JOHN SMITH – BLACKMAILER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22046, 28 February 1935, Page 18

JOHN SMITH - BLACKMAILER

By LINDSAY HAMILTON „ < COPYmGUT) Author of "The Black Asp." "The Jackal, etc.

CH A PTE 11 XV.—(Continued) " Roddy," she reminded liini gravely, "to-morrow is the tenth. Hugh is planning something desperate, I'm convinced of it. Those peculiar instructions to his solicitor, as though he knew something would—" Rachel could not complete the sentence. " Hugh isn't a coward. He wouldn't —just for himself. But, Roddy, don't you understand? There are others. Pat, Mrs. Gretton the shame and disgrace to them. He has paid hush-money and that makes his case even blacker. Oh, Roddy!" Rachel spoke in a low, desperately earnest voice. " A man might undei these circumstances."

" Not on your life," said Roddy vehemently. " Now, don't you daio to get such notions into your head, dear. You know jolly well —" Perhaps his protestations were too vehement. At all events Rachel was not reassured. " What can we do, Roddy?" she said distractedly. Roddy sat gazing into the fire in silence. She watched his face anxiously, and hope stirred faintly in her. intuition, or an intimate knowledge or every shadow of expression that ever sat on Roddy's face, told her of more in his silence than just a lackof ideas. Some definite scheme was hidden there. He was turning it over." He looked up at last with a smde that might have deceived anyone else. " Anyway, we've achieved something. I know now that I can come to you if —well, if we think of anything." With that Rachel had to be satisfied. She was too wise to press him. '• I left Word with Pat that I would be over in the morning at ten. If I get a chance I'll talk things over with him." " Yes do, Roddy, but," rather doubtfully, " won't it be rather— ?" "Damned impertinence," Roddy laughed shortly. " It will. But don't worrv. I was born rather that way."

He kissed her good-night. "Oh, Lord, that reminds me! There's a man in Preston I ought to see first thing in the morning. Let's see, an hour and a bit each way. Allow another hour. Three and a-half hours. Gosh! 11l have to be up early." "Can't it wait, Roddy?" " It could, but I don't want it to. Don't worry, dear, I'll be back before ten. no matter what happens." Half an hour later Roddy lay smiling peacefully in his sleep. Strange to relate, he was dreaming, not of mysterious criminals, nor of Colonel Gretton's troubles, nor of the sinister sweetness of Simon B. Peck, but of a pair of clear laughing eyes and a tantalising curl peeping below a little blue hat that was most certainly Pat's. CHAPTER XVI Rachel Chester's charming cottage nestled at the foot of a wooded hillside some distance from the solitary road which linked Sandilands to the arteries of the outer world. An arm of the wood, fringed with silver birch and mountain ash, effectively hid it from view to the pedestrian taking tho short cut to Arndale by Ferryslack Farm and the fields. Coming suddenly upon it, the stranger would have had just cause to pause a while and give vent to some spontaneous exclamation of pleasure. " Romantic" ..." sweet " ..." just too charming." . . . The cottage had heard these superlatives so often, almost as often as the feminine and very practical afterthought, but how desperately lonely in the winter. 1 couldn't live there for anything." Years ago Rachel Chester had felt the awful isolation. To be alone with one's unhappy thoughts! She would lie awake quivering when the winds came up from the sea, blustering, screaming, tearing at the trees in savage glee. But that was long past, l>efore tho soothing peace of the spot had crept in and become a part of her. Sho loved it. every foot of it, and when one loves there is little place for fear. It meant nothing now to Rachel that her nearest neighbour lived a quarter of a mile further up the rutted track, and that the village itself was a good mile away. No maid could lie got to sleep in. Keziah, a buxom young girl, came every morning. At night Rajah, her great-'dane, was guard enough. This morning, Rachel, waking to the happy thought of Roddy home again, rose " earlier than usual. She was mildly surprised to find ho had already gone,' but still more surprised when he returned with half an hour to spare ! before ten o'clock.

" Well, did 3'ou see your friend?" she asked him. Roddy nodded. He wore a sober expression, an unusual thing for him. " Coming with me?" She guessed he was not looking forward to the forthcoming talk with Colonel Gretton, but he would not shirk; his firm set lips, a look of unwavering purpose in his eyes, told her that. She declined. " No, Roddy. My being there might hinder rather than help. So Roddy went alone. Instead of following tiie road to the • village and on by the cliff road, he turned off as he had done on the previous day, and took the short cut over Grey barrow. Emerging from the woods on to its bracken-covered slopes, his heart gave a sudden bound. Pat was coming to meet him! But no, she turned off and was now making for the top. She saw him and waved, hut continued on her upward scramble. Roddy made up after her. The last Btretch developed into a. race. Pat arrived first, laughing and triumphant. Roddy came on, rather out of breath, and it was Pat who did the talking.

" I'm looking for Nunks." She had a pair of binoculars with her, and now began to scan the vast waste of sand, turning slowly through a wide arc. " Not a living soul. 1 wonder where he can be. You would see him from here if he was anywhere on the sands —- unless ho was just the other side of the point." "Let's go down," suggested Roddy. " It's nca/ly ten. Perhaps he has arrived since you left. You did tell him I would be over this. morning, I suppose ?" " He must have forgotten."

" 1 don't think he would forget," said Roddy, and laughed whimsically. " Not that I'm of the least importance, but Colonel Crctton isn't built that way."

Pat was no longer smiling. "All the same, I think he has. Last night when I told him he seemed to be only half listening. Ido hope he is all right. It isn't like Nunks to be away quite so long." " When did he go?" " Doggart says about six this morning." Pat was trying to hide her growing concern. " Yes, let's go. Perhaps he has come back by the cliff road." But Colonel Gretton had not returned. Hoddv found Doggart, and after mutual expressions of pleasure at meeting again,. Doggart gave the desired information. It was not very reassuring.

" The Colonel's not been himself for a bit now, sir. He don't sleep like he used. I'm a'light sleeper myself, that's how I know. He didn't go to bed last night at all. 1 could hear him —pacirfg up and down in his bedroom, he was. 1 heard him go down—it would be about five this morning—so I gets up to see if there was anything 1 could do. like.

" 'Hallo, Doggart,' he says. 'What are you doing up at this ungodly hour?' " 'Anything won want, sir,' says 1. " 'No, Doggart, thank you,' says he, ' unless you lfglit a fire. And you can bring me some coffee and a few

AN EXCITING STORY OF VILLAINY, MYSTERY AND ROMANCE

biscuits, and get to bed again. I'm going to occupy myself with some ot this correspondence.' " I took him his coffee and ho lett off writing to drink it. , " 'Good,' savs he, like he always does. ' Doggart, you're a treasure. This coffee is excellent. "I was just going when he called after me. « Doggart,' lie says, when I'm through with this pile 1 m for a sharp walk on the shore. Rieakfast at eight o'clock; 1 expect to find .i ravenous appetite.' • > i , " 'I hope as how you do, sir,' I says, mea'ning-like, for it fair makes uncomfortable to see the way he don t eat these days. Well, I watches him eo soon after six, no overcoat on, lust his hat and that favourite stick of his. striding out brisk, like he was enjoying it." . . Doccart looked about him in every direction with a perplexed, helpless expression. "And lie ain't back, he concluded. " You think he went down to tho shore?" asked Roddy. " He went that away." " Let's go," urged Pat, hardly able to contain her impatience. " I think we should have seen him if he had been on the sands." " Not if he kept close under the cliff," she insisted. "or round the Point." "All right, we.'ll go." They set off for the stony track leading down the headland on to the shore. " He might have slipped on a rock and sprained his ankle," suggested Pat, and there was a note almost of hope in her voice. " There is that chance." Roddy's voice expressed nothing of his own thoughts. It was significant that neither of them made any reference to the very real danger of that coast, though Pat did once betray the awful dread at the back of her mind as they strode on. " Nunks knows these sands like the palm of his own hand," she said. Roddy did not reply, and they ■walked on in silence. Once he stole a quick look at her face, bo young and fresh yet so grave and expressive of the fears she dared not voice. He bit his lip and turned away. If anything happened to Colonel Gretton, there was no doubt of whom it would hit tho hardest —Pat; Rachel, too, of course, but she had known suffering; she was armed, whereas Pat . . . They rounded the point and halted. Beautiful little Arndale, its lanes straggling downhill to the shore, came into view, and the mile-long bridge of many arches spanning the narrowing estuary of sand —not as ugly as it might have been. But neither of the searchers had eyes for the beauty of the scene. The sands were desolate; nothing stirred there. CHAPTER XVII " We'll go back by way of the village," said Roddy slowly. "No use going any further. You know I've an idea we are worrying over nothing. If Doggart hadn't made a yarn out of it, you wouldn't have bothered. Now, would you, Pat? " " Well, perhaps not," she admitted, but reluctantly. " Nunks has sometimes gone off without saying where he was going. But not at six ir, the morning." " I'll tell you what it is. Ten to one he's walked on to Arndale; remembered some business or other. Perhaps he breakfasted at Arndale and caught a train somewhere. In which case he may be on his way home now. Come on, Pat." They turned back and in a quarter of an hour passed the grassy headland and mado for the point where Sandilands' one metalled road frayed out and was lost in sand and grassy hummocks. A single row of tiny cottages fronted the bay. Outside one of them a man was engaged in repainting the weatherworn "walls. Pat hailed him. He came down to them. " Have you seen my father this morning, Tod? " she asked. Tod Beech scratched his ear. " I did seo 'im, but 'twere early on." "About what time? " put in Poddy. " Maybe about seven. Aye, it would be. Clem was off to work, I mind. I seed him way o'er yon." He pointed out into the estuary toward Arndale. " Fust I thowt o' -goin' after 'im. Happen it were a stranger and them there sands that way ain't safe for man nor beast. 1 mind it were out there Joss Rivers went in with his cart and not a hit of him, nor his cart seen from that day to this." Roddy cut short thus unwelcome touch of reminiscence with an abrupt question. " You're sure it was Colonel Gretton ?" " Looking keerfully 1 sees who it is by his walk and his figure. There ain't a body knows them sands better nor 'im, so I turns in for me bit o' bacon." " Thank you, Tod," said Pat. " Which way was lie going?" asked Roddy. " Might a bin going anywhere. Like as if he'd been out to t' channel." " Yes, but was he making this way or towards Arndale?" " Aye, t'ards Arndale." They thanked him and walked on up to the village. Nearing the constable's hguse, which also served as the Police Station, they encountered Constable Rutter himself. Roddy questioned him. but learnt nothing. He expressed his own belief casually, that the Colonel had taken the train at Arndale. "Wo can soon see," said Rutter, unconsciously throwing out his chest to take the burden of full responsibility for the finding of a missing citizen, and a distinguished one at that. A 'phone call to Arndale Station, however drew blank. No one had seen tljo Colonel. Rutter spoke then to the sergeant at Arndale. " Try the house," suggested Roddy, " he may have returned." Pat took tho receiver and spoke to Doggart. No, Colonel Gretton had not returned, and no message had come. " Leave it to us, Miss Kean," said Rutter confidently. " We'll make enquiries. Some one must have seen him. I'll ring through to you." " Oh, well;" said Roddy, " May as well be thorough, I suppose. There'll be no harm done even if it is a false alarm, and I quite think it is." Pat guessed he was trying to reassure her, and hide his own concern. They walked on by the cliff road in silence. Suddenly Pat exclaimed with a note of hope in her voice. "How foolish 1 am! Why, of course! We'll call at Mr. Armstrong's. Nunks has some business with him 1 know. Perhaps he's there all the time." Armstrong's house stood back from tho road a few hundred yards away from Greyscar. Pat rang. A darkvisaged man servant came to the door. Her new found hopes were dashed at once. " No," he answered in a somewhat surly voice. " Colonel Gretton has not called. Mr. Armstrong is in London, but he has just wired to say he is on his way up to see Colonel Gretton on urgent business, and I am to give him that message. Perhaps you will tell him, Miss Kean, when he comes home." (To be continued daily)