THE SOLUTIONS OF RADFORD SHONE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 9011, 21 December 1907, Page 2

THE SOLUTIONS OF RADFORD SHONE.

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

Communicated to and kditkd by HEAOON HJELXI*.

[Published By Special Arrangement.]

[All Eights Reserved.]

CHAPTER X.—Continued. Now the reputation of this gentleman as a specialist in investigation cases had reached me from several sources, and I recognised that he was not quite on the same footing as the gaping spectators on the landing. It was natural that he should take a professional interest in the tragedy, and it was even possible that the trained acumen of an expert who had chanced to be living in the house prior to the crime might be useful to me. At any rate, Mr Radford Shone might be expected to put matters tersely and lucidly which otherwise I should have to sift from a mass of inconsequent verbiage. "I didn't know you," 1 said in a tone of half-apology. "This is a badbusiness, Mr Shone, in which, per haps, your experience has led you to form a conclusion?" He gave a short laugh, in which his companion joined. "The whole thing is an open book to me, but then, of course, I have had the advantage of residing here for over a week, and have been able to study the social under-currents of the house." "Oh, Mr Shone, 1 am sure that there are no under-currents in our pleasant tittle circle," the unhappy landlady began. "Everything is quite x above board, and you can't think that any of my boarders " "It I can have a few words with you alone, inspector, I can make the thing perfectly plain to you," Shone interrupted her rudely. _ "In the meanwhile just look at this."

That to which he drew my attention was a brass bolt on the inside of the door, having its bar still protruding, just as it had. been wrenched away from its moorings in order to break into the room when its occupant had made no sun. It \va» not, however, to the general wret-k of the bolt that Shone's lean forefinger was pointing, but to an almost invisible strand of yeilow silk tied round the shank of the bolt and broken off short at the knot. Having examined it cursorily, I followed Shone into his own bedroom, which was down a passage on the same floor. His friend, Mr Samuel Martin, came with us.

"You see what that bit of silk means?" sai:l Shone as soon d s we were shut in his room. "It was used to draw the bolt into its socket, so as to give the impression that the door had remained bolted all night, by someone leavine the room by way , of the door. I don't think you will want to pay any more attention to the window, inspector." "The inference being that the murderer is an inmate of this house?" 1 suggested rather doubtfully. I was by no means carried away by the force of his theory, though it was by no means untenable. Yet it seemed to me that if it was correct the murderer must have left a good deal to chance. To take one instance alone, j he could have been by r.o means cer- ', tain that even after many attempts he would be able to the bolt into its socket through the clamping rin*s from the other side of the door. And it would have been leaving a good deal to Providence to expect to be able to break the silk off short at the knot after it had served its purpose without leaving a loose end that would have been noticeable even by an ordinary police officer. "What other inference could there be?" said Shone, exchanging a glance with his hanger-on, as though commiserating my density. "You could have found that much out for yourself, I should hope, without any undue strah upon your intelligenceprovided when you eame to mafie an examination of the ruom you had noticed the circle of silk. I can go further than that, thanks to having exercised my powers of observing while residing in the house, and indicate to you which particular inmate of the house is the murderer." His tone jarred my self-respect, but it was clearly my duty to hear what he had to say, and as civilly as I could I asked him to enlighten me. "Jack Kentish is the fellow's name," he said. "It's simply a case of common or garden jealousy. Kentish and the dead man were both sweet upon Ida Lorimer, the landlady's daughter, and the fair Ida favoured the darkie." And Shone proceeded to describe how the young Indian barrister had been recently taking Miss Lorimer out a good deal to theatres and concerts, to the unconcealed annoyance of Mr Kentish, who, according to the gossip of the older boarders, had been the girl's undeclared lover till Chunder Dass appeared on the scene. "A case of magnetic attraction for the heaviest metal, I imagine," sneered Shone coarsely. "The blackamoor was uncommonly well supplied with cash, and was able to give her a better time than Kentish, who is only a clerk in a bank." 1 had thought all along that far a professional mystery-monger Shone was using that strident, high-pitched voico of his rather freely, and I was not iiiiogcthtr surprised when the door flung violently open to admit a girl in a first-class rage.

"That odious creature has been telling you lieM l " she burst forth at mc. And, turning her pretty, flushed face on Shone, she literally poured out the vials of her wrath upon him. jEJe was an infamous spy, whose business in life it was to make mischief. It was a bad fur her mother's when he had set foot in it; Jack Ifentish had no more killed Chunder Dass than she had herself; it was a wicked calumny to say, that she had preferred the Indian because pf his wealth; she had not preferred t)jm at all, and more to the same effect. Mr Samuel Martin looked horrorstruck at this irreverence to his chief, but Mr Radford ?hone himself

stood the onslaught easily and sneeringly. To Miss Icta herself he made no direct reply, but to me he remarked with an ugly grin—"l suppose that a live hank clerk is better than a dead Baboo, from the feminine point of view."

These recriminations were not conducive to clearing up the mystery, and it behoved me to nip them in the bud. I did so by informing Miss Lorimer soothingly that there was nothing against Mr Kentish at present, and by telling Shone that his discovery of the silk on the bolt had certainly furnished important matter for inquiry. By this means I managed to separate the conilicting parties, the angry girl retiring to the lower regions, and Shone putting on his bar preparatory to going out, he was careful to say, on business connected with some stones that were missing from the Duchess of Beauliu's tiara. "Kentish is employed at the Fleet Street branch of the London and Suburban Bank," said Rhone, as, foilowed by Martin, he made for the stairs. "He left the house before Dass' room was broken open, so you'll be able to take him by surprise if you look sharp. Of course, what you said to the girl was nonsense. You have, in the little precis I have-given you, quite sufficient to arrest him on." The gesture with which alone I answered him might have meant assent or mere civility, for I was not prepared to arrest Mr Kentish or anyi-ne else without further investigation. To this end I returned to the death chamber which I had left in charge of the constable, and where Dr. Winthrop was now making a more prolonged examination of the body. First turning my attention to the bolt, my first impression was confirmed. Once in 50 times, perhaps, the attempt to puli the brass bar into the socket by means of the slender strand of silk passed between the door and the door-post might have succeeded, but the necessary failures would have been far from noiseless in the dead of night, and would have taken up so much time that it would have needed a murderer of iron nerves to persist. I came to the conclusion that Kadford Shone might have fallen into the trap that always yawns for superficial amateur cleverness, and fitted his discovery of the silken strand on to his preconceived notions of Miss Ida's love affairs. It was quite Jnssible that a cunning crhrinal might have tied the silk round the bolt with the very purpose of inducing the view that Shone had taken. To have accepted his theory also begged the question that the deceased had gone to bed, leaving his room door unbolted.

This being so, I went back to the only other means of entrance —the window looking out over the street. Measuring distances with my eye, I saw that it would be just possible for an active man to swing himself from the roof cf the portico over the front door to within gripping distance of the sill of the window. Shone's argument as to the risk of observation run by anyone attempting the window was a potent one, but it*was a quiet thoroughfare, and at any rate the thing could be done. Having established this, I saw Mrs Lorimer again, and endeavoured to learn what I could of the dead man's habits and connections. Of these she could tell me little, except that he was of a studious disposition, and that she believed that ho had spent his whole days at his chambers in the, Temple. Here a bit of luck was in store for me. On asking for his address in the Temple 1 found that the chambers were in the same building in Pump Court as those of Mr Noel Staddon, the well-known Old Bailey barrister, with whom I had a long-standing acquaintance. I determined at once to go and see if Mr Staddon knew anything of the Hindoo student, and to take the opportunity of looking in on Mr Kentish at the London and Suburban Bank. (To be continued.)