Mystery of the Other Man

Waikato Times, Volume 99, Issue 16545, 14 July 1925, Page 3

Mystery of the Other Man

CopyrteM, (Published by arrnsßrement witb the General Press, Ltd.).

CHAPTER XVII

And then a strange thing happened, for he put her suddenly from him and sat back in his chair silent and white. For slowly he was realising, clearly. inevitably realising. Just what this that Doris had told him meant. lie was slient so long that it almost seemed as though he was unaware that Doris was with him, as though lie had forgotten her altogether. To be forgotten! In Hie very moment of surrender, in the very act of making the greatest and most vital gift a woman can make, the gift of her whole self, to be forgotten! Doris bore her grief and astonishment, her sense of indignity, almost of outrage, as long as she could, and then her surprise, her unendurable disappointment, wrung words from her. "Don't you care?" she half whispered, and her voice had a grieved tremble in it, like a child's. And still lie said nothing. Doris half rose.

"Have you made —a mistake?" she asked. "Don't you want to marry me—as much as you thought you did?" Then lie turned and looked at tier. "My little Dot! My little Dot!" he said.

Doris's breath caught- Whatever else she might suspect him of, never again, never, could she suspect him of not loving her. She laid her clasped hands on his arms and dropped her forehead on them.

"Oh." she said, "I thought—l thought "' Iter voice broke. For a moment she was si,lent. Then she looked up with almost accusing eyes. "Ynn are-—so different," she told him. "So very different from what I thought you would be !" "Dow?" he demanded, almost curtly.

"You—you ask no questions. You don'l seem interested. It is almost as though you did'l care-—either about me or about what I have lold you." lie smiled, a smile thai touched his lips and lefl the shadow in his eyes still there.

"I have had a shock." he relumed, gravely. ' "And if it has made me. a little-—queer—it is not because I care for you 100 little, but because I care for you too much. What you have lold me may keep us apart for years— - might, indeed, easily separate us for ever. It is natural that I should be a little upset. If you really intend to keep to your word, if you will not marry or even be engaged to mc until this man. whoever he is, is found "

"I can't," she told hirn, and her voice was heavy with the tragedy of it. "I should hate, myself for ever if I failed Alan." Lanchcster nodded. The situation ivas defined. II only remained to accept it.

"Thdn the only thing to do is to find him," he said, quietly. "You say I ask no questions. Well, now I'm going to begin. I'm going to understand this thing up and down and inside out. Who was it that was killed, you say, in Odette Lissau's drawing-room?" "It was a man called Monteith, lan Monteilh. I believe he was very rich —and I'm sure he was very horrid. He "

But something in Lanchester's face silenced her. "Monteith," he said, slowly. "Monteith died in his own house in Eaton Place —died of heart failure. I remember reading all about it in the Times. lie was buried from there, and all financial London went to his funeral." "He may have been buried from there; but he didn't die there. He was killed —shot—in Odette Lissau's drawing-room." "Then how do you think she got him from there to his house in Eaton Place?"

"I don't know; but she did."

"And she says your brother " His voice trailed off into silence. It was almost as though the enormity, the effrontery of the charge stunned him. "Who do you think did it?" he asked, suddenly. "I think she did. I shall always think so. He was shot with her pistol—a little toy pistol that Alan says she always kept in her writingtable drawer."

"But if she did it, why should she deny it?" He straightened himself, and his manner had a touch of excitement. "She had only to say that it was done in self-defence, and no jury could have done anything—but excuse. She would not have suffered in any way."

"Her reputation would. She seems to care mere about that than anything."

"And you suggest, you really believe that to safeguard her reputation she would accuse an innocent man of a crime he has never committed! Thai she would banish bim frcm his horns and condemn him to lifelong exile—by a lie ! I don't believe it. I would never believe it of her. She isn't the kind cf girl " But Dot's brown eyes, wide and dari with astonishment, silenced him. "Do you know her?" she asked, breathlessly.

He hesitated for a long, long moment.

"Yes," he said at last. "All the world knows her —to a certain extent. I, perhaps, a little better than the rest. I know that she would never, to save herself, be guilty of—such conduct as you describe. She is a good woman him with a movement of bitter scorn. "Are you—like all the rest?" she asked in a quick whisper. "Because a woman lives what men call a straight life, do justice and honour and truth count for nothing? You say Odette Lissau is a good woman. Have you ever noticed her eyes?" He smiled a little.

"They are very beautiful eyes," he said. And Dot was silent, dumbfounded and dismayed. Of all the odd conversations to follow what was nearly a betrothal; surely this was the very oddest. He took her hand from the arm of his chair and raised it to his lips. "Little Dot," he said, tenderly, "darling little girl, don't misunderstand mc. Even at the risk of seeming to go counter _to you, I must, be just. Odette Lissau could not do the things you are ascribing to her. She would not, to save herself five times over, shelter behind another, and that other innocent.'

"Yet someone is doing it," returned Dol, passionately. "If it is not she then; is someone else mean enough, base enough, to purchase their own safely at Alan's expense. If it is not Odette Lissau, who is it?" A little silence fell while both pondered that, indignant, question. Lanchester broke it. Perhaps," he said, quietly, "lie doesn't Know," "Know what?"

"That anolher man is suffering for what he did." "He must. If he was a friend of Odette, Lissau's then, he is a friend "• hers now. He must know how

(By STELLA M. DURING Author of “The Temptation of Carlton Earle,” “Love’s Privilege,” “The Crooked Stick,” “The Loom of Life,” “The End of the Rainbow,’’ etc.

they got Mr Monteith back to his own house, and what steps that woman has been wicked enough to take to save •him, his murderer, from discovery.'' "He mayn't," he repeated with curious, insistence. "Besides" —and his face lightened ever so little, "it may be a 'she.'"

"It is." agreed Dot, passionately "It is Odette herself."

But there, even at the risk of astonishing and grieving her, it was quite clear that Lanchcster dissented, lie shook his head slightly and sank into sombre thought. At first the house seemed very still, then across the stillness, thin and reedy, came the singing of a Christmas hymn. Doris sprang to her feet in white dismay.

"It's ten o'clock," she said. "They arc having prayers. Oh, let me go I Please, please, let me go!" "Why?" he demanded, and his hold on her wrist tightened. "Because Mrs Lanchcster will come in to say good-night to you. And what will she say—oh, what will she say if she finds me here!" crept into Lancliester's eyes. Already, quite evidently, his mother had been "saying tilings." It was undoubtedly the explanation of Doris's frantic desire to leave Skclburn Manor. If his mother found them together in the library when they should have been at prayers in the dining-room she would "say things" again. Well, let her —while he was there to hear.

"Darling, does if. matter? I want her to find you here. I want her to understand, clearly and at once, just how things arc between you and me. If. as you say. you are leaving here to-morrow, if you still insist " "I do. I niiisl. I won't stop here. I couldn't—especially now." Lanchcster nodded. That "especially now" was illuminating. "Then wc have any amount of things to settle, and wc must sctllc llmni 10-night. If ■ you won't, if you really won't stay here any longer. 1 will take you to friends of my own in Stcelboro', who will take care of you and look after you till we can marry."

"But wc may not be' able to marry for years! I can't live upon you all that time. I must earn my own living."

It was her fine pride, her sturdy independence that prompted her, for she had never heard of the hideous convention that a girl must not accept financial help from a man lest he expect a base return. Lanchcster smiled, a rather weary smiie.

"It won't be years, my little girl. It won't even be months. I think I can promise you it won't be many weeks before we know the truth as to what really happened that night in Odette Lissau's drawing-room." he said. "You forget that I have promised to help you. And I will. I'll come to the bottom of it somehow. And when I do, when I have brought the guilty man to justice and cleared your brother and brought him home to England—and happiness—and you—then you will marry me, Dot - ?"

And Doris, forgetting the lateness of the hour, the imminence of Mrs Lanchcster, everything in the. world but her lover so solemnly pledged to her service, dropped on her knees before him, her clasped hands held fast between his own. (To be continued to-morrow.)