RACING DRIVER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23470, 6 October 1939, Page 13

RACING DRIVER

By ALEXANDER CAMPBELL Author of " Daughter of Exile," etc.

CHAPTER XII (Continued) Florence smiled at him reassuringly —the smile of old comradeship. "A girl likes to be kissed on occasions bv a really nice young man —and you are thoroughly nice, Frank! Besides, the voyage is nearly over, and .1 was rather hoping you'd do it before wo parted. "Rut of course there was nothing more to it than that. You can't fool yourself, niy dear, and you certainly can't fool me!" She paused. "You are in love with her aro'nt yon?" He nodded, rather shame-facedly. "I'm afraid you're right. J am. if you won't think me rude —kissing you has made me sure of it! Rut it's quitti hopeless, Florence. So," lie added, with a smile, "if you're determined not to allow me to lling myself at your head in an effort to forget—and quite right, too —1 suppose I'll have to apologise to my bus and reinstate her in the position she used to occupy—wife and sweetheart, as Holly savs!"

But Rupert Featherstone stepped alertly on to the deck of the Athlonc Tower, blissfully ignorant of that conversation, or of the night which his fiance had spent gazing, not dry-e.ved, at the low ceiling of her cabin, thinking—of another man. Dorothy and Professor Ellington were waiting to greet him. Rupert acted typically. He kissed Dorothy's cheek, shook the professor's hand, and produced from under his arm a large wooden box. He glanced round, as though fearing spying eyes. Then' with tender care he removed the lid from the box. His own eyes were shining. "There!" said Rupert triumphantly. in a nest of tissue paper lay a fragment of a dome-shaped piece of brown bone, and a few ancient teeth. Professor Ellington lifted the specimen gently, and then began to nod excitedly. . . . Dorothy Ellington turned away. The last hope had failed. If Rupert had como aboard carrying flowers. If he had even como aboard empty-handed, but had greeted her with at least some of the enthusiasm befitting a young man who has been parted from his fiancee for two years—things might have changed. But Rupert had come aboard with part of an apeman's skull tucked under his arm. . . . "There can be no doubt of it," Ellington was declaring. "This has the Pekin man licked to a frazzle! My boy, I congratulate you!" He grinned with almost fiendish glee, and his Mack moustache bristled. "When old Jackson hears about this " " jhe'll probably jump off the Empire building," said a cheerful \-oice. Professor Ellington found Christine Carter, pretty and petite, at Ins elbow. She was drawing on a pair of gloves and smiling up at him. The light of scientific enthusiasm died out of the professor's eyes, to be replaced by a light of quite a different sort. He thrust the box almost brusquely back into Rupert's hands. Rupert found himself shaking hands with the small twinkling person. Like almost everyone else who met Christine for the first time, he dismissed her as a rather pretty child. "Pleasure!" he murmured. Then to the professor: "If we can go to your cabin, sir, there are some notes I'd like to show you " "You're Dorothy's fiance, aren't you?" asked Christine. Rupert was brought up with a start. He stared—and had the experience of being gripped by the iron hand in the velvet glove which had befallen others who had dismissed Christine too lightly. "She's over there," said Christine brightly. "I'm sure you'll have lots to say to each other after such a long separation. We won't detain you." "Er —thanks very much," Rupert stammered. He went, feeling rather bewildered. But further shocks were in store for him.

"Ah, Dorothy!" he said pleasantly; she was at the rail; watching the crane at work. "Had a pleasant trip out?'' "Yes. thank you."

"Good!" said Rupert, with carefully modified heartiness. "Good!" He stopped, finding himself strangely at a loss for words. Dorothy didn't seem to have changed a great deal. There should have been lots for them to talkabout. He had written long, fluent letters about his work during their separation. And yet now, 'face to face, he found himself rather tongue-tied. His work! That was it. Dorothy had always shown an absorbing interest in his work—quite proper in the prospective wife of a scientist, of course. Rupert cleared his throat'. He fumbled with the box.

"Dorothy, this is the skull I fc-ind in the Drak "

"J,'m terribly sorry, Rupert!" The words suddenly tumbled out. "1 —I've a bad headache. 1 think if I rested for an hour or so I'd feel much better. Will von excuse me?"

She was gone, without waiting for a reply. Rupert stared after her. • Then he took off his spectacles and proceeded to polish them —with him, a sure sign of perplexity. "Mr. Fea therst on e? "

Rupert replaced his spectacles. He found himself confronted by a tanned, rather handsome young man of about his own age. He blinked. "Yes?" "My name's Carter," said Frank. He was thinking, in some surprise, that Rupert did not look the part of tlie bookworm and the student which he had imagined. FTis surprise was intensified when Rupert smiled at him in the most friendly fashion and shot out a hand. "Not Frank Carter? This is a great pleasure! A friend of mine, named Reginald Wells, has come all the way from Kenya to see you race, and lie has told me a lot about you. May 1 wish yon luck, Mr. Carter?" "Tliank you," said Frank. The wind had been iaken rather Completely out of his saiis. "Fr —thank you." He had not been quite suro what he intended to say to Rupert; but the ending of the voyage, and Dorothy's very marked coldness in the last day and a-half, had made him desperate. He had toyed with the thought of punching Mr. Featherstone on the nose. . . .

"You wanted to speak to me?" said Rupert. "Why, yes," said Frank. "That is, not really. I mean —well, you see, this voyage has thrown us all together, you know, and Professor Ellington and Dorothy have told me a great deal ahout you " He hroke off.

"The fact is." he admitted candidly, "seeing you gave me rather a shock! I'm afraid I had imagined that a—a skull hunter looked quite different!"

Rupert ijodded briskly. "Ah, yes. The old delusion. I am quite familiar with it. You have been the victim of reams and reams of rubbishy fiction, which invariably depicts the scientist as a weakling, always in body and usually in brain. Of course the facts are quite otherwise, I do not claim to be what that same fiction calls a 'tough guy,' but it stands to reason that work inch as mine, involving extensive digging and frequent hardships in the wider par.ts of the world, must develop the physique to a certain extent!"

"Put that way, it sounds reasonable," admitted Frank, "Hullo, sir!" Professor Ellington stood before them.

"Ah, I see you've met!" said Ellington. He rubbed his hands. "You.

(To be'continued daily.)

(COPYRIGHT)

A car crash leads the motorist into a strange sequence of event».

must got your stuff aboard, Rupert. I believe we sail early. Have you told him, Carter?"

"What?" asked Rupert. "This Grand Prix in which Carter is taking part," said Ellington. Mr. Carter and Christine—that is, Miss Carter, Carter's aunt—have very kindly invited us to attend it. So we shall continue in the ship to East London, see the race thero, and go on to Natal. By the way, Christine and Carter arc coming on the expedition with us."

Rupert stared. "But surely we must lose no time in having the bones removed "

"Tush!" said the professor. "Nonsense! They have lain there undisturbed for a good many years. 1 don't think a few more days will harm them. "Besides the break will do you good, mv boy." He eyed his assistant critically. "You have been working too hard. You look thinner. Well, that's all arranged then. Now 1 have promised to take Christine to the top of Tablo Mountain. I must hurry. See you later!"

"Excuse me, too, won't you?" said Frank pleasantly. "I have to see to the clearing papers for the car, so that no time is wasted at East London."

He, too, was gone. Rupert found himself alone again.

Feeling rather dizzy, and with the wooden box containing his precious specimen still tucked under his arm, he turned to the rail.

Capetown's vast docks' presented a busy spectacle. Natives hurried to and fro, smoking long stemmed pipes, gold rings dangling from their ears, carrying sacks or pushing trucks. Beyond, the green slopes of Table Mountain dwarfed the town. The green ended at the base of a sheer precipice, whose sharp edge cut the blue sky. The famous "table cloth" had not yet been unrolled. "Marvellous, isn't it?" said yet another voice in Rupert's ear. He turned.

An extremely pretty girl with soft golden hair and large blue eyes stood at his elbow.

"I'm Florence Shaw," she continued. "You're Rupert Featherstone, are'nt you? Dorothy Ellington's fiance?" "Correct," acknowledged Rupert. Hia dizzy feeling had not departed. Indeed it had increased. He was not used to being made dizzy. Characteristically, he decided to take a firm grip on the situation.

"You," he continued, "are a passenger? A friend of Dorothy's? Yes, I imagined so. I have just been talking to two of your fellow passengers ; — Miss Carter and Mr. Frank Carter, the racing driver. This is your first visit to South Africa?" Florence nodded. She was thinking, as Frank had thought before her, that this Rupert Featherstone was a much more solid person than they had all imagined. "Perhaps you would like to take a trip to the top of the mountain?" continued Rupert cordially—and was rather amazed to find himself saying it. "If you would care to let me escort you—?" "That would be • splendid," said Florence, staring. "But won't Dorothy "She has a headache," said Rupert. "She is lying down. She asked me to excuse her. So, you see, I am quite free." He smiled. "Professor Ellington lias just been telling mo that I—ah—could do with a break. So I think I shall begin now!" He paused, and looked, just a shade distastefully at the wooden box under his arm. "Excuse me one moment. I 11 deposit this in the purser's office." CHAPTER XIII. "xo timk for kisses" Florence Shaw held on to the side of the swaying car. "It's, quite all right," said Rupert Featherstone soothingly. "Nothing to be afraid of. They've never had an accident yet." Florence peered down over the side of the car. The cable car moved along a thick wire rope. It ascended steeply, appearing to run almost parallel with the vertical face of the cliff. Ilupert smiled encouragingly. He was enjoying the company of this pretty stranger immensely. He had not asked a girl out since leaving home —and Dorothy. He felt rather a dashing fellow. The tingle ol adventure was beginning to make itself felt in his veins.

Because looking down made her dizzy, Florence looked up. Another wire rope ran parallel to the one from which their own cable-car was suspended. When a car left the lower station, ascending, the other car left the upper station, descending. The cars thus passed each other midway.

The other car was approaching them now. it seemed to whizz along at an alarming speed. For a fraction of a second the cars were abreast.

"Well!" Rupert, stared. In the other car were ' Professor Islington and Christine. Rupert had had only a brief glimpse; but it had seemed to him that there was a certain intimacy in their grouping. They had been at the side ol the car; and the professor's arm had been round Christine's shoulders

Rupert looked at his companion, and read confirmation of what he had seen in her eyes.

"I didn't know," lie said, "that Professor Ellington and Carter's aunt were such—close friends."

"Oh, that!" said Florence briskly—and wilfully. "It's an open secret. He'a bats about her." "He's what?"

"They're in love," Florence explained blandly' "Make a nice couple, don't you think?"

Rupert frowned. "I had not regarded Proles'or Islington in that light. 1 nad imagine!l that he was above that sort of thing." ' - "You're engaged yourself, aren't you?" said Florence cruelly. "That is quite a different matter. Our marriage—Dorothy's and mine—will he based on mutual respect and perfect intellectual understanding—" "Let me get this straight," said Florence. "Are you trying to tell mo that you have never made love to Dorothy?" "We have never indulged in—that sort of thing," said Rupert, and waved a hand in the direction of the descending car. "Embraces. Kisses. Thank goodness, Dorothy has no time for that sort of nonsense. And neither have I." Florence said nothing. But she watched him covertly from under lowered litis.

What you need, young man, she thought, is a shaking up. And I've a good mind to give it you. Meanwhile, on board the Athlonu Tower, far below in the harbour, Frank Carter was wandering disconsolately around the deserted decks.

Ho rounded the corner of the saloon —and stared. Seated in a deck chair, a book unheeded in her lap, and staring at the blank wall of the wharf warehouse was Dorothy—also alone. Frank went forward almost at a run. "Dorothy!"

She looked up quickly —and for the first time in many days she smiled to him. "Frank!"

There was something in her tones that warmed his blood. Then he remembered .Rupert—and stopped short. "1 say! I thought you would be ashore —witfi your liance," he added.