THE BANNANTYNE SAPPHIRES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 787, 7 October 1929, Page 5

THE BANNANTYNE SAPPHIRES

BY

FRANK HIRD

CHAPTER XXXVl.—Continued. Taking the tray of loose stones from the wash-leather square at which Uecfalda was working, Wryce knelt down in ?ront of the suitcase and began drooping the stones into the little holes ic. -he squares, diamonds in one rubies in mother, pearls in a third, and so on -each jewel had its own square. TYryce had emptied the tray from Leofalda’s place and was about to take up the one in front of Bart well, when he turned quickly in the opening and said: “Santo, is that you?” “Yes. monsieur,” said Santo, appearing in the opening. ‘‘Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!” he cried, standing aghast, when he saw' Meredith and Patricia tied and hound. “How did these people get there?” Wryce asked, sternly. ‘‘l cannot tell—it is a mystery.” Santo stood utterly dismayed, <lutching at the shabby attache case Meredith had seen him carrying into the town. “Unless—unless,” he stammered. “Ah, yes, that must be it I I lost the key of the outer door from my watch chain a month ago, somewhere in

• the garden. They have found it. That must be it. They have found it.” j ‘‘Did you find the key?” Wryce asked Meredith, stooping over him. “No," said Meredith, ‘‘Jacques Marini gave it to me.” ‘‘lmpossible!” burst out Santo, ‘‘he is hiding in the mountains with a price on his head. lie shot his wife and another man.” i "Yes, because you told him a lie,” Patricia called from her chair. Then to Wryce: "We saw Jacques in the mountains. He gave us the key and told us about the painted door. And he told us, too, how Santo had ruined him because he had found the door.” “Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!” Santo cried. "How is it possible that you two strangers could have seen Jacques in hiding with the gendarmes all round him? What she says is true, Monsieur: so.they must have seen him. There was nothing else to be done. Jacques had to be got rid of. I knew i he was spying on me, and one day, , after I lost the key, Maria saw him at j the bottom of the ravine close to the door. It was dangerous to have him here.” "Why didn’t you tell me about Jacques?” Wryce asked.

i “Such things are not to be written, l Monsieur,” the man answered, “and | this is the first time I haye seen you. ; Monsieur arrived after Maria and I went to bed last night.” I Beofalda and Bartw r ell had turned in their chairs. I “We are wasting time,” said the Mexican. “Is there much from the jeweller?’* “Yes, there is much,” Santo answered, putting the shabby attache case on the end of the bench and opening it. “But T have a message from him, Monsieur.” ~ ■* * “That jeweller has many friends in Ajaccio, Monsieur,” Santo continued, | speaking slowly and obviously considering his w’ords. “One of them is in ■ the Post Office, only a small official, it is true, but this man heard a high official say that the jew'eller -was receiving more parcels of jewels by post than he could possibly sell in so small p, place as this, and at a time of the year when there are no tourists. Therefore, he is afraid, and says he will have no more parcels. “I told him Monsieur had arrived late last night by motor, and was . leaving again tonight for Bastia, so he had better come up and see you. He j said he w ould not, because another ; friend had told him the police might : make a perquisition in the villa any day. More he would not say, except . that someone had been talking, and lie I w r ou!d take no risk. And one thing else. Monsieur.” Wryce, white and shaken, was leaning against the bench. “The jeweller asked me if anyone in Ajaccio knew that Monsieur was here. I said. No. that you and Monsieur Leofalda had come here in the dark, not by road, but by the path, and that your servant, who had never been in Corsica before, had come by train from Mastia in the afternoon. ' and he, too. had come to the villa after dark. He asked what you were ; doing at the villa. I told him you had | w r orked most of the night breaking up | the jewels. He said: M ‘Tell Monsieur from me that ite

will be w T ise to get away as quickly as he can, before anybody knows he is in Ajaccio/ ” 1 “They can make a dozen perquisitions!” Wryce cried, “but they’ll never find these rooms! I shall stay!” CHAPTER XXXVII. “Don’t be so sure that nobody will j find us here,” Leofalda interposed. | “These people found the rooms. 1 Mayn’t that man Jacques have told somebody else what he told No, my friend. The sooner we pack up and get away the better.” Wryce looked at him stupidly and murmured; “It’s inconceivable! It/s impossible! The whole thing was so perfectly arranged!” “It’s an unpleasant blow, but talking, my friend, will make no difference,” said Leofalda, quietly wiping his fingers on the square ‘-of washleather. “Unless the police know something there could be no word of perquisition. We must go.” Wryce, completely unnerved by Santo’s news, did not seem to hear. He leant against the bench with folded arms, staring down at the floor. Without another word Leofalda took charge. “It’s no good bothering about those,” lie said as Bartwell began to collect the broken settings. “Finish this suit case. I will do the other.” The second suit case had a false bottom exactly like the first. While Bartwell was continuing Wryce’s work of putting the stones in the small holes. Leofalda took, up three of the strings of pearls lying beside the sapphire necklace. He cut the strings with a sharp pair of scissors, dropping each pearl into a tray. Then, kneeling down, he put them into the false bottom of the second ca^e. “What about this?” he said to Wryce, pointing to Mrs. Rannantyne’s necklace. “Shqll I cut the chains?” “Oh. no,” Wryce answered quickly. “We can get much more for it as it, is in America. I’ll take charge of | that.” The question clearly stirred him to action, for he began helping Bart- i well. Santo was taking various pieces of jewellery from his shabby case, ; unrolling them from the tissue paper ; in which they were wrapped, and laying them in a pile on the bench. | Suddenly Maria appeared in the opening in the wall. She looked frightened. “The telephone bell is ringing,” j she said. “I dare not answer it.” | “Go and see what it is.” Wrvce said nervously to Santo. ; “Better not answer it,” LeofalrJa protested. “But suppose it is some inquiry from the police?” Wryce’s nervousness was increasing. “Go, Santo.” The man disappeared through the opening in the wall. “It is Monsieur Flaxton,” he said when he returned. “He inquired for Monsieur and Madame Meredith. I did not know what to say. I said they were gone out. He said he would be here in half pn hour and wait until they returned.” “It is strange, Monsieur, very strange. Monsieur Flaxton, I am sure, arranged with Monsieur and Madame to go into the mountains. If they saw Jacques Marini there, then so must Monsieur Flaxton. And Monsieur Flaxton is sure to have heard what Jacques told them about the painted door. Perhaps it is he who j has spoken to the police? Ah.” lie cried, his voice high and shrill, “it is of a certainty Monsieur Flaxton. It. can be no other. And perhaps he comes with the police!” Patricia noticed that tho actual imminence of dauger brought out all Wryce’s calmness and resource. If he had been stunned, almost stupe

fled by the news Santo had brought from the jeweller, that had passed. He fastened down and locked the fix'St suit case himself. Leofalda threw two strings of pearls still uncut into the bottom of the second case. “That’s no use,” said Wryee taking them out. “The inside case won’t Jit down on them. We must take them separately, with the other things and the stuff Santo has brought. And the broken settings, too,” he added, looking along the bench. "We musn’t leave a sign. Bring the other case, Santo.” Santo brought an attache case from the inner room. While Bartwell handed him the still unbroken pieces of jewellery lying beside Jhe two squares of wash-leather and the broken-up settings, Leofalda packed them in this case. His plump fingers, with their rosy nails, worked so deftly that Patricia came to the conclusion that they had had a long experience in packing the proceeds of jewel robberies into the smallest compass. Everything was cleared on either side of the two squares of washleather. Beside the third square lay the strings of pearls and Mrs. Bannantyne’s necklace. Bartwell gathered them all together in his two hands, and held them out to Leofalda. “Not those, yet,” said the Mexican. “They’ll fit in on the top. I’ll put Santo’s lot In first.” He began packing the jewellery—bracelets and brooches—which Santo had taken from the shabby blackcase and laid on the bench. “Take all the other things out of the paper.” Bartwell threw the strings of pearls and the sapphire necklace down on the bench, and went quickly to Santo’s attache case. The necklace and pearls fell partly across the washleather square, partly across the wood of the bench. But in its fall the necklace became detached from the strings of pearls and lay across them at right angles, one of its ends hanging even farther over the end of the bench—just above Meredith’s head—than it did before Bartwell lifted it. The other end, as it struck the bench, shot sideways, knocking over an uncorked bottle of oil. The bottle fell with its neck toward the wall. Bartwell, in liis eagerness to unpack Santo’s case, did not notice the overturned bottle. Nobody noticed it—Leofalda, spreading out bracelets in tlie attache case and tucking brooches, earrings, and pendants into every possible interstice; Wryce putting pearls in the little holes on the bottom of the second suitcase; Santo standing waiting for orders; Patricia bound in her chair. The oil ran from the neck of the bottle, a narrow streak of yellow, along the bench toward the wall. The work went on without a word. After a few minutes Wryce replaced the inner part of the second suitcase. When it became level with the outer side Patricia noticed that he pressed the two sides together with his Angers and thumbs, and that from each side came the “click” of a spring pushed into position. “Well, that’s that!” said Wryce, locking the case and rising from his knees. “Police or no police, there’s a clear fifty thousand pounds in these two suitcases. That will puli us square, Leofalda.” “I’m glad to hear it.” Leofalda answered. “But what do you propose to -do with all this?” A wave of his plump hands indicated a pile of jewels from Santo’s ease, the sapphire necklace, and the strings of pearls. “This case is full. I can't get in the rest. Have you got another one?” “No. I arranged for everything being broken up, except the sapphire necklace, just as we have always done. We must use Santo’s case,” Wryce answered.

“It's no good, sir,” said Bartwell. “It’s falling to pieces.” Meredith felt something falling, drip, drip, on his tied wrists. Turning his head slowly and looking upward he saw a thin yellow stream coming over the edge of the bench. The oil, meeting some irregularity iu the wood, instead of flowing on toward the wall, had taken a right-hand turn, and was running directly across the bench, falling down upon Meredith. * * * He shifted to avoid the falling oil, but as he did so found that he could move his right wrist, which was uppermost. The oil was soaking through the linen. A gentle pull on the right wrist showed him that the linen was becoming looser. He rolled over again on to his face, the oil dripping down on his wrists until the bottle was empty. “There must be a box or something in the house,” Wryce said. “W.e can’t carry all these things in our pockets. Bartwell, you and Santo go and look for something, while Mr. Leofalda and I carry these cases up the ravine.” Bartwell and Santo disappeared through the opening in the wall. Wryce and Leofalda, each carrying a suitcase, went through the door opening into the passage. “Oh, Guy!” Patricia said. “Did that brute hurt you?” “Hush,” he whispered. “Don’t talk.” He was working his wrists quickly. The linen was now saturated through with oil, and with each tAvist he found his right A\ r rist moved more freely. But the left remained fixed firmly by the knots. A long, steady pull, and his right hand Avas free. “I’m going to try to get the necklace!” he whispered. CHAPTER XXXVIJI. “If I could only help you!” Patricia whispered, Avatching Meredith tugging at the knots on his left Avrist. “Oh, I’m afraid you’ll neA r er get them undone.” The knots Avere immovable. In frict, the more Meredith pulled at them the tighter they became. With an effort he sat upright and Avorked his right arm round under the strips of linerr across his back an'd chest which fastened his elbows to his side. He raiseid his hand toward the end o£ the necklace hanging oA'er the edge of the bench. In spite of the danger Patricia could not repress a disappointed “Oh!” Only a few a inches from the end of the necklace Meredith’s hand Avas suddenly stopped. He could raise it no higher because of the linen round his upper arms. He tried again and again, but could not get his hand an inch higher. In her excitement Patricia tried to stand up. She Avas grasping the seat of the chair Avith both hands, and although her ankles were tied to the legs of the chair her feet Avere on the ground. Her sudden movement raised the two back legs and moved the chair

sliglitly forward. This gave her ail idea. Pressing her feet on the ground she , tugged at the seat with both hands. j ' putting them as far back as she could. ; The chair moved forward. Five or six feet only were between Patricia and the bench, but as she shuffled the chair across them they | seemed to be six miles. "Would she ; get there, she thought, trying te move the chair more quickly, before the men returned? At last she reached Meredith. 1 ; “Get under the bench as far as you ; , can.” she whispered. Meredith rolled over. One more j shuffle brought Patricia close to the [ | necklace. She could not reach the: - j end hanging over the edge of the - bench. Therefore, bending forward ■ over the bench, she seized in her teeth 5 | a piece of the diamond chain work be--1 | tween two of the stones. Then she 3 I drew back her head. j She shuffled the chair backward, ut i the movement jerked the piece of

chain out of her mouth and the end; of the necklace fell back over the edge of the bench. She was about to move the chair forward, with the intention of again pulling at the necklace with her teeth, when there was a sound of voices. “Get back!” whispered Meredith, “I can manage now!” Patricia found it easier to shuffle the chair backward. She was half-way back to the wail before Meredith had struggled to a sitting posture and got his free hand up once more toward the necklace. This time, he could take the big stone at the end between his thumb and fingers. Patricia was in her old place against the wall when she saw the necklace slide over the edge of the bench, the sapphires blazing and flashing under the light, and fall to the floor. Instantly Meredith rolled over on the Eggs is Cd a dozen all ilie year round i if you put down now with Sliarland s Egg Preservative. id

top of it. and putting Itis right hand behind his back slipped it into the ■ oil-soaked loop of linen. Again there came the sound of voices, and Santo and Bart well came | into the room, the latter carrying a tin biscuit box. “I don’t care what you say. Santo.” he said, taking the wr&pped-up pieces of jewellery from the dilapidated attache case and packing them in the tin. “1 don’t see the need for all this 1 hurry. Mr. Wryce is rigli . The police would never find this place.” (To he continued.i