MASTERS OF THE PARACHUTE MAIL

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 46, 4 December 1939, Page 7

MASTERS OF THE PARACHUTE MAIL

J By PETER BENEDICT

:: (Copyright).

® A Gripping Romantic Story of Modern Methods in an ancient | Smuggling Trade.

CHAPTER. XIII. (Continued.) FAMILIAR YOUNG MAN. The ncgress liad finished her song, and was being applauded languidly for a second, when the outer door opened again. <£ This, thought Peggy, “is the vamnire!” She expected she did not know what, a gorgon, or something cloaked and sinister. No, it was not her enemy, it was just another guest, someone gay and young and very elegant, in evening dress. Peggy sat hack, and took her eyes from him, and for some minutes did not realise that he was coming towards her table. She recognised it at last with a distinct jolt, so completely had she abandoned any claim to him. Yes, it was towards this very table he was sauntering so easily; a debonair young man, one who knew himself to bo handsome; a blond young man, of a pale complexion, rather full-fleshed, and with a mouth which she disliked, though it smiled at her as he slid through the curtain.

punetion, the relic of the conscience of Peggy Calder, as she slid her closed hand across the table, the thin, crisp notes folded small inside the palm. ‘ ‘Let’s see the goods. I’ve got to get out of here as quickly as I can.” Perhaps he had heard of her; perhaps he had heard of the admirer, at least a little valued, since she had hidden her vice from him for fear of losing his good opinion. At any rate, he smiled as he rose from the (able. “Wliat’s the hurry? Stay and dance. We’ll move over towards the floor.” She hesitated for one wild moment. Was it more important to report to Peter at once, or to stay and try to collect still more information? But she did not think there would be much information forthcoming. She was afraid this person liked her; she coulcl hope for no confidences, and shrank-in anger and disgust from the thought of dalliance. No, hang it, her job was to find him, not to vamp him; and she hacl clone her job. Get back to Peter. How good even his name sounded in her mind after this creature! “Thanks, but I’ve got other ploys. This is urgent.” He laughed, said: “Oh, very well!” and went off in search of her prize, with she hated to think how much of Peter’s good money in his pocket. He was not more than five minutes away, and came back as jauntily as ever, with a flat tin which lie drew' from his pocket as soon as the protective curtain had fallen behind him. He sat down again, and slid it across to her calmly, and her trembling hand—a piece of excitement rather than of art this time, folded oyer it and drew' it down into her bag.

She was fastidious about mouths. This one was short and taut and shining, a strong line to it, where Tips so short and full should have been •loose; it spoiled utterly the good-look-ing face; and it stirred with complete success the card-index memory for faces which Peggy knew to he her biggest asset in this struggle. She felt her inside turn with instinctive, dread, thought she knew of no-rea-son to fear even the young man of the grey car. She might—she did—remember his face perfectly; hut even if the very shape, and colouring, and character of her own had not been changed, even if he had known her, as he would certainly have known her then, what could he do? They were here in a corner of a public room ; one could not do murder there; it would be folly to make any sort of attack; and also, there was Peter’s promised watchdog. She hugged the thought of him to her heart, and looked boldly into the face of her. arch-enemy as he sat down in the chair opposite .to her.

“And now you’ll run au'ay,” he said reproachfully, “What a pity!” She -waited for perhaps another five minutes, smoked her cigarette out with a greedy murmur of satisfaction that her next would be no mere consolation prize of. a Turkish, talked to him abstractedly, and withdrew inexorably, leaving the impression that she lad come on business, that her business avos done, and that she had not even noticed the form or feature of the man who had conducted it with her. She felt that this -would be good for him: she ay as sxire that he had liked her. Emerging from the darkness of the narroAV passage into the glitter of Oxford Street, she Miailed the first taxi which showed itself, and climbing imo it Avithout more than half of her mind upon the present moment, tumbled mro Peter Milne’s arms.

Squarely she met his glance, and told herself truly and exultantly that he rhd not know her from Eve. He sa\v only a pretty woman; and she was not sure that he did not at first glance see only a customer, without sex or age, but endowed with money, which w r as all that mattered. It was queer the amount of confidence she drew out of that slight gauze veil through which he 1 saw her.

CHAPTER! XIV. BACK TO THE PARACHUTE. “Peter!” she said, startled. “How did you get here?” “Oh, quite easily, my darling Eleanor, and just about thirty seconds before you. I saAv you emerging, so I nipped out by tho next passage that AA’ay, got the taxi, and told him to pick up you into the bargain. Well, what do you think of the Green Scorpion? Did everything go off all right?” He smiled at her in the gloom. He trusted her to see that everything should go off all right. She had displayed marked propensities that way. “Where are avo going?” she asked, irreleA'antly. “I don’t know. Wherever you like. What talc did you spin? Can you bo seen A\ r ith me hereafter?”

“Sherry,” he said to the attendant waiter who hovered like a hawk behind him. And to her, with a lifted eyebrow: “You will drink, won’t you?” “Thank you—yes, I’d like a sherry,” Her voice was the only thing Avhich had not changed; she could change the pitch of it, certainly, but a tone of voice was a very individual thing, and not easily to be disguised. She steeled herself to meet coolly the second and more close examination which should mean that he had caught, at least a chord of memory in it; but there was no start. Nothing troubled the selfsatisfaction of his smooth, vicious face. As soon as the waiter had gone, though she could see no need for particular secrecy there, he said easily: “So you want to purchase? Who put you on to us? I swear I’ve never set eyes on you before.” “You’re foresworn already,” thought Peggy. Aloud she saicl, in that same low and careful voice, and keeping her eyes significantly upon his face: “Corrie Cowle told me to come here. Is that satisfactory credentials ?” Apparently it was. He nodded. “That’s all. right. Just a precaution, you know. What’s your poison?” “I want some mariajuana smokes. I want them badly. She saicl you wouldn't let me down.”

“Oh, yes, I . told him that I had to go quickly, and I’m sure he had you fitted into 'tho necessity quite neatly. He Avaiited me to stay and dance.”

“The devil he did!” said Peter, indignantly. “‘And you—Averen’t—attracted ?”

“I AA T as not,” said Peggy, shuddering. “Then Ave’ll go to some nicer place and dance Avithout him—if you can bear me any better than him?”

iSlie said that that would bo nice, and with half of her mind she meant it, but her heart was. upon other matters. She tumbled out the unlabelled blue tin into his hands. “There you are, Peter! Fifty of them; the best ho could do. I’m afraid they cost rather a lot of money, but maybe they were worth it. I got my man!” “Like the Canadian Mounties-—quite inescapable,” said Peter, facetious but excited. “The man of the morning visit? He’s lntually there, is he?” “Seemed to own the place. Peter—did you by any chance stay in sight of the door for the first few minutes that I was inside?”

PEGGY REFUSES AN INVITATION.

“Oh, .no,’’ lie said, his full mouth smiling indulgently, with a shared and a cynical pleasure, “no, we never do that. It’s a boast of ours.”

“Then I can have them?” A pathetic, insatiable eagerness in her voice, and her hand half-curling across the table towards him from the stem of her glass. Like a hungry ivild beast. She watched its nervous groping, and thought withadmiration: “Is this really the Abbott’s Ferry amateur?” “You can have them. Of course you can. At a price!” “I expect to be bled. Do you take me for a fool? What does it matter what they cost? I’ve got to have them, I tell you. What can you give me? Fifty? A hundred? Can I get more when I want them?’’

Peter considered, and said: “For maybe five minutes I had it in sight.” “That’s quite long enough. It couldn’t have been more than that. And did you see anyone else come in?” “Not a soul. No, I’m sure of that.”

“Then ho was inside all the time. There is a door on your right in the short passage before the stair dips. You get the direction? The passage doesn’t bend at all.”“I get it.”

“That’s where he came from—and that’s where ho w r ent to get the stuff. Their supplies' are there. Did you get anything any good?” “I’ve made a memory map of the place. Yes, there was a lit window round that side—shuttered, but the shutters at close quarters let just a chink of light. Those are their private offices, then, are they? I’ll make a note of that for the time when we can drop on them and blot them out.” “When will that he?” asked Peggy. “Not until we’ro on to the supply end as well. If, of course, wo get so far—and I think we will. Now, later on we’ll collect my bulldog, who should be able to put a name to your companion. Then we have him, too, Peggy time, but success had made him reckless. “Yes, Peggy, why not? That’s who you are, and I can’t think of you as anyone else. Peggy, I must tell you that up to now your life has been wasted.” He came to earth again. “What else? Describe everything that happened, everything you saw, everything you thought.” She obeyed all. but the last command. There had boon a thought or two about himself which it would not have been good for him to know. When the recital was ended and slip could think of nothing more to add as a postscript, she asked practically: “Well, what do wo do next?” And at that moment they reached the dancing

“Whenever you like, always provided you are prepared to pay cash for them, of course. At present I admit the supply is a trifle limited. I can get you fifty. They’ll cost you ” His eyes appeared to be measuring at once her wealth and her ardour. It was hardly fair to Peter’s pocket, or maybe the police department’s, but she had to be convincing at all costs. “Well?” she said feverishly. “What will they cost me?”

“A hundred quid. Forty bob each, take it or leave it.”

She said, her hand shaking as she set down the empty glass: “It’s robbery, and you know it. Why, in the States ”

“But we’re not in the States, and you know that, too. I’m sorry, but business is business. We have risks, and we take them out in this sort of insurance. Of course, if you know of a cheaper market you're at liberty to go to it.” She was a stranger, and desperate for her whiff, and he knew it; she was only too pleased to have found, through C'orrie’s good offices, one place where she could get the forbidden fruit. “All right, I’m a sucker, I’ll pay it. It’s as good a way of letting blood as any, and I can’t do without Mary Jane.” She fumbled in her handbag; Peter had given her more than enough for this jaunt. Yet she felt some com-

club fox- which they were bound, and the taxi pxilled in to the kerb. So next they danced. It was an amusement of which Peggy was fond, and there was no doubt that it was pleasant to be able to flaunt so desirable a partner; but the half of her mind, and the half of his, remained always detached upon this problem of what they were to do next. They discussed it fully when they were tired, over cigarettes in a, sitting-out place of which no one else seemed to he aware.

“I want to hark back,” said Peter, “to almost the very beginning of it all, to that little parcel of raw opium—loathly stuff— which you picked up on the moor. Do you remember the slip of paper which was pinned to it?” “Yes 1 , perfectly. We never properly considered that, did wo? At least—l didn’t have time, and afterwards the police didn’t confide in mo. So really I don’t know what they thought of it.”

(To bo Continued)