THE SOLUTIONS OF RADFORD SHONE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 9016, 30 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 DEALINGS WITH THE EMINENT EXPERT, MR RADFORD SHONE,

Communicated to and edited by MSADOM BLIUL.

[Published By Special Arrangement.]

[All Eights Keserved.]

CHAPTER Xl.—Continued. "And now be good enough \o examine the handle of this knife, and tell me if the impression you will detect upon it is not identical in tracing with that on the bond." Again, lens in hand, 1 bent over the table, and again I admitted the correctness of his assertion. "The mark on the fruit knife is the impress of the thumb of one Morrison, a passenger who was late for dinner on the day Mr Van Schuyler was robbed and assaulted; the bond which you have examined is the one which Mr van Schuyler held clutched in his hand when he was found," said Shone, folding his arms with the air of a Napoleon surveying a victorious field. "The deduction is obvious, unless Mr Morrison can explain how he came to have handled the bond," said * Radford Shone preserved his attitude of lofty disdain, but Martin giggled—"Explain! Of course, Morrison will explain, but it will be a funny sort of explanation, I expect."

THE FINAL ERROR.

"Who is that taking my name in vain?" said a pleasant voice, as a shadow darkened the doorway and Angus Morrison walked into the smoking-room. I thought it best to take the bull by the horns at once. "This gentleman has been applying the Bertillon system to a bond found in the hand of van Schuyler," I said. "The bond bears traces of having been fingered by you, and as it is one of the series that is missing, I shall be glad to hear how you account for it. I had better add that I am the detectiveinspector charged with the investigation." . He looked blankly from one to the other; and then, realising that the veiled accusation came from the smirking Shone, seemed on the point of knocking him down. It was with an obvious effort that he controlled himself. "The gentlnman is very complimentary," he said in a tone hi dangerous quiet. "Yes, I can account', for the handling of the bond in th 3 j simplest manner. It was shown to | me by Mr van Schuyler himself. The . day before the robbery he waylaid me as I was returning from the bathroom and asked me to step into his cabin. Ha then requested me •to look at a bond which he said he thought was a counterfeit. I couldn't see anything wrong with it and passed it back to him." The fatuous Martin began to giggle, but stopped abruptly when the young Scotchman took a stsp towards him. ' ; "And as to your being late for dinner that night?" J said civilly. ''That again is simple," Morrison replie'i. "I couldn't find my dress jacket. Someone must have played a practical joke on me, for I eventually discovered it on the cabin floor under my bunk." "I am obliged to you," I said, without indicating what was in my mind, and thereby visibly disappointing Shone, wh6 must have expecced me to effect the arrest there and then. "And now, captain, I should like to see the state-room where the robbery and assault took place," I added. ...

"You will be very careful, please; any disturbance might be fatal to Mr van Schuyler," Coyle murmured with unaffected anxiety. "I shall do him no harm," said I as we trooped along' the deck and down a handsome staircase to the cor-

ridor where was the sleeping accommodation. The financier's state-room was one of the best, in the ship, ornate with silk and iamask draperies, and furnished with a brass bedstead on which lay the patient. By the side of the bed sat a stout man with a very bald head, who eyed ou~ entrance with obvious displeasure. "Gentlemen, gentlemen!" he exclaimed, starting up. "I really cannod permit " "All right, Doctor Skipwith—a mere matter of form. We shan't stay ,a second," interrupted Coyle nervously. "The affair is practically finished." I stood still, asking no. questions and troubling very little about the cabin itself, all my attention being

riveted on its principal occupant—the man on the bed. He was lying with his eyes shut, breathing stentorously, and his forehead and part of his skull was disfigured with a large plaster. One, two, three minutes I stood perfectly motionless watching him, and then the signal for action came in the very slight raising of one of the closed eyelids. As I had expected, ever since Morrison's explanation, Mr van Schuyler, was shamming. I went over and shook him. No one tried to stop me. The mere action showed that the game was up. f "If you will get off that bed, Mr van Schuyler, I will find your bonds for you," I said. "They are between the mattresses." With a shame-faced grin the Wall Strait magnate obeyed and sat on the edge of the bed. "How in thunder did you 'enow that?" he asked. "Because it is the most obvious place in which a bogus invalid would hide the proceeds of a bogus robbery till he could remove the plunder," said I, and plunging my hands into the bedding I verified my words by dragging out the missing bonds. "Not much bogus about the robbery," the blunt old captain glowered, after a silenca that could be felt. "Where would his partner have come in?". , # ♦ * * * * The answer to Captain Attlee's question furnished the keynote of, the whole conspiracy got up by van Schuyler and aided and abetted by Coyle, Skipwith and his own wife. If he could have left the ship with the bond 3 in his possession, yet believed to have 1 been stolen, his partner

would have "come in nowhere." Of course, there had been no assault, the medical confederate immediately covering up the supposed injuries with plaster. When we reached Liverpool the cables were busy, but no arrest followed, though Miss Lucy Gage was put under the protection of Angus Morrison's mother, and the partnership between her father and van Schuyler was speedily dissolved. The introduction of the girl as an unconscious decoy for picking up a passenger to serve as a scapegoat in a crime by which her own father was to suffer was the cruellest part of the scheme, though it fortunately ended in wedding bells. Ido not know whether Shone was more angry with me, or with the client who had duped him into throwing suspicion on an innocent man. I can only say that during the few hours we were shipmates he and his understudy kept out of my way. CHAPTER. XII.

The waiting-rooms where we receive informatory visitors at Scotland Yard are not upholstered in saddlebags or draped with silken hangings. The beefy, over-dressed young, man who rose at my entrance wore an air of blended disgust and preoccupation —disgust at the hardness of the chair upon which he had been asked to "take a seat," preoccupation over the terrible business he had come to unfold. ."Chief Inspector Mitford?" he blurted eagerly, his large, stupid face quivering with agitation. I bowed assent and asked him what was wrong. "Radford Shone is missing?" he announced, all short as one would tell you that the king was dead, or the bottom fallen out of the Bank of England—something too stupendous for comment or explanatory remark. I "Indeed," I said, politely, cudgel- ' ling my brain for the half-familiar | name he mentioned; then, after exj tracting Radford Shone from one of my mental pigeon-holes duly labelled as a well-known private "investigator," I added: "That is almost a national calamity, I presume." My visitor looked me over with a kindling eye. "National!" he exclaimed. l 'lt will be a world-wide one if, as I expect Mr Radford Shone has been foully murdered by the gang of criminals upon whom he had nearly closed his iron grip. And to me, personally, his loss will be " "Irreparable," I suggested, as he floundered for his word.

"Personally and financially irrepar- j able," he conceded. "I am bound to Shone by ties of affection—no, not quite that—by ties of respect for his enormous powers, and—er —for the little bit of cash I've put into his show. And to think that he is probably lying cold and dead somewhere, just because he has met his match at last in—in Professor Mallandine !" "Professor Mallandine!" I repeated, really interested now, for this name was a very real one me, pregnant with meaning. "Come, sir! let me have your information as ■briefly as possible, please." With sundry deviations into sidetracks whence he had to be sharply recalled, Mr Samuel Martin unfolded his story. He and Shone occupied rooms together in Gower street, and four nights previously his patron or partner, or whatever he considered the object of his adoration, had entered their joint sitting-room in sorry plight, carefully locking the door behind'him. His clothes were ■mud-soiled, and his forehead, when be removed his battered top hat, was seen to be disfigured with a band of sticking-plaster. For a long time he had vouchsafed no reply, but had paced the room, apparently deep in thought. Martin avowed that he knew him too well to question him when in that mood, but had watched him with growing apprehension. (To be continued.)