A DESPERATE GAME.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10101, 24 September 1910, Page 2

A DESPERATE GAME.

(OUR SERIAL.)

By OWEN MASTERS. Author of "The Master of Tredcroft," "One Impassioned Hour," "The Devevel Heritage," "When Love Rules the Heart," "Captain Einlyn's Bride," etc.

CHAPTER I.— Continued

first on him when I "came out." And, having no other plans in view, to Joel's I went. It was he himself who opened the door, and he recognized me instantly, despite the change which the years in prison must have worked in my appearance ; nay, what was more, he received me with cheery good-humour, almost as if time had rolled back, and I were still his lodger, hut lately returned from a walk, or at most, a week-end excursion into the country. It was the first bright moment I had experienced for over four years! "Come right in, Mr Normington," he cried. "By good luck your old room is empty, and you " I drew a little away from him. "But, Mr Hudspith," I began. "I have not come— lam not <-" "Come inside," he returned. "And all events you can stay here one night. After that you may make other arrangements. It is a lucky thing that the room should be empty." Good old Joe Hudspith! It was a long time before I learned that he had really dispossessed a paying tenant in order that my old room might be empty. "We are just going to have dinner," he went on; "a leg of mutton and some turnips." He opened the door of the kitchen and ushered me in. When the meal was over, and we were comfortably seated in his sitting room, he said: "Now let us talk." "Tell me first," I said, feeling myself flushing, while I actually trembled as j. put the question, "tell me first do you believe in my —in me?" His answer came slowly and in rather quaint fashion: "When you first came here, Mr Normington," he said, "I took a fancy to you, and so did Sarah. I liked you for what I saw—she by her woman's instincts, a sure and cei-tain guide. Sitting over my wooden blocks, and thinking, thinking all day long, queer thoughts came into my head. Woman lacks many things a man has, but there is one thing no man has, and no woman is entirely without, and that ,is the instinct of character. You were good to us both, the only lodger we ever had that was, and so we took to you. If you ask, do I believe you to be a thief ? I say I know you, and my answer is no." I reached out a trembling hand toward him, and he clasped it silently. His words had fallen like balm upon my broken spirit, and gave me back the few shreds of my self-respect. "But," he went on, 'Hf you ask me whether you were wrongfully convicted, I am bound again to say no, to say that a jury of ordinary intelligent men could have brought in no other verdict. Tne case was proved up to the hilt, and beyond a shadow of doubt it was shewn that vou were a thief." "But I " He silenced me with a wave of his hand. "I procured clippings from everynewspaper that reported the case," he went on, "and I even begged a copy of the evidence from your cousin Lawyer Turbutt. I have gone through it repeatedly without once seeing a weak spot. 'I do not believe he was the thief,' I have said, 'and yet he was proved doubly and trebly to have been one?' " "I mean to fight for my good name and to clear it," I said grimly between my set teeth. "Yes, and - came to the conclusion, after a while, that nothing could be done until you came out—camo here. You start with one advantage, anyway, in trying to do detective work—you know who was lying. And the men who lied did it for a purpose. You were innocent?" . "Before God—l was!" • "Then which of the witnesses lied?" "The pawnbroker did, who said I pawned the diamond buckle and then returned here." "Good! But that may have been a case of mistaken identity. Who else?" "None other save Maynard Drew. He declared that I had borrowed money from him. "You did not ask him for money?" "No." "You did not receive that hundred pounds from him?" "No." "Then we must look to Maynard Drew. And now, Mr Normington, I have all the clippings here—let us :. go through them carefully again." I "You believe me—you take my word?" I eagerly queried. The old man, nodded thoughtfully. "If you had been guilty," he said, "I should have—have done the same, but I take your word, but what I can do to help you iri your fight shall be clone. And now let us begin at the beginning." But I have already summarized the story those clippings told, and it need not be repeated here. It was later on that same evening that I went out to make a few small purchases. They had to be small to suit my pocket, but they were absolute necessities; those little things inseparable from existence in a civilised community, though unknown within the walls of a prison. (To tie Continued).

But when Maynard was pressed I for detail his memory failed him. He could not recollect how the evening of the day of the robbery had been passed and effectually destroyed the faint hope my defence had harboured, that he might prove for me an alibi. Nor queerly enough, could I recall myself exactly how that evening had been spent. I had an idea that Maynard had been in his workshop,' and I in the dining room reading and smoking, but further than that I could not go; neither apparently could Drew himself. Then we came to the letter that had been found in the cavity in my room. It was handed to Maynard, who examined it carefully. "Yes, I wrote that," he "Were there any enclosures?" "Yes, there were twenty five-pound HOtOS." , MOM "Did you send them by mad.'' "No, they were delivered for me by a friend of mine, the Rev. Henry Carron, then a curate at Coy ton, now vicar of Helston, in Staffordshire."

"Is lie in court?" "Yes." "Did the prisoner acknowledge receipt of the money?" "He wrote me a letter of thanks. "Have you that letter?" "No; it was destroyed at the time." . "How did the prisoner apply to you for the money?" "Bv letter." "When was that letter received? "I cannot say precisely." "Was it after or before the robbery at Coyton Towers?" "After."

"Have you that letter?" "No. I suppose that that was destroyed also, though I cannot recollect destroying it." "Very well then,we must confine j ourselves to the letter that does ex- j ist. But just one question: The application and the letter of thanks were in the prisoner's handwriting?" "They were. When the prosecuting attorney came to speak of the letter later he emphasized the words—three words —"deep water" and "horses." "The application for a loan,'] said he, "was doubtless something in the nature of a confession, but that letter was destroyed, and it -is, therefore, not before the court as- evidence. But in this letter the words 'deep water' refer evidently to finances and the word 'horses' suggests, inevitably and unanswerably, betting. I freely admit that there is no further shadow of evidence either that the prisoner was involved in monetary troubles, or that he was abdicted to gambling, and so far as that is in his favour he is welcome to it. The facts proved are that some money was sent to the prisoner, and that in sending it the witness Drew advised him to reform. The Rev. Henry Carron's evidence was short. He had business at the British Museum, and delivered the packet as requested by his friend Drew. It was taken in' by a young 1 man, he thought the prisoner, but could not swear to that. He knew the contents of the packet, twenty five-pound notes. There was some minor evidence,

and the defending lawyer did his best. He tried to get an alibi out of Maynard, for the actual time of the robbery was fairly well established, but the witness though he apparently tried to minimise the points against me in some particulars, stuck to his text in that respect. And with regard to his evidence, let me say here and at once, that I had never applied to him for money* had never received money from him, and had never seen that letter before. While afterwards comparing dates, I recollected that at the time the packet was delivered I was absent from London on a holiday, but I did not think of that at the time, nor was it of much import. Even had I been able to make that point, the pawnbroker's evidence and the discovery of part of the proceeds of the robbery in my room, would have been fatal to me.

What could the jury do? Nothing but the thing they did, obviously. After less than ten minutes deliberation they found me guilty, and I was duly sentenced to five years penal servitude. And yet, in spite of all the damning evidence, despite the verdict, I was absolutely innocent, the victim of black-hearted treachery and villainous plotting.

CHAPTER 11.

A FRIEND IN NEED

When I was arrested four years before, I had been living in Bloomsbury, having lodgings in the house of a: queer 'Sid fellow who gained half his livelihood in carving m wood, and the other half by letting the major portion of his cavernous old barn of a house in apartments. Nominally, his sister, ten years older than himself, and deaf as a post, looked after the latter business ; but, really, the old fellow himself performed the greater portion of the work—certainly he did all the cooking. Among the very few letters I received during my imprisonment was one from old Joel Hudspith, telling me that he had my things safely put by for me, and counselling me to call