Silas Dennington's Money.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10664, 20 June 1912, Page 2

Silas Dennington's Money.

'OUR SERIAL.)

CHAPTER V.—Continued. Jack Pennington heard the result of the investigations unmoved, and "•"VTiptiy wrote a iina! letter to Grantley.

"Neither you nor ,1 are sur(.rant, and I am .taking the rebuff quite philosophically. I am young, strong, and with a couple of thousand pounds in my pocket the world should be at my feet. I flatly refuse to share in your property; and, as you arc stupidly persistent, I am not coming home until I have prospered a bit in this land of opportunities. In all probability I shall invest in the cattle trade, and you won't hear from me again until I am fairly on my feet. This is entirely your fault and Madge's. In the fullness of your hearts you would make a human sponge of me, and mollycoddle me to death."

The next day he left New York for Nevada, but sentiment and business won't work together, and the trip was productive of nothing but pain and disappointment. Two weeks later found him in British Columbia, and from there he went to Canada —a selfconfessed failure. "Back to.London and the old love," he decided, "bat Grantley shall not know until I have cut some figure in the-world." In his wanderings he had allowed his beard to grow, and he sailed home as "Jack Castlemain." -If the name of Dennington appeared in the passenger list, he might be run to earth by his brother. Jack Dennington until recently had been a moneyed power, and was probably not yet forgotten. The romance of his lost fortune must have fed the newspapers, and for that very reason he had avoided them. He went directly to. London, and took a couple-of rooms in a small private hotel on the Euston road. He was not likely to ran across Grantley there. ' • •■ In the evening he decided to look up Mr Brown, the financial agont, and eight o'clock found him knocking at the door of a modest little villa In Effra road, Brixton. The door was opened by Mrs Brown, who fenced his questions with the skill of an oldtimer. ":Mr Brown may be at home in an

hour. What name, please?" "I don't want to wait about here on a doubtful chance," Jack demurred. "Is it important business? You can tell me; I am quite in my husband's confidence. Does he know you ?" Jack hesitated. The name of Castlemain would convey nothing lo Brown when he heard it. Mrs Brown was plainly ill at ease, and was watching him suspiciously. "Oh, I'll call 'again some time. Goodnight." He raised his hat. and was turning away when he beheld the vision of a very white-faced and agitated Teddy Brown hastening toward him along the narrow hallway.

CHAPTER VI

A PEICE ON HIS HEAD. "How do you do, Mr Brown?" Jack said, holding out his hand, but Brotv.i took no notice of the friendly movement. He spoke nervously to his wife.

"It's all right, Mary; this gentleman and I know one another. We'll go into the back room. See that we are not disturbed, dear." He beckoned to the half-annoyed, half-mystified Jack. '.'Come in quicklv, for God's sake."

He led the way to a small sittingroom, and before turning up - the light of a sickly-looking oil lamp, carefully lowered the blind, sticking pins in the edge where it bulged from the window frame. Jack watched his proceedings curiously and expectantly, with the conviction' that Teddy Brown was successfully emulating the actions of a lunatic. How cheerless the den of a room was, too, this cold might in early March. Brown turned 'the key of the door in the lock, and endeavoured to stir up a consumptive fire which was dying in its own pallid ashes.

"Sit over there, Mr Dennington—not between the light and the window. How reckless you iare! It's hardly likely that anyone will get into the back garden; I always Jock the gate before dusk, but one never knows. I didn't come to the door until I recognised your voice; I get all sorts of callers, and didn't want to be' disturbed."

He sat down opposite Jack, his eyes serious, apprehensive, imploring. ."I'm dashed if I. can make you out. .Brown. What have you been up to? Haying a spare hour or'two on his hands, has the devil persuaded you to do some unlawful thing? Out with it, man. I may he able to help you." "Help me? Help me? Mr Dennington, it's the crudest thing you could do to come to my house. If you think the hunt for you is ended, you are terribly mistaken. Detectives and newspaper men are,looking for you all over the world. Do you think ia reward of five hundred pounds is to be sneezed at? Just think what it would mean to me! See the temptation you are thrusting Upon me. That ridiculous beard and moustache won't disguise you. You're bound to

Wo lie Continued)

BY F. L. DACRE, -Author of "'I-Teld in Bondage/' t: A Phantom of the Past," "Sir Joha's Heiress," "The Shadow of Shame," <: A Daughter of Mystery," etc.

. "be caught now, and if that fire hundred is going begging, why shouldn't I have it?" I Jack stared at Teddy Brown v/ifch wide, startled eyes. j "Steady, old chap," he said. "What; have you been doing. Xot fingering the money of your bank ? If you have and the tune isn't too loud, I'll lend you the money to make good. The trouble has turned your 'brain. I've got nearly two thousand pounds, and I have come back to .London to work —to work with you." "Cunning devil!" Brown spoke almost in a whisper. Then.he studied Jack's face with his keen, far-seeing gray eyes. "How is Mr Grantley Dennington?" he asked irrelevantly. •'I hope he's all right." Jack thought it best to humour Brown. "I haven't heard from him for nearly two months. He had then quite recovered from the fever. Fact is, Brown, he began pitying me when I lost the money—insisted upon sharing ' his poor little fortune with me, and I was nettled. I wrote to him declining to touch a penny, and as he per- ' sisted, I cleared out. I thought at first that I would go in for cattle breeding in America, hut the call to London was too strong for me, and here I am. I want to avoid my brother until I have founded a (business of some sort —but a publishing business, of course, and I am calling myself Jack Castlemaine." "And grown a heard," sneered Brown. "To thin—too thin. Not heard from your brother for two months, eh? And 'where have you been all this while?" "British Colombia, Nevada, Canada. I let the whiskers have an innings because I hadn't any shaving i tackle." Jack got up, intending to end the conversation. He was. very disoppointed with and 'hugely sorry for Teddy Brown. He didn't -want to go without helping him, if help were posible. The ,poor fellow's mind was j wandering, and, thinking of ' Mrs J Brown,' he wondered if the lunacy | were of a, harmless sort.

j "Hold on—hold on, Mr Castle- { maine. I began to see light. No man could act like this; no man would be fool enough to try. Haven't you been reading the newspapers lately? Not for two months ? Afraid of the fuss and lies they were telling about your vanished fortune, eh?" "That's it, Brown. I was surfeited in New York; bombarded by reporters, English as well as American. Columns of libellous stuff—offal! So I bolted, and gave them all a rest. I don't know how my cousin has got on. Tiie sensation woke up la couple of sheriffs, and he's wanted for murder and horse-stealing. I expect that is why .he preferred to share the estatewith me quietly; but lie's got plenty of money now, and can hush things up." Brown got up and took Jack*s hand. "I wouldn't touch it before, because I thought vou hiad killed a man in cold blood." Jack looked at him kindly, sympathetically. "I'm afraid you ought to see a doctor. Your head is queer. You've j been having fever, or something." I "Sit down —sit down!" cried Brown, I in agony. "You're as dense as a brick wall. The police 'are after you for murder—for murdering your His body was found in the Driftway | at the Court after the snow melted. You know what a long winter it }\'m : >. His people from America came trooping after him, and there was the devil to pay. Your cousin had been shot — half his ibrains gone, and at the "Inquest the jury said that he had been murdered. Suicide was out of the question; the man had everything to make him cling to life. The pistol was found near him, «nd it was the fellow of one found in your room. The doctor said tfiat it was impossible for a man to shoot himself through the chin in the way your cousin had been shot. You were charged with wilful murder, and " He broke down, and Jack added, with >a ghastly smile : "I quite follow you. And there's a price on my head ? Do you want to earn it, Brown, or shall I give myiolf up? I tell you the thing is utterly absurd. I can prove an alibi; I can prove anything." "Just what you can't do, my poor fellow. Your cousin was killed on the very night before you left England—the night the first fall of snow came. I've read every word of the evidence, and your brother's illnes that night clinched matters in the minds of the lawyers, the. jury, Everybody. He> knew something about it, and it Avas the horror of it that struck him down. And then, there was the motive. Your cousin was taking everything " h'um you—and your flight from New York when the body Avas found." Jack was stunned