"The Chains of Bondage."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10086, 6 September 1910, Page 2

"The Chains of Bondage."

CHAPTER XXXVH. COMEDY ENDS ON A TRAGIC NOTE.

John Trevena's wits were keenly alert to face any new emergency, it was something to be thankful for that Judith had got clear of this house of tragedy. "I thought the maid told you—not very politely—that Mr Wace was not at home?" Tre vena remarked with imperturbed coolness, as he opened the door. The foremost of the two men calmly pushed forward into the hall. "You're waiting for Mr Wace, sir?" "Yes." "You're a friend of his?" went on the interlocutor, looking a, the man in the evening clothes, with the light coat over his arm, and the crush hat. , "My good man, 1 hardly know Dy what right you question me in this way," Trevena said with a touch of hauteur. They were police—he was , sure of it; but it was not his cue to let them suspect that he was aware of the fact. "No offence, sir. I only asked because we happen to be particularly anxious to see Mr Wace, and we thought of waiting here till he returns, as I understand you are doing," said the man. Trevena gave a slight shrug of hishoulders. "Well, its no affair of mine if you do. Myself, I don't happen to bmore than a mere acquaintance of the tenant of this flat, so I can't profess to give you permission, of course." Then he laughed as he added: "I suppose you are on the same errand as myself?" And with a wave'of his hand Trevena '-dicated ! a packed trunk standing in the hall. "The fact is I heard casually that Mr Wace is /leaving England, and as I happen to have an 1.0. U. of his for a card debt at a club, I thought it advisable to look him up and refresh his memory!" Somehow he felt pretty sure that these plain clothes men had come to arrest Wace; he was anxious to dis-

abuse their mind of any suspicion

that he might be a friend of Wace, who would warn that gentleman if the opportunity came, or they might seek to detain him. And he had other reasons for the part he was playing. "I see, sir! I suppose there's no possibility of him beingin the flat at this moment," with a searching glance at Trevena.

Trevena looked at the man as if in surprise, then laughed. *

"Oh, I'm not trying to screen him if you are hinting at that! And I don't think the maid was, oV she wouldn't have let me in, had Wace really been in the fiat. Still, I can't guarantee it from personal knowledge—l've only been here myself ten minutes."

He paused; then, with a laugh, as though a thought had just struck him, he said suddenly. ' 'By Jove! I wonder if you're from Scotland Yard? Has our, friend got into trouble? I've heard he has not the best of reputations; I was told that, unless I was careful, that 1.0. U. of mine wouldn't be worth more than waste paper. I wonder if he can be hiding here? I only have the maid's assurance that he is not. But are you by any chance from Scotland Yard ?" The other smiled and did not answer. Trevena was not a bad judge of character. He saw that his manner had disarmed any suspicions they might have entertained at first that he was in collusion with the man they wanted. Trevena went on gaily with a laugh. "I'll bet I'm right, and that Mr Wace will be even Ises pleased to see you than to see me. In which case I'm afraid your claims will have precedence, and I sha'n't get my 1.0. U. redeemed, after all!" He took out a silver cigarette case and offered it to the two men in turn; then, lighted a cigarette himself.

"Don't mind lending a hand if you think of searching the flat," he said carelessly.

The flat was searched and there was no trace of Mr Herbert Wace. Only once Trevena's heart went into his mouth when one of the two men paused for a moment by the roll-top desk. Fortunately the carpet was a dark red, hiding the suggestive colour of the stain on it, over which Trevena managed, as if carlessly, to draw a chair. Would the men notice the splintered woodwork about the catch of the lock? They could hardly deduce anything from that fact.

He felt the strain telling on him increasingly, but he played his part well; laughed and joked—all the time with that vivid, ever-present horror lying at the back of his mind. At least ho had saved Judith. She must be far away by this time. "Well, I don't think I shall wait," he presently said in a careless voice. "No chance, I suppose, of his having got wind of your coming? I suppose, if I should run across him in the street I'm not to say that two gentlemen are waiting ' for him here?"

CHAPTER XXXVII

* BY EMILY B. HETHEEIKGTON. 3 / ■ 2 w Author of—"His Collegs Chuin," " Worti>in«ton a , b )£ Pibdge," "A fiepentant Foo," uiu. v

JUDITH AND TREVENA,

The detective who had smashed lock bent down to have a look at the face.

"Wace!" he, exclaimed. This discovery had startled his voice out of his usual passiveness; "Wace—and shot + hrough the heart!" The man they had come that night to arrest!

"And, by Heaven! that man we found here, that man in evening clothes, who joked about an 1.0. U. of Waco's that he was anxious to have redeemed—that man, or the woman who opened the door, knew about this, had a hand in this. One .ir both of them!"

£To be Continued Daily.)

The two men laughed. "No, sir; wc want to give him a pleasant surprise." "Well, good-night, then." And Trevena nodded pleasantly as he turned to go. "Good-night, sir."

Trevena walked out of the flat, slammed the door after him, and was riming lightly down the stairs, conscious of a sense of tremendous relief to be away from the place of hidden horror, though he had deemed it prudent to linger as he had done.

He had descended the first flight before it struck him that he had come away with the dead man's overcoat over his arm, instead of his own. He had snatched it up on the arrival of the police because of those significant stains on his own coat; he had forgotten to substitute it for his own on passing through the hall. What a fool's slip! He must go back. There had been no suspicion on the part of the two detectives as to the genuineness of the story he had told them; it would be easy to say that he had taken the wrong coat, and snatch up his own. He went up the flight of stairs to the door.

But John Trevena did not knock; for, as he stood by the door, he heard a startled cry from within the

"Lo-k! There at the desk! In Heaven's name, what's that? Don't you see, man, trickling down under the roll too."'

Trevena drew in his breath sharply. Then, with a white face he turned, and ran very swiftly and silently down the stairs of the building. The polices had made, or were already on the eve of making, the ghastly discovery. As he reached the bottom of the last flight Trevena heard the door of the top flat that he had just left suddenly flung open, heard footsteps rush out on to the landing.

He darted out into the street with the swift realisation that the police had discovered the tragedy, and were no doubt at that moment in pursuit of him.

"Look! There at the desk. In Heaven's name, what's that? Don't yousee, man, trickling from under the roll top!" The sudden cry in the room broke from one of the detectives sent to arrest Herbert Wace, and was shrill enough in its accents of startled horror to reaoh Trevena on the landing outside the flat, and sent him flying down the stairs in a panic of haste.

With his face suddenly become white the speaker was pointing at the great roll top desk, whose hulk seemed to fill up one wall of the room.

From under the crevice of the closed top, over the ledge of the desk, something was dripping in slow, sluggish spots on to the carpet. The two men exchanged startled glances. Each knew what that sinister thread of colour meant, as simultaneously they sprang swiftly forward.

One of the detectives tried to push bask the sliding roll top. As he expected, it was locked. Without wasting a moment, he snatched up the poker from the grate. In a second or two he had the lock smashed and the desk open. Prepared though both men were for something of the sort, they started hack with white faces at the horror of the thing revealed to them. There, huddled up to fit the cramped position, lay the murdered man!