THE SOLUTIONS OF RADFORD SHONE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8994, 2 December 1907, Page 2

THE SOLUTIONS OF RADFORD SHONE.

BEING NARRATIVES BY OFFICERS OK THE CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION DEPARTMENT, AND OF THE PROVINCIAL POLICE, IN RESPECT OF DEALINGS WITH THE EMINENT EXPERT, MR RADFORD SHONE,

COMMI'NK'ATKI) .TO AND EI3ITKI) BY HILL

[Published By Special Arrangement.]

[All Eights Reserved.]

CHAPTER IV.—Continued

"Ah, then, I will put a few ques- j }ions to Doctor Gray," said Shone j with a hectoring air. "1 have been I hotonjojr track, sir, all day, and, findingtraces of you at Waterloo, I followed ycu down by the next train. Njw, hadn't you better make a clean breast of " Sue, who had been standing behind me in the passage, pushed forward and interrupted. She had only a shawl over her head, but if it had bean a crown she couldn't have looked more imposing—to my mind. "You call yourself an expert in crime, don't you, Mr Shone?" she asked quietly. "Well, you'll be aiding and abetting a first-class crime if you stand jawing there. Bill, move him on, there's a good boy, and let's get on to the mill." "I am not to be hindered by a person who is evidently a, resident lunatic patient!" Shone began to bluster, and that reflection on my partner was enough for me. I elbowed past Gray, beckoning him and Sue to follow me. At the same time I said to Shone firmly—"We are going a little way down the street, sir, on the business of thjs missing lady. If you like to come with us you can; but I warn you not to interfere," I added under my breath, "with Mrs Vanstone." There must be a virtue in a blue tunic and a helmet, to which even the most expert of experts jield, for though Shone spluttered, and his stout historian seemed on the verge of a fit, they fell i-to line behind Sue and the doctor and me, and pranced after us, whispering. Our way ran through the deserted village street out into the open couiv try and then along the road that was flanked on one side by the millstream. A hundred yards from the mill the stream curved away from the road, the buildings being set back in the water-meadows, and approached by a private lane that left the main thoroughfare a little beyond the bend in the stream. This lane ended at the mill, which was therefore secluded from all but its own traffic. There was a fair phow of moon that night, and from the main road we could see the gaunt outline of the mill in its encircling group of poplars. But when we struck into the lane high hedges hid the building till we -vere close on it. Just as we were leaving-the leafy shade for the open moonlit space in front of the house, Sue laid one hand on my arm and raised the other in warning to the pair behind. "See!" she whispered, "Carthew is there now!" Sure enough, fastenedto the hitching post by the door was Doctor Carthew's grey pony, with the shabby chaise behind it. A light shone on the blind of the parlour window, while a brighter, unshaded gleam" came from the side of the house. Sue re • leased my arm and pointed to_the latter. l , "That's the scullery, close to the back door," she whispered. "If it's unlocked we might slip in and hear what's up in the front room." "Not the five of us," 1 objected. "There would be too much racket." She nodded assent, and instantly turned to Shone. Her resourcefulness at that moment surpassed all that she had done. "Mr Shone," she said very civilly, "I and my husband are going into the mill-house. Will you arid your friend stay here and see that the man you have tracked so cleverly all day doesn't run away or make the slight-, est noise? When we come back we'll hand the case over to you again, with a full report." > At the same time she contrived to breathe in Gray's ear, "Play up to me, doctor!" * Radford Shone stepped eagerly forward, bridling at the flattery and happy at the prospect of once more resuming th2 reins. The curl of his lip showed that he deemed my wife a crank, who might yet be made to serve his turn. Gray had sense enough to" accept the situation, and stood submissively between Shone and Martin. "Got rid of the three of them!' " whispered Sue, as she and I made for the scullery light. "You'll have to take your boots off, Bill." I told her that I hadn't got them on. When we left home her orders had been to put on my helmet and button my tunic. I was wearing slippers at the time, I reminded her. She gave me a funny little look, and then, very softly, she tried the back door. It was fast, but the scullery window alongside was slightly open. She raised the window quietly and, standing on tiptoe, inserted her arm. I saw what was the matter, and lifted her bodily to give her reach. A faint scroop followed. She had got "to the key in the lock, and a moment later we were inside the house. The mill-house was old and rambling, and the front was a long way off, but from that direction came the drone of voices. We stole down one passage, passed into a second, scarcely bi. .ifching, and so came to the door of the .nrlour, which was sufficiently open to j ield a view of the room through the crack. Doctor Carthew sac in an easy chair by the fire, his bald head shining within four feet of me. The stalwart Vince towered over him, in an attitude now threatening now persuasive. On the rug Mrs Vince, her forbidding face the picture of health, stood by the table,' on which was a tray covered with a white cloth, and on it'a plate of stew and a tumbler of rnilk. "Twenty pun more, doc, before you do it, or we'll blow ihe whole gaff," Vince was saying. "You greedy rascal, I've given you all you asked," came Carthew's quavering tones. "But we've got the pull of you

doc, and mean to use it," Vince answered him. "Come, whack it down, and the missis shall take up the gal's supper. She's had nothing all day or yesterday, and you needn't fear but what she'll eat it fast enough." With a mumbled oath Carthew produced a leather bag and counted twenty sovereigns into Vince's hand. "You can have your way now, doctor," said the miller, motioning to his wife, who brought forward the tray and held it before Carthew. He thrust back the nearly empty money-bag, and out came his hand again, grasping a little blue phial. Drawing the stopper, he smelt the contents and poured half of them into the tumbler of milk. Sue plucked me by tho sleeve, and I found myself in a room at the other side of the passage, just as Mrs Vince came out of the parlour with the tray and a candle. She mounted the stairs, and when we had given her law enough we followed like cats to the landing, where the sound of her footsteps from a cross-passage told that she was climbing still higher. This was unaccountable, as there were no rooms above the first floor. We waited till the footfall ceased, and then crept cautiously round the corner. "In the roof!" Sue whispered, pointing to a trap door to which a step-ladder ran up. "Stay here," I replied, and climbed quickiy through the trap. The light of the candle carried by Mrs Vince was a long way off, and showed that the gabled roof-space not only covered the dwelling-house, but the mill itself. The extreme end, however, of the portion over the mill was boarded off, and into this partition the miller's wife was diasppearing, after unbolting a door. Ten seconds later I had reached that doorway in time to hear a plaintive voice say "You cruel woman! You have nearly starved me!" "Better late than never," came the sullen answer. "Here's some grub and some milk." Then I stooped and entered, and there was Miss Viola sitcing on a pile of flour-bags her pretty eyes all swollen with weeping, and her hand outstretched eagerly for the tumbler. "Don't touch it, miss! It's poisoned!" I cried. And as those two turned and saw my uniform, the contrast on their faces was too great for words—one all glad surprise, the other gone ghastly grey with fear. But Mrs Vince kept her wits. Seizing the glass before I could stop her, she dropped it through the open space beneath the eaves, so that it splashed with its deadly contents into the stream below. Then, with a wild laugh, she fled along the roof to the trap-door, blowing out the candle as she went, and leaving me to guide Miss Viola along the rafters in darkness. Sue, waiting at the foot of the ladder, took charge of the halffainting girl with a coo of delight, and intormed me that Mrs Vince had rushed downstairs. But when we got down to the parlour there was no one there but old Doctor Carthew, sitting by the hearth and making funny noises at us, like the madman I believe he was. We went to the front door and threw it, open. The three men, of whom my wife had so cleverly disposed, came running up at my call. "There, Mr Shone, you can take the job on again now it's finished," said Sue to the astounded expert. "Don't look so glum. It wasn't altogether your fault, perhaps, since you didn't know our sweet Miss Viola as well as we do—-or as Doctor Gray does, seemingly." For the young people were in each other's arms, and then sprang apart as a screech like that of a wounded hare sent me iu3hing back to the parlour. Doctor Carthew still sat in the easy chair, out his bald head had fallen back, and his sightless eyes were staring at the ceiling. Between his feet on the floor, smashed into a dozen pieces, lay the blue phial, but none of its contents. (To be continued.)