The Error of Her Ways

Waikato Times, Volume 125, Issue 20919, 26 September 1939, Page 10

The Error of Her Ways

(By FRANK BARRETT)

CHAPTER 11. A MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR f Astride a chair, with his arms resting on the back, Tom sat by the open | window of his bedroom in Chart j Court, watching the waning moon rise copper-coloured through the I autumn mist that hung over the horiI zon. He had lit a pipe in the hope | that the narcotic might soothe an irrational sense of irritation. He couldn’t like the “ nobs ” —why, Harrowgate, with all his vulgarity, was far and away the finest gentleman of the lot! Mrs Harrowgate he possitively disliked. In the flesh she was more of the music-hall than in the photograph, and the men collected round her here were deadheads from the stalls. Variety people, a major who might have been cashiered, and others. The proper place for the whole crew was the Tiv or the Pav. All this was weak prejudice, and he knew it. There are admirable women on the music-hall stage, and the deadheads who admire them are the men we like well enough in the club smoking-room. But this reflection failed to lessen his acrimony. He felt bitterly even toward Harrowgate. And the explanation of it found expression in the thought with which he had knocked out the ashes of his pipe: “ It’s a beastly shame to subject that poor child (Sylvia—age twentyone) to such pernicious influence.” He thought a chapter or two of “Gyp” would do what tobacco had failed to effect, so he took a key from his pocket and opened his valise. On the top lay the packet of notes he had brought down for Harrowgate. He sat down before the dressing-table to run over the notes. The night was absolutely still. Not a sound broke the dead silence, save the crackling of the crisp notes as he turned them one by one with his finger counting them. He had drawn for his own requirements fifty pounds, over and above the four thousand for Harrowgate. These he drew out fro mthe pocket, folded, and put them in the lettercase he had carried in his breast pocket. He laid the letter-case on the table, and taking the packet back to his valise, dropped it in, fished out his novel, and locked the valise. Then he crossed to the door of his room, and turned the key in his lock. This was an unusual thing for him to do; but he was thinking what a fortune four thousand pounds would have seemed to him even a month ago. He lay reading for a good hour; by that time he had recognised that Gyp is more calming than tobacco. He turned off the electric light. The moon had risen above the foot of his bed in a bright perpendicular shaft. He closed his eyes, and drew the bedclothes up to his chin. When he opened them again it was with a start, and the vague consciousness of a sound like a blow on the floor. The shaft of light had shifted and widened into a broad patch on the wall; the brass foot of the bedstead gleamed in the moonlight. He must have been asleep for a considerable time. What had awakened him? Oh, that novel, perhaps, had slipped off the bed. In such stillness as this sounds are magnified, and the slightest would become sufficient to awake a light sleeper. And lightly he must have slept, for he felt no inclination to drop off again. On the contrary, he was tempted to get up and see how high the moon had risen. Half way between his bed and the window he stopped short. What was that? It sounded like the hasty shuffling of footsteps on the further side of the room. Turning sharply he glanced across the bed. Good God! The door was open! A Burglar Scarcely had he noticed this when a crouching figure shuffled out through the opening and disappeared the next moment in the darkness beyond. Tom dashed off in pursuit, but went no further than the doorway; the darkness of the passage to the right and left was impenetrable. He stood still, listening for a guiding sound. Nothing was to be heard. He returned to the bedside, turned on the light, and looked about him. His valise was all right. His watch still ticked on the dressing-table; but the letter case which had been lying beside it was gone. There were candles on the chim-ney-piece. He lit one, got into his trousers and a pair of slippers, and started in quest of the thief. There was a revolver in his valise, but he did not trouble himself about that, knowing that if the thief was an ordinary burglar he would have got well out of the house by this time. But was it an ordinary burglar? That was a question which already interested him, for on the face of it the possibility seemed very unlikely. Tom went quietly downstairs, and turning on the light as he made his way from room to room, made a systematic examination of every outlet from scullery to drawing-room. He seated himself in the smokingroom, took a cigarette, and asked I himself, “What's to be done now?” It was fairly evident that whoever had taken the letter-case was still in the house, and it followed, according to Tom’s reasoning, that the thief was no common housebreaker. To alarm the household and institute an immediate search for the stolen property seemed to Tom so particularly futile and unpleasant, that he quickly decided upon taking the only alternate course, and before his cigarette was out he switched off the lights, returned to his room, and tumbled into bed. CHAPTER 111. His Excellency’s Attache “Psani, I have been robbed,” said Tom, speaking in Piedmontese, the dialect in which he habitually conversed with his man. “Is it possible!” exclamied Psani, staying his hand, which at that moment was wiping the razor with which he had been shaving his master. “It is a fact!” Tom plunged his face in a basin of water, swirled it sputtering from side to side, and raising it dripping and aglow, continued. “Ten five pound bank notes.” “Mother mine!” Scrubbing his face vigorously with a towel, Tom pursued: “I know the numbers. There’s a telegram on the table instructing the bank to stop payment—to little purpose I am afraid. You will take it to the village, and send it off.” “I fly.” Psani closed the razor i in a flash, and snatched up the paper.

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“Wait a bit. I shall be away shooting best part of the day, and may not have another opportunity of speaking to you. I want you to find out who robbed me.” . “It shall be done, Excellency.” | “You seem pretty confident,” said Tom, seating himself as he wiped his hands, and smiling on Psani. He was an odd little man, Psani, with a skin dark and wrinkled like crumpled vellum, a long hooked nose, magnificent black eyes and eyebrows, and a turf of grizzled hair on each side of his long bald head that gave it the look of a clown’s wig. “His excellency would not expect me to do an impossible tiling.” “You have rendered me some services that seemed even more impossible.” “I have known no greater happiness,” returned Psani, with brightening eyes, and a faint flush of colour on his high cheek bones. Then, detecting something akin to affection in the lingering smile with which Tom still regarded nirn. ns he wiped his hands he continued: “Signor Tomasso, for seven years I have been your servant, and I ask no more than to serve you till L can serve no more. Not once have you given me an unkind word, or led me by indifference 10 feel humiliation. But you have mace me sometimes feel that I am something more to you than a lackey. ” “As indeed, you have been, Psani. I should have thrown up my ippointment before I’d held it seven months if you had riot done the—the dirty work for me.” “It’s not for a good general to fight in the trenches; but he may be proud who fights in the trenches for a good general.” “Ah, well,” said Tom, rising, and flinging dowrn the toweL “There’s no more of that kind of trench work for either of us, thank God.” Psani raised his brows, shaking his head with a look of perplexity. There were points in the English character which he could not appreciate—this repugnance to discovering intrigues of foreign diplomats against his own country, for example. To change the subject, he said: “His Excellency will give me some particulars of this accursed robbery.” “Yes. Someone was concealed in my room last night. I know that, because I locked the door before going to bed, and the door was open when I awoke.” “Holy Joseph!” “I saw a figure—man or woman, I know not which—pass out by the door. My letter-case with the bank notes in it, was gone. Dpwnstairs, not a window or door was unfastened, although the thief would have had ample time to escape that way.” “At what time did His Excellency come to his room?” “Considerably past midnight. Mr Harrowgate and I sat smoking fully an hour after the rest of the household retired.” “Did anyone know that you had such an enormous sum of money—fifty pounds—one thousand and fifty lire!—in your possession?” “Mr Harrowgate knew that I had four thousand pounds in my possession.’* “Four thousand pounds sterling! Father eternal! Did he not tell everyone?” “The money is for him, and for particular reasons he would be most unlikely to tell anybody.” “His Excellency lost nothing else but the notes?” “No; my watch is there. The case lay beside it.” “No money from your pockets. His Excellency is strangely careless.” Tom felt in his waistcoat pockets, where he usually carried his loose gold, and shook his head. “And his Excellency can give no further details?” “No.” Psani grasped the tufts on each side of his head, and regarded the floor long and steadily, as the chess player might regard the board on which there is a difficult position. Who Was the Thief “Well, Psani, is it a housebreaker or a servant?” “Neither. A housebreaker would not have left your watch. A servant would have gone for your pockets, but not before he had known your habits as well as I do. And then on the first night of your coming here—oh no.” “Well?” “It is someone who knew you had that great sum—£4ooo.” “What makes you think that?” asked Tom, regarding the man keenly- “ Because none of the signori would rum such a terrible risk for much less.” Tom nodded acquiescence in this conclusion. “That great sum of money, is it still in his Excellency’s valise?” ( “No; I gave it to Mr Harrowgate an hour ago. He has taken it with him to London.” “Does he know that you have been robbed?” “No.” “That is good. His Excellency has told no one?” “Not a soul but you.” “All the better. But it is difficult; I know the English so little.” “Can I help you?” “I am told they play the game here—roulette.” “It is very probable.” “If they would play baccarat, and I could see them—” Psani clasped his hands and shook them in prospective self congratulation. “Think, Signor Tomasso, I was for two seasons croupier at Biarritz.” “I will think of it, Psani,” said Tom, divining his thought. “I never knew the man who could conceal his character at baccarat.” “Then you firmly believe the thief was a gentleman?” “Or a lady.”

Tom raised his eyebrows, and turned to the open window in dubitation, the whole thing seeming so preposterous. Suddenly the expression in his face changed, and he drew back a step. Psani observed the movement, but failed to see the cause, his back being turned to the window. But on the wall before him was a glass placed at an angle to reflect the beautiful vista formed by the long drive through the park. In this he saw a lady and gentleman walking slowly towards the house. Touching his master’s shirt-sleeve lightly, he pointed to the glass, and said:— “The lady and gentleman must have risen early to be returning from tneir walk before others are dressed. I fly to the post!” and snatching up the telegrams he hurried from the room. i (To be continued)