THE BAMNAMTYNE SAPPHIRES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 785, 4 October 1929, Page 5

THE BAMNAMTYNE SAPPHIRES

BY

FRANK HIED

CHAPTER XXXI.— (Continued.) “I could not move the tub alone, so Santo helped me. We had to lift the tub from the bottom. As Santo stooped to get his hands under the tub his watch-chain caught in the handle on his side. I saw the chain break in half as we raised the t ■b. Santo walked backwards with the tub, t walked forwards. As we went along the terrace I trod upon something hard. Looking down, I saw it vas one half of Santo's watch-chain with the key at the end. “I cried out ‘Put down the tub! lam twisting my hand’’ "Together we lowered the tub. and as my side touched the ground I Slipped my hand across the stones and picked up the broken piece of chain and the key. I put them in iny trousers pocket. Then we lifted the tub again aud carried it to my potting-shed. When we set it down Santo saw his chain was broken. “Never have I known a man who ran hide himself within himself as Santo does, but I knew he was afraid when he felt in the other pocket and found the key gone. There was fear in his voice when he asked me if I had noticed whether his watch-chain was broken before we began to lift the tub. With all truth, 1 could say that I had not. "He then searched the terrace from «nd to end. then went everywhere he had been during the morning-—in the garden, in the house. 1 knew he was growing more and more afraid, because he asked me to help him. aud told me there was a key on the piece of broken chain, a very important ■'ey- I pretended to search and raked over every path in the garden. “The next afternoon Santo went into the town. ‘Directly he had gone I jumped over the garden wall and went along the path to the big arbutus bush. The kitchen window and the window of Santo and Maria's bedroom look out on that side. As I went up the path I saw that the bedroom shutters were closed. One

shutter of the kitchen window was closed also; the other stood a little | way open. I had got underneath the j bush and was just going down the! track on the side of the ravine when> I happened to look up through the branches and saw Maria leaning half out of the kitchen window and looking i down. Of a verity, she must have I seen me come along the path. ; “For a moment I did not know what i to do. One thinks very quickly at j such times. Maria, I thought, must! have been watching behind the partlyopen shutter. Watching for what? j She must have seen me go under the j bush, cjae she would not have opened ] the shutter and leant so far out Could ! she see into the ravine from the window? If so. could she see me go to , the painted door? That would be fatal! So I scrambled back under the bush! into the pathway. But I knew that I had aroused Maria's suspicions, and that she would tell Santo. “Two days passed. Santo said no ; more about the lost key. but I noticed ! that on neither day did he go into the, town; that he never left the villa. Ii felt, too, that he was watching me. To go anywhere near the secret door | would have been madness. “On the third evening when I was i at the cafe a relation of my wife, ■ who is of the same village, came to me 1 and told me the lie that brought all this misery. Monsieur and Madame know the rest." Meredith and Patricia had listened intently. “But, Jacques." said Patricia, “we; don’t understand even now how Santo ruined you.” “It was very simple, Madame. My wife's relation owed money to the jeweller. He did not know that Santo knew. But Santo went to him and told him it was his. Santo's, money that the jeweller had lent. He threatened to call in the • sum if the man j would not come to me and tell the! story about my wife. The man could ! not pay, so he had to obey Santo.j After I was in hiding he sent me word j that my vengeance was against Santo.j not against him, that Santo had forced \ him to lie. That was Santo's devilry.: He feared ! should find out the secret l of the painted door. I fell into his [ trap, and all worked as he had j planned. But, ah, no, not quite.” j Jacques added quickly, a note of eagerness creeping into his voice. i “Ever since I knew Monsieur and Madame would help me l have been thinking and thinking. I shall never; see Corsica again, perhaps never see I my dear wife any more. Santo has i closed my lips. I can do nothing. But j Monsieur aud Madame are friends of I Monsieur Wryce. When they go back ■ to England will they not give him the key and tell him all I have told them? Santo, then, can suspect nothing.” Patricia leant forward, crying eagerly: “Of course, Jacques, we will take the key to ” when Meredith put his hand on her arm. “Yes, Jacques, we will take the key.” Then he whispered to Patricia: “There's no need to tell lies.” Jacques put his hand inside his shirt aud drew out a dirty little cotton I bag. Ripping it open between his J fingers, he shook the bag. A small I steel key fell upon the table. “There.” he said, as he gave the j key to Meredith, “there is the key. ! Take it, Monsieur.” He watched Meredith as he picked up the key, looked at it, and then put

it into a leather note-case, which he put in an inner pocket of his coat. Jacques's eyes were bright with triumph. “Now,” he shouted, banging his fist down on the table. “Now I shall have my vengeance on Santo.” “And it is time we started for Bastia,” said Meredith, “where Flaxton is waiting to take you to safety.” “Don't you think Santo is decidedly grumpy?” Patricia and Meredith had arrived at Villa Varato in time for lunch on the Saturday. All had gone as planned and Jacques was on his way to the mainland. They had been received by a more than usually taciturn Santo, and Patricia thought she saw a gleam of something like anger in the depths of his black eyes when he met them at the garden gate. * She noticed, too, that when Maria came out of the house immediately afterward, her leathery cheeks were flushed aud her looks were anything but kindly. Santo had waited on them at luncheon. and throughout the meal Patricia had been conscious of an atmosphere of suppressed hostility. Now he had just brought them coffee ou the terrace, and had dumped the tray down upon the table with a force that set the cups and saucers and spoons hurtling together and spilled some of the coffee. “There’s certainly something wrong,” Meredith answered. “He has always poured out the coffee. You see today he’s just gone off and left us to help oui-selves. But Santo doesn't matter. The question is, when are we going to explore the hillside and find Jacques’s secret door?” “Do you think it would be safe tomorrow morning, when they are both gone into the town?” Patricia said. AfteV a moment’s thought Meredith agreed. “I’m dying to see what's behind Jacques's door,” he said. “But we mustn’t run any risks. After what happened to Jacques we know Santo will stick at nothing if he suspects us. If there is any risk, you oughtn't to be in it, Patricia dear. I want you to let me prospect on my own.” Patricia’s immediate and emphatic “I shall do nothing of the kind” made argument impossible. But Meredith was uneasy, and told her so. “What risk can there be when those two are out of the way?” she asked. “If Alice Baunatyne’s necklace is somewhere behind that door, and 1 believe it is, I’m going to help you find it, risk or no risk. So w T e must just wait and be patient until tomorrow morning.” But they had not to wait so long. Maria came to take away the coffee tray in place of Santo. Patricia at once noticed she was wearing the black dress in which she went to Ajaccio every morning, instead of the blue overall she always wore about the house. “I am sorry to inconvenience Monsieur and Madame,” she said, “but something awkward has happened.” She spoke in her usual civil way, but her leathery cheeks were still flushed; and she kept her eyes fixed on the coffee tray in her hands. “Some relations of my husband have come from the mountains to Ajaccio. They are here but one day, and we should like to be excused in order to go into the town and spend the rest of the day with them. And, alas, I have prepared no dinner for Monsieur and Madame.” “Don’t trouble about that, Maria,” said Patricia. A plan formed itself rapidly in Meredith's mind. “We have to take the car we hired back to the garage this afternoon.” he explained. "We can go in later, when it gets cooler, and have tea at Madame Mille’s. Then we can go for a walk, have an early dinner in the town, and come back here." Something approaching a smile

swept over the woman’s tanned face and Patricia was convinced she detected relief in her answer. “Ah, that will make everything easy! We are sorry to incommode Monsieur and Madame, but our business with the relations is important. We shall hot be back until very late, so 1 will give Monsieur the key of the front door.” A quarter of an hour later Maria, her head enveloped in a black silk handkerchief, arranged hoodwise, appeared on the terrace. “If Monsieur would have the goodness to fasten the middle salon window on the inside, when he and Madame go into the town, there will be nothing else to trouble about, except to lock the front door after them,” she said, putting a large key on the table at which Meredith and Patricia were still sitting. “I have fastened the two other windows of the salon.” “But how will you and Santo get in?” Patricia asked. Maria turned to her slowly. In the brief pause before the woman answered, Patricia was conscious of the same vague antagonism which had met her questions about Jacques on the day of their arrival. “Madame forgets the kitchen door. My husband has the key. Au revoir.” j She walked to the steps, then ; turned, saying, as if a sudden remembrance had come to her: i “Santo says that Monsieur and Madame will get an excellent dinner lat the restaurant in the Place des | Palmiers. Is it not so, Santo?” j In answer to his wife’s call Santo j came up the terrace steps, j “Of a verity,” he said, taking off i his large black hat, “Monsieur and Madame will find there the best din- ! ner in Ajaccio. Perhaps they would j wish me to say that they will dine j there this evening? We pass close* ' by, in going*to my relations.” | "By all means,” said Meredith, j “At what time shall I say Monsieur and Madame will diue?” j The last thing Meredith wished was | to be tied down to a particular hour for dinner. He had already made his plan. But as he hesitated, he realised j that both Maria and Santo were looking at him either with anger or suspicion, he couldn’t determine which. | CHAPTER XXXII. I l ! “At what time shall I say Monsieur will dine?” Santo repeated. | “Oh,. say somewhere about seven,” j Meredith replied as indifferently as jhe could, “if that will suit you,” he added, turning to Patricia. ! Patricia nodded. With another “Au i revoir” from Maria, and a “Bon j appetic” from Santo, the couple disi appeared down the steps. | Meredith and Patricia watched them as they descended the path until j they were hidden by a grove of orange trees. “Why on earth should that chap be Iso anxious to know the time we’re ! going to dine?” Meredith said. “Perhaps it was only civility,” Patricia suggested. “Humph! I doubt that. At any