“The Silver Tea Shop.”

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 49, Issue 15049, 30 November 1923, Page 7

“The Silver Tea Shop.”

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

CHARMING LOVE STORY BY A POPULAR WRITER.

By Evelyn Everett-Green. Author of “Adventurous Anne,” “The Temptation of Mary luster,” “Defiant Diana,” etc., etc.

(COPYRIGHT.)

CHAPTER XXlV.—Continued. “Next morning,” continued Jack, “when I was called by Jane, it was earlier than usual, as she had found Mr Urquhart dead, and wanted me to conic up. After that you know everything, for every word I spoke at the inquest was true. All that I did that needs explanation was what I have told you now. But I could not see that there was anything to be gained by speaking of it then. The man is dead. I had no reason to screen him; but when a chap can’t speak up for himself one doesn’t throw mud at his memory without a cause. I could not see that it threw a ray of light upon Ins death ”

“You did not think of it as supplying a motive for your own desire for his death?’’

“Well, of course, I saw that it might make things nasty for me,” Jack admitted frankly, “and naturally I preferred not to do that. But I’d have owned up all right if I could have seen that it would help to elucidate matters. But I didn’t then—and I don’t now.” There was a rather tense silence in the room. The detective and Tony’s lawyer friend sat with their eyes glued upon Jack’s face, as though they would read his very soul, and his face was as open and frankly fearless as his voice and manner had been.

“And you have never spoken upon this matter with Jane Fossbury at any time?” asked Mr Craddock. “You do not even know that she untied him?” “She must have done that, because there was nobody else who went up that night. But I have never asked her any question.” “Is there any reason to think that she left him tied, and that any other person went up later ?” Jack saw the bearing of that question and his head was held rather high. But he instantly understood the menace of it.

Then at that moment the room door opened. Queenie entered—to her mother’s unbounded astonishment —and behind her another tall and rather grim figure. “Excuse me, mother, dear, but Jane wants to make a statement. I have brought her here to make it now —at once. ’ ’

CHAPTER XXV. JANE SPEAKS. There was dead silence in the room as Jane Fossbury, with a peculiar, vivid brilliance in her eyes, came forward to the table round which Jack and his interlocutors were sitting.

As for Queenie, she went round to her mother and put her hand on her shoulder. Tony, who was next to Mary Silver, rose and pushed Queenie gently into his seat, himself moving out of the circle and leaning his wide shoulders against the high mantel-shelf, from which position he had an excellent view of Jane’s strong and resolute face, which wore the enigmatic and non-com-mittal expression which had puzzled other persons besides himself in the past. “I hear, gentlemen,” said Jane, speaking in a level voice, “that Mr Jack Colquhoun is telling you what he did in Mr Urquhart’s room that night. If he has done this, now it is my turn. I was not sure that we need either of us speak about it. When a man’s dead and gone, and can do no more harm, one can leave him to his Maker. That is how 1 felt about it—as I belidte Mr Jack did also. He said nothing to me, nor Ito him. But if folks can’t let well alone, and must needs be poking and prying and raking up the mud well, then, one has a duty to do, and I am here to do mine.”

changed his mind and went down, and I heard him go right down into the basement.” , , . . T “And you arc sure he had not been up to his own rooms in the attic as well as'the rooms overhead?” • ‘ Quite sure. He just went up to Mr Urquhart —was in his room about half an hour—Mr Loekyer had been there earlier. They met on the stairs below mv Poor as Mr Jack went up—and then 1.0 t . a mc straight down, as I have said, and I sat on thinking.” She paused a moment. No one spoke a word. The air seemed to become tense with the strain of the unexpressed. _ “I had Mr Urquhart’s soup heating on the fire. Generally I did not take it up till eleven. But that night I could not wait. I did not know what had happened up there, but I felt that it was something big. And scarcely five minutes after Mr Jack had gone down J was on my way up. “Just at first whene I got into the room I did nt notice anything strange. Mr Urquhart was sitting in his chair as usual, and his revolver and a bit of rag were on the table beside him. But in°a few moments I saw that he was tied into his chair, and when he looked at me there was an expression in his eyes which told me a lot more than words could do. It was the look you see in the face of a trapped rat or beast of prey when the tables are turned. And something in his look made my smouldering hatred of the man leap up into a great flame, and I went and stood before him and asked him whether he ever thought of his beautiful young wife, whom he had taken from a happy home, and then deserted in her approaching hour of need, and left her alone in a harsh and cruel world to shift for herself.

“Up till that moment I do not think he had recognised me. My sister in those old days liked to speak of me as ‘Janet’ to any new friends she made. And I was ill with a bad face the summer he was at our village, and he never saw me without muff lings round it. But he knew me well enough then, as I stood before him, and more than ever did he look like a trapped rat. And as I looked at him and thought of the past, and of my dead sister, and of what he had done to her and to others —when I thought of what he was doing here —playing the friend to my dear mistress, and all the while seeking her hurt in hurting the business she had built up, and in the cruel wrong he ourposed to do to her child —when I thought of all these things my blood seemed to turn to fire in my veins.”'

“You mean,” spoke the man from Scotland Yard, “that you have a statement to make about that night when Mr Urquhart met his death? I am ready to hear it if you have. But you must understand, as I told Mr Colquhoun just now, that you are not obliged to speak, and that what you do say may be used against you in evidence.”

Jane made a slight movement of her hand.

“I know what that means. You think the man was murdered, and that either Mr Jack or I did it. Well, I’m here to tell you that he wasn’t. He shot himself. But as far as that goes, I was ready to do it, and I told him so. And if he hadn’t kept his word and done it whilst I was away downstairs, I should have gone back myself aud shot him through the head —and he knew it! ”

Into those strange wild eyes of Jane —only wild at fleeting moments —had j sprung a light which none of those who saw it ever forgot. Then it slowly faded, and Jane’s manner became normal again. “Let me tell you all now that I have begun. I need not speak again about my poor sister. Yo uluiow that story. I had always hoped to have a chance of bringing home to that man the punishment he deserved for causing her death —so young and fair. And yet, although I knew I was living under the same roof with him year after year, I saw no way of taking vengeance on him. Yet something within me told mo to have patience, and my day would come. “So I waited and watched. And I also, these last weeks, began to see .and partly to understand his game. He wanted Miss Queenie, and he, hated Mr Jack. When he thought he saw that those two might begin to care for each other, he laid his villainous plans. I need not repeat what you have heard, no doubt, from Mr Jack himself. But he was not the only one who suspected that the thief was not far off. I guessed who it was, and so when, on the night we are speaking of, I saw Mr Jack coming down from Mr TJrquhart’s room with the stolen things in his bands, I guessed pretty well what had happened.” ‘ ' How did you know they came from Mr Urquhart’s rooms? Mr Coilquhoun has some rooms of his own up in the roof. Why not from there?” This question was rapped out by the detective.

“What harm do you mean, when you speak of Mrs Silver’s child?” asked Tony, though he pretty well guessed the answer.

(To be Continued.;}

“Because, sir, the house being very quiet that night, and me being in the room below, Mr Urquhart’s with the door a little way open, and me sitting in the dark, as I often have a fancy to do when I’m alone at the day’s end, I heard Mr Jack go up, and go into the overhead room. I heard voices, with a queer sound in them which meant something more than just common talk. I heard a scuffling for a few minutes; then that stopped. Mr Jack’s voice had its stern ring. And very soon I heard sounds of drawers being pulled out, and I pretty well guessed what was happening. Almost I resolved to go up and see the discomfiture of my enemy. But I stayed where I was. And after a time I saw through the opening of the door Mr Jack coming down with some things in his hands, which I knew at a glance. He could not see me, sitting in the dark, but he stopped for a moment by my door, as though perhaps he meant to come in; but then he