The Bantyre Fortune

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 995, 11 June 1930, Page 5

The Bantyre Fortune

COPYRIGHT PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL - ARRANGEMENT

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FRANK PRICE

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS CHAPTERS I and ll.—Mark Seymour finds himself in an office where girls are busy typing:. He gives one of them his card, saving that lie wishes to speak to Mi. Garfield. She disappears, returning in a few seconds to say that Mr. Garfield will see him. Mark passes into an inner room where a tall, cadaverouslooking man, seated at a desk, bids him come to the point at once. Mark says that a man who lias been turned down has told him of a vacancy in that firm. Asked for his qualifications, lie says that he has been educated at Eton and Oxford, and he can learn. Garfield interrupts to tell him he is not the kind of man they want. There are thousands of men such as he in London, looking for jobs. “The door is behind you," finishes Garfield, and turns to his desk. Another door bursts open. A short, round-faced man announces: "She is coming. She is in a taxi now.” Spying a stranger, lie adds: “I thought you were alone.” "I shall be in two seconds,” Mr. Garfield replies. Mark reaches the street. A taxicab is drawn up to the kerb. A girl is in the act of paying the driver. Mark remembers the words spoken just before he left the room. Unconsciously he blocks the way, transfixed by her beauty. , A lad on a bicycle swerves. To save her, he seizes the handle-bars and swings the machine aside The boy dismounts and takes bis bicycle away. She acknowledges that Mark has saved her from a nasty accident. Then she discovers that his left trouser .is badly torn. He cannot go about in that plight. At her suggestion he gets into the taxi she has just vacated. She asks for his address, and he hands her his card. On the way he counts his money—four and sevenpence. Reaching his destination, he hands four and sixpence to the driver. Indoors he encounters his landlady, who demands ihe three weeks’ rent owing. He runs upstairs and locks himself in his room.. Faced with destitution, he realises he is hungry. Opening a chest of drawers, he takes out a dinner-suit, with etceteras. An hour afterward he enters the magnificent dining-room of the Hotel Riche. CHAPTER 111. (Continued.) “It can be done if we find tbe right man, but he must be right and unless we do find him we shall be in tlie soup!” Mark glanced over his shoulder, meeting a scowling look as tbe speaker realised that be had been overheard. He was a big, gross man with a broad, flat face and little piggy eyes. There were three people with him; two men of whom Mark got only an indistinct impression, and a young woman whose appearance held him for a fraction of a second. Tall, slim and daringly gowned, she was well worth looking at, with dusky eyes and full red lips showing up vividly against the warm colour of her oval face. She was looking at him, and as their glances crossed she leaned slightly toward him with something like the dawn of an invitation in her eyes, but he turned away. He was in no mood to concern himself with women and, if he had been, she was not the tvpe that would appeal. There was another type. But that thought was rigorously repressed. For the sake of his sanity he must not think of that other girl in his_ present circumstances. He finished his soup and went on to a sole, wonderfully served with a sauce, for which the chef of the Riche v.as famous. The room was humming with the light talk of people feeding well and at peace with the world; but everv now and then a word or two would impinge on his ear in that hard, metallic voice from the table behind. He was not really noticing, yet was sub-consciously aware that whenever this happened a sudden drop in tone followed, as if in response to a warning from without or an inward monition that what was being said must not be allowed to reach ears for which it was not intended. A vague notion that secrets were being discussed among those four must have been forming in his mind when, as the waiter was again |

The buzz of conversation waxed and waned, stray -words coming to him occasionally from all sides with, ever and anon, the strident tones of the big man behind him swelling up only to be sharply checked. Several times the names, “Bantyre,” “Garfield” and “Cousins” reached him, and he tried to hear what was being said of them but without success. Evidently the girl and her companions were being discussed but quite as evident the nature of the discussion was intended to be secret. As well as his preoccupation with his own ghastly position would permit he recalled the few’ particulars gathered from the out-of-xvork clerk, a casual encounter with whom, at a coffee stall, had sent him on his unsuccessful errand to the offices of Henry M. Bantyre and Company. He seemed to remember hearing that Henry M. Bantyre himself had been dead for some time and that Wayne Garfield, as managing director, was now the guiding genius of the firm; but he had paid no attention to

changing his plates, the big man’s voice sounded with a sharp note of excitement:

“Talk of the devil! There they are —Wayne Garfield and Hector Cousins together—and the girl is with them —- Naomi Ban tyre herself!” Mark Seymour looked toward the entrance and his heart seemed to stop beating. Three people had just come in; the man who had so harshly turned down his: application for employment that afternoon; the rubicund little person who burst in on them so excitedly with the news that “she” was on her way to the office in a taxi, and —the girl! He stared at her with dropped jaw and a dreadful sinking sensation at the pit of the stomach noting, ev’er* in his panic, how flawless her loveliness was and w r it,h what fairy grace she moved with her companions to a table reserved for them. Bare arms and neck showed creamy white against the delicate shell pink of a frock whose simplicity gave the last touch of distinction to the effect she made But it was not that, nor the faint, almost imperceptible shade of disquiet ruffling the flower-like beauty of her face that impressed him most. It was something more subtle, that which. had seized him so instantly when he first saw her in the street; the atmosphere which seemed to radiate from her, intimation of inward harmonies combining all the qualities that make a woman desirable and worthy of a man’s devotion. She sat down hidden by intervening diners, and shame and despair gripped him. Hunger had fled and the quail in aspic confronting him on a silver dish inspired a sensation of nausea. He cursed himself for yielding to the temptation only the semi-delirium of starvation could explain, and was rising to recall the waiter and make an instant end of the mad business when he got a glimpse of the girl’s face where she sat. She w r as looking in his direction and he sank back quickly into his chair. He dare not invite the culmination of his folly if she were to be a spectator of his disgrace. That must be prevented somehow. He swallowed the wine brimming in his glass and forced himself to eat, plodding slowly through the elaborate menu so meticulously chosen, masticating each mouthful as thoroughly as though he were a food crank religiously counting his bites, in the hope that he could lengthen his meal so that she and her party would finish and depart before he had to give himself aw r ay; but for all the satisfaction he got from it now he might have been eating straw’.

anything but the fact that there was a job going and that if he put on a bold front he might get it. Who Hector Cousins was or what tvas the relation between Naomi Bantyre and the deceased titular chief, he had no idea. His daughter, perhaps? If so. considering the standing of the firm, she must be very rich. Well, that was as it should be! She who was the quintessence of the best the world could produce should have nothing less than the best the world could give. But what an infinite difference the possession or the lack oh money could make! He had always known that, accepting it as he did other platitudes, but had never realised its full significance until now. Th 6 mere fact that she had money and ho had none set a chasm between them he could never hope to bridge. He dragged his meal out, lingering over meat, trifling with a sweet, nibbling at cheese and taking an unconscionable time to dispatch the savoury. At last he reached the coffee stage and a man came along pushing a wagon with cigars and cigarettes. Mark refused him with an inward groan. A smoke would have steadied his nerves for the crisis which must come very soon now, but he would have been expected to pay cash for the luxury and that w’ould have precipitated the climax he was bent on postponing. The man moved on and Mark saw Wayne Garfield on his feet across the room. Cousins rose and the girl stood up, pausing for a look round before leaving the table. Many diners had departed and she had a clear view of all who remained Mark was caught unawares. He was staring at her. drinking in tiV sight of her without a thought of con-

sequences, when their eyes met and she recognised him. There had been something wistful, almost frightened, in her glance as it roved round the big, empty hall. It was as though she were oppressed by a sense of loneliness and a foreboding of impending evil and were seeking desperately for the support of a friendly face. A sudden light shone in her eyes as sue saw Mark and she made a quick movement as though to go to him. Wayne Garfield, following the direction of her glance, scowled as he, too, recognised Mark, and, laying his hand almost roughly on Naomi’s arm, spoke to her. She checked her movement as though suddenly recalled to a sense of her surroundings and stood for a moment as though caught between two minds. Cold sweat broke out on Mark Seymour’s forehead. Was she suggesting that she should cross and speak to him? He couldn’t stand that. All he wanted was that she should go from that place as quickly as possible. Again the girl seemed on the point of moving toward him when Cousins spoke to her, holding out his arm so that she could see the watch on his plump wrist. She looked at it, and seeming to resign herself to the inevitable, sent a little smile of wistful friendliness which dazzled him to Mark and went from the room. The two men followed her, and Mark sat back, every nerve tingling, and his terrors obliterated by the suggestion of intimacy conveyed by that look. A hoarse whisper came from behind him. "Did you get that? If it wasn’t the glad eye, I never saw one!” “It was that!” The man with the metallic voice was speaking. “She

was laying herself wide open for ” He dropped to inaudibility as though he had been checked, and nothing but murmurs could be heard. Mark sat up with clenched fists. How dare these brutes speak of her thus with their coarse, vulgar voices? It was desecration, and the impulse to spring up and rend them almost overwhelmed him. But he got hold of himself in time. He could not interfere without exposing her name to comment more public than theirs had been, and ■when it came out on what terms he was there he would figure as a pretty champion of dames! No! He had his own troubles, and it was time to face them. He emptied his coffee cup, drained the last drops of his liqueur, and signalled the waiter to bring the bill. CHAPTER IV. THE UNEXPECTED The waiter presented the bill on a salver, and began to clear the table. Mark Seymour took up the slip, looked at the total—it was even bigger than he had expected—and flipped the paper back on the tray. “I can’t pay that,” he said. “Pardon?” The waiter paused with his hand on the sugar basin and regarded him politely.

“I can't pay that.” Mark repeated the -words with careful distinctness. The man looked at the bill, picked it up and ran over the items. “Monsieur questions the addition?” he asked with a pained expression. “Not at all. I haven’t checked it and it doesn’t matter in the least whether it is right or wrong. I can’t pay it. I haven't a bean —not a sou.” He tried to make his statement absolutely clear. The waiter fell back a step, raising his hands with a dramatic gesture, and goggling as though he had suddenly encountered some strange and hitherto undreamt of creature. Presently an indulgent smile brightened his face and he said: “Monsieur amuses himself to make such a choke.” “I was never more serious in my life.” Mark was trying to be patient though inwardly cursing the man for hanging things up. “I mean exactly' what I say. I haven't a penny to pay

you with. What are you going to do about it?” The waiter was convinced at la.-t. His jaw dropped and the bill, slipping from his unnerved fingers, fluttered to the floor behind Mark's chair. "But this is brigandage!" he •x----claimed. “It is an affair of the police! ” “Then make it so!” snapped Mark, his patience giving way. “And be quick about it. I don’t want to be kept here all night!” The waiter was evidently uncer'ain how he ought to act in this unprecedented situation. His popping eyes wandered from Mark and fastened on the head waiter near the door. (To be Continued Tomorrow