The Room Under the Stairs

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 857, 28 December 1929, Page 21

The Room Under the Stairs

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

By

Herman Landon

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

CHAPTER XVIII. (continued) “Of course,’* promised Dean readily. A visit to the death chamber would mean only a few minutes’ delay and would involve no great risk. Littleby had presumably retired, and it was not likely they would encounter any obstacles. If they did, his new responsibility would sharpen his wits sufficiently to find a way out. Though Miss Lamont had not said so, everything indicated that she being kept a prisoner in this strange room, if nothing else, the curiously arranged entrance and the girl’s apparent isolation were proof of that. “One moment,” he whispered, a fresh difficulty occurring to him. He crossed the little hall outside and passed to the point where an opening had so magically appeared at his touch. Upon entering, he had been dimly conscious that it had automatically slipped back behind him, but iu his eagerness he had given no thought to the circumstance. Doubtless the hidden door could be manipulated from the inside as well as the outside, and in all probability the mode of operation was similar, but he wished to make sure. In a few minutes he was back, having discovered the secret mechanism and satisfied himself that the road was clear. “Littleby seems to be fond of melodramatic claptrap,* he remarked. Didn’t know that legal erudition included familiarity with secret springs and levers. If you are ready—” He paused, taken aback by the curious Questioning gaze she fixed on his face. During his brief absence some of her doubts seemed to have returned. f K^ r .’ littleby has told me about atner s confession;’* she remarked m a low, hesitant voice. Are you sure you want to have an^’t i^i ll g to do with the daughter of a Rubbish,” said Dean, as she hesitated over the last word. “If your father killed Paul Forrester under the circumstances he described, there was ample extenuation. You were very ] -l at the time, I understand?” "Desperately. I wasn’t expected to live.” "And your father had to have money i *o give you the medical attention you needed. Forrester grew insulting when he tried to collect a just debt from him, and your father lost his head. That was all there was to it. Lots of men would have acted just as he did.” The words slipped out easily enough, prompted by his quick, compassion for the girl, but a feeling of weirdness rose to his head. What would Miss Lamont think if she could know that he was the very man whom her father confessed having murdered? “Do you believe the confession?” she insisted. "To tell you the truth, I haven’t given it much thought,” he lied brazenly. “Do you?” "I don’t know what to think. So tnany awful and mysterious things have happened lately that my brain j refuses to work.” “Then let’s not bother about trifles. Due thing is sure. Your father was a j man of absolute honour, and whatever ! he did was prompted by hi% love for | Flytox is deadly to mosquitoes and all household insects. Guaranteed 100 Per cent, killing power. Easily used. Stainless.— ll.

you. You can remember that. Heady to start?” “Wait.” A wan little smile fluttered about her lips. “Do you realise that you haven't told me who you are? If you are to be my escort, don’t you think we had better know each other?” He frowned, impatient at the delay, but he could see that her recent experiences had left her constantly alert against snares. “You are right, of course,” he assented. “My name, though it probably won’t mean anything to you, is Thomas Dean.” HATRED! He started as he saw the magical effect of his words. Her eyes, which had bee~n raised to his with a shy gleam of confidence in their blue depths, grew suddenly rigid. For a moment her face remained expresionless, then a freezing film seemed to pass over her anguish-stricken features. “Thomas Dean,” sho echoed in a small hard voice, at the same time shrinking away from him as if he were a venomous being, “how dare you come near me? What’s your object in pretending to be my friend? You—you monster!” Dean could only stare, his faculties stunned by her sudden turn to fury and loathing. “What on earth is the matter?” he at length blurted out. Could she have discovered that Thomas Dean and Paul Forrester were one? It did not seem possible, and even if such were the case, it did not account for her abrupt change of attitude. "You know,” she said, in an icy, trembling voice, “I was a fool to trust you, even for a moment, after the way you sneaked in on me, but I felt as if I must - confide in somebody. What a contemptible hypocrite you are! What did you want with me? Haven’t you already committed enough crimes?” “Crimes?” he echoed dully, then shook his head in despair. “Do you know. Miss Lamont, that I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about?” “Oh. you are clever, very clever, like all the rest. You came here pretending to be my friend so you could —I don't know what contemptible j thing you had in mind. But you made a mistake when you told me your name. I suppose you didn’t think I knew.” “Knew what?” "That you—that, you murdered my father.” It seemed to require a colossal self-control for her to speak the words calmly. "Murdered your father?” Dean, utterly stuuned, gazed at her incredulously. “What put such a ridiculous idea into your head?” “Oh, don't pretend that you don’t j know.” She flung the words from her | contemptuously, as if they scorched I her tongue. “You killed him. because j you feared he would live long enough j to tell something he knew about I you.” I “Oh!” Dean was beginning to see a faint glimmering of light. The i theory just put forth by the girl was the same as the one Littleby had sug- ! gested during the conversation on the j balcony. Coming from the lawyer, the dark hints had failed to disturb i him to any great extent, but their i repetition by the murdered man’s daughter seemed to clothe them in a nevr significance. | “So, the estimable Mr. Littleby has been talking to you,” he remarked.

“That explains. Y ou must trust him exceedingly to take his word for a thing like that.” “I didn't have to take Mr. Littleby’s word for it,” she rejoined, looking at him as if his very presence in the room inspired her with unspeakable shudders. “Father told me himself.” “Your father?” Dean suddenly wondered if she were raving. “When?” “Day before yesterday.” Dean shook bis head despairingly. “How could he tell you of something that only happened a short while ago? Besides, it was my understanding that you were not allowed to see him?” “But I was permitted to talk with him over the telephone.” She cast a quick glance at the instrument in the rear of the room. "I was not allowed to converse with him more than a few moments, but he told me enough. He seemed to have a warning—call it a premonition if you like—of what was to happen. He told me he had information in his possession w'hich, if it were made known, would send a certain person to the penitentiary. He said this person was desperately anxious that he should not have a chance to reveal what he knew. Father also said that if he should come to a sudden and violent end, I would know whom to suspect. He mentioned the person s name, and told me I mustn’t forget it. It was Thomas Dean.” Dean gazed at her in dull stupor. There was a dizzying churning in his head. Was the girl’s mind reeling, or had her father been out of his senses when he made that astounding statement over the telephone? “It’s all an absurd mistake,” he managed to say, coming forward hesitatingly. “Look at me. Miss Lamont. Do I look like a murderer?” “No, you don’t,” she said coldly. “You look like an honourable man. When you first came into the room, 1 wanted to trust you. You looked like the kind of man I could place confidence in. That’s what makes you doubly dangerous—and doubly despicable.” She retreated with an expression of intense aversion as he came closer. “Don’t touch me! You should be turned over to the police, but all I want is that you go away from me. I can’t endure the sight of you.” Dean made a despairing gesture. 1-le could see that she was hysterical, tha* further arguments were of no avai that his presence in the room revolted her—and all the while he felt an ab surd, unreasoning impulse to take hei into his arms and soothe her. Resisting tbe urge, he made one more attempt: "Is there nothing I can do to convince you ?” She merely shook her head and motioned him away from her, and in the same instant a voice came from the little hall just outside the room: “Ask him, Miss Lamont, where he was when the shot was fired that killed your father.” Both turned their heads in the direction whence the voice came. In the doorway, erect and lugubrious, stood Dennis Littleby. CHAPTER XIX. MISS LAMONT WAVERS The lawyer, fingering his inevitable pince-nez. came forward with a print and doleful air. Evidently he had not retired since Dean follow-ed his movements in the corridor, for he still wore his sedate sw'allow-tail coat and trousers of a faint grey check. For a moment his eyes met the girl’s in a way which made Dean wonder W'hether an optical message were being exchanged between them, and then tbe lawyer seated himself with the ceremonious deliberateness which he affected in all things. “I wonder if there is such a thing as mental telepathy,” he said musingly. “Ever since I left you—it must be fully an hour ago, isn’t it?—l have been troubled with a persistent feeling that all wasn’t well with you, Miss Lamont. At length I decided to investigate, arriving here just in time to

Und you engaged in a highly diverting conversation with this —this officious young man. You showed admirable discretion in your refusal to accept him at his face value-—the same sagacity in regard to - character that was one of your poor father’s sterling traits.” He sighed ostentatiously. “May I suggest again that you ask him where he was when the fatal shot was fired?” His eyes sought the girl’s downcast ones as he spoke, and when she looked up their glances once more tangled in a manner which to Dean suggested a secret understanding. Yet he perceived in Miss Lamout’s manner a sign of dread and inward shrinking, while behind the lawyer’s sleek personality there was a hint of a subtly domineering influence. He wondered what it meant, and then he found Miss Lamont fixing him with a questioning gaze. “Will you answer that question, Mr. i Dean?” she said coldly. ; Dean hesitated, weighing the possible consequences of a full and can- ' did explanation and what effect it 1 might have on the girl. He did not know what it was that drew his gaze to the telephony in the rear of the ; room, but of a sudden his brows con- , tracted, and the light of an idea, at | first staggering in its immensity, ' came into his eyes. He looked at the , lawyer, sitting a few paces away with a sort of glum self-satisfaction on his . face, then at Miss Lamont. He studied ' the oval of her face, white and tense . and showing signs of a terrific ’ struggle. A scream echoed in his memory ; and went booming down an arcanum - | of mysteries. He recalled the scene i j at Lament’s bedside when the dying

man sat upright in bed, his wasted form trembling in an agony of unspeakable dread, with the telephone receiver pressed to his ear and a look of abysmal terror in his shrunken face. Dean, obsessed by the fearful spectacle, had snatched the receiver from his hand, brought it to his own ear, and then Something seemed to snap within his brain, releasing a torrent of wild ideas. Was it Miss Lamont who had uttered that nerve-tearing shriek that was still resounding in chaotic echoes in his mind? If so (To be continued on Monday.)