The Girl at The Gables

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18163, 30 October 1930, Page 4

The Girl at The Gables

| BY 'HERBERT GALWAY and ANN NEVERN. jg , (All Rights Reserved.)

Serial Story

CHAPTER XXVI. James Bantry and Marlin Dreevcr were laughing like two irresponsible schoolboys when (hey hurst open the door of the room in Which Martin was held a prisoner, but -the laughter—if it could he so called —ended on their lips. The merry, whole-hearted exuberance of the schoolboy had <no place in their unnatural glee. . Their eyes glittered with the hard brilliance of insanity, and they stumbled and floundered about like rudderless barges. “There he is, Jimmy,” chuckled Bantry, pointing derisively to his brother. “There’s the dirty little upstart who thought he'd got me safely put away—put away in an asylum! A lunatic! Me! A sane man! What shall I do with you?” he came closer to his cowering victim. “What shall I do with you, brother o’ mine? It must be something that doesn’t cost money, because we have none! Neither have you! • Ha,ha I Shall I tell him, Jimmy? My friend and I are fortunetellers—aren’t we, Jimmy?—and we can lift the veil of the future. Tell vou what’s going to happen to you! Ha, ha! This is a joke, isn’t it? Let me read your hand, dear brother!”

“No! Get back! Don’t touch me I Y 0U —you devil!” shrieked Martin, his face ashen with terror. “If you want to kill me, do it quickly, for pity’s sake!”-

“Pity?” laughed Reuben bitterly. “Pity! You' presume to talk of pity! You will be bleating about your honour next! . Pity I What a funny little devil you are! Nobody has pity for vermin! Pity!”—his voice rose almost to a shriek —“Had you any pity for me'when-you stole my wife—my little Merle? Rosy and sweet as the dawn! Soft as swansdi/vvn! Pure as the driven snow! Add now she’s dead! Did you know that, you fiend of hell? You killed her, and then put me in the asylum because I was mad! Mad! I expect I was mad! Oh, my God!” He placed his hands over his eyes and groaned in anguish. Martin Dreevcr moistened his parched lips and watched his demented brother like a trapped rat. “Jimmy, '''murmured Reuben in a quiet voice, “the devils have got me again. What shall I do? Can’t you help me? What shall we do with this —this—white-livered muckworm?’’

Bantry laughed—a horrible, crooning chuckle—and pointed tq, the window on the top landing. “Up there," he. grinned; “it’s quicker!”. The thing the two men had always dreaded had' happened for the second time. s They were both mad together! Bantry could no longer restore the mental balance of his friend. Reuben hovered on the border-line for a few seconds, but there was no hand to help him, nobody to save him from slipping over that dreadful precipice. His tortured soul clamoured for vengeance—for retribution on the heartless villain who had wrecked his life. “Prisoner of despair,” he murmured to himself. Then, as though impelled I by some hidden force, he shook his | heavy mane of hair and laughed—and the tone of that awful cachinnafion filled Martin Dreever with -a terror almost yvorse than death. . I “Finish it, you devils 1 Finish It 1” j he groaned, his head on his chest. “Yes, your time is up," replied Reuben. “You’ve had your innings, You’ve bled your last victim. Now it’s your turn to face the music. Sorry ! you can’t take your money with you, but that’s the worst of money,” he grinned, “If only we could take it—catch hold of him, Jimmy,he went on advancing towards the shivering wretch, “you can wash your hands well afterwards. Come on, dear Martin, the dawn is just breaking in the purple east 1 I la, ha! that’s poetical, isn’t it? You didn’t know I was a poet, did you? Merle once said — Merle, God bless her!—But I can’t stop now. You must come with me, you purple—purple —-bloodsucker !■” Together thqy dragged the terrified usurer from the chair and he had no strength to resist. When they reached the landing Bantry left the two brothers, alone and stood gazing down into the flames that filled the lower part of the house. He remembered the party who had just broken into the hall through the splintered front door and laughed quietly as he realised that the flames between them formed an impenetrable barrier. With almost • superhuman strength, Reuben lifted his limp brother to the window and stood on the sill swaying dangerously. The flames from below lit up his lined face and gave it a transfigured expression. “The dawn I The dawn!” he shouted in triumph. “The dawn at last! Free! Let me go,' Martin! You are holding me! Let me go! I’m not a prisoner nowl I’m free—free! ” The next moment Bantry saw both of them fall to certain death. He jumped on the sill to follow, but I something held him back. No—noD suicide—that’s cowardly. There was work for him there. Blindly he groped for the staircase through the now dominant smoke and flame—missed his footing, and fell into the furnace below! James Bantry was' also released from his chains! , „ :V CHAPTER XXVII. 1 ’ ' When Mrs Jarrow was driven back into the kitchen by the menace of Reuben Dreever’s pistol, she collapsed in a chair, but as 'much from astonishment as from fright. “My goo’ness!" she panted, “I believe the gentleman’s gone mad! And I’m sure that there door will be battered in! I’ll go and wake Miss .Phil —if she isn’t already awake with this awful to-do 1” Mrs Jarrow was built on generous lines, and her patee was correspondingly slow. The knocking -worried her, but in face of her employer’s peremptory orders, she felt she could do nothing thpr,e but to let them knock. . She stopped in frozen horror before she had gone many yards in the direction of Phil’s room. The unusual hour, the darkness . . . but it wasn’t really dark. What was that peculiar : glow that lit up the stairs'above her? I It was becoming brighter and fainter | | .. . redder and ... It was fire! The : , house was on fire! A weird shriek- j j ing laugh cut through the air like the I . depairing howl of- an hysterical ' . hyena . . ~ , ; i Mrs Jarrow—stout, plain, cumber- j ( some Mrs Jarrow—tucked her dress- | ing-gown round her ample calves and ; sprinted to the door of Phil’s room. { “Fi—fire!" she shouted. “Miss, Phil, the house is on flrel And there’s '

such dreadful gnin<zs-on! Get up. or wp’ll be burnt to death in our beds! Fire"! Quick! Mr Dreever’s got a pistol and —” ' Phil sprang up immediately “What’s this, Jarrow?” she cried in alarm, fullv awake, but with the rosy'tint of healthy sleep still restmg on hnr cbp°k like the bloom of a ripe peach The first, fain glimmering of dawn . was showing through the blind, but the girl struck a match andTighted a small lamp near the bedside Again the awful laugh rang through the old house, and the banging on the door redoubled “Quclc, Jarrow! Get some of your things on and I’ll do the same! Something dreadful has happened,, and I .can only guess what it Is!" ' While the housekeeper ran back to her room to gather up her clothes in a bundle. Phil peeped out of the door —then she dashed back again and followed Mrs .Tarrow’s example The ominous glow a hove them was rising and falling . . . brightening and fading . . . and now, to their dismay, they could hear the crackle of burning wood.

As though pursued by some horrid phantom of a nightmare, the two women stumbled and panted in their flight. Those stairs had never before seemed so long. As they reached the bottom they turned the corner b'ke frightened hares and ran along the tiled hall to the kitchen. They had barely entered that comparatively safe shelter when the lamp Phil had left burning in her bedroom, hurtled, lighted as it was, down the stairs, and smashed against the front door and exploded in a thousand pieces. The burning oil ran wickedly but harmlessly along the tesselated floor. There was a sustained creaking at the front entrance—a sound as of steady but heavy pressure—and suddenly the door burst in. and the trembling women—rapidly dressing in the kitchen—heard a confused shouting of many men. A succession of rapid pistol-shots bit, spitefully through the din, and tho rest was pandemonium! “There’s only one way out now!” called Phil, seizing the older woman’s arm. “The back!” There may be a chance!”. As they reached the rear the girl thought she heard her name called. She stood. Yes; there was no doubt. “Phil! Darling! Where are you?” Instinctively she looked up in the direction of the sound . . . but the back staircase was also a mass of flame! She was surely dreaming! It was simply a nightmare, and she would wake up soon! “Phil!” The cry sounded fainter. And poised above the burning stairs, his head bandaged, his eyes closed, and his arms extended, was the figure of Jack Pres!on. ' “Well, I never, miss! Young Air Presfo/i from the —” With this confirmation from the unimaginative Mrs Jarrow’,’ Phil needed no further proof of the reality of the form of her lover. She ran forward, as though to dash through the flames. “Jack!” she cried. There -was no answer; but, as I hough he heard the loved vbice above the confused roar, Preston began to descend . . . one step . . . two . . . the banisters leaned outwards dangerously, and Phil, pressing her hands to her heaving bosom, gaye a sharp exclamation which was half-sob and halfprayer. Airs Jarrow gazed in fascinated horror and she opened her mouth but could not scream. Another , step . . . faltering like a blind man . . .

.Tack Preston crashed -through the burning and broken rail to the tiled floor beneath!

’ Almost paralysed with horror the two women ran to the recumbent 3 figure, expecting the worst. At the ’ same time, Dr. Sherwe.ll, who had run 1 round from the front ball on hearing ' Phil’s cry, attempted to lift the unk conscious man. - “Quick!” he cried. “Help me to .get, him outside I” 1 “Oh, is he dead?” asked Phil in a 1 tense whisper. “Don’t say he is ■ killed!” ' i “No; he’ll be all right soon. He is i suffering from smoke more than any--1 thing else. The fall has not hurt him [ in the, least, fortunately. Fresh air i will soon restore him. Do you know , anything about him?. I had no idea that Martin Dreever had a son.” "Martin Dreever’s son!" exclaimed Phil in astonishment. “He has been a prisoner—a prisoner—and I did not know!” As Dr. Sherwell hated “scenes” and the girl looked perilously near tears, he asked if she knew where the young man lived. “Yes, yes! He is the son of Sir ■Richard Preston, and if you will help me we might put him in the car and I’ll drive him home. He lives at Greylands.” “The car’s in the garridge, sir.” ventured practical Mrs Jarrow, “and if we—” “As ouick as yoh can then I” said the doctor briskly. “I am wanted here, I expect." Together the three of them put the semi-conscious form in the car, and Phil started up the engine. “Will you go as well?" asked Dr. Sherwell, turning to Airs Jarrow. “Yes, please! Come on, you old dear!” called Phil. With just a brief word of thanks, Phil slipped in the clutch and the yellow car was soon spinning down the drive at a rapid paqe. “Lucky chap!” murmured Dr. Sher Well as he watched them for a moment of two before returning to the house of tragedy. Once again he gazed after them as he was about to enter the house. Youth to youth, he reflected. Speeding into the dawn—the dawn of life, while here ... A loud shout frOm somewhere outside dispelled his dreams. “The top wnidow! The top window !” While every eye was turned towards the giddy height the local fire-engine dashed up, but before the ladder could be placed against the wall, the figures of Martin Dreever and his brother hurtled through ' the. air, clasped in a deadly embrace, to fall in a lifeless heap on to the stone balustrade beneath! Phil stopped the car with a-jerk as the fire-engine entered the drive, and she than turned her head and followed the general gaze. » She had never seen Martin Dreever, and was at a loss t to understand who the other could be 1 who was falling lo death with the man she knew so well. “Js Iha t Mr Ban try?’.’ she gasped, addressing herself lo nobody in particular. (To be continued.)