The Step In The House

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 478, 6 October 1928, Page 21

The Step In The House

By

Rina Ramsay.

CHAPTER X (Continued) “Is her father in?” he said. "No. But he’ll be in directly,” said Poor Maggie. “Do you want to see him?” “I’d better,” said Richardson. He went into the sitting-room and waited. His pity for the girl was not swallowed up by his eagerness to pursue his idea. Rather it was increased. If he should turn out to be right in his wild theory of the murder, it would be a far worse trouble for the soul upstairs than the fickleness of young men. He couldn’t help ..hat. And the poor devil wasn’t safe at large as it was so. They wouldn’t hang him. A criminal with an epileptic history was bound to escap* the gallows in these days of mawkish uess when a plea of insanity was trumped up on the smallest pretext. But he wished the police would do their own detective work, confound them! If

It wasn’t for the black suspicion dogging her, he would never touch it. But there was no mud he wouldn’t wade through to save her little feet from the mire. Poor Maggie seemed to think it her duty to entertain him. She sidled into the room after him, and down on the piano stool. (That emblem of gentility was not lacking. On the top of it stood the brazen horn of a gramophone.) “Hilda never was strong,” she said, "but she’s not often ill to speak of. She would perhaps have a fainting fit once in a while, but we’d put her to bed and she’d be herself in a day or two. It’s sweethearting does the mis chief. Her young man doesn’t seem to know his own mind. It’s time she was married; she’ll be thirty on Saturday, but he—he’s afraid of her health; he’s fussy. And poor Hilda

feels it. She’s afraid of being thrown over like her aunt.” “Oh, is she?” said the doctor. He let her babble. “Yes,” said Poor Maggie. “I don’t know what her father would do if that was to happen. He made a great trouble over the old business. Didn’t say much but brooded and brooded. I always say he was never the same man again. I just remember him, how different he was before his sister died. We always said it was that killed her. Arfl Hilda would go the same way. It would prey on her mind.” She shook her head solemnly. "Men are so selfish,” she said. “All they think of is looks and their own comfort. They’re frightened to death of a sickly wife. We tried to keep it from this young fellow about Hilda’s fainting, but she had one once when they were out together, and it gave him a scare. He hasn’t been quite the same to her since, poor girl.” She heard Harrison’s step outside, a shuffling tread for a man—and pro pared to let him in, but stayed a mo ment with her hand on the door, half

i in, half out—with an air of amiable shyness. “Me telling you this," she said, “might be a guide to you, doctor, for : making up her medicine. It’s her ! fretting you want to cure.” i -He smiled grimly. Medicine—that . was the great idea. Well, poor 1 thing, she should have it. Harrison shuffled into the room. He ' was palpably nervous. "How is my 1 poor girl?” he said. Richardson told him. The seizure, it seemed, had been worse than usual, and they had been alarmed. As kindly as he could the doctor touched on the real cause. Harrison heard [ him out. “Yes, it’s in our family,” he said. ' "Has been for generations. It’s come i down to us from my great-grand- ; father —he was a big man in these i parts. My father- used often to tell : us about him. He was a wild liver, the old gentleman, and we get it ■ from him.” He spoke with a kind of mournful satisfaction as if a family disease was 1 a matter for pride. But his brow darkened. He looked appealingly at , the doctor. "You wouldn’t suppose,” he said, “that a young fellow would back out of his engagement because he’d got to hear of it, would you, doctor? Yet that’s what hapened to her aunt, my poor sister . . . and my girl gets worried. What I says is you take your chance. They take each other for better or worse, and it’s rightly they should.” “She ought not to marry,” said the doctor, gravely. “And why not? My grandfather married, and my father married, and I married,” said the man; his voice rose to a curious shrill note. He looked at the ceiling, and dropped it with an effort at quietness. “Why should my poor little Hilda be the one to suffer?” "Because,” said the doctor —it had to be said—“her children will suffer if she does not stay as she is.” The man suddenly thumped his fist on the table. ' “And is my girl to die an old maid for the sake of Tom Brownrigg’s children?” he said violently. “If a man is going to desert my daughter for the sake of his unborn brats he’ll have to reckon with me. It’s been done once in our family, and it shan’t be done twice. I’ll not leave his punishment to Providence. I’ll deal with him there and then. I’ll choke him. I’ll not wait for forty years!” Richardson held his breath. The man seemed nearly beside himself. What was coming? But Harrison passed his hand over his eyes, and his voice, that had risen to a scream, grew sober. “I beg youy pardon, doctor,” he said. “I lose myself vdien I think of it. It’s not the man’s fault so much. It’s the muddling women who get hold of a family affliction and use it to serve their own ends and scare off a man from doing his duty. Whispering and making mischief, and telling tales. And somebody’s playing the old game again, I see. It’s that wretched old woman, Susan Beamish, poisoning the lad’s mind. She has her plans for him very likely, but a man’s not bound to marry to please his aunt. He’s not good enough for my Hilda, but she wants him, and she shall have him.” Richardson left the house convinced that he was on the right track. He caught himself whistling as he walked up the street, and stopped, wondering how he could be so callous. But it wasn’t that. He wasn’t exulting in his persuasion of this man’s guilt, but in his better hope of proving another’s innocence of the crime. He cursed the want of imagination that had been shown by the police. Mr. Smith had

probably troubled bis bead no further when he had suggested the possibilities in this quarter. Fools! He would have to communicate with them, have to show them that he, the rank amateur, had followed the right scent. But what had he, after all, to show them? Nothing definite, nothing yet that would defeat them in their assertion that a man, though he could get in easily enough, could not have escaped unheard. His heart sank again. It wasn’t clear yet. His work was not done. And then, curiously enough, something occurred to change his mood. Johnny Adams, coming out of his office in his new suit, with a cigarette in his mouth, joined him, throwing down the stump of the cigarette. His expression was not as gay as it had been. He looked a trifle worried. “I say,” he began, “1 saw that fellow Smith in the place this morning. There’s nothing for him to do here that I can see. The girl’s vanished. He can’t expect her to come back here. And he raked the place pretty thoroughly for evidence when he was prowling about before. I’m just going up to see if he has been bothering Miss de Stair. She gave them all the information in her power; called with me at headquarters before she came down at ‘all. I don’t see what he wants just now.” He gave an inquiring look at the doctor. “You don’t know anything about it, do you?” he said keenly. “You and he were rather pals. I’ve seen him go into your house several times when he was here before.”

“Perhaps he has found a clue,” said Richardson. Johnny started. “What?” he said. “Oh, you don't know anything; you’re just pulling my leg—l should think she’s got safe out of the country by this time, don’t you? She’s had the chance.” But his face was a little anxious. Perhaps, satisfied as he was with the present state of affairs, bo much more satisfactory, from his point of view, than the former, he could spare some feeling for the girl whose pluck he had admired while believing the worst of her. Noticing his expression, Richardson felt he disliked him rather less than usual, but he kept his own counsel. He had no opinion of the lawyer’s discretion. “Well,” he said, “if you see Mr. Smith at any time, tell him I’m expecting a call from him.” But no Mr. Smith turned up. Only, two or three days later, he came face to face with his patient, Hilda. She was, for the time, quite restored, and she was walking with a young man who was certainly not Tom Brownrigg. Richardson did not know what took his attention about the man. He had the habit of observation; but there was nothing noticeable about Hilda’s companion, except that he was not the fair, rather sheepish lover, three or four years too young for her, that she should have been walking with. Neat clothes, neat moustache, altogether neutral. He got some information shortly on the subject from Poor Maggie, who turned up at the surgery asking, as a precaution. for another bottle of stuff for Hilda. It was Poor Maggie's own idea that Hilda ought to be fortified. She was immoderately excited.

“The poor girl’s got a new young man, doctor," she said eagerly, mouthing the words so In her excitement that he could hardly understand her. “It won’t do to let her go fainting when he’s about. It would spoil it all. He’s the new chemist’s assistant, doctor, and such a nice young fellcw. But he’s not serious. Hilda says; she knows well enough he’s just lonely. You can always tell, though you don’t let them see it. You see, he’s a stranger here. But what does it matter? she says. It’ll teach Tom Brownrigg; it’ll make him jealous. She’s sewing her wedding petticoat at this moment. She knows! Tom Brownrigg will see our Hilda is not such a poor thing; it’ll teach him to make up his mind.” “Oh, the new chemist’s assistant, is he?” said the doctor. The chemist, he knew, had not had this new assistant in more than a week. What lucky star had guided him, in a strange town, so quickly to poor Hilda, not so very attractive with her sallow face that a young man would go down so suddenly before her? A thought struck him. He made a pretext for going over to the chemist’s in the morning, and took a look at the civil young man behind the counter. Neutral, that was the word—not noticeable. One couldn’t particularly him, would not remember him. “I haven’t seen you before," he said. “No, sir,” said the chemist’s assistant, politely. (To be Continued.)