The Nets of Fate

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 358, 19 May 1928, Page 21

The Nets of Fate

SERIAL STORY

By

OTTWELL BINNS

CHAPTER XXVI. When Jocelyn Lancaster emerged from behind the screen her face was radiant, as Sister Marie was not slow to note. Her patient’s face had lost its ravaged look, and the letter in which she had been so interested was no longer visible. She surmised that it had been opened, and as she asked the question her voice was gay. “Ah, monsieur, your letter has been read,then?” “Yes, Sister, and answered also.” Sister Marie looked round. "I do not see any writing materials, mon- ; sieur.” John Lancaster laughed. “Sister, you are pleased to be droll. To answer a letter it is not always necessary to use a pen, and even words may be a vanity.” Sister Marie laughed also. “That I can well believe, for, as I heard a girl declare once, a kiss is better than a petit bleu. . . . But the letter, monsieur—l am curious. It was not so terrible as you feared?”. “It was better than my wildest hopes! ” “We are children always,” laughed Sister Marie. “We frighten ourselves with ghosts.” “But the ghosts can be very terrible sometimes,” asserted Lancaster. “Even when they have no being. That is so, monsieur. Those are of the worst.” She was silent for a little while. Then she said, “I am glad to have seen Madame. She is very beautiful, and she lias a good heart. That one sees on the moment.” John Lancaster smiled, but did not reply, and Sister Marie tripped away to exchange confidences with the surgeon. She found him sympathetic. He had had an interview with Jocelyn, and while he had been able to give her little reassurance as to her husband’s sight, he had been impressed by lier courage. “Yes,” he agreed with Marie, “Madame is very beautiful. Her husband, after all, will not be without his compensations, while if the great Nanterre can do anything, Lancaster becomes a man to be envied.” Two days later John Lancaster, accompanied by his wife, went to Paris to see the great Nanterre, and on the evening of that same day, Pat Am- . brose, walking in a village by the j Belgian frontier, saw a sight that he ! will never forget, though just at that ! time it was a fairly ordinary one in the district. What he beheld was a country cart coming down the street, accompanied by a squad of soldiers and surrounded by a hooting, gibing crowd. A Belgian soldier was acting as driver, and as the cart drew level, curiosity caused Ambrose to turn and learn the cause of the crowd’s animosity. Two men, bound, were seated at the tail of the cart, their legs dangling over the road. They looked disconsolate enough, and their attitude was that of men who already had abandoned hope. ! Pat Ambrose guessed what the men were, but turned to a bystander to make sure. He waved his hand to the men in the cart, which just at that moment was brought to a halt by an officer. “What have we here?” The bystander said but a single word, and spat on the'ground to show his contempt. “Espions!” “Where are they taking them?” inquired Pat. “To the prison?”

The man whom he interrogated j shook his head. “We are not as the English,” he said smilingly. “We do not provide spies with board and bed. We send them to the court-martial, and then we shoot them. Those men now are on their way to execution. And see, one of them wears the uniform of your army, monsieur. Surely he deserves to die?” Pat Ambrose looked again at the miserable pair in the cart tail. It was true. CMs of them was dressed in the khaki uniform of a British officer. Just at that moment the individual in question looked up, and his eyes met Pat’s. As they did so a flash of recognition came into them, and Pat Ambrose himself started. Then j the spy averted his eyes, but not before mutual recognition had been made. Pat knew him. Unkem un shaven, bespattered by mud which the crowd had thrown, he recognised Dorian Paxton. He glanced at his companion, who wore a peasant’s blouse. cap, and wooden sabots. He was older than Paxton, but, he stared at him. something familiar in his features impressed itself upon Ambrose, and as he watched he wondered where he had seen the man before. He was still racking his brains when the soldier ! in the cart cracked his whip and the procession jerked forward anew. As he did so, the older of the two spies glared round defiantly, and in his gaze took cognisance of Pat Ambrose. He turned to his companion and spoke to him quickly, nodding his head vigorouslyl toward the young British officer. But Dorian Paxton kept his eyes averted, and a second or two later his companion’s eyes looked at Pat again, flashing defiance. Then Hie elusive likeness that troubled the young man became suddenly and clear. The man was the elderly beau who had waited outside the stag door of the Medoc Theatre and who had watched Miss Vanity and himself at supper afterwards —it was Scharzberger. The crowd surged between him and the prisoners, so that they were hidden from his view, and he sa them no more; but when a few minutes later the rattle of the rifles of a tiring party sounded up the street, he guessed that the two had met the fate which therichly deserved. A fortnight later he was in Paris, on business connected with the Army, and there, not by accidc let it be owned, he met Miss Vera anity, wk > had crossed from England to tr' n her part in cheering the wounded British soldiers. To her he told what he had seen, and Vera listened with unmov o/ ' 1 face. “I am not surprised,” ' e said. “Bierstein was a German secret agent, and Paxton knew him intimatel -. as did Scliarzberger. Evidently the last two worked together as spies after Bierstein’s death; and when they fled they came here to continue 4 heir operations. One of the inspectors at Scotland ” ’ + okl me they suspecte l * M' Paxton had escaped to France, in the guise of a British officer, and it looks as if they were right. Anyway, neither of that precious pair will trouble anyone again.” She was silent for a moment, then she asked: “How is John Lancaster?” “I do not know. I have not heard; but I am going to inquire this evening. He and Jocelyn are staying at a private hotel on the Champs Elysees, and Lancaster is undergoing treatment at the hands of Nanterre, the great oculist. Will you go with me, Vera?” “With you?” Vera laughed, and her face flushed a little. “What will Mrs. Lancaster think?” “Fudge!” answered Pat, impolitely. “What is the use of trying to play hide and seek either with ourselves

or other people?—Vera, if I can get ; four days’ leave in a little while, will , you marry me?" “So that you can get the leave?” asked Vera, laughingly. "No. so that I may become the happiest man in the world.” “What an unselfish child it is,” laughed the actress. “It is very much in earnest. ’ an- j swered Pat, quickly, “aud would like to know what you think.” “What. I think?” “Yes! ” “Then I will tell you—in strictest confidence, mind you, Pat Ambrose. 1 think —I think —” “Yes,” he urged impatiently. “I might do worse.” She laughed as she replied, and then with a glance across the restaurant where waitresses did duty for waiters gone to the wars, she said tantalisingly:—“Always propose in the presence of witnesses, Pat. It prevents all the conventional heroics that follow’, and on this occasion it saves my complexion from disturbance.” “For the moment you are safe,” laughed Pat. “But only for the moment. When we are in the coupe—” “Are we to fall so low?” laughed the actress. "Can’t we take a motorcab?” “There isn’t one in Paris,” he answered, “or if there is, there’s not a man to drive it. It will have to be the coupe with a woman on the box. And she’ll drive slow and then my sun will smile, and I—” But what happened in the coupe is their own affair. It is sufficient to record that in the course of that same evening a coupe, with a w’oman driver, took them together to the private hotel in the Champs Llysees, where John Lancaster and his wife were staying. Bubbling with gladness they entered the hotel and were conducted to the suite of rooms occupied by the Lancasters. The found Jocelyn pale and visibly nervous and distressed. “What is it, Sis?” asked Pat, quickly. “Nothing w r rong with Lancaster, I hope?” “Not more than there was—but what that is, I do not know. I shall know to-niglit. Nanterre took him away a w r eek ago. He sent me w’ord this morning that John would be back to-night, but he said nothing except that my husband w r ould bring his own news. And I am terribly worried. It w'ill be terrible for him. All his life to walk in darkness, he who is so fond of beautiful things, and—” There came the purr of a motor as a vehicle drew up in the street. Jocelyn moved to the darkened window, and dragging the curtain aside, looked out into the night. When she turned to her brother and his companion her face Avas paler than before, her apprehension acute. “It is John,” she said, simply, “and Monsieur Nanterre is with him.” “Steady, Sis, steady,” said Pat. Jocelyn braced herself for the ordeal of the coming moment. Voices were heard in the corridor outside, then a man’s laugh, joyous and free from care. “That is John,” said Jocelyn, with a quick gasp of relief. “Then things can’t be so very bad The door was thrown open, and M. Nanterre and Lancaster entered the room. The great oculist was smiling, and he led his patient by the arm. Lancaster’s eyes were heavily shaded, there were goggles underneath the shade, and except that he was smiling it was impossible to surmise what news lie brought. Jocelyn looked imploringly at the specialist. He smiled again. “Mrs. Lancaster, I bring you back your husband. I have done my best, and I congratulate you that he will not be among those who walk In darkness.” “Thank God!” interrupted Jocelyn, tremulously. (To be Concluded)