"3 STRANGE MEN"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 September 1940, Page 10

"3 STRANGE MEN"

COPYRIGHT. PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

By

C. T. PODMORE.

Author of “The Fault,” etc.

CHAPTER VI. Mr Diggs turned his back on them, and the lawyer came back from closing the cuter office door, and smiled a little shrewdly. “It is really a most extraordinary business,” Mr Torkney said. “Fancy that man, diverted from a peaceful almost a religious—occupation into an adventure that might in fact quite change his character, or at least bring out the original Adam that is overlaid in most of us by civilised affairs. I could see a slumbering force in Mr Diggs which might, in certain circumstances, lead him to test his indifference toward death in some tragic fashion. Did he strike you that way?” “He struck me unwholesomely, ’ said George. “He may be a churchwarden, too, but that need not prevent him from committing murder, at a price like this. I feel a bit like him—l want air. I'll walk out for a while, and come back in time for stranger Number Two.”

“But wait—wait. My partners are due at any moment. We should be all together when the next man comes. We should be chatting comfortably together, you know.” “We shall, I suppose. But not just at the moment. I’m half choked, somehow.' Excuse me for ten minutes—l shall not stumble across that fellow. I want to stride out big, and breathe deep for awhile.” George moved towards the door. “I understand,” Torkney said, more quietly. “Diggs should be well out of the way by now.” “Him! Even to realise for charity would be better than this fantastic business. If —if there’s anything to be realised!”

“Oh yes,” observed Torkney, “It does exist.” ‘•You know that?” cried George. “We know it from Jowle.” “But Jowle told me he was not at liberty to tell anything.” “To you, he meant. That was some days ago. It doesn’t matter now. Why worry?” Someone knocked sharply on the outer door. Torkney went forward and opened it, George close behind. To the surprise of the former, a lady, looking past him, stepped boldly in. “You’re there, George, are you?” she said. “That’s right. Now, who is this gentleman?” Torkney bristled inquisitively while George named him to the visitor, introducing the latter as Mrs Cordery. “I had no idea she was coming,” George added, perplexed by the sudden intrusion. “No, you hadn’t —I know you hadn’t,” the lady agreed; “and neither had I, when I got out of my bed this morning.” “Well?” suggested Torkney. “About this treasure business,” said Mrs Cordery. “I’ve got a say in it.” “Indeed? Better come into my office for a few minutes, though I don’t see what we can do.” Mrs Cordery was excited and had been hurrying. Normally, she was a motherly, pleasant and peaceable woman, one who had been unusually good-looking in her younger days. “Sit down, madam,” said Torkney, “and let me hear what you have to say, if you think I am the proper person to say it to.” “You are settling the business this afternoon, Mr Torkney, so my daughter said?” “It is practically settled now.” “Well, I have come to stop it from going any further.” “So far we are concerned, madam, only Mr Geoffrey Parmitter can do that.” “But listen. It was only last night George told my daughter Sophie—he’s engaged to Sophie—anything about it, and it wasn’t till noon today that Sophie told me. She had been thinking a good deal, half remembering some little things. ‘Why,’ I said to her, “I’ve got the last letter your poor father ever wrote to me, picked up off what they call a brig or something by a mail steamer from Brisbane, and he says something about a treasure he was going to get and bring home. And what’s more,’ I said to Sophie, ‘it was George’s father’s ship, the Beloved, he was mate of at the time, and George’s father knew of it and was making his course accordingly.’ But my husband got drowned, poor Steve did, and whether it was before this treasure was got or after I don't know. Anyhow, I’m sure it was more Steve’s than Geoffrey Parmitter’s, or I’ll say at least no less; and if it was, why. then —what right has George’s father to keep it so secret and then give it away like a madman in this manner, without considering me? That's what I want to know.” “He does not appear ever to have thought of you, madam,” said Torkney. his voice sounding very moderate against the excitement of the lady's; “And as for giving you my opinion on the matter, I have none to give. Have you preserved your husband's letter?” “To be sure I have. There’s a scarlet hibiscus between the leaves, just as it came. I’ve got it with me now.” “I think my father ought to see that letter,” George said, “whatever the facts behind it may be.” He saw. thus far, good reason for Sophie's breach of confidence. ’This thing’s all wrong, Mr Torkney—l think it should stop at once.” "I can only suggest,” the lawyer returned, equably, "that Mr Geoffrey Parmitter is the person to be seen, madam, if he will see you.” “I’ll take her there,” George put in decisively. “But,” Torkney protested, “you cannot. You have business here.” “Go on with the buiness yourselves,” George answered, “if you must. But don't you think it ought to be deferred, for at least a few hours?” Torkney’s brown cheeks darkened. “You forget it has already begun, and

really you are breaking faith with us. Let me tell you this, Mr Parmitter—as a matter for legal process it would bring you nowhere. But if your father likes, he can at once withdraw and safeguard his valuables, and compensate these men for their trouble and disappointment. I’m afraid you are too late. But if you insist on going, lose no time. It’s quite irregular.’ "Come along,” George said to Mrs Cordery. “We will put your side of it to my father, anyhow.” Torkney accompanied them to the street door. He glanced up and down eagerly. But George and Mrs Cordery were not to be delayed. What George seemed to recognise, as they stepped away, was the slowly moving figure of Ephraim Diggs along the pavement ahead, as if he had curiously tarried awhile. They picked up a taxi in Chancery Lane, and many aspects of the situation were discussed as they sped along. One of them, sinister and embittered as it was, George was unable to refer to. But it seemed reasonable that Mrs Cordery’s claim might allow something rational to creep into the old man’s [disordered mind. | They reached the quiet house in I Tooting at last, and the taxi waited outside. George knocked smartly on the front door. Overhead, his father’s window was open a little at the top. All was silent. “Wait here,” he said to Mrs Cordery, “and I’ll probably look round at the back. Jowle is probably in the garden.” There was no sign of Jowle, but he had been digging recently at six-foot trench by one of the walls, the trench being shallow as yet. At the bottom of a short flight of steps, which curved under several that led up to the back door, the cellar stood open. George caught a glimpse of a spade lying beside a little mound of bricks and earth. “Jowle!” he called. “Are you there?” No answer. He went to the back door, opened it, and went in. Mrs Cordery waited patiently at the front, until she was startled by the hard opening of the window above her head. “Come in by the back door,” George called down to her —“if you’re not afraid. My father has been murdered.” CHAPTER VII. Mrs Cordery looked up. "Good Heavens!” she said, and turned pale. “I’d better come down,” said George, closing the window; and in less than a minute he had opened the front door and was by her side. The taxi-driver was approaching. “Murder?” he queried. “Get us to the nearest police station,” George answered him, “as fast as you can. You will have to take this lady on to the office of Reed, Price and Torkney, in Cursitor Street, close by where you picked us up. Shot!” he added to Mrs Cordery, “I can’t tell you any more. You won't be in time for the second man, but, when you get there, tell Torkney what has happened, and that the third chart must be reserved for me. I want it. The situation has changed. I shall follow you as soon as I can.” Half an hour later, police investigation was proceeding on the ’ scene of the tragedy. George was beset by disinclination to share too curiously in it, due to horror of the sight he had discovered. He had to tighten up his nerves to stand by and answer the questions that were put to him. The old man had been shot through the right temple, and had been dead some time. Near the fingers of his right hand on the bed, which fitted into a righ-hand corner as he lay, was a small revolver. The bed-clothes had been partially turned down, and his body dragged by the knees toward the edge of the bed. Either that, or he had made an effort to get out. A plain-clothes man from Scotland Yard, who happened to be at the station, had accompanied the local police. The latter seemed inclined to defer to this man’s initiative in the questioning. They called him Hardy. He was, in fact, of the C.I.D. “Looks more like suicide,” he commented, after a while. “Had he been queer in his mind at all?" he asked George. “Any trouble you know of?” “No trouble of a sort to make him do a thing like this,” George answered. "He fancied he was ill, but old people often do that, don’t they?” While he spoke, his mind was pushing the treasure question farther and farther away. It had nothing to do with this. This was a different affair. Some other motive here.

“Is that his own weapon?” Hardy asked. “Don’t touch it. Can you say at sight?” “I didn’t know that he had one, but it is not improbable, since he had valuables in the room.” The detective glanced at an open drawer. It had the appearance of having been rifled. But, leaning over the body, he carefully lifted up the bolster beyond where the pillows lay. Underneath was a faint impress of, apparently, the weapon that lay on the bed. “His own," he remarked. "Still might be suicide. I think you suggested he had been robbed. Of what?” “A lot of very fine pearls and an emerald, which 1 believe he kept in a bag. Perhaps money, too—l couldn't say.” • "Ah. When did you see him last?" “Nearly a week ago.” “Then you don’t live here?” “I have rooms in Brompton Road." “Married?" “Not yet." “Quarelled? With your father. I mean.” “Not really. A stupid disagreement over the question of the lady. My father raised objections.” “I see. Who lives here, beside?” (To be Continued).