SPEED BOAT

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 191, 15 August 1933, Page 13

SPEED BOAT

CHAPTER XL The Mysterious Major. Tanner strode blindly on to the outer gate and leaned over ite rope railing, his heart numb with despair. It was nine o'clock. The willows were already a pale shadow, the masts in the bowl soft pencil-marke against a greying sky. From down below he heard the hollow sounds a man makes moving in a small boat. She was lying against the entrance wall, and a tall figure in a yellow oilskin coat was stepping from her thwart to climb a weedy old ladder attached to the stonework. He moved clumsily up, stooped as he gained the ground above his ladder, straightened into the appearance of an active man wearing below the oilskin high gum boots, and came deliberately towards the outer gates.

"Mr. Tanner?" he inquired, and. from the voice there was no longer any doubt that this was the same major who rather more than a week ago had guaranteed a night's security.

"Major Garrison?" he countered. The other nodded. "Going to come along with me?" he queried.

"That depends on whom I am supposed to be working for. I no longer work for Mr. Palmer."

"Oh? He did not seem aware of that when I last saw him."

"He'll be aware, of it all right by Monday morning. Mr. Palmer is an obstinate man. He insists on believing that I'm to be cheated over my wages."

. "Damn the man! Is that one of his games, too ?" Tanner remarked that he despaired of Mr. Palmer ever learning any other game. "Well, if you've left him you've left him, and that's all there is to it. I'll see that he pays you all he owes you though. Anyhow, I don't see that it follows that you can't work for me. I'll pay any reasonable figure."

It was on the tip of Tanner's tongue to say that he would be glad to work for him, but he was interrupted.

"One moment though. I want you to be quite frank with me. Palmer eaye you're first-rate with engines. . . ." "Palmer knows nothing about it," Tanner interrupted in his turn. "I haven't done an engine job for Palmer yet." "H'm, that makes it all the more important I should say what I was about to say. You see you're rather young, and my engines cost a fortune. Moreover, they represent my living. Now, what is your experience with petrol engines, big, super-charged engines 1" Tanner was able to tell him that of such experience he had had quite a fair amount, that they had made a supercharger at the works, and that apart from works experience he had spent days in the tuning pits at Brooklands. He was able to mention a racing motorist with whom he had social as well as professional relationship. "Well, I should like you to come and have a look at them," the other replied. "Then if you don't feel capable of making a first-class job, I want you to say so. I'll pay you a fiver to leave them alone in that case. Are you on?"

Tanner said he was on, and was told they had better get afloat. He followed down the ladder and stepped into the cramped cockpit of a little outboardengined boat that he recognised as the Whoosht. She had a shelving half-deck forward, and he found himself directed to a seat low down on the slant of the keel below this. He guessed that he was not intended to see their way too clearly, but lie soon appreciated that there was another explanation for his sheltered position, an explanation that accounted for the Major wearing oilekins. For the craft proved very fast and went through things in an exhilarating style that sent her wash spraying disconifortingly aft. . As Major Garrison stooped to start the engine he seemed to recollect something. He straightened and bent towards his passenger, then remarked almost too casually—"Oh, there's one thing I think we ought to settle before we leave. You will probably have realised that my affairs are almost absurdly private. I've learnt that you can keep a still tongue about your own business. Can I rely on your doing as much about mine?" A Large Order. Tanner made his promise with rather more ease than subsequent events were to justify. It seemed to him such a matter of course that he should not wish to discuss the Major's business, whatever that might prove, and he had a shrewd idea that there was something more than speed-boat racing in it. However, -his unstudied words seemed to give satisfaction, and presently the little engine's shattering note reverberated from the stone entrance walls. They slid away down the creek, and screens of spray swelled up on either hand, so that all he could see now was the crouching, peering -figure at the helm. They sped violently along, swerving to the winding of the channel, for what he estimated to be four or five miles, and as they went, it grew perceptibly darker, so that it seemed amazing that his companion should be bo confident of his course. He seemed to bo steering by certain rough crooked stakes, mere roughly trimmed saplings stuck in the mud-banks that to Tanner only appeared as they swept into his vision astern. He decided that it nnist have needed considerable familiarity with the course as well as phenomenal eyesight to pick each one up at that pace, and to know on what side to leave it. At length, in the middle of a sudden and unusually violent swerve to the left, the engine was shut off, and, as the sidewash abated, it was evident that they were running into a narrower tributary creek. Garrison moved forward to ehip a pair of rowlocks amidships, and finding oars below the thwarts, began to row backwards, standing up. After rowing thus for perhaps-half a mile, the Major turned the boat into the bank. She had' just sufficient way. on her to nose through a low screen of reeds into what seemed to be little more than the opening of a ditch. They came to rest in a few yards, and he shipped the oars to make her,fast to a stake, after which he dumped some parcels over the side and announced that they had arrived. A flash from a pocket torch showed Tanner a couple of rough steps and, lending a hand with the parcels, he followed his "Hide up these and along a narrow path at the ond of which, a shadowy mass resolved, itself into the inevitable clump of willows, and some Sort of building. It

By FAREMAN WELLS.

struck Tanner as particularly remarkable that the Major just opened the door and walked in. There was no unlocking. Inside he was more punctilious. Hβ closed the door, flashed a torch to expose the entrance to a room on the left, into which he passed, drew a thick curtain across the single window, and then proceeded to light an oil lamp.

"You don't bother to lock your front door," commented Tanner.

The other laughed. "The sort of visitors I should be likely to get would break in, I'm afraid, if they could not walk in, and anyway we've made the place pretty difficult to reach by land. Lodesey is pr< perly an island, you know, and we've taken pains to improve its insularity by our drainage system. I flatter myself I'm not particularly likely to be raided, and anyway I got used to that in Ireland, where the moral was that raiders seldom did much harm if they found the place open."

He moved to a corner cupboard, while Tanner took stock of the room in the light that waged as the lamp burnt up. It was an extraordinary room, evidently the kitchen of a primitive cottage. There was a cement floor, peeling whitewash on the walls, an old-fashioned kitchen grate, rusty and bearing a spirit stove and a frying pan, while from the low bulged ceiling projected a series of ancient bacon-hooka. All things that were original to the place were comfortleas enough to the eye, but the floor carried a magnificent rug, the walls a few vivid colour sketches unframed, and a shelf of books, while the twin armchairs would have satisfied the smokingroom requirements of an expensive club. The table was of oak, and Tanner put it down for a collector's piece.

"Try one of the chairs. I shan't be a minute." He was busying himself at the corner cupboard from which he took a whisky bottle and some glasses. At his invitation the younger man helped himself, modestly, for whisky was one of the adult conventions that he had not yet learnt to appreciate. He diluted it well and did not fail to notice that his dilution ratio was almost reversed when the Major prepared his own drink. And yet tho man was helping himself to another before Tanner had taken more than a sip. He placed his refilled glass in a receptacle on the arm of his chair and reclined luxuriously into its cushioned depths. • "Not a bad little joint," he commented lazily. "Two rooms above and two below, and the nearest neighbour four miles away unless you can jump 12ft ditches. It wouldn't be more than a couple of miles .direct." "Do you live alone here?" "You are my firet guest for three months, and I do everything for myself, including cooking. I hope you won't regret that too poignantly at meal times. For myself, I live largely on biscuits and whisky—they call for no washing up —but I've tried to cover your needs more adequately." He filled a pipe. "You're a motor boat enthusiast?" "I hate 'em," he surprisingly responded. "I'm an enthusiast for sails, if you like." "They mako it all so mechanical," he replied, to Tanner's look of astonishment. "You just steer, and the engine does the rest." "I shouldn't dislike it so much if it wasn't for the noise," he resumed, after a drink. "You don't hear so much of the exhaust on board, but outside you're conscious that she's firing as loud as a machine-gun that's against your ear. You're spoiling the peace of the water for everyone within a mile or two, and you're advertising your movements, which is the very thing ono doesn't want to do in a job like mine. No, I shan't leave off hating the darned things until someone finds out how to make 'em run as silent as a car." » Tanner contented himself with a smile and a sip at his drink. He had got the impression that as an intelligent being he need not have been there, that the man was unburdening himself after long weeks of loneliness, and that to have a listener of any sort would have been sufficient stimulus to his garrulity. However, as the silence continued, he ventured tho remark that motor boat engines would be a bit difficult to silence effectively.

"I suppose eo, and yet, if it could be done, there ought to be money in it. One could easily work up a scare in the papers strong enough to induce the seaside authorities to insist on the use of a eilencer. They wouldn't allow an unsilenced engine on the promenades, and yet only a few yards off, on the water you can raise Cain with an open exhaust." He paused, drained and refilled his glass. "It'd make a difference to me, too," he remarked, reflectively. "It's essential that I should be less noisily conspicuous." He looked across at his visitor keenly. "Look here," he said, abruptly, "you're a young chap with a technical training , , and your way to make. Why not have a go at it? You could .experiment on the outboard. I'd lend you her as much as you'd need for that."/

Tanner replied that he would think it over, and even as he epoke it was evident that he was doing so. He said that you'd have to silence in the water, and that meant more water resistance to add to the loss of power through backpressure. But, properly designed, he did not see why silencing should not help the boat all the time.

"Have a go at it then," cried the other. "I'll see you get the backing." In' this manner the Tanner Patent Silencer was born.

Now there is no more exciting prospect than that of a newly conceived invention. It caused Tanner to gulp down the rest of his whisky and unwisely accept an invitation to replenish his glass. Then with half-formed ideas running wild in his head he listened, glowing from the combined effects of whisky and enthusiasm, to his host in reminiscence of.the NorthWeet Frontier, of Mexico, of Ireland, and, of course, of the Soinme —wherever in fact there had been what he called "a spot of fighting." The fellow had been everywhere, and yet here he was marooned on a desolate Essex marsh or dashing about in motor boats, a sport he affected to despise. There was no harmonising the contrast. "Bedtime," declared that extraordinary man, at last catching sight of Tanner's nodding head. He slept in a bare little room that contained only a camp bed and a somewhat unrelated pile of blankets. "You'll want the window open," Garrison told him, "but please don't draw the curtains until you have put out your candle." He had just enough intelligence left to obey without too greatly wondering and was asleep before he had properly warmed the blankets, or had time to resolve the problems that crowded his mind with images q£ exhaust tubes and thenattendant silencers. . . ■•

In contrast with this, only a matter of five miles away lay one young woman staring feverishly into the dark . and holding a tiny wet handkerchief gripped as if to wring it dry at the end of her outstretched arm, and within a hundred yards of her another equally awake, but in some measure consoled by the luxurious sensation of wearing, although probably in bed, quite the most delightful silk stockings it had ever been her luck to put on. (To be continued daily.)