"CRASH!"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 October 1939, Page 12

"CRASH!"

COPYRIGHT. PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

BY

ARTHUR APPLIN.

Author of “Adventure for Two,” “Winning Through,” “Cold Cream,” etc.

CHAPTER XIX. Neither Johnny nor Peggy spoke another word until the taxi stopped outside the flat in the Rue de Clignan court; even then Johnny didn’t move but went on sitting hunched up as far from Peggy as possible, staring at the back of the driver's head. Peggy said: “We had better get out.” There was the usual altercation over the fare. Peggy rang the concierge’s bell. They waited in the dark street. “I should hate to be a concierge,” Peggy said. “Not even the night free!" She rang again. At the third attempt the door opened half an inch, unwilingly, with a noise like a hiccup. Peggy pushed; it was very heavy, but Johnny didn’t help her. She stood inside the passage holding open the door. She switched on the light. Johnny looked at her; his love had turned sour. He despised himself. After all;, it wasn’t quite her fault if made a fool of himself. But it he followed hei’ up to this man’s flat he would be a still greater fool. “Come along in.” she said, but don't make a noise.” He couldn’t trust himself. Love was damnably akin to hate. Anything might happen when he found himself quite alone with her, when he heard the truth from her lips. Of course, he knew everything—except all the sordid details. But to sit quietly whilst' she stripped herself of the last rags of decency and tore to ribbons that lovely cloak of romance he had thrown over her might be more than he could bear. He remembered his boast that nothing mattered but love. It was true—that was why men sometimes kill the thing they love. He stepped back, horrified at his thoughts. He was thinking that was the only way to save Peggy. Perhaps he had drunk too much wine, or perhaps Paris had gone to his head. Paris—the city of light and love. He loved—what rot people talked! And then, afraid to look any longer at Peggy standing in the door-way with the light falling on his face, he looked up at the sky. It was heavy with stars, and the air was soft, with that prickly smell of burnt pinewood. From the boulevards came the dull echo of traffic, little faint sounds of motor-horns —so faint they might have been fairies blowing on their bugles. Oh, God. what a fool he was! “I won’t come up,” he said. “What's the use?” “Please come in!” “What’s the use?” he repeated. “I know everything.” “Not quite everything, Johnny.” “I know quite enough, thanks!” he cried. “But only one thing really matters.” “Please!” she said, with a frightened gesture. “The concierge will hear us.” He turned away and walked down the street, then stopped and looked back. She was standing in the doorway; she looked so lonely, so defenceless . . . those were the qualities that had got him from the first. She knew, of course, she knew! Slowly he went back. “All right,” he said. “I might as well hear what you have to say. But if you are only asking me up because you are afraid I shall give you away, you needn’t worry. I have no intention of doing that.” They got into the lift. It was only just big enough to hold them both; they had to stand so close together that they touched each other. As they passed the concierge’s room she gave the name “Altamonte.” A guttural grunt answered her —that was the old man. •If Johnny hadn’t lost his sense of humour he would have laughed. He made a mental note, as she opened a door on the third floor and led him into her flat, that he must keep his sense of humour: then he wouldn’t do anything mad. She asked him to sit down, told him ne would find some cigarettes on the table. “The English ones are in the silver box.” He wondered where they had pinched that! As she went into her room, he lit a cigarette and waited. There was her suit-case lying on the floor; a pair of stockings thrown across a chair, and shoes underneath. She had worn those when he had flown her across; they had carried her along the road to Abbeville. What was she doing in that room? He walked over to the window and looked out. The long rows of dark houses were forbidding in the pale light of the street lamps. Maybe he had walked into a trap? He started at a movement behind him and saw that she had returned. She had taken off her velvet dress and was wearing the green wrap he had bought her. “If you don't mind waiting a moment I will heat up some soup,” she said. “It’s rather cold here, isn’t it?” The room was oppressively warm, but he too was cold. It was all he could do to stop himself from shivering. He sat down again. Peggy came back from the kitchen, and gave him a cup of steaming consomme, then curled herself up on the divan. “I’m ready. The best way will be for you to ask me what you want to know.” “I want to know —” he said slowly—“I want to know how you became what you are.” “A dancer?” “A thief,” It was no use mincing words, but he wished he had not said that. He gave her a quick glance; she was quite unmoved. “I am not a thief. But tell me, when did you come to that conclusion?” “I didn’t definitely make up my mind until I got back to London after leaving you at Abbeville and saw Brooke again. It was pretty obvious from the first, but I just wouldn't believe it.” j She smiled. “Does Brooke think I’m a thief?” | “What’s the use of trying to fooli me?” he cried. “You are in his employ] —he has got those pearls!” She laughed. “Stop that!” he shouted.

“How did you manage to get out of Buenos Ayres?” Johnny asked. “Got a berth on a ship as steward. It was only just before she sailed that I discovered Peggy had lost her job at the night-club,‘through this swine who wanted her. She pretended that everyhing was O.K. so that I should go back to London and find work there. I smuggled her on board. The first officer had been a friend of my father’s; he squared the captain, and she worked her passage over as a stewardess. Johnny walked away and sat clown in a chair at the far end of the room. Peggy went back to the divan. “Anything else you want to know?” Dick asked. <Tn be Continued.'*

Proud Mother: “Our little Elsie is such a bright child. Come here and tell auntie how much two and two make.” Slsie: “Five.” Mother: “There! Only one out.”

“What would Michael Brooke want with pearls? He is a rich man.” “Quite! Crooks are the only people who are rich nowadays.” “Michael hasn’t got them,” she said quietly. “If you haven’t—l thought you might have, thinking I was a thief and that it was the way to save me? — if you haven’t I don’t know who has. And you are the only person who can help me find them now, Johnny. They came into my possession honestly enough, because I redeemed them with the money I had been saving for over a year. They were stolen originally from a rich woman in the Argentine. That’s where I was born, on a ranch. My parents were English. When they died I was left penniless. Got a job, first in Rio and then in Buenos Ayres —dancing in night-clubs.” “Go on! The pearls were stolen by whom?” “I suppose not!” he said bitterly, “nor why you wanted to get hold of them! If you didn’t steal them, you knew who did —you are responsible.” Slowly she nodded her head: “Yes, in a way I am. They were stolen to save me—to save me from unhappiness; in the old days we should have called it —to save me from dishonour!” “Quite dramatic!” he sneered, and hated himself for sneering. He sneered because he wanted to believe her — and couldn’t. Jealousy prevented him: jealousy that turns right into wrong, good into evil. “So your lover saved you?” “We escaped from Buenos Ayres on an English ship,” she went on. “We hadn’t a bean. I had only the clothes I was wearing. That’s how we landed in England . . with nothing but a pearl necklace, and our passports. Later on I met Michael Brooke—the best friend I ever had. He knows nothing but apparently he trusts me—as I daresay you have noticed, he’s eccentric!” Johnny tried to get up but dropped back into his seat. He felt suddenly weak. It was a good story—too good to be true. He kept repeating this to himself. Presently he said: “And your lover —the man who stole the pearls and for whom you redeemed them—is this waiter at the Toledo, Dick.” He turned as he finished speaking, heard the door open, saw Dick standing in the room. “Sorry I couldn't get away before,” Dick said. “I wanted to save you having to tell this long yarn, Peggy.” He stood in front of Johnny. “Yes, I stole the pearls! Now then, what are you going to do about it?” Johnny got up, steadied himself, and looked round for his hat and coat. He walked blindly in the direction of the door. Dick took him by the shoulder and pulled him back: “Oh no, you don’t go like that! Before you go, you have got to swear you won’t give me away.” Johnny turned then, looked at Peggy and smiled: “Peggy knows I won’t do that—l’d like to knock your head off. But I won’t give you away!” Dick laughed, and Johnny turned on him furiously. “That’s all right!” Dick said. “Then you’d better know who I really am. I’m not Peggy’s lover, you fool—l’m her brother.” CHAPTER XX. Johnny had thought of pretty well everything else, but he hadn’t thought of that He looked from one to the other. Undoubtedly he was a fool. Dick said. “Well, you have got what you wanted—the truth. Why don’t you go?” “Dick!” Peggy got up. “I’d rather ■he didn’t go.” Johnny threw down his hat and coat; he hadn’t the faintest intention of going. He believed Dick; it never occurred to him to ask for proof. If he hadn’t been blind he would have noticed the likeness between them; though their colouring was different they had both been cast in the same mould — now that Dick was not playing the waiter his voice had the same tone as hers, and there was a similarity in certain little tricks of speech and movement. Peggy was standing in front of him now, her hand on his arm: “I'm sorry I couldn’t tell you. Perhaps even now you don’t understand the necessity for all this mystery . . When we were in England and I knew what Dick had done, and I knew he had done it to save me, I made up my mind I would redeem that pearl necklace and give it back to its owner, ou see, Dick and I have always stuck together. I couldn’t face what was coming to me out in Buenos Ayres—" “We don’t want to talk about that now.” Dick interrupted. “Harcourt’s got to understand that I am the thief and that you didn't know anything about it until we had been a week in London. I tried to make her believe I had got a job and that was where the money came from. but. of course, she found out. And then I didn't know whether we wore suspected or not.”