A Runge into the Unknown

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 302, 13 March 1928, Page 5

A Runge into the Unknown

H3B

Charles D. Leslie

Author ot ' A Wild Wager," *• Coved tot Herself’ "The Erringtcn t'earls Mystery. *" ** The Power of the Purse,” & c . &.c

CHAPTER XXVI. —IX EATON SQUARE

Mi*. Ransom in the background groaned, "My wife told me the father was a penniless young ne'er-do-well who’d left the country, and I had never the curiosity to ask his name. Why didn't 1? Here’s a secret that would have been worth thousands properly worked, and I let it slip through my

finders.” He dropped . into a chair with a gesture of disgust. No one j heeded him. “I’m sorry my news is stale.” said Arnold, still looking at Eva, her eyes were downcast, “I hoped with it to buy my forgiveness. I behaved abominably this morning.” •It was partly my iault. If 1 d made a frank confession . . . you see I told you my father was dead and he, yjr. Ransom, whom I’ve always acf cepted as my father, had been iin the flat just previously. He’d traced me after two years. I lied to you .. . how could I expect you to believe I wasn’t mixed up in the theft . . . the evidence against me was overwhelm- , r was a fool to doubt you, even i fop a moment,” said Arnold. \vith proud humility, standing very erect. . ' ■■You and I. old chap," said Francis, I tactfully, "have both been playin the fool Look now I suspected my Eva and you! But liovv'd you get hold of that rorue, and what's he doin' m that

SC Ai-noid produced a brown beard and w j~ uom his pocket. He was Passing a Scotland Yard detective, and very nearly got the necklace again trom Mrs. Dickson-Dickson^ •But my luck’s out, said Mi. IvanSo^vm,r d luck's in,” retorted Arnold. ■‘You offered me certain information regarding Miss to IfVd’known she was already cognisant with the truth.”

“Pie’s the limit,” declared Francis, "hcfw’d he do it?”

‘Mrs. Tourmaline and Mrs. DicksonDickson called on me this afternoon seeking Miss Wantage's address. Nield, after running away, had returned to confess to the theft of the necklace. She was the dupe of this fellow. They wanted to inform Miss Wantage, and they'd gone to Highgate to find she had left. I couldn’t help them. While they were with me one of Mrs. Dickson-Dickson : s servants came to say there was a man from Scotland Yard wanting to ses her about the necklace. She asked me to come back with her. We found a uniformed officer waiting. Pie told us the necklace I’d restored to her—he knew all about it —was nothing but a clever imitation. The real necklace was at Marlborough Street Police Station, would she fetch the one she had, and bring it to Marlborough Street? We were both deceived. I conversed with the man while she fetched the necklace, and never dreamed of trickery. But something in the way he took possession of the necklace when she brought it, slipping it in his pocket while talking volubly, »oused my suspicions. I looked closely at him, and surmised he wore a wig. So I snatched at it, and it came off in my hand, and the beard in the scrimmage, as he tried to get away. Then, seeing the game was up, and accused by me of being Paul Ransom, he owned to it.”

“And I said,” Mr. llansurn put in, “that I d made a bloomer, but that if he’d let me go I'd tell him something about Eva Wantage’s parentage which would surprise and please him. And we made a bargain of it." “Oh,” said Eva, bitterly, “you knew* all the time I wasn’t your daughter. And you never told me.”

“I gave you a father’s care and protection, my dear.”

“You made a decoy of me t<f pluck your dupes. I cannot recall those two years without humiliation.’-

“I educated you in those years; you’re as smart and well-bred as your twin sister there, who’s married to a Peer. And whom have you to thank for turning you out a young lady?” “My mother —for so I shall always regard her. But I wonder she never told me the truth.”

“She did, in a paper left in her desk to be read after her death. Luckily it came into my hands.”

”1 don’t think we need keep Mr. Ransom,” said Arnold. “He is to make a signed statement before my lawyer tomorrow, and in return I mean to make him a small allowance to be paid so long as he keeps out of England.” “I thank you, sir. Come, Eva, we won’t part in anger?”

Eva took his hand, there were tears in her eyes. Selfish to the core though the man was, he probably had some spark of affection for the pretty young girl who, for two years, had shared his life. And now that she knew his blood did not run in her veins much of her bitterness toward him abated. He had, after all, shielded her irotn danger when she was too young and innocent to see it.

And so Paul Ransom passed out of her life.

Lady Doulton was telling her father he must return with them to Grogvenor Gardens and sup. Francis, with a wink at Arnold, said, “You’ll join us, Berlyn, bring sister Eva, and we’ll take papa. We can’t all crowd in one taxi”; then apart to Eva, “you’ve got to forgive Arnold, you know, brother Frank says so. Mind you. he’d haved forgiven you even if you had nicked the necklace; yes, he would, he'd have gone back to you. There’s only one thing a man in love can’t forgive a girl, and that’s her preferin’ another chap.”

The others went out, leaving them together.

“What was Doulton saying to you?” asked Arnold. He stood in front of her, recalling to her mind how he had ques-

tioned her two nights before at Portland Place- And again his voice compelled an answer. “He was telling me to forgive you.” “And are you going to? ’ Eva drew back a pace, her troubled eyes on his face, “I want to, and yet I don’t know, Arnold, I believe you’ve killed my love. I was so happy yesterday when you spoke. I felt as though a King had taken me by tiie hand and set me on a throne beside him. And then when a cloud of suspicion fell on me you came—not as a lover, but a judge. fou'd condemned me before 1 spoke. You were cruel, unjust, for you know I loved you.” Arnold said nothing, it was all true, and he was too poud to remind her of the knightly service he had rendered from the moment of their meeting two nights before. “You’ve killed my love,” said Eva, and she really thought at the moment she was speaking the truth “But, of course, I forgive you, :or I cannot forget what you have done for me. We can at least be friends.” He refused the hand she offered. “I don’t want your friendship,” he said roughly, “I want you for a wife, a comrade. D'you expect me after these last two days to decline to an ordinary acquaintance, to meet you in society as one of your friends, and watch other men make love to you? For they will, you'll be tremendouly run after. With your face and fortune —for Swayne is rich and his daughter will have a handsome marriage portion, and romantic history, you’ll be the leading debutante for the rest of the season. You can make a much better match than I.” She stood by the table, a slim and fragile figure, with drooping head. Arnold flung her an angry look and turned on his heel. He reached the door, and then the girl’s heart, which knew her better than she knew herself, throbbed violently. "Xo, don’t go. I can’t do without you,” she cried, and she made one step forward, her arms extended, but only one, Arnold turned so sharply and came to her so quickly. It was the pleasantest supper party. The two Evas sat side by side, with

Arnold Berlyn opposite, Lord Doulton at one end of the table, and Lord Swayne at the other. Lady Doulton had dressed her sister in one of her evening: frocks, and bedecked her in some of her jewellery. The amazing likeness gathered additional lustre by the proximity of the two fair women, each the duplicate of the other. The three men wondered and admired. Francis Doulton was the gayest of hosts. His speech proposing the health of his sister-in-law and her future husband reached flights of eloquence which would have surprised the House of Lords, of which he is a silent and very infrequent ornament. His observations on matrimony, a subject on which, as he pointed out, he spoke as an expert, are too long to quote. Arnold, who was mercilessly ragged in it, rose ultimately to move that the speaker be no longer heard, coupled with a solemn warning that if he continued he (Arnold) would be under the painful necessity of gagging the speaker with his own napkin. Lord Swayne said little, and though he smiled at the mock quarrel between the men, which sent the ladies into fits of laughter, there was pain as well as pleasure in his heart. He found himself a father too late, already husbands claimed the two fair daughters that he would gladly have cherished. He would always take a second place in their affection. Xevertheless he was their father, and interests other than the sociological and bookish problems that chiefly occupied him, had come into his life. To Eva Wantage, now Eva Swayne, and very shortly—Lady Doulton and Arnold had already arranged the wedding was to take place in two months and be from the Doulton’s house —to be Eva Berlyn,. it was strange indeed to be sitting at table with father, sister, brother-in-law, lover. A few hours before she possessed no such relations, and Arnold and she were apparently parted for ever. Friendless and under a cloud she had nought to look forward to save a position of dependence to some strange woman. And this change in her fortunes was entirely due to her piece of extravagance in going into the Ritz for tea three

days earlier, and falling under the eye of Mrs. Tourmaline. What strange and unexpected happenings had followed the widow’s audacious attempt to circumvent her rival! But before taking up her abode with her sister it was necessary to retrieve her belongings from the house in Bloomsbury. Lady Doulton said Arnold could do that, and Lord Doulton agreed, “paying women’s bills, and fetchin’ and carryin’ for them, is one of the things matrimony means, Berlyn, and you can’t begin too soon.” But Arnold said Eva must come too, and Eva acquiesced with adorable charm. They took the Doultons’ car, which was far roomier and more comfortable than the most luxurious of taxis, and were quickly there; and Arnold settled the account while Eva superintended the overworked manservant who, smiling cheerfully, carried her boxes down. He received from Arnold a tip which really gave him something to smile at, and his “tank you, tank you,” sped them on their way. It seemed to Eva, nestling beside her lover while the car rolled through London’s gloomy squares and brightly lighted main thoroughfares, that her new life had really begun. She had a vision that Arnold and she were married and driving into the hazarduous, enticing, unknown land which girls see when they dream of love and matrimony. A larger life was openin - she was to be of the world in which her kinsfolk and lover moved, not an underling on the fringe of it. She glimpsed visions of frocks, splendours —all that modern civilisation gives to those whose purses can buy her warts, but best of all she saw herself Arnold’s wife. And Arnold must have been thinking very much the ‘same, for. breaking silence as the car drew up before the Doultons’ house, he said: “Eva, don’t you think two months is a fearful long time to wait?” “We, we might talk it over again with Eva, to-morrow,” she said, and she flung him a glance a she went into the house, whibh hinted that she agreed with her future husband. (The End.).