JEWELS OF MALICE

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1025, 16 July 1930, Page 5

JEWELS OF MALICE

COPYRIGHT

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

by

ELLIOT BAILEY

Author o# ’• J«Danes* Parasol 'The Gir> *i» Yellow ~ ” The Spider.” etr_ *u.

CHAPTER I. “A race, by Jove!” Bruce Lorimer raised himself on his elbow and from his recumbent position on the cliffs gazed down with some excitement on the opal, sunsettinted sea through which two motorboats were tearing in single file. The leading—and smaller—one contained a single figure, a girl whose dark shingled head was uncovered and whole slim body was bent tensely forward as she held the tiller. From time to time she turned and with evident anxiety surveyed the craft astern. The latter held three men. Obviously the swifter and more powerful vessel, it was gaining fast, a fact noted by Bruce with a certain regret. He voiced it to himself. “They’ve got her beaten,” he murmured, "no doubt of that—hello, what the dickens ?”

His exclamation was prompted by a sudden and unexpected manoeuvre on the girl's part. Hardly forty yards separated the two boats when, without slackening speed, she flung over the tiller, swept round at right angles, and headed for the shore. Bruce sprang to his feet.

“The little idiot!” he muttered. ‘ She’ll run on the rocks as sure as fate.”

Advancing to the very edge of the cliff, he craned over in momentary fear of seeing his prophecy fulfilled, even involuntarily shouting a vain warning before he realised that after all she knew wbat she was doing. Between the jagged reefs and rocks that strewed the foreshore was just one narrow strip of clear sand, and it was toward this that she was making ,v ith an unerring precision which showed how well she knew the coast, her engine shut off now and the boat gliding forward with its own momentum.’

The men in the other craft did not attempt to follow her, sweeping foiward on their former course, but as the nose of her launch grounded gently in the sand a startling thing happened. From the pursuing boat there came the crack of two pistol-shots, and Bruce distinctly heard the thud of the bullets as. almost simultaneously, they buried themselves in the cliff below. He started aghast!

“Good, lord!” he exclaimed. “They must have fired at her—fired at her deliberately. There’s something going ““here I’d better get the hang of.” He glanced down at the motor-launch below, to see that it was now empty. At the first shot, the girl had scrambled to shore over the bows and the overhanging cliff prevented Bruce from spotting -her present whereabouts. That, however, he meant to learn. At some distance along the cliff from where he stood a precarious footpath i e( j to t j, e s i lore it was not a descent that in the ordinary way he "ould have cared to tackle,- but curi°B«y- and something more than curiosity—concern for the girl below urged him on. There was just the chance that one of those bullets might •r«r 6 st;ruo * £ something else beside the cliff—a grim thought that he tried to «cep at bay. Not without some danger of a fall, ?? reached the foot at last and made “js way over the rocks toward the Place where the launch had grounded. He saw the girl before she noticed “■m. She was lying behind the con ce&lment of a rock, her gaze fixed sea“rds as if she expected to see the second boat come nosing in toward the sandy spit, and in her hand she htV a tiny revolver. A pebble rolling beneath Bruce's foot apprised her of his presence, and nstantly she sprang to her feet and *ced him, the revolver raised. , Who are you?” she asked crisply. A“u w-hat do you want?” Bruce laughed. He liked this girl “t sight, he told himself, noting the I( fc grey eyes, the small, straight nose, the firm chin, and the lissom sure set off by her grey juniper suiL “ spite of the pistol there was no hint °f Panic or even fear in her demean°ur - Indignation and resolution

there were, and an obvious determination to keep this tall, fair young man at a distance until he had satisfactorily accounted for himself—an attitude which, under the circumstances, Bruce felt that he could understand.

“I saw you from the cliffs,” he explained, "and came down in case I could help you. I say, those chaps in the other boat fired at you, didn’t they? Whatever for?” She regarded him fixedly, and apparently the result of the scrutiny was more or less satisfactory for she, ceased to cover him with the revolver though, for the uonce she still kept it in her hand.

“Yes,” she admitted slowly, "they undoubtedly fired at me—and I think I know what for.”

But then, to Bruce's disappointment, she stopped, and he realised that he was not to be told the reason. "The brutes!” he said indignantly. “I’d like to get my hands on them. Who are they?” It was her turn to smile. “It sounds ridiculous, of course,” she murmured, "but —I don’t know.”

Bruce stared. "You don’t know!” he echoed incredulously. “But surely—?” __ “I ought to, eh? Still, one doesn’t generally know the bandits who rob one on dry land does one? Why they pursued me is another matter I can guess that. However,”,she added, iu a changed tone that told him afresh that she did not mean to take him into her confidence, “there’s no need for me to saddle you with my troubles. It was very, good of you to risk your neck down the cliff to help me, and I'll at least be grateful enough to let you ‘see me home’ —I live just round the bluff at the head of Millsea Inlet, t don't think we’ll find those others waiting outside for us. The sound of their engine seemed to die away iu the distance.” Bruce woudered. The projecting cliffs on either side of the tiny bay in which they were, blocked out all view of the sea save straight ahead. They would not know until they were round the bluff she spoke of, whether trouble awaited them.

At any rate, there was no apparent sign of the other boat, and after ascertaining that Bruce was more than willing to accompany her Nancy Hylton turned toward the launch. She had slipped the pistol into the side pocket of her jumper coat, but Bruce noticed that she still grapsed something which all along she had been holding in her left hand. She had almost reached the ‘strip of sand when her foot slipped on a slime-covered stone. Instinctively she flung her arms into the air to preserve her balance, and wbat she had been holding shot from her grasp—a small leather bag. from which, in mid-air there emerged something that that seemed for a moment to flash green flame before it reached the ground. Bruce stooped and picked it up—to find in his fingers the most magnificent string of emeralds he had ever seell —stones which appeared to collect in their depths the whole dying light of the sunset, and then re-emit it, intensified a hundredfold, as if in mockery of the roseate skies above —stones, he reflected, for the possession of which some men would commit any crime. He handed the necklace back to the girl, his steel-blue eyes probing her face. "So that,” he said gravely,” is why those shots were fired.” CHAPTER If. Snatching the necklace from him, she thrust it back iuto the bag which she had picked up herself with a movement that was almost, furtive. Something more than annoyance showed in her face at this contretemps, and without a word of explanation she turned and stepped over the gunwale of the launch. "Push her off.” she said curtly, “if you are coming.” Bruce was coming—he was very sure of that. The whole incident had gripped his imagination, and he

meant to see it through. The gravity was still stamped on his face, however, for the disclosure of those wonderful jewels had touched a chord of memory he found disturbing. Exactly what it was eluded him at the moment, but glancing at the girl he wondered at her silence.

Pushing off was an easy matter, for the sea, calm as a river, was creeping in, and the launch was almost afloat again. The girl started the engine, and with a skilful avoidance of the rocks which earned his • admiration, turned the boat and headed for the open sea. Bruce’s thoughts reverted then to the former problem. Would the other craft be waiting for them round the headland?

The question was quickly answered. At first there seemed nothing before them but a wide stretch of empty ocean, and then, far away, they saw a dark speck already disappearing into the hazy distance. It was evident that the others, whoever they were, had elected not to wait. Bruce heard a little sigh of relief come from his companion, and once more she turned shoreward toward the narrow Millsea Inlet which, in appearance like an estuary, pierced the land for close upon a mile. “Well, that’s that,” he observed cheerfully. "You’re not going to be made a target of any more.” Her face lightened, and at last she broke the silence she had maintained so long. “Do you know,” she said abruptly, "you haven’t told me your name yet.” Bruce started. In the excitement of all that had occurred this formality had not crossed his mind. He remedied it now. Very solemnly he took a card from a case in his pocket and handed it to her. On Jt she read his name and that of a wellknown literary club, and at once regarded him with quickened interest. "So you are Bruce Lorimer, the author?” “Guilty,” Bruce said.

Once more he noted her flitting expression of relief, and it struck him later it must have been because she realised that he was someone in whom after all, she could confide. Her next words proved it. “Then,” she said, “now that I know who you are, and since you've been such an angel, I think I ought to give you some explanation of what must have been puzzling you badly—that is if it won’t bore you.”

“It certainly won’t do that,” Bruce assured her.

“Very well, then, here goes. In some ways it’ll sound like a plot as curious as any of your own. My name, by the way, is Nancy Hylton, and I live with my aunt at the Mill House, which you can just see ahead among the trees. Well, a year or two ago, I knew a man called James Baxter. He was nearly sixty, but foolish enough to fall in love with me. I refused him more than once, and in the end he took it so badly —he had a violent temper—that I had to break off all communication with him. Three months ago he died, and in his will he left me the emerald necklace you saw just now—with the extraordinary proviso that I must keep it always in my own personal possession, either o-n my person or in my house —I must not bank it or otherwise place it in safe storage. If there is any breach of these conditions it becomes the property of his lawyer, Joseph Gregory, to whom by the way, I have to show it weekly. Should I fail to produce it on any occasion it becomes his property.”

“Good lord,” Bruce exclaimed, “what insane conditions! Of course it ought to be locked up. It must be worth—some thousands.” ‘

“Many thousands,” the girl cor reeled gravely. “The stones are wonderful.”

“I could see that. Can’t you sell it ?” She shook her head. “No, that, too, is barred by the terms of the will. Otherwise I would for the conditions make the bequest nothing less than a tihite elephant. Which brings me to another curious fact.

“I was staying with friends in London when the necklace was handed over to me, and had hardly had it a week -when returning late from a party I found a masked man in my room. He vaulted out of the window when I appeared, and I found that the whole room had been ransacked. Fortunately I’d handed over the necklace to my hostess to keep, without telling her what the package contained. She’s an ultra nervous body, so I made light of the affair since nothing had been taken and I was leaving next morning. Before coming down here, however, I wangled this small revolver from a man cousin of mine on some pretext or other, but nothing happened till this evening.” (To be continued tomorrow)