Towyn-on-Sea and Merioneth County Times

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. FOR HEART Oli CONSCIENCE ? By GEORGE GRIFFITH, Author of "A Criminal Croesus," "The World Masters," Brothers of the Chain," An Angel of the Revolution," &c., &e. COPYRIGHT. SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. PROLOGUE, AND CHAPTERS 1. AND II.— Kenneth Markham, a young barrister of probity and promise, secures the acquittal of Lord Over- bury, chairman of a ruined limited company. He is congratulated by Nevill Jarvis, his sweetheart, Mercia Reynolds, his sister Kate, and her lover, Jolin Eckersley. On his way to his chambers Kenneth hears of the reported suicide of his father. He is shocked, and at first stunned by the news, then he drives out to the family resi- dence at Wimbledon. There he finds his father still alive, but sinking from heart failure. Ken- neth fears the worst, but hopes to remove the burden of shame which would appear to darken his father's last hours. CHAPTERS III. & IV.—Mr Markham insists on Kenneth drawing up a will, which with him- self and Lord Overbury as trustees, distributes the testator's private fortune among the poorer shareholders of the ruined companies. Kenneth agrees, although it leaves his mother, his sister, and himself penniless. He has just finished drafting the document when he is peremptorily summoned to his father's bedside. The old man is dying. He makes an effort to sign the will, but before he can do so he falls back dead At the office of Redman, Cookson and Co.'s Private Enquiry Agency the two partners are discussing the Markham affair with Mr Henry Montague, & rich Jew, and Mr Alfred Ashford, a social parasite. From their conversation it would appear that they had conspired to make Lord Overbury the scapegoat for the crash of a group of bogus companies. Kenneth Markham's as- tuteness and integrity of purpose had, however, balked their purpose, and they vow vengeance. They next turn their attention to a plan for se- curing the private fortune of the late Mr Mark- ham. Redman coolly asks Ashford to forge the dead man's signature to a policy of underwrit- ing. Ashford is reluctantly compelled to con- sent. CHAPTERS V. & VI.—On the day after Mr Markham's death a sort of family council, in- cluding Lord Overbury, Sir Edward Stanhope, the family solicitor, and Dr Harding, assembled to consider the provision of the dead man's will or wills. Kenneth and his mother and sister, contrary to the counsel of their advisers decide that the last will and testament, al though unsigned and legally invalid, shall be carried out, and this, although it deprives them at one sweep, of a million sterling. Finally the first will is proved, but Kenneth publishes his intention of acting on the second. During the Itternoon of the same day a dissipated looking fsan of military bearing meets an attractive f ang widow, who greets him as Captain Evers- fey. He tells her that he has succeeded to the title, and is Sir Arthur now. The fair widow, Mrs Lilias Elsley and her aunt and chaperon, Miss Holroyd, invite Sir Arthur to dine with them that eveuing. CHAPTERS VII. & VIII.-Sir Arthur Evers- ley eagerly accepts the opportunity of renewing his acquaintance with his first love, from whom a freak of fortune had separated him. He finds Mrs Elsley kind and even affectionate, but when he presses her to marry himslie shows great reluctance to do so on account of his health, shattered by disease and drugs. Pressed still further, she consents to try and nurso him back to health firset, and marry him afterwards. CHAPTER IX.—A WILL AND A WAY. Look here, Ashford, it stands to reason that you must be in this game, or you would have kicked hard before now. Under the circum- stances I must say that I have a sort of right to know." My dear Redman, to put matters quite plain- ly you have no right whatever to interfere in a purely family matter such as this is." "Oh, haven't I?" replied Mr Walter Redman, lying back in his chair and looking up at the ceiling of his dining room in Russell Mansions, W.C. Surely you haven't forgotten— "No, my dear chap, I've not forgotten; one doesn't forget the kind of thing that you were going to allude to, but I've learnt something since I was fool enough to-well, manufacture that policy of underwriting which of all the idiotic contrivances was about the most unspeak- ably ridiculous that a really good business man like yourself ever got mad enough to think about." "You may be right or wrong," said Mr Red- man, bringing his teeth together with a snap, but you mustn't forget that that piece of paper and certain others are still in existence." There isn't the slightest necessity to remind me of that, my » Vllow," replied Ashford, thrusting his hands i o his trousers pocket? and spreading his legs ''Is a;-art. "I know that they exist, r-d tha- i fortnight or o agr they did give you certain amount of lc:J over me." "A hold that is still strong enough, meta- phorically speaking, to take you by the neck, and run you into the nearest police station, on a charge, or rather two or three charges, of for- gery which would be quite good enough to get you a sentence of seven of the best years you'll ever see." "Bosh." "Eh?" Don't you know, you, one of the most sue- cessful and therefore I might say the most un- scrupulous private detectives in London, that the offence of compounding a felony is consider- ed by English law to be about as bad as com- mittinf1: the felony itself?" I'm afraid I don't quite take your meaning, "Rubbish, my dear Redman; you can't blufT me like that; you ought to know me better. Let me put the thing into plain figures and show you exactly where we stand." "As you seem to have an idea. that we don't stand exactly where we did," replied the other angrily, perhaps it would be as well if you ex- plained matters a bit more clearly. Personally I don't like conundrums in business, and for the last two or three minutes, you've practically been asking me, when is a forgery not a forg- ery?" I can answer that at once," laughed Ashford. It's when the other fellow daren't prosecute you for it. See?" "Not at present," said Mr Redman, taking a fresh cigar out of his case, "and so it may be as well if you'll be good enough to shed the light of your superior intelligence upon my own men- tal darkness." He spoke with a slowness and deliberation which constituted a somewhat bad mistake for such a clever man as he was, because Ashford knew at once that he was afraid of something, that he recognised him now not as a man who was at his mercy, but as one who might possibly be an enemy, and that was the last thing he ought to have done with such an unprincipled scoundrel as he knew his guest to be. My dear Redman, I'm surprised that you with all your undoubted ability and proved ex- perience should not have seen how completely the position has changed during the last fort- night. In the first place this fellow Markham has bowled us clean out, and you know as well as I do that there isn't a member of the firm who dare produce that policy of underwriting in open Court. If we did he would have us by the hair in a moment." I must confess that I don't at all see how that affects me," said Mr Redman, after a few moments' contemplation of the end of his cigar. Just you let me get the secondly, as the par- sons say, before you interrupt, my dear chap," laughed Ashford with a carelessness which was not at .all pleasant to the senior partner of Red- man and Company. As I was going to say, the publication of that unsigned will has knock- ed the ground from under our feet. After all, there are such things as justice and equity as well as law in this country, and, what is per- haps more to the point, is the fact that your re- spected colleagues in this business are not above taking their price." What the deuce do you mean, and for good- ness sake drop that nonsense and come to the loint whatever it is." "Just arriving at it," replied Ashford, with xasperating slowness, only you will keep in- errupting a fellow so. You see that Kenneth larkham with his infernal honesty, or as I suppose you'd call it unbusinesslike methods as sacrificed the whole of his father's private 'ortune to liquidate the debts of these companies "hich you and others knew a good deal more bout than the late lamented Markham senior lid, wherefore the document which you in the presence of witnesses, asked me to manufacture s as useless to us collectively as it is to you ndividually—I mean as a personal hold over myself." "We can very soon see about that," replied Redman with a snarl. You shall see about it at once, my dear fel- ow," laughed Ashford. "You have asked me to enlighten your darkness, and I will. You know, of course, that my respected, if some- vhat debilitated, cousin, Sir Arthur Eversley, has placed himself in the care of the fair Lilias and her aunt, and that he's going through a oort of alcoholic drug cure in that house up at Hampstead which they took so suddenly under she advice of Doctor Edward Matthews; but what you don't know is that last night he signed a will leaving everything that he possesses to the fair Lilias, in case he dies unmarried. If he doesn't he will marry Lilias, which will come to about the same thing." Good Lord, you don't mean that!" "I do, and what is more I want to tell you that I shall benefit to such an extent under the arrangement—you know there's forty thousand a year and about half a million's worth of real estate, houses, furniture, pictures, family jewels, and so on, that I could buy your respected part- ners over your head. That's the situation. Now perhaps you will begin to see how ridiculous you would look if you prosecuted mÐ for forgery, and had to appear in the dock beside me charg- ed with compounding a felony and convicted, as you would be, on the evidence of your own part- ners and managing clerk, who would have no ;cruples about turning King's evidence for an idequate consideration, of conspiring to defraud -he shareholders in. the Markham companies by neans of a forged document. How does that trike you, my dear Redman?" If you're telling the truth, it strikes pretty lard," replied Mr Redman, after a couple of urns up and down the room, but the weak ink in your chain of argument, if you'll excuse ne putting it so, is the fair Lilias herself. How loes she propose to render herself eligible for matrimony?" You may take it from me that she won't trouble to do that," replied Ashford, stretching his arms up over his head, a judiciously ar- ranged funeral would be very much less trouble than a wedding, which might lead to awkward complications later on." Exactly. I quite see the situation now, but I don't quite see where its particular interest to myself lies." When that will is proved and I give you a pheque for five thousand pounds in exchange for those slips of paper- "Oh yes, of course, if you like to put it that way my dear fellow- "That is the way I propose to put it. Do you igree?" Yes, certainly, granted always that the fair Lilias gets the will proved." CHAPTER X.-AT HAMPSTEAD. The house at Hampstead to which Sir Arthur Eversley had transferred himself on the advice of Dr Edward Mathews, and in which to the utter, but helpless disgust of his heirs-at-law, he was being nursed by Mrs Lilias Elsley under the supervision of her aunt, was quite an ideal gort of private sanatorium. It was a double- fronted house of three stories facing the Heath, and the whole of the first floor had been arrang- ed for the use and comfort of the distinguished patient. Dr Mathews, the owner of the house, was one of those members of the medical profession who have discovered the fact that it pays a great deal better to take charge of a few special cases who pay their fees promptly and certainly, than to carry on a general practice in which a man working hard day and night thinks himself lucky if he gets seventy-five pounds cash out of every hundred that he has earned. Doctor Mathews made a speciality of diseases resulting from over-indulgence in alcohol and drugs, and in Sir Arthur Eversley he had found a patient who was satisfactory from every point of view. Some specialists might have objected to the nursing arrangements which Mrs Elsley proposed, but he didn't. Her beauty, her charm of manner, and the arguments which she was able to make use of, proved entirely convincing to him, so much so indeed, that he was quite content to accept the nominal position of medi- cal adviser, who, in the event of anything seri- ous happening, could sign a death certificate, and leave the management of the case to Mrs Elsley and her aunt. He had also had an inter- view with the Honourable Alfred Ashworth be- fore taking charge of the case which had satis- fied him that he would make a very handsome profit by using his professional position to legal- ise what was to all intents and purposes a de- liberately planned, and carefully thought out, act of murder. He had made a very careful examination of his patient, and he had arrived at an entirely accurate opinion as to his condition. To begin with there had been malarial fever which had left its inevitable and incurable consequences behind it. Then had come a rather severe at- tack of heat apoplexy which is commonly known as sunstroke, although it occurs more commonly in a heated atmosphere under clouded skies. After this the usual results had followed-a weakening of will power and self control, a craving for stimulants and for drugs to counter- act their effects, loss of appetite, and general mental and physical debility. Doctor Mathews after lie had made his first examination expressed what in a certain sense were really his convictions, very clearly to Mrs Elsley and her aunt. I have no fear, my dear ladies," he said on the evening of the-day on which his patient had been installed in his new quarters, of making a complete cure provided always that proper precautions are taken. The constitution has been enfeebled to some extent by disease. Ma- larial fever always leaves behind it certain after effects which are practically incurable, but which with core can be to a very great extent suppressed, but, of course, Sir Arthur's case is made much more serious by the unfortunate supervention of what is commonly called sun- stroke on the malaria. That is mainly respon- sible for the unhappy tendency towards alcohol and drugs which is, of course, the worst symp- tom of our distinguished patient's case." Yes," murmured Miss Holroyd, "it is really very sad, very sad indeed that a man with such a record as Sir Arthur has, should be afflicted with such a terrible failing." Of course it is, aunt," added Lilias, but that's just the work that we-ve got to do under Doctor Mathews' direction, and if a cure is pos- sible As she looked at the doctor with a smile on her lips and a note of interrogation in each of her eyes, he took the hint and said in his best professional manner My dear Mrs Elsley, I do not think you need have any fear on that score. It is not so much a matter of medicine as of treatment, in other words, you as nurse can do a great deal more than I can as doctor. I need hardly remind you great care will have to be exercised in. the gradual reduction of the quantities of alcohol and morphia which Sir Arthur is permitted to take. In some cases we find it advisable to stop everything at once, but in such a case as his complicated with disease the shock to the sys- tem would be too great to be risked." I quite see what you mean," said Lilias. "Just a little less spirits every day until we get down to none and meanwhile light wines to take their place, and at night less chloral and morphia gradually until Sir Arthur is able to sleep without them." My dear madam," said Doctor Maathews, smiling and rubbing his hands softly together, I think that Sir Arthur Eversley is doubly fortunate in finding such a friend and such a nurse as yourself. You have described the situ- ation exactly, and all that you have left for me to do is just to prescribe my tonics which will gradually take the place of and diminish the desire for the drugs and stimulants. There is, however, one point which it is my duty to men- tion because it is a very important one." "And that is, Doctor?" murmured Lilias again, with the note of interrogation in her eyes. It is this," replied the specialist, speaking slowly and seriously. The medicine which I shall prescribe will increase in strength as the desire for stimulant and drugs and decreases, and it is most important, in fact I may say es- sential, that the quantities taken be very care- fully observed." Oh, I think you can rely upon our doing everything in that way that is necessary, Doc- tor," said Miss Holroyd a little stiffly. "Sir Arthur's is, of course, a most valuable life, and as you know already that my niece has refused to marry him until your cure has proved suc- cessful, naturally every care and attention that we can give-" My dear Miss Holroyd," said the doctor, as she paused, there cannot be the slightest ques- tion as to that. What I was about to tell you is a purely professional matter which you ladies could not be expected to know. It is this. As I have just said, the medicines which I shall prescribe will as it were replace the effects of drugs and stimulants in the constitution of our patient, and I need hardly say that the reme- dies which I shall have to employ will be some- what potent, and therefore any mistake might have very serious consequences." "Ah, yes," said Lilias, looking round at him again; we shall have to be very careful about the doses as the treatment goes on." It is not only that, my dear Mrs Elsley. The one danger is what I may perhaps call a fight between the remedy and the causes of the disease with our patient's constitution as battle- ground. If, for instance, it happens that after our treatment had proceeded for three or four days, Sir Arthur by any mischance obtained access to a supply of morphia or chloral and gave himself a dose that he thought he wanted, the consequences would be almost certainly fa- tal, and therefore I shall have to ask you to ex- ercise the greatest care and attention in this re- spect." "Quite so, doctor," said Lilias, rising from her chair. That is a thing which I should never have thought of, and so both my aunt and myself are very much obliged to you for mentioning it. We are to understand then that as the strength of your prescriptions is increas- ed, alcohol and drugs are to be decreased, and that we must be very particular that Sir Artnur does not-well I don't think there's any danger of that. He nas promised me that he will do everything he can to help to us follow out the treatment faithfully, and I'm quite sure that if he had anything dangerous within reach he would remember his promise and not do any- thing foolish." My dear madam," replied Dr Mathews, put- ting out his hand, allow me to warn you not to be too sure. One of the gravest symptoms from which Sir Arthur Eversley is unfortunately suffering is the loss of will power and the sense of responsibility. You have no idea of the ter- rible temptation, the practically irresistible temptation, I may say, which alcohol or drugs present to a man or woman in his condition, especially during the critical stage of treat- ment. \Vhen the craving comes on, there is nothing that the victim of alcohol and drugs will not do to satisfy it if the means are within reach. For the time being everything is for- gotten except the craving and the possible re- lief. But I'm sure that until he is cured, you ladies will be both will and conscience to Sir Arthur. Your care will guard him, and your strength will replace his temporary weakness. From what I have seen and heard to-day I am quite sure that he could not possibly be in bet- ter hands. Now I have a case to see, and I must be off. Don't worry about me, I will come in by the side door and I shall have had supper. Good-night, Miss Holroyd. Good-night, Mrs Elsley." When he got into his own sanctum he lit a cigar and helped himself to a generous whiskey and soda. Then he went out, and as he walked down the road he puffed thoughtfully at his cigar and said to himself Well, my dear Sir Arthur, if those good ladies really mean to put an end to your suffer- ings and your somewhat useless life, I'm afraid that I have pointed out to them the most inno- cent way of doing it. Still, a thousand pounds for a few days' medical attention is not bad pay. You, I daresay, would give me ten thous- and for saving your life; but unfortunately I'm not in a position to treat with you, and so I'm afraid I shall have to leave your fate in the hands of Mrs Lifias Elsley. Good heavens, what a perfectly lovely woman she is If I were un- der thirty I think I would rather be nursed and killed by her than nursed and saved by anyone else, and yet she doesn't seem to have any more sense of compassion than a crocodile." I don't see any reason why it shouldn't be done at once if we have really made up our minds to do it," said Lilias to her aunt after the doctor had left the room, and she had closed the door behind him. Everything is settled and—well, it seems as though we were keeping the poor man in misery longer than is neces- sary. I've got the tabloids and I don't see why he shouldn't find them and the syringe to-night as well as any later. Suppose you go up and give him a dose of his new medicine now—a good dose, and then I'll relieve the nurse for an hour or so about eleven." Lilias," replied Miss Holroyd, rising some- ,what heavily from her chair. "You are my own sister's daughter, and therefore to some ex- tent you have my blood in your veins, and so, perhaps, I have the right to say that you are not only the most beautiful girl I have ever seen, but also the most callously wicked that I have ever heard of." "Wicked, my dear aunt?" Lilias laughed with smiling lips and dancing eyes, surely after the experiences of the last four or five years it isn't necessary for me to tell you that there is no such thing as good or evil in the world: it is merely.a matter of expediency. Now we won't argue the question any farther, just go up and give Sir Arthur his medicine and tell the nurse that I shall be up about eleven. I've got one or two letters to write and something to think about." Yes, Lilias, I daresay you have," said Miss Holroyd with just a suspicion of a sniff as she walked towards the door. I am beginning to feel very sorry that I allowed myself to be drawn into this business at all. What on earth would become of us if-well, if anything hap- pened?" You mean if we got found out," laughed Lilias again. Well, you know you can't make amelettes without breaking eggs, and that is one of the risks we've got to take, and when everything is settled as I feel sure it will be, and you also find yourself comfortably settled in a nice little flat and a thousand a year, and no anxieties as to the future, I think you will agree with me that the risks, such as they are, were worth taking, and as they have got to be taken-- Thank you, Lilias, that's quite enough," re- plied Miss Holroyd as she stood with her hand on the knob of the door, it is a pity that a woman like you should have been made so beau- tiful, and that the Fates, or whatever they are, forgot to put a soul in you. Still that can't be helped now, I suppose, and so I will go and give Sir Arthur his medicine." "Wicked, wicked," laughed Lilias softly to herself, as her aunt closed the door on the other side, yes, I suppose it is in a certain sense. For instance, Mr Kenneth Markham would think it very wicked indeed, but then he has such absurdly virtuous ideas. Still from my point of view, it is a matter of necessity, and what is necessary has to be done. If any trouble—-serious trouble--arises from this, I wonder if I shall be able to persuade him that my cause is such a just one that he will feel that in the interests of justice he is compelled to undertake it. nat a handsome fellow he is, and how brilliant. Ah, if I could only marry a man like that !—and what a very funny world it is [To BE CONTINTJBD.]