(FOR THE FREE LANCE CHRISTMAS NUMBER )

Free Lance, Volume V, Issue 233, 17 December 1904, Page 4 (Supplement)

(FOR THE FREE LANCE CHRISTMAS NUMBER )

THE Boaid of medical men looked graver than the Splunx, and deeper than the ocean. "Evidently very serious ceiebral disease," said the senior medico of the thiee. "What else can it be?" The man is found i mining like a. madman along the Queen's Drive, clothed only in a bathing suit and a mantle of seaweed. It is evidently hi«> intention to pursue and murder a poor, unemployed person, who has been sunning himself on LyeJl's Bav beach. Ask lam any questions about it, and, he is madly mcohei eiit and violent. Allow him to go on raving in this fashion, and vou will have to put him m a padded cell at the Asylum pretty quickly. "I'm. afraid," said No. 2 medico, glancing searehino r lv at the asntated form of the lunatic "that we'll have to advise the magistrate to commit him to the Asylum." "Asylum, be hanged'" roared the lunatic. "What the dickens are vou miserable medical fatheads " But No 3 medico placed a firm white hand over the mouth of the violent person, and sat him m a chair, where his face worked convulsively, the knotted veaiis in his forehead palpitating like worms on a wet Wellington morning. "He says he has no friends in Wellington," continued No. 3, "but O'G-houl, the detective, tell me he is really the noted safe-burglar, Silvei, who broke into Ragton and Milner's drapery store last month. His continuous crimes have evidently unseated his reason, and here he is a gibbering, malevolent imbecile." "Look here, you oonfoundedi ass'" broke in the lunatic , 'Til " The doctors tried to calm him, but he bounded to a chair, lifted it high in the air, and smashed two doctors right and left with it, butting the other art his gold presentation watchchain with violence, and dashed for the door which was locked. Arising, two of the doctors closed on the lunatic, and bore him to the floor, while the third produced a straightjacket from the cupboard, and installed him in it. Five minutes later, one doctor at the telephone asked: "Exchange? No. 14683. please! That the police? Send conveyance for dangerous lunatic!" Then, the doctor felt his head, whereon a bump was swelling visibly. So the dangerous lunatic was charged with being a madman at large, and consigned to the Mental Diseases Hospital. The doctors had done their duty The trabliic was protected and ■fche medicos had time to plaster their abrasedl scalps and pat each other on the back. O'&honl, the keen-eyed plain-clothes constable, had thrown up his milk round at least two years ago, in order to. join the police, of which he was so brilliant an ornament. He was a man of such marvellous intuition that his comrades prophesied a big future for him. He was always finding out things. One of his favourite occupations was to disguise himself in a moustache that every Wellington pawnbroker knew at half-a-mile, and execute a flanking movement on "Uncle's" with a gem of purest ray serene from Birmingham. He would pledge it and, in doing so, take stock of Uncle's store and Uncle's self. O'Ghoul wasn't a rich man, and, although he always suspected pawnbrokers of nefarious designs, he wasn't above doing a trifling deal with Mr. Aaron himself. He had "information" that a gang of clevei sneak thieves

were working the town, and a suspicion that Mr. Aaron was a ' fence " That's why, shortly before Christmas, O'Ghoul, in the guise of a man-about- town, down on his luck, strolled into Aaion's icpository, and planked dow r n a 1 ing. "How much on it?" he asked. Aaron looked! at the quality of the client, and the quality of the ling. "Same old Brum. Got any more of 'em? Fourpence." O'Ghoul took the foui pence and the ticket, whale his eye wandered round the shelves. "That's a nice-looking suit up theie'" he said, pointing to a gorgeous check, which cried "tourist" aJoud m its every fold. "Pledge 9 " he continued "No; it's for sale." 'How much?" "Oh, we'll say a couple of quid to you'" "Let's have a look at the coat." Aaron handed it down, ancl O'Ghoul divested himself of his own, and tried it on. It was a decent fit He tootk the pants and l held them dangling against himself. They were reasonably near the length of the O'Ghoul lea:. O'Ghoul would spend his Christmasi holidays inhabiting: that gorgeous suit. He took the clothes, and went away. He found nothing to arrest Aaron for on tins, occasion, and Aaron smiled sagely at the marvellous ingpnurtv of a detective- who raised fouvTjence on a -nng while he had £2 to buy a =uit of clothes Lady Mary Vandaleur, an eldeily and 1 stately dowager, whose baronet husband- had long since relinquished his title to his son, having broken a thick, red 1 neck over a Leicestershire "bullfinch," had been enjoying Napiei society for some time She had been combining business with pleasure, for, although of a highly philanthropic tendency — she knitted countless stockings for the savages of Guli Guli, and examined social institutions in New Zealand—she had an eye to the possibilities or Napier girls. Her son, Sir Charles, who was fishing the colony, and doing other aristocratic things, had been a heart-breaking youth at Home, but when he was judicially exposed by his philanthropic parent to the chaj-ms of Miss Beatrice Bretherton, the lovely daughter of a Hawke's Bay sheet> king— himself of the real blue Bretherton blood — he became less erratic than usual. Anyhow, he had cornered' Beatrice m one of her father's paddocks one soft day ai August. "D'you know, the mater and I are thinking about going Home soon," he told her. "I've squeezed all the fun squeezable out of this country, and trere's nothing left for a fellow to do, don't you know. Awfully nice people in Napier, though'" he said, as an after thought. Beatrice bit her l.p, and said nothing, with great coyness. "Why don't you ask your pater to let you 'do' Europe, Miss Bretherton? Jolly place, England. Rippm' times in London, don't you know. You'd like it awfully 1" "I should samply hat-e it," spoke Beatrice. "Away fiom everyone I cared for, everybody I really loved'" f ßut, I should be there!" pondered Sir Charles, looking at the toe of his riding boot, and making a out at a gaunt, red-topped "Scotsman" with hisi whip. Beatrice rippled amusedly : "But, you are not dad, or mater, or anybodv I — ■" "Love?" he asked. "Yes." "Why, you don't mean to tell me you

don't love me " asked the a&tamshed baronet. "I have never tried!" Beatrice blushed beuitchmgly. 'But, couldn't you try?" "I don't have to try — Chaihe'" Sii Charles noticed that the head of Bcdtnce was drooping, so he reined up alongside, and put his shoulder where lie thought the head would stop droopmg. It stopped theie until the horses asked plainly, with wicked eais and scuffling hoofs, to> go When Beatrice and Chailessat down to the Bretherton dinner table that night, my lady cast an experienced eye over them, and smiled sagely. "Very satisfactory'" she said musingly, as her nuwd' hung a thick grey switch of hair over the corner of the mirror that nicht in the Bretherton guest chamber. "I beg yaur ladyship's pardon?" said C'ecile. 'I said vou mav so, Cecile. That is all. Thank a ou. Goodnight'" * * * Napier society promised itself a good tme ■« hen it was announced! m the Hawke's Bav Hummer," that Sir Charles Vandaleur, Bait., of Leoper Hall, Leicestershire, would wed Beatrice, dauerhter of Bracev Br&thertoin, Esq., of Meiino Park, Hawke's Bay. Napier women, try as they might, had not been able to arrest aniv baronets previously, and the wedding, which was to happen during Christmas weeik, would be a magnificent excuse to ask squatting fathers to write, cheques for milhneis * * * Sir Charles, always erratic, some days previous to the great occasion, had crammed a collar and a toothbrush into a bag;, and told his mother he was going to Wellington to buy a few things foi Beatrice at Mawson and De\\ait't>, the great jewellers. Lady Vandaleur said she would go too, but the erratic Charles was on board the tiain city-bound before Cecile had even begun to prepare her lady for the journey. Still, her ladyship didn't worry. She knew that Charles was erratic. "I'm going to put up at the 'Old Elm.' " he hadi said as he shot down the Bretherton path in the Bretherton buggy. "See you there, mateir'" So two days' later my lady swept into the entrance hall of the Old Elm, and was dujy installed as the most distinguished guest at that hostelry Accommodated with a suite of rooms, the dowager rang for a servant : "Is Sir Charles Vandaleur m ?" she asked. "I'll see. m'lady." The servant went away to find out. He returned. "Gentleman by the name of Vandler came here two nights ago, m'lady, with only a handbag, 'ad his dinner, and 'ad champagne to it, and slep' one night 'ere. He goes out in the mornin' without payin' his bill, and 1 we ain't seen him, since'" "You may go," began her ladyship, "buW The man stayed his flight. "Was the "gentleman Sir Charles Vandaleur P". "There ain't no Sir Charles in the book, m'lady • simply 'C. Vandler.' "' Her ladyship heaved 1 a sigh of intense relief. "Vandler — not Vandaleur," forgetting that the erratic Charles was frequently too rapid to worry about such trifles as a vowel or so. * * • Plain-clothes Constable O'Ghoul was "giving the girls a treat," as he coarsely put it. The fortunate females of Cuba-street had just been honoured, and the long-haired denizens of Man-ners-street were in the raptures occasioned by the sight of a well-set-up figure in a striking tourist suit, doing the block. . . . At a street intersection, driving rapidly, came a hired barouche, containing a dignified dame, and approaching the same corner was an electric car. The horse, regarding the car with much

distrust, began, after tlie manner of his kind, to ' play up" in tne c=pot< on whu.cn he could be most easily killed. l'ua> was O'Ghoul's chance of distinguisliing nunsedt. He crossed the street, grasped the horse's head, and drew the carriage out of the way just as> Lady VandaJeur, the occupant, exclaimed : "Charles 1" "I beg yout paidon, Madam!" said O'Ghoul, intensely proud of this recognition of his distinguished' appearance. ''I must beg yours, sir!" responded her ladyship, with aristocratic hauteui. "Your clothes seem so familial." The last words were forced 1 out of her ladyship. It wai one of O'Ghoul's conceits carry visiting cirds. He searched his waistcoat pocket. He had some loose pasteboards, oi wh.ch was written. "Detective O'Ghoul." Selecting one, he glauced at it befoie serving it on the lady. It bore the words, "Sir Charles Vandaleur, Bart." Hife astonishment nearly got the better of him, but he hastily pocketed the card, and produced one of bus. own, which he tendered. "A detective?" asked the lady. "How very fortunate'" And. while O'Ghoul fidgeted, she told him about the disappeared Sir Chaile-, Vandaleur, who was to be married the day after to-morrow, at Napier. She rather wondered why an experienced' police officer should squirm a,')d colour whiJe she spoke. "Your best guide to my missing son," she said, having ms-tructed him to find him, will be that he was wearing a suit which is a fac simile of the one you are wearing. He is bound to be wealing it, for he brought no luggage to Wellington " She asked the detective to call on her at the Old Elm in the morning to report, and, dismissing him at the street corner, drove away. O'Ghoul went home. He gave the girls no moie treats that day. For two hours the man of clues sat on his bed, and stared at the card of Sir Charles Vandaleur, and then he had a meal of cold corned beef, cucumbers, and beer, went to bed, and dreamed; that the Police Inspector was chafing him with a coronet in one hand and a pair of handcuffs in the other, calling on him to surrender and be made a baronet, or he would stab him with a visiting card. In the morning, the worried' O'Ghoxil, on reporting himself at the office, found a note from the Asylum, asking him to come out and identify the latest violent lunatic as the notonoriß safe-breaker, Silver. After some chaff from his fel-low-ofßcers on his "tourist's rig." he departed from the station. He had tame to notice that Lady Vandaleur was getting into a first-class carriage, at the other end of the tram. Arriving at the Asylum, the detective was taken by one of the istaff to the room in which, the violent lunatic was confined, and was warned to act cautiously, as he had developed homicidal mania. The door was opened, and O'Ghoul stepped in. The Lyell's Bay lunatic glowered at him. "Another idiotic ass!" commenced the patient, and then, taking in the O'Ghoul at one glance, yelled': "Why, the bounder's wearing my suit. I must be mad!" O'Ghoul was satisfied that the villain who was struggling to get away from two powerful attendants, was in very truth Silver when the door opened, and a voice was heard to say : "This way, my lady!" And then the guide explained to that eminent philanthropist, Lady Vandaleur, "that this is the man who broke into safes, and went mad." The violent lunatic broke all bounds, and said "Mater, is that really you?" "Charles, my dear boy, what on earth does this mean?" was her startled re* sponse. For the first time since Sir Charles's capture he was allowed to say some very trenchant things without check, and Lady Vandaleur appealed to the au-

thorities to at once release her son. This, of ooui.se, was out of the question, for had not the gallant O'Ghoul sworn tli at lie was Silver? And, where was the gallant O'Ghoul, anyhow? He had disappeared in the scuffle. • ♦ w Hawke's Bay society thought columns of uncomplimentary things when the morning of tho Vandaleur-Bi ethexton wedding an wed, and there wdi> neither a Sir Charles nor a Lady Vandaleur at the church. When the wedding party assembled, a weeping Beatrice and a redfaced 1 squatter, armed with oaths and a stockwhip, were the chief mourners, and Beatrice said -she never could have believed it of Charlie Mi. Biethorton retired to hi* study, Beatrice retiied to hei room, and Han ke's Bay society retired 1 to talk scandal. As the squatter sat, pondering over the events of the day, a servant brought in tho latest "Hawke's Bay Hummer " The'e was general news, and a bilious leader a few accidents, a princess's elopement and' ' "A Strange Affair in Wellington'" "A Baronet's Unfortunate Adventures!" ' A Case of Mistaken Identity"" BreitJierton read intently — "At the Magistrate's Comt, Wellington, before the S.M., a man, who, it will be remembered, was sent to the Asylum, having been certified at> insane, was charged with a s«nes of burglaries. Plain-clothes Constable O'Ghoul had pieviouslv identified the supposed lunatic as the man Silvei , foi whom the police have been looking for some time "Prisoner alleeed he was Sir Charles Vandaleur, Bart A distinguishedlooking lady in court coiroborated the statement, alleging she was the prisoner's mother. The prisoner gave a circumstantial account of his movements, saying that he had left Napier to come to Wellington on. business. "The morning bucceedmg his arrival he had' walked from the Old Elm Hotel to Lyell's Bay, to bathe in the ocean. Ho had purchased a bathing suit in Cuba-street. Arriving at Lyell's Bay, he had placed his clothes under a lock, and had enioyed the water for about half-an-hour. Noticed a man steaJ from behind a sand-hill, take up has clothes, and run in the direction of Kilbirnie. "Had left the water, and chased the man. In the pocket of the waistcoat there had been a gold hunting watch, with the Vandaleui arms — a rooster rampant — engraved on. the inside of the case "At this juncture, a man rose in the court, and' remarked 'That's dead right. Here's the ticker'' and held it up to view. The man was immediateilv anested. On being sworn, the man said his name was Pinchbeck Silver. He was a birelar out of work and he was sick of the life, and) was going straight in future. He had 'got away with the swell's clothes, and had sold them to Aaron, the pawnbroker, of Dinkum Lane, city.' "Moses Aaron, subpoenaed at half-an-hour's notice, sworn, stated 1 that the clothe* had been sold 1 to Constable O'Ghoul— (Left sitting)." * * * Mr. Bretherton 1 ushed into Beatrice's room, without ceiemony. "Beaty." he laughed, "read that!" Beatrice read, while her face changed quicker than cinematograph films. Then she burst into tears : "My poor darling Chailie!" she said. "I'd like to punch that blithering policeman's head !" said Bretherton. "Oh, you, will nunch it, won't you, pa?" asked Beatrice, rapturously. "I think you can trust Charlie.!" said the squatter. Lady Beatrice Vandaleur (nee Bretherton) and heir husband. Sir Charles, are sitting, cosil-^ adjacent, before the Brethierton window, which looks over

the sheep-dotted emerald meadows ot Merino Pai k "Doesn't seem much like Christmas day to me darling'" said Charles softh "Why, Charlie?" "Oh, well, don't you know, I — ah — well, I s'pose, because there's no snow about!" "Don't be a lunatic, there's a die<u Chaihe!" ♦ • * And through the yearn to be Beatnce is going to contiol her erratic husband by asking him not to be something he never was