Under A Dark Shadow . . .

Free Lance, Volume I, Issue 9, 1 September 1900, Page 14

Under A Dark Shadow . . .

I REALLY think, John, you ought to have a bar put to the shop door," said Mrs Heartwell ; " there is hardly a day that we don't hear of some burglary." " If the housebreakers can force or pick the fastening on the shop door, then I'm no locksmith," answered her husband. *' There is not such a lock in all Brailfcon, and if the rascals can manage the wards and springs in it, I'll give them leave to come in." Alice Heartwell, busy with her sewing, listened to her father's words, but kept lier eyes on her work that they might not betray her thoughts. "Well, John, have your own way," said Mrs Heartwell ; " but for all that I prefer two safeguards to one." John Heartwell was too proud of his lock to put any other fastener on his shop door, but he was sorry for his reliance the day after he had rejected his wife's suggestion. "I never thought that lock could be picked," he said ruefully to the sergeant of police who came to inspect the premises. " It don't look to me as if it had been picked," replied the officer, as he examined the lock which Mr Heartwell had detached from the door for his inspection. ■" You see, the wards are all bright and without a scratch. If this lock has been opened it has been with a key." " I'll warrant that no key but the keys made for this lock will open it, and nobody outside this shop has got one of them," said Heartwell. " Well," replied the officer, "someone has taken three pounds four out of the ■drawer under the counter. Either he must have come into the house or he must have been in the house already." " The missus, my daughter, and myself are the only people in the house, and I don't suppose you mean to insinuate that one of us has robbed the till," exclaimed Heartwell. "Of course not, Mr Heartwell," protested the other ; " but none the less it is a mysterious case. Unless the money "was taken before the shop closed." " No ; for I put a shilling into the drawer the moment before I shut up for the night, and saw the other cash there." replied Heartwell. "As you say, it is very mysterious." " Any way, you can make sure for the future by a bar and a bolt or two." " No," said HeaJtwell, " I am as certain as you are that the lock has not been picked, because no one could do it, so I'll just screw it on again and see what comes of it." Mr Heartwell promised himself that he would keep awake that night and surprise the thief, but he was a good, heavy sleeper, as was his wife, and closed his eyes about a minute after he found his head upon his pillow and did not open them again until the clocks had told Brailton that it was 7 in the morning and time for working people to get up. If John had carried out his intention of wakeralness he might have opened his eyes a little wider than usual. It was summer time, so that at 5 in the morning there was broad daylight. Thus Alice did not need any candle to illumine the staircase which led from her bedroom to the shop. As she entered the latter, a young man turned over in his sleep, and, sitting up, gazed with a moment's bewilderment as the girl approached him. " I was forgetting where I was," he explained. " I haven't been here for a few days." Alice felt convinced that he was telling a falsehood, but she did not choose to say so. " I have let you sleep here for the last fortnight when you had nowhere else to go," she said. " Dear Alice, it is very good of you," he replied. " No," she said, "it is not good of me. It is without father's knowledge, and I know he would not allow you to be here if he knew of it." "All because I'm unlucky," sighed he. " He says that you are a ne'er-do-well," replied Alice, " and if he, who is your uncle, forbids you the house, I feel that I am wrong to enable you to enter it." " You mean you want your key back," he said. Alice nodded her head. Then her cousin handed her the key of Heartwell's wonderful lock, without a word. The young girl unfastened the door and the next minute the man was in the street. " So, William," she said to herself, " the return that you make me for giving you a shelter at night is to rob my father." The next day Alice looked into her

workbox to see how much money she had got hoarded there. Heartwell was not a mean man, but the people in Brailton were simple folk, and didn't expect their wives and daughters to have extravagant ideas. Thus Alice with all her searching could only find about 45 shillings. Then she remembered her gold chain, which she only wore on high days and holidays, and put it in her pocket with her savings. In half an hour she was in that part of Brailton which was most distant from her father's shop, on the lookout for a pawnbroker's. An establishment being discovered, she entered the side door timidly, and producing her chain, asked to have two pounds advanced on it. The young man teste.l the metal with acid, looking at her in the meantime, and finally asked her " for how long." She said she didn't know, but she would redeem it as soon as she could save the money. Then the assistant suggested two months, adding that she could " back " the duplicate at the end of that time, if she should not have the money to take her chain out of pawn. So she got her two pounds less interest and duplicate, and went her way. She had used enough caution to give a false name, and a thick veil considerably concealed her features. Her next visit was to a post office, where she obtained postal orders for three pounds four shillings, which she enclosed in an envelope previously addressed in a disguised hand to her father. This she posted at once. " There," she thought, " that will make me the loser instead of father. And it just serves me right. But who would have thought that William would have been a thief ? " Next morning John Heartwell left his shop and went straight to the post office indicated by the stamp on the postal orders. " Would you tell me," he asked, " the sort of person who got these orders ? They have been sent to me without any name, and I don't know to whom I should acknowledge them." The young woman could not at first remember. Luckily she was of the sex that was likely to take notice of dress. " Was it a young lady with a drabcoloured coat on with pearl buttons?" began Heartwell. " Oh, yes ; and a black hat with three red feathers," interrupted the young woman. " She was a dark, handsomelooking young lady, as far as I could see through her veil, and seemed to have been crying." " Thank you, miss " said Heartwell. Tnen he went away with a heavy heart. " I thought I recognised Alice's writing, tho' it was disguised. Well, she has soon repented, but I'd have sooner lost the money than have learnt who took it. If her mother gets to know it she'll be broken-hearted." So poor John locked the secret safe in his own miserable breast and returned home. u I think you were right, mother " he said to his wife, " I ought to have a bolt on the shop-door. I was far too reliant upon that lock of mine. Of course, it must have been picked by some thief or other." So, with a great show of care and caution, he made one of his men put a couple of strong bolts on the door, and tested their strength as if his boasted lock was not to be taken into any account. Then the matter seemed to have ended, for nothing more was said about the robbery. Meanwhile Alice was thinking of her cousin William. She knew that all love between them was over for ever, but still she worried and fretted in fear of what would become of him. Without having shown himself a bad fellow previously he had never settled to anything. He had enlisted and served his time without any misbehaviour, but as soon as he got his discharge he went back to all his old irregularities, with the additional damage arising from the association of an old comrade as much of a ne'er-do-weel as himself. "Alice is looking but poorly, John," said Mrs Heartwell. "Do you think she is taking to heart your shutting the door upon William ? " " Maybe she does, mother," replied her husband, who had a far gloomier impression of the cause of his daughter's pale face. " Tho' I don't know where to find Bill if I wanted to give him leave to come back." " Maybe a stay in London would do her good," suggested Mrs Heartwell. " Shall I write to my sister Jane, and ask her to have her for a month ? " Heartwell agreed to the proposal, so in a week Alice was sent to London, and there her face got thinner and paler. " Poor gal," thought her father, " it's her conscience. Why doesn't she confess it

to me and let me tell her I forgive her, as God knows I do." • • m Ten months had passed since Alice had posted to her father the amount which had been abstracted from his till. Her conscience was quieted by having made herself the sufferer of her own disobedience in giving her cousin the means of entering the house which he had been forbidden by her father ; but her grief at the thought of her cousin lover stooping to theft was undermining her strength and destroying her young life. Far away in South Africa, in the beleaguered town of Ladysmith, two troopers were talking in the gloaming that was darkening into night in the ward of the hospital. " The doctor has told me that I have no chance of living, that the fever will carry me off, Will, before another sunset," said the soldier who was extended on a mattress. "So I want to tell you the shame of my life. You remember the few days you shared my garret in Brailton ? " " Just before we enlisted," said Will Heartwell, for the other trooper was Alice's cousin. The sick soldier nodded, then he turned his face from his comrade, that he might not meet his gaze. " I knew all about your cousin lending you the key that let you into your uncle's house when you had nowhere else to sleep. Well, I was as hard up as you were. I took that key one night and I got into your uncle's shop and stole all the money I could find." " Great heaven ! " exclaimed Heartwell. " That was the reason for her having the key back and shutting the door upon me." " I have written it all out," said the dying man, " so that if you ever get away from this place you may clear your character with your cousin." " Clear my character, John ! " caied out Will. "Do you think there is the least chance of my ever reaching England again ? Of all the treacherous and coldblooded men who are besieging us there is not one who is so great an enemy to me as you have been." " I would have told you before, but I was ashamed," said the dying trooper. " Will, tell me you forgive me-" Then he handed his comrade the confession which he had written out. " This is not the time to bear malice, answered William, " but you have wrecked my life." Then he pressed the other's hand in token of forgiveness, and left him. The trooper passed John's confession into an envelope covering a letter addressed to Alice, which he had written upon the chance of Ladysmith being some day relieved. All this time Alice Heartwell had grown weaker and weaker. She was not only lovesick, she was heartsore at the unworthiness of her cousin. But where doctors failed the General Post Office succeeded. Ladysmith had been relieved, and William's letter, with the statement enclosed exonerating him, reached Alice, who there and then made a frank confession to her father. Meanwhile William was coming home, severely but not dangerously wounded. He was welcomed by his Uncle for Alice's sake, and as soon as the trooper can get his discharge, John Heartwell will give him his daughter's hand and a share in the business.