The Rider of Waroona Part 9

"Am I right in saying that you knew her very well?"

"Yes, I did know her very well."

"Don't think I am attempting to pry into your private affairs, Mr.

Harding. In a case of this kind, the clues that lead to the unravelling of the mystery often lie on the surface in some trifling circ.u.mstance that seemingly has nothing whatever to do with the main question. You have already realised, I take it, that we are concerned with something quite distinct from the ordinary cla.s.s of crime. Perhaps you have not had sufficient experience with the criminal cla.s.s to recognise what was apparent to me from the beginning, that in this matter we are following the work of one who is a master of his craft."

"So far as that goes, I am absolutely dazed," Harding exclaimed. "The more I hear, the more hopelessly confused I grow."

"I am not surprised. You are following the work of someone who is, I am quite satisfied, no ordinary criminal, but one of the most astute, clever and unscrupulous individuals who ever adopted dishonesty as a profession. If I ask you questions which appear to you to be irrelevant and possibly impertinent, will you give me credit for being actuated only by my sense of duty, and answer those questions as fully and as accurately as you can?"

"Certainly," Harding replied.

"Thank you. Now, will you tell me this--Were you ever engaged to Mrs.

Eustace before she married her present husband?"

"Yes."

"Did she break it off, or did you?"

"She--she married."

"She married Eustace, while she was practically engaged to you?"

"While she was actually engaged to me."

"Then he must have known of your existence?"

"I a.s.sume so, but--well, nothing was ever said about it between us. I will tell you exactly what happened. The letters I had written to her, the presents I had given her, and her engagement ring, were returned to me in a packet through the post with a piece of wedding-cake. Until I came here and met her, I did not know to whom she was married. Whether Eustace knew we had once been engaged I do not know. I never referred to it."

"You never knew that, in applying for an a.s.sistant, he named you personally to the general manager of the bank and gave as a reason a long-standing friends.h.i.+p?"

The look of astonishment which showed on Harding's face was sufficient answer.

"Yet it is what happened--I have the information from your general manager."

CHAPTER V

MRS. BURKE'S PRESENTIMENT

Waroona Downs was fifteen miles from Waroona towns.h.i.+p by the road, and ten as the crow flies, the intrusion of a rocky and precipitous range making it impossible to take the shorter and more direct route. One had perforce to use the road, and the road turned and twisted where the level plains were broken by the range, pa.s.sing, at one stage, through a narrow gorge hemmed in by steep, rock-strewn heights, on which a growth of stunted gums flourished sufficiently to hide the jagged boulders from the road below.

Half-way through the gorge a stream, having its source in a series of springs hidden among the tumbled rocks, swept across the track in a shallow ford. The road dipped to it on both sides, the constant flow of water having stripped away the soil and left a barrier of naked rock which dammed back the stream to form a wide pool sheltered among the hills and fringed by a more luxurious growth of vegetation than clothed the heights above.

The last gleam of the setting sun shed a ruddy tinge on the topmost branches of the trees as Durham reached where the road dipped to the stream. The subdued light in the pa.s.s made the distances elusive and turned the shadows into subtle mysteries of purpling greys. The air was full of the scent from the thickly growing vegetation, but, save for the rippling swish of the water trickling across the track, the silence was unbroken.

Durham reined in his horse and sat loosely in his saddle as his glance swept over the tangled ma.s.ses of undergrowth, the tumbled boulders peeping here and there from amid the shadows, the precipitous sides of the pa.s.s, and the broken ruggedness of the ground beyond. But it was not an appreciation of the picturesque, nor a recognition of the poetry in landscape which held him. He saw in the place only such a spot as the men concerned in the robbery of the bank would select for hiding their booty. Within that maze of rock and tree and mountain, how many nooks there must be to serve the purpose.

Had he been occupied only with the matter of the robbery, he would have started there and then to satisfy himself whether his surmise was correct, and whether the missing thousands were not lying perhaps a few yards away, hidden among the undergrowth and boulders. But there was more than the robbery in his mind; it was not alone to make inquiries on the subject that he had ridden away on a journey Brennan could have accomplished equally well. There was a much more personal note in the affair.

Durham was in love, and with a woman he had only met once, and of whom he knew nothing more than her name.

Travelling one day by coach, he had, for a fellow-pa.s.senger, a woman. A dozen signs showed him that she was a new arrival in the country, unused to colonial ways, unversed in colonial methods. It was natural for him, at such places as they stopped for meals, to extend to her a share of the attention his official position secured for him. It was also natural for him to drift into conversation with her.

The companion of his coaching experience was named Burke--Nora Burke--she had told him. Nora Burke was one of the victims of the bank robbery, and, apparently, the last person who had had anything to say to the vanished bank manager. It was more to ascertain whether the heroine of the coach journey were the same as the owner of Waroona Downs, than to learn what Eustace had or had not said, that Durham determined to ride out to the station.

Even as his glance wandered over the picturesque scene before him, he was impatient to press on--five miles had yet to be covered before he reached Waroona Downs. He pulled the bridle with a jerk and rode steadily until he was clear of the range. Then he put his horse at a gallop and kept the pace till he saw the gleam of a light from the window of a house set back from the road. In the dusk he could not make out all the detail of the place, but Brennan told him the homestead was the first house he would come to after clearing the range.

He swung on to the side track leading to the house. As he came up to it he saw the figure of a woman silhouetted against the light.

"Is this Mrs. Burke's?" he called out.

"And if it is, what might you want?"

His heart leaped as he heard the answer--despite the sharp ring, sharp almost to harshness, he recognised the voice. It was that of the companion of his coach journey.

A low verandah, about three feet from the ground, ran along the front of the house. It was on the verandah the woman stood. Durham sprang from the saddle, slipped his bridle over a post, and stepped up the short flight of stairs.

The woman had drawn back into the shadow beyond the window. As he advanced, the light from the lamp within fell upon him, revealing to her the uniform he wore.

With a soft, melodious laugh she came forward.

"Why didn't you say you were a trooper?" she said. "I thought----"

"I am Sub-Inspector Durham," he said quickly.

"Oh, indeed," she replied.

She met his glance without a suggestion of recognition in her own.

"I have ridden out to ask you one or two questions in regard to the robbery at the bank, of which I understand you have heard," he said.

"Ask me questions? And pray what have I to do with the robbery, save that I am an unfortunate victim of the dishonesty of men you and the rest of the police ought to be chasing at this very moment? Ask me questions? It's me who has need to ask them of you. Where are my stolen papers? Where----"

"If you will give me your a.s.sistance by answering the few questions I wish to ask you, I have no doubt that your papers, and all the rest of the stolen property, will very soon be recovered," Durham said. "I understand you saw Mr. Eustace this forenoon. Will you tell me----"

"Ask Mr. Eustace himself," she retorted. "He can tell you what I said."

She stood in front of him, with her hands hanging down hidden in the folds of her dress.

"I will not detain you long. I have been travelling since early to-day and have to ride back to the towns.h.i.+p to-night."

"Travelling all day? Sure you must be tired!" she exclaimed. "Come inside and rest--this affair has so upset me I'm forgetting that Irish hospitality ought to be the first rule for Irish folk wherever they may happen to be. Come in, come in."

She led the way into the room where the lamp was burning. As she stepped in through the long open window Durham saw she was carrying a heavy revolver in the half-hidden hand.