For Her Sister's Sake; OR, THE LAVENDEN SECRET.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8338, 22 January 1907, Page 2

For Her Sister's Sake; OR, THE LAVENDEN SECRET.

. CHAPTER XlV—Continued. "And I will go and see that the * automobile is ready,", replied Merivale, and he sauntered down leisurely into the hall. The automobile sped up as he opened the hall doors. His valet, hearing the sound of the horn, des- / cended with the shaggy driving-coat and cap, and Merivale went out to send his chauffeur away. Then he waited by the car until Winnie came down. He helped her in, saw her comfortably seated, settled himself at the steering-wheel, and drove the car into the park. He went round it in the direction of Knightsbridge, driving carefully. Hs was giving Winnie time to become used to the rapid motion. Also, he was considering how precisely he should begin that attack of which\ Constance Istria had spoken. The swift flight of the car had brought the faintest shade of rose to Winnie's cheeks, and her gray eyes had regained something of their old light. Merivale's . heart had long ago been battered put of all manhood, but it stirred vaguely as he looked at the face of Winifred Lavenden. He hardened it again, hardened it with an evil and growing passion, and with the thought of the princely bribe his sister had offered him. "Cousin Winnie," he said suddenly, "I am going to surprise you." Winnie started, and grasped the , side c£ the car. "Please don't," she rejoined, with a nervous weariness; "I would rather not go any faster." Merivale slackened the speed of the Panhard. / '•'l didn't mean to surprise you that way," he said, " but I still have to surprise you, all the same. That was why I brought you out here, where no one could hear me ask you He sounded tne horn, and swung the car round to skirt the Serpentine. "Hear me ask you," he went on, . "if you know anything about revolver shooting." Winifred Lavenden did not answer. She had blanched again as white and as cold as snow. Merivale stole a glance.at her. She seemed as if she had been touched by some wizard finger and changed to marble. He raised his eyebrows under the peak of his automobile-cap. Winifred's lips parted and closed; she was trying to speak, and could not. Beyond all doubt, tne question had struck home. ' "I will tell you why I ask," he proceeded, "because if I were you, and like most young ladies, quite ignorant of the way to handle a revolver, I wouldn't experiment. That's a pretty little toy ' :h\ the library at , Lavenden House, but it—it could send a bullet into a man's skull." ' Even amid the vibration of the automobile he felt that she winced from the terribly descriptive phrase. "I'happened to see you put it back," he said, "and investigated. I noticed that a couple of chambers had been fired some time or other. Did you'try a shot at the chimneypots?" Some words fell from Winifred Lavenden's lips—words scarcely audible, yet apparently an assent to / his suggestion. "It's an odd thing,"-he continued, "but you know poor Garside was killed by a tiny pistol-bullet. Two shots were fired at him; the first broke a mirror and dropped on to the mantel. One of the detectives ' showed it to me. She must have been a fine shot, ' that nurse the papers speak of—it was she who killed him. Her bullet took him in , the centre of the forehead; he must have gone down like an ox." George Merivale looked round at , his companion. Winnie's eyes were closed, her mouth set; the stamp of agony was on her quivering lips and/ eyelids. Merivale went on unconcernedly : "Queer fellow, Garside," he said; "strangely anxious to have me in- ' trodude ■ him to (you and your sister. I'm sorry now I did—the police tell me privately that he was nothing but a low card-sharper masquerading as a gentleman. -, I wonder who the nurse • was? She wore a blue cloak with gray facings they say. But that's no guide. There must be plenty of nurses in' such uniforms. I. hear that one called at Lavenden House that' very night." He laughed, and turned the automobile to follow the line of the park toward the Albert Gate. , "What a fine false scent.for some thick-headed detective," he added; "a tiny but powerful revolver witn two chambers fouled, and a mysteri-. ous nurse in a blue and gray uniform. Wouldn't they seem to link Lavenden House to poor Garside and his tragic , fate?" He looked again. Winnie's eyes were open, and fixed on him, dilated, horror-stricken. Merivale met her gaze, and bent down. "Cousin Winnie," he said, "it's a good thing that imaginary detective can't see your face—he would have sworn you knew something about this famous mystery of Grammont Mansion!" Winifred Lavenden looked away from her cousin's face. Some instinct made her wise even in her extremity. She glanced from side to side as the automobile sped through the park, seeking to appear as if her interest in what he had been saying verged upon polite indifference. But Merivale's words had fallen upon her like a blow. She felt numb. They seemed to repeat themselves to her in the depths of her-stunned brain: "He would think that you knew something about this famous [ mystery of Grammont Mansion!" Had George Merivale said that, or had she dreamed it? Had accident barbed a' chance jest with such ghastly significance? Or was there

By R. Norman Silver, (Lor of "A Double Mas7c," "A Daughter of Mystery, » "Held Apart," "The Golden Dwarf," etc.

"For Her Sister's Sake " was commenced on December 20th.]

some sinister undercurrent of meaning in the sentence? Merivale was watching her from beneath the peak of his cap, his small eyes marking every tremour of her lips, every quiver of her drooping lashes. "Luckily," he added, "I am not a detective, either a thick-headed or an astute one—only your cousin and humble admirer. And I won't say anything about the revolver, or; the nurse, least of all to Inspector Quillam, of Scotland Yard, or his colleague, Mr Quail, who, it seems, are the persons delegated to prove this matter and discover poor Garside's murderer." He could not help seeing that she winced, but whether at the mention of the discovery, or at that -of murder he could not be sure. "The two Q's," he concluded, driving his point home with merciless calm, "for that is what the.se particular sleuth-hounds of the law are called in the force, would be sure to imagine that they had secured a couple of infallible clues. And that, joking apart, might give rise to- considerable unpleasantness." He drove on in silence for a few moments,. Winnie was steeling herself against the paralysing shock that had been so abruptly dealt her. Merivale's manner had in it a trace of mockery that profoundly alarmed her. Yet, surely, surely his references —his horribly exact and ominous references!—to her awful secret were but the work of coincidence!, Yet how had he spied upon her in the library when she had replaced the revolver —now had he heard of the "nurse's" visit to Lavenden House? Did he, could he, have any motive in thus torturing^her—was he conscious that it was torture?'' He had'said, "I brought you outliere where no one could hear me." ;/Yet she could not be positive that he had meant it seriously. A sudden harsh laugh from her y companion roused her from hexthoughts. "By Jove! you know," he observed, "the more I think about it, the more I see how striking those clues of mine would appear to the professional mind. Garside dines at Lavenden House, he leaves there ostensibly to go home, and next morning'is found dead in his rooms, killed by a tiny pistol-bullet. A nurse in a peculiar uniform is seen hanging about the door of his flat the night before. Such a nurse the. same night calls at Lavenden House, and a day or two later a tiny revolver of exceptional power is replaced in the ca.se, in the Lavenden House library. And the charming young lady who had borrowed it temporarily is the ' identical young lady who fainted on hearing that a police visit had been paid to Lavenden House in connection with the death of this very Garside." Merivale chuckled inaudibly—he had arranged his odds and ends of information with a cunning hand. "Yes," he said, "it is amazing how suggestive a set of trifling coincidences can be made to, look. It is fortunate sometimes that the clumsy, if well-intentioned, investigators of Scotland Yard do not pick up these false trails, or they would be led occasionally to very extraordinary conclusions." - "No —no doubt," answered Winifered Lavenden. A dreadful quiet was slowly asserting itself in her tortured but courageous spirit. She felt that she was once more to act her part. Merivale saw it. "But let us talk of something more cheerful," he remarked, "I am going to take you through Piccadilly, now, and show you how we can slip through the traffic." She did not dissent-, and he ran the automobile out at Hyde Park Corner, and spun down the long,, shallow road leading to Piccadilly. in the cool, bright morning the great ..thoroughfare was gay and bustling. Cabs came and went about the club entrances, smartly dressed men and women walked leisurely the broad smooth pavements. The season—that magic whirl of pleasure and extravagance !—was getting under way. But Winifred Lavenden neither back nor forward; for her the future, the past, and the present alike were dark. . Merivale chatted lightly as he drove, choosing an appropriate topic after another for the small talk with which it is the habit of society to 'bore itself, and Winnie supported her share of the conversation, a little briefly, but with growing self-pos-session. Her companion studied her as he would , have studied a horse, or a hound, whose breeding and temper were in question, and a gleam of amused admiration dawned in his eyes as the spick-and-span automobile bowled along. \ (To be Continued).