The Room Under the Stairs

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 854, 24 December 1929, Page 2

The Room Under the Stairs

The Baffling Story of a Man Who Read of His Own Murder.

By

Herman London

Copyright by G. Hoicard Watt. Serialised by Ledger Syndicate.

CHAPTER XVKTontmued' # But whom was he to confide in? The least incautious move might only aggravate matters, and since his recent encounters with Miss Gray and Dr. Ballinger he felt a great reluctance toward trusting anyone. Littleby, the master of the house, was logically the man to notify, but he was as suspicious of the lawyer as of any of the others. Shane, perhaps —but Shane had politely intimated that he regarded Dean as a liar, if nothing worse. He could picture in imagination the dubious twinkle that would come into the lieutenant's eyes if he should venture to describe the screams he had heard. It was not a story that could be documented and verified, and Shane was a stickler for evidence. Lamont could substantiate it if he would, but would he? Dean remembered the rigid set of the sick man's lips when he asked for an explanation, as if a power outsidP himself had clamped them shut. There were the local police, but they might not take his story any more seriously than Shane would. It would be hard to convince them that such sensational things could happen in the house of the estimable Dennis Littleby, and any perfunctory inquiries they might make would only aggravate matters and put the guilty persons on their guard. For the present, at least, Dean was thrown on his own resources. EAVESDROPPING Faint mutterings of thunder sounded in the distance. Near the horizon, pallid streaks of lightning played along the velvety blackness. Dean struck a match and glanced at his watch. It was a few minutes after nine. He closed the shutters, lowered the window, and crept noiselessly down the second flight of stairs. It seemed as if an irresistible magnetism were drawing him baqk toward the room where Lamont lay, hemmed in by inscrutable terrors. His imaginary picture of the sick man made him relax his caution. The staircase was but dimly lighted, and at a turn his foot slipped and struck one of the pillars in the balustrade. The resultant noise seemed appallingly loud. He stopped and listened, uncertain -whether to proceed or turn back, but a voice close by quieted his misgivings. , The calm, casual tone assured him that his clumsiness had escaped notice, but the words themselves sent a thrill through his body. “But what’s in a scar?”

(To be contim/ed on Thursday.)

The voice, subdued and mildly incredulous, was Dr. Ballinger's. Dean, his hands clutching the stairway railing, waited a moment, and then the answer came. The speaker was Littleby. “Everything or nothing, my dear doctor. It depends upon circumstances.” TWO VOICES—AND A SHOT

Dean, positive now that neither ol the speakers was aware of his presence, descended a few steps lower. The voices, he now discovered, came from a point where the second floor hall opened upon a balcony. The rich aroma of excellent cigars hung in the still air. For the moment Dean’s interest in the subject under discussion overcame all other considerations. “But circumstances are sometimes deceptive,” the doctor pointed out, speaking in the deep, rather brusque voice that had gone far toward capturing Dean’s confidence at their first meetign, a confidence that had since received a violent shock. “And there is nothing remarkable in a scar. In my practice I have come across hundreds of them.”

“Doubtless,” admitted Littleby. His voice, pleasantly modulated, sounded somewhat deferential, as if he were arguing a case before a judge jealous of his dignity. “Let me make my point clear. I shall call your attention to three circumstances that may seem isolated at first glance, but assume a certain degree of correlation when you regard them more closely. Here is No. I: Some years ago—five or six or so—a trapper named Simon Cabell was murdered near a small mining town in the Leadville district. The murderer, who, by the way, was never caught, was Paul Forrester.”

“The man who was subsequently murdered by Lamont?” asked the doctor, suddenly interested.

“Littleby did not answer the question. “Cabell’s death occurred in an isolated section,” he went on. “It attracted little attention. The murder of an obscure trapper is of no consequence, and it is doubtful if the news of it ever reached: the East. At any rate, it was soon forgotten. Now, here is circumstance No. 2: Something like two years ago there appeared a novel entitled “Crossroads.” The author was our cflicious friend, Thomas Dean. The climacteric passage in that novel was a highly melodramatic scene in which the murder of Cabell was described exactly as it happened, barring the substitution of a few names and dates. The murderer even carried the scar with him through life as a result of the episode. His sensitiveness about the blemish was described with an astounding fidelity to human nature Really, you ought to read the storv, doctor. The author’s insight into criminal psychology is marvellous. "But what of it? Dean may have heard the story of the murder and .adopted it bodily. Novelists often do I understand.”

‘Wait,” said Littleby. “I now

come to circumstance No. 3. De;m has just such a scar aj; is described fo ‘Crossroads/ except that it Is located on the neck instead of the cheek. Perhaps the novelist exercised hfe licence to juggle the facts a bit. At any rate, I saw it myself. He kno’irs 4hat I have seen it, and, though fc e has said nothing about it, I know that he has been greatly upset by it. Moreover. Lamont saw it the day Lieuten. ant Shane and Dean called. It the sight of that scar that excited him so tremendously, although I dida t tell you at the time. Now. why did Lamont receive such a fearful shock at the sight of a scar?’

Dr. Ballinger gave an incredulous little chuckle. "Wasn't the scar on the neck one of the means by which he identified Paul Forrester as the man he murdered five and a half years ago?*'

"Exactly," said Littleby in a njildlv triumphant tone, "and a few days ago he almost died of shock upon see* ing just such a scar on Dean's neck How do you explain it?" “I'd rather not try."

"And how," asked Littleby impressively, "do you explain the fact thar Dean has taken such pa ns to hide the scar on his neck and that he acted so peculiarly—almost like a guilty man—when I discovered it ?"

The answer came after a measurable pause. “There is no doubt about the identity of the man Lanjont murdered ?"

“Apparently not. It is the most convincing identification I ever heard of. To make it doubly positive. Lamont identified Forresters photograph. To remove the last iota of doubt, a skeleton was found in the exact spot where Larnont concealed the body, and beside the skeleton was found Paul Forrester’s watch.”

"Then ’’ The physician appeared to hesitate. The rumblings in the sky were growing louder; now’ and then an angry flash pierced the darkness, “Just what are you thinking?” Ballinger demanded. “Not that Dean is Why that's ridiculous,” “I know. Utterly ridiculous. But what other construction would you put on the circumstances?"

A breath of moist wind coming in through an open window somewhere swept Dean’s burning face. He leaned forward tensely, waiting for Ballinger’s answer. “It’s out of my line,” confessed the doctor. “I'm a hard-boiled material ist. Let’s hear your explanation.”