Four Flush Island

Taranaki Daily News, 18 April 1935, Page 15

Four Flush Island

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CHAPTER XXX (continued).

“I guess you’re going to get all that’s cornin’ to you before we’re through, anyway,” he said viciously. “Only—just don’t get fresh. I’m not arguin’, I’m tellin’ you. Don’t get fresh.” . At this point Stagsden broke in: “Aw, cut it out, Lem,” he said urgently. Apparently he wasn’t so confident of the position as his companion; inclined to become panicky, it struck Natalie. “We didn’t come - here to hold a debatin’ society. What good do you think you’re doin’ arguin’ with a couple of females who’re mad as wet hens because their sweeties are playin’ Crusoe an’ Man Friday on an uninhabited island, anyway?” Platt chuckled fatly: “That’s right, Stag,” he admitted. “You’ve no education to speak of, so' you’re just a shade crude, but that doesn’t stop you gettin’ down to brass tacks . . . Take that early morning smoke smudge, for instance, followed by. what’s known as a policy of masterly inactivity.Not far from genius, that wasn’t. They was bound to make a raid the first dark that happened along.” He turned, from Stagsden to the girls. “So all for us to do was just to float off quietly after; dark an’ stick around under cover of the bank here'until they put off, give ’em reasonable time to get well in among-the frees, on their way to rush our camp, follow across to the island an’ paddle down the beach ’till we spotted their canoe, swipe it, an’ come across here an’ take possession. Simple as failin’ off a log it was, an’ like most simple plans it worked as accurate as a strikin’ .clock.” Platt was right. Kit had fallen into a cleverly baited trap; Platt had pulled the string that closed the exit, and now everything was plain sailing for the marauders. With the , admission her anger grew. “If you think you’re going to find any gold in this shack,” she said, "you’re in for a disappointment.” There, was a .perceptible pause before he replied. In spite of his present triumph she suspected' that the situation was not altogether clear. +o him.' “You mean you’ve hid.it some .place else?” he said, his voice rasping. > Realising that she had him guessing she sought to press her advantage. “I mean what I say,” she .said: practically. “There’s no gold here.” He looked at her so intently that his small eyes all but disappeared. His concentration was disturbed at last by Stagsden; neither his hands nor his eyes had been still for a moment since the conversation started. .' 1 ' ? ‘ . “Aw, let’s get dowri to it!” he said impatiently. “Don’t you see they’re tryin’ to string you. Of course the gold’s here. No person's left the shack since Johnnie Bill beat it, arid ,we know he hadn’t it.” Natalie started. “How do you know that?” she asked more breathlessly than she realised. Platt grinned unpleasantly. “Well, we know,, anyway,” he said in a tone that showed that his mind had been jerked suddenly to alertness. She felt the blood drain from her face at the thought of what might have happened to Johnnie Bill. These men were killers, and Platt in. particular desperate through the loss of his hoard in London. His voice broke in: “If it’s here, we mean to have it.”Natalie said, tensely: “What have you done to Johnnie Bill?” “Done to him?” The fat man tried to look amused, but the attempt was more forced than usual. “Not a thing. Asked him a question, and just left him.” With this assurance, and for what it was worth, she was obliged to content herself, and return to’ what for him was the main question. “If you can find any gold in or- about this shack you’ll be clever,” she said. “And lucky,” she added. Again those little eyes bored into hers; scrutinising, analysing. It occurred to her that not only was he wondering if she spoke the truth, but that there was some point in particular upon which he was anxious for information. “Do you mean it’s, gone already?” he jerked quickly. “That—that —Pearce got away with it?” This was the moment when, had she stopped to think, Natalie was presented with the only chance of that night, one which quickly seized upon might have extricated her from a situation that was more dangerous, even, than it appeared. But she was too enraged by the blatant callousness of the intruders to find room for constructive thought.

“Got away with it!” she said derisively, and for the moment failed, to interpret the warning pressure of Betty’s foot against her own. “You can take it from me that anything he got away with wasn’t gold,” she supplemented viciously. “You mean,” he cried, “that the yellerlegs took him —that he’s behind the bars right now?”

It was Betty who/broke in, speaking quickly and breathlessly. “No. Johnnie Bill took him off some place—just where we don’t know. But you can take it from me he’d no gold with him.”

Though they could see that he was both puzzled and dissatisfied, the apprehension died gradually from Platt’s unwieldly face. “Ah, well,” he said at last as if temporarily dismissing the subject. “Just so long as the yeller-legs haven’t corralled him.” His tone harked back to menace. “It’s lucky for that Cree we didn’t know two-three days ago, he’d got Pearce.” Here Stagsden broke in: “Say, Lem,” he said hurriedly, “why not you just fade away an’ leave me to get on with the job!” He paused. “If not we’ll have those yeller-legs to deal with.” Platt made a derisive gesture.

“Yeller-legs .nothing,” he said contemptuously. ‘‘How’ll they get 'here? Swim?” Stagsden’s voice was not so much derisive as apprehensive. Apparently he was not without a certain respect for these “yeller-legs.” “I shouldn’t wonder,” he said. it 11 get Champneys goat to find his canoe

L. C. Douthwaite)

gone, and when Kit’s mad he don’t stop to think like a policeman should. You’ve got .to remember he’s left his sweetie here. That’s goin’ to get- him snortin’ fire. And there’s Tim Saville. He’s no baby either when it comes to a roiighhOusc, and his sweetie’s here as well.” The fat man’s grin broadened unpleasantly. ' “Don’t worry,” he said with confidence. “There’s all sorts bf time' yet. From where they landed it’ll take an hour to Boy Scout. their way through to our camp—or where they think is our camp. Then they’ve to get Rack to where they left the canoe. Even after that they’ve two miles to swim—if they do swim.” He shrugged his unweildly shoulders again. ■’

The other, however, was not so confident. He was the lesser rogue by just so much as he was the greater coward. “All right for you!” he said truculently. “While I hold the dog here you’ll be over the hills arid far away.” He glanced about the shack. “How long do you think it’ll take to run the rule over a place this size, anyway?” Platt’s slow glance travelled about the room. To outward appearances a casual inspection, actually it embraced every possibility of concealment. “P’raps you’re right,” he said slowly, his eyes resting speculatively upon his companion, whose feet were shuffling nervously. And then, instantaneously, his expression transformed to one. of such concentrated malignancy, that to Natalie, watching his every rpovement, it was a revelation of the possibilities of human wickedness.

“Quit your dancin’—blast youK he roared, and instantly the shuffling feet stilled, and Stagsden’s face,. , whitened. “We’ve been over the shack once, haven’t we?” Platt demanded, and Stagsden nodded dumbly. “Very well then. An hour ot an hour and a half and you should know the place like you know the inside of a glass.” “All I want,” Stagsden muttered, beginning to shuffle his feet again, and then at a furious glance from Platt stilling them hurriedly, “is to get on with the job.” 'Platt looked at him contemptuously. His anger' had subsided, but not altogether. “You’re, a herrin’-gutted son-of-a-gup, anyway,* he said. “I suppose if I don t give you your way you’ll scamp the job to save your sk>n.” He advanced to within a foot of where Stagsden stood, and as he confronted hL.ry.his expression was cruelty personified. "'And. watch your step,” he said from . between, set teeth. “Try to put anything over me,' and TH hunt you from hell to breakfast, and I won’t let up ’till I’ve got you at the business exit of an automatic.” He paused.. “You know me, and that I’ll do just that. So watch your step, my lad. Watch your' step!” . Stagsden recoiled rather than stepped baek. , . • “We’ve been in this from the beginning as we were in—other things, he muttered. “You should know me by this time.”

Platt said, cynically: “I do. That’s why I’m tellin’ you. Just? watch your step.” He walked over to Natalie. “Now my girl,” he said briskly, “we’ve got to.be moving.” For the moment she did not understand.' ' "Moving?” she repeated dazedly, ana he nodded. “Moving where to?’’ “Oh, just movin’,” he said. Stagsden said: “That’s right—just movin’. But don’t you worry miss, you an me’ll ’meet again, all right.” She saw that his eyes, that were fixed so intently upon her as he spoke, had lost the impersonality that, in the Oxford Street restaurant, had been his only reassuring quality. It was as if, the issue regarding the island having been joined, Tie had time to devote to intimate personal affairs. CHAPTER XXXI. LEAVING THE ISLAND. “Do you mean you’re me away —from the island?” she asked, aghast at the possibilities. “Just a lil’ trip,” he replied easily—he was of the type who make a point of speaking easily of things that are to their own discredit. She stared at him with horrified eyes. “W-without Betty?” she stammered. “Just you and I—alone?” He laid a bulbous hand on her shoulder, and she shrank as from contact with something unclean. “No need to worry over that, miss,” he said with a mixture of reassurance and irony. “If you’ll excuse me sayin’ sO , th® ladies was never one of my failin’s. Even when I was razzin’ around fresh frorfi-from-college, they never kinder got me, somehow. And now that I’m”—he sought for an expression which would both cover his meaning and preserve his vanity—“enterin’ intQ what you might call early middle life, they leave me cold.” As he looked at her squarely she could read into his face none of that hungry look that had been in Stagsden’s. If there was greed there, it was the greed for money. Reassured upon this, the greatest of all terrors, her fighting spirit revived. ~ “I won’t come with you, she said his hand on her'shoulder, but instead of a gesture, of, persuasion, this time it was one of warning. “You’re not only cornin’, mdear, he said, “but you’re cornin’ right now.'' Willingly if you’re wise—but cornin’.” “Then let Betty come, too,” Natalie urged desperately. She felt that without her friend she would entirely , lack anchorage „ “No need for a chaperone —with me, Platt said practically. He reached for the hat h- had flung on the table; crammed it on to the bold dome of his head. “Now kiss each other nighty-nighty before we hit the breeze for—wherever it is were headin' for.” But Betty fended her off for a moment, and her eyes blazing, stepped forward. “Listen, Platt,” she said slowly. “Let me tell you something. If you think

you’re going to get away with a stunt of this kind without paying for it, and paying good and plenty, you’re as optimistic as you are fat.” With the rage with which any reference to his physical grossness always aroused he .would have broken in, but she waved interruption aside. “I’ll kiss Miss Wayne good-night,” she 'went on, “but before you know what’s struck you I’ll be welcoming her back. But you I’ll say good-bye to until I see you in the coop—where you belong.”

In his fury he raised his hand as if. to strike her. Probably the. blow would have fallen had not Stagsden stepped forward.

“Oh, for the love of Mike,” he shouted, “cut out the back-chat. We’ll be havin’ those two Mounties back before you can say ‘knife’.” Platt’s hand droppikl from above his shoulder and came to. rest on Natalie’s arm with a grip that was none too gentle. Quickly, making no effort to restrain her sobs, Betty leaned forward and kissed •her. Then, addressing Platt, she said: “Don’t think the world’s big enough to hide you from Kit Champneys if any harm comes to her. And if he doesn’t get you, I will. Not that anyone could miss you!” she concluded insultingly. He said furiously: “Take, care that you’re not too busy gunnin’ after Stag to trouble your head over any person else. He’s younger than me, anyway." And with that he propelled Natalie to the door. The last impression left upon Natalie as the door slammed behind her was of Betty’s face, white and stricken, staring after them, and with Stagsden grinning in the background. Platt led her to the canoe, which by a stroke of irony was the one he had stolen from, the policemen. “Handy this,” he remarked complacently as he helped her in. “Otherwise we couldn’t have split the party.” She would have taken up a position facing the bow, but he jerked her suddenly round. “Facin’ me, please,” he said peremptorily. “I may not be too good to look at, only I like to see you don’t get into mischief. Besides, it’s bad manners to sit with your back to a gentleman.” “I wasn't going to,” said Natalie. Then: “Where are you taking me?” Platt lifted the hand that was no 4 employed at the tiller in a gesture of admiration. ■ | (To be Continued.)