"GAY VENTURE"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 November 1940, Page 10

"GAY VENTURE"

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

By

T. C. BRIDGES.

CHAPTER XXVI. < Continued >. “Yes," he said. “My name is Hedley —Captain Hedley. That mean anything to you?” Tom Lillicrap nodded. “Wasn’t you the gentleman as was lost in the desert in Afriky?” “You’ve got it. See here, Lillicrap, I have a good deal to tell you. Will you wrap up Jan and sit down and listen.” A gleam of interest showed in the big man’s grey eyes. He nodded. “Reckon us’ll have a drop of something hot first, zur.” He turned to Jan rolled him up in a heated blanket, then went into the back room and came back with a bottle and glasses. “Plymouth gin, zur, he explained. “Baint nothing like it for the innaids. ‘Which I can quite believe,” said Keith with a smile. “Your good health, Mr. Lillicrap, and my thanks for saving my life.” „ ~ , “Mine, too,” came a feeble croak from the couch and there was Jan with ) his eyes open. “And a drop o that same wouldn’t hurt me,” he added. Lillicrap was across in two strides, lifted Jan and set his own glass to his lips. “Fine!” said Jan. “That puts life back into a body.” ... “Wonder be as either of ’ee is living I this minute,” said Tom. “Old Strane don’t lose much once she’ve got un in her maw.” Keith sat up straight. His tired eyes brightened. “We’re dead, Jan. We’re both dead, he exclaimed. Tom Lillicrap’s eyes widened. He looked so astonished that Keith actually laughed. “It’s all right, Lillicrap. Do you know Mr. Sagar?” The big man pursed his lips. “Know un by sight,” he answered. “He be a foreigner.” Keith nodded. •“Then listen. I’m going to tell you all about him.” Lillicrap’s interest was caught from the first. He sat quite still with his grey eyes fixed on Keith’s face and did not say a word until Keith told why he and Jan had camped on Ruff Tor. Thehi** ; broke in. “So Sagar, he Wl you was there all the time.’/ X’”” \ ~ “He knows W;y’'Keith said. One of his men fou -four camp.” “Aye, and filed them brakes o’ yours. I’ll be bound,” growled Lillicrap. “It were murder.” “Yes,” said Keith, “and the beauty of it is that Sagar probably believes he’s succeeded in finishing us. Thats what I meant when I said that Jan and I were both dead.” Lillicrap chuckled deep in his throat. “You’m right, zur. Odds are he had someone watching. That un must have seed car go into river.” “But did he see you pull us out again?” Keith questioned. “Baint likely,” replied Lillicrap with decision. “No, you’m dead far as he’m concerned. All same us had better be

sure.” “How can we be sure?” Keith demanded. “If one of Sagar’s chaps were watching her’ll be looking at the car this minute. If I go down I’ll find out who her be and all about un. Lillicrap put on his heavy black oilskin and went out. to Jan. “It was luck; /Is, running into Lillicrap. He'si /a sound fellow.” “He’s a propciT/in,” Jan said. With him a helping'us, won’t be long afore we have Miss Eve safe.” It was nearly an hour before Tom Lillicrap came back. Jan was sleeping and he came softly across the flagged floor. “It were just as I said, zur,” he told Keith. “That shover fellow, Maltby, were down there. Told me he were walking down the hill when car come by him like a streak o’ lightning. He said as he heard her go into the water but it were all over afore he got there. “Poor gentleman!” he said, and his yaller face was long as a fiddle.” Tom chuckled.

“Course I played up. • I told un a few tales on the way of how no one ever got out of a big flood like that and her swallowed un like milk. Then I said as us had better tell Dingle and let un start search for the bodies.” ‘You did fine,” said Keith. “Now if you can put up with us for the night tomorrow we’ll get on with the job. ’ There was a good bed in the inner room. Jan had that, Keith had a mattress on the floor and Tom slept on the couch in the living room. Tired as Keith was, he could not sleep. There was too much to think of.

Sagar’s attempt on his life had made it plain that he had no scruples whatever. It had cleared away the whole fog of doubt which had hung about the man. Keith no longer had the faintest doubt that Sagar was responsible for Eve’s disappearance. Whether she had gone back to London or not, Keith felt certain that at present she was in Sagar’s power. Anyhow she was here and he was going to find her. Tomorrow he would start —then all of a sudden his weary brain went blank and he slept. He was roused by Tom Lillicrap, who told him that breakfast was ready. •‘What’s the weather?” Keith asked.

“He have stopped raining, but fog be thick. Her won’t clear today.” Jan woke and Keith brought him food. Poor Jan was so stiff he could hardly move and his left ankle was badly swoolen. All the same he was mad keen to go with Keith on his next exploring expedition, but Keith told him plainly that this was impossible.

“See here, Jan,” he went on. "Tonight I must get up on that hill top and watch. I must find out where Miss Eve is if it's any way possible. Once I’ve done that I'll come for Tom or yourself—or both —to help me. Will that satisfy you?" “It don’t satisfy me a bit," said Jan half angrily, “but I knows it baint no use my arguing.” CHAPTER XXVII. The fog had gone, the sky was clear and the stars twinkled frostily as Keith

For a moment he felt as if he could hardly breathe. Eve. he felt definitely certain, was within a few steps of where he stood. (To be Continued).

lay in his old hiding place on the top of Ruff Tor and waited for the dawn. It seemed ages before there was any sign of life outside the Dower House. This time Keith had no glasses nor any pistol. Both had been lost in the smash. His only possessions were his money, his pipe and pouch and a small flashlight which, having been kept in a waterproof case, with still serviceHis only weapon was a big clasp knife which Tom Lillicrap had thrust on him. But the morning light was crystal clear and there was no mistaking the bulky form of Jabez Holt who, as before, came along the path leading towards the wood. Nor was there any doubt about the fact that he carried a basket.

He can’t pick mushooms this time. That’s one thing sure,” Keith whispered to himself. “It’s a damned sight too cold for mushrooms this morning.” Holt indeed made no pretence at picking mushrooms but went straight along the path. Keith’s heart beats quickened for it seemed to him that the man was going direct to the Close. He was wrong, for presently Holt turned up hill. He was making not for the house, but the wood, for a point a good way above the house. Keith was intensely excited. There was no doubt in his mind that Holt had been taking food to Eve. Eve then was hidden in the wood or in the cellars of the Close. Excitement made it almost impossible for Keith to keep still, yet he knew that to venture on to the open hillside in daylight was madness. He was bound to be seen.

He studied every yard of the hillside beneath, wondering, if by any trick of the woodcraft of which he was a master, he could reach the wood. But now the whole slope was bathed in sunshine and no one could have moved on it without being seen from the windows of the Dower House.

Since it was impossible to sit still Keith began to work his way through the gorse. He made towards the east side of it and gained the eastern edge of the covert.

Now he saw something which he had not seen before. One of those deep furrows which in Devonshire they call a “vein” cut the hillside. Formed by some ancient cloudburst, it ran straight down towards the northern edge of the wood. With a sudden exulting throb Keith saw that here was a ready-made and.secret road to the spot he was so keen to reach.

Forgetting everything else in his excitement he dropped into the vein and with a few minutes was safe among the trees at the top of the wood. Holt’s heavy footprints were still visible and with Keith's long experience of following spoor he traced them until he reached an outcrop of rock thickly covered with ivy. He glanced at this but saw no opening and passed on. He soon became aware that there were no tracks on the far side so. returning, went round to the back of the rocks and climbed up. There was a hollow in the centre where the ground was deep in dead leaves. No ordinary man would have given the hollow a second glance but Keith saw at once that these had been recently disturbed, then smoothed over. He climbed down and it was all he could do to keep back an exclamation of triumph. Between two rocks and, with its opening perfectly hidden from above by an overhanging slab, a tunnel opened in the face of the hill. It hardly needed the footmarks on its greasy floor to make Keith certain he had found what he was looking for. Keith had been underground before. But he had neven been in a tin mine and it struck him as a most unpleasant place, the chill dampness of the air and the sour smell or dry rot from the mouldering timbers were a nasty combination.

All the way the broad footmarks of Holt were plain and among them Keith noticed prints of a smaller, neater shot, which he felt sure, was Sagar'.s The passage went on, trending always downwards. Then suddenly the light of Keith’s torch fell upon a door which filled the passage and barred his way.

The door was solid and thick and had not even a handle. Keith was staring at it blankly, wondering how on earth he was going to get through when his eyes fell on the key hung on a nail fixed in the right hand wall. He took the key down. It turned with hardly a sound, and the door opened easily. He went in, closed the door behind him and locked it. The light of his torch showed him a cellar, but not in the least the type of cellar he had expected. This was a horrible place. The walls were of native rock, the floor paved with ancient flags among which pools of stagnant water glistened. Piles of rubbish lay against the walls. No prisoner could possibly have lived in such a place. Turning his light upon the floor Keith saw at oce the marks of Holt’s huge feet. They led to the back wall where a second door confronted him. Here, too. the key hung conveniently and Keith did not lose a moment in opening the door.

He got a fresh shock, for facing him was a narrow staircase running steeply upwards. Keith realised that it was built within the thickness of the back wall of the Close. Locking this second door behind him Keith saw at once the marks of Holt's ed them as he went and they numbered sixty-three. Then he stepped out into a passage with a board floor lighted only by a skylight of frosted glass. In a flash he understood. Here on the top floor of the ruinous old house was Sagar’s cunningly contrived prison.