A Range into the Unknown

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 298, 8 March 1928, Page 5

A Range into the Unknown

Wm&tKfeism..

Charles D. Leslie

Author ot - A Wild Wager,*' “ coved tor Herself * ** The Erringtcn l‘earls Mystery.** “The Power of the Purse,*' Ac.. Ac

CHAPTER XXI. —IN GLADSTONE PARK. "Where to?” snajjped the conductor, a gentleman with dirty hands and a harassed face. The London modern motor-bus conductor leads a strenuous life. “Where d’you»go?” "Crown.” “I’m for the Crown,” said the passenger. Where he was going he hadn’t the remotest idea. When the journey ended he found himself in Cricklewood. It was by chance only he knew where he was. To a West Ender like Doulton the London suburbs are more unknown than Albania. But Cricklewood lies on the route to the Hendon Airdrome, society’s fashionable resort. The wandering lord descended, and a sign catching his eye showing the wav to Gladstone Park, he followed it. Of all London’s air lungs. Gladstone Park is the newest, and most rural, and also the least patronised when the children are at school. Lord Doulton had it apparently to himself that afternoon. Coming to a rolling expanse of g-assland. interspersed with trees, a really park-like expanse, he cut across it diagonally. He noticed that undereach tree a thoughtful council had set chairs. Presently he halted and dropped into one; he believed he had this particular spot to himself, but there fell on his ears a sound that se t him peering round the trunk. A girl sat with her back to him, crying. There was something familiar about her at the first glance, then she raised I her head, and Lord Doulton jumped to his feet. An exclamation broke from his lips. He had found his wife. But as she turned and, startled, stared at him, he swiftly amended his discovery. He said: "You’re Eva Wantage. “Oh!” she cried, involuntarily. Lord Doulton!” . ■

Eva was fairly caught. The calamity she had chiefly feared while masquerading as Lady Doulton had now befallen her, and she was confronted by that lady’s husband. This 1 time there was neither friend nor taxi to aid her flight. Escape was impossible. She had nothing to say, nothing to urge against this man’s just wrath. But Lord Doulton was silent, too, the silence of stupfaction. Standing face to face with Eva Wantage, in the ! bright light of a summer’s day, her amazing likeness to his wife held him dumb. But for her first blank look of astonishment before she recognised • him, and the knowledge that Eva Wan- * tage existed, he would have taken the young woman before him for the 3 r oung woman who had been wife to him a year and more. It was a likeness of 1 face, figure, pose—of everything that goes to the making of a human being. He stood and stared, but there was neither wrath nor offence in his face, and Eva, though feeling terribly guilty i —had she not two days before masqueraded as his wife at a big social gathering?—saw he did not appear to be angry with her. And his first words confirmed it. “Well, I’m dashed,” the husband said slowly, “I was told the likeness was amazin’, but how amazin’ I never credited till now. How in the name s of fortune d'you come to be so much 1 like my wife?” “I don’t know,” confessed Eva, “I t never heard of Lady Doulton till the day before yesterday, when Mrs. Tour- : maline ” L “Yes, I know all about that. It’s > finished and done with. I’ve forgiven i Berlyn and you, but I shall have something to say to Mrs. Tourmaline next , time I meet her, and I guess Lady > Doulton will, too, when she condescends to reappear. But, look here, you’ve been playing cup and ball with the af--1 fections of Arnold Berlyn.” Eva took refuge behind a rampart .* of silence. “I’m in his confidence, y’know. i We’re sworn pals since I learned he - wasn’t running away with my wife the 1 night before last. He goes to see you, 1 asks you to marry him, and comes . away carryin’ out of your fiat the neck-

lace you swore you’d never seen or heard of. And then he goes and asks for an explanation, and you refuse it.” “That’s finished and done with, Lord Doulton. The necklace is back in Mrs. Dickson-Dickson’s possession, and Mr. Berlyn has told me he means to have nothing more to do wit.li me. And I accept his decision.” “It’s not finished and done with,” he told her; “we are goin’ to talk it over. Sit down,” and he dragged his chair round the tree trunk. Unwillingly Eva obeyed. Pier tears had dried on her hot cheeks, but her heart was thumping painfully. She didn’t want to talk things over. She wanted to be alone. She felt wroth with Fate for thus treating her. She had come to this secluded spot to mourn over the tragedy of her wrecked life, and had been caught by the last man—save Arnold Berlyn— -he desired to meet. But there was no getting away. A strange and sudden change, a metamorphosis, in fact, had taken place in the mind of Francis Doulton regarding the necklace mystery. One look at the girl so amazingly like his wife, and he was surveying the problem on the assumption Eva Wantage was perfectly innocent. “See here, Miss Wantage. Berlyn set detectives yesterday on the missing necklace as he promised Mrs. DicksonDickson, and one of ’em came to him only an hour ago, when I was sittin’ with him and tryin’ to cheer him up, and said he -was on the track of the thieves. That Nield stole the necklace, and that she had a male accomplice named Ransom, that they’d i be off to Holland, and the ports must be watched. And that made Berlyn so mad he wouldn’t listen and sent the fellow packing; but, dash it all, I believe he was speakin’ the truth, only of course his knowledge wasn’t up-to-date. That is how it was, isn’t it?” “I am sorry—l can tell you 1 nothing.” 1 “Who’s the man,” pursued Lord Doulton unruffled, “who called on you at the fiat before Berlyn came and left ! his coat and the necklace in it in your • hall?” > “I shall not tell you.” “Then I’ll tell you. His name is Ransom, and if you won’t tell me about [ him, what he is to you, I’ll find out. ; It’ll be quite easy. He’s known to the police. I’ll set detectives ferreting into his past, and theyTl find whkt connec- ; tion he has to you ” l “Oh,” she cried, “you will have it then. He’s my father.” : Lord Doulton smote his knee. “I r half guessed as much.” he declared. 5 “Well, Miss Wantage, we aren’t al-

lowed to choose our fathers, and it’s | not the present fashion to judge chil- j dren harshly for having bad parents. 1 Eva’s as straight as a die, and you’re as like Eva as two peas in a pod. I don’t believe you’re crooked. I don’t believe you’d anything to do with the theft of the necklace. I don’t believe you knew it was in your flat. I believe you had the surprise of your life when you learned Ransom was concerned in the affair and had lost the necklace in your fiat.” Eva’s silent obstinacy melted before this speech, and she gave him a look misty with gratitude. “It’s quite i true,” she confessed, “every word you said was true. But who’d believe it?” “I believe it by merely lookin’ at 3'ou. And I’m a reasonable man. And so’s Arnold Berlyn. Arid he only wants half an excuse to believe it. But you didn’t give it him. I want to do him a good turn. I want to bring him and you together agrain.” But Eva shook her head sadly. “That can never be,” she said. * * * Arnold Berlyn was not permitted to enjoy the luxury of solitude. He had sternly told Peel he was not at home, and by the simple expedient of un-

| hooking the telephone receiver had | literally cut himself off from that some--1 times inconvenient convenience. But, about four o’clock, just when Lord Doulton had surprised and captured Eva, two ladies, fashionably attired and evidently persons of social importance, confronted and intimidated Peel. They simply must see Mr. Berlyn, they said. With reluctance he admitted them. A harassed man was Peel that day. Three years he had served his present master, and fondly imagined that he knew him and his ways thoroughly. But ever since the evening before, when, for no reason, Mr. Berlyn damned his offer of sandwiches, his mood had been of. a nature unknown to his servitor. Something had evidently happened. Peel wished he could guess what. And the ladies would not be denied, so he bowed to superior moral force, conducted them into the drawing-room and took his master their cards. “They say they must see you, sir r ” said Peel, descendant of Adam, with an air that declared he was the victim of circumstances, and washed his hands of all responsibility. The visitors were, as the reader has no doubt guessed. Mrs. Tourmaline and Mrs. Dickson-Dickson. temporarily bound in the bonds of friendship by an

emotion to which daughters of Eve are \ proverbially prone—curiosity. Perhaps this emotion had, too, something to do with the mildness with which Arnold received the news of their visit. Ever since summarily dismissing the detective he had been repenting that precipitancy. But the temptation in his misery of spirit to score off the man who complacently stated he was on the track of the necklace had been too much for him. The ladies might have news. He rose then in chastened mood and repaired to the drawing-room. News they had indeed, news of a quality which shook the hearer almost as much as his amazing discovery the night before. Nield, the vanished Nield, had returned, a penitent to her mistress, confessing the theft, and telling an amazing story of having been robbed by her accomplice. “She came back this morning, hysterical and revengeful, totally unaware I had the necklace. She nearly fainted when I showed it to her. Her story amazed me. About a month ago she ' went to a dancing hall in the Edgware Road, where ‘select dances’ are given, tickets one shilling and sixpence each. Nield isn’t much over thirty and looks younger, but I’d never have dreamed of her frequenting

such places, however select. But. persuaded to accompany a girl cousin, go she did, and they became acquainted with a Mr. Ransom, whom they understood was the proprietor of a motor garage. At any rate, he had the command of a car. and took the two women for outings. He acquired an extraordinary influence over her. Nield says he must have hypnotised her; at any rate she was so fascinated, that on his promise to marry her if she would steal the necklace, she actually did it. She dropped it to him out of her bedroom window on the night of the party. Her accusation of Miss Wantage was an afterthought, just as you .‘said, Mr. Berlyn.” (To be Continued.)