“MAN FROM THE AIRPORT”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 January 1940, Page 10

“MAN FROM THE AIRPORT”

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

By

LESLIE BERESFORD.

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

CHAPTER XIII. Continuea. ‘Tt is," Peters interrupted. ‘‘Actionable —on the part of the police. Would you like me to call them. Tucker?" The other, by now completely at his ease, after the fashion of a crook who realised that safety depended entirely on a bold attitude, laughed. “Please yourself ■ entirely,” he said, with a casual little gesture towards the telephone on the writing-table near by. “If you care to lay yourself open to damages for false arrest and serious libel ”

“I’m not in the least afraid of that,” Peters interrupted him. “It’s quite useless for you to deny having stolen that marriage entry. The vicar of that church will be able to identify you as the person who examined the register. My two friends here can provide ample evidence as to your visit to me in Newfoundland, and your offer to supply me with evidence of my right to the Accrington estate —at a price. You see, your chances of getting away with it are pretty small." . “I’m ready to risk it, anyhow,” shrugged the other. “Call in the police. If you do, you'll find there’ll oe no case to go for trial. Merely surmise. Not an iota of definite proof. 1 say here and now that 1 know nothing about any stolen marriage entry. It’s entirely up to you to prove otherwise.”

"If Peters was not prepared to admit (that line of argument as definitely sound, he was in ho mood to force the issue. To hand these two men over to the police would not achieve the object he most had in mind —possession of that stolen marriage-entry which he was convinced they held. And, of course, he had no doubt but that Paula and her brother had come with the same idea. There was indeed no other explanation of tneir presence here. The brother, especially, had been showing intense anxiety during this conversation. Peters who had been, incidentally, taking good stock of the young fellow, was not disposed to like him. Utterly untrustworthy, he thought him. Meanwhile, rather than appear to be climbing down in the least, he said: “I’ll give you a good run for your money, Tucker. I’ll give you twentyfour hours from now” —Peters glanced at his wrist-watch —“to produce that stolen marriage-entry, about which you say that you know nothing. If, at the end of that time, it is not in my possession ” “What then?" leered the other, as Peters lapsed into silence. Peters shot at a venture:

“Your old employer, Mr Wallingford, will call in the poice, and —I’m sure I need not ask you to believe, me—your future freedom will be seriously menaced.

Not a Title to Peters’s surprise, it seemed obvious that the shot had reached its mark. The little clerk shrivelled, and in his pasty face his eyes registered an expression of sudden fear, which his attitude of bluff could not altogether hide. Peters, who had mentioned Wallingford merely as a hint to the other that anyhow he could go to prison for purloining papers from his employer’s office, realised now that possibly something even more grave hung in the balance. Tucker was frankly taken aback, possibly imagining that Peter knew more than he did. All the same, though his voice sounded shaky, he blustered still. “You think so?” he snarled. “Well, let Mr Wallingford get on with it, that’s all I have to say!” Peters utntdreoisht oTNo’?HTHTH

Peters turned to his two friends, who had been watching, and listening, from the background. “Come on. boys," he said. “Sure, and you're not leaving things in the air like this, John?" exclaimed Dan, on a note of grieved surprise. “What wrong with calling the police then 9”

“They’ll be here soon enough, Dan, so don’t worry,” Peters retorted. “Come. Don’t you see that Miss Accrington and her brother are finding our company embarrassing?” So far as Paula was concerned, he could not have said anything more bitterly to be resented by her. In that moment, she hated him. with a hatred far more violent and real than the fury marking their first meeting on the Beaconsfield aerodrome, because there was infinitely more reason behind it. For now, amazingly, this man had proved to be the unknown person entitled to the money she needed —as never before —more for the sake of her brother than herself.

Had she,stood alone in the matter, she would have still fought, the thing to a finish, though she would have used legal weapons. The needs of Geoffrey, however, demanded that she should use any weapon at all. so long as it won the fight for him. It was not no wso much of her fight, as his. She wasted no time, once Peters and his two friends had left the room, in commencing the action. “My brother —” she introduced Geoffrey to them in a slight gesture of a white ' hand, “ has just returned from abroad. He ”

“Your pardon, lady—” the German intervened, “ 1 do not know anything about your brother. I —and my friend here —are dealing only with you in this matter.” “Don't believe it. Luttner." intervened Geoffrey. “You're dealing with me —from now on. My sister has spilt all the beans. Luttner, and you're done. No more of your damned silly nonsense about marrying her. That bluff won't work. Trot out that bit of paper about the secret marriage, and well put a price to it, here and now.”

“How much?” asked the German. "I'll be generous. A thousand pounds —in cash.” "How absurd! A hundred-thousand —or nothing." "Very well- —it’s nothing then. Good enough.” "That doesn't get you anywhere, does ot, my young friend?” sneered the German. “I—my friend and I—still hold the proof that the Accrington money doesn’t belong to you and your sister." “True. But, you daren’t produce that proof—so, why try and be funny? Don’t you think we’d better come to a deal right away—while that Peters person isn’t here?" shrugged the other. “All you have to do is to accept our. terms, bring that bit of paper along, and—we’ll all see it burnt to nothing.” “That’s right,” intervened the solicitor’s clerk. “Go and get the bit of paper, Emil. I’m sure our young friend here will raise the price to —say, ten thousand —five for you, and five for me “A thousand —and not a penny more,” responded Geoffrey. “It’s all my sister is prepared to pay ” “Then she —and you—had better think again,” remarked the German coldly. “Twenty thousand is my figure, and nothing less goes. Agree to that —: —” “I don’t —and won’t,” retorted Geoffrey, shrugging. “You can keep your bit of paper. It will be of no use to you, don’t forget. In fact, it’s a danger ’’ “You daren’t make it one,” said the German.

“Come, Emil. We’ll be reasonable,” intervened Tucker impatiently. Miss Accrington and her brother will settle at ten thousand ——"

“I agree,” Paula suddenly announced, silent all this while and loathing the unclean spirit of barter in which she had become involved. She took a step towards the .writing table, only too anxious to bring discussion to an. end. ' “Bring me the marriage entry, Emil, and I’ll write out a cheque,” she said, producing a cheque-book from her handbag. Luttner laughed: “A cheque? No, no lady. It is always possible to stop a cheque, is it not? Cash only, for me. Besides, I still insist on twenty thousand, and no less. You see it doesn’t matter what my friend. Tucker, may say. I am the person who holds that important piece of paper. Therefore, I am the person who makes, and accepts the terms.”

For a moment there was silence. The small beady eyes of the clerk glittered with cynical amusement. Geoffrey Accrington looked angrily at his sister, as if he felt that she had let him down. Emil Luttner smiled blandly, with all the air of a victor, and lit. a cigarette. “Well ?” he asked.

"If you insist on cash, you'll have to wait till I can get it.” Paula said quietly. "A big. sum like that will need arranging at my bank. We’ll go there now, Geoff. The sooner we’re through with this the better.”

She turned to the door, opened it and walked out. with her brother at her heels. “What has gone wrong with you. Sis?” the latter said, chokingly under his breath. “You must be raving mad. Twenty thousand of the best, and —if you’d only left things to me—that German would have been content with a couple of thousand ” "Would he?” Paula passed on out into the sunlit grounds. “You don’t knew Emil Luttner. as I do. As it is. we’re getting away with it more easily than we might have done. That man, Peters, turning up and proving to be the rival claimant —didn't you see how it upset those two?” “All the more reason why we should have stood our ground,” insisted her brother.

Paula made no response. She settled herself at the wheel of her car. Geoffrey clambering in beside her. and was soon humming along the road Londonwards. It was not until the road-house had long been left behind that she spoke. “And to think that he —of all people —proves to be the man who should own the Accrington money!’ she said suddenly, more to herself than to her brother.

“Why do you say that. Sis?” The ather asked, puzzled. “What is there about him that is special?” “Oh, there's nothing special," she shrugged. “At least—apart from the fact that he’s a particularly hateful person. You see, Geof, I made his acquaintance weeks and weeks ago. In fact, I was really beginning to get quite friendly with him. It’s just as well I was only beginning. All the time he was hiding the truth from me. Going behind my back to take our money from us, Geof. Posing as a friend, while he was scheming to take what I owned. Can you beat it?" "And that’s why I don’t hold out over the price, Geof," she went on. ‘lf it had been fifty thousand. I’d have been prepared to pay. if it was only to keep that beast, from getting the better of us. Oh . . . The hatefulness of him "

She lapsed again to silence, brooding. For she had been quite seriously shocked by the discovery of her real relationship to Peters. Nothing could have been more unexpected or less pleasing. The effect of the discovery had indeed far-reaching results. It had disclosed to her something which, till now, she had not. herself really recognised. For she knew now —she had suddenly reliscd it as she faced him in that room —he mattered tremendously to her. Now, as the rising speedometer before her indicated the recklessness with which he was making the car eat up the miles to London, sh,?

(To be Continued.)

was startled and ashamed by the emotions this man was capable of arousing in her. Something which she had not felt for any other man. Not even Terry Carlton. She though <af Terry now, remembered that last night at the road-house, before the police raided it. How he had told her that he was drunk with love for her. Yet after the police raid he had been so quickly sobered of his love that lie had left her. And now. so far as Terry was concerned. she was glad he had left her. A fortunate escape for both of them. For Terry, anyhow. He would be back again with Constance Willard by now. As for herself . . .Paula faced quite frankly her first real awakening of a heart, which, until now, had been cold and unresponsive, selfishly immune where men were concerned. There had been no real escape for her. She was, at long last, definitely in love, and that with the one man in the world, whom she was justified in hating "