Heart of Gold.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 229, 27 September 1928, Page 27

Heart of Gold.

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

CHAPTER XVIII.

That night ho returned to the Embankment, nought an empty seat on which to rest. He sat there, hunched forward, watching the reflections of lights in the water, yellowed pencillings. Tie still considered his prospects, he .was etill buoyant and hopeful at heart. Over and over again he had marshalled his plane. It' necessary, he could sleep out for another month; he would give himself a month to find a decent berth in England, a decent enough berth for a start. From that he would go forward.

If, however, he had no luck in England, he would, before the cold weather drew on, approach one' or the other of the big charitable organisations and appeal for a loan. He would have Wain's name to give as a reference, and doubtless hia old firm would not refuse to speak for him. They had thought highly of him while he was there, although they had no room for him now. A loan would be all he would want if he could get a job in England; just hie passage money and a few pounds for when he landed. Wain was a thoroughly good chap, mid would see him get off all right in Brazil. A new country! A different type of men! An enterprising job! .Fun's heart glowed to-night with hope and high anticipation of a turn in fortune's wheel. The night was warm, the river dark and placid, lighted only by those steady reflections in its depths. The scene was pleasant to Jim. Even in his most unhappy hours he had found something in it that held him still. Something steady, and, perhaps, pitiloss and ancient some brooding , spirit, that prevented him from making a fool of himself by throwing himself into the water. Otherwise there had, been occasions when Ik , had con*i<lored the possibility of slipping over the coping of the bridge into the tide beneath.

To-night, an he sat there, staring before him, following his thoughts, he noted presently a man move along on the pavement near the balustrade. Jim had no thought for the shifty figure except s passing "Poor devil." To-night fee wee in sympathy with all.men. But. Kesehtly, the man moved across and ood before Jim, and said: "Got a on you ?" Jim found a box of matches, struck one, applied it to the end of a cigar the other tad picked up in the gutter. The

stranger drew on the cigar with enjoyment, and sat down on the bench by the side of Jim.

For a moment the two contemplated the scene without a word. The cigar wafted an aroma on the still night air. The scent inspired the smoker to remurk :

"Nothing l>etter than a good cigar." Jim made no reply; he was lost again in thought. But undaunted, the man at his aide said reminisceiitly: "There was a time, and not so long ago, either, when I had all the cigars I could smoke. The best brands, too." Jim offered no comment. He had listened to many stories of better days. "Care to hear a story?" asked the other.

"If you care to tell it," answered Jim.

"I've told it, I should think, fifty times, to men on the Embankment. It's my best yarn. One might do something to get through the nights. As a matter of fact, it's easier now than it will be later on. It'll soon get coid." "I shan't be here then," said Jim. "Not V "No. I'm going abroad. Unless— something better turns up." The words had a depressing effect on Jim. He had touched the heights of hope and anticipation that day, and the uncertainty displayed in his" curt remark had an effect on him. To quieten his fears and allay his doubts, he said: "What's your yarn?"

"It's not a yarn exactly." said the other. "It's —memoirs. You can make a fortune if your memoirs are spicy enough, and, shall we say, sufficiently unfair to your friends. It* seems to me a mean and underhand dodge—making money by giving away your friends! Of course, the thicker your hide the more you pan write 'em all up. I've thought —oh, often—that I'd put my personal memoirs down on paper some fine day and rake in a tidy sum. Perhaps before the weather gets cold again I may do it."

"Speaking with strict impartiality," went on the stranger, casting aside the tiny remains of the smoked out butt of a good cigar, "I'm afraid the best part of my tale may fall a little bit flat after this lapse of time. Still, if I told it too soon—or if I had not my wits about me when telling it—there is a very good chance that, before the cold weather eomes, I should be in a very much hotter climate than any to be found on this

globe. That is, if all the persons tell us is true. And though I like warmth there are limits, and I have no desire to frizzle. Besides, as the young girl said, I'm ower young. How old do you think I am comrade 1"

Jim glanced at tho speaker. "About thirty," he said. "Twenty-six, old sport. And three years ago I was one of the crowd," he jerked his head in the direction of Picadilly, "in the town." Jim made some reply; he had heard this kind of thing many times during his few weeks wandering. Sometimes the story lacked truth in nearly every detail —there were men who lived or had lived in imagination no end of a gay life; and sometimes the story was patheticallv terribly true.

"Eton and Oxford," went on the voice of the tramp-like figure by his side. "I was a rowing blue—all that sort of thing. The governor died when I was just of age. Death duties of course. My elder brother was the heir, and six months later lie died —accident—winter sports. Death duties again, though loss heavy. We'd found the place—our old place in Suffolk—mortgaged to the last tile, and by the time Ernest had gone west the lawyers decided we'd have to sell. There was only me, you understand, by then and a young sister. She's married now. Queer if I gave you her name. You'd think it queer, that is."

He continued, "I've never bothered her. Married a decent chap, older a good bit, prosperous, made a pile in the North, where they live. Kids, too—two of them. When I slipped out of the stream and washed up along here I felt too rotten to ask anyone I'd known to give me a lift. It's as easy to slip out of life as it is to slip d«wn on a banana skin. You just keep out of the way of anyone you know (you've no chance of meeting anyone except in the street) and you let a beard grow and you stop boiling your linen. Some flapper you havo known may pass you and sing out, 'Oh, isn't that man like so-and-so?' but except for one or two half broken kids like that no one looks at you once, much less a second time."

He paused, deep in thought. Jim jaid nothing, he was giving only half his attention to the story. Some depression lay hazily on his spirit. Then he was electrified. The other man said:

"Quer how ,things happen. When I was a kid, before I even went to a prep, school, we had a governess down in Suffolk, a quaint old bird full of quotations. One of her favourites was about the mills of God. Do you know it? 'With exactness grinds He all.' It caught my fancy even then, and I've seen any! amount of the slow turning of those ponderous wheels in the enormous inill my kid's mind conjured up. Sometimes I tell myself there's a lot more grinding to be done even yet, and I'm always waiting as though actually to hear the creak and scream of the huge stones crushing everything that gets caught between them. There was that chap Conrad Murray. The wheels of God ground him all right." ,

CHAPTER XTX

Jim's body jerked. His impulse was to turn on the other and demand him to tell him everything he knew about Murray, but he restrained himself. This chap at his side was only too willing to tell his story; lie needed no urging; if his story had no interest for Jim he would have found it difficult to get the raconteur to 'stop. Better to wa.it till the yarn held fire, and until that happened to sit quiet, listen avidly and from time to time make acceptable comment.

The story continued.

Conrad Murray was at Oxford with me, same college, same interests. He was no more or less my friend than a dozen other men. We went about together with a number of others. He, too, was a rowing chap. Scotley was another of us. I suppose we had a very good time, though it seemed to us then only the usual thing. Murray and Scotley never thought it anything else, no doubt, and it was not till I got down here that, looking back on it s it seemed to have had'its points. '

"Murray is the chap I think of most. Perhaps I think of him so much because he's dead. You must have heard the hectic way in which he, departed this life. Struck in the neck by a girl in a taxi one night. A queer business."

Jim said, almost against his will,

"Do you think that girl did it?" "She was acquitted, wasn't 6he? Defended her honour and all that sort of thing. The case was never really proved anyway. Oh, she was bound to get off! Sheltering some man—chap she was engaged to—the man who was charged before her —Lacy, his name was." "Lacy, yes. You say the girl was sheltering him." "Undoubtedly. Otherwise why did she fling herself into the breach and say she did it? She knew perfectly well she didn't do it. There may have been a bit of a tussle in the cab, she was a pretty girl from all accounts, but the fact £hat there was a tussle proves what a good girl she was. " Generally you can kiss a girl and be none the worse and she quite well disposed. But this kid, this Doreen Mallory, was either •ho end of a good girl and quite exceptional or else Murray did annoy her frightfully." "Her dress was ripped off the shoulder," said Jim. "A man who's got any claims to decency at all doesn't handle a girl so roughly as that—unless the girl makes him." "It wouldn't surprise me to learn that she tore the dress herself "

"She couldn't have done that," said Jim. "She had no opportunity." "Very well. The girl doesn't concern me at all—at least not know. If she had not got off I might have had to say a word. And of course that would mean dragging quite a first class old name into the dock and presenting the last scion of a fine old family as an unsavoury exhibit. And that, I can tell you, did not appeal to me."

"Why?" Jim demanded. "What did you kuow?" "Oil, nothing much. Only a few facts. ,, "What are they?" Now that this man had got to the most interesting part of his tale he hung fire, he needed urging. 'Conrad Murray/ , said the stranger slowly, "didn't ring true. You know what I mean? He wasn't in the same street with Seotley and men of the Scotley calibre. Ho wasn't in the I same street with my family, either, when all was said and done. But when he came of age he would have a tidv sum of money—a profiteer's hoard—hfs old man having amassed a fortune out of shoddy sold to the Government for the troops during the war. Oh, a verv tidy fortune awaited our friend—but he couldn't touch it then or for some time later, for his hard headed old father, who had kicked the beam about the time young Conrad was an undergrad, had left a will which prevented his young hopeful from touching a farthing till ho was eight and twenty. And eight and twenty was some wa'y off and Murray was always hard up for funds. "Well, he got unusually chummy with me. I suppose he thought I was unusually soft and easy money to him. He borrowed a considerable sum in one war and another. The time came a good bit later, three years ago to be exact, when there was a miserable business in which I, of my own free will, gave him a helping hand out of the devil of a scrape and found myself saddled with all the consequences. It took every farthin* I could raise to meet the thing and Murray never lifted a finger. All he said was, when he came into his old man's hoard he'd see what could lie done. 7 didn't even protect myself, get hi« signed promise, put our" lawyers on to him I was too sick of myself and the confounded mess. Besides*, there wer. circumstances that wouldn't bear the light of day. I had a name to considerhe hadn't. Also. T had a young sisteengaged to a good man—in love with him. And he. I knew, was marrying her as much for her name as anvthin?. Tf did him credit to have an alliance with her. Ko I sold up and paid up and Vev: everything on the square. Tonne Murray. I knew, had an allowance, f vort t" him and asked him to pnt im my fare to the colonies, where T'd spend my time it honest toil till he came into the inheritance, which would not be for ahmi< five years. And he refused me—" "Refused you?" echoed Jim. "Yes. He wouldn't part with a bean He said if he ever got to the age of fcwenty-eisrht and actually inherited anything he'd not forget services rendered, but, he added, doubtless by that time ♦he cash would be all mortgaged to thp Jews." The stranger paused, coughed and waited. Jim sat tense. Then the story was continued. "I can tell you I was ae eick as could be. Without money I couldn't get out

of the country —I was done. But I made up my mind I'd keep the flag Hying to the end. 1 went to my >ister. told her I was sailing: in a few days, hadn't made all Ihy arrangements yet, but this was good-bye. Told her I'd write when I had some news. She was frightfully di? tiessed, but, though I was in such :t hole, no slur was on our name. Everything was square. I left her and c-am<-out here. And here I've been ever since No one who knew had —or has now— any idea I am still in London." Again he paused. "It's not altogether so bad." he sal.!. "If I'd had the gift I could have written no end of a yarn about life as I see it now. Only—l wish I could get cleai before the cold weather comes again. It's rotten in the cold." "Why don't you go to one of the charities?" asked Jim. "Not. I. They might find out. Do me no good, do no one any good. Only some day those mills of God I mentioned just now will grind out justice and 1 shall get my share." Jim said slowly: "You said just now that if the girl, Doreen Mallory, had not been acquitted, you might have had to say a word concerning the murder. Did you know anything!"

''I'll tell you what I do know," said the other slowly after a long pause. •The man who murdered Murray was in the crowd about the Marble Arch that nipht. He was there and I was there. He saw Murray leaning forward in the cab and I saw him, too. He was more interesting to me than the Bolshie the crowd wanted to lynch. The man I watched go up and speak to him did trick. It was done in a moment. I saw him strike. I saw the blood. I saw the murderer move off with the crowd, set away from it and jro into the Park" And the caS drove on with its ehastl\ burden." "What sort of a man—?" began Jim. "Do you want to catch him, my friend? Do you want his description to jrive the police? Knowing what I do of Murray T can only say he was lucky in die as he did. lie never even had time to look death in tli* face." "It's not the police I'm thinkine of." said Jim. "All I want is to be sure. If what you say is true—" "True! True as life. What difference doee it make to you whether all the details are true or not?" "If I could believe it!" said Jim. The other spranjr to his feet. "Talk of the mills of God," he cnerf in a strange, high voice, *j<rin La<3% , the man they charged."

"I'm Lacy all right." "By God! You're the man that plucky girl lied to save." "Lied to save," echoed Jim. -'Did slie lie? 1, "Did she lie? She lid. She ]i.<l. Who should know the truth better tnau myself ? ?, "Vou saw—you say you saw vLu; happened?" "Yes." "\ou are sure he wasn't dead already ?" "He was so far from <U-n<i. my friend. , ')e was so far from dead, that, as Iμ* I leaned forward lie not only saw me, but 1 ho reo-ijrnised vno." "Recopnifed you?" i "Mew.frnised me. He knew me a I . ri?ht. The cab stopped clo«e to me Jie \ I leaned forward and said—he "«d rm i Inane, and he said. "What price Ih* * [simple life, old bean? . That s what he J raid, and I " .. , , Jim Laey started to Ms fret. -And you struck him in the neck. (To be continued daily.)