A DESPERATE GAME.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10103, 26 September 1910, Page 2

A DESPERATE GAME.

(OUR SERIAL.)

By OWEN MASTERS. Author of "The Master of Tredcroft," "One Impassioned Hour," "The Deverel Heritage," "When Love Rules the Heart," "Cap- ■ tain Emlyn's Bride," etc.

CHAPTER ll.—Continued

But that blow never fell, though the diversion that warded it off was almost as sensational as the attempt itself. I had no idea that anybody else was near, no expectation of assistance, but I was suddenly dimly conscious of a deeper flitting shadow hovering momentarily behind my assailant, and then something wielded by the mystery in the rear seemed to flash between myself and the man at my throat. What it was, whether a knife or a stick, or merely an arm, I could not discern, but its effect was magical and instantaneous. The man with the knife sprang quickly back, reeled two or three paces to the left, and then fell crashing on his face within a couple of yards of my feet. And at the same moment a voice hissed in my ear:

As I passed along the street I notified a burly-looking man leaning lazily against' a lamppost a dozen or twenty yards from Joel's door. I could not see his face, because he \vore a scarf, well up round his neck, and a slouching cap, well down, but he was smoking a short briar pipe, and his appearance, taken as a whole, was rather that of a superior workman in his Sunday clothes. He paid apparently no heed to me as I passed by, did not remove his hands from his pockets, nor shift his position in the slightest; and, for my part I had forgotten all about him two minutes later. It was not until about quarter of an hour after this that I began to suspect that I was being followed. I would not believe it at first—tried, indeed to laugh myself out of the idea, and then I began putting the suspicion to the test. We were in one of those long, monotonous streets, in which that neighbourhood .abounds, . flanked on. both skies with tall, sombre houses, all of practically the same pattern, and all displaying an air of more or less faded and shabby respectability. As the crowd became thinner and pedestrians fewer, I could hear behind me the steady tramp of footsteps keeping time and stepwith my own in curiously disconcerting fash-

"Run Ronald Normington —run for your life! Get clear away from here! That man may be dead; and if you are found anywhere near his body, gaolbird and ticket-of-leave man that you are, you will hang for it!" .

I did not wait to' argue the point,,, nor was I mentally in a condition to do so, for the events of the next half hour are a dense black to my memory. I heard these words, and the next thing I recollect is that I awoke—shall I say?—tugging frenziedly at the doorbell of Joel Hud-spith's-house, aching, dizzy, and terrified. My nerves had for the moment gone all to pieces. Four years in prison and an attempt on my life within a few hours of my release, were in conjunction far more than enough to account for my condition.

ion. - Presently I stopped, and so did the footsteps behind me. I swung round, and some twenty or thirty yards away saw a dim, unrecognisable figure stooping beneath a gas lamp as if to tie a boot lace, while not far behind him was another, still less distinct, turned _ sideways towards the roadway, lighting a cigar or a pipe, as I judged by the intermittent, tiny glow of a match held near his face. Was I being followed, and, if so, which was the man. I began to walk slowly back the way I had come; but, as I did so, the man who had been tying his boot lace crossed to the other side, while he who had been lighting his pipe came straight on and passed me with a brisk, swinging step. It was the other's footsteps I had heard, however—this one's were noiseless, as jf he were shod with rubber. I went slowly on, but at the next street corner turned again. Th§,„man who had crossed the road was still on the other side, but he of the silent footfalls had disappeared. I made my purchases, and turned my face homeward again, trying still to laugh myself out of my suspicions, but casting ever and again nervous glances over my shoulder. People, however, were more numerous just here, and if I was being pursued; I could not identify my shadow among the people passing up and down. Presently, however, hardly realising all it might mean, I turned into a side street which afforded, as I recollected, a short cut to Joel's house. I had used it many times in the years before my fall, and I plunged into it now, more by habit and instinct than any operation of conscious will. But I had not gone a dozen yards ere the thought flashed across my mind that if I really were being followed, and if harm were actually intended, here was an ideal spot. On one side of me was the vast blank wall of a huge building, a factory or warehouse, or something of that sort, while opposite to it stood sombre and massive, a place of worship, flanked by the back walls of rather spacious gardens of some houses, the fronts of which were in another thoroughfare altogether. Almost involuntarily I quickened my pace. But, apparently, the thought that had occurred to me had come to the man behind. He must have put on 1 an almost noiseless spurt, for when I did realise that he was increasing his speed, he was already close behind me. ' j I am not a coward physically, though life in prison does not tend to keep one's nerves in high pitch, and I wheeled round facing him, only just in time, for as I did so, the heavy cudgel he carried came down on my left arm. But \ for my sudden turn it would have | been on my head, and I should j .have been probably on my back .As it was, the blow partially disabled me for the time, and I tackled him at a great disadvantage, which became no less as he threw away the stick, and drew from somewhere under his coat, a long, keen, cruellooking knife. I did not wait to let him use it, but struck out with my right fist. I was not entirely a novice at the game, but he was the better man, in science as well as in strength, and easily turned aside my threatened blow. Then he sprang at me, and brought his -knife into play, • with a downward sweep which would haye caught me between ear " and shoulder, but that almost instinctively I bent my knees and escaped for that time with nothing worse thai; a long rent in my coat. But j that was ail I could do. L, had no I time to turn and run, no opportun- ' ity of trying to repeat my blow, for almost simultaneously with the sound of the* tearing cloth, his left hand had i closed in a vise-like clutch around my throat; and I was being, pressed back against the wall, while lie poised the knife over his right shoulder in readiness for the final attaotr *

When at last I got a grip of. myself again, and could begin to think with some appearance of coherency, I tried in vain to discern some glimmer of light through the darkness.

Who was the man that had tried tomurder me? I had caught no glimpse of his face, had heard no sound of his voice. Who was the man that had saved me, and how came it that he-knew me?

Thus it was that I stepped into a veritable whirlpool of mystery and strange happenings, and I caught a glimpse of the border shadows of the sombre cloud- in which I was so soon to be completely wrapped.

But my purpose did not falter; if anything, the events of the night .confirmed and strengthened,, it. I could not shake off the impression that the men who had attempted my life were the men who had thrust me into prison. And the thought gave me hope, because it showed how much they feared me. I did not describe my adventure to' Joel. Eagerly and carefully did I searched the papers next morning but with no result; and then, and for long afterwards, I kept the secret, to myself. If that really were a Beqiiel to the mystery of the Coyton jewels, I saw that I had desperate men to deal with, and realized that my quest was to be no mere child's ■Playr, ;: ' '. ■ •■ ■■•■'}■ :

CHAPTER 111. MR BARLOW. To forward the work of establishing my innocence, the first need was money. On that part Joel and I were in perfect agreement, and it was the one point on which I could expect no aid from him, nor was I much better off myself. Twenty pounds would have more than represented all my valuable assets. The' salary of a bank clerk does not lend itself to any rapid accumulation of funds, and I had never been a very fervent devotee of theories of thrift. I had never been a penny in,debt in my life, Maynard Drew to ,the contrary notwithstanding; but I had also never been more than eighteen or twenty pounds on the right side. I determined to apply to my cousin Ephraim, not because I had noticed any particularly prominent traits of generosity in him, nor because I had very much hope that he would accede to my request, but simply because' he was the only one. Maynard Drew I ruled out of the possibility entirely. I believed that the story of the five hundred pounds was a pure invention on his part; at all events I knew that I had never asked him for the money, and that I had not received his hundred pounds. Had he stolen the jewels, and was all the rest concocted and arariged by him with the object of throwing the burden of guilt upon my shoulders ? But there was the parson. Was he in the plot or was he an innocent instrument? Joel put it clearly when I mentioned the matter to him.

"Drew sent you some money," he said. "I think we may take that for granted. At all events he sent the parson with a letter." "Supposing he sent him at a time when he knew I was away. I was away, vou know, though I don't think I told Drew." "Just so; all that is worth considering; but the chances of accident were so many. What if I had taken the letter off the parson? I should have given it to you, and the whole thing would have" been discovered, supposing, that is, that it was a plot of Drew's." "If he sent the money at a time when he knew I should be out, and had a confederate in this house ready to '.' (To be Continued).