“VIPER’S VENGEAN

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 122, 25 May 1936, Page 12

“VIPER’S VENGEAN

SERIAL STORY

bv

RALPH TREVOR

(CHAPTER XXVI, Contd.) Adcock hurried back lo Scotland Yard. Despite the fact that Mrs Adcock had never furnished him with a daughter, he felt that he had interpreted the feelings of the Chief of Department “Z” tolerably accurately. Within an hour an intensive search had begun from the point where two taxi-cabs had collided, and the three most prominent people connected with that search were Superintendent Adcock, Sergeant. Peter Mathers and Sergeant Deering of the Canadian Police. Ronnie Bayford recovered normality , to find himself in an apartment as un- i like his previous prison as it, was pos-I bile to imagine. It. was a bedroom at the lop of the house —a sort, of attic, he imagined. The small window was high lup in the wall. It. was shuttered from the outside and steel barred from within. The furniture was cornfort-', able- A low bed with a well-sprung mattress, a bedside table on which reposed a selection of morning newspapers and a magazine. He -could not understand it. It was incomprehensible. Had he awakened to find himself in that windowless and doorless room where he had first found himself he could have understood. But he was to understand presently. In the interim of inactivity he mulled over the girl’s voice concerning the hiding-place of the idol. She had wanted him lo tell her where he had hidden it, and he had certainly intended doing so had Rama Singh not so dramatically interrupted. Now, he felt, it was too late. He tried the bars that covered the window —shook them with every ounce of his strength. They did not move. Beyond them the pane of thick glass appeared to have no latch, and the bars were 100 thick for him to insert a hand in order to break it. His pockets had been I emptied. He was left with nothing • with which lo provide an opening to the world outsideOn the other hand, he decided that in some way he must write the secret nf his hiding-place. But how? He had neither pencil nor paper, and sat pondering the puzzle. Then an idea came to him. and eagerly he lifted thecarpel, at one corner of Hie floor and found that it had been spriggel to the floor at a point, where the door opened, obviously for Hie purpose of not, impeding the doorway. It took him a good ten minutes to prise that little piece of thin, pointed metal from the floor-boards. At last he held it in his hand and carefully laid it on the table. His next task was easier. He tore a strip from the sheeting on the bed and spread it out flat on one of the magazines on the’ table. That was the first part of the job done to his satisfaction. The next was how best lo impart the information he had to give concerning the Viper’s hiding-place. He felt that it would not do to write the instructions in a way that, should anyone in the house secure it, they would be able to appreciate its import. At last he decided to give his information in cryptographic form, and laboriously he began to prick the narrow strip of linen with the spring he had taken from Hie floor-boarding. When he had finished lie surveyed his handiwork with a satisfied eye. The letters he had pricked out were KLEANQUIK DUST INTO DUSTWith a smile he placed the message in his empty pocket lo await an opportunity of disposing of it. Oddly enough, he had not, long to wait. The door opened to admit one of the dark-skinned men he had met before. ‘ Follow rnc,” he said surlily. “The Master would speak lo you.’’ Thankful, but not relishing another encounter with the man who could not be killed, Ronnie Bayford followed. The man kept step with him down the narrow staircase that seemed interminable, Ronnie Hie while keeping a sharp look-out for a window through which he might, thrust his message. Around an angle in the stairs he left a breath of purer air smile his cheeks, ami he tingled with suppressed excitement. A little further along the corridor they had now entered, and just where- the head of the second staircase joined it, there was a window through which he saw his first daylight for forty-eight hours. More ■ than that, the window was slightly I open. He knew he would have lo act ' swiftly, and that even so lie must at I all costs not arouse any suspicion of! his real intention in the man’s mind. : Sutklenly Ronnie paused and clutched i his throat, which made a quite real- i islic gasping noise. “Quick!” hoi gasped- “Quick! . . . 1 think I’m going lo faint. I must, have air. I That window Before the man beside him realised what was happening Ronnie had lurched forward and flung his arms upwards across the sill, breathing heavily. But’in one hand he had held that lAtle strip of linen and dropped it outwards and downwards, | trusting now to the breeze to carry his message away from the roofing i tiles and the caves. "What is it?” demanded the manat his side, unaccustomed to such! things. Ronnie breathed more freely, and j turned lo the man with a grin. I “Sorry, old man,” he apologised. "1' came all over queer. Must, have been I that room upstairs. Not enough ven- | Illation, you know- I'm better now.’’ I So I'ne journey downstairs was j continued. That journey was uneventful until they arrived at the hidden room where Bonnie had first found himself.' Rama Singh was standing there, arms folded, while lying across the bed, secured with strands of broad webbing, lay Valeric. Ronnie, pale as death, leaped forwards, but two sinuous arms gripped his, and further movement was impossible. The girl’s eyes were closed. Suddenly they opened and she stared at him. For the first time he had known her Ronnie saw fear mirrored in them. Rama Singh was speaking: “I am loath, Mr Bay ford, to resort to such melodramatic practices, fur 1 am a man of peace; but, nevertheless, what jou see now is your own doing- 1 nave already explained the situation lo Miss Vare here. Like others of

her race, she is stubborn. She appears to prefer a particularly hideous death to requesting you to divulge to me the whereabouts of the Viper. No. please, don't interrupt, Mr Bayford. Let me finish- You -see this," and the Oriental indicated a basket in one corner of the apartment, “in.'.liJ you will find a particularly venomous species of the Viperidae family, which possesses the curious characteristic of becoming more than usually infuriated on discovering itself in the dark. It is my intention, Mr Bayford, to l leave this room with you in a matter lof moments. Before 1 leave I will | lift the lid of the basket, and when .we arc outside you yourself will , switch off the light from the passage I outside. I do not think I need elaborate on the effect of your handiwork, Mr Bayford. You are an intelligent young man. Now what have you to say?” “You swine!” cried Ronnie, white lo the lips. “You unspeakable swine!” He glanced at the girl. Terror had become magnified in her eyes, and though she moved her lips no words came. Ronnie felt himself trembling. “You win," he acknowledged dejectedly. “I'll tell you where your damn Viper it. I’ve hidden it in the dust container of my demonstration cleaner. Now I will ask you to release both Miss Vare and myself.” But Rama Singh shook bls head. “Not yet, Mr Bayford. You forget that I have yet to test your veracity. Miss Vare will remain here until I return. Badouk, remove the se”penl." CHAPTER XXVII. Rescue. Sergeant' Peter Mathers had been searching half the morning for a sign of a habitation that might lend itself to closer scrutiny. i For the most part, the houses he had investigated were Inhabited by perfectly respectable people such as stockbrokers; prosperous shopkeepers (although nowadays they preferred the title store-owners), and a. few retired civil servants of the higher grades. There was nothing suggestive of intrigue and dark dealings. He entered a narrow lane by which he hoped to -complete his quadrant of the circular search. The branches of the blackthorn hedge looked bare and uninviting despite tire full buds awaiting the spring. He was never much of a botanist, but further along he noticed what he imagined, in his particular type of Ignorance, lo be a white flower among the bare branches. But it proved to be nothing of Hie kind; nothing more interesting than a narrow strip of while cloth of some kind. It was high up and firmly secured by one of the blackthorn spines. Being a good detective-ser-geant he succeeded in releasing it. He looked at it on the palm of his hand. At first he saw nothing unusual about it, but on closet inspection he saw that it contained a series of tiny pin-point holes. He uttered a sharp exclamation as he read: “ Kleanquik Dust into Dust." It was the first word decided him he had stumbled on his first clue, for Kleanquik was the name of the product in which Ronald Bayfo-rd was interested. He looked up from his inspection and saw some way ahead of him through the trees a house barely visible. He -stood for a moment immersed in thought. Then lie made up his mind, and went swiftly back to where ho had left his two-seater. In forty minutes he was in Ronnie Bayford's flat. Tlie first thing that met bis gaze in the lounge was Mr Bayford's demonstration model cleaner with the dust container lying open. He -stood looking down at it with a perplexed frown. This was certainly a riddle without an answer. He-closed the doorand went to Scotland Yard to send out a wireless call lo Superintendent Adcock, which nol only explained his hurried departure from the scene of the search, but which would also acquaint him of the extraordinary occurrence at Bayford's Hal. Having done that lie climbed into liis ear and went back to work. He was going lo make a -call at the house. | Superintendent Adcock received his ; subordinate’s message and grunted. ; How like Mathers that was! Typical I of tbe fellow. Well, he presumed he i would have to await, that young man’s j return, and when he did, Adcock was i quite sure that his sergeant was goI ing to receive a reprimand. I Like Mathers, his- search had been i unsuccessful. The constables who ! searched under his direction had been equally barren in discovering any place where Miss Valerie Vare might be incarcerated. He looked al his watch, it was later Ilian he anticipated. Two o’clock in fact. He sat in his car and wailed. A moment later the perspiring figure of Sergeant Deering hove into view. He was running. i " Say. Superintendent,” he breathed i with difficulty, “there’s sure something I ’phoney' going on around a house half i a mile away. I was snoopin’ around - one of the roads when a long grey car i nearly piles me into a hedge. I sure I had lo take a header into it to escape with a whole skin, and you may betcha j sweet life I ain't looking for any more | trouble. When I picks myself out the ; hog had gone to his burrow. 1 fol- ! lowed the tyre marks and they led ' me to a house.. 1 go.es up lo the door and rings Hie bell. . No reply. I rings I again. Similar result. I pinches myself to make quite sure I’m not bughouse, for there’s no sign of the cay . . . tyre tracks just sure evaporated like some Wall Street stocks 1 know about. I looks for a window on the ground floor. Every one shuttered. If I hadn’t dreamed I -saw that car I'd have convinced, myself that-I was ready for the doc’s certificate. You’d better come along, and I’ll say this guy’s not walking.” , Adcock’s ears were back. There was a dangerous look in liis eyes. Mathers’ message which had been picked up by the radio car, had mentioned a house among the trees. Adcock was certain that Sergeant beering had not been dreaming. i (To be continued) I