Levallion's Heir.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 154, 29 June 1907, Page 14

Levallion's Heir.

CHAPTER xxxy i GOOD r BY E _ But it was not to Le v ; aUion Cast]e Adrian Gordon came v t he cri b , ue and gold of the autumn e?enin„. Ravenel seated o£ acr ° bedj with her sluggish blood barely in ovin „ in he _. vcin _ leaped to her feet as !_._• door opened "You!" she cried, _f for ar f instant ! her face was transfigure tlle next ghe : put out her trembUugl_jn dSj as if tQ warn . him to stay where he:was. '"How did 1 you get in?" -7, I " As men do who storm a city wall," : he might have answered truly; but he only said: " Quite easily," a nd let his eves look their fill on theyface of the onlywoman in the world.: v; The matron, after; One shrewd glance,! turned her back on tiiem. But it was trouble wasted; neither 0 f them thought of her. Her eyes were'on him as his'on her. Aud the dead, ugly pallor of her face, that had been like a rose, the black circles round her dull eyes, the thin transparency of her:hands, made him catch his breath for'agony of pity; but she never saw how worn he was, because she was looking in his eyes that she had never hoped to see again. " Seventeen days »f it," he thought, "and she looks like this! How will she look after months—years?" For they would never dare to hang her, to break that slender neck with a rope in a prison yard. Yet he knew, after one look at her, that if she were found guilty, even of manslaughter, it meant death for her! Death in a prison cell—alone. The man's heart-break choked him. Six feet of bare floor lay between them, that was all; yet shame and the grave could part them no more utterly.

" Nel," he said, for the minutes were flying. "I had to come;-—You're- not angry!" '" No," she -whispered. -And if for a minute she had thought he brought her good news, she knew-'ntiw he had none. Gordon turned and saw the matron. Before he could speak sbedeliberately put her fingers in her ears.,; Ten juries might ask her what they said; arid she could telL them nothing. The:look in the womanSsseyes sent Adrian to Eavenel's side. "Nel,"' he whispered,." "tell mc, for God's sake, who you saw in that room, and why you lied at the inquest? Did you think it was I?" .: "'I know it wasn't, now. I might always have known, but I- couldn't think — afterward." •• But you did see someone?" "1 said not," quietly, :l: It wouldn't do mc any good now to let them know I lied." "Ifl had done it twenty times I wouldn't have had you hold your tongue to save mc." He was hoarse with pain. " How could you think that I, who'd gone to London, was in Levallion's house ? " "I didn't~think." §he met his eyes ■with hers, dull from nights of agony. "" I took down the bottle;; looked up, and thought I saw you going out of the door! 1 was frightened. I felt as if I had seen a ghost! When Jacobs - growled and bristled I ran. And then—the stuff killed him." Horror twisting her pale lips. " Sow could I tell? How was I to know ysn had not come back, for some reason? T~J never for one second thought you killed him." ■ My own heart," said the man, with a breath like a sob,'" don't defend yourself to mc. I know you never thought that. But if you won't tell jrie'about the figure you saw, I will. Don't you know someone must? " "You'd do no,good," gently. "Only make mc a liar. 'And even now, Adrian, I couldn't swear the figure Was real, and not my fancy. I'd been trying all that day to put you out of my mind.' "But you_said the bottle was warm. "Quite warm," she shuddered, "'like blood. But that was what frightened mc —afterward. I remembered what you d said about poisoning him—and yet 1 wouldn't, wouldn't believe it. "' _ - Someone had been carrying it in a hot hand," he cried. "The same person who put those bottles in your room. Did you think I would have done that. bitte "i y 'knew you wouldn't, hut you must remember that I knew nothing about those bottles till my evidence was finished," simply. I ~ ... '•There's a God, they say!" he said, between his teeth. "If there is, He won t let tbe guilty escape. > T el, promise mc something. Trust mc, :#•»«. th ' n f come to the worst. There'll be help somewhere!" very low . _ , , "Not for mc," quietly- "You've been trying all this time and found out nothing. I see it in your face.' "I thought of Mrs. Murray,' he said painfull*-, "and I'm afraid I'm wrong. She had" nothing to gain and revenge to lose. The talk would have been wors<? than death to him." A quick look of pain came **> heT face " "I know," she muttered. "The- duchess told mc." lt ■. , He answered with that utter honesty 6he had loved in him. "Mcl, you woujld not believe what Hester says about Levallion. He never Tvent to that house in Eaton Place, except once, when they thought the boy ■was dying. He gave her money, but she lies when she says he kept on going there. You knew him .better than that." "I never believed it," she answered quietly, loyal to the dead, as she had been to the living. "'Now you know why I could not answer you "about 'Mrs. Gordon,' " he whispered, thinking that assuredly no wickeder woman than Hester Murray trod the earth. "It was she herself!"

"Never mind her," with sudden passion she caught his arm. "Let her be! Adrian, do you think Til ever see you again, face to face, like this? For I shan't! Talk of yourself, talk of something I may remember when" —sharply —"till I die." 'Til see you hundreds of times, please God. Day in and day out," but his eyes were not on hers. "You won't, you can't!" The self-con-trol that had ield her since that dreadful might gone now. "Adrian!" she cried, .wild, terrified, broken, "they'll hang mc. I can't prove I did not do it- Help mc, comfort mc, make mc brave." * If ten matrons been looking on he would have caught her to him. "Never," he said, low,, in her ear. "Not •while I can speak and see." But what he meant never dawned on her. "Put that thought from you. I swear you can." For with that rag—and his tweed suit could easily be torn —there st*as one way open still. - "If they le tme g 0 to-morrow the •world -would think we did it," she gasped. ""There's- blood between us. We'd, be as fax. a__a;rt as if J digd."- „ .

By ADELAIDE STIRLING, AatJlorof " All Things," "When Love Dawns," «A Sacri. fice to Love," etc.

'If I never see you on this side of the grave." the man cried passionately/ "do you think I'll ever be really parted from you? What are a few years—when some time we'll wake and find it's the Resurrection Day? Love, don't grieve!" For as he spoke she remembered how once it was she who had meant to creep to his side when the dead came out of their graves, and now God had made that the only hope left. "•Listen," he said, "I'll have to go iv a minute. I came to tell you something I let you think I'd found out nothing; I've found out one way. There'll be no death for you, my sweetheart, no prison I can't tell you what I know, but it will set you free." "No, no, no!" Tears blinded her. She caught him to her madly. "Not that never that." "Not that." He hushed her like a child; and if ever a lie was pardoned his was. -Be at peace; not that. Oh! what did we clo that we should-end like this'" he broke cut fiercely, more to' himself than to her. "My heart, we'll wake some day in paradise," she said, very low, for his passion steadied her. "And perhaps it won t he long." r He stooped and kissed her as a man whose minutes are numbered; held her close in agony that hurt her and him Be brave." he muttered, for he was broken utterly. "Remember you're safe, hat what they give you," and the homely, kindly detail was dreadful in its tender care. --Think of Tommy and mc who'll be kn ows\ow nappy—when you're free." •Somehow he put her away from him as the warden knocked at the door But outside in the free air he shut his tech and prayed he had not lied to her For suppose what he had in his mind was not enough to set her clear. It was not hope that had brought him to Valehampton Jail. If there were none at i-evallion Castle—and there could be none "I pray God my shoulders are broad enough,"' he thought, turning away. CHAPTER XSXVL | j A MOUSE-HOLE. "Well," said Allington grimly, "you ruined a fine theory for ms last with your wire. I thought for a solid hour that I could put my fingers on the man who killed Levallion." The two were strolling up and down the open lawn at Levallion Castle. Perhaps Mr Allington made a guess as to what had deferred Adrian Gordon's arrival till three in the afternoon, hut he said nothing. The face of the new Lord Levallion, who in a few more days would be plain Adrian Gordon once more, did not encourage comment. "You mean you thought it could he the cook?" he cried, standing still in the autumn sunshine. "I did. But"—he flicked the ash from his cigar significantly—"it all went like that." "What put it into your head at all?" drearily. "A boot-boy. The only servant who was not called at the inquest." And he told Sir Thomas' tale of the beaSng, and the subsequent tender care of Monsieur Carrousel in finding his protege a new place. "That set mc thinking," he continued. "I went down to the housekeeper's room last night when the house was quiet, and I found it led into the still room." 'T don't see much in that," interrupting him. "We all know that. It's to keep the still-room under her eye. That's all. There's no second door from the still-room.''' "Isn't thereY' said Allington quietly. "Did it never strike anyone that a portion of those shelves in that room covers a door, that opens, shelves and all, into the 'boothole' under the kitchen stairs. I confess last night that with that discovery, and the carting off of the bootboy, I felt jubilant. But it was all rubbish. The housekeeper had a letter from the boy I thought the cook had made away with, to say he liked his new place Monsieur Carrousel had found for him. I Something Square it was dated, and post- [ marked Paddington."

"It's all one what it was postmarked," Gordon returned dully. "It wasn't Carrousel I saw last night; and I agree with you that the boot-boy business was all bona fide enough. A clever Frenchman might pound a stupid boy to a jelly from exasperation, and then turn round and be kind to Mm." "Who did you see last night?" curiously. "I suppose you've been playing detective on Mrs Murray, eh?" Adrian nodded. "I don't know why," he said, "for she was in Boulogne all summer. Couldn't have been down here at all. But I took lodgings opposite, and lay doggo to watch her. Much I got! No one went into her house except her lawyers in that case of hers," as indifferently as if it concerned him not at all and did not spell ruin, "till last night, when I saw a man go up her steps. Something about bjm startled mc, bis back looked fami--liar; I don't know why, but I could have sworn I'd seen him down here. Yet I knew he was none of the house-party. He went in, and I ran out and wired to you. But before your answer came I knew I'd made an ass of myself. I'd just got back to my door when I saw the fellow come out, and it was no one I'd ever seen in my life. I saw his face quite plainly as be lit a cigar. If I'd seen it like that in the first place I'd never have wired at all. He was just i a pal of Hester's." 1 Allington nodded. He was as disappointed as a dog t\at has discovered an empty rat-hole. "What do you think of doing now?" he said. "The detectives are quite hopeless of finding Sir Thomas? mysterious man and woman, I may tell you. That woman who levanted from the bungalow was their first thought, but she has apparently fallen off the earth. As for the man" —snapping his fingers—"after pouncing on twenty innocent young farmers, they have given him up. Unless " He stopped awkwardly. Somehow he could not say to Adrian Gordon that he had yet to prove he was not himself that man. Not that Allington thought so, but there was no doubt the police did. "Unless he turns up directly under their noses," said Adrian coolly. But Allington could make no guess at what he meant. "What do you think of doing?" he repeated. "Go back co town, and " he hesi.taied. '"'Look her e,^Allington, you don't think this business of Hester Murray's looks gizeet bang on j-og 0 f Lev_*jjjon.' s

death, do you?" "No," unwillingly. "She'd be afraid to try it—in that case. In any case, you say you know she was in Boulogne." "'I suppose I Ho. She gave mc an address of a pension, there, and I wrote. It was all straight enough. Hello! here's Tommy!" with annoyance. He had not wanted to see Tommy. The boy's eyes wore too clear, even a lie untold might be written in Gordon's, face, he thought vexedly. '"Hello! where've you been?" he said uncomfortably, and then stopped short. "My God, Tommy! what is it?" he cried, the dreadful look on the boy's face meaning only one thing to him. Ravenel was guilty, and her brother had found it out! '•Don't speak to mc!" said the hoy hoarsely; "let mc think. I've been — and I thought it might mean something, but—it can't!" Wherever he had been he had been running, and his face was white and red in streaks. Allington pulled Him down on a garden bench. "Get your breath," he said, but he was afraid, too. At the two pale faces the boy suddenly laughed out hysterically. "I've made a fool of myself," he said. "I thought I'd found something. Look here. I went over to the farm where— you know the Umbrella died?" incoherently.

"She didn't know anything!" cried Allington. "I turned the farmer's wife inside out. I suppose you mean by the Umbrella the woman who wrote those letters to Lady Levallion that can't be found?"

"I don't know what she knew," said Tommy sharply. "And we never I went out toward the station to see if Gordon had come down by the twotwenty, and he hadn't. Coming home I met Mrs Ward, the farmer's wife, and she asked mc what she was to do with the Umbrella's old bonnet or something, but she really stopped mc to know ii any of us would pay for the Umbrella's board. It seems she stayed a week there, and Raven el hadn't sent her enough money to pay for that and her funeral. I don't know. Anyhow, I stroiled un with old Mother Ward to see iust what the Umbrella had left in the way of clothes, and to view the undertaker's bill for myself. For old Ward-'s a, beast. There were some old rags of clothes with nothing in the pockets, and I said you'd pay the undertaker," turning to Allington. "I. was staring round the place and I saw a piece of paper, just an ed<re. sticking out between the flfur and the wall. I hooked itont, and ther was a mousehole behind it; the mice had dragged the thing in there. "Old Mother Ward gave a veil. Said the Umbrella had held that thing in her hand till she died, and she'd wondered what had become of it. I thought—oh! I don't know what I thought,"' miserably; "but it isn't any good. Here's the thing, and it doesn't mean anything." "It's a torn telegram," said Allington, peering over Gordon's i shoulder as he snatched the paper. f 'Wh'at's that on the hack of it?" ''Nothing," said Tommy, " only one pound, or soraethins." Adrian Gordon, like a man in a dream, stared at the dirty mouse-eaten thing he held. It niisrht be meaningless enough to Tommy and Allington, but to him. "By !" he said, below his breath, "'Hester!" -"What do you mean?" cried Allington, startled. "Look!" grimly, his eyes as hard as Levallion's had ever been. And Allington made out the tattered telegram. "Wire descript— Bocaee. Imme—" the address was eaten away, there was no signature. "I don't see what you mean!" he exclaimed. Gordon pulled from his oocket that letter from Pension Bocat-e concerning Mrs. Murray. "Xow do you understand?" he cried. "She was in Boulogne all summer—according to that. Yet the man who wrote it wired to her to describe herself. The meaning's clear enomrh. "Wire description to Boeage immediately," that's how the telegram ran. It, was Hester Murray Tommy saw that night—and she dropped it."

"But how could the woman who died come by it?" said Allinzton. doubtingly. Tommy jumped ud.

"You never knew her!" he cried. "She was alwajs creeping and crawling round. You bet she saw that man and woman the night I did. and that was what she wanted to tell Eavenel. Oh, if she hadn't died!" he caught his breath. "She had sham ears, the Umbrella. She mar have heard every word they said. And now we'll never know."

"Now, on the contrary, we've the only clue we've ever had." Gordon returned. "You're a fool, Tommy!" staring at the reverse of the telesrram. "with your '1 pound!' It's 'I found' written on th-J back of it, and somethins else I cai/fc make out. But even iwifck<™*. it, we've enough for—Hester Murray," savagely. Sir Thomas dived into his nockets. "Whoever the woman was." he cried, hunting vigorously, "I've srot something belonging to her. You didn't know that when Jacobs went for the man that night he tore the woman's cloak, did you? And — oh! here it is!" gladly. "I"c hal it ever since." ■ He laid in Allington's hand a scrap of black satin, with a torn bit of chinchilla, hanging to it. Adrian stared at Tiim. "Why, in Heaven's name!" he said, .blankly, "didn't you show that at the 'inquest?" "Because I'm not a fool." returned Sir Thomas. I "The room was full of men. How did I know any of 'em hadn't been drinking j champagne in the moonlisrht with a lady, I and owuld go off and tell her she'd been seen looking in windows. Besides, then, :mind you, I thought it was you I saw |on the rock, and I didn't care who it was with you, because I'd proved it 1 wasn't my sister." i Adrian winced. "I can't say much for your eyesight!" he _ pried* with ©arcssm. 'VLast night Allington says you were ouite ready°to think the man was Carrousel. The words cut. "I never said it was Carrousel I saw on the rock that night," said Tommy, suddenly very white and quiet. "I never thought it. He's got a beard. But I'll tell you this much: If you'll find the woman who owns that cloak, and give mc time—l'll find the man!" "Time's just what we haven't got. And I don't believe you'd know the man if you fell over him," unbelievingly. "I mightn't," said Tommy, composedly. "But—Jacobs would." And neither man believed him. (To be continued flaily.)