[All Rights Reserved.] A Race With Ruin.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXII, Issue II, 9 January 1904, Page 5

[All Rights Reserved.] A Race With Ruin.

By

HEADON HILL.

Author of “ Guilty Gold,” “ The Queen of Night,” “By a Hair’s Breadth,” “ The Peril of the Prince,” Etc

CHAPTER XIII. ‘•SHADOWS IN BEAKER-ST.” Inspector Croat was a rapid reasoner, and, having recovered from the shock of linding that the beautiful Miss Beauchamp. whom he had met in the “best society” at Barfield, was engaged in sending out “snips” from a sordid room oft Fleet-street, he* at once assumed that Sir Charles Roy lance was aware of the fact. And the further question at once arose: Had Sir Charles any knowledge —above all, a guilty knowledge—of the crime in the gorse? One thing was very certain. It would be worse than useless now to make a direct appeal for information to these people. Having come to this decision, rather than run the risk of recognition by Nance, he cut short his visit and took his departure, after exchanging a few racing commonplaces with the blind prophet. “Broken-down swells’” was his thoughtful comment as he crossed the landing under the skylight, beyond which another “broken-down swell” was cowering and listening, a sight of whom in that place by the detective would have altered the course of this story and made the difference between life and death to some. Ah. Nance Beauchamp! Nance Beauchamp! You little thought when you practised your ruse for getting Lord Hooligan out of the way how far you went towards defeating your ends; and what a load of sorrow you would haw* saved yourselves and others if you had waited till Croat’s keen eyes had had :« chance of connecting your father’s brutal “honeymooner” of the Angler’s Rest! She came tripping up the stairs with her empty basket, and found her father very pleased with himself. “If that was really a detective he got nothing out of me about Hooligan.” the old gentleman chuckled. “Much as I should like to see his lordship put to confusion, honour forbade my giving him away. But how did you come to know a policeman bv sight, my child?” “He—lnspector Croal—was pointed out to me the other day.” f I suppose he came to see if we are running our business honestly,” said the former owner of Beauchamp Grange, proudly conscious of his integrity. “You had better call that cubbish scion of the peerage down, now that the bogy has gone away.” Nance assented, and. taking the chair to stand on. unfastened the skylight; but it was not till he had been trebly assured that there was no stranger in the office that Hooligan would descend. At last he swung himself on to the landing. haggard of eye and dishevelled as to his garments. “Has—has the fellow gone?” he queried, shooting furtive glances at the door. “T have said so three times already.” replied Nance contemptuously. “I can not tell, of course, whether he will re turn.” “Well. then. I’ll be off for a drink, and F shan’t be back—to-day. at any rate.” Hooligan muttered: “But see here. Miss,” he added, savagely, “if you play hanky-panky with the business because I don’t happen to hi* on hand to look after it. there’ll bo trouble. Understand that.” With which he turned and went down the stairs without entering the office, relieving Nance from the fear that his suspicions might be aroused on finding that she had posted the letters during his concealment. But now that he was gone, and she

knew that so far her stratagem had succeeded, reaction set in, and she asked herself to what lengths she would go in preserving silence on what she had seen and heard in the gorse patch. She was appalled by the perilous path on which she had entered, but she tried to comfort herself with the feebit casuistry that she had no intention of defeating the ends of justice. When she should have rectified the injury done to Sir Charles Roylance, and was therefore able to justify herself to him. it would be time enough to make the revelations. To inform the police at present would entail exposures which she simply could not face, but which she would force herself to endure as soon as “Parker’s Lightning Finals’ no longer meant ruin for Sir Charles. She would not mind being known as “the girl from Parker’s” then—let the world say what it might. The remainder of the day passed quietly, and Nance took advantage of Hooligan’s absence to substitute her own circular announcing Starlight’s breakdown to all subscribers as applications came in by successive posts. When she locked the door of the office at six o’clock and guided her fathers tottering footsteps down the stairs she felt all the elation of a general who has started a prosperous campaign but she did not know that Inspector Croal, in the garb of an elderly City man, and with his dogged jaws covered with a trimly clipped false beard, was seated on the roof of the ’bus that took them home. To Mr. Croat’s matured experience it was mere child’s play to shepherd the girl and her father to the dreary thoroughfare. They got down at the corner of Beaker street, and Nance was far too busy with her blind charge to observe the persistent “shadow” that followed them to Frank Bremner’s door. The inspector walked on to the end of the street, shouldering his umbrella with the air of a born City man, and then turned back with a sigh of satisfaction. The spirit of the chase was in him. and the chase had led him to within a few doors of the public-house which the murdered woman’s brother had mentioned as his house of call. That was a combination that excited infinite surmise, and Mr. Croal bent his steps to the Union Jack with keen anticipation. As he repassed Bremner’s house Bremner himself came out and also made for the same destination, walking so fast that by the time Croal turned into the saloon bar he was already in conversation with Air. Tidmarsh. Croal smiled inwardly as he saw the lawyer’s clerk “palm” a slip of paper into the bookmaker’s hand. The detective planted himself as near as possible to Bremner and Tidmarsh in order to prove the efficacy of his disguise. and soon gathered, from the bootmaker’s vacant stare, that he was not recognised. He could not, however, get quite close to tin* pair by reason of a young man who lounged at the conn ter between him and them. Croal called for a whisky and soda, and while sipping it listened hard to what passed between Tidmarsh and the man who had come out of the house to which he had shadowed his quarry. But the talk was all about racing, and the inspector was on the point of making himself known to Tidmarsh when something caused him to stop. The young man next him had quietly touched Bremner on the shoulder. “Hullo, Mr. Skinner! You in these parts again?” exclaimed the clerk, turning round. “I didn’t know you out of livery.”

“Got a night off,” said the laconic groom. “Have something with me, sir.” Bremner accepted the invitation, and naturally began to talk with the man who was treating him. Croal, himself a pastmaster in the art of “pumping,” soon saw that the smart young man was trying to steer the conversation to a certain subject, and he pricked his ears still further when he discovered that the subject was the girl in whom he himself was interested. “Saw her the other day when you were driving through the street, eh?” said Bremner drily. “Yes, she’s a nice girl, and she and her father lodge with us. Not your sort and my sort, old man. Regular swell folk, but none too much cash. You don’t mean to say you've gone and lost your heart to her on sight?” “Something of the kind,” Skinner admitted. “I was thinking, Mr. Bremner,” he went on in his level, passionless tone, “that if you’d let me drop in as your friend of a Sunday afternoon I might run across her. perhaps.” “Then, my boy, you’d better get that notion out of your head sharp,” said the shiftless clerk with unwonted decision. "You might as well cry for the moon. Firstly, you wouldn’t have the ghost of a chance with her, because she’s a lady born. Secondly, you wouldn’t see

her if you did come to the house, because she's taken to going out of town on Sundays to visit some swells up the river. She went last week, and 1 fear from the missus that she’s going next. And thirdly. Mr. Skinner, with all due respect. 1 ain’t the chap to annoy a girl, lady or otherwise, by making my humble abode a medium for shoving strangers on to her.” “Oh, no offence,” said Skinner. “I’m sorry I spoke. ’ And, declining Bremner’s invitation to “have another,” he abruptly quitted the bar. “This is a pretty deep undercurrent,” Mr. Croal murmureu to himself. “Who can that chap oe. 1 wonder? He’s on the same clue as myself—foxing after my slippery young lady, and there’s precious little love at back of it, so far as he’s concerned. If I’m not mistaken, he got all he wanted in that piece of news about the Sunday trips up the river, or he wouldn’t have cleared out so quick. Never asked her name, either, so he must have known that already.” Mr. Croal finished his whisky, looked into the empty tumbler for inspiration, and frankly confessed to himself that he was in a fog. I'hal was a state of mind that always galled him, for to do him justice it seldom happened. To put an end to it he held out ..is hand to the big man on the stool.

“Good-evening, Mr. Tidmarsh,” he said. Mr. Tidmarsh, not recognising him, scrutinised his palm for a betting slip, and. not finding one, gazed at him blankly, while Bremner winked at the barmaid in amusement. Tidmarsh was regarded as something of a joke at the Union Jack. “Lord, but you’re well got up,” murmured the bookmaker, as Croat went close and revealed himseli in a whisper. “Found anything?” “I’ve found this,” the inspector replied. pioducing the blank sheet of notepaper which he had unearthed at the Angler’s Rest. “Seen anything like it before?” Tidmarsh’s eyes lit up with swift wrath. “That lion!” he snarled. “Yes, I had a letter from her on paper like that—the time she was away in the country, you know.” “Did you notice the postmark?” But Mr. Tidmarsh had not been so observant. As he pointed out. there had been "no call for such cuteness’ then. He had thought that his sister was enjoying a happy honeymoon. Resisting the bookmaker's importunate curiosity. Croal replaced the paper, and was about to fish for an introduction to Bremner. with a view to finding out who had been the* young fellow who had evinced such an interest in his lodger, when a diversion occurred. A dainty, flaxen-haired little maiden of some six summers, with a clean white pinafore over a thread-bare black dress, peeped shyly into the bar. and, catching sight of Bremner, came forward with greater confidence. At the moment the clerk was chatting to the harmaid, who drew his attention to the child. “Hullo, poppet!” he cried, turning to the child. “Anything the matter?” “Please, daddy, will you come home, mummy says. The man in podeshun has tummled in the tire and set alight to hisself.” CHAPTER XIV. TIIEI MAN IN POSSESSION. The little one delivered her message with a shrill distinctness that rang through the saloon bar, and Frank Bremner Hushed for very shame. It was too true. On returning from work that afternoon he had been met on the doorstep by his weeping wife with the intelligence that there was a broker’s man in the kitchen in respect of ’the last quarter’s rent. With characteristic levity he had remarked that it would be all right, and had straightway gone round to the “Union Jack'’ to endeavour to right matters by investing some of his few remaining shillings with Tidmarsh. But this exposure before his boon companions brought him up with a round turn. Even to the careless loungers of a saloon bar it does not look pretty to be drinking and trafficking with a book maker in an avowedly sporting house when the home is in danger of disruption; and. his selfishness being more of the head than the heart, he acutely felt the implied rebuke of the glances shot at him. However, the summons called for immediate attention, and. taking bis little daughter's hand, he was making for the door when Croal accosted him, after

whispering to Tidmarsh not to disclose his identity. “I beg your pardon, sir. but I couldn't help over-hearing,” said the inspector. “If there' been an accident T might lie of service, and shall be most happy—mutual friend of Mr Tidmarsh, Bayly by name. I’ve been through an ambulance class, and can render first aid if required.” “Come along then,” replied Bremner, too perturbed to offer thanks. “It is only a few yards up the street.” On entering the house by the basement door they were confronted by a strong smell of burning and by groans from the kitchen, where they found Mary Bremner and Nance Beauchamp bending over a little wizened old man propped in an armchair. His singed coat had been removed, and lay on the table, emitting evil odours. “He’s getting better. I think.” Mrs Bremner informed her husband. “The poor old fellow* says he was weak for want of food and fell as he was crossing the front of the hearth, setting fire to his clothes and burning his hand be fore I could help him.” It was an anxious moment for the inspector when Nance looked up from her ministrations to add indignantly: “His employers must be perfect brutes. They only pay him ten shillings a week, and though they knew he was starving when they sent him here they wouldn't advance him sixpence to buy a meal.” But the disguise held good. In the ponderous, elderly city merchant there was no resemblance to the squarejowled. keen-eyed detective of the previous Sunday at Barfield-on-Thames. As a matter of fact, Nance thought the inspector was a surgeon. “Allow me,” he said, and kneeling by the chair he examined the burn, called for sweet oil and cotton wool, and soon made the patient comfortable. Eased of his pain, the man in possession sat up feebly and looked from one to the other of the kindly faces round him with dog-like gratitude. He was very old —75 at least—and a Hebrew of the Hebrews,” Croat said to himself, “about the Jewiest-looking Jew outside of Whitechapel.” “May Heaven bless you all, who ought to be my enemies.” he wheezed. “Hands that might well be raised against me have bound up and healed. And I cannot repay—l cannot repay! I, Moses Cohen, who have a son feasting on the fat of the land, sleeping in down, and driving in gaudy equipages, can offer naught but the grip of the law to those whom I would fain endow with all good things.” “All right, old chap; don’t let the personal question worry you. Heaven knows it's no fault of yours that you’re in charge of my sticks,” said Bremner with bitter self-reproach, but adding in his whimsical way: “Perhaps that rich son of yours would lend us a bit to be going on W’ith.” The little -withered atomy in the chair thrust forward his beak-like nose and bared his yellow gums in contemptuous grimace. “My son help anyone.” he chuckled, as though the joke tickled him. “He might lend you money if you had fat bones to pick, broad acres to foreclose on, or a reversion un-

der a will; and naked you would be as at birth when he had done with you. But to such as you his purse-strings would be shut. Me, his own father, he turned penniless into the street ten years since—because there was something he would have me do at which my soul revolted.” Exhausted by his tirade, he sank back in the ehair, but Croal reassured them that there was no cause for alarm. “I’ll look after him for the present. You want to put the children to bed. and Mr. Beauchamp is taking a nap and won’t need me just yet,” said Nance to Mrs. Brcmner. “They go by their own name here, anyhow.” reflected Croal. adding aloud. “Well, the patient seems to be in good hands and as T can’t do any more for him I’ll be off. By the by, Mr. —ah! Bremner, thank you—l thought I saw you talking at the Union Jack to a young fellow I know in the city—Deaken. of Highbury?” “Oh, no,” was the reply. “That was Skinner, groom to Leopold Tannadyce, the big West End moneylender. His governor is a client of our firm—that’s how I know him.” Was it the pain of the burn that sent a sharp spasm across the parchment countenance of Moses Cohen at that moment? Nance thought so, and bent

over him soothingly, murmuring words of comfort.

That was the picture which the inspector carried away in his mental vision—of a fair girl with a face full of womanly pity tending the aged and none too cleanly scarecrow whom chance had committed to her mercy. “She isn’t a bad sort, whatever her part in this little piece is.” the detective told himself, as. having pooh-pooh-ed Bremner’s tardy thanks, he walked away up the street- “But Leopold Tannadyee's groom. Where does he come in? Or, by jingo, is it his master who’s so curious about her Sundays out ?” (To be continued.)