“The Mystery of The Bombs ”

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20346, 10 November 1937, Page 4

“The Mystery of The Bombs ”

(By L. W. BROCKMAN)

SYNOPSIS \\ SIR RALPH SEARBOTHAM, one Of tile t' cleverest chemists of the day, becomes a ; p crafty, scheming: fiend, determined to nave p his revenge upon the one woman who nas turned public opinion against him. iie , changes his name to , _« STATTERTHWAITE, and takes rooms in a quiet boarding-house. . ._ h MRS FRITSLER, his landylady, is in- j trlgued by his frequent absences, wnen, , ' unknown to anyone, he Journeys to a; D lonely country cottage and works mere a for days at a time. • I n At last he is ready. Disguised, be enters the compartment of the train where s the girl Is sitting alone, and P} ace 3 *“. 9 h attache case on the rack above her neaa. y In this attache case is a bomb fashioned . to explode at a certain time. . . „ 1 , Back in his room he is visited by a Ig stranger, who, threatening him with a R j revolver, says he knows all about his re- ( . cent movements, ami that he has quite a i lot of work for him to do. 81 INSPECTOR ROBERT BLAKE Is inter- . ested In the account of a bomb explosion in a French liner. Soon after this 1 » SIR RICHARD MARNER, the well-known h financier, disappears, to return two days d later, laying he has been kept prisoner In a lonely country cottage. Two nights u GUSSY LOXLEY, exploring a small h copse, comes upon a dilapidated-looking cottage, in one of the rooms of which he finds the body of a murdered man. Back tl home Gussy rings up Inspector Blake, , w also hiS rrlend , 1 4i JIMMY KEEN; but by the time the three u get to the cottage the place is a furnace, , le quite evidently having been set alight de- ; j r liberately. j (}- Tlie murdered man was a l.i.u. man named Nobilly, who had been working on the case or the Marner disappearance. j a SERGEANT BING, who had been worklng with Nobilly, is put on to work with Inspector Blake. , . a ' Next comes news of a bomb explosion al In a German aeroplane. Jimmy, Gussy, a( and Blake, crossing the Channel to investlgate, are attacked and brought down i bv a very powerful Hummel. The three si friends are within an ace of drowning when they are rescued by the occupants of a motor boat. CHAPTER VI. — (Continued). |st SC “By some miracle it appeared tEat I had not been harmed, although the tl force of the explosion had taken the lc lop off the carriage. The doctors r£ poked and prodded me for an apparent- ti ly interminable time, until they decided j E that I was not a fit subject for their 0 < attention, and I w r as allowed to come to home. I must admit that for a day tl or two afterwards 1 was not feeling ti any too good, but the effeot soon wore off, and all I have to complain & of is that ever since my little adven- s, ture the police have called upon me f ( about once a week to hear my story h ail over again, and to ask me a few 0 more questions.” fj “And now a tom-fool amateur cornea 0 , to add to the agony,” Jimmy said. a i Yes, and I am afraid the tom-fool amateur hasen’t got much for tl his pains. There is absolutely noth- n ing else I can tell you.” | tl ‘<There is one point,” Jimmy pur- d sued. “You say that the old man f, was so obviously disguised that ha a amused you. Surely It must have struok you that there was something ti suspicious about the oircumstanoes?” h “As a matter of fact, It didn’t. He s was an old man, and I must admit I p was puzzled, hut I was not really in- d terested. I suppose if 1 thought about it at all I got the impression that he d was playing at being a villain. lam c afraid I can’t quite oonvey to you p exactly how he impressed me. He a was such a oomio old man, and, as I p said, his disguise was so obvious that p 1 cannot understand that anybody o oould fail to notice it.” j The girl’s story tallied exactly with \ what Jimmy already knew, and her em- g phasis on the obviousness of the dls- c guise was quite in keeping with what the other witnesses had said. 8 “It lias not occurred to you, Miss Tallens, that the bomb was plaoed In g the carriage for your especial benefit. c That the old man had some grudge x against you, and that he hated you £ sufficiently to wish to kill you. j “But why should he? What have I done that anybody should want to ) kill me? I can assure you that I have t lived in a very uneventful life.” - \ Jimmy put his next question very { carefully. “There was a case, Miss \ Tallens. You gave evidence in an ( affair in which Sir Ralph Searbotham was concerned.” ] “I did." Obviously the young ] woman did not welcome a discussion i on the subject. “I was perfectly i justified in the action I took. Sear- i bothiim was justly prosecuted. 1 r considered it my duty to lay a com- i plaint. After all, women are en- i titled to expect some protection from j men of that kind. Keen guessed that the girl had not - been satisfied with the result of the ( case, and her next words confirmed the i belief. “If Searbotham had been a working man he would probably have gone to prison.. As he was a person with ( money and Influence the case was dis- i missed.” She would have gone on to deliver ; a tirade against a system of justice : that allowed the rich to go free while i the poor were ruthlessly prosecuted, but Jimmy saw what was coming and i ! skilfully side-stepped. I “Whatever the verdict, the case i j broke Searbotham,” he said. : “That is as it should be," she i answered venomously. , “Jimmy again interposed a question 1 to stop another tirade. , “Could you, by any stretch of . ! imagination, make the old man with i ilie bomb to be Searbotham?" lie asked. 1 have been asked that question i many times before. The police i thought there might be a connection t between th, two affairs, but I under- 1 stand that Searbotham had a perfect , ahhi. Moreover, 1 certainly could not i have identified him. Had I been expecting something to happen, and had 6 I carefully watched the man in the s carriage, 1 might have noticed simi- ‘ imtv, but I'm afraid I can do no more s Ilian -to repeat what I have told the police—the man might have been Sear- t Imtliam, but a| so he might not have c been. , Jimmy was satislfed that he had got ali lie was likely to get from Miss Tnl- ? lens. Actually he had learned noth- c lug that was not already known yet r he was not disappointed. Tile young 1 _■ a

A Thrilling Story Full of Dramatic Incident.

woman was a good witness, not given to fancies, nor to accepting statements put to her as facts. Nothing would induce her to state as a fact anything of which she was no* absolutely certain. His next call was on Searbotham’s landlady, and here, he believed, he • would have to wal kwarily. He debated the position for some time, and : at last made up his mind that he would not use the official introduction which Superintendent Macey had given him, but would, Instead, approach as a 1 young man seeking accommodation. j When he met Mrs Fritsler, the landlady, he was satisfied that his deoi-! sion had been a wise one. As a landlady she was so typical that he could scarcely believe her to be true. Had he approached as from the police, he folt sure, he would have got no more j than a repetition of the story that she j had tokl the police, and that. Jimmy decided, was the last thing lie wanted, j Unless he could shake Searbotham’s > alibi he would be forced to admit that j his idea was valueless. Indeed, unless Blake and Loxley turned up some- j thing In their pursuit of Blair or of ; the man who had used his aircraft, j there was still no clue. Nothing to j lead to the man who had murdered the! Incpector, and had been so free with the bombs. Mrs Fritsler had a room vacant, and a young man who was able to pay for a week’s board and accommodation in! advance was her idea of a most suitable occupant for it. Jimmy had to I admit that the lady had her points. \ The room was clean, and not too repul- j slvely austere. Moreover, the lunch,! his first meal in the boarding house, j was a satisfactory meal. He took the earliest opportunity ofl studying the man whose actions he was J so anxious to investigate. Searbotham ’ —he was known as Statterthwaite at 1 the boarding house—certainly did not look like a learned professor, but rather he resembl?d a lonely old retired business man. , There was nothing outstanding about him, and Jimmy could appreciate Miss Tallens’ inability to identify him—if, indeed, he had been the heavily disguised old man in the train. At the same time, there must have been something outstanding about him, some little thing that Jimmy missed, for it was easy to see that he was held in some respect by the remainder of the boarders, scarcely different from those to be found in any of the countless similar establishments up and down the country. There was nothing exciting about the meal-table conversation, but Keen noticed that it was invariably Statterthwaite who had the last word in any discussion, and that his opinions, carefully and precisely stated, were generally accepted without question. Jimmy could not resist the temptation to try to rook the old man from his pedestal, and in best debating society manner queried some trifling point that Statterthwaite had laid down as final. Immediately the old man was on his dignity—Jimmy found it a somewhat comical dignity—but what impressed Keen most was the distinctly frigid atmosphere that settled on the company. He had committed the unpardonable sin of doubting the wisdom of the oraole. According to plan—as they say In war oommuniques—Jimmy withdrew I gracefully, chuckling Inwardly as he j did He had solved the mystery.! The remainder of the boarders were afraid to argue with Statterthwaite. The professor, robbed of his class, was still schoolmasterihg, and the habitues of Mrs Fritsler’s boarding house had, willy-ninny, become a very attentive and reverend class. Mrs 'Fritsler was no exception to the general rule. ‘Her worship of the star boarder may have been In some measure due to the fact that he was the richest and best paying of her guests, but, whatever tho reason, it was none the less apparent that Statterthwaite was indeed uncrowned king of the establishment. Jimmy's sally at the luncheon table had been spontaneous, but the young man saw immediately that the incident might be turned to profit, * and after the meal he managed to buttonhole the chemist to re-opcn tjie discussion. This he did, very cleverly, by explaining that he was under a misapprehension, and entirely withdrawing his own point. Statterthwaite melted at once. He was used to respect—he accepted it as his right and insisted upon it. But this ,was abject surrender and apology. He deolded that he had judged the young man harshly. “That Is quite all right,” he condescended. I had forgotten the matter” ! He did not seem to be unduly anxious to escape, and Jimmy pressed home his success by propounding another query that gave Statterthwaite the opportunulty of delivering considered and final Judgment, i Jimmy was humbly appreciative, and Statterthwaite swelled accordingly. It was not long before the young man succeeded In getting what fie was so carefully angling for —an invitation to the old man's room to continue the j discussion of a subject in which Jimmy was not, in truth, remotely interested. It was, Indeed, an afternoon of infinite boredom for the young man, but be managed to keep up a show of interest flattering to Statterthwaite, until at last eh considered that he could go further with his hastily conceived plan without arousing suspicion. “I wish 1 had had somebody as cool and logical as you arc to assist me a short while ago,” he said, artlessly. “You would have saved me an immense i amount of trouble.’ ’ ‘Tin sure 1 should have been happy i to have been of service, my boy,” the j troub^ a ■>” anSVVGrGd “What was the “Well, sir, I hardly like to tell you. \ou see, it was this way: } have recently returned from South Africa, and naturally do not know my way about London very well. I hid wandered about rather aimlessly, seeing the. sights—l think it was u fortnight ago to the day—and you can guess my annoyance when I was suddenly pounced upon by a policeman, and a very largo and infuriated woman insisted upon th* constable taking me to tiie nearest station, where she laid against me a charge of stealing her handbag.” “But surely you bad no difficulty in proving that you had nothing to do with the affair?’ ’ (To l)o. continued.) " ’ '