SENTENCED TO DEATH

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 50, 21 May 1927, Page 18

SENTENCED TO DEATH

Louis Tracy

Author oj The Long Lane of Many Windings '* One Wonderful Night,” Love and the Aces,” “ The To\en,” &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. j CHAPTER I.—A young officer, Antony Blake learns that he has not many months to live. He arrives at a part of I Regent’s Park, where a pony and governess car are stationed. A vivid flash of lightning causes the pony to bolt. As Antony is walking, 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 dagger in the grass. He examines it, finally flinging it into the long grass fringing the shrubbery. He reaches a small wooden hut. A girl is sheltering there. She tells him she was to meet her uncle, who was driving a pony in a governess car

CHAPTER II. —Blake takes her to her home. Her name is Iris Hamilton. Soon after he is again in the Park and he finds the dagger. The first item that catches his eye in the night’s paper is “Tragedy in Regent’s Park. Supposed Murder." Another paragraph details how Dr. EnsleyJones found a long-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 F rnt-aux invites himself to Blake’s Hat. As the two men are making their wav 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. CHAPTERS V. to X.—Blake sees the tali thin man at Albert Gate, and atter sending a note to Furneaux, follows him in Soho. Detectives join him and they succeed In finding the haunt of the criminals. The fat man walks in and is caught. An American crook threatens Blake over the telephone. Blake attends a dinner of detectives where the mention of the name of “Xatalie Gortschakoff” 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 has another heart attack when he is on his way to Iris He goes to the flat with a detective and Mrs. Hamilton is arrested for complicity in the murder. Xatalie rings up Blake and he agrees to take luncheon with her. He is blindfolded and taken in a car to Natalie’s home where the villainess receives him graciously.

(’ H AFTER X. —(Continued). Blake took the chair she indicated, which stood near the inner wall of the room, and opposite two high windows closely screened by white lace curtains. Thus, there was plenty of light, but no details could be seen of the buildings, if any, across the road, tie noted, however, that the house faced north. “I hope you are not assuming a depth of knowledge I do not possess,” he answered, since she seemed to expect him to say something. “Perhaps, then, you will tell me why you have interfered in matters which cannot possibly concern you?” said the lady. The question .was direct enough, but its terseness was softened by her manner. The queer thought leaped instantly into Blake’s mind that she was using sentences conned in preparation for his visit, and that her command of the English language might not be quite so thorough as he had imagined from their brief talk over the telephone. “I’m sorry, but I don’t follow that,” he said. “What? You profess not to know that the stupid London police believe I am responsible for the death of Mr. Robert Lastingham?” “I am not acquainted with their beliefs on that or any other subject,” he countered. “It is true that during the past forty-eight hours, more or less, I have met certain detectives from Scotland Yard, who are inquiring into Mr. Lastingham’s murder, but I came into prominence only because J myself was the first person to fall under suspicion, and my own physical description was circularised widely in police circles within a couple of hours - of the discovery of the crime.” Natalie Gortschakoff had sunk into the cushions of a low chair, and her posture, which might be unstudied, revealed a pair of shapely ankles, to say the least, clad in silk stockings of a shade which matched a close-fitting brown skirt and knitted silk jumper. She sprang forward alertly now, in such wise that her clenched hands clasped her knees. Evidently, her temperament demanded bodily as well as verbal interpretation of the emotions. “What is this?” she cried, and her golden eyes pierced him with an intentness that was almost disconcert-

“I think we are at cross purposes, mademoiselle,” he went on, having evolved a line of action which he imagined could be made to appear utterly candid. “If you will be so kind as to explain why you have brought me here with so much mystery, I am quite prepared to be equally outspoken, and let you know exactly how far 1 am concerned with the Lastingham affair.” “But you knew the man, and that girl, whom he described as his niece?” she protested, and her brows wrinkled curiously in the effort to readjust her judgment to a new and unexpected angle. “No. A mere denial holds good if you imply any degree of real acquaintance. I did not know Lastingham. I have seen him only once in my life, at half-past three o’clock last Wednesday afternoon, when he was driving through Harley Street. At that time I had never even heard his name. I met Miss Hamilton by accident for the first time about four o’clock that same day.” “But is it not owing to you that Giorgio Belgrade is now in prison?” “Again—no! It is owing to his own carelessness. But, really, mademoiselle, you compel me to point out that you are seeking information, not giving it.” “Mistaire Blake,” she cried earnestly, and somehow he did not doubt her sincerity, “what you say defeats my purpose. I wanted to warn you against the danger—the terrible danger, of hindering the development of certain projects which affect many people not of your race. But you have—how do you say it?—upset my apple-cart. No, no. I do not mean that —it is patois, vulgar. You rob me of my motive. If we have no cause for quarrel, why should I go out of my way to threaten? I have been misinformed —me. It does not often happen so. I must make inquiries as to how such a thing can be.” Blake realised instantly that his disclaimer might be highly injurious to Iris Hamilton's interests, since there could be no doubt that her version of events in Regent’s Park and his own attempt to shadow the tall Levantine had brought him into the erratic orbit of that sinister planet, La Gortschakoff. "I see,” he said, affecting to weigh the situation judicially. “You regarded me as what the Americans term a butter-in. Do you follow that?” “Oh, yes. I have friends—many friends, among Americans.” “So, if I reveal just what happened so far as I am concerned, you will be •better able to decide on your own “Si I Yes. That is it.” Without preamble, he told her who he was, and how the idle chance of a glance through the window of a con-sulting-room in Harley Street made him aware of the primary fact of Robert Lastingham’s existence. He explained his absurd action in risking death or disablement while crossing the Marylebone Road as a self-imposed test of a heart which the best medical opinion had just declared would not last out six months. It was perpectible that Natalie Gortschakoff did not grasp the precise significance of his words I forthwith. When she did.—because it

was necessary that she should understand the action of the police in searching for the lunatic who had disappeared shortly before the murder in the direction of its supposed scene—a flicker of .surprise in those wonderful eyes of hers changed her whole aspect. For a few seconds she was just a sympathetic woman and not a redhanded revolutionary.

He showed how his discovery of the pony and car fixed the exact locality of the murder. Then, when the thunderstorm broke, and the frightened animal bolted, he could not help noticing the flight of Giorgio Belgranp and his companion, while the meeting with Iris Hamilton in the hut was a quite commonplace incident. As a logical sequence he connected the moving away of the two men with the commission of a crime which he read of hours later in his club. Meanwhile, the police were scouring London for him, because Miss Hamilton, when visited by a detective, had spoken frankly of her own experiences. “So, now you see, mademoiselle,” he said, “how I came to be pitchforked into the affair. The rest of my adventures are just as accidental. Miss Hamilton and I, going down the Edgeware Road, yesterday morning, encountered you and Belgrano. How could I help setting the police on his track? Then, when Miss Hamilton recognised her mother in the car which whisked you .away so effectually, she was scared, and made for home. 1, not knowing this, waited for her return, and thus ran into the tall man, 'unnamed, Belgrano’s pal, and put in a piece of detective work which led him and me to your flat in Dean Street. It’s a complex story, but extraordinarily simple in its working out. For example, who would have dreamed at this time yesterday that you and I would be sitting here to-day discussing it?”

He had rambled on in this easy manner in the hope that some sharp interruption would clear up one, at least, of many things that puzzled him. He had left out any reference to the loss of the dagger in the Park and his subsequent retrieving of it. He knew he had told Iris how he came on the weapon in the first instance—had she spoken of it to Furneaux in Mrs. Hamilton’s presence? Apparently not. Natalia Gortschakoff was far too engrossed in the other essentials of his strange story. Yet, with the uncanny divination of those women, luckily few in number, who exercise a disturbing and. baleful influence on mankind while they live, she nearly hit the direct trail by her first question. “What of the knife?”- she said, and her glance was so searching that Blake felt she could read his most secret thoughts. “’What knife?” he demanded, with such genuine surprise at her discernment that passed muster for ignoranec of her meaning. “The which that fool Belgrano allowed to fall from its sheath in Re- , gents Park.”

Why, he never knew, but he seemed then to blunder into an avenue of escape which he took unhesitatingly. “Now, look here, mademoiselle,” he said, simulating a nervousness he did not feel, “it is hardly fair to me if you begin talking about knives. You are well aware that I shall retail ever word of this conversation to Scotland Yard. I have told you quite fully how I came to be entangled in a net spread for others, and I don’t see why I should be caught up in it further Why drag in Signor Belgrano’s knife, if he owned one? Only a few minutes ago you described the police as ‘stupid’ because they suspected you of complicity in the Lastingham affair, yet here you are asking me if I know what became of a certain knife. In the next breath, I suppose, you will reveal that Belgrano’s knife was found sticking in the dead man’s body?”. “No,” she said. “The police are mistaken. Neither Belgrano nor—nor his friend, the tall man—killed Lastingham. Nor did I. though I would not have hesitated an instant if the task had been mine. Appearances are against Belgrano and the other, who, of course, may be arrested at any hour, because he is a conceited fool. But

not a shadow of responsibility is attached to either. Nor can they tell your Scotland Yard who executed Lastingham. I think they do not know, because his death was a blunder. I am stating facts. The man should gone unscathed while he remained in England. Within a week or a fortnight something of the truth may be revealed —sufficient, at any rate, to warn this country that, powerful as she is, she cannot control all the rest of the world. Unfortunately, Mr. Blake, you and that very good-looking young lady. Iris Hamilton. have caused all this subsequent trouble. If I decide now that both of you shall escape the penalty earned by meddlers in grave events, I want your honourable undertaking that you, on your part, shall cut yourself off completely from any further share in what you probably regard as an exciting manhunt. What do you say?” Blake leaned forward. He rested his arms on his knees, and met a lambent glare with unflurried composure. “It can’t be done on those terms alone, mademoiselle,” he said. “I’m interested in Miss Hamilton. I must know that she is free of personal risk before I leave London.” The woman’s eyes narrowed suddenly, and Blake was reminded of Iris’s apt description of her, “The Pan ther,” for a panther is of the cat tribe, of which all members share in the same characteristic—the pupils of the eyes expand or contract as the light they meet is feeble or strong. Apparently Natalie Gortschakoff had been vouchsafed an illuminating glimpse of an unforeseen difficulty. “Misere de Dieu!” she cried, “are you, too, one of her admirers?” Fortunately, Blake’s crude AngloSaxon qualities did not betray emotion in the feline way. The thrust

irr.itate.d him, he knew, but he parried it with a skill born of instant necessity. “I have no doubt Miss Hamilton is liked by all who have the privilege of her acquaintance,” he said. “I, with the faintest claim of the sort, wish her well." I . suppose I need hardly urge the absurdity of any stronger feeling on my part, seeing that I cannot live the year out.” Once more did Mademoiselle Gortschakoff’s expression soften perceptibly. “Are you quite sure these doctors are not mistaken?” she asked. “One consults such men because one has faith in them,” he said. “I might be tempted to disregard their opinions if there were no definite indications that they are well founded. But hardly a day passes without a somewhat severe reminder. I had one yesterday in Hyde Park, or your car would not have got away so readily.” “Why, then, this Quixotic interest A knock, and a man-servant entered. “Luncheon 4 is served, madam,” he said. Blake, to use his own words.- was “Completely bowled over” by the appearance on the scene of a solemn and discreet ultra-English butler. A pallid Russian or plump Levantine would have filled the bill admirably, but this placid fellow, whose like would be met

in ten thousand houses in London at ■ that hour —well, wonders w’ould never cease. The lady rose. . “Come, Mr. Blake,” she cried, agreeably. “I think half-past two is the time-limit you fixed? It is not a quarter past one yet. We can carry on with the coffee and cigarettes.” Thus, rather adroitly, he thought, she had warned him that serious matters were taboo in the presence of her domestic staff. They crossed the hall to the room on the west of the entrance. Like that on the east it had two windows facing north, but another opened out to westward. All three windows were screened by the white curtains, but Blake believed that the house occupied a corner of the street and was well recessed in a garden with shrubberies and some trees. The furniture and decorations of both apartments were eminently British —in fact, worse, being mid-Victorian. It followed that the place had been rented as it stood, and, in all likelihood, by someone with an English name. That the police should trace Natalie Gortschakoff thither, unless she or her myrmidons committed some indiscretion. was almost impossible, because it might be taken for granted that few, indeed, of the nondescripts who frequented the Soho flat were aware of this secluded retreat. (To be continued.)