"Her Hidden Husband,”

Wairarapa Daily Times, 22 October 1930, Page 7

"Her Hidden Husband,”

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

(Copyright).

CHAPTER XIII. —Continued. There was a moment’s hesitation, then she heard him say: “I’m terribly sorry —I’ve been busy all the morning and now I’ve got to rush down,to Somerset —Maa-combe, where my people used to live, you know. It’s bad luck, but I shall only be away for a few days.” “That’s all right,” she said quietly. “I know you must have an awful lot to attend to. Don’t worry about me. Let me know when you return, won’t you, dear?” She replaced the receiver quickly; she was relieved. She -waited a few moments then got Denny on the telephone and asked for Pete Marehmont’s address. “Did you have a good time last night?” “Rotten,” Denny replied. “It isn’t much fun taking a girl out to dance who is madly in love .with another man.”

“Poor old thing, but you knew what you were up against,” she replied easily. “You are certain I suppose that she really loves him.” Denny’s reply was brief and to the point. He asked her if she had discovered anything more about King. “Yes, you were right about his memory. I think he left it in Borneo!” “What do you mean?”

“I don’t believe the man I was dining with last night is James King at all. I believe was left behind and this man is impersonating him. But wo can't talk over the ’phone. Come round to lunch and bring Miss Marelnnont with you—but don’t say a word to her. King’s run away to Somerset—that looks as if he’d got the wind up! ” CHAPTER XIY. Bareombe was a straggling village about ten miles west of Taunton held in an arm of the river Exe with the moorlands not an hour’s ride'away. King arrived in the evening and went boldly to The Raleigh Arms, an oldfashioned posting house which still carried on its ancient traditions. The host welcomed him and showed him to a pleasant room overlooking the valley. He was a round-faced, cheery fellow of about sixty.

“I don’t suppose you remember me?” Jim ventured.

“Can’t say as ’ow I do, zir, though the name do seem a bit familiar. About ’ow long would it bo since you were in these parts?” Jim was standing in the window, looking over the rolling meadow lands, listening to the distant murmur of the ! stream, watching the clouds still red with the glow of sunset sitting lightly on the hills.

“It must be moire than fifteen years. We used to live at Barton House. I really came back to have a look at the old place.” ■ “Oh, yes, to be sure, zir—Barton House! Mr Merivale ’as that now, though Ido hear it’s for sale again. Things have changed considerable in these parts. But there—it’s nothing but change nowadays; nothing and no one seems to keep still for a minute. The world’s like a. toad on hot bricks.” After he had dined Jim went into the bar and sat on an oak settee near the great chimney place, listening to the conversation of the worthies who congregated here every evening to drink, gossip, and smoke. He noticed one very old man sitting on the other side of the fireplace almost bent double with age. He had a short, thick beard like the stubble in a corn field, shaggy eyebrows falling over piercing grey eyes. He drank from a pewter pot and smoked a long churchwarden. He had wished King a pleasant evening when he came in, and after a while the landlord introduced him.

“Mr Thomas Amery. He’ll remember your father, zir. He’s about the •oldest inhabitant in Bareombe, ain’t you, Tom?”

“I am the oldest. Ninety-two come Michaelmas!” Amery growled, eyeing Jim suspiciously. “Born and bred here, and here I hopes to die when my time comes—which won’t be yet awhile, no not for a good many years. What might be your father’s name, zir, and where did he live?” Jim told him; even as he spoke he felt like a fraud. He had come here secretly to get information. His father’s name and Bareombe meant nothing to him; he had simply found them written in the deed which has made him an articled pupil to the firm of solicitors in London.

Amery wagged his head as he took a pinch of snuff and stabbed Jim with his eyes. “So you be young Mr King. Well I never —can’t say I remember you, not with that beard, but I remember I caught ’e throwing stones in one of my orchards one day and I gave ’e a good wallopin’. Yes, and your mother wanted to take me before the Magistrate but yer father —he was one of the old school, he was—he said it wouldn’t do yer no harm, and I was to give ’e another if I caught ’e again. And it don’t seem to have done yer no harm neither, if I may make so •bold. Ah, them was good days!" He continued to wag his head while ho stared at the stone pavement. Jim looked round at the other occupants of the bar, but none of them seemed to be paying much attention to him. It gave him a queer sensation hearing these intimate details of his childhood. Probably his father had come into this very room after a day’s fishing, sat in the very chair where he was sitting, and drunk brown ale. He was discovering himself at last; yet it didn’t seem in the least real. This queer old farmer who had once whipped him—though he might not re-

BY ARTHUR APPLIN. (Author of “The Dangerous Game,” “The Greater Claim,” “The Woman Who Doubted,” etc).

member he ought to have felt some instinct about him; and the post-house, too, and the railway station when lie alighted. He began to ask Amcry questions, and though the old man was willing enough to talk, he wouldn’t answer them, but rambled on with his thoughts.

“Sexton Hogg who buried thy father was only put away two years back. iS’iiose you remember him, zir—a sourgrained old devil, but there he had a rare ’andful in his wife. You ain’t marrried yet—no, I can see that, but I s’pose you’ll have to come to it; we all do. Ye might do worse than buy Barton House back again, zir” —he lowered his voice—“ye’d get it cheap, too, if ye knowed how to go about it! There’s Mr Pike standing over there; he’s the estate agent hereabouts.” Raising his stick, he waved it in the air: “Hi, Pike, here I’ve found a gentleman who may take Barton House off your hands. Give ye a thousand pounds for it, I shouldn’t wonder.” Mr Pike, a tall, grey-faced man with boirn-rimmed glasses and untidy hair, advanced nervously and was introduced. “You mustn’t take too much notice of old Mr Amery,” he Laughed. “He will have his little joke. Of course, if you are looking for a nice place down here I can highly recommend Barton House. The price we’re asking for it is three thousand pounds —and it’s worth it. ’ ’

Amery snorted derisively. “Why, it belonged to Mr King’s father here, and his father before him. Ye ought to be givin’ it to him instead of asking three thousand pund for it. It might have been worth that amount in his day, but I warrant it ain’t now. If old Mi" King heard you talk he would turn in his grave outside, and his poor wife alongside of him, too.” Mr Pike was loquacious and willing to talk, even when he wasn’t sure of his ground. Of course, he had heard of the Kings. It would be a fine thing if he bought back the old family estate. Before leaving, Jim promised to meet him in the morning and have a look at the place. He was getting on, he thought; he had at least established his identity here. Pike didn’t mean to lose the chance of doing a deal for his firm; he was waiting for Jim soon after breakfast with a car and they drove through the pleasant country lanes bathed in summer sunshine to the fringe of the moorlands where Barton House stood on an eminence backed by fir trees overlooking the river. - Jim felt his heart beating quickly as the car ran up the short drive bordered with flowering shrubs and stopped outside the front floor. It was a small but charming building in the Elizabethan style with tall chimneys. A verandah ran around three sides of the house-where monthly roses and honeysuckle grew in wild profusion. The garden had evidently been neglected for some time, but it was a mass of glorious colours and the air was heavy with the perfume of flowers. Pike produced a large bunch of keys and opening the oak front door stood aside for Jim to enter. He found himself in a small square hall with- a parquet flooring. To his surprise it was furnished; pictures hanging on the panelled walls; even curtains across the shuttered windows.

“Yery much as your father left it, I fancy,” Pike said, jangling the keys as he drew up one of the windows and opened the shutters. “I understand it’s been partly refurnished, but to my mind the mixture of modern stuff with the old doesn’t go well. Otherwise the place hasn’t been touched. You’ll find everything just as you remembered it as a boy, I expect. Nice oak panelling, eh Mr King? And that staircase is quite a fine specimen. Between ourselves the place is a bargain at three thousand pounds. Old Mr Lambhdad he’s the big butcher at Taunton—he’s been after it, but I’m sure my principal would rather see you back here again.” _ > Jim nodded;-he was standing in the middle of the hall staring up the. oalc staircase into the dark recesses beyond, trying to remember—‘trying to remember. How often he must have run U p and down those stairs, probably slid on the banisters. In imagination he climbed now, penetrating the corridors, trying to recollect where the rooms lay. His mother’s room? It gave him a queer thrill to think of her. Suddenly he shivered for he felt as if he were dead himself —a ghost revisiting his old home and finding neither welcome nor recognition.

“It is a bit chilly, isn’t it?” Pike said again, jangling his keys; . the sound got on Jim’s nerves. “Like to come into the other rooms, Mr King? Drawing-room, dining-room, and library on the ground floor; three best bedrooms upstairs —but there, of course, you know. I was forgetting. The last owner had a bathroom put in and electric light. Will you come this way?” (To be Continued").