VAN WYCK MASON'S The CASTLE ISLAND CASE with CANDID CAMERA CLUES

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 78, 3 April 1939, Page 19

VAN WYCK MASON'S The CASTLE ISLAND CASE with CANDID CAMERA CLUES

SYNOPSIS. In the role of s prospective investor Major Roger Allenby is visiting Freebooter's Hall, the Bermuda home of Barnard Grafton, capitalist, while secretly investigating the recent disappearance of Judy Fortior who had *••" Crafton's secretary. Allenby h!Sf .K h . er ,. sister ' p "ficia, who tells him that "Judy was drowned"; her Doay not yet recovered. Among others Barbara his stately wife; her little son Peter (by a previous marriago) and nia dog, Trumps; and the fascinating Gail, Grafton s daughter by a former wife, on the house staff are Parker, a coloured butler; and Creepy, a native % boatman. Quest* are Terry James, Barbara's brother; Patricia Fortier, sister of the missing Judy; Cora Sue Pendleton, a special friend of Gail; and C. Townley Ward, a young financier who is going into a big business deal with Grafton. Allenby, busy with his camera, makes firm friends with little Peter by giving him an "elephant" stamp for his collection. Grafton, Ward and Allenby hold "a preliminary, discussion" of their big South American business deal while awaiting the arrival of Sir George Pakenham, expected on the morrow. A glamorous Kathleen Manahip also is due the next CHAPTER VUr. It was a quarter to twelve when, for the first time the conference recessed. Ward raised a quizzical eyebrow at his host. "Where are those "pressure estimates for the impounding dam at MilagTosa Creek?" Grafton replied that they were in. his office and hurried off to fetch them. Ward snapped his fingers and smiled. V.hat we need ie a drink." He arose. •Got some fine old Bourbon in my bag— if you'll corral some glasses, we can wet our whistles." Drawing after him a ewirl of cigar smoke, Ward disappeared, leaving Allenby a bit gasping and for the" first time understanding the unique exhilaration which "big business" affords some men. No doubt now that these men were in this affair, heart and soul. He was wondering whether Sir George Pakenham would be cast in a similar mould when a faint rap sounded on hie door giving on to the verandah.

Clip the Camera Clues.

Allenby was up in a flash, closed the hall door and sped to his room's tall French window. There, to his surprise, he discovered Patricia, clad only in a bathrobe and nightgown, anxiously awaiting him. "Thought they'd never go," she whispered, and the lace on the front of her nightdress stirred with some deep agitation. "I've got the.—" She broke off for, clearly audible, a man's footsteps were returning down the hall. "You'll have to get out," Allenby warned in a hurried undertone. "See you soon as I can." "All right," she said, and smiled in a strangely pleased sort of way. "I'll leave my light on, but try not to make it later than you can help." As she went out, Patricia treated him to an enigmatic smile, then returned to her room, leaving behind a whiff of jasmine perfume. Almost at once the door opened and to Allenby's surprise young James appeared with Ward *nd his brother-in-law. The former eniffed once, levelled a searching glanee at Allenby and drawled, "Sweet-scented bower you have here, Major." "—You smell the flowers a lot on a night like thin," Grafton explained, dropping heavily Into an armchair. "Yes, but you've jiq jasmine on this side of the house." Terry persisted and Grafton looked surprised. •'Why, that's so! Well, no matter." James, it turned out, was to be entrusted wjth some of the surveys and the discussion shifted to that subject. Grafton, however, eeenied lees able to concentrate than before, and kept mopping his forehead. The strain, too, eeenjed to be telling on Ward and, after another hour's conversation, -he euggeeted that the meeting adjourn pro teqa. It wag almost half-past two when Allenby felt it safe to wander out on to the long, second-storey verandah, as if in search of a cooling breeze. To his disappointment no- light shone in Patricia Fortier'a room. "Kept her waiting too long," he told himself, then very gently tried the door. Whether it was stuck or looked he could not tell, because he was forced to abandon his efforts when' Terry James appeared in dressing gown and espadrilles at the far end pf the verandah. .Sighing deeply, the young fellow on to » deck chair and, to Allenby'g eharp disappointment, settled himself there.

Throug-h a crack of the French door he watched Barbara Grafton's brother sit, staring fixedly on the moonlit waters of Castle Harbour. While waiting, the weary watcher decided he might as well do a bit of thinking. What the dickens could have happened to so cheer up Patricia Fortier? Why the devil should Judy Fortier have thrown herself into the sea . . . Lovely young women weren't given to killing themselves without cause . . . Why wouldn't Terry James so to bed? ... In the morning he'd have to take a look at Treasure Head ... Iα the morning ... In the . . . Major Roger Allenby awoke with a guilty start. It was 'still dark but a single glance at the sky told him dawn could not be far off. Smothering an irritated curse, lie sprang up from that comfortable chair which had been his undoing. Terry James was no longer out on the long verandah, so ehiverinjr ii little, Allenby hurried outside, picked up two or three cigarette butts lying about Terry's chair and felt them. Vm. He'd been gone a long time. All the Imtts were cold and sodden with dew. At thie hour the moon had swung over the house, leaving the verandah in deep velvety shadow. He quickly tried Patricia's door and found that it was merely stuck, not locked. By applying an upward pressure on its damp and chilly knob he was able soundlessly to open it. "Don't b"e alarmed, Mise Fortier." he called in a soft undertone, "It's I— Allenby." On receiving no response he paused juet inside the French window of her room, accustoming his eyes to the gloom. Soon he saw it really was not so dark in here, that he could even distinguish his own shadow thrown indistinctly across the floor. Increasingly conscious of the girl's jasmine perfume, he advanced cautiously towards the bed and with a little pang of alarm saw that it was empty, although it had undoubtedly been slept in. Soundless on his crepe rubber soles, Roger Allenby probed a coat closet, thrust his head into a bathroom, then fighting down a rising uneasiness, opened the hall door. It had not been locked, either. Where the devil could Patricia Fortier have betaken hereelf'at such an ungodly hour? Following long experience, he attempted to put himself in her place. The night had b«en hot, and ehe worried and restless. Air, that was what she would crave. The upper verandah, however, had been occupied. Whither then? He crept downstairs and thought himself unobserved until a low growling reached his ear and someone, a woman, called in a sleepy voice, "Quiet, Trumps —be quiet." Immediately the growling stopped, and giving a sigh of relief, Allenby traversed the spacious living-room of Freebooter's Hall. Because a glass door giving on to the garden was slightly ajar, he decided he was on the right track.

by HENRY CLAY CIPSON

CUp the Camera Clues.

CLIP POM CLUES I "THE CASTLE ISLAND CASK" prewnu th* flrat fictional dilacJ °~ uee to th# **•"*••" «f • i n, »« ep '"» concerned in thla nov«i art contained in certain of tn» tut illuatratiwU. Itfe au£. geatad that hMmXaw el p lion 2? the in*t*lmanU or, at lauTtha Photograph. llluatTitini !£?!«!>•! Allanby, olaana up theeaa*.

(To be continued daily.)

At the foot of some dew-drenched steps, a toad as big as a small cat viewed him dispassionately from eyes strangely luminous in the moonlight, and then hopped away. At this hour many toads were about, and with faint amusement he recalled Patricia's abomination of them. Allenby, refreshed and awakened by a cool breeze off the ocean, circled past a pool in the estate's formal garden with eyes probing every patch of shadow. Presently his eearch earned him through an arch, radiant with night-blooming cereue, towards the old slave quarters back of Freebooter's Hall, ije eearched everywhere, ever softly calling her name, but had no luck and so returned to resume his roving about the spacious garden where the perfume of many sleeping roses became mingled with the eweet scent of oleanders. Ahead loomed a ridge crowned with stately cedars which had begun to stir under the influence of a dawn breeze.

"Miss Fortier?" he called softly. "Are you out here?" Miea Fortier!"

But hie only answer wae the ehrill piping of those little frogs which are one of Bermuda's most distinctive creatures. Presently he found his feet on steps leading down into « charming affair known as a "quarry garden." 1 hanks to the native etietom of constructing » house of coral-and-shell rock quarried on the property itself, practically every large estate could boeet auch lovely little corners. Due to the extensive proportions of Freebooter'* Hall, the quarry in this case was large, and so deep that a small and very aheer white cliff, still bearing saw marks Bketched ite ghostly faeade a good forty feet above the garden itself.

Roger Allenby had takjm but a few steps along one of the neatly tended paths when a great toed hurriedly hopping away attracted his attention to an indistinct gleam of white. He took but three steps more, then felt the clutch of »n invisible hand on hia throat Though in shadow, that whitish outline was taking shape. Holding his breath, he flicked on • etrong pocket flash.