DANCING BEGGARS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21274, 30 August 1932, Page 15

DANCING BEGGARS

By E. BRETT YOUNG Author of - The Murder at Fleet," " Undergrowth,•• " The Medlar Tree," etc., etc.

SYNOPSIS Dominic Bentley, a South American millionaire, has been murdered on the harbour_ road of Polblaze in Cornwall. John Gosling, the village curate, and Arthur Janes, a journalist who is staying with him are eager to get to the bottom of the mystery. Gosling, who writes the story, finds out that Bentley uged to come ashore from his yacht and talk with Nancy Pasco, the daughter of a local farmer. Before his death Bentley had been spending the evening with Mrs. Lupin, a novelist, and her daughter Molly. After the inquest Janes and Gosling join forces to try to solve 1 the mystery. Jq,nes then leaves on a visit to London, leaving Gosling to continue on his own. CHAPTER n.—(Continued) It was lato in the morning when I happened upon something moro concrete, in a quarter where I should not have looked for gossip. On my way up to the church I exchanged a few words, as usual, with ex-Corporal Keynes, who was planting out cabbages in front of his absurd dwelling. Polblaze calls Keynos a foreigner because he was born somewhere in Hampshire, which is on the wrong side of the Tamar. He has one lung, having lent the other to his country, which returned it in a damaged condition, along with a pension that would not keep me ip cigarettes. After a winter in Hampshire, which nearly finished him, he found his way to south Cornwall which, like the island valloy of Avilion, knows not frost nor snow, and dug himself in. I never visit him without instinctively searching the sky for hostile aircraft whon I come out, for Keynes, having somehow staked out a claim to a patch of furzy hillside, has made himself a perfect replica of a Flanders' funkholo. The hillside makes one wall and the other three are built of sandbags in the approved style. Sand costs pothing hereabouts but I ache to think of the labour that went to the building of this Englishman's house. Still, there he is. He swears that his house is dry, and it is certainly warm. Ho has hung out his shingle in front with the word " Bethune,'* which is the place where he left a couple of toes. How ho lives I do not know and do not care to enquire. Ho is a New Forest man and knows a few tricks with rabbits and partridgos. We had our talk and said goodbye, and he said suddenly: " He was a queer bird, that Bentley." I halted rather startled.

" Did you know him ?" I asked and, came back. It occurred to mo that I had forgotten to offer tho corporal a cigarette. He took it and borrowed a match. " Sure X knew him," said Keynes. " Had him in my front garden, drawing." " Drawing ?" " Pictures. Stood where I'm standing now and put his book on this very parapet. Arst permission, of course. Said he hadn't ever seen a prettier view." I looked down the coomb and was inclined to agree with Bentley. From hero Polblaze was hidden in its fantastic niche, and the valley seemed as empty of life as when th© cave man saw it—a wild cleft in the strong, level lines of the Cornish hills, a golden riot of furze blossom and, beyond, an arc of pale blue sea, creaming idly round a jagged reef, nearly covered at high tide. Keynes went on: " So I told him he couldn't ever have seen tho view of Portsmouth from Gosport Hard. Still, it's pretty, I agree. He got it all down in about the time it takes a man to get his hair cut." Keynes never cadges, but he is a master of indirect suggestion. " Wouldn't let me look at it though, because he was afraid it was too amateurish. His own words." " Artists are like that," I explained. " I don't see anything queer about it." " Nor me. I wasn't referring to that, as it happens." I waited. Keynes examined with tenderness a shoot of stonecrop that was making a pathetic attempt to grow in a cranny of his front-line parapet. " D'you know Nancy Pasco ?" he asked. " Pasco's daughter, up at the farm? Of course X do."

I knew this Nancy Pasco well enough. She was the daughter of one of our churchwardens. She was a small, dark girl of the Mediterranean type—Spanish or Phoenician or whkt not—that you find along the coast. I had never heard anything against her. " Bentley was as thick as thieves with that girl," 6aid Keynes. " How do you know ?" " Seen 'em together two or threo times. At night, up along the Church Wood." Keynes did not say what he was doing there. Thick as thieves they were." I said I felt sure that he was mistaken, but he stuck to his story. Why did he tell me 1 Because, he said, he'd been wondering if he ought not to mention it to the policed I said hastily that I saw no reason why he Bhould, at any rate for tho present, and ho seemed relieved. Then I asked if by any chance Bentley had been wearing bathing togs. Keynes started. "Blimey, no!" Evidently the ox-corporal was ouside the main current of Polblazo gossip. This, when I came to think of it, lent a certain authority to his Btory, which otherwise wasn't easy to believe. Bentley, tho man of millions and citizen of tho world, seomed tho last person to fall for the charms of an entirely commonplaco and rather dumpy farmer's daughter, even if she had the dark Iberian eyes and long lashes. Tho Argentine has that type in perfection. I took Keynes' earlier hint and left him.

" Much obliged, padre." Ho saluted and grinned. " To-morrow I shall ipel more like a British sojer and less liko an old English sheepdog." It was when Janes and I were on our way to the bungalow to lunoh with Mrs. Lupin that wo ran across the first signs of police activity. As we passed the harbour a curious, little procession approached us from tho jetty. It was headed by Sergeant Blarney, a descendant of Cornish giants, and at first sight he seemed to bo accompanied by a siim boy of fiftoen or so. As they carao nearer I recognised tho lascar who had poked his hcacf over tho rail of tho Dido when I hailed her on my visit to Bentley. Ho paddled along, .barefooted and sullen, by the sergennt's side, looking liko a reluctant little boy out for a walk with his tutor. He wore a kind of lop-sided skirt called. I beliovc, a dhoti; a shabby Norfolk jacket, and one of those little porkpie hats that schoolboys had to wear in Copperfield's day and that strike the European as such an absurdly meagre protection against Eastern suns. He wore, too, tho peculiar oriental scowl, which is an affair not of the eyes but of the lower lip. The sergeant is a good friend of mine and sings tenor in tho church choir when duty permits. I ventured to accost him. No, Mr. Gosling, he's not under arrest," confided the sergeant in his gentle voice. " He's jnst coming along to the station for a quiet chat." I noticed the restless movement of the lascar's eyes. Obviously the man was scared nearly out of his wits. " But why bring him ashore ?" I asked. " That's just the trouble," said Blarney. " All right, ray son, nobody's going to cat you. The trouble is, sir, that he can't speak a word of English, poor devil." " Then how are you going to chat?" " Through the medium of an interpreter," said Mho sergeant. I stared. " You've forgotten the general," aaid Blarney.

(COPTIUGBT)

AN INTRIGUING DETECTIVE MYSTERY

CHAPTER ni THE GENERAL GIVES TONOTTE

It was ti-uo that I had forgotten the general; that fiery little soldier had spent half his life in the East and was reputed to speak a score of Indian dialects better than the natives. But I still wondered what light the lascar could *be expected to throw upon his master's death." The sergeant drew mo aside. " I don't know that I ought to say it," ho told me, " but I've reason to think that this fellow bore Mr. Bentley a grudge. I won't put it stronger than that. Why do I think so ? Because of a little thing that happened just lately when the Dido was taking in petrol. This isn't a very good place for fuelling, as "you know, because the nearest supply is up the hill at Nancepean and Mr. Bentley had to send up his empty cans a carload at a time to bo filled and brought back. Well, I happened to be on the quay when this fellow came ashore with a load of cans from the yacht and Mr. Bentley came up at the same time on his way out to lunch. I noticed that this chap had jas much as he could do to lift two cans at once, and 1 mentioned this to Mr. Bentley. ' Why, damn me, sergeant,' he said, •' if you aren't right. That idiot's brought off full cans instead of empty ones," and he lifted his cane and struck tho man across the shoulders. He didn't ought to have done it, and J think he was sorry for it after, for he was a gentleman if ever there was one, but you should have seen the look the man gave him. If looks could kill Mr. Bentley would have died six hours sooner than he did."

It struck mo as a flimsy story, and I could not help thinking that the sergeant might have some more definite reason for wanting to talk to the lascar. Tho procession trailod on toward the police station and a bilingual chat. I wondered if Blarney would offer tho man a cup of tea and a cigarette. So to lunch with " Claire Huntly." I can tell in a very few words all that wo said about Bentley. " The thing would bo an awful worry to me if I allowed it to be," she said, " but I mustn't. It would affect my work. My work must come first." I nodded. So did Janes. As she said it, it did not sound arrogant or even callous. One felt that this wistful little woman with the tired eyes and childish mouth really conceived that she had a dutv to a wider public than would over care about Bentley's death. Perhaps she had. " A romantic type," something promptod mo to suggest. "Mr. Bentley?" She nodded eagerly. " Already I'd built « story round him, but that must go now. I couldn't write it." Actually, at tho moment, the loss of tho story seemed moro tragic than the death of tho man who had inspired it. We kept a decent silence. Then the gulls arrived for their daily ration of shrimps, wheeling and beating around the window ledge while Mrs. Lupin's Siamese cat, Sappho, sat watching them with an inscrutable squint.. It was then that Molly caino in and addressed herself to lunch with an excellent appetite. Janes turned and asked her suddenly: " Will you tell me, Miss Lupin, who won the last game of tennis ? " Tho question annoyed and startled me, but Molly looked up quite calmly, as if it were quite natural and relevant. "I did," she said, "I beat him all along." Then we went out to look at the famous rockery. So much for the epitaphs that Polblaze found for Dominic Bentley on the morning after his death. Dr. Tempest thought him a charming fellow; ex-Cor-poral Keynes found him a queer bird ; the local sergeant of police saw in him a gentleman if ever there was one; Mrs. j Lupin was for making him the courtly hero of a novel, and to Molly Lupin he was a man whom she had always beaten at tennis. ..J.. ■ ..........

The inque6t was held at the Ship Inn and adjourned, a3 everyone knew it would bo, for lack of evidence. Janes went to London on a mysterious quest, which I suspected of being only an excuse to see his wife. The newspapers did their best to keep the story alive and agreed with one another that the local police were working on a clue, but Sergeant Blarney either could not, or would not, confirm this, and I began to feel, not without a craven sense of relief, that Dominic Bentley's death was destined to be one of those unsolved mysteries that clutter up the archives, of Scotland Yard. I was to be disappointed. To begin with I had reckoned without Brigadier-General Sir Aiaric Gage, G.B. It was the general who gave the outcome of the examination of the Dido's lascar. The little warrior had enjoyed himself hugely gabbling Gnjerati, or some such tongue, with the wretched man, and he gave me such a full account of Blarney's tea party —there had in truth been tea and cigarettes—that I need not have regretted not being; invited. " The sergeant's a well-meaning fellow," said Sir Aiaric, " but if he'd had the sense to come to mo first I could have told him that he was wasting his time messin' round with Chotanath Babftjai.(l write the name from memory.) As a matter of fact I heard his khub dekhta hai at the very, moment when —" You heard his what? " I ventured.

" His khub dekhta hai," said the general patiently. " If I only knew Gujerati," I sighed. " Not Gujerati," said the general. " Hindustani. Khub—good, dekhta—watched, hai —it is. That's the lascar's ' all's well' aboard ship, and I defy any European to sing it out as ho does. Not loud, you know, but it carries." If the man was watching well on the Dido at ten o'clock it was not humanly possible for him to encounter his master in the harbour road a few minutes later. A negative result, but comforting in a ease when facts were so hard to come by. " So Blarney's given up that line of advance ? " I asked. " Naturally," said the general. " Betweer ourselves the sergeant isn't equal to his job. He's not a fool, but he's soft-hearted as a flapper. He's naturally unsuspicious—born that way. Now the only way to deal with a case like this is to begin by suspecting everybody." The general turned and gavo me a searching lock which set me thinking of my buttons. " Everybody," he repeated. I hastened to say that I was walking on the quay at the moment when Bentley met his death. I added, lest my companion's flight to London should be misinterpreted, that Janes was with me. As for the rector — " It isn't a laughing matter," said the general. " Look here, Gosling, you and I know very well" that in a case like this the local polico aro clean out of their depth, Thoy'll go on muckin' round doing nothing until the scent's got cold. What's to be done ? " " Call in Scotland Yard," I suggested. " What's to bo done ? " repeated the general. " There's only one thing so far as I can sco. We must take tho matter into our own hands." " Wo? " " Two heads aro better than one," said Sir Aiaric modestly. " This business has—has literally cast- a gloom over the village, if you know what I mean. It's up to us men of intelligence to get to work. Here am I stuck away here in the prime of life with nothing to do but grow roses and put tho fear 'of God into a handful of drunks and poachers once a fortnight, and here are you with six days on your hands in every week. Now, don't interrupt me, sir. I know what I'm talking about. I've a high opinion of your intelligence, Gosling, and you know everybody. I want you to help me. You will ?" (To be continued daily)