Sentenced to Death.

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 39, 9 May 1927, Page 14

Sentenced to Death.

By

Louis Jracy.

Author of " The Long Lane of Many Winding»,'* ** One Wonderful Night,” “ Love and the Aces,” 4t The Totten/* &c., &c.

(Copyright for the Author in the United States and Canada by Edward J. Clode, Inc., New York. All other rights reserved.)

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. CHAPTER I. —A young: officer, Antony Blake, learns from a skilled physician that he has not many months to live. One of the valves of the heart is clogged and nothing less than a miracle can save him. He arrives at a part of Regent’s Park where a pony and governess car are stationed which had passed through Harley Street during his interview. The stout driver has vanished. A vivid flash of lightning causes the pony to bolt. As Antony is walking, in a drenched condition, two men overtake and rush past him, one tall and thin, the other short and fat. The rotund runner falls, picks himself up and tears along. Antony notices a sharp-pointed dagger shining in the grass. He picks it up and examines it, finally flinging it into the long grass fringing the shrubbery. He reaches a small wooden hut. A girl is sheltering there. He shelters there also. She tells him she was to meet her uncle, who was driving a pony in a governess car. The two leave the hut, turning to the left instead of to the right. CHAPTER ll.—Blake takes her to her home. Her name is Iris Hamilton. Soon after he is again in the Park and he finds the dagger. About half-past nine he glances through the day’s news. The first item that catches his eye is “Tragedy in Regent’s Park. Supposed Murder.” Another paragraph details how Dr. EnsleyJones found a lohg-bladed dagger in the body of the dead man. Its description tallies with the one in Blake’s possession. He taxis to the nearest police station and tells his story. Blake finds himself practically under arrest, suspected of complicity in the murder of Robert Lastingham. CHAPTERS 111. and IV.—Furneaux arrives, identifies Blake, hears his story, and then asks the inspector for the knife. Then Furneaux invites himself to Blake’s flat. As the two men are making their way to Antony’s rooms, his housekeeper, Mrs. Wilson, says that a young lady had called and left a letter for him. It is from Iris Hamilton and relates to the murder. In spite of happenings Iris Hamilton keeps an appointment. They taxi to the Marble Arch, where Blake phones Mrs. Wilson his change of plans Iris draws his attention to the fact that the short, stout man whom Blake is connecting with the murder has just passed He has a woman with him. An attempt is make to arrest the fat man but the detective is stunned by a chauffeur, while Blake, suffering a heart attack, can only stand by helpless. Iris goes to get help but does not return. CHAPTER IV.—(Continued). “I take it,” he said guardedly, “that you never set eyes on Miss Hamilton ‘‘Hardly, no matter how one may look at it.” “What d’you mean by that?” “A man and a woman may fall in (By special arrangement Reuter’s World Service, in addition to other special sources of information, is used in the compilation of the oversea intelligence published in this issue, and ad rights therein in Australia and New Zealand arc reserved.)

love at first sight, I’m told, but no man in my position would be such an idiot.” The detective looked rather abashed. “I had forgotten that,” he admitted. “The fact is, sir, you seem to be in the best of health. Well, isn’t it obvious that this young woman may know a heap more than she lets on, nnd that she had an eye-opener when she saw that car? There’s no disputing it. She spots this fat chap while you are in the telephone booth She joins in the chase with the keenness of a fox terrier after a rat. She gives you a thoroughly reliable description of the woman’s dress. She even runs to back you up when you had that heart attack, and then she loses all her nerve and bolts like a rabbit. It’s a thousand to one she either recognised that car or someone in it.” Blake smiled wearily. “You are not making sufficient allowance for feminine psychology,” he urged. “Miss Hamilton knew nothing whatever of my particular disability. I—l rather kept the knowledge from her. She may have regarded me as a bit of a hero—one of the strong, silent men we see in the movies and read of in the popular novel. Yet f he moment the steel is tested it turns to clay. Miss Hamilton may be not only thoroughly scared, but disillusioned and disgusted.” The telephone rang, and Barker was in demand. After a few words he crooked a finger at Blake. “Mr. Furneaux on the wire. He wants you to talk. No good in going over the same ground twice, he says.” But Furneaux cut the conversation short. In a couple of sentences he ascertained how the chase had ended. “Can you come straight here’’’ he inquired. “It will not take you twenty minutes by bus from Knightsbridge. I’ll tell Barker how to carry on. In any event, he must let a doctor see that broken head of his. Of course, it has good solid stuff in it. Sucre nom d’un pipe, had it been mine it would have cracked like an eggshell.” CHAPTER V. —A SECOND ARREST —A GENUINE ONE Blake did not hurry to meet Furneaux. He was depressed, almost crushed, by the latest proof of his own physical unfitness. Of course, it savoured of madness to suppose that Iris knew of the murder, or was in any way connected with those actually responsible for it. If, however, she had been vouchsafed a terrifying glimpse of the truth when she saw someone in the mysterious car—if she became suddenly aware of a veritable precipice yawning at her feet —then it was clear that she dreaded the instant result of contributing in any way to aid in the capture of one

whose association with the real criminal could now hardly be doubted. She was far too quickwitted not to realise how unfavourably her action must be interpreted. She might have yielded to a fierce resentment of Blake’s apparent cowardice, but surely that personal consideration could not affect her desire to assist the police in their search for the man who killed Robert Lastingham?

It was, therefore, a quite disconsolate and wholly irritated young man who waited a few additional minutes at the rendezvous on the Ladies’ Mile. He hoped against hope that the girl might return, breathless and eager with some explanation of the delay. She did not come. He heard Big Ben strike the hour of noon, and, somehow the mellow, distant chimes revealed the folly of this aimless vigil. Even then he elected to walk into Knightsbridge, ostensibly to pick up a taxi, but really, as he well knew, to give the errant one a last faint chance of redemption.

Nevertheless in a sense he was fortunate that day. When he reached Albert Gate the first person on whom his astonishd eyes rested was the tall, thin man of the Regent’s Park pair. He was sure he was not mistaken. The man’s face was uplifted in close scrutiny of the names of thoroughfares through which the omnibuses, ever arriving and scurrying off again, passed from that stopping-place. It was evident that the would-be passenger was unfamiliar with the numbered bus-routes, and had to ascertain, from the painted lists of streets, which vehicle he wanted. He was so absorbed in ' the task, not an easy one for a stranger who was also, in all likelihood, a foreigner, that he gave heed to nothing else, so Blake had no difficulty in identifying him. Unlike the stout desperado, this lanky individual had changed his clothes. But his hatchetshaped face, which resembled the conventional portraits of Don Quixote with an added villainy of its own, the jerky, stilt-like movement of his thin legs, their length being altogether disproportionate to the size of a cadaverous body, and the decidedly marked splayfootedness which had brought down the fat man as the two raced side by side along the path in Regent’s Park, were distinctive peculiarities.

Even while this scare-crow of a fellow was being summed up thus

thoroughly, he made a move, having evidently chosen an omnibus which would take him along Piccadilly to Shaftesbury Avenue, and thence Highgate way. He elected to travel on top. Risking disaster, Blake broke into a run, and sprang on to the step of the now fast-moving vehicle. Luckily, his heart let him alone, and he found an empty seat near the door. Then, for some minutes at least, he had time to collect his thoughts. He hit on a working hypothesis almost at once. The stout man and the woman must have walked a considerable distance to the point where the car awaited them. Probably the lady’s rapid pace had upset a time-schedule, and the pair had reached the northeast corner of the Serpentine many minutes before they were expected. Luckily for them the car was there already, and its prior occupants soon had urgent reason to get as far away as possible from Hyde Park without loss of an avoidable second. But the gawky personage now seated somewhere above Blake’s head had% been more exact in his calculations, with the obvious result that his friends had gone when he arrived. He would certainly have dawdled about—allowing them, indeed, as much latitude as Blake gave Iris. Then, aware that the appointment had broken down, he made for the nearest bus halt.

“Excellent!” thought Blake. “That theory stands all tests. Now, how am I to get in touch with Furneaux without losing track of this lad on the roof?”

He solved that difficulty by writing on a page torn from a notebook:

“Kindly telephone to Furneaux, C.1.D., or other officer in charge at Scotland Yark (Victoria 7000) that Mr. Antony Blake, while at Albert Gate soon after 12 noon, saw tall thin man of Regent’s Park entering east-bound bus. Mr. Blake is now in the same bus, and will phone developments later.” He gave this to the conductor, with a shilling, asking the man to hand it to the first policeman passed en route but in such a way as not to attract the attention of any of the outside passengers. The folded slip was ultimately entrusted to a ticket inspector, and Blake saw it delivered to a constable on point duty in Piccadilly Circus. This smart officer was a quick thinker. It was easy to read the pantomime which followed. He ascertained

the vehicle’s number and route, and jotted them down on Blake’s message. Then, signalling a colleague to take charge of two lines of traffic, he hurried across the Circus toward Piccadilly, and, as came out later, Vine Street police station. All this was helpful to a novice; those additional and rather vital facts should have been stated in the note.

Blake, compelling his brain to review the situation as though it ware a problem in tactics set for a StaCf College examination, realised that one more important link should be established: When Scotland Yard got in touch with that particular omnibus the conductor must be able to say positively where the chase took a new curn. A second time, then, Blake had recourse to his notebook.

“If the police want to know where I (Mr. Blake) left the bus, please tell them. In so far as may be possible, watch the direction I take. By so doing you will be rendering Scotland Yard a great service.”

He handed the slip—he could have delivered the message orally, of course, but preferred the written word—to the conductor, with the useful incentive of a florin, and received an answering grin when the man read and pocketed the note and the coin. He was complimented on this ruse later.

“ The detective, even the politician, who can think five minutes ahead of the other fellow is assured of success,” was Furneaux’s pithy comment.

As a matter of fact, Blake had only just arranged matters in that way when the bus stopped near the Palace Theatre, and the long-legged individual alighted. Blake nodded to the conductor, and got out also. An impatient driver had to glance around twice before the starting bell clanged By that time the conductor had made sure that both men were entering Old Compton Street.

Blake, knowing that the quarry had had a good look at him the previous day, now took off his hat, sejuashing ft under his left arm .as though he wanted to cool a perspiring brow. He was well aware that the alteration thus affected could be misleading. Not only was he not so readily recognisable but he stood some chance of being classed as a local resident passing from one building to another in the same street. The trick was entirely successful The thin man, turning into Dean Street, did

actually glance back, but gave no heed whatsoever to a bare-headed person deeply interested at the moment in the menu de dejeuner displayed outside a small French restaurant many yards distant. “So far, so good!” chuckled Blake. Now he removed his coat, since the weather was really quite warm. In Soho the social amenities are relaxed. That which is humorous there may be-

come fantastic in Regent Street. The luncheon-hour in that Continental quarter of London is earlier than elsewhere, so the narrow thoroughfare was crowded already. Blake found his man surprisingly near, standing with his back to a doorway which evidently led to the upper rooms only of a dingy building. (To be Continued).