THE GREEN BUNGALOW

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 410, 19 July 1928, Page 5

THE GREEN BUNGALOW

BY A POWERFUL WRITER.

Fred M. White.

Author of "The Crimson Blind," "The Cardinal Moth." “ The House on the River," fltc., fcc.

CHAPTER IX. —THIEVES IN COUNCIL. That marvellous instinct which had ever caused Blythe to do and say exactly the right thing at the right moment warned him that he had made a false move in insisting on having the sack opened at that particular moment. True, Shute had more or less grudgingly accepted him as a partner in the firm of Shute and Macglendy, but he knew that neither would trust him an inch further than necessary. Indeed, it was plain to him that they did not even trust one another, or else Shute had told his colleague what had happened so far as he, Blythe, was concerned. And here, at any rate, was another side to the business that Shute had not even hinted at. In the ordinary course of things, Blythe would have scorned to stoop to anything so mean as smuggling, with its possible excursions into the realm of burglary, for he felt quite sure that the contents of the sack lying there before him, glittering temptingly in the electric light, represented the proceeds of downright unadulterated crime. But just at the moment it was not for him to say anything about it. He was not thinking of anything just then but the means whereby he could solve the problem in which Harley and Nettie Frond were the* central characters without betraying his interest in them to these undesirable confederates of his; therefore he bent over the table, and with the eye of a connoisseur began to examine the various pieces of plate. “All this looks very nice,” he said, “and if I mistake not the stuff is exceedingly valuable. Family plate, beyond the shadow of a doubt. Where did you get it from?” “Well, I don’t quite know,” Shute said carelessly, after exchanging a glance with Macglendy. “You see, I don’t ask any questions. The stuff came to us from across the water, in the way of business, and it is for us, I suppose, to dispose of it and share the spoil with our friends on the other side. By that, of course, I mean the man who sent us the saccharine.” “That’s very interesting,” Blythe said. “I suppose by smuggling the stuff over here your friends escape paying duty, in the same way as they save duty on the saccharine. But you don’t mean to tell me that you are going to dispose of valuable plate like this for the price of old silver?” Shute shrugged his shoulders. “Oh. well,” he said, “one must do what one can. You know what it is when you are dealing with a receiver of stolen goods. He runs bigger risks than we do, and that I suppose is why he expects to get the lion’s share.” “Ah, well, all that sort of thing is quite out of my line,” Blythe said, with bland insolence. “This is the first time I have ever stooped to anything of the kind, and I think it will be the last.” “Then why stoop at all?” Macglendy said hoarsely. i Blythe turned upon him with a cer- 1

tain catlike playfulness, but with a steely gleam in his eyes. “Ah, my little Jew Boy,” he said. “I suppose you think that is a very pertinent question. But please don’t speak to me like that again. I have my very good reasons for coming into this business, but those are entirely personal. Let me remind you that our unfortunate acquaintance, Mr. Roy Harley, was marked out by me before he came down to Brighton; in fact, I followed him there. And I could have stopped your game at once, had I liked.”

All thisr of course, was not strictly true, though, to a certain extent, it had a basis in fact, for Blythe had not followed Harley to Brighton, nor had he been particularly interested in that individual until he had tumbled, more or less by accident, upon the budding romance which he had seen blossoming before his eyes in the dining room of the Metropolitan Hotel. For Blythe, with all his predatory instincts, and constant need of money for that extravagant mode of life of his, had always prided himself on the fact that he never preyed upon his own class. The new rich, the accidental objects of capricious fortune, the prosperous business rogue, and all that fraternity were his quarry, but never had he taken advantage of the follies of youth among the clan from which he, himself had fallen, like Lucifer, never to rise again.

Still, he was smiling quietly to himself as he tenderly handled the pieces of silver with a feeling that he had seen them before. Naturally enough, he knew a great deal about the crests and coats of arms of various aristocratic families, and it seemed to him that, with a little puzzling out, he would know where this service of plate came from. That it had been smuggled acioss the Channel in the ordinary way of business he did not believe for a moment. He knew little enough about sacchrine, either, but what little he knew, told him that that particular material was not smuggled in sacks but m small packets that take a verv little space. And then it seemed to him that he had solved the problem. He was going to verify his facts, but it occurred to him that he knew now who was the owner of that fine service of old family plate.

lt; ’. s all very interesting,” he said. * But if you take my advice, you won t part with that stuff to any ordinary dealer in stolen goods. It’s really magnificent stuff, and it looks to me very like Cellini’s own work. S °U it i S w . orth anything up to three hundred shillings an ounce. So,

on the whole ,you had better keep it until we can find some extravagant fool of a foreign millionaire who will pay a fancy price for it, and won’t care twopence how it came into our possession, so long as we can assure him it is genuine. Surely you can hide it somewhere here.” “That’s certain,” Shute said. “Upon my word, Macglendy, that’s a very good suggestion. And mind you, Blythe, there is plentjy more where that came from.”

“Oh! you are going in for burgling, are you?” Blythe asked. “Nothing of the kind,” Shute said indignantly. “This is just a sort of side show, and I didn’t tell you anything about it, because I thought it was no business of yours. If that aristocratic stomach of yours is too dainty to come down to the midnight business, you need not touch it. But if you want to have a share in those saccharine profits, you will help us over Harley. The fact of the matter is we must have his yacht. We can’t get on without if. We have been managing for some little time with a clumsy old barge that belongs to a Frenchman. But lately he’s got the wind up and he refuses to go any further. It was only by means of threats that we have kept him with us as long as we have.” “Ah, I begin to understand,” Blythe said. “You need not be afraid of any interference on my part, but what I object to is being kept in the dark by my own partners. Now, why not sit quietly down and tell me the whole story? Give me names and places.”

“Well, it’s rather a long story Shute said. “And I have got

great many things to do before daylight. Mind you. I have got to keep up my reputation as a well-known traveller, and a hunter of big game, and, besides, I am very much behind in the book I am writing. I shall have to sit up most of the night getting ready for my secretary, who comes here every day to take down the work from dictation, and I must get certain chapters off to-morrow night. Why not go back in Macglendy’s car and discuss the whole

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tiling with him in Brunswick Square over a cigar and a drink??” It suited Blythe well enough to fall in with this arrangement. He knew perfectly well that Macglendy was the weaker and more pitiable rogue of the two, and that from him he would get far more information than ever he could squeeze out of Shute. “Very well,” he said. “That sounds quite satisfactory. But you don’t mean to tell me that you have managed to interest Mr. Harley in this business?”

“Lord, what do you take us for?” Shute asked angrily. “Harley is just a mug—a simple mug who fancies he knows something about card playing. He was down here a night or two ago ”

“What, playing cards with you two?” Blythe asked. “Poor chap! And how much did the bag run to?" “It didn’t come to anything, ma tere,’ ’Macglendy grinned cunningly. “That was not the game at all. He came here to teach us a trick or two, and win our money. At the end of the evening he had won nothing from either of us, but a whole lot from a friend of his called Prest. Then something went wrong with a card, and the ace of spades was missing from one of the packs.” “Ah, the old game,” Blythe smiled. “Blackmail, and all that sort of thing. Hush the thing up, lend us a few thousands for a little scheme of ours ”

“Net quite right,” Macglendy laughed. “We didn’t want to borrow anything, only the yacht. You can take it for granted that we have got Harley in the hollow of our hands, and can do anything we like with him. Once the yacht is in our possesion, we can do as we please with it, and he’ll never know what we are up to. At the present moment he looks upon us as the only two friends he has in the world. That ought to satisfy you.” For the moment at any rate it did.