Evening Star Newspaper, January 19, 1930, Page 84

THI QI \D‘\\ QT/\T‘. V&'\QIH\'GTO\I D - - C., JANUARY 19, 1930. A Tale of Mystery and Danger. the gallery. Rocks fell away just be- neath; and now, in the Northwest weather, there came a continual hush- #ng of warm, restless water round the ankles of the house. It was a small, stark island, this of Luala; only a bit of beach, and a height of cliff, and palms, Billy-all-alone had been there for 15 years. His real name was Michael Benison; but cnly the shipping people, who had nicknamed him, and the bank people in Sydney, who looked after his affairs, knew that. ‘The people who remembered Michael Beni- son, or cared what had become of him, were gone. In 15 years the memory of kings, cap- tains, beauties, millionaires becomes mere dust of thought, blowing about the windy corners of men’s minds. Who, then, would recall an elderly bachelor escaped from the world when the current gen- * eration was still in pinafores? Who would have eared to know that Michael Benison had built a stone house upon Luala, and gone to live ghere by himself, simply and solely because he liked it? The bank knew. The bank had handled the money for building; arranged to have a store ship call at Luala yearly; for 15 years had paid the bills of the shops that sent out gro- ceries and draperies and other things. And Michael Benison, who for 15 years had done as he pleased, continued to do so. Ncw, it happened one year that the North- west rains were very heavy, and the weather side of Benison’s big house became undermined. Benison, through one of the six-monthly steam- ers, sent for a mason, who was to be dropped, at considerable expense, by a boat going to Iquique, and afterward expensively picked up again by the same, HE 18 shutters were open, all in a row, " ! so that the blue Pacific seemed to fill O, on this blue afterncon of a hundred blue afternoons, the island that had known no change for 15 years saw the arrival of a stranger, Bert Wills. They had joked with Bert a good deal on "the cargo boat. He was easy to joke with, being a simple fellow, born and brought up *out back” in Western Queensland. Everybody on the Ranandi knew that Bert was engaged to be married to the aristocrat of his home town, a merchant's daughter, that he was simply “fit to be tied” about her him- self, and that he hadn’t a chance of marrying her, unless he could get $200 or $300 together. To these star-crossed lovers had come the incredible chance of Bert's engagement to go out and patch the seaward wall of Billy-all- alone’s at amazing wages, with all expenses paid. People in Bert's home town had talked about the romance of it. Bert said he didn’t know anything about rcmance—he was no book hound, He was a young giant, six feet four, with arms like a gorilla’s and a fine head of hair. He had the kindest smile in the world. The Ranandi officers missed him, after they were hull down on the horizon, and Bert, baggage on shoulder, had mounted the long stairway in the rock, criticizing its style and make as he ‘went, and reached the arched, medieval-looking door that led straight into the hall. It was a sturdy door, lined with steel and fitted with an excellent lock. All the more odd that it stood wide open to the Pacific breeze, with never a soul in sight. The red and blue Turkey rugs that lay on the hall floor flapped in the wind. Spears and shields from the islands moved with a rattling noise on the walls. But there was nobody there. Bert dumped his baggage on the hall floor and went out again. He knew where his “job of work” was; he had noticed it ccming up. It interested him more than the social deficien- cies of the owner, There was undoubtedly seep- nge and loosening under the wall that sur- rounded the building on the seaward side. A éne-man job—for a man like him—but it would take him all his time. There were materials for his work; he noticed lime and cement along- side of several big barrels that probably held salt beef. “Good-o0,” said Bert, the bloke himself is?” He returned to the hall. A number of rooms opened off of it. One was filled with books, arranged in order on long shelves. Bert looked at them woodenly, and tried another door. Here was a bed room, simply furnished, with clean linen on the bed. “That’s meant for me,” he thought, and bpened a third door. There was a better room behind this, with a large bed and handsome wardrobe. “That’ll be the boss’,” he thought; “but where is the boss?” He opened another door, This was the kitchen—a clean white rcom with an oil stove and pans that shone silverly on the walls. A bmell of sor.ething singed and cold. A noise— ndoubtedly curious. Bert took two steps into the scullery ad- Joining, and saw his boss. “Now, I wonder where ICHAEL BENISON, an old man with a yellow face above a trimmed white beard, was lying on the scullery flocr. He was breath- ing in an extraordinary and interrupted way. His eyes were open, but they did not seem to see anything. A cooking spoon was tightly €lutched in his hand. “I think you're going to wink out,” said Bert, nore to himwelf than anyone else, But, strangely, the old man seemed to hear him. ‘There was a flicker of the purpling eyelids, a slow movement of the lips. “Eh?” said Bert, bending down hisgear. He was sitting on the floor now. He d taken cne of Benison's limp hands in his own, and was trying vaguely to chafe some warmth into it. Benison made a movement that might have been an attempt to shake his head. “Key,” he breathed rather than said, his eyes looking down at his belt. There was an- other word; it sounded to Bert like “Wa——" but it trailed away uncompleted as the old man’s head rolled over and his face turned dark. Bert waited. The scullery had become very still of a sudden. He didn't know why until he realized that the curious jerky breathing had stopped. It did not go on again. And Bert, slowly beginning to understand what all this meant, rose to his feet. “I'm on me lonesome for two months,” was his first thought. It did not dismay him; but another did: “People might say I done him in. I got to do something about that.” Half an hour later all that remained of old Billy-all-alone had been buried. Bert had emptied the d:ad man’s pockets. There was nothing much in them but a bunch of keys, a pipe and a bit of rock crystal, prettily cut. In a small secret pocket of the belt there was another key, a little flat key. “That’ll be the key to the ‘wa——" —whatever he meant by that,” said Bert unemotionally. “I reckon I'd better go and clean that burned Ean in the kitchen before it gets all stuck ard.” Through the long blue days he gardened in the quarter-acre patch. He cleaned and tidied. He labored faithfully, part of every day, at the damaged masonry of the wall. And of an evening, time hanging heavy on his hands, he explored the house from corner to corner, look- ing fer something or other—he knew not what. “It wasn't drink that kep’ him here,” Bert argued, with the curious shrewdness of the uneducated. “There’s only enough for sickness. It wasn't drugs; there's none. He hadn't a dog or a cat. He must have had something to amuse him, like. Bit of a geologer, by the crystal he had in his pocket but that wouldn't be——" He was standing in the long, shuttered gal- lery, looking aimlessly at the table that stood in the middle of it—a big table, fit to dine a dozen at least of those visitors whom Billy-all- alone had never invited. This table was cov- ered, not with tapestry or baize, but with velvet, plain black velvet, fastened to the edge by the ornamental nails. Bert had admired it more than once. It seemed, to his crude taste, a handsome and agreeable way of covering your furniture. “If only it was a bit gayer,” he thought—“crimson or blue, like.” He leaned across to feel the texture, and out fell the crystal that he had found on the dead man. He had put it in his pocket. It seemed a pretty thing—doubtless a bit off a chandelier, It was 3 o'clock. The sun poured fiercely through the open shutters. The crystal, rolling across the table, was caught in the full flood of that unbearable splendor, and instantly became its focus and its flame. “My golly!” said Bert Wills. He stood for a moment or two staring at the wonderful thing before him. No strayed chandelier crystal ever sent forth such rays of orange, green and blue. Perfected by the setting of velvet, caught at its amazing best by the flood of westering sun, the royal gem shone confessed. A diamond! Bert wasn’t staggered by it. staggered Bert. = “Good-0,” he said. “Good-o. This seems a little bit of all right. Now we’ll find the rest of them or bust.” “I bet,” he thought, as he took the bunch of keys and started, like Mrs. Bluebeard, to hunt through all the house, “them were the little things that kept him from going balmy. Well, I reckon they'll keep me from goin’ balmy, too, if I can find them.” . A’r the end of a day and a half of hard work he had found the “little things.” Bert, who was “no bock hound,” made up for it, like most of his kind, by a cat-like sharp- ness of sight and apprehension. He observed that the Turkey mat before the wardrobe was worn by the constant tread of feet; told himself that “a bloke who looked like that bloke wasn't going to wear out no carpets before no mirrors just to stare at himself,” and swung open the door with a clear expectation of what he was going to find. The back of the wardrobe, as he swiftly dis- covered, slid sideways, expesing the steel door of a safe built into the wall. The small, curious key that Benison had kept in his belt opened the lock of the safe. And instantly Bert forgot all about the mysterious half.spoken word that had been on the lips of Billy-all-alone, when, not quite alone, he had died. The safe, a small one, was full to overflowing with flat leather cases. Opened, each one dis- played, on beds of cotton wool, jewels that made Bert Wills catch his breath. With hands and pockets full of the leather cases, he strolled—Bert never hurried—out to the long sea gallery, where again the sun of afternoon blazed in through 18 open window shutters. Out on the black velvet-covered table he spilled the whole collection of gems, and stood amazed. “My oath,” he said, “fireworks!” It was the only possible word, but it fell short of reality. No starry rocket, no Catherine No small thing —— =1 | WAl wheel, ever sent forth such live and many col- ored flnmes as did these handfuls of rubies, emeralds, sapphires and diamonds massed to- gether in the full blaze of tropic afternoon. Bert remembered talk in Western Queensland one night, before he had gone to the township to learn a trade. “All big diamonds are red with blood, if you could only see it,” a mate of his had said. “There’s not one of them that hasn't had mur- der done for it time and again. There's bad in jewels, anyhow. Seems to bring out everything bad in the people that has them. Who's the women that's craziest about diamonds? And who’s the men that buys most? What's sent the burglars to prison? Jewels. They're the prettiest things in the world—and the worst.” “Too right they are,” agreed one or two men who had never owned as much as & garnet. And Bert, less talkative than the rest, and more critical, told himself that half of that was nonsense and half of it spite. Now, handling the gems that had made up the life of Billy-all-alone, he almost wondered. It was almost with fear that he turned over the jewels now. But he could not figure him- self becoming a hermit of the islands on ac- count of them. “Besides,” thought Bert, with a pang of regret, “they aren’t mine, anyhow.” Something seemed to catch him by the throat. Something suggested, “Why not?” He wouldn't be really robbing any one if he took the things and set himself, at one blow, beyond want or anxiety for all the 50 years of life to come; made himself certain of Dorrie and solid with Dorrie’s parents. He took an emerald in his hand and held it up against the setting sun. “This would be worth a hundred,” he thought, poking with his finger the flawless five-carat gem. “And all to go to the guv'ment.” He set the emerald down, and rubbed his knuckles across his eyes. Could you hurt your eyes looking at jewels? He was seeing black spots in the sky—no, one black spot—no, a black line—"Spare me days,” he begged, “if it's not an airplane!” E acted instinctively now, without need for thought. In two minutes he had collected all the gems and stuffed them, unsorted, into their leather cases. In two more he had opened the safe in the wall, slung them in, and locked it up. At the last moment he saw something like a long white envelope inside. He snatched it, put it inside his shirt, and strolled out again on to the sea gallery. The plane was well in sight now, flying toward Luala. He knew now, by the droning roar that swelled, sank, and died in a duck-like squat- tering below, that the plane had arrived. A curious humor seized him. Tiptoeing into the gallery, he peered through closed louvers. It was a long way down to the blue level water within the jetty, but Bert had excellent eyes. He could see quite clearly the pilot, who had just finished opening up a collapsible dinghy. He could see a passenger—a passenger BT “Strike me pink,” demanded Bert of powers unspecified, “if it ain’t a skirt!” Annoyance and excitement not unpleasurable fought each other in Bert's mind. Perhaps the latter won. At all events, he grinned as he seized an old soft hat of Michael Benison's, crammed it down on his ear, and disposed himself in a long chair, with a magazine held aip to cover his face. He wanted to see just what kind of entry that girl with the flying-cap would make—how she’d be surprised when she found he wasn’t Billy-all-alone after all. It was almost Bert’s last action in this world. envelope. B) 'y Beatrice Grimshaw ‘She had seen the parchment in its She pounced on it suddenly. \\\\\ i‘u\.‘% For, just as he was beginning to wonder if it wasn't time for those two to make their ap- pearance, to listen for the sound of footsteps coming in, a blow like the kick of a horse descended, glanced, on his head, and knocked him out of his chair. If Bert had been what in that moment he was suppossd to be—an old man, slow of move= ment and hard of hearing—he would never have risen again. But he was young and keener in all his senses than the average civilized being. He heard the quick intake of breath behind him, knew that it was the unmistakable deadly sound a man makes before he strikes to kill, and leaped just in time. There had been a day when Bert Wills hoped to win fortune in the ring. That had faded, but in full force certain ring instincts survived. He was off the floor almost as soon as on it— off, and striking out. A slim thing with black legs and yellow head rushed between. “If she hadn't I wouldn't have; I never meant to,” was what he afterward thought. There was no thought at the time—onily the sharp impact of his fist striking a man’s chest, as the two of them dodged and fought, ham- pered by the woman; the slithering of feet upon a loose Turkey mat; a pair of airman’'s boots hitting the sky between two open shutters; a shout from the woman: *“You've killed him!” Short, horrible silence, and, down below, a splash in the sea. Bert wiped his wet forehead with one wet hand, stared at the woman, and answered her stupidly, “Who?” “Charles Cardigan!” she screamed. dead!” Bert, looking from the window over her shoulder, saw that she spoke truth. Charles Cardigan was floating near the plane, his head sharply twisted over one shoulder. Even as they looked, the body sank. “Is him the airman who was flying from Sydney to New Zealand?” asked Bert, still a little dazed. “And what right had he to be wiping me one over the head with a monkey- wrench?” “It was he,” said the girl—he saw now that she was quite young. She sat down on the floor and began to cry. “Look a-here,” Bert said, sitting down on the floor beside her and applying consolation. “I done in your man, but he tried to do me first, and I never meant it. Were you dead nuts on him?” “He was taking me on his trip,” she ex- plained, through sobs. “I'm in the pictures. But I lost my job—I mean, I'm resting.” “That’s not all of it,” suggested Bert. “Cry on my shoulder, if you like, but tell me the truth of it when you're done.” “He's SH!.' sat up, pulled a vanity case out of some recess in her trousers and began to repair her face. “I'm feeling better,” she stated. She looked at him appraisingly. “Have you any food?” she asked. Bert found some and prepared it under her directions. He was appalled to see how fast and how much she ate. She was seated at the table, a wonderful small figure, cheeks flushed, hair softly ruffied like the fleece of a little golden lamb. She locked so innocent that Bert, who was no fool with women, knew her to bs quite the reverse. “There's more to come out of this” he thought, and deliberately plied her with flattery until he had the whole tale. Part of it she told and part of it he guessed, and part of it was never known to any but the