The Bannatyne Sapphires

Taranaki Daily News, 7 October 1929, Page 14

The Bannatyne Sapphires

By

FRANK HIRD

I shall stay here where I am,” Patricia replied defiantly. “If you don’t go where Wryce tells you I shall break your husband’s arm, Leofalda said, raising Meredith’s wrist slightly as ho spoke. “He’s doing it, the brute!” Meredith muttered, his. f acQ contorted with pain. This was intolerable. Patricia crossed to the wall and sank down on the rushbottomed chair standing against it, covering her eyes with her hands. “You move from there at your peril!” ' Wryce said to .her, and then in Spanish to Bartwell:— “Go into the villa and get a couple of = sheets from one of the beds.” . Meredith expected to see the man pass - them, and go through the passage to the painted door, but he went out through the opening in the wall to the inner room. In the. brief interval before his return, front tlie rapid conversation between Wryce and Leofalda, Meredith learnt what was to befall Patricia and himself. They were to be tied up with the sheets and left in this underground place when 'the three men went away with the jewels. A chill of horror came over him. Better Leofalda’s pistol than this. If only he could 'get his arm free he could at least make a fight for it. Involuntarily he made a movement. Instantly, Leofalda’s pressure oh his wrist was re- ' doubled, and again his arm was slightly raised, -and lib felt the sickening pain. When Bartwell returned with the sheets ho and Wryce began to, tear them into strips, Leofalda calling to, them to ' hurry because he was tired of holding Meredith. When the sheets were torn up Leofalda took charge of the binding operation. . First, by gently pulling Meredith’s right wrist outwards, he forced the i young mail to kneel down. Then seizing.his left wrist, he; drew it behind his back, crossing it over his right wrist. Whilst. Leofalda held the two wrists in a grasp which Meredith struggled vainly •to shake off, Wryce tied a strip of ■ sheet round and round, and over and over them, knotting the ends again and again. “ Next, Leofalda said, ft strip must be ■ wound round Meredith’s body, just above the elbows, fastening his arms down to his sides in case he got his hands free. This was done. “Now another round his ankles, so that he can’t kick. And see,” said Leo- ' falda, pushing Meredith over on to his side, “if we fasten his ankles, to the leg of the bench he can’t move.” Taking a strip, of sheet from BartWell Leofalda slipped it under the strip already knotted round Meredith’s ankles and tied it securely to the leg of the bench. He lay facing the wall, and could not see what was happening to Patricia, ' but he realised, from her protestations and Wryce’s angry orders directing her to keep still if she didn’t want to be hurt, that they were tying her to the chair. He could not turn his head sufficiently round to see. But one thing he could see, and that was the end of Mrs. Bannantyne’s necklace hanging just oyer the edge of the bench, and exactly above him. When Leofalda had jerked it out of his hand it had partially unrolled and fallen across the strings of pearls. He could see the light through the big sapphire which was part of the clasp. “Now we are safe;” he.heard Leofalda say. “Neither of them can stir. Have we got everything out of the boxes?” ' “Yes,” said Wryce, “everything is here except what Santo is bringing from •Ajaccio. He ought to be here soon. Bartwell, finish those.” Ho pointed to the jewels beside the square of wash-leather at the farther 'Zend of the table. Bartwell drew up one of the rushbottomed chairs and, sitting down, began to break the settings and take the stones from a magnificent diamond bracelet. _ From where she sat, her febt tied to

th© legs of her chair, and her arms bound to her side by a wide strip of sheeting which went two or three times round the chair back, Patricia could see Bartwell working. He was deft and skil-. ful in the use of the delicate tools, but she saw that the unsetting of each stone was a slow process. Leofalda had sat down before the centre square of wash-leather, but his back was. towards her, and she could jiot see wliat he was doing. Wryce had gone into the inner room. He came back with two suit cases. These he placed on the floor between Meredith and Patricia’s chair. He opened one. It was full of clothes. Taking hold of either side he pulled out what appeared to be the inside'of the case. This, packed full of clothes, he put on one side. Then Patricia saw that the case had a false bottom. It was divided into squares by lines of black tape fixed across white velvet, and in each square of velvet were rows of little holes. Patricia soon discovered their object. Taking the tray of loose stones from the wash-leather " square at which Leofalda was working, Wryce knelt down in front of the suit case and began dropping the stones into the little holes in the squares, diamonds in one, rubies in another, pearls in a third, and so on—•each jewel had- its own square. Wryce had emptied the tray from Lcofalda’s place and was about to take up the one in front of Bartwell, when he turned quickly, in the opening and said: “Santo, is that you ' “Yes, Monsieur,” said Santo, appearing in the opening. “Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!” he cried,* standing aghast, when he saw Meredith- and Patricia tied and bound. “How did these people get here?” Wryce asked sternly. “I cannot tell—it is a mystery.” - Santo stood utterly dismayed, clutching at the shabby attache case Meredith had seen him carrying into the town. , , “Unless—unless,” he stammered. “Ah, yes, that must be it! I lost the key of the outer d-oor from my watch chain a month ago, somewhere in the garden. They have found it. That must be it. They have found it.” «’Did you find the key?” Wryce asked Meredith, stooping over him. “No.” said Meredith, “Jacques Marini gave it to me.” “Impossible!” burst out Santo, “he is hiding in the mountains with a price on his head. He shot his wife and another . man.” , . . “les, because you told him a lie,” Patricia called from her chair. Then to Wryce: “We saw Jacques in the mountains. He gave us the key and told us about the painted door. And he told us. too, how Santo had ruined him becau-.’.’ he bed f 1 door.”

“Mon Dieu! Mon Mieu!” Santo cried, “now is it possible that you two strangers could have seen Jacques in hiding with the gendarmes all round him? What she says is true, Monsieur; so they must have seen him. There was nothing else to be done. Jacques had. to be got rid of. I knew he was spying on me, and one day, after I lost the kej, Maria saw him at the bottom of the ravine close to the door. „ It was dangerous to have him here.” “Why didn’t you tell me about Jacques?” Wryce asked. “Such things are not to bo written, monsieur,” the man answered, “and this is the first time I have seen you. Monsieur arrived after Maria and I went o bed last night.” Leofalda and Bartwell had turned in their chairs. . . “We are wasting time,” said the Mexican. “Is there much from the jeweller? “Yes, there is much,” Santo answered, putting the shabby attache case on the end of the bench and opening it. “But I have a message from him, mohsieur. “That jeweller has many friends in Ajaccio, monsieur,” Santo continued speaking slowly and obviously, considering his words. “One of them is in the Post Office, only a small official, it is true, but this man heard a high official say that the jeweller was receiving more parcels of jewels by post than he could possibly sell in so small a place as this, and at a time of the year when there are no tourists. Therefore, he is afraid, and says he will have no more parcels. “I told him monsieur had arrived late last night by motor, and was leaving again to-day for Bastia, so he had bettei come up and see you. He said he would not, because another friend had told him the police might-make a perquisition in the villa any day. More he would not sav, except that someone had been talking,‘arid he would take no risks. And one thing else, monsieur.” Wryce, white and shaken, was leaning against the bench. '■ ‘The jeweller asked me if anyone in Ajaccio knew that monsieur Leofalda had come here in the dark, not by road, but by the path, and that your servant, who had never been in Corsica before, had come by train from Mastia in the afternoon, and he, too, had come to the villa after dark. He asked what you w A re doing at the villa. I told him you had worked most of the night breaking up the jewels. He said: “ ‘Tell monsieur from me that he will be wise to get away as quickly as he can, before anybody knows he is in Ajaccio.’ ” “They can make a dozen perquisitions!” Wryce cried, “but they’ll never find these rooms! I shall stay!” (To be continued.)