“THE WAY OUT”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 519, 23 November 1928, Page 5

“THE WAY OUT”

Or “ HEMING'S PROBLEM

* By

H. Maxwell.

CHAPTER XXVlll.—(Continued) “For a whim, perhaps ... or because I regarded them as dangerous possessions ... or because I’m a fool . . . who knows?” replied Carstairs airily. “But I assure you they are destroyed.” Roger mechanically returned to his chair and sat down. “It is astonishing that you should have done that, but it cannot alter our attitude.” he said. “We cannot help you.” “No,” said Carstairs. beaming, “you cannot, but 1 can help you.” “I don’t understand —it’ you are serious ” “I don’t * understand myself times," he said. “How can you help us?” “Ah, now you are talking. Mr. Temple give me a patient hearing and your curiosity shall he satisfied. I will trace for your enlightenment the connection between two apparently isolated events, your disgrace the Admiralty, and your subseQUent conviction for manslaughter at the Twynham Assizes.” Was there such a connection? Roger had never dreamed of the possibility. Carstairs lit a cigarette with meticulous care, and met Roger’s blank stare with a humorous twinkle. He was enjoying himself after his own Particular fashion very much indeed. "there was never a man with a more ill-regulated or worse balanced mind than Raymond Compton. He had no staying power, no perseverance; harum-scarum, dash at his object, hit or miss —that was his way of doing business. When he got those obsolete plans, and had paid the price for them, and found they were use-

less, and when, in consequence of his bungling failure, he was repudiated by the people that employed him and turned adrift, his reason snapped. He became ohsessed with one idea, the idea of revenge, of revenge on you, the man who had ingeniously turned the tables on him.” “But I didn’t turn the tables on on him.” said Roger “No, of course you didn’t.” the other assented; “but one couldn’t convince him of the fact. He had got it into his head that you had thwarted him by a move of diabolical cleverness, and no reasoning could get it out again. Nothing would suffice him but revenge. You had been poor, and he saw you suddenly possessed of money. That money could only be the £22.000 paid for the obsolete plans. You had dished and foiled and ruined him, and the retribution he meant to exact for that was your life.” “I’m amazed,” murmured Roger. “No doubt, no doubt, but please don’t interrupt. Compton, otherwise sane, was mad on the question of killing you, but his madness was tempered by a madman’s cunning. He was out to kill you without risk to his own skin, and to that end he enlisted the services of’Mary Barstow. You were to be cajoled to some out-of-the-way spot. Mary acting as a decoy, and there made away with; a primitive plau, which would probably have succeeded, if Mary could have been relied upon. But. alas! she was a woman, and that Implies she was not complete mistress of her emotions. She allowed her heart and not her head to rule her conduct. In other words, she fell in love with you; at least, she grew sufficiently fond of vou to flinch from carrying out her share of the plot. She left you and ran away with Heming.” “I can’t believe that Mary Barstow, an innocent country girl ”

I “It is not easy, I admit, but if you ; will remember that you were very | young at the time and that Mary was an accomplished adventuress who made the pose of the artless country girl her speciality you will find it less difficult to believe it. Well, she ran away with Heming to relieve you from peril, and Compton’s anger was diverted from you to her. She did not care a snap of the fingers for Heming, but he was useful as a protection from Compton. But she wanted to get right away, and to get right away she wanted a large sum of money, and so she feigned heart-broken and inconsolable at the thought of parting from him." “She did not feign,’ said Roger, “she killed herself because they had to part ” Carstairs smiled. “Believe me, no, Mr. Temple; she was merely playing on Hemlng’s feelings. Her dispatching him to buy poison in order that they might die was all fudge. She had no intention of dying with him or anybody else; she was afraid of Compton, and she wanted to get out of England, but she did not mean to go emptyhanded. She was pushing Heming ! into the position when she would be able to wheedle out of him the extortionate sum she had sef her heart upon. I do not think you need waste excessive sympathy on the tragic death of Mary Barstow." “Then how did she die?” “I am coming to that,” said Carstairs. “I sympathised with Mary, and was in touch with her all the time. I was to obtain a handsome portion of the sum to be eventually' extorted from Heming. Heming wanted strychnine, and I as a medical man could supply it. It was Mary who sent him to me. I took his written order for it, and in due course sent it to his address. And then Compton arrived on the scene. I have only his word for what followed, but I have no doubt or the truth of what he told me. She was terrified at seeing him; he had come to kill her, he said so. There was the poison ready to his hand. He bade her choose between the knife and the poison. Remember, he was a homicidal maniac. She chose the strychnine and he compelled her to drink it. I know she did not take it voluntarily, for nothing could have been farther from her thoughts than suicide. Heming was her dupe and only remotely and accidentally responsible for the tragedy. And that is how Marv Barstow died.” “Then you lied to me in Dartmoor?’ “No. I told you that I was the man | who had procured the poison for Heming. which was true. I did not know : bow Mary had died until after my rej lease, when I met Compton and he told 1 me. Shortly after your conviction I was in trouble myself.” I “You let me think and Heming think that he ”

“Oh,” Carstairs interrupted him, “I am not setting up for. a saint; I let you both think what best suited my plans that you should think. By the time you came out of prison I was in full work again as a paid spy. And business was bad with me; 1 couldn’t get any information worth having, my employers were impatient. 1 had had my eye for a long time on Heming and Lord Redderton,

but I could not see how either could be much use to me. Redderton was’ a bit too big a man, not likely to respond to threats, and Heming was too small. Moreover. I was hampered by Compton, whom I couldn’t shake off: he was still brooding on his foolish revenge, waiting for your release. So matters remained till you came to Wilchest.er, and became engaged to Hemins’s daughter and Heming was made Solicitor-G.enera!..” •'And then Heming became valuable to you.”

“Heming as one of the Law Officers of the Crown at once became enormously' valuable to me,” Carstairs answerer smilingly', “but Compton was a veritable thorn in my side. He tried to kill you on the moor. He ! was for ever lurking in some silly ambuscade. He was foolish and hopeless and demented, he made the most senseless plans. I could not convince him he had no genuine griev-

[ j auce against y r ou. He stuck to it. "He was an unmitigated nuisance. I : did not want y'ou killed. I did not i opinion that there are worse crimes than murder.” He ceased, sat silent for a moment or two, then glanced at his watch and • remarked: ' “I think 1 have cleared everything ’up, Mr. Temple; my dinner ought to arrive in a very few minutes, so per- ' haps you had better go. Shall I ring i for the warder to let you out?. I have to thank you for your visit and the

| very patient hearing you’ve given to imy story.” Roger rose to his feet oppressed with the weV.er of emotions this exwant Hemin* upset. I wanted him to be free from every anxiety except the particular one I was waiting a suitable opportunity to spring upon him. And so I lost patience and decided to deal with Compton myself.” “And you killed him?” “I did,” said Carstairs “and as Jane Finlay gave an accurate and vivid account of the incident in Court today I need not dwell on it. He was a taker of life himself. He would have taken another sooner or later, yours and perhaps Miss Heming’s. I do not pretend to feel any special remorse. I am at one with Jane in the traordinarv narrative had roused in liiin. “What ought I say to you?” he murmured huskily. Carstairs bowed and smiled and straightened himself. “If I have amused and entertained you, you might say thank you.” “Oh, why keep up that horrible, cynical pose?” “My dear sir, it is not a pose, it is my attitude toward life.” “Can’t T do anything for you?” i “I think not, thank you very much* Well, perhaps you can,” he said, “you might convey this manuscript to Lady Elizabeth. It is the same story I have told you, reduced to writing. It may make, some difference to her: it may serve to lift some of the clouds that shadow lives which are "very near and dear to you.” This was the writing which Carstairs had occupied himself with earlier in the afternoon. “It will make a difference.” said ! Roger. . . “I hope so, and that, I think, is all. “Is there nothing I can do for you?” asked Roger again. “I am greatly obliged to you, but i repeat—nothing.” Carstairs rang the bell and the waider came and unlocked the door. “Good-bye, Mr. Temple, and manv thanks.” He bowed at the open door, a punctilious host speeding a parting guest, but he made it evident that he would prefer not to shake hands. “Good-bye,” said Roger, and Carstairs said to the warder: “My dinner, please, as soon as possible; I’m feeling really hungry.” When Roger got home Heming had already breathed his last. CHAPTER XXIX.—CONCLUSION Sir Edward Conway-Heming’s sudden demise at a comparatively early age was made the text for many newspaper articles on the “Stress of Modern Life.” He had died, it was pointed out, not so much of “overwork” as of “over-strain.” He had thrown himself with such

energy and public spirit and conscientious zeal into the arduous duties of his high office that his physical constitution, never a very vigorous 011%, had been unable to cope with the demands he had not hesitated to impose upon it. He had never spared himself. He had as truly died in the service of his country as any soldier stricken down on the field of battle. All the obituary notices were written in this strain, they were all laudatory, there was no discordant note anywhere; uo reference was made to the circumstances which, a sort time previously, had connected his name with a great public scandal. But, as we know, Sir Edward Con-way-Heming died of a devastating torment set up by the tremendous conflict between his private interest and his public duty. He had tried to square them, he had tried to have it both ways, and it was not to be done; spirit and conscience rebelled, first undermining his brain, then shattering his body. His was one of those ordeals which, when they confront a public man, can only result in one of two ways, in the destruction of his domestic happiness or of his career; there is no successful way of meeting them; the least unsuccessful is to sacrifice one or the other ruthlessly and to make a quick choice; in that, event something is saved, a few years of life perhaps, possibly a name, probably appearances, but never peace of mind. And did the disclosures in Carstairs’s manuscript make a difference to Lady Elizabeth. The answer is that it made a very little, if any, since it emphasised Heming’s pitiful weakness and folly in originally running away and allow-

ing another mail to hear the consequences of a crime which he believed, mistakenly, he had committed himself Had he stood his ground, the truth, exonerating him, must have come out. In fact, Cady Elizabeth's idol had been so completely shattered that it was ■impossible to collect the fragments and piece them together. And then 'one must take Into consideration her own endeavour to conceal the truth. No, nothing could make much difference to her. But to Cicely it did make a difference, for in youth literal, concrete things are naturally more important than the essential motive underlying them. It had been shown that her father was not directly responsible for Mary Barstow’s death. And she found real comfort in the literal fact. Carstairs did not live to be brought to trial; he was discovered dead iu his bed on the morrow of his interview with Roger. He died of aconite poisoning self-administered, an end in keeping with his philosophy of life, which accepted no restraints of conduct except such as suited his own will and pleasure. The best thing to be said about him is that he sometimes triumphed over his philosophy, and that when his career terminated in disaster, as it was bound to terminate, he was no squealer. For the rest, disregarding his little affectations, he was a pleasant and amusing companion, jovial and genial and cheery. Deep-rooted selfishness often masquerades as superficial unselfishness. Carstairs was an inveterate egoist. Lady Elizabeth left Wilchester and went to live at Reddertou Hall with her father, whose infirmities are gradually increasing. But he still gets about, and he is certainly happier than at any time in the last eight or nine years! He knows nothing of the revelations in the Carstairs manuscript. Roger and Cicely were quietly married in the early spring at the Redderton parish church, and are as happy as one could wish. Old Jane Finlay enjoys wonderful health. When asked how she is, she invariably replies: “I'm well enough, though poisoned lin my legs I was, but I’ll out-last old j Dick Dawson yet—him what mends I roads, well past eighty he is and me j not much over seventy.” 1 And probably she will. THE END.