The Edgar Wallace Collection 1
Author: Edgar Wallace
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: short stories
Description: Edgar Wallace was a prolific author of short stories-- probably more than 400 of them, many of which have not been collected together in book form. This series is a step towards completing a full collection. 1: Richard Bruce— Burglar 2: Good-bye 3: Phalaenopsis Gloriosa 4: One Blow for Russia 5: The Calm Chauffeur 6: The Angel Child 7: The Bandaged Hand 8: The Derby Favourite 9: A Case for Angel, Esquire 10: The Junior Reporter 11: The Linchela Rebellion 12: Halley's Comet, the Cowboy and Lord Dorrington 13: Uncle Dick 14: The Murder at the 'Port Helm' 15: The Destroyer 16: Her Birthday 17: Th

THE EDGAR WALLACE COLLECTION

Short Stories of Edgar Wallace

Volume 1

2015

Contents

Introduction

1: Richard Bruce— Burglar

2: Good-bye

3: Phalaenopsis Gloriosa

4: One Blow for Russia

5: The Calm Chauffeur

6: The Angel Child

7: The Bandaged Hand

8: The Derby Favourite

9: A Case for Angel, Esquire

10: The Junior Reporter

11: The Linchela Rebellion

12: Halley's Comet, the Cowboy and Lord Dorrington

13: Uncle Dick

14: The Murder at the 'Port Helm'

15: The Destroyer

16: Her Birthday

17: The Despatch Rider

18: Five Fateful Words

19: While the Passengers Slept

20: When the Tsar Came

21: Memoirs Of The Sigee Family

22: The House Surgeon

23: The Yellow Box

24: When the Armanic Sank

25: The Devil Light

26: The Slip

27: The Caretaker in Charge

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Introduction

EDGAR WALLACE was a prolific author of short stories, hundreds of which were published in all sorts of unlikely places and in many cases then entirely forgotten. Some of them were collected in his lifetime, mostly those short stories forming a series, such as The Reporter, The Iron Grip, and The Adventures of Heine. Most of them, however, were not part of a series. Among the many non-series collections (many of them quite short: 30,000 words or so) were: The Governor of Chi-Foo; Fighting Snub Reilly; A Thief in the Night; The Cat Burglar; For Information Received; Circumstantial Evidence; The Prison Breakers; The Lady from the East; The Stretelli Case; The Ghost of Down Hill, and so on. There was a lot of overlap, too, with some stories appearing in several of these collections. Many stories, specially his earliest ones, published in newspapers and forgotten magazines around the turn of the 20th Century, have never been collected.

As many  as possible of the non-series stories are collected in this series, thereby avoiding the repetition and overlap of the many existing collections. The stories are, at least in the beginning, in approximately chronological order. However, he was so prolific in the 1920s that strict order is difficult to achieve.

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1: Richard Bruce— Burglar

The Cape Illustrated Magazine, Cape Town, April 1, 1898

SUNSET in Angel Gardens! If there could be a sunset where the sun had never risen. At all events, it was the time when the sun usually sets everywhere else but at Angel Gardens— since, except for a few hours daily when, by eluding a forest of chimney stacks and dodging the obstruction caused by an immense and ugly structure which in ghastly satire had been named Palace Mansions, the sun, as an Angel Gardener put it, “hadn’t a look in.”

If there were few palatial tendencies in the Mansions, there was certainly nothing either Arcadian or “angelic” about the Gardens.

A long, narrow street, with the regulation allowance of street lamps; the usual general shop on one side, and the invariable beer shop at the corner; the houses, bearing a dreary resemblance to each other; the groups of children playing in various stages of dirtiness, happy in the blissful ignorance of their abject poverty; above their cries, the coarse laughter of the many bare-armed women, who seemed to spend one half of their time hanging out of their windows or sitting on their doorsteps, and the other half making pilgrimages to the ever-handy beer shop. To the lively strains of a street-organ, a couple of slatternly girl-women with frowsy, unkempt locks and heavy fringes were dancing, their fishy eyes sparkling from their unwonted exertions. Everywhere the same signs of misery and want.

From the oft-opened door of the “Cow and Meadow” (even in naming their public houses they sought the pastoral) came discordant snatches of tuneless songs, mingled with the din caused by half-a-dozen people speaking at once.

No. 14 differed in very little respect from the remainder of the Gardens. If possible, it was just a trifle more dirty. Such windows as remained intact still bore the marks of the glazier’s thumb, even though they had been in for over a year. Where glass was not, a small piece of brown paper made an excellent substitute!

The fastidious were not tolerated in Angel Gardens. The Gardeners’ motto was “Keep your nose out of other people’s business.” Not that I would dare for one moment to assert that the Gardeners were at all reticent concerning their family histories; as a matter of fact, everybody knew everybody, and even an outsider might hear for the asking the pedigrees as far as they were known of anyone from No. 1 up to the little shop at the corner (which, owing to its being a supplementary addition, was numbered 41a). But to ask a woman what her husband did for a living, or a man where he worked, was neither policy or sense, and was likely to get the enquiring one into serious trouble. And quite right, too. What did it matter to anybody if Mr. Jigger disappeared for periods of six, nine, and twelve months at a stretch, re-appearing at the end of that time with a generally run-down look and wearing his hair cut suspiciously close? Whose business was it if Mr. Boozy (better known as Ginger) never left home till dusk and always carried his tools in ingeniously designed pockets?

A periodical house-to-house search by the police, if inconvenient, was seldom resented, although the virtuous wrath of the “lady of the house” when the missing criminal remained undiscovered, or her pretended amazement and whining protestations of innocence and ignorance when the sought one was found underneath a bed or hiding in a convenient cupboard, was a sore trial for the patience and tempers of the “X” Division!

Mr. Richard Bruce, who was responsible to the owners of No. 14 for the rent, rates, and taxes, and who paid the same when he had the money and owed it when he hadn’t, was not at all fastidious, and as he sat in the first floor front of No. 14, in front of a fire that was trying hard to die a natural death, he had not the look of a person who would go into ecstacies over the drape of a mantle or the symmetry of a Grecian vase. He was by no means a handsome man, and yet there was a strength about the square-cut chin and broad forehead that made him anything but repulsive, and his clean-shaven face and shaggy eyebrows gave him an air of distinction

Dick Bruce was, in his way, a celebrity. His photograph occupied a prominent position in the Rogues’ Gallery, he was known to the police as a man to be knocked on the head first and argued with afterwards, and the head of the C.I.D. himself had condescended to study him, and had written a long analysis of the man’s character, for the benefit of a scientific man who was preparing a book on “Crime and Criminals.”

Dick paid very little attention to the state of the fire: the poverty of his surroundings did not seem to affect him much. A man who had spent a third of his life in prison could afford to overlook such trifles.

His head was sunk on his breast, and a worried, hunted look was on his face.

To be hunted or “wanted” was quite an ordinary state of affairs, but to be worried was for a man of his temperament an unusual thing. The turning of the door-handle made him start and look round. The newcomer was a little girl scarcely eight years old, yet wearing on her small, sharp face that look so common to children, old in worldly wisdom; the average observer would have called her unusually plain, but to Dick’s eye she was all that was clever and beautiful. For a child of eight to be so far advanced as to read and write was to him nothing short of marvellous, and Aggie’s accomplishments were continually being “trotted out” for the benefit of admiring friends. The child closed the door after her, and then, seeing that the ricketty box that served for a table still bore the remains of the evening meal, she asked, “’Ave you ’ad your tea, daddy?”

Dick, who had resumed his former attitude of abstraction, made no reply, and the question was repeated. He raised his head and, answering in the affirmative, resumed his study of the fire. After hanging her tattered cloak up, the girl drew a little stool up to her father’s feet, and getting as close as possible to the feeble fire, began warming her hands. Rousing himself with an effort he asked, “’Ow did you get on at school to-day?”

“Pretty well,” was the reply. “Miss Boyd says I shall soon be put in a ’igher standard.”

“That’s right,” said Dick in a tone of approval. “That’s right, matey, make ’ay while the sun shines, I only wish I’d a ’ad your chance when I was a boy, but I ’ad to pick up my learning in the streets.”

“I was thinkin’, daddy,” said the girl thoughtfully, “’Ow ard it must be not to be able to read and write, ’specially when you ’ave to go away in the train to work— like you did last week— an’ p’r’aps don’t know the stations.”

Dick nodded acquiescence. It was very awkward when he went away to “work” not to be able to tell whether he was breaking into the house of a parson or a banker, when a mere glance at the door-plate would have put him in possession of the necessary information had he been able to read it.

Talking of work brought a new train of thought into the child’s mind, and she added, “But you wasn’t away very long last time, was you, daddy, wasn’t there any bells to hang?”

(Dick was usually described on the charge-sheet as a plumber, although his tools were used for a less legitimate purpose than for mending broken pipes).

“No,” was his somewhat gruff reply.

“I always think of you,” she went on, “when you are away an’ I pray, same as they do at school, for my daddy who is away workin’ for me.”

Dick’s lips tightened as she spoke, and in the ash-strangled fire he could all but see the scene of his recent labours. The old oak-pannelled hall, with the moonbeams tinted in their passage through the stained glass, bathing in their mellow light the stately mail-clad figures that formed a lifeless guard; he lived again the awful moment when he had heard that faint footfall behind him and had turned with uplifted “jimmy” to silence the intruder. Again he seemed to see, as he had seen, not once, but a thousand times since, the silent motionless figure lying on the polished floor, the moonlight playing round the silver hair of the old servant who had been faithful unto death. He had told himself again and again that he had to do it. To have been caught red- handed meant a “lifer” for him, and better the gallows than an eternal prison. For life! He shuddered, then meeting the girl’s wondering eyes, and thinking some explanation was due to her— for after her reference to his work he had subsided into a morose reverie, he said not unkindly, “You mustn’t talk about my work; you see, matey, I ain’t a union man— an’— an’— the plumbers are on strike an’ I ain’t supposed to work, they might call me a blackleg, and you wouldn’t like your father to be called that, would you, matey?”

“Not tell anyone,” faltered Aggie, disregarding the question. “Not tell anyone about your work! Oh daddy, I didn’t know you wanted it kept quiet, an’— an’— ”

“An’ what?” he asked roughly. “You ’avn’t been blabbing about what I've been doin’, ’ave yer?” Then seeing the tears that had risen to her eyes, he added in a kindlier tone, “There, there, matey, I didn't mean to frighten yer, but who was it yer told?”

“A gentleman,” was the tearful answer.

“A gentleman!” repeated Dick, his face darkening again.

“Yes,” she went on, trying hard to stop a sob. “’E said ’e wanted a plumber to do a bit o’ work, an’ ’e asked me if you did much, an’ whether you’d care to go into the country to do some work; an’ I said you wouldn’t mind goin’ ’cos only last week you went down to do a job at Hazley—”

Dick started up with an oath, his face an ashen grey, his eyes blazing with the terror of death. “Who told, you?” he said hoarsely. “Who said I was at Hazley?”

“I found the railway ticket on the floor,” cried the child, beginning to whimper again.

Dick remembered seeking to evade observation at the station. He had dropped on to the metals as the train slowed up before reaching the terminus.

There was a silence outside, a drunken loafer homeward-bound was warbling a doleful ditty; and the cries of a couple of beldames engaged in a slanging match rose shrilly above the shouts of an encouraging crowd.

Composing himself with a mighty effort, Dick asked quietly, “What sort of a gentleman was ’e?”

The little one was now thoroughly frightened; child though she was she knew that this cross-examination was for no idle purpose, and between her sobs she answered, “He was a nice gentleman with a dark moustache and a red mark on ’is cheek.”

Dick nodded, he knew the man, it was Fowler of Scotland Yard, the cutest “tec” in the force, they were old acquaintances. The red mark referred to was Dick’s handiwork, for which that worthy had retired for five years. Yes, the evil had been done! Fowler, he knew would strain every nerve to bring him to grief. The man pondered for a little while and then asked, “How long ago was it?”

“Just before I came in,” was the reply. “He stopped me at the corner of the Mansions and asked me if I was Mr. Bruce’s little girl.”

“The sneakin’ cur,” Dick muttered. “To make the kid give me away,” and then leaning forward, and with a touch of tenderness that seemed foreign to him, he drew the child gently towards him, and laying her head upon his shoulder, he commenced to gently stroke her hair. “You ain’t got no mother,” he said huskily, “an’ I— well I ain’t been as good as I might a’ been— but there’s pals o’ mine who are on the straight who’ll look arter you for Dick Bruce’s sake— ’cos— I— I’m goin’ away.”

“Goin' away!” cried the child. “Oh no daddy, not goin’ to leave me?”

“Yes, matey, yes,” and a lump stood in his throat; “I’ve remembered a job that's to be done— there, there! don't cry little ’un. ’Ere,” putting his hand in his pocket, “Take this quid to Mrs. Brown in Commercial Road an’ say ‘For old time’s sake Dick Bruce sent me.’ I saved her kid’s life once, an’ now she can save mine.”

There was a sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs and a vigorous protestation on the part of somebody below, and putting the child gently from him, Dick said, “’Ere comes the gentlemen as I’m goin’ away with— to work for; now stay ’ere while I go out an’ see ’em.’ He paused at the door and hesitated, for the words seemed to stick in his throat, “Be a good girl,” he said with a quaver in his voice, “an’ may Gawd bless yer an’ keep yer.”

Through the half-opened door she heard her father conversing in a low tone with the men outside. Somebody said something that sounded like “Wilful murder.” There was a snap of steel, and Dick Bruce and his “friends” went down the stairs together. The girl was sobbing bitterly, but obedient to her father’s command she remained on the stool before the dead fire, her head resting on her arms, still clutching in her hand the gold for which Dick Bruce had sold his soul.

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2: Good-bye

The Cape Illustrated Magazine, Cape Town, June 1, 1898

IN view of the evident unrest among the hill tribes, the Officer Commanding the 90th Sikhs will detail an officer and sixty men to proceed by march-route to Mangoon. They will take with them preserved rations sufficient to last 20 days, and 200 rounds of ammunition a man.”

As he finished reading, Colonel Burton, of the 90th Sikhs, laid down the document he had been reading aloud with a gesture of impatience.

“Sixty men!” he said, looking across the flower-laden vases, that gave his writing-table the appearance of a small garden, to his daughter, who, seated in a comfortable basket-chair, was busily engaged in her lace work. “Sixty fiddlesticks! Why don’t they put, ‘Will proceed to Mangoon for the purpose of affording the hillsmen target practice’?”

“Is it really so bad, father?” asked Gladys, looking up from her work.

“Bad?” answered the Colonel. “It’s worse. It’s murder pure and simple— that is as far as murder can be pure and simple, but there are the orders,” picking the paper up again and running his eye over it. “What chance, I should like to know, will sixty have against a possible six thousand? If they escape the fever— and you know, dear, the country between here and Mangoon is one long swamp, they can never hope to hold their own against these men. Don’t I know; haven’t I had a substantial token of their fighting quality?” And the long scar that extended from his temple to his jaw grew an angry red as the blood of the choleric old Colonel began to warm at the recollection of his fighting days.

“No, Gladys, my girl,” he said, “to send sixty men against a hundred times their number may be a great compliment to the 90th, but it’s hard lines on the men who are sent.”

Gladys was silent, for awhile, and then she asked, “Did you say Captain Henniker is going?”

“Yes,” was the reply; I must send a captain. Boyd’s on leave, so is Grier. Hayton’s down, with fever. I can’t send Hinge, the poor fellow is only just married. I confess that I was in a dilemma when Henniker, who is awaiting leave, helped me out by volunteering.”

“Poor fellow,” said Gladys softly.

“A brave man,” replied the Colonel, in that snappy fashion he adopted when he wanted to be unusually impressive. “I wonder,” he went on, gazing meditatively at the Burmese idol that served as a paper-weight, “I wonder if the people at Home ever realise the number of men who die here in India, unrewarded, unrecognised, and unknown, for their country’s cause. I’m afraid that they are apt to look upon a brilliant cavalry charge as the highest type of valour, and fail to remember that the officer and man who fight one long, running, tiring fight, harassed by bush skirmishing, overcome by heat and thirst, and weakened by fever, are entitled to just a little hero worship. I speak feelingly, dear, for I’ve had as much of that kind of thing as will last me a lifetime.”

The girl rose from her seat as the Colonel was speaking, and crossing the room, leant lovingly over her father’s shoulder. They made a pretty picture, and the half-darkened bungalow, with its skins and screens, its bamboo walls covered by trophies of many a frontier fight, made a splendid setting for the tough old soldier and his fair young daughter, and as he ran his fingers through the gold-brown tresses that hung over her shoulder, and saw the sympathetic tears that glistened in her sweet grey eyes at the recital of her father’s past troubles, the old man said, “You have a kind heart, darling, you are a true soldier’s daughter. It is the dearest wish of my heart to see you a soldier’s wife.”

“A soldier’s wife, dad?” she repeated.

“Yes, clear,” said the Colonel kindly, “a soldier’s wife. You know that I have no desire to pry into your love affairs, but I am rather curious to know how matters stand with Boyd and yourself.”

For a time she did not answer, but walked to her table, and commenced to tidy her work.

“Captain Boyd,” she said after awhile, a faint flush rising to her cheek, “is a— friend.”

The Colonel, who was fitting on his helmet and trying to make her believe that he did not notice her very evident confusion, stopped short as the last word fell in incisive tone from her lips.

“A friend? Why, Gladys, I thought—”

“Yes, yes, I know,” the girl said hastily, almost tearfully. “I don't want you to think any more about it. Captain Boyd and I are friends, very good friends, but nothing more.”

This was, indeed, news for the Colonel. Everybody who was anybody from Tugabad to Simla knew, or thought that they knew, that the affair of Boyd and “Burton’s little girl” was as good as settled.

Probably had Colonel Burton been anybody else but Colonel Burton he would have seen the change; as it was, he had thought it strange that Boyd, who had applied for leave for sporting purposes, should prefer the solitude of the tiger-run jungle to the company of Gladys; but this he had put down to the fact that all men require a little change. He was just a trifle angry that he had not been made acquainted with the change of affairs, for although there had been no engagement, things drifting along in a free-and-easy style characteristic to Anglo-Indian society, yet like everybody else, he had thought that it was merely a matter of time for Boyd to speak. Boyd was a great favourite of his, and had been ever since he had come to the regiment a white- faced boy, straight from his mother’s apron strings.

The Colonel had been struck by the youngster's grit, and when in an affair on the Afghan border, “Burton’s Boy,” as he had been nicknamed, saved his commanding officer’s life by the simple expedient of jumping in front of him, and receiving a half-arm jab from an Afridi’s knife, the friendship was cemented more firmly than ever.

When he had seen the evident pleasure the society of his daughter had given his protégé, the old man had felt that his cup of happiness was full. There was no one to whom he would have sooner given her, and now to hear that all his cherished plans were tumbling to the ground like a card-house, was, to say the least, annoying. “What has Boyd said or done?” he asked as mildly as was possible— for him. “Some silly lovers’ quarrel, I’ll be bound. Now look here, Gladys, my girl, I’ve set my heart on you’re marrying Boyd, and— ”

He got no further, for with an air of queenly dignity she had risen.

“And I, dad,” she said, “have set my heart on marrying whom I please.”

Further altercation was prevented by the arrival of a native orderly, who saluted his chief.

“The Doctor sahib wishes to see you at the Hospital,” he said.

“What’s wrong?” asked the Colonel, tartly; the little encounter had not improved his temper.

“And the Boyd sahib wishes to see you at the orderly room,” went on the impassive Oriental, quietly ignoring the question.

“Boyd?” said the Colonel, quickly. “Boyd? Why his leave doesn’t expire for another week. I wonder why he’s back.” Then turning to follow the soldier, he said half abashed, “I’m sorry I got so peppery, dear, but you know how I feel, and how much I have this at heart.”

“I know, dad, dear,” said Gladys, putting her arms round the old man’s neck, and kissing him. “I know, it will be hard for you; but— ”

“Well, well,” he answered with a sigh. “I suppose you will have to decide for yourself; after all you are entitled to choose the man who is to make life all or nothing to you.”

“Arthur back,” mused the girl, watching her father’s figure disappearing across the palm-bordered square, “His leave doesn’t expire for an awful long time yet. I wonder what has brought him back. Poor dad! how I wish— ” with a long-drawn sigh, as she seated herself and resumed her work, “but there, it’s all over now, and wishes are vain and useless.”

The Colonel had unconsciously described the estrangement very accurately when he called it “a silly lovers’ quarrel.”

It had been such a quarrel as none but lovers would have indulged in, and as such was, of course, absurdly childish.

How well she remembered that night when in the cool of sun-down they had sat together in one big chair and watched the young moon rise over the rice plantations, making in the black waters of the lagoon a glittering silvery background for the motionless giant rushes and jungle grass that fringed the waters.

How happy they were then, and how beautiful the world had seemed.

It all came back to her as she worked, the sweet scent of the jessamine, the strange weird calls from the distant jungle, the sing-song drawl with its tom-tom accompaniment that came from the road-side temple where the devotees of Shiva were holding “high-jinks,” as Arthur had irreverently put it.

How handsome he had looked as he sat there with a cigarette between his lips. As a matter of fact he wasn’t— few men are— but the light favoured him, and in its mysterious fashion adjusted the shape of his features to something like proportion, and converted the sun-tan and freckles into a complexion.

Gladys had said something trivial, it might have been anything from an opinion of a book or a description of a dinner, with which he did not agree, a little innocent bantering evolved into rather plain-speaking personalities: “Don’t be a fool, Gladys!” and thus the quarrel. Had it ended by her leaving him in tears, it would have been the usual comedy of a lovers’ tiff, but unfortunately she did not; choosing to remain and say all the nasty things that occurred to her— and they were not a few.

In return he had driven her almost to desperation by telling her with a laugh that she would be only too pleased to ask his forgiveness in the morning.

He had a powerful imagination, and he sketched out the form the reconciliation would take, even going as far into details as to describe how they would gaze into one another's eyes, and such little things as lovers do, and the un-loved world know nothing about.

This wounded her pride more deeply than he could ever have known. Even love cannot stand against ridicule; he thought that he was being unusually smart, but he was a man— and a fool; He had sent imploring letters since, asking, nay imploring forgiveness, but had received no answer. Once she had felt inclined to forgive him, but there rose before her the scene he had sketched so graphically, and he had lost his chance. A shadow fell across the doorstep, and there stood the object of her thoughts.

The colour left her cheeks; it was the first time they had met since that night.

He was in uniform; she did not stop to wonder why, she remembered he looked his best in khaki.

“Won't you come in?” she faltered.

“Thanks,” he answered rather huskily (he had not noticed any particular hoarseness until that moment). “I shan’t keep you long, but I— I—” He looked helplessly round for something inspiring. Gladys with downcast eyes had resumed her work. For a time neither spoke, he was thinking of something to say that would give him an opening, some trivial remark that would lead up to the point in view.

“I’ve come,” he said, nervously twisting his sword-knot into a spiral, “to ask you— whether you— that is— whether you will be as we were before. I know,” he added hastily, seeing she had risen with a heightened colour. “I know I have no right to ask, particularly as you have as good— or as bad— as refused; but now that I—”

“Exactly,” put in Gladys with a scornful smile. “Now that you have returned, after so long an absence, I, having fretted myself into a state of lachrymose collapse, will instantly fall into your arms, and confess my faults. That is as you have already pictured, is it not? Unfortunately, Captain Boyd, that melodramatic situation does not appeal to me. I’m afraid I have no histrionic soul!”

He was not an emotional man, and as deeply as he felt her stinging words, not a muscle of his bronzed face moved. They stood facing one another in the dim light of the bungalow.

“You did not give me time,” he said quietly. She had never heard that tone before, and the anger died within her, and the intuitive knowledge of some approaching calamity came upon her.

“You did not give me a chance to finish the sentence, but perhaps it doesn’t matter.”

A bugle sounded the “Fall in,” and they could see a crowd of men leaving the shade of bungalows, and form into an orderly line.

“The men for the front,” said the girl, temporarily forgetting the quarrel. “Henniker’s men, poor fellow!”

“Poor fellow,” repeated Boyd absently; then changing his tone he pointed with a reckless laugh to the distant horizon, where, shimmering in the heat, the first of the Mangoon heights frowned down upon the purple swamp that stretched as far as eye could see.

“Do you see that?” he asked, almost rudely. “Do you see those hills ? Do you know that Khas Khan is waiting with a thousand men to cut up this little force, not one of which will probably return? The Government knows, the General knows, but as in theory Khas Khan is a loyal and faithful servant to the Queen, and has made no declaration of war, they dare not send more for fear of exciting the country, and bringing down upon the head of the British Government, the abuse of every fire-side critic from John O’Groat’s to Hong Kong.”

“And do you mean,” said Gladys in horror, as the awfulness of the thing dawned upon her, “Do you mean that these men are to be used as a bait, a human, living bait, to be sacrificed so that a secret enemy may be made an open foe? Oh, surely not!”

“That’s about the size of it,” said Boyd, with a mirthless laugh. “See! your father is addressing the men.”

“I can't see Captain Henniker anywhere,” said the girl. In the last few minutes they had unconsciously returned to old familiarity of manner.

“It isn’t likely you will,” said Boyd grimly, “considering that at present he is lying in a very hopeless condition in the hospital.”

“In hospital?” repeated Gladys, in bewilderment. “In hospital? How? When?”

“About an hour ago, poor old chap, he took a touch of sun, and went down in the middle of the parade ground.”

This was why her father had been sent for, and then a thought striking her, she asked,

“But who is going with the men? Not— not—” The colour died from her cheeks as she began to realise the truth.

“Yes,” he said quietly, “you have guessed rightly. I am. I heard that a detachment was going up, and returned to volunteer my services. As it happened, I returned at the very moment I was required.”

For a moment she stood as if dazed, then catching both his hands in hers, and looking beseechingly in his face she said, almost in a whisper, “No, no, not you, Arthur! Say you are joking. You must be, you cannot mean that. Why, you yourself have said it is certain death!”

Even as she spoke she knew that it was the truth he had told her.

She noticed for the first time he was dressed in Field Service order.

A bugle drawled from the parade ground.

“Officers come and be damned,” said Boyd bitterly. He was repeating the words that soldiers have put to the “officers’ call.”

They seemed just then so very à propos.

He slipped his arm round the girl’s waist, and drawing down the brown head to his breast, tried to soothe her, for she was weeping softly.

“Don’t cry, darling,” he said, with a quaver in his voice. “It’s all my fault, all mine. I was a fool, don't make it harder for me than it already is.”

She did not answer, but raised her tear-stained face to his, and their lips met.

“Good-bye,” she whispered between her sobs. “Good-bye,” he muttered, and putting her gently from him, he left her.

A little aloof from the other officers, the Colonel was waiting his arrival.

“Here’s your instructions,” he said roughly. He was trying to hide the man under the martinet. “And you’re a young fool, and— God bless you— a brave man; and now don’t forget if you have the slightest excuse for returning do so. If Khas shows any signs of armed resistance— I know the devil won’t till you’re hemmed in on all sides— but if, by God’s mercy, he does, you are to retire at once, do you understand? And now good-bye!”

Boyd wrung the extended hands, and turned to his company who were standing at ease.

“Slope arms!” he called.

Sixty butts crashed to “Attention,” and then with a rattle came up together.

An orderly had left the telegraph office and was running towards the Colonel, who, surrounded by his officers, was waiting to see the company march off.

“’Fours— right!” said Boyd, casting one look towards the white figure that stood in the doorway of the Colonel’s quarters. “By the left— quick march.”

With a quick step the little body of men wheeled round the group of officers, towards the gate that led to the Mangoon road. “Goodbye,” he said between his set teeth; “Good-bye to all that makes life worth living.”

They had crossed the square and were nearing the main guard-room.

The guard composed of men of a British Infantry regiment had turned out with shouldered arms, ready to salute their dusky comrades. The regular footfalls of the little party reverberated through the stone archway that formed the entrance to the cantonments and the straggling street that led to the bazaars, beyond which the torturous swamp road lay before them.

“Halt!”

Mechanically the troop came to a standstill, and Boyd looked round in astonishment, for he had recognised the Colonel’s voice.

“What is it, sir?” he asked wearily, he was not in the humour for further instructions or fresh farewells.

Colonel Burton did not answer, but handed the telegram he had just received to him. Like a man in a dream, Boyd read:

“FROM GENERAL OFFICER COMMANDING THE FORCES IN TUGABAD TO THE O.C. 90TH SIKHS. STOP OR RECALL DETACHMENT PROCEEDING TO MANGOON. TRIBE HAS RISEN. A BRIGADE IS BEING ORGANISED FOR DESPATCH TO THE AFFECTED DISTRICT.”

He handed the orange-coloured form back, and for a moment could not believe his senses; at last he found his voice:

“Fall out, men,” he said. “Go back to your quarters.” Then turning to the Colonel, who was watching him rather closely, he said, “If you don’t mind, sir, I should like to see Gladys?”

The elder man laughed and rubbed his hands.

“I haven’t the slightest objection to offer,” he said.

_________________________

3: Phalaenopsis Gloriosa

The Monthly Story Magazine, November 1905, "by John Jason Trent"

TWO men sat over their liquor and cigars in the big library of Driscoll's country place. It was a chilly evening in April, and the great pine logs which blazed on the hearth before them and threw tremendous lightings over the books, paintings, and heavy ebony furnishings of the apartment scarcely served to dissipate the chill of the unused room.

To the right, three long French windows looked westward over acres of lawn sweeping down to the broad river, while to the south the view was shut off by dense masses of evergreen shrubbery, supplemented by vines and creepers which had flung their festoons of delicate leafage in every direction across the windows. A great elm standing guard at this corner of the house tossed its branches to and fro in the spring wind and tapped nervously on the nearest window.

The house, in spite of its wealth and beauty, impressed one with a sense of loneliness. A dwelling reflects the daily life of its tenants in the same intangible way that a man carries the reflection of his life writ large in face and person; and this stately room had the air of one who has looked on his dead and stands appalled and desolate. From the more distant parts of the house came the occasional creak of a board or the slam of a shutter in the wind, and at each fresh noise the elder of the two men turned a face full of ill-concealed uneasiness in the direction of the sound. At last the other tossed the ash of his cigar in the fire and turned to his host.

"Bob, old fellow, what's the matter with you? You're as nervous as my grandmother! Is it a ghost or delirium tremens that is freezing your young soul? Speak out man, what is it?"

Driscoll, thus addressed, rose, and going almost stealthily to the two doors leading out of the room, slipped the massive bolts across into their, sockets; then he came back to the fire, poured out some liquor, drank it, and pulled his chair near to Larcher.

"Larcher, you and I have been out together for big game. The tiger skin there tells one story, this leopard's skin beneath our feet another, but I have brought you here to-night to help me kill or capture the most devilish thing that ever walked the earth. You, because you are the one man whose brain and nerve and muscle I can trust."

"Good!" said Larcher. "Is it man or beast?"

"Not beast, yet scarcely human," replied the other, "but I must go back and tell you the story of this accursed thing that has come upon the place. You know what a hobby my orchid houses have long been to me, and you have heard me speak of the difficulty I have had in getting a capable foreman to minister to my favorites. The run of these fellows know merely the few common commercial varieties, and my interest has always centred in the rarer species. Six months ago I was in such despair over my collection that I had almost decided to give up their culture entirely rather than suffer the constant disappointment of having successive importations die on my hands, when, in response to my advertisement in the Herald, there walked into my office one morning a fellow who seemed exactly the one for the place. I couldn't tell his nationality exactly, but his bronzed face bore out his statement that he had spent many years in the tropics, collecting orchids for one of the big English importing houses. Details were soon adjusted between us, and it was arranged that he was to come down here and begin work at once. I inquired if he had a family, and he replied that he had a wife, who would come down here with him the next day.

"As he rose to leave the office, I said: 'One thing more, Hearston. I hope you are up in growing Phalaenopsis Gloriosa. They are my favorite orchid, and I have a special house of them out there.' Larcher, at mention of the orchid's name I could have sworn that the fellow turned green under his tan. He caught at the chair back as though to steady himself, and answered oddly that he thought he could do nothing with them, and then added, as though he had said more than he had meant to: 'They are the most difficult orchids in the world to bloom in captivity, sir.' I smiled at the conceit of the orchids as imprisoned wild things, bade him good morning, and forgot the incident for the time.

"Well, they went down the next day, and were soon established in the pretty little cottage on the slope of the hill near the greenhouses. I went down some weeks later, found everything running smoothly, and Hearston introduced me to his wife. You know that since Mollie died, women have rather gone out of my life, and I am not easily impressed with a pretty face, but I shall never forget the exotic beauty of that woman.

"Whatever doubt there might be about his nationality, hers was unmistakable. She was pure, high- caste East Indian; you know the type, tall, slim, with exquisite features and eyes of midnight witchery. I thought as I looked at her that she had the same subtle atmosphere of mingled spirituality and splendor that my orchid blooms possess. She spoke no word of English, and stood beside Hearston as we talked, eyeing him with a world of pathos in her dark, unfathomable eyes. It was plain to see that she adored her husband from his footprints upward. You remember the handsome collie dog I had here, a beautiful fellow, who lived up to his ideals in a way to shame most humans. He had always been slow to make friends with strangers, though devoted to the old servants on the place. He came bounding up to us as we stood there, and to my surprise, ignored me to fawn at Mrs. Hearston's feet, leaping upon her with the utmost affection. 'Your wife has made a friend worth having,' I remarked to Hearston. The man smiled and assented, and the subject passed.

"We spent the rest of the day going through the greenhouses together, and I found that I had made no mistake in my man. Such a knowledge of orchids, of their native conditions of growth and climate, and such a stock of East Indian lore was a revelation to me.

"The greenhouses have been altered and enlarged considerably since you saw them last; the chief addition being an immense circular house at the foot of the range. Here I have gathered thousands of fine plants of Phalaenopsis Gloriosa. Instead of the usual equipment of benches I had a number of trees on the place cut down and sunk in the ground at irregular intervals from each other, on all sides of the house, and the orchid plants were then wired to them from the ground up, interspersed with ferns imbedded in moss. Great palms were planted thickly round the trees, and hundreds of orchids were suspended by wire from the roof. The whole effect was that of a bit of tropical jungle. In spite of all my care they had never done well, and I was anxious to have, my new foreman's advice on the subject.

"Rather to my surprise, Hearston's wife accompanied us on our rounds, but when she came to the floor of the Phalaenopsis house, she drew back pale and shuddering. He spoke some rapid words in what I suppose was her native tongue to her, and she turned and sat on a stool in the shed outside. He murmured some apology to me about her being tired, and followed me into the house. Before communicative, the man grew oddly quiet and nervous. We were there some five minutes, and in that time he never took his eyes off the slim little figure in the shed beyond. I could get nothing out of him about the culture of the Gloriosas, and attributing his evident embarrassment to his ignorance on the subject, we returned to the other houses. That night I went back to town.

"I am going into all this wearisome detail, Larcher, in the hope that you, with your years of experience in India, and your knowledge of the Oriental character, may be able to see some glimmer of dawn in the darkness of the mystery that followed."

Larcher nodded, eagerly, and Driscoll continued:

"Six weeks passed, and Hearston's reports were uniformly satisfactory. At the end of that time I received a curious letter from him. It was a request for a couple of private police to patrol the place night and day, and the man urged haste as though oppressed with terror. We are too far off the turnpike here to be often troubled with tramps. Still I felt that my new foreman had deserved my confidence so far, and I took steps that afternoon to engage a couple of men for watchman's duty. The next day was Sunday, and still a bit worried by the unusual tenor of Hearston's letter, I took the afternoon train and came out here. I had neglected to wire anyone of my coming, so there was no trap at the station to meet me, and I walked the mile to the place in a bleak February twilight that seemed to deepen in perceptible gradations.

"As I came down the curve of the drive and round the southern corner of the house, I paused, struck by the beauty of the view. Great crimson clouds were banked up on the horizon as though rolled up by a stupendous fire, while streaks of sullen red shooting almost to the zenith flung their sinister reflection on the river and the lawns. I had never seen the place take on such a lurid unearthly beauty, fit setting for the tragedy to come. The group of dwarf Norwegian pines at this corner of the house stood out against the angry sky like some exquisite tracery, and while I stood admiring their symmetry and grace, a branch not twenty feet away from me swung back and— a face looked out.

"A hideous face, such as one might conjure up in the nightmares of a fever, a yellow, square Mongolian face, seamed with a thousand wrinkles, and every seam a sin. Larcher, I saw that face as plain as I see you now. For the space of three seconds I stood still, looking straight at that grinning mask, hypnotised, perhaps, by those beady glittering eyes gazing into mine. Then the branch dropped back into place, and I, released from the spell cast over me, darted forward to the spot where it had been. It had vanished like a dream. I searched among the bushes for half-an-hour or more, but finally gave up in despair, and went into the house.

"I took occasion, while old Mrs. Mayhew was serving my dinner, to question her guardedly on the subject of tramps or strangers on the place. She told me there hadn't been a stranger seen on the place all the winter. That some of the servants had been commenting on the fact only the night before. This made Hearston's letter more inexplicable than ever, and after dinner I sent for him, intending to have a plain talk with him on the subject. He came in answer to my summons, and I jumped at sight of the man's face. White and haggard, with a certain hunted fierceness in his eyes and a restlessness in his manner which changed him utterly. I felt that the situation rose to its feet, and explained itself as a bad combination of man and whisky. I never strike a man when he's down, or preach temperance to a convalescent drunkard, so I ignored Hearston's apparent condition, told him of my receipt of his letter and the arrangements I had made for the patrolling of the place.

"'They must be quick, Mr. Driscoll,' Hearston broke in. 'They, must be quick. For God's sake, sir, get them over here at once!' He came up to me in his excitement and laid his hand on mine. I shivered at his touch; it was so cold. His eyes blazed into mine in passionate eagerness, and then I saw my mistake. It wasn't drink that had changed the man; it was sheer, clear, cold, blue terror!

"'Hearston,' I said, 'there is something wrong here on the place; I want you to tell me frankly what you fear.'

"Before the fellow had a chance to reply the night was broken by a succession of sharp yelps like an animal in pain, followed by a shrill scream, and on the sound the man beside me dashed through the door and out over the verandah. I followed him almost instantly and ran out of doors. There, ahead of me, Hearston was running over the lawn to his cottage, as though he had been shot from a bow. I followed him as rapidly as possible, marvelling at the speed with which he crossed the ground, and a second later I came up to him bending over his wife lying in a dead faint on the verandah of his cottage. A shadow lay at the woman's feet, and as I bent to see what it was, a pitiful little moan came up from the darkness.

"Someone brought a lantern, and by its light I saw, my collie Donald lying there, his bright fur all matted with blood from a murderous knife-wound in his side. His beautiful, faithful eyes turned up to mine as I knelt beside him, then glazed as the little life went out. Together we lifted Mrs. Hearston, and, carrying her into the house, laid her upon the bed. Hearston, wild with excitement, bent over her, begging me to do something— anything. In a few minutes she recovered her consciousness, but relapsed at sight of us into a state of helpless hysteria. They both seemed too near the verge of collapse to give me any information as to what had occurred.

"Hearston was walking to and fro like a crazy man, wringing his hands, while his wife lay laughing and sobbing uncontrolledly. The dog's death showed me that something serious was on foot on the place, and, feeling that they were probably not safe in the cottage by themselves, I proposed to Hearston that he and his wife come up here for the night. He assented with eagerness, and they came up to the house with me. Mayhew put them in a room on the ground-floor which had at one time been used as a sort of spare room when the house was crowded. It was in this wing, but on the other side and facing the greenhouses. I saw them comfortably installed, told Mayhew to see that Mrs. Hearston had everything she needed, and bade them good-night.

"I sat long over the fire that evening, trying in vain to puzzle out Hearston's behavior, and the cause of my dog's death. It all depressed me more than I can tell you, and I was filled with a miserable, presentiment of evil, try as I might to shake it off. I must have sunk into a sort of a doze before the fire, for I dreamed a curiously vivid dream. I was out on the lawn in the moonlight, pursuing a baffling shape which fled from me, eluding me ever as I gained on it, and which kept giving out yelps like the dying cry of the dog.

"Faster it fled, and I faster, with that curious rapid increase of momentum peculiar to dreams, till at last I had him by the shoulder. He turned in my grasp, and I saw again the hideous yellow face outlined against the shrubbery, and an appalling scream shot through my brain and brought me to my feet. I knew that I had dreamt the rest, but I could have sworn that the scream was real. I rushed to the door and flung it open. The hall lay dark and silent. I threw open a window thinking the sound might have come from without, but the grave could not be quieter; and cursing my nervous imagination for the fright that it had given me, I turned in and went to bed.

"The next morning I woke early, and eager to clear up in the daylight the wretched business of the night before, I sent Hendricks over to Hearston's room to tell him I wished to see him as soon as possible. The fellow came back and said he had knocked repeatedly on Hearston's door, but couldn't rouse him, and in that instant all the vague horror of the night before returned to me. The room had two long French windows in it like these, opening out on the north verandah, so I sent Hendricks out on the porch to reconnoiter from the outside. He returned, almost immediately this time, to say that one of the windows was wide open, and he had looked in. The room was in confusion, Hearston and his wife were gone. It came to me that they might have risen early and gone back to the cottage, so I sent Hendricks for the third time to deliver my message. A third time he came back to say that they were not there. I went myself to the cottage. It was just as we had left it the night before. I hailed one of the gardeners on his way to work. 'Have you seen Hearston?' 'No,' he answered; 'perhaps he is in the greenhouses.'

"'Perhaps he is,' I said; 'we must find him. You and Hendricks take the first house and I'll take the second, and we'll go through alternating.' I started on my tour of the houses, calling Hearston's name aloud in my eagerness to find him safe, and shake off the deepening conviction that I should find him otherwise.

I reached the Phalaenopsis house at the foot of the range, still calling, opened the door and started to go in. The masses of greenery made the interior seem dim to me after the morning sunlight; but as I closed the door I saw something coming towards me out of the forest twilight of the place. At first I thought that it was Broughton's Great Dane— the dog is over here half the time— but it rose upright, upright and gibbering, lunged at me through the shadows of the green! I leaped to the door and crashed it behind me, and the thing fell against it heavily, and rolled over on the floor. It was Hearston; Hearston with snow-white hair and eyes of flame! Hearston, and he was mad— mad!"

"And the woman?"

"No trace! If the earth had opened and swallowed her she could not have disappeared more utterly. We captured Hearston after a terrible struggle; there was nothing to be elicited from him. Every inch of this place has been searched and searched again, and still, no trace! And, Larcher, It seems a trivial thing, a weak and empty fancy, and yet— "

"Tell!"

"Since that night when that mysterious horror happened, those Gloriosas seem to have taken a new lease, of life! Great sprays have started from every plant and hang laced and interlaced like some strange web on every side. Buds developed, but they do not bloom! A month ago I said to the man in charge—'To-morrow will see this house white with blossoms.'

"He looked at me curiously. 'So I thought, sir, a week ago.'

"'They were not sufficiently developed, then,' I answered.

"'Yes, sir, just as they are now.'

"'Why, man, they couldn't be,' I cried! 'look at them, they are just ready to burst open.'

"'As you say, sir,' he answered; reservedly.

"'But you don't agree with me?' I asked.

"'No, sir, they were just like this ten days ago; one would say, sir, they were all ready to bloom, but— that they were waiting for something!'

"It is true! I have watched them ever since. The whole place is full of a dismal, haunting oppression that I cannot shake off or banish. An indescribable terror hangs over it, and I never want to see it again.'

Larcher rose to his feet, his face alight with excitement, and stood with his back to the fire looking down at Driscoll.

"And the motive, the clue, the explanation to it all? What do people say? What do they think?"

"Everything and nothing! A woman is made away with— by whom? By Hearston, himself, some say: Bah! The man loved her. She had no fear of him. There was a third person whom they both feared— the face in the pines."

"The other men on the place?"

"Are above suspicion! They all room together in quarters over the carriage-house, and were all there that night. They say that Hearston was a good fellow and devoted to his wife; that she was with him in the green-houses every day, and that he never seemed content unless she was close beside him. Further, it was brought out that in the ten days preceding the occurrence Hearston had seemed strangely excited and nervous, but perfectly sober and sane, and, note this, that there had been no tramp nor suspicious character seen on the place since Hearston had come on it."

"Did you tell the police of the face you had seen?"

"I did. But no one else had seen it; I had no tangible proof that I had, and the consensus of opinion seemed to be that it was the result of overstrained nerves."

"What has become of Hearston?"

"He is, or rather was, till two days ago, in the lunatic asylum, the tower of which you can see just over the trees, to the west of the place. It's about three miles distant. They said from the first that his condition was quite hopeless. When they took him there he was almost uncontrollable; then he sank into a sullen silence difficult to break. Two days ago I received word from the superintendent that Hearston had burst the heavy iron bars at his window and escaped. They begged me, if I had any knowledge of his whereabouts, to inform them at once, and added that they were watching my place, as it was likely that he would seek his home.

"I came down here immediately, but so far, have had no sight of him. Yesterday afternoon I grew lonely and nervous. I had been in the house all day, and, thinking a little exercise would do me good, I strolled up the drive to the gate. It was almost dark when I turned to come back, and I couldn't help glancing sharply through the shrubbery as I passed along. I had on an old pair of tennis shoes I found in my room here, and the soft soles were almost noiseless on the gravel roadway. And as I walked it seemed to me I heard a sort of swish, swish, as of someone moving through the bushes to my right. I drew my revolver, and gradually slackened my speed, that whatever it was might pass me.

"The movement in the bushes slackened, too, and I knew that I was being watched. I walked on till we came to a place where the shrubbery lining the road was thinner than usual, and, wheeling suddenly, I plunged through the bushes in the direction of the sound. As I wheeled, so did the intruder, and put such distance between us that I could but faintly make out a tall supple figure in the robe of some dark stuff, wound round the waist with a scarf. I had hoped to find it Hearston. But it wasn't he, for the man glanced around just before he disappeared, and I saw again the villainous yellow face, and the beady eyes! I ran after him, discharging my revolver as I ran, but the shots went wild in the gathering night, and for a second time he eluded me. This morning I sent you a wire. You are here. That is all."

"Driscoll, you say the face you saw in the shrubbery was grinning? Did you notice anything, peculiar, about the teeth?"

Driscoll sprang to his feet with a smothered oath. "Larcher, you have seen it! Where?"

"I haven't seen it, Bob, upon my word!"

"Then how did you know that it hadn't any teeth? At least, just the two incisors, at the angle of the jaw, long and yellow like a wolf's fangs! How did you know the one thing I omitted to tell you?"

"Sit down, and I'll tell you. It's a bit of a story I haven't thought of for years," answered Larcher, lighting a fresh cigar. "By the way, since you confess so frankly to carrying a gun, I may as well unload myself of my armoury. I never stay in civilisation long enough at a time to accustom myself to going without a weapon. I'll lay it here on the table, if you don't mind. Well, you remember that I went out with the British East India Geographical Commission some seven years ago, and you will remember, further, perhaps, that our chief mission at that time was the exploration of some of the tributaries of the Mekhong River. The British Government has ploughed India with its army, and harrowed it with its civil service, till it is surprising that there should be a wild spot left; but there are still great stretches of territory unknown and almost impenetrable, where the weeds of native custom flourish in rank luxuriance. There is probably no place on the habitable globe, under the nominal control of the civilised nation, concerning which so little is known as the valley of the Mekhong River. Immense forests, centuries o]d, stretch unbroken for hundreds of miles, hiding in dank, impenetrable morass and jungle, the wild, fierce people who inhabit them.

"We struck the Lam-nam-si River at its junction with the Mekhong, and started off to follow it to its source. We had not been out more than three days' march when we began to hear of tigers, and I determined to leave the party at Menatkong and browse round the neighborhood a bit to see if I could get a tiger skin or two. I expected to join the others about a week later at a point agreed upon. They protested that my life wouldn't be worth a farthing, alone in that country; so I compromised by taking Haranya Vatani, a native, who accompanied the party as guide and godmother. The first day we were disappointed in our game, and found ourselves at dusk, with a tropical storm on our track, near an isolated native village.

"It was the only place for miles around that offered human habitation and a shelter from the storm, but in spite of that Haranya tried to steer me past it. This only made me curious to see it, so I took the rudder in my own hands, and we stayed over night there. We were civilly received, for Vatani's fat face is a sort of general ticket of admission to that part of the universe; but the next day, the worst of the storm being over, one of the inhabitants tipped Vatani the wink that it would be more tactful if we would move on, and we, accordingly, did so. After we left the place, Vatani told me the cause of our scant entertainment. The name of the village is Kong-Satru. You know, doubtless, that practically all the Gloriosas come from there."

"No, I thought they came from Panom-Pehn; that is the place mentioned in the invoices."

"That is the river-port where they are packed for shipment. They are stolen from the forests around Kong-Satru by sturdy adventurers, who evidently have little love of life, and shipped by stealth and night down the Mekhong to the sea. The forests on the hills around Kong-Satru are the most magnificgnt imaginable, and teeming with this variety of orchid. A native, Haranya said, would much sooner think of selling his children than a plant of the Gloriosas, which are indescribably sacred to them. These people mix their religion with the culture of the plants in a manner at once horrible and grotesque. The flowers are cared for by a band of native priests, who to the thousand other Oriental ideas, add one more, the most gruesome of them all.

"They say," and Larcher leaned across the table towards Driscoll and gazed meditatively out into the night as he continued: "They say that the orchids must have blood, human blood, and so it happens just before the plants' blooming season, the priests select a victim from among the inhabitants of the village for this sacrifice."

"And then?" asked Driscoll, as Larcher paused, still gazing past him out of the window, sunk in reminiscence.

"I was thinking of the night Haranya told me this tale, sitting in a little tent in the midst of the jungle, not 30 miles from Kong-Satru, with the tail of the storm lashing round us, and Vatani shivering with fright lest he be overheard in the telling; in India it is neither polite nor healthy to discuss your neighbor's religion."

"And then?"

"And then, on the day of the feast of the flowers, which was the festival our presence interrupted, on that full moon of April, when I unwittingly grazed Death, there is high carnival in Kong-Satru, and the priests take the victim to the forests above the town— and feed the flowers!"

"And then?"

"'And then they bloom!' said Haranya, 'and not until then!' The priests are a vile-looking lot, with yellow skin like parchment, their teeth not gone as you describe, it, but the four front teeth blackened so that at a distance they are invisible. There is a large Chinese element in these priests, if they are not indeed full-blooded Mongolians, which marks them off from the rest of the Aryan population."

"And you think that Hearston's wife—"

"Was doomed to the sacrifice! That Hearston was in the neighborhood gathering Phalaenopsis, and either had seen her before, or met her while she was trying to escape; that by his knowledge of the country he succeeded in getting her to some sea-coast town where they shipped for England. Then they came here and lived content, till the fanatic face rose up at her elbow, inexorable as fate. I think myself that those priests must have some hypnotic influence over the people; you heard the girl's cry when he came to her that night? How else did he awe them to the submission and silence that followed?"

"I see it now. It must have been the priest, too, who killed my poor collie."

"Do not lament the dog, Bob; he died trying to defend the gentle soul who had been kind to him, and no death could be nobler. I think that the priest has the girl in hiding, hypnotised; he is waiting for, the hour. It has struck! This is the full moon of April, the day of the feast of the flowers. If the girl is to be saved, it must be now. We shall have an able ally."

Driscoll sprang to, his feet. "Who?"

"Hearston! He is tracking the priest; I have been watching him at it the last half-hour."

"Where?"

"There! See! The gaunt figure crouching in the shadow of the pillar on the porch! At first I thought he was the priest; and laid my gun handy; then he moved a bit, and the moonlight fell on the white hair and asylum garb. Depend upon it, Driscoll, Hearston, too, has seen that face from his prison windows and the iron bent like tin beneath the maniac strength that gathered itself and passed out to slay. See! He is watching something that is moving across the lawn from south to north. I can tell that, from his movements. It can be nothing else but the priest. Look, he is rising! Are you armed? Then come."

Leading the way, Larcher noiselessly unlatched the window and passed out on the verandah, Driscoll following. The man in front of them crept cautiously forward from the shadow of one tree to the next till he reached a clump of shrubs commanding a view of the great stone staircase which terraced the hill beside the greenhouses. He paused here, watching the stairs intently. Larcher and Driscoll at a little distance did the same.

"He's lost him," whispered Driscoll; but Larcher shook his head. A moment later the priest glided out of the bushes fringing the stairway, almost at the bottom of the hill. For an instant the supple figure stood out in the full moonlight, black against the whiteness of the stonework, listening; then, apparently satisfied, he beckoned, and a slender white figure crept out and after him as he opened a door and disappeared. In an instant Hearston was making his way down the steps, the others following as before. There was no hesitation or undue haste in his movements; as silently and relentlessly as the tide laps up the shore, so did he cover the space between himself and the priest. He reached the door of the Phalaenopsis house and melted into the blackness of the wall. As the door opened a low monotonous sing-song chant struck the ears of the two outside.

"Chinese, by all that's holy? Bob, he is worshipping the flowers!"

A second later they had reached the door and looked in.

It was a weird scene! Lofty trees towered sheer to the height of forty feet or more, covered with the delicate green of ferns among the darker shades of the orchid plants, while thousands of sprays of half-open flowers filled the house with a subtle and exquisite odor.

The priest stood in the centre of the house, his back to the door. He had cast off his robe, and, naked save for a loin cloth, was swaying to and fro in a sort of religious ecstasy, his arms extended towards the flowers above him, and chanting as he swayed. At his feet knelt the woman, white, unseeing, tranced!

Behind him, mute and terrible, crouched Hearston, waiting for the instant of his spring.

"Hearston's unarmed!" breathed Driscoll.

"Yes, like a gorilla! Let be! The quarry's his."

At last the priest paused in his chant and the moment came. Hearston reached out with his left hand, caught the bolt of the door, and shot it home with a crash that shook the house. It was challenge and ultimatum in one, and at the noise the priest swung round and faced his death!

He flung one arm aloft, in what almost seemed like a gesture of command; but, as he did so, Hearston's embrace went round him like a hoop of steel, crushing him in with slow, resistless force. The Mongol would have been a match for a heavier man in a poorer cause, and he writhed in Hearston's grasp, making frantic efforts to release himself, till the mighty muscles rolled under the yellow skin like the coiling and uncoiling of a cobra. A frantic tug at the loin cloth and his free arm flung upward, a curved knife in his grasp, and twice it fell in abortive strokes which glanced off Hearston harmlessly.

The men outside flung themselves against the barred door with a force that splintered the glass in the upper half, but the bolt held. Larcher reached, in through the splinters that remained, pushed back the bolt, and the two rushed in.

Suddenly, in one last supreme effort, the priest raised himself to his full height, almost lifting Hearston off his feet. Again the light quivered along the knife as it rose and fell, and as the priest sank backward, dead, he carried Hearston with him, the knife lodged in his back.

Driscoll bent over the prostrate forms, trying in vain to unlock Hearston's fingers still knotted round the priest. A cry broke from the lips of the girl beside them, and the men both turned and looked at her. She was standing gazing at Hearston in pathos unutterable; the cry that had escaped her was the long, low Indian wail for the dead. Larcher stooped, and with practised hand drew out the knife, then turned.

"Do not mourn," he said to the girl in her own tongue. "He will live, since you have come back to him."

And as he spoke Hearston released his hold on the priest, and turned and held out his arms to the girl. The flame had died out of his eyes— the man was sane!

"Driscoll," cried Larcher, in a curious toneless voice, "look up, look up at your orchids, they think they are going to be fed!"

Driscoll straightened himself from surveying the priest and looked about him. He went white as he gazed and threw a steadying hand against the nearest tree.

Multitudes of great white flowers swayed on every stalk, crisp, new blown! Wide open, each petal distended and with eager stems, as happier flowers turn to the sun, they craned their faces towards the dead priest on the floor.

_________________________

4: One Blow for Russia

The Port Pirie Recorder, South Australia, April 1, 1905

TWO men sat at one of the little tables at Garriani's in Soho, London.

Garriani's spelt soiled tablecloths, vin ordinaire, and the smell of yesterday's cooking. If you ask at Garriani's for the daily paper, they will bring you the 'Petit Parisien,' and if you complain, Antonio, the head waiter, suave and unshaven, will apologise, and bring in exchange 'El Imparcial.'

But it was an English newspaper that was spread before the elder of the two men. It was the foreign page that lay under his impatiently drumming fingers, and heavy black headlines, that stood out from the sheet that overstood the matter that filled his mind.

Leonine of head, Paul Kressler had never been a handsome man. His was the face that men call 'striking.' He had the eyes of the dreamer, and the square jaw of the tyrant, as befits the Nihilist who seeks the idyllic through ways of violence. His companion, squat of figure, fat of face, puffy of eye, yet comfortable withal, was of the class that sees in Nihilism, Anarchism, Socialism, and any -ism that is opposed to established law and constitutional practice a means to personal end. Such men have no cause— they have only a purpose.

'You're mad, my friend,' he was saying; and his tone was almost jovial. 'There is nothing to be gained, unless you see in this a means of regaining your position.'

Paul Kressler gave a bitter laugh.

'Something for something, eh? That's your creed, Von Mastrich. Have I not given sufficient proof of my disinterestedness?'

'Your pardon, baron. I did not mean—' muttered the other, averting his eyes.

'Five years ago, what was I?' continued Kressler. 'Captain of the Petroski, with an admiral's flag for the reaching. To-day I am what I am-exile, suspect, Anarchist, what you will!'

'You have made great sacrifices,' cooed the German, flicking the grey ash from his cigar.

'And you think, having made the surrender, I want to go back on the principles that are so dear to me—'

'To us,' corrected his companion comfortably.

'It is because I love Russia, as I hate its Government— because I love the land as I hate its lords!'

'But the Czar will never—'

Kressler waved an impatient hand.

'That remains to be seen; I can but try. Look at this— look at this!' He brought down his great fist with a crash on the table, and Antonio, dozing at the servery, woke with a jump. 'Can I read day by day such things as these? Can I see the glory of Russia pass away before my eyes, and never lift my hand to strike a blow?'

The German rose, and the other followed suit.

'Then you persist?'

There was a sneer in the question.

'Yes'— quietly. Then, with an outburst of that fiery passion that had made him at once the joy and terror of the Brotherhood, he cried: 'Not for the Czar, I tell you— not for the cursed bureaucracy— not for the cruel little devils that sit behind desks, and send innocents to damnation; but for Russia, the land, and the people-for the Fatherland!'

The German bit the end from a fresh cigar, and balanced a silver matchbox on two fingers.

'Some will call you patriotic,' he said slowly—'some may call you quixotic. As for me—'

'You think I am a fool,' rejoined the other quickly.

'Ach, Gott!' said the little man admiringly. 'You are the occult!'

They stepped out into the thin drizzle that fell on the London streets, and the German went to his club, and Paul to the dark little room on the third floor of a back street off the Tottenham Court Road.

A WEEK after this meeting, the Imperial Secretary at St. Petersburg sent a telephone message to the Grand Master of the Police, in response to which that high official came post haste to the palace.

'Who is Kressler?' asked the Secretary, without any preliminary.

'Paul Kressler— Naval officer; flag captain '88; author of the 'Torpedo Boat Tactics,' and,' added the chief of police, with a certain grim emphasis, 'a most excellent brochure, 'God and the Czar'; a member of the society known as the Little Brethren of Russia; a revolutionary of the most dangerous type. Present address— —'

'I know— I know!' said the great Secretary, impatiently tapping an open letter that lay before him. 'But what plot, conspiracy, assassination if you like, was he associated with?'

The other shrugged his shoulders.

'None that I know about; but he is a dangerous man. He has even spoken against— —'

And the head of the police lowered his voice to an awestruck whisper.

The Secretary bit the end of his pen thoughtfully.

'As a naval officer, what sort of a man was he?' he asked.

The police chief threw out protesting hands.

'I am no judge of a naval officer's abilities. If he was as thorough an officer as he is a revolutionist, he deserves to control the navy!'

The Secretary stretched back in his chair.

'If half he says is true,' he muttered, partly to himself, 'if he is sincere, such a man might work wonders. We want good men.'

His brows knit in a perplexed frown, and he sat for a moment silent; then he started forward, as though on some sudden impulse, and, seizing a pen, wrote a few words on a printed slip.

He read it over carefully, and fixed a tiny red seal to the corner of the document.

'Take this,' he said tersely.

The chief took the paper and glanced at it. He expressed no surprise, nor anything more than a casual interest.

'You understand, monsieur?' said the Secretary, pointing his remarks with a white forefinger. 'Paul Kressler is to be allowed to return to Russia. He is to go on his way unmolested. You will arrange that he is watched carefully?'

The policeman smiled, as at an unnecessary question.

'You intend that he should remain in Russia?' asked the official carelessly.

'I intend that he shall receive his commission as a naval captain, and leave immediately for Vladivostok,' was the quiet reply.

And even the policeman, hardened as he was to the eccentricities of his Government, raised his eyebrows as he left the room.

2

SO it came about that when Paul Kressler called at the little shop to which his letters were directed, a square official envelope was handed to him.

He clutched it eagerly, and walked rapidly back to his lodging. He reached home, and with trembling hands struck a match and lit the tiny lamp. Eagerly he ripped open the flap of the envelope, and extracted two documents. He read the first in silence, but there was eloquence in the glow of his cheek and the dancing light in his eyes.

It was a formal notification of his liberty to return to Russia. It bore the official stamp of the Chief of Police, and the counter-seal of the Imperial Secretary. The other document he unfolded with a puzzled face. His bewilderment was only momentary, however, for he started up from his seat with a great cry of joy, as he read the words that gave him back his old rank and his old profession. A slip of paper fell to the ground. He picked it up.

'You will proceed by the shortest route to Dalny, and take over the command of the torpedo vessel Riga,' it ran briefly, and was followed by the signature of the Secretary to the Admiralty.

That night Captain Paul Kressler left Charing Cross by the nine o'clock mail train, travelling third-class, and carrying, carefully folded in a bundle by his side, a uniform which, according to no less than three distinct Admiralty orders, was obsolete of pattern.

IT was a tired-looking man that stepped down on to the platform at Vladivostok a month later. The train had brought him from Dalny, in response to an urgent telegram from the commandant of the naval port. A dapper young officer met him, and saluted, eyeing him curiously.

'Captain Kressler?' asked the officer, with his hand to his cap.

Kressler nodded awkwardly. Before the stripling, resplendent in his well-fitting uniform, he felt shabby and mean.

Something of his thoughts was reflected in the face of his junior.

'If it would please you,' said the young man urbanely,'you will come at once to the office of the commandant.'

Paul bowed, and followed his conductor.

In a large, bare room near the docks sat the naval chief of the ill-fated port.

A grey-haired man, sallow of face and stout of build, he sat at the side of, rather than behind, the table.

He rose as Paul entered, and adjusted a pair of pince-nez.

Without unnecessary introduction, he plunged into the subject that filled Paul's mind.

'The enemy's fleet are ten miles out,' he said, speaking rapidly; 'the destroyer Riga is laying in the inner harbour. You wrote to the Czar, saying you wished to strike a blow for our Holy Master—'

'For Russia,' corrected Kressler.

'It is the same,' said the commandant haughtily. 'For the Czar or for Russia, you are willing to take great risks— to make great sacrifices?'

'I have already made great sacrifices for Russia,' said Kressler, speaking slowly.

'The enemy is brave, with a reckless courage that is past all understanding. Officers and men deem it a delight to die in the service of their barbarous country. The damage our fleet has sustained is mainly due to the extraordinary disregard they have for their personal safety.

'I have not noticed,' he added, with some bitterness, 'the same qualities displayed amongst my officers.' He rose to his feet, and walked to where Kressler, who had also risen, was standing, and laid a big hand upon the other's shoulder. 'When a Japanese officer takes his torpedo-boats out,' he said, and he dropped his voice,' he does so with the full intention of never returning alive. You understand, my child?'

Paul nodded.

'He goes forth,' the admiral went on, 'with one desire, and that is to do as much damage as he can before he himself is killed. I make myself clear?'

'Perfectly, admiral,' said Paul quietly.

The admiral tightened his grip on Paul's shoulder.

'At ten o'clock to-night you will take the Riga out of harbour, and set a course for the enemy's fleet.'

And the elder man dropped his hand suddenly, and returned to his place by the table.

'You may go,' he said shortly.

Paul saluted and went to the door.

As he opened the door, he turned to the man at the table.

'I shall not return,' he said, with simple directness.

The admiral nodded.

'It will be better so,' he said gravely.

WHEN the stars were struggling through the mist that lay on the waters the Riga slipped from her mooring and, passing between two cruisers aflare with the naked lights of working engineers, glided silently to sea. As he felt the throb of the engines beneath his feet and swayed with the motion of the little vessel, a wild joy filled the heart of its captain.

The smell of the engine room, the scent of the sea, the taste of the first errant drop of the flying spray, filled him with a mad delight. There were no other officers on board but himself. His second-in-command was a petty officer, who, by the masked light of a lantern, was picking a course clear of the mine field that guarded the harbour's entrance. Under quarter speed the destroyer zig-zigged a path through the floating engines of death, until with a sigh of relief, the petty officer looked up.

'We are clear now, little Father,' he said.

Paul's hand was on the telegraph. He threw over the lever, and there was a muffled tinkle between his feet.

The thin steel hull of the destroyer trembled for a second; then came such a sudden leap ahead as to well-nigh throw the captain off his feet. From her three funnels poured a rain of red-hot cinders, sizzling down to her soddened decks. High-flung clouds of spray broke over her bows, and great waves smashed against her.

In the conning-tower Paul set his course. According to the instructions he had received, the enemy's fleet lay sixty miles off. In a little over two hours he could come up with his quarry at the speed he had set, but he knew that the last twenty miles must be run dead-slow, lest the flame from the funnels betray him.

Shuddering, trembling, leaping like a thing of life, the torpedo-boat threshed through the tumbled seas.

Paul looked at his watch.

'An hour and a half out,' he muttered, and laid his hand on the telegraph.

The pace of the Riga slackened; the convulsive shudders that had shaken the little ship died away to a tremble.

The second officer clutched his arms.

'Look-look!' he whispered, as though fearful that he would be overheard.

They had run out of the mist, and the night was perfect. The sky was all a smother of winking stars, and on the horizon blazed one bright comet. A comet, with a straight white tail stretched upward, that moved uneasily from left to right.

3

PAUL'S hand sought the telegraph, and the boat stopped.

'They've got their searchlights working,' he said.

And his subordinate's perplexed face reminded him that unconsciously he was speaking in English,

'Go ahead dead slow!' he ordered in Russian.

And the destroyer crawled ahead.

And now, at various points on the horizon, other comets came into life, and soon the ocean's rim bristled with swaying spokes of white light.

Paul frowned.

'We shall never get near them— never get near them!' be said bitterly.

An hour passed in helpless contemplation of the foe. At the speed she was moving, and with a strong current running against her, the destroyer had progressed less than five miles.

With rage in his heart, Paul watched the wheeling searchlights play on the sea, lacing the black waters with a fret of silver. He had no fear of discovery. He was too far away to be observed.

'I shall not come back,' he repealed to himself. And the admiral's grave voice, 'It, will be better so,' rang in his ears.

It wanted an hour to the dawn, when the searchlights of the fleet grew strangely blurred. Each ray shone in a strange nimbus that softened and diffused the fierce white light.

The captain of the Riga took one long, eager observation through his glasses, and a smile broke the hard lines of his face.

'Half speed ahead!' he signalled; and the sea hissed under the stripped hull of the destroyer.

The searchlights were now but a white, steamy glow on the horizon.

'Sea fog!' said Paul, in fierce exultation. 'Every man to his post! Man the quickfirers; stand by to torpedo!'

The lights were now blotted out, and Paul threw over the indicator to full speed. Again the Riga leaped forward. Paul, peering ahead through the spray-washed outlook of the conning-tower, saw the white banks of of the sea fog rolling towards him. In a moment the ship had plunged into the mist.

For twenty minutes the little craft raced onward; then, out of the thinning mist, ahead loomed the huge hull of a battleship.

In a minute they were abreast. Paul pressed a button, and something white and long and slender leapt into the water abeam. Then came a burst of white flame, and a deafening roar, and the fog lifted. There was a flash of a searchlight. By its rays Paul saw a great vessel sinking astern of his milky wake.

'Hit!' he cried, dropping on his knees. 'Merciful Heaven, I thank thee!'

Then a dozen searchlights focussed fierce on the destroyer. It seemed that a regular inferno had been let loose round the gallant ship. Torn and racked with shell, Paul Kressler felt his ship sinking rapidly beneath him.

WHAT PAUL died without knowing was that the blow he had struck for Russia was at Russia herself. For the ships he had come upon in the mist belonged to the long waited Auxiliary Russian Fleet.

________________________

5: The Calm Chauffeur

The Daily Mail, London, May 17, 1906

"DO you do much motoring?"

I made a flippant reference to the Arrow and Vanguard services.

"But have you done much motoring— have you owned a car?" Once upon a time, as I related, I bought a German car with French engines. I also acquired a serious chauffeur and two acetylene lamps.

The car suffered from many ailments, most of which the serious chauffeur— he is a policeman now, poor fellow— was able to diagnose with accuracy, but none of which he was able to cure.

It was a nice-looking car, with a beautiful leather hood, and ran easily with two persons, or without the hood, three.

When I drove down-hill I got up terrific speed, especially if the hood was on, but when it came to climbing hills I used to get out and walk ahead, pretending that the labouring machine behind and the red-faced chauffeur— more serious than ever— had nothing to do with me.

It was a nice car for the winter, because the works were under the seat, and they kept one's feet warm. Also in the summer the scent of petrol banished the moths from one's clothes.

I used to drive about in motor-goggles, and as people always associate goggles with speed I deceived a man into making me an offer for the car.

The letter containing the offer came by the night post, and I took a cab and drove to his house to accept. I did not take the car, because I wanted to reach him before he changed his mind.

As to motoring...

"But," persisted the inquiring enthusiast, "have you any idea of speed— have you ever travelled in a racing car, in a car that doesn't stop to think...."

I cited the cars I had known— the 24-hp Coliseum, the 12-hp Little Wanderer, the 6- or 8- (as the case may be) hp Runaway.

"Very good," said the enthusiast, "I will call for you at ten tomorrow morning."

So he came.

He brought a machine. None of your rough-finished, soap-box seated racing cars painted like a dirty warship, but a sleek green Mercedes "60" touring-car, all varnish and polished brass and silver fittings, with a fur-coated chauffeur lolling back in an armchair seat, and taking no interest in the proceedings.

"Are we going to a wedding?" I asked, and regretted that I had not put on a tie to match the car.

Then we started....

THE car was purring like a tame cat, as we played musical chairs with the traffic of Ealing; it made no protest when asked to spring between a brewer's dray and a tramway-car in Brentford High Street. It stopped dead before a nervous lady pedestrian who was standing in the middle of the street debating whether to scream or faint, and reached Hounslow before we— the enthusiast and I— had finished saying what we had to say about nervous pedestrians.

Outside Hounslow we met the Blue Car, and the young man who drove the Blue Car sat without cap or goggles, his hair streaming out behind and a black smut on his nose. His expression was the expression common to all hardened chauffeurs— a reflective, thinking-of-mother expression.

The Blue Car was just ahead of us when we saw It. We did not know it was blue because it trailed a skirt of dust behind it that obscured the landscape. Later we leapt up to it and got ahead. I think our dust must have annoyed the Blue Car very much, for between Hounslow and Basingstoke it sneaked past us at a level crossing.

Then we came to a great stretch of country inhabited by furze bushes and telegraph poles, and the fur-coated young man who sat by my side pulled down his goggles and slowly shifted a small lever on the steering wheel. Then for the first time I was conscious that a high wind blew. A wind that hammered my face and filled my lungs, a wind that roared about my ears till I was deafened. The Blue Car was ahead. Surely it had stopped. As we passed it I got one fleeting glimpse of the smutty-faced young man— supremely indifferent and still thinking of his mother. At the same time I noticed to my amazement that the Blue Car really was in motion, and that the telegraph poles that lined the road were passing with remarkable rapidity. The enthusiast leant over. "Sixty-five miles an hour," said his lips.

There was a village ahead, and we slowed down. Three little boys standing on the pavement displayed an inclination to 'run across', and the chauffeur lifted an admonitory finger. The little boys stopped abashed, and we passed. The little boys who were the pioneers of the 'running across' game are no longer with us to encourage the present generation. We passed the outskirts of Basingstoke before we realised that we had left London. On the side path as innocent old gentleman lifted a stick... We stopped in twenty yards, and the chauffeur descended and made an inspection of all his gauges— an earnest inspection that took him several minutes. Not so the chauffeur of the Blue Car who streaked past triumphantly— and was stopped twenty yards further on by a policeman.

The innocent old gentleman with the stick, was one end of a 'trap'— the waiting policeman the other. Alas! for the vanity of Blue Cars we passed the group at a funeral pace— a policemen, a notebook, and a chauffeur with a smut on his nose.

Into the open country again. Long, long stretches of white road, a wild deserted world, and a slender spire on the skyline.

Again the high wind, and the buffeting and breathlessness and the whizzing telegraph poles and the throb, throb, throb of the engine as the car flew across Salisbury Plain. A solitary cyclist ahead waved a hand and we slowed.

He came up to us at a tremendous pace, and the tiny engine of his cycle working pipity-pipity-pipity-pip.

He passed like a flash, but the waving hand said 'trap' quite plainly so we crawled. This time it was an innocent-looking agricultural labourer— with a walking stick— and his pal was lying on the grass a mile further on— a measured mile. And so the day passed, a procession of long roads, of fresh green hedges, quaint cottages, gardens ablaze with blossom, rivers and wet meadows, gloomy stretches of plain, crooked, narrow streets of country towns, till night came.

By then we were moving towards London, two white beams of light thrown ahead showing the road. Ghostly figures rose from the road and passed; invisible cyclists came into the circle of light and vanished. Lumbering wagons filling up the road— with no light to show their presence— appeared, and were circumvented.

The blasé chauffeur, touching a handle here and a lever there, working with both hands and both feet, sends us along through the darkness— accurately, carefully, unswervingly. Isn't it a little dangerous perhaps for the cyclist, for the pedestrian?

A nervous young man wheeling ahead lost his presence of mind, wobbled, slipped and fell in our track... but the car stopped almost in its own length, and the young man, dazed but voluble, called himself all kinds of a fool, and explained that he was a nervous idiot— hoped he hadn't alarmed us. We expressed our thankfulness that we had been able to pull up in time.

The chauffeur yawned.

________________________

6: The Angel Child

The Grand Magazine, January 1908

THE well-drilled organist waited with his fingers lightly resting on the keys; the admirably disciplined bell-ringer pulled with monotonous regularity at the furry rope, his eye glued to the American watch hanging on a nail. Exactly at the hour the ringer steadied the bell and the organist pressed forth the notes of his voluntary.

With the coming of the white-clad choir came also the newcomers— father, mother, and Angel Child. They tip-toed along the aisle, the mother leading, the boy in black, with a deep white Eton collar and new gloves, following, and the alert father bringing up the rear. They sidled noiselessly into a pew. Father and mother prayed conventionally; the boy surveyed the interior of the old church with approval.

He was a pleasant-faced boy with wide, unwinking blue eyes; and Mr. Stebbing, our respected fellow-townsman and grocer, marked him down for the Band of Hope, and a prominent position in Mrs. Stebbing's Bible-class for Small Boys.

Above the shrill cadences of the choir one sweet young voice rose dominant:

O come, let us sing unto the Lord;

Let us heartily rejoice

In the strength of our salvation,

and Mr. Stebbing silently and reluctantly surrendered the new boy to the choirmaster.

In the little churchyard, all red and golden with the glory of departing summer, the churchgoers lingered to gossip, before dispersing to the serious function of Sunday dinner. Broad-cloth convincingly creased, and best silks faintly perfumed with the preservative sachets that keep at bay the week-a-day corruption, silk hats immaculate, and squeaky boots advertising their newness and within, under and above all these, souls refreshed and minds relieved by a duty well discharged.

The Vicar held his reception in the porch.

"Yes", he said, answering Mr. Stebbing, "beautiful voice, I was particularly struck by it. I think we shall be able to do something with that boy— they are the new people at the End House."

Mr. Stebbing shook his head gloomily. "Can't understand people of that class taking the End House." he said, severely, "They are not gentlefolk, and they are not— er— "

He almost said "trades people", but stopped himself. He was too near his own retirement from trade to wish to unduly emphasise the distinction.

"I'm making nearly a thousand a year," he added complacently, "and I couldn't afford the upkeep of the End House."

Later in the week the Vicar called on the new tenants, and was received by the lady of the house. He duly reported Mrs. Houghton to be a quiet, charming lady, who skilfully fenced questions, the answering of which might have enlightened the small town.

"An educated woman with a keen sense of humour," said the Vicar, remembering with some appreciation the ripple of laughter that greeted the repetition of his only joke. "The boy? No, he's away. Attends a day-school, I should imagine, somewhere in London. At any rate, his father takes him to town on Mondays, and brings him home on Saturdays. I'm afraid that upsets our idea of bringing him into the choir."

Little Malsey is not of sufficient size to warrant a daily newspaper. It shares with four other villages a weekly sheet, which is comprehensively called The Westlawn Chronicle and Orkley Gazette (with which is incorporated The High Malsey Courier and Tingburn Despatch). Once upon a time little Malsey boasted a weekly, in which, it is currently reported, Mr. Stebbing sunk no less than a hundred pounds. It lasted three weeks, and was worth every penny of the hundred pounds that Mr. Stebbing invested.

This was fourteen years ago, and Mr Stebbing still speaks about it

"Newspapers! Don't tell me anything about newspapers! Did I ever tell you about my newspaper venture? ... Leading article on the High Church Ritualism of the Vicar ... positively disgraceful ... I said, 'Look here, when I asked you to edit this paper...' He said, 'But...' I said, 'Never mind, you are well paid for your work, and you write scandalous things about my friends...' He said, 'Thirty shillings a week...' I said, 'And very good pay too; when I was your age...' So I sent him to the right-about, sir... dictate to me?"

There is really no need for a newspaper at Little Malsey, because everybody knows. And a newspaper would not dare to print the things that people say over tea-tables. There is of course no slander in saying that the End House people had a big brand new motor car, but I am of the opinion that the doubts, crudely expressed as to how they came by it are distinctly actionable.

So far as could be gathered, the Angel Child was the idol of his parents, and in the great garden that surrounded the End House there was a dear little toy railway that ran from the kitchen garden to the orchard via the rosary. And there were real little points and signals and tunnels and stations, and our small boy who was invited to play with Frankie came home in that state of ecstatic misery which poets associate with naughty angels excluded from Paradise.

Frankie did not always go to London on Mondays. Sometimes he was seen quite late in the week, a self-possessed, demure little man in knickerbocker suit and bowler hat and the inevitable Eton collar, sauntering along the High Street, gazing in shop windows. He had a bright smile for everybody, but was singularly uncommunicative for one so young.

"Good morning, Frankie," said Mr. Stebbing, "How is your father?"

"He's very well, sir," said Frankie, respectfully.

"Doesn't he find his work very trying?" asked Mr. Stebbing, artfully.

"No, sir," said Frankie with his innocent smile.

After which Mr. Stebbing could not well pursue the subject. Later, in the bosom of his family, our respected fellow townsman expressed his displeasure.

"Why on earth he" (meaning Frankie's father) "doesn't say out right what he does for a living, I cannot think. I must confess I do not like those mysterious people with motor cars. I was saying to Hackett at the Borough Council meeting yesterday, 'he might be a kind of up-to-date burglar for all I know. Look at Charles Peace! He used to drive about in a trap or something, and played the fiddle too!'"

But none the less the Houghtons, with all their reserve, were popular, and people came from miles around to hear Frankie's one solo.

For the Vicar had persuaded the father to allow the Angel Child to don the surplice for Harvest Thanksgiving, and Frankie had come down specially from one London day to rehearse.

"You ought to allow the boy to take up singing," said the Vicar.

Frankie's father smiled enigmatically.

"My boy has special gifts which I am helping him develop," he said quietly. "Frankie is a good boy and a sensible boy, although he's only eleven. So far, his education has cost me four thousand pounds."

The Vicar permitted himself to gasp.

"I beg your pardon?" he said, striving to hide his incredulity.

"Four thousand pounds," said the other with a grim smile, "and on one occasion at the rate of a thousand pounds a minute."

The Vicar spoke the truth when he afterwards remarked to his wife that the Houghtons were altogether beyond his understanding.

It was at a concert given in aid of the new School Harmonium Fund that the Vicar made a discovery.

Frankie had been asked to sing. It was on a Monday night, and Mr. Houghton signified his willingness. So Frankie came, looking more angelic than ever in his boyish evening dress. He sang his song in a sweet sympathetic treble, and received a vociferous encore. Also he was made a great deal of by charming young ladies, who brought him milk and pastries.

"It has been a most successful and pleasant evening," beamed the Vicar at the close. "Thanks in no small measure to you, Frankie." And he held out his hand to the boy.

As he took it he experienced a shock.

The childish hand that rested in his was unusually large and, what is more, it was hard and muscular, and the clasp that the boy returned was a grip like steel.

"Good gracious!" cried the astonished Vicar, and turned the palm of the boy's hand to the light.

It was as red and rough as that of a labouring man's.

The inspection was short, for the boy pulled his hand away, and the Vicar saw a red flush rise to his cheek.

The Vicar was a discreet man, but his wife was not so discreet, and Frankie's hands were the topic of the hour in Little Malsey the following week.

What was the secret of this strange disfigurement? A theory generally accepted was that the hardened palms were eloquent of excessive punishment with Frankie's father playing Sikes to his Oliver.

Mr. Stebbing did not take part in the discussion. He, poor man, was conscious of the horrible certainty that before another week had passed Little Malsey would have yet a greater subject to debate.

For Mr. Stebbing was insolvent. It came as much a surprise to Mr. Stebbing as it must to the reader. There was a son of Mr. Stebbing's who does not come into this story. The son is now in Canada, having been sent there by Mr. Stebbing, who in common with other foolish Britons, imagines that thrift and honesty is a matter for propinquity, and that there is something in the moral atmosphere of Canada that immediately makes thieves honest, idlers energetic, and the wastrels of the world suddenly useful members of society. This son, with a facile pen and a supply of blank cheques, brought a solid pillar of Little Malsey commerce crumbling to earth in so short a space of time that the victim was dazed and hypnotised by the magnitude of his misfortune.

From his wife he kept the dreadful news, and yet his poor old heart craved a confidant. What extraordinary inclination took him to the Houghton's we shall never know. Subconsciously he may have regarded himself as a criminal and sought the sympathy of what he believed to be a fellow, but to Houghton he went and poured forth the incoherent story of his terrible plight.

He remained with Frankie's father an hour, and came back more dazed than ever.

Next morning he journeyed to High Halsey and interviewed the bank manager; then he went to London, where Frankie s father met him. He returned home the same night alone.

The next day he was like a man demented.

Mr. Hackett, fellow councillor, who called in at the little office to discuss the remarkable problem of Frankie's hands, found a singularly erratic listener.

"...The extraordinary thing is," said Mr. Hackett impressively, "that the boy has got great corns on his palms, as if he were—"

Mr. Stebbing interrupted him with a burst of semi-hysterical laughter.

"Corns!" he cried, "Oh, Hackett, what dunderheaded babies you and I are by the side of that child! What innocent old fellows—"

Mr. Hackett left the office alarmed and puzzled.

He might well have been more perturbed had he watched the antics of Mr. Stebbing throughout that day.

How he walked aimlessly up and down the street and in and out the shop. How he haunted the telegraph-office, and how, when the telegram came, he shut himself up in his room to read it, and came out after a time looking ten years younger.

Little Halsey never knew of the big cheque that came to swell Mr. Stebbing's account and avert bankruptcy.

Little Halsey learnt all about Frankie later, but for many years before the discovery was made Mr. Stebbing carried in his pocket book a newspaper cutting which ran:—

"...AT THE Bushes, Whitelock was beaten, and Monna went on clear of St. Fax and Constance, but the winning post only a few strides away, Ambrosia came with a rush, and, magnificently ridden by little Frankie Houghton, our crack light-weight, snatched a victory by a short head."

_________________________

7: The Bandaged Hand

Weekly Tale-Teller, May 15, 1909

1: The Promise That Haunted

THE Livingstone came threshing down the Lulanga River, tacking from bank to bank to avoid the shoals.

With a hand on the telegraph, and the other free to signal the native steersman, the young skipper watched with anxious eyes the ever-changing shades of the treacherous water.

"Loba-ko-lo-kal!"

The sing-song warning of the boy at the bow sent the telegraph over to "astern" with a jangle.

Of its own accord the big stern-wheeler slowed down as the water shallowed.

Again the boy at the bow stabbed the water with his long, pliant sounding rod.

"Loba-ko-lete-anane," he sang reassuringly.

And with a fathom and a-half under her, Mac rung the engines full ahead.

He had come straight down from Baringa, stopping only for fuel; he had contravened the unwritten regulations, and had run his boat through the night with only starlight to show him his course, he had stopped at Basankusu to tell his news, whilst the sweating natives piled logs aboard till there was scarcely room to move. He had not stopped at Bonginda, the headquarters of the mission, but had bawled a message through the megaphone.

Now, as he swung the vessel round into deep water, a young man dressed in white, with the marks of sorrow on his tanned face, walked along the narrow gangway and joined him.

"I heard the engine-bell ring," he said, as if to explain his presence.

The youthful captain removed his big sun-hat, and wiped his streaming forehead.

"A sand bank," he said briefly; "the river's lower than I have ever known it to be before. There is Lulanga"— Mac pointed ahead as the Livingstone swept round a bend of the river.

"And the waters beyond?" asked the other.

"The Congo," said Mac. He interpreted the question in the younger man's eyes, and answered him: "We shall be there to-night, heaven willing," he said soberly. "How is your friend?"

The other shook his head sadly.

"He's sinking fast," he said shortly, and turned away abruptly.

In the big hospital cabin at the stern a man fought for an hour of life. Clean-shaven, grey, and hollow-cheeked, he lay beneath the furled mosquito net, licking his dry lips.

From time to time he shot a glance at the young man who sat by his side waving a palm-leaf fan.

He might have been a man of sixty-five, and there was something in his appearance that was curiously suggestive of the English body-servant. It may have been the little grey side-whiskers that ran down his face, the length of the ears; it may have been the intangible stamp with which Nature classifies humanity.

That Simon Leatherdale was, indeed, of that class of domestic which the fashionable world calls "man" was true. Trusted servant and friend of the seventh Stanmore baronet— that erratic genius whose adventures and eccentricities were the talk of London in the eighties— Simon Leatherdale had been nurse, tutor, and companion of the boy who had inherited the Stanmore title.

The thud of the Livingstone's engines shook the little room as the boat raced down the broad stream.

The old man beckoned his nurse.

"Tell the captain to slow down." He spoke with long pauses between his words, and he reached for the young man's hand.

"But, Simon," said the boy earnestly, "we must go as fast as this, if we are to reach Bolengi to-night."

Simon shook his head wearily. "I shall not reach Bolengi," he said faintly, "I know it. Do not deceive yourself, Charles; you know it also. I must have quiet now— for now I have something to tell you."

There was something in the old man's face that sent a numb, aching pain to the other's heart, and he left the cabin quietly.

The thunder of the wheel died down a little when he returned and took his place by the old servant's side.

"Something you've promised to tell me," said the other painfully. "You— you told me, Simon," the young man said gently, "the day you were so ill."

"Did I?" The sick man closed his eyes, and muttered: "You will live to hate me."

"No, no, no!" cried the boy. "I shall always love you, and think of you as though you were my father."

"Heaven forgive me!" muttered the old man; "it was my vanity— my wicked pride. If I had only told Sir George!"

Then the great cloud came to his mind. The cloud that is blacker than night, and is fringed with a wondrous radiance. And he was with the old baronet again. "Old" baronet he had been, but not in years. Old in sorrow for the young wife he had passionately loved, and whom death had taken in the glory of her youth and beauty. Old in his care for the child— his boy and hers.

"I'll look after the boy," Simon muttered. "Yes, Sir George— French and German, and the sciences. Myself, myself— I will teach him everything myself, Sir George. Heaven, what have I done?"

He tossed from side to side in his delirium.

ON the deck forward Mac kept his vigil. They were running at full speed again, and the water foamed under her bows. One eye for the chart, and one for the shifting shoals; his ear alert for the warning of the boy with the sounding-stick revolving incessantly. An anxious eye, too, for the sun that was moving with what seemed incredible swiftness to the west— Mac was racing for a life.

The sun went down, and tropical night came swiftly. Strange night birds flapped across the deck, and the lights of the cabins attracted a million, winged creatures. The stars showed him the river, and the keen-sighted steersman helped him with the shallows. He snatched a hasty dinner— with one hand at the telegraph.

They passed strange fires on the bank, and saw, in the fitful red light, naked bodies squatting about them, and heard the shrill laughter of native woman, and the hoarse guffaws of the men. And they heard the "tic-tac" of the lokoli— the wonderful drum that beat messages from village to village— and once heard a tom-tom drumming out a native dance, and caught a glimpse of swaying bodies in the forest. Then, ahead of them, there appeared a twinkle of lights that came nearer and near, till Equatorville was abreast and past, and their goal was almost in sight.

Then Mac felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned. He could not see the face of the young man in the darkness, but he heard the pain in his voice.

"Stop, please!" it said huskily, and Mac's hand pulled the telegraph over. "My— my friend is— is— gone!"

The young baronet felt Mac's strong grip on his arm.

"You are a missionary," said the voice again. "I would like you— to— to say something."

With the steamer drifting slowly down the dark stream, Mac knelt beside the body of the dead man and prayed.

So, to the prayers of a mechanic, turned missionary, on the broad, mysterious bosom of this great African river passed Simon Leatherdale, sometime valet to the seventh baronet Stanmore, and under the great white stars of the African night they buried him at Bolengi; and the young man who had learnt his secret went home to face the world in terror of its discovery.

At Boma the British Consul bade him good-bye, then noticed the bandages. "You've hurt your hand," he said, and the baronet's muttered reply was incoherent.

2: The Unjust Steward

LINSAY HASTINGS examined his half-sister with a speculative eye. He wondered how far this tall, slim girl, with the smiling grey eyes and delicate mouth, might be cajoled or bullied into supporting his great plan.

He stretched his hand lazily without turning his head, and groped for the cigarette box.

One might, at first glance, describe Linsay Hastings as a handsome young man of the effeminate type, and as bearing some slight resemblance to his sister. But a closer and more searching examination revealed unsuspected weaknesses of chin that a cold straight line of lip did little to compensate. His eyes were too closely set, and there was something lacking in the shape of head that his smoothly brushed hair revealed.

"Is the enemy in sight, Sister Anne?" he bantered.

She smiled indulgently. "Isn't that from Bluebeard, and wasn't it succour rather than an enemy that Sister Anne sought?"

The opening was too good to be lost "Well, succour let it be," he drawled lazily, then he suddenly sat up, "and by Jove, succour it is, Agatha, if it is Sir Charles Stanmore you're looking for so anxiously."

She turned from the absent-minded contemplation of the road that was visible from the terrace of High Knoll House, and a faint flush overspread her cheek.

"I was thinking of Sir Charles," she said, steadily, "but I was not looking for him, and— and I do not quite understand your allusion to 'succour,' Linsay."

His laugh did not sound as easy as usual. "Oh, I was speakin' parabolically," he said, "our friend is a very rich man." He read the cold enquiry in her eyes, and threw away his cigarette with a frown. "Look here, Agatha," he said sharply, "you and I are not exactly rich. Our dear parents made very little provision for you, and less for me— Oh, yes, I know," he interrupted her, "I get a fairly decent income from the Stanmore estates, and it will probably go on, for Charles is mad enough to chuck away the only life that's worth living to go away again into the wilds."

He paused to select another cigarette. "If he goes away pretty soon," he went on slowly, "nothing matters, and I've no desire to alter existing conditions, but if he stays long enough to go into things— do you see what I mean?"

He had taken the plunge, he was half way to the greater confession, and he stopped a little breathlessly to note the effect of his words. The girl looked at him with a wrinkled brow and a gathering look of wonder in her eyes. "If he stays long enough to— look into things?" she breathed. "Why, what do you mean, Linsay?"

He sprang up impatiently. "Don't be a fool!" he said, roughly, "what do you think I mean? I've had a devil of a lot of bad luck since I've been managing my amiable cousin's property. Nothing has gone right."

"But," said the bewildered girl, "but surely that isn't correct. The crops have been good, the farms have been paying, and rents have gone up. Mr. Tyrwhitt was saying— "

"Crops, rents, farms!" he cried, angrily, "I'm not referring to those. I've had bad luck in other ways. There was 'Claudian Cæsar' in the Middle Park Plate, I lost a pot of money over him. I dropped two thousand over the Cambridgeshire."

The girl's face was white, and she held on to the stone balustrade for support. "The money!" she gasped, with her eyes wide open, "it was your money— oh, say it was your own money, Linsay."

He dropped his mask of geniality. "My money!" he said with a harsh laugh. "Where do you imagine I could get three or four thousand pounds to lose, eh?" He met her eyes, and read the pain and the scorn that shone so clearly, and he dropped his insolent stare before them.

"So you stole." She said it quietly enough, but the contempt in her voice stung him like a whip. "I do not know what means you devised to accomplish your end," she went on, "but this I know, that placed in a position of trust by your cousin to manage his estate during his long absence— "

"Let's have no heroics," he said, roughly. He paced the marble-paved terrace with quick, nervous strides. "Charles need know nothing about this. He has no lawyer, no banker, no men of business, as far as I can gather. When he wants money he comes to me and asks for it, and keeps no check on his expenditure. He has never asked me to give an account of my stewardship."

"He trusts you," she flamed.

Linsay Hastings smiled unpleasantly. "Say rather it was old Simon Leatherdale who trusted me," he sneered, "with his mysterious letters from abroad. Look here, Agatha," he schooled his voice to a gentle pleading, "it's no good crying over spilt milk. The money can be replaced— that's one solution, but there's a better way." He paused, and then went on deliberately: "Charles has only been home three weeks, and in those three weeks he has made it very evident that his susceptible heart— "

"Stop!" she cried, with flaming cheeks, "before I say something to you for which I may be sorry. There is no solution that way, not even to save you from the punishment you deserve would I throw myself at Sir Charles Stanmore's head."

His hand grasped her wrist, and the latent devil in him glittered in his eyes. "You won't, you won't," he muttered, "you fool, you must; I have promised you!"

"You dared!"

"This moony youth, with his nice notions of honour, has thought it necessary to ask the consent of your brother," he said, with a laugh, "and I— "

"Oh, hush!"

A figure turned on to the terrace and came towards them. The young baronet greeted the girl half shyly, and for the first time in her life she found it impossible to meet a pair of honest grey eyes.

"Admiring the view?" he asked.

He had the quiet voice that comes to men who have lived over-long in solitary places, and the far-away look peculiar to the dwellers in the wilderness.

She collected herself with an effort and gave him her hand.

"Going, Hastings?" he asked in surprise and with some inward feeling of alarm.

"I've an appointment at the house farm," mumbled the other, and reached awkwardly for his cigarette.

"Your brother looks worried, Miss Hastings; he's been overworking," Sir Charles said when they were alone. "I wish I could persuade him to come with me to Uganda next month; he wants a holiday."

She looked up. "So you are going?"

The hand that filled the well-worn briar shook a little. "I think so," he hesitated, "unless I have reason for staying, a reason I hardly dare hope for."

With a quickly beating heart, she changed the conversation. "You are very fond of the wilds, Sir Charles?"

He smiled grimly and sadly. "I know no other world," he said, "I was with my poor father from the age of four, and when he died, my wanderings were continued with Simon— it was my education."

"I wonder you managed to get any education at all."

He stooped to pick up his fallen tobacco pouch. "Oh, I don't know," he said slowly, "poor Simon was a genius, an extraordinary linguist, with a surprising knowledge of the classics, ancient and modern— he knew Shakespeare by heart— would you like to hear me recite the trial scene from the Merchant of Venice?" he asked, with his rare smile, "or the quarrel scene between Cassius and Brutus?"

"Spare me!" she replied laughingly.

He rose to his feet and stood opposite her.

"Miss Hastings," he said abruptly, "I want to ask you something."

She met his eyes unfalteringly now. "Perhaps it would be better if you did not," she said in a low voice.

"Suppose," he said quietly, "you had a secret— a dreadful secret, that oppressed you day and night— that seemed to come into every action of your daily life— -not a disgraceful secret but, none the less, unbearable, how would you seek relief?"

She breathed more freely. "The simplest way would be to confide it to somebody."

She stopped short, seeing the innocent trap he had set her.

"That is what I want to do," he said gravely. "I have wanted to find that somebody, and I have found her."

She was silent.

"I do not know enough of this world of yours, this great, mysterious social world to realise what dreadful blunder I may be committing, or what conventional laws I may he outraging, but I love you, Agatha, and I want you to be my wife."

She felt the world spinning, and, trying to rise, would have fallen, had not his strong arm caught her.

"I'm sorry— oh, I'm so sorry!"

His distress was so evident that even in her dazed condition she could not but notice it.

"You have done me a great honour," she murmured. She was trembling in every limb; "but— "

A wrangle of angry voices startled her. She heard Linsay's voice saying hotly: "You cannot go! I tell you, Rothstein, you mustn't— for heaven's sake— "

There was a scuffle, and through the open French window that led on to the terrace came a big, thick-set man, purple with rage, his hat on the back of his head, and beads of perspiration standing on his broad face. Linsay, white as death, followed him, and stood biting his lips as the stout man spoke.

"Sir Charles Stanmore, eh?" roared the stranger; "you're 'im, are yer? Eh? I'm Rothstein, of Charles Street, an'— "

The young baronet's face was stern, and his smouldering rage at the interruption showed in the compressed mouth and narrowed eyes.

"Will you be so good, Mr. Rothstein, of Charles Street, as to inform me by what right you break in upon my privacy?"

"I'm a man of business," said the other, a little cowed. "Fair and above-board's my motto. When I lend money I expect to be paid back— read that."

He thrust a slip of paper into Sir Charles's hand.

The girl, with a sickening premonition of what was to come, saw that he did not even so much as look at the paper.

"Well?" he asked.

"Read it!'' stormed Rothstein.

"Well?" He kept his eyes on the moneylender.

"To the order of Charles Stanmore," recited Rothstein, "an' signed by you. Is that your signature?"

Agatha held her breath as the baronet's eyes fell upon the paper.

"Yes," he answered quietly, and the reply staggered the moneylender.

"But— but," he stammered, "I know it ain't. I could guess the man who signed that bill in two guesses. It was— "

"You are mistaken," said the baronet coldly, "this is my signature. What do you want?"

The moneylender floundered and stammered.

"If it's yours— -if you say it's yours," he spluttered.

Sir Charles turned to the pallid steward. "Pay this man— whatever it is," he said curtly.

"I don't want payin'!" almost shouted the bewildered usurer. "If it's your signature— "

"Pay him— and then throw him out."

The man turned with a snarl of fury. "Throw me out! Why, you whipper-snapper, there ain't two men in this house that could— "

So far he got when a lean, sinewy arm shot out and gripped him by the collar. He struck out scientifically, for Mr. Rothstein had not attained to the dignity of Charles Street, W., without acquiring some necessary accomplishments en route. But the man that held him, young as he was, had handled men before.

The drop from the terrace to the lawn below was little more than five feet, but Mr. Rothstein fell heavily. He got up painfully, and turned an inflamed countenance to the calm young man who was watching him with an unsympathetic smile.

"I'll be even with you, master bloomin' baronet!" he bellowed. "You took me unawares."

Sir Charles watched the slowly-retreating figure, that stopped every now and then to hurl imprecations and threats, then he turned to the girl. Linsay, nervously rubbing his hands, he ignored.

"I'm sorry this happened before you," he said with a faint smile. "Our friend came here without warning. I never had the pleasure of meeting him before."

"And yet— " Despite the angry glare from her brother she could not restrain the exclamation, which was half a question.

"And yet I admitted the signature?" he laughed. "Yes, I suppose it is all right. Poor Simon never consulted me in these matters!"

Linsay choked back an oath. The signature on the forged bill was little more than three weeks old, as he knew. Indeed, it had been given on the very eve of Sir Charles Stanmore's unexpected return to England. The baronet could not have failed to see the date. What object had he in shielding him?

Then his eyes fell upon his sister, and he saw more clearly.

"I had better settle this matter," he said coolly. "When you have a moment, Sir Charles, you will find me in my office."

3: Husband And Wife

HUSBAND and wife, Sir Charles and Agatha faced one another in the deserted library. He had closed the door as he entered, but the hum of talk and the light laughter of the wedding guests penetrated even there.

The baronet's right hand was heavily bandaged. Two days before the wedding he had returned from London with a story of having met with a street accident. It had earned him no little inconvenience, for there were marriage settlements and registers to be signed, but the scrawl that stood for his name in the parish register proclaimed Agatha Margaret Hastings to be his wife.

"You want me, Agatha?"

She nodded; she could not trust herself to speak.

"I— I," she began, falteringly, then came towards him with appealing arms. "Charles— can't you see? Don't you understand?"

"I understand you are worried, dearest!" he said, in a troubled voice, "the ceremony— "

"If I had had the courage to tell you last night," she began, breathing quickly, "if I could have only told you!"

"Told me what?" His face was tense and his voice sharp.

She waited with her head bowed. "I do not love you— I have never loved anyone."

He staggered as though she had struck him. "Do not love me!" he repeated, "then in heaven's name, why did you marry me?"

"Because— oh, you know, Charles. Why do you torture me? Was not my marriage the price of Linsay's freedom? Did you not press me again after you had discovered Linsay had forged your name? Could I consider your action in shielding my brother in any other way?"

"I— shielded— your— brother," he repeated the words like a child repeating a lesson.

He leant against the heavy table, and for a while neither spoke. His face seemed to grow older, and lines, such lines as suffering men take on, appeared about his eyes.

"You have done me a cruel wrong," he said, and there was no bitterness in his voice. Then only an infinite sadness, "this mad quixotic sacrifice of yours has walled up hope." Then he flung out his arms in an excess of passion, and the appearance of imperturbability fell away. "You have married me! You have faced the danger-point for this brother of yours, and now with the purchase accomplished you fear to pay the price! You thought I knew that Linsay Hastings had robbed me— it was his handiwork, the moneylender's bill, was it? You thought I used my knowledge as a lever to force my life on yours." He lowered his voice. Between them was the polished table, with its litter of books. He clutched its edge, the better to control himself, and leant his body forward as he almost hissed the words: "I did not know! Before heaven I did not know that signature was forged; I believed you loved me as I love you!"

She made no answer, and he seemed to expect none.

"I had hoped to find in you—" he stopped with a weary gesture. His head sank forward on his chest, and his nervous fingers beat a soft tattoo on the table. Then: "I shall go abroad to-night," he said, quietly. "You may travel with me as far as the Canaries— then we can part. People need not know. When I have gone on, you may telegraph to your brother to come to you."

She looked at him for a moment with a strange light in her face. "You will go to Africa?" she asked, slowly.

He nodded. "It cannot matter much where I am," he said, bitterly, "not all the thousands of miles of land and sea that come between us can make us further apart than we are at present."

IN Clubland, where the idlest excuse for gossip is seized upon with avidity, the departure of Sir Charles and Lady Stanmore on their strange honeymoon tour was discussed with relish.

"He's rather a strange chap, eccentric, isn't he?" asked a major of the Imperial Guard. "Enormously wealthy, keeps thousands of pounds in gold about the house, never gives cheques for anything."

"Rummest thing I know about him," replied the Colonel, "was over the Vermont case— you remember a couple of weeks ago all London was talking about the Vermont divorce. Harry Vermont was a brute, swore his wife had been married before and his marriage wasn't legal— you know. Well, I met Stanmore in Pall Mall, and after we'd talked a little about big game (he'd had a nasty accident with a gun, by the way, and his hand was bandaged out of all resemblance), I happened to mention the Vermont case. 'Haven't you read this evidence?' I said, and he got quite annoyed. My word, his behaviour was so suspicions that I quite expected to hear he was called to give evidence— eh, general?"

It was not one of General Tolmache's happiest days, and he replied, testily, "Don't talk rot, my good fellow, the boy hasn't been home a month, and previous to that hadn't been in England for fourteen years."

The colonel tactfully selected a new audience. "I heard from a man, who's keen on the poor heathen and all that sort of thing, that Stanmore's bought a fine boat on the upper Congo," he said. "It was the property of a Belgian Protestant mission that went broke. It was on the market and was under offer to a London mission when Stanmore heard of it, and bought it over their heads."

AT that very moment Sir Charles Stanmore's honeymoon was under discussion elsewhere.

The steamer that bore him and his bride was rounding the high cliffs that hide Santa Cruz from the north. Agatha sat in her deck chair, drinking in the beauty of the scene. The vast green uplands, dotted with little white houses, the chequer squares of vineyards and cultivated gardens, and towering above all, the delicate pinnacle point of Teneriffe, tipped with its mantle of everlasting snow. About the point hovered the faintest gossamer of cloud, and over its steep slopes stretched here and there a filmy veil of mist.

A step sounded at her side, and she looked up to meet the grave eyes of her husband.

"We shall be in Santa Cruz in half-an-hour," he said, "but you will have ample time to get your trunks ashore— we coal here."

She made no reply, but took up the book that lay on her lap.

He waited a moment as though expecting some answer, then turned on his heel and strode along the deck towards the saloon. It was the first time he had spoken to her regarding her plans since the voyage had begun. Commonplace conversations they had had; talks of books and of people and places, maintaining, that convention might not be outraged, the polite fiction of companionship. That this pretence succeeded, you might gather from the kindly smiles of their fellow passengers, who, seeing no further than the surface, were ignorant of the blank misery that sat a guest in the breast of the one, or the despair that clouded all thought in the other.

The ship had been in port an hour, when Sir Charles came back to the almost deserted deck to find his wife as he had left her.

"You have very little time," he said, slowly.

She laid aside the book and raised her head. "I have all the time I require," she answered quickly. "I am not going ashore."

Had a bombshell exploded, the simple pronouncement could not have shocked him any more.

"Not going ashore? Agatha, are you mad?" he said, almost angrily.

She shook her head slowly. "On the contrary, I was never so sane."

"But you cannot come any farther— our next port is, Sierra Leone, and— "

"I am going with you— I could not give you love— I cannot give you less than service."

"But I will not have it!" he cried almost savagely. "We have made sufficiently great a blunder without adding to the sum of our folly. You must go ashore."

Something in the situation appealed to her sense of humour, for she suddenly laughed, and her amusement was so genuine that, against his will, his lips twitched sympathetically.

"Can't you see," she said coolly, "how completely you are at the mercy of a girl, on whom your 'musts' and 'shall' have no more effect than the whistle of that little steam launch?" The spirit of fun still sparkled in her eyes, and he felt, a little resentfully, that into his tragedy had crept an element of comedy which loosened his grip of the situation. "After all," she went on demurely, "you can't very well call a gendarme on board and have me removed— we must observe the decencies."

"But you don't realise where I am going," he said earnestly. "I am going into the wilderness, into fever-stricken countries, where white women are unknown, and where it would be murder to take you."

"Then you had better alter your itinerary," she replied with amazing self-assurance, "because I am going with you. I have thought it out on board."

She stopped his expostulations with a gesture, and there was a hint of mischief in her quiet smile. "Our marriage was a mistake; but then, so are ninety per cent. of marriages, only I made this discovery at an inconveniently early hour. Linsay deceived me, as he deceived you, and because I am possessed of a stronger sense of honesty than— than some, I confessed to you, what I might well have kept hidden. But I want to know you— I want"— she faltered, and a faint colour came to her cheeks— "I want to love you. Ah, a woman may say that to her husband? I want to share your secret— that secret"— she watched him closely as she went on— "that causes such a strange injury to your hand at all the critical periods of your life."

He stepped back a pace, a curious pallor on his face.

She nodded wisely. "Ah, I know," she said quietly. "When you came to England you had an injured wrist; when you went to London to settle your affairs the wrist, which had been well the day before, went into hospital again. When we were married you had cut your thumb— though I have looked in vain for the scar since— when we sailed your hand was still injured."

She spoke with deliberation, for her object was twofold— one to gain time, and this ruse he saw through.

"Agatha, I beg of you to go!" There was no mistaking his earnestness. "Some other day I may explain what mystery there is about my unfortunate hand. Some day, perhaps, you will know me better, and— and love me better, when all the pain and disappointment has vanished from my memory. But you must give up this plan— I implore you! No, I command you!"

She laughed frankly and undisguisedly into the stern, young face.

"You will not dare to quote the marriage service," she taunted. "Not the banal and commonplace reference to 'obedience.'"

"Agatha, for heaven's sake— " he began.

"You have time to go ashore," she went on calmly, "and to send a cable to my brother, telling him I have changed my plans."

He leant over her in a torment of exasperation.

"I feel that I could shake you," he said.

"I wish you would," she answered truthfully.

Ten minutes later he went ashore. Over her book she caught a glimpse of him at the gangway, and her pretty forehead was wrinkled in a troubled frown, for his right hand was thrust into the breast of his light Norfolk jacket, and she could see that it was bandaged.

4: 'Mid Savage Foes

THERE came from the forest the rhythmical "clop-clop" of the woodmen's axes.

Agatha, grateful for the shade that the interlaced branches of the high trees afforded, sat contentedly on a little mound, fanning her pink cheeks with her light helmet. She was in a little clearing near the river bank, and through the tangle of creepers she could see the two white funnels of the N'kema, and to her ears, above the ceaseless chatter of the forest, came the never-ending gurgle of the swift black river.

Charles was in the wood; she had heard the far-away "cloc" of his rifle. She had got past the stage of nervous apprehension and foreboding that came to her with his first disappearance into the forest. On that, the first occasion, she had spent five terrible hours staring into the solemn gloom of the wilderness— five hours, and every hour of sixty minutes and every minute overloaded with imaginations of disasters.

She had sat nervously tense, bolt upright on her canvas chair, with Elbo, the taciturn Kano boy, at her side, wondering, wondering, wondering. And when he had returned, swinging through the undergrowth ahead of his bearers, she had grown hysterical at the sight of his white helmet showing through the trees.

He had found her in a state bordering on collapse, and that had ended what promised to be a magnificent month of shooting.

So the prow of the boat had been turned farther up stream. There had been three weeks of dolce far niente, ceremonial calls at government posts, quiet Sundays amidst the soothing homeliness of mission stations.

That was past, the shooting excursions had begun again, and, as she grew familiar with the wilds, the mysterious forest had lost its terrors.

He had been a revelation to her, this husband of hers. She found him a constant source of interest. The depths of his resourcefulness were unplumbed. He was a doctor, an engineer, a cook, and a leader of men. He had alarming attacks of fever that drove her frantic, but which he treated with outrageous indifference. But one hot night when she lay in her roomy cabin in a vain pursuit of sleep— his form had filled the doorway, and she had sat up in bed with a fluttering heart.

He made no apology for his intrusion.

"I thought you'd be asleep," he said gruffly. "Where is your mosquito curtain?"

"It was so hot," she began.

"Have them put up at once," he said sternly. "Do you think I want you down with the fever. Call your woman," and he left her.

As a result of her escapade fever came, a mild attack, but sufficiently unpleasant. She woke one morning with a bad headache and a disinclination for food.

For three days he tended her, sitting by the side of her bed, dosing her with quinine, forcing food upon her, surprisingly palatable broths, wonderful light dishes, the composition of which she could not even guess. And in the days of her convalescence when the awful depression came, he it was who cheered her with a fund of dry humour, with stories of his life in wild places, and anecdotes of travellers he had met.

When she was well he had relapsed into his polite, distant self. She could have wished for the fever to continue.

She had seen the primitive man in him manifest. The fifty raw natives who comprised the crew needed careful handling. He was, like most Britons, admirable in his treatment of them. Just to a nicety, neither encouraging their confidence, nor repelling it. Once there had been a "woman palaver" on board and a general fight, and with two leaps he had been in the midst of it, striking right and left. The ringleader he discovered, and incontinently threw overboard.

"He can swim," was his cool answer to her agonised appeal.

She thought of all this as she sat in the clearing, and smiled gently.

A dark shadow fell across the ground before her. Elbo, the Kano boy, six feet in height, and as straight as a young tree, stood waiting, hat in hand.

"You fit for go on ship?" he asked.

She looked at him sharply, but his face was expressionless.

"Why should I go to the ship yet?" she demanded; "the master will return soon."

He looked over her head. "Them master he done go into N'gombi country; they chop him one time."

She rose quickly with her hand at her throat. She knew enough coast talk to understand him.

"But the N'gombi people are at peace," she faltered, "my— the master told me."

Elbo turned and spoke rapidly in the Bomongo tongue to some invisible person. A woman came through the undergrowth, shyly and hesitatingly. Her eyes were leaden, and about her shoulders she wore a stained cloth. There were rags about her ankles, and she walked as if in pain.

"Them woman she come by canoe from Lokobangi. N'gombi. He come fighting, burning. Plainty light, savvy?"

The danger came upon her without warning. Had she a more extended acquaintance with savage countries, she would have known that thus danger invariably came in a land where formal ultimatums were unknown, and war was little more than organised murder.

"Let us get back to the boat," she said, with compressed lips, and they crossed the narrow plank to the steel deck of the trim little stern-wheeler.

All the time, amidst the riot and panic of her heart, her cool head was asking and reiterating one question: What would Charles wish her to do? She might send a party of men to meet him, and this she suggested to Elbo.

He shook his head. "Suppose them black fellows stay for ship— they be good. They fit for fight English. Suppose I done take 'um into bush, they fight N'gombi."

"But the N'gombi people are not here." She waved her hand to the inscrutable forest. Elbo nodded his head.

"They be here for sure," he said, with conviction.

There were half-a-dozen men of the better class of native on board. Educated mission men, who acted as engineers and steersmen, and these Elbo summoned.

By their faces, the girl gathered the seriousness of the situation— she must not lose her head now, a life that was more precious to her than all the world might depend upon her courage. "What would he have wished her to do?"

She turned quickly to the chattering group. "Ask Yoga if there is steam," she said, quietly.

No, the fires were out, as was the custom when the ship lay idle. She gave an order, and instantly there was a scene of feverish activity. There was wood to be collected from the forest, a party had been engaged all the morning cutting it, and this had to be brought aboard.

Soon a lazy curl of smoke came drifting from the funnels as Yoga and his men worked at breakneck speed to feed the fires. Elbo, from the vantage place of the navigating dock, superintended the sweating gang who piled the ship's deck with fuel.

"Oh, N'kema!" he cried in the sing-song Bomongo dialect. "Oh badly wast thou named the Monkey! Better had they called thee N'dugi, the tortoise! Hast thou no shame, Nogi? Hast thou the sickness, Mongo? Haste! Haste! What is it with thee, Makala? Thou hast sickness in thy head? Ko! Ko!"

So this taciturn native laughed at them and chid them, and waxed broadly sarcastic, and stood in the blinding white heat of noontide, with the temperature at 105 in the shade, and spoke to them for his master's sake.

The last load was aboard, the steam was hissing from the escape-pipe, and the mooring ropes stood shackled for slipping, when Elbo, who had gone into the forest to reconnoitre, came leaping back, ducking and swerving.

Agatha herself stood by the telegraph, and as the Kano boy leapt the space between the bank and the deck she heard him shout warningly to the men at the mooring hawsers. Then he disappeared into her husband's cabin. He was out again in a second with a rifle in each hand and a dozen packets of ammunition folded in his arms.

Crack, crack!

She heard the firing now, and the frenzied shouting of the cannibal N'gombi.

Mechanically she stretched out her hand for one of the rifles. Charles had given her lessons, and she threw open the breech as Elbo raised his rifle and fired.

He loaded and fired again, but she could see nothing, only the shadows of great trees and the fret of sunlight on green saplings.

Again Elbo fired, and there came an answering shot close at hand.

Then she saw her husband, helmet-less, coatless, running swiftly and almost noiselessly, and she saw he was weaponless. Her mind was clear now. She judged the distance, and with her disengaged hand she threw over the handle of the telegraph to "full speed ahead," and the steersman whirled his wheel round to port.

As the big stern wheel threshed slowly round, she raised her rifle and fired at the nearest of his pursuers. The little ship swung her nose to midstream. Sir Charles gained the bank. He paused for a moment, leapt, and gained the slippery deck.

One of his pursuers followed him, but Yoga, the Christian engineer, was on the man before he rose to his feet, and in Yoga's hand was a steel spanner....

AGATHA opened her eyes. She was lying in her bed. The engines were stopped, and through the open doorway she could hear her husband's voice speaking to somebody in the native dialect.

Her head was wet and the collar of hot blouse loosened. Then Charles came in.

"Hullo," he said, cheerfully, and there was a look in his eyes that she had seen once before, "feeling better?"

"Where are we?" she asked faintly, and tried to rise.

But he was down on his knees by her side, his arm about her. "You stay where you are," he whispered, and his lips brushed her cheek, "unless you are tired of this wicked world. We are on a sandbank, about a hundred yards from the place we started from, but the current is too swift for the beggars to venture out, so they are trying a little target practice, and," he added, thoughtfully, "with my rifle."

"Is there any danger?"

"None! They surprised me in the wood, and I've lost two poor chaps who were with me— "

"Snap!" Something hit the side of the cabin, splintering the wood near the roof, and he laughed joyously. "That's my rifle," he said laconically, then, "dearest, will you do something for me?"

"Anything," she murmured.

"Here's a pencil and paper. Will you scribble a note to the Commandant at Basankasu? Tell him what has happened and where we are. I'll send Elbo in a canoe down the river, and we shall be relieved by nightfall."

"In French?" she asked, and he nodded. "I'll do it, of course," she said. "But why? Don't you speak French?"

"Yes," he said quietly.

"Then why—"

He was silent for a moment. "I cannot write French," he said. "I cannot even write English."

"Charles!"

He put his head closer to hers. "I can neither read nor write," he said simply. "Neither could poor Simon. He lived in mortal terror of the fact being discovered. I, too, have since shared his fear."

"The bandaged hand!" she murmured, as a light dawned upon her.

He nodded. "That was my pitiful ruse— with an injured hand I might dictate my telegrams, and any scrawl might be accepted as my signature." She wrote the note without a word, and Elbo took it from his hand. Then he came back to her.

"Are you sure there's no danger?" she asked in so low a tone that he was forced to resume his former position.

"None," he said.

"And if there was danger, would you hold me tightly as you did just now?" she murmured.

He did not trust himself to speak.

"Will you please remember," she whispered, "that in addition to being your future school mistress, I— I am your wife. And will you pretend the danger isn't really past?"

______________________________

8: The Derby Favourite

Ideas, May 26, 1909

'LIKELY enough,' said P.C. Lee, 'you've heard me tell about Captain Kintock. He wasn't the sort of man you'd expect a police constable to have much to do with, because he was of the higher class of bad lot, but owin' to his livin' on my ground— a very fine house he had in Ladbroke Gardens— an' owin' to my knowin' Baine, that did most of his dirty work, I got a fair inside knowledge of what happened at Epsom.

'In a sense, this story I'm goin' to tell you is a racin' story, though I don't want you to run away with the idea that I know much about it.

'When people tell you that racin' is a game that is only followed by thieves an' blackguards, by sharps an' flats, do not believe them. Some of the worst men in England go racin', but then, again, some of the best go, too.

'The bulk lie between the two extremes, an' are sane, decent citizens, who love the sport for the sport's sake.

'But the bad men are very bad, because they are clever, an' a clever bad man is a dangerous animal.

'Kintock was one the "Heads". He'd had money enough to sink a ship, at one time or another. A gambler born an' bred, he would bet on anything from horses to windmills.

'But Kintock was a crook, it was against his nature to go straight an' when it was a question of an easy honest way of doin' a thing, an' a hard, dishonest way, he always chose the latter for the sheer devilry of it.

'Rumly enough, he never took to horses till he'd run through every other form of gamblin', but when he did, he took to it colossal scale. He bought bloodstock in every direction, bought horses at the sales, an' out of sellin' races, an' took a lease of an old trainin' establishment down in Wiltshire, an' spent half his time between there an' Kensin'ton. Everybody knew he was a crook, but nobody knew enough about him to point to any definite act he had committed, an' so, somehow, he managed to get the Jockey Club to give him a licence to train.

'He was an extraordinarily fascinatin' man. Tall, lean-limbed, with a face like one of those Greek gods you see at the British Museum, an' a head of brown, curly hair that was goin' grey.

'So far as I could find out, he'd come into a lot of money— somethin' well into six figures— when he was twenty-one. He lived for a year at the rate of £500 a day, went into bankruptcy, an' was sent abroad. He made a fortune in the Argentine an' lost it in South Africa, floated a bogus company in Egypt, got concessions from the Turkish Government in Syria, an' turned up smilin' in England a rich man for the second time.

'Then he disappeared suddenly, an' about the same time a lot of excited shareholders made the discovery that the concession in Syria wasn't worth the paper it was written on, an' the assets of the Egyptian company were just worth the market value of a roller-top desk an' an easy chair, which formed the furniture of the company's office in Mincin' Lane. I don't know how they settled it, but I rather think that some of his rich relations paid up an' liquidated the company, an' a year later Kintock was in Monte Carlo with enough banknotes to stuff a portmanteau. Soon after this it was that he came to England to work the horses.

'I don't know how he froze on to Baine, but I can guess. Baine used to call himself a commission agent, had a house in Nottin' Dale, an' was a wrong 'un through an' through. A little bullet-headed man with an enormous slit of a mouth an' bow legs that were always done up in horsey-lookin' gaiters, he was well known at small meetin's an' made his livin' by chummin' up to inexperienced young men an' "tellin' the tale". His modus operandi was to get them to invest a few sovereigns on a horse that hadn't got an earthly chance of winnin'. He would take the few sovereigns an' "invest" them by puttin' the money in his pocket. When the horse lost he'd come back to the "mug" an' spin a beautiful yarn about how the horse would have won if he hadn't been interfered with at the start.

'Just about this time there was a young chap livin' in Kensin'ton Gardens by the name of Hite. He was one of those fellows who suffer from havin' too much money, an' naturally he turned to racin' as a cure for the disease. His father was one of them scientific fellows who don't take any notice of money, but spend their lives lookin' through a microscope to see the little bugs in the blood. A professor at Oxford he was, an' so young Sanderson Hite, who wasn't scientific, except with a book of form, got into touch with Baine.

'Baine noticed him at one or two race meetin's, an' particularly noticed that he was always alone, an' so he struck up a sort of acquaintance with him, an' told him "the tale."

'It was about the winner of the Newbury Spring Cup, an' Sandy took it all in, very eagerly.

'Only when it came to the question of partin' with five pounds he hesitated an' said he'd put the money on himself.

'To Baine's annoyance he went into the ring an' backed the horse which hadn't a hundred to one chance— for £250!

'Baine absolutely gnashed his teeth when he saw all this good money goin' into the bookmaker's pocket, but he nearly died with amazement when this "dead" horse he'd recommended won the race by a short head, beatin' a hot favourite.

'Two thousand pounds young Sandy cleared, an' he handed over a hundred to Baine for his information. After that, Baine couldn't do wrong so far as Sandy Hite was concerned. Seein' that he'd got hold of the original golden egg-layin' goose, Baine clamped himself on to it, an' laid himself out to get bona fide information, an' for weeks these two reaped in a fine harvest.

'The Captain was beginnin' to win a few races just then, but was bettin' very light, for him, so that when Baine mentioned "Sandy" an' asked if he could put him "on" to a good thing that the Captain was runnin', he said he didn't mind.

'Now, the most curious feature of the whole business was this, that Kintock never met Sandy, not even when he marked the boy down for pluckin'. He preferred to do it through Baine, an' what is more, he never touched Sandy for a penny until the great Highbury Boy bet.

'Highbury Boy was a two-year-old, the property of Lord Horling. Entered for all the classic races an' tried, almost as a yearlin', to be well above the average, Kintock purchased the colt, with his engagements, for ten thousand pounds.

'If ever there was a man who knew a horse, that man was the Captain, an' when he said that Highbury Boy would win the Derby, Baine believed him.

'He ran him in a couple of his engagements an' ran a "bye". The colt could have won on both occasions, but the jockey, ridin' to orders, contrived to get himself shut in.

'Then he brought him out for the Champagne Stakes at Doncaster, an' the Captain betted. He went into the ring, an' threw the money about as though he were bettin' on the most certain of certainties, an' Highbury Boy startin' at 2 to 1 a strong favourite, won in a common canter.

'That was the last race of his two-year-old days, an' when, just before Christmas of that year, bettin' on the next year's Derby began to creep into the papers, he would have been installed a hot favourite but for the disquietin' news published in the sportin' press, that he had trained off, accordin' to the papers.

'Baine was very prosperous in those days— I think he was on the Captain's pension list— an' I don't doubt that some of the exclusive information published in the London sportin' papers came from him.

'I saw him one day— Highbury Boy bein' at 20 to 1 an' me havin' backed him at sixes I was a bit upset.

'"What about this horse of yours, Baine?" I ses.

'"Highbury Boy?" ses he, innocent, "oh, he's trained off accordin' to the papers."

'"I know all about the papers," I ses; "are you their special correspondent?"

'"Without the word of a lie," he ses, very frank, "I am."

'The Craven Stakes, the first race in which Highbury Boy was entered as a three-year-old, came, an' the "Boy" was scratched; the Two Thousand Guineas, won by Bel Mere (who also won the Craven), passed without the colt's puttin' in an appearance. He ran at Kempton for the Jubilee Handicap an' finished tenth, an' he went right out of the Derby list an' was spoken of as a doubtful starter.

'On public form it looked a thousand pounds to an orange pip on Bel Mere, an' money was laid on him, an' the first an' most enthusiastic of his supporters was Sandy.

'He was very jubilant, an' very confident, because he'd had a good season the year before, an' he'd come into somethin' like £40,000 by the death of an aunt.

'"Baine," ses he one day when we were all in the tea-room at Newbury, "if these were the old days when one could bet in ten thousands, I could double my fortune on Bel Mere."

'"What do you mean by old days, Mr. Hite?" ses Baine. "It is just as easy to get a bet on for ten thousand, or one of even twenty thousand for the matter of that, as it ever was."

'Then he went on to tell him of Captain Kintock, of what a fine, generous "better" he was, an' how, even though Highbury Boy was a physical wreck, he was so cocksure that it would beat Bel Mere that he'd stake his life on it.

'Sandy bit at the bait quicker than Baine thought possible.

'"Would he?" he said eagerly. "What! After the Jubilee runnin'? I wish to goodness he would!"

'If you wonder why this young man was prepared to make such a huge bet, you have got to remember that Bel Mere was extraordinarily superior to any other horse in that race except Highbury Boy, an' that Highbury Boy was popularly supposed to be a cripple on crutches. Well, the long an' the short of the discussion was that Baine promised to see the Captain an' ask him if he was prepared to back Highbury Boy against Bel Mere, an' after a lot of palaver an' an exchange of polite letters, the Captain expressed himself as willin' to lay one bet of £15,000 against Bel Mere beatin' Highbury Boy.

'I heard all this afterwards.

'Derby Day came nearer, an' then I believe there was some more correspondence, an' the £15,000 bet was increased to £25,000, an' then the Captain had a bit of bad luck, for the story of this wager got into the papers, an' the first thing that happened was old Mr. Sanderson Hite got to hear of the foolish tricks that his son was playin', an' puttin' aside his microscope an' his test-tubes an' his electric batteries, he came down to see Kintock, one simple old man with no worldly knowledge worth speakin' about— an' Kintock so wise an' cunnin' an' glib.

'It was a gorgeous spring mornin' when he arrived at Epsom. Kintock had rented a house just outside the town, an' Highbury Boy was in the stable, guarded day an' night by a couple of men.

'They were sittin' out on the lawn takin' eleven o'clock tea— he was a very abstemious man was the Captain— when old Mr. Hite was announced.

'He came up the garden path, by Baine's account, a neat old figure dressed with scrupulous care. Spotless linen, perfectly fittin' frock coat, an' a big old-fashioned satin bow to his wing collar. His fashion was the fashion of forty years ago, he might have stepped out of an 1874 fashion plate.

'He got straight to business with Kintock with an old-fashioned quietness of speech an' courtesy that was very puzzlin' to Baine. Without any preliminary he started in about Highbury Boy.

'"I have taken the trouble," he ses, "to study the form— is that the word?— of Highbury Boy, an' to my surprise I find that it is quite possible to anticipate winners from the study of a horse's performances. If Highbury Boy were in good health, would he win the Derby, Mr. Kintock?"

'The Captain hesitated.

"Yes," he admitted after a pause.

'"Is he well?"

'The old man sat bolt upright in his chair, his thin white hands crossed upon his stick, an' the question was hurled at Kintock with a sudden ferocity that was surprisin'.

'Baine saw the Captain shift uneasily at the directness of the attack.

'Then the old man went on.

'"You have told me all I want to know," he ses. "I have made diligent search for the origin of the stories of your horse's illness, an' I have traced the rumours an' head shakin's an' whispered reports. Now, I ask you, sir," he went on, "to do me a favour."

'"I shall be happy to do anythin' in reason," said Kintock.

'"I ask you to take your bettin' book an' run your pen through the bets my son has made with you concernin' your horse."

'Kintock laughed.

'"That I shall not do," he said calmly.

'The old man rose with a little inclination of his head.

'"Then your horse will not win," he said with such an air of confidence that the Captain was startled. "I have given you a chance, an' you have refused to take it. I do not care a straw how much money you may make from your other dupes, I am satisfied that the foolish young man who is my son shall be saved from his folly." 'Then Kintock got wild at the old man's confidence, an' did a foolish thing, for he lost his temper an' spoke frankly.

'"My horse will win," he said angrily, "that's the truth, an' you might as well know it. Win! Why, Bel Mere will not see the way the Boy will go! An' as for your son, I hold him to his bargain. If he doesn't pay I'll post him, yes, by— "

'The old man turned to go; then he hesitated an' came back.

'"Would it be askin' too much if I asked your permission to see this wonderful horse of yours?" Then, as a suspicious frown gathered on Kintock's face, he went on, with a wry smile, "My interest is not an unnatural one, is it?"

'But Kintock's suspicions were aroused.

'"You may see the horse," he said, "but at a distance."

'He called Baine aside, an' told him to watch the old man closely, an' if he made any movement that threatened the horse's safety to grip him.

'He went to the stables himself, an' by-an'-by came back to invite the professor into the little meadow that adjoined the house, an' after a while the two grooms come in leadin' Highbury Boy.

'The old man stood with his 'ands behind him watchin' the beautiful bay as they led him up an' down.

'There never was a more perfect-lookin' colt than the Boy, an' somethin' like pride came into Kintock's face as he watched the horse movin'.

'Then the old man spoke.

'"Once more, Mr. Kintock, will you cancel my son's bet?"

'"No," said Mr. Kintock briefly, an' the old man nodded.

'Baine was watchin' him as a cat watches a mouse, but he made no sign. Still, with his hands clasped behind him, he stood like one lost in thought. Then he roused himself.

'"Very well," was all he said, an' with bent head an' knitted brows he accompanied us back to the garden.

'"I have one thing to say to you," he said to Kintock, "have you ever heard of a sayin', falsely ascribed to the Jesuits, that a man may do harm that good may come?"

'"I have heard that very frequently," said Kintock. "Moreover, that has been my creed."

'"Suppose," the old man said slowly, "suppose somebody got into the stable of this fine horse of yours, an'— "

'"Nobbled it?" smiled Kintock.

'"I think that is the word I have read in connection with similar occurrences," said Mr. Hite; "suppose this happened— suppose I sent my friends— "

'"Try," said Kintock with an ugly smile; "if you or they succeed in gettin' at Highbury Boy they're welcome. I shall not complain. If that is your hope of preventin' him winnin', you are buildin' upon sand. Good-morning."

'"We shall see," said old Mr. Sanderson Hite, an' he walked down the path to the gate.

'Baine went round to see the Boy boxed for the day, an' after Kintock had issued his orders to the grooms, who were devoted to him body an' soul, he walked back across the meadow.

'The Captain had already shaken off his annoyance, an' was laughin' quietly at the old man an' his threat.

'"He is certainly an original, an' if young Sandy had half his brains— hullo!"

'He stopped suddenly an' picked up a matchbox— he was the tidiest man I ever knew.

'"Who dropped this?" he said. Then he looked at the box an' whistled. On the outside was printed in red letters— Tompkins, Tobacconist, Cambridge. "The old man dropped that," he said with a frown, "he was standin' close to this spot. He is not the sort of man to carry an empty matchbox about for fun, he didn't look like a smoker; now, what is the meanin' of this?"

'Somehow old Mr. Hite's threat had a depressin' effect upon Kintock, an' he must have taken him more seriously than did Baine, for he ordered his bed to be taken to the room above the stables, an' had a square hole cut in the floor immediately over Highbury Boy's box, an' a pane of glass fitted. He was thus able to see all that was happenin' in the stable from the room above. He went farther than this, for he went to the police an' got a couple of officers specially detailed to watch the outside of the stable for the two nights that intervened between Mr. Hite's visit an' Derby Day. I was one of 'em, an' that's how I come to know all about this story.

'The Epsom summer meetin' begins on the Tuesday, an' it was on the Tuesday that Kintock started to bet. Highbury Boy stood at 50 to 1 in the list when Kintock started operations. He was a clever gambler, for he never showed his hand thoroughly. He had an agent in Holland backin' the horse, whilst he was simultaneously gettin' the odds from the biggest bookmakers on the course, an' by night Highbury Boy had been "backed down" to 4 to 1 an' was co-favourite with Bel Mere.

'Kintock's great fear had been that his foolish outburst might have been taken advantage of by old Hite; that he would spoil his market, an' he put a man on to watch the old fellow.

'The Captain came home to dinner the night before the Derby jubilant.

'"He's gone back to Cambridge," he said, with a triumphant laugh, "an' to think I was worryin' about him!"

'"He's thrown up the sponge," said Baine.

'"Capitulated without firin' a shot," smiled Kintock, "but it may be a ruse to throw us off our guard. The Boy must not be left out of our sight."

'Nothin' happened that night so far as I know, an' Derby Day dawned with me sittin' on a chair outside the favourite's stable smokin' a pipe.

'It was a glorious May day, with bright sunshine, an' a fleck or two of white cloud in the sky, an' the Downs were crowded. The people stood in a solid black mass up the hill, an' ten deep from the startin' gate, round Tattenham Corner, to the winnin' post. In the paddock, big as it is, there was scarcely room to walk about, but we found a corner where the crowd was thin, an' there we saddled Highbury Boy an' gave him his final preparation.

'Kerslake was the jockey, a lad who had won two Derbies, an' knew exactly every inch of the course.

'The bell rang, an' Kerslake mounted.

'Kintock had a few words with him, an' what the jockey said, I think, restored some of the Captain's assurance.

'"I stand to win £60,000," he said to me, as he an' Baine walked back to the rings, me an' Baine to Tattersalls, an' he to the Members' enclosure, "an' that old man got on my nerves."

'"Is he still at Cambridge?" says Baine, an' Kintock nodded.

'"I've had a man watchin' him there, an' I received a wire from him only half an hour ago, sayin' that Hite was lecturin' this mornin' at eleven, an' he had seen him a few minutes before he sent the wire."

'There was the usual parade an' canter, the usual string of horses pickin' a slow way across the Downs to the startin' gate, the usual delay, an' then—

'"They're off!"

'A roar from the stands an' an answerin' roar from the packed course as the bell rang, an' away went the field in a perfect line.

'Baine was on the rails just behind me, an' was readin' the race through his glasses.

'"Bel Mere is makin' the runnin' from Handy Lad, Mosempions, Highbury Boy, an' Cattino," he said.

'They breasted the hill in a bunch, an' came sweepin' to the left to the famous corner.

'They were all together when they turned into the straight, an' then without any glasses I saw Kerslake prepare to take his position.

'Bel Mere was leadin' an' already stands an' course resounded with the yell: "Bel Mere wins!"

'Then Kerslake went after the leader, caught him an' passed him in with one run an' down below in the ring a bookmaker shouted: "I'll back Highbury Boy!"

'Up went the whip of Bel Mere's rider, but he could get no nearer, an' Highbury Boy came with his devastatin' strides nearer an' nearer the post.

'Then he stopped . . .

'There is no other word to describe what happened.

'Stopped as dead as that horse did that was shot by the anti-gamblin' fanatic; then swerved right across the course, stopped again an' went down all of a heap as Bel Mere flashed past the post an easy winner.

'I saw Kintock's white face on the Members' stand as I ran across to the horse.

'Baine was at the horse's side first, an' with another policeman helped to lift the unconscious jockey. He was badly shaken by his fall, but was not seriously injured.

'But Highbury Boy was finished, you could see that, long before the vet came with the horse ambulance.

'Kintock, very quiet and self-possessed, directed operations.

'As it happened there were two famous veterinary surgeons on the course an' they accompanied us back to the house— the Captain, Baine, Inspector Carbury an' me.

'Highbury Boy was taken from the ambulance an' collapsed on the grass as we gathered round him.

'Very carefully one of the surgeons made his examination.

'"Has he been shot?" asked Kintock, but the doctor shook his head.

'He continued his examination; then asked if we had a microscope.

'Baine went into the town to borrow one, whilst the vet applied one or two rough an' ready remedies to the horse. By-an'-by he rose an' stood by the horse, eyein' him thoughtfully.

'"Remarkable, very remarkable," he ses; then he asked if he might see the stable.

'He went in by himself an' was there ten minutes, an' when he came out he held in his hand— a matchbox!

'Kintock started back with an oath.

'"Where did you get that?" he demanded.

'The surgeon looked surprised.

'"Out of my pocket," he said, an' just then Baine came back with the microscope.

'The veterinary surgeon took a little blood from the horse with the point of a needle an' adjourned to the house.

'He was back in five minutes.

'"Have you had any person here interested in tropical diseases?" he asked.

'A slow light dawned on Kintock's face an' he nodded.

'"Because," said the vet, "whoever it was must have inadvertently left behind him, these."

'He opened the matchbox he still held in his hand an' produced two dead flies.

They were a little larger than the house-fly, of a dark-brown colour, an' their wings were folded over their backs in the shape of scissors.

'"This," said the vet, "is the fly which is known to science as the Glossina morsitans, or as it is commonly called the 'tsetse fly'. Its bite is almost certain death to a horse, though, curiously enough, the usual symptoms peculiar to the disease are absent in your horse. Do you know who brought the flies here?"

'"I can guess," ses the Captain with a grim smile.'

________________________

9: A Case for Angel, Esquire

Ideas, March 24, 1909

THERE was a Minister of France— was it Necker?— who suggested on a memorable occasion that the people should eat grass. He was no vegetarian, he was just being rude; and when, on a subsequent occasion, an indignant populace slew him, in some grim way they decorated the body significantly.

If it should happen that the lawless folk of Notting Dale should ever fall upon Police Constable Lee, I doubt not that the jibe with which they will assail him will have some reference to 'sparrows,' for to the mysterious agency of the 'little sparrow' is due a great deal of the worthy officer's unpopularity amongst a certain class of people in his salubrious district.

PC Lee, in mufti, stepped round to the marine store of Cokey Salem, and asked to see the proprietor.

Cokey, so-called because of the commodity he runs as a side line to the rag-and-bone business, was not at home.

He shouted down the stairs to his frowsy wife to that effect and PC Lee was not convinced.

After a while, Cokey was induced to come down into the evil-smelling shop, and he did this with an ill grace.

'Hullo,' he said, gruffly, 'what's this— water rates?'

'To be exact,' said PC Lee, gently, 'it's a question of lead pipin', feloniously removed from unoccupied premises, to wit, 914, Kensington Park Road.'

'Ho!' said the defiant Cokey, 'an' what's that gotter do with me?'

'If you'll kindly step round to the station,' said the police-constable, 'I daresay you can explain the whole matter to our inspector in a few words.'

'Suppose I don't?'

'In that case,' said the thoughtful constable, 'I shall be under the painful necessity of takin' you.'

Cokey choked back a wicked word, put on his coat and hat, and accompanied the constable.

'Where did you nose this job?' he asked, vulgarly.

'A little sparrer,' said the reflective PC, 'happened—'

'I'd like to get hold of that sparrer of yours,' said Cokey, between his teeth, I'd wring his blanky neck.'

On the occasion under review, Cokey did not convince a sceptical inspector of his innocence. Nor had he any better luck with a frozen-faced magistrate, who listened dispassionately to Cokey's somewhat involved story. According to Cokey the lead piping found on his premises had

'Fallen like the gentle rain from heaven, upon the place beneath.'

This magistrate, who had never been known to smile, relaxed when Cokey adduced his crowning argument that the piping had been placed in his yard by the police, and committed Cokey to the Middlesex Sessions.

The Chairman of that Court, aided by a bored jury, found Cokey guilty of receiving, and the Chairman having, figuratively speaking, said it would be as much as his place was worth to give him less, sent Cokey to prison with hard labour for nine calendar months.

Whereupon the prisoner, affectionately addressing PC Lee, said that on some future occasion he would have the heart, lungs, and important blood vessels of the impassive officer— though exactly what he would do with them he did not say.

I saw PC Lee some nine months later, and knowing that Cokey was at liberty, I expressed my surprise at finding him still alive.

PC Lee smiled.

'If the Government would give prisoners leave of absence on the day they are sentenced,' he said, 'I daresay he might have caused me inconvenience; but barrin' that, I shall die a natural death. If a chap who had been sentenced heavily suddenly found himself pardoned, he'd be so overjoyed that he wouldn't have any time to hate me or any other constable, an' even a man who goes to a long term soon loses all the bad feelin' he ever had, an' comes out of "stir" full of a peace-on-earth-an'-good-will feelin'.

'In prison you've got a lot of time to think, an' if a man isn't a lunatic, he works out the situation reasonably an' comes to the conclusion that the constable has only done his duty, an' by the time the sentence is worked out, he's lost all his dislike for the man who lagged him.

'The only time I ever knew a man to bear animosity was in the case of the Newton Lane Robbery.

'If you don't remember the case. I'll give it to you in a few words. A cashier from one of the Ladbroke Grove shops was goin' back to his premises from the bank at Notting Hill Gate, when he was set upon by half-a-dozen roughs, knocked down an' robbed. All this happened in broad daylight, but in an unfrequented little turning, an' the assailants got away.

'It so happened that I was off duty (I was in X Division at the time), but I got to hear of the case when I reported for duty that night.

'The young fellow who was robbed had been taken to the hospital, but as he wasn't so badly hurt, he was allowed to go home. Accordin' to him, he wouldn't be able to recognise any of the party.

'Now, the detection of crime, as I see it, is a simple matter. The criminal is the obvious person. Don't you believe these detective stories that tell you that the feller found with the diamonds in his pocket is the innocent hero— he's only the innocent hero in story books. In real life he's the feller that did the robbery.

'When the police find a little sub-post-office has been robbed, an' the postmaster lyin' bound an' gagged, or when they see a bank clerk lyin' on the floor with the smell of chloroform hangin' round an' the safe open, they know it's 33 to 1 that they've got the robber first pop, an' that the enterprisin' burglar, as the song says, is the young feller found in such a romantic attitude.

'Unprofessional criminals spend too much of their time in preparin' picturesque scenes, an' professional criminals spend too much time in gettin' ready alibis, an' between one an' the other the police have a fairly easy time.

'So that it was only natural that our first suspicions fastened on the feller that had been robbed, an' there were certain features of it that made this view likely. Nobody had seen him attacked, nobody had seen men comin' away from the scene of the crime, an' if he hadn't been so badly injured there would have been no doubt whatever that he was the robber himself, an' the whole 'outrage' a fake.

'This might have been the case with the young cashier, only there was a remarkable flaw in the theory. He'd left the bank with five notes for a hundred pounds (which had been drawn for the purpose of sendin' to Russia to settle an account), an' this he placed in a big handbag which he carried, an' which was found open an' empty.

'He was carefully searched, but no money was on him when he was found. He had been seen enterin' the little street. One of the bank clerks, who happened to leave the bank at the same time, had walked with him to the entrance of the street, an' nobody had been seen to leave at either end before he was discovered. If he'd stolen 'em himself— what had happened to the banknotes? He couldn't bury 'em. There was no place in the street itself where they could have been hidden— you may be sure that we searched every possible hidin' place— an' the police were forced to believe that his story was true.

'The only thing against the man was that his firm had lost money before from their office. Ten, twenty, an' fifty pound notes had vanished, but the cashier was so above suspicion, an' had always insisted upon bein' the first to be searched, that they had never dreamt of connectin' him with any theft, an' had discharged clerk after clerk in consequence.

'It was such an interestin' case that the Yard sent down Mr Angel— you wrote about him didn't you?— a rare nice gentleman, who's always pullin' your leg, but very pleasant with it.

'Our inspector was asked to tell off a man to accompany Mr Angel, an' to my surprise I was chosen instead of some of our smart fellers.

'"Lee," says the inspector, "you go round with Mr Angel, an' introduce him to some of the 'heads' in your neighbourhood." So, in a manner of speakin', I was put in charge of Angel.

'But, bless you, he didn't want any introducin'! He knew all the toughs: knew Nick Moss, an' Percy Steel, an' Jim the Fence; knew 'em as if he'd been brought up with 'em— an' they knew him.

'We might have saved ourselves the trouble, because we learnt very little from these chaps, except from Nick Moss.

'"Hullo. Nick," says Angel, Esquire, most cheerfully, "how is the ladder larceny business?"

'Nick grinned a bit sheepish.

'"I'm straight now, Mr Angel," he says; "the other game's a mug's game."

'"Cutting out all your blessed platitudes," says Angel, "which of your college companions did this last little job?"

'"If I never move from here," says Nick, most solemn, "if I die this very minute, if— "

'"Havin' been duly sworn," says Mr Angel, "it is unnecessary to go any further— I gather from your interestin', but altogether unnecessary, protestation that you don't know."

'"That's right, sir," says Nick.

'Mr Angel told me later that he quite believed Nick didn't know for sure, but he thought that he had a suspicion.

'We examined the street where the robbery was committed. It is a street with stables on one side an' little houses on the other, an' connects Portobello Road with Pembridge Road.

'Nobody could give us any information about the robbery; in the majority of cases the first they knew about it was when the cashier had been found lyin' on the side-walk. Next we made a few inquiries about the cashier an' found that he was a most respectable man, with money of his own in the bank, a churchwarden, an' a member of the Young Men's Christian Association. What was most important was, he'd got money of his own in the bank.

"I'm afraid, Lee," says Mr Angel, "that this case must go down to history as 'The Notting Hill Mystery,'" and so it might have done but for the fact that one of the most curious coincidences happened that you could ever imagine.

'You've heard me talk about my "little sparrow?" It's a wheeze I work on the lads who want to know where I get all my valuable information from. This "cod" of mine got round to Mr Angel's ears, an' he remarked to me, in that jokin' way of his:

'"What a pity, Lee, your feathered friend can't supply us with a brilliant word picture of what happened— "

'He stopped short sudden, an' frowned thoughtfully.

'"By George!" says he, "I wonder if that is possible?"

'I couldn't see what he was gettin' at, so I waited.

'"We'll go round an' see our cashier friend," says Angel, so off we went to a neat little house near Wormwood Scrubbs.

'He was a bachelor, but rented a house, an' he opened the door to us himself, an' invited us in.

'It was a comfortably furnished sittin'-room, an' I saw Angel give a quick glance round as though sizing up the place. The only thing I noticed was that Mr Killun— that was his name— made a hasty attempt to fold up a newspaper that he'd been readin'.

'Killun was a pale-faced youth with uneven features an' a shifty eye, an' I disliked him from the first.

'"Readin', Mr Killun?" says Angel.

'"Yes," says Killun, quickly, "I'm naturally interested in learnin' if the police have any clue as to the people who robbed me."

'Angel, Esquire nodded, but said nothin'.

'By-an'-bye, he asked carelessly: "By the way, what are Southern Pacific Preferred?"

'"Sixty-four," said Killun, quick— then checked himself— "at least, I believe so— I don't take much interest in Stock Exchange transactions."

'"I suppose not," says Angel, an' went on talkin' about the robbery an' about things in general. He touched on the Lincoln Handicap, but Mr Killun said he knew nothin' about racin', an' that was probably so, because Angel referred to the Lincoln as a two mile race, an' no racin' man could have resisted the temptation to correct him.

'We left, an' Angel went away to London to make a few inquiries. He came back that night, an' together we went to Killun's house.

'"I want to see the bag you carried the notes in," says Angel.

'To my surprise the man produced it. I was surprised, because the bag ought to have been in the possession of the police, an' it only shows you how we are sometimes caught nappin', for without that bag the robber might never have been caught.

'Angel took the bag and examined it.

'"This is an enormous bag to carry five hundred pound notes in?"

'"It's the only one I've got," said the man, a little sullenly.

'Angel took it under the light an' inspected the inside. Then he laid a sheet of paper on the table an' shook out the contents. There was nothin' in it, except a few crumbs of tobacco, a little dust, an' somethin' that Angel, Esquire picked up an' examined carefully.

'It was a tiny grey feather, an' he nodded slowly.

'Then he turned to Killun.

'"I shall take you into custody," he said, "on a charge of stealin' five hundred pounds, the property of your employer."

'"It's a lie!" said Killun, hoarsely, an' tried to bolt. But I caught him, an' as he was inclined to be a little bit fresh, I put the handcuffs on him.

'We took him down to the station, an' then went back an' searched the house. On the roof, in a cage, we found a pigeon.

'"There's your little bird, Lee," says Angel, with a chuckle. "That's one of the little birds that was in Mr Killun's big bag. Not this chap, but others like him. A hundred-pound note fastened with an elastic band round each leg— an' whiff!— goes five hundred. He must have sent three birds."

'Angel spent some time that night concoctin' a message. He wrote it on a slip of thin paper an' fitted it to the pigeon's leg. Then he flew the pigeon.

'Next mornin', at eleven o'clock, we arrested an eminent bucket-shop* keeper, who turned up outside the Mansion House by appointment— Angel made the appointment.

[* Bucket-shop: A fraudulent brokerage operation in which orders to buy and sell are accepted but no executions take place. Instead, the operators expect to profit when customers close out their positions at a loss.]

'This,' said PC Lee, impressively, 'proves my words, that the real criminal is the obvious criminal. Killun had been speculatin' an' had got into difficulties with the bucket-shop. The man that ran the shop wanted the money, an' bein' a bit of a pigeon fancier, had suggested a way of gettin' Killun out of his difficulties.

'Killun would take the birds in his bag to the office, an' whenever he could lay his hands on paper money, would nip out into the cloakroom, fix the note, an' fly the bird through a window, an' be back at his desk before anybody noticed his absence.'

__________________________

10: The Junior Reporter

Weekly Tale-Teller, May 29, 1909

IF the junior reporter approached the platform with awe and reverence, it was because he was the junior reporter.

You must understand that Sir Thomas was in the chair, and Mr. Hilldry (Lord of the Manor) was prominently displayed in the front row of the platform.

Miss Cicily was there, too— they say down at Taunborough that she has half-a-million in her own right— and the canon and goodness knows what other celebrities.

The junior reporter, who was born and bred in Taunborough, looked round the crowded audience, and his heart swelled with pride that Taunborough had risen to the occasion; that Taunborough had been worthy of itself; and it may be that in this his melting mood a youthful tear glistened in his eye. He rather hoped that Sir Thomas would recognise him, but somehow Sir Thomas had no eyes for the line of young men that sat at the reporters' table sharpening their pencils.

Naturally enough, with Mr. Hilldry contesting the seat, rendered vacant by the retirement of his brother, local feeling ran high. Indeed, the junior reporter, telegraphing to his newspaper at Bristol, had said so in exactly those words. Naturally, too, the junior reporter reflected that shade of political opinion so ably represented by Mr. Hilldry.

Because it was an important by-election, there were reporters from London and from Plymouth, and between a Londoner and weary Devonian the junior reporter found himself.

They were both very pleasant young men, especially he who came from London. He had a shock of hair and wore pince-nez, and before Sir Thomas rose to open the meeting he leant across to his colleague from Devonshire and asked:

"What's it worth?"

"This?" said the Devonshire man, sharpening his pencil. "Oh, about a short half for us."

"Two sticks for us," grumbled the gentleman from town, "unless," he added, hopefully, "there's a riot."

"There'll be no riot," said the other contemptuously, "Taunborough's the slowest place on earth!"

The junior reporter listened resentfully; for his part, so far from a "short half," this meeting would be recorded in five closely-set columns.

"Who's Sir Thomas?" asked the London man.

The junior reporter would have been delighted to volunteer the necessary information, but the Devon man anticipated him.

"Oh, Sir Thomas," he said offhandedly, just as though he'd been discussing some ordinary man, "is a local person, a little tin god in his way— he'll bore your head off."

The junior gasped.

"If he speaks for an hour," the Devon man went on gloomily, "there won't be two lines you can report; but perhaps," he reflected, "he won't speak."

"What is the candidate like?"

"Shocking," said the Devon man frankly.

The junior reporter found his voice.

"Perhaps, gentlemen," he said with elaborate sarcasm, "the candidate's views do not coincide with yours."

The London man regarded him curiously.

"Speaking for myself, they don't," he confessed. "That is partly because I have no views; so far as the political colour of my paper is concerned, we are red-hot supporters of the candidate."

"Politics," said the Devonshire oracle, "means one set of rotters trying to chuck another set of rotters out— — "

"Ladies and gentlemen..." (Roars of cheering).

Sir Thomas was on his feet, and the junior reporter poised his pencil over virgin pad.

"Ladies and gentlemen. I am sure— I am quite sure that you do not expect me, that you are not expecting a speech, a long speech from me tonight, this evening. We all know, most of us know, in fact we all know, we are all well acquainted with our friend and neighbour Mr. Hilldry Simes-Patrick. (Cheers.) I've known him, that is, I remember him when he was a little boy, quite a small boy in frocks. (Laughter.) I remember his father...."

"He's started," groaned the gentleman from Devonshire.

A sibilant whisper ran along the reporters' table.

"Somebody wants you," said the Devon man, and the Londoner leant forward and looked down the table.

"You taking this?" asked the whisperer hoarsely.

"No," said the London man.

"Good," said the whisperer, "I was afraid you were— how long will he talk...."

Sir Thomas had stopped speaking and was glaring at the audience.

A thin old man with big gig-lamp spectacles on his nose, and clutching a bundle of notes, was standing up, to the indignation of his scandalised neighbours.

"...I would like to ask Sir Thomas," he piped.

"I cannot answer you— wait until I have finished my speech," said Sir Thomas, very red in the face.

"...Will you explain the attitood of Mr. Chamberlain in the year 1875, when he said...."

"Sit down! Sit down, sir!"

"...Speakin' at the town 'all Birmingham on March 10th he referred to the dooty of the proletariat...."

No man cried "Sit down!" more fiercely than did the junior reporter; no partisan applauded Sir Thomas more vigorously, and certainly no journalist took so complete and copious a note of the great man's speech as did that representative of the press.

"A quarter of an hour," said the Devon man gratefully, when the chairman resumed his seat amidst loud and continued cheering. (I quote again from the script of the junior reporter.)

A burst of wild cheering: "For he's a jolly good feller" in several keys, and a smiling figure at the chairman's table.

"This," said the London man, apprehensively, "is, I presume, His Nibs!"

"That's him," said young Devonshire, ungrammatically.

Those excerpts I have been able to take from the junior reporter's book enable me to fit in the speech— as I heard it.

"... the pendulum has swung back, and the pendulum has swung true."

"A little bit mixed up in his metaphor," said the Devonshire reporter.

The junior, who thought the figure of speech beautifully apt, scowled.

"... We are going forward to a winning cause, the goal is in sight and we will not turn back— (cheers)— the prosperity of the country is in the hands of the people, let there be no...."

"What did he say after 'people,'?" asked the London man.

"I don't know," said the Devon man in despair. "Whatever he said doesn't matter much."

The junior reporter could have told them, but he spitefully covered the passage "let there be no wavering in the ranks of progress" with the palm of his hand.

The gentleman from London ran his fingers through his hair wearily.

"There were three jobs I might have taken," he said deliberately. "I might have done a memorial service, or the opening of the Oyster Fishery Exhibition, or the Brixton murder; and to think," he soliloquised bitterly, "to think that I chose this!"

"... whatever might be the opinion of a few self-seeking politicians with axes to grind— (cheers)— the vast majority of the electorate is in favour of...."

"I rather like funerals," mused the Devon man, "you get such a splendid opportunity of ringing the changes on 'sombre magnificence' and 'gloomy grandeur'— why didn't you take the memorial service?"

The London man yawned and shook his head wearily.

"... we cannot put back the clock— (cheers)— we cannot— er— identify ourselves with an anachronism...."

The junior reporter, with a rapt frown, scribbled down the burning words, faithfully, religiously, literally.

"....if you send me to the House of Commons—"

Above the speaker's monotonous voice rose a shrill cry. A cry that sent an indignant flush to the junior reporter's cheek, that brought a bright light to the eye of the London man, that jerked a dozen bored metropolitan journalists to their feet seeking the face of the interrupting member of the audience.

Again the thin voice.

"Votes for wimmin!"

"Madam," muttered the London man under his breath, as the uproar began, "from the bottom of my heart I thank you!"

"So—" (I quote the junior reporter again) "the meeting concluded in great disorder, owing to the unseemly conduct of two ladies." And after "ladies" the junior reporter put marks like this: (?), but his all-wise editor cut them out.

________________________

11: The Linchela Rebellion

Weekly Tale-Teller, October 9, 1909

AS a variation of the tag that nothing new comes out of Africa I commend the saying of His Excellency the Governor-General of Manica and Sofala that "In Africa, all things are possible."

This is partly a story of Africa, and partly a story of journalism, and partly a biographical sketch of the rise of William James Gill, that eminent explorer and man of letters.

There is a great blob of country that lies between the Congo basin and German South-West Africa. Its exports are slaves tor the cocoa fields, its imports are mainly gin, and it is referred to in all the learned geographies in the chapters on "The Civilisation of Africa." Some say that there are parts of that wild country that have never been tamed, and certainly from time to time Portugal sends a few thousand soldiers who land at Mossamedes and march into the interior. I have never heard that any of them returned.

Because of this perpetual unsettlement, the Linchela Rebellion was always possible, and, if William James Gill had not exploited it, I do not doubt but that somebody else would have done so.

William James Gill, being accepted as the fool of the family, set his heart upon being a pirate; his father, being the bigger fool, chose the Church for his son. By some misadventure William James found to his unbounded surprise that he had passed the necessary examination that took him to the Ecclesiastical Schools at Wells. When he recovered from his astonishment he ran away. He had outgrown his early desire for piracy, but in a letter written from Plymouth to his outraged parent, he expressed (inter alia) his intention of making a fortune in the wilds of Africa. His father hastened to inform him that he had cut him out of his will, and out of his heart, but this trite, theatrical, and pompous pronouncement was returned through the Dead Letter Office, William James having sailed by an Elder-Dempster boat for the Coast.

The conversation between William and the Elder-Dempster agent is a sad commentary on the ignorance of the modern young man, and the value of a University education.

"I want to go to Africa," said William James, with the high light of resolve in his nice blue eyes.

"Yes, sir?" said the agent, and waited.

"Africa," repeated William, with an air of finality.

"Dahka, Sierra Leone, Flagstaff, Bassam, Lagos, Boma, St. Paul de Lonanda, Benguella, Mossamedes?" recited the agent patiently. He was getting perilously near to the end of the Elder-Dempster itinerary.

"St. Paul de Lonanda," hesitated William, "that sounds all right." So he took his ticket.

The Cape Verde Islands, no less than the Grand Canaries, were exactly as William James had pictured them, but Sierra Leone came as a shock. He had thought of this place conventionally as "the white man's grave"— a stretch of yellow sand under a hot sun, with palm trees and things. Instead, there rose out of the sea, to his astounded gaze, a great mountain covered with verdure, with tiny white houses on its slopes, and a prosperous little city at its base.

"This can't be Sierra Leone?" he said in amazement.

Then somebody explained that "Leone" meant "lion" and "Sierra" stood for mountain in the Spanish tongue, and that "Sierra Leone" meant the "Mountain of the Lion."

William James was tremendously impressed, and made a note of the interesting fact in his diary. Little Bassam was more like the coast of his dreams. The ship landed forty huge barrels. They were roped together and made a monstrous string of beads as a panting tug boat hauled them to the shore.

"What might they contain?" asked William, and his informant said tersely, "Rum," and added, "for the natives."

This was the beginning of the boy's education. It was continued at Lonanda, where he went to make his fortune, and found that whilst a fortune might be made in the course of time, the hotels charged at the rate of 10/- a day during the period of waiting.

Life would be very pleasant if the unhappy patches could be ...'d, and it is infinitely more simple to write of the education of W.J. than it would be to experience. He found a job at £12 a month transport-riding to the Katanga... When he recovered from his fever he went with a Portuguese half-breed down on to the Kalahari edge of Angola... fortunately he was found in time by a patrol of the B.B.P.

He explained to the corporal that the Portuguese gentlemen had deserted him, carrying away his supplies, his rifle and ammunition and the rest of his visible means of support.

So he had wandered on and on, living on the charity of natives (there was a palaver at one village, did be but know it, and the question of "chopping" W.J. was vigorously debated). So he came to the edge of the Kalahari and foolishly essayed the crossing ... stands for a torturing thirst, a maddening hell of misery, a sun that blistered, and everlasting Dust Devils.

"How you got out of that dam' streak alive beats me," said the admiring N.C.O. of the Bechuanaland Border Police.

"He's born to be hung, Gus," said his familiar... At Cape Town W.J. found work in an Adderley Street store.

This was twelve months later and he had come to the Cape via Taung, Klerksdorp, Johannesburg, Klerksdorp again, Kimberley and De Aar. At De Aar, weary of walking, he found shelter in an empty railway wagon. He was wakened in the night by some very unpleasant shunting operations, went to sleep again, and woke up to find himself travelling at 30 miles an hour on route for Cape Town... Men were wanted for the new railway from Lobito Bay to Katanga, so he drew his month's salary, took a ticket for Lobito Bay (he knew all the ports by heart now), and left Cape Town on a floundering tramp steamer with a light heart.

Ernest Frederick Gill, W.J.'s father, never referred to his son; Millicent Mary Gill, W.J.'s mother, used to weep in secret, and had sundry premonitions that her son was dead. She had these on an average twice monthly. She knew nothing of W.J.'s adventures, because the only letters he ever wrote were posted at Lonanda, where their bulky appearance attracted the attention of a postal official at that port and were opened. Finding no tightly-packed banknotes, as he had expected, he put the letters in his fire. So W.J.'s mother knew nothing of the doings of Lonanda.

Naturally, she did not know of the trip to Lobito Bay, and how, not finding work, W.J. started to tramp across country to Rhodesia, of how W.J. came upon his friend, the half-breed Portuguese.

She knew nothing of the explanations and voluble excuses the Portuguese offered, or of how W.J. jerked out a revolver and shot Senhor Saumarez through the stomach. Even the Angola authorities knew nothing of this.

W, J. struck a Rhodesian town somewhere near the Angola border. I will not disclose the name of the town, because the citizens might not like it. I will call it Umtambo, and tell you it was a township which had grown up around a rich little reef, that boasted a Zeederberg coach service, an hotel, a court-house, a newspaper, and a gaol.

W.J. wandered all round the reef looking for work, but he'd arrived in an evil hour, when the Rhodesian Government over in Salisbury was debating the question of the new gold law, and work had been suspended until the question of Retrospective Taxation had been finally settled.

Sitting in the shadow of the courthouse, wondering where his dinner was coming from, and gazing pensively at the big toe that peeped through his dilapidated right boot (this would have shocked Millicent Mary Gill almost as much as the shooting of Saumarez), he was beckoned by a young man, who was sitting astride a restless horse and was unable to get any closer to him than the middle of the ramshackle street.

"Hi!" said the young man.

"Go to blazes!" said W.J. sourly.

"You have just come through Linchela's country?" shouted the youth. W.J.'s form of address brought no sense of novelty.

"Yas," drawled W.J.

"Hear anything about the fightin'?"

"Ya-as!" said W.J.

"Then you're the man!" said the youth, and recklessly dismounted. He introduced himself as the editor and part proprietor of the Umtambo Message, and seating himself by W.J.'s side prepared to make a note.

"Hold hard," said the young man from the Theological School at Wells. "Where do I come in?"

"If your stuff is worth printing, I'll stand you a drink," said the young man magnificently, and W.J. guffawed.

"I'll see you in the hot watertight bulkheads of steaming Hades," said W.J. picturesquely, "before I let you suck my brains for a three-real drink. I'll see you saggin'."

"Let us talk business," said the young man earnestly, and explained that in addition to being editor and part proprietor of the Umtambo Message, he was the Umtambo correspondent of most of the papers that are issued from Fleet Street, and not a few of those that live in the provinces.

Whereupon W.J. struck a bargain, and for two pounds sterling, a week's board and lodging, and a new pair of boots, he told the thrilling story of the Linchela Rebellion, of the turmoil, then burnings, killings, raids, massacres, that had been a feature of the outbreak. It was dead easy.

"This is my forte," said W.J. to himself. "I can live on— what did he call the brute?— Linchela, for months."

So the editor of the Umtambo Message sent a wire to his various London newspapers that began, "Intrepid Explorer, William James Gill arrived from Linchela country, tells thrilling story of massacre..."

"And who the dickens is William James Gill?" asked thirty-five foreign editors simultaneously.

Ernest Frederick Gill, reading his morning newspaper the following morning, said, "Ha!" and folded his paper to read more comfortably, and the family of Gills that sat round the breakfast table preserved a respectful silence, as was its wont when E. F. Gill condescended to read things aloud from his newspaper.

"Ha!" said E. F. Gill again.

"There is some news about that African trouble at last." He mumbled through an introductory paragraph, and began:

"Our special correspondent at Umtambo wires: 'The intrepid and famous traveller, William James Gill—'"

He stopped.

"William James Gill?" he repeated, like a man in a dream.

"It's not Willie?" fluttered Millicent Mary, on the verge of tears.

"William James Gill?" repeated the head of the family slowly. "That's very curious— I've never heard of any other William James Gill."

(Which was exactly what thirty-five foreign editors had said, only they omitted the word "other.")

"If it is Willie?" said Mr. Gill, senior, "and then I don't see why it shouldn't be, the boy has any amount of grit, determination, initiative. He comes," said E. F. modestly, "from a stock which has given, time after time, its best work to the service of the State."

(E. F.'s grandfather had held a post of honour in the Inland Revenue Department.)

It was Willie, of course. William James, sitting in Umtambo's best hotel, was famous without realising it. Numerous foreign editors wired furiously to the editor of the Umtambo Message, and their messages were to this effect:

"Send Gill back to Linchela country; get good exclusive story for us."

The Government at Lisbon wired to the Governor at Benguella to the following effect:—

"What is this yarn about rising in Linchela country? Thought it was squashed."

To which the Governor replied that it was squashed, and that any statement to the contrary was "a lie."

This Lisbon published broadcast, but the wily foreign editors in London said, "Oh, yes," and "I know," and "We've had these official denials before." By this time W.J. was on his way back to the Linchela country with strict instructions to get exclusive stories for The Daily Times, The Telegram, The Standard News, The Evening Post, The Morning Mail, and several other papers.

W.J., never having been in the Linchela country before, never having heard of it, until the devil put it into his heart to invent grisly scenes for the edification of a young editor and part proprietor, found some difficulty in reaching his objective.

When he did, he discovered Linchela in the innocent pursuit of domestic happiness, and the warriors, on whose ferocity he had erected the fabric of his story, peaceably engaged in the Central African equivalent for marbles.

"This will never do," said the shocked W.J., and saw the chief, the great Linchela himself.

"War?" said the chief. "Master, there is peace in the land. Linchela's heart is soft toward the Portuguese, his hand is outstretched in friendship, his feet turn— "

"When you've finished this anatomical palaver," said W.J. coldly, "will you be good enough to listen to reason?" And W.J. spoke eloquently of the valour of the chief's people, of how their enemy's hearts turned to water at the sight of them, and what a wicked waste of talent it was possessing all these qualifications for riotous living, Linchela let his people stagnate.

The chief listened in silence. "Master," he said, when W.J. had finished, "I am for peace; I love the Portuguese— "

"That is not only a lie but an unnatural one," said W.J., and went off in a huff.

He returned to Umtambo with six separate and distinct stories of assaults, repulses, heroisms, barbarities, and desolations, and the editor and part proprietor fell on his neck and advanced him £70 on account of expenses.

For three years he kept the Linchela country in a state of uproar. Sometimes whole districts would be devastated, sometimes the natives would storm a Portuguese fort, sometimes (when he was in a generous mood) they would be repulsed with slaughter. After a while he'd earned enough money from his correspondence to buy a half-share in the Umtambo Message, also he bought a gold watch and chain and a house. Best of all, one night he bought the bank in a hot game of baccarat and took £6,300 out of the citizens of Umtambo... and the war with Linchela nearly came to an abrupt end, there being no further occasion to continue same.

"My son?" said E. F. Gill proudly, "yes, William James Gill, the great explorer and correspondent, is my son." He was being interviewed by a representative of the Stayboro' Herald, which was a sort of civilised Umtambo Message. "He was originally intended for the Church, but his mind running upon adventure I sent him to the Cape, where, after holding a Government appointment, he set out on behalf of the Government to make a report on the minerals of Rhodesia..."

You will observe that there are certain qualities that all the Gills possess in common.

Now the Linchela Rebellion was an important rebellion without being a serious one— I am speaking from the point of view of the newspapers— and when editors and their satellites met together with the object of planning the next day's newspapers some conversation like the following would ensue:

Editor: "Anything startling?"

Satellite (humbly): "No, sir. Fire at Bermondsey."

Editor: "Huh?"

Satellite: "Bye-election."

Editor: "Bah! What about the Linchela Rebellion? Send a wire to William James Gill and ask him for the latest developments."

By this will be seen the value of W.J.'s little war.

By-and-by it took on a new aspect. On the back pages of popular weeklies would appear such useful information as:

The Wars of the Roses lasted forty-seven years.

The Linchela Rebellion has lasted three years and is not yet suppressed.

The tallest soldier in the British Army is Captain Ames, who is 6 ft. 7 1/2 in.

IT WAS IN VAIN that Portugal protested that there was no war. In vain that they brought home Linchela himself to prove it. (W.J.'s scathing exposure of that trick was a notable contribution to the literature of the subject.)

In vain that independent investigators penetrated to the Linchela country, and wrote fluent and special articles in the Diário de Lisboa on the peaceful condition of the land.

"Hireling pens," said W.J. scornfully, and sent a column news letter descriptive of a raid made upon the Portuguese camp and the annihilation of the European force.

"In my ears," wrote W.J., "still ring the fierce shouts of the painted warriors, the boom of the tom-tom as it led them to the attack. I hear again the shrill cries for mercy..."

In the end Portugal sent out to Angola a special commissioner with unlimited powers. This Senhor de Silva was an intelligent and amiable gentleman, and he did not attempt to go to the Linchela country. Rather he went straight to Umtambo and found William James Gill in the act of writing a leader for the Message on "Government Morality."

Senhor de Silva asked W.J. if he would come outside, and the editor and proprietor (as he now was) accepted the invitation.

"The fact of the matter is, Mr. Gill," said the special commissioner, "we are getting rather tired in Lisbon of this war of yours."

"Not mine, I assure you," W.J. hastened to remark.

"Yours," said the commissioner firmly. "The description of the Portuguese attack on Linchela's village could only have been written by a man who knows as much about military tactics as a cow does of painting china."

W.J. got very red.

"But we are not amused," Senhor de Silva went on, "and what is worse than all, our Republican papers are taking your war seriously and are attacking the Government for hushing it up."

"Well?" said W.J.

"Well," said the special commissioner, "we regard you as a gentleman of infinite tact and judgment. You know the country, you know Linchela, you know the cause of the war."

"Naturally," said W.J., and coughed.

"What I want you to do," said the commissioner, "is to go down into the Linchela country and settle the war. Settle it for good and I will pay you a fee of £3,000— we will throw in a couple of decorations if they have any fascination for you."

"But," said W.J., "on what basis do you fix my remuneration at £3,000?"

Senhor de Silva shrugged his shoulders.

"We regard this as your war, we will give you three years' purchase— is it a bet?"

"It's a bet," said W.J., and shook hands on the bargain.

W.J. NOW LIVES in England. The local flyman will point out his house to you.

"That's William James Gill's house, sir," he will say, "the great war correspondent, him that settled the war in Africa."

It was suggested by Gill, senior, in a letter signed "Lover of Justice," which appeared in the Times newspaper, that for his services in the interest of Peace, W.J. was entitled to the consideration of the Nobel trustees; but somehow the Nobel Prize never came to Stayboro', and W.J. bore the neglect philosophically. "He cherished much higher," he said (speaking at a garden party given in his honour), "the embroidered motto worked and presented to him by the Young Ladies' Guild of Stayboro', 'Blessed are the Peacemakers.'"

But then, of course, W.J. had been intended for the Church.

__________________

12: Halley's Comet, the Cowboy and Lord Dorrington

The Weekly Tale-Teller, May 21, 1910

LORD DORRINGTON was a middle-aged man. He showed no evidence of mental decrepitude, and the alienist who was invited on one occasion to dine with his lordship— the invitation came from anxious relatives, who feared that, unless the poor dear fellow was placed under proper control, he would dissipate the fortunes of the Dorrington family— this alienist wrote so cheery a report upon Dorrington's health that the question of the payment of his fifty-guinea fee was seriously debated. It was felt by a select committee, composed of the beneficiaries under Dorrington's will, that the alienist had not done his duty. They called him (the alienist), disrespectfully, the 'mad doctor', and decided that his report upon Dorrington's sanity was a remarkable proof of the generally-accepted theory that all alienists become mad themselves— in time.

The reason for their fears for Lord Dorrington's reason is understandable. He was an enthusiastic seeker after light. He was a spiritualist, a student of thaumaturgy, theurgy, electro-biology, and something of a Shamanist in an amateur kind of way. He believed that unlikely things happened.

It must be understood that he was, in many ways, a practical man. He once had a butler who neglected the silver horribly. The butler's somewhat ingenious excuse that he also was given to occult studies, and was, moreover, a cadet in the practice of demonology, was received coldly. Further, explained the butler, the silver was cleaned every day, but by night there came a little devil who smeared his dirty paws all over the polished surface of the plate. 'A little devil named 'Erbert, me lord,' said the butler pathetically, 'who cursed me when I was born.'

'You have been reading German fairy tales,' said his lordship, with chilly hauteur, 'and your impudent excuses decide me: I shall not give you a character.'

It was obviously absurd and unthinkable that even a little devil should condescend to consort with a mere butler, and Lord Dorrington very properly resented the assumption of his servant.

Dorrington was a rich man and a shrewd man. The Dorrington belt was the eighth wonder of the world, as any guide-book to the castle will tell you. It was the belt presented by an English king to a lady who was the founder of the family. It was six inches broad, and made of diamonds— not large diamonds, but very saleable diamonds. The Dorrington strong-room was the strongest strong-room in England, for many people desired those gems, the market value being somewhere in the neighbourhood of £80,000.

Lord Dorrington, as I say, was very practical in such matters, and where many a less fanciful man might have contented himself with phylacteries, his lordship, though a student of phylacteries, pinned his faith to doors of chilled steel and Chubb locks.

It would occupy a great deal too much space to give at any length the number of attempts which were made upon those strong-rooms at Dorrington Castle.

There was the still-room maid, who came with forged credentials from an eminent domestic agency, whose box contained diamond drills and a portable axe. There was the groom of the chambers, so suave and polite, with a hundred-pound 'kit' of well-tempered, safe-breaking tools. There was the Swiss valet, who was so very satisfactory until he was discovered one sad night walking cautiously in his stockinged feet in the direction of the strong-room. His explanation that, as a connoisseur of paintings, he desired an uninterrupted study of his lordship's 'Ribera Espanolito' in the east gallery was not accepted by a sceptical bench of magistrates, who gently pointed out that the skeleton keys found in his possession were not consistent with his statement.

These and many others I could name.

Whatever views his relatives might have concerning his mental balance, I am happy to say that in select criminal circles the acumen and intelligence of Lord Dorrington was held in the greatest respect.

'Not that he's so wonderfully clever,' said Billy the Boy (sometimes called Willie the Nut), 'for, in spite of his electric bells and alarms, three men working together could open the safe— only the devil of it is that it's as much as we can do to get one man inside.'

His companions in crime— they were dining at Figgioli's, in Conduit Street, and were beautifully arrayed— nodded their heads in approval.

'They tell me,' said Augustus (nobody knew his other name), 'that a New York crowd are thinkin' about—'

'Let 'em think,' said Billy contemptuously. 'If we can't do the job, they can't.'

There was some justification for such arrogance, for Billy the Boy was a master of his craft, and one remarks, with a glow of national pride, that for scientific burglary England's old supremacy stands unassailed.

I record this conversation that you may have a true appreciation of Lord Dorrington's contadictory qualities, and because he occupied a position of some fame a month or so later, and every scrap of information concerning him is of interest. He was, too, something of a biologist, but that has nothing whatever to do with this story.

You may remember that the year 1910 was chiefly remarkable for the visitation of Halley's comet, and for the fact that the world passed through the tail of our celestial visitor. Now, in spite of lucid articles appearing over the signatures of eminent astronomers, and set forth prominently in the popular organs of public opinion, proving beyond doubt that you might take the tail of Halley's comet and fold the whole of it into a grip sack, there were hundreds of thousands of people who shook in their shoes at the mere thought of the phenomenon they were to witness. As one pseudo-scientific writer querulously pointed out, nobody had ever packed the tail into a portmanteau, so that it was ridiculous to say that such a thing could be done without creasing the tail and ruining it beyond repair. But the most important contribution to the literature on the subject was a letter signed 'Dorrington', which appeared in The Times. It began: 'There is something more than a material aspect to the approaching comet...' and went on to deal with the extraordinary happenings which had coincided with its appearance in former years.

For my own part, (concluded Lord Dorrington soberly) I anticipate remarkable results from the visitation. For the first time in the world's history we have the scientific equipment to register and convey simultaneously the observations of psychists the world over....

There were gross and sordid writers in Fleet Street who guffawed loudly on reading this; worse, they wrote sarcastic paragraphs and little poems, and generally shocked the psychic world by their levity.

But their confusion came quickly.

The comet came, growing brighter and brighter nightly, and, as the superb spectacle increased in splendour, the world began to take the comet more and more seriously.

The earth entered the comet's tail on May 18th, and quite a number of people sat up all night destroying so much of their correspondence as, being recovered from the week of the world, might tend to make them look ridiculous.

But nothing happened on the night of the 18th, and the sun rose on the 19th in very much the same way as usual.

The busy world awoke, and went about its work. Factory horns hooted the toiling millions to labour, trim maids knocked at innumerable doors with tea and buttered toast, and the charwoman reigned supreme in the City of London.

At 7.15, PC Albert Parker, of the City Police, came leisurely out of Shoe Lane into Wine Office Court. He turned the corner of the court, and came to a narrow stretch which leads into Fleet Street. On the left is the white-bricked wall of the Daily Telegraph paper store, on the right is the dingy facade of the Press Club. Lying between the Press Club and the far end of the court was the body of a man. 'Lying' is hardly the word, for he sprawled face downward, with arms and legs outstretched in spread-eagle fashion.

PC Parker hastened his steps, and came up to the prostrate figure.

It was clad in the most extraordinary garments. The trousers were of undressed sheepskin, with the woolly side outermost; a dark blue shirt was on his back, and round his neck was a gaudy neckcloth of great size. Under his baggy trousers he wore top-boots, and two large silver spurs stuck up, sparkling in the sunlight. Add to this a broad-brimmed hat, which lay at some distance from the figure, and a huge revolver at his side.

The constable knelt down and felt the man's face; it was quite warm. He turned the figure over on its back. The man was breathing regularly, his heart was strong and normal; he appeared to be in a deep sleep.

PC Parker frowned, and smelt his breath. No, he was not drunk, and the policeman shook the man by the shoulder.

'Come along,' he said sternly; 'you can't sleep here.'

The man drew a long breath, sighed, and opened his eyes, blinking at the light. He stared at the policeman, and the policeman stared at him. The stranger was about thirty years of age; he was unshaven, and his face was covered with a faint coating of white dust.

'Gee!' he said, and sat up, scratching his head. Then he yawned, stretched himself, and rose a little shakily. 'Whar's that all fired hoss of mine?' he demanded sleepily.

'Look here,' said the policeman, 'what's this— a circus performance?'

The stranger stared coolly at the officer of the law.

'Say,' he repeated, 'whar's that old greaser of mine?'

Then he seemed of a sudden to realise that something had happened.

He looked up and down the deserted court curiously. He allowed his eyes to wander along the buildings, then they came back to the policeman with a scared look.

Then he passed his hand over his forehead wearily.

'I was goin' out to brand a steer,' he said, in a dreamy voice, 'an' that old light, she came prancin' over the prairie— she was a sure enough comet's tail, an' she hit me good. Where am I?' he asked suddenly.

'You're in the City of London,' said the police constable; 'and I'm going to take you along to the station.'

The strange sleeper staggered back.

'City of hell!' he roared. 'I'm in Colefax, Texas. Whar's my horse?'

Four policemen, hastily summoned by a shrill whistle, hustled the cowboy— for such he evidently was— to the Bridewell, and two hours later, charged with being 'a suspected person' the man in the sheepskin chapperos came up at Guildhall before the alderman.

That he told the same story, only more coherently, of the 'sure enough comet which came prancing over the plains about Colefax, Tex.,' is evidenced by the fact that at noon there was not a newspaper bill in London which was not screaming the news of the extraordinary occurrence. I give you the headlines of one of the more sedate of the evening newspapers:

AMAZING DISCOVERY IN THE CITY

COWBOY CAUGHT UP BY THE COMET'S TAIL

DEPOSITED IN LONDON

ASTRONOMER-GENERAL SAYS IT IS IMPOSSIBLE.

It was the one great splash of news of the day— nay, it was the most amazing happening of the century. Astronomers became apoplectic in their attempt that the whole thing was impossible. Yet— but let me quote The Evening Advertiser:

...Another extraordinary fact is that when the man was taken to Bridewell his face and hair were covered with thin, white powder. The City surgeon, who was called to examine the man, took the trouble to brush some of this powder off, and submit it to analysis. It proved to be a fine alkaline matter, such as a man might accumulate in a ride across the alkali plains which abound in that part of the world from which the man said he came. Moreover, on being searched, he was found to be in possession of ten five-dollar bills, a Mexican five-dollar piece, some loose American money, and, most remarkable of all, a receipted hotel bill. The bill was for 'one night bed' at Golden South Hotel, in a town in Texas, and was dated May 17th, 1910. There was also a note of some laundry work done on the same date, and some thin hide laces, wrapped up in an American newspaper, which, although the title was undecipherable or torn off, has the date fairly legible, and that date is May 18th.

This, and other evidence of the extraordinary character of the visitor, may be found in The Psychical Magazine, if it is not destroyed— but I rather fancy that that particular number of the publication in question has been burnt.

It is no exaggeration to say that England talked of nothing else but 'the man the comet brought', and that there was not a psychical society in the world but hastily assembled to gather data upon the remarkable visitation.

Excitement was at its height, when a new and even more sensational discovery was made.

The particulars may be given in the words of The Sussex Times:

A sensational affair has happened at Eastergate, which has caused great local excitement. It appears that a number of horses from Mr Alfred Knight's training establishment were proceeding along the road in the direction of the downs, when the leading horse, Master Hopmoon, shied at the figure of a man lying by the side of the road. It is by no means a strange thing to observe tramps sleeping out at this time of the year, but the remarkable fact about the present case was that the figure was that of a Chinaman. The boy cantered back to where Mr Knight and his head lad were riding, behind the exercising horses, and informed his master. Mr Knight immediately rode forward and, dismounting, examined the man. Apparently the Chinaman was sleeping. He was dressed in the costume of his country, and Mr Knight informed our representative that the man was evidently one of the labouring class of China.

As might be expected, the newcomer did not speak a word of English. He seemed dazed and terrified, and was with difficulty persuaded to accompany Mr Knight to the Eastergate Drill Hall, where temporary accommodation was found for him until the police were communicated with. Much greater difficulty was found in persuading him to get into the train at Barnham Junction, to accompany the police to Arundel. The man was in a condition of abject fright, jabbering and gesticulating as though he had never seen a railway train in his life. Fortunately, there lives in Arundel the Rev J. Wiggs, who has, until recently, been a missionary in China, and the rev. gentleman had no difficulty in conversing with the Celestial.

So much for The Sussex Times. It was after that memorable conversation with the Rev J. Wiggs that the story of the Chinaman acquired a larger value. No man in England read that interview with greater interest than Lord Dorrington. He read it in the The Morning News, and straightway took a train for London, and thence to Arundel.

'It is quite true, my lord,' said the Rev J. Wiggs, a little bewildered by the extraordinary experience of the previous day. 'I saw him as soon as he arrived. He is a Chinaman from the province of Yste-Yang; so far as I can make out he is a boatman. His story is so remarkable that my head whirls with it.'

'What is it?' demanded Lord Dorrington, not unprepared for the answer.

'Virtually he tells the same story as was told by the cowboy who was, as your lordship may know, discovered two days ago in the City of London.'

Lord Dorrington nodded.

'He says,' continued the returned missionary, 'that in the cool of the morning he was walking through a rice-field, in the direction of the village of Lung-tsi-lang, where he had made an appointment to meet a moneylender, who wished to marry his daughter. He had noticed, with fear, the apparition of the comet, and as he walked he faced that portion of the sky where the tail of the comet showed dimly. If anything, as he says, the comet was less brilliant than it had been. But on the horizon he observed a curious light. According to his account, it was a 'great wall of silver dust', which rose higher and higher, and became more and more brilliant, until, terrified by the apparition and by the almost blinding dazzle of the vision, he stopped, covering his face with his hands. He heard a whistling roar and lost consciousness, and the next thing that he knew was that he was lying on a soft, grass bank, and a foreign devil was talking to him in a strange tongue.'

Later, Dorrington saw the Chinaman, very sullen, and showing as much evidence of his fear as his natural imperturbability of countenance allowed.

Lord Dorrington returned to London to find a small crowd of reporters awaiting him at Victoria, to face innumerable cameras, and to answer a hundred questions.

'No,' he said, shaking his head, when questioned by the special representative of The Morning News, 'I am not in a position to give my theories as to the remarkable happenings of the past two days. I have my own ideas concerning them, but they are not sufficiently definite to give to the world. I intend bringing both men to Dorrington Castle, and, through an interpreter as far as the Chinaman is concerned, collect as much data as possible before these victims of astral phenomena are returned to their homes.'

'Do you think that these comet translations have occurred elsewhere?' demanded the reporter.

'I do,' replied his lordship. 'In a day or so, in a few hours perhaps, we shall have further manifestations of the comet's power.'

The newspapers had, by this time, reversed their attitude of amused scepticism, and awarded Lord Dorrington's statement the dignity of leaded type.

His prophecy, and the story of its fulfilment, appeared side by side, for, whilst his lordship had stood in the centre of the interrogating pressmen, the third, and, so far as can be ascertained, the last of the strange visitations, came.

The third was even more dramatic in its circumstances than were the others.

Dorrington had arrived at Victoria at 10 o'clock on the night of the 20th, which fell on a Saturday, and whilst he was giving his views on the phenomena with which all England was ringing, a curious scene was being enacted in one of the theatres.

The curtain had just gone up for the second act of Our Miss Gibbs, at the Gaiety, and the stage was filled with beautiful women, picturesquely grouped, when there entered from one of the wings a figure which brought the play to an immediate standstill, which left the very conductor petrified with upraised baton.

The figure was that of a man, of medium height and enormously stout. He was in evening dress, stained and dusty. His shirt front, in which glittered a huge diamond, was crumpled and grimy, and as he came waddling down the stage, rubbing his eyes and yawning, the immaculate chorus fell back on either side.

He looked around with a puzzled frown, and then addressed a question to the actor nearest to him.

'Señor,' said he, in the dialect of the Estremadura, 'will you, in the names of the blessed saints, inform me where I am?'

The actor, who did not understand a word of Spanish, shook his head, and glanced appealingly to the wings, and the curtain was rung down amidst some excitement.

This, indeed, was the third visitant!

José Sebastian Lopez, to give him the name by which he described himself, was a Brazilian, on a holiday visit to Spain. His story, inscribed in Lord Dorrington's neat handwriting, is not the least interesting of the memoranda on the men who were hit by the comet:

I am (says this document) a native of Brazil, although I cannot tell you what part of Brazil, for the time being, for I seem to have lost my memory. I arrived in Madrid on the night of the 16th, and stayed at the Hotel de Paris, on the Puerta del Sol. On the 17th, I believe, though I am not certain in my mind, I saw a man with whom I had some business relations. Who he was, or what was the nature of his business, I forget, but probably, when my head is less clouded, I shall recall the matter. The next day I spent in walking about Madrid. I have a dim idea that I went to the Prado, and that I spent some time admiring the old Spanish masters. In the evening I know that I dressed for dinner, and, the evening being a warm one, I went out without my overcoat, to the Casino. I left the Casino late. It must have been in the early hours of the morning but there were a number of people about and most of the cafés were open. I went up to my room and sat by the open window, smoking a cigar. It was then that over the houses, to the west side of the Puerta del Sol, I noticed a strange white light in the sky, resembling a pillar of white fire, which expanded in breadth visibly as I watched it. It grew broader and broader, and I pinched myself, thinking I must be dreaming. I sat with open mouth, paralysed, and the light grew fiercer and fiercer, till I felt it envelop me. I had no sensation of warmth, only a strange feeling of lightness, as though I could step through the window into the street below without hurt— and that was all I remember. When I awoke I found myself in a strange building. There was above me a skylight, which was open, and through which I must have fallen. I knew that I was in a theatre, for the curtain was raised, and the seats were all shrouded in holland, but I had no feeling of curiosity. All I wanted to do was sleep, sleep, sleep. I climbed over the orchestra on to the stage and wandered around, looking for a place in which to lie, for I was like a man drunk with sleep.

Lord Dorrington steadfastly refused to receive any reporters, although some of the best men journeyed down to High Dorrington to secure his views.

'The only thing I can say is this,' said his lordship to a select deputation, whose persistence had secured for themselves a short interview. 'I have, as you know, the three men here at Dorrington Castle. We are, through the instrumentality of interpreters, collecting and comparing everything they say bearing upon their transmigration. I can tell you this much, that their stories tally in every respect, but the full account of my investigations will be published at a very early date. The cowboy seems to have the most vivid recollection of all that happened, and I am certain that we have at last a manifestation of an occult mystery which will convince the most sceptical.'

Saying this, his lordship ushered the Pressmen from the room, and returned to his strange investigations.

We have not, unfortunately, the minutes of that inquisition, although it has been stated on most reliable authority that they covered reams of foolscap. We may guess that an irritated cowboy, a wondering but impassive Chinaman, and a most voluble gentleman from Mexico sat and suffered as Lord Dorrington, with the cold persistence of the enthusiast, extracted from them the particulars of their varying sensations.

It was the night of the reporters' visit that the fourth and the most inexplicable of the comet's vagaries was recorded. The three men, after a lengthy examination, had retired to their separate bedrooms, and Lord Dorrington sat alone in his study, revising the notes he had made.

Engrossed in his labours, he did not regard time, and time, utterly independent of Lord Dorrington's patronage, moved ruthlessly forward.

Looking up, in a passionate attempt to find a synonym for 'extraordinary' and 'remarkable', his lordship was astounded to observe that the hands of the clock pointed to half-past two.

He put away his papers, locked them in his desk, lit his bedroom candle, and extinguished the light in the study. Then he made his way along the silent hall toward the big stairway that led to his sleeping suite.

Then, of a sudden, when he was half-way along the broad passage, there came a blinding white flash of flame. It leapt to him, and, as he staggered back, something struck him on the head, and he went to the floor like a log.

Some say that he was stunned, but others aver that it was blue funk that kept his lordship lying on the floor of the hall until an early-rising servant discovered him, and assisted him back to the study.

His first act— and here he showed the soul of the true scientist— was to send for the three men to compare their sensations with his.

There came no answer to the knockings of Lord Dorrington's hired servants. An examination of the rooms led to the discovery that the men were gone. Their beds had not been slept in; there was no sign of their presence.

Lord Dorrington stood before the door of the cowboy's room, a water compress about his head, wrapped in deep thought. The tremendous character of the new phenomenon impressed even him.

He returned to his study, and sent thirty-six telegrams to thirty-six different newspapers, but the wire was in every case the same.

THREE ASTRAL VISITORS AGAIN TRANSMIGRATED.

I MYSELF HAVE EXPERIENCED POWER OF COMET.

SEND REPORTER.

— DORRINGTON.

Long before the reporters could possibly respond to the invitation, a tall, clean-shaven man, with bushy eyebrows, came flying up to the great door of the Dorrington demesne, and demanded imperiously to see his lordship.

He spoke with a strong American accent, and, when ushered into Dorrington's presence, nodded curtly.

'You have come,' began my lord, 'to ask about the men—'

'One was a Chink,' interrupted the other rudely, 'one a Spanish fellow, one a tough from our side, I think?'

'That is so,' said Lord Dorrington gravely, 'but a phenomenon which—'

'Phenomenon nothing,' said the brusque stranger. 'They are the Denver three— the cleverest devils that ever held up a bank. Where are they?'

'Gone,' said his lordship, staring at the man.

'Gone!' roared the other. 'Oh, steaming Hades! Gone! See here,' he went on rapidly, 'I'm Torken, of Pinkerton's. I've got a warrant for the lot; they're bank robbers. We've been after them for a year. They're the people who impersonated the Chinese delegation last fall, and got away with the British ambassador's jewels—'

'Jewels?' repeated his lordship faintly.

'Jewels,' said the vigorous American.

Lord Dorrington, supported on the arm of the detective, led the way to the strongest strong-room in England.

Outwardly it appeared as though nothing unusual had occurred, but when his lordship had inserted his key he found the operation was unnecessary, for the door was unlocked and the Dorrington belt was gone

__________________________

13: Uncle Dick

Yes or No, London, Dec 10, 1910

MR. AGNEW, magnate, gave the children of lllingham, Saxby, Taunton-Newbery, and the villages about a Christmas treat at his "seat," Illingham Park; the barn and outbuildings were transformed, there were marquees and lemonade, tents and buns, a hired conjurer, and a superior Punch and Judy show, where all the characters of that disreputable drama were respectably arrayed in the newest of clothes.

Mr. Agnew entertained because he was fond of children and because he was a magnate, and a magnate should be associated with some hobby or other. So Mr. Agnew was known throughout the length and breadth of the county as "the children's friend," in which capacity his portrait appeared in the Saxby Chronicle on more than one occasion.

The amusing part of this present situation was Uncle Dick.

Not Mr. Agnew's Uncle Dick, I hasten to assure you, nor Mary Agnew's Uncle Dick. Mr. Agnew's only uncle's name was, of course, Reginald, and he was popularly supposed to be in heaven.

It was Clara Smith's Uncle Dick who was the cause of all the amusement.

Clara Smith's father— if you will excuse this genealogical digression— had been coachman to a great lord, and a widower. One day he drove a pair of restive horses— and little Harry Boyne was making interesting experiments with a kite on the high road— the carriage was smashed, and so was one of the restive horses. The great lord picked himself out of the debris of the wrecked brougham, and used shocking language to Coachman Smith, calling him dolt, idiot, ass, ploughboy, and the like. Coachman Smith took not the slightest potice, and offered no apology, because he happened to be lying in a ditch with his neck broken.

Whether or not Coachman Smith went to heaven like Uncle Reginald, is conjectural. He drank beer at the Coach and Horses, and had been known to make bets.

The great lord, who was a mean, stingy great lord, was all for sending the orphan, Clara, aged two years, to the workhouse; for, argued the great lord, what the devil do I pay rates and taxes for?

Despite the indignant protests of his Honourable son, there was little doubt whatever that the noble lord— his name was Fallingham of Fallingham and St. James— would have carried his threat into execution but for the intervention of Uncle Dick.

This providential uncle wrote from London offering to provide the child with a home, and that is how Clara Smith came to be the adopted child of Mrs. Jane Fairbridge, a pleasant widow of Saxby.

A ten-shilling postal order came punctually to the widow every Saturday morning. Toys, dolls, and dolls'-houses came to Clara at ecstatic intervals.

Once or twice "Uncle Dick" had run down to see her, and to tell her stories, and these visits were precious memories.

It happened, unfortunately, that he had timed one of these rare excursions at Christmas; so that it synchronised with Mr. Agnew's children's fête, to which Clara had been invited.

Here was a tragic problem!

To miss Uncle Dick would be unthinkable; to miss the treat unbearable.

Widow Jane Fairbridge suggested a remedy and a solution. Why not, she asked in the innocence of her heart, write a little letter and ask if Uncle Dick could come to the party?

So Clara laboriously wrote and re-wrote, her little pink tongue sticking out, and following the painful contortions of her penmanship.

Mary Agnew smiled, Mr. Agnew laughed. Of course it was unusual. Only the mothers of the children or their female relatives were invited, but he would stretch a point, yes— yes, he would stretch a point.

Mary knew something of Clara's history, and her generous heart had rebelled against the cynical indifference of the great lord and the wicked callousness of the great lord's son— now the Lord Fallingham of' Fallingham himself. For the old great lord had died, and most certainly had gone to heaven, for he drank port, and had never been known to bet in any less sum than a "pony."

So that Mary welcomed the opportunity of expressing, in a few well-chosen words, her appreciation of Uncle Dick's generosity in providing for his little niece so handsomely.

The day of the great fête dawned in quite an ordinary manner, the wintry sun came up over Wylie Copse as usual, and went about its business as if Mr. Agnew had never existed.

None the less, the magnate, who in some subtle fashion took credit alike for natural phenomena and solar activity, pronounced the weather suitable, and, with the coming of two hundred happy little ones, shrill or shy as the fit took them, the fête began.

"This," said Mary to herself, "is Uncle Dick."

He was dressed more decently than she expected for a man of his class. He was better looking, too, than she had anticipated; clean-shaven, with grey, thoughtful eyes, and a thin, tanned face.

"So you are Uncle Dick," she greeted him, with the exact tincture of patronage in her voice.

This manner of hers had, under normal circumstances, the effect of hypnotising and confusing the lower classes.

"I'm Uncle Dick," he said with a quiet smile.

"This," thought Mary rapidly, "is a forward young man who will have to be kept in his place." Aloud she went on, less warmly: "My father, I know, wishes to thank you for your generous care of Clara; we are very much interested in her, and think you have acted splendidly."

"I think I have," said the young man gravely, and Mary gasped at the smugness of the man.

"Naturally," she went on, with a touch of hauteur, "you couldn't very well do less than you have done for your brother's child."

"Naturally," he agreed.

Something in the solid ease of the man annoyed Mary.

"I am afraid you arc missing the children's games," she said coldly.

"I don't mind in the least," he replied with great earnestness.

"If you find them dull, any one of the gardeners will direct you to the servants' hall," she went on. "There will be a cold luncheon at one o'clock, but if you require refresh— "

"Beer?" he interrupted eagerly. "Can I get beer now?"

She regarded him with icy disfavour.

"It Is rather early, for beer, Mr. Smith, is it not?" she asked severely.

"I always drink beer after breakfast," said the young man with relish. "It's a fine old English custom; look at our forefathers— "

She arrested his rhapsody with a raised hand.

"I'm sorry I haven't the time to go into the question," she said with increasing coldness.

She voted him a priggish specimen of the educated working man, and avoided him the greater part of the day.

When she again came into contact with him she was with her father.

Uncle Dick was hot and tired, having been initiated into the mysteries of blind man's buff.

He was lying on a bundle of straw in a secluded part of the great barn when Mr. Agnew found him.

Mr. Agnew, being a magnate, and, moreover, a member of Parliament for a manufacturing town, had a way with the British workman.

"Ha! there you are, Uncle Dick," he said, as the perspiring young man rose at his approach; "did you get your beer all right?"

Uncle Dick cast if reproachful glance at the girl— a glance which in itself (said Mary) was a gross piece of impertinence.

"Yes, thank you," said Uncle Dick.

"Had much— jolly good tuck out— what?" asked the jocose Mr. Agnew.

"I should hardly call it that," said Uncle Dick thoughtfully, "although it was very satisfying and very nicely cooked."

"Um!" said the magnate dubiously, "I'm afraid you're rather a sybarite, Mr.— er— Smith!" He added beneath his breath, "Ungrateful beggar!"

"Not a bit," said the young man. "But— oh, I beg your pardon. You think I am referring to the lunch at the Hall? I am speaking of the lunch the good Mrs. Fairbndge provided me with. You see I had no idea that you were doing us so well: we— er— parents and guardians, I mean."

Slightly mollified, the magnate was preparing a suitable pronouncement on plain fare for plain people, with a few remarks on the simple life, when a servant brought him a telegram. With a courteous apology (Mr. Agnew's patronage of the working man took the form of treating him as an equal) he opened the buff envelope, read the message with a gathering smile, looked at Uncle Dick benevolently, and said, "Excellent!"

"What is it, father?" asked the girl.

"Lord Tupping," said Mr. Agnew impressively. "Our friend Lord Tupping has telegraphed to say we may expect him." He looked at Uncle Dick with an arch smile. "I'll be bound that Undc Dick is a Radical, a Socialist, 'Down with the House of Lords!' and that sort of thing, eh?" He beamed jovially. "It will be a lesson for you." He wagged his forefinger at the proletarian. "You shall see the House of Lords in its most— "

Mary did not seem to share her father's enthusiasm.

"Indeed," thought Uncle Dick, "she appeared to be annoyed."

She interrupted her parent.

"Why on earth is he coming?" she asked in a tone of dismay.

"My dear," said Mr. Agnew, magnate, severely, "Lord Tupping is not only a personal friend, and a fellow director, but I have reasons to hope— "

Seeing the flush on the girl's face, Uncle Dick wisely turned to stare at the decorations of the barn.

He rather fancied he heard a tiny wrangle, just such a wrangle as a magnate would permit himself to engage in within hearing of a third party— and such a third party as Uncle Dick.

As is very well known to all those who mix in good society, there are two classes of wrangles— those the servants may hear, and those they may not hear.

The patient servitor may listen unchecked whilst my lord damns the tough chicken, but when it comes to "Mildred, I have had a bill from your milliner this morning— now what the— " it is a case of "Jane, go out, and shut the door after you."

Uncle Dick was wondering in which class the present disagreement lay, when the sound of retreating footsteps caused him to look up from his artistic criticism, to find himself alone with the girl.

She was rather pink, and rather angry, and Uncle Dick was a little tactless, because he laughed softly but heartily.

"I think you are a most abominably rude man," she flamed, and would have gone, but the protesting young man, thoroughly alarmed, barred her way.

"Please, please don't go," he Implored. "I was only laughing at my thoughts."

He was so earnest that she hesitated.

"Poor old Uncle Dick," he wheedled. "Don't be hard on Uncle Dick. It's Tuppy," he went on, with outrageous familiarity; "it's the thought of Tuppy that amuses me. Poor dear, he does so dislike Christmas festivities."

She felt that it was high time that she asserted herself.

"Mr. Smith," she said gravely, "I hardly think you realise how exceptionally impertinent you are. I pass over your unmannerly request for beer— that is a natural requirement of your class. I will not dwell upon the familiarity that was implied in your— your look when my father referred to your refreshment, but this reference to our guest is one that I cannot overlook."

"Poor Uncle Dick!" he murmured.

A voice hailed her; her father was coming into the barn, and behind him walked a young man upon whose round, good-natured face was the impression of boredom,

"Here's Lord Tupping," said Mr. Agnew boisterously. "Mary, here's— oh, here you are."

Mary held out her hand.

"How de do, Miss Agnew; your governor wants me to play skip-in-the-ring, at my time of life! I say— " He stared at Uncle Dick. "Why, it's the Fallin' bird!" he chortled, and Mr. Agnew looked round for the curiously-named fowl.

Lord Tupping seized the hand of Uncle Dick.

"Fancy, old feller," he begged, "skip-in-the-ring at my time of life! Go an' play it, old friend; be a true Fallin'ham of Fallin'ham, an' step into the breach."

Mr. Agnew was fairly bewildered, but before Mary's accusing gaze Uncle Dick dropped his eyes.

"Lord Fallingham," she said sternly, "you are neglecting your niece."

"IT WAS VERY nice of you, of course," she said later.

The little guests had all departed, and they sat in the drawing-room, drinking grown-ups' tea.

"I am sorry I said such horrid things about your father."

"It was his idea," lied the young man eagerly; "it was part of the dear old man's pose, unbending severity, and that sort of thing, and when the child was left an orphan he suggested that a relation should be found, so he wrote through my lawyers."

What the old lord had said was: "Why the devil hasn't the little brat got relations;— the improvidence of the working classes is too appalling!"

"But I think," reproved Mary, "you ought to have told us. Shall you tell the child?"

"No," said the young man thoughtfully. "I'll still be Uncle Dick. It sounds nice," he mused. "Uncle Dick— and Aunt Mary."

The girl changed the subject a little incoherently.

____________________________

14: The Murder at the 'Port Helm'

The Penny Illustrated Paper, December 1910

MY name is Thomas Carlyle Smith, but my professional name is Carlyle Thorn, and I am a crime-investigator. My father named me after the Sage of Chelsea, whom he intensely admired but imperfectly understood, and I adopted my second name and an abbreviation of my first, because it is very necessary in my business to secure a nom de guerre which is at once unusual and consonant with the accepted view on private detectives, namely, that preternatural genius invariably runs hand in hand with eccentricity of nomenclature.

I have always had a natural bent for investigation, my childish curiosity, coupled with a nasal organ of an emphatic type, having earned for me an offensive nick-name which I often recall with a smile.

From the first my entry into the realms of detection was crowned with success, with much of which, I must frankly confess, my own ability had little to do. Thus, I discovered the diamonds of Lady Sathell of Sarum by a fluke; I tracked down George Cutville by the luckiest of accidents; and, with the aid of my friend Trufill, of the firm of Trufill, Colebrook, and Porter (solicitors), I was able to check what might easily have been the most stupendous of blackmailing schemes known to history.

I cite these few out of thousands of very ordinary and fairly uninteresting cases. A detective’s life is made up of little things, but, since the main consideration of life is life itself, and since, moreover, the object of my engaging myself in my profession is the securing of an income sufficiently large to make life supportable, I have even welcomed the fifty-guinea fee which accompanies the enquiries of the jealous husband.

Yet there are moments when the artist in me awakens to life, when my whole being thirsts for adventures more poignant than those incidental to watching the suspected bourgeoisie.

Such an adventure came in the Port Helm mystery. The story of the crime which startled England may be familiar to my readers, but I will tell it as briefly as possible.

ON August 9, 1904, a gentlemanly man, whose dusty clothing and hot appearance suggested that he had come from some distance by road, arrived at the Port Helm, towards the evening, and asked for a room. The “Port Helm” is a tumble-down hostelry between Seaport and Colehaven, on the Kentish coast. There was a time when extensive slate quarries in the neighbourhood had justified the existence of this solitary little inn, and when it had enjoyed a thriving trade, but the slate had proved difficult to work, and had, moreover deteriorated in quality as the working progressed, and at the time of which I am speaking the quarries were deserted, the Port Helm depending upon the infrequent travellers who passed along the road between the two towns. It stood on the cliff road, the only building within sight. Two hundred yards before it, the cliff fell four hundred feet sheer to the rocky shore below, and only a crazy hand-rail, doubtlessly erected by the quarry proprietors, protected the night wanderer from instant and terrible death.

At this time the inn was kept by a young man named Hilker, whose character, unfortunately, was not of the best. I say “unfortunately,” because it was on his behalf that I was engaged.

It is indisputable that he drank; it is as well established a fact that he had been in trouble with the police over a sheep which had disappeared from a neighbouring farm, the fleece of which was afterwards found in an outhouse of the inn. Hilker, however, strenuously and indignantly denied that he had ever seen the sheep, protested that the circumstance of the fleece being found in his tool-house was explained by the machinations of an enemy, and spoke vaguely of a dark man whose enmity he had earned when he was in Gibraltar (he had been in the army, and had been discharged for striking a non-commissioned officer), and in the end, owing to a flaw in the chain of evidence, the charge of sheep-stealing was dropped.

Hilker lived by himself with one manservant, whose duty it was to “tidy up,” so that the evidence I required to prove his innocence on the greater charge was of the unpromising kind. Indeed, never have I gone into a case where first appearances were so black against the accused.

The dusty stranger who had arrived on the evening of August 9 was Belmont Trair, an eccentric millionaire who spent his life in walking tours. Many extraordinary stories have been told of this gentleman— that he would associate with tramps, live and sleep happily in their company, and willingly undergo all manner of unwholesome privations; but the truth, so far as I have been able to ascertain, is that he had a passion for walking, was something of a nature-lover, and found more joy in his healthy recreation than in more artificial forms of amusement. I think it is a convincing refutation of the tramp and casual-ward story, that he invariably carried a large sum of money on his person, was extremely fastidious as to his fare, and was exceedingly talkative.

The testimony of Hilker is that the traveller arrived at sunset, and ordered-tea and ham. In this he was supported by the evidence of the old man, George Wish, who was, as I have said, general factotum to Hilker.

The landlord further said— and here we have no corroborative evidence— that Mr. Trair complained that he had been shadowed in the last two miles of his walk by “two dark men— one Spanish-looking,” and, a rain storm coming up, together with the fear of these men in his mind, he decided to stay the night.

So far the story has corroboration, except in one essential particular. What happened after that is a matter for surmise.

The old attendant went home to his cottage, three miles along the road, at 8.50, at which hour it was raining heavily, and the stranger had expressed in his hearing his intention of staying the night. According to Hilker’s statement to the police, Mr. Trail— who was a man of fifty, of very small physique— went up to his room at 10.15. Hilker remembered, he said, looking up at the clock as his guest left the room. At eleven o'clock, when the landlord was preparing to retire for the night, Mr. Trair came hurriedly down the stairs, fully dressed, and in a very agitated condition.

“I must go on,” he said, incoherently. (I am giving the purport of Hilker’s signed statement.) “I cannot stay another minute here,” and with that he put down a sovereign on the table (the conversation described was supposed to have taken place in the landlord’s private room behind the bar), and, in spite of the landlord’s urging, who pointed out that the rain was still heavily falling, he hurriedly left the house.

Nothing more was seen of him until the following morning, when his body was discovered by the coastguards at the foot of the cliff, with a knife thrust through his heart, the body being terribly battered by the fall.

The police were immediately summoned, and county detectives were on the spot within two hours. When searched, it was discovered that the unfortunate man’s watch and diamond ring were intact, and that in the pockets were two sovereigns, nine shillings and sixpence in silver, and a few coppers, but that the notes (some £140, as it afterwards transpired) were missing. A careful examination of the ground was made, but there was no evidence of a struggle, although the guard rail at the edge of the cliff was broken.

A search was made of the inn, and here was discovered a piece of evidence sufficient to hang any man— a large stain of blood recently shed on the floor of the living-room.

Hilker was immediately arrested, charged with the murder, and brought into Seaport.

AT this time my name was fairly well known. I had appeared in a few criminal trials on behalf of the accused, and I had been instrumental in one case at least in proving the police at fault.

At the same time, I was both astonished and flattered to receive a summons on behalf of Hilker.

It came on the evening of the arrest.

I was preparing to leave my office for the evening, when the telephone bell rang.

I answered it myself.

“Is that Carlyle Smith?” said the voice; and when I answered that it was, the caller, speaking somewhat peremptorily, said:—

“Come at once to 942, Cambridge Gardens.”

Before I could answer, I was rung off.

A little annoyed by the brusqueness of the demand, I was in two minds whether or not I should take any notice of the request, but something within me urged me to accept the invitation, and, jumping into a taxi-cab, I was driven off to the address.

I found it was a house of somewhat imposing exterior. A neat maid-servant opened the door to me, and, without enquiry as to my business, I was ushered straight into a study. It was furnished in excellent taste. I had time to notice that there were two maps of Spain on the walls— a circumstance which struck me as curious at the time— when the door opened and a gentleman came in. He was past middle age, his hair was iron grey, his face white and forbidding. He had the facial lines of a man of chronic bad humour.

He looked at me discontentedly— I can find no other words to describe his attitude— and nodded curtly.

“My name is Hilker,” he said, motioning me to a chair, “and I am the uncle of the unfortunate young man who, as you may have seen from the evening newspapers, has been arrested for a murder in the South of England.”

I nodded, and he paced up and down the room, his chin on his breast, before he spoke again.

“I do not doubt for one moment but that he is guilty,” he said, suddenly, and shot a sharp glance at me, “and that the story he tells about the dark, Spanish-looking gentlemen is false.”

He must have seen my eyes wandering to the maps of Spain, for he added hastily:—

“I am interested in Spanish mines, and he himself has been in Spain; it was one of the chances I gave him when I found he was going wrong.”

He stopped before me.

“I want you to go down to Seaport and investigate this matter. I will pay you a fee of £600 if you prove his innocence, and £100 if your investigations are futile. Do you agree?”

I nodded again and, with no other word, he sat at his desk and wrote me a cheque for £50.

“This will cover your expenses,” he said, and struck a bell.

In twenty seconds I found myself in the street, with the cheque in my pocket.

I drove straight to my lodgings, packed a few necessary articles of toilet, and arrived at Victoria in time to catch the 7.5 for Seaport. It was after nine when I walked into the Blue Lion at that port.

I knew it would be impossible for me to see the prisoner that night; indeed, knowing how strict the police are in all such matters, I did not expect to see him at all, but the following morning, by reason of my acquaintance with the inspector in charge, I had the briefest interview.

I must confess that my first impression of him was by no means a happy one. He was a largely built young man of a florid kind; his face told me by unmistakable signs that he was a heavy drinker. He was big, loose-lipped, brutal, and his eyes were of that peculiar shade of light blue to be found in men of an utterly callous and cold-blooded nature.

He was greatly depressed, but vehemently protested his innocence, and repeated the story of the “Spanish-looking” men, but I learnt nothing that I did not already know.

Before leaving the police station I interviewed Detective-Inspector Cass, who had charge of the case.

He was a typical police officer, dull and dogmatic, ready to jump at the obvious, having no mind for the subtle possibilities of such a case as this.

“He did it all right,” he said, complacently. “You take my tip, Carlyle, and back out of this case; it will do your reputation no good. Why, isn’t the evidence clear? A rich and eccentric man stops at Hilker’s Inn, Hilker is in financial difficulties— as he always has been, since I can remember— he murders his guest; and chucks him over the cliff, hoping that the tide will wash away the body and all evidence of his guilt: It’s as clear as daylight.”

Strangely enough, it was not as clear to me, and I left the station house unimpressed by the self-satisfaction of the inspector.

IT was whilst walking back to my hotel that chance threw in my way a remarkable clue. I have previously said that the detection of crime is as much a matter of luck as anything else, and here was proof, if proof be needed, of that fact.

In the old-fashioned High Street of Seaport is a gunsmith’s, and I was passing this, when the door of the shop opened quickly, and a man stepped out.

He was tall and swarthy, with a complexion like old ivory, and one didn’t need to be especially knowledgeable to recognize that he was a foreigner.

An inspiration came to me.

“Buenos días,” I said.

“Buenos días,” he replied, and looked confused.

I watched him hurrying from the gunsmith’s.

The old proprietor, spectacles on nose, was behind the counter, which was strewn with revolvers of every conceivable type, from the heavy army Webley to the pocket Browning. It was evident that the Spaniard had been making a purchase.

I asked to see some cleaning brushes, and whilst examining these I managed to start a conversation with the old man.

He was, fortunately, of a garrulous disposition.

“I was afraid you wanted to buy a revolver,” he said.

“Why afraid?”

“Well, not exactly afraid, but I’ve lost a good customer in that gentleman that just went out. He’d chosen one of the best arms I have in the shop, when I asked him for the licence that was necessary before I could serve him. He tried to persuade me that, as he's a member of the Spanish Embassy, a licence wasn’t required, but that yarn didn’t satisfy me.”

I had learnt all that I wanted.

In a few minutes I was in pursuit of the Spaniard. I had no difficulty in tracing him. He was living at the best hotel— the Marine, facing the sea— and, to my surprise, the story he told about his being attached to the Embassy staff proved to be true. He was at Seaport for his health, and had been there three weeks.

I saw my friend, the inspector, and told him about the revolver, but he did not seem impressed.

“Very likely,” he said, carelessly; “After, a murder, there’s usually a scare that drives timid people to the purchase of firearms.”

For myself, however, I was not prepared to dismiss the matter so lightly.

Was it not more than a coincidence that Spain came into this case, so insistently? A sudden thought struck me, and I sent an inquiry wire to my assistant in London.

Without waiting for an answer, I drove out to the Port Helm. It has been described as “lonely,” but that inadequately describes its isolation. It stands back from the cliff road, a gaunt, unlovely building, angular of design, uninviting of aspect. The police were in possession of the house, but again fortune was with me. Had Scotland Yard men been in charge, I could have done nothing; as it happened, the local police were quite willing to oblige the “gentleman from London.”

I made a careful examination of the premises.

They were simple in their arrangement.

There was a bar, a bar parlour, a little sitting-room, and, connected by a long dark passage, a kitchen at the back. There was a small cellar, where Hilker kept his stock of coals, and this comprised the ground floor.

The only other rooms in the house were three upstairs, a large, untidy bedroom, which was Hilker’s own, a lumber-room, and a room which was a sort of store-room. I returned to the ground floor.

“This is where the murder was committed,” said the stolid policeman, and showed me the stain on the floor.

“This is where you think the murder was committed,” I said, sharply, and the policeman smiled.

“He did it all right,” he said, with a self-satisfied leer; “anybody who thinks he didn’t must be mad.”

Since I might want to visit the house again, I did not attempt to argue with the man, but, giving him half-a-sovereign for the trouble I had put him to, I went out.

From the door of the Port Helm to the edge of the cliff was about a hundred yards. I spent over an hour making a thorough survey of the ground, and found nothing— or rather, found nothing until I had given up my search in despair.

From the edge of the road to the edge of the cliff was a “border” of grass, and I was walking back-to the road to enter the carriage I had hired to bring me out to the Port Helm when I saw something glittering amongst the green. I stooped and picked up a tiny ornament. It was in the form of a six-pointed star, and was attached to a ribbon. One glance at it, and my heart leapt with excitement. It was the miniature of the Order of Charles III. of Spain!

I WENT back to Seaport elated. Here, at any rate, was the beginning of a clue.

When one has a line to work upon half one’s difficulties vanish. I determined to call upon the Spaniard, and that night, after dinner, I made my way to the Marine Hotel.

Yes, Senor Don Alberto Fuentes was in, and he would see me.

A dark young man rose to greet me.

He was calm, inscrutable, very polite, and motioned me to a seat.

“What can I do for you, sir?” he asked. .

He spoke English perfectly.

“I am a detective,” I said, “a private detective, and I am investigating a crime which has been committed in the neighbourhood.”

He nodded, keeping his eyes fixed on my face.

“You mean the murder committed by Hilker?” he said.

“I mean the murder with which Hilker is charged,” I corrected. Then, as a thought struck me, I asked, quickly, “Do you know him?”

He hesitated.

“I know him slightly,” he admitted. “I come to Seaport every year. It is the one place in England that is good for my chest.”

“And you have met him?”

Again he hesitated.

“Yes,” he said. Then, hurriedly, “You observe I hesitate. That is natural, is it not? A member of the Embassy does not care to admit that he knows a man charged with murder.”

“Very natural,” I said, drily. “Did you know the murdered man?”

“No.”

The answer came quickly, emphatically, loudly.

“Do you know of him?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“As much as anybody knows who reads the papers.”

I took from my breast pocket the little decoration and held it in the palm of my hand.

“Do you know this?” I asked.

He looked at it with a frown.

“Yes,” he said, “it is a miniature; it was stolen from me.”

I met his eye, but he did not quail.

“You might like to know the circumstances,” he went on. “I was motoring to London to attend a dinner— it was the King of Spain’s birthday, and I carried my kit in the tonneau behind. A few miles out of Seaport I punctured a tyre. I had no mechanician with me, but fortunately, or unfortunately, I was near the Port Helm, and it was Hilker who helped me to patch the tyre. When I got to London I found my suitcase had disappeared.”

Again our eyes met.

“You suggest that Hilker stole it?” I said.

“I suggest nothing,” he replied, shortly.

He rose to his feet as though to bring the interview to an end.

“One more question, Senor,” I said, “and I am finished. Have you purchased a revolver lately?”

“I refuse to answer any more questions,” he said, and opened the door.

I returned to London by the last train that night and drove straight to Cambridge Gardens.

THOUGH the hour was late old Hilker was at work in his study and I was shown in.

He gave me a frowning welcome. “Well,” he said, “what have you discovered?”

I gave him an account of my work. I told him of the Spaniard, the miniature decoration, and the purchase of the revolver.

“And what does all that prove?” he demanded. “What is your theory?”

“I think your nephew is innocent,” I replied. “I am as certain that the Spaniard knows something about the matter.”

“What is his name again?”

“Fuentes,” I replied.

“‘Fuentes’— nonsense,” he said testily. “I know Senor Fuentes— it is ridiculous to suppose that he knows anything whatever about it.”

“But the decoration?”

“I'd accept his explanation. Don’t I know that my nephew is the biggest villain un— ”

He checked himself suddenly.

“What do the police think?” he asked, and I smiled.

“You know what the police are: they jump at the obvious conclusion.”

“And quite right!” said old Hilker, violently thumping the desk with his clenched fist; “quite right! It is the obvious that requires detection. You’ve no more to tell me?”

All the time I had been in the room my eyes had been busy.

I had wondered when I came in what had been the business of such importance to keep a man like old Hilker out of bed at twelve o’clock at night. I had caught a glimpse of the document which had been before him when I was announced. He had swept it aside, but the words “Will and Testament,” boldly engrossed, were too prominent to escape my eye.

He had been making his will. Why?

Let me piece together the scraps of information I had secured.

1. Hilker was accused of a brutal murder.

2. He denied his guilt, and talked of a dark man, a Spaniard, who sought his life.

3. A Spaniard, Fuentes, admits that he knows Hilker. Moreover, a decoration belonging to Fuentes is found on the actual scene of the crime.

4. The uncle of the accused man also knows Fuentes, is vehement in protesting the innocence of the Spaniard of any guilty knowledge, and his faith in his nephew’s guilt.

5. Fuentes purchases a revolver and refuses to discuss the purchase.

I have said that the murdered man was an eccentric, who had spent a great deal of his time on walking tours. By dint of enquiry I discovered that he, too, had lived in Spain; more remarkable still, he had occupied a house in the Calle de Recolletos exactly opposite that in which Fuentes had lived.

At about this time Mensikoff, that brilliant head of the Russian secret police, was in London. I had been of service to him in the collection of evidence against the infamous Spilotski gang, and he had told me that if ever I was in a difficulty I was to go to him.

If ever there was an occasion where such advice should be followed it was surely now, and that night, after leaving the old man, I drove straight to the Russian’s hotel.

“Well?” he said, as he gave me a smiling welcome, “What brings you at this hour? Some badness. Yes?”

He spoke English with a little accent, but his diction was mainly remarkable for its curious misuse of words.

In as few words as possible I detailed, the case, and he sat, nodding his great head, as I brought out each feature of the case.

When I had finished he said:

“It looks like Hilk— what you call him?— Hilker.”

“But what of this Spanish clue?” I protested.

“There is no remarkable, in that, my frien’; he has been in Spain, so all foreigners are Spaniards to him. If he imagines a foreigner, he imagines a Spaniard, hein? The old man have been in Spain, so he knows Fuentes, who is a prominent man in Madrid. The murdered man, he have also been in Spain— but then he have been everywhere, all over the shop; eh?”

“But the revolver?” I persisted, and he shrugged his shoulders.

“Over 50,000 revolvers are sold every year in England, yet every man who buys is not a murderer.”

“And you think?” I suggested, irritably.

“I think Hilker stabbed Belmont Trair and threw him over cliff. Yes, it seems simple.”

He must have seen the look of blank disappointment which came into my face, for he laughed.

“I am police officer— eh?” He wagged his forefinger at me. “I deal with actual, not fantastic— eh? I see a man, with his han’s in another fellow’s pocket. I say. ‘This is a thief’— you, au contraire, say, ‘Is this a thief?’ an’ try to find reasons extraordinary for his strange conduct— obvious, my frien’, obvious— he is the little god of the secret service.”

Descending the stairs I cursed Mensikoff and his infernal “obvious.”

We were getting near the day of the trial, which was to take place at Canterton, the county town, and, hard as I had worked I had not succeeded in getting any nearer the solution of the mystery.

I returned to my fiat dispirited.

A telegram and a letter were waiting for me. It was from my assistant, who had taken charge of the London end of the case. It was brief.

“FUENTES LEFT SUDDENLY FOR SPAIN BY THE NINE O’CLOCK BOAT TRAIN.”

So he had cleared. “Suddenly,” said the telegram, which meant unexpectedly. I took up the letter and opened it. It was from old Hilker, and had evidently been written after I had left that night.

“Dear Mr. Smith” (it ran). “I am enclosing herewith a cheque for a hundred pounds, the fee I promised you in the event of your failure to establish my nephew’s interest. I am so satisfied of his guilt that I have this night struck all reference to him out of my will. I am leaving to-morrow morning for Spain, and as I do not intend returning to England until this grisly business is over, I am settling our account.”

So he was going to Spain, too.

I made no further attempt to see him. The next morning he left London. There was nothing for me to do but to sit down and wait. I was refused any further opportunity of seeing my client, and even the solicitor who had charge of the case did not seem disposed to help me in the matter.

By careful inquiry I discovered that the revolver Fuentes could not purchase in Seaport he had secured from London. Through a friend who had the entrée to most of the embassies I found that Fuentes was a man of nervous temperament, but that was the sum total of my discoveries. There was nothing to do but sit tight and learn what the trial revealed.

And it revealed nothing.

It was tried before Mr. Justice Cadbury, and the evidence was the most ordinary I have ever listened to.

The man in the dock sat through it all unmoved. Now and again his eyes would stray to where I sat in the well of the court, and the ghost of a smile would hang about the corners of his loose mouth, then his eyes would go back to the judge, and the jury, and the witness, whichever object of interest held him for the moment.

It was all over in four hours. The jury, without retiring, returned a verdict of guilty, and Hilker stood up with his hands in his pockets, to hear the dread sentence of the law. His face retained its colour, there was not so much as a tremor to indicate his perturbation as he listened to the sentence.

Then, turning on his heels as the last words were spoken, he went down the stairs, out of the sight of men. I was leaving the court when I heard my name called. It was the solicitor who had defended the man.

“Hilker wants to see you,” he said. “Inspector Cass, who has had charge of the case, will take you to him.”

I found Cass waiting for me in the corridor beneath the court.

He nodded a kindly greeting.

“He wants you,” he said, and led the way.

There was a large reception-room, and in this I found my man.

He was sitting on a form, a warder at each side.

Would he give me the clue?

My heart leapt at the thought.

Now that he was face to face with death, would he drop some hint that would lead me to the right track? I felt, and had felt all along, that he could tell me more than he had done.

He looked up as I entered, and smiled wryly.

“You’ll be seeing my uncle, I suppose?” he said.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Well, tell him from me,” he went on, “that I’m much obliged to him for the trouble he has taken; he’s been a mean old dog all his life, but he's played the game at the end.”

“Have you any message for Fuentes?” I asked, quietly.

He frowned.

“Fuentes? Who the devil is Fuentes? Oh, I know. The Spanish fellow. No. What message can I have for him?”

A wild fear suddenly seized me.

“But— but,” I stammered, “you are not guilty?”

There was scornful amusement in his glance.

“Guilty? Of course, I’m guilty. Any fool could see that!”

INSPECTOR CASS led the way out. I was dazed, upset.

“Look here, Mr. Smith,” said Cass, with a note of irony in his tone, “you ought to write an account of this murder, it would be the most extraordinary crime story ever known.”

“Why?” I asked, in astonishment.

“Why?” he repeated, “because the obvious man committed it, and the average policeman detected it.”

__________________________

15: The Destroyer

Weekly Tale-Teller, January 8, 1910

OVER by Voisney a heliograph made a great trembling splash of light.

"Answer," said the captain, and the corporal tapped the key of the little mirror which stood on a thin-edged tripod before him.

"Le Zallach en vol," he read, and monsieur the captain swore.

"Send back," he said briefly, and a chasseur behind him waved a flag rapidly.

So the news went back to the camp, to the tent before which the tricolour of France flew, to the stout, red-faced man who sat at a table, his head in his hands, studying a map of the country west of Nancy.

The Zallach was flying. The news went like wildfire through the lines. Men sitting in little circles about their tiny fires— it is cold in October in the open country about Nancy— rose and stared blankly and helplessly at the darkening East.

The artillerymen did not rise, for they had only just returned from a hard day's fighting, but they grabbed their food and ate rapidly, knowing that they would he required presently. The 14th Cavalry did not rise because they had been chasing the Zallach for a week, and were sore men, body and soul.

"My friend," said the general to the chief of staff, "my friend, this Zallach is an accursed nuisance!" He was a fat, jolly general, and his tone was one of comical despair.

"In the great war we fought men— men who grovelled and crawled on their stomachs like worms. It was crawl for crawl with us. We saw them creeping through a field and we crept after them; we watched them wriggle round a hill and we wriggled forward to check them. But now we fight birds!"

He shook his head tragically.

On his map, veined blue and red with innumerable lines, were black squares methodically painted. They lay for the main part where blue road-vein and red railway-artery came together in a chaotic ganglion.

"Here," he said, and stuffed his finger upon such a square, "here Madame Zallach destroyed the line, hindering the mobilisation of the 10th Army Corps. Here she came slowly to earth and destroyed the bridge over the Loire, to my embarrassment, and now—"

Contrary to all expectations, no decisive battle had yet been fought between the opposing armies. Since the memorable day when Spain's defeat at El-Malabi had necessitated the occupation of the north of Morocco by French troops, war had been inevitable. It was precipitated by the accidental shelling of the other Power's consulate at El Malabi by a French battery.

But the one decisive battle which military experts demanded to open and close the war had not been waged. Rather the two armies sparred cautiously, making certain preparations. Chief of the instruments of preparation had been the Zallach— officially "his Majesty's airship, Zallach IV."

A great ship this, that could rise and fall at will, go up against a gale or run before it, lower engineers on dark nights to destroy culvert and bridge, and then, before the alarm could be given— whir-r-r! She was up again, her big aluminium nose pointing to the stars, her car canted to an uncomfortable angle, but the men, clutching desperately at her cane rails safe, despite their discomfort.

Twice had the general had her within range, once at dawn, once under his searchlights; but neither field nor aerial artillery came into action as quickly as she went buzzing out of range, a monstrous yellow bee, leaving her sting behind.

"She is not yet in sight, general," reported the chief of staff, but the stout general sat at the table before his map, saying nothing.

"She demoralises the men— she is a nightmare," continued the staff officer; "she is Atropos" (he had a passion for the classics, this chief of staff), "Lachesis, Clotho— "

"And you are Cassandra, the son of the devil," said the general, whose mythology was nil. "Send Monsieur Pelletier to me."

The staff officer saluted and retired.

He came back in a few minutes with a youth who wore a Norfolk suit of unmistakable English cut but whose Parisianism was best displayed in the amplitude of his cravat.

"Monsieur Pelletier," said the general, "I am inclined to risk your valuable life."

The young man smiled cheerfully.

"My friend, Madame Zallach"— the general waved his hand to the door of his tent— "causes me annoyance. Moreover, she is dangerous. She is apparently the only thing that can move over this infernal country by night without falling into a ditch. My artillery cannot reach her, because she knows where the guns are parked and avoids the locality; also she sees us when we take our guns out and goes another way."

The young man bowed again.

"Therefore," said the general more slowly and gravely than was his wont, "I particularly desire that she should be destroyed."

He walked to one end of the tent and took up a small box. It was the size of a tea-chest and fairly light. The lid was fastened with a lock, and this he opened; and, gingerly removing the fine shavings at the top, revealed a curiously-shaped bomb. It was little larger than an orange, but from every part of its surface protruded long, thin hooks and spikes. At one side of the sphere was a light steel staple.

"I have had this made according to your directions, and you will find that it is timed for thirty seconds; you understand, mon vieux?"

"Parfaitement, mon general," said the boy.

"I have decided," the commander went on, "that you shall take with you Monsieur Le Brun."

The youth turned with a stare of blank astonishment.

"But, general," he protested. "Monsieur Le Brun! It is impossible! Monsieur Le Brun! He is a biplane man— we are not agreed— general, you embarrass me."

"Nevertheless," said the general, with a gesture to the world at large, "nevertheless— for the glory of France— besides which," he added thoughtfully, "there is no other aeroplanist in the camp."

The young man drew himself up, bowed, and departed to change. After all, he reflected, it might be worse. But for Le Brun breaking his crankshaft, the task might have been his; and he, Pelletier, might have been obliged to ride a passenger on a preposterous biplane.

"ARE you all right?" Pelletier spoke coldly over his shoulder at the man behind him. Le Brun, of the Engineers, himself a famous aeroplanist, was crouching behind him in the boat-like body of the monoplane, and between his knees was the little box no bigger than a small tea-chest.

"All right," he said dubiously; "though, Monsieur Pelletier, you understand that I do not approve of monoplanes; to me, for the ultimate conquest of the air, we must look only to the biplane. Every— — "

"I will spare you, monsieur," said the young man with ominous calm, "a lecture on aeronautics, more especially since my own experiments have not been without result."

"In the matter of stability— — " began Le Brun.

"Monsieur," said the other, his voice trembling, "you are on the subject most tender to me."

He looked down at the circle of curious soldiers and reached his hand to the general.

"I can just see her," he said, and pointed ahead to where, on the skyline, like a black pencil-mark in the blue-black east, the Zallach hovered.

"Bon voyage, mes braves," said the general, and Pelletier started the motor.

"Hold on!" he said, and six men gripped the light framework of the machine.

"Whir-r-r!" roared the engines, and the thin propeller at the bow whistled round, a blue haze marking its presence.

"Let go!"

The machine leapt forward, running along the level plain at thirty miles an hour, gathering speed as it moved. Pelletier's hands were on the two wheels at his side, his feet on the rudder treads, his eyes fixed ahead.

"Bump, bump, bump!" rushed the monoplane over the uneven ground, then Pelletier cautiously turned his wheels forward, and the two planes at the side of the ship rose obediently. The bumping ceased, there was only a slight swaying from side to side, otherwise the boat seemed to be stationary. Over the side the world was slipping past; the camp was already far behind, and Pelletier pressed the rudder tread and brought the planes back over the camp again.

Twice he circled, ever rising, the camp beneath him growing smaller and smaller till the lines of the bivouacked troops spread beneath him like a gridiron.

"We are now?" he asked, and Le Brun consulted the tiny barometer before him.

"Two hundred metres," he said grudgingly. "Had this been a biplane of the Voison-Farman type, we should— — "

"Thank you, monsieur," said Pelletier with elaborate politeness.

"It is very cold," grumbled the man at his back.

"It would be colder on a biplane," said the other, and grinned into the darkness.

Le Brun said nothing; but, after a while, he asked:

"Shall I put out the bomb, m'sieur?"

"Wait until we are clear of the camp, I pray you," said the pilot, and headed the monoplane due north.

All the time the Mignonette was rising, and in the thinner atmosphere she slowed to forty kilometres an hour.

Pelletier was taking a sweep that would bring him up on the blind side of the Zallach. To go flying straight out to the enemy with the afterglow of sunset at his back would be courting calamity. Silhouetted against the evening sky, he would be a fair mark for the riflemen of Madame.

"If monsieur will hang out the bomb," he suggested as the plane cleared the outlying pickets— tiny black dots moving slowly below. Le Brun opened the box, lifted the little black orange carefully, clipped the trailing line to the staple, and lowered it through the bottomless "floor" of the car.

Slowly, slowly, he lowered it, and as slowly Pelletier brought the planes a fraction higher to compensate the disturbed balance.

Le Brun watched the operation with professional interest. He was impressed. He said as much with characteristic generosity.

"I had no idea that a monoplane— " he said; "yet, if you will pardon me, my friend, I should have thought that your great ingenuity would be better employed on a machine of a more— "

"M. Le Brun," said Pelletier, "I am overwhelmed by your praise and appalled by your judgment."

The tiny barometer before Le Brun showed 500 metres, and Pelletier chuckled ruefully.

"This is nearly a record, mon ami," he said, "but there is no prix d'altitude for our little Mignonette."

"It is very cold," grumbled Le Brun, evading responsive praise.

Pelletier brought the plane slowly round to the east; all the time he had been watching the faint outlines of the big dirigible, and judged it lo be three miles away, and flying at 300 metres, its favourite height.

It was moving slowly northward at right angles to him, and judging that he had crossed its track he turned southward, so that it would pass him on his right.

He was, he knew, well out of sight, for the monoplane, with its flat surfaces, offered no bulk, and besides, darkness had fallen on the world, save for the pearl-grey glow in the west.

"We are much higher than she," he said. "I hope she is moving."

His only danger lay in the dirigible remaining stationary, for then, with her engines stopped, the whirring of his propeller would be plainly audible. Nearer and nearer the Mignonette crept, and the progress seemed slow though she was moving at thirty miles an hour, and through his night-glasses Le Brun watched.

"She's moving," he said, "and if I'm any judge of perspective we're about 100 metres too high."

Her "deck" was visible now, but it was too dark to see the figures of her crew. Pelletier put his helm over to starboard and brought the Mignonette directly in the track of the balloon, then—

"She's higher than I thought," said Le Brun quickly. "Look! there goes her searchlight— she wouldn't dare use that under four hundred metres."

From the deck shot a long white beam that moved downward. Le Brun saw a little round patch of the green earth appear at the end of the ray, saw the glitter of a thread of river, and a grain of humanity on a white road.

"One of our cavalry outposts," he said. "So long as they keep the light down we are safe."

He glued his glasses to his eyes and watched in silence.

Nearer and nearer swept the little destroyer through the air.

"They've stopped!" whispered Le Brun fiercely; "plane, plane, for God's sake!"

Pelletier's hand went out to shut off the engine. He could plane down to his victim without risk, but he was too late.

The white beam jerked up from its survey of the world below, and began searching the heavens. Left and right, up and down it waved with fierce energy.

"Now!" said Pelletier between his teeth, and dipped his planes. Gathering speed as it slipped down the velvet path of air, the Mignonette came hurtling through space. 200 metres, a hundred, then the searchlight found her, and the white light glared in Pelletier's face. But he was prepared. Swiftly he adjusted the smoked glasses that were on his forehead.

"Zipp— zipp— zizz!"

"Air-guns," muttered Le Brun. "I thought the devils wouldn't risk the rifle at this altitude."

He steadied the swaying bomb that hung between his knees, drew it gently up until it was flush with his foot-rest.

Then the light went out; they were in the upward-cast shadow of the balloon.

"Wait, wait!" screamed Pelletier over his shoulder; "we have overshot them."

"A biplane," muttered Le Brun, "would not have over-shot them."

The mono' tilted alarmingly as it swung round again; the searchlight was thrusting into the darkness in a vain search; it found the monoplane for the second time as it come flying backward to the attack.

"Zip! zip!"

Le Brun felt something slap the side of his head, and shook it like a dog. He felt something warm on his face.

"Now!" yelled Pelletier, and Le Brun slipped a catch and dropped the bomb.

"Zip! zip!"

The searchlight was on them, but the Mignonette was flying at hurricane speed to safety.

Away, away she flow, lower and lower, until looking backward Le Brun saw the big body of the dirigible was above him, and two hundred metres in rear.

"We've failed!" he whispered, and cursed— mainly he cursed human stupidity that put its faith in a boat with wings.

"If it struck the bag it will hold," Pelletier shouted. "We've got about ten more seconds to get out of hell!"

One, two, three!

They were well clear of danger now, for the searchlight had gone out, but there was the risk of wind from the explosion.

"Crash!"

The very heavens seemed to burst into flame and fall; a mighty wind swept the monoplane over to its side, lifted it and threw it through space.

"Hold on!" yelled Pelletier.

HALF an hour later he planed down before the general's tent, a white-faced, dishevelled youth, with lines about his eyes.

"Finished," he said sleepily, and tumbled out of his seat like a log. Le Brun descended slowly after him. He seemed to be considering something, then, as Pelletier turned to direct the soldiers who were handling the airship, he said:

"Monsieur, it is due to you to say that nothing but a monoplane could have turned two somersaults in the air, and righted itself at the end. I would add," he said sleepily reflective, "that the biplane would not have turned the somersault, but that is beside the point."

_______________________

16: Her Birthday

Novel Magazine, July 1914

REDWOOD, of the firm of Redwood & Fenner, came into the office in evening dress, for he was dining with Sigley that night. Much depended on the interview. Sigley would be the principal creditor if things went wrong, and things were going as wrong as they could. He was nervous. That he had dressed an hour before dressing was necessary was proof enough of his jumpiness.

Margaret Marsden was cool enough. The sight of her busy fingers manipulating the keys of the typewriter soothed him; the click-click of the machine was an admirable sedative.

Redwood strolled aimlessly down to his desk, stared thoughtfully at the pad, and dropped his overcoat over the back of a chair. The buzzer on the desk sounded. He picked up the receiver— it communicated with the hall-porter’s box.

“Yes? Detective-Inspector Harrod from the Criminal Investigation Department?” His eyes narrowed.

“Detective Inspector Harrod?” he repeated thoughtfully. “Tell him to come up.”

The hand that pulled open the drawer of the desk shook a little. He had been more reckless in his transactions than a member of an established firm of Hatton Garden jewel merchants should have been. He took a revolver from the drawer of his desk and examined it with a speculative eye. Then he replaced it and closed the drawer.

“Miss Marsden,” he said.

The girl looked round.

“Yes, Mr. Redwood.”

He was caressing his little black moustache meditatively.

“My bag is in the next room,” he said after a moment’s hesitation. “It is rather heavy, but I may want you to take it to Charing Cross cloakroom— if necessary. It may not be necessary, but if I have to— to go out, wait until I am gone, then get the bag away.”

“I see,” said the girl, and looked at him strangely.

There was a knock at the door, and the florid Detective-Inspector entered.

“Good evening, Inspector,” Redwood nodded, keeping his eyes fixed on the other’s face. The man smiled, so it was all right, thought Redwood. Sigley had not discovered that his diamonds had been pledged.

“I am lucky to catch you here,” said the Inspector.

“Catch me?”

Inspector Harrod laughed.

“That’s an unfortunate term for a detective to use, isn’t it?” he chuckled.

He sat down at the other’s invitation, but refused the proffered cigarette.

Redwood was terribly nervous. It required all his effort of will to disguise his apprehension.

“You’re going out?” said the detective, seeing the other’s attire. “I won’t keep you long.”

“My time is yours,” answered Redwood.

The detective leant over the desk and began in his businesslike way:

“Now, sir, it has come to our knowledge that you have— ” He looked round. “Can I speak before your stenographer?” he asked, lowering his voice.

Redwood nodded.

“Yes. She— er— she is in my confidence. I mean in our confidence,” he corrected himself hastily.

Harrod nodded.

“Very good. It has come to our knowledge that you have in your office safe pearls to the value of £20,000.”

Redwood agreed with an inclination of his head.

“Yes, the Lai Singh rope.”

“A remarkable set?” suggested the officer.

Redwood shrugged his shoulders.

“Not remarkable save for the quantity; they are just a number of perfect pearls of an ordinary type.”

The police officer nodded emphatically.

“Exactly,” he said. “That is why the pearls are remarkable, and that is why at Scotland Yard we are anxious about them. They are pearls which would sell anywhere— in Paris, New York, Buenos Ayres; the very collection that would tempt Chicago Kate,” he said slowly and with emphasis.

Redwood was surprised and showed it.

“Is she in London?” he asked.

“According to our information, she is,” replied Harrod. “You know of her, of course?”

Redwood smiled. She was the nightmare of every dealer in Hatton Garden. Didn’t she steal the Grein diamond? Had she not taken Lady Dale Mortimer’s emeralds? From one end of the jewellery world to the Other Chicago Kate was a terror and a menace.

“She has been over here for some time,” the detective went on.

“Why isn’t she arrested?” asked the other

“Because very few people know her,” explained Harrod. “She is to most of us only a name. She hasn’t been working for quite a long time. Now apparently she has turned up in London.” He rose. “I came to warn you, as I have warned other gentlemen in your business. Take my advice and have your pearls sent to the bank.”

So that was all the visit signified. In his relief Redwood felt almost cheerful.

“I am greatly obliged to you, Mr. Harrod,” he said, walking to the door with his visitor.

Harrod looked round, his hand on the door. “Er— young lady,” he said.

“Yes?” Margaret Marsden raised her pretty face to the Inspector.

“I’m afraid I’ve said a little more than I Intended,” he said, half in jest. “You mustn’t talk about what you have heard.”

The girl smiled.

“I wasn’t listening,” she said.

“That’s wise of you. Good night, sir.”

“Good night, Inspector.”

Harrod paused irresolutely.

“By the way, sir, you don’t happen to know where I can find your partner?” he asked.

What did he want with Fenner?

“No, he’s probably gone home,” said Redwood. He had not seen Fenner that day; he was racing at Windsor, he believed. Fenner was always at races lately— that was one of the reasons why people had been so suspicious of the firm’s stability.

Redwood waited till the door closed on the detective; then he walked slowly back to the desk, his agile mind busy with a thought. Suppose these pearls disappeared while Chicago Kate was in London! People would think— The thought was worth pondering. He looked across to the girl. She was pulling a sheet from the typewriter.

“Finished?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied laconically.

“Have you finished the copy of the letters I gave you?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“No, they will take me till late,” she said.

She avoided his eye, this trim, pretty woman with the delicate hands and the gold-brown hair. He regarded her admiringly.

“You don’t mind working alone in the office? On your birthday, too?” he asked.

She smiled a little.

“Not at all; I prefer it— even on my birthday,” she said drily. He understood the emphasis she put upon one word.

“You mean that you’re glad to see the back of me?”

“Exactly,” she said briskly, and slipped a new sheet of paper into the roller of her machine.

“But, Margaret— ” he protested.

“Don’t ‘Margaret’ me, please,” she said coldly.

He laughed.

“You’re a cold-blooded devil. Why do you work here for two pounds a week when— ”

There was no need for him to finish his sentence. She had grown weary of the repetition. The offer he had made her was such as had been made to a hundred women. God knows that Redwood was not in a position to offer even ten pounds a week, and the furnishing of the flat might at this juncture have presented certain difficulties.

She made no reply to his suggestion, her quick fingers stabbed the keys with bewildering rapidity, and he had to talk through the clatter she made.

“I swear to you that I love no other woman in the world,” he said earnestly.

Clickety clickety, click clack.

“You don’t believe me?”

She stopped.

“I don’t believe you,” she agreed shortly, “and I’m not greatly interested anyway.”

“I would do the right thing,” he pleaded.

She smiled as she rose to carry her work to Fenner’s desk.

“When a man says that,” she said quietly, “he has started off by doing the wrong thing. The right thing, I suppose, is the flat and the £10 a week for housekeeping.”

Then it was he saw the little package on his desk.

“What’s this?” he demanded, and unwrapped it. “Why, you’ve sent back the present I gave you!”

She nodded.

“Your little present is too expensive even for a birthday present. I’m greatly obliged to you all the same. It goes with the flat and the ten pounds a week, I imagine?”

“My dear girl!” he laughed.

“My dear man,” mocked she, “don’t you realise that if I wanted that sort of life there are a dozen people in the world who would give me a much bigger flat, and— let us say, twenty pounds a week, and much more expensive birthday presents!”

“But they wouldn’t be me.”

The complacence in the tone tickled her.

“That would make the prospect ever so much more pleasant,” she said a little cruelly.

He shrugged his shoulders and looked up at the clock ticking soberly over the door. There were ten minutes before he need go; possibly the dinner with Sigley would be unnecessary— if he could persuade her. In his selfish way he loved her; and she was the more desirable because of her resistance. He walked over to the safe and unlocked it. The sight of the Lai Singh rope might inspire him to a course. She owed something to him. He had taken her into this office three months ago and given her a bigger salary than she had asked. He knew nothing about her; she might have been Chicago Kate for all he knew. He mentioned this fact.

“Chicago Kate?” she asked, puzzled.

“You know— the woman thief that detective was talking about. I took a risk when I brought you into one of the greatest firms of pearl merchants in Hatton Garden. I took a risk, by Jove!” he grumbled.

“And so did I, by Jove!” mocked the girl.

He had opened the safe and brought out the filigree silver box and placed it on his desk.

“Do you know what it contains?” he asked impressively.

“No,” she responded.

It seemed that she was in no mood for small talk.

“It contains the Lai Singh pearls. There’s £20,000 worth here.”

She was not as obviously impressed as he could have desired.

“It seems a lot of money,” sh.e said, and that was all.

“What would you do with £20,000?” he asked, with a smile.

“Me? “She considered. “I’d buy a new hat, I think.”

Her sarcasm left him unamused. An idea was growing.

“Margaret, there’s something I’d like to tell you,” he said.

If she knew the truth she might throw in her lot with his. Women are curious creatures.

“There’s something I’d like to tell you when you call me Margaret,” she said hotly, but he took no notice of her indignation.

“I could offer you a new life,” he said half to himself. “A life of ease and luxury in another land. By God, I’ve a good mind to take you into my confidence!”

“Don’t!” She raised her hand warningly. “I don’t want to know.”

“Tell me. There isn’t anybody else? Fenner?”

The contempt in her smile disposed of that sportsman.

“I know Fenner,” he said. “He’s my partner, but he’s a wrong ‘un. There isn’t anything straight about him except his circumstances. Don’t put your faith in Fenner. He’s broke. Horses, and betting, and— worse.”

“The greatest firm of pearl merchants in Hatton Garden, I think you said?” she asked.

He spread out his hands in deprecation.

“These things happen. Affairs have gone badly with us.” He looked at his watch. “I shall miss my dinner,” he said. “Good night.”

“You’re not taking your bag,” she reminded him.

“No, that can wait.”

She nodded.

“You’ve packed up. Are you going away somewhere?” she asked.

“No. I just”— he hesitated. Then: “Well, it is nothing to do with you anyway; you aren’t interested.”

She nodded, this time vigorously.

“Yes, I am,” she said. “I am always interested when a prosperous pearl merchant packs his bag and books his ticket to the Continent.”

“How do you know?” he gasped.

She picked up a square black cover from the desk.

“Here is the ticket,” she said, with gentle malice. “You put it down and forgot to take it up in the agitation of your love-making.”

He swore under his breath, and at the door turned.

“Oh, by the way, your typing needn’t keep you,” he said carelessly. “I may want the office later, and remember this, Margaret— ”

“Oh, dear!” she protested wearily. What she had to remember she did not learn, for as Redwood stood with his hand on the knob of the door, Fenner came in. A smart man with a certain ruddiness of face that told of a life devoted to field sport. The race glasses slung over his shoulder suggested an explanation for his absence all day. He scowled at his partner.

“Hello!” he growled.

“Hello!” repeated the other ungraciously.

“I-came to get something out of my desk,” said Fenner.

“Oh!”

Redwood’s tone expressed, as if in so many words, that the explanation for the other’s presence was not accepted.

“Going?” asked Fenner.

“Yes. I’m dining with Sigley.”

Fenner grinned.

“Hope you have a good time,” he said ironically.

Still Redwood lingered.

“Are you coming my way?” he asked more politely than usual.

Fenner was sitting at his desk eyeing his correspondence dubiously; now he looked up.

“No, not just yet. I’ve a letter or two to dictate. Many happy returns, Miss Marsden,” he nodded to the girl.

“Thank you,” she smiled.

“I’ll wait for you,” Redwood decided. “Miss Marsden wants to get away.”

“Don’t trouble,” Fenner waved him to the devil. “They are private letters.”

“Well, I’ll wait,” said Redwood.

He suspected the other of many things— but mostly of a partiality for this pretty girl at the typewriter.

“What the devil do you mean?” demanded Fenner. “If you don’t understand that I’d rather have your room than your company you’re more thick-headed that I thought you were.”

“I don’t know how thick-headed you thought I was,” said the other coolly.

“Look here, Redwood— ” Fenner rose angrily from his chair.

“Gentlemen!” It was the shocked Margaret.

“Perfectly beastly temper you’ve got, Fenner,” complained Redwood. “Your horses been acting the fool again?”

“Mind your own business,” said his sullen partner.

“I see by the papers that ‘Molten Gold’ was beaten by a short head for the Windsor Handicap,” Redwood went on. He took up the paper he had brought in. “‘Heavily backed and beaten on the post,’” he quoted. “That was unfortunate for you, Fenner, if you were the backer.”

“There’s lots of interesting news in the paper,” snarled the other. “They say the South African market has slumped to blazes. Gilfontein Deeps are down to 20s. You held quite a parcel of Gilfonteins, Redwood.”

Redwood shuffled awkwardly. So Fenner knew!

“Yes, I did,” he admitted.

“That was unfortunate, too,” sneered Fenner.

“I didn’t expect the market to go as it has,” replied Redwood in an injured tone.

His partner laughed.

“Nobody ever docs,” he said. “I didn’t expect ‘Molten Gold’ to be beaten by a short head this afternoon. These things happen.”

There was nothing to be gained by waiting.

“Good night, Miss Marsden,” said Redwood. And then: “Good night, Fenner.”

“Night,” growled the man at the desk without looking up.

Redwood slammed the door. As he did so Fenner rose.

“Maggie! “he said quickly, and she swung round.

“Now, Mr, Fenner,” she warned, “I’ve told you I can’t allow you to call me by my Christian name.”

“It’s probably the last time I will. I am in the devil of a hole.”

She saw the haggard face; he had put off his mask of indifference. Here was a man immensely hurt.

“It seems an unfortunate day for the firm of Redwood & Fenner,” said the girl not unkindly.

“But I’m not in such trouble that I haven’t thought of you. I’ve brought you this,” he said eagerly, and took a case from his pocket. “It’s a little birthday present.” She came over from her corner of the room and took the thing, opened it, and raised her eyebrows.

“A little birthday present! “she repeated “Why, that is worth a hundred pounds! “

“I forget,” he answered carelessly.

“I suppose you haven’t paid for it?” she said.

He frowned, then the humour of it struck him, and he laughed.

“That has nothing whatever to do with you,” he said.

“How curious men are!” She closed the case and handed it back. “Here is your present,” she said.

“What!” He was aghast. “You’re not going to take it?”

She shook her head.

“No, thank you,” she said. “I— er— can’t afford to take it.”

He was hurt now in his self-esteem— more vulnerable a part than his self- respect.

“Well, I can’t force it on you,” he said dourly.

“Besides,” she smiled, “it may be valuable to you— now.”

He drew a long breath.

“Oh, it will be valuable to me all right. I shan’t be able to settle on Monday?”

“Can’t you compromise?” she asked.

“No,” he said bitterly. “I couldn’t hold my head up again if I pleaded for time. I’ve got to clear out.”

“I see— make an honourable bolt. What happens to your head, then?”

This Margaret could be very hard.

“Don’t trifle, Maggie,” he said.

“Miss Marsden,” she corrected.

“Oh, well, if you want to be so infernally proper! I met Inspector Howard outside.”

“He- came to warn you about Kansas Jane, or some weird person,” she said.

“Chicago Kate. Yes. Suppose those pearls of ours disappeared— vanished in the night— ” He laughed. He would not have been so amused had he known that the same idea had already occurred to his partner. “We should know where they’d gone, shouldn’t we?”

“I should,” said the girl, over her shoulder. “I should know that the partners of Redwood & Fenner were on their wav to the Continent.”

He was startled.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“You’ve brought your bag, too,” said she. He had; though at the sight of Redwood he had put it down by his desk without ostentation.

“Yes, I— er— ” he began.

“Packed? And a ticket in your pocket to Berlin or somewhere? “

“How did you know?”

“I guessed,” she smiled.

He took two swift steps toward her and bent over her shoulder. There was a vibrant note in his voice as he spoke. Here was a stronger, more reckless passion than Redwood’s. He gripped her arm.

“You know there’s no girl in the world who is to me what you are,” he said rapidly. “Take the plunge! I offer you a life of happiness, of freedom, new sights, a new life in another land. I want you! “

She got up quickly.

“Let go my hand, please,” she said, and pushed him away. “How dare you!”

He laughed.

“How dare I? How dare I do anything? I’m ruined— so is Redwood. He’s waiting for the opportunity to clear away with these pearls, the last valuable consignment with which we shall ever be trusted. Don’t you think I know? They’re insured; nobody will lose except the underwriters.”

She had walked quickly to Redwood’s desk— a solid bulwark between herself and this masterful man.

“Poor underwriters!” she said.

In a moment he had forgotten her in the larger enterprise.

“If I could be sure they would fix on Chicago Kate— ” he considered aloud.

He had a trick of biting his fingers when he was perturbed.

“Poor Chicago Kate!” she said, watching him. “Must she be in the same cart as the underwriters?”

He shook his head slowly.

“I can’t take the risk,” he said definitely then. “You can go as soon as you like,” he added briefly. The girl smiled, the tone was so different now.

“You’ll remember this birthday!”

“I shall.”

Fenner crossed to the safe and opened it, he pulled out the filagree box and brought it to his desk.

Margaret, watching him curiously, asked : “What are you going to do?”

“I must take my chance,” he said.

From his key ring he took a small key.

“Suppose I go to the police?” she asked quietly, and he laughed.

“Accuse me of robbing myself? Don’t be silly!”

He found the key and slipped it into the tiny lock.

“Suppose I am accused?” she asked suddenly.

“You!” He was astounded at the suggestion, and inclined to be amused, but she was serious.

“Yes, I,” she nodded. “I am the last in the office. They might arrest me as an accessory.”

It was a sane objection such as you might expect Margaret with her clarity of vision to offer.

Fenner thought he could settle that for her. It did not matter a straw one way or the other to him. The world would know to-morrow. He sat at his desk and wrote:

“I, George Kenner, hereby certify that I removed the Lai Singh pearls, and that I have decamped with them.”

He read the words aloud as he wrote them.

“That will satisfy you,” he added, and handed the paper to the girl.

“But not me!”

Fenner swung round with an oath. Redwood stood in the doorway looking very white— the white of murderous passion. He had heard and he had understood the significance of the scene.

He hated Fenner at that moment as he never hated a man in his life. Hated him for his treachery and because of the girl who had received his confidence.

“You treacherous hound!” he breathed. “Are you the only man in the world looking for escape?”

Fenner was dazed. He passed his hand in front of his eyes as though to wipe away something that obscured his vision.

“We’re both in it, Redwood,” he said hoarsely. “I was mad. Can nothing be done to avoid this? Why,” the thought came to him suddenly, “you came back for them yourself!”

“What if I did? “ Redwood asked sullenly. “Anyway, we share and share alike.”

Margaret Marsden watched the little scene completely absorbed by its melodrama. Now, as Fenner went hastily to the safe, she asked: “What of me?”

“You?” asked Redwood.

“I!” she said. “You must put me right with the world. You shan’t leave me to hear the stigma of being concerned in this.”

Redwood remembered the letter his partner had written and frowned.

“She’s right,” said Fenner. “Give me that letter.”

Margaret handed it back, and Fenner ran his pen through some words and substituted others. “Here you are,” he said. “‘We, George Fenner and Horace Redwood certify that we have removed the Lai Singh pearls and have decamped with them.’”

“That alteration will do. Sign it, Redwood. If we bolt to-night what does it matter?”

Redwood looked at her. Then he signed, and the girl took the letter and gravely blotted it. She lifted down her little hat which hung above the machine, threw the ends of a stole about her neck, and took up her muff. The two men were busy; noiselessly she opened the drawer of Redwood’s desk.

“There’s a train leaves Waterloo to-night at ten,” Fenner was saying. “Southampton at midnight, arrives at Havre at day-break.”

“That’s the train,” said the other.

Fenner looked at his watch and opened the filigree box.

“We’ve time to share these up now. Why, Chicago Kate wouldn’t have done this job neater!” he added, with a grin.

“Stop!” It was the girl who spoke; her left hand fell upon the box, aud with one swift movement she drew it toward her. She stood between the two men at the far end of the desk.

“You are insulting Chicago Kate. She would not do this job so clumsily.”

“You seem to know a great deal about her,” said Redwood, recovering from a momentary spasm of alarm.

“I do,” she said quietly, “for I am Chicago Kate! Don’t move, my amorous friends,” she went on, dropping her voice, “with your twenty pound flats and your new lauds and your new joys. I’ll shoot the first man that gives me trouble.”

The revolver she pointed was undoubtedly Redwood’s taken from his drawer.

“Why, you don’t mean— ” Redwood was floundering in amazement. Fenner was dumb.

“I am Chicago Kate,” said the girl quickly. “I came here for a job, because I was tired of the work I had been doing. I wanted to start straight in a new land. I came to a jewel store because I love jewels. But you didn’t give me a chance,” she almost wailed. “It was love, flats, and allowances, and journeys to the Continent, birthday presents of £100 for a poor typist. You’ve shown me that there isn’t a chance for a pretty woman in this game, so I’m going back to America. I shan’t steal any more. I’ve enough to live on— now.”

She lifted the box and tucked it under her arm, her fanning revolver covered the men.

“Ha!” Fenner heard the quick footsteps on the stairs, but not before the girl had heard.

“Don’t move! Don’t speak!” She shut and locked the door.

“Mr. Redwood! Mr. Redwood!” It was Harrod’s voice.

“The police! By God, we’ve got you!” Redwood cried triumphantly.

The girl lifted a letter and waved it before him.

“‘We, George Fenner and Horace Redwood hereby certify that we decamped with the Lai Singh pearls.’” She smiled her mockery.

“My God!” Fenner saw the hopelessness of the situation.

“Mr. Redwood, are you there?” Harrod outside was growing impatient.

“I’m going to open the door,” she said in a low voice. “I can shoot through my muff very easily.”

She turned the key noiselessly and Harrod came into the room in a hurry.

He looked from face to face and smelt a row; but he saw only the element of a vulgar misunderstanding in which a woman had played a part.

“I’m sorry to intrude,” he said, “but I’ve just had a message from Scotland Yard to say that they believe the story of Chicago Kate being in the City is untrue.”

“Untrue!” said Redwood, and caught the girl’s eyes.

“So that relieves you of anxiety,” said Harrod.

Fenner nodded.

“Good night, Mr. Redwood,” said Margaret. With the box under her arm she made for the door leisurely.

“I— ” Redwood began in a strangled voice. She showed him a folded sheet of paper.

“I have this letter,” she said sweetly. “I’ll make a copy of it in the morning.”

She had to pass Harrod with the jewels under her arm. He took a step toward her and Fenner’s heart leapt to his mouth.

“That’s a pretty box you’ve got, miss,” said Harrod.

She smiled.

“Yes, isn’t it? “she drawled. “It is my birthday to-day, Inspector, and my employers have given me a little birthday present. Haven’t you?”

The two men nodded speechlessly.

For a moment she stood in the doorway, and then the gallant Harrod felt moved to offer her a good exit.

“Many happy returns,” he said, and bowed.

Three minutes later she was in a taxicab speeding West, and two men stared at one another across a common desk.

“She ought to, have been a member of the firm,” said Fenner, and laughed hollowly.

_________________________

17: The Despatch Rider

The Strand Magazine, Dec 1914

1

LADY GALLIGAY was always always starting things: other people usually carried them on, complaining bitterly the while that they had ever been born to assume the responsibilities which Lady Galligay created. For the "things" that she started with such zest invariably ended and finished without any assistance whatsoever. They faded away without violence and without noise. In January all Tadminster would be talking of Lady Galligay's newest project; there would be drawing-room meetings innumerable. They might even develop shape as a "cause," and attain to thc dignity of a public meeting, recorded in large type in the Tadminster Times. But by April, so feeble would the flame of interest flicker, that it was a case of "By the way, what happened to that great scheme of Lady Gally's?" when men and women met.

The Tadminster Mounted Nurse and Despatch-Rider Corps was one of this feather-brained little lady's most brilliant inventions. She was forty, and vague. and rich, and immensely energetic, and if she lacked stamina it was not to be expected that all the virtues of organization should dwell in one small body. It was after her "Cottage and Pigsty" for the democracy had been rejected by the same democracy, although two cottages were built and a whole drove of pigs had been mobilized, that Lady Galligay had planned her Mounted Nurses' Corps. It was an idea— even George Mestrell agreed that it was an idea, but, of course, he never dreamt that Jo would take up with the beasly thing. If the truth be told, Jo was rather aghast at finding herself enrolled, but Lady Gally was so awfully plausible, and well, there it was; George must take the situation as he found it, or leave it.

George, full of good spirits, came down from Aldershot one Saturday in spring, bringing, so to speak, the good news from Aix, for there had been an unexpected resignation and he had got his company. It made all the difference in the world, because matrimony was not encouraged amongst subaltern officers. He was entirely full of his good news, and sat on the edge of the settee in the dinky little drawing-room of Nearminster House, and told Gresham, demure and beautiful, her tender grey eyes smiling approval of her soldier lover and his enthusiasm, waited to impart her own news.

She broke it obliquely, with a line pretense of unconcern. Instinctively she felt, or he felt, that there was something in Lady Gallagay's latest which was not quite—

"I suppose you've heard of Lady Gally's corps?" she asked, carelessly.

He had a trick of smiling with his eyes which ordinarilv was very pleasing. For the first time in their acquaintance it failed to disarm her. Rather it sent her heart sinking down and down.

"Why do you smile?"

"I read something about it in the papers," he laughed. What a dear, funny old bird she is! Not a bad idea, hut imagine a corps of attractive young women gallivanting over a modern battlefield!

"In the sacred cause of humanity," she said. She knew she was being horribly trite, and felt no sweeter in consequence.

He stared up at her solemnly, for she had risen and stood, a slim, heroic figure, her rebellious chin tilted up, her fine brows set in menace.

"You are a soldier and you are biased," She went on, slowly. "You don't realize how women's positions have changed, how their capacities have enlarged. You don't underrtand.

Now the curious thing was, as she admitted to herself, that she herself had thought the corps a little ridiculous, and on the first "parade" she had felt so self-conscious as to vow a vow never again to appear in public so arrayed. But now, encountering a half-anticipated opposition, her attitude of mind had changed, and she indulged herself in a veritable orgy of inconsistency. She was unreasonably angry with him.

"Wait!" she commanded, suddenly, and whisked out of the room.

He waited, frowning his bewilderment, a neat, cleanly soldier man. How like Jo to jump down his throat for nothing at all! She was the dearest and sweetest and most perverse and obstinate of girls, and why on earth she should champion Gally the Lord only knew. So he thought, and, thinking, wondered why she had left him so dramatically.

After ten minutes' wait, ten minutes in the course of which he was by turn angry, amused, alarmed— suppose she was crying over something he had said— and resigned, he heard her footsteps on the parquet of the hall, and rose as she entered. He had had no intention of rising, because George's manners were deplorable, as everybody in Tadminster knows, but he rose— and gasped.

She came into the room, closing the door behind her, and stood, a little flushed, a little defiant, confronting him. Upon her pretty head was a wide sombrero hat, which was fastened under her chin by a strap. She wore a tight-fitting tunic blouse of blue cloth, with two rows of silver buttons; a skirt of serge braided in scarlet, which reached only so far as midway between knee and ankle; patent leather riding boots; and a suggestion of dark blue riding breeches went with snow-white haversack, military cross-belt, and riding gauntlets to complete the picture.

For a moment there was silence; then he spoke.

"Fancy dress or something?"

She pressed her lips tightly together and shook her head. There was a light in her eyes which should have warned him.

"What is the joke?" he asked, earnestly. "Is it private theatricals?"

She withered him with one glance.

"This is the uniform," she said.

"The uniform?"

"Lady Galligay's Mounted Nurses and Messengers," she explained, with unnatural patience.

He looked at her from head to toe, and in his scrutiny there was to Jo something unpardonably offensive.

"But," he said, slowly, "you're not rowing in that galley, dearie— dash it all, I mean you're not one of those infernally sill— I mean one of those?" He blundered himself to a standstill.

"Go on, please," she encouraged him, though her eyes were very moist and she was biting her very red lips with unnecessary vehemence.

"But, my girlie, it's so dashed absurd!" He blurted out the truth in his despair, this tall young man (something of a strategist in another field).

"Absurd?"

"I mean," he floundered, "it's so jolly theatrical, and the girls look such guys, and— "

"Thank you."

"But don't you see," he protested, "you can do nothing— you can't gallop about on a battlefield, darling; it isn't done. What can you do? You can't carry wounded soldiers about on horseback; and, as for despatch-riding, who the dickens is going to take order from you?"

"I can— we can do many things," she said, firmly and coldly; "but it would be foolish of me to argue the matter— I think you are just horrid, and I hate you!"

He stood in the centre of the room after she had flounced out, and for exactly three minutes he was penitent. Then he became annoyed, and when a tight-lipped and wholly antagonistic maid had informed him curtly that Miss Josephine was not to be seen, he was very angry indeed, and went back to town by the next train.

And that was the beginning of a tactless correspondence between two young people, a correspondence in which the effect of a certain scrappy tenderness was utterly annihilated by the indiscriminate use of notes of exclamation.

Jo resigned her membership of the Flying Nurses, gave her uniform to the gardener— an unimaginative man who saw possibilities for little boys' breeches in the voluminous riding-skirt— and she went abroad on the long-planned motor tour through South-Western France, previously dispatching a half-hoop of diamonds with a curt note to "Lieutenant G. Mestrell, 1st Southamptonshire Regiment, Talavera Barracks, Aldershot." And this though George had explained to her the highly important fact that he had secured his captaincy.

Of her adventures, her spasms of remorse, of letters reproachful and letters affectionate and letters completely penitent which she wrote and tore up, it is not necessary to tell. She lost her girl companion at a little town between Paris and Orleans.

Of her adventures, her spasms of remorse, of letters reproachiul and letters affectionate and letters completely penitent which she wrote and tore up, it is not necessary to tell. She lost her girl companion at a little town between Paris and Orleans.

There were rumours of war in the air, but that was no unusual experience in France. Bertha Mansell, however, was nervous, and must go home, and Jo was left with her little two-seater to decide whether she should take the Paris-Amiens road, or whether she should continue northward to the old-world town of Senlis. Here in the heart of the country an aunt had a little château. Jo decided on the second course, and came to the Château Verte to find herself its sole occupant, Aunt Martha having been bitten by the war scare and having left in a hurry for England.

It suited Jo, this month of absolute rest after the strenuous days of motoring. She sketched and slept and listened with amusement to the wild stories of war which an ancient French servitor and his no more youthful spouse regaled her with.

Then one day she awoke with a shock to learn the truth. There was war. Motoring out towards Beauvais, she had seen French soldiers marching northward. Belgium had been invaded, Liège was in their hands— even Brussels, they said, but that was unbelievable. Yes, it was possible to get to Ostend, but she must hurry.

The English were also at war, they told her, but only on the sea. She felt a sudden lightening of heart at this— hugged the obviously unlikely story to her heart, though reason told her that one Service could not be engaged without the other.

She hurried hack to the château, packed her traps, and strapped them to the rear of her little car. The servitor and his wife had already made preparations for departure.

"Take the road through Maubeuge, and branch off to Condé, mademoiselle," said the man; "but" — his face was troubled — "it would be better to go to Calais; that is only five hours away."

She shook her head.

It was a perfectly absurd consideration. but she had come to the Continent by way of Ostend, and had her return ticket by that route. Moreover, there was a rebate to be claimed at the frontier; a rebate of the provisional duty she had paid on her car.

Besides, she might see something of the fighting— an exhilarating and joyous thought. She set her car at the hill which led from the château to the plateau above Senlis with a sense of glorious anticipation.

2

OVER by Condé the guns were sobbing fitfully. You had to listen with your ears strained to catch the insistent note. If you climbed to the high belfry of St. Peter's you saw, through good glasses, little woolly balls of smoke appearing in the air, saw the shapeless drift of it as it thinned, and, listening with all your nerves tense, you might identify one of the far-off sobs with that lazy smoke spume.

"I think mademoiselle had better go quickly." The old priest, his cassock white with the dust of the roads, was hollow-eyed and weary. His shoes were hard and burnt and grimy, and there was a two-days' stubble of beard on his chin. He stood by the side of the girl in the bellry, plucking at his lip thoughtfully, his anxious eyes divided between the northern horizon and the slim girl by his side. Jo was young and immensely pretty— not the rose and cream prettiness of England, but the old-ivory beauty of the South. The eyes were big and grey and wide set, her mouth small but full-parted now in her excitement. The rough tweed dress, the short skirt, and puttied ankles suggested a bicycle, but it was a little two-seater "Mombo" that stood by the porch of the old church, a worn trunk strapped to the carrier. Altogether, thought Father Pierre, an incongruous figure in this area of horrible war. Her trim hat appeared grey— it had once been a most uncompromising black, but the roads of Southern Belgium in July are inclined to revolutionize the intentions of the modiste. "They are returning this way," said the priest, after a while, and fidgeted nervously. "Mademoiselle must abandon her idea of crossing Belgium— her way lies through Lille to the coast. She will be safe, for the English hold— "

"The English?" she gasped. "Are there English here?"

He nodded and smiled.

"There is a great division— there." He pointed towards Condé. "Also there are others in the rear."

"But they told me— Are you sure, father?"

He nodded again.

He was very sure, for had he not seen the yellow coats go swaying past through Rheims— yellow coats open to show grey-blue shirts and bare brown throats.

"The regiments?" He shook his head regretfully in answer to her question.

"No, I do not know the regiments. They wore badges— here, on the collar. Some had tigers in brass, one had a sphinx in white metal, some wore little grenades, and one had a bronze fox— "

"A bronze fox!" she gasped.

There is only one regiment in the British Army that wears the "red fox," and that is the Southamptonshire Regiment— that famous fox which they won in the Nepalese War. It took her a second to decide. Somewhere over there where the guns were going "glang!" "glang!" was George— George unreconciled— in danger.

She must see him. She must tell him she was sorry. It was the maddest of ideas. She knew how absurd it was even as she went stumbling down the belfry steps, followed by the startled curé. "No, mademoiselle!" he cried, in apprehension, as she turned the car to the northern road; "not that way— not that way!"

But with a cheery wave of her hand she put the little car to the long, straight road which led towards those dreadful guns.

She passed soldiers busily entrenching, French cavalry stealing along the side of the road. Once she slowed down before a cottage where a bare-armed surgeon was busy with the wreck of a man that lay stretched on a big kitchen table, They glanced at her curiously, but did not stop her. Then there was a clearer stretch of road, and she let out the little Mombo to its top licks. The guns were nearer now, their "boom-boom" was incessant, there was a horrible sound in the air— a whining, whistling, shrieking sound, and once she saw a white house far away to her right burst into flames and crumble slowly to pieces.

She passed through a tiny village which was still blazing. Men and horses lay by the side of the road in curious, unreal attitudes. They had been dragged to the side to allow a battery of artillery to pass. Later she was to see the shattered limber of one of these guns in a ditch with the feet and legs of a French soldier protruding from the wreck. It was as though he had crawled underneath to investigate the cause of the trouble— only he was so terribly still, and the girl went white and felt deadly sick.

She recovered herself with an effort, stiffened her back till she sat bolt upright, and grasped the wheel more firmly.

Then she came suddenly upon more soldiers lying by the side of the road, and occupying the centre of the broad roadway, at a place where it topped the hill before dipping again to the valley, a group of mounted men. She knew it for the general staff of a French division. They were pointing to the left, and two of the officers were looking through their glasses. The girl stopped the car behind them. Here the roads branched off. A cross-road to the left led to Mons, as she knew; the one to the right would take her to Charleroi. But she realized she had reached the end of her journey. Here was Authority, which would send her back the way she had come. For the moment the staff were too occupied to notice her.

The dapper little general with the gold-laced képi was talking sharply, impatiently, to his chief of staff.

"Send a messenger at once to withdraw that company," he rapped. "Mon Dieu, it will be annihilated! The English have retired also. It is madness."

"I think they have— " began the other, when he was interrupted.

A group of soldiers were reclining by the side of the road. One had a small telephone receiver to his ear, and a trailing wire from a post above led down to him.

As the staff officer spoke one of the group rose and came towards the general with a slip of paper in his hand. He reached up the slip, saluting, and the general scanned the message.

"Cannot communicate with a company of the Southamptonshire Regiment on my right," he read. "Can you reach Captain Mestrell and order him to retire?"

For a moment the girl in the car swayed backward and forward; for that space of time the rush and roar of battle faded into a far-away buzz.

"Send a cyclist— it is risky." She heard the general speaking. "Tell the Englishman to take the road back to the hills by the stone cross. There's a way out for him."

She saw a young officer leap into the seat of his dirty motor-cycle, heard the pat-pat-pat of the engine, and watched him like one in a dream as he streaked down the hill to the right.

She watched him fascinated, gradually receding from view, then suddenly the cycle swayed left and right as though the driver were trying to evade some invisible obstacle. With one final lurch, cycle and rider went crashing to the ground,and the messenger did not rise.

"Send another man."

The curt tone of the general came to her.

Again an ofhcer mounted and went whizzing down the hill. He reached the bottom before, without warning, he went tumbling over and over till at last he lay an inert little bundle of humanity under his broken machine.

The girl heard the impatient click of lips.

"I can't risk another man. The road is swept by rifle fire."

They were going to leave him— to leave George and his men! Her eyes opened wide in horror at the thought. Yet she knew that the general was just.

"He will stay there till he is cut up," said the staff officer's voice, very slowly and deliberately. He had a solemn, mournful voice, she noted mechanically. She wondered in a numb, cold-blooded way if he were married. He spoke like a father of a family. A stout man, who sat his horse ungracefully. And George was to be left— to be cut up.

The car still purred and trembled under her. The wheel on which her hand rested shivered at intervals, as though it was part of a living, reasoning organism, dreading the ordeal ahead. She did what she did without thought. She gently pressed her foot downward, and the car moved.

"Stop! Who are you, madam?" It was the general, swinging round on his restive horse.

She could not speak; she could only point to the road that lcd to Mons.

She heard a warning shout, a cry of command, but they were too late to stop her.

Gathering momentum with every turn of its wheels, the little Mombo leapt down the hill. Her eyes were fixed on the road ahead. The first dead man she could pass without difficulty. She must slow to the next and go round him, and that was the danger point. She flew past the first obstacle, caught a fleeting glimpse of a doubled-up figure and a white face that stared up to the blue heaven, then the glass wind-shield smashed into a thousand pieces, and her lap was filled with splinters of glass. But she was not hit; only one flying splinter had drawn blood from her gloved hand. She was cool now, steadied the car for the man who lay in the middle of the road, and breathed a sigh of relief when she found that she had misjudged the space. There was room enough to pass. One sorrowful glance she gave to the pitiful thing which a few minutes before had been a living, breathing man, and then she began the ascent of a stiff little hill. And all the time she heard the smack, smack of bullets as they struck her car. She saw the off-side lamp jump up and fall, and once there was a sensation as though somebody had breathed a sharp, cold breath before her face.

On the crest of the hill she had immunity from danger. She ran through a cutting for half a mile, then the road turned suddenly, and she saw at the foot a rugged line of men retiring by short, sharp rushes from cover to cover. She heard the shrill whistle of an officer, and the line came with a run over the stubble field to the deep road. At full speed she sent the car forward, laughing and crying, for she had distinguished the tall young man in command, had indeed picked him out five hundred yards away.

Captain George Mestrell, unshaven and grimy, heard the wheels of the car and turned as the tiny two-seater jarred to a standstill.

"My God!" he breathed. "Jo!" She was still laughing, though her face was wet with tears.

"There is a road behind you," she cried, shrilly, "in the wood by the stone cross, and you've got to retire at once. The general says so."

"Jo!" he repeated, and pressed his hands before his eyes.

"The road by the stone cross," she said. "Look, look! there it is; I'll show you." She ran the car farther along the road till she came to the stone cross. There was little sign of road, only an opening in the thick bush which apparently led to the hill above, but she turned the car, and turned again, and struck a smooth track which wound between the densely-planted trees round the base of the hill on the left. She looked behind her. The men were following, and George, limping painfully, was with them.

"IT IS VERY wonderful," admitted a wholly mystified young officer a little later when a French surgeon had finished dressing an ugly bullet wound in his leg. "Can you tell me in what capacity you are serving?"

She smiled mysteriously.

"Lady Galligay's corps has been mobilized," she answered, untruthfully. And George winced.

_________________________

17: Five Fateful Words

Tit-Bit Novels, June 10, 1915

SIR George Farringdon was arrested on January 31st, and England was incoherent.

There had been fourteen days' delirium following the train robbery, and the arrest of the baronet was a tax upon the nation's sanity. Connoisseurs in crime had come post-haste to London. Haverson Judd, who specialised in 'hold-ups', came from New York: Russia sent M. Menshikoff: France sent Lebel. From every capital of Europe arrived some detective of note and standing: but it was Judd who unravelled the mystery to the intense annoyance of Andrews and his confrères at Scotland Yard. Yet the English police had made out an extraordinarily strong case against Farringdon; they had pieced the case together most cunningly. The story of the crime I need not relate at this stage. It will be sufficient to record a portion of the cross-examination. Though the trial is recorded in Ashton's Modern Cases, I am concerned less with the legal terminology of the indictment, or with the cited cases bearing upon the charge, than with the remarkable interruption by Mr. Haverson Judd of New York,

"Well?" There was triumph in the tone of the inquiry.

The English detective, with his broad, red face and his complacent smile, waited for the other's reluctant confession.

But the lean Yankee with the lazy eyes leant back and regarded his confrère through half-closed lids, an amused smile playing about the corners of his mouth.

"Well, sir?" he repeated. "What do you expect me to say?"

The Englishman grinned and jingled the coins in his pocket with perfect self-satisfaction.

"I expect you to admit that our methods, old fashioned as you think they are, take a lot of beating...."

"In fact," said Haverson Judd, languidly, "that the man who robbed the specie car of the Continental express was Sir George Farringdon?"

"Exactly:"

The American detective bit the end of a cigar and lit it at leisure.

"I reply 'No!'" he said, after a pause, "I've said 'No' all along, and I'm standing to it."

The Englishman jerked his shoulder impatiently.

"It was Jummy the Dope," said Judd, calmly. "There's no crook raised on this side who could organise a hold-up of that description." There was a touch of pride in his voice. "The man must have been raised America, trained in America— "

"Huh!" Inspector Andrews could not refrain from this exhibition. "That's your confounded conceit."

They stood in the vestibule. Aimless witnesses shuffled to and fro nervously. Now and then there whisked past a flying gown of a barrister, bewigged and anxious.

A uniformed officer came towards them, "Farringdon's in the witness box."

Andrews whistled. "He's mad! His only chance lay in silence with Seton cross-examining. Come along, Judd."

Judd, smoking— contrary to every regulation— in the sacred precincts, dropped his cigar, crushed it under his heel, and followed.

At the door into the court he laid his hand on Andrews' arm.

"Jummy the Dope," he said laconically. "This old cross-examination makes no difference to my decision."

A dull red bench ran the width of the court, and five solemn men sat listening. Under the great sword sat the Sherriff of the City. At the end of the row was an old, old man with a calm wise face.

His robes were of scarlet, a tightly-fitting wig covered his head; on his white hand was a ring with a great green stone. This was Mr Justice Grayham.

In the plain oak pulpit to his right stood the witness, tall, with weather-beaten face and steadfast grey eyes. A warder sat near him. Harold Seton, King's Counsel, his silk gown hitched forward over his shoulder, faced him in the well of the court. When the two men entered a clear voice was raised.

"Your life has been an adventurous one, Sir George?"

The witness smiled faintly. The warder who sat by the chair looked on with a responsive grin, as though he had a claim to a share of the adventure.

"I will take you back over your early career," said counsel. "You were born in India?"

"Yes."

"When you were four years of age your mother died?"

"Yes."

"Your father took entire control of you?"

"Yes."

"You had no nurse?"

"None."

"And even at that age you accompanied your father on his hunting trips?"

"Yes."

"He took charge of your education?"

"Yes."

"He was an eccentric man?"

"Yes, I suppose you would call him such."

"From India where did you go?"

"To Australia, South Africa, America."

"Your father was passionately fond of hunting?"

"Yes."

"And was killed by a lion in Somaliland?"

"Yes."

"How old were you then?"

"Ten, I think."

"Your father had a servant— a bodyguard, valet and companion— Simon Selby?"

"Yes."

"Who assumed charge of you from your father's death?"

"Yes."

"In terms of your father's will?"

"Yes: he was more than a servant— he was a friend of my father's."

"This Simon Selby, was he a well-educated man?"

"Yes; he spoke several languages."

"And you completed your education under his tuition?"

"Yes."

"You travelled all over the world. Did you come to England?"

"No, not till after Simon's death, seven years ago."

"You lived some time in the state of Washington?"

"Yes; and in Texas."

"Did you ever meet a man named Jummy the Dope?"

The witness did not reply for a moment, then:

"Yes," he answered slowly.

"You first met him in Seattle?"

"Yes."

"He was a notoriously bad character— a train robber— was he not?"

"Yes."— more slowly.

"Did you shelter him for six months in your house outside Tacoma?"

"Yes; but I did not know who he was."

"Were not the newspapers filled with his exploits?"

"I believe they were."

"With full descriptions of him?"

"I believe so."

"And you did not realise that this guest of yours was a notorious criminal?"

"No."

The examining counsel bent his brows on the witness, but the gaze was returned.

"The sherriff of the court had heard that you had a strange guest, and wrote to you asking you to vouch for him?"

Again the witness hesitated.

"Yes, he did."

"And you did not reply?"

"No."

"Why not?"

The witness shrugged his shoulders.

"I believed the man when he told me his eyes had been injured, and he could not go abroad in daylight."

"But that does not answer my question. Why did you take no notice of the Sherriff's letter?"

"I don't know."

Counsel searched amongst the papers on the desk before him. Then:

"Were you a rich man?"

"There was plenty of money at home if I wanted it."

"That I know," said the lawyer, testily: "but for some reason or other you never drew upon the accumulated revenues of your English estate after Simon Selby's death. Had you plenty of money when Jummy the Dope was your guest?"

Again the witness hesitated. "No," he said, at length.

The lawyer nodded, as though the reply had been in accordance with his information upon the subject.

"Now," he went on, "I am coming to the matter in relation to which you are charged. You returned to England three years ago?"

"Yes."

"And took up your residence at Farringdon Court?"

"Yes."

"You brought with you an American named Jonas E. Smyles?"

"Yes."

The lawyer paused: then he asked quietly:

"Smyles was dumb, was he not?"

The man in the box made no reply.

The question was repeated.

"Yes."

"I put it to you that you specially chose him because he was dumb?"

No reply.

"I suggest you took special pains to discover in Chicago a secretary who was deprived of human speech. Do you deny that?"

"No."

"What special reason had you?"

"I refuse to answer that question," the witness said, shortly.

The old judge leant forward and spoke gently.

"I think it would be wiser to answer; the jury are entitled to put an unfavourable construction upon your silence."

The witness bowed slightly.

"I had a secret to keep, my lord."

"What was that secret?" asked the barrister, sharply.

"I refuse to say."

"I suggest that you had been guilty of some act in America of which you were ashamed; that you dealt by correspondence with matters that you did not wish to be blazoned abroad?" accused counsel.

The man in the box shook his head.

"That is not so," he said simply.

"Your secretary is no longer with you?"

"No."

"He has not returned to America?"

"No."

"Do you know where he is?"

"Yes"— defiantly.

"Will you tell the Court?"

"No."

"I suggest," said the lawyer, "that you arranged for this man to keep out of the way?"

"That is so," admitted the other, calmly.

"To preserve your secret?"

The witness nodded, and a thrill ran through the crowded court.

The cross-examiner went on:

"On the night of January 17th this year the Kaiserin Gretchen called at Dover, and specie was landed to the value of £150,000. This was placed in a special train, which started at once for London. Between Langley and Tonbridge someone showed a red light, and the cars were brought to a stand-still. The train was boarded by two masked men, two of the bullion guards were shot, the treasure car was uncoupled, and the engine-driver was forced to proceed. When assistance was procured the robbers had disappeared, and the money. Now, Sir George, do you remember that night?"

"Yes."

"You have told us in your examination-in-chief that you had lent some man your motor car that afternoon?"

"Yes, I did."

"Was it the man who is known as Jummy the Dope?"

"Yes." The answer came without hesitation.

"Will you tell us by what extraordinary process of reasoning you came to lend a convicted train-robber your car?"

The prisoner frowned a little.

"I tell you I did not know he was a thief."

"What!" The King's Counsel's voice was stern. "Do you tell us on your oath that you did not know the character of this man?"

"I do."

"Was not his conviction— subsequent to your entertaining him— public property in America?"

"I knew nothing about it," replied the witness, a little wearily.

"Will you swear that the Sherriff of Tacoma did not notify you of his arrest— that he did not inform you by telegram the day you arrived in New York from Tacoma that Jummy the Dope had been arrested, and ask you to give evidence?"

There was no reply.

"I am going to prove," said counsel, addressing the jury, "that this telegram was received by the prisoner at Manhattan Hotel the day before he sailed for Europe. I am suggesting that he left the country sooner than give evidence against his friend. Now, sir, do you persist in saying you did not know the real character of Jummy the Dope?"

"I still persist," said the witness, doggedly.

"I will not labour at a very obvious point," said counsel, dryly. "Well, this man, immediately after his release from jail, apparently set forth for England. He asked you to lend him your motor car— and you complied?"

"Yes. It was returned the next morning."

"In person?"

"No. It was found outside the lodge gates."

"Did you think that strange?"

"Yes; I thought it discourteous."

A titter of laughter followed his simple statement.

"If I tell you that your motor car was used to carry away the gold from the robbed car, will you accept that suggestion?"

"It is quite feasible," said the witness coolly.

"If I tell you that certain track marks corresponding with the tyres of your car have been traced, will you agree that the feasibility is a certainty?"

A shrug of the shoulder was the answer.

"Your home is thirty miles away from the scene of the robbery?"

"Yes."

"Are you aware how suspicion first fell upon you?"

"I am scarcely interested."

The witness reached his hand out for a glass of water as he made his reply.

"You are aware that the number of your car was recognised in the early hours of the following morning?"

"I am informed so."

"It was not actually traced until a fortnight later?"

"So I believe."

"It was a fortnight after the theft that you first made your statement concerning Jummy the Dope?"

"Yes."

"For a fortnight you had been in possession of this knowledge— that a notorious train robber was in England; that he had been in your neighbourhood on the eve of the outrage— and yet you gave no information to the police?"

"Yes."

"Perhaps," said counsel, with biting sarcasm, "you had not heard of the robbery?"

"I had not."

Had a bomb exploded in court the sensation could not have been greater.

"You had not heard of a robbery that was the talk of the country?"

"That is so," confessed the man.

"Do you expect me to believe that?" thundered the lawyer.

The witness smiled.

"I'm afraid I expect you to believe very little that I say," he admitted ruefully.

"On your oath, you had not read about this extraordinary affair that filled columns of the daily Press?"

"I had not."

"Now, I want to ask you— " began the lawyer, but his junior plucked his gown; there was a whispered consultation.

Then he rose and faced the witness with a grave face.

"I wish to impress upon you the seriousness of the questions I am putting to you," he said, quietly. "I have been informed that on the day following the robbery a full account of the affair was sent you by the chief constable of the county, in the hope that you, as a motorist, might be able to help trace the motor car; this letter was delivered to you. Do you still deny that you had learnt nothing of the robbery?"

The man gripped the ledge of the box before him, and the bulldog thrust of his under-jaw betrayed something of his emotions.

"I absolutely deny any knowledge," he said, loudly.

Again he met the challenge of the lawyer's eyes unflinchingly.

"When you were arrested," counsel resumed, "A search was made in your house?"

"Yes."

"Do you know," the lawyer spoke deliberately— "that twelve thousand pounds in gold were found?"

"Yes."

"In gold— in specie?"

"Yes. I always keep large quantities of gold in the house."

"Why?"

"For expenses."

"But you have a bank?"

"I have not employed the bank since— "

"Ah!"

The examiner's finger pointed at him.

"Since Jonas Smyles left you for his holiday?"

The witness drew a long breath.

"Yes, since Jonas left."

"Since the custodian of your secret went away— taking his holiday at an opportune moment?"

Something amused the witness, for he smiled.

"The holiday was a genuine one," he said. "It coincided with this unfortunate affair."

"When you were arrested did you see the reporter of the Megaphone?"

"He saw me."

"Did he ask you to make a statement for his paper?"

"Yes." The eyes of the witness twinkled. "I said, 'My statement to you is this— Jonas must not return!"

"An extraordinary thing to say, was it not?"

"It was a brilliant idea," said the witness, coolly, "for my message was printed in the paper."

"A brilliant idea, indeed!" said the lawyer, with a touch of irony.

"Now," he continued, "I should like to ask you to inform the Court what explanation you can give to the presence of this huge sum of money in your home?"

"I have given the explanation."

"That it was for current expenses?"

"Yes."

"From what bank was it drawn?"

"A London bank?"

"Which London bank?"

"I refuse to state."

"And you expect us to believe that?"

"No."

"I suggest that it formed part of the proceeds of the robbery?"

"A contemptible suggestion," said the witness, showing sign of impatience— the first he had shown. "Why should I steal money? Why should I who have more money than I need, rob a bullion car?"

The two detectives heard, the one with growing satisfaction, the American with knit brows. It was when the lawyer had done with his next question that Mr Haverson Judd outraged the frigid propriety of an English court.

"I cannot answer why you should have done this. It is not for me to hazard an opinion," the lawyer was saying, "There are men who break the law out of sheer perversity, who rob because there is some unnatural kink in them. I would really rather you reconciled these statements of yours— how you came to harbour this train robber in America, why you swear you knew nothing of his character, what reason you have for saying you knew nothing of the train robbery, why you employed a dumb secretary, and stored huge sums of gold— "

"Stop, sir!"

It was the American, his eyes blazing with excitement, who sprang to his feet.

"I can answer you!" he cried, and spoke five words:

"He can't read or write!"

They overlooked the breach of court etiquette.

No man called for silence. Judge, jury, lawyers, ushers, sat momentarily paralysed by the tense phrase, and the prisoner, with flushed face, nodded slowly to the judge.

"Yes, your lordship, that is true," he faltered. "I have been a vain fool to hide it— that is the explanation."

The judge was skimming his notes. He finished and nodded.

"Very remarkable," he said. "There can be little doubt that the case for the prosecution has collapsed."

"OF COURSE it explains everything," said Judd, later. "Explains Jummy the Dope— did I tell you the Liverpool police caught him this morning?— and why Farringdon kept the money by him, drawing it in bulk from the bank, and why he swore he knew nothing of the robbery. It explains Simon Selby, too, and why Farringdon, with his huge estates in England, was a poor man in America. But wasn't it extraordinary that I didn't get wise to the solution until the prosecution used that curious sentence, 'really rather you reconciled.' Do you see the connection?"

____________________________

19: While the Passengers Slept

The Premier Magazine, March 1915

THE dismal clang of the bell came plainly enough to Jordan's ears, and he leant over the side of the bridge and peered into the black waters. It seemed quite close, otherwise Jordan would not have looked, but to-night there was a thin, white haze on the sea.

He was one of the five men on the bridge of the Orthanic— five men heavily overcoated and muffled, for the night was bitterly cold. Captain Manson, a cigar clenched between his teeth, his hands in his overcoat pockets, stood close to the rail. Burton, the 'second', in the snug of the canvas screen, peeked vainly through his night glasses; a quartermaster, wheel in hand, showed dimly in the binnacle light, and there was a hint of another figure at the telegraph. Jordan was nervous and jumpy, all on edge, and small blame to him; he was a good seaman, and good seamen are superstitious, and the Carponic had gone down in these waters, as a warning to all optimistic ship officers who relaxed their vigilance in the English Channel. Not that the Carponic had been lax...

'Toll— toll!'

The sad, harsh clash of the bell came to him again, and he turned:

'You heard it, sir?' he asked fretfully.

The skipper grunted over his cigar.

'Yes— a wreck-buoy probably.'

'A wreck-buoy, sir,' repeated Jordan with polite scorn, 'in forty fathoms of water? There's no chance of a wreck fouling the shipping here. No, that's Calderwood's buoy.' He said this with grim decision, and the second officer shuddered behind the wind-screen.

'You give me the creeps, Jordan!'

Captain Manson chuckled.

'What a superstitious devil you are, Jordan!' he said, with a note of admiration in his voice, as though superstition was a rare gift, to be appreciated.

Jordan implicitly believed, and was not alone in his faith, that a wealthy syndicate existed in London which insured ships and employed men to cast them away.

'This is the twentieth century, Jordan. Things don't happen like that nowadays,' said the captain complacently.

'Human nature doesn't change,' growled the other.

'And you really believe that poor Calderwood puts a ghostly buoy in the water to warn mariners of danger!' Captain Manson laughed, and turned his kindly eyes upon the stolid figure of his chief officer. 'You ought to write a story about it,' he said drily.

'Pilot boat right ahead, sir!'

The vigilant Burton's voice split the conversation, and Captain Manson jerked an order over his shoulder. 'Stop her.'

The distant jingle of the engine-room bell and the answering clang were followed by a sudden cessation of sound as the pounding engines came to a rest.

'I know what I know, sir,' insisted Jordan doggedly. 'Calderwood and I were old friends. I don't believe his death was the result of an accident. I've heard that bell before— every seaman in this water has heard it in foggy weather.'

'If it wasn't an accident it was murder,' said the captain sharply— for him. 'You mustn't say that— very likely the man you accuse is coming on board in a minute.'

'Yes, I've a horrible feeling that he is,' said the other in a low voice. He was nervous and worried, all jarred and jangled with a fear which he could not analyse. It had been a hard crossing. Two days of fog across the Banks with meandering and vagrant ice-floes to increase the difficulties of navigation, and now fog again. The skipper realised something of the strain the man had endured, and dropped his big hand on the other's shoulder.

'Come, come, you mustn't let your prejudices run away with you,' he said kindly. 'Calderwood was a fine pilot— the best ever— I grant you that; but Grimwald, his mate, isn't a bad chap— a bit dour, but a good pilot.'

'He was on the Carberry Queen when she went down,' said Jordan.

'In a fog,' snapped the skipper; 'going dead slow. She ran into a barque— you can't make him responsible for that.'

'Pilot boat coming alongside, sir.'

The dancing masthead light of the pilot came under the starboard bow of the steamer.

'Slow astern,' said the captain, and the telegraph bell repeated his order. 'Take my tip,' he said, addressing the first. 'I'm an older man than you; get these ideas about ghosts and warning bells, and— bogies and things out of your head. It's not good for a young man to think like that— it's unhealthy.'

'Perhaps it is, sir.' Jordan walked to the side and looked over. The pilot cutter was fast, and a dark figure was reaching up for the ladder.

'Will he make it?'

'He's got it, sir.' He was impatient of delay at the best of times; now he lifted his megaphone.

'Stow that monkey ladder... What 'n thunder are you doing? All clear?'

'Ay, ay, sir!' shouted a distant voice.

'Cast off there, pilot cutter. Cast off, curse you! Are you deaf?' He turned with his hand at his cap. 'Pilot aboard, sir.'

'Full ahead!'

The telegraph bell jingled and the 'thump, thump' of the engines shook the bridge deck.

The deep voice of the quartermaster from the fo'c'sle hailed the bridge.

'Fog lifting, sir.'

'It was only a patch,' nodded the skipper. 'You ought to pick up the land as soon as she shifts.'

'Start light on the port bow, sir,' reported Burton.

He turned to the companionway. An awkward shape of a man was climbing up to the bridge. A big man, revealed by the bulkhead light, which he must needs pass in climbing, as one whose shapelesness did not end at a certain uncouthness of figure. The big, white face was unevenly assembled. The nose was crooked and the mouth twisted. His deep-set eyes burnt fiercely like a man consumed by an internal fever. All this Jordan saw looking down at the man with frank antagonism. Then he turned to the captain as the newcomer came to the bridge.

'Pilot, sir,' he reported.

'Come aboard, sir,' growled the pilot.

'Ah, pilot! Nice night.' The skipper nodded a smiling welcome.

'Nice enough,' said the other shortly. He looked at the binnacle.

'Strong tide running?' asked the captain.

'Bit of a tide— always is at this time of the year.'

'I suppose so.' He blew his whistle, and the pilot started suddenly. There were evidently two nervous men on the bridge that night. 'Get the pilot some cocoa,' he said to the quartermaster, who had come at the signal. 'Nervous, pilot?'

'I don't know about being nervous,' said the man gruffly. 'Sitting out in that pilot boat for four hours makes you a bit jumpy.'

Captain Manson nodded.

'So poor Calderwood used to say. You remember Calderwood?'

'Yes.'

'Lost his life in your boat, didn't he?' asked the chief officer carelessly.

'I remember'— Captain Manson was in his reminiscent mood—'you were coming out to pilot the Carponic. He was bringing her to Dover, and you were taking her up the river and you smashed into a sailing vessel that carried no lights— and you went down.'

'That's it. It wasn't my fault!'

There was almost a challenge in the pilot's voice, and the skipper laughed.'

'Not your fault! Of course it wasn't, pilot. Both ships were sunk. How did you get away?'

'I grabbed a lifebelt and swam for it,' said the man laconically.

'You were lucky,' Jordan broke in. 'It cost the underwriters a pretty penny. They said a lot of funny things, too.'

The man turned upon him fiercely.

'What do I care what they said! I did my duty. That's enough for me. They said somebody had insured cargo that wasn't on board, and that somebody made a quarter of a million through that barque gettin' in the way of the Carponic.'

'Without lights,' said Jordan significantly. 'Nobody ever discovered what ship she was. None of her crew were ever picked up. It wouldn't be a bad dodge for some scoundrel to abandon a ship at a certain point— a nice iron ship,' he said slowly, 'anchor her in the track of a steamer, and insure the unfortunate devil that struck her— What?'

The captain was going into the chart-room, but he stopped.

'Ah, but the pilot would have to know all about that,' he smiled. 'You could only do that if you could square the pilot. But you couIdn't square the pilot. See?'

Grimwald thrust his big face almost into that of the first officer. Jordan did not flinch. In the half darkness of the bridge he stared into the eyes of the pilot, and after a moment George Grimwald turned with a growl in his throat to the man at the wheel.

'Half a point east, quartermaster,' he said.

'Why?' asked Jordan.

'I am piloting this ship,' snarled the other.

'I only asked out of curiosity.'

'Strong tides, I tell you.'

'But the tide should be running south now,' persisted Jordan.

'There's a bad current round here.'

What else he might have said in his rage was checked by the sing-song report of the look-out man on the fo'c'sle. The pilot stared ahead.

'Steamer on the starboard bow, sir.'

'Coasting boat,' he said gruffly.

The quartermaster brought him his cocoa. He would much rather have had a nip of whisky, and said as much.

'Not on this ship,' Jordan replied shortly. 'We're rather a nervous lot of people. When you're carrying six hundred human souls you can't take risks.'

Jordan walked across the bridge to where the second cuddled up to the wind-screen.

'What glasses have you got?' he asked.

'My own. What's the matter with 'em?' answered the other resentfully.

'Nothing. But use mine; they're much better for night work.'

Grimwald eyed the two men anxiously. All things were significant to him that night. People who gathered to speak in low tones were talking about him. What else could they discuss? He showed his yellow teeth in a contorted smile. Then he glanced at the man at the wheel.

'Quartermaster'— he dropped his voice so that it should not carry—'what are they whispering about?'

The wheelman spat thoughtfully on the grating.

'Nothing as I know of, sir.'

They were talking about him. They blamed him for the wreck of the Carponic. Curse them!

'You knew my mate Calderwood, didn't you?'

'Yes, sir. A nice young man he was.'

Grimwald nodded.

'Fell overboard out of my boat. Only him and me in it. Do you think that looked suspicious?'

He asked the question eagerly, and the unimaginative seaman gasped.

'Lor' bless your life, no, sir!' he said.

'People might say that I was trying to make him do something he didn't want to do, and that I got scared when he refused and shot him. They would say that, would they? Look!'

The quartermaster looked down, and nearly jumped. In Grimwald's hand was a long, black-barrelled revolver, and the nervous hands of the big man trembled at the trigger.

'Shot him with this,' he whispered hoarsely, 'that's what they'll be saying next. They put it about that I'm a rich man, that I grew rich suddenly after the Carponic was wrecked. But that's a lie. I had money left me, quartermaster, by an uncle in America. See?'

'I think you're worrying yourself about nothing,' soothed the seaman politely.

'Put her another point east.' He looked furtively at a little chart which he had taken from his pocket. 'Yes, a point. Calderwood fell out of my boat— accidentally.'

Jordan turned suddenly.

'You've shifted her course again, pilot,' he said sharply.

Grimwald nodded.

'There's a fishing fleet right ahead,' he answered.

Two pairs of glasses examined the sea.

'By Jove, you've got good eyesight!' said Burton. 'I can just see 'em.'

'I gotter have good eyesight,' growled the man. 'I don't believe in these glasses. Let me have a look.'

He took the binoculars in his hand, fumbled with them a moment, then let them fall with a crash to the ground.

'Be careful!' Jordan picked up his pet glasses with a curse.

'I haven't broken 'em?' asked Grimwald slowly.

'The chief officer swore softly as he examined his damaged glasses. Then he crossed to the little battery of speaking-tubes by the glass screen of his observation house.

'That the captain?' he asked, when an answering whistle shrilled. 'Jordan speaking, sir! Yes, everything all right; but I'm leaving the bridge for a moment to find my other glasses. Ay, ay, sir! Watch like the devil, Burton!' he muttered, as he passed his subordinate.

The pilot's eyes followed him, striving, as it seemed, to pierce the darkness which swallowed his antagonist— for such he knew him to be. Then he turned again to the binnacle with a shrug of his shoulders. He slipped a flat flask from his pocket, half-raised it to his lips; then, catching the steersman's eye, he extended his arm.

'Have a drink?' he whispered.

'No, thank you, sir; not on duty!' he said stiffly.

'Well, there's more for me!' growled the other; and strolled across to Burton. 'We've passed that fishing fleet?'

Burton nodded. He was peering anxiously ahead. The stars which had been hanging on the horizon were blotted out again.

Jordan came back to the deck with a second pair of binoculars, and so they stood for ten minutes, none speaking, staring ahead at the slow-heaving sea; and little by little, the belt of darkness on the horizon rose like a curtain.'

'Looks like a fog-bank right ahead,' said Burton suddenly.

'It's nothing; you get these patches in the Channel. We shall be through it in five minutes,' said Grimwald.

Jordan crossed again to his protecting screen and pressed a little bell. He walked briskly over to the port telegraph, and laid his hand on the lever.

'You're not going to reduce speed?' growled Grimwald.

'I am.'

'For a bit of smoke?' sneered the other.

'For a bit of smoke,' repeated Jordan; and rang the engines to half-speed. 'There are six hundred people on board this ship, pilot, and a very valuable cargo.'

'I'm in charge of this ship!' said the pilot loudly.

'You can tell us the way'— Jordan was brusque to the point of rudeness—'but I will decide how fast we go!'

The skipper, summoned by the bell, came up the companion- way buttoning his great-coat.

Jordan turned.

'Fog ahead, sir! I've reduced her to a half.'

Captain Manson clicked his lips impatiently.

'You're right! In a minute we shan't see the foc's'le!'

Through the patchy mist ahead came the melancholy boom of a siren. He turned with a little smile to the pilot.

'This is the kind of weather when I liked to have your poor friend Calderwood on my bridge. Slow ahead!'

A signal had brought the quartermasters to their stations.

Obedient to the command, the telegraph rattled over, and the clang of the answering bell came before a slower thud of engines told of the reduced speed.

The fog came with a rush. A grey cloud rose under the bows and swept over the foc's?le head, a swirling, wreathing blanket of wet smoke that hid even the foc's'le lights from view. Then of a sudden all the bulkhead lights went off, and the bridge was in absolute darkness.

'Who put out those bulkhead lights? Quartermaster, what the devil is the matter with the lights?'

'Fuse gone, I think sir,' said a muffled voice.

'Dead slow!' It was the captain's voice, and again the telegraph clanged.

'Calderwood, Calderwood— always Calderwood!' muttered Grimwald. Can't they talk of something else? Calderwood could see; Calderwood would pilot with his cursed eyes shut! But Calderwood is dead— dead— dead!'

He was speaking to himself, aloud. He was oblivious of the fog, forgetful of all else save that he could not get away from Calderwood— could not forget the face of the man, the despairing eyes of him as he went swirling to death in the wake of the pilot-boat, the waters all dull-red with his blood. Thus Grimwald had watched him, as he stood pistol in hand, hypnotised.

'Barque right ahead!'

The voice was at Grimwald's elbow.

'Who is that?' he gasped; and, as he asked, he knew.

His hair went up; he could feel his face shrivel and pucker with fear. He wanted to scream, and opened his mouth; but no sound came.

Then he saw.

Faintly in the fog the ghostly figure of a man by the quartermaster's side.

Calderwood!

Calderwood, white of face and horribly wet, little strips of seaweed hanging from his dripping clothes. Slowly the figure turned its head, and the mouth fell pitiably.

'Don't shoot me, Grimwald!' it whined. 'I've a young wife and a child! Don't shoot me, Grimwald! I can't wreck a ship; I can't do it! A point to the north!'

This last to the steersman, and the wheel went round slowly.

'Ay, ay, sir!'

The quartermaster answered mechanically, his eyes fixed on the compass before him. Grimwald went cringing forward, his shaking hands outstretched—

'I didn't mean to kill!' he croaked; and went stumbling to his knees. 'I swear it! Don't follow me! We were friends once— mercy, mercy!'

A shout from the captain.

'What's that ahead? Look out, man!'

'Nothing ahead, sir; fog lifting!'

'God, I almost felt it!'

The captain wiped his streaming forehead, but Grimwald neither saw nor heard. He was looking at Calderwood, a twisted grin on his face, his big hands waving persuasively.

'Get back— get back!' he stammered. 'Get your lifebelt; we're going to strike, Calderwood!' He laughed long and terribly. 'Come along; get your lifebelt,' he whispered. 'I've got mine. They'll pick us up. Don't stand there looking at me, damn you!' he snarled, and whipped out his revolver. 'I shot once; I can shoot again!'

'What's that?'

Jordan saw it first and almost shrieked the words.

'Something ahead, sir!'

The warning was a terrified roar from the look-out man.

'Port your helm! Port your helm!'

It was Calderwood who spoke, and the wheel spun under the quartermaster's hand.

'My God! Full astern!'

The engines clanged as the big liner heeled over. The clang and the shot came together.

Jordan heard the shot, but he was glaring at the hull ahead— the black, lightless hull that went sweeping past on the starboard bow, so close that one might jump aboard.

Captain Manson spun round as he saw the danger drop away into the darkness of the night.

He crossed to the prostrate figure of Grimwald.

'What's wrong?' he asked.

'I don't know, sir; someone told me to port my helm!' said the white-faced quartermaster.

Jordan joined the captain, and together they knelt by his side.

'This man is dead,' said the captain, in a hushed voice.

'Dead?'

Burton turned, too full of his business to heed the minor tragedy.

'Fog lifted, sir!'

'Dead?' Manson picked up the revolver. 'Not shot?'

Jordan was examining the dead man by the light of an electric torch.

'His face is the face of a man who has seen—' He looked seriously down at the distorted features. 'I wonder what he saw?' he said, half to himself.

___________________________

20: When the Tsar Came

The Novel Magazine, June 1915

PETER PETERVITCH lived in a little hut by the side of the railway. His hair was fair and his beard was golden, and he had tired blue eyes that were filled with the weariness which comes to the eyes of men who have far horizons to scan. He wore a red shirt which flapped in the wind, and topboots of soft leather, and in the winter he had a big sheepskin coat with the woolly part worn inside and a fur hat. He did not wear the fur hat except furtively, for it had fallen from an open window of the train, and it was unusually valuable.

It marked the beginning of an ambition, the fur cap. Because it was very evident that if one fur cap could so fall, others also might be displaced by a puff of wind, or the accidental jogging of an elbow. And it might not be a fur cap, but a wallet filled with a hundred rouble notes, as— so legend said— such a wallet had fallen between Tomsk and Irkutsk.

It had been seen by an officer of the railway, and the signalman had derived little benefit therefrom.

Since the new well had been sunk at the back of the hut, however, no officer of the railway had ever come; once a week on a slow train there came an insulting clerk from Irkutsk to throw the weekly salary which Peter’s post carried, and to demand when the old well would be bricked over— a task they had set the indolent Peter.

Peter Petervitch was in his hut drinking tea and eating his midday meal of black bread and sausage, when far away he heard the shriek of an engine.

He wiped his beard with his red shirt sleeve and took down the green flag which hung on two hooks under the lithograph of the Tsar.

He crossed himself before the gaudy little ikon near the door, and went out to do his duty.

The line was a straight ribbon of steel, stretching from cast to west. It crossed a flat and featureless desert, and there was nothing to obstruct the view from horizon to horizon.

Somewhere to the westward, where the two parallels of steel rail met in a quivering heat mist, he saw the black speck of the onrushing express. A verst away a tiny figure of a man stood with a green flag before a little white hut— another atom of humanity.

Peter glanced eastward. Between his post and the next the line was clear. He unfolded his green flag and solemnly extended it.

The express went roaring past.

“Whr-r-r-r-r!”

There was one saloon of unusual colour and size.

It was pure white, magnificently proportioned, and the big windows were very big.

Peter saw a child by an open window. He caught a glimpse of her fair young face, saw, in a flash, the smile on her lips as she talked over her shoulder with an officer who stood behind her. Then the train was gone.

He looked long and earnestly at the disappearing rear carriage, its outlines obscured by the cloud of dust which chased it madly, refolded his flag and mechanically threw a glance along the side of the ballasted road.

There was no fur cap, no wallet— nothing.

Nothing? Peter walked slowly along the railside. He stooped and picked up a handkerchief.

It was a dainty affair, all lace and fine cambric, and as he turned it over with his big strong hands, there rose to his nostrils a faint and beautiful fragrance.

Peter sniffed at it, inhaled the delicate loveliness of it. There was a design worked in one corner. A design incomprehensible to Peter. It was a raised design, and had eagles and lions and swords, and such things.

Peter had seen handkerchiefs before, in the big stores at Irkutsk. But then you may see everything at Irkutsk because it is the most wonderful city in the world, and has electric light and beautiful churches, and people wear white shirts— even common people. But never before had he seen such a thing as this.

He was embarrassed more than a little with his find. A fur cap you may wear on holy days. A wallet full of hundred rouble notes can be spent at Irkutsk, though God knows a hundred roubles is a great deal of money, and would require some ingenuity to spend! But a spider-web of cambric, with edgings of something as unsubstantial as smoke. Peter shook his head in perplexity and carried the wonder into his cabin.

Beneath the ikon was a little niche where a candle may stand and did stand when candles were plentiful. Peter cleaned the niche of grease, placed the handkerchief in its place, made the sign of the cross twice, and said, “Christ have mercy!” Then he went back to his tea, his sausage and his thoughts. He was not a great thinker. His mind moved slowly— like one of those big-wheeled tarantass that carry country people in summer-time, across the bad roads of Siberia. He was elementary and naturally indolent, the scope of his mentality was bound by the deeps of hunger and the supreme height to which a man rises who gets drunk on beer.

Considering the matter for three days he came to the conclusion that the handkerchief was suitably employed as an object of offering.

Summer passed and the winter came, and with winter he wore two shubas, a sheepskin hat, and the fingerless gloves which a paternal government supplied.

Day by day he would stand in the biting blast to pass the trains eastward or westward, and six times a week he would search the line for the jettison of the Trans-Siberian express.

The winter went, the spring came, and Peter, shedding his shubas cautiously, came by easy stages to the red shirt and the soft leather boots of summer.

He had a brother, one Andrew, who had worked at Irkutsk for a skin merchant and earned seven roubles a week, which is about fourteen shillings, and is good pay. But Andrew was at once a source of sorrow and pride to the good Peter, for this town-haunting brother was a Socialist in his sluggish way, and did not believe in God. Else how could a man calmly relinquish so excellent a position as chief porter to a skin merchant and go wandering to the unknown cities of the west— to Moscow, even as far north as Riga?

From time to time letters came to Peter— bombastic letters. Andrew was prosperous. He wore white linen, and he had gone so far in his magnificence to promise that some day he would send Peter a five-rouble note. Beyond that he did not go.

Peter, saying his prayers before the little ikon, often prayed that the five-rouble note would come along, and when he had crossed himself he would touch the handkerchief for luck. The wisp of linen had grown somewhat grimy from overmuch touching, but the scent, which was peculiarly its very own, still clung about it when the adventure came to Peter.

He had just finished his frugal ablutions and had given “all clear” to a slow passenger train when he saw a fast tarantass being driven along the rough road which bordered the line. It was coming towards him, bumping and jolting over the uneven surface, and Peter took off his hat and quaked a little, fearing that this might be an official of the line.

The steaming horses were pulled up with a jerk a dozen yards from the cabin, and a gentleman stepped down.

He wore red boots up to his knees, and his clothes were of velveteen, and Peter, who knew he was no representative of Government because he was innocent of uniform, thought possibly that this was the millionaire who had lost the fur cap, and quaked again.

“Peter Petervitch!” roared the newcomer in a boisterous voice. “Come and kiss me, for I am your brother!”

And indeed it was!

Peter ran forward and took the man in his arms, kissing him on both cheeks, on the forehead and on the chin.

“God bless you!” said Peter. “You are a rich man, as I see. Now I am glad, for you will give me the five-rouble note which you promised me.”

Andrew laughed again as the other led the way into the hut. He laughed long and readily, as a stoutish man with a red face will laugh.

“You shall have a sackful of five-rouble notes, my little brother,” he said, patting Peter upon the back, “for I have come to make you rich.”

They sat down together and ate. Though Peter had had one breakfast, he found no difficulty in eating another, for he had never eaten a satisfying meal in his economical life.

“Now,” said Andrew as he dived into his pocket and produced a handful of cigarettes, “we will talk.”

He smiled his cheerful contempt of his brother as Peter said his devotions to the ikon behind the door— those devotions which invariably follow every meal in the peasant’s hut.

“Gospodi pomiluj!” sneered Andrew. “Lord have mercy on you! Whilst you pray, fat hogs feed on your richest food. I think you are a fool. What is that?”

He pointed to the soiled little handkerchief.

“That is a blessed object which came to me,” said Peter gravely, “from a little child who had a face like an angel. It is scented with the incense of God.”

Andrew clicked his lips impatiently, then he laughed.

“Sit down, O saint,” he said ironically, “and I will give you incense which smells sweeter.”

He thrust his hand into an inside pocket and drew forth a thick bunch of banknotes.

He laid them out on the table one by one, till they covered its surface. They were five-rouble notes, and there were many— so many that in places they lay two, one upon the other.

Peter gasped in silence at the display of wealth, and when Andrew stood on one side with the triumphant gesture of a showman. Petervitch came forward fearfully, touching the notes gingerly with his fingers.

“My brother,” he said huskily, “praise be to God, for you are a rich man!”

Andrew looked at him as his fingers moved from note to note, and a little smile trembled at the corner of his mouth, for there was little more than five hundred roubles on the table, and Andrew had been given two thousand to accomplish the work.

He went to the door of the hut, opened it, and looked out. There was no soul in sight save the driver of the tarantass. He shut the door and came back into, the hut.

“Peter,” he asked in a low voice, “do you ever think about Russia?”

Peter stroked his golden beard and looked at the other in astonishment.

“God save you, Andrew,” he said in amazement, “why should I think about Russia?”

“Do you think of the devils who torture men and women?” asked Andrew, with simulated ferocity, for Peter did not inspire the natural zealous flow of wrath which is rightly the accompaniment to such a proposition as he had to make.

“I have heard of the domovýe,”Peter answered dubiously, “and also of the rusálki, those beautiful maidens who wait by the lakes and tickle girls to death, also the vedni who milk cows.”

“You are a fool, Peter,” said his brother, struggling to preserve a straight face. He could not afford to laugh in view of the seriousness of his mission. “You are just a brute fool, Peter,” he went on vigorously, “as thousands of others of your kind are— content to sit and suffer and watch these other and stronger brutes trample over you, and oppress your women and your children.”

“God save you!” gasped Peter in consternation. “He who told you I had a woman or children has lied!”

Andrew wrung his hands helplessly.

“What can I do with this fool?” he muttered. Then: “I am not speaking of you,” he said, “but of the men you know. Listen to me. Would you like your brother to be a happy man?”

“You know that I would, Andrew,” said Peter, “so why do you ask?”

“Would you like yourself to be rich and to ride in fine carriages and to wear cloth coats and sleep in beds with sheets?” Peter had no desire to sleep in beds with sheets; he had once tried the experiment in a reckless moment, and had never ceased to regret the chill contracted on that occasion.

But his brother went on:

“We are near Heaven, Peter. In a few months Russia will be free of the yoke which is round her neck. We will terrify these masters of ours so that they will give us what we ask. And you”— he slapped the other on the shoulder with his heavy hand, and stepped back with a look of admiration upon his face— “you shall free us!”

“I shall free you?” said Peter in bewilderment. “Now you are talking madness, my brother. I know nothing of what you mean. How can I help you— you who are so rich and have so many friends?”

“Sit down.” Andrew caught him by the arm and dragged him to a stove by his side.

He spoke concisely and earnestly, and Peter listened; at first uncomprehending the trend of the other’s speech. Then, as it slowly dawned upon his dull mind, he rose with a gasp of horror, and his face went white.

“What!” he stammered. “Wreck the train of our holy master! Andrew, you are mad.”

“Don’t shout!” hissed the other. “Do you want the whole of the world to know what we are talking about? You have got to do it, do you hear? If you don’t I shall lose my life. I have sworn to my society to carry out its orders, and if I fail my comrades will kill me. You have to decide whether the life of your own brother or the life of the Tsar is more precious to you. To-morrow there will come news to you that the imperial train is going to Tomsk. The Tsar remains for the great festival and then returns. Nothing is to be done until the return journey. I will arrange everything, Peter; you need do no more than wave your green flag. I will have a fast tarantass ready to take you off, and you shall be kept in a small village until the matter is forgotten.”

It was an airy proposition that Andrew Petervitch put before his brother— condemning him to death as he did knowingly and without remorse, that he himself might benefit to the extent of a few thousand roubles. Peter’s detection was sure. Andrew himself might reasonably hope to escape in the confusion, if indeed he had not prepared a way for himself before the catastrophe. A few sticks of dynamite on the line could be carefully timed, might even be fired from a safe distance; the slow-willed Peter could either fly or wait and take his chance.

Peter listened as the plan was unfolded— listened with bulging eyes and ashen cheek, hypnotised by the plausibility of the other, scarcely understanding one half that was said save that he was called upon to commit a deed which was more dreadful than Peter in his wildest moments had imagined. He had thought at times, when the dull monotony of his life had driven him to mild desperation, of terrible crimes which he might commit, such as striking the clerk of the Irkutsk Station who was so rude to him, or making faces at the occupants of the slow-moving passenger trains, or even— the very thought left him breathless!— of setting fire to his hut one deadly day when the monotony of his loneliness had almost driven him mad.

“What is one life?” argued Andrew. “And what is one man’s life more than another?” He did not explain by what miracle the outrage would destroy only the life he sought. “Some day there will come to you the knowledge— the great knowledge that the killing of a man is nothing!” He waved his large hands in contempt. “That day will come soon, and you will only be proud of your work.”

Peter listened in silence to his brother’s hearty farewell, and watched the tarantass as it jerked its way over the lumpy road to the distant flat line of the horizon. Then he went back to his hut and prayed. He made no reference in his prayers to the awful proposal which had been made; he felt it was not a moment to take God into his confidence until he himself had a clear idea as to what it was all about, and his fingers rested a little longer upon the cambric in the niche. He strove with greater earnestness, holding the little gossamer near his nose to catch the perfume. Then he went back to his work at the well— work he hated because it was unjust that he, a signalman, should be called upon to perform the labour of other and higher paid men.

All night long he lay awake thinking.

At dawn there came a light engine carrying an official of the line even as Andrew had predicted. A loud-mouthed, noisy, bullying official, none other than that objectionable clerk from Irkutsk Station, who gave him certain instructions about a mysterious train which would pass at noon. It was a train of the highest and the greatest importance, this much the clerk impressed upon him, calling him pig and fool, and little bear to point out the importance. And Peter listened, nodding his head, and the engine went speeding down the section to the next section-house, where it halted to repeat the instructions.

Peter was more than ordinarily careful with his ablutions that morning; he washed himself with great thoroughness, and took from the little box beneath his bed a blue blouse, washed and rough dried, but of a more brilliant blue than any of its fellows. He even combed his beard, and used the broken-toothed instrument to bring some kind of order to his tangled hair. One thing was certain, the Tsar was coming— that great and God-like man, his master and the master of all the world by Peter’s reckoning, for he took no notice of the lies which were told, doubtless by interested people, that outside of Russia existed other territories dominated by other and less luminous Tsars.

As the hour got nearer he became more and more agitated. The day was a blazing one, the heat stifling and overpowering. Everything he touched that had been exposed to the sunlight was blisteringly hot, the whole landscape shimmered in a heat mist, and on the far horizon a dazzled brown mirage offered the illusory promise of shady trees and cool lakes.

Sometimes during a period of exceptional heat the sun would expand the rails to such an extent as to throw them out of the true. It was part of Peter’s duty to make a careful examination half-way as far as the next section-house once a day.

An hour before the Imperial special was due he walked along in the scorching sunlight, his eyes fixed solemnly upon the twin grey rails. There had been an expansion; you could not put an edge of paper between the place where rail met rail. He had walked two hundred yards when he stopped. It seemed even to his unobservant eye that there was a distinct warp in one line. For the purpose of making his rough calculation he carried a piece of knotted string in his pocket, and with this clumsy apparatus he took laborious measurements and gasped.

For the first time since he had been in the employ of the railway company he had made a discovery which carried with it a reward of five roubles. Yes, here it was, two inches out of the true in one place— almost three inches in another!

He crammed his string in his pocket and went running back along the permanent way to his hut. He was distracted; he could not think what was the right thing to be done under the circumstances.

All that he knew was that the Tsar was coming in his wonderful train, and that he must be there at his hut to signal him past. But now? It never occurred to him, strangely enough, that the bulging rail was quite sufficient to throw the train off the line and bring the disaster by accident which his brother had planned should come through design.

He started walking to the next section to warn Ivan Menshikoff, the signaller. Then, in a panic, he realised that Imperial trains are notoriously unpunctual, and that bullying, brow-beating clerks from the Irkutsk Station might tell him a lie purposely deceiving him for the better safety of the Tsar. With this in his mind he ran hastily back to his hut, an uncomfortable figure, his face wet with perspiration. It was fortunate that his brother had not visited him that morning, and that he had nothing to distract him from his duty.

Then his heart suddenly came into his mouth. Far away on the west horizon was a blur of smoke. There would be no whistling, since this was a special train. The blob of dun-coloured smoke was all the warning an alert signaller required. He went hurriedly into his hut and came out again with his red flag. Of course, this was the proper course. It was a source of satisfaction that he had thought out this duty of arresting the progress of the Imperial special.

He lifted his flag, the flag that he had never had to use since the day of his appointment, unrolled it proudly, and stood at the door. He was probably the only signalman on the line that had had to show the red flag to the Imperial special.

Nearer and nearer came the train. A fear assailed Peter that the driver would not see him, and he waved the red flag frantically at a time when the driver could not possibly have seen him without the aid of a telescope. Nearer and nearer it came, and then with a sudden grinding of brakes the Imperial train jarred to a standstill, the engine less than fifty yards from the danger point, the great white saloon immediately opposite Peter’s hut.

He stood there, his fur hat clutched in his hand, looking humbly, almost devotedly at the spotless car. He saw faces at the window and then he gasped, for one of the faces was that of a girl— the girl whom he had seen on the day he found the handkerchief. He had no time to speculate on this matter, for a uniformed officer, springing down the steps of the saloon, ran towards him.

“What is wrong?” he asked curtly.

Peter tried to speak, but could find no words, he was overcome at this tremendous moment.

“Speak, fool!” said the man.

“Gently, general!” said a voice.

The officer swung round with his hand at the salute, and stood rigidly facing the open window, which had been noiselessly lowered.

Peter looked up and saw a good-natured man with a little peaked beard, who turned his smiling eyes to the signalman.

“What is wrong, my friend?” he asked.

“Little father,” stammered Peter, “the sun has opened the rails. God forgive me for delaying the holy Tsar, but when the rails are open I must stop the train, and if your excellency looks upon the face of the Tsar let him know that I did this because it is my duty.”

It was a very long speech for Peter.

The kindly eyes were not moved from his.

“I am the Tsar,” he said simply.

“God have mercy on us!” gasped Peter, and fell on his knees.

He was still dazed when the little party descended from the saloon whilst mechanics were putting the rails straight— not a matter that required any great waste of time— dazed when the Tsar and the beautiful girl walked along the permanent way and stood before his hut.

“And do you live here always?” asked the Tsar.

Peter nodded; he had no words.

The Tsar slipped into the hut and looked round.

“It is very clean,” he said, as indeed it was, for Peter’s usual shyness of soap and water did not extend to his habitation.

“What is this?” asked the Tsar in surprise. He crossed himself before the ikon as Peter might have done, and, reaching out his hand, touched the little handkerchief. He lifted it from its niche and examined it curiously.

“Why,” he said, “this is yours, Vera.”

The girl took it with a little frown of surprise.

“Yes, that is mine, papa,” she said. “Look, there is my crest.” She pointed to the embroidery in the corner.

“I found it!” blurted out Peter in terror. “Little father, it was by the side of the line, and I did not know that I was doing wrong, but it seemed so beautiful a thing that I placed it here and said nothing to any man, worshipping it because of the angel who had dropped it.”

The Tsar threw back his head with a laugh, and turned to the officer behind him.

“See that this man receives a thousand roubles,” he said shortly. “And he may keep the handkerchief, may he not?”

The girl smiled on Peter, and handed the precious relic into his hands.

Five minutes later Peter Petervitch stood, a confused and wondering man watching the disappearing train.

He with his own hand had touched the Tsar, had felt the warm grip of his fingers in a handshake. It was unthinkable, unbelievable! He was still in his maze when his jovial brother came, this time on a bicycle, for he wanted no evidence to accumulate against him.

The bicycle was a strange machine to Peter. He regarded it with a frown as partaking in some degree of his brother’s revolutionary character.

Peter was engaged for the moment in drawing water from the new well— the well which had been sunk by the Government for his use— in order to mix the mortar with which to cover the old condemned well from whence he had drawn his supplies and from which incidentally his hapless predecessor on the section had met his death in the form of typhoid fever. Peter was in his red shirt, perspiring but immensely happy, singing in his great unmusical voice nothing more modern than an old folk-song he had learned at school.

Andrew dismounted from his bicycle and clapped the other on the shoulder. They kissed one another solemnly.

“Now come to the hut,” said Andrew, “and tell me all your thoughts, my brother.”

“I have no thoughts,” said Peter meekly. “But many wonderful things have happened.”

The other frowned. He looked round; there was no one in sight. Even the signalmen in the distant huts had retired to their midday meal.

“Tell me, Peter Petervitch,” he said, “that you will do what I ask and make me a happy man.”

“What do you ask?” asked the other.

“That you let me lay a mine on the rail.” The other put it bluntly. “That is all. That you do not fire your gun or make an alarm, and that you go before the train comes.”

“I will not do this thing,” said Peter simply.

He was standing by the old well and, lifting a lump of stone, he dropped it over the edge, and stood listening until a faint splash below told that it had reached the water. He was more interested in his work than his brother apparently, and the red-faced man grew almost purple in his rage.

“Listen,” he shouted. “Do you wish to see your brother dead or the Tsar dead?”

“I would rather see you dead,” said Peter calmly after a moment’s thought. And, stooping, he mixed water and lime with his curious bowl-shaped trowel.

Andrew looked at the man and a slow, cunning smile dawned on his face.

“If you do not help you are ruined,” he said, “for I will go away and denounce you to the police.”

That was a contingency upon which Peter had not speculated. To the police! And the news would go to the Tsar, and perhaps the little lady would want her handkerchief back from so unworthy a servant, who had listened to schemes for the destruction of her father.

He went pale at the thought. That he would also lose a thousand roubles did not distress him, because a thousand roubles was beyond his immediate comprehension.

“You will do this?” he stammered.

“Assuredly,” said the other heartily. “Now which do you choose— my death or the Tsar’s? Come, little brother, has not the day dawned when you see life as nothing?”

With surprising quickness for a man so lethargic Peter’s hand shot out. A steel-like grip grasped the city-wasted Andrew by the throat and flung him round.

“Your death, my brother,” murmured Peter, “go with God!”

He threw his weight forward, and, exercising the whole of his strength, he lifted the man bodily and flung him over the black edge of the well.

A despairing shriek came up as the man fell; a pause and a splash of water, and then silence.

Peter walked slowly to where the bicycle lay upon the ground, picked it up gingerly, and threw it down after the man. Then he went to work mixing mortar and carrying stones to cover over this place of death. And all the time he worked he whistled a tuneless song, for the possibilities of a thousand roubles was only at that moment dawning in his sluggish brain.

_____________________

21: Memoirs Of The Sigee Family

Tit-Bit Novels, June 10, 1915

MR. ALBERT SIGEE had a tale of calamity when I called at the little bird-and-beast shop in West Kensington. It was the tale of a careless and youthful assistant who, in the urgency of his desire for recreation, left the shop without securely fastening the door of the cage in which resided the big, fluffy-tailed Persian cat.

The cat waked in the middle of the night, to find itself free in the midst of a small battalion of caged birds, and doubtless wondered in its amazed mind if this indeed was heaven.

"Two thrushes, three canaries, four teeny, tiny little mice, an' a gol'fish," said Mr Sigee, bitterly, "not to speak of damage to cages an' a fish-bowl broken."

"Cats," he continued, "is almost as bad as monkeys. I used to do a line of monkeys once— little 'uns, with now an' then a big 'un if I could get him cheap. At one time I had about a dozen black monkeys from the Wes' Coast, nice little ol' gentlemen they was, with white side whiskers, as solemn as church wardens. I had one grey monkey an' a baby chimpanzee. The grey one was the mischievousiest, wickedest, artfulest bloke you could imagine, and the chimp was a quiet, slow little feller, with a face like an ol' man.

"I tied the grey 'un up where he couldn't get at the black 'uns, because he used to smack 'em; but when I wasn't looking he used to sneak out of his box an' get hold of their chains an' draw 'em gradually to him until he could reach 'em; then biff! he'd welt 'em one, and nip back to his box. One day he come down, an' what with lookin' round to see if I was coming an' what with trying to keep out of sight, he got hol' of the wrong chain an' pulled in the baby chimpanzee."

"The chimp wondered what was up, but he didn't sort of realize the grey 'un's game till he reached him a back-hander. Then before the grey 'un could get away, the chimp hit him. He only hit him once, but it seemed to meet the case, in a manner of speaking. To be exact, he knocked the grey 'un about four feet orf, an' he lay there calling for brandy in monkey language till me an' my boy picked him up. The chimp wasn't a bit upset, only a little annoyed, but the grey 'un was weeks before he crawled aroun' again.

" 'Arf the trouble that ever come to my family come from ketchin' hold of the wrong chain an' pulling the wrong blooming monkey. There's a cousin of mine named Elf, whose 'obby is being in two places at once. S'ppose you wake up one morning an' see a feller gettin' out of the window with the family plate under his arm. Well, he gets away, an' you call in the p'lice and describes him— red hair, green eyes, an' a little twist in his nose.

" 'That's young Elf,' ses the p'lice; an' they go away an' fin' Elf innercently nursing the baby at Somers Town.

" 'Halloa, Elfi,' ses the nark. 'I want you.'

" 'Whaffor?' ses Elf, very astonished.

" 'For that little job at Notting Hill,' ses the p'lice, an' they nabs Elf an' runs him down to the little station at Stibbington Street, puts Elf in the little dock, an' Elf gives 'em a bit of his mind.

" 'You've made an errow this time, Mr Carr,' he ses, in a very injured voice. 'I didn't stir out of my house excep' once last night, an' the time this burglary was committed I was takin' in the milk at the end of the court.'

"Next day in front of the beak you go into the box an' swear that was the chap you saw gettin' out of the winder, but to your bloomin' astonishment Elf perduces six independent witnesses— chaps you know can't have been got at— to swear they saw him on that mornin'— men like respectable milkmen an' coffee-stall keepers an' road cleaners— an' Elf gets off.

"Lots of times Elf was pulled for one job or another. But they could never prove anythin'. He was always somewhere else when it occurred, an' always had half-a-dozen chaps to prove it. Why, once he perduced a p'liceman to swear that when the lady lost her watch he was at St Pancras Station carryin' a gent's bag.

"It used to make the magistrate scratch his head a bit; but, as he said, 'The Law's the Law, an' a man can't be in two places at once, so you're discharged.'

"What made the slops so awful wild was the Highgate job.

"Somebody got into a post-office an' cleared out the safe. The only person wot saw the thief was a chap who lived opposite and happened to be lookin' out of his winder when the burglar walked out of the post-office as bold as brass.

" 'Can you describe 'im?' says the p'lice.

" 'Yes,' ses the feller, 'He's a little red-haired chap with a twist in his nose.'

" 'That's young Elf,' ses the p'lice, 'Now we've got 'im!'

"So down to Somers Town they goes an' pinches Elf.

"The astoundin' and astonishin' thing was that when Elf was put inside the little dock to be charged, the sergeant on duty ses:—'Halloa' he ses, quite amazed. 'What again— two days runnin'?' he ses.

" 'Wot d'ye mean by two days runnin'?' ses the tec that pinched Elf.

" 'Why', ses the sergeant, 'he was run in last night for drunk and disorderly, an' was here all night!'

"That staggered the 'tec,

" 'Here all night?' he ses, bewildered'

" 'Yes,' ses the sergeant.

"So young Elf gets off.

"It was a rare puzzle for the p'lice, an' they reported it to Scotland Yard, an' down comes one of their bright young men— a la-di-da young fellow with an eyeglass.

"He went and saw Elf, an' Elf told me all about him next day.

" 'If that's the sort of 'tecs they're getting at the Yard,' he ses, 'my perfession will be a bit overcrowded.'

" 'Why?' I ses.

" 'Why,' ses Elf in disgust—'why, because that chap don't know enough to come in out of the rain; he can't detectivise to keep himself warm. You ought to have heard the silly questions he arst me; where I was born, if I ever went to Church, where was I christened, an' things like that.'

"I had my doubts about this new slop, an' I sent word round to Elf to go slow; but, bless you, Elf won't be told anything, an' the first I knew— from my brother— was that Elf had got another job fixed up for a house in Camberwell where there was two old ladies an' a lot of plate and stuff.

"Nobody saw Elf do the job, an' he got away with about half a hundredweight of silver; but there was certain signs bout it that made it look like Elf's work; so 'long come a couple of p'licemen in plain clothes, an' they pulled Elf in.

" 'Me!' ses Elf, when they got him to the station, 'Why, I can prove that I was at—'

"The young la-di-da was there with his eyeglass on, 'an he laughed.

" 'We know all about where you were,' he ses, 'an' we know where your brother Peter was.'

"An' with that they brought Elf's brother up from the cells. A living image of Elf is Peter— same coloured hair, same twisty nose, an' same green eyes, an' dressed the same,

" 'I've been lookin' you up,' ses the young 'tec. 'Born in St Giles, one of twins. I've been to the Board-school you was at, an' seen the headmaster. He remembered the twins, as like as two peas. So when I got wind of the burglary at Camberwell I went to look for the alibi in Somers Town, an' there he is.'

"So young Elf got put away for three year, an' Peter, the alibi, got eighteen months as 'accessory after.'

"Which proves what I say: that trouble comes from pulling the wrong chain. Young Elf thought he'd got a mug at the end of his chain, an' it wasn't.

"You can never depend on slops, an' it's no good at all going by what they look like. There's one that comes in here to buy chickweed an' groun'sell for his dicky-bird, a sorf-looking chap that's a bach'lor, an' spends his spare time knittin' stockin's an' feedin' the canary. A pleasant-spoken man with a friendly word for ev'rybody, an' orful kind to kids.

"He's on this beat sometimes, an' what with the 'heads' and the 'lads' that live round about here, it's not much of a catch— as a beat. They used to treat him a bit sorcy when he fust come— he's a heavy, slow customer— and he was always as perlite an' affable as you please. P.-C. Sankey his name was, an' from what I hear he was converted years an' years ago, an' the Sundays he's off duty he has a little class at one of the ragged schools. Of course, the 'lads' got to know that, an' used to walk past him whistlin' hymns an' pertend to hold open-air meetin's in the street.

" 'Don't take any notice of 'em, Mr Sankey,' I ses to him one day, when he was standing outside my shop and a few of the bright boys were singin' 'Onwards Christian Soldiers' at the corner of the street.

" 'I don't,' he ses, cheerful; 'the Lord has given me a stout head and an understanding heart (I Kings iii 9) an' the Government's give me a good stick, 'a whip for a horse, a bridle for as ass, an' a rod for the backs of fools' (Prov. xxvi, 3),' he ses.

" 'P'r'aps if you spoke to 'em,' I ses.

" 'Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his conceits (that's Proverbs too),' he ses; 'an' one of these days I'll give these young fellers a beltin' they won't forget.'

"One Saturday night there was a bit of a disturbance round the corner. There's a little street of houses where nobody seems to pay any rent. A feller named Clinker lives round there; he's a proper terrer— a great big chap in the book-makin' line. From what my father ses he's on the 'cross' too, but not in a very nice line of business. Well, Clinker was giving his wife the usual Saturday night thrashin', an' overdid it a bit. Usually she takes it quiet, but this night she screamed blue murder, an' a crowd got round the house. Clinker came down to the door in his shirt-sleeves an' wanted to know what the crowd was doin' round his house, an' they began to melt away— quick. Just then one of the boys ses:

" 'Here comes Holy Joe!' meanin' P.-C. Sankey.

" 'He's knocking his wife about somethin' shameful,' ses an old woman.

" 'An' I'll knock her about just as much as I like!' roars Clinker. 'She's my wife, an' I've got marriage lines to prove it.'

" 'Go indoors, an' behave like a man,' ses the slop. Clinker went indoors, an' whilst the p'liceman was tellin' the crowd to move on the woman inside began shriekin' again, an' bimeby down comes Clinker to the door an' stood on the doorstep.

" 'Hear her?' he ses. 'Hear her, Mr Sankey-an'-Moody? An Englishman's house is his castle,' he ses, 'an' I can do what I like in my own house without bein' interfered with by a flat-footed slop.'

"P.-C. Sankey is a slow chap, an' does everything at a crawl, so to speak; but somehow, before Clinker knew what'd happened, the p'liceman had him,

" 'Leggo!' ses Clinker, 'or I'll burst you.' An' he punched the slop in the chest.

"But, bless you, you can't hurt a slop, and P.-C. Sankey had his stick out of his pocket before you could say 'knife.'

" 'You're not fightin' women now,' he ses an' gave Clinker one that he'll remember for years.

" 'Not women an' children now. Clinker,' he ses, an' gave him another.

" 'I'll go quietly!' gasps Clinker.

" 'You'd better,' ses the slop, 'or I might forget me Christianity an' beat your bloomin' head orf,' he ses.

__________________

22: The House Surgeon

The Canadian Magazine of Politics, Science, Art and Literature, June 1915

I REACHED out of bed, and turning down the lamp, tried to sleep. The knowledge of the fact that one has, by a single foolish action, placed himself on the verge of bankruptcy is scarcely conducive to mental quiet, and it was only after what seemed to me hours of wakefulness that I sank into a fitful sleep.

I could not have been dozing more than half an hour when a knock at my door aroused me. A knock at such an hour, could only mean one thing to a house surgeon, and getting out of bed, I opened the door to admit, as I had expected, the night porter.

"Case just come in, sir," he said tersely. "Dr. Thompson don't think he's likely to live."

"What sort of case?" I asked sharply, for even one liable to end fatally did not necessarily require my attention, "and when was he brought in?"

The porter was rather taken aback at my brusqueness, for amongst my subordinates, I believe, I bore a reputation for courtesy.

"Brought in a few minutes since, sir." said the man. "Came in a cab with a policeman. 'Pears as how he was goin' home from his club, and passin' down Holborn the horse bolted and came bang against a pillar at the corner of Chancery Lane, gent was thrown out of the cab and fell against the kerb."

By this time I was ready, and after bathing my face to waken me I followed the porter down the dimly-lighted corridor that connected my quarters with the hospital, along the broad stone-flagged central hall, with its many glass doors opening into various wards, till my guide stopped before No. 11, the accident ward.

I entered and softly closed the door behind me. Screened off from the rest of the ward, on an operating table, lay the form of a man, who was in evening dress, the coat of which had been removed to allow the surgeon to commence operations.

By his side stood the night nurse and Thompson, who nodded as I entered. I went nearer to the table and looked into the face. Good God! Newton!— Newton whom I left a few hours before in the bloom of health— and now!

For the moment I forgot our last interview when I had left my club, a ruined man, with the haunting remembrance of Newton, a sympathetic smile on his florid face, making a bundle of the notes and bills that I, in the true gambler's spirit, had plunged with to recoup the trifling losses of the previous evening. The sympathetic smile was part of his stock-in-trade, and was the result of long practice. Believing in that ancient fallacy, luck must turn, I had plunged and plunged, till I suddenly realized that I had lost every penny I had in the world.

In that evening I had entered the private card room a comparatively wealthy man, and had left it with my year's salary mortgaged. I had read of such cases, but had always accepted them with a grain of salt. For how, I argued, can a man continue to play a losing game! Why does he not desist when he finds luck against him? Even now I couldn't say why I hadn't; I only knew that I had played doggedly on, expecting my luck to turn.

In the bitterness of the moment I had said some hard things concerning Newton's "luck," which I more than hinted was assisted by the lucky one's dexterity. He had retaliated with words that had made me wince; he had told me that by such fools as I— those were his words— he managed to make a living. There were other stinging, maddening things he had said, such as only an educated man could have said, but now for the time I forgot his insults, forgot that he had ruined me, and only saw the poor battered form that lay awaiting my skill.

"What are the injuries?" I asked, regaining my composure.

"The scalp wound that you can see," was Thompson's reply. I nodded; one could not help but see that ugly gash that stretched across the head from eyebrow to ear. "Anything else?"

"I haven't looked," he answered. "I thought I'd wait till you came. The bleeding ceased soon after his arrival. I have had him washed up. Will you examine him?"

I took off my coat, and, rolling up my sleeves, proceeded to inspect the wound.

It was, I could see at first glance, a serious case.

I ran my finger gingerly along the bare skull that lay exposed till I felt a little swelling beneath my fingers; unlike the ordinary bump, it was splintered across in two or three directions. I looked up and met Thompson's inquiring eyes.

"Fracture?" was the question.

"Yes," I answered slowly. "A small fracture above the brain. Just see if there's anything else."

Carefully and tenderly Thompson passed his hands over the body and limbs of the insensible man; "a fractured rib," he muttered, half to himself as surgeons are wont to do. "That's nothing; face cut up, evidently from a sharp stone— that's nothing, other limbs seem all right. What are you going to do!" This last remark was addressed to me.

I gave the wound another glance and then decided. "Get the instruments ready for trepanning," I said, "it must be done at once, or it will be too late. There is, undoubtedly, a compression which must be removed."

As my assistant and the nurses hastened noiselessly to obey my orders, I was left alone with the inanimate form. It was a scene that could not have failed to impress the most callous observer.

The long airy room was just sufficiently lit to allow the attendants to move about without injury to limb. The first faint streaks of the dawn were struggling through the windows at the farther end of the ward, its ghastly light making the flickering night-lamps a bilious yellow. This was no novel experience to me; I lived my life amidst these rows of sufferers.

Even the sweet scented flowers that stood amidst the queer shaped instruments on the nursing sister's table were so inseparably associated wilh the internal decoration of a hospital, that a visit to the fairest garden amidt the most picturesque surroundings had no other effect than to recall the scenes of suffering that I had left behind. They were so familiar, too, those neat cots with the overhanging pulleys, and the little Scriptural texts above each patient's head.

I looked at Newton. How still he lay! To all intents and purposes dead. I had served a long and hard apprenticeship, and suffering and death had long ceased to cause me mental pain. There had been a time when the sight of a blood-splashed knife had made me feel sick and giddy, and the memory of the patient's agonized cries had haunted me through the long hours of the night. These times had passed, but in passing they left a few lines on my forehead, and had given a tinge of gray to my hair as a souvenir. In spite of practice a feeling of pity came over me for this unfortunate man, who had probably only a few hours to live.

His "choker" collar and his white tie had been removed to allow of his breathing, and from the front of his dress shirt, crumpled and stained, a single brilliant winked and glittered. I turned my head with half a sigh, when almost at my feet, I saw what, in the dim light, appeared to be a sack. Methodical, even in my abstraction, I stooped, with the intention of removing it to the outside of my ward.

The moment my fingers touched it I realized that what I had taken for a sack was a dust-coat— evidently Newton's.

I switched on the electric light under which his head had been placed; the coat was soiled with that mixture peculiar to London street accidents— mud and blood. As I turned to put the coat with the remainder of the clothing on an adjacent locker, something fell from the pocket; it was a pocket-book, I bent down and picked it up, and was about to replace it, when, like a flash, I remembered that in this book were the bills and notes that Newton had won from me the same evening.

For a moment I stood irresolute.

Here lay a man on the point of death, a man who had as good as confessed that he lived on the wits of fools— such fools as I. He had not, I knew, a single relative in the world, no prying heirs to raise awkward questions.

Half unconsciously, I pressed back the clasp, and opened the flap. Yes. there snug and crisp, lay the little roll of notes and papers; in two or three places I could see my signature, "Donald Fraser," written at the foot of divers bills that spelt ruin to me. What a fool I had been! And what a fool I was. Within my grasp lay all that I desired, and who was to know? He had left the club at the same time as I. I knew there was only one small chance of his recovering; if by that chance he lived, I could restore the money, and if he died— . After all, was not this money mine? Yes, I would take it. This episode should be a lesson to me for all lifetime. I would never again touch a card.

Thompson would soon be returning. I refastened the clasp of the book and, raising my eyes, I met the fixed gaze of— Newton! For a moment I was speechless; the shock of encountering the glare of those eyes that I had thought closed in insensibility, produced a momentary paralysis. For the moment I imagined that I had been speaking my thoughts aloud, but recovering my mental equilibrium, my professional instincts came to my rescue.

"You must remain perfectly quiet," I said in a subdued tone; "you have met with a bad accident."

He did not speak, but his eyes rested for a second on the pocket-book, and then rose to my face, into which, in spite of a determined effort, and for the first time in my life, a blush of guilt was creeping. He evidently noticed my distress, and mistaking the cause, he said faintly. "It's all right. Fraser, don't trouble, I'm not afraid of your holding these things, I know you are straight!"

The blush deepened, and I tossed the accursed thing that had made me forget duty, as a gentleman and a physician, on to the heap of clothing. If he was a sharper, what was I, a thief? Had the tables been turned, and he, instead of I, been the loser, should I have considered his feelings! I looked at Newton; he lay with half-closed eyes, breathing very quickly, and I could see he was lapsing again into insensibility. Thompson at this moment came up with an apology for keeping me so long; he bore a tray containing the instruments. The nurses who accompanied him placed the necessary waters and antiseptics in the various basins, and all was ready.

Thompson looked curiously at the patient.

"Has he regained consciousness!" he asked, proceeding to divest himself of his coat, and fastening back his cuffs.

"For a short time, yes," I answered. "He is half-conscious now; these periods of lucidity are not uncommon in cases of compression." I felt the pulse— it was normal; with a stethoscope I examined the heart, this, too, was sound.

"I shall give him chloroform," I said, by way of explanation, "and endeavour to elevate the splintered bone." Newton opened his eyes, and glanced from one to the other; at last his inquiring gaze rested on Thompson.

"This is Doctor Thompson," I said, thinking to inspire him with confidence; "we are going to operate on you, there will be little or no pain— "

He stopped me with an almost imperceptible movement of his head.

"I want to talk alone," he said, and there was a suspicious thickness in his voice that warned me that any interview would have to be short. "I want to talk alone with Dr. Thompson."

I started in astonishment, for I knew they were not even acquaint ed. "Do you mean me?" I asked, thinking that the injury might have affected his brain.

"No, no!" he said almost impatiently, "I mean that gentleman."

It was a strange request, but I could see that every moment now was precious.

At a motion from me, Thompson took his place by the side of the patient's head, and the nurses, with myself, withdrew. Why should he wish to speak to Thompson! I could see them from where I stood, the patient speaking slowly and evidently painfully, and Thompson's nod of acquiescence. Suddenly the conversation came to an end, and beckoning one of the nurses to him, my colleague walked to the heap of clothing, and picking up Newton's book, placed it in his pocket, and resuming his place by the patient's side, continued the conversation.

Now I knew! Newton had told him of what he had seen when he bad recovered from his insensibility. He had called the nurse for a witness and handed the book and its contents into my assistant's keeping for safety. To-morrow, the whole world— my world, would know that, in addition to being a ruined gambler, Donald Fraser, Doctor of Medicine, had violated the sacred laws of humanity, had dishonoured his noble profession, by attempting to rob a patient!

I made my way back to the table. Thompson looked curiously at me, but I avoided his glance, and by a mighty effort of will all emotions were hidden for a time, and I took my place at his side, not as the man whose reputation was at his mercy, but as a surgeon.

I took up the conical inhaler that lay on the tray and, bending over the head of the dying man, for dying now he undoubtedly was, placed it over the patient's mouth and nose, and gently shook a few drops of the anaesthetic over its porous sides. The sickly, penetrating odour of the chloroform rose and, as he felt the first whiff of it in his lungs, Newton opened his eyes and, looking at Thompson in a meaning manner, said the one word, "remember" Thompson nodded and again glanced from me to the patient, who, closing his eyes, was gently inhaling. Now and then, as is usual, when patients are sinking under the influence of the chloroform, the breathing for a moment ceased, but a slight pressure upon the uninjured side would cause him to resume his respiration. After a while, I lifted the eyelids, and gently touched the pupils. Yes, he was well under. I handed the inhaler to Thompson and, dipping my hands into the antiseptic lotion, I commenced.

It was a difficult job, even more so than I had anticipated; the fracture extended farther than I had thought, but I had not been working long before I realized the hopelessness of my task. But, to a surgeon, the adage, "Whilst there's life, there's hope," had a special significance, and the fact that to all appearance my work would be useless did not deter me from doing my utmost.

The end came very quietly. Thompson, who was administering sufficienly small doses of chloroform to keep the patient insensible, suddenly dropped the inhaler and, picking up the stethoscope, applied it to the heart. I stopped my work and leaned, red-handed, on the table, awaiting his decision.

"You can stop," he said after a while, "he's dead." I took the instrument from him and listened. It was as he said! Newton had gone to face his Maker.

Hastly washing and drying my hands, I slipped on my coat, and made my way back to my room.

Now that it was all over, a dreary feeling of my own helplessness came over me, and as I drew a basket chair up to the fire that the porter had replenished in my absence, I thought of the misery I should have to face on the morrow. I glanced at my watch; it was three o'clock. To-morrow, then, was to-day. To-day I should die— the social death. I never realized till that minute how dear this little world of mine was to me. The functions that I had held up to ridicule as senseless and time-wasting, seemed now to be clothed with a dignity and refinement unthought of. The profession I loved so well, and God knows, no mother could suffer more at the death of her firstborn than I at the thought of severing myself from St, Mark's.

What a blackguard I was. I fancied I could hear Newton saying, "I can trust you, you are straight." I who, even as he spoke, was weighing the chances of evading detection. And yet, after all, he could not have meant it, otherwise why should he have told Thompson?

A quick footstep echoed down the corridor, and stopped opposite my door. There was a knock. I rose from my chair, and opened the door to Thompson. "Come in," I said, closing the door after him. He seated himself, facing me, on the opposite side of the fire. I pushed the decanter towards him.

I hadn't the nerve to open the conversation.

"Thanks," he said, helping himself to a modest allowance of Burgundy. "I owe you an apology for disturbing your rest again, but I have to tell you what transpired between this patient and myself." I nodded. I had expected something of this, if not so soon, and my hand trembled as I pushed back the decanter from its perilous position on the edge of the table, where Thompson, with youthful disregard to safety, had left it. It is curious how, in times of great trouble, or mental worry, little trifling incidents leave a lasting impression on one's mind, and the sight of a decanter placed too near the edge of a table has ever since then reminded me of that startling interview.

"I saw when you came into ward," my assistant went on, "that you knew him, and you can imagine, knowing this, how surprised I was when he asked for an interview with me. I could see that you, too, were a little astonished; however, before I had time to recover from my amazement, you were gone, and we were left together. The first thing he did was to ask me whether I knew anything about law. I told him I did for, as you know, my people are in the law, and I was, at first, intended for that stuffy profession. He then asked me whether he could dispose of his property without making a will. I told him that such a thing was permissible in cases of urgent necessity. 'Such as this?' he asked. 'Yes,' I replied, 'this would he a case in which you could verbally bequeath your property, providing it was done in the presccnce of two disinterested persons.' It was then, at his request, that I called Nurse Joyce, and searched among his clothing for a pocket-book. This I found and brought to him, and then to my profound astonishment, he said, 'In the presence of these witnesses I bequeath this book and its contents to— Doctor Donald Fraser, of St. Mark's Hospital!'" As Thompson said this he drew from his pocket the book.

I had risen to my feet as he commenced his story and stood by the window that overlooked the dawn-lit quadrangle of the hospital. I had done this partly to hide any show of emotion that may have been evident, partly because, in my then condition of mind, I could not remain seated, but as the unlooked for, unthought of story of Newton's generosity was laid before me, the room swam round, and the figure of Thompson, silhouetted against the dancing flames of the fire, became blurred and indistinct. "For me?" I managed to gasp.

"Yes, for you, and he made me promise to hand it to you to-night. 'For,' he said, 'there are some papers that I want the doctor to burn.'"

My fingers closed over the leathern package.

"He added a very strange sentence," said Thompson. "His last words before you came were, 'Tell the doctor the cards were marked.'"

As he finished speaking Thompson stepped towards the door and, holding it open, he looked down, with a perplexed frown. "About those papers," he said, "I don't know whether it is irregular to destroy them until the will has been proved, but as it was evidently his wish, I suppose you had better burn them."

"I think I had better do so," I answered, closing the door after him and turning towards the fire.

_________________________

23: The Yellow Box

The Story-Teller, March 1908

WHEN Christopher Angle went to school he was very naturally called "Angel" by his fellows. When, in after life, he established a reputation for tact, geniality, and a remarkable equability, of temper, he became "Angel, Esquire," and, as Angel Esquire, he went through the greater portion of his adventurous life, so that on the coast and in the islands and in the wild lands that lie beyond the It'uri Forest, where Mr C. Angle is unknown, the remembrance of Angel, Esquire, is kept perennially green.

In what department of the Government he was before he took up a permanent suite of rooms at New Scotland Yard it is difficult to say. All that is known is that when the "scientific expedition" of Dr Kauffhaus penetrated to the head waters of the Kasakasa River, Angel Esquire, was in the neighbourhood shooting elephants. A native messenger en route to the nearest post, carrying a newly-ratified treaty, counter-signed by the native chief, can vouch for Angel's presence, because Angel's men fell upon him and beat him, and Angel took the newly-sealed letter and calmly tore it up.

When, too, yet another "scientific expedition," was engaged in making elaborate soundings in a neutral port in the Pacific, it was his steam launch that accidentally upset the boat of the men of science, and many invaluable instruments and drawings were irretrievably lost in the deeps of the rocky inlet. Following, however, upon some outrageous international incident, no less than the— but perhaps it would be wiser not to say— Angel was transferred bodily to Scotland Yard, undisguisedly a detective, and was placed in charge of the Colonial Department, which deals with all matters in those countries — British or otherwise— where the temperature rises above 103 degrees Fahrenheit. His record in this department was one of unabated success, and the interdepartmental criticism which was aroused by its creation and his appointment, have long since been silenced by the remarkable success that attended, amongst others, his investigations into the strange disappearance of the Corringham Mine, the discovery of the Third Slave, and his brilliant and memorable work in connection with the Croupier's Safe.

To Angel, Esquire, in the early spring came an official of the Criminal Investigation Department.

"Do you know Congoland at all, Angel?" he asked.

"Little bit of it," said Angel modestly.

"Well, here's a letter that the chief wants you to deal with— the writer is the daughter of an old friend, and he would like you to give the matter your personal attention."

Angel's insulting remark about corruption in the public service need not be placed on record.

The letter was written on notepaper of unusual thinness.

"A lady who has had or is having correspondence with somebody in a part of the world where the postage rate is high," he said to himself, and the first words of the letter confirmed this view:

"My husband, who has just returned from the Congo, where he has been on behalf of a Belgian firm to report on alluvial gold discoveries, has become so strange in his manner, and there are, moreover, such curious circumstances in connection with his conduct, that I am taking this course, knowing that as a friend of my dear father's you will not place any unkind construction upon it, and that you will help me to get at the bottom of this mystery."

The letter was evidently hurriedly written. There were words crossed out and written in.

"Humph," said Angel; "rather a miserable little domestic drama. I trust I shall not be called in to investigate every family jar that occurs in the homes of the chief's friends."

But he wrote a polite little note to the lady on his "unofficial" paper, asking for an appointment and telling her that he had been asked to make the necessary enquires. The next morning he received a wire inviting him to go to Dulwich to the address that had appeared at the head of the note. Accordingly he started that afternoon, with the irritating sense that his time was being wasted.

Nine hundred and three Lordship Lane was a substantial-looking house, standing back from the road, and a trim maid opened the door to him, and ushered him into the drawing-room.

He was waiting impatiently for the lady, when the door was flung open and a man staggered in. He had an opened letter in his hand, and there was a look on his face that shocked Angel. It was the face of a soul in torment— drawn, haggard, and white.

"My God! my God!" he muttered: then he saw Angel, and straightened himself for a moment, for he started forward and seized the detective by the arm eagerly.

"You— you," he gasped, "are you from Liverpool? Have they sent you down to say it was a mistake?"

There was a rustle of a dress, and a girl came into the room. She was little more than a girl, but the traces of suffering that Angel saw had aged her. She came quickly to the side of the man and laid her hand on his arm.

"What is it— oh, what is it, Jack?" she entreated.

The man stepped back, shaking his head. "I'm sorry, ver' sorry," he said dully, and Angel noticed that he clipped his words. "I thought— I mistook this gentleman for someone else."

Angel explained his identity to the girl in a swift glance.

"This— this is a friend of mine," she faltered, "a friend of my father's," she went on hesitatingly, "who has called to see me."

"Sorry— sorry," he said stupidly. He stumbled to the door and went out, leaving it open. They heard him blundering up the stairs, and after a while a door slammed, and there came a faint "click" us he locked it.

"Oh, can you help me?" cried the girl in distress. "I am beside myself with anxiety."

"Please sit down, Mrs Farrow," said Angel hastily, but kindly. A woman on the verge of tears always alarmed him. Already he felt an unusual interest in the case. "Just tell me from the beginning."

"My husband is a metallurgist, and a year ago, he was commissioned by a Belgian company interested in gold-mining to go to the Congo and report on some property there."

"Had he ever been there before?"

"No; he had never been to Africa before. It was against my wish that he went at all, but the fee was so temptingly high, and the opportunities so great, that I yielded to his persuasion, and allowed him to go."

"How did he leave you?"

"As he had always been— bright, optimistic, and full of spirits. We were very happily married, Mr Angel— " she stopped, and her lips quivered.

"Yes, yes," said the alarmed detective; "please go on."

"He wrote by every mail, and even sent natives in their canoes hundreds of miles to connect with the mail steamers, and his letters were bright and full of particulars about the country and the people. Then, quite suddenly, they changed. From being the cheery, long letters they had been, they became almost notes, telling me just the bare facts of his movements. They worried me a little, because I thought it meant that he was ill, had fever, and did not want me to know."

"And had he?"

"No. A man who was with him said he was never once down with fever. Well, I cabled to him, but cabling to the Congo is a heart-breaking business, and there was fourteen days' delay on the wire."

"I know," said Angel sympathetically, "the land wire down to Brazzaville."

"Then, before my cable could reach him, I received a brief telegram from him saying he was coming home."

"Yes?"

"There was a weary month of waiting, and then he arrived. I went to Southampton to meet him."

"To Southampton, not to Liverpool?"

"To Southampton. He met me on the deck, and I shall never forget the look of agony in his eyes when he saw me. It struck me dumb. 'What is the matter, Jack?' I asked. 'Nothing,' he said, in, oh, such a listless, hopeless way. I could get nothing from him. Almost as soon as he got home he went to his room and locked the door."

"When was this?"

"A month ago."

"And what has happened since?"

"Nothing; except that he has got steadily more and more depressed, and— and— "

"Yes?" asked Angel.

"He gets letters— letters that he goes to the door to meet. Sometimes they make him worse, sometimes he gets almost cheerful after they arrive; but he had his worst bout after the arrival of the box."

"What box?"

"It came whilst I was dressing for dinner one night. All that afternoon he had been unusually restless, running down from his room at every ring of the bell. I caught a glance of it through his half-opened door."

"Do you not enter his room occasionally?"

She shook her head. "Nobody has been into his room since his return; he will not allow the servants in, and sweeps and tidies it himself."

"Well, and the box?"

"It was about eighteen inches high, and twelve inches square. It was of polished yellow wood."

"Did it remind you of anything?"

"Of an electric battery," she said slowly. "One of those big portable things that you can buy at an electrician's."

Angel thought deeply.

"And the letters— have you seen them?" he asked.

"Only once, when the postman overlooked a letter, and came back with it. I saw it for a moment only, because my husband came down immediately and took it from me."

"And the postmark?"

"It looked like Liverpool," she said.

He questioned her again on one or two aspects that interested him.

"I must see your husband's room," he said decisively.

She shook her head.

"I am afraid it will be impossible," she said.

"We shall see," said Angel cheerfully.

Then an unearthly chattering and screeching met their ears, and the girl turned pale.

"Oh, I had forgotten the most unpleasant thing— the monkey!" she said, and beckoned him from the room. He passed through the house to the garden at the back. Well sheltered from the road was a big iron cage, wherein sat a tiny Congo monkey, shivering in the chill spring air, and drawing about his hairy shoulders the torn half of a blanket.

"My husband brought one home with him," she said, "but it died. This is the fifth monkey we have had in a month, and he, poor beastie, does not look as if he were long for life."

The little animal fixed his bright eyes on Angel, and chattered dismally.

"They get ill, and my husband shoots them," the girl went on. "I wanted him to let a veterinary surgeon see the last one, but he would not."

"Curious," said Angel musingly, and, after making arrangements to call the next morning, he went back to his office in a puzzled frame of mind.

He duly reported to his chief the substance of his interview.

"It isn't drink, and it isn't drugs," he said. "To me it looks like sheer panic. If that man is not in mortal fear of somebody or something, I am very much mistaken."

The girl had given him some of the earlier letters she had received from Africa, and after dinner that night Angel sat down in his little flat in Jermyn Street to read them. In the first letter — it was dated Boma— occurred a passage that gave him pause. After telling how he had gone ashore at Flagstaff, and had made a little excursion up one of the rivers, the letter went on to say:

"Apparently, I have quite unwillingly given deep offence to one of the secret societies— if you can imagine a native secret society— by buying from a native a most interesting ju-ju or idol. The native, poor beggar, was found dead on the beach this morning; and although the official view is that he was bitten by a poisonous snake, I feel that his death had something to do with the selling of the idol, which, by the way, resembles nothing so much as a decrepit monkey...."

In his search through the letters he could find no other reference to the incident, except in one of the last of the longer epistles, where he found:

"... the canoe overturned, and we were struggling in the water. To my intense annoyance, amongst other personal effects lost was the coast ju-ju I wrote to you about. A missionary who lives close at hand said the current, not being strong about here, the idol is recoverable, and has promised to send a boy down first, and if he finds it to send it on to me. I have given him our address at home in case it turns up...."

"In case it turns up!" repeated Angel. "I wonder— "

He knew of these extraordinary societies. He knew, too, how strong a hold they had in the country that lay behind Flagstaff. These dreadful organisations were not to be lightly dismissed. Their power was indisputable.

"The question is, how far are they responsible for the present trouble," he said, discussing the affair with his chief the next morning, "how far the arm of the offended ju-ju can reach. If we were on the coast I should not be surprised to find our young friend dead in his bed any morning. But we are in England— and in Dulwich to boot!"

"The yellow box may explain everything," said his chief thoughtfully.

"And I mean to see it to-day," said Angel determinedly. He did not see it that day, for on his return to his office he found a telegram awaiting him from Mrs Farrow:

PLEASE COME AT ONCE. MY HUSBAND DISAPPEARED LAST NIGHT AND HAS NOT RETURNED. HE HAS TAKEN WITH HIM THE BOX AND THE MONKEY.

He was ringing at the door of the house within an hour after receiving the telegram. Her eyes were red with weeping: and it was a little time before she could speak. Then, brokenly, she told the story of her husband's disappearance. It was after the household had retired for the night she thought she heard a vehicle draw up at the door. She was half asleep, but the sound of voices roused her, and she got out of bed and looked through the Venetian blinds. Her room faced the road, and she could see a carriage drawn up opposite the gate. A man walking beside her husband, who carried a box, which she recognised as the yellow box, and in the strange man's arms she could discern, by the light of the street lamp, a quivering bundle which proved to be the monkey.

Before she could move or raise the window her husband entered the carriage, taking with him the monkey, and the other man jumped up by the side of the driver as the vehicle drove off, and, as he did, she saw his face. It was that of a negro.

Angel suppressed the exclamation that sprang to his lips as he heard this. It was evident that she had not attached any importance to the story of the ju-ju, and he did not wish to alarm her.

"Did he leave a message?"

She handed him a sheet of paper without replying. Only a few lines were scrawled on the sheet:—

"I am a moral coward, darling, and dare not tell you. If I come back, you will know why I have left you. If not, pray for me, and remember mo kindly. I have placed all my money to the credit of your hanking account."

The girl was crying quietly.

"Let me see his room," said Angel; and she conducted him to the little apartment that was half laboratory and half study. A truckle bed ran lengthways beneath, the window, and a heap of blackened ashes were piled up in the fireplace.

"Nothing has been touched," said the girl.

Gingerly, Angel lifted the curling ashes one by one.

"I've known burnt paper to..."— he was going to say "hang a man," but altered it to "be of great service."

There were one or two pieces that the fire had not burnt, and some on which the letters were still discernible. One of these he lifted and carried to the window.

"Hullo!" he muttered.

He could not find a complete sentence, but, as he read it: ... very bad ... monkey ... take you away ... your own fault....

There was a blotting pad upon the little table, and a square dust mark, where he surmised, the mysterious box stood. He lifted the pad; underneath were a number of strips of paper.

He glanced at them carelessly, then:

"What on earth?" he said.

Indelibly printed on the slips before him were a dozen red thumb prints.

He looked at them closely.

The thumb prints were of blood!

Then, in the midst of his mystification a light dawned on Angel, and he turned to the girl.

"Has you husband bought a methylated spirit lamp lately?" he asked.

She looked at him in astonishment.

"Why, yes," she said, "a fortnight ago he bought one."

"And has he been asking for needles?"

She almost gasped.

"Yes, yes, almost every day!"

Angel looked again at the charred paper and smiled.

"Of course, this may be serious," he said; "but really I think it isn't at all. If you will content your mind for a day, I will tell how serious it is; if you will extend your content for four days, I would almost undertake to promise to restore him to you."

He left her that afternoon in an agony of suspense, and three hours afterwards she received a telegram:

FOUND YOUR HUSBAND

— EXPECT HIM HOME TO-MORROW.

To his chief Angel explained the mystery in three minutes.

"I thought the ju-ju had nothing to do with it," he said cheerfully. "The whole thing illustrates the folly of a man who had never been further from home than Wiesbaden penetrating God's primaeval forest. Farrow, on the Congo, surrounded on all sides by the disease, must needs be suddenly obsessed by the belief that he has sleeping-sickness. So home he comes, filled with dread forebodings, and visions of the madness that comes to the people, with trypanosomiasis. Buys microscopes— our yellow box— and jabs his finger day by day to examine his blood for microbes. As soon as I heard he had got the approved spirit lamp for sterilising purposes, I knew that. He corresponds with the Tropical Schools of Medicine in London and Liverpool, boring those poor people to death with his outrageous symptoms. Jabs his blood into monkeys, and when they die— of cold and bad feeding— fears the worst. So, at last, some wise doctor at the London School, after writing and telling him that he was an ass, that he couldn't be very bad, and that the monkey's death wasn't any sign— except of cruelty to animals — offers to take him into hospital for a few days and put him under observation. So along comes the hospital carriage, with their nigger porter, and away goes our foolish hypochondriac, with his monkey and his box of tricks. They are turning him out of hospital tomorrow."

_______________________________

24: When the Armanic Sank

The Novel Magazine, February 1916

"MARJORIE SWAIN," said her uncle solemnly, "you are going to end up by marrying a tramp."

The girl, sitting on the end of the sofa swinging her foot, laughed.

Marjorie was difficult. She was very rich, and she was very pretty. She was also something of a student of affairs, wrote clever articles in The Woman's Age, and was voted eccentric by some, as unwomanly by others, and as somewhat unapproachable by most people. Only in books and stories are very pretty women, who are also very rich, surrounded by crowds of suitors. Men, on the whole, are too vain to crowd round a woman, however much in love, or in debt, they may be.

Uncle Gordon lit a fresh cigar and looked up at her quizzically.

"Marjie,"he said, "strong-minded young ladies like you end by marrying burglars."

"It must be interesting to marry a burglar— a nice, brave, Raffles person,"she meditated.

"Hmp!" growled her uncle. "The men who catch women like you aren't either nice or brave— look there!"

He pointed through the window. A disconsolate newsboy stood in the drizzling rain clutching a contents bill:

EXTRADITION OF

DR. BALSCOMBE.

She laughed long and gleefully, throwing back her head in an ecstasy of bubbling amusement.

"Oh, uncle! Am I as bad as that— am I likely to marry Dr. Balscombe?" she asked in mock concern.

"I think nobody is likely to marry the doctor," said her relative, drawing steadily at his cigar, "he'll hang— but he is an instance of the man who captivates impossible women— that is to say, impossible to any other kind of man— by sheer fascination and blarney. If he hadn't killed two poor souls for the vulgar insurance money one could have admired his gifts."

She slipped down from the end of the couch and walked to the window.

"I've read every scrap of the evidence against him," she said, "and if the case hadn't ended yesterday I should have delayed leaving for America. Lady Grancely wanted me to go to court and see him."

Gordon Brebent muttered something about "idle, morbid women," but she ignored his offensiveness. Uncle Gordon was a dear, but somewhat old-fashioned. She walked back to where he sprawled, a model of comfortable inelegance, and laid her hand on his shoulder.

"Come and see me off to-morrow, and I promise not to talk about the wicked doctor," she said.

Gordon Brebent promised and kept his word.

If the truth be told, Marjorie did not keep hers, but that was due to a locked railway compartment with drawn blinds, and the whisper that ran along the boat train that the criminal, whose name had been in everybody's mouth, was a fellow-passenger.

She learnt much from her somewhat stodgy fellows of the first saloon, and might have learnt much more but for the fact that, when the Armanic was fifty miles from Queenstown, and Marjorie was dozing in her deck chair, oblivious of the sudden excitement which thrilled the ship, something struck the great liner amidships— something that exploded with a crash like thunder and sent a white, solid column of water leaping into the air before it trembled and broke upon the dumb-stricken passengers.

An hour later she was still without any clear recollection of what had happened.

SHE looked back over the grey hummocks of water and could see nothing save the blur of the smoke from a disappearing drifter. Instinctively she glanced at her watch. It was three o'clock. So the watch was watertight. It was curious that she should remember the shopman's guarantee.

Three o'clock! There were five hours of light left— at least. What time did the sun set? She knitted her pretty forehead trying to remember. She usually dressed for dinner at 7.30, and it was not dark then. It was not even dark at 8.15 when she left her room. Nine o'clock— perhaps later. She raised her hand very gingerly and pushed back the long, soddened snakes of hair from her face. Even the salt water had not dimmed its bronze splendour.

She had need to move cautiously, because she was sitting astride of a small but buoyant bale, that bobbed and rose with the sea and threatened to capsize if she departed by a single inch breadth from her centre of balance.

The young man who swam by her side had all his eyes for the dim line of land to the north. He had a patent life-saving waistcoat about his body, and presented a somewhat bloated appearance.

Now and again he would lift his hand and give the little bale a push in the direction he wanted it to take, for he was rudder and motor power to the frail raft on which Marjorie Swain sat.

"It's awfully uncomfortable," she said, with a quick smile in answer to something he had said, "but it's ever so much nicer than being drowned."

She turned as she spoke and nearly overbalanced herself.

"Hold on!" he warned, and shot up his hand to steady her. "I guess you'd better take your skirt off, my friend— if it is possible."

She looked straight ahead.

"It is quite possible,"she said, "but I shall have to come into the water to do it." He held out his hand and she slipped from her perch.

He held her unceremoniously enough by the scruff of her neck, for she needed both hands.

"That's better, I think," he said, after the struggle which preceded her return to the bale.

She said nothing, not knowing exactly what a lady, clad grotesquely in a Paquin blouse and black silk knickers, should say to a very self-possessed young stranger whom she had never met before until he had grabbed her by the hair and pushed and hauled her to temporary safety.

"What was it struck us? "she asked, after a while.

"A torpedo. I saw the submarine before it struck— at least I saw the periscope."

A pause.

"Rather beastly of them, wasn't it?" She shuddered at a certain terrible memory.

"Fairly fierce," he answered nonchalantly.

Another long pause, broken only by a smothered exclamation on the part of the girl when, in heading the raft to its course, he had all but overbalanced her.

"We're in— in danger rather, aren't we? "she asked presently.

He looked up and his eyes met hers. She realised, with a little sense of amused surprise, that she had not looked at him before. He was good-looking and something more. There was a certain hardy healthiness in his face, which told of a life spent mainly in the open.

"It all depends,"he answered cautiously. "That streak of grey is Ireland, and round about here we ought to strike a fishing-boat or two. Had you anybody with you on board?"

She shook her head and sighed.

"That's a relief," he said cheerfully. "Well, I could echo that sigh."

He swam lazily, using only one hand, and she wondered why. She thought of asking him when he spoke.

"Was there anybody on board you knew?" he asked.

She shook her head again.

"With one exception they were the most uninteresting crowd of people I ever met," she said. "Had you anybody with you?" He nodded.

"Somebody— somebody you were attached to?" she asked, and there was a pleasant little thrill of anxiety in her voice.

"Yes," he said, and she thought his tone sounded a little unsympathetic. But men hide their grief that way, she remembered.

"You were saying there was an exception in that commonplace crowd?" he said.

She looked down at him.

"I should have imagined that you knew," she said, "everybody on board knew— it was in the newspapers."

"I never read the newspapers," he said; "you see— steady!"

She was swaying wildly, and he put out his right hand to steady her. It was strange that he always gave her the hand he swam with. Perhaps he had injured the other.

"Tell me about your interesting man who was in all the newspapers," he said, after she had again recovered her sense of equation. "I am very keen on interesting men."

"Dr. Balscombe," she said briefly. "Of course he is a horrible person— but women are interested in those kind of people, even nice women. I suppose it is the working of their insatiable curiosity. Just as they want to see what is the best in man, so they want to glimpse something of the worst. People call it morbidity, but in reality it is the anxiety of every person present to learn what he or she has escaped."

"You're American, aren't you?" he asked, and she smiled.

"Boston," she answered demurely.

"That's near enough. I'm— I'm— well, I don't exactly know what I am. My father was Irish, my mother was a Scot, and I was born in Gibraltar."

"What do you call yourself?"

"Canadian," he replied, with charming inconsequence. "You see I've lived there for quite a long time. Well, did you see Dr. Balscombe?"

He asked this keeping his eyes on hers, and swimming easily on his side.

"No— I'm rather glad I didn't. They kept him hidden away somewhere. You know— but, of course, you don't know, if you do not read the papers— he is a very dangerous character. I think if I were a man who had murdered two wives I should be a dangerous character, too. They kept him handcuffed— the steward told me— and were so anxious to get him back to Canada for trial that the Canadian Government sent over a special police official to watch him."

"The devil they did!" said the stranger.

The land was perceptibly nearer. The girl, balanced on the bale, could distinguish the white specks of cottages near the thread width of beach.

"It is a long way yet," said the man, as if reading her thoughts, "but there will be a whole fleet of fishing-boats out, as soon as the news of the ship's foundering is telegraphed along the coast."

She strained her eyes toward the shore, and for the first time the full realisation of her danger came to her and her lips quivered.

"Now then!" he said sharply. "Go on talking— tell me something more about your Dr. Balscombe."

She shuddered.

"Please, I don't want to talk any more— are you sure that we aren't drifting?"

"Go on talking," he repeated imperiously. "You're on the verge of a breakdown, my friend."

"I'm not!" she denied indignantly. "But I'm cold, and hungry, and miserable. I don't want to talk about a brute who killed women for the sheer joy of killing them."

"And you have a little lump at the back of your throat which you're trying to swallow— it is called the bolus hystericus, and it can't be swallowed."

"Are you a doctor? "she asked.

He hesitated.

"I'm a sort of a doctor," he confessed, "but don't rely upon me to be of any assistance to you in the event of your getting panicky."

She turned sharply with a scornful retort and nearly overbalanced. So nearly, that he was surprised, not only into raising his inevitable right hand to save her, but into lifting himself so that, beneath the surface of the water, his left hand was visible also. She looked and saw, and, for a moment, she thought she would swoon.

For about his left hand, unmistakable even in the brief glimpse she secured, was the bright steel clamp of a handcuff!

She recovered her balance and her self-command at one and the same time.

For the first time that day she was frightened. The sinking of the Armanic was little more than an exciting adventure compared with this greater and more terrible experience.

"I think there is a boat coming our way," the man said suddenly. "Have you anything you could wave to attract its attention?"

She had a handkerchief, but it was no more than a sodden little ball. She took it from her belt and regarded it ruefully.

"Squeeze it out and hold it up— it will be quite dry before the boat comes anywhere near."

There was a long and strained silence.

The girl was thinking rapidly. For the first time she realised that she owed this man something— perhaps her life. She had not even a dim idea as to what had happened between the crash of the explosion, which had awakened her, and the finding of herself perched upon the little bale. Yet she must have enjoyed a lucid period, for it was quite impossible to have gained her position without some effort on her own part.

She must know before she could balance accounts between herself and him.

"Will you tell me how I was rescued?" she asked sharply.

He did not reply at first.

"I think you rescued yourself," he answered, after the pause. "At least," he corrected, "with very little assistance from me."

"How did I find this?" she asked, nodding down at her support.

"That was my bale," he confessed, "but quite unnecessary, as I had a life- saving waistcoat— so I just helped you on to it. And we sort of drifted away from the boats and here we are!"

So she did owe him her life!

She was confronted with the most painful dilemma that could face any human being. She was moving toward safety, thanks to the heroism of a convicted murderer— a man whose crimes had sent a thrill of horror through the civilised world. There was no question of Dr. Balscombe's guilt. She had read every scrap of the evidence, and knew there was no loophole of escape left to him.

That brown sail, now making directly for them, meant life and comfort for her— for the man it meant an ignominious death. She set her teeth and faced the naked verities of the situation. This man's life was forfeit to the State.

"What will you do when you get on board?" she demanded.

"Borrow a dry suit," he answered cheerfully.

"And after— when you get to land— and the police— "

She had to make a supreme effort to get the word out.

"The police?" he asked. "I see— you know?"

She nodded, still keeping her gaze directed from the upturned face.

Otherwise she might have seen evidence of his exhaustion, the hollowness of his eyes, the blue lips and pinched cheek.

"I shall just report— but don't make me talk, please."

His voice had dropped to a whisper.

She looked at him in alarm. He had stopped swimming, and his head was sinking forward till it almost touched the water.

To slip from the bale was the work of a second. With her right arm hugging the precious float, she raised his head with her disengaged hand.

It fell back wearily against her shoulder. She looked wildly, around.

"Thank God!" she said.

The boat with the brown sail was bearing down upon them. She had a half- formed plan in her mind and now it took shape.

She let go his head, lifted the manacled hand to the water's level, and endeavoured so to wrap her handkerchief about it that the handcuff was hidden. But it was too bulky. Perhaps he had a handkerchief. She searched the nearest pocket and discovered a big water-soaked bandana.

As best she could with one hand she muffled the offending wrist.

"Don't touch this bandage..." was the last thing she said to the bald-headed Irish fisherman, who hauled them to the untidy deck of his smack, before she, too, collapsed.

TWO HOURS later they were sitting one on either side of a big, smoky, peat fire in a low-roofed cottage. He was his normal self, which meant that he was flippant and extremely amusing— or he would have been but for the trouble that was at the back of the girl's mind.

He had, she noticed, rid himself in some way of the handcuff, which was a relief.

She had had the greater part of an hour to formulate her plan for loosing on to the world the most cold-blooded scoundrel in the annals of criminality, but she did not know how to commence.

"I suppose you know," she began awkwardly, "that I am very well off."

"Yes," he said, "I am very sorry."

"Sorry!"

He nodded.

"Sorry," he repeated. "It robs the adventure of half the romance— now if you had been poor, or just comfortably well-to-do, instead of being Marjorie Swain, a dollar millionaire— "

"How did you know my name?" she asked.

He laughed.

"Just now you were taking it for granted that I knew everything about you," he mocked. "The kindly handkerchief you used— "

She went very red. She had forgotten her handkerchief on his wrist under his own.

"It was fortunate that you had your full name embroidered," he went on, "but, as I was saying, if you hadn't been rich, I should imagine myself to be in love with you."

She rose to her feet.

"How dare you!" she gasped. "You! You!— "

And yet— such was the extraordinary fascination of this man, she felt something of happiness in his calm declaration. She herself realised this and went on hastily, almost incoherently:

"I was going to say— I am well off and I am under an obligation to you. I am going to do a wicked thing— get you away from here. I have twenty pounds— it was in my belt pocket— go to London and see me there. I will give you a thousand pounds to— "

The door opened behind her and the mellow voice of the fisherman tenant announced:

"It's the police, yer honours."

She sat up rigidly and looked at the man with terror in her eyes.

Again she experienced that strange thrill, sympathy— pity— liking.

As for the man, he smiled at the big red-faced inspector of Irish Constabulary, who had followed the fisherman into the room. "You got my message?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you find him?"

"Yes, sir," said the inspector, "one of the boats picked him up— dead."

The man nodded gravely.

"I gave him a chance for his life— I had just time to unlock the handcuff that bound us together before I was thrown into the water. I had to keep close to him until we were clear of the coast."

The girl stared at him.

"Who are you?" she asked in a whisper.

"I am Dr. Mallington of the Canadian Prison Service," he said, "and, until recently, attached— I think you say attached?— to the late Dr. Balscombe."

He waited until the inspector had left the room and then leant forward.

"We were interrupted at a very exciting part of your proposal," he said, and had the audacity to take one of her hands. "What happens after you give me all this money— do I furnish a home or something?"

She laughed.a little shakily, but she did not withdraw her hand.

__________________________

25: The Devil Light

All-Story Weekly, July 22, 1916

1

SOME MEN have an aversion to cats, others shrink back in horror from a third floor window and fight desperately to overcome the temptation to throw themselves into the street below. For others the mirror holds a devil who leers a man on to self-destruction. But for Hans Richter that cruel and puzzling light which he interpreted into E Flat held all that there was of threat and fear.

If you say that the obsession of little Hans savoured of madness, tell me something of yourself. Squeak a knife-edge along a plate, or knife-edge against knife-edge and watch the people shudder and grimace. They also are mad of the same madness. Some men and women grow frantic at the rustle of silk; others may not pass their palms over certain surfaces (such as plush or velvet) without a shivering fit. Exactly why, nobody knows.

There are undreamt of horrors in commonplace objects for some of us— Hans Richter had the advantage of hating and fearing that which was not commonplace.

He played second violin at the Hippoleum. He had little spare time with a daily matinée and a twelve o'clock rehearsal every Monday, but he utilized that spare time with great profit, being a most earnest student of colour values, and, moreover, a worshipper of heroes.

You had no doubt as to what manner of heroes qualified for his adoration. Nature had built him short and clumsy, with a pink, round face and blue eyes. She had built him cheap as a builder runs up a cottage out of the material left over from a more pretentious job.

'Well buttressed, but poorly thatched,' he described himself, and indeed the great Dame had been mean in the matter of head-covering, for his hair, sandy and fine, was in a quantity less than was necessary. His moustaches were mere wisps, but in the shape to which he trained them you read his mind, his faith and his pride.

He was a gentle soul, with strange and unusual views on lights, and a certain pride in his intimate knowledge of London. It was his boast that there was not a street in the metropolitan area which he had not visited, not a historic monument upon which he could not enlarge at length; and once on a more than ordinarily poisonous night of fog he had led Sam Burns by the hand from Holborn Town-Hall to Paddington Station, and never bungled a single crossing, never so much as mistook the entrance of a blind alley, though the fog was so thick that Sam could neither see his guide nor the pavement under his feet.

Oh, no, he was no spy— he hated the Prussian, as so many Bavarians did before the war (he was from Nurnberg). He was German all through, but neither favoured bureaucracy nor militarism.

They lived together, this curious pair, in a tiny house off Church Street, Paddington— in a neighbourhood of strange smells and of Sunday morning markets. Sam Burns was 'Mr Burns' in law, and entitled (did they but know it) to the respectful salute of policemen, for he was a naval gunner on the reserve of officers, and held the King's warrant.

They had one quality in common— that they were simple men — and because of this No 43 Bebchurch Street was a haven of peace.

For Sam directed such casual help as he could secure in his best quarter-deck manner, had a gift for spying out untidy corners and hurried scrubbings, a vigilance which earned for him the hatred and slander of the charladies of Paddington, and resulted in a constant melancholy procession of new servants.

They sat together by an open window on a Sunday evening in June 1914, taking the air. Sam's lean red face was one great scowl, for he was reading a thrilling murder case— facial contortion was part of the process of his reading.

'Murder's a curious thing,' he said at last, setting the paper down on his knee. 'I've killed men in my time— natives and that sort of thing— but always in what I might term the heat of battle. I wonder how it feels?'

Hans turned his mild face to the other and stared through his gold-rimmed glasses.

'Herr Gott!' he said. 'That you should talk about such subjects, Sam— who could think of murder on such a night? It is a night for thought— exalted thought!'

He stopped suddenly, pursing his lips and looking thoughtfully out of the open window, and upward to the patch of western sky which showed above the mean housetops.

'G minor,' he said abstractedly, and Sam grinned.

'You're mad on lights, Hans!" he chuckled. 'G minor!— what the dickens is G minor?'

Without turning his head or relinquishing his gaze the musician whistled a soft sweet note sustained, and full of sorrow.

Sam frowned.

'I'm beginning to see,' he admitted, 'yes— that's the kind of light it is. You're a crank on lights, Hans—'

The other swung round in his chair and reached for his violin and bow that lay on the table near him. He drew the bow across the muted strings and a gloomy stream of thick sound filled the little room.

'Purple,' he said, and played another long note— a joyous blatant note of arrogant triumph.

'Scarlet,' he smiled, and put the instrument back.

'Lights are horrible or beautiful— terrifying or adorable— listen.'

He seized the instrument again and sent the bow rasping across the strings.

'For God's sake don't make that infernal noise!' growled Sam shifting uneasily, for the note shrill and menacing carried terror in its volume.

Hans had the instrument on his knees. His lids were narrowed, his plump jaw outthrust.

'That is white light— the devil's light— cruel and searching. It stares and shrieks at me. There is a beckoning devil in that light. You see it on the stage— I have seen it a hundred times. It strips young girls of their modesty, it reveals the lie, it mocks the passé. You can see them staring at it— blinded and yet staring, their white teeth glittering, their red lips smiling like children smile when they are in pain— it is the light of war, and cruelty and suffering— phew!'

He flung the violin away and mopped his damp forehead with a big green handkerchief.

Sam rose from his window chair slowly.

'Hans, you're a fool,' he said, 'and I'm going to put a B major match to the A flat lamp.'

Hans laughed and rose too with the remark:

'And I'm going to a ten o'clock rehearsal— the show opens to- morrow— Gott! It is a quarter to ten already!'

IT WAS NOT a happy rehearsal for the little German. There was a new American producer at the Hippoleum, a burly man in a grey sweater, who was quick to wrath, and had a wealth of unpleasant language.

In the third scene the lights went wrong. Four specially erected electric projectors had been fixed in the gallery, and on a certain chord, at the end of a song number, they had to concentrate upon the principal, who was singing. And they just didn't. One wandered off to the second entrance. One wavered undecidedly too far up stage, and the other two did not appear at all.

'Say, what's the matter with you?' exploded the producer. 'Are you crazy up there? Is this a joke?'

He said other sarcastic things, and said them through a megaphone, which somehow made them worse.

A hollow and apologetic voice answered from the deserted gallery.

'Put all your lines down— now put 'em on the proscenium arch— now put 'em all together up stage— now put 'em on the bald-headed fiddler in the orchestra—'

There was a gentle titter of laughter from the weary chorus— but it was short-lived.

The bald-headed fiddler was standing up facing the light, his face distorted with rage, his wild eyes glaring like a trapped animal, as his clawing hands flung out at the light.

A torrent of words, German and English, poured from his twisted mouth.

'Take it off! Take it off! Take it off!' he screamed.

There was an instant and a painful pause. The lights dimmed and an outraged producer strode down the central aisle of the theatre and confronted the second violin.

'For the lord's sake!' he said, mildly enough, 'have you gone mad, mister?'

The little man, one trembling hand curved about the orchestra rail, shook his head. He was very white, and the American, a judge of men, and kindly enough out of business hours, dropped his big hand on the other's shoulder.

'You go right along home and have a sleep, son,' he said gently; 'don't you worry— go right along home.'

'It's the light, sir,' faltered Hans, and blinked fearfully up at the gallery. I do not like the light—'

'Sure!' soothed the other; 'now you go right away and have a rest — there's nothin' comin' to you, son— on the square. I get just crazy like that myself.'

Hans did not lose his job— he played second fiddle on the opening night of that brilliant success, There You Are, Bunny! and would have gone on playing through the inevitable run but for certain great happenings in Europe. A prince of an Imperial house was killed, and when the message came to six chancelleries six separate and distinct ministers demanded of their war offices, 'How soon can you mobilize?'

Hans did not know this, but later he was to have misgivings.

'I must go home,' he said doggedly. 'I am too old to be of any use — but who knows?'

He looked wistfully at the red-faced Mr Burns, who sprawled across the table gloating over a newspaper chart which showed the relative proportions of the world's fleets.

Sam looked up.

'They'll want me,' he said with quiet satisfaction. 'My old captain will hoist his flag— he's vice admiral now— and he promised me that if ever there was a kick-up he'd take me. Who made the Penelope the best gunnery ship in the home fleet? Me, Hans!'

He thumped his thick chest and his eyes were puckered with proud laughter.

'I'm not too old for sea-going, but if I am there are lots of jobs for a man who ain't too old to spot a damned—'

He stopped in confusion. The eyes of Hans were set and the dominant expression in those eyes was envy.

'Gott!' he said with a sigh, 'I am no good— I hate war — it is terrible to think about— it is like the white light, a devil! But I must go back. Perhaps I may take the place of one— if He wants me!'

He left the next day— an exhilarating day for Mr Burns, for he had received a notification that 'my lords of the Admiralty' had accepted his offer of service.

Hans, with his brown ulster and his aged violin, came, packed his cheap gripsack and two brown paper parcels, paid his share of the expenses which were current, and went off in a taxicab.

'Good-by, Sam.'

'Good-by, Hans— good luck!'

The little man's grief was undisguised.

'I shall think of you— as a soft golden light, Sam,' he choked.

'That's right,' replied his less imaginative friend, 'yellow for me, Hans.'

Poor old Hans! So thought Mr Gunner Burns with a sigh...anyway, they weren't likely to meet. The little musician would scarcely be found amongst the ships' companies which the marksmanship of Gunner Burns foredoomed to destruction.

So passed Hans, and as for Sam, after a spell at Whale Island teaching the young and impetuous naval marksman how to shoot, he came back to Somewhere in England to more important duties.

2

THERE WAS a noise like the roll of a trap drum— an even 'br-r-r-r' of sound.

Gunner Burns standing in the darkness, dropped his head sideways and listened.

It was faint at first, but grew louder with every second that passed, and the noise came from the air.

Sam peered over the parapet in a swift, keen scrutiny of the sector south of the position. Somewhere beyond the inky belt of darkness which blotted out the nearest features of the landscape was London— London the vast and wealthy, a gigantic, flat hive buzzing and droning, unconscious of the danger.

As the watcher looked he pressed the electric button which was fixed to the wall near his hand, and almost instantly a second figure joined him.

The trap drum noise was now loud and angry, and the men craned their necks and searched the skies through their night glasses.

'There she is, sir!' said Sam in a low voice, 'the biggest they've got ... '

The officer at his side had his glasses on the lean shape that blotted no more than two or three stars at a time.

'What's her range?' he asked with the regret in his voice of one who anticipates an answer which will dash his hopes.

'Three or four thousand yards— shall I light her up?'

The other's hands had closed on the telephone receiver in the little recess beneath the parapet.

' 'Lo— that you, Shepherds Bush? Zep coming over, I'm going to light her up— no, only one as far as I can see. She'll start circling in a minute, looking for the small-arms factory as usual...Right!'

He turned to the man at his side with a grunted order. Something hissed and spluttered. Little bubbles of light outlined a big barrel shape somewhere in the rear of where he stood, and there leaped into the air a solid white beam of dazzling light which moved restlessly from side to side till it settled on something which looked for all the world like a silver cigar.

'She's just beyond range— but give her one for herself, Burns,' said the young officer. 'She's turning!'

The deafening crash of a gun woke the still night— a drift of smoke passed between the observer and his objective. As it cleared a tiny point of vivid light flicked and faded beneath the big silver cigar.

'Five hundred yards short,' was the bitter comment.

'She'll take some hitting! Keep the light on her— Shepherds Bush will pick her up in a minute...'

WHOOM!

The shock and pulsation of the explosion came to them. The trees rustled as though they had been stirred by a gust of wind, and the concrete parapet under the officer's hands trembled and shook again.

The old gunner at his side drew a sharp breath.

'Addlestone— that is!' he said. 'Fancy Addlestone! Good God, it doesn't seem real, does it? Why, when I was a kid I went to school at Addlestone...'

Another report followed, fainter than the first, and then over toward Addlestone came a red glow in the sky, a glow which gathered in brightness until it was almost golden.

'Them thermite bombs are pretty useful,' said the gunner with reluctant admiration. 'Hot! You can't get near a fire that's been started by one of them. I've seen men and women roasted to death by 'em, and they never knew what killed 'em. There's Shepherds Bush, sir!'

From the south two white beams had shot into the air and focused instantly on the fast moving cigar. She turned to the westward, and the lights followed. She moved in one majestic sweep to the east— but the lights did not leave her. They were the two great eyes of the dark world staring their wrath at the night bird.

'She wants that cloud dam' badly,' said the young naval officer. 'Put your light over the cloud— yes, it's big enough.'

He took up the telephone.

' 'Lo, Shepherds Bush...She's going for the cloud on the left. She's about level— no, I can't keep her lit up for much longer— she's getting beyond my range.'

The sky shape was now blurred and indistinct, for it had reached the misty edges of the cloud— in ten seconds it had disappeared. But now flashed into the air not two but a dozen searching eyes. They grew from the dark void beyond the hillcrest to the south, slender white spokes of light that criss-crossed incessantly. The cloud glowed yellow where the beam came to a dead end, and once it sparkled at a dozen points, For all the world, as Gunner Burns said, as if some one were striking a match along its under surface and had done no more than raise a shower of sparks.

'Shrapnel,' said the old authority approvingly; 'that'll rattle her a bit. Nothing like a nearby shell burst to make you take your eyes from the compass— there she is!'

Out she came from the same cloud-wall into which she had dived — into the gleam and glare of the searchlights. Left and right, beneath and at the side of her the light splashes came and went. They were as soft and as sudden as the glow the fireflies make.

The great machine turned again, her nose rose slowly into the air and her tail went down. The watchers could see the cloud of oily smoke at the stern as her speed increased.

'She's got to climb for it, and climb quick,' said the gunner.

A quick fan of light leapt up from the ground over by Golders Green.

WHOOM!

'A keepsake,' said the lieutenant grimly.

The telephone bell tinkled and an urgent voice demanded his immediate attention.

'She's going back to you, Carter— keep your light on her. She's twelve thousand seven hundred feet up and rising— shoot her off or she'll give you hell!'

'Ay, ay, sir!' the officer swung round. 'Light her up!'

Again the searchlight stabbed the dark, and again the cigar floated in a halo of soft radiance.

Then from the north came a new sound. It was not the 'br-r-r-r' they had heard before, but a purring note— a far-off motorcycle could reproduce the gentle din.

High above, the merest midgets in the vast space of starlit sky, three specks of earth-dust moved slowly across the field of the watchers' vision, and as they moved, in the limitless dome of the heavens a red ball of light lived and died. The young officer sought the telephone.

'Three aeroplanes up— they have signalled "shut down searchlights,"' he called breathlessly.

Two seconds passed, and then, as though one hand controlled the light shafts that swept the skies, they vanished.

They waited in the dark. The never-ceasing roar of the Zeppelin engines neither increased nor grew fainter. She was cruising laterally for some reason— the Golders Green telephone explained.

'We've hit her, sir— first or second compartment. Think one of her fore tractor screws is out of action...Yes, she got near us, but now she's drifting your way.'

'Her fourth visit,' said Sam.

'And every time she's gone straight to the place she wanted to reach,' added the officer with an impatient and wondering little 'ch'k' of his tongue. 'That fellow must know London like a book— he must know it blind to pick out his target with all the lights shaded and faked.'

Sam nodded and thought of a certain Hans Richter.

Poor old Hans! Fancy making Hans the focus of ten three-thousand candle-power searchlights! Sam grinned in the darkness.

Three...four...five minutes passed, then from the sky shot a thin beam of light that seemed from the viewpoint of the gun position to be aimed horizontally from the airship.

'Got her blinders on,' commented Sam. 'Aeroplanes are up to her level— there they are! Right ahead of her! They can do nothing with the light in their faces. She'll climb if she ain't climbing already.'

Another minute passed. Then a speck of red fire appeared in the black heavens, another red followed and then a green.

'Aeroplanes coming down— she's blinded 'em,' he said rapidly. 'Stand by to light her up— keep 'em off the aeroplanes...Now!'

From every point of the horizon the beams sprang until the sky was a thick jungle of converging light stalks. They beat fiercely, remorselessly, upon the big cigar as she zigzagged her way to safety and the north-west.

A thousand feet above the guns the landing lights of an aeroplane burnt blue, and the great bird swooped to earth. They ran out to him as the guns of Golders Green began a frantic bombardment of the disappearing Zeppelin.

It was Burns who helped the pilot to alight, and the boy who jumped to the ground was shaking from head to foot.

'Did you see it...did you see it?' he croaked. 'It was awful!'

They got him to the shelter of the position and to the little room behind. The airman was pinched and blue of face, but it was not his cold ride which had set him a tremble. He drank the cup of hot coffee they gave him, and as he did so his teeth were chattering against the edge of the mug.

'Awful!' he said at last; 'did you see it?'

'The Zep?'

He shook his head impatiently.

'No— after we gave the signal for the light, and they all came up— we were under the angle, and I looked up and suddenly a man—' he shivered and closed his eyes, 'a man leaped and straight out of the fore cabin...leaped and turned over and over...'

IN THE MORNING they made a search and found, in the big Mill Pond by Addlestone one who had in his lifetime been Hans Richter — the man who knew London and hated lights. Especially lights that could be translated into E flat.

____________________

26: The Slip

Printers' Pie, Winter 1918

THE judge completed his address to the jury with a conventional peroration. It was Lent, and his robes were more sombre of hue than usual, yet he looked very young to be a judge of the King's Bench.

He had a small, sharp face, eyes deep-set and sparkling with good humour, nevertheless he was quick to lose his patience, easily irritated, ready with an acid tongue to correct, intolerant of humbug, infinitely just.

He finished his speech, leant back in his high chair with a quick jerk, and looked at the jury.

They were head to head, whispering decorously.

Then the foreman turned his face to the Bench.

'The jury wish to retire, my lord,' he said.

'Very well, very well,' said the judge, with indifference.

They stumbled down the two narrow wooden steps, these twelve good men, self-conscious of their importance. Each man gave a quick glance at the body of the court, taking in, first, the white-haired defendant, his black-rimmed monocle screwed into his right eye, his fresh-coloured face immovable and expressionless as that of a pink idol. He did not look toward them, because he did not care overmuch how the verdict went. Instinctively each man of the jury searched for the face of the plaintiff, but he had retired from the place he had occupied during the three days of the trial.

Ever a lover of an audience, he paced the great hall without in company with his counsel.

Reginald Saddin Sloe, Under-Secretary of State for Defence, needs no description of mine. Parry caricaturists have made the high forehead, the straight, thin nose, the plump, effeminate chin, and that up-brushed moustache of his, knowledgeable to more people in the world that will read this history. His eyes were blue, a thought too pale a blue to please most critics, his lips full. He smiled easily, showing two rows of even white teeth; but when he laughed he was disappointing, for his laugh was an explosive chuckle, and was without beauty.

If the jurymen did not see him they were perhaps a little relieved, for they had sat under his calm, benevolent gaze during the course of the case, until they had come to feel that they were rather the creatures of the plaintiff, his hired servants, holding their office at his will and on their good behaviour, rather than being the honest, independent men they were.

In the bare jury-room, with the door locked, and sworn custodian on the outside, they stood stretching their cramped limbs.

'Well, gentlemen,' said the foreman, with the show of geniality which his position demanded, 'what shall we say— plaintiff again?'

There was a reluctant murmur of assent, and a little man with a fringe of grey whisker shook his head so vigorously that his spectacles slipped from his nose.

'If there's justice in this land,' he said, settling his glasses right with one hand and groping vainly in his overcoat pocket for a handkerchief with the other, 'if the wells of truth ain't dried up, an'— an' bust, there ought to be some other verdict than one for the plaintiff.'

But the foreman was shaking his head, and he found imitators amongst his fellows.

'Weight of evidence, Mr Goss,' he said, 'weight of evidence— facts, facts, facts, my dear sir, not prejudice. We've got to go on evidence. The question is, did the Daily Journal libel Sloe when it said that he, being a Minister of the Crown, communicates Government secrets to a possible enemy?'

'Hear, hear,' muttered the rest of the jury.

'Did,' demanded the foreman, adopting a forensic tone, 'did the Daily Journal libel Sloe when it spoke of his being associated with a nest of international spies?'

'My own opinion,' said the dogged Mr Goss, planting himself more firmly in his chair, and looking up defiantly at his inquisitor, 'my own opinion is that it didn't— oh, I know all about the evidence, 'undreds of fellers ready to swear that he never did nothing!' In his indignation Mr Goss lost his grip on his mother tongue. 'Not a single witness to prove the Journal's words; 'undreds of witnesses to prove Sloe's an angel: Prime Minister, an' all the big pots.'

'Evidence, evidence,' murmured the foreman, tolerantly.

'An' don't you know that it's all true?' demanded little Mr Goss, jumping up and thumping the table indignantly; 'every word about Sloe is true! Ain't it the talk of London?'

'If it is,' replied the foreman, not without a touch of majestic pomposity, for he was a man of receptive mind, and the procedure of the court had impressed him, 'if all London knows, we must regard that as the direct result of the Journal's publication. Gentlemen, I think you will agree with me that a verdict for the plaintiff lies, and as to damages—'

'I don't agree!' stormed the little man, trembling with excitement; 'I will not be a party to allowing this blackguard to go to the world with a clean bill. Where are the Journal's witnesses?— spirited away?'

'Nonsense, Mr Goss!'

The foreman of the jury came down from his sublime heights and became humanly bad-tempered.

'Nonsense! Evidence— evidence— evidence! What's the good of your talking rubbish? Come here talking rot like that! Evidence! You can't get over the evidence. What was your oath? "And a true verdict given in accordance with the evidence, so help you God." Is that a fact, or isn't it? There's no doubt, there can be no reasonable doubt, that this is a case of spite—'

'But it ain't the Journal alone!' persisted the obstinate Mr Goss. 'All the papers have been doin' it. The Megaphone, The Telegram, The Newsletter, The Courier— his own party, Sloe's own party! We're wrong, we're wrong! I'm sure we're doin' wrong.' He wrung his hands and was on the verge of tears. 'But have it your own way. I'm done!'

And indeed he was, for he fell back in his chair physically exhausted with the strain.

'...We'll say ten thousand,' suggested the foreman, tentatively; 'it's a mere fleabite— eh, Mr Goss?'

'I don't care,' said the little man, listlessly; 'make it a million if you like.'

'We'll say ten thousand, gentlemen, eh?' The foreman had recovered his urbanity. 'After all, it was a bad libel...public man...might have ruined him, and all that. Ten thousand?'

He was ludicrously like an auctioneer as he peered expectantly round the faces at the table, as though in search of a higher bid. But no other suggestion came, and he rose, adjusted his tie, and gave the signal to the messenger of the court who waited outside the door.

The buzz of conversation died down as the twelve men filed into court, Mr Goss a listless old gentleman, with a fringe of grey whisker obtruding above his frayed collar.

'Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon your verdict?'

'We have.'

'Do you find for the plaintiff or for the defendant?'

'For the plaintiff. We assess the damages at ten thousand pounds.'

'And is that the verdict of you all?'

Little Mr Goss strangled a protest in his throat, and nodded dumbly.

The white-haired man with the monocle rose and pulled down his waistcoat. There was a little smile on his hard mouth, a humorous glint in his eye. He lifted his immaculate silk hat from beneath the seat and carefully examined it. Then, with a slight inclination of his head to his solicitor, he walked out of court.

In the great hall he came face to face with his enemy, and for a second or so they stood looking at one another, the Under-Secretary showing his white teeth in undisguised triumph, the newspaper proprietor with his grim little shadow of a smile and his immovable, black-rimmed monocle.

'Fortunes of war, Sir Francis,' said Sloe, pleasantly.

The other man nodded, a quick jerk of a nod.

'I suppose anything I say now will be taken down as evidence and used against me?' he smiled.

'Not at all, Sir Francis,' said the Minister; 'we are not vindictive.' He put out his hand. 'I think you are quite at liberty to add any comment you wish.'

'I will only say this,' said the newspaper proprietor, 'that for the moment you are too clever for us. We believe, indeed we know, that you are something worse than a traitor; but you are genius enough to hide your tracks so well that, unless we had the aid of the Government, which we never have had, there is no hope of detecting you— at present,' he added.

Sloe laughed a noiseless little chuckle of sheer delight.

'I cannot dissipate your illusions, so it is rather useless to protest. Is that all you have to say?'

'Only this,' said Sir Francis Wilton, slowly, 'the cleverest men make a slip. It is the history of all—' he paused—'shall I say clever men? Some stupid, foolish blunder, which undoes all the careful and well-arranged plans of years. It is the Nemesis that waits upon the super-criminal. Good-morning.'

Sloe was still smiling as he made an elaborate bow. He exchanged a few words with his solicitor, congratulated his counsel, and stepped into his car.

A quarter of an hour later he was its his handsome flat at Albert Gate. Save for his valet it was empty, and him he dispatched upon a message to Whitehall. He passed into his study, closed and locked the door behind him, and drew a heavy silken curtain across the door to afford him even greater security.

He took a bunch of keys from his pocket, pulled back the panel which hid the safe let in the wall, and opened the heavy steel door. He unlocked a drawer, and from this extracted a large envelope. He carried it to the writing-table, took from the writing-desk an empty parchment envelope, and put it by his side. Then he examined the contents of the dossier he had taken from the safe. Everything was there. The thin, paper-covered code-book, the correspondence which had passed between him and von Schroeder, the duplicate plans of the Harwich defences, the mobilization mine-field chart, quite sufficient indeed to have made the name of Reginald Sloe execrated, and to have brought a brilliant Under-Secretary to a felon's cell.

He laughed as he turned them over one by one, checking them carefully before he inserted them in the parchment envelope.

You are a little too dangerous,' he said, playfully; 'what would not my friend Sir Francis give for these? Back you go to Holland. Wilton has scared me.'

Wilton was the most dangerous of all. He had no difficulty in securing apologies from the other papers who had printed stories from their Amsterdam correspondents, but Wilton had twice fought an action, had twice lost; but with each case the mud had stuck.

Reginald Sloe was a bold man and conscienceless. He could walk into a witness-box and lie so perfectly that he deceived himself. But the Journal case had shaken him. He would seal up the envelope and trust it to that safest of repositories, the general post. The packet should go to Herr von Schroeder, and nobody would be any the wiser. He was thinking of Francis Wilton as he licked down the flap. He was smiling over his enemy's discomfiture as he poured out the three little pools of sealing-wax and pressed down the seal of his department. He was still smiling when he wrote the address.

Wilton was in his thoughts all the way between the flat and the General Post Office, and when the great envelope finally disappeared from sight in the big box marked 'Foreign Correspondence', the picture of the grey-haired editor was still in his mind.

One little slip— the cleverest make them, he thought. Somehow he knew that the journalist was right. Very well, then; there should be no opportunities for such a slip. Schroeder must send him nothing more. No further communications must pass.

He was cheerful for the rest of the day; went to the House in the happiest frame of mind, and received the congratulations of his colleagues; retired that night with a sense of relief which had not been his for weeks; and was humming a tune at his breakfast the next morning, when Superintendent Maguires, of Scotland Yard, came into his room and arrested him.

For the envelope he had sent away had been addressed mechanically:

'Sir Francis Wilton,

'Editor of the Daily Journal,

'Fleet Street.'

______________________

27: The Caretaker in Charge

The Novel Magazine August 1919

A POLICE reporter has many interests and many friends, most of them queer. He spends his life in an atmosphere the principal ingredient of which is suspicion. Wise Y. Symon was a great police reporter, a veritable Napoleon of police reporters, and his greatness was due in no small degree to the fact that he preserved his faith in human nature. And, I have observed, that the title to greatness is often based upon the proper admixture of conflicting virtues.

There was a girl who used to go to work in the city office of a firm of lawyers in Waldorf House who interested Wise Symon immensely. He got to know her four years before this story opens, at a time when she was known to every reporter in town, and her portrait, large or small as the exigencies of space dictated, was to be found in almost every morning or evening journal.

The disappearance of her father, Harrigay Ford, was a nine days' wonder, and there came a time when newspapers no longer interviewed his daughter or printed the statements of trans-Atlantic stewards who had recognised him as the mysterious passenger who took his meals in his cabin.

After all. a wealthy man has the right to appear and disappear as he wishes. The story died when his banker, the patriarchal Mr. Borthwick. intervened. Harrigay Ford had gone abroad and had written a hasty note on the letter-heading of the S.S. Creptic saying that he expected to be absent from England for some years, and directing Mr. Borthwick to pay to the daughter of the said Harrigay Ford the sum of £100 per annum, payable quarterly.

It was a pretty mean allowance for a millionaire to make to his motherless child, and his only excuse could have been that he hardly knew he had a daughter. For Mr. Ford was a pillar of alcoholic fire by night and a dopey cloud by day.

Eileen Ford did not grieve for her parent. She lost nothing by his disappearance. She lived in her father's big house and sent the bills to his banker, and the bills were paid. But £100 a year was hardly the income that went with the style in which she lived, and after the Ford Case had disappeared from the scare headings, she went to a school of stenography, learnt the relative positions of Q.W.E.R.T.Y.U.I.O. and P. on the keyboard of a typewriter, and raised her annual income by another £100 in the prim offices of Atkins and Walters, solicitors.

Symon's friendship with the girl survived his newspaper interest in her fortune, and probably that is why the strange behaviour of Mr. Hopper attracted more than its share of his attention, and why the sequel to that attention brought the scoop of scoops to the humming presses of the Telephone Herald.

To say that the office or even the presses of the Telephone Herald hummed is, of course, a picturesque inexactitude. Newspaper offices do not hum. They bang and they squeak and they click-clack-click but they do not hum. Glass doors swing recklessly, wet men buttoned to their chins dash madly in, throwing off their moist coats and saying unprintable things about Great Public Favourites who deliver addresses on 'Labour' at inaccessible places in the most impossible weather.

The carriers in pneumatic tubes whine and plop! The linotypes which, by special arrangement, are invariably sited over the reporters' room, rumble and clack mysteriously, and ever and anon a plaintive voice cries 'Boy!' A small and grimy democrat wipes his jammy mouth with the back of his hand and hurries breathlessly to collect the literature. This literature is written in grey pencil and tastefully decorated with blue strokes by a super-editor.

At a little before midnight one snowy evening Wise Y. Symon drifted into the night editor's presence and lay down on his desk. The wise man invariably lay down on anything he couldn't rest his foot upon. His modus operandi was to get to the end of the desk and, doubling himself up like a foot rule, deposit the upper portion of his body east and west so to speak, resting his chin upon his hands.

The night editor pushed back his chair with a sigh, dropped his shell- rimmed spectacles to the end of his nose, and eyed Wise Symon sadly.

'Where's that story?' he asked at random.

'What story?' demanded Symon.

The night editor sniffed.

'You don't know anything about it, O,' accused Mr. Symon (the night editor's name was Oliver, and he was referred to either as 'O' or 'The Olive.')

'Well, what are you doing here, anyway?' complained Mr. Oliver fretfully. 'There's a newspaper got to go to bed. Have you never heard that such things happen?'

'Could I know anything of the underworld and not know that?' asked Symon reproachfully. 'No, my O, I have not come here to gloat over you. I do not climb into gay clothing for the joy of paying tantalising calls on the slaves of diurnalism. I have a reason for this mysterious visit.'

Wise Symon was in evening dress, and he was beautiful to behold, from the crest of his well-brushed head to the base line of his twinkling shoes.

'I noticed that,' said the patient Oliver, swinging round in his chair and lighting his pipe. 'You can hire these things, I understand— but you have to buy the shirt. Where have you been dining, Y, and on whom?'

Mr. Symon produced with much ostentation a gold case and extracted a large Turkish cigarette.

'I have been dining with a great bank official,' he said carefully, 'a man of infinite charm and sagacity. I have a further appointment with him at one o'clock, at which hour I proceed to his costly and palatial flat where, surrounded by every evidence of refinement and luxury, I shall endeavour to extract the body of a story, the slippery tail of which is already within my hand.'

'Loud cheers!' said the night editor wearily. 'Now, having delivered the speech of the evening, if you will kindly take your elbows out of my ink-pot, I will resume my little job of work refreshed '

'And invigorated,' finished Y. Symon, the star amongst police reporters, 'by the clarity and logic— Here's the old man. O.'

The 'old man' was the managing editor of the Telephone Herald, and at that moment he wore the facial expression peculiar to managing editors at midnight— an expression which may be likened to that of a man who has an engagement with the public executioner and is anxious to commit just another tiny little murder before he dies. He saw Symon, who belonged to the charmed circle which gathers at the daily editorial conference when even matters of policy are discussed, and started back with an affectation of faintness at the sight of Mr. Symon's society kit.

'Hello, Symon— why this disguise?'

'I have been dining with a gentleman,' said Mr. Symon magnificently. 'We had real wine and real cigars.'

'Police reporters should keep their places,' said the editor, 'you'll get your head turned. Who was the swell crook?'

'William Haliburton Hopper,' said Y solemnly.

'Hopper?' The editor frowned. 'He's not on my wine list. I don't even remember that he is in the <="" i=""> class. What did he make, aeroplane or margarine?'

'William is no vulgar profiteer.'

Wise Symon sat on the edge of the nearest desk which was unoccupied, and there was a puzzled look in his eyes.

'You can guess that I am not wasting time on any ordinary millionaire,' he said. 'If William had no other recommendation than a taste for bad wine and toothpicks, I should have let him run loose. It's only lately that William has dawned upon the world of fashion. I met him drinking solitary in the grill-room of Petroni's about a week ago. It may have been his rough neck, or the butt of the gun I saw sticking out of his hip pocket, or the saucy talk he was handing to the waiter, but one of these things attracted me. So I palled up with him and we talked a while. He wanted to see life; he had bags of money and an infinite capacity for sweet champagne. Ugh! Well, it was interesting. He has the mentality of a goat, and a vocabulary that's strictly limited to about a hundred nouns and six adjectives.'

'How did he make his money?'

'He said he inherited it from his uncle. But he doesn't look like the kind of man who ever had an uncle. I shadowed him but he slipped me. Tonight we met by appointment— and I saw him home.'

He paused.

'He is the caretaker of Borthwick's Bank.'

'That sounds good for old man Borthwick,' said the editor after a moment's silence. 'Does the caretaker sleep on the premises?'

Wise Symon nodded.

'Yes and no. He rents a flat near the bank in addition. That is where I am meeting him.'

'And he spends his spare time up West loading himself up with champagne?' said Hammond. 'H'm! Well, old Borthwick must know this. His bank has always been a shaky affair, and a hint of this sort of thing might smash him. He nearly went broke four years ago. Are you seeing the caretaker again?'

'Yes. But he told me that he had some business to do before he saw me again, and naturally that piqued my curiosity. I followed him and saw him turn into the side entrance of the bank. Then I remembered him. I had seen him sweeping the steps— I pass the premises every day.'

The editor looked at his watch.

'I was going home, but I think I'll wait for you. When will you be back?'

'Not later than by three,' said Wise Symon. 'It looks a good kind of story to me, and I'd like to get the full facts in type before the police rope him in.'

Mr. Hammond nodded.

'It's a good story, and the public like this kind of case— the working man by day and the millionaire by night stuff. But you'll have to break the news to Borthwick before the police start moving/

It was a quarter to three when Wise Symon came into the managing editor's office.

'It's a rum story.' he said, dropping his soaking hat on the floor. 'Hopper told me nothing except that he could wrestle with the best wrestler in the world, and he could drink three times more than any other man in the world— neither of which items of information was particularly helpful/

He stopped and the editor, stretching back in his chair, looked up at him.

'Out with it— you discovered something you did not expect to discover?'

Wise Symon shook his head.

'No, sir. I'm disappointed. I hoped to make a discovery— and didn't.'

'We're both thinking the same thing, I expect.' said Hammond quietly. 'What have you got on your mind, Symon?'

'I'll tell you what I've got on what passes for my mind,' said Wise Symon, after a little hesitation. 'I associate this disgusting prosperity of Hopper with the disappearance of Harrigay Ford.'

'I thought you were going to say that.' The editor shook his head. 'It's a long time since Ford went, three or four years, and frankly I think your suggestion is fantastic, although I expected it. Did the man say anything which gave you the impression that he knew anything about Ford's disappearance?'

'Nothing,' said Wise Symon.

'What's your theory?'

'Ford was a drunkard and a dope fiend,' said Symon. 'Such men, as we know, are happiest in the most sordid and miserable surroundings, however cultured might have been their upbringing. I suggest that when four years ago Harrigay Ford disappeared he did not leave London. Yes, I know what you are going to say about the letter written on the steamship notepaper, but you or I could have done exactly the same thing. One could have boarded the steamer, written the note, posted it, and have never left the country. My theory is that Harrigay Ford is to be found in some low haunt in this city, that Mr. Hopper is his guardian and treasurer. I made inquiries yesterday, and I found that Hopper got his job at the bank on the recommendation of Ford.'

The editor scratched his chin.

'The thing to do, of course, is to see old Borthwick tomorrow. I happen to know that cheques signed by Ford come through fairly regularly and are cashed by Borthwick— Borthwick being his banker. The old man was telling me at the club only the other day how worried he was about the matter. At any rate, Borthwick would be able to tell you from where these cheques come. I think you will find they come from abroad. As to Ford being concealed in an opium den in this town— why. I'm sceptical! Those sort of things only happen in books.'

It was at half-past ten in the morning that Wise Symon turned into Borthwick's Bank. It was an unimposing little building, but had constituted the premises of some bank or other from time immemorial.

Borthwick's Bank was a private affair with very few clients, and its staff consisted of two elderly men who spent most of their time checking the fluctuations of the Stock Exchange, Mr. Borthwick being by all accounts somewhat overloaded with the collateral of his scanty clientèle.

One of the cashiers took Mr. Symon's card and disappeared with it through a door at the back of the premises. He returned to beckon Symon forward, and old Borthwick rose from behind the leather-covered table, where he spent most of his day reading through a large magnifying glass the press reports of foreign exchanges and transactions, and offered his big hand to the visitor.

He was a man who stood six feet in his stockings. He had one of those massive heads which Raphael loved to paint in such scenes as the apostles appeared. A snowy white beard reached down half way to his waist, a bluff, benevolent, shrewd old gentleman with a thunderous voice that was wholly in keeping with his hearty appearance, he seized Symon's hand in a grip that made that young gentleman wince.

'Sit down, sit down. Mr. Symon,' he bellowed. 'I remember you very well indeed. What have you come to bother me about?'

'I'm afraid I have no pleasant news for you,' smiled Symon. and told the story of the gay caretaker.

Mr. Borthwick listened with a troubled face.

'I am sorry he does that,' he said, when Symon had finished, 'it gets the bank a bad name.'

'But surely—' began the astonished Symon.

'Oh, it's his own money all right!' said Mr. Borthwick. 'He inherited a large sum of money from a brother who died in Australia. As a matter of fact, he has opened an account with us. I tried to persuade him to give up his work at the bank, but so far he has refused. Was he very drunk?' he asked.

'Pretty drunk,' said Symon, a little disappointed as all great artists are when their revelations fail to produce the sensation they anticipated. 'He told me that it was his uncle who had died.'

'Very possibly, very possibly,' said Mr. Borthwick. 'I know it was some sort of relation. And now as to the other matter, Mr. Symon?'

'I want to know if you have any news you can give me about Ford.'

'None, I am afraid,' the old man shook his head sorrowfully. 'What a terrible thing, Mr. Symon, what a terrible thing! Drink and drugs! Surely, that is a lesson which every young man can lay to heart!'

'When did you last hear from him, Mr. Borthwick?'

'About a week ago,' said the old man.

'Can you tell me in what country he can be found?' '

'I cannot tell you where he can be found at all,' replied Mr. Borthwick. 'I should be exceeding my instructions if I did, but I may say that he is in Australia.'

'Are you sure?' asked Symon, disconcerted for the second time.

'Absolutely sure,' said Mr. Borthwick.

He rose, walked to a safe and unlocked it. From a drawer he produced a cheque and handed it to the reporter. Wise Symon, who had a memory like a cash register, noted that its number was 1795, and that it was signed with Ford's signature— with which Symon was familiar. He handed it back.

'It arrived from Australia only two days ago,' said Mr. Borthwick, locking it back in the safe.

Wise Symon rose.

'Well, I think that's about all I have got to ask you,' he said, disguising as best he could his chagrin.

'You wouldn't like to buy a few Southern Pacifics while you are here.' said the jovial old man, 'one of my unfortunate clients has a parcel he would like to dispose of?'

'No, thank you, Mr. Borthwick,' said Wise Symon hurriedly, and he left the old banker chuckling.

His next call was upon the firm of lawyers which employed Ford's daughter, and he had no difficulty in persuading them to allow him to see her.

'No, Mr. Symon,' she replied, in answer to his question, 'I have not heard from my father. Have you?' she asked eagerly.

He shook his head.

'Do you get your allowance regularly?' he asked.

'Yes,' she said, 'such as it is.'

'Doesn't Mr. Borthwick ever give you a message from your father?'

'Never,' she said, a little sadly.

'How long has Mr. Borthwick been your father's banker?'

'Oh, for a very long time, longer than I can remember! They were old friends in the days before daddy was—' Her lips trembled.

'And after?'

'Well, after daddy wasn't very nice to Mr. Borthwick. He used to behave dreadfully to that poor old gentleman. Once he threatened to turn over his account to the National Bank, and that would have ruined Mr. Borthwick.'

'When was this?' asked Wise Symon.

'About a month before daddy went away— or it may not have been so long. I know Mr. Borthwick was very much distressed.'

He asked her a few other questions, but could get no information that was any more helpful than that which he already had. He met his editor at lunch and made a qualified admission of his failure.

'I didn't think Ford was in this town,' said Hammond, 'and the caretaker's legacy rather knocks the bottom out of your theories, my wise lad.'

'My theories are bottomless,' said Wise Symon. 'Anyway. I shan't meet William tonight as I promised. If he is only a vulgar legatee and not the interesting criminal I thought he was he has ceased to fascinate me.'

It so happened that a very commonplace elopement, in which there figured the daughter, the chauffeur, and the cashbox of a Society leader, kept the police reporter fairly busy. He turned in his 'copy' at eleven o'clock that night and had hardly stepped into the night editor's office when that worthy sprung at him, tore the 'copy' from his hands, and pushed him out again.

'Hustle, Y,' he said. 'Your caretaker, William Hopper—'

'What about him?' asked Y quickly.

'He was found shot dead tonight on a bench in the park. We've been looking for you all the evening.'

There were few details that Wise Symon could gather from the police. The man had obviously been murdered, since no weapon had been found near the spot where the body was discovered. A policeman on duty had heard the shot and had run in the direction, but did not meet the murderer.

The caretaker was in his ordinary working costume and was quite dead when he was found. A bunch of keys, a few shillings, and a plug of tobacco were his worldly possessions. Siddon, from Scotland Yard, was in charge of the case, and Siddon was particularly friendly to Wise Symon.

'You are sure nothing else was found on the body?' asked reporter.

'Here is everything,' said Siddon, pointing to the table in his office on which a miscellaneous collection of articles were displayed. 'There is no evidence to support your story that he was a very wealthy man unless you call this wealth.'

He picked up a crumpled scrap of paper and handed it to Symon. It was the half of a torn cheque, and on the back of it was scribbled the ciphers: £10,000.

Symon turned the cheque over and looked at the writing again, and his eyes were a blaze of triumph as he handed the paper back to the police officer.

'Jimmy Siddon,' said he, 'I am going to make your fortune: or, at any rate, I am going to make your name.'

'What do you mean?' asked Siddon. 'Do you know anything?'

'I know everything,' said Wise Symon. 'Let's go along and see old Borthwick. Bring that paper with you, and I think we shall be able to tell him a great deal more about his caretaker that he will just hate to hear.'

'Has the man been robbing him?' asked Siddon, as the taxi sped through the night towards Hampstead, where Mr. Borthwick had his severe but expensive rooms.

'You mean has he been robbing the bank? Honestly, I don't think he has. At any rate, if he had lived that is not the charge I should have made against him. Siddon, this story is mine; and you have got to keep the other journalistic ghouls at bay until I have spun it over a full page of the Telephone Herald.'

'You've got to make it a story yet,' said Siddon, who knew the requirements of the daily Press.

'It's made,' said Wise Symon.

Mr. Borthwick lived with two servants on the third floor of a big block of flats, but Mr. Borthwick was not at home. The housekeeper suggested that he might be found at his club.

'Let's try the bank,' said Wise Symon. 'He may be casting up his accounts.'

The bank was dark and silent.

'If you will condone the offence,' said Wise Symon, producing a bunch of keys from his pocket, 'we will do a little burglary.'

'Where did you get those keys?' demanded the detective chief.

'I smouched 'em when you weren't looking. They were part of Hopper's effects. Ah. here's the key!'

The door swung open noiselessly.

'Have you got an electric lamp?' whispered Symon.

'I don't like this,' growled the other, but produced the lamp.

They stepped into the dark passage and closed the door behind them. It ran parallel with the depth of the outer office. On the right was a stairway leading to the upper portion of the premises and presumably to Hopper's sleeping apartments. At the end was another door, which was only opened after almost every key on the bunch had been tried. They now found themselves in the outer office itself, facing Mr. Borthwick's private office.

Wise Symon touched his companion's arm and pointed. A thin line of light showed beneath the door. He stepped forward on tiptoe, turned the handle cautiously, and threw the door open.

Mr. Borthwick was sitting at the desk, his massive head on his hand, examining a small ledger. Behind him the steel door leading to the vaults of the bank was slightly ajar. At the first sound he leapt to his feet.

'Put that gun down. Borthwick!' said Wise Symon sharply. 'Put it down or I'll kill you a damn sight quicker than you killed Hopper.'

The old man was speechless. No longer benevolent was the light that shone in his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but there came an interruption. The door leading to the bank vault opened slowly and there cringed into the room a pallid, bearded figure, with shaking hands and bloodshot eyes, blinking from one to the other.

'Mr. Borthwick,' he piped pitifully, 'Mr. Borthwick, you're quite mistaken. Won't you let me explain? I did promise Hopper £10,000 if he let me loose. I wrote it on one of the cheques and passed it through the bars, but I wasn't going to betray you. Mr. Borthwick,' he sobbed, 'I swear to God I wasn't going to do you any harm.'

'Siddon,' said Wise Symon, 'this is Mr. Harrigay Ford, who, unless I am greatly mistaken, has been a prisoner in the vaults of this bank ever since he threatened to take his account elsewhere.'

'OLD BORTHWICK was a gambler.' said Wise Symon to his chief in the early hours of the morning when the presses of the Telephone Herald were roaring with a note, as it seemed, of exultation at the ingenuity and enterprise of the staff. 'He has always been a speculator, and when Ford threatened to take his account away he knew he would be ruined. He got Ford when he was doped and put him in the vault. Don't you realise that all banks are built so that they make ideal prisons? The caretaker had to be in the secret— nobody else visited the vault. So the caretaker had to be paid. Ford was supplied with food, a chequebook, and a pen, and every time Borthwick's accounts wanted balancing he had to draw the cheque or suffer— the old man was as strong as a horse in spite of his age. I shouldn't think that Hopper had any communication with the prisoner, but apparently Ford tried to bribe him to secure his release, writing the sum he was willing to pay on the back of a cheque and slipping it into the caretaker's hand when the old man wasn't looking. Borthwick must have found this out. He was alarmed by my visit, but probably more alarmed by Hopper's attitude.'

'But how did you guess?'

'I didn't guess, I knew. The slip of paper found on Hopper's body inscribed £10,000 was written on cheque No. 1796, the very next to that which the old man told me had been drawn in Australia, apparently weeks before.'

'You're a real Wise Symon,' said the editor admiringly.

'Has anybody ever honestly doubted it?' said Mr. Symon.

End

Table of Contents

- Introduction
- 1: Richard Bruce— Burglar
- 2: Good-bye
- 3: Phalaenopsis Gloriosa
- 4: One Blow for Russia
- 5: The Calm Chauffeur
- 6: The Angel Child
- 7: The Bandaged Hand
- 9: A Case for Angel, Esquire
- 10: The Junior Reporter
- 11: The Linchela Rebellion

- 12: Halley's Comet, the Cowboy and Lord Dorrington

- 13: Uncle Dick
- 14: The Murder at the 'Port Helm'
- 15: The Destroyer
- 16: Her Birthday
- 17: The Despatch Rider
- 18: Five Fateful Words
- 19: While the Passengers Slept
- 20: When the Tsar Came
- 21: Memoirs Of The Sigee Family
- 22: The House Surgeon
- 23: The Yellow Box
- 24: When the Armanic Sank
- 25: The Devil Light
- 26: The Slip
- 27: The Caretaker in Charge