The Bantyre Fortune

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1003, 20 June 1930, Page 5

The Bantyre Fortune

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CHAPTER XlV.—(Continued). “But how should 1 feel U that happened?” he asked without looking at her. “If I saw you suffering—as you would suffer; I know what poverty means!—and knew that I was responsible, how should I feel? It’s no good saying that love would compensate for everything. The knowledge that I had your love would give me strength to meet any danger or face any pain that only touched myself; but to see you unhappy through love for me would be worse than hell!” “Does that mean that you are determined to carry on with your attempt to ge-t this fortune for me?” she asked. “Of course. It is yours. You must have it.” “And if you do get it for me, what then?” she pursued. “Is it still to stand between us?” There was a long pause while he sat with bent head fighting with his feelings. At last he said in a strained voice: “That will be for you to say when the thing is done.” “But I am ready to say it now!” she protested. “I won’t have it!” He was almost fierce. “You would regard it as a promise. You would consider yourself bound, and, as for me, it would be as if whatever I did was done in the expectation of sharing the result with you—as if I were helping you for pay, as Grierson and his friends think I am helping them!” “Do they think that?” “Yes. I told you these notes in my case came from them. They are ail known to Garfield or Cousins. As they knew they would not be allowed to get into touch with you they wanted someone who could do so without rousing suspicion and they lighted on me!” “But they had to confide their whole wicked plot to you! How did you persuade them that they could trust you?” "There was no need to persuade them!” he said, with a touch of bitterness. “Grierson paid my bill at the restaurant; they knew I had ordered and eaten an expensive meal without the remotest chance of paying for it, and they concluded I was as dishonest as themselves.” “How dare they?” she cried.

“llow do you know I am not?” he turned on her, sharply. "I admit that I fooled them. For all you know 1 may be fooling you with a pretence of working in your interest for no other purpose than to reap a richer reward than I could win by helping them!” ; “Are you trying to make me doubt you?” she asked. “I am trying to protect you and myself. I intend to secure this fortune for you if it can be done; but if I succeed it must be for you alone. There must be no question of a reward for me, except the privilege of serving you and the consciousness of doing right.” She was silent for a moment study ing his set face with a little pucker on her brow, then she smiled softly. “I see what It is!” she said. “Your man’s pride and sense of honour again! You are afraid I might suspect it is for the fortune you care and net for me!” “I’m going to take jolly good care you have no reason for such a suspicion!” he retorted. “Very well, I accept your terms. Since you are set on making me rich in spite of myself, I suppose you must have your way, and it is understood that if you are successful you will not ask and I shall never offer payment. Is that the bargain?” She offered her hand. “Yes,” he said, taking it. “That leaves you free, whatever happens.” "Oh, yes! Quite free, you wise old owl!” she said, and laughed in his face. But there were tears in her eyes, and her fingers closed on his a 3 though she could not bear to let them go. CHAPTER XV. AN AWKWARD MEETING Mark Seymour came out of the private hotel, and, calling a taxi, gave the address of David Grierson’s flat and got in. He had decided on a course of action to which he had obtained Naomi's consent, and was on his way to put it into execution. He foresaw difficulties, not to say dangers, in his way, but these would have had to be faced in any case if he was to achieve his purpose of establishing Naomi's position as the heiress of Henry M. Bantyre, and they did not daunt him. His chief doubt at the moment was of his ability to satisfy Grierson as to the motive which had led him to disclose the full facts to Naomi and to remove her from Hector Cousins's house. On both these points he had gone beyond his instructions, and was well aware that he would be called to strict account. But he thought he saw his way fairly clear. Nothing could be done for Naomi without the document that proved her legal claim, and that could only be produced through Grierson, or whichever of his associates held it. Mark did not hope to induce them to give it up willingly, except on their own terms, which he had no intention of granting; but it he was to get it by other means, the first essential was that he should know where to seek it, aud it was that knowledge he was after now". He was looking for trouble.from the

start of his visit, for he was certain that when Hector Cousins rushed to the telephone as Mark and Naomi left his house, it was to call up Grierson and propose some arrangement. Whether or not he had succeeded, he would have given his own account of Alark’s eruption into the Wimbledon house and his departure with Naomi after revealing the true position to her, and Grierson would be in no amiable frame of mind. Alark was anticipating full play for any diplomatic skill he possessed.

But he was prepared to meet whatever might be awaitiug him. The events of the morning had strung his nerves to the highest pitch of tension. He was in a curious mood. Within a few hours he had been raised to a pinnacle of exaltation by Naomi’s avowal of her love, and he had fallen to the depths of despair at the thought that he was in honour bound to deny himself the joy of claiming her. The experiences of the last few weeks had given a far greater blow to his pride and self-respect than he hid suspected until now. The contemptuous rejection of all his applications for even the most elementary kinds of employment had induced a feeling of utter abasement. He saw himself as a useless parasite upon the earth, less worthy of consideration than the roughest unskilled labourer, however low his place might be, and this seemed to put a barrier between him and Naomi even more impassable than that, of the wealth he was resolved to make hers. So joy and despair were blended in his sensations as the taxi whirled him onward, and his reaction to them was a mixture of absolute determination to see justice done to her, with as absolute a recklessness as to the consequences to himself. The cab drew up at its destination, and at the same moment a car which had approached from the opjiosite direction stopped so that the two bonnets were almost touching-. Alark recognised the big motor in which he had driven from the restaurant the night before, and as he alighted and paid his fare, Grierson and Mara Whitton descended and came toward him. “What brings you here?” Grierson asked. “Something to report already?” “Yes.” Alark raised his hat to Alara, who acknowledged the greeting coldly, but though he scanned both faces closely he could detect no sign of the Storm for which he was prepared. “Well, I hope it’s something worth while,” said Grierson. “Anyhow, it looks as if you had got to work promptly. Come upstairs and let’s hear what you have to. say.” He led the way, and Mark followed, with Alara, who placed heself at his elbow. He could feel her eyes on his face as though she were trying to bore through to his brain and read his thoughts, but he did not look at her. “Have you seen Naomi Bantyre?” she asked as they entered the building. “Yes,” he answered curtly. “I guessed it,” she said with a little laugh; “and what did she have to say to you?” “That is what I am here to report,” he replied. “Hadn’t I better wait and make one telling of it?” “I wonder if you will tell ever3'thing?” she said, and brushed past hint into the lift, the door of which Grierson had opened. Alark stepped in, and Grierson closed the door and pulled the switch over. He remained facing the door as they went up, aud Alark examined the back view of him with a new interest. He looked singularly uncouth and out of place in his fashionable overcoat and stylish hat. His great shoulders were round and heavy, and the red, beefy neck rising in rolls from his white collar to the short cropped

hair roused a feeling of repugnance in Mark. The lift reached the second floor and stopped. Grierson got out and crossed to his own door with his latch-key in his hand.

“There’ll be no unpleasant sur prises waiting for us inside this time, I hope!” he said admitting them and leading the way to the dining room. Mark sa w the door of what he assumed to be the kitchen open, and a perturbed looking woman come She had apparently heard them enter and had something to say to Grierson, but he passed into the dining room witnout noticing her. He stopped abruptly just within the doorway, and his voice rose harshly in surprise: “Hello! What is the meaning of this?” There was a sound of movement in the room and Mara, whose vision was obscured by the bulk of Grierson, pushed him aside impatiently and forced her way past him. Mark edged in after her aud saw that the room already had two occupants. Wayne Garfield and Hector Cousins were standing near the hearth beside two chairs from which they had risen as the others entered. “How the devil do you come to he here?” demanded Grierson, as neither of them spoke. “1 told them you wasn’t in, sir, and T didn’t know when you might be, but they would make me let them come in and wait!” came the voice of the charwoman from the door. Grierson turned on her, quickly. “That’s all right. Mrs. Jennings! No harm done!” he said, with a wave of his arm as though shooing her awav. You get back to your work.” The woman scuttled off to the kitchen. Grierson waited to make sure that she had shut herself in: then he closed the dining room door and faced Cousins and Garfield again. “I am waiting to near what this visit means.” he said. “I suppose it is intended for me. You don’t seem to have been prospecting among my property this time!” He glanced round the room to which rder had been restored, and where nothing had been disturbed. Garfield had peered expectantly into the liall while the door was open, and had watched it being closed with obvious surprise. Now, ignoring Grierson's observation, he demanded: “What have you done with the girl ?” “What girl?” “Naomi Bantyre ” “What the devil do you mean by asking me w 7 hat I have done with her. Isn’t she at Wimbledon. in } r our charge?” Grierson’s perfectly genuine puzzlement only irritated Garfield, who naturally supposed it to be assumed, and he barked angrilj': “What do you expect to gain by that?” He pointed a skinny huger at Mark. “Are you going to deny that he was acting in collusion with you when he -went to Mr. Cousins’s house this morning and took her away?” “What.’s that?” Grierson stared openmouthed at Garfield for a moment, then with a fierce scowT he turned on Mark. “Is this true?” he almost shouted. “Have you taken that girl away on your own?” CHAPTER XVI. BLUFF Mark had been doing some rapid thinking since seeing that Cousins and Garfield had reached the flat before him. He had gone to Grierson in the expectation of finding him fully primed with w-hatever version Hector

had seen fit to give of the morning’s doings, and had prepared himself to deal with the situation as it would present itself under those conditions But the meeting in the street had suggested that these anticipations were not to be fulfilled, for it was obvious at once that Grierson had not heard what had happened. He had probably already gone out when Cousins telephoned, and was only now returning home. Mark considered that a stroke of luck. He could get his own story in first and tell it in his own way. He was reconsidering his attitude, while the lift carried them up, and had reached a decision as to the line to take when he stepped into the dining room and was confronted bv the unlooked-for presence of Hector Cousins and Garfield. The position was at once infinitely more difficult than ever, and for a minute or two he was completely at a loss. Then the puzzled look on Grierson’s face gave him an inspiration, and he took his line, trusting to the big man’s sharpness to support him. “Yes.” he said sternly. “1 have taken Miss Bantyre from these people. I had very good reasons for doing so, and I fancy you are aware of them.” “Me?” Grierson ejaculated fiercely. The word was evidently ouly to he a taking-off place for an explosion of wrath, but. Mark had no intention of letting him get command of the situation, and cut in quickly: “You can hardly deny it, since these gentlemen have virtually accused you of being aware of what 1 did. Indeed, they seem to think that I acted with your knowledge. That is a natural conclusion for them to draw, perhaps, as they saw me come into your house in your company, and don’t know that we met by accident on your doorstep, and that I have not even had time to tell you why I have sought you out.” “What the devil are you talking about?” growled Grierson, savagely. He advanced on Mark with his heavy shoulders hunched and his broad face lowering darkly. Mark took advantage of the movement to alter his own position, so that his face w r as hidden from Garfield and Cousins, and he winked deliberately. Grierson paused, and a change passed over his face. That wink must have meant something, though he had no idea what. For that matter he had no idea about anything that had been happening, except that Mark had removed Naomi from Cousins’s house, and. though that was not in tlie programme he had drawn up. he had intelligence enough to recognise f p it circumstances of which he was unaware might have made it a good move. Since it had not originated with him he was not inclined to admit at once that it vras good, but he would be willing to listen to explanations. As his mind worked thus the expression &f his face changed from violent anger to one of cunning, and he was about to speak in a calmer tone when Mark once more cut in: “1 know 7 that what I have to say to you will make you as angry as what I have done has made these other scoundrels,”—he indicated Cousins and Garfield with a disdainful sweep of his hand —“but I don’t mind that. I have something to do, and I am going through wfith it in spite of the lot of you!” He allowed all the contempt he really felt for Grierson to find expression in his voice, and for an instant the big man seemed, by the way in which he gathered himself together, to be about to spring and rend him, but while indulging his feelings in his voice, which he could not disguise from the listeners, he winked again for Grierson’s benefit, and the big man checked himself. It seemed obvious that Mark was developing some ruse for the purpose of hood-winking Cousins and Garfield, and, if that was

so, Grierson was quite willing to play up to him. But to do that effectively he must know how he was expected to behave, and at present he had no notion what was expected of him. Mark quickly gave him a cue: “I haven’t come here looking for a friendly greeting, Mr. Grierson,” he said, “but, nothing either you or these other people can do will prevent me from going through with what 1 have begun. You don’t kuow me—we never exchanged a word before I met you outside your door five miuutes ago—but I know you and the plot you and your friends have been hatching against Miss Ban tyre, and 1 am going to see that it doesn't succeed.”

“Oh, are you?” Grierson thought he began to see daylight. Mark had not acknowledged to Cousins and Garfield that he had any connection with Grierson and his friends, and, in whatever he had done had appeared, and still wished to appear, to be acting in entire independence. It was a smart manoeuvre! It would keep Garfield and Cousins guessing, and the mere fact that a third party was in the field who was not only aware .of Naomi’s parentage, but was ready to use his knowledge in her interest, would alarm them and incline them to listen to reason. He was pleased with his recruit. But he must not show that. Obviously his cue was to treat Mark as a stranger and a declared enemy. “That’s very interesting!” he said sneeringly, with an effort to adjust himself to the situation: “but you’ve got a bigger advantage over me than you seem to realise. It's quite true that I kuow you, but neither do I know what you are talking about. What’s this yarn about me. and some friends of mine hatching a plot against some young woman?” “You know that perfectly well,” said Mark, delighted to see things going as he wished. “1 am talking of your design of extorting money from these men, Hector Cousins and Wayne Garfield, as the price of allowing them to cheat Miss Naomi Ban tyre out of her father’s fortune.” “Where did you get that story from?” Grierson’s voice suddenly rose to a shout, and he turned with wellsimulated anger on the other two men. “Did he get it from you?” “We have told him nothing,” said Garfield, who with Cousins had been listening with dubious faces to the dialogue. Mark had watched them keenly without appearing to do so, but had been unable to decide from their expressions whether or not they were being deceived. But now Cousins intervened in his soft, persuasive tones, and his words suggested that he at any rate had swallowed the bait. “How could we tell him anything when there is nothing to tell? This young man forced himself into my house this morning, and seems to have imposed on her with some ridiculous romance in which she was represented as the rightful heiress to the wealth of my late uncle, Henry M. Bantyre.” “Did he tell her that?” demanded Grierson with a scowl at Mark in

which the anger was perfectly genu ine.

“He did. What his motive was, or why he should have invented so idiotic a tale, I can’t imagine.” “You are doing an injustice to your intelligence, Mr. Cousins,” said Mark. “Both you and Mr. Garfield supplied reasons for my being at your house, and for the information I gave Miss Bantyre when you accused me of being in league with a gang of crooks who were endeavouring to blackmail you on the strength of this ridiculous romance, which now strikes you as merely idiotic. Shall Ibe altogether wroug in assuming that Mr. David Grierson is a member, and possibly a prime mover, in this gang?” “You’ll be wrong to this extent, my fine fellow,” said Grierson, who by now began to think he saw his way to making the most of the situation into which Mark’s unexpected action had forced him, “that you have come butting into an affair that does not concern you, and that you can do nothing by yourself.” He waved his hand toward Garfield and Cousins. “These gentlemen seem to have talked about a conspiracy to blackmail them. If there is such a conspiracy, why have they not reported it to the police?” “You are perfectly acquainted with their reasons, and as it happens so am I.” “Is that so?” Grierson was positively beginning to enjoy himself. He saw that Cousins and Garfield were completely taken in. and believed he could profit by the deception. His opinion of Mark’s strategy improved by leaps and bounds, but liis manner toward him only grew more outwardly hostile. “And how do those reasons appeal to you?” “Not at all,” replied Mark, curtly. “Does that mean you will report the matter to the police?” Grierson acted his part so well that his aspect became ogreish. “I shall not have the least hesitation in doing so if it appears advisable,” returned Mark, firmly. Grierson laughed contemptuously. “Oh, yes! I know what you are thinking—l know the entire position! You have obtained possession of a document which is essential to the proving of Miss Bantyre’s claim ” “Ho*w do you know that document, exists?” Hector Cousins interrupted, feverishly. Mark turned on him, coldly. “If I told you that you would be a wise as myself,” he said. “I do know, and unless Mr.’ Grierson sees fit to produce it voluntarily, I shall take steps that will compel him to.” Grierson laughed again. He was noticing the effect of Mark’s words on the other men, and was well satisfied with the way things were going. He threw in a word to help them along.: “Very good bluff, my spark, but it doesn’t work with me! Even if I had this document you talk about I should only produce it at my own price. Are you prepared to offer that?” Before Mark could reply. Wayne Garfield stepped forward and laid his hand on Grierson’s arm.

“I am a busy man, Mr. Grierson,” he said, “and all this discussion of what sounds like a fairy story is simply a waste of time. Mr. Cousins and I came here to discuss important affairs with you, but they cannot be mentioned before strangers. If you will get rid of this offensive young man whose intelligence seems to be as faulty as his manners, we will talkbusiness with you.”

“Will you?” Grierson faced him, and for a moment their eyes met. What the big man saw evidently satisfied him for he turned to Mark, with an increase of truculence in his bearing. “I agree with Mr. Garfield. We have bad enough of your fairy stories and your infernal cheek. You talk about taking steps; well, you’re going to take some now, and the quicker you are about it the better it will be for your skin!”

Mark hesitated. This was a development for which he was not prepared, and for a moment he was reluctant to leave Grierson to bargain with Garfield and Cousins in his absence. But his whole object had been to bring them to the point where they should bargain, and he quickly realised that nothing would be said before him. His decision was hastened by Grierson who, still playing his part for all it was worth, advanced on him threateningly. “Are you going or shall I have to throw you out?” he asked, raising hi 3 great hands. “I’m going,” said Mark. He walked to the door, but turned there for a little actiDg on his own account. “You haven’t done with me yet!” he said darkly t and passed out. “I’ll see him safely off the premises,” said Grierson. He shut the room door and went quickly to Mark. “Come along out of this!” he shouted so fiercely that Mark instinctively put himself into an attitude of defence. But Grierson clapped him approvingly on the shoulder and grinned knowingly as. he whispered “You did that fine! We’ve got them just where *we w r ant them now, and they’ll cough up all we want without daring to murmur! I’ll finish it off for them!” He w’ent to the front door with heavy footsteps which echoed through the flat, opened it noisily, and roared: “Out you go, you young cub, and remember, if ever I catch you trying to poke your nose into my affairs again I’ll break your infernal neck!” He banged the door with a crash that shook the entire building, and turned to Mark with a satisfied grin. “That ought to be enough for them,” he whispered. “They’ll have heard every w-ord, and w r ill think I’ve booted you out; but I may have something for you to do presently when I’ve got them to listen to reason. Come in here and keep the door shut.” He hustled Mark silently into another room. (To be Continued Tomorrow.!