Heart of Gold.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 222, 19 September 1928, Page 20

Heart of Gold.

By C M. MATHESON Author of "NUT IN THE HUSK, ,, etc. etc.

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. DOREEN" MALLORY. a pretty youug blonde, has been summarily dismissed from her job as an improver with a court millinery establishment, because she has come to ■work ]afp. In grpat distress, and feeling the need for solitude, she walks home through Hyde Park instead of meeting JIM LACY, her fiance, as she had arranged to do. In the p;irk she is accosted by a young-man-about-town, CONRAD- MURRAY, who insists on accompanying her homeward. She tells Murray of her misfortune, and he promises to use his influence to pet her reinstated, provided she will meet him next evening. Jim Lacy sees Doreen with Murray, aucl '« fnriously angry. In a temper Doreen refuses to see Jim again. She meets Murray the next evening, and spends a jolly time with him at the Hilarity Restaurant. He has told her that, she will receive a letter notifying her of her reinstatement. As they leave Doreen notices Jim Lacy scowling at her. In the taxi Murray tries to assault Doreen. who rushes out sobbing and dishevelled when it stops at her door. After receiving the promised letter next morning Doreen reports at iif-r place of omploymenr. to be told that Conrad Murray had boon found murdered iu a taxi on the previous niglir. Doreen is detained by tlio police, and appears next dsiy at the.Coroner's Court. She is asked whether anyone she knew saw ljer at the Hilarity Restaurant with Murray. She mentions Jim Lncy's name. The police arrest Jim on suspicion as he is about to sail for Brazil. At the police court next day he appears in the dock. He is committed for trial, and about to be taken away when Doreen cries: "I killed Conrad Murray." She was at ouco arrested. CHAPTER XI. Within the court excitement, though suppressed, was intense, conjecture, rife, curiosity agog. As though at a theatre, watching the play of puppets, the assembly watched the momentous and significant movements of the officials and men of law. They whispered to one another the names and of those whom they recognised—the prosecuting counsel, counsel for the defence. Lord Scotley ("they «ay he's paying the costs of the defence. This girl's father is his chauffeur"). Tom Mallory himself. ("That's her father, that big man there. That will be her mother, that woman with him.") The filing in of the jury, the ceremonial entry of the judge. ("He's a hard judge. He always seems to have made up his mind before the trial' , ); and at last, as all heads craned and the whisperings became so numerous that the judge looked sternly round the court, Doreen entered. She slipped into her place so quietly that few saw her at all until she had been actually in the dock for several seconds. Very pale, very still, perfectly, composed, she faced the crowd. She saw her parents, and a slight smile touched and faded from her lips. Her glance wandered —she sought one face. But the loved contenance she so desperately hoped to see did not meet her gaze. She sighed, clasped her hands on the rail of the dock and awaited the day's proceedings. Formalities. Evidence. As in a dream, she heard- the hum of voices, noted the movement amongst the people near to her. She paid no heed. There was nothing, she felt, that she could do. This battle of the law would be fought out over her head. She would no doubt be asked all over again the list of questions she had already answered so many "times. This was the law. Tliis probing, this repetition, was the way in which the law worked, and this crowd iu the court, who, until she had come into prominence by a fault, had never heard of her, now gave all their time to sitting there staring at her, gloating over her. The day passed thus, and she returned again to her prison. Again came night and sleep unmarred by dreams. Again day and the same thing all over again, except that on this occasion they asked her once more the all-familiar questions and again she gave her patient answers. Presently she was asked. "Did you realise when you struck this man that you had killed him?" "Oh, no." "That you had wounded him?" "Oh, no." "Is it your belief that you killed him?" "I don't know." "Why did you make that statement?" "Because they were going to send Jim Lacy for trial." "You made a false declaration - in order to secure the release of this man Lacy?" "I didn't think it was false." "Do you think now that it was false?" "I don't know what to think." "Are you sure ypu struck him with the scissors ?" "I don't know." "Your bag never opened, your scissors never , fell out. you struck this man with your hand. You did him no harm."' "That may be so." "Tell us how your bag was opened in the struggle." "I don't know what happened." "This man assaulted youV" "He pulled me about." "What exactly did he do?" ''Hβ lifted me and kissed me. He kissed my face and iny neck. He tore my dress and kissed me here." "Is this the dress you were wearing?" Doreen looked at the black frock her inquisitor held before her. "Yes." "Was it torn thus in the struggle?" "Yes." "You did not tear it after you got home, or any time since then?" "No." "You have said you were bruised." "Yes, I was." "WTiat were the nature of those bruises ?" "There were red marks on my neck; they were yellow bruises the next day. There were'four marks here on my arm —like this — finger marks; they went purple and black, and there was a bruise here on my side." "You were afraid of this man?" "Not until he began to pull me about." "And then you were afraid?" "Yes." There was an adjournment. Doreen was taken away, returned to her cell for a meal and rest. Xo one was allowed to visit her, and all too soon, it seemed to her, she returned again to face the rain of questions. They examined her, they cross-exam-ined her; the afternoon moved on; came early evening. The case asrainst her was very black. The simplicity of her answers made her story so' clear, so plausible. As she was again returned to the solifude of her cell she asked the wardress if J)UW7 at last, it was all over, and the woman said, not Vet, probablv to-morrow. *

Another day. Now again the drama was played out overhead. She, lost in her dreamlike haze, which, unless she was spoken to, clouded all that passed, did not grasp the speech of prosecuting counsel, the magnificent speech of counsel for the defence. The case against her was ably set forth. She entered the cab with the unfortunate young man, she had left the vehicle in frightened haste, and her companion had been found dead, stabbed in the throat. This girl, on her own showing, had accepted the advances of this young man; she had gone out with him in defiance of warnings; she had flagrantly deceived her parents; she had shown herself entirely ready to see the lighter side of life. In London there were countless such light-minded, easygoing girls with no thought but for pleasure, with no honesty, no selfrespect, no stability in them. This girl, Doreen Mallory, had "picked up" a young man. She had persuaded him to try to help her out of a scrape, she had lured him on, gone out with- him, permitted familiarity. Then, alone in the cab, this poor young gentleman had no doubt for a moment lost control of himself and had succumbed to the feelings of passion, she had persistently tried to inflame, and at that she had turned on him and stabbed him in the throat. This girl had been proved to be lazy, light, deceitful, scheming, disobedient; she was also relentless and vicious. She had also committed perjury by trying to withhold the truth. Girls like Doreen Mallory regarded young men — young men with money—as their natural prey. Prosecuting counsel, as he completed his oration, turned a baleful glance on Doreen. She had no regard for him. Childishly she stood, her hands clasped before her on the rail of the dock, and her innocent gaze met the bewigged gentleman's stare placidly. And thus she remained while Sir Clement DouglasBraine made his magnificent and moving speech for the defence. There were not many dry eyes as he set forth Doreen's claims for "pity and pardon. In the jury box, women jurors listened palefaced and tight-lipped, striving % to hold the rising tide of emotion in check. Men watched without moving their heads, with attention strained to grasp every telling word. "This young girl," he said in the course of his speech, "is an only child. A beloved child of most respectable parents. She has been—and she still is—the protegee of her father's employers. These people—people of rank and title—have shown every interest in this child from the day she was born to the present day when she stands before you to answer the capital charge. What fault do vou find in Doreen Mallory? You are asked to believe that she is an experienced and light woman, a girl of ill repute a harpie. What is there in the evidence to confirm this accusation? Consider her age. She is but eighteen years old. Consider her upbringing. Until a few years ago she lived in th« countrv in the seclusion of a cottage on a great estate; she attended the village school she attended the Sunday school; the vicar, the schoolmistress will tell vou that she was a docile child, an innocent and happy child who loved her parents and her mode of life, who grieved when she had to give up her peaceful rural existence and come with her parents to this peat and unhappy city of London. •The beginning of her unhappiness, which culminates now in this present tragedy, came when the spell of tho>e summer mornings under the trees became too much for her. We learn that three times in succession she was lato at her work. Three times she was a lew minutes late. Despite the fact that a premium had been paid to her mistress—Madame Sabina of Holies street—this child was summarily dismissed. We find in the signed agreement that she could be thus dismissed tor disobedience, dishonesty, discourtesy or »ny other flagrant fault, and the premium would not be, in such case refunded. With such an agreement and such a dismissal for so trifling a fault, I, for one, draw my own conclusions concerning the methods of Madame oabina. "This girl received no warning. Her dismissal was preceded by only a few hours' notice. I hope you can imagine the shock such drastic action must have been to her. "Rudely shaken from her happy dreams, turned out to fight her own way, to ma£e her own defence, she thought the meeting in the park—in what was to this child a sylvan paradise—(would it were so to others)—the meeting with this young man, now unhappily deceased, a godsend. She has told us that she did not often go home through the park after dark—her mother did not wish it—but on this night she needed comfort. She sought her sylvan friends. Under the sheltering arms of the trees she sought to ease her heavy heart. And then this man spoke to her. "At lirst she ignored him. But he told her his name, and in a few moments she discovered that the stranger was actually the brother of the most important, most carefully considered young woman at Madame Sabina's. Before she realised what she was doing, she opened her heart to him. "We cannot well criticise the dead, or determine their actions. We will not impute'to this unfortunate young man any evil that is not supported by fact and truth. But many Here to-day are men; many women her-e to-day are more experienced in the way of a man with a maid than this innocent young maid could hope to be. He, we will suppose, saw this child's beauty. Prisonworn and sad as she now is, she still retains the. light of loveliness. He saw, too, her complete innocence. It may be that he skilfully accepted the role she unconsciously offered him—the role of mediator—in order to see her again, in order to bring her to the lure. At all events she trusted him. .She agreed to meet him and hear what he had been able to effect for her benefit. She would not, after all, have to bring her trouble to her parents. Her problem would be solved without their knowledge. She had no wish to distress them. "But the man who professed to love her had seen her with the etranger, with Conrad Murray. Of an intensely jealous disposition, he startled her, expressed his anger. With a very proper spirit, a very appropriate spirit, she replied to him, left him, and entered her parents' house." (To be continued daily.)