THE LORRY LADY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 66, Issue 69, 2 January 1946, Page 6

THE LORRY LADY

Serial Story:

(Copyright).

BY EARDLEY BESWICK.

CHAPTER XX

THE WALLET IS POSTED TO CARROW Then her thoughts turned to the implications of this ancient story as they applied to the person! situation of the head of the house of (.'arrow. That there was any chance of the treasure remaining where it had been hidden, she was prepared, under his tuition, to discount, but that it was believed still to be there by George Left bury Sant, M.A., of Oxford, was obvious enough, and explained a great deal. Squeeny’s voice broke in on her reverie. “Seems as if that bloke ’ad bin copyin’ something out of Robin Hood or The Boys of Sherwood Forest, don’t it. Miss?”' “I think there’s probably something a good deal more interesting than that in it.”

, “You wouldn’t say that, Miss,” he hastened to assure tier, “if you’d read the Friar Tuck Series. Fair takes your breath away in places, them stories do.”

“I mean interesting because if concerns someone I know rather well. I

think the best thing to do will be for us to post the whole pocket-book just as you stole—l mean .found it: off to that someone at once.”

“Very good, Miss. I’ll feel safer if it’s out of the way meself, but what I want to know is what’s it got to do with our bein’ burgled, an’ whether we’re to be allowed to sleep in our beds safe from bein’ burgled in the same way again.” “Well perhaps,” she explained, wondering how much she ought to tell him but feeling that it would foe irnpossibly harsh to deprive a mind so avid of romance of all the excitement the story had aroused in her own more critical mind, “perhaps it does help to explain what these men were wanting. You see I rather fancy they think this friend of mine is on the track of all that treasure, the gold and the jewels and things, when he isn’t all the time. And they think, X suppose, he may have told me something or written me about it.” The boy’s eyes had widened steadily as she,spoke. True, she had unwittingly divided his interests, for he had not been able to restrain a sharp little nod when the identity carefully veiled under “someone”, had been'revealed as Jhe, * but the idea of a treasure-hunt held for him the major appeal. “D'ye mean to say, Miss, that them blokes thinks as all that gold and jew’Iry is still hidden away waitin’ for someone to dig ’em up?”

.“I think it looks as if the tall one did think so at any rate, but I think the tall one is the sort who goes mad in one direction. Perhaps he is mad about these, jewels and the little one actually believes in him. They’ve certainly been behaving very queerly towards my friend, and apparently they have taken the trouble to come all the way from just this side of Burlingham only to see if they can find anything out from me. I fancy they may think I took the lorry that way to carry off some of the treasure. They must he quite mad.”

“Big one’s quite mad. Little one’s only balmy,” Squeeny distinguished acutely.

She was weary. Fascinating as the subject was she could discuss it no longer. She yawned unaffectedly. “I simply must go home to bed,” she said, and rising found a large strong envelope in which she placed the wal-

let. She addressed it to N. Carrow, Esq., at his poste restante, in her bold feminine script, estimated its weight, put on an extra stamp in case her estimate should be low. “Come along, Squeeny,” she said. Before they locked up he had to show her the ingenious way he had wedged the window against further invasions. “That’ll puzzle ’em if they come back to look for the thin bloke’s pocket hook,” lie boasted, and at the suggestion that they might indeed return she found herself almost distraught. She wanted intensely just

then to be freed from all these worries, to be alone with her own thoughts to fall asleep in the midst of more pleasant memories.

Squeeny, accompanying her along the silent streets to her home, forebore from a feeling almost of apprehension to speak further of the evening’s revelations so far at any rate as they concerned Messrs Sant and Co. For Madie also it was as if there might be danger in ‘discussing such matters in a public place, however deserted at that time of night. Indeed the very emptiness of the streets seemed to her in some inexplicable way to render all such discussions more risky. There was however, in the hoy’s mind, and hardly less in her own though she would not have admitted so much a desire to explore another, less fantastic, revelation that he had acquired during the past hour. Ingenuously he plunged into the subject.

“I’m glad as how you’ve bin an’ took up with a boy-friend at last, Miss, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so. I hope for you sake as it’s a permanent.” “Why, what on earth do you mean?” she asked with insincere accents of repudiation. “Mr Carrow’s just a friend of mine.” She laughed a short little artificial laugh while Squeeny registered the surprising fact that the name of the gentleman was the same as that of the “fighting bloke” in the manuscript. “There’s nothing whatever in it but just ordinary friendship,” she insisted.

“No, Miss, of course not.” His tone was demure. “Oney you see, your eyes was all shiny when you come in an’ when you mentioned the gent they went shinier still. I ’ope as ’ow I ’aven’t given no offence, Miss.” She promised to overlook it, only insisting that he must never again think such a thing of her. She wasn’t interested in boy-friends, and besides driving always made her eyes watery, especially night driving. It did that for everyone.

He was remarking sadly that he was sorry to learn that it was not true, and trying to explain that such affairs in his eyes were natural and desirable, and that one expected them to occur in the lives of young ladies as beautiful as he esteemed her to lie, when she caught sight of a pillar-box. It was a welcome interruption, for just then she felt quite incapable of snubbing anyone so friendly as her Squeeny and yet his absurd talk was so embarrassing her that it had to be stopped in some way. The wallet in its envelope went thud on the bottom of the pillar-box. A strangely welcome thud.

(To be continued)