1937-06-25 — Page 32

MURDER IN A POP:

COTTAGE

(Continued from Page 7)

so insufferably, he had also talk- ́ed a great deal about the poetic.

charms of murder.

To be truly poetic, of course, it had to be completely useless and disinterested-an experiment in the macabre, undertaken in the spirit of aesthetic research, At the time it had seemed just the sort of blague one would expect from Eliot. Now-

He took himself firmly in hand. He was doing the one thing he must never do-form a theory

and try to fit the facts to it, in- stead of letting the theory evolve naturally from the facts. He de- cided to think of Catherine Severn.

It struck him that she had never answered his idle question as to whether there had been a picnic on the day of Blaber's death. Could she was it possible that she was afraid for Eliot?

At Dorchester he picked up the man who had driven Eliot from the station. He had driven him to a register office. No, had not waited. Orme drove there. Under the appropriate date he found the record of a marriage between Michael Nicholls Eliot and Catherine Severn.

As he came out, feeling very flat, the only thought that oc- curred to him was: "How silly to have hiccoughs because you are going to be married."

That finished that. A man doesn't, unless he is insane, stop on his way to commit a murder to be married. Orme saw Eliot hurrying through the plantation and along the path, struggling with the spasma, desperately meeting his beloved, giving her- between gasps-final instructions and then hurrying on to the junc- tion. By the time he got there he was doubtless cured. She must have gone into Dorchester by the bus.

Orme hoped that the hiccoughs had returned during the cere- mony.

A fortnight later he was re- called. He had made до dis- coveries about the murder. In- deed, he had come to the "con- clusion that there had never been a murder. The doctor, questioned again severely, admitted that it just possible that Blaber was could have shot himself. He stuck to it that he did not be- lieve the pig-dealer had done any such thing. Privately, Orme thought him an opinionated fool. He was in a thoroughly bad tem- per. He had wasted three weeks, been made to look a complete fool, all for a revolting old wretch who ́had died a natural and certainly

merited death. Angrily he flung: his things into his suit-case and prepared to leave the place where he had been so humiliated.

He was just going when they sent to tell him that J. Blaber's heir had been discovered at Fal- mouth. A nephew, who said that so far as he knew he was the dead man's only relative. Orme went back to the inn and scrib-. bled a note to Catherine Severn. She was in the park when it

came, with Michael Eliot, but one of her many allies this one was the gardener's son-brought it out to her. She decided that Michael must take the news to Sir Thomas himself as if he had just learned it in the village. In the state of pleasurable excite- ment that would follow the ran- nouncement, Sir Thomas would

THE CHINA MAIL FRIDAY, SUPPLEMENT, JUNE 25, 1937-

By J. Millar Watt

DON'T YOU SWEAR

BEFORE ME,

ALL RIGHT—

GO AHEAD

( 1934, by Bell Syndicate)

consent to anything, even to the marriage of his only niece with a penniless Foreign Office clerk.

"I'm not quite penniless, darl- ing," Eliot protested..

"No. But you only have enough to buy those very suede gloves you wear in London and nothing over to buy me hats and frocks, not to speak of all the other things your wife will need if she is even to be noticed in the same room with yourself. Don't you want people to notice me?”

Eliot. "Only me. "No," said I'm glad the sleuth has gone. He was always looking at you."

"I thought him rather a nice man," Catherine said.

"He's a fool.”

They walked back to the Hall, and Eliot took the news to Sir Thomas in his library. Sir Thomas was delighted. His fine, sensitive face softened as he lis- -tened.

“A nephew, you said?” "Yes, sir,"

"Young, I daresay ?”

"I suppose he will be," Eliot murmured.

"

“He won't want to stay here any longer than he can help," Sir Thomas said meditatively. "All that money. He'll want to begin spending some of it at once.

I shall get Nicholson to make him an offer. I shan't appear in the matter myself. - There's no rea- son why I should pay more for the wretched place than I need, If he thinks some villager is buy- ing it. He turned to his niece "You're not saying anything, Cat.

I was thinking how nice it would be if you and I and Michael were always friendly and happy together like this," Catherine said wistfully.

Sir Thomas dooked surprised. "Well "*

"Darling, I can't not tell you, Catherine cried. She jumped up and ran towards him with a care- fully calculated air of love and shyness. “I'm so happy, And

you're the only person in the

world I want to know about it. PEPPER AND SALT.

Michael and I are married. - We were married a fortnight ago. The very day that poor man was shot."

..

"The very day," Sir Thomas be-

gan.

"Must have walked past the cottage at the very moment,” Eliot interrupted in a gentle voice.

Sir Thomas Severn's face had darkened. It cleared again sud- denly. He spuled at Eis niece. "What am I to say?" he asked.

"Say you love me just a little,” Catherine murmured.

During the following week Sir Thomas said more than that. He made a settlement on the young couple which was generous rather than merely adequate. He gave Eliot two boxes of his special cigars-and a great deal of advice, both of which the young man ac- cepted with a perfect courtesy. Then he sent them off in the sec- ond car to spend the last week of Eliot's leave honeymooning in London.

っ

The day they left was the day J. Blaber's nephew and heir: ar- rived in the village. After din- ner Sir Thomas strolled through the warm scented dusk to the plantation behind Blaber's„cot- tage. He went by a way known only to himself When he reach- ed it he saw a young man with red hair and large red hands superintending the removal to the cottage from a cart of mone pieces of dilapidated furniture. Sir Thomas watched him for a few moments, with a chill slowly freezing his heart. The young like the late un- was very

opt that he

nt to look...

would live

he pig- dealer had been

At - last.... Sir Thomas, spoke. You must be. Mr. Blaber's nep- ew" he said in quiet voice.

young ma

And he wa

ata" me,

Problem

I have. a fine collection of books but no bookcases. No one seems to lend me bookcases.

Matter Of Habit

A Johannesburg man was fined for assaulting a neighbour on five successive nights. His trou-- ble is that he's getting into a rut.

It's A Gift

A local golfer says: that he practises for five hours every Most day, roughly speaking. golfers don't need to practise that kind of language.

One Better

A lion-tamer says a is often scared stiff of Why, that's nothing. wife.

No Change

lion

a mouse.

So's my

Before they're married he spends his money on her; after they're married she spends his money on her:"

said. He was evidently labour- ing under an intense though in- articulate excitement.

"I should have. thought you'd, want to sell the place."

“Sell it? Me? I should well think not. Why, ever since I see this place once when I was a kid I've had a mind to it.” His voice cracked in triumph. “I shall live ere and live 'ere and live 'ere.

All my life.” .

• Sir Thomas went slowly back." The night scents of his garden rose round him: The white front of his house glimmered ghostly against [the wine-dark sky. Toe committed perfectly - murder,”-- he said to himself gently.

Sir.

It had not, however, been - less. Only useless to Thomas; who had had all the trouble.