WEB CENTRE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22351, 24 February 1936, Page 17

WEB CENTRE

(COPYRIGHT)

By RALPH TREVOR Author of " Death in the Stalls," " The Eyes Through the Mask," etc., etc.

AN ENTHRALLING STORY OF MYSTERY, LOVE AND ADVENTURE

CHAPTER Vlll.—(Continued)

Santley nodded, resignedly. "That is quite clear, then. It means that one ruin more cannot make tho least difference. Not that Ido not regret your daughter's interference. I most certainly do. That was not part of my plan. You will recall my mention of your annual meeting of shareholders, Santley. At the time you did not understand my meaning. I had thought that after these moments of reflection you would have understood." Vorsada paused, like a practised orator creating an atmosphere for effect. "Has it never occurred to you that a successful man of finance must, sooner or later ; create at least some degree of enmity in the naturally rapacious hearts of others. That is exactly what you have done —in mine. I see you are surprised, but what I say is perfectly true. We financiers are like the wolves that harboured in the mountains of the country of my youth. If one wolf found a succulent carcase none of the pack would rest content until it was dispossessed. That is one of the primary instincts, not only of the lower animals, but of some of us who appear to have evolved into something more in keeping with the image of God. That elemental covertousness, I am told by the philosophers, is the root of most evil. I am liko thafc. I already possess Power. I possess that power through my wealth. But I am not satisfied. I crave for greater power, and you—you Santley are the one man in the world at the moment that can give me what I want. Now do you understand?"

Santley listened to the man intently, striving to appreciate the curiouslymixed mentality that could make a man at., one moment a philosopher and the next an uncouth creature actuated solely by material gain.

"You speak in riddles," he answered, wearily. " What is there that I can give you—now?" Vorsada sprang to his feet. His eyes blazed wild Iv.

"Fool!" he cried, hoarsely. "I want to break you . . . ruin you financially. To get into my two hands the power that your Trust wields for you. That is why you will not attend your meeting. That is why I have brought you here. Next week every newspaper in London will lie screaming your disappearance. 'W hen you do not appear," he went on more calmly, "a rumour will go around, that all is not well with the Santley Trust. The chairman of directors, the pillar of financial stability disappears on the eve of his annual meeting. What a flutter there will be in the financial dove-cotes. And your shares, Santley, yo you know what will happen to them ? The bottom will bo right out of your market. There will be panic. People will want to get out . .. at any price. And then I will step in . . . unostentatiously, as usual. No one will know. Your ten pound shares will be bought for sixpence. Thousands of them . . . thousands, my dear Santley, and then . . . Vorsada will own the Santley Trust, because Robert Santley will never appear again." Santley's face, already white, had grown ashen, and his lips trembled as lie spoke. "You fiend!" he cried, and there was vibrant passion in his voice. "You can't do this. D'you hear me? You can't do it! Do you realise what this means? It means the ruin of perhaps thousands of homes . . . the ruin of small investors . . . men and women who have entrusted to me their savings .... hundreds of them re !y on their dividends for their incomes. Save you no heart, Vorsada? For God's sake don't do this thing." v. Vorsada smiled as if he found satisfaction in another man's agony.

"My dear Santley," he began, unctuously, " what are these people to me? Why should I allow them to stand in my way to the throne of Power. I have no interest in them. Some day, perhaps, I shall reconsolidate the Santley Trust, but at the moment I need the money I shall make from this affair for another much more important project in my own country, where my people have no money—not a penny to invest anywhere. For years they have been oppressed by the ogre of partition —a partition that your own British statesmen contrived at Versailles in 1919. Thousands of them are strangers in a strange land. They have foreign taskmasters, but I ... I, Renol Vorsada, shall liberate them with British capital. For years I have been working to this end . . . and now end is nearer than it has ever been. That is whv you are to be ruined, Santley . . . ruined with others of your kind . . . you will have to pay the price for that folly that was perpetrated in the name of European Peace."

Robert Santley in that moment realised that ho was no longer dealing with Vorsada the financier, but Vorsada the fanatic. How much of the man's sentiment was true, he found it difficult to assess. And the horror of it was that what the man had spoken as to his ruin was only too true if he carried out his threat. Thought of the trail of ruin that must inevitably follow in the wake of this madman's plan, aroused in him all the old fire that had been there in the clays when he was just starting in life. He felt that he could not . . must not let this man carry out his threat. Its implications were too vast; its repercussions too stunning. "You cannot keep mo here against my will," Santley began, in a firmer voice. "I am bound to make some contact with the outside world. Do you imagine that Scotland Yard will permit me to disappear as if I were a piece of driftwood floating down the river? You must bo mad if you believe that. Many people know I came here tonight. What are you going to answer them when they inquire of you?" Vorsada was smiling again, with confident lips. "You are forgetting your daughter, he said, quietly. . Santley gazed at him, and felt his heart miss a beat. "Yes," he replied, brokenly, "I was forgetting." , . , "You see, Santley, your daughter unwittingly played into my hands to-night, but it is for. you to choose. Let me remind you that you are free to walk out of this house immediately. Here is the key to this room." Brazenly he held out the key towards Santley. "Take it. It is yours. But before you do lot me remind you "that the moment you leave this house I go to my telephone downstairs and I call up the police. And I will tell them just where Miss Maryon Santley is to bo found at this moment. In less than an hour she will be arrested and charged with the wilful murder of Schultz." He paused, with narrowed yet amused eyes. "You see, I am not such an unreasonable man as you supposed, Santley. I am, as always, ready and willing to strike a bargain. You must choose between your daughter's freedom and your company's ruin." Santley sat staring unbelievingly at the man, and realised that there was only one thing he could do. Maryon was more to him than money ... or even the money of others. They at least might have a chance to recoup their losses, but his daughter on trial for her life ... "You win, Vorsada," ho murmured, helplessly, as he rolled over on to the bed, sobbing. CHAPTER .IX The telephone bell trilled in an artistically furnished fiat in Half Moon Street. Its tintinnabulations caused a man, stretched out comfortably on a divan beneath the window, to turn apprehensive eyes toward the door leading to the hall. At that moment he appeared sartorially rather out of place in his environment, because shirt

sleeves and metal sleeve bands unquestionably did not tone with elegant vases of the Ming Dynasty on a low Chinese lacquer table, nor with the Queen Anno chair on the opposite wall. Badger slipped an appeal from an insurance company in the form of a bookmarker into the appropriate place between the pages of "The Crimson Clue, which had enthralled his expert attention for the past hour, laid aside the book with becoming reverence, and went to answer the insistent summons.

"Good-morning, Badger, how would you like a breath of country air? Of course, you would. Now, listen. I'm down at the cottage. That doesn't surprise you, does it ? What may surprise you is that [ want you to come down as fast as you can. Bring the baby, and if she will do sixty for you I'll send a testimonial to the manufacturers. I know how you hate leaving London, old man, but things have been happening down here, and I need you* I rather fancy that it may be something In your line. No, don't start questions; you'll hear soon enough. Oh, and by the way, Badger, in the top right-hand drawer of my bureau you'll find a gun. Tote it along with you . . . you may have need of it. 1 Get all that? Now just go to it, there's a good chap." "Very good, sir." Mr. Badger hung up the telephone receiver with a frown. For a few seconds he stood contemplating the instrument malevolently. "That's a rum go, if you like," said Mr. Badger, to no one in particular. "You'll find a gun in the bureau. Now that does sound interesting, and that there gun ain't no good for shooting rabbits." Ho turned away along the ball and disappeared into a room in the rear of the apartment. Here he lifted a speaking tube and breathed strongly down, its dark interior. "That you, Mrs. Wrigley. Can you come up for a minute? That's right." Prior to Mrs. Wrigley's arrival, Mr. Badger located the gun referred u> by the Hon. Peter Worthing, regarded it with an air of profound respect for a moment, and then, breaking open the chamber to sec whether it was set for action, he slipped it into his hip pocket. Mrs. Wrigley found him pushing his long arms into a black jacket preparatory to donning his overcoat. "What's wrong now?" she questioned, standing arms akimbo in the • doorway leading to the landing. "And may I remind you that I am usually too busy to answer inquiries at this time of the morning." Which was tolerably true, for Mrs. Wrigley had ample work among the fiats of the building without attending to requests from gentlemen's "men." "I wish I knew," grumbled Mr. Badger, reaching for his overcoat. "Wish you knew what?" demanded the woman irritably.

"What's wrong, of course. You see, I've just had orders to go down to Mr. Peter's cottage. Now I ain't been down there these twelve months." He shook his head, perplexed. "There's something going on, I'm sure of that." Mrs. Wrigley's interest heightened immediately. "But why shouldn't Mr. Peter want you to go down ? Wish I had half a chance to have a day off in the country. Many a time I'm fair sick of this round of cleaning and polishing. There ain't ever any change in life for me, 'cept bank holidays, Mr. Badger." "He's been queer like, lately," Mr. Badger confided. "Almost like as if he'd taken up work. And mysterious, you'd hardly believe the odd way he's been acting. Asking me all sorts of questions about crooks and swindlers and such-like gentry. I tell you, Mrs. Wrigley, I don't like it." Mrs. Wrigley dxopped easily into a vacant armchair.

"Now you comes to spoak of it, Mr. Badger, there has been something wrong with Mr. Peter. Why, only tho other clay he walked right past me on the staircse . . . looked right through me, he did ... as if I wasn't there. Gave me the fair creeps it did. I thought perhaps he was sickening for something; or maybe he was in love." Mrs. Wrigley could never resist indulging the romantic side of her nature at the slightest invitation.

"Love, indeed," Mr. Badger spat out the words without dignity. "It's more serious than that, Mrs. Wrigley, but I ain't time to bo standing here discussing love or anything else. I've got to hurry. All I wanted was to know if you'd be so kind as to take a look round after the later delivery and pick the letters out of the box. Mr. Peter's very particular about them being removed immediately. Don't ask me why. It's a new idea he's got—quite lately." Mrs. Wrigley arose from her chair. There was a hint of disappointment in her tone when she spoke. "-And will you be away for long, Mr. Badger?" " Can't rightly say, Mrs. Wrigley. No longer than can bo helped, believe me. I ain't cut out for a country life. Besides," he chucked Mrs. Wrigley under the chin with a playful finger, " I can't bear to be parted long from you, my dear. My 'eart would break." " Go on, now," laughed Mrs. Wrigley, who told herself at that moment that there had always been something about Mr. Badger that was subtly fascinating. Quito different, ho was, from Mr. Wrigley, who had been lying indifferent to romance for a long time in Kensall Green, with a little cross in white marble above him to indicate to the curious just where he was to be found on the Judgment Day. Mr. Badger rather liked driving motor-cars, and particularly was this " baby " edition suited to his touch. It was not long, therefore, before tho speedometer needle was flickering happily betwen fifty and sixty miles an hour along the broad, well-metalled highway that led to Peter Worthing's Sussex cottage. Peter was waiting for Badger, and the manservant noted that it was a rather different Peter from tho one he had packed off the previous afternoon. This Peter was striding up and down in front of tho fire in the lounge with a frowning face. On seeing Badger standing apologetically in the doorway, his manner changed and he greeted " his man cheerfully. " Hello, Badger, you certainly have been quick. You left the ' baby ' in the village, I suppose?" " Certainly, sir. At the usual place. In fact, sir, I parked her alongside the Lancia." " Good man. Now come and sit down, Badger, while I explain a few things. You brought the gun?" Badger produced tho weapon from his pocket. " That's yours, Badger. I hope it won't be necessary for you to have to use it, but you never know. There may be a little rough shooting while you are down here." Badger's well-trained features could not help registering surprise. " With this, sir?" He regarded the revolver with incredulity. " With that, Badger. But perhaps I'd better give you the 'low down' on the whole affair. I know you can keep your own counsel and that I can trust you to act in my interests. Now listen.'' (To ba continued daily)