Catching Up

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 252, 14 January 1928, Page 18

Catching Up

3y

Henry C.Rowland.

Author of " Tho Door Eccentric." " The PedUt* " Oodt," Ac.. Ac./'

CHAPTER XXIII. “The idea came suddenly/* murmured Nita—“almost like an inspiration, and it was suggested to the killer as he stood with his hand resting on the top of the bedpost looking at Hazard, who was in a drunken sleep. It took but a second or two. and he then went out unobserved. But”—her eyes narrowed and sh© shook her finger slowly in his face—-“he left something behind.” For the first time during the tense interview Howard showed a sign of shock and terror. His pupils contracted and the ashen hue about his lips became a livid one. The veins stood out on his forehead. Nita nodded slowly as if to herself. “Take my advice, Howard,” said she —"get that thing—and get it this very night.” “How?” he murmured. ‘Til help you. I’ll go there with you. You couldn't manage it alone without running some risk. But if we were to go there together, as a travelling Englishman and his wife, there could be no cause for suspicion/* “Do you suppose the room is watched?” “I don’t know. But why should they keep on watching a room which has been minutely searched? Nobody would ever have thought of such a thing.” “How did you?” “Because I once had a similar piece of furniture, and the idea came into my head when putting it together.” “You almost convince me,” Howard muttered, “but I don’t quite see yet, why you should want to help me.” Nita smiled. She leaned still farther forward, her glowing face held up to his. “You see, my dear, I have other plans for you than the guillotine—and it might be that, as you are now a civilian and have to deal with the French law.” “What plans?” “Well, I don’t think that I care to have you marry Agnes. It should not be necessary, and if you are now to transfer your affections to me it would score rather strongly for your innocence.” Howard sprang suddenly t<? his feet, conviction of her infatuation no longer to b© denied. ‘You’re worth more than any mouldy, million, my girl!** He reached for her with both arms, but Nita slipped away. “Not yet, my dear,” she'said. “You might have both some day before long, but I don't to sign on a lover or who is standing in the shadow of the guillotine.” “Then what do you advise?” he asked. “There is only one thing to do, my dear. And the sooner ’tis done- the safer. You must go to that room and: get possession of that bit of evidence. But I don’t think you ought to be alone. For one thing, we don’t know but that a man of your figure might have been seen to go into the hotel that night. Then there is the theory of a murderer being led to revisit the scene of his crime. But more than that, I learned from young &teele that in the opinion of esrperts Hazard's death was caused as much by the force of the blow over the heart, which must have been dealt by a very strong arm, as

the slight injury to that organ itself.’* “Then why risk going there at all., since they’ve got nothing positive on me?” Townley asked. “I do not see how there could be the slightest risk if we were to go there together, and I think it of vital importance for you to get possession of that thing. I can go pack a valise and meet you at the Gate du Nord, where we can take a station taxi directly to the hotel.” “But we must have a part to substitute for the one I take,” said Townley. Nita smiled and opened her beaded bag. “Look!” said she. “I’ve thought of that.” Townley peered into the bag, and at sight of what it contained a rime of sweat beaded his forehead. “You’re right!” he said, and reaching for the decanter of cognac served with the coffee, he filled his empty cup and drained it at a gulp, then looked at Nita with a scowl. “You think there’s no danger?” “How can there be? We arrive in a station taxi, an English gentlemen and his wife on a trip to Paris. Mind you now, there is to be no nonsense about our going there—no love adventuring. That can wait. We are going there to get this thing—and that’s all.” “That's enough for the time being,” muttered Townley, “but I don’t like it. I might be running into a trap. Since you’ve guessed it, why couldn't it have occurred to the police?” “Steele told me that they thought it had been done by the gimlet in one of these tool knives, probably the Swiss kind with the red handles. I don’t mean to claim superior intelligence. It happened to occur to me because my own bed is that sort. I remembered having put it together. Townley drew out his handkerchif, passed it across his forehead and stared for a moment at Nita with so baleful a glare that she could feel a panic struggling within her. She /almost feared that he suspected her, anct it required all her force of will to meet his eyes steadily and without flinching. But his eyes shifted to the decanter again, from which he helped himself, and then asked in a dry, croaking" voice. "Then we’ll go to-night?” “This very night,” said Nita. “All right,” said he briefly. “I’m on.” The blood flared into his face again. “It’s worth the risk if only to get you, my girl. You’re the mate for a wild man like me.” CHAPTER XXIV. Calvert had passed his clay in a very dissatisfied frame of mind. The more he’d thought over the affair which he had set himself to solve the more he felt convinced that as a secret service sleuth he was far from being the brilliant success which most of us would like to feel that we would prove in such a capacity. “If I keep on as I’m going,” thought Calvert dismally, "everybody in Paris will know what I am up to—that is, if Townley doesn’t manage to get me before I have time to give the game entirely away.” And nbw to crown his mortification, Nita appeared quietly to ha.ve taken the job out of his hands without so much

as giving him the satisfaction of knowing what she proposed. Her cheerful instructions to Calvert had been about at flattering in their expression of esteem for his ability as those of Sherlock Holmes to his plodding and not over-brilliant recorder. “Stick round the hotel,” said Nita, “and wait for a note or phone or other message from me.” There being apparently nothing else to do, Calvert had stuck, and as the evening wore on with no word received he became very restless, nervous and irritable. At nine o’clock the chasseur brought him a note addressed in a clear round hand. Calvert opened it and read as follows: Hear Calvert.—My trap should be sprung in the room where Hazard was murdered, some time between twelve and one. Go there not later than midnight, when you will be admitted by a man with a scar across his face. He is a secret agent of the surete. In the room you will find a big, old-fashioned wardrobe, with an empty keyhole from which the lock has been taken. It hooks on the inside. You and the agent must get inside this wardrobe and keep P€>rfectly still. It is so placed that you will be able to watch the foot of the bed through the keyhole. After we come in, watch Howard when near the foot of the bed. If I am not mistaken you may see him perform a rather curious manoeuvre, which should immediately suggest its own solution. The signal for you to rush out and secure him will be my saying, “Now you ought to breathe easier.” “Ho not take any chances with him at all. I think it probable that he will fight. If it seems best to kill him, do so immediately and without the slightest hesitation. NITA. This note roused in Calvert astonishment, intense curiosity, and irritation. H© spent a wretched period of waiting for the time to come. He walked about the streets feeling half inclined to go and. tell Lady Audrey what was afoot, but decided that he had done enough talking for the time being. Then as midnight approached he drifted down to the hotel and on slipping into it was immediately met by the man Nita had described and who had indeed precisely the look of a middle-aged veteran, across whose square but alert face was an ugly scar, possibly from a sawedged bayonet. “You have your instructions?” Calvert asked. “Oui, monsieur. Monsieur is armed?” “Yes,” Calvert answered. “We might as well go back to the room.” The man led the way down the corridor. The room was large, high ceiled, willi a fine, old hard wood floor. A modern and rather incongruous note in what might have been in its day the lodging of some duke or prince was a large brass bedstead with the usual thick sommier and mattress, and Calvert observed that directly opposite the foot of this, against ""the wall between the two long windows which looked upon a little garden, there was a tall ancient armoire, a form of wardrobe still dear to the French heart. The agent opened the door of this. “It will be close quarters, monsieur, if we have long to wait,” said he, “but I have put in two pliants”—small folding stools —“and removed a plank from the top to give us air.” “Since you are of the surete,” said Calvert, “you had better sit opposite the keyhole to get the evidence, whatever this may be. Myself, I am in the dark about the whole affair.” He found himself getting more and more disgusted with the situation. Whatever her object, it did not seem to him that Nita could be justified in doing such a thing as this. Could it be possible, Calvert wondered, that the rash, reckless girl—in despair of fastening the present crime upon Howard -r-intended through some disclosure to invite a murderous assault upon herself? He mentioned such a possibility to the agent, who shrugged. “I don’t know, monsieur,” said he. “My orders were merely to arrest this

fellow at a given signal. There will be two other men outside. We shall have to wait and see.” Calvert noticed then that there was a large crack in the panel of the handcarved wardrobe door. Blacing bis to this, he saw that the arc of his vision was quite considerable. “You watch him through the keyhole,” he said, “and I’ll keep my eye to this crack. But we must be very careful not to make a noise.” Notre Bame, not far away, boomed the midnight hour. The agent arranged the two small stools. “I fear we may have a tedious time of it in this box,” he said. “If monsieur will take his place I shall put out the light.” . The pair settled themselves in the receptacle, the door of which the agent fastened on the inside with a heavy iron hook. Here was one point at which tne stratagem might slip up. Should Townley be possessed of a sixth sense, like many criminals, he might feel the presence of danger and to make an examination of the premises, and finding the armoire locked insist that it be opened. The moments then dragged past in that peculiar way which affects the waiter as interminable. Calvert thought that he must have bene there at least an hour, and wondered bitterly why Nita should insist upon adding this form of dreary torture to her other mysterious and sinister mode of operation. And then came a sudden stir in the hallway, and the creak of the door to the room and a flicker of dazzling light through the crack in the armoire door and keyhole. “Here you are, monsieur et njadame,” said a crisp voice. “Very well,” said the curt voice of Townley, and added some - perfunctory remark about an early morning train. The man went out and closed the door, and Calvert heard the lock click as Townley turned it. He was conscious of a sense of bitter resentment at his inglorious position, despite the fact that it was merely that of the stalker of a savage beast, a man-killer. But his soul protested Nita’s position as the bait. He peered through the slit in the door of the armoire, and then as his eyes quickly accustomed themselves to the vivid glare, he witnessed a curious performance on the part of the two just entered. Instead of being ashamed, as he had dreaded, by the spectacle of Townley turning from the locked door to make some amprous demonstration, he saw hijn step quickly to the foot of the bed and begin to unscrew the ,big brass knob from the top of the foot post on the side of the night-table. As he did so, Nita opened her beaded bag and took therefrom another knob of identical proportions. Stepping under the electric light, they appeared to be comparing the two. Townley gave a grunt of relief. “Nobody could tell the difference,” ho growled. “Let’s see if it fits.” He turned to the bed and screwed the knob supplied by Nita into the place of the other. “Well, that’s all right,” he said, and turned again to the light to examine the one taken from the bed. “You’re right—dried blood and tissue.” He dropped it into his pocket. Nita stepped back a pace, cleared the track as one might say, her flaming eyes turned to the armoire. The signal smote on Calvert’s senses as some months earlier had Heming’s whistle, shrilling the signal to go over the top. The French agent crouched at his side had likewise been instructed. Both were tense and quivering, for the solution of the mystery had blazed simultaneously upon their mental faculties. The long, slim screw set in the knob had explained the nature of the mysterious weapon. Both had got this as Townley was releasing it, so that it had not needed his comment on th© blood-filled spiral. The crime had been reconstructed instantaneously to their minds. (To be Continued.)