DANCING BEGGARS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21279, 5 September 1932, Page 15

DANCING BEGGARS

By E. BRETT YOUNG

(COPYRIGHT)

Author of "The Murder at Fleet," "Undergrowth," "The Medlar Tree, etc., etc. AN INTRIGUING DETECTIVE MYSTERY

CHAPTER Vll.—(Continued) " Can I help you ? " I asked breathlessly. "li vou can strike a match, said a girl's voice. C I had my torch in my pocket, but" my hand was trembling so much tliatT could not switch it on. I (lid not need it. I knew already who the cyclist was. " N'o Compression," she said. it You'l-Q—yi-'ii'io a way from Jiome," 1 'said, " Miss Lupin." " Oh. it's you," said Molly. She stood up straight and looked at me Bc ross the bicycle. 1 wondered how I could have failed to know her even for B moment. There is nobody like her. " I'm/felad it's you," she said, and my questions died unasked. It was the first lime that Molly had said that she was glad to see me. I tried to pretend that this was an ordinary meeting instead of the blessed miracle that my heart said it was. "I'm afraid it's a broken valve," said JUolly. " It's clone that on me before." We bent over the bicycle together, •Mollv lAlding the light. It was not a broken valve. To be preciso it was a lost cotter pin. The thing had dropped out end must have been lying on the road somewhere within a twenty yard radius. looked for it in silence for several jiiinutes /'and did not find it. The road surface had been strewn with gravel, and the chance of finding a steel pin a quarter of an ii/ch long was infinitesimal. I'm afraid I was not sorry. I told her that she irrould not b e able to go any further tonight. i . i *'. l don't want to go any further, she B The funny thing was that I did not want to ask her whero she had been coine I did not even want to know. I did not /doubt her—thank Heaven—either then or thereafter. All that mattered that she had been, for a moment, glad to 'ce me. I could not even ask her, withtot* a kind of disloyalty, if sho wanted to to home, but she told me a moment later ihat she did, and I set about devising means. The machine was useless. I found a coil of rope in the back of the tar—tho Rector has prudent moments—iind we/managed to lash the thing more er less securely to the luggage grid. Then Molly was sitting beside me as we spun westward. It was a long time before she Bpoke, and I was contented with her eilence, but at last she said: . " Yotj'ro very kind to me, Mr. Gosling-" . , ■ I mumbled something about it being h trifle, and that I could not have done less for anv of my neighbours. " But neighbours," she said generally " Perhaps you'll be doing something for joe one day." " I could help with the next jumble tale, perhaps." . _ " That would be splendid, said I without enthusiasm. if " But I didn't really mean that, Molly went on. " I mean about being grateful to you. Most peoplo from Polblaze—Miss Meade for instance—would jvant to know what I was doing so far Sway from home at two o'clock in the morning. Florence Meade is the most abandoned gossip in Polblaze, and the comparison ,was not very flattering. " So far as that goes," 1 said, " we're in the same boat. You might ask the same question of me—and other questions too."

" So I might," said Molly. " I hadn't thought of it." And in spite of my stableboy's cap nnd unseemly collar I really believe she had n£>t.. But I wanted her to know that I had sio thought of prying into her affairs, nnd so I said: " Tho less either of us says about tonight's outing the better." J did my best to reassure her by pouring out the story of my misdeeds. " So, you see. my mouth is sealed," I told/ her. " I'm joy riding in a borrowed car, and you can guess what kind of interpretation Polblaze would put on (that.", " Still, it doesn't seem fair," said Molly ithoughtfuUy. " I mean you've told me your secret, and I haven't told you mine." " You needn't," I assured her quickly. " I diren't," said Molly. We sped on in silence for a mile or Jnore. Then she said:

' " Mr. Gosling, when I said that, I didn't mean that I don't trust you." She reached for the steering wheel and laid her hand for a fugitive moment on nnne. i " It's awfully difficult," she said. T don't quite know what 1 bahblcd Xvith that feathery touch still tingling on my knuckles. I suppose 1 said more than the moment demanded—that she could count on me always and anywhere; that I wanted nothing more in life than to help her if she ever needed help, and all that kind of thing. She said " Thank you " rather in the tone of a child on its best behaviour, and wo talked fbr the lest of the journey, of other things. 1 thanked Heaven that Janes was not with me -with his casual, merciless questions ®nd his doubting smile. The dawn overtook us on the moors above Bodmin, and at Carno I switched oft the headlights. I took in fuel at the new pump and made the best guess I could at the quantity that would get me home without leaving the tank too full or/ too empty. Molly talkcxl to the sleepy lad who answered our summons, and who seemed to be a friend of hers. One of the counts against her at Polblaze was that she made her friends among fishermen, ploughboys and other useful people. I scanned the streets anxiously for the lurking figure of Inspector Dingle. To my heartfelt relief he was not to'be seen anywhere. There was not a soul abroad in the little town. It turned out that I had congratulated myself too soon. Half a mile from the church to\.-n I had to slow down to a crawl behind one of those solemn little vehicles' that the Cornish call a jingle—a. thing shaped like a bath tub, with a door behind, and two sidelong seats, the driver pulled his pony into the hedge and glanced at me with ciuite un-Cornish -indifference as I scraped by. It was Mr. Duckham. " Why don't I know that man ? " asked Molly Lupin. She was to know him later. I thought I knew everybody in the parish " " He's a detective, " I said. 1 felt ■her jump. ]'m sorry. 1 didn't mean to startle you, but that's what he is. From Scotland Yard. Beastly, isn't it?" I stopped short of the corner by the church and we tinlashed Molly's motor cycle. It had scratched the varnish in one place, hut the damage was not obvious. I had hoped that she would let me walk down the hill with her, but sho set off at once, turning to wave her hand at thojfcorner. The rectory was as quiet as when 1 had left it. The curtains were Mill drawn over the canon's bedroom window. and it was too early for the servants to be moving. 1 manoeuvred the car into its stable without mishap. Remorse did not slab me as I turned away, but 1 was no longer covetous. The chariot was my neighbour's, but the moments that I had spent in it. belonged to me. c I CHAPTER VIII. Jilt. DUCK HAM The arrival of Mr. Duckha m may have Escaped the notice of Polblaze on account of the early hour, but it was not long before we became very much aware of his presence. Our village informs itself with much accuracy of the movements of strangers, and interprets the word in its own way. He nodded his me.ancholy head at the polite " good mornings ' with which we try to put our.visitors at their case and if ho susthat, by some kind of savage WeDallu.% every. .woman,.and,.ch-ud

i:a the place knew where he.was to be found at any given moment, he did not show it. "He's up to the General's" was the whispered bulletin when I left my rooms after lunch feeling that deliqhtful clarity of mind that follows a " white night." To the General's, accordingly I went, having only half convinced my landlady thai Mr. Janes had really been called away at a late hour and had not gone the way' of Mr. Benllcy at the hands of some prowling desperado. Rumour was right. Mr. Duckham had, undoubtedly, been up at the General's when 1 left home, *for I met him halfway up tlie cliff path and stood aside to let him pass. I found the General in a fume. " The man's an impertinent meddler," said Sir Alaric before I was well into the hall. I said that Mr. Duckham had struck me as a very civil fellow. " Would it be disclosing any official secret," I asked, "to tell me his offence ? " " Oh, vou may as well know. It's about that note lhat was found in Bentley's pocket. Evidently Blarney blabbed about it, and this fellow's taken it with him." " I see no harm in that, " I confessed, " The fellow's an expert, I suppose, and the note —if it's genuine—is certainly mysterious." *" Of course it's genuine," snapped Sir Alaric. " Nobody ever doubted it, and there's no mystery about it. I know who wrote it." " The devil you do! " " Miriam wrote it," said the General. I suppose I stared unbelievingly. I romembered so well Miriam's comment on the thing after her brief contemptuous glance at it: " The words do not convey any meaning to me," she had said. He went to the French windows and lifted his parade ground voice in a bellowed " Miriam! " She came in from the gafden with a vestige of a flush on her pale cheeks. " I'm reserving my comments for the pulpit," I told her. "Oh, it's absurdlv simple," said Miriam and threw me rather a sulky look. " 1 suppose you remember what the note said ?"

" Until you keep your promise I shall not let you go," I repeated. " Yes that was it. You see, the last time I'd arranged to plav tennis with Mr. Bentley he forgot all about it and went to the bungalow instead, so——" she broke off. " By the way, you don't think by any chance that I killed Mr. Bentley" " No," I said. " That's a load off my mind. Well, I told him that if he let me down next time I'd go to the yacht and fetch him. That's all. Wo fixed "un another game and the note was a reminder. "

Before I left I had, more or less, pieced together the fragments into which the General had exploded tho story. Mr. Duekhani had received some account of the once mysterious note from Blarney and had gone to The Croft—quite properly I should say—to look for confirmation of tho story. lie had heard Miriam's explanation from her own lips, and if he had left tho matter there I do not think that even Sir Alaric would have complained. But Mr. Duckham choso to ask a number of irrelevant questions. "He's out on the Dido," was the mot d'ordro when I got back to the village, and it was tea time before the man came ashore again. I was sitting down to write a sermon when tho man from Scotland Yard arrived. " Tho Reverend John Gosling, I presume," said Mr. Duckham. "If you're busy, sir, you've only to say the word and I'll call later. " Possibly," he said. " I don't need to tell you that" I'm enquiring into the murder of the late Mr. Dominic Bentley the millionare." I nodded. Anyway I had not expected him to mention the check cap right away. '■• General Gage spoke of you, I said. "Ah, yes! I had a chat with Sir Alaric this morning. Now, sir, I know that you're a busy man, and I shall try not to waste your time. I understand that your church tower is in danger. " I stared. Could he have como to offer me a contribution to the Tower Fund ? "Et dona ferentes," I thought and waited for him to go on. " And you recently arranged a successful sale of work," ho went on, " in aid of the restoration fund." "Quite," I said. " I mean, not quite. That is to say, it wasn't successful, and it wasn't exactly recent." " That's a pity," said Mr. Duckham. " Then I suppose you haven't preserved the correspondence relating to it —the accounts and so on?" "Why, I—l think I have them somewhere," I stammered. Could it be that 1 was suspected of embezzlement ? I jumped up and rummaged in my desk. "I feel as if I'm giving you a great deal of trouble," said Mr. Duckham. " The fact is that I gather that all the principal ladies in tho parish assisted you, and I should be very glad if you'd let me glance over any correspondence relating to the sale."

I looked through the bundle. They were i not, after all, very many and most of j them were from Florence Meade. I passed them to him one by one. He examined , each of them with close attention, holding them up to the light. There were two from Miriam • Gage, on the General's headed notepaper, but he scrutinised them no longer than the others. There was one, typewritten, from Mrs. Lupin covering a gift of flowers, and one from Mrs. Pasco 1 accompanying butter. There was—l had forgotten this one —a note from Bentley himself, dating from his former visit and announcing a cheque. " That's the lot, " I said, " unless you ' want to go through the accounts." J " You've dropped one," said Mr. Duck- ; ham. j I picked it up. It was a scrawl from Molly Lupin, written on a half sheet of cheap notepaper. It said : Dear Mr. Gosling. 1 have done as yo.i pufiKested and persuaded mother to autograph one copy of each of her books for the Jumble Sale. I hope somebody will buy them. Yours sincerely. M. LUPIN. Mr. Duckharn was waiting for it. I handed it over with a sick heart. I am not sure that I had believed Miriam but I had net thought of this. The detective looked at it, held it up to the light, and put it with the others. " I'm going to ask," he said, " if you can spare this bundle for an honr or two. "Oh, keep them!" I said savagely. " Keep the lot! " " From your own observation, Mr. Gosling, would you say that, thero was any lady in . Polblaze whom Mr. Bentley particularly favoured with his company ?" I stared at him, speechless. " Take your time, sir." This was too much. I was shocked and bewildered by my glimpse of Molly's note, and I lost my temper..! cannot remember everything I said. I told him that I was a clergyman and, Lolloped, a gentleman ("I'm quite sure of it, said Duckham) and that if ho wanted to amuse himself with village gossip he must go elsewhere. T said I'd already done more for him than I cared to do, and that I regretted my complaisance. lie heard it all quite calmly, nodding now and then as if 1 were presenting a reasoned argument. _ • "I quite appreciato your point of view," he said when I had finished. " 1 quite appreciate Sir Alaric's," I said. " Good-day, Mr. Gosling, I'm glad to have had a little chat wth you, ' and he replaced his straw hat and went. I let him find his way out, and went back to my sermon. (To bo continued daily)