FREEDOM FOR TWO

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22976, 2 March 1938, Page 25

FREEDOM FOR TWO

By MARGARET WATSON »

/ CHAPTER XlV.—(Continued) ' Frica was lonely; Erica was alone v,*Tcould n 9 t understand; he could rU L] Ev ery word of every letter f pad with painful care; and then he W his head, looked at three people ? Frica verv nearly as nuich as ™ - *• "ttftold it; tho » ,|,ole s ° rdi '3 Btoryi n it verv badly, too, with frequent £* ! and a tendency to take the fro blame upon himself. Forgetful !?'the presence of Michael, who had no him to share these intimacies, he told J- *' as like CUltmg ° h ; n tit for them, but he did it, Stirling valiantly to ignore, as he * S the horror in their faces. Ali-hael had made an effort to wj.thas soon as the situation became embarrassing; but no one had noticed him and now he could not bear to go Sv and not, hear what had happened Jn Erica He stood there in the background patiently listening, seeing her Lirn head reared against the window, wring her laugh again at the stuffy Sid fogies who made Brandford what 'had happened," said Martin, breathL heavily, as if he had run a long y. "I took it for granted that she yould tell you all about it. As a matter nf fact I came here just to to find p U t if—to be sure that she was down at the bundle of letters crushed in his hand, She was ,nf hiDDV. No one could have written h3B E?ive happy letters, lying to shield him, while a single second of real happiness remained in their lives. And perhaps Jon had merely been the person who had helped her to get fwav from her unsatisfactory husband. But what was he to do? There was nothing in their stricken faces, nothing f n their silence, to suggest a way out for him. He had met her; he had given her an opportunity to explain everything to him and to knit up tho cords hat had been broken He had done even-thing he could, .'eft her money, waited for the words of dismissal from her own lips—yes, and got them, too. Dunn said, in a terrible throaty voice: "Do you mean to say that you really jnet that girl in the ; itreet—met her.- ,face to face—and « didn't trouble yourself to hold on to her like—like grim death? Do you ' mean to sit there and tell me that jou believed Erica—Erica—had deceived 1 you—and you waited for an explana- 1 tion? You waited! So nice of you! So , restrained! So gentlemanly! You— He < broke off, upon a hissing breath. 1 \ should like to kill you." i M«irtiii was beyond resentment, it ] was a bit of a shock, certainly, to , have the flaws in his behaviour pointed f out so tartly and so truly by Michael; c but, looking* back now upon his actions, he saw them as anything but glorious. c It did not matter that she had de- . liberated sent him away. He should , have picked her <ip and carried her t home ill his arms. He siiould have , hugged her, and kissed the fear out j ! of her face. He should 1 _ L He stood up. He had wasted *cime c enough. While he had. toyed with the t [ idea of salvage expeditions, she, for all j. I he knew,- might have been struggling j [ for a living in Stockholm. Martin I s reached for Sia jhat. t "I dotft; blame yOti," he said, look- j] ing Michael Dunn squarely in the eyes. "I should like to kill myself." The next day he sailed for Gothen- j burg. r A,V d CHAPTER XV. £ Martin wa3 going to find Erica, if he t had to pull Stockholm atone from stone I to do it; and once he bad her saffly, 0 he was never going to let her go again, 0 for all the Jons, for all the misunderstandings, for all the hurt pride in the world. J Scraps of her letters haunted him as t he was borne swiftly out of Gothenburg " along the all too' journey to Stockholm. . r "Wa :are both 'very fit and very a \ ' „ ohe had written that into almost p every one, with only the slightest varia- a tion in tne wording. "We are botli very fit, and very t, happy." So they should have been at tl this moment, So they should be, if his n luck favoured him enough to let him si find her again. He stared unseeingly at the countryside through which he was carried, and reasoned out a hun- si died and one ways of organising his search for her; none of which, of course, would be used when it came to the ir point. All he knew was that he would w win her back somehow. B

A large, blondo woman strolled along the corridor, and happening to glance ! n through the window, saw him bunched in his corner; and knew him at once, though only a. narrow profile was turned toward her. She came rushjig in in a tornado of furs and perils®. and flung; herself upon him. ! Martin Hirst!" Martin, confused, took a few seconds o realise that she was an old friend. iung face, with a bush of yellow Mir framing its pink and white. j • u '®lia! What on earth are you doing here?" ;;ArenTyou pleased to see me?" vnn a eotirse, but 1 wasn't expecting it'ki,- on holiday .again? Or is fit »? m u BS ' t' 011 '?°k the fittest of the IiT,J nice to see you again." in n„ II ; O V n ,y wa - v to Stockholm to star Sh« ' as a ma tter of fact." molt nH d r ? untl and »skod, in the "Whem' ua y iu the world, Where's Krica?" h " Stockholm I'm going to her." wrong/Martin?" he asked * &Tth sh ° uld there be? " don't know. There's just a isn't a e^ e ~ i "°r rather, there the old U * n *' our e ?>' e — and frown »fc we f rs , a suspicion of a say IV TV?. 6 laughed frankly. "Go on, Komin - 'H}®- * a . m a suspicious old On- vn'n t ,n ternational busybody. Go toe' tn min i° W mo weU eno "gh to tell own,business, I hope, huff." P ec ting me to go off in a 1 ' 1 ® 1 WUI you do BOme ~ it vtrT^v^M) 3011 !lke ; a "d you know and a e iw„„?°u kno *[ '*"• Y°"' re a brick, Jou Ukp V, • e been; and I believe ilisten +?, 7 ' too > don't you? Now, Call nip «,4 "i Hlu ' afterwards vou can likp > for you can't tojself 1—„-o|i [ i ] -' ve call(>(1 11 hanr.rmr. i i t know quite how Be glecterl 1,1 r 'ea—l suppose I a °d Jeft me" • s ' lo wcnt away •tiring y ° U let her? " syi <l Eulalia, 4n( lshe "h,' I ]/ 1i k e that. L was a way. wtJr 1 r d; lett the w ' n ' ' i • tto tfcer ma [TI pill' 1! mI , went ofF with and w V ? was charmoppose TM u n t0 ,lor ' ar >d T failed. Anyhow, she ®Hch in have been very W ,mi at the tilne " mgs i n T h C ; ® a 7, In e to analyse his feel--01(1 in view ? i cr ' ) n ' ( ' n with a good Eulalin ' considerably. tou»t be mall l" l a ry tone; "You Stoo much'tI e, L r ,nan - She lovetl lind for aiun, , ave ,«»/ room in her the timi J SL 11 a , ct ' 1 thought p happhfess." 6 yOU alm ° 9t

SDF

story OF love that endured through storm and STRESS* A LOVE that was big enough to understand

"I wish I could think you were right. But why should she go away with him, then ?" "How should 1 know? The time to find that out was then. My poor, stupid Martin, why did you marry so lovely a wife, if you weren't prepared to study her complexities? There was a reason; there must have been a reason; but it wasn't that she preferred him to you. And you should have known ,it." Martin looked into liis cupped hands, and said slowly: "Go on. Haul me over the coals; I deserve it." "What's tho use? You can't help being stupid, can you?" Ho smiled. "It wasn't so simple. Look here, Lallie, you're the best keeper of secrets I ever struck. Will you keep one for me? If I could have told it to Erica at tho time, it would have saved us both; but I was sworn to secrecy even from her. It's all over now. and it doesn't matter so much, though it's a secret still from everyone else in the world. It's like this. I have friends in tho police, and they offered to let me in on a big job they were going to clean up. There was a raid planned on tho house of ono of Sweden's richest men—fellow named Ejornson, lives on one of the islands, in a white marble palace—horrid affair at close quarters. "Anyhow, they had wind of it, and were taking a motor-bout out to rope in tho gang; and one of my pals wangled me a place in the boat. He came hot-foot to meet me in the street and break the glad news. Erica was with me. Well, of course, it would have meant trouble for all the officers on the case if .ever it had leaked out that they took an unofficial party with them; so I was made,to swear to keep it dark—even from Erica.

"I did it, too; but—l wish I'd never had anything to do with the wretched business. She was very suspicious; she closed up on me all that day; and—well, when I came back, she'd gone.

"You see, I was away three days. It's a long story to have to tell in detail. The leader of the gang, whoever he was, was a bit of a genius, and he must have had wind of our party, because he never touched the open side of the island. Scaled the cliffs on the seaward rise—most of the slope is practically perpendicular there—did his job, and got himself and his crew away as neat as ninepence, while we sat placidly waiting for him on the landward coast.

"The first we knew of him was when we sighted his boat's tail vanishing across the harbour. Well, there was a chase, of course; but though ours was the better boat, we hadn't reckoned with their determination, quite. "They let us gain on them; and then the leader —I think he must have been the leader— stood up and emptied a shot-gun into us. He let us have it downward, right into the boat; and I think he must have meant it for the motor, though he wasn't too particular. I can tell you. Anyhow, he cot two of us. One of the policemen took most of one barrel in his chest; I got the rest of it in my arm. "Yes, they got away. We were out of action, so was the boat. They just pulled serenely away over the harbour, and we couldn't raise a hand to stop them. I wonder who that fellow really was! Big chap, and a good shape—and the nerve of the devil. Just stood up to be shot at, and did the only damage that was done. It's a mystery how we all missed him, but I suppose j his luck held, that's all. D'you know, L fancied at the time that I'd seen him somewhere before, but I can't place the fellow. It was a mere glimpse, anyhow. "The policeman died next day. As for ine, I was the worst problem of all. I was—well, rather sick; and I'd no right to be there at all; and the poor devils didn't know what to do with me. I'd lost an awful lot of blood, too before they got me ashore. Fortunately, though I heal very quickly; and after I'd lain low in the house of one of the officers for two days, the worst was over, and they let me go home. "And Erica was gone. So that's how it happened." Eulalia sat watching him for a long time in pensive silence. Then she asked: "What are you going to do about it?" "I'm going to find her. of course. It's taken me a long while to come to my senses, and forget that I'm what most people would consider tho injured party. But now I'm going to find her; and you're going to help me." "Naturally. We must consider how to go about it. By the way, what about this man? The third party? I —But no, I'll stake everything I've got that she isn't with him." "She isn't," said Martin, positively. "But she is in Stockholm? You're sure of that?" "Yes." "Then she's had to earn her own l living. You do that by selling whatever wares you have. And what had she? Beauty, youth ? Not for sale as far as Erica's concerned. Music—knowledge of English—" "I left her what money I had in the bank here," said Martin; "so she may not have had to work at all."

"Don't be silly! If she wouldn't live with you any longer, she wouldn't live on your money, either. You know very little about your wife, dear man, I must say. Where was I? Oh, yes—music, and English. She can't type, can she? Or act? Or write, or anything like that? I suppose there must be hundreds of things she could learn to do; but why learn new tricks, when you have a perfectly good one perfected already? Her voice, beyond a doubt, I should think. Yes, Martin, my advice to you is to comb all the concert halls of Stockholm —especially the smaller ones, because she had no name to take her right to the heights—for news of a soprano singer named Erica Hirst. And I'll help you to do it."

They stayed at the same hotel, the better to keep in touch with each other; and between them they knew more than half of the musical world of Stockholm. How could they fail? Kvery day Martin went out to interview booking agencies and producers; and every evening he inet Eulalia, as 6he came from the rink, to confide nothing better than disappointment and slowly waning hope. "Why not polish up your own playing?" suggested Eulalia. "Then you can get further into the atmosphere. And it will give you an opening when you do find her." So Martin practised, still with firm confidence. At the end of one week ho had consulted almost every agency and every concert hall in the city) and nowhere could he find any mention of Erica Hirst or Erica Manning. Ho came to the rink that night tired and dispirited, with a sheaf of useless bills in his pockets, and tho programme of a booking agency with a big clientele among the smaller city halls in his hand. Eulalia was still dancing when ho arrived. He took a table close beside the barrier, and watched her. She was in a seventeenth-century dress of iridescent frills, with mounds of paste jewellery in her fair hair, floating before a corps de ballet of men in black tights, and girls in the yellow down of willow catkins. He seemed to wait for hours before she made her final exit and came to him.

"Well, any news?" "We were wrong, if that's news." said Martin. "She isn't singing. She can't be. I've combed the whole town, to the most remote suburbs, everywhere that they have concerts; and I can't find any mention of her name. Look, here is the programme of the biggest agency among the small halls. I've looked all through it, and do you think it includes Erica Hirst? Not a hope!" i (To be continued daily)