"3 STRANGE MEN"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 October 1940, Page 10

"3 STRANGE MEN"

COPYRIGHT. PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT.

By

C. T. PODMORE.

(Author of “The Fault,” etc.

CHAPTER XXIV. (Continued ■- “Yes, that's what I’ll do." Jowle s eyes grew brighter. “That afternoon, old Geoff, says to me, ‘Jowle,’ he says, ‘when you’re speaking suspicious craft, you got to keep a sharp look out.’ Ke said he had arranged with his lawyers a plan to dispose of some valuables he’d got hid about the place. Course I knew already what was going on, but it was no business o’ mine to know, all the ins and outs, but only to do just as I was told, and say no word according where no word should be said. Which I didn't. And wouldn’t. What he told me was, he had got an idea that what he wanted done might not be done exactly as he wanted. So he gave me orders to start diggin.’

“I dug where ne told me. First in the garden, which I tell you was for diggin’s sake. And there was somewhere I would have done too—like gardenin’ —but there wasn’t a deal of time, and so it was untouched. Anyhow, I finisned up in the cellar, a long sort of an ’ole, and there was something else to do there too, and that didn’t get done, neither. I was diggin’ when he called me upstairs and showed me a metal box, a bit bigger than a cigar box, which he said he was glad I d found. I hadn’t found it at all. Bu ! I wouldn’t contradict old Geoff. ‘lf that was yours, Jowle,’ he says, ‘youd be as rich as a rajah. But,’ he says, ‘it ain't yours, so you stop as you are. Lookee,’ he says, ‘if you play crooked with me, Jowle, I'll be living long enough to rip the flesh off your bones, or I’ll come for you if I’m dead.’ Why, I’d never ’a' thought of such a thing. Not me. No fear. ‘That box,’ he says, ‘is for the first man that comes here to look for it. But I’ll see him—me—and I’ll know who he is, and if he’s above board. And if he is, then you fetch it to me—see?’

“ ‘Have I got to mind it?' I says. “Then he reached out from his bedside, and picked out a key from a drawer. It was the key to a little empty warehouse he’d got to sell down Mitcham Road. ‘The box goes there,’ he says, ‘and you’ve got to be in charge of it there, hide it there, say nothing to anybody, and that’s all till it’s wanted. In, say, ’bout a week.’ “So off I went, leaving the diggin’ as it xyas; and I can see now it needn’t have been done elaborate like that, for the lawyer never looked round the place when he came, whether he was meant to or not, and whether it was for deception, or temptation, or what old Geoff, was that ’cute. And I wen\ .off home for an hour or so, before thinking to touch the spade again. I didn’t touch that spade again. When 1 went upstairs after coming back —Well, you know what I found.” “Who was the lawyer who came?” Hardy asked. “Reed,” said Jowle; “the dark one,” Then his face whitened, and his eyes resumed their fixed and brooding look. “When you go right down in deep water,” he said, “all you know is, that’s where you are. It never came to me that anybody else was in it —it seemed only me. There’s been only old Geoff, and me together for such a long time. And’l knew it couldn’t be suicide, him being Geoff. Parmitter, and how it was murder baffled me for the same reason, ’cause nobody could murder a man like him. I don’t think I could tell you half of what I thought, but I know I went back to Mitcham Road to get the box and put it back somewhere in the house, or bury it, before anybody came; and I know I got stuck there, in a trembling state, wondering again, and trying to think what was best; until it came to me that perhaps somebody by that time had found it out —it was too late —and I was afraid to go back at all. It was all wrong. I know; and mj 7 word might ’a’ been as good as that lawyer’s. But you’ve only got to think about it. Me with that box, and that diggin’ been done, like diggin’ a grave. Funny he should think 0’ telling me to do it that size. I daren’t go home, for fear my wife wouldn’t see it right, and would somehow do me in.

“I’ve crept out at, dark and got bits one way and another, and I’ve had water; and I found an ’ole there in case anybody came in to look for me. I'd have come forward, or got away— I don’t right know what I’d have done, if it had been the riverside —if only I could have put the box back out 6’ my hands. Five times altogether I tried, but there was something to stop me; and me all the time with Geoff Parmitter's terrible words in my mind, meaning that I mustn't make away with it. not on no account, as I wanted to do and daren’t. It had to be put back — see?”

“Yes, we understand,” said Hardy, for Jowle looked round for his hearers’ comprehension, as if he thought it must all be vague to them. ‘And so the box is in the warehouse down Mitcham Road?” “No —not now.” “Then you did bring it back? When?”

Jowle hesitated, as if he stopped breathing.

“No,” he said. “I was bringing it the other night, about twelve o'clock, and a man jumped up from the cellar and startled me away again.” He smoothed his forehead, as if he would smooth away some fear and perplexity. “He followed me into Mitcham Road, and I thought I'd got away from him when I slipped into the warehouse and shut the door behind me. But no —I hadn’t. He came in by the door as if he walked through it —that easy. But, I s’pose, I needn’t have been frightened,” Jowle added with a wan smile, and paused thoughtfully again. “Oh, you needn't, eh? Why not?” “Why, he was one of you. Said he knew I had been creeping about here, and it was all right. Wanted me to know it was all right. Quite all right, he said, very soothing.” "His name, did he tell you?"

“Barling,” he said. Seafaring name. Or p’r’aps Darling, was it? Went off

j in a boat, one o’ the family—sister, I b’lieve. I dunno.” “Wake up, Jowle!” George admonished him. “Barling, wasn’t it?” "That’s it, then. Barling. He had come for the box. He had to have the box —knew I’d got it —said it was to go into the right hands —so I gave it to him. I had to remember it was. his job to sec it into the right hands, but still keep quiet, very quiet, till I could come out clear and safe.” A new light began to invest Mr Barling for the listeners. “Jowle!” George Parmitter breathed. “Talked about you, he did,” Jowle went on, aware of a change in the faces, “and the ladies here, and those fellers, and all you’d been doing together, and how it was nearly over now, and going to be all right. His uncle Dan Skard, had told him how to make it all right. Dan Skard and Old Geoff, knew each other—l knew that—seafaring.” “Dan Skard?” came a chorus of surprise. “Ay. And you’d be surprised, he said, when you knew he’d been working this side-line at your elbows all this time, accordin’ to what Uncle Dan(ny had told him. All this excitement I was not Uncle Danny’s story, he said. 1 But he could tell you hisself about —the real story—like by the fireside. And mebbe the ghosts of Old Geoff, and Uncle Dan would both be there, listening.” “Jowle —Jowle —what have you done!" broke from George Parmitter. “You gave him the box, and he went.” A bewildered expression began tospread over Jowle’s tired visage. “Ay,” he nodded, glancing from side to side. “He wrapped it up careful in some paper we found, friendly with me as if he'd known me all his life, and he went.” “And he’s gone, Jowle. He’s gone. Do you understand? GONE." Hardy stood up abruptly. “Jowle," he said, “that’ll do. I've seen your wife tonight, distracted like you are —she’s out looking for you. She wants you badly, to comfort you, I expect. Come along, and. I’ll help you to find her.” He raised an arm to the others, admonishing silence; and Jowle got up and went with him obediently, like a child. THE END. MAN OVERBOARD! Many people travel the world without hearing that alarming cry. Eve Nisbet heard it on her second night at sea. She was making her first trip to the Old Country from New Zealand, where she had been brought up on the farm of her half-brother. Exciting to a young girl in any circumstances, this voyage was the more so to Eve because it was so utterly unexpected. A letter from an old London friend of her dead mother, accompanied by a cheque, had brought it about. Right at the outset Eve was a favourite with the men on board. She was talking to one of them when the cry of “Man Overboard” was heard. Her companion dived to the rescue, but he was not successful. Though this event was disturbing to Eve, it did not, after all, touch her personally—at least she thought not. Consequently she was bewildered when a passenger came to her and tried to bribe her not to give evidence when the usual inquiry should be held. Such was the beginning of the adventures that befell Eve Nisbet. The final adventure was the happiest of all. But many exciting episodes, good and bad, occurred in the meantime. They are related with all the skill of one of the most popular of newspaper serialists in— GAY VENTURE BY T. C. BRIDGES. the romantic and thrilling story which begins in this paper tomorrow.