SPEED BOAT

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 189, 12 August 1933, Page 11 (Supplement)

SPEED BOAT

CHAPTER W.— (continued)

He dressed hurriedly and put in a solitary hour in the workshop before breakfast, completing the few adjustments that had not satisfied him the night before, and leaving everything ready for a re-assembly 011 byard. It was a Saturday morning, and he meant to get the Aline's auxiliary completed in time for her captain to make the Crouch easily, even if he had to. do the whole trip under engine. As soon as the job was done ho meant to try for a bus to Chelmsford himself. He wanted to obtain a few necessary items of clothing, and felt justified in spending the residue of his capital now that he was in work, anfl could anticipate an income that would be ample for the simple scale 011 which he would be living.

After breakfast he got the shaft out of the shop single-handed, for none of his workmates showed any inclination to assist, and he was too proud to ask them for help. "Mr. Palmer had evidently expected the job to be ready, for his car was waiting before the office, and presently he appeared. He was in a mood completely uncommunicative, and after ho had helped to carry the shaft down to the hard and raised his great voice to hail the dinghy, he left abruptly. The hail brought Kerry down from the Deckhouse, gay of manner but still a little wan after his night's adventure. As they rowed out a small motor boat came thudding up the creek. She had a good turn of speed, and threw a high wash as she swept past the Aline and out of sight about an upstream bend.

Kerry was at once enthusiastic. <"Tliat's the major. He's got The Wliooslit out this morning. Fast for an outboard, isn't she?"

"Who on earth is lie, and what'she up to, anyway?"

Kerry had his answer to the mystery. Apparently the man kept a secret speedboat somewhere down the creek, a huge craft with which he was reputed to be practising for some international trophy. The Aline's party had been privileged to glimpse him one night when they were returning from a late sail, and the recollection of the imposing spray-cloud and the white wake of his transit could still light a gleam of enthusiasm behind the boy's portentous spectacles. Evidently lier speed had been terrific, her hull like a great shining fish, and the roar of her engines deafening as she streaked past them in the dusk.

So that was the explanation of the mysterious major! Or was it? It certainly agreed with tlio version suggested by Miss Susey Cutts, but to Tanner, who had recollections of a certain "No. 1 Lodesey" having once been mentioned under peculiar circumstances, n there eeemed to be too much mystery about him even for the exacting business of record-breaking in these days of speedworship. They finished by about ten o'clock and, casting off, the yacht made a short cruise under engine to confirm thenwork. The skipper seemed satisfied, indeed ho admitted that the engine had never run better. All the same it was obvious that he was even more satisfied vvjtli the fresh breeze that was springing tip, and that promised him a yachtsman's passage up the Crouch. Kerry's worst news that morning had yet to be told. It was that the yachting party were not, alter all, returning direct from the Crouch, but were, by Sir Gerald's latest instructions, engaged to make a cruise to Lowestoft. It was "uncertain how long they would be away. He generously insisted that Tanner should retain his''motor cycle which had been left at Fringsby Bowl, a loan that was particularly welcome, as it provided an independence of bus-services, but that did not entirely assuage the blank sense of impending loneliness that attacked his companion. Tanner felt distinctly dejected when, having said gpod-bye to him on the bank, he made his way on foot this time towards his lodging. He eeemed to foresee a stiff prospect of dull work and uninBpiring company after the bright and youthful companionship of the list twenty-four hours, and realised that it had been rather a false start to a work-ing-man's life, this friendship with wealthy and vivacious youth. He foresaw a dreary wait before the return of the Aline, and it came homo to him depressingly as he plodded along the ii >t lane that there could only bo at most a week or two before the Beclc-housc was deserted and* the yacht .laid up for' the winter. What sort of:winter could one anticipate in this naked country with its inimical hamlets and its wide spaces of desolation ?

CHAPTER IX,

An Attempt at Murder. The week-end proved less dreary than in anticipation. The run on Kerry's motor cycle into Chelmsford on the (Saturday and - the interest of his purchasings there so occupied him that it was dusk before he returned weary enough to be 'glad to retire at half-past nine, as the Garlands habitually did. As they rose late on Sundays, ho was able to indulge in a bathe beforp breakfast. In the afternoon he wandered along the banks for a mile or two in a seaward direction until the sight of a little group of men and lads guffawing and wrangling in the shade of a stack of fodder aroused his Interest. There was a girl just ahead of him o~ the bank, very stiffly fine with white gloves and umbrella. At the sight of her the group began to whistle and hail with gratuitous vulgarity. She tossed her head resentfully. As lie came up with her he rccogni&d Miss, Susey Cutts. His greeting was accompanied by a salvo of coughs from the witnesses. Miss Cutts remarked that they were a lot of low fellers, a remark with which he was in entire agreement, and they walked on together. It never occurred to him how like an assignation it must have appeared. Susey was distant of manner, but at heart a little delighted. She chatted brightly, telling him a lot her likes and dislikes, all. of which evidenced the utmost propriety of feeling. For his part, he found her. refreshingly simple, and yet' somehow, femininely sophisticated at the same time. At the back of his mind was a fear lest she should again prove flirtatious, but throughout their walk she was politely friendly, and even when they eat side by side for a rest on a lonely slope Bhe showed not the least disposition towards tenderness. . He would hardly have congratulated himself so much if he had realised that this-, was strictly in the tradition of rustic courtships, and. he failed entirely to appreciate the fact that she was revelling in the very formality of their attitudes. He would have been far less involved in poor simple Susey's eyes if ha had made nearer approaches, had

1' By FAREMAN WELLS

tried to snatch a kiss, for example. Tliat 011 a Sunday afternoon walk, would havt assured her that he liad 110 serious inten

But tliey looked at the matter

from widely divergent traditions and each was secretly delighted for entirely opposite and misleading reasons.

He parted from her politely outside the inn about tcatime, having learnt that she was 011 duty in the bar that evening, and returned for his tea with the Garlands. After that, there seemed nothing for it but to bathe once more, although

the tide was barely high enough for an unmuddied approach and there was 110 sign of a hard at Fringsby Bowl.

Ho was swimming lazily in the deep water of the main channel when he heard the.machine-gun notes of a motor boat, and observed the Major's outboard craft, the Wlioosht, dashing across the creek. He watched her skid round

against banked water by the farther shore, and, little interested, began to swim back towards his clothes.

There was a solitary figure on the bank where he had entered, a woman's figure that he recognised as his companion of the afternoon. She was waving her arms as if in some enthusiastic horseplay, very different, it struck him, from the decorum earlier on. He could

hear the staccato of the boat's exhaust behind him and concluded it to be making for the demonstrator on the shore. "Dear, dear, Miss Cutts," he said to himself, "you are not so precise towards tins gentleman, whoever he is, with whom, in fiat contradiction to your profession of duties, you are contemplating a trip this evening." He even wondered if she were aware "that it was himself swimming out there. Miss Cutts on the bank began an unseemly shouting, but the noise of the engine was now too loud for him to distinguish her words. He glanced round at the boat and ducked instinctively. There was a grinding impact 011 the side of his skull as he went down. Something

caught in the shoulder straps of his new bathing costume and jerked him violently through the water until the strap broke. He came up dazed and indignant to see the boat making an upstream sweep. Concluding that it was returning to his rescuc he composed a profane protest upon the steersman's carelessness.

It came up, full bat again, and as he waited in anticipation of the overdue switching ofT of tlie engine, he rccogniscd the mnn°at the tiller staring coldly over the side at him was Mr. Alfred Elver. Then for the first time he felt afraid, and, realising that there was no intention of stopping, he plunged again as the keel swept over him. This time he was able to keep clear. When he rose he struck out with all the strength that remained

in him for the shore. He did not worry about further assaults, which would be easy to evade now that he knew what to expect. His mind was definitely more concerned with the avoidance of a sinking that would be involuntary, for liis head was disagreeably numb, and there was a curious lack of energy about the strokes ho was endeavouring to make. Perhaps it was lucky that the attack was not repeated, for it is doubtful if he would have been sufficiently conscious after all to evade it.

As his feet found the soft bottom he had a ludicrous vision of Miss Cutts floundering 011 pink silk stalks across the muddy salvage that divided them. He began to stumble lazily through the shallowing water that seemed to invite him compellingly to lie down, abandoning effort, on its smooth seductive floor. And then someone grabbed him.

They told him afterwards that Susey "scritched like an ole pig bein' hefted into a cart." She must have raised a considerable outcry, for, though in the inn itself there was a curious indifference to lier appeals, she succeeded in fetching the whole of the congregation of aborigines from their worship. She had received a iirst-rate fright from the effusion of blood across his wet face and shoulder, and no doubt thought the half of his head to be missing. It would have taken a calmer brain than poor Susey's at that moment to realise how rapidly a little blood diffuses about a wet skin. When lie regained consciousness he was sipping neat whisky in tlie bar, amidst a clamour of excited voices, an old frieze coat thrown over his wet costume, and the timid landlady dabbing his wounds with a hot wet rag. He closed his eyes again, aand at once began to plan how he could get out of this embarrassing situation. His head and shoulder throbbed as if the whisky were getting at tlie wounds from within, and the babel around him was surprisingly disconcerting. A solemn voice was monotonously repeating, "The Lord be praised!" The Lord be praised! He opened his eyes again to bebold a portly old gentleman in Sabbatical black, who held a glass in one hand, and at once changed his tune to remark, reprovingly, that that was what one got for bathing on the Sabbath. He was evidently finding an agreeable alternative to his devotions in the reproof of sin under a stimulus of slightly more potency. However, in a moment he was pushed aside, and his place taken by the would-be murderer. Mr. Elver was not in tlie least abashed. For the moment he was almost as devotionally inclined as the gentleman whose place he had taken. ' Thenk Gawd'!' he exclaimed. "Thenk Gawd! Blime mate, I fort j-ovl was a goner! Couldn't make art wot Susey was a scritcliin' abart on the bank. Fort as she'd bin stung by an ornet, strike me pink, I did! Even weu I come back to see wot wos up I couldn't take me eyes of 'er a-dancin' an' 'ollerin', an' blowed if I didn't run over yer agine. I'm sorry, mate, I am, 'onest. I'd always took a fancy ter yer, an' wen they tole me as I'd bin an' accidental done yer in, blime if I didn't near do a faint meself." He drew nearer holding out a repulsive hand at the sight of which Tanner shut his eyes once more. However, he persisted and drawing a limp fist from beneath the coat that wrapped his victim ho gave it a fervently vicious squeeze. Someone said "Good ole boy!"| Someone clapped him on the shoulder. A third party even went further and inquired what he would have. There was no doubt that Mr. Elver had got out of it extremely well. _ Tanner was feeling strong by this time and determined to leave the place. He stood up. "Where's my clothes?" he asked. "I want to get dressed." Solicitously tliey crowed him out of the bar and across a wide stone passage to a little parlour where someone had laid his recovered raiment 011 a chair.

There he proceeded to reelotlie himself. The door was shut and he could just

hear scraps of conversation on the other side. There was another door leading apparently into the back part of the house, and presently he heard a knock en this. He cried "Come in," andi

in came Susey barelegged—it was obvious that tlie poor girl only possessed one pair of whole stockings. "You're right again simmingly," she exclaimed.

"Thanks to you I'm as fit as can be. Mr. Elver is delighted.' Apparently he never saw me."

"Never sin you! "Why lie went out for to do you in. He threatened me he would That's why I left the bar a*td shouted out to ee. I thought you wouldn't never take no notice an' there was he rushin' down like mad 011 'ee!" Her spread hands obscured her face. "He's done murder before, that man," she concluded hysterically. An argumentative voice from behind the door said distinctly, "'An I say as 'ee deserves all 'ee got, walkin' out another feller's girl." Tanner looked inquiringly at Susey. "Tidden true! Tidden true!" she sobbed vehemently. "I know it isn't," he consoled her and kissed her red moist cheek. ■ Her eyelids fluttered to disclosc big trustful adoring eves, and feeling suddenly self-con-sciously ashamed he thrust her aside and strode out through the house. There was a door at the end of a short passage that opened into the yard, and in a few minutes he was clear, walking with his painful head still unbound through the cool dusk along the lano that led to the Garlands.

Mrs. Garland's medicine chest was a decorative canister filled with a medley of oily tins and spilling powder-packets, dispersed throughout which were a number of formidably huge pills. But at least they possessed iodine. Garland's army service had taught him its value. They annointed liis wounds with the exacerbating balm and confirmed that he had sustained a. long cut above his right car and a wide superficial abrasion where the propeller had flayed his shoulder as it tore away the strap of his costume. His hosts "doubted" that he ought to have a stitch put in the head wound, but as one could never expect to secure the services of a doctor in Fringsby Bowl under two or three hours, they compromised with some adhesive plaster which did very well all that was J necessary. (To be continued daily.)