"3 STRANGE MEN"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 October 1940, Page 10

"3 STRANGE MEN"

COPYRIGHT. PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

By

C. T. PODMORE.

(Author of “The Fault,” etc.

CHAPTER XXIII. ’ George Parmitter kept his appointI ment on the next day. 3 But he did not find Hardy easily, as the latter, for his own purpose had been testing a slight disguise he had ■ needed, and passed him once or twice • before making himself known. ! They were within fifty yards of Dod- ’ worth Chambers, but on the opposite side. Hardy, explaining that it was not ’ yet wise for him to risk being recog- , nised in Parmitter’s company, propos- : ed their withdrawal into a neighbour- ■ ing restaurant; and there they took seats at an upper window that commanded the pavement, the detective adjuring George to keep his eye on the street and look for someone he knew. George had an idea that Hardy had engaged this table, for they were not approached. Without distracting George’s attention from the street, Hardy began to talk in guarded tones. Among many things, he mentioned that the office of! Reed, Price and Torkney was today | closed; he had been there in reference i to yesterday’s futile call. They might i open later, but most probably would I not. It looked to him, Hardy, that I transference to Thorgood and Wrenfold was in some preliminary stage of conference across the way. Torkney was in there now. George got an impression of dim but sensational possibilities. “I had an idea,” Hardy went on. “that there might be quite a dramatic moment for you. But there is really nothing much for you to do. lam just hoping that I may not be wrong in my conclusion. Watch the door very closely.” “Yes. I see nothing up to now.” Hardy switched on to the subject of Jowle. “Whatever happens today,” he said, “is going to make a lot of difference to Jowle. I imagine your father’s man will have a lot to say, when he realises that he is free to say it. But that will not cover this issue exactly. Jowle, thinking himself un-

der suspicion, does not associate it with these stolen jewels. I should rather like to be the first to find him—if he needs any finding after this.” George leaned a little forward. “Torkney has just come out from the Chambers. There he is, .looking up and down.” “That’s good,” said Hardy. “Keep your eyes there. He won’t go yet.” George saw Torkney move to and fro, glancing one way and another a shade impatiently. Once he looked directly across the way, and up, it seemed, at the very window where George sat, but his gaze fell away without recognition. Then a man hurried up out of the thin stream of pedestrians, and entered into conversation with him. Apparently it was this man for whom Torkney had been waiting. The newcomer turned so that his face could be plainly seen. Hardy had been watching closely, too. “Is that anyone you know?” he whispered.

‘•That? Why, of course, that is Rumely.” “I thought so. You feel quite sure?” ‘Yes —quite. I couldn’t be mistaken.” “I suppose not. Neither am I.” George’s observation was not relaxed by Hardy’s commonplace tone. He saw the conversation finished between Rumely and Torkney. The latter then hastened away, while the other, first glancing furtively this way and that, made a quick move across the road. “He seems to be coming over here.” “That’s right—that’s better,” Hardy commented. “Just sit where you are. If he comes up into this room and sees you, it is not likely he will recognise me, so he won’t take fright at once. If he does, he won’t get far away.” The staircase to the room they were in came up in the middle of the floor, the opening being railed round on three sides. Presently Rumely’s head and shoulders appeared. Reaching the floor, he selected a table close by, and sat facing the two men who had been keeping observation on him. Hardy now quietly arose and walked past him to the end of the room, where he disappeared through a doorway. The movement drew. Rumely’s attention momentarily to the table he had left, and his glance dwelt for that moment on George Parmitter. But it was then transferred to a waiter who stood by him, and to whom he gave an order rather hesitantly. Not till the waiter had hurried away did he look again. Then he deliberately got up and crossed to where George sat. “It’s you Parmitter, is it?” he said, in a low voice, and leaning down with a bitter smile. “I suppose you think you are doing well, but look out for yourself—l’m going to beat you yet.” He scowled heavily, and nodded, and kept for some moments such a changed expression upon him, that George had a sudden doubt about the condition of his mind. “You're an infernal scoundrel,” retorted Parmitter. controlling himself only because he saw Hardy, divested of his disguise, emerge from the distant room and come rapidly toward them;, “and you’ll never share that treasure —you know it." “Treasure!” repeated Rumely, with a nasty, short giggle. “What is treasure to me? But I won’t be beaten. Mark that, Parmitter. I won’t be beaten." He drew himself upright, surveying George with the same strange look as before. It changed, however, as he realised that footsteps were coming rapidly behind him, and he half turned in a wondering, listening sort of way. Hardy stepped up and said to George, “Who is this gentleman?” “This.” George replied, “is Mr John Rumely of Bristol.” Hardy touched Rumely on the shoulder. ‘I want you. Mr Reed,” he said. “I have a warrant for your arrest on a charge of robbery and murder. Better come with me quietly.”

Parmitter stood up, electrified. ‘Reed!” he exclaimed. Hardy, nodded aside to that, was feeling in his pocket, his eye on this masquerading partner of Price and Torkney. “Now, Mr. Reed—no use staring. Come along.” “Wait,” was the quiet answer. “You’ve done this cleverly, Hardy. But just one moment —let me have a drink. I’m parched.” He looked towards the table where he had first sat down and where now stood the waiter, gazing and listening. Other faces were lifted, too, at this unwonted grouping by the window. “Bring a glass of water will you?” Hardy called to the waiter. And the water was brought. The trapped man began to feel in one of his upper vest-pockets. “There’ll be something to pay,” he said vaguely, and, when Hardy impatiently negatived the idea, began to bite his finger-ends. When the glass of water was handed to him, he took one swift, conclusively gulp. Looking at his fln- ! gers, he would have said something, j but no words came. He gazed at Har- ' dy, and his laugh would have been one i of contempt, but he made no sound. I Hardy snapped handcuffs on him. 'threw up the window and made a signal to someone in the street. Before he turned, there was a thud on the floor. His prisoner had collapsed. The place was now in a state of commotion. “You may clear away now, Parmitter, if you life,” Hardy said to George. “You can do nothing here.” “What has he done?” “Look at the man.” The jaw of the prostrate man was relaxed, and his face a purplish grey. It looked like death. Hardy went down beside him. The vest pocker was oozing with a spilled liquid. Hardy recoiled from it, muttering, and got up with a grave face. A man was coming up the stairs. Hardy made space for his colleague. George Parmitter waited unobtrusively to see the end of this episode which Detective-Inspector Hardy had said would be undramatic. CHAPTER XXIV.

The Press poured into Long Acre to make of the Parmitter case what was to be not only the sensation of the day, but, with its bearings on the legal profession, of many a day to follow. But for this fatal issue, brought about without need, now easy and unsuspected a thing—George Parmitter was to realise—the lawyer’s grasp upon his father’s accursed treasure might have been successful.

As things stood on this memorable ■ occurrence, a morbid curiosity was reawakened in many people about Tooting and the immediate spot concerned, and the presence of police, put there through Hardy in consequence of the recent drastic trespass, was needed to keep the mose venturesome intruders at bay. Such things as murder and suicide exhale an atmosphere that lasts like tradition about a house, and the personality of old Geoffrey Parmitter gave this lonely cottage a story value that clung like a creeper to its walls.

(To be Continued).