VANDERDECKEN

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 532, 8 December 1928, Page 21

VANDERDECKEN

By

H. DE VEBE STACPOOLE.

CHAPTER XX (Continued.) The stage was already prepared for the farce; by now every paper in America would be setting up the story of how Tommie Coulthurst had been abducted. It only waited for these men to be dragged on as the abductors amidst a roar of laughter that would sound right round the world. She had read in the Los Angeles papers the humorous comments on them and their expedition, and now. this! No, it must not be. For a moment she looked back at the scene of the night before, finer than any scene in a cinema play, real, dramatic, heroic, yet seemingly based on absurdity—was it absurdity? Not •a bit —not unless the finer promptings of humanity were absurd and courage and daring ridiculous. They had risked a lot, these men, and she had never in her life before seen men in action. Ridicule of them would hit every fibre of her being. No, it must not be. Question was how to save them. "Say,” said Tonunie, suddenly clasping her knees tighter and looking up, “we’re in a tough tangle, aren’t we?” The others seemed to agree. “Sam Brown,” went on Tommie, “he’s one of the electric men at the Wallack Studios, caught a rat an’ put it in a flower pot with a slate on top and a weight on the slate and left it till next morning; he keeps dogs, an’ came to find it and it was gone, said it must have got out and put the slate back, and Wallack told us to remember that rat if we were ever cornered by difficulties in our work an’ take as our motto, ‘Never say die till you’re dead.’ Well, we’re in a tight place but we aren’t dead. Question is what’s the first thing to do?” “The first thing," said Hank, "why it’s to get you back safe.” “I’m safe enough,” said Tommie. “It’s not a question of safety s’ much as smothering this thing. S’pose we put back now to Santa Barbara, wher’d you be? No, the first thing is to get you time. I reckon that rat would have been eaten if he hadn’t had time to think his way out or if someone hadn’t foozled along and loosed him. What’s your plans? You said you were out after Vanderdecken, where’d you expect to catch him ?” Hank looked at Shan and noticed that he had turned away. “Well, it’s not him we are after now so much as his boodle,” said Hank. "We know where it’s hid and we want to get it.” "Where’s it hid?” “Place called the Bay of Whales down below Cape St. Lucas.” “How long will it take you to fetch there and back?” "About a fortnight, maybe.”

Tommie considered for a moment. "Well,” she said at last, “seems to me that the only thing to do is to go on till we meet some ship that’ll take me back. When I get back I’ll have to do a lot of lying, that’s all. Ten to one they’ll put this business down to Vauderdecken, and maybe I’ll say Vanderdecken took me and you collared me back from him —how’d that be?” Shan turned. He struck his right fist into his open left palm. “There’s more’n this than I can get the lie of,” said S.K., as if to hmiself. “What you say?” asked Tommie. “Oh, he means it’s a mlx-up,” said George. “But see here—we can’t do it.” “Which?” “We can’t put more on you than we’ve done already. I know, I was mean enough to want you to go on with us when I started that talk about our being guyed—it’s different now.” “Yep,” said- Hank. “Sure,” said Shan. “Have you done?” asked Tommie. “Well then I’m going on, where’s the damage? I’m used to the rough and the open. That film we were working on is finished, and I guess a few days’ holiday won’t do me any harm. B’sides, it works up the publicity. Why, every day I’m away is worth a thousand dollars to Wallacks, leaving myself alone. They’ll book that film in Timbuctoo. Do you see? It’s no trouble to me, why should you worry? Now I propose we get something to eat.” “But how about clothes,” asked George. “Which, mine? Oh. I reckon I’ll manage somehow. The thing that gets me is a toothbrush.” “Thank God,” said George. “Which?” “I’ve got four new ones,” said the millionaire. CHAPTER XXI.—THE NEW CHUM. The extraordinary thing about Miss Coulthurst was the absence and yet the presence of the feminine in her. Possessed of all the electrical properties of a woman and the ehummable properties of a man, this dangerous individual presiding at the breakfast table of the Wear Jack and dispensing tea to her captors created an atmosphere in which even the fried eggs seemed part of romantic adventure.

The sordid had dropped out of everything, fear of consequences had vanished for the moment, the shifting sunlight on the painted panellings, the glitter of the Tyrebuck tea things, the warm sea-scented air blowing through the skylight—everything bright and pleasant seemed to the hypnotised ones part of Tommie. There was no making conversation at the breakfast party. Shut up all night with no one to talk to, she did the talking, explaining first of all and staging for their consideration the people they had attacked the night before. Althusen was the biggest producer in Los Angeles —that is to say the world, and Moscovitch, the camera man, was on all fours with him, Mrs. Raphael was Julia Raphael, the actress, and the play was “The Chow and the Girl.” The hatchet men were real kai-gingh, and Tommie was the girl they were making ofl with, a.nd the scene on San Nicolas was not the end of the play but somewhere in the middle, for pictures are produced in sections, labelled and numbered, and sometimes the end sections are produced first. Tommie had been born on a ranch. She was quite free with her private history; Her father was Ben Coulthurst —maybe they’d heard of him. Well, anyway, he was well-known in Texas till he went broke and died and left Tommie to the care of an aunt who lived in San Francisco where Tommie was half smothered —she couldn’t stand cities —and maybe would have died if the movie business hadn’t come along and saved her. Fresh air stunts, as they knew, were her vocation, and she guessed she was made of india rubber, seeing up to this she had only broken one collarbone. Her last experience was dropping from an aeroplane on to the top of a sixty-mile-an-hour express. “I've seen you do that.” said Hank. “Made me sweat in the palms of mv hands.” Well, that was nothing; plane and express moving at the same speed it was as simple as stepping off the sidewalk; being thrown out of a window was a lot worse. She thanked her Maker she was born so small, but what got her goat was the nicknames her diminutive size had evoked. Some smartie on a Los Angeles paper had called her the “Pocket Artemis.” What was an Artemis, anyway? “Search me.” said Hank. "It’s a goddess,” said George, “same thing as Diana.” Well, she had made him apologise, anyhow Kearney alone took little part in the conversation. This gentleman, so ready in an emergency, seemed all abroad before the creature he had captured and carried off. He sat absorbing her without neglecting his food, and later on when she was on deck he appeared with half an armful of books. She was a hookworm in private life and had hinted at the fact, out of which S.K. made profit. “Here’s some books,” said he. “They aren't much, but they’re all we’ve got. That chair comfortable?”

Then they fell into talk, Shan taking his seat beside her on the deck and close to the little heap of books. They had scarcely spoken to one another at the breakfast table and now, all of a sudden, they were chatting together like magpies. Hank and George, smoking in the cabin down below, could her their voices through the skylight. “Wonder what she’d say if she knew,” said Hank in a grumbling tone. “Knew what?” asked George. “ ’Bout S.K. being Vanderdecken.” “Oh, she’d ten to one like him ail the better,” said George. “It’s his watch and I wish he’d quit fooling aud look after the ship.” “The ship’s all right,” said Hank. “What do you mean?” “You wouldn’t hurt her or break her on a rock not till she’s done with us; you couldn’t rip the masts out of her or put her ashore, not till she’s finished with us; she’s a mug tap and we’re the mugs. I believe Jake put a spell on her. W’hat’s to be the end of it? I tell you it makes me crawl down the back when I think of that junk. What made that blue-eyed squatteroo ram her like that for?” “Well, if he hadn’t, she’d have boarded us.” “Boarded us, be hanged! If he’d blame well stuck ashore at ’Frisco, we wouldn’t have landed at San Nicolas.” “Well, there's no use whining,” said George. “We’re in the soup—question is how to get out. W’e've got to collar that boodle first so’s to have something to show.” “Something to show—Lord! We’ll be shows enough.” “Well, strikes me since we went into such a damn-fool business —” Hank snorted. “Well, I didn't pull you in, you would butt in—it’s none of my fault.” “Who said it was?” “I’m not saying who said it was or who said it wasn’t—thing is, there's no use of complaining.” “I said that a moment ago.” "Oh, well, there you are—l’m going on deck.” Almost a quarrel and all because the Pocket Artemis was chatting to another man who had blue eyes—a blue-eyed squatteroo who was only yesterday good old S.K. The sea grew bluer. Day by day the Kuro Shiwo increased its splendour as the Wear Jack, at a steady ten knot clip, left the latitude of Guadeloupe behind, raising Eugenio Point and the heathazy coast that stretches to Cape San Pablo. (To be continued.)