Newspaper Page Text
“ r ~n_|r OF QH PMCF” db By META SIMMINS
* A •*—* K-*x k 1 J—jk_y \_y 1 K_JLj — ik> J_j Thrilling Portrayal of Life Behind Prison Bars Author of "Hushed Up”
He bent close to Ki mi ng ton, raising his
face to his with a confidential move
ment
“Running water and oblivion,' he re
peated “I expect that subconsciously
that was the thought in your mind a few
moments since when you committed that
act of stupendous folly. My dear fellow,
I appreciate your motive the mad repug
nance that prompted your action but th*
rank insanity of it’ Is it Inconceivabl •
that I was the onlj interested observer
on the bridge? Hou could you fail to
realize that this London * ours is full
nf eyes?"
Then he knew!
For a second Rimingioii stared down
fascinated at the hand Saxo had laid ar
restingly on Ids arm. and the sight
of some reptile crawling there might
have done He viewed the hand with
dispassionate • riticism. realizing that it
was ugls. surprisingly so to belong to a
person so physical!' ’ beautiful as Paul
Saxe Brown and lean, its narrow palm
showed lighter than the back, like the
pads of an animal: there was something
curiously animal in its suggestion, indeed;
the nails, though well manicured. were
unusually long, and curved like the talons
discolored b\ much cigarette smoking,
nf an eagle
“1“ with ,i start In- drew himself out
nf the lethargy that had fallen upon him
—"J am afraid that I am dull; I do not
follow you. ’ he said.
It sounded wretchedh unconvincing In
his nwn ears No wonder that Saxe
laughed
“Come, my dear fellow. I am no mor
alist. but I am something of an econo
mist. and I hate waste, even in the mat
ter of lying I know that you follow me
'he
, J^fe: "-'TIThTi Hilli'lTZJ
\ ... JxfZ k -7 Sy-i A-i ? .--.''Mt w.
-! x \ f — ' ' cx-FTy-
- V < sTlk H-Z' FvW ' s£l i -- , ‘ EP ' cc ' "ZIZZ-
'eV -FA®®- 1-J a X/%
- dWEIIS
iJEwE 1 - uffME H
— . _j —1 11»
« u x-
s .. A W s . " \ '
I I J "
Sherlocko the Monk The Episode of the furtive Fisher copyright. 1912, Na onai .o. \- n
| COMe UWS0 ' tfEr ovr I WE^6 ' 6 A POACHPBx tut Tu/ IVARC - J ( ,N CASC k"' '' N ° FISH | 010
TOUft l?op - i'll TAKE* - . c NO\N tViDENTL-l I tu at v a C ’■'HE FIAO MUST ) TO BE SEEN : CIRCUS TENT R.t .e,- d mF
- TOU ON A umvw ’ FKHED our . . A WATCHKAN’.’ ! HAVE JUST ( 4 | -NATSO —1 ; .VAT he RC '<»- THE
fe ~Y X I- . ! H y NE Jjj -,,X..,r ;. ■ -
l ( ,OCT; ’ \ \su !fc A« NO FtsH < \Wi X L,.
) fAUO IT -\->\ H *7 BtEN CAUGHr Vi B ■ \W>k A
'll ... h—A ' -
ifll >BA . ; I S - J\)— J I - <-AJ- -V \
A” 7«w. \ .a.
f* XL X- k \ <
»wws' : iijb \rr % S£ / A : «-W?'•'ew< > ■ -A
IslUle SuDeet.heCLl i““““Fie S Cl CjVCind FLld copyright, 1912, bylnternation;! Newsservice F'" //TtOK
I ’NKt^mm U |*i!Mr' ; KJ ? L ' WANT T 0 * WAU AN ° US OOIN6 ItT) B (HE HAS HIS r.’ -u 1
I TO PLAT PRETTY MifSR O ,1 KNoZ JZ ’ I <3REAT , | 'TILL HE S>TAIM*> I JELL PAPA WHEN g NATURE TO a DOT'?
'FORTOU- Z -LZ g (1 know you 00' | PROFESSOR DEARIt | (THEN YOU'LL , f iHE COMES HOME' I ho INDEPENDENT' j |
■ " ~U/ ■ ~-'V /— ~n " FV~~ LIKE 11-- ' 5,0 s p ( Aj
T-h I I ttq t ? PQ i/rx lrr\ kY |
,-xl 'T WfqK lv 1W rZi iyz #/yX l/r® ■Yz^r ? >'<®l
I Ait/X ' I IxJk '' 1 ritMrx\( WYmZ ( 4>lrXwQ< \ r <%C|
W -*i X xW
I - y—i , ® l 'V/ ' - -I?—yifr?'Wr -7 ilj
I ’Z’} A V s 1 ■ I WANNA' I | /l WANHA : \~ I /' l/J
i* \PIAY MYMkrx. Jr 2 ,c=j /piAYmy il « Jt i iAS-> A d 111 F
X A^y i<>2j^, V Kirf DRUM' Jr
t^ZQ—'' Y ZZW] ~ " N °' N °' .. ‘y l CrfrY4|
- excellently well, but I have no objection
■ to be explicit. In plain English, Rim
ir.gton, why the mischief are you such an
ass as to choose this place and hour to
' ric(. yourself of Fitzstephen’s ruby—the
Lake of Blood?”
i The blond rushed to Rimington’s face.
You infernal .scoundrel then it was
a trap./that letter <»f yoursJ ‘ lie cried
\H thought <>f prudence, of the need of
caution, fled even Betty and the dangers
that threatened her were forgotten in
' the mud. overwhelming rage that w<4led
l up wi;hin him at the thought of the trap
irdo which he had been betrayed. The
happenings of last night, which a mo-
1 mom since, as he looked at the lithe grey
i l urc leaning against the bridge in the
morning sunlight, had seemed so remote,
like the far-off memories of some incred
ible dream, returned to him now with t<
two-fold force The old hou«e with its
hundred clock <, the suddenly darkened
room m hero ho had seemed to starnl .i
target for a thousand unseen watching
uses, the hideous terror of that moment
when lie trodden on Betty's cloak and.
feehng it soft and yielding beneath his
feet, had dreaded
“Tx>ok here!”
Saxe’s voi< e. charged with a new note,
no longer the lazy quoting voice of the
drearner looking over the river, the mock
ing voice of the man probing mercilessly
for a secret, but brisk, incisive the voice
that many times had rallies] the broken
ranks of dissatisfied shareholders at Can
non Street hotel meetings pierced
through the mists of Rhnington’s
thoughts
An Indignant Denial.
“That isn’t true.” it said. “I laid no
trap for you you and I have both been
THE A TLA VTA <1EOI?(;1AX AXD NEWS. MONDAY. .TUNE 10. 1912
i the victims of most unhappj circum
■ stances. Oh, I know what you are think
i ing for Rimington had interrupted with
> an impatient exclamation “and .up to a
! certain point your thoughts were just.
But for those circumstances I should very
certainly have been, if not your enemy at
i least, not your friend I don’t profess to
any amazing magnanimity concerning
you why should I? You beat me at the
only game I »*ver really care to win—the
game of love. Yet, for all that, those
circumstances have transformed me in
evitably from your enemy into your ally.”
He paused an<l looked at Rimington,
his eyes alight with that in Ward fire that
r iade their darkness amber.
“There is no need for you to fence or
; arry with me. 'he said “We stand now
on the same side of tire tape. We stand
on tlr* common ground of our love tor one
v omau. A few minutes ago, when I
touched your shoulder -what did you
think? That the law had stretched out
its arm with a noose of circumstantial
evidence ready for your neck. But it's
not for yourself that you've got to be
afraid, Rimington It’s not after you
that the tentacles of the law are groping
in the darkness. It is after the woman
who was at Tempest street the night
Fitzstephen died. The woman that at
present you and I know to have been
I’etty Lumsden ”
The Unanswered Question.
For a moment Rimington stood speech
less. Saxe met Iris bewildered eyes with a
commiserating glance.
“A regular knock down blow. Isn’t it?”
tie said. “But we have got to face it.
The police have got wind of the fact that
there was a woman in the house they are <
«
keeping their knowledge dark but 1 hap
pen to know that is the case. The busi
ness before us is to see that they get not
so much as a hint of that woman's iden
tity.”
Rimington found his voice at last.
Saxe looked surprised. “Naturally,
considering that it was to see me that
Miss Lumsden came to the place," he
said. “Oh, it’s the deuce of a business,”
he continued, in a worried voice. “I’d
give my right hand that the thing had
never happened.
“I d be glad io know what did happen,”
Rimington said quietlx . “I am somewhat
in the dark.”
“I beg your pardon: I forgot that you
were on one side of the matter,” Saxe
said, with that un-Hnglish politeness of
his that seemed oddly out of place at
such a moment. “It was this way, Miss
Lumsden telephoned to me in the morn
ing. asking my help in a matter of busi
ness. As it was very urgent business,
and as, owing to other engagements that
could not possibly be postponed I could
not see her until a late hour in the even
ing, I suggested her coming to Tempest
street, where I have rooms.”
“You asked Miss Lumsden to visit you
at a late hour in your rooms those rooms
of which no mention was made in the
newspaper account of the murder I read
this morning." For the life of him Rim
ington could not have held back the angry
interruption that rose to his lips. “You
are making very extraordinary state
ments, Mr. Saxe."
Saxe shrugged his shoulders.
"Oh, don’t adopt that tone." he said.
"You are not an ass. Rimington. I know
that: hut you are talking perilously like
one Does* a drowning woman wait for
.. ;
an introduction to her rescuer before she
permits him to fiull her out of the water?
Miss Lumsden was in very great trouble
and I was anxious to help her. I did
not stop to think of conventions."
“You realized, in fact, that favor-seek
ers can not be choosers,” Rimington said,
bitterly. The mists were beginning tn
clear a little from his mind. He imag
ined that he dimly apprehended something
of the situation.
Saxe’s eyes narrowed under their heav
ily fringed lids.
“I do not intend to take offense," he
said, "but if it were not that I need your
help to extricate Miss Lumsden from her
unfortunate position, it would give me
Pleasure to cool your impudence a little
by pitching you in the river."
There was nothing of bravado in tone
or manner, even the lazy inflection of the
voice was unchanged: but Klminglon for
all of his hatred of the man. for all of
the uneasy contempt that an English
man feels for the pianos mixed blood,
was conscious that Saxe made no threat
that he was incapable of fulfilling. Just
as beneath that suave, smiling exterior
one glimpsed a suggestion of fierce power
ready to break into flame, so I ■ math
that golden tinted ■‘kin one seemed to
see the ripple of perfectly trained mus
cles. hard and strong as steel.
"But I do not need your help." he said.
“1 need your version of what happened
in the house last night to supplement inv
own knowledge. I am at present in the
pi sitlon >f knowing nothing whatever of .
what happened after Miss Lumsden left
the house."
“Ho you know what happened before
it?" Rimington put in sharply.
"Yes; there had been a scene. Fitz
stephen, into whose room the fool of a
housekeeper had shown her, instead of
mine, had made himself obnoxious, and
Miss Betty had been upset. But it was
only a trifle - the matter of a moment.
She was comparatively all right, whet} I
said good by to her a quarter of an hour
later, and put her into a taxicab in the
corner of the square out of which Temp
est street opens. What absolutely baf
fles me beyond the wildest conjecture is
why she came back.”
“Came back?” What d’you mean?"
Rimington was startled in spite of him
self.
“Simply this —that Miss Lumsden must
have dismissed the cab before it had gone I
a hundred yards and slipped back into the
house. She was there when you entered
it, wasn’t she?”
“Yes.” Rimington was so ttaken aback
that almost before he was aware of it the
admission had slipped from him.
Saxe’s eyes gleamed for a moment.
“Yes, 'but why? That’s what we must
find out before a single step can be taken.
There is something sinister behind it
something confoundedly mysterious that
absolutel.x liaftles me; for the extraordi
nary thing of it all is that Fitzstephen
and she were not strangers."
He paused and looked at Rimingion.
"Miss Betty and that unsavory brute!”
he said, with an accent of sick disgust.
"What can Lite connection between them
be? It’s like a mine in the path -one
dares not take a step lest some devastat
ing explosion be the result.”
"I can give you the lie direct on that
point, at any rate." Rimington burst "•!.
fiercely. “It is my certain knowledge that
Miss Lumsden knew nothing whatever of
your colleague, Mr. Eitzstephen.”
“Are you so cetrain of that?” Saxe
asked. “Then what is the explanation
you give yourself concerning a certain
precious stone which you found in Miss
Betty’s bag—and why were you so un
commonly anxious to get rid of that ex
traordinarily valuable, if incriminating,
piece of evidence?" He laid his hand on
Rimingtori’s arm and there was some
thing oddly pleading in the move
ment. “Don't persist in treating me as
an enemy," ho said. “Don’t think, as I
see you are thinking, of the breaks in
my story- I can join them all. Every
one of my movements last night was per
fectly straightforward and explicable. I
am quite ready to undergo any cross
examir.ation you may subject me to—but
not here or at this moment. After to
morrow I am at .your service--but today,
and till then, we can not think of our
selves. it is absolutely imperative that
before the inquest on Eitzstephen tomor
row. we should know' from Miss Betty's
own lips the full and true version of the
affair. That she won't give to me. That
is where you come in. 1 want you to go
now. without delay, to AVeybourne and
see Miss Betty, and get her to tell you
the truth."
"But if I refust'?"
“You will not do anything so foolish.
You must realize that if Miss Betty gives
Iter confidence to any one it will be to
you. And you have your own discretion.'’
Continued Tomorrow.