"The Chains of Bondage."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10066, 13 August 1910, Page 2

"The Chains of Bondage."

CHAPIEK XXl.—Continued.

Unexpectedly, with the death of a distant cousm, named Andrew Grierson, an avalanche of ratnei involved business matters had descended on him. This cousm, reputedly very rich, and beyond, question eccentric to the last degree, had left Trevena everything he possessed. . "He was a queer old recluse—a veritable mystery of a man. I was his only living relative, and yet we were almost strangers. He seemed to want no one near him. It was not till he was dying that he sent for me, and told mo he had left mo everything .including this house It was a very old house at Denmark Hill, in the southern part of London, that for many years had stood unoccupied—a house with a grim, uncanny reputation in the neighbourhood, perhaps due in part to the fact that Fflouke's Jolly, as it was called, had once been the scene of a terrible murder. "This house was the last thing Andrew Grierson spoke of. He began to talk with a strange, suppressed excitement about it, and with an earnestness that surprised jne he begged me to promise that fflouke's Folly should continue to remain empty. Of course, I promised," said Trevena. "He spoke as if there were some strange secret connected >uth „uis house; but before he could tell me anything further, or take me into his confidence ,as 1 fancy lie meant doing at the last, the mial stroke of parabsia seized him. He died with the secret untold." They were on their way to \v..it the house in question to-night. *revena had a special reason for wishing to "go to the old place after nightfall. . . Trevena's interest and curiosity were alike strangely piqued. rhe dying man's laboured, unvaihng efforts just before his death to make some disclosure te him that evidently bore on this house, and the reason,of his imperatively expressed wish that the place should continue to be left untenated; the hint of some secret bound up with it; and the forbidding reputation that clung to the old house—all this invested it for John Trevena with the fascination of a mystery. His finst visit to Ffoulke-s Folly, made in the broad daylight, had given him no clue to the reason of Andrew Grierson's inexplicable injunction. Trevena had found it a dreary barrack of a place, with walls stained and green with damp —a veritable haunt of rats. What could there be about this place to have caused three practically simultaneous offers to purchase the remainder of the lease to come to him almost immediately after the house had passed into his possession—offers in each case made through lawyers, who did not disclose their clients' names? The mere fact of three such offers having been made struck Trevena as both curious and suggestive. Had those tlires ZZgZI ?I? u Ki r„r- I eliasers, wlio p'lCfSrreo! to conceal their identity, some knowldge of, or interest in, the secret that, he was convinced, was bound up with Fflouke's Folly? I* looked like it.

And was that secret in any way connected with the unaccountable disappearance of a large portion of the late Andrew Grierson's wealth? For after the death of this reputedly enormously rich man, certain large sums of money, known to have recently been in his possession, as well as a valuable collection of gems and precious stones —of which Grier son had been an ardent collectorcould not be traced.

"He was miserly and strangely secretive. I'm convinced that this vanished portion of his fortune is merely bidden, not lost," Trevena told Jim. "There's a vast accumulation of papers yet to be gone through; these may give some clue. That's where I want your services so particularly '' "To join in a treasure hunt, in effect?" suggested Jim. The spice of adventure and mystery promised appealed to him, " Exactly. ' There's no accounting for the whims and caprices of such a confirmed eccentric. What has become of his collection of goms? Has he hidden it? Probably he would have told me had he lived long enough, he was on the point of making some confidences. As it is, lie's left me with a riddle to solve—and a knotty riddle ,too, unless I'm muck mistaken! Only it's my impression, Jim, that this eagerness on the part of three unknown persons to get hold of Fflouke's Folly seems to indicate that the clue to the lost treasure may.be hidden somewhere there." Trevena broke off suddenly with an exclamation.

• The cab was passing through Battersea. Jim saw his friend suddenly glance back intently through the murky night. Following the direction of his eyes, Jim saw by the light of a street lamp a woman wearing a heavy veil, whose figure and walk seemed vaguely to remind him of someone. "What is it, Trevena?" "For a moment I thought I recognised someone who passed," Trevena said; "but I suppose I was

BY EMILY B. HETHEKINGTON. Author of—" Eis Collfg? Chum," " Worth melon's Pledge," "A Eepen.{-nt Foe," etc.

mistaken." ■' That woman in the veil ? The same thought came to me. It wasn't Miss Fairfax!" said Trevena quickly. It seemed utterly unlikely that Judith Fairfax would be here on foot, shabbily dressed, in this rather squalid part of Battersea. Yet the woman's rigure had curiously reminded Trevena of her ,as it had reminded him. And more than once the former's thoughts reverted to her as the taxicab carried them swiftly in a south-easterly direction.

Ffoulke's Folly stood in a quiet by-street in the oldest part of Denmark Hill. The house itself was not visible from the road, and the driver would have driven past the door in the high wall that surrounded it.

"Here u-e are!" cried Trevena, jumping out, "Whoever Ffoulke was who built this house more than ninety years ago, he must have been as eccentric as Andrew Grierson! This is the only entrance." 'He unlocked the door, and he and Jim passed through into the neglected garden that the high wall enclosed. The big, rambling, irregularly shaped house, covered with a thick growth of ivy, stood out, a towering, indistinct blur of darkness in the dusk, and the shadows. Trevena carefully shut the door in the wall after him. "I don't wonder there are stories about this place," remarked Jim, as they walked across the growth of rank grass toward the dark house. "It certainly looks ghostly enough to be haunted!" Jim's interest was keenly aroused. Not only had Trevena's words stirred his curiosity, but with the sight of this lonely, dreary place, hidden from the road by the high wall that lent it an added secrecy, the feeling had somewhat swept over him that some queer adventure was awaiting them in this house which had come to his friend with such odd conditions.

As Trevena opened the front door and the two men passed queitly into the wide, dark hall, a chill breath met them across the threshold, an air of dust and desolation. A rat scurried away into the darkness. Jim struck a match. The tiny, flickering gleam threw a wavering tongue of light ,and the shadows fell back on all sides like the waves of a receding sea. They had proTided themselves with candles, Trevena was in the act of lighting one, when he suddenly whispered to Jim:

"Listen! Do you hear anything?" Tnevena's voice was rather startled.

He saw that Jim had heard it, too, that sound that had reached him. It was a muffled murmur, only barely audible as they stood listening intently, that might have been the faint sound of voices not very far away, had it been likely, or even possible, that there could be any human beings under this roof.

Then a gust of wind caused the open door to close nmisii.\ ] P" 0 - Simultaneously with the clatter of the door the sound they had heard ceased abruptly. Absolute silence reigned everywhere.

"Where did that sound come from, and what was it?" said Trevena, in a low voice to Jim. "I've felt all along that there was something strange connected with this house, and here mystery meets us on the very threshold!" Here, in the loneliness and silence of this old house, the dying man's words came back to him with a.i added significance; -'' The house must continue to stand unoccupied and unaltered. I lay this last solemn injunction on you " What mystery did the house contain ?

"Well, at least ,old Andrew's injunction, which I have promised to obey, does not forbid our exploring; and that's what we'll do straight away?" Each had been conscious of a sudden tightening of his nerves; there was something almost uncanny about the faint murmured sound they had heard on entering ,and that had ceased so abruptly. Could any intruders be lurking in the house ?

But their prolonged search revealed no sign, of any living soul. Carrying lighted candles, Trevena and Jim went into room after room of the strangely built house that was full of unexpected turns and windings in the many corridors and passages to find only dust and solitude. (To be Continued).