A HOLIDAY TASK.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 146, 17 July 1909, Page 4

A HOLIDAY TASK.

ANOTHER CAPITAL SEXTON BLAKIS 1 STORY. I. Sexton Blake paced the platform of 1 Little Hesslewood Junction, a station j on the Great Southern, nearly two lain- ' dred miles from London, and forty-four from the seaport of Barquay. 1 The smile -which, played upon his keen 1 face showed his thoughts were pleasant. In fact, the famous detective was treat- * ing himself to a holiday, and had driveu in from the farm where he was staying ] to meet his old friend Bathurst, who ' was going to share hi 6 vacation. 1 "Oh, here she is at last!" he muttered, * as the 9.30, brilliantly lit, came out of 1 the tunnel 'beyond the station and rolled ? up to the platform. Before it had stopped, a figure sprang from a carriage and ran towards Blake. f "Delighted to see you!" cried Blake. "Where's your kit?" j "In front,-I believe." j They were hurrying towards the lug- ' gage-van when a woman in front of them uttered a screaan, and Blake was just 'ii time to catch her and save her from 1 falling. * • \ J "Oh, he's dead!" 6he moaned, point- ! ing at the carriage immediately opposite. 1 In the corner, close by the window, under the stTong glow of the roof lamp, a man lay huddled in a shapeless heap. : One glance was' enough to show that he was dead. . He had been cut to pieces. In the far corner of the carriage was another man. His face was white, save for a smear of bfood across one cheek, hie eyes were fixed and glassy, and he seemed barely conscious of his surroundings'. A long-bladed knife lay on the seat by his side. "Stand back!" shouted a guard, as people came rushing from every side. "Police! Send for the police!" Blake, whose idea was not to be mixed up in the dreadful business, lifted the fainting woman bodily in his arms, and took her into the waiting-room, where he left her in the charge of an attendant. The» be escaped, and as the porters were quite beside them&'elves, he and Bathurst together collected the latluggage, ( piled it up on the fly, and ordered the man' to drive home. "Wonder what lie Med him for?" said Bathurst thoughtfully. "Don't wonder, Bathurst! Let's forget ike whole business. This is holiday time, jrememtoer." . He began tp talk about the fislung, and that nigtit the of the murder was not mentioned again. But they were not <to be allowed to forget so easily. At breakfast next , morning, Farmer Corey, their landlord, i came stumping in. ! "Have 'ee heard, gennelmen? he • cried. "There's been a tenrfole towi** up ii Hesslewood. Chap found stabbed ' ia tie train, I brought 'ee the paper. Bathurst thanked him, and took tbc . '""Hallo 1 '' lie exclaimed. '?,rilif is 1 funny! The chap swears he didn't do . "'"What, the man with the blood on his

face'" "Yes An<nis ClilAorn isi the name tie rives. His story is that, when he got into the train at Barquay he was alone. 4t the last minute two men jumped in. As soon as the train, was well out of Barquay thev hoth seized him, and one held him while the other chloro orraed him When he came t£ the train wa Already slowing into Hcsslewood, one mChL disappeared, the Other lay dead in the opposite .corner of the carnage "Does he give any reason for the alleged attact upon WmsdH" Wi Blake. "Yes; they stole liis hag. "What was in it?" , "That's the odd part of it," replied Bathurst. "XotliiTig! But. all the same 1 he seems to have set great value on too j bag. Be »p it MS » nW a« twnl

lof his own. It wa&' burglar-proof. He patented it 6omc weeks ago. What w more, lie maintains that whoever took it will certainly be found." Blake's forehead knitted. "An extraordinary story!" he said. "For if he had already got his patent, his assailants could have no possible object in stealing his invention. But enough of this, Bathurslt! Come on down to the river!" He was taking his rod from its case when the deep hum of a motor carao from the road. Next moment an elderly man came hurrying up the gardenpath, and met Blake in the porch. "Mr. Sexton Blake, I believe?" said the newcomer. "That's my name, sir," replied Blake. "My name is Gaunt," said the other. "I am a director of the Great Southern. I know you are holiday-making, Mr. Blake, but I have come to beg you of your kindness to clear up the mystery of the horrible crime." "Is there a mystery?" asked Blake. "On the face of it, the case seems' clear.'' "As to the perpetrator, yes. We have him under lock and key. What we waut is the reason of the murder. Mysteries, Mr. Blake, are the worst possible advertisements for a railway." Blake laid down his rod with a sigh. "Very well, Mr. Gaunt, I'll do what I can. Just wait till I change my things." In less' than five minutes Blake and Bathurat were seated in Mr. Gaunt's car. 11. "What do the police think?" was Blake's first question, as they whirled tapidly towards Hesslewood. "Their theory is thai the crime is one of revenge," replied Mr. Gaunt. "The murdered man is certainly a foreigner. The accused, Angus Cli'bborn he calls himself, admits that lie has lived in Italy all his life. His father was a Scottish engineer, employed oil the Gilabrian Railway. We all know that Calabria is a nest of secret societies. What more :ikely than that Clibborn, having some private wrong to avenge, followed his man and killed him at the first opportunity ?" "Odd that he should then make no attempt to escape." "How could he? Tire 9.30 averagJs nearly fifty miles an hour all the way from Barquay." "There is no stop or slow on the journey?" "None! The first stop is Hesslewood." "If I rememther right," said Blake, "your line runs through level country most of the way." "Quite so". There are only two gradients—the drop into and the rise from the valley. of the Longbourne, and neither of those is severe." "You attach no importance to the story of the hag?" Mr. Gaunt shrugged his shoulders. "Surely, the .prisoner's story is hardly worth taking seriously. At the same time, the platelayers were warned all down the line at daybreak this morning, and the permanent way has already been searched. We shall find a wire at the station if anything has been found." In another five minutes they were at the station. The stationinas'ter was waiting for them. "Nothing has been found, sir!" were his first words. Blake turned to Mr. Gaunt. "I should like to seq the prisoner," he said.

"That is easily arranged," replied tire director. "He is still at the police-sta-tion. I'll take you on in the car." The local authorities were quite ready to do anything to assist Sexton Blake. They took him to the cell, and Bathiirst sat chatting to the police-sergeant nearly half an hour before his colleague reappeared. "Thank you," said Blake, in reply to the sergeant's enquiries. "I have got all that Clibborn can tell me. Bathurst, we must go back to the railway-sta-tion." "Well," said Bathurst, as they walked up the street, "does he stick to his story!" ' "Absolutely! He swears there were two men, and that both attacked him. He declares that their object ivas to ?teal his patent bag, and he reiterates his entire innocence of the murder." "But the story's absurd," growled Bathurst. "So absurd that I'm half inclined to believe it. No one short of a lunatic would lrave invented such a yarn!" "But the third man," urged Bathurst. "What became of him? He couldn't have jumped from a train going at fifty miles an hour. At least, if lie had) the platelayers would surely have found tile .pieces." Arrived at the station, Blake asked if it would be possible to run him down the line. "'Certainly," said the stationmastcr. An engine was ordered out, and in a few minutes' the detective and his assistant were steaming southwards towards Barquay. Blake requested the driver not to exceed fifteen miles an hour, and as he stood on the footplate his quick eyes searched the ground oil cither side of the line.

In about an hour they reached the Long Bank, where the line dropped down, hi a beautifully-engineered curve, through thick woods cut into the lovely valley of Longbournc. Ilalf-way down the hill was a siding running to a grav il pit. "Can you stop here?" Blake asked the driver.' The driver said he could wait in the "iding as long as necessary. lie rail the ngine in, and Blalre jumped down. "Come on, Bathurst!" he said, and, trolling leisurely away from the railray, plunged among the thickest of the rees. 111. Blake walked on down the hill, hrough covert so thick one could not ec five yards in any direction. Bathurjt ollowed. All of -a sudden the trees opened, and h'ey were standing on the brink of a ride, slow stream. "Hallo!" exclaimed Bathurst, "here's he railway again!" They had emerged from the wood jufit telow the spot where the line crossod t oil a stone-built bridge. Here the ive r took a sharp curve to the right, o that the railway embankment ran or a distance of some two hundred 'ards close alongside the opposite bank. Blake sat down leisurely 011 the grass. "Bathurst," he said, "what do you ay to a swim?" He began peeling off his clothes'. Batliirst, whom experience had taught to all in with every whim of Blake, folowed his example. Blake, having dived in, struck out tovards the far side, and swam some disance down stream. Then lie came back rad swam up the left bank towards the :pot where he had left his clothes. When Bathurst Tejoincd him he was Irc.ss'ing. Both dressed, Blake led the vav to the railway 'bridge, clambered iptlic embankment, and crossed. Arrived at a point some fifty yards beyond the bridge, he turned to the left and ■cramblod down towards the river. The bank ran steeply into the water. Footing was difficult, tot Blake worked lis way along over the coarse, dry grass, ind Bathurst followed cautiously, The further they advanced the lesg steep became the slope. At laet they reached a place where there was a tongue of level lanrl between embankment and river.' This was covered with a. coarse growth of brambles and nettles. Blake advanced cautiously. Suddenly he <>ave a triumphant cry, and, plunging down iuto the weeds, brought up a most extraordinary object. It was a tangle of tliin steel ribs crushed and broken in the most extra ordinary fashion, and covered with tat fered scraps of black leather. He held it up before Bathurs't s eyes '■' The bag!" he said. "And now fo the man. He hasn't gone far." He was on the trail again like a quest in<r bloodhound. Signs invisible even I Bathurst's trained eyes were to lum a Pl <Leaving the railway, he walked sharf lv across a water meadow, then, turniu lmlf-right, gained a dense osier-be where the swamip.v ground aquelcnei beneath their feet. Here the trail wa plain to any eyes. The tall swam weeds—marsh-mallow, ragged robin, an. fl af r—were crushed and broken as by lveavv weight, 'but still there was a sisrn 'of the fugitive. '"I didn't think he'd have got so lf)i. muttered Blake. . The words were hardly out 01 hi mouth before a Etroan broke upon 1h stillness of the afternoon.. Blake daslic : on forcing aside the pliant osier, wH both hands. Jfexfc moment Bathu.s =aw him drop on his knees beside a m.i wlio lav flat on his back on a pateji o "The man'tW ugly face was black ened and covered with dried Wood turned and glared. "The 'tees!" he groaned. If it hailn been for that bag I'd ha' got clear. ".Ttial so." <©olly. Ho\ much damagod ave vou?" "Too bad for the likes of yon to pu the rope round my neck, "tnrW th ether, a gleam of triumph in his ejes. Blake made a brief examination. ."The fellow's right," he miittere'l "Ac's booked, young Clibbovn wok the truth nbout his hag. A'Pii jusfc as well fool with an Anarchist, bomb, But what did you want the baj 'lor J"

"The bag!" growled the fellow. "That warn't the bag we was after. It were that fool Luigi made the mistake. We was arter the chap from the Union ( Bank," "I thought so," replied Blake coolly. "Bathurst, go and get help." It wag hardly more than half an hour before Bathurst was back with two men and a hurdle. But when they readied the little opening in the osier bed it was too late. The murderer was' dead. They left his body at a neighboring farm, and -mounting their engine, returned to llesslewood. "I see part of it," said Bathurst, "but Lot all. Tell me!" "Simple enough," replied Blake. "Clib-' bom's story was so extraordinary that I believed it, and acted on that belief. "The first deduction was that the two thieves, after chloroforming Clibborn, whom they mistook for the bank clerk, quarrelled over their spoil. That gave a motive for the murder. The next was that the murderer, in panic, left the train en route. "Now, a man can't jump out of a fast train on to hard ground. It is' suicide to try it. But he can jump into water, A very little pumping of our director friend showed me that, the Longbourne was the only possible nl»/v> where the murderer could have jumped. I argued that he would have thrown -the bag out first on to the firm ground, and then himself have dived into the river. "That swim proved that I was right. I spotted the place where the fellow climbed up the bank. The rest, of course, was easy. When I interviewed Clibborn this morning he told me about this bag of his. It is so constructed that, although the owner can open or shut it without difficulty or danger, violence causes the explosion of a small charge of a special explosive. "The late unhnmented pounded it with a large chunk of limestone, and suffered accordingly. "That's tlie whole story," concluded Blake drily. "But all I ca.n say is that if the reporters corn'e worrying me about it I Shall be extremely rude. I came to Hess]ewood for some fishing, and that I'm going to have." —Answers.