The Edgar Wallace Collection 8
Author: Edgar Wallace
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: short stories
Description: EDGAR WALLACE was a prolific author of short stories, 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 "series" stories. Non-series stories are collected in this volume, and the novella The Terror. 1:The Will and the Way 2: A Judge of Horses 3: The Pedlar in the Mask 4: Mr. Jiggs Makes Good 5: The Trimming of Sam 6: The Winning Ticket 7: His Game 8: The Devil Doc

THE EDGAR WALLACE

COLLECTION

The Short Stories of Edgar Wallace

Volume 8

Contents

Introduction

1:The Will and the Way

2: A Judge of Horses

3: The Pedlar in the Mask

4: Mr. Jiggs Makes Good

5: The Trimming of Sam

6: The Winning Ticket

7: His Game

8: The Devil Doctor

9: The Original Mrs. Blaney

10: Jake's Brother Bill

11:. In Thrall

12: The Know-How

13: The Terror (novelette)

_________________

Introduction

EDGAR WALLACE was a prolific author of short stories, 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 "series" stories.

Non-series stories are collected in this volume, and the novella The Terror.

_________________

1: The Will And The Way

The Merry Magazine, Jul 1925

PEOPLE only make such wills in books and those fantastic stories which are the stand-by of the half-witted novelist. Bobbie Beale said as much, but not quite in those words: he used language which was strong, and in many ways unjustifiable.

Bertie Featherston, who sat at breakfast with him in his little flat which overlooked Hyde Park, made noises of encouragement and approval.

"It would have been much better," said Bobbie gloomily, "if I had never rescued the old bli— the old gentleman. If I had left him, so to speak, to stick in the mud "

"And let the beastly fishes eat him," put in Bertie helpfully.

"It isn’t his money: money means nothing to me." His eyes roamed unconsciously to the letter which had come that morning from his bank manager informing him of his £84 overdraft and requesting him "without delay" to put the matter right. "It means less than nothing to me, old boy. I am, so to speak, superior to filthy lucre."

"That’s how I feel," said Bertie, who really was superior to filthy lucre, since he enjoyed an income from his grandmother’s estate which brought him in three thousand pounds a year after he had paid income tax.

"The point is," Bobbie went on, and there were evidently many points, for he prepared to tick them off on his fingers, "that this sort of thing isn’t done. When a fellow leaves some other fellow money in his will, he doesn’t impose all sorts of ridiculous conditions. And another thing is that this old buf— dear old fellow has evidently got the idea out of a lot of trashy novels."

"Which shows that he’s mad," said Bertie enthusiastically. "I’ll tell you what we’ll do, dear old thing. We’ll go along and dispute the will, prove that the old bird was potty "

"Don’t be an ass, Bertie," said Mr. Beale with sudden energy. "That means we should get nothing, and all the money would go to some cat-and-dog asylum! What I was saying, when you interrupted, was this: nobody has ever heard, outside of books, of a man leaving a hundred thousand pounds on condition that he marries some wretched girl he’s never seen. With the proviso— now listen to this, you muddle-headed chump— that if one refuses the other one, the other one gets the lot. You understand?"

"Quite, old boy," beamed Bertie. "If you refuse to marry this awful creature, you simply pack up the whole parcel."

Mr. Beale paused here in his argument to describe his friend in terms which were neither flattering nor kind nor yet just.

"You’ve got it all wrong. If I refuse to marry her, then she gets the money. If she refuses to marry me, I get it. Now the thing to do is to discover her weak points."

"What about a detective?" said Bertie brilliantly.

It was the first intelligent suggestion that he had made in the course of the morning.

Mr. Beale took hold of his chin (his own chin) with his left hand, a sure sign that he was thinking hard.

"Isn’t it possible," he said slowly, "for you to go down to Sparrowhurst— that is where the creature lives — and spy out the land, so to speak?"

"Me?" exclaimed Bertie, ungrammatical but aghast. "Why me, old thing? Good Lord! I couldn’t spy out anything. Why, I don’t even know a word of three letters meanin’ ‘emu’! She’d spot me in a minute— I’m the biggest mug in the world at disguisin’ myself "

"Don’t disguise yourself— go as you are," said Bobbie firmly. "Nobody will guess that you’re anybody. She’s got a friend who lives with her. Pal up with her. You’re not bad-looking: in fact, you’re the sort of fellow that the average girl would open her young heart to— you know what mugs some girls are. You could find out just what this May What’s-her-name thinks of it all ... you could drop a hint that I’m the last person in the world any decent girl ought to marry."

Bertie was impressed.

"I get you," he said. "Tell her you’re a thorough-paced old rotter... drunk every night an’ all that sort of thing."

"Well"— Bobbie hesitated:— he was not without pride—"yes— you needn’t lay it on too thick— I mean, about drinking. She might want to marry me in the hope that I’ll have an attack of delirium tremens and pop off. Be discreet."

"I get you," said Bertie again, his enthusiasm rising. "I’ll tell her that you’re a gadder— always runnin’ about with this girl an’ that "

"Nothing of the sort," said Bobbie testily. "If you do she’ll marry me in the hope of getting a divorce. Haven’t you any sense?"

"No," said Bertie truthfully.

They discussed the matter till late in the afternoon and reached a satisfactory conclusion.

Now, it was not so much a coincidence as an inevitable consequence to the queer conditions which had been shaped by Mr. Catt’s extraordinary will, that Quorn Cottage, which is in or near the village of Sparrowhurst, in the county of Berkshire, seethed with excitement and emotion, and that its atmosphere was so electric that such sensitive things as cats crept out of sight, hiding themselves in the deepest and darkest corners.

May Willoughby had a friend. Pretty girls as a rule do not choose other pretty girls for their confidantes and companions. But friend Janet Stormer, despite her horn-rimmed spectacles, was almost good-looking.

Janet was not a lawyer, but she had taken a degree in law at Oxford University. There was no reason why she should earn her living even as a lawyer, for she was as rich as her friend was poor. But law was her hobby. She could have told Blackstone things that would have made him turn dizzy. Blackstone, being a really great lawyer, was dead, so was beyond dizziness. It is hoped.

Janet strode up and down the pretty little drawing room that looked out on to the lawn with its crocuses and daffodils and its almond trees in blossom, and other forewarnings of the vernal equinox. Her arms were folded and her brow was wrinkled.

"I am not so sure, May," she said soberly, "whether this will can stand. There is a well-known case, Higgs v. Wiggins with Moulder intervening—"

"For heaven’s sake don’t talk to me about law," groaned May, prostrate on the settee. "I’ve seen Mr. Scraggit’s clerk and he says there’s no question that the will must stand. The whole thing is a plot," she said, leaping to her feet. "This wretched Beale man must have got poor Uncle Catt into a state of intoxication, pushed him in the river, and then fished him out again. Uncle Catt did drink: I’ve often seen him taking port at dinner. Isn’t it too disgusting! All that money to be taken from me by a wretched, adventurous interloper, a man who perhaps is the lowest of the low— I mean so far as his morals are concerned—"

"You could of course marry him," said Janet profoundly, pinching her red lips. "And reform him," she added.

"Marry him! Are you mad? It’s pretty clear to me what has happened. This wretched Beale is a novel-writer and has put this idea into that silly old— into poor dear uncle’s head. Such things never happen in real life — you know that, Janet."

Janet shook her shingled head slowly.

"I don’t know that you’re right, darling. In fact, there was a very famous case, Merton against Merton and Another—"

"For heaven’s sake don’t give me any cases! My case is— is pathetic! What can we do?"

Janet scratched her head vulgarly.

"We could appeal to the Master for the documents in the case," she suggested. "We might even enter an inter-pleader."

May groaned.

"Don’t you understand, my poor child," she said, with offensive patience, "that this isn’t a question of documents and inter-pleaders? That it isn’t a matter of law, but a question of common sense? If I refuse him I lose the money; if he refuses me he loses the money."

"Why not discover his weak points?" suggested Janet.

"I have an idea," said May suddenly. "Suppose you go up and see this person?"

"As your legal representative?" asked Janet hopefully, and by the expression of pain and weariness on her "client’s" face she gathered that this was not her plan.

"This horrible Beale has a friend— somebody told me about him yesterday ... wait ... I’ll think of his name in a minute ... I’ve got it! Bertie Something! Janet, you’re a clever woman. You could turn a man inside out "

"I am a lawyer, not a doctor," corrected Janet coldly.

"I mean you could... cross-examine him." Jane brightened visibly. "You could find out all there was to be found; you could discover his weaknesses. You could so twist this Bertie Something round your little finger that—"

"I think I understand," said Janet, her hand at her brow. "You may leave this to me. I shall be away a day or two, but when I return...."

The day Janet went to town, Mr. Bertie Featherston’s car arrived at Sparrowhurst. He took a room at the Red Lion Inn, changed his clothes and, having made the necessary enquiries, wended his slow way to the vicinity of Quorn Cottage. It was, he admitted, a nice cottage. It had a thatched roof and timbered walls. Most cottages that Bertie knew were three-storeyed mansions of red brick with Italian terraces and Dutch gardens. All Bertie’s friends had "cottages" in the country— they were sometimes referred to by their owners as "my little place"— and their average garages were about four times the size of Quorn Cottage.

Bertie Featherston was in no dilemma as to how he should begin operations. His plan was made up. He would go boldly to the cottage, ask for Miss Janet Stormer, and, when Miss Janet Stormer presented herself, he would say: "May I speak to you in private on a matter of the greatest importance?" She would look surprised, blush a little and say: "Yes ... but I am afraid I don’t know you?" He would then say: "I think we know the Robinsons. " It would hardly be possible for a respectable girl not to know somebody named Robinson. He would continue: "They asked me to call," and then slip easily into a line of conversation that would, with adroit manoeuvring, bring him to the subject of May Willoughy.

He knocked at the door. It was opened by a beauty. Her hair was fair, her eyes were blue, her skin was milk and pink roses.

"Good morning," she said expectantly.

Bertie’s mouth was dry.

"Miss— um— Stormer?" he said huskily.

"Miss Stormer is in town— are you a friend of hers?"

Bertie nodded dumbly. She opened the door wider, a little white hand bade him enter. He stumbled over the mat and found himself in a paradise mainly covered with chintz.

"Miss— um—?"

"I’m Miss Willoughby," she smiled.

Again Bertie nodded. She was sorry for him. Most women are sorry for those who are obviously overcome by their beauty. She made conversation until Bertie found his voice. He stayed to tea. He came to dinner. He would have come to breakfast next morning, only she didn’t ask him. Instead, he took her in his car to Eastbourne to lunch. He dined with her that night....

Four days later he went back to town a little unhappy, a little indignant, more than a little uneasy. Bobbie was at his flat when he called. Bobbie also seemed a little uneasy.

"Well, son," he asked, "how did you get on?"

Bertie coughed.

"I saw her— Miss Willoughby."

Bobbie’s eyes opened.

"You saw the vamp— did she know who you were, you great juggins?"

"No," said Bertie, with a catch in his voice, "she didn’t. I felt like a criminal deceiving her. And she’s no vamp, Bobbie." His voice trembled. "Never speak disparagingly of Miss Willoughby!"

Bobbie sneered horribly.

"Oh ho!" said he. "She’s caught you, eh?— you poor herring! You blind bat! How are you going to explain that to Gladys?"

Bertie was staggered.

"To who— whom?" he gasped.

"No matter." Bobbie was prepared to shrug the matter of Gladys from discussion. "You don’t deserve her, anyway."

"I don’t know anybody called Gladys," protested Bertie.

"Gladys Malloy," said Bertie sternly. "The lady who called at your flat to see you the day you left. Fortunately I happened to call in for my golf clubs— you never return anything I lend you— and I saw her. By heavens, Bertie, if you are deceiving that girl you’ll have to settle with me!"

His tone was ferocious; his air and mien threatening. Bertie went rapidly through the list of girls he might possibly be deceiving and failed to find Gladys.

"The matter isn’t worth talking about," Bobbie went on. "I’ve got to see the lawyers to-morrow, and that female will be there. If she refuses to release me now, I’ll— I’ll..."

Bertie was very pale.

"Old top," he said, his voice quivering, "if you raise so much as a finger to that innocent child, I’ll-— I’ll ... really, I shall be awfully vexed."

They parted bad friends.

In the morning Bobbie drove down to Scraggits the lawyers— a very important firm, so exclusive that it seldom had its windows cleaned. He stalked through the outer lobby, scarcely noticing Bertie, who sat patiently waiting.

Mr. Scraggit was a very old man with a strong sense of law. He had, he told Bobbie, a communication to make after "you young people" had made up their minds.

"Mine is already made up," said Bobbie.

"Splendid," said Mr. Scraggit, and shuffled into his very private room, for he had heard the door open and knew that the other beneficiary under the will had arrived.

Miss Willoughby had scarcely done shaking hands and approving of the weather when she began to state her views on eccentric wills. Mr. Scraggit listened with an affectation of patience.

"I am sorry, madam, but that is how the will reads. It was not my suggestion, but the late Mr. Catt’s."

"I think it’s an abominable will," said Mary hotly.

Mr. Scraggit raised his thin shoulders to his ears.

"I have my own views about it," he said, "but what can I do? You see, your uncle had an attachment for Mr. Bobbie Beale. Have you ever met him, by the way?"

"No!" Miss Willoughby snapped the word. "And I hope to goodness I never shall!"

Again the lawyer’s shoulders rose.

"That, I am afraid, cannot be avoided. He is here to-day and you must make your decision in accordance with the terms of the will."

"It’s a nice outlook for me, to marry a man I’ve never seen just because uncle was silly enough to fall into the water and be fished out by Mr. Beale! Hasn’t this wretched man any sense of decency? Wouldn’t he give up his share?"

"That," said Mr. Scraggit gravely, "is stretching decency rather far. Of course, if you could persuade him "

"Persuade a man to give up money!" May’s lip curled.

"Or if he could persuade you " suggested Mr. Scraggit.

"Persuade me to give up what is rightfully my own? I’d like to see him do it!"

Mr. Scraggit walked to the door and opened it.

"Here is your Mr. Beale," he said.

"Not my Mr. Beale," breathed May Willoughby, and followed him into the less private office.

For a moment youth glared at youth, murder in their eyes. Bobbie hated her; May Willoughby thought he was loathsome. Bobbie dragged the lawyer aside.

"Have I got to marry this person?" said Bobbie hollowly and rudely.

"It was Mr. Catt’s wish." The legal sphinx could say no more.

"I think it’s a perfectly beastly idea," said Bobbie wrathfully. "How can one marry anyone one doesn’t know? I ask you. My dear old chap, it isn’t done. It’s positively revolting. What is this creature’s name?"

"May."

"Yes, that’s the sort of thing that would happen to me," said Bobbie bitterly. "May!"

"There is no necessity for you to marry at all."

Bobbie grew testy.

"Don’t piffle, old thing. I saved Mr. Catt’s life, or one of his lives— that’s rather good, isn’t it? Cats have nine lives, you know, like tailors. Ha, ha! Well, I saved his life and I’m entitled to the reward."

The lawyer sidled to the door and closed it. They were alone. The situation was an awkward one. Bobbie tried to save it by referring to the weather. Then:

"I say, you’re the young party that wants to marry me, aren’t you?"

"Me want to marry you!" May’s chin went up. "If you were the last man in the world, Mr. Beale, I should not want to marry you!"

"But I’m not the last man in the world," said the practical Bobbie, "and, of course, I don’t want to marry you."

"Then we are mutually agreed."

There was an awkward silence.

"You can imagine how bitter I feel about it, Mr. Beale," said May at last. "I suppose a girl indulges in foolish dreams, and I’d pictured an ideal husband, a tall, handsome man, who carried himself with a distinguished air.

Bobbie thought the description not unlike him.

"I had my ideas of a wife, too," he said sternly. "She was to be pretty, with dark, flashing eyes— your eyes haven’t got a flash in ‘em! Still, if you are not willing to marry me—"

"Oh, I’m willing to marry you!" she said hastily. "But, of course, you wouldn’t be cad enough to marry a girl who doesn’t want you. It is you who are not willing to marry me!"

Bobbie sighed wearily.

"My dear old thing, I’m falling over myself to marry you, only you hate the sight of me. Mind you, I don’t say that you’re not right. I’m not the kind of man that any girl would want to marry, if you understand me. I’m awfully bad-tempered—"

"So am I," said May promptly.

"I snore," said Bobbie.

"Well, that wouldn’t worry me," she retorted quickly, "because I shouldn’t hear you. You see, I’m rather deaf and naturally bad-tempered. If you married me, why, poor Mr. Beale, you would have a perfect hell of a life!"

Bobbie swallowed something.

"But, oh, I get into fearful rages sometimes, and generally all the time. I throw the first thing that I can put my hand on at the first person I reach. I’m the worst husband that any respectable woman could ever have!"

May was fast losing her patience.

"Of course, that doesn’t affect me, because I’m not respectable. I don’t want to tell you all my past, but if these walls could speak ...! No, Mr. Beale, I think you are very wise in refusing to marry me, although I’m keen on marrying you, and I think you are doing a very generous and unselfish thing, because lots of men would marry a woman who hated them just for the sake of the money. Now, you’re not that kind of person!"

"But I am rather," said Bobbie desperately. "Yes, I’d do any dirty trick like that. I mean I’m fearfully reckless where women are concerned. But I quite understand why a girl brought up in a convent— I know you’re a convent girl by your fearful language— I can quite understand why you don’t want to marry a wicked old rake like me."

"Oh, but I do!" protested May furiously. "Now don’t say I don’t! I declare to you that I want to marry you, even though...."

It was at this moment that Mr. Scraggit came into the room. Had he been listening? Who knows to what depths a lawyer will sink, especially a family lawyer? It is an established fact that most of the crimes committed on the Victorian stage had their origin in innocent-looking old family lawyers with white beards. And Mr. Scraggit did not even look innocent, and was beardless. He glanced from one to the other a little timidly.

"I feel I ought to say," he said apologetically, "that in trying to bring you young people together I am merely carrying out the wish of my dear old friend Catt. May he rest in peace!" he added, raising his eyes to the ceiling.

Bobbie looked up too, wondering whether the deceased Mr. Catt had been filed away with other human documents in some dark recess of the office.

"That was my first desire," the lawyer went on, "but, alas, it does not seem possible that my old friend’s wishes— my eccentric old friend," he added a little emphatically, "who went through life under the impression that he was a rich man, though in point of fact, so far from leaving a hundred thousand pounds, the total amount of his property is a little less than four hundred—"

Bobbie staggered.

"Four hundred!" said May, her mouth open wide.

"Three hundred and ninety-two pounds seven shillings and fourpence halfpenny to be exact," said Mr. Scraggit, rubbing his thin hands together. "But it pleased my dear old friend to believe that he was a rich man."

"Don’t let us detain you," said Bobbie haughtily, and with a stiff bow to the girl walked out into the waiting-room.

Two people were there, and it was difficult to say who was the paler, Bertie Featherston or Janet Stormer. At the sight of Janet, Bobbie gasped.

"You here?" he said, in amazement.

"You’re not going to marry that designing woman, are you?" said Janet, glaring at her erstwhile friend. "It is disgraceful, marrying for money I"

Bertie’s eyes sought May Willoughby’s. She smiled and shook her head.

"No, dear," she said, although she had not been asked, "I am not marrying this ..."

She looked Bobbie Beale up and down and left the sentence in the air.

They parted at the lawyer’s office with scarcely more than the most formal acknowledgment of each other’s existence.

"I am so glad you rose superior to money, Bobbie," said Janet, holding him tight by the arm as they walked along. "I knew, the moment I saw you, the moment I heard your dear voice, that there was nothing mercenary in your nature. Darling, with all my money we ought to be able to live awfully comfortably, but I’m never going to see that woman again...."

"If," said Bertie Featherston, in that queer tremolo which was indicative of his emotions—"if Bobbie had forced you into a marriage for the sake of that wretched money, I’d— I’d have done something desperate. Thank heaven I came down and saved you from that money hound..."

____________________

2:  A Judge Of Horses

THERE was a young man whose name was Ferdinand Boyle Marsh who travelled on an American passport, but had, he often stated, a European mind. There were quite a lot of people who did not believe he had any kind of mind. What he meant was that he drew his money from New York and his inspiration from Paris.

He was fond of horses, especially horses that won races when he had backed them, and he believed in art more or less for art’s sake. That is to say, he painted pictures which nobody understood except the man who made the frame, and he knew that they were twenty-four inches by thirty-six inches.

It was unfortunate for quite a number of people that he was in Melbourne when the Costyermore case was under discussion. He was a keen bettor, and he came on a grand tour with letters of introduction, amongst others, to the stewards of the Victoria Racing Club. What is more, he misguidedly backed Costyermore on the occasion when the owner and trainer had not backed him, and his virtuous indignation, loudly expressed to influential people, may have had something to do with the subsequent action of the racing authorities. It is pretty certain, however, that they were acting on their own initiative, for the stewards of the Victoria Racing Club were neither simple nor long-suffering.

They summoned Mr. Tookes to their presence, and he came, round-eyed and innocent, to explain why Costyermore (by Tariff— Cornflake) had finished down the course at a certain meeting (starting at 20 to 1), and a fortnight later strolled home by three lengths, a white-hot favourite at 9 to 4.

Mr. Tookes was, he said, dumbfounded. His trainer, Mr. Augustus Bache, when called upon to express his own reactions, informed the stewards that they could have knocked him down with a feather when he saw Costyermore jump off in front and make all the running from gate to post.

"I have no intention of knocking you down with a feather," said the senior steward unpleasantly, "though I dare say that there are quite a number of backers who would be glad to make that experiment with an axe. What is your explanation?"

Mr. Bache had several. The horse had been coughing before his ignominious display; the "going" had been hard; the horse hadn’t eaten up; he had probably been poisoned; he had two ways of running, probably three.

"You are both warned off for life," said the senior steward eventually, "and Costyermore is disqualified from running for two years."

"That’s a bit thick," said the indignant Mr. Tookes.

"Not quite so thick as you," retorted the steward colloquially.

Mr. Tookes and his trainer dined that night in a restaurant off Collins Street. They were men of the world, who had read books on philosophy from the prison library— for both had had the misfortune in their earlier days of meeting another kind of steward who sat on a bench and said, "Nine months hard labour," almost mechanically.

"There’s no sense in crying over spilt milk," said Mr. Tookes as he dissected a chicken. "We’ve had a good run and cleaned up. Thank Gawd those bat-eyed so-and-so’s" (he referred to the stewards) "didn’t hold their inquiry until after the settling!"

"What are we going to do with Costyermore?" asked Mr. Bache. "That’s what hurts me. They might have left the so-an-so horse alone. He’s worth three thousand quid of anybody’s money— now he’s a dead loss."

They discussed the matter thoroughly.

Two days later the Melbourne newspapers announced that Costyermore had been sold to a "well-known Queensland breeder", and was leaving for Brisbane by the first available boat. But Costyermore did not go to Queensland. He was certainly landed at Colombo and subsequently was despatched to Natal. From South Africa he was shipped to the Argentine via England.

On Salisbury Plain was a small training establishment recently vacated by a gentleman trainer, who was so much a gentleman that he never came to his stables except for the week-ends. In consequence his horses were left in the charge of a head lad, who spent most of his time in Bournemouth. The patrons of the gentleman trainer endured their misfortunes for two years, and then sent their horses to stables presided over by coarse men who slept with their charges all the year round and won races with monotonous regularity.

Mr. Tookes, sitting at breakfast in a London hotel, read the advertisement in a sporting newspaper:

"Small training establishment to be let. Nice house and garden. Twenty good boxes and best gallops in England."

"That’s our place," he said.

It took a fortnight’s negotiations and consultations and exchanges of references before Tickey Lodge passed into the possession of Mr. Bache, who had changed his name to Bates, and the greater part of six months elapsed before he received the necessary licence to train horses under the Jockey Club rules.

Happily for him he had trained horses in the Argentine before he migrated to Australia, and the recommendations which came from South America may have had something to do with the facility with which he received his "ticket".

He was a good trainer in the sense that he was a man who could make running horses run. He was not a kind trainer, and when he walked into his stable yard the lads did not greet him with wild cheers, nor did the horses follow him about wherever he went; but he was a good trainer.

He would have had to be superlatively good to have solved the problem of Costyermore. He had a consultation with Mr. Tookes.

"It’s no use pretending," he said, "that we are persona grata with the Jockey Club."

"What does persona grata mean?" asked Mr. Tookes.

"Boy friends," translated Mr. Bache. "They are not quite certain of us, and if we try to ring in Costyermore, they will be down on us like a thousand bricks. The only thing to do is to find a can to own this horse."

"You can easily find one of those," said Mr. Tookes. "There are so many about that they jingle."

Mr. Bache shook his head.

"This fellow has got to be a regular swell, not somebody who has never seen a night club. He has got to have his name in the Book of Words."

The Book of Words, to Mr. Bache, was any standard work of reference: in this particular case, the peerage.

Chance brought Mr. Tookes to Whisbury and to the acquaintance of Colonel Bridges, who had a daughter, a dog, and a nose for bargains. About the daughter and the dog Mr. Tookes, between one Italian vermouth and another, learned nothing; but he learned that the colonel was the sort of man who would walk into any junk shop and discover a Velasquez or a Gainsborough or a Corot that had been overlooked by generations; that he was the sort of man who found treasures in the most unexpected places.

It is true that connoisseurs denied the authenticity of the Velasquez and Gainsboroughs and Corots, and that the sixteenth-century armour that he bought for a mere song was the work of a Birmingham yeoman armourer who had a taste for pictures of greyhound racing; but you could never convince Colonel Bridges that he was not the victim of a conspiracy organized by what he vaguely described as "the ring".

"This man," said Mr. Tookes to the interested Mr. Bates, "is Our Bird. Go and buy a milk-cart, and be at such and such a place at such and such an hour tomorrow."

The next day he walked through a quiet street in Whisbury, and lo, there by the kerb was a milk-cart drawn by a rather large, self-conscious horse.

"That’s an awkward-looking beast, Colonel," said Mr. Tookes.

The colonel cast an eye over the animal.

"If that isn’t a great horse I’ve never seen one," he said. "Look at his legs, look at his neck, look at his quarters!"

"I rather like his ears too," said Mr. Tookes.

They interviewed the milkman. No, the horse was not for sale. It was a legacy from a dead aunt. Yes, it had been in a racing stable.

"What did I tell you?" said the colonel.

"It’s very hard work for the poor old fellow," said the milkman plaintively, "pulling carts up and down these so-and-so hills. If I could get him in a racing stable I believe he would win something."

But the horse was not for sale. He could be leased. The colonel, who knew nothing about leases except that you didn’t have to put any money down, grew feverishly enthusiastic at the suggestion. He had discovered another Velasquez.

As to Colonel Bridges’ dog and his daughter, and Mr. Mortimor, who loved his daughter ...

A few months after the excellent milk horse had gone into training, Mr. Frank Mortimor came into the chemist’s shop with a firm step. There was determination in his eye, a certain rapidity of purpose in the lift of his chin. Purpose and determination relaxed for the moment; two young ladies were at the counter, and were making purchases in a whisper, and Frank was, he hoped, too much of a gentleman to intrude upon the privacy of innocent maidenhood engaged in its first choice of lipstick.

"Yes, sir?"

The swing doors were still vibrating from the hurried exit of beauty when Frank approached the white-coated and elderly assistant.

"I want to buy a very deadly poison," he said firmly. "What can you recommend?"

The chemist looked at him tiredly. He was a man with a whitish beard and he was entirely without illusions.

"Houpla Lemonade Crystals have never been known to fail," he said with an appropriate acidity of manner. "We also stock a ginger-beer powder that is devastating." Mr. Mortimor made a noise which indicated his annoyance and resentment.

"There is no need for you to be amusing," he said testily. "I am asking you as a chemist for information. I seem to remember that you have a sign on your window — ’Curtis for Courtesy’— give me a sample."

The bearded assistant sighed.

"Do you require the poison for a dog or a rich relative?" he asked. "What is suitable for one may be quite inadequate for another."

"For a dog," said Frank. "A big white dog— at least, it looked big to me."

The man behind the counter shook his head.

"We have nothing that would suit a white dog. A brown dog— yes. Is it your own dog? "

"That is immaterial," said Frank stiffly. "But as you are so infernally curious, I may tell you that it is not my dog. It belongs to Colonel Bridges. At least, it lives in his house."

Mr. Curtis nodded.

"Toby," he said, and leaned back against a shelf full of large bottles, setting them jangling. "I could run this store and could make a good profit on the sale of poisons for Toby. He bit you, of course? Who was the young man we sent over to Paris for a Pasteur treatment? It is amazing how rare hydrophobia is nowadays." Frank breathed heavily through his nose.

"Am I to understand that other— er— gentlemen have been chased by this dog?"

Mr. Curtis nodded.

"And caught," he said simply. "There is a strain of bloodhound in him— the colonel has been experimenting for years. The Bridges Terrier is becoming recognized; there was a Bridges Terrier class at the Hindeny Dog Show last year. Did you kiss her?"

Mr. Mortimor went red. He was naturally pink anyway, and he hadn’t far to go.

"If you are referring to Miss Bridges " he began.

Mr. Curtis nodded gravely.

"I thought so. The colonel has trained the dog to bite anybody who kisses his daughter. Hence the casualties. A fantastic idea, but then the colonel is a scientist. When he says that kissing is unhygienic he has the support of the British Bacteriological Association...."

Frank walked from the store and banged the door behind him. He did not realize that it was a swing door until he received the bump that flung him into the middle of the sidewalk, almost at the feet of the one girl in the world.

Honore Bridges looked deliciously cool and sweet and inadequately dressed— fair-skinned, grey-eyed, slim and adorable. Frank used to whisper to himself that she had the most wonderful figure; her girl friends used to sigh with envy at the perfect shape of her visible legs.

"Poor dear— are you hurt?"

He picked himself up and looked at Toby. Of course, Toby was there— a nondescript hound with a silly grin and a wagging tail. It was impossible to believe that this imbecile dog could be terrifying and dangerous. He sidled up to Frank and rubbed a little grime on to his immaculate flannel trousers.

"I shall kill that animal."

Frank spoke in an undertone: there were some things he did not wish the dog to know.

"How silly you are, darling! Come along and give me some tea, and then you can take me to the pier. I want to see all the unbalanced people who think Whisbury is a holiday resort."

Whisbury is on the South Coast. For eight months in the year it is a beautiful little town with a delightful old Norman church, and, on the sea-front, an unbroken stretch of amber sands. Retired officers of the Indian Army have their residences here, and their houses have such names as "Simla", "Pondicherry", "Allahabad", "Gunga Din", or something similar. They have a club where they sign "chits" for "pegs" and tell one another about the jolly times they had when they were staying with the Maharajah of Hooti-Tooti, and the pigs they have killed, and the tigers they have shot, and what a pukka sahib everybody was who happened to be dead.

In the summer "Simla", "Pondicherry", etc., were let to careful tenants who were willing to pay for the privilege of living in houses that were mainly furnished with Benares brassware, bead curtains and Indian screens.

Colonel Bridges had never been in the Indian Army. He had got his colonelcy in the Great War, when he was in control of a clothing department. It was his boast that he had "done his bit". He never forgave young men who had been at school in those perilous days (he himself had lived through hell owing to the mysterious disappearance of 5,000 trousers— soldiers— khaki, from a store), and had only one word to describe any man who had failed his Country in "Her Hour of Need".

"Slacker, sir! Slacking at home, sir! A young man like you, sir!"

In vain did the delinquent plead that in 1914 he had been in the care of a nursery governess.

"I was fifty when I joined up, sir! Dammit! It makes my blood boil to see you Cuthberts hiding yourselves behind your nursery governess’s petticoats."

Anyway, he was a colonel and had a big house and three hundred acres, kennels, ideas about hygiene and Saparino.

Of Saparino he was even more proud than of his daughter, his big house, his three hundred acres, his kennels, and his ideas about hygiene.

The colonel often told the story of how he had found Saparino pulling a milk-cart, had instantly recognized the "blood" in him, had "got" the animal for a mere song and had put him into training. His false-hearted kennel-man as frequently told the story of how found Saparino pulling a milk-cart, had told the colonel, who went down to the promenade and, picking on the wrong milk-cart, had bought a pony that was absolutely valueless for any other purpose than pulling a milk-cart; but the fact remained that Saparino, by Mottled Soap, dam’s pedigree unknown, came eventually into the possession of the colonel. It was a matter of history that in three weeks he won the Novices Hurdle race at Ludlow, a Maiden Hurdle at Chelmsford, and was second to High and Dry in a Novices Steeplechase at Sandown Park.

He was trained by Bates of Chalkham, and the colonel wore out the country between Chalkham and Whisbury in his superintending of Saparino’s preparation. The horse thrived under his supervision, but the trainer would have become a nervous wreck if he had taken the slightest notice of his employer.

The colonel might have tolerated Mr. Mortimor but for the crowning error of that gentleman; he was the owner of High and Dry. He owned one or two other horses, but to Colonel Bridges his principal offence lay in the fact that he allowed such a horse as High and Dry to live, and whenever he was not engaged in telling Frank that he was a slacker who had deserted his country in the hour of her need, he was saying things about High and Dry which would have boiled the blood of that ingenious thoroughbred but for the fact that he was naturally of a cool and phlegmatic disposition.

"You shouldn’t have won. Of course you shouldn’t have won! Your infernal hair-trunk fouled Saparino two fences from home.... Don’t tell me it isn’t true — I saw it! Am I blind, sir? Not so blind that I was accepted to serve my country in the hour of her need. No, sir, you fouled me!"

"My jockey—" pleaded Frank.

"You fouled me," said the colonel firmly. "You tried to ride me over the wing. You knocked me sideways as I was coming out to take my place; you jumped across me at the last fence. If the stewards had been English gentlemen you would have been disqualified. If they had not been blind, sir— they are blind, sir— you would have been warned off. I am willing to match Saparino against your hair trunk for a thousand sovereigns."

He never referred to High and Dry except as a hair trunk. Happily, High and Dry was impervious to insult, and anyway would not have recognized himself under that name.

A few days before the misadventure which ruined a perfectly good pair of tweed plus-fours— and it isn’t so funny being chased by underbred dogs as some of these comic artists pretend it is— the colonel had issued his challenge for the nth time. It was in the club, and it was thrown over a chota peg, or, alternatively, a whisky-and-soda, before every other colonel in the club, and Frank had replied deferentially:

"I quite agree, Colonel. I think I was very lucky to win. Certainly I don’t want to beat your horse again."

"I should jolly well say you wouldn’t," said the colonel, and added, almost unneccessarily: "I should jolly well say you wouldn’t!"

Mr. Mortimor knew that he was being a hypocrite and a liar; be believed that High and Dry could give Saparino a stone and lose him. He believed his horse could make rings round Saparino, and, if necessary, oblongs and parallelograms. He believed that if he matched his horse at level weights against Saparino bookmakers would refuse to pay. After all, there is a limit to every bookmaker’s sense of benevolence. He had never been so challenged or had heard a more disparaging remark about High and Dry, but he did not offer a sycophantic agreement.

It was unfortunate that both horses were more or less in the same class; more unfortunate that they were generally entered for the same race, because it meant that, for peace and quietness’ sake, High and Dry never ran, though he had one or two races at his mercy, and the colonel used to greet Frank in the High Street, or on the golf links, or at the club, with a sneer.

"I see you are not running that hair trunk of yours. By gad, you are wise!"

And Mr. Frank Mortimor used to smile sadly; and even the fact that Saparino invariably finished down the course, after his initial display of brilliance, did not cheer him.

They walked slowly up the long hill leading to Cliff Head, the girl and the young man, with their four-footed chaperon ambling behind them, occasionally stopping to exchange a few angry words with dogs of smaller stature, and never once getting into the way of taxicabs and motor-cars, which were fairly plentiful.

He was a desperate young man and in a dangerous mood. His trainer had telephoned him that morning, with tears in his voice, begging him not to scratch High and Dry for a small steeplechase at Gatwick, and Frank had recklessly determined that the horse should run.

Mr. Bates and Mr. Tookes met to discuss a plan of campaign.

"Costyermore is in a race—" began Mr. Bates.

"Call him Saparino," said Mr. Tookes, and added dramatically and untruthfully: "Walls have ears."

"Well, he’s in this Gatwick race. I put him in the seller. I can get all the money in the world on him on Friday, and we ought to make a killing."

"What about this horse of Mortimor’s?" asked Tookes.

Mr. Bates smiled.

"Don’t make me laugh," he said. "Every time we’ve run against him our horse has had his head pulled off. Natty Andrews rides."

Now, a lot of money can be taken out of the bookmaker’s offices if a coup is cleverly organized, and Mr. Tookes was a great organizer. He had opened accounts all over the country, and an hour before the race he superintended the despatch of some six hundred telegrams, all of which supported Saparino for a small amount.

He did not go near the racecourse; Mr. Bates attended to that side of the business. He was ably assisted by the colonel, who did everything except ride the horse.

Frank Mortimor had no doubt as to the result. He went down with Mr. Ferdinand Marsh, a friend of his, who was on a brief visit from Paris.

Now, Mr. Marsh was, by all standards, a fool, but he had one great gift: he knew horses apart. The difference between one horse and another was as distinct to him as the difference between a tall, dark man and a blue-eyed milkmaid, and, watching the preliminary canter, he gasped.

"What horse is that?" he asked.

"That is Saparino," said Frank, with a wry smile. "He belongs to a— um— the parent of a friend of mine."

Ferdinand Marsh fixed his glasses on the animal.

"Saparino be blowed!" he said. "That is a horse called Costyermore. He belonged to one of the biggest rogues in Australia."

"He won’t beat mine," said Frank with confidence.

"Yours won’t see the way he goes," said Mr. Marsh, and plunged into the ring.

Saparino won by twenty lengths. The judge said it was ten, but he hadn’t a board with twenty on it.

Ferdie came back jubilant.

"It’s no business of mine," he said dishonestly. "I should, of course, go to the stewards and tell them all about it. But charity, old boy, begins at home."

Frank was perturbed.

"Do you seriously mean that this horse is what they call a ringer?"

Ferdie nodded. Then he caught sight of Mr. Bates hurrying towards the unsaddling ring and buttonholed him, and Mr. Bates, who knew him slightly, wilted.

"You infernal scoundrel—" he began.

Mr. Bates stared at him for a moment, wrenched himself free and ran. In moments of crisis he invariably did the wrong thing.

"I suppose I must go and tell these bat-eyed stewards the truth," said Ferdie; but an agitated young man detained him.

"If you do," he said, "there’s going to be trouble for the Colonel. The dear old gentleman will be warned off, and we can’t allow that."

They walked to a quiet corner of the paddock, and Frank told his companion the cause of his embarrassment. They were going slowly back to the enclosure when the infuriated colonel came striding towards them.

"Where’s that infernal villain? " he said. "This horse has been sold! Going into Lambury’s stable— three hundred and twenty guineas!"

He knew nothing about selling races; he had not realized that a horse that wins an event of this character is immediately sold by public auction, and whilst he was receiving the congratulations of his friends the tragedy had happened; the horse had gone out of his possession.

To buy it back from Mr. Lambury was an impossibility. Frank offered fabulous sums to that phlegmatic young trainer, but each increased sum was received with a smile and a shake of the head. Lambury’s patrons were rich; the winter favourite for the Derby was in his stable. Money, as he said a little sententiously, was no object.

That night Ferdie and Mr. Mortimor conspired together in Frank’s little flat in Half Moon Street.

"I’ve seen the Colonel and he’s in a terrible state. He says that if he’s warned off he’ll lose his O.B.E. and everything. He’s willing to do anything."

"Did you ask him for the girl?" said Ferdinand romantically.

"No, but he’s going to poison the dog. This horse must be got out of England before they discover the truth about him— and I’m going to get him out."

Lambury’s stables were on Salisbury Plain. Frank knew them well: a straggling collection of wooden sheds, very easily accessible. He went down the next day and pursued cautious enquiries. He saw the horse, sheeted and hooded, brought back, and through a pair of field-glasses saw it stabled in the most isolated of the buildings. There had been coughing in the stable, he learned from a tout, and those horses that had escaped the malady were housed in positions remote from the main run of boxes.

"Hard luck on Lambury," said the tout. "With Tinkersprite in the stable— he’ll win the Derby by ten minutes, mark my words!"

Frank was not interested in Tinkersprite. That night he and his confederate stole up to the box, forced the fastening and led out a horse who seemed quite surprised to find himself under the stars. They led him across the plain, avoiding villages, to where a horse-box was waiting, driven by Frank’s own chauffeur. It was not till they had left Shrewton behind and were nearing Newbury that either man spoke.

"That’s that," said Frank. "I’ll take him down to my own stable in the country and keep him there for a month or two, and then we’ll ship him somewhere."

Ferdie drew a long breath.

"I’m beginning to realize it was rather unfortunate that I went to Gatwick," he said. "I’m leaving by air mail for France this morning."

He did not even wait to see the horse unboxed, but streaked up the Bath Road in the darkness before the conveyance had entered the stable yard of Frank Mortimor’s establishment at Maidenhead.

The colonel was there, an agitated and incoherent man.

"I wish I’d never seen the beastly horse," he wailed. "If this gets out everybody’s going to cut me."

"Don’t worry," said Frank brutally. "The gaoler won’t cut you when he brings you your morning skilly." They put the horse in the stable, sent the box back to the contractor from whom it had been hired, and the colonel and Frank drove to London together. Honore was waiting for them at the hotel, and they had a solemn thanksgiving in the little sitting-room where breakfast had been laid.

"At the same time," said the colonel, "you must agree that I wasn’t far wrong. The moment I saw that horse in the shafts of that milk-cart I said to myself t ‘Here’s a bit of blood!’ "

"Thank goodness it’s all over," said Honore. "I’ve had a terrible night."

The colonel smiled.

"You know, my dear, it takes an old soldier to stand that sort of racket. Don’t think I’ve done with horses— I haven’t. I shall have a Derby horse one of these days "

A waiter came in at that moment with the prosaic bacon and eggs. He laid on the table the last edition of a morning paper.

"That’s a bit remarkable, isn’t it, sir?" He was an English waiter and therefore had no manners.

"What is remarkable?" asked the colonel fiercely.

"About that horse being stolen,"

They looked at each other guiltily.

"Is it in the paper?" faltered Honore.

"Naturally," said the waiter. "They can’t pinch a Derby favourite without everybody knowing it."

Frank did not swoon. He took the paper with a hand that shook so slightly that it was hardly noticeable to anybody who was not looking at him. There was the headline: "Mysterious Affair on Salisbury Plain. Tinker-sprite, Winter Favourite for the Derby, Stolen in the Night."

The waiter went out. Frank handed the paper with extravagant politeness to his future father-in-law.

"I think you said you would have a Derby favourite one of these days?" he said. "Well, you’ve got it!"

Six months had passed since the Derby favourite had mysteriously vanished from Salisbury, and had as mysteriously appeared on Chobham Common. The Derby was won and lost. Messrs. Bache and Tookes were living riotously on their ill-gotten gains in a select hotel near Vienna, when the colonel came briskly into the breakfast-room at Whisbury, where a newly married couple were talking, as lovers do, about the rotten weather, and, throwing down his gloves and his hunting-crop (he always carried a hunting-crop, even when he was inspecting trousers), said:

"I saw a nice piece of horseflesh in a baker’s cart to-day— by gad, he looks a snorter I"

Frank fingered a cut-glass ash-tray thoughtfully. Honore leaned forward and laid her hand gently on his arm.

"Don’t kill daddie to-day," she said. "It’s Friday."

___________________

3:  The Pedlar In The Mask

The Grand Magazine, Sep 1921-Feb 1922

ARTHUR CONFORT was a young man with a red face and an instant, confident smile. When to the smile and the confidence of manner he added a certain amused, compelling stare, he was very dangerous to women, who were not quite certain whether they liked or loathed him. He had a high forehead and reddish hair and he was slightly bald where men go bald most easily.

Meredith hated him; he had the same effect upon that student as a knife edge scratched along a plate. There was something obscene in his self-complacency; something appalling in his ruthless tenacity of purpose. His insensitiveness to snub or insult left Meredith feeling like a baffled child with whom someone stronger had taken an unfair advantage.

And Meredith Porter had tried hard to stifle his sentiments and cultivate the man. He had glued down his hackles, so to speak, and had even sought his advice on finance— for Arthur had inherited three woollen mills, was immensely rich and reputedly a shrewd man of business.

"Tell you how you can make a lot of money?" guffawed Mr. Confort a trifle scornfully. "Good Lord, that’s easy! Buy cheap and sell dear. I’m surprised at you, Porter— an authority on economics asking that! What you are doing"— he tapped the other’s chest with his long forefinger—"is buying dear and selling cheap! Your education cost you thousands— you won’t get back the purchase money in twenty years. That’s bad business. I’m a man for bargains, Porter— I can’t resist ‘em. Give me something that is worth more than I pay and I fall for it every time. What do you do? Spend money on new books that when you sell you’ll get ten per cent, for; spend money on University courses to retail to kids at a beggarly wage. That’s what is wrong with you— you’ve bought highbrow education which nobody wants to buy "

And all the time he spoke Arthur Confort was smiling as if at a wonderful jest. For he was the kind of man who rattled the money in his pocket and found joy in the envy of the unfortunate.

Meredith Porter remembered this conversation a long time afterwards, and particularly he recalled it one evening in late October.

The situation and the hour encouraged the flow of long-inhibited reminiscence. As the day faded on the lake a spangle of stars carpeted the earth where Montreux was, and at the foot of Grammont the windows of Bouveret showed in yellow specks of fire.

Up in Caux, terraced and aloof, there was no sign of light or life, for the vast hotels were closed and the folk of the village go early to bed in the off-season, which is from October to December. Already the snow-sprinkled scarp of Rochers de Naye was wreathed in cloud, which would presently sink lower and lower, until Caux lay hidden in fog, and then Glion, and Anally to the margin of the lake the mist would glide, covering the floor of the Rhone valley and leaving Caux exposed like an island in a white and shifting sea of cloud.

Meredith, who sat on the hillside watching the lights below, was sufficiently acquainted with all the physical peculiarities of the country to be able to judge within a few minutes how long his view would remain uninterrupted. He was in a condition of mind which made him inferior to the incidence of natural phenomena. A year ago he would have said "superior", but now all that was in the world had so got on top of him that he would salute gravely the first pine tree and grudge its independence. The clumsily built cowman puffing at his long pipe as he shuffled down the hill-road was a magnate and a happy pasha, for did he not possess the right to enter and bolt a door of his own and give his lordly orders to a woman who was his body and soul?

As for Meredith Porter, save the clothes he wore (for which he had never paid his tailor), and the small grip that rested by his side (the property of the stout hostess of the Villa Marina, if everybody had their due, for she could have seized it in lieu of payment, but for her kind heart), he was without worldly property. Nor had he a spiritual lien on so much as a hope of improved circumstances. A Master of Arts of the University of Cambridge, the author of two small text-books on economics; the son of a bishop who had died with a deserved reputation for philanthropy which had been earned at the expense of his heir, Meredith had gravitated to Switzerland and to the University of Lausanne. Partly because he liked Switzerland, and partly because Margaret Campbell had looked first one way and then another, plucking the flowers at her waist until there was nothing but a wreckage of bedraggled stems and in the end had said she was sorry he felt like that because she could never be anything more than a good friend.

In a country where gambling is confined to a ridiculous table game where the stakes are limited to five francs and the happy winner is paid six-to-one on an eight-to-one chance, it seems fairly impossible for a man to ruin himself at the tables. But men have been ruined at penny pitch-and-toss, and Meredith Porter lived so close to the border-line of insolvency that he was destroyed by the loss of a thousand francs. For the thousand francs was due to his lodging-house keeper and other little leeches of life, and when he did not pay, the usualreclamation went to the principal of the faculty. Meredith lost his job. Loth to leave the country, he took an assistant mastership at a "school for young English and American gentlemen". The proprietor offered good wages but never paid them. He was an authority on Intermediate Hydrostatics, Functions, Complex Variables, Harmonic Oscillations. He drank neat whisky whilst he was awake, but he never paid anybody anything unless they came to him armed with the draft of a Procès Verbale.

Meredith took a consumptive student to coach in the mountains. The student died and his tutor paid the funeral expenses. When he notified the boy’s father he learned by wireless that the parent had feared the worst but was on his way to America. He would settle everything when he returned. In the meantime, the shabby tutor with the grave brown face was himself settled and had started to walk to Montreux, where he knew a man who was almost as badly off as himself, though from a different cause.

"Buy something cheap and sell it at a profit," he murmured, twisting in his absent way the queer signet ring on his little finger. He looked down at the gold with a whimsical interest. It stood for fortune, a bed, possibly a third-class fare to somewhere or other, and yet he hated to sell it or its fellow. He took the latter from his waistcoat pocket. The two rings had been made at his father’s order and they were identical in shape, weight and design. The flat surface of the seal was an intaglio representing a tree with a sword at its base. Its exact meaning he did not know, and his father had never told him. Probably the design had some esoteric significance known only to the bishop and his wife.

Meredith sighed as he put away his dead mother’s ring. That he would never sell. As to the bishop— well, it was rather surprising that he had not presented it to some whining lout with a long tale of woe calculated to stir the lord bishop’s easily moved sympathies.

"Why do bishops wear knee-breeches?" somebody asked him once, and Meredith had answered:

"Because, if they are like my father, they have given away their trousers."

He looked up quickly as a wreath of white smoke drifted past him and jumped to his feet. The clouds were down to his level. He found his way into Glion laboriously and paid one of his few francs for a ticket to Montreux-— the road was too tricky on so thick a night.

The fog had blotted out Montreux station and there was danger in crossing the line, but he had asked his friend to meet him on the northern-bound platform. The fog was now so dense that he had literally to feel his way — a white, clinging fog it was, more impenetrable than the brand they get in London.

He heard voices; the bark of porter to porter, the sound of a boy whistling in the street below, the clatter of coffee-cups from the Café Suisse, then more voices, trembling in their restrained anger.

He stopped and listened and slowly the colour went out of his face and his heart began to beat thunderously.

IT was in the middle of December that Margaret Campbell, sitting in her Hampstead drawing-room, heard the door open and, looking up, came to her feet, such a colour in her cheeks that Meredith Porter’s soul vacillated between fear that he had angered her, and joy that his return had pleased her.

"Why, Meredith!" she gasped, her eyes shining. "You wonderful man— whatever has happened?"

She had never seen him dressed so well or carry himself with such an air.

"It wasn’t you who came in that beautiful car that passed the window?" she asked incredulously, and when he nodded: "Meredith!"

"It is queer, isn’t it?" he laughed. "I hope you aren’t annoyed by the majestic splendour of it?"

"But what has happened, Meredith?"

Her undisguised enthusiasm for his success touched him not a little.

"I’m in business," he said good-humouredly. "Disproving the theories of plutocratic Mr. Confort "

Then he saw a shadow on her face and arrested his speech.

"You aren’t engaged to him, are you?" he asked bluntly. His voice sounded hollow even to himself.

She nodded.

"Yes— yes, I’m engaged."

"To that— to Arthur Contort?"

The colour was deepening in her cheeks, but it was not the impertinence of his tone that distressed her.

"Are you— fond of him, Margaret?"

She did not answer at once.

"I think I am," she replied. "Sometimes I think I’m not. I suppose all girls have their doubts about marriage."

A pause, then:

"I suppose they have," he said steadily, and she looked up at him with an obvious effort.

"You’ve been hearing ... stories about Arthur?" she challenged him. He shook his head, but she went on quickly: "People hate other people who are well off. ‘Malice loves a shining mark’— isn’t that the proverb?"

"Yes, that is the proverb," agreed Meredith. "And I suppose Confort is a shining mark— nothing is quite so resplendent as burnished gold "

He stopped here and laughed ruefully.

"I’m being cattish," he admitted, "but I really wasn’t referring to his"— he nearly made a reference to Arthur Confort’s copper-red hair, and amended his speech to —"material attributes. So long as you love the lad, why, here’s good luck to you both."

It lacked heartiness, this pious wish, but more serious than his insincerity was her knowledge that she did not wish him to think that she loved the man to whom she was engaged, and that his acceptance of her forthcoming marriage as inevitable aroused an aching sense of dismay. It required a greater effort to turn the conversation into bypaths.

"Now that you are home and prosperous, Meredith," she smiled, "l am going to be a horribly suburban society-lady and invite you to the church bazaar. And I’ll promise you a thrill."

He made a little grimace.

"Church bazaars do not, as a rule, thrill me," he said.

"I suppose it is the usual thing in aid of the insolvent organ? All church organs are insolvent."

What puzzled the girl was the new strength in him. It was revealed even in his mild cynicism. The Meredith she had known was an irresolute being behind whose most definite statements had lurked a furtive diaphoresis. That quality of incertitude had been present even in his proposal to her. She was the kind that needed a tempest of love to sweep her from her foundations; Meredith had wooed in zephyrs and had assailed her with summer breezes.

"Now, tell me what miracle has happened," she demanded. "Was it a long-lost uncle who died in Australia, or a lottery ticket, or did you save the life of a millionaire?"

He smiled.

"Neither," said he. "I tell you that I have upset all your fiance’s philosophies and my fortune is based on my practice of buying dearly and selling cheaply."

"Then you are in business?"

He nodded.

"Where? Oh, please don’t mystify me!" she said with an impatience which was only half assumed. "You’re like the masked pedlar!"

He sat back in his chair and stared at her.

"Now I am the mystified person," he said. "Lead me to the story of the masked pedlar."

This individual had been the feature of a big bazaar which had been held in Hampstead during the previous week. On the eve of the bazaar’s opening the organizing committee had received a letter from one who signed himself "Philanthropist". He wished to peddle gold rings at the bazaar. They were worth exactly ten times the price he charged, and the proceeds of his sales would be handed to the committee for charitable purposes.

"And the queer thing about it was," said the girl impressively, "that when he came, he actually sold these wonderful gold rings for five shillings each!"

"Real gold?"

She nodded.

"We afterwards discovered that he had been doing this sort of thing at seven or eight bazaars in various parts of the country. They are worth twenty times the amount he charges. At first the people at St. Mildreds— that was the church— wouldn’t buy at all. They thought there was some swindle in it— of course, nobody believed the rings were of gold. They were men’s rings, and he refuses to sell to women— in fact, they are all too big for the average girl’s finger. And he’s coming to our bazaar."

Meredith Porter looked at her thoughtfully.

"Why do you call him the masked pedlar?" he asked needlessly.

"Because he wears a mask," she replied. "He always comes by taxi and is dressed from head to foot in black. Some people think he is _____"

She named a famous millionaire.

"I am indeed thrilled," said Meredith, "and almost you persuade me to attend your organized robbery."

"Almost?"

He laughed.

"I am due in Paris," he began.

"You don’t even know when the bazaar takes place," she said scornfully, but to her surprise he named the date without hesitation.

"You see, Margaret," he explained, "there is a big poster stuck on a board— and very badly stuck— planted in your garden, so that passers-by may look and read. No, I shan’t be here on Tuesday, but I will give you a little contribution to keep the poor old organ on its feet."

He took out a cheque-book and a fountain-pen and wrote quickly, and she watched him in wonderment.

"A hundred pounds!" she gasped as she read the cheque. "But, Meredith, can you afford to give away all this?"

This time his smile was hard.

"I can afford to give away everything in the world except you."

He was gone before she could think of an appropriate reply.

Her father came in just as the car was disappearing down the drive. Julius Campbell was a large man with a long golden beard which was at once his pride and anxiety, for of late the gold had lost something of its brightness and he had detected hairs that graded from red to grey.

"Who was that, my dear?" he asked, and peered myopically through the window.

"Meredith Porter."

Her father had an irritating trick of dropping his chin to his broad chest and looking from under his bushy eyebrows whenever he was surprised or pained. He was both surprised and pained to learn of Meredith Porter’s return.

"The bad penny has turned up," he said. "Really, Margy, my love, I do not think that that acquaintance is — what shall we say?— very desirable."

She did not express an opinion on this, and he continued:

"Arthur would, I am sure, echo my sentiments’to the letter. Did he want to borrow something?"

She was angry in an instant.

"When did Meredith ever borrow money from anybody?" she asked hotly. "He is not the kind of man who borrows..." Here she was on delicate ground, and he was already wincing ostentatiously. It was a favourite delusion of Mr. Campbell’s that he was sensitive.

"Meredith is in business and has a lot of money," she went on, "and speaking of Arthur, father, what is the truth of this story about an affair in Russia?"

Mr. Campbell waved the affair in Russia out of existence with a sweep of his large, white hands.

"Boys will be boys," he said complacently.

He was the only man Margaret had ever met who employed the worm-eaten tags of conventional usage with the conscious air of originality.

"He was a boy when he toured Russia, quite a boy.

I’m not so sure that there is anything in the story more than idle gossip, but if there is— well, you can’t set old heads on young shoulders, my dear. A man has to sow his wild oats "

" ‘And whatsoever a man sows that shall he reap’," she quoted ironically, and finding nothing in his stock which could suitably cap this, Mr. Campbell assumed his attitude of pained surprise.

He was a London woollen merchant who had traded for ten years with an eye to the comments which might be made by the officials of the Bankruptcy Department when his books came to be examined. Happily, Arthur Confort had come along in the capacity of manufacturer and wholesaler; more happy was the inspiration of Mr, Campbell to invite him to dinner at Hampstead.

Confort, who was already bored with his new acquaintance and had decided that the selling agency which he intended establishing in London could not be in worse hands than Mr. Julius Campbell’s, declined the invitation and would have persisted in his refusal to take "pot luck" (which meant a dinner elaborately arranged by telephone) but for the most happy circumstance of all, namely a glimpse of Margaret Campbell’s photograph which, heavily framed in gold, stood upon the big man’s desk.

"My little girl," said Mr. Campbell. "I hoped to have the pleasure of introducing her to you."

"What time do you dine?" asked Mr. Confort promptly, and there and then had begun a profitable friendship for Mr. Campbell.

"Has Meredith been saying anything about Arthur?" asked that gentleman.

She shook her head.

"Meredith said nothing," she said shortly. "He gave me a cheque for a hundred pounds for the bazaar fund "

"A cheque for a hundred pounds!" repeated the other, genuinely shocked. "Wherever did he get his money from?"

He added a few observations about money easily coming and easily going; remarked that all that glittered was not gold, and made a laboured exit.

She wondered why he had missed delivering his favourite conviction that kind hearts were infinitely superior to coronets and that simple faith had Norman blood beaten to a jelly. In her perturbed state of mind she was glad that she had the affairs of the bazaar to distract her attention from Meredith Porter.

There was little opportunity for seeing the masked pedlar at close quarters. From the moment he came into the crowded parish hall, with its bewildering array of stalls laden with cosies and cushions and tea-cloths and the thousand and one articles which earnest women manufacture in their spare time, he was surrounded by a clamorous crowd.

It was not until he was piloted by the burly vicar to a platform at one end of the building that she saw the man clearly. He wore a long black coat, tightly buttoned and looking rather like a priest’s cassock, a black felt hat and black trousers. A sombre touch were the black kid gloves he wore.

"I wonder who he is— the infernal mountebank!"

She had forgotten the presence of her lover and turned to meet his cold eyes. Somehow at that moment he seemed singularly unattractive to her. Why, she could not understand. He was not more blatant than usual; that masterful smile of his was only ordinarily offensive, but there must have been something in the atmosphere which aroused a dormant sense of rebellion against his being. She felt a desire to hurt him, which was not like her.

"I am surprised that you aren’t buying, Arthur," she said. "Isn’t a bargain more dear to you than life?"

It was the bargain of her engagement, a thought firmly repressed until that moment, which had angered her— she realized now what was the association of ideas. The masked pedlar and the bearded man who stood at the edge of the platform smiling fatuously were brother-tradesmen, only her father was profiteering on the deal which gave Arthur Confort the woman he wanted, in exchange for the advantage which would accrue to his business.

But her man was not susceptible to sarcasm.

"I suppose they are gold," he said, and edged nearer to the platform.

The face of the mysterious pedlar was hidden by a mask looped about his ears. His voice was gruff and obviously disguised.

"Who will purchase another of these superfine rings, every one of which I guarantee cost me three pounds ten to manufacture— no, madam, they are men’s rings— the price is five shillings. I ask only that the purchaser shall wear the ring himself— no, sir, I can only sell you one ring — you have already purchased one at the last bazaar I attended. Who will buy this last ring?"

A dozen hands went up and the masked man pointed to Arthur Confort, whose gesture was as emphatic as any.

"To you, sir," said the stranger gravely, "and that is all I have with me— I have disposed of seventy rings."

Arthur carried his purchase back to the girl, examining it curiously.

"It is weird, isn’t it?" he said, putting the shining gold circlet into her hand. "What is the design— it looks like a tree and a sword?"

She looked at the ring and nodded.

"A tree and a sword," she agreed. "Do they all bear the same mark?"

He made enquiries and came back to her with the information that the rings were all alike.

"You’d better keep it as a curio," he said, but she gave it back to him.

"That wouldn’t be fair; you promised him you would wear it— at least, those were the conditions under which he sold."

"Rubbish!" he said, and slipped the ring on his little finger.

He saw her home and found her less responsive to his amiabilities than she had ever been before. The wedding was to be a quiet one— he had stipulated for that, and it was one of his wishes that she was pleased to concede.

They came into the drawing-room together, and Mr. Confort was giving his views on a honeymoon tour when that almost savage sense of antagonism flamed up again.

"Arthur, I want you to tell me the truth about this story that people are telling of you— the story of the Russian girl."

Mr. Confort had many reasons for blessing the Russian Revolution. It was perfectly true that he had had an affair in Russia. He was in Moscow at the outbreak of war and extremely happy, but it was not the kind of happiness that was likely to last. The war cut short the sleepy days and hilarious nights, the gay supper-parties and— his very heavy responsibility.

Sometimes in the quietude of his room he speculated upon the possibility that Helda had perished with thousands of other members of the bourgeoisie in that terrific upheaval that shook society from its foundations. It was bitterly unfortunate for him that the Morleys were staying at the Bazar-Slav during the most hectic period of his introduction to Russian life. Mrs. Morley’s brother was an official at the British Consulate and she had come out to spend a red-hot summer with him.

"I suppose you’ve heard these yarns from the Morleys," he said with appropriate penitence. "I’ll own up, Margaret— there was a sort of an affair with a girl ... but that is all done with."

"And the girl— was she Russian?"

He nodded.

"There’s no sense in beating about the bush," he said handsomely. "I was very fond of her. She was the daughter of a police agent and rather a clever girl, too— spoke English as well as you or I. I was young and inexperienced ..."

"Thank you," said Margaret coldly. "Good night, Arthur."

"But, Margot, you aren’t going to punish me for a boyish escapade?"

She shook her head wearily.

"If by ‘punishing’ you, you mean breaking off the engagement, I am not," she said. "I’ve given my word, and I’ll be equally frank with you. I’ve known about this— this ‘boyish escapade’ for a long time."

"Then why the devil are you bringing it up against me now?" he asked indignantly.

She did not satisfy him.

It was queer, he thought, as he drove back to his suite in Cork Street, infernally queer, that the Helda business should be raised that night. For some extraordinary reason the piquant little face of the girl with her big black eyes and red lips had been in his mind for days. For no earthly reason that he could discover, unless it was that the thought of his approaching marriage—

He opened the door of his flat and stood stock still, staring.

The lights were burning in the tiny hallway; the door of his sitting-room was ajar, and that room also was illuminated. He had no servant and trusted nobody with the key of his flat.

Before he stalked into his room something told him what to expect. With his hand on the knob of the door he knew that it was Helda who was awaiting him. Nevertheless he met her dark, accusing eyes with a blank stare.

She was prettier than ever and more expensively dressed than he remembered.

A long sable coat covered her dainty figure and there was a flash of jewels from the white throat.

"Good God! Helda!" he gasped.

She flashed a smile at him.

"Aren’t you glad to see me, Arthur?"

"Helda!"

She nodded.

"You aren’t a bit pleased to see your little wife," she pouted.

"My— my wife," he stammered.

"Your wife— and am I not?" she demanded, leaning back in the armchair in which she sat and loosened her coat. "If marriage makes a girl the wife of a man, then I am your wife."

He could only gape at her— and gaping was ludicrous.

"How did you get in?" he asked lamely, and she laughed.

"Now please sit down, Arthur— I want you to help me.

"I can give you any money—" he began.

"I don’t want money." Her voice was almost sharp. "I want rest and peace after that— that hell I’ve been through. The commission has sent me to make enquiries, and after I have done my work I am my own mistress. And, Arthur, my heart has been one big ache for you all these years."

"But— but I’m going to be married," he blurted out, and her face went white.

"Married! You can’t ... you are married." In her agitation she went on fiercely in Russian, but stopped herself.

"It wasn’t legal— in Russia," he said, gaining courage. "Of course, I know I’ve been an awful villain—"

She had come to her feet and her dark eyes were regarding him sombrely.

"It was legal," she said simply, "but I understand, and—"

He saw her eyes suddenly fixed on his hand that rested on the table. First, there was a look of incredulity, then a frown of wonder. Before he realized what had happened she had seized his hand and was staring at the ring.

"Your ring!" she said in a whisper.

"I— I bought it from a fellow." He was glad of the diversion.

She dropped his hand and moved slowly to the door.

"I am glad you are a villain," she said simply. "It makes things so easy."

Before he could stop her, she was gone.

The nerves of Mr. Confort were not of the best. He spent the rest of the evening at his club, and returned to Cork Street at two o’clock in the morning.

He was not killed because he was somewhat the worse for drink. He stumbled as the two shots were fired, and the police, who came early on the scene, rushed him in an ambulance to the nearest hospital and his assailant to the nearest police station.

And the obliging constabulary took charge of his disordered flat, for there had been a most systematic search of his belongings during his absence at the club.

ALEXIS YUSALOV, charged at Bow Street with attempted murder and burglary, elected to make a statement.

"My name is Alexis Yusalov, and I am a Commissary of the Revolution. In October last year I was sent to Switzerland in pursuit of a man named Jacobs who had absconded from Moscow, taking with him 750,000 American dollars, the property of the Government, which had been set aside for propaganda work in the United States. I discovered Jacobs in Montreux and took possession of the money.

"Jacobs accompanied me to the station and begged me to use my influence with the Soviet Government to secure his pardon. The station was enveloped in a thick fog, and I had placed the bag containing the money at my side. Whilst I was upbraiding Jacobs for his treachery I heard a movement, and switching on an electric hand lamp I saw a hand grip the handle of the bag. I could not see the owner, but I had a distinct view of the ring which the thief wore. It was a ring with a design of a tree and a sword.

"Before I could grasp the man, my nearest hand being occupied by the lamp, he had taken the bag and disappeared into the fog, and every effort of mine to discover him was in vain. A week ago it was reported to me by an agent, who was married to Confort in Moscow on the 21st of June, 1914, that her husband wore that ring. I have since discovered that hundreds of rings bearing a similar seal are in existence. I declare that what I did as on my own initiative and that the Soviet Government is not in any way compromised. I am satisfied that a certain masked pedlar who has been selling these rings is the real thief and that he had employed this method of diverting suspicion from himself."

"What an extraordinary story!" said Margaret Campbell.

"Isn’t it?" Meredith’s voice was careless, but he was watching her.

"Do you know— and it is an awful thing to say," said the girl, knitting her forehead—"I’m glad the thief was never caught."

"So am I," agreed Meredith, and kissed her. He was very sure of himself in these days, and Margaret rather liked him that way.

_________________

4:  Mr. Jiggs Makes Good

The New Royal Magazine, No, 1, Dec 1930

MR. DENNY, of Lansfield, Hampshire, was impressed by riches. Men who talked in millions could hold him spellbound, though he himself had thought in millions all his life. If he had dared ...

There had been so many opportunities. The rubber boom, the steel boom, the American boom, even the faraway South African boom, and he had missed them all.

He was a tall, gaunt, forbidding man, and you might not suspect there was romance in his bosom, or that he was a dreamer who spent hours at his desk building up colossal fortunes, buying shipping lines and mining concessions, creating new systems of finance, piling billion on billion, and never quite knowing what to do with the monies when he had got them into the bank.

At the same time he never overstepped the boundaries which separate permissible extravagance of thought from that uncontrolled exercise of imagination which leads men to imagine they are Julius Caesar to the great amusement of the mental patients. He administered the little estate which brought him in twelve hundred pounds a year, and by careful saving and striving he was enabled to make a yearly trip to America.

It was here, in the vestibule of the Grand Foible Hotel, he had met Edward Castlemaine, and renewed and amplified the acquaintance later between New York and Cherbourg. Edward Castlemaine was young, virile, quick-witted, with an eye for beauty and opportunity.

He paid one visit to the little estate on the Hampshire coast, met Margaret Denny, took, as he admitted, the k.o. from her loveliness, courted her boldly and, to her, in a strange language, and half fascinated her. The other half might have made her surrender if it had not been for what Mr. Denny, a man given to cliches, referred to as an "earlier attachment". The half dwindled to a quarter and less. By the time she wore Mr. Castlemaine’s solitaire on her finger the earlier attachment met her when she came back from London after the engagement, and there was rather a tense little scene on the lawn that sloped down to the sandy beach. She was in tears before the interview had gone five minutes.

"I know it’s beastly of me, Jimmy, but daddy is so keen on it. He’s very rich, and he really is nice. And, Jimmy, you’re not going to be too dreadful, are you?"

He shook his head. He was a very wholesome young man, who farmed a hundred and fifty acres near by, not because he was a farmer, but because a well-meaning relative had presented him with the farm.

"He may be very charming, but he doesn’t look so to me— I’ve lived in America some time, and I know, as your father doesn’t know, the difference between an educated and an uneducated American. They’ve all got an accent which sounds odd to English ears, and Boston and the East Side sound very much alike."

There was a long and rather painful silence.

"He has got money," she said at last.

He nodded.

"Yes, he’s fairly well off, has a suite at the Ritz-Carlton— no— I haven’t been spying on him, I just happen to know. I saw you at supper there the other night and I wanted to kill him!"

Suddenly he held out his hand.

"We shan’t see each other again," he said, and was gone before she could remember all the things she intended saying. She said them the next day, when they met on the beach road.

They did not see each other again for quite a long time. It was three days before Christmas when Margaret made her decision, and, interrupting a gigantic steel merger that he was planning, walked into the study of her .father, closed the door behind her, and spoke a little breathlessly, more than a little fearfully. Mr. Denny was a terrifying parent.

"Nonsense! Rubbish!" he snapped. "He’s coming back for Christmas; you’ll be married on the twenty-eighth. Your trousseau’s ordered, practically everything is settled, and Lawson’s coming down to-morrow with the ante-nuptial contract. Don’t argue, Margaret; I won’t discuss it."

She had a different view, but he silenced her. "This man," he said impressively, "is giving up his business in America, living in Europe, and you’ll have a wonderful time."

"But I don’t love him," she said.

"Love!" said Mr. Denny, and he told her what love was. She gathered that it was made up of equal parts of stuff and nonsense.

"You have his engagement ring," he added with a lofty wave of his hand, for he was given to gestures which erred on the side of theatricality.

He was very much impressed by Mr. Castlemaine, and had had a letter that very morning announcing that his future son-in-law would be with him in a few days. More to the point, there was a very handsome draft on the Bankers’ Trust Company, to be expended on the trousseau. Mr. Castlemaine did not use exactly that expression; what he said was:

"Tell the little girl to burn it up."

That evening she took counsel with an attachment which was no longer earlier, but very present. And she was full of frantic and panic schemes, which began with the perfectly novel idea of running away with the man she loved, and ended, after many arguments and discussions of ways and means, in variations of the same interesting scheme.

"It is going to be perfectly ghastly," she said, with a little catch in her voice. Daddy’s inviting everybody to the house for Christmas Day. He has remembered that he hasn’t announced the engagement!"

Mr. Castlemaine was all for Christmas and the spirit of Christmas. He was a man with a certain genius for organization, and he had sat himself down in his handsome apartment on Riverside Drive and had elaborated a programme of festivities. The thought of Christmas in old-world surroundings brought a lump to his throat, for at the moment peace and security were as balm to his soul.

He had genuinely "fallen" for Margaret Denny; carried her photograph in his pocket-book; showed it to friends who if they failed to reach the right kind of ecstasy were liable to a slug in the jaw without preliminaries, and worse. Knowing this, they were ecstatic.

He was shaking the dust of the United States from his feet for ever, and saw himself, a veritable squire, wearing clothes appropriate to the position, living a calm, sweet life into which no rackets entered.

Margaret was to be one of the properties of serenity. He wrote to her by every mail, very brief, businesslike letters, and quite inoffensive, for he realized you couldn’t get raw with that kind of dame.

It was a curious fact that nobody in the United States called him Mr. Castlemaine; that is to say, nobody except the staff of the big hotel where Mr. Denny had met him. When he travelled, he was referred to as Mr. Castlemaine, but that happened to be one of his given names, for he had been christened and registered "Edward Castlemaine Haran".

Louis Capisti came down from Detroit and met a few choice friends in his apartment.

"Ed Haran is taking a powder on this outfit," he said. "There’s a woman in London he’s going to marry."

"He’s coming back in January—" began one.

"Forget it!"

Capisti and Haran were armed partners, bound together in the mutual bonds of distrust. Their business was a complicated one, and booze-running was only part of it. There were certain partnerships in other and less pleasant enterprises, and when Ed sold out to Capisti he did so with the promise that he and his gang would help to make it a success.

"What I ain’t done for that guy!" said Capisti. "Joe Sandis would have bumped him off years ago if it hadn’t been for me— hey?"

Joe Sandis was no friend of the Capistis and Harans. The three gangs had waged perpetual war before the frontiers of their territories had been delimitated.

"Joe would give a million dollars to know what we know," said Capisti, and they looked at each other.

Joe Sandis, the big Pole, would not have given a million dollars, or half a million dollars, for any kind of information, but he received with every evidence of satisfaction the scrawled note that came to him by mail, for Ed owed him four good men, killed in the execution of their duty, and one personal lieutenant who had been taken for a ride and whose body had been found huddled in a taxicab outside the city limits— and Ed Haran had the credit for the accomplishment.

This particular lieutenant had a brother; a stout, good-natured man, who looked like a commercial traveller. He was a professional killer, received a hundred dollars a week for bodyguard and general gang work, and gave no offence to anybody except the people he slew. He guarded liquor in transport, had his part cold-bloodedly in gang fights, had taken a couple of cracks at policemen, and had been twice tried, and twice acquitted, on murder charges.

A broad, red-faced man, with sandy hair, a twinkle in his eye, a man of no particular imagination, abstemious, a lover of fun, completely reliable— this was Jiggs Hennessey.

He came in obedience to the summons, sat on the edge of a chair, twirling his derby nervously, and listened to the big chief. Joe wasted no time in preliminaries.

"You remember the stiff who bumped your brother, Jiggs?"

Jiggs nodded and grinned.

"Sure— Ed?"

"Ed Haran," confirmed Joe. "He’s leaving by the Melantic. You been to Europe—?"

"Sure," said Jiggs, a man of few words.

"I’ve got all your transportation booked. You travel second-class. He travels first. Don’t let him see you or he’ll know you. If he gets on"— he emphasized the ‘if’—"you get him— hey?"

"Sure," said Jiggs.

"Maybe he won’t make the boat. Then you go off to Europe for a little trip, hey? Maybe we’ll get him. You just lay quiet, get busy at night, keep out of sight all day. He bumped your brother, Jiggs— didn’t give him a break."

"Sure," said Jiggs.

"If you get into a jam, jump ashore at Cherbourg. Here’s the address of a feller in that dump who’ll treat you right."

"O.K.," said Jiggs.

They handed him his transportation tickets and two thousand dollars, and Jiggs went home, packed two automatics and a blackjack, and in due course presented himself to the second-class steward and was shown his cabin.

Jiggs knew Ed pretty well; he knew Joe better, and was a little surprised, the first night out, when he saw Ed with two of his familiars, and dressed like a million dollars, pacing the first-class promenade deck. In a sense he felt a mild grievance against his employer. What looked like a pleasant trip was going to be a business after all.

He spent his days in bed, his nights in judicious reconnaissance. The first error he discovered, and rectified, was being a second-class passenger. There are certain restrictions which prevent a traveller in this class from exploring the holies of the superior accommodation. He saw the purser very early one morning, before Ed was up, and got himself transferred to the saloon.

He was a unique traveller in that he still had his meals in the second-class saloon, but the chief steward diagnosed this as an inferiority complex and saw nothing remarkable in the circumstance.

Otherwise, luck was against him. The boat ran into bad weather, and most of the passengers kept to their cabins, and the promenade deck at night was deserted. He had hoped Ed would come up for air, and, wrapped in a heavy ulster, he sat in a deck-chair on the darkest part of the deck waiting for miracles to happen. He had located Ed’s suite— he had a stateroom and a private sitting-room. The difficulty was the guard. The two men who were shepherding Ed to Europe never left him.

The boat reached Cherbourg late one night with nothing done. Jiggs was uneasy. A killing on the high seas could be expeditiously arranged. If he could get into Ed’s cabin and use his blackjack the thing would be easy. There were big let-down windows in the sitting-room through which a man could be pushed. But a killing in English waters, and within the operations of a law which hangs for murder ... that was different.

Whether he stood on the trap or made a getaway, this much was certain: he had been sent to get Ed, and he would get him if he hanged for it.

The boat left Cherbourg late at night, and went slowly across the Channel and passed more slowly up the Solent towards Southampton. About three o’clock in the morning he saw the two guards go up to the smoke-room. Ed was alone— it was his opportunity.

He slipped down to E deck. The alleyway was empty, and, pushing open the door of Ed’s cabin, he walked boldly in. The room was in darkness. He was reaching for the switch when something hit him. There was no pain; only he suddenly lost grip and went down to his feet.

"Bolt that door!"

The light was switched on. He looked up into the smiling face of Ed Haran, and with him, miraculously enough, were the two guards. They must have gone into the smoke-room, crossed to the other side of the boat and got back to the cabin before he had reached the deck.

"We’ve been waiting for you, Jiggs. Knew you were on the boat— one of your crowd tipped us off."

He stooped, picked up the gun which Jiggs had let fall, and threw it on the bed.

"You’re going to make a whole lot of trouble for me, son, and I hate trouble."

He nodded to one of the men with him, who grinned, put a brass handle into an opening below the window and turned till the glass was level with the sash. A cold wind blew in, but Jiggs did not feel it. Something wet was running down the side of his face; he was momentarily out.

The three men stooped and pulled him to his feet. He could not resist. His face scraped against the sash of the window, then his shoulder. He saw, dimly, the flicker of shore lights, then he felt himself dropping, dropping... Bitter coldness enveloped him, and he struck out mechanically.

MR. DENNY had one extravagance: a small speedboat. He would not have enjoyed even that, but that he mentioned to Mr. Castlemaine, on his last visit to England, that he wished he possessed such a luxury, and forthwith the speed-boat had appeared; and it had cost Mr. Denny the greater part of a hundred pounds to build a shed on the lawn’s edge for its accommodation, and to lay down rollers that would carry it to the beach and, at high tide, the water.

Being of an economical turn of mind, he had put this new structure to two uses: the shoreward half was a greenhouse, through which one passed to the boathouse proper. It was Margaret’s habit to go down early in the morning and collect’" such few blooms as were available for table decorations.

She came down a little earlier than usual, unlocked the greenhouse door, stepped in and stopped, paralysed with fear and astonishment; for, sitting on the concrete floor, his back to the closed door leading into the boathouse, was a man.

"It’s O.K., missie."

His broad smile reassured her. He seemed well dressed, so far as a man can be well dressed in a sodden silk shirt and trousers which, though wet through, still showed a gentlemanly crease.

"What do you want?" she asked breathlessly.

"Fell overboard— swam ashore."

She looked at him, her mouth and eyes wide open.

"Fell overboard? From a ship?"

He nodded and got up to his feet.

"How wide’s this sound?"

He was peering through the glass at the distant shore of the Isle of Wight.

"I don’t know— ten miles perhaps."

"I thought it was a hundred; I’ve been swimming all night."

There was an ugly-looking bump on the side of his head. He tapped this gingerly.

"Must have hit the ship," he said cheerfully.

"Are you a sailor?"

He considered this.

"No, I’m a passenger. That’s the whole trouble, miss. My passport and transportation tickets are in my baggage."

He told a story, a plausible, rather beautiful story, of how his wife had run away from him and had come to England, and how he was following her to persuade her to return to their little home in Baltimore for the sake of the child. He described the child, and tears came into his eyes as he enlarged upon her beauty.

"She ain’t strong, miss, and that’s a fact. It’s her I’m thinking of more than me...."

Not without profit had Jiggs been for two years associated with a con. gang.

Margaret listened, sympathizing, and, departing to the house, obtained a change of clothing, which, with the aid of a pair of scissors, and leaving certain buttons unfastened, he eventually made to fit.

She became his ally. The great point was that nobody must know he had arrived. There was to be no fuss, no bother. If he were found without a passport he would be turned back, probably charged before a judge, and the whole object of his visit to England would be ruined.

She got on the ‘phone to her earlier attachment and enlisted his help. Jiggs was driven to the farmhouse and politely received by a young man who had no reason to love America or its citizens. Here he was more suitably attired, for the young farmer employed men of greater girth than himself.

But the farmer was less gullible, and, recognizing a good scout, Jiggs told quite a lot of the truth. That he might not hurt the girl who had befriended him, he maintained the legend of the runaway wife and the golden-haired daughter who called incessantly for "mammie."

"Threw you overboard?" said the girl incredulously.

He nodded.

"Sure. Ed’s that kind. Say, that baby shot up a whole family once."

"But why did you go into his cabin?" asked the girl suspiciously.

"I wanted him and me to part friends," said Jiggs. "Says I to meself: ‘I’ll go and see that guy....’"

She considered the matter from the new angle.

"Perhaps Mr. Castlemaine could help you. He’ll be here to-morrow."

"Mr...?"

Not a muscle of the American’s face moved.

"Mr. Castlemaine. He’s an American gentleman a friend of my father’s."

"Is that so?" asked Jiggs thoughtfully. "Coming here!"

She sighed heavily, and Jiggs, who understood human nature and lived on it, began to speculate rapidly.

"Excuse me, miss; you ain’t going to marry him or anything, are you?"

The colour in her face told him something; she told him the rest.

"No— I was engaged to Mr. Castlemaine. Do you know him?"

"I’ve heard of him. He’s a big guy on the stock market, ain’t he?"

She wasn’t sure about this.

"A tall fellow about forty, I guess?" suggested Jiggs.

She told him exactly how old he was and how he appeared. Jiggs, who could have supplied certain photographic details, shook his head.

"I don’t know him. If I was you I wouldn’t say anything, miss. Maybe he’s one of that four hundred bunch, and they wouldn’t like you knowing a feller like me.

He looked from the man to the girl, and did some quick but accurate guessing.

"When is the wedding, miss?"

"There isn’t going to be a wedding," she said quickly, and then realized that she was being a little undignified in discussing this matter with a shipwrecked sailor.

She talked to the young man about the Christmas festivities, sketched out the programme, and Jim listened without appearing to listen. Father Christmas was coming from town: a gentleman from the stores who could look magnificent as St. Nicholas and could perform conjuring tricks and give impersonations of famous people at an inclusive fee.

She had a little private talk with the young man and outlined her own programme, which was both romantic and exciting.

He had a residential qualification in Marylebone, maintained a small flat which he let furnished when he was in the country, and on the strength of this qualification had secured the necessary special marriage licence. They would leave on the evening following Christmas Day, and the earlier attachment would become permanent.

Jiggs knew nothing of this. He spent the day inspecting the farm. That night he borrowed the flivver and drove to the vicinity of Mr. Denny’s house, and in the darkness of the night examined the speed-boat.

The next morning came the radiant Mr. Castlemaine, very boisterous, a little less cautious in his speech and his conduct, slapping Mr. Denny on the back and talking in millions. He was exhilarated, as he was entitled to be, for he was a very rich man, he was young, and he was going to be a squire. His agent had already paid a deposit on the Newland property.

He had brought presents, marvellous presents for the guests, little diamond brooches, trinkets of considerable value. Mr. Castlemaine believed in advance publicity.

Christmas morning was spent by Margaret in writing names on the tops of the little cardboard boxes in which the trinkets were disposed. She felt very guilty, almost as though she were a thief. The recipients of these presents would accept them under false pretences. But even this was less trying than Mr. Castlemaine’s increasing tenderness. She prayed for the day to pass.

"This St. Nicholas baby is O.K., I suppose? There’s five thousand dollars’ worth of presents in that basket."

Mr. Denny explained that Father Christmas would arrive, made up, in a closed car, and would be met by himself and taken through the french windows into the study. The study opened into the big dining-room, and would be used as a dressing-room, where the Spirit of Christmas would change his clothes and become the Spirit of Mystery, or, alternately, the Spirit of Impersonation. Father Christmas himself would be staying at the "Red Lion" at Chelsford, had already arrived and had enquired, querulously and a little thickly, about the conveyance that was to carry him to the place of entertainment.

He was a man who drank a little, but knew just when he had had enough. He told everybody this. He spent Christmas day drinking enough with a gentlemanly American he met by chance.

The jazz band came by char-a-banc from Southampton. It was, Mr. Castlemaine apologized to the guests, a bum band, but the best he could get. He said this in front of the orchestra, and they were amused, thinking he was facetious.

Nearly two hundred guests assembled that night. They came in limousines and in cars which could by no stretch of imagination be described as limousines; they turned bedrooms into cloakrooms, filled the house with deafening chatter, such interstices of silence as were left being filled with saxophonic disharmony distributed by the Blue Hungarian Jazz Band.

"It’s dreadful, isn’t it?" Margaret found time to speak to the earlier attachment.

"He’s dreadful," said the young man savagely. "If he paws you again I’m going "

"You’re going to do nothing of the kind; you’re going to be very patient and long-suffering. Where’s my shipwrecked sailor?"

"He’s gone up to town. He sent a most elaborate message to you which I didn’t quite understand. Apparently he’s been on the ‘phone to his wife; and went into Chelsford this afternoon and ‘phoned to her, and they’re reconciled. I lent him my Ford to take him to Chelsford."

Mr. Denny elbowed his way to her side. The earlier attachment he ignored.

"Into the dining-room, my dear, into the dining-room," he said testily. "The presents are to be given."

"Has he arrived?"

He did not answer, but took her by the arm and half dragged her through the press.

Father Christmas had indeed arrived. He had descended from the car Mr. Denny had sent for him, had been received by Mr. Denny himself, and led into the study. He was a jovial man with a white beard plentifully sprinkled with Epsom salts. His robe was red, the eyes that sparkled behind the frost-glittering glasses were humorous and kind.

Briefly Denny explained the routine. A great basket, decorated with holly and fluffy cotton-wool, was to be carried through the folding-doors into the dining-room at a signal— three loud taps on the panel. As he was explaining, Mr. Castlemaine came in and added his own instructions in his own picturesque and forceful language. Father Christmas listened and beamed.

"I’ll stay with this bird," said Mr. Castlemaine as he led his host out of the range of the saint’s large ears. "I don’t trust nobody, see?"

He was flushed, excited; he had drunk wine. His back-slapping had gained in force and frequency. He slapped Mr. Denny out of the room, then came back to the scarlet-clad figure.

He had to talk loudly because the band was justifying its cost.

"Now, listen—"

A hand shot out and gripped him between the collar of his shirt and his throat. A black-muzzled automatic covered his middle.

"Come outside, honey!" said Father Christmas.

"Like hell I will!"

The crash of a trap-drummer covered the three shots. Father Christmas caught his man as he sagged towards him, stooped, lifted him over his shoulder and walked out into the night. Jiggs was a strong man, and could even run across the lawn with his heavy burden.

He dropped the dead man with a crash into the bottom of the speed-boat, and with a push drove it down into the water. The band was still playing; nobody heard the staccato explosions of the engine as it started.

He wondered if the real Father Christmas, whom he had left unconscious in his room at the "Red Lion", would have to pay for the glad clothes he was wearing and which would soon be bundled into the sea.

Stooping, he relieved the late Mr. Castlemaine of all his portable property and stuffed it into his own pockets.

It was crazy of a man to carry all that money, anyway.

Not till he was well out to sea and had left the Needles astern did Jiggs lift his victim and heave him over the side. Then he looked up at the stars and remembered what day it was.

"Well, well, well!" said Jiggs. "Ain’t this a merry Christmas!"

And he headed his boat full speed for the coast of France.

_________________________

5:  The Trimming Of Sam

The Happy Magazine, May 1923

SOMEBODY saw Long Sam in the smoking-room of the Mauretania the day before she reached Southampton. It was Jake Feld, who worked the liners nine months in the year and ran a little game at Palm Beach for the other three months. And in all the circumstances, and being the possessor of a few rags of conscience, he felt it incumbent upon him to offer a few words of advice.

"Not been over to Europe lately, have you, Sam?"

The tall, lean-faced man took his cigar from his mouth and eyed his questioner thoughtfully.

"Why, no, Jake, I haven’t been over in years," he said. "But it seems to be Europe’s turn. Anyway, this is a pleasure trip," he added as an afterthought.

Jake, that wise manipulator of the pasteboards, was not impressed.

"There are certainly pickings, but the game is much more dangerous now than it ever was before. Lee Brown came over with us last trip, and had to borrow money to get his fare back. The London crowd skinned him."

Long Sam resumed his cigar and puffed away in silence.

"They won’t skin me," he said complacently. "The diamond ain’t mined that can scratch me. What’s the trouble in Europe, anyway?"

"Everybody’s broke. There’s no money in England, and that’s the only country where money’s real," said Jake. "The poverty of the sucker class is little short of a national scandal. Even on these boats, the only people you can get money from are the Los Angeles crowd, and they’re gradually going broke too."

Long Sam had a habit of indulging in extended reveries, and it was a considerable time before he spoke.

"There is an old and a trite saying," he said slowly, "that one is born every minute. Though I admit they take a long time to grow up. From your point of view, Jake, the outlook is certainly bad, because you only sell one class of goods, which is a line of talk designed to inculcate in the human heart a touching confidence in the honesty of mankind. I run two lines—" Here Jake interrupted him.

"Listen, Sam," he said quietly, "there’s a girl passenger on her way back to England, who lost over seven hundred pounds in notes the other night, when the concert was on in the saloon. Her cabin is about two from yours."

Still Jake smoked comfortably.

"Passengers should place their valuables in the care of the purser," he recited. "There are notices up all over the ship. If you break the rules you pay."

"Now come across, Sam! You don’t want to rob a kid? It was the money her father left her before he died, and it’s all she’s got in the world."

"Lend me a handkerchief," said Sam. "I want to cry! Stories like that always have a bad effect on me. This ship’s full of officers and button-men, whose job it is to look after the passengers, and I guess that when we reach Southampton they’ll be having a few stray bulls or two who’ll be ready to go through the passengers’ kits. Don’t you butt in, Jake, unless you’ve gone over to the police. Judging from the game I saw you sitting in the other night, the great reform movement hasn’t struck you. Maybe I’ll be seeing you at the Boddington; I usually drift in there; and we’ll continue this little talk."

There was in London a junior reporter whose name was Thomas Henry Minter, who was called by his intimates "Spike". He had two good qualities— a sense of news value and a sense of humour. His principal drawback, both from his own and from every other standpoint, was his chronic impecuniosity. Spike was paid monthly in advance, and nobody ever knew what he did with his money. Thrifty young sub-editors, with young families, could not understand why Spike was always broke in the middle of the month. Hoary-headed news editors, knowing the salary that Spike received, offered many libellous explanations as to the destination of his salary. Only other young reporters of Fleet Street could offer an accurate explanation. Spike’s money was always bespoke. There was the invariable landlady, the inevitable tailor, the club bills, the little accounts that run up at hosiers, and his season ticket inevitably expired the week when he had least money and least prospect of finding any.

Towards the middle of every month, the finances of Spike became shaky, and in these circumstances he invariably borrowed from the one man in the world who hated lending, even though Spike returned the loan punctiliously on the first of the month.

Gussie Thorpe had been to the same school as Spike, but they lived in different streets. Gussie had a flat in Park Lane and a house in the country. He owned a motorcar for every day of the week and a yacht for Sunday. His father had been a merchant prince, or a captain of industry, or a bloated capitalist, according to the political standpoint from which you viewed it. He had made soap, and he had died rich and respected. And there were stained-glass windows to his memory in a real cathedral.

There was never a moment when Gussie wanted to see Spike.

"I’ve a position to keep up," he was in the habit of saying to his intimates. "Spike, being a reporter, has no position at all. I know he’s a reporter, though I’ve never seen him report. And I’m always meeting him! That’s the curse of it. Last year at Ascot there was Spike waiting for me outside the Royal Enclosure with a Press ticket on his coat, ordering me to go and find out if the Duke of Menthel’s horse was going to win!"

Gussie was dressing for dinner when the footman arrived, not even with a card, but with the bald announcement that Spike was below.

"Tell him I’m not in, you fool!" hissed Gussie.

"I’ll tell him," said Spike, entering nonchalantly.

"I wish to heaven you wouldn’t do it, Spike," said Gussie irritably. "It upsets the servants, dear old thing."

"What are you dolling yourself up for?"

"I’m going to meet some people," said Gussie shortly. "And, I say, old boy, don’t come round the day after tomorrow: I shall be away. My cousin’s coming back from America, and she’s a deuced nice girl; and naturally, if she sees me— I mean, if she sees you— I mean, if you’re hanging about—"

"Shurrup!" said Spike vulgarly. "Lend me a fiver till the end of the month, Gussie, and I swear I won’t barge in upon your young romance. What’s she like?"

"She’s beautiful," said Gussie enthusiastically. "Beautiful blue eyes and hair like old gold. She’s what I would describe as flower-like."

"Then you’re silly," said Spike, who was an oracle in such matters, "for there was never a flower that took kindly to a cabbage. Do I understand that this is a serious engagement?"

Gussie smiled complacently.

"Well, the truth is, old man, that at present she’s not frantically keen on me."

"It’s your face," said Spike solemnly. "Change your face, then she’ll marry you all right. Naturally the girl wants someone to look at through life."

"What’s the matter with my face?" demanded Gussie wrathfully.

"I’ve often wondered," said Spike, and held out his hand. "Lend me a fiver till Saturday night."

"I’m sorry, old thing. I’ve only got a pound in my pocket."

"I’ll take it," said Spike, who never let an opportunity get past without braining it.

He wanted that pound very badly. There were certain little loans that had to be discharged, and he came to the office the next day almost as impecunious as he had been when he left it on the previous evening. He had hardly got into the reporters’ room before the news editor sent for him.

"Spike," said that worthy, "I’ve got a really good story for you, but you’ll need to use all your tact and judgment and good sense."

"What is more important than a good story or good judgment," said Spike firmly, "is good money, and that’s what I want."

He leaned over the editor’s desk, his hard felt hat on the back of his head, and on his bronzed, lean face an expression of utter weariness.

"You’ve heard of Long Sam, the American crook? If you haven’t, you’ll find something about him in the library. Dig out the cuttings."

"I’ve heard a lot about good money since I joined this staff," said Spike patiently, "but I can’t say that I’ve seen much of it. Maybe this money shortage that is splashed this morning is responsible, and—"

"We’ve got the tip from our New York man that he’s here," said the dense editor at the desk; "and, so far as I can tell, none of our own police knows about it. Go down and meet theMauretania; you’ll have ample time before the boat leaves to get acquainted with somebody who’ll put you on to him. And if you want to make a little extra money, get a two-column story out of him for our Sunday edition."

"I’m not so much concerned about the extra money," said Spike, "as any little sum— hark at me talking about little sums when I really mean a lot!— any big sum that you can recommend Scrooge to hand out. That cashier of ours is a gold hoarder. He winces at every penny you take from him. Give me an order that’ll make him howl, Mr. Branksome. Anyway, I shall have to have some money," he said in a more serious tone. "I can’t go fooling about on a first-class ocean liner, making enquiries, bribing stewards, dropping diamond necklaces here and there, so to speak, unless I’ve got "

The news editor scribbled a note on a sheet of paper and handed it to him, and Spike read with pain the amount that the cashier was authorized to advance on account of expenses.

"How far can a man go in society on a pound?" he asked bitterly. "It isn’t as though I was going to Ascot or to do a Royal wedding. This is an expensive trip, and a pound goes about as far in Southampton as an ice-cream in the tropics. Make it a fiver,"he wheedled; but the news editor, who had listened, stony-faced, to generations of reporters pleading for expenses, waved him forth.

Spike had the good fortune to catch the special train that was on its way to meet the boat, and he had hardly stepped on to the quay when the huge bow of the Mauretania came slowly round the end of the dock, and, pushed and pulled by a fleet of tugs, drifted majestically to her berth.

As soon as the gangways were connected he made his way to the purser’s cabin, and that gentleman, who had met Spike before, beckoned him urgently into the privacy of his inner office.

"There’s been a robbery on the ship," he said, "and I don’t want you to make too much of a song about it. A young lady had seven hundred pounds stolen from her the night before last."

"Who are you carrying?" asked Spike, interested.

"The usual crowd. Jake Feld is the card man, and it wouldn’t be him, because he’s not the sort of bird who’d rob a cabin. There’s another fellow. Do you know a man named Steedman?"

Spike shook his head.

"I’ve got an idea that he’s known on this side; and from a hint I’ve had dropped, I should say that he had something to do with this robbery. I’ve had his cabin searched while he’s been on deck, and I’ll get the Customs to run over him when he lands, but he’s too clever a fellow to have the stuff on him."

"You haven’t by chance a man called Long Sam— the other names are various?" Spike reeled off a dozen of them.

The purser shook his head.

‘This fellow Steedman’s tall, and I’ve got an idea I heard Jake or somebody say, ‘Good morning, Sam,’ to him. I wonder if that’s the fellow?"

"Let me have a look at him," said Spike.

"You’ll see him in a minute. He’s coming to collect a bag that he put in here the day we left New York. You keep out of sight, and I’ll give you a signal when he arrives."

The purser had hardly finished speaking when a harsh, strident voice at the counter of the purser’s office called him by name.

"That’s the fellow," whispered the purser, and went out.

Spike, looking through the curtain, saw a tall, leathery-faced man, the stump of a cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth, and recognized him instantly. It was his business to follow Long Sam and procure his story. What the story would be he knew in advance. Sam would give reminiscences of past and present crimes, would affirm his own penitence and reformation, would state that he had come to England to see a specialist— Spike could have written it without seeing the man.

Instead, he waited, and when the purser came back:

"That’s the fellow," he said. "I’d like to bet you that he’ll get away with the money in spite of your Customs. Where’s the young lady?"

"She’s in her stateroom— Number 195, D Deck."

Spike hurried off in search of the girl. He was afraid that she had already gone ashore, for the passengers had begun to leave. They could not get past the Customs barrier, however, and with the aid of the purser he would be able to pick her up. That officer’s assistance was unnecessary, however, for the girl was coming out of her cabin as Spike came to the alleyway, a slim figure in black, with a face that took Spike’s breath away.

"Miss—" he began, raising his hat. (He cursed himself for a fool that he had not asked the purser her name.)

"Miss Thorpe." She smiled at his embarrassment.

"I’m a reporter of the Post-Herald," he said, "and I’ve heard from the purser that you’ve lost a lot of money on the voyage."

She hesitated in the doorway.

"I don’t think I want to talk about it," she said, and then: "Will you please come in?"

Spike followed her into the little cabin and sat down on the sofa at her gesture.

"I lost seven hundred and fifty pounds," she said. "Very stupidly I kept the money in my dressing-bag, never dreaming that anybody would rob a girl."

"The motto of the ship thief is the women and children first," said Spike, and she smiled.

She was very pretty. She was beautiful, thought Spike. And then he suddenly remembered Gussie Thorpe’s reference to a cousin who was coming from America.

"Your name’s Thorpe; are you any relation to Augustus Thorpe of Park Lane?"

She nodded.

"I’m delighted to hear it," said Spike untruthfully. "Gussie is one of my best friends, or I’m one of his— I‘m not quite sure which."

His claim did not seem to arouse much enthusiasm in the girl.

"I’m going to stay with his people in the country," she said rather shortly. "I had a cablegram to-day inviting me. This robbery alters all my plans. It is terrible, it’s tragic!"

She clenched her hands, and he saw from the expression on her face just how tragic the situation was. And with his quick intuition he jumped at the principal cause of her dismay.

"What were you going to do with the money, Miss Thorpe?" he asked; and she did not even resent the impertinence of the question.

"I have a small farm in the country; it belonged to my father, and we let it when we went to America. With the money I was going to start poultry-farming— and be independent."

The emphasis on those two words told Spike all he wanted to know.

"Are you going to marry Gussie?" he asked, and she coloured red.

"No," she said quickly, and then: "I don’t know. I..."

"You hope not. I should imagine you did," said Spike, fanning himself with his hat. "To marry Gussie is a fate worse than death. His brain’s as empty as the sound-box of a gramophone, and his conversation would drive you to drink."

"I thought you were a friend of his."

"I never harboured that illusion," said Spike shamelessly. "Miss Thorpe, I’m going to get your money back."

"How?"

"I’m going to get. it back," said Spike. "Are you going straight away to Gussie’s ghastly relations?"

This time she laughed.

"It’s only just beginning to dawn upon me that you’re rather rapid," she finished. "I don’t know why I should take you so much into my confidence, though I suppose one does that with the Press instinctively; and I’m sure I ought not to have discussed Augustus with you."

"He will never know," said Spike calmly. "Even I shall not tell him."

He hurried on to the deck and down the gangway to the space inside the Customs barrier. There was no difficulty in picking up Long Sam. He was talking to a short, thick-set man, and, going to a steward, Spike asked him who the other was.

"That’s Mr. Jake Feld," said the steward.

So that was the card man. Spike edged forward until he came close to where the two men were standing. He only heard one word, and that was the word "Boddington", and then Jake shook his head, and he heard Long Sam say:

"To-night or to-morrow night, just as you like. I shall be there...."

Spike knew the "Boddington"; it was a fashionable bar in the West End of London, and the only bar that had any resemblance to a French cafe. It was a well-known meeting-place of all the dubious characters of the underworld, and the fact that the police made no attempt to close this notorious haunt was inexplicable to those who did not understand police methods. Spike, who understood the workings of the official mind very well indeed, realized that the "Boddington" was allowed to keep open so that the police should have a house where they could, at almost any hour of the day, find those particular undesirables from whom they wished to secure information about other undesirables who did not put in an appearance.

He saw the girl to a carriage, being careful to place her in a part of the train a long way from where Long Sam had seated himself, and travelled up to London with her; and he found in her the most wonderful woman in the world. In that dazed condition of ecstasy he reached the office.

"Get Sam?" asked the news editor.

"I found him, but the moment is not expedient. There’s been a robbery on board the ship, and they want to keep it dark until they get a little more information about Sam’s worldly possessions."

Here he was speaking only half the truth, but it was the convincing half, and Mr. Branksome growled and dismissed him.

Gussie was having breakfast when Spike lounged in to him, and Gussie was alarmed. He was a small-headed young man with a tiny moustache, and when he was alarmed he seemed all mouth and eyes.

"Hullo, old thing," he said suspiciously.

"I want you to help me," said Spike.

"I haven’t a pound in the house—" began Gussie; but his companion went on:

"What are you doing to-night?"

"I’m going into the country," said Gussie, with every evidence of satisfaction, "and I shall be away for a month. My dear little girl has arrived, old boy— and she’s lost all her money, old boy— every bean, old boy—"

"Don’t call me ‘old boy’ again or I’ll brain you. You’re a satyr, Gussie, a hideous male vamp, Gussie."

Spike scratched his chin. All the way from the office of the Post-Herald he had been considering the problem of Long Sam, whom even the police did not know to be in London. And there was lurking at the back of his busy brain the skeleton of a scheme.

"I’m broke," he continued. "And take that look off your face. Have I ever borrowed money from you more than twice in a month, you mouldy piece of cheese?"

"Really, old thing, you know I would be quite willing," murmured Gussie.

For five years he had been trying to shake the companion of his schoolboy days. For five years he had pretended not to see his school-fellow at horse-shows, race-meetings, public funerals and other social entertainments where the Press and the Great meet on equal terms. But no man had ever been able to shake Spike unless he was willing to be shook.

"I thought you would be going out of town," said Spike thoughtfully. "Are you shutting up your flat? I would like to stay here a couple of nights."

"Certainly, old thing."

Gussie was eager in his offer, and was glad that Spike’s request entailed no more onerous service. Spike had made many queer requests of him in his time, mostly for services which Gussie shuddered to recollect.

That night Long Sam, a peculiarly good-looking man of fifty, sat smoking a quiet and thoughtful cigar on the red plush lounge of the "Boddington", where the underworld have their rendezvous.

He had been away from England for ten years, and no man knew him, not even the occasional detective who strolled in and took a brief but businesslike survey of the company. Therefore did Sam welcome the civility of the smart young man in evening dress who appeared as much of a stranger in this haunt as he was. He was an elegant and blasé young man, and in his eye was a glass which to Long Sam was the trademark of suckerdom.

"One a minute," murmured Sam.

"A queer place," said the young gentleman, taking a seat by his side and beckoning a waiter.

"Why, yes, it’s surely a queer-looking place, but pleasant. It is very amusing to watch the people," said Long Sam politely. "You have been here before, I guess. Personally, I’m a stranger to this wonderful country, but I guess you know this dive pretty well?"

"No," said Spike untruthfully, "I am a perfect stranger, and it is certainly not a place where I should care to be seen. The fact is, I was expecting to meet a man here— but perhaps I shouldn’t tell you. You are not a member of the police, are you?" he asked suspiciously.

Long Sam kept a straight face and admitted that he was not.

"The fact is," said Spike confidentially, "I’ve been staying in Park Lane— I rented a flat there. Two or three nights ago somebody burgled the flat," he said with a careless wave of his hand. "Happily they missed my sister’s pearls, which I keep in a safe in the drawing room, but they got away with a gold statuette which doesn’t belong to me ... in fact, it belongs to the man I hired the flat from. Naturally I am anxious to recover this. I offered a reward, and have had a communication from the thief, who has undertaken to meet me here. Which is breaking the law," he added soberly, "but you can quite understand one doesn’t want to lose another fellow’s family heirlooms?" He lit a violet-tipped cigarette and exhaled a fragrant cloud.

"Why, sure," said Long Sam, taking a deep breath. "I can quite understand how you feel about it, mister. The same sort of thing happened to me on Long Island."

His acquaintance with London was an extensive one, however much a stranger he might be to the "Boddington".

In point of fact, he also had come to meet a member of his own craft, to discuss future operations.

"So you have been burgled, eh?" he said slowly. "I heard of a burglary the other day. Where was this?"

"Nine-hundred-and-seven Park Lane," said Spike. "But I don’t think you read it, because it wasn’t in the papers. I am not giving him another chance." He shook his head. "To-morrow I have arranged to carry all the family jewels to the bank. I may be very indiscreet in telling you all this," he added frankly, "but I see that you are an American, a country for which I have the greatest affection."

"Will you have a drink?" asked the genial Sam as the waiter approached at last.

Spike murmured his agreement, and rattled the change from a pound, causing as much noise as four loose shillings can make when vigorously handled.

Long Sam’s friend came, but was too much of a professional to approach. Spike saw him out of the corner of his eye, sitting at a table in solitude and waiting.

"Say, that story of the burglar interests me," said Long Sam, after the first drink. "How did he get into your house— nine-hundred-and-seven Park Lane, you said?"

Spike nodded gravely.

"Through the pantry window. My servants have a trick of leaving it unlocked," he said; "and even if they didn’t it is an easy place to force. I am having bars put there to-morrow," he added. "Whether the owner will be pleased or not, I don’t know...

Early in the morning— at three o’clock, to be precise— Long Sam with the assistance of a fellow professional wrenched open the pantry window of 907 Park Lane and slipped through. The house was in darkness, but his electric lamp showed him the way up the kitchen stairs to the main hall. He knew the exact location of the drawing-room, because Spike, in his artlessness, had practically drawn a plan of the house.

He came into the drawing-room quietly, and then stopped, closing the door behind him and feeling along the wall for the light-switch. He found it at last, turned on the light, and wished he hadn’t, for Spike was sitting at a writing-table, and in his hand was a heavy-calibre naval revolver which looked particularly dangerous to Long Sam.

"I— I just came in to see you, Mr. Brown," gulped the visitor.

"Fine," said Spike. "Step over here, and turn out your pockets."

"Eh?" said Sam, startled.

"Neither hay nor corn," said Spike. "Get busy, Sam, or there’s going to be trouble for you."

Sam obeyed reluctantly. He produced a small roll of treasury bills, ten five-pound notes, and a handful of silver, a small and serviceable little revolver, which Spike confiscated, a notebook, a watch and chain and a few odds and ends.

"Take off your clothes article by article, and turn ‘em over, Sam. The police are looking for you— there’s an old charge against you, by the way."

Sam passed his waistcoat— in the breast pocket were seven one-hundred-pound notes and a fifty.

"Stolen from Miss Thorpe’s cabin— I’ve got the numbers," said Spike.

He pocketed the money and handed back the remainder of the goods, except the revolver.

"Say, what about the other money?" growled the man.

Spike smiled.

"Sam," he said, "have you ever heard of manna?"

"You’ll hear of something," growled the other.

"You’re not allowed to cross-examine counsel," said Spike. "You’ve heard of manna from heaven— Sam you’re It! You’re going to keep a reporter in luxury for two months— think of it! Now sit down at this table and tell me the story of your life, because I’ve promised the Post-Herald two columns, and I am a man of my word."

As soon as the post offices were opened in the morning, Spike sent off a wire. It was addressed to Elsie Thorpe, Grove Hall, Wayboro’, and it ran:

GOT YOUR MONEY. DON’T MARRY GUSSIE TILL I MAKE BETTER OFFER. AM VERY KEEN ON POULTRY-FARMING.

_____________________

6:  The Winning Ticket

FROM her point of observation, Anna saw the old doctor struggling through the crowd that surrounded one of the most popular of the bookmakers, and waved to him.

He did not see her then, but after he had made his bet and was shouldering his way out of the press he raised his head and, catching her eye, smiled grimly. She came half-way down the steps of the stand to meet the shabby old man.

"Hullo, Miss Greer I" he growled. "Can you find nothing else to do with a bright spring afternoon than to throw yourself into this pool of iniquity?"

She laughed.

"We are fellow sinners," she said. "Where is your nephew?"

He made a wry face.

"Amongst the swells in the Members’ Enclosure— betting in hundreds like the wealthy gentleman he is," he rumbled. "And here is his needy relative battling to invest ten shillings on an animal that will probably finish nearer last than first."

Anna missed him a few moments after, when the bell rang that the field was off.

The field came thundering down the hill and there was half a minute of thrill as four horses flashed past the post.

Dick Thurley, who was also of the congregation of the "swells", came through the wicket gate to take her to the paddock.

"Did you have any luck?" she asked.

"Marvellous luck!" he said dryly. "I didn’t have a bet. The race was won by an outsider— twenty-five to one, I should think. Arthur Liffton had a bad race— which doesn’t depress me. How that fellow does it I don’t know."

And then she remembered the doctor.

"I saw his uncle— Dr. Liffton. He’s in Tattersall’s Ring?"

Dick nodded.

"A nice old boy. I wonder what broke him? Quite a lot of people think it was Arthur. There’s a poisonous beast if you like!"

She was in agreement, but smiled.

Arthur Liffton was sleek and languid, a beautifully manicured young man with a peach skin and perfect features. He was as objectionable as a consciously irresistible youth could be, but he had been tempestuous in his wooing and persistent in his fervour. And a woman need be an angel if she counted these things against any man. There were little stories about him which were not quite nice. In truth, they were rather ugly.

"Old Dr. Liffton used to be terribly rich once," Dick went on. "Did you know that? The elegant Arthur suggests that the old gentleman ‘did in his stuff’ at horse-racing, but none of the regular followers of the game agree. They say he has never been anything but a ten-shilling punter. It is a bit odd."

They had reached the paddock gate and were crossing to the ring when the girl heard her name called, and turned.

"Hullo, Anna— hullo, Richard! Have you come to see the noblest friend of man?"

He lifted his hat to the girl and nodded to her companion.

"I want to talk to you." Arthur Liffton slipped his arm into the girl’s. "Excuse me."

Coolly he led her away from the fuming Dick.

"An old friend’s privilege," he said airily. "I see Dick every day— it is my misfortune that our modest estates adjoin. You, on the other hand, live three miles beyond the fence that surrounds my three acres."

She resented his proprietorial manner, but it was not the moment to give expression to her rising anger.

"You see a lot of an ancient relative," he said, and his voice had lost the note of flippancy. "Saved your life when you were a kid or something, didn’t he? He’s not a bad old boy, but he is a bore."

"He is one of the nicest and kindest men I know—" she began.

"Yes, yes," he arrested her impatiently, "but he is a bore. He told me the other day that he was leaving all his property to his godchild."

She stood still and looked at him blankly:

"To me?"

"It’s you, is it? He was very mysterious about it, but I guessed. I didn’t look up the records— by the way, are godparents recorded in any document?— but I thought it might be you. It doesn’t worry me being disinherited— I’m almost his only relative. I’m not at all sentimental, but, what is more important, he has nothing to leave. That old house of his is mortgaged, and, so far as I know, his only property is an annuity, which dies with him. But it was a nice thought of his. He may have a few trinkets, and he certainly has some nice furniture— it should make the nucleus of a happy home when that bovine young man of yours leads you to the altar."

She turned and walked away, and he followed, protesting.

"Sorry— sorry! I can’t keep my tongue in order. Your very nice and admirable boy friend, let me say "

"I’ll let you say nothing!" she blazed at him. "I don’t know why you’re telling me all this, but I imagine there is something horrid behind it."

"Nothing at all." He showed his even white teeth in a flashing smile. "The only thing I wanted you to do, in return for my very handsome attitude in this matter...."

They were coming near to where the glowering Dick was waiting, and she stopped.

"Well?"

"The doctor may talk to you about me— probably has already talked!" And, when she shook her head: "He is a reticent old fellow, but he may open his heart. I want you to put in a few good words for the prodigal nephew."

She looked him straight in the eyes.

"I don’t see the advantage," she said. "Obviously, you are quite indifferent as to what he thinks of you. And, as there is no money—"

"There is a little money— a settlement which affects my sister and myself. My sister is married and lives in Australia, so that to all intents and purposes she is both dead and damned."

The impatient Dick was striding towards them.

"I can make no promise," she said hurriedly. "I see the doctor very seldom, although we are neighbours— and I don’t feel that I have any right to offer advice."

She was carried off by an incoherent young man. "One of these days I’ll give that beast...."

"Let us look at the other beasts," she laughed.

She was not feeling very comfortable, and dreaded the embarrassment of meeting the old doctor. Arthur Liffton might, of course, have lied, and this story of a barren legacy might have been merely introduced to secure from Anna her good offices. She did not tell Dick what was worrying her, but that night, when she got home to Michleham, she told her mother.

"Stuff!" said the woman. "Though he’s quite right about the poor old doctor not having a farthing, and I’m quite sure he was telling the truth when he said the house was mortgaged. What little the old man had he has lost in all sorts of wild-cat schemes, some of them, I suspect, brought to him by Arthur. Poor soul!" Mrs. Greer sighed. "If he’s any worse off than we are, he’s in a pretty bad way!"

It was no secret in the neighbourhood that the Greers had "come down" in the War; and in this their position was not unique, for so many families in that area had "come down", some with a crash, some so imperceptibly that the extent of their fall was never appreciated; and in this class the widow of Bland Greer had found herself.

She could still afford to maintain some kind of comfort, though Anna never took her hack from the stable without qualms of conscience. She used to ride over to Epsom on such mornings as Dick Thurley did spectacular things to the three horses he trained.

They were racehorses with conventional histories. Starting life as Derby entrants, they had graduated to the selling-plate class by easy but expensive stages.

Dick and she used to ride across the Downs together, weaving bright dreams. "Are you sure, Dick, this horse isn’t in the Derby?" she pleaded one morning. "Haven’t you forgotten all about it, and if you looked up your book wouldn’t you find that, by some error, you have omitted to strike him out of the race?"

Dick Thurley wiped his brow.

"Phew! It makes me go cold to think of it! The idea of waking up in the morning and finding that this hair-trunk had a fifty-pound forfeit attached to his name is too dreadful to contemplate! No, there’s no Kissing Cup in my stable, darling."

She sighed.

"Leave me my dreams!"

And then she remembered.

"I’m an heiress," she said.

He swung round to look at her.

"The devil you are! I didn’t know you had any rich relations."

"I haven’t," she confessed, and told him of the talk she had had with Arthur Liffton.

Dick Thurley was very serious.

"I don’t think the doctor’s got a bob now," he said. "What a queer thing for him to do! And yet I can well understand that he must have a lot of things that he’d hate that brute to have. He’s a bad egg, that fellow. He didn’t settle last Monday."

He explained the mysteries of betting to her. A man who had lost during the week invariably settled with his bookmakers on Monday, and failure to do so led to unpleasant complications.

"He’ll battle like death to stop that," he said. "He’s got what I call a thief’s sense of honour. In fact, somebody was telling me this morning that he had managed to raise part of the money to satisfy his most pressing creditors, and when Derby Day comes round he’ll have a heavier settlement, because he’s backed three horses very heavily, and, so far as I can gather, two of them certainly will not be in the final acceptance."

"What do you mean by ‘heavily’?" she asked, interested.

"He’ll probably lose a couple of thousand pounds, and that’s a lot of money for a man who hasn’t got a couple of thousand pence and has half a dozen writs out against him."

"Has he no profession?" she asked, and Dick grinned.

"I’d give him two, and neither of them is principal," he said. "He was for about three years in a hospital. He was half a doctor. The old man paid for that, I suppose. There was trouble with one of the nurses and he was kicked out. Since then he’s been living on his wits. I’ll never forgive the blighter."

"For wanting me to marry him?" she asked, smiling.

He shook his head.

"For suddenly not wanting to marry you when he discovered that your mother wasn’t a rich woman, as everybody thought she was. It’s a terribly unflattering thing to say to the loveliest girl in Surrey "

"The loveliest girl knew all about that," she said quietly, "and she was not at all distressed."

They rode on for some time, and then:

"The long and short of it is that our young friend is up a gum-tree," he said, and he spoke no more than the truth.

Arthur Liffton was, indeed, hanging by his finger-tips from the topmost branch, and he found looking down a little unnerving.

He had a flat in St. James’s Street, and it was symptomatic of his financial condition that the janitor collected his rent weekly in advance. He varied his time between London and the pretty little house which adjoined Dick Thurley’s place at Burgh Heath; and though they saw little of each other, Dick was able to form a shrewd guess as to the progress this young man was making. New cars appeared and disappeared, for Arthur had a habit of taking a car on approval from the agents and returning it after a week’s wear with some complaint as to its running. There had been a case which had only been settled on the threshold of the local County Court.

He was facing financial destruction. He had satisfied some of his creditors, but there were others still clamouring for settlement, and threatening to take him before Tattersall’s Committee.

He strode up and down his beautifully furnished flat, stopping to stare into St. James’s Street and hoping that his familiar devil would bring him some inspiration.

An envelope lay on the table, its flap unfastened. He stopped, picked it up, and examined its contents with a little sneer. From his uncle. Even a fiver would be acceptable at this moment of crisis.

He rang for a cup of tea, and sat turning over two letters that had arrived by the same post. They were written in illiterate hands, and each had the same plaint and made the same request. Money, money, money! He tore the letters into fragments and threw them into the wastepaper basket, thought better of it, rescued them, and kindled a little fire in the empty
grate.

It had been a pity about Anna. A nice girl— pretty, too, in a countrified way. She might help him with the old man. The old brute was as tight as a drum on this question of Margaret’s settlement. What difference would twelve hundred pounds make to her, with her squatter husband and her fat children? He wished now he were on speaking terms with Margaret, so that he might bring her to his side; but they had not written to each other for four years, and there was no possible chance of approaching a solution of his problem from that angle.

He looked at the watch on his wrist and rose, drawing a long breath. He would have to face the old man and get it over. He put the envelope in his inside pocket, went out, and, taking a taxicab to the station, journeyed down into Surrey.

He reached his destination, and sauntered at his leisure from the station in time to see the last station-fly disappear. He set forth on his mile-and-a-half walk, cursing Dr. Liffton for his penury and his obstinacy.

It was after dark when he arrived and knocked at the door. The doctor kept one daily servant, who had gone by the time Arthur arrived. He opened the door himself, recognized his visitor with a grunt, and led the way to his study.

"Find a chair and sit down," he said gruffly. "Smoke? Of course you can smoke. I don’t want any of these pretty-boy airs of yours, and I’m going to tell you before you begin that there’s nothing doing about Margaret’s allowance. You’re in a mess, I presume?"

"A damnable one," said Arthur cheerfully.

The old doctor showed his teeth.

"I’m glad," he said, almost savagely. "You’ve got to take your medicine, my young friend— you put off the draught as long as you could, but now it’s coming to you. You didn’t settle on Monday."

"Who told you that?" said Arthur.

"One of the many little birds that infest this neighbourhood."

"Perhaps you can give me a little advice?"

Arthur Liffton controlled his cold fury as best he could.

The doctor leaned back in his chair and looked at him from under his heavy brows.

"The advice I should give you," he said, and every word was like acid, "would get me drummed out of my church, and possibly out of decent society."

He pointed a long, gnarled finger to a door that led into his surgery.

"On the third shelf, not even protected by a grille or a cupboard, is a bottle of a new American preparation called tanoline. Its constituent parts you can discover from a study of the latest supplement to the British Pharmacopoeia. It is the most pleasant and painless method of ending your life I know. Ten minims will produce coma and death and a flood of those laudatory notices which are usually accorded to people who are no longer alive to deny their authenticity."

Arthur’s lips twitched.

"Rather a long-winded way of telling me to commit suicide, isn’t it?" he said.

"Long-winded or short-winded, it is the only solution that I can offer to a blackguard who has spent his life breaking the hearts and the pockets of the people who loved him."

Arthur Liffton pulled at his long cigarette.

"I didn’t expect all this," he said, almost pleasantly, "and I’m afraid I am leading the conversation away from a very vital topic— the question of my settlement."

"Your settlement was liquidated a very long time ago," snapped the doctor. "That portion of your sister’s settlement has also been liquidated— I sent a draft to Australia this morning.

The young man’s eyes narrowed.

"The devil you did!" His voice was quivering with anger. "You might at least have asked my views "

"I know your views," growled Dr. Liffton. "They are that the money should go to you. As a loan, as a gift, as a deferred settlement, as anything you like, so long as the money went to you. Well, it won’t."

He rose from his chair and towered over the sleek young man.

"Arthur," he said quietly, "I have ruined myself for you. I thought you were the soundest kid that ever lived. I educated you; I paid to get you out of the scrapes which I thought were the scrapes of youth, and your reward was to swindle me. Thirty-three thousand four hundred and fifty pounds—"

"And a few odd shillings."

"I remember the odd shillings, too," the doctor went on in the same even tone. "It was a fraud for which I could have had you arrested and sent to penal servitude. A trick— the most vulgar kind of confidence trick— and I forgave you that. I reduced myself to penury; I have mortgaged my house; I have given you everything that I would give my own son. And just a little too late I realize just what kind of a beast I had to deal with."

Arthur Liffton threw his cigarette into the grate and lit another.

"Well, I don’t know that this interview need be prolonged," he said. "If it’s true that you’ve sent the money to Margaret, that’s that! I’ve got to raise nine hundred pounds by Monday, and I was hoping you would give me just one chance—"

"Not a dog’s chance," said the other. Again he waved his hand to the dispensary door, and Arthur Liffton laughed.

"I sent you a cheque the other day for five pounds," said the doctor.

The young man put his hand in his pocket and flung the envelope on the table.

"Here are your confounded sweepstake tickets," he said. "Why you couldn’t get them yourself I don’t know."

"If you hadn’t voluntarily offered to buy them I would have bought them myself," said the doctor.

He took the ten green slips out of the envelope, examined and replaced them.

"Has it occurred to you that if you draw a horse the ticket will be in my name?"

The old doctor’s face twitched.

"I shan’t draw a horse. If I did, the fact that it was in your name wouldn’t balance against the fact that the ticket was in my pocket."

Arthur shook his head in wonder.

"I don’t know why you want money."

The old doctor’s eyes twinkled.

"I would like to have a little to leave to my heiress," he chuckled.

Anna, standing at the window of her bedroom, looking into the darkened road, saw a figure come along the flagged garden walk, pass through the gate, and close it with a crash behind him. She had a momentary glimpse of him as he passed under the few lamps the little road boasted, and wondered what business had brought Mr. Arthur Liffton to that neighbourhood.

2

SOMEBODY associated with the Hospitals Sweep invited Dick Thurley to Dublin to witness the Derby draw. It was an excellent opportunity for a little holiday, and he went by the boat-train that left on the night previous to the ceremony, carrying with him six little green tickets that he and Anna had jointly purchased.

Anna dined with him in town.

"I’m not quite sure what I shall do with the first prize,’ she meditated. "After all, it’s a mere few hundred thousand pounds. I rather think I shall go to Dublin in state, arrange for a band of music to lead me to the Mansion House, and it is quite possible I may address the excited crowd from the steps. Dick, do such things really happen? I mean, do people really make these enormous sums?"

"I’m afraid they do," he said ruefully. "Usually they are people who’ve never seen a racehorse in their lives, and they tell the reporters that they’re not interested in horses or courses, and that they’re going to settle down to a life of quiet enjoyment. Anyway, we’ve got six tickets, which represent three pounds’ worth of hope and pleasant dreams, and who knows ...?"

Dick went to his hotel, shaved and had a bath, and an hour later found himself in the great crowded hall, at the end of which was a raised platform. On this was a huge cylinder, which was slowly revolving. When it stopped a porthole was opened; a nurse put in her hand and took out a slip of paper. Simultaneously a second nurse drew from a glass cylinder another slip containing the name of a horse. The names of horses and drawers were read out by the official and duly inscribed.

It was late in the afternoon when the end came. There were six papers still remaining in the glass cylinder. One of these was drawn and opened. In the hall the atmosphere was tense, for, of the hundreds of names which had come out of the glass cylinder, not one had yet been the favourite. And now it had come! The buzz became a roar. The announcer waited with a little slip in his hand to call the name of the man or woman who had been fortunate enough to draw half a ticket, the half of which could be sold for forty thousand pounds. Dick listened, interested, then:

‘The name," said the announcer, "is Mr. Arthur Liffton, 298 St. James’s Street, London."

Dick Thurley half rose from his chair. Arthur Liffton! The luck of it I In the last month he had almost disappeared from the turf; there was a case pending in the Courts against him. Never had any man been so near to being down and out.

Dick came back from Ireland by the early-morning boat, and had time to digest the London newspapers, which had arrived half an hour before he left. All referred to the amazing good fortune of "this young man about town", who had apparently been interviewed on receipt of the news the night before. Said one reporter:

I had the privilege of breaking the news to Mr. Liffton on his good fortune. He received it very quietly. "It is an extraordinary piece of luck." he said, "and I am very grateful. No, I don’t intend selling half the ticket— in fact, I cannot at the moment say what my plans will be. I am a racing man, and naturally I prefer to take a racing chance."

It wasn’t very like Arthur Liffton, thought Dick. When he got home he drove over to see Anna. She met him at the door, a picture of indignation.

"Isn’t it too dreadful— that wretched man drawing the favourite I Why, somebody told me that he can sell it for fifty thousand pounds."

"If he can sell half of it for fifty thousand I dare say he will," said Dick. "It’s worth all that. The horse will start at six to four— in fact, it’s one of the most cast-iron Derbys we’ve had for years. I wonder what the old doctor thinks about it?"

"Mother saw him to-day," she said. "He was terribly elated. I didn’t realize that he had any affection for Arthur. He started to tell mother something and then changed his mind."

3

ANNA was an early riser, and usually she did an hour’s work in the garden before breakfast. She was crossing the front lawn when she saw the doctor’s front door thrown open and the woman who attended him come flying down the path.

"Miss Anna!" she screamed, and Anna ran to meet her. "The old doctor!" gasped the woman. "Oh, my God, I think he’s dead— dead, I think!"

The girl turned cold, hesitated for a moment, then followed the woman. They passed down the passage into the study. The charwoman had pulled aside the curtains, and by the light that streamed in she saw the old man lying face downward on the ground. She took one glance at him, then went out into the passage and telephoned to the nearest doctor.

She was to have gone riding with Dick that morning. He arrived half an hour later, and from him she learned the news.

"The doctor thinks it’s heart failure. He was a pretty old man. There was an empty glass and a whisky decanter on the table, and the doctor’s theory is that he was reaching out to get himself a drink when he had his seizure."

An hour later Scotland Yard men were on the spot, and made a brief examination and inquiry without discovering anything of an unusual character. The dead man had taken off his coat and tie and loosened his shirt; he had evidently been sitting in the deep armchair, from which he had slipped to the ground.

The officer in charge of the case confided to Dick Thurley, whom he knew:

"I don’t think there was any reason but nature for this collapse," he said. "The only thing that is curious is that a key of the front door, which usually hung on a nail in the doctor’s study, has disappeared. We can fix the death: it occurred at eleven o’clock. He fell on his watch, smashed the face, and stopped it. Poor old doctor! I’d promised to see him on the Downs on Wednesday. He was going to the Derby!"

Later came Arthur Liffton in a condition of proper sorrow. Dick found him most pleasantly human.

"Isn’t it terrible?" he said. "And just as I was going to try to make up to him for all the money I’ve borrowed — I’ve treated him very badly, and that’s the truth, Dick."

They were in the study together, into which Dick had been invited, to his surprise. Arthur Liffton was going through a pile of unfinished manuscripts that the doctor had left behind. He was a voluminous writer.

"He was seventy-two," he said, and pointed to the fine, almost microscopic writing. "You wouldn’t think that was the hand of a man of seventy-two."

"Did he always write in red ink?" asked Dick.

Arthur nodded.

"That was one of his peculiarities— he had others," he added, in a tone that suggested that his antagonism to the doctor had not entirely evaporated.

Dick did not see him again till the Wednesday. It was a bright summer day; the Downs were more crowded than he had ever seen them before.

Arthur came through the gate and climbed up to the stand where Anna was sitting.

"I feel perfectly rotten being here to-day," he said, "with the old man buried only yesterday. But everything is so completely unreal that one extra unreality doesn’t seem to matter."

"Have you sold your ticket?"

He shook his head.

"No, I have not sold a cent’s worth of interest. I suppose I’m a fool, but I’m taking a chance. There’s about eighty thousand pounds even for the third horse, and I can’t see how the favourite can be beaten right out of a place."

She looked at him curiously, almost with awe.

"How much do you win?"

"About three hundred and twenty thousand pounds if the horse wins," he smiled.

He was nervous— not unnaturally, she thought.

"I think I shall go abroad for a year— if I win."

He was going on when he remembered something and turned back.

"By the way, he did leave all his possessions to you. I’m told they’ll come to quite a considerable sum— a thousand pounds or more. I bear him no ill-will, though he might have left me "

What he might have left him he did not say, but hurried away as somebody beckoned to him from the Members’ Enclosure.

She watched the horses at parade, saw the field slowly cross towards the starting-gate, and endured that breathless suspense which can only come when the Derby field is standing at the gate waiting to be dispatched on its mile-and-a-half journey. Then there was a terrific roar as the gate flew up, and the field went away in line.

There could be no excuse for the favourite if it failed: it was away with the leading division, and at the end of the first two furlongs lay close up fourth. Dick Thurley, standing by her side, voiced the general opinion.

"I don’t think anything can beat the favourite," he said, as the field came on to the top stretch and bore down towards Tattenham Corner.

The favourite was second now, lying a length behind the leader, who went wide at the turn. Instantly its jockey pushed his mount to the rails and was half a length clear by the time the jockey on the temporary leader had got his mount straightened.

Now the rest of the field was coming up to challenge. One by one they ranged up against the far-striding bay; one by one they fell away, beaten. And then, as they reached the dip, the favourite moved forward with an effortless swing, and his blue-and-red jacket flashed past the post an easy winner.

"My God!"

Anna turned. Arthur Liffton was at her side. He was white to the lips. The hand that came up to his face shook.

"I’ve won— I’ve won!"

All that night Arthur Liffton did not sleep. He paced his room restlessly. A dozen times he took from the drawer of his desk the envelope containing the tickets. He had not even dared to separate them.

The bank had just opened the next morning when he came in and requested an interview with the manager. That gentleman, knowing why he had come, beamed upon the visitor.

"I suppose you’re overwhelmed with congratulations, but, what is more important, you want me to collect your money?"

Arthur took from his pocket the envelope, and his trembling hands tried to extract its contents. He passed the envelope across to the manager.

"I’ve gone to pieces," he said. "There are ten tickets in a series; the third one is the winning ticket."

"Do you mean to say that you have brought the lot with you?" the manager asked in surprise.

"Yes— it seemed to me it was safer— less likely to be lost." Arthur’s voice was shaking.

In the corner of the manager’s room was a small filter and a glass. Going to this, he drew a tumbler full of water, drank it greedily, and refilled it. Then he turned to meet the manager’s stern eyes.

"I don’t understand this."

"Isn’t the ticket there?" Arthur Liffton almost screamed the words.

"It is here— yes."

He held a green slip in his hand, and with horror the young man saw that it was crossed with line upon line of tiny red writing.

"I will read this," said the manager. He adjusted his glasses more firmly.

"This ticket is the property of me, Dr. Lewis Liffton. It was purchased on my behalf by my nephew, Arthur Liffton. On the night of the 21st of May the said Arthur Liffton came to my house, apparently to congratulate me upon my lucky purchase. I had occasion to leave my room to answer a telephone call, which I have reason to believe was made by a confederate. During my absence he put into my whisky a fatal dose of tanoline. I did not realize this until he had gone, and saw that he had taken with him the key of the front door. He will return at his leisure to search the house for this ticket.

"Lewis Liffton.

"There is a postcript," said the manager.

"It is useless to telephone for a doctor."

The manager leaned back in his chair.

"This requires a little explanation, doesn’t it, Mr. Liffton?"

Arthur said nothing. He went swiftly from his bank to his flat. He had a revolver in his flat.

_______________________

7:  His Game

The Windsor Magazine, Vol. 32, Jun-Nov 1910

THE Ninth Guards were at dinner.

Lord Callington had edged the soap-box on which he sat farther and farther from the fire which roared in the centre of the circle of men, but Tubbetts, very red of face, sat on a camp-stool staring at the flames.

He was a heavy-looking young man, broad of face and broad of shoulder. He had a fair moustache, grotesquely small.

One by one, as the heat from the fire increased, the other officers had drawn back, till only Tubbetts remained, deep in troubled thought, his big hands nervously fidgeting.

Suddenly, above the babble of talk and light laughter, Callington’s voice rose harshly.

"Tubs, draw back from that fire! What the devil are you doing?"

Tubbetts jumped up as if he had been shot, then shuffled awkwardly back, muttering an apology.

Carsley watched him with a quiet smile on his handsome face. George Brackett, seventh baronet of that name, turned to the officer at his side, and said under his breath:

"Cally is very cross."

"Don’t wonder. Tubs made an awful mess of it again to-day. Seems to lose his head the moment a burgher’s rifle goes ‘pop’. Rum bird, Tubs!"

Tubbetts was standing now, quietly savage, and glowering direspectfully in the direction of his colonel. Big and awkward and gauche as he was in most things, he was sensitive to disapproval, and Lord Callington’s disapproval was the most evident thing in the world.

He stood for a moment, then, taking the steaming tin cup that a servant handed him, he slouched over to where George Brackett sat.

"I’ve a jolly good mind..." he muttered, then stopped.

"Steady your leaders, Tubs!" George frowned warningly.

The Ninth Guards were a very happy family, to which Major Sir George Brackett stood, by general acceptation, in loco parentis.

"You sit down and take your soup, and please don’t be an ass! The old man will put you under arrest on the slightest provocation."

"This isn’t my game," said Lieutenant Tubbetts sulkily.

The Major chuckled softly, and the ghost of a smile hovered about the corners of Carsley’s mouth.

"You’re an unfortunate soul, Tubs," said Sir George dryly. "You’re the victim of circumstances. If your father weren’t a banker, and if you hadn’t so much money in your family that you positively reek of honest wealth, you would not have been in the Guards, you would not have come to South Africa, nor found yourself on a bit of wet veldt, being ragged by Callington."

Tubbetts sipped at his bouillon and said nothing, and the buzz of conversation, arrested for the moment by the little incident of Tubbetts at the fire, resumed.

"The fact is, Tubs"— Carsley leaned over and laid his hand on the other’s knee—"you didn’t start fair with the Ninth. There was that business of the drag "

"I don’t believe in wasting money," said the other doggedly. "Because a fellow has thirty thousand a year, it doesn’t follow that he must chuck his money about."

"You hardly go as far as that," said the other.

"You think I’m mean when I won’t subscribe to things," Tubs went on; "but I’ve been taught that there are two hundred and forty pennies in every pound―"

Carsley turned away with frank rudeness.

Thereafter Tubbetts sat in the circle, but not of it. He brooded through his dinner, listening resentfully to the light chatter of the men about the fire. He envied their ease, these clean-limbed patricians who could joke of danger and speak lightly of death.

He envied Brackett, for whom no man had a wry word; he envied Claud Carsley, with his splendid face and flippant drawl. There was Mainward, most daring of amateur riders, holding the company breathless with the story of an Aintree steeplechase.

"...‘Kink’ Mason went ahead, but Verry’s horse refused... Over Valentine’s Brook Kink’s horse jumped sideways and fell, and I came over nearly on the top of him...."

A spot of rain fell, and another, and another.

The men about the fire seemed to be oblivious of the shower, but Tubs shifted uneasily, for he had the civilized being’s horror of catching cold.

As the downpour increased he waited irresolutely, then stalked away from the fire and stumbled over the uneven ground in the direction of his little shelter tent.

"Thank heavens!"

The ejaculation was the colonel’s, and his relief was shared by the others.

"Poor old Tubs!" smiled Brackett.

"Poor!" Callington snapped the word, and his white moustache bristled. "Poor! If he were poor, we shouldn’t have seen the beggar. George, he’s impossible! He’s bad enough in London— he’s absolutely useless here!"

"Was it bad, sir?"

"Bad! Weren’t you there? No, you were on the other side of the kopje. He had a half-company on the right flank. When the first shot was fired, he would have bolted, only Providence put his foot in a meerkat hole, and there he sprawled, yelling to his men to take cover."

"I wouldn’t mind that so much," said the second in command. "Any man is liable to lose his head, but old Tubs is such a— a careful beggar. He checks the mess steward’s accounts twice over, and gets perfectly frantic if he discovers that two and two have been exaggerated into five!"

Tubbetts, lying in his shelter tent, listening to the pattering of rain on the taut canvas, saw the end.

Unless he was jolly careful, he told himself, there would be courts martial and scandals, and a line in the Gazette:

Retirement: — Ninth — Guards. Lieutenant Algernon James Tubbetts, the King having no further use for his services.

That would mean being thrown out of one’s club and getting one’s name in the paper, and injuring Tubbett’s Bank, which was essentially an Army bank.

"I wish to heaven," reflected the young man, as he turned over preparatory to sleeping, "that De Wet was at the bottom of the sea, and the whole business of war wiped out! If there is any fighting to-morrow, I’m pretty sure to make a mess of it. Soldiering is not my game."

He fell asleep.

2

LORD CALLINGTON swung into a creaking saddle, and his horse spun round. He pulled it straight till his face was turned to the blue line of kopje that quivered through the heat-haze.

A little knot of officers stood close at hand, their glasses fixed on the highest of the squat hills.

George Brackett put down his glasses and turned to his chief.

"There’s a laager there, and it looks as if they’ll stand."

The little column had halted.

To the right the Victorian Mounted Rifles stood by their horses; in the centre three guns of the R.H.A. waited in readiness; in the rear, the Ninth Guards were drawn up in quarter-column— a solid slab of men in discoloured khaki.

"Send the Victorians on," said Callington.

An officer went galloping to the right.

There was an order, the quaver of a trumpet, and men rose jerkily to their saddles; a hushed rattle of hoofs, and in two long lines the Victorians moved over the veldt.

Way back with the infantry, Tubs paced nervously up and down before his half-company.

It was hot, but there was no justification for the streams of perspiration that streaked his red face.

Carsley, watching him furtively, saw the tell-tale signs, and made a little impatient noise with his lips. But he was sympathetic, for there was much of the woman in the composition of this handsome man.

He strolled casually towards his junior.

"Hot, Tubs?" he asked carelessly.

Tubbetts nodded. He did not remove his eyes from the distant blue line of hills.

"Hot, Tubs?"

Carsley’s voice was sharper, and the younger man turned.

"Yes, sir," he said stiffly.

Carsley’s eyes searched his face with frank curiosity.

"Look here, young Tubs," he said, and, taking the other’s arm affectionately, led him out of hearing of the men, "this is going to be a tiny little fight not worth troubling about, and you must not get jumpy."

"I—"

"We all get jumpy," Carsley interrupted. "I was as scared as you yesterday, but I had the luck to escape notice."

Tubbetts looked suspiciously at the other.

"You’re tryin’ to buck me up, Carsley; you know jolly well this is going to be one of those rotten frontal affairs." He licked his dry lips, and looked again toward the hills.

"I— I don’t believe Callington knows his job." He was fretful and agitated, and the trickling streams of perspiration became veritable rivers, until his red face shone wetly. "I don’t believe he knows anything about it! He’s colonel and all that, but what can he know of war? He never saw a shot fired in anger till this war. He—"

"S-s-sh, Tubs— Tubs!" warned his captain with a troubled frown. "You really mustn’t, Tubs. Look at the men; they’ve confidence enough in us— in you."

"But they haven’t," said Tubbetts fretfully, "and they’d be fools if they had! They know this is not my game."

"Right half-battalion will advance by the left!"

George Brackett came cantering over the veldt. An officer ran out to meet him, and they exchanged a word. The Major beckoned Carsley.

"We are going to work round the right of that hill; there’s a sort of nek in the middle of the range which isn’t held. Your men ready?"

"Yes, sir."

"Hullo, Tubs!"

Sir George reined in his fidgeting horse and bent over. "You’ll have a chance to-day— a chance of showing the colonel he was wrong. Don’t get flurried, there’s a good boy."

His gloved hand rested on Tubs’s shoulder, his kindly grey eyes searched the young man’s face.

"I’m not going to talk a lot of melodrama about the honour of the regiment," he went on quickly, "but you owe us something, Tubs. Remember all the good chaps who died, and how proud we are of them— Nevill at Albuhera, the brothers Manton at Nive, the fellows at the Alma. For heaven’s sake, Tubs, play the game!"

"I won’t run, if that’s what you mean," muttered the officer, his head sunk on his breast. "I’m not afraid to die, but I’m horribly afraid of making myself ridiculous." The men were on the move now. Extending as they marched, they made a long skeleton front that stretched across the plain.

"Join your company," said Sir George, and his hand tightened on Lieutenant Tubbetts’s shoulder for a fraction of a second, and then relaxed.

Tubs ran ahead. He passed between two men, and heard one of them laugh. He could have turned back and struck him, although the man’s laugh had no connection with the running officer.

He passed Mainward trudging a few paces ahead of his company, and the gentleman rider shouted a cheery greeting.

"Hot, Tubs? We’d be riding at nine stone for the Grand Military if we had a week of this!"

He nodded with a forced smile, and heard Mainward’s chuckle at his own harmless joke.

Tubs joined his company, and fell in by the side of Carsley.

"Hello I Thought you weren’t coming!"

There was no sarcasm in Carsley’s quick smile, but Tubbetts felt uncomfortable.

They marched for half an hour, and nothing happened. Tubs’ spirits rose.

"Perhaps the beggars have cleared," he said; but the company officer shook his head.

"We’ve got a long way to go yet," he said, and Tubs felt annoyed.

"Where are the guns?" he demanded resentfully. "One doesn’t do this sort of thing unless one is supported. The whole affair seems to be mismanaged. I don’t think—"

"Turn your head, and you’ll see ‘em," said the officer. "We’re supported all right; you needn’t worry about that. The question is—"

The hills were not so far away as they thought. Distantly they saw a wisp of white smoke drift lazily from the hillside, then:

O-omm!

A sound that was like the soughing of a wind came to them; it rose in shrill intensity.

Wo-o-o-o-o!

Instinctively Tubs ducked his head. "They’re shelling us!" he spluttered wrathfully.

The other officer said nothing.

A second burst of slow-moving smoke from the hillside, and again the hideous shriek of flying shell.

A whistle sounded, and the advancing line of men came to a halt. They were in the shelter of a ridge that extended across the veldt like a huge green wave.

Carsley turned and looked back, and from the right of the line rode George Brackett at a gallop.

"Claud," he shouted, "can you read that?"

"That" was a splash of dazzling light that twinked and trembled on the edge of the veldt behind them.

Carsley shaded his eyes and read.

"V— I— C. R— E— P," he spelt, as the light of the heliograph danced and died. " ‘Victorians report kloof strongly held— make your own arrangements’," he read. "‘Suggest— ’ Look out!"

Bang!

Unheralded by the boom of the gun, or the whine that told of its passage, a shell burst over them, and there was a patter as of rain.

"Shrapnel," said the major. "Go on, Claud."

" ‘Suggest’ was the last word," said the other coolly. "Signaller!"

A man had unstrapped a thin steel tripod he had been carrying on his shoulder, produced a mirror from a leather case at his belt, and deftly adjusted it.

"Ask them to repeat everything after ‘suggest’."

Click, clicketty click!

The man tapped the controlling key rapidly, and the splash on the horizon answered.

"‘Suggest’," read the man, "‘you work farther to the right and occupy kopje’"— he pronounced it "koppy-gee"—"that commands kloof."

"Here, I say!"

Tubs, an impatient audience, obviously ill at ease, broke in.

"All that ought to be in cipher. These chaps"— he waved a despairing hand towards the kopje—"these chaps can read English as well as you! It’s not right sending messages like that!" he fumed. "It shows the whole mismanagement—"

"Silence, sir!"

Brackett’s face, gone fierce and pinched of a sudden, glowered down at him.

"Fall in with your company," he ordered shortly, and Tubs’s hand rose to his helmet in salute.

Whew-w! Whew-w! Whew-e-e-w!

They were on the crest of the rise now, and from the ground rose little fountains of earth. They jumped up at your feet unaccountably, and the air was full of hissings and wailings.

"Cover— cover!" yelled Tubs; but the men could not obey, for the ground was innocent of cover. The line moved on, steadily doggedly.

"Here, hold up!"

A man marching on Tubbetts’s right sighed and leaned heavily against him. Then he slipped to the ground, and the officer stared at him.

"Tubbetts!"

Claud was shouting to him angrily, and he realized he was standing still whilst the rest of the line was advancing.

He ran again, and found himself curiously short of breath.

With a quick jerk of his head, Claud called him to his side.

"We’re in an ambush," he said briefly. "The Boers are on this randje ahead; there are some on that rising ground to the left. Keep your men together."

"Ambush?" stammered Tubs. "Where?"

He could picture an ambush in a narrow lane between high banks, but this was open country. To the right he saw Sir George Brackett. He was a little ahead of the men, and he had a revolver in his hand.

The whistling sound was terrible now— terrible, terrible, terrible! So Tubs told himself as he went forward mechanically, fumbling at his belt for the Mauser pistol he carried.

"Ambush? Where?"

He must have asked the question a dozen times— asked it at great personal inconvenience, for his lips were dry and his throat sore.

He looked round. The companies were closing in on the centre. There was a horrible whining in the air, and every few seconds something exploded with a harsh crash. Away to the rear there was a haze of blue smoke. Evidently "our guns" were in action too. Suppose they made a mistake and shelled us! Such things had occurred. Tubs’s lips twitched. Curse war! Curse all men who made wars!

And these little jets of earth that kept springing up all around! One half of his mind told him that if he could only dodge them he would be safe. The other half said with pitiless logic that no evasion was possible, because the fountains of dust were made by bullets striking the ground.

Something impelled his eyes to Brackett. The Major had stopped, and the line of men behind him had stopped too. He saw Sir George wave them on again, and go down on to his knees.

"Go to the Major, Tubs!"

Carsley’s voice was strained and unfamiliar.

Sir George was flat on his back, staring up at the blue sky. There was blood on his tunic and a trickle of blood on his lips.

"Tell Mainward— take command," he mumbled like an old man, and made a little grimace.

"He’s dead— he’s dead! Mainward must take command!"

Tubs charged back, bellowing the news, and Carsley nodded coolly.

"Tell Mainward," was all he said. But even as Tubs turned reluctant feet to the left rear, he saw Mainward fall, shot through the heart.

Men were going down too; little yellow patches lay on the green amongst the bushes.

Firing! Somebody was firing close at hand! The Ninth Guards, of course! His own men were firing at something ahead— firing at the blue sky and the yellow line of the randje.

Bang— b-rang— b-r-r-rang!

Tubbetts, hands on hip, stood up, a mark for every rifleman, glaring at the invisible enemy, piecing together the montrous situation. Those people ahead were firing at the Ninth Guards, and the Ninth Guards were firing at them. That seemed fair. Poor Brackett was killed, lying somewhere in the rear, staring at the blue sky with unseeing eyes. Mainward was dead, and young Ferguson-Pollett ... and that decent colour-sergeant of No. 4 Company.... Yes, and other men.

"Ah!"

Carsley spun round like a dancer, his arms wide-stretched, pitiable surprise on his face. Tubs knew he was dead before he pitched sideways to the ground.

Whew— smack!

A ricochetting bullet struck his helmet and knocked it backward. The shock jerked his chin-strap and made him bite his tongue.

He looked round for inspiration, swearing helplessly. He saw no officer, only men huddled in little groups, and seeking what cover the flat earth offered. He was alone— in an ambush— men were lying dead all round him. He saw the face of Toms, his servant, pinched and grey, mouth and eyes open, astonishment frozen on the dead face.

HALLIKER'S Column came up at a trot, and four guns opened on the Boers’ position.

"I’m glad you’ve come," said Lord Callington.

"I heard your guns going. What is happening?"

Lord Callington shook his head.

"I don’t know," he said simply. "It looks as if one-half of the Ninth Guards are wiped out."

Nearly one-half, for of the men who went into action on the right, ninety rank and file and one officer came out, and that officer was Tubbetts, unharmed.

They met— the grey old man and the young officer— and for a moment neither spoke.

"Brackett dead— Carsley dead— Mainward dead"— Lord Callington spoke slowly, thoughtfully—"and you — alive!"

He looked long and earnestly at the young man, and Tubbetts hung his head.

"Why?" The old man’s sudden fury was appalling, and Tubbetts shrank back. "Why? Tell me that! Why should the best be taken— the dear, good fellows" — his voice broke, and his eyes were full of hot tears—"and you to come unscathed? Where is the wisdom of heaven in this?"

Tubbetts offered no solution.

3

TUBBETTS’ BANK was by common acceptation one of the soundest institutions in the City "despite the fact", as cynical City folk were in the habit of saying, "that its directors are Army men."

When Tubs took his father’s place in the bank at the end of the war— the old man had died suddenly whilst Tubs was homeward bound— he set himself the task of discovering exactly why the bank was great, and how it could be made greater.

In the books of the bank he found names that gave him little twinges of sorrow— Carsley, Brackett. He gave up that side of his investigation. The Army was "not his game".

This he explained to such of his intimates as came close enough to his life to extract confidence from him. Yet in Tubbetts’ Bank one could not get away from the Army or clear oneself from unhappy associations. There was a managing clerk, one Vicars, a slim, tall man with a quiet voice and a trick of avoiding your eye. Tubs had tried for exactly five minutes to like his subordinate, at the end of which time he was frankly antagonistic. Vicars had a mysterious little smile which meant anything you chose to read into it. Tubs read an uncomplimentary and unflattering opinion of himself into that smile, and his attitude towards Mr. Vicars was one of continuous resentment.

Vicars was respectful and polite.

"A jolly sight too suave I" was Tubs’s verdict, and in secret had the managing clerk’s books examined, but without making any other discovery than that he was an orderly and a methodical person.

Three years after the war the military associations of Tubbetts’ Bank were strengthened in an embarrassing manner. Lord Callington joined the board of directors.

You may picture the scene.

A big oak-panelled room with a long table, on which blotting-pads were placed at regular intervals— at one end of the table, seated under the large oil-painting of his father, Tubbetts, very businesslike, and immaculately dressed in a dark-grey frock-coat.

"You know Lord Callington?" One of the directors was introducing the newly appointed member of the board.

Tubs, flushing a little, rose awkwardly and held out his hand, and the older man smiled under his moustache.

The awkwardness had worn off a little in three months, though Tubs always deferred to the other’s opinion, always addressed him as "sir", and never offered opposition to any suggested scheme that Callington put forward.

When Tubs, in his capacity of managing director summarily dismissed the managing clerk of the bank, it was Callington who secured that gentleman’s reinstatement.

Tubs shifted uneasily in his seat when the matter was brought up at a board meeting.

"...After fifteen years of service— loyal and honourable service— to the bank!" said Callington reproachfully.

"That’s all right, sir," said Tubs a little peevishly, "but Vicars has been taking a jolly sight too much on himself. He practically pledged the bank to the support of that wild-cat scheme of Vessey’s— the Sudanese irrigation scheme— which I wouldn’t touch with a pole!"

"Lord Vessey is a personal friend of mine," said Callington coldly; "and, so far from his great project being a ‘wild-cat scheme’, it has all the elements of a great Imperial undertaking."

"Hear, hear!" murmured the board.

"Sorry, of course— friend of yours," muttered Tubs uncomfortably, "but, you know, sir, we can’t have a managing clerk giving undertakings— promises."

"That I can appreciate," admitted Callington graciously; "but zeal in the bank’s interest—"

Vicars was reinstated, and the board turned to the discussion of a dividend declaration. At the end of the business:

"I would like to return to the matter of Vessey’s scheme," said Callington.

Tubs, twisting the ends of his little moustache, frowned. He knew that he was out of sympathy with the board on this matter. He knew, too, that he was at some disadvantage facing these men; he had been trained to obey them. Callington had no authority over him— for Tubs was no longer a soldier— but he could not shake off the sense of service. General Brabington, too— he was in awe of that shaggy-browed veteran. Yet he hated Vessey’s Sudanese scheme like the devil. He had an irritating sense of his impotence, and the irritation was not allayed by the knowledge that he was, if he wished, master of the situation, for he held by far the largest number of shares in the bank.

"You know, gentlemen," continued Callington, addressing the board rather than Tubs, "that it has been the custom of the bank, in your late father’s time"— he turned to the scowling young chairman—"to distribute from time to time, to its shareholders, the result of any extraordinary profits which came to the bank.

"Those extraordinary profits came from extraordinary enterprises, and were very welcome to those of us who had invested our moneys in the bank. In the last four years" — he looked at Tubs absently—"in the last four years— indeed, ever since the death of the bank’s founder— the bank would seem to have been singularly lacking in initiative"— Hear, hear!—"and at a period when, from the point of view of our shareholders, some form of initiative in increasing the earning power of the bank was most necessary."

"Steady dividends," interrupted Tubs loudly. He was nervous, and showed it in the aggressive quality of his voice. "We’ve paid steady dividends, and taken no risks— that is the job of a bank."

"Whether it is the ‘job of a bank’ or not," said Callington, emphasizing the words, "it is an indisputable fact that Tubbetts’ bonus, which was at one time believed to be as inevitable as a consolidated dividend, has almost ceased to be. I would remind the chairman that the war left many relatives of dear and, I hope, mutual friends badly provided for."

Tubs wriggled again. Callington was going to mention names— names of men he had seen lying in little pools of blood, men who spun round like tops and made strange noises when they fell.

"Poor Brackett has a daughter who is an invalid. Her only income is from the bank. A bonus would be a godsend to her. Carsley left a young widow— you would remember Carsley, Mr. Tubbetts?— to whom a hundred pounds or so would make all the difference. I could mention others."

All the time Callington was speaking, the chairman was showing signs of increasing agitation. He was scribbling aimlessly with his pen on the blotting-pad, now sitting forward hunched up over the table, now leaning back in his chair, with his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

As Callington paused, Tubs threw his pen down violently.

"I don’t care what you say, sir!" he cried. When he was flustered, his voice rose almost to a squeak. "I know it’s disrespectful and all that sort of thing — I know that I’m an ass— but I won’t have this Vessey scheme! I won’t— I won’t!"

He thumped the table with his clenched fist.

"I want to help people as much as anybody— I want to do a turn for the wives of— of people— but Vessey’s syndicate is rotten— rotten! Suppose we finance it—"

"Financing has not been suggested," interrupted Callington; "it is a question of guarantees."

"It’s the same thing." Tubs heard the dissatisfied murmur of his directors, and went on rapidly, incoherently. "They want us to take an uncommercial risk; they want to trade on our credit. I know Vessey. He had something to do with a Peruvian railway. I saw it in The Times the other day. He’s a wrong ‘un!"

Lord Callington rose.

"I cannot listen to this hysterical abuse of a man I have known for years— a gallant officer and an honourable gentleman," he said stiffly.

The board adjourned, and Tubbetts left the room, leaving behind him very much the same atmosphere as signalized his exit, one historic night, in South Africa.

"He’s a fool— a useless, boorish fool," said Callington bitterly, as he walked home through the City that evening, "but he shall have his responsibilities brought home to him!"

That afternoon a curious thing happened. Tubs had an appointment with the directors of the British Industrial Bank of Yorkshire, and, in a very bad temper, went to keep it. He had received an offer to purchase the business of the bank, and for an hour he haggled and argued with two Scotchmen and a Lancashire spinner who controlled the shares of the bank.

He was leaving the directors’ room, having definitely decided not to purchase, when he saw something which interested him. The directors’ room opened on to a balcony which ran on three sides of the "shop". Standing at one of the paying-in counters was Vicars. He watched the managing clerk as he gathered up his paying-in book and disappeared through the swing doors. Then Tubs walked back into the room he had left, and renewed his negotiations.

In the meantime there came whispers to the City that Vessey’s irrigation scheme was going through, and that Tubbetts’ Bank was behind it.

Mrs. Carsley called upon the managing director the next morning— a pathetic figure of a girl widow— and Tubs saw her. It may have been a coincidence that she called so soon after the board meeting, but Tubs thought otherwise. He was by nature suspicious.

He listened gravely to all she had to say.

"I’m sorry," he said, when she had finished, "but I see no immediate prospect of a dividend. If you need the money badly, I will let you have an overdraft on my own responsibility."

"I do not want to borrow money," she said with quiet dignity, "but I understood there used to be bonuses, you know, Mr. Tubbetts, and people were saying at dinner last night that the bank was going to do something very wonderful that would make all our fortunes."

Tubs grinned, responsive to the girl’s weary smile.

"There is no likelihood of anything wonderful happening whilst I am chairman," he said, and when she smiled again, Tubs went red.

She was very beautiful, thought Tubs, when he summoned courage to look at her. Women were not "his game", either, and there was a little aching pain in his heart when she began telling him why the "bonus" was needed. Such pitiably little requirements she had— a new carpet for her drawing-room was one of the things.

Carsley went down to death, spinning like a top, and trying to say something... and died with a little smile... and his widow wanted a few pounds to buy a carpet! Tubs could have cried.

"And, of course," she concluded, "if there were a bonus it would mean so much."

"I know— I know!" He leaned over the desk, his big hands clasped on the pad. "And I’m simply aching to do something for you. I want to, and I— I can’t see a way."

She was disappointed; he saw that when she rose to go. He cursed himself that he was no genius who could devise, at a second’s notice, some plan for her relief.

"You— you knew my husband?" she said, as she stood with one hand on his desk.

Tubs nodded.

"Yes," he said huskily, "I knew him. Good chap — brave chap!" He gulped something down.

Could he not see Carsley— a prince of men, who took his arm, and spoke so gently to him? And here was the one being in the world whom, above all others, Carsley loved. He would give her an open cheque for ten— twenty— fifty thousand pounds if she asked him. But she would not take that. She wanted a hundred pounds to buy a carpet for the drawing-room, and clothes, perhaps, and he could not give it to her in the way she wanted.

He opened the door for her, and then an idea struck him.

"I say, Mrs. Carsley"— he was breathless with the splendour of his scheme, vague, too, as to its working out, untidy of speech—"I’ve got a scheme— interested in something— cabbage factory— no, not that, furniture business— huge profits, enormous! Let me invest some of your money in that. Big profits, cent, per cent., and that sort of thing. Look here, you could have your profits in advance."

He committed an error there, for she saw through the threadbare cloak that hid his philanthropy, and smiled kindly.

"No, no, no, Mr. Tubbetts! I understand, and thank you, but no." She was gone before he could lie his way to plausibility.

Letters came to him, pleading, bullying letters. When would the bank pay a bonus? He suspected Lord Callington and his directors, and he did them an injustice. There were other agencies at work.

Callington wrote asking for an extraordinary board meeting, and Tubs consented.

"We have gone into this question of Sudanese irrigation," said Callington, "and unless we step in now, another bank will guarantee the money."

"Which bank?" demanded Tubs sceptically.

"The Rand Bank."

"They’ve got no money." Tubs was contemptuous.

"We feel we are acting in the best interest of our shareholders," said a director.

"I don’t," said Tubs.

He was sitting square in his chair, and his under-jaw was thrust out; he was fighting for his faith in his own judgment.

Three directors began talking at once; they were growing angry.

"It has come to this, Tubs." It was like old times to hear Callington snap that word at him. "We know you too well to accept your final word on this matter; we are not going to stand idly by and see you throw away this opportunity. I have seen you throw away things more precious, but you are not going to bungle this. Here"— he smacked the table with his hand—"now"— he thumped it again—"we have got to come to a decision and guarantee this irrigation scheme. It means a hundred thousand pounds for distribution amongst our shareholders. Are you going to agree, or are you not?"

Tubs licked his lips.

"I’m not," he said doggedly. "It’s a rotten scheme; it’s run by a wrong ‘un. If it petered out, as it will do, the bank would be ruined."

"You’re a fool!" Callington was white with anger. "I will send you my resignation from the board to-morrow."

Tubs said nothing— not even when, one after another, by growling asides and direct statement, the remaining directors of Tubbetts’ Bank followed Callington’s lead.

4

HARD days for Tubbs, these. The resignation of the directors was the sensation of the day. There was almost a run on the bank, and every post brought hundreds of letters from anxious depositors.

The day the last of the directors resigned, he sent for Vicars, his managing clerk.

"Vicars," he said, "how much commission were you promised by Vessey for inducing the directors to entertain his wretched scheme?"

"Sir!" said the outraged clerk.

"How much?"

"This is scandalous, sir I I served your late father "

"How much commission for standing in with the Vessey gang?"

The managing clerk turned on his heel.

"I shall leave the bank at once! You shall hear from my solicitors!"

But Tubs was at the door in a bound.

"Before you leave this room, I want to know," he said; and as Vicars attempted to pass he seized him by the throat and thrust him back into the centre of the room. "Stand there, you dog! You didn’t think I knew where the directors got all their information from— all the fine promises from— did you? They didn’t get it from Vessey; he’s too wily. I know Vessey; he’d promise nothing."

The man was sick with fear.

"I could run you in for conspiracy," said Tubs, "or I could break every bone in your body, and one or the other I’ll do, if you don’t tell me the truth."

"There was no commission," said the man sullenly, "but Vessey gave me a thousand for expenses. How did you know?"

"I’ll not satisfy your beastly curiosity. Sit down and write."

NINE ex-directors of Tubbetts’ Bank received nine certified copies of a managing clerk’s confession. Nine directors accepted Tubs’s invitation to a meeting, and they came, looking rather sheepish.

"Vicars was at the bottom of this from the first," said Tubs. "He was getting big cheques and running another account at the Yorkshire Industrial."

"I hardly know what to say to you, Tubs," said Callington, "except that I am sorry. I thought Vessey was straight. We might have ruined thousands of people! My blood goes cold when I think of it!"

"That brings me to another point," said Tubs hurriedly, for the distress of his colonel made him uncomfortable. "There will be a bonus. I’ve made a deal— bought the Yorkshire Industrial Bank for a quarter of a million, and transferred it to the Bank of the Empire at a profit of fifty thousand."

He did not say what had decided him to buy the bank, and they did not guess. They did not know that it was to examine the private account of Mr. Vicars, sometime managing clerk of Tubbetts’, that he had spent a quarter of a million, and that, having satisfied his curiosity, he hastened to sell his purchase— at a profit.

"It’s very wonderful to me," said Callington half to himself. "Think of what has happened! If Tubs had been killed, and another man spared! I used to think—"

He shook his head, and Tubs grew very red.

"Bankin’ is my game," he said apologetically.

_____________________

8:  The Devil Doctor

1

GEORGE REWEN had a weakness for London parks, even on grey days when there was a smell of snow in the air and the rags of last night’s fog streaked across the leafless poplars.

He liked them because they seemed to him to be the only places in London where he could breathe and be free from the everlasting rumble and roar of wheeled traffic.

He came out of his hotel with a wistful glance at a gloomy cloud, behind which somewhere was a sun that unfolded the waxy petals of gladioli and drew from the pale heliotrope a heady fragrance. Somewhere it laved the world with a golden glory, and bare-footed children were treading yellow sands....

For the moment it was desperately uncosy; the advance guard of a northern gale was bending the tree-tops, and every few seconds something flat and wet and cold, like a piece of icy confetti, melted on his cheek. He strode at a rare pace along the gravelled path, and was alone except for the lady in the fur coat who walked ahead of him swinging a cane. She came to a cross-path and was undecided as to whether she should turn or continue ahead. He dodged to pass her, collided.

"I’m terribly sorry."

She was very pretty— even as pretty as he thought. The cold morning had given her cheeks a petal pinkness and had been merciful to her straight little nose.

"It was my fault," she smiled, and went on a few paces.

"Excuse me."

He stooped and picked up the flat morocco purse she had dropped. She told him she had dropped that purse in identically the same spot a year before. George Rewen had only lost one purse in his life— just outside Gwelo as he was riding in. Gwelo? Where was Gwelo? Wasn’t it in Rhodesia?

She was not at all uncomfortable to find herself in conversation with a perfect stranger, good-looking and thirty-something. The very desolation of the park destroyed much of the convention which holds human beings apart.

They paced together slowly; an overcoated policeman, slapping his hands together and stamping his cold feet, saw them pass and smiled cynically. He thought they were engaged.

He did not ask her name, and she would have been disappointed in him if he had. She might be well off, or she might be poor; working-girls were dressing rather well in England, he had observed during the brief period of his sojourn. The coat she wore might be the last word in expensive furs. It might also be supplied by one of those stores which cater for the careful.

"Lonely? Yes, I suppose so. There are degrees of loneliness. You would probably feel a little overcrowded in my surroundings— your idea of solitude might frighten me to death!"

She laughed.

George Rewen said good-bye to her with regret, and wished he had had the courage to ask her if she often walked in the park. He could come and find out, but the park was a big place.

Any doubt he had as to her financial position was removed as she passed through the gate. From the middle of the road, a big and shining car drew up to the pavement, a footman got down and touched his cap as she entered the machine. He stood watching, and she bowed to him as the Rolls passed on the other side of the railings.

He did not speak of his mild adventure when he met Dr. Lansen. In truth, Dr. Lansen gave him little opportunity, for the doctor was a great talker, and, unlike most great talkers, was interesting.

He talked through lunch, and when George Rewen was ushered into the smoke-room of Brown’s Club that evening (he had promised to call for the doctor at that rendezvous) he was talking even more brilliantly. For he loved an audience.

On the question of criminal psychology he was accepted as an authority, even amongst eminent psychologists. In the course of his interesting career he had acted for seven years as a prison doctor, and was one of the few men in England who had collected systematically the data which is the basis of all scientific observation.

2

IT was on the evening of the 23rd of December, the last busy day Brown’s Club would know until its members straggled back from their holidays, that the doctor stood with his back to the fire and discussed criminals with ten interested men and one unemotional stranger; and George Rewen’s boredness was all the more reprehensible because he was Dr. Lansen’s personal guest.

Lansen was tall and broad-shouldered; he had a mop of iron-grey hair, and his square, good-humoured face was illuminated— it seemed to reflect any light there was in a room— by round, gold-rimmed spectacles, through which a pair of blue eyes danced with amusement.

"The true criminal is the more difficult to detect because he has no criminal record. The police know him not; his name may be written large in the Court circular but it never appears in the Court registers; he is a highly respected member of society, a pillar of local institutions, a member of the best clubs, and a popular fellow in the most discriminating circles."

"A pretty fair description of your good self," chuckled old Blathwyte.

"And of you and all of us," Lansen beamed. "In Carey Street is a court which is occupied, year in and year out, with the affairs of foolish men whose liabilities are in excess of their assets. If you sat in those stuffy rooms long enough, you would imagine that an inability to balance income and expenditure was the inevitable preliminary to ruin. Yet is not the City filled with prosperous men who thrive on their liabilities? What is the Old Bailey but a bankruptcy court, where the dismal failures of the criminal world are audited and found incorrect? Clever financiers do not reach bankruptcy. Clever thieves and murderers seldom walk up the stone steps and bow to the judge. Crime and commerce demand training and study; carelessness in either pursuit, lack of experience, lack of foresight, ignorance of detail, faulty organization— in fact, weakness of executive quality leads to disaster, whether you sell butter or cut throats!"

Some of his audience "supposed so"; two dull men who had missed the thread of the argument were prepared to dispute the conclusions. George Rewen was mildly amused, mildly interested. His mind was some six thousand miles away, in a pleasant land that knew not the fog glooming the windows of the smoke-room, nor the thin sleet that had driven into his face as he walked up Pall Mall....

"... Of all the factors which make for catastrophe in criminal activity"— the doctor twitched his coat-tails, his fine head drooped sideways as it invariably did when he grew dogmatic—"there is none so potent as the factor of emotion. Passion in all its forms— anger, love, hate, sentimentality— disastrous! Twelve months ago this week I prosecuted a butler of mine. He had been stealing systematically— sleeve-links, a case of wine, a little silver— a good fellow, and he had been with me eight years. He had a wife and child. They died when he was in prison, which was unfortunate— terribly unfortunate, poor man. A week ago I had a letter from him telling me that sooner or later he would hang for me. The letter was almost incoherent; he wrote in a fury. I have not even troubled to put the letter in the hands of the police. His anger is my safeguard. Had he not written I should have been worried, for I knew that he had been released from prison; an angry enemy is half disarmed. In a month’s time I shall receive another letter apologizing for the first and asking for my good offices to secure a situation for him; in six months he will have married again and will write thanking me for all I have done for him. Tanner is typical—"

Dr. Lansen’s limousine was waiting as he conducted his guest down the broad marble stairs to the murky street. Underfoot was half an inch of greasy snow; the fog swirled in clouds along Pall Mall, and though the journey to Park Lane, where he had his apartment, was a short one, Rewen was shivering by the time they arrived.

"A beastly climate," chuckled the doctor, unlocking the door of his flat, "and I can understand that you are pining for the beaches of Durban— or is it Muizenberg? Personally, I love the mystery and furtiveness of fog." The big library-study was furnished with a luxury which seemed to err on the side of effeminacy; but then, George Rewen carried the advertisement of his out-of-door life in his tanned face and lean, loose frame.

He loathed financiers as a rule, but was compelled to admit that Dr. Lansen was a notable exception to the general run of the species. A financier who had other interests than money was something of a novelty.

"When does your steamer leave?" Lansen asked, as he pressed the bell on his desk.

"January 3rd," said Rewen. "At least, I hope I can finish my business in time to catch the mail-boat."

A liveried manservant came in; Dr. Lansen ordered cocktails.

"I hope so," he said, when the man had gone. "Lady Mary is rather difficult. She is young, and young people can be difficult. A year ago I could have sold the property and saved you the journey perhaps. But she is of age, and before the claims can be transferred her signature is necessary."

"Are there any other trustees?"

The doctor shook his head.

"No— I have the sole responsibility. I am seeing her to-night. I do not anticipate any very great opposition."

3

OVER the cocktails George Rewen learnt something of the doctor and the genesis of his fortune. He had been a general practitioner in a county town till the death of a grateful patient had placed him in possession of a modest fortune. This had been augmented by another legacy soon after he had set up in Harley Street as a specialist on nervous disorders.

The late Earl of Landring had been his friend and patient, and had left him a considerable sum, in addition to the trusteeship of his estate, which included two hundred apparently worthless gold claims in the Leydenburg district of the Transvaal. On these he had paid taxation for ten years before a boring on a neighbouring gold farm had revealed a rich low-level reef. The purchase of these claims was the business which had brought George Rewen to England.

"She had some absurd idea that there should be no further sale of property until the term of my trusteeship expires, which is another eleven months," said Lansen, sipping thoughtfully at his cocktail.

Rewen smiled.

"I hope she will change her mind," he said. "We wish to get the company floated this year whilst the market is healthy. I think that in offering a hundred thousand we are offering top price."

He went back to his hotel after dinner, a little puzzled. For a shrewd financier, the doctor had peculiar views on the value of mining propositions. He had cross-examined his guest upon the future of half a dozen African properties which Rewen knew to be hopelessly insolvent, and in which, apparently, Lansen had invested. To describe them as wild-cat schemes would be to suggest that wild cats were gentle and domesticated creatures.

He had been an investor in the Marandalas Platinum Company— the most palpable swindle that had ever been put upon the market. Rewen had a banker friend in London, and, late as the hour was, he rang up the banker at his Sunningdale residence.

"Lansen? Oh, yes, a gambler, but immensely rich. Everything he touches turns to gold— eventually. A very lucky man and a most convincing talker."

At the moment this testimonial was being offered to his power of persuasion, Dr. Lansen was in some doubts as to his gifts in this respect. He was standing in his favourite position, his back to a fireplace in a Grosvenor Square house, and his argument awakened no enthusiasm in his unresponsive audience.

Lady Mary Elfort sat in a corner of the big settee, turning and turning the diamond bracelet on her arm, and appeared to be so absorbed in her occupation that she did not raise her eyes to the doctor once. She had come in from a theatre, and her ermine cloak lay over one arm of the settee.

"I know— I am awfully sorry I am so obstinate, but I don’t see the need for hurry. We’ve sold such an awful lot this year— the Bennett estate and the Clearhaven property. I feel I ought to— see somebody— couldn’t I consult Mr. Strangeway?"

Dr. Lansen smiled. Another man would have grown frantic at the suggestion. Strangeway was a lawyer, and, until the days of his trusteeship, the family lawyer, and Strangeway did not like him.

"My dear Mary"— his voice was very gentle—"that is rather offensive, isn’t it? I am doing my best for you— it is no profit to me. This man Rewen understands the mining market and was very emphatic; he said the value of the claims may be sensibly reduced next year—"

"How can they be?"

"It is a question of the money market." Lansen was very patient; it was as though he were pointing out to a naughty child the error of her ways. "Money just now is free; next year it may be tight."

"Could I see Mr. Rewen?" she asked, and the doctor hesitated.

"Certainly. I was going to suggest that."

He thought so quickly that she might not guess how in the brief space of the pause between speech and speech he had planned and revised his plan.

"He is coming down to lunch with me at ‘Sea Castle’. Let me drive you down to-morrow."

She had visited Dr. Lansen’s old house before— a pleasant, if lonely, place on the Thanet coast— in summer.

Mary Elfort had few relations, and most of them had been antagonized by her erratic father, who had a penchant for quarrelling with his relatives.

"Yes— but it won’t be a pleasant drive, will it?" she asked. "It is snowing now?"

Dr. Lansen smiled.

"You are too young to think of such old-fashioned things as the weather," he said.

When he reached Park Lane he experienced an unpleasant shock. Save for the swift passage of occasioned motor-buses, the thoroughfare was deserted. The man who came towards him from the shadows might be an innocent wayfarer: on the other hand ... Dr. Lansen’s slipped his hand into his overcoat pocket, and wished he had told his chauffeur to wait until he had opened the outer door of the building in which he had his flat.

"Good evening, Doctor."

It was Tanner. Tanner, the gaolbird, and the utterer of dire threats. But his voice was civil and his tone without offence.

"What do you want, Tanner?"

The doctor’s hand closed over the stock of his Browning; he thumbed down the safety-catch. It seemed to him at that moment that Tanner knew he carried a gun.

"Could you do anything for me, Doctor? I’m down and out."

Lansen smiled; he could have wished that his audience at Brown’s Club were there to witness this rapid endorsement of his prophecy. And then he thought....

"Come up, Tanner."

He let the man walk first.

In the setting of a beautiful room Tanner looked unwholesome. He had not shaved. His clothes were shabby and weather-stained. There was no resemblance here to a pompous and dishonest butler.

"Would you like to go down to Sea Castle and open up the house? I shall only be there for a day or two."

The man stared at him. Had the psychologist in Dr. Lansen been at its brightest he might have read in that stare the fulfilment of crazy dreams.

"Yes, sir— you don’t usually go down to Sea Castle in the winter "

The doctor nodded.

"Exactly. I have a reason for wishing that my visit should not be advertised now. It is rather a private — er— business."

He sent Tanner away with certain keys and money. Curious, mused Dr. Lansen, that a man who had suffered imprisonment, justly, and who could ascribe the loss of a wife and child to him, could be so meek. Tanner’s appearance was in every way providential.

4

DR. LANSEN did not go to bed that night; he sat up packing necessary clothing and destroying papers. It would be hard to take a final farewell of this pleasant flat. The last of the papers to go into the fire and add to the ashes which overflowed on to the hearth were six Writs of Summons issued that very day by certain rapacious stockbrokers who had acted in concert, or had been moved by a common instinct of self-preservation.

The salvage of two estates for which he had acted as trustee was in a wall-safe: three thick wads of Swiss banknotes, each for a thousand francs.

An unintelligent criminal, thought Dr. Lansen, would have waited until people began to whisper, and court messengers deposited orders of garnishee upon the tables of bank messengers. He was not unintelligent. Also at the Kantonal Bank at Montreux was a large balance ... foresight— organization— the executive brain....

Early the next morning, George Rewen received an express letter:

Lady Mary has ceased to be difficult [it ran]. She is staying with me at my place near Whitstable. Will you come down and join my house-party for Christmas? On one point her ladyship is childishly insistent— the money must be paid in dollar currency! She has, apparently, some notion that sterling will slump as a result of the strike. She may be right, but it is a little wearying to deal with youthful mentalities. I am afraid we must humour her.

There were elaborate directions as to how "Sea Castle" should be reached by road. George Rewen had hired a big Spanz coupe for his use whilst he was in London; the doctor had been his guarantor to the hiring company.

George scratched his chin thoughtfully; he consulted the bank where his money was deposited. The bank manager was quietly amused, but offered only the conventional objections and expressed a willingness to insure the currency in transit. He knew the doctor was slightly acquainted with Lady Mary and was aware that she was "difficult"— he had had this impression from Dr. Lansen.

With the greater part of five hundred thousand dollars in his pocket George Rewen drove out of London with a light heart, for the letter had put a period to his stay in a very unpleasant climate.

He found himself thinking about the park girl as he drove through Lewisham, had a little pang of regret that a promising acquaintance could not be renewed. A skid on the greasy tramlines put her out of his mind. It had been snowing for three days intermittently in the country, he learned at Dartford. Snow is a breath-taking decoration on the branches of cedars and the roofs of old cottages; it brings a ghostly silence to the countryside and a new value of loveliness to the ugly corners of the world. But to a man who has a large car suffering from a fractured water-joint its aesthetic qualities are not so obvious.

Night was coming down with the fine, powdery snow when George Rewen switched on his lamps and took one long and gloomy look at the newly formed pool of ice beneath his radiator, and began his tramp in search of the inevitable garage. He rather wished he was not carrying nearly half a million dollars in currency. It had been an inspiration to follow the secondary road to Whitstable; such inspirations are of the devil. Normally the depth of snow on the road was about twelve inches, but it was a track exposed to all the winds that blew, and he was knee-deep in drifts every few yards. To his left a flat marsh extending, as he guessed, to the grey sea; to his right a featureless plain, though he had seen straggling lines of trees before the water-joint went.

"Phe-e-e-w!"

Gale and snow. He grinned mirthlessly, and felt in his pocket to be sure that his electric lamp was there.

He resented many things, but none so much as the romance of being snowbound on Christmas Eve. Such things only happened in sugary stories; he was not romantic. He was a very wholesome bachelor who had made money by developing mines and buying and selling stock. He thought lovingly of Tanganyika Concessions and East Rands. It was warm and sunny in Johannesburg, and the plumbago would be burning bluely in a hundred gardens, and the children playing in Joubert Park; in Tanganyika, too ... there was a whole lot of fun to be got round Tanganyika, shooting....

"Phe-e-e-w!"

He stopped, gasping. The wind was blowing all ways; in an instant his face had been masked with snow.

Then, to add to the grotesqueness of everything, there was a sudden quiver of blinding light and the crash and roll of thunder.

"Snow-storms and lightning! Heavens, what a country!" he growled.

5

IT was growing dark with extraordinary rapidity. He looked back, wondering if he could see the lights of his car, but the falling flakes dropped a thick and impenetrable curtain. Whether he were on or off the road, he could only guess. Snow-billows, which might hide the scrubby hedges, stretched away into the dusk. He plodded on— and on. Sometimes the wind was behind him, sometimes at his flank. Once he nearly slipped down the steep bank of a water-channel. It was then that he knew he was not on the road. A rift occurred in the invisible clouds, and it became a little lighter; ahead or behind, he heard the distant rumble of thunder.

He stopped and looked down. To call them footprints would have been inaccurate. But there were certain deep little pats in the snow, similar to those which he had been creating as he walked; they occurred at regular intervals and followed a snow-furrow that ran at right angles to his own track. And they were new. The fine snow had not filled them as it would in a few minutes, for the wind had momentarily dropped and the white, powdery stuff was falling straightly. The visible impress of heel and toe would have told him the direction, but no sign of a boot-sole showed. Stooping, he peered down first into one and then into another of the depressions. Here was a place where the unknown foot had slipped, ploughing a white channel.

He turned left, stamping knee-deep, his eyes on the snow— white no longer, but purple in the failing light.

He was moving in the right direction— if his guide was right. A half-buried sapling appeared from the fog, another— a dwarf of a tree like a shrivelled old man crouching painfully— a pine on his left, and then the indescribable scent of a wood. There was more and more shelter; the snow under his feet became a crust so thin that he could feel the solid earth beneath. And the little pits had become footmarks— a woman’s; a fashionably shod woman— the soles were narrow and pointed, the heels high. He had scarcely made the discovery before he saw a dark, shapeless bundle, almost at his feet. It was oddly like a bear cub, the fur speckled thickly with snow, but he knew it was human before he knelt by its side, and a woman before his nostrils were flattered by the faint fragrance of a perfume beyond his power to classify.

He was less interested in the identity of his find, its sex or age, than in the dismal realization of his own helplessness. There was some sort of shelter here, for the trees were massing; there were some so protected from the storm that only a powder of snow showed on their trunks. He tried to lift her and was surprised at her weight. He had always thought of women rather as ethereal beings to be supported on one strong arm and defended with another.

Standing astride of her, like a pair of human shear-legs, he lifted her till his shoulder was at her waist level; then, heaving her up, he staggered on, he hoped, to complete shelter.

Unexpectedly it showed out of the darkness, a square wood-shed of a place with a rough door held in position by a hasp and wooden peg. Setting down his burden, he opened the door and flashed his lamp around. The tiny shed was empty, except for a lawn-mower and a tin lantern that hung on a nail to the scantling rafter. A grimy lantern, but it held a candle, and this he lit before he returned to the doubled heap he had left at the door.

Unconsciously he had applied the perfect remedy to a fainting woman, for he had left her with her head drooping in her lap.

"Who is that?"

Her voice was husky with fear as she stared up at the shape that had detached itself from the gloomy doorway.

"I found you in the snow. Fainted, I guess."

"Oh!"

She tried to get to her feet unaided; she was too weak, and accepted the cold hand that was extended to her.

"It is snowing worse than ever. This place seems warm— it may even be dry. Watch your step."

A circle of light from his hand-lamp guided her and she reached the interior. The candle was burning gallantly, somewhat handicapped by the dust that obscured its glass case; he took out a sodden handkerchief and left the glass streaky, but translucent.

"I don’t know where we are. I’ve got a car somewhere on the Whitstable road. If I knew where the Whitstable road was, I’d go back and bring the rug—"

He stopped open-mouthed. She was leaning against the wall, her white face turned to his. The heavy mink coat was open; underneath she wore a dark cloth dress— the pearls about her whiter throat were worth a rich man’s annual income; on her dress quivered a diamond pendant that flashed back all the colours of the spectrum. He was conscious only of eyes— great dark eyes, wide and staring.

"Will you come back to the house with me— I think I ought to go back— it was silly— running away. I think I ought to go back."

Her speech was strangely deliberate; he remembered a hypnotic stance conducted by a fakir in— where was it? Anyway, the lured subject talked just like that, and nodded wisely as she was nodding.

"Where is your house?" he asked, and she turned her head and looked out through the open door.

"Somewhere— near."

She lifted her hand and peered down at it; it was an odd, mad little gesture. She had done it before.

"Are you hurt?"

He took her hand in his; it was blue with cold, icy to the touch. There was no injury except two tiny punctures at the wrist— blue-red specks in a discoloured circle.

"I think I’ve met you before," he said gently. "I saw you in the Green Park— wasn’t it yesterday morning? "

"I don’t know— perhaps. Rather a nice man who talked about— Africa."

It was she— the park girl. As she stumbled towards the door, he put his arm about her waist, supporting her, and she did not resist.

"You can’t go " he began, when he saw a light coming through the trees. It was a very powerful light — a spirit-gas lamp that swung as its owner walked.

"Hello!" shouted George Rewen. Dr. Lansen’s jovial voice answered him.

"Where the deuce have you been? I’ve been expecting you for hours, my dear fellow. Lady Mary is here, and everything is signed and sealed "

He stopped; only then did he see the girl shrinking to Rewen’s side.

"Oh— I see you’ve met. My poor little girl has had rather a bad nervous breakdown."

The doctor was a very quick thinker.

"Come along, Mary, my dear," he said briskly.

"Is this Lady Mary? I can look after her. Will you lead the way?"

Rewen’s voice had the quality of ice, and Lansen said nothing to him, but turned and went slowly back the way he had come, the two following him.

"Don’t let him— touch me!"

The words were no more than breathed, yet as Rewen nodded the doctor looked round.

"Of course, she’s talking utter nonsense," he said. "These modern young women are liable to such attacks. I wonder it hasn’t come sooner."

George Rewen did not answer.

The house was very near, a squat, rambling cottage built on the crumbling walls of that famous Sea Castle which had braved the gales for four hundred years.

The doctor passed under the portico into the big hall. There was evidence here that the house had been untenanted for some time— a musty smell, thick dust on the hall table. The drawing-room was an ocean of gloom in which the sheeted furniture stood up like lonely little islands.

"Your house-party doesn’t seem to have arrived?"

Dr. Lansen smiled.

"No— they are coming to-morrow. Will you excuse me?"

He was gone before excuse could be accepted.

6

IN the stone kitchen at the back of the house the unshaven Tanner sat at the table munching a piece of bread. There was an opened bottle of wine before him.

"You can go back, Tanner; here is fifty pounds. Call at my place in about a week’s time and I may be able to do something for you."

The man nodded but did not touch the money.

"Does the young lady know I am here?" he asked.

"Even I do not know you’re here." Dr. Lansen was in a flippant mood. "Take the path over the fields— you can find your way, and the main road is good walking."

"Somebody has taken off that cover of the well, sir," said Tanner.

"That I know," said Dr. Lansen testily. "I have been taking a sample of the water."

Tanner nodded again and rose. This time he took up the money.

‘I’ll be going in five minutes," he said, and felt in his pocket for a piece of cord that he had been tying slipknot fashion.

Dr. Lansen returned to the drawing-room without misgivings. He stopped at the door and took from his pocket a long envelope, from this a paper.

"Is she feeling better?" he asked as he came into the room.

Mary was lying on a sheeted sofa, and turned her pale face towards him. Behind the sofa was George Rewen, leaning on the back. He was so obviously on his defence that the psychologist realized that he was to be saved a great deal of unnecessary explanation.

Nevertheless:

"I have the transfer properly signed and the receipt," he said. "You have, I understand, the money—"

Rewen shook his head.

"There will be no deal," he said quietly. "Lady Mary has been drugged and is still under its influence, as she was when she signed the transfer."

"The money," said Dr. Lansen firmly.

The barrel of a Browning he held rested on the back of a chair, and its muzzle covered the man.

"Give it to me nicely and take your receipt. I shall shoot if you don’t, and take it from you."

"Let him have it, please."

The girl spoke quietly; there was no tremor in her voice.

"I once called you unintelligent— I’m sorry," murmured Lansen as he reached for the package.

"Thank you. I rather wondered if you would carry a pistol; it was foolish not to take that precaution."

He backed out into the passage, listening. The sound of shuffling footsteps on the stone floor of the kitchen reached him, the squeak of rusty bolts, and, after an interval, the slam of a door. How characteristic of Tanner to leave by the servants’ entrance I

"It will be from five to ten days before the evidence of this unfortunate happening is discovered," he said pleasantly, "and it may interest you to know that I have precipitated this crisis because of certain private information which came to me yesterday. One of the danger spots to me is the Home Office. There is a temporary messenger at the Home Office who has been my guardian angel. It was from him I learnt that permission had been granted to exhume the body of a former patient— a patient who left me quite a lot of money!"

He smiled waggishly.

"You may not see the connection? I am going to tell you something, Mr. Rewen— it is probably the last piece of knowledge you will gain in this world. The true criminal— as I believe myself to be— prepares himself to meet all contingencies." He looked at the Browning in his hand. "Very near to this house is a large deep well— very, very deep."

Why was he talking at such lengths? Rewen puzzled — and guessed.

Somebody had left— Lansen was waiting until that somebody was out of earshot. He looked down at the girl and smiled, and she smiled back at him. And then their hands met in a grip that brought courage to both.

The doctor had stopped talking.

Looking up, Rewen saw that the doorway was empty. He heard no sound. There was a high-backed chair near to his hand and this he lifted. Once he had defended himself against Mashona assegais with a lighter chair than this. It would be poor protection against the shattering thresh of bullets, but it was something.

He reached the wall flush with the door and listened— no sound. He flung the chair into the hall to divert the lurking assassin and followed instantly. The hall was empty; on the floor lay a thick package, the money he had brought and which Lansen had held in his hand. Near by was a folded carpet, and on top of this was a pistol. It was as if pistol and money had been dropped together.

With the gun in his hand, Rewen went swiftly along the passage, but his progress was arrested by a locked door. He thought he heard a sound and listened. There was no need to risk the girl’s life by any further exploration. He went back to her and told her of his surprising discoveries.

"We’ll get out. Lansen’s lantern is still in the hall, and we’ll have to take the risk of being potted— it may be a trap, but it doesn’t look like it."

The Browning was loaded, he found on examination, and, with the girl carrying the lantern, they went out into the night.

Tanner, the butler, who knew nothing of the psychology of criminals, but only knew that he once had a wife and child, waited until the light had vanished before he loosened the cord about a dead man’s neck and pushed the body of the eminent psychologist into a well which was reputedly bottomless.

George Rewen sent a cable to his partner in Johannesburg:

AM POSTPONING DEPARTURE TWO MONTHS, PERHAPS THREE. LADY MARY THINKS ACCOMPANYING ME TO CAPE IN MAY TO SEE PROPERTY.

"Who’s Lady Mary?" snarled his overworked partner. "And why doesn’t he tell us what he’s done about those damn’ claims? Boy— get me a cable-blank!"

___________________

9:  The Original Mrs. Blaney

MR. MICHALOFF POGINSKI, having finished playing the piano, announced to his subdued but clever family that Chopin’s Prelude in C was not what it used to be.

"Everything’s changed," said Mrs. Poginski moodily. "Where’s your circuses? Where’s your bareback riders? Where’s your contortionists? They ain’t producing them nowadays. Mark my words, the fashion will change and there’ll be a call for people who can wind themselves in and out of the rails of a chair, and there’ll be nobody to do it. Then where will they be?"

Mr. Poginski agreed with every word she said.

He was a little, pinched man with weak eyes and a weaker beard. His name was Arthur Ruskin Pogg, and it was his misfortune that he had gained a scholarship at the famous School of Music and had, at great expense and the sacrifice of one-twentieth of his lifetime, acquired the right and title to give pianoforte lessons at half a crown an hour to the young gentry of Croydon. For he lacked that syncopated touch which alone is the true sign of greatness. From this bleak prospect he was rescued by Earl Hiker, whom it would be wrong to describe as "his Lordship", his first name being William, and "Earl" at best a pseudonym.

Bill Hiker, who wrote and read with difficulty, had heard about a man called Paderewski who had attracted audiences of fabulous values. At the moment this item of news was discovered to him, Bill sat in his caravan cogitating upon the rival drawing powers of a trained chimpanzee and a troupe of performing dogs for his forthcoming season.

He was an immense man, who hadn’t seen his feet for years.

"What’s ‘e play?" he asked.

"The pianner, Bill," said his reader and amanuensis.

"By ‘and?" asked Bill incredulously, and, when he was so assured, Bill bit his toothpick in half.

"Go out and get a feller that plays the pianner— by ‘and," he said autocratically. "Go on— get ‘im! And tell O’Leary that the performin’ chimp ain’t booked. Chimps always bring fleas into the company."

Mr. Pogg was the person upon whom choice fell, and, in a moment of temporary insanity Mr. Pogg accepted £2 a week, food, and a sleeping share in the caravan occupied by one lion-tamer, a tent hand and a sword swallower.

Later, he met Lettie Le Lounville, the Boneless Wonder, and they fell in love, albeit Mr. Pogg (now Michael Poginski) was himself not overburdened with backbone.

There came a time, however, when the fascinations of a pianist palled. People stirred uneasily in their seats, and the voice of the peanut seller (a great opportunist) rose continuously during Poginski’s turn; and one morning Bill Hiker sent for his slave.

"Playing the pianner by ‘and don’t draw nothing," he said. "Pogg, you’ve gotta getta new specialty. Can you play a pianner with your feet?"

The artistic soul of Mr. Pogg flickered to a feeble flame and was instantly extinguished.

"I haven’t tried, Mr. Hiker," he faltered.

"Go and see Lettie," said Mr. Hiker kindly. "I’ll put up your salary a pound and bill you— big!"

It was six months before M. Poginski made his début in the new role— six months of torture physical and mental. Then, before an enraptured audience, and with the small of his back balanced upon an inadequate piano-stool and his knees acrobatically contorted, he beat forth the "Spring Song" with his agile toes and became Poginski the Marvellous Trick Pianist.

But there were no (or few) circuses, and Lettie de Lounville no longer wound herself affectionately round the body of her partner; and the toes of the trick pianist were out of practice.

Cinemas gave him work occasionally, but the cinemas that depended entirely upon one pianist were few, and these preferred people who played jazz by ear.

And behind him was the record of tragedy. This began and ended with a touring concert party consisting of the Poggs, two vocalists, and one who was both advance agent, bill-poster, check-taker, chief "barker" (by which is meant vocal advertiser and leader of the applause) named Hubert Vernon Swift. Swift by name and nature, he had vanished one night, leaving Mr. Pogg to raise the money to get home. And with Mr. Swift had vanished some four hundred pounds. In moments of extreme depression Mr. Pogg was prone to meditate upon one whose encouraging "houp la!" yelled from the back of the pit had so often led the applause which greeted Lettie de Lounville’s culminating contortion.

"There are times," said Mr. Pogg wearily, "when I doubt if life is worth living. Yet, so to speak, I live in hope of meeting Swifty and strangling him with my bare hands— I’ll give him ‘houp la’!"

Mrs. Pogg sniffed.

"You couldn’t strangle him even if you wore gloves," she said acidly; and Mr. Pogg sighed again.

"Well, I could give him in charge," he said mildly; "that’d learn him."

2

AT this moment there was a diffident knock, and Mr. Pogg opened the door to find a well-dressed young man standing on the threshold.

"Mr. Poginski?" asked the stranger in a tone of doubt, for the untidy room and the uninviting appearance of that gentleman did not accord with the ecstatic description which a variety agent had given.

"That is my name, sir."

Mr. Poginski was not quite sure of his visitor. There were one or two outstanding tradesmen’s accounts which were in the cocoon stage that might produce butterflies of inaction or county-court wasps.

"I’ve been sent here by Mr. Colforter, the agent," said the young man. "My name is Fairview, and— er— I understand that you— er— do extraordinary things."

Mr. Poginski bowed gravely.

"And Mrs. Poginski?" hesitated Fairview.

"She also does extraordinary things, sir," said her proud husband more gravely than ever. "Won’t you come in?"

Johnny Fairview stepped into the home of genius not a little apprehensively. He had all the normal young man’s fear of the abnormal. People who could play pianoforte solos with their feet were scarcely human.

"The fact is," he began, "I’ve a commission to find somebody— well, not exactly a commission ... in fact, they don’t know that I’m getting you, do you understand?"

Mr. Poginski stroked his little beard sagely and nodded.

He did not understand, but he gathered that an engagement was imminent.

"Your agent told me that you’d accept— er— a— private engagement. I don’t exactly know how you will be presented. If it was a lawn, of course, it would be perfectly simple, but it isn’t a lawn."

"There are so few good lawns nowadays," said the pianist gently. "I think it is due to the worms."

"Anyway, this is a drawing-room show," said Johnny, "but at the same time I’m not sure whether..."

Half an hour later he left the artistes with a five-pound note and a confused impression that they were engaged to perform in a drawing-room, though it was quite possible they would not be asked to perform at all.

3

"I DID my best," Johnny was explaining gloomily, some time later.

"Johnny, you were silly! Of course, mother wouldn’t allow them to perform. When I told you to bring somebody original, I meant— well, I meant friends. For heaven’s sake don’t tell mother what you’ve done."

"I have!" groaned the young man. "I told her I’d got two people."

"Oh, dear I"

Lydia Blaney sighed and threw a stone at an unoffending goldfish that was rising cautiously to a fly that had lit on the water.

Mrs. Carbew-Blaney had goldfishes in the marble basins that ornamented her over-ornamental grounds because they were so rich-looking. If there were emerald fish or diamond fish she would have ordered a thousand.

She was a good woman, and had once been a modest woman, in spite of her immense wealth. She had inherited more or less than a million from her simple-living husband, and would have been satisfied to live, alternating her presence on the moderate estate at Ascot and the very nice flat in the Marylebone Road, as her husband had done before her.

And she would never have dreamed of bizarre entertainments but for the accident which brought to one of her garden-parties the Rajah of Bholkapur, an Eastern gentleman who had a passion for playing the flute. His performance on this instrument was execrable, but, being a born musician who played by ear, he never realized the fact. In his own province he was so powerful that only one of his subjects ever dared to complain. He was never seen again.

He came to Mrs. Carbew-Blaney’s garden-party in a hired motor-car. Had he continued on his way for another five hundred yards, he would have reached the imposing gates of the Earl of Forley’s country seat. It was in every way unfortunate that there were two garden-parties at Ascot that day, and that the hireling chauffeur, to whom Ascot was a racecourse and nothing else, very naturally chose the festal lawn that came into view over the top of the trimmed privet, and deposited his Highness before a stout, amiable and awe-stricken hostess.

Eventually, the sound of his fluting led his distracted A.D.C. to Mrs. Blaney’s lawn, and H.H. was rescued and introduced to a more superior garden-party, where nobody asked him to play. On the whole, the Rajah preferred Mrs. Blaney’s occasion.

That may or may not have been the beginning of her search for the unusual and the astonishing deeds of emulation she performed. Somebody had said she was "original". Thereafter she sought originality, which is the quality of doing something that nobody remembers having been done before.

Johnny Fairview was not original. He was, in fact, as unoriginal as a front door. Thousands of Johnny Fairviews are turned out annually by the big schools and universities and Army colleges of England. He brushed his hair and dressed to type. He played golf badly and read the sporting news thoroughly before he skimmed the Near Eastern crisis, just as thousands of other Johnnys did. He hated eccentricity in male or female, was scared of cleverness, and could never remember how many days there were in a month without repeating the ancient doggerel, just as did all the Johnnys he ever met. In one respect he was original, though this Mrs. Blaney did not know.

"I don’t want you to think that your being disgustingly rich and my being fearfully average makes any difference to me, Lydia," he said, watching the goldfish frisk to cover. "That sort of stuff in books always reads like a lie to me. That isn’t the barrier, old dear. Your mother used to like me once," he added inconsequently.

"She likes you now, Johnny," said the girl, frowning horribly at the dim goldfish skulking at the bottom of the basin— the news of her unprovoked assault had apparently spread. "She thinks you’re ordinary, that’s all. You’re not striking."

"Has she ever seen me in pyjamas?" asked the young man hopefully.

"Don’t be silly— you know you are ordinary. You’re a darling and to me you’re wonderful. But mother doesn’t love you— at least, I hope she doesn’t— and she can’t see you as I see you. And Frank Elfer is clever." Johnny’s shapely nose wrinkled sneeringly.

"If juggling three billiard balls is evidence of genius, then he’s Solon!" he said.

Followed the gloomy silence of unhappy meditation. The cause of all the trouble was the Tea Reception which Mrs. Blaney was giving at her Portland Place residence to no less a personage than Prince Michael Sergoff. It was to transcend in originality all Mrs. Blaney’s previous efforts, for the very presence in London of the Prince constituted a challenge. It was he who had given the Macaroni Luncheon at the Astoria, he who had invented the Gondola Dinner at the Ritz-Carlton. He was the master creator of bizarre parties, and his ready acceptance of her invitation had thrown Mrs. Blaney into paroxysms of gratification.

"Mother wants this to be her chef d’oeuvre," said Lydia miserably. "Johnny, can’t you do something original? I’ve had an awful job persuading mother to invite you. She says you know nobody. Of course, the poor dear is mad."

"She’s mad with me, anyway," said Johnny.

And here Mrs. Carbew-Blaney came into view. The sycophantic woman friend who had described her as original had also determined most of her everyday occupations by devising a set of labels to describe Mrs. Blaney’s attitude and behaviour. Thus, she had once said that Mrs. Blaney "sailed", and that good lady sailed down the terrace steps at this moment with foretopgallant and spinnaker set.

She favoured Johnny with a glare. He could think of no more original retort than to glare back. She was a stout woman, with a somewhat vacuous expression and a profusion of pale-gold hair, and in the days of her obscurity she had been one of those motherly souls who are surprised at everything. No longer did she say, "Good gracious!" or, "How extraordinary I" when Johnny passed on the news he had gleaned from the evening newspapers. She was now shock-proof, and could accept cataclysms without a droop of lid or a quiver of lip. To such lengths do flute-playing rajahs carry the simple-minded.

"You are coming to my little party, aren’t you, Mr. Fairview?" she asked hopefully.

Johnny knew that the hope expressed in her inquiry was that he would answer negatively.

"I’m so glad!"

Her sigh may have been one of relief. On the other hand....

"I’ve been talking the matter over with Lady Cristofer," she said, looking through him. "She thinks I ought to engage somebody to perform. So unoriginal! I suppose one could get concert people by paying for them, but that isn’t what I want."

Johnny turned his guilty eyes away.

"You wrote and told me you were bringing somebody?"

"Yes," he stammered. "I— I am bringing some people— friends of mine," he went on glibly. "Awfully interesting and all that sort of thing."

Mrs. Blaney looked at him dubiously.

"I hope so," she said with emphasis. "Not only Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race persons, because that doesn’t interest me at all, Mr. Fairview."

Johnny had once produced, as his contribution to an immortal gathering, an Oxford Blue, and had been inordinately proud of the introduction until the Blue had betrayed his utter ignorance of all the qualities which make for social entertainment.

"You’ve done it," accused Lydia after her energetic mother had departed.

It may be said that, despite her success, Mrs. Blaney had not won from Society that recognition which was her due. Not even Mrs. Blaney’s emeralds, paragraphed by a Press agent specially hired for the purpose— it may be repeated that she was once a modest woman— roused sufficient curiosity in the bosoms of Mayfair to induce invitations from the hostesses of that exclusive neighbourhood.

"Mother has now reached a point where I tremble every time she thinks!" said Lydia desperately. "Johnny, why couldn’t you have found Prince Michael instead of Frank?"

"Did Frank find him?" asked the young man in surprise.

Lydia nodded.

"Frank heard that he was in London, and trailed him to his hotel. He didn’t see him, because the Prince was out, but mother wrote to him at Frank’s suggestion, and of course Frank has the credit."

"Heaven bless him!" said Johnny bitterly.

He went to his club in a chastened mood. And in the sombre desolation of the smoke-room there came to him the great idea.

He was half-way through a letter explaining to the Poginskis that their services would not be required, when the inspiration came. He tore up the letter and scribbled a note to Mr. Poginski, asking him to come at once, and sent this by district messenger in a taxi-cab.

Half an hour later the shabby pianist was shown into the smoke-room, and very briefly Johnny explained the position.

"My original idea was to ask you and Madame Poginski to give a little entertainment," he said, "but I find that my friend Mrs. Blaney does not approve, and I’m in rather a hole."

Mr. Poginski, who was also in rather a hole, murmured something about the inviolability of a contract.

"Oh, you’ll get paid all right, old son," said Johnny testily. "That isn’t in question. The point is, would you and your wife agree to turn up at Portland Place as my guests? In fact, would you mind coming in the role of two distinguished Russian visitors?"

Mr. Poginski pursed his weak Ups thoughtfully.

"You say that the party is for Prince Michael Sergoff?" he said. "If we pretend to be Russians too, he’ll bowl us out, for the only Russian word I know is nichevo."

"It doesn’t matter," said Johnny, unconsciously translating. "He’s only Russian in name. He’s an American— married a rich girl in Cincinatti, and has got into the papers through giving Monkey Parties. Will you come?"

Mr. Poginski coughed.

"I’ve got my ‘prop’ kit, evening dress and that sort of thing, but I’m afraid neither my day clothes nor my dear wife’s wardrobe " he began.

But that was a matter which Johnny could settle without difficulty.

"The point is this: you’ve got to do your little stunts when the opportunities occur. Mrs. Blaney will probably ask you to do something. She’ll expect a Russian poem, or maybe a Russian dance, and then you’ll just step in and be original. You’d better go in your own name; that will save me the trouble of remembering. Is it a bet?"

Mr. Poginski thought it was a bet, and Johnny ushered him from the club with a sense of relief and comfort.

4

DINING that night, he saw the hated Frank Elfer— a tall, cadaverous young man, who added to great possessions the reputation of having once balanced a billiard-cue on the tip of his nose for three hours and thirty-five minutes.

"When you see my Mrs. Poginski biting her own heels you’ll feel small, my friend," thought Johnny.

He had several interviews during the week with the male Poginski, who had produced himself in his new raiment and had been passed as satisfactory.

Mrs. Blaney displayed unusual anxiety for the success of her party. She even went to the length of inviting Johnny to tea before the event; and he went, to discover her in company with her sycophantic lady friend.

"I intend making the party purely Oriental," she explained. "The waitresses will be in the conventional garb of the Turkish harem, and I’ve engaged two wonderful negroes to guard the staircase with drawn swords. Coffee will be served in the Turkish fashion, and I’ve found a most delicious Oriental jazz band, which will play in the room off the salon. Now, about these friends of yours, Monsieur and Madame Poginski. I do hope, Mr. Fairview, that they are not humdrum?"

"They’re original," said Johnny with emphasis. "They are, in fact, the most original people I’ve ever met. I had great difficulty in inducing them to come at all."

He did not meet Lydia’s eye, staring fixedly at his hostess.

"I’m glad," said Mrs. Blaney, "very glad."

And her chorus murmured appreciatively.

"The Prince is so unusual, and I should simply die if he had to meet ordinary people."

Undoubtedly Prince Michael Sergoff was unusual. He had taken the unusual course, on his arrival in London, of putting up at a temperance hotel in Bloomsbury. He had, moreover, most eccentrically written to Mrs. Blaney to ask what number bus passed her door

"It is just what I should have expected of him," purred the stout hostess. "One could not imagine him doing things in an ordinary way."

Johnny had a number of friends in Fleet Street, and that he might get closer to his subject he interviewed the copper-headed correspondent of a New York journal.

"Do I know Mike Sergoff? Sure!" said his informant. "The craziest kid ever! Is he? I’ll tell the world he is! Married old Lessheimer’s daughter; ran through her money, divorced her, and married the widow of a Pittsburg steel emperor. It’s queer that he’s that way, because he’s related to one of the cleverest brains that Russia produced, a friend of Tolstoi’s and that crowd. I’ve got one of his books here somewhere."

He searched the office and produced a respectable volume, the uncut leaves of which testified to the reverence in which the reporter held its contents.

"Here it is— Human Vanity. I’ve dipped into it. It’s a little brighter than the Book of Revelations, but hasn’t got the pep of Ecclesiastes."

Johnny examined the book curiously. The "Michael Sergoff" on its back looked very imposing.

"Same name, same family. But in the matter of temperament— oh, boy! What a difference! So Mike’s in London, is he? I guess I’ll look him up. There’s always a story to Mike, and his new wives are generally interesting."

A horrible thought occurred to Johnny. Suppose Mrs. Blaney had made a mistake and had invited the wrong Mike? He put a question to the reporter, who shook his head.

"No, I don’t think the Professor is in England. The last I heard of him, he was delivering lectures on theosophy in Vienna— a queer old cuss."

5

AT HALF PAST four on a sunny afternoon, a somewhat shabby man, in an ancient frock-coat and a silk hat that was a size too large for him, and was only prevented from extinguishing his powerful head through the merciful disposition of his ears, alighted from a bus at the corner of Oxford Circus and walked up Langham Place, examining a card and peering at the numbers of the shop fronts. A policeman assisted him to his destination, and Mrs. Blaney, who had been receiving her guests in the hall, was sent for, the butler on duty at the door steadfastly refusing to admit the human scarecrow.

"I am Professor Michael Sergoff," said the man in his rasping voice, and glaring at the flabbergasted lady through his powerful glasses.

"Prince Michael Sergoff?" faltered the hostess.

"That is my name, though I dislike intensely the pomp of the title," he growled. "For what are titles but flimsy absurdities? Does a dog come to me more readily because I am a prince? Do I sleep better? Do I enjoy better health?"

He frowned suddenly and pointed a longer finger at her neck.

"Those baubles are offensive to me, madam!" he said; and Mrs. Carbew-Blaney put up her hand to the great emerald chain about her neck.

"I’m— I’m extremely sorry," she stammered. "Please won’t you come in here for a moment?"

Fortunately there was a little reception-room on the ground-floor, and into this she ushered her guest. Johnny, coming a few minutes later, was met by Lydia in a condition bordering upon hysteria.

"Come here!" she hissed, and drew him into a mysterious region at the back of the house. "The wrong Sergoff has come," she said rapidly.

"Oh, Lord I" said Johnny, his face falling. "Not the Professor?"

"Did you know?" she asked suspiciously. "Oh, Johnny, mother’s in a terrible state of mind. She’ll kill Frank, that’s one satisfaction. Such a terrible old man! He insisted on mother taking off her jewellery! Mother’s distracted. She’s had to make those unfortunate waitresses change into the garb of civilization, and she has sworn Frank Elfer not to move or speak. Johnny, can you be intellectual? We want a great intellect so badly."

Suddenly Johnny’s jaw dropped.

"I suppose my friends haven’t arrived?"

She nodded.

"Yes, they’re upstairs. They won’t do things, will they?" she asked fearfully.

Johnny swallowed something.

"If I can get a word with them, I’ll undertake that they won’t," he said.

When he reached the big salon on the first floor, the Professor was being introduced to the awe-stricken assembly. The gold and lacquered Turkish lanterns, the cunning and clever drapings of the walls to lend similitude to a Turkish environment, seemed a little out of place in all the circumstances, and the Prince looked suspiciously from one gaily decorated table to another.

"Vanity, madam!" he snapped. "I would prefer being received in a whitewashed shed, with plain chairs for those who cannot bear the fatigue of standing. Simplicity is the very soul of life, madam. I have a degenerate nephew who married an American lady, who might be pleased with these fal-lals."

"Do— do you think he would? " said the uncomfortable lady; and it was the heroic Johnny who came to her rescue.

"I’m sure the Professor is heartily delighted at his reception, Mrs. Blaney," he said, adopting for the moment the role of chairman and master of ceremonies. "I am sure that he is glad and gratified that— er— this amazing gathering should— er— gather in appreciation of his— er — amazing intellect. I suppose you would like the Professor to say a few words?"

Mrs. Blaney nodded dumbly, and the sinister man gulped down a cup of scalding hot tea, wiped his beard with the back of his hand, and began.

It was a little talk about normal people and abnormal people. For twenty minutes the old man thundered his denunciations of Society, and Society blinked and listened. So intent were the two Poginskis that not once could Johnny catch their eye. The peaky-faced woman, the bearded little man, sat open-mouthed, staring at the transfigured speaker, as he castigated the idle rich, annihilated the snobbish bourgeoisie, and pulverized to the finest powder what he termed the freakish and unwholesome-minded decadence of modem youth.

When he sat down there was a gasp, the loudest of which came from Mr. Poginski. And then, freed of the spell of the Professor’s hypnotic eyes, he turned his head. Johnny winked and made a grimace which to a thought-reader would have been plain and simple, but to Mr. Poginski was merely an urging towards a fulfilment of his contract.

He slipped off his shoes, threaded his way through the tea-tables, and in another instant was balanced on a ridiculously small music-stool, his thin legs (the trousers decorously fastened with tape) upraised in the air, his pink toes working convulsively.

In the dead silence that followed, the thunder of the opening notes of the "March of the Vikings" almost shocked Johnny Fairview into insensibility. The Professor stared through his glasses and over his glasses, and finally removed his glasses, that he might stare more voluminously. Open-mouthed, the company gazed spellbound upon the apparition. Mrs. Blaney had subsided into her chair and was gazing into vacancy.

The selection was nearing the end of its first phase when there was the flash of a silk-clad body, and Lettie de Lounville, the Boneless Wonder, leaped to the flat top of the piano and smiled mechanically left and right. And then, throwing herself lightly on her hands, she accompanied her husband’s masterly performance with one which had never before been seen in a London drawing-room, and probably never will again. Flat on the piano she lay, her shapely feet beating time to the music on her auburn head. Then, springing to her feet, she extended one toe to the ceiling, and with a quick and graceful movement wrapped her leg lovingly about her neck.

"Houp la!" murmured the Professor, and made a dive for the door.

For a second the Poginskis stared after him, and then, with the passionate cry of a wounded rabbit, Mr. Poginski leapt in pursuit, and Lettie the Boneless Wonder followed.

It was she who, leaping the banisters, dropped upon the hurrying Professor. In an instant she had wound herself about him, a human boa-constrictor that impeded all movement.

"Let up, you fool!" roared the elderly gentleman.

"Four hundred!" breathed Mr. Poginski, gripping his captive’s throat gingerly, as an amateur strangler might. "Four hundred, Swift— you twisting hound!"

"You can have it— come to my hotel."

Johnny pulled them apart, and threw open the door. A messenger boy was waiting on the step.

"For me?"

Johnny tore open the envelope. The note was from the American reporter.

Professor Sergoff is in Vienna. Mike is in New York. Your man is an hotel thief named Swift. Keep him away from loose jewellery.

Johnny glanced round and saw the agitated Mrs. Blaney standing at the foot of the stairs.

"Where are your emeralds, Mrs. Blaney?" he asked

"Why worry?" demanded the bedraggled Swift, and took them from his pocket.

6

"BUT for my friends the Poginskis, I am afraid you would have lost a lot of money," said Johnny.

They were dining en famille that night, and Mrs. Blaney had recovered sufficiently to dispose of four plovers’ eggs and half a cold chicken.

"I am grateful— very grateful," quavered the original Mrs. Blaney.

She had taken off her emeralds in the little hall-room and had put them in a drawer, intending to retrieve them after her ill-fated party had dispersed. And she had left the Professor alone in the room for two minutes.

"I shall never forgive Mr. Elfer. He should have made inquiries," she said.

"I gather from the police that he did. He went bawling through Bloomsbury for Prince Michael, and naturally Mr. Swift responded."

Mrs. Blaney blinked tearfully.

"Who were those extraordinary people, the Poginskis?" she asked curiously; and then, with sudden inspiration: "They were detectives— oh, Mr. Fairview! And you engaged them! Howvery original of you!"

Johnny smiled mysteriously.

___________________

10: Jake's Brother Bill

THE EFFECT OF wine upon temperament is a subject for study which the psychologists have neglected.

Jake's brother Bill was the only man who ever tackled the question in an earnest spirit of research, and although his studies were frequently interrupted by circumstances over which he had no control, he never forsook his course of study. On one point he was emphatic, and it was that champagne produced an overwhelming sense of patriotism. He reached this conclusion in the week he was expelled from college for painting a pacifist professor's motorcar red, white and blue.

He had to break into the garage to do it, and he spent the whole of one night at his task, but neither his enterprise nor his nobility of purpose saved him from being expelled.

When he was in prison for violently assaulting the police in the execution of their duty, he developed his theory to the extent of marking rum as a "revolutionary stimulant which arouses the basest resentment against established law."

He used to write long letters to Jake, setting forth his views.

It is to his credit that he never drank rum again. Jake insists that he did one memorable evening at Funchal, but the truth is not yet known, for Bill is somewhere in China, having escaped from Funchal on a fruit boat which "he did unlawfully seize by piracy, and did cast away by neglect upon the foreshores of Algiers "— to quote the indictment on which, in his absence, he was tried and sentenced to death by the Government of Lisboa.

All the trouble came about over a girl who was also a ward of Government.

Wards in Chancery are frequent phenomena, but a ward whose guardians changed with the fluctuating fortune of political parties was a surprising circumstance even to Jake Harrison.

And the only thing that ever surprised Jake was Q.Z.H., who lived at the Vigo end of the cable. Q.Z.H. had a name and an identity, but nobody at Funchal ever knew him, except by the initials which preceded the messages he relayed. And he was certainly a poor operator.

"It is surprising to me that that fellow holds down his job," said Jake at odd intervals.

Jake came to the South-Eastern from the Western Union. He left the Western Union from sheer ennui.

Wall Street prices were his specialty, and after five weary years of fraction tapping, he threw up the work and came to the South-Eastern, which carries a line of romance and unexpectedness. For the South-Eastern drains China and India, Africa and Australia of their surplus news, and there is generally a little war near one sensitive, trembling antenna of the service, and Funchal got all the news that was going.

Jake was a Canadian, a brilliant operator and a misogynist. Or he was until one day, strolling up the long hill road that skirts the Grand Canyon, he met a girl who had no other duenna than a half-bred terrier pup.

At the sight of her Jake stood still and stared. Women did not usually take him that way, but this girl was amazingly different. Her father had been, in his lifetime, a native of Funchal, which meant that the blood of two proud Latin races had flowed in his veins. In his native land he had been a marquis, or something of the sort, but Jake never troubled to inquire. In Funchal he had owned banana lands of vast size.

The girl's mother was a Miss Macverney, and pretty.

In the person of Inez Savalla the warm south and the austere north fought, gigantically, for expression, and neither side lost. Her hair should have been black or flaxen. Instead, it was of swarthy gold. South won in the creamy complexion, but the north triumphed in her blue eyes. The pride of the Clan Macverney (who are really Brodies) compromised with the hauteur of a race that once lived on the borderline of Castile. The carriage of her, the swing of hip and shoulder, the tilt of her head, and the long black eyelashes through which the blue eyes flashed sideways as she passed him, these were pleasantly southern.

Jake stared after her as she strode down the hill, and he blinked twice.

"That is a pretty nice girl," he admitted.

He observed that she was very simply dressed, and this puzzled him. Simplicity is very uninformative. She might have been a tradesman's daughter, and therefore within the possibilities of his acquaintance. On the other hand, she might be one of those grand ladies of the Island who live on so exalted a plane that nothing meaner than the officers of a visiting man o' war, or a consul- general, or a distinguished man of affairs breaking his journey to Cape Town, might meet on terms of equality.

"That is an extraordinarily nice girl," said Jake with a sigh, and followed her with his eye until she was out of sight.

Society on the island of Funchal is notoriously exclusive, but is neither as exclusive nor as outspoken as the mess of the South-Eastern Cable Company. Here reputations go cheap, as is only natural, for if the officials of the S.E.C.C. are punctilious in the matter of secrecy, and it is considered bad form even to discuss the contents of cables outside the instrument-room, the knowledge of private affairs gained professionally has very naturally an influence on the attitude of the individual mind. To the mess-room the folks high and low of Funchal were just Funchalese, with or without endearing adjectives.

The mess had few friends outside, and depended upon Fanelly to supply all that was requisite of local gossip. Fanelly, who spoke the language like a native, was an inveterate collector of news. To him Jake went.

"A girl with gold-black hair!" Fanelly knitted his youthful brows. "It sounds like Inez Savalla: do you know Colonel Pinto Muello, the fat man with the mole on his chin f"

"I have seen the swine," said Jake inelegantly. "Don't tell me she is his daughter!"

Fanelly sneered.

"Her name is Savalla, I tell you— how can she be his daughter, eh!"

"Well, what about him!" asked the impatient Jake.

"She is going to marry him, that's all," said Fanelly, with an air of finality.

Jake fingered his lean brown cheek and a light shone in eyes that at least were as blue as Inez Savalla's.

"She isn't," he said.

The young man resented this refutation of news which was practically official.

"I tell you the marriage has been fixed by the governor, who is her guardian. Old Savalla was an eccentric old devil, and he left his daughter a ward of the governor."

"But this governor is a new man— Almedez only came to the island six months ago."

Fanelly smiled.

"That's the joke: whoever is governor is her guardian. Almedez is a great friend of Muello's, they went to the same chiropodist in Lisboa—"

"Cease your facetious commentaries," said Jake, laying his big hand on the young man's shoulder, "and when you go calling on your dago friends, pass the word around that the engagement has been dissolved."

"Who by?" asked the startled youth.

"By whom, is better English," said Jake gently, "but if you are asked that question, hand 'em my card... does she speak English?"

Fanelly nodded.

"With a strong Aberdeen accent," he said.

"Good!" nodded Jake in all seriousness. "Then the last obstacle to our happy union has been removed."

She spoke English very prettily, when she came upon Jake bandaging his ankle on the mountain road.

It was a sprained ankle for the time being.

"Are you English?" she asked, as she helped him to a convenient bank.

"Scottish," said Jake somberly. "Aberdeen— maybe you have heard of the place?"

He was a liar and a scoundrel, and was prepared to admit it. For the moment there was no necessity. She sat by his side whilst the half-bred terrier pup gnawed and pulled at loose ends of the bandage. And there was such beauty in the world and in his heart, that Jake Harrison was prepared to find excuses for the deception he was practising.

Funchal is a jewel of an island. Above them, as they sat, the scarp of the Sierra was a gray-banner flung against the blue. Beneath, the land lay in irregular squares of brown and emerald and gold. Funchal was a dainty toy- town, perched on a ledge of rock that jutted into the blue Atlantic. And the air was sweet with the aromatic fragrance of fruit and flowers.

"It is a wonderful island: I was born here," she said simply, "and I suppose I shall die here."

"God forbid," said Jake fervently.

He met her again the next day, and then every day, and learnt more than Fanelly could have told him. She certainly was engaged to Colonel Pinto Muello. She spoke of the fact without enthusiasm. And Jake discovered why she had not been married off before. Her successive guardians had successively administered her estate. Each governor stole a little on one pretext or another. Now there was nothing left to steal. She did not state the case as crudely. She spoke of "expenses of administration," but Jake was an impartial student of graft in all its forms, and supplied his own interpretation.

The last governor to arrive had discovered to his intense annoyance that the Savalla estate, which was and had been for years regarded as a perquisite of office, was no longer there to be "administered." Having nothing else to sell, he sold the girl. Pinto Muello was a rich man.

On the ninth day of meeting, Jake met the colonel. He was a stout, tightly uniformed man, with a heavy black moustache, which he twisted with a quick "wiping" gesture, the result of many years of practice, and Jake gazed in fascination at the large mole on the side of his chin and wondered how often the colonel shaved.

In manner he was fiery and made gurgling noises in his throat. This, Jake gathered, was an expression of his fierceness.

"You are the operator in charge?" he demanded insolently.

"I admit it," said Jake.

"There has not come a cable for me, yes, no!"

Jake Harrison shook his head with exasperating slowness. Moles were supposed to be lucky, he thought, yet he would not have changed places with the colonel. And Jake had no moles.

"Twice, four times, seven, I have come to this bureau," thundered Colonel Pinto Muello, thumping the counter, "and always it is no! You are certain? Have you messages I may look through to be sure none has escaped the observer! I have authority, eh! I am in command of military mens on the island."

"So I'm told," said Jake wearily, "but if a cable comes through for you, it goes through to you."

"If it comes through, it goes through?" repeated the colonel frowningly. His knowledge of idiomatic English was slight. "Remember!" he thumped the table again. "I have all authorities for search! I command military mens on the island— all of them!"

"I know 'em both," said Jake.

He related the conversation at tiffin to Jack Boynes; the senior operator grinned.

"Pinto is in a devil of a state of mind," he said. "He's been to the office twenty or thirty times the past two days."

"Maybe he's expecting a remittance," suggested Jake.

It was Fanelly who supplied the explanation.

"There is a whole lot of political trouble in the dear land that owns this island," he said. "Some people think there will be a revolution, and that Pinto is in it. Anyway, his police are pinching all sort of people on the island— why, they even shadowed me last night!"

"This is fearful news," said Jake.

"You can laugh, Harrison." Fanelly was very serious. "But it isn't a joke. Every new arrival on the island is being trailed."

"That's certainly tough luck on Bonson's baby," said Jake, and big Bill Bonson, whose wife had augmented the population that morning, howled his delight.

That afternoon the humorous aspect of the situation carried no appeal to Jake Harrison.

Neither the blue of the bay nor the scarlet of wild geraniums, nor the sun- blazed glories of the wispy clouds that trail from peak to peak of the Sierra Funchal, had form or color or beauty for him as he stood stricken dumb on the canyon road and listened to the halting words of Inez Savalla. He knew the worst when he met her, and saw the ravage the all-night tears had made.

"In three days..." she sobbed. "Oh, Jake... can't you do something, dear?"

So far had their friendship developed from the pleasantries, the sympathies, the shameless deceptions, and the other correlatives of a sprained ankle.

Jake thought powerfully. There was no ship leaving for three days, and though he might speak slightingly of Muello's army and his ragged gendarmerie, they were unpleasant facts. So, too, was the untidy prison on Tower Hill.

A fruit boat was entering the bay as he looked, a squat tub of a boat out of Cadiz— there was no help from there. She was under the command of Pietro Manzana y Manzana. Jake had once smitten Pietro and had been fined a hundred milreis for his brutality.

"You just trust to old Jake," was all he could say: the basis for such a trust was his faith in Jake.

He had hardly got back to his quarters before he received a letter. It was written on the yellow edge of Funchal's one newspaper, the Diaro del Funchal,

"I am a prisoner in the house; Muello has sent his aunt to stay with me, and there are soldiers on guard at the door. Do not expect me, dear; good- bye."

Jake read the penciled words and rubbed his head. Fanelly, coming into the reading-room where Jake was sitting, asked in his aimless way if he wanted anything.

"A red-hot miracle, my son," said Jake.

The headquarters of the South-Eastern in Funchal is as near to the shore end of the cable as is convenient. It had the disadvantage of accessibility, a considerable disadvantage, remembering that Funchal is essentially a relay station, for the business done on the island would not pay the board of the most junior operator.

The evening meal had finished, and all but Jake had gone their several ways. He alone sat at the table, his head on his hands, thinking wonderfully but ineffectively.

He had no more thought of his brother than he had of the Grand Khan of Muscovy. He had not thought of the erratic Bill for years, and yet into his solitary meditations came this last considerable factor.

The man who stood in the doorway was tall, dark, and untidy. He had a week's growth of beard on his cheek and his linen was even older. He came in softly, seeming to wriggle through a two-inch opening of the door, and he stood surveying the room and its rough comfort with an approving eye.

Between the tramp who shuffles the countryside and the tramp who stalks the world, there is a great difference.

The world tramp brings with him an air of self-confidence, and meets the most exalted personages on terms of equality. He is never abashed, never cringes, and is equally at home in the musty hold of a steamer or the gorgeous club-rooms of the colonial aristocracy.

With his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his stained and ragged trousers, he regarded the gloomy and unconscious figure of Jake with a smile of amusement.

Presently Jake looked round, took a good look at the newcomer, and rose slowly to his feet.

"Where in hell have you been, Bill!" he demanded, and a wise observer would have known immediately that Jake Harrison was talking to his brother, and by his attitude of domination, his younger brother.

Bill Harrison came forward to the table, seated himself, and viewed the scraps of food which were left with the eye of a connoisseur.

"I've just blown in," he said.

"0n the Onzona?"

Bill Harrison selected a piece of bread, buttered it calmly from a remnant left on the edge of a plate, and nodded.

"I knew you were here: I thought I'd come along and look you up. Let me see, it's nearly eight years since we met, isn't it, Jake?"

"Nine," said Jake. "Where have you come from?"

"Cadiz," replied the other. "Do you mind passing that loaf along? Thank you. Have you got a drink?"

Jake shook his head.

"A glass of Marsala?" suggested his guest. "Except for its melancholic reaction, Marsala is as innocuous as grape fruit."

"You'll get no drink here," said Jake. "Haven't you been drinking already?"

"I have drunk and eaten bananas for eight days," said his brother. "There should be a law passed making the growing of bananas a penal offense."

Jake made no comment, and the other went on. He cut a slice of bread, and Jake pushed toward him a plate of butter.

"I got to Cadiz," said the wanderer, "from Malta, on a C. and I. boat that was short of a steward. Before then I was in Alexandria: a pretty mean kind of place, but not so mean as Colombo. I tossed up whether I'd go across to Rio, or whether I 'd look in here, and you won."

"You won, you mean," said Jake.

"Very likely," said the visitor carelessly, and then: "what is wrong here? Has Funchal gone dry or is there an election in progress?" he asked.

"There are so many things wrong on this damned island that I couldn't start telling you," said Jake testily. "Why do you ask?"

The other shook his head.

"I don't know," he said, "except that I've been followed around by a cop ever since I landed."

"You don't tell me," said Jake sarcastically. "Why they should shadow a well-set-up young fellow like you is beyond my understanding. I will send a note to the governor." He winced at the word "governor," and his grimace did not escape the attention of his brother, who was a student of humanity.

Jake walked to the door and beckoned his relative with a jerk of his head.

"Come along, I'll find you a bed," he said. "! suppose I shall have to keep you for a day or two."

Ten minutes later Mr. Bill Harrison was sucking luxuriously at a long black cigar in his brother's room.

"You'll have to sleep here tonight. Tomorrow I'll get you a place in the town," said Jake.

"A glass of Madeira," murmured Bill, "and I should be in paradise= Madeira is a sedative, and excellent for the tired business man. Its pathological effects are exaggerated. And it is cheap."

"You'll drink ice-water," snarled Jake.

Bill Harrison nodded calmly.

"Ice-water is poison, but is not as deadly as the fruit of the musa sapientium, or as the vulgar describe it, the banana."

Later Jake had to vouch for his identity to a suspicious chief of police.

"No, I don't know who he is," said Jake icily. "He has come out with excellent credentials, and he is the guest of the mess for a week or two." He did not admit the relationship in which the visitor stood to him, for obvious reasons. It was just like Bill to come barging in at this moment of crisis, he thought bitterly as he went on duty that night. Only a fraction of his mind was on the instrument he manipulated; the best of his thoughts were with a girl and a stout colonel of infantry in a tight- fitting uniform.

At three o'clock in the morning came an urgent Government message. Jake was the only man on duty at the moment, Fanelly, his second in command, having been dispatched to make coffee. Jake wrote the words mechanically, and sat for a long time staring at the written message whilst Cape Town called frantically on his right, and Vigo chattered impatiently on his left.

Although he was a poor linguist, he could both read and write the language, and the message ran:

"To Colonel Pinto Muello, very urgent. By order of the Government you will arrest Almedez and assume the functions of governor. The Diaz Government has fallen. Long live the Revolution."

There followed a code-word which Jake knew terminated all Government messages, and guaranteed their bona fides. He sat for ten minutes, and then hearing the footsteps of Fanelly, thrust the message into his pocket. An hour later he was relieved, and went back to his quarters carrying with him a blank message form.

He switched on the light and kicked his brother awake. Bill Harrison sat up blinking.

"Bill, do you speak this lingo very well?"

"It is my native language," said Bill modestly, and then Jake outlined the wildest scheme that the mind of a cable operator ever evolved.

"It is not a job I like," said Bill, "and it is certainly not a dry job. This palace, I presume, will be well stocked?"

Jake swore at him for fully three minutes.

"It is all very well for you to cuss," said Bill, hurt. "You ask me to masquerade as a new governor appointed by the Central Government. You ask me to bestow a wife upon you, and yet—"

"You can have anything you like when it is all over," said Jake. "I'll borrow Bane's motor-boat, and the day after I'm married we'll get away."

Bill thought for a long time, then:

"Cut my hair, Jake, and lend me a suit of your society clothes. I have views about governing."

"The only thing I ask you— in fact. Bill, I implore you— is to cut out the champagne," pleaded Jake, and his brother eyed him coldly.

"I have forgotten that such a wine is made," he said.

At half-past five, when the dawn was coming up over the eastern seas, a Major Corelli was wakened from his profound slumbers, and into the hands of this dazed man was thrust a telegram.

YOU WILL TAKE CONTROL OF THE TROOPS; ARREST COLONEL MUELLO AND GOVERNOR ALMEDEZ. YOU WILL CO-OPERATE WITH SEÑOR DUSA, WHO HAS ARRIVED SECRETLY FROM LISBOA, AND WHO IS APPOINTED GOVERNOR OF FUNCHAL. YOU ARE PROMOTED COLONEL AND ARE DECORATED WITH THE SECOND CLASS ORDER OF ST. XAVIER.

Probably Jake's most artistic effort was the decoration of the new commander of troops. By eight o'clock in the morning the evolution was accomplished. At seven o'clock that evening, Jake Harrison was united in the holy bonds of matrimony to the Senhora Inez Savalla. And he was married in style by the Archbishop of Funchal. The new governor had insisted upon this, and when Jake heard the news he quaked, for when Bill Harrison was grandiose, he was usually drunk.

Furthermore one of the first acts of the new governor was to issue a decree prohibiting the consumption of bananas.

Here was proof positive.

"He's got as far as the sparkling wines," groaned Jake when he heard the news, and hurried his preparations for departure.

The next morning he chartered a fiacre and drove up to the governor's palace. The decree against the consumption of bananas was being pasted upon the brick gateway as he drove in, and almost the first person he met in the large stone hall was the newly decorated commander of troops. He was looking a little wistful.

"You have brought a message?" he asked eagerly, recognizing Jake, but the operator shook his head.

"I cannot understand it," said the major. "It is inexplicable! No other instructions have come to me, and I simply await the orders of my Government."

Jake could have explained why no other messages came through. Some evil person had waded out at low tide, and had affixed an explosive charge to the cable connecting Funchal with Lisboa. He thought it wise not to mention this fact.

"I want to see the governor," said Jake, and the major's face lit up.

"What a man!" he said. "Only for two days has he been at the palace, and everything is reorganized! And what a voice!"

Jake's heart sank.

"Has he been singing?" he asked faintly.

"In every language," said the enthusiastic major. "To me alone, you understand: we are as brothers." He threw out his arms expansively.

"You can have him," said Jake in English.

He found Governor Bill Harrison in the governor's library, and there was in Bill's eye a gentle sadness which confirmed Jake's worst suspicions.

"Now, Bill," he said violently, when the door had closed, "you've got to cut this drink out. I've heard stories in the town that have kept me awake at night. I have the boat ready and we can leave tonight."

"You leave alone," said Bill grandly. "I have a duty to perform; a duty to a downtrodden people, crushed under the burdens imposed by successive tyrants. Every democratic fibre in my body vibrates to the call of their necessity. Will you have a drink?"

"No, I won't have a drink," shouted Jake. "You're a madman. Bill; you can't stay here. The Lisboa Government will send a warship, and I daresay there's one on its way already. And then where will you be!"

"I shall defy them," said Bill dreamily, as he sat easily in his chair, his legs crossed, his finger tips together. "I've already summoned a meeting of the Cabinet, and we have decided to resist any attack upon our sovereignty."

Jake drew a long breath.

"Is this the effect of Marsala!" he asked bitterly.

"It is a light German wine which I found in the cellar— pre-war stuff, Jake. You're losing the experience of a lifetime if you refuse my hospitality."

"What are you going to do!" asked Jake again.

Bill shrugged his shoulders and smiled serenely.

He had enlisted the services of a hairdresser. His little beard was trimmed to a point, his linen was faultless. Happily the late governor, now languishing in Tower Hill prison, had been almost Bill's size and shape.

"I have given instructions to the batteries to fire upon any warship that attempts to enter the harbor," he said briskly. "Tomorrow morning we're having a meeting of the Education Board. Funchal shall be educated into an appreciation of our democratic ins— institutions."

Jake could only stare at him open-mouthed.

"Do you imagine that you're going to be allowed to remain here in peace?" he asked, awe-stricken.

Bill nodded gravely.

"I think so," he said. "If those old guns don't bust!"

Jake walked out of the room like a man in a dream; it couldn't be champagne, he thought. Champagne did not induce in Bill's hard heart a love for the new people he had acquired. And it couldn't be rum, because he was so gentle and reasonable. Besides:

Bill's last words rang in his ears.

"You needn't worry about the champagne, because there isn't any in the palace," he said. "There's a legend about a dozen cases having been bricked up by the last governor, in the hope that he would be able to come back and enjoy them, and I'm having a search made, but I have no great hopes, Jake."

Jake had a very considerable sum in the bank, and this he drew before he went to the hotel where he had taken his wife.

"Inez, my dear, we're going to have a pretty bad time," he said, "and I don't exactly know where the first few years of our married life will be spent. But of all the troubles that are likely to come along, there is one which we shall be spared."

"What is that, Jake?" she asked.

"We shan't see much of Bill," said Jake grimly.

He spent the remainder of the night provisioning the motor-boat which he had hired on the excuse of taking a honeymoon trip to the Lesser Canaries. He had long since ceased to be an efficient member of the South-Eastern staff, but it may be said of them that knowing little, but guessing a lot, he carried with him a whole cargo of their good wishes when he slipped out of the tiny harbor in the early morning, and set the nose of the motor-boat for the nearest Canary island.

He was three miles out when ahead of him he saw a boat on the horizon, and fixed his glasses upon the tiny ship that was coming over the edge of the world.

"I thought so," he said. "It is a warship; poor old Bill!"

The words were hardly spoken before there came the sound of a deep boom from the island, and he looked round. They could not have opened fire on the incoming man o' war; that was beyond the range of their antiquated pieces. Again the gun crashed, and after an interval, it boomed once more. They were firing a salute, he realized, and wondered to whom this salutation was offered.

And then, above the governor's palace he saw a ball creep to the masthead and break. In the morning breezes fluttered the Union Jack, and Jake's jaw dropped.

"He's annexed the island to England!" he gasped.

Jake's brother Bill had found the champagne.

_________________________

11:. In Thrall

"Who knows where I may sleep to-night.

On what dark moor or what wild shore?

With starry robes of Heaven for gown,

I'll lay my bruisèd body down.

My bed the em'rald bracken bright—

Who knows where I shall sleep to-night?"

IF IT WERE NOT for the fact that this was Poggy's favorite ballad, Ferdie would have said nothing. But whenever Letty sat down and twiddled the keys and turned over the music and said, "I don't like that," or "That's a beautiful song, but I can't sing it properly," or strummed and hummed another, and finally ran her white hand down the crease of "The Song of the Zingari," Ferdie used to sit back and recite the multiplication table to himself until she struck the final chord. Poggy, of course, wrote the song. His name, E. Poglan Bannett, was stamped all over the cover, and he drew unbelievable sums in the shape of royalties. Amongst the unbelievers was Ferdie.

"I think it is a perfectly asinine song," said Ferdie. "Where the deuce do you expect to sleep?"

Letty dropped her hand on her lap. She would, with the slightest encouragement, have dropped one on his ear.

Picking up her fan, she walked across to the library table, which Mr. Revel insisted upon keeping in the drawing-room, and sat down. And they talked. And at the end of ten minutes...

"I suppose you know," said Ferdie, choking, "that you've simply blighted my whole life!"

Lettice Revel considered the matter, knit brows and pursed lips advertising her study.

"Like the Spaniard?" she suggested.

Ferdie had no acquaintance with vaudeville songs, being somewhat serious minded, but he did know that the Spanish were a romantic and melancholy people, and took the illustration in good part.

"I daresay the Spaniard is blighted under similar circumstances, and, for the matter of that, the Czecho-Slovakian. And the Transylvanian. You've made an absolute mess of my existence, Letty. You've simply hashed me!"

"Hash is Irish Stew, isn't it?"— really interested. "We had the funniest cookery mistress at school. We called her Doughnut Dora, because she simply specialized—"

"A man has a right to believe that, when a woman accepts a man's ring and says 'Certainly,' or whatever she says when the man says 'Will you, old dear?' that a woman won't go strolling over a man's suscep— sus— well, whatever it is— with spiked boots. If a man has principles and refuses to go to a party where you've invited a shocking little bounder, who simply makes a fearful ass of himself all the time, and thinks he's being funny because a lot of fearful asses laugh at his apish tricks— and as to his being a composer... he couldn't compose a rice pudding!— I say, if a man says, 'No, I won't go and I don't want you to have him,' if a man— well, dash it, Letty, can't you see...?"

She ran her fingers through her hair— it was a mass of golden floss— and leant back, resigned.

"Who is this man you're talking about— the fearful ass?"

"Me, of course," he said indignantly. "No, not that one, that's Poggy. I mean I'm the man you're talking about— I'm talking about!"

"0h!" said Letty quietly.

The wonderful eyes she turned upon Ferdie were grave, every contour that made up expression showed how much she realized the exceeding seriousness of the situation. Her diamond engagement-ring lay on the table by her side (she happened to be sitting on the table), well within reach of the wretched young man, who blinked alternately from the ring to the girl.

"No useful purpose can be served by prolonging an interview already too painful," she said primly. "We are experiencing the clash of ideals—"

"Come down off the table if you want to be dignified," said the young man miserably. "And all that clashing of ideals stuff sounds like the introduction to a cinema drama of love and sacrifice."

"Let us part without a scene," she said gently, and held out her hand. "I shall never forget you, Reggie."

He writhed.

"I won't even trouble to tell you that my name is Ferdinand. It would only make you more comic."

The ring he gathered up with a sneer.

"Don't you dare throw it in the fire!" she warned him as he lifted the trinket to the level of his eyes.

"It cost a hundred and twenty-five pounds," said the disconsolate young man. "They gave me a ten per cent discount because I knew the managing director. Am I likely to throw it away? I was looking to see if you'd damaged it. You've been very careful. Good-bye, Letty."

Her speculative gaze held him.

"Are you going to shoot lions?" she asked. He appealed to her mutely. "0r build a house in some fever-stricken swamp in Central Africa? Once I believed in you, Ferdie, and ordered black. Once I put an advertisement in the newspapers asking Central African newspapers to copy. And the same night I saw you in Chiro's, teaching Molly Fetinhough the new tango step. Ferdie, you are speaking to a woman who has suffered!"

"I lost the boat," he said lamely.

"Did you find it looking down that bony creature's back? You will not go away. Tomorrow night you will be here."

She pointed to the exact spot on the carpet where he would grovel. Ferdie examined it curiously.

Through the open window came the soft harmonies of church bells and the hushed music of a band playing carols. It was the Salvation Army band. Ferdie recognized the flat E of the cornet.

"And is this Christmas Eve!" he said bitterly.

"It is— the twenty-fourth," she said informatively. "Didn't you know?"

"Tomorrow, when you're entertaining your beastly bounder friend, Poggy, or singing his 'Who Knows?' and splitting your sides over his fatuous, infantile jokes that he cuts from Life and keeps in a scrapbook— I've seen it," he added treacherously. "There isn't a boat for Asia Minor tonight, but perhaps you'll think of me in my lonely apartment drinking beer all alone—"

"Surely you don't want assistance to drink beer!" she said coldly. "I've always understood that it wasn't strong enough to necessitate the calling in of help. Ferdie, I wish you a happy Christmas. There is no reason in the world why we shouldn't be good friends. I've realized for a long time that, temperamentally, we were unfitted for one another. A woman has the right to choose her friends."

"A woman!" he scoffed. "And the year before last I was coaching you through the holidays for your school certificate! Who sat up half the night trying to knock the first idea of the integral calculus into your nut?"

"The past is dead," she said, with dignity, and switched her fan.

"Do that again," he said, fascinated.

"Do what? The fan? It is an old trick I learnt years ago."

"In the kindergarten? Go on, do it. That's cute. Ill bet Poggy taught you that. What a lady!"

She was on her feet now, delicate trace of eyebrows arched. She might, with profit to her reputation as a well-bred lady, have maintained the pose. Instead of which:

"Now, Ferdie, are you going? Or shall I call Arthurs to chuck you through the window?"

Ferdie bowed. In the presence of vibrant maidenhood he was dumb— temporarily.

"I only want to say—" he began.

She walked to the fireplace and put her finger on the bell, and there was a look of sinister curiosity in her eyes. So might Caesar's wife, above suspicion and well out of reach, have looked when she saw her first Christian martyrs introduced to the lions.

Mr. Ferdinand Stevington stepped out into Portland Place and turned up the collar of his overcoat. It was a rainy night, a warm westerly breeze was blowing— typical Christmas weather.

Standing by the iron railings that separated the street from the cavernous area, he gazed, dim eyed, at the yellow blind which hid from his view all that had been desirable in life. He had an immeasurable sense of poverty, and his heart blazed resentfully against those who, rich in her respect and affection, refused him the crumbs which had so sparsely fallen from the feast her bounty provided.

The watchful Nobbins brought the Rolls from the center of the road, where it had been parked, and guided it noiselessly and cunningly to the edge of the sidewalk.

"No, thank you, Nobbins; I will walk," said Ferdie quietly.

"It's raining, sir."

Nobbins invariably told him the news. Many a murder would have passed unscanned but for Nobbins.

Ferdie glanced up at the copper-hued sky and laughed bitterly.

"I hadn't noticed it," he said.

A raindrop fell straight into his eye and he cursed.

"No, I will walk," he said.

He was wearing the thinnest of shoes, and the pavement was wet and muddy. Wet feet had turned many a robust man into a wan and listless invalid about whose cot red-eyed women hung breathlessly, praying that the past could be wiped out and cruel words recalled. Ferdie walked in the gutter.

The Salvation Army band at the corner of Duke Street was inviting Christians to awake. Most of the Christians in Duke Street had been awake for hours, and were only just beginning to take an interest in the overcrowded state of the dancing-floor. Those Christians who were asleep were in the smoke- rooms of respectable clubs, where only the head waiter or the house steward is allowed to waken members.

And at this blessed time, when the servants' Christmas-box list is hanging in the hall and only three tables are laid in the dining-room, even head waiters hesitated to assist the carollers in their mission.

Ferdie strode on, shrugged at the collecting-box that was pushed timidly toward him by a bonneted adjutant, repenting, to return and donate handsomely. And then there occurred in his brain one of those seismic disturbances that send tidal waves of brilliant inspiration across the commonplace surfaces of his mind.

"Will you be good enough to take your band to No. 743 and play 'Where is my Wandering Boy Tonight?'" he asked.

She consulted the man with the silver cornet— he of the flat E— and it was arranged.

Ferdie went onward with a lighter heart. His flat in Devonshire Street seemed strangely lonely and empty. On the table lay a little package wrapped in thin silver paper and tied with blue ribbons, and at the sight of it, his spirits sank again. On the mantlepiece was a photograph of a girl. He averted his eyes.

"Nobbins is here, sir."

His valet made the announcement in his quiet way.

"Here, is he? Let him go home to his wife and family, Stephen; it is Christmas-tide. Go home to your wife and family!"

"I am not married, sir."

Ferdie turned upon the man.

"Have you a family?"

Stephen, a man with a beautiful mind, whose dream it was that some day he would be appointed a lay reader or a court missionary, gazed at his master with eyes that in dumb suffering were like unto a wounded beast.

"No, sir; it follows," he said gently.

Ferdie hunched himself round in his chair.

"What would you like to do tomorrow, Stephen?"

Stephen coughed.

"I should like to attend the morning service at the Foundling Hospital, sir," he said. "In the afternoon I and some friends are giving a little musical entertainment at the Marylebone Workhouse. I play a little."

"The harp, one thinks!" said Ferdie.

"No, sir: the saxophone," replied Stephen modestly. "It is somewhat difficult to play."

"Go somewhere— and play it. Bring joy into suffering hearts, Stephen." He sat up quickly. "Can you play 'Where is my Wandering Boy Tonight'?"

"No, sir."

Ferdie pointed to the door. Stephen bowed slightly and went out.

Tomorrow was Christmas Day. He had rejected every invitation but one. And that one...

...His maniacal laughter reached the butler's pantry, where Stephen and Nobbins were exchanging cigarette cards.

"One can excuse much on Christmas Eve, Nobbins," said Stephen charitably. They were both members of a Brotherhood, but Stephen was the more brotherly. "You wouldn't like to drop in at the Marylebone Workhouse tomorrow afternoon?"

"Am I drunk, too?" asked the chauffeur reproachfully.

But Ferdie was not drunk. He was not even intoxicated. He was just broken- hearted and crushed and baffled. He wanted to do something that was exceedingly reckless, such as rescuing a child from a fire. The fire, for preference, to be in Portland Place, immediately opposite No. 743. He wanted to grow a beard and go away to sea before the mast. Or, if necessary, he was willing to give the mast a start. And then he wanted to come back bronzed and bearded, and be knocked down by a motor-car, preferably Letty's two-seater, and be picked up and carried into 743 Portland Place and hear Letty cry, "Why, it's Ferdie! What have I done?"

He wanted to sink lower and lower in the social scale (without necessarily surrendering his large holdings in Conifers Corporation, which yielded a steady 8 per cent) until he was the inmate of a common lodging-house. He wanted Stephen also to sink lower and lower in the social scale until he was the inmate of a common lodging-house too. Stephen could sleep in the next cubicle and bring his tea in the morning.

And by day he would sell things in the gutter, such as shoe-laces, matches, and pitiable little toys. And Letty would come along and buy something. Then, looking down at him, she would pale and say, "Ferdie! Have I brought you to this?"

Ferdie rang the bell at this point.

"Bring me a glass of milk," he said.

"Hot or cold, sir?" asked Stephen.

Ferdie shrugged.

"I am indifferent," he said. He was in his most dangerous mood.

Christmas! He remembered a story he had read, one of Dickens', or it may have been some other Johnny. After consideration he decided that it was Dickens. He had a wonderful memory for names. The story was about a curmudgeon of a fellow who hated Christmas. Sneered at the serried ranks of deceased turkeys that hung in the poulterer's shop, snarled at the rosy-faced apples, at the grocer's, loathed plum-pudding, and despised holly and mistletoe. Ferdie's heart warmed toward... Snoop, was it? Or Gooch, or Groodge... Scrooge! That was the chap's name. Scrooge! He remembered perfectly. His memory was uncanny where names were concerned.

Ferdie hated Christmas too. He hated everything that was bright and cheery. He turned down the gas fire to make the atmosphere of the room attune with his sentiments. Stephen came in to say good-night.

"And a merry Christmas to you, sir."

"A merry Christmas!" said Ferdie through his nose. He had never snarled in his life; but Scrooge snarled.

"Have you a cold, sir?"

Stephen could be fatherly.

"No, I haven't! Christmas! Put out that fire! Have you locked up the bread and butter? Do it, Stephen, in case some of the poor break in. Your wages are reduced. I'll do without you next week. Did I promise you a Christmas- box?"

"You are good enough, as a rule..."

It hurt Ferdie to laugh through his nose; it was like champagne that went the wrong way. Nevertheless he laughed.

Stephen went back to the Butler's pantry.

"Nobbins," he asked earnestly, "will you join me in a short prayer for our master?"

"If it is short," said Nobbins.

It was toward twelve o'clock when Ferdie put out his hand and clawed toward him the little flat package in silver paper. He untied the blue ribbons thoughtfully, carefully removed and smoothed the paper, and pressed the spring which held together the two sides of a small jewel case. Gleaming and glittering in its blue velvet bed was a diamond and platinum pendant. It had cost a lot of money. Letty would have given him in exchange a cigarette-holder or a walking-stick or a manicure set. Poggy would get it now. He ground his teeth at the thought. And Letty would be disappointed and hurt. He must send it on and then go away. Whither, he knew not; to some obscure foreign town where nobody would dream of looking for him. But who would look for him! He asked the question of himself, and his lips curled. Stephen would miss him, but he would soon find a new master. The income- tax collector would miss him and write to his lawyer. Letty!... She would go, uncaring, through life, holding her slim sides and rocking with laughter, with Poggy twittering like an ape at her side and asking if she'd heard the story about the plumber and the Colonel's knee?

Stephen came in with a knock.

"What time would you like your tea in the morning, sir?"

Ferdie bit his lip deliberately.

"I may not want tea in the morning, Stephen. My plans are unsettled. At any moment I may have to go away. Don't look for me. Dewberry, Hokey, Middleton, Parker and Sutton will pay you your wages."

"Would you like your letters forwarded, sir?"

Ferdie sighed his impatience.

"I may be dead," he said simply.

"Very good, sir. Good-night and a merry— good-night, sir."

The fellow was impressed, Ferdie could see that. And other people would be impresesd. He looked up the first train to Bournemouth.

But the package must go. A letter should be enclosed, just a brief, courteous, and yet not too courteous greeting. "Yours sincerely, Ferdinand Stevington." Or, " Wishing you the Christmas you deserve "? No, Ferdie could never wish her the least harm.

"Dear Letty," he began, altered it to "My dear Letty," and began again.

"My dear friend,— This trifle" (he originally wrote 'inexpensive trifle' but cut out the adjective) "comes to you with all my best wishes..."

He ought to make her feel that all the blame was not hers. It was only fair.

"I am afraid I have been rather a bear. Forgive me!! I am going a long journey, and we may not meet again—"

He paused here to consider whether he ought to add "for a day or two," but decided to let it go without qualification. It was cruel to raise false hopes.

"I have left your ring in an envelope. It will be found with other little intimate relics of a life that has not altogether been wasted. Who knows where I may sleep tonight?"

This he blotted smugly, read every line, picturing her distress when she read it. Reluctantly he folded the note inside the silver paper, tied again the blue ribbons, and dropped the whole into a long envelope. At twelve forty-five he stole up to the door of 743 Portland Place, opened the flap of the letter- box and dropped the letter in; it was addressed, with rugged simplicity, "Letty, from F.S."

On three points he was satisfied. It was a big, a magnanimous thing to have done. There was something innately fine in the act. The deed was worthy of the man. The three statements passed unchallenged. Ferdie knew that he had not judged himself unfairly. There was no sterner critic of his actions than himself. This he also admitted as an incontrovertible truth.

And yet...?

Ferdie wriggled in his chair and looked hard at the shoes he had taken off.

And yet...?

Had he not lowered himself in her eyes? Was it not an abject surrender on the part of one who was, and had been all the time, entirely in the right? Was it not a fulfilment of all her scornful predictions? He remembered the identical spot on the carpet where he must abase himself!

Would it not have been better to send a Christmas card? There was one on his mantlepiece. It had come from his old nurse and was a picture of a blue cottage and white moon. The ground and roof were covered with Epsom salts that glittered in the light and was a fair representation of hoar-frost.

"May Christmas cheer this day be yours,
Of sorrow may you ne'er have cause"—
was appropriate— singularly so.

This time he bit his upper lip, and when a man bites his upper lip he is in doubt. She would laugh at him. Poor fool! How quickly he had come to heel!

Ferdie rose, kicked off his slippers so that when he did make up his mind, he could instantly dash into the kind of footwear that his decision called for. Whilst he was thinking, he might as well put on his street shoes.

She would tell Poggy, of course...

He took down the Christmas card, underlined the pious hope in the second line of the stanza, and, scribbling a line, "Merry Xmas, F.," put it into an envelope.

There was a pair of ice tongs somewhere about— curved silver ice tongs, with handles like scissors. He had thought everything out.

"I would have made a wonderful criminal," said Ferdie regretfully.

With the tongs in his coat pocket, he drove in a taxi to Langham Place, dismissed the machine, and walked up Portland Place. A thin fog assisted the drizzle to make England what it is at Christmas-time. A new and livelier herd of carol players were jazzing "Good King Wenceslas" brightly. Ferdie found himself stepping unconsciously. And the clock struck two.

No. 743 was in darkness when he stepped up to the door. In a second the ice tongs were in the letter-box and had gripped. He drew out a package of a familiar shape and dropped it into his pocket.

"What's the idea?"

In his agitation Ferdie released his ice tongs, and they fell with a clatter.

"I beg your pardon?" he said, and added seasonably, "A merry Christmas!"

"And a happy New Year!" said the big man who had come noiselessly behind him. "You're coming to Marylebone Lane with me."

"If you imagine I'm going to take a country stroll at this hour and in this beastly weather, you're mistaken. Give me the lanes of England by all means— but on a summer day with the meadow-sweet and the may-weed and the dog- roses on the hedges..."

"Are you coming quietly!"

There was something very tremendous in the question. Ferdie reeled and gripped the railings, tight.

"That sort of thing went out with the suffragettes," said the detective testily.

"You're a policeman!"

"Sergeant— M'Neill. Now come on, my lad, I've been watching you for an hour."

He took Ferdie's arm unaffectionately, and they walked on.

"Where's your pal. Lew?" asked the officer.

"Loo— do you mean Waterloo?" Dazed but brave, Ferdie endeavored to be intelligent.

At the station, a bright steel dock and a very stout and annoyed station sergeant who put down his pen and surveyed the prisoner with disfavor:

"Name?"

"My name... Smith."

"Very original— John or William?"

Ferdie thought.

"Caractacus," he said.

The sergeant at the desk lifted his upper lip cynically.

"Address?"

"Buckingham Palace, ha, ha!" said Ferdie dismally.

Such jests had been made before.

"Refuses address— yes, sergeant, what's the charge?"

"Letter-box stealing. I found him extracting letters from 743 Portland Place with the aid of an instrument or tool."

The instrument or tool was laid on the desk.

"Did he get anything?"

The detective laid a package on the table, and Ferdie scratched his chin. His little present had been in a long envelope. This was not in any kind of envelope. Moreover, it was tied with lavender ribbon.

"'From Poggy to Lettice,'" read the detective.

Ferdie staggered out of the pen, but the detective pushed him back.

"A diamond and emerald ornament in the shape of a grand piano," announced the desk-officer.

"What execrable taste, and may I add how singularly vulgar!" said Ferdie.

"Have you anybody you wish to notify of your arrest? You will be in custody for three days," said the sergeant.

"A word from a woman could save me," said Ferdie brokenly. "I am too proud to ask: we Smiths are not without our proper pride."

A weary gaoler appeared; Ferdie was searched. A pocket-book containing a fabulous sum of money, a gold cigarette-case, divers articles of gold and silver.

"You've had a good day, son," said the sergeant respectfully. "Put him in No. 6, Wilkins..."

The cell door did not clang, Ferdie noticed; it "ooshed"!

The Revels never opened their Christmas presents until the dinner-hour, when all kind donors were on hand to be thanked, enthusiastically, ecstatically, or just thanked. "You really ought not to have got such a beautiful handbag. It is just the thing I wanted! I'm getting so used to the other twelve."

There was a master to the house, one George Palliter Revel, P.O., M.P. He paid for everything and approved of everything. Lettice Gionvanna Revel was another master. She merely gave orders, and said who might come to dinner and who might not. Everybody loved Lettice. People wrote poems about her, even people who could not write poetry. She had a speed-car, a bull-terrier, and a signed photograph of Douglas Fairbanks framed in gold. She liked men to be strong and manly and silent. Purposeful men who picked girls up in their arms and strode through the dim aisles of the primeval woods. Ferdie had never picked her up, except in a figurative sense. She loved him as a mother loves a helpless babe.

She mentioned this fact at dinner, being entirely without reticence.

"Ferdie isn't here, papa, because I told him not to come."

"Dear me!" said Mr. Revel mildly. "I thought that you and he...?"

She smiled indulgently.

"It was merely a boy-and-girl courtship," she said.

Mr. Revel rubbed his left ear.

"How old are you now, Letty?"

"Nineteen and a bit," she said. "I'm a woman, daddy— you sometimes forget that. My love for Ferdie is purely maternal."

"Dear me!" said Mr. Revel, more mildly than ever.

He was by nature mild, being one of those large-faced men with pannier cheeks and a bald and wrinkled forehead. He owed his eminence to his mildness, for, when his party was in power, he was so mild that the opposition thought he was sympathetic, and when they came in they offered him a seat in the Cabinet, only to discover that he was mildness itself to his former colleagues, and by them was confirmed in his office when they, in their turn, came back to power. To any Government, mild opposition is more acceptable than violent support.

"Now for the presents!" said Mr. Revel.

Poggy Bannett grew melancholy.

"You quite understand why mine isn't here, Letty? The wretched burglar took it. I've been half the day at the police station, identifying the thing. They wouldn't let me bring it away."

She smiled with her eyes. It is awfully difficult, but if you practise before a mirror for an hour a day it can be mastered.

"It was too good of you, Poggy, my dear. I'd much rather have had a signed copy of your lovely song. Honestly, I dislike Christmas presents. They are so unreal— so... you know."

Poggy nodded. He was a thin-faced young man with a sharp, out-thrust nose. Even amateur artists found him easy to draw.

"And, of course, I don't expect anything from Ferdie. He wouldn't dare—"

She looked at the envelope and frowned.

"If he has returned the pipe I gave him last Christmas, I shall be very angry," she said. The envelope torn: "0h! How perfectly wonderful! Oh, but he shouldn't! Isn't that just like Ferdie, papa? He really has the most exquisite taste!"

He looked at the little price ticket that Ferdie had left on, and rapidly calculated what 10 per cent, discount on £95 might be.

The letter she read slowly, her lips moving.

"Heavens!"

Poggy saw her pale... She passed the letter to him without a word.

"Oh, nonsense!" said Poggy. "Twiff! Skittles! He's all right! You don't imagine...pooh! He's done it before!"

Her eyes shone like twin stars.

"If Ferdie says he will do a thing, he will do it," she said.

"What is it, my dear!"

When Mr. Revel asked a question, he signified his intention by fixing his pince-nez.

"Ferdie may have committed suicide," breathed Lettice.

"Dear me!" said Mr. Revel, and took off his glasses. He had no further questions to ask. All day long he had had a feeling that it would be an interesting evening.

"Stuff!" said Poggy hotly. "I like his nerve quoting my verses: 'Where will I sleep tonight?'— that's practically plagiarism."

She drew a long, long breath that swelled her all up momentarily.

"Where do you think he is?"

The author of "Where Will I Sleep Tonight" smiled.

"I'll tell you a story," he said. "A South American once asked an Irishman—"

"Will you reserve your quotations from Life until a more appropriate occasion?"— icily. "I asked you what do you think he has done?"

"You asked me where he was," responded the aggrieved composer. "He's in his own rooms; that's where he is— sulking and causing everybody trouble! I'll bet a thousand!"

He got up from the table excitedly.

"I'll go and bring him!" he said. "With my bare bands I will drag him from his hiding-place. He can't fool me. My friend Cruthers has a flat on the same floor. Wait for us!"

He dashed from the room. Mr. Revel, who had dozed, looked up.

"There will be an inquest, of course," he said, addressing the ceiling. "Happily I shall not be called."

She looked at her progenitor, pain in her eyes.

"Father!" she said, and he winced at the word. "How can you! Ferdie isn't the kind of man who would allow you to be called."

Mr. Cruthers, the good friend and former schoolmate of Poggy Bannett, was dressing for dinner when Poggy was announced. He was as a rule an early riser, and seldom missed his luncheon, but today, there being no racing and no daily newspapers and consequently no sin in the world, he had slept on until seven o'clock in the evening.

"No, I haven't seen Ferdie; his man told my man he was going away; in fact, he hasn't been visible since last night."

"Skulking and sulking," said Poggy. "I've knocked at his door. No answer. Naturally! I'm going to get out of your window and walk along the fire parapet and have an independent investigation."

"Do you mind waiting until I've changed my undies?" pleaded his friend. "It's so unpleasant with the window open."

Poggy seated himself with folded arms.

"I can wait," he said.

Not until his friend was nearly dressed did he raise the sash and find his way along a narrow iron gang-way. Ferdie's bedroom window was open at the top; therefore it was openable at the bottom; quod erat demonstrandum. He lifted the sash and stepped in.

"Ferdie, my boy," he called, "the game's up. Come, come! Don't be naughty!"

Silence answered him. He switched on the light. The bedroom was in order. The cupboards and wardrobes held no more than made life supportable to a gentleman of fashion.

The dining-saloon had the tidiness of an empty room. Ferdie's slippers were before the fire. On the table was a stack of letters of a seasonable character. The spare bedroom, the study where Ferdie studied the sporting press, the bathroom, box-room, valet's room, pantry, and kitchen were empty.

On the mantlepiece in the dining-room was the framed portrait of a woman, a woman of nineteen and a bit. Across the foot was written a message that was in no sense maternal. Poggy's brows met. They had not far to go. He felt that in a sense he had been deceived. A woman who signs herself " Yours for eternity, darling" wasn't being matronly at all. He seized the photograph viciously. This he would produce to her embarrassment or relief. At any rate it was hardly a fit possession for one who had outlived Letty Revel's eternity.

The lights he extinguished, opened the window, and stepped out. Mr. Cruthers's light was also extinguished when he reached the window; the sash was fastened also. Mr. Cruthers had probably thought that Poggy would make his exit via Ferdie's front door. It seemed the simplest method.

Poggy considered the matter for a moment. What was wrong with the fire escape? He went down the narrow iron staircase, dropped the last few feet into the yard, and then an interested spectator came from the shadows.

"A merry Christmas!" said the stranger. "Coming a little walk along with me?"

"Certainly not!" said Poggy. "I don't know you; and I don't want to know you. Good evening.—"

The stranger caught his arm.

"My name is Sergeant M'Neill, C.I.D., and I shall take you into custody for breaking and entering."

With rare presence of mind, Poggy took the photograph from his pocket and dropped it on the ground.

"Thank you," said the officer of the law, and picked it up. "Been collecting art treasures? I've watched you for two hours. Where's your friend Ike? I haven't seen him for years."

At the station:

"Smith," said Poggy, pale but inventive. The photograph episode was damning. And Sergeant M'Neill, who all morning had been pestering him to identify the diamond piano, had not recognized him, and the station sergeant of the morning was away on leave.

"John or William?"

"Haydn," said Poggy musically.

The gaoler went over him and enumerated his finds. Then, in a state of exaltation, Poggy said:

"I think it is only fair that you should know that my name is Bannett, and I am the composer and author of 'Where Shall I Sleep Tonight?'..."

"The answer is, No. 6!" said the station sergeant.

Ferdie heard the key turn and the cell door swing open. He sat up, interested, and Poggy recoiled at the sight of him.

"Ferdie!... You here!"

Ferdie was not surprised.

"Sit down and make me laugh," he said. "What are you in for— murder?"

"This is the second case today," said the magistrate awfully, "where a prosecutor who should have come forward and identified stolen property has failed to realize his responsibilities to the public. The cases have been remanded for a fortnight, yet neither Mr. Stevington nor Mr. Bannett have appeared to aid the police. I have sent the other man to prison for a month as a suspected person; you also will go to prison with hard labor for a month, and I warn you..."

A MONTH LATER they left Pentonville Model Prison together. Ferdie bagged the only taxi in sight, and when Poggy reached Portland Place, Letty was engaged. He waited an hour. She was still engaged. The footman thought she would be engaged for some time.

Her head of gold floss was on Ferdie's shoulder.

"Go on!" she whispered.

"Two nights later I arrived in Constantinople, despair in my heart. I knew I had lost you; there was nothing to live for. Should I dash madly into the desert, perhaps never to return!"

"If you had only cabled!" she breathed. "When Poggy didn't return I knew that he dared not face me. Oh, my dearest darling, I didn't dream that you would take such awful risks. You will never run away again! I can't bear it! Where have you come from now!"

"Penton Villia— a suburb of Rome," said Ferdie. "As I was saying, I might have joined the dervishes..."

"Do you think it is any use my waiting!" asked Poggy.

The footman, an honest man, shook his head. The back of the drawing-room settee was exactly opposite the keyhole.

_________________________

12: The Know-How

"WHAT YOU need, Dian, is a little of my know-how in those pretty legs of yours."

That was almost a daily saying of Alana Vane.

Dian's legs were indubitably pretty— theatrical gossip writers used to call them "shapely." Johnny Crewe objected, very naturally, to any reference to them at all.

Otherwise, he was rather sensible, approved her stage career, had an implicit and unshakeable faith in her ultimate success, and longed for its coming.

He could have married right away— he was a very well-off young man, even in the days of Alana. But— Dian must have her chance. Marriage would mean the breakdown of the "position" she had built with such labor, and the shutting of the door which seemed at the point of yielding.

Alana used to sigh at this talk of marriage. She was very beautiful in her way. Dian Donald did not know her in the days before she began to look sad, and the straight lines deepen on each side of her face: to Dian she was always the most lovely woman in the world, and the public thought so too. The Elcho Theatre was never without its queues. She had saved more bad plays and given value to more valueless music than any woman on the stage. Her personality was electric, her voice glorious. She was one of the few musical comedy actresses that could act. Few spoke of her by her surname— she was "Alana," and so her name appeared on poster and programme.

She was Dian's height and Dian's build, and on the stage had something of Dian's childlike loveliness.

"Marriage! Humph!" She sighed, and shook her head. "It's fine and it's heart- breaking. You're better off, Dian, as a single understudy than as a married star. And you're a good understudy, darling. The world's best. If you had the sense of a rabbit, you'd take the small parts Dowall offers you and get away from me. A little know-how, and your name would be in lights, and you'd be drawing down three hundred pounds a week instead of six."

"Miss Forsyant is 'off' tonight," said Dian.

Alana nodded.

"I know— she's dining with Freddie. He said he was going to his club to meet a man, but he's dining with Elsa. I suppose it's all right. But it's hard not to tell him I know."

Freddie was big and florid, and notoriously gallant. He had been an assistant stage director when Alana found him in a third-class show that she had made into a first-class show. His salary had been about on a level with Dian's. And then Alana fell in love, and they were married; and after that, Freddie did no more work: only took people out to dinner— chorus girls at first, and then principals, and then the lovely Elsa, who was blue-eyed and calculating. All this happened before the big break, and it was like Alana that she should play to the very last night of the show, should come smiling to the footlights and make her little speech before the curtain fell, never to rise upon her again.

She divorced Freddie, and vanished from London. Dian, who wept very little, wept much that night when she took farewell of her friend.

"I'm going to New York: I may come back next year. I've asked Dowall to give you some sort of a part. I'll give you absent treatment for know-how, darling! And, Dian... Elsa's got a lot of money. I didn't know that until I found Freddie was negotiating for the lease of the Elcho. You may find her difficult, but stick it out— fame in a night for you, my dear; you know the stories of the understudies!"

That was Alana's last joke. The understudy who rises to fame in a night was one of her favorite gibes at the story-tellers, for she knew that such things do not happen.

So passed Alana. So came Elsa Forsyant and a new type of performance. There was a failure and another failure, and then a half-success. Freddie, the florid, began to grow streaky lines round his china-blue eyes— Dowall, the old director, grinned sardonically.

"It's the type of show that's wrong," insisted Freddie. "Let's get back the Alana kind."

"Where's your Alana?" sneered Dowall.

"Elsa could do it on her head."

Freddie said this defiantly. Mr. Dowall made audible sounds of derision.

"It's on her feet she's got to do it," he said; "and those kinds of show cost money."

This significantly: he had a pretty shrewd idea that the financial position of Freddie and his new wife was not very sound.

"You get the show together. I'll find the money."

He might speak with confidence, but he had certain inward doubts. The theatre was a heavy responsibility. The first two shows had been financed by himself; for the rest he secured backing, and he had exhausted that source of revenue in his one effort. Still, suckers were born at the rate of one a minute.

So Great Heart was born, but the particular sucker that Freddie sought did not attach itself to his clumsily baited hook, until one day he met a most agreeable young man waiting at the stage door to escort a member of the company to dinner....

The rehearsals of Great Heart remained a bad memory to those who took part in them. The "book" was bad, the music was in the main written by a surprising young aristocrat. Do-wall said openly that Freddie had been paid a considerable sum by the composer for the opportunity. The hard- working chorus alone were efficient. Elsa insisted upon her lines being altered again and again— she was not very strong on her "h's"— and shamelessly took to herself not only the best lines but the best songs in the play. She would have no other pretty girl in the play. She must be alone, incomparable. She changed the leading man twice— once because he was so tall that he made her look short, once because his voice was so good that it drowned her own rather feeble notes.

Sometimes she did not come to rehearsal for days....

"I read the part," said Dian, snatching a hasty tea with Johnny in the Palm Court of the Carlton. "Oh, Johnny! It is terrible at the theatre! Mr. Dowall just sits in the stalls and glowers. And Freddie doesn't seem- to care much. He was worried last week, but now he doesn't trouble to come to rehearsals."

John Crewe moved uneasily in his chair. He was a fresh-faced and youthful- looking man of thirty.

"Oh, really!" he said awkwardly. "He seemed very cheerful about it all when I lunched with him on Monday."

She looked at him incredulously. "You lunched with Freddie? You didn't tell me! I didn't know that you had met him."

"You listen to nothin'— you just stand about and chatter like a lot of old crows... and we open tomorrow! No— tonight! All right— you can all go home. Tonight I want everybody in the theatre at 5:30: chorus, principals, everybody. We open, and God help us! If we postponed we'd be worse! Alight!"

He waved the company to the devil— they melted noisily.

He called his familiar to him.

"Not a costume that fits, half the shoes haven't arrived, the orchestra's a crime, and the stage hands the biggest bunch of left-handed bimbos I've seen since I left the fit-ups. Fit-ups! Gawd, they'd give points to this mob! Twenty- five minutes changing one set! There'll be a riot in the theatre tonight!"

Mr. Dowall was a gloomy man, with a deeply lined face. His scowl was permanent.

Two girls came towards him along the narrow space between the orchestra and Row A. Elsa came boldly, with the air and manner of a proprietress, a small, supple lady, expensively perfumed, her hands glittering.

"Listen, Dowall, I can't open tonight. I've got no voice, and I'm simply a bundle of nerves."

Dian, the understudy, would gladly have missed the interview, but she had been commanded to appear.

Mr. Dowall looked at the leading lady steadily. She was pretty: even her worst enemy could not deny the loveliness of regular features and faultless complexion. Her figure was sometimes described by ecstatic paragraphists as divine— Mr. Dowall would concede that also.

But he, of all men, knew the shrew behind those deep blue eyes, knew something of the meanness of her soul, and of those red lips of hers— anyway, she had got her Freddie, and that was the end of it; and Alana Vane was somewhere in the Western States of America— picture-making, people said vaguely; breaking her heart, her friends were certain. And there was Freddie, in the back row of the stalls, curled up and faintly snoring. What anybody could see in Freddie— Mr. Dowall shook a weary head.

"You're a bundle of nerves and you're not all you might be, Elsa, and you've got a doctor's certificate tucked away in your stocking, and the show opens tonight."

He stated the facts calmly.

"What do you propose we shall do? Postpone for a month, and bring the company down to Monte Carlo to give you a chance of rehearsing under favorable conditions—"

"You needn't be sarcastic at my expense, Dowall." Her voice rose a note.

"Shall I tell you something?"

The grim-faced producer put his thumbs in his armholes and looked up at her.

"If you were Alana I'd be foaming at the mouth and rolling on the floor. Alana matters. You don't matter two rows of pins. You've got a part in the play and you'll just fill it: you'll dance well and sing reasonably; your fans will say 'Isn't she wonderful!' and the people who don't like you will say they like you better when you're doing something else. The play's a flop that you couldn't save. She could. When your husband changed his wife, he lost the best leading woman in the world."

She was livid with fury.

Dowall listened, and yet didn't listen. Dian crept away unnoticed.

"You... you're fired! You don't know how to produce a show! It's your incompetence..."

"Say it with flowers!" snarled Mr. Dowall.

Freddie was waiting for her in a decidedly cheerful and conciliatory frame of mind. He listened without any comment to her shrill tirade....

"He insulted me, and you sat there snoring like a pig! I wonder I didn't smack his face.... You'll fire Dowall at once, Freddie!"

To her surprise, Freddie chuckled.

"He will be crushed in the general debacle," he said.

She snapped at him.

"For God's sake don't use foreign words to me! I know that you're better educated than I am. What do you mean?"

"I mean I'm taking no further risks with the Elcho. I've sublet the theatre and I've sold the production."

She switched on the light of the car to see him better.

"You've sold the production."

"Lock, stock, and barrel; hook, line, and sinker!" he said, almost gaily. "The bare cost of the production is eight thousand— I had a banker's draft for twelve this afternoon— and the only contract is an exchange of letters."

There was another spectator of the final scenes at the rehearsal. John Crewe sat in the center of the deserted dress-circle, his coat pulled up over his ears, and watched with increasing gloom chaos succeed chaos. He was a witness, too, of the little scene between Elsa and Mr. Do wall, and when the girl went back to the stage and he saw Dowall follow, he rose stiffly, and, making his way down a dark staircase, passed through a little iron door on to the stage. Dowall had just finished speaking to the understudy, and on Dian's face was a look of despair.

He helped her into her coat and they walked up the street towards an all- night restaurant.

"We'll both feel better after we have had something to eat," he said, with an assumption of cheerfulness that he did not feel. "Your Elsa is rather a termagant, and I didn't like her at all in the show; but I suppose tomorrow— tonight she'll be better."

"She isn't playing tonight," wailed Dian. "Oh, Johnny, I've got to appear! Isn't it ghastly?"

He wasn't so shocked at this as he might have been.

"By Jove, that's good news! You're certain to be better than she. What's the matter with her?"

Dian shook her head.

"I thought it was bad temper and that she would appear, but Mr. Dowall is certain she won't. She wants people to believe that the play has failed because, owing to illness, she could not make her appearance. And it will fail, Johnny. Mr. Dowall is the best prophet I know, and he says that failure is inevitable."

Johnny stopped dead in his stride.

"The devil he did! That's bad news to me."

"Oh, it doesn't matter," she said, ignorant of the cause of his perturbation. "Anyway, I'm giving up the stage. What Alana said was true— the story of the understudy who leaps to fame in a night is all moonshine. I shan't either leap there or walk there or even crawl there." And then she saw his face and her heart sank. "What is the matter?"

"Let us eat first," he said ruefully.

They went into the warm, well-lighted saloon of the restaurant and ordered coffee and fried eggs; and the food was very comforting.

"Now," he said, as he lit a cigarette, "I am going to tell you how many sizes of fool I am. That show belongs to me."

She stared at him in bewilderment.

"I bought it," he said grimly. "Mr. Fred Vane told me the tale so effectively that I have not only bought the show but I have taken a lease of the theatre!"

"Oh, Johnny!" she gasped. "You never have! My dear, you'll lose every penny— how wicked of him! But you can get your money back if she doesn't appear. You must have stipulated for her—"

"I stipulated for nothing: I didn't even have a contract with him. It was one of those clever exchanges of letters to save lawyers' fees. And then he laughed. "You needn't worry your little head about it. I don't want to lose twelve thousand pounds, and have in addition the liability of the theatre on my hands, but it won't absolutely break me, though it will make a big hole in my reserves."

He took her home and left her, almost in tears, at her Bloomsbury lodging; then he went back in time to intercept the brain-weary Mr. Dowall just as he was leaving the theatre.

Dowall listened scowlingly and shook his head.

"You're the sucker, are you? I was wondering who it was. Making this show go will be as easy as selling ice-cream to Eskimos. There's only one person in the world who could save it, and that's Alana."

"She's not in England."

Dowall shook his head.

"No; she was in New York when I heard of her last. Anyway, she couldn't rehearse it in time, and that's that. You've got to face the certainty of losing your money, just as I've got to face the certainty of losing my job. That doesn't worry me much, because I've been praying for the end of my contract. Alana...!" He shook his head and sighed. "There's one chance in eight with Alana, but with nobody else!"

John agreed unhappily.

In her dressing-room sat Dian, numbed and panic-stricken. She was dressed for the first act, had been "made-up" and dressed for an hour.

She gazed hopelessly at inevitable failure. The play was bad, the music, the production, everything. To have made her appearance in the middle of a successful run... that would have given her a chance.

She looked round the resplendent dressing-room— it was Elsa's— and shivered.

The play might run a week— a month perhaps; and it was Johnny's. Failure might not ruin him, but it would hurt him badly. This added responsibility was disastrous.

The telephone bell tinkled.

She took up the instrument, thinking it was Johnny, and heard the stage doorkeeper:

"It's some sort of trunk call— I can't get it quite, miss. Will you hang on?"

She waited: in her ear were strange splutterings and whinings. Distant voices spoke incomprehensibly. Some one near at hand said.... "Clear now to your call...."

And the noises died, and she heard a gentle voice:

"Is that you, honey?"

It was Alana's! She would have known it anywhere.

"Alana! How wonderful! Are you in London?"

Alana's soft, gurgling voice came to her.

"No, honey— I'm in New York. I read you were opening tonight, so I thought I'd call you...."

There was a long pause.

"It's all right— I guess I'm not too well... speaking from bed, Dian— they didn't want me to talk, these doctors... but, you know, honey... wanted to wish you luck and the ' now-how'... You forget yourself, kid... just forget yourself... I'll be right along wishing for you... just forget you're Dian... and remember that I'm with you...."

The voice stopped: Dian thought she heard a woman's voice say something sharply, and then there was a click, and a man said, "Call to New York finished."

For half an hour Dian sat looking straight ahead of her. The call boy knocked at the door, and bellowed her name; and she rose and went out with a feeling that it was not she who walked so light-heartedly along the dim passage that led to the stage.

Johnny did not reach the theatre till nearly eight o'clock, just before the curtain rose, and he was staggered to find the best box occupied by Freddie. At least he might have had the decency to keep away that night!

The programme had been "slipped" with the information that, owing to severe indisposition, Miss Elsa Forsyant would not make her appearance; and with this as a text, John Crewe made his way to Freddie's box in an endeavor to save something from the wreckage.

Freddie listened with half-closed eyes.

"Sorry, old man, but when I sold you the production I didn't undertake that Miss Forsyant should appear. She's terribly ill... the doctor thinks it's a, complete nervous breakdown and has ordered her away to the Riviera. But the show's all right: don't let old Dowall rattle you. And that young lady of yours is going to make a big hit, believe me."

He slapped Johnny on the back, and John Crewe had to exercise a great deal of self-restraint to prevent himself slapping back.

He had hardly reached his seat when the curtain rose.

The opening was weak. The best producer in the world could have done nothing with the aristocrat's music. There was a stir in the theatre; the gallery began to cough. Mr. Jevons, the conductor, a nervous man, mopped his wet brow and communicated his nervousness to the orchestra. The first comedy scene was painfully unfunny. Johnny writhed in his seat. And then, with a burst of music— all the good numbers in the show had been imported for Elsa's benefit — there came— Alana.

There was no doubt about it at all. For a moment the big house gasped, and then, as it recognized its favorite, it rose and roared. She was a little taken aback by the reception, smiled nervously, bowed, and began her number.

It was Alana, with all her vivacity, all her cleverness, all the tricks of hands and head: Alana's voice, Alana's twinkling feet. Again and again they called her back.

Crewe looked across to the box where Freddie was sitting. His face was white, his mouth wide open. He sat like a man stricken dumb. In some mysterious way the play had gathered itself together, as though the very presence of the great star added some galvanic quality to its composition which it had not possessed until she came on to the stage.

The first act passed like a flash. Again came Alana; again she sang and danced; again her drawling voice electrified her lovers. John saw them picking up the little slips from the floor and scanning them. Who was Dian Donald? Was it a new name by which Alana desired to be known? Had she been reconciled to her husband....?

The curtain fell, rose again, fell again, rose... On the tenth curtain the house lights were switched on.

John was passing the box on his way to the door leading to the stage when Freddie appeared, dishevelled and shaken.

"Back?... My God! It gave me a shock! Never had anything like it...."

But John was already pushing open the steel door, and in a few seconds was on the stage. He made his way through the electrified stage hands, down a flight of stairs, and knocked at the door of Dian's dressing-room. She opened it herself, and to his amazement she wore the same costume that Alana had worn.

"How was I?" she asked.

She was trembling; her voice shook. He gaped at her.

"You? Wasn't it Alana?"

She laughed, a little hysterically.

"Of course it wasn't, you silly booby! Didn't they give me a wonderful reception? Johnny, I've got the know-how. You remember Alana said I would one day? She's been on the phone to me tonight— it was wonderful!"

He was silent, did not interrupt her when she began to speak rapidly about the possibility of the play being a success.

"The second act is the best. Even Mr. Dowall says so."

"Where is Dowall?" he asked quickly.

Dowall was in his office, a tiny cupboard of a place opening from the stage. John hurried back to find him sitting at his table, his head upon his hands.

"Well?"

The old producer looked up.

"Beats me to blazes. You might have thought she was Alana... the same technique. Did you notice that three-step movement of hers? Only Alana could do that. By gosh, she's a riot! All the stage hands say she's as good as Alana at her best."

He stabbed John's shirt-front with his blunt forefinger.

"You've got a chance with this show— just a chance. I never thought they'd take to that girl— by gosh, what talent! And nobody guessed...."

John saw the second act through as in a dream. The comedy which he had thought dull took on an unexpected sparkle. The chorus, which had been a ragged line of bored girls singing flatly, became a mechanically perfect entity, radiantly lovely, rhythmic of movement. And Dian went from triumph to triumph. One little song of the aristocratic composer which Elsa had committed herself to sing was the biggest hit of the show. The management had not even troubled to "plug" it, being only too anxious to have it over and forgotten.

John heard people speaking around him.

"It's Alana... it isn't Alana but it's very much like her... she's better than Alana..."

And every now and again he saw somebody in the audience consulting that little slip which told of Miss Elsa Forsyant's indisposition and the understudy's appearance.

The curtain fell at last. Johnny could not believe that the play was over. He met a dramatic critic hurrying forth putting on his coat.

"Great show... new Alana... this is a bit of luck for Freddie Vane."

When he reached the stage, Dian was the center of an excited group of chorus girls, and he had to push his way to her side.

"Isn't it wonderful, wonderful?" she breathed. "Oh, darling, I'm so glad, for your sake! Everybody's been so sweet—"

"You're not Alana!"

The voice was shrill. Nobody would have recognized it as Freddie's. He was like a drunken man, shaking from head to foot, his under lip quivering, his eyes wide open.

"You're not Alana... everybody thinks you're Alana..."

And then he began to laugh hysterically. Possibly he had been drinking. Some stage hands took him back to his box, helped him on with his coat, and put him in a cab.

"Let's stay up until the newspapers come out.... I want to see the notices," Dian begged, and Johnny humored her; took her and two of the company to his private room in the hotel, before he sent a messenger to Fleet Street to collect the early morning editions.

He opened the first of these, saw a headline and gasped:

"TRAGIC COINCIDENCE"

and the first paragraph ran:

"Whilst the new Alana, Miss Dian Donald, scored a most amazing individual triumph in Great Heart at the Elcho Theatre last night, at the very moment of her appearance, when even the most experienced members of the audience mistook her for the great star of a few years ago, the real Alana Vane died, whilst she was in the act of talking on the wireless phone to Miss Dian Donald from her sick- bed..."

"Was it a good notice?" asked Dian anxiously.

"Very," said Johnny, as he folded up the paper. "But I think we'd better read these when we're alone."

__________________

13:  The Terror

(A novelette)

O’SHEA was in his maddest mood, had been like it all night. Stalking up and down the grassy slope, muttering to himself, waving his hands at some invisible audience, cackling with laughter at his own mysterious jokes; and at dawn he had fallen upon little Lipski, who had dared light a cigarette in defiance of instructions, and had beaten him with savage brutality, and the other two men had not dared interfere.

Joe Connor sprawled on the ground, chewing a blade of grass, and watching with sombre eyes the restless figure. Marks, who sat cross-legged by his side, watched too, but there was a twisted and sneering smile on his thin lips.

"Mad as a coot," said Joe Connor in a low voice. "If he pulls this job off without getting us in gaol for the rest of our lives we’ll be lucky."

Soapy Marks licked his dry lips.

"He’s cleverest when he’s mad." He spoke like a man of culture. Some said that Soapy was intended for the church before a desire for an easier and more illicit method of living made him one of the most skillful, and nearly the most dangerous, gangster in England.

"Lunacy, my dear fellow, does not mean stupidity. Can’t you stop that fellow blubbering?"

Joe Connor did not rise; he turned his eyes in the direction of the prostrate figure of Lipski, who was groaning and swearing sobbingly.

"He’ll get over it," he said indifferently. "The bigger beating he gets the more he respects O’Shea."

He wriggled a little closer to his confederate.

"Have you ever seen O’Shea— his face, I mean?" he asked, dropping his voice a note lower. "I never have, and I’ve done two"— he thought—"three," he corrected, "jobs with him. He’s always had that coat on he’s got now, with the collar right up to his nose, the same old hat over his eyes. I never used to believe there was that kind of crook— thought they were only seen on the stage. First time I ever heard of him was when he sent for me— met him on the St. Albans Road about twelve o’clock, but never saw his face. He knew all about me; told me how many convictions I’d had, and the kind of work he wanted me for—"

"And paid you well," said Marks lazily, when the other paused. "He always pays well; he always picks up his ‘staff’ in the same way."

He pursed his lips as though he were going to whistle, examined the restless figure of the master thoughtfully.

"He’s mad— and he pays well. He will pay better this time."

Connor looked up sharply.

"Two hundred and fifty quid and fifty getaway money— that’s fair, ain’t it?"

"He will pay better," said Marks suavely. "This little job deserves it. Am I to drive a motor-lorry containing three tons of Australian sovereigns through the streets of London, possibly risk hanging, for two hundred and fifty pounds— and getaway money? I think not."

He rose to his feet and dusted his knees daintily. O’Shea had disappeared over the crest of the hill, was possibly behind the hedge line which swept round in a semi-circle till it came within half a dozen feet of where the men were talking of him.

"Three tons of gold; nearly half a million pounds. At least I think we’re entitled to ten per cent."

Connor grinned, jerked his head towards the whimpering Lipski.

"And him?"

Marks bit his lip.

"I don’t think we could include him."

He glanced round again for some sign of O’Shea, and dropped down beside his companion.

"We’ve got the whole thing in our hands," he said in a voice that was little more than a whisper. "He’ll be sane to-morrow. These fits only come on him at rare intervals; and a sane man will listen to reason. We’re holding up this gold convoy— that’s one of O’Shea’s oldest tricks, to fill a deep cutting full of gas. I wonder he dare repeat it. I am driving the lorry to town and hiding it. Would O’Shea give us our share if he had to decide between an unpleasant interview with us and a more unpleasant interview with Inspector Bradley?"

Connor plucked another blade of grass and chewed on it gloomily.

"He’s clever," he began, and again Marks’ lips curled.

"Aren’t they all?" he demanded. "Isn’t Dartmoor full of clever people? That’s old Hallick’s great joke— he calls all the prisoners collegers. No, my dear Connor, believe me, cleverness is a relative term—"

"What does that mean?" growled Connor with a frown. "Don’t try swank on me, Soapy— use words I can understand."

He looked around again a little anxiously for the vanished O’Shea. Behind the hill crest, in a narrow lane, O’Shea’s big car was parked that would carry him to safety after the job. His confederates would be left to take all the risks, face the real dangers which would follow, however cleverly the coup was organised.

A little distance away to the left, on the edge of the deep cutting, four big steel gas cylinders lay in line. Even from where he sprawled he could see the long white road leading into the cutting, on which presently would appear the flickering lights of the gold convoy. His gas mask lay under his hand; Marks had his sticking out of his coat pocket.

"He must have a lot of stuff," he said.

"Who— O’Shea?" Marks shrugged his shoulders. "I don’t know. He spends money like a lunatic. I should think he was broke. It’s nearly twelve months since he had a big haul."

"What does he do with the money?" asked Connor curiously.

"Spends it, as we all do," was the laconic answer. "He talked about buying a big country house last time I saw him; he was going to settle down and live the life of a gentleman. Last night, when I had a chat with him, he said it would take half this loot to pay his debts."

Marks examined his well-manicured nails.

"Amongst other things he’s a liar," he said lightly. "What’s that?"

He looked towards the line of bushes a few yards distant. He had heard a rustle, the snap of a twig, and was on his feet instantly. Crossing the short intervening space, he peered over the bushes. There was nobody in sight. He came back thoughtfully to Connor.

"I wonder if the devil was listening," he said, "and how long he’s been listening!"

"Who— O’Shea?" asked the startled Connor.

Marks did not reply, but drew a deep breath. Obviously he was uncomfortable.

"If he’d heard anything he would have come for me. He’s moody— he’s been moody all night."

At this point Connor got up and stretched himself.

"I’d like to know how he lives. I’ll bet he’s got a wife and family tucked away somewhere— that kind of bird always has. There he is!"

The figure of O’Shea had appeared across the rise; he was coming towards them.

"Get your masks ready. You don’t want any further instructions, Soapy?" The voice, muffled by the high collar which reached to the tip of his nose, was rational, almost amiable.

"Pick that fellow up." He pointed to Lipski, and, when the order had been obeyed, he called the cringing man before him. "You’ll go to the end of the road, put your red lantern on and stop them. By stop them I mean slow them down. Don’t let yourself be seen; there are ten armed men on the lorry."

He examined the cylinders; from the nozzle of each a thick rubber pipe trailed down into the cutting. With a spanner he opened the valve of each, and the silence was broken by the deep hissing of the gas as it escaped.

"It’ll lie in the bottom, so you needn’t put on your masks till we’re ready," he said.

He followed Lipski to the end of the cutting, watched the red lamp lit, and pointed out the place where the man was to hide. Then he came back to Marks. Not by word or sign did he betray the fact that he had overheard the two men talking. If there was to be a quarrel this was not the moment for it. O’Shea was intensely sane at that moment.

They heard the sound of the incoming trolley before they saw the flicker of its lights emerge from the cover of Felsted Wood.

"Now," said O’Shea sharply.

He made no attempt to draw on a mask, as did his two assistants.

"You won’t have to use your guns, but keep them handy in case anything goes wrong— don’t forget that if the guard isn’t knocked out immediately it will shoot at sight. You know where to meet me to-morrow?"

The shrouded head of Soapy nodded.

Nearer and nearer came the gold convoy. Evidently the driver had seen the red light at the end of the cutting, for his siren sounded. From where O’Shea crouched he commanded a complete view of the road.

The trolley was within fifty yards of the cutting and had slowed perceptibly when he saw a man leap up, not from the place where he had posted him, but a dozen yards farther up the road. It was Lipski, and as he ran towards the moving trolley his hand went up, there was a flash and a report. He was firing to attract attention. O’Shea’s eyes glowed like coals. Lipski had betrayed him.

"Stand by to run!" His voice was like a rasp.

And then the miracle happened. From the trolley leapt two pencils of flame, and Lipski crumpled up and fell by the side of the road as the lorry rumbled past. The guard had misunderstood his action; thought he was attempting to hold them up.

"Glorious," whispered O’Shea huskily, and at that instant the lorry went down into the gas-filled cutting.

It was all over in a second. The driver fell forward in his seat, and, released of his guidance, the front wheels of the lorry jammed into a bank.

O’Shea thought of everything. But for that warning red light the trolley would have been wrecked and his plans brought to naught. As it was, Marks had only to climb into the driver’s seat, and reverse the engine, to extricate it from the temporary block.

A minute later the gold convoy had climbed up to the other side of the depression. The unconscious guard and driver had been bundled out and laid on the side of the road. The final preparations took no more than five minutes. Marks stripped his mask, pulled on a uniform cap, and Connor took his place in the trolley where the gold was stored in small white boxes.

"Go on," said O’Shea, and the trolley moved forward and four minutes later was out of sight.

O’Shea went back to his big, high-powered car and drove off in the opposite direction, leaving only the unconscious figures of the guard to testify to his ruthlessness.

2

IT was a rainy night in London. Connor, who had preferred it so, turned into the side door of a little restaurant in Soho, mounted the narrow stairs and knocked on a door. He heard a chair move and the snap of the lock as the door was opened.

Soapy Marks was there alone.

"Did you see him?" asked Connor eagerly.

"O’Shea? Yes, I met him on the Embankment. Have you seen the newspapers?"

Connor grinned.

"I’m glad those birds didn’t die," he said.

Mr. Marks sneered.

"Your humanity is very creditable, my dear friend," he said.

On the table was a newspaper, and the big headlines stared out, almost shouted their excitement.

Greatest Gold Robbery of Our Time.

Three Tons of Gold Disappear

Between Southampton and London.

Dead Robber Found by the Roadside.

The Vanished Lorry.

In the early hours of yesterday morning a daring outrage was committed which might have led to the death of six members of the C.I.D., and resulted in the loss to the Bank of England of gold valued at half a million pounds.

The Aritania, which arrived in Southampton last night, brought a heavy consignment of gold from Australia, and in order that this should be removed to London with the least possible ostentation, it was arranged that a lorry carrying the treasure should leave Southampton at three o’clock in the morning, arriving in London before the normal flow of traffic started. At a spot near Felsted Wood the road runs down into a depression and through a deep cutting. Evidently this had been laid with gas, and the car dashed into what was practically a lethal chamber without warning.

That an attack was projected, however, was revealed to the guard before they reached the fatal spot. A man sprang out from a hedge and shot at the trolley. The detectives in charge of the convoy immediately replied, and the man was later found in a dying condition. He made no statement except to mention a name which is believed to be that of the leader of the gang.

Sub-Inspectors Bradley and Hallick of Scotland Yard are in charge of the case....

There followed a more detailed account, together with an official statement issued by the police, containing a brief narrative by one of the guard.

"It seems to have created something of a sensation," smiled Marks, as he folded up the paper.

"What about O’Shea?" asked the other impatiently. "Did he agree to split?" Marks nodded.

"He was a little annoyed— naturally. But in his sane moments our friend, O’Shea, is a very intelligent man. What really annoyed him was the fact that we had parked the lorry in another place than where he ordered it to be taken. He was most anxious to discover our little secret, and I think his ignorance of the whereabouts of the gold was our biggest pull with him."

"What’s going to happen?" asked Connor in a troubled tone.

"We’re taking the lorry to-night to Barnes Common. He doesn’t realise, though he will, that we’ve transferred the gold to a small three-ton van. He ought to be very grateful to me for my foresight, for the real van was discovered this evening by Hallick in the place where O’Shea told me to park it. And of course it was empty."

Connor rubbed his hand across his unshaven chin.

"O’Shea won’t let us get away with it," he said, with a worried frown. "You know him, Soapy."

"We shall see," said Mr. Marks, with a confident smile.

He poured out a whisky and soda.

"Drink up and we’ll go." He glanced at his watch. "We’ve got plenty of time— thank God there’s a war on, and the active and intelligent constabulary are looking for spies, the streets are nicely darkened, and all is favourable to our little arrangement. By the way, I’ve had a red cross painted on the tilt of our van— it looks almost official!"

That there was a war on, they discovered soon after they turned into the Embankment. Warning maroons were banging from a dozen stations; the darkened tram which carried them to the south had hardly reached Kennington Oval before the anti-aircraft guns were blazing at the unseen marauders of the skies. A bomb dropped all too close for the comfort of the nervous Connor. The car had stopped.

"We had better get out here," whispered Marks. "They won’t move till the raid is over."

The two men descended to the deserted street and walked southward. The beams of giant searchlights swept the skies; from somewhere up above came the rattle of a machine-gun.

"This should keep the police thoroughly occupied," said Marks, as they turned into a narrow street in a poor neighbourhood. "I don’t think we need miss our date, and our little ambulance should pass unchallenged."

"I wish to God you’d speak English!" growled Connor irritably.

Marks had stopped before the gates of a stable yard, pushing them. One yielded to his touch and they walked down the uneven drive to the small building where the car was housed. Soapy put his key into the gate of the lock-up and turned it.

"Here we are," he said, as he stepped inside.

And then a hand gripped him, and he reached for his gun.

"Don’t make any fuss," said the hated voice of Inspector Hallick. "I want you, Soapy. Perhaps you’ll tell me what’s happened to this ambulance of yours?"

Soapy Marks stared towards the man he could not see, and for a moment was thrown off his guard.

"The lorry?" he gasped. "Isn’t it here?"

"Been gone an hour," said a second voice. "Come across, Soapy; what have you done with it?"

Soapy said nothing; he heard the steel handcuffs click on the wrist of Joe Connor, heard that man’s babble of incoherent rage and blasphemy as he was hustled towards the car which had drawn up silently at the gate, and knew that Mr. O’Shea was indeed very sane on that particular day.

3

TO Mary Redmayne life had been a series of inequalities. She could remember the alternate prosperity and depression of her father; had lived in beautiful hotel suites and cheap lodgings, one following the other with extraordinary rapidity; and had grown so accustomed to the violent changes of his fortune that she would never have been surprised to have been taken from the pretentious school where she was educated, and planted amongst county school scholars at any moment.

People who knew him called him Colonel, but he himself preferred his civilian title, and volunteered no information to her as to his military career. It was after he had taken Monkshall that he permitted "Colonel" to appear on his cards. It was a grand-sounding name, but even as a child Mary Redmayne had accepted such appellations with the greatest caution. She had once been brought back from her preparatory school to a "Mortimer Lodge," to discover it was a tiny semi-detached villa in a Wimbledon by-street.

But Monkshall had fulfilled all her dreams of magnificence; a veritable relic of Tudor times, and possibly of an earlier period, it stood in forty acres of timbered ground, a dignified and venerable pile, which had such association with antiquity that, until Colonel Redmayne forbade the practice, charabancs full of American visitors used to come up the broad drive and gaze upon the ruins of what had been a veritable abbey.

Fortune had come to Colonel Redmayne when she was about eleven. It came unexpectedly, almost violently. Whence it came, she could not even guess; she only knew that one week he was poor, harassed by debt-collectors, moving through side streets in order to avoid his creditors; the next week— or was it month?— he was master of Monkshall, ordering furniture worth thousands of pounds.

When she went to live at Monkshall she had reached that gracious period of interregnum between child and woman. A slim girl above middle height, straight of back, free of limb, she held the eye of men to whom more mature charms would have had no appeal.

Ferdie Fane, the young man who came to the Red Lion so often, summer and winter, and who drank so much more than was good for him, watched her passing along the road with her father. She was hatless; the golden-brown hair had a glory of its own; the faultless face, the proud little lift of her chin.

"Spring is here, Adolphus," he addressed the landlord gravely. "I have seen it pass."

He was a man of thirty-five, long-faced, rather good-looking in spite of his huge horn-rimmed spectacles. He had a large tankard of beer in his hand now, which was unusual, for he did most of his drinking secretly in his room. He used to come down to the Red Lion at all sorts of odd and sometimes inconvenient moments. He was, in a way, rather a bore, and the apparition of Mary Redmayne and her grim-looking father offered the landlord an opportunity for which he had been seeking.

"I wonder you don’t go and stay at Monkshall, Mr. Fane," he suggested.

Mr. Fane stared at him reproachfully.

"Are you tired of me, mine host?" he asked gently. "That you should shuffle me into other hands?" He shook his head. "I am no paying guest— besides which, I am not respectable. Why does Redmayne take paying guests at all?"

The landlord could offer no satisfactory solution to this mystery.

"I’m blest if I know. The colonel’s got plenty of money. I think it is because he’s lonely, but he’s had paying guests at Monkshall this past ten years. Of course, it’s very select."

"Exactly," said Ferdie Fane with great gravity. "And that is why I should not be selected! No, I fear you will have to endure my erratic visits."

"I don’t mind your being here, sir," said the landlord, anxious to assure him. "You never give me any trouble, only—"

"Only you’d like somebody more regular in his habits— good luck!"

He lifted the foaming pewter to his lips, took a long drink, and then he began to laugh softly, as though at some joke. In another minute he was serious again, frowning down into the tankard.

"Pretty girl, that. Mary Redmayne, eh?"

"She’s only been back from school a month— or college, rather," said the landlord. "She’s the nicest young lady that ever drew the breath of life."

"They all are," said the other vaguely. He went away the next day with his fishing rod that he hadn’t used, and his golf bag which had remained unstrapped throughout his stay.

Life at Monkshall promised so well that Mary Redmayne was prepared to love the place. She liked Mr. Goodman, the grey-haired, slow-spoken gentleman who was the first of her father’s boarders; she loved the grounds, the quaint old house; could even contemplate, without any great uneasiness, the growing taciturnity of her father. He was older, much older than he had been; his face had a new pallor; he seldom smiled. He was a nervous man, too; she had found him walking about in the middle of the night, and once had surprised him in his room, suspiciously thick of speech, with an empty whisky bottle a silent witness to his peculiar weakness.

It was the house that began to get on her nerves. Sometimes she would wake up in the middle of the night suddenly and sit up in bed, trying to recall the horror that had snatched her from sleep and brought her through a dread cloud of fear to wakefulness. Once she had heard peculiar sounds that had sent cold shivers down her spine. Not once, but many times, she thought she heard the faint sound of a distant organ.

She asked Cotton, the dour butler, but he had heard nothing. Other servants had been more sensitive, however; there came a constant procession of cooks and housemaids giving notice. She interviewed one or two of these, but afterwards her father forbade her seeing them, and himself accepted their hasty resignations.

"This place gives me the creeps, miss," a weeping housemaid had told her. "Do you hear them screams at night? I do; I sleep in the east wing. The place is haunted—"

"Nonsense, Anna!" scoffed the girl, concealing a shudder. "How can you believe such things!"

"It is, miss," persisted the girl. "I’ve seen a ghost on the lawn, walking about in the moonlight."

Later, Mary herself began to see things; and a guest who came and stayed two nights had departed a nervous wreck.

"Imagination," said the colonel testily. "My dear Mary, you’re getting the mentality of a housemaid!"

He was very apologetic afterwards for his rudeness, but Mary continued to hear, and presently to listen; and finally she saw. . . . Sights that made her doubt her own wisdom, her own intelligence, her own sanity.

One day, when she was walking alone through the village, she saw a man in a golf suit; he was very tall and wore horn-rimmed spectacles, and greeted her with a friendly smile. It was the first time she had seen Ferdie Fane. She was to see very much of him in the strenuous months that followed.

4

SUPERINTENDENT HALLICK went down to Princetown in Devonshire to make his final appeal— an appeal which, he knew, was foredoomed to failure. The Deputy-Governor met him as the iron gates closed upon the burly superintendent.

"I don’t think you’re going to get very much out of these fellows, superintendent," he said. "I think they’re too near to the end of their sentence."

"You never know," said Hallick, with a smile. "I once had the best information in the world from a prisoner on the day he was released."

He went down to the low-roofed building which constitutes the Deputy-Governor’s office.

"My head warder says they’ll never talk, and he has a knack of getting into their confidence," said the Deputy. "If you remember, superintendent, you did your best to make them speak ten years ago, when they first came here. There’s a lot of people in this prison who’d like to know where the gold is hidden. Personally, I don’t think they had it at all, and the story they told at the trial, that O’Shea had got away with it, is probably true."

The superintendent pursed his lips.

"I wonder," he said thoughtfully. "That was the impression I had the night I arrested them, but I’ve changed my opinion since."

The chief warder came in at that moment and gave a friendly nod to the superintendent.

"I’ve kept those two men in their cells this morning. You want to see them both, don’t you, superintendent?"

"I’d like to see Connor first."

"Now?" asked the warder. "I’ll bring him down."

He went out, passed across the asphalt yard to the entrance of the big, ugly building. A steel grille covered the door, and this he unlocked, opening the wooden door behind, and passed into the hall, lined on each side with galleries from which opened narrow cell doors. He went to one of these on the lower tier, snapped back the lock and pulled open the door. The man in convict garb who was sitting on the edge of the bed, his face in his hands, rose and eyed him sullenly.

"Connor, a gentleman from Scotland Yard has come down to see you. If you’re sensible you’ll give him the information he asks."

Connor glowered at him.

"I’ve nothing to tell, sir," he said sullenly. "Why don’t they leave me alone? If I knew where the stuff was I wouldn’t tell ’em."

"Don’t be a fool," said the chief good-humouredly. "What have you to gain by hiding up—"

"A fool, sir?" interrupted Connor. "I’ve had all the fool knocked out of me here!" His hand swept round the cell. "I’ve been in this same cell for seven years; I know every brick of it— who is it wants to see me?"

"Superintendent Hallick."

Connor made a wry face.

"Is he seeing Marks too? Hallick, eh? I thought he was dead."

"He’s alive enough."

The chief beckoned him out into the hall, and, accompanied by a warder, Connor was taken to the Deputy’s office. He recognised Hallick with a nod. He bore no malice; between these two men, thief-taker and thief, was that curious camaraderie which exists between the police and the criminal classes.

"You’re wasting your time with me, Mr. Hallick," said Connor. And then, with a sudden burst of anger: "I’ve got nothing to give you. Find O’Shea— he’ll tell you! And find him before I do, if you want him to talk."

"We want to find him, Connor," said Hallick soothingly.

"You want the money," sneered Connor; "that’s what you want. You want to find the money for the bank and pull in the reward." He laughed harshly. "Try Soapy Marks— maybe he’ll sit in your game and take his corner."

The lock turned at that moment and another convict was ushered into the room. Soapy Marks had not changed in his ten years of incarceration. The gaunt, ascetic face had perhaps grown a little harder; the thin lips were firmer, and the deep-set eyes had sunk a little more into his head. But his cultured voice, his exaggerated politeness, and that oiliness which had earned him his nickname, remained constant.

"Why, it’s Mr. Hallick!" His voice was a gentle drawl. "Come down to see us at our country house!"

He saw Connor and nodded, almost bowed to him.

"Well, this is most kind of you, Mr. Hallick. You haven’t seen the park or the garage? Nor our beautiful billiard-room?"

"That’ll do, Marks," said the warder sternly.

"I beg your pardon, sir, I’m sure." The bow to the warder was a little deeper, a little more sarcastic. "Just badinage— nothing wrong intended. Fancy meeting you on the moor, Mr. Hallick! I suppose this is only a brief visit? You’re not staying with us, are you?"

Hallick accepted the insult with a little smile.

"I’m sorry," said Marks. "Even the police make little errors of judgment sometimes. It’s deplorable, but it’s true. We once had an ex-inspector in the hall where I am living."

"You know why I’ve come?" said Hallick.

Marks shook his head, and then a look of simulated surprise and consternation came to his face.

"You haven’t come to ask me and my poor friend about that horrible gold robbery? I see you have. Dear me, how very unfortunate! You want to know where the money was hidden? I wish I could tell you. I wish my poor friend could tell you, or even your old friend, Mr. Leonard O’Shea." He smiled blandly. "But I can’t!"

Connor was chafing under the strain of the interview.

"You don’t want me any more—"

Marks waved his hand.

"Be patient with dear Mr. Hallick."

"Now look here, Soapy," said Connor angrily, and a look of pain came to Marks’ face.

"Not Soapy— that’s vulgar. Don’t you agree, Mr. Hallick?"

"I’m going to answer no questions. You can do as you like," said Connor. "If you haven’t found O’Shea, I will, and the day I get my hands on him he’ll know all about it! There’s another thing you’ve got to know, Hallick; I’m on my own from the day I get out of this hell. I’m not asking Soapy to help me to find O’Shea. I’ve seen Marks every day for ten years, and I hate the sight of him. I’m working single-handed to find the man who shopped me."

"You think you’ll find him, do you?" said Hallick quickly. "Do you know where he is?"

"I only know one thing," said Connor huskily, "and Soapy knows it too. He let it out that morning we were waiting for the gold lorry. It just slipped out— what O’Shea’s idea was of a quiet hiding-place. But I’m not going to tell you. I’ve got four months to serve, and when that time is up I’ll find O’Shea."

"You poor fool!" said Hallick roughly. "The police have been looking for him for ten years."

"Looking for what?" demanded Connor, ignoring Marks’ warning look.

"For Len O’Shea," said Hallick.

There came a burst of laughter from the convict.

"You’re looking for a sane man, and that’s where you went wrong! I didn’t tell you before why you’ll never find him. It’s because he’s mad! You didn’t know that, but Soapy knows. O’Shea was crazy ten years ago. God knows what he is now! Got the cunning of a madman. Ask Soapy."

It was news to Hallick. His eyes questioned Marks, and the little man smiled.

"I’m afraid our dear friend is right," said Marks suavely. "A cunning madman! Even in Dartmoor we get news, Mr. Hallick, and a rumour has reached me that some years ago three officers of Scotland Yard disappeared in the space of a few minutes— just vanished as though they had evaporated like dew before the morning sun! Forgive me if I am poetical; Dartmoor makes you that way. And would you be betraying an official secret if you told me these men were looking for O’Shea?"

He saw Hallick’s face change, and chuckled.

"I see they were. The story was that they had left England and they sent their resignations— from Paris, wasn’t it? O’Shea could copy anybody’s handwriting— they never left England." Hallick’s face was white.

"By God, if I thought that—" he began.

"They never left England," said Marks remorselessly. "They were looking for O’Shea— and O’Shea found them first."

"You mean they’re dead?" asked the other.

Marks nodded slowly.

"For twenty-two hours a day he is a sane, reasonable man. For two hours—" He shrugged his shoulders. "Mr. Hallick, your men must have met him in one of his bad moments."

"When I meet him—" interrupted Connor, and Marks turned on him in a flash.

"When you meet him you will die!" he hissed. "When I meet him—" That mild face of his became suddenly contorted, and Hallick looked into the eyes of a demon.

"When you meet him?" challenged Hallick. "Where will you meet him?"

Marks’ arm shot out stiffly; his long fingers gripped an invisible enemy.

"I know just where I can put my hand on him," he breathed. "That hand!"

Hallick went back to London that afternoon, a baffled man. He had gone to make his last effort to secure information about the missing gold, and had learned nothing— except that O’Shea was sane for twenty-two hours in the day.

5

IT was a beautiful spring morning. There was a tang in the air which melted in the yellow sunlight.

Mr. Goodman had not gone to the city that morning, though it was his day, for he made a practice of attending at his office for two or three days every month. Mrs. Elvery, that garrulous woman, was engaged in putting the final touches to her complexion; and Veronica, her gawkish daughter, was struggling, by the aid of a dictionary, with a recalcitrant poem— for she wooed the gentler muse in her own gentler moments.

Mr. Goodman sat on a sofa, dozing over his newspaper. No sound broke the silence but the scratching of Veronica’s pen and the ticking of the big grandfather’s clock.

This vaulted chamber, which was the lounge of Monkshall, had changed very little since the days when it was the anteroom to a veritable refectory. The columns that monkish hands had chiselled had crumbled a little, but their chiselled piety, hidden now behind the oak panelling, was almost as legible as on the day the holy men had written them.

Through the open French window there was a view of the broad, green park, with its clumps of trees and its little heap of ruins that had once been the Mecca of the antiquarian.

Mr. Goodman did not hear the excited chattering of the birds, but Miss Veronica, in that irritable frame of mind which a young poet can so readily reach, turned her head once or twice in mute protest.

"Mr. Goodman," she said softly.

There was no answer, and she repeated his name impatiently.

"Mr. Goodman!"

"Eh?" He looked up, startled.

"What rhymes with ‘supercilious?’" asked Veronica sweetly.

Mr. Goodman considered, stroking chin reflectively.

"Bilious?" he suggested.

Miss Elvery gave a despairing cluck.

"That won’t do at all. It’s such an ugly word."

"And such an ugly feeling," shuddered Mr. Goodman. Then: "What are you writing?" he asked.

She confessed to her task.

"Good heavens!" he said despairingly. "Fancy writing poetry at this time in the morning! It’s almost like drinking before lunch. Who is it about?"

She favoured him with an arch smile. "You’ll think I’m an awful cat if I tell you." And, as he reached out to take her manuscript: "Oh, I really couldn’t— it’s about somebody you know."

Mr. Goodman frowned.

"‘Supercilious’ was the word you used. Who on earth is supercilious?"

Veronica sniffed— she always sniffed when she was being unpleasant.

"Don’t you think she is— a little bit? After all, her father only keeps a boarding house."

"Oh, you mean Miss Redmayne?" asked Goodman quietly. He put down his paper. "A very nice girl. A boarding house, eh? Well, I was the first boarder her father ever had, and I’ve never regarded this place as a boarding house."

There was a silence,’which the girl broke. "Mr. Goodman, do you mind if I say something?"

"Well, I haven’t objected so far, have I?" he smiled.

"I suppose I’m naturally romantic," she said. "I see mystery in almost everything. Even you are mysterious." And, when he looked alarmed: "Oh, I don’t mean sinister!"

He was glad she did not.

"But Colonel Redmayne is sinister," she said emphatically.

He considered this.

"He never struck me that way," he said slowly.

"But he is," she persisted. "Why did he buy this place miles from everywhere and turn it into a boarding house?"

"To make money, I suppose."

She smiled triumphantly and shook her head.

"But he doesn’t. Mamma says that he must lose an awful lot of money. Monkshall is very beautiful, but it has got an awful reputation. You know that it is haunted, don’t you?"

He laughed good-naturedly at this. Mr. Goodman was an old boarder and had heard this story before.

"I’ve heard things and seen things. Mamma says that there must have been a terrible crime committed here. It is!" She was more emphatic..

Mr. Goodman thought that her mother let her mind dwell too much on murders and crimes. For the stout and fussy Mrs. Elvery wallowed in the latest tragedies which filled the columns of the Sunday newspapers.

"She does love a good murder," agreed Veronica. "We had to put off our trip to Switzerland last year because of the River Bicycle Mystery. Do you think Colonel Redmayne ever committed a murder?"

"What a perfectly awful thing to say!" said her shocked audience.

"Why is he so nervous?" asked Veronica intensely. "What is he afraid of? He is always refusing boarders. He refused that nice young man who came yesterday."

"Well, we’ve got a new boarder coming to-morrow," said Goodman, finding his newspaper again.

"A parson!" said Veronica contemptuously. "Everybody knows that parsons have no money."

He could chuckle at this innocent revelation of Veronica’s mind.

"The colonel could make this place pay, but he won’t." She grew confidential. "And I’ll tell you something more. Mamma knew Colonel Redmayne before he bought this place. He got into terrible trouble over some money— Mamma doesn’t exactly know what it was. But he had no money at all. How did he buy this house?"

Mr. Goodman beamed.

"Now that I happen to know all about! He came into a legacy."

Veronica was disappointed and made no effort to hide the fact. What comment she might have offered was silenced by the arrival of her mother.

Not that Mrs. Elvery ever "arrived." She bustled or exploded into a room, according to the measure of her exuberance. She came straight across to the settee where Mr. Goodman was unfolding his paper again.

"Did you hear anything last night?" she asked dramatically.

He nodded.

"Somebody in the next room to me was snoring like the devil," he began.

"I occupy the next room to you, Mr. Goodman," said the lady icily. "Did you hear a shriek?"

"Shriek?" He was startled.

"And I heard the organ again last night!"

Goodman sighed.

"Fortunately I am a little deaf. I never hear any organs or shrieks. The only thing I can hear distinctly is the dinner gong."

"There is a mystery here." Mrs. Elvery was even more intense than her daughter. "I saw that the day I came. Originally I intended staying a week; now I remain here until the mystery is solved."

He smiled good-humouredly.

"You’re a permanent fixture, Mrs. Elvery."

"It rather reminds me," Mrs. Elvery recited rapidly, but with evident relish, "of Pangleton Abbey, where John Roehampton cut the throats of his three nieces, aged respectively, nineteen, twenty-two and twenty-four, afterwards burying them in cement, for which crime he was executed at Exeter Gaol. He had to be supported to the scaffold, and left a full confession admitting his guilt!"

Mr. Goodman rose hastily to fly from the gruesome recital. Happily, rescue came in the shape of the tall, soldierly person of Colonel Redmayne. He was a man of fifty-five, rather nervous and absent of manner and address. His attire was careless and somewhat slovenly. Goodman had seen this carelessness of appearance grow from day to day.

The colonel looked from one to the other.

"Good-morning. Is everything all right?"

"Comparatively, I think," said Goodman with a smile. He hoped that Mrs. Elvery would find another topic of conversation, but she was not to be denied.

"Colonel, did you hear anything in the night?"

"Hear anything?" he frowned. "What was there to hear?"

She ticked off the events of the night on her podge fingers.

"First of all the organ, and then a most awful, blood-curdling shriek. It came from the grounds— from the direction of the Monk’s Tomb."

She waited, but he shook his head.

"No, I heard nothing. I was asleep," he said in a low voice.

Veronica, an interested listener, broke in.

"Oh, what a fib! I saw your light burning long after Mamma and I heard the noise. I can see your room by looking out of my window."

He scowled at her.

"Can you? I went to sleep with the light on. Has any one seen Mary?"

Goodman pointed across the park.

"I saw her half an hour ago," he said.

Colonel Redmayne stood hesitating, then, without a word, strode from the room, and they watched him crossing the park with long strides.

"There’s a mystery here!" Mrs. Elvery drew a long breath. "He’s mad. Mr. Goodman, do you know that awfully nice-looking man who came yesterday morning? He wanted a room, and when I asked the colonel why he didn’t let him stay he turned on me like a fiend! Said he was not the kind of man he wanted to have in the house; said he dared— ‘dared’ was the word he used — to try to scrape acquaintance with his daughter, and that he didn’t want any good-for-nothing drunkards under the same roof."

"In fact," said Mr. Goodman, "he was annoyed! You mustn’t take the colonel too seriously— he’s a little upset this morning."

He took up the letters that had come to him by the morning post and began to open them.

"The airs he gives himself!" she went on. "And his daughter is no better. I must say it, Mr. Goodman. It may sound awfully uncharitable, but she’s got just as much—" She hesitated.

"Swank?" suggested Veronica, and her mother was shocked. "It’s a common expression," said Veronica.

"But we aren’t common people," protested Mrs. Elvery, "You may say that she gives herself airs. She certainly does. And her manners are deplorable. I was telling her the other day about the Grange Road murder. You remember, the man who poisoned his mother-in-law to get the insurance money— a most interesting case— when she simply turned her back on me and said she wasn’t interested in horrors."

Cotton, the butler, came in at that moment with the mail. He was a gloomy man who seldom spoke. He was leaving the room when Mrs. Elvery called him back.

"Did you hear any noise last night, Cotton?"

He turned sourly.

"No, ma’am. I don’t get a long time to sleep— you couldn’t wake me with a gun."

"Didn’t you hear the organ?" she insisted.

"I never hear anything."

"I think the man’s a fool," said the exasperated lady.

"I think so too, ma’am," agreed Cotton, and went out.

6

MARY went to the village that morning to buy a week’s supply of stamps. She barely noticed the young man in plus fours who sat on a bench outside the Red Lion, though she was conscious of his presence; conscious, too, of the stories she had heard about him.

She had ceased being sorry for him. He was the type of man, she decided, who had gone over the margin of redemption; and, besides, she was annoyed with him because he had irritated her father, for Mr. Ferdie Fane had had the temerity to apply for lodging at Monkshall.

Until that morning she had never spoken to him, nor had she any idea that such a misfortune would overtake her, until she came back through the village and turned into the little lane whence ran a footpath across Monkshall Park.

He was sitting on a stile, his long hands tightly clasped between his knees, a drooping cigarette in his mouth, gazing mournfully through his horn-rimmed spectacles into vacancy. She stood for a moment, thinking he had not seen her, and hesitating whether she should take a more round-about route in order to avoid him. At that moment he got down lazily, took off his cap with a flourish.

"Pass, friend; all’s well," he said.

He had rather a delightful smile, she noticed, but at the moment she was far from being delighted.

"If I accompany you to your ancestral home, does your revered father take a gun or loose a dog?"

She faced him squarely.

"You’re Mr. Fane, aren’t you?"

He bowed; the gesture was a little extravagant, and she went hot at his impertinence.

"I think in the circumstances, Mr. Fane, it is hardly the act of a gentleman to attempt to get into conversation with me."

"It may not be the act of a gentleman, but it is the act of an intelligent human being who loves all that is lovely," he smiled. "Have you ever noticed how few really pleasant-looking people there, are in the world? I once stood at the corner of a street—"

"At present you’re standing in my way," she interrupted him.

She was not feeling at her best that morning; her nerves were tense and on edge. She had spent a night of terror, listening to strange whispers, to sounds that made her go cold, to that booming note of a distant organ which made her head tingle. Otherwise, she might have handled the situation more commandingly. And she had seen something, too— something she had never seen before; a wild, mouthing shape that had darted across the lawn under her window and had vanished.

He was looking at her keenly, this man who swayed slightly on his feet.

"Does your father love you?" he asked, in a gentle, caressing tone.

She was too startled to answer.

"If he does he can refuse you nothing, my dear Miss Redmayne. If you said to him, ‘Here is a young man who requires board and lodging—"

"Will you let me pass, please?" She was trembling with anger.

Again he stepped aside with elaborate courtesy, and without a word she stepped over the stile, feeling singularly undignified. She was half-way across the park before she looked back. To her indignation, he was following, at a respectful distance, it was true, but undoubtedly following.

Neither saw the other unwanted visitor. He had arrived soon after Mrs. Elvery and Goodman had gone out with their golf clubs to practise putting on the smooth lawn to the south of the house. He was a rough looking man, with a leather apron, and carried under his arm a number of broken umbrellas. He did not go to the kitchen, but after making a stealthy reconnaissance, had passed round to the lawn and was standing in the open doorway, watching Cotton as he gathered up the debris which the poetess had left behind.

Cotton was suddenly aware of the newcomer and jerked his head round.

"Hallo, what do you want?" he asked roughly.

"Got any umbrellas or chairs to mend — any old kettles or pans?" asked the man mechanically.

Cotton pointed in his lordliest manner. "Outside! Who let you in?"

"The lodge-keeper said you wanted something mended," growled the tinker.

"Couldn’t you come to the service door? Hop it."

But the man did not move.

"Who lives here?" he asked.

"Colonel Redmayne, if you want to know— and the kitchen door is round the corner. Don’t argue!"

The tinker looked over the room with approval.

"Pretty snug place this, eh?"

Mr. Cotton’s sallow face grew red.

"Can’t you understand plain English? The kitchen door’s round the corner. If you don’t want to go there, push off!"

Instead, the man came farther into the room.

"How long has he been living here— this feller you call Redmayne?"

"Ten years," said the exasperated butler. "Is that all you want to know? You don’t know how near to trouble you are."

"Ten years, eh?" The man nodded. "I want to see this colonel."

"I’ll give you an introduction to him," said Cotton sarcastically, "He loves tinkers!"

It was then that Mary came in breathlessly.

"Will you send that young man away?" She pointed to the oncoming Ferdie; for the moment she did not see the tinker.

"Young man, miss?" Cotton went to the window, "Why, it’s the gent who came yesterday— a very nice young gentleman he is, too."

"I don’t care who he is or what he is," she said angrily. "He is to be sent away."

"Can I be of any help, miss?"

She was startled to see the tinker, and looked from him to the butler.

"No, you can’t," snapped Cotton.

"Who are you?" asked Mary.

"Just a tinker, miss." He was eyeing her thoughtfully, and something in his gaze frightened her.

"He— he came in here, and I told him to go to the kitchen," explained Cotton in a flurry. "If you hadn’t come he’d have been chucked out!"

"I don’t care who he is— he must help you to get rid of this wretched young man," said Mary desperately. "He—"

She became suddenly dumb. Mr. Ferdinand Fane was surveying her from the open window.

"How d’ye do, everybody? Comment ça va?"

"How dare you follow me?" She stamped her foot in her fury, but he was unperturbed.

"You told me to keep out of your sight, so I walked behind. It’s all perfectly clear."

It would have been dignified to have left the room in silence— he had the curious faculty of compelling her to be undignified.

"Don’t you understand that your presence is objectionable to me and to my father? We don’t want you here. We don’t wish to know you."

"You don’t know me." He was hurt. "I’ll bet you don’t even know that my Christian name is Ferdie."

"You’ve tried to force your acquaintance on me, and I’ve told you plainly that I have no desire to know you—"

"I wan’ to stay here," he interrupted. "Why shouldn’t I?"

"You don’t need a room here— you have a room at the Red Lion, and it seems a very appropriate lodging."

It was then that the watchful tinker took a hand.

"Look here, governor, this lady doesn’t want you here— get out."

But he was ignored.

"I’m not going back to the Red Lion," said Mr. Fane gravely. "I don’t like the beer— I can see through it—"

A hand dropped on his shoulder.

"Are you going quietly?"

Mr. Fane looked round into the tinker’s face.

Don’t do that, old boy— that’s rude. Never be rude, old boy. The presence of a lady—"

"Come on," began the tinker.

And then a hand like a steel vice gripped his wrist; he was swung from his feet and fell to the floor with a crash.

"Ju-juishoo," said Mr. Fane very gently.

He heard an angry exclamation and turned to face Colonel Redmayne.

"What is the meaning of this?"

He heard his daughter’s incoherent explanation.

"Take that man to the kitchen," he said. When they were gone: "Now, sir, what do you want?"

Her father’s tone was milder than Mary had expected.

"Food an’ comfort for man an’ beast," said the younger man coolly, and with an effort the colonel restrained his temper.

"You can’t stay here— I told you that yesterday. I’ve no room for you, and I don’t want you."

He nodded to the door, and Mary left hurriedly. Now his voice changed.

"Do you think I’d let you contaminate this house? A drunken beast without a sense of chivalry or decency— with nothing to do with his money but spend it in drink?"

"I thought you might," said Ferdie.

A touch of the bell brought Cotton.

"Show this— gentleman out of the house— and well off the estate," he said.

It looked as though his visitor would prove truculent, but to his relief Mr. Fane obeyed, waving aside the butler’s escort.

He had left the house when a man stepped from the cover of a clump of bushes and barred his way. It was the tinker. For a few seconds they looked at one another in silence.

"There’s only one man who could ever put that grip on me, and I want to have a look at you," said the tinker.

He peered into the immobile face of Ferdie Fane, and then stepped back.

"God! It is you! I haven’t seen you for ten years, and I wouldn’t have known you but for that grip!" he breathed.

"I wear very well." There was no slur in the voice of Fane now. Every sentence rang like steel. "You’ve seen a great deal more than you ought to have seen, Mr. Connor!"

"I’m not afraid of you!" growled the man. "Don’t try to scare me. The old trick, eh? Made up like a boozy mug!"

"Connor, I’m going to give you a chance for your life." Fane spoke slowly and deliberately. "Get away from this place as quickly as you can. If you’re here to-night, you’re a dead man!" Neither saw the girl who, from a window above, had watched— and heard.

7

MRS. ELVERY described herself as an observant woman. Less charitable people complained bitterly of her spying. Cotton disliked her most intensely for that reason, and had a special grievance by reason of the fact that she had surprised him that afternoon when he was deeply engaged in conversation with a certain tinker who had called that morning, and who now held him fascinated by stories of immense wealth that might be stored within the cellars and vaults of Monkshall.

She came with her news to Colonel Redmayne, and found that gentleman a little dazed and certainly apathetic. He had got into the habit of retiring to his small study and locking the door. There was a cupboard there, just big enough for a bottle and two glasses, handy enough to hide them away when somebody knocked.

He was not favourably disposed towards Mrs. Elvery, and this may have been the reason why he gave such scant attention to her story.

"He’s like a bear, my dear," said that good lady to her daughter.

She pulled aside the blind nervously and peered out into the dark grounds.

"I am sure we’re going to have a visitation to-night," she said. "I told Mr. Goodman so. He said ‘Stuff and nonsense!’"

"I wish to heaven you wouldn’t do that, mother," snapped the girl. "You give me the jumps."

Mrs. Elvery looked in the glass and patted her hair.

"I’ve seen it twice," she said, with a certain uneasy complacency.

Veronica shivered.

For a little while Mrs. Elvery said nothing, then, turning dramatically, she lifted her fat forefinger.

"Cotton!" she said mysteriously. "If that butler’s a butler, I’ve never seen a butler."

Veronica stared at her aghast.

"Good lord, Ma, what do you mean?"

"He’s been snooping around all day. I caught him coming up those stairs from the cellars, and when he saw me he was so taken aback he didn’t know whether he was on his head or his heels."

"How do you know he didn’t know?" asked the practical Veronica, and Mrs. Elvery’s testy reply was perhaps justifiable.

Veronica looked at her mother thoughtfully.

"What did you see, mother— when you squealed the other night?"

"I wish to goodness you wouldn’t say ‘squeal,’" snapped Mrs. Elvery. "It’s not a word you should use to your mother. I screamed— so would you have. There it was, running about the lawn, waving its hands— ugh!"

"What was it?" asked Veronica faintly.

Mrs. Elvery turned round in her chair.

"A monk," she said; "all black; his face hidden behind a cowl or something. Hark at that!"

It was a night of wind and rain, and the rattle of the lattice had made Mrs. Elvery jump.

"Let’s go downstairs for heaven’s sake," she said.

The cheerful Mr. Goodman was alone when they reached the lounge, and he gave a little groan at the sight of her and hoped that she had not heard him.

"Mr. Goodman"— he was not prepared for Veronica’s attack—"did mother tell you what she saw?"

Goodman looked over his glasses with a pained expression.

"If you’re going to talk about ghosts—"

"Monks!" said Veronica, in a hollow voice.

"One monk," corrected Mrs. Elvery. "I never said I saw more than one."

Goodman’s eyebrows rose.

"A monk?" He began to laugh softly, and, rising from the settee which formed his invariable resting place, he walked across the room and tapped at the panelled wall. "If it was a monk, this is the way he should come."

Mrs. Elvery stared at him open-mouthed.

"Which way?" she asked.

"This is the monk’s door," explained Mr. Goodman with some relish. "It is part of the original panelling."

Mrs. Elvery fixed her glasses and looked. She saw now that what she had thought was part of the panelling was indeed a door. The oak was warped and in places worm-eaten.

"This is the way the old monks came in," said Mr. Goodman. "The legend is that it communicated with an underground chapel which was used in the days of the Reformation. This lounge was the lobby that opened on to the refectory. Of course, it’s all been altered— probably the old passage to the monks’ chapel has been bricked up. The monks used to pass through that chapel every day, two by two— part of their ritual, I suppose, to remind them that life was a very short business."

Veronica drew a deep breath.

"On the whole I prefer to talk about mother’s murders," she said.

"A chapel," repeated Mrs. Elvery intensely. "That would explain the organ, wouldn’t it?"

Goodman shook his head.

"Nothing explains the organ," he said. "Rich foods, poor digestion."

And then, to change the subject:—

"You told me that that young man, Fane, was coming here."

"He isn’t," said Mrs. Elvery emphatically. "He’s too interesting. They don’t want anybody here but old fogies," and, as he smiled, she added hastily: "I don’t mean you, Mr. Goodman."

She heard the door open and looked round. It was Mary Redmayne.

"We were talking about Mr. Fane," she said.

"Were you?" said Mary, a little coldly. "It must have been a very dismal conversation."

All kind of conversation languished after that. The evening seemed an interminable time before the three guests of the house said good-night and went to bed. Her father had not put in an appearance all the evening. He had been sitting behind the locked door of his study. She waited till the last guest had gone and then went and knocked at the door. She heard the cupboard close before the door unlocked.

"Good-night, my dear," he said thickly.

"I want to talk to you, father."

He threw out his arms with a weary gesture.

"I wish you wouldn’t, I’m all nerves to-night."

She closed the door behind her and came to where he was sitting, resting her hand upon his shoulder.

"Daddy, can’t we get away from this place? Can’t you sell it?"

He did not look up, but mumbled something about it being dull for her.

"It isn’t more dull than it was at School," she said; "but"— she shivered —"it’s awful I There’s something vile about this place."

He did not meet her eyes.

"I don’t understand—"

"Father, you know that there’s something horrible. No, no, it isn’t my nerves. I heard it last night— first the organ and then that scream!" She covered her face with her hands. "I can’t bear it! I saw him running across the lawn— a terrifying thing in black. Mrs. Elvery heard it too— what’s that?"

He saw her start and her face go white. She was listening.

"Can you hear?" she whispered.

"It’s the wind," he said hoarsely; "nothing but the wind."

"Listen!"

Even he must have heard the faint, low tones of an organ as they rose and fell.

"Can your hear?"

"I hear nothing," he said stolidly.

She bent towards the floor and listened.

"Do you hear?" she asked again.

"The sound of feet shuffling on stones, and— my God, what’s that!"

It was the sound of knocking, heavy and persistent.

"Somebody is at the door," she whispered, white to the lips.

Redmayne opened a drawer and took out something which he slipped into the pocket of his dressing-gown.

"Go up to your room," he said.

He passed through the darkened lounge, stopped to switch on a light, and, as he did so, Cotton appeared from the servants’ quarters. He was fully dressed.

"What is that?" asked Redmayne.

"Some one at the door, I think. Shall I open it?"

For a second the colonel hesitated.

"Yes," he said at last.

Cotton took off the chain, and, turning the key, jerked the door open. A lank figure stood on the doorstep; a figure that swayed uneasily.

"Sorry to disturb you." Ferdie Fane, his coat drenched and soaking, lurched into the room. He stared from one to the other. "I’m the second visitor you’ve had to-night."

"What do you want?" asked Redmayne.

In a queer, indefinable way the sight of this contemptible man gave him a certain amount of relief.

"They’ve turned me out of the Red Lion." Ferdie’s glassy eyes were fixed on him. "I want to stay here."

"Let him stay, daddie."

Redmayne turned; it was the girl.

"Please let him stay. He can sleep in number seven."

A slow smile dawned on Mr. Fane’s good-looking face.

"Thanks for invitation," he said, "which is accepted."

She looked at him in wonder. The rain had soaked his coat, and, as he stood, the drops were dripping from it, forming pools on the floor. He must have been out in the storm for hours— where had he been? And he was strangely un-talkative; allowed himself to be led away by Cotton to room No. 7, which was in the farther wing. Mary’s own pretty little bedroom was above the lounge. After taking leave of her father, she locked and bolted the door of her room, slowly undressed and went to bed. Her mind was too much alive to make sleep possible, and she turned from side to side restlessly.

She was dozing off when she heard a sound and sat up in bed. The wind was shrieking round the corners of the house, the patter of the rain came fitfully against her window, but that had not wakened her up. It was the sound of low voices in the room below. She thought she heard Cotton— or was it her father? They both had the same deep tone.

Then she heard a sound which made her blood freeze— a maniacal burst of laughter from the room below. For a second she sat paralysed, and then, springing out of bed, she seized her dressing-gown and went pattering down the stairs, and she saw over the banisters a figure moving in the hall below.

"Who is that?"

"It’s all right, my dear."

It was her father. His room adjoined his study on the ground floor.

"Did you hear anything, daddy?"

"Nothing— nothing," he said harshly, "Go to bed."

But Mary Redmayne was not deficient in courage.

"I will not go to bed," she said, and came down the stairs. "There was somebody in the lounge— I heard them," Her hand was on the lounge door when he gripped her arm.

"For God’s sake, Mary, don’t go in!" She shook him off impatiently, and threw open the door.

No light burned; she reached out for the switch and turned it. For a second she saw nothing, and then—

Sprawling in the middle of the room lay the body of a man, a terrifying grin on his dead face.

It was the tinker, the man who had quarrelled with Ferdie Fane that morning the man whom Fane had threatened!

8

SUPERINTENDENT HALLICK came down by car with his photographer and assistants, saw the body with the local chief of police, and instantly recognised the dead man.

Connor! Connor, the convict, who said he would follow O’Shea to the end of the world— dead, with his neck broken, in that neat way which was O’Shea’s speciality.

One by one Hallick interviewed the guests and the servants. Cotton was voluble; he remembered the man, but had no idea how he came into the room. The doors were locked and barred, none of the windows had been forced. Goodman apparently was a heavy sleeper and lived in the distant wing. Mrs. Elvery was full of theories and clues, but singularly deficient in information.

"Fane— who is Fane?" asked Hallick.

Cotton explained Mr. Fane’s peculiar position and the hour of his arrival.

"I’ll see him later. You have another guest on the books?" He turned the pages of the visitors’ ledger.

"He doesn’t come till to-day. He’s a parson, sir," said Cotton.

Hallick scrutinised the ill-favoured face.

"Have I seen you before?"

"Not me, sir." Cotton was pardonably agitated.

"Humph!" said Hallick. "That will do. I’ll see Miss Redmayne."

Goodman was in the room and now came forward.

"I hope you are not going to bother Miss Redmayne, superintendent. She is an extremely nice girl— I may say I am— fond of her. If I were a younger man—" He smiled. "You see, even tea merchants have their romances."

"And detectives," said Hallick dryly. He looked at Mr. Goodman with a new interest. He had betrayed from this middle-aged man a romance which none suspected. Goodman was in love with the girl and had probably concealed the fact from everybody in the house.

"I suppose you think I am a sentimental jackass—"

Hallick shook his head.

"Being in love isn’t a crime, Mr. Goodman," he said quietly.

Goodman pursed his lips thoughtfully. "I suppose it isn’t— imbecility isn’t a crime, anyway," he said.

He was going in the direction whence Mary would come, when Hallick stopped him, and obediently the favoured guest shuffled out of another door.

Mary had been waiting for the summons, and her heart was cold within her as she followed the detective to Hallick’s presence. She had not seen him before and was agreeably surprised. She had expected a hectoring, bullying police officer and found a very stout and genial man with a kindly face. He was talking to Cotton when she came in, and for a moment he took no notice of her.

"You’re sure you’ve no idea how this man got in last night?"

"No, sir," said Cotton.

"No window was forced, the door was locked and bolted, wasn’t it?"

Cotton nodded.

"I never let him in," he said.

Hallick’s eyelids narrowed.

"Twice you’ve said that. When I arrived this morning you volunteered the same statement. You also said you passed Mr. Fane’s room on your way in, that the door was open and the room was empty."

Cotton nodded.

"You also said that the man who rung up the police and gave the name of Cotton was not you."

"That’s true, sir."

It was then that the detective became aware of the girl’s presence and signalled Cotton to leave the room.

"Now, Miss Redmayne; you didn’t see this man, I suppose?"

"Only for a moment."

"Did you recognise him?"

She nodded.

Hallick looked down at the floor, considering.

"Where do you sleep?" he asked.

"In the room above this hall."

She was aware that the second detective was writing down all that she said.

"You must have heard something— the sound of a struggle— a cry?" suggested Hallick, and, when she shook her head: "Do you know what time the murder occurred?"

"My father said it was about one o’clock."

"You were in bed? Where was your father— anywhere near this room?"

"No." Her tone was emphatic.

"Why are you so sure?" he asked keenly.

"Because when I heard the door close—"

"Which door?" quickly.

He confused her for a moment.

"This door." She pointed to the entrance of the lounge. "Then I looked over the landing and saw my father in the passage."

"Yes. He was coming from or going to this room. How was he dressed?"

"I didn’t see him," she answered desperately. "There was no light in the passage. I’m not even certain that it was his door."

Hallick smiled.

"Don’t get rattled, Miss Redmayne. This man, Connor, was a well-known burglar; it is quite possible that your father might have tackled him and accidentally killed him. I mean, such a thing might occur."

Mary shook her head.

"You don’t think that happened? You don’t think that he got frightened when he found the man was dead, and said he knew nothing about it?"

"No," she said.

"You heard nothing last night of a terrifying or startling nature?"

She did not answer.

"Have you ever seen anything at Monkshall?"

"It was all imagination," she said in a low voice; "but once I thought I saw a figure on the lawn— a figure in the robes of a monk."

"A ghost, in fact?" he smiled, and she nodded.

"You see, I’m rather nervous," she went on. "I imagine things. Sometimes when I’ve been in my room I’ve heard the sound of feet moving here— and the sound of an organ."

"Does the noise seem distinct?"

"Yes. You see, the floor isn’t very thick."

"I see," he said dryly. "And yet you heard no struggle last night? Come, come, Miss Redmayne, try to remember."

She was in a panic.

"I don’t remember anything— I heard nothing."

"Nothing at all?" He was gently insistent. "I mean, the man must have fallen with a terrific thud. It would have wakened you if you had been asleep— and you weren’t asleep. Come now, Miss Redmayne. I think you’re making a mystery of nothing. You were terribly frightened by this monk you saw, or thought you saw, and your nerves were all jagged. You heard a sound and opened your door, and your father’s voice said, ‘It’s all right,’ or something like that. Isn’t that what occurred?"

He was so kindly that she was deceived. "Yes."

"He was in his dressing-gown, I suppose— ready for bed?"

"Yes," she said again.

He nodded.

"Just now you told me you didn’t see him— that there was no light in the passage!"

She sprang up and confronted him.

"You’re trying to catch me out. I won’t answer you. I heard nothing, I saw nothing. My father was never in this room— it wasn’t his voice—"

"My voice, old son!"

Hallick turned quickly. A smiling man was standing in the doorway.

"How d’ye do? My name’s Fane— Ferdie Fane. How’s the late departed?"

"Fane, eh?" Hallick was interested in this lank man.

"My voice, old son," said Fane again. "Indeed!" Then the detective did an unaccountable thing. He broke off the cross-examination, and, beckoning his assistant, the two men went out of the room together.

Mary stared at the new boarder wonderingly.

"It was not your voice," she said. "Why did you say it was? Can’t you see that they are suspecting everybody? Are you mad? They will think you and I are in collusion."

He beamed at her.

"C’lusion’s a good word. I can say that quite distinctly, but it’s a good word."

She went to the door and looked out. Hallick and his assistant were in earnest consultation on the lawn, and her heart sank.

He was helping himself to a whisky when she returned to him.

"They’ll come back soon, and then what questions will they ask me? Oh, I wish you were somebody I could talk to, somebody I could ask to help! It’s so horrible to see a man like you— a drunken weakling."

"Don’t call me names," he said severely. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Tell me anything you like."

If only she could!

It was Cotton who interrupted her confidence. He came in that sly, furtive way of his.

"The new boarder’s arrived, miss— the parson gentleman," he said, and stood aside to allow the newcomer to enter the lounge.

It was a slim and aged clergyman, white-haired, bespectacled. His tone was gentle, a little unctuous perhaps; his manner that of a man who lavished friendliness.

"Have I the pleasure of speaking to dear Miss Redmayne? I am the Reverend Ernest Partridge. I’ve had to walk up. I thought I was to be met at the station."

He gave her a limp hand to shake.

The last thing in the world she craved at that moment was the distraction of a new boarder. "I’m very sorry, Mr. Partridge— we are all rather upset this morning. Cotton, take the bag to number three."

Mr. Partridge was mildly shocked.

"Upset? I hope that no untoward incident has marred the perfect beauty of this wonderful spot?"

"My father will tell you all about it. This is Mr. Fane."

She had to force herself to this act of common politeness.

At this moment Hallick came in hurriedly.

"Have you any actors in the grounds, Miss Redmayne?" he asked quickly.

"Actors?" She stared at him.

"Anybody dressed up." He was impatient. "Film actors— they come to these old places. My man tells me he’s just seen a man in a black habit come out of the monk’s tomb— he had a rifle in his hand. By God, there he is!"

He pointed through the lawn window, and at that moment Mary felt a pair of strong arms clasped about her, and she was swung round. It was Fane who held her, and she struggled, speechless with indignation. And then—

"Ping!"

The staccato crack of a rifle, and a bullet zipped past her and smashed the mirror above the fireplace. So close it came that she thought at first it had struck her, and in that fractional space of time realised that only Ferdinand Fane’s embrace had saved her life.

9

HALLICK, after an extensive search of the grounds which produced no other clue than an expended cartridge case, went up to town, leaving Sergeant Dobie in charge.

Mary never distinctly remembered how that dreadful day dragged to its end. The presence of the Scotland Yard man in the house gave her a little confidence, though it seemed to irritate her father. Happily, the detective kept himself unobtrusively in the background.

The two people who seemed unaffected by the drama of the morning were Mr. Fane and the new clerical boarder. He was a loquacious man, primed with all kinds of uninteresting anecdotes; but Mrs. Elvery found him a fascinating relief.

Ferdie Fane puzzled Mary. There was so much about him that she liked, and, but for this horrid tippling practice of his she might have liked him more— how much more she did not dare admit to herself. He alone remained completely unperturbed by that shot which had nearly ended her life and his.

In the afternoon she had a little talk with him and found him singularly coherent.

"Shooting at me? Good Lord, no!" He scoffed. "It must have been a Nonconformist— we high church parsons have all sorts of enemies."

"Have you?" she asked quietly, and there was an odd look in his eyes when he answered:—

"Maybe. There are quite a number of people who want to get even with me for my past misdeeds."

"Mrs. Elvery said they were going to send Bradley down."

"Bradley!" he said contemptuously. "That back number at Scotland Yard!" And then, as though he could read her thoughts, he asked quickly: "Did that interesting old lady say anything else?"

They were walking through the long avenue of elms that stretched down to the main gates of the park. Two days ago she would have fled from him, but now she found a strange comfort in his society. She could not understand herself; found it equally difficult to recover a sense of her old aversion.

"Mrs. Elvery’s a criminologist." She smiled whimsically, though she never felt less like smiling in her life. "She keeps press cuttings of all the horrors of the past years, and she says she’s sure that that poor man Connor was connected with a big gold robbery during the war. She said there was a man named O’Shea in it—"

"O’Shea?" said Fane quickly, and she saw his face change. "What the devil is she talking about O’Shea for? She had better be careful— I beg your pardon." He was all smiles again.

"Have you heard of him?"

"The merest rumour," he said almost gaily. "Tell me what Mrs. Elvery said."

"She said that a lot of gold disappeared and was buried somewhere, and she’s got a theory that it was buried in Monkshall or in the grounds; that Connor was looking for it, and that he got Cotton, the butler, to let him in— that’s how he came to be in the house. I heard her telling Mr. Partridge the story. She doesn’t like me well enough to tell me." They paced in silence for a while.

"Do you like him— Partridge, I mean?" asked Ferdie.

She thought he was very nice.

"That means he bores you." He chuckled softly to himself. And then: "Why don’t you go up to town?"

She stopped dead and stared at him.

"Leave Monkshall? Why?"

He looked at her steadily.

"I don’t think Monkshall is very healthy; in fact, it’s a little dangerous."

"To me?" she said incredulously, and he nodded.

"To you, in spite of the fact that there are people living at Monkshall who adore you, who would probably give their own lives to save you from hurt."

"You mean my father?" She tried to pass off what might easily develop into an embarrassing conversation.

"I mean two people— for example, Mr. Goodman."

At first she was inclined to be angry and then she laughed.

"How absurd! Mr. Goodman is old enough to be my father."

"And young enough to love you," said Fane quietly. "That middle-aged gentleman is genuinely fond of you, Miss Redmayne. There is one who is not so middle-aged who is equally fond of you—"

"In sober moments?" she challenged.

And then Mary thought it expedient to remember an engagement she had in the house. He did not attempt to stop her. They walked back towards Monkshall a little more quickly.

Inspector Hallick went back to London a very puzzled man, though he was not as hopelessly baffled as his immediate subordinates thought. He was satisfied in his mind that behind the mystery of Monkshall was the more definite mystery of O’Shea.

When he reached his office he rang for his clerk, and when the officer appeared:

"Get me the record of the O’Shea gold robbery, will you?" he said. "And data of any kind we have about O’Shea."

It was not the first time he had made the last request and the response had been more or less valueless, but the Record Department of Scotland Yard had a trick of securing new evidence from day to day from unexpected sources. The sordid life histories that were compiled in that business-like room touched life at many points; the political branch that dealt with foreign anarchists had once exposed the biggest plot of modern times through a chance remark made by an old woman arrested for begging.

When the clerk had gone Hallick opened his note-book and jotted down the meagre facts he had compiled. Undoubtedly the shot had been fired from the ruins which, he discovered, were those of an old chapel in the grounds, now covered with ivy and almost hidden by sturdy chestnut trees. How the assassin had made his escape was a mystery. He did not preclude the possibility that some of these wizened slabs of stone hidden under thickets of alderberry and hawthorn trees might conceal the entrance to an underground passage.

He offered that solution to one of the inspectors who strolled in to gossip. It was the famous Inspector Elk, saturnine and sceptical.

"Underground passages!" scoffed Elk. "Why, that’s the last resource, or resort— I am not certain which— of the novel writer. Underground passages and secret panels! I never pick up a book which isn’t full of ’em!"

"I don’t rule out either possibility," said Hallick quietly. "Monkshall was one of the oldest inhabited buildings in England. I looked it up in the library. It flourished even in the days of Elizabeth—"

Elk groaned.

"That woman! There’s nothing we didn’t have in her days!"

Inspector Elk had a genuine grievance against Queen Elizabeth; for years he had sought to pass an education test which would have secured him promotion, but always it was the reign of the virgin queen and the many unrememberable incidents which, from his point of view, disfigured that reign, that had brought about his undoing.

"She would have secret panels, and underground passages!"

And then a thought struck Hallick.

"Sit down, Elk," he said. "I want to ask you something."

"If it’s history save yourself the trouble. I know no more about that woman except that she was not in any way a virgin. Whoever started this silly idea about the Virgin Queen?"

"Have you ever met O’Shea?" asked Hallick.

Elk stared at him.

"O’Shea— the bank smasher? No, I never met him. He is in America, isn’t he?"

"I think he is very much in England," said Hallick, and the other man shook his head.

"I doubt it." Then after a moment’s thought: "There’s no reason why he should be in England. I am only going on the fact that he has been very quiet these years, but then a man who made the money he did can afford to sit quiet. As a rule, a crook who gets money takes it to the nearest spieling club and does it in, and as he is a natural lunatic—"

"How do you know that?" asked Hallick sharply.

Before he answered, Elk took a ragged cigar from his pocket and lit it.

"O’Shea is a madman," he said deliberately. "It is one of the facts that is not disputed."

"One of the facts that I knew nothing about till I interviewed old Connor in prison, and I don’t remember that I put it on record," said Hallick. "How did you know?"

Elk had an explanation which was new to his superior.

"I went into the case years ago. We could never get O’Shea or any particulars about him except a scrap of his writing. I am talking about the days before the gold robbery and before you came into the case. I was just a plain detective officer at the time and if I couldn’t get his picture and his finger-prints I got on to his family. His father died in a lunatic asylum, his sister committed suicide, his grandfather was a homicide who died whilst he was awaiting his trial for murder. I’ve often wondered why one of these clever fellows didn’t write a history of the family."

This was indeed news to John Hallick, but it tallied with the information that. Connor had given to him.

The clerk came back at this moment with a formidable dossier and one thin folder. The contents of the latter showed the inspector that nothing further had been added to the sketchy details he had read before concerning O’Shea. Elk watched him curiously.

"Refreshing your mind about the gold robbery? Doesn’t it make your mouth water to think that all these golden sovereigns are hidden somewhere. Pity Bradley isn’t on this job. He knows the case like I know the back of my hand, and if you think this murder has got anything to do with O’Shea, I’d cable him to come back if I were you."

Hallick was turning the pages of the type-written sheets slowly.

"As far as Connor is concerned, he only got what was coming to him. He squealed a lot at the time of his conviction about being double-crossed, but Connor double-crossed more crooks than any man on the records, and Soapy Marks. I happened to know both of them. They were quite prepared to squeak about O’Shea just before the gold robbery. Where is Soapy?"

Hallick shook his head and closed the folder.

"I don’t know. I wish you would put the word round to the divisions that I’d like to see Soapy Marks," he said. "He usually hangs out in Hammersmith, and I should like to give him a word of warning."

Elk grinned.

"You couldn’t warn Soapy," he said. "He knows too much. Soapy is so clever that one of these days we’ll find him at Oxford or Cambridge. Personally," he ruminated reflectively, "I prefer clever crooks. They don’t take much catching; they catch themselves."

"I am not worrying about his catching himself," said Hallick. "But I am a little anxious as to whether O’Shea will catch him first. That is by no means outside the bounds of possibility."

And here he spoke prophetically.

He got through by ’phone to Monkshall, but Sergeant Dobie, who had been left in charge, had no information.

"Has that woman, Elvery, left?" asked Hallick.

"Not she!" came the reply. "She will hang on to the last minute. That woman is a regular crime hound. And, Mr. Hallick, that fellow Fane is tight again."

"Is he ever sober?" asked Hallick.

He did not trouble about Fane’s insobriety, but he was interested to learn that life in Monkshall, despite the tragedy and the startling event of the morning, was going on as though nothing had happened. Reporters had called in the course of the day and had tried to interview the colonel.

"But I shunted them off. The general theory here is that Connor had somebody with him, that they got hold of the money and quarrelled about it. The other fellow killed Connor and got away with the stuff. When I said ‘The general idea,’" said Dobie carefully, "I meant it is my idea. What do you think of that, sir?"

"Rotten," said Hallick, and hung up the receiver.

10

ALL the machinery of Scotland Yard was at work. Inquiries had gone out in every direction and not even Mrs. Elvery and her daughter had been spared. By midnight Hallick learned the private history, as far as it could be ascertained, of every inmate of Monkshall.

Mrs. Elvery was a woman in fairly comfortable circumstances, and, since her husband’s death had released her from a gloomy house in Devonshire, she had no permanent home. She was more than comfortably off, by certain standards she was a wealthy woman, one of that mysterious band of middle-aged women who move from one hotel to another, and live frugally in fashionable resorts in the season. You find them on the Lido in August, in Deauville in July, on the Riviera or in Egypt in the winter.

Mr. Goodman held a sleeping partnership in an old-established and not too prosperous firm of tea importers. Probably, thought Hallick, the days of its prosperity expired before Goodman retired from business.

Cotton, the butler, had the least savoury record. He was a man who had been discharged from three jobs under suspicion of pilfering, but no conviction could be traced against him. (Hallick wrote in his note-book: "Find some way of getting Cotton’s finger-prints.") In every case Cotton had been employed at boarding houses and always small articles of jewellery had disappeared in circumstances which suggested that he was not entirely ignorant of the reason for such disappearance.

Colonel Redmayne’s record occupied a sheet of foolscap. He had been an impecunious officer in the Auxiliary Medical Staff, had been court-martialed in the last week of the war for drunkenness and severely reprimanded. He had, by some miracle, been appointed to a responsible position in a military charity. The disappearance of funds had led to an investigation, there had been some talk of prosecution, and Scotland Yard had actually been consulted, but had been advised against such a prosecution in the absence of direct proof that the colonel was guilty of anything but culpable negligence. The missing money had been refunded and the matter was dropped. He was next heard of when he bought Monkshall.

The information concerning Redmayne’s military career was news to Hallick.

"A doctor, eh?"

Elk nodded. He had been charged with collecting the information.

"He joined up in the beginning of the war and got his rank towards the finish," he said. "Funny how these birds hang on to their military rank— ‘doctor’ would be good enough for me."

"Was he ever in the regular army?" Elk shook his head.

"So far as I could find out, no. Owing to the trouble he got into at the end of the war he was not offered a permanent commission."

Hallick spent the evening studying a large plan of Monkshall and its grounds, and even a larger one of the room in which Connor had been found. There was one thing certain: Connor had not "broken and entered." It was, in a sense, an inside job, he must have been admitted by— whom? Not by Redmayne, certainly not by his daughter. By a servant, and that servant was Cotton. The house was almost impossible to burgle from outside without inside assistance; there were alarms in all the windows and he had seen electric controls on the doors. Monkshall was almost prepared for a siege. Indeed, it seemed as though Colonel Redmayne expected sooner or later the visitation of a burglar.

Hallick went to bed a very tired man that night, fully expecting to be called by telephone, but nothing happened. He ’phoned Monkshall before he left his house and Dobie reported "All is well." He had not been to bed that night, and nothing untoward had occurred. There was neither sound or sight of the ghostly visitor.

"Ghosts!" scoffed Hallick. "Did you expect to see one?"

"Well," said Dobie’s half-apologetic voice, "I am really beginning to believe there is something here that isn’t quite natural."

"There is nothing anywhere that is not natural, sergeant," said Hallick sharply.

There was another case in which he was engaged, and he spent two unprofitable hours interviewing a particularly stupid servant girl concerning the mysterious disappearance of a large quantity of jewellery. It was nearly noon when he got back to his office and his clerk greeted him with a piece of unexpected information.

"Mr. Goodman is waiting to see you, sir. I put him in the reception room."

"Goodman?" Hallick frowned. At the moment he could not recall the name. "Oh, yes, from Monkshall? What does he want?"

"He said he wished to see you. He was quite willing to wait."

"Bring him in," said Hallick.

Mr. Goodman came into the tidy office a rather timid and diffident man.

"I quite expected you to throw me out for I realise how busy you are, inspector," he said, putting down his hat and umbrella very carefully; "but as I had some business in town I thought I’d come along and see you."

"I am very glad to see you, Mr. Goodman," Hallick placed a chair for him. "Are you coming to enlarge on your theories?"

Goodman smiled.

"I think I told you before I had no theories. I am terribly worried about Miss Redmayne, though." He hesitated. "You cross-examined her. She was distressed about it." He paused a little helplessly, but Hallick did not help him. "I think I told you that I am— fond of Mary Redmayne. I would do anything to clear up this matter so that you would see, what I am sure is a fact, that her father had nothing whatever to do with this terrible affair."

"I never said he had," interrupted Hallick.

Mr. Goodman nodded.

"That I realise. But I am not as foolish as, perhaps, I appear to be; I know that he is under suspicion, in fact, I imagine that everybody in the house, including myself, must of necessity be suspected."

Again he waited and again Hallick was wilfully silent. He was wondering what was coming next.

"I am a fairly wealthy man," Goodman went on at last. He gave the impression that it required a desperate effort on his part to put his proposition into words. "And I would be quite willing to spend a very considerable sum, not necessarily to help the police, but to clear Redmayne from all suspicion. I don’t understand the methods of Scotland Yard and I feel I needn’t tell you this"— he smiled—"and probably I am exposing my ignorance with every word I utter. But what I came to see you about is this— is it possible for me to engage a Scotland Yard detective?"

Hallick shook his head.

"If you mean in the same way as you engage a private detective— no," he said. Goodman’s face fell.

"That’s a pity. I had heard so much from Mrs. Elvery— a very loquacious and trying lady, but with an extraordinary knowledge of— er— criminality, that there is a gentleman at Scotland Yard who would have been of the greatest assistance to me— Inspector Bradley."

Hallick laughed.

"Inspector Bradley is at the moment abroad," he said.

"Oh," replied Mr. Goodman, getting glum. "That is a great pity. Mrs. Elvery says—"

"I am afraid she says a great deal that is not very helpful," said Hallick good-humouredly. "No, Mr. Goodman, it is impossible to oblige you and I am afraid you will have to leave the matter in our hands. I don’t think you will be a loser by that. We have no other desire than to get the truth. We are just as anxious to clear any person who is wrongfully suspected, as we are to convict any person who comes under suspicion and who justifies that suspicion."

That should have finished the matter, but Mr. Goodman sat on looking very embarrassed.

"It is a thousand pities," he said at last. "Mr. Bradley is abroad? So I shan’t be able even to satisfy my curiosity. You see, Mr. Hallick, the lady in question was talking so much about this superman— I suppose he is clever?"

"Very," said Hallick. "One of the ablest men we have had at the Yard."

"Ah." Goodman nodded. "That makes my disappointment a little more keen. I would have liked to have seen what he looked like. When one hears so much about a person—"

Hallick looked at him for a second, then turning his back upon the visitor, he scanned the wall where were hanging three framed portrait groups. One of these he lifted down from the hook and laid on the table. It was a conventional group of about thirty men sitting or standing in three rows and beneath were the words "H.Q. Staff."

"I can satisfy your curiosity," he said. "The fourth man on the left from the commissioner who is seated in the centre is Inspector Bradley."

Mr. Goodman adjusted his glasses and looked. He saw a large, florid-looking man of fifty, heavy-featured, heavily built. The last person in the group he would have picked out.

"That’s Bradley; he isn’t much to look at, is he?" smiled Hallick. "He is the livest wire in this department." Goodman stared at the photograph rather nervously, and then he smiled.

"That’s very good of you, Mr. Hallick," he said. "He doesn’t look like a detective, but then no detective ever does. That is the peculiar thing about them. They look rather— er—"

"A commonplace lot, eh?" said Hallick, his eyes twinkling. "So they are."

He hung up the portrait on the wall.

"Don’t bother about Miss Redmayne," he said, "and for heaven’s sake don’t think that the employment of a detective, private or public, on her behalf will be of the slightest use to her or her father. Innocent people have nothing to fear. Guilty people have a great deal. You have known Colonel Redmayne for a long time, I think?"

"All my life."

"You know about his past?"

The old tea merchant hesitated.

"Yes, I think I know," he said quietly. "There were one or two incidents which were a little discreditable, were there not? He told me himself. He drinks a great deal too much, which is unfortunate. I think he was drinking more heavily at the time these unfortunate incidents occurred."

He picked up his hat and umbrella, took out his pipe with a mechanical gesture, looked at it, rubbed the bowl, and replaced it hastily.

"You can smoke, Mr. Goodman, we shan’t hang you for it," chuckled Hallick.

He himself walked through the long corridor and down the stairs to the entrance hall with his visitor, and saw him off the premises. He hoped and believed that he had sent Goodman away feeling a little happier, and his hope was not without reason.

11

IT was four o’clock when Goodman reached the little station which is some four miles distant from Monkshall, and, declining the offer of the solitary fly, started to walk across to the village. He had gone a mile when he heard the whir of a motor behind him. He did not attempt to turn his head, and was surprised when he heard the car slacken speed and a voice hailing him. It was Ferdie Fane who sat at the wheel.

"Hop in, brother. Why waste your own shoe leather when somebody else’s rubber tyres are available?"

The face was flushed and the eyes behind the horn-rimmed spectacles glistened. Mr. Goodman feared the worst.

"No, no, thank you. I’d rather walk," he said.

"Stuff! Get in," scoffed Ferdie. "I am a better driver when I am tight than when I am sober, but I am not tight."

Very reluctantly the tea merchant climbed into the seat beside the driver.

"I’ll go very slowly," the new inmate of Monkshall went on. "There’s nothing to be afraid of."

"You think I am afraid?" said Mr. Goodman with a certain asperity.

"I’m certain," said the other cheerfully. "Where have you been this fine day?"

"I went up to London," said Mr. Goodman.

"An interesting place to go to," said Fane; "but a deuced uncomfortable place to live in."

He was keeping his word and driving with remarkable care, Mr. Goodman discovered to his relief.

He was puzzled as to where Ferdie had obtained the car and ventured upon an inquiry.

"I hired it from a brigand in the village," said Ferdie. "Do you drive a car?"

Mr. Goodman shook his head.

"It is an easy road for a car, but a pretty poisonous one for a lorry, especially a lorry with a lot of weight in it. You know Lark Hill?"

Mr. Goodman nodded.

"A lorry was stuck there. I guess it will be there still even though the road is as dry as a bone. What it must be like to run up that hill with a heavy load on a wet and slippery night heaven knows. I bet that hill has broken more hearts than any other in the county."

He rumbled on aimlessly about nothing until they reached the foot of the redoubtable hill where the heavy lorry was still standing disconsolate by the side of the road.

"There she is," said Ferdie with the satisfaction of one who is responsible. "And it will take a bit of haulage to get her to the top, eh? Only a super-driver could have got her there. Only a man with a brain and imagination could have nursed her."

Goodman smiled.

"I didn’t know there were such things as super-brains’ amongst lorry drivers," he said. "But I suppose every trade, however humble, has its Napoleon."

"You bet," said Ferdie.

He brought the car up the long drive to Monkshall, paid the garage hand who was waiting to take it from him, and disappeared into the house.

Goodman looked round. In spite of his age his eyesight was remarkably good, and he noticed the slim figure walking on the far side of the ruins. Handing his umbrella to Cotton he walked across to Mary. She recognised and turned to meet him. Her father was in his study and she was going back for tea. He thought that she looked a little peaked and paler than usual.

"Nothing has happened to-day?" he asked quickly.

She shook her head.

"Nothing. Mr. Goodman, I am dreading the night."

He patted her gently on the shoulder. "My dear, you ought to get away out of this. I will speak to the colonel."

"Please don’t," she said quickly. "Father does not want me to go. My nerves are a little on edge."

"Has that young man been—" he began.

"No, no. You mean Mr. Fane? He has been quite nice. I have only seen him for a few minutes to-day. He is out driving a motor car. He asked me—"

She stopped.

"To go with him? That young man is certainly not troubled with nerves!"

"He was quite nice," she said quickly; "only I didn’t feel like motoring. I thought it was he who had just come back, but I suppose it was you who came in the car." He explained the circumstances of his meeting with Ferdie Fane. She smiled for the first time that day.

"He is— rather queer," she said. "Sometimes he is quite sensible and nice. Cotton hates him for some reason or other. He told me to-day that unless Mr. Fane left he would."

Mr. Goodman smiled.

"You seem to have a very troublesome household," he said; "except myself— oh, I beg his pardon, the new guest. What is his name? Mr. Partridge? I hope he is behaving himself."

She smiled faintly.

"Yes, he’s quite charming. I don’t think I have seen him to-day," she added inconsequently.

"You can see him now." Mr. Goodman nodded towards the lawn.

The slim, black figure of Mr. Partridge was not easily discernible against the dark background of the foliage. He was strolling slowly up and down, reading a book as he walked; but evidently his eyes and attention were not entirely for the literature which he studied, for he closed his book and walked towards them.

"A delightful place, my dear Miss Redmayne," he said. "A most charming place! A little heaven upon earth, if I may use a sacred expression to describe terrestrial beauties."

In the light of day, and without the softening effect of curtains, his face was not too pleasant, she thought. It was a hard face, angular, wasted. The dark eyes which surveyed her were not his least unpleasant feature. His voice was gentle enough— gentle to the point of unctuousness. Instinctively she had disliked him the first time they had met; her second impression of him did not help her to overcome her prejudice.

"I saw you come up. Mr. Fane was driving you." There was a gentle reproach in his tone. "A curious young man, Mr. Fane— given, I fear, to the inordinate consumption of alcoholic beverage. ‘Oh,’ as the prophet said, ‘that a man should put an enemy into his mouth to steal away his brains!’"

"I can testify," interrupted Mr. Goodman staunchly, "that Mr. Fane is perfectly sober. He drove me with the greatest care and skill. I think he is a very excitable young man, and one may often do him an injustice because of his peculiar mannerisms."

The reverend gentleman sniffed. He was obviously no lover of Fane, and sceptical of his virtues. Yet he might find no fault with Ferdie, who came into the lounge soon after tea was served, and would have sat alone if Goodman had not invited him to the little circle which included himself, Mrs. Elvery and Mary. He was unusually quiet, and though many opportunities presented themselves he was neither flippant nor aggressive.

Mary watched him furtively, more than interested in the normal man. He was older than she had thought; her father had made the same discovery. There was a touch of grey in his hair, and though the face was unlined it had the setness of a man who was well past his thirties, and possibly his forties.

His voice was deep, rather brusque. She thought she detected signs of nervousness, for once or twice, when he was addressed, he started so violently as to spill from the cup of tea which he held in his hand.

She saw him after the party had dispersed. "You’re very subdued today, Mr. Fane."

"Am I?" He made an attempt at gaiety and failed. "It’s funny, parsons always depress me. I suppose my conscience gets to work, and there’s nothing more depressing than conscience."

"What have you been doing all day?" she asked.

She told herself she was not really interested. The question was one of the commonplaces of speech that she had employed a dozen times with guests.

"Ghost-hunting," he said, and when he saw her pale he was instantly penitent. "Sorry— terribly sorry! I was being funny."

But he had been very much in earnest; she realised that when she was in the privacy of her own room, where she could think without distraction. Ferdie Fane had spent that day looking for the Terror. Was he himself the Terror? That she could not believe.

12

NIGHT came— the dreary night with its black mysteries and its suggestive horrors.

The telephone in the deserted lounge rang shrilly. Cotton came from some mysterious recess in a hurry to answer it. He heard Hallick’s voice and winced painfully. He did not like Hallick, and wondered how soon this officer of Scotland Yard, with the resources at his disposal, would discover his own unsavoury antecedents.

"I want to speak to Dobie," said Hallick’s voice.

"Yes, sir; I’ll call him."

There was no need to call Sergeant Dobie; he was at Cotton’s elbow.

"Is that for me?"

Cotton passed him across the instrument.

"Yes, sir...?" He glanced out of the corner of his eye and saw the interested Cotton. "Hop it," he said under his breath, and Cotton withdrew reluctantly.

"Have you found anything further?" asked Hallick.

"Nothing, sir. Another spent cartridge— you saw one of them before you left."

There was a long pause at the other end of the wire, and then Hallick spoke again.

"I’ve got an idea something may happen to-night. You have my private telephone number?... Good! Call me if anything happens that has an unusual appearance. Don’t be afraid of bringing me down on a fool’s errand. I shall have a car waiting, and I can be with you in an hour."

Dobie hung up the receiver as Mr. Goodman came ambling into the lounge. He wore his black velvet smoking jacket; his old pipe was gripped between his teeth. Dobie was on his way to the door when the tea merchant called him back.

"You’re staying with us to-night, aren’t you, Mr. Dobie?... Thank goodness for that!"

"You’re nervous, are you, sir?" smiled Dobie, and Goodman’s good-natured face reflected the smile.

"Why, yes, I am a little— raw. If anybody had told me I should get jumpy I should have laughed."

He took out his cigar case and offered it to the detective, who chose one with considerable care.

"There’s no new clue, I suppose?" said Goodman, making himself comfortable at the end of the settee.

"No, sir," said Dobie.

Goodman chuckled.

"If you had any you wouldn’t tell me, eh? That isn’t one of the peculiar weaknesses of Scotland Yard officers, that they wear their— I won’t say hearts, but their brains, upon their sleeves. You didn’t find the gentleman who did the shooting yesterday? I ask you because I have been in town all day, and was a little disappointed when I came back to find that apparently nothing had happened."

"No, we haven’t found the shooter," said Dobie.

Neither of them saw the door open, nor the pale face of Mr. Partridge peeping through.

"I was at Scotland Yard to-day," said Goodman; "and I had a chat with Mr. Hallick. A nice man."

"Very," agreed Dobie heartily.

John Hallick was one of the few men at the Yard who had no enemies amongst his subordinate staff. He was the type who placed the service first, and individual kudos second, so that it was a tradition that any officer who deserved praise invariably received his full meed of recognition.

"The whole thing is really extraordinary," said Goodman thoughtfully; "in fact, the most extraordinary thing that has ever happened. Do you know, I am developing a theory?"

Dobie paused in the act of lighting his cigar.

"You’re like Mrs. Elvery," he said, and Goodman groaned.

"That’s the rudest thing that’s been said to me to-day! No, it is about this unfortunate man, Connor, who was found dead in this room yesterday morning. The moment I heard the name I remembered the case— the gold robbery during the war. There were three men in it— O’Shea, the gang leader; a man named Marks— Soapy Marks; and Connor. I wouldn’t like to confess as much to Mrs. Elvery for fear she never left me to myself, but I was tremendously interested in war crimes, and I am pretty sure that this dead man was Connor."

"Do you think so, sir?"

Mr. Goodman smiled.

"No, I am perfectly sure now, from your badly simulated innocence! That was the Connor, wasn’t it?"

"Did you ask Mr. Hallick?" asked Dobie, and, when the other shook his head: "Well, Scotland Yard is issuing a statement to-night, so you might as well know that it was Connor."

"H’m!" Goodman frowned. "I am trying to reckon up how long he was in prison. He must have been released very recently?"

"A month ago," said Dobie. "He and Marks came out within a few hours of each other."

Mr. Goodman was beaming.

"I knew that I was right! I’ve got rather a good memory for names."

Dobie lingered. There was nothing for him to do, but he had a human weakness for human society.

"I suppose you’re not staying on after to-night?" he suggested. "All these boarding house murders clear out the tenants and generally ruin the man or woman who’s running the show."

Goodman shook his head.

"I don’t know. I’m an old bachelor and I hate change. I suppose I must be a little callous, but I am not as affected as some of the other people are."

And then he went back to his original thesis.

"Now, suppose this crime is in connection with the gold robbery—"

But here he came across the official policeman. It was not a matter which Dobie could discuss, and he said so.

"Certainly— perfectly correct," said Goodman hurriedly. "I am sorry I was so indiscreet."

"Not at all," replied Dobie, and Goodman saw that he was aching to tell him all he knew. "Perhaps you’re nearer the truth than you imagine."

Whatever revelation he might have made after that was interrupted by the arrival of Mrs. Elvery and her daughter. The Rev. Mr. Partridge followed, carrying in his hand a skein of wool.

Mrs. Elvery at any rate was not so reticent. She was trembling with excitement, had information to give to the bored tea merchant.

"I’m going to give you a surprise, Mr. Goodman," she said, and Goodman closed his book with an expression of resignation. "Do you know that Mr. Partridge is an authority on spiritualism?"

"And I am an authority on good coffee," said Mr. Goodman. Cotton had come in with a tray full of little cups, and Goodman selected one. "And if this coffee is good you can thank me, for I have taught the cook, after many years, how to prepare coffee that doesn’t taste like dish-water. Spiritualism, eh? B-r-r! I don’t want to know anything about spirits!"

Mr. Partridge was all apologies.

"You rather exaggerate, I fear, my dear friend. Do you mind my saying that? I certainly have studied the science from an outsider’s point of view, but I am no authority."

"Then you won’t object to a few spooks?" said Goodman, smiling.

"Spooks?" The reverend gentleman was puzzled. "Ah, you mean— thank you, Cotton." He took his coffee. "I know what you mean."

Mary came in at this uncomfortable moment, when Mr. Partridge chose to discuss the tragedy of the previous day.

"How terrible it must have been for all you poor souls! How staggering! How—"

Mary was looking at the girl, saw her suddenly stare towards the window and turn pale. Veronica leapt to her feet and screamed.

"I saw a face at the window!" she gasped.

"Draw the curtains," said Mr. Goodman testily.

A few minutes later Fane strolled into the room, and Mary saw there were raindrops on his shoulders.

"Have you been out?"

"Yes, I’ve been strolling around," he said.

Mary thought he had been drinking; his speech was slurred and he walked none too steadily.

"Did you see the monk?" asked Veronica spitefully.

Ferdie smiled broadly.

"If I had I’d have called his reverence to lay the ghost."

Mr. Partridge looked up, reproach in his eyes.

"It is all very dreadful. I only heard by accident of the tragedy that occurred here last night."

"Don’t talk about it, please!" wailed Veronica.

"A fellow creature cut off in his prime," said the Reverend Partridge sonorously. "I confess that I had a cold shiver run through me when I heard of this awful happening. The man’s name is not known, I understand?"

He was reaching for a cup of coffee.

"Oh, yes, it is." It was Fane who spoke. "I wonder somebody didn’t tell you."

Their eyes met.

"The name of the murdered man," said Fane deliberately, "was Connor— Joe Connor."

The coffee cup slipped from the parson’s hand and was shattered on the parquet floor. The yellow face turned a dirty white.

"Connor!" he faltered. "Joe Connor!"

Ferdie, watching him, nodded.

"You know the name?"

"I— I have heard it."

Mr. Partridge was talking with difficulty; he was a little breathless.

"Joe Connor!" he muttered again, and soon after went out of the room.

Mary noticed this and was puzzled. She wondered if Goodman had seen, but apparently he was unobservant, and he was more interested in another inmate of Monkshall. The first moment they were together he opened his heart on the subject.

"You may not believe me, my dear, but Mrs. Elvery has been very interesting to-night. She showed me her press-cutting book— about this man Connor. There is no doubt it was he— I saw a picture in one of the cuttings. And I saw another photograph which rather interested me— had you ever met Mr. Fane before he came here?"

"Was it his?" she asked.

He hesitated.

"Yes, I think it was."

And then she remembered. She had been in the village that afternoon and had seen Goodman at the post office, in the little private telephone booth, and the postmistress had volunteered the information, rather proudly, that he was speaking to Scotland Yard. She had thought no more of this than that Goodman was getting further details about the crime of last night, and she realised that his call had a deeper significance when he went on:—

"I have been making a few inquiries, and I think there is no doubt that Mr. Fane is— um— well, Mr. Fane is not all that he appears to be." And then, earnestly: "I beg of you not to mention this to him in any circumstances."

She was amazed by his vehemence, and laughed.

"Why, of course I won’t."

"Mary"— he glanced over his shoulder— the rest of the company were engaged in their own affairs, and he dropped his hand timidly upon hers—"Mary, my dear, why don’t you leave this place— go to London?"

"How curious!" she laughed. "That is exactly what Mr. Fane suggested."

"Mr. Fane made the suggestion for another reason," he said, with a touch of grimness in his usually mild voice. "I suggest it because— well, because I am very fond of you. Don’t think I’m stupid or sentimental. In spite of the disparity in our ages, I love you as I have never loved any woman in my life."

She was unprepared for the declaration, could only look at him wonderingly.

"Think it over, my dear; and if you say ‘No’— well, I shall understand."

She was glad when Cotton came in at that moment and told her her father wished to see her about some domestic trifle. She did not go back to the room until Cotton came to the study with the request that he should be allowed to lock up.

"They’re all in bed except Mr. Fane," he said. "I’ve got an idea he’s waiting for you, miss."

"Why should he be?" demanded Redmayne wrathfully.

Cotton did not know.

It was a shrewd guess on his part. Ferdie Fane sat on the sofa, hoping against hope that the girl would return. There was something he wanted to tell her, an urgent message of warning he wished to give to her. He heard the door click and turned quickly. It was the Reverend Mr. Partridge.

"Pardon me," said the clergyman, who seemed to have recovered something of his equilibrium; "I left a book here."

Fane did not speak until the white-haired man was turning to leave the room. Then:—

"You were awfully rattled, Mr. Partridge."

"Rattled?" The parson frowned. "That is a strange term to employ. I was naturally distressed to hear of this poor man’s death."

Fane grinned.

"Cotton was more distressed— he had to pick up the pieces of your coffee cup," he said. "Will you sit down for a second?"

The clergyman hesitated, and then sat down on the settee by Ferdie’s side.

"What a terrible fate— poor soul!" he muttered.

"Silly— that was what was the matter with Connor," said Fane coolly. "You see, he wasn’t as clever as his pal— the other fellow wouldn’t have been so crude."

"The other fellow?" Mr. Partridge appeared to be puzzled.

"Soapy Marks— you’ve never heard of him? O’Shea’s right-hand man. You’ve never heard of O’Shea? I’ll bet you’ve not only heard of him, but if you haven’t recognised him you’ll know him pretty soon."

The other man shook his head.

"This is Greek to me. Whom am I to recognise?"

"Soapy’s got brains," Fane went on. "I’m going to give them a chance."

Suddenly he reached out, gripped the white hair of the clergyman and pulled. The wig came away in his hand.

"Soapy!"

Soapy Marks leapt up.

"What the hell—" he began, but the face of Fane thrust into his.

"Go whilst the going’s good," he said deliberately. "Go whilst there’s life in you. I’m telling you, as I told Connor. You’re asking for death— and you’ll get it!"

"Well, I’ll take it," said Marks savagely. "That’s what! I’ll take anything that’s going."

Ferdie Fane nodded.

"You never could take a warning, could you? Clever Mr. Soapy— all brain and confidence!"

"You can’t frighten me." Marks was breathing heavily. "You know what I’ve come for? My share of the swag— and I’m not going away till I get it!"

"You’re going out feet first," said Fane sombrely.

"I am, am I? You think you’re damned clever, but I’ll tell you something. I knew you the moment you told me about Connor. And there’s somebody else in this house who knows you— that guy Goodman. He’s no fool— he’s knocked about the world. I saw him looking at you."

Fane was startled.

"Goodman? You’re crazy mad!"

"Mad, am I? I was down in the village this afternoon, and he was putting calls through to London— making inquiries about you. That girl, Redmayne, was in the post office too. That’s made you sit up. What’ll you do now, my dear friend? Get Goodman out of the way. I know your methods— I know that old drunk trick of yours too."

Fane had recovered from his consternation.

"Whether he knows or whether he doesn’t, I’m warning you," he said sternly. "You’ll go the way of Connor."

Marks moved to the door.

"That’s fair warning. The man that gets me has got to be quick."

In another second he passed through the curtains which hid the long French windows. Fane heard the click of them as the man opened them and stepped into the night.

Fane waited some time; he heard a step outside in the hall and slipped out through a door which would bring him to the lawn by another route.

He saw the door open slowly. It was Mr. Goodman. He came in, grumbling to himself, looking from table to table for his pipe. Presently he found it. He put it in his pocket and was walking slowly back to the door when he saw something on the ground, and, stopping, picked it up. It was the wig that Marks had dropped in his flight. He looked at this for a long time, and then, conscious of the draught which came through the open French windows, moved towards the closed curtains.

His hand was on the point of drawing them back when two hands shot out, gripped him by the throat and drew him into the alcove.

Mary was half undressed when she heard the struggle below; heard the cry of a man in pain, and, pulling on her gown, fled down the stairs. She pushed open the door of the hall; it was in darkness, as it had been the night before.

"All right," said a voice, and the lights came on suddenly.

Ferdie Fane was standing by the window, his coat and hair dishevelled.

"Mr. Goodman!" she gasped. "I heard his voice— where is he?"

"I haven’t the slightest idea," he said.

And then she saw the smear of blood across the white expanse of his shirt front. ... As she fell fainting to the ground he caught her in his arms and the blood of a murdered man stained her kimono.

13

IT was half-past two in the morning, and Monkshall was awake. The mud-stained car of Hallick’s stood at the door; the carpets were rolled up, in the search for hidden traps; and Mrs. Elvery, in a pink dressing-gown, dozed and snored in the most comfortable arm-chair. There Hallick found her when he came in from a search of the grounds.

"Take my advice and go to bed," he said, shaking her to wakefulness. "It’s nearly three o’clock."

Mrs. Elvery blinked herself awake and began to cry softly.

"Poor Mr. Goodman! He was such a nice man, and there are so few bachelors left!" she wailed.

"We don’t even know that he’s dead yet," snapped Hallick.

"There was blood all over the floor," she whimpered. "And that nice Mr. Partridge— have you found him?"

"That nice Mr. Partridge," said Mr. Hallick irritably, "is on his way to London. You needn’t worry about him; he’s an old lag, and his name is Soapy Marks."

Suddenly Mrs. Elvery became galvanised to life.

"Have you questioned Cotton? He’s been behaving very strangely this evening. Twice he’s been down to the cellar, and when he came up the last time his knees were covered with dust— and do you know why?"

"I don’t want to know why," said the weary Hallick.

"He’s searching for the gold that’s hidden in this house. Ah, that makes you jump, Mr. Inspector."

"Superintendent," said Hallick coldly. "The gold in this house, eh? So you’ve got that O’Shea story, have you? Where did you get it?"

"Out of my press cuttings," said Elvery triumphantly.

"Will you kindly go to bed?" snapped Hallick, and succeeded in hustling her from the room.

His assistant, Sergeant Dobie, had a theory that needed a little investigation, and now that they were alone for a minute Dobie stated his views.

"Redmayne? Nonsense! Why should he—"

"That’s what I was going to tell you, sir. Redmayne is broke; he borrowed all his money from Goodman. The first thing he did after the disappearance of Goodman was to go up into the old man’s room, open a box and take out a promissory note. Here it is."

Hallick examined the slip of paper thoughtfully.

"Get Redmayne here."

The colonel almost staggered into the room. His nerve was gone, he was the wreck of the man he had been.

"I want to ask you a few questions," said Hallick brusquely, and Redmayne scowled at him.

"I’m tired of answering questions," he snapped.

"I’m sure you are," said the other sarcastically. "There’s a ghost in Monkshall." He produced the promissory note and held it out for the colonel to see. "Is that the secret of all the queer happenings in this house? Is that the real explanation of the Terror?"

"It was money I borrowed," said Redmayne in a low voice.

Hallick nodded.

"Ten years ago you were the secretary of a military fund. There was an audit and a large sum was missing. You were almost on the point of being arrested when you found the money— you borrowed it from Goodman?"

"Yes."

"An hour or two ago you were searching Goodman’s papers. Was it to find this?" asked the detective sternly.

"I refuse to be cross-examined by you," said Redmayne, with something of his old spirit. "You have no right to question me as to my private affairs."

Hallick shook his head.

"Colonel Redmayne," he said quietly, "last night a man was murdered in your house; to-night a gentleman has disappeared in circumstances which suggest murder. I have every right to question you. I have even the right of arresting you, if I wish."

"Then arrest me." The colonel’s voice quavered. .

"I want you to realise the position you are in. There is somebody in this house whom no man has seen— somebody you are sheltering!"

"What do you mean?" The shaft had struck home.

"I am suggesting," Hallick went on, "that this loan of yours from Goodman was a blind; that at the time you borrowed it you had command of immense sums of money; that you bought this house to protect a desperate criminal wanted by the police— Leonard O’Shea!"

"It’s a lie," said the other hoarsely.

"Then I’ll tell you another," retorted Hallick. "Somewhere in this house there is hidden hundreds of thousands of pounds in gold, the proceeds of the Aritania robbery; somewhere in these underground rooms of yours is a man half-sane, half-mad."

The colonel cringed back.

"I did my best to keep him away. Do you think I wanted him here— where my daughter is..." he whined.

"We’ll get the truth about this," said Hallick.

He signalled to Dobie, who led the unresisting man to his study. Hallick followed, and, as the door closed behind them, Mr. Ferdinand Fane came through the closed curtains. He had changed his clothes and was wearing a golfing suit.

Going back to the window, he called softly and Mary came out of the darkness.

"The coast is clear," he said extravagantly, "and nobody need ever know that you have committed the indiscretion of walking in the dark with me."

She pulled off her raincoat and dropped wearily into a chair.

"It is part of the night’s madness," she said; "and yet I felt safer there than in the house."

"I never feel safe anywhere," said Ferdie. "I’m going to sleep in this room to-night— where’s Cotton?"

"What do you want?"

"A drink," he said, and rang the bell. Cotton came in so quickly that he might have been standing outside the door. His coat was wet, his boots muddy.

"Hallo!" Fane eyed him keenly. "Why have you been sneaking about the grounds, my young friend?"

"Just looking round, sir. There’s no harm in that, is there?" the man’s voice was hollow and tremulous.

Then Mary remembered.

"Cotton, you have been with the detectives. What do they say?"

Fane laughed softly, and she interpreted his scorn.

"I want to know," she said impatiently.

"I’ll tell you what they say." He stared at her. "They think Mr. Goodman’s dead— somewhere in this room." He leered at her. "That’s a queer idea, ain’t it?"

She shuddered.

"And they think that old parson’s dead too," he went on with relish. "I heard Dobie telling the superintendent that the parson must have come into the room when the fight was goin’ on and that the Terror killed ’em both!"

"The Terror?" she repeated.

"That’s what they call him. They say he goes mad two hours every day. That’s a queer thing to happen, ain’t it, miss? Fancy havin’ a lunatic around, and nobody knows who he is. It might be you, sir— it might be me— it might be me."

"Most likely you, I should think," said Fane sharply. "Cotton, bring me a pint of champagne."

"Haven’t you had enough to-night?" pleaded Mary.

He shook his head.

"There’s no such thing."

She waited till Cotton was out of the room, then:—

"Mr. Fane, what happened to Mr. Goodman?"

He made no attempt to answer her until Cotton had brought the wine and gone away again.

"This really is champagne," he said as he poured out the foaming liquor. "Gosh, I’ve got a headache."

"I wish you’d have such a headache that you’d never drink again," she said passionately.

"In other words, you wish I were dead?" he suggested.

He was disappointing her terribly; she had thought that in a time like this he would have been a help.

And then a thought struck her.

"What do you mean by ‘this really is champagne?’" she asked.

"I mean that this is the first drink of wine I’ve had for a week," he said. "Don’t ask me any more about my habits— I’m a modest man."

Was he serious? Was this drunkenness of his affected?

"What happened to-night when I found you in this room?" she asked. "When that terrible fight was going on?"

He shook his head.

"I don’t know. Some feller hit me in the jaw. I began to feel that I wasn’t amongst friends."

Then suddenly he became unexpectedly embarrassed.

"I say, would you really like me to— sort of— well, you know, look after you?"

"I don’t know what you mean," she said. And yet she knew well enough.

"I mean, to be around when you want somebody to protect you."

He had come closer to her, but he did not touch her.

"Do you think you’re in a fit state to protect anybody?" she asked, and knew that she was begging the question.

"Do you know, Mary, that I’d do a tremendous lot for you? You see, Mary—"

"Must you call me Mary?" she asked.

"Unless your name’s Jemima. You can call me Ferdie if you like."

"I don’t like— not at the moment," she said, a little out of breath.

"Did Goodman tell you he was awfully keen on you?"

She nodded.

"Poor Mr. Goodman! Yes, he was very fond of me, and I liked him too."

She looked round suddenly and he saw her face.

"What is the matter?" he asked quickly.

She shook her head.

"I don’t know, but I’ve got a horrible feeling that somebody is listening. I wish that man would come," she added inconsequently.

"Expecting somebody?" He was surprised.

"Yes, another detective— Mrs. Elvery calls him the great Bradley. He is coming to-morrow morning."

"Poor old blighter!" he chuckled. "What’s the use of bringing in a feller like that? I’m as good as a thousand detectives. I’m as good as O’Shea." He laughed. "O’Shea! There’s a lad!"

She stepped back from him.

"I’ve heard of O’Shea," she said slowly. "What does he look like?"

He laughed again.

"Something like me— only not so good looking."

She nodded and her voice sank to a whisper.

"You know too well who O’Shea is."

The accusation took him aback.

"Yesterday, when you spoke to that man Connor, I was at the window and I heard you threaten him."

He was silent.

"I warned him," he said at last.

As though to put an end to the conversation he wheeled an easy-chair until it faced the panelled wall, and dragged forward a screen which he placed at its back.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"Sleep," was the laconic answer.

"But why do you put the chair there?" she asked in amazement.

"Old monks’ door!" he smiled. "Any ghost of a monk is bound to come through the monks’ door! If it was a ghost of a cook-general, she’d come through the kitchen door. You can’t tell me anything about ghosts."

She was compelled to laugh at the absurdity.

Hallick came back at that moment with the colonel.

"What the dickens are you doing?" he asked.

Ferdie had found a rug, left behind by Mrs. Elvery, and this he was wrapping about himself.

"I’m going to sleep."

"Sleep in your room," said Redmayne harshly.

"Let him alone." Hallick was rather indulgent to this eccentric man.

He felt a draught and pulled back the curtains. The windows were open.

"Bolt this after we go out, Miss Redmayne, and don’t let anybody in unless you hear your father’s voice. We’re going into the grounds."

"You’d better go to your room, my darling," said the colonel, but she shook her head.

"I’ll wait here."

"But, my dear—"

"Leave her, leave her," said Hallick impatiently. "He’ll do her no harm." Ferdie, wrapped in the rug, had ensconced himself in the chair. He thought he heard her go out, but she was still there, and presently she peeped round the corner, and, seeing that his eyes were closed, switched out all the lights save one. She thought that she would speak to him, but changed her mind, tiptoed softly to the door and pulled it open. Her head was turned towards where Ferdie sat behind the screen. She did not see the man who suddenly appeared in the doorway, within inches of her. A tall shape, draped from head to foot in black, two eyes gleaming through the slits of the cowl.

She had no warning, no premonition of her danger, till an arm like steel slipped round her waist and a great hand covered her mouth.

She looked round, frozen with horror; saw the gleam of those gloomy eyes and went limp in the arms of the black monk.

Without a sound he lifted her into the passage, closed the door softly behind him, and carried her, as though she had no weight, past the door of her father’s study to a little room that was used as a store. Had she been conscious, she would have remembered the big trapdoor in the middle of the room which was always fastened. Stooping, he pulled the trap open, and, hoisting her to his shoulder, descended a flight of stone stairs. He left her for a moment, came back and fastened the trap from the inside.

14

HALLICK and the colonel visited the men they had stationed in the grounds, but nothing had been seen of the mysterious apparition, nor had any trace been found of Goodman or Marks.

"Marks is in London by now," said Hallick as they squelched across the sodden grass to the house. "He won’t take much finding."

"Why did he come here?"

"To get the stuff that’s hidden here— the gold your friend, O’Shea, has cached somewhere in this house," said Hallick. "I am taking O’Shea to-night, and I advise you to keep out of the way, because I have an idea somebody is going to be badly hurt. My suggestion to you is that you take your daughter to London to-night; use one of my cars."

"She will not go. How can I explain to her—" began the colonel.

"There’s no need for explanations," said the other shortly. "You can tell her the truth, or you can wait till the case comes for trial. O’Shea, I presume, gave you the money to buy this house."

"He had already bought it, before the robbery," said the colonel. "I was in a terrible state of mind, expecting arrest at any moment. I can’t tell you how he got to know of my situation. I’d never heard of the man before. But when he offered me a loan, a fixed income, and a decent house over my head, I jumped at it. You see, I’m not a fighting soldier — I’m an army doctor; and when he explained that he had these little troubles I very naturally thought he’d be easy to deal with. I didn’t even know he was O’Shea till a year or so ago."

They trudged on in silence, and then Hallick said:—

"Have other men been here— other boarders?" He mentioned two names, and the colonel nodded.

"Yes, they came for a day or two, and then disappeared without paying their bills."

"They died here," said Hallick grimly; "and died at O’Shea’s hands— if they’d had the sense to tell me that they’d located O’Shea I could have saved them. But they wanted all the credit for themselves, I suppose, poor chaps!"

"Killed them— here!" gasped the colonel.

By this time they had come to the house, and Hallick tapped gently on the French windows. There was no response. He tapped again, but there was no answer.

"We’d better come to the door and wake Cotton," he said.

It was a long time before Cotton heard the knocking, and a longer time before he opened the door.

"Where’s Miss Redmayne?" asked Hallick.

The man shook his head.

"Haven’t seen her, sir. There’s somebody sleeping here— he’s covered up with a blanket— gave me quite a start when I peeped round the screen."

"That’s Fane; leave him alone."

He turned on all the lights.

And then suddenly a cold feeling came to this hardened detective, a sense of impending disaster.

"Go and find your daughter," he said. Redmayne went out, and the detective heard his feet on the floor above. He came back in five minutes, white and shaking.

"She’s not in her room and I don’t think she’s in the house. I’ve looked everywhere."

"Have you seen her, Cotton?"

"No, sir, I haven’t seen the young lady at all."

"What’s that?" said Hallick.

He picked up something from the floor; it was a girdle. The two men looked at one another.

"He’s been here— the monk!" said Redmayne in horror.

Hallick had turned back the screen and dragged the chair, with its slumbering form, into the middle of the room.

"Wake up, Fane— Miss Redmayne has disappeared."

With a quick movement he jerked away the corner of the rug that covered the sleeper’s face, and started back with a cry. For the man who lay in that chair was not Fane. He looked down at the dead face of Soapy Marks!

15

MARY came to consciousness with a curious sensation of discomfort. She was lying on something hard and cold. She looked up and her eyes were attracted by a pale blue lantern which hung from a vaulted roof; and to her ears came the sound of music; the deep, bass notes of an organ.

She struggled to a sitting position, and looked round. She was in a tiny chapel. In a recess stood a white-draped altar. Great wooden pillars supported the roof, and between these she saw a small organ, at which there was seated a black-robed monk.

He heard her move and, looking round, came stealthily towards her. She was paralysed with fear and could not move.

"Don’t be afraid," he whispered. "There is nothing to be afraid of, my little lamb." The voice was muffled by the thick cowl that hid the face.

"Who are you?" she whispered.

"Your friend— your lover— your worshipper!"

Was she dreaming? Was this some hideous nightmare? No, it was real enough.

She saw now that there were two entrances to the vault, one on either side. Two recesses whence stone steps wound upward.

"Who are you?" she asked again, and slowly he pulled back the hood.

She could not believe her eyes. It was Goodman. The grey hair was ruffled, the keen face less serene than she had known it. His eyes were like burning fires.

"Mr. Goodman!" she whispered.

"Leonard, you shall call me," he said in the same tone.

He reached his trembling hands down and caught her by the shoulders.

"Mary, my love, I have waited— oh, so long— for this glorious moment. For you are to me as a divinity."

She came to her feet and shrank back from him.

"You’re not afraid of me, Mary?" She drew to herself all her reserves of courage and strength, and shook her head.

"No, Mr. Goodman. Why should I be afraid of you? I’m glad that you’re alive. I was afraid— something had happened to you."

"Nothing could happen to me, my lamb." His smile was full of confidence. "Nothing could happen to your lover. The very gods protected him and reserved him for this glorious reward."

Her knees were trembling under her. She was sick, and would have fainted again, but by force of will maintained her consciousness.

"Your lover," he was saying. "I’ve loved you all this time. Sometimes I’ve wanted you so that there was a fire in my heart and in my brain that was beyond my control."

He took her cold hand in his and brought it to his lips. She tried to pull is away, but he held it firmly, and his eyes smiled into hers. They were bigger than she had ever seen them— wide, glowing eyes that transfigured his face.

"You’re not afraid of me?" he breathed. "Not afraid of the lover who can give you all your heart’s desire?"

Suddenly he caught her arm, and waved his hand about the room.

"There’s money here; gold— thousands and thousands of golden pieces. Beautiful golden’ pieces, all hidden away. I hid them with my own hands."

And then he waxed confidential, and was more like his normal self.

"This chapel is full of hollow places. I found deep cavities where the bodies of the dead monks lay. I took them out and purified their charnel houses with beautiful gold." He pointed. "That wall behind that old seat, these wooden pillars, are packed tight with it."

She tried to keep him in that saner mood. .

"What is this place, Mr. Goodman? I’ve never seen it before."

He looked at her strangely, and a slow smile dawned on his face.

"This is a sanctuary for my bride." His arms went round her, and she steeled herself to offer no resistance. "Men and women have been married here," he said. "Can’t you smell the fragrance of the bride’s hair? We will be married here," he nodded. "And men have died here— hundreds of years ago. We may die here too."

He laughed. She had heard that laugh in the night, and the horror of it turned her blood to ice.

"I’ve buried men here— there!"‘ He pointed. "And there!" He pointed again. "They came in search of me— clever men from Scotland Yard!"

He knelt down on the floor and put his face to the joints of a stone slab.

"There’s one there. Do you hear me, you dead man— you who came, so full of life, to catch O’Shea? Do you hear me? I am alive. And you— what are you?"

"Please, please don’t!" she gasped. "You are terrifying me!"

He chuckled at this.

"The Terror— ah! That is what they call me— the Terror that walks by night. Biblical— a strange thing to call poor old Goodman. I used to sit, smoking my pipe, in that room of ours"— he pointed up—"and hear that stupid old woman talk of the Terror. And inside me my heart was laughing. She never knew how near she was." He reached out his long hand, and it clenched horribly.

"Mr. Goodman!" She strove to bring him back to a rational level. "You’ll let me go now, won’t you? My father will give you anything you want, will do anything for you— he has been a doctor, you know."

Not once did his hand release the grip on her arm.

"Your father?" He was amused, and chuckled for a long time. "He’ll do as I tell him, because he’s afraid of me. You never thought he was afraid of me, but he is. He thinks I’m mad. That’s why he’s looking after me. I know he’s a doctor— of course he’s a doctor. Sometimes he used to lock me up in a cell. I used to scream and tear at the walls, but he kept me there. He’s mad— they’re all mad!"

She was swooning with fright, and with a superhuman effort tore her arm from his grip and fled to the stairs. Before one foot was on the lowest step he had caught her and dragged her back again.

"Not yet— not yet."

"Let me go." She did not struggle. "I swear I won’t attempt to run away again. You can believe me, can’t you?" He nodded and released her. She crouched down on the stone seat before the altar.

"I’ll play to you," he said, with sudden inspiration. "Lovely music—"

As his fingers wandered over the keys he was talking disjointedly to himself, presently he began to play, so softly that his voice sounded harsh against that wonderful background of melody.

"You’ve heard this old organ?" He looked round over his shoulder at her. "I play to the dead and make them live! Old monks walk here— long lines of them, marching two and two. And people bring young brides to wed and old men to die. And sometimes I see men here that I know— dead men—"

He dropped again into a conversational tone. Suddenly the music stopped, and he pointed to an invisible shape.

"Look— Joe Connor!"

She tried to pierce the gloom but saw nothing. Goodman was talking now, beckoning to the invisible shape.

"Come here, Connor; I want to talk to you. Been to prison, have you? Poor fellow! And all because of that wicked man O’Shea. Come for your share of the swag? You shall have it, my boy."

The organ ceased. He went across and put his arm around something that was invisible to Mary, but was plain to his crazy eyes. And so he led the thing he saw to the stone seat she had vacated.

"You shall have it, my boy. It’s all here, Connor— the good red gold that I got away with. Sit down, Connor— I want to tell you all about it. I’d bought this old house months before— you see, Connor? And I brought the gold here in the lorry by night, and I hid it in the hollow places. Weeks and months I worked, filling hollow pillars and the graves of old monks. Clever, eh, Connor? No wonder you smile."

He rose and stood behind the ghostly shape he saw.

"I tell you this because you’re dead — and dead men never tell. And then I got Redmayne as a blind, put him in charge of the house. He had to do it, Connor"— he lowered his voice to a confidential note—"because I had a hold on him. I used to go a little queer and he looked after me— that’s what I paid him for. I was nothing— he was the master of Monkshall. He, he— that’s how I fooled the police. Nobody dreamed that I was O’Shea. You want your share— damn you! You dog! I’ll choke the life out of you, you hound!"

His voice rose to a yell as he gripped the spirit throat and, in his imagination, hurled it to the ground. He was kneeling on the floor now, his face demoniacal in its fury.

And then he remembered the girl and looked round.

"I’m frightening you." His voice was soft. He came nearer to her and suddenly clasped her in his arms.

She screamed, but he hushed her.

"I don’t want to frighten you. Don’t scream. I love you too much to frighten you." His lips sought hers, but she avoided them.

"No, not yet— give me a little time." He loosed his hold on her.

"But you will love me? Did you see those little doors in the passage walls? The old monks lived there. You and I will find a bridal suite there."

She was fighting desperately for time. At any moment this madness might pass. She knew now he was O’Shea— sane for twenty-two hours a day.

"Wait. I want to talk to you, Mr. Goodman. You said you loved me."

"You are God to me," he said reverently.

"You would not want me to love you if I loved some one else, would you?" His face changed at this.

"Loved some one else? No, no. I would not ask it. But do you love some one else?"

"Yes— I— I’m awfully fond of— of Mr. Fane."

For a second he neither spoke nor moved, then his hand shot out to her throat. She thought she was doomed, but at that moment she was gripped by the arm and swung aside, and O’Shea looked into the levelled muzzle of an automatic.

"I want you, O’Shea!"

It was Fane’s voice, Fane’s arm that encircled her.

"Come away from that switch. That’s right. I don’t want to be in the dark. Farther. Now stand still."

"Who are you?" O’Shea’s voice was surprisingly gentle.

"My name’s Bradley!" said Fane quietly. "Inspector Bradley of Scotland Yard. I want you, O’Shea. For three years I have been waiting for this opportunity, and now I know all that I want to know."

O’Shea nodded.

"You know what I have done to Marks?"

"You killed him— yes."

"He tried to strangle me— I think he must have recognised me. His body—"

"I found it behind the monks’ door and left it in my place. If he and Connor had taken my advice they would have been alive to-day."

O’Shea gave a deep sigh and smiled.

"I’m afraid I’ve given everybody a lot of trouble," he said blandly. "So you’re Bradley, the man who arrested Connor and the man who arrested our old friend, Soapy Marks, and now you have done the hat trick! Really, I deserve everything for not recognising you. Miss Redmayne, will you accept my apologies? I am afraid at times I get a little out of hand— a mere passing folly— um. May I take off this ridiculous robe?" He stripped the black robe from him, slowly.

"Be careful. He is not sane yet," said Mary in a low voice.

He heard her.

"Oh, my dear Miss Redmayne"— he smiled— "you must be a very poor judge of sanity. And now, I suppose, inspector— or is it superintendent?— you will marry this charming young lady who has so touchingly declared her love for you? I wish I could find you a little wedding present."

So quickly did he move that Bradley could not have escaped death had not the foot of the assassin slipped. The knife struck one of the pillars, and in the impact the rotting wood broke and a stream of gold flowed from its hollow depth.

O’Shea glared at the gold that had cost him so much, and then he began to laugh.

"A wedding present," he chuckled.

He was still laughing when Hallick and three detectives took him by car to London.

End Vol 8

Table of Contents

- Introduction
- 1:The Will and the Way
- 2: A Judge of Horses
- 3: The Pedlar in the Mask
- 4: Mr. Jiggs Makes Good
- 5: The Trimming of Sam
- 6: The Winning Ticket
- 7: His Game
- 8: The Devil Doctor
- 9: The Original Mrs. Blaney
- 10: Jake's Brother Bill
- 11:. In Thrall
- 12: The Know-How
- 13: The Terror (novelette)