THE SOLUTIONS OF RADFORD SHONE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8997, 6 December 1907, Page 2

THE SOLUTIONS OF RADFORD SHONE.

Communicated to and kihti:i> r,v

[Published By Special Arrangement.]

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CHAPTER V.—Continued. The lovers forgave her very prettily, losing, I have reason to believe, nothing in the end by the annoyance they had suffered. Then everyone turned to me for explanations, I told them that from the first I had no faith in the story that had misled Shone, and that I had descended the well in the hope of proving that Lupin had gone down of his own accord. In this I had been fully justified, my scrutiny of the brick work convincing me that, having no A one to lower him, he had used his feet on the sides of the well, after looping a noose under one of his arms. When he was forty feet down, the rope had hitched on the windlass, and the noose, slipping to his neck, had strangled him, the broken bricks showing the marks of his frantic efforts to gain a foothold. Having guessed that he had been killed accidentally while endeavouring to secure the rubies for himself, I was not surprised to find them at the bottom. "I had a sort of consciousness that someone was watching me while I threw the parcel down," said the Duchess. "But what," she added, smiling fiintly for the first time during the interview, "made you guess so many things, Mr Foster?" "Your Grace's pardon, but it was your manner this morning. It didn't require a toy detective to see that you were the guilty party," I replied with deep respect. CHAPTER VL THE TENTH GREEN. It must not be taken as a reflection on the Loamsbire police that the Chief Constable of that charming county applied to Scotland Yard for assistance In unravelling the Chetwynd case. The gallant gentleman foresaw from the first that complications touching certain local personages and interests might arise, which would stand a better chance of satisfactory treatment by a man who could approach them from a detached point of view. And it is but fair to place it on record that from start to finish Superintendent Williams and his merry men gave me the cordial couperation without a trace of professional jealousy. Williams was on the platform of Honiford station when my train steamed in. The only thing about him that I had cause to quarrel with was his voice, which might very well have brought Colonel Chetwynd back to life. "Inspector Peters, from Scotland Yard!" he shouted as I descended from my compartment, thereby disclosing my business to all and sundry. That, however, was the limit of his indiscretion, and I will pay him the compliment of saying that the way he put the case before me was a master-piece of lucidity. This was the story which he unfolded as we drove through a network of country lanes to the scene of my labours: On the previous day Colonel Chetwynd, a local magnate, and Justice of the Peace, had arrived at the club-house of. the East Loamshiie Golf Club shortly after mid-day, intending to lunch by appointment with his friend, General Appleyard, with whom he had arranged to play a

match during the afternoon. But i Appleyard, for domestic reasons since satisfactorily explained, had failed to put in an appearance, and the col-

onel, having eaten hi? lunch in high dudgeon, had expressed to other members present his intention of going round the links alone for a solitary practice." ''By the way, you understand the game?" the superintendent interjected, half turning to me from his seat in the dogcart. I was compelled to plead guilty to the indictment.

"Ah, well-," he sighed as though condoning a fault, "there isn't much about play in it, but you will understand the few necessary technical terms*. 1 had to learn 'em myself in a hurry, yesterdty." He resumed • his story from the mouths of witnesses, who had described to him how Colonel Chetwynd had stumped out of the club-house, and how, on being approached by Raffles, the grown-up caddie whom he generally employed, he bad dia missed the man in highly-peppered language, stating that he would carry what few clubs he needed himself. He had then started out alone, the first of the members to leave the building after lunch. • Following him at h. brief interval, the Messrs Wilson Neil and Everard Nfcil, father and son, had gone out for a game, the last-named being, the superintendent informed rne in a whisper, the unauthorised lover of Miss Mona Chetwynd, the colonel's only daughter. These two gentlemen had unattended by caddies. Lastily, after a further interval, there had started out a foursome of lady members, one of whom was Mona v netwynd. * At u... point in Williams' disclosures, we L,,.erged from a steep, upclimbing react into a glorious expanse of heather-clad moorland with J a peep of the sea beyond. A little ahead of us was a modern red brick building, flanked by h tall flag-post, with its gaudy bunting, drooping at half-mast. Ihis was evidently the headquarters of the East Loamshirc Golf Club. Beyond, a tint of emerald here and there in the nearer and farther distances showed the greens and trees of the renowned course. | But the local man was nearing the I end of his story. Cn approaching the tenth green which was hidden from the tee by rising ground and an artificial bunker, the ladies were horrified to find

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

Colonel Chetwynd lying dead on tbo green. He had been the victim of ferocious violence, his head having been battered almost out of recognition. The two Neils, visible some distance ahead, must have passed the green only a few minutes before, but, recalled by the shrieks of the ladies, expressed horror and surprise, avowing that the colonel's body had nor been there when they had been "putting" on the green so recently. They had believed him either to be a long way ahead, hidden by the undulations of the course, or to have abandoned his practice and gone home.

The superintendent said not a word to influence my suspicions, but I saw an _ ugly time coming for the two Neils if the murder was never brought home to any one. If nothing worse happened, fingers would be pointed and heads wagged at them ; for, as I soon learned in the village, relations had been so strained between the elder Neil and the Colonel that the latter had forbidden his daughter to have anything to do with Everard Neil.

"Well, that is all," said Williams, as he from the trap at the door of the club-house and gave the reins to the constable, who had accompanied us. "Except that there'll be another Richmond in the field, unless you make an arrest very shortly. Mr John Chetwynd—that's the colonel's brother and executor—has sworn to call, in Radford Shone if the police can't do the trick. Now, would you wish to see the cJub steward first, or visit the ground. Come along then; I'll show you round the links." I spent three days in the village, pushing my inquiries by methods which by the readers of detective fiction would be regarded as commonplace and dreary, and which shall therefore be omitted here. Though I had formed certain theories. I had not seen my way clear to an arrest, and when, on the fourth day, I started out after au early breakfast to pay yet one more visit to the scene of the crime, I was beginning to wonder how soon I should have the pleasure of meeting Mr Radford Shone. I had had occasion to call on Mr John Chetwynd, who the reins of government at the Grange, and he had confirmed my friend Williams' statement as to his intention to invoke in the event of my efforts not being speedily successful. Mr John Chetwynd, a plethoric little merchant from Mincing Lane, must have been an exact replica of bis irascible brother.

He spouted fury on the dilatoriness of the police and laughed Scotland Yard to scorn. I had heard the same sort of thing before, but of course I listened with all due deference, expressing perfect willingness to collaborate with Mr Radford Shone if he came down. In this I was quite sincere, for I had never yet met the great criminal expert whose marvelous powers of .deduction had made him almost a cult amongst moneyed people with secrets to find out. In six months he had become the talk of the town, as the result of his recovery of the Duchess of Wilford's jewels—-a case which was hushed up befpre it reached the courts, and with which I myself had no official connection. {

My way from my lodgings to the scene of the Colonel's death led me along the switch-back crest of the breezy down, amid the succession of tees, bnukers, and greens that formed the East Loamshire golf course. I had left the tenth tee behind and was climbing the slope towards the bunker—a turf bank with gaps for the passage of the players—when I heard voices beyond and sure enough-, on passing through one of the gaps, I saw a party of three gentlemen on the green below, at the -spot which during the past three days had been the focus of my work.

The short, stubby one in breeches, and gaiters I recognised as Mr John Chetwynd, the murdered man's brother. He was standing aloof from the other two, his figure thrown' into relief by a sombre larch grove to the right of the green. The next one to fill the eye was a tall, loose-jointed man in city clothes, who was very slowly crawling, ventre-a-terre, across the green, like a gigantic earth-worm taking an airing.. The third.was a stout, smooth-faced young man, also wearing the silk hat and velvet-collared overcoat of the town dweller, who, with' clasped hands, seemed to be ecstatically following the serpentive wrigglings of the prone figure. (To be continued )