A SENSATIONAL CASE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9176, 27 August 1908, Page 2

A SENSATIONAL CASE.

By FLORENGE WARDEN.

CHAPTER XVI.-Continuul. "Now don't find any more mare.s'nests, and don't take silly fancies into your head, or 1 shall really begin to think that I don't cars for you so much as I used to. Kiss me, dear." Netelka obeyed without warmth and Linley trotted off quite happily, removing a little dust from the fingers of one of his china shepherdesses as he went. Mr Moseley was in the drawing'room when Netelka entered thn room dressed for dinner; and she noticed that for the first time he was rather curt in his manner to her. When she asked him pointblank whether he bad not some noisy visitors on the previous evening without her knowledge, he frowned, and said shortly that he must refer her to her husband for any information she wanted about the guests in the house. Netelka turned away from him without further remark, and she saw in the glass that he looked at her with suspicion and anxiety. When Netelka retired to her room that night she had determined to satisfy herself of the truth or faslehood of certain suspicions she had formed, without any aid but that of her own eyes and ears. So she put on her dressing-gown and sat by the fire until she saw by her watch that it was two o'clock. Then she opened her door very softly and stole along the corridors of the old house, in the direction of Mr Moaeley's rooms. The building was a rambling structure, loudly praised by visitors for its picturesqueness, and as loudly condemned by the inmates for its draftiness and inconvenience. The Txi ifiOiiia which had bean set apart for Mr Moseley's use were in one of those substantial additions ti the original dwelling which Netelka called the "after-thoughts." They were connected with the main building by a long room which, being a thoroughfare from one part of the house to the other, had fallen out of use except for that purpose. All these rooms, therefore, Were now kept locked, and no one ever visited them in Mr Moseley's absence except the head housemaid, an elderly person who had been in Mr Moseley's service before, who kept them dusted and in order. To this locked door, therefore, Netelka now came. She tried the handle; then she knocked. No one came. But she heard the hum of voices, and an occasional burst of laughter. She was not going to play eavesdropper; she knocked again. Finally, she rattled the handle of "the door. She now felt certain that there was a gambling-party going on, and she meant to break it up if she could, or, at least, to disturb the gamblers. Whatever came of her interference, she was not going to allow men to be cheated under a roof which was nominally hers. But this locked door threatened to put an insuperable obstacle to the carrying out of her plan. At last she gave up the attack on this side as hipeless, and, remembering that there waß a misused bedroom from which a view could be obtained of the windows of all three of the locked-up rooms, she turned aside and opened the door of a room on her right hand. The room was small, and smelled musty from long disuse. Netelka went to the window, and saw the confirmation of her fears. The blinds ol the largest of the three rooms were drawn down, but it was evidently well-lighted, and the shadows thrown upon the blinds showed that the room must be full of people. It was worse than she had feared. She threw up the windowsash; below her was an outbuilding, the roof of which woulJ form a dangerous but not wholly impracticable footway between the room she was in and the long paasage-room in which the gambling was going on. With some difficulty she got out upon the roof. It was wet and slippery from recent rain, and it was only by the utmost caution that she could keep herself from sliding to the ground below as she crawled along. She had got under the window she wished to reach, and was stretching her hand to grasp the i ill, when she heard a sound behind her, and saw that the window by which she had got out had been shut by some one. It was at the same moment that she discovered that she could not reach the ledge of the window above her.

CHAPTER XVII.

A RECOGNITION,

It wag a moment of extreme danger for Netelka when, her feet upon the slippery roof and her hands trying in vain to get a strong grip on the window-1 d?e above her, she heard the closing of th:; window through which she had cone. Her heart scorned to leap up within her; her bruin reeled. What had she done that her husband should treat he.r Hce this? Slk- could not dmbt that it was Linley who had shuttle window; indeed, a minute iatrr s-he heard his voice and that of a Jew in altercation in the room above h -v. Thj f ci was that Moseley and Linley ha 1 both heard her knocking atjthe door, and that when she retreated her husband had followed her an'i watched her daring descent upon th- roof outside. To do the Jew justice he had been rather disgusted when Liniey pulled down the sash. "No," ho had said, "leave th« poor little woman alone. She can't get in at the other window, as she wants to do. Leave the way open for her to come back. She's a mischievous little puss, but she's done us

Author oi " The Lady in Black," "An Infamous Fraud," "For Love of Jack," "\ Terrible Family," "The House on the Marsh," etc. etc.

a good turn, after all, with Waller, and besides—hang it, man, she's your wife, after all." But Linley was looking livid, with a cold anger quite unlike the Jew's more human impatience. "Let her break her neck!" said he between his closed teeth. "I'm sick of the long faces she pulls at me now, and of her prattle about devotion and duty. H'm! pretty devotion! It will land us all in prison some day, if we don't look out!" In the meantime a faint cry from the subject of their discussion made it evident that there was no time to be lost in making up their minds what to do. The Jew broke away from Lin'ey, and, reentering the long passage-room, threw open the window and looked out in assumed astonishment. "Good gracious!" he exclaimed. "Mrs Hilliard! How did you get out there?"

She made no answer; she was, indeed, growing faint and giddy, and help had only come just in time to save her from a dangerous fall. She heard, without quite understanding, a few rapidly uttered sentences in voices which seemed familiar to her. Then she felt herself drawn slowly up, being able to offer only a little assistance to her rescuers. And, when she came entirely to herself, she discovered that she was in the passage-room, and that the face nearest to her was that of Arthur Sainsbury. She had not seen either Arthur or Sam Teale for some time, and she was at once struck by a change in Arthur's appearance. He looked older and he looked more dissipated , than he had hitherto appeared. Netelka sprang up, and, putting J her hand to her head, remembered I the object she had had in making her rash expedition. The door of the inner room was ajar; and she ran across to it, and threw it open before any one could stop her. The sight which met her eyes was so surprising | that for a few seconds she stood in the doorway motionless and dumb. • Instead of the long card-table, sur-, rounded by a party of excited gamblers, she saw about a dozen gentlemen seated about the room in the easy attitudes of the smoking-room, eacn with his cigar, his pipe, or his cigarette; three or four small tables, bearing all the paraphernalia necessary for the concoction of any drink they might fancy. Nothing like the big card-table she had imagined was to be seen. Those members of the party who were near enough to the door to see her arose, as if in surprise. That broke the spell. For some of them were bad actors, and her quick feminine instinct then revealed to her that the little scene before her had been carefully prepared for her benefit. There was nothing for her to do, however, but to retreat with a muttered apology. As she turned, she met the Jew's black eyes fixed unon her with amusement and mockery, while behind him Linley stood, with an expression upon his face which chilled and frightened her. Harrington Moseley was disposed to be jocular. "I suppose, my dear Mrs Hilliard, that you thuught we were up to some mischief, and wanted to keep an eye upon us; but it's lucky for you we kept an eye upon you, isn't it?" (To be continued.)