"The Melody Girl"

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVI, Issue 3444, 17 March 1932, Page 6

"The Melody Girl"

By RUTH D. GROVES. -* •, r i < *—< __ _ w_r _ v—* v_» « 1 V— l I—/1—/ V—* *-

CHAPTER XXXIV

"I wish you'd talk sense," Mrs Everett protested.

"All right," Beryl complied, "then I'm having a throat specialist out from New York to tell me if I'll have to stop singing or not." "A throat specialist!" "Yes, and he's a famous person, so give him a proper reception." Mrs Everett naturally wanted more information on the subject but Beryl did not care to discuss it. She said she wanted to sleep, and her mother left the room.

Beryl heard the telephone ring shortly afterward and a minute later her mother came up to tell her that Dr. Auguston would arrive in two hours.

At the end of those two hours Beryl said to herself: "Sherman had a word for it, all right!" To the eminent specialist, who told her he'd come to her instead of making her come to him because he loved her voice, she appeared calm and self-possessed. The physician too was non-commit-tal. Finally he smiled. "We'll have to watch you, he said. "You have been in danger but if you are careful ..."

When he was gone Beryl had another battle with herself but this one was of short duration. , It was one thing to wait a few hours but something very different to face days of suspense—days in which Tommy might sink to levels from which he could never rise.

She left the house quietly—for her mother had heard Dr. Auguston order her to remain in bed —and went in search of Tommy. She knew where the Larkin house was located —an old siding building with rusty brown paint that had peeled Off in large patches with ragged edges. Polney Larkin —now the bully "Pol" —had been one of her classmates in the fifth grade at school. Then Polney had given up education for what to him were pleasanter pursuits. Now even some of the town's police officers were known to avoid him.

Tommy had been in trouble with the Larkin boys. That could easily be fatal, but this once it hadn't been. The doctor'd have told her. She wished she'd questioned him more, but it wasn't easy to talk about Tommy. Why had the doctor seen Tommy? She should have asked him that. It could only mean that Tommy had been Injured. In a store in the village she tried to telephone to Mr Hoffman but was told he had gone to the city. She hadn't expected to learn anything from him anyway. It was plain that Tommy wasn't confiding in his uncle. The thing to do was to go to the Larkin house as she'd intended and find out what she could from Pol if he were at home.

She hadn't dared to take her noisy old car, so now she got a taxi and asked the driver if he knew where the Larkins lived. He looked at her in astonishment and avowed he'd tell the world he did.

At the house she asked if he'd inquire for Polney Larfcin, in the hope of having Pol come outside to talk with her. The driver was pleasant about it, but whoever it was that came to the door and called back inside to inform the powerful Pol that a dame wanted to see him, send word to Beryl that she could come inside.

"Shall I wait?" the driver asked, holding the oar door open for her. "Please," she breathed, for the house had a dark and forbidding aspect that equalled the reputation of its owners. Perhapd its power to terrorize the timid was one reason why they did not paint it. Beryl was not timid, and so she entered and spoke calmly to tis »:*«, brutish Pol when he approached hei "Can you tell me where I may find Tommy Wilson?" she asked. Pol grinned at her. Pol liked to grin. He had exceptionally One teeth. Corn had done it, he claimed. He liked to ask questions, too. "What right you got to ask?" he returned bluntly.

Beryl eyed him haughtily. "According to your standards I probably have none," she answered coolly. The grin left Pol's face. "Lay off that track," he warned Beryl sullenly. "I haven't come here to be diplomatic," Berjl informed lam. "I want to know where Tommy Wilson is." "We don't give a guy away to a skirt," Pol retorted.

Beryl turned away, then back again, knowing it was foolish to allow his lack of courtesy to defeat her. "I am not Tommy's girl," she said evenly. "I am a friend. And I know he was in a row with you. If you don't tell me what you did with him I shall go to the police." Pol laughed. "You're hot stuff, sister," he told her, "but I like your spirit even if you are miles off in your reekoriin'. The police—that's a hot onel"

He was still laughing when a sound behind Beryl caused her to turn hastily in that direotion. And there in a doorway leading into an inner room stood Tommy. He was haggard and entirely disreputable looking but he showed a natural surprise at seeing Beryl.

"What you doin' here?"-he asked, and his voice was as cracked as his skin.

"If you'll take me out to my taxi I'll tell you," Beryl answered.

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Tommy glanced at Pol who was staring at him with a crooked smile. "All right," Tommy said uneasily, and followed her from the room.

"What were you doing in that house?" she demanded of him when they were outside. "You were in a fight with those men, weren't you?" Tommy essayed a laugh but it was only a travesty of a sound. "Sure," he said, "and they walloped me good and plenty. But I had it comin'. I tried to get smart with a better man." "But I don't understand," Beryl said, "why you are here, in their house."

"They're all right," Tommy said in defence of his new friends.

"I see," Beryl remarked scathingly. "They beat that idea into your head." "I'd rather take a beating than a preaching," Tommy warned her.

Beryl instanty took a different tack. "I won't preach to you, Tommy," she told him softly. "Gome on and let's talk it over on the way back home." "I'm not going home," Tommy declared, and the determination in his voice was alarming.

Urge as she would, Beryl could not persuade Tommy to leave the Larkins. He was as well off there as anywhere, he insisted. Beryl sensed that he was governed by a reason more compelling than his liking for the outfit. But she dared not voice her opinion, knowing that opposition would serve only to cement more firmly the evil association.

"Please," she begged, after all arguments had proven vain, "keep in touch with me, Tommy." But Tommy did not keep in touch with her, and for days Beryl lived in the agony of dread. She had been put to bed, almost forcibly, and scolded by the family doctor and her mother with such clearness and emphasis that she dared not disobey. Besides her mother watched her like a hawk. Was not her career in jeopardy ?

Beryl smiled over her mother's solicitude. It would make a difference in the family should they be deprived of her salary. But she was not bitter. Nothing mattered to Her except Tommy's welfare. And she could get no news of him. Gossip, yes, but what she heard on that score, although prefaced with "I've heard," and "They say," increased her anxiety. She sent for Mr Hoffman and he came but said he ''had washed his hands of the young pup." Beryl could get no encouragement from him. She prevailed upon her mother, on threat of going out to do it herself, to make inquiries concerning Tommy at various places, but this did her no good, either. For Mrs Everett lied to her. She thought it best, for the truth about Tommy was not pleasant.

Beryl learned it quickly enough, however, when, after a fortnight, she was allowed to leave the house. Tommy had joined with the Larkin gang in earnest. Beryl heard that he had been engaged with them in certain midnight smuggling operations designed to aid in assuaging scofflaw thirst. But this was only rumour and she refused to believe it until she had talked with Tommy.

After this news Beryl was more heartsick than ever. She knew that Tommy had got into something he couldn't get out of without more trouble than he at present had the courage to face. He did not tell her frankly, but she understood that his association with the Larkins had begun in a spirit of deflanoa and that he was held to it by taunts.

Tommy said he wished she'd let him alone. What had he got out of life trying to please other people, anyhow? Beryl attempted to bait him with news of Irene. It was the only way she could get to see him. She would drive to the Larkin dwelling—from all she could learn Tommy was living there and park opposite the front door for hours at a time.

There seemed to be some smaller members of the family, and occasionally they threw such things as overripe tomatoes and , rotting apples at her. Beryl suspected they'd have thrown rocks if they dared and the thought that Tommy was affording her some protection made it possible for her to endure the ridicule of the Larkins'. •

Tommy never would come out except when she could get someone to carry in word that she had news from the west. He came reluctantly for Beryl would plead with him a little before telling him anything about Irene.

But one time she tricked him, for she had something else to tell him. (To be continued.)