WINGS OF FORTUNE

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20314, 25 May 1934, Page 12

WINGS OF FORTUNE

By

LESLIE BERESFORD.

Author of “The Way of Deception,” etc.

CHAPTER XVIII. Unexpected Happening. It was late afternoon before they returned to the villa, which Sylvia entered with a much easier mind than she had left it. But she was also aware of a change during the afternoon—that something had happened to disturb the earlier brightness of their party. She had an impression that this was in some way due to Lester Vanderduyl. The visit had been specially made in order for him to meet an American friend there, and he had apparently not turned up. There had been rather heated words in undertones between Lester and the usually suave Conte, whose temper was clearly ruffled. The return to the villa had been made somewhat earlier on that account, it seemed, than otherwise might have been the case. For the early return Sylvia was not sorry. She had it in her mind that, before John Christopher arrived next day, she must try to snatch an opportunity at least to test for herself hep ability to open that secret hidingplace of the will. So much hinged on her success, she had realised more and more, on thinking carefully over her plan. And she could not be sure of herself, without first finding the means to try. She expected little difficulty over that, if she chose her .time after dinner. It was impossible before. Indeed, when presently she went upstairs to change for the evening, lights were on in that wood-panelled study of the Conte, and she could hear the voices of the three men within, raised in heated argument. That of Lester Vanderduyl, an American drawl, vivid with protest, just reached her ears as she looked down over the banisters: “Say, you smart pair of guys! This is beginning to figure out to me remarkably like some frame-up—” Then, swiftly and almost silently, the room door was shut on what followed, as if to stifle it from such chance ears as those of the unseen Sylvia. Going on up to her room, she realised that Lester Vanderduyl must be discovering at last, what he should have seen for himself long since, that these people were crooks. And the thought made her shiver as she passed into her room. But she had her own battle to fight, and she was a woman. Since they had been here, possibly because her money was supposed to be lost, Sylvia had scarcely received much attention from Florrie at all. She had not really* minded this in the least. Indeed she had much preferred being left to look after herself. But to-night, a little elated by her sense of impending triumph, she might have welcomed the girl, if she had come to the room. She wanted to tell her what had happened, how she herself was now so near to getting possession of that will, bringing everything to an Florrie’s earlier suggestion that sha might effect that more easily than S3 T lvia had never really been taken seriously by the latter, almost forgotten in fact till this moment in the twist and turn of more recent events. She only thought of it idly as she finished dressing and was ready to make her way downstairs. The sound of an opening door behind her caused her to turn, expecting to sec the belated Florrie after all. Instead, to her utter amazement, it was Tony who was in her room, carefully closing the door behind him. A Tony, whose face was livid and twisted with malice, frightening her a little bv its ferocitv. and the malign evil of his bearing as he moved slowly towards her. “Xo more nonsense, Sylvia!” lie glared at her. “What have you done with it? Where Lave you hidden it? Hand it over right away!” “Hand what over, ‘Tony?” Sylvia stared at him in amazement. “Don’t stand there pretending. You can't double-cross me that way. You were the only person in this house, barring d’Abbato and myself, who knew where that will was, liovv to get it. And now it’s gone—” “Gone?” Sylvia gasped. “The will—- “ And you stole it. Come on—hand it Sylvia was as perturbed over this astonishing and unexpected happening as was Tony, though her reason was a very different one from that which swayed him to such venom. If the will had really gone from its hiding-place — and she could not doubt it from Tony’s manner —her plan for to-morrow was upset. Who then could have stolen it, and where had it gone? These were the questions she was asking herself at this moment, rather than troubling about Tony’s useless demand from her. But he had no intention of being kept wait- “ Hand it over, I say!” he snapped at her, seizing her suddenly by a wrist and dragging her violently towards him. “Xo earthly use pretending you don’t know where it is. for nobody else but you could possibly have taken it.” “You're entirely wrong, Tony,” she retorted. “If that will’s gone, it’s not due to me at all.” “Don’t try to bluff me, girl!” he raged, angrier than ever now. “You took advantage of my tr,ust in you—mug that I was for once in my life! You found some way since last night to get at that will.” “Tony, I haven't been in that room downstairs, I swear to you, since you and 1 were there last night. I’ve had nothing to do with the disappearance of the will.” “Why pretend ?” he sneered. “Who else could have taken it? Only d’Abbato and J, and —it's quite evident—you knew how to get at it. Would either d’Abbato or I steal what we were carefull v guarding?” “How do I know, Tony? I can onlv say again—it’s not ni.v doing. Believe mo, or not. I'm absolutely innocent.” “Rot! Why don’t you tell the truth, vou double-crossing little crook? All the time you’ve been fooling mb into a belief that you were in with us on this business, vamping me into an idea that we were to be married in a day or two, you were just bluffing. You meant to get hold of that will, to give Paula and me away if that detective from Sydney turned up, safeguard yourself by standing in on the side of the law.” “I certainly did intend to get hold of that will. l‘ admit,” Sylvia shrugged. “And nothing could have pleased me better than when you showed me lust

night where it was being kept. Nothing could be more disappointing to me than to hear it lias gone. I would like to know, just as much as you, who took it, and where it is.” She spoke so quietly, so convincingly, that lie stared at her in amazement, suspicion beginning to fall from him a little. But the puzzle was beyond him. “Only three of us knew where it was,” he reminded her. “And you’re the only one of the three with reason to take it away from there. You’ve just admitted the intention.” “The intention’s apparently spoilt,” she said. “Y'ou’re wasting time, Tony, accusing me.” “That’s true enough, Tony!” interrupted from tlie dusk-shrouded background the crooning drawl of Paula, a drawl embittered by sarcasm. Sylvia, turning, saw that she must have entered from the far door, which communicated by way of a passage with her own room. And she was not alone. Quite unconcerned]v, even with an. air of amused independence, there moved across the parquet, floor the figure of the maid, Florrie. In a. flash Sylvia admitted to herself that she must have made a mistake in underestimating Florrie’s powers of carrying out what she had said she would. For her presence here at this moment could mean nothing less. Paula lost no time in making that certain, anyhow, waving slim fingers in a gesture towards the girl. “I always told you, Tony, that one of these days your habit of fooling women would come back on you. It’s come back this time, from what Florrie’s just been telling me, with a result that’s not going to be pleasant for either of us.” “Florrie—?”

Tony, unable to see clearly in the dusk, suddenly switched oi. lights, his eves as blank with astonishment as his voice had sounded dull and toneless. Florrie broke the silence with a iuiigh. “And why not?” she asked him, ra°ven head tilted insolently on one side, black eves glittering, scarlet lips curled ;n an audacious, self-satisfied smile Quite a different Florrie, Sylvia thought, from the one. she had known up till now. “And why not?” she repeated. “I warned you long ago, Tony, that a woman’s patience might not be as strong as her love. No need to pester Miss Sylvia about that will. I’ve got it, in a safer place than the one where you kept it. When you showed it to her last night, you showed it to me too, though neither of you knew I was watching. i if** le { fc y° nr . eJever hiding place just half an hour after you all went to Spiza this morning,” she went on derisivelv “and—it’s where no one but myself can get it. What happens to it depends—as I ve told Mrs. Carmichael—on—you can guess well enough what, without much thinking?” . Sy ,v > a > of course, guessed, remembering now what I'lorrie had said when she had first been tohl of the will’s existence. She meant to use it to force mar--1 iage from 1 That was nothing to which Sylvia could object, but it did not help her in the least. What vitally concerned her was a certainty that the will would he used to return to John Christopher the fortune to which lie was entitled. “Remembering always, Florrie,” she intervened, “that you are talking about something which does not belong either to 3’ou or Mr. Mallison. Something stolen, something which ought to be given to its rightful owner, Mr. Fellowcs.” “You mind your own business. Miss Sylvia!” the other flung at her, almost “That bit of paper belongs to me at the moment, and I’m using it just as L think I will. lYe no time for you, arid what 3011 think ought to be done with it. If it hadn’t been for 3*oll, with 3’our baby face and 3*olll* uncle’s money, coming between me and my love —” “Enough of that talk, girl!” Tony blared from the background, where, meanwhile, he had been livid with fury and speechless from anger, trying to control himself. He moved forward now, gesturing towards the door by which Florrie had entered with Paula. “Y'oti’d better go to my sister’s room and wait there till we’re ready to talk to you about this silly game of 3-ours.” “Silly ?” she laughed a rich scorn. “Don’t make any mistake about that, Toll3*. It’s neither silly nor a game. That bit of paper’s going to make you my husband, as I*ve told your sister alreadv, or it’s going to put 3*oll and her in gaol. You can please yourself which it is. I’ve no more to say about it. Only this—

“I’m giving you till morning to think which it’s to be.” she added. “And come morning, if you’re wise, you’ll be ready to take me to where you can have that marriage put through in double quick time. If not—and early in the morning —Mr. Fellowes will be learning something to his advantage—by way of that detective who came here to-day while you were all out, poking around and pretending he wasn’t anyone in particular, just staying at the inn round the corner because he thought scenery pretty hereabouts.” And then, moving very deliberately, with a graceful insolence, a smile on her frankly self-satisfied face, she went out by that other door at the far end of the room, closing it behind her. She left shock behind her, shock in the baffled and fury-flaming eyes of Tony, shock to the mind of Sylvia, who saw in Florrie’s ultimatum—and anyhow in her possession of that all-important will—every practical certainty that John Christopher’s right to the Massingham fortune would never be established now.