The Edgar Wallace Collection 10
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. He also wrote a number of series which had too few stories to make up a collection in book form, and which therefore were never put between covers in print. They remained inside magazines and newspapers, sometimes long-defunct, until recently d

THE EDGAR WALLACE

COLLECTION

Short Stories of Edgar Wallace

Volume 10

Contents

Introduction

THE STRANGE LAPSES OF LARRY LOMAN

1: The Crime Trust

2:  The Affair Of The Stokehole

3: The Cure

GOSPEL TRUTH MORTIMER

4: His Start in Life

5: The Six Blue Rings

6: As Cheap as Water

7: The Agent of Kings

CAPTAIN HEX

8: Mr. Montague Flake Hands Over £8,000

9: The Outwitting of Mr. Theodore Match

10: The Foiling of Mr. Harry B. Kingberry

11: A Remarkable Deal in Pearls

12: The Man Who Betrayed Himself

13: The Secret of the Hidden Vault

14: How Mr. Milson Wren Was Outwitted

THE EARL OF NOWHERE

15: The King's Messenger

16: The Hold-Up

17: The Post-Office Clerk

18: The Edgware Road Crime

THE ELUSIVE DUD

19: The Professional Friend

20: The Rajah's Emerald

21: The Shy Mr Barks

22: A Deal in Ecfonteins

23: The Haunted House

24: The Pear-Shaped Diamond

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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.

He also wrote a number of series which had too few stories to make up a collection in book form, and which therefore were never put between covers in print. They remained inside magazines and newspapers, sometimes long-defunct, until recently disinterred by diligent Edgar Wallace researchers. This volume contains five of those uncollected short series.

The first two stories of the "Captain Hex" series were rewritten for the collection "The Brigand", (1927).

The e-texts are from Roy Glashan's Library, an Australian public domain free e-book provider. The series cover design is my own.

____________________

THE STRANGE LAPSES OF LARRY LOMAN

1: The Crime Trust

The Grand Magazine, September 1917

SIR GEORGE GRAYBORN leaned back in his chair and looked from the young man who sat at the other side of his desk to the notes on pulse, respiration, reflexes, et cetera, he had scribbled on his pad.

"Well?" Larry Loman's tone was a little truculent.

"My dear sir," said Sir George slowly, "yours is a very peculiar case, and I hardly know what to advise you."

"Do you think I am going mad?" asked the young man with a certain cheerfulness.

He took a gold cigarette case from his pocket and carefully extracted and lit a cigarette.

"I suppose I shan't horrify your subsequent patients?"

Sir George smiled.

"No, you won't horrify them, and you can't horrify me. I recognize in you a unique specimen of the human race apart from being a very interesting case, and I am grateful to the circumstances which brought you here at all."

"It was rather a fluke," laughed Larry, "Everybody knows— that is to say, everybody who is interested in me— that my memory has been going all wrong, and, knowing this, some unknown friend had sent me a copy of your work on 'Mnemotechny.'"

The physician inclined his head.

"I had heard of you, of course," he said politely. "In our profession one is obliged to keep in-touch with current happenings."

"Honestly, Sir George," interrupted the young man, growing serious of a sudden, "is there anything radically wrong with me?"

The physician nodded.

"Yes and no," he said. "I gather that somewhere in your wanderings you have struck a very bad malaria patch."

"That is right," nodded the other; "up in the Aruwimi country, four years ago. I contracted there all kinds of' fever. Is there any symptom of malaria?"

"No," said the other carefully, "not especially, but your mental condition is one which frequently follows either a bad fever or a bad bout of nerves."

"You can cut out all the nerve theories," said the young man with decision, "and put it down to fever. The only thing I am worried about is this." He leaned over the table and emphasized each point by tapping a little tattoo upon the immaculate blotting pad of the consultant. "I am up to my eyes in work— serious and dangerous work. I want all my wits about me because I have a tricky crowd to deal with. Now, if I am not responsible for my actions—"

"Believe me," said Sir George, "you will always be responsible for your actions. The only thing is— you will not remember everything you do. You are suffering from periodic amnesia, which does not seem to be merely an instance of amnesic aphasia. You will find from time to time whole periods, probably for four or five hours, of your day wiped out of your recollection."

"You mean to say that I shall wake up one fine morning and forget what happened the previous evening?"

Sir George nodded.

"And more than that. You may go out one day and retain a perfect recollection of what you do until, say, twelve o'clock. You will be able to recall vividly everything that happened from four o'clock onward, but the period between twelve and four, or whatever time the attack occupies, will be an absolute blank. It may last for four, five, or six hours. It may even last a day. You will be perfectly rational— just as rational as you are now— but whatever the period is will be blotted entirely from your recollection."

He rose, walked to his bookcase, and took down a small skull, and, placing it upon the writing table, picked up a pencil and traced an irregular patch upon the whitened bones.

"Behind here," he said, "is what is known as 'Brochia's Convolution,' that department of the brain which has to deal with memory. A portion of that convolution in your head is diseased."

"That sounds rather alarming," said the young man, with a frown.

"It is not quite so alarming as it sounds, because it need not be a chronic disease, and it is quite possible, by a course of treatment, to restore yourself to a normal state. See me after every bad lapse. You ought, of course, to take a holiday."

"That is impossible," said the young man, shaking his head; "wholly impossible! If you assure me that I shan't make a fool of myself during the period of lapse—"

"I can only assure you that you will be normal," said the professor, "and if you are liable to make a fool of yourself in normal moments you will certainly be just as foolish. It will only be in your recollection of happenings that you will fail— especially of those happenings which begin with some event of an exciting character. You probably experience a curious, buzzing noise in your ears, and that is about your last recollection before your mind goes blank? I thought so. I suggest that you should carry with you a small notebook, and acquire the habit of jotting down from hour to hour a little diary of impressions, engagements, et cetera."

Larry shook his head as he rose to go.

"That also is impossible," he said. "I dare not keep written records— especially of this case."

"I will not be so indiscreet as to inquire what the 'case' is," said Sir George with a little smile as he led the way to the door.

"That's the dickens of it!" said Larry ruefully. "Not that it is a secret," he added quickly. "Even Harley Street has heard of 'The Trust.'"

The physician raised his eyebrows.

"Surely you aren't a believer in the existence of a romantic robber band?" he said. "I thought it was a newspaper fabrication. They seem to credit every crime, where the perpetrator is not brought to justice, to that organization."

"I not only 'believe,'" said the other emphatically, "but I know, and unfortunately I am the only man who has all the strings of the counter-work in my hand. I told you I could not keep records, and I will explain why. How many times do you think my bureau has been burgled? Six times in four months! Every document I have has been read and reread. Even the record office of the department has not escaped attention. I tell you, The Trust is a very real organization which has bought up the services of every professional criminal in England. Look at the crime tables in the commissioner's annual report. A fifty-percent decrease of serious burglaries in point of numbers, an eight- percent decrease of ladder larcenies, a ninety-per-cent decrease in big-gang forgeries. Why? Because the report only shows convictions, and those men are no longer caught. They are in the service of The Trust. They get more money than they ever made before. The job is made safer, and if they are caught they don't have to make a collection among their friends to secure a third-rate lawyer; they have the best legal advice that money can buy. Goddard, the burglar, was defended by an ex-attorney general at the Winchester Assizes the other day, and the fees must have run into a thousand pounds! If they are sent to prison, their wives are in receipt of a handsome separation allowance. Do you wonder that The Trust is recruiting the best men in the business? We are fighting the combine, and we ought to beat it— if my infernal memory had not started playing tricks!"

He threw out his hands in a gesture of despair.

"It is tragic; I am on the very edge of discovery! In a month I should drive a wedge into the gang as would split it from top to bottom— and I'll do it yet!"

"Yours is the kind of case that the unspeakable Stinie is always touting for," said Sir George, and, seeing that his words conveyed no meaning to the visitor, he went on: "Stinie is a doctor of sorts; I have had no opportunity of testing his ability. He holds a foreign degree which is not accepted here, but I must say, qualified or not, he is running one of the best nursing homes in London and he professes to make a specialty of cases like yours."

There was a discreet knock at the door, and Sir George's butler entered with a card on a tray. The specialist took up the card and adjusted his pince-nez. His eyebrows went up, and he uttered an exclamation of surprise.

"Talk of the devil—" he said. "Here is the very man! Would you like to see him?"

"Not professionally," said Larry hastily.

"I wonder what he wants? This is the first time he has come to me. Ask the gentleman in."

The butler departed, and returned in a few seconds, ushering in a stout man immaculately dressed. He had large dark eyes and stiff, upstanding hair and a mustache that gave evidence of consistent and careful training.

"Ah, Sir George, you will pardon me," he said, speaking with the slightest foreign accent, "I desire you to see one of my patients."

He bowed to Larry, who returned the salutation.

"It is not possible," said the newcomer with an exaggerated shrug, "that I should ask you for a consultation, since I am not recognize' in this country, but if you would be so kind and good to see a most unfortunate fellow with nerve, I should be happy."

All the time he was speaking to the physician his eyes were fixed upon Larry with a blank stare. Sir George hesitated and made what to Larry was an extremely lame excuse. Then followed an animated discussion on the one part, somewhat cold and unresponsive on the other. The little man now devoted the whole of his attention to the doctor, and pleaded, cajoled, smiled, was desolate, and did not remain still a single second.

"A persistent beggar," said Sir George after he had gone. "What do you think of him?"

"I have met the type before," said Larry carelessly. "Now I am afraid I must go."

He passed into the sunshine of Harley Street, a little disconcerted, but by no means alarmed. His car was waiting unattended, and he cranked it up, and Sir George, watching from the study window, saw him disappear in an evil-looking cloud of smoke.

Larry had a flat near Berkeley Square, and thither he drove, his mind occupied with the interview.

He brought his car to a standstill and jumped out.

"Has anybody called?" he asked the liveried porter.

"Yes, sir; a gentleman came about five minutes ago."

Larry nodded, and stepped into the elevator.

The man who sprawled in a big club chair in Larry's sitting room, sucking reflectively at the end of a rank cigar, was stout and unshaven. His dress was untidy, his thin hair unkempt, a faint discoloration under one eye suggested a recent injury, and the scarred and shiny knuckles of the hand— by no means cleanly— which removed the cigar stump, confirmed its owner's pugnacity.

"Ah, Croop," said Larry, walking across the room and throwing open the windows, "you're on time. Throw that cigar away and help yourself to something that smells less like a burning soap factory."

The man sat up with a grin, and, pitching the stump into the fireplace, fumbled in the box which his host offered.

"Now," said Larry, "what have you got to tell me? By the way, when did you come out of prison?"

"The last time? Months ago," said Mr. Croop proudly. "I'm straight now, Mr. Loman; got a job lookin' after a boxin' booth. There ain't much money in it, but, as I ses, 'honesty,' I ses, 'is the best policy.' I could make pots of stuff, Mr. Loman; I'm the kind of feller The Trust wants. Look at that!" He held out his grimy paw triumphantly.

"That's the 'and that drew the finest five-pun notes that was ever put on the market; ten years I got for it."

Larry nodded. He was perched on the window seat, and was eying his visitor with interest.

"You're the finest forger in the world," he admitted.

The gratified Mr. Croop purred. "Praise from Sir 'Erbert—"

"Hubert," corrected Larry. "That's all right, Croop. Now I want you to look at this."

He took a note from his wallet and passed it across to the man, who rose with a grunt from his seat and crossed to the window.

"Phony," he said. "Bank of Chilagua; very difficult to draw, owin' to the cross hatchin' under the number, but it's phony all right."

"Why are you so sure it's a forgery?"

Mr. Croop smiled.

"Wrong shade of green," he said. "I've got a wonderful eye for color, Mr. Loman."

"You're quite right," said the detective, replacing the note in his case. "Fortunately there are not as yet many in circulation. You said just now," he went on, "that you could join The Trust, and you suggested that they would welcome you."

"That's right, sir," said Mr. Croop. "I'd get all the money I wanted."

"Why don't you join?" asked Larry.

Mr. Croop smiled. "'Honesty,' as I've said before—"

"Cut all that out," said Larry briefly, "and listen to the story of your misspent life. You don't join because you daren't. You told me just now you had ten years for forgery. How long did you serve?"

The man hesitated.

"You served one," said Larry; "the other nine years were remitted for services rendered. In other words, you turned State's evidence and convicted a brother forger, a man named Goul, and the reason you don't join The Trust is because Goul is out and already a member of it."

As he was speaking the man's face had grown a dirty white, and he dropped his eyes sullenly to the floor.

"That is why, when you offered to give me some information about the forgeries, I sent for you," Larry went on. "What do you know?"

"I know it is Goul's work," said. Mr. Croop doggedly, "and I know Goul has been seen about town lookin' like a bookmaker who had found a mug. Now, Mr. Loman," he said with vigor, "I can bring you to the man who supplied the plates for Goul. What is it worth? It isn't only the plates; it's the place they were delivered," he added. "You might get the whole crowd."

"Don't you know where they went?"

The man shook his head.

"When can I meet your friend?"

"You can meet him to-day, sir."

Larry thought for a moment, then took up his hat.

"Come on!" he said.

He opened the drawer of his desk and took out a revolver, which he slipped into his hip pocket.

"And you'll want it, I think," said Mr. Croop profoundly.

They went down in the elevator together, and strolled out onto the sunny pavement before the block, while the hall porter telephoned to the garage for Larry's car.

"I can tell you a lot, sir," said Croop earnestly, "but you will have to get me out of the country. The Trust is working these forgeries, but that is only a little thing. Why, sir, do you know—"

Larry heard a noise like "klock!" and something hit the wall behind him.

"A pistol with a Maxim silencer," said Larry's brain automatically.

He looked round quickly, and in that second took in a view of the street. There was a nurse walking on the other side of the road. There were two furniture men standing before an open door, resting over a large settee, which they were evidently moving in. There was a closed motor car a little way along the street, a butcher's boy....

"Klock!"

The muffled report was followed by a thud.

"That's done me," said the voice of Croop faintly.

He lurched against Larry and slipped in a huddled heap on the ground, and Larry, looking down, knew that the man was dead. He knelt down by the side of the murdered man, tearing open his waistcoat, and his hand was on the man's heart when he felt a curious buzzing and knew that the period of lapse had begun.

"Anyway, I know what is happening," said Larry, "and I shall remember this."

He was sitting before his dressing table, his head in his hands. He was dimly conscious that something had happened and that he had been through a remarkable experience. He knew that it was night, because he could see the shadow which the electric light cast upon the table. And something had happened— something remarkable.

The period of lapse had passed, and he was remembering things— Croop's white face, the pistol shot. He raised his head slowly, and caught the reflection of his face in the mirror before him, then leaped up with a cry. He was dressed in a Pierrot costume, a big white ruff was about his neck, a close-fitting black skullcap was on his head, and his face was whitened save for two straight black lines that represented his eyebrows and the carmine red of his lips. He saw something else. His left hand was enclosed in a thin handcuff, and a gaping steel link told him that in some way he had broken loose from detention.

He ran to the bell and pressed it, and almost immediately the door opened and his servant came in with a large tray bearing some cold meat, a bottle of wine, bread, cheese, and salad. The man put down the tray with an imperturbable face.

"How long have I been in, Wilkes?" asked Larry steadily.

"Half an hour," said the man.

"Did I come like— this?"

"Yes, sir," said the man gravely.

"Did I come alone?"

"Yes, sir," said the man. "I paid the cabman."

"Did I tell you where I had been?" asked Larry carelessly.

"To a fancy-dress ball, sir," said the man.

"Is that so?" said Larry. "Thank you, Wilkes; that will do."

When the man had gone he locked the door and slipped off the costume. He was fully dressed underneath, save for his coat. From the bureau he took a bunch of keys and released himself from the handcuff. With the aid of a towel and some cold cream, he removed the grease paint from his face, washed, and returned to his bedroom. He gathered that he had come straight to his bedroom with that object. He felt in his pockets for some clew. In his waistcoat pocket he found a small cartridge shell, recently fired, evidently from a Browning pistol. He recalled everything up to the death of Croop. After that his mind was a blank.

The cartridge shell he had evidently picked up somewhere, and he guessed that it was from this shell that the fatal bullet had been fired. That was something to begin with. The rest of his pockets revealed nothing. He had no money. His wallet was gone, as also was his coat, and he smiled as he remembered Sir George's suggestion that he should keep notes. His jaw ached a little, as though he had had a blow.

"'Curiouser and curiouser,'" quoted Larry.

He examined the Pierrot dress, and found a little tab behind the neck with the name of a well-known theatrical costumier, and a number, and went to the telephone. He knew it was useless calling up the costume shop, which would be closed at this hour, but fortunately the costumier was found at his private address.

"A Pierrot's costume?" he replied. "Yes, I have sent out several in the past few days, and I lent half a dozen this morning to an amateur Pierrot troupe that was entertaining some sick people. There ought to be a number attached to it."

"One-five-six," said Larry.

"That's it," came the prompt answer. "It was issued this morning, and it stands for fifteenth of the sixth. We always date our costumes because we charge for hire according to the time they are kept. They were lent to a man named Weatherby, of 63 Elgin Square, Bayswater."

Larry waited long enough to eat a hasty supper and change before he was in the street again.

The name of Mr. Weatherby, of Elgin Square, did not appear in the telephone book, but in a quarter of an hour a taxicab deposited the young man before a very gloomy house which had been divided up into maisonettes. Mr. Weatherby had not come home, explained the servant who answered his ring. Would he see Mrs. Weatherby?

Larry went upstairs to the ornate little drawing-room and introduced himself to a stout, pleasant lady. She confessed that she was the veritable wife of Mr. Weatherby, and regretted that that gentleman was not at home to receive him, and requested information on the reason for the visit.

"I am expecting him at any minute now," she said. "You know, he is a member of an amateur Pierrot troupe, and he and some of his friends are giving an entertainment at a nursing home."

"Do you know where?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," said the lady frankly, "though he did tell me."

There was a tinkle of the bell.

"That's him!" said Mrs. Weatherby, and went down to meet her lord, returning with an unhappy-looking man who greeted Larry with a sad smile.

"You are the police, I suppose?" he said.

"I am something like that," said Larry cautiously.

Mr. Weatherby turned to his wife.

"You don't know what trouble I've had this evening," he said. "Have they got him?" he asked the young man.

"I don't know yet," replied Larry more cautiously than ever.

"What has happened?" asked Mrs. Weatherby in alarm.

Her husband chuckled, seated himself, pulled out his pipe, charged and lighted it before he replied.

"It is the rummest go I've ever known. I will tell you the whole story, and I suppose you will want the complete yarn from beginning to end?"

Larry nodded.

"Me and a few friends," began Mr. Weatherby, "occasionally give little entertainments to the hospitals and nursing homes, and we had arranged to give one this evening. When we got to the place— Doctor Stinie's nursing home— you have probably heard of it?"

"Yes, yes," said Larry eagerly.

"Well, when we got there they gave us a room to dress and change in, and all the patients who were up were brought into the big dining hall downstairs. They gave us a dinner to start with. While we were at dinner there was a great rumpus. It appears that a dangerous lunatic that they had in one of the rooms next to the one we were dressing in had made his escape. He was so dangerous," said Mr. Weatherby impressively, "that there were guards in the corridors downstairs to prevent his getting away. This fellow, being, like all lunatics, a bit cunning, had broken away from his strait-jacket or whatever fastened him down, had sneaked into our room, dressed himself up as a Pierrot, and passed the guard. They thought it was one of our chaps, and didn't attempt to stop him."

"Do you know how the lunatic got into the building?" asked Larry.

Mr. Weatherby smiled.

"It is curious you should ask that," he said. "I am a bit of a detective myself, to tell you the truth, and I inquired of one of the patients. The lunatic escaped from another home, according to Doctor Stinie, and was only lured to Stinie's place this afternoon by a pretty nurse whom he saw in the street and followed. They'd never have got him then only she led the way up to a ward. He followed her up, and, seeing nothing but, as he thought, sick men lying in the beds, he ventured into the room. The moment he did so the men in the beds, who were attendants, jumped up and got him. One of the patients saw the struggle through the door, and, according to him, the lunatic half killed one man."

In a flash Larry had remembered the innocent-looking nurse who had been on the other side of the road when Croop was killed. He must have crossed in search of some clew and have found the cartridge shell near where she had been standing and followed her.

"Thank you," he said.

He went to the nearest telephone office and rang for a treasury number. At a quarter to eleven that night Stinie's nursing home was surrounded, and Larry, armed with the authority of the law, entered the building to find, however, that both Doctor Stinie and his pretty nurse had disappeared half an hour before the arrival of the police.

In a locked room, soberly inscribed, "Electrical Generating Room. Strictly Private," Larry discovered two very beautiful printing presses and a number of half-finished notes. More important, he found a man lying on one of the beds suffering from a broken ankle and a badly contused face.

Him Larry recognized.

"Mr. Goul, I presume?" he said pleasantly. "I shall want you for felony. How did you get your injuries?"

"A nice question to come from you!" said Mr. Goul with indignation.

Larry shook his head.

"I wish I could remember all that happened," he said regretfully.

_____________________

2:  The Affair Of The Stokehole

The Grand Magazine, October 1917

LARRY LOMAN, of the Criminal Intelligence Department, was called to a conference at headquarters, and went with a certain sense of disappointment and irritation, though there was no reason for a display of either of those emotions, for both his chief and the secretary of state, responsible for his department, had nothing but encouragement for him.

"You are not going to smash the Crime Trust in a day," said the chief commissioner for special services.

"I suppose there is no doubt about there being a Crime Trust?" asked the minister dubiously. "It seems such an extremely melodramatic idea, the sort of thing one reads in sensational stories."

"It is a very good idea from the criminal's point of view," said the commissioner quietly; "he has no worry. He is well supported, whether he is in prison or out. He is always excellently defended, and if he is convicted his unknown employers will take his case to the court of criminal appeal— if there is the slightest chance of a sentence being reduced or a trial being quashed. The man who brought together all these expert criminals— and the trust has no use for any other— was a genius. Could anything be neater than to run a forging plant in a nursing home, where all the rooms except two or three were occupied by genuine patients, and all the staff except the principal and a few of his friends were genuine nurses and doctors? How are things shaping, Larry?"

Larry Loman, his elbows on the table, his face between his hands, shook his head.

"We have settled the forgeries," he said a little hopelessly, "but the other departments of the trust are in full swing, and very successfully so."

"For example—" said the chief commissioner.

"The kidnapping and holding to ransom of Lord Frethermore's heir."

"I wanted to see you about that," said the minister; "do you think it is the work of the trust?"

"I am certain of it," said Larry emphatically. "Look at the price they are asking— sixty thousand pounds! Nobody but the trust would dare do it. Nobody but the trust has the organization which would enable them to carry out a scheme of that importance."

"There is terrible trouble about the kidnapping," said the minister. "I have brought you here to take you off the trust and put you on to that."

Larry laughed. "You can safely retain me on the trust work," he said dryly. "All the bad crimes that will be committed in this country during the next twelve months will bear the indelible hall mark of that organization."

"You know the circumstances of the kidnapping?" asked the commissioner.

Larry nodded. "The boy was out with his nurse in Regents Park. The nurse found herself in conversation with a lady who suddenly turned faint and had to be assisted to one of the garden chairs. When the nurse looked round, the child had gone, and a motor car was seen driving off in the adjoining roadway. No number of the car seems to have been taken. By the time the nurse had found a policeman the fainting lady had also disappeared."

"Lord Frethermore is distracted," said the minister. "He has seen me twice this morning. He had a letter from the gang; here it is."

He passed the epistle across the table. It was typewritten on thick notepaper, and ran:

I am holding your son to ransom and am demanding three hundred thousand francs for his release. The money must be paid in thousand-franc notes and delivered to a messenger, who will be a perfectly innocent agent in the matter. The method of the boy's restoration will be sent to you if you advertise your agreement in the Times.

The Knight of Industry.

"The trust!" said Larry confidently. "They have used that signature before. From what I have heard, the gentleman who is at the head of the business attends his 'board meetings' in complete armor, with lowered visor."

"Theatrical nonsense!" growled the minister.

"It is neither theatrical nor nonsensical," said Larry calmly. "In the first place he is protected against a chance pistol shot from a traitor or a hidden policeman, and he is so completely disguised that neither his face nor his figure is observable. I will take this letter, if I may." He folded it up and put it in his pocket. "I have an appointment with my specialist."

"How is the memory trouble?"

Larry made a grimace. "I haven't had a recurrence for over a week."

"Who is your doctor?" asked the minister. "Grayborn? A clever fellow. A man who has won the first place in his profession by sheer industry. Ten years ago a struggling practitioner, up to his eyes in debt through an extravagant wife. To-day, I suppose, he is making more money than any other man in his profession. The fees he charges me are prodigious— prodigious!"

"You are not making Larry very happy," smiled the commissioner, but Larry was incapable of further depression that morning.

He was ushered into the consulting room, and the specialist, without delay, went through the formal examination which Sir George Grayborn always gave to his patients.

"I think you're all right," said the doctor. "You have had no further sudden lapses of memory?"

"None," said Larry.

"Avoid excitement. I know it is a foolish thing to ask you, but remember that any undue excitement will produce that extraordinary lapse and blot out hours of memory from your life. Amnesia is a queer disease."

"Don't I know it," said Larry ruefully. "It is a nightmare to me every time I realize that all the things that happen to me after four may be completely forgotten until I recover my memory at eight. I live in dread of that little buzz in the ear which tells that memory is 'ringing off.'"

"Where are you going this afternoon?" asked the physician suddenly.

"Nowhere in particular," said Larry after a moment's thought.

"A little social recreation would not do you any harm," said Sir George. "I am going to a garden party at Regent Gardens; it is on behalf of the 'Home for Factory Girls.' Will you join me there?"

Larry had made no plans for that afternoon, and it was a rule of his life that when he had no plans he was prepared to be guided by any fortuitous development that day might bring forth.

"I will join you," he said.

"The ticket will cost you a guinea, and I will put it on my bill, which, by the way, will not be heavy," he said, looking over his shoulder as he unlocked a little cupboard behind his desk.

"You are a thought reader among other things, Sir George."

The physician did not reply. He handed the gilt-edged pasteboard to his patient.

"I will meet you at half past four," he said, "near the band stand."

Dressing for the function, Larry came to the conclusion that he might have done worse than accept the invitation. If one of his extraordinary memory lapses came on, he would have the advantage of his doctor's society and the observation which Sir George might make, and, what was no less important, the data he might supply as to what Larry did while in the dubious enjoyment of one of his periodical fits of oblivion. He dressed himself with care, for Larry was something of a dandy and was one of the best-dressed men in town. From his varnished boots, with their white, well-fitting spats, to the top of his glossy silk hat he might have stood as a model for the beaus of the world. He seldom went abroad unarmed, and now, as a final touch to his toilet, he dropped a revolver into his hip pocket. The result did not please him, for the bulge of the weapon showed under the well-cut morning coat.

He took out the revolver, and replaced it with a little Browning, with no great improvement. He put the Browning on the table. It was against his best instincts to go out without some kind of weapon, and he pulled open drawer after drawer, and finally selected a short and what was more to the purpose, flat hunting knife in its sheath. In a rough-and-tumble it might be more useful even than firearms.

He drove to the gardens, and found, as he approached the entrance, such a block of taxicabs and private motor cars that he descended and walked the rest of the distance on foot. He crushed through the turnstiles, and was immediately pounced upon by a bevy of beautiful brigands with tickets for side shows and badges and flags and refreshment vouchers.

He parted meekly with his money, and as soon as he could make his way free of the crowd he wandered to the part of the garden which he knew would be unfrequented.

It was a glorious summer day. The hot June sun was tempered by a cooling breeze, and in the bosky sidewalks, with their high hedges of flowering shrubs, he found a certain restfulness and comfort. He passed a small telephone box placed there, as an inscription informed him, for the convenience of visitors, and he marveled at the foresight and intelligence which had induced the organizers to place this very necessary connecting link with the outside world in so quiet and retiring a spot. It would be useful when he wanted to call his car.

He strolled on slowly, for he knew the path would soon turn him back to the crush, and then suddenly he saw a girl ahead of him. She was dressed in white, and her back was turned toward him. She was evidently selling something, for she had a little tray before her. He debated the question as to whether he would return, but curiosity got the better of him. Here evidently was a kindred soul who also wished to get free from the madding throng. He was walking past her when she spoke.

"Won't you buy a little rose?" said a sweet voice.

He turned round and looked her in the face, and something buzzed in his ears and memory stopped.

He knew his memory was returning, yet the sensation was as though he was beginning life at its very commencement and that all existence must date from this moment. He felt a strong wind in his face, and he knew his hands were grasping something rough and hard.

Then he realized he was sitting on a stone ledge. He looked down, and, strong as were his nerves, he nearly swooned. Then he looked back into the black, yawning chasm behind him. How had he got here? In the name of Heaven, how had he got here?

He was sitting on the top of a high chimney stack, a hundred and fifty feet above the level of the ground. He was dressed in his shirt and his trousers. He wore neither collar nor coat. His varnished boots were split and scratched, his white spats were black. He looked at his hand. It was covered with soot, and he gathered that his face was in no better state.

He had recovered something of his presence of mind, something of the coolness which he knew he had displayed through all this lapse of hours, even though the sudden consciousness of his position had temporarily shaken his confidence and nerve. He crawled back to the black funnel of the stack and looked down. He had evidently come up that way, for inside the stack, as far as eye could see down, were iron rungs firmly fixed in the masonry.

At the worst, he could go down that way again, he thought, but even as this method of escape occurred to him a thick cloud of smoke billowed up from the depths. He crept round to the other side of the parapet, and what he found brought comfort. Apparently the chimney had at some period been under repair, and there was a scaffolding here and a ladder which ran at an alarming angle to join a further ladder, which, so far as he could see by lying flat on his face and looking ever the edge, continued to the foot of the stack. He shuddered at the thought of making the descent by this method, but, bracing himself up, he swung his legs over the platform, felt for the rungs of the ladder, and began his descent.

He was halfway down before it occurred to him that some of the sections of the ladder might not be in place. It evidently had been up for a considerable time, and one rung he touched was so rotten that his foot crashed through it. Fifty feet from the ground, he did indeed find that a short length had either fallen or been pulled from its place, but by letting himself slowly down till his feet touched the top of the next section, he was able, by grasping the staples which still remained in the brickwork, to make the rest of the descent in safety.

It was not until he had reached the ground that he realized that all the time he had been carrying the knife in his hand. He carefully examined the blade, but it afforded him no clew. Possibly a careful search of the buildings would assist him. He was evidently in the yard of a disused factory. Rusty old railway lines, overgrown by weeds, discarded machine parts in the same condition, and a general air of desolation pervaded the yard, which was enclosed by a high brick wall. He looked up at the chimney, which was now sending out thick smoke. Somebody must be here, he thought, and he moved cautiously. If only he could remember what had happened in the last few hours!

He heard the whir of a motor car, and, crouching down behind a slag heap, he saw a car carrying three people pass along the factory roadway and disappear behind some low buildings, which he judged were somewhere near the gate. In this supposition he was right, for a little while later he heard the clang of the gate as it closed.

He waited for five minutes, but there was no further sign of life. The smoke was thinning, and was now but a white, tenuous mist that floated from the top of the chimney. He had already identified the building by a heap of discarded tins bearing the label of the "Boscombe Enamel Company," a derelict firm that had been out of business for many years.

There were a number of sheds, all deserted, some of them padlocked and some windowless. He reached what was evidently the engine house without being challenged. The smoke must come from the stokehole, and to the stokehole he made his way. The fire doors were hot, and the big furnace was still filled with a red, glowing mass. He picked up an iron rake and poked about the inside, and presently pulled out a small metal bracket of a familiar shape. In its pristine days it had been part of a telephone transmitter. He raked again, and drew up pieces of red-hot wire and the metal part of a telephone receiver, and shook his head. They meant nothing to him.

Leading from the stokehole was a steel door, which he pushed and which yielded under his touch. He found himself in a small room with walls of whitewashed brick. It had been newly swept, and there was a table and chair which were free from dust.

"Somebody has been here in the last half hour," said Larry to himself, and stepped stealthily forward to the next door. He listened, for he thought he heard voices. He gently pressed the door, and it opened. Somebody was speaking within.

"I'll bet you'll be glad to see his nibs again, won't you?"

The reply was so faint that Larry could not hear it.

"Well," said the voice, "if you are a good boy they'll let you go to-morrow. An' if you ever see me in the street don't you recognize me, d'ye hear? Because, if you do, I'll cut your throat, d'ye see what I mean?"

Larry balanced his knife in his hand, pushed the door open, and walked into the room. A man in his shirt sleeves was confronting a small and tearful boy, who sat upon what was evidently his bed.

Larry's heart gave a thump, for he recognized in the child the heir of the Frethermores. The man did not hear Larry's entrance, but something in the boy's frightened look— for Larry in his coating of soot was a terrifying sight— made the man spin round. As he did the detective closed in on him and dropped the point of his knife against the lower button of the guard's waistcoat.

"Hands up!" said Larry. "And quick!"

The man's hands went up. He shot a sidelong glance at a table, and, following his eyes, Larry saw the revolver and sprang for it.

"I think you know me," said the young man. "I am Mr. Loman, of the criminal intelligence department, and I am going to take you into custody on a charge of kidnapping."

"It's a cop," said the man. "But don't be so certain you are going to get a conviction, old friend."

"Not so much of the 'old friend,'" said Larry.

"I have seen your prisoner," said the commissioner the next morning, "and he has undergone at the hands of two experienced police officers something approaching the immoral and reprehensible third degree of the U.S.A., which we so often condemn, but which is not without its uses. Would you like me to reconstruct your remarkable story?"

"I wish you would, sir," said Larry earnestly. "I have been puzzling my brains over the matter, and I cannot for the life of me recall one single instant between half past four in the afternoon and eight o'clock that same night."

"Then stand by for a little wholesome reconstruction," said the commissioner. "I thought it would be an easy matter, because I had taken the precaution of having you shadowed by one of the best men at Scotland Yard, but he was unable to tell me a great deal, and I have the most important part of the story from the fellow you took in the works. You were seen to go into the shrubbery at twenty-five minutes to five, and you were followed at a respectful distance by the officer. You were seen to speak to a lady selling flowers, to pass your hand across your forehead, as though you were a little stunned, and then something seemed to occur to you; probably you recognized the girl, and you came striding back the way you had come and met Sergeant Jackson, whom you dispatched with orders to find Sir George Grayborn at the band stand. Evidently you were aware that the phase of forgetfulness was closing in upon you. You then turned back, and the sergeant, over his shoulder, saw you go into the telephone box. Why you went there is conjectural. I suggest that you intended to telephone for your car."

Larry nodded. He remembered that he had had that intention.

"The rest of the story is told by our prisoner as far as he witnessed it, or was able to learn the particulars from those who participated. You had no sooner entered the telephone box than two men sprang from the shrubbery and slammed the door, shutting you in. You will probably remember, if you saw it in the course of your wanderings, that it was without windows and that the interior was specially padded to make it soundproof."

"I noticed that," said Larry, "as I passed the box the first time."

"The moment the door closed on you you were helpless. The other men who were waiting in the shrubbery came out, lifted the box on their shoulders, and you were passed out of the gate, placed on a waiting motor lorry, and driven off. It was a very neat trick, and possibly, even if you had not gone in of your own accord, you would have been lured to that part of the garden and induced to enter the box.

"I suggest that finding yourself stifling, you remembered your knife and cut through the padding and the thin wood, and, having secured air vents, you awaited developments. You were taken to the old factory, my young friend, and this is where our kidnapping prisoner offers firsthand testimony.

"At a quarter past six in the afternoon the lorry came in, and the box was carried into the stokehole, which was already filled with an assortment of shavings, wood, and coal, and you and your box were thrust in. You must have realized your awful predicament and have set to work desperately to cut your way out. To escape through the steel door of the furnace was impossible, and I suggest that you squeezed your way along the little tunnel which leads to the chimney shaft, and that, minus your coat and hat and all unnecessary impedimenta, you climbed the interior of the stack and would probably have made a good descent, in fact, the same descent that you did make, even had you not recovered consciousness of the immediate past. I have had the works raided, and there is no doubt that this place has been hired and fitted up with the object of carrying out an extensive scheme of kidnapping. Frethermore's child says that he had been there and treated kindly since the day he was whisked off."

"The whole theory fits together," said Larry, "and I have no doubt that you are right."

"I am certain I am right," said the commissioner quietly. "I myself have been in the stokehole and have rescued—"

He rose and went to a cupboard, opened it, and took out a battered and shapeless object.

"Your stovepipe hat, Larry—"

Larry looked at the relic and laughed. "Also there were the marks of your toes against the soot in the interior of the stack, bits of the lock of the telephone box, and several other et ceteras."

Larry was thinking hard.

"The girl who sold roses," he said suddenly; "it was she."

"What?" demanded the commissioner.

"Something about her face. Something that reminded me of—"

The commissioner nodded.

"Yes, she was in it," he said quietly. "Our prisoner said she came back to the factory and went on her knees to the rascal in charge of the cremation and begged him to spare you."

"I think when I meet her," said Larry,—"and I know I have met her— the Crime Trust will be very nearly on its last legs."

_______________________

3: The Cure

The Grand Magazine, November 1917

THE FIRM NAME of Lewis Plink & Gothmeyar is not unknown in the city of London. There are parts of Brazil and the Argentine where it is a household word, and the palatial offices of the firm in Commissioner Street, Johannesburg, automatically testify to the consideration in which this great financial house is held.

Mr. Lewis Plink will best be remembered as the gentleman who presented Wesbury Cathedral with a service of gold plate far exceeding in value the ratable property of the city of Wesbury, and also as the owner of the steam yacht Hermada, which was faster than the fastest destroyer of the period and was furnished with a luxury beside which the furnishing of a millionaire's suite on an Atlantic liner was a Bloomsbury drawing-room.

Mr. Plink had many interests and his businesses many ramifications, which is natural, since it is not only impossible for a billionaire to keep all his eggs in one basket, but to confine his storage to baskets at all.

On the night of the thirtieth of June, a police constable of "C" division, who was making his round of Oxford Street, Covent Garden, discovered a door leading to the business premises occupied by John Wallington, Limited, printers, had been forced, and that, in the language of the police, an entrance had been effected. Summoning a comrade, he proceeded to make investigations. The door gave onto a little yard, a ladder was against a small building used as an ink store, a skylight had been forced, and through this one of the diligent officers of the law lowered himself, while his friend kept watch outside.

Thanks to the intelligent employment of rubber soles by the officers of "C" division, the policeman was able to surprise a wholly unauthorized visitor in the act of rummaging the manager's desk, and after a short struggle he was secured and conveyed to Vine Street police station.

It happened that Larry Loman, of the criminal intelligence department, was in the station when the prisoner arrived, discussing with the inspector one of the minor crimes which had been obviously committed by that extraordinary corporation which was subsequently known to the newspapers as the Crime Trust.

The conversation was suspended while the prisoner was pushed into the steel dock and the usual interrogation took place.

"Name?"

A little hesitation, then: "Brown— Thomas Brown."

"Age?"

"Thirty-three."

"Occupation?"

"Laborer."

"Where do you live?"

Again hesitation; then defiantly: "The Fritz Hotel."

"None of your nonsense," said the station sergeant. "Where do you live?"

"Rowton House, Kings Cross."

One of the divisional C. I. D. men had strolled in, and the prisoner caught his eye.

"Hello, Terence!" said the detective.

"You've made an error," replied the prisoner haughtily.

"His name is Terence Brien," explained the detective; "he is an old lag. He had five years for burglary at the Chelmsford Assizes in 1904. What have you been up to, Terence— the old game?"

"Never mind about the old game," growled the prisoner, and then, with an air of triumph: "You are not going to have it so easy this time, Mr. Busy; I shall have the best counsel that money can buy. I've got friends, I have."

Larry came forward, for now he was the most interested member of the audience.

"Would you like us to communicate with your friends?" he asked.

The man looked at him suspiciously.

"No, thank you, Mr. Loman," he grinned. "I know you, sir. You are not going to get any information out of me."

"You are working for the trust," said Larry. "Tell me why you went to Wallington's."

"Find out," said the man defiantly.

That Larry intended doing, and after the man had been removed to a cell he went back to the robbed office. The policeman had evidently disturbed the man before he had got very far with his work. Only a few packages of paper had been taken from the desk, and these were mainly invoices awaiting dispatch and correspondence of the previous day between the firm and its customers which had not yet been filed.

Pending the arrival of a representative of the firm, Larry took the liberty of examining the contents of the desk. One thing that had struck him from the first was the care with which the desk had been opened, and probably this had accounted for the length of time the man had taken, because he had obviously had the greater part of an hour. This fact was discovered by inquiries of a caretaker who lived opposite the works and who thought he had seen the flash of an electric lamp an hour before the burglary was discovered.

The drawer of the desk had not been forced, but it had been picked with great care. The documents taken from the drawer had not been scattered, but had been carefully placed on the top of the desk, and evidently the man had instructions to replace all that he had removed in as near as possible the same position and order as they had been when he found them. The very last package Larry removed from the desk was a registered envelope, the wax seal of which had been broken, probably by the official of the firm on the previous day. It contained a typewritten list of names and addresses running to many pages, and each sheet had been typed upon the letter-heading of Lewis Plink & Gothmeyar. It was four o'clock before a representative of the burgled firm arrived.

"Yes," he said, "that list came yesterday from Mr. Plink. We do all his private printing, and we are sending out cards of invitation for his daughter's marriage."

"Do you send out the cards?"

The representative nodded.

"The lists come direct to us. We print a separate card for each guest; that is to say, we alter the name with every impression. This is a practice of Mr. Plink when he is giving a particularly important party."

The object of the burglary was very clear to Larry. It was to obtain that list of names, and it had been committed by the order of the trust. Why was the list required? He knew Lewis Plink by reputation as an immensely wealthy man, and he remembered reading in a newspaper that the wedding presents had been valued at a fabulous sum, the present from the father of the bride taking some unusual shape. What it was he could not remember except that it was something bizarre and uncommon.

A search through the file of his papers revealed both the object of the burglary and the larger objective of the trust. Mr. Plink was a man of original views, and if they lacked something in taste they made up for the deficiency in tangible value. The bride, who was dowered with her weight in gold, had evidently fired the great financier's imagination, and Miss Louisa Plink was to receive as a wedding present her weight in treasury notes.

Larry opened a safe in which he kept a supply of ready money, took his letter scales, and weighed an ounce. He discovered that it took thirty-two treasury notes to turn the balance. If Miss Plink was an ordinarily healthy girl, she would weigh one hundred twenty-six pounds— that was one thousand and eight ounces— so that he dowry would amount to something like one hundred and sixty thousand pounds or eight hundred thousand dollars, which, in negotiable money, was a prize well worth securing. He looked at his watch. It was nearly seven o'clock, and he realized that he had had no sleep that night. He snatched three hours' rest; then, after a bath and a change, he made his way to the city office of Plink & Gothmeyar. Mr. Plink was a jovial little man, very bald, and very human.

Larry, who had been ushered in almost immediately, was waved to a seat and pressed to a cigar almost in one motion.

"Yes, it is perfectly true," said Mr. Plink, with his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat; "the money is at Cateby Court at this minute. It is being looked after with the other presents, and I do not think you need have any fear. I have two private detectives there day and night."

"Have you added to the list of your guests?" asked Larry.

Mr. Plink nodded.

"I sent along one new name this morning— Miss Cuthbert."

"A friend of yours?"

Mr. Plink hesitated.

"Well, not exactly a friend, but the friend of a friend," he said. "I am not at liberty to talk about her, but I can only tell you that the lady is of unimpeachable character, who has been known to my friend— whose name I am not for the moment permitted to give— for many years."

"That seems all right," said Larry after a pause. "And now I want you to add another to your list."

"You mean yourself?"

Larry nodded.

"With all the pleasure in life," said Mr. Plink, and pressed his bell. "The wedding is to-morrow afternoon at two o'clock, and the dinner is at seven. I shall expect you, Mr."— he looked at the card again—"Mr. Loman."

It was Larry's day for consulting his doctor, he remembered with a little grimace as he came into the street. He had grown to like Sir George Grayborn, and his gesture of repugnance was less dictated by an objection to the eminent nerve specialist than an indication of his resentment that he had to consult a doctor at all. He secretly hoped that Sir George would be out, but the great man, as it happened, was spending the afternoon at home, an unusual circumstance.

"I am glad you came in; I was getting bored," said Sir George, smiling pleasantly and rising to shake hands with his visitor. "Well, how is your amnesia?"

"I have not had an attack for over a week," said Larry cheerfully, and the elder man nodded.

"There will come a time when these curious lapses of yours will pass away forever," he said. "Yours is a very interesting case, about the third that I have met with in my professional career. I have, of course, had any number of patients who have lost their memory, but your peculiar disease is rather unusual." He was sitting at his table, fingering a pencil. "Your case is this— that at awkward hours of the day, without any warning save a faint buzzing sensation in your head, your memory fails. For three or four hours you are totally incapable of remembering anything which happened before the lapse began, though you are guided by a subconscious knowledge of previous happenings. At the end of your four hours you recover your memory, but now you cannot remember what happened during the period of lapse. That, I think, is your case."

Larry nodded.

"A very awkward and disagreeable complaint," smiled Sir George, "but we will pull you through." He reached out a hand and gripped the other's wrist, looking at his watch the while. "Pulse normal," he turned Larry's face to the window, "pupils react to light. Hold out your hand." Larry obeyed. "No tremors. Close your eyes. No swaying."

He applied one or two other tests, all of which were apparently satisfactory.

"You have no organic disease at all. Beyond this strange loss of memory, which is inconvenient without being dangerous, you are in perfect health. Now, tell me, what are you going to do for the next two or three days?"

Larry explained the engagement he had just made. The old man lifted his eyebrows.

"So you are going to sit in the shadow of Midas, too," he said.

"Are you going?" asked Larry in surprise.

"I attend Mr. Plink in a professional capacity," said the other dryly, "but a man more innocent of nerve I have never met. These functions amuse me. I shall probably see you there. I am glad I am going," he added after a moment's thought. "I am rather keen on seeing you while this fit of lost memory is on you. I nearly saw you the other day, and I have been vexed that I missed the opportunity."

Larry saw him the next afternoon on the platform of Charing Cross, which was thronged with Mr. Plink's guests. The millionaire had hired a special train to carry his friends to Chislehurst, and Larry and the doctor traveled down together.

"By the way, who are those young gentlemen?" asked the doctor just before the train drew out, indicating two silk-hatted young men who were strolling along the platform in laughing conversation, swinging their canes carelessly. "I know most of the people here, but I cannot place these."

"And I am afraid I cannot enlighten you," said Larry. He might have substituted "won't" for "can't", but in all matters affecting the service he was a most reticent man, and the two immaculate youths who were strolling aimlessly from carriage to carriage in search of a seat were men of his own department.

The train was met at Chislehurst by a fleet of motor cars, and the guests were whisked off to Mr. Plink's magnificent home. Larry and the professor traveled together in the same car.

"He is not a bad little fellow," said Sir Gorge. "I have known him for a number of years, and, in fact, I have been a sort of confidential adviser to the family. He is hopelessly rich, which is against him, and he has sufficient sense not to interfere with his really delightful chateau, which was built by the Duc de Lieven, who accompanied Napoleon III. into exile."

It was, indeed, a beautiful house, and if the interior was a little more ornate than the delicate lines of the architect had led the visitor to expect, that was pardonable.

Larry immediately sought an interview with Mr. Plink, and found him in his big study. To Larry's surprise, he discovered Sir George already on the spot ensconced in a deep armchair, smoking a reflective cigarette. He looked up with an amused smile as Larry entered.

"You know my friend, Sir George Grayborn," said Mr. Plink, indicating the other with a wave of his hand.

Larry nodded.

"I have no secrets from Sir George."

"Nor have I, unfortunately," smiled Larry.

"We have been friends for ten years," said Mr. Plink. "He attended my poor wife— help yourself to a cigar— you weren't so prosperous in those days, Sir George."

"Prosperity is a relative term," said the specialist. "I was perhaps happier then than I am now."

"Naturally, naturally," said the sympathetic Mr. Plink, "'it is rather curious, now that I come to think of it," he went on reflectively; "the first time I met you we had the very same accident, which we are trying to avoid now."

He looked up with a broad grin at the young police officer.

"Do you mean a robbery?" said Larry quickly.

Mr. Plink nodded.

"I lost the finest pearl necklace that has ever been seen in this country," he said with a certain amount of satisfaction— for it was a pleasure to Mr. Plink to be magnificent even in his losses. "It was taken from this study," he went on, "worth one hundred and fifty thousand pounds; disappeared in the twinkling of an eye. Do you remember, Sir George?"

Sir George nodded. "Now you mention the matter, I do remember."

"How did it occur?" asked Larry. "I don't remember hearing anything about it."

Mr. Plink shook his head.

"It was probably before your time, and it was a very simple matter. Somebody just opened the safe, took the pearls, relocked the safe— and there you are!"

"Is this the safe?" asked Larry curiously, and walked up to a massive steel structure in the corner of the room.

"You bet your life it isn't!" said Mr. Plink decisively. "I've had that safe changed. Do you remember, Sir George," he asked, "I changed it on your recommendation? There is not another like it in Europe."

He went to the door, rapidly twisted the combination, turned the handle, and the great steel door swung open.

Larry looked inside. There was nothing inside save a strong canvas sack, which was sewn at the top and bore a label in one corner.

"You can guess what this is," beamed Mr. Plink. "It is my present to my daughter. I am not showing it with the other wedding presents. I am taking no risks."

"Are you guarding the safe?"

"Night and day," replied Mr. Plink. "Did you see a man watching outside when you came in? Well, when we go out he will come back."

"An interesting safe," said Sir George.

He got up from his chair, walked to the big deposit, and twiddled the handle under the amused eyes of the millionaire.

"Nobody but myself knows the combination word," he smiled; "no other person in the world can open it."

They talked a little while before Larry made his adieux. He went back to the grounds, where the guests were promenading, and rejoined them. Here he was introduced to a very healthy and substantial Miss Plink, thoroughly enjoying all the attention she attracted and wholly self-possessed.

Larry did not attend the ceremony an hour later. He made a brief examination of the house and grounds. He found the detective on duty before the safe and two more in charge of the wedding presents, which had been displayed in the morning room, and saw nothing to arouse his suspicion.

It was an hilarious wedding breakfast. Everybody was in the best of spirits, only Larry, conscious that trouble of some kind was brewing, was anxious, alert, and observant.

"You are very thoughtful, Mr. Loman," chided his partner. "I believe you are nervous."

He smiled at the girl at his side a little ruefully.

"You are nearer the truth than you imagine, Lady Valentine," he said. "I am generally nervous when I cannot see everybody at the table. I wish Mr. Plink had been a little less magnificent in the way of table decorations."

He pointed to an elaborate silver center piece smothered with fruit and flowers, and Lady Valentine Curtenleigh beckoned a waiter.

"Oh, please don't!" protested Larry.

"Mr. Plink and I are old friends," she laughed. "You see, father and Mr. Plink are partners." She made a little grimace. "We dukes must live, you know, Mr. Loman— there!"

The center piece was with difficulty removed.

"Now I hope you will be less distrait," she went on. "If I had only known— Why, what are you frowning at?"

Larry's frown was one of perplexity. Sitting opposite to him was a girl with a pale, clear skin and deep, thoughtful eyes.

"Who is that?" he whispered.

"That?" echoed his companion. "I was told her name, but I have forgotten. Oh, I have it— Miss Cuthbert! She is a friend of Sir George Grayborn's."

Where had he seen her before? That they had met he knew, but where? Suddenly the girl caught his eyes, and her face went a little whiter. She stared for a second, then turned her head away abruptly. Who was she? Where had he seen her before? He puzzled his brain to supply an answer, and hardly noticed that Mr. Plink had begun his speech.

"Now I want to ask a few friends to accompany me, my daughter, and her husband to my holy of holies," said the jovial voice of Mr. Plink, "to present a little present which is perhaps— er— er— unique in the history of wedding presents."

There was a little gust of laughter, a rattling of knife handles, a dozen fresh young voices raised in laughing protest, demands from familiar friends that the presentation should be public and that "Leah's" weight should be made known, and then the little party made the best of their way from the room.

Mr. Plink, his new son-in-law, his daughter, Sir George Grayborn, and Larry were the five who assembled in the study.

The detective was an interested spectator on the fringe of the group.

Mr. Plink twisted the combination and swung open the safe.

"Good God!" he gasped, for the safe was empty.

The detective swore that he had not left the room and that no person had entered since Mr. Plink and his guest had gone out.

"It is impossible that the safe could have been tampered with," said the troubled Mr. Plink; "it is fitted on a solid concrete foundation, and, as you see, it is possible to get round it."

Larry had made a most careful examination of the exterior. There were no signs of jimmy or blowpipe, no indication at all that the safe had been forced. He examined the interior, and found nothing that gave the slightest clew. The detective in charge was a well-known sergeant of the C.I.D., who had been in the service for twenty years, whose word could be relied upon and who was absolutely trustworthy.

"I can't understand it," said Larry.

He paced the garden, the professor at his side.

"What have you done?" asked Sir George.

"I have wired to London naturally, and the commissioner is coming down. Who is that lady?" he asked, suddenly catching sight of an isolated figure ahead.

"You mean Miss Cuthbert?" said Sir George. "She is an old friend of mine. I knew her father."

"Will you introduce me?" asked Larry.

Sir George hesitated, but only for a moment, and he walked toward the girl, spoke to her, and returned by her side.

"I have an idea I met you somewhere. By Jove! Wasn't it in the Botanical Gardens? You were selling roses."

She did not smile. Her eyes were fixed upon his.

"I remember, too," she said simply.

"Now that is very curious. I—" He suddenly put his hand to his head.

Sir George was eying him keenly.

"What is the matter?" he asked.

"I'm afraid this infernal attack, of mine is coming on," said Larry.

"Do you hear the noise in your head?"

Larry nodded.

The three stood without movement, save that once or twice Larry passed his hand wearily across his eyes.

"How are you?" asked Sir George after a while.

"I am all right, I think," said Larry cheerfully.

The physician took from his pocket a tortoise-shell penknife.

"Do you see this?"

"I see it very well," said Larry.

Sir George replaced the knife in his pocket.

"What did I show you just now?"

A look of bewilderment came into Larry's face.

"You didn't show me anything."

"Didn't I show you a penknife?"

"You didn't show me anything," said Larry in surprise.

The physician took his arm and signaled to the girl, and they walked toward a small plantation which stood in one corner of the ground.

"Sit down," said Sir George, and Larry obeyed. "I am going to tell you something which will interest you," he said slowly. "It gives me a remarkable sense of satisfaction to tell you this, because I know that everything I say will be forgotten three seconds after I have spoken. You may, in your present condition, be capable of continuous action, but you are wholly incapable of recalling words or impressions."

He waited a few minutes.

"What did I just tell you?" he asked.

"I'm blessed if I know," replied Larry. "Did you speak to me?"

The professor nodded to the girl, who was watching the detective with anxiety and fear.

"You are looking for the head of a great criminal organization," said Sir George. "It will interest you to know that I am that head." Again he paused. "Do you remember what I said?"

Larry shook his head.

"I heard you say nothing," he replied.

"Good!" smiled Sir George. "It will also interest you to learn that, although I am an excellent physician, the world refused to recognize my qualities until I had stolen sufficient money to establish myself as a great specialist; now it also recognizes me as a great organizer of crime. How do you imagine for the first three years of my struggle, laden down with debt, without friends, I managed to keep up my Harley Street house?"

"Father, be careful!" cried the girl in terror.

Sir George smiled again.

"He remembers nothing, my dear, and he will remember less," he added significantly, and his thin lips were hard.

"Father, you told me you would not—"

"My life depends upon ridding myself of this man," said Sir George. "Do you know what it means to me if I am detected?"

"Do nothing desperate," she pleaded.

"Perhaps you are right," he said softly. "We shall have our reward, dear; I have already booked our passage for Buenos Aires. I have done with the organization after this."

He turned again to Larry, who still sat cross-legged on the grass.

"You wonder how this last thing was done. I will tell you, and it will be amusing to watch you struggling after clews in three or four hours' time when you recover your power of sequent thought. The safe, as our friend Plink tells you, was supplied at my suggestion about a year after I began my criminal career. It was made by an American criminal who died in this country and whom I attended. It was placed in Plink's house by my own workmen, and for nine years I have been watching for a chance of a coup. Plink thinks that it has a solid steel and concrete foundation, but you would discover that the steel foundation, at any rate, is literally a hollow sham. If you turn the combination handle six times to the left, the floor of the safe turns, and all that is on the floor is precipitated to a little chamber immediately beneath. The bag of notes is still in the safe. One month every year I spend a vacation at this place while Plink is abroad. There will be no difficulty in recovering those notes. And now," said the professor, looking at his watch, "I must take you back."

Larry rose from the grass, dusted himself carefully, and obediently followed the professor from the wood.

At five-thirty that evening the commissioner arrived and interviewed Larry. He found that young officer, his head in his hands, in Mr. Plink's study, and with him was Sir George Grayborn.

"I am afraid our young friend has had one of those wretched lapses," said Sir George to the commissioner.

"When did this happen?" asked the latter. "After or before the robbery?"

"After," said Sir George. "In fact, I was with him when it occurred and have practically been with him ever since."

"Are you feeling better now, Larry?" asked the commissioner kindly.

"Oh, I'm feeling very fit," said Larry. "Will you excuse me?"

With a little nod, he walked out of the room.

The commissioner shook his head as he looked after him.

"Will he never be cured?"

"Oh, yes," replied the professor. "One of these days he will have the buzzing in his head and no more."

"You mean that it will not be followed by this extraordinary lapse of memory?"

"Just so," said Sir George, and then, as if a thought struck him, he walked to the door, threw it open, and called: "Loman!"

Larry was at the other end of the passage, and turned at the sound of his name.

"Tell my daughter I want her, will you?"

"Your daughter?" said Mr. Plink in surprise.

"Right!" cried the voice of Larry.

"Your daughter?" said Mr. Plink again.

"Yes," said Sir George quietly.

He paced the room, his head on his breast, his hands thrust deep into his trousers pockets, but offered no further explanation.

There was a tap at the door, and "Miss Cuthbert" came in.

"Do you want me, Sir George?" she asked.

"Just one moment, dear."

He drew her into a window recess.

"Take this," he said in a low voice. He handed her a bulky pocketbook. "You will find a car waiting at the end of the drive; I had it here in case of trouble. Tell Jackson to go straight to Dover. You will be in time to catch the Continental boat. If you don't hear from me, make your way to Switzerland; your passport is inside. Stay at the villa until I come. Whether it is for weeks or years, you must wait."

"Father!" she faltered.

"Do as I tell you. There is enough money there to last you for a year but you have authority to draw on my account in the Bank of Geneva for all the money you require." He stooped and kissed her lightly on the forehead "Go!" he ordered.

She hesitated a moment, and walked quickly from the room. She was descending the broad steps which led from the terrace to the grounds when she passed Larry. He favored her with a little nod and a queer, half-pitying smile.

"I shall want to see you in about half an hour, Miss Cuthbert," he said, "if you would be so kind as to come to the study."

She made no reply, and Larry walked thoughtfully into the house.

Sir George was expecting him, and had braced himself for the interview.

"You know why I have come, Sir George," said Larry quietly.

"I think I can guess," said the other.

"I am going to take you into custody on a charge of felony."

The commissioner stared from one to the other.

"What does it mean?"

"It means," said Sir George, "that I have made one great mistake and that your assistant is a very excellent actor. I think I am right in saying that for once the 'buzz' came, but you did not lose your memory."

"How did you know?" asked Larry quickly.

"You remembered that Miss Cuthbert was my daughter," said the head of the Criminal Trust and put out his wrists for the handcuffs.

"It was a clever move," said the commissioner. "Although it was fairly easy for a man who maintained a system of espionage to discover you had this wretched disease— from what I gather you are now cured— and to get into touch with you. By the way, have you traced the girl?"

Larry shook his head.

"I am not after the girl," he shortly. "I have jailed the rest of the gang, and that is enough for me."

_____________________

GOSPEL-TRUTH MORTIMER

4: His Start in Life

The Red Magazine, July 1, 1914

WHEN a millionaire receives a letter which suggests that he should hand to a messenger some thousands of pounds, failing which he will be kidnapped at some time and place convenient to the writer, the millionaire— if he possesses a sense of humour— will laugh and send the letter to the police.

Mr. Chell had no sense of humour whatsoever, and he received the letter when it came with profuse perspiration. He did not send the letter to the police, because he felt in some way that such an action would annoy the kidnappers if they were genuine, and was unnecessary if they were not.

Instead, he looked round for enemies, and found them in his own household; and mainly an inoffending typist-secretary felt the brunt of his funk, because she was a woman and could not hit back.

Then Chell got into the habit of taking friends home “for company,” and he thought of impecunious Mortimer, and discovered him in a quiet hotel in Essex Street.

It was on the second day that Chell fixed the visit of George Mortimer— an interval of time long enough to allow certain interested watchers of the millionaire to make a move.

“Then I’ll pick you up on the Embankment?” asked Chell a little anxiously. “Of course, I’ll come up to the hotel for you, if you like?”

“Not at all,” said Mortimer, as he fixed his monocle more firmly. “I desire to leave Essex Street without ostentation. I am naturally a modest man.”

“That’s all right,” said Chell, who, as has been pointed out, had no humour whatever, “I’ll pick you up in front of Somerset House. So long!” And he went skipping down the steps of the hotel to his palatial car.

Mortimer went back to the smoke-room, and sat down to figure things out. The man with the diamond ring, who had arrived that morning, fixed him with a speculative eye from the other side of the room, and waited till Mortimer had settled himself, then rose and crossed to him.

“Excuse me,” said the man with the diamond ring, taking his cigar from his mouth, “was that my friend, Mr. Chell, you were speaking with?”

George Mortimer looked up at the square-faced, smiling gentleman.

“It was indeed your friend, Mr. Chell,” he said politely.

“He’s worth a million, that fellow,” said the stranger.

“I have never counted his money,” replied Mortimer, “but I'll accept your estimate.”

The other man was momentarily nonplussed.

“I saw him here last night with you,” said the intruder— for intruder upon George Mortimer’s thoughts he undoubtedly was—"and recognised him.”

“I thought you arrived this morning?” said Mortimer curiously; and the haste of his interrogator to explain his faux pas confirmed George in his worst suspicions.

“Yes; moved down from the Sav-voy— dined here with a friend last night.”

Mortimer smiled genially.

“Cobby, Cobby!” he said reprovingly, “to put it over me! I, who was present in the Tombs Court when Judge Garner sent you to States Penitentiary for the best part of a year, for selling land which wasn’t yours to the green goods of New Jersey!”

The man addressed as Cobby was something more than startled.

“Why— why!” he gasped, “’ain’t you that detective feller?”

“I was, but ain’t,” replied George. “I am too honest for a detective agency— it lasted three months, Cobby, and then I broke loose and came home ninth class on a cattle boat. Oh, by the way, Cobby, Mr. Chell tells me he's had threatening letters from people who say they will kidnap him if he doesn’t pay eight thousand pounds by Saturday.”

“You don’t say!” said the astonished man, lighting his cigar again. He might be pardoned if his hand trembled a little, for, though he was one of the best “confidence men” in the world, he was a little upset by the unexpected recognition.

“I do say,” said George Mortimer. “Cut it out, Cobby.”

”Me, Mr. Mortimer?” asked the astounded and outraged Cobby.

“You,” said George Mortimer. “Kidnapping is a side-line of yours, now I come to think of it. You’re the man who held Mayor Gilly to ransom in Paradise City, aren’t you?”

“If I die this minute—" protested Cobby, raising his right hand impressively.

“Don’t worry— you won’t,” said George; “but cut it out— try the newly returned colonial on the Strand— he's easy. Leave kidnapping to chorus-girls.”

It was no coincidence that Mr. Cobham had arrived at the hotel the day following Chell’s call. Not at all. But as it happened, it was so much money wasted.

THE HONOURABLE George Mortimer left the hotel that afternoon without any exact idea as to when he would return.

He had taken the proprietor aside and told him things.

“I expected to get a letter,” ho said, “and a cheque from a man who owes me a lot of money. I have the letter, but the cheque has not come— and I doubt if it will come.”

The proprietor murmured encouraging things.

“I know,” said Mortimer, and screwed his glass into his right eye with some determination. “You’re an awfully good chap, but I owe you for three weeks board and lodging, and I have no prospect of paying you. You had better keep my boxes— there are one or two curiosities I brought from Java which will fetch the price of the bill— you can let me have the difference when I call. I only ask that you allow me to take away a few necessities.”

“You can stay here, sir,” said the emotional proprietor, “till the cows come home.”

The only son of impecunious Lord Cleghorn smiled and patted the other on the back.

“My dear lad,” he said, “the cows wouldn’t be mine— my dear father owes his milkman quite a lot of money. One tip I give you which will be of value:— a gentleman named Cobham, who is staying here, is a crook.”

“He left half an hour ago,” replied the landlord.

“The devil he did!” said George.

So he went forth to the Embankment with a handbag and a desire for adventure and about eighteen shillings in ready cash; and he had not waited more than ten minutes when Chell found him. Chell drove in a boudoir on wheels, all lacquer and silver and Cee-springs. And the interior of the motor-car was upholstered and downy and full of spring flowers.

“My wife is on the Riviera, I forgot to tell you that,” explained Chell. “I’m all alone, and this business is upsetting me; the police pooh-pooh it, but I assure you I’m worried. Now, suppose these fellows got me— what would they do?”

He speculated on the possibility at some length. He was the same unhealthy-looking Chell whom Mortimer had known at Harrow. Horribly prosperous, as he had always been— a little toady— likewise unchanged.

“How rum!” said Mortimer as the car went spinning along the Portsmouth Road.

“What is rum?” asked Chell.

“Everything,” replied the other vaguely.

Chell returned to his thoughts.

He took from a cunning pocket in the upholstering of the car the prettiest little silver-plated Smith-Wesson revolver George had ever seen.

“They'll have a little trouble to get me,” he said.

“GIVE the devil her due,” suggested Mortimer.

“I am giving her a cheque,” snarled the other.

“She may not have robbed you?”

Mortimer’s cigar stuck up at a reflective angle and his eyes were searching the ornate patterns of Chell’s ceiling. When he adopted this attitude, plus a very definite stand with his back to the fireplace and his legs a little apart, Mortimer was a bad man to cross, but Chell did not know this. He had been a millionaire from his birth and a dyspeptic from the age of sixteen, a fact which had not induced him to bother overmuch about the touchiness of others.

His outlook on life was not normal, and his views on women were crude and unwholesome. A man with a recurring toothache pain immediately between the second and third button of his waistcoat is apt to be impatient.

Mortimer had never had an ache or a pain in his life; he had never owned a million in his life, though he had experienced the delightful sensation when somebody had once paid him a hundred pounds all at once in gold.

He was tall, stiff shouldered, red faced, and lean. His eyes were grey, his face thin, and he carried no fat anywhere.

Chell was pale in a disagreeable sense. Had Nature repainted the world, she might have used Chell’s face as a palette for her whites and yellows and livid greys.

All the trouble had come about within two hours of their arrival at Criffley Park, Chell’s beautiful country seat.

The new secretary had handed him a letter which had every appearance of having been opened. Chell was born suspicious; he was the sort of baby who might have refused his bottle till its contents had been passed by the analyst.

There had been a stormy scene. He had accused her of many things which were outside the range of his criticism.

He sat writing savagely at his big library table, and Mortimer continued to survey the ceiling. It was not a pleasant first evening.

“Why don’t you see the girl?” he asked.

“See her!” almost shouted the other, getting red in the face; “see a blackmailer?”

Mortimer made no reply.

“No,” Chell went on, “a girl who has had a good job as that girl had, who opens important letters—"

“And steals money?” suggested Mortimer.

The other hesitated.

“Well, I won’t swear as to that— I honestly think I have lost money.”

“And blackmails you?” continued the man by the fire.

Chell scowled.

“Don’t you think it is blackmail,” he asked, ‘‘when a girl tells you that she will take you into court and sue you for libel if you don’t— er— if you don’t—"

“Apologise?” murmured the other.

“Exactly— fancy me apologising to a damned typist!”

“You may be right,” agreed Mortimer.

“I know I’m right,” snapped his host.

“I mean about typists being damned,” said the other. “I often think some of them are. What does a girl expect? Here she has a job in a thousand. Paid like a princess— I suppose you give her a fiver a week?”

Chell wriggled uncomfortably in his chair.

“Pound a week,” he blurted, “and keep— jolly good wages, too”— defiantly.

“Fine,” agreed the other, “and keep— dinner with you, I suppose?”

“For Heaven’s sake don’t be an abject ass,” begged the other. “She dines with the servants.”

“She sleeps here— nice suite of rooms.”

Chell was discreetly silent.

“Your wife never sends her down to the village on errands that she wouldn’t dare give to the chauffeur?”

No reply.

“She doesn’t help round at odd times— taking the dogs out.”

Chell swung round in his swivel-chair.

“You know this girl!” he accused. “She’s been talking to you!”

Mortimer shook his head and flicked the ash of his cigar into the grate.

“I know you, Chelly,” he said.

There was an awkward pause. Chell had brought Mortimer down to Criffley Park on the impulse of the moment. He had not seen him for ten years, and he was in a blue funk. They had been at Harrow together, and Chell wanted to show impecunious Lord Cleghorn’s son that he, Chell, nobody’s son in particular, but one to whom bank-managers said respectfully, “Will you take it in tens or fifties?” was a great man. Also his wife was on the Riviera, and he somehow had an instinct that she would be glad to know that the son of a lord had slept in the blue room.

Thank heaven, this uncomfortable guest was only staying for a few days! It had been a mistake to bring him down, a greater mistake to row with Miss Lowe in front of him.

“You’re still the same old Mortimer,” he said.

The other man could take it as he liked.

“And you haven’t improved either,” said Mortimer earnestly, “and that’s gospel truth.”

“Gospel Truth Mortimer!” said his host, with a little grin. “I remember the nickname, I’ve been trying to think of it all the evening.”

“Gospel Truth Mortimer,” agreed the other, nodding, and looked at the ceiling more carefully than ever.

Then came diversion.

A firm knock at the door proclaimed the arrival of the pale, slight girl in black. Her eyes were red, and a stray tear-curl fell over her forehead. Do you know the tear-curl? It is that which always whisps down over your nose whenever your emotions are excited in the direction of the weeps.

Here it was not unsightly. She was pretty enough, and there was an air of quiet refinement about her which went straight to Mortimer’s heart.

Chell’s face blackened down to an unusual frown.

“Well?” he growled.

The girl hesitated. She shrank from discussing her affairs before a stranger, and shot a timid glance at the tall man. What she saw gave her courage, and she turned to Chell.

“I want you to allow me to leave at the end of the week,” she said.

“You can go now,” he snarled; “here’s your cheque!”

He flung it across the table towards her.

“I can’t go to-night,” she protested. “I don’t want to go to London till the end of May.”

“You don’t want!” lie sneered. “You clear out to-night!”

“But—"

“Don’t ‘but’ me,” stormed Chell, “do as you’re told.”

“Always do as you’re told, Miss Lowe,” smiled Mortimer; “then one of these days you’ll go to heaven and meet Mr. Chell’s papa.”

Chell’s mouth opened, but he said nothing.

“Mr. Chell’s papa,” continued Mortimer, still to all appearances addressing the ceiling, “will touch his hat to you— or possibly his halo— because you are a lady; and all the Chells of all time, ever since, in fact, the first Chell was fashioned out of mud, have touched their hats to ladies.”

“What— what?” spluttered John Heynsham Chell.

“Let me finish my story, naughty, naughty,” said the other, wagging his forefinger at his host. “Do you remember once at Harrow how you interrupted me, and how I went for a walk all over you? Be good.”

He turned to the girl again.

“You will, if you are good,” he went on, “meet Mr. Chell’s uncle, who kept a fried-fish shop in Lambeth before Mr. Chell, senior, made his millions out of an oil well in Russia. It is worth while being good.”

Chell was white with rage.

“You can clear out together,” he said. “There’s a train from Stamborough in twenty minutes.”

A silence fell upon the party.

Mortimer, by his gospel truthfulness, had found himself at various periods of his life in some unhappy circumstances. He had stood at Three Springs, Texas, with a rope round his neck on a shaky soap-box; he had faced a crowd of enraged coolies in Chi-we; he had estranged his one wealthy relative, but never before had he been confronted with the possibility of being turned loose on a midnight world in the society of a pretty typist.

“Very good,” said Mortimer. “I will pack my bag.”

Ten minutes later he joined the girl in the hall. A pathetic figure in black, her lips aquiver.

“Where is Mr. Chell?” asked Mortimer.

“He has gone to bed, sir,” said the footman.

Mortimer laughed.

“How like Chell to go to bed!”

He walked round to the window of Chell’s room. He slept on the ground-floor because he was afraid of fire. There was a light burning. George had a horrible temptation to put a flower-pot through the window, but restrained himself. There were certain things a gentleman could not do; besides, there was no handy flower-pot.

He came back to the girl, that rebellious tear-curl straying again.

Though Chell did not wait to speed the parting guest, he had ordered round the car, and into this Mortimer assisted the girl.

“Station, sir?” said the chauffeur, touching his cap.

“Yes,” said Mortimer; “Charing Cross.”

“London, sir?” asked the man incredulously.

“London, indeed,” repeated Mortimer.

He did not observe the scowl on the man’s face, but he guessed it and sympathised, for London lay at the end of a forty-mile drive.

“I think Mr. Chell only expected we should go to the station,” said the girl timidly.

He nodded.

“I know,” he said; “but there are eighteen reasons why I do not wish to journey to town by train, and each reason is worth twelve pennies. In other words,” he said, “I have eighteen shillings in my pocket, and you have a cheque which is unchangeable at this hour of the night.”

They spun through Stamborough, and took the London road eight miles beyond.

The girl sat in silence, revolving in her mind plans for her immediate future. She had no fear of this tall, good-looking young man, who smoked one of Chell’s fragrant cigars with evident relish and happiness.

By accident or design, the car did not move in the direction of London. In half an hour they ran through the narrow streets of a little town.

“This is Blescombe, sir,” said the chauffeur. “I made a mistake, and took the wrong road. But you can get a train from here in twenty minutes.”

“Charing Cross,” said George Mortimer.

“A very fast train, sir,” pleaded the chauffeur.

“Charing Cross,” said George; and went on conversing with the girl.

The chauffeur said many things which it would serve no useful purpose to repeat; but he turned the car, and went back the way they had come.

George found the girl a pleasant companion. They talked for the greater part of forty-five minutes, and might have talked all the way to London, but, in the middle of a story he was telling, the car came to a sudden standstill with a jarring squeak of brakes. The chauffeur got down.

“There is a man lying in the middle of the road, sir,” he said. He was respectful, having overcome his pardonable annoyance at this night journey.

Mortimer jumped out of the car. Lying ahead, flat on his back, plain to be seen in the white beam of the car’s head lamps, was a man. His arms were outstretched and he gave no sign of life.

Mortimer went forward and bent over the prostrate man. He lifted the arm and felt his wrist with a sure touch; then he slipped his hand in between the shirt opening.

“He's alive,” he said, “come and help get him into the car.”

The girl had stepped out and stood watching the scene. She came forward apprehensively and looked at the face.

“Is he dead?” she asked.

“Neither dead nor drunk, curiously enough,” replied Mortimer, “though what is wrong with him I cannot tell.”

They lifted the man up and hoisted him into the car.

“You had better sit with the chauffeur,” said Mortimer; “I will attend to him— there’s a hospital at Guildford, isn’t there, Parker?”

“Yes, sir,” said the man, brightening up. (Always remember servants’ names— it is one of the few compliments you can pay them.)

“En avant!” said Mortimer; but first he wrapped the girl in a rug which the chauffeur found under the seat of the car.

It was an uncomfortable journey for Mortimer. He sat with the man’s head on his knees, the body huddled on the bottom of the car. The unknown was well-dressed, and, so far as Mortimer could see, there was no evident injury.

They were a few miles from the outskirts of Guildford, when the man moved with a little moan and opened his eyes. Mortimer had switched on the electric light the better to observe the unknown.

“What has happened?” asked the man huskily.

“I am dying to know,” replied Mortimer.

The man tried to rise, and, with the assistance of Mortimer, succeeded in struggling to the seat.

“Where is Cob and the crowd?” he asked; then suddenly and with resentment, “You're a split, I suppose?”

“I’m a which?” asked the puzzled young man, who was not acquainted with current slang.

The man was still dazed, and did not seem to hear what Mortimer had asked.

“This comes of working outside my own line,” he said gloomily.

He was a man of forty, dressed, as has been remarked, in respectable attire and had the appearance of a gentleman. But though a man may purchase the livery of breed if he has the trick of choosing the right store, and is advised by a competent valet, he cannot at any price purchase the speech, the tone, the exact pitch of voice, the little drawling trick of pronunciation which should go with the clothes if the illusion is to be complete. He was the correct thing— till he spoke.

“Cob’s fault,” he grumbled sleepily; “he said— if you’ve got toothache, have a whiff of the stuff— put me on the dickey seat behind the two-seater— rotten!”

“And you whiffed the stuff and fell off?” suggested Mortimer.

“H’m!” nodded the other, “two whiffs— three— fine, no pain.”

“Chloroform by any chance?” asked Mortimer, deeply interested.

“H’m,” admitted the sleepy man; “new idea— Cobs. Oh, silly ass!”

He closed his eyes and slumbered.

The car slowed down at that moment, and Mortimer looked ahead. They were on a country road and there was a car in front. Its bright lamps glared menacingly in the centre of the road, and Mortimer saw a man standing with outstretched arms. The car stopped, and Mortimer got out.

To be exact, two men were waiting. One of these was a very pleasant individual, who lifted his cap as Mortimer approached.

“Have you by any chance picked up a gentleman on the road?” he asked politely.

“I have one— is this the article?”

The stranger approached the car.

“That is the gentleman,” he said gravely; “we dropped him— I presume— as we were going up hill and subsequently at no great pace. Wake up, Jimmy!”

Jimmy woke up reluctantly.

“Pardon me,” said Mortimer, as the two men assisted their friend from the car, “might I suggest that chloroform is a very bad substitute for smelling salts?”

The man looked at him sharply, but it was rather difficult to see George’s face, because his soft hat was pulled over his eyes to keep off the glare of the head lamps.

“Excuse me one moment,” said Mortimer with great ceremony; and he stepped back into his car— he regarded it as his for the time being.

In a big pocket which dived into the upholstered side of the car he had seen Chell put a beautiful revolver with some pride. Yes, here it was; he came out into the white light of the lamps balancing it in his hand.

“Up!” he said quietly; and two pairs of hands were obedient. The doped Mr. Jimmy sank into the roadway like a sack of potatoes.

“Back up, my friends,” said Mortimer; and they backed till they came abreast of the little cosy car, with its closed hood and its low roof. Mortimer lifted a lamp from its brackets and flooded the interior with light. On the floor, uncomfortably trussed, lay Mr. Chell. He wore a gag, and his wrists and ankles were strapped. He was in his pyjamas.

“If you only knew what an ass you looked!” said Mortimer, as he loosened the straps with one eye upon the kidnappers, “you wouldn’t be rescued.”

“My heavens!” gasped Chell. “I’m nearly dead, Mortimer. Oh, my heavens! They chloroformed me—"

“Yes, yes,” soothed the other. “Go back to the car; Miss Lowe will pretend she can’t see you.”

The girl had stepped down into the roadway, very shaky and troubled.

“Is anything the matter?” she asked.

“Matter!” moaned Chell, stepping gingerly over the rough, road with his bare feet. “They tried to kidnap me!”

The girl looked at him, and Mortimer saw the look and rejoiced.

“But is anything serious the matter?” she asked sweetly.

Mortimer could have hugged her; but just then a motor-car full of police came up, and the affair became a matter of public interest.

“I'M REALLY greatly obliged to you,” said Chell shame-facedly.

They had all gone back to Criffley Park together, and they sat in the library.

Chell wore clothes, a great source of happiness, for they had endured him for twenty miles in a rug and pyjamas.

“Stay the night and go to town to-morrow. Can I do anything for you, Mortimer— I'd like— some little souvenir?”

“Fifty pounds to the lady for services rendered,” suggested Mortimer, “and I’ll take the car.”

“I thought,” stammered Chell, “something to stick in your tie, or— hang on your chain. You see, I feel I owe my life to you—"

“Ah!” said Gospel Truth Mortimer, his face falling, “If you’re only going to give me something which represents the value of that, I guess I shall only get away with a head lamp.”

In the end, and in a magnificent moment, Chell gave him the car.

A week later, Gospel Truth Mortimer was careering through London, driving the car now bearing the white plate which proclaimed its promotion to the rank of taxicab.

______________________

5: The Six Blue Rings

The Red Magazine, July 15, 1914

MR. CHELL, that parsimonious millionaire, gave George Mortimer a taxicab, though it may be said, in justice to Chell, that he had not the slightest idea in the world that the magnificent limousine which he had given, in a moment of temporary insanity, induced by the service George Mortimer had rendered, would be put to such a base use.

The Hon. George Mortimer, with his monocle, became a taxi driver because he had no other way of earning a living. There were real taxicab-drivers who laughed rudely at George and his eyeglass, and George laughed back with great freedom and good humour. Some were ruder than others. One burly young man snatched George’s eyeglass as it dangled over his spotless overall, stuck it in his own eye, and said, “By gad, ole feller!” with great effect.

“Take that eyeglass out, my son,” said George.

“Why?”

“Because,” said George convincingly, “I’m afraid if I hit you I might possibly break the glass, and do you a greater injury than I intend.”

“If it comes to that," said the burly young man, with ominous deliberation, “I’m a bit of a hitter meself. Hold that glass, Harry.”

He was making some sort of conventional preparation when George Mortimer hit him. The burly young man has since described the sensation as being something between a collision between one of Messrs. The London General Omnibus Company’s vehicles and having a tooth out without gas.

Thereafter George forsook the ranks, and went pirating up and down kerbs—"a snatcher,” in the argot of his trade, and perfectly unashamed.

One day when he was crawling down Cheapside, Chell hailed him, and Chell’s face, as he saw his twelve hundred pounds’ worth of limousine adorned with a taximeter, was worth stopping in the middle of the traffic to inspect.

“Hallo!” he said bitterly. “Take me down to Waterloo, will you?”

“Certainly, sir! Main line or tube?” asked Mortimer.

“Don’t be an ass!” said Chell. “Main line, of course!”

George touched his hat gravely, pulled down the flag, and drove Chell through all the busiest thoroughfares, into all the traffic blocks, through streets that were up (he had to go back three or four times and try a new route), and eventually arrived at Waterloo with two and eightpence on the clock when, as Chell, who knew the route to the fraction of twopence, was well aware, there should not have been more than one and tenpence.

“You are a rotter, Mortimer!” he grumbled. “I’ve only a couple of minutes to catch my train.”

“Here!” said George. “Where’s the fare?”

Chell stared at the figure behind the steering-wheel.

“Do you mean to tell me that you’re going to charge me for a drive in the car that I gave you? Don’t be absurd!”

He turned wrathfully to the booking-hall.

“Hi, constable!” cried George. “Stop that man— he’s bilking me!”

Chell came back, very annoyed indeed, and handed up exactly two-and-eightpence.

“Where’s my tip?” asked George indignantly.

“Go to —" snarled Chell. He used a hot and hurried word.

”Talking of home,” said George, “how are things in Berkshire?”

But Chell did not wait.

It was fun driving a cab, and there was money in it. He had one standing commission, in which there was no pay. It wasn’t a commission in the ordinary sense of the word, because it was a job he had taken on without encouragement.

Every evening at five-thirty his limousine was drawn up within twenty yards of the City of London Supply Association, from whence issued the prettiest of typists, with one curl everlastingly straying from her forehead to her cheek.

“You’ll get me an awful bad name,” she reproached him once.

“Jump inside, and please don't argue with me,” said George. “You’re getting me a bad name.”

He would drive her from Queen Victoria Street to her little flat in Putney— a flat which had been furnished on Chell’s money— fifty pounds, handed over with fifty regrets, for Chell was a mean devil, and placed no monetary value upon the life she had saved.

Every night he ignored the uplifted sticks of irascible gentlemen— pulling his flag down as an outward and visible sign of his engagement, and pulled up before the City of London Supply Stores.

A strange friendship had sprung into being between the son of Lord Cleghorn and this dainty little lady. It was one unmarked by any tender passage, or the hint that a period would come when they would be on any terms other than those which marked their comradeship. As for example:

He would discuss with her the necessity for enlarging her circle of acquaintances, and she would talk by the hour— when they dined together at the Petite Riche— on the absolute need for making a good marriage. To this end, she advised him to go to his sister, Lady Violet Mangrow, who was, as he described it, “a sort of an ambassadress” in Vienna.

But George preferred the diplomatic service of handling exigent passengers.

Habitual employers of taxicabs came to look for the big limousine and the driver with the monocle. A daily paper had a little account of the “most luxurious taxi in London,” and published a photograph.

“I’d like to take a picture of you, too,” said the enterprising picture-writer. “Get up on your box, and turn your face this way.”

“Unless you want to end your young life in misery,” warned George, “keep your devil-box turned away from me; for if you print my portrait I will follow you to your vile suburban home, and pinch you to death.”

“You might say that over again, will you?” suggested the interested reporter, fumbling for his notebook. “It would make a good start for a comic story.”

“I’ll give you all the information about the car,” said George, fixing his eyeglass. “I found it wandering in the snow when it was only a little side-car, and took it home and put it to bed. I fed it and nourished it, sitting by its side reading into the night, holding its trembling clutch in mine—"

“Listen,” said the reporter: “I want a few words about the car.”

“It is a wonderful car,” said George. “It can either be used as a perambulator or an omnibus; by pulling up the shelf marked ‘C,’ it can be converted into a trouser-stretcher. I sleep in it by night, and give luncheon-parties in it by day. In the summer-time it can be used as a tent or a refrigerator; the front part lets down, and by planting a few trees round it, it can be converted into a house-boat—"

“I like you,” said the reporter regretfully. “What a pity you gas so much.”

An advertisement of any kind is useful, though perhaps less useful to one car than to one type of car. George made his steady £2 a day— and saw London.

It was a joy to him driving through the crowded streets. The police of the City came to know him, and he learnt many things which he never knew before. As, for instance: taxicabs did not pay— because of the taximeter! Wheels and body and chassis earned their keep; the little clock alone cost money for rental, and earned nothing. That little waster kept clerks busy in the great garages, and made not a penny more by its installation. Some of the companies paid thousands a year on these non-producers.

He learnt the tricks of the “mushers” and the “snatchers”; all about the little cab proprietors who had tiny windows put in the side of their hoods to deceive the public into the belief that their cabs were converted private cars. The tricks of paint and lacquer to dazzle the unwary into the illusion that they were going to ride in a four-cylinder cab, when the wheezy engine-power was exactly two.

A new world lies open to the eyes of the taximan. It is a tragic, comic, sordid, interesting world.

The earlier incident of the burly young man and the eyeglass might have escaped from the mind of Gospel Truth Mortimer, but for a slight happening at Paddington. George occasionally allowed himself the relaxation of a railway wait.

It was here that he met the burly young man for the second, and, as he hoped, the last time.

The Plymouth boat-train had arrived, and George was well down the waiting queue of cabs. There was, however, a plentiful supply of passengers, and Mortimer found ample amusement in watching the newly arrived travellers, the majority of them burnt to mahogany colour with the tropical sun. There were greetings and huggings, frenzied shrieks of joy from waiting relatives and friends.

Observing these ebullitions, George noticed a girl standing apart. There was evidently none to greet her, and she stood a forlorn and tragic figure on the platform in her widow’s black, her two well-worn trunks by her side. She caught George’s eye and came across to him.

“Will you please take me to this address?” she asked, and she gave him a slip of paper.

He took her all in with one quick glance, the sweet, sad face, the firm chin, the big, brown eyes. A pretty woman, he thought, and wondered, as he unfolded the paper, what tragedy, what high hopes doomed to bitter results lay in the heart behind that crêpe-trimmed bodice.

Before he could read the address the burly young man had come on the scene; he was in charge of the cab immediately in front of Mortimer.

“Here!” he bullied. “Why don’t you take your turn? I’ve got an eightpenny turn, I have! Doin’ me out of my livin’!”

“Avaunt, fat man!” said George.

The burly driver scowled his recognition.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” he stated, rather than asked. “You won’t arf git into trouble one of these days.”

“Nor a quarter, either,” said George bafflingly. “To your eightpence, dog!”

For a moment a smile hovered at the corner of the girl’s lips.

“Am I doing anything very dreadful?” she asked.

“Beyond endangering that stout lad's life— nothing,” said George. He read the slip: “407, Curzon Gardens.”

He descended and strapped the baggage to the driving platform, and assisted the girl into the car. 407, Curzon Gardens was a pretty little house near the Park.

George, unstrapping the baggage, saw the girl— for she was little more— regarding the place with a troubled look.

“So this is it,” she said aloud.

“This is it,” said George, “if you are speaking to me.”

From her bag she took an envelope, tore it open, and took out a key.

“I wasn’t talking to you,” she said apologetically, “but it is rather a relief to talk to anybody.”

She opened the door and he carried in her trunks. The house was well, if newly, furnished. It had the appearance of having been especially arranged for the occupation of one who was starting housekeeping.

“I have no servants yet,” she explained, when she asked him to carry her trunks to her room. He noticed that she was rather hazy as to which was her room.

At the end she gave him half-a-sovereign.

“Keep the change, please,” she smiled.

“I am sorry,” he said gravely, “but I am a member of the anti-tipping league— and that’s gospel truth!” Which it was.

He handed her her change with all solemnity. The reluctant hand that was outstretched to take the money, was white and delicate, and adorned with a number of little blue rings, all on one finger.

“Why, you have only charged me eight-pence!” she said.

“That is the fare,” said George hastily, and withdrew.

There was two-and-sixpence on the clock, but George was before everything a sentimentalist.

He saw her again a week later, passed her in Park Lane.

It is no great coincidence for a taxi-driver to be called upon to go twice to the same address, but it was not until three weeks after he “set down” at 407 that he was called upon to visit the house again.

George was going down St. James’s Street one summer evening, wondering whether it would be etiquette to leave his cab in charge of the porter and go into his club— the Carlton James— to dinner, for he had taken a cheery party to Sandown Park and had profited by the fact that one of the party was the owner of a horse called Soldier Joy. Soldier Joy, to the wonder of the sporting community, had won the Emberley Selling Handicap at the astounding price of 33 to 1— a price which frequently occurs in novels, but which is unusual in a small race.

George, who rarely betted, had backed the horse for £2. Hence his lordly views on the subject of dinner. At the Palace end of St. James’s Street a raised umbrella brought him to the signaller.

It was a tall man of swarthy complexion, clean-shaven, elaborately dressed in an obviously new suit.

“407, Curzon Gardens,” he said in a slightly foreign accent.

“Well, I’m dashed!” said George Mortimer, as he pulled down his metal flag and swung the car round. Five minutes later he had pulled up before the sedate little residence.

“Wait,” said the fare.

“Nothing easier," said George. He looked to see who opened the door, hoping for a glimpse of the lady in black, but the man let himself in with a key.

George had by the side of his seat a locked box of unpolished oak which was regarded by the gentlemen of his profession as a supplementary tool-chest. This he now unfastened and opened the lid, revealing the backs of a dozen books. George took off his gloves, lit a choice cigar, and in a few seconds was absorbed in his Prescott, following the fortunes of the Spanish Invaders in the land of the Incas. There was no sign of his fare, and the clock ticked merrily.

For three hours he read, and when the light failed he switched on the little electric lamp behind his head— a lamp he had had fixed for the purpose— and continued reading. It was nearly ten o'clock when the door opened, and a gentleman came down the steps, closing the door behind him. He glanced curiously at the cab as though he had never seen it before, and was walking away.

“Do you want me to wait?” asked George.

The man started and half turned.

“Wait?” he stammered. “No. How long have you been waiting?” His voice sounded high and musical; it was remarkable that George had not noted this fact before.

“There is nine-and-sixpence on the clock,” he said.

The man fumbled in his waistcoat pocket and produced a coin.

“Don’t bother about the change,” he said.

“There is no need,” said George, calmly examining the coin, “this is a four-anna piece.”

“I’m sorry. Here—"

This time it was a sovereign.

George saw the coin, but he saw, too, the hand— white, slim, and fragile. It was innocent of jewellery, save on the second finger, where five or six blue-stoned rings were placed so close together that they appeared to be one broad band of flashing sapphires.

The man did not wait, but turned abruptly and walked away.

George Mortimer stared after him.

“Sovereigns, and keep the change,” were, he had imagined, the invention of a certain school of sensational fictionist. Yet it was not the sovereign which interested him.

He was tempted to continue in his speculation, but—

“Fuyez les dangers de loisir,” said George virtuously, and started his engine. He literally did fly from the dangers of leisure. He had a “pick up” in Piccadilly, and set down at Maida Vale, picked up again in Edgware Road, and put his passenger out at Liverpool Street Station. In Broad Street he found a fare who wanted to go to Adderley Street, Cape Town, but at the gentle persuasion of a City policeman was induced to alight and take a ’bus, but not before he challenged George to fight, acclaiming himself immodestly as a white man’s hope.

“O happy soul," said George gently, “go in peace, I envy your high spirits!”

“Are you man enough to fight me?” asked the truculent fare.

“No,” said George, “and that’s the gospel truth!”

“He’s all right,” said the policeman, watching the heroic challenger out of sight. “Get many like that?”

“A few,” said George, “but, alas! not so interesting.”

“There’s a nice attempted murder up West to-night,” said the constable. “Keep your eyes open for a lady with six blue rings on her second finger.”

“Eh?” said George, startled. “Six blue rings?”

”That’s the description we’ve had,” said the policeman, “and we’ve had orders to tell every cabby we can catch. A pretty woman with six narrow rings, set with sapphires, on the second finger of her left hand.”

George stopped his engine and got down.

“Let me hear all about this,” he said. “I’ve seen that hand.”

The policeman produced his notebook with some trouble, opened it, and read:

“All stations. Wanted, for attempted murder by shooting of Mr. Sari Kruttili, a Eurasian, at 407, Curzon Gardens, a woman unknown; six blue rings (sapphire set, thin) on second finger left hand; talks with refined accent; good-looking, brown eyes. Find taxi-driver who waited some hours outside house.”

“That’s me,” said George.

“Hop it down to Scotland Yard,” said the constable.

“I hop,” said George.

It was half an hour after midnight when he was ushered into the office of Superintendent Scott.

“So you are the man who was outside 407?” asked the officer briskly. “Now tell us what happened.”

Briefly, George related the circumstances.

The police chief frowned.

“The man you describe—" he began.

He took a photograph from a drawer and handed it to George.

“That’s the man,” said George Mortimer. “I picked him up in St. James’s Street, and he paid me off after three hours’ wait.”

“Did he?” said the superintendent grimly. “He’s the victim!”

George made an appropriate noise.

“Sit down, Mr. Mortimer,” Scott went on. “You’re the Hon. George Mortimer, aren’t you?”

George nodded.

“Well, I’ll tell you the story briefly. 407 was tenanted by a lady who has recently arrived from India. She is the woman we want— the woman who, wearing man’s clothes, left 407 after shooting a gentleman, who”— the superintendent smiled—"is a little more frightened than hurt, but that is beside the point. She intended killing him, and was dressed ready to make her escape. We gather that because she wore the man’s overcoat, and was seen by the constable on point duty in Curzon Gardens. Kruttili, the wounded man, is a Eurasian moneylender who ruined her husband and drove him to suicide. On the night of the attempted murder Kruttili, who had been pursuing this woman, and had only ruined her husband with the object of taking his place, came to claim his reward. 407 had been rented by him apparently. She went there because he gave her three weeks to make up her mind. He was found shot by the servant who had been sent out for the evening. That is all.”

“I'm glad you told me,” said George.

He went out to his car thoughtfully. He had left it by the kerb on the Embankment, and inside was the fare whom he had picked up between Liverpool Street and Scotland Yard, a foot-weary, distracted fare whom George had hailed and imperiously ordered into the cab. He did not consult the limp figure huddled in one corner of the car, but drove westward, crossing Putney Bridge a quarter of an hour later. He stopped and opened the door of the car a little.

“Wait a while,” he said.

He disappeared into a block of flats, and came out in ten minutes' time with a bundle. He tossed it into the cab.

“I'll drive slowly— you can change in comfort,” he said.

With such slowness did he drive that he did not arrive at Dover till seven in the morning. He stopped once to get petrol, and delivered his last instructions to the white-faced girl outside that town.

“There’s an excursion steamer going to Calais at eight,” he said. “The police never watch excursion steamers, especially Sunday-school excursions. My sister in Vienna will look after you till the affair blows over.”

“God bless you!” she sobbed.

He handed her a heavy little bag.

“Say ‘God bless Soldier Boy,’” he said solemnly; “and if you do any praying in my direction, remember that I have to explain to a suspicious young typist why I borrowed her Sunday clothes at one in the morning.”

From the cliff between Dover and Folkestone he watched the smoke of the outgoing steamer billowing up from the horizon, and turned his car into a field.

“This is where you become a sleeping saloon,” he said to the car.

The dignified car made no reply.

_____________________

6: As Cheap as Water

The Red Magazine, Aug 1, 1914

THERE is one man in the world, at any rate, who is perfectly satisfied that everything in this world happens for the best.

The Hon. George Mortimer, a taxi-driver of parts, had few illusions, and most of these were dispelled in the course of three months plying for hire in the streets of London.

He had met seedy men who came to him in a frantic condition of excitement showing, furtively and with quick and troubled glances left and right, magnificent diamond rings which they had “picked up.”

“I don't know the value of it, guv’nor,” said one of these, “me not bein’ used to jewelery; but it’s no good to me.”

“It’s of no use to me,” said George kindly, “because I do know the value of it.”

“Is it worth a pound to you?” suggested the seedy vendor.

“As a souvenir of this happy meeting,” said George, “it is invaluable.”

“Say ten bob?” urged the other.

“If the vulgarism affords you any satisfaction,” responded George, “I will say ‘ten bob’ with pleasure, though I should prefer to say ‘ten shillings.’”

“Well,” said the baffled but persistent dealer in lost property, “what is it worth to you?”

“Exactly what it is worth to you,” replied George Mortimer, “twenty-four shillings a gross when purchased at the excellent Mr. Goggerheimer’s, in Houndsditch.”

“All right, clever feller!” sneered the disappointed salesman; “you’ll be had one of these days.”

“If I am,” said George, “it will be by somebody who washes himself at least four times a year.”

This insulting reference to his appearance stung the shark to action, and, without warning, he struck out at the driver, depending upon the fact that George was imprisoned between a Stepney tyre and his steering-wheel.

“Oo!” said the seller of rings violently.

He said this because it is the appropriate expression for a man to employ who is the unexpected recipient of a backhander.

“Hence, flat-catcher!” said George sternly.

There were bilkers, too; men who drove to one end of the Burlington Arcade and escaped at the other without paying; ladies— Heaven bless them!— who said “wait,” but did not wait themselves. George was victimised because of his innate politeness.

It seemed that a whole army of parasites had grown up round this new taxicab industry; a shrewd, cunning army that found its proper quarry in the some-time cabmen of London.

One day he was stopped by a bright gentleman who wore glasses and an air of busy benevolence.

“I’m the agent of Tosson Frères,” he said. “Can you give me a minute?”

“’Tis yours,” said George.

The young man handed him a business card. It was inscribed with the name of a firm which immodestly described itself as the greatest motor spirit agency in the world. The spirit was exactly half the price of all other spirits. It was, so the card informed him, provocative of twice the energy per litre of every or any other “essence,” “spirit,” or “petrol preparation.”

“I will send you a couple of tins if you’ll give me the order,” said the young man. “You can’t afford to miss this petrol— it is as cheap as water.”

George had a commercial mind in so far as he was always ready to pay half price, and the spirit was tried and found flawless. It was called the “0 spirit.” You could either call it “oh” or “nought,” according to your fancy.

On a certain day he ordered some eight dozen tins, as did hundreds of other “mushers,” and these were delivered— so subsequent investigation proved— on a Wednesday, by a party of enterprising men who went round London garages with private vans and collected close on two thousand five hundred pounds in hard cash.

On the morning when a large number of wrathful taxi-drivers were searching for a young man with an air of benevolence, George Mortimer was “standing” at London Bridge Station, blissfully unconscious of the bland man’s villainy. There had been a derailment near St. John's, and the S.E. traffic was somewhat disorganised.

There came to him a placid and elderly gentleman, who eyed the driver and his car with the inspective look of one who has a valuable life and desired to preserve it to its natural conclusion.

“My friend,” said the elderly gentleman “do you know Blackheath?”

“Yes, sir,” said the Hon. George Mortimer respectfully.

“Could you drive me there?”

“I could,” said the young taxi-driver; and fixed his monocle.

“What would the fare be?” asked the old gentleman, with caution.

“About five shillings,” said George patiently.

The old gentleman pursed his lips.

“That’s a lot of money,” he said.

“It depends on how you look at it,” said George. “Colton says that wealth is a relative thing, and that he who needs five shillings and wants half-a-crown is richer than he who wants a guinea and has only a pound.”

There was a twinkle of amusement in the old man’s eyes.

“Henry Taylor says,” he quoted, “prodigality is the vice of a weak nature, as is avarice of a strong one. I am weaker than you.”

George Mortimer turned in his seat, his appetite whetted for combat.

“I don’t know Henry Taylor,” he said, now on his mettle; “but my young friend Confucius has laid it down as an axiom that there never was a mean man who could be virtuous.”

The old gentleman looked at him.

“This isn’t getting me to Blackheath,” he said. “I will be virtuous to the extent of six shillings.”

“That appeals to my strong nature,” said George. “Get inside, please. May I be guilty of an impertinence,” he added, as the old gentleman stood with his hand on the open door, “and say that I think we have met before somewhere?”

The fare smiled.

“That is very possible,” he said gently. “I’m the medical superintendent of the Blackheath Lunatic Asylum.”

“Your bird, sir,” said George.

It was a long drive out to Blackheath, and one which taxicab-drivers rightly regarded with apprehension and dismay, because it is a very bad “set down,” and, though there are many people who want to be driven in that direction, the charms of Blackheath are such that nobody apparently wants to leave the neighbourhood— at least, not by taxicab.

The asylum was between Shooter’s Hill and Blackheath Village, and was disowned by both places, for no community is proud of such an institution.

George dropped his fare at the pretty lodge of the asylum, accepted six shillings with a polite acknowledgment, and was moving off, when the old gentleman stopped him.

“You may get a fare back,” he said, and nodded in the direction of the drive.

George saw a thin-faced man with a wisp of a beard swinging along the carriage drive, his hands in his pockets, his head almost on the breast of his tightly buttoned frock-coat. “Hallo, Pullin!” greeted the elder man. Do you want a cab?”

The other looked up with a start.

“How do you do, Sir William? Glad to see you back from your holiday.”

He shook hands with Sir William Golfern, that eminent alienist.

George recognised him now. He had met him at dinner years before when Lord Cleghorn, his father, had more credit with London tradesmen than he possessed at present.

“Want a cab! Yes, I do,” said the man addressed as Pullin. “Thank you so much. I’ve been in to see a man— a most interesting fellow— who has discovered the secret of perpetual motion.”

He said this without a smile, but Sir William laughed.

“Rather unusual,” he said. I remember a case in the 60’s—"

Pullin, fingering his untidy beard thoughtfully, looked up at his chief for a moment.

“I don’t know that he is mad,” he said at last. “There are none of the physical symptoms of dementia. I’ve made every test, including the light test, but I can’t find a trace of lunacy.”

“Has he a history?” asked Sir William, interested.

“None,” said the other promptly. “Family healthy and normal, no history of alcoholism. It is just one of those curious cases where all the conventional signs which one looks for are absent. He is perfectly sane except on this question of perpetual motion, and really I’m not going to say that he is mad even on this subject.”

“H’m!” said Sir William, handing his overcoat and umbrella to the waiting porter. “I shall see you again.”

With a nod he went on, leaving Dr. Pullin to negotiate with George.

He gave an address which, to George’s annoyance, was only a short distance away, and that in the opposite direction to London.

“If this car could swim,” said George to himself, “I should probably end this trip in Paris.”

But Fortune was more propitious than he had thought. Arrived at a pretty little house standing back from the heath, he was told to wait.

“I shall want you to drive me through the country somewhere,” said the doctor.

“We shall be delighted,” said George.

Dr. Pullin stared up at him.

“We?” he asked.

“I and the car,” said George. “’Twas a jest.”

The man on the sidewalk looked relieved for some unexpected reason.

He disappeared from view through a narrow gateway set flush with a privet hedge, and was gone some ten minutes.

He returned at the end of ten minutes with a girl and an older woman. The girl was dressed for a drive, but the older lady was bareheaded— a hard-faced, calculating woman with a large, masterful nose and a slit of a mouth. George noted her, and thanked God that he did not grow upon the same family tree.

The girl was absurdly young to have her hair up, George thought. She was of the milk and roses English type, and if ever a pretty girl could frown herself to ugliness this young lady did. She frowned at the car, and frowned at George; and George Mortimer, not wanting in combativeness, frowned back at her.

“You’ll enjoy the drive, Mona.” said the elder woman, in a harsh, manly voice.

“Yes, auntie,” said the girl meekly.

“You’re to be a good girl,” commanded the other, “and you are never to behave again as you did yesterday.”

“No, auntie.”

“It is very kind of the doctor to take you out,” said the woman, “and it is very ungracious of you to get as far as the car and then turn back.”

“Yes, auntie,” said the girl again.

The doctor opened the door of the car, and, after a momentary exhibition of reluctance, the girl got in.

George got down from his seat.

“What are you going to do?” asked the doctor sharply.

“Lower the hood,” said George.

“Oh, yes, please,” said the girl quickly.

“I think you had better leave it up,” said the man.

“It can easily go up again if you don’t like it down,” said George. “Where am I to go?”

The doctor considered.

“Through Sevenoaks to Tonbridge,” he said.

“I thought so,” mused George, as the car ran smoothly through Blackheath Vale. “I’m going to end this job in Paris.”

George was an optimist.

Nothing untoward happened. They passed through Sevenoaks and took the Tonbridge Road. They were on a deserted highway when George thought he heard a scream, and looked out of the corners of his eyes. He saw the girl’s face, and brought the car to the side of the road.

“Did you want anything?” he asked gently.

Dr. Pullin stared at him. The girl was whiter than George's linen smock.

“He tried to kiss me,” she whispered. “He is— he is awful!”

“Oh!” said George blankly.

“Drive on, curse you,” snarled the man in the cab.

“Certainement,” said George. “Come along, Miss— I don’t know your name.”

He opened the door and she sprang out.

“What does this mean?” the doctor almost screamed.

“It means,” said George, striking one of his ridiculous melodramatic attitudes, “that this lady is under my protection, tarara-tum-tum!”

His imitation of an orchestral flourish left much to be desired— was, in fact, a most appalling row.

“Seriously speaking,” he said, gazing benevolently at the outraged man through his eyeglass, “it is not considered good form in taxicab circles to kiss a lady unless she is frightfully pressing. I gather that this young lady was not frightfully pressing, so, in order to save her further apprehension, she may ride by my side— if you will pardon the poetry— for the remainder of the journey.”

If he expected an outburst be was pleasantly disappointed. The thin-faced man stroked his straggling beard calmly. He had passed from a stage of violent passion to one of quiescent placidity in the twinkling of an eye. This was a new one to George Mortimer. He had seen men in Texas suddenly change from boiling rage to comparative stillness, but then that had been in consequence of their being dead.

“My friend,” said Dr. Pullin in his quietest voice, “you may be justified in what you have done— you will drive me to my house, and then you can take the lady home.”

His house was less than a mile away apparently. The girl, sitting on a rug-spread tool-box by the driver’s side, told him this and more.

“He’s dreadful! Auntie wants me to marry him! She adores him!”

All this in scraps of wind-blown talk.

“Why don't you go to your people?” he asked. They were both engaged in speaking without turn of head or movement of lip, conscious that behind them, crouching in the corner of the car, was a white-faced gentleman who was watching every movement.

“No people— only auntie— she’s a little mad!”

George, following the direction of the man in the car, turned off the main road, and in a few minutes pulled up before a gaunt and solitary house, standing alone on the edge of a thick wood. It was enclosed by a low wall, but attempts had been made to reclaim the ground which surrounded it from the condition in which the builder had left it. Nature had clothed the rubble and the debris and the builder’s aftermath of rubbish with weed and wild flowers, but the first impression was singularly repellent.

The car stopped, and the man got down. He was smiling quietly as at some joke.

“You had better come in and have some tea, driver— I’ll make it; I keep no servants.”

“Tea,” said George genially, “attracts me.”

The girl looked up at him with fearful eyes.

“I think we’ll go in,” he said gently. “We’ve got to remember auntie.”

The house proved to be well furnished, though monstrously untidy, yet it was clean; when the girl explained— the doctor being absent on a tea-making expedition— that two women came up from Tonbridge three times a week to clean the place.

“And he wants me to live here,” said the girl in a horrified whisper.

Dr. Pullin was back in a remarkably short space of time with tea.

It was a strange little party that sat in the desolate drawing-room.

“Driver,” said the doctor, who was unusually vivacious, “you are evidently a man of unusual character.”

“I am,” said Gospel Truth Mortimer.

“A gentleman?”

“The son of a gentleman,” said George cautiously.

“And a student, as I can see by the cast of your face.”

George nodded.

“Do you believe that the laws of specific gravity may be tricked so that, by counter balances cunningly contrived, a man may secure movement without mechanical propulsion?”

He ignored the girl as he spoke, but fixed his earnest gaze upon George.

“In other words, perpetual motion.”

The doctor nodded.

“No,” said George emphatically.

“Then you’re a fool!” said the doctor.

“Noted,” said George, “but not approved.”

A telephone bell rang outside in the hall.

“Excuse me,” said Pullin, “they've called me up from the asylum.”

He went out and they heard him speaking.

“What’s that? Man crazy about perpetual motion, Sir William? Yes; can’t you find him? There are a dozen men— hundreds of men— the asylum is filled with ’em. Don’t be a fool— look for them, can’t you?”

They heard the receiver bang down on the bracket, and he came back frowning.

“There’s another fool!” he said bitterly. I am going to show you something— come with me.”

“You’d better stay here,” said George.

“No, no!” said the girl in terror. “I’ll go with you.”

They followed the doctor into the hall, and he mounted the stairs two at a time.

What he had to show was not on the first floor, nor on the second— it was to a little room at the top of the house that he ushered them.

There, on a wooden pedestal, was a weird machine. It was for all the world like the grille of a theatre stage, all pulleys and blocks, wheels and cords.

“Observe!”

The doctor pressed a little wooden lever, and instantly a wheel at one side of the chaos began to revolve slowly but evenly.

“Only the pressure of my finger!” said the doctor proudly. “Nine years’ work; the pressure of a finger.”

George watched with interest.

“My finger is not necessary. Look!”

Pullin jerked over a little steel catch that held the lever fast, and removed his finger.

Still the wheel turned, and George, peering this way and that, saw that there was neither spring nor motor. Only four little leaden weights at one end of the frame rose and fell irregularly.

George Mortimer looked from machine to man, and from man to machine.

Something like a thrill ran through him, for here were untold millions. He knew enough of applied mechanics to know that this madman— for madman he was— had achieved the impossible.

The girl was frankly bored; pink and white and seventeen is not greatly interested in perpetual motion.

Pullin turned to her, his eyes shining with a strange light.

“All this for you, my lovely rose!” he wailed; and his arms were outstretched in supplication. “All for you, my beloved!”

She shrank back toward George, but he put her behind him roughly, and met the leap of the maniac with a straight left that knocked him sprawling.

He was up again in a moment, groped round like a blind man, then darted to the door and swung it fast with a crash. George took one step and stopped. There was no handle to the door.

He listened. He could hear the patter of the man’s feet as he sped down the stairs.

They looked at one another— the frightened girl and the annoyed taxi-driver.

“Blow!” said Mortimer.

He had a knife in his pocket, but it might as well have been a toothpick for its value in that moment of crisis.

He pushed open the window and looked out. There was no sign of the doctor; the car still stood on the road outside the house.

“The only satisfaction I have,” he said thoughtfully, “is that this little joke is costing him money— the taximeter is still ticking tuppences.”

Then he saw the doctor run from the house in the direction of the car. What was he going to do?

George was curious rather than apprehensive.

The madman climbed on to the driver’s seat and reached up to the roof. There were two tins of petrol there, and these he pulled down.

He disappeared inside the house, and George waited, listening at the door.

“Our doctor is breaking up the home,” he reported.

There was a muffled sound of breakage from below.

George Mortimer opened the window and leant out.

There was no way out of the house that way; no parapet offered footing, nor from the window-sill might he reach the roof. The drop was sheer death, and terrible injury could only result from any attempt to escape in that direction.

Whilst he was cogitating on a line of action, there was a click, and the door drifted open.

He heard a quick patter of feet and a rattle and scramble, as if somebody were climbing through a stack of chairs.

He dashed to the door in time to see Pullin descending from the barricade he had erected at the foot of the stairs.

“Don’t move!” said the doctor, with a chuckle, and George stood still.

The madman had piled chairs and boxes and splinters of furniture till it blocked the lower portion of the stairs.

In between the legs and crossbow of the overturned mass he had stuffed bunches of shavings.

“My love,” said the doctor, “you have been contaminated by this man's presence. I will purify you, my bride— I will purify you by fire, and you shall come to me, the greatest genius of all ages, worthy of your lover!”

He held a lighted candle in one hand and in the other a pail. Two empty petrol cans told George what that pail contained.

“Friend,” said George calmly, “if you burn us, you burn your model.”

The man laughed, and tapped his forehead.

“Here,” he almost screamed—"here is the model! I can make a dozen such; you could not make one!"

At the last word he flung the lighted candle into the heart of the pyre he had prepared. The shavings caught and blazed fiercely.

“Purify!” shouted Pullin, and, raising the pail, he dashed the contents on the fire.

George caught the girl round the waist and drew her back. He expected an explosion and a burst of flame. Instead, as the liquid fell, the fire sizzled and went out. In an instant George Mortimer went crashing through the barricade, tossing aside chairs and table-legs.

Pullin struck at him with an axe he had employed in the work of destruction, but George caught the arm as it descended, and wrenched the weapon away.

In a second the two men were rolling over and over upon the floor.

The affrighted girl scrambled through the debris, and ran past the two out of the house and into the arms of a grey-haired man who, accompanied by four liveried attendants, had at that moment descended from a motor-car.

“Upstairs!” she gasped, and fainted.

“Look after her, Symond!” said Sir William to one of the men, and ran up the stairs.

He found a dishevelled taxi-driver wiping his forehead.

“He has got away to his model-room,” he explained. “I can't get the hang of the door.”

It was ten minutes before they broke it in, to find a man laughing softly to himself amidst the ruins of the machine which he had created at so terrible a cost.

“I half suspected it,” said Sir William; “and the conversation which you overheard on the telephone confirmed my suspicions. The girl’s aunt has been supplying him with money for his experiments.”

“What of her?” asked George, interested.

Sir William shook his head gravely.

“She is an old patient of ours,” he said. “I am afraid she must come back. I shall have to communicate with the Public Trustee. The girl is an heiress, by the way!” he added.

“And she needs be!” said George, brightening up. “There is twenty-eight shillings on my taximeter, and I have every reason to believe I have some hundred tins of water in my garage.”

And he smiled, remembering the young man with the air of busy benevolence who had sold the mushers “petrol as cheap as water.”

_________________

7: The Agent of Kings

The Red Magazine, Aug 15, 1914

ONE evening when Gospel Truth Mortimer was driving slowly up South Molton Street, a hatless man came hurriedly from the Hanover Square end and jumped upon the footboard.

“Don’t stop!” he said peremptorily. “Paddington Station, and a fiver if you make it in time!”

George pulled down the flag and sent the car forward at top speed.

In the noise of the engine he did not hear a police whistle blow, but later, when he turned into Orchard Street, his fare leant out of the window.

“Say, driver, here’s your money!” He pushed a five-pound note into George’s hand. “If they catch me, go to 71, Universal Mansions and tell Dago Larry that Jimmy the Ramp is pinched.”

“Take your own beastly messages, my criminal friend,” said George; and pulled up his cab as the hatless man flung open the door and jumped out.

The men in the following cab were just too late to catch him, and he disappeared across Manchester Square.

“Why the devil didn’t you stop when I whistled?” demanded a uniformed inspector.

“Don’t be silly,” begged George, fixing his monocle. “How the dickens was I to know that you were whistling me?”

“Oh, it’s you, is it, Mr. Mortimer?” smiled the inspector. “You’ve given us a chase. You’ll have to come to the station and explain.”

“Jump in for the joy-ride,” said George, and the inspector jumped.

It was after he had left the station that he remembered the message. For a moment he laughed quietly at the idea of delivering it; then curiosity got the better of him— that curiosity which had so often been his undoing. He set his car for Universal Mansions in Baker Street, and mounted to the third floor of that respectable block of flats.

A young man answered the ring. He was soberly dressed, swarthy of face, and George guessed that this was the Dago.

“Do you want me?” he asked, examining the chauffeur through gold-rimmed pince-nez. George noticed that he had a paper in hand, and wondered if he was buying real estate.

“I’ve to tell Dago Larry that Jimmy the Ramp is either pinched or on the verge being pinched,” said George.

“The devil he is!” said the man. “Come in.”

George followed him into the room.

“They’re after him, eh? That’s very awkward.” The dark man stared at George thoughtfully, and repeated, “Very awkward.”

“I’m much obliged to you,” he said at last. “You’re Coleman, I suppose. Jimmy leaves me without a partner, and I’ve got the nicest little ramp you’ve ever heard about— all ready to go off.” He said this in a tone of regret. “Such a lovely talker Jimmy is, too. Did you notice his voice?”

“I’m not Coleman,” interrupted George cheerfully. “He, I presume, is a taxi-man working with your gang; but do not let your indiscretion distress you.”

“I should worry,” said Dago Larry. “Have a drink! No? Well, good-night.”

It was one of those tiny incidents in the life of a taxi-cab driver which has neither beginning nor end.

George read nothing of the capture of Jimmy the Ramp, and saw no more of the Dago.

Two months later George went to Waterloo Station, partly to pick up an early morning fare to the City, and partly because it always annoyed Chell to see him there.

Soon after he reached the rank he saw the dyspeptic Mr. Chell, who scowled at the car which had once been his, and deliberately chose another cab.

Chell was a millionaire, and he had given the car to the Hon. George Mortimer in a moment of mental aberration, and it is not good to be reminded of one’s follies.

George saw other people he knew at Waterloo. He saw a tall white-haired man raise his umbrella, and—"Oh, Lord!” said George; but, like the dutiful son he was, obeyed the summons.

“Hallo, George!” said the immaculate gentleman on the station pavement. “I’ve been hearing a lot about you and your beastly cab. Take me up to Gerry’s.”

“With pleasure, my lord,” said George.

Lord Cleghorn eyed the car approvingly.

“Jolly nice machine,” he said. “What did you give for it?”

“I saved the owner’s life,” said the other, modestly.

”Do you make a lot of money?” asked Lord Cleghorn.

“Enough to keep body and soul together, my lord and father,” said George softly. “But not enough to enable me to lend money to my relations.”

“I take you,” said his lordship cheerfully. “Gerry’s, my man.”

“Have you got the fare?” asked George dubiously, for he knew his parent.

The elder man smiled.

“Gerry’s!” he said; and got in.

George pulled down his flag, and sent the car spinning over Westminster Bridge. Though he had only seen his father once in the last two years, he had a genuine affection for this rash and reckless man who had dissipated two fortunes in the course of his long and pleasant life. The Hon. George Mortimer was driving a taxi-cab as a result of a certain speculation which Lord Cleghorn had gone into in the ’80’s but George did not resent this fact.

He was a philosopher and, up to a point, a dutiful son, and he had been cow-puncher in Texas, policeman in New York, and was now a taxi-cab driver in London without any bitterness of spirit.

Gerry’s, as all the world knows, is a famous restaurant which is peculiar by reason of the fact that it is possible to secure breakfast— a deplorable deficiency in other establishments of the same order.

It was eleven o’clock, an hour at which not a few gentlemen either take their first meal or shudder at the thought of it. George wondered idly why his father had chosen Gerry’s, which is expensive and notoriously suspicious in the matter of credit.

“Have you change for a fiver?” asked his father.

“Yes,” said George, in a spirit of gentle malice.

To his astonishment, Lord Cleghorn produced a well-filled pocket-book, and extracted, from a disgustingly large collection of notes, one for five pounds.

“What do you think?” asked his lordship smilingly.

“I am trying to remember all the bank robberies I have read about lately,” said George.

The elder man replaced his wallet.

“Put your car somewhere and come and have breakfast,” he suggested.

George did not require breakfast, but he did desire information on this display of wealth, and ten minutes later, with his overall removed, he had rejoined his father.

“It is Deerholm,” explained Lord Cleghorn complacently.

Deerholm Park, the ancestral home of the Cleghorns, was in Derbyshire. It was chiefly remarkable for the fact that it was timberless, tenantless, and mortgaged to the very last farthing of its value. Its farms barely paid the interest on the mortgages, the house itself was so innocent of comfort, and so completely in a condition of disrepair, as to make it the despair of every estate agency in England.

“Nevertheless, it is Deerholm,” said Lord Cleghorn, enjoying his son’s astonishment, and supplying a rejoinder to his unspoken thoughts. “It’s a devil of a joke!”

“Without knowing anything about it, I should rather agree with you,” said George slowly. “Have you discovered a gold mine on the estate, or something?”

The other shook his head.

“Deerholm has been rented by the Marquis M.,” he said impressively.

“I don’t know him,” said George calmly. “Is he something you get a prize for guessing?”

“He’s the agent of kings— that is all I can tell you,” said his father, who was without illusion, “but so far I am unaware of his identity. All that I know is that I have let the place for £400 a month, and I have had three months’ rent in advance.”

George whistled.

“You lucky father!” he smiled. “Upon my word, sir, you’re one of fortune’s favourites— how did it happen?”

Lord Cleghorn’s eyes twinkled as at a pleasant recollection.

“About a month ago I met a man whom I’ve done business with who told me that he had an inquiry about Deerholm. The only inquiries I have, as a rule, are from the infernal mortgage holders, and it was so remarkable a circumstance that any human being should be interested in the beastly place—"

“Our ancestral home,” murmured George.

“Bah!” responded his father scornfully “You were born in a respectable Chelsea flat, and I was born in Ireland. I don’t think any of the family were ever— well, to go back to my story. I was introduced to the young man— the Marquis M. I wasn’t told his name, and naturally being— a— being—"

“A wily old bird,” suggested George.

“Exactly; I suspected a swindle of some kind. However, my price was asked and I fixed it. I was deuced frank, too. Gave the marquis, a dark little man with a foreign accent, a very complete resumé of the state of the property. But he didn't care; he said he would put it into repair and furnish it as it had never been furnished before. He paid me twelve hundred pounds cash down, and I gave a receipt; and that is all.”

“Real money?” asked George, incredulous.

“They take it in the shops,” said his father.

“It’s very rum,” said George thoughtfully. “Does anybody at the Foreign Office know who the kings are for whom he is acting?”

“No," replied his lordship. “At least, the marquis particularly asked me not to let the Foreign Office know his business.”

“I see,” said George. After a while: “Where is the mysterious marquis to be found?” he asked.

“At Grenville Palace Hotel,” replied the other. “He’s staying there as Mr. Johnson. He has tons of money— he’s simply throwing it about.”

He touched the pocket wherein his bank-notes lay with an absent-minded movement.

George was very thoughtful. After a while he asked:

“Is Chell in this?”

Cleghorn looked surprised.

“Yes,” he said, “we’ve been staying the week-end at his place— the marquis and I. You see,” he went on, “the marquis has possibilities for Chell, and Chell, being a mean little devil, naturally enough thinks there is something to be made out of the agent of real kings who has the power to grant concessions and that sort of thing. Chell knows you very well, by the way.”

“Very well,” agreed George gravely.

He parted from his father in the entrance-hall of the restaurant.

“By the way,” said Lord Cleghorn, after he had shaken hands, do you know a very reliable typist?”

“There isn’t such a thing,” said George, then remembered. “By Jove!” he said, “I know the very young party. She is perfect!” he said with enthusiasm. “Do you want her?”

Lord Cleghorn frowned at his son.

“The marquis wants a girl— he may have one by now but, as I only saw him this morning, it is unlikely; he wants her for evening work.”

“Nothing could be better,” said George. “And now, at parting, will you allow me to offer you a word of advice, and to ask you a favour?”

“Anything in reason,” said Lord Cleghorn.

“My advice is: keep the money you’ve got in some place where the marquis can’t get it back again. My request is: that you recommend me to him as a very discreet young taxi-man.”

Lord Cleghorn’s lip twitched.

“Anything I can do to help forward a member of the family I shall do,” he said. “Must I tell him that you are my son?”

“For my sake, no,” said George earnestly, and with that they parted.

That evening the Honourable George Mortimer met an extremely pretty typist, and drove her home to her flat. She was a slim girl, tastefully dressed, and the possessor of a pair of solemn grey eyes that had, it must be confessed, a disturbing influence upon this none-too-impressionable young man. Of course, they were not in love— no more in love than they had been on a certain day when he had seen her in Chell’s library, and had saved her from the wrath of that dyspeptic millionaire.

They were good friends; they were even disciples of Plato— that Plato of whom people speak so glibly who have never heard of Archianassa. They discussed one another's possible marriage dispassionately, though of late George had been vexed by the cold-blooded way in which she had excluded him from the possibility of good matches.

She had an aunt staying with her, an excuse for George leaving his cab outside her flat and taking tea with her.

“I’ve discovered a fine job for you,” said George, as he took the cup from her hand. “Amanuensis and secretary of state to the Marquis M.”

“M.? What does ‘M’ stand for?” asked the girl, in wonder.

George shook his head.

“It may stand for Montmorency or Moses,” he said. “But, whatever it is, it will not stand for Mug— I mean,” he hastily explained, “for Innocent.”

“A marquis?” she repeated thoughtfully.

“Keep your matrimonial eye off the coronet,” warned George.

She looked at him with a sidelong glance. “A good match for a lady-typist,” she said; and pirouetted round the room with a teacup in one hand and a piece of cake in the other.

But George was not amused.

“Seriously, my child,” he said, “I have a special object in inviting your attention to the most noble one.”

And he gave her a brief outline of the conversation he had had with Lord Cleghorn.

“How exciting!” she said, clapping her hands in glee. “Shall I see the King?”

“The odds are all against it,” said George. “Now, I count on you to be a good little friend, and let me know what the game is.”

“You don’t want me to be a spy, do you?” she demanded haughtily.

“Get down from your perch, birdie!” said George. “A spy is the very thing I wish you to be.”

The girl laughed.

“Of course, I’ll do anything in the world for you— except marry you!” she declared.

“I’ll take jolly good care about that!” said George, rising to go. “Here is the address, but I’ll come and fetch you. You’re not likely to meet Chell, so that need not alarm you. I’ve reconnoitered the country, and I’ve got the lie of the position. Marquis and Co. have a suite at the Grenville Palace— two sitting-rooms, so there’s no occasion for the blush to rise to your maiden cheek. Marquis M. is a young man, tremendously suave and polite. He is a very amiable man but I shall be hanging around if he happens to get too amiable. Go and get the job.”

“Right-ho!” said the girl.

“And avoid slang,” said George severely, “because it doesn’t become a girl with eyes like yours!”

That night he waited for her by arrangement in a side-street. He had taken her to the hotel and set her down, and then turned his car into Little Avenue Street. He did this for a reason. The Marquis occupied a suite on the first-floor, the windows of which opened on the road in which he was waiting, and beneath these windows be pulled up. After two hours she came out and he drove her westward, left his cab on a rank, and took her to supper.

“Well,” she said, her eyes a-sparkle with the importance of the news she had to tell, “one of their Majesties arrives in England on Saturday— in five days. The Marquis has written a very important letter to him.”

“In English or French?” asked George, looking up from the menu he was scanning with such interest.

“In English— and don’t interrupt!” she said, with a raised finger. “A copy of the letter has been sent to Mr. Chell. He is to have four cork forests in Northern Morocco on the following terms.”

She opened her bag and consulted some notes she had made.

“Eight thousand pounds cash,” she read, “and a nominal rental of fifty pounds a year. In the event of the cork forests not producing ten thousand pounds the first year— that is ten thousand pounds profit— the eight thousand is to be restored to him.”

“Wonderfully generous!” murmured George; and beckoned the waiter.

“Lord Cleghorn,” the girl went on; “that’s your father, isn't it?” George nodded.

“He is to receive a large timber concession in Roumania— the King's private property— for one thousand pounds down and twenty-five pounds a year.”

“Curiouser and curiouser!” said George. “They gave my dear parent twelve hundred, and they think they’ll get back a thousand. Heaven knows I wish them luck!” he added piously.

“And that's all, except that the Marquis, who is a personal friend of all the kings of Europe, is enormously wealthy.”

“I see,” said George. “We’ll have two suprème of sole bonne femme, a devilled kidney or so, William, and a pint of the cheapest wine that ever left a chemist’s vat!”— this to the waiter.

What should he do? thought George, in the interval of silence. There was no need to warn his father; Lord Cleghorn and money were inseparable just now. Should he warn Chell?

He did not want to do Chell a turn. There was nothing of the Boy Scout in the composition of Gospel Truth Mortimer, so far as Chell was concerned.

“Hold fast to the Marquis,” he said to the girl, when he had dropped her at her flat, “and look out for me to-morrow night.”

He drove the next morning to Chell’s beautiful country house, and warned by telegram that his visitor was arriving, Chell waited for him, but with no heartiness. The sight of his converted motor-car made him wince, and he was inclined to be ungracious. In other words, he behaved quite naturally.

“Hallo!” he said, with a scowl.

“Hallo yourself!” said George, getting down from the car.

“What do you want to see me about?” asked Chell, showing no inclination to be hospitable.

“I have much to tell you,” said George firmly, “but not before the geraniums, please!”

Chell invited him in with a mumble, and, after George had helped himself to a cigar, and had lit it and found a comfortable seat, and had generally exasperated Chell to a point of madness, the visitor condescended to explain the object of the call.

“A nice cigar!” said George.

“Ought to be!” growled the other. “I pay ten pounds a hundred for them from the manufacturer.”

He pointedly locked the box in his desk.

“You know the Marquis M., I believe?” said George.

“I do— and so does your father,” retorted Chell.

“My father knows everybody,” said George calmly, “not excluding you. Now I want to ask you whether you have paid over any money for concession either to the marquis or to any of the kings he travels in?”

“That is no business of yours!” said Chell defiantly.

“All right,” said George; and got up. “You’re a horrible pup, and that’s gospel truth, and you don’t deserve to be saved!”

“Look here, Mortimer”— Chell followed him to the door—"what do you mean by being saved?” There was an anxious look in his face. “Everybody’s in it!” he blurted out. “Goldings, in the City, Mosentheims, Bordells. Isn’t it natural we want to get concessions?”

“Terribly natural,” said George. “Now, how do you know it’s genuine?”

Chell smiled triumphantly.

“He’s a Protestant,” he said.

“Good Lord! What does that prove?” asked George wearily.

“Wait a bit— do you know that Canon Gattaway was private chaplain to the family?”

“Who the dickens is Gattaway?” demanded Mortimer.

“He’s a regular swell Churchman. The marquis took us down to see him— Bordell and I. He has a magnificent living, and he’s awfully rich,” said Chell ecstatically. “He told us stories about the wealth and influence of the marquis that positively made my hair stand up, do you know. Do you know,” said Mr. Chell, in almost an awe-stricken whisper, “that the marquis is worth £8,000,000?”

“No,” said George. “I don’t.”

If he was not impressed he was at any rate astonished. So irreproachable a guarantee as a dignitary of the Church of England was overwhelming.

“I suppose this chap Gattaway is genuine?” he asked.

“Genuine!” Chell raised his eyes to the ceiling. “God bless the man, he won’t believe that the vicarage was genuine next. He’s in Crock's List— is that genuine enough?”

George took the book the other pushed across to him.

There it was plain to be read. The reverend gentleman, holder of innumerable degrees, had held chaplaincies abroad.

“If you’ve any doubts in your mind,” said Chell in a positive welter of smugness, “we can drive over to Chippley Gorse— it's less than twenty miles away.”

“Come along,” said George, with sudden energy.

THEY HAD passed through the magnificent drive, and the most portly of butlers had ushered them into the library. Almost immediately the Rev. Gattaway had come in through another door. A wonderfully imposing man, silvery haired, clean shaven, and inclined to stoutness. His dress was spotless and expensive, his collar snowy, his delicate hands white and shapely.

“Will you sit down?” he said, after he had greeted Chell with warmth.

George was introduced.

“The Honourable George Mortimer?” nodded the other sedately. “I think I have met your father.” His voice was refined and well modulated.

“My friend wants to know something about the marquis.”

The other smiled tolerantly.

“I am rather weary of sounding that young man’s praises,” he confessed. “By the way, he has just sent me a cheque for a re-building scheme in which I am interested— a thousand pounds,” he added in a careless tone of one to whom a thousand one way or the other was not important.

Chell glanced triumphantly at George.

“He holds, of course, an unique position,” the reverend gentleman went on. “I don’t like to see a member of an old family engaged in trade— but what can a man do?” He shrugged his shoulders. “He has so many kingly friends.” He shrugged again.

George was an interested listener as the speaker went on to discuss with easiness and freedom of long acquaintance the history of the Marquis M., its style, and its extraordinary exclusiveness.

Then the silver-haired man finished his eulogy, and the conversation drifted on to general topics, George playing some part in leading the talk the way he would have it go.

On the arduousness of a parson’s life, the Rev. Canon Gattaway was very willing to talk.

“It is really a terrible life,” he said. “It occupies every moment of one’s time, waking or sleeping. Here in Chippley Gorse,” he went on disparagingly, “there is very little to do.”

“What I cannot understand,” said George, in a tone of awestricken admiration, “is how you manage to keep the texts and things in your head.”

The other laughed at the naiveté.

“One must do a lot of midnight memorising,” he said humorously.

“Do you know,” said George, as they walked from the library into the hall— they had declined Mr. Gattaway’s invitation to stay to lunch—"I can never quite place that singularly beautiful quotation, ‘God tempers the winds to the shorn Iamb.’ ”

“I think it is in the Ecclesiastes,” said his host. “If you like I will go back to the library and make sure.”

“It doesn’t matter,” smiled George.

“What do you think now?” asked Chell, when George had dropped him (with singular generosity) at his City office.

“I still think you're a mug,” said George.

“And that's gospel truth, I suppose!” sneered the other.

“Absolutely,” said George with conviction.

He was, however, isolated in his views.

There was a constant stream of visitors all day long at the Grenville Palace Hotel, and when the admirable Miss Greta Lowe called, there were enough letters waiting to be answered to keep her till nearly midnight.

She came out to find the patient George waiting.

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, gripping him impulsively by the two arms.

“Anything wrong?” he asked quietly.

She shook her head with a little hysterical laugh.

“Oh, George!” she began.

“George?” he repeated in wonder.

She dropped her hands, and in the light of the street lamp he saw the red in her face.

“I’m sorry,” she said in a low voice.

“Say it again,” he said huskily. “I like to hear it.”

She looked at him in amazement, and a great joy came surging into her heart. She had never seen that look in his face, or heard that note in his voice.

“George!” she whispered, and the next moment she was folded in his arms.

“Exactly how did all this come about?” asked the puzzled young man ten minutes later. “You said, ‘Oh, George,’ and I just loved you.”

“I was going to tell you,” she said rapidly, almost incoherently. She desired to carry off a situation that made her feel shy and embarrassed. “He is collecting thousands of pounds, and he actually wants you—"

“Me?”

“You,” she nodded. “I have sent a special messenger to your address— he said you had been recommended to him.”

“Heaven reward my papa,” said George.

“You are to be in front of the hotel at two o’clock,” she went on hurriedly. “You are to go to Southampton—"

“Via Chippley Gorse?” he suggested.

“How did you know?” she asked, astonished.

“I guessed,” he said. “I’m a mighty good guesser. Come, my dearie, you go back to your little home. It is late, and there is much for a taxi-cab gentleman to do. Also, I must ’phone the gent to let him know that I understand his instructions. One thing I must ask you,” he said. “Amongst the jackass— the gentlemen who sent money to the marquis, did you notice a letter from my father?”

“There was a letter from him,” she said, “but it didn’t enclose money. Now I come to think of it, it asked for another three months’ rent in advance.”

“Oh, my sire!” cried George in a paroxysm of admiration, “how like you!”

IN THE NIGHT superintendent’s office at Scotland Yard, George was receiving the commendations of a large and admiring staff of the Criminal Investigation Department.

“The Marquis M.,” he said, “was obviously Dago Larry; the parson was Jimmy the Ramp, with a beautiful voice. Of course he rented the vicarage— you can rent a hundred furnished vicarages in the summer in England, and there’s nothing to prevent you turning up dressed in a parson’s kit, with a parson’s name. The real Mr. Gattaway is on a voyage round the world. I spotted Jimmy at once, but I tried him with a quotation from Sterne’s ‘Sentimental Journey’ to make sure— he said it was from Ecclesiastes!”

“What is your theory about the Dago taking your father’s house?”

“My theory is my father’s theory,” said George; “which is that, if the beggar had to take a country house to bluff his victims, it’s a jolly good job for our family that he took ours.”

__________________

CAPTAIN HEX

8:  Mr. Montague Flake Hands over £8,000

The Sunday Post, Glasgow, Feb 9, 1919

CAPTAIN REGGIE HEX threw up the window of his sitting-room and looked across the chimney tops of Bloomsbury with a critical eye.

It was a sunny day, and even chimney-tops and untidy back-windows have a poetry in the golden light of an early morning in summer to a young man plentifully endowed with faith in his own capabilities.

His age may have been twenty-six, and he was passably good-looking. He had a pair of bright, blue, humorous eyes that seemed forever laughing, a straight nose, a firm, large mouth, shaded by the smallest of moustaches.

His face was tanned brick-red, and he had the appearance of being what in fact he was— an army officer in mufti. If you looked twice at him you realised that the mufti was shabby, and when he turned round, so that the slanting sunlight caught his garments in a searching light, the suggestion of poverty became more apparent.

When he walked to the table which had been laid for him it was noticeable that he limped slightly, and if this minor infirmity be compared with the evidence of the silver badge in the lapel of his coat and the framed certificate above the writing-table in one corner of the room the cause and effect were exposed.

The room was sparsely furnished. Green felt covered the floor, a plain green paper the walls. There was an old gate-legged table, two or three rush-bottom chairs, a big lounge chair which Captain Hex had alone salvaged from the wreckage of his civilian possessions, and the writing-table made up the furniture.

There were a few cheap prints of old masters scattered about the room, a few framed photographs on the mantelpiece, and the only remarkable decoration of the chamber was that which filled the greater portion on one wall space.

It was formed by two great sheets of brown paper. On the surface were neatly pasted at intervals photographs which had evidently been cut from illustrated newspapers.

"Belshazzar Smith," he called imperiously.

"Sir," said a muffled voice.

"Bring your grub in here."

"Harf a mo', sir," said the voice. "I'll get my coat on."

In a few moments there appeared, a plate in one hand and a cup in the other, Belshazzar Smith, late private of the Scots Guards, six feet high, and broad; a sandy man of gentle countenance, with a little ginger moustache and shaggy eyebrows that topped a pair of solemn blue eyes. Add to this a certain baldness and you have the man. He had this in common with his master— that he wore in the button-hole of his ill-fitting coat the silver badge of service.

"Sit down, Belshazzar Smith," said Captain Hex, reaching out and drawing a chair to the table. "We'll start fair."

"I'd just as soon have my grub in the kitchen if you don't mind, sir," pleaded the soldier.

"Be a democrat," snarled Hex. "Sit down with your equals and even worse— where the devil did you get that name of Belshazzar?"

"A Bible name, sir," said Mr. Smith with great gravity. "All our family had that kind of name: Abijah, Shallum, Jotham, Pekah, and Gehazi."

"Good Lord!" said the startled Captain Hex. "You had a lucky escape, for if Belshazzar is a Biblical name, I'm a Hun. But let that go. We will review the situation. I met you last night for the first time!"

"Yes, sir."

"You were broke."

"Yes, sir."

I offered you a job at nothing a week, but with prospects."

"Yes, sir."

"Go on eating, Belshazzar. You're discharged from the army. Why don't you go back to your old job?"

Mr. Smith was silent.

"Because," Captain Hex went on, "because there is no old job— that's what you told me last night. Because you left a little shop to join the army and when you came out you found it in the hands of a healthy young alien named—"

"Livinski," growled Mr. Smith, bolting his toast savagely. "He's opened three shops— all belonging to men who were called up. As Shakespeare says—"

"Blow Shakespeare!" said Captain Hex. "Now listen to me. I had a business in 1914. It was a good business— foreign agency, stock-buying, and all that sort of thing. I chucked it up: two thousand a year, closed my office, and went into the army.

"Today," he said grimly, "every one of my customers is on the books of Rosenbaum and Toblinsky. From their names," he went on, "you might imagine that they are Irish. They're not. They're Russians. They are rich, Belshazzar, rich beyond the dreams of actresses."

"Avarice," murmured Belshazzar Smith, on familiar ground.

"Actresses," insisted Captain Hex firmly, "come here."

He rose and walked to the wall, where his picture-gallery offended the unities and stabbed with his finger portrait after portrait, as he reeled off their titles and biographies.

"That's William O. McNeal, real name Adolph Bernsteiner, the Shell King; that is Harry V. Teckle, the Steel King; that is Theodore Match, the Shipping King; that is Montague G. Flake, the Margarine King; this fellow with the funny nose is Michael O. Blogg, the Jam King— and that fellow with the glasses is the Cotton King; and that lad with the dyspeptic eye and the diamond pin is the Lumber King— bow to Their Majesties, Belshazzar Smith. They are going to make us rich!"

"Sir?" said the startled and baffled Mr. Smith.

"They are our little Eldorados," said Captain Hex calmly, "our Pay Cash or Bearers; our Money from Home!"

"Do you mean they're relations of yours?" Said Belshazzar, in tones of awe.

"God forbid!" said Captain Hex piously. "Sit you down and I'll expound the Plan of Operations and the General Idea."

For an hour he expounded his scheme, and comprehension came very slowly to Mr. Smith, but it came.

"And now," said Captain Hex, getting up, "we will go to the office, and the great advantage of living in your office, Smith, is that you aren't very far from home."

He walked to the writing-table, pulled open a drawer, and took out a wad of press-cuttings, and from these he selected one.

"Before we proceed," he said, "go down to the front door and hang out the board. You will find it in the kitchen. We must do everything regularly.

Mr. Smith disappeared into the tiny kitchen, and presently returned with a small black board on which was painted in white letters—

HEX'S DETECTIVE AGENCY

(Restitution Department)

"That's right," said Hex approvingly. "You will find two nails outside the door, and your job will be to hang it out every morning and take it in every night, providing the youth of Lambeth does not pinch it."

When Smith returned, his employer took up the cutting.

"Listen to this. It is a description of a sale at Christie's. 'A small box of miscellaneous manuscript went to the bid of Mr. Montague Flake at 120 guineas. The box is of carved Spanish mahogany,' etc., etc. I will not bother you with the details. The point is that Mr. Flake is a great collector of old manuscript and a great hog."

"Now, your part is dead easy," continued Captain Hex, consulting a Bradshaw. "You go down to— let me see— yes, here is a likely place called Little Wenson, and buy a farm. Do the best you can with £200, but remember, it has got to be a free-hold property. It need not be large. It need not be near a road, and preferably there should be at least one tree."

"I am to buy it?" said Mr. Smith slowly.

That is your job," Hex said. "You can take your time. Live as cheaply as you can, but don't close the deal until you get a wire from me. Send me all the particulars, a rough sketch of the property, and your address. You are not to communicate with me except through this office, and under no circumstances are you to disclose the fact that you know me or have any business dealings with me."

An hour later Smith left. Captain Hex took off his coat and set to work. In a box in his bedroom were half-a-dozen sheets of age-stained parchment. He spent the rest of the morning and the greater part of the afternoon covering these with fine writing.

THERE IS no more highly respected figure in financial and business circles than Mr. Montague Flake, for Mr. Flake controlled the butter markets of London, Copenhagen, Rotterdam and, in pre-war days, Tomsk, from which it may be gathered that Mr. Flake was a considerable personage even before the time he managed to corner the butter supplies.

Officially, Mr. Flake did not control the market. Officially he had nothing to do with the cornering of margarine. In all his stores— and there were 631 branches of Flake U.P. Stores throughout the United Kingdom— the "U.P." standing for "Universal Provisions"— there was a large notice respectfully informing customers that the management was doing its best to get supplies of butter and margarine, but that the failure of the hay crop in Denmark, and the root crop in Ireland, was causing much embarrassment, whilst the extra cost of freights (which really worked out at an additional ¼d per pound), compelled the reluctant directors to raise the price of butter 3d per pound, and margarine 2½d.

And the customers were duly impressed, and, what is more to the point, they paid, and millions of twopence-ha'pennies went into Mr. Flake's pocket, for he was the company, the directors and the shareholders. This was in the days when the price of butter was not controlled and when butter-cards were unknown.

Mr. Flake had a large house in St John's Square, in the most fashionable part of London. He had a model farm in Norfolk, an estate in Kent, a shoot in Yorkshire and a salmon river in Scotland.

Mr. Flake was a harsh-faced man, wholly unsuggestive of butter or anything oleaginous or suave. He was a widower and lived alone, save a housekeeper, three secretaries, four chauffeurs, twelve men-servants, and a small army of white-capped cooks, housemaids, and the like.

Mr. Flake sat in his magnificent library, and was nibbling his pen, for he was in the agony of composition.

He had scratched out twenty lines when a visitor was announced. He took up the card that lay on the silver plate and read the inscription without any great show of interest. It read:

THE HEX PRIVATE DETECTIVE AGENCY

(Restitution Department)

Captain Reginald Hex, D.S.O., M.C.,
late Blitheshire Fusiliers

He glared up at his secretary, who had followed the footman into the room.

"What does he want? Tell him to write."

"He insists upon seeing you, sir," said the footman. "I told him you were busy."

"Show him in," growled Mr. Flake.

Captain Hex was ushered in, very grave, very business-like and very well dressed, for he wore his one good suit.

"Sit down. Captain— er— Hex," said Mr. Flake, waving his lordly hand to a chair. "What can I do for you?"

Captain Hex removed his gloves slowly, laid them beside his hat, took out his pocket-book and consulted the interior.

"A few days ago," he said, "you purchased a number of miscellaneous manuscripts at Christie's sale."

Mr. Flake nodded.

"They were the property," Captain Hex went on, "of the late Lord Witherall, who was a collector, and they comprised a number of more or less important documents—"

"More or less worthless," interrupted Mr. Flake brusquely. "As a matter of fact, I bought that lot for the box more than for the manuscripts. I haven't had time to look through them yet, but I don't suppose the manuscripts are worth tuppence."

"It was on the subject of the manuscripts I wanted to see you," said Hex. "I have been employed by a client to interview you under peculiar circumstances. A former confidential servant of Lord Witherall gave into his lordship's custody certain documents, the particulars of which I am not at liberty to give, and these, according to the man's relatives— he has been dead some years, by the way— were kept by his lordship in that particular box. The man's name was Samuels, though that was not the name he was known by to Lord Witherall. If that document is in your possession— it is in the form of a letter addressed to Samuels— my client is willing to pay you £200 for its return."

Now Mr. Flake was, above all things, a good business man, and a good business man knows instinctively that a first offer of £200 for anything means that it is worth much more. And a good business man, moreover, has ever an eye to the main chance.

Mr. Flake pressed a bell, and, when his secretary appeared:—

"Bring me that box I bought at Christie's the other day," he said. "I can tell you this," he said, when the girl had gone, "that I do not promise that I can return any document which may be in this box. A deal's a deal. Captain Hex, and I am a business man."

Captain Hex nodded.

"I can only remind you," he said gently, "that the relatives of Samuels are very poor people, and from what I gather that document may be of the greatest value to them."

"And to me," said Mr. Flake pleasantly. "I am poor, too. We are all poor— it is a relative term, as we are on the subject of relatives," he added humorously.

"I don't think you can compare your condition with theirs, sir," said Captain Hex with dignity, "and I feel sure that you would not attempt to benefit at the expense of poor people—"

"Rubbish!" snapped Montague Flake. "There is no sentiment in my composition, Captain Hex. I am a self-made man, and I have made my money without worrying very much about the people who have had to part. A bargain is a bargain. If I pay 120 guineas for a poke, I'm entitled to the pig I find in it. That's fair, ain't it— isn't it, I mean? Mind you, I'm not going to say I won't sell it," he added, as the secretary placed the box on the big table before him, "and I'm not going to say I will."

He cut the sealed cords which bound the box, and threw open the lid. It was filled to the top with yellow manuscripts. Some were bound together in pads with faded red ribbon. some were bound together in vellum books, and there were a large number of loose sheets.

Mr. Flake hesitated and, lifting out the first stratum, laid it on the desk.

"You say it is a letter?" he said.

Captain Hex nodded.

"This is evidently the manuscript of an old play," said Mr. Flake; "and this"— he lifted another weighty pile—"seems to be the original manuscript of a story of some kind. Here are the letters." He picked one up, turned it over to read the signature, and laid it on the table.

Hex turned to the waiting secretary, and then to Mr. Flake with an air of indecision.

"I wonder if your secretary would be good enough to look up the telephone number of Sir John Howard and Sons."

He named the greatest of the London solicitors, a name which carried respect even to Mr. Flake.

"Are you acting for Howard?" he asked quickly.

"For the moment I cannot disclose my principals," he said.

He looked round and waited until the door closed behind the girl; then he sidled close to Mr. Flake.

"I can tell you this in confidence," he said in a low voice. I am acting for—"

He whispered a name in Mr. Flake's ear. To reach the financier he had to come round to the corner of the table. As he whispered, he obscured for a moment Mr. Flake's view of the box. With somebody whispering in your ear, it is difficult to detect the rustle of parchment.

Hex's hand shot into the open box, and was out again before Mr. Flake could recover from his surprise.

"Tup?" said Mr. Flake irritably. "Who the dickens is Tup?"

"That," said the suave Captain Hex, "I will reveal at some later stage of the enquiry. I thought you knew."

Mr. Flake looked at him searchingly, but the eyes of Captain Hex did not falter.

"Anyway," said the financier, as he bundled the documents back into the box, "I haven't time to go through these things now, and I shan't be able to give you an answer for a few days."

"But it is urgent." Captain Hex was earnest again. "If it is a question of money we shall not quarrel over a few hundreds. It is absolutely necessary that we should get this document back immediately."

"And it is absolutely necessary," said Mr. Flake good-humouredly, "that I should have my afternoon tea and that I should have time to examine the contents. I will give you your answer tomorrow."

With this Captain Hex had to be content. He left the house, curiously enough, without discovering the telephone number he had inquired for, and made his way to the nearest post office. He sent a telegram addressed to "Smith, Bull Hotel, Little Wenson, Kent," and the message was: "Close the deal."

FOUR DAYS later a handsome motor-car drew up before a very small cottage a mile from the village of Little Wenson, and Mr. Flake descended.

Fortunately, he was able to make his reconnaissance without effort, for the cottage stood at the corner of a lane and the western limit of the garden ran flush with the hedge. There were two apple trees, and beyond the broken wall of a well with its crazy windlass.

Mr. Flake walked slowly back to the front of the cottage, pushed open the gate, walked along the garden path and knocked at the door. A man in his shirt sleeves answered: a tall, solemn-looking man, who answered Mr. Flake's cheery "Good morning!" with a non-committal nod.

"Is this your house?" asked Mr. Flake pleasantly.

"Yes, sir," said the cottager.

"Rather nice situation," said Mr. Flake.

"It's not so bad," said the other, cautiously.

"Been here long?"

"About a week," said the occupant. "I haven't been out of the army long, and I thought of starting a poultry farm."

"Oh, so you were in the army?" said Mr. Flake, patronisingly. "Well, it doesn't seem the right kind of place to raise chickens. Who owned it before you?"

"I forget the name," said the cottager, "but it's been in the same family for hundreds of years."

"H'm!" said Mr. Flake. Then, carelessly: "Can't you recall the name?"

"Something like Samson," said the cottager, with an effort of memory.

"Was it Samuels?" asked Mr. Flake, eagerly.

"Ah, that's the name, Samuels. They weren't the last tenants, but they were the people who owned it years ago."

"H'm!" said Mr. Flake again. "If it isn't asking you a rude question, what did you pay for it?"

"All the money I had," parried the other skilfully, "and as Publius Syrus says—"

"Yes, yes," said Mr. Flake. I know what the public say. But now, tell me— what would you sell this little property for?"

"I wouldn't sell it," said the cottager.

"Come, come, you'd sell it for £100 profit, surely?" said Mr. Flake.

"Not for £1,000 profit," said the other, determinedly. "Not for £10,000 profit. There's some funny tales going about this property. I had a lawyer down here the other day, and a private detective."

"The devil you did!" said Mr. Flake. "Come, now, let's talk business. I am a business man, and I will give you £1,000 for this property."

"If you offered me £20,000 I wouldn't take it," said the cottager, with greater determination than ever. "I am satisfied with it, and, as Socrates says: 'Contentment is natural wealth; luxury is artificial poverty.'"

"Now look here" Mr. Flake was aroused. "Will you take a reasonable price for this property? I've got a fancy for it, and I will pay anything in reason."

"Come inside," said the cottager, opening the door. 'Wise men are instructed by reason,' says Cicero; 'men of lesser understanding by experience.'"

An hour later Mr. Smith shook the dust of Little Wenson from his feet. He was accompanied to London by Mr. Flake, and together they journeyed to a bank in Lombard Street, for Mr. Smith admitted to a wholesome horror of cheques, and not until he had received pads of large white banknotes did he affix his signature to the deed which transferred his property to Mr. Flake.

It was a long time since Mr. Flake had done a day's hard digging, but he felt that he was being well repaid for his labours when, at six o'clock the next morning, he began his excavations. A line drawn at right angles from the centre of the two apple trees passed the well on the right hand side. This was exactly as the document in his possession said it should pass.

Those three sheets of parchment written in a crabbed hand describing how one William Samuels had in the year 1826 stolen from the strong rooms of Cheals Bank, at which he was employed as a porter, "brilliant stones to the value of £120,000, the property of the French emigré, the Marquis du Thierry," and of how he had hidden that same in the garden of brother-in-law, Henry Frederick Samuels, in the parish of Little Wenson, were consulted again and again.

The said box was there. A perspiring Mr. Flake discovered it after three hours' strenuous digging and brought it to the light. It looked strangely new. Indeed an ordinary person might have confused it with one of those solid boxes which farmers employ to send eggs by rail. It was heavy, but Mr. Flake did not feel its weight as he carried it to the seclusion of the cottage and prized off its top.

It was heavy because it was half-filled with sand. He ran his hand through the sand, and his fingers encountered a square piece of cardboard, which he took out and carried to the light, for he was a near-sighted.

There was one line of writing, and that in the same crabbed calligraphy as the letter he had found in his box of manuscript— though, if he had examined that box before Captain Hex had whispered in his ear, he might have saved himself a great deal of labour and no small amount of money.

The inscription ran:

TUP means The Unfortunate People, on whose behalf I am acting.

The next morning Mr. Flake waited upon Captain Hex. "You and your gang have swindled me out of £8,000," he said. "You can either hand the money back or be prosecuted."

"Thank you very kindly," said Captain Hex. "I will be prosecuted."

"You are a common swindler," stormed Mr. Flake.

"There are two ways out of this room," said Captain Hex. "One is out of the window and one is out of the door. You have paid your money, so you can take your choice."

"I shall go to the police," fumed Mr. Flake, taking up his hat.

He was on the point of apoplexy.

"Now listen to me," said Captain Hex kindly. "You got the worst of a deal. You thought you were going to make a lot of money at the expense of a poor family. You have spent your life getting fat on the money you have twisted from the public. The war has been a godsend for you. That you should get rich and have your shooting boxes and your country estates, soldiers' wives and soldiers' children have gone hungry. The law cannot touch you. You are one of the thieves who keep within the law. I have taken £8,000 from you on a square deal, and I tell you this"— he shook his finger in the purple face of the speechless financier—"that £8,000 will be £80,000 before I have done with you."

"You are a common thief!" spluttered Mr. Flake.

"Belshazzar Smith," called Hex sternly, and the big man appeared in the doorway, "chuck this blighter out."

Belshazzar opened the door and jerked his thumb.

"As 'Azlitt says— 'Violence defeats its own ends.'"

What else Hazlitt said, Mr. Flake did not wait to hear.

_______________

9: The Outwitting of Mr. Theodore Match

The Sunday Post, Glasgow, Feb 16, 1919

"BELSHAZZAR SMITH," said Captain Hex suddenly.

They had sat for an hour in the fading light, smoking in silence. The evening sky was still light, and through the open window came the shrill voices of children at play.

"Sir?" said Belshazzar Smith.

"Light the gas and have a look at the picture gallery."

Belsshazzar Smith rose heavily, put his big pipe on the mantelshelf, and lit the gas. The he walked across to the wall on which were pasted a number of portraits cut from the illustrated papers.

"In the second row, the third from the right, you find— what?"

"Theodore Match," read Mr. Smith.

"That's the man. Well, Theodore Match, Esquire, who has never given a ha'penny to charity, is going to provide a start in life for some fifty soldiers' families."

Mr. Smith nodded and reached for his pipe.

"That's better," he said. "As Fielding says, 'A rich man without charity is a rogue,' and, as 'Errick says—"

"We'll leave 'Errick out," said Captain Hex. "Anyway, you needn't praise Mr. Match. He'll be Sir Theodore Match in the next Honours List, because he doesn't know how generous he is going to be. Belshazzar, is your tobacco dearer than it used to be? Is meat dearer— is bread dearer— is everything dearer that comes from overseas? Who do you think has got the extra ha'pence? The planter and the farmer have got a bit. They worked for it and good luck to them. But Theodore Match has got more than his whack. He's had a ha'penny of yours for tobacco and a farthing for your loaf of bread and something out of everything you eat or drink. He's raised his freights. Coal is dear, labour is dearer— everything's dear. But he's the dearest thing of all. There's nothing cheap about Theodore except the souls he sends to sea and the men he employs and his patriotic speeches. I have put him down on the subscription list to my Cottage Homes for the Widows and Orphans of the Mercantile Marine for the sum of £8,000— and I'll get it."

Mr. Smith nodded slowly, and there was admiration in his eyes.

"I bet you will, sir," he said enthusiastically.

The Theodore Steamship Line, as everybody knows, is one of the most important cargo lines in the United Kingdom. It had a fleet of 25 ships, it traded with South America, with the China seas and with the two coasts, and with India and Africa, and before the war did an extensive business between West Africa and Hamburg.

Its head offices were in Newcastle; and to Newcastle Captain Hex, accompanied by his trusty lieutenant, journeyed next day, arriving late in the evening and repairing at once to the Station Hotel.

Early in the morning Captain Hex set forth on a voyage of discovery. The Theodore Steamship Line possessed an unpretentious block of offices not very far from the hotel, and by the energy of the clerks and the number of clients who waited in the various departments, Hex gathered that business was extensively brisk.

He passed into the office, handed his card to a clerk and presently was shown into the private room of Mr. Theodore Match. It was a large room, half-panelled in oak and hung about with photographs of ships. Mr. Match was a middle-aged man with one of those jovial, bearded countenances and those easily laughing eyes which are the possession of men upon whom the cares and worries of this world sit lightly.

He beamed at his visitor through gold-rimmed glasses.

"Glad to meet you, Captain Hex," he said, to that officer's surprise. "Sit you down and make yourself comfortable. Have a cigar."

He handed a silver box to the visitor and Hex slowly selected a weed.

"Now what is it you want?" smiled Mr. Match. "£10,000 for a soldier's model farm or a million to found an asylum for worn-out quartermasters?"

For a second, but only for a second. Hex was surprised to silence.

"I think I'll take the million," he said, "though, as a matter of fact, I don't want anything like that sum."

Mr. Match leant back in his chair, shaking with laughter and rubbing his hands together as though he were a participant in the greatest joke in the world.

"You see, I know you, Captain Hex. As a matter of fact, I've been warned about you. I'll tell you frankly, I know all about your little office in Hope Street, Lambeth. I know all about your portrait gallery— I sent a private detective there the other day to have a look round— I know all about your adventures with Mr. Montague Flake, who is an old friend and client of ours. I know how you diddled him out of £8,000. I've been laughing over that ever since. Now let us come down to plain speaking, MCaptain Hex," he said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the arms of his chair. "You imagine you have a mission in life to relieve rich men of their unearned surpluses. Am I right?"

Hex was now at his ease. He recognised the situation and his mind was working rapidly.

"That is perfectly true," he said. "I have."

"Good!" said Mr. Match heartily. "You have marked down a dozen disgustingly rich people to contribute the soldiers' and sailors' comfort."

"That also is true," said Hex.

"Good again!" said Mr. Match. "You regard me as a profiteer and you have come to Newcastle with a grand little scheme in your head to make me contribute to— what?"

"I have been settling soldiers on the land," said Hex. "I want to provide a few homes for wives and children of the men of the Mercantile Marine."

"Admirable philanthropist!"

The eyes of Mr. Theodore Match were beaming with benevolent fun. He stroked his little beard thoughtfully.

"Admirable philanthropist!" he repeated. "And how much am I supposed to contribute to this very interesting experiment of yours?"

"I have put you down for £8,000," said Hex.

"Why not £8,000,000? I am as willing to give one as the other. And I suppose you have some little scheme to get it. Now be a sportsman, Captain Hex," he said banteringly. "What shall it be? A grand confidence trick, buried treasure, interesting details about my past life. You won't enlighten me as to the little trick you intended employing to extract my hard-won wealth?"

Hex laughed.

"I will give you frankness for frankness," he said. "I hadn't quite made up my mind."

"Come," said the other, "be friendly."

The door opened at that moment and a young man came in, a tall, stout-built young man, red and puffy of face.

"This is my son; this is Captain Hex, about whom I was speaking to you, Tom," said Theodore Match. "You will be interested to learn, Captain Hex, and it will probably add to your righteous anger against the profiteer, than my son is 27, unmarried, perfectly fit so far as I know, but so indispensable to my business that he was exempted. That's so, Tom, isn't it?"

Tom grinned.

"That's about the size of it," he said.

"Of course," said Mr. Match, still smiling, "he ought to have been in the cold, damp trenches of Flanders from your point of view, instead of being in a warm, snug flat in Newcastle. Now, come, Captain Hex, "have I not tempted you to do your uttermost."

"Tell me, before we go any farther," said Hex, "will you contribute anything to my scheme?"

"Not a bean," smiled the other, "not half a bean, not the very dust that lies at the bottom of a bag of beans. Why should I? Am I sitting here making money for my servants or for myself? Do I devote the whole of my day and the greater part of my night to working out schemes for increasing my super-tax in order to bring trade and custom to a hundred local public-houses? No, sir!" He thumped his desk furiously. "The welfare of my men does not interest me. What they do with their money does not interest me either. What I do with my own is no concern of theirs or yours or anybody else's in the world."

"Do you want me, governor?" asked the young man.

"No, Tom, I merely wanted you to come in to see Captain Hex."

With a nod to the visitor and a meaning grin to his parent Tom Match left the room.

"I make more money than the able seaman because I am cleverer than the able seaman," continued Mr. Match. "It is the triumph of intellect over brute strength. Show me anybody who is cleverer than I and let him take it out of me, and I am perfectly willing that he shall get away with it. If you"— he pointed a pencil at Hex and spoke more slowly—"or your military attaché, who I understand bears the uncommon name of Smith, can by any trick or dodge or act of artfulness, short of forgery or burglary or robbery, extract from, me £8,000 or £10,000, you are at liberty to do so.

"I tell you this frankly, and as man to man, Captain Hex, that the welfare of the seaman is of no interest to me. I am ever so much more interested in you, and if you can find a way of getting the better of me, if you can trap me in a unguarded moment by any trick you may choose into giving you the money you require, I promise you that I will not prosecute you even though the act by which you extract the money may be a criminal one in the eyes of the law."

He stood up, still smiling, and thrust out his big hand, and Hex was smiling as he gripped it. There was something about this Philistine that he liked. If he were a brute, he was an honest brute.

"I accept your challenge," he said. "Within a week you will have contributed £8,000 to an unexpected charity."

"You can't do it," said Mr. Match decidedly. "Why, my dear man, I have successfully resisted an appeal of the highest people in the land. Look here!"

He walked back to his desk, pulled open a drawer and flung out half a dozen printed documents, attached by a fastener.

"It came this morning— the Prince's Appeal for Merchant Seamen. That's one better than yours. They want a million," he chuckled. "Did I refuse it? No, sir, I ignored it. If I refused I should get into bad odour— you realize we are speaking in confidence as men of honour. If the Prince comes to Newcastle I shall dodge him. If he writes me a personal letter I shall be on a bed of sickness and unable to reply. I have never given a ha'porth of charity in my life and, please heaven, I never shall! When I die I shall leave nothing to build hospitals or found churches, nothing for the indigent poor, nothing for anybody who hasn't the right to it."

He was a shrewd man, in many ways brilliant. He had one of those extraordinarily nimble minds which are the peculiar possession of the accountant and the bookmaker. There was no need for him to take any extra precautions. He had sized up Hex and knew that he had a foe worthy of his steel, but felt quite competent to meet all the machinations which the most ingenious and most unscrupulous philanthropist could devise.

If he scrutinised a little more closely the documents which came before him in the ordinary course of business for his signature, if he watched with a little more care the companions of his son, if he was a little more suspicious of all the business proposals which came before him from outside sources, and read into them some sinister scheme of Captain Hex to secure his subscription, it was not an unusual care for an unprecedented suspicion, nor a particularly remarkable scrutiny which he exercised, for he was by nature careful.

Of Hex he saw nothing for the first three days. A private detective whom he had employed to shadow the philanthropist reported that he spent most of his time in the private sitting-room of his hotel with his companion, the tall, solemn soldier with whom he occasionally went abroad.

He met Hex in the street by accident on the fourth day and crossed the road to greet him.

"Well," demanded Mr. Match boisterously, his eyes agleam, "how goes the robbery under arms— the great-turf fraud— the Jim the Penman-Ship?"

Hex laughed.

"Fine," he said. "I reckon your money is as good as in my pocket."

Match roared his merriment.

"Have you found a scheme?"

Hex shook his head.

"Not really— but I'm picking it up little by little. Watts invented the steam engine through seeing a kettle boil. I'm watching the extraordinary effect of large self-confidence upon the security of wealth."

"Watch!" said the other, and put out his hand. "You're going to get eye-strain."

He was going on, but Hex laid his hand on his arm.

"Wait— there's one thing I want to tell you," he said. "There are a dozen ways I could get the money from you, but they're all dishonest. I could forge your name as easily as anything— I should have made a most successful criminal— I could burgle your stately mansion at Morpeth— I've reconnoitred the ground and it's dead easy to get through the window above the portico—"

"Try it," said the other significantly.

"Oh, I know all about the burglar alarms, but I could make them inoperative with a gimlet and a wire in a matter of moments. I could impersonate you so that your own son would be deceived. But none of these things appeal to me. There isn't any art in them— I should just hate to take the money. But you're a difficult proposition. You're too big — there's nothing really mean about you."

"Flatterer," smiled Mr. Match.

"It's a fact. I could never get you to buy a share in buried treasure, or bluff you into believing that I know all about your past life. You're just an honest rascal making a fortune out of people's necessity and so far as I can see you have only one weak spot."

Mr. Match looked at him quizzically.

"Let me know that and I am fortified," he said.

"You are too confident of yourself," said Hex. "That's where your undoing lies."

"Prove it."

"I can prove it all right," said Hex.

They were near his hotel and the hour was one.

"Come and lunch with me, if I promise you that I will neither dope, sandbag nor hypnotise you."

"Done!" said Mr. Match heartily. "We will discuss this matter further — you amuse me."

It was not until the lunch was over that Mr. Match again approached the subject. Throughout the meal Hex kept up a light, continuous flow of amusing reminiscence and Mr. Match found him an agreeable companion.

"You were talking about my self-confidence and how it might ruin me. I am interested. Please elucidate."

Hex shrugged his shoulders.

"What I mean is that you have confidence in the processes of business and in your own ability to handle any situation which has to do with the transference of money. For example, if I asked you for a cheque for £8,000 at this moment and you gave me that cheque, you would be quite satisfied in your mind that you would be able to prevent that money from going to charity."

The shipper thought for a moment.

"Yes," he said. "I think I can say with confidence— it may be over-confidence but I don't think it is— that I could give you — in fact, I am quite willing to give you at this moment— a crossed cheque for £8,000."

"You think that you could stop it."

The other nodded.

"You would probably post-date it till tomorrow."

Match nodded again.

"And such is your confidence in the etiquette and practice of banking that you would not be one penny the worse off."

"Exactly," said the other, "though it might put you in rather a hole, my friend."

"Whether it would or not," said Hex, offering his cigarette case, "I challenge you to do so, and I promise you that if I do not get the value of that cheque applied to the purpose I design it, I will not bother you again."

For a moment the shipping man looked at him and then, with a little grin and with that quickness which characterised all his movements, he slipped a chequebook from one pocket and a fountain pen from another, and wrote. Hex, looking across the table, saw that the cheque was dated for the following day. He noted that under the amount Mr. Match wrote:

"This cheque must only be passed on the personal authorisation of the payer."

He signed it with a flourish, crossed it with two heavy strokes and handed it to his companion with a smile. Hex drew a long sigh of relief.

"Thank you," he said. "I see you have made it payable to bearer."

"The bearer will have some difficulty in getting it," said Mr. Match.

Mr. Match drove straight back to his office and without a moment's delay called up his bank on the telephone.

"That you, Gilbert? It's Theodore Match speaking. I have just given a cheque for £8,000, payable to bearer— got that? The number of the cheque is A.B. 714312— got that? I stop payment of that cheque and it is not to be cashed or debited to my account under any circumstances. I will give you confirmation in writing."

It may be said of Theodore Match that his pleasures were mainly intellectual. He had found his principal joy in life in pitting his wits against wits as shrewd or nearly as shrewd as his own, and it is true that he accounted success less by the money that that success brought to him than by the satisfaction of having outwitted his opponent. Whether or not Hex knew his man before he came to Newcastle, it is certain that he understood him now.

Match did not regard the money as of any great consequence. He took a keen pleasure in the game for the game's sake and it was in this spirit of eager interest that he awaited the culmination of his enemy's plan.

His watcher brought him two items of news that afternoon, one that the soldier-companion of Captain Hex had gone to London by the first train, the second that Hex had hired the window of a small confectioner's shop in the main street for two days, and that the contents of that window were being hurriedly removed to make way for an interesting exhibit. No other happening marked that afternoon. Having secured his window, Hex did not fill it. It was not until the following afternoon that he showed his hand, simultaneously with the issue of the evening papers.

At half past two Mr. Match received a telegram from London.

HEARTIEST CONGRATULATIONS AND THANKS FOR YOUR HELP.

It was signed "Smith."

"Now who the dickens is Smith?" asked Match with a frown.

He was cogitating when Tom, his young hopeful, burst into the room.

"I say, Governor," he gasped, "you didn't tell me you were going to do it!"

"Do what?" asked Mr. Match, suspiciously.

"Why," said the young hopeful, "that Prince's Fund; you told me you would not contribute a cent!"

Mr. Match was on his feet.

"And how much have I contributed?" he asked quietly.

"£8,000. It's in the evening papers. That fellow Hex has got a window in High Street pasted round with appeals for the Prince's Fund, and a photographic enlargement of your cheque in the centre."

Mr. Match collapsed into his chair. "Good lor'!" he said. "What do the papers say?"

The young man took a paper and read:

"We understand that the Prince's Fund for Merchant Seamen is the richer by £8,000 through the generosity of Mr. Theodore Match of this city, a cheque for this amount having been given by our patriotic fellow-citizen."

"Good lor'!" said Match again. "So that was his dodge! He couldn't get it for himself, and so he got it for the fund."

"Did you give him a cheque?"

Mr. Match nodded.

"But I stopped it," he said. "That fellow's too clever for me."

"But you aren't going to let it go through?" said his agitated hopeful.

"Don't be a fool, Tom," said Mr. Match calmly. "Stopping a cheque for one of Hex's infernal schemes and stopping a cheque for a big national fund are two different matters. He's got me all right. Don't you see what would happen if I repudiated my gift? I should be pilloried from one end of the country to the other."

With a deep sigh he reached for the telephone and gave the number.

"That you, Gilbert? With reference to that cheque I stopped yesterday— yes, the one for £8,000. It is now in order. Let it go through."

He pressed a bell, summoned his secretary, and dictated a confirmation. He went home that night a silent, thoughtful man, and answered the congratulations of the few privileged friends who could approach him on the subject somewhat absently.

The next morning when he got to his office, he found his banker waiting for him.

"That cheque was cleared very quickly," said Gilbert.

"Cleared?" said Mr. Match in surprise.

The other nodded.

"It was cleared soon after I got your message yesterday afternoon, through the London and Midland Bank of Newcastle. By the way, I see that there is a contradiction about your gift in this morning's paper."

Mr. Match took the paper in his hand without a word and read— .

We find we were in error in describing the charity which benefited by Mr. Match's munificence as the Prince's Fund. This error was due to the fact that a facsimile of the cheque was shown in the High Street amidst a number of appeals to support the Prince's charity. The money has been devoted to Captain Hex's Cottage Homes for Seamen's Families.

Mr. Match put down the paper.

"I gave the cheque," he said, talking aloud to himself. "I stopped the cheque and then I authorised its payment, just as he said I would. It was clever. He took the cheque, paid it into the London and Midland— he must have opened a special account in Newcastle for some such purpose— and started the story about my having subscribed to the Prince's Fund knowing that the first thing I would do would be to cancel the stoppage of the cheque— clever! Yes, I was overconfident, all right!"

He picked up the telephone.

"Give me the Station Hotel." Then after a pause: "Is Captain Hex there? Put him through, please. Is that you, Hex?

"Yes," said the cheerful voice of Hex.

"When you get tired of your career of crime," said Mr. Match, "I can give you a partnership in this firm."

"Not on your life," said Hex. "You're not going to get your money back that way!"

When Mr. Match put down the telephone he was laughing softly to himself.

____________________

10: The Foiling of Mr. Harry B. Kingberry

The Sunday Post, Glasgow, February 23  1919

WHEN Captain Hex marked down a reluctant and generally unconscious subscriber to any of those naval and military charities in which he interested himself, it was his invariable practice to make a study of his victim.

The reputation of Mr. Harry B. Kingberry was such as to attract such a connoisseur of unearned Wealth as Captain Hex, and since Mr. Kingberry was one of those shy individuals who conducted their business from a very small office on the third floor of a very big business block, and made visits to London no more than twice a week, and those only for the briefest duration, Captain Hex had no opportunities for studying his subject in town, and must needs reconnoitre the wild country in which he lived.

At seven o'clock one autumn evening Captain Hex arrived at the little market town of Budleigh Milton, in the county of Berkshire. It was a small railway station, lit dimly, and he found himself and his companion, ex-Private Belshazzar Smith, two of half-a-dozen passengers who had alighted at this unpromising destination. Of these, two particularly attracted the attention of Captain Hex, who was very naturally observant and suspicious.

"I wonder who they are?" asked Hex curiously.

Drawn up by the kerb was a large motor-car. A footman was waiting, and after a brief exchange of words the two men got into the car, which was driven off.

"Whose machine is that?" asked Hex of a waiting cabman.

"That's Mr. Kingsberry's, sir. They are going up to the 'All."

"Mr. Kingsberry's, eh?" mused Hex. "Who are the visitors?" he demanded shamelessly.

The cabman was very informative, as apparently also had been the chauffeur. The two gentlemen had come from London on business, and they were going back on the ten o'clock train.

He engaged the cabman to drive him to the Red Lion, the one hotel in the town, and over a dinner of cold beef and pickles he discussed with Belshazzar Smith his plans for the morrow.

"He's a pretty tough case, Belshazzar Smith," said Hex, sipping his coffee thoughtfully. "I cannot see our technical school for disabled Tommie being started on Harry's good money."

He looked at his watch.

"I am going to the station at 9.30, and I want you to be there somewhere in the background. I don't know exactly what is going to happen, but I have a notion that were are going to get next to a lot of excitement."

It was a quarter to ten when the staring headlamps of Mr. Kingsberry's big limousine swung into the station yard. The car pulled up just short of the entrance, and two men alighted. So far as Hex could see they were the same two whose departure he had witnessed with such curiosity. They did not pass through the booking-hall, but after a glance at his watch, one of them turned and said—

"We have fifteen minutes to wait. We had better stay out here."

They strolled to the far end of the pavement before the station premises and leant against the wooden rails which separated the station yard from the deserted platform.

Hex passed through the booking-hall, walked quickly and noiselessly along the platform, stopping in the shelter of the last of the station buildings. From where he stood he could hear their voices speaking in low tones. He edged a little closer, and, peering through the darkness, saw their backs turned to him. The only cover available was that afforded by a large sheet-iron advertisement which had been nailed to the palings, and, crouching, he moved stealthily to this shelter. If they looked over the railings and downward they could not avoid seeing him.

Their voices were still too low to offer any clue to their conversation. He heard the words "old man" and caught the word "beans," and heard one of them laugh softly. Then ensued a mumbled conversation which was wholly unintelligible. Presently he heard another word which sounded like "Van Witt." Then of a sudden the voice of one rose in consternation.

"I've left the paper behind," he said, and cursed.

"What paper?" asked the other.

"The drawing. I put it down on the seat in the billiard-room."

Another mumble. They were discussing the advisability of returning, the the second voice opposed such a course.

"I can remember it, It is very simple."

"But suppose the servants—"

"They won't know what it means."

Footsteps resounded on the platform, a distant whistle of the train brought the men towards the booking-hall, and Hex, rising from his uncomfortable position, went back the way he had come. He met them face to face as they emerged on the platform, but he could distinguish nothing which would ever enable him to identify them. He noted, however, that neither of the men wore gloves, and that one of them had some sort of design tattooed on the back of his hand. He found Belshazzar Smith pacing up and down the station yard.

"Belshazzar Smith," he said quickly, "have you got your return ticket to London?"

"I have, sir."

"Go back by this train. Get in the same compartment as these two men, and find out where one of them lives. They are probably going to separate in London. You must track the one that is easiest. On second thoughts, you had better not get into the same compartment. They may spot you following them."

Hex waited until the train had gone out, then made his way back to his hotel, unpacked his electric torch, and set forth to tramp the four miles which separated the town of Budleigh Milton from the residential estate of Mr. Kingberry.

The billiard-room was an apartment modernly panneled in rosewood, wonderfully roofed in Moorish plasterwork, and possessed mullioned windows in the style of the 15th century. The billiard-table was an expensive and impressive piece of furniture with legs carved in the Queen Anne style. The raised settees were of Sheraton design, and the rich-looking cabinet in the corner was a magnificent example of the gramophone period.

"Holy smoke," murmured Captain Hex, "the fellow who furnished this room was an artist."

He was evidently searching for something of importance, for after his curious and general survey of the apartment he began a systematic search of the room. It was on one of the morocco-leather settees that he discovered what he had been looking for. It was a half-sheet of notepaper folded into small compass. By the light of his electric torch he examined the paper. It contained no more than a pencil-drawing of a circle with a palm-tree in the centre. The palm-tree was not well-drawn, but even the veriest tyro who knows little about art can draw a palm-tree.

Captain Hex took a pencil from his pocket and rapidly transferred the design to his shirt-cuff, replaced the paper where he had found it, and turned to go.

He had taken two stealthy strides toward the open window through which he had entered, when there was a soft click and the billiard-table was flooded with light from the shaded lamps above.

In the doorway stood a man.

In the subdued light Hex saw that he was wearing a dressing-gown of execrable design. He was a stout man, and bald, except for a fringe of hair above his ears, and that he was agitated Captain Hex gathered from the fact that the revolver he held in his hand wobbled indecisively. Hex took his cigarette-holder from his lips and nodded courteously.

"Good morning," he said pleasantly. "I hope I haven't disturbed you."

The man im the doorway spluttered.

"By— by gad, sir!" he said, with difficulty disguising a trembling of the lips. "What the devil— smoking, by gad!"

"Sorry," said Hex, throwing away the cigarette. "I thought you wouldn't mind my smoking in your billiard-room."

"What are you doing here? Who are you? Burglary, eh?" roared the man in the dressing-gown (a green crane on a purple ground swallowing a pink fish). Hex noted the design and shuddered.

"Not a burglar, sir; if you will sit down I will explain," he said easily.

"Sit down! By thunder! Here! Jones! Jackson! Jevons!" he shouted back into the darkness, and there was a rustle of stockinged feet.

"You can save yourself the trouble," said Hex calmly. "I am, in a sense, the police."

"Eh?"

The other stared at him suspiciously, uneasily.

"My card," said Hex, waving off the two irresolute servants.

He handed the white oblong with a flourish.

"'Captain Hex, D.S.O.'," read Mr. Kingberry. "'Hex's Detective Agency. Restitution Department.'"

He looked up at his prisoner.

"That's my name," said Hex, "and now you will understand why I called— I see you've had visitors."

He pointed to a table on which stood three glasses and a soda-water syphon.

"Eh?" said Mr. Kingberry more easily. "What's that to do with you?"

Hex shrugged his shoulders and sank gracefully into the depths of large club-chair.

"Let us dispense with unnecessary witnesses," he said with a significant nod.

The man in the dressing-gown (Hex blinked at it, fascinated) jerked his head to the two men.

"Wait in the hall. I'll call you when I want you," he growled, but carefully closed the door behind him.

"Now look here, Captain," he began mildly, but Hex stopped him with a gesture.

"Let us come down to brass tacks," he said, "and settle a matter which is greatly distressing me. Sit down, Mr. Raspberry."

"Kingberry!" snarled the man. "By gad—"

"Cut all that retired colonel stuff," said Hex, "and listen.

With the greatest reluctance the bald man obeyed, mumbling menacing noises.

"I am the head of two or three philanthropic enterprises," said Hex. "They are designed for the benefit of the discharged soldier, his wife and his family. I secure my funds by bleeding profiteers, food-sharks and money-hogs who have made fat out of this blessed war. It is my practice to force 'em to pay against their wills. I have put you down for £4,000."

"You want to kid me that you broke into my house in the middle of the night to ask for a subscription. It won't do."

Mr. Kingberry got up.

"You can explain that to the police," he said, reaching for the bell-push in the panneled wall, "and as for subscribing— bah!"

"Bah yourself!" said Hex. "Don't ring— I haven't finished yet. I say that I had marked you down. In fact, I had almost decided that you should be my next contributor, but—"

He shook his head sadly.

"Mr. Kingberry," he said, "I am willing to take any money but crooked money."

There was a dead silence.

"What do you mean?" asked Kingberry, clearing his throat, but husky nevertheless.

Hex looked at the table with the three glasses.

"You've had visitors," he said softly.

Mr. Kingberry jumped to his feet.

"And what if I have?" he demanded in a strident voice. "What's that to do with you? Can't a gentleman have—"

He stopped, for Hex had suddenly taken his eyes away from Mr. Kingberry'a face and was gazing intently at the table where the glasses stood.

"Hello!" he said.

He walked to the table and picked up half-a-dozen small objects which had escaped his notice and now, as his eyes became accustomed to the semi-gloom of all that part of the room which was not illuminated by the table-lamps, he could see more clearly.

"What have you got there?" asked Mr.Kingberry, starting up.

Hex held his open palm under the lamp and examined its contents.

"Beans," he said, "horse-beans, beans!"

Suddenly he remembered a word he had heard one of the men use. In his hand were six familiar kidney-shaped objects; to be exact, there were six and a half, for one had evidently been broken in two.

No further examination was possible, because Mr. Kingberry, with a quick movement, jerked the contents from the intruder's hand. Hex looked at the man in surprise. His face had gone dirty-white. His hand was trembling. and emotion so overpowered him that for some time he could not speak. When he did he pointed to the open window.

"That's the way you came and that's the way you'd better go," he said shakily. "I give you a chance that you will never get again— get out!"

"Good morning," said Hex, and leapt lightly through the window to the garden-bed below.

Belshazzar Smith had a brief and uninteresting story to tell. He had followed one of the men home to Walthamstow. The man's name was Diver, and, so far as could be discovered by Belshazzar Smith— it was fortunate that Diver was known to the owner of a coffee-stall at the corner of the street— he worked at the North India Docks in some capacity. He wore a uniform with brass buttons, but what his duties were the coffee-stall keeper was unable to say. He thought they were something important, because Diver lived in a good house and frequently came home from his work in a taxicab

"That's good enough," said Hex, jumping out of bed. "Get me my shaving-water, Belshazzar. We are going back to town on the next train."

"Ain't we going to see Kingberry?" asked the astonished Belshazzar.

"Not to-day," replied Captain Hex grimly.

THAT DAY he spent pursuing inquiries in the City among Kingberry's business acquaintances. It was a fact that nobody quite knew how the millionaire, who was probably not a millionaire at all but an extremely rich man nonetheless, had made his money. Yes, he did a big trade, principally with Sweden and Holland, and with the Dutch colonies and Spain.

A merchant in Mincing Lane gave some further information. Kingberry had a licence to export fodder and cattle-food of various kinds.

"He has often bought horse-beans from me," said the factor. "In fact, he does a pretty big trade in this line. Some he buys here, some he imports from Spain. As a matter of fact, I happen to know that he is shipping a cargo to Holland this week— I sold him twenty tons myself."

"Can you tell me by what ship these beans are going?" asked Hex, interested.

The merchant rang the bell.

"I can give you that information, I think," he replied, and when his clerk came in he asked: "Where did we deliver those horse-beans for Kingberry?!

"To the North India Docks, sir," said the clerk.

"How were they marked?" asked the merchant.

"I will tell you in a minute, sir."

The clerk disappeared, and presently came back.

"They are being shipped by the Jan Van Witt," he said.

A light dawned upon him.

"Thank you very much," he said.

On the morning that followed Captain Hex, armed with a letter of introduction from a very important Government Department, called upon the Superintendent of the North India Docks, and found that genial man communicative.

"I see," said the Superintendent, with a glance at the letter, "you want permission to go anywhere in the docks. There's no difficulty about that. I don't suppose you are going to try to smuggle contraband aboard."

"Hardly," said Hex.

He turned suddenly so that his back was to the doorway, and heard a cheery voice hail the Superintendent through the open door.

"That was Mr. Kingberry. You have heard of him? He was a war shipper. One of the biggest of 'em," said the Superintendent.

"I have heard of him," said Hex.

"He is sending a big cargo off the Rotterdam, and he usually comes down and watches the loading and examination."

"Tell me this," asked Hex: "What is the procedure when boats go from here to Rotterdam? Are they liable to search on the North Sea?"

The Superintendent nodded.

"All ships are liable to search in war time," he said, "but as a matter of fact, when a ship clears with a cargo from London or from any of the coast ports and doesn't touch a foreign port it is seldom examined. We make the inspection of the cargo here and give the ship a certificate of innocence."

"But isn't that dangerous?" asked Hex.

The Superintendent shook his head with a smile.

"We have a special staff who do nothing but break cargo and examine it," he said. "In a shipment like this, for example, which Mr. Kingberry is sending over, we probably open fifty barrels haphazard, and turn them out to see if anything was concealed. If there was the slightest suspicion, every barrel would be opened.

"What is it you look for mostly?" asked Hex.

"Rubber," said the Superintendent. "That's the stuff they are trying to get by hook or crook. A man who could send a ton of rubber into Germany would make a small fortune. The profit is nearly a thousand per cent. She has been getting it in some way or another, and there has been a lot of trouble about the leakage, so naturally we keep a bright look-out. The Dutch do all they can to discourage the traffic, and the steamship line which does most of the carrying between here and Holland offers big rewards for the detection of contraband. Naturally, they stand to lose very heavily if the contraband cargo is found aboard."

Hex made his way along the docks, but before he reached the berth where the Jan Van Witt lay he was joined by the Superintendent.

"I thought I'd walk along with you," said the official. "Here you see the work I was telling you about."

The dock was covered with barrels, up-ended, standing in rows, and two officials in uniform, accompanied by workmen, had just at that moment opened one of the barrels, and the workmen were turning its contents on a sheet of sacking.

"Beans,"said the Superintendent.

Hex watched. When the inspection was completed the beans were returned to the barrel, the lid was securely fastened, and the officials resumed their stroll, stopping before another barrel, which was opened and treated in exactly the same way.

"They will probably examine twenty or thirty," said the Superintendent.

"Will you tell me the names of those two officials?" asked Hex quietly.

"The first is a man named Benson. The second is a man named Diver. They have taken the place of two men who have been dismissed for irregularity."

Hex nodded. He observed Mr. Kingberry hovering in the background, smoking a large cigar, and keeping an eye on the inspection of his cargo.

"May I look at those barrels?"

"Why, surely," said the Superintendent.

Hex walked to the first and examined it, but did not see what he sought. At the fifth barrel, however, he stopped. On the barrel-head, stencilled in dull red, almost indistinguishable since the other markings were of the same colour, was a small circle, inside of which there was a small palm-tree.

Neither the sixth nor the seventh nor the eighth barrel, but the eleventh and twelfth carried the sign.

"I wonder if you would do me a favour?"

"What is that," asked the dock official.

"I should like to have this barrel opened."

The Superintendent hesitated.

"There is no reason why you shouldn't," he said after a pause, and called Diver.

The man turned back, and it was at that moment that Kingberry recognised his midnight visitor. He dropped his cigar and walked quickly in the direction of the group.

"What's up?" he asked.

He did not look at Hex, but Hex looked at him. The same grey look was on his face that he had seen that night in the billiard-room.

"This gentleman wants to see this barrel broached," said the Superintendent. "Open it, will you, Diver."

"I have inspected this one, sir."

"Not his one," volunteered a workman.

"Open it," said the Superintendent.

"Why open it again?" protested Kingberry violently. "I suppose the fellow has been telling you yarns. He is a burglar, that's what he is. He broke into my house the other night."

Superintedent Fraser turned a pair of cold eyes on the millionaire.

"That may or may not be so, sir, "but I can see no objection to the cask being broached. Open it, one of you men."

The workmen prized off the top and poured the contents upon the sacking.

Hex gasped, for there were only beans. He looked into the barrel, tapped it and examined the bottom of the barrel without result other than discovering that it was made of wood.

"Are you satisfied?" asked Mr. Kingberry.

"No," said Hex. "I will see another barrel emptied."

He pointed to another that bore the sign of the circle and the palm-tree. Again the top was removed. Again the contents streamed out onto the sacking. Beans and nothing else!

"Put them back," said the Superintendent.

They were scoped back into the barrel, except one which rolled from the sacking next to Hex's feet. He stooped and picked it up with the intention of replacing it. It was an unconscious act, for it mattered little if the barrel were short of one bean or twenty. He tossed it into the barrel but undershot his mark. The bean fell and the bean bounced.

He darted upon it, lifted it up, and tried to break it. It bent but it did not break, and when the pressure of his finger was released it straightened out again, just as any well-conducted piece of india-rubber, moulded and painted, would do.

In the subsequent search twenty-four barrels of rubber were discovered. The fact that they were all shaped like horse-beans did not make them any the less rubber. The dock police arrested Mr. Kingberry and his two associates, and Hex went back to the Superintendent's office.

"It was clear to me," he explained, "that Kingberry wanted to pass something through the docks without inspection. He evidently got into touch with the two inspectors and paid them well. How well, we shall discover. In order that they should not examine those containing the rubber, he had those barrels specially marked with the circle and the palm-tree, and your examiners tactfully overlooked them.

"I really went down to get a donation to a charitable fund, and I certainly had no intention of being a clever Alec of the Intelligence Department. I have lost a possible subscriber."

"Don't forget the reward of the shipping company," said the Superintendent.

INDEED CAPTAIN HEX did not forget. For a week he practically sat on their step, haunted their ante-rooms, button-holed their directors, and finally left with the nucleus of that fund which eventually produced his technical school.

"Which shows, Belshazzar Smith," said Captain Hex to his lieutenant, "that it possible to get money quite honestly."

"As 'Errick say," said Belshazzar Smith, "'it has been.'"

"Don't let "Errick say 'has been,' said Captain Hex. "Let him say 'horse-bean.'"

________________

11: A Remarkable Deal In Pearls

The Sunday Post, Glasgow, Mar 2, 1919

THERE was a sound of revelry by night in the gilded halls of the Grand Revendriex Restaurant. The hour was late, but the revelry was very exclusive, being confined to the guests of Mr. Montague Sluis.

There was a coon band in attendance; there was a wonderful buffet piled high with uncouponed viands and forbidden ices, and champagne in unlimited quantities. Cups amber and cups crimson glittered refreshingly; peaches, grapes, early strawberries— all that was rare and refreshing from orchard and hothouse— were displayed invitingly In the silver épergnes at the back of the sideboard.

Well might Mr. Sluis spend his money with seeming recklessness. He was a director of fourteen companies, and until this horrible war had brought sorrow and penury into business circles he had been a director of ten others, the names of which ended in "Gesellschaft".

Mr. Sluis was as true a Briton as ever was born in Mannheim and naturalised in Whitehall. He had subscribed heavily to war bonds. He had denounced Germany in terms which the Kaiser could scarcely have read without a shudder. He handed over all his shares and holdings in enemy concerns to his brother in Holland. He had heroically foregone the dividends accruing to him from his association with the various "Gesellschaften," and had allowed them to accumulate in Amsterdam, and as often as twice a week his beautiful steam launch carried parties of wounded soldiers to view the natural beauties of river scenery, in a large portion of which Mr. Sluis was financially interested

The feast of music and movement was at its height when the skeleton appeared in the doorway. He was a good-looking skeleton— in correct evening dress, wearing on the lapel of his coat a silver badge which it is the honourable privilege of a discharged soldier or officer to wear, and he walked with a slight limp. He nodded easily to the janitor, who took it for granted that he was an invited guest, and after a cursory examination of the room he strolled across to the little but expensive knot of stout gentlemen who stood in one corner of the room surveying the revels with an approving eye.

Mr. Sluis, who was a stocky man, with a mop of curly blond hair and a disposition to perspire at the slightest excuse, fixed the newcomer through his pince-nez and frowned.

"I thought I'd look you up," said Captain Hex cheerily.

"Didn't I invite you?" asked Mr. Sluis meaningly and without any warmth or enthusiasm in his voice.

"To be exact, you didn't," said Hex; "but I thought that on this festive occasion, when the hearts of the hardest are necessarily softened at the sight of so much beauty, you might take a more favourable view of my proposition."

"Captain Hex," said Mr. Sluis, closing his eyes— a gesture of dignity which was habitual in him— and raising a large, stout hand, "I haf giffen moneys in colossal sums to charity. To-day, yesterday, it seems for eternity, you haf pestered me with requests that I should subscribe heaffily— I repeat heaffily."

"I heard you." said Hex—"heaffily, you said."

"To your Cottage Homes for Soldiers— a society which is not efen in the list of permissible charities to collect for."

"Quite right," said Hex.

"And now you come to me, mit all my friendts here, uninfited, and, if you will pardon me, objectionable."

"Don't say that," pleaded Hex.

"Objectionable, I repeat," said Mr. Sluis. "Why? To give you £5,000. It is absurd."

"I don't agree with you," said Hex. "You see, Mr. Sluis, I have to get money. My hobbies are expensive. I have made a hobby of helping the discharged soldier, who is, as a rule, a most unpicturesque individual out of uniform, and does not appeal to the charitably-minded. Consequently, my task is a difficult one. Dowager Duchesses do not object to driving in the most exclusive thoroughfares of London with men in hospital blue; indeed they feel honoured by this exercise. Put the man of hospital blue into a reach-me-down suit, a blue collar, and a green tie, and put a bowler hat on his head in place of his uniform cap, and he passes from the hero class—"

"I tell you definite," said Mr. Sluis, " I gif you nothing."

"Then I am afraid I shall have to take from you the sum of £5,000."

Mr. Sluis smiled. You might have thought that the idea of anybody taking £5,000 from him amused him. As a matter of fact, the mere prospect would have given him exquisite pain, but because he did not believe that there was in the world a power which could extract this enormous sum from his banking account he permitted himself to advertise his amusement.

"There is nothing else?" he asked sarcastically.

"Yes," said Hex, "I'll have a drink."

He made his way to the buffet, selected his drink with great care, helped himself to a cigar, and with a little nod to the small and speechless group, faded from the room.

Captain Hex drove straight away to the House of Commons, at which grave institution he had dined. He knew the House was sitting all night, and that his one friend amongst all the legislators would be expecting him. Septimus O'Bryan who, I hasten to add, was not related to any other O'Bryan, had recently made the acquaintance of the philanthropic Captain Hex. They had met in exceptional circumstances, and indeed O'Bryan was an exceptional man. On the outbreak of war he had disappeared from view for the greater part of two years. It was rumoured that he had gone to Australia and to America, but in truth he had enlisted in an English regiment, under a false name, had been wounded and discharged, and his identity might have gone unguessed but for Hex meeting him unexpectedly and recognising in this member of Parliament a man who had fought in his own company.

There are many who will not believe this story, and very few people in the House of Commons who have any inkling of it. But there was one man who knew, and that man was Captain Hex, D.S.O., who had recommended "Private Briery" for the Military Medal, which Septimus O'Bryan, M.P., cherished amongst his secret treasures.

"Did ye find him?" he asked as he came across the lobby to meet Hex.

"I found him."

"Did he put up the money?"

"He did not," said Hex.

"Bad luck to him," said the legislator. "Come and have a drink and tell me what you want to see me about. It's an all-night sitting, and we shan't be disturbed."

Over their refreshment Hex explained the position.

"Of course, everybody knows Sluis is a Boche; that doesn't help any," he said. "I'll tell you what I want you to do. You are acquainted with Sluis. Frankly, that is why I sought you out yesterday and put the matter before you."

"But he's no friend of mine," said Septimus quickly.

"I know that, Septimus." said Hex nodding, "but you can tell me something about him. What is his weakness?"

"Faith, he has no weakness except a love of money," said Septimus.

"Has he any hobby?"

"Getting more money, the black-hearted hound," said the member, "and, be-hivens! I nearly forgot his pearls."

"Pearls?"

The other nodded vehemently.

"'Tis the foinest collection in the world he has. Have ye never heard of them?"

"Pearls, eh?"

"Ropes of them; stacks of them. 'Tis his passion."

"That is good news," said Hex thoughtfully.

The following days Hex pursued his inquries, aided by the faithful Belshazzar Smith, who succeeded in getting into touch with one of Mr Sluis' body servants.

"Met him in a public-house off Grosvenor Square," said Belshazzar, "in the saloon bar an' quite the gentleman. As Keats says, 'Conviviality!'"

"What's the matter with 'Errick?" asked Hex; "isn't he on duty to-day?"

"Well, sir, 'Errick made a similar remark about wine; he said—"

"Tell us about the gentlemanly footman."

"Well, sir, I asked him as per your instructions, about the pearls. They're kept in a strong-room on the first floor— opening from the library. There's always a man on duty day and night."

"You asked that, did you?"

"Yes, sir— you told me to. Also I asked whether Mr. Sluis buys pearls privately or only through jewellers."

"That's good," said Hex admiringly. "Really, Belshazzar, you seem to have succeeded most admirably."

"Tact," said Belshazzar Smith proudly, "is one of the things I pride myself on."

"And with reason," said Hex. "I wonder you weren't pinched."

He had not finished speaking when there came a knock at the door. Belshazzar Smith opened it to discover a district messenger with a letter written on House of Commons stationery, addressed to Captain Hex, and marked "Urgent."

It was from Mr. Septimus O'Bryan, and ran:—

"Dear Captain,— I was in the city this morning, and I heard all about you. It appears that your practice of extracting money from the loathsome millionaire has earnt you indecent fame. Sluis is on your track. Both you and your man are being watched by private detectives. I thought you ought to know this. Sluis is an unforgiving devil, and has made up his mind to have you."

Hex folded the letter.

"I had noticed the detectives," he said; "so had you, Belshazzarr Smith."

"Me!" said the startled Belshazzar. "No, sir, I didn't notice anything."

Captain Hex laughed softly.

"I was watching you from the window. I saw them following you in the street and shepherd you into the house. Come here." He led the way to the window. "Do you see that man at the corner picking his teeth? That's one of them. Where's the other? Oh, there he is."

He indicated at the further end of the street a quietly-dressed man who was standing on the edge of the kerb, apparently reading an evening newspaper.

Belshazzar Smith looked serious.

"Does this mean we are going to get into trouble?" he asked.

"I should worry," said Captain Hex.

It was not a pleasant task which Mr. Sluis had set his sleuthhounds. Captain Hex was a very nimble and energetic person. It seemed to the weary man who dogged his footsteps that he would never tire. The annoying thing was that he insisted upon walking. To follow a man in a taxicab when unlimited expenses are allowed is a luxurious proceeding. Even to follow him on a bus has its merits, but to walk and walk and walk from ten in the morning to five in the afternoon brought iron to the soul of two amiable members of the detective agency which had been engaged by Mr Sluis.

But their patience was rewarded. On the fourth day of their vigil Captain Hex made a visit to Hatton Gardens, and there purchased from a dealer in such things a very handsome jewel-case, on which he had engraved his initials, "R. H." This he carried home with him. The case, as one of the detectives learnt, was empty, the firm in question being a manufacturer and supplying most of the wholesale jewellers in the neighbourhood.

The day following produced no results to the watchers, who had reported their discoveries to their employer. The next day, however, was one rich in possibilities. Captain Hex drove to Willington Arcade in Piccadilly, at the end of which stands the dazzling establishment of the Persian Diamond Company. You cannot pass its windows on a sunny day without smoked glasses for from a score of beds of velvet and rich silk flash and scintillate, gleam and glow, gorgeous brilliants and milk-white pearls, most of which can be purchased under 15s.

To this maker of artificial stones went Hex, and his purchases were large. He bought pearls, a whole string of them, of moderate size and of perfect colour, and he showed an almost fastidious taste in their selection.

"They look almost like real, don't they," said the smiling shopman, and it was at this moment that the detective strolled in aimlessly and began to examine one of the show cases.

"None but a connoisseur would tell the difference," said Hex. "Will you string them together for me?"

He waited till this was completed, watched the "pearls" being placed in an ornamental case, paid £6, their price, and with his purchase under his arm stepped out in the arcade.

That night there was a conference in the library of Mr Sluis. He gathered his friends round him to tell them the good news.

"You would nefer think it possible— such audacity!" he beamed. "I haf had a telephone message from Hex offering to sell me his pearls."

He laughed long and loud.

"What have you done?" demanded one of his cronies.

"I haf infited him here to-night to negotiate," he chuckled again and slapped his stout knee, then he lugged a watch from his pocket. "In fife minutes the little mouse will walk into the lions' den," he said jovially.

The "little mouse" came in later, very cheery, apparently unresentful at the cavalier treatment he had received. He carried under his arm the jewel case of blue leather which had cost him much more than his pearl purchases of that morning. Mr. Sluis was all affability, and with his own moist hands brought forward a chair.

"You want to sell pearls, eh?" he smiled. "Well, well, I can purchase pearls. I haf the finest collection in Europe."

"So I have heard," said Captain Hex, "and I am anxious that you should add these to your collection."

He opened the case arid displayed a string of beautiful white shimmering objects. Mr. Sluis made a pretence of examining them.

"Very beautiful," he said. "What are you asking for these?"

"£6,000," said Hex.

Mr. Sluis shrugged his shoulders and gave a sidelong glance at his companions.

"It is a lot of money," he said. "A string of that description should not be worth much more than £2,000, but I am not a haggler, and I daresay if you come to-morrow night about this time we can make a deal."

"At the price?" asked Hex anxiously.

Mr. Sluis smiled.

"Certainly. I would like to do you a turn and I will not haggle mit you."

Captain Hex drew a deep sigh of relief.

"There is only one thing," he said softly. "I should like you to pay me—"

"In cash, of course," said Mr. Sluis, "you don't like cheques. But perhaps you will tell me how you came into possession of these pearls?"

"I bought them for a purpose," said Hex, "and now I am anxious to sell them. That is the only explanation I care to offer."

"Surely, surely," said Mr. Sluis quickly. "I should not pry into your business, eh? Very good, Captain Hex."

He offered his hand.

"Till to-morrow night at six o'clock."

When the front door had closed upon Hex Mr. Sluis unfolded his plans.

"I haf already been in communication mit Scotland Yard," he said, "and I find I can prosecute this fine fellow for obtaining money by a trick. To-morrow you shall be here, my friendts, also the good Inspector Smith will be dressed like one of us, and we will teach this philanthropist a good lesson."

Mr. Sluis was a born organiser. On the following afternoon the secretary of Mr. Sluis drew from the bank the sum of £6,000 in sixty notes of £100 each. The numbers were carefully taken and marked under the supervision of Inspector Smith, and all was ready for the discomfiture of Captain Hex when he arrived that evening, accompanied on this occasion by his bodyguard.

He introduced the embarrassed Belshazzar to the assembled company. The moment he came in he recognised the atmosphere of hostility, sensed danger as a pointer scents game, but he was not greatly perturbed.

"Here we are, Captain Hex. Let me introduce you to my friends. Mr. Julius Bloomstein, of whom you have heard, another subscriber to your little scheme, eh?"

"It is very likely," said Hex, taking a good view of a gentleman who controlled quite a number of metal companies in England.

"This is Mr. Van Richter."

Hex bowed to the second.

"And this," indicating a severe-looking man, severely dressed, and unmistakably a police official, "is Mr. Tom Jones, from Liverpool."

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Tom Jones, from Liverpool," said Captain Hex, his eyes twinkling.

"And now," said Mr. Sluis, "to business. You have the jewels?"

Hex took the case from under his arm and flicked it open.

"Very good. They look splendid."

"You have the money?" asked Hex Mr. Sluis pulled open a drawer of his desk, took out the notes, and threw them on the desk.

"Count them," he said.

Hex went over them with the rapidity of a bank cashier.

"Correct," he said.

"Here is a pen and paper, Captain Hex," said Mr. Sluis. "You will please write at my dictation."

Hex took up the pen.

"Are you ready?"

He nodded.

"Received from Mr. Montague Sluis," dictated that gentleman, "the sum of £6,000 in payment for one string of pearls— you had better put genuine pearls," said Mr. Sluis airily, and Hex obeyed—"which I certify," continued Mr. Sluis, "are my property. Have you got that?"

"Yes," said Hex.

"Now, sign it."

The other signed in a large hand, "Reginald Hex," and put the date. He picked up the money and put it into his pocket, and suddenly the smile on the face of Mr. Sluis faded.

"That's all," he said quietly. "Inspector, you will do your duty."

Inspector Smith stepped forward.

"Do you charge this man?" he said.

"I charge him," said Mr. Sluis, reciting the formula which he had committed to memory, "with obtaining £6,000 by means of a trick and with defrauding me by selling artificial pearls as real."

"You have heard the charge," said the inspector. "You had better not say anything now. I shall take you down to Bow Street."

"You do so at your own risk, inspector," said Hex. "I suppose you are an inspector."

"My name is Inspector Smith, of Scotland Yard."

Hex nodded.

"I repeat that you will take me at your own risk," he said. "In the first place there has been no trickery. I sold this man the pearls for a price. I have given him the receipt, and I have the cash in my pocket."

"Persian pearls, my friend, Persian pearls," smirked Mr. Sluis. "I purchase genuine pearls."

"Of course you did," said Captain Hex. "Surely a connoisseur like yourself can distinguish between the artificial and the real."

He took a note-book from his pocket, and produced a printed bill, which was stamped and receipted.

"l bought these from Tiffanys in Regent Street," Hex went on. "There is the receipt for them, £2,000."

Mr. Sluis went pale.

"If you can prove that I have been defrauded," said Hex virtuously, "that I have purchased artificial pearls, I shall be awfully glad, because naturally I shall have an action against Tiffany."

"Real pearls!" gasped Mr. Sluis.

He picked up the necklace with a trembling hand, and carried it to the light. Long and earnestly he looked, then came back and laid his purchase on the table.

"Are they real, sir?" asked the Inspector.

Mr. Sluis could not trust himself to speak. He nodded. The inspector smiled.

"Well, of course, sir, you have no action against this gentleman."

"But they are not worth more than £2,000, and I have paid £6,000."

The inspector shrugged his shoulders.

"I am afraid that's your lookout, sir," he said.

"But I have paid £4,000 too much," insisted Mr. Sluis tremulously.

Hex laughed, thrust his hands into his pocket, and crackled the notes.

"That is exactly the amount I intended you to pay," he said. "If you hadn't been such a hog and hadn't been so keen on catching me you might have gone through the formality of examining the pearls and seen they were genuine."

"But you bought artificial pearls," said the agitated man. "You were seen to purchase them."

"Quite true," said Hex, "but I bought the real ones after I showed you the 'duds.'"

"For why did you buy these if not to defraud me?" bleated Sluis.

"I bought those," said Captain Hex as he made his way to the door, "to wear at your next party. Now, be sure you 'infite' me."

__________________

12: The Man Who Betrayed Himself

The Sunday Post, Glasgow, Mar 9. 1919

CAPTAIN HEX pulled off his gloves, descended from behind the steering wheel, and made a brief examination of his car. His companion, a tall, solemn, ex-soldier, watched the inspection with a doleful face.

Presently Captain Hex looked up.

"Belshazzar Smith," he said accusingly, "you didn't put the water in the tank."

"Didn't I, sir?" said Belshazzar Smith.

"What the dickens is the good of saying 'Didn't I, sir?' when you jolly well know you didn't!" said the indignant Captain Hex.

He looked round. Fortunately the car had stopped within a dozen paces of a small house that stood at the end of the village— a neat, white house of quaint architecture, with a glimpse through the ordered hedge of rosery and croquet-lawn and plethoric kitchen-garden.

"Go and borrow a pail of water," said Captain Hex. "No, stay; I'll go."

He walked to the little oak gate, up the wide gravel path, and pressed the electric button by the side of the door. Presently the door opened, and Hex took off his cap, for the pretty lady with sad, grave eyes who stood surveying him was obviously not the servant.

"I am so sorry to bother you, but my car has given out, and I wondered if you would be kind enough to let me have a pail of water," he said.

She smiled.

"I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to get it yourself," she said; "my servant is out. Will you follow me?"

She led the way through the parquetted hall to the neatest of kitchens. He found a bucket and filled it, replenished his car, and returned the vessel.

He waited in the hall to thank her, for she had disappeared when he returned, and was surprised when she came from the dining-room bearing a cup of fragrant tea.

"I am sure you will appreciate this," she smiled. "It is a very cold day."

She looked at the badge on his coat.

"You are a service man!"

"I was," he corrected.

She nodded.

The smile had faded from her face.

"My husband was a soldier," she said quietly.

He had noticed that she was in black, and through the open door of the dining room he saw suspended above the fireplace a sword in a glass case.

"West Sussex," she said. "He was killed on the Somme."

"Bad luck," said Hex, and she nodded again, biting her lip, and looking past him down the path. Then suddenly—

"You are not Captain Hex, are you?" she asked.

He looked at her in surprise,

"That is my name," he said.

"I am so glad to meet you." She put out her hand impulsively. "They tell me you are settling soldiers' families in the village. I think it's splendid of you."

Captain Hex was not easily embarrassed, but now he went a deep red.

"Yes," he said awkwardly; "I am bringing down twenty or thirty families. You see," he went on hurriedly, "it's not my money; at least it's money I have the absolute disposal of, but it's not mine. It's my pet scheme to do something for the soldier's widow and for the disabled man, and some little time ago I got £8,000 from a gentleman— well, not exactly a gentleman; he's a profiteer— and Belshazzar Smith and I— yes, the name is a bit startling, isn't it?" He smiled quickly. "He's my servant; well, he's not exactly my servant—"

"What a mass of contradictions you are," she laughed. "Won't you come in and tell me about it, and would your Belshazzar Smith like a cup of tea?"

"I'll call him," said Hex eagerly.

He went to the door and whistled, and the girl behind him laughed again, but softly and to herself. There was something immensely boyish about Captain Hex in his unguarded moments— a frankness and freshness that at any rate appealed to her.

Belshazzar Smith duly came, saluted the lady, and accepted the cup of tea with that embarrassment which all big men show in such circumstances.

"You are doing work you ought to very proud of," she said. Then she stopped, eyeing him thoughtfully. "I wonder," she said, half to herself, then flushed pink.

"Say what you were going to say," he encouraged her.

She shook her head.

"No, no," she said hurriedly. "It was only just a thought I had. I was wishing that there was some kind of institute or some kind of society, something that a man like you was directing, where we women could go with our little troubles. That's selfish, isn't it?" she laughed. "But the officer's widow is in rather a difficult position. She hates people doing nice things for her, and her troubles, as a rule, are so much more complicated."

"Mrs— ?"

"My name is Willoughby," she said. "I am so sorry. I should have introduced myself before."

"Mrs Willoughby," he said earnestly, "it isn't only the Tommies I want to help, it is the wives and children of all the good comrades I have had. You don't know how I'd like to help. I know," he said hastily, stopping her protest, "I know it is not money you want or anything horrid like that, though it probably comes down to money," he laughed. "Most things do, don't they? Won't you tell me?"

She got up and paced the room, her hands clasped behind her.

"I think I will," she said after a while. "I am just aching to tell somebody, and there's nobody in the world that I can tell. It's about this house. My husband was an officer in the regular army, one of the old 'contemptibles,' you know," she said with a proud light in her eyes, "and the dearest and best of fellows. He had a small private income, and out of that we bought this house. When I say we bought it," she amended. "I mean my husband paid for it in instalments. There was one instalment due when he was killed. The house was purchased from a man who is very rich, and has a lot of house property in this county, but all the business was done through his agent, a man named Witte. About a month before my husband died Witte absconded. He had apparently been swindling his employer, and when I went down to pay his successor the last instalment I met the owner." She stopped and pressed her lips together as at some unpleasant memory.

"Well?" asked Hex curiously.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"The owner simply said that it was not one instalment that was due, but five— that is to say, about £600. There was no trace of any previous sum having been received."

"But surely you can trace the cheques?"

The girl shook her head.

"Mr. Witte used to ask my husband as a personal favour to pay him in cash."

"But the receipts?"

"That is the awful part of it," said the girl. "There are no receipts. My husband was, like many other soldiers, a very indifferent business man. He never bothered about receipts. He would carry them about in his pocket until they were worn through, and then he would throw them into the fire with the other debris he took from his pocket. There are some men like that," she smiled. "You see, Frank was too large and too generous and too trustful."

"I see," said Captain Hex.

"I think I made a mistake in saying I hadn't the receipts, because he was at first very nice and respectful and made no difficulty about the matter at all. It was when be asked me if I had the receipts and I told him I had none that he was so horrid."

"Very horrid?" said Hex.

She nodded.

"What is the name of your landlord?"

"Mr. Montague Flake."

Hex jumped up so quickly that he nearly upset the teacup he was holding in his hand.

"Montague Flake?"

His eyes were bright, and his white teeth showed in a delighted grin.

"What! King Montague of Margarinia!"

She smiled.

He reached town in the evening, and till late in the night he sat debating various schemes. In the morning be drove down to Leadenhall Street, where is situate the palatial offices of the U.P. Stores, Limited, of which Mr. Montague Flake was managing director and chairman.

"Yes, Mr. Flake had arrived," the clerk told him. "Had he a card? More important, had he an appointment?"

"I have neither card nor appointment. But will you tell him that a gentleman from the Treasury wishes to see him alone on most urgent private affairs?"

In ten seconds Hex was ushered to the presence. He entered sideways, instantly turned his back upon the figure at the desk, and looked meaningly at the clerk who had shown him in.

"You may go, Johnson," said the voice of Mr. Montague Flake, and when the door had closed Captain Hex turned.

For a moment, in fact until he was standing by the desk, the financier did not recognise one who only a few weeks before had, in the language of the law, "obtained by a trick" the sum of £8,000. When he did recognise the visitor Mr. Flake fell back in his chair in speechless, open-mouthed indignation.

"What, what, you!" he spluttered.

"Calm yourself," said Captain Hex, with a magnificent gesture, "don't forget your kingly dignity. I have come to speak to you on a matter of the gravest importance."

"Why, you scoundrel!" roared Mr. Flake, "you swindler! You obtained entrance to this room under false pretences. By Heavens! sir! I'll have you arrested! You said you were from the Treasury!"

"Quite right," said Captain Hex suavely, "wouldn't you call me a treasury? Haven't I got £8,000 of yours?"

Mr. Montague Flake jerked violently to his feet and reached for the bell.

"Before you press that bell," said Captain Hex solemnly, "consider!"

"I consider you a villain and a thief," said the wrathful man.

"Consider," said Captain Hex, "have you never heard of conscience? Have you never read in the papers that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has received fabulous sums from X.Y.Z. and A.B.C. in the form of conscience money? Do you not take account of the contrite heart and the repentant sinner?"

Mr. Flake was suddenly calm.

"H'm," he grunted, "of course, if you have come to make restitution, though, mind you, it was a low trick you played, but if you have come to disgorge your ill-gotten gains, I might have something else to say."

"Let me ease your mind," said Captain Hex, "I haven't come to do anything so silly. If you will sit down and will listen to me for a few minutes I think I can save you from— well something unpleasant."

Mr. Montague Flake looked at him.

"What do you mean?" he asked suspiciously.

"Doubtless in your life," said Captain Hex, "there have been incidents and episodes which you are anxious to forget."

The millionaire eyed him keenly, and there was in his eyes a sudden look of apprehension, which the other did not fail to mark.

"Oh," he growled, and settled himself into his chair with a shrug of his shoulders, "so that's the game is it? Blackmail!"

"You may call it blackmail," said Captain Hex, "or you may call it reparation. I am not particular what you call it."

He put his hat upon the table, laid his stick lengthwise (Mr. Montague Flake was too far gone to protest), wheeled up the easiest chair he could find, and sank into it in the graceful attitude of a man who had complete command of the situation.

"I have in my pocket a little packet of documents which it is not my intention to show for the moment. It concerns—"

"Blackmail, eh?" said Mr. Montague Flake, and breathed with difficulty.

"It's an ugly word," said Captain Hex, "which I, as a man who has held the King's commission, do not like to hear applied to myself. But the matter is rather too serious— so serious that I am reluctant, very reluctant, to see the matter discussed in the press."

Mr. Flake opened his mouth, but said nothing. His steely eyes never left the face of his visitor.

"Before I proceed any farther," said Captain Hex, "I would like you to summon my servant, Mr. Belshazzar Smith, whom you have met before. He was the landlord of a cottage near Little Wenson, which you purchased at a price much above its market value."

"Because you had insinuated a swindling document into some manuscripts I had bought," interjected Mr. Flake violently.

"Because you found or thought you found a document describing the place where some treasure was hidden, and the place happened to be on this property. So you paid £8,000 for a cottage worth about £200, believing you were going to make a handsome and illicit profit."

"What do you mean, illicit? It was all fair and above board," protested Mr. Flake angrily.

"There is such a thing in Britain as the law of Treasure Trove," explained Captain Hex, "by which the State takes a large proportion of any hidden treasure found in the ground. Whether you had notified the Government that these precious stones were there or not I do not know."

The margarine king was silent.

"What do you want your man in for?"

Captain Hex shrugged his shoulders.

"You can have him or not as you wish," he said indifferently, "but I think it would make matters much more simple if you had him."

Mr. Flake hesitated a moment, then reached out and pressed the bell.

"Where is the man?" he asked gruffly, when the clerk appeared in answer to the summons.

"You will find him outside," said Captain Hex, not shifting his position of ease, "a tall man, in a pepper and salt suit, and an outrageous pink tie. He answers to the name of Belshazzar Smith, but you had better call him Mr. Smith, as he is rather sensitive."

Belshazzar strode into the room truculently, expecting trouble, but the atmosphere was extraordinarily calm.

"Come here, Belshazzar Smith," said Captain Hex, and pulled a little wad of paper from his pocket. He turned down the ends of two or three, and then he pointed.

"We will name no names," he said, with an inclination of his head to the watchful Flake.

"Do you know this person?" He pointed to something written on the paper. "When did you see that person last?"

"Yesterday," said Belshazzar Smith.

"Did that person make a certain statement to me in your presence?"

"Yes,. sir," said Belshazzar Smith.

"That is all I ask. You may go, Belshazzar. I will rejoin you in a few moments."

"Blackmail, eh!" said Mr. Flake for the third time.

"You are not very original," said Captain Hex. "This is not exactly blackmail."

"Which one is it?" he asked suddenly.

"We will name no names," said Captain Hex calmly.

"What do you want me to do?" asked Mr. Flake.

"You own a house called 'Rosemead;' when I say you own the house it is really the property of a widow of a brother officer. You are now trying to swindle her out of that house and—"

"It's a lie," said Mr. Flake loudly.

"You must not say that," said Hex, and his voice was sharp and menacing. "You can say what you like about me, but you must not give the lie to a lady who, as I have already told you, is the widow of a man who has fallen in this war to defend you and your like."

"Since you know all about it," said Flake, "you know that my agent absconded. I have reason to believe that he favoured this Captain Willoughby, and that Willoughby never paid him the instalments which were due on the house. There are no receipts, no records in the ledger."

"All this I grant," said Hex. "At the same time, you know in your heart of hearts that Willoughby paid. He was the soul of honour. If he hadn't paid he would have written excusing himself. If you can produce such a letter the matter need not go any further."

Mr. Flake was silent.

"I see you cannot, and under those circumstances I must ask you to give me a receipt in full for the missing five payments."

"I will see you in—"

Hex rose from his chair.

"I am not going to press this matter. I am not in a hurry." He waved his hand airily. "I will call back to-morrow at about this time. You can see me or not as you wish."

Mr. Flake made no reply, and with a little nod Captain Hex strolled from the apartment.

He looked at his watch. It was half-past twelve. He had telegraphed the night before to the girl to lunch with him in London. He had done this on the impulse of the moment before his plans were fixed, or indeed before he had any plans at all, and he wondered with just a little pang of uncomfort what she would say when he told her what had happened.

He found her waiting for him in the vestibule of Princes', a slender, girlish figure, more lovely than he had thought.

"I have got all sorts of confessions to make to you," he said ruefully when they had taken their places at the table.

"Have you— done anything?" she asked.

Briefly he described the interview, and was dismayed when he saw her face drop.

"Oh, but you shouldn't have done that, Captain Hex," she said. "I wouldn't have that happen. It isn't right that pressure should be put upon a man. I know you meant it kindly." And then her curiosity overcame her feeling of distress. "What dreadful thing has he done?" she asked. "Don't tell me if it is too awful."

Hex laughed. The sheer joke of it was too much for him.

"That's the funny thing," he said; "I don't know what he's done."

"You don't know what he's done!" she said in amazement.

He shook his head.

"All I know is that he is a man of 55, a very secretive man, very unscrupulous, and probably with a particularly tough past. You don't know what wretched souls he has pulled into the gutter. When I went to him I knew there must be something in his life, some sin darker than another."

"But— but the names that were on your paper?" she asked.

"It was the name of my landlord, who had collected the rent the day before," said Captain Hex calmly.

"Aren't you running risks?" she asked anxiously. "I would never forgive myself if you got into trouble over me."

"Don't worry about that," he said. "I am not blackmailing Montague Flake; he is blackmailing himself."

She was staying in town that night with an aunt, and promised to delay her return until the business had been settled one way or the other. It so happened that she had not long to wait.

That afternoon when Captain Hex returned to his office he found Belshazzar Smith in a state of suppressed excitement.

"He's rung up, sir," he whispered.

Belshazzar's attitude of secrecy, though there was nobody in earshot, in all matters pertaining to the business of the "firm" was very precious to Hex, but on this occasion he was too interested in the news.

"Who has rung up?" he asked.

"Flakie," whispered Belshazzar Smith excitedly. "He wants you to go down and see him at once. As 'Errick says—"

"Tell me about Herrick when I get back," said Captain Hex, and was half way down the stairs before Mr. Smith finished the interrupted quotation.

Hex was shown immediately into the big boardroom where Montague Flake sat, but it was a different Montague Flake to the harsh, self-satisfied man he had left that morning.

"Here is your receipt," he said, pushing a slip of paper across the table, "and here is the conveyance of the house. I don't know what your intentions are, Captain Hex," he said, and there was none of the old harsh, domineering quality in his voice, "but as I suppose you have been an officer you are going to behave like a gentleman. Although you have made no promise, I take it that you can settle this matter with the person concerned. How much does she want?"

Hex shook his head.

"Nothing more," he said firmly. "The matter is settled, and you will not hear of it again."

He wondered what the matter was. He could not even hazard a guess, and was terribly tempted to ask. Flake looked at him in astonishment.

"Are you sure that no money is wanted?"

"Absolutely sure," said Captain Hex firmly. "She does not wish to see you again."

"To see me?" said Mr. Flake. "What do you mean? She never knew me; I never met her."

"As she knew you by hearsay," continued Captain Hex hastily, realising he was on the wrong track.

"I suppose she did. You can tell her," he went on. "that her husband was not to blame in the matter at all, and that he died an honest man. Since you know all about it," he continued dejectedly, "I might well tell you that it was I who killed Witte, though it was done purely in self-defence. Her husband did not know this, and if had been charged with the murder he could not have defended himself."

"Good lor'," said Hex to himself.

"If Witte had lived he would have ruined me. One night he came over to this house and threatened me— threatened to expose me unless I handed over practically all my wealth to him. I did not know what to do. I told him to wait a moment, and I rang up Willoughby. Willoughby held most of the shares in a diamond company we were floating— a bogus company, though Willoughby did not know it— and I thought he might be able to help me. Willoughby came over, and Witte quietened down when he saw him. Afterwards the pair left the house and I followed them. Witte must have spotted me, for he made an excuse to leave Willoughby, and went off down a quiet side road. I followed, and he turned and confronted me.

"What happened," continued Flake I shakily, "I scarcely know. But I left him lying in the middle of the street. He tried to strike me, and I must have struck him back. In the darkness a motor ran over him, and it was taken to be an accident. That is how it happened."

"Good lor'!" repeated Hex to himself.

"You know, Captain Hex, I am glad it is all over now, and that I have been able to speak about it. It has so preyed on my mind that I couldn't sleep at night for thinking about it. At first I thought she knew nothing at all about it. But if she will let me I will make any compensation she wishes."

"She wants nothing else but to forget you," said Hex.

He was mopping his brow as he sped home along the Embankment.

"Whoever would have thought it of old Flakie," he mused. "And who would have thought he would have betrayed himself like that?"

__________________

13: The Secret Of The Hidden Vault

The Sunday Post, Glasgow, Mar 16, 1919

"'GATHER ye rosebuds while ye may,'" said Belshazzar Smith poetically, "'old Time is still a flying, and this same flower that smiles to-day to-morrow will be dying.' 'Errick wrote that."

"He might have been doing something better," said Captain Hex. "Anyway, flowers don't smile— not Boliviski's flowers."

He and Belshazzar Smith were sitting on their favourite seat in the Temple Gardens, green and lively at this period of the year, and densely populated with lunch-hour loungers.

"'Errick says—" began Mr. Smith.

"Let's leave 'Errick alone," smiled Hex. "That poor man must turn in his grave twenty times a day. The thing we have to consider is not 'Errick's flowers or even Mr. Boliviski's roses, but Mr. Boliviski's surplus profits and how much he is going to devote of same to the promotion and upkeep of our Sailors' and Soldiers' Poultry Farm."

"He's a very close man," said Belshazzar Smith, puffing thoughtfully at his briar pipe, "a very close man indeed. His servants say that he weighs the bread he gives them, and measures the milk three times a day— and him worth millions."

"Officially he is not worth millions," said Hex. "When I went to him for a subscription he told me that the war had hit him very hard." He looked at his watch. "Wait for me here," he said, rising. "Boliviski has invited me to coffee. He nearly invited me to lunch, but thought better of it, and asked me to come in to the Savoy and meet him in the lounge."

He left Belshazzar basking in the spring sunlight, the picture of a contented man, and made his way to the Savoy.

MR. BOLIVISKI, a stout, red-faced man, with a heavy black moustache and side-whiskers, rose stertorously and offered a large, soft, limp hand.

"Ah, Captain," he wheezed, "what an unlucky fellow you are! I've just finished my coffee. Now, shall I order you some? Say the word and you shall have the best cup of coffee that the house can produce. Would you like a nice cigar? I see that you're a cigarette smoker. That's better, it doesn't cost so much. I don't smoke cigars myself, except now and again when a friend offers me one and I take it just to oblige him. Sit down, sit down, make yourself comfortable."

"From which I gather," said Hex, "that the chairs cost you nothing."

Mr. Boliviski chuckled.

"You will have your joke— but there are a lot of people like you in the city who think I'm a mean man. And there are a lot of people in the city who think I'm a rich man. But I'm not, Captain. I give you permission to go to the Surveyor of Taxes and ask him what my income is. He's a clever man, Captain Hex, as shrewd a man as there is in the city of London, and he's had accountants, real chartered accountants, the very best in the city of London, to examine my books and transactions, and he's never been able to trace a penny of excess profit."

He chuckled again, and it was the chuckle of a man who was enjoying a great joke all to himself.

"They say that you've done a big trade with Holland and made millions," said Hex.

Mr. Boliviski nodded delightedly.

"I know, I know," he said, "but where's their proof? They've examined my banking account— I gave 'em all the assistance I could, but they found no record. The truth is, Captain Hex, I did a little agency business, took a teeny-weeny commission— just a few pounds— and was satisfied. I don't hold with profiteering. When your country's at war, says I, don't try to crush the working classes, do all you can for 'em, help 'em over the stile, and you'll be respected. If the working classes knew what I've done for 'em, they'd put up a monument to me, they would indeed."

"Something in the shape of a guillotine," suggested Hex. "Now, I haven't come here to discuss your private affairs. I know you've made a lot of money."

Mr. Boliviski's hand went up in protest.

"Everybody knows it. The Income Tax Commissioners know it. You've simply dodged the authorities by making all your transactions cash transactions. You haven't taken cheques or given them. You've paid in bank notes, and you've received payment from other food profiteers in the same way."

"If I never get up from this seat—" began Mr. Boliviski.

"But you will get up from that seat," said Captain Hex. "You are going to behave like a fine old English gentleman; you're going to walk across to that writing table, produce your cheque book, and draw £6,000 from your bloated account to give men who have faced hell on your account a new start in life."

Mr. Boliviski shook his head slowly, and his face wore an expression of great pain.

"Oh, if I only could!" he said, with a melancholy intonation; "if I only could assist those poor dear fellows who have made what I might term sacrifices for democracy! But I can't, Captain Hex. I'm a poor man, and, beyond a few pounds at the bank, the goodwill of my provision business. and my little country cottage, I've nothing. You must come down and see my little place at Pilsham one of these days, Captain Hex. I've got some of the finest roses you ever saw— not expensive roses." he added hastily; "I don't hold with giving fancy prices for flowers."

"Quite right," said Captain Hex. "as 'Errick says—"

"Who's 'Errick?" asked Mr. Boliviski suspiciously.

"He's an income tax collector," replied Hex.

"Then you can tell him from me that he's a liar," said the stout man with some heat. "I've got no money to waste on da— on poor soldiers, and if I had I'd see 'em— I'd see 'em through any trouble they were in."

Captain Hex got up with a sigh.

"I see we shall have to employ other methods."

"Try 'em!" said Boliviski, no longer affable and obliging, but very truculent indeed. "Some of the cleverest fellers in the city of London have been after me, me lad, and they've all had to give me best. A young juggins like you ain't going to get over a man like me."

"What vulgarity!" murmured Hex.

"And as for your soldiers and sailors, let the country pay. What do we pay rates and taxes for, I'd like to know? Ain't there institootions for fellers that are hard up, and don't I pay poor rates, eh? You're not going to get a penny piece out of me, you and your £6,000!"

"It is now £10,000," said Captain Hex, "and you'll be lucky if it doesn't cost you more."

"Ha, ha!" said Mr. Boliviski with delicate sarcasm, "try it! You won't be the first person who has sneaked into my office and bribed my clerks. You won't be the first nosey parker that's buzzed round my safe deposit vault. You won't be the first person who's searched my house."

"You're quite right," said Captain Hex, "but I shall be the last, and when I have finished my investigations into your disgusting but furtive prosperity you will be sitting in a nice little six-by twelve cell at Wormwood Scrubbs, wishing that you had played the game with poor old Tommy."

Mr. Boliviski spluttered and flickered his hands in gestures appropriate to incoherent wrath, and Captain Hex went and rejoined his companion.

He spent the rest of the day making telephone inquiries. He had had a telephone installed in his sitting room, and found it very useful. A garrulous postmistress at Pilsham gave him a great deal of information of which he stood in need.

"I am going out of town to-morrow, Belshazzar," he said. "I have it in my mind that I am on the verge of a great discovery."

He went to Pilsham by the early train, inspected Mr. Boliviski's "little cottage," and by climbing a wall commanded an extensive view of the profiteer's demesne.

It was early for roses, but his imagination served him to visualise a picture of radiant beauty when June would come and these straight stems would be heavy with fragrant flowers. The cottage itself was a moderately large but unpretentious building, planned and executed in execrable taste. It was glaringly and patently new. Its face was smothered with stucco, it had porticos in the Corinthian style, and chimneys which were strikingly Elizabethan.

He went back to town very thoughtful, and on the following morning interviewed a bank manager who had also been a colonel before a sniper's bullet laid him out at Festubert.

Hex told his tale, and Mr. Martin listened with interest.

"You are up against a pretty tough proposition, Hex," he said. "We all know that Boliviski is a very rich man, but every effort to discover the extent of his wealth has been fruitless. Why, Somerset House has spent a small fortune in detectives and accountants to trace his profits, which I am certain have been enormous. The fact is, the artful old fox has not only confined himself to cash transactions, but that cash has been gold whenever he has sold to the neutral countries. We know this because a merchant in Amsterdam was shadowed from that city with £3,000 in guelder, and the money was traced to Boliviski. The old man must have got wind of the fact that he was being watched, and religiously recorded the transaction in his books, so that when the Inland Revenue people paid a surprise visit there was the money accounted for. He has a store somewhere, and if you can find it you will be doing the Government a good turn."

"Heaven forbid that I should assist the Inland Revenue in its nefarious work," said Captain Hex piously. "All I am anxious to get is a subscription of £10,000 to my new poultry farm. It's a wonderful place, my dear chap," he said enthusiastically, "and the Tommies are taking to it like ducks to water. With that £10,000 I'm going to build a new extension. I have had the offer of some land." And he went on to describe his scheme.

"Anyway," said the banker at last, "you won't get any money out of Boliviski. Why he's hoarding it, Heaven knows! I have naturally a constitutional dislike for all people who refuse to bank their money, but my dislike of Boliviski goes beyond this. He has done a lot to raise the price of commodities in this country, and he is raking in the money— for what? He has neither chick nor child, wife or relative. It is sheer greed— sheer lust of possession which animates the old devil."

MR. BOLIVISKI was in the habit of spending his weekends at Pilsham. During the remainder of the week the house was in charge of an old housekeeper, who "slept out." He had a small staff of gardeners, who, however, were forbidden to touch the roses, and spent most of their time in the kitchen-garden, where he was able to raise vegetables with profit to himself.

He travelled down third class, and invariably walked the mile and a half between the station and his house. He regarded Saturday and Sunday as sacred to flora, and was not without reason annoyed on the Saturday morning when his slow-footed housekeeper came to him with a card inscribed, "Captain Hex."

"Tell him to go away. Tell him I don't want him here!" said Mr. Boliviski furiously. "If he won't go send for a policeman. I won't see him! I tell you I won't see him! Tell him to go to the devil— ah good morning, Captain Ilex!"

For Hex, who was nothing if not pushful, had followed the messenger.

"I thought I'd come down and see those roses you were boasting about," said Hex. "I can stay to lunch and catch the first train back after."

"There's a good train before lunch," growled Mr. Boliviski.

"I don't particularly want a good train." said Hex; "in fact, the good points of a train don't worry me a cent."

"Well, what do you want?"

Mr. Boliviski faced him squarely. He was dressed in his oldest suit. On his hands were leather gardening gloves, and in one of them a murderous looking pair of shears.

"We were talking the other day," said Hex, "about the £10,000 you were anxious to devote to my philanthropic scheme."

"Ten thousand cats!" spluttered Mr. Boliviski. "I'll see you—"

"Yes, yes, yes," said Captain Hex, "I know where you will see me. But I really am in need of this money, and I think you would save yourself a great deal of trouble if you paid up. You see. I happen to know something about your little nest egg."

The stout man's eyes narrowed.

"Oh, you do, do you?" he said slowly. "Now, man to man and with no witnesses present, I'll call your bluff. You tell me where my little nest egg is to be found, and I'll give you your £10,000."

"What time do you lunch?"

"I don't lunch and I won't lunch!" exploded Mr. Boliviski. "There's a village policeman here, my friend, and I'll have you off the premises in two twinks!"

"Do anything you like," said Hex, "but don't call me your friend. People who don't know me might be deceived into believing you."

He left by the goods train that went before lunch.

THAT NIGHT he outlined his plan to Belshazzar Smith.

"The money's as good as in my pocket," he said, "though it worries me."

"Worry," said Belshazzar Smith, "is the unconscious—"

"Yes, yes, I know, 'Errick," said Hex. "This is rather serious. Ought I to ask him for £10,000 or £20,000?"

"Find out what he's got and take half," said Belshazzar Smith.

"That is a bright idea," agreed his partner.

The real difficulty, as Hex knew and had known all along, was to find the architect who had designed Boliviski's house. Pilsham only knew him as "a foreigner," a dour, reticent man, presumably a Dutchman, since most of the workmen were Dutch, and had been imported in the year before the war to construct Mr. Boliviski's country house. It was this fact which had put Hex upon the trail. Boliviski was not the kind of man to go to the trouble of importing large bodies of labourers and artisans from Holland if it cost money, as undoubtedly it would cost. Why, then, had he taken this unusual step, unless it was to prevent the details of the house and its construction becoming public property?

To his surprise he had discovered, by making judicious inquiries, that the general lay-out of the house was fairly well known to the villagers. Various women and men had been up to "The Nid," as Mr. Boliviski's romantic fancy had christened it, and as cleaners or repairers of windows, bells etc., had penetrated to every corner, even to Mr. Boliviski's study.

"The thing to do, of course, is to find the architect, and that's going to be rather a job," said Hex, after he had explained his plan. "The only thing we know about him is that he stayed at the Adlin Hotel in London, and occasionally visited the works whilst they were in progress."

He consulted a paper which he took from his pocket.

"I find that the first job done was the building of the wall. Obviously this was because the architect did not wish to be overlooked whilst the house was in course of construction."

"Send him a letter," said Belshazzar Smith. "Send him a registered letter and pay for an acknowledgment. That's what we used to do in a debt-collecting agency I was connected with. The letter, forwarded to the gent, and the receipt comes back to you with his name and address on it."

Hex looked at him admiringly.

"There's a great deal of talent lost in you," he said; "but will you kindly tell me where I should send the letter?"

"To the last place you heard from him."

Hex nodded.

"I'll go to the hotel. It will save time," he said.

He was gone all the afternoon, but returned in triumph.

"Hans van Rhyn is in London, my lad," he said cheerfully. "He has come over on an official mission on behalf of the Dutch Government— it has something to do with the shipping of building material. I have an appointment with him at seven o'clock."

"The money is yours," said the confident Belshazzar.

Mr. Hans van Rhyn was a gristled little man, who spoke good English when he spoke at all, but on the whole was a most excellent listener.

This Hex discovered in the first five minutes of their conversation, and very wisely adapted his tactics to Mr. Van Rhyn's temperament.

"I am afraid," said Mr. Van Rhyn, "that I cannot oblige you because I am not here on business, and really I have no desire to do any more business in this country. My experience has not been a very pleasant one, and I vowed I would never again undertake a contract in this country."

"I am profoundly sorry to hear this," said Hex regretfully, "because you are the only man who can carry out the work which I want doing."

The Dutchman looked interested.

"I want a house built," said Captain Hex slowly, " and I want it built exactly on the same lines as the one you built for Mr. Boliviski."

A frown gathered on the other's face.

"That is an undertaking which I do not care to have anything to do with," he said shortly. "Your friend Mr. Boliviski—"

"He is not my friend," said Hex hastily. "He is merely an acquaintance."

Still the Dutchman shook his head.

"It is not work I care to do," he said "even if you are not a friend of Mr. Boliviski."

"I assure you I am not that," said Hex, now sure of his ground. "I regard Mr. Boliviski as the meanest, most miserable creature on the face of the earth."

The Dutchman nodded, and his taciturn face lit up with a smile.

"I am almost inclined to do it for you but really it is impossible. Why do you want a house of that character?" he asked suddenly. "Are you a wine connoisseur too?"

"Yes," said Hex quietly.

"In that case," said Van Rhyn, "you can get any architect to design a house unless you are eccentric and believe that people are trying to rob you of your wine. I don't know much about wine," he went on, "but I know that it keeps just as well in an ordinary cellar as in a vault."

"Away from the house?" murmured Hex.

"Exactly," said the Dutchman. "I have always thought Mr. Boliviski's idea fantastic."

They talked together for an hour, and parted the best of friends. Mr. Van Rhyn steadfastly refusing to indicate approximately the plan of Boliviski's house and outdwellings.

Belshazzar Smith accompanied him to Pilsham the next morning, and they found lodgings in the village. That night, armed with a sword-cane, Hex climbed the forbidding wall of "The Nid"— the gate was securely locked— and began his investigations.

A sword-cane is an admirable probe, and, throughout the night, the two men systematically tested the beautiful rose garden of Mr. Boliviski. It was just before dawn when Hex, thrusting his sword into the earth, felt the point grate against something hard. Feverishly they cleared away the mould with a garden-trowel which Smith had brought, and in a few minutes had scraped clear a square foot of concrete facing.

Captain Hex replaced the earth, and he was very thoughtful on his way back to the village.

"That is the place all right," he said, "a little concrete house built underground, and probably entered through a trap in the roof. Now, Belshazzar, we're up against it. What are we going to do?"

"Do?" said the astonished Belshazzar Smith, "why, of course, we'll go and take it."

"Would you commit a robbery?" asked Captain Hex shocked.

"Why not?" said the unemotional Belshazzar.

"For many reasons," replied Hex seriously. "If we expose this man we don't get any money. If we take our share and leave him the rest we condone his crime. If we tell him we know the money is there, and ask for our little lot we are guilty of blackmail, besides giving him an opportunity of getting the stuff away. There is only one thing for it, Belshazzar."

"What's that?" asked Belshazzar.

"You've got to die," said Captain Hex.

"Oh!" said Belshazzar blankly.

"You've got to be murdered," said Hex.

Mr. Smith looked at him uneasily.

OF THESE CONVERSATIONS Mr. Boliviski was, of course, ignorant, but he had not been in his house very long on his return to the country that Saturday before he knew that there were unpleasant visitors in the village. He was, therefore, not surprised, except in one respect, to see Captain Hex walking across the garden to where he was standing, pruner in hand.

"How did you get in?" he demanded. "I gave strict instructions that you weren't to be admitted."

"That's all right," said Hex listlessly. "I got over the wall."

Mr. Boliviski looked at the intruder curiously. Captain Hex was not his jovial self. His tone was sad, his demeanour was dejected, and he wore a black tie and a deep band of black about his left arm.

"I had to see you," said Hex. "After all, it concerns you more than anybody else."

"What's the game?" asked the suspicious Mr. Boliviski.

"I admit I was suspicious of you," said Hex, "and I have been down here three days searching for your hidden treasure house."

"You've got a cheek," said Mr. Boliviski, turning a shade paler nevertheless.

"I had an idea it was in this garden," Hex went on gloomily. "I had a dream that you had a little concrete vault built somewhere about here."

He waved his hand towards the rose trees, and Mr. Boliviski swallowed hard.

"Night after night," Hex went on, "my unfortunate companion and I have been probing this garden."

"Well, I'm d— d!" gasped Mr. Boliviski.

"I hope not," said the sad Hex. "As I was saying, night after night Belshazzar snd I searched in vain for your golden treasury. Belshazzar thought it was on one side of the garden; I thought it was on another. Two nights ago we quarrelled." He paused impressively.

"Well?" said Mr. Boliviski.

"I killed him," said Captain Hex simply. "I cut his throat. It was quite easy. I used a new knife that I'd bought in town. For eight-and-sixpence," he added.

Mr. Boliviski was staring with incredulous eyes.

"You murdered him!" he whispered hoarsely.

"Cut his throat," said Hex, "like that."

He made a gesture, and Mr. Boliviski leapt back.

"I have come to confess my crime."

"But, but," stammered Mr. Boliviski, "you're an infernal scoundrel, sir! To cut a man's throat in my garden! I'll have the police after you in a minute."

"Wait a moment," said Hex; "I not only killed him here, but I buried him here."

"Where?" Mr. Boliviski's voice was hardly audible.

"There!"

Hex pointed to ground which had evidently been recently disturbed.

"But you couldn't bury—"

Mr. Boliviski stopped short and bit his lip.

"I buried him there!" said Hex. "Send for the village constable; he has only to dig to prove my words."

The stout man's face went from red to white, from white to purple.

"Send for the village constable," moaned Hex. "Let me again face the victim of my crime!"

"How much do you want?" asked Mr. Boliviski with an effort.

"What is money? What is £20,000?"

"You said £8,000!" roared Boliviski savagely.

"What is a paltry £20,000? Will that ever wipe away the memory of this sad occurrence?"

"Now, look here," said Mr. Boliviski, "speaking as business man to business man, you've bitten me, and I'll pay. Come to my office on Monday morning."

"Send for the police," said Hex. "I can't wait till Monday."

"Suppose I gave you a cheque for £10,000?"

"Send for the police," said Hex in great distress.

"I'll give you the full amount," said Boliviski, and the words nearly choked him. "You've got me, and I know when I've been had."

"£20,000 to me, and the remainder to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or it's a prison cell for one of us!"

Mr. Boliviski did not speak for a long time. And then he only sighed.

"Come into the house," he said at last.

______________

14: How Mr. Milson Wren Was Outwitted

The Sunday Post, Glasgow, Mar 23, 1919

"I OFTEN wonder," said Belshazzar Smith, "what these 'ere profiteers do with their money. As 'Azlitt says, 'Money of itself is valueless.'"

"That's true, Belshazzar," said Captain Hex, "you can only eat one dinner at a time; you've only got one stomach. You can only sleep in one bed at a time, but also," he added thoughtfully, "it helps a philanthropic man who is anxious to subscribe large sums to military charities to do so without experiencing a sickening feeling in the pit of the stomach."

Belshazzar Smith nodded.

"Quite right, sir," he said, "the poultry farm, as 'Errick says—"

"It isn't the poultry farm, Belshazzar," corrected Captain Hex gravely; "that's on its legs now, thanks to the generosity of our dear friend. No, it is a larger and a much more important organisation which is in need of money at the present moment. If I had to write a school essay at this moment on Great Britain I should describe it as an island surrounded by super Dreadnoughts and populated by demobilised subalterns. At least that is how it strikes me. These boys are coming out of the army full of life, with faith in the future. They are drawing their gratuities and never having had so much money in all their lives, they are looking through the paint shops for the right kind of red wherewith to decorate this old town. At least that's the popular idea, Belshazzar Smith."

"I say that is the popular idea," continued Hex, lighting a fresh cigar; "but in reality the demobilised subaltern is looking round, not so much for trouble as for work. And it isn't only the subaltern. There's a fellow in the City whose office boy was a bright lad who was about to he promoted to a junior clerkship when the war broke out, enlisted straight away, and has come back a Brigadier-General. Well you can't put a Brigadier-General licking stamps, Belshazzar."

"It isn't likely," said the indignant Belshazzar, shivering at the thought of the sacrilege.

"And you can't put him running errands or entering up potty little books or doing any of that kind of work, Belshazzar," continued Captain Hex. "He's been doing man's work, and you've got to find a man's job for him. So I'm starting a big training school to fit these fellows for civil life— generals, colonels, majors, and subalterns— Belshazzar, who are as much in need of help, and more so, than you were when you left the army. This is going to cost a lot of money, but there's a lot of money lying loose in this world which I can find employment for. Now, have a good look at the Rogues' Gallery." He pointed to the wall whereon were displayed the photographs of sinful men. "Is there any likely-looking gentleman there who takes your eye, Belshazzar?"

"Well, I can't say that I'm struck on any of them," admitted Belshazzar, "but appearances is deceitful. As 'Errick says—"

"He's been talking about that, too, has he?" said Hex. "Does he give you any idea as to who our philanthropist is going to be?"

Belshazzar Smith thought for a moment, and then—

"He don't," he said decisively.

Hex strolled up and down the room, his hands in his pockets, his chin on his breast

"I rather fancy Mr. Milson Wren will head our subscription list," he said, "with £2,000."

Belshazzar Smith agreed. He did not know Mr. Milson Wren from any other kind of wren. He had not the slightest idea as to the financial standing of Mr. Milson Wren, or how large was the heart of that philanthropist. But he had supreme faith in Hex.

"MR. MILSON Wren, whose portrait does not appear in our collection," continued Hex, "is a gentleman who has made money out of motor-cars. He has made so much money that if he starts to write down his possessions he would get writer's cramp before he got to the end of them."

"He must be well off," said Belshazzar Smith.

"You've guessed it first time, Belshazzar," said the admiring Hex. "He's the victim."

Belshazzar nodded.

"Well, he won't mind parting with a little bit," he said cheerfully.

"On the contrary," retorted Hex, "he will mind very much. It is the man who has the money who hates parting with it. It is always the billionaire who counts his change, Belshazzar, as you will discover if you diligently search your 'Errick."

Mr. Milson Wren was, as everyone knows, an extremely rich man. Though, unlike Midas, everything he touched did not turn to gold, most of the things he dabbled in produced for his pocket greasy-looking bank notes of fabulous value. He ran motor-cars, ships, and coal, lead, copper, and spelter. He did his running from a very small office in Threadneedle Street, where he maintained two clerks and a small washstand, which, with a desk and a chair, constituted the furniture of his private office, and he grew in opulence, if not in beauty, day by day.

His was one of those mysterious businesses which is seen in every large city. The very poverty of his bureau advertised his wealth. In private life he lived magnificently in a flat in Park Lane, and entertained on a lavish scale at the best of the London hotels.

Hex wrote him a letter explaining the object of his new scheme, and received in reply a note so formal and discouraging that it might have been sent from the War Office itself:—

"Sir,— I am directed by Mr. Milson Wren to acknowledge receipt of your letter of even date, and in reply to inform you that Mr. Milson Wren regrets that owing to the many calls upon his private purse he is unable to accede to your request. Wishing you every success in your efforts to provide schools for demobilised officers, he is willing at some future date, if you care to approach him, and when your scheme is in running order, to be an annual subscriber to the extent of one guinea.— Very sincerely,

"J. BODEN, Secretary."

"It was the sort of answer I expected." said Hex. "I am going down to see old man Wren."

"OLD MAN WREN" interviewed him in his shabby office, and "old man Wren" was a hard-faced man of forty-five, with no hair worth speaking about, a heavy black moustache, and a cold, brilliant eye which bore a permanent expression of suspicion.

Hex sized him up on their first meeting. This was a bully, overpowering, a loud and violent man. He flamed up at Hex as the latter entered his office.

"Can't you take 'No' for an answer?" he roared. "My secretary wrote to you and told you that I couldn't give you any subscription, and that ought to be enough for you. I've got something better to do than see people who are cadging."

"Elegantly put," said Hex, "and as to your having something better to do, why, I don't think that if you had got from now till Whitsun that you could think up a better occupation than putting your right hand in your trousers' pocket and producing the wherewithal to help forward the men who saved you from double damnation."

"Young man," said Mr. Wren noisily, "I'm going to humour you. I've done my bit in the war, and don't forget it! I've got £100,000 invested in War Loans. If you hadn't had money you wouldn't have been able to fight. Don't you realise that we people at home have done our bit?"

"And you're drawing five per cent, per annum on your bit," said Hex. "You're a sensible man, Mr. Wren— by-the-way, are you related to the gentleman who built St Paul's Cathedral?"

Mr. Wren choked.

"I see that you're not. Well, I'm going to put all my cards on the table. I know that you're a very wealthy man, and I have been told that you're a very charitable man."

"The man who told you that is a liar," growled Wren.

"Very possibly," said Hex. "I read it in the newspapers. I know that you made enormous sums out of manipulating the market."

"Another lie," said Wren, "and anyway it's no business of yours. What the devil do you mean by coming into my office and talking to me like this? By gad. I'll have you thrown out!"

"Don't," said Hex.

He thought a moment, and an idea flashed on him. Hex's great ideas invariably came that way.

"Well, perhaps you will," he added more mildly, "but before you do anything violent, Mr. Wren, I would only ask you is it not true that since the war broke out you have acquired large sums of money, and that you have purchased a big estate in Somerset, and that you are breaking into the county so to speak? I have seen your photographs in the illustrated weeklies hunting with the Somerset Hounds. I have read particulars of your subscriptions to the various county funds. Am I therefore mistaken in believing that you are trying to break into society?"

Mr. Wren went apoplectic.

"By heaven! By Gad!" he said. "Here, Johnson!" he yelled at the open door.

A weedy clerk came in, and he glared at Hex through his spectacles.

"Show this man out," gasped Mr. Wren. "Show him off the premises, Johnson."

"Wait, rash man," said Hex. "Remember that the British Army saved you—"

Mr. Wren interrupted him to pass a few remarks upon the British Army, which he consigned to places and in circumstances and conditions which it is unnecessary to record. Mr. Wren was a coarse man, despite his wealth, and his language was lurid.

"I expect to hear from your people in the next two or three days," and with that Captain Hex stepped lightly down the stairs and joined the waiting Belshazzar Smith.

"Did you get an idea?" asked Belshazzar anxiously, for Hex had gone into the building without any definite plan.

"A wonderful one," said Hex. "Come on home, Belshazzar. I shall want your assistance in planning out a series of brilliant outrages."

Now, though Milson Wren had neither chick nor child he had a large, important wife, on whom Providence had bestowed great opportunities for the display of jewels, particularly of large and lustrous pendants. She lived at Corley Court, a noble residential property which had come into the market during the war, and which had been acquired by Mr. Milson Wren as a general headquarters for his impending attack against the exclusive circles of Somerset society.

He looked forward to the day when he would be returned a member for the constituency, a very old and Conservative one, and would rise by approved and conventional degrees until the morning newspaper announced that "Mr. Milson Wren, M P., upon whom a peerage of the realm has been conferred, will be known as Lord Corley of Corley."

Hex spent two days dodging about the clubs making investigations.

"Wren's private reputation is more or less poisonous," he said to the interested Belshazzar Smith. "I find that he has been behind one or two theatrical enterprises, and that there has been an unsavoury episode or so in the past few years.

He retailed to the wide-eyed Mr. Smith particulars of those episodes.

"I didn't think he was that kind of fellow, sir," said Belshazzar, shaking his head, "and it's rather a pity he is. We can't tackle that sort of thing."

"No, my wise friend," said Hex; "you've got my whole scheme in your head. We can't blackmail the blackguard, and I wouldn't if I could."

"Do you think he'll summon you?"

"Not he," said Hex contemptuously. "We'll go down to Corley to-morrow, and we'll begin our great campaign."

THE NEWS THAT Captain Hex and his henchman had arrived in the small country town of Corley, and that they had taken up their residence at the Corley Arms, was duly reported to Mr. Wren.

"Who are these people, my dear?" asked his large wife at breakfast (at this hour she looked as though somebody had rubbed her face in a flour bin).

"Oh, a fellow named Hex," growled Wren. "It doesn't amount to anything. He is the man I was telling you about."

"The man that wanted £2,000!" gasped Mrs Wren.

"That's him," replied Wren grimly. "He had better not try any of his tricks down here, or, by the Lord, we'll show him something. He wanted me to subscribe to some water charity scheme of his, and, of course, I turned it down. There was no publicity in this thing, my dear, you understand."

She understood, and nodded.

"What's the good of putting money in a show like that, hey? Why, the papers wouldn't put a line about it. Besides, those London charities don't do me any good. If we've any money to chuck about we'll chuck it about down here. What do you say, Matilda?"

"That's my view absolutely," sad the lady, rolling a napkin with a dexterity born of practice. She was the daughter of a boarding-house keeper when Mr. Wren, in his shady days, had met her.

IT APPEARED from the posters that were conspicuously displayed in the town that Captain Hex had come down to lecture on "What Britain Can Do for Her Demobilised Soldiers."

He had hired a hall, and the lecture was billed a week ahead. There were two flat stone pillars supporting the gates which opened on to the drive into Corley Court. They were just the right size on which a couple of double-crown posters could be displayed. Two such bills appeared one morning advertising the lecture, and were promptly torn down by Mr. Wren's orders. In the middle of the night somebody must have posted two more, because when Mr. Wren strolled down to the village in the morning he found them.

"We must watch to-night," said Mr. Wren after these posters had been duly removed, "and when the rascals post the bills we will nab them."

There followed telephone communication between him and the chief constable of the county, furtive visits paid by the local police sergeant, laboriously disguised in private clothes, and that night men watched and waited, none more impatiently than Mr. Wren, who desired to be present when the detection of the criminal was accomplished. They had not long to wait. Soon after eleven o'clock a dark form come along the road whistling cheerfully, carrying a small pot of paste in his hand, and scientifically affixed two new posters, one to each side of the gate.

They waited until he had finished, then leapt out at him.

"Now, my lad," said Wren, "I've got you. I'm going to make you pay for this."

"Good lad," said Hex cheerfully.

"Shall I tear the posters down?" said a policeman.

"Oh, no," replied Wren. "We shall want these as evidence. Leave them up. But to make sure that they are not pasted over. I have arranged to put a little mark on them. Brown, where is that pot of paint?"

A gardener loomed up out of the background with a pot of paint, and in the darkness Mr. Wren painted a big cross over the offending bills.

"I think we shall recognise that in the morning," he said.

"I fear that you will," said Hex. "What are you going to do with me?"

"I'm going to give you in charge."

"I'm afraid you can't," said Hex, with a little laugh. "The most you can do is to summon me— as usual."

"Is that so, sergeant?"

"That's so, sir," said the man. "You know you're not allowed to post bills on private property."

The first person to see the bills in the morning was Mr. Belshazzar Smith, who came at daylight and took a time-exposure photograph of them. The second person was the sergeant of police, who came to Mr. Wren with a troubled face.

"About that summons, sir, you want to take out against this man Hex."

"Well, what of it?" asked Wren.

"Well, sir," said the man, "I don't know whether it would be advisable to go on with it."

"Go on with it! Of course, I'm going on with it."

"Come and look at the picture, sir," said the police sergeant, and Mr. Wren in some perturbation walked down the drive and examined the disfigured bills.

He gasped. And well he might gasp, because these were not invitations to the lecture that Hex had posted, but two beautiful lithographs of a most august person. Mr. Wren's paintbrush had splashed across a Royal nose and had cut away and hideously disfigured a portion of a Royal beard.

"I don't think this ought to get out, sir," said the policeman. "The county is very exclusive, and they'd not like that at all. Besides, Captain Hex is a soldier, and he's speaking for soldiers, and that's not the sort of reputation you want down here, sir."

"Cover them up, tear them down!" spluttered Mr. Wren. "Don't go on with the summons. Curse him!"

Captain Hex heard the news (from the same police sergeant) that the prosecution was not being proceeded with, and nodded.

"I didn't think it would," he said. "He's a difficult old devil to deal with, and I really do not want to libel him seriously. I'll go up and see him."

Mr. Wren was officially not at home when Hex called.

Hex went back to his hotel, and returned to London.

"Do you see this fellow's idea," said Mr. Wren to his wife. "He wanted to get me into Court, blacken my name before the county, and ruin me socially."

"But you were too many for him," said his admiring wife.

"I rather think so," said Mr. Wren. "You know what I am. I can be led, but I can't be driven. That fellow's cancelled his lecture, and it's a very good thing. I happen to want the hall myself."

"Are you giving a lecture, Mill?" she asked in surprise.

He smiled.

"The Conservative Association have asked me to give my views to the public. I think I told you that there was some chance of my being elected when Chancery, the sitting member, is raised to the Peerage. Well, he's going to be in the next honours list, and I think it's very likely that I shall take his place."

She rose and, waddling round the table, kissed him on the brow.

"I always said you'd get on," she said.

"I always said so myself," remarked Mr. Wren. "I have just sent down to the printer the copy for the bill, and I'm going to engage all the hoardings to advertise the meeting."

To have his bill printed was one thing, to have it posted was another, as he discovered when his secretary returned with the amazing intelligence that every hoarding in Corley had been booked up for a month. Yet it was the off season when bill posters are least busy, and when space is to be had for a song.

"Booked up!" said Mr. Wren. "Then who's booked up the hoardings?"

"Captain Hex, sir," replied the secretary.

Mr. Wren's jaw dropped.

"What does he want it for?" he asked at last.

"He's got some scheme on, sir, and he's booked up all the posting space."

So Mr. Wren had to be content with bills displayed in sympathetic windows and with the few sandwich-men procurable in that small town.

What Hex was "up to" he was soon to learn. Driving down to the station a few days later, he found every hoarding smothered with large posters. They bore the simple inscription—"Who Did It?"

It was a lithographic enlargement of a poster depicting the head and shoulders of an august personage, suitably inscribed top and bottom with patriotic sentiments regarding the shield of the navy (it had originally been issued by the Navy League, Mr. Wren discovered afterwards), and across that respected face was drawn a large and ugly cross.

Mr. Wren stared and stared. He was not the only person staring. Sir John Benson, a local magnate, also on his way to the railway station, recognised his neighbour with a nod.

"What the dickens does that mean?" he asked. "What Bolshevik has been playing his game here?"

"I don't know," said Mr. Wren hastily. "I haven't the slightest idea."

It was not only on the hoardings of the town that the abominable reminder of Mr. Wren's unconscious disloyalty appeared. There were posters on the platform. There were posters on Charing Cross Station, and on a hoarding opposite Mr. Wren's office was the largest poster of all. Mr. Wren consulted his solicitor, and his solicitor sent to Captain Hex the kind of letter which a solicitor would write in the circumstances— it was full of vague and mysterious warnings as to the fate which would overtake the seeker after £2,000 subscriptions.

Two days later the letter in poster form, only the names of the writer, the addressee, and the interested client were omitted, appeared on the hoardings side by side with the "Who Did It?" sheet. It was headed, "Written on Behalf of the Man Who Did It."

"There's no sense in raving," said the philosophical man of law. "He has committed no offence, and anyway you have made a fool of yourself. You have got into the hands of a lawful blackmailer. What chance would you have of being elected for the Corley Division if it were known that you had insulted Royalty?"

"But he made me say it," wailed the millionaire. "He almost put the words into my mouth!"

"What are you going to do?"

"Fight him! Every penny I have shall go in to ruin the rascal. Fight him, Peters! The fellow is notorious! He has swindled half a-dozen people I could name."

The interview took place in the solicitor's office. The lawyer was a man of the world. He was examining his cigar contemplatively.

"Mr. Wren," he said, "you have many irons in the fire, including a number of theatrical ventures."

"I have," said Mr. Wren a little surprised.

"And you know several theatrical people, including Miss Dorothy du Bonnet."

"A very charming girl," said Mr. Wren stoutly.

"Very," said the solicitor, "she came to see me to-day."

"Why?" asked the other in surprise.

"Well, it seems that you told her about this persecution of Hex's and that she was very indignant."

"Naturally," said Mr. Wren.

"And you gave her Hex's address?"

Mr. Wren shifted uneasily.

"What of it?" he asked.

"Well, she wrote a letter defending you," said the solicitor blandly; "she said how she had known you for years and years, what a kind man you were and that you were the dearest boy in the world. And when she had done it she came to ask me whether she had done right. Clients always do that sort of thing."

"You are quite sure she said 'dearest boy in the world?'" he said hollowly.

"Quite," replied the solicitor, "it will look well on a poster."

Mr. Wren sat down and wrote a cheque for £2,000, and might have saved himself the trouble, for an hour before this Hex was saying to Belshazzar Smith—"Of course, we can't use the lady's letter, Belshazzar. That wouldn't be playing the game. He is such a thick-skinned rascal that I don't know how we are going to get that money."

"What about laying in wait for him," said Belshazzar hopefully, "and chloroform him? 'Errick says that the unconscious mind—"

At that moment Mr. Wren's cheque arrived by special messenger.

______________

THE EARL OF NOWHERE

15: The King's Messenger

The New Magazine, Sep 1924

EVERY city has its own peculiar voice. Neither the harsh roar of London, the nerve destroying staccato of sound which belongs exclusively to New York, nor the kettledrum buzz of Madrid is comparable with the voice of Paris, which is mainly vocal.

"Queer thing about Paris, sir," said Jim Selby, "somebody is always talking."

The staid Vice-Councillor of the British Embassy lifted his head, and, being literally-minded, listened.

"I hear nobody— except you," he said.

In that quiet room very little sound came through the double windows, nor, situated as it was, and at that hour, was it likely that any sound could penetrate to the sedate bureau.

Jim Selby chuckled to himself, having a sense of humour that was superior to the overwhelming majesty of embassies. A lean, brown faced man, on the optimistic side of thirty, he found life an amusing business and the office of King's Messenger less humdrum than he had been led to expect.

The hands of the French clock above the fireplace pointed to nine. Outside, an ungentle flurry of sleet and snow was falling, and Jim had an engagement to meet Lady Vyvan Sanclair at ten.

The Vice Councillor, who had resumed his writing, suddenly looked up.

"What are they saying in London about the Earl of Nowhere?" he asked. Jim smiled.

"He's a weird bird, isn't he? You mean the Earl of Saltesh, who makes himself so unpleasant to people?"

The Councillor nodded.

"Is it a hoax, or a joke in bad taste?" he asked. "I thought the title had died out."

"Perhaps that is the reason our mysterious friend uses it," said Jim dryly. "I can't say that I approve of people who set themselves above the law, and administer justice in their own peculiar fashion; but whoever he is, mad or sane, lord or commoner, he is doing remarkable work."

The Embassy chief growled something under his breath.

"It is drastic," admitted Jim, "and a little risky for his invisible lordship. For a man who shoots up gaming clubs and beats up blackmailers, and is dealing with a hundred-and-one little gangs that abound in London, can't he a bad fellow at heart, even though he may not be Lord Saltesh."

The Vice-Councillor leant back in his chair and looked strangely at the messenger. Then, to Jim's surprise, he said:

"I'm sending you to London to-morrow afternoon, and I'd give a lot of money if I were perfectly certain Lord Saltesh was on the train with you!"

"Why on earth—" began Jim, in amazement.

"I'll tell you one of these days. Of course, there is no Lord Saltesh. The old earl was never married; and Lord Felboro, who administered the estate for his cousin years before Saltesh went out, told me there wasn't enough money left to pay one year's interest on the mortgages. All the same, I wish I could lay my hands upon the gentleman."

"Felboro, who administered the estate for his cousin years before Saltesh

"But why?" asked Jim again.

The Vice-Councillor unlocked a drawer, pulled it open and took out an envelope, from which he extracted a sheet of paper.

"Look at this," he said.

Jim took up the sheet and read:

On Wednesday morning the draft of the Treaty between the Transcaucasian and the British Governments will arrive in Paris from Tiflis. This information has reached certain interested people in London too late for them to intercept your messenger from Transcaucasia. If you wish the Treaty to reach the Foreign Office, avoid ordinary routes; the air route is the most dangerous of all.

It was signed "Saltesh," and the paper, Jim noted, bore at the top an embossed coronet.

"Do you take any serious notice of this?"

The other nodded.

"Very serious. The Transcaucasian Treaty touches very nearly some of the biggest oil interests in the world. It is a condition of the Tiflis Government that the Treaty shall go through to London without being read even by me. The Tiflis people are not in very good odour with the Soviet Government, and they're scared of the terms being revealed until they have the support of our people. Otherwise it would have been a simple matter to have telegraphed the Treaty word for word."

"I see," said Jim thoughtfully. "And this is the 'vital document' I am to take back to town?"

"Exactly. Now I think you'd better run off and meet your lady."

Jim gasped.

"How did you know—" he began.

"That you're supping with Lady Vyvan?" The older man smiled. "My dear Captain Selby, you forget that this is Paris, and that an Embassy is naturally very curious about its servants. You have been watched ever since you came to this city. You see," he went on, before Jim could speak, "we can't afford to take risks."

"By which route do I go back to London?" asked the Messenger.

The Councillor smiled grimly.

"That very important piece of information will not be given to you until five minutes before you leave," he said.

Ciro's Restaurant was filled when Jim arrived, and he looked around the crowded room helplessly until a white-gloved hand signalled him, and then he made his way through the dancers to the little alcove table where Vyvan Sanclair was awaiting him. A slim girl in the early twenties, with a flawless complexion and grey eyes, arresting and live, she had, in her manner and poise, something of her French mother, little save the dignity of Lord Felboro, her father.

"I thought you weren't coming."

"You said ten," apologized Jim, and she smiled.

"All the same, I thought you weren't coming. One never knows what's going to happen to a King's Messenger once he disappears in the Faubourg St. Honoré. There was even a possibility that you might have been kidnapped by the Earl of Nowhere."

He laughed.

"Does his lordship interest you, too? By the way, where did he get that name?"

"Father gave it to him," she said absently. "I should love to meet that bizarre person."

"As he operates in London," said Jim, "you're hardly likely to meet him on the boulevards."

Vyvan raised her eyes to him.

"Are you sure?" she asked quietly, and, before he could speak, went on; "I have had an uncomfortable feeling that, whenever you and I have been out together, we have been shadowed." And then, seeing the laughter in his eyes: "You knew?" she asked quickly.

"I knew to-night for the first time. The Vice-Councillor told me that they'd put a watch-dog on my track to see that I came to no mischief."

Her sigh was one of relief.

"I'm glad," she said. "You will probably be amused at my fears, but I'm the most easily scared woman in Paris. When are you returning?"

Jim hesitated. She, with her quick intuition, realized that the question was one she ought not to have asked.

"I am afraid I was indiscreet," she said. "I'll tell you that I'm going back to London to-morrow night, and if I have you for fellow-passenger I shall be very pleased."

"Why?" he asked.

She shrugged her shapely shoulders.

"I don't know," she answered vaguely.

"Are you glad to be going back?"

Her lips twitched.

"To Felboro and to father?" she asked, and there was a hint of quiet sarcasm in her voice.

He was silent. Lord Felboro had an international reputation: he was a man who lived just a little too close to the border line which separates the permissible from the unpermissible to be a desirable acquaintance. His name had unaccountably disappeared from the roll of membership of two of the best London clubs, and he, who had been persona grata with the leaders of the social world, suffered the indignity of having his application for admission to the Royal Enclosure at Ascot rejected.

"No; I'm not glad to be going back," she said. "I go because the devils drive, and most terrifying of the devils is a letter from father saying that he's had to curtail my allowance."

She checked a rising sigh, and then looking wistful:

"You haven't asked me what I would like for supper!" she said, with a faint smile. "I want something very nice and very expensive."

THE DEEP, booming notes of Big Ben striking the midnight hour were reverberating in the air when Lord Felboro stepped from his glistening Rolls and crossed the threshold of the Frolic Club. A footman came forward, resplendent in blue and silver, took his lordship's hat and murmured a respectful greeting.

Felboro looked around the vestibule with its soft-hued walls, its glowing alabaster vases and banked roses, and his lip curled. Through the glass-panelled doors he could see the supper-room, the dancing floor crowded with overdressed women and insignificant men. The mechanical regular strains of the noisy orchestra came faintly, and the atmosphere of the vestibule was heavy with a medley of exotic perfumes.

"Do you know if Sir Charles is here, Philip?"

"Yes, my lord; I think I saw him go to the American bar."

Philip, the footman, six feet of masculinity from his buckled shoes to his powdered head, knew everybody. He had the low voice and the deferential manner of the perfect servant.

"Philip is the only good-looking man that ever goes to the Frolic Club," said a cynic, "and very nearly the only gentleman."

Lord Felboro pulled at his fair moustache, with a frown of doubt.

"I suppose there is the usual crowd here to-night?"

"There were a large number of members dining and a very considerable number came on from the theatre," said Philip, who had never been known to speak disparagingly of the Frolic Club and its curious membership. "Would your lordship wish me to page Sir Charles?"

Lord Felboro nodded, and Philip went noiselessly across the tessellated floor and pressed an invisible bell in the wall. A page appeared as if by magic, and, receiving his instructions, vanished down a long corridor. In a few minutes be returned with Sir Charles Tasker.

Felboro was tall and thin and bore himself with the elegance of the patrician. Sir Charles, with his inflamed face and bulbous nose, was short, grotesquely fat, and looked what he was, the self-made man and badly made at that.

"Want to see me, Felboro?" he grunted, as he came breathlessly into the vestibule.

Lord Felboro looked round, and then walked to a settee as far as possible away from Philip and the danger of eavesdropping.

"I've had a 'phone from my man in Paris," he said, lowering his voice. "Selby left Paris late last night by aeroplane for Brussels."

Tasker screwed up his face to a frown.

"Why Brussels?" he asked suspiciously. "Why not direct to London?"

Felboro smiled wearily.

"My dear good friend Tasker," he said, "you must credit these people with a little intelligence. Possibly they suspected the possibility of a cleverly manoeuvred aeroplane collision over the Channel and a waiting boat to pick up a dead pilot and his passenger. No, he's coming into England by the back-door— possibly Antwerp-Harwich or Ostend-Gravesend."

The other fingered his thick lips nervously.

"If he suspects—" he began.

"He? Who?" asked Lord Felboro sharply. Then, seeing Philip's head turn, he lowered his voice.

"Who do you think? This blamed earl, of course!" growled Tasker, and Lord Felboro laughed softly.

"What on earth should he have to do with our— business arrangements?" he asked.

Tasker did not reply for a moment.

"He's out for any kind of arrangement that is crooked," he said. "I tell you, Felboro, I'm scared. I'm not worried about the police; I don't care that"— he snapped his fingers—"for the best secret service in the world. But this man who works alone— he's a devil! Did you hear what happened to Tommy Grimbley? He took him out of his bed and flogged him in his own room, and not a person in the house heard it. And all because Tommy had got a little too fresh with some typist or other."

(Sir Charles was putting a very charitable construction upon "Tommy's" offence.)

"Philip is a good fellow," growled Felboro under his breath, "and he's a very trustworthy man, but I've not the slightest desire that he should know all our secrets."

"He's a crook, too," was the startling reply.

"Philip a crook?" whispered Felboro, and shot a glance at the unconscious footman.

"Yes; he's been in gaol— five years for robbery with assault, and five years for another crime," said Sir Charles. "I was going to tell you about it. I had a letter from some detective agency to-day, asking me if I knew of Philip's antecedents. That bird may be useful to us."

"Perhaps he will catch the Earl of Nowhere," sneered Felboro.

The other man shifted uneasily.

"You can laugh," he snarled, "but maybe you won't laugh one of these days. And I'll tell you something, Felboro— it's been on my mind for a month, ever since I heard about this man who calls himself Saltesh. You administered the old earl's estate and made a pretty good thing out of it. I know of one money-lender to whom you paid a hundred and forty thousand pounds. You didn't find Bradburys growing like raspberries! Suppose there is an Earl of Saltesh, and suppose he's coming back after you—"

"Why wouldn't he go to the Courts?"

Felboro had gone suddenly old; his face was white and drawn.

"It would be a simpler matter to go to the Courts and prove his identity."

Sir Charles's lips twisted derisively.

"What would he get out of that? A big, fat lawyer's bill! No; if my theory is correct, this fellow is after you; and I'm going to suggest that we let the treaty go. It's too dangerous."

Felboro stared at him.

"Not go after the Treaty?" he asked incredulously. "You know what it's worth to us? At the least a million. I could get a million cash this night from that new oil crowd in the City, once I give them particulars of the leases. You're mad. We're too deeply in this to back out, Tasker. We've got to go through. I only wanted to know the station he arrives at, and that I now know."

"What's your plan?" asked the other.

"You're coming home with me to-night, to Grosvenor Gardens, and you'll wait till I arrive with Selby and help me get him in."

"You're not going to— ?"

The man's breath failed him.

"Kill him, I suppose you were going to say? No; it's a much simpler matter. I'm not quite a fool. Selby will never know what really happened to him, and I shall be the last person in the world he will suspect."

"Are you alone in Grosvenor Gardens?" interrupted the other.

"Vyvan's home; she came back from Paris this morning. But you need not worry about the girl; she is so used to my all-night habits that she is hardly likely to leave her room to investigate any strange sound she may hear."

"The servants?"

"Only the cook sleeps in the house, and you couldn't wake her before seven with a hammer. The maids sleep out, do not come on duty till eight."

But the fat man was not convinced.

"This is a big thing, Felboro, a bigger thing than we've ever tackled before. If anything went wrong it would mean penal servitude—"

"What will it mean if they discover that for five years you have been issuing faked balance-sheets and appropriating money from your various companies for your own use?" asked the other quietly. "We want this money badly, you and I. You're not going to back out?"

Sir Charles shook his head, though in his heart was the very fear of death...

Jim Selby had reached Brussels in the early hours of the morning, and, carrying out his instructions to the letter, left the Belgian capital by the first train for Ostend, where he stayed at one of the few hotels which were open at that season.

The Treaty, which had been written on paper of an extraordinary thinness, was secreted beneath his shirt. Nevertheless, he slept that afternoon behind a locked door, a revolver corded to his wrist. That these precautions were necessary he discovered on going for a short stroll before dinner. He had seen two loungers at a street corner, and had mentally noted their appearance. He had not gone fifty yards towards the Place des Armes when, glancing back, he saw the men behind him. Ostend in the winter is a desolation; there were very few people in the streets, and no sign of a gendarme.

The Place des Armes, however, was fairly well filled, for the market had been held that day. He glanced around and saw the two men hesitating at the corner of the Place. They had momentarily lost sight of him, and this was his opportunity. Turning the corner of another street leading into the market-place, he doubled back, and, overhauling a fiacre, ordered the driver to take him back to his hotel.

His ruse was only temporarily successful, for he had hardly been back in his room five minutes when, glancing out of the window, he saw his two shadowers standing on the opposite sidewalk.

The arrangements, however, which had been made for him in advance were very thorough. It was growing dark when a big limousine swept up to the door, and without a moment's wait Jim, who had paid his bill, stepped into the machine, deposited his valise, and in another second was gliding rapidly towards the centre of the town.

The manoeuvre evidently took the men by surprise. Glancing back through the peephole he saw one of them running across the road to a telephone booth. Probably they also had a car in readiness, he thought. But he saw no sign of them until he had passed through Wenduyne and the lights of Blankenberghe were coming up to meet him. Then it was he saw the two head lamps of the big car twinkling in the distance as they crossed the sandy dunes.

There was a delay of a few minutes at the Dutch frontier whilst he showed his papers, and by the time he was cleared he saw the lights of the car a hundred yards behind. They, however, were not prepared to cross the frontier, and had neither papers nor permis. And for the time being he had shaken off his discomfited enemies.

At midnight, when the Flushing mail packet was on the point of departure, a motor-boat came shooting across the broad waters of the Scheldt, and a very tired young man clambered up to the pier. It was four o'clock and a cold foggy morning when Jim landed at Dover, and had the satisfaction of seeing two Scotland Yard men fall in behind him at half-a-dozen paces' distance and follow him to his carriage, standing before the locked door until the train moved out. He had dozed on the ship, and was wide awake when the train came into Victoria, five minutes ahead of time.

He was looking round for a taxi when a cheerful voice hailed him, and a man in a long fur coat came across the station roadway with outstretched hand.

"Why, Lord Felboro, you're the last person in the world I expected to see at this hour," smiled Jim.

"I came down to meet that inconsiderate daughter of mine, who chose the night boat without regard to her father's need for sleep," said Felboro genially.

"Lady Vyvan? Is she on the train?"

"Doesn't look like it," said Lord Felboro, glancing down the platform. "I suppose she'll arrive by the seven o'clock train. Did you come from Paris?"

"No I didn't come direct from Paris," said Jim; "and I don't think the Paris passengers are on this train. I remember somebody telling me that the Paris boat had been held up by fog in the Channel."

"Oh, that's it!" said his lordship, apparently relieved. "Well, she'll find her way home. Where are you going?"

Jim's intention had been to go immediately to the Foreign Office and deliver his package to a waiting secretary.

"Foreign Office at this hour of the morning!" scoffed Felboro. "You've a much higher opinion of the industry of Civil Servants than I, my dear Selby! Come along to Grosvenor Place and have some breakfast. You look pretty ill."

"I?" said Jim in surprise. "Good heavens! I never felt better in my life. And I'm afraid I can't go to Grosvenor Place until I have called at Whitehall," he said.

"In that case let me drop you there," said Felboro, "and I'll wait till you have finished your business and take you home."

He showed Jim into the two-seater saloon and took his place at the steering-wheel. As the car emerged into the station yard it was raining a steady, persistent drizzle, and the streets were cloaked in a thin veil of yellow fog.

"Pleasant place to come back to— London," said his lordship. "I think a cigarette will make the drive endurable."

He stopped the car at the gates and pulled a case from his pocket. Jim accepted a cigarette gratefully, and held a match for his lordship before he lit his own.

"Pull up the window— it's a poisonous morning," said Felboro, and sent the car leisurely into Victoria Street.

They were half-way between the station and the Houses of Parliament when he asked a casual question of his companion. There was no answer, and glancing round Felboro saw that the young man's chin was on his chest; the cigarette, still smouldering, had fallen between his feet. He stooped and picked it up, threw it through the window, then, bringing the car round in a complete circle, increased the speed. Before the sombre entrance of 793, Grosvenor Gardens, he stopped, jumped out, looked left and right, then caught the unconscious man under the arms and dragged him across the pavement and up the stairs, depositing him against the door. Almost immediately it was opened by Tasker.

"My word, you've done it!" he said in horror, as he looked at the huddled figure.

"Don't talk, help me to carry him into the dining-room," said the other sharply, "before an infernal policeman comes along."

Together they half-carried, half-dragged the messenger into Felboro's small study and laid him on the sofa.

"Go out and shut the door," ordered the master of the house.

The trembling Tasker returned in time to see his companion draw a thin package from the bosom of the drugged man.

"You've got the other envelope and the seals ready?" said Felboro. "Good! Now imitate this writing as closely as you can, whilst I see what is in the package."

He slit open the end and pulled out some twenty sheets of typewritten manuscript, turning the pages rapidly, and stopping only to jot down notes as they occurred to him.

"Here is the paragraph about the leases," he said. "Now we shall see—"

"Father!"

He looked up suddenly. The door had opened noiselessly and a girl's slim figure had appeared against the dark background of the hall. She was staring at the prostrate figure of Jim Selby.

"What is it? What have you done?" And then her eyes fell upon the papers on the table. "It is the Treaty!" she gasped. "The Treaty that Jim was bringing from Paris! Oh, father!"

"Get out!" Felboro's face was almost demoniacal in its fury. "Get back to your—"

But she had already crossed the room and was kneeling by Jim's side, trying to revive him. Her father gripped her roughly by the arm and dragged her back.

"You fool, what are you trying to do? He'll never know that the package has been tampered with!" he hissed, "I'll take him to the Foreign Office and say he fainted—"

She was strangely quiescent, and moved obediently to his hand. Then, before he could realize what was happening, she had snatched the papers from the table and had thrust them into the front of her dress.

"You shan't see them, you shan't!" she said with passionate intensity. "Father, how could you!"

"Give me those papers!" cried Lord Felboro furiously.

"My dear young lady"— the quavering voice of Tasker was heard for the first time—"don't you realize that if this thing gets out, your poor father—"

"It's out, my boy; it's out!"

Felboro spun round at the voice. The door was open, but now the passage was brightly illuminated. He saw a figure, veiled and robed like a monk. Two eyes burnt through the slits of the hood which covered the Thing's face, and on his head glittered and sparkled a strange coronet the like of which he had never seen before. It was a coronet which had surmounted the helms of the knights of old, a thing of delicate gold work and flashing gems.

"Meet the Earl of Nowhere," said the cracked voice behind the mask. "John Lackland, Nemo..." He pointed a black-gloved finger at the speechless Lord of Felboro. "Give me back my lands and hereditaments, my broad manors, my woodlands, and houses great and small, thief and double thief!"

Whatever Lord Felboro lacked, it was not courage. His hand dropped to his pocket, but before he could close upon the grip of his automatic, something long and black and sinister covered his heart.

"Don't move, my robber-baron! Those papers." He took them gently from the girl's outstretched hand. "Stand against the wall."

The men obeyed as he slipped the papers back into the folder and scribbled bold, irregular characters across the face: "Stolen but unread," and added his sprawling signature. Then, with a strength which surprised the girl, he stooped and lifted the drowsy man to his feet, and before they realized what had happened, had disappeared. They heard the slam of the front door, followed by the whir of engines. When Felboro rushed out, car and man had gone.

______________________

16: The Hold-Up

The New Magazine, Oct 1924

LORD FELBORO stood by the window of his library, looking out upon the gloomy street with a frown upon his face. Night was falling, and the wet pavements reflected the gleam of the lamps. The library was in darkness, save for the red glow of the fire which burnt in the silver grate. Presently he turned slowly and addressed the unprepossessing man who sat huddled in a deep armchair, his fingers beating a nervous tattoo upon the padded arm.

"My dear Tasker," he said, in his suave, even tone, "you are rattled! And when you are rattled, you are a fool— a child, who starts at every creak of the floor and the howl of every gust of wind that comes down the chimney. 'The Earl of Nowhere' is probably Mr. William Sikes."

"He doesn't write like a burglar," growled the other fearfully. "I don't like it, Felboro—"

"Thanks to the spread of popular education," said Lord Felboro coolly, "even burglars can compose letters and inscribe them in a fair round hand. Personally, I take no notice of anonymous letter-writers, and less notice when they describe themselves by a title which is extinct. I tell you I knew Saltesh very well indeed. He died unmarried and without legal issue. I was the trustee of his estate: who should know better?"

"You were such a mighty good trustee that there's no estate left," growled Sir Charles Tasker. "That is why he's after you, Felboro."

Lord Felboro laughed quietly.

"Then why doesn't he come into the open? If he thinks that I have robbed him, there are the law courts: I understand that they still function. No, my dear fellow, you're crazy. And as for the Earl of Nowhere, whose face has not been seen, who has neither lawyer nor banker, nor, for the matter of that, identity, he is in all probability a vulgar blackmailer, and having a dim idea that I helped myself to the Saltesh property and dissipated the mythical thousands, thinks to frighten me into paying."

Sir Charles's lips curled in a sneer.

"Don't let us pretend to one another, Felboro," he said. "You had every penny that old Saltesh left; you squandered it at Monte Carlo and Deauville, to say nothing of a few score of race-tracks all over the country. You'd be in a devil of a mess if there was an heir to the Saltesh title."

Lord Felboro did not speak for a while, slowly pacing the room, his hands in his pockets, his chin on his breast.

"We will leave Saltesh out of the question for the moment," he said at last. "The point is, are you going to help me on Wednesday?"

"No!" The word was almost shouted, and again his lordship laughed.

"What are you afraid of?"

"I'm afraid of many things," said Tasker, in a grating tone. "I'm afraid about that Selby.... Yes, you can laugh, but the Government are not going to take that lying clown. You can't drug and kidnap a King's Messenger without a come-back."

"I hate your cheap American slang," said Felboro calmly, helping himself to a cigarette from the silver box on the table. "There has already been a come-back, as you call it. I have had detective officers in this very room, questioning me as to where I left Jim Selby after I met him at Victoria Station; and I told them that, as we drove along Victoria Street, he asked if he could get out of the car and walk, and that was the last I saw of him."

Again Tasker's lips curled.

"They didn't suggest, by any chance, that you drugged Selby, brought him here and took the dispatches he was carrying, did they?" he sneered. "Do you think they don't know, Felboro?"

Lord Felboro chuckled.

"They were quite satisfied with my explanation," he said. "And now, are you going to help me?"

Tasker, the weaker man of the two, hesitated. He was, as his host never failed to remind him, in the same boat as Lord Felboro. They were two ruined men, their chief assets the title one inherited, the other bought in the days of his prosperity, and they were in urgent need of money.

"My dear, good fellow," Felboro continued, shrewdly scanning his companion in the half-light, and judging rightly that he was wavering, "if it comes to a showdown— I am now employing one of your favourite American expressions— in other words, if all the past is known, if the truth, not only about Saltesh, but a dozen little adventures in which you and I have participated, is exposed in cold print, what do you imagine will be the consequence? You and I have been Ali Baba, Dick Turpin, and all the discreditable fraternity of robbers rolled into one. We have lived by swindling, by cold-blooded thieving, and by almost every sort of crook work, for the past ten years— let us face the facts. You were rather anxious to do so a few minutes ago."

Sir Charles Tasker looked round nervously at the door.

"Vyvan is not in," said his lordship, slightly amused, "and if she were in, you may be sure that she would not betray me. One's child is loth to do that sort of thing, from a purely selfish point of view, perhaps, since the discredit which would come to me must inevitably be reflected upon her. I am being pressed for money; I need enormous sums to save me from bankruptcy."

"Why not go through the courts and end it? I'm thinking of doing so myself," growled Sir Charles.

"You're a fool," said the other contemptuously. "There is greater honour to be gained at the Old Bailey than In Carey Street by my code. And, besides, who is going to suspect me? And if they suspect me, who is going to dare put the law in motion without positive proof? My house in Grosvenor Gardens is as morally impregnable as was the old robber-baron's castle in the material sense."

In the silence which followed, the ticking of the little clock on the mantel-shelf came distinctly to the worried baronet.

"You can call it robbery, if you like."

"But this is robbery— bare faced— and I'm not in it. If you think I'm going to take a risk—"

"I shall be taking all the risk you're likely to take, my friend," said Felboro impatiently. "Do you imagine I am going to ask you to don a mask, or that I shall put a pistol in your hand and say, 'Go along and hold up the Rex Faston dinner-party'?"

Sir Charles looked at him suspiciously.

"Who are you going to get to do the dirty work?" he asked curiously.

The answer to his question was well timed. There was a knock at the door, and Felboro's shabby butler came into the room.

"Will you see Mr. Philip, sir?"

"In here," said his lordship curtly, and, when the servant had gone:

"Philip?" Tasker frowned. "Who the devil is he? Not— not Philip, the footman, from the Folly Club?" he gasped.

Lord Felboro nodded, and before the other could reply, the tall figure of the immaculate Philip appeared in the doorway.

"Don't go, Tasker. Come in, Philip, please, and sit down."

The footman came suspiciously into the room and looked from one to the other.

"Your lordship sent for me. I could not come before."

"I did not expect you before, Philip," said Lord Felboro suavely. And then, with scarcely a break, he asked: "When were you in prison last, Philip?"

The man started, and his brows met.

"In prison, my lord?" he faltered.

"You have been in prison several times," said Lord Felboro. "I think the last occasion was some four years ago. You have been in prison because you have not had proper direction."

Philip was silent.

"I thought nobody knew of my past," he said at last.

"It is nothing to be ashamed of," said his lordship, as he smilingly handed a box of cigars to the visitor. "There is only one crime I recognize, and that is the crime of being caught."

He saw Tasker's look of horrified warning, but proceeded.

"For the sake of a few paltry pounds you have been to penal servitude. Had been directed as I would have directed you, my dear Philip, you would not only have escaped penal servitude, but you would not now be a poor man, dependent upon the tips which the Folly members bestow upon you." He smiled cynically at the younger man.

"Precious few they are!" said the footman.

"Exactly. I am now going to put up a job for you, and I can do so without the slightest reservation, because, supposing that you wished to carry a story to the police, who on earth would take your word against mine? That is the great advantage of the position I occupy, Philip— my credibility. Your word, on the other hand, with your unfortunate record behind you, would never for a moment be believed. So you see"— he was addressing Tasker as much as the man—"I take absolutely no risk in putting before you a plan which I have most carefully thought out, and which, I think, will result in your enrichment— er— our mutual benefit."

Philip stood, twisting his hat in his hands, his eyes on the carpet, and Felboro watched him closely.

"I don't know whether your lordship is joking," he began, in a hesitant voice, "but if you're not— and there's big money—"

"Sit down," said Lord Felboro, and, head to head, they talked in low tones for the greater part of an hour.

CAPTAIN Jim Selby, King's Messenger, listened with amazement and concern as the bearded chief of the Criminal Intelligence Department gave his cold-blood version of a recent unpleasant adventure. He had arrived from Paris carrying important dispatches, and had been met at the station by a member of the peerage, who had offered to drive him to his house. Half-an-hour later, Jim Selby had been awakened by a policeman. He was sitting on the snow-covered steps of the Treasury in Whitehall.

"If Felboro drugged me with a cigarette," he said in bewilderment, "why on earth did he leave my dispatches? I had nothing else of value."

"That is what baffles me," said Superintendent Steel; "but there is no doubt whatever that Lord Felboro, in spite of his position, is a crook of crooks. He has a bad history."

"But Felboro is a rich man—" began

Jim, and then, as a horrible thought flashed through his mind: "His daughter— Lady Vyvan— she is not—"

He could not bring himself to put his fears into words, and was ridiculously elated when the superintendent shook his head.

"No, Lady Vyvan isn't in it, poor girl! As to Lord Felboro being a rich man—" He laughed. "Felboro has been a crook for the past fifteen years, to my knowledge, but has worked in such a clever way that he has left no loophole for us to grab him. He deals, but not exclusively, in big Stock Exchange swindles, and when he descends to stealing— and he has before now— if he does not steal diamonds or gold or precious stones, he takes something more valuable— information!"

"Information?" repeated the puzzled Jim.

The officer nodded.

"That is why he got, or tried to get, your dispatches. I understand they contained particulars of a new treaty, which has already affected the oil market."

"Then Felboro has benefited by reading the treaty?"

The officer shook his head,

"My own impression is that he had no time to read it I've spent two days tracking the oil operators, and I cannot connect him, directly or indirectly, with the big bear movement which started on the afternoon of your arrival in London. My own theory is that Felboro made a mess of things: he either hadn't time to read the treaty through, or to grasp its significance thoroughly. No, the big operator in oil is a mysterious gentleman named Smith, of Tonbridge. Who he is, heaven knows."

Jim smiled.

"Perhaps the Earl of Nowhere," he suggested, and to his surprise Superintendent Steel took his suggestion seriously.

"It may be," was his reply, but he refused to be drawn any further.

Jim Selby went out of Scotland Yard, his head in a whirl, and made his way towards the rendezvous that Vyvan had appointed in the scrawled note which he had received that morning.

Felboro a thief! He knew him for a gambler; he knew, too, that the man and his boon companion had been associated together in certain questionable transactions which had brought them to the very edge of the law. Men in his position could do, and sometimes did, shady things. He knew a cadet of a noble house who was spoken of as a cardsharp, but that Felboro could be a criminal seemed incredible.

He saw the girl sitting in one of the garden chairs that lined the deserted path near the pond, and thought at first that she had not seen him, for she did not raise her eyes even when he sank down in a chair by her side. If she knew! His one thought was how she might be spared the shock of knowledge. On this point he was determined: he must find some way by which she could be removed from the sinister association of her evil parent.

"Jim, do you know that my father is a thief?"

The question took Jim Selby's breath away. The pale, watery sunlight, which all the morning had gleamed reluctantly and at intervals through the racing cloud-rack, caught the girl's pale face as she turned to ask the question, and threw deeper shadows beneath the fine eyes which had not closed in sleep for two nights.

He would have turned the question with a jest, but there was something in Vyvan Sanclair's face which checked the smile that he forced to his lips.

"What a question to ask!" he began; but she stopped him.

"Jim, you came from Paris the other morning carrying dispatches. Father met you at the station and brought you home. Whether he drugged you in the car or after you came to the house, I do not know, but you were unconscious when I saw you—"

"You saw me?" he said in astonishment; and she nodded.

"He robbed you, or tried to rob you, my dear." Her hand sought his. "That is true, isn't it?"

He did not answer, and she went on:

"Father is a thief, Jim— isn't it horrible! The last lord of Felboro, with our traditions behind him!"

"You're probably mistaken." He tried again to turn the subject, but she smiled faintly.

"I'm leaving him after to-night— my aunt has asked me to stay with her. I should have gone this afternoon, but father says— Do you know Rex Faston?" she asked.

Everybody knew, or knew of, Rex Faston. He was the one war millionaire whom peace had further enriched. He had dabbled in steel, in ships, cotton, munitions and exchanges, and had climbed out of every market with an enlarged fortune. A hopeless little vulgarian, with a passion for display, he had purchased a ducal town house, where he entertained on a scale that would have abashed Heliogabalus. It was Rex who gave a dance and spent eight thousand pounds on floral decorations alone. Mrs. Rex carried on her plump person a fabulous fortune in pearls alone, and her emeralds were accounted the finest collection in the world. And she generally wore them all on great occasions.

"I know Rex and Mrs. Rex," said Jim with a wry face. "I met the lady in Paris last winter— she had everything on except the kitchen stove."

Vyvan nodded.

"Were dining there to night— and father insisted that I should go. Mr. Faston expects a royal personage, though father says that nobody of importance will be there. It is rather curious, because I met Mrs. Faston this morning, and she gave me to understand that father was bringing Prince Cyril. Her husband has invited all the rich and impossible people he knows. He wants to—"

"Cut a shine?" suggested Jim, when she paused. "Poor dear! And you have to go?"

"And you," she said quietly.

"I? Heavens, no! I'm not invited. Besides, I don't want to meet—" He stopped suddenly.

"My father? But you must! I have a horrible feeling that something is going to happen, and I want you there. I asked Mrs. Faston if you might come. I— I told her you were a friend of the prince's!" Jim's jaw dropped. "It doesn't matter— he won't be there," she went on quickly. "Oh, Jim, you must come! I know there is trouble coming. Father is desperate. All sorts of people have been calling at the house for money."

THAT NIGHT, when Vyvan was dressing for dinner, his lordship went out into the dark courtyard behind his house, opened a door that led into a mews, and ushered his visitor into his little study.

"I had a job getting away from the club to-night," grumbled Philip. "If your lordship had only written a word or two—"

"Don't be a fool!" snapped Lord Felboro. "Do you think I wanted my name associated with your actions?"

Philip grinned.

"I see— you were scared in case I got caught, eh? Now look here, my lord, I'm not going to do this job until you make me safe!"

Felboro's brows met.

"What do you mean?" he asked with deadly quiet. "There will be no risk. I have given you the key of the gate which will admit you into the little garden. The dining-room is on the ground floor; the french windows you can easily force, and the car will be waiting— you can drive a car?"

Philip nodded.

"That will be waiting at the corner of the street."

"What about the 'busies'?" asked Philip.

"The detectives? They will be at the front of the house. Faston never has them inside. You ought to make your getaway easily."

"But suppose I don't?" said the other doggedly. "You spouted a lot this morning about nobody taking my word and everybody taking yours. That's not good enough for me, my lord. I want it down in black and white that you and me are in this job on equal shares."

Lord Felboro stared at him, and then a smile dawned on his face.

"All right," he said with a shrug, and, sitting down at his desk, he pulled a sheet of paper from the rack and wrote, under the suspicious eyes of the footman:

It is agreed that Philip, Lord Felboro and Sir Charles Tasker are equally concerned in the hold-up at Mr. Rex Faston's house, and that the proceeds shall be equally divided.

HE SIGNED it with a flourish, "Felboro," dried the paper before the fire, folded it neatly and put it into an envelope, closing down the flap.

"Will you listen at the door? I thought I heard my daughter's voice," he asked and as Philip walked to the door, Felboro slipped a folded sheet of blank paper into the second envelope he had taken from the rack and, moistening the flap with his forefinger, sealed it The thing was done so quickly that Philip was hardly at the door before the first envelope had passed to the inside pocket of Felboro's dress coat, and the blank substitute lay invitingly on the blotting-pad.

"I hear nobody," said Philip.

He took up the letter, turning it over in his hand.

"I will put a seal on the back," said Lord Felboro, "and I trust to you to return it with the seal unbroken as soon as the job is over and the loot divided."

The man seemed satisfied, and, with the envelope in his pocket, followed his lordship to the back of the house.

Mr. Rex Faston's house in Park Lane was one of the largest and stateliest in that distinguished thoroughfare. It had on one side a tiny garden large enough for a lime-tree to grow unhindered by bricks and mortar. Mr. Faston seldom showed his visitors the garden, confining himself to escorting them from one magnificent room to another, impressing them with the cost of the marble staircase, the wonderful expensiveness of the rare wood paneling, and the amazing value of the picture gallery which he had acquired with the house.

He was a short, red-faced man, somewhat rotund, and his English was not of the best. He was explaining to other stout and red-faced men and their buxom consorts his disappointment at the prince's non-arrival, when Lord Felboro and his daughter arrived. But for Felboro's title and the position he was supposed to hold, Mr. Faston's tone would have been a little more vicious and his manner colder, for even the presence of an earl, supported by the vague distinction of a King's Messenger and Sir Charles Tasker, did not wholly compensate for the missing guest.

"I say, Felboro, old boy," he greeted his guest, "that was 'orrible news you telephoned to me, 'is royal 'ighness not being able to come, and all my friends 'ere was expectin' 'im. Are you sure he'll come later?"

"He's pretty certain to drop in," said Felboro glibly. He hesitated. "There was a dinner-party at the palace, and he couldn't get away."

He glanced round approvingly at the company, met Jim Selby's stern glance with a smile and a nod as though they were the best friends in the world, and continued his examination of the ladies' adornments. There was not one of these women who did not carry sufficient jewels on her person to keep the most extravagant-minded of men in luxury for a year. Here was a haul the like of which no hold-up man had seen.

Soothing his host's disappointment as well as he could, he remarked casually upon the danger in which the guests stood.

"Burglars? Not on your life!" said Faston scornfully. "There's a couple of detectives knocking about, but I don't allow them in the 'ouse— they look common, Felboro, and commonness I can't stand."

Jim had made his way to Vyvan, and drew her into a quiet corner of the ornate drawing-room.

"Do you still think something is going to happen to-night?" he asked.

She nodded.

"I feel sure. Father's been so nervy all day, and he locked himself up in his study to-night before we came out, and that is always a bad sign. Have you a revolver?"

He lifted his eyebrows, and laughed.

"I'm so sorry," he apologized. "My dear, of course I haven't. What can happen?" he said more gently, when he saw the look of distress in her face. "Surely you're not expecting a visit from the Earl of Nowhere?"

"If I were only expecting that I should be happy," she said, and made no further reference to her premonition.

Just after the butler announced that dinner was served, Sir Charles Tasker found time for a word with his chief.

"I'm scared as hell," he grunted under his breath. "What did you want to bring me here for?"

"I'll tell you," said the other in the same tone. "If any of the women scream, get to the door. There's a little bolt just underneath the lock. You won't see it unless you look for it. Shoot the bolt— you needn't let anybody see you doing it."

Tasker went red and white.

"What— what!" he spluttered, but Felboro had already turned away from him.

Nothing unusual happened during the dinner. The sweets were served, coffee and cigarettes had ended an over-elaborate meal, and the footmen had retired, when Jim, looking up suddenly, saw Lord Felboro take his watch from his pocket, glance at and replace it almost instantly. From Felboro his eyes ranged the table till they rested on Tasker. The man was livid, the hand that raised a wine glass to his lips trembled violently. Jim was all alert. What was to happen, and when? He was not left long in doubt.

Crash!

The french windows behind him were jerked violently apart, and open-mouthed, silent, the glittering company watched the black-masked figure that appeared. In one black-gloved hand he carried an automatic pistol, the other was raised to enjoin silence.

"No shouts, no squeaks, no squeals," he chuckled. "Meet the Earl of Nowhere, everybody! Come here, you!"

His finger crooked to the white-faced Felboro.

"Come, robber chief, ravisher of broad lands, destroyer of inheritances!"

Compelled by the magnetic quality of the voice, Felboro rose slowly and walked towards the mask. And then suddenly the hand of the "Earl of Nowhere" shot out. Before Felboro could realize what had happened, the hand was in his pocket; and when it was withdrawn, it held a square envelope.

"No jewels, no ropes of greasy pearls, my fat-faced profiteer!" chortled the man in the mask, and in a moment was gone.

PHILIP— Philip! It was impossible, impossible! Felboro, burning with rage, leant out of the door of the taxicab that was carrying him to Grosvenor Gardens, and cursed the driver for his slowness.

The burglar-footman would not turn traitor— it was impossible! He threw a coin to the driver and flew into the house. Philip had arranged to meet him in his study immediately after the robbery, and the entrance from the mews had been left open for the purpose. Unlocking the door, he threw it wide and switched on the light. As he did so, he uttered an exclamation of amazement, a hoarse cry. For, lying on the floor, his wrists handcuffed, his arms and legs strapped and a heavy cloth tied over his mouth, lay Philip.

In a second Felboro had loosened the bonds and torn away the gag, and the face of the footman stared up at him.

"Just as I was going into the garden in Park Lane somebody caught hold of me and shoved a wet towel on my face, and I don't remember much more."

He put his manacled hand into his pocket vaguely and took out the "letter" which Felboro had given him. The seal was still intact. Felboro snatched it from his hand and ripped it open. Perhaps by some miraculous mistake this was the damning document he had signed, and the blank had been taken by the masked intruder. With trembling fingers he took out the paper. At first he thought it was blank, and then he saw, written on one corner, in violet ink:

I am adding your confession to my dossier.

There followed a roughly-drawn earl's coronet and a capital "N."

___________________

17: The Post-Office Clerk

The New Magazine, Nov 1924

THE Rugarian Minister gave a dinner and dance in honour of his sovereign's birthday, and the big house in Portman Square was filled with the élite of London society. The curious crowd which stood on the pavement were kept clear of the cover which the red awning stretching to the kerb afforded, and watched the glittering arrivals and cheered in a half-hearted fashion the popular minister, whose duty brought him to the reception.

Detective-Inspector Bennett, on duty in the big hall, saw a familiar figure wearing on his coat the glittering insignia of a Rugarian order, and became instantly alert. The Earl of Felboro handed his crush hat and his coat to an attendant, mechanically smoothed his hair, and strolled up the hall towards the stairs that led to the drawing-room. Suddenly his eyes caught the detective's, and he nodded.

"Good evening, Mr. Bennett," he said. "You're keeping an eye on Mr. Vereski's diamonds, one hopes?"

"Yes, my lord," said Inspector Bennett with a smile.

"Stout fellow," said his lordship, and went slowly up the stairs.

Bennett jerked his chin upwards and a guest in evening dress who had been lounging in the hall came towards him.

"Follow Felboro; don't leave him out of your sight."

"Lord Felboro?" said the other in surprise.

"Lord Felboro," said Bennett emphatically. "You're not likely to see a bigger crook in Portman Square to-night."

"Good lord!" gasped his subordinate, to whom this was news indeed. "What— the Earl of Felboro— a crook?"

"Follow him," said the other tersely, "and keep him under observation."

Nobody knew better than Inspector Bennett how dangerous a man this good-looking nobleman was, and how insuperably difficult was the task of countering his many enterprises. Scotland Yard knew him to be associated with some of the worst gangs of swindlers in Europe. Society knew him as a man with an unenviable reputation, and guessed all that Scotland Yard suspected. But suspicion was one thing, knowledge another. A false move might ruin the highest-placed police official, and an indiscreet word of condemnation might cost the boldest of society men just as much money as a jury would award for libel.

Lord Felboro might not be received in the Royal Enclosure, but so many people were under a similar ban: and society found no excuse for barring him from their entertainments. Outwardly he was a polished, charming gentleman; be certainly had the privilege of calling the prettiest girl in London daughter. There were many glances of covert unfriendliness turned towards him as he strolled up to the minister and shook hands, but he was too dangerous a man for the majority of people to offend openly.

Lady Vyvan Sanclair was standing in the corner of the room talking to Jim Selby when her father appeared, and the smile left her face.

"I didn't know my father would be here," she said.

Jim was looking round.

"Where is his unspeakable friend?"

In these unflattering terms he spoke of Felboro's shadow, but the podgy little Sir Charles Tasker had not been invited.

"Is your father interested in Rugarian politics?" asked Jim.

She shook her head.

"I don't know; I don't think so," she said.

"I wonder why he's here," he said thoughtfully.

He might have added that he saw nothing to be gained for Lord Felboro out of this social function, but he would not run the risk of hurting her feelings.

She took his arm and led him into an anteroom, and found a settee in one of the corners, partially secluded from view.

"I want to talk very seriously to you, Jim," she said, "and it's about this terrible man, the Earl of Nowhere."

He chuckled.

"I almost said I'm tired of hearing about the Earl of Nowhere," he said. "In fact, I dare not go to a fancy dress ball for fear I see a black mask appear from his ancestral home, which I understand is really the bottomless pit!"

"Be serious," she said. "You know, of course, my father was trustee of the Saltesh estate? The old earl died without issue, and father administered the property."

"Yes, there was no property to administer, according to your father's statement. He was the nearest friend of Lord Saltesh and was in his confidence, and, according to him, he had known all along that the estate was insolvent. This mysterious mask claims to be the heir to the title and the non-existent property."

She nodded.

"Father had a letter from him this morning: I saw it when I went into his study. It contained the most dreadful accusations; said that father had gambled away half a million pounds belonging to the writer! There was a long list of the various estates which this mysterious man said father had sold, with a price against each, and the date on which they were disposed of. And it finished up: I am conferring upon you the Earldom of Dartmoor, and within a month you will take up your position at your new family seat."

"What did your father say?" asked Jim.

He came in and saw me reading the letter. He seemed amused; and yet I couldn't help feeling that behind his smile there was a— fear.

"Of course, it's all bunkum," laughed Jim. "I haven't a very good opinion of your father, but I don't imagine that Saltesh left a penny."

"You're wrong, Jim. Something father told me later leaves no doubt in my mind that there were these estates. And then I had a very serious talk with him at lunch. He said that there might be somebody who thought they had a right to the Saltesh estate, that there was a little money to go to the heir, and that he was going to bank it, in case there was a legal claim."

"What does that mean?" asked Jim.

"I don't know, I can't think. All that I know is that at the moment father has no money to bank at all! You know, dear, he is an inveterate gambler, and every penny he gets goes that way."

She was silent for a moment, and he asked:

"What do you— guess?"

"That father is terrified; that these continuous threats have so got on to his mind and have so terrified him that he intends getting the money by hook or by crook, so that he may have it on the day the claim is made. His confidence seems to be shaken by the information which this mysterious person has."

Jim whistled.

"Half a million wants getting," he said, very truly.

So thought Lord Felboro. When he returned to his house that night he found Sir Charles Tasker dozing in a chair before the fire, and roused him by the simplest expedient of kicking his foot as he passed. The little man blinked himself awake.

"Hallo!" he growled, a scowl on his unprepossessing face. "I've been waiting here since ten." He looked at the clock over the mantelpiece. "It's one now. You told me ten—"

"If I'd told you six, you'd have been here, my dear fellow," said his lordship, helping himself to a whisky and soda. "I've been to Vereski's reception."

"Well?"

"The famous Vereski diamonds were on view, as also were the notorious Vereski emeralds. They adorned the portly person of his good lady. I was scared that they had already been sent to Rugaria."

Sir Charles grunted something.

"On the contrary, it was very interesting," said his lordship, as he drained the glass and set it down on the table, "and in a way amusing. Bennett from Scotland Yard was there; he put a man on to trail me— he was never more than a foot away from me throughout the evening. I want those stones, Tasker."

"You're a fool," spluttered the other. "Burglary is not in your line. What did you want to go and see them for?"

"To make sure they were in London— and let me add that anything is in my line," said Felboro coolly.

"You can count me out," grunted Sir Charles.

"I have already counted you out, my friend, though I shall need your help. You have a smuggling friend who returns to America on Saturday. He can take the stones with him."

The other glared up at him.

"What's the good of that kind of game?" he asked. "Do you imagine you could sell the jewels in the open market? And if they went to one of these fellows who deal in stolen property—"

"Fence' is the word you want," said Lord Felboro. "I shouldn't get a twentieth of their value— I know all about that. And believe me, my dear Charles, I do not intend going to a fence. Stones, taken from their mounts and added to a few others, could be smuggled into America and would fetch top price. There's from a hundred thousand to two hundred thousand pounds for the asking. Pull yourself together and then come down to the club: I believe there's an all-night session, and I should like to introduce you to a counter-revolutionary who has been my guest there since eight o'clock this evening."

"I don't want to go to the club," growled the little man. "Do you realize we've put ourselves in the power of that cursed footman? And what's this rubbish about revolutions?"

Lord Felboro laughed softly, but did not answer the latter part of the question.

"Philip? My dear man, an ex-convict wields very little power. The criminal classes are notorious liars, and even the credulous Mr. Bennett would place very little reliance upon any statement that Philip made."

"He bungled the last business—" began Sir Charles.

"Not he, but we. Let us give him credit. He is a reliable man, and we may yet find him useful. Come along, my car is at the door."

Grumbling, the baronet followed his host into the street and shiveringly buttoned his coat to his neck, for the night was cold and raw.

At the Frivolity Club the festivities were at their height. The dancing floor was almost ankle deep in confetti; streamers hung from the chandeliers; and the revellers were in that stage of exhilaration which is so difficult to distinguish from the more sordid varieties of intoxication.

Lord Felboro stood in the doorway, his quick eyes scanning the people in the room. And then the band struck up, and the couples left their tables to fill the floor, and with this thinning-out process he saw the man he sought. It was a young man in an ill-fitting evening suit that looked as though it had been made for somebody else, and he sat aloof from the cheery throng at a small table placed in a corner of the room. Apparently he was quite satisfied with his isolation, for he beamed stupidly upon the gay throng as it wove a pattern of kaleidoscopic colour across the limited dancing space.

"That's our man," said Felboro, and, threading his way through the dancers, he came to the lonely occupant of the table.

A paper cap was askew on his head, and a grotesque paper cravat was tied about his throat, He looked up with a foolish smile as Felboro and his companion came.

"Hallo, my lord!" he said, and made a blundering attempt to rise.

"Sit down, Dempster," said Felboro. "You haven't any wine. Tut, tut, this will never do. I told the head waiter to keep you supplied with anything you wanted."

"You've been simply topping to me, my lord!" said the young man enthusiastically. "I've never had such an evening in my life. Mind you, they're a bit standoffish here, and when I asked one of these girls to dance, the fellow who was with her looked at me as though he'd cut my throat for fourpence!"

"Perhaps you have to bring your own dancing partners to places like this," said Felboro good-humouredly. "Still, you're enjoying yourself?"

"It's ripping," said the other. "I'll have something to tell the fellows about at the office!"

"You haven't danced, eh?"

Lord Felboro fumbled his chin and took a swift glance round the hall. Presently he saw a girl whom he knew, and, going across to her, whispered a few words. She smiled and, rising, preceded him back.

"I want to introduce Mr. Dempster, Miss Dail," said Felboro. "I'm sure Miss Dail would give you a dance."

"Why, of course," said the girl, and led the stammering young man out on to the floor.

"Who the devil is he?" asked Sir Charles, gazing at the vacuous youth as he piloted his partner with some skill.

"His name is Dempster; he is a clerk in the post office, and it is his job to keep a record of all the heavily insured registered packages which go out of this country to the Continent," said Felboro slowly. "In fact, he not only prepares the waybill, but he seals the bag. I met him some time ago through a friend of mine."

"But what's the idea?" asked Sir Charles, when the other paused.

"The Rugarian minister returns to the Balkans to-morrow. He had a telegram this morning— rather, yesterday morning— calling him into consultation. He will be abroad for six months." Lord Felboro spoke rapidly, lowering his voice. "Madame Vereski invariably transports her jewellery through the post, since she had her case stolen a few years ago. To-morrow a registered package will come to Mr. Dempster and will be dealt with in the usual way."

"And you will be in the office and ring the changes?" suggested Sir Charles, and in spite of his annoyance Felboro laughed.

"You're a fool! Suppose I did, and the stones were missing, do you think the inquiry wouldn't embrace me? No; my plan is very much more simple. To-morrow afternoon the stones will be taken to the G.P.O., handed over the counter, and sent by special messenger to Dempster's room. They will be placed in the bag and apparently forwarded. I say 'apparently' because the package addressed to the Rugarian Foreign Office will be brought to my house by Dempster," he said coolly.

The other's jaw dropped.

"Are you serious?"

"Quite serious," he said.

Tasker saw a warning glance in his companion's eyes, and the next minute the young man came back. For a while no conversation was possible; but when another man had claimed the girl and taken her away to dance, the three were left alone and Lord Felboro immediately turned the conversation in the direction he had carefully chosen.

"Well, Dempster, have you got any farther with your investigations?"

The young man's face instantly assumed an air of sobriety.

"Yes, my lord," he said, "I have got proof now that the revolution is timed for the fourteenth of December."

"Revolution?" croaked Tasker in surprise, when a warning glance from the other stopped him.

"Arms have been coming into this country by the thousand," the youth went on. "The Red Army is almost equipped, and on the day—"

"When will the day be?" asked Felboro anxiously.

Dempster shook his silly head.

"That I haven't been able to discover," he said gravely. "I only want that to expose the whole plot. If I could only find the mysterious power that is working behind the scenes—"

"Ah!" said Felboro, shook his head and sighed.

"You don't know?" asked the other eagerly. "Why, you guyed me the first time I spoke about the revolution."

"One doesn't betray oneself to a new acquaintance."

"Do you know who is the 'Idden 'And'?" In his agitation Mr. Dempster took great liberties with the Kings English.

"I know where this movement is being directed from," said Felboro slowly, "and I know that to-morrow a complete list of the chief conspirators, the stations and the secret orders, is going out of this country to the controlling power."

Sir Charles Tasker, who had sat dumbfounded through the conversation, began to see light. Mr. Dempster stared at his lordly host.

"I suppose, my lord, nothing would induce you to give me that information?"

The voice of the amateur detective was tremulous with anxiety; he was almost sober in the pursuit of his illusion.

Felboro looked left and right and lowered his voice.

"The chief conspirator is Monsieur Vereski, the Rugarian minister," he said. "I have been doing a little secret service work myself, and I know that he is leaving the country hurriedly to-morrow, and that, in order that he should not be searched, he is sending all the information by post."

Mr. Dempster's face went red and while.

"Not registered?" he asked eagerly.

Felboro shook his head.

"That I haven't been able to discover."

"Suppose he does?" burbled the young man. "Suppose it comes through me? Gosh! What a chance!"

"You wouldn't dare open it, it would be too risky," said Lord Felboro.

"Wouldn't I, though? I'd do anything for the dear old country," said the patriotic Mr. Dempster.

Felboro frowned, evidently deep in thought.

"You could get it away without anybody knowing, make an examination, take a copy of the documents, and then send them on as though nothing had happened— it might be done that way."

This Mr. Dempster considered.

"I could, with a little help," he said anxiously.

"I hate offering my assistance. The risk is so great, and I should be practically at your mercy." His lordship silenced the others protests of loyalty. "But I'll risk it. Bring the package to my house. . . . But suppose you're detected?"

Dempster went pale at the thought.

"I wouldn't care; I'd say nothing," he affirmed stoutly. "And it could be done."

"'Phone me in the morning— yes or no," said his lordship at parting. "I will be waiting for you."

It was a very long time before Sir Charles Tasker could find his voice after the young man had gone.

"I don't know whether I'm awake or asleep. With such lunatics as this—"

"There are thousands of them, sometimes on the side of the revolutionaries and sometimes against them. They're prepared to believe any cock-and-bull story that's got a revolver and a bomb in it. Why, one of the biggest patriotic societies in the country had a meeting the other day, and a public speaker said there were a hundred and twenty thousand armed Reds awaiting the signal to rise! And a million people believed him! This kind of obsession is as common as jazz."

"But suppose he squeaks?"

"He won't," said Felboro quickly. "I'll find a pretext for examining the contents of the package alone, and I'll report there's nothing there. When the parcel reaches its destination and it is found that the stones are gone, he'll be too scared to tell the part he's played, and may look upon it merely as a plot on the part of a Red enemy to ruin him."

"Can such fools exist?"

"There's one born every minute," said his lordship sententiously.

There was no doubt whatever that Lord Felboro was in a very serious frame of mind. The drip-drip of threats had worn a cavity in the stone of his complacency. There was no heir to the earldom of Saltesh: this he asserted in and out of season until he believed his own assertion. It was fairly clear that there existed somebody who sincerely believed in the honesty of his claim; and this mysterious person, who called himself the Earl of Nowhere, was most diabolically well informed. Felboro would take no risks. He might never be called upon to find the money, but this mystery man might produce proof, and in that case it would be an Old Bailey matter unless the money was in existence, even though Felboro promised himself that he would fight like the devil to retain its possession.

And there was a certain piquant novelty in stealing to save. Hitherto he had robbed to squander, and had lived alternately on the heights of prosperity and in the deep and gloomy valleys of poverty.

He was dressing next morning when the telephone bell rang, and he heard the agitated voice of his humble friend.

"The word is emphatically 'yes.' I've been thinking it over, your lordship, and—"

"Don't talk so much on the wire," said Lord Felboro. "I will be waiting."

He did not give the young man a chance of' speaking further, but hung up the receiver.

That he might involve this misguided youth in total ruin did not disturb him for a second. His only concern was with himself. He must cover his tracks so effectively that, even though the authorities traced Dempster to his house, they could not connect him with the robbery he contemplated. And as to the Earl of Nowhere— he frowned. At least the Unknown was ignorant of this little scheme of his.

The excuse for Dempster's calling was not difficult to find. Lord Felboro had first met the young man when he had called at the house to collect a subscription towards a boys' club in which Dempster was interested, for he was a young man with a public spirit. And his lordship arranged that both the subscription card, which had been left with him, and his cheque, dated that day, and a little note which he wrote in the course of the afternoon, should go away with Dempster and should stand as sufficient reason for the visit.

It was five o'clock when the young man came. He was trembling with excitement, and no sooner had the study door closed than he whispered:

"I've got it! . . . directed to Vereski himself, and registered!"

"What did you do?"

"I put it on the waybill, but didn't send it in the bag. I can easily correct the mistake to-morrow. Here it is."

He brought out a flat, oblong package, heavily wrapped in white paper, taped and sealed, and laid it on the table. Lord Felboro looked at the package with a scientific eye.

"I think I can get this out without disturbing the seals," he said. "Will you excuse me a moment?"

He walked quickly into the little inner study and closed the door. The instruments he was likely to use he had laid out, and in five minutes he had opened the case, slipped out the jewels and dropped them in his pocket before he replaced the covering. So quick was he that when he came back to the expectant youth with the package apparently untouched, Dempster thought the parcel had not been opened.

"I've been thinking it over," said Felboro gravely, "and I've decided that, in your best interests, these seals ought not to be forced. The documents may be there; on the other hand, there may be something valuable, and it would be a very serious thing for you if that was so."

"Aren't you going to open it?"

Felboro shook his head.

"No: take my advice, my boy, get it back to the post office and send it on in the next bag."

Dempster was disappointed, but the older man converted him to his way of thinking.

"All right, my lord; I'm sure your advice is the soundest," he said.

"Here is your subscription card and my cheque." Felboro called him back to give him these necessary articles of evidence. "If anybody ever wants to know why you came here that was the reason— you understand?"

"Yes, my lord," said Dempster.

Felboro saw him off the premises, then walked up to his bedroom, locked the door, and, pulling out the two necklets, laid them on his dressing-table. They winked and glittered brilliantly in the light of the overhead lamps.

"You're beauties," he murmured, "but I've got to get rid of you without delay."

He had a small box all ready, and he packed away the gems in cotton wool, wrapped them up and, going into his dressing-room, found a piece of tape; returning, he tied up the package and sealed it. With this in his pocket he made his way to Tasker's house, and found that admirable man in such a state of terror that he was on the point of collapse.

He laid the package on the table and Sir Charles fingered it fearfully— he asked that it should he opened.

"I want to see what I'm sending," he said.

With a curse his lordship cut the tapes and took out the cardboard box. As he lifted the top layer of cotton wool, he sneered:

"Did you think I was double-crossing you?"

And then he stopped. The box was empty— empty save for a card on which was printed a coronet and the word "Nowhere!"

"A CURIOUS incident has occupied the attention of Scotland Yard," said the Daily Megaphone. "A registered package containing jewels of considerable value, forwarded to the capital of Rugaria, failed to arrive. Inquiries were telegraphed to London, and whilst the post office officials were investigating the matter, another wire came from Rugaria saying that the jewellery had arrived but in a different package. Inside the case which held them was a slip of paper inscribed: 'With the Compliments of the Earl of Nowhere.'"

________________________

18:  The Edgware Road Crime

The New Magazine, Dec 1924

PHILIP, the footman at the Frolic Club, was gazing pensively into the long and beautiful saloon when he heard a footstep on the marble pavement of the vestibule, and, turning round, met the cold scrutiny of Middlebrow. The tall, good-looking footman bowed as his lordship passed.

"Good morning, my lord," he said.

Lord Felboro turned back. Glancing round to see that he could not be overheard:

"You were once in very serious trouble, weren't you, Philip?"

"Yes, my lord."

"You were, in fact, a convict. I am told?"

"That is so, my lord," said Philip quietly.

"I want you to come to my place in Grosvenor Gardens this afternoon. I have a little job I should like you to do, though I don't remember that you were particularly successful the last time my— er— friends employed you."

"That was very unfortunate, my lord." said Philip.

Without another word his lordship walked into the dining-room, found a corner seat, and waited with some impatience for the arrival of his friend and confederate. When Sir Charles Tasker waddled in, there was on his unhealthy face a frown which Felboro recognized as a sign of the man's perturbation of mind.

"Have you seen that cursed newspaper?" was Tasker's first question.

"I have seen that cursed newspaper," said the other, smiling faintly. "You mean the Daily Megaphone— accursed for the moment because it has published a fantastical story about the Earl of Nowhere."

London had been agog over this same Earl of Nowhere for months past. He had appeared in a dozen extraordinary circumstances, and the newspaper which had set itself to investigate the wherefore of this strange apparition had discovered that every time the Earl of Nowhere had made his appearance it had been to the disadvantage of one man, and one man only— The Earl of Felboro.

"I've got the paper in my pocket—" began Tasker.

"I have the cutting in mine," said his lordship. "According to this enterprising journal, the Earl of Nowhere is in reality the Earl of Somewhere. In other words, he is the heir to the Saltesh property, which I administer, and which he accuses me, not so much of maladministration as of having stolen the property and applied the proceeds of its sale to my own base purposes— very amusing, is it not, Tasker?"

"Do you call that amusing?" almost bellowed the baronet, as he took the paper from his pocket and laid it on the table before the other.

His lordship fixed his monocle and examined the marriage certificate that had been reproduced.

"It is probably a fake," he said. "You know what these newspapers are— they will do anything for sensation—"

"Suppose it isn't a fake?" demanded Tasker. "Suppose this is a reproduction of the genuine certificate, and that old Saltesh was secretly married to some infernal girl, then the heir— the paper prints his birth certificate— can come down on you for an account of your stewardship. That would be rather awkward."

"It would be more than awkward— it would be painful," said Lord Felboro. "But why hasn't he come into the light before? Why was it necessary for him to adopt this stupid disguise and make himself a nuisance to me?"

Tasker did not answer. Raising his eyes at that moment Lord Felboro saw a familiar figure come into the dining room.

"There's Selby," he said coolly. "He's rather clever at guessing riddles— I'll ask him over."

He smiled and beckoned Jim Selby, and Jim, who had had a very unhappy experience with the unscrupulous Lord Felboro, hesitated for a second, and then, curiosity getting the better of him, he walked across to where sat the two men whom, of all others, he most completely distrusted.

"Sit down, Selby. Have you seen my daughter this morning— by the way, she has been with you a great deal lately. I do hope that you're not going to get her talked about?"

"My dear Lord Felboro," said Jim blandly, "as if the scandal of being your daughter would not outweigh any other which is likely to come her way! I have asked Vyvan to be my wife."

Felboro raised his eyebrows.

"In these matters," he said, a little irritably, "one usually consults the parents of one's fiancée."

"I didn't think it was worth a consultation," said Jim coolly. "The truth is, Lord Felboro, if you can bear the truth—"

"I will endeavour," murmured the other.

"Your name is not a particularly savoury one, and I thought I was acting in your best interests when I ignored you."

Felboro mastered his momentary rage with an effort and smiled.

"I wish you joy," he said ironically. "I had other plans for Vyvan, but"— he shrugged his shoulders—"she and I have never been exactly en rapport." He looked at Jim long and thoughtfully, and then: "I brought you over to ask you something. Now what the devil was it?" In this manner did he dismiss the subject of his daughter's future, to which, if the truth be told, he had in that consideration given more thought than ever he had given in his life. Jim Selby was a man in comfortable circumstances; he was, moreover, the sole heir of an immensely rich uncle. He might be useful in the future, he decided. And as though he read his thoughts, Jim said quietly:

"This marriage, of course, will end our association, Lord Felboro. I hope you will never look upon me as a convenient son-in-law, because if you do you will be disappointed."

Again he was favoured with that cold stare.

"What the devil was it I wanted to see you about? Oh, I know! I was going to ask you what you thought of the revelations in this morning's Megaphone. I am starting an action for libel, of course."

Jim smiled.

"You would hardly be well advised, would you? There is no doubt that when the Earl of Saltesh died he left an heir to his property—"

"Why hasn't he come forward and claimed it?" growled Tasker. "That's what we want to know. What does he want to go monkeying about for, wearing masks and all that sort of thing?"

The solution of that mystery had already come to Jim.

"He wants his money back," he said, "And from what I've heard and what I guess, he's got quite a lot. Suppose he had come demanding the fortune that his father had left, what chance would he have had of getting it? He might have had you arrested for defalcation, but it would be a question as to whether he would get a conviction. You're much too clever a man not to have covered your tracks. Instead, calling himself the Earl of Nowhere, he has appeared at very awkward times for you, and by this method has managed to bleed you, at any rate, of some of his money."

The other bit his lip thoughtfully.

"Yes, there is that," he said. "Such a solution has already occurred to me. Do you know who he is?"

Jim shrugged.

"The Earl of Nowhere? The Megaphone says that he is staying in a Bloomsbury flat, waiting the psychological moment to come forward and enter his claim to the estate. Apparently his mother, after his birth, took him to America, and there he remained in ignorance of his parentage till by an accidental discovery of some of his father's letters he learnt that he was the heir to the Saltesh estate."

"All rot!" interrupted the other impatiently. "That's what the newspaper says. But he'll have some trouble to establish his claim, and greater trouble to get from me what little money there is left."

"That I can well believe," said Jim as he rose to go.

Tasker waited until the King's Messenger was out of hearing, and then he turned to his companion.

"What are you going to do about this? Will you fight it?"

"In the courts?" asked Felboro contemptuously. "Am I mad? Of course, I will use every process of the law to keep this man at arm's length, and I shall oppose his claim right up to the last."

"And if it succeeds," sneered Tasker, "what will happen to you?"

His lordship lit a cigarette and sent a curl of smoke whirling to the ceiling before he spoke.

"He mustn't succeed," he said, and added: "I want you to be at Grosvenor Gardens this afternoon, not later than three."

"What is going to happen?" asked Sir Charles fearfully.

"I will tell you— then," was the unsatisfactory reply.

As he walked out of the club and got into his car he saw his daughter drive up in a taxi, and he had half a mind to stop and talk to her, but with a shrug of his shoulders sank back into the luxurious depths of the padded seat and promptly erased her from his thoughts.

She was lunching with Jim that day, and was later than most guests usually are.

"I saw Father: he was driving off as I arrived," she said as she preceded Jim to the table be had reserved. "Is it true, what is in the newspapers?"

Jim nodded.

"I don't think there is any doubt about it," he said, "There is an Earl of Saltesh, and he intends claiming the estate which your father administered."

"But Father says there is no estate to claim."

"I don't suppose there is," said Jim dryly.

He might have added that with such a trustee as Lord Felboro the chance of the new earl coming into a substantial kingdom was a very remote one.

Vyvan made no further reference throughout the lunch to her father. She had no illusions about him; knew that he had been associated with more shady deals than any convicted swindler. He was one of the ugly facts of life that she must accept; and for a long time she had been aware that only his cleverness and the position he held in society had prevented his arrest in connection with half-a-dozen financial swindles which he had either engineered or in which he had conspicuously participated. The bearer of an honoured name, he had been crooked from his youth up. And that he had succeeded in winning the confidence of the Earl of Saltesh to such an extent that that elderly and dissolute man had made him his sole trustee, was not so much a tribute to his craft, which quality he did not lack, as to the sympathy that existed between these two men.

He was sitting in his study that afternoon at three o'clock when Tasker arrived. That stout man, seating himself uncomfortably on the edge of a chair, waited in some trepidation for Felboro to unfold his plan. But apparently his lordship was in no hurry to give his confidence.

"You'll have to wait a little while," he said. "I am expecting a visitor."

"Who is that?" asked Sir Charles uneasily.

"A man in the employ of the Megaphone newspaper," said Felboro. "I have always found, my dear Charles, that if you wish to get information from a great company, there are two sources which are infallible. The first of these is the head of the company, who is, as a rule, a very rich person. The second is any individual who has access to facts. A striking illustration of this is to be found in the case of the young man in the registered letter department of the Post Office. And although our scheme came to grief, my theory worked out excellently well. Now, if I wanted to discover the writer or inspirer of these articles in the Megaphone, and I went to the editor or to the proprietor of the newspaper, it is ninety-nine chances to one that I should be kicked out of the office. Newspaper editors have a very keen sense of their responsibilities. The Megaphone says that the real Earl of Saltesh is living in a flat in Bloomsbury— which means, of course, that he is doing nothing of the kind. That paragraph was merely put in as a blind, to throw any seeker off the track. Through my valet I have succeeded in getting into touch with a messenger at the Megaphone office, who not only knows where the particulars I require are filed, but has the means of getting in touch with them."

His explanation was interrupted by the footman announcing Mr. John Jennings, who proved to be a rather tall, broad-shouldered man of middle age.

Mr. Jennings had a red and bovine face, and displayed natural nervousness at the presence of a third person.

"That is quite all right, Jennings— sit down and have a cigar," said his lordship. "Sir Charles, here, is an old friend of mine, and you can speak with perfect freedom before him. Did you find what I wanted?"

"Yes, my lord," said the man.

"I've seen the original 'copy' as it came in from this man. He calls himself Wilkins, and he's staying at No. 16, Elmer Gardens, Edgware Road. That was the name on the letter attached to the 'copy'. I had an awful job getting it. All the old 'copy' on the Megaphone is kept in a special room on the linotype floor. Of course, I should lose my job if it was known what I had done."

"It will never be known. Wilkins, of 16, Elmer Gardens, Edgware Road." Lord Felboro wrote it down rapidly, "Splendid!"

He opened a little safe, took out three crisp notes, and handed them across to the gratified messenger, who was ushered from the room incoherent with gratitude.

"It is deliciously simple," said his lordship, after he had seen the man off the premises. "Fortunately, I know something about newspaper offices, and I knew that if the facts were communicated to the Megaphone, as obviously they were, the name of the informant would very likely be attached to the 'copy.' It was a simple matter getting in touch with this messenger man—"

"What are you going to do now?" asked Tasker.

"I will tell you in a few minutes. I have asked Philip to come here this afternoon."

"What do you want him to do?" asked Tasker apprehensively.

"I want him to get me those two certificates that are reproduced in this morning's newspaper, and more especially I wish him to get the letters from Saltesh to his wife, that the paper says are in his possession. I don't think it will be difficult. Here is Philip."

The door opened at that minute to admit the convict footman.

"I propose paying you ten thousand pounds for the services which I shall ask of you," said Lord Felboro slowly, and then outlined his plan, Philip listening intently.

"It seems easy, my lord," he said. "It this man lives at the address I can get into the house without much trouble. Are you sure the papers are there?"

For answer Lord Felboro took the cutting from his pocket and read:

The letters which prove beyond doubt the identity of the Earl of Saltesh, and support the story of this romantic secret marriage, are in the earl's possession and never leave him day or night.

Philip nodded.

"If that is true, you can reckon on having those papers to-night," he said. "When do I get paid?"

"The moment they are placed in my hand I will keep my promise," said Felboro.

IT WAS eleven o'clock. The hour had just struck from a local church, and Tasker, who had spent an agonizing two hours in the little study, suddenly jumped to his feet.

"How are you going to pay him?"

"In instalments," was the cool reply. "I've got less than three thousand pounds on the premises, and perhaps he'll get a thousand on account— if he's lucky."

Half-past eleven struck— twelve— and then, when Felboro had given up hope of seeing his agent, and Tasker had put on and taken off his greatcoat for the tenth time, there came a gentle knock at the door. Felboro had left the study door open, and had sent the servants to bed, and it was he who turned the knob noiselessly to admit the visitor.

Philip was in a hurry.

"Shut that door quick!" he grunted.

"What's wrong— are they after you?" asked Felboro, with an unaccustomed flutter at his heart.

"No, not yet. There's something I want to tell you."

Felboro followed him into the study. One glance at Philip told him that something was very badly wrong.

"Have you got the letters?" he asked.

"No," growled the man, and Felboro's heart sank.

"Couldn't you find them?"

"Yes, I found them; they were on the table when he came in."

"He came in while you were doing the job?" howled Tasker. "Curse him! I knew something like that would happen... you told?"

"No— told nothing!" snapped Philip. "He pulled a gun on me, and held me up. He said: 'I know who you are; you've come from Lord Felboro.'"

"What did you say?" asked Felboro. "I told him he was a liar," said Philip, "but he only laughed. He said: 'I've filed an action against Felboro, which he'll not be able to defend."

Felboro smiled.

"Oh, is that so?" he said softly. "I'll have my defence into the court within forty-eight hours of the writ being served on me. Well, what happened then?"

"He recognized me. He said: 'You're Philip from the Frolics Club,'" the man went on, and Felboro started. Here was a complication he had not expected.

"Well?"

"Well," repeated the burglar with a sneer, "what do you think that meant to me? Meant I was going to lose a good job. You don't suppose I was going to stand for that? I hit him with my life-preserver and knocked him out. Look!" He stretched out his hands; to Felboro's horror they were stained with blood.

"You— killed him?" asked Tasker. Philip nodded.

"Yes, he's dead. You've got to help me get out of the country."

Lord Felboro staggered.

"Dead? You killed him?" he asked hollowly.

"It was he or I," said the burglar between his teeth. "He was expecting me. He had told his friends that I was coming, and that you were going to send me. I want some money."

Like a man in a dream, Felboro opened the safe, and, taking out a packet of notes, gave a few to the man.

"What about my ten thousand?"

"You can't have it. You'd better take what you can get."

The man counted the money, grumbling. "Seven hundred," he said in disgust.

"That's enough to get you out of the country. We shall want the rest for ourselves. Now clear."

Philip slunk out of the room, and they heard the door close behind him. The two men, left alone, looked at one another. "I think this is the end," said Felboro. He put the remainder of the notes in his pocket.

"Go home and collect all the money you can. Drive yourself to Harwich and catch the early morning boat for the Continent. I will go by way of Dover-Flushing."

"But they can't bring us into it," faltered Sir Charles, "If Philip gets away—"

"You don't suppose a chap like that can get away? He hasn't the brains to make an escape. Before to-morrow night we shall be under arrest if we stay here. Clear out!"

At seven o'clock the next morning a tall and distinguished-looking man strolled along the Dover quay.

Half-an-hour later the Earl of Felboro, wrapped in a heavy fur overcoat, was watching the cliffs of Dover grow fainter and fainter.

It was on the tenth of the month that Lord Felboro made his dramatic escape from England, and on the twenty-fifth when, minus his moustache, and with his appearance slightly altered, he sat down to breakfast in a little Viennese café and asked for the first English newspaper he had seen since he left England. He turned the pages, seeking some information about the Marble Arch murder. He knew there had been a murder somewhere in the neighbourhood of Marble Arch, because, when he was in Berlin, he heard two Englishmen speaking about it, and moved away lest his face betrayed him.

Now he saw the news— a rather attenuated paragraph headed "The Edgware Road Crime":

Walter Brayde, the man charged with the alleged murder of his wife in the Edgware Road, was committed for trial yesterday.

Walter Brayde— wife? What did it mean? On the seventh— that crime had been committed three days before he left England!

He turned the pages in bewilderment, and then he saw a startling heading which held his eye and left him breathless:

THE SALTESH CASE

NEW EARL'S CLAIM ESTABLISHED

The paragraph which followed ran:

Lord Felboro has had eight days to file a defence in the action brought by the claimant to the Saltesh earldom, and as he has failed to contest the action which his lordship is bringing for the recovery of the estate, Lord Saltesh automatically succeeds in his action.

The new Lord Saltesh has had an adventurous career. He arrived in this country from America penniless, and for some time was employed at the Frolics Club, where he was known as Philip. To the suggestion made by our representative that he was the original Earl of Nowhere, whose mysterious appearances and disappearances were so startling, his lordship laughingly replied that the real Earl of Nowhere, so far as he knew, was Lord Felboro, whose sudden disappearance from London has been so much commented upon.

___________________________

THE ELUSIVE DUD

(As by "John Anstruther")

19: The Professional Friend

The Sunday Post, Glasgow, Dec 4 1921

IT WAS Felix Borcham who christened Archibald Dobbly "The Dud." Borcham's words were so many laws, and his appellations carried authority. His factories covered acres of ground on the outskirts of London, and his was the finest house in Brackton, that toney suburb.

In Brackton the social centre was the golf club, and it was one evening after a dance, when the men were gathered together in the smoke-room and conversation took a wide and personal range, that Borcham called Archie "Dob the Dud."

Dob looked a dud. There is something about an elegantly-dressed man which arouses the fiercest suspicions of his dowdy friends, and when a man carries his elegance to such lengths as did Archie, that suspicion is flavoured with contempt. Archie was fair, clean-shaven, and vacuous of countenance. He was the only man in Brackton who sported an eye-glass, and he had committed the crowning infamy of appearing at the golf club in a shiny silk topper, white spats, and yellow gloves. What he did for a living, nobody knew. He had a tiny office in Queen Regent Street, which he attended punctually and regularly— he always went up to town by the 9.18 and travelled first-class— but what he did in that tiny office none knew.

It was some time after Brackton had accepted him as the kingpin of dudery that Dob revealed his guilty secret. The occasion was afternoon tea at the club one Sunday, and the boys had been chaffing him.

"What do I do, old thing?" he answered. "I do nothing."

"There are times when you look it," sneered Borcham, who was one of those tall, dark, good-looking men with a fine black silky moustache, and the habit of saying savage things in a matter-of-fact tone of voice.

"Possibly, possibly, dear old bird," replied Dob, waving his gloved hands, "but I had five years of doing things in France, old bean, perfectly horrible things. And I'm trying to get out of the habit."

Borcham flushed a deep red. During the period of war his services had been too valuable for the nation to dispense with in his capacity as managing director of Borcham's Manufacturing Company, Limited.

"Some of us were worth battalions of men at home," he almost snarled. "Personally, I volunteered six times, but the Ministry would not let me go."

"Hard luck, hard luck, old thing," murmured Dob. "It was much nicer in Brackton, I assure you. No," he went on, "I haven't quite decided what I am going to do. I've got a perfectly dinky little office and a jolly little typewriter that I'm learning to work, but I haven't decided whether I'll be a manufacturer's agent or a private detective."

There was a roar of laughter at this, but Dob did not join.

"Not so much a private detective as a worldly adviser to the young and innocent," he explained solemnly, and all within hearing of his voice shrieked with merriment. Borcham's guffaw was loudest.

"You'd make a jolly fine friend and mentor to people in trouble," he said sarcastically.

"I think I should," agreed Dob complacently.

"All right," sneered Borcham, "when I want a little advice I'll come to you."

Dob took a notebook from his pocket and solemnly wrote down Felix Borcham's name.

"I'll reckon you as my first client," he said.

He looked up suddenly and fixed May Constance with his steady grey eyes, which were by far the best of his features.

"And you shall be my second, Miss Constance."

The girl flushed, and those who were looking at her saw her lips tremble for a moment: then with a lift of her chin she rose and walked away. Borcham, with a savage look in Dob's direction, followed her.

A little silence followed this incident. Everybody knew that Dob had put his foot in it. There was nothing between Felix Borcham and May Constance. There was hardly likely to be anything "between" a man who was reputedly a millionaire and a girl who occupied a fairly humble position in his city office. He was not the kind of fellow who would marry for love. Felix had social ambitions, but he was nevertheless sweet on May Constance, whose father before his death had been a respected member of the club.

It was one of those attractions which make people feel a little uncomfortable, because not even the most sentimental imagined that Felix contemplated matrimony. There were ugly stories attached to his name, but since those stories were in the category of rumours and the club and its members knew nothing officially, Felix was received in the best houses and amongst the best people; for Brackton was not only a wealthy suburb, but numbered amongst its citizens a millionaire or two, an author or two, an Under-Secretary of State, and innumerable recipients of the honour of knighthood.

Those who know their London and its environs will not have any difficulty in placing Brackton on the map. Its beautiful houses facing the wide sweep of common long ago dedicated to the ancient volunteers, its historic windmill and its countrified atmosphere, despite its proximity to London, have made it famous the world over.

A week later, Kelby, the banker, had occasion to call upon Archie. Kelby was a young man for his position, and had a sneaking regard for the Dud. He had known him in the days of war, and the mud of the Flanders trenches cemented their acquaintance into friendship. He climbed up the two flights of stairs to the floor on which Archie's office was situated, and stood, paralysed, before the inscription upon the glass panel of his door.

ARCHIBALD DOBBLY.

CONFIDENTIAL ADVISER AND

PROFESSIONAL FRIEND.

read the notice.

"Good Lord, Archie," said Kelby, when he entered the diminutive apartment, "what's this game you're playing?"

Archie spun round in his chair, and his long knees almost barked against the opposite wall.

"Sit down, Kelby, old bird," he chuckled. "Yes. I've decided. That's my game."

"But, confidential adviser, Archie? Who's coming to you for advice?"

"Lots of people," answered Archie calmly.

"Rubbish, Archie," replied Kelby with a good-natured laugh. "You silly old owl! The moment your clients see your innocent face they'll fly."

The story was all over Brackton the same night. The Dud had started in business as a professional friend. When Archie made his appearance, as he did every evening, for a game of bridge, loud were the howls of joy which greeted him. Players at other tables with mock seriousness asked his advice on their hands and the calls.

Billy Sand, the club humourist, insisted upon a recipe for rheumatism, but through it all Archie never lost his sang froid. He was a grinning, cheerful young man when he left that night, though he knew the experience would be repeated on the following day. Of course, it died down after a week, and the club accepted Archie and his eccentricities as they accepted Felix Borcham with his unsavoury reputation.

Archie the Dud had not spoken to May Constance since that Sunday afternoon. Consequently he was a little surprised about a fortnight after his going into business, when she came out of the crowded dance-room and sank into a basket-chair on the verandah by his side.

"Aren't you dancing, Mr Dobbly?" she asked.

"No, Miss Constance," replied Archie: "it tires my old feet."

She laughed softly, and then suddenly became serious.

"I've heard about your new bureau," she said. "Is it a success?"

"It takes years to make a thing like that successful," evaded Archie.

"Do you have many clients?"

Archie coughed.

"Well, to be perfectly candid, Miss Constance, they haven't started rolling in yet."

She was silent for a while.

"Whom do you expect to get?" she asked.

Archie shrugged his shoulders.

"Do you know, Miss Constance," he said, very seriously for him, "this jolly old world is filled with people who've got a load of trouble on their shoulders, and who don't know where to turn to get advice. There are lots of people who don't want to go to doctors or to lawyers, and yet who dare not trust their own friends with their secrets."

She nodded.

"Sooner or later," Archie went on, "they are the birds who are coming my way."

"Do you think you can help them?" she inquired.

"Why not?" demanded Archie stoutly.

"But, have you the experience?"

Archie laughed, a low little laugh which surprised the girl, for she detected a note of confidence she had never suspected in this immaculate young man.

"Try me," he suggested softly, and she stiffened.

"Why should I try you?" she asked.

"When I said 'you' I meant the world," replied Archie calmly, but she was not to be put off.

"Do you think I want advice?"

"My dear young miss," explained Archie, "I'm a queer old bird. As you probably know, I usually come out from town very late every other night, which means that I spend my evenings in the West End. I never dine at the same restaurant twice, because I've always found that you get a view of the world, and an understanding of its follies by keeping out of ruts. Now, the other night I was dining at Billilis," he remarked carelessly, and he felt rather than heard her start. "It's not the nicest of places," he mused, as if talking to himself. "It's all right for men who want to see the seamy side, and it's all right for girls who know no other side of life, but Billilis, with its private rooms, is not the restaurant I should take a nice girl to."

"You saw me?" she inquired in a voice a little above a whisper, and Archie nodded. "And— and Mr Borcham?"

He nodded again.

"What did you think?" she asked defiantly.

"Dear Miss Constance," replied the dud, feeling for his cigarette case, "I thought Borcham was a blackguard, but that wasn't a new impression by any means."

"But what did you think of me?"

"I thought you wouldn't have gone there unless you had a very good reason."

She rose a little unsteadily to her feet.

"I'm going to be your first client," she said.

"I thought you would," Archie nodded. "My office hours are from 11 to 4."

"I will be with you to-morrow at half-past eleven," she concluded.

BEFORE TWELVE o'clock on the Monday Dob the Dud was in possession of her complicated story. He listened in silence, that curious vacant expression on his face, staring at the wall, as, hesitatingly, almost painfully, she revealed her secret.

"Father left no money when he died," she told him. "I've had to bring up my two younger sisters, and it has been a pretty hard struggle. Mr Borcham was very kind. He gave me a position in his London office, and though the salary was small, he promised to give me extra work and an immediate rise. He told me that if he gave me more than the other girls, people would talk, and, understanding that point of view, I did not wish to be favoured any more than the others. About twelve months ago an old debt of my father's was brought to my notice. It was for £400. Of course, I could have declined payment, but I didn't want my father's name to be dragged in the mud, because this debt was one connected with a particularly unpleasant service."

She did not tell him what service it was, nor did he inquire.

"I was distracted and did not know which way to turn, until at last I plucked up courage and went to see Mr Borcham."

She hesitated again.

"I hate telling you all this, Mr Dobbly. In fact, a week ago, if anybody had told me that I should be pouring out my troubles to you, I should have laughed at them."

"Dob the Dud," muttered Archie, and she flushed.

"You've heard that name? I'm so sorry I made you recall it," she apologised.

"Not a bit," said Archie cheerfully, "I rather like it. It's one of the best reputations a man in my business can get. Go on. Miss Constance, you saw Felix Borcham? What did he say?"

"He was very kind," answered the girl, and still she hesitated. "He had been a little too kind, and had asked me out to dinner with him; but there was something so furtive about it, that I had declined."

"I suppose he had asked you not to tell anybody at Brackton," Archie suggested, and she looked at him in surprise.

"Yes, that is what I objected to. Well, anyway, I summoned up courage, and saw Mr Borcham. He was very nice about it. He said he could arrange for me to have the money, but in order that there should be no talk, he would not let me have the money himself, but would arrange with an acquaintance of his, who carried on business as a moneylender. Naturally, I demurred at this, but he told me there would be no fuss, and nobody would be any the wiser. All I had to do was to write to this firm, and they would advance the money."

"What was the name of the firm?" inquired Archie.

"Jeffsons, of Regent Street."

Archie scribbled down the name.

"I wrote to them." continued the girl, "and received in reply a form which I was asked to sign. This called for the repayment of £800— the sum I borrowed was £400— in twelve months but the accompanying letter said that this was merely a matter of form. I would only be asked to pay £400, and could take ten years to make the repayment."

"Have you got that letter?" asked Archie.

"Wait. I will tell you," the girl went on. "I signed the form and received the money by return of post. A week ago I had a letter from Jeffsons, calling for the immediate repayment of the whole sum, saying that I had not kept my agreement— in the agreement I signed, I promised to pay at the rate of £50 a month, which, of course, was impossible for me. I was in a panic when I received this notice, and looked up the letter which had accompanied the form."

"And which," remarked Archie, "would, of course, nullify or amend the agreement you signed."

There were tears in the girl's eyes.

"I couldn't find it anywhere," she said in despair.

"You couldn't find it?" repeated Archie thoughtfully. "Had it been stolen?"

"No, it had not been stolen, so far as I know. It was in the box. I keep all my papers in a steel box, one of my father's old boxes."

"Anyway, it was missing," said Archie. "Now, what happened after?"

"I saw Mr Borcham— that was when you saw me at that horrible restaurant. He insisted upon going there. There was a lot that happened there which I won't dwell upon," she added with a little shiver. "It was rather horrible!"

"I think I can guess," said Archie gently. "Mr Borcham is a little crude at times. Is he going to lend you the money, or exercise influence on his friends?"

She shook her head.

"Not unless—" She did not finish the sentence.

"I see," put in Archie. "Now, will you leave this matter in my hands for a day or two?" he pinched his chin thoughtfully. "Could I come in and see that box where you keep your letters? I'll call to-night."

She nodded.

"Jeffsons, eh?" said Archie. "Have you got a copy of their letter-head?"

"I have the letter they have just sent," she replied, "and a blank sheet of their notepaper. I think the money was wrapped in that when it came. It has 'with compliments' written at the bottom."

"I'll be with you at half-past nine tonight," he told her, as she rose. "There's a dance on at the club, and it will be a good opportunity."

At half-past nine he entered the pretty little cottage where May Constance kept house for her sisters. The children were working at their lessons in the dining-room, and May led him straight to her shabby little workroom.

"Here is the box." She produced such a battered old steel box as lawyers use for the storing of documents. There were only a few letters and memoranda within, which she took out and laid on the table.

"There's their last letter," she pointed out, "and here's the blank sheet 'with compliments,' but their covering letter, the one in which they told me I should not have to pay for years, with no interest at all, has disappeared. I had another search today."

"Is the box kept locked?" asked Archie.

She nodded.

"Nobody has access to it?"

She shook her head.

"You have no servants?"

"Only a woman who comes in once a day for an hour, but she's perfectly honest."

"You found no evidence of the house having been broken into?"

She shook her head again.

"May I take this letter? I want to see who Mr Jeffson is."

She handed him both sheets, and he left her with a sinking feeling at her heart that she had made a mistake in going to him. After the relief of telling her troubles was over, she realised how little encouragement he had given to her. It had been madness to consult him! He— Dob the Dud! She smiled bitterly at the remembrance of that nickname.

THREE NIGHTS later Mr Felix Borcham sat in his palatial library at The Chase smoking a fragrant Havana and reading the evening newspaper. He was the picture of a man at peace with the world, when his footman announced a visitor.

"Mr Dobbly?" repeated Borcham with a frown. "What does he want? Show him in."

Dobbly came in. He was in his usual band-box condition. His evening coat was shaped as though he had been melted into it; his winged collar was of the latest fashion.

"Hello. Dob," said Borcham unpleasantly, "have you come to give me some confidential advice?"

"Just a little," replied Archie, with a grin. "May I sit down?"

Borcham nodded ungraciously to a chair.

"Have a cigar," he growled.

"I prefer a cigarette; cigars are too strong for my immature palate," responded Archie, lighting a cigarette.

"Well," asked Borcham.

"In re May Constance," began Archie coolly, and Borcham sprang to his feet with lowering brow.

"What do you mean?" he demanded harshly. "She hasn't been fool enough to consult a dud like you?"

"That's just what she has done," confirmed Archie, comfortably crossing his legs.

"Have you come to pay her debt?" sneered Borcham.

"No. I've come to get a full discharge of her debt from the unregistered partner of Jeffson."

"I'll see you damned first," said Borcham, and then remembering, "I am not a partner of Jeffson's. I just know them."

"You are a partner of Jeffson's— in fact, you are Jeffson. It's one of your many minor enterprises," explained Archie gently. "You have committed an offence in the eyes of the law by carrying on that business without registering yourself as a moneylender. Offence number two is the minor one of not inscribing your name on their letter-head. Offence number three," he ticked them off on his fingers, "is conspiracy."

"Conspiracy!" gasped Borcham, and Archie nodded,

"I hate using the word, dear old bean," he went, on, "but it's the only word that occurs to my dull mind. You send a letter to this unhappy girl, in the course of which you tell her that she need not pay the interest, and can repay the principal at her leisure."

"Let her produce the letter!" cried Borcham.

"I am producing it," replied Archie, and laid a sheet upon the table.

"It is not the original, so don't attempt to tear it up. It is a photograph, written in trick ink, which disappears and leaves no trace after three days. It was a very simple matter to restore the writing, both by photography and by treating your secret ink with hot milk."

Borcham stared at the photograph.

"I know nothing about it," he muttered sullenly, and Archie rose.

"Then I am sorry it is going to be a vulgar Police Court case," he said, making for the door.

"Here, wait a moment," shouted Borcham. "I'll give her the discharge, and she can get out of my business to-morrow."

"In which case you must add to your discharge a cheque for two years' salary in lieu of notice," dictated Archie. "You must also resign from the golf club, and write a rattling good character for Miss Constance."

Felix Borcham raved and swore, but in the end he signed and paid. A week later he left his work and went abroad for a prolonged stay, but what interested the golf club most was his resignation.

"Why on earth did Borcham go away?" asked Kelby.

"I advised him to," said the bland Archie. "Dear old thing, you seem to forget that I am a professional adviser."

_________________

20: The Rajah's Emerald

The Sunday Post, Glasgow, Dec 11 1921

CLIENTS had begun to trickle into the office of Mr Archibald Dobbly, who advertised himself in blatant style as a "Professional Friend and Confidential Adviser."

Some of these clients were profitable and interesting. Not a few were embarrassing. A proportion was lured into his tiny rooms by curiosity, and came out wishing they hadn't investigated, for Dob had the gift of biting sarcasm, which was very painful to his victims.

One afternoon a man came into the office who was entirely a stranger to Archie.

"Sit down," said Dob, fixing his eyeglass and staring solemnly at the newcomer.

"Before I tell you my business," began the stranger, "I want to ask you if you are the Mr Archibald Dobbly who had the taxicab accident last week."

Dob nodded. He had been lunching with an old friend of his father's, Captain Simmonds, who was the marine superintendent of the Westward Steamship Company, and they were driving to Euston from whence Captain Simmonds was leaving for Liverpool, when the taxi had swerved and crashed into a motor car. In consequence there had been some little publicity, and Dob's name had got into the newspapers.

"Yes, I am the veritable Archibald Dobbly," he replied with a smile.

"Excuse my asking," apologised the stranger gravely. "It was curiosity which prompted me, and has nothing whatever to do with the commission which I hope you will undertake. Though," he added thoughtfully, "it is curious that your companion was Captain Simmonds. It only shows how long is the arm of coincidence."

Archie was impressed.

"My name is Smart," the other went on. "Ferdinand George Smart."

Dob bowed slightly.

"I am not a Londoner, though I have frequently spent long periods in the Metropolis," explained Mr Smart. "My business is in Bukarest— a beautiful city, Mr Dobbly, I trust that on some future occasion I shall have the pleasure of showing you round."

"The pleasure will be mine," answered Dob, wondering what was coming next.

"I have, unfortunately, to go back to Bukarest," Mr Smart continued. "If that necessity had not arisen, I should not have consulted you concerning the guardianship of my niece, Miss Arabella Smart."

Dob scratched his chin.

"I might as well be quite frank with you," said Smart. "My niece, who is now on her way home from America, was engaged to be married to a young man of violent temperament, and exceedingly unpleasant reputation. Fortunately, we were able to break off this engagement, and Arabella was at the time considerably upset by what she thought was an act of heartless caprice on my part. She has since had reason to be very grateful for my interference."

Dob smiled.

"Unfortunately, although my niece is perfectly satisfied that she had been saved from a life which could not have been other than most unpleasant and depressing, the young man, who is of Latin origin and, therefore, passionate and unreasonable, has conceived against my niece the most unreasoning and bitter hatred. He has threatened to do her a very serious injury, and I have every reason to believe that he will try to carry out his threat."

Still Dob waited for the exact character of the commission.

"As I say, I have to return Bukarest at once," observed Mr Smart, "and I can't go until I have engaged somebody who will meet my niece on the boat— that is where the coincidence comes in, for she is returning by the Westward liner Ironic— and see her safely to Calais."

"Why only to Calais?" asked Dob.

"Because the young man, being a political offender, for whom a warrant has been issued in France, will not dare to land on the Continent." explained Mr Smart.

"Well," smiled Dob, "that's a most simple commission, and I shall most certainly undertake it."

"I will pay you a fee of one hundred guineas, and will allow you fifty guineas for expenses," stipulated Mr Smart, and Dob accepted.

The fee was highly satisfactory.

"You are, of course, taking a certain amount of risk," he remarked. "You do not know very much about me."

"I have heard about you," said Mr Smart truly. "Naturally I did not take this serious step without pursuing certain inquiries." Dob wondered if he had learnt his nickname, and, if he had, whether he would care to trust so delicate a mission to the hands of "Dob the Dud." He would have been interested to know that Mr Smart, had made thorough inquiries, and that the disparaging remarks which had been passed about Dob's intelligence had been the deciding factor in the choice.

Mr Smart took a little notebook out of his pocket and consulted its contents.

"The Ironic berths at Liverpool on Wednesday. That is the day after tomorrow, at three o'clock p.m. Do you think you could get a permit to go on board?"

"I'm certain of that," answered Dob confidently. "In fact, I could get on board without a permit."

"Then you're my man," decided Mr Smart. He went on to describe the young person he was to meet.

To help the recognition, he provided Dobbly with a cabinet photograph of a very pretty girl, smartly dressed.

"That is my niece," explained Mr Smart. "You will not find your task a very disagreeable one."

Dob agreed with him. When his visitor had left and he had settled himself to think over the interview, he reached the conclusion that there were worse jobs in the world than running the Bureau of a "Professional Friend."

On the Tuesday night he left for Liverpool, and spent the evening with his friend.

"I didn't expect to see you up here, Archie," exclaimed old Captain Simmonds, on greeting him.

Dob told him of the object of his visit.

"The Ironic, eh?" asked Captain Simmonds. "She arrives tomorrow afternoon. Who's the lady? A friend of yours?"

Dob had not disclosed the exact nature of his commission.

"No, she's not a friend, but she's a relation of a client of mine."

"I'll give you a permit to go on board," said the marine superintendent. "For some reason or other we have received a special order that nobody is to go on to the Ironic, so if you'd got permission from our head office, my boy, it would have been pretty useless to you. I am going on the river to meet her, and I'll take you with me, and that's not a privilege I'd offer to anybody."

At noon the next day Dob stood on the fore-deck of a stout little tug that was nosing its way through the turbulent yellow waters of the Mersey. Half a gale was blowing, and the entrance to the river was shrouded in rain mists, but they picked up the hulk of the Ironic. She was laying at anchor, waiting for the river pilot, and the two tugs came up together.

A suit of oilskins, provided by the marine superintendent, had transferred Dob into something that looked like a sailor, and clambering up the rope ladder behind his old friend, he found the experience a little terrifying.

One of the ship's officials stood by the gangway.

"Who is this?" he asked sharply.

"Oh, that's one of my men," answered Captain Simmonds. "I'm going to the captain's office," he told Dob. "If you want me, I'll be there. You had better find your friend."

They had come aboard on E Deck, and slipping off his wet oilskins, Dob climbed the companion-way to the promenade deck above. Almost the first person he saw when he emerged on to the promenade was the girl he was seeking. She wore a beautiful sable coat. She was sitting on a deck chair, a rug over her legs, a sable wrap about her shoulders. He lifted his hat.

"Miss Smart, I believe."

She looked at him.

"Oh, you are the gentleman my uncle sent," she cried pleasantly, and pulled an empty chair towards her. "Sit down. Mr—"

"Dobbly is my name," Dob informed her, beginning to talk of the voyage.

He was conscious that the atmosphere of the ship was strained. The serious-faced Steward, the little knots of passengers gathered about the deck talking solemnly, all suggested that there was some kind of trouble on board the ship. He remembered what Captain Simmonds had said— that special orders had been given that nobody was to board the Ironic.

"Why is everybody so glum?" asked Dob, and she smiled.

"Oh, I suppose it is the loss of the Rajah's emerald that is worrying them."

"The Rajah's emerald?" repeated Dob in surprise.

"We've got a real live Rajah on board. The Rajah of Bimpore has, or had, the largest emerald in the world, worth tens of thousands of pounds. It disappeared from his cabin two or three nights ago, and they have been searching everywhere for it."

Dob whistled.

"But that oughtn't to make the passengers glum."

"It isn't that," the girl told him, "but on an occasion like this everybody is suspected. They're going to search all the passengers as they leave."

At that moment Captain Simmonds came along, his brows set in a frown. He beckoned Dob aside.

"I'm afraid I've committed an awful indiscretion getting you on board," he began. "We'll have to leave before the ship stops. She comes to a stop opposite the landing-stage, and a small army of detectives are coming on board to search for a confounded jewel that has been lost on the way. You'll have to come ashore with me on the tug. Will you meet me downstairs in five minutes?"

Dob said he would, and went back to the girl.

"I'm afraid I shall not be able to see you until you land, but I'll be waiting at the foot of the gangway for you."

"Will you send a telegram for me as soon as you get ashore?" she asked.

"Certainly," answered Dob. "Don't you think—"

Before he could speak, the girl had walked along the deck and had disappeared through the companion way. She came back in three minutes with a telegraph form.

"I've only American money," she remarked.

"Oh, I'll pay for the telegram," laughed Dob. "Now I am afraid I must go."

She walked with him downstairs and helped him into his oilskins, which he was carrying on his arm. A few minutes later he had made the perilous descent by the rope ladder and was steaming away, waving his hand to the girl as she leant over the side of the high deck above him.

He reached the dock, and stood by the side of the marine superintendent, watching the big boat in mid-stream.

"It'll be hours before she docks," said the latter. "You had better go along and come back at seven o'clock."

The rain was falling heavily. Dob buttoned up the collar of his overcoat, which he had worn under the oilskins, and trudged through the bleak approaches of the Liverpool docks on his way to the hotel. There was no cab in sight, and the waiting tram had no temptation for him.

He was halfway along a quiet street consisting of warehouses, when a man brushed past him, walking in the same direction.

Now Dob had not only a remarkable memory for faces, but a mental register of uncanny accuracy of figures. There was something about the man's walk which interested him, more than the fact that he had jolted violently against him, without so much as an apology.

Dob was quickly abreast of the man, and dropped his hand on his arm.

"Why, Mr Smart," he cried, in unfeigned surprise.

The man looked round at him.

"Mr Dobbly!" he exclaimed. His astonishment was less genuine.

"I thought you had gone away to Bukarest?" Dob asked him.

"I managed to break my engagement and stay on. I intended telling you, but I thought that two people could protect my little girl against the machinations of this villain better than one."

"You were on the landing stage when I come ashore, weren't you?"

Mr Smart hesitated.

"Yes, I was. I am annoyed to find that the ship won't be in for another four hours."

Dob related his experience of the afternoon.

"It's a great nuisance," said Mr Smart, though he did not seem to be particularly put about. "Just imagine the feelings of these perfectly innocent people who have to submit to the indignity of the search, Mr Dobbly. Won't you have a cup of tea?"

He paused outside a restaurant. Just then a cup of tea was very acceptable to Dob, so he followed his companion into the crowded tearoom.

"Why, you've cut your hand," cried Dob suddenly, looking at the other. The man's hand was roughly bandaged with a white handkerchief.

"I tore it on a nail a quarter-of-an-hour ago," Smart explained indifferently. "Some fool had been repairing the handrail of the little bridge leading to the landing stage, and, unfortunately, I hadn't my gloves on." Dob nodded. He, curiously enough, had seen the bungled job.

"It has been bleeding rather freely," continued the man, tightening the handkerchief. "It is rather ugly. I'll keep it out of sight."

Throughout the tea he talked about his niece and her disgruntled lover. He spoke affectionately, but sadly, of her distress when she learnt that the match had been broken off. Dob listened with interest, until he had occasion to rise to find a packet of cigarettes that he had slipped into his overcoat pocket that morning. As he took his hand from his overcoat pocket he saw something that brought an exclamation of surprise to his lips. Along the back of his hand appeared a red streak which was undoubtedly blood.

He glanced round at his companion, who was at that moment lighting a cigar, his attention directed elsewhere.

Carefully Dob pulled out the lining of his overcoat pocket; he had had it made of chamois leather, and there was a little patch of blood halfway down. Somebody had pushed his hand into that pocket and that somebody was Mr Smart. When could it have happened? Then Dob remembered. Smart had jostled against him in the street. At that moment his hand must have felt the pocket. Dob rubbed the stain from the back of his hand and went back to his chair.

"I think, Mr Dobbly, when this boat comes to the stage, I will take charge of my niece and save you any further bother."

Dob smiled slightly.

"I have been paid a very handsome fee," he murmured softly, "and I should like to earn it."

"As to the fee," the generous Mr Smart waved his bandaged hand, "we will talk no more about that. You have done your work, and there is no need to trouble you any more. I can tackle Antonio if he comes across our path. As a matter of fact," he added, "I have reason to believe that Antonio is in Scotland."

"Two can tackle him better than one," replied Dob. He beckoned the waitress.

"Give me my bill, please."

When it was brought he assisted Mr Smart on with his overcoat.

His plans had yet to be made, but as he took the overcoat from the hook, he saw a notice on the wall. It was a short printed notice issued by the proprietors of the restaurant offering a reward for the conviction of the thieves who were systematically robbing the restaurant of its cutlery. There were three metal spoons and a knife on the table. Surreptitiously Dob gathered them together in his hand and slipped them into Mr Smart's overcoat pocket. Dob walked to the pay desk, and put down half-a-crown, whilst his companion walked to the door and stood waiting in the street outside.

"Is that the manager there?" asked Dob, pointing to a man evidently in charge of the establishment.

"Yes, sir."

Dob walked to the man quickly.

"You're the manager, aren't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, that fellow who is standing in the doorway, the man in the blue overcoat, has a few knives and spoons of yours in his pocket," said Dob. "I hate giving a man away," he added virtuously, "but this sort of thing ought to be stopped."

The manager ran to the door and opened it, and at that moment, as luck would have it, a policeman passed. With a jerk of his head the manager attracted him, and then he turned to the unconscious Smart.

"Excuse me, sir," he spoke severely. "I think you have some property of ours."

"Property of yours?" replied Smart, glaring at him. "What the devil do you mean?"

"You have some of our plate in your pocket."

"Rubbish!"

Smart put his hand in his pocket.

A look of comic amazement spread over his saturnine face as he drew out the spoons and the knife.

"How did they get there?" he stammered.

"That's a nice question to ask," said the policeman. "Do you charge this man?"

"I certainly charge him," cried the manager. "We lost four hundred pounds worth of plate last year, and I'm going to make an example of this man."

The policeman's hand fell upon Smart's arm, but with a twist the man wrenched himself free and ran.

They were after him in a second. He sprang on to the running hoard of a taxi, and this time he was no longer the gentle philosopher. There was a revolver in his hand.

"Drive on! If you stop I'll shoot you stone dead!"

The frightened driver accelerated, but by this time all Liverpool seemed to be aware that a man was making his escape from justice. As they swung round the corner of the street a policeman leapt on to the running board, and three minutes later, Mr Smart, handcuffed and firmly held, was on his way to the station, cursing volubly in three languages, for he had an international education.

When they searched him at the station they found no spoons or knives, but in a neat little package the emerald of the Rajah of Bimpore, the emerald which the girl had slipped into Dob's jacket on the ship, and which her confederate had taken from his pocket in the street.

"The whole thing was probably arranged by wireless," explained the superintendent of police, when Dob recounted the part he had played, "or maybe it was arranged for months ahead. These international crooks are pretty clever strategists. They employed you, thinking you were a mug, and possibly the fact that you were a friend of the marine superintendent's came to their knowledge. Smart's real name is Markar, and Miss Arabella Smart is known as 'Flash Emma' in continental police circles."

He looked at Dob admiringly and shook his head.

"I can't understand why they picked on you, for you've done a bit of the smartest detective work I've ever heard about."

"Possibly they thought I was a dud," replied Dob pleasantly, and the policeman smiled as though such a suggestion was too preposterous to entertain.

_____________________

21: The Shy Mr Barks

The Sunday Post, Glasgow, Dec 18 1921

MR ARCHIBALD DOBBLY was the last person in the world that one would have expected Minnie Potter to consult in the matter of an affair of the heart. Minnie, who was thirty-five, was rather thin, angular, a little acidulated, and the main tenet of her faith was that if you put the worst construction upon any human action you are generally right.

Nobody had ever asked for Minnie's hand; either of them. She had never been wooed in the strict sense of the term, though many people had danced with her at the club, and quite a number of young men had driven her home. They had, with commendable caution, taken a third person with them to act as chaperone.

In consequence, Minnie Potter had reached the age of discretion without experiencing any youthful romance, and it would have taken a hurricane to convince her neighbours that she was in any way flighty.

Then came Willie Barks. He moved into Brackton from a garden city in the Midlands. He was thin, with long hair and baggy knickerbockers, and painted bad pictures. Probably amongst the many citizens of Brackton there was not a more inoffensive and unprotected male.

"Willie never barks nor bites," said Solomon Mendoz, the humourist of the club. "Give him a bone and a dish of milk, and he wants nothing more."

It was Mr Barks' ill-fortune that he chose a tiny detached cottage adjoining the somewhat pretentious house which was occupied by Ben Potter and his daughter Minnie.

The moment Minnie saw Willie painting in his garden, she thought it possible that at last here was a man who was destined to change the whole colour and hue of her existence. Later, when she made investigations, she was sure. Willie did not know this, for he stayed on in Brackton.

Dob the Dud, although a neighbour, knew nothing of the extraordinary influence which Willie Barks had produced upon the heart of Minnie Potter.

Dob went daily to his office to find an increasing volume of business to be dealt with. As "confidential friend and adviser," his clients had been few and far between, but he had acquired two or three colonial agencies, which were not only lucrative but interesting.

He had ceased to look for adventurous confidences and was seriously considering the painting out of the sign on his door. Consequently the advent of Miss Potter cane in the nature of a surprise and, since he knew her, something of a shock.

She was not unpleasant looking. There was a certain prettiness about her sharp feature, which might have been attractive but for the discontented droop of her mouth.

"Good morning, Miss Potter, this is an unexpected pleasure," said Dob, getting up and placing a chair for her.

Miss Potter was at some loss as to how she would begin. In truth, here was an embarrassing commission.

"The fact is, Mr Dobbly," she began, "I want to consult you on a very delicate matter."

Dob nodded. It was not the first delicate commission he had received, but he wondered exactly what business this shrewish little lady could have.

"Do you know Mr Barks?" she asked. "He has been in Brackton for two months."

"I know Mr Willie Barks by sight," replied Dob.

Miss Potter coughed.

"He in our next door neighbour," she explained, "and I have seen a great deal of him lately. We have had little conversations over the fence. He is a very shy man."

"Very," agreed Dob, amid there was another awkward pause.

"Now, Mr Dobbly, I am going to say to you what I would not say to anybody else," went on the young woman, speaking rapidly. "As you know, I am fairly well off, and so is Mr Barks. I am getting on in life and I have decided to get married. It isn't that I haven't had offers," she hurriedly explained, "but I have never felt that the man was quite worthy of me."

"That I can well understand," answerer Dob gravely. "Has Mr Barks the felicity of being—"

She shook her head.

"Mr Barks has said nothing, but I have seen an expression in his eyes, and I know that it is only his modesty which prevents him speaking. Now, Mr Barks has few friends in Brackton. If he had more I could have dropped a hint that there is no need for Willie to be afraid of asking me."

Dob was staggered. He could, and would have collapsed but for his innate sense of politeness. Of all the commissions he expected, the last in the world was that of matchmaker.

"I know it's immodest and horrible of me," Minnie went on, "but, really, Mr Dobbly, it would be ridiculous, and ever tragic, if Mr Barks lost the woman he desired, from sheer false modesty on my part."

"But what am I to do, Miss Potter? Do you want an introduction?"

"No, of course, not," she almost snapped. "I know Mr Barks very well. What I want you to do is to see more of him— take him out to dinner. Of course, you can send the bill to me."

Dob inclined his head. He was trying very hard not to laugh.

"And you can drop a hint to him— you understand? You're a man of the world."

"Exactly." said Dob. "I am a man of the world. Do you know anything of Mr Barks except that he wears his fair long, and is given to painting?"

"He belongs to a very good Cheshire family, I'm told," answered the girl, unconscious of the fact that her hearer was laughing inwardly, "and he would be in every way a desirable match. Will you accept the commission?"

Dob hesitated for a moment.

"Well— I— er— suppose so. It's an unusual job, but then most of my work is a little out of the ordinary. I'll see Mr Barks to-night."

"Of course, you'll not tell— you'll not let him know?"

"Secrecy is the basis of my business," he replied glibly.

When she had left he sat down to consider the problem. The more he thought the more absurdly grotesque it seemed. He did not know Barks, except that he was an inoffensive member of society who loved to parade the streets on Sunday morning, smoking a large pipe and wearing his ridiculous baggy knickerbockers. People liked him. One or two of the leading lights of Brackton society had invited him to dinner, and he was a visitor at a few of the houses. His paintings, so far as Dob could judge, were fair, but by no means out of the ordinary.

Dob did not know him very well, so he took the very first opportunity of enlarging his acquaintance. He found Mr Barks sitting in the deserted lounge at the club, playing a solitary game of patience. Willie looked a little apprehensive as Dob approached him.

"All alone, Mr Barks?" inquired Dob, good-naturedly.

"Yes er— yes," admitted Willie, with an air that suggested that he would prefer to continue in his solitary state.

Dob, however, was not to be denied. He sat down on the settee by the side of the little man, and such was his charm and his persuasive powers, that in a very short time he had Willie Barks talking earnestly and lucidly about Willie Barks.

Dob called to mind all the artist talk he had ever heard, and worked it off on his victim.

"Not much to paint here, Mr Barks," he remarked. "Have you ever tried Dartmoor? There is colour and—"

"Dartmoor!" almost screamed the little man. "Nonsense! Rubbish! It's an ugly place— a dirty, creepy place— ugh!"

Promptly he grew calmer and returned to his favourite topic, which was himself.

"I'm not very keen on company," he admitted. "Women, of course, scare me to death. You see, Mr Dobbly, I am rather a misogynist."

"But surely you won't remain a misogynist all your life?" asked Dob.

"I think I shall," answered Mr Willie Barks, nodding rigorously. He had a tiny little beard, that wagged comically on his chin as he nodded. "Oh, yes, I think I shall. I shall never get married— never!"

"But there must be lots of nice girls whom you could make happy," observed Dob revelling in his role of match-maker.

"I think not," said Willie, shaking his head just as vigorously. "No, I don't think so, Mr Dobbly. The very sight of girls frightens me. There's a young lady who lives in the next house from mine, a very nice girl—"

"By the way, are you short-sighted?" asked Dob innocently.

"No: why do you ask?" demanded the astonished Mr Barks.

"Nothing— go on."

"I was saying there's a very nice girl who lives next door to me. Sometimes she peeps over the fence, and it is just agony to me, especially if I am sitting painting and cannot make my escape. Once she tried to attract my attention. I feel sure she means well, but if—" He looked inquiringly at Dob, a light shining in his eyes. "Do you know the young lady— Miss Potter, I think it is?"

"I do." replied Dob, enjoying himself.

Mr Barks looked round to discover if he could be overheard, and dropped his voice.

"Perhaps you would drop a hint to her, and ask her most kindly not to look over the fence whilst I'm painting. It causes me most acute mental agony."

Here, thought Dob, his commission ended, for obviously here were two irreconcilable factors.

He reported progress to Minnie Potter, who scoffed at him.

"Really, Mr Dobbly, you had an excellent opportunity for saying what I wished you to say, but you didn't seem to avail yourself of it."

"If I had," retaliated Dob, "he would have certainly run away, and you would never have seen him again."

Minnie Potter bit her lip thoughtfully.

"The man is a genius," she mused, more to herself, than to Dob. "You've no idea how he is neglected. He has a girl in every day to clean the house for him, but he's only in two hours— what can she do? All the rest of the time he is quite alone. He never asks people in to see him, and he cooks his own meals. It is dreadful that a man of his high mentality should be allowed to ruin his digestion. It is a mistaken kindness to humour his eccentric wishes, Mr Dobbly."

The next day, when Willie Barks came into his garden, he discovered a large basket which had been carefully lowered over the garden fence— there was a piece of cord still attached to the handle. Under a snowy napkin lay a variety of tempting dishes. Willie took one glance at them, and fled back to the house. He was not seen again for two days.

Dob saw him on the third day going to town, dressed in a black Inverness coat and carrying a big portfolio under his arm. He made a curious figure.

Apparently he was something of an etcher, and Dob, passing his house and seeing a light burning in his window at two o'clock in the morning, guessed that the little man was grinding out his art.

There were features of his commission which puzzled Dob. In the first place, it was unlike Minnie Potter to fall violently in love with anybody. In the second place, her father was not in a financial position to support an artistic son-in-law.

Ben Potter, so far from being well off, as Minnie had claimed, was at the moment wading through a sea of writs. It was fairly well known that both he and his daughter had a very keen eye for the main chance. Miss Potter had also a reputation for taking too intense an interest in other people's business. There was a scandalous story of her having intercepted and opened, letters of a lady who was a guest at the Potters' house, whilst her own home was being disinfected after a visitation of measles.

Dob grew more interested, not in the task which had been given him, but in the character of his client. Hitherto, he had not paid very much attention to the Potters, who were not amongst the most popular people in Brackton, but he was led to make a call upon the lady who had complained of Miss Potter's inquisitiveness.

"It is perfectly true," averred that indignant housewife. "Minnie opened all the letters that came. I caught her steaming them over a kettle. Of course, I left the house immediately, and went to the station hotel. But she has always been like that."

A light was beginning to dawn on Dob.

Willie Barks' home was next door to the Potters', and it would have been very easy for Minnie to obtain access to that house whilst the little man was away selling his sketches— if he ever did sell them— in London.

Dob sat that night in his room, piecing together the facts as he knew them. First and foremost he decided that Minnie was not in love with Willie Barks, but had a very special and particular reason for wanting to marry him. Therefore, knowing Minnie's character, it must be that she wanted not so much a husband as a bank account. This was the puzzling feature of the case, because Willie was apparently as poor as a church mouse. He made no secret of the fact that he had no income beyond a few pounds a week, left to him by a maternal aunt, and the proceeds of the sale of his pictures, which Dob judged to be practically nothing.

He went to see Minnie Potter, and arrived so unexpectedly that the young lady thought he had exceptional news to tell her. She was disappointed and annoyed when she discovered that the only object of his visit was to question her about Willie Banks' financial position.

"I don't care how poor he is," she said so emphatically that, for a moment, Dob was deceived. "He may be on the verge of bankruptcy, or be may be a miser. It makes no difference me."

"But how would you like to live in that small house, Miss Potter?"

"Good gracious," she answered, betraying herself for a second by her scorn, "do you imagine I'd live in a tiny little place like that with only three rooms and an attic? If I did I'd want the place put into a thorough condition of repair. The papers on the walls are—" She stopped in some confusion, seeing Dob'a eyes fixed on her.

"How do you know? Have you been in the house?" he asked quietly.

"Yes— no," she replied. "Well, to tell you the truth, Mr Dobbly, I did look in one day when Mr Barks was in town. I know it was naughty of me, but I was lust frantic with curiosity about him. You can guess just how a girl feels about a man she is fond of."

"I can guess," remarked Dob drily. "So you went into the house?"

"Our key fits his door," she explained, without shame. "I just wanted a peep."

"Well," inquired Dob, "how much money did you discover?"

She went a deep red.

"Money?" she stammered. "What do you mean?"

"Did you find that Mr Willie Barks was very well off indeed?"

She looked at him sharply.

"Did you know that, too?" she asked quickly. "Did he tell you?"

Dob shook his head.

"No, I guessed. Tell me all about it, Miss Potter."

But it was some time before she was prepared to give him a narrative that bore any resemblance to the truth. As far as Dob could gather from her scattered explanation, interspersed as it was with excuses for her own dishonourable conduct, she had gone into the house one day and had made her way up to Mr Barks' bedroom.

"Of course, the furniture is the cheapest stuff you could imagine," she continued contemptuously. "I should alter all that, however, if— Well, as I was going to say, I turned down the coverlet of the bed to see what sort of linen he used. Just imagine my surprise, Mr Dobbly, to discover that the bed was covered with one pound notes. There must have been twenty thousand of them if there was one! You would never think a little man like that would be a hoarder of money, would you?"

Dob was silent.

The vision of Willie Barks, with his long hair, his tiny beard, and his knickerbocker suit, rose before him. He remembered Mr Barks' sudden agitation when he suggested that he should paint the beauties of Dartmoor.

"New money?" asked Dob slowly.

"Yes, straight from the bank," answered Minnie, with pardonable enthusiasm.

Dob cut short his visit abruptly, and an hour later he was in town. He drove straight to Scotland Yard, and told the Chief Commissioner of the Criminal Investigation Department on the point of leaving.

Without considering Miss Minnie Potter's fine feelings, he told the Chief Commissioner all he knew about Willie Barks.

"Painting, of course, was an excuse for engraving and I rather fancy that Willie Barks' long suit is in the latter department."

"I agree with you," replied the Commissioner thoughtfully. "We have had a tremendous number of forged Bradburys put into circulation lately, and we have been trying our best to get at the forger. Come along with me to the Record Department."

The Record Department was the most business-like Government department Dob had ever been in. In the county gaols the portraits of prisoners are arrayed, irrespective of their offences, their ages, or their peculiar characteristics. At Scotland Yard they are cross-indexed, so that peculiar types of criminals can be discovered immediately.

Half-way through a big fat book labelled "Forgers," Dob discovered Mr Willie Barks. It is true that his hair was shorter, that he was innocent of beard, and his name was described as William Tanner, but it was Willie sure enough.

Beneath was written a list of his convictions, and this significant biographical note—

"Has a taste for painting, and is usually to be found in an artistic set. He poses as being shy but has been twice married, bigamously."

"That's Willie," vouched Dob grimly.

Accompanied by two detectives, he returned to Brackton, but just a trifle too late.

THAT afternoon, whilst he was interviewing the Chief Commissioner, Miss Minnie Potter had put two and two together, and had interviewed Willie.

"So you discovered all that money, did you?" said Willie with extraordinary sharpness for one who was so diffident and reserved, "and you told that infernal dud, Dobbly."

"Why, of course, Mr Barks. You see," she responded, "Mr Dobbly was working for me."

"And he's gone to town!" mused Willie.

"Yes, Mr Barks."

"Well, I think I had better go to town, too. If I don't come back, Miss Potter—"

"Yes?" she asked expectantly.

"You can have all the money you find in my house. There is nearly a hundred thousand pound, and I hope you will put it to a very good use. In fact, nothing would please me better than if you gave it to Dob," added Willie.

"I shall certainly not do that," replied Minnie. "Of course, I can't accept—"

But Willie Barks was gone. He did not go to town. In fact, competent witnesses say that the train he took went in the opposite direction.

When the whole truth was revealed, Minnie turned like a fury upon Dob.

"I didn't engage you to drive him away," she stormed. "He is probably more sinned against, than sinning."

"That is what his other wives think," said Dob simply.

__________________

22: A Deal In Ecfonteins

The Sunday Post, Glasgow, Dec 25 1921

MR EBENEZER Jackson held tight to one faith. It was, that there was a fool born every minute. Working on this simple formula, Mr Jackson had built up a respectable bank balance, had acquired an estate in the country, and was a member of two golf and three racing clubs.

Between ten o'clock in the morning and five o'clock in the afternoon, Mr Jackson was a stock jobber. He bought and sold shares for the most complacent, and at the same time, the most exacting of clients. In other words, he dealt in them for himself.

Men who deal in any particular commodity, whether it is furniture or china, postage stamps or antiques, frequently find themselves the possessors of a great deal of picturesque but unsaleable stock. They also discover at intervals that what has been sold to them as a genuine article, does not, on examination, bear the hall mark of genuineness.

IN THE course of his long and profitable career, Ebenezer Jackson had accumulated quite a pile of fairly useless stock. The hundred thousand shares in the Ecfontein Coal Mine of South Africa had cost him a little less than a shilling a share. But they were dear at the price, and later Mr Jackson would have gladly sold them at sixpence or even threepence. As it was, they represented to him a dead loss of five thousand pounds, and when Ebenezer Jackson had a loss, it hurt him worse than toothache.

For years, on one pretext or another, he had endeavoured to palm off his hundred thousand shares upon his unsuspecting friends. Unfortunately for him, he had never found a friend sufficiently unsuspecting. They had listened to his stories of the wonderful possibilities of Ecfontein Collieries with polite but sceptical interest.

He was a bachelor and lived in one of the biggest houses in Brackton with his niece. His bank balance was an amazing one, and yet the thought of those five thousand pounds spent on Ecfontein Collieries had rankled in his mind for thirty years.

Ecfontein Collieries were chiefly remarkable for the fact that they contained little or no coal. They were too far away from the main reef for Mr Jackson to offer them as gold shares, and he had reluctantly given them up as a bad job when the fame of Archibald Dobbly came to him, and his hopes revived.

Dob, returning to Brackton after a hard day's work in the city, was surprised to find waiting for him an invitation to dinner from Ebenezer Jackson. They had met once or twice at the golf club, where Jackson had shown not the slightest desire for any better acquaintance with Dob the Dud.

"Another client," murmured Dob. He would have been surprised if he had known that Mr Ebenezer Jackson regarded him in the same light.

On the afternoon when the dinner was to be celebrated, Mr Ebenezer Jackson returned home early, and interviewed his niece. She was about twenty-five, pretty, with a dark complexion, and was rather over-ruled by the superior knowledge of her sophisticated uncle.

"Now you understand, Mona, I don't want you to come in to dinner. You had better go to your Aunt Rachael's, and at a quarter past nine I want you to ring me up on the telephone and say what I tell you to say. You will find it written down here."

He handed her a paper, which Mona Jackson read with interest.

"I am determined to get rid of those infernal colliery shares," continued her uncle, "and I think that this is the best opportunity we have had. This fellow Dobbly is adventurous, and has plenty of money. I rather fancy that we shall make a killing which will enable me to purchase that imitation beaver coat which you have been asking for."

"It is a beaver coat, not an imitation," said Miss Jackson severely.

"I will even buy a real beaver coat, though it's an absurd waste of money, when a good blanket coat will keep you just as warm."

DOBBLY arrived five minutes before the appointed time, and found Mr Ebenezer Jackson waiting for him in the old-fashioned mahogany drawing-room.

The fates fought for Dob that night. On the way up from his house, remembering that he had not bought an evening newspaper, he had taken one at the street corner opposite the railway station, and had thrust it into his pocket.

Fate willed that his host, after a cordial greeting, should be seized with a fit of sneezing, and should discover that he had not a pocket handkerchief. This necessitated his leaving the room for about five minutes, during which Dob whiled away the time by glancing at the newspaper.

There was one paragraph which caught his eye:—

"The South-Eastern Cable Company announces that, owing to a submarine disturbance, the cable has been fractured, and the South African service is liable to three or four days' delay."

Dob put the paper out of sight on Ebenezer's reappearance, forgetting all about this item of news, which really did not interest him, since he had no South African connections.

The dinner was a good but frugal one, and mainly Mr Ebenezer Jackson made the conversation. He talked about South Africa, about Australia, about the fortunes that could he made by young men of enterprise willing to take a very slight risk, and about the foolishness of spending large sums of money on gilt-edged securities which do not yield an adequate return.

"By the way, Dobbly, I have an investment which would interest a young man like you. Unfortunately, I am too old to see the thing through."

"Indeed, sir, answered Dob, interested.

"There is a coal mine (not a gold mine) in South Africa in which I hold a very large number of shares. I bought, intending to exploit the property. I might say that there is little or no coal on the property, but I am perfectly sure that underneath the coal you will find gold. And that, property," he added impressively, "may be worth anything up to a million."

"Or down to tuppence," suggested Dob flippantly.

That was the annoying thing about Dob. When you thought you had him thoroughly impressed, he would turn the conversation with an unexpected piece of facetiousness.

Mr Jackson was, however, a man of considerable experience. He knew when to check, and when to make play. He smiled at Dob's observation as though it were the best joke in the world, and tactfully changed the conversation.

They had arrived at the coffee stage of dinner when Mr Jackson's elderly servant came in.

"Miss Mona is on the telephone, sir. She said it is very important."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Ebenezer, with well-feigned surprise. "Miss Jackson knows that I can't use the telephone just now owing to my earache."

Ho looked at Dobbly.

"My dear fellow, will you be good enough to go to the 'phone for me and take whatever message my niece has?"

"With all the pleasure in life," replied Dob, for a moment deceived. He hurried out into the hall where the instrument was kept.

"Is that you, Uncle Eb?" asked Miss Jackson's voice.

"No, it is Dobbly. Mr Jackson asked me to answer the telephone."

There was a pause.

"Well, this is rather important," went on the sweet tones of Miss Mona, "but I am sure I can trust you, Mr Dobbly. Will you tell uncle that I have received a cablegram from South Africa saying that a large deposit of coal has been found on the Ecfontein property?"

"Certainly, Miss Jackson," responded Dob solemnly. "When was the message received? Shall I tell him that?"

"Only half-an-hour ago. It was despatched from Johannesburg this morning."

"Thank you." Dob hung up the telephone receiver.

Half the success of the confidence trickster depends upon the simplicity of his plans; the other half on the stupidity of his victim.

Mr Jackson's plan was simple; indeed it was childish. Dob was a willing victim. He returned to his host with a fine air of carelessness.

"Miss Jackson wanted to tell you that she has had a cablegram from South Africa, saying that gold has been found on some property or other— I didn't quite catch the name."

Ebenezer smiled within himself; he knew very well that Dob had heard the name, and that "coal" and not "gold" was the word he heard.

He waited for the development of his scheme. It came just before Dob took his departure.

"By the way, Mr Jackson," he spoke with that same indifference, "what were those shares you were talking about?"

"Ecfontein Collieries?" asked Ebenezer.

"Yes, that was it; what do you want for them? They are not worth very much in the market, are they?"

"Well you can have them for a shilling a share," said Ebenezer, "and in making this offer to you I am, of course, giving you an opportunity which very few young men are offered."

Dob seemed to be considering.

"I'll tell you what, Mr Jackson— by the way, how many have you for disposal?"

"A hundred thousand," answered Ebenezer, and Dob nodded.

"What I will do is this— I will buy a twenty-four hours' option on the hundred thousand, and will pay you one hundred pounds cash for the privilege."

"What you want," interrupted Ebenezer, a little annoyed, "is the option of buying a hundred thousand shares at a shilling. Well, Mr Dobbly, I don't know that that is good business from my point of view, and it is customary for an option buyer to pay something for the privilege."

"As I say, I'll pay you a hundred pounds," repeated Dob promptly, and Mr Ebenezer Jackson agreed with almost indecent haste.

Dob went up to the club a very thoughtful young man. There he found a stockbroker who was by way of being a friend of his.

"Do you know anything about Ecfontein Collieries?"

Mr Mansar, to whom the question was addressed, turned a smiling face upon him.

"Do I know anything of them? I know there is a piece of waste ground in the world that bears that title."

"What are the shares worth?"

"The price of wastepaper, which is very little just now. Why?"

"Because I've bought an option on a hundred thousand."

"Goad lord!" gasped Mansar. "You've been dining with old Ebenezer."

Dob nodded.

"Whatever induced you to take this rash step?" demanded Mansar, in surprise. "My dear fellow, the shares aren't worth that"— he snapped his fingers. "The old boy has been trying to get rid of them for years. When I tell yon that ten thousand of the Ecfontein Colliery shares aren't worth a Denikin rouble*, you'll understand."

[* An allusion to the currency issued by White Army leader Anton Ivanovich Denikin during the civil war following the Russian Revolution.]

"Those shares are worth from half-a-crown to three shillings each," interrupted Dob calmly. "They may even be worth five shillings. And what is more, old Ebenezer, who invited me to dinner to-night with the object of skinning me, is going to pay that price per share, or my name is not Archibald Dobbly."

The news went through Brackton like wildfire. It began at the golf club, and radiated through every home in a village which was notorious for its intelligent services.

Dob bad been stung.

Nobody quite knew why Dob the Dud was so called, or why he had been christened with that unflattering title. Perhaps it was his monocle and his general vacant expression; certainly nobody ever remembered his having committed so dudish an act before.

The principal topic of conversation on the way to the city the next morning was the skinning of Dob. Mr Ebenezer Jackson did not share in the gossip, for he went to town by car. Of one thing only he was certain— he had made a hundred pounds out of Dob, and he did not doubt that the moment Dob got into touch with a sane stockbroker the bargain would be repudiated.

Dob himself had to bear a great deal of good-natured chaff.

"I understand you've got an office in town where you give advice to people," said one of his neighbours. "If I were you, Dob, I'd go straight to that office and find somebody who is competent to whisper in your ear— 'Don't buy Ecfontein.'"

Dob smiled genially.

"What you want," suggested another, "is not so much a friend as a nurse. There isn't one of us that Ebenezer hasn't tried to sell those infernal shares to."

"I'll bet you a hundred that I sell them back to Ebenezer at a profit?"

Mr Verity, the banker, to whom he had made the offer, shook his hand.

"I do not ordinarily bet," he replied, "but I bet you twenty pounds that you're stung for a hundred."

"I'll take you," answered Dob promptly, "and if you think that this is the first time Ebenezer has tried to work his shares off on me, you're mistaken. He doesn't remember the fact, but the very first day I was introduced to him, he started talking Ecfontein Collieries."

"He's a mean old devil," said Verity, "and I wish yon luck."

"There's one thing I'd like to ask you, Mr Verity, and probably you'll be able to give me the information I want. Can you recall anybody who has ever got the best of Ebenezer?"

Mr Verity considered.

"Yes— Franks & Franks; they are Ebenezer's 'bête noire.' They have bested him in two or three deals, and he can hardly speak their name without growing apoplectic."

"Franks & Franks," repeated Dob slowly, "I think I know one of the partners. Thank you, Mr Verity."

He went to his office, and after examining the correspondence, made his way to the palatial offices of Franks & Franks, in Threadneedle Street.

The junior partner, Mr Harry Franks, a pleasant Hebrew, welcomed Dob with open arms. They had met in France, when this bald-headed, middle-aged man, was the driver of a Red Cross ambulance.

"Do you know anything about Ecfontein Collieries, Franks?" asked Dob.

The other looked at him soberly, and handed him a cigar.

"Don't tell me that they've landed you with a parcel."

"I've an option on a hundred thousand," explained Dob, "and I paid a hundred pounds for the privilege."

"Stop the cheque and plead temporary derangement," advised Mr Franks promptly. "Ecfonteins! My dear chap, they are not worth the paper they're printed on."

He looked at Dob with a startled expression.

"Don't say Ebenezer Jackson has caught you?"

There was a twinkle in Dob's eye.

"I bought an option— as a matter of fact, the cheque isn't paid, but it will be, of course. I've agreed to give that sum for the privilege of purchasing the shares. What is more," he added slowly, "I am going to take up my option."

Mr Franks jumped out of his chair.

"You're mad," he exclaimed.

"At least," continued Dob, with a laugh, "I'm going to take it up if you'll let me write a letter on your notepaper. I'll strike out your address and name. You see, Franks, I'm getting rather tired of being regarded as a dud. There are moments when it doesn't worry me, but there are times when it irritates me beyond expression. Ebenezer has challenged my intelligence so definitely that I could not but take the challenge up. It is not sufficient that I should reject his preposterous offer. I must hit back at him. Now, if you will let me write on your paper a letter accepting his offer, taking up the option, I think you will have some fun."

Mr Franks looked dubious.

"All right," he eventually complied. "It's your funeral. Sit down at my desk and write your letter, but you're losing money, and I hate to see a young fellow throwing it away. If yon want an investment, buy Madeira Banana Lands. I've just had a wireless from Madeira—"

But Dob sat at the big ornate desk, took a sheet of notepaper from the rack and, running his pen through the firm's address, wrote in a hurried scrawl:—

"Dear Mr Jackson—

"This is to notify you that I am taking up the option of the whole hundred thousand. Arrange for the immediate transfer of these shares and I will call at your office this afternoon at two o'clock with the necessary cheque. Under no circumstances allow your Ecfontein Colliery shares to pass into any possession but mine.— Yours in haste,

"Archibald Dobbly."

"Read that." he said, handing the letter to his friend.

Mr Franks read it and his condition of mind, when he had finished reading it, made his protest almost incoherent.

"You're— you're stark, staring mad," he gasped. "There is neither gold, coal, nor iron on that property. You are simply throwing your money into the gutter."

"We shall see," answered Dob, smiling.

He despatched the letter by special messenger and went back to his office. He hardly reached there when the telephone bell rang. It was Mr Jackson's voice at the other end of the wire.

"Is that you, Dobbly?"

"Yes."

"You're taking those shares?"

"Rather." Dob put as much exultation as he could get into his voice.

"I see you wrote from Franks & Franks," went on Ebenezer.

"Yes," said Dob. "I— er— know Mr Franks."

"Did he advise you to buy them?"

There was a silence. At last Dob replied—

"I'd rather you didn't ask that question. Mr Jackson. Mr Franks is a very old friend of mine, and I don't feel that it is fair to him that I should reveal any of our conversation of this morning."

"Will you come round to the office at once?" pleaded Ebenezer, after a pause, and his voice was shaky.

"Will you have the transfer ready?" asked Dob, winking at the ceiling.

"Come along round," was the diplomatic reply. "Take a cab— or— I'll pay for it." Jackson had a suite of offices in Queen Victoria Street, and Dob was there in ten minutes. He found the jobber pacing his room like a caged lion.

"Good morning," cried Dob cheerfully, planking the cheque upon the table. "I've brought round the five thousand, Mr Jackson, and have made it payable to bearer, so that you can send your clerk round and cash the cheque immediately."

"Well, the fact is, Dobbly, I thought that I'd better wait before I transferred these shares. You see, I've been trying to get into communication with South Africa. Anything may have happened there, and I find that the cable has not been working."

"Oh, it must have been working," said Dob cheerfully. "Your niece had a cablegram from Johannesburg only yesterday."

Mr Ebenezer Jackson looked uncomfortable.

"That must have been despatched some time ago, and delayed. No, Dobbly, if you don't mind we will just wait until I get an answer to the cable I've sent to my Johannesburg agent."

Dob shook his head.

"That I can't allow," he responded quietly. "You have sold me an option on the shares, and I am taking up that option.

"It is an opportunity, as you said last night, which no young man can afford to lose."

"Has Franks heard anything from South Africa?" asked the other suspiciously, and Dob was silent.

"He has, has he?" Mr Jackson dropped his hand with geniality on Dob's shoulder.

"Now, now, my boy," he continued waggishly, "let me know what Franks has discovered."

"I think Mr Franks said that he had had a wireless message from Madeira," answered Dob reluctantly, "but I am not in— er— a position to tell you its contents. That is entirely Mr Franks' business, and unless he gave me permission I certainly could not abuse his confidence. Anyway, that doesn't matter, does it?" he smiled. "You have sold me the option, and there is nothing else for me to do but to take the transfer."

Mr Jackson's agitation was almost tragic.

"I tell you what, Dobbly. I am going to make a confession to you that I wouldn't make to anybody else. Those shares were given me by my Uncle George, a man for whom I have the utmost veneration. Ever since I sold you the option I have been conscience-stricken. I have sold shares which my Uncle George asked me, almost with his dying breath, to keep in the family. Now, what do you say? Suppose we make a little bargain? I'll return you your hundred pounds and give you, say, another hundred on top, if you tear up the option I gave you."

"That, I couldn't agree to sir," he replied. "I'm pretty certain that I ran get five shillings a share for Ecfontein Collieries."

"Five shillings a share!" screamed Jackson. "Rubbish! Who will give you five shillings a share unless—" he frowned heavily. "Now tell me, Dobbly, what have you learnt about this stock?"

"I only know, sir," began Dob, and stopped. "Perhaps I had better not tell you. There is my cheque, and I want the shares."

"Now, don't be precipitate, my boy," cautioned Mr Jackson, beads of perspiration standing on hi pallid brow. "If they are worth five shillings to other people, they are worth five shillings to me. Now, suppose I take the whole of your stock over at, let us say, three shillings a share?"

After haggling and bargaining for nearly half on hour Dob went out with a cheque for £15,000 from Jackson in his pocket.

Mr Jackson waited until the door closed on Dob, then seized the telephone with feverish hands and called up Franks & Franks. There were times when he could not forbear to gloat over his enemies.

"Is that you, Franks? I've bought those shares from Dobbly— the Ecfontein Collieries."

"You've bought them?" was the incredulous reply. "Do you mean to say that you've bought them back from him?"

"I do," cried Ebenezer, triumphantly.

"Then you're a bigger fool than I thought you were. Dob said he would stick you with them, and you've cost me two hundred. I bet him two hundred he wouldn't. What did you pay for them?"

"Three shillings a share," wailed Mr Ebenezer Jackson, and there came a groan from the other end of the 'phone.

"He's won! What an infernal dud."

"I don't know that he is so much of a dud," quavered Ebenezer. "I've just given him an open cheque for fifteen thousand."

"I wasn't referring to Dob. I was referring to you," was the cruel reply.

___________________

23: The Haunted House

The Sunday Post, Glasgow, Jan 1 1922

IN THE DAYS when Brackton was "country," and the town consisted of a village inn, a church, a parsonage, and a few scattered cottages, there came to this old-world spot an eccentric banker named Durand. His eccentricity was manifested by the erection of a great Georgian house, and the purchase of a great deal of land in the neighbourhood.

Brackton was off the stage coach route. There was no hunting and little shooting, and the friends of Josiah Durand regarded his purchase as the first sign of a weakening intellect.

After a lapse of a hundred years Brackton came into its own and developed from village to town. Right opposite the stern old Georgian house William Durand, the son of Josiah, erected the first bank that Brackton had known, a branch of his own private bank in London.

It is not necessary to give the history of Durand's Bank, or its subsequent amalgamation with the London, Eastern and Welsh Banking Corporation Ltd. John Durand, the present holder of the title, had long since given up the ramshackle house about which had grown a wilderness of modern villas, and was living on a little estate which he had laid out on Brackton Hill.

But Durand's Bank was still a power, for although its amalgamation was an accomplished fact, the old name stuck. But the ancient house erected by the first of the Durands stood empty and desolate, and became a frequent subject of discussion at the club.

"I wonder you don't give it to Dob, sir. It would make a fine local office for him," suggested Mr Jacques Richter.

Mr Richter was one of the fashionable young men of Brackton, and was, moreover, the prospective son-in-law of John Durand. He traced his parentage back to a family of Alsatians and indignantly repudiated the suggestion that there was a drop of German blood in his veins, pointing triumphantly to his service during the war. Nobody quite knew what those services were, but he had certainly worn a uniform, in which he had appeared at too frequent intervals in Brackton.

John Durand laughed.

"I shall pull the old place down one of these days," he said, "though I shall hate losing it."

"You'll have the County Council on your back if you don't," warned the Borough Surveyor who was one of the audience. "If you delay long in pulling it down, it will fall down."

"Not it," answered Durand emphatically. "The builders of Georgian days built for eternity. Still, it is a sin and shame that the house should remain vacant, with the land unoccupied. I'll think it over."

John Durand was always "thinking it over." He never got any further, apparently.

Mr Richter walked home with him that night and Mr Archibald Dobbly came again into the conversation.

"He's a queer fellow, is Dob," remarked John Durand, "but I like him. He is in some curious business, isn't he?"

"He's a 'professional friend and confidential adviser,'" replied Richter solemnly, and then chuckled. "Why don't you go to Dob and ask him what he would do with the house?"

"I won't go as far as that," smiled Durand.

"Why don't you consult May?" asked Richter maliciously. John winced, for this [flighty?] daughter was the real master of his household and ruled him with a rod of iron. An only daughter, she had been spoilt by her [doting?] father, and he was now reaping what he had sown.

"I never bother May with things like that," he said shortly.

They found the young lady in question in the drawing room. She was reading the latest? novel, and Mr Durand made a face when he saw its title.

"I wish you wouldn't read that kind of book, May."

"Why not?" she inquired coolly. "Really, daddy, you are silly. The modern young woman is not half so squeamish as her grandmother and I rather like this story."

John Durand said nothing. He had learnt from experience that to commence an argument with his daughter meant that he would be very badly worsted. Consequently, he was glad to switch the conversation to Dob, at the mention of whom Mary put down her book and listened with interest.

"I can't quite make him out, dad," she interrupted. "He seems such an awful ass, and yet he has the most charming manners."

"Most awful asses have," interrupted Mr Jacques Richter good-humouredly. "I'm afraid old Dob will always be a dud."

"From what I have heard," cut in Mr John Durand drily, "he is not half the dud you imagine him to be."

"I was suggesting to your father that he could consult Dob," Richter went on. "You know he has an office in the City, and gives advice for a fee. He is a sort of professional friend— I think that's what he calls 'Professional Friend.'"

Her eyebrows went up and her lips parted in a smile. "What a grand idea! Oh, daddy, do think of something."

"Something?" asked the puzzled Mr Durand.

"Can't we consult him about something? The house. What an excellent idea. You know, I've always told you that you ought to pull it down and build a block of workmen's flats. The working-class quarter of Brackton is shockingly overcrowded."

"I don't intend asking Dob's advice on what I shall do with my property," smiled Mr Durand good-humouredly. "I'm going to the smoking-room. If you think of any brilliant idea, let me know."

"I've got it," cried the girl when her father had left. "Oh, it's such a splendid idea, Jacques."

He looked at her languishingly.

"If it is your idea—"

"Oh, stop," she scoffed. "Don't be silly, Jacques."

Her attitude towards her fiance was one of bored tolerance. There were moments when Mr Jacques Richter wished that the marriage knot had been tied, so that he could express his sentiments without taking the risk of losing what promised to be a profitable investment.

"We'll haunt the house," she exclaimed excitedly.

"Haunt it?"

"You know, we'll haunt it with mysterious bells and clanking chains and strange, weird shapes that move through the darkness—"

"Whatever are you talking about?" he asked, bewildered.

"I mean that we're going to haunt Durand House," she repeated impatiently. "We're going to employ Dob to lay the ghost, and we'll scare the life out of him."

She threw back her head and her peal of laughter reached Mr Durand in his study.

He smiled in sympathy, but he was loss amused when the idea was put to him.

"It's hardly fair on Dobbly." he objected. "Really. I don't think I can let you do it."

"You're not only going to let me do it, daddy, you're going to help. I need a nice middle-aged ghost like you."

Mr Durand groaned, yet he was not so old that he could not appreciate a good joke. Protesting a little feebly that it was not fair, he nevertheless entered into the conspiracy.

Dob was very surprised the next mooring, when a pretty and demure figure walked into his office smiling at his embarrassment. He knew the girl, had admired her secretly, and was invariably embarrassed in her presence, which was not like Dob.

He got up, very red of face, and brought a chair forward.

"This is very unexpected, Miss Durand."

Only for a moment did the girl's resolution waver. With her keen feminine instinct she sensed his feelings for her, and was momentarily repentant; but her penitence did not last very long.

"I have come on a very important, mysterious errand, Mr Dobbly," she began, solemnly. "It's about Durand House."

"Durand House?" he repeated. "Oh, that old Georgian house in High Street? A place with a wilderness of a garden. It belongs to your people, doesn't it?"

"It's been in the family for hundreds of years," she told him.

She was rather vague as to the exact length of time, but she was not far out. "And, Mr Dobbly," she continued, "Durand House in haunted."

"Haunted?" He regarded her inquiringly.

"Haunted," she repeated emphatically.

"This is news to me," observed Dob. "I have lived in Brackton for quite a time, but I've never heard of that before."

"I discovered it," the girl went on, "quite by accident."

"Does your father know?"

She nodded.

"It was he who suggested that I should come to see you."

Dob smiled.

"What am I to do? Lay the ghost?"

She drew her chair nearer.

"Mr Dobbly," she lowered her voice, "these manifestations appear every Thursday night between ten and twelve o'clock. A friend of mine has been watching the home, and he has seen strange, ghostly lights moving inside. He has heard the clanking of chains, and wild, eerie shrieks."

"You want me to go to the haunted house to discover what's the cause, eh?" he smiled.

May inclined her head.

"Have you seen these lights yourself?"

Only for a second she hesitated.

"Yes, I saw them last week," she proceeded glibly. "Our bank is on the opposite side of the road, and I watched the place from the cashier's room a upstairs."

"Well, that's rum," mused Dob, rubbing his chin. "Of course, I'll undertake the job with pleasure. Have you got a key? How do I get in?"

She opened her bag and took out a large key, the type that ancient householders carried at their belt, with a plug of wood in the hole to keep out the dust.

"It's a curious commission." He spoke with a half smile, and she thought he looked wonderfully boyish. "But I'll be most happy to do it for you, Miss Durand," he concluded, raising his eyes to hers, and again she felt a little prick of conscience.

She burst into her father's study that evening.

"He's going to do it, daddy. Now, where is Jacques? He promised to be here to fix everything up."

"What do you propose doing?"

"We'll get into the house at nine o'clock," she said, speaking rapidly. "We shall just have time to fix up a few contraptions."

"Such as?" asked her father.

"Oh, phosphorous paint, flashes of green fire, and clanking chains. We'll do the groaning ourselves."

"You don't expect me to go down there and play the fool, do you?"

"I want you to come, daddy. I really can't be in an empty house with Jacques Richter without a chaperone."

Mr Durand groaned.

"Yes, that groan will do admirably for to-night. You'll have to do the groaning, daddy."

Her father grinned.

"There's no fool like an old fool," he laughed, "but I suppose I'll have to humour you."

The question of chaperoning the girl and Mr Richter did not arise. Mr Richter put in a reluctant appearance a few minutes later, complaining that he had twisted his ankle and couldn't possibly accompany the party.

"You're shamming," she scoffed. "I believe you're scared.

"Nonsense," replied Jacques Richter loudly. "What do you mean by 'scared?' Didn't I serve in the war, and would anybody who served in the war— ?"

"You served in an Army Service Corps Depot at Plymouth," she said quickly. "You were even beyond the reach of Zeppelins!"

Richter muttered something under his breath. But on one point he was adamant: he could not and would not go to the haunted house, and Mr Durand and May went alone, the former growing more and more uncomfortable as they approached the house.

Archibald Dobbly was puzzled. He did not believe in ghosts, nor could he conceive that a sensible, pretty girl like May Durand could have any foolish notions on the subject. Still, she was a woman, and to him, one of the very few women in the world who counted, and she must be humoured.

He went up into his bedroom, took a revolver from a cupboard, looked at it for some time and then, remembering that the house my possibly be occupied by some person who had no right to be there, he slipped it into his pocket, along with an electric torch, after replacing the battery with a new one. Then, taking his bicycle from the shed behind the house, he cycled gently into the town.

It was nearly ten o'clock when he passed through the iron gates of Durand House. He put his bicycle against a tree, extinguishing the light lest it should attract the attention of a passing policeman.

He pulled on a pair of felt over-slippers, which he had purchased that day for the purpose. They fitted over his boots, and enabled him to move noiselessly.

He walked up the flagged path, mounted the stairs, tried the key in the lock, and it turned readily. He entered the house and, closing the door softly behind him, flashed a beam of light along the passage. Halfway up the passage was an old mat. The house was apparently devoid of furniture, and dust lay on the floor.

He had lifted his foot to take a step, when he heard a curious sound. It was rumble and thud at such regular intervals as to suggest that some machine was working in the basement of the house. He stepped eagerly forward, switched off his light, and reached the mat. He put one foot on it, when a blood-curdling yell made him spring back. For a moment his hair stood on end, and then he laughed softly to himself.

"A claxon horn," he muttered.

Lifting the mat, he found a little bell-push, a knob extending upwards, and a thin strand of wire running to the stair.

Then for the first time he realised that he was being made the victim of a practical joke. But that realisation gave way immediately to another. The thud and rumble had suddenly ceased.

There was a door leading to what was apparently the front drawing-room. He opened this gingerly and went in, sending the beams of his torch into each corner. It was empty, and the ceiling hung with cobwebs. It communicated with a back drawing-room by a pair of folding doors. These he opened and stopped astonished for the floor was piled with earth that reached half way to the ceiling. And then he heard a sound. It was only the slightest shuffle of a foot on the stone stairs, but there was something about that stealthy movement which set his nerves on edge. He slipped his pistol from his pocket, drew back the steel jacket, and thumbed-up the safety catch.

He listened at the door. The house had been solidly built and no floor-board creaked as he moved.

There was no light in the passage, which narrowed as it met the stairs, but he wee conscious that somebody was there in the dark. He drew himself back flat against the wall of the drawing-room. Presently he was rewarded by seeing a beam of light in the corridor, and a low voice whispered—

"It was a car outside."

There were two people, and he wondered who they were. The voices were not those of people who might be employed to carry out a practical joke and, anyway, they would not have been surprised at the yell of the claxon.

After waiting for some time, Dob moved cautiously from his place of concealment and continued his journey along the passage. Twice he flashed his lamp and saw a doorway under the stairs. Evidently it was from mere that the men had come. He was moving towards the door when he saw a crumpled piece of paper near his feet and, stooping, picked it up. He had seen May Durand's writing before, and he recognised it immediately. It was a little list written on a slip of paper, and by the light of his electric torch he read—

"Claxon horn in passage, figures on first floor landing, chains in room upstairs, daddy to wear white nightgown."

Hearing a sound, he flicked out the torch light. It was the resumption of the thud and rumble he had heard when he entered the house. What did it mean? It was clear to him now that the girl had contemplated a practical joke on him, and for a moment he felt a little sore, but where was she? Obviously her father was to be in the house and she must have been there too, to have left that piece of paper. What was the meaning of all the earth in the room?

He opened the little door under the stair and listened. Faintly came the sound of whispering voices as he stared down into the darkness. The steps led to a basement apartment, the old kitchen of the house, he guessed. He went down noiselessly, step by step, putting one hand on the wall and feeling gingerly with his foot until he came to the passage below.

There was no sign of light, but the low murmur of voices still came to him. He crept along the passage, and by a momentary flash of his lamp saw a door, from behind which the sound came. Again he heard the rumble, and at once its meaning dawned on him. It was the sound of a wheel-barrow running along a plunk, and the thuds were caused by the wheels bumping against the space where wood met wood.

Reaching the door, he tried the handle cautiously. It opened, and showed a thin slither of light. The room into which he stepped was unoccupied— it was the old scullery— and from thence led through a doorless opening to the vast underground kitchen of Durand House.

Now the voices were clear.

"If you made him give you the keys, it would save us a lot of trouble," suggested one.

"The keys, you fool?" snorted the other. "We'd look fine opening the doors of the bank at this hour of the night, shouldn't we? No, we'll be into the strong room by two o'clock. Laurie is working the light on the steel lining now."

There was a pause.

"What are you going to do with these two?" asked the first voice.

Dob's heart leapt.

"They can stay down here until they're found," replied the other, "but it wouldn't be a bad idea," he added, "if we took the girl with us. That would make them careful about coming after us."

There was another long pause, broken only by the noise made by the wheel barrow. Then a third voice spoke.

"That's your last load; now we've got plenty of room to work. Thank God we shan't have to take the stuff upstairs to-morrow. It nearly broke my back. Laurie's going to take the girl," he added.

"I thought he would," remarked the first voice.

"You'll not take me with you." It was May's clear voice that spoke.

"You shut up," ordered the first man, gruffly. "If you don't go with us quietly, we'll settle your old man. This would mean a lifer for all of us, and I'd just as soon be hung."

"You blackguards, you'll pay for this." Now it was John Durand speaking.

Dob, creeping along the wall, glimpsed through the open apace in the direction of the voice. Durand, his wrists tied together, was fastened to a chair by a broad strap which was passed round his waist. His ankles were corded to the legs of the chair. The girl was free, and was sitting right up, uncowed by the danger.

Then it was that Dob stepped from his place of concealment. He took in the scene at one glance. The low kitchen, the two paraffin lamps burning on the table, the three men, one leaning on the handle of his barrow and stripped almost to his waist, the other two, their clothes soiled with the earth they had been removing.

He met the girl's eyes for a moment, and she smiled.

At that smile the three men swung round to see whet she was looking at.

"Keep still!" Dob ordered, handling his pistol carelessly, "and don't shout."

The biggest of the men, a fellow with a short stubby beard, spoke first.

"Who are you!" he demanded.

"I am a layer of ghosts," answered Dob, and then, not turning his head, "unfasten your father, Miss Durand."

He took a clasp knife from his pocket, and threw it towards her. A few minutes later John Durand was standing by his side.

"I think, Mr Durand, you had better take your daughter out, and bring a couple of the constabulary," smiled Dob. "Please be careful not to step on the mat."

The girl flushed, and dropped her eyes before his.

"I am sorry," she said in a low voice.

"And I am jolly glad," replied Dob, cheerfully.

He heard them stumbling on the stairs. He heard the street door open, and with a prayer of thankfulness in his heart he realised the girl was safe.

"Now, gentlemen," he began, and then, from the darkness of a gap in the wall at the further end of the kitchen came a bright pencil of flame. The bullet just missed Dob's cheek, and crashed into the wall behind him. Then he leapt to cover.

Again the unseen shooter fired, the bullet carrying away the toe-cap of Dob's boot and a generous portion of felt slipper. Keeping close to the edge of the wall, he fired twice in the direction of the hole, and the place was plunged into darkness.

"Rush him!" boomed a voice, but Dob was through the door and up the stairs in half a dozen seconds. He stopped at the top of the stairs and looked down.

"You can only come up one at a time," he said, "and you'll go down one at a time."

They did not attempt to repeat the rushing tactics and, when half a dozen policemen arrived, they found a fairly tractable gang to arrest.

A CAREFUL search of the kitchen revealed the fact that these men had bored a tunnel under the bank, and had reached the steel walls of the strong room, which they were cutting when the unexpected arrival of John Durand and his daughter had created a diversion.

The terrified girl and her father had been seized and taken into the basement.

"They must have been working for a month," explained John Durand, puffing at his cigar that night, before going to bed. "Of course, they knew nobody ever visited the house, and it was a fairly easy job for them to break in and establish their head-quarters. They stole their planks and barrows from Jay's, the builder, by the way."

But Miss May Durand was not worrying about the methods the burglars employed. She was sitting on the hearth-rug before the fire, clasping her knees and staring into the flames.

"It's rather a good job Jacques could not come to-night," remarked John Durand, "and it really wasn't a bad idea of yours, May, to employ Dob the Dud."

She looked up at her father coldly.

"I think Dob the Dud is a very vulgar nickname," she answered severely, "and I'm awfully glad that Jacques wasn't there."

____________________

24: The Pear-Shaped Diamond

The Sunday Post, Glasgow, Jan 8 1921

MR ARCHIBALD Dobbly found it difficult to fix the day and hour when he began to regard Jacques Richter in the light of a rival. Dob told himself a dozen times a day that he had no title whatever to May Durand's affection. It is true he had rendered her a very great service, but that debt had been cancelled when her father had sent him a cheque, which, although he was loath to receive, he could find no excuse for refusing.

Jacques Richter was of Alsatian origin, a fact that he never ceased to impress upon all and sundry. It mattered little to Dob whether he was Alsatian or darnation. Dob's principal grievance was that he existed at all. It may be said that Jacques, Richter resented Dob's appearance in company with the girl as strenuously.

Jacques was an elegant young man of twenty-eight, who always gave the impression that he had stepped from the hands of a small army of valets. He was engaged by day in some light occupation, which did not in any way disarrange the set of his cravat or dim the lustre of his patent shoes. There were many who thought that his main occupation was the hunting of John Durand's heiress.

Dob in his turn did not take so uncharitable a view. He regarded Richter as a man of some means, and when his engagement to May Durand was announced, Dob took it for granted that her father had made the necessary inquiries into the young man's financial position. He did not realise then how dominant a personality was this high-spirited daughter of the banker, or the extent of her autocracy. It had never occurred to John Durand to oppose her slightest wish, and he had accepted Jacques Richter as he had accepted every other choice of his daughter, in the faith that she would come out on top.

It was a few days after the adventure in the alleged haunted house that Dob first saw the outward and visible signs of May Durand's engagement. It was a diamond ring of an extraordinary character. The stone was so large that upon any other hand than hers it would have appeared vulgar. It ran almost the length of the girl's finger joint, and when he saw it he gasped, He was taking tea with May Durand, and it was his good fortune that neither Mr Richter nor her father had put in an appearance.

"Yes, it is a beautiful ring. Jacques gave it to me a month ago."

"It is a beauty," agreed Dob.

"Jacques brought it from Paris," she told him calmly. "He paid a hundred thousand francs for it."

Dob smiled inwardly. It was so like May to insist on knowing the price. Or had Jacques carelessly volunteered the information?

"He is a very fortunate man," observed Dob, and she looked at him queerly.

"Do you think so! I don't think you would say that if you knew the immense responsibility which he has undertaken."

Dob coughed.

"When is this undertaking to begin?"

"When am I going to be married?" asked the practical May. "Oh, in a year, possibly sooner," and then the conversation drifted to other topics.

John Durand came in, and later Mr Richter, looking more than ever like a fashion plate. He shot a glance, which was not one of kindly welcome, at Dob, and greeted his fiancée with a certain affected ostentation.

It was during the conversation which followed that Dob learnt for the first time that the girl had met her future husband whilst travelling on the Continent.

From the vague reference Richter made to his "home," Dob gathered that he had a château on the Loire, and a family interest in other estates in France. What amazed him was the extraordinary frankness of the girl, and the absence of any mystery about their relationship.

"Mr Dobbly has been asking when I am going to married, Jacques."

"And what did you tell him?' he asked eagerly.

"I told him that it would be in a year or so," she answered, with a curious little smile, and Jacques' face fell.

"But," he stammered, "you told me— next month."

"I have changed my mind," May informed him calmly.

Was Dob's fancy playing him a trick, or did the imperturbable face of Mr Jacques Richter go a shade paler?

"But I've made all my arrangements for next month," he protested.

"And I have made all my arrangements for next year. Now, Jacques, don't let us argue on this indelicate subject before Mr Dobbly, who is young and impressionable."

Dob made his adieux soon after, and was glad to get away from an atmosphere which was rapidly becoming strained.

HE SAW Mr Richter the next morning on the train, and Jacques cut him dead. Dob was astounded more than hurt; amused rather than annoyed. When he left the railway terminus he thought he had seen the last of Jacques for the day, but in this he was mistaken. He had occasion to lunch at a big restaurant in the West End, his guest being a new client who wanted advice about some rubber shares. Dob, with the assistance of a friend, was launching forth in the direction of a financial expert.

They were half way through the meal when, glancing up, he saw on the other side of the room, two men sitting at a table, and the back of one of these was familiar to him. He could not very well mistake the perfectly cut coat, the beautifully pomaded hair, of Mr Richter. His companion was an elderly man with a grey beard and, by his gesticulations, was evidently a foreigner. He was apparently very angry, and there was a despondent curve to Mr Richter's back which rather fascinated Dob.

He observed them idly and then, turning his attention again to his client, he let the matter pass from his mind.

When his luncheon was finished the waiter came, and he paid his bill. On leaving he interrogated the head waiter.

"Who is that old gentleman over there, the fellow with the beard? A foreigner isn't he."

The head waiter glanced at the pair Dob had indicated.

"Oh, no," he replied, "he has a shop in town," and be told Dob the name.

Dob thanked him, and again the incident closed in his mind.

That evening he met May Durand on the golf course and played a round with her.

"You don't like Jacques, do you!" she asked unexpectedly.

"I don't dislike him," answered the cautious Dob, "even though he cut me dead this morning."

She laughed.

"Did he really?" she exclaimed, her eyes dancing with merriment. "How very funny!"

"It was a bit funny," admitted Dob. "I don't know what I've done to your young man."

"Don't you?" she inquired demurely.

A second later she swung at a ball and sent it flying. When they resumed their trudge she talked about something altogether different, and the name of Jacques' Richter did not arise until they were walking home from the club.

"Do you still run that absurd little office of yours?"

"I run an absurdly little office," corrected Dob with a smile.

"I mean are you still a professional friend and adviser?"

"I am indeed," said Dob. "If you want any advice out of business hours, you can have it for a little extra fee."

She looked at him again with that strange, mocking light in her eyes.

"I've a jolly good mind to ask you for advice. Suppose I came to you and asked you whether I ought to marry Jacques Richter, what would you say?"

Dob went red, then while.

"That is an unfair question," he replied quietly, "and I have an idea nobody knows how unfair it is better than you."

She was silent after that, and when he parted from her he said penitently—

"I've been rather a bore, haven't I?"

She shook her head.

"I've been rather a fool, that's all," she remarked, offering her hand.

She was not at the club the next day, nor the next. On the third day Dob was closing his office, pulling down the top of his desk, when there was a timid knock at the door.

"Come in!" he cried.

He recognised the girl who came in. She was a servant at the Durand's house, and his heart came up into his throat. Had May sent for him, he wondered? Then, something about the demeanour of the girl attracted him. Her eyes were red and her face discoloured with weeping, and when she spoke her voice was shaking.

"I hope you don't mind my coming to you Mr Dobbly," she began, "but I heard Mr Durand speak about you, and I'm so upset that I don't know what to do. I have nobody I can consult."

She was distressed, and every sentence had a sob in it.

"Now, please calm yourself, miss— I don't know your name."

"I am Alice, sir— Alice Girton."

"Well, Alice, you must not be upset. What has happened? There is nothing wrong with Miss Durand, is there?" he demanded quickly, with a sudden tightening of his heart.

"No, sir, there's nothing wrong with Miss Durand. I thought you would have heard— oh, it's dreadful, and Mr Richter has been so terribly cruel to me." At this she broke down, and it was some time before she could control her voice.

"You have got to tell me what has happened," Dob spoke kindly, "and try to think that you are talking not about yourself, but about somebody else. I can't help you unless I know."

"It's about Miss Durand's ring," sobbed the girl.

"Do you mean her engagement ring?" inquired Dob sharply.

The girl nodded.

"The big diamond one?"

She nodded again.

"Mr Durand wanted to send for you last night," she gulped, "but Mr Richter wouldn't hear of it. He said awful things about you. He called you, Dob the Dud—"

"Never mind what he called me," smiled Dob, fixing his monocle, and showing his white teeth in a grin. "I quite expect Mr Richter would say some very unpleasant things if he had the slightest provocation. Is the ring lost?"

She told him it was, and gradually the whole story came out.

"Mr Richter called last night, and I think he and Miss Durand had a little tiff, but they were all right at dinner. Miss May was wearing her ring. I saw it as I was serving the soup. Afterwards in the drawing-room, when I was handing round the coffee, she had it on her finger. A little while later I believe they had another quarrel. When I went into the drawing-room to make the fire up they were sitting at opposite ends of the room, and I saw her ring on the table. I think she must have taken it off and put it there. At any rate, she walked out of the room whilst I was there, and Mr Richter followed her. I went out soon after."

"Where did she go?" asked Dob.

"She went to Mr Durand's study. Presently I saw Mr Durand and Miss May going back to the drawing-room."

"Where was Mr Richter?"

"He had gone back to the drawing-room, and whilst I was standing in the passage he came out again very excited, and asked where was the ring."

"It had disappeared, eh?"

The girl could not speak for her tears.

"They accused me," she sobbed. "Mr Richter said dreadful things. He wanted to send for the police, and have me searched, but Miss May wouldn't allow it. I went home to my mother's— she lives in Brackton— and just as I was going, I heard Mr Richter say, 'You allow her to go out of the house without searching her. It is madness.'"

Here the interview was interrupted by a sharp ring of the telephone. Dob took up the receiver, and immediately recognised May's voice.

"Have you heard about my ring?" she inquired.

"Yes." answered Dob. "The girl has come straight to me."

"I'm awfully glad," May's pleasure was not disguised. "What do you think about it, Mr Dobbly?"

"I am thinking just as you are thinking."

"What am I thinking?" she asked.

"What I am thinking," he replied evasively.

"Will you come up and see me tonight? And please tell Alice that I don't for one moment believe she stole the ring."

Dob gave the girl the message, and it brightened her up wonderfully.

"I knew Miss May wouldn't think I was a thief. The ring must have fallen on to the floor, and it is probably under the big table in the centre of the room. Do you think Mr Richter will take any action?" he asked anxiously.

"I shouldn't think so," said Dob, but here, he was mistaken.

He opened the door for the girl, to find a stranger standing in the doorway, and behind him Mr Richter.

"Ah!" cried Jacques exultantly, "I thought you'd be here. This is the girl, inspector."

The poor girl shrank back against the indignant Dob.

"You're surely not going to arrest this girl?"

"I'm afraid I must, sir," answered the inspector. "Mr Richter has made a charge and, at any rate, I shall have to question her very closely. She can either be questioned here or at the station."

"Have you a warrant? That is my point," asked Dob impatiently.

"Well, I haven't a warrant," replied the inspector, "but I have authority to detain her."

Dob looked at Jacques Richter.

"Mr Richter, if I were you I do not think I should charge Alice."

"I am going to get my ring back," responded Richter defiantly.

"Suppose I undertake to produce the ring?"

"I don't see how you can. You weren't at the house last night."

If he thought to anger Dob he was greatly mistaken.

Dob's answer was that smile of his which had so often proved wholly infectious.

"You can't charge this girl because you've no other proof than your suspicions," he explained, "and the inspector knows that as well as I. Moreover, the ring was not your property, but if anybody's, the property of Miss May Durand, and Miss Durand is perfectly convinced that the girl is innocent."

The inspector was in a dilemma.

"Do you mind if I ask the girl a few questions?"

"Fire away," granted Dob, and for half an hour the inspector plied the girl with question on question without, however, coming any nearer to the conviction that she was guilty.

Long before he was through Mr Richter had left in disgust.

"I don't see how I can even detain the girl on this evidence, sir," said the inspector, who was from Brackton, and well known to Dob. "What were you telling Mr Richter about finding the stone! You're not a private detective, are you?" he inquired, with a twinkle in his eye.

"I'm better than a private detective," answered Dob.

He called at the Durand's house that night, and was rather surprised to find Mr Richter present at an interview which he hoped would be confidential. For Dob had something on his mind, and was undecided as to how he should proceed.

Evidently, between the two young people the relationship remained strained. Dob was conscious of the tenseness of the atmosphere when he came into the room, and he stood uncomfortably, looking from one to the other.

"You asked me to come up, Miss Durand?"

She nodded.

"Really, May," protested Richter, white with anger, "I do think that you might keep this fellow out of the case. Surely it's sufficiently complicated without getting a Dud—"

"I hope you won't be rude to me," interrupted Dob suavely, "because to-night I want to keep my mind just rightly balanced, and nothing disturbs my mind so much as annoyance. Miss Durand, do you mind if I ask you a very intimate and almost unpardonably rude question?"

"I can't imagine you asking such a question," smiled the girl, "But I tell you that you may ask it."

"Do you love this man?" asked Dob, bluntly.

Mr Richter choked and the girl looked at him in wide-eyed astonishment.

"Really, Mr Dobbly," she began, a faint flush in her cheeks, "that is an extraordinary question to ask."

"It's the only question I can ask," went on Dob doggedly. "I hoped to be able to see you alone."

"I dare say you did," sneered Richter.

"I repeat, do you love this man?"

She thought for a moment, then looked him straight in the eyes.

"I tell you as frankly that I do not," and this time Mr Richter collapsed on to a chair.

"Then," continued Dob, a slow smile dawning on his face, "here is your ring."

He held out his hand, and the girl gasped, for between his forefinger and thumb glittered the pear-shaped diamond.

"How on earth— ?" she cried.

"I borrowed it," explained Dob, speaking slowly, "from a gentleman who has the good fortune to own it."

She looked from him to the white-faced Richter.

"Did Jacques lend it to you! I don't understand."

"I borrowed it from its rightful owner, whose name is Abramovitch, a jeweller of Hatton Garden."

"Mr Richter sprang to his feet.

"I'm not going to sit here and listen to all this tommy-rot," and with no other word slammed out of the room.

The girl looked after him in amazement.

"Now, Mr Dobbly, perhaps you will tell me just what it all means," pleaded the girl, after he had gone.

"I can't tell you the whole of the story, Miss Durand, because I do not know what is Mr Richter's financial position. I gather, however, that it is a pretty rotten one, for inquiries I have made today show me that he is in debt on every hand."

"But how could he be in debt if he bought me a ring?"

"He didn't buy the ring at all," smiled Dob. "He borrowed it, or rather he bought it on approval! The ring belongs to a man named Abramovitch, and I had to give him a cheque for three thousand pounds before to allowed me to bring it away. Apparently Mr Richter, anticipating a much earlier marriage than you had decided, persuaded Abramovitch to let him have the ring, promising payment immediately after the marriage. When he found that the marriage had been postponed, Abramovitch demanded full settlement of his account. I had an interview with the old gentleman today, and he was very emphatic upon the point. He had put through inquiries as to Richter's financial position, and discovered that it was a pretty rotten one, and demanded that either the ring had to be paid for or returned.

"When you took the ring from your finger and left the room, Mr Richter had his opportunity. He pocketed the ring and, in order to take suspicion from himself, he was low-down enough to charge a perfectly innocent parlour-maid with having stolen it."

"But how did you know this?"

"I saw Richter and Abramovitch lunching together," explained Dob, "and after the ring had disappeared I put two and two together, and made a very startling four. This afternoon I interviewed the jeweller, and he told me the story."

She took the ring from her finger, upon which she had slipped it, and handed it to him.

"I am very glad I know," she said. "Why―" she hesitated, "why did you ask me whether I loved Jacques Richter?"

Dob cleared his throat.

"Because," he spoke a little huskily, "if you had loved him, I would not have exposed him, but would have given you back the ring without a word."

She dropped her eyes.

"Why?" she asked in a low voice.

"Because I love you too well to hurt you," answered Dob quietly.

She walked to the fireplace and stood looking into the flames. Presently, without turning her head, she said—

"What are you going to do with that ring?"

"I am returning it to Mr Abramovitch. He undertook to return any cheque, or to give me a portion of the money and get me a perfectly good engagement ring."

Again she was silent.

"What do you want an engagement ring for?" she inquired.

He stepped behind her, and put his arms round her waist, and her head dropped on his shoulder.

"That is the first silly question you have ever asked me," he replied softly.

The End

Table of Contents

- Introduction
- 1: The Crime Trust
- 2:  The Affair Of The Stokehole
- 3: The Cure
- 4: His Start in Life
- 5: The Six Blue Rings
- 6: As Cheap as Water
- 7: The Agent of Kings
- 8: Mr. Montague Flake Hands Over £8,000
- 9: The Outwitting of Mr. Theodore Match
- 10: The Foiling of Mr. Harry B. Kingberry
- 11: A Remarkable Deal in Pearls
- 12: The Man Who Betrayed Himself
- 13: The Secret of the Hidden Vault
- 14: How Mr. Milson Wren Was Outwitted
- 15: The King's Messenger
- 16: The Hold-Up
- 17: The Post-Office Clerk
- 18: The Edgware Road Crime
- 19: The Professional Friend
- 20: The Rajah's Emerald
- 21: The Shy Mr Barks
- 22: A Deal in Ecfonteins
- 23: The Haunted House
- 24: The Pear-Shaped Diamond