The Green Bungalow

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 405, 13 July 1928, Page 5

The Green Bungalow

BY A POWERFUL WRITER.

By

Fred M. White.

Author of " The Crimson BEnd." “ The Cardinal Moth." "The House on the River." &c., fcc. ~

SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS, j CHAPTERS 1 and ll.—Hilton Blythe, man of birth and breeding, accomplished ; swindler and card-sharper, has lived on 118 wits for many days at a stretch, and ’s a world-experienced man. At the letropolitan Hotel, Brighton, he sees, ■nter an interval of three years, a lady m lavender, and recognises that Nettie p 3 quite grown up. With her is a man. Harley, lately come into an unexpected fortune. They commune as ‘‘? v ® rs » and are happy Roy tells her '»at he has bought a steam yacht, and intends to go yachting with Shute. Nettie that she is amanuensis to Shute. jno possesses the Green Bungalow at ■ norehaven, and that she goes there most mornings Roy replies that he is due nere this evening to play poker along 'nth prest and Andrew MacGlendy. The - v ers pass out and proceed to the East Tp?" l ' ° n Golf Links where they sit down * the hillside. After nine o’clock Harcans on MacGlendy, at 201 BrunsSquare. Prest and Shute are aly there The four men motor to ‘-norehaven beach. They dismiss the nvTu an( ? walk to the bungalows. They their way to a building a hundred rus or so apart from its fellows. Shute •ow r» e honours at the Green Bunga--0F’ Roy has already bought two packs at Weston’s. They play poker rises. Harley wins all along, 'vhii ne ' MacGlendy drops out after a uue, and stands watching the others. uses Harley of playing with car ds, which Roy strongly reH»r£ tes ’ # MacGlendy further accuses °* concealing the ace of spades hi-T 8 Pocket. Roy, confounded, puts •K- **and in his pocket and draws forth « °f spades. tie swears that he n " Ver Put it there. chapter IV. (Continued). Macglendy spoke with no trace of a accent now. He displayed naency to clip certain of his words, cim *pj >ear 6 < i to have some slight tji cult y w ith his vowels. As he sat r u~ e * w ith a scowl upon his face, and ionfr 2 U ? er n &lish on his lips. he Ru<! • was—a half-bred S / an w k°» in the early days, GlaK*» ear . nt *° s P English in a mean eoiDl ° W stree . t * where he had been as Jun * or assistant to a i h* . r °ker. But this was only when ihflf ? S a * OUe with his wife, and felt °at he could unbend u d been any use to me,” he T h REe prx ZES _j st £3 . ;, ndi £2 . 3rd T <J 16 TO JUVENILES UP J.C.L ? S for Best Description of all 1 Show (r»rti?JkA ts at the Auckland Winter I Jo *m cSSt dI V?2 8 vei tised at Show).— ur t, Ltd., Queen St., Auckland. j

! went on, “I should have been a millionaire by this time. Extraordinary thing, I can never kill that infernal honesty of yours. If you had listened to me, and played up to me as you could in the old days, when you were a dashed beautiful woman, then I could have done anything. With that bit of money you brought me. I could have gone to the top of the tree. There was nothing to stop me.’* “What, is it you want now?” the wife asked timidly. “Only that you should behave yourself. Now, listen to me. I and Shute have got a dashed big thing on. There’s any amount of money in it. and it’s as safe as houses. lam not going to tell you what it is, because, if l do, you’ll probably make a fool of yourself. We’ve got this place now, thanks to a bit of luck, and we are safe here for the present at any rate. There’s a young friend of mine called Harley, who has just come into a hat-full of money. He will .probably come here a good deal during the next few days, and I want you to be nice to him. There is nobody who can do that sort of thing better than you if you try.” “I know the name,” Mrs. Macglendy said mechanically. “If it is Roy Harley, I used to be a great friend of his mother’s. Andrew, you are never going to ask me ” “Drop it,” Macglendy said brutally. “Drop it, I say. You are going to do just as you are told. Not another word, or you’ll be sorry for it. Now, off you go, because I can hear Shute at the door. Not very fond of him, are you ?” With that, the unhappy woman discreetly vanished, as Shute came into the dining room. He carefully closed the door behind him, and helped him- ! self to a drink and a cigar. “Upon my word, you are deuced comfortable here,” he said. “Quite the baronial touch, with these panelled walls and old pictures. Nothing like a good setting when you’ve got a drama like ours to play. Now, look here, Andrew, I am sleeping in the bungalow to-night, because I shouldn’t wonder j if a load of that stuff turns up before

morning, and, if so, I must be there to receive it.” “Ah, the saccharine,” Macglendy laughed. “Quite a big lot this time, isn’t it? Lord, what a game it is! Smuggled on to a little yacht, and then brought by motor-boat to the landing stage under the bungalow. There’s no fortune in it, Mark, but it keeps things going while we are perfecting our plans for the biig operation. And now that we’ve got Harley into our hands ” “ ’Um, are you quite sure that we have?’’ Shute asked. “He is an obstinate devil, and I shouldn’t wonder if he decided at the last moment to fight the whole thing out.” “Oh, will he?” Macglendy sneered. “My dear fellow, he hasn’t got a leg to stand on. We caught him cheating with his own cards, and the thing was done in the presence of his own particular pal, who lost a good many hundreds, don’t forget. Oh no, he can’t fight it. Nobody would believe him. He may kick and struggle, but before the month is up, he will bow to the inevitable, and, in the meanwhile, we shall be able to use his yacht whenever we want it. It was a pretty idea of yours, and one of the best you have ever hit upon. I suppose it’s quite original. “Well, I don’t mind telling you that it isn’t,” Shute admitted. “I got it out of a book by au American, the name of which I forget for a moment. At any rate, I read it in New York} when I was laid up for a week or two some long time ago, and it struck me that the plot cot Id be made use of in a practical way. Those writing fellows often hit upon ingenious criminal schemes, which are useful to men like ourselves, and when chance threw Harley and his yacht in our way, I began to see how I could make use of that little romance I was telling you about. Of course, the saccharine smuggling is merely a blind. If we get caught, we can pretend that we did it more by

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way of a joke than anything else to settle a wager if you like. We shall probably get fined a thousand pounds, but, so long as we are not found out, we are not only clearing expenses, but making quite a handsome thing out ol’ it. But, as you know, I didn’t rent the bungalow with its almost secret landing place merely to do the revenue authorities out of a certain amount of duty. I was waiting lor the mug to come along, and when I happened upon Harley and his yacht, I knew that I had found him. You leave Harley alone, let him stew in his own juice for a week or two, and then you’ll find he will be ready for anything. I shouldn’t wonder if he felt desperate enough to join us. But even if he doesn’t, we know exactly what to do. It’s all worked out in the novel I told you about. You can have a look at tlie book and see for yourself if you like. If all goes well, before long we shall be able to loot every big house within fifty miles of Brighton that happens to be fairly near the coast. I have marked down at least a dozen of these, and, what’s more, I’ve got the plans. You see, most of these people only come down for week ends, for the shooting and that sort of thing, and I have managed to get a lot of information from servants, and people of that sort. I have got a whole lot of schemes worked out, and locked up in the safe in the bungalow, but it’s necessary that we should have the run of some decent yacht which belongs to some--body absolutely beyond suspicion. And, so far as the world in general is concerned, Harley is the very man for our purpose. We can use him as a sort of blind, and, while he doesn’t know it, that yacht of his will be playing its part in the great game. My dear chap, it's one of the easiest things that ever happened. I want you to keep-an eye upon Harley, and play up to him sympathetically. Tell him to do nothing for the month that Brest gave him, and suggest that there is some infernal mistake here that you might be able to put right. Have him to luncheon and dimmer. Get your wife to make a fuss of him; she can play the game splendidly if she only likes. And now I must be off. I have got a taxi outside waiting to take me as far as the bungalow, and there I shall stay till the morning.” With that, Shute went his way, full of the great scheme that he was playing, and wrapped in his own thoughts, came presently to Shorehaven, where he dismissed his taxi and made his way quietly across the shingle in the direction of the bungalow. It was getting late now, and the beach was entirely deserted. Indeed, at that time of the year most of the bungalows were empty, and from only one or two did an odd light or so penetrate.

Very gently, Shute picked his way, until he came to the door of his own little retreat, and opened it with his latchkey. He threw the door of the dining-room back and gave a gasp of surprise as he saw that the lights had been turned on. On a big armchair near the glowing fireplace was seated a man in

evening dress, who appeared to be deep in some yellow-cov.ered volume which he was reading with interest. Then he looked up with a smile on his face at the astounded intruder. “Good heavens!” Shute cried. “It’s Hilton Blythe. What in the name of fortune are you doing here? And how “Ah, that’s rather a long story,” Blythe said, in his sweetest manner. “I got in through a window. I thought you would be back before long, and I waited, because I have a good deal to say to you, and, if you value your future, you will listen.” “What book have you got there?” Shute asked suddenly. “This,” Blythe said, “is a detective story, called ‘The Lonely House,’ by one Preston Chandler. It’s a most interesting story, and, as the poet says, thereby hangs a tale. It is so interesting that I propose to bore you with it. Now, sit down, and don’t make any fuss. You know me well enough to be sure that I am going to have my own way, and if you wish to defy me —well ” Shute burst into a torrent of curses, so loud and deep as to bring a look of something like pain to Blythe’s features. Not that he was feeling any sort of resentment, because this display of temper was precisely what he wanted. Shute, cool and calculating, was a proposition to be tackled, but Shute in this passionate mood would be something like clay in the hands of the potter, where a cool diplomatist like Blythe was concerned. “What the devil do you want here?” Shute said, catching his breath. “Why do you come butting into my affairs? I should have thought a man at the top of his profession, as you are. would have scorned to help himself to the property of a ” “Brother thief. Precisely',” Blythe said coolly'. “Don’t you think it would pay you a good deal better to sit down and talk the matter over quietly? You know what I am, you know that if once I made up my mind to a thing, it is not the slightest use to try and turn me. I came down here with a definite object in my mind, but fortunately for the man I had in my eye, 1 hit upon the trail of what I considered to be better game. No doubt it is annoying that the bird in question legitimately belongs to your barrel, but there you are. Now, I have got a pretty shrewd idea of what you art up to, and with your consent I am going to stand in.” “And if I refuse?” Shuts snarled. “Oh, y T ou won’t refuse, my dear fellow. People in our exclusive society are not usually' in the habit of refusing anything that Hilton Blythe suggests. There have been cases, of course, but the other party to the contract, so to speak, has always been exceedingly sorry' for it afterwards And because I don’t want to have any unpleasantness with you, I came over here this evening to discuss the matter in an amicable spirit.” (To be continued.)