THREADNEEDLE STREET.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 6, 18 October 1940, Page 7

THREADNEEDLE STREET.

CHAPTER XX.

FORCED DISCOVERY.

It took Money a moment or two to recover from the violent push into the •room. He was still feeling his neck with his fingers, wondering how it came to remain unbroken, when he murmured “1 was right when I thought of this as the spot most likely to be holding you two, but I didn’t expect to get to you myself in this way!” • Across the large bare room, windowless and electrically lit, the eyes of Verity Bellew and Princep met his gaze. It , was Princep who responded first:

“Why, you red-headed plotter. Verity’s been telling me you’re one of this bunch of kidnappers. Now you try and play the rescuer.” “Be quiet, Rex!” Verity stopped the furious Princep. She was ghastly pale. There were bruises and a slight cut or two on her face. Her clothes were in tatters and smeared with grime and dirt, eloquent signs of violent and vain struggle on her part. Yet her air of cool sophistication lacked nothing of its invariable sheen. “How did you get here?” she asked. “You saw for yourself, Miss Bellew, that free will liad nothing to do with it. I’m afraid, the way things have happened, that I’m in much the same boat as yourself and Princep here. Fortunately, -there’s still a chance, thanks, most of all, to that note you threw in the sea.” “So—it was found?” x “If that isn’t a miracle!” Princep exclaimed, studying Money as if, from a fresh angle. “And—is it part of the miracle that you’re on our side and not with these people?” he questioned. , “Would I have been slung in here if> if I was?” Money suggested. “If it hadn’t been for that message of yours, Miss Bellew, everyone would have believed you still over in Corsica, you were supposed to be lost—” He could see that they know nothing, so briefly went into details of the whole story up to the point where Marchand had pulled that crumpled bit of paper from the sea.

“The next thing to do was to find out where you actually were,” Money went on. “I suppose you knew of this place and the people who it,” Verity interrupted. “I did, and planned accordingly. But I reckoned without the other side. It seems, in case, I knew too much, they wanted me out of the way. One of them surprised me and brought me here.” “And wliat’s going to happen now? “That depends entirely on Marchand and his men. I’d planned to come along here later than this alone, but with the police within , call. But Marchand’s a wise card, and I think we can count on him; Meantime, we can only wait.” Hope, however faint, made that waiting a trifle easier, if none the less tense in anxiety. The abduction of Verity and Princep had begun with a sudden and wholly unexpected attack in the Sequetros villa while they were alone in a room together. It had been so managed that they did not even see their attackers, and were too swiftly and securely bound and gagged to resist much.

They had imagined themselves victims of an ordinary, if daring, kidnapping plot, both having wealthy parents, so that ransoms could be extracted. Now, after having heard Money’s story and the obvious complicity of Sequetros and the Corrigans, the seriousness of the situation was much more clear.

Verity accepted it as natural that she should be held as hostage for her father and his acts, but was concerned for Rex and why he should have been dragged into the plot.

“I suppose they couldn’t take the one without the other!” Princep laughed. “They just had to carry me along, you see. And—well, I know how hard up the Corrigans are—l guess, never thinking* the truth would come out, they hoped somehow to extort something from my uncle-—”

He stopped. A clicking sound had come from The direction of. the closed door. It slipped open in sideways fashion, and Schuttzner appeared there with two other men behind him. He shouted at Money:

“So you got the police on us, after all. That settles you, my friend, and these others as well.”

THE BATTLE BELOW.

As the nioise died away, Sehuttzner crumpled up in a heap on tine ground. The two men behind realised that the shot had come from Money, who was covering them. “Hands right up, please! What fools to put me in here without first finding out if I was armed! Keep those hands right up.” Princep went through their pockets, removing a gun from each man, then hurried with Verity out into the passage. Money followed and slid the door to, knowing it could not he opened from within. “Easy work, that!” he laughed softly, then was serious. “And now we come to the difficult part. I don’t know the layout of this place in detail, so we must take our chances. The police are about the premises, anyhow, that will help. Remember, Princep, it’s up to von to look after Miss Bellew— —” There was a sudden distant outbreak of voices, shouting angrily, arguing desperately. The turmoil came from somewhere probably above this level, and Money—though lie had never been so far down as this before—knCw and guessed Enough of his surroundings to realise the position. From what Sehuttzner had said, March and had followed the ideas nut up in that last telephone talk. So far. Money reckoned, he had probably only raided the known and public portion of the building. Whether ho would find and force the concealed doors to the lower half was a matter for conjecture. There was, however, another part of the plan, which he hoped March and had not overlooked, since much hung on it.

(Copyright)

(To be Concluded)

As to. that he simply had to trust Marchand. His first objective was to

By LESLIE BERESFORD. ::

A Serial Storv of Monev. Adventure and Love.

get out of this narrow passage into a better strategical position for the. attack he and his companions were bound to meet. Hie knew only, too well that unless frustrated, the unscrupulous enemies opposing them would never allow the three of them to get out alive. ' Directly they achieved the end of the passage, and emerged into a species of hall, so that they were out in the open, becoming a clear target, Money found 1 a switch, and plunged the hall into darkness. The only light now came from above, down a broad stairway of stone, and this, as blackness fell around Money and the others, became a flowing river of sound and movement, pourng downwards in frenzied haste. There filtered down also, from higher up still, tho lilt of music and the laughter of women, though this was suddenly cut off, and the-womens voices changed from laughter to screams. A shot rang out, and then another. ....... That means, Money calculated that Marchand was breaking through from above, and he smiled to himself. But the smile was taken from his- lips next moment. For from a noisy avalanche of people pouring down the stairway, someone shouted an order. Instantly, from some switch on the stair, lights sprang into being again, flooding the open space brilliantly. Someone had been “throwing a party,” as Dot Savage had put it. Ihe party had clearly been taken quite by surprise. It included even Dot herself. Duke Irwin was there. So—Money lelt amused at this— was Hilery Draper. For the rest, the Spanish proprietor ol the “Golden Goose,” and five othei men, made up-as Money recogmsedthe most important membeis of what he and Dot had always spoken of as “the others.” They approached Money and his companions fan-wice, hugging the walls, trying slowly to verge in. on the three, seeking to make execution as cheap and easy as possible. Money thrust Verity behind a stone projection at the corner they occupied. Princep rose to the occasion, taking some sort of covei further away for himself, which yo allowed him to shoot to advantage. It was Princep, young and excitably inexperienced, who began the mevi - able. Money, holding his own fire as yet, was pleased to note that the American hit his man fair and S( l uai : e - That also, at a moment when the wounded man’s collapse impeded the movements of others. One of these was the Spanish proprietor, who became enraged, bellowing: “Open quickly the sea-door, someone. So, when w r e have finished with these, we get straight away.” Money heard, rather than saw, that the order had been obeyed. A rumbling sountl of moving metal tore the momentary silence. Immediately, the Spaniard fired, and Money felt a sharp pain in his lert arm. He was on the point of firing back when another shot rang out, and the Spaniard gave a yell ,slumping backwards. Money heard Dot Savage’s voice, clear and excited, calling to him: “That was me, 'Chris. I’m in with you on this. I’ve got a gun. Let them nave it, hot and strong.” > As she was standing near the man Princep had put. .out ol action, he guessed she had picked up the wounded man’s weapon from the floor. Battle was inescapable now, though it could last only the number of rounds in his gun. So he fired with care, especially as he could hear Princep—with two guns—making more show and drawing more fire hack. With the smoke, and the acrid odour of cordite, it was becoming impossible to see well, and breathing, too, was becoming difficult. One thing Money did see was that Hilery Draper, livid and showing his teeth, was working his way round to get him at an angle from which, being wounded in the left shoulder as he felt he was, it would be difficult to reply. As he saw Dot Savage making towards Draper he called out to her: “Keep back and out of it, Dot. This is no woman’s game.” The next moment, the whole small battle-ground swept back in unexpected fashion. Unexpected, except by Money, though he had almost given up hope that this thing might happen. In at the gap- left by the earlier opening of the sea-door, French police were pouring in numbers. They were hard at it with truncheons, rather than guns, for the law prefers to take badly wanted men alive, so they can be made io pay adequately for their sins. Almost simultaneously, a stream of police came pouring down that stairway . from the pandemonium above. With them was Marchand, aeek.ng Money out right away. “What did I tell you, mon vieux? The man inside—the Fifth Column—is lie not worth a whole army outside?” he greeted. “If it hadn’t been, for yen, knowing of the way through this pmee to the ravines and the sea, we couldn’t have made this nice litle coup. If it hadn’t been for you putting two and two together, as your telephone talk •said, we' wouldn’t have thought of this place at all. Also, as I told you, it was just a lunatic’s trick to walk into such a place alone, not even being sure we could help you in time. When you didn’t ring me up again as I had expected, I almost came to the conclusion that you had changed your ideas,” he went on. “I was on the point of cancelling our police arrangements.” “A good thing you didn’t!” Money laughed faintly. Ho meant to explain why he hadn’t telephoned later, into what awkward situatifjn lie had walked straight from that telephone cabinet, and how he had worried since lest Marchand might not act. “Can’t you see he’s wounded?” Dot Savage called out, thrusting IVlarcliand to one side and catching Money as he toppled forward.