"VENGEANCE"

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 48, 26 February 1929, Page 18

"VENGEANCE"

I - } By S. ANDREW WOOD. 1

CHAPTER V. Mobbed by the Crowd. Dick Lyndon stood with hi? back to lie stone wall. All about him the workrs of Greenwood's Mill surged angrily. L»-t he was blind to their near menace, lis eyes were upon Joan Greenwood as he stood with the wind floating her ight skirt, her body straight and tense, nd her face colourless. It seemed to lim that she lifted her head to him nth. a gesture of scorn and hatred. "Hunt him out of Mossgield! Let lim see he isn't wanted here. Three heers for Reuben Greenwood's daugher!" Lyndon stood silent, his big jaw set. ragged cheer went up from the people lenrest to Joan. He thought he saw her mile in cold triumph with the lips which ie had kissed only a few minutes beore. 1 hen he was facing the workpeople of Greenwood's. They came -warming long the throat of the narrow lane like grimy river. The foremost of them lustled him with their shoulder. T] ie e*t rippled in breaking waves round the notor car. ■'Greenwood's rur us! We'll burn the nills down before Lyndon shall have hem!" A large, loose-lipped man spoke the vords hoarsely and maliciously. He truck at Dick Lyndon's mouth, and the oung man felt the salty ta = te of blood, i et something seemed to keep him ieilv md terrible cool. He did not lift his •lenfhed hands from his side.. Vensreance! The word scm>:m.',l to be an cy, chilling breath. His giancc searched ibove the heads of the crowd for Joan. 3ut she had vanished. "■Stand aside!" he whispered. The ring of work-stained people closed lear. hemming him in. The man who tad struck him was taking otT his coat, le was a big. tow-headed giant, with he ears for an ape and the huge shoullers <>t a bull. In Mosgiel village on Saturday nights .Toe Standring had ■mptied a whole street of people. He rrinned wickedly into Lyndon'- face. "Fight us, mestur! Fi'jiit us for Greenwood's Mills! I'll .-iiampioii or Reuben Greenwood's daughter!" A roar of rough laughter and -houting vent up. Lyndon smiled grimly, and \ ineed with the first glimmering of rage, fe was as big as .Toe. Standring, giant hat lie was, and in perfect trim. Vet ie could not answer the man'- challenge, ■.very passion seemed dead within him. The realisation that the swaving crow.i ooked upon the brute a; . T o::n Grpcnvooil's champion numbed Lyndon. Pertaps even .Tuan licr.-elf wa- -omewhere )n the tringe of people watching-— "Make way. you mad fool!" he s ;l i,i larshiy. He strode at the solid wall of human icings, and something in his -rone »rev ■yes made tiie foremo-t fail hack. °Joe leapt with a rough shout, and Lyndon swung round instinctively. He •vas in time to sec a small, lithe, bareleaded figure spring into the emprv •pace. Next moment the hulking b»dv >f Joe Standring crumpled backwards. "This way, Mr. Lyndon!" a quick, cool roice said. Reside him stoo<l a little, young man. ■vith a red, elose-oropped bullet head and lancing eyes that were the colour of lazclnuts. He wore a blue bird's-cve nuffler round his throat and a striped jersey beneath his threadbare joat. His •hin was shaped like a spade. Ho was ■lightly bow-legged, but every movement ie made had the lightness and grace of a "Ginger Tubb!" Lyndon spoke mechanically. The iron rrip of the young man was on his arm. A itli knee and foot and swinging arms, lis rescuer was cutting a lane toward he motor • car. One or two stones attled against the car's sides. Then, he wheel vibrating in Lyndon's hands, nd with shouting men clinging to footloards, the car nosed its way with gathering speed up the steep roadway, lie followers eventuallv beiii" shaken iff. "Thanks. Ginger!" Lyndon s;iid. Ginger Tubb shook a red and sinewv ist at the straggling throng behind. He areftilly took a large tweeii cap from us coat pocket, and jammed it upon his ead. Ihen he turned reproachfully to .yndon. "\ou ought not to ha' gone without ae. gov nor.' he said. "It's not safe."' Ginger Tubb had sprung Info Lyndon's ife one foggy morning in Stalhridge, the own where the Lyndon Syndicate had nost of its mills. Dick had been passng across the bridge that spanned the nurky canal, on his way to the bank, rhen three men had leapt at him out of he grey blanket of mist. One wolfish ace only had he seen clearly as he ought desperately. It had been that f a man named Joe Bude. a street eorer revolutionary, who had been moved n by the police of Stalbridge from pillar u post during the past few months. He ad remembered even in the glimpse that is own name had been on Bude's lips s a monster of greed and tyranny. He had slipped and fallen and the nclean hands of Bude's companions had :>und the note-wallet in his pocket, when he wall of fog erupted the figure of linger Tubb. A hollow splash, and the rebrand had vanished in the waters of he canal, the other two fleeing with unteady footsteps. From that moment ringer Tubb —who lived with a rosy ttle wife and a round-eyed baby near n old warehouse, which he ran as Tubb's Wonderland and Boxing Booth" -had made himself Lyndon's bodyguard, s true as steel, and as simple as a hild. he worshipped Dick Lyndon. Lyndon sat grimly silent as the car ivung through the golden summer dusk, he sealed envelope which contained the lortgage on Greenwood's Mills was still i his pocket. He had meant to give it 3 Joan on the first revelation of his ?al name, but the cold passion which ad frozen her had prevented him. What ad she meant when she said he had illed her father? "There is some ghastly mistake." he hispered. The big embossed door of Styal Chase as open. Leaving Ginger and the car, lick passed along the carpeted dimness, b was unusual for the house to be so mpty and silent. He opened the door of the library ilently. In the very doorway he aused. startled. The room was lighted by a single rasier lamp. Over a desk beneath the ght bent John Lyndon, his father. Tn is hand was a photograph. It was that f a young girl, and Dick Lyndon's pulse «apt at the sight, m the straight, steady { res and laughing mouth. Then in- '

stinctively he knew that it was not Joan Greenwood's picture, but that of h-T mother. whom hard John Lyndon had loved and lost. Ihe iron grey head turned swift Iv. "Dick!" John Lyndon said. "So you're back!" There was a crash on the oak floor as the photograph fell. John Lyndon bent down and picked it up. For a moment Dick saw the broken glass, and it seemed to him that a blur of shining tears ], a d fallen over the laughing face. Then John Lyndon had concealed the picture. CHAPTER VI. Kidnapped. Li a little, dirty lane that ran into t" ; -. heart of the slum quart-r of Mo?s.rjel village, stood a row of drunken and tumbledown cottages. Behind them the mill-stream, which had once been 'he life blood of Greenwood's Mills, ran in a deep, gloomy gulch. At this hour, when the single pale gasjet which lighted Newman's Row was wheezing in its pipe, the place, as a rui was deserted. But for the figure of a i;:ari moving quickly from shadow to shadow, it was deserted now. Ihe man stopped at the first greasv and sun blistered door. It was opened iV a fierce looking, slatternly woman. "Mr. Bromley!" The name was a whisper. Ma\ Bromley entered the dnor. He -iood in a dingy little parlour, lit by a single ashen incandescent light. A man who had been seated upon the horse-hair sofa rose to his feet and eyed him furtively.

-Mr. Slim Topping, ex-detective, alnavbore a furtive look in his ferretv eyj*. He was a little lean man. almos't bald save for a tonsure of colourless hai-' He had a mouthful of broken teeth. his lip- se-ned to cover but badlv. ♦-lim Topping. it was said, had on«v ! been one of the smartest men at Scurland \ard. Then lie had disappeared suddenly for five years—in Dartmoor i; had beet, whispered— and had returned to the world a broken and cringing animal. He had come to Mossgiel and married a virajro of a woman named Moll Bright, who lived in Xewman's Ko\v Moll Bright had waited for him during his five years' disappearance. And that was all that Mossgiel knew about th -n --Slim Topping and his wife. "Pleased to see you. sir," Slim Topping said, gently. ""You're alwavs welcome." Max Bromley nodded. In the dimroom he looked (strangely out of place with his long, loose' body, polished, shapely head, and aristocratic features. There was a faint flush on hie face, and his narrow eyes were bright. "What's the news?" be a«ke i i hungrily. ' i Topping reached out a lean, hairv hand and clawed a cigar from Rromby'".case. He looked for a moment at th • blinded window. "The news you've been waiting lor. Rick Quarmby, the Australian millionaire, landed at Liverpool yesterday. He travelled second class on the Borzonia as & Californian tinned fruit salesman. He vanished in Liverpool, and I guess he'll emerge as a Ford agent or a tramp, or maybe a travelling draper. He doesn't care what he is, so long as he's not taken j for Rick Quarmby, millionaire. If he suspected that anyone knew he was that, he'd run back to Australia by Hying machine, I do believe. He's a rum old card, to be sure!" 'In England! Then he may be in Mossgiel any day!" "Sure thing." Topping said, almost sleepily. "He'll make his way to Mossgiel sooner or later —but soon. I sho d 1 say. The old fox always comes b■ ?k to the hole where he was born. He'll come because his only relations, old Reuben Greenwood and his daughter, are here, though there has been a feud between him and old Reuben since they were boys. Luck to you when von marry Miss Joan (Greenwood. Ilick Quarmby's heiress. Mr. Bromley!"' Topping opened his eyes, and for a moment they were like keen point-, of steel. Then, like a mask, the sleepy look came over them again. At his word= Bromley jerked up his head quickly. "Reuben Greenwood was drowned in the mill stream three hours ago. Topping." he said smoothly. "The new- is j all over Mossgiel. If you had mo,-,.' I , out of this hole this afternoon you won!'have heard it." He spoke carelessly, yet watching i !;e l man before him closely. | Slim Topping rose slowly and stillly. ' A soft, cackling laugh left his lips-

"What luck, Mr, Bromley!" he purred ilmost mockingly. "What luck!" Bromley started. For a moment there slim Topping gave a dry cough. -You and me had better "come to ar understanding to-night. Mr. Bromley/' he said. "I was once left in the lurch before. My trusting nature got me five pla ° e f - ,r an 'j old CT D - ™ an *° in being found out. I'm making no more mistake*. You are jroing to marrv Reuben Greenwood's daughter because m,t^r b r e the h V r T oi R^ ck Q uarm bv, out_ a shirt on his back, just to see how he is received. Reuben (ireenwood is the only one who will spoil your young iadv'« i 'L°^J^'' olll ' n^- a millionairess.'' * idt dead, }ou fool! <n\fl harshly. "Haven't I told v 0 u?" * Slim Topping tiptoed across the room. He beckoned to Bromlev, and mechanically the other followed him. Half-hidden behind the cheap finger-stained cabinet and covered by a dingy curtain, was a' door. Slim Toping opened it noiselessly. SffWtfrSS. *. room. Ihe small chamber was lighted bv a smoky lamp, and in its lisht an old man lay upon a little truckle bed. His bodv was covered by a faded patchwork quilt. but his white head and thin, carven face ay upon the pillow, turned to the lamp lisht. His eyes were closed in a sleeo exhaustion that seemed the verv ncighl.om- of death. Over a chair lay tie \i-ibly shaken and trembling. ,«3 eU -' n ( ' rocnwoo d ; " he whispered. Allv »- (To b« continued daily.)