Northern Weekly Gazette. — 1909-04-10 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

APRIL IQ, 1900.  are taking the telegram to me; that you know I am not returning to-night." Extraordinary orders! Minns, inwardly mar. veiling, inwardly sure now that Sherringtcni feared murder, and showed no sign of emotion outwardly. A few minutes later the servants left. Aylmer Sherrington crossed into the drawing-room and peered out. Ile could just see Amos Thwaite--the twilight was deepening. He stopped M 1113121. Minns spoke and passed on. Sherrington waited to see Thwaite hurry off. Thwaite would know it was possible for him to have gone down by the staircase as the detective went up in the lift. He was reckoning upon Thwaite recognising that and relinquishing the wa.tch to net hrim elseWhere.  Amos Thwaite did not move.  Aylmer Sherrington was beginning to realise that the net was drawing round him. And in all human probability within a few hours he would be a peer! Fate had played him a very scurvy 'trick. In the study now. So dark there that in a short time he might make his attempt. He looked out of the window. St. James's Park had already faded away in the twilight, little clustered beads cf light showed the roads which traversed it. He glanced down. Then he started back with a. muttered oath. At the back of the flats in the courtyard below were two policemen loungin,g unn6dx.ntatiouslyl He could see their helmets. He was trapped! He came back across the room. Then another thout,mht sent him to the window. Could he gain access to one of the other flats? He peered out eagerly. No, it was impossible. In the study! He was trapped. He was sure of that now. There was no way out. He who ha:d engineered his life and his crimes so cleverly was caught at last. _ _  A swift smile played over his face. They knew he was in the flat. They would wait until they had a warrant and then break in. Well, let them know. He went to the window, pulled down the blinds, aztd then flooded the room with light. He performed his work leisurely in quite an unhurried manner. Even in switching on the light he was deliberate. Looking round.theTOOM—he had loved the room —each picture :Ind each ornament spoke to him —his eyes lighted on the bronze statuette. He gazed at it idly at first, then as always with the glamour of fascination.. He went up to it, slowly and took it in his hands. What end had the ori,'ninal made? When it came to the final fight was the saint or the devil uppermost? He wondered. With all the strange force of his quick imagination he wondolled. One or other must have been uppermost at last. Which? He had reached the heights and plumbed the depths. More the depths perhaps. That WOO the- fault of his environment. If—  He looked at the crumpled pink telegraphic message. If only that had happened years ago. Well, in that case he might lEbeNer have tasted so fully of life. Inscrutable. He gazed long at each face in turn. Inee-atable. Had the saint been triumphant at lust? Had he? He 'brought the statuette to his writing-table, stood it before him, sat down elbows on table, staring at it. How wonderfully like it was! And no one had ever guessed it, no caw. A knock, a loud peremptory knock at the door. He made no movement, only smiled, still staring at the statuette. Had the w,int tringliphodl If—if that telegram had come years ago and his life had been different, would Margaret--- He had really loved Margaret. He had not believed in love before he met her. He had realised the highest, in him in his love for her—and his lowest, a violent, terrible lowest. He did not regret— all had to he done over again he would have acted in the same way. He realised that. Thundering knocks at the door and then silence. With some queer twist his 'bTxin thought of the knocking at the door in "Macbeth." Then he stirred--shutting his eyes to the faecinatien of the statuette.