“RENTS ARE LOW IN EDEN”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 March 1940, Page 10

“RENTS ARE LOW IN EDEN”

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

By

PETER BENEDICT.

CHAPTER XVI. (Continued.) “Perhaps there are,” said Catherine. She turned from the window. “Thank you, Mrs Dunning, for all you’ve told me. You’ve helped me very much.” “What are you going to do?” asked Nancy, as she turned towards the door. "I don’t know. I must think; and there are some more things I want to find out before I decide.” “But there’s so little time,” said Nancy.

“There will be enough. Whatever I do will be done today.” On the step before the front door she turned, and looked back at the slender little woman in the gay cretonne overall, and it seemed to her that the real fight was already over, and won, not by herself, or by Adam, but by Nancy and her fellows. “Goodbye,' she said, “and thank you for listening to me.” Then she took the road through the garden city towards the station and caught the next train for Stanchester. CHAPTER XVII. Mickey Dennis sat in the inner sanctum of his office in Warren Street, Stanchester, reading the morning papers. There were some seven of them, all he could think of, littered over his desk; and each one of them was opened to the account of the second day’s hearing of Court v Probert. As he finished with each, he pushed it on one side, and began the procedure all over again with the next. He had reached a picture paper, when his junior tapped at the door, and came in. and closed it behind him, all with an air of having more to impart than the usual advice of the usual type of visitor. “Well, what’s wrong?” said Mickey, not looking up from the fascinating and irritating study of the paper. “There’s a Mrs Court asking to see you,” said the junior, producing what he knew must be a bombshell in a manner of a conjurer producing the rabbit from the hat. Mickey Dennis looked up sharply enough this time. The paper shot from under his relaxing hands, and rustled to the floor. He made to rise from his chair, and as promptly sat down again. It was impossible; that was all he knew. “Tommyrot! You’re pulling my leg. The woman’s in London, at the law courts.” “All I know is, she’s here in the office. I know her from the newspaper pictures." “She can't oe in two places at once,” said Mickey flatly, as if it was some satisfaction to have at least one point settled beyond question. “It can’t be done.” "Then she isnt in London; for there’s not much doubt that she’s sitting in the next room at this moment, waiting to see you.” The junior—he was not many years younger than Mickey, and there was little ceremony between them—grinned provokingly. “Shall I tote her in? She’s not bad looking.” “She hasnt a bad nerve,” said Mickey in a long breath of wonder. “What on earth can she want here, with me? I thought she was busy trying to extract the chief’s pocket-book in the Strand, and now she turns up here in Stanchester. He leaned forward, and with one sweep of his long arm gathered the scattered papers together into one heap. “Yes, bring her in.” Catherine came. She was in the blue dress she had worn in court two days previously, with the heavy furs of her coat collar erect and black round the whiteness of her neck and face; and the little Cossack cap she wore lost its brown into the brown of her hair. He saw, too, as she came slowly through the doorway, the walk which Adam Probert had noticed first and foremost of her, before ever he had seen her in the flesh. He asknowledged, though grudgingly, that there was something in the idea that she belonged to the Middle Ages, or at latest to the dawn of the Renaissance. He thought, more-out of loyalty to Adam than out of a desire to take the comparison seriously, of Caterina Sforza. All he knew of that redoubtable lady he knew from Adam, and it was not very much; but the name stuck in his mind. He came to his feet as she entered, and for a long moment they stood looking at each other across the desk. Then Catherine said, in a low, blit steady, voice. “I am aware that you must find this visit very puzzling, Mr Dennis; but 1 assure you that I’ve no intention of wasting very much of your time. If you will give me ten minutes- ”

“Certainly,” said Mickey Dennis, with the most icy politeness, “I am here to interview any cal In rs, Mrs Court, however unexpected—and however unwelcome.” She smiled, in appreciation, the slightly worn smile of one who had long seen through the joke. “So that's the attitude you’re taking! Well I don't blame you.. You have your own attachments, and I like you all the better for sticking to them. But sometimes even the most wholehearted of generals find it necessary to parley 'with the enemy.” She smiled again, and passed a hand over her face in a gesture as resigned as it was weary. “Forgive me; I forgot that the simile of warfare was originally mine. It was a theatrical invention, and if it recoiled on me I can’t complain.” “I still don’t see,” said Mickey Dennis, standing stiffly behind his desk, “what, useful purpose this visit can possibly serve.” “No. I daresay you don’t; but I do. I want to ask you some very important questions, Mr Dennis; important to me, that is.” “Thank you. Now we can talk in 1 comfort.”

She looked round the little office with some interest, because it had to do with her mission. Here, if Mrs Garland told the truth, were interviewed the unfortunates who wished to escape from the slums of Stanchester into the ideal village of Court Brandon. The office, where such hopes were crowned or doomed, was by no means a rich place. The furnishings were strictly businefcs-like, and the staff consisted simply of these two very young men.

“I know you must be surprised to find me here in Stanchester,” she said. “I came home last night, and without telling anyone where I was going; because I wanted to know a few things about which it seemed to me I hadn’t taken sufficient trouble. Some of them I’ve already found out, down here in Court Brandon. She raised her eyes suddenly, and met Mickey’s eyes full. He had not yet found her measure, and did not know how far to trust her, but that glance was something of a revelation. “I know you hate me. I know you must do, far more than he does. He can afford not to hate me, you see, and you —can’.t But you want to help him, don’t you? I mean, apart from wanting to defeat me. You can help him by answering the questions I have to ask; and remember, they were big enough to send me hurrying back here without a word of warning to anyone. I don’t care wnat you think of me; but if you'value him at all, you’ll listen to me.” “What are these questions?” asked Mickey, not committing himself to' answer. Catherine leaned forward, and her eyes were shining. “Tell me, honestly, why did Adam Probert build in Court Brandon?” He was silent for a moment; then he said: “You've asked that in the village, haven’t you?” “Yes.” “And they told you? What? That it was for what he could get out of it?” “They told me that he gets nothing out of it. They told me that they pay for their houses a price which cannot possibly afford him any profit. I’ve seen for myself, now, what sort of houses they are, and I know that he has treated them well. But I want the reason. Was it really out of the greatness of his heart that he created that garden city?” “If you like to put it that way,” said Mickey Dennis, breathing hard, “yes, it was. You want the truth; very well, you can have it. On the bungalows he’s, still building, on the other side of the valley road, he just clears his expenses with a shade to spare; on the houses he loses just about as much, or possibly more. In other words, and taking it by and large, he’s running the whole show at a loss. That’s how much he’s making for himself out of it.” “And the people who get them?” said Catherine, “How are they selected?” “Most of them come to this office. By now they know the procedure through every slum in Stanchester. If there are any I consider unworthy of handing on to him, I cross them off myself; and there are; there have been thousands, people with money to buy a good house in the suburbs, trying to get into Court Brandon and save their cash. You’d be surprised, Mrs Court, at the length people like that will go to get a decent house for nothing; but none of them managed it. We’re very careful. Only those who needed them, and needed them badly, got those houses. And the last voice on every case was his. A few came from Court Brandon itself; he gave the verdict on those, too.” “I see,” said Catherine, with lowered eyes, “thank you. And the buses that take them into Stanchester; are they his, too?” “Yes, they’re his.” “And what was he planning to build on the Holly Lane fields?” “They were to be a recreation ground. The foundations for the clubhouse and the swimming-bath were already cut when. ” “When I had them stopped; quite! What else was there to be?” “A gymnasium—a little boating pool —a library—tennis courts, a bowling green—and gardens, of course: and anything else he happened to think of would have gone into the plans, of course.” “I see.” she said again. “And—this is almost the last question—what did he want with my glade? You remember he tried to buy it.” “Yes, I remember. I’m not likely to forget. He wanted it, for the same reason that he wanted Court Brandon, and no other place, for his colony. He wanted it because it was beautiful. Frankly, he cared more for those things than I aid. But nothing less than the loveliest valley in the country would do for the people of his city; and nothing less than the loveliest hollow in it was good enough to offer them. He wanted it for a sort of natural park; that was all.” Catherine said, with the first sign of tension she had shown: “Why didn’t you toll me this before? You could have saved us both from this—this horrible business.” “And fired myself; no. thank you. I prefer to do as he wishes, and stay with him. I daresay I’ve sealed my own death-warrant now.” he said with a shrug of his broad shoulders, “but it was worth it to have you know at last just wnere you stand.” Catherine stood up. and gathered her coat about her. “Just where 1 stand! Yes, if it's ar.y consolation to you, I know that now. Thank you for helpj ing me. May I use your phone. It’s a trunk call, and you must let me pay.” (To be Continued.)