“ANNOUNCER’S HOLIDAY”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 31 December 1940, Page 10

“ANNOUNCER’S HOLIDAY”

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

By

VAL GIELGUD.

(Author of “Africa Flight,” “Outpost in China,” etc.)

CHAPTER VII. (Continued). “Got something to see to,” said the stage doorkeeper. "Star dressing-room —first door on yer right—straight ahead,” and he turned his very broad back, and became apparently lost in admiring contemplation of a photograph of Miss Ellen Terry as Portia, which hung on one of his walls between Miss Thorndyke as Saint Joan, and some fair unknown in the astonishing costume of a Principal Boy in the Eighties. Lucia and Geoffrey were past the dragon in a flash. For a moment they were checked in the passage by a swirling rush of lightly-clad nymphs dashing towards the chorus dressingrooms on the floor above. “Come on!” said Lucia. "This is business, not pleasure.” she added unkindly, as Geoffrey watched the disappearing flicker of gauze, long silk stockings and platinum hair, over his right shoulder. “Listen,” he said. “I expect you know what you’re doing. But I don’t. You said something just now about Reichenberg. Somehow I don t think that he’s your father at all is he? Lucia did not bat an eyelid. “No,” she said. "Then what am I to believe?” “That, you’ve just seen the nearest approach 1o a successful killing that you’re ever likely to.. Don’t you want to warn Greta Mahler of what she’s up against?” “Why should you want to warn her?" There was a tiny silence—the sort of silence that can be felt.

"Third act—beginners please!" echoed weirdly along the corridor. “There’s no time to explain, even if I wanted to,” said Lucia impatiently. Geoffrey shrugged his shoulders. "There are limits you know,” he said. “None of the stupidity of the average young Englishman!” snapped Lucia savagely. "Oh, run away and play!

“At which moment the door just ahead of them, on which the star had been splashed rather untidily in gold paint, was flung open. "I tell you it was no accident!” said a furious voice, in a queer, clipped foreign accent. “I promise you there'll be a murder with no chance of error, when I lay hands on whoever's behind this business!”

And into the passage strode a young man, slamming the door of the dressing room behind him. He was tall and-slim and elegant. His studs, links and waistcoat buttons were star-sapphires. He had a thin, black moustache, and polished black hair brushed straight back from a narrow forehead. His whole face was narrow, but at the same time violent, almost dangerous, thought Geoffrey. His expression was simultaneously anguished and frightening. He stopped dead for a moment, staring at Geoffrey and Lucia as though they were some strange animals. Then he shot into convulsive, movement, and brushed past them. “Xavier!” said Lucia softly. “The deuce it is,” murmured Geoffrey. “The deuce it certainly is,” said Lucia. “Come on in. She has ten minutes before her first entrance in the last act.” CHAPTER VIII. Geoffrey followed Lucia into the dressing-room. It was the usual chaos of too much light, too many mirrors, far too many floral offerings, and clothes all over the place. Greta Mahler was lying back in an armchair, with an elderly dresser in a white overall holding a bottle of smelling salts under her pretty nose. .. "Hello, Greta,” began Lucia without ceremony, "are you all right? I was in front with this young man—l thought I’d nip round and see how you were.” Miss Mahler opened her eyes. Not even artificial eyelashes and make-up above and below them could disguise their beauty. She looked to Geoffrey, admittedly as usual a romanticist, like a child who had wakened suddenly in the dark, and been badly scared by something. “I hope,” he said awkwardly, “that I’m not in the yay.” “His name,” said Lucia, “is Geoffrey Allardyce. He does things in the radio. He can’t help it. Greta Mahler held out her hand. "You will forgive me that I don’t get up,” she said. Her foreign accent was definite, but attractive. "I felt a little faint after that stupid accident on the stage just now.” “We wondered if perhaps you would come and have supper with us after it is all over,” said-Lucia. “It’s sweet of you—but I already have an engagement.” "With Xavier?" Greta moved sharply in her chair, and something that might well have been terror shot into her eyes. “He is not to be known as being in England," she stammered hurriedly. "Please, Lucia darling, do not speak of it.” "Of course not, if you don’t want me to. Another night? I promised Geoffrey here you would show him what the glamour of the stage is like al close quarters;” Greta smiled. “I should be enchanted, Mr. Allardyce. Will you forgive me if I turn you out? I t have to finish my change.” Geoffrey was acutely conscious of the deep blue of her eyes, and the warm strength of her hand-clasp. Then he found himself, a little dazed, walking back along the narrow passage towards the stage door. As they emerged ho remembered . something and turned on Lucia. "Look here," he said. "How the devil did you know I wasn't Charles Bland?”

Lucia squeezed his arm. “I like you,” she said, disconcertingly direct. "I make it my business to find out about you.” "And Reichenberg — Konski —he

knows, too?” Lucia stopped and wheeled to face him. Her shadowed face looked grave. “I don’t know," she said slowly. “I wish I did. I’m afraid he may—and that’s why ” "That business happened on the stage just now?" “Yes.” Geoffrey took the girl by both elbows. i "You’re either saying a lot too much or nothing like enough!” he said. “What is all this about? And how do you come into it? You’ve ‘unmasked me—isn’t the the expression the novelists use? How about yourself? You’re not going on pretending that you’re Reichenberg’s daughter, are you? And if not. who are you, and whaVs your game?” Lucia faced him with perfectly steady eyes. “If there’s any explaining to be done, how about yourself?” she retorted. “Why were you pretending to be Bland? What’s a Radio Announcer—that white flower of a blameless semipublic life—doing, keeping odd rendezvous with apparently disreputable young ladies in the East End?” There was a little silence. A cat scuttered along the alley and disappeared into the shadows. The stage doorkeeper peered out at them with suspicion from his little window. Very thin and distant sounded the roar of applause from the house, indicating Miss Mahler's re-entrance for the third act " ' Lucia laughed suddenly, shook off Geoffrey’s hand, and walked on. He followed her in silence. Apparently neither of- them was as yet prepared to put. down all the cards. At the end of the alley a huge glittering Rolls Royce with an elaborate coat-of-arms on the panels, slid up to the kerb. Inside it could be glimpsed the figure of a man huddled in a big coat, and smoking a cigarette in a long holder. “Xavier!” whispered Lucia. “Look at his chauffeur!” Geoffrey looked and caught his breath. The figure at the wheel was sufficiently remarkable. To begin with ho was huge; even seated he was clearly well over six feet tall, with the shoulders of a bull. To go on with, he was black. Yet he was not a negro type. In place of the flattened nose and thick lips were the features common to the high-bred Arab: a thin, cruelly-curved mouth, ' finely-carved nostrils—the hole look of a falcon, intensified by glittering white teeth. He was wearing a very smart brown uniform, with a shiny peaked cap and brass buttons, highly polished. “Hadn’t we better get back if we’re going to see anything of the end of the show?” asked Geoffrey. "I think,” said Lucia, slowly, casting a final glance over her shoulder at the big car and the mountainous chauffeur, “that we’ll skip that. You’ll have something to look forward to when you go next and take Greta out afterwards. For tonight you’ll take me somewhere where we can eat something and perhaps dance a little, and we’ll talk. I may be wrong—but I think we’ve got plans to make.” Geoffrey hailed a taxi. ' Superintendent Moresby, who, in a shabby bowler hat and a disreputable raincoat with turned-up collar, who propping up an adjacent lamp-post in the character of one of the unemployed, looked after the cab is it drove away.

“This,” said Superintendent Moresby, who did a good deal of mixed reading in his spare time, “becomes curiouser and curiouser.” And he moved towards the gallery exit door, so as to catch Charles Bland when he emerged in due course from the same. CHAPTER IX. That elegant, unprincipled man ot the world, Casimir Konski—alias the Count Otto von Reichenberg—spent the first night of "Lady from Vienna” in the seclusion of the queer house which he had rented in Limehouse. For once an injustice had been perpetrated at his expense Casimir was unscrupulous, and, in cases of real necessity, perfectly ruthless. But he was something of an artist, and never cared to inflict suffering without need. He was therefore maligned without cause, when Lucia suggested to Geoffrey Allardyce that the hand which had so. nearly dashed out Greta Mahler's brains on the stage, had been prompted by him. That odd occurrence had been due to nothing more romantic than a quarrel earlier in the evening between one of the theatre electricians and his girl-friend, which had resulted in the electrician having his mind on things other than his work. .Miss Mahler accordingly nearly lost her life, and the electrician quite lost his job. He also got his girl back—but that is another story. Casimir Konski in fact was not thinking about Greta Mahler at allnot even about Lucia, whom it amused him to call his daughter. It amused him because —though she had not the slightest idea of it —Lucia actually was his daughter. Casimir was considering the frying of other and far bigger fish than one little Viennese actress. He was not listed in the Secret Police reports of four separate Great Powers as "one of the most dangerous men in Europe” for nothing. He had not earned his reputation lightly. He valued it proportionately. Casimir sat at his desk., a Siamese kitten asleep on his knee with its tail curled enchantingly over its small chocolate mask, smoked a long thin cigar, and while he blew smoke rings at the shadowy ceiling, reflected. The Mahler affair was not bothering him, because it was essentially small beei, and in anj' event was well in hand. If the young man and Lucia bungled it well, there were always other, possibly cruder, methods. (To be Continued).