"BEYOND DOVER"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 May 1939, Page 10

"BEYOND DOVER"

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

COPYRIGHT.

By

VAL GIELGUD.

(Author of “Death at Broadcasting House,” etc.)

CHAPTER I. This story begins at precisely ten minutes to six on an evening during the last week of July. The time is not vital importance, but Sally Martin noted it with accuracy because she was looking forward to the moment when she could powder her nose, put on her hat and go home. It began with the ringing of the buzzer, which indicated that her employer, Mr Felix Bastin, desired her presence immediately in tne next room. Now, there was nothing extraordinary in the ringing of that buzzer. It sounded on an average fifteen or twenty time's every hour of every working day.' Its sound, therefore, was not precisely music to Miss Martin’s ears. So when she collected her shorthand notebook and !ier pencil and started across the room with an expression of resignation, the last thing in the world that entered her head was that in starting to cross that room she was also starting on the longest journey of her life. In fact, two thoughts were foremost in her mind. First a pious nope that her employer might not have had one of his occasional bright ideas. If he had she would probably be in the office till well after eight o'clock. The second that after her quarrel with Nigel the night before, it didn’t 'really matter what time she got away. Neither of these ideas persisted in her mind for very long, for from this moment things began to take a turn that could only be described as astonishing. To begin with, when she entered Mr Felix Bastin’s private office she was invited to sit down. This had never happened before, and when she had sat down ' she observed that Mr Felix Bastin was smiling in the most amiable manner; and this, also, in Miss Martin’s brief experience of Mr Felix Bastin, had never happened before.

Mr Bastin was not the sort of man that smiled easily. He was bald and rather stout, with shrewd dark eyes, and a good deal of nose and jaw. He prided himself on the machine-like efficiency of nig office organisation. Miss Martin had been his confidential stenographer for two months, and, while she had nothing actively to complain of, she Knew as little of him now as on the day on which she had got the job. But this evening Mr Bastin was undoubtedly smiling; and when Sally Martin after a hardly perceptible pause due to embarrassment, had sat down, he took out his cigarette case and held it out to her across his desk. 'I don’t think I will,” said Sally, “thank you very much, if you’re going to dictate."

Mr Bastin’s smile became a positive grin. “I’m not going to dictate,” he said, as he struck a match to light a cigarette. Then he sat back and contemplated his stenographer with a long, deliberate and slightly quizzical stare. Sally Martin began to feel extremely uncomfortable. She was only nineteen, and her experience of the world was limited accordingly. Without being unreasonably conceited, she could not help knowing that she 'was unusually good-looking. She wondered what Mr Bastin was up to; and as she possessed rather a lively imagination, she thought of what he might very well be up to. This disturbed her a good deal, so that she sat very straight on the extreme edge of her chair, looked at the toes of her shoes, and, for the first time in her life, wished she was plain and wore pince-nez. Mr Baston snapped the lid of his cigarette case and, put it back in his pocket. “I want to talk to you confidentially. Miss Martin,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “1 seem to remember when I engaged you that you told me that you had been partly educated abroad,, that you could speak French and German.”

“My French is- all right,” said Sally. “I’m afraid my German is a bit rusty, but it wouldn’t take long to polish it up again.” Felix Bastm nodded. “And you’re ambitious, you’d like to get on?” “Of course, Mr Bastin.” *

“You realise, of course, that you’re rather an unusual type for a stenographer. One doesn’t usually find a girl with your education and, if I may say so, your breeding, in the normal office.”

Sally said nothing. It didn’t seem to her that it really concerned Mr Bastin to know that two-thirds of her father’s income had vanished in the slump, and that she was only just beginning to get used to accepting a villa on the North Circular Road as a sub- ' stitute for a Hat in South Kensington. “You realise, too,” Mr Bastin pursued, “that you're an unusually pretty girl.” “Oh damn," thought Sally, despairingly. “Now it’s coming.” Mr Bastin’s grin disappeared. His mouth resumed its rather trap like line. He opened a drawer on the right-hand side of his desk. “Now, Miss Martin. I want you to listen to me. I’ve got a suggestion to make to you, and I want you to think it over very carefully. Oddly enough, it’s not in the least what you think it is. I may as well make it quite dear to you that personally I’m not interested in you in the least. “I'll put the thing in a nutshell. 1 want an usual job done. It can only be done by someone who is young, good-looking, and can talk French, and it's worth five hundred pounds to me to have it done.’’ “Five hundred pounds!” repeated Sally. ‘That’s what I said,” snapped Mr Bastin. "I should add that there’s nothing illegal about it. There may be a considerable risk. Well, Miss Martin?” “But I don't begin to understand.” said Sally. “What have I got to do?" “All you've got to do is to do as you're told; but your first job will be to dine at the Cosmopolite Grill tomorrow night at eight o’clock with a perfect stranger. After that it just depends.” Mr Bastin shrugged elegantly. “There’s just one most important condition.” “And what’s that?” “That not a soul must know what you’re doing or why—except myself. Now, don’t get in a state, and jump up and say you’ve never heard of such a thing, and that you can't contemplate it for a moment, and that you always fell mother everything! I’ve not the least doubt it’s perfectly true, but I don't wan! you to tell me so. Go home and think it cwei —in your bath for choice. There's nothing like a bath

for clearing the brain. You can give me your decision at 9.30 tomorrow morning. In case you accept I’ll have £2OO waiting for you, with an envelope, which it’ll be your business to deliver to the man you dine with. You’ll have the morning off to choose yourself the most attractive evening frock you can find, and you’ll have to wear a spray of special flowers which I’ll order for you myself.” Mr Bastin stood up and put his hands in his pockets. “If you feel you can’t accept, Miss Martin, I shall have no ill-feeling towards you whatsoever, but I rather fear that after the end of this month I may find it necessary to make .certain reductions in my office staff.” He moved away from the desk and picked up his hat l . “Above all,” “not a word to a soul, or the consequences, not only for me but for you, may be serious in the extreme. Good night.” Mr Bastin put on his hat, and as he turned to the door it would appear that something was again amusing him, for Sally had a distinct glimpse of his teeth —very white, rather pointed, teeth—as he walked out. The door of the outer office closed.

On the wall opposite Mr Bastin’s desck was a round mirror. Sally walked over to it and observed her reflections with approriate emotions. Sally would have admitted that as a rule she was quite pleased to look at herself in the glass. She was grateful for the visible reassurance of her good looks. But at this moment she hardly recognised herself. She saw as usual the carefully waved dark hair, the eyes that rather surprisingly were blue and not brown, the engaging line of mouth and chin, but her expression she didn’t recognise at all. The girl in the mirror looked somehow a little — perhaps breathless was the word. Or was it, scared? She stubbed out Mr Bastin’s cigarette, and went back to her own office. She put on her hat in a ver)) singular frame of mind indeed. < CHAPTER 11. . This queer compound of feelings of apprehension, excitement and particularly unreality, persisted in Sally’s mind during his journey home, in a fashion altogether disquieting. The greater part of that journey was accomplished by tube to Hendon Central Station. As a rule it was remarkable for little beside its length, its monotony and its discomfort; but on this particular July evening it was quite another story.

The familiar length of pavement between Mr Bastin’s office and the station at Tottenijajp Court Road; the crowded escalator; the swirl of the train out of the blackness of the tunnel to its halt beside the platform; the long swaying carriage; even Sally’s fellow travellers, most of whom held their faces so modestly behind copies of the papers, had taken upon selves something in quality of the beginning of a nightmare.

Sally was imaginative by nature, romantic by instinct. For the first time since she had worked in an office these normal instincts had received stimulation. The unpromising, indeed the essehtially dreary figure of Mr Felix Bastin nad set the spark to the tinder. And, while the common sense natural to any nicely brought-up young woman prevented her from believing it, Sally, before sne had reached home, had woven about herself as the central figure a’ most promisingly melodramatic plot.

A pimply young man in a slightly tilted bowler hat entered the train at her elbow, sat immediately opposite to her and glanced at her continuously in the intervals of reading all about the Test Match.

He, thought Sally, was undoubtedly a hireling of Mr Bastin’s making sure that she went home without paying a preliminary call on Scotland Yard. The ticket collector at Hendon Central was far too like a ticket collector to be true. ‘ Almost certainly he would be one of Scotland Yard’s myrmidons in disguise. While the seedy-looking gentleman in a sombrero and a faded red tie would have been surprised to learn that in the eyes of the pretty girl sitting next to him he was a dangerous member of the Communist Party, instead of an unassuming failure from the Slade School of Art. And so on, and so forth . . . In short, it must be admitted that Sally Martin was letting her imagination run away with her. Nor was she finding the process altogether distasteful, now that she was out of personal contact with Mr Felix Bastin. It was, therefore, a little unfortunate that she should have found Nigel Craven waiting for her 1 outside the front door of her house. For, though much attached to Mr Nigel Craven, there was nothing about that young man to encourage an atmosphere of -unreality. He was a clerk in an insurance office, played a good game of Rugby football on Saturday afternoons, and managed to look extremely well-dressed in ready-made clothes. In doing so he ws helped a good deal by his profile. It was one of those profiles which include a good deal of nose and chin, and when combined with thick hair' are liable to be called “Vikingesque' by women who are old enough to know better. “Well, Sally,” he said cheerfully, “surprised to see me?” “After last night,” sail Sally coldly. “I rather think 1 am.” “Oh, rats!" said Mr Craven inelegantly. "Let’s forget about last night. I’ll even apologise if you like! In fact. I'll be positively lamb-like . . .” “What on earth are you talking about, Nigel?” “Listen, Sally, it’s terrific! You remembet; that poor old aunt of my father's who lived at Tunbridge Wells, and died about six weeks ago? Well. I heard this morning that she’s gone and left me £200.” "Well?” said Sally. Mr Craven looked a trifle dashed. “Can’t you see?" he went on. "It’s marvellous! I’m due to start my holiday next Monday. Look here, Sally! Can’t you swing it across your Mr Bastin'? We could go down to Cornwall or somewhere and have a most wonderful time! What do you say?” “It might be rather fun,” Sally agreed after a pause, “but seriously. Nigel. I don’t think it would quite do.” “Oh, rot, Sally! Surely I haven’t got to tell you ” “No, I don’t think you have. But aren’t you forgetting that my family are a trifle old-fashioned?” (To be Continued.)