1938-10-28 — Page 13

DRAFTURI

CHINA

MAIL

FRIDAY SUPPLEMENT, OCTOBER 20, 1918 22

Tuscussion arose about coinci-

THE other night at dinner a £f

“ORIME WEARS A CORONET”

dence. Diana Beverley main- tained that coincidonces happen so often in real life that one hardly thinks twice about them.

"Do you remember the time we met on the canal boat going to Bruges?" she said to me,, "Of all the strange places for us to meet that was the strangest.".

"Yes, it's odd," mused Roderick, "Yet no self-respecting writer nowadays would make his hinge on a coincidence. overdone."

plot Too

"A pity," I added, "Because coincidence does give a spice to life. In fact, I'd wager a fiver that more than one criminal ́has been brought to justice by it."

indefinable

And then, in that way all conversation has, the topic changed; in this case, to crime. Diana was insistent that neither the criminal nor the murderer is mad. Roderick, that fat, good- natured husband of hers, took a more humane view.

"Don't you believe it, my dear; as time goes on it'll be proved

lot of blackguards out of goal. And when money fails there's al- ways influence."

Both of then looked slightly startled out of their complacent, upper class calm.

Roderick's eyebrows were raised slightly as he murmured-

"Bribery, do you mean? Non- sense, my boy, nonsense!"

"Perhaps not bribery," I re- plied, "But something approach- ing it. Anyway I'll tell you the story of George Bentley, and you can judge for yourselves. Of the course, I don't suppose all details are right. Most of them are hearsay and so on, but pieced together they form a pretty for- midable whole.”

I sipped a little of Roderick's old brandy and began.

"George Bentley's attitude to- wards life was summed up in his

Short

beyond all shadow of doubt that Story

criminals, and murderers too, are suffering from some glandular deficiency or from a disease of the brain,"

This was a long speech for Ro- derick, who looked almost em- barrassed as he finished. I gazed across the flowerladen table at Diana. Her forbidding, but dis- tinguished, face, with its thin features and deep-set, glowing eyes, bore a frown of disagree ment. With true feminine - in- consequence she wandered from the point.

are,

"My dear Roderick, you quite wrong. Crime is the out- come of environment-overcrowd- ing and slum conditions. criminal mentality is invariably found in the lower classes.”

The

I glanced at the pale wax candles in their silver

sconces.

The atmosphere was cosy and in- timate; just the three of us finish- ing an exquisite meal.

Roderick

had always prided himself

keeping a good table.

on

It was at

a

this juncture that I created mild sensation by announcing that they more crimes than many supposed were committed by members of our own.class.

"What do you mean?” Diana seemed quite startled.

I hesitated, and then Roderick, looking every inch what he was -a foxhunting peer, barked out

"That's rather a sweeping state- ment, old boy. Explain what you mean,"

behef that the world was peopled by fools. He came into the title fairly early, and his uncle Rupert, I'll call him-used to say: 'If you had the least grain of self- respect or decency you'd live on you income or earn money instead of victimising and windling others." George's response was always the same: 'If people are .so foolish as to allow themselves to be victimised and swindled it's their own affair. They're sillier,

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master was involved in a blood- curdling scene with the girl's mother, Uncle Rupert was sentTM for and George was kicked out. But,” I added significantly. “It was politely described as being removed.'"

"You mean

"Diana began.

court But in all-well,

"I mean that a boy of another class would have been in for indecent assault. George's case it was husbed up."

"What a revolting little beast." murmured irrelevantly.

"In a way, yes.

The curious thing is that he didn't appear a revolting little beast. In fact, he became very popular-parti- cularly with women."

"H'm, women are always taken in by wrong" "uns,” announced Roderick, "I remember Reter" "Hush, Roderick," Diana inter-

By Maboth

Moseley

rupted, turning to me, "Dồ go on."

**

“Well," I said, feeling rather sorry for Roderick, "George was sent to a crammer, who specialis ed in coaching backward and licate boys. After school, comparative freedom of the place went to his head. He had a car by this time, and scoured the countryside on secret missions of his own doubtless not unconnect-

and women.“

ed with 't take Uncle

"Of course,

than grown ups have any right. Rupert long to

to be.'

"He was very cold-blooded about He it all-even about himself. .admitted frankly that he was con- sumed by vanity, had an irresis- tible craving for excitement and was a constitutional idler.

"At school his career was hope- less. Yet even in those days he seemed to háve“ án textřáor- dinary power of making people He'd only to do as he wanted.

or

someone

act a bit Bay he was tired, depressed or ill, and would be certain to help him out of a scrape or do his prep, for him.

"One of his escapades was to get into difficulties over

pettings so he got special leave to go up to London and borrowed a friend's motor cycle for the purpose. · He sold it to a rather shady dealer for $15.

"On his return there was a ter- rible row, but the owner of the cycle promised not to split to the authorities. George fully in- tended to repay the money, but on getting it from his uncle heard of.

dead certainty, so he put on the whole amount and, of course, lost ita

I waited, whilst the butler filled up our glasses and retired from the room. I decided that there could be no harm in telling them the story of Rollo K. But I didn't use that name, which is his real one. I called him... George Bentley. Diana and Roderick are as trustworthy as most people, I suppose, but there was enough in my tale to hang Rollo. And,

came to an abrupt scoundrel though he is, I didn't clusion. He tried to seduce particularly want to be the means shop assistant. She was pretty, of sending him to the scaffold. but frivolous and flattered by his

"Well," I began, ““What you

attentions. However, one day, don't take into consideration, is

in a place strictly out of bounds, the lack of money in the lower

he went just a little too far. The classes. Money covers a multi-girl rushed home, shrielding and

tude of sins. It buys off people

who know too min up scandals.

16 hushës zeeps quite

career after this, George's

con-

sobbing that she'd been attacked - The Upanty thứ thiết thể hơn. by a monster.

realise that it was quite useless trying to get him into the army or, indeed, into any profession. He'd just made his mind up not to work.

"Soon after this, he became his own master. He had the great- est success.

A personable, titled batchelor even if he's poor as a church mouse-was always cer- tain of success in London society. "But George soon tired of the routine. Free dinners, dances, and cocktail parties began to pall. He wearied of the debutante men- tality, the naive striving after sophistication. He was out for bigger game. Besides, he wanted money without the bother having to marry for it.

Time enough for marriage, he thought, when he'd had his fling.

VRAS

of

“So he started off by making love to the wife of a millionaire. Having compromised her thoroughly he proceeded to get thousands of pounds out of her. Eventually, even she couldn't go on, whereupon George forged a cheque of her husband's.

"When it was discovered George made the wife take: the, responsi- bllity, under threat of exposure of her infidelity. She must-have been a very silly woman, for she agreed. Of course, George's per- suasive powers were always mir- aculous.

"He now decided that things had got a little too warm'în that quarter, so turned his attentions elsewhere. But he struck a bad patch at racing, and was soon in the soup again. Several firms pro- were threatening to start ceedings against him for giving worthless cheques, and Uncle Rupert had to be called in.

"It was then that the Continent, or rather some of the people upon it-Americans and rich indus- trialište

profitable

source of income for quite a long time, until one or two of them, feeling that they hadn't quite got turned their money's', wo rather nasty.

“Again, Uncle Rupert had to be called in, and since money had lost the power of talking (after all, Uncle Rupert was compara- tively poor and George's victims had wealth beyond the dreams of avarice) influence had to be ex- ercised.

To

"Well, influence worked. those who had accused George of deliberate stealing Uncle George murmured confidentially: Klep- tomania, my dear fellow Can't help himself. Very old family, don't you know. Came over with the Conqueror.” Uncle Rupert would tap his forehead signifi- cantly and relate the story of the Duke of X, whose valet's duties included that of discreetly return- ing table silver and other valua- bles which his master had pur- loined on country house visits.

"That explanation always work- ed. To people who couldn't trace their ancestors further back than two generations there was some- thing almost glamorous about their association with a titled Kleptomaniac. They forgot that they'd hcon robbed, and some of the sillier ones were willing to (Continued on Page 7)

HUNTLEY