THE JAPANESE PARASOL

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1020, 10 July 1930, Page 5

THE JAPANESE PARASOL

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CHAPTER XX. —(Continued) “Colonel,” she said impulsively, “1 can't explain it—but somehow I feel that you are mistaken. I think I should I know it here”—she placed her hand upon her heart—“if Hugh were dead. But, in spite of what you say, I don’t feel that, now that the first shock of fear has gone. On the contrary, something whispers to me that he is alive. I want you, until it is proved one way or the other, to take the brighter view, and hope with me.” Winthrop’s face darkened. This was 1 precisely the view he did not wish to take, and Gwen’s calm announcement of it disturbed him. With a knowledge of women that was far greater than his neighbours suspected, he had learnt that their intuitions were not to be despised. But if the girl’s present one were correct —if Hugh and Lucas, or even one of them, had escaped—then the colonel was likely to find himself in a very tight place. He began to wish he had made a little more certain before leaving the reef—though there had been subtlety in the move that had left natural forces to I accomplish the aVork of destruction. Still, he was perturbed, and the fact showed in the roughening of the soft | voice of condolence he had hitherto j employed. “Better not he too sanguine,” he ; insisted. “The certainty, when it ; comes, will he all the worse.” Gwen was shaking hgr head, with a j stubborn adherence to her point of i view, when Mrs. Bourne’s quavering voice lessened the tension. Up to 1 now she had not spoken, and it almost i seemed os if she had not -taken in [ tile purport of Winthrop's news. But apparently she had.

“I’m going to bed. my dear,” she : announced, as she gathered up her ] knitting. “As I was saying when the I colonel arrived, all these dreadful oeI currences are too much for me. I'm sure I don’t know what we are coming to. Show the colonel out., Gwen, when he has to go, and don't disturb me till the morning. Dear me, that poor Mr. Lucas and that poor Mr. Monro—l feel very distressed.” She fluttered away, and. metaphoric- | ally speaking, Winthrop shrugged his shoulders. He began to understand i what had induced her daughter to j consult him about Hugh in the first ; place.

“I, too, must be going,” he declared, and Gwen rose. Her thoughts were still revolving round that vague doubt that his recital hacl aroused. ’ “I’ll come with you as far as the garden gate,” she told him. “There is something I want to ask you.” ■Winthrop nodded. Her decision had anticipated the very request he had been about to make. He; also, wanted her to accompany him outside— meant, in fact, by hook or by crook to get her there.

"Better put. on a cloak,” he suggested. “you’ll find it a bit chilly.”

She did as he proposed, and. shutting the front door quietly behind her, walked down the garden path beside him in a silence that showed that she was marshalling her thoughts. Not until he had opened the gate, and they were both outside, did she speak, and then it was in a tone that was grave and measured. “There’s one thing that you said a little while ago I want you to explain, colonel,” she began. "At present it. doesn't seem to fit in—who’s that?” They were the last words she uttered —that strident question of alarm. They were hardly past her lips when a shadow detached itself from the nearby darkness, and at the instant of its appearance Winthrop seized her and pressed his huge, gnarled hand across her mouth. She

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fought and struggled vainly, but not a cry was allowed to escape her. The newcomer especially understood his business well, and it was a girl unable to speak or move that they presently lowered to the ground. Winthrop stared down at her grimly. "Take her feet, Larry," he growled. “We’ll carry her—to the water.” CHAPTER XXI. Father Time is a curious old gentleman, and there is no accounting for his pranks. The very person he favours one moment, he seems to have a grudge against the next, and vice versa. So it was now. He allowed Winthrop to get ashore and disappear before the fog lifted, but on the other hand also allowed the mist to dissolve in time to save Hugh and Lucas from a watery grave. He permitted Hugh, with his burden, to reach the shore at the very moment when his strength was exhausted, but likew’ise saw to it that the colonel should he able to tear along the country roads at a pace which brought him back to Hengrave in almost incredible time. And in the matter of the telegram he appeared to favour Winthrop also. That, telegram, it will be remembered, had been despatched to Gwen by Detectii e-Inspector Lucas just belore calling at the Bichester police station and denying the report of his own demise, it read as follow: “Am fit and well: believe no report whatever of my death; keep silent.—Hugh.” It was a, message, therefore, calculated to disprove very effectually the colonel’s statement to the girl, had she received it before his visit—as normally she should have done despite all his speed. But that was where the senile frolics of the old man with the scythe came in again. She did not receive it. it was shortly before eight when Lucas handed the wire over the counter. Now, the Hengrave office closed at eight, and although there was an official on duty when the wire came through, on that particular evening there was considerable difficulty in finding a messenger to carry it out to the Bournes’s house. Finally, when one was secured, he was the newestjoined teiegragph boy. and neither his inclinations nor his mentality exactly fitted him for the job. He set out on the nearly three miles ride on a bicycle, and in half a mile had punctured his back tyre, which reduced him to walking. Ten minutes later he found he had dropped the very message it was his mission Lo deliver.

A retraction of his footsteps, and a prolonged search with a feeble oillamp, enabled him to retrieve it, by which time he had lost all the love for the job he had ever possessed. Much against the grain, he dawdled on, stopping to investigate various night-rustlings in the hedgerows, and pushing his useless bike. Eventually, he was near the house, when, from his point of view', a dreadful thought struck him. Suppose the telegram should turn out to require an answer! Suppose he had to walk all the way back to Hengrave with that answer! Such an appalling contingency demanded consideration, so he sat down by the wayside to give it due thought. The only solatium he could see about this late delivery was the fact that he could cut across the fields to his own cottage when the delivery had taken place—hut if delivery meant going back to Hengrave, well, that was an other kettle-of-fish. He began to he sorrv Ire had ever looked for the en-

velope now. It might have been better to have gone home, and confessed its loss in the morning. True, it

would probably have meant the sack, but that did not greatly trouble him. More than once lie turued the buffcoloured missive over in his hands, tempted to throw it away and stick to the story that he had dropped it. and then from his perch on the bank l.e saw in tile distance Mrs Bourne’s bedroom light go out, which put the house in darkness. That suggested a new train of thought. “Gone to bed,” he muttered, “it would be a pity to rouse ’em.” With which observation he got to his feet again, and ambled on. Reaching the door he pushed the wire into the letter box, but forebore to knock or ring. Then, glowing with a consciousness of virtue which had redounded to his own comfort and convenience he trotted home to bed himself. He was too late to see anything of Gwen or the colonel, or of “Larry,” the colonel’s assistant. That was another of Father Time's little jokes. It w r as two hoys, bathing in the river, who brought the news next morning—or rather one who raced to the police station while the other stayed by what they had found. “A girl’s cloak!” Superintendent Blagdon repeated. “Better go along and have a look at it,” he told one of the constables. Then he returned to the paper he was reading, with a worried frown. “Bless my soul,” he muttered, “but this transcends everything. Lucas and that poor young Monro drowned! I never heard of such a series of mishaps in all my born days. Why, if things go on like this. I might be the one to kick the bucket next!” An unpleasant thought, which afforded Blagdou the most acute discomfort. He was destined to receive a further shock that morning—two more, to be exact —but the first occurred on the return of the coustable with the cloak, and two wide-eyed boys in tow. “Name of Gwen Bourne,” the man remarked, as he pointed to a tab upon the garment, and the superintendent stared aghast. , “Merciful heaven.” he murmured, “what next? That will be Miss Bourne of Ravenswood. Is this another tragedy?” Putting the cloak under his arm, he got out his bicycle, and pedalled off to the Bournes’s house, where he found a considerable state of commotion reigning. “If you please, ma’rn,” Ellen, the maid, remarked as she brought her mistress’s breakfast into the bedroom —Mrs. Bourne always breakfasted in bed—“there’s a telegram for Miss Gwen. I found it in the letterbox; one of them dratted boys must have put it there instead of delivering it. Shall I take it to her?” “A telegram ?” Dear me. whatever can that be?” Mrs. Bourne took the envelope, and turned it over in her fin gers as if she expected it would bite her, “Yes, you’d better give it her at once. She’s not down to breakfast yet, then?” “No m’m, not yet.” Ellen departed, and her mistress applied herself to her berakfast. Like Blagdon, she felt that things were moving too quickly lor her these days, but that clid not impair her appetite. She was placidly cracking an egg when the girl once more burst into the room, her round country face alight with excitement. “If you please, mm. Miss Gwen’s not in her room.” Then, with the awed consciousness of having more than once read the phrase in her lqvourite series of novelettes, she added; “And her bed’s not been slept in.” Mrs. Bourne ceased cracking her egg and sat up a little straighter. Such a contingency as that mentioned seemed to her impossible, and she did not believe it. Nevertheless, she put on a dressing-gown and went to see for herself. Then she sat down helplessly on a chair. “Dear me,” she said, “how very—how very remarkable.” Whereat Ellen began to giggle in that inane and overwrought hilarity which is the prelude to hysteria. Fortunately a ring at the front door bell put a stop to the incipient attack and she rushed downstairs to answer it. returning with a countenance on which awe and agitation were sttll more strongly mingled. Ellen was having the thrill of her young life. “If yoti please, m’m, it’s Superintendent Blagdon. and he says he must see you at once.”

Her mistress raised a bewildered hand to hsr forehead. “Dear me,” she

murmured, “how very extraordinary. Help me to dress, Ellen.” Blagdon did not like his errand, tie heard Mrs. Bourne’s slightly incoherent statement that her daughter was missing with a grave face. It seemed to bear out his own sinister forebodings. “Js this her cloak?” he asked presently. “Why, yes; did you find it in r.he garden? She must have left it there j when she saw the dear colonel off the premises. How careless of^ier.” It was on the tip of Blagdon’s tongue to tell her it was not found in the garden, but she was as yet so patently unalarmed that he forbore to disillusion her. “When did you last see your daughter?” he inquired. “Last night: 1 left her talking to Colonel Winthrop.” “Did she go out with him?” “i don’t know; the dear colonel brought bad news—that detective from London and poor Mr. Monro appear to have been drowned—and it so upset me that I went to bed. But she may have done so, for a little way—she often did, you know. But I’m sure dear Colonel Winthrop wouldn’t let her come to harm. She was engaged to Hugh Monro,” she added inconsequently. Blagdon caught his breath. So that ! Sarsaparilla Herbs.- A packet makes j a quart of the best Sarsaparilla Blood 1 Purifier Make your own and have it fresh Packet posted for 2s 3d.—E : W. Hall, Herbalist, 117 Armagh Street, j Christchurch.—4. |

was it! He felt he understood now the meaning of that cloak. Grief at her fiance’s death. . . . But. he asked one more question. “When did you first find she was missing?” “When Ellen brought the telegram —that reminds me. 1 wonder what was I in that telegram?” “Telegram? What telegram?” After some fumbling she produced j \ it from her bag and handed it to the superintendent. “Those tiresome boys ” she began, when Blagdon cut her short. j “With your permission, I think we ought to open this.” he said. “Oh t do 3*011? Perhaps so; I won- ! der who it can be from? T never ” ] He slit it open and when he read Hugh’s message he passed his hand through his scanty hair in a motion of utter bewilderment. It was so totally at variance with what he had, read in the paper. “Listen,” he commenced, and then it was that he received his second shock that morning. From somewhere near at hand a scream rang out —a woman’s scream —so shrill, so terrible, that he sprang to his feet in startled horror. For a moment he stood spellbound, and then dashed into the adjoining room. From that he ran to another, and then to a third, until he had searched ever>* coiner of the house without avail. He only found Ellen, pale and j trembling, in her kitchen. She. too, had heard that dreadful scream, which ; ; bad not been repeated. On the morning that saw the finding . j of Gwen’s cloak, and Blagdon’s inI terview with Mi». Bourne, Detective-

Inspector Lucas and Hugh Monro said good-bye to those good Samaritans. Jim and Maggie Hines, and set out 111 a police car for Winthrop’s bungalow at Cowham. They still wore their fisher garb, but meant to change into their own spare things at the bungalow, and the Bichester police had undertaken to return their clothes to the Mines. With them, in case Winthrop should be found lying low at the bungalow, went Superintendent Mallock. a sergeant and a contsable. but they had no expectation that this formidable force would be needed for the colonel’s retreat was already being watched, and the report was that there was no sign of him, and that apparently* he had never returned there. All the same, Lucas was going to take uo chances. It was evident as soon as they reached it that the house was empty, being looked up just as they* had left it for the sea trip which had had so drastic a termination. The police made short work the lock, and the colonel’s erstwhile guests retrfved their belongings. Winthrop’s were still there, and Lucas went through them pretty carefully, without, however finding anything that afforded him the slightest satisfaction. Mallock theu left the constable in charg? of the place, who could, if necessar'*. call upon the assistance of the local policeman, and they all departed for Bichester under the curious eyes of a group of villagers to whom such unusual doings were a landmark in their liy*es. They* dropped Mallock and his sergeant in Bichester. with many expressions of hope from the superintendent that they would lay their quarry by

. the heels. He could not get over tte fact that he had actually had the ccl- ! cuel in his power, and had let him ! go. ' “Spoofed.” he said, disgustedly, I spoofed. Never met such j a plausible rascal in my life.” His chagrin amused Lucas. “He spoofed me. too,” he admitted. / “so no wonder be did you. who bad !no cause to suspect him. Still. 1 don't mind betting his race is almost run. ' Even the wildest old fox gets caught ! at last.” “I hope you’re right,” was the I hearty reply. **l only* wish I could be in at the death. To talk Irish, Luca-, that fellow’s brush will be a feather „ ; in your cap. “I’m not wearing it yet.” the oth«*r said, more soberly. “Still, as I r ; marked. 1 hope to do so.” An uneventful run brought them to j Hengrave police station early in th® afternoon, and there they found Blap- ! don. not yet able apparently to soil his ideas of these later happenings into anything approaching order. (To be Coutinued Tomorrow.!