1939-01-20 — Page 5

CHINA

MAIL

FRIDAY SUPPLEMENT, JANUARY 20, 1939

NOBODY'S BUSINESS

CHIRD table from the left,”

"Tango said, "what do you

see?"

Kirby looked.

"A damned attractive girl.” Anson outlined his chin with his fingers. He rubbed the back of his hand on it. He began to smile. It was

a pleasant yet enigmatic smile.

"Second table, right of the band." he said "What do you see?"

Kirby turned his head..

"Chap in evening dress. Sallow face, Looks a bit of a black-

guard."

"What's he doing?” "Watching the girl." Anson nodded.

"It's nobody's business, not ours, anyway. Still, when you get girl like that and set

a

her out to be watched by a character like him, you've got something interesting. She knows him too. She's trying to pass him off, make out she's never seen him, doesn't even know he's there." →

:

Kirby looked sceptical. He ad-. mired Anson's perspiacity. Once Anson had given him six winners. at Alexandra Park in a row. "I don't see 'anything unusual in the situation," he said. "I like to look at pretty girls, whe- ther they know me or not.”

Anson lit a cigarette. Tinker's Tavern so named because it stood on the sight of one of London's real old inns and was the only profitable activity of Joe Tinker known to the Income Tax authori→ ties was filled with the after- theatre crowd.

"The chap in evening dress is Harry Simmonds," Anson said. "He's connected with a gambling house in Mayfair. He brings the victims in to be cleaned at roulette. Comes of a good family; he's the black sheep. But so far he's only seen prison bars from the outside."

"The girl," Kirby pointed out, "doesn't look like a prospective roulette client."

He

"All the more reason,” Änson said. "why it's intéresting. knows her; she knows him. He's a hawk; she's a pullet. does he want with her? nobody's business but it time."

What

It's kills

Kirby moved his glance back to the third table from the left. The girl was a knockout. She wore a simple dark blue dress under a velvet wrap. She had

no hat. Her softly waved hair was a mixture of gold and brown. The smoky rafter lamps made it glimmer. Her oval face, long- fashed eyes and red, provocative mouth were perfect.

She was with an inconspicuous young man. His suit was grey. There was nothing distinguishing about him. He might have been a clerk, a millionaire, a book- maker or a stage hero. A. cocktail glass was before him. His back was to Harry Simmonds. Oc- casionally he smiled at something the girl said.

A waiter stepped up to the table. He spoke to the youth in the grey suit. The young man pushed his glass back and got up.

"Wanted on the telephone," Anson said. "Watch what happens

next."

"What do you think's due?" Kirby asked.

"Watch," Anson directed. The girl's escort was hardly out of sight before Simmonds was in his chair. He put his elbows on the table. He leaned forward: He spoke rapidly. The girl listen ed, motionless, her eyes veiled by her lashes.

"Propositioning her, Anson

"It's said.

nobody's・・ busi, ness, but I wish I had an ear big enough to stretch over there. He's unloading fast. He's afraid Grey Sult will slide back before he's had his say..........

Notice how he glances over his shoulder."

"He's, making an exit. And the girl's no fool. She's thinking over what he told her.'

The

"

•

A bell tinkled when, Angon opened the door. Kirby found himself in a barely furnished office. A desk, a table, a telephone and three or four chairs com- prised its appointments. On the table. were a pair of jeweller's scales and a box of graduated weights, The man who sat at the -table, sorting an accumulation of rings, empty watch cases, brooches and other dismantled pieces of jewellery, was small, darle and thin.

The man looked up. "Hello, Anson," he said.

"Hello, Max." Anson nodded to

Kirby. "Meet my friend, Kirby. Some day you'll see one of his shows. You'll have to pay to get in, too."

"The theatre is rotten," Galinat

"Plays are written for the cloak and suit trade. There's no art."

Anson outlined his chin with his fingers.

said. youth came back to the table. He said something to the girl. She got up, with the wrap over her arm. She was of medium height, beautifully proportioned. The youth picked a way through the crowd to the foyer. Just be- fore she followed her companion out, she turned and glanced back over her shoulder.

Short Story

.

Harry Simmonds, Kirby noticed, was smiling.

"Well," he said, "no matter what it was it's over."

"It's just begun," "Anson rected. -- “I recognised Grey Suit. Heard He's young Scott Boyd. of him?"

cor-

"The playwright?” "I thought you'd know," Kirby frowned. Scott Boyd's smart comedy Good Manners, was in its fortieth week at the Rialto Theatre. A picture film had. bought it for the cameras. It was Boyd's second box-office success; and Kirby envied him, for his own efforts at playwriting had not been remunerative. · Ań · agent was still peddling his wares and down and round Shaftesbury Avenue and the Strand,

up

"What do you mean, it's just begun?" he asked. "

Anson folded the bar check in half.

"If you're not busy for the next couple of hours, I'll show you."

They went out into the steady, monotonous drizzle that supersed- ed the night's sudden rain. Lights were smeared. Streets and pave- meats

The were. black silk. gutters still ran brimming. Taxis scuttled about. Anson turned up his collar.

►

"Straight across to Galinat's," he directed.

They dodged through a red traffic light. On the far side of the Strand, Anson ducked into a building and went up a flight of stairs, Kirby shook rain from his hat. On the second floor Anson went down a corridor. He stopped before a door. It was lettered with the name

MAX GALINAT. Below was the explanation that gold and silver might be sold at good prices within.

"Who did Scott Boyd marry??? Max Galinat pushed up his eyeshade.

“A girl named Chandler.” "Libby Chandler?"

By C. S. Montanye

"That's right. She used to be in Manchester." Kirby said:

"Has she gold brown hair?” Galinat nodded. "And lots of class," he added laconically.

"That must have been his wife with him." Kirby said to Anɛon. "How long has he been married, Max?",

"A couple of months." "Were they married in town here?"

"Huh-huh.

Anson nodded.

Registry Office,"

"Thanks, Max. I'll see you get

a pass for Kirby's first show."

Galinat shrugged.

"I hope it's better than the last one I saw, two years ago," was his. dry, unsmiling comment.

"Who is he?" Kirby when they left.

asked,

"Max used to be a pigeon for the police.- The underworld got to know him before he split any thing really big. He outlived his usefulness and opened up in this trade. What he isn't wise to isn't worth memorising."

"So the girl came from the North?"

"So did Simmonds. Coinciden- ce. We'll take a cab."

They had to wait ten minutes in the shelter of a cornershop. awning. Anson- conferred with the driver of the taxi, that finally stopped at their signal. The run wasn't long. A half dozen streets north, one west. They pulled in before an old-fashioned private.

Anson gave the cabman five shillings and told him not to wait

house.

He led the way up the brown- stone steps

man opened the inner door He looked out before admitting them.

"Good": "evening, Mr. Anson. Haven't seen you for a long time."

"Barney around?

"He's upstairs in the lounge."

'We'll find him.” This gentle mara's a friend of mine. The name's

Kirby Stanley Kirby.. He writes plays", and added, "want to produce one?"

The house was richly decorated, With a familiarity born of fre quent visits, Anson directed his steps down a passage and up tó double doors...:

Light gushed

They stood ajar. from the room beyond. Anson pulled the doors wide and walked in with Kirby,

Don't get up," he said to the gross, florid man who sprawled on-one end of a red leather divan. A bottle of Scotch, a glass, ice pall and siphon were on a table beside it. "Is Harry Simmonds on your payroll, Barney 7"

The man shook his head.

"I sacked him a month ago. He's so crooked he has to lock up his own money at night-so he won't get up and pinch it."

Anson reflected. "Four weeks ago? What's he been doing since?"

“Nothing that I know of” "Four weeks," Anson mused. "That should put him in a posi- tion to need money. Ever heard of Libby Chandler ?" Barney grunted:

"No. Who is she?". "Just a girl, a good-looking one from up North,”

"So they have them there too?" said Barney, his ips curling in the semblance of a smile.

"Where'd Simmonds live when he was working for you?”

"What is this a joke?" Barney asked.

"Not exactly. Call it a hunch. We're circulating around--my pal here and I trying to wile away a rainy night. I'm interested in Harry Simmonds. Find out where he lives now.'

""

Barney sighed. He shook his head. He got up with an effort. He went over to a wall telephone.

"Frank," he said. "where does that Simmonds chap live?"

He listened, hung up and re-. turned to the divan:-Anson pulled » down his cuff

“Lend me a pencil,” he, said Kirby:

to

must write plays you

with them."

Simmonds, Barney said. "has

a furnished apartment in the (Continued on Page 7)

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