“MAN FROM THE AIRPORT”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 December 1939, Page 12

“MAN FROM THE AIRPORT”

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

By

LESLIE BERESFORD.

Author of “Mr Appleton Awakes,” "The Other Mr North,” etc.

CHAPTER VII. Continuec. ‘ Then I can leave ait to you?" she asked, not as yet seeing the others in the dim background. ‘Til do everything I can, my dear. Just keep that Luttner person guessing,” Mr Wallingford answered, and might have said more only he caught sight of Pamela Baring and Peters, by then moving towards them. “Oh, how d’you do, Miss Accrington?” Pamela’s fresh young voice addressed the other girl with a little laugh: ‘lt is strange to see you here —” “I know. I do hope you don’t mind, but I knew Mr Wallingford was here, and I just had to see him at once on some particularly urgent business.” She looked, Peters could see, in a state of nervous excitement, as if something distressed her. Mention of Luttner’s name, which had reached Peter’s cars, had a certain significance. He knew Luttner to be the man behind the trouble at "The One-Eyed Moon.” She was evidently still having trouble with the man himself. Meantime, Pamela Baring was introducing Paula to him. “Mr Peters . . Miss Accrington . . .” Peters was amusedly wondering how Paula would acknowledge the introduction. She left him in no doubt. Her clear, frank eyes regarded him without the slightest flicker of recognition, and really with just as little interest. “I'm afraid I shall have to leave you, Miss Baring,” she addressed Pamela after a curt nod in the direction of Peters. “If it hadn’t been most terribly urgent, I shouldn't have dreamed of crashing in on you on a Sunday." “Oh, does it matter?” Pamela laughed. After, accompanied by old Mr Wallingford, she had passed out from the house. Pamela turned to Peters. “She pretended not to know you,” she said. "Ashamed of herself, no doubt.” “I hope not,” she responded, laughing. “I should, hate to think she imagined I had so much interest in her as to be worried over that little/incident. After all, as Mr Wallingford’s been explaining to me, it seems that she comes of a family not very easy to get on with. So—let’s forget about her.” All the same, he did not find that very easy. In fact, having it in his mind to teach her the fleeting quality of money, he could not dismiss her from his thoughts. He found himself thinking of her while, after dinner, Sir Oscar - discussed with him the plans he had laid for speeding up the trials of his invention. He was thinking of her much more than of Pamela Baring, while he and Pamela sat out on the lawn in the moonlight till quite a late hour.

"Well, we dont seem to be saying anything very interesting, do we," Pamela ended by remarking rather cynically in the end, as she rose, her cheeks a delicious peach-colour, her eyes, lash-shuttered. “Please —Miss Baring”—He too was on his feet and laid a hand on her arm —“Have I really been so rude? I’m sorry." “Why should you be?" she laughed. “You’re thinking about that invention of yours all the while, aren't you?” “I’m anxious naturally about its success," he said, accepting this escape from a dilemma. "That has to be certain before I stop worrying." “Why worry? Uncle thinks the world of it, and he isn’t a bad judge, is he?" “Not, as I know men. Miss Baring,’’ he answered. She looked up at him from a pair of warmly appealing eyes. "You're a man’s man,” she said under her breath. "1 appreciate that. Overseas men mostly are. But —don't you think that women are worth a little of your great brain? I mean—” What she meant was not just then explained, anyhow, for Sir Oscar and Mr Wallingford joined them. Presently Pamela went upstairs to bed. Peters, the financier and the old lawyer remained, chatting over a final drink indoors. Finally, Mr Wallingford and Peters went upstands together. Outside his room, Mr Wallingford drew him in with an inviting hand. “I want a word with you, John,” he said, closing the door behind them. Peters . readily enough, began to discuss something which had been on his mind the whole evening. Without appearing too interested, he suggested: "That Accrington girl's in trouble again, isn't she?” He noticed that old Mr Wallingford eyed him in a rather surprised way, looking a little embarrassed. "What makes you think that?” he asked. "The way she looked this evening when she came out of the library." Peters answered. "Scared a bit. Anyhow. I guessed, it must be something pretty vital to have her rolling in on you on a Sunday, and at someone else's house, where —as I understand, from Pamela —she knows she's not exactly looked on with approval—" “Of course, that is so,' Mr Wallingford murmured. "As t said before, Im sorry for Paula. No doubt she's much to blame for a good deal of what people think and say about her. Still —she came here with a very queer story this evening—a very queer story." “I was going to tell you about it. because—well. I know I could trust you not to let it go any further, and—also, we'd been discussing her earlier,” he pursued, paused a moment and Hum i went on: "That German fellow from the road-1 house has, as I expected, started to, blackmail her, but in a strange and un-| expected way. It seems he’s got hold of some story—through a solicitor's

clerk of sorts —that there is a flaw in Paula’s legal right to the Accrington money, and another claimant exists with a clear title from the other branch of the family.” It was with the greatest difficulty that Peters kept countenance at this unexpected development. It did not take him a moment to realise the truth. Disappointed at being turned down so completely by him. out in Otterbridge. that foul little man, Tucker, had come back to this country, and now was trying to make his money cut of this girl. The move was cunning. But now, because of it. Peters had not only the right, but it was perhaps also his duty, to take his hand in the game with the papers in his possesion. CHAPTER VIII. Yes, Peters told himself, this entirely unexpected development required that he should take a hand in the game. It need not be a prominent hand at all, as yet anyhow. That foul little fox, Tucker, doubtless imagined him still to be in Otterbridge, safely out of the way. A surprise for him when he discovered otherwise. A surprise too for Paula Accrington when she found out who was the man, capable of dispossessing her. For a moment, Peters was half-in-clined to tell old Mr Wallingford the truth about himself. It was not his nature, however, to act on impulse, and there was no need for haste. First he would visit that far-away little church in Devon, and examine in the register there the original of the vital mariage certificate. Meantime, a sudden thought occurred to him. “I can’t quite understand how it comes,” he said, turning to the other, “that although your firm have been locking after the Accrington family’s affairs for so long you never came to discover this flaw. What sort of a, flaw is it?”

Knowing the last only too well himself, he asked the question and listened to the lawyer’s explanation as a matter of form. “As to how it comes that any firm appears to have had no knowledge of that flaw,” Wallingford went on, “it can only be supposed that the matter had been kept so secret ” “Yet you have just said that some solicitor’s clerk of sorts has become acquainted with the secret,” Peters intervened. 'Yes, I know ” Old Mr Wallingford looked thoughtful, adding slowly. “And it seems to me that he could only do that through some kind of documentary evidence. I am beginning to wonder ” “Well, well!” he broke off suddenly. “I must look into that when I get back to town tomorrow. And of course, strictly speaking. I should not be here tonight discussing the affairs of my clients with you, my dear John. But —l’m beginning to look on you almost as a son, and I know I can trust you. Besides, this may persuade you to think of poor Paula Accrington a little less severely.” “Oh, what I’ve given as my opinion of her doesn't hurt her, and is only my way of letting’ off steam,” Peters laughed as he turned to go. “My interest in her, either way, amounts to nothing.”

It was easy enough to say and try to believe that. But, especially since this unexpected development, it was increasingly clear to Peters during the next few days that. Paula Accrington was becoming so closely involved with himself in the near future as to sharpen his interest in her from more than one point of view. He saw little of her, beyond.an occasional glimpse of her car flashing about the countryside, and once she drove onto the aerodrome, flying Londonwards in her private plane. On that occasion, since they met in the aerodrome offices for an instant, she merely looked straight at. and through him. with what he had to admit was a rather superb arrogance. It made him laugh softly to himself after she had passed, alive as he was, to the irony of a situation which—had she only known it —robbed that confident superiority of its glitter. She little guessed how tremendously important he could become to her, any moment he so desired. Deprived of the income she was so recklessly spending. what would become of her arrogance? Peters was not too sure about that. The girl had spirit. Her cynical sophistication was largely a pose, he felt. As old Mr Wallingford had suggested —and he should be no mean judge—there might be much of good lurking behind that pose. Peters had a strong feeling that she was not the sort to squeal if disaster came and even ruin overwhelmed her. Meanwhile, admittedly a little haunted by the loveliness of her. his time and thoughts in those next days were largely occupied in the process of turning those blue-prints, designs of his invention. into practical form and testing the results. So far, these results were negligible though decidedly promising. Expert opinion, called in by Sir Oscar, was optimistic of success. The next few weeks should prove definitely how great it would be. A cheerful conference had just ended in the workshops Sir Oscar had taken, and was having enlarged, near the aerodrome, when an inquiring voice with a broad Irish brogue sent. Peters hurrying out into the afternoon sunlight, a welcome on laughing lips. 'So you've got out of Ireland alive, after all. Dan!” (To be Continued.) - ... ... . _ . _ . .....- ■ - | ATTACHE CASES, 3/9, 4/3, 4/9, 10/6.1 15/-, 20/-, 25/-, 30/-, etc. A large] range to choose from at Albert Don-1 lid's, The Saddler.