A DESPERATE GAME.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10116, 11 October 1910, Page 2

A DESPERATE GAME.

(OUR SERIAL.)

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

CHAPTER XV.—Continued. Bewildered and dizzy with a myriad of conflicting thoughts, dead tired with my long ride and the lateness of the hour, for it was now past three, I thrust the paper into my pocket, and turning out the lamp, threw myself on the bed, and in less than five minutes had fallen into a heavy, dreamless sleep . How long I slept I do not know, nor am I quite sure what it was that awakened me, though it may have been the light of the lamp, or that subtle consciousness of another presence in the room which often disturbs a sleeper. It may have been a mixture of both, for when I did awake the" lamp was burning brightly ,and in the chair on the other side of the table was seated cousin Ephraim Turbutt, surveying me with a curious smile, partly of mockery, partly of amusement, with a slight, vague undercurrent of inquiry.

CHAPTER XVI. "SHE SAW YOU"SHOOT VANNECK!" "You!" I cried, when I had controlled my amazement sufficiently to loosen my tongue. "You!" "Yes ,it is I," he responded. 'You are more surprised than delighted." "I am both," I rejoined, gripping my faculties ,and schooling myself to some approach to his own apparent tranquillity. "Is it possible that I am vour guest here." "I, on the contrary, am delighted to see you.' >' "But not surprised." "Under the circumstance," he replied with a slow laugh. . 'I cannot confess to any overwhehrtjng astonishment. You see you are my guest because " "I selected the word injudiciously," I said, "I should have said prisoner.' '

You will have to establish a gilt edged alibi to upset that. Well, when I iieard of that—and they came to me thinking 1 should know your whereabouts—l cursed you for a young fool." "Then I thought of this place. It belonged to Van neck once, but I bought it, though 1 have never lived here. He made this room for purposes of his own; I don't know what they were, but he had many irons in the fire. Perhaps he went in for coining, perhaps he made banknotes. However, I caught you up in my car, brought you here, and here you are in safe hiding. I have saved your neck; but do not thank me, for that was not all my motive. I was purely and absolutely selfish. I did not want a cousin of Ephraim Turbutt to stand once again in the dock, this time for murder. But now for the future." "Yes." "You must stay here a -month or two." "Never—never. I would far rather face the accusation."

"I dare say. Hanging is a comparative trifle to a man who has endured penal servitude. But I have no wish to face the disgrace, and no intention of facing it. I am going into Parliament, and I have set my heart on being Sir Ephraim Turbutt, baronet. Your execution would not, to put it mildly, help me. Well, to continue: After a residence here longer or shorter, according to circumstances, you will slip away to South America in a disguise I shall arrangej and you will receive from me so long as you remain out of England a hundred pounds a month.""I refuse," I said.

'lt is not for yea +o accept or refuse," he responded slowly. "I have never yet failed in anything I have set my mind. You are in my way, and you must go."

"Not at ail. Y r ou have been detained here against your will, but in reality for your own good. You are not a' prisoner here, you are in hiding. "In hiding?' ' "Precisely, and comfortless as this chamber may appear, it is not nearly as inconvenient as it would bo under the gallows." I did not reply. Not for one moment did I doubt his meaning, and the deadly fear ,which he first, and then Nora Hardcastle, had emphasised, took full possession of me. _ I suppose he must have seen my inward agitation written on my face. At all events, his sardonic smile deepened and broadened, and for the rest of that curious interview, and despite occasional efforts of mine, he held the upper hand.

iiarold Reckitt's advice to me flashed across my mind. Why not take his money and return secretly? "However," he went on, "that can be discused later. There is no great hurry. You must remain here for a while, until the hue and cry has died down." .

"Remain here? Do you mean in this—this room?' '

"As to that we shall see later; for the immediate present, yes." "You have no right to keep me here."

~ "A fool," he said, "may be allowed to ruin himself with his folly; and had you been the only consideration I should have left you to it and let the blow fall. But there were others —one other ai al events. And I frankly confess that in protecting you I am playing for my own advantage. I have lived down the fact-of having a burglar for a cousin; I have no desire to be pointed out as the relative of a murderer!' '

"Both are lies," I interrupted. "I am neither burglar nor murderer." "Oh, of course, the prisoner always pleads not guilty—he would be a fool if he didn't. But for all that you went to penal servitude' as a burglar; and if you left this house now you would be arrested by the first policeman that met you, and you would be tried and hanged. But for that I should have left you alone. I had made up my mind "to accept things as they were, but when this murder charge was brought against you, I had to change my plans. Why did you refuse my offers? I gave you the chance of comfort and a new career cut of England—why did you not take them?" "Out of England I could not have proved my innocence," I sullenly responded. "And I should never have troubled you. I would have changed my name ,my identity even, and I would have denied our relat-] iotiship pointblank." "I had thought,of that," he said, taking one of the" cigars from the box on the table and lighting it. "I was gradually bringing myself to accept that and trust you. And then you murder Vanneck- "

"No rigj.t? Well, as to that power is right. Society protects itself against burglars and murderers by locking them up the one and hanging the other. It does that because it regards burglars and murderers as pests, a nuisance, disturbing the even course of life. What society does I do, and you have yourself to blame. It is'by indulging in evil courses that you have become a pest to me. I wished you no harm, I only wanted you out of the way. You refused to go, and I regard it as perfectly right and proper that I should finally remc-c you. You are a criminal, a base and depraved excrescence on society, whom society remorselessly hunts down. I send you abroad, I keep you here, I shoot you—in any case I confer a benefit on society; I clear an obstacle from my own path, and I save you from your proper fate—the gallows!"

I sprang to my feet with a hoarse cry, but despite his bulk he was quicker than I, and I found myself looking into the glittering barrel of a revolver.

"That is a lie!' 'I hoarsely cried, "a foul lie!'

"At .ill events," he went on, with no trace of excitement or agitation, "I am master now, and I shall decide your fate. The right of choice you yourself have thrown away. Whatever comes, and if necessary I should not hesitate to kill you—on one thing I am resolved, that never again ■shall you come in my way." He stepped back three or four paces and knocked thrice with the> butt of his revolver on the wall, which moved ponderously towards the right, giving mc for one brief minute a glimpse of the hall outside. No doubt he had counted on amazement holding mc in fetters, and that is just what happened. The space widened until it . was sufficient to allow of my cousin's exit, and then, as with a loud cry, I sprang forward in his wake, it closed again, and I was once more a prisoner, and alone!

"Well, I am hot your judge, but you would have some difficulty in persuading a jury to that effect, especially after the evidence of that Hardcastle, woman."

"The Hardcastle woman," I exclaimed.

"Did you not know that she had been arested. '

I shook my head. "She saw you do it—she saw you shoot Yanneck!' ' : 'Sho accuses mo to screen herself!" I cried. "Possibly," he replied, with a shrug of his huge shoulders. "But you were at Hampstead that night, you know. You had an appointment with Van neck for just about that time-, and to Hampstead you went. Oh, that is known by half a dozen people, and the police will soon prove it. It is clear and convincing. 'Ronald Normington, an ex-convict, had an appointment with my master. I admitted Normington, and showed him to the dining room. Shortly after T heard a revolver shot. I ran into the dining room. My master was dead, and the window was open.'

CHAPTER XVII. A Fxcr_x FOR LIBERTY. Somehow, although I was bitterly angry at my enforced inaction, I could not curse my cousin, hardly, indeed blame him. I could comprehend, more or less, the sentiment that inspired him, could sympathise with it within limits, but that did not at all lessen my dasire to obtain freedom ; nor did tie story Ephraim had told mc of Nora Hardcastle's treachery. That she had accused me to screen herself or her guilty partner, I never doubted, and the curious way in which she had become mixed up with, in which she had mixed herself up with that other and older mystery of the Coyton 'jcwelsjled me to hope that through her I might perchance find some clue to both. That I had to do with a very clever woman was obvious, and that the utmost secrecy would alone be my protection was equally evident. T must meet guile with guile, and treachery with treachery. But a necessary preliminary even to that was my liberty. (To be Continued.)