Was He the Man ?

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10209, 10 April 1911, Page 2

Was He the Man ?

OUR SERIAL.

BY F. L. DACRE, a \uthor of "A Phantom of tlie Past," "Tronholme's Trust," "The Doctor's Secret," "A Loveless Marriage," "Sir John's Hen-ess," etc.

CHAPTER XII. THE BUTTON AND THE BURGLAR. For the next throe weeks things weiv quiet, but the time was drawing rear when' we expected to make a move ; when all doubt as to whether or not Fitzgerald had paid a flying \ isi: to tiio Cape would !*> determined. Burton had made the necessary inquiries as to the expected arrivals from South African ports, and he had also ascertained that the steamer Bramber Castle left Cape Town on the very day on which the cablegram was dispatched. This was the ship, therefore, on which we mainly built 01.1 r hopes; in ail probability it would !>•:< the one that would bring the socsllod Denver, whether Fitzgerald or u)iiifl other.

It was the height of the season, and society was busily engaged in killing time by all the usual means which it is front to employ to make life as much worth living as possible. One evening my editor sent me a ticket for the Lyceum, which he could not use, so I asked Fenton to help me to criticise "Romeo and Juliet," which was the premiere of the season.

Just as the overture was concluding, I happened to glance at the opposite tier of boxes on a level with our own. Two ladies and a gentleman were being ushered in a box corresponding 'to ours. As they came forward into the light, taking off their opera cloaks, as they settled themselves into their scats', I felt my arm seized, and Fenton said, in a hurried- whisper :

"Look over there! Do you recognise her? If that's not the heroine of our tragedy I'm a Dutchman; and, by Jove, there's our friend Burton doing the honours behind them. Well. I'm "

Before ha had clone speaking I had recognised the young lady as Kathleen Moore, and the man standing behind her chair as Burton, the gentleman detective. Certainly he had not allowed the grass to grow under his feet! for in making the acquaintance of Miss Moore lie had practically overcome the initial difficulty of our task. "How in Heaven's name has Burton managed that?" I exclaimed. "I have no doubt whatever about the girl. Nature doesn't turn out two. such masterpieces at once, and that, I suppose, is some relation or companion she has with her."

"A relation probably," said Fenton, "since they in mourning. Well, I suppose we shall be introduced after the first act. Angels of light! What a lovely creature she is!"

Fenton was wont to express himself somewhat ardently upon the subject of female beauty, but in this case his ardour was fully justified. A glance through my opera glass at once settled the question of her identity with the original of the photographs in my possession, and showed me the fairest specimen of young womanhood I had ever beheld in the flesh.

"And this," thought I, "is the girl who will bo claimed by this impostor as his affianced wife, if he succeeds in-establishing his claim to be Denver. I would sooner kill him in the moment of his triumph." As this terrible thought flashed through my mind, I felt as murderous as a man can feel without his crimes passing from thought into action. The next moment I realized that a new element had entered, or was about to enter, into my relations with tlie work I had-undertaken.

I need scarcely say that I paid little attention to the first act. All my faculties were dulled by the intense impatience with which I awaited its close, and the possible events of the entra'acte.

At last the curtain fell, and I had the satisfaction of seeing Burton disappear from the opposite box. In a few, minutes he was standing in outown.

He proceeded at once to business. "Of course you have recognised the young lady oevr there," lie said, in a low, rapid voice. "Now I want you to come round and be introduced to her and the other lady, who is her aunt. Don't ask me any questions now, please. No time to explain. They lcno-v me as Frank Harcourt. Don't allude in any way to the case, but watch Miss Moore's conversation closely. Come along." Not a little mystified, and, to tell the truth, a trifle excited at the prospect of gaining an introduction to one in whoso life history I had such good cause to feel the deepest interest, we followed Burton into the box, and — well, 1. must confess that I have no very clear recollection of the events of the next few minutes. Before me was the woman for love of whom my dearest friend bad lost liis life, and, in her eyes, his honour, too. To her he was a murderer, the slayer of lier guardian and protector. This was the stigma which I had to erase from her memory. But bow? Would Fitzgerald never declare himself, and let me get to work ? When I left the box with Burton, after a few minutes' conversation, commonplace, and yet strangely interesting, I felt for the first time in my life that for me the hour and the wo- ! man had come. The play over,- we escorted the two

ladies to t!i-?-V carriage. When it drew up to porch, 0110 of a score of loafers whc were hanging about in hopes of a job, darted forward to open the door. Telling him, somewhat roughly, to get out of the way, I had just grasped the handle ot the carriage door, when I saw something which caused me suddenly to shift my hold, and grasp the Icafer by the collav. On his coat, a pilot jacket of un-English cut, I saw a row of buttons exactly corresponding to the one I had lost in my dream, and found 011 the sofa of Denver's house in Gravesend. The third from the top was missing, and had been replaced with one of common black horn. Dragging the fellow into the light of the electric lamps in the porch, I scanned his evil-looking- countenance keenly. To mv intense surprise my captive grinned in my face a distinctly Gallic grin, and hissing through his teeth "Tenez, M'sieu! An revoir!" slipped from my hold without an effort, and vanished almost before I had time to turn round and hear Burton say at my elbow, "Ha, ha' that Morel would deceive his wife, if he had one. We shall sec him again to-night." The ladies drove away after Mrs May hew had given us an invitation to call on the following day, and Fenton and I placed ourselves 1 at Burton's disposal for the rest of the night if , found ourselves in a dingy parlour in the hotel in Greek Street, to which Morel had returned from his failure to arrest Eobson. Somewhat to our disappointment. Burton seemed unwilling to enlighten us as to his acquaintance with Miss Moore and her aunt. He simply said they had known him as Frank Harcourt for a considerable time, and that they had no knowledge of him as Burton, the detective, "Some day," he concluded, after telling us so much, "I may perhaps be in a position to enlighten you more fully. For the present it would neither interest nor profit you to know ' more; but of this you may rest "hssur- ' ed, that I shall conceal from you nothing that is material to the case 111 hand. In fact, if you care to know it, I will tell you that I have a personal, as well as a professional interest in clearing up the mystery we are trying to solve. More/than this I cannot say just now, so Imust asTc you to excuse my reticence. And now, let me give an account of my doings, before More 1 returns to tell you his aclventuers." From the conversation which followed we learned that the man whose appearance wo were all so anxiously awaiting had as yet given no further sign of his existence. This was only what we had expected.. The French detective had once more struck the track of Robson, and was following ■ it hard, but of that we should hear more when lie came in. Meanwhile, Burton had renewed his acquaintance with Miss Moore, and had found that the cerebral shock which had so mercifully intervened upon the tragedy at St. Malo had even more mercifully erased all the 1 of that terrible crime from hen memory. The fact of her uncle's j death could not be kept from her, as ) she inherited a considerable fortune' fro mhim, but she had been given to understand that ho had died of heart disease daring her own illness. For her absent lover, who had so suddenly and mysteriously disappeared from, her life, she had waited, until waiting had given place to mourning, and wondering, to desnairintr. Many months later, while travelling in America, she had found in a hotel at Niagara an old English paper, that contained the news of Major Denver's death. On seeing this confirmation of her worst fears, she returned to England, to obtain particulars of her lover's death, and to visit his tcravc. Burton finished by telling me tliat Mrs Mayhew, the aunt with whom Miss Moore lived, and to whom I had just been introduced, had commissioned him to bring me to her house in Half Moon (street, that I might give her nieca any details that I could in regard to Denver's death. Of course, I was to say nothing of the terrible mystery which surrounded him. This I willingly agreed, was not to be touched upon, until the course of events should make it absolutely necessary. As we talked the door opened, and the loafer of the Lyceum porch bade us good evening, with a bow that smacked more of the boulevard than of the gutter. "Gentlemen, I must ask you to. excuse the costume in which I am obliged to present myself. I come from the warpath, and have no time as yet to get rid of the war paint." "Never mind the war paint, Monsieur Morel," I said, laughing in spite of my sober thoughts. "But come, I am dying to hear the story of that coat. How on earth did you come across it?" "Excuse me for ono moment, and you shall knpw," .said the Frenchman. { (To be Continued).