THE BLACKMAIL OF ZERO

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22936, 14 January 1938, Page 17

THE BLACKMAIL OF ZERO

By JOHN GOODWIN

CHAPTER XLIX zero's last journey " I never challenged a man till I had him in my power," continued Devine, " and the evidence against him complete. " And mark this, Cynthia! During those years I've saved more people than I've broken. Marty a little crook, many a brand I've plucked from the burning; set his feet on the straight path, and kept him there. But those who deserved it I smashed ruthlessly. They felt the weight of Zero's handl" " Look!" ho pointed down the creek, where a long grey launch was- entering the mouth of the creek, gliding silently round the bend toward the little quay. " I'm due out. Coming along, Cynthia?" " With you?" Why not?" he said quietly. "You'd have gone to the world's end with Vandon—damn you!" His hand shot out with incredible swiftness, gripping her by the right arm. Her hand was in her jacket pocket, on the butt of the little pistol. Like a flash his arms were round hers, pinning them to her sides with crushing force; his lips were burning on her own.

" Did j'ou think I'd leave you to him?"

"You beast!" she gasped, struggling to free her arms. Useless. She was in the grasp of a man incredibly evil. His lips stifled her. Then he looked into her white face and laughed. Something pressed over her mouth; she twisted aside desperately. She felt her senses going . . .

Suddenly she saw' the of Devine's eyes contract. His face was lit up by a dim radiance that filled the interior of the car, growing brighter momentarily.

It came from the head-lamp beams of a black saloon that was tearing along the narrow track, rounding the bend and mounting the rise of the hill. One glance through the side window showed him the twin vertical spotlights of a Yard car.

It was two hundred yards away yet. " You little devil . . . you've done me, after all!" His grip shifted swiftly to her throat. Then he flung her from him with a shock that nearly shook the breath out of her, threw himself into the driving seat and snapped the clutch in. The car shot down the open track toward the quay. "Can't make it! They don't get me—we'll go together!" Over the hill-crest behind came the pursuer, following fast, its lamps lighting Devine's car with a white glare. Ahead was the creek, the launch, checking to run alongside, was stiljF aj dozen lengths short of the wharf. (Snj? glance showed that to reach her in time was impossible He jammed his foot on the throttle. The car hurtled blindly down the slope, all out, heading for the wharfedge, to certain destruction. Cynthia snatched at the door-handle . . . the catch was locked. "Stop!" she screamed, and dragged out her little pistol, thrusting the jaiuzzle against the back of his neck. "Stop!" Devine laughed aloud. The laughter of a madman! "Together, Cynthia! Over the top . . ; with you! The creek-bed . . . with you! Down to hell . . . with you." Four times in swift succession the pistol cracked; she fired desperately into the car's switchboard; three bullets splintered it and smashed the ignition switch. Checked in its stride by the drag of a dead engine the car shot on to the wharf, bumped and banged across it, swerving and, all but stopping on the edge, toppled and fell head-down into the creek with a sousing plunge. Her groping hands fo'and the opening of the window , . . one last hope amid despair . . . could she drag herself through? But she was choking, drowning in the dark. Then she found herself going up . . . up . . . her lungs were bursting . . . up still . . . Consciousness left her. ...

The wave flung up by the black car as it plunged out of sight surged down the creek and set the motor-launch rocking. The crew of {he launch stared, stupefied. The helmsman reversed his engine. A man who had been crouching beside him in the little wheelhouse darted out and ran along the foredeck. For a moment he stood, a tall figure in the bows. A woman's arm broke the surface. A small white hand among the ripples, clasping and clutching. The man in the bows of the launch yelled again and plunged in, ploughing toward it with lashing over-arm strokes. Superintendent Byrne flung himself over the wharf like a gigantic bullfrog, sousing under amid a fountain of spray. John Vandon was first by a dozen yards; he dived and caught the limp body below water; the girl's dress was caught under the roof of the car six feet down. It tore away: they both came to the surface together. Byrne was floundering gallantly toward them, his lungs labouring; he got an arm under her and held her up . . . the two men looked into the still white face. They brought her ashore together at the wharf's foot, no word spoken. "Out of the way," he said, and carried her to the car, his face strained and haggard. The men fell back; he lifted her inside, laid his hand over her heart. It was beating faintly. For the fraction of a second her eyes flickered open, looked into his, and closed again. "Thank God for/that!" kid the dripping Byrne, standing behind him. Vandon turned round. "And well you may. If she'd come to any harm, Sam, I'd have killed you! I never thought you'd let me down like this " Superintendent Byrne shook his head. "Not guilty," he said. "But I wouldn't blame ;you if you had, Johnny. Run her into Tilbury quick, get her to a doctor's. Then leave her, and stand out, Johnny. I'll clear up the mess here. Seems to me that's all I'm good for " CHAPTER L. THK WINNER Superintendent Byrne, sitting rather limply in Cynthia's armchair by the sitting-room fire, looked at her with mingled admiration and reproach. "You've given us all heart failure, Miss Rolles," he said, "but now that it's over, if there was' a gold police medal going I'd award it to you. It was you who first got the idea that the Cipher was a woman. Lola Devine was the Cipher. That is, she was the writer of all the Cipher letters, under Devine's direction; she was his partner and instrument in every coup and swindle and blackmailing ramp that he undertook in years—until he selected you for a victim. He. knew she wouldn't stand for it. "All the letters that you received he wrote himself. There was just that slight, subtle difference; "it was a clue that baffled ug, for right up to the

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end the Devines were outside the field of suspicion. But we know, now that when it came to your case he cut her out and ran it on his own. When she discovered that, though she hated you she opposed him; a thing she had never dared to do before. And yours was the case that finished him. Now, you understand."

"Yes," said Cynthia. '"The only thing L don't understand is why in the beginning she warned me against Zero. She told me a terrifying story —how he had blackmailed her and wrecked her life, and killed her first husband; the story was a lie."

"And a clever lie, too," said Byrne. "She didn't want you falling for the Zero trap, getting deeper .and deeper in. It was through no tenderness for you .that sho warned you. But she knew that man's mind as no one living knew it. Her object was to frighten you—she never realised how hard you are to scare—into putting it up to the police right away, and stop the game. "Now it was very rare for any of Zero's victims to do that; when thoy did he had only one rule —to break tliein at once by exposure of the evidence, and stand down. Lola was quite willing for that to happen. And so —she warned you.

"XjH then, she had been completely under Devine's stronger will. Only one thing 011 earth would have induced her to betray him at last —the knowledge that he was going to turn her down for you. She saw it coming. He saw it, too, and at the eleventh hour, when she was on the point of betrayal, he killed her.

"Even then that devil Devine might have got away with it at the finish, and would have, if it wasn't for one man —and that man isn't me. And one woman—that woman is you. Devine will never stand in the dock; I must say, I'm not sorry for it. He just goes down into eternal silence." "Let him!" cried Cynthia. "I want to forget all that. Where's Van — where's Mr. VandonP"

"Ah —Johnny," said Byrne. "Yes. Can he get away with it?" He blinked at her through his spectacles and smiled. "I can't well send him back to Dartmoor, though he's just in the mood for it—he'd start a new mutiny there. You know, don't you, that he's been in prison?"

"I don't care if he's been in fifty prisons!" said Cynthia. "Six, if I remember right. I put him in myself. Convicts are apt to talk to each other in prison—mainly because they aren't allowed to. Some of 'em talked about Zero. John's imprisoned in the commissioner's office at the Yard just now. But he won't give anything away; he never does." "JohnVandon is JohnVandon Ryder, formerly Number Z. 14, Intelligence Department of the Foreign Office, otherwise the Secret Service. He was attached to our special branch at the Yard for a year, and worked with me in two big international affairs, but never officially as a policeman. He's more devil in him than any man I ever knew, and nothing beat him. "His own chief got frightened for him, and tried to hold him down. Johnny said they were a crew of old women, and being left a tidy fortune be retired into Hampshire and settled down to grow roses.

"For a while he was dead to the world, and seemed to likp it. Said it suited him. One day he came to me. He'd heard of a Zero case. Beating spies and warmongers had been his job; but this got him roused. Ryder was death on blackmailing. He said to me: 'Sam, why don't you get Zero?' "Johnny came in. I gave him a free hand; he took chances no policeman could have taken. It was an outlaw's job. Ho had to play crook as no man ever played it. And' when Ryder goes for a job he goes for it all out. "It was a longer job than he figured on, and he found he could get no help. There was the natural cowardice of the blackmailer's prey, and nobody can judge that who hasn't been in the net and felt the vampire's fangs fastening on him—Zero was no commorf 1 blackmailer. The victim panics and goes under; wits and courage gone. Partly, because he's usually half-crook himself. There wasn't one with pluck enough to stand up to him and fight him at any risk . . . till Zero went for you. Johnny was watching for that—and he cut in, quicker than light, before the Cipher got into his stride. And he played it out —he played to win. "It was a deadty dangerous game to play—but it was Johnny's job. Here was a girl with pluck enough for ten and wit in her head—a fighter. He let the game go on, while he stopd behind you with the gun. At first it meant no more to him than that—it was just his job, and he was Z. 14; he'd got to get Zero. I "And then—Johnny got the wind up. For the first time in his life. He weakened —it was as sudden as that! He was for packing you out of it—stopping the game. So was I. I went back on my job as a policeman. And yet . . . he'd got to get his man. He couldn't go back on that. He felt that what he'd done was monstrous.'' "It was monstrous," said Cynthia. "You gave us a fearful shock, you know, Miss Rollos. What's the good of my giving you protection and an X-line to the Yard, if you refuse to make use of it? Of course, I know why you didn't. You were never sure that Vandon wasn't Zero. I can't blame you; there were times when I thought myself he was the man.

"And when you struck out on your own and disobeyed instructions just as Johnny was off after Devihe, he shot me an S.O.S. to lock you up till the coast was clear . . . even that went down. We owe it to you, hut I wouldn't go through it again for a commissionership; I tell you, last night took years off my life."

There was a step in the hall, two short taps on the floor before it opened. Vandon entered. "Get out. you talkative devil!" said Vandon grimly. Byrne went. Van's face'was rather drawn and pale. He stood before Cynthia, took one look at her, and his eyes fell. "All my fault," he said. "Had to do my job. Had to come and say goodbye. I didn't suppose you'd ever forgive me, Cynthia." "And I never will," said Cynthia. She stood up and faced him. "For trying to leaye me out of it I" "Guilty. And I throw myself on your mercy.'' "You'll get no mercy from me," said Cynthia. "Have you anything to say?" "Only that I love you." She laughed softly. "Van, darling, you're sentenced for life! Hold me tight, and never, never let me go.-. . THB END if" ■ ' ! ' ° NEW SERIAL, "WELL OF GOLD," A Modern Pull-length Novel by BENTLEY RIDGE. A fascinating story of a search for treasure in an indent land and amidst the relirs of a vanished civilisation, ft quest that leads to a series of adven--tures, to a tense rivalry, sudden dangers, excitement and a wonderful rqmance. Commences in the SATURDAY SUPPLEMENT of the* NEW ZEALAND HERALD TO-MORROW And Continues Daily.