PRISONER IN MAJORCA

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 60, Issue 78, 12 January 1940, Page 7

PRISONER IN MAJORCA

By BENTLEY RIDGE.

(Copyright).

Tale of Adventure and Romance.

CHAPTER. XVII. NEWS FOR E. C. SMALLBRIDGE. At nine o’clock on the evening of the following day, E. C. Smallbridge Avas sitting in the library in his St. Raphael villa playing patience. His leg reposed as usual, on another chair, beneath a blanket; he looked even more impatient than he did when we first saw him. At a sound .outside he started/ listened, and jangled his bell furiously. “Gullick! Gullick!” Gullick appeared. “Yes, Mr Smallbridge.” “Didn’t I hear someone come?” Gullick opened his mouth to reply, and then fell back to allow Kitty to walk into the room. “Miss Kitty, sir!” said Gullick, belatedly, and withdrew, Smalbridge surveyed her for a moment of breathless silence. He observed that she looked somewhat pale, and by no means in her usual trim; that her shoes Avere dusty, and that her costume, consisting of shirt and slacks and a brown teddy bear coat Avas an odd one for travelling in:— “Well!” he said.

Smallbridge, too, could find little to say. Much that he had been going to say about the criminal folly of risking the safety of the “Kate” suddenly Avent out of his head. Kitty Avent on to tell him what she had heard from Cullen and Geoffrey Roger’s escape from the barracks and bis reeoA'cry of the yacht; and of her last blunder in letting Captain Ratchett toAv it off the sandbank.

“As soon as Ave got to Marseilles this afternoon I Avent to M. LeMann, and he sent me to his own lawyer. Captain Ratchett was more amenable by then. It had all been bluff on his part all along, I’m sure. He agreed to take fifty pounds to be paid at the end of this quarter—my allowance, if I’m to get it, father. He signed a paper releasing the ‘Kate’ from any further claim.” “Humph!” said Smallbridge, noncommittally. “I felt AA T orse about that than about, anything else,” she said. “I had to release the “Kate” from that claim. To have landed Roger Kent Avith it after everything that had happened already !” Smallbridge looked, at her narrowly. “And Avliat does he,think about it all?” he asked abruptly. Kitty dreAV a deep breath. “He hates me!” She took a restless turn up and down the room. “He won’t forgive me for having persuaded him to betray your confidence in him. He despises himself, I can see, even though he has put things .right. He despises me, too, utterly!” ‘ls that so?” “What are you going to do?” Kitty faced him anxiously. “What do you think about it?” “I think that this is the first time I Jiave ever seen you in a rational or reasonable mood,” replied Smallbridge, and that Avas all she could get out of him.

The single Avord conveyed a multitude of meanings, none of them very pleasant. “I’ve come back,” said Kitty, quaveringly, with unusual pointlessness. “So I seel” said her father, with pent passion. “And where, may I ask, is the ‘Glorious Kate?’ Six days ago I received a Avire from Kent saying lie was bringing her to St. Raphael. Have I had sight or sound of her since? No! Have I had word from any of you ? No! What have you done with the yacht, and where is Kent?” “She’s coming,” said Kitty. “He’s bringing her. He’ll never forgive me! It «was all my fault. He hates me! You don’t know Avhat I did!”

Her voice rose to a wail, she sat doAvn plump in the nearest chair, and burst into tears. E. C. Smallbridge, utterly astounded by this collapse ,of his over-resilient daughter was too taken aback to speak. “Well!” he said at last. “You must have done something pretty serious! This is the first tear I’ve seen you shed in fifteen years. Is someone dead?” “No,” said Kitty, controlling her tears. “Rut he’s going to resign!” “Who is going to resign? What arc you talking about?” Smallbridge shoAved signs of irritability. “You Avalk in here, you burst into tears, you tell me nothing, and then you say someone is going to resign!” “Roger Kent is going to resign his job,” explained Kitty. “Because he thinks he let you down. He let me take the yacht to Majorca. I persuaded hm. It Avas my fault. Oh, it was awful, I Avas’'terrible, I began by pushing him overboard, he’ll never forgive me, I’ve ruined him!” “See here,” said Smallbridge patiently, “I sent Roger Kent to take over the yacht and bring her hack here. On Wednesday I had a wire saying he had picked her up off Marseilles and was bringing her. That’s all I knoAV. Now, try to bo calm, and begin at the beginning.” HOUR OF RECKONING. Kitty told him. She began from the point when Roger had boarded the “Glorious Kate,” and disputed her right to the yacht. “So I gave him a push,” Kitty said dolefully. “And he fell overboard.” “Was that all?” said Smallbridge. Kitty- ignored him. She described hoAV Roger had made her stay on board, and how they had set out for St. Raphael. “He was absolutely staunch,” said Kitty with tragic solemnity. “'Your interests were his interests. (Nothing would make him swerve from his loyalty‘to you!” “That’s very gratifying,” said Smallbvidge, looking at her Avith the twinkle of an age-old wisdom in his eye “But in the end he did swen r e,” said Kitty, yet more solemnly. “I turned him aside. I put it to him that be owed a larger loyalty to humanity to use the yacht as Ave wanted him to-. It Avas a conflict of principles.” “And you Avon?” “ Yes, Avhat you’re trying to tell me is that you did all you could to make him do as you Avanted him to, and that you turned his head, and he did it!” “No, no, it Avas a matter of principle! It Avas an ideal!”

She asked if he meant to sack Roger. Smallbridge refused to make any definite reply. “Please, father,” pleaded Kitty. “Don’t he hard on him. Look Avhat he went through to get the ‘Kate’ back for you!” “Persuading people again?” said Smallbridge, Avith a severe look which reduced her to shamed silence. “But what are you going to do?” she dared to ask him again. Ho looked at her Avith a hard eve, and said he would think it oA r ei\ At seven a.m. on the folloAving morning the “Glorious Kate” limped into harbour. Her starboard engine was out of order until Cullen could obtain a spare part which he seemed assured of being able to get from Milan. If a spare part could have been supplied from Milan to repair the damage he had done himself in Smallbridge’s estimation Roger would have been relieved. At is was his early morning walk through St. Raphael to the villa appealed to him as being not unlike one of those early morning parades Avhich used to go forth from the Tower to Execution Hill . . . The air about the villa Avas sweet Avitli the spiell of citrus trees, and the terraced garden Avas a sea of flowers through which lie Avalked resolutely to his fate. Smallbridge Avas breakfasting on the terrace when Gullick ushered Roger out there. A half empty coffee cup and a cover laid for a second person on the table showed that he had had a companion; but Smallbridge was alone. He had a pair of binoculars in his hand; lie had, Roger guessed been looking through them at the “Kate” Avhere she lay in the harbour below! He put them down, peered at Roger fiercely from under his shaggy broAvs and said: “So here you are!” “Rather late, I’m afraid,” said Roger, drawing in a long breath. “I’ve brought back the “Glorious Kate.” “So I see!” “I’m afraid she’s a rather patchy looking job, just at the moment!” “She looks like a Jersey cow!” said Smallbridge acidly. Roger ventured a tentative query. “Y r ou’ve seen Kitty Miss Smallbridge?” “Yes, I’ve seen her.” Roger relaxed a trifle. “Then you’ve already heard most of the story?” “Most of it.” Smallbridge waA’ed towards a chair. “'Sit doAvn!” It Avas difficult to tell from his manner what he was thinking. It Avas terse! One couldn’t tell what kind of fury Avas simmering behind it, ready to boil oA r er. Roger pulled out a chair from the table, and sat doAvn. “I’ve come to deliver the ‘Glorious Kate,’ and to resign my job,” he sail, quietly. Smallbridge merely regarded him with an uncompromising stare. (To he Concluded.)

“Yes,” said Smallbridge, “You were the ideal and after that, what?” Kitty began to sniff again. “Well if I was the ideal then, I’m not now!” She went on to tell him how they had sailed for Majorca, and how they arrived off Manreal. At the mention of Gavin Erdhart, Smallbridge’s cynicism fell from him. “What?” he said, astounded, with a complete change of face. “It was to save that boy that you wanted to go to to Majorca. Why did’t you tell me it was Gavin Erdhardt?” “We were supposed to keep his name secret ...” “But you should have told me !” protested Smallbridge, red in the face with concern. “Why—why—why, if 'I had known that I might have given my permission, or at any rate made some arrangement to assist in rescuing him myself. Gavin Erdhart! What happened? My dear Kitty, my dear girl—did you rescue him?” Kitty looked at her father knowingly, with a certain acid pleasure: “You’re just like the rest of us were,” she said. “You get just as excited. There was no Gavin Erdhart. It was all a hoax to steal the yacht.” Fortified by a whisky and soda Smallbridge heard the rest of the story. Kitty explained briefly how they had lost the yacht, how they hj'id been imprisoned in Manreal. When she came to the shooting at Juan Cruz and the scene in the barracks afterwards, words failed her for a moment, and she stared at him hollow-eyed.