SECRET IN SEVEN FATHOMS.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 69, 2 January 1941, Page 7

SECRET IN SEVEN FATHOMS.

(Copyright),

j By MARTSN FRASER. :: | i Influence of a “Dead” Ship.

CHAPTER XVI

bullet ploughed into his heart, not mine. It was the way I twisted his wrist that did it. He dropped dead at my feet.” The skipper was slumped on. the settee, dejectedly. “It was tough,” he said, thickly, “I’d freed her—but she was dying. I went over to her. ‘Prank,’ she said, Tra going. It’s all for the best. But I want you to know I loved you all the time. I was a fool and I made a ghastly mistake.’ 'She spoke so low I could hardly hear her. “Then she said: ‘I want you to do something for me.’ ‘The child?’ 1 asked. She nodded, and fumbling in her blouse pulled out a sort of washleather bag. It contained diamonds. ‘Listen Prank,’ she said. ‘These are mine. They are not stolen jewels. Save Sylvia. Look after her for me. Sell these. I leave her to you, Prank, but never let her know what her father was. Promise you’ll never let her know that.’ ”

“It was tough,” remarked Seaton. Still, I had to make the best of it. The years went by, five or six, I reckon. And I was back in London River again.

“One night, about two hours before we were about to sail for Rio, a man came to- book a passage. I didn’t cater for passengers in the ordinary run, but I wasn’t against taking a. few now and again. This man said his wife had been ailing and had been ordered a sea. voyage, but he couldn’t afford a cruise in a liner. And he had to do it quickly. She was in a mood when she wouldn t do things if you gave her time to think about them. He said they had one child —a girl about five. Could I take them P “Well, we fixed it. He had his passports and all papers as they should be, and after dark, about ten minutes before we sailed, the whole party went down to their cabin. I went up on the bridge, and I never set eyes on them until we were in the Downs and I went below. They were in the saloon. He broke off and passed his hand wearily across his brow. “So you met her again,” murmured Monro.

There was a tense silence in the cabin. Monro’s head was lowered. The agony in the skipper’s eyes was too obvious. Out of sheer pity, conscious of all this man had suffered —and was suffering—he could not look his way. “What could I do?” asked Seaton, thickly. Then answered nimself. “I promised. And she\died in my arms as the ship struck the reef out there in the bay!” Again there was a silence that could be felt—an awkward, distraught silence. . “Later on,” he resumed, quietly, went to the man and searched him. He had the stolen jewels pi a belt round his body. A fortune in them.”

The skipper’s chin was sunk on his chest.

“You’ve guessed it,” he mumbled. “Reckon you could see what was coming. But it came as a terrible shock to me. She had changed greatly. Still pretty, of course, but her cheeks were hollow, her eyes sunken. She was miserable.” “And the man?”

“I caught the lay of the land from the first. I guessed that her husband would be pretty ruthless and cruel if he tumbled to the way things had been between us. He was a braggart and a boaster. He talked big about what he had done in business and what he meant to do.

lie paused again. “But when a got to my feet Simon Todd was standing in the doorway. 1 bawled him out—Wliat are you hangiu around here, for?’ J yelleu. ‘Get on deck!’ And he went, while I locked that cabin door and ieit them together, both dead. i got Sylvia in my arms and went up on deck. The 'Lynden Glen’ was breaking up last. Those rocks had torn the keel off her. How we got ashore 1 hardly know, but we made it—most of us. r

“Later that evening l managed to get a word alone with her. But she was loyal to her husband. I hinted that she was unhappy, and she denied it gallantly, without deceiving me. As for her baby girl—she was lovely. “But it was about midnight that I got the full meaning of it all. There was a message on the wireless. A jewel thief had gat away with a big haul from some place in Hatton Garden, and he’d committed a murder in the doing of it. The police had an idea, he might have slipped aboard: some outward-bound ship, and all masters were warned and given a full description of the man.” “You’re giving no names,” said Monro, with a frown.

“So that was that. In the morning I saw Todd. He asked me about the passengers. I told him the woman had oeen a liame of min© and the man had been jealous, killing her and tlien himself. l begged him to keep it dark and he consented, i paid him for that—hfty pounds—and ne was satisfied. He went off up to London and I saw no more of him. “But l heard about him. He had a hectic time, fell foul of the police and shipped aboard some hooker and left for ioreign parts. And i forgot Simon Todd—for a while. 1 the insurance money on the ‘Glen’ and settled down here, and Sylvia passed as my daughter. JNObody questioned it. The passengers went down with the ‘Glen,’ and that was that. “i liad to sell the diamonds one by one to keep us both. It was all I could do. And i sold them carefully—on the Continent—because although she had told me the diamonds were not stolen I still couldn’t be sure about it. Not that she would have lied to me especially when she was dying—but no else could have giyen them to her except her husband, in the early days of their married life, and I knew enough about him to realise that lie would only have stolen jewels to give her, anyway. “Maybe 1 should have gone to the police about it. I don’t know. But 1 couldn’t forget that I had promised a dying woman to make sure that Sylvia never found out about her father. I couldn’t take the child on voyages with me, so I gave lip tlxe sea—swallowed the anchor —and settled down here where I could watch the bay. “You see, there were times when I wondered about that fortune in stolen jewels lying there in a waterproof belt in a cabin of a wrecked ship. And sometimes I wondered how much Simon Todd knew and whether he’d ever come back to cash in.

“I swore I never would tell a soul his name,” retorted Seaton. “I’m only spinning the yarn to you, and it’s in confidence. Promise you’ll keep: this to yourself.”

Monro stroked his chin. He had his official status to consider, but there was also Sylvia. He was beginning to understand, vaguely, what all this would mean for her.

“I promise,” he said, solemnly,

“I knew you would,” returned the captain, “I wouldn’t have started if I had doubted you. Anway, after that wireless message I went below. She was alone in the saloon. The kiddy was asleep in the cabin. 'She said her husband had turned in as the sea was upsetting him a bit. “She was nervous—afraid. And right away she begged me not to let her husband know about the past. I charged her with being scared of him, and she admitted it. She had found out where his money came from. I told her about the radio message and asked her what she wanted me to do. And she begged me to do nothing. She said he was drinking hard, anyway. She clung to me and begged me to do nothing. “He caught us—like that!” he said harshly. There was a pause. “And he was a murderer!” breathed Monro. The captain nodded grimly.

“So I stayed here, because if anyone did raise the wreck and find what was left of my passengers in the saloon —and find those jewels, the secret of Sylvia’s father would come out. I had to he ready to stop it. I had sworn I would. “I fixed it with a friend of mine over in Dieppe to sell the diamonds I had. I’d sail out in my boat and he’d come over in a trawler. I’d give him a diamond and days later he’d come over with the money. Never once has he cheated me or let me down.

MAD, AND ARMED. “He had a gun in his fist before I could blink, and there was a large-scale row 1 . He had been listening at the dobr, so we couldn’t fool him. I tried to get the gun from him, but it was no use. He threatened to shoot her first, where it would hurt most, if I didn’t behave. So I humoured him, and bided my time. “He came on deck with me. I took over the watch from Simon Todd, and I altered the course. The murderer was no navigator. He didn’t tumble. It was in my mind to make for Newhaven, and then trust to luck to get us all out of the mess. But the weather was dirty, and a gale came up out o’ the sou’west. Still, I held, on my course, although I knew I had a lee shore on my starboard bow all the time.

‘ ‘So the years went by and I began to think the past was dead at last. But Tom Farrant began to talk big, and Sylvia said a man with a mole on his cheek had spoken to her. And right away I knew that Simon Todd had come back and trouble was due. I sold more diamonds than ever I had done at one time before, and I tried to buy Todd off. But the rat knew I hadn’t as much as he could get off the wreck. He’d ha.ve tried to salvage her years before, but I suspect he was doing time in some gaol on the other side of the world.

“Then, through a break in the murk, he saw a light ashore, and he had the wit to realise we shouldn’t have been near any land. He accused me: of fooling him, and I was so mad I told him what I’d done. We had a scrap, up there on the bridgef He did his best to plug me, but I got in a haymaker to the jaw that sent him down the ladder to the boat deck. Unluckily, it didn’t knock him silly, and he hung on to his gun. . ' “ ‘All right,’ he yelled. ‘l’ll finish her first and then you.’ He was like a maniac. I left the bridge—a thing I had no right to do, especially in that blow—and I went after him. But 1 wasn’t quick enough. She was on the settee, and dying as I burst in. He swung round and let fly at me. What with my dodging and the ship lurching, the slug missed me. Then I was at him. He had the strength of a maniac. I knew he was ripe to kill. “So I dared not let up. But the ship was floundering in the troughs of the seas. She was off her course. I knew it, but I had no chance to do anything about it. I saw the gun coming at me. I grabbed his wrist just as he fired. The

“Anyway, here he was with his outfit! in Eastport Bay. He was as scared of me as I was of him.” “How was that?” asked Monro. (To be Concluded).