CHAPTER XXXVI. MR CUDEMORE GETS UNEASY,

Waikato Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2251, 11 December 1886, Page 1 (Supplement)

CHAPTER XXXVI. MR CUDEMORE GETS UNEASY,

Mr Cuderaore was getting somewhat uneasy in his mind. He did not at all like Mr Sturton having put himself into communication with the police relative to the large sum of money that James Foxborough had borrowed. He would have liked it atill less had he known of Mr Usher's visit to Bond-street, but of that he was in ignorance. He had called once or twice to see Mr Sturton lately, only to be told he was not in. This in itself disturbed the suspicious money-lender. He had never found any difficulty about seethe fashionable artist before, why should he now. The truth was, Mr Sturton kept purposely out of the way. Althoagh Mr Usher, after his wont had kept hia own counsel pretty close, yet he had made no secret that Mr Sturton would be called upon to testify to that handwriting, and further it was clear to the latter that the sergeant attached great importance to that note, Mr Sturton had always followed the Bunbury murder with morbid interest, and he had arrived vaguely at the conclusion that Cudemore was somehow implicated in the crime. He could be cool enough on all matters of business, but he had no nerves for horrors, and the Bunbury mystery, which had absorbed him from tho first, now kept him in a state of nervous irritability. Mr Cudemore was very dissatisfied with the progress of his love suit. Hia chance had not looked a particularly rosy one before he lost his head that afternoon in Tapton Cottage, and now he knew that nothing but coercion remained to bring it to a successful termination. Not that Mr Cudemore would have cared had it only promised a favourable result, but it did not. He interfered more and more in the affairs of the Syringa ; he insisted upon it that he must see the manageress on matters of business. Mrs Foxborough steadily refused to take the slightest notice of him. In spite of her prohibition he had again called at the cottage, the door remained closed in his face. He had written to apologise for his conduct., but no reply wis vouchsafed him. Ho had written once more pointing out that if the bix thousand pouuds borrowed by James Foxborough was not forthcoming at the expiration of the notice given the mortgagees would foreclose, and the Syringa Music Hall go altogether out of Mrs Foxborouglre hands, and Mrs Foxborough again was perfectly indifferent, and abstained from answering his letter. Then the money-lender had pushed persecution as far as he knew how, and was fain to admit with no result. He was infatuated with his mad passion for the girl, and it to a certain extent lulled to rest that shrewd instinct of coming danger now newly awakened. In the days before he had avowed his admiration he had begged a phutograph f rom Nid, and she, who was turning over a lot of freshly executed sun likenesses of heiself, gave him one without hesitation. Musing one afternoon in his rooms over his mad desire to make Nid his wife he suddenly bethough him, as he could not see the girl herself, he would look «t her picture. Ho fetched his photograph book from a side table and turned over the loaves till he came to her likeness, and thorn hd was struck with something else— the opposite carte had been removed. He kuew perfectly well who ifc was. It was his own. Ho had placed it there as men will at times in order to see themselves coupled with the object to their idolary. Who had taken it, and why ? The divihiori from which it had been abstracted was slightly torn as if it had been removed with some haste, find once more a feeling or uneasiness came over the man. Ho had no intiuvUc friends Jikely to commit such petty larceny, m ftict frioudd were a luxuiy Mr C'lduoiure prjt'iShdd hiuuelf uuiblu t > afford. He was a gre.it adruii'ur of the fair hex, but his lu/t,>w, were ti-AiiMont au.'l of thit men.'tiioiuus order that invnlvo, no great amount of sentiment on cither nhlo. H^ lit <i cigar and sit tl.ere for an hour brooding over v.uious 1 t 1«j su-pieions oirontn-t'MNsf's fill tenainjr to rcifirtn his vi"\vs tli.tf S 'otlrind yard had come t<»

suspect him of being concerned in the Bunbnry mystery. What was young Whipple doing in his dressing-room, why did Mr Sturton persistently avoid him, and lastly with what object had someone abstracted his photograph ? -He wonderod if he was under surveillance ; whether he was watched as he knew the police could watch a man upon ocoafiion. Then he thought it would be as well to tohlho some securities, so an to have a good bit of ready money always at haud, in oase it might aeem good policy to abscond. Bah !he was losing his nerve. Let them suspect, he was in no danger ; it was little likely they would ever penetrate the mysterious disappearance of James Foxborough, and until they did that he was safe. No, while there was a chanoeof Recuringr Nid Foxborough for his wife he would stay, happen what might, and then ho actually began to muse over impossible schemes for her abduction. His fierce lustful passion for the girl — love it cannot be called — was of that kind that led to savago outrages of such sort in the seventeenth and eighteenth, centuries, but is fortunately not quite so feasible in the days we livo in. Did ho but know it, Mr Cudemore was as well* policed as the Prime Minister or the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Still the more he reflected the less he liked the aspect of affairs, he looked at the clock, yes with a hansom there was just time to catch his broker and give him instructions to sell Guatemala bonds guflioieut to realise a thousand. He would do it. I shall want money for either tour he muttered grimly, whether it be a wedding one or the other. On the track of his hansom stole anothor tenanted by a wizeued little old man dressed something like an oldfashioned bank clork, but one of the deadliest beagles in all the defective pack. He was not a roan of anything like Mr Usher's calibre', he was not good at finding his game, but once shown bis quarry and he I hung upon the track like a s'euth hound. Old Nibs, as he was affectionately termed | by his brethren of the yard, w-ta a very valuable officer in his own line ; a very difficult man to slip when he once sighted hia prey. Mr Cudemore arrived in time, and a little surprised his broker. Guatemalas were now going up, and promised to be an uncommon good thing ere the month was out. Did not Mr Cudemore think it would be advisable to hold on a week or two, or if he must have money, realise other property. No, Mr Cudemore don't think so. His orders were peremptory to sell Guatemalas to realise a thousand the next day, and that done he drove off and recreated himself at the Gaiety Restaurant, and went into the theatre afterwards, but let him go where he would, that little wizened old bank clerU followed him like his shadow till he finally reached his home in Spring Gardens, and there another member of the force was ready to take up the watch. Mr Cudemore slept the sleep of the just. Whatever his connection with the B-mbury mystery might be it affected him no more than it might make it advisable for him to leave town, and this, in consequence of his wild infatuation about Nid Foxboroujfh, he did not wish to do. The money-lender thought that he could easily baffle the police whenever he should deem it necessary, and though he had pictured himself watched, had little idea that such watch had actually commenced. He thought he might to some extent have fallen under their suspioion, but he deemed they had barely got hold of the clue as yet, much less unravelled it. Uneasy he was, he felt there was danger in the air, but he'd no idea he was already completely in the toils, that the indefatigable Usher had his, Mr Cudemore's, photograph multiplied, and that there was not a leading police-station in England without both that and a completedescription of him, more especially all the principal seaports, so that even should he evade the vigilance of the Yard he was not likely to get very far. The next morning Mr Cudemoro, having had his breakfast, betook himself to the Syringa Music Hall, where he, as was his habit, harassed the stage manager with business enquiries and demands to see Mrs Foxborougb. ' She's hero, I know,' said the moneylender, ' for I saw her brougham waiting in the street.' 'I've Mrs Foxborough's express commands to say that she will never see you, and she doubts whether you really have any right to interfere with us at all until your time conies'. I don't quite know what she means by that, but I give you her message as I have given it you before.' But Mr Cudemore was determined to see Mrs Foxborough this time, and he lingered in the entrance until she came out, 'and then taking off his hat boldly requested to speak to her on business. The manageress of the Syringa drew herself up proudly and passed on towards her carriage without a word or hardly even a glance at him, and Mr Cudemore fell back discomfited as the Btage manager put her into the brougham. He was verily not doing much with the game of persecution, and Mr Cudemore walked moodily away, • She must have a good bit more than I thought, ' ho muttered, 'or she'd never take the prospect of the loss of the Syringa so lightly ; and yet I thought Foxborough had pretty well all he had sunk in it, but of course I know now he had other resources.' Now it so happened that the very morning upon which Mr Cudemore made the last attempt to intimidate Mrs Fox-borou-rh was the day upon which the party iiom B<iumborough under Morant's guidance arrived at Tapton Cottage. If Mrs Foxborough kept a brave presence before the money-lender, she was in reality considerably disnviyed at the loss of the Syrinera. *Her buaband might have other property, but she kuew nothing about it, and it was the Syringa that kept Taptoa Cottage going. Of course, she could fall back on her profession and command.a very fair engagement, but it would mean a very different income from that she derived from the music hall. She wondered whether he had the rights he claimed over the place at present, but the mortgage she knew was a fact, and where to get six thousand pounds ehe didn't know. She had come down to the Syringa early, as she always did, in order to avoid observation, and hurried back to the cottage iv consequence of a letter frora Moraut received that morning. (To be continued )

Thb following lino was composed cm the occasion of a gentleman at the name of Lee planting a lane with lilacs: "Let lovely lilacs line Lee's lonely lane !" In which not only every word but every syllable commences with, the same tatter— l. He Had Enough. — Texas has been proudly supposed to bear the paha foe sententious»&>s since the ef/twde of the householder, who, iipon observing a burglar climbing into his window at night, drew a revolver and simply remarked "Git!" Whereupon fcho other replied : " You bet," and dropped to the ground. Now, however, Minnesota may nnlce pretentious. During a thunderstorm at Like Minnetonka, a fow days 1130, and lightning struck a tree near the Like Park Hotel, bhiverin 1 * it to bplintpri,. One ot the guo-U i.f the Ijou.e, who was .standing lieu 1 by, w.is thrown H.it on hib bick. A hotel clerk rushed to his a^Mance and dragged liim anparently nmre deaU than alive, into the hotel ittfi3O. When the crowd that fj ithored around was momentarily expecting to mo the lipfhtening'-s'triken guest ymld up the ghost he opened his eyes, riis^d himself on his olbfiw, and remarked. " Ucutletnmi, a little of tluu till* me up,"