"Under Suspicion"

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Volume 59, Issue 229, 30 October 1930, Page 15

"Under Suspicion"

(By RALPH TREVOR)

| A GRIPP/NGLY THR1LLING MYSTBRY \

LATEST MURDER MYSTERY |

CHAPTER VII. — (Continued) , "I am not ffoing to raarry Jotin Marston," cried Joyce, "and I don1t knovv that I ever intended to," she added, deliberately, he thougiit. There ^las a paus^. hetween them. It was as Lhough each had suddenly walked upon forhidden ground and that both were conscious of the fact. "Joyce!" It was the first time she had remembered Nicholas Raine oalling her anything other than 'Miss Garnie,' and momentarily it thrilled her. She half turned on the little I'uslic seat to'wards liim and she saw him looking at her with curiously penetrating eyes. "Yes?" Her own voice was scaroely above a whisper. "I want you to try and look at things rather closely. God knows it's hard enough for me even to suggest anything but I musfc tell you, I can't let you go in blissful ignorance of what I know is coming. There's a Scotland Yard detective in- Wynthorpe. You've probably seen him. Nicelooking chap and all that, but befo're long he'll he very polite, but at the baok of his mind he will suspect you of poisoning Wilbur Atherton." A look of dismay came to the girl's face, and the colour drained from it. "Please, Joyce," he went on, quickly, laying a hand upon her ara, "you mustn't think too much about that. I want you to trust me. I want you to help me all you can and if you do that I am sure the; olouds will roll away in good time."v "But why will he suspect me?" Joyce Carnie's voice was amazed and indignant. "Beoause; arsenical poisoning is usually achieved through the administralion of the drug through the food, and you must not forget that it was you who always served his meals; you who put out the portion on his plate; you who carried it upstairs to him. Inspector Gurtis Burke will glean all that from you and then . . ." Nicholas Baine did not complete the sentench for he was just.in time to catch the swaylng figure of the girl before slxe f'ell. 1 CHAPTEB VIII. FlngeP8 of Fat®. Miss Susan Snape had lived alone for nearly twenty years. Like many another, she had spent the whole of her life in Wynthorpe, but latterly, so it was said, Miss Snape had not been the woman she once was. There was something strangely odd about her. For days she would shut herself in the cottage and refuse to answer any inquiries at t'he door. Even the rector himself had been rebuffed on theSe occasions. Some of the villagers would tap their heads significantly whenever her name was mentloned,

and murmur : ' 'Poor thing and she used to be so bright and jolly." On this pleasant summer morning Miss Snape was tending her little garden, plucking out handfuls of weeds that would persist in destroying Ihe neatness of the beds and borders where the roses and the tall delphiniums bloomed in such picturesque profusion. It was bnly Ihe nighfc before thaL she had heard about the sudden and totally unexpected development in coiinection with the death of Wilbur Atherton. She had been passing the post ofllce when oid Samuel Vickers intercepted her with the news he had been retailing with commendable regularity ever since his early morning newspapers had been delivered. "We're going to see apd hear things, Miss Snape," he had pro'phesied. "You mark my words." And Susan Snape had marked them, marked them very well indeed. There was been a look nearly akin to triumph in the brown of her brooding eyes. Miss Snape was piilling up a handful of bindweed among the violas ■when sfye heard the cliclc of the latch upon the gate, followed by the squeak of the hinges. She straightened herself slowly and turned towards the path. Inspector Gurtis Burke paused involuntarily -as he mefc the inquiry in her gaze. He saw in her a woman with whom Time had dealt none too kindly, a woman who had once been beautiful, but pow only the poise of her grey head proclairned the dignity of her past. "If I could come into ihe cottage for a few moments, Miss Snape," began Burke, kindly but directly, "I could talk to you there in perhaps greater comfort." "WThy should you want to talk to me — any where ?" she demanded, with a hint of hostility flashing in her eyes. "Because I am from Scotland Yard," Burke told her in low, almost confidential tones. Immediately Susan Snape moved towards him. "It is well that you suggested -inside," she muttered, turning to 'the door. The fronfc parlour was locked, but Miss Snape took a key from its nearby hook and unlocked it. (To be Continued).