MASTERS OF THE PARACHUTE MAIL

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 36, 22 November 1939, Page 7

MASTERS OF THE PARACHUTE MAIL

By PETER BENEDICT A Gripping Romantic Story of Modern Methods in an ancient Smuggling Trade.

CHAPTER IV. (Continued.)

(Copyright). J

EMPTY HOUSE. Peggy looked into a hall quite as large and gloomy as she had expected, but not so pretentious. Plainly this house had seen days very much better than - the present ones. The hall was barely furnished, a mere dilapidated hat-stand, one inadequate table, and a monk’s bench; that was the sum of it. The carpeting would not have been worth removing had the inhabitants contemplated moving; nor, in its turn, would the stair-carpet. Both were faded almost to the same negative brown, and worn down to the last- of the pile. Plainly the casual friend of the mother of Miss Crosby was no millionairess. In the circumstances, what was the correct thing to do with the note? Leave it on the hall table? She had been told it was important, and there it might easily get overlooked. Enter tho house, then, and look for someone to whom to give it? There could hardly Ibe anyone in, or they would certainly have heard that last ring, always supposing, of course, that they were not quite stone deaf. Or just go into the nearest room, and prop it somewhere so obvious that it could not he missed when the people of the house returned. That, Peggy thought, Avas the best plan; and she proceeded to act upon it. There was a door upon the left, opposite to the foot of the stairs, which she supposed was likely to give upon Avhat this house would probably still call the drawing-room. She closed the outer door behind her, opened this one, and Avent in.

She had no personal misgivings whatever.

The sergeant slipped a pen-knife out of his pocket, snapped open a a blade so thin that it appeared as merely a wafer of steel, and worked it in under , the flap of the envelope. In a very feAV seconds ho had it open. He drew out a sheet of notepaper, opened arid turned it in his hands, and made plain to her by an eloquent tAvist of the paper that it was entirely blank. It had been included only to afford protection to a wrapped packet within it, doubtc-Avrapped in thick grey paper and thin AA'hite, without label or seal of any kind. This .he opened at one end, and tipped out into his palm a feAV grains of a Avhitc powder. Ho looked back over his shoulder, and Mhe constable came to his side, notebook in hand. They looked at it, arid meaningly at each other. “That’s the stuff all right,” &nid the constable. “What'should you say you’ve got there? Something over an

ounce?”

“Roughly one and a-quarter, I imagine, but there’s no being sure. The paper’s heavy stuff.. It may be an ounce weighed and packed.” Ho looked at Peggy. His look Avas measuring, in a way she did not like. He said: “I should like to see Avh.it else you have in your possession. In the basket, for instance.’’

Tho room gave -her a .distinct start. It Avas admittedly still furnished, but in no sort of style Avhatever, and certainly not for permanent use. True, there had been people in it, and not so long ago, for there Avere the butts of several cigarettes on the table, in an ash-tray Avhich was not even dusty. For the rest, tho Avails Avere quite hare; so Avas tho floor, apart from one large, thick hearthrug; and the furniture consisted of the table, a magazine-rack, a settee, and thr.ee easy chairs. A place to meet, sit and talk; not a place to live. There Avas something very -fishy indeed about No. 3, Church Fold. Peggy had firmly made up her mind to leave the packet and go, when she heard the hall door, which she had carefully closed behind her, opening. She hurried back to the hall, for this might and must ho whatever sort of proprietor this odd house passessed. But in tho doorway she stopped dead, for it Avas nothing more strange than a local policeman, a sergeant. Nothing more strange, she had thought, in the first flush of the law-abiding. But surely here, - and at this moment, there could bo nothing more strange. .1

Peggy handed it over. “Look for yourself. Tho parcel Avas meant for your people. As I told you, I Avas coming to the police as soon as I had got rid of that note. "What is that poAvder ?” “If you don’t knoAV, you’d better stay not knowing,” said the sergeant, unfolding the parachute and its dependent parcel in obvious excitement. “And if you do know, tho best thing you ' can do is admit to ft. Playing innocent won’t pull you out of this.” “I. don’t knoAV,’’ said Peggy warmly, “but I want to. I have a right to knoAV exactly what sort of criminal you take me to be, haven’t I?” Slie stopped, her voice dying in her lips; he had slipped the string laboriously sideways front one end of Avrapping. She caught a brief glimpse of a brownish, compact mass, like a lump of coloured clay, with large leaves still green, adhering to it, so that the sergeant had to peel one of them back from it to see what he held. He looked again at his constable, and they exchanged Avhat might have been a glance of triumph if it had not been so completely helpless.

However, there could. The stranger thing Avas that this obvious friend, this upholder of the luav which she Avas doing her best to serve in peculiar ways, uttered, as soon as he set eyes upon her:

“Ah, I thought you’d he about someAvhere. My constable folloAved you up. If you wouldn’t mind, avc Avnnt a few words with you.’’

“So do I with you,” said Peggy, mystified, but not alarmed. “As a matter of fact, I Avas coming on to you as soon as I’d left a message here. Tell me, does anyone live in this house?”'

.“No one does—and no one has for six months) - as far as I can make out. But if it’s all the same to you,” said tho sergeant of police, calmly, “I’ll do the asking, and you can do the answering. I should like a statement from you, hut I’m obliged to advise you that you don’t have to give it on request. It’s your right to hold your tongue if you Avant to; you know best Avhether it’s wise or not.”

“I’m sorry about, this,” said the sergeant sincerely, “it’s a had business. But I’m afraid I’ll have to take you into custody, Margaret Calder; and I caution you that anything you now say may be taken down and used as evidence against you.” “Does that mean I’m under arrest?” demanded ' Peggy, in the stress of the moment more angry than distressed, and more stupefied even than angry. “It does. If you know you’re innocent, then you’ve nothing to Worry about. I’m only doing my duty.” “But what’s tho charge?” she cried, almost laughing because, it was all so impossible. - “Being in possession of dangerous drugs—to be exact-, one ounce of cocaine, and—l should say about a pound, or possibly more—of raw opium. That’s the charge.”

“IS THAT OPIUM?”

“I don’t know wliat you’re getting at,” said Peggy, a shade uneasily, and more than a shade angrily. “But, at any rate, I’ve got nothing to cover up, so ask me what you want to know. I daresay the thing that’s puzzling you is equally puzzling me, if we only knew it. My name’s Margaret Calder, and I live at Moor W!arren, on the top of the moor. It’s a smallholding and market garden. You may know it. I’ve just come from the market, where I’ve left my stall in the charge of a congenital idiot, so hurry up. What comes next?” “I was wondering,” said the sergeant, mildly, “exactly what brought you to this house.” His eyes had by this time wandered from head to foot of her, not forgetting in their passage the basket she carried. Behind him loomed in the hall, from which she had retreated into the room, the shoulders of a very large and silent constable. TAKEN INTO CUSTODY. “This morning,” said Peggy, “as I was getting ready to come down here to market as usual, a girl arrived who said she was staying for a holiday with Mrs Henshaw, by the river. She wanted a note delivered here, to this address, and said she couldn’t come in to leave it herself, and it must get here to-day. She asked mo to bring it; and I have. If you were following me up, as you say, you must have seen me ring the bell. There was no answer, v and I didn’t- s\ant to take the note back, so I tried the door; and as it gave, I thought I’d* better come in and park the thing somewhere where they’d be sure to see it.”

Peggy stopped laughing as if she had been struck by lightning. Understanding flooded her mind, and with it an unpleasant appreciation of her OAvn impossible position. The air cleared wonderfully. She avrs capable now of thinking again, as opposed to merely feeling. And the first thought that came to her Avas that she had two Avitnesses to £he reality of Miss Crosby, in her father and her mother. The case against her would have to be met, hut it could not stand. She had only to keep her head, and for some reason she Avas finding that, in spite of a not unnatural anger, curiously easy.

“Do you really mean to say,” she demanded, “that that stuff is opium?” “It is, the real stuff.” “The kind they smoke, I suppose?”

“And take, if they can get it; but in this state, yes, it’s usually smoked. Quite a valuable consignment Ave’re obliged to you for; tho Avhole run, 1 should sav. Something like six hundred pounds that outfit would he Avorth to the gang it Avas intended for—perhaps even more. And all operated through a < deserted house. Well, Avell!” Ho looked at her Avith no sort of certainty, though he did not believe ]in her ignorance for a moment.

“Have you ever been here before?” asked the sergeant. “No, and I never intend to be here again. It gives me the creeps.”

“And where’s the note you talk about ?”

She took it out of her pocket. This was all. official caution, of course. There was something about this house as suspicious as she had guessed there must bo, suspicious enough for the police to lie upon the tracks of anyone who even knocked at the door.

“It isn’t the whole consignment,” said Peggy positively. Tho sergeant held up a warning hand. “Now, take it easy. Don’t forget I cautioned you—you needn’t say anything in reply to tho charge. In fact, speaking as a friend, I wouldn’t, if I were you. Not yet. Not until you’ve had time to think it over.” “That’s all right,” said Peggy impatiently. “I shan’t have to think out what I’ve got to say, and I’m not likely to think better of it afterwards. My story now will be my story later, because it’s tho simple truth. That parcel—l found it on the moor —it’.:only a small part of a big consignment—so small that the collecting agent, when ho was hard-pressed, didn’t even bother to look for it. She remembered that this would make a long and complicated story out of it, and changed her mind about going into detail. “Never mind. I think I’ll tell i.tj to your superintendent. It takes rather a long time. Where do we go from here?”

/“Abbotsbridge,” said the sergeant; and the constable silently withdrew himself at a glance from his superior, to find, if such a thing was to be found in the wastes of the old town, a taxi. “Well, it’s going to be very awk-

ward. I’ve left a stall at the market in the charge of a boy who certainly isn’t fit to be trusted Avith. it, and a pony and a float at the Golden Bough. What’s to he done about them?”

“They can be taken care of,” said the sergeant. “We’ll call in at the local station, and you can* communicate with your family from there. Will they bo able to make arrangements to fetch back their belongings?”

“I suppose so. But of coAirse 1 shan’t be out of action very long myself,” she said confidently. On this point be ventured no opinion ; and the constable returning just then Avith liis harclly-Avon taxi, out of the house marched Peggy with her escort, the sergeant uoav carrying the parachuted parcel and the packet Avhich he had declared to lie cocaine.

Peggy felt no embarrassment at the coA r ert stares of the taxi-driver; she Avas too angry, and too busy Avith AA'hat she had to say to the authorities, to care A r ery much what anyone thought, even if she had been given to attaching very much iniportance to other people’s opinions of her. She sat silent, because it was useless iioav to talk until she could talk to the person Avho mattered, the superintendent at Abbotsbridge. Her last glimpse of No. 3, Church Fold, was from the rear windoAV of the taxi, and seen Avith the eyes of a prisoner and a victim, no matter hoAV temporary, the place looked even uglier than it had looked when first she found it. There Avas no accident about all this, as she could guess; it was no mistake on anyone’s part. She had been deliberately sent here to fall into the hands of the police, upon a serious charge, and Avith every prospect of a conviction; she had been trapped in this w r ay solely because she had made herself a nuisance to the man in the grey car. Because she had looked like being a danger to him, if he did not first become a very real danger to her. As he had done to some tune. That made the man in the grey car a very formidable, a very intriguing person; one with resources almost inexhaustible, and an espionage system of the best, or how could he have known that she had made any move against him ? Noav the whole significance of the ease she could make out against him Avas neatly turned against her. ...

(To ho Continued.)