CLOUDED NOON

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 11, 14 January 1935, Page 15

CLOUDED NOON

By BASIL HAYE

CHAPTER VI. Harvey Stayre was occupying a suite on tho first iioor, the kind of suite which, suggested a considerable hank balance. He was in pyjamas and a dressing gown, with one forearm in splints. It was nothing at all serious, and would be healed in a few days. "Which is more than can be said for my car!" ho laughed in his breezy drawl. "Nothing could ever have been wrecked so completely. It's a marvel I'm alive at all. But I was born under a lucky star, I suppose. Whatever happens to anything or anyone else, I seem to come out on top." "That's very convenient for you, anyhow, Stayre!" John seated himself, thinking all tho while of one special instance in which it. was to be devoutly hoped that would not prove true. "Well, from what the paper was saying this morning, you're another of the same breed, Burden!" the other chuckled, moving towards a smail table laden with drinks. "And for that reason, I'm hoping our little business chat may have good results," he went on, as lie poured out and offered a drink to Burden.

"I don't usually drink quite sc early as this, Stayre," ho said, "but it would be the proper tiling to drink to your suggestion. I'm sure, if there is anything I can do, which will be to our mutual benefit, I'm there." "We'll come to my idea later, then!" nodded the other, returning to his deep chair. "You're in no great hurry, I suppose?" "So long as I'm home at The I'le.isuro for dinner at eight, the rest ' of my time's yours, Stayre." "I'd rather hoped I'd be able to persuade you into dining with me here." "Sorry. I hate refusing. But—l've a reason for dining at liomc, if you don't mind." "Of course I 'don't, though I'd have liked your company. That's a fine place you've got down there. It was rather an impertinence, butting in as I did, but I enjoyed my short visit immensely. Those are lice p'-ople, those two friends of yours—the Doc and — Mrs. Oppenshaw. A widow, isn't she?" "For the moment!" Burden laughed. "No wonder you've a reason for dining at home, Burden!" the other suggested, slyly. "You're quite wrong. When I said that Lena was a widow—for the moment, I meant—she's too attractive to stay a widow very long." "I'm with you there!" nodded the other. "I thought her very attractive indeed. I —tell you the truth, Burden —rl'd like to be better acquained wich -Mrs. Oppenshaw. I was sort 1 ' of hoping, if we came to any business deal I together maybe—that would help matters. She seemed to mo to think a. great deal of you, from what she said " "I hope Lena hasn't been saying anything indiscreet about me?" Burden murmured, well aware that Lena was quite capable of saying almost anything. "Mostly the kind of thing I've heard. Burden, from most people I've spoke with about you. Much what the paper said this morning—that you're a bit of a mystery." "Sheer bunk!" the other laughed. "There's no mystery at all about me. I'm just one of those men who like to keep my affairs to myself—" "Well, a man's entitled to do that." The other leaned forward suddenly, his grey'eyes suddenly gazing at Burden with intentness. "Talking of mysteries, Burden," he said. "I've moved just a step further with the one we were talking about in your garden Saturday evening. About that fellow Branscombe and the mystery as to what became of him." / "That fellow ?" John forced into his voice a note of casual recollection with no interest behind it. "And what's the latest about him?" he asked. Unwanted Attentions. Burden had to wait for an answer to his question until Stayre had lit his pipe. His outward calm cloaked the fact that he was both anxious and nervous. What, he was wondering, could be the discovery about Branscombe the other had made?

"Just this," Stayre told him, when at length his pipe was lit, leaning back with his big <*ound face obscured in a blue haze of smoke. "I advertised las + , week, you know, in the personal columns of the leading dailies, offering a reward for information by means of which he might be traced. I've had quite a number of replies—see ?" He waved those rough and ready fingers of his towards a writing-table, on the blotter of which lay a little pile of opened letters. Burden eyed them without much appearance of enthusiasm. "Marvellous, isn't it, what a lot of time some people have to spare for other fojk's business?" he suggested cynically. "With £-30 reward, in exchange for the three-halfpenny stamp and a few words which might be useful, who wouldn't give way to that temptation?" laughed the other. "Fifty pounds?" John stared in surprise, then shrugged his shoulders. "You've money to burn on the fellow, Stavre. What's the idea of this manhunt 1"

"Just—it was my cousin's wish that I'd try and trace him, and find out what had happened to him. "And —those replies — they've been helpful?" "Only one. It's from a solicitor's clerk. Or, at least, he was one, though he's retired now. The solicitor lie used to work for is dead, but handled this Branscombe's affairs. The clerk himself saw Branscombe the very day he came out of prison. He says in his letter that—if I'll sec him—he thinks he can tell me enough to give me a clue." This time, it was John's turn to be lighting a smoke. He needed it. anyhow, to steady his nerves. How wise he had been to keep this appointment, and be on the spot, so opportunely, in Harvey Stayre's confidence. This was an unexpectedly startling development., and had to be followed. All the same, it would not do for him to show too much- interest in this letter. "Good for you." he laughed. "And good for the solicitor's clerk if he gets his fifty pounds! Possibly the poor devil needs it, if he's retired. Solicitors don't pay stupendous pensions. If this clerk of yours knows anything at all useful " "I rather think he docs. He hints as much. Says that Branscombe had some secret arrangement with the solicitor, took another name, and intended to begin life afresh."

"Sounds like good old-fashioned melodrama, Stayre!" Burden smiled. "Too much so for these enlightened days, my friend! I'm afraid your solicitorclerk friend's out to take advantage of your innocence. If all that's true —if this Branscombe follow really had a secret understanding with your solicitor, if he wore going to do the disappearing act, do you think they'd have taken any clerk into their confidence?

"In any case," lie went on, "if he was anything decent in the way of solicitor's clerks, he'd have appreciated the fact —a standing one with solicitor's clerks—that the secrets of his firm have to be honourably kept. Still, this one may be an exception, may want his fifty pounds very badly, and in that case—well, he'll' probably tell you just what he thinks you'll swallow and pay for."

"Meaning that you don't reckon I'll learn anything useful from him?" asked Stayre, obviously impressed. Burden laughed. "My dear fellow, don't set any store by my opinion. In any case, I didn't come hero to talk about what really is not my business." "Why. sure!" interrupted the other apologetically. "I'm sorry, Burden! Let's get down to brass tacks, the business you've been so good as to come here to discuss . . . ." When John left the Buckingham an hour later, he might well have been thankful to the financier friend who had introduced him to Stayre. Here was a man of ideas, with money to back them, but just needing the guiding experience of someone more at home than himself on this side of the world. What was called for, quite obviously, was a partnership in some form or other. Stayre hinted at it, but John did not appear to take his words as they were meant. One had to think over a step of that nature. Burden came away, as a matter of fact, somewhat between the devil and the deep sea. From a business point of view, Sta3'r© was an unquestionable find. And just now, as happens sometimes with men in Burden's position, business ideas had considerably overreached his immediate bank balance. Additional ready-money capital was urgently needed. He had indeed already started looking for it, not a difficult thing for a man of his known standing. But, after his talk with Stayre, he realised at once how advantageous it would be if they could come to an arrangement. That was the devil on one side of him, tempting him sorely. On the other side surged the deep sea wherein Branscombe was immersed, and the past that went with Branscombe. It was impossible to enter upon anydefinite and permanent business footing witli Stayre unless first the latter knew the truth. Not, at least, if Burden remained the honourable man he always had been.

And after deeply pondering' the thing, lie could not see himself unveiling the truth—certainly not to the cousin of the man to whom Branscombe owed so dficp and bitter a grudge. It really was a problem, and, for the time being, he left the solution of it in the air. Immediately on his arrival down at The Pleasure his attention' was distracted from it by Procter's announcement that Burden's fears of the morninjs, as to a possible invasion by newspaper men, had been fully justified. "If there was one down here to-day, sir, there was half a dozen or more from this paper and that," Procter related. Indeed, sir. although I dealt with them firmly and refused any information whatever, I couldn't make them understand it wasn't any use hanging around here. I believe there's a couple or more put up at the George in the village, hoping to get a word with you when you returned." "Well, that's' extra business for the man at the floorgo, and waste of good time and money by the papers who sent the fellows . down here!" Burden replied. "Jf we're in' for a siege, they'll get tired of it first!"

But he was to find the siege pressing, and that before he had finished his I dinner. The bell rang, and Procter was some time absent from the diningroom before he returned with ft worried expression, on his round face. "Four of. the gentlemen called, sir," he reported. "It seems your car was seen coming in at the gates, and it wasn't the least use my saying you weren't back from town yet. ' They'd called at the office, sir, during the day, and been turned down there. Seems as if they've made up their, minds to interview you. whatever 1 tell them. I had to come back, sir, with thctr compliments, and ask you to *s pare them just three minutes —"

"Not three seconds, Procter!" John snapped. "Tell them that I've nothing to say that can bo of the slightest interest to them, and I refuse to be pestered this way." Procter, obeying the first of those instructions, omitted the second, when he returned to the four waiting men he had left on the terrace. He was frankly puzzled «by his master's attitude towards those men. It wasn't, he

thought, as though there was anything to hide. One would have imagine.l such a publicity was something to b<> welcomed. On hi* own account, ho suggested soothingly an explanation to the disappointed journalists, which he felt might help. "Mr. Burden keeps very much to himself, gentlemen," he said, "and has a great dislike for any interruption when he is down here, where he likes to be left alone. If I might suggest it, you'd he much more likely to get a - word with him if you looked in at his ) office to-morrow." 7 Apparently, they accepted that as the " only alternative, for they moved away ° together, talking in undertones as they ' disappeared along the terrace. Procter, 1 returning to the dining room and his master, reported his action. y "Seemed to me, sir, that if we told them that, we'd get rid of them round here, which was what you wanted. It ; wouldn't so much matter if they came : to the oflice, I gathered." "You are wrong, Procter" Burden , frowned, then realised that all this might , seem very much like making a mountain j out of a molehill. "Anyhow," he laughed, "you'll have , done something if you've rid us of them here. This is all really very silly. Some men, of course, would only be too glad to be interviewed by a herd of jour- ■ nalists. I'm not that tvpe, and there it is." And seemingly Procter's advice had been followed, for no further interruption came that evening. Next morning', however, as John happened to be looking out from a window of his bedroom while dressing, ho caught sight of a crouching figure moving stealthily across the grounds in the direction of the house, taking obvious care to escape being noticed. The man, John was quick to observe, carried a camera slung over his shoulder. A moment or two later, he was joined by another man, similarly equipped. He watched as they appeared to be consulting together, gesturing in this direction and that, finally separating. They were, of course, hoping to waylay and get a good picture of him when the time came for him to get in his car and leave for his oflice, If there was one thing John had avoided since his change in identity, it had been the camera. And nothing, to his mind, could have been more dangerous at this moment, than for any,recognisable picture of himself to be splashed about the newspapers. The obvious risk of this, therefore, made him decide upon a course, which he had indeed considered overnight, but felt to be necessary. It was not, after all, compulsory that he should attend his city ollice and risk running the gauntlet of any press-men, waiting for him there. It would be quite simple for him to evade them by remaining here for a. day or so. until they gave him up in disgust, and he was no longer hot in the news, from their point of view. And that, he realised as he came down to breakfast, he still remained. The morning paper had followed up its story of yesterday by one little less prominent, and even more, personally affecting himself. The paper's disappointed representative must have gone back overnight, determined to avenge himself for the difficulties, he had met in seeing Burden. There was a great deal about the mysterious Mr. Burden and his country home, the adventures of the reporter in trying to find out if he really was a myth or not. It was all written in a jocular vein, with a description of Procter, and even of Miss Vane at the office end, who seemed to have dealt very efficiently with the questions put to her. It all struck John as extremely impertinent and quite unnecessary. And it stiffened him in his determination to hold out against any further attempt';. Breakfasting, lie laid his plans, and unfolded them to Proctor. "Mace will take the ear to the office ' as, usual. He can draw up close to the I front door, so—if there's anyone about —• I they'll probably think I'm inside when jj ho drives off. He'll take a letter from mo to Hiss Vane, and bring her back j> here. | (To be continued daily.)