WHITE GOLD

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21411, 8 February 1933, Page 17

WHITE GOLD

By OTTWELL BINNS Author of "The Flaming Crescent," "The Cry In the nigni, "The Lavenhom Treasure,' etc., etc.

(COPYRIGHT)

SPLENDIDLY-TOLD STORY OF MYSTERY AND ADVENTURE

SYNOPSIS Charles Ferrers had seen the whole thing clearly—a London Street accident, which looked uncommonly like murder. A small man had lurched into another man when the latter was about to cross the traffic-filled street. The man ahead had shot into the roadway before a speeding taxi and it was all up. A detective-sergeant and a constable appeared, and Ferrers confessed what ho had witnessed, thereby clearing the driver and explaining what he had seen of the action of the small man, who had vanished. He made an effort to recall and describe his appearance—yellow, rat-liko face, waxed moustache, a foreigner, surely. He then drove to his club and studied a newspapercutting he had with him, in which he was urgently asked to comnuininte with a certain box at the office of the paper, he having been with " D.XT.O.W." three years The latter stood for Dave Christow; a letter awaited him saying he was also to ask for John Latrobe at the Chillingworth Hotel; there was need for secrecy and haste. He went to the stated hotel and there met again the detectivesergeant, on the trcil of the accident mystery. Together they visited Latrobe's room (the victim of the accident) to find it disordered by a search. In the hitter's pocket the police had found a letter directed to Ferrers, which was from Dave Christow. It explained that the writer was in a tight corlier 111 Mozambique, being imprisoned 011 a trumped-up charge of murder, in order to wring secret and valuable information out of him. It implored Ferrers to rescue him; Latrobe being the bearer. The police officer rightly guessed that poor Latrobe had been shadowed from Portuguese East Africa, and intentionally done to death. A tortoiseshell hairpin revealed the fact that a woman had been into the disordered room, and as Ferrers was leaving on his way to book a passage for Mozambique his attention was drawn to a woman who nearly fell into him in her hurry to catch the down-going lift. She apologised in a pretty foreign way, but as soon as Ferrers was in a taxi sho was shadowing him in another. Unconscious of the interest of the girl who had run into him in the lift, Ferrers arrived at his club and sat down to become lost in gloomy thoughts—of the fearful horrors of a Portuguese East African prison, of the desperate need of hurry, and of the sufferings his friend must ho undergoing. Ho thought, too, of the owner of the hairpin, a woman in partnership with the ratfaced foreigner who had done Latrobe to death. After some time Ferrers left the club and walked to his flat, shadowed by the foreigner who had been in consultation with a girl in the street. Having forgotten his key. Ferrers was astonished, on coming downstairs to get one from the liftman, to find the latter giving his name to a yellowfaced man who immediately bolted on catching sight of him. Both Ferrers and the concierge went down in their effort to chase him, falling over each other in fruitless haste. The attendant hoped there was no harm done in his giving Ferrers' name to the stranger: and the next move was to get in touch with Detective Marvell. Feeling particularly watchful and determined to exercise caution in response to the detective's advice, Ferrers went by devious ways to the shipping office, hooked by a German line, crossed next day to France, and thence via Marseilles to Aden. Here he picked up the German boat, and it was not long before a dainty foreign girl slid into the vacant place beside him at table. He recognised her at once; his suspicions grew stronger—he was shadowed. He did not share her gaiety. Already she was in possession of his name, her own was Benicia de Barros. daughter of a Mozambique official, or so ehc said. Sho was charming, attempting meanwhile to draw him out—his destination? He put her of!, and afterwards they danced.

CHAPTER in.—(Continued) But Benic'a de Barros went off smilingly enough; and Ferrers retreated first to the smoke-room and then to a quiet chair on the deck to review his impressions. They were sufficiently contradictory. Benicia de Barros who was going to Mozambique carried her air of innocent gaiety well, but her destination and the interest she had displayed in his wore like warning lights. Her explanation of her acquaintance with his namo was the most natural thing in the world; but she had been at tho Chillingworth when some woman had searched John Latrobe's room, and had left behind that jewelled hairpin. She had owned to a perfectly natural curiosity in himself as the unknown man for whom the chair beside her own had been reserved; but for one moment she had been afraid lest he should doubt hor word. And last, thero was the incredible coincidence that they who had made that accidental acquaintance in the lift at the Chillingworth should depart at the same time, take the samo boat and have the same destination. That, to Ferrers, was something not to be swallowed; and while he sat thero reflecting. like a spot-light picking a particular thing out of the darkness came a flashing thought which cut one tiling out of the cloud, of mystery into which Latrobe's advertisement had plunged him. Was that meeting in the lift quito so accidental as it seemed ?

"No! " he whispered to himself. " No!"

His thoughts hurried on. Benicia de Barros had been at the Chillingworth. She had seen him enter Latrobe's room with the officer, or she had seen him leave it alone. It mattered little which. She had wanted to make his close acquaintance —to be able to identify him; and with her help that yellow-faced scoundrel had been able to track him to Cordova Mansions and learn his name. That particular tiling bad puzzled him considerably at the time and since; but here was an adequate explanation. And there was no other; for that any mere accident bad linked him to Latrobe in the thought of the scoundrel, and had moved him to make that lying inquiry of Bal* shaw, was inconceivable. Assuming the fellow guilty of Latrobe's death, the witness of that crime was the very last man whom he would seek, unless he suspected the witness's acquaintance with his victim, and linked him to the affair beyond, which centred about David Christow in that prison-inferno at Mozambique. He stared into the hot darkness, caught the strains of the ship's orchestra through the swish of the water and the drumming of the screw, and thought of the girl, dancing with the lightness of a fairy, then whispered to the night: " A vulture in the feathers ol a dove!"

He did not return to the dancers. For one night ho hud seen sufficient of Senorita Benicia. Yet willy-nilly lie was to sec more of her that night. For when he sought his cabin, exercised as his mind was, sleep proved impossible. Also the cabin was intolerably hot; and finally, putting on a dressing gown of purplish silk, he sought the coolness of the boatdeck. There in tho shadows ho paced to and fro, still the prey of perplexing thoughts, and watching the moon swing up abovo the desert. Presently he seated himself upon a deck-chair which someone had left in the shadow of a lifeboat, and smoked a couple of cigarettes, with his eyes fixed absently upon the now-shim-mering sea. lie threw the stub of the second overside, and as he did so to his surprise saw a girlish form moving swiftly toward him, as it seemed a little furtively. The girl halted less than five paces from his chair in the shadow of the boat, and, with her back toward him, stood watching the deck with an air of expectancy. To spy was the last thing in his mind, and since it was plain that tho girl was waiting for someone, he was in the very act of rising, when the girl took a step outward, bringing her face into tho moonlight. " Benicia! "

(To be continued daily)

In his surprise, ho came near to crying the name aloud, anil before lie had decided bow to act lie saw another person hurrying along the deck—a man. His first thought was the obvious one Hint hero was a lovers' assignation; but a second later as he caught sight of the man's face, lie changed his mind and almost gasped with amazement. The man wore no hat; his thin rat-like face, with the waxed moustaches, was full in the light of the moon; and Ferrers recognised it for that of the man who had pushed

Latrohe into the street, and who later had shadowed himself to Cordova Mansions. He had no doubt about the fellow's identity; and as he made the recognition, he crouched lower in the deckchair, blessing heaven for the shadow of the boat.

The girl went forward to meet the newcomer, and together the pair moved to the rail, where they stood silhouetted against the moonlight, apparently engaged in earnest conversation. Ferrers would have given much to have heard what they said; but heard nothing, nil minor sounds being lost in the rush of the wind and the swishing of the sea.

The conversation was continued for some time, apparently growing more animated, for once the man waved an arm in a wide gesture, and twice smote the rail with clenched fist as if emphasising 'a point. Then the consultation ended abruptly. The inan glanced over his shoulder, spoke quickly to the girl, and fled to the shudow of the next boat; while Benicia de Barros hurried off in the direction from which she had come.

For a moment Ferrers was puzzled, then in the moonlight he saw a uniformed figure advancing along the deck, looking this way and that, as if searching for someone. The man caught sight of Ferrers seated in the boat's shadow, and approaching him flashed a small pocketlamp full upon him. A second later he apologised in Fjnglish.

" Pardon, sir. I mistook you for a trespasser from the steerage. I saw a man come this way and care is peeded with some of the passengers who travel cheaply on this coast."

" And with some of the others, too," laughed Ferrers. " Yes. Africa attracts rogues as a lamp attracts moths," the officer owned. " A queer crowd drifts up and down from Aden to Beira. Have you seen any intruder here ? "

" There was a man talking to a lady. They both scooted 011 your approach." "H'm! Saw me, I suppose. A lady you said. Did you recognise her, sir?" Ferrers decided that the opportunity was too good to be lost. " Yes," lie answered promptly. "It was Senorita Benicia—" " Gott! That one! Then there is trouble in the kettle." " Ah! . . . The senoritia is not so innocent as she seems."

"Innocent!" the officer guffawed. " Satan himself could sit at her feet." Ferrers prompted him further. " You malign a lovely lady." "Lovely! That is the true word, sir. But there are lovely flowers that have deadly poison, and Benicia is of the specien." " But her father is an official at Mozambique—" The officer laughed again. " That is Benicia's one consistent story—and it is a lie. She never had a father—only a mother, who was a fit dam for the daughter she bore, and who now runs a bar—with accessories—at Laurence Marques. , . , She gave you the information about her official father herself, I suppose ?" "She did!" Ferrers laughed as he owned the fact.

The officer joined in his laugher. " Took you for a —a —sucker. That is the English of if, is it not? . . . Well in vain is the net spread in tho sight of any bird." He laughed again. " Let her catch you and you won't have a feather left. But I must travel. Benicia in conjunction with a prowler from the steerage augurs trouble. I must find the rat. Good night,

The officer moved on; and a second or two later hearing the pad of running feet 011 the farther side of the boat, Ferrers divined that the yellow-faced man was hurrying back to the steerage. He made 110 attempt to hinder him or to give the word to the searcher. Neither Benicia nor her man was aware that he had witnessed their meeting; and, having establised the fact that the two were in conjunction, he had no wish to call attention to his own presence at their rendezvous. But now, beyond all question, he was on sure ground. The meeting he had witnessed, though he had heard not a word, proclaimed the 'truth. Benicia stood in with the scoundrel responsible for Latrole's death, and was to be counted with Dave Christow's enemies. Every vague suspicion that had lifted itself in his mind since he had heard that gay voice at the table was verified. He had no doubt that she was the owner of the pin left in Latrobe's room at the Chillingworth, or that she was the one who had shadowed him from the door of the hotel, and had set the yellow-faced ruffian upon his track —probably from the club.

That, he reflected, meant his purpose was known or suspected. Had the girl in her hurried search of Latrobe's room found anything pointing to that? It was quite likely. Latrobe was known in Mozambique—so well known that action on his friend's behalf was impossible. But Christow had evidently communicated with him, sending out that letter which the inspector had found; possibly—no, almost certainly with a covering letter; giving Latrobe instructions to seek him out in London with that written S.O.S. If Latrobe had kept that communication and it bad been found by tho ransacker of his room, the whole thing would be known to Christow's enemies, and the difficulty of delivering him increased sev»nfold. He set his teeth at the thought. Nothing should turn him aside or thwart him. Dave was too loyal in his own friendships to be left in the lurch, eating his heart in that pestilential inferno. Ho began to reconsider schemes. There was the wireless. A message to London that the Dago was 011 Der Rheinland might Bcotch the fellow's activities. Hut that would be effective only if the man were without associates, and Christow's appeal had hinted that more than one man was responsible for his plight. Further, there was Benicia de Barros. Unless that jewelled pin could be traced to her there was 110 real evidence of her complicity, and she would be free to inform the others in the nefarious plot what to expect. Again reflection brought the thought that to call in the authorities in London mighL mean putting a brake on his own urgent purpose. And there was no time to be wasted. Dave Christow's plight was desperate. Anything might happen in one of these barred dens at Mozambique; and the persecution might break down his friend's will, if nothing worse occurred. He decided against the use of the wireless, and in view of what had happened, against going directly to Mozambique. Time was precious; but to land on the island with Benicia and her rat-faced associate to dog his every step would bo the veriest folly. Somehow he must olude the pair, and make the port secretly. That meant he must keep at least the first part of the programme he had announced and leave Der Rheinland at Dar-es-Salaam.

With that decision made, ho returned to his cabin, once more to woo sleep. The heat and mental excitement made that difficult. For a time he lay, with his brain working like a treadmill, round and round thoughts already completed, producing nothing new; but finally he drifted off, only to fall into odd dreams.