suddenly that she was in tile presence of a man who, whatever he had done and for whatever reason, was looking at her with eyes of doglike devotion raised out of the torments of heli. She held out a hand and he grasped It with a great, shuddering sigh of relief. “I thought you didn't understand,” he cried. “I thought you shrank away from me: you're not of the world, you're in heaven. You are, aren't you?" A vast anxiety throbbed in the strange question. "Yes,” faltered Frances, utterly at a loss. "Ah. I knew it'." Triumph as well as relief, rang out. "They wrecked your life, they killed your body, but they couldn’t hurt your soul. ’ ’ God saw it all and pardoned you and gathered you to Himself. ' I knew it! I knew it must be so, but sometimes. of late, I have wondered. I knew it really. If you'd been in hell, I couldn't have avenged you; that would have been to send them after you. iTo be continued.)