The Splendid Sacrifice

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 220, 6 December 1927, Page 5

The Splendid Sacrifice

Or "ri f -T

J.B Harris-Burland

Author of. “ The Half-Closed Door/* “ The Black Moon,” '* The Felgate Taint.” " The Poison League.” Ac.. &c

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS CHAPTERS I. and ll.—Mrs. Eden sobs because Joan, her young daughter, engaged to Sir Richard Pynson, is going to marry and will soon leave her. Mary, the elder daughter, tries to console. Later in the day Joan herself is caught sobbing by Mary. She confides that she cannot bear Sir Richard, but declares she must and will marry him because she wants luxuries and a life of ease. Mary learns that Joan loves another, but she does not treat this seriously. They go to London to get Joan trousseau, and Mary takes her sister to a jeweller’s, to buy her a wedding gift. Joan sees a wonderful diamond ornament, but the price is £1 200. It is put back on the counter. A few minutes later it is missing. F us " tomers are not allowed to leave and are searched, but the ornament is not found. Joan has a way of absenting herself from the hotel, where they are staying, for hours at a time. Her sister surmises that she is meeting the man she. is in love with, nicknamed “the r 9, tt:^ r “I can do what I like, Joan replies, when called to order. Later on Joan sobs her repentance, and Mary forgives. Tvo men come to the hotel where the Edens are staying. One of them is the pro prietor of the jeweller’s shop, and the other is a detective. The latter places the diamond ornament before them. It was found hidden away in some of Joan s underwear.

CHAPTERS 11. (continued) and 111.Joan denies all knowledge of the theft. Mary confesses to having stolen the ornament, and Joan is allowed to go \farv in her defence, says it was a sudden temptation. The affair is kept as orivate as possible. Mary goes to Hollowav Gaol for a month. Mrs. Eden is told that her elder daughter has had a breakdown and has had to go to a nursing While Mary is waiting for her case® to come on Joan confesses to her that she took the diamond. Mary attributes this action to * th ® S°^? r * wi u°b2 right m Th[s gentleman* arrives at the Snl°n f W- ta abou?° S M^ b -M«v ; , . aTuVTewSen she 1 Joan, is married. Sir Richard tells her that he knows Mary is in prison. CHAPTERS I I I ich < £.d nti t n o U k d eep n M l aT^ disgrace^ secret, R an<^ r pleads he? sisters r'he» r “ S .M V ess re* es? S? h “?■ Vow Hef t al of havinl bee h n ¥n r pri£n?' tries to war and cruelty in the world. rv AND V. —In the letter to |™ d h- ns 'time! soml brute of a fellow had t<?ld Dick, and demanded money.

CHAPTER V. (Continued). "\ 0 I took it. I’m mad a bou J . n d Richard doesn t like them. Je Mary turned and looked at her sister. Then she said, “I must be getting, downstairs dear. We shall miss our train Good-bye, darling, and you must —you Simply must make your marriage a success.” The two sisters remained for a few moments, clasped in each other’s arms, and no one who saw them then could have realised how far they were to drift

apart—how swiftly they were to travel on their several ways. There was the summoning hoot of a motor-car and Mary ran downstairs.

CHAPTER VI. Sir Richard Pynson sat alone in the great library at Carne Court. The desk in front of him was strewn with books and papers, and light was thrown on them by a single electric lamp with a green silk shade. He wrote slowly and steadily in a diary—a large, costly book, bound in purple Morocco. A telephone instrument stood within a few inches of his right hand. There was an air of modernity about the scene, visible in the small circle of light, that contrasted strangely with the rest of the room, now hidden in darkness. The desk was such as one might expect to find in an office. The telephone, a typewriting machine, the bell-pushes set in the table, whereby Sir Richard could summon his secretary, his footman, his housekeeper, or his chauffeur in the far distant garage, were all out of place in a fifteenth century room that still retained its timbered roof, and its windows with their stony tracery and pointed arches. This room was the only part left of the old Abbey which had been granted to Sir Richard’s ancestor on the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The rest had been pulled by a Pynson of the 18th century, and most of the material used for the building of a splendid new mansion, decorated and designed by Robert Adam. It was this one room in all the house that Sir Richard Pynson had always loved, even in his boyhood. As a bachelor he had practically lived in it, and now that he was married, he worked there in the mornings, and read there in the evenings when his wife had gone to bed. Rarely could he get Joan to stay in it for more than a few minutes at a time. “It depresses me, Dick,” she said. “I think of all those old monks. And you say it was once the chapel. I don’t think one ought to use the chapel as a library.”

So, whenever Sir Richard wanted to be anyone, he went to the library, and he was sure that he would not be interrupted. He was still an ardent lover, but he was old enough to realise that a wife and husband ought not to be constantly in each other’s company. Joan semed to realise that too, for she' never raised any objection when he said he wished to read or work. She had her own boudoir —her own books, her own dogs—everything that she wished. Sir Richard had showered gifts upon her, but among the gifts there was not a single article of jewellery, except her engagement ring. You need no adornment, he had said, when she had commented on his peculiar objection to jewels, “and besides, jewels are unlucky in this family. My mother never wore any—nor my grandmother. There i£ some sort of a curse. I believe.” “An odd sort of curse,” Joan had thought when she accepted this explanation, and she would have thought it still more odd if she could have looked over Sir Richard’s shoulder, as he sat at his desk and had seen the writing in his diary. “Paid X £350 to-day,” he had written, “for ruby ring that was stolen by Le T. in the burglary, at X’s house, and

recovered by the police. Le T. will be hanged on Friday for the murder of X’s footmanj It is curious to what lengths men and women will go to possess a jewel. Le T. gave this ring to his w’ife. A woman would sell her soul for a jewel, and send the soul of a man to hell.”

Sir Richard closed the book, locked it, and placed it in a drawer, which he aiso locked. Then he filled his pipe, lit it, and leant back in his chair. This was a curious hobby of his—this collecting of jewels which had cost men their lives and women their honour. There was no morbid love of the horrible in Sir Richard’s mind. He was writing a book on the subject a book that would one day be published at his own expense. It was doubtful if many copies of it would be sold, but it would always remain one of the curiosities of literature.

It was a strange hobby, and a secret one, for Sir Richard went to work very carefully to secure his specimens. Not even the keenest journal-, ist had so far discoverd this admirable subject for a sensational article Everything had been acquired through

trustworthy agents. The jewels were kept in a special safe in the library. No burglar had ever tracked them down to their resting-place. The hobby was a secret, but it would have been no secret from Sir Richard’s wife if it had not been for Sir Richard’s sister-in-law. Under the circumstances it would have been Hardly possible for Joan to have been taken into his confidence. She would —so he thought—have instantly demanded the sale of the whole collection. She could not have lived in the same house with them. To Sir Richard these jewels had, by a stroke of Fate, become a sort of skeleton in his cupboard, to be hidden away from his wife. Most certainly if he showed them to her, she would wish to wear some of them, and unless he explained the object of the collection, she would rightly regard him as an unreasonable tyrant, And if he did

explain—well, that Would make things even more difficult. But he was not going to give up the work of years—even to please Joan. So there were the jewels—for his own eyes alone. He walked to the door, locked it, and then opened the safe. One side of it consisted of a nest of shallow white enamelled steel drawers set one on top of the other. He pulled one of the drawers toward him, and there was a soft flashing and twinkling, like a galaxy of white and coloured stars. Every jewel was numbered, but there was no other clue to its history. He picked up No. 7, a beautiful Renaissance gem—a ship in full sail, made of enamels and rough cut emeralds and baroque pearls. It was not the kind of thing a burglar would have selected, but it was worth two thousand pounds. It had once hung round the fair neck of Lucrezia Borgia.

He replaced it, and shut the drawer. He was not in the mood to gaze with rapture on his collection. The safe had a combination lock, and he reset the letters into the word lover. Then he closed the great door of the safe.

and moved the discs until they formed no word at all. And, as he returned to the desk to put away his books and * papers, he heard a loud knocking on the door. Sir Richard Pynson paid no immediate attention to the knocking. He quietly put away his papers, and then went to the door and unlocked it. “What do you want?” he said to the footman. “Don’t you know my

orders? You can telephone to me from the hall.” “I did not know the door was locked, Sir Richard. And then —I lost my head.” “What’s the matter? You look scared. What’s happened? Come in. Don’t stand there like a fool.” The man came forward into the room, and Sir Richard closed the door. “Now what is it?” he said. “You look as if you’d seen a ghost.” The young man—he was a very thin, tall young man, with a clean-shaven face—answered, “Yes, Sir Richard—it must have been a ghost.” “Stuff and nonsense! Why didn’t you lay hold of it?” “It was the ghost, sir—the one they all talk about in the servants’ hall. One of your own family, sir—meaning no disrespect—the gentleman that was drowned in the lake ever so long ago.” “Oh, that foolish story! Well, I’ve never seen him; but you’ve had better luck. Tell me all about it.” “Well, sir, I was just taking a stroll through the grounds before going to bed, and smoking my pipe, when I came down to the lake, by the path that leads through the rhododendron —

“By yourself, Daniels?” i The young man blushed. “Not exactly by myself, sir,” he re- ' 4 plied. “All right,” laugh ted Sir Richard; “go ahead.” “We sat down by the lake, sir—on that little wooden seat ” “Yes, I know. A snug little place—bushes all round it, except on one side, where you can see the lake.” “Yes, Sir Richard. But we couldn’t see anything, because there’s no moon to-night. And then, after a little while, we saw something white, long : and narrow and white it were, sir, like a boat. It seemed to be on the lake, Sir Richard, and it came closer and closer and we could hear no sound. And when it came near enough, we ; saw that someone was rowing it — someone all white and—and queer.” “Queer, eh? What do you mean by that?” “Well, Sir Richard —not as you and I might be .” He paused, and . then he blurted out, “It was dark, sir, i and I could see the boat and that man that rowed it.” “Luminous paint,” said Sir Richard. “Well, go on.” I, ran. Richard —we just ran |

as fast as we could. Of course it was Sir James—him that was drowned in the lake ever so many years ago. Queer old clothes he wore, sir—like those in the picture.” “Could you see his face?” “No, Sir Richard —there weren’t no face. It was a blank so to speak. His hat and coat I could see, but not his face. And they tell me, sir, that when they took Sir James from the lake, there were no face to speak of.” Sir Richard laughed heartily. ‘T see, Daniels,” he said. “You had all the story cut and dried before you saw the ghost. Daniels, are you quite sober?” “I drink two glasses of beer a day, sir—with my meals. Besides, Sir Richard, my friend saw it all quite plain. She’ll bear me out in what I say.” Sir Richard Pynson lit a cigarette, and, opening a drawer in his desk, took out something which he placed in the pocket of his dinner jacket. “We will go out and find this ghost,” he said. “Bring a good thick stick wdth you. Daniels. You will find one in the hall.” w £To be continued)