THE GIRL FROM NOWHERE

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 237, 7 October 1933, Page 10 (Supplement)

THE GIRL FROM NOWHERE

CHAPTER XVII. The Love Nest.

When Ann stepped into her taxi cab at the door of Vcrschovlc Mansions the gave the driver the usual cursory glance; but had she stared at him hard and Jong sho would not have recognised the taxi man who had driven her to Mrs. Dangerfield's house, for, sure that she would never escape from Baruch Coleutt, the Butcher wore no disguising beard. She did not dream that anything was wrong till the taxi stopped at tlie corner of tho street, and then so quickly did Bandy step into it and start throttling any scfream, that almost before she grasped what was happening, sho was muffled and bound and sitting helpless on the taxi floor. She was desperately uncomfortable, and the discomfort lasted much longer than when the cab took licr to the house of Mrs. Dangerfield. It seemed to last hours and hours. The only sense of any use to her was her hearing, and after a long while sho heard no longer any sound of traffic and gathered that they were out of it, and in the country. When at last the cab did stop, she was hauled out of it, stiff and aching, and guided, still muffled up, into a house. Then Bandy said in a tone of hearty satisfaction: "We've delivered the goods, mum," and two or three people laughed. One. of them' was a woman. But hers was not a reassuring laugh. Bandy unfolded the muffling rug, and walked out of the house before she could see his face. Ann found herself in a small hall, confronting a thin, hardfaced woman and a short, thick, fat man, with as villainous a face as she had ever seen, and small, ferocious eyes. "The boss docs know how to pick them," he said, with an oily chuckle. "This one will be worth a nice bit for the underground, when he's tired of her." "Sho will, and that won't be so long, neither. It never is," said the woman, in a tono of greedy satisfaction. "Now, look here, my girl; just understand > straight away that we don't stand any , nonsense. You make any attempt to hop it out of hero, and Gcorge'll give your arms a twisting that'll make you howl like one o'clock, and won't show neither. You treat us civil, an' we'll treat you civil—as long as you're in this 'ouse." Sho turned to George, and added: "Get on to the Boss an' toll 'im the goods is delivered. 'E may be a bit impatient." "I'll bet 'c is!" said the man with an oily chuckle. The woman bade Ann come upstairs and led her up them by the arm; she was taking no chances. They crossed the first floor landing into a luxuriously furnished sitting room, in which a table was laid with supper for two. "Here you are," said the woman. ' "You'll find everything you want to , titivate yourself before the Boss gets here, in there." She nodded towards the door of an inner room. "An' I wish I was goin' to git the supper you'll git, if you show any sense." She went out of the room and locked tho door behind her. Ann looked round and shook herself; then sho opened the door in the left wall and found an uncommonly pretty bedroom, furnished with a large bed of walnut and a toilet table covered with pots and bottles containing the most delicate French preparations for the culture of the complexion. Everything was working according to schedule; Baruch Coleutt was acting as she had expected him to act; she was alive to her danger, but she was cool. She made sure that the Derringer, hanging at her knee, was loose in its holster. Then she stepped to the window and looked out. She was in the country, for sho saw only meadows and a wood. The window was not only twenty feet from tlio ground, but also barred. Tho car stopped before the house; she heard tho front door bung and heavy, hasty footfalls mounting the stairs. She felt rather cold. The key turned in the lock; the door opened; "Baruch Coleutt stood 011 the threshold, grinning his triumph. Sho had never hated his ugly face so much, but looked at it coolly enough. "So you couldn't n r t away with it, you see, he said t.' nphantly. "Get away witr' what?" she said quietly, with a fa'Wt note of contempt iu her tone.

"Leading me on and turning me down!"

"Well," she said slowly. "I thought you were a lump of commercial margarine. I never dreamt you were this kind of furious caveman. Anybody would have turned you down."

She smiled at him, a slow, dragging smile, alluring.

Ho was utterly taken aback; his muddy complexion warmed to a dull red; his eyes were not of a size to open very wide, but they opened as wide as they oouhl and shone.

"Why, you—you're t—t—taking it sensib—b—bly!" ho stammered. "Did you expect me to scream and fight—a caveman?" she said, and laughed softly. He expanded;'he 'beamed; he stammered an appreciation of her beauty and charm; ho would have kissed her there and then hut she pushed him away, saying that she was hungry. She rose and went to the table; beaming and fussing, lib went with her. ll e stroked her back with a fat, clammy hand, and lier blood ran cold. Ho pulled out a chair for her, and she sat down. He opened the bottlo of champagne and tilled her glass and his own, and sat down in the chair facing her, beaming fatuously, and helped her and himself to a quail in aspic. Her hour had come. She gasped faintly, brushed her napkin off her knee, bent down, slipped the Derringer out of its holster, brought it up in the napkin, rested the barrel on tho edgo of the table. v Then she said, in tho most careless tone: "Didn't you once have a chauffeur called Eugene Brand?" Baruch checked sharply in his beaming; his face clouded in a sudden uneasiness; he.said: "Brand? Yes, of course. 1 employed him about a year ago." "Where is he now "I don't know. He left me. Why?" said Baruch, and the happy flush was fading from his cheeks, and his eyes wero wary. "Well, you know, his real name was Eugene Brand Vauglian," said Ann very gently. "He was my brother, and you murdered hi in." Ho saw death in her eyes, and his hand flashed to his pistol pocket. Aim did not see.it; she saw nothing in the world but the patch of white pique between tho top and second button of his waistcost, and pulled the trigger. The short-barrelled pistol made a terrific bang, aud as Baruch got his. revolver clp," r, he toppled sprawling across flic table with a clattering crash of breaking glasi and crockcry.

-BY EDGAR JEPSON.

Ann saw that the hack of his head was very scurfy. She turned sick and the lights, swam.

But she had 110 time to be feeble; she wrenched the revolver from his convulsed grip and stopped to the side of the door; George's rushing feet were already 011 the stairs.

He burst into the room, revolver in hand. Its dull gleam caught Ann's eye and she lost 110 time; she fired twice into his arm from three inches away and shattered it. He dropped his revolver with a, loud yell, and blundered out of the room, stiil yelling, seemed to miss his footing 011 the stairs, rolled, yelling, down them, then subsided, a moaning heap, 011 the mat at the bottom of them. Ann, badly shaken, went to the table and emptied her glass of champagne. It braced her. The thing to do was to get to the telephone and i'ing up Dominie.

She picked up George's revolver and went out on to the landing. On the instant she was jarred again; a bullet whizzed past, missing her by inches; a revolver banged; the plaster flew from the wall behind her; stinging fragments struck her neck. 111 the middle of the hall stood the woman. She fired again, and again the bullet went wide. Ann fired three quick shots, aiming low, one, or maybe two of them, hit the woman in the leg, and she sat down, howling. Keeping her covered, ready to fire at her first threatening movement, Ann went slowly down the stairs, jumped lightly over the moaning George, and took the howling woman's revolver from her.

Then with a sigh of relief, she went to the telephone and rang up Dominic at Vine Street and was put through to Scotland Yard. In twenty seconds he was at the telephone. "It's me," she said. "Are you all right?" "Quite."

"Thank goodness!" he said, and his voice shook in his relief.

"Yes. But there has been rather a lot of shooting; Baruch is dead and a man and a woman are shot. I thought if you came along alone—" "I will. But where are you?" "In the country—about an hour from London. The telephone is Badnor 1147. I suppose the exchange can tell you the name of the house and where it is?" she said anxiouslv.

"Yes. But will you be all right till I come?"

"I ought to be. I've three revolvers and the Derringer, and the doors are bolted. If any of B's friends come, they won't get in."

"Right! Splendid! I'll get to you as fast as a car can bring me!"

Ten minutes before Baruch Colcutt arrived at his Love Nest in the countrv,

the Butcher, cutting across country castwards, arrived at the cab-rank at the

top of the Sink. Bandy stepped out of it, and neither of them saw the figure watching for them from the top of Barrow Street. The Butcher stepped out of the driver's scat, aiid leaving the taxi in charge ot the rank-watcher the two comrades walked down the street, in very good spirits, to celebrate the success of the enterprise at The Jolly Young Waterman. Neither of them paid any attention to the figure slinking down the dark street before them, neither perceived that it carried its right arm in a sling, neither saw it fade into the deeper darkness of Dicker's Alley. Cheerfully they came 011 to within fifteen feet of the alley's mouth. Then a voice, the chilling voice of Dan Keeves, said: "Good-bye, Bandy. Goodbye, Butcher," and his revolver cracked, cracked, and cracked.

They crumpled lip, riddled. Kcevcs went briskly up the alley, smiling in a deep content. lie dropped the empty revolver.from his gloved left hand into the orderly box at the top of the alley and slipped across the street and into the house and up to his room as noiselessly as he. had slipped ov». He believed that not a soul had heard him go or come.

Immensely relieved, Dominie rang off and rang up the Exchange and asked for the address of Telephone Radnor 1147. While the Exchange was getting it, one of his colleagues came into the office. "Hallo, Hayes! There's been a little shooting in your district," he said. "A taxi-driver named Kell and a tough named Brumfitt have been bumped off in Barrow Street." "Well, I will say one thing; Colcutt's thorough! He never leaves any evidence!" said' Dominic jumping to a natural conclusion. "This time he has done us a real service. We shall do so much betfer without them." "I guessed it," said the detective. A voice came over the 'phone saying that the telephone number Radnor 1147 was at the Bed House, Radnor Hill. Dominic knew Radnor Hill, a few miles this side of Little Laugley. He hurried down to his car and started. When Ann had telephoned and there was nothing for her to do but wait for Dominic to reach her, the reaction from the strenuous moments she had passed through, came in tlie form of an immense nerveless lassitude. She could not bear the thought of the sitting room above, with Barueh sprawled on the table, though she knew that what she needed was a couple of glasses of champagne. She went into the brightly lit kitchen and finding a kettle boiling, made herself a cup of tea. It proved as useful as champagne and soothed her jagged nerves and braced her, so that 'the waiting did not seem interminable. It occurred to her that she might render first-aid to the wounded: but she dismissed the thought. It seemed to her practical mind that for CJeorgo and the woman to die quietly of loss of blood would be about the beet thing that could happen. At any rate they had no claims on her compassion. They were tools of the man who had murdered her brother, agents in this kidnapping, and she bore in mind that they had meant to sell her when their employer had tired of her. She locked the kitchen door and made herself comfortable in a wicker armchair and presently dozed off. She was awakened by a loud knocking at the front door, and hurried to it and asked who was there, "It's mc! Dominic!" With a great sigh of relief, she drew the bolts and opened the door and shifted the burden of her responsibility on to his shoulders. She told him briefly how she had dealt with Barueh and satellites.

''Good girl! Splendid!" lie said with warm approval.

110 walked across tlio hall to the hardfaeed woman, who had crawled to (lie wall and was sitting propped up against it, and looked at licr.

"Gracious! Here's a face from the Rogues' Gallery! It's Jerusha Hardwick, she's wanted for manslaughter! Splendid!" ,

The woman spat a faint curse at him. He went to George and turned him over.

" Well, you have made a haul." he said to Ann. " This is George Watkins, a murderer we've been looking for for months. There's a reward oifcrcd for his capture."

"I don't want it! I don't want to have anything to do with the business. I want you to got me out of it without any scandal at all, if you possibly can," said Ann, quickly. "Ho frowned thoughtfully, and said: " I think it can be done. You're all right, of course; you shot Baruch in defence of your honour, and Watkins in defence of your life. But you don't want the fuss. The difliculty is the Derringer bullet. It doesn't matter what these two people say, if they like to let 011 that they were kidnapping, but there'll be an autopsy. Where are the revolvers?" " On the kitchen table."

They went down to the kitchen, and he broke "the revolvers and examined them. George's revolver held soft-nosed cartridges like that of the Derringer.

" This is a bit of luck," he said, breaking George's and Colcutt's revolvers and changing the cartridges. "It lets you out of the shooting and the whole business. Whoever makes the autopsy will state that Colcutt was shot with a softuosed bullet, and no one will compare that bullet with the bullets in Jerusha's legs. It is quite plain that Watkins shot her and Colcutt, and that Colcutt shot Watkins. Watkins will be hanged anyhow for the Catford murder. No one is going to bother about a cock-and-bull story about a young lady who shot the lot—if they tell it. At least I shan't, and I shall probably conduct the inquiry. Bandy and Ivell have just been shot in the Sink. No one here knows who you arc. You are right out of it." " That's a blessing. I don't want to be tried for shooting Baruch." " You won't be," he said, wiping her finger-prints off the revolvers with a kitchcn cloth. " You'll drive quietly home in my car, and I'll have a hunt round the place with Colcutt's keys. He may have some papers here. I will say one thing for Eugene Brand; he may have been a blackmailing crook, but he's brought about a wonderful clearance."

" You mustn't talk about my brother liko that! He wasn't a crook! He was just weak! " she cried indignantly. "Your brother? Why —what a fool I've been! " he cried.

" What do yon mean ? " " Why, I'd got it into my head that he was an old sweetheart and you were still tremendously fond of him." " How very funny," she said, and found herself flushing-. He was looking at her queerly: "Oh, well," ho said, and caught her up and kissed her. Laughing faintly and blushing and struggling, she said: "Have I fallen out of the frying-pan into the fire? " He kissed her again and said: "The firo it is." THE END.