"DEATH GOES BY 'BUS"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 December 1939, Page 12

"DEATH GOES BY 'BUS"

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

COPYRIGHT.

BY

LESLIE CARGILL

(Author of “The Yellow Phantom,” “The Arrow by Night,” etc.)

CHAPTER XXIII. Continued. So many things could go wrong, particularly if they had misread the character of John Smith. CHAPTER XXIV. When Gardopoulos levelled the deadly-looking automatic at Morrison Sharpe there was no mistaking the insane purpose of the Greek. Mr Sharpe, instead of feeling afraid, was immediately interested. Here was a problem which had. never previously been set him, and the most absorbing of all. Life was important, but death might be more so. There was, too, a stimulating, quality in the knowledge that he could not pit his mundane mind’ against ■ these circumstances. Having acquired the habit of arguing things out, he tried sub-consciously to put himself in the place of Gardopoulos. Would he refrain from shooting because civilised instincts revolted at the wanton destruction of a human life? Or having murdered one person, and having thus forfeited his life, would he take pleasure in committing a second crime before the forfeit, was demanded? “I’m damned if I know,” he admitted, unconscious that he spoke aloud. Gardopoulos scowled. “What you say?” he asked suspiciously. “I was thinking.” Mr Sharpe said with a slight smile. “You’ve managed to demonstrate very effectively that logic doesn’t help, in an emergency.” “What eeS' thees? I do not understand." “Exactly my trouble. I was just wondering whether you were really going to kill me in cold blood or not." "I keel you in one minute." "Why the delay?" The man was puzzled. His hesitation could be sensed. Then he hardened. "You say your prayers—yes, no?” “In one minute? My dear sir, that is a very short respite.” “Five minutes for you then. That is time to say many prayers. See, here is my watch. With it I time the minutes while you ask forgeevness for your sins." “Worse and worse. There are so many of them that I should want a couple of hours at least.” Gardopoulos bared his teeth. His fingers tautened so that it seemed he was about to press the trigger in a fit of rage. It was no use talking. Mr Sharpe had rather hoped that a little badinage would ease the situation, instead of which it only increased the danger. There was another card he might play. Murderers are notoriously vain, and the Greek might be prevailed upon to enlarge on the circumstances which culminated in the shooting of Caleb Wainwright. Help might come if only he could hold out long enough. To his chagrin the Greek was not to be drawn into conversation. Every effort to get him to talk about the crime ended in failure. At intervals there came a growled "One minute . . a minute and a half . . . two minutes So this was to be the end of a fascinating adventure. It was annoying because the game was not quite concluded. Mr Sharpe began to suffer a further uneasiness. Maxley might bungle after all. He hated that idea.

"Two minutes and a half . . .three minutes . . .”

“How did you manage to accomplish the shooting without, anyone noticing?” he pressed desperately. Still Gardopouls kept off the bait. “Three minutes and a half . . . four minutes . . he chanted.

Only one chance remained and Mr Sharpe tried it. If the worst came to the worst it was better to be shot at hi the heat of the moment than in cold blood.. Concluding that Gardopoulos would most likely be off his guard when announcing the penultimate half minutes, the little man conceived a plan. His adversary would expect some attempt to evade death when his set limit expired, but it was likely that just previously his mind would wander —imagining, perhaps, the horror he was about to unloose. “. . . Four and a half min . . ." and before the word was completed the table crashed over as Morrison Sharpe skipped nimbly to one side. Gardopoulos fired, and the bullet splattered with an ugly sound on the wall behind where the little man had been standing. Taken by surprise at the sudden movement, the Greek had started so much that he would have missed his target in any event.

Before he could use the firearm again a hard head rammed into the pit of his stomach, sending him to the ground groaning. It was no occasion for gentlemanly tactics—not that Mr Sharpe had any intention of keeping to any rules of sportsmanship. While the winded man was struggling to rise his opponent gathered all his strength into the accomplishment of a mighty jump which landed him feet first where his head had first struck.

That ought to have finished the fight, and would have done had not. the Greek managed to retain possession of the weapon. It is doubtful if he fired again intentionally. More probably the second doubling up caused him to press the trigger involuntarily. Whether that was the case or not Mr Sharpe certainly experienced a sensation as if he had been clubbed on the arm by a mighty giant, after which the limb went numb. Later he was to learn that it was only a flesh wound. Gardopoulos was slowly pulling himself together in the meantime. Fortunately the nature of the attack had dazed him too much to make him formidable —as yet. although the winging was a telling' point in his favour as

soon as he began to realise it. Hesitatingly at first, then more certainly, the wicked barrel quested for a victim. The two men were only a few paces from each other and it depended entirely on who recovered sufficiently first to decide the outcome of the strange fight.

Mr Sharpe forgot his damaged arm. All he knew was a burning resentment at being hurt. Never before had anyone deliberately inflicted pain on. him and the knowledge rankled far more than he would have expected. Primitive passions overwhelmed him, making him unmindful of the odds against him.

Gardopoulos hardly knew what he was doing. He had turned a sickly green colour. His breathing became a series of gulps. But he, too, was beginning to think.

Morrison Sharpe got ahead once more. Some time or other he had found a passing interest in la savate — that old style _ French foot boxing. Even that has traditions of fair play which went by the board as Mr Sharpe lashed out.

The toe of his shoe neatly kicked away the revolver and a second effort snapped a bone in the man’s wrist, causing him to yelp with agony. And it was only a beginning. Kick after kick thudded against his shins, on knee cap and other parts of his body—anywhere that came handy. By way of variation were blows by clenched fist, but they were feeble in comparison. Mr Sharpe was not built as a boxer, nor indeed as a fighting man of any kind. He gave a great display of unrestrained violence because he waded in with such determination.

True, one arm hung impotently at his side, but the other was going like a flail, reinforced by thrashing legs and butting head. Gardopoulos simply faded' out as an effective enemy. As he went down Sharpe finished him off by banging his head on the floor, by which time the Greek was not at all a pretty sight.

Not that the other had come through unscathed. In addition to his injured arm. blood was running freely from his nose and there was an ugly cut over the right eye. Standing upright, he surveyed the fallen enemy, grimly conscious that there .had been a certain amount of fierce enjoyment in the primitive tussle. He also realised that he was feeling weak from loss of blood. A handkerchief helped to staunch the flow from his arm, after an anguished ten minutes spent in wriggling out of his jacket. Staggering to a chair he collapsed in a state of semi-con-sciousness, from which he was hardly roused by another entrant.

John Smith' stood surveying the amazing scene with growing consternation. This was not the sort of welcome he had expected. Ever since he came out of prison he had been rehearsing what ho would say to Gardopoulos. And instead of the heated words that should have opened the proceedings the partner who had betrayed him was lying in a pitiful heap in one corner and the man who had really been responsible for clearing him of the charge of murder was slumped in a chair close at hand!

It was a strange situation. Probably Smith would have become a murderer had things been different, for he had been lashing himself into a fury on the journey down. Although not a killer by inclination, as the police had righly decided, there were circumstances which could drive him to it.

What lie had gone through was quite sufficient to turn the scale, and it was rather typical of crook mentality that he had been prepared to face the gallows rather than tell the truth, which would have been to break the highest laws of the underworld.

A slight moan from Mr Sharpe moved him to action. Fetching water and a towel he bathed the injuries and staunched the flow of blood to the best >f his ability. While so engaged the little man opened his eyes and smiled feebly. “You’re later than 1 expected.” he muttered. "Did you think I should come?" "Knew it. Thanks for your timely assistance," he added. "You're a lucky man, you know." '1 don’t, see that. They tried to pin the crime on to me when 1 hadn't done it." “That isn't what I meant." Mr Sharpe motioned to the prone Gardopoulos. "I was thinking of him. If you'd got here first there might have been a hanging after all. You couldn’t have got away with it." "No—the dirty double-crosser. I’d have bumped him off right enough/' “But not in cold blood—eh? You couldn’t do it now." "Cure you, no!" "You ought to thank me. Hadn't you better clear off while there's time? Maxley, or some of his men. are due o turn up at any moment. You're sure to have been followed." “I'm sticking,” Smith announced determinedly. “What have they got on me now?" "The Bradham necklace-plans of more burglaries—being a suspected person.” "I 11 stand the racket. About five years down. I take it. Don't worry me a damn." Mr Sharpe chuckled. “What a good thing l\>r you I put temptation out of your way. But I thought you’d come to reason in the end. A few years as a guest of His Majesty will do you a world of good." "Rats!" ITo be Continued i