The Bannatyne Sapphires

Taranaki Daily News, 30 September 1929, Page 14

The Bannatyne Sapphires

By

Above and below the finger-mark> and (the flaked-off patches of paint, the surface of the canvas was unbroken by any hole; nor were there any signs of hinges, or. cracks in the canvas to show where the door opened. It presented as plain a surface as if it were the piece of rock it pretended to be. j Meredith examined the fingoT-mar.cs tv’ain. Then, , pushing aside a long trail of honeysuckle, he saw that the painted canvas stood out two or three inches from the face of an actual piece of rock, in the middle of this projection, and in a line with the finger-marks, was a small keyhole. He pointed it out in silence to Patricia. Both were too excited to speak. ■ Meredith took from his waistcoat pocket the little key which., Jacques had given .him in the stone hovel. It fitted the' lock exactly. One turn, and a portion of the painted canvas swung outward; showing a plain wooden door behind it. Meredith saw at once why no break appeared on the face of the canvas. / The painted doorfitted like a wooden frame, built in front of the inner door, the canvas edges being cleverly arranged to cover the top, bottom and sides, so that when it was closed the painting looked like a solid mass bf rock from top to bottom. This painted door was made of iron. .The inner wooden door had neither , lock nor handle and’swung inwards when Meredith pushed it, disclosing a narrow dark'passage beyond., 'Patricia had brought an electric torch, and whilst Meredith held the door open she flashed it down the passage, the light showing, another door at tho far end; < ;Thjs door had a handle and led .immediately into a square room of considerable size. The electric torch revealed that the fldor, walls, and vaulted ceiling were all of stone—cut like the . passage out of the solid Cock: , ' /“By Jove!” Meredith■ whispered,. tak< ing the torch from Patricia and pointing it;’ towards the ceiling. “Look, there’s electric light!” : Hanging from one of .the groins of the’, roof was an electric bulb covered with an unusually big white glass shade, the wires running across' the. face of the stone. z .“There must bo a-switch somewhere,” he said, throwing the light on the wire, and following it across the roof and down-the side of the wall,/until it ended at the side 'of a buttress near the.door, “Hero it is.” Ho touched the switch,. , arid instantly the room was flooded with light.' - ? • - Neither Patricia nor Meredith had formed any definite idea as to what they expected to find when they penetrated- beh ihd the secret door. But a fter what Wryce had said to his sister at Brentland of their stolen horde being kept at the villa, and Japques’s account of- Sarito always carrying a bag or small suitcase on his mysterious visits, both had felt convinced that the key which had como into their possession through Jacques’s tragedy would disclose the hiding place at least of Mrs, Bannantyne’s necklace. Now, as they looked round the stone walls under the-brilliant light, both were' seized , with keenest disappointment. Save for A. long wooden Bench against

FRANK HIRD

| the wall on the right hand side of the door, and four clumsy, rush-bottomed chairs, there was nothing except three electric candle-lamps standing together at one end of the bench, each with an electric wire wound round and round its stem, and each with a wide green shade lined with white. “I wonder what these are for?” Meredith said, picking up one of the lamps. “They must be used on the bench. There’s a plug at the end of each wire, and three plugs in the wall. Do you see —one in the centre, and one at each end?” .... • ' He. unwound the wire from one of the lamps and put the plug in the socket. An unusually powerful light shone down on the bench in a sharp and clearlydefined circle. “Are they the sort ot lamps jewellers use?” Patricia said. ' “I should say they are identical,” was Meredith’s grim reply. - Meredith had lighted the lamp at the far end of the bench. Deflected downwards by the dark-green shade, the rays shone out beyond the bench and struck the "wail beyond. It . was only then they .noticed that the end wall did not - join the side wall against which the bench stood, and that there was a narrow opening between the two. Meredith turned on the torch.’ The light showed ' another robin beyond’, much smaller than the. first, and with a 'shadeless electric globo handing from the ceiling. The switch was near- the opening, and -when ho had turned it on Meredith exclaimed: “Patricia!. I believe we’ve found . Wryce’s hoard at last!” The inner room was bare of furniture, but-piled against the farther -wall were . a number of stout wooden cases of various sizes. Tho top ones, which were smaller than ones below, bore the name of a well-known firm of champagne growers. Meredith took hold of one of t’. o cases. Although straw was sticking out from under the lid, and it had the appearance of holding at least a dozen bottles of champagne, the box was quite ijight. • He lifted it up and put it down on the floor. Then he tried every case, and found he could lift each one without effort, even tho largest. Every case, they saw,' boro the name of some wine grower. “That’s clever," Meredith remarked. “If .you didn’t touch those cases you’d swear they were full of wine bottles, just stored away in a cellar until they were wanted. Now let’s see if we can open. them." . ’ But the cases differed, in one essential point from ordinary wine caseg, the lids Of which are nailed down and can be prised open. Every lid, Meredith, found, was screwed down so tightly that prising open was impossible. Nothing except a screwdriver would open them; The situation was tantalising. Both Meredith and Patricia were convinced that tho cases held Maxwell and Julia Wryce’s store of stolen jewels, and among them the Bannantyne necklace, and here they were actually under their hand,-.yet. shut away as securely as if they had-been: in an iron safe—and all for lack of a . screwdriver. (To be continued.)