Sentenced to Death.

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 45, 16 May 1927, Page 14

Sentenced to Death.

By

Louis Jracy.

Author of “ The Long Lane of Many Windings,** ** One Wonderful Night/* “ Love and the Aces/* “ The To\en/ f &c.y &c.

(Copyright for the Author in the United States and Canada b3' 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 U 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 condi 'tion, 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 ner Home Her name is Iris Hamilton Soon after he is again in the Park and he finds the dagger About half-past nine ne glances through the day s news. The first item that catches his eye is "Tragedy in Re gent’s Park Supposed Murder.” An other paragraph details how Dr Ensley Jones found a long-bladed dagger in che body >f Lhe dead man. Its description tallies with the one in Blake’s possession. He taxis 10 the nearest police station and tells his story Blake finds himself practically under arrest, suspected of com plicity in the murder of Robert Lastine ham. 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 Tn 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 iust 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 Tris goes to get help but does not return CHAPTERS V. to VII.-—Blake sees the tall thin man at Albert Gate, and atter sending a note to Furneaux, follows him to Soho * Detectives join him and they succeed in finding the haunt of the criminals The fat man walks in and is caught Blake calls on Iris and is surprised at her reception. She warns him to go away quickly An American crook threatens Rlake over the telephone. Blake attends a dinner of detectives where the mention of the name of "Natalie Gortzehakoff" strikes terror into one of the guests. Then Miss Hamilton rings him up but the conversation is cut short. News comes of a fight between the police and a gang at Blake’s house. Blake himself had another heart attack when he was on his way to Iris

CHAPTER VII. —(Continued).

“I’m all right again now,” he answered. “I yield to sudden bodily exertion, and I must simply school myself not to attempt it. My ailment is purely physical. I’m sure of that. Yesterday, in the Marylebone Road, I tried it out by getting myself nearly killed by passing vehicles, and my silly old heart never gave a peep of anxiety. By jove, just think of it! Not yet thirty hours since I heard my sentence and what I have gone through since then! But, don’t mind me. I’m a certain starter for the Futurity Stakes, anyhow. Dash it all, man, if a merely mental upset would lay me out, why am I alive now?” “You mean the worry about Miss Hamilton,” said Sheldon. “If that is all you may rest content. She has not been carried off; that is quite certain,” and he detailed the safeguards adopted by the local police. “Ah, that’s splendid—that’s the real thing!” cried the other joyously. “Do you know, 1 was beginning to doubt the thoroughness of your methods. I don’t know the A.B.C. of crime detection, but it does occur to me, as an ordinary citizen, that more than one member of this murder-gang should have been in the cells long ago. And, even as matters stand, can you be sure Miss Hamilton is safe? Those fiends stop at nothing.” “They will not injure her,” said Sheldon confidently'. Y r et he gave no reason for his belief, and remained studiously silent. Blake’s alert brain could hardly fail to seek an explanation. “Somehow,” he said, when the taxi swept out of crowded Oxford Street into the quieter thoroughfares leading to the north-west. “I have a feeling that you men from the Yard have a lot up your sleeves in this case and are keeping it there.” “Not a bad guess,” laughed the detective. “Well, Mr. Blake, just to ease the position I’ll be candid. It is hardly within my province, but, in this particular instance I have a very definite belief that I. as a junior, may hint at complexities which neither Mr. Winter nor Mr Furneaux would care to discuss. You see, there are certain issues in all semi-political crimes which the men higher up in our show may suspect, but concerning which they simply dare not voice their suspicions.

Indeed, even I cannot be altogether outspoken, though my personal responsibility is far less than theirs. However, suppose we adopt what is known in logic as a process of exhaustion? Did you watch Furneaux’s face while Inglis was letting off steam?” “Who could miss it?” “And what was your deduction?” “That Furneaux was listening almost open-mouthed to a very sensational disclosure.” “No. You were mistaken. We knew already all that Inglis was telling, and more. Furneaux was really waiting for the logical outcome of the man’s own story. But it did not come. In effect, Inglis himself is rather dense. Still, let that pass. You heard the list of men alleged to have been done to death by Natalie Gortschakoff’s agency, or organisation, or whatever it may be. Does it suggest anything to you?” “Only this—that the whole lot were political malefactors of the worst type—self-seeking ruffians responsible for the slaughter of tens of thousands, aye, hundreds of thousands, of innocent human beings.” “Ah. A great thought!” murmured Sheldon. “Do you mean to say”—began Blake amazedly, but Sheldon broke in. “I mean to say nothing more on that point,” he said, producing a cigarette, and lighting it. “Nevertheless, I am at liberty to indulge in the fantastic conceit that the beautiful and languorous Gortschakoff is really a benefactor to mankind?’’ cried Blake, and, in very truth, he was not trying to be sarcastic, but rather expressing a new and astounding thought in the first haphazard words that sprang unrehearsed to his lips. “Did you imagine that Furneaux was

merely exercising his impish wit when he hailed the waiter as Mussolini, and spoke of the supposed vagaries of a Fascisti banquet?” went on the detective, after a pause. “I certainly did.” “Well, he wasn’t. He was casting another fly across the Scottish salmon to see whether it would be swallowed, the fish didn’t rise. In effect, Inglis'is not on the inside of this inquiry. He was brought to Pucci’s to-night merely to give us some personal data about Robert Lastingham. He is doing that now, I have no doubt. He will go home to his Dulwich villa feeling that he is a devil of a fellow, and in read peril from La Gortschakoff’s vengeance should it ever come out that he breathed a word against her. It is just as well he should continue in that belief. It will keep his mouth shut. But he is absolutely safe. So, oddly enough, are we of the Yard, so long as we don’t play too strong a hand. Mark my words, we shall not find one policeman killed, unless by accident, as it were, if there has been a rough-and-tumble outside your flat while we are in this cab. By the way, we shall be there soon. We are now in Upper Baker Street.” “Having said so much, Mr. Sheldon, won’t you throw a little more on the screen ?” “As, for instance?” “Why the reference to Mussolini?” “Hasn’t he inaugurated most successfully a new, yet age-old, method of governing a people? Isn’t he a ■ictator? Isn’t there another in Spain? course, they claim to be true demo*o.ts. So did Napoleon, who always professed to represent the French nation. But what of votes, of parliaments, of government of the people by the people for the people? That has

all gone by the board in Italy, in Spain, in Russia, in Turkey and right through the Balkans. Where will the ‘strong man’ system stop? How soon will it appear in Germany and France, even in England?” “I should say, at first sight, so to speak, that England will be the last to fall.” “How do you mean—fall?’ Blake, in spite of the grave developments which might be met with at the close of that momentous taxiride, had to laugh then. “Mr. Sheldon,” he chortled, “are there revolutionaries in the higher ranks of the Criminal Investigation Department?” “I might retort by asking you to define a revolutionary,” said the detective. “What is the use of shutting one’s eyes to accomplished facts? The world is changing. The old, tried paths are crumbling beneath our feet. Are there not men in this country striving by might and main to crush representative government? If you have not discovered that, Mr. Blake, there are others who deem themselves more far-seeing. Evidently you will be surprised to hear that forty young enthusiasts have formed a secret society which will be heard of before long. They think that if the youth of England could die to save the world during the Great War, they can risk imprisonment or death now to rescue the land they love from the danger of social collapse. So they have decided to warn certain marked men whom they regard as the fomenters of disturbance that if there is not an immediate and complete cessation of evil activities, the persons who have received what is described as the first and only notice shall be beaten within an inch of their lives. But the process of reform is not to stop there. Any sign of renewed zeal will earn the death penalty. I tell you this because the first batch of warnings has been issued, and the threats may be made good any day. That is why this Regent’s Park murder has come at a rather opportune moment. If an example has to be made it had better be at the expense of Natalie Gortschakoff and her crew of cut-throats than of our own hot-headed and wellmeaning lads.” Blake’s pulse began to race somewhat. Even while he strove to disguise the notion that had danced into active life in his brain, he tried to analyse the almost occult distinction between physical and mental impulses \yiiich irritated his enfeebled heart in the one instance, yet left it unmoved in the other. “Is it possible for an outsider like me to get in touch with those boys?” he inquired nonchalantly, as he hoped. Sheldon chuckled. “Not through me,” he said. “But ” “Now, don’t be foolish, Mr. Blake. The world will not be put right by murderous enthusiasts. The average man has no use for Ku Klux Klan methods. Reasonable discussion, an unflinching adherence to the principles of law and order, a real belief in the greatest good of the greatest number, yet taking care that good shall not be

confused with evil —that is the way out. Nations, like individuals, are apt to be rather selfish, of course. So it comes to pass that when your Gortschakoffs and the like use the pistol and the dagger to remove objectionable folk elsewhere, we, in England, do not lose any sleep o’ nights. But it is a bird of another colour when murder is done at our doors. That has got to stop. I don’t suppose for a moment that Robert Lastingham was any better than a lot of people whom we class as undesirables. The fact remains that he was struck down in broad daylight in one of our parks, and the person or persons responsible for his death will be hanged for it in due process of law. My theories are not contradictory. They resemble the British Constitution, which is made up of seemingly opposing forces, just like electricity when it becomes active. And now, please forget every word I have said. If you don’t, and quote me as your authority for some stupid nonsense of the sort, I shan’t have the least hesitation in describing you as the most accomplished Ananias known to this generation.” St. John’s Wood Road wore its customary aspect of semi-suburban calm when the taxi drew up outside Blake’s flat. A policeman strolled past, but faded into the shadows when Sheldon murmured his name. Obviously the rather strenuous affray described to Winter by the station sergeant had escaped the notice of the general public. But that is often the case in a large city. An episode calculated to set a village by the ears for a week will remain utterly unknown to nextdoor neighbours in a London street, always provided, of course, that the scene is laid in a quiet residential district, where life is not the intimate thing it is in the slums. “Let me lead, please!” said Sheldon, as they entered the house. “You have a latchkey, I suppose?” “Yes, but the latch is seldom in use. As a rule, 1 just snap the hand-lock when I go out.” They were waylaid by a breathless Mrs. Wilson, who began to weep when she saw Blake. “Oh, sir!” she wailed. “Oh, sir! What goings-on! I never ’eard a thing till I ran upstairs an’ found a policeman niled to Mr. Hope’s door.” Mr. Hope, by the way, was an actor in lurid melodrama. A fearsome villain on the stage and an exemplary ciitizen in private life, he would be a most surprised tragedian next morning when Mrs. Wilson told him of the excitement overnight. “Don’t be alarmed now, at any rate,” said Blake, with a reassuring hand on the trembling woman’s shoulder. “Those scoundrels will never again come within a mile of this place. Is Miss Hamilton all right?” “I think so, poor thing! I left your door open, so I ’eard ’er scream. But they didn’t hurt ’er, though I can’t think ’ow the mother of such a sweet girl kime to be mixed up in it.” “That’s all right, Mrs. Wilson,” said Sheldon. “Don’t come with us. We want to enter the flat without being overheard. A little later on you shall tell us everything you saw and heard.” (To be continued.)