LOVE SET FREE L.G. MOBERLY

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1052, 16 August 1930, Page 27

LOVE SET FREE L.G. MOBERLY

COPYRIGHT

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Author ol CFi.'W," •* In Apple. Blossom Thins.*' Thrmdj ol LUs, 1 ste.

CHAPTER XVI. (Continued.) “Do you mean”—there was horror In Judith’s accents —“do you mean that Mr. Robertson taught, my father to take drugs? Is that what you are trying to say?” The sick man nodded his head feebly. Iff a flash much that in the past had puzzled her became plain to Judith. Her father's strange ways; his incoherences; his altered character; his dreaminess; all that had seemed incomprehensible was now in one blinding, hideous flash, made clear to her. And this man had helped in her father’s ruin. She recoiled from the bed and stared down at him with inimical eyes. “Horace the money— all very cleverly done,” Holt murmured, his voice going on with curious monotony, “no mistake anywhere.” His head moved incessantly, like his fingers that groped and picked without ceasing at the sheet. “I was his tool, he made me help. I was in Horace’s hands. He could do what he liked with me, and with your father, too.” “My father's money, was that what, he wanted? Did Mr. Robertson do all these horrible things for the money?” Again came the feeble nod of the head. "Horace knew your father had plenty of money. It was all done gradually. Horace is very clever, devilishly clever. He didn’t rouse suspicion, he just did it all by degrees. He got your father’s confidence —and then—” “Yes,” Judith said, when he paused a long, long, pause. “Then he began to make him understand what dope meant. Horace works like that. He gets you to take dope, and then you are a tool in his hands, a mere tool.” Once more he dropped into silence, and once more Judith gently roused him. “He got your father entirely into his hands, because of the dope. Poor Merivale just did all that Horace asked, as though he were an infant in arms, and Horace his nurse. He couldn’t say ‘No’ to Horace. It came to that at last. He couldn't say ‘No’ to him.” “But what did Mr. Robertson make my father do?” Judith questioned, when there was once more a long silence, broken only by the sick man’s heavy breathing. “Power of attorney,” he gasped out. “Horace made your father give him a power of attorney, and that meant that Horace had complete control of your father’s affairs, complete control. All so simple, all so simple,” he repeated, “and by degrees Horace got pretty nearly all Merivale’s money into his hands.”

Judith gave a little gasp, and glanced round at Alison. “Is it all true, I wonder? How did Mr. Holt ever come down into this part of the world? I can’t understand it.”

“I think it is very easy to understand. Mr. Holt is an opium addict, and he came down here because here he could get hold of opium.” A little cry from the bed drew their attention again to the patient, who was once more fuily awake and staring at them with anxious eyes. “Pm sorry,” he moaned. “I wish I’d never listened to Horace. He taught me all the evil I know. He brought me down here, and made me think the dope was a way out of every ill. It isn’t a way out —it’s the worst ill of ail, the worst of all,” he moaned wretchedly. "Horace brought me here where it is easy to get what you want. It is easy to get opium when you ask for it. He brought your father here, too.” Again Judith shrank and shivered, remembering how glibly her father had spoken of the East End—of pic!i*tfreso«e fcimehonse; of bits of dock-

land that would make such wonderful pictures; of the Orient brought to the West. And she had never suspected—never dreamed! “Yes, Horace brought your father here,” the low voice sounded in her ears again. “He taught him to like the devilish thing, too; taught him so well that he couldn’t do without opium, but—” Once more he began to mutter vaguely, then spoke coherently and looked into Judith’s face with full intelligence upon his own. “Your eyes used to haunt me, your sweet eyes; they haunted me so that I knew I couldn’t pass out till I’d told you the truth. I had to tell you everything—the whole awful truth—before I’m—l’m passing out, you know.” Unconsciousness once more dropped down upon him, and Alison drew Judith away from the bed and from fhp rnnm

“I don't think you had better slay any more. It is very unlikely that he will speak again coherently, and you have had enough.” Feeling like a person in a dream, Judith went downstairs and out into street, thankful to have left the sickroom, but full of a nightmare sense of horror. When she opened the front door she found that a small rain was falling, and the night was very dark. She hesitated for a moment on the doorstep, looking into the gloom. Standing just where she did, the gleam thrown from the fanlight over the door shone full upon her, and a man who was leaning against the area railings, apparently indifferent to the pitilessly wetting rain, stepped forward and put a hand on her shoulder. “My luck’s in tonight,” said a smooth, suave voice. “I didn’t know I was going to find you in this charming neighbourhood. That is an unlooked for piece of good fortune. How you manage to be here, I can’t conceive.” The voice, which of all others Judith loathed, ceased speaking, and with a furious gesture she shook herself free of the hand on her shoulder, and stood back against the railings from which Horace Robertson had detached himself. “Why are you here ?” she asked, and her eyes were alight with blazing fury. CHAPTER XVH. RESCUE.

“Why am I here?” Robertson’s voice was as cold and indifferent as though they were holding their conversation in a drawing-room, instead of in a dark I and gloomy street upon which fine rain was falling with tireless persistence. “Now, now, my good girl, I gave you credit for more commonsense than to ask such a silly question. Why am I here? Why are you here, would be a question much more to the point. How did you find your way into this choice and salubrious neighbourhood? And for what reason?” "My movements are no concern of yours,” she said quickly. “Will you kindly move out of my way and let me pass? I am in a hurry to get home.” “Home? Where’s home? No hurry, my dear, no hurry. I’ve found out one thing, my charming tigress,” he laughed insolently. "Still as much of a tigress as ever, and I’ve caught you in the very act of spying—is that it?” “Spying?” her voice shook with anger. "Well, haven’t you found out what

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I’ve also managed to find out at last, where Holt is lodged? And how many fairy tales has he been telling you? Plenty, I’ll be bound! I’ve only this minute discovered his whereabouts. I’ve had the devil of a time doing it. Thanks to that confounded doctor in the cottage by the river ( I’ve had an endless hunt. But I have found out what I want at last. I've got both Holt and you!” Again his heavy hand pressed on her shoulder, and she shrank closer against the railings; as though they offered her some protection. The street was deserted. Not a soul was in sight; and at no time was there much traffic along the quiet roadway. The door out of which she had just come was shut, and out of her reach. The rain’.pattered pitilessly down upon the pavement, and nobody who could help it wt.s likely to come out ou such a night. "No use screaming, either,” he sa’d, truculentlj*. as though reading her thoughts. “In the first place people don’t notice screams much in these

parts. In the second place. i£ yon open your mouth I clap my tree hand over it; and you need not flatter your* self that anybody is likely to come along here on a wet night like this The evil, smiling face bent nearer to her, she felt herself caught by arms that held her in an iron grip, as lie said mockingly: “You won't escape me this time, my dear. Make no mistake about that. You won’t escape me.” “Oh, won’t she?” The voice that spoke the three words was a very quiet voice, but it was a voice of dominating power and the quietness could not disguise the concentrated fury that lay below. The hand that all at once touched Robertson’s arm gripped it as steel might have gripped. “Let this lady go at once,” the quiet voice continued. The bully turned with a furious ges ture, loosing his hold upon Judith aud making a lunge toward the other man. But he drew back almost at once, with a startled gesture. “You?'’ he began, then he seemed to recover his normal bluster, for he said furiously: "What do you mean by interfering?” and he larded his words with expletives, which made the girl shiver. “What right have you to put your fingers into things that don’t concern you?” "Come, come, Mr. Robertson, don’t try to bluff me again. We have crossed swords before. At this moment I happen to be a man who won’t see any woman maltreated by a cowardly bully. You may remember I told you you were a coward as well as a bully,” the man known as John Smith’ said, with cool sarcasm. Horace Robertson stood irresolute, looking into the doctor's face with impotent fury written all over bis own -j

i but speaking no word, making no I movement. From Judith’s lips came a little gasp t of incredulity. ■ That unforgettable voice! Of course, ■ it was impossible, it must be imposi sible, the figment of her own imagina- . tion! The voice of her rescuer car- . ried her back across the months, and, ! in spite « her terror and confusion, a flashing vision came to her of the burning theatre of Bramstone, of a man with serene eyes, aud a voice—- ! She tried to pull herself together, , with a frightened feeling that she ‘ must be going mad. She told herself ' she was the victim of some extraordinary hallucination. At the same mo- ! ment she heard the man who had come to the rescue say decisively. “You had better clear off before t send for the police; because I certainly shall go into this house, tele- ; phoue for the police, aud give you in * charge, unless you clear off in double • quick time. You have managed to 1 unearth that poor chap, Holt? Is that why j-ou are skulking about, outside ) this door?” 1 “Not so much of your skulking - about, please,” Robertson said, with > an attempt to recapture his bullying 1 manner. “This is a free country. I suppose I can walk down what streec ■ I please? And stop at any door I please in that street? And speak to an acquaintance if I choose?” “You have a right to walk up and down this street for the rest of your life if you choose,” Dr. John answered. “But j-ou will never be admitted into this house if you wait till Doomsday: Sarsaparilla Herbs.—A packet makes a. quart of the best Sarsaparilla Blood Purifier. Make your own and have it. fresh. Packet posted for 2s Sd.—E. W. Hall, 1-lerbalisL, 117 Armagh Street, Christchurch. —A

nor will you be allowed to insult a lady in this street, or in any other when I happen to be at hand." “And what about Hoh? I am Holt’s friend. You have hidden him from me. I find he is here. I insist on seeing him.” Robertson managed to wo*k himself up into genuine passion. “By what right do you keep a sick man's friends away from him?” “By the right of the physician who knows what is best for the sick man. Holt is dying—possibly now eveu dead. It’ I And you brawling about this house and making yourself a nuisance the police will be put on your track. I have your name and address. Now,” he looked at Judith, turning his back upon the man, “let me take you to some sort of shelterI am sorry you have been molested. You are quite safe now: don't worry any more.” He drew her arm through his, and led her away along the wet pavement, without even a backward glance at Horace Robertson, who stood sullenly staring after them. Crossing the road presently he turned down a quiet bye way that was unknown to Judith. The whole episode had taken only a few minutes. Her deliverer said no word as be piloted her silently along the wet allej’S and small streets to the door of his cottage, and marshalled her info his sitting-room. “I’m sorry that brute worried you.” he said, speculating vaguely as to the Identity of this woman who obviously belonged to a world far removed from this world of grey lives. “He frightened me,” Judith shivered “And I had just been rather Upset over something I had heard. I had seen that poor man in the house—Mr. Holt He is your patient, isn't be' ? ” “Holt? Yes. He is my patient. Why did you go to see him? He in

most desperately ill, poor chap.” “Nurse Alisou fetched me. 1 think he is nearly at the end. He asked for me. It seemed such a curious chance that I was down in this part of London, just when he wanted me. (To be continued on Monday.)