"3 STRANGE MEN"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 October 1940, Page 10

"3 STRANGE MEN"

COPYRIGHT. PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

By

C. T. PODMORE.

(Author of “The Fault,” etc.

CHAPTER XXI (Continued >.

Two of the men, whom Boxwith had called the twins, had -issued by the front door and were coming round the angle of the building. One went back, shouting; the other paused, observing the fugitives retire into the shadows of a neglected orchard behind.

As he helped Sophie through a narrow gateway towards the outline of a fence he could see through trees, George said, "Don’t be frightened. There’s going to be a fight for it. “I’m not frightened, with you,”Sophie answered, “but I wish—-I do wish Mr Barling were here too.” “So do I,” said George with a short laugh; “but I’ll manage. Do just as I tell you, Sophie. Get behind these bushes, and leave the rest to me.” He put one hand in his pocket. Sophie thus seltered, he stood by a tree-trunk and waited for the inevitable. Better here than in the open. It came almost at once. There were four men—one being perhaps the cook-caretaker of the farm—all converging on him with a sort of strategy. Nearer they came, and not a word from any, until, three or four yards away, one of them exclaimed, “Wait a minute —we’ve got him easier than this!” And he whipped out the little revolver and pointed it deliberately at George. “I'm a dirty ’ound and a hugly brute, that’s what I am,” he was saying, when it was cut short. In an instant, George Parmitter's hand was out of his pocket and had launched a missile. The axe-head. It crashed into the middle of the man’s face; and the fellow staggered, dropped the revolver, and fell with a horrid sound of pain. Almost as the thing had hit him, George followed and picked up the revolver. Without hesitation, he fired it low at the nearest man, who fell as if his legs had been cut from under him. Close by was Boxwith, coming through a little patch of shadow with a longdrawn sound of disgust. George sent a shot at him, again low, and he too, with an oath of surprise, went down. The fourth man, conspicuous in moonlight a moment before, had turned and was running, along the shadowed farmhouse wall.

“Nice way to let a feller down, Parmitter, after what I’ve done for you,” came Boxwith’s suffering voice. “Wish I’d have took that little revolver off that fool; but he wanted it to play with —see? ” “Shut up!” said George, coldly brutal as he debated whether to follow the fourth man or not. But here was, Sophie at his elbow. “What have you done?” she asked fearfully. He put an arm about her. “These fellows are little better than murderers,” he answered. “Come along.” They made their way past the broken hay-cart to the front gate, and looked over the low-lying haze for guidance. It was all too flat and vague, and the narrow roadway forked into nothingness even a short distance ahead. They could not afford to get astray in this lonely waste. This was a forgotten corner of the marshes, and the living world seemed far off, and had left no landmarks behind. “Stand in the shadow here,” George said—“l’ll get that fellow out.” He went toward the house door, but a sound on the path near by betrayed the fourth man stealing quietly away. The fellow, obviously afraid of the fate meted out to his companions, responded reluctantly to George’s call: “Which way out of this, for London?” “Nor’-west. From here, to the right for a couple of miles, then left —then right again, and left again—wide of The Gibbet. Then you keep on ” “Here, come along —lead the way,’' George ordered him. “And the first hint of anything crooked, remember, you’re down and out.” The man sullenly did as directed. Thus, in the chill hours before the sun came up, George Parmitter and Sophie Cordery made their way through the misty flats toward freedom; losing no time, and sparing no caution, for safety was not here; until at last, where a grim old finger-post like a gallows stood pointing down a cross road, George dismissed their slouching guide, with a curt, “Consider yourself lucky!” And the man turned back, and was lost in the grey of the sluggish early morning. Then, with the weariness of reaction upon them, yet lightened by the shrewd breeze that came up with a watery freshness out of the east, they plodded on and on, reaching at length a little hotel that was stirring within a mile of Gravesend. Coming as they did on the placid early morning business of the inn, it was no easy matter, without telling something of their story, for them to secure service. But on such few details as wore needed, added to the obvious distress of Sophie herself, they were at length admitted to the kitchen by the publican’s wife, who was a woman of sense and judgment, and who lost no time in spreading a breakfast for the twain. George apologised for the trouble; it was not really for himself—he could have kept on—but the lady absolutely could not. If this had been a police station instead, it might have been better; but they had interests with the London police already, and what had to be done would be done by Scotland Yard. George finally took out his card, saying to the innkeeper, "It is not pleasant for me to touch upon, but perhaps you will recognise my name.” The man looked at the card, then at George, and hesitated. "Tooting?” he ventured. George nodded. “It was my father,” he said. “Queer, that!” was the rejoinder. “There's a man comes in here at times who sailed with old Geoff Parmitter.” “South Seas?” "Absolutely the very ones. Name of Kitson. Would you know him?”

“No. I was never at sea with my father. He always said it was too outlandish for me.” “Queer, down those latitudes!” ‘•Rather,” agreed George, "and m these too.” Their bona-fides thus further established, the allusion to Tooting was allowed to lapse. “If you’ll come into the yard after a while,” the innkeeper said, “I’ll give you a good brush down. You both need one badly. Then you’ll be as fresh as a couple of daisies again. Lord —to thing of what things do go on over this side. It's well-nigh incredible. Sophie, very tired, and sensible of her strange position, had remained almost silent, but the genial breakfast and the little friendly attentions of the inn-keeper’s wife brought the light back into her eyes and the colour to her cheeks. The immediate order of things and the prospect of returning to, London took on a more normal air. Both felt more fit to face the day, and both were unsparing in their thanks for the kindly hospitality they had received, when at length they took their departure. From the distance, Gravesend looked bright and even picturesque enough this morning, with its sunny glimpses | of trees and shipping among the roofs. But the only scenery they had eyes for was the railway station, and the only detail thereof the train which was to speed them back to Town. And it was not till Sophie was comfortably settled with him in their compartment—they had no fellow travellers —that George said, relaxing a restraint he had put upon her, “Now, Sophie, I will let you talk. Fire away!” Sophie gave him, thereupon, an outline of things that had happened since the coming of his telegram from Chatham, and George listened aghast to the unforeseen troubles which his advice had entailed. But what a good chap Barling was, to have spent his evening on their behalf! The second wire from Bromley had conicided with Mr Torkney’s suggestion of a caretaker,, though that suggestion somehow did not seem to have been made seriously. “Wire from Bromley?” George said. “I sent no such wire.”

Sophie told him its purport, which certainly had been achieved, so far as it nullified the injunction from Chatham. Torkney’s plan about . the house seemed of no moment beside the inference to be drawn. But how did Rumely know that he had a wire from Chatham to counteract? It was strange. Anything might have happened by this time. Rumely’s own words, in' fact, indicated the worst. The decoy wire to Sophie at the Trust offices fitted into the scheme in two ways —if the cottage after all was to see the end of it—either to suit the designs of Rumely as he had expressed them at the farmhouse they had left, or to draw George away from London again in search of her, in case he missed or evaded the trap which had been, laid for him. Here Headley Barling might have had something very interesting to say. But he had not been seen since the morning after the Chatham wire, when he had reported merely that all seemed well at Tooting. “I had no idea of anything happening like that when Mr Barling got me out of it,” Sophie went on. “When I reached the steps of the Town Hall at Croydon, a man standing beside a car came and asked if I were Miss Cordery? When I said Yes, he replied that he had been sent to meet me, and would take me to where you were lying hurt. He said you had slipped in front of his master’s car, but it was not very serious. He was certainly not the man who had taken me to Stepney. The minute I got into the car, he was fumbling with the cushions, and something fell to the floor and broke, like glass. I don’t know what happened then. Something came over me, and I knew nothing more until I found myself in that strange empty room. When I looked round, it frightened me so dreadfully for the moment that ” “You screamed. I heard you.” “I guessed Rumely at once, and I knew that he had meant to kill me. He meant it last night—that is what he would have done, if you had not been there. Now tell me how you came to be there! It was like something arranged by an unseen power.” George responded, but before the story was enaed they reached the City. Sophie ignored the call of Leadenhall Street; probably she was not expected there this morning. George’s details were completed on their way to Brixton. Leaving Sophie to tell the tale and dispel her mother’s night-long anxiety. George Parmitter lost no time in getting back to affairs. He went first to his office in Tottenham Court Road, saw that matters were in reasonable order there, and hurried thence to his rooms in Brompton Road. Here he found a letter which occasioned him some surprise. . It was from Cursitor Street, and ran as follows: — “Dear Sir, —We regret to inform you that in consequence of an impending rearragement of our affairs we are reluctantly obliged to relinquish from this date the esteemed privilege of acting professionally on your behalf, and that we propose, subject to your approval, to transfer your interests now with us to Messrs Thorgood, and Wrenfold of Dodworth Chambers, Long Acre, to whom we hope you will state your sanction or otherwise of our proposal at your early convenience. Meanwhile we unreservedly commend Messrs and Wren-' fold to your implicit confidence. Yours faithfully,—Reed, Price and Torkney." (To be Continued).