FIVE CROOKED CHAIRS

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 184, 6 August 1934, Page 15

FIVE CROOKED CHAIRS

[I K y FAREMAN WELLS

By the Author of "Speed Boat," .i

CHAPTER XIV. On a Spring Day. Adam had .plenty of time to think about his question, and when he got tired of the long silence he asked it. "What did they want to get hold of?" Mr. Hagar held up a hand ae if pleading not to be distracted. "Didn't get sd ; "far. ■ Told 'em running straight. Never knew." He sank back in his chair as if exhausted after so long an oration. To Adam it -\Vas growing clear now why it had needed the skill of a practised barrister to extract any sort of story from him in the court. He began to fidget with his watch. If he did not go 6oon he would be too late to put in an appearance at the laboratory. "Don't be in a hurry,' sir," came from the stubborn lips of the man opposite. "Want to tell you. I know what you done for me. Grateful: Samuel Hagar." Hβ nodded gravely and Adam was constrained to wait.

"Montada's behind it. Got it in for your friends," was the next scrap of information.

"But Montada's out of the country now."

Mr. Hagar's lips curled contemptuously. He spat on the fire. For the first time his reply came reasonably prompt. "Find him in ten minutes, I could. Wouldn't do, dangerous," he said, and then added: "Only I don't know anything, see."

Adam sat silent, reflecting upon what Hagar had told him. Montada was still in the country and Hagar knew where he was. If Hagar knew, others certainly would; Mr. Perkin for example. His reverie was broken by the muttering of Hagar's reluctant voice.

"Ever you're in trouble with Montada come to Samuel Hagar. That's me. Do a lot for you. Grateful. Wanted to tell you Montada's still dangerous, that's all."

There was an air of complete finality about his words now and Adam felt as if he had been already dismissed. He rose and held out a hand. The other grasped it in his horny fist. "Good night," said Mrs. Hagar affectionately, and he was out once more in the wretched little street.

At the Technical College Adam found the professor too eagerly awaiting his advent to pay official attention to his lateness. He was full of involved theories about the action of the valve, but his chief idea was that it was time for Adam to make up a second valve so that they could make sure that the same phenomena would be reproduced. The inventor had already gone some way towards this, working on the same lines as before.

His method was simple. First of all lie produced a valve from one of the well-known makers and, having extracted the contents, replaced them with elements of his own design. Then he had to exhaust and reseal the valve, an exacting process. The view now -taken by Professor Starling was that, as soon as the second valve was completed and ' proved to behave in the same way as the first, they would have sufficient data available to publish their results, and he generously suggested that Adam should, jointly with himself, present a paper to the local scientific society. Although the meetings of the society were only of minor importance in the world of science, copies of the paper would be sent to interested parties all over the •world. "And if after that," the professor said drily, "you are etill so purblind as to wish to follow a scientific career, I have no doubt that the way will be open to you."-

Despite the disillusioned cynicism of Starling's words, they presented to his hearer an intoxicating .prospect. He began to feel assured of a fortune, and of a future moreover that included Priscilla Xorval.

Months had passed since the drizzling winter evening when he had first spoken to Scylla and now the lieavy weather was gone and warm spring days had arrived. It seemed, too, that the Xorvals had overcome their loss, and though he knew that behind the scenes their economies had been drastic, he felt as if there must by now be brighter days in store for them too. They had lived through a grim winter in that dark house of theirs, lived through it bravely, and perhaps it was something in the contrast between the fresh young beauty of the countryside and the drab unchanging monotony of Cavendish Street that made Adam long to give the girl a glimpse of the refreshing beauties of spring.

He felt also that it was high time his parents knew something of her, if only to put an end- to his mother's silent, but 'none the leas stubborn, opposition to his friendship. As soon, therefore, as there was a reasonable prospect of settled weather he invited father and daughter to Peiinymoor. Whit Monday was the day appointed, a day warm enough that year for full summer. Wearing not only a hat but a collar and tie of. a lustre such as would have satisfied the exacting Mr. Corville- Perkin, Adam waited at the station for his guests with the farm car, a comfortable if somewhat elderly vehicle. In his imagination spring only began at the moment when Priscilla emerged into an appropriately radiant world from the gloomy little booking hall. She wore brighter clothes than he had yet seen on her neat little person, and the night-blue eyes shone devastatingly from beneath'a gay spring hat. As Adam drove along in triumph with the girl by his eicle, Norval, from the back scat, announced that he had that morning received a reply from the film company. They said that the street scene in question had been lifted from a news reel taken during the Spanish Revolution. They regretted, therefore, that they had no knowledge of the persons depicted.

"It is clear that Valdamonte and Montada were in Spain together at that time," commented Norval, "but that does not help us much, particularly since Montada has disappeared. I doubt if it would have helped us much in any case, but it is interesting, isn't it?"

Adam forced. himself to consider the matter. It seemed to him that there was a distinct point gained in .their having assured themselves that the two were in some way connected in Spain. It might help to explain Montada's interest in the chairs, though exactly how he could not at present imagine. He suggested that they should talk it over at length when next they met in Cavendish Street.

He had said nothing to them yet about Hagar's boast that he could find Montada any time. The idea of the little Spaniard being in hiding gave him such a sensation of discomfort that he was anxious to dismiss the whole subject lest it should spoil their holiday. He wanted to think only cheerful thoughts, and now that they were driving between green hedgerows to the mating songs of thousands of birds, all such worrying matters ought, he thought, to be forgotten. From either side the clean earthly smell of the spring ploughing was meeting them in little suntempered breezes, and he noticed that the fresh air had already brought a slight flush to the naturally pale cheeks of the girl at his side.

Although the front seat was far from being cramped, they were sitting so that he could just feel the pressure of her arm against his, and, glancing down, could see the dark feathering of curled lashes above the curve of her cheek and the demure set of her chin against a linen blouse. Such glimpses made him wildly and inexplicably happy.

It seemed no more than a few minutes before he was pulling up opposite the door of his home. From here, having wnited for the guests to alight, he drove off to gitrage the car, leaving them on the doorstep to face his parents, who, in the hospitable manner of country folk, had both come to the door at the sound of their approach. His strategy in this was prompted more by nervousness than by ingenuity, but it worked exceedingly well.

When lie strolled back t<> the kitchen a few minutes later he v.vis dolijr.lit ed to observe the four talking amicably. Country folk do not fall upon the necks of strangers, and the Norvals had not the sort of nature which can like people "to order." But it was clear to Adam that these four found themselves naturally acceptable. It was going to be nil right, he told himself. He could feel sure of that now, and for the first time he realised how desperately he had been concerned that it should be so. Unmistakably his mother had taken to his Scylla. He wondered if they had kissed on meeting, and decided that they must have done, for, to his mind, anyone would have to be .embittered not to want to kiss Scylla.

Then his mother caught sight of him. "What a thing to do!" she reproved him. '''Leaving your guests to introduce themselves in that uncouth way."

He had one of his old frank impulses —Priscilla's eyes were upon him. "I funked it," he said quite simply. "It meant rather a lot to me." He had no eyes for his mother's sympathetic glance. He was watching the slow colour flushing quite other cheeks, and waiting to see if there was any reproof, when she at last raised them, in those eyes that lie had so romantically likened to violet velvet.

Soon he liact made tlie necessary excuses to get her; away from them. Together they visited the garden, the stable where he made his scientific experiments, the outhouses, the animals, the orchards, where pink buds were still lurking on black branches. Their fathers, similarly engaged on a less romantic tour of' the stockyards, kept tactfully out oT their way, and the two had the short hour before dinner to themselves.

After the meal Adam announced that he proposed taking the girl for a long run in the car. In his mind when lie spoke the word "long" had more reference to time than to distance. Ihey slipped selfishly away before the suggestion c6uld be made that the elder people might also enjoy the run. In a few minutes they were above the farm, on the main road which bore a continuous line of cars laden with otker holiday-making townspeople, and along the sides of which numerous little picnic parties were grouped about their parked Ve To avoid these Adam turned into a track that led across the moor and brought them in a few miles to the bank of the Jlense at a point where the little river started its course from a springfed pool beside a large copse of birch and alder. Here they left the car and wandered gently on until they were hidden by the delicate green lace of tiny leaves and the silver-grey branches of ground within the copse was roiWi with lichened rocks, and between thole the shy spring flowers grew free y. With spontaneous delight Pnscilla bean to gather them, and Adam helped until they had amassed far too large a collection for any sort of bunching. ;> "What we want is a box or a basket, he told her. "I'll go back and get something from the car." He went off, springing hmberly fiom rock to rock and rejoicing in his own sure-footedness, and not altogether unconscious that he was observed. He was back at the spot where they hud been flower-gathering in less than five minutes, but when he got back he could see no eign of Scylla.

He whistled and then called her by his own pet name for her, rather shyly at first, for it wns the first time he could remember having pronounced it in more than a subdued tone for hear ear alone. There came no answer, not even when he called as loudly as he could, and he began to run about in growing concern, peering over rocks P.nd behind bushes, and calling ever more distractedly as he searched. He had become intensely anxious before he came across her sitting demurely between two big rocks arranging her wild flowers. She looked up with an impish smile as he npproiicheed, but the smile faded as she observed the paleness of his face and the concern in his eyes. "Oh, I'm-sorry, sorry," she cried. "It was silly of me. I was only hiding to tease you." And as he flung himself down and seized her hands, "Poor boy," she sfiid. "Would it have mattered so much if you had lost me?"

He raised his face- and hi« grey eyes looked compellingly into her own. Then he said, quite simply and sincerely, "It would have killed me if I had lost you."

Gently she extricated a rather crushed hand from his hot grasp to draw his head against her, and for a long, silent time, she held it there, ruffling his shprt hair with her fingers, while he closed his eyes and listened to the beating of her heart. The sunlight splashed through the young leaves upon them, the wild flowers lay crushed on her lap. Encouraged by the silence, a mating finch trilled from a branch near by, find a blackbird fluted richly from the edge of the copse. All this they felt rather than saw or heard, experiencing all beauty as an element in a single-passioned emotion. The shortest minutes of their lives passed before either of them said a word, but in the end she stirred gently, thrusting him from her.. "My poor flowers are all crushed," she said.

For a moment slie eaugiit him to her aoain, and her lips fluttered against his forehead. "Hadn't we better be going back now," she said. "They will be expecting us for tea.". For answer he put his big hands upon her shoulders so us to hold her at arm's length from him. "Promise you wont ever let mo lose you again," he demanded.

Of course, she promised. •'We really must linrfy back for tea now," she insisted, "our people will bo waiting." • "They aren't going to see us till train time," "he answered. "I've got our tea in the back of tho car."

He had to show her before she fully believed him, the extraordinary jumble of food and utensils that was hidden under the rugs on the back seat. He had pillaged the larder, in a rough masculine fashion, but thoroughly, of everything he had though suitable for a picnic meal, and had even managed to include a kettle and some tea things. Back in the copse they made themselves a little gipsy lire among the rocks.

The picnic was ended, and the spring day still far from its close when Pnscilla's insistence forced him to look at his watch. Reluctantly he rose and •ratheved together the tea-things. '1 II fust take these back to the car," lie said, "and then we'll say good-bye to tine place properly." She seemed to understand what he meant, for by now the little copse meant so much to her that she sat down to dream her own dreams, content to be left alone for a few minutes. Hardly had his footsteps died away, when she was disturbed by the sound of someone breaking clumsily through the branches, and the next moment there came across the clearing in front of where she sat an ordinary little trippery man in a grey suit and very light brown boots. "Oh, miss," he cried at the sight of her. "For God's sake come and have a look at my missis. She's fainted or something, and I can't get a word out of her." "Where is she?" ■ ' • "Just over by the edge of the wood, Miss. Not very far. Won't take you a minute. This way. Ido hope as it isn't anything serious."

Without a thought the girl hurried after him.

Adam came back to the picnic site and sini'ed indulgently when he saw no sign of his Seylla. He imagined she was repeating her earlier mischief. He was not going to get alarmed this time, however much he might pretend to be at the appropriate moment. At first he almost enjoyed the search. For ten minutes he hunted about the boulders, for fifteen, for twenty. ' He shouted her name wildly, feeling that she could not continue to hide if she heard the dismay in his voice. There was no reply, no sign of his Seylla. At length he decided to push on rapidly through the copse, and he blundered along, calling, stumbling often in his haste, peering round bushes. In about a quarter of a mile the bushes ended against a little sandy track. There were marks of tyree to show that

many picnic parties had driven along it that day, but by this time there were only scattered paper plates and bottles to betray the incorrigible habits of the English picnicker. He doubled back into the copse again and ranged despairingly acroßS its breadth. It was dusk before lie reach the point where he had left the cur. There was nothing for it but to return home and report his loss, to face their reproaches. Nothing that they could sny would make him feel worse, and he felt somehow as if he had deserved their bitterness. A wild hope spurred him that she might somehow heve managed to get back to the farm without him, a lift from a passing car perhaps. Ho jumped into the car, and drove recklessly. (To be continued daily.)