“The PAINTED LILY”

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 256, 28 October 1937, Page 12

“The PAINTED LILY”

Romantic Serial Story - - by

Olive Wadsley

lie did not wait to be asked to enter, but walked in. After looking about for a moment, he went straight Io the table, poured himself out almost an entire glass of cognac, took it at a gulp, drew a thin gold cigarette case from his pocket, lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and said politely: “That is belter.’’ All the while, he gazed at Vai, out of inscrutable, dark eyes. Vai, composedly pulling on her cloak, turned to meet, the steady gaze. For an instant she and the dark man looked straight into one another’s eyes: then, witli a little bow, he turned away deliberately; but in that moment Vai had a strange impression of power, of a force which was, in some way, sinister. It was only a second before the impression passed and with it all thought of the stranger. As she turned to leave, she confronted Holly, who had walked in through the open door. He gave her a quick, strained smile, glanced at Chick, and said to Vai: “You're ready: that’s splendid. We’ll go straight along them. Ronnie’s a bit. worried, but I told him I was sure you’d come back at once.” Chick bulked up in the open doorway. “Vai came to see me,” he began, bullyingly. “Well. Mrs Sands has seen you, hasn’t she?” Holly retorted imperturbably. “And I’m going to take her home, with her permission.” He walked slraight past Chick, Vai's hand in his. As the door closed, the dark man said: “Mrs Sands, is it? Ah, my friend, you do not often have the luck to entertain ladies of the nobility, of such wealth, and such loveliness. I Ihinjc?” “You leave this friend of mine out of lhe conversation, see?” Chick flung at him. “An’ don’t get havin’ any of your rotten ideas about her, cither. She's straight, and I’m on the straight with her* Get that info your head and keep it there. D’you get me, Armand?” “Perfectly, perfectly, ’’ Armand agreed tranquilly, “poor as my intelligence is, it has managed to deduce the fact, from your simple, friendly speech, my dear Chick, that you do not wish your so charming and lovely friend to be the subject of discussion.’ ■lie bowed to Chick as he had bowed to Vai, and Chick, with a snarl, said: “Oh, chuck it, you and your posturing about. What d’you want, eh? For you always want something.”

“That is a characteristic not confined to myself.” Armand remarked gently. “Everyone living wants something. You, for instance, if I am not mistaken, have a very definite longing to rank as something in the life of the lovely Mrs Sands, you ” “Didn’t I tell you to keep your tongue off her?” Chick demanded savagely. He advanced a step, his head lowered like an angry bull’s, but Armand’s very quiet: “Stay where you are,” stopped him in his stride. Lifting his head, he met out of furious eyes the other’s composed, strangely piercing stare. Armand removed the hand which had been resting on his hip, and said crisply; “Now to business. That last affair was shamefully bungled, and your employee, Mike O’Shea ,was responsible. What have you done about It?” “Nothing,’ 1 Chick said sullenly. “Mike slipped up over the job, 1 grant you; but everyone makes a mistake now and again, and it’s no good roundin’ on ’em when the thing's done.” “Oh, you think that?” Armand asked quietly. “Yours is a brainless and therefore totally uninteresting point of view. Because a man fails: why worry? What an outlook! However. we will leave this triviality, and come to the main point. The Chief is seriously displeased by this slackness—this clumsiness of Mike O’Shea, and equally displeased with your lack of vision and your failure to make good the loss. The first detail is more important than the last. O'Shea bungled so badly that he attracted the attention of Ryder, the one man in lhe Force whose interest we do not, desire. IL will, therefore, be necessary to make certain large alterations in our plans, and for that we my dear friend, ready money.” He stopped, and after choosing another cigarette, added pleasantly: “So I am come to receive twenty thousand dollars from you.” “You'll receive it. I don’t think,” Chick said, with a noisy laugh. “What sort of a guy d’you think I am? Twenty thousand dollars, why not make it fifty?” “It has risen to thirty,” Armand remarked. Chick stood by the table, his face flushed so deeply that the veins on his forehead stood out in scarlet cords. He breathed loudly, and his hand holding Hie table, was clutching it so lightly the knuckle bones showed through. “You and your—gang ” he gasped out, “think you can put. it over me for ever. Take care! I've stood just (about enough. A man can buy even ! his life too dearly, and I value mine I just so high, it’d lake the lives of a i 10l of your pals to even it up. If 1 (die. There’ll be a few other deaths be--1 fore mine. Shall ]• tell you something. •Mr Armand Duval—it ’nd be a treat to get the chair if I’d got some of you i first! That’s how I look at it.” | Armand Duval rose. ■ “So you refuse,” he said quite I serenely. “I will leave then. lam simply wasting my lime, and yours.” He went to the table, picked up his soft grey hat and drew on one washleatlier glove. Chick watched him. the dark colour 'fading from his face, his hands moving I restlessly. Now’ in these moments pe grew older, his big shoulders sag- ■ ;ed, his mouth twitched. | Armand had reached the door. “I will not say ’au revoir,’ ” lie mur- , mired, with a faint smile, “it might savour of profanity!” He had reached ! the hall, and was just about to turn Hie corner when Chick called out hoarsely: I “Duval, come back ” | He entered, as leisurely, as tranquilly as lip had left. In lhe doorway he

“Well?” he asked, sliding a yawn. "Twenty?” Chick questioned, with dry lips. “G'mon, be a sport. Forget—l—spoke up a bit —an' I'm tight at lhe moment for money. Honest.” His eyes, a bit like a beaten 'dog s, waited on the other’s answer. “Very well, twenty.” •Chick wrote a cheque; the sweat standing out in beads on his forehead, and on his upper lip. He took It across to Armand, who examined It carefully, and put it away in his pocketbook. “There is a meeting on the 7th. at the Chief’s house,” he said. “I shall see you then.” Alone, Chick flung himself Into a chair, and sat there, his hands hanging, his eyes listless. It wasn t the money so much—money had ceased to matter greatly—it was his boundness, which cut into him like a knife. Never to be free, never to walk the earth and feel it mattered to no man, save himself. where he went, what he did. When you were a fool kid, mad to get, on. make good and so poor you couldn’t, be honest, you were game to do anything for a good sum of money. He had started that way and ended up by belonging to the most famous band of international crooks in existence. It had all seemed sport, more or less. Even the danger had been fun until he had bungled a piece of spy work he had been given and had, to shift the blame, given away another man, who had fallen into the hands of the police, and “squealed,” with the result that ten other men had been taken. Chick bad learnt then where he stood, just how much he counted in this organisation. 'He had been called to headquarters, and shown books, in which, in detail, had been described Hie fate of the men who had done as he had done, and who had squealed. He had tried to grin it, all off. to swagger, to brag, and he had ‘shot off his mouth” at the Chief. To this day. he dared not remember what had followed: he had been “released.” he was told later, because the Chief meant to give him a second trial. He had got out, got back to his flat in New York, disguised himself and fled, wild with terror, to the far west, and there, lie had struck it rich. He had regained all his old confidence then, half forgotten the gang, and had managed even to laugh at his memories as he had grown richer and richer. Then, one day, he had been kidnapped, and taken to the same house as before. He had sweated in an agony of fear there, before. Now, when he arrived he was treated as an honoured guest. But he had been afraid, servile, always on guard. Yet all that the Chief wanted was ten thousand dollars. He had said in his silky voice: “We have watched your career with the greatest interest, 'Mr Buchanan, and are only too glad you have been so successful. If I may suggest it to you, I think it would be an excellent plan that you should, instead of working actively, now and again, subsidise our activities?” “Oh, sure,” Chick mumbled, and since then he had been “bled” at more or less frequent intervals. O’Shea, who had been his pal, had fled with Chick; but he had not prospered as Chick had done, and he had ultimately become ■Chick’s foreman. He had bungled a blackmail affair, because Chick had given him insufficient data, and Chick had passed the matter over in his interest about Vai. He rose at last, took a stiff drink, and went Io bed. CHAPTER NIL Quite simply Vai told Holly everything that had happened, and just as simply, Holly believed her. “Rotten luck,” he said, sympathetically, patting Vai’s hand, “first your getting kidnapped, and then the pup howling like that and waking Ronnie. Because, as you say, you were just starting for home when I turned up. Who was the other johnny? Foreign lookin’ feller. 1 seem to have seen him somewhere.” “I don’t, know,” Vai said, “he had just arrived.” “I’ll simply run you up and clear,” Holly said. “I’ll be round in the morning, of course. Good-night, Vai.” So Vai went into Ronnie's room

alone. He was still up, sitting by the table, the puppy on his knee; his face had the sharpness of fatigue upon it, and he was beating one hand on the table with a small nervous gesture. Vai said quickly: “I got kidnapped—there in the park —I was sitting down. It was a putup job. I was just coming home when Holly turned up.” Ronnie did not answer. He simply looked at her coldly, critically. "That’s all,” Vai said, chokily. “You expect me to accept that explanation?” Ronnie asked her in a strained voice. “You expect me to believe that you went out of your own free will at ten o’clock, and were kidnapped, and in further exploitation of this freedom, you were about to return al, three o’clock in lhe morning? If >ou had this freedom, may !■ ask why it did not occur to you to return earlier? Believe me, it is not usual for a girl Io visit a man's llat, at night, and leave it in Hie morning!” “You don’t believe me?” Vai demanded. “No,” Ronnie said hardly. Vai gathered her cioak up. looked nt him, hesitated, crossed to him, and lifted lhe puppy gently: “I’ll take him.” she said, and went, tn her room. Ronald sat on—in a cold rage, and In'ensely weary. Set her free? He’d sec about it loir.crrow ! He got into bed will) difficuMy, and I.’.y awake for hours. * ♦ * « He was worse next day. and all visi- ‘ rs, let alone card-parties, forbidden; oven Holly was not allowed to see him ‘iil the evening, when he sneaked in. his arms full of English papers, and the cocktail shaker gripped lovingly to him.

(To be continued.J