THREE MEN AND A MAID.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9033, 21 January 1908, Page 2

THREE MEN AND A MAID.

[All Eights Reserved.]

CHAPTER VII. -Continued

"You identify this weapon as the sword which jou'sent to PJiilip War : ren?" was the next question, and the sword found hi the body was handed to the witness, who, after looking at it, identified it. "You have long known that sword as Mr Warren's'.'" "Yes, sir." But as Whitaker was in the act of sitting down, up started Hardinge, to challenge Davenport with the question: "Where is the note sent you by Mr Warren on the fatal afternoon?" Davenport answered that he" had mislaid it, had hunted everywhere, but had failed to find it.

"And you are convinced that what Mr Warren asked you for was his short-sword, not his foil?"

"No, the sword." "You know, however, that Mr Warren and the deceased have long been in the habit of fencing with the foils in a regular way once .or twice each week."

"Yes, sir," "You have seen them at it?" "Oh, yes. Many of the folk about have seen them."

"Which do you say jvas the better man of the two at the foil?"

"1 always understood that Mr Warren was."'

"And you are sure that the sword which you just examined is Mr War-

ren's?"

"Sure, sir."

"Just have another look,'Vsaid Mr Hardinge, catching up a sword from his side, and thrusting it hurriedly into the witness' hands, whereat Davenport, looking closely at it, said: "Yes, sir, this is Mr Warren's."

"But it is not!" cried the lawyer, amid some sensation. "It happens to be one of Squire Courthope's swords!"

"Oh, I protest," cried Mr Whittaker, half rising, "this is a mere trick to delude a witness."

"It is a trick the importance of whose result the gentlemen of the .iurv will not fail to realize," said Hardinge. "I wished to impress upon them thac the sword or swords of Warren and those of the deceased are so alike that they cannot be distinguished, and consequently that the .sword found m the body, and "identified a3 Mr Warren's, may not be Mr "Wai-ren'sat all!" The point, however, rather failed to impress a jury already convinced that the fatal weapon only be Warren's. And nosv followed a scrutiny into the history of the two men on the Thursday and days preceding it, dragging out into the sunshine that canker of gall and jealousy which had rankled with results so mortal. Jonas Neyland told of the Squire pacing in the drawing-room of the Greyhound, hour after hour, and Marjorie not to be found. And Marjorie, veiled and in black, had to tell of the round-tower, and of the unsolved riddle of the plot which had inveigled her thither, and of the curiously malicious laugh which she and Philip had heatd from the top, and recognized as Courthope's. She spoke of the coming home to the Greyhound with Philip in the dark of the morning; and of how, when it was light, she had heard from her sister that he had been cast adrift by the Vicar and was at Lancault. She had hastened to him there, and persuaded him to let her depart for London in the same train with him in the evening. By agreement, she was waiting under the Greyhound arcade when she had seen him pass, and he had forbidden her to follow him. "Did he stop?" asked Mr Whittaker. "No," answered Marjorie. "Did he call out to you not 10 follow?" "No, he said nothing." "Then, in what manner did he forbid you to follow?" "He put out his hand backward toward me."

"Did you notice anything strange about him?" -

She was silent for a while, and her trembling was visible to all in the court. Presently she said: "He seemed agitated." "Is that all? Very agitated? Wildly agitated?" "Distinctly agitated." "As a man would be who had just perpetrated crime, and was flying from justice?" Marjorie made some anwser which was not heard. "We did not quite catch " began Mr Whitaker. "He looked very agitated," she answered. "So that was all you noticed, that he looked wildly and guiltily agitated, and put out his hand backward to annul the travelling arrangement made between you that morning? Did you notice nothing else whatever? No sign of blood on his clothes?" "No."

"Nor on his hand?" There came no answer. Whitaker waucl a little. '^"

"Cu.-ie now—on his hand?" he asked.

"Well, on his hand." "Ah! Blood on the hand which he stretched backward to you?"

"No, on his right hand. I thought it had been cut "

"But blood is blood, whether his own or some one else's, surely? You could hardly see all in a moment, when you must have been in a state of no little dismay at the change in your plans, whether the blood was from a cut " "I think that I can say so. I think that I noticed a long sort of scratch, as I certainly noticed something else " "And that was- ?"

"His ring, which he always wore on the middle finger of the right hand, was not there, though it was there in

By ROBERT TEASER.

[Published By Special Arrangement.]

the morning when 1 saw him; and I should like to say that, if he had lost the ring, that fact might be sufficient, in my opinion, to account for the agitation of which I have given evidence." "What!" cried the lawyer with a touch of sarcasm in his voice, "the loss of a ring'send a man flying wildly in that way? Do you consideiathat a reasonable statement, Miss Neyland?"

"Yes. It was not an ordinary ring. He has long believed the ring to be a talisman of bis house, and that its separation from him might mean life-long calamity." "I see. During your intercourse with Warren have you always considered him quite sane?" She lifted her eyes in quick contempt. "Yes." she answered. "That question seems to surprise you," said the lawyer. "Not really," she said in a clear way. "1 have often read that it is a marked trait of lunacy, to suspect insanity in others." Mr Whitaker suddenly sat, and up sprang Mr Hardinge to ask whether, since she was able *.o note the scratch on Warren's hand, and the absence of the ring, Marjorie had not thought it likely that the means by which the ring was removed were probably identical with those which caused the scratch.

"1 was in too great confusion of mind to think." answered' Marjorie, "though what you say now seems very reasonable." v She was followed by the Vicar, with his inscrutable face, and the court now heard how, in going home from the sick bed of his curate, he had met Kobert Courthope running from the direction of the round-tower, and had been told that his nephew was at that moment on the tower with a lady; whereat Mr Isambard had strolled in that direction, and, without revealing himself, had witnessed the truth of the Squire's words. "What were the two on the tower doing at the moment when you saw them?" asked Mr Whitaker. "Is the question pertinent?" asked Mr Hardinge, half rising. "It may be," said the coroner.

"The couple seemed to be engaged in a tender passage," said Mr Isambard, "seeing which, I, of course, stole away"—whereat a murmur of disapprobation arose at the scandal, every man feeling a little jealous of Philip, and every woman of Marjorie; and Hannah, sitting next to her sister, cast down her eyes with a blush, as if she had never heard of such things before, while Jonas threw up his hands and eyes together. As. for Martha and Aunt Margaret, they had not been subpoenaed to appear, and, glad enough to be away from all the revelation and to-do, sat in the Greyhound with tneir hands on their mouths. .

Then came the story of Philip's and the Vicar's parting, how the Vicar had sat up waiting tiil the small hours for Philip to come, how Philip had declared that he had been locked in the tower, and how the Vicar had then washed his hands of his nephew. "But did you believe, sir, your nephew's story about the tower door having been locked upon him?" asked Mr Hardinge. '"I —pretended, of course, to believe," said Mr Isambard. "But did you believe?" "No." ""Yet it was true, sir." "So I understand." "If you had but believed, your subsequent conduct to the young man would no doubt have been very different? And if that were different, all else might have been different?" "I did not believe him. The door of that tower has never been locked before," said Mr Isambard. "Surely you have always known your nephew to be a person of the strictest veracity?" "Yes;" "And after a lifetime of truth, when he happens to tell you a somewhat improbable, though true, story, you disbelieve him so flatly?" "That is so. Remember, however, that I had just seen him in a situation implying to my mind some moral obliquity—on that tower-top—-after midnight; and one sort of moral obliquity, to a man who knows the heart, renders moral obliquities in other directions very possible." -<. (To be continued.)