The Green Bungalow

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 403, 11 July 1928, Page 5

The Green Bungalow

BY A POWERFUL WRITER,

By

Fred M. White.

Author of "The Crimson Blind," "The Cardinal Moth." The House on the River,” flic., flie.'T'

SYNOPSIS OP PREVIOUS CHAPTERS. CHAPTERS 1 and II. —Hilton Blythe, man of birth and breeding - , accomplished swindler and card-sharper, has lived on his wits for many days at a stretch, and is a world-experienced man. At the Metropolitan Hotel, Brighton, he sees, after an interval of three years, a lady in lavender, and recognises that Nettie has quite grown up. With her is a man, Roy Harley, lately come into an unexpected fortune. They commune as lovers, and are happy. Roy tells her that he lias bought a steam yacht, and intends to go yachting with Shute. Nettie says that she is amanuensis to Shute, who possesses the Green Bungalow at Shorehaven, and that she goes there most mornings Roy replies that he is due there this evening to play poker along with Prest and Andrew MacGlendy. The lovers pass out and proceed to the East Brighton Golf Links where they sit down on the hillside. After nine o’clock Harley calls on MacGlendy, at 201 Brunswick Square. Prest and Shute are already there. The four men motor to Shorehaven beach. They dismiss the car and walk to the bungalows. They make their way to a building a hundred yards or so apart from its fellows. Shute does the honours at the Green Bungalow. Roy has already bought two packs of cards at Weston's. They play poker for £SO rises. Harley wins all along, the line. MacGlendy drops out after a while, and stands watching the others. He accuses Harley of playing with marked cards, which Roy strongly repudiates. MacGlendy further accuses Harley of concealing the ace of spades in his pocket. Roy, confounded, puts his hand in his pocket and draws forth the ace of spades. He swears that he never put it there.

CHAPTER lII.—THE FRIENDLY EAVESDROPPER. “Well, that’s a most amazing thing,” Prest exclaimed, as Harley called his hand for the fourth time, and laid two pairs on the table. “Talk about luck.”

Bert Marshall’s sells the beet.

Ah, there’s one thing, my boy—don’t forget that lucky in cards, unlucky in love.” It sounded almost a challenge, so that Harley looked up with a mocking smile in his eyes. He was laughing to himself to think that Prest would know all about that before long, so he gathered up his winnings, secure in his position, and the knowledge that he had honourably got the best of his old friend and rival. “Yes, it is extraordinary how everything is going my way,” he said. “I had a feeling when I sat down to-night that I was going to win. It seemed to me that everything was going my way, and I suppose that that is what made me reckless. I think it’s what you Scottish people call fey, Mr. Macglendy.” “Och, aye,” Macglendy said. “When the tide’s with ye, nothing goes wrong. Ye could call the other man with nothing in hour hand, and win even if you were holding four pieces of blotting paper. And if the luck’s all out, then a straight flush is no more good to you than a sick headache. I’ve been through it myself.” Still the game went on, with occasional lapses for a cigarette or a visit to the tantalus, and still Harley won. It seemed impossible that he could do wrong. Then Macglendy dropped out for a hand or two, and stood watching the others. Suddenly a change came over his face, and, leaning over the table, he picked up a hand which had just been dealt by Harley to the other two.

“You’ll excuse me,’ he said, in a harsh, husky voice. “It is verra unpleasant, but my duty is plain. These cards are marked.”

Harley jumped to his feet as if something had shot him. “Marked,” he cried. “Marked. Two fresh packs of cards that I bought myself and opened in your presence. Mr. Macglendy, I am afraid I don’t quite understand what you are saying.”

“Aye, but I do,” Mreglendy said stolidly . “I am too old a hand at the game to be deceived. Look at this.” He took up a handful of the cards, and held them aslant so that the light caught the glaze on the backs. And on every card there was a sort of pattern in dull, tiny spots as if the glaze had been removed by a touch of acid. There was not a single card in either pack that did not show one of these patterns. Very slowly the Scotsman dropped them one by one on the table, and then turned a cold, passionless eye upon Harley. “You see what I mean,” he said. “They are all marked. And what’s more, one of the cards is missing. I think ye’ll find that it is the ace of spades, and, moreover, I think Mr. Harley will find the ace of spades in his jacket pocket.” Boiling with rage and indignation, Harley plunged his hands into his jacket pockets. Then, to his own dazed amazement, he produced a square of pasteboard that fluttered from his nerveless Angers on to the table under the eyes of his companions.

“The ace of spades,” he whispered hoarsely. “Gentlemen, I swear by my Maker that I never placed that card there.” Hilton Blythe, soldier of fortune, card-sharper and man of the world! beautifully turned out and looking every inch the gentleman by birth and breeding that he undoubtedly was, turned into the dining room of the Brighton Metropolitan the following afternoon to lunch as usual. He had come down there in search of a certain prey that had so far successfully eluded him, but now all thoughts of personal aggrandisement were thrown to the winds. With all that amazing courage and audacity of his, he was a

kind-hearted man, loyal enough to his peers and ready to share his spoil with a friend. But here were bigger things to occupy his mind, ghosts from the past were rising and it behoved him to he up and doing lest one that he loved more than life itself was to find lasting unhappiness. In other words he had stumbled on the track of a very pretty conspiracy and he would not he content until he saw the righting of a wrong.

He passed along to the window seat that had been reserved for him as usual, hoping to see more of the young couple that had so intrigued him the day before. They would be lunching there again, of course, for he had heard the arrangement made, but though he sat at his meal over long there was no sign of the lovers. “I wonder,” he muttered to himself, "I wonder if the game had begun already. But I hardly imagine that a criminal artist like Shute would do anything so crude.” A little anxiously he passed presently into one of the small rooms behind the famous palm lounge of the hotel with the intention of writing a note. The folding windows were open and from where he sat at the writing table he could see into the lounge. It was comparatively empty now for it was a fine afternoon and most of the hotel guests were out in the sunshine. But there almost under Blythe’s eyes sat Harley and the girl who had had so powerful an effect on the man who was spying on them at that mo- j ment. They could not see him in the shadow of the little room but he could make out everything and hear every word that passed. Nor did it need much discrimination on his part to see that the two were in some bitter trouble. “I coultlh’t get here before, I couldn’t,” Harley was saying. “I hope you didn’t wait for me, dearest.” “In the lounge,” Nettie explained. “When I realised that something had detained you I went out and had a sandwich and a glass of milk. But what is it, Roy? You look dreadful.” “I came to tell you,” Harley murmured. “I came as soon as I possibly could. My dearest girl, I hardly knov/ how to begin. If anyone had told me yesterday that this trouble - would fall jon me, I should have laughed. It j would have seemed impossible, and yet, as I sit here before you, I am a | convicted cardsharper, disgraced and dishonoured in the eyes of my friends, j and threatened with worse than that, j I shall have to resign the membership i of all my clubs, and, worse than that. I give up my commission in the Guards. Oh, I don’t say that this will be public property, because, if I do as I am told, I or rather, commanded, the matter is going to he hushed up. But Prest was ; quite firm in his suggestion that I ! should throw up my commission and drop all my clubs.”

“My dear boy, what on earth are you talking about?" Nettie demanded. “The thing is absurd—ridiculous! Whf ■. if you told me yourself that you had done all these things, I wouldn’t believe you.” “Yes, that is exactly as I hoped to hear you speak,” Harley said, his face white and drawn. “So long as you believe in me, then there is something still left to wait for—l mean hope for But I am so distracted that I don’t know what I am talking about.” Blythe, half-hidden in the gloom of the writing-room, was following all this with the closest attention. There | was a peculiar smile upon his face, and a certain grim look in his eyes that would perhaps have rendered Shtyte uncomfortable if he could have seen it. Quite unconsciously the two young people in the hour of their trouble were entertaining an angel unawares. It was Nettie, with that calm courage of hers, who first rose to the situation. I “Try and be calm,” she said. “We i are all alone here, and I want to hear everything. Nothing is quite as bad as it sounds at first, so, to please me, | light a cigarette, and then tell me all about it. What is the trouble?’ “Well, it’s like this,” Harley said more calmly. “You know, I went off last night with the man you work for, to his bungalow at Shorehaven. Besides us two. there was Brest, who came at my invitation, and a man called Andrew Macglendy.” "1 know him,” Nettie said. “He is a traveller and a scientist who has i taken a furnished house for the winter jin Brunswick Square; a fair man, with : a long, yellow beard.” ] “That’s the chap,” Harley said. “A | I very dignified man, who speaks with > Ja strong Scottish accent. We went j from his house in his car, and for ; ; an hour or two we played poker. From I the very first I won steadily, I couldn’t ido any wrong. I suppose my luck was j in, at any rate, I felt it was, and, after I knew that you cared for me, I had j a sort of feeling that everything was ! going my way, and it did. Goodness ,! knows how much I won, and the more ! I won, the more Walter Brest lost. I think the other two came out some- ! where about equal. And then, all at : once, I noticed that Macglendy had r grown very quiet, and presently he stood out and watched us. Then, sud- < denly, he leant over the table, after ; I had dealt, and, in the coolest pos- | sible voice said that the cards were I marked.” ! “Marked!” Nettie exclaimed. “What . does that mean?” • \ “Well, that they were gambler's 1 j cards, marked on the back with little ■ ! signs by which a clever dealer could | know exactly what cards his oppon--1 | ents held. Oh, it’s quite an old trick, ■ ! and has been worked over and over 1 again. Of course, I jumped to my ; feet, and asked Macglendy to explain i himself. Oh, he explained himself right enough—he proved his accusa- . ! tion up to the hilt, and, what was more, he accused me of having a miss- , I ing ace in the pocket of my dinnerI I jacket. And when I put my hand in to feel, sure enough the ace was there. , I (To be continued.!