WOLVES AMONGST THE HONEY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21606, 26 September 1933, Page 15

WOLVES AMONGST THE HONEY

By E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM

(COPYRIGHT)

Author of " The Wrath to Come," " Into the Mists "■

CHAPTER N.—(Continued) Roger asked the man no questions, which must have seemed strange to him. There was something wrong about the place, and in his bones he knew that the sooner he was out of it the better. Nevertheless, with a queer sort of obstinacy he lingered. He drank half the contents of his tumbler and toyed with the rest. The barman crossed the room, touched one of the three roadmen 011 the shoulder, and whispered in his ear. With a grimace the fellow rose to his feet, turned up his coat collar and slouched toward tho door. Ho opened it and took hi# leave, buffeting his way up the road. The barman remained whispering for a minute to the other two. Tho woman, who was seated by Roger's side, took up her guitar, strummed a few notes of an Italian song, but in the middle improvised several quavering pointed words to the pointed words of tho familiar music. " 11 Signore o in pericolo. Parta subito! Go quickly away from this terrible place! " 1 Tho barman came back with his eyes fixed upon tho contents of Roger's glass. The latter raised it to his lips and set it down empty, turning lip his coat collar, lit a cigarette, and with a farewell saluto to his old friends, moved away toward tho door. He was quivering with tho sense of some imminent happening, but ho tried his best to keep all signs of it from his tono and manner. " Well, good-night, Sam," he said. " The next time 1 come I hope I shall find you in a more hospitablo frame of mind." '' Shouldn't come again, if I were you," was the gruff reply. " This bar ain't going to pay and we're shutting up. There's ■no trade here till the summer." Roger stepped out into the storm of wind and swung along downhill with his back to the gale. The road was a corkscrew one, and before he reached tho first bend he turned around. The bar itself seemed to bo a sort of annex to the hotel, although in the larger building the shutters were all tightly drawn and there was no sign of life. At the top of the road, just where it diverged into the main highway, Roger could plainly see the figure of a man waiting—the man, it seemed to him, who had left the bar. He drew to the shadow of a dwarfed, but thickly-grow-ing oak tree overhanging the wall, and throwing away liis cigarette waited. Presently he heard a shrill whistle. Almost instantly, men streamed out of the bar! One of them started down the road in Roger's direction, the others climbed the wall into the olive grove, and in a moment or two he heard their approaching footsteps crashing through the long grass and thickets. Suddenly the idea of the whole thing Hashed upon Roger. They were beaters and he was tho quarry, and to make things more than ever difficult, at the last moment three other men issued from the bar, and climbing the wall by its side, started off toward the lower stretch of road. Flight, precipato and urgent _ flight, was Roger's first impulse. The sinister-looking-bar, the strangely-sung warning of madame, tho harsh but impulsive advice of the man behind tho counterall these found swift prominence in his memory. Ho stole along in the shadow of the trees until he was at tho bend of the road. Then, at the last moment lie formed new plans. The sound of the sticks beating their way through the grove and tho memory of many a wild cock pheasant in his younger days inspired him! To continue his way downwards was madness. To deal with the one man at the corner and continue straight ahead gave him only the scantiest of chances, for there were the other three to be dealt with later on. Ho climbed the wall instead into the grove, cut across its last angle, and in the shadow of a somewhat higher hedge turned his back to Monte Carlo and half crept, half rau up toward the main road. To hjs left he could hear the mumble of voices and the occasional crashing of a stick; Once or twice he caught the flash of an electric torch. He bent as low as he could and stole along at right angles to the advancing line. It was a stiff climb and although he was in good condition, he felt the tugging of his heart strings as he reached tho top of the field. He was outside the mmi on the extreme left by now. Ho crouched more than ever, pushed his way through an irregular straggling hedge, and after ho had gained about twenty paces looked back once more. Tho man on the extreme left of the lino was well below him now, and, as Roger had hoped, he wheeled at the end of the grove and started on his way back toward the by-road. Once lie paused and began to poke about in some bushes, and Roger gave a soft whistle of relief as lie saw that he was carrying an old-fashioned sporting gun under his right arm. If he had made any attempt at flight he knew now that ho would have run the risk of a pellet in his leg at any moment. Somehow or other he had no fancy to return to that mysterious bar a wounded man.

Roger concluded his climb in leisurely fashion, and reached the main road soon after the sound of tho footsteps crashing downwards had ceased. He paused hero for a moment to light a well-earned cigarette. Then came tho question—toward Nice or Mentone? To the left or to the right? Which way should he turn? A groat deal of adventure might lie to the left. Almost certain safety to be found on the right. Chance helped him to make up his mind. He realised quite suddenly that for his walk ho was wearing a pair of very old shooting breeches. He clapped his hand to his pocket. Ho was right. He had worn them on a mountain expedition, a two day's tramp, the last time, and there in his hip pocket was a small, but very modern and useful revolver. Roger turned it out and examined it. It was fully loaded and a very adequate weapon. He turned to the loft. It took Boger about 20 minutes of uneventful walking to arrive at tho spot whero the highway branched. The light had faded now, and in the semi-dark-ness he inovod a few yards down the road and stood listening. About 50 yards below on the right was the bar and the hotel, but not a single flicker of light could ho seo from any one of tho windows. Ho still waited and listened intently. He had expected to liear the distant voices or footsteps of liis pursuers returning, but he heard nothing. Behind liini was a fairly constant progress of motor-cars and other vehicles, but from tho hotel itself or its immediate environments there came no sound at all. The possession of that hard little object which ho drew now from his pocket lent him courage which otherwise ho might certainly not have possessed. Ho moved slowly through tho obscurity down tho lane. With every step the darkness seemed to become more intense owing to the sharp slope on his left, and the thickly growing pines which threw a shadow over the road. Ho reached the hotel. To all appearance it was entirely deserted. Ho passed on to the bar. Every light in it was extinguished. Tlioro was no sign of any movement, no sound of voices. Ho stepped cautiously over a low hedge and made his way round toward tho back. Suddenly ho stopped short and cowered beneath a mimosa free. There were footsteps close at hand, the crash of a small gate. Sorncono flung open a door, and a light streamed out into tho darkness. He heard a rough, unfamiliar voice ask an eager question, which, so far as he could understand it, referred to him. " Anv luck? " " No'! " " Half-a-dozen guns and you never put his light out! " " We never saw him," a surly voice replied. There wcro more footsteps, a slamming of doors, the hum of many voices. In faco of that frantically-expressed wish for liis decease, Roger' stopped

A THRILLING MYSTERY STORY BY A FAVOURITE AUTHOR

warily back into the road, and, after a brief period of hesitation, returned cautiously to where it rejoined the Corniche. Here, in the lights of the motor-cars flashing by every, few minutes, ho felt a senso of security. In the shadow of that hotel all the old presentiment that evil was afoot had seized him. The mistral was dying down. A small clump of cypresses on his right stood stark against the sky. the front of the hotel was lifeless. Was he, Roger asked himself, obeying an instinct of cowardice by resting there, or inspiration ? Inspiration without a doubt. Excitement was alive again in his pulses. A slim, dark figure had emerged from the hotel, and was coming toward him with incredible swiftness. CHAPTER XI With every flying footstep the approaching figure gained outline and distinctness. A woman! No, a girl, dressed from head to foot in black. When she saw him she threw up her arms and he thought that she would have screamed. " Who are you? You are one of them! " she cried. " I certainly am not," he assured her. " I was wondering what was going on down there." Sho shivered violently and caught hold of his arm. She threw her head back and looked up at him. She wa3 amazingly attractive in the way of the Nicoise—large, soft syes, full lips and clear complexion. " Don't ask," she begged. " It is all horriblo! Get me to Nice, I implore you. I can leave at nine for Marseilles. Oh, monsieur, you will be kind? " ■» Roger had no idea of being anything else, and fate was certainly with him, for at that moment a P.L.M. 'bus, halffull, came lumbering round the corner. Ho hailed it, and half lifted her in. From the doorway he cast one glance behind. The front of the hotel and bar were still black and obscure, but on the bushes and stunted trees in the garden behind shafts of moving lights were playing. What was going on there, Roger wondered. ~ The girl knew —but would she tell? For the first quarter of an hour she was absolutely silent, but by degrees the terror seemed to fade from her luminous eyes. As the lights of Nice greeted them sho sat up, her fingers strayed round her hair and she straightened her hat. " The good God be thanked for you," she murmured. " You are strong, and you speak French." " What was going on-in that house?" he demanded. " It may be necessary to telephone to the police." She shook her head. " Not the police," she protested emphatically. " It is not a matter for the police." " But I am convinced that the people in that house are a bad lot," he told her. " I blundered in and they would have shot me if they could. They evidently had some mischief on to-night. Look how terrified you were when I found you."

" I was terrified for fear I should not get away," she said simply. " Now that I am among the lights, I am safe." She waved to the conductor and stopped the 'bus. They were at the commencement of the Promenado des Anglais opposite a straggling line of restaurants with outside tables upon the terrace. He led the way to one of them and left her for a few moments to telephone for his car. * "And now," he insisted, when wine was in their glasses, " your name, please? " " Marie Louise. And yours? " " Roger. Now, tell me, if you please, the storv of the hotel." Her pretty face was puckered with perplexity. " It is more difficult than I thought," she confessed. "Why?" " You have not, by any chance, recognised me? " "I have been puzzling once or twice," he admitted. " Well, 1 am a cloakroom attendant at the. casino here. Are you ashamed to be sitting here with me? " " Don't be absurd. Continue, please." "A monsieur, elderly but genteel, a chef, not an ordinary croupier—approached mo in -the casino. He wished for marriage, but marriage with a vieux having the salary only of a chef! For me, you understand, incroyable, incroyable! I tell him so. He is almost crazy. He considers how to make money. He must rob the casino."

Roger gave a little start. " Henri alone," she.continued "would not have been clever enough. A short time ago he came to me very excited. He has made friends with some very clever people. They show him how to do it. I am to help. They have brains. They make it quite easy. The chef carrying the caisse to the cashier's office passes my cloakroom. In a moment it is in a bag. I give a ticket. It is gone. A brief visit to my retiring room. The box goes on its way, but it is empty." " I see," Roger murmured. " How long before the box is examined? " " One hour. It is enough. Henri's friends —I do not know who they were —rush us away in a car. We reach that hotel. They show us into a sitting room and we are gay with champagne. Then a man comes whom I have never seen before and the arrangements for division begin. I see that things are not going well. There is a violent dispute. More and more I get frightened. I have had enough. I am, as you English say, fed up. Henri does not act like a man. The other bullies him. I see that there will bo little loft for us, and little is not enough to marry with a man like Henri. Eh bien, I slip away while they quarrel. I meet you. Voila! " " So you've thrown your hand in," Roger remarked. " You were wise. I might do my duty, of course, and hand you over to the police. You see that coupe out there? " " Is it not lovely! " she sighed. "Well, it's mine," lie told her; "and if you like 1 will send you to Marseilles in it." " Mervoilleuso! - But what about you? " " I can take a taxi back to Monto Carlo." Roger produced his pocket-book. He would have given her more, but she would only take two mille. "It is plenty," she assured him. " My friends have.money." ]?oger tucked Mario Louise into his very comfortable coupe and gave tho chauffeur his instructions. (To bo continued daily)