30 YEARS’ AGONY

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 431, 13 August 1928, Page 5

30 YEARS’ AGONY

ITCHING PILES COMPLETELY CURED Mr. A.H., Auckland, writes:—“l had suffered over 30 years from itching piles and had tried many remedies. At last I got your Zann Double Absorption Treatment and was totally cured in 20 days.” A generous trial treatment of “Zann” will be sent to all pile sufferers on receipt of ninepence in stamps. Address: Zann Proprietary, Box 952, Wellington. Stocks of “Zann” obtainable from Bridge Drug Stores, Karangahape Road, and A. Eccles, chemist, Queen Street and branches, Auckland.

as we reached the Woodcock he sought out Musgrave and told him of the discovery of his missing gun. He hurried over his lunch, and as soon as I had finished mine, addressed ipe. “The police are sure to come along here after the finding of that gun,” he remarked. “And I want to be beforehand with them in a matter they don’t seem to have thought of, and perhaps won’t think of. I want to examine Mazaroff’s belongings.” “Just so!” murmured Crole. “That, of course, must be done. Luggage, clothes, and so on. I suppose, there’s no difficulty about that, Holt?” “None that I know of,” I answered. But I don’t think there’s much to examine he was travelling light” We went up to the dead man’s room—a big, old-fashioned bed-cham-ber, the windows of which looked out over the moor. Everything was just as Mazaroff had left it —he was a man of unusually tidy and orderly habits, who hated to see things thrown here and there, and all his belongings were laid about the room on a system of his own. As I had remarked downstairs, there was comparatively little to look over; a couple of suitcases contained all that their owner had thought it necessary to bring away from his rooms at the Hotel Cecil. There was really nothing to examine in toilet articles, linen, clothing, and the like, and we found no papers of any description in the suit-cases, nor in a dressing-case on the table. Maythorne did the searching while Crole and I looked on, deeply interested in the way in which he examined the dressing-case for a secret drawer — which lie failed to discover, probably because there wasn’t one—and the clothes for secret pockets. There was nothing secret —but in the waistcoat pocket of a well-worn tweed suit he found a number of loose diamonds, large and small, and in the trousers pocket of the same suit, an old purse. “What did I tell you?” exclaimed Crole, as the diamonds came to light. “He did carry diamonds, loose, on him. He once pulled out a handful when he and I were lunching at the Holborn Restaurant —there were men. strangers, all round us, and he only laughed when I made some remark about the danger of carrying and openly exposing such valuables. Look at those, now—must be a dozen or so stones there, loose in his pocket. I suppose these diamond men get used to it, and think no more of such matters than a farmer does of carrying samples of wheat and barley. Do you suppose those are worth a lot, Maythorne? You know more about it than I do.” “Can’t say,” replied Maythorne, indifferently. He laid the diamonds aside on the dressing table, and was examining the old leather purse, we standing at his side and watching him. He took from it little that was of interest; there were some ordinary coins, gold and silver, of the Imperial coinage; some others, in a separate | compartment, had been evidently kept as curiosities, such as a Kruger halfcrown, a British West African nickel halfpenny, a Mombasa rupee, a Portuguese silver ounce, and a German ! East African coin with the effigy of I the Kaiser; there was also some : Egyptian and Indian gold money, j Maythorne paid little attention to

TRAVELLING WITH BABY By June Hope If you are going on a journey with baby—even a comparatively short one j —do make up your mind that there i are some things which must be within I easy reach, if you are to be happy, j and certain things you must do if ; you and others who share the railway \ carriage are not to be utterly miserable. Firstly, refrain from giving the child any kind of sweets. This is often ; done by thoughtless mothers for the j sake of peace and quietness, but j nothing is worse than sticky fingers I dabbed about our best clothes, or | leaving sugary patches on the seat of j the compartment for the benefit of j the next unfortunate occupant. Apart < from this, it is most unwise to load the child's stomach with a lot of sweet } stuff, especially when travelling; it j often leads to biliousness. Endeavour to keep to the usual ] hours of meals and sleep, then the good habits which it has perhaps taken j weeks or months to form will not be broken. Two Thermos Flasks If you are travelling with quite a young baby who still needs the bottle, it is advisable to take a thermos of | boiling water with you and another |of very cold milk. Milk always keeps best if clean and iced. If | you take it already warm it certainly saves trouble, but this is risky as warm ! milk soon becomes poisonous, j If the journey is to be a long one you might take an empty pillow case, j When stuffed with clothes or news- | papers, this makes a comfy xiillow to | lay baby on. And don’t forget to j take a damp sponge in a rubber bag, jas it always comes in useful on a | journey. Your own towel and soap | should be included as a guard against I infection.

We have all, at some time or another, travelled with children who fidget. Sitting, they will swing their legs or slide their feet up and down the floor. Nothing is more annoying, and it is just as tiresome when they run round the carriage asking all manner of questions. Sooner or later children must learn how to behave, and the sooner the easier for themselves and others. The child who accompanies every question with a spasmodic dance should be told most assuredly that, if she could only stand still for a few minutes, it would be ever so much easier to think of the answer. Acclimatised If the journey is to be made by sea and baby is “on bottles,” several extra ones should be taken in case of accidents, and he should be accustomed to the food he is to have on the voyage for at least a month beforehand. Never be without the means of getting hot water at any hour; it may mean all the difference between sickness and health. The dawn can be an uncommonly cold thing, even in summer, and whether you travel by train or boat, you should keep the hot water bottle handy, lest it may be needed. The rug must not be forgotten, though it very often is by inexperienced travellers. We may be able to manage without one, but children 1 cannot be too well looked after. these things; he was deeply interested in a crumpled scrap of thin paper which he found in an inner pocket of the purge and smoothed out before us. “Look at this!” he said presently. “Here’s something at any rate”

The scrap of paper was a receipt for a registered letter, dispatched from Capetown, and addressed to the Imperial Banking Corporation of South Africa, 695 Lombard Street, London. Maythorne pointed to the date, January 17, on the postmark. “Nine months since,” he remarked. “How long had Mazaroff been in England when you met him at the Cecil?” “A few weeks,” I replied. “As far as I know.”

“I know,” said Crole. “He came to England in July-—about the end of the month.” “Then the letter, or packet, or whatever it was, to which this receipt refers, was sent off from CapeTown to the London branch of this bank some months before Mazaroff came here,” observed Maythorne. He turned the receipt over. “There’s an endorsement on the back —letters and a figure,” he continued. “See? 8L.D.1. What’S that mean, I wonder? And are these in Mazaroff's handwriting?” “That’s his writing, sure enough,” I said. “He’d a rather curious way of making his capitals.” , “Probably refers to the contents of the packet,” said Maythorne. “8L.D.l. —I may find out the meaning, yet. Well, here’s one thing—we know now who his bankers are in London. But perhaps Mr. Holt knew that already?” “No, I didn’t,” I answered. “It may seem odd, but I didn’t know. As I’ve told you already, he seemed to carry a good deal of ready money on him. I never saw him produce a chequebook—he always paid our hotel bills in cash —notes.”

“And no doubt pulled out a handful of ’em?” suggested Maythorne, with a grim smile. “Eh?” “He certainly appeared to have a liberal supply in his pocket-book,” I admitted. “He was a bit thoughtless that way—l mean, about showing bis money, though I’m sure it was done in a quite unconscious fashion.” Maythorne produced his own pocketbook, and carefully put away the receipt. “We’ll just keep the knowledge of that to ourselves, for the present.” he said. “If the police come here this afternoon, as they’re pretty sure to, after that gun business, and want to examine his effects, let ’em. , We’ll put these diamonds back in the pocket I took them from—they’re welcome to see those, and anything else. But I’ll keep this scrap of paper to myself —I want to work things up from it.” The police came to the Woodcock a little later—three of them; the Chief Constable, an inspector, and Manners. They asked a lot of questions of Musgrave about his gun, and of me and of Webster about our movements on the night of the murder, of Crole about the dead man’s identity and position; of me again about the money and valuables he was likely to have on him. And in the course of their investigations a fact came out of which I, until then, had been unaware. It turned out that after dinner on the night of the murder, while I was busied in writing some private letters, Mazaroff, who was naturally a sociable man, had strolled into the

bar-parlour of the Woodcock, where a highly-diversified assemblage had gathered farmers, cattle-dealers, drovers, idlers, all homeward bound from Cloughthwaite Fair. There, according to the evidence of Musgrave’s barmaid, he had made himself very agreeable, and had treated the eqtire company to drinks and cigars, which he paid for with a five-pound note, taken, said the barmaid, from a notecase that seemed pretty full, and in open view of anybody and everybody. This bit of news appeared to give considerable satisfaction and even relief to the police officials, and Manners, who lingered behind when his superiors went away, found it impossible to refrain from communicating to me his belief that they were on the right line of pursuit. “X know something already, Captain,” he said, with a mysterious wink. “It won't do to say exactly what, you know —mum’s the word —- at present. But I found out a. bit for myself, this noon, and of course I shall follow it up. Takes time, all this sort o’ thing, to be sure—but tbere’s an old saying—slow and sure! That’s my line. And—not so slow, neither. Now to-morrow morning there’ll be the inquest. It’ll he a mere formality to start with. A bit of evidence—necessary evidence—and then the coroner j will adjourn for, say. a fortnight, j That’s to give me a chance. And if j -1 Cold as an iceberg, cold as a stone. Frigid as snowflakes, chilled to the bone, j Oh, what will thaw me, and dissipate ’flu? j Oh, what will warm me. say what shall I do? How can I hope soon my plans to mature i If I don’t take Woods' Great Peppermint ; Cure. SSI

I don’t put my hand on the right man in a fortnight—well, I shall be surprised!” I communicated the police-sergeant’s optimistic notions to Crole and Maythorne over a cup of tea that afternoon. Maythorne, of whose calling the police had been left in ignorance —they had regarded him as merely some friend of mine or of Mazaroft’s —seemed to understand Manners's j standpoint. “Following the most probable line,” j he remarked. “A sensible one, too. i Put it to yourself. Here’s an evidently wealthy man, travelling in a luxurious ! ear of his own, put up at a roadside | inn, goes into a public bar-parlour, lets it be seen that he’s lots of money j on him, and strolls out on a lonely moor after night has fallen. What more likely than that one of the men before whom he’s just pulled out his purse should slip after him, murder him, and rob him?” “With Musgrave's gun?” I asked. “Nothing out of the way about that little detail," said Maythorne. 'Didn't I hear you tell those police chaps that j after you'd finished your letters you took them off to the pillar-box up the road, at the end of the village, leaving 1 this sitting-room unoccupied? Yes — very well, what was easier than for the murderer to take down the gun I from those hooks and slip out after l Mazaroff?” “That would presuppose a knowi ledge that the gun was there,” reI marked Crole. j “Precisely,” agreed Maythorne. “But i Holt has already told us—or the | police, in our presence—that when he j went out he left the door open, and | there were no doubt local characters ; | about who knew quite well what was

in this room, and what hung on that wall. I think Manners has got hold of a good theory—murder for the sake of robbery. But—whether It's the right one or not —urn!” “You doubt it?” I asked. He gave us a candid, confidential smile. “If you really want to know,” he replied, “I neither doubt it nor agree with it. At present I don’t know where we are. I'd like to know a lot of things yet. In particular—who was the man that Mazaroff said he wanted |to see, hereabouts? Did he see him? If so, when —and where? If he hadn't 1 seen him, was he on his way to see him at the time of the murder? Again —does this man. whoever he is, know Mazaroff as Mazaroff or as Merchlson ? Was Mazaroff murdered as Mazaroff, an unknown man here, or as Merchison, a man who had been known here?" “Ah!” muttered Crole. “My question!” “In other words,” continued Maythorne. "had this murder its origin in the sudden temptation of some chance predatory rascal who saw his opportunity of robbing a rich man, or have we got to go back —and if back. . how far back?” . , (To bo nintir.:!' <1 )