"BEYOND DOVER"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 May 1939, Page 12

"BEYOND DOVER"

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

COPYRIGHT.

By

VAL GIELGUD.

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

CHAPTER V. (Continued). He said nothing more till tjie waiter had gone. Then he leaned forward across tne table. “Did you know what was 'in that letter?” he asked. "I don’t understand. Whom were you to meet?” “A foreigner,” replied the girl. Her voice ana her eyes were quite steady. "Mr Bastin gave me no name —only these flowers as —a sort of badge of identity.” < "I see. Did you know the jewels had gone to Amsterdam?” “Jewels Mr Brandon!” “Again I see. Either you’re a remarkable actress, or you .know nothing.” “Look here,” said Sally, once again regrettably giving way to temper, "I’m not sure, but you seem to be getting rather rude. Mr Bastin paid me. well to meet you, give you the envelope, dine with you, and take further instructions from you. I mean to earn my money. But I’m not going to be —” “Insulted? Is that the word you wanted?” "Yes,” said Sally. "It is. What about it?" ' Hugo Brandon leaned back in his chair, lifted his wineglass, passed it to and fro beneath,his nostrils, and drank slowly. “I’m sorry,” he said at last, "I apologise. But there’s more in this than meets your eye or mine, Miss er” he glanced at Mr Bastin’s letter, "Miss Martin." "Oh, is there?” murmured Sally, a little feebly. “I can t show yoy most of this letter. It’s private,” continued Brandon. “But to prove my good faith, as I propose to do what it tells me, will you glance at the final paragraph?” He came round the table’, and held the letter, carefully folded over, so that Sally could read the lower half of its second sneet. As the girl read it, the colour flared up in her cheeks. “It is essential to the success of the scheme” —ran the next typescript — “that Miss Martin should accompany you to Paris —and further, at your discretion. This office will of course be responsible for her salary and expenses within reason as long as she is attached to you in a secretarial capacity ” “I know nothing of it at all,” said Sally. “Of course, it’s impossible!” “Why?”' “I’m not even .going to discuss it,” said Sally firmly, wondering what would happen if she made a dash for the door. But to choose to do so at the moment when Brandon was still behind her chair was surely too stupid —nor could she move quickly in her new dress. She suddenly felt extraordinarily helpless and alone. She thought, inconsequently as she imagined, of Nigel Craven, and had to stop doing so quickly or her eyes would have filled with tears. “You’d better come —if only to Paris,” Brandon was saying. “You’ll be quite safe, you know. I’m quite a pleasant travelling companion.” “I’m not afraid,” lied Sally valiantly. “I can look after myself. But I’ve got tc think of my family.” “Heavens!” said Brandon. "You also?” He moved back to his chair, and sat contemplative for a few moments, his chin on nis hand. At last he rang the bell. “Eat your ice,” he said. “I’m only going to talk to —a friend of mine.” He went through the further door into his bedroom, where Mr Leopold Flanescu was awaiting developments in a flowered dressing gown and an indifferent temper. CHAPTER VI. . Flanescu spoke almost before Brandon could close the door behind him. His eyes bulged and his hand shook as he held out a copy of the latest edition of an evening paper. “The girl’s an impostor!” he stammered. “I bought this on my way up from the Grill Room, Highness. I’ve only just looked at the Stop Press Coluinn. Look!”

"I don’t want to'have to remind you again about my name, Flanescu. And for pity’s sake don’t goggle! I know the girl isn’t Miss Harben. The question is, who and what is she?” Flanescu waved the newspaper wildly.

“Miss Harben was among the passengers in an air-liner that came down this afternoon in the North Sea! If this girls impersonation her —Hugo— she must be a spy”’

“Spy—rubbish!” said Brandon rudely. “You stuff up your head with too many novels, Flanescu. You still think adventuresses must be young, beautiful and brilliant. You ought to know that they're almost raddled, middleaged and very drearily disreputable through being chronically hard-up." “Well, who is she then?”

“Her name is Sally Martin. She brought a letter addressed to a foreigner by the name of Phillipe Maur■ios. She mistook me for him.”

“Maurois!” Flanescu pursed his thick lips, frowning. “Phillipe Maurois—he’s one of the best known thieves in France.”

"I believe you know all the vilest scoundrels in Europe, Flanescu. But to continue. The singular part of the affair is this: the letter to Maurois was signed by one Felix Bastin. It consigned Miss Martin to the care of Maurois, instructing him to take her abroad and keep her there. It also referred. Flanescu, to my family jewels in unmistakable terms. It appears that they have gone—to Amsterdam.” “Highn Hugo!” “You improve,” said Brandon, smiling. “Evidently Mr Bastin at some time got round the credulous, if wellmeaning, Lady Bannockburn, and she entrusted the jewels to his care. He’s levanted with them, Flanescu.”

“The devil! But what’s the girl doing?” “Earning some money by walking blindly into a prettily-baited trap. She kpows nothing—of me, of Maurois, or of Felicity Harben. She's simply this Eastin's secretary. He meant her to vanish abroad in dubious company at the same time as the jewels disappearde. The police would be bound to draw the obvious conclusion.” Flanescu mopped his face. “I see,” he said at last. “It’s ingenious enough ” He broke off, and looked Brandon shrewdly in the face. “You’re certain you are not being a little susceptible? Forgive the suggestion ” Brandon laughed,

“I’ll forgive you,” he said. “Susceptible I am —when a girl is as lovely as that! But I’m not susceptible enough to be taken in over a point of elementary judgment.”

“But what are we going to do?” “I thought you were supposed to be my guide, philosopher, friend, escort and adviser,” murmured Brandon maliciously.

He walked up and down the bedroom, and turned sharply. “Were going to get the jewels back,” he said, curtly. "We’ll leave here tonight.” “But the girl?” “I can hardly leave a young girl to the tender mercies of the police, can I —as a man of honour and feeling? She ihust come with us. Besides, I wish to see more of her,” Brandon went on arrogantly. “I find her—certainly sympathetic.” Flanescu shrugged his shoulders nelplessly. “You can’t take her by force,” he protested. “If she’s innocent —as you say she is, she won’t come.” “Even if to stay means arrest on the charge of theft?” said Brandon quietly. He swung round on his heel, walked catlike in silence and on tiptoe to the door, and suddenly opened it. “What’s your answer, mademoiselle?” he enquired of Sally. The girl seemed very little abashed at having been caught in the act of eavesdropping through a keyhole. She faced Brandon steadily, with an expression that was almost scornful. “Of course I listened —in the circumstances,” she said. “Of course,” said Brandon. “I didn’t ask you a question on that point, did I? I knew' you’d listen. And now you have listened —do you accompany me to Paris, or the police to Scotland Yard?” Faced with the stark alternative facts in so many words, Sally felt her assurance slipping away from her. Her legs trembled. Her eyelids fluttered. She began to sway, arid Brandon hurried to bring ner a chair. She dropped limply into it, and for a few moments sat still, her head resting on one hand. Then she looked up at the two men. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I felt queer for a minute. This is all pretty strange —l’m rather frightened.” Brandon put a hand soothingly on her shoulder. At once she stiffened, and drew away. “They couldn’t believe I’d —stolen anything, could they?” she went on. Brandon sat down on the floor and looked at her. Sitting thus cross-leg-ged, he looked astonishingly ingenuous, and about nineteen. “Listen, Sally,” he said. “You’re in danger, baa danger, and it’s no use banking on your innocence and the good-heartedness of the police. I’m not trying to blackmail you into coming with us —though I can’t pretend I’m altogether sorry that things have turned out as they have. You must get away —or when the loss of the jewels is reported tomorrow the police will get you. If the rest of the trap is as ingenious as what we know, it’ll take all you can do to prove your innocence. And you mayn’t succeed.” “But that letter would clear me,” said Sally. Brandon shook his head. “It’s typed —on your typewriter; you can be sure of that. Even the signature is typed. It’ll look like a clumsy device of yours to clear yourself ” The girl lookea round desperately at, Flanescu. “What snail I do?” she asked simply. Flanescu glanced uneasily from Sally to Hugo Brandon, and back again. “I’m sorry to say, mademoiselle,” he said, "that you seem to me to have no choice. You must come with us. I —I many connections in England. I can arrange that your family be told some suitable story to account for your travels.”

“But if I run away everyone will believe I’m guilty!” “For a little time, mademoiselle,” said Flanescu gently. “Wont you nelp me track down these scoundrels and- get the jewels back?” said Brandon, holding out his hand to touch the tips of her fingers. “It will be an adventure.” There was a little pause. “AH right,” said Sally abruptly. “I’ll come —but would you mind leaving me alone for a few minutes? I want to —to think.” The two men went to the door. Brandon turned to look at the girl as he went out. She had dropped her head in her hands, and tears were ’rickling between her fingers. A sen- ■ ation foreign to him; an instinct for once violently protective as opposed to possessive, moved, him strangely. He closed the door quietly behind him and stared questioningly at his face in the mirror on the dressing table. “Flanescu,” he said, “what the devil’s happening to me? I must be getting middle-aged.” “I know what’s worrying you, Highness.” “You don’t!” snapped Brandon. “It isn’t. No—damn it all —I just want to go in and put my arms round that girl and comfort her, and tell her not to worry.” Flanescu blew his nose. “Quite so.” he said. “You see, Highness, Miss Martin isn’t afraid of you.” “Urn,” said Hugo Brandon. “Yes. nerhaps that accounts for it. Well. Flanescu, don’t blather any more. Pack!” He sat down moodily in an armchair, lighted a cigarette, and through 'he smoke contemplated the door behind which Sally having a good cry, was powdering ner nose and feeling almost herself again. Below in the street, Mr Nigel Craveh uneasy baffled, and miserable, stood on the pavement opposite the hotel entrance, and felt that the last blow had been dealt him by fate when he discovered his cigarette case empty. For the hour was distinctly after eight o’clock, and no cigarette machine was in sight to enable a law-abiding citizen to defeat the law’s objects. (To be Continued.)