THE PHANTOM GAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16300, 5 August 1916, Page 3 (Supplement)

THE PHANTOM GAR.

BY JAMES McELDERRY, Author of "The Veil of CircamsUnoe." .to.

(COPYRIGHT.)

- CHAPTER XXI.-(Continued.) Iv their descent, as the inventor had pressed lever after lever, some of the revolving steel wings seemed to have folded themselves up. Now V as they touched the ground with a faint quiver of the machinery, the last of them disappeared as suddenly as it had come into being. I hey had dropped into a small meadow; but almost at once were travelling along a narrow and neglected road, at the end of "huh the house loomed up. "A bad road, too!" said Boughton. leaning back and studying the levers in iront of the inventor, towards which his hands were moving, i -M. Vishael began to applv brakes. Simultaneously the car passed through a short belt of , firs. Houghton leaned further back as they came into the shadow, and then his profile shot quickly forward. It seemed as though his hand was lifted unnecessarily high, and that M. Vishael became aware of it: but at that same moment he fell forward, without comment, in his seat; and Bousrhton. pushing him °" Vi \ e - ? round ' sprang into his seat. M. ishael is ill.- he said Lurriedlv to Hawtrey ■« It is one less to deal with later on. We went too high, you understand, and the altitude affected his heart which is not strong. V ou had better do the talking: but if there should be auv bholzian sheer off it. if it's anvhow possible. We should be bound to bungle the accent. Of course, it's no use making plans when were no idea how main men we shall have to .leal with. We' shall both have to act independently, as we think ht. perhaps.*' , i Ah L, s f id Ha "trey, yawning at his left cuff- ink. "Of course, it mav turn out simply a pi,,,,,, . . . ]ts ' funnT what s become of Hollow. He's n.it the sort of chap to shirk this sort, of thing. ... Oh. bv the wav". this M. \ishael. whom you've made so ill -ho.v do you know the chap's name? It seem* somehow familiar: but how do you know it? '

Bought. >n opened his eves. " .My dear Hawtrey." he said laughing, 'you re rusting—badly. Haven't vou got beyond gaping at—this affair? Of'course, M. ishael is a .Scholzian the Scholzian inventor of the noiseless aeroplane, which our Jar-seeing Government refused to treat for and rejected with scorn. This is itplus an additional invention. I suppose. My compliments were intended to draw M. A ishael. They succeeded. They told mo that the inventor himself was drivinc us." b

Grigor Hawtrey examined the. palm of his right hand rather minutely.

"So!" he said. "And you —all!" As he was in the act of speaking. Boughton had brought the car to a .standstill before the house: and at once a man's form had showed itself in the doorway — that of a servant, evidently, tall and muscular. Hawtrey. taking his measure, leapt down and took the steps leading up to the door four at a time.

" Qvick ! Qvick ! " he exclaimed imitating the accent of the man he had personated. "M. Vishael is ill—the too high altitude, you understand. Qvick ! fie must be put to bed. Get someone to help you. and carry him—"

The man. staring at him suspiciously, took « step forward-

"I am alone—there is no one to help. Surely monsieur has not forgotten that? "

" But, of course—l am stupid. Still, you can carry ✓him up yourself: he is not heavy. I must see M. Eysdel at once."

Hawtrey pushed his way into the house, and as he did so the man began reluctantly to descend the steps. Hawtrey wheeled swiftly about : and then Boughten, at the foot of the steps, and about to ascend them, leapt clear of tlie falling servant only just in time.

"That accounts for two!" he called out to bis friend. '" All the same. I don't think it was altogether wise to do it in that fashion. If it was seen—as it might have been —from the house, it may undo us yet." Hawtrey. his eyes fixed affectionately on the toe of his right boot, laughed.

"That was rather a stab in the back, I admit," he said. " But we had too much at stake to be particular as to the method. Of course, I first discovered that there was no one else in the house. We have only to find M. Eysdel's apartments, and to give him a taste of real abduction."

Boughton frowned. " Unless," he said, unless M. Eysdel should happen to have been awake and at his window, and to have guessed the nature of our errand. I wonder where we are? Stockvis and bis crew seem to have pitched on a pretty out-of-the-way spot, any way."

"When we have taken M. Eysdel in tow we shall find little difficulty in'discovering our whereabouts." Hawtrey said, with a shrug of the shoulders. '" At present I confess I am not over curious about it. Gome on. We'd better search the. ground floor first, and keep su ear open for the first si unci." " I'm ready. We're not likely to be disturbed by either of our friends'outside for the next hour or MJ . at. all events." Boughton said. "Still, the less lime we lose, the better." I

One by one they went through the bare and empty rooms, only to find that in none of them was there any sign of human occupation. "Ah!" Hawtrey commented as they returned to the hall. "I expect, from the look of things, these rooms are flooded at the first heavy rainfall. Upstairs we shall find a very different story." They climbed the stairs slowly, listening intently for the slightest sound that should betray the fact that they had been discovered by the Scholzian ambassador. Where there had been before nothing but bare boards beneath their feet, they came now- upon heavy rags stretching the whole length of a long corridor on the first floor. Taking a room each on either side of the corridor, they found that all of them had been tastefully, if not luxuriously, furnished; some as living rooms, others as bedrooms, most of the latter showing that they had recently been used. "' A meeting-place of the Scholzian conspirators, evidently," Hawtrey remarked. "Ah!" He closed the door of a room before which he had been standing, and turned the key on the outside. " Haviland!" he said laconically. He has been a prisoner, if M. Eysdel has not. 1 think we may leave him to Stockvis' mercies when he returns here to look for -M Kvs- i del." " i

Boughton nodded with an astonishing indifference for a man whose future happiness appeared to depend upon the little jockev reaching Aintree in safety a week hence.

" F don't see why we should bother about him. Great Scott!''

The two men stood staring blanklv .it one another as a faint cry, followed by a crash of broken machinery, floated up to them from below.

'"The car!" shouted Hawtrey, making for the stairs. "Something's happened to the car."

By the time he had finished speaking they were in the hall, Boughton already a few paces ahead of him. Wrenching the door open, he was about to descend the stops when he stopped short. Before him. a few yards at most from the wreck of the Phantom Car, stood John hollow, holding by the neckband of his torn shirt the cowering figure of the Scholzian ambassador.

CHAPTER XaH. TIIF. TRKATT IS SIGXF.P.

The clock at the Taw Courts was striking the hour of ten as George Boughton sprang out of a tax.i and took the stairs leading to Hollow's chambers four at a time. As he anticipated, Hawtrey had arrived before him, and was already seated in his friend's easiest ehuir discussing the amazing phenomenon of the Phantom Car.

saying as he burst open the door and entered the room. " are destined to. revolutionise the science of aerial warfare, which, theoretically at least, had already been carried pretty far. Honestly, I find it difficult to believe now that the whole journey—the mad rush through the night - — was not a figment of the imagination— a half-pleasant, half-unpleasant dream." He broke off. springing to his feet excitedly as he caught sight of Boughton.

"Well, Boughton?" he said quickly " It's gone through, of course?"

Boughton flung himself in a state of exhaustion into the nearest chair.

" Yes." he said with a sigh of relief, '" thank God the treaty is signed and that rotten traitor, Eysdel, is on his way to Scholaia with—to use an apt if not very eloquent phrasea flea in his ear." i

'' No thanks to you. my dear fellow!" added Hollow with a laugh. "And very little thanks to you. either, Hawtrey. I shouldn't say this, of course, if the pair of you didn't look so infernally proud of yourselves.

'" With confoundedly little reason, as you remind us!" Hawtrey admitted with a wry grimace " Still, it's well to have some chastening rod knocking around." He turned again to Boughton. '' And Sir Bruton? What did he say'/ I think I <an guess. Not in the least surprised to see you escort SI. Kysdel to town, and like a bear with a sore head over your defection in not bringing him sooner. Never a word of praise, or any talk of reinstatementbut then, of course, with this precious Government, no man's his own master, and I fancy the old boy's tasted the gall pretty strongly. You're better out of only the wasted years are the deuce." Boughton. settling himself back in his chair, tilled his corncob verv deliberately. " Seeing that I'm a rotten failure all round. he said bitterly, after a space, '' what do the dead years matter? The wasted effort? The futile dreams?" His mouth worked about the comers, and Hollow, getting up, fumbled for some moments with a whisky decanter, while Grigor Hawtrey appeared to be studying affectionately a spot of mud on the rug beside his feet. Presently Boughton leant forward in his chair, taking the glass Hollow held out to him. " If it were only for myself," he said, " if I knew that there would never be any chance—" He. stopped short abruptly. Even to his friends he could not speak of Kathleen and his hopes of—of Kathleen and what were now his despairs, since he could no longer honourably put his fate to the test. '" You were going to say—?" suggested Hawtrey in the silence that followed.

Boughton roused himself with an effort, and relighted his pipe, which had already gone out. *

T.n Yes ' I was oin g to »ay that I think I Jl go out and throw in my lot with Kelteway— the anan Mounted Police. With my riding there ought to be something—a living, and a good life at that— for me there."

Hollow lifted . his glass. „ ." H-I understand it." he said slowlv. 'it would be cowardice, and you won't do it. Frankly, I don't see the nobility of leaving a woman— such a woman— in the lurch. The onlv way out? It's easy to say that—to put on the air of self-immolation. You've nothing to offer —you clear out and leav,e the woman free. But is she? You court her— her love— then break her heart. Yet you want to say it's the honourable thine to do!" b Boughton, taken by surprise bv his friend's warmth, and 'by the note of intimacy that had crept into his voice, flushed hotly. He had not dreamt that anyone had suspected his passion -. and yet Hollow's voice left no doubt that he was speaking no generalities—that he had Kathleen in his mind. "But—but with me it's different!" Boughton stammered. " I don't know dare not even hope. To carrv things to I the extreme, and then to run away, I grant you there is no honour in that But I— am certain that in my case I there is nothing more than friendship on her side." Hawtrey, taking no part in the conversation, nodded sagely at the splash of mud on the ru,g. After a snort silence Hollow laughed. '' You ask me to believe you a blind fool. Boughton, instead of " a coward. Now you are not a fool, and it follows that you must be the other thing. Frankly, I didn't think it." Boughton got up from his chair, a : little white about the lips. "Oblige me by minding your own husi- j new, Hollow." he said at white heat, i "You talk of things that are no concern of yours and of which you know nothing." Hollow laid a hand on his shoulder, detaining him as he reached the door. " You are wrong, Boughton." he said quietly. "I talk of what I know. ] advise yon to go and talk to Dolores, who spent a whole hour at Gort House this morning. She was staying with the Phipps. and stopped there on her way up here— rather T think she. met Miss Gort riding, and talked for an hour, which is much the same thing. Go and see her. and when you return I will accept the apology you owe me." Boughton stood'still, with his hand on the door, hesitating. Had Hollow's beautiful wife, who had known Kathleen years ago, been the recipient of her confidence ; or had she divined something to which he himself had been blind—

something lor which he had never, except in moments of delirious madness, dared to hope ? "1 apologise!" he said at length, taking Hollow's hand. " And, if you don't mind, [ will go and talk to your wife this afternoon—that is. if you don't think she will despise me for my fears. But, first of all, I want to know how you happened to be on the spot the moment M. Kysdel escaped us, and all but got away in that infernal car of Yishgel's." Hollow shrugged his shoulders.

"Oh. that's very easily explained," he said. '• I suspected something of the sort since I don't believe in phantoms. Of course, I wasn't prepared for the amazing car you made your .rip in; but from certain extracts Hawtrey showed me in the Seholzian newspapers I gathered that there must be a machine of the type actually in commission, as it were, by the Scholzian war party. The long, straight track of the avenue at Gort House, where the tyres appeared and disappeared, confirmed all this. I called in de Ferron, who is a great friend of mine, and we were in waiting in his big aeroplane when you ascended. If you hadn't been so excited, all of yon. you must have heard us behind you, though we kept as far off as possible. When we saw that Eysdel was going to away, we did the only thing possible—charged 'his car —swooped down -on him. Once he'd got up into the air we could never have done his pace."

" Whew .'" Boughton whistled. " There'll be a deuce of a bill to pay your friend for his wreck'." he observed.

*' But not a fraction of the bill that would have to be paid for the war!" Boughton nodded. "Of course, you were absolutely right, Hollow—about the conspiracy, and Stock vis and the rest, being in it. Eysdel crumpled up when Sir Bruton tackled him. The}' were going to blow up the forts — the Atom had, in fact, got most of the plans. Directly war was declared, Vishael would have dropped explosives on them. Then invasion would have followed, inevitably. Now, when the trouble's over, of course, they're shadowing all the conspirators in this country, and no doubt they'll get short shrift." Hollow nodded. as though he had never been in doubt as to the accuracy of his conclusions; and a few minutes later .Boughton took his leave- ■' When he had gone. Hollow, who for all his mask of cynicism and indifference was at heart a singularly sympathetic and affectionate man. said:

" One of these days those two will go down on their knees to Dolores. For one thing is certain : if Boughton sticks to his pen he'll come out on top in the end. He's got wit -observation a .-Ait, of esprit all his own, though it never cornea out till

he's a sheet of paper in front of him. Whereas, if he'd gone to Canada, that would have been the end of him and a tragedy of the most pitiful kind for a very fine woman."

CHAPTER XXIII.

JOY TAKES THE BIT IN HEtt MOUTH. Franz Stockvis, a matter of five days after the signing of the treaty he had done his best to circumvent, paced up and down the room he called his study at Hazletou Manor. At the time Hollow had formed and carried out his daring plan to kidnap her father, Joy had been m France, where her company had been giving a limited number of performances in Paris- Closely guarded by Hollow's man, Stockvis had been kept a prisoner for two days—until, in fact, Sir Bruton had scoffed at the idea, of there being any danger in his being at large, and had explained that, in the event of proceedings being taken against the barrister he would have to stand the racket alone, since he himself had never been a party to the imprisonment, disapproved heartily of it. and considered it imprudent in the highest degree. "Then," said Hollow, laughing a little derisively, "if your man is at my chain- | bets tomorrow morning, he will see Stockvis leave at nine o'clock, and there will be no excuse for him if he loses sight of him again. For myself. Ido not fear any action. Stockvis is much too prudent for that, now that his schemes have been frustrated. Sir Bruton." Events had proved him right. Informed by Hollow that his plot had been discovered, his complicity proved, and the treaty signed in spite of him. Stockvis, on Raining his freedom, had gone straight to Hazleton .Manor, where he had remained ever since, resolutely refusing to see two of his fellow-conspirators who liad called upon him, lest he should lav himself open to expulsion from the country—a fate that he learned had befallen the Atom. Now .Joy was coming home. Abruntlv. and apparently without reason. Stockvis had put an end to the tour, four davs before the. date for which the last perrormance had been announced, in spite of the fact that the play had proved a tremendous "draw." For over an hour he had been pacing to and fro. an ever-deepening scowl upon his face- Very gradually a certain light of vindictive satisfaction crept into the lines about his mouth, and a* last lie raised his head with an exclamation that was very close!v allien to a snarl. Joys motor was throbbing at the door; a little behind it a second car, piled high with the profusion of trunks she would never travel without, was coming to a standstill. Stockvis. standing at the win- , dow, waited, listening for her footsteps on ' the stairs. She would know him far too well to expect that lie would await her in ! the entrance hall. j

At last they sounded—a light tapping of high and elegant heels. Stoekvis' head went up a shade, and his scowl deepened. A moment later the door of the study had opened and she was in the room, radiant and beautiful as ever, a little less cold, perhaps, than usual, but. with a faint melancholy in the depths of her eyes. Stockvis dfd not move from his position, and after a space, standing a little uncertainly in the centre of the room, she said, her lips taking on a half-curve of scorn:

"And so, yes! I want an explanation. It was on my tongue to laugh at, you, and to go on, not only for those four nights., but for another month. It was a toss up, and I called heads, and it came tails. Otherwise—'' She shrugged her shoulders, and the curve of scorn about her lips deepened. " Come, you are not made of wood. Mr. Lessee. The explanation—now !"

Stock vis seemed rooted to the floor. Hi? hands clenched themselves, and he went white, and beads of perspiration formed on his forehead and trickled down his full and healthy-looking cheeks- But he said nothing, simply moving his lips noiselessly. " (111110 '." There was a flush of anger on Joy's lace— flush that seemed to awaken its cold marble into life. '•Come!" she said. " I am waiting. What is the matter ? Of course, the treaty was signed — 1 saw that. Somebody blundered, no doubt—perhaps yourself. " But that doesn't explain it. You are stupid—upset, very I likely, but none the less ridiculous in your | attitude." Stockvis' hands clenched and unclenched ; and clenched themselves again. A violent . emotion seemed to shake him, which he tried to hold in check. At last he said. ! articulating with .difficulty: •" Yes. the treaty was signed. You knew that ?"' " I read my paper, naturally, the day after it was signed. All the world knew it then." "You knew it beforeyou!" ! "What are you talking about? How' does it concern me ? It is done, and the ' thing is over. The loss won't hurt vou. I suppose it simply means that you" might ■ have made a million or so, and now vou won't make it. Eh?" Stockvis made a step forward with his clenched fist upraised as though ho would have struck her. Then he stopped short, with a look of baulked fury on his face. " You know what I have* done for von —vou, the daughter of Mimi Valctta, "the street singer, the drunken player, the canaille I raised out of the gutter:" he said sullenly. You—you sold me—you. guttersnipe that you are—traitress, canaille! ' You Fold me to buy the man tou wanted i You!" iTo be continued on Saturday next.) I