THE SOLUTIONS OF RADFORD SHONE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 9003, 13 December 1907, Page 2

THE SOLUTIONS OF RADFORD SHONE.

COM"d UN I CAT KI > TO AND KDITHI) J.Y SffffiAKMHW WLIBjJL. [Published By Special Arrangement.] [All Eights Reserved.]

CHAPTER Xl.—Continued. "It is too late for him to object," followed Tromayne's reply. "Here Mr Michaeis, corr:c round and see a bit ot fun. I know you're out there somewhere, and you deserve to be free of the show." The "show," as I went and stood at the door of the construction-shed, was certainly impressive. The double gates, giving on the river, were opsn now, and on the slip-way lay the submarine boat as before, but with a section of her turtle-baclc raised, disclosing a group oi curiously assorted faces, Tremayne was there, with his hand on .Radford Shone's collar; Takishura's Oriental features wore a bland smile; Bella Goulding, pale but pertly impudent, flung rne a look of lriendly defiance. They occupied a space in the stern of the boat abaft the glass dome of the conning-tower. A glow of electric light from the interior of the boat played on the scene, showing me that Takishura and Tremayne were each grasping a polishsd lever. "We knew you would like to say good-bye to Mr Shone," Tremayne laughed up at me. "He's going a little trip with us, to Gibraltar, or wherever we can conveniently land him. Perhaps it will teach him a lesson in veracity. He tried to humbug you, and he tried to humhug me—in both cases with a lamentable want of success. In twenty minutes this boat, which has been built to Russian order will be shipped on a sttamer which is waiting for us outside under the nose of the Russian steamer that would have taken her to the Baltic to-mor-row but for Mr Goulding's singular antipathy to me as a son-in-law. As it is, since he has made much profit by my brains I do not think that lam wrongiing him by transferring Bella and the boat and myself to Tokio, where I have been offered a lucrative post as designer of submarines to the Japanese Government. My good friend Takishura has fooled the brilliant Shutie by 'making faces,' as Bella calls i 4;, at the drunken Russian cur who is cowering in the house when he ought to be looking after the boat which the Russians ordered, but for which the Mikado will cheerfully pay. Are you ready, Tak?" "All ready!" chanted the little Jap; with a grin at me from his almond eyes. "Then farewell, Inspector Michaels," cried Tremayne, gripping his Jever.

"Good-bye," shouted Bella, blowing ine a kiss.

"Au revoir," the little yellow man said, tugging at the brass handle, and bringing down the lid of the turtle-back on the varying emotions gazing up at me—Shone's anguished scowl, the Jap's imperturbable Tremayne's defiantly friendly grin, and the girl's cheery nod. My duty you ask me? What could I do? No sooner had the twin jaws joined with a snap than the boat slid like an alligator down the slip-way river, and although 1 ran to the brink of the wharf, no sign of her was to be seen, but a fast-receding eddy on the surface of the water. But as, a little later, I pulled across to the opposite bank, I saw that the farthest of the two steamers had got her anchor up and was heading out to sea.

No formal protest was ever made to the authorities over Tremayne's audacious appropriation of the Russian submarine as a means of eloping with his employer's daugher. Indeed, Schouvalinski and Shone, as the acrredited agents of Russia, had put the Czar's Government hope • lessly out of court by their representations that the boat was being built on Japanese account. They made that statement in bad faith, to conceal the contemplated shipment of the submarine on the steamer that was ready to receive her, little thinking that Tremayne and Takishura's alliance would render their statement .true in substance and in fact.

j.|l believe myself that the wily Japanese had really instilled a fear for his life into the Russian, though I am doubtful whether Shone was equally convinced that bloodshed was intended. Rather am 1 inclined to think that he endeavoured to make a catspaw of Scotland Yard in order to get Takishura put under lock and key while the submarnie was being shipped to Russia in defiance of the neutrality laws. In which case he was indeed hoist with his own petard, and that he felt his defeat keenly I gathered from his demeanour when I met him in the Strand two mouths after his enforced trip to Gibraltar. At sight of me he drew his glossy silk hat down over his eyes, and, gathering the voluminous skirts of his i'rocli-coat around him, lied up a side streut.

CHAPTER VII. THE ETON BOY. "Inspector Timpany, from Scotland Yarc., -ir, in answer to your message,announced ths soft-voiced butler Vvl.j had admitted me. As I walked down the vast length of the room. I had ample time to study the manner of my reception by its occupants. Mr Montagu Lawson, It was ten o'clock in the evening when I was ushered into the magnificent (iinin.;- ;>;ri in the Park Lane mansion r Montague Lawson, the South African millionaire. The apai'tm> nt w;.u= nig enough for a small music-hilli, hut at the moment of entry there were onlj three persons at the end of the long table that war. covered with a sumptuous dessert. Such peaches! such grapes! such an array of sparkling decanters! ancl all for a tired-looking little gentle. i an, a comely, middle-aged lady, and a thirteen-year-old boy with very

BEING NARRATIVES BY OFFICERS OF 1 THE CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION DEPARTMENT, AND OF THE PROVINCIAL POLICE, IN RESPECT OP ):) ALINGS WITH THE EMINENT EXPERT, MR RADFORD SHONE.

bright eyes. The last two seemed to me to have been crying, with one arm thrown round the boy who was standing by his chair, regarded my approach with what struck me as a mixture of eagerness and apprehension. Mrs Lawson favoured me with a hastily-averted frown. The boy rubbed his eyes, as though ashamed of the recent tears, and looked me boldly, almost defiantly, in the face. I noticed that the youngster, though dressed as an Eton boy, had not the spick-and span appearance usually associated with the young gentlemen of that ancient foundation. His jacket was creased, and his broad, collar was rumpled and none too clean. Mr Lawson began at once—rather nervously for a financial magnate of assured position "I telephoned for an experienced officer because my son Harry has just come home with such an extraordinary story that, if true, it is a matter for urgent police investigation. I say 'if true,' not because I have ever found Harry other than truthful, but because the whole thing seems incredible. Yet, though his mother doesn't quite agree with me, I maintain that my son at any rate believes what he has told us." "Every word of it is true, father. It is hard lines to be received like this after what 1 have gone through," said the boy, his sensitive lip quivering. He was a nice-looking little chap, and, whatever was wrong, I could not help feeling sorry for him. The story, as narrated by Mr Lawson, with occasional corrections by his son, was as foilows:—A week ago Harry, who was being educated at Eton, had been walking with a companion of his own age on the Slough road between four and five o'clock. In the dusk of the winter afternoon a motor-car had overtaken them, occupied by two men, one of whom had accosted him by name, and represented himself as a friend of his father's. He even professed to know Harry himself, alleging that he had met him when dining in Park Lane; but the two men wore masks and goggles, and it was impossible to recognise either of them.

"Jump in," the affable spokesman had said. "I'll take you for a spin as far as Slough and bring you back to Eton in time for five o'clock school. Sorry I've got no room for your chum."

Harry had jumped in, and, according to his statement, had indeed been taken for a spin, the car starting off at a tremendous speed, and, in spite of his protests, never stopping till in less than an hour- it had pulled up in some locality that he did not know, but which, so far as lie could judge, was somewhere in South London. There he had been hustled into a dingy house, where he had been kept prisoner for seven days, not unkindly treated, butcloseiy guarded by two men and a woman. That afternoon he had been suddenly told that he was to be released after dark, and at eight o'clock he had been placed in a closed brougham, which in about haif-an-hour had set him down at Mr Montague Lavvson's door, the vehicle driving rapidly away the moment he had alighted.

He had found his father and mother | dining for once alone together, and in / perfect ignorance that he was not pursuing his studies at school. "Then you had no communication from the authorities at Eton that Master Lawson \vas missing?"' I put the .obvious question at the close of this amazing story. It was Mrs. Lawson who answered me, her words tumbling over each other in a torrent of half-hysterical excitement.

"No, we have not heard!" she almost wailed. "Of course they would have let us know. It is that that makes it all so ridiculous—and so disappointing. Harry was to have gone home with his friend the 'Marquis of AUanton, a fellow-student, to spend the Christmas holidays at Castle Chieveley, the seat of the Duke of Sunday land, the Marquis' father. I had set my heart on it, but that must all come to nothing now. It isn't likely they'll have Harry there after his absurd behaviour." "Where does the absurdity come in, mother? Perhaps I was a fool to get into the motor, but I couldn't help myself after that, could IV" the boy blurted out, flushing angrily. (To - be'continued.)