The Colonel's Enemy.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3160, 12 April 1909, Page 2

The Colonel's Enemy.

CHAPTER XXXll,—Continued,

"Don't think of it, sir, for a moment. The house is full of ele-tric bells and telephones; the attendants arc well paid and always no the alert: there are padded rooms on every floor, atd any patient can be thrown inio one at a moment's nut ice; the corridors'and .stairs are so thickly carpeted that a regiment of dragoons might tramp up and down without being heard. If you were in thd house you would not kr.ow what was taking place in the room next to your hand or the one over ycur head." •'How do you know all this:

"I made the acquaintance of a ] man who used to bu a keeper there. ] Hi was dismissed for drunkenness, , and he picks up a living by holding , horses and carrying luggage from . the trains to the cabs at tne railway , stations. He is lodging at a coffeeshop in Chelsea, and he wrote about this case both to Scotland Yard and Mr Fletcher's, but they did not think his letter worth notice. I don't know whether he waa telling me the truth, or was making up the story for the sake of a few pence and some beer, but he told me he was at the station when the colonel and Crauliss, in disguise, came from Liverpool. He said he noticed them particularly, because they had no luggage, and the colonel looked so wild about the eyes and he staggered as if he had been drinking." "Why have you kept what seems a most important piece of information to the last?" I '•'"Because I did liot believe him. The man has been in the army, and left with a bad character-; he nearly livts on diink, and I thought . he.might ha»e made the story up 1 after reading the reward advertisement*; besides, when I asked him to take me to the house, he shirked it —said it would do no good. Dr. Baracocci has other houses in different places, and if anything awkward is likely to take place a patient can soon be spirited away in that closa brougham of nis. He told me-you must take this for what it is wortn, sir—that once, when a patient died in the house and they were afraid of an inquiry, they put him in the brougham as if he were living, drove to a quiet thoroughfare and left him on the pavement. He ,was found by the police, who though he was intoxicated, and they carried him away on a stretcher, but he w«s dead." "When did you first see this man —the keener?" "In a tavern not far from Dr. Baracocci's. He had been loitering about, trying to screw up his courage to go in and ask them to take nim on again." "It is curious that you should have met him; more curious still that, astute as you generally are, you should have thought so little of his information:" "Well, sir, he was such an awful fibber, as well as given to drink, that I did not kno# what to believe or what not." "You should have sifted it. Here, I fancy, is the letter he sent to Fletcher's. I answered it because of its peculiarities, and it seems* to me that l.e is the very man for our purpose." "That's the man, sure enough," Ditton aaid, "and he would be useful if you could depend upon him. Xou shall see him to-night, sir, if I can get to the coffee-shop before closing time.'" "What do you mean by closing time?" . "Half-past twelve when tha publichouses shut." • "I was not aware that they ever shut," the soldier said. "When I was in England twenty years ago they were open day and night; but you are not fit to go out again." "I am fit for anything this evening, sir. What I may be to-morrow is a different matter, and this will be the beat time to make sure of Dakin." "Is that his name?" "It is the name he is known by, sir; his name is really Richard Alfred King, - but his friends have changed it somewhat into Dick Dakin; ybu will find him rather rough and ready, but you will manage him, sir. I believe you could manage anybody, and I will bring him to you." "No, my goop fellow, you will take me tn him. This idle, drunken vagabond is worth his weight in gold tome at present; and if he serves me well, I will make a better man of bim, it you do not overrate my ability to manage people. I shall keep him sober and put him as a friend in the enemy's camp." He went for his ulster and a soft hat, wondering at the power of endurance his man had displayed under extreme pain; wondering, too, at the mental perversity by which, in this solemn crisis, his own thoughts would lose themselves m vagrant trifles. "The transition is easy enough," he said to his valet. "Richard Alfred King, Richard A. King, Dick Dakin, and that I expect is the key to the etymology of names. A rough-and-ready kind of man he is, you say?" "Verymu*hso; but he is always clean *nd smart; his boots are blacked while there is a bit of them left, and if there is anything he would go without a drink for, it would be to save twopence for his bath." "Then there is hope for him; a cleanly man is never quite lost to self-respect. We will keep Mr Richard King sober and make a man of him again. You say he left the army with a bad character—was he dishonest?" "No, sir, drunk, quarrelsome and insubordinate." "Drink can be cured, and his other faults show that he did not have sufficient scope for his fighting qualitiep. I should have had quite a different impression of the man if you had not explained, and he will be tractable enough with me."

By WINTHROP B. HARLAND. Author of "Lady Elgin's Secret," "A Harvest of Shame," " I'ho Klder Son," " Lord Ashton's Heir," Etc.

The major had a well-grounded faith in hia power to govern the refractory; the most desperate and hardened characters in his own regiment were transformed into spTendrd soldiers under his kindly and determined rule, and he ws glad that the man he was going to deal with had worn the uniform. The habits of discpline,respect and self-restraint were ntver entirely lost. He tuok a cab in Piccadilly and Ditton directed the driver. The major's appearance caused a considerable stir in the coffee-shop where Khhard Dakin sat in a. corner, with a checker board in front of him, and his opponent already hopelessly beaten,"though not half-a-dozen moves had been made. He turned the game over to a friend after the valet had said a few words to him, and he approached the major with a military salute. He was not a prepossessing gubject to look at; his eyes were small and deeply set; his forehead low and narrow; the nose short, with wide nostrils; the mouth and jaw square and muscular. There was a strong suggestion of the bulldog about him, but it was not a bad face taken altogether. "I want you to come with me, or, rather go with my man" the major said "and I will follow in another cab. I can put something handsome in your way if you serve me faithfully and I believe you can do that if you say you will." "That's it sir; trust me like a man and I will act like on?." "Could you keep quite sober for a week or a month?" "Yes sir; if I have a reason for it, I can do without altogether better than I can do with a little." "As you have sence enough to know that you have sence enough to be a sober man entirely; and how is it that you wrote such a letter as this, while you speak as if you had been fairly educated?" "I wrote in that way on purpose, sir. I did not know what kind of gentleman I might have to deal with."

The major was satisfied. Mr Dakin's cunning was an excellent substitute for judgment in a man of his mental calibre; and in the work before them, caution was a very necessary quality. He sent them on in the cab, after distributing a handful of silver in the coffeehouse; and he followed in another vehicle at an interval of ten minutes. When he arrived he • was argeeable surprised to find Dakin arrayed in spotless linen and a suit of his own cast off clothes, a little out of shape, but hardly the , worse for wear. He was quite willing to enter the major's service when he heard what was required of him. "I have no doubt that the gentleman you want is there," he said; "but you would never get him out without some such scheme as triiß. If I get in again, and I have no doubt I shall, if I go with a good coat on my back, and sober, I will take care that we get him out someh w " [to be continued.]