“MAN FROM THE AIRPORT”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 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,

CHARTEP XVI. “Murder?" The exclamation came from Tucker, his ashen-coloured face glistening with sweat. And then, as John Peters swung round on him, he' seemed to shrivel into nothing, but glaring with a desperate defiance. "Why are you talking about murder?” he asked. “Somebody’s done their very best towards it upstairs,” Peters answered coldly, then asked: "When, by the way, did you see that German fellow last?” “I? The solicitor’s clerk swallowed covered his mouth with fretting fingers and cackled. “Not during the whole of this evening. Not since the afternoon. I swear it. Why, what’s wrong?” The waiter' reappeared, speaking to John Peters: '“The doctor is motoring over at once, sir.” At the same moment, the approach of a car could be heard outside, drawing everyone’s attention that way. The faint light of a slowly dawning day showed the terrace outside the main entrance to the building. A shining black automobile became gradually silhouetted against the shimmer of summer sunrise. From this, three men descended. "The police, I expect," said John Peters, and went to meet them. To Paula, watching him, came the whispered voice of her brother, leaning over the back of the chair in which she sat; "Sis . . . We’ve got to keep our heads. Be careful. You were a fool to admit that you knew all about that stolen marriage entry. Don't you see that it’s going to make things awkward for us ?” She scarcely heard what he had said. The men from the car. joined by John Peters, who stood for a moment talking to them, began to move hurriedly indoors, passed Paula in a little group, and were immediately taken up in the lift by the night-porter. Paula rose to her feet, turned to her brother. “I’m going to find out exactly what is the matter, she said. “You'd better come with me, Geoff.” The waiter, till then hovering in the background, placed himself at the foot of the stairs. “lidon’t think you ought to go Miss,’’ he said. “There’s been murder done up there, from what I could see. It's a horrid sight—not fit for ladies. Somebody’s socked Mr Luttner one " Pierre de Brissac took a step forward, laid a hand on Paula’s arm. “I should leave all this to John—and the police—Miss Accrington,” he said in his pleasant, soothing voice. "I don’t think, really, that I’d interfere, if I were you.” Paula was inwardly terrified, for all her outward appearance of comparative calm. She gestured appealingly. "But, if something dreadful has happened to Mr Luttner, L ought to be there," she said. “He was a friend of mine ” “That's a lie!" interrupted Tucker, suddenly seeming to come to life again. “And let me tell everyone here that, if anything’s happened to Emil Luttner, there can be no doubt that Miss Accrington and her brother know more about it than anyone ” His protesting voice died away in a breathless gurgle, for O'Corrigan had him once again by the back of his collar. “You just shut that mouth of yours!” Dan was saying, when Pierre de Brissac cut him short. “Here’s John and the police,” he said. The lift had come down. Together with John Peters, a giant of a man stepped out from it, and moved towards the little group. Paula recognised him as the superintendent, having met him during the case over the police-raid here. He also, naturally, recognised her. “This place seems to be a load of trouble for you, Miss Accrington,” he said. “I understand you’ve been here most of tonight. You’re aware that an attempt at murder has been made upstairs?” “You mean—Mr Luttner hasn't actually been murdered?” she questioned, surprised. “He’s still living," the superintendent retorted, and shrugged. “That’s all I can say. We can only wait until the doctor arrives to be certain if there is the slightest chance of saving his life. It doesn’t look a very good chance, from my brief examination. Still

“While we’re waiting for the doctor.” he went on, “I’d like to ask you a question. I understand from Mr Peters here that you and the injured man upstairs had some business arrangement together over that marriage-en-try which was recently stolen from a church?"

“Perfectly true,” Paula responded. “The document was in his possession. I gather." “I was given to understand so. I was, in fact, buying it from him. Actually, here is the purchase money—” Opening her handbag, she threw down upon a table the wad of banknotes it had, till then, been holding. The action forced an angry exclamation from her brother.

“Listen, Paula . . .You're giving yourself away " “On the contrary." intervened John Peters coldly, thrusting Geoffrey aside as he moved towards his sister, “you are the person who is doing that. Would you mind keeping out of this business?” “But —it is my business 1" the other protested furiously, only to be interrupted by his sister: "Be quiet. Geoffrey. Mr Peters is

right. I am the only person concerned in this.” She said that deliberately. She was refusing to hide behind her brother now. She was not letting John Peters imagine for a moment that she had wanted to retain the Accrington money for anybody’s sake, but her own. She looked him straight in the eyes. “As I said " she pointed to the notes on the table “there was the purchase-price. And now I’ll tell you something else. My brother and I went to Mr Luttner’s room at about three o’clock this morning to pay that money to him. And we found ” her gesture was involuntarily dramatic, “ exactly what you found .” And it’s now close on five o’clock, Miss Accrington,” the superintendent’s deep voice interposed, after consulting a wrist-watch. "Yet —you made no communication with the police ” ‘Was it likely,” Tucker raised his high-pitched, clipped voice excitedly, and tried to thrust himself forward, but was vigorously flung back into a a chair by O’Corrigan. "Didn’t I say so just now?” he went on fiercely from the chair. “I said that Miss Accrington and her brother knew more than anyone else about what has happened to Luttner. There’s lhe proof on that table. Twenty-thou-sand pounds. Can’t you all see what happened? .They went in there with the money, but they never meant to pay it, once they'd got hold of that marriage-entry. They ” “And who may you be, so well-in-formed over what has been happening?” inquired the superintendent, whose shrewd eyes had meanwhile been carefully studying the small group here in the entrance-hall. “This, superintendent, is the man. Tucker, whom you originally came here to take in charge,” said John Peters. “He is the person who removed from the register in the church at Barnsley-on-the-Moor the entry of a marriage of which ” He took from an inner breast pocket leather case, and from this extracted a document. “ — of which,” he added, "I hold a certified copy here—” Paula, in that moment and looking at the paper in the fingers of John Peters, who was standing close to her, realised the utter futility of the fight she had been waging to hold the Accrington money for Geoffrey and herself. A fierce fury of anger swept her. This man, John Peters, seemed to have a sleeve full of aces, which he was able to produce. Meanwhile, just as surprised as she was, the solicitor’s clerk was declaiming a violent protest. “It’s a lie—an outrageous lie!” he piped. “I didn’t steal the thing ■” “You can explain all that when you’re brought before the court at Aylesbury,” interposed the level, unemotional voice of the superintendent. “In fact, so far as that charge is concerned, I must warn you that anything you say now may be used later in evidence against you.” “Meantime,” he added, “I understand that you and the injured gentleman upstairs were both interested in this marriage certificate. I’d like to ask you one or two questions, before we go any further ” The superintendent’s method was quiet, but had all the concentrated efficiency of a pile-driver. His barrage of questions, cold and curt, seemed to circle the solicitor’s clerk with an impassable wall of suspicion. When had he last seen the injured man upstairs? What had been the nature of their conversation, of the attitude towards each other? What was the urgent business, on which he had been leaving this place at three o’clock in the morning, when he had been detained? ■ And, so on . . . Paula listened, ears, alert, but mind disturbed. The sublety of the policeman was no greater than the cunning of Tucker. They were like two men in ' armour, making no end of noise while hitting metal, but making no hole anywhere .If anything, the smaller of the two, seemed to be hitting the hardest. Tucker, with his cunning, was slowly but inexorably creating an atmosphere of suspicion, not against himself, but against her and Geoffrey. This'became eventually so self-evi-dent that she simply had to intervene. “I’ve frankly admitted already, superintendent,” she interposed, “that my brother and I did go into that’ room. And we found " again she gestured expressiveyl, “just what you, yourself, have seen. That is all we know of it.” “If I may suggest it, Miss Accrington,” the superintendent said, “the less you say at this moment, the better. If you had done the right and lawful thing, when you discovered what was an obvious attempt at murder, if not murder itself ” 'That’s just what Paula and I thought it was!" intervened Geoffrey, a mass of nerves. ‘And that’s exactly why we—we rather funked saying anything about it. Didn't want to call the police and be dragged into something we knew nothing about — "But, you did know, young man. You’d seen it. The right thing to have done was to telephone at. once for the police. If it hadn't been ” At this moment the purring of an approaching car drifted in from outside. An automobile drew up at the man entrance, and a man stepped from the car, carrying a small leather ease in his hand. The superintendent swung round, walked across to meet the man. "Sorry to have been obliged to disturb you at this hour, doctor "he j was saying, when the other interrupted dourly:

(To be Continued.)