SOLITUDE LTD.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18938, 7 December 1929, Page 17 (Supplement)

SOLITUDE LTD.

“ STAR’S ” NEW SERIAL

BY

JOHN HASLETTE VAHEY

Author of Fiddlestrings,** “ Down River/* " The Storm Lady,** “ Up North,’* " Payment Down,” etc.

CHAPTER XV.—(Continued). “Don’t disturb me,” he instructed Callaghan. “I have something important to see to.” Callaghan agreed. The less work he had to do, the more he liked it, and his ideal employer was one who looked after himself. As dusk fell, Tony shut himself in the drawing-room, where he had already assembled the coil of rope, the crowbar, carriage-candles, and a few other things. Then he sat down to put the refill in his electric torch. "Now for it," he said, when the dark had folded down. “If I can get away before the moon comes up, it will be all right.” He pocketed the smaller things, put on his cap, took the rope and the crowbar, and passed out through the French window, shutting it gently behind him. In his hare-pocket he had four wedges he had made that afternoon and a small mallet he had found in the tool-house, the head muffled with a piece of sacking. He lighted up when he was out of sight of the house, and walked rapidly west until he w-as near the bridge over the Ahogue, and could hear the melancholy sigh of the water as it flowed by. He approached the bridge cautiously, found no one on or near it, and crossed. Then he struck a little inland, and was well on the way to the cliffs of Mulcree when the moon rose. With the aid of its beams he struck north again, and soon found himself on the cliff-top, where he resumed his progress westward. The night was warm and everything very still. The sea was calm, save for a slight rolling swell that rarely dies down on that coast. He heard no human sounds as he went on, though very often the curlews swept over with their melancholy whistle, and the shadowy shapes of duck flitted between him and the sky. Looking outwards, the ocean was visible. But it seemed as empty as the land, and no boats could be detected on its shimmering surface. “If Driscoll isn’t watching me from the house, then I can get through with it, all right,” he reflected. “But the old ruffian will hardly expect me to tackle it at this hour.” As he went on he saw the dim roofs and shape of the Farrars’ house before him, not a quarter of a mile off. No light could be seen in any of the upper windows, and only one glowed in that side, a room on the ground floor where the blinds were drawn. Relieved by the thought that he would not be observed, he went on along the cliff, and presently, shading the beam from his electric torch, he crept forward, looking for the white envelope he had pegged down as a mark. Fortunately the cliff-top took a little dip here, so a shallow ridge hid him frqxn the house as long as he kept low. There was also a long rockery at the end of the garden itself which helped as a screen .though no doubt anyone in an upper window might see him. But it seemed highlv improbable that Driscoll would watch the clifts

every night on the chance of seeing him.

Now he began to wonder if the envelope had been blown away, or removed by some one. Look as he would, quartering every inch of the ground, he could not see its tell-tale white, and without it it would be difficult to find the crevice or hole in the exposed rock which had seemed, by day, the only possible place where the crowbar could be inserted. After an impatient quarter of an hour, he shut off his torch and advanced to the very edge of the cliff, to lie down on his face and wriggle into a position from which he could look at the precipice. But this was northward, and the cliff was in deep shadow. He peered down without discovering anything, and wriggled back to sit up and think out sotne other plan. Luck, as it happened, gave him what he had looked for in vain. He was crawling farther on when his knee found a slight depression, and was slightly abraded by a stone that lay in that miniature cup. He felt it with his fingers, and discovered that it was the very crevice for which he had been looking. He put his handkerchief down, weighted it with the stone, and went back for his rope and crowbar. Laying these down beside the handkerchief, he went back a little, crawled on to the top of the ridge, and studied the dark house anew. The light still glowed through the blind in the groundfloor room, but above it was still unilltiminated, and no one was moving in the moonlit garden. Everything seemed favourable for his venture. lie returned to the place he had marked and began gently to clear out the chips and detritus from the hole in the rock outcrop. He sank the crowbar a foot, then took the mallet and very cautiously drove it a little farther. Muffled as it was, the sound of the blows in the still night rather alarmed him; but no one appeared, and presently he produced his wedges and began to adjust them round the bar. A few more taps and the crowbar seemed firm enough, but he made assurance doubly sure by treading in stones over the wedges, and then attached one end' of the rope by a secure knot. lie took a good pull at the rope, found that it did not give, and knew, too. that the stress would be downwards and forwards when he descended But he did not descend at once. Immunity had made him bold. He detected a light air blowing from inland, lighted a cigarette, and lay down on his back on the crisp turf to smoke. It was good to lie there in the warm air of the night, staring up at the moon white sky, where some tenuous cirrus clouds trailed lazily across the vault. He was thinking of Mary Farrar, and the removal of Terry Donovan as a rival. His own way lay open if he cared to take it. He knew that he did now. that he cared very much. Did Mary care, too? That was his only doubt. Doubts beeet the lovpr that do not beset the philanderer. The winning of the game seems so much more; the possibility of losing it is a tragedy. He made the mistake that night of dividing his attentions. A man can only do well one job at a time, and his

dreams on the cliff-top, coupled with that very natural cigarette, plunged him into more trouble than he had foreseen. It is true that Driscoll did not suspect that Tony would make an attempt to explore the cliff after dark. It was a foolhardy business that he himself would not have attempted. In addition, he had begun to wonder if Tony were seriously interested in the thing after all. But his duties took him upstairs that night, and he was glancing out of an upper window when he saw the momentary flare of a match on the cliff. He started, swore softly, then stared with all his eyes. If the northward cliffface was not lighted up by the moon,’ the turf beyond the shallow ridge was. He made out something dark there, recumbent, he thought, and in a few seconds the tip of a cigarette, glowing with an inhalation, showed like a bright speck. “Bad cess to whoever it is!” breathed the irate butler. He went downstairs softly, into a back passage, where he shrugged on a dark coat to hide his gleaming shirtfront, then found a cloth cap on a peg and pulled it down well over his forehead. He emerged presently from the garden door and began to creep slow iv towards the shelter of the rockery. As he reached it. his hand fell on a piece of quartz, about three pounds’ weight, and he detached it and held it as he crawled over the reverse of the rockery, and found himself lying down on the grass with the shallow ridge between him and the invisible intruder. His expression was ugly as he lay there, getting his breath. Then he steadied himself and began to progress like a snake up the side of the ridge in a fashion that would not have done discredit to an experienced deerstalker. Tony was dreaming, his cigarette al most at its end, when Driscoll raised his head and looked down on him. “It's that cursed Englisman; the artftil divil that he is!” was his unspoken comment. “Oi’ve a good mind to bash the brains out ov him! ” It was an emotion very surprising to be harboured by a butler, but his look was as unpleasant as his words, and he actually raised the rough block of quartz and poised it in his hand while he took stock of the young man lying below. Like many of his countn’-men, Drisi coll was an excellent shot with a stone, and it would have been the easiest thing in the world for him to crush Tony’s head with the missile. But he . suddenly thought better of it, lowered the stone sullenly, and waited. He saw Tony get to his knees presently, take something up and wriggle to the edge of the cliff, where he worked steadily away for a minute or two. Driscoll now saw the crowbar and the rope that disappeared over the edge of the cliff, and. when Tony moved slightly to one side, he also saw that a piece of sacking had been interposed between the rope and the edge of the rock He felt in his pockets. It worried him -when he remembered that he never carried his knife in his evening clothes. Should he go back to the : house for it? Another reflection checked the impulse to cut the rope. It would be safe enough if the Englishman could be i found smashed on the rocks below, and . an impression created that it was the result of a bad rope; but a clear cut i °f the strands would be there for all to see.

As be worried over that problem, he 83^'ony . ta^e a good grip of the rope and, turning on the top, let his legs go over the verge. It was just this initial business of getting over the rock nrn that was most dangerous of all, owing to the fact that the rope lay tight where the sacking impinged on the cliff. But Tony seemed miraculously athletic. lie got a grip with his

legs below, let go with one hand and vanished swiftly. Driscoll held his breath for a moment, expecting to hear the splash of a fall into the sea below. But no sound of that kind came up to him, and he swore afresh. “ It’s the goat, I am, not to have given him a dunt with the stone as he went over!” he mused. The stone! An idea came to him. Tony was hanging somewhere below. If he himself could only pound that rope with the quartz block, to fray it where it disappeared over the edge, it would look a natural break. He crawled quickly on. The rope on the ground was very taut, so that the climber must still be pendent from it., He followed that black bar (as it looked in the moonlight) until he was on the rim of the cliff, and on his hands and knees by the protective sacking. “ I’ll sort ye, my bould boy! ’* he declared under his breath, as he raised the quartz and prepared to bring it down on the rope. (To be continued.)