THE SOLUTIONS OF RADFORD SHONE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 9004, 14 December 1907, Page 2

THE SOLUTIONS OF RADFORD SHONE.

BEING NARRATIVES BY OFFICERS OF THE CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION DEPARTMENT, AND OF THE PROVINCIAL POLICE, IN RESPECT OF L) 3 ALINGS WITH THE EMINENT EXPERT, MR RADFORD SHONE. Communicated to and edited by ffIMMI JMIJL. [Published By Special Arrangement.] [A.LL Eights Reserved.]

CHAPTER Vll.—Continued. "Hush, sonny!" the millionaire soothed him. "Mr Timpany is here to put you right. What do you make of it, inspector?" So far 1 had made nothing except that the expected breakdown of the ducal visit might be a sidelight worth probing, and 1 was about to put a question on that point, when the butler announced—"Mr Pryme." "Harry's house-master, by Jove! Now we shall get at it!" exclaimed Mr Lawson, and, releasing the boy from his half-caress, he rose to recieve the shortsighted gentleman who was blinking his way towards us through the opulent splendour of the dining-room.

"Ah! my dear. Mr Lawson," said the house-master, shaking hands, "I see you have your son with you. In one way it is a "relief to find him here, though what can have induced him to run away from school is more than I can imagine. It has caused me great anxiety, and, aa soon as we had exhausted every means of searching for him at Eton, I decided to come up by a late train and inform you." "But surely you might have let us know before," Mr Lawson protested. "For the boy to be missing for a whole week and only now to —~"

•"A whole week!" Mr Pry me interrupted in puzzled surprise. "1 really don't understand you. There would be a very just cause of complaint if what you imply was the case, but your son was present ,at the boys' two o'clock dinner to-day. His absence was first remarked at afternoon school— only seven hours ago. I cannot charge myself with any remissness in the^matter." Mrs Lawson groaned aloud at this apparent confirmation of her disbelief in Harry's story, and the lad himself, whom I was watching narrowly, went as white as a sheet:

"It's a beastly conspiracy, father, to make me out a liar!" he cried. "I haven't been at Eton for a week. You know J haven't, sir, and if you don't you ought to!" he broke out at his astonished house-master. Mr Pryrne, who struck me as a kindly if somewhat self-opinionated and obstinate man, looked genuinely grieved. "Come, my boy, you ought not to .adopt that tone to me," he paid. "We have always been the best of friends till—well, till quite recently. You only left; Eton to-day, as you are very well awarej though I am curious to hear what you have told your people." Mr Montagu Lawson for the first time asserted himself. | "Laura, take the boy into' the drawing-room," he said to his wife. "I should prefer to discuss the matter with Mr Pryme and the inspector alone." The lady rose with an air of protest, and, beckoning Harry to fallow, swept'from the room. In the doorway she paused and looked back. "I shall do my best to get Harry to retract this ridiculous fairy-tale," she said. "You will be well advised, Montagu, to persuade Mr Pryme to hush it up and allow our son to go back, and be punished for giving way So a fit of home-sickness which led him to come to London this afternuon without obtaining leave." When the door had closed, Mr Lawson invited the Eton master and myself to be offering us the hospitality of his decanters, which we were both too interested to accept. He then repeated for Mr Pryme's benefit the statement to which I had already listened. The mastar heard it with open incredulity, yet with a manly sympathy that commanded re.spect.

"My clear Mr Lawson," he said at the finish, "I.cannot tell you how sorry I am about this hallucination of your son. He is such a nice little fellow, and such a general favourite. Of course there is not a word of truth in all this, for I pledge you my honour that Harry has slept under my roof up to and including last night. He attended chapel and school thi3 morning, made a good show with his knife and fork at dinner, and was only missed this afternoon at three o'clock. I can only account for this stranee behaviour by the fact that growing boys of his age are sometimes temporarily neurotic." "What is your opinion?" Mr Lawson asked of me.

There was a tinge of restiveness in his tone. Though he lookad so tired, and was, I gathered, a trifle henpecked, I could understand that among the marts where men congregate he could hold his own, and more. "I am inclined to believe your son, sir," I replied. "At any rate, as you have called in the police, I cannot let the matter drop here. There must be further investigation." "That is my view," said Mr Lawson, with a grateful glance. "I stand by Harry, come what may. I am sorry, Mr Pry me. because I know what care you have, taken of the lad, and how good you have been to him. But I am not going to have him bran,/1 as a liar, or yet as a—what was u neurotic idiot, without trying to the contrary." Mr Pry me rose and held out his hand.

"Then I will nay good-night," he said, with a snap of hit; jaw. "I have just time to catch the last train back. J deplore the necessity, but 1 shall have to take steps to demonstrate to you u.at 1 am ri^ht.." The house-rnuster having departed, the anxious parent turned to me for comfort, but 1 bad none to give beyond promising to go down to Eton on the following day and pursue inquiries on the spot. In the face of the contradictory statements made by master and pupil, and of the fact that the boy could not have been in two places at once, it was impossible to form an opinion at present.

"One thing I am csrtain of," I said, as the millionaire, accompanied me to the front door, "we have not come to the villain of the piece yet. If I know anything of human nature, both Mr Pryme and Master Lawson are honestly convinced of the truth of their respective statements." The next morning after reporting to my superiors at the Yard, I was officially detailed to take up the case. We had no option in the matter. Complaint had been made to us of a crime alleged to have been committed in the Metropolitan district — the illegal detention of one of His Majesty's lieges, Harry Lawson to wit—and we were bound to investigate it. On my way to Paddington I called at the Park Lane mansion to ascertain the name of the boy who had been out walking with Harry when the motor-car overtook them. . The financier was in the city, and Mrs Lawson refused me access to her son, sending out a verbal answer to my pencilled query. Harry's companion on that eventful stroll had been Curtice minor, the message, came out, with the qualifying addition. "Harry says." The precincts of the college were more or less deserted when I reached Eton, it being the recreative spell known as "after twelve," when the boys were mostly in the playingfields. But I found Mr Pryme in his pupil-room, busily correcting exercises, which, from the zig-zag lines thereon, I judged to be those scholastic tours de force for which Eton is so justly famous —Latin verses. Courteous as ever, the master rose to receive me, blinking through his double glasses. •

"I half expected you, inspector," he began pleasantly. "From Mr Lawson's attitude last night I saw that this wretched business would have to go on officially, so I took measures to fortify my standpoint with an expert and independent investigation. It has just been concluded by Mr Radford Shone, of whom you will have heard. He is still, I believe, in the house, having some lunch, if you would like to compare notes with him." "I have, so far, practically no notes to compare, sir," I smiled in reply. "But I have no objection to hearing Mr Shone's views. He has a great reputation as an amateur detective." "Not amateur—private; there's nothing like accurate phraseology," the amiable pedagogue corrected me. "An amateur works for' pleasure, whereas Mr Radford Shone's termswell, I mustn't mention the amount of his cheque. I will take you to him. Ah! there is no need. Here is Mr Shone." A gentleman, rather aggressively dressed as a gentleman, in comparison with whose silk-lapellqd frockcoat and fancy vest ' my sombre tweeds were as a crow's to a peacock's plumage, had entered the room v/ith confident tread, a patronising smirk for his client, and a haughty stare for me. Whatever his capabilities as a detective, he had' evidently been smart enough to-recognise me as an official from the Yard, thanks to our meagre pittance for expenses that does not admit of adequate disguise. Of course we of the regular force are not gentlemen; nor do we hanker after the appellation, but Mr Radford Shone impressed me as the embodiment of that subtly descriptive tevm—a bounder.

Behind him loomed a stout young man with a foolish face who was popularly supposed to be a sort of secretary, though I have since had cause to modify that view of Mr Samuel Martin's functions. I believe that he was a crank with more money than brains, smitten with a craze for detective work, and that the celebrated expert had turned this foible to good account in financing his operations. "As usual I perceive that the official inquiry begins just as mine has ended," said Shone, showing his teeth. "But I really don't think that there is anything more for me to do or say, Mr Pryme, except to assure you that you have no cause for un • easiness. I will furnish you with a written report of my investigations, which should convince even the boy's father that the kidnapping story is a tissue of falsehoods." "If you will be so good,'' said Mr Pryme. "And it might save Mr Timpany here —Inspector Timpany from Scotland Yard —some trouble if you would run through the hearts of your report now." (To be continued).