SCORPION’S REALM

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 490, 27 June 1932, Page 12

SCORPION’S REALM

By

L. C. DOUTHWAITE

CHAPTER 11. Colin Meets a Friend. Without hesitation Colin streaked across the pavement—and in doing so most ominously the space between himself and the leading pursuer decreased. As with all the care possible he manipulated his burden through the door, he was aware of that other form, strangely cool and dominant, who leaned sideways from the driving-seat; of the dull blue glint of the long-barrelled pistol in his hand. Probably it was because the Reading pursuer caught sight of the weapon that he jerked to such a sudden stop, and that when he fired it was not at Colin, but at the one who, at the moment, was so much more dangerous to himself. And because, probably, he was breathless and panting with running, the bullet went wide. It was with the same unhurried deliberation as he had drawn his car to the kerb that the driver returned the fire. And with, subconsciously Colin realised, no ordinary weapon. For instead of the sharp staccato detonation of an automatic or the fuller and more solid discharge of a revolver, this was more resonant, less confined, and infinitely louder. Fortunately, moreover, the effect was as striking as the cause, for the yell that came from the Chink, as, his wrist shattered, his pistol clattered to the pavement, was sufficient to blanket the echoes of a bombardment.

So it was, then, that at this critical moment valuable time was gained, for with characteristic preference for longrange exchanges, those immediately in the rear of their stricken leader pulled up in their stride to take some kind of aim—a delay that enabled Colin more or less comfortably to dispose of his burden. Beyond a few scars to the bodywork, the spattering volley that accompanied the car as it moved away did no kind of damage.

Of all the etrange experiences that in his quest had overtaken Colin Riversleigh, this swift drive through the maze of°narrow and malodorous streets was the most bizarre. Not less eo by the stark silence in which it was accomplished. In that still figure at the wheel Colin found a fascination that with every moment became more compelling. Though the light wa6 so dim that even his outline remained indistinct, in some odd fashion that vague silhouette conveyed a curious suggestion of not belonging completely to the present day; the cloak in which he was enshrouded carried a hint of mid-Victorianism; the hat, flat-brimmed and incongruous, gave a similar impression. But by more than anything, perhaps, Colin was impressed with his rescuer’s obvious refusal to accept as in the least out of the ordinary the deliverance from pursuing Chinamen of a dishevelled seaman who, in the small hours of a February morning, was carrying a bound and helpless girl of the ruling classes through the slums of Dockland.

During the ride, though after unloosening her hands and feet, Colin ministered to his charge, it was without any very encouraging result. Yet though, with her eyes fast closed and her breathing laboured, oviously under the influence of some narcotic, in view of the vigour of the cry that had sent him hot-foot to her rescue, he did not think the drug had been for very long administered. One impression, however, that through the dim and intermittent street lights he derived —and one that was to last while life itself lasted —was of a more supreme loveliness than, hitherto, he had realised it possible could exist. For her hair, that in natural tendrils escaped from the email close-fitting hat, was of the shade and lustre of old and lovingly tendered copper; the colouring of the small oval face of the healthful delicacy that so often accompanies hair of that red-gold tint. And her forehead was broad and white, her nose short, straight, and with the sensitive nostrils of the patrician; the mouth a scarlet bow beneath the curve from tiny ear to rounded chin a sheer delight. More, for increasingly he received an impression of that which is so far beyond mere loveliness —the magnetism that is the hall-mark of the great lady. He was able, too, to realise how greatly this would gain in strength when, the effect of the drug dissipated, she would be her own self again. Who could she he, this girl in the essentially Sackville Street tweeds, the thick silk stockings, the neat brogues from Burlington Arcade, and with the slender white hands of the aristocrat, to find herself under duress by Orientals in a dock-side shack in Deptford? And, incidentally, hut most relevantly, who were these same Orientals? If they were not whom he himself had such potent reason for fearing, then indeed the coincidence -was extraordinary. With which, automatically, his speculations transferred back to that imperturbable Beau Brummelish figure who, like a message from the gods, so opportunely had been driving a Rolls car down a Deptford slum at two o clock on a February morning; who, as unemotionally and naturally as an omnibus plying for hire, had gathered them within its shelter, and who now so purposefully was driving them —whither? Surely, thought Colin Hildebrand d’Arcy Riversleigh, gentleman at large, ordinary seaman and eleventh holder of the baronetcy of Riversleigh, he was not also of The Scorpion? If eo, then definitely, irrevocably, and finally, that title was upon the point of extinction.

At last, in a slum which was even more dejected and sordid than any that hitherto they had traversed, quite suddenly the car slowed down; Colin saw that slight and elegant figure descend from the driving seat, cross the pavement to a narrow break between the tenements before which they had stopped; fumble for a moment about the angle of the wall. Instantly, from a standard some sixty feet down‘its length, the passage sprang to light, and with that illumination threw into even more sordid relief the grimy crumbling walls on either side, the broken and mud-bespattered pavement. But. and to Colin more surprising still, that light-bracket projected above a door that was neither dejected nor crumbling nor mud-bespattered, hut of solid mahogany most beautifully panelled, and, from a casual glance, of a strength almost impregnable. Then Colin saw that door open, and a figure emerge—black-clad in the subdued garments of a houseman, broadshouldered, but austere.

“Perhaps you will permit my man to help you with this lady to my surgery V ’

Colin’s rescuer, coming back to the cj suggested in the same quiet tone he h; used before.

“You’re a doctor?” Colin asked in surprise, and the stranger’s smile was gently ironical. “I have that honour,” he replied quietly, and stood aside as his man came up. Togetner Colin and the servant carried the unconscious girl down the passage, [ through the door, and into a hall that in sheer beauty was the greatest surprise yet; a wide and gracious apartment of mellow Bokhara rugs and open fireplace upon which spluttered aromatic logs; of the grave dignity of family I portraits, each from the brush of a master, gazing austerely from the j panelled walls; of period furniture most ! lovingly tended. | “Through to the surgery, please,” their host instructed, and indicated a door to the right. This room was fitted less for luxury than efficiency; a telephone on the wall, the centre of the floor occupied by a writing table upon which were magazines and periodicals; a couch; and along one wall, a wheeled bed. It was upon this they laid the girl. With the grave quietness that informed all he did and said, the doctor felt her pulse; lifted a lid to inspect the eye beneath. Then, taking a quilt from a cupboard, he covered her; arranged her pillow. Following upon which, as though to set the crown upon this night of surprise, passing to the window he pressed an ivory button inset within the frame. Noiselessly, from the ceiling, steel shutters descended. “An innovation that, owing to a recent experience, I found it necessary to instal,” he explained gravely, and turned to the servant. “You will remain here, Waters, until either you are relieved or the patient shows signs of revival,” he ordered. Then, to Colin:

“This way!” and in the hall laid upon the email table that, between two oaken high-backed armchairs was drawn up to the fire, the pistol that had proved so discouraging to the pursuing Chinks—a weapon at the mingled incongruity and beauty of which Colin’s eyes started. An old-fashioned duelling pistol, long-barrelled and slender, the stock gold-mounted, the barrel inlaid with silver.

“I find the more modern weapons a little lacking in balance,” his host explained with that quiet smile of his. Intently, if surreptitiously, Colin regarded the man—this strange survival of an era he had thought long since to have passed, leaving for this more anxious generation no trace but the faint odour of romance; the highcollared, deep-lapelled coat; the black satin stock and delicately frilled ehirt; the bunched gold seals of a silken fob; the braided trousers strapped beneath the meticulously polished plain-fronted boots; speculated rather dazedly, but now with a definitely established respect, as to his history. For while to one of lesser personality those quaint trappings could not have failed to lend a suggestion of the mountebank, to the serene dignity of this imperturbable rescuer' of distressed seamen and maidens, those garments of the ’sixties were so entirely congruous that Colin discovered himself accepting them as naturally as he realised the distinction with which they were worn. By the time they were settled before the fire he discovered, also, of what fine discrimination that quiet manner was cloak, for, as he helped his guest to at drink, there was in the small courtesy a definite acknowledge of equality.

“Let us first clear the air,” he said courteously, “by an exchange of names. My own is Valentine Gage.”

Colin nodded—a little coolly. True enough, no doubt, so far as it went, hut apart from the incongruity of an East End medical practice in such surroundings, he was aware of something deliberately withheld.

In addition —there was his own position to consider; what to confide and what to retain.

“Riversleigh, my name is.” he said at last. “Christian name, Colin. Ordinary seaman of the Pink Funnel line steamer Seahorse.” ‘‘And eleventh holder of the baronetcy of that name, of Charteris Magna in the East Riding of Yorkshire.” Dr. Valentine Gage supplemented; “of fit. Cedric’s School; in the closing year of the war lieutenant, later promoted captain, in the Royal South Downshire Regiment; subsequently of Pembroke College, Cambridge. and of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police; at the moment engaged upon a special mission in China and elsewhere.”

For a long time Colin stared silently at that extraordinary man—who met his astonished gaze with a smile that’ at once was one of approval and of reassurance.

“I had the honour of knowing your father,” Valentine Gage went on quietly to explain—and paused. “I have the further honour,” he added at length, “of enjoying the confidence of His Majesty’s Foreign Office in connection with the—or —investigations in which you are engaged.” A further pause, in which his eyes were fixed very directly upon Colin. “It does not need me to enlighten you,” he said at last, “upon how materially, of late, the activity in which you are interested has become transferred from East to West.” There was another, and, to Colin, the most palpable silence yet, one in which his brain searched for the significance of it all.

But, superimposed upon this speculation, was the instinct of caution. Just who was this man? Also, to put it bluntly, what was liis game? More materially still, was he playing straight? What if the warm luxury of this palacelike house in the slums of Deptford was just a stage set especially for his undoing—a sort of counter-espionage confidence trick for the purpose of luring him into a false security? And with this suspicion, like a spear-point of illumination in the dark of his own bewilderment, came the question that for the moment occurred to him as most relevant.

“Do you mind telling me,” he asked in a level tone, “how you happened to be passing Tidal wharf at two o’clock in the morning?” The doctor reached for a Sullivan from the silver box on the table. Over the flame of the match with which he lighted it, he said: “I came, of course, to meet you*”

More amazement still, and so casually revealed. An announcement, moreover, that might be relied upon to contair truth in neither greater nor lesser pro portion than that which had gone before.