'The Moor End Mystery,'

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 428, 21 July 1904, Page 2

'The Moor End Mystery,'

By Victor Waite, Author oi ‘Croat £c,, &c,

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CHAPIBB H— (Continued.) 'Of coarse I did. It was far safer to tell her.' ' What made youjrat such stuff into her head? It is just the thing to make her ■emnambulism worse. She's an imaginative girl i will get the idea into her mind j and will—' 'Anyhow Ufa done,' he said. 'And I gave her my derringer, too. 1 , 'Your what ?' I exclaimed. 'My derringer.' &'Good God! Was it * Ysi. And I told her to use it if Lott tried ' 'Protect me from all fools 1" I cried. 'Well, there will be trouble 1 You have told her she was mesmerised—stuff and Bouenoe! —You have provided the very suggestion to make her walk in her sleepi ana then you go and give her a loaded pistol I Upon my word, young man, you axe—. Damme, the next thine will be that she goes off some night and commits murder or suicide or something! Well, if she does, mind, you'll be to blame! Bemember that 1 Hypnotised P Pistolßf Folly, folly—inane f oily!' He did not listen of coarse. I might have expected that. He was actually quite pleased *ith himself about the derringer. On Thursday it was my intention to call and see Dot and to induce her to give up the pistol; but unfortunately I was called away to see two serious oases, and was detained until very late by the second one, and had no opportunity of calling at the Olivers'. As I walked home that night I noticed that there had been a heavy shower; for the roada were muddy; and the air was cooler than it had been all the evening. I went to bed thoroughly tired, and was soon asleep. It seemed to me that I had only just dropped off, when I was roused by a loud knocking at my bedroom door, and my man's voice calling. 'Please, sir, there's a constable below wanting to see you.' ' Wanting to see me P Ask him what if b about.' He returned in a few moments. 'Please, air,' he said,' there has been a murder a few doors off here, and the sergeant he wants you to examine the body ao as you can give evidence as to the condition of the corpses when found. That's alLtir.' _ A murder ?» said I. 'WhoisitF' 'Mr Lott, sir—as lives down the street' 'Lott?' I cried. 'Good heavens! I hone it wasn't ■ * Had then I checked myself. I dressed quickly and went round to Lott'a house. The police sergeant was in poeseesion. I stood a minute at the door looking at . the scene. Near the doorway lay the dead man on his back, with his head towards the entrance. Evidently has back had been to the door when he fell. I went over and examined the body. Above the left eyebrow wis a blue mark, from a puncture in the centre of which a few drops of blood had ooied. He was quite dead, and his limbs stiff. I obeerved that the skin was slightly scorched about the wound. • Then my eye fell on a small derringer that lay on the fieor near the body, and my pulses stood still. It looked like Xentiaad's. I stood staring stupidly a moment, then the desire to know the worst seised me. I picked up the weapon and turned it over. On the butt was a small plate engraved with the name 'Bobert Kentland,' The miserable story of the night was only too plain. 'Strange, air, isn't itP said the sergeant's voioe at my elbow. ' Both barrels are discharged, and yet I can only find one bullet hole.' I gave a start ef alarm. Could Dorothy have been wounded in the struggle P I looked round the walls of the- room with the utmost care, but there was not a mark, not a sign. Then my eye fell on a email object lying on the floor by ihe fireplace, »nd picking it up I found that it was a bullet flattened, and without any trace of blood upon it ' What's that, sir P' asked the policeman. I handed him the bullet. ' Must have struck a button,' said he. ' See, there's metal on it. But there's no mark on the clothes, which is queer.' Bnt I was too much worried to think of such minor details; and went home pondering the affair. I wanted to go straight up to the Olivers' to inquire for Dot; but of course could not do so until the ordinary professional palling hours without eaaftJßg comment. I could eat no breakfast, so lit a pipe, which is always the wisest thing to do in any dfficulty. But I had not drawn three whiffs when the doorbell rang and my man came up to say that Miss Oliver was ill, and that I waa wanted at once. A carriage had been sent down for me and was waiting, and in five minutes I was at the house. In the girl's bedroom was Mrs Oliver. She was a woaderfully cool and sensible woman in an emergency, though, in my opinion, a fool at any other time. She was bending over the girl, who lay on the bed apparently unconscious. From the mother I learned that Dot bad gone to bed in her usual health earlier than ordinary on the previous evening, ir fact at 9.15. Mrs Oliver had also retired early; and as the rule of the household was that the servants mußt be in bed by tea, the whole house was quiet by that hour. In the morning Dorothy had not come down to breakfast, and a maid going up, found her lying on the floor inseseible. While Mrs Oliver was talking I had time to glance round the room. A lamp was still borniig on the table; a drees was flung across a chair, evidently just as it had been taken eft. The pirl heralf was clad in a loose dresiing-gcirs, beneath which she wore her ordinary usderslothlng. One significant thing caught my eye—there was mud on the heels of her evening slippers. That was enough. I understood. Luckily nobody in the bouse had noticed it. I turned my attention to the girl herself. There was a bruise on the right ierajle sis if she had itrack her head ia

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falling. Her face waa very pals, her | pulse faint, her breathing stertorous, and her feet and hands cold. 'What is the matter, DoctorP Is it serious ?' asked Mrs Oliver, looking up at me. ' Not very serions, I hope/ Baid L/far more cheerfully than I felt. 'She was ancemio and run-down; fainted and struck her head and is Buffering from slight concussion of the brain.' ' Will she recover consciousness ?' ' Yes. Probably the reaction will come before long. Do not on any account try to rouse her, but if she shows signs of becoming conscious, raise her pillow and send at once for me. She will probably be very siok at first.' And with that I left her. I was more afraid of the reaction than of anything else. The skull did not appear to be fractured, and there waa no very serious danger, unless from the recollection of what she had. gone, Of that I was not sure, it was very clear that, just as I had feared, Kentland's stupidity in telling her she was hypnotised hid acted as a stimulus to her somnambulism. She had taken the pistol, gone done to Lott's room, and waking up in that strange place under the belief that she was hypnotised by him, had done' as Kentland suggested, and used the derringer only too well. On leaving the Olivers, I went straight back to Lotto house to find the police had looked up the room and gone away—on what errand I was soon to kaow. I was glad to find the housekeeper alone. I had several questions to ask her. I began my talk with a tip. Servants are like penny-in-the-siot machines. You must put in yonr money before you can get anything out of them. 'Now can you tell, me,' I said, when this preliminary was over, ' can you tell me at what time you came in last night ?' ' Yes, sir. I came in a bit late—being delayed under a harchway waiting for an 'eavy tbundershower to. pass, and me being very liable to cold from wet feet, I thought ' 'Now, now, my good woman, I don't want to know what you thought,' I said, ' I want to know what time you came in,' ' Well, sir, it were not more than twenty minutes after ten, I'm sure, or five and twenty at the most by the kitchen clock.' 'And did you notice anything amiss thenP* 'No, sir, there were nothing amiss then. The 'ouse were quiet and all the lights out, so £ thought of course the master was in bed, so I jsst went upstairs to my own room.' ' Did you hear any Bound in the night P' 'No, sir, I never 'eard nothink; and never so much as hantieipated any 'arm till I corns down to sweep out the master's study in the morning, which I always does it early, and there ha was a-lying a mortial corpse, and the carpet ruinated beyond all cleaning with his ' • Yes, yes, yes, I know,' I cried, interrupting her flow of details. 'Tell me, was the front door open in the morning P' ' No, sir, it were latched the same as usual.' 'And you did not hear it slam in the night P. ' No, sir, I slept like a churchwarden the 'ole night through.' All this tallied only too well |with the hour at which Dot had gone to her room, and with my own conclusions from the state of the body when found. Evidently the affair was all over when the woman came in at half-past ten. ' Where are the police P' I asked. - 'I 'eard them say as they were going over to take Mr Keatland in charge,' she answered. I waited for no more. I had not thought of that possibility before, and saw that Kentland must be warned at once. He must have left for the City before the police went to look for him. My course, therefore, was to go up to town myself and see him. A telegram was, of course, out of the question. But I must see Dot first. I hurried over to the house, and found her conscious and getting on well. She did not appear at all concerned at her position, indeed, aa I afterwards discovered, had no recollection of the events of the night. From there I went straight to the station, hurried to Kentland's office, and found that he had not been there at all that day. Something had happened; but whether he had been arrested or not I could form no idea. I missed the three o'clock train; and had to wait for the 4-20, which is a slow train, and did not arrive at Moor End until a quarter past five. As I walked up the platform I noticed a commotion going on at the door of a second-cliBS compartment at the far end of the train. Two ladies seemed to be trying to get into the carriage and someone inside seemed to be resisting their entrance. The guard waved his flag, the ladies jumped into another compartment, and the train started. As it passed me I saw that the mysterious carriage had all the blinds drawn; and a moment later I heard a shrill call behind me, and saw the head and shoulders of a man thrust from the window of that compartment. He was dressed in clerical attire, and I recognised him as the curate of Moor End, whom I knew by sight. The rattle of the ! train drowned what he said, bnt he was apparently in great perturbation, for he. waved a clerical bat excitadly and pulled violently at the alarm cord on the wrong side; but it was tod late to stop the train, and, still waving frantically, he was borne out of the station and away. I was araused by the incident,. bat had other matters to think off "and it never occurred to me that it might in any way tflket the case before me. I walked straight up to Kentland's house, and just outside met the policeman who had summoned me in the morning, He waa hot and dusty and dishevelled. ' 'E's got clean off, sir!' he said, •Who!' 'Kentland.' 'Ah! Has heP' I Yes j give us the slip as pretty as ever •

I seen 1' I was glad to hear it. But why had Kentlandrun awayP Had he shot Lott after allf It puaaled me at first; but afterwards I began to understand. Of course it was chivalrous of him—quixotic rather i but he was a fool to do it. It only complicated matters, and a more abominable complication than that which followed I never wish to see. That evening as I sat pipe in mouth trying to think out the whole position, in came Shallow. He, of course, knew nothing of Dofs secret, and naturally believed Kentland guilty. «This is a strange affair about Lott,'. said he. .. -i •£ ' A very strange affair/ I replied. ' I Baw him only last night.' 'When did you set himP' I asked sharply. ' At Eusfcon atjmidnight' ' At midnight, did you say p' ' Yes. He was in the Liverpool express, and I saw him as the carriage passed me.' ' Impossible I' I cried. 'WhyP' * Why P Can't you see P If he left by the midnight express he could not have got back here.' 'Yes, he could. I looked up the time table. The express stops at Willesden, and if he got out there he could catch the 18-10 for here.' * Well, I suppose you came out by that train. It's the last one.' •Yes, but ' ' Did yon see him at the station at this eudP' 'No, that's the strange of it. I was the only passenger that got out here. Of course he might have got out at Bishop's Green, and have walked over. Only that doesn't seem likely, does it P I can't understand it.' 'lt's absolutely impossible,' said I, knowing what I did. ' No, take my word for it, you made a mistake.' •Bat I tell you I saw him ; on No. 9. platform, and watched him leave by the Liverpool express 1' cried Sharlow. 'Oh, no, you didn't I You imagined you saw him. Imagination—mere imagition!' i ■! swear I saw Lott, or'—Shadowlooked suddenly awestruck —' or his i ghost!' he cried. * Nonsense!' said I. ' You saw your own morbid fancy. It was dyspepsia! Try a spare diet and exercise 1 GnostP Gammon!' But he went went off quite unconvinced, and firmly believing that he had seen Lott's ghost. That is how these ideas atise—ignorance, sheer ignorance, and the relics of savage superstition in man. When my man brought up my shaving water next morning, he told me that Jenkins, the curate, had been murdered. 'WhatP' I cried. 'Another murderP Why, I saw him in the train yesterday!' . ' Yessir. Well, when the train got to the next station the door of 'is carriage was swingin' open, bnt Mr Jenkins, 'e was gone! They found a black bag with sermings and some books, and a 'andkerchief with 'is name on it on the seat—that was hall, sir!' ' And have they found the body ?' •No, sir. They'ave not—leastways so the milkman told cook, sir. But they picked up 'is trowsers, sir, a-lyin' on the railway line torn to ribbins, sir.' ' What an extraordinary affair 1' ' Yessir, Especial extraordinary comin' after the hother murder, sir.' ' Nonsense !' I said, ' what's that gob to do with it P' But as it turned out there was more leonnection between the two cases than I thought i only that comes later.

CHAPrEB lII.—DOING A BIG GET,

(Eobert Kentland's Narrative,) If s no use my telling the whole yarn from the start over again. Di Tring is doing that, he says. I know what that meanß. He'll try to round up the whole mob of facts and hustle them into his own little crash-pen of a theory. He's a good Eoit, the doctor, as staunch as Steele on an uphill track. He'll pat his shoulder to the wheel and spoke her up every time for a friend, but he'll give that friend particular fits with the slack end of his tongue aftirwards. He whipped it into me pretty hot, I know, when I went for that sneaking hound Lott. The old boy never could get the real facts through his solid old skull. Nothing would make him admit that Lott really mesmerised Miss Oliver, though the thing was as plain as putty. Why, the facts would have convinced an Egyptian mommy of average intelligence; but the doctor would not see it. If he had, it would have knocked the stuffing out of some pet theory of his about the sensory centres, or some other gizzard arrangement he had raked out of the'brain of a pickled corpse when he wad a young Edinburgh «Med.' So ha got inside his old Btage-coach of a theory and pulled down the blinds,' and went rumbling right along in the rut of his explanation. ■ ■ ■

Mind you, I don't blame him. Every man looks through his own winkers at the world; but all the same I can't help seeing that the whole internal corrobboree was his fault. If he had looked at the thing squarely, owned that his 'sensory centres' were off the plumb, and that hi» pet theory waß.hogwash; and had gone and warned Mrs Oliver, and told her to take Dot away, well/* she'd have done it, and Mister Tobias Lott would have been euchredr Aa it was, the poor girl had no show. The doctor buzzed around as happy as a blue-fly at the tail of a mob of rotten sheep, saying Dot was walking in her Sleep. Where-would she have been if I had not given her the shooter P And yet that was the thing ha jumped on me for more than all,

No. He's a right good nugget, the doctor, clean gold right through, but when it comes to somnambulism and his theories the old boy gets a bit off his pannikin. But I'm beginning at the wrong end of my story. - On the morning of Friday, the fifth of August, I started for the City as usual by the 840 train to Broad Street. I settled in my corner, and presently got talking to the other man in the carriage. (To be continued.)