SCORPION'S REALM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 98, 27 April 1932, Page 17

SCORPION'S REALM.

By L. C. DOUTHWAITE

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS

Landing from the steamer Seahorse at Deptford, Colin Riversleigh hears Irom a disused shed the cry of a woman. He investigates and discovers a girl in the hands of Chinese. By a ruse, he rescues her, and is in his turn rescued from the pursuing Chinamen by a man in a Rolls Koyce. Colin discovers that his rescuer's name is Dr. Valentine Gage.

CHAPTER 111.

Dr. Gage Has a Strange Visitor. They discovered, the estimate to have been rather conservative than otherwise. Though still mentally confused and physically lethargic, it was obvious that the girl was beginning to realise her surroundings. As she lay so inertly there, the pallor of her face framed in the copper glory of her hair against the peacock blue of the cushion, was to Colin a very lovely thing; the eyes she opened as they entered were the crowning touch of her radiance. Following his first quiet glance, Dr. Gage went to an old mahogany cupboard that occupied one corner of the room; juggled with bottles for a moment. "Drink this," he said, returning to the couch, and held the glass to her lips. The effect was immediate; the pallor of her cheeks transformed to a natural lovely pink; the eyes, a moment ago so clouded, cleared to a deep unmisted violet. As though, before either putting a question or making a statement, she needed time to assimilate both her surroundings and the personalities of these two strangers, for a moment she did not speak. Nor, apparently, did this evidence of caution escape the observation of Dr. Gage. "Let mo hasten to assure you," he said with the quiet emphasis of one anxious only to dispel misgiving, "that thanks to the good offices of our friend here you arc as safe as though you were in your own home. To where," ho added after a pause, in which to allow the assurance to stabilise, "the moment it is expedient you shall be taken." Colin saw with what keen analysis she searched their faces. "Do you mind telling me where I am?" she asked, and her voice, lowpitched and with a little husky break that gave to it a queer fascination, had in it the soft slurring of consonants that is so essentially beautiful and so essentially of Virginia. It was without hesitation that the doctor replied. "In the surgery of Dr. Valentine Gage, of Deptford, to where you were brought by this gentleman, who in spite of his somewhat nondescript appearance is not precisely what he seems," he said, his fine eyes twinkling. As though contained in it was more information than reassurance the revelation did not appear unduly to impress ""Brought me from she questioned after a pause. This time, even though she had spoken directly to the doctor, it was Colin who replied. "From the dockside shack whore yon were held by four Chinese," ho told her. Again there was a pause, one in which, behind her searching inspection of them, as in the surety of her scltcontrol, he was aware of a cool fleet brain. Then, her eyes travelled to the telephone. . __ "Do you mind if I ring up my— friends?" she said, turning directly to Dr. Gage, who, to Colin's surprise, appeared to lusitate. "If that is the only test that will establish vour confidence," he assented at last, his voice quiet and level. "Nevertheless, for reasons into which at the moment it is not necessary to enter, I should much prefer that you did n °Sho did not directly reply. Instead, she swung slim legs to ground, and with surprising steadiness walked across to the instrument, lifted the receiver, gave a number. And like a flash Dr. Gage was across the room; with a grasp as strong as it was gentle had taken the receiver from her hand. Her face was dead white as, hand to breast, her lips firm and contemptuous, she faced him. "Any number in London but that particular one," he said decisively. Assured now of betrayal, she laughed —a little bitter laugh. "I might have known," she said, and though well within control there was fear In her voice. "What is this place? And who, definitely, are you?" That little laugh again, scornful now, but fear none the less poignant. "Don't spare me. Whatever it is, I'd rather have it. That is, of course, if you can overcome your prejudice against speaking the truth." Watching them, the vivid beauty that retained so splendid a control over fear, and that other, with his fine, classic head and Disracliau clothing, Colin was conscious of a duel between two antagonists, who, however, incongruously well matched, were fighting for a stake that to him was incomprehensible. He could only stand impotently by, awaiting the issue. "The truth," Dr. Gage said at last, "is that for some little time I have had cause to suspect that my telephone wire is tapped. For that reason, and for that reason alone, the number you gave is one that I am especially unwilling you should speak to." Her back to the writing table, slim hands resting along its edge, she was facing him now, and with his words it was as if, in spite of herself, a shadow of doubt had crept into her eyes. "Had I more of your confidence than, for the moment, you have seen fit to honour me with," Dr. Gage said, before she had made up her mind to speak — "as, for example, your name —I should be in a position to explain my reason more fully." She looked at him Eearchingly, urfswervingly. "If you don't know it already, my name is Elizabeth Denstone," she said, in a voice that was as steady as her eyes. "Only daughter of Senator Calvin Bartholomew Denstone, of Richmond, Virginia, brother-in-law of Lord Stonehouse, and formerly Ambassador to the Court of St. James?" he asked quickly, and apparently it was with heightened suspicion that she replied. "Yes. I'm over from America on a visit to my uncle." Unconquerable, the spirit flashed from her eyes. "And let me tell you that's where I'm going right now—back to South Audley Street, where Lord Stonehouse lives," she concluded, and in quick surprise glanced from the hand the doctor laid upon her arm to his whimsically smiling face.

"At the first moment that it is— safe," he said, but whatever of reassurance he would have added was interrupted by the subdued clamour of an electric bell from somewhere at the back of the hall—a sound at which his smile faded. Forefinger upheld, ho waited, and into that expectant silence stole something that was tense and sinister. The hiatus was broken at last by the quiet footfall of Waters crossing the hall, the opening of the front door, the murmur of abrupt exchanges. Then that devoted body-servant was with them in the room, and behind the aesthetic-mask of his face suppressed excitement blazed. "Humpy O'Grady, sir," he announced. "Says he's from the Big Fellow. Will you see him, or shall I give him a swift kick into the night?" Dr. Gage did not hesitate. "Show him in!" he said, shortly, and the nod of "Running Waters" was as curt as had been his master's tone. "An' then, as that feller's about as safe to handle as a loaded gun with a concealed string to the trigger, and a snake coiled around the butt, I guess I'll stand by," he said. With a dignity that was in queer contrast to his method of speech, he glided away, to return a moment later ushering watchfully before him a figure whom Colin's first glance convinced him needed all the watchfulness there was going. As his name implied, "Humpy" O'Grady was a hunchback; a disability, Colin discovered later, by reason of which always ho had been forced into the background of that not inconsiderable section of the underworld of which he was the brains and inspiration; a figure of criminal brilliance to whom as yet, and though his guilt shouted to high heaven, not all the brains of Scotland Yard had succeeded in pinning any definite charge; a man who in sheer resentment of physical deformity had tuned his mind to scale; a bitter man and a warped; a cripple of infinite cruelty, transcendent cunning and, because so careless if he lived or died, one of the most feared of, and by, his contemporaries. As he stood, swaying a little on splay feet that were grotesquely too large for his meagre, malformed body, his wrists dangling baboon-like almost to his knees, the small but abnormally light eyes beneath his high conical forehead fixed undeviatingly upon the doctor, there was about him a malignancy so unparalleled that, hardened as of late ho had become to wickedness in all its manifestations, involuntarily Colin found himself turning, literally, a little cold. Slowly, without speaking, Humpy's glance travelled from Dr. Gage to the girl, and as upon her for an appreciable moment his eyes rested, in their queer, spiritually-tainted depths crept an expression that, as long as life lasts, will remain shuddering in the background of Beth Denstone's memory. It was Dr. Gage who broke the silence that, because of the quality of that regard, had become intolerable. "This somewhat theatrical inspection is not in the least impressive," he said quietly. Unblinking, motionless, except for a slight fluttering in the upward curve of the dangling prehensible hands, Humpy's gaze remained for a further moment upon Beth before, in the same abnormal silence, he turned his eyes upon Gage. "When I tell you to call it off, Doc," he said, slowly, at last, in a hard, metallic voice that in some indefinable fashion was oddly fitting to the eyes, "it's advice that should be taken —and quick!" "Is that all 1" Gage asked, poker-faced, and so far as he was able to blanket what life and his own bitter thoughts had brought, the cripple's face was equally expressionless. "That's what I've been sent to tell you," he said. "By the man who, very appropriately, is called 'The Scorpion'?" Valentine inquired, and for a question so unemotionally spoken the effect was startling. In face of it, as if suddenly drained of life force, O'Orndy's disserviccable figure seemed veritably to shrink. Spasmodically the tiny stone-hard eyes closed, the thin wide-lipped mouth that was like a swordcut across the sharply-pointed parchment-coloured face, quivered; the thin dry lips wore all but invisible from the sudden deeply-inhaled breath. To Colin, the moment before, as if by sheer physical effort, he spoke, was incredibly long drawn out.

"There's no need to put a label to— things," he said, and even now the grating voice came less confidently. "Call me, if you've courage to face the truth, a messenger from —the Master. The Master who—"

Gage, his expression one of faintly bored intolerance, would not allow him to finish.

"Let mo remind yon." he said, "that if I require melodrama there is always the cinema. And I find you, pore .••Ky, less impressive even than' the worst that Hollywood provides, I must ask yon to return at one and very quietly, (o the— er —kennel of the semi-demented homicide by whom you arc employed."

A nunient, and in blank incredulity the hunchback stared at him. The next, and the wide, unhealthy face had darkened to rage the very impersonality of which was comparable only to that of a priest against blasphemy.

"If you don't keep your nose from what don't concern you, Dr. Valentine Gage," lie enarlc", "there'll be looked from the Tcennci,' as you call it, whoso noses are too keen and whose teeth are too sharp ever to break off a hunt until the kill! That's what I'm here for—la warn you to go to earth —before the horn blows!" His eyes, agate-hard, he stared from beneath down-drawn brows from Gage to Colin, and from Colin again to Beth. "In the meanwhile, cub-hunting's opened," he said, with a significance that turned the ex-mounted policeman—who for three years had lived in a veritable atmosphere of threats —momentarily cold, though not at any thought of danger for himself. At that moment he

could have wished for -othing more satisfying than to seize ti ■ distorted creature painlessly but firmly by the coat-collar and run him incontinently the surgery and into the alley outside.

It was, indeed, only a quick glance from Gage that made for tranquillity; with his calm resolution of purpose and surety of poise there was in that oldworld figure what assuredly was a twentieth century transmission from the order of chivalry. Here, Colin knew, was a knight who, for so long as the fight lasted or strength remained, would not desert the lists.

"Go back to the man who owns you," Dr. Gage said, reaching deliberately the one weak spot in the man's armour of self-esteem, "and say this—that the campaign T have begun, ill my own time, and of my own choice, I jdiall finish; that in the light, which is to the death—you'll oblige me especially by transmitting that particular phrase —there will be no

quarter; that the world is not large] enough to hold, at one and the same' time, Dr. Valentine Gage, of Deptford, and that sworn enemy of all life that is ' healthy and of good repute, the creature known to the police and his fellow j criminals as The Scorpion." ;

Never liad Colin known so complete and intense a silence as that which, following upon those quietly-spoken words, descended upon the surgery; to him it was as though some event of immense importance was immediately to hand, and for which breathlessly they waited. For behind the doctor's quiet words was a strength, a conviction of his own ultimate victory, so complete and absolute iit was as if already the end was inevitable. Kot once, but half a dozen times, the hunchback opened his mouth to speak; not once, but half a dozen times, was unable to find words, so that it was for a good thirty seconds he stood gaping incontinently before the man who, in that brief interview, had established such I complete ascendancy. Then Gage's hand, slender and delicate, pointed to the door. "And now, carrying my message— go!" he ordered. Almost it was as one returning to consciousness from an anaesthetic that for a moment the cripple shuffled upon his feet; with a greater effort still lurched over to where the monk-like figure of Waters awaited him. Arrived at the door, however, and as though once his back was to the man who had crushed his strength, some small measure of that strength returned, the hunchback paused; with one hand grasping the lintel, swung round. "Sure I'll take the message," he said, and the sound was neither whisper nor croak, but something midway between, dry and croaking. "And with a better heart," he added, "because with it you've pronounced your own sentence." Then Waters took a hand. He had been visibly holding himself in, and now something told him the time was ripe. "That'll be ail from you," he observed, and because, had he allowed them to remain, his fingers would have been crushed by the quickly-closing door, the hunchback lurched through to the hall. From the sounds that drifted back to the surgery his final exit was not without incident. (To be continued daily.)