THE NEXT-OF-KIN.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5221, 30 December 1927, Page 4

THE NEXT-OF-KIN.

(By

A. A. KENNY.)

Ever sincq he landed in Auckland Tom Hilton had been out of luck, and the approach of the holiday season found him jn anything but a festive mood. 9.'nee the day he left his father’s office and ran away to sea he had had a good many ups and downs, followed varied occupations, seen much of thei world, and, on the whole, enjoyed himself. But on these bright December days, loitering, unoccupied, in streets where the shops and newspapers were busily heralding Christmas, depression overtook him. To a man whose self-confidence, was shaken by a succession of failures to obtain any billet he applied for, and whose last few pounds were fast disappearing, the Merry Christmas atmosphere was merely an aggravation of discontent.

He took to scanning the advertisement columns very closely, and one day .his own name flashed at him from among the Personals. At first he thought it was metrely a coincidence, and then excitement stirred him.

“Will the children, if any, of the late Walter Hilton, solicitor, of Sydney, communicate with Robert Hilton, of 18 Hilton Road, Kingsville, when they will heat 1 of something to thejir advantage.”

He know that his father was. the son of a prpseprous man Who had owned land ih the neighbourhood *of a growing town, but beyond the fact that his father had quarrelled with the elder Hilton and left New Zealand never to return .he knew almost notning of his own family history. The prosperity might be a thing of the past, and the grandfather dead, for all he knew to the contrary. But the namei of the plaice and the Christian names mentioned in the inquiry made him practically certain that it was himself and no other who was invited to apply for the unspecified advantage.

He lost himself in drqams for an hour, and then, with characteristic decision, took the. train i|or Kingsville and presented himself at the address mentioned. He was received, not by Mr H'lton, but by his legal adviser, Mr Savage. Tom was confident and elated, but no sooner had he made himself and his errand known than he was aware of an air of surprise in the other, quickly tinged with an irony that made him very uncomfortable.

Mr Savages was elderly, and pleasant of appearance, but he gave the young man a shrewd scrutiny s he took the printed cutting Tom offered him. “The paper you cut this out of must have been at least a week old,” he remarked.

“I don’t think it was,” stammered Tom ; “but to tell you the truth, I never looked at the date. The f.act is I didn’t buy it —someone else had lqft it on a seat. But I- don’t see what difference it makes.” “It makes a good deal.” He made no explanation, and Tom sat looking at him rather nonplussed. “I suppose,” he said after a pause, “that I ought to have dug up some credentials. Proofs of my identity are required.” “They would certainly be required if—” “If what ?”

'“lf you consider it advisable to go on with this.”

“That’s pretty plain. I must look more of a dead beat than I imagined. In. the face of that advertisement I do consider it advisable. I suppose you didn’t happen to know my father When; he lived hero thirty er so years ago.” "I knew Walter Hilton/’ A slight change of expression altered the old man’s face.

“Then (have a good look at me. I was considered like him as a boy.” Tom rested his arms on the table and turned his alert sunburned face to the light. Mr Savage adjusted his pir,ce,-nez and examined him thoughtfully. “I suppose,” added the young man, “that I shouldn’t have, blown in like this unt'l I’d written or cabled to Sydney. Trust me to go the wrong way about a thing. But I’d like to know w)iat makes you so sure I’m not the man I claim to be.”

“I am not sure —now,” observed Mr Savage; quietly, “only the position is a little difficueit.” “I don’t see why. Either I’m Tom Hilton, or I’m an (imposter, and it won’t take long to find out.”-' “The thing is,” said the lawyer, “you are a little late. We withdrew that personal nearly a weiek ago when the only, descendant of waiter Hilton arrived here and was recognised and accepted by the old Mr Hilton ;as. his grandchild.” Tom Hilton sat upright in his chair.

“You mean to say that there’s a fellow here, claiming to be my father’s son—-to be, me that is, for 1 was an only child.”

“Not to be you exactly, but claiming to be the person Inquired for in this advertisement.

“Well, I’ll bej damned !” exclaimed Tom, with rising anger- “I don’t care if I don’t get anything out of it, though I am pretty near, broke, but I’ll have no other fellow playing off an -impersonation of me while I’m about. He’ll find he’s struck some--thing. I say, were you taken ip as wqll as my grandfather ? Did you believe it was the genuine article ?” “I was quite sure —until you came ill just now.” “Thanks for that admission. It is a pretty queer position, isn’t it.”

“L’ke you,” said. Mr Savage, “this claimant came without credentials, and has since sent for them.” “Yes, and I bet they’ll be a long time coming. Does; he look like a Hilton, this chap ?” “Undoubtedly.” “Does he call himself bv my name, Tom Hilton ?” “Not Tom Hilton.” “What then?” “Ar.ne Hilton.” “Good God I” exclaimed Tom ; “you

don’t mean to tell me the thing is a girl ?” “I’m afraid so —quite a pleasing one, too.” After a pause Tom said brusquely : “Well, it makes no difference. I d rather it was a man, but it makes no differencei. When can I s.ee my grandfather ?”

“You are sure you will have no difficulty in establishing your identity ?” “None whatever. You’ll see, Mr Savage ; this Anne Hilton will flit the minute she hears of me.” “I’m not sure that she had better hear of you just at once. If) you will take my .advice you will do. nothing but observe the situation until your credentials do come to hand- I should likei to know a little more about you on behalf of my old friend and client, Mr Hilton, if you don’t mind answering a few questions.” “Not in the least,” replied Tom, with a shrewd idea that the more Mr Savage knew about him the more completely convinced he would be of the genuineness of his claiim.

They talked for an hour, and the upshot of the interview was that Tom found himself invited to spend a quiet Christmas .with the old lawyer and his wife, and from that vantage point, and under an assumed name, to make the acquaintance of his grandfather. “We generally go to see Mr Hilton on Sunday afternoon,” said Mr Savage, “and take afternoon tea in his garden. It is only five minutes’ walk away from my house. The gardens and orchard are his. hobby, and the whole place ns beautiful. Y-pu will meet Miss Hilton, too, of course/’

“That will be a privilege,’” said Tom drily, “and a mighty interesting one, too.”

He met her before he made the acquaintance of hi>s grandfather, for when he and Mr and Mrs Savage entered the Hilton garden on Sunday afternoon she was standing alone a small tea-table set under a fine plane tree. All his, preconceived ideas vanished in the few seconds occupied by conventional greetings. Here was a slender, pale, serious girl, deeply reserved yet sweet in manner, far younger than he had imagined, and inconceivably far from the adventuress type of woman. He did little but look on and listen while the. two elder people and the girl conversed. Mrs Savage, who, alone of) the group, was unaware of falsity and cohcealment in the situation, talked with a kind simplicity that covered any constraint in the others. But Tom was intensely interested in the girl, and he soon managed so to engage her attention that she had to speak to him and give him the opportunity of looking her very squarely in the eyes, “She’s wary—she’s scared and on guard,” he thought; but in the moment when she smiled at him she was not. Perhaps his secret preoccupation with her gave him an interested expression which seemed friendly, for her eyes answered his with something unexpected and not wholly strange, as if the one individuality touched the other wfth a flame of unaccountable understanding, a natural sympathy that pierced through convention and reserve.

The arrival cf old Mr Hilton learning heavily on a stick added another forcible undercurrent of personality to those already active in the group. He was one who made himssf) “felt" in any -human contacts, a grim, stern old man, with tyranny manifest in his eyes and voice. When Tom was presented, and faced him and shook hands, he. was. aware of kinship but not in the least of sympathy. He knew at once in some curious way that the girl was much afraid of this old man, and his curiosity about the situation was heightened.

“She may well be afraid of him,’ - he thought. “He bullied my father, and I happen to know that that mus-t have been a considerable undertaking ; and she thinks she can put a thing like this across a man like that; and sjhe’s not only up against him she’s up against me, too. I; wonder how she came to do it.”

He looked h.er over again, almost forgetting his part of casual stranger. She was not quite pretty ; too thin, and the young face a little worn and (harassed. Brilliant eyes, though, and a finely balanced head and neck. Her mouth was delicate—-he surmised that i t would have been too pale but for a judicious, use of lipstick—and she had a slight characteristic mqvement of the lips in speaking which he found very pretty and’engaging. As soon as he and Mr Savage were alone together the latter asked him how he was impressed by his grandfather. “I don’t wonder my father quarrelled with him,” said Tom. “He’s rather formidable, isn’t he-” “He is indeed.’ “And, look here—what is the game? He doesnt seem to me even to like that girl.” “He was disappointed in her ; disM appointed, that is to say, that his only grandchild was a girl.” “Oli ! was he. Is he a very wealthy man, Mr Savage ? Dp you think, for instance, that there might be someone else behind this girl ? She can’t possibly hope to keep up such an unsafe game for long. Do you think thq idea is to clean up as much as, she can and disappear ?”

“Some such idea seems the most probable thing, but her chances are very slight. I don’t think he keeps a very great deal of mopey in the house, nothing worth big risks, certainly ; and he is not the man to be wheedled put of money. It is rather an idea of his that he is a mark for crooks.”

“No I. shouldn’t imagine he was easily wheedled,” said Tom. “But look here, Mr Savage, I don’t much like what I’m doing. I’m awfully obliged to you, and I’m going to do as you say, but I don’t much like tricks and double-dealing, so the sooner the

thing is bust up the better pleased I’ll be.”

“Quite so,” said Mr Savage ; “but you want to make a certainty.tof it, don’t you, and not lay yourself open to suspicions by appearing before Mr Hilton with an unsubstantiated story.”

“Oh yes I suppose so,” agreed Tom. “He glowered savagely at my block for several moments to-day without appearing to be struck by any overpowering family likeness. There wouldn’t be much difficulty in having a row with him any time.”

Although the girl Anne Hilton was much in Tom’s mind, and though he confessed to himself that he found her attractive, he had no wish to follow 1 up an acquaintance that could only end in open antagonism. But the mild Christmas festivities of the Savage household, and perhaps, as well, an innocent taste for matchmaking on the part of Mrs Savage defeated his intention and he was thrown into her society- on terms of more than ary ease and gaiety, and wast obliged to be >he.r partner and escort in all the youthful amusements of the season. He liked to be with her ; the charm and interest he had felt at their , first meeting was not dispelled but he would have scorned the idea that he was half in love with her. A few days after Christmas he ""as sitting on a garden seat under the plane tree, with her, and the talk drifted from tennis matches and teas to the subject of Mr Hilton. He had been a little but of health and freely displayed the irritability common to such a condition. The mere mention of him seemed to depress Anne. . “He loses his temper so fiercely and suddenly,” she said, “that he shakes and turns, ashen pale, as if he might drop down and die. It frightens me because, after all, I am very much a stranger to him. You know how I came here,” she added abruptly, and looked away. “You have heard about his advertisement ?”

“Yes,” said Tom, a little drily, and produced a packet of cigarettes from his pocket.

“I almost .wish I hadn’t come,” she murmured.

Tom said nothing, but an inward conflict of feeling gave him a queer expression.

“He wanted a relation, a grandchild,” the girl went on ; “but he doesn’t like me. I shouldn’t have come—only—”

The implications pf that faltering “only” held Tom’s attention, but she did not continue.

“You think he really doesn’t like you,” he said at length. “I know it. He won’t let me do anything for him. He has got a man from town to help him catalogue his books, and do some other secretarial work, and I could have done it. I wanted to badly, so that I could feel of some use.” “That thick-set fellow who seemed to be studying botany among the shrubs as I came in ?”

“Yes, his name is Mann.” “Well, I hope he’s useful, for he’s not ornamental.” His seemingly careless, glances showed him that the girl was looking ill and disheartened. “She’s taken on a job she hasn’t the nerve for,” he thought, “and it’s my guess that she’ll very soon be missing.” His former suspicion came into his mind and he looked with some attention at the thick-set Mann, who was was visible peering at a flower through a magnifying glass.

“You’re letting it worry you, Miss Hilton,” he said.

' “Yes.” Her voice was, fatigued. “I really want —someone, to talk to—l wish I could talk to you—but I ctin’t.” Tom’s pulse quickened, but he re-’ mained very quiet, and after a pause said: “You’ll find me very reliable if you do, and quite willing to help you all I can.”

But his suspicions were not allayed. Mr Mann was unobtrusively much nearer than he had been- a few minutes before. Then he fancied he saw a glance pass between him and the girl, and devilment stirred in him. He leaned towards Miss, Hilton, cigarette in hand.

“Suppose you do,” he said softly and significantly. “Do what ?” She glanced quickly at him, swift to feel a change in his manner.

Toni was, regarding- her with nar-

rowed eyes, and his lips pressed together in a half-smiling, insolent way- “ Let me in on it,” he said under his breath, and watched her face narrowly.

“Let you in on it 1” Their eyes met in a stare of blank consternation on her part and shrewd scrutiny on Tom’s “I—don’t—understand.” She let the words fall and shrank away from him. “Yes you do,” he said in a friendly tone, “but you don’t need to be seared of me.. I’m for working with you like a pal, not against you.”

She shook her head in a bewildered way, but Tom went on.

“You don’t suppose an old miser like this old chap hasn’t been marked down long ago by more than your crowd. The grand-daughter idea is as good a one ds any, only it means quick work before the real one turns up. Look here ; you know the lie of the land inside now ; you let me in to-morrow night and I’ll show you a few things about safe doors.

“So —that is what you think I am,” said the girl in a constrained voice. “And that—is what you are.”

“Much of a muchness, are,n’t we ?” he said with a smile. But she sat dumbly looking at the ground. The approach of Mr Mann cut short the scene rather to Tom’s annoyance. Ann 1 rose and walked slowly awav without even a conventional! word of parting, and Tom could see, that she was trembling. He withdrew his- gaze from her to find Mr Mann looking attentively at him. He rose and looked the stranger over without any pretence of politeness. “Did you manage to overhear much of what we were saying?” he inquired calmly, and sauntered -away as if he had no occupation whatever.

Nevertheless he was rar from idle during the rest of the day. His movements rather puzzled Mr and Mrs Savage, and in the evening he was missiing altogether. With his hands in his pockets and his hat over his eyes he was standing sentinel outside a little overgrown gate leading out of the Hilton garden into a side road. Hours passed, bitt he had a stubborn patience and waited on until all the lights in the house went out. At length the gate swung softly open and a girl came out carrying a small bag. At her first step away from the gate she found Tom Hilton standing squarely before herShe started violently, and then stood still without a word._

“Miss, Hilton," said Tom, makipg it plain that he meant to detain her. “Where are you going like this ?” “But—it does not matter to you. It’s no business of yours,” she managed to say in a shattered voice. “It may be more my business than you think ; but I deceived you to-day. I’m not in any crook line of business.” “You’re a detective,” she said, and backed into the, hedge behind her as if she would have fallen. “Are—you arresting me ?” “I’m not a detective, only it happens that I know a good deal about you, and 1 don’t see why you should impose upon trusting people and then slip away when you like.” He. was not without compunction at the terror into which his action bad thrown her, apd he was a good deal perturbed when she began to sob, leaning against the dark hedge and covering her face as if she could enure. no more, and did not know which v.ay to turn.

“If you know—all. about me,” she managed to say, “you know the reason, the excuse for what I have done." Tom clutched at these words jvith a hope that surprised himself. He was longing to think well of he.r, to console her in her distress. -

“Do you really think I’m a thief ? After all, I’ve done nothing. There is nothing but my clothes in the bag —vou can- look.”

“I won’t look,” said Tom, coming closer and taking her hand. “And don’t be so distressed, pleasd; I’m so sorry to ihave alarmed you. I. don’t know all about you, only a very little, and that probably all vgong. You said to-day that you wanted a friend to talk to. Talk to me. Miss Hilton, Anne, you know we’ve been making' friends fast all this we,ek—make it a b’t faster still. It’s been very hard to think badly of you; Why did you do this—do, for God’s sake, tell me the excuse.”

(To be concluded on Wednesday next.