CHAPTER IX.—WHAT HAPPENED THAT NIGHT.

Otago Witness, Issue 2817, 11 March 1908, Page 71

CHAPTER IX.— WHAT HAPPENED THAT NIGHT.

E who called himself Hector Dallas wheeled sharply round, to find himself confronted by a mail with a light overcoat over his evening clothes, whose cleanshaven, actor-lik© face was thrust forward to within a few inches of his own. "Kenrick ! Ken Herriot !" he exclaimed involuntarily. "Yea, Sir iNbrman Blythe, I am your •old friend Herriot, and I have taken the liberty of breaking through your incognito because I think you want a friend very badly," the other replied. "You are not going to deny your identity, I s\ippose?" "Not to you, and God 'knows you are right about my wanting a friend," said Norman, for Gloria Carrington'6 recent consultant was in truth Sir Bevys Blvfche's discarded elder son. "Then come over to my diggings in Bury 6treet, and not another word till we get there," returned Herriot shortly. In less than five minutes the two young men, entered a cosy set of chambers in the .narrow thoroughfare sacred to bachelors. Herriot led the way into his sitting room, switched on the electric light, and after a glance at his gnesfc went to the sideboard and mixed brandy and soda. "Drink that," he said, "and then tell me what mischief that Carrington woman has been up to to give you such a shock." "You know of my visit to her rooms?" stammered Norman. "I have had my eye on. you since she picked you up at the Ducal four nights ago — (> n the night when the evening papers were full of your father's murder,'

said Herriot. "I don't ask your confidence about any connection you may have with the Monkswood affair, unless you choose to give it ; but I do ask you to trust me as to your relations with Madame Gloria.i I do not believe that she is running straight with you, old chap." Norman took a deep draught from the tumbler, then jerked out abruptly : "I will give you my whole confidence, Ken — about Monkswood and all. You must have changed very much if you would take advantage officially of a private communication made by a poor devil in distress." Herriot nodded, pushed his friend into an easy chair, and, lighting a cigarette, stood on the hearthrug listening while Norman gave a brief account of his return to England with his quickly-won fortune, of his journey down to his native village on the day of his arrival in London after" registering at the Hotel Ducal in the false name he had used in South Africa, and of his interview with John Benjafield at the inn. "My object was to find out how matters were at the Chase before disclosing myself," he continued. "For that reason I sought my foster-father secretly. But when he informed me that Mildred Harden was being annoyed by my half- , brother Paul I decided to go up to the Chase that night and have it out with my relations. They could be friendly or not, as they pleased, but at least I would put an end to the intolerable position in which my Mildred found herself." "If I remember aright your father was rather a trial to her before he turned you out? " interjected Herriot. "All the concession I can make to my father's memory is to say that he behaved in his oups as no one but an unmitigated scoundrel would behave when sober," admitted Norman bitterly. "Anyhow, I was determined that my dear,-sen-sitive little girl should not for a single day longer suffei the insults of either of that precious pair. I asked John Benjafield to sit up for me, and made my way to the Chase. Being very doubtful as to my reception, in order to minimise the chance of a- scandal I did not go to the front door, but went round to one of the French windows of the dining room, intending to tap and ask for admission." j Norman paused, and shuddered at the recollection. ! "When I got to the window," he went 1 on, "it was already open. I had approached noiselessly, co as to choose my ! own time for disclosing myself, and what , I saw as I stood there in the darkness of the garden wild be a nightmare to me I for the rest of my life. My father lay on the floor, close to the dining table, with a stream of blood oozing from his j temple. Over him Mildied Harden was , bending, one hand pressed to the dead man's heart, and her head turned to the ! closed door in a listening attitude. There f was no one else in the room." j "What did you do?" Herriot asked, looking down at his friend with strangely dilating eyes. "I came to the conclusion, Norman I went on painfully and slowly, "that Mi - ! dred might have killed my father in selfI defence, and that at any rate she would bo suspected of killing him if it became known that she had been in the room^ with him. If I went forward and revealed myself I should be oalkd at the inquest, and it would be dragged out of me that I had seen her there. Rather than face the ordeal of having to give evidence so dangerous to her, I fled from the scene and made my w,a,y back to London by a round-about route without going • near the inn." : j "Trusting to Benjafield to keep silence ' about your visit?" snapped Herriot. "Exactly. I knew that he would be as dumb as the grave, through fear of compromising me. The event has borne that out." v * Herriot drummed with his fingers on the mantelpiece, blowing blue smoke wreaths. "Benjafield, I expect, gauged the situation more accurately than you, my friend," he said presently, "for, judging by the evidence Miss Harden gave at the inquest, if your presence in the village on that night were known you would stand in much greater danger than she does. She swore that when she entered the room she found Sir Bevys dead and the window open. You would be susr peoted of having arrived at the window and of having been granted admission before you witnessed the scene which you have just described." . Norman glared at his friend in astonishment fast merging into anger. "By heaven!'* he cried, starting up, "you* impute cowardice to me in running away? I 'will go down to Monkswood openly to-night. I will — — " # "Herriot pushed him down into the chair, cutting short the explosion. "I imputed nothing of the sort, % he said quietly. "And you will certainly not go down to Monkswood yet. It may turn out that you did the wisest thing, but it was right that you should be told what construction might be put upon your action. Now tell me what you have been up to with Madame Gloria Carrington, as she calls herself. Worshipping the j fetish of the crystal, eh?" j "She showed a marvellous insight into 1 my affairs, or I shouldn't have believed i her," replied Norman, rather sulkily. I And he went on to describe how at their first meeting in the restaurant she had told him, apparently by the aid of the portable crystal, that he had just returned from South Africa, and that he was interested in the Monkswood murder. Herriot smiled. "The first fact she proj bably learned at the bureau of the hotel ! or from one of the waiters," he said. "The second she undoubtedly got at in the ?ame manner as I did myself — by | noticing the paragraph that bo engrossed ,' you in the evening paper. But go on! 1 I was watching you from a neighbouring i table, and you went off with^ her to her 1 rooms, if I am not mistaken?" "I did; amd she astonished me still further with the large crystal which she 4 uses professionally."

And Norman related how Gloria had minutely described his fears on behalf of Mildred Harden, and had hinted at the letter's implication in the crime. He justified his continued intercourse with the fortune-teller by a desire to find out more, which would have been impossible if he had seemed to resent her imputations on Mildred. But he confessed that the doubts inspired by Gloria had kept him from revealing his presence in England, as he would otherwise have done after the inquest, since Mildred herself had come forward with evidence that practicably tallied with what his own would have been. "If you cams forward now you would be arrested at once and charged with the murder," said Herriot grimly. "Well, what did she do to frighten you so tonight?" "She professed to read in the crystal that Mildred was drowned," Norman, replied. "It was all horribly realistic — her description of the swift stream and of the body being carried away. It — it unmanned me, Ken." "I don't wonder, my poor chap," said the student of ciiminolcgy, relaxing into a momentary flash of sympathy. "All the same," he went on, as though ashamed of the passing weakness, "you have played the fool considerably in foregathering with a woman who has to step as warily as a cat on hot bricks to keep the police at bay. You may take it from me that there is a v§;ry human motive at the bottom of all this supernatural tommy-rot. By the wav she bled you considerably in cash, eh?" "Not a cent; she behaved — it's beastly to have to say such a thing — as if she had taken a fancy to me." Herriot whistled, then laughed. "She has taken a fancy to your fortune, and possibly to your title, if she knows aa much, as she seems to," he said. "That cleans the ground considerably — to have a clue to her object. By Jove ! but the lovely Gloria is flying at high game this time. Now let me think a little." He flung himself into the chair opposite, and for half an hour spoke no word, shading his eyes with his hand. At the end of that time he raised his head, and, looking across at his friend, remarked suddenly : "I am at fault somewhere. Madame's conduct, leaving her ridiculous assumption of the supernatural on one side, suggests a prior knowledge of affairs at your ancestral home. Are you sure that you have missed, no detail, however trifling on the surface, thatTnight help me?" • "No," replied Norman, after considering the question. "I cannot call to mind that she showed any actual acquaintance with Monkswood or with the people there, nor did, she mention anyone by name — not even Mildred. She alluded to her as 'a woman on whose behalf you are afraid.' " "Hang it all, man! Was there nothing during any of your interviews with her that Taised" your suspicions?" "You might have spotted something with your superior acumen ; all I can say is that I didn't," Norman answered, rather petulantly, and with greater truth than he guessed. For if Kenrick Herriot had had nis opportunities and had caught that fleeting glimpse of the .vanishing stranger, followed by Gloria's delay ' in entering the consulting room, on the ..occasion of the first visit, he would assuredly have remembered it as an item "worth mentioning. But Norman Blythe was no hand at analytical deduction, and he therefore made an omission that was to bear serious fruit. "Well, I can do nothing to-night," Herriot said after further reflection. "If anything untoward has happened to Miss Harden to-day we are sure to hear of it in the morning papers. In any case I will run down to Monkswood to-morrow, and in the meanwhile, if you don't want to be arrested, you had better lay low and preserve your incognito." The two friends talked' for some time longer on Norman's African experiences, and then separated for the night, Herriot promising to call at the Hotel Ducal directly 'after breakfast.