VAN WYCK MASON'S The CASTLE ISLAND CASE with CANDID CAMERA CLUES

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 84, 11 April 1939, Page 17

VAN WYCK MASON'S The CASTLE ISLAND CASE with CANDID CAMERA CLUES

Clip the Camera Clues.

Clip the Camera Clues.

CHAPTER XIV.

The trip back to Plunder Island was a silent one, Creepy standing statue-still at the wheel and not turning his head once. Peter, gorged and still bearing souvenirs of the promised ice cream cone in the guise of tide marks about his mouth, again became absorbed in his British Colonials. As for Gail, she sat looking absently at the distant ruins on Castle Island, but her thoughts it appeared, had strayed even further away than the grey old castle.

A great silvery fish broke water just ahead of the bow, darted through the air in a graceful parabola and "disappeared. Frantically, Allenby got his Leica ready, but the tuna refused to oblige again and the investigator was forced to satisfy himself with some snaps of long-tailed terns whieh, like snowy white darts, came drifting by overhead. When Creepy presented his aquiline profile in answer to a call from Gail, he got what he hoped would be a tine snap of the boatman.

"Don't put the Dart away," she was saying, "because Mr. and Mrs. Grafton will want to go right back to St. George's. Have some porters handy, too —we've a guest arriving on the Pacific Steam Navigation boat, the Oropcsa, isn't she?"

"Yes, Hiss Gail. Docks 'bout four o'clock."

Creepy nodded twice, then deftly steered the launch through a maze of treacherous coral reefs and into the safety of sulphate of copper coloured shallows. At the end of the Grafton's pier Trumps was waiting, his tail wigwagging a frantic message of welcome.

A few yards behind her husband's stocky figure stood Barbara Grafton, dressed in sombre colours. Her face was composed, but spots of colour glowed in her cheeks, and, judging from Barney's expression, they must have been exchanging words of a high degree of temperature.

"Hi! Major," he called, "get your cables oft ■.-..[ right?"

"Yes, and I had a look about the town."

"Hi, there," Townley Ward hailed from further up the pier. "Come on you two, you're just in time for a cocktail. Terry's having a stirrup cup. Say, Barney, our little Cora Sue's got a regular hollow leg; never seen anybody hold so much and show it so little. To look at her you'd think a sniff of the cork would have her doing rhumbas."

"How you doin', honey?" Cora Sue hailed, appearing with an arm linked through Terry James' muscular brown one. "Back from the big city?"

"Looky," Gail cried, holding up the box of candy Allenby had presented. "Five pounds of it, and mine, all mine! Three deep bows to Major Allenby."

"You did the errands?" Barbara in quired.

"I bought roses from you and Terry and a big sheaf of lilies from you, Dad— and a lot of fall flowers from the rest of us." i

"By the way," Allenby said, watching Grafton far more intently than that individual suspected, "I bumped into the police inspector who was out here this morning."

"Inspector Boyd, you mean?" Ward demanded. "Or was it the uniformed fellow I"

"Boyd. He said Dr. Gosling's autopsy showed Miss Fortier's death was due to a fracture of the medulla."

"I suppose he still thinks the fall was accidental?" Terry James demanded with an assumption of carelessness which escaped carrying conviction by a wide margin.^.

"Yes. Inspector Boyd said there was no evidence of any sort to indicate foul play. Apparently she just went for a walk and either lost her wajr or got frightened by a toad and fell." Allenby's grey hair glistened silvery as, swinging up to the dock he offered Barbara a Gargantuan box of chocolates.

"Oh, thank you, Major," the young matron flushed with pleasure. "You're awfully good to be so generous. I did need some so badly for the dinner tonight and I especially want to do well on account of—" she hesitated " —of Sir iGeorge. I presume you know him?"

"No, only by reputation. He's accomplished a great deal for a man of his age." Allenby turned to Ward. "Havent I heard or read of his name somewhere within the last year or so?" He broke off because without warning Gail's slipper collided with his ankle. Luckily, Barbara was leading Peter up to the boathouse and the waiting nursemaid and had not heard the question.

Quite clearly, her voice suddenly mel lowed with tenderness, came to the group at the end of the pier. "Good heavens, child, what has that awful Major Allenby been feeding you? Let me wipe your face." "Stamps," said the small boy, "and a double chocolate and vanilla ice cream cone."

"Ah'm mad!" Cora Sue managed a gorgeous pout. "Nobody brought poor little me any candy. Not even a couple of peanuts."

"But they did. Look!" From a paper hag, kept as a reserve against Peter's appetite, Allenby snatched forth a lovelv chocolate mouse with pink sugar eyes. " "Oh-h-h!" Cora Sue squealed. Whereupon Terry struck an attitude while declaiming, '-Don't cry little girl, I'll catch the varmint for vou!" Grinning, he seized the offering'by its string tail. "Open wide," he commanded and" as Cora Sue parted li'ps bright as a guardsman's coat, Allenby snatched out his Leica.

"Widei-. Ttlt your head back and sav 'Ah' in Chinese mannex. This," Terry protested when Buck Ward sought to rescue the shrinking damsel, "is the correct technique. You hold this kind of mouse by its tail; then bite its head, off; the rest is swallowed in one horrul>ul crunch!"

"That's pukka Chinese fashion," Ward solemnly declared. "The professor will now demonstrate the best approved Nigerian way." He» pulled out 'a penknife, spitted a second mouse on its point, and commenced to nibble along the backbone. "That's the way it's done along the White Volta."

"I think you're all perfectly disgusting," Gail laughed. "Dad and the rest of you had better pull out for town or you'll miss the train and—and—" She sobered suddenly. "Good Lord, come on, Terry! We'll just be able to make it."

"Don't forget Sir George," Ward reminded when, a moment later, the Dart dashed away flinging spray yards out to either side.

"Well, baby's going to have a big icy cocktail. Last one up to the house is a patsy." And with a flash of long, well-formed legs, Gail went racing up the pier. Cora Sue, her skirts caught garter high, started in mad pursuit. After lunch, while the rest of the household read or indulged in cat naps, Allenby again brought out the mysterious deck of cards and set methodically to work. At the end of an hour the vacant, painted expressions on the face cards still mocked his bafflement, so in exasperated fury he locked them in his bureau drawer. A careful reconnoitering of the corridor permitted him to slip unobserved into that room in which he now knew Patricia Fortier had been so cruelly murdered.

The dead girl's bags, he noted, had been packed but not closed and lying on the top of the larger one was apicture of Judy. The two sisters certainly did not greatly resemble each other, Allenby decided as he sat down. The next problem for consideration was:— From whence had come the dust causing the dirty finger marks on the towel?

by HENRY CLAY GIPSON

Common sense' indicated it must be some place which would not undergo routine cleaning. This would be especially so on Plunder" Island, where the air was far purer than the dust laden atmosphere of New York.

Lips pursed in thought, Allenbv lifted the linings of the now cleared desk drawers and though he found some little dust in them it was hardly enough; the same was true of the tops of the valance boards fixed to the room's two windows. Perspiring gently, and aware of mounting exasperation, he stood in the centre of the room; then his eyes struck one of a pair of gay Japanese prints. Smothering a small grunt of excitement, he hurried over to them, turned one face around, exposed its back and uttered a small oath ot"disappointment. It was clean and its paper backing unhampered with. The same was true of its companion piece. But, pictures, indeed! Turning, he caught up Patricia's picture of Judy. His hopes soared. Its back was clean, but a close inspection revealed that the sliding section to which the prop was affixed was grey with grime, apparently transported from America. Near the top of the slide four fingerprints had made clean spots on the watered silk lining. Hmm! He shook the leather-bound portrait close to his ear, and felt sure a rustling, faint as the tread of a mouse, had sounded from within. In a trice he was gently slipping the back slide out from the frame, freeing the picture. Considering the calibre of his possible suspects, he had no desire to leave any evidence and therefore was deeply annoyed when Judys picture slipped out readily enough, but not so a now plainlydisclosed sheet of i:o?fpaper. He shook the frame, at first patiently, then with violence, yet achieved nothing. Stubbornly the glass refused to slip out of its fastenings.

Allenby was not thwarted for long, so from the pen tray he selected a holder and in the end of it cut a little notch. Then, employing the technique of a military censor rifling sealed envelopes he slipped the penholder into the slot, caught an edge of the single sheet within and wound the letter into a long thin cylinder. This was easily withdrawn. Pulling out his handkerchief, Roger Allenby removed all finger marks and replaced the portrait and slide. He had just put the frame back in the dead giiTe suitcase when,-quite quietly, the door opened. (To be continued daily.)