MASTERS OF THE PARACHUTE MAIL

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 45, 2 December 1939, Page 3

MASTERS OF THE PARACHUTE MAIL

J By PETER BENEDICT

:: (Copyright). j

LA Gripping Romantic Story of Modern Methods in an ancient * Smuggling Trade. I

CHAPTER XIII. VITAL PASSWORD. “You’ll see a table to your left as you go in, in an alcove by itself, probably with a curtain of beads shutting it off from the room. That’s how it was when my friend took me on our adventure in search of cocaine. The table will be laid, for two—-at least I think that’s usual. Anyhow, you go to it, and sit down there. One of the waiters will promptly come and tell you that the table is engaged. People who aren't in the know, of . course, don’t give the right answer to that. I suppose the club has to protect itself as well as it can. Anyhow, those who do give the right answer get what they want. Any sort of illicit supply they care to ask for, I believe, though I’ve never tested it.”

which she was so abysmally ignorant, and could note down any suspicious frequenters of the Green Scorpion for future reference. For the rest, she felt completely independent as she strolled round the corner Of Sabeel’s invisible curved glass window at half-past eleven that same night, and was swallowed, Jonah-like, into the dark inside of a monster.

The edge of the blackness was sharp, like the edge of a knife; she walked in to it, and was lost. Small in Sylvia’s voluminoiffc furs, beautifully got up and polished, to a. brittle beauty which went well with the hour, she felt herself, to be sincerely Eleanor Vandelcur, an American woman of the world in search of crazyweed to keep her fires burning as brilliantly as ever . . . for at least a little time. Here there was a,silence which was eerie, and only the small green shape in the lit glass above the clumsy warehouse door upon her right to break the monotony and suggestiveness of the darkness. She was not sure whether one knocked, or not. She tried the door, and it gave and, she walked in. Where Peter was now she had no idea ; no doubt somewhere prowling round the rear premises of this club, and making notes for its destruction later on.

“And what is the right answer?”

“Mere Colibri. It doesn’t matter how you give it—just mention the phrage, and the world—the mariajuana world—is yours.” ,

“You’ve saved my life,” said Peggy, with an enthusiasm carefully subdued, so that the excitement of her voice might not carry to any other inhabitant of the balcony. “I can’t tell you —and you can’t guess until you’ve experienced it—what it is to be without the stuff. I’ll go. Of course I will! I think I can remember it all. Oxford Street, Sabeel’s shop, the narrow passage ,the warehouse door; then inside, the lonely table on the left, and Mere Colibri. Right?” “Admirable! I wonder if I should have told you ?’’t Corrie pondered virtuously, her chin upon her hand, breathing slow wreaths of blue smoke, sweet-scented and tenuous. “Well, it’s hardly my pidgin to be nurse to you,' is it? And the dive is there to he used, after all. Naturally, they expect all transactions to be entirely confidential; but how could you let them be anything else ? The whole thing is a criminal offence in this country.”

They had shared a taxi to an innocent rendezvous in Oxford Street, and in the brief darkness and contact inside they had been stricken suddenly silent, she could not conceive why. There had been things she had wanted to discuss with him; there had been cautionary speeches he had prepared for her; yet neither of them had said a word until they had parted, and then it had only been a hurried: “Be careful what you say!” and a quick: “Don’t go far away. I shall Want you to ho fairly close, just . . . well, just in case , . .”

And here she was, the warehouse door soundlessly and eerily closing itself behind her, a short passage before her, and a blank end which announced where the steps leading- downward began. The light here was subdued but competent; and she memorised as she went everything about that brief passage. } There was one door in it, a small, fiat, discreet door upon the right, coyly tucking itself into the wall as if to impose upon; the curious the conviction that it led nowhere, that it was hardly a door at all. She passed it, and came to the head of the steps, and as she descended the firsfrwave of music, still faint and elfin, came up to her from behind another door at the foot. , This, too, swung at a touch, and she entered the Green Scorpion. Peter had told her, in a particularly talkative moment, that her entrances were superb. She liked to think that this one, made for the first time alone, was no exception. But certainly there was nothing in the long, straggling room into which she came, to awe or alarm her in any way. She stood just inside the doorway, Sylvia’s, furs gathered about her, the gauze veil of her Juliet cap swaying faintly before her face, and looked round with calm interest. A queer place! A place which seemed never to have made up its mind which style of decoration it would really affect. Corners of it hesitated between China and Japan, discreet table cut off from table by grotesque screens and bead curtains which swung and swished upon their reeds as the waiters passed and re-passed. Bits of it were pure Harlem, horrible in chromium and enamel; other bits, with blue and white check tablecloths and fat brown pottery, belonged to the pseudo-German bier-gar-tens of the cheaper and more affected restaurants.

“If you can trust anyone with a secret,” said Peggy dryly, “it should be the person whose life depends on it being kept. Heavens, I need the place. I carry the stuff now. Why should I do anything to smash the only source of supply I know?'l can shut my mouth as tight as anyone. They rose together, contented hotlr with a job of work well done. “Thanks againl It shall he counted unto you for virtue. Hadn’t we better go and look at miniatures? If I haven’t side-tracked your mind too utterly with my troubles?” Apparently she had not. They looked at miniatures. They had achieved a cool intimacy which had its own sep arate interpretation for each of them. Corrie had, most obviously to Peggy’s mind, more than a casual interest in possible trade for the Green Scorpion. Her face sharpened to an edge like an axe when the question of supply raised its head. There was money in it for her; and her “at a price” would'he at a, big price for Peggy, adapted to the supposed degree of her wealth. Her first hesitations had been designed purely as precautionary measures, hilt she was satisfied now. Why pot, when she had seen and recognised genuine crazyweed?

And now all that Peggy wanted was to get rid of her, which she did at length with mutual' expressions of gratitude and affection, and perhaps some genuine interest on Corrie’s side, as well as on Peggy’s, for the cynical' little American had her charm. As soon as Corrie was out of the Malbro, Peggy swooped upon the telephone, and rang up Peter at his flat, where he had, as far as she could judge, been sitting with his hand upon the receiver for half an hour, for the first thing he said was: “At last! How did you make‘out?” “Come over and hear. I’ve got plenty to say to you.” “What’s the chief thing you have to say?” asked Peter. “Eureka! I’ve found it!” ATTACKING THE SCORPION. “I’m coming with you,” asid Peter firmly, when he was told of the Green Scorpion project. “I’m sorry,” said Peggy, and meant it, “but you can’t.” ; “Why not? It’s a public club, isn’t it?”'

THE SCORPION BITES. The room dipped into many corners, and at the moment of her entrance all its lights were dimmed to a, subdued glow; for the early cabaret was in progress, and in the; centre of a spotlight, upon a white grand piano, sat quite the slenderest, softest, loveliest young negress Peggy had ever seen, singing in a throaty, sweet contralto about her missing man. There were >a good many people at supper. A haze, of cigarette smoke made the air faintly blue, and a. hum, of voices conversing most decorously made it vibrate before Peggy’s eyes with what seemed to' be a visible.excitement. None of the clubs into which Peter had taken heir looked more transparently innocent than this one. She turned to her left, and there was a table, the important table,, cut off from -her by a thicker reed curtain than any of the others, a dark, soft curtain, not hung with heeds, like the (rest, but weighted with a heavy silk fringe. A waiter came through it, and the strands swung rhythmatically and evenly as a pendulum after his passing. The table was laid' for two. Peggy made for it. She' parted the. curtain with one shoulder, and it fell back upon either side of her as smoothly as the flow of water. She sat down unattended, and slipped back the cloak from her shoulders, and lit a cigarette. The waiter saw her, and came hurrying. She had seen his eyes light upon her from the moment that he came back into her sight; she had seen his glance sharpen, and his pace quicken. Her own blood ran a little faster in. her veins as she waited for the inevitable insinuating protest. “I ask jVladame’s pardon! Will Madame take a table nearer to the cabaret floor. I regret—this table is engaged^’' She said, looking up at him narrowly through the smoke, of her cigarette, and speaking so low that her voice was hardly audible: “I am well aware of it. The table is reserved for —Mere, Colibri.” The waiter said: “Bicn. Madame!” as if he had been asked for something [rare and delicate, and was gone smoothly and softly from her corner, through, the? reed curtain, through the outer door of the club. There could be no two ways .about it — Corrie’s formula had worked. His, apparently, not to reason why, nor yet the presume to ask what the, lady requited in the illicit, line. His part was to inform the master that be had a customer. Peggy felt, like a young witch whose first independent spell has worked with complete success. It remained to be

“For initiates, yes. But the fact is—and I’m sorry—l gave the lady to understand that I haven’t betrayed my private vice to you. I think I conveyed the impression that I was sincerely.fond of you ” "“And are you?” asked Peter, 'with the hint of his smile popping out at her, and back in a moment, .before she could take exception to it. '<< —and that I had no wish to soil vour innocence, or at least your opinion of mine. So you see, you’d be. the last person I should take with me. I didn’t think of the implications at the time, I was simply acting for all I knew.”

“And you seem to have made a job of it,” admitted Peter. “Well, then, if I can’t come, I shall put a plainclothes man in the pjace to-night, to keep an eye on you, and to make a note of what happens, just in case. And I myself will have a casual look round the other side of the block while you buy your filthy mariajuana. I’m afraid you’ll have to buy it now; there’s nothing like being consistent.” “You can do something else, too, said Peggy meekly. “What’s that?” “Pay for them. Because I can’t. I expect ihev’ll he the dickens of < pl’ice.” “The man’s part,” said Peter resignedly, and fumbled for bis pocketbook. “There goes another item on ‘Expenses’ if all goes well.” The expedition offered, as far as Peggy could see, no danger, and certainly no need of a bodyguard; but it might be as well to have someone there knew the underworld of

seen what would happen to the latter end of it. For to stick to the metaphor of the, witch, this was rather like calling xip a salamander, what she would do with him afterwards would have to depend on circumstances, her quick wits, and his unknown powers*. She continued to smoke; it steadied her taut nerves. She felt no fear, for had not Peter promised her bodyguard somewhere among the guests ? She ran her eye over all of them, as far as her limited line of .vision commanded, and tried to. pick out the, probable plain-clothes man. She. found it impossible to decide upon anyone; and, after all, of what use would he have been to her if a casual glance as inexpert as her own could pick him out from the genuine club-liunters She gave it up, and smoked patiently, watching the outer doop - . Suddenly it occurred to her how many people as young as herself, perhaps younger, had come to this table on the same quest, with the difference that their business was genuine and urgent and implacable. Boys, perhaps who had money enough to be worth plucking, and had been drawn into this experiment just for a lark. Or someone who had been minted into the celestial joys and infernal sorrows of drrng-taking by people who professed to be their friends and benefactors offering them, a new thrill. People had come here, no doubt of it, with wrecked lives and broken health, to pay out heavy money for the means of burning life out, a little, longer, And here was she, Peggy Cnkler, assaying the, same unhealthy purchase with an easy mind —for compared' to theirs, surely her. mind was easy —and an untrammelled body. The thought cooled he,r brain as no other thought could have done. Sho felt hpr.sell hating the racket and its masters so intensely that to be face to face with them and to undo them would be a joy. (To he Continued).