High Doom

Waikato Times, Volume 116, Issue 19430, 3 December 1934, Page 4

High Doom

SYNOPSIS

News or a ’plane crash Interrupts Detective-Superintendent Mcknights’ hodday from Scotland Yard, and from Carswell, his subordinate, he learns that Sebastian Martin, Foreign' Minister, is missing, and that first . fears place him as a possible .victim. Bill .Cleveland, McKnight’s journalist nephew, is'on the scene of tho crash, and while going to the spot the detective encounters a man' and a woman or foreign type in a high-powered car. Later a doctor’s theory is that Martin was dead before the crash, and an elemont of murder is introduced. McKnlght llnds a clue in a little weapon in the wreckage. He is now convinced that Martin died in mid-air, and visits his. cottage at Chlngford, from which he ha'd disappeared alter dealing with a treaty. M’Knlglit llnds a locked diary. At Alartln’s London home lie meets■ the foreign couple again. Later Premier Hubert Tullis reprimands him for makhtg public his theories on Martin’s death. His theories are confirmed, however, by the inquest report and by the aero experts’ findings. M'Knight resumes his walking tour, and Bill motors Martin’s daughter, Rosemary, to his friends, Brian and Paula Clarke.

CHAPTER XXl.—(Continued.) “If you don’t mind, Mrs Clarke,i” he said, “I feel I’d rather not trespass on your hospitality any further. Besides, I may want to go to town myself. In that ease, I’ll have to trust myself to the tender mercies of Bill’s oar all the way, if my nerves can stand it.” “ ‘Mrs Frequently* Is so quiet she’s the ideal car for ladies,” declared Bill stoutly. “Did you ever’ hear of a ten-ton load of empty tins being upset over a cliff side consisting of sharp flint rocks?” “No. Why?” i “That would be abyssmal silence compared with the cacaphonous uproar in the interior of your car when it’s in aotion." “Repeat that, please,” said Bill patiently, and his uncle shrugged his shoulders. “Oh! What’s the use?” he asked of the surrounding landscape. CHAPTER XXII. Art and the Detective. Mr Gerald Harker looked slightly surprised when Brian Clarke led his little party from the punt up the pathway in the middle of the lawn of his house, “Green Gables,” but he bore up well under the strain. He was busy in a potting shed at the back of the house when they came, and he emerged into the sunlight with a smile and shook hands all round. Brian introduced them as friends of his, without reference to their professions. This was at MoKnlght’s request, and though it had nettled Bill a little he had seen reason. “You can get your interview all right without him knowing it," was his argument. “You can always submit him a proof before printing it. And as for my profession, well, 1 often think most people class detectives with hangmen, undertakers, gravediggers, and other very useful craftsmen, 'whom it is nevertheless not very nice to know."

“Yotr do'yourself less than Justice, Mr McKnlght," Brian had laughed, but he had given way, and Harker welcomed them as merely two friends of his neighbour’s staying over the weekend. v “I hope your young friend has quite got over his nasty fright of last night,’’, the artist addressed Bill. "Have” you any idea who could have done it?" ‘Not the faintest!” replied Brian. “We’ve been over the ground this morning and found nothing.” McKnlght was watching the other’s face as Brian spoke, but the artist seemed to be scarcely Interested. It was obvious that he had asked the question merely from politeness. The detective’s eye went to the man’s watch-chain, and he . gave a slight, smile as he saw that there dangled from tho fob a black onyx seal. • “Not so obvious after all,” he murmured to himself. If Harker had dropped that medallion—and wasn’t he one of the Five of Hearts?—he had been mighty quick to replaoe it. But Mo-. Knight chicled himself at tills point. This was-going on too fast. Did he suspect this mild, respectable artist of attempting to murder his nephew? Must his every thought be of suspicion and distrust? Not for the first time did he find himself experiencing a faint dislike for some of the aspects of his profession.

Modern Interior.

“I’ve brought my friends over to see if you will let us have a look at your prints and some of your other treasures,” said Brian, and a smile lit up Harker’s face. I-Ie stroked his white beard with pleasure. ; I't was evident that here was a man with a hobby anxious for an audience.

“Of course, of course, I shall be delighted,” he said, and at. once he showed them inside.

Bill gazed round him apprehensively as they entered. It was doubtful what ho expected to see, but In the room they entered he was plainly disappointed. It was tastefully furnished in modern style, but not too modern. A lew pictures hung round the walls, but their host passed them without a glance. When they entered the next room it was evident that it was his studio, for it was an addition to the house, and light streamed into it from a sloping glass roof.

“This is my little workshop,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “You may have heard something of me, Mr MoKnight,” he went on naturally addressing the elUesl of the three. “I am an example of a man who went wrong in his you tli. I began my career with the idea that , the beautiful and the formed were the plastic materials of aid. According to the world, I- succeeded in it, but. of late years I have been beginning, to think that perhaps I have been barking up the wrong tree. I have been but gilding the surface, whereas it is the artist’s function to go below the surface to see llie form that is hidden in .seemingly formless filings, to distil tiie essence that is in everything whether it lives or is inanimate as a dead stone."

“I see said MeKniglit simply, and he cast a glance round him at one or two oi‘ the canvasses that stood round the room. ‘l' know nothing to commend it. After all, Nature paints enoxigh pictures for us to look at. Her pictures are simple and clear'; the heart and marrow of the emotions is concealed beneath a happy, smiling exterior.” Symbolism. “Exactly, exactly, you take my meaning perfectly,” said the-artist with delight. Bill was listening to the conversation with a gaping jaw. lie sur-roptitio-usly touched Britan’s foot and lipped his forehead. Clarke was looking at MeKniglit in puzzlement. Why was he playing up to Lliis artist crank? "Now lake this, for instance,” Marker swept on leading | he way to a pedestal on which rested a lump, of grey modeller’s clay. ,\l loasl. i| looked like a lump of clay, hut closer oxaminalion showed dial by one or Iwn curves and angles it was intended to represent something.

BY [ /. L. MORRISSEY

“I imagined a native of West Africa brought suddenly lo Piccadilly Circus. See how the lower halt ol his body stems' to be dragging him backwards into tlie primitive bestiality from which lie sprang. His legs and thighs are fast caught in the mire of his racial upbringing. But see the line ol his shoulders, of those extended muscles, the jutting-out of the jaw and the distended nostrils, lie sees the light, he sees all things that mail lias made, and his poor, primitive sou. rejoices in the evidence of the might of mankind —Iris fellows, his brothers. It is all nebulous and formless, of course, as sucli a creature’s impressions would of necessity be. But that is how I saw it.” •McKnlght gazed at the lump of clay thoughtfully. It rested there, grim and .squat on its pedestal, and now that its symbolism was exposed to him ho could see, ignorant though he was of the niceties of art, that it was instinct with power, with an inarticulate and sullen power perhaps, but’' yet a strength that seemed to disdain the futility of its instruments. He looked at Harker with a new respect. His gaze swept round the room, from the pressed-steel chairs and the square, uncompromising chests to the halffinished canvasses and pieces of sculpture that crowded the room. - “You’ve got something here, sir,” he said sincerely, and the artist flushed at the tribute. MoKnight guessed that it was usually the other way round. Admiration was not what the artist expected. Still Convinced. “I must give expression to what I see,” he replied simply, and McKnlght was impressed by the sincerity of the words. He lingered the little medallion in his pocket. He thought of that ’plane hurtling downwards with the dead body of this man’s old school chum strapped Into his flying ooffln, and there seemed to be no connection at all between the two. And yet that clump of shrubs had held the man who had tried to kill Bill Cleveland and who was quite, evidently connected with that band of schoolboys known to themselves as the Five of Hearts.

Of course he was admittedly jumping very far at a conclusion even by beginning to suspect that Harker might have had something to do with the shooting of the previous evening. All he had to go upon was the little silver medallion, which seemed to him conclusive evidence that the old joke of the five schoolboys bad been made into fact by a tangible token. Then there was the fact that the artist had certainly been out of doors and on the river when Bill had fallen, and according to Brian Clarke, not in their sight at the moment. Against this he had never met Bill before; could have had no knowledge of him, and' therefore what earthly reason could he have had for wishing to strike him down? He smiled a little grimly at the recollection that if lie were right in thinking that this little incident and the murder of Sebastian Martin had any common denominator, then the motive was not so much earthly as heavenly. In a way, lie decided that it was j ust as well that this whole case was a holiday job and undertaken not officially but for ills own satisfaction, for it was altogether too fanciful for orthodox police methods. Once or twice during the past few days he had been inclined to pinch himself to ensure that he was not building on too fantastic a base, and to ask himself whether, his unconventional methods of crime detection were not leading him too far off the beaten track. But always he had been forced to the firm conclusion that his notion of how Martin had met his. death was the correct one.

Talk of a Oenlug, He looked again at the .artist, and was instantly aware of an indefinable sense of liking 1 towards the man. Undoubtedly he had charm for all that he was a crank. And even as to this last McKnlght was not too sure. That he had the true spirit of the artist was absolutely beyond doubt; his reputation and his paintings put ' any •doubt of that- outside consideration. Supposing he was turning to the outre and symbolical in his middle • age. Surely he himself was the best judge of what should be his vision.. “Tell me, Mr Harker,” he asked suddenly,: “do you see symbolism in everything around you? I mean, in the. ordinary everyday things of life. Or,must your symbolism always be expressed in terms of the depths and lights- and shadows of existence? What, for instance, would be your conception of the spirit of man, earthbound • for centuries, suddenly, as it were,-given the gift of flight? Shall we-say, the spirit of the aeroplane age-?”

The - artist- • pursed his lips for a .moment,-and • McKnight’s' eyes never left his mouth. But there was. no twitch -apparent;- the word "aeroplane" had caused in him no sudden start, no matter how imperceptible. “It’s curious you should ask,” he said-at-length: ■ ‘T have here a rough design-for justvsuch a subject. Of course,” he went on w’ith a frank ■smile,- “I-eannof claim this'as coincidence. It is perhaps natural that the unfortunate death of my friend Marlin recently should have suggested sucha subject to me. Here is tiie sketch." lie handed MoKnight a' sheet of drawing‘ paper, 'ail'd the detective took it and examined it with interest.

“Wonderful,” he murmured, after a few minutes’ scrutiny, and lie handed it to Brian Clarke.; Bill Cleveland looked over his. friend’s .shoulder at the design, and even he was compelled lo curb ills irreverence at the majesty of (lie conception.

it portrayed in rough charcoal outlines the blunt fqr.esl.iprte.ned figure of a man, in much tiie same attitude as that of the negro, save tiiat here the figure was definitely representative of Hie white, and specially the Nordic, races. Feet the figure had none, Hie knees, thick and stolid, blended into the pedestal. Uncouth, clumsy wings were folded against the figure’s shoulders, and were evidently about lo be spread. Breaking .chains were sinking dowii the flguro’s' thighs towards the pedestal. On the square, symbolical face was a look of dumb agony and a tremendous impression of frustrated, battling power. “It’s too big for words,” was Brian’s comment as lie handed back Hie paper, and Harker smiled his thanks.

’’it’s absolutely fascinating work for me," lie said. “You see, iL's ail imagination. One lias nothing to go on hut one’s own conception of things. One lias no models or preconceived notions of anything. These ideas come lo me at all sorls of odd moments, and i sketch them out roughly as.this one. ! may never execute it.” "It would he a loss lo Hie world if you do notwas MeKnight’s sincere reply.

(To be continued.)