HANDS UNSEEN

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 869, 13 January 1930, Page 5

HANDS UNSEEN

A Nezv Grey Phantom Detective Story

By

HERMAN LANDON

Copyright hy Street ancl Smith Corp. Serialized by Ledger Syndicate

CHAPTER 11. FREY, CLIMAX OIL, ’9S It required great self-control to refrain from opening the letter and resisting the temptation. Uncle and niece finished their meal without further reference to the mystery, and in a little while Mr. Craig got up and passed into the. library. The moment hts was alone behind the bolted door he betrayed a quivering eagerness, which until now he had done his best to suppress. He crossed to the window of the dim library, drew out the enclosure, consisting of a plain white sheet containing but a single typewritten line. Mr. Craig, staring at it, looked as if it had leapt out from the page and smitten him between the eyes. For a full minute he stood there, incapable of sound or movement, looking as if a cold fear had engulfed all Ins faculties. His eyes, unseeing, wandered from the paper to the grey, frosty landscape outside the window. A groan escaped him on a sharp expulsion of breath. Convulsively his twitching fingers crumpled the sheet. With a tremor passing down his lean form, he awoke from his stupor. “So that’s it.” He smoothed out the paper against his palm. “I might have known something like this would happen. But Frey—Climax —” Mr. Craig shook his head bewilderedly. He could take a certain grim satisfaction in this fulfilment of the shapeless fears that had followed him for days. There has been premonitions, hazy, indennable ones, that had warned him of the blow which had now fallen. He had experienced similar forebodings in the past, especially in periods of acute mental depression, but nothing serious had happened. This time (he auguries had not deceived him. He found a sort of sardonic satisfaction in the fact that for once they’ had proved true. Yet he had never imagined they "'ould materialise in this form. The Mysterious way in which the letter bad been slipped into his house was staggering enough. The theory’ that its author had entered into collusion with the servants would explain the riddle, hut Mr. Craig dismissed it from his mind at once. There was not one of them, from William down to the kit*

chenmaid, whom he did not trust unreservedly. If for no other reason, they were too deeply devoted to Julia to engage in treachery against her uncle. Mr. Craig felt their vicarious loyalty to him could be depended upon absolutely. The explanation must be sought elsewhere. But the manner in which the letter had been smuggled into the house was a matter of minor consequence. It merely went to prove that its author was a resourceful and ingenious person, one whose astuteness Mr. Craig could not afford to underestimate. What concerned him far more deeply was the note itself, cryptic in its wording to anyone but the ad-

dressee, and to him terrifyingly clear. He mumbled the words, rolling them reluctantly on his tongue, as if each syllable had a fiery sting. The typed letters seared their way into the depths of his consciousness, blistering a glaring path into his past. Ninety-eight. That was almost twenty-five years ago. It was not often Mr. Craig permitted himself to remember that far back, though unwelcome recollections occasionally forced themselves upon him. For years and years he had rigidly excluded from his mind all reflections concerning Jack Frey and their sensational venture in Climax Oil. It was only on rare occasions, especially on sombre, depressing days, that the ventricles of his memory swung open against his will, permitting an outpouring of things he had tried to cloister in oblivion. Now the barriers had been torn asunder again. Only that morning he had congratulated himself on the apparent certainty that this secret was safe, that the only person who might have disinterred it was dead. Evidently he had been mistaken. The letter in his hand proved that there was another person still living whose memory extended twenty-five years back, to the adroitly engineered coup that had started Mr. Craig on the road to fortune. He wiped the sticky perspiration from his forehead, then discovered that his limbs were shaking. It

would not do, lie told himself. Now if ever he needed to think clearly, to act with deliberation. Perhaps things were not so serious as they seemed; at any rate, he would probably find a way out. The mind that had engineered that brilliant coup in Climax Oil was still functioning in his head, its vigour and agility still unimpaired. By dint of pluck aud nerve he had extricated himself from other embarrassing situations in the past, and he had no doubt of his ability to do so again.

He drew himself erect, walked steadil3 r to the table, and sat down. Soothing reflections came to him as he spread out the rumpled letter before him and leaned back in his chair. Twenty-five years was a long, long time ago. It was extremely doubtful whether any one now living could prove what had happened then. His anonymous correspondent, whoever he was, had probably built up a monumental bluff on nothing more solid than rumours and suspicions.

Nevertheless, it would be satisfying to know the identity of the person who had written that note. This thrust in the dark was inimical to the mental poise he needed. If there were only a clue of some kind! Again, in a calmer mood, he examined the envelope and the note, but both were as impersonal as typewritten communications usually are. He looked in vain for a trace of individuality. If there were nicks in the type or imperfections in the alignment, they were too obscure to be detected without a magnifying glass, and Mr. Craig had no such instrument.

He dropped the letter, clasped his fingers across his narrow chest, and sat with head slightly bent while he tried to still his misgivings sufficiently so that he could meet the danger with a clear mind. “Jack Frey,” he mumbled, the slipping with a curious intonation over chattering teeth. “Jack Frey—” He* jerked up his head. Some one was rapping on the door. He heard the voicp of his niece edged with a tremor of excitement. “Are 3’ou there, Old Bear? William has just found another spook letter.” THE SECOND LETTER In an instant, Mr. Craig was at the door. For a moment, while she handed him the letter, their faces were close together, and the brief proximity brought the contrast into striking relief. One face was ashen and strained; the other radiant and enraptured. To one of them this second mysterious letter signified re-