The Merlewood Mystery,

Waikato Times, Volume 112, Issue 18723, 25 August 1932, Page 4

The Merlewood Mystery,

SYNOPSIB. Michael Atherton Is about to visit his aunt, Mrs Sylvester, at Merlewoou. 50 years before, Arthur Burden and ms Wire had been round murdered in an oia barn adjoining- the house. The murderer was never .discovered. Suspicion had fallen on a man Known as ‘‘ Dick,” believed to be Mrs Burden’s lover, but this man naa disappeared. Hidden in Merlewood are some valuable diamonds, left by Arthur Burden in a sale place.” Michael decides that trying to ilnd the diamonds ar-d discover who the murderer was, will provide excellent entertainment during his holiday. John,. Mrs Sylvester’s son, Is a scientist, tV'lio uses the old barn as a laboratory, ■where he Is carrying out some mysterious experiments. Ruth Dean Is Mrs Sylvester’s coincompanion. Burden left a cottage on the estate to a man naped Adam Brown, who still lives there. Brown is a queer old man, his only servant being Tansy, a negress, who had lived with the Burdens to the time of their murder. j CHAPTER XXII. — (Continued). “How long will you wait for me?” he whispered. “That depends,” she answered, with a provoking smile, “upon the Cairns.” “The Cairns I” “I’ll wait -until, the kennels are empty. They’re -full now, some of them with the merest puppies, and I shall not re-stock them. You must hu-rry up ancl get -rich as quickly as possible. “What if some one bought your whole stook at one fell swoop before I had time to turn round?" Mlohael Interrupted, i But at this point Marjorie suddenly tired of teasing. “I should -raise their price and make it absolutely Impossible, so you need not worry," she said, adding in tones that set her lover’s pulses racing: “Don't you know, you foolish boy, that I do happen to care the least bit about you?” What Mlohael answered was known only to Marjorie, the stars, and the summer night. For Love Is oldfashioned after all. Hugh Lester had brought word from the laboratory that everything was in readiness.' “I’m so thankful it’s all ended,” Mrs Sylvester sad, with a sigh of relief, as she walked between Sir Ronald and Lady Hele. “Perhaps now John will, be persuaded to take a real rest. As to what we are going to see, I don’t suppose -many of. us will be rhuch wiser at the end of it.” They were all keen, from different standpoints, to witness the result of several years’ close scientific research. The time occupied, Lester now admitted, -had been much longer than was generally supposed. The strain of concentrating upon it, added to routine work, had undoubtedly helped to bring about the disaster of Sylvester’s breakdown. But at last it was finished, and they were now about to witness the completed whole. As to,their differing points of view, Mrs Sylvester cared less for the research itself than to know that It was ended. Ruth Dean could appreciate more than the others —Lester ex-cepted—-what the researcli had meant in exacting labour. Sir Ronald anticipated that there might be money in the discovery—if discovery it were—and had already mentally formed a syndicate to work It. Lady Hele hoped it had nothing to do with war, her view being that Science had. invented quite enough dreadful things already. Marjorie was filled with curiosity, but admitted that science was not in her line. Michael Atherton was Interested in the research which he was unable to link up with his cousin’s promised endeavour to solve the mystery as to who had been the murderer of Arthur Burden and nis wife. . . „ . They all trooped intu the barn. 'Chairs ‘had been brought for Sir Ronald, Lady. Hele, and Mrs Sylvester—the four young people on a bench. Hugh Lester’s services, It appeared, would not be required. The laboratorq, dimly lit, was not without an atmosphere of mystery. The upper ' part of it was lost in shadow, the farther end of it made visible by the dull glow of red lamps. Upon a long table objects of an altogether strange description were grouped as usual. There could be no doubt Sylvester had evolved his own apparatus. 'The scientist himself was bending •over a hgihly complicated installation apparently attached to a large disc near at hand. He did not speak, and his small audience kept silence also, fearing to disturb him. Despite the fact that Marjorie sat beside him, that under cover of the darkness her hand was within his, Michael’s thoughts were not entirely with his sweetheart. They reverted persistently to the night upon which, ■he had, without intention, listened to those thrilling words uttered In that very building. . . Suddenly Dr. Sylvester spoke. “What I hope to demonstrate tonight,”' -he said in his clear voice, somewhat after the manner of a Royal Institution 1 lecturer addressing an audience at a Friday evening lecture, “has never before been attempted. . .. I am not even aware that it has ever been seriously suggested as a possibility. But in these days of scientific progress he would indeed he a foolhardy man who refused to believe in any theory, however apparently impracticable. The research I have just concluded is based -upon the simplest principles. It is merely that their application has been extended. The field of operations appears to be limitless. My one regret to-night is, that the sample I am about to give vou is unfortunately a somewhat unworthy one —though not without local interest. I could have wished .it might have been a nobler example than the sordid, tragic one it is. 1 am hound to admit, also, that my research has limitations at present, which further investigation may remove.

“Let me explain as simply as possible. You may probably be already aware that in this marvellous world In which we live, nothing ever really perishes. In the realm of matter, that is indisputable: in the domain of physics it is equally true. Po we find that sound lives for ever. Words once uttered are imperishable. 1 believe that, it will 'be possible to tap reservoirs of sound from which tiie faintest whisper of love or the fiercest denunciations of hate can alike lie renewed. And from the vast storehouse of the past I propose to-night to retrieve —if i may so express myself —certain sounds produeed long ago in this very building. Does anyone wish In ask any questions before 1 begin my experiment?” There was a pause. Then Mrs Sylvester's voire was heard out of the re mi -dark ness. “Do you mean Ilia! what we shall hear mines from nowhere?" she aske.| incredulously. "You will hear what were nnee human voices," Dr. Silvester replied.

{By Mrs J. 0. Arnold.)

STIRRING ADVENTURE STORY;

“It is a kind of wireless?" his mother' persisted. There was a note of apprehension in her voice. Was her son quite sane? 'Or had his mind once more become unbalanced? Surely what he proposed to do was not possible. i “You will be able,” Dr.,/ Sylvester said in his restrained level voice, “to detect the sound of human voices vibrating through space, even after the lapse of years. If 1 were to talk to you of abstruse problems and obscure phenomena successfully solved and made clear you would not be able to folio wme, and I should onlyweary you. We will confine ourselves this evening to simple evidence which your sense of hearing will confirm.'’ He paused a moment, then continued less seriously—- “ You may be inclined to ask if this researoh will prove to be of practical use?” he said. “What object will it serve? Will anyone wish to heatwords spoken ages and ages ago? 'Well, I think you must admit that this power of reproduction open's up many possibilities of vital importance. Speaking lightly, one might hear what the swineherd’s wife said to King Alfred when he burnt the cakes—just how Queen Eleanor spoke to Fair Rosamond—hear Pepys describing a new coat,to his wife. Historic doubts may be solved —crimes brought home to those who committed them, lor a voice is as personal and individual as a finger-print. Now listen.” The little audience sat in tense silence. At the far end of the barn the lights glowed beneath the great disc, and Dr. Sylvester oould be seen manipulating apparatus in order to produce those Voices from the Void which he had promised should be forthcoming. Then suddenly amidst the silence of the old building was heard a faint murmuring as of voices travelling over immeasurable distances of space Nearer and yet nearer they came, growing by degrees less vaguely indistinct, until they were like sounds heard across water from an opposite shore on a still summer evening. Clearer and yet clearer ... until at length, out of the past, the waiting audience heard close at hand the deep tones of a man’s voice, vibrant and passionate: “Darling—l love you I" CHAPTER XXIII. For one instant Michael's pulses seemed to stand still.,, The sound of that well-remembered voice, so closely resembling that of Dr. Sylvester himself, was a surprise so great that his brain refused to credit what was yet indisputable—that this was not the voice of his cousin, but a mysterious utterance proceeding he knew not whence. So 'his suspicions had been groundless—and unworthy. Yet what was the meaning of it all? That voice, declaring love so passionately, whose was it, and whence did it come? Not from a gramophone—there was none In the building; nor was it conveyed by wireless —that, too, was absent from the laboratory. Had any other man been responsible for this strange phenomenon Atherton might have suspected some kind of trick. But Sylvester 'was outside any such suggestion. „ But there was no time for further speculation. For at that moment a loud knocking upon the door of the barn gave him sudden pause. Hugh Lester rose at once to interview the intruder —Who had proceeded to let himself in without. Invitation. He proved to be none other, than old Brown, stick in hand, the mole-colour-ed cat following close at his heels. “I’m told Dr. Sylvester’s making an experiment," he said in a loud, hoarse whisper, audible to everyone. I d like to sec, it. Any_ objection to my taking a seat?" x . . . It was scarcely possible to turn him out, and quite impossible to ask Dr. Sylvester’s permission to admit him. So Lester took the responsibility upon himself and offered Ins own seat to the old man.

“Hush!" he said warnlngly. "Dr. Sylvester has begun his demonstration." From where he sat Michael could see the figure of Adam Brown silhouetted against the dim light concentrated around Sylvester. He sat very still, his hands folded over the knob of his heavy stick, the cat perched upon his knee. His entrance had occupied only a few moments. Silence bad followed that first amazing utteranoe, as though the speaker waited for a response. It came. A -woman’s voice fell upon the acutely listening ears of Sylvestez*’s audience.

“And I love you," It said caressingly. - “Oh, Dick, why did I ever marry him? For his money, I suppose—the diamonds he found. Oh I I was a fool—a fool. It was you I loved all along—not him, never him, I swear."

There followed a silence, during which two lovers might have been locked in each other’s arms in passionate embrace.

In that brief space of time Michael Atherton was able to rapidly conjure up the scene that had been enacted half a century earlier. With his mind’s eye he visualised the perjured wife—born coquette and trifler with the hearts of men—and the handsome lover, her husband’s false • friend, meeting seoretly in the old barn lest servants should observe them. FTom theiir voioes alone it was fully possible to gauge to some extent the personalities of these participators in the fifty-years-old tragedy. , He pictured the woman as fair, yet with a wanton eye and a too-ready smile, more vain and foolish than' wicked, shallow-hearted. The man he judged to be headstrong, violent, filled with the spirit of revenge towards the husband who had won the woman he loved. The tragedy that loomed ahead appeared to Michael to be foreshadowed, Inevitable. ... “We’ll go away—together, you and I, sweetheart." The man’s deep voice was speaking once more. "Right back to the sunshine—far up-country, where he can never track us. . ~. . Say you’ll come, and leave him. and his d—d diamonds.” “Yes, Dick. . . .I’ll come ” “This very night?" The man’s voice shook. “No —no. To-morrow. I must have time. You can’t be so hasty; I haven’t any money. The lawyers in London have got what he’s given me—all tied up it is. We can’t go without money. You’re mad to think of it.”

“He’s got diamonds somewhere in the house. Where are they?" The words were short and sharp. "I don’t know. . . Yes, I do you can’t get them—they’re tied up in a oanvas bag, and he', keeps them locked up in a safe in his room. You can’t ever get them . . . he’s got the key on ‘him.’’ “Can’t I? We’ll see. .. . I’ve got all to-night before me, with him well out of the way. By to-morrow I’ll have both his diamonds and his wife, damme if I haven’t!" A second’s silence, strangely ominous, followed his words. Then the man’s voice was heard again—changed, charged with new meaning . . . surprise—fear. “Aha! So you’re there, are you? Take thatl" A loud report rent thp air. ... “Stand aside, for your life I" It was the voice of a second man, and It rang out warnlngly, authoritatively, like N an order given In extremity. Where had Michael heard it before?

A second report followed Instantly, then a third. . .- . A deep groan of mortal agony succeeded, and thencomplete silence.. But not for long. A loud cry as of pent-up fury and suffering, the falling of a chair, the' frenzied dispersal of every obstacle in his path, and Adam Brown, brandishing his great stick, rushed in furious haste to where the scientist stood beside his priceless apparatus. . . Blow after blow descended upon the inanimate objects upon the laboratory bench behind which Sylvester stood. The smashing hf glass, the fall of metal, blows rained upon the great disc, filled the old barn with violent sound. Adam Brown, with uplifted stick smashing, destroying, scattering, was a figure of fury no less dangerous than terrifying. Dr. Sylvester was no longer to be seen amidst what had once been his unique and priceless apparatus. The whole incident had ocourred with such suddenness, and so ; . great violence had been used, that the destruction of Sylvester’s research apparatus was complete before Hugh

Lester and Miohael Atherton had time to Intervene. Nor could they lay hands upon the assailant, who In an incredibly short space of time had destroyed the professor’s life-work. In the general confusion and the gloom of the dimly-lit laboratory, Brown gained the door. Flourishing his stick as he fled, he disappeared outside Into the darkness of the night, despite his age and apparent Infirmity. Pie had been like one possessed . . . the strength of ten had dominated him. Meanwhile consternation had fallen upon the household at Merlewood. Dr. Sylvester had been lifted by Hugh Lester and Miohael out of the ruins of his apparatus, amidst which he had fallen unconscious in the very hour of his triumph. The voices he had retrieved out of the past would be heard no more. Michael went to summon a doctor, whilst Lester returned to the barn to ascertain the precise nature of the damage done. There had been little room for doubt on the matter from the first. .. . “Everything of importance is utterly destroyed,” he reported after his survey “Not the cleverest scientist could

reconstruct the wonedrful apparatus designed by the doctor. I myself have but the vaguest notion of it? complicated nature and exquisite adjustments. Unless he himself reconstructs it, his great .researchjs ended. There, will be no more voices out of the past." V - "Perhaps it i? as well," Lady Hele said, with a shrug of her shoulders. Mrs Sylvester was upstairs attending to her son, and it was possible to speak with frankness. “Really science threatens in time to deprive us of all privacy. Imagine our spoken words —; tone included —, brought back to us to hear. I never did believe in a material hell, but I do indeed think this' would be the nearest approach to it. To many of us such a testimony might be worse torment than unquenchable flames ■or worms that never die.” (To be continued.)