LADY FOR SHANGHAI

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 August 1939, Page 12

LADY FOR SHANGHAI

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

COPYRIGHT.

By

KAYE FOX

. CHAPTER X. (Continued). A silent-footed waiter brought coffee and cigarettes to the little table at which Christine established herself, close to the door. Because the clerk at the desk was watching her, she forced herself t<> appear very calm and collected, and not to glance too often at the big clock over the desk, but it was difficult to keep her eyes away from that clock, at the hands which seemed to be moving round the dial at incredible speed. If Fay and Martin Royde did not come back until ten o’clock could they possibly get to the ship before ten thirty? Even if they did, only by the most amazing luck could Christine herself get on board unobserved, since in the half hour before sailing time the gangway would be crowded and the quartermaster would be most unlikely to leave his post. •But she could not worry now about herself or her own future. As me minutes passed, she was wondering whether Martin Royde had ehangea his plans—perhaps, while she was waiting here for them, they were in some part of Penang and she would never be able to find them. Though they had gone for a drive in one of the hotel cars, it. was quite possible that they had been put down somewhere, instead of coming back to tiie Palm Tree.

"Would you mind finding out whether the car has returned?” she asked the clerk, al a quarter to ten.

“It has not returned," he said. "The chauffeur would have ’phoned through from the garage if he had come back alone."

Almost as he spoke, a big blue car drew up in front of the hotel steps, and Martin Royde and Fay got out. Christone ran down the steps to meet them, and she saw Fay turn deadly pale at the sight of her, and give a little gasp of dismay. “Mr Royde,” Christine said swiftly, “one of the passengers overheard you telling Miss Lind that the ship sailed at midnight—she only discovered after she got back to the ship that you had made a mistake over the time. The ship sails in a little over half an hour.” “Are you sure of that?” Fay asked, pulling herself together. “Martin, you went and looked at the notice board and came straight back to us —you can't have been mistaken."

“Look at the notice board yourself, Miss Lind,” Christine said "Be quick —there's no time to lose.”

Fay ran up the steps and along a short passage to the notice board, and Martin Royde stared at Christine. “By jove,” he said, “you’re the stewardess —the very same stewardess who came to the cabin de luxe one night with a message about my gramophone. I thought I recognised you —and that you were not a passenger." "Martin —it is 10.30," Fay cried, running back to them. “It's written as plainly as possible on a notice headed "Hay Tor Sailing Time. Notice to All Passengers.’ I don't see how you can have made' a mistake.

“I'm most desperately sorry, Fay,” ne said. "There are 1 several notices on that beard, and I must have looked at the wrong one—the one 1 read simply stated that the ship sailed at midnight, and was on the shipping agent's letter paper. "I don't think it gave the name of the ship."

There was no time for Fay to go back to see whether there really was such a notice. The proprietor of the Palm Tree, who was hovering in the background, had prevented the chauffeur from driving away, and now Martin Royde and Fay and Christine hurried to the waiting car. They had just half an hour in which to reach the ship. For a long time not one of them spoke. Fay leant back in her corner her face very pale and her eyes bewildered, and Christine knew that she was trying to make up her mind whether Royde really had made a istake. Perhaps, if Christine had not been there, Royde would have made some, further attempts to defend himself, but as it was, he left her alone.

It seemed to Christine that she had never driven in a slower ear than that big blue car which looked so powerful. and that no traffic had ever been ore congested than the traffic in the the narrow streets through which thej passed. At one place a native eart. drawn by a wretched horse, had overturned in the middle of the road, and their car came to a standstill behind a block of cars, taxis and bicycles, with a man pushing a wheelbarrow just in .front of it.

"Stewardess/' Martin Royde said, leaning forward to speak to Christine, "tell me-—it was Mrs Smythe who overheard my remark to Miss Lind about sailing lime'.' There war. no other passenger present, as far as I remember."

"Yes---it was Mrs Smythe." she admitted. He would conclude, of course. Hint Doria had developed conscience qualms at the last minute, or that site had given him away out of sheer spite, but Doria herself would tell him later exactly what had happened. There was no reason for Christine to pretend that she had got her information from

someone else. “And she sent you ashore? It is not generally known amongst the passengers that Miss Land and I risked missing the ship—-if. indeed, we have not already missed it?”

"No one knows except Mrs Smytln and her friend. Mrs Collins.”

! Royde hesitated for a moment and i went on: "Stewardess, you are experi ienced enough to know that if this story gets about it will be greatly exaggerated. and it may even be suggested that I deliberately made a mistake over sailing time. I'm not worrying about my own reputation, but Miss I Lind is a young girl, going out alone I to Shanghai, and if she is mixed up m a scandal- ”

"The story will not get about through me,' she said, "but 1 may have

to make a report to the Chief Steward, to explain my absence from the ship.” I can deal with the Chief Steward — and with Mrs Smythe and her friend," he said easily. "And I will make it worth your while, stewardess, to mention this matter to no passenger ”

■ "1 am not taking ahy money from you. Mr Royde,” she said, and there was such anger in her quiet voice that Royde flushed a dull red and leant back in his seat. He must have guessed, of course, that Christine knew perfectly well that he had tried to trick Fay into staying in Penang with him.

Christine glanced at Fay, who was staring at the people in the street, and who seemed to have taken no notice at all of the talk between her sister and Royde. Fay still looked bewildered and a little frightened, but it was impossible to tell what she was thinking about, for she was watching the busy scene as though she was wholly absorbed in it.

"We'll never get there in time,” Fay said suddenly, turning her Head and meeting Christine's eyes. “We still have a quarter of an hour," Christine pointed to the illuminated face of a clock on a tall building. And at that moment the car began to move forward slowly, though it seemed an eternity before they were clear of the block, and in the long street which led to the wharf at which the Hay Tor was berthed. As soon as the car stopped at the wharf, Royde jumped out to pay the Malay driver, and Christine and Fay got out together.

“Christine,” Fay said hurriedly, under her breath, “will it all have to come out—l mean about our being sisters?”

“If I can get on board without being seen, nothing need come out, and if 1 don't —well, I shall lose my job, but it's to be a staff matter, and the passengers won't know anything about it. You go on ahead with Mr Royde, and I'll follow.”

Up to the very last, Christine had hoped that sailing time would be delayed. after all, for it was quite usual for a ship to sail half-an-hour or more after the hour at which passengers had been warned to be on board. But one glance at the Hay Tor told her that the Captain meant to get away dead on Lime, for already men were standing at the gangway pulley-ropes, waiting fur the order to haul up. . She paused for a few moments in the shadow of a warehouse, to give Royde and Fay time to go on ahead, for she did not want it to be obvious to anyone at the head of tne gangway that she had been with them. Royde after one swift glance at her, clearly understood what her intention was, for he took Fay’s, arm and walked towards the gangway with a very casual air.

"We’ve run it. pretty fine this time, quartermaster." Christine heard him call up, and the man answered: “You have, sir—two minutes later, and we’d have sailed without you." As Christine went forward, knowing that she would have to go up the gangway alone, and that she would certainly be recognised, two cars drove up to the wharf with horns sounding furiously, and half-a-dozen of the Hay Tor passengers tumbled out of them. They were all strangers to Christine, for the two girls in the party came from Mrs Parr's section, and they were far too excited to notice her, for they were all chattering about the clock in the hotel, half-an-hour slow, which had nearly caused them to miss the ship. Christine was close behind them when they made a rush for the gangway, so close behind that she hoped it vould look as though she was one of the party. She slipped past the quartermaster with her head bent, and nice through the companion-way it was easy to slip away unobserved from the group of passengers who had come on board with her. and hurry down Hie deserted alley-way Io the bathroom.

When she strolled into her own cabin, a few minutes later. Mrs Parr was still playing patience with Miss Crane knitting. “Been sitting with that child again, f suppose?” Mrs Parr said to Christine, looking up from her cards. CTo be continued.)