OUR NEW SERIAL THE YOUNG ARCHDUCHESS

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXI, 18 April 1922, Page 2

OUR NEW SERIAL THE YOUNG ARCHDUCHESS

(By

WILLIAM LE QUEUX)

CHAPTER VIII (continued).

“ How very sweet of you! Please send It as soon as you can. We have a dinner party to-night, and, feeling as I do now, I am quite certain I shall not be able to put in an appearance when the time arrives unless I have this wonderful decoction of yours.’’ Madame Thirska beamed. She hurried her hostess off as soon as possible. On the drive back, she explained to Mabel that Miss Torella was suffering from a torturing headache, that she had a splendid specific. Could the chauffeur take it back?

Of course, Mabel consented willingly. She had a pretty shrewd suspicion that her guest was an adventuress, but she was far from thinking that she was harbouring a potential murderess. A small parcel, very securely wrapped up, reached the hands of Geradine. She took it down to her guardian in his study. He looked at it cautiously and deposited it on a side table. “ I will take it to Vincent to-morrow morning, my dear child. He will know how to deal with it.” Geradine smiled in her easy, bravehearted way. She had picked up a little English slang at her Eastbourne college. “SoI am not going to be polished off yet, dear old Guardy, am I?” He answered her in the same vein. “ Not yet, little girl. I will back Vincent against Uncle Lois, and this fiend of a Russian woman.” The excitement of Madame Thirska’s visit had dirven away the girl’s headache. “ I shall be able to come down to dinner after all,” she assured her guardian. “I say, I hope it isn’t a bomb, timed to explode at a certain hour.” Ashdown smiled. “ She is too subtle for that. If it were a bomb, she would be implicated by the evidence of the chauffeur who brought it. Some subtle scent, my dear.”

The Russian woman passed a restless night. She was a hardened criminal, brought up to crime since she was a child. But even she had some qualms over the vile deed she was attempting to perpetrate. Tho two houses were on the telephone. If anything had happened after the receipt of that package, she felt sure Ashdown would send a message to Mabel.

The next morning, resolved not to show the slightest courtesy to his unwanted guest, Guy absented himself immediately after breakfast. The two women chatted away an hour or two in the morning room, the ears of Madame Thirska strained to catch the tinkle of the telephone bell. Eleven o’clock struck. Mabel jumped up; they could not sit there gossiping till lunch time.

“ What do you say to a stroll, madame? It is a lovely morning.” Madame assented. Her nerves were quite on edge. And, if they strolled out, they might meet some acquaint-

ance of her hostess, who would give them the news she was hall dreading, half hoping to hear. Mabel chose the road along which Vincent usually took is morning walk, sometimes with his sketching materials, sometimes without.

She was not quite certain as to how ■she would meet him. ' She could stop and enter into conversation, casually introducing her guest. She could explain afterwards to Madame Thirska the incident of the dropped bangle, without, of course, confessing that she had dropped it purposely. But perhaps she would only bow and pass on. The Russian was very clever. She might nut two and two together, and try to make mischief between husband and wife, to revenge herself for the somewhat cavalier treatment she

had received at the hands of her host. Vincent came down the road, with his long, easy strides. Mabel had not quite made up hex- mind as to whether she would stop, ox- simply bow- and pass on. He _took the situation out of her hands.

Studiously avoiding the glance of Mabel, he raised his hat to the Russian woman.

“ Pardon me, but I think I recognise an old acquaintance, Madame Thirska.’’

Madame went pale, her nerves were out of order. She did not know him from Adam, but she presaged that this unexpected meeting had something sinister in it.

She darted a disturbed glance at him. “I am afraid lam in fault. I do not seem to recall you.”

“ Ah,” said Vincent in his quiet way. “ Madame has met so many people. But if you give me a few minutes for private conversation I think I shall succeed in bringing myself to youx- recollection.”

He raised his hat again and looked meaningly at Mabel. “ I have to ask permission of this lady who, I happen to knoxv, is your hostess. I know her very well by sight, but I am not acquainted with her name.” “ Mrs Somers,” snapped the Russian -woman. Mabel, unobserved, thanked him with a grateful glance. How- tactful, how gentlemanly 1 He had taken no advantage of that indiscretion of the other day.

‘‘Then, Mrs Somers, will you pardon me if I take your friend away for a few moments? I see she has forgotten me; as a matter of fact, I have a message for- hex- from some mutual acquaintance.” Mabel bowed, in token of assent. But all the same she was very bewildered, also very curious.

With a compelling gesture he led the Russian woman well out ef earshot. Then he confronted her with a. very stern and menacing aspect. “ Now-, madame, if you please, we will both put our cards on the table. You are a member of ‘ The Black Cravats.’ I have your dossier in my pocket-book. You are here, in the sendee and the pay of Prince Lois. At home, I have unopened the bottle of smelling salts which you sent last night to Miss Torella.” Madame gasped. Who was this strange man who knew her history and had outwitted her? And yet, at the bottom of her evil heart, she felt relieved that her plans had miscarried. The girl was so pretty, so young and so innocent.

“My name is Vincent,” pursued the calm, inexorable voice. “ I think it is probable you may have heard of me in the annals of crime. I anx here to watch over the safety of this young lady.”

Madame was silent; she could find no words. She was trying to realise the situation, its probable consequences.

“ I think you are beginning to understand. Your wits—l do not presume to under-estimate them —are matched against mine. It is the woman’s brain against the. man’s. Which is going to win? ” The pretty Russian woman gave up. There came into her hard eyes a gleam of admiration for the personal comeliness of the man himself, an even warmer gleam fox- the intelligence that had outwitted her.

She spoke slowly. “If you are the celebrated Vincent of whom I have heard, I must throw down my arms. Your reputation is European, amongst those who know. What do you propose? ” /

Vincent’s reply came back, sharp and brief.

“ Clear out of this respectable house, into which you have stolen under false pretences, by to-morrow at latest. If you don’t— ” For a second the light of battle came into hex' eyes, And if I don’t, what then?”

Continued in to-morrow’s Advertiser.