The Dark House at Highgate

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10694, 15 August 1912, Page 2

The Dark House at Highgate

CUP SERIAL.)

BY DhRWENT MIALL,

"No, sir, you must accept mine," lie rejoiced. "Liberty t-o go where ,vou will twelve hours after I havo possession of that cabinet." "J refuse/' I said. It was absolutely essential t-o hold on to my secret, and to hope against hope that help would come to me from outside or from inside the house; I believed that Cluny wa;i but a half-hearted plotter; and there was Ceeile—but was she there? Perhaps she was no longer in the. house. "It's not for you to make terms, sir," blustered Rimington, with sudden vehemence. "You won't, listen to reason, po I must try harsher methods. ! wouldn't if I could avoid it. Now, there's, a paragraph in this morning's papers advertising your disappearance. The young lady to whom you are engaged—Miss Kettering—" 1 started, and then remembered that this rascal had robbed me of Annie's letter. " Miss Kettering." he resumed, "whose brother" —he purposely paused —"whoso 'brother is under a cloud, and she has, no doubt, communicated j to the police her anxieties concerning j you.- T propose, to allay her anxieties by the dispatch of thio little document." And ho tossed a type-written note across the table. \ To do the man justice, I think ho had the grace to feel ashamed of his f action. Doubless he had been honest ( once, till the desire for money becamo t a besetting ,sin, instead of a wholesome stimulus to work, and drove him into crooked ways: This was the note: "Dear Anne: Believe mo when I say that I feel most deeply for you in the trouble that has fallen upon you. I got the news of your brother's arrest two days ago, and it has given me cause for anxious and painful thought, and much self-communing. You know, Anne, that if I followed only the inclinations of my own heart I should j say: 'Let our engagement stand.. Whatever shame may attach to the name of Kettering, at least you bear none of it.' But I have others to think of —my own kin. I cannot exaggerate the horror with which they would contemplate any alliance of my name, which is theirs, with public scandal. Forgive me! I hardly know what to write. Bul, I must think —I must take time to think over our future. I-am going away to Paris by to-night's boat. Trust me, I do this with a heart as heavy as sorrow can make it; and, believe mo, in any and every event, to be vour sincere friend. PETER RYCROFT." 1 There was a. postscript to this preposterous document, stating that the I writer had jammed his fingers in a carriage door, so had "asked the loan of a friend's typewriting machine," in order to write it. I I looked up. Rimington was watchi ing me. I thought, with a little an- | xiety. I crumpled the note contemp- ! tuously, and flung it in his face. "You scoundrel!" I said. "Take ! your rubbish with you, and get out of n:y sight!" For a few moments he stared at me ' silently, the wild beast in him rourrd. . He kept himself in hand with a visible effort. "That letter need rot go," lie said, "if you do as I wish." I turned my back on him, and walked to the window. "Very well," ho continued, and I could detect the fury in his voice, ' I "that letter goes. That is only a copy of it. That letter goes, and it will put a stop to any search that may be made | for you." j He went out, sufficiently master of himself by this time to refrain from : shutting the door with an angry slam —as a person less Napoleonic would certainly have done, J Of course Anne would see. that the letter was a forgery. I told myself, when she came to consider it carefully ; but she must be looking for a letter by every mail, and, at the first shock, that dastardly forgery 'might come as a cruel blow; and, even when recognised for what it was, it could not fail to frighten and bewilder her. 1 passed the remainer of the morning in a vain attempt to move one of the bars of the window, for inaction was unendurable. I had no tools to work with—only brute force, and that was useless; but it was only when my curiosity was aroused by something I saw in the garden that I desisted. I could see a little of the garden through a hole in the screen of laurels that darkened the window. By putting out a hand and moving aside an obstructing branch, I obtained a view of the statue and the foundtain basin. I had suddenly noticed that Riming was in the garden, and presently I saw him halt by the fountain basin, apparently in rapt contemplation t f tho statue. Then another figure hurried into my restricted field of vision ; it was the Avry-necked man, and ho carried a long wand or pole. A third comer was recognisable as Cluny. I watched them with strained attention. T'liey had their backs turned to me. and they appeared to be bowing over the water, as if the archer god, long deposed from his place in high Olympus, had come into his own again, and found votaries in—of all unlikely places in the world —a neglected gardon . "What are thev up to now?" I said to myself, watching them as they went with slow motinons, through their strange ritual, in that unnatural twilight. { They drew themselves erect at | length, the wry-necked man holding ' his pole in front of him, resting it on

A thor of "Lady Rosalie's acy." "Bellamy's "Warning," "Tha Strange Case Yiucem Hume/' "In the We, ; ). '' Etc Etc.

the ground. Then it Hashed upon mo that they had been engaged in no rites at all; "they had been sounding tho depth of tho pond. Their subsequent conversation was long and, evidently, .serious. Tho wry-necked man leaned' upon his pole in an attitude of deep iiLtontion. Cluny frequently repeated ji.o cnaraetonaic nervous action ot cabbing at his forehead with his poeKet handkerchief. Once lie gesticulated uiicuy, anu then juimington turned upon iiiin (jiucivly, ana appeared to ,silence him with a lew words. t iieu the wiy-necked man seemed to indicate with his hand the depth to uineii his pole has been submerged. As if a chill, niiasmic breath had suddenly struck me in the face, I recoiled from the window. I divined that they had gone into the garden te ascertain whether the fountain basin was deep enough to keep the secret of murder —whether that slimy water would hide a body.

CHAPTER XIX. THE CLOSING NET. The afternoon of that clay seemed interminable . From the moment when I guessed what those men were about in the garden, all my desires narrowed down to one—namely, to hurl myself upon my j.ailor and stake life and liberty upon the chances of a fight. His aceompllice outside the window might come to his help, but I resolved to run the risk of being shot. And there was always the possibility that, if I held Rimington in a tight clutch, the crooked fellow who served him for a. bodyguard might be afraid to draw a trigger. At all events, if I was to clie, i would die fighting. There was no means of judging of the flight of time, for twilight reigned all day in my gloomy prison, and it seemed as if night would never come. I remember thinking it strange that I should stand, almost within hail of a commonplace suburban road, with the old Adam in me wake and glowering, as if 1 were a savage in a lawless land, waiting in ambush to strike at the heart of an enemy. But my purpose never wavered, my anger did not cool, and the belief that I should take Doctor Rimington utterly by surprise filled me with a fierce joy. The strain of waiting was m3 r chief trouble. I wiped the sweat from my brow; I sighed heavily at frequent intervals; I paced the lloor like a caged animal. It might have been near eight o'clock when I heard, at last footsteps in the passage outside. Then, if ever in my life, my eyes glowed with fierce determination. I had a confused appreciation of the fact that upon the issue of the coming struggle depended not only my own life and restoration to liberty, but Anne Kettering's happiness, also; and possibly j her brothers life as well. 'The key turned in the lock. - I stood so tnat tlie.door would swing back on me, with every muscle braced, and my pulses druniing me to battle. The moment came. The door opened, and 1 fell back, with my arms hanging ! limply, and did nothing. > For Madame Claude had come alone, to see her prisoner. tor a fen' seconds neither of us spoke, and I gazed blankly at tiie slim I'igUVe before. Except for the malignity that shone in her eyes, Madmc Claudu was the .embodiment of dignity. She was a hard woman, toofi who knew what was due to her and would, I felt, exact her duo to the uttermost. Her servants must have led an easy existence with her. "You are surprised to see me?" she said, at length, in a voice that was musical in spite of its scornful inflection. '•'YesJ am," I said, finding my tongue; "and I am surprised that a woman of sense can countenance this, outrage"—and I indicated with a gesture, the walls of my abominable prison. "I hope you have come to tell me you have dissociated yourself from it entirely." "You need hope for nothing from me." she coldly replied. "What the Doctor has done he has done with my full approval. You may not like your quarters, but then you should not have meddled with matters that did not concern you." "You will pardon me,"' I said, "but did you only come to repeat Doctojr Remington's words?" Her small, handsome face darkened. "I came to repeat his orders," she retorted. "I must —and I will have the cabinet of which lie has spoken." "Ah! then it contains something of great value?" "To me, yes. To you, no —of course not the least value to you." "I have told Doctor Rimington on what terms I will surrender it." "Terms!" >she scornfully repeated. "Terms! You are in -v position to make terms!" "I am in a curious and unfortunate position, I admit." "Then, you will obey my orders?" Her face "turned white with- suppressed fury. "Oh. you have litle cause to laugh." she said, in a low voice, as if talking to herself. This sounded ominous, as if my ultimate fate had been definately decided upon between her and her and her partners, or tools, or tools or whatever her male associates might consider themselves to be. (To b© Continued.)