THE CASE OF MR. SEYMOUR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 138, 10 July 1909, Page 3

THE CASE OF MR. SEYMOUR.

IX WHICH SEXTON BLAKE GETS THE WHIP IN HAND. j "Blake looked up from his work as a visitor came rushing into his room unannounced. "Hallo, Seymour!" he began, and stopped short. "Great Scott, man! What on earth's the matter with you? You're shaking all over, and look as if you hadn't had a decent night's sleep for a month." The man addressed as Seymour sank into a chair with a groan. "My confounded stepbrother has turned up again!" he said laconically. Blake save vent to a low whistle. "The dickens he has!" he s'aid. "I thought he was safely packed away in the Argentine, or Colombia; and with anything like decent luck someone should have found an excuse for shooting him before no\v. Let ine see. He forgot his name was Gerald and not George, and acquired a. habit of signing cheques on your account, didn't he?' Seymour nodded. "I honored the cheques to avoid a scandal, and packed him off. Now he s eom'e back!" "Well, you kept the forgeries, I suppose? Threaten to expose him if he doesn't clear out." "I have, but lie only laughed at me. He knows I daren't' do it. I'm to be married in a month and if'thene was a scandal " He finished the sentence with a gesture of despair. "It was the news of .my intention to marry that brought him back," he continued, after a pause. "You sec, if I do, his last slight chance of coming into the property vanishes. Arid that's not the worst of the matter, cither. I believe he does not intend to let me live long enough to be married. I've had a couple of narrow shaves already." Blake's eyes hardened. "Tell me!" he said briefly. "The first was the other day, when we were pottering about after rabbits. I had laid down my gun and was handling one of the ferrets. Gerald was just behind me, and the underkecper was close by, but out of sight on the other side of the warren. Suddenly something, I couldn't tell you what, made me look round sharply, and I distinctly sawGerald draw "back his hand from my gun. He was as quick as lightning, but I sa*w him. When I picked the gun up, the 'safety' catch had been slipped. "Had i" not turned my head in the nick of time, I should have been a dead man inside, a couple of seconds. The gun was pointing straight at me, and I would almost certainly have kicked it, and it would have been reckoned as another fatal accident through carelessness'.

I "The second attempt was yesterday, at luncheon time. I caught him putting something in the salt-collar at my end of the table. He was a trifle disconcerted when he found I had seen him. but he kept his head, and a few moments later he managed, by an apparently clumsy movement, to knock the salt-'cellar off the table and upset its contents on the floor. Later I collected a couple of spoonfuls from the debris after he had left the room, and examined them. Have you a good microscope here? Here's "some of the stuff, which I have brought with me." He produced a small screw of paper from a waistcoat pocket, and handed it over. Blake took it, and set the microscone on a table near the window. "You're right," he said gravely, after a careful inspection. "I've been on the West Coast too often to mistake that deadly poison when I meet it. AVc must catch him red-handed the next time, and. what's' more, we must get a confession out of him. Tt won't be easy." They reached Rndminton about five, and one of the first persons they saw j was Gerald Seymour himself. He came strolling- down the drive to meet him. ■villi a gun under liis arm." "Heard vou'd wired for lb" dogcarl." be said nonchalantly, with a noil to Vis brother, and glanced enquiringly at Blake.

Seymour introduced the two men. -■id. leaving the groom to look afler the cart, thev all three walked filowly towards the house. Make, whilst, joining in the conversa'inn. was' mentally summing the man vi. Gerald Sevmour. for his part, clear'y knew Blikc In- remitntinn. and enual!v clearly divined the purpose for which lie had been invited down. Blake spent the next two days !r idle enjoyment watching. On the morning of the (bird lie wrote a few letters, and fi'crnhl Seymour, who wis also vntchill". walked to (he vil'e.rr

iost nfPcc with him. Blake fnllv annrcciefed Ihe al'ciillon. «"d whilsl '-.v mg his stamps gave bis eopipanior -very opportunity to examine the ad

lrecccs on the cnvelortes. At luncheon time the nevt. Bla'k' received a telegram recalling him i' town on urgent, business, m\\ th" nami at the end of the wire was not one which had appeared on any of the threi envelopes.

"What's the next nn-tra ; n?" "If 1" Blake. "Two-thirty, is it? T ought tc he able |o catch it if I hurrv." Tlnth men sa-v him off at'the station —lvs li«t in hones of dissuading him at the last piomcnt. Gerald Sevmour 'e make perfectly sire that he did netu

.11- n n '..• ji.o friip. which was an express. But' Gerald Sevmour had overlooked one fact, which Blake had ascertained in "Rradshaw" before receiving his telegram, and that was that the 2.30 express stunned for inst twe minutes at Jfendesley Junction, only twelve miles away, to connect with a small local line. There he got out. went straight In the nearest inn, and went lo bed: A little before seven flint evening George Sevmour got a wire fr°ni London—"Re. turning to-morrow eirlv.—.Wake." —and this wire his stepbrother, who was keening n s'ha'-n look-out. managed to get a glimpse of. ' """'

1 At eight. Blake ate a frugal diiniT after orderin" a tran fn be reed'- in take him back to the vicinity of Rodin h ton.

A mile from the, house he dismissed the trap, and continued his wav on foot. There was no moon, and it was just t«n when he reached the rose garden on the south aide of the. house.

'. There w«ve lighU in ihe smokipfroom and in the servants' wing, wjiich

formed a separate part of the building, hut the rest was in darkness. Blake wcut up to a little side door, drew a key from his pocket, and turned it in the lock. The next instant .he was standing in the dark, silent .'corridor. Moving quickly, hut cautiously, he went up the staii'6 to the gallery fbund the hall, oil' which were situated most of ihe principal,bedrooms. George Seymour's was on the lefthand side, in the corner; it was a small room, really intended for a dressingroom, a larger one, which he used as a private sanctum and for writing letters in, opening off it. Gerald Seymour's room was on the far side of 'the gallery. Blake slipped into the sanctum and waited. The room itself was in darkness, and there were thick curtains across the recessed window, which he could use in case of emer- ° it was a little before eleven when he heard voices on the stairs, and heard both men saying "(iood-night' to the butler, who was sitting up for them in rase they wanted anything. Gerald Seymour especially seemed m the best of "spirits', and in front of the servant, at any rate, showed himself possessed of more than brotherly ailection. His brother replied rather curtly, and, entering his bedroom, Blake heard him' lock the door behind him.

The door between the two rooms was, as Blake knew, invariably kept locked also, with the key on the bedroom side. So George Sevmour might think himself reasonably secure for the night. Blake however, had, unknown to him, removed the key of the intervening door early in the morning, and it was even now reposing in his pocket. Also, Gerald Seymour was cunning beyond the ordinary. Blake noted that his friend's step was listless and heavy, and that he yawned frequently as he undressed. At last tue faint gleam of light through the keyhole of the door vanished, and Bake heard the bed creak as Seymour Hung himself into it. Ten minutes later, a slow rei'ular, steutorious breathing .proclaimed that ha was sleeping heavily An hour passed, two hours and then n sudden click, so faint as to be almost inaudible, brought Blake to the intervening door, alert and tense. But toi the breathing of the sleeper the silence was so intense it might almost have been something tangible. > Blake's eye was at the keyhole, and presently some dark form, looming indistinctly, passed softly between him and the window-blind in the room bey°He' judged from the sounds, faint though they were, that the intruder had approached the bed and was examining its occupant. Then he heard a window being softly closed, and „«t instant a faint hissing n°«*> V"' the regularity of the sleeper's breathing never altered. The low hissing continued monotonously, and at last, after about live mm.ltes, Blake opened the intervening door and slipped quietly, m. He made straight for the outer door of the bedroom" relocked it, for it had been ldt on the latch, and slipped the key into his pocket. As he did so, there came a stilled exclamation from somewhere out of the darkness, and a sudden rush. He evaded the rush by stepping quickly on one side, and smiled grimly to himself as he heard a frantic wrenching and tugging at the handle. , "I assVe you it isn't the faintest use," he said coolly. "Both the outer doors are locked, and both the keys are m my pocket. You're hopeless y trapped, so the best thing you can o<« i« to turn olf the gas and throw open all the 'Windows. There arc the stone tla»s of the terrace thirty feet below, so°l haven't the slightest fear of your risking a jump." . , "You cursed, sneaking spy! saw Gerald Seymour thickly, and came padding across the floor towards him. Blake measured his distance as we l as he could in the darkness, and hit out. The distance was sufficiently accurate, and the man dropped like a log. Blake left him on the floor, turned off the escaping gas, and flung all the windows wide. . Then he set to work to pommel and shake George Seymour bock into consciousness. By the time he had done so the room was sufficiently clear of the rock of <ras for him to strike a hgM with safety; and the wouldJbe murderer was scowling in the corner, very white. Mr. Seymour blinked and yawned as Blake dashed some cold water over his "What's up? I don't understand," he said dully. •■„,,„ "Only a third attempt," said Blake; "but this time 'we've caught our man red-handed. Fling on a dressing-gown and come into the other room. Vou, too," he added curtly to the culprit. "Go in front of me, and keep your hands raised till I've time to search This he did, and produced from the pocket of his smoking-jackct a pair of slender, long-nosed pliers, which he Hung on the table after glancing at them and nodding. ,-,,,• "It's this way," he explained to his host. "Yesterday, if you remember, ( suggested to you after luncheon to take llii'iT precious relation of yours for a drive. Witii the groom up behind ho couldn't phiv any tricks, so you wee safe, and I wanted him out of the way. I searched his' rooms thoroughly, though, frank) v, f gave him credit for not leaving anything of much importance about. Still, he did leave something. 1 found a small screwdriver, almost a new one, at the back of the v.-nshstand drawer. It was more or less carefully hidden behind a cardboard soap-box. 1 examined it carefully, and found indications of soft bras* marks on the cud of it. Through the glass one or two small ragged fragments of brass were visible. They set me thinking. T confined mv attention to your rooms mid his for "any likely-looking brazen object, and at lust I found it. The iras-bmcket in.your room is of brass, and the screw u'f the tap bore recentlymade scratches on the under side; also, the tap itself worked suspiciously loosely. Then ti remembered that, placed quite openly in the fellow's dressing ease, I hail seen a small box of sulphona] powders. Harmless enough ill themselves, yet their owner didn't strike me as a man needing sleeping draughts. "Brielly. I expected his scheme to Kc this. Ho meant to contrive, somehow or another, to introduce one of the powders, probablv in the form of a solution, into voir li'"' whisky-and-soda. Thou, after v...1t. ig for a couple '.f hours or so till vou had dropped into a deep sleep, he intended to enter your room, turning the key from the outside with these pliers, and turn on the gaz. In twenty minutes the room would have been full! and you would have been dead i as n doornail.

"In tire uinrning you would have been discovered, not by 'him. hut by one of !he manservants.'dead in vour bed. suffocated, with both d'oiirs locked on the inside. At the inquest, it would have seemed that von had been careless in turning oil' the gas. the lap being loose. ■'Having got so far. I had myself seal a bogus "telegram, to leave him a fair Held, and took a quiet rest at Minnieslev. 1 was pretty sure that my last wire, announcing my return for tomorrow, would set him to work tonight, for though he would know that, on my return. I should be morally sure he was the murderer, it would have been quite impossible to prove it. 1 took a few precaution* to make sure of being iblc in get into the house, unobserved, .ni.l Ibis is tin. result.''

■ -Willil do von propose to do now?" -This." said Wake grimly, taking a heavy hunting-crop from the rack; "and when I've done with him we'll make him write out a confession, anil kick him nut. T assure you there'll be no scandal."—Answers.