Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: A collection of short stories in the Life +70 Public Domain, for which I could not find any digital Collection. Diana Marbug: The Oracle of Maddox Street L T Meade and Robert Eustace 1: The Dead Hand 2: Finger Tips 3: Sir Penn Carlyll's Engagement Other Waifs and Strays 4: Making £10,000 / Talbot Mundy 5: Acme / John Galsworthy 6: Volcano-Mad / Earl Derr Biggers 7: A Royal Dilemma / E. Phillips Oppenheim C J Cutcliffe Hyne 8: The Traitor 9: Gregory Of Byzantium 10: A Marriage Of Convenience 11: A Lottery Duel 12: Confounded 13: The Perfumer 14: The Ship-Breaker's Yard 15: The Trinidad Treasure

PAST MASTERS THREE

2020

Contents

Diana Marbug: The Oracle of Maddox Street

L T Meade and Robert Eustace

1: The Dead Hand

2: Finger Tips

3: Sir Penn Carlyll's Engagement

Other Waifs and Strays

4: Making £10,000 / Talbot Mundy

5: Acme / John Galsworthy

6: Volcano-Mad / Earl Derr Biggers

7: A Royal Dilemma / E. Phillips Oppenheim

C J Cutcliffe Hyne

8: The Traitor

9: Gregory Of Byzantium

10: A Marriage Of Convenience

11: A Lottery Duel

12: Confounded

13: The Perfumer

14: The Ship-Breaker's Yard

15: The Trinidad Treasure

16: A QC's Confession

17: The Settler-ess

18: Paradise Coal Boat

19: Mrs. Seal McIntosh

20: The Men in Stone

_______________

Diana Marburg―

The Oracle Of

Maddox Street

L T Meade and Robert Eustace

L T Meade and Robert Eustace wrote just three stories about this occult investigator. The three stories were later collected in a volume called "The Oracle of Maddox Street", along with a number of other short stories. The book is very rare. The three Diana Marbug stories follow.

1: The Dead Hand
Pearson's Magazine, February 1902

MY name is Diana Marburg. I am a palmist by profession. Occult phenomena, spiritualism, clairvoyance, and many other strange mysteries of the unseen world, have, from my earliest years, excited my keen interest.

Being blessed with abundant means, I attended in my youth many foreign schools of thought. I was a pupil of Lewis, Darling, Braid and others. I studied Reichenbach and Mesmer, and, finally, started my career as a thought reader and palmist in Maddox Street.

Now I live with a brother, five years my senior. My brother Rupert is an athletic Englishman, and also a barrister, with a rapidly growing practice. He loves and pities me— he casts over me the respectability of his presence, and wonders at what he calls my lapses from sanity. He is patient, however, and when he saw that in spite of all expostulation I meant to go my own way, he ceased to try to persuade me against my inclinations.

Gradually the success of my reading of the lines of the human hand brought me fame— my prophecies turned out correct, my intuition led me to right conclusions, and I was sought after very largely by that fashionable world which always follows anything new. I became a favourite in society, and was accounted both curious and bizarre.

On a certain evening in late July, I attended Lady Fortescue's reception in Curzon Street. I was ushered into a small ante-room which was furnished with the view of adding to the weird effect of my own appearance and words. I wore an Oriental costume, rich in colour and bespangled with sparkling gems. On my head I had twisted a Spanish scarf, my arms were bare to the elbows, and my dress open at the throat. Being tall, dark, and, I believe, graceful, my quaint dress suited me well.

Lady Fortescue saw me for a moment on my arrival, and inquired if I had everything I was likely to want. As she stood by the door she turned.

"I expect, Miss Marburg, that you will have a few strange clients to-night. My guests come from a varied and ever widening circle, and to-night all sorts and conditions of men will be present at my reception."

She left me, and soon afterwards those who wished to inquire of Fate appeared before me one by one.

Towards the close of the evening a tall, dark man was ushered into my presence. The room was shadowy, and I do not think he could see me at once, although I observed him quite distinctly. To the ordinary observer he doubtless appeared as a well set up man of the world, but to me he wore quite a different appearance. I read fear in his eyes, and irresolution, and at the same time cruelty round his lips. He glanced at me as if he meant to defy any message I might have for him, and yet at the same time was obliged to yield to an overpowering curiosity. I asked him his name, which he gave me at once.

"Philip Harman," he said; "have you ever heard of me before?"

"Never," I answered.

"I have come here because you are the fashion, Miss Marburg, and because many of Lady Fortescue's guests are flocking to this room to learn something of their future. Of course you cannot expect me to believe in your strange art, nevertheless, I shall be glad if you will look at my hand and tell me what you see there."

As he spoke he held out his hand. I noticed that it trembled. Before touching it I looked full at him.

"If you have no faith in me, why do you trouble to come here?" I asked.

"Curiosity brings me to you," he answered. "Will you grant my request or not?"

"I will look at your hand first if I may." I took it in mine. It was a long, thin hand, with a certain hardness about it. I turned the palm upward and examined it through a powerful lens. As I did so I felt my heart beat wildly and something of the fear in Philip Harman's eyes was communicated to me. I dropped the hand, shuddering inwardly as I did so.

"Well," he asked in astonishment, "what is the matter, what is my fate? Tell me at once. Why do you hesitate?"

"I would rather not tell you, Mr. Harman. You don't believe in me, go away and forget all about me."

"I cannot do that now. Your look says that you have seen something which you are afraid to speak about. Is that so?"

I nodded my head. I placed my hand on the little round table, which contained a shaded lamp, to steady myself.

"Come," he said rudely, "out with this horror— I am quite prepared."

"I have no good news for you," I answered. "I saw something very terrible in your hand."

"Speak."

"You are a ruined man," I said, taking his hand again in mine, and examining it carefully. "Yes, the marks are unmistakable. You will perpetrate a crime which will be discovered. You are about to commit a murder, and will suffer a shameful death on the scaffold."

He snatched his hand away with a violent movement and started back. His whole face was quivering with passion.

"How dare you say such infamous things!" he cried. "You go very far in your efforts to amuse, Miss Marburg."

"You asked me to tell you," was my reply.

He gave a harsh laugh, bowed low and went out of the room. I noticed his face as he did so; it was white as death.

I rang my little hand-bell to summon the next guest, and a tall and very beautiful woman between forty and fifty years of age entered. Her dress was ablaze with diamonds, and she wore a diamond star of peculiar brilliancy just above her forehead. Her hair white as snow, and the glistening diamond star in the midst of the white hair, gave to her whole appearance a curious effect.

"My name is Mrs. Kenyon," she said; "you have just interviewed my nephew. Philip Harman. But what is the matter, my dear," she said suddenly, "you look ill."

"I have had a shock," was my vague reply, then I pulled myself together.

"What can I do for you?" I asked.

"I want you to tell me my future."

"Will you show me your hand?"

Mrs. Kenyon held it out, I took it in mine. The moment I glanced at it a feeling of relief passed over me. It was full of good qualities— the Mount of Jupiter well developed, the heart-line clear and unchained, a deep, long life-line, and a fate-line ascending clear upon the Mount of Saturn. I began to speak easily and rapidly, and with that fluency which often made me feel that my words were prompted by an unseen presence.

"What you tell me sounds very pleasant," said Mrs. Kenyon, "and I only hope my character is as good as you paint it. I fear it is not so, however; your words are too flattering, and you think too well of me. But you have not yet touched upon the most important point of all— the future. What is in store for me?"

I looked again very earnestly at the hand. My heart sank a trifle as I did so.

"I am sorry," I said, "I have to tell you bad news— I did not notice this at first but I see it plainly now. You are about to undergo a severe shock, a very great grief."

"Strange," answered Mrs. Kenyon. She paused for a moment, then she said suddenly: "You gave my nephew a bad report, did you not?"

I was silent. It was one of my invariable rules never to speak of one client to another.

"You need not speak," she continued, "I saw it in his face."

"I hope he will take the warning," I could not help murmuring faintly. Mrs. Kenyon overheard the words.

"And now you tell me that I am to undergo severe trouble. Will it come soon?"

"Yes," was my answer. "You will need all your strength to withstand it," and then, as if prompted by some strange impulse, I added, "I cannot tell you what that trouble may be, but I like you. If in the time of your trouble I can help you I will gladly do so."

"Thank you," answered Mrs. Kenyon, "you are kind. I do not profess to believe in you; that you should be able to foretell the future is, of course, impossible, but I also like you. I hope some day we may meet again." She held out her hand; I clasped it. A moment later she had passed outside the thick curtain which shut away the ante-room from the gay throng in the drawing-rooms.

I went home late that night. Rupert was in and waiting for me.

"Why, what is the matter, Diana?" he said the moment I appeared. "You look shockingly ill; this terrible life will kill you."

"I have seen strange things to-night," was my answer. I flung myself on the sofa, and for just a moment covered my tired eyes with my hand.

"Have some supper," said Rupert gently. He led me to the table, and helped me to wine and food.

"I have had a tiring and exciting evening at Lady Fortescue's," I said. "I shall be better when I have eaten. But where have you been this evening?"

"At the Apollo— there was plenty of gossip circulating there— two society scandals, and Philip Harman's crash. That is a big affair and likely to keep things pretty lively. But, my dear Di, what is the matter?"

I had half risen from my seat; I was gazing at my brother with fear in my eyes, my heart once again beat wildly.

"Did you say Philip Harman?" I asked.

"Yes, why? Do you know him?"

"Tell me about him at once, Rupert, I must know. What do you mean by his crash?"

"Oh, he is one of the plungers, you know. He has run through the Harman property and cannot touch the Kenyon."

"The Kenyon!" I exclaimed.

"Yes. His uncle, Walter Kenyon, was a very rich man, and has left all his estates to his young grandson, a lad of about thirteen. That boy stands between Harman and a quarter of a million. But why do you want to know?"

"Only that I saw Philip Harman to-night," was my answer.

"You did? That is curious. He asked you to prophesy with regard to his fate?"

"He did. Rupert."

"And you told him?"

"What I cannot tell you. You know I never divulge what I see in my clients' hands."

"Of course you cannot tell me, but it is easy to guess that you gave him bad news. They say he wants to marry the heiress and beauty of the season, Lady Maud Greville. If he succeeds in this he will be on his feet once more, but I doubt if she will have anything to say to him. He is an attractive man in some ways and good-looking, but the Countess of Cheddsleigh keeps a sharp look out on the future of her only daughter."

"Philip Harman must on no account marry an innocent girl," was my next impulsive remark. "Rupert, your news troubles me very much, it confirms— " I could not finish the sentence. I was overcome by what Rupert chose to consider intense nervousness.

"You must have your quinine and go to bed," he said; "come, I insist, I won't listen to another word."

A moment later I had left him, but try hard as I would I could not sleep that night. I felt that I myself was on the brink of a great catastrophe, that I personally, was mixed up in this affair. In all my experience I had never seen a hand like Philip Harman's before. There was no redeeming trait in it. The lines which denoted crime and disaster were too indelibly marked to be soon forgotten. When at last I did drop asleep that hand accompanied me into the world of dreams.

The London season came to an end. I heard nothing more about Philip Harman and his affairs, and in the excitement and interest of leaving town, was beginning more or less to forget him, when on the 25th of July, nearly a month after Lady Fortescue's party, a servant entered my consulting-room with a card. The man told me that a lady was waiting to see me, she begged for an interview at once on most urgent business. I glanced at the card. It bore the name of Mrs. Kenyon.

The moment I saw it that nervousness which had troubled me on the night when I saw Philip Harman and read his future in the ghastly lines of his hand returned. I could not speak at all for a moment; then I said, turning to the man who stood motionless waiting for my answer:

"Show the lady up immediately."

Mrs. Kenyon entered. She came hurriedly forward. When last I saw her she was a beautiful woman with great dignity of bearing and a kindly, sunshiny face. Now as she came into the room she was so changed that I should scarcely have known her. Her dress bore marks of disorder and hasty arrangement, her eyes were red with weeping.

"Pardon my coming so early, Miss Marburg," she said at once; then, without waiting for me to speak, she dropped into a chair.

"I am overcome," she gasped, "but you promised, if necessary, to help me. Do you remember my showing you my hand at Lady Fortescue's party?"

"I remember you perfectly, Mrs. Kenyon. What can I do for you?"

"You told me then that something terrible was about to happen. I did not believe it. I visited you out of curiosity and had no faith in you, but your predictions have come true— horribly true. I have come to you now for the help which you promised to give me if I needed it, for I believe it lies in your power to tell me something I wish to discover."

"I remember everything," I replied gravely; "what is it you wish me to do?"

"I want you to read a hand for me and to tell me what you see in it."

"Certainly, but will you make an appointment?"

"Can you come with me immediately to Godalming? My nephew Philip Harman has a place there."

"Philip Harman!" I muttered.

"Yes," she answered, scarcely noticing my words, "my only son and I have been staying with him. I want to take you there; can you come immediately?"

"You have not mentioned the name of the person whose hand you want me to read?"

"I would rather not do so— not yet, I mean."

"But can you not bring him or her here? I am very busy just now."

"That is impossible," replied Mrs. Kenyon. "I am afraid I must ask you to postpone all your other engagements, this thing is most imperative. I cannot bring the person whose hand I want you to read here, nor can there be any delay. You must see him if possible to-day. I implore you to come. I will give you any fee you like to demand."

"It is not a question of money," I replied, "I am interested in you. I will do what you require." I rose as I spoke. "By the way," I added, "I presume that the person whose hand you wish me to see has no objection to my doing so, otherwise my journey may be thrown away."

"There is no question about that," replied Mrs. Kenyon, "I thank you more than I can say for agreeing to come."

A few moments later we were on our way to the railway station. We caught our train, and between twelve and one o'clock arrived at Godalming. A carriage was waiting for us at the station, we drove for nearly two miles and presently found ourselves in a place with large shady grounds. We drew up beside a heavy portico, a man servant came gravely forward to help us to alight and we entered a large hall.

I noticed a curious hush about the place, and I observed that the man who admitted us did not speak, but glanced inquiringly at Mrs. Kenyon, as if for directions.

"Show Miss Marburg into the library," was her order. "I will be back again in a moment or two," she added, glancing at me.

I was ushered into a well-furnished library; there was a writing-table at one end of it on which papers of different sorts were scattered. I went forward mechanically and took up an envelope. It was addressed to Philip Harman, Esq., The Priory, Godalming. I dropped it as though I could not bear to touch it. Once again that queer nervousness seized me, and I was obliged to sit down weak and trembling. The next moment the room door was opened.

"Will you please come now, Miss Marburg?" said Mrs. Kenyon. "I will not keep you long."

We went upstairs together, and paused before a door on the first landing.

"We must enter softly," said the lady turning to me. There was something in her words and the look on her face which seemed to prepare me, but for what I could not tell. We found ourselves in a large room luxuriously furnished— the window blinds were all down, but the windows themselves were open and the blinds were gently moving to and fro in the soft summer air. In the centre of the room and drawn quite away from the wall was a small iron bedstead. I glanced towards it and a sudden irrepressible cry burst from my lips. On the bed lay a figure covered with a sheet beneath which its outline was indistinctly defined.

"What do you mean by bringing me here?" I said, turning to the elder woman and grasping her by the arm.

"You must not be frightened," she said gently, "come up to the bed. Hush, try to restrain yourself. Think of my most terrible grief; this is the hand I want you to read." As she spoke she drew aside the sheet and I found myself gazing down at the beautiful dead face of a child, a boy of about thirteen years of age.

"Dead! my only son!" said Mrs. Kenyon, "he was drowned this morning. Here is his hand; yesterday it was warm and full of life, now it is cold as marble. Will you take it, will you look at the lines? I want you to tell me if he met his death by accident or by design?"

"You say that you are living in Philip Harman's house?" I said.

"He asked us here on a visit."

"And this boy, this dead boy stood between him and the Kenyon property?" was my next inquiry.

"How can you tell? How do you know?"

"But answer me, is it true?"

"It is true."

I now went on my knees and took one of the child's small white hands in mine. I began to examine it.

"It is very strange," I said slowly, "this child has died a violent death, and it was caused by design."

"It was?" cried the mother. "Can you swear it?" She clutched me by the arm.

"I see it, but I cannot quite understand it," I answered, "there is a strong indication here that the child was murdered, and yet had I seen this hand in life I should have warned the boy against lightning, but a death by lightning would be accidental. Tell me how did the boy die?"

"By drowning. Early this morning he was bathing in the pool which adjoins a wide stream in the grounds. He did not return. We hastened to seek for him and found his body floating on the surface of the water. He was quite dead."

"Was the pool deep?"

"In one part it was ten feet deep, the rest of the pool was shallow. The doctor has been, and said that the child must have had a severe attack of cramp, but even then the pool is small, and he was a good swimmer for his age."

"Was no one with him?"

"No. His cousin, Philip Harman, often accompanied him, but he bathed alone this morning."

"Where was Mr. Harman this morning?"

"He went to town by an early train, and does not know yet. You say you think it was murder. How do you account for it?"

"The boy may have been drowned by accident, but I see something more in his hand than mere drowning, something that baffles me, yet it is plain— Lightning. Is there no mark on the body?"

"Yes, there is a small blue mark just below the inner ankle of the right foot, but I think that was a bruise he must have got yesterday. The doctor said it must have been done previously and not in the pool as it would not have turned blue so quickly."

"May I see it?"

Mrs. Kenyon raised the end of the sheet and showed the mark. I looked at it long and earnestly.

"You are sure there was no thunder-storm this morning?" I asked.

"No, it was quite fine."

I rose slowly to my feet.

"I have looked at the boy's hand as you asked me," I said, "I must repeat my words— there are indications that he came by his death not by accident but design."

Mrs. Kenyon's face underwent a queer change as I spoke. She came suddenly forward, seized me by the arms and cried:

"I believe you, I believe you. I believe that my boy has been murdered in some fiendish and inexplicable way. The police have been here already, and of course there will be an inquest, but no one is suspected. Who are we to suspect?"

"Philip Harman," I could not help answering.

"Why? Why do you say that?"

"I am not at liberty to tell you. I make the suggestion."

"But it cannot be the case. The boy went to bathe alone in perfect health. Philip went to town by an earlier train than usual. I saw him off myself, I walked with him as far as the end of the avenue. It was soon afterwards that I missed my little Paul, and began to wonder why he had not returned to the house. I went with a servant to the pool and I saw, oh, I saw that which will haunt me to my dying day. He was my only son, Miss Marburg, my one great treasure. What you have suggested, what I myself, alas, believe, drives me nearly mad. But you must tell me why you suspect Philip Harman."

"Under the circumstances it may not be wrong to tell you," I said slowly. "The night I read your hand I also as you know read his. I saw in his hand that he was about to be a murderer. I told him so in as many words."

"You saw that? You told him! Oh, this is too awful! Philip has wanted money of late and has been in the strangest state. He has always been somewhat wild and given to speculation, and lately I know lost heavily with different ventures. He proposed to a young girl, a great friend of mine last week, but she would have nothing to do with him. Yes, it all seems possible. My little Paul stood between him and a great property. But how did he do it? There is not a particle of evidence against him. Your word goes for nothing, law and justice would only scout you. But we must act, Miss Marburg, and you must help me to prove the murder of my boy, to discover the murderer. I shall never rest until I have avenged him."

"Yes, I will help you," I answered.

As I descended the stairs accompanied by Mrs. Kenyon a strange thought struck me.

"I have promised to help you, and we must act at once," I said. "Will you leave this matter for the present in my hands, and will you let me send a telegram immediately to my brother? I shall need his assistance. He is a barrister and has chambers in town, but he will come to me at once. He is very clever and practical."

"Is he entirely in your confidence?"

"Absolutely. But pray tell me when do you expect Mr. Harman back?"

"He does not know anything at present, as ha was going into the country for the day; he will be back as usual to-night."

"That is so much the better. May I send for my brother?"

"Do anything you please. You will find some telegraph forms in the hall and the groom can take your message at once."

I crossed the hall, found the telegraph forms on a table, sat down and filled one in as follows:

"Come at once— I need your help most urgently. Diana."

I handed the telegram to a servant, who took it away at once.

"And now," I said turning to Mrs. Kenyon, "will you show me the pool? I shall go there and stay till my brother arrives."

"You will stay there, why?"

"I have my own reasons for wishing to do so. I cannot say more now. Please show me the way."

We went across the garden and into a meadow beyond. At the bottom of this meadow ran a swift-flowing stream. In the middle of the stream was the pool evidently made artificially. Beside it on the bank stood a small tent for dressing. The pool itself was a deep basin in the rock about seven yards across, surrounded by drooping willows which hung over it. At the upper end the stream fell into it in a miniature cascade— at the lower end a wire fence crossed it. This was doubtless done in order to prevent the cattle stirring the water.

I walked slowly round the pool, looking down into its silent depths without speaking. When I came back to where Mrs. Kenyon was standing I said slowly: "I shall remain here until my brother comes. Will you send me down a few sandwiches, and bring him or send him to me directly he arrives?"

"But he cannot be with you for some hours," said Mrs. Kenyon. "I fail to understand your reason."

"I scarcely know that yet myself," was my reply, "but I am certain I am acting wisely. Will you leave me here? I wish to be alone in order to think out a problem."

Mrs. Kenyon slowly turned and went back to the house.

"I must unravel this mystery." I said to myself, "I must sift from the apparent facts of the case the awful truth which lies beneath. That sixth sense which has helped me up to the present shall help me to the end. Beyond doubt foul play has taken place. The boy met his death in this pool, but how? Beyond doubt this is the only spot where a solution can be found. I will stay here and think the matter through. If anything dangerous or fatal was put into the pool the murderer shall not remove his awful weapon without my knowledge."

So I thought and the moments flew. My head ached with the intensity of my thought, and as the afternoon advanced I was no nearer a solution than ever. It was between four and five o'clock when to my infinite relief I saw Rupert hurrying across the meadow.

"What is the meaning of this, Diana?" he said. "Have you lost your senses? When I got your extraordinary wire I thought you must be ill."

I stood up, clasped his hands and looked into his face.

"Listen," I said. "A child has been murdered, and I want to discover the murderer. You must help me."

"Are you mad?" was his remark.

"No, I am sane," I answered; "little Paul Kenyon has been murdered. Do you remember telling me that he stood between Philip Harman and the Kenyon property? He was drowned this morning in this pool, the supposition being that the death occurred through accident. Now listen, Rupert, we have got to discover how the boy really met his death. The child was in perfect health when he entered the pool, his dead body was found floating on the water half-an-hour afterwards. The doctor said he died from drowning due to cramp. What caused such sudden and awful cramp as would drown a boy of his age within a few paces of the bank?"

"But what do you expect to find here?" said Rupert. He looked inclined to laugh at me when first he arrived, but his face was grave now, and even pale.

"Come here," I said suddenly, "I have already noticed one strange thing; it is this. Look!"

As I spoke I took his hand and approached the wire fence which protected the water from the cattle. Leaning over I said:

"Look down. Whoever designed this pool, for it was, of course, made artificially, took more precaution than is usual to prevent the water being contaminated. Do you see that fine wire netting which goes down to the bottom of the pool? That wire has been put there for some other reason than to keep cattle out. Rupert, do you think by any possibility it has been placed there to keep something in the pool?"

Rupert bent down and examined the wire carefully.

"It is curious," he said. "I see what you mean." A frown had settled on his face. Suddenly he turned to me.

"Your suggestion is too horrible. Diana. What can be in the pool? Do you mean something alive, something— " he stopped speaking, his eyes were fixed on my face with a dawning horror. "Were there any marks on the boy?" was his next question.

"One small blue mark on the ankle. Ah! look, what is that?"

At the further end and in the deep part of the pool I suddenly saw the surface move and a slight eddying swirl appear on the water. It increased into ever widening circles and vanished.

Rupert's bronzed face was now almost as white as mine. "We must drag the pool immediately," he said. "Harman cannot prevent us; we have seen enough to warrant what we do; I cannot let this pass. Stay here, Diana, and watch. I will bring Mrs. Kenyon with me and get her consent."

Rupert hurriedly left me and went back to the house across the meadow. It was fully an hour before he returned. The water was once more perfectly still. There was not the faintest movement of any living thing beneath its surface. At the end of the hour I saw Mrs. Kenyon, my brother, a gardener, and another man coming across the meadow. One of the men was dragging a large net, one side of which was loaded with leaden sinkers— the other held an old-fashioned single-barrelled gun.

Rupert was now all activity. Mrs. Kenyon came and stood by my side without speaking. Rupert gave quick orders to the men. Under his directions one of them waded through the shallows just below the pool, and reaching the opposite bank, threw the net across, then the bottom of the net with the sinkers was let down into the pool.

When this was done Rupert possessed himself of the gun and stood at the upper end of the pool beside the little waterfall. He then gave the word to the men to begin to drag. Slowly and gradually they advanced, drawing the net forward, while all our eyes were fixed upon the water. Not a word was spoken; the men had not taken many steps when again was seen the swirl in the water, and a few little eddies were sucked down. A sharp cry broke from Mrs. Kenyon's lips. Rupert kept the gun in readiness.

"What is it?" cried Mrs. Kenyon, but the words had scarcely died on her lips before a dark body lashed the surface of the water and disappeared. What it was we none of us had the slightest idea; we all watched spell-bound.

Still the net moved slowly on, and now the agitation of the water became great. The creature, whatever it was, lashed and lunged to and fro, now breaking back against the net, and now attempting to spring up the smooth rock and so escape into the stream. As we caught a glimpse and yet another glimpse of the long coiling body I wondered if there was a snake in the pool.

"Come on, quicker now," shouted Rupert to the men, and they pressed forward, holding the creature in the net, and, drawing it every moment nearer the rock. The next instant Rupert raised the gun, and leaning over the water, fired down. There was a burst of spray, and as the smoke cleared we saw that the water was stained with red blood.

Seizing the lower end of the net and exercising all their strength the men now drew the net up. In its meshes, struggling in death agony, was an enormous eel. The next moment it was on the grass coiling to and fro. The men quickly dispatched it with a stick, and then we all bent over it.

It was an extraordinary-looking creature, six feet in length, yet it had none of the ordinary appearance of the eel. I had never seen anything like it before. Rupert went down on his knees to examine it carefully. He suddenly looked up. A terrible truth had struck him— his face was white.

"What is it?" gasped poor Mrs. Kenyon.

"You were right. Diana," said Rupert. "Look. Mrs. Kenyon. My sister was absolutely right. Call her power what you will, she was guided by something too wonderful for explanation. This is an electric eel, no native of these waters— it was put here by someone. This is murder. One stroke from the tail of such an eel would give a child such a dreadful shock that he would be paralysed, and would drown to a certainty."

"Then that explains the mark by lightning on the dead child's hand." I said.

"Yes," answered my brother. "The police must take the matter up."

Before that evening Mr. Harman was arrested. The sensational case which followed was in all the papers. Against my will, I was forced to attend the trial in order to give the necessary evidence. It was all too damning and conclusive. The crime was brought home to the murderer, who suffered the full penalty of the law.

__________________

2: Finger Tips
Pearson's Magazine, August 1902

I WAS sitting in my drawing-room late one afternoon in the end of a sunny and hot July, when Miss Kate Trevor was announced.

My brother Rupert and I had just been carrying on a discussion as to where we were to spend the holidays. We had come to no decision, and Kate's appearance on the scene was very welcome.

"How nice to catch you at home, Di!" she exclaimed. "How do you do, Mr. Marburg?" she continued, turning to my brother and shaking him heartily by the hand. "I was afraid you had flown like the rest of the world."

"We have neither of us yet made up our minds where to go," he answered. "The Continent does not appeal to us, and we have neither time nor money to visit places further afield."

"Where are you going, Kate?" I asked. "You look as if you needed a holiday too— you are quite thin and pale. Is anything the matter?"

She coloured slightly and glanced at Rupert.

"You want me to go away?" he said.

He rose lazily from his chair and left the room.

The moment he had closed the door behind him, Kate turned to me.

"With your usual penetration, Diana," she said, "you see below the surface. There is something the matter, and I think— I do think that if relief does not come soon, I shall lose my senses."

As she spoke, her dark, lovely eyes filled with tears; the colour mounted into her cheeks, leaving them the next instant paler and more wan than ever.

"You look quite ill," I said. "What can be the matter?"

"I can put the case in a nutshell," she replied. "My difficulty and my misery are both common enough. I am on the eve of becoming engaged to one man, while with all my heart I love another."

"You love Captain Cunnyngham," I said. "I know all about that, remember. I have seen him, and I approve. You, as his wife, will be one of the most envied women in the world."

As I spoke, I glanced at her with all the admiration I felt for so beautiful a girl. Kate was a friend of mine, but I knew little or nothing about her people or her belongings; but it was only necessary to look into the depths of her soft black eyes to know that through some ancestor she must hail from the sunny south. No other clime could produce such raven locks and such a clear olive complexion. Her little features were straight and perfect in their own way, her lips coral red, her teeth a row of pearls.

Now the piquant little face was quite wan with suffering, and the coral lips drooped with all the pain of indecision.

"You are engaged to Captain Cunnyngham," I said. "Have you ceased to love him, that you speak of your engagement in such terms?"

"My engagement to Jim is broken off," she replied. "Not that I love him less; on the contrary, I care more for him than I ever did before; but circumstances are against us both, and even Jim himself has said that we must not think of marriage for the present."

"Then what about your all but engagement to another man?" I asked.

"I am coming to that," she answered. "It is a long story, Diana, and I can only give you its mere outline. I met six months ago a man well known in London society, of the name of Sir Edward Granville. He fell in love with me and asked me to marry him. I refused, but he would not take my refusal. He asked me again, and I told him that I was engaged to Jim.

"Three months afterwards poor Jim lost a lot of money on the Turf, and on making inquiries I found that he had done this in Sir Edward Granville's company. He was nearly distracted, and came to me himself and suggested that as far as any tie between us existed, we were to be absolutely free. The poor fellow was quite broken-hearted when he made this proposal. I agreed to it, for there seemed no help for it; but since then I have been sorry that I yielded.

"Immediately after my engagement with Jim was broken off, Sir Edward brought fresh pressure to bear. My mother exercised all her influence to induce me to accept so wealthy a man, and to give her the gratification of knowing that I had made a brilliant match. My father, who has lately been terribly short of money, added his entreaties to my mother's. Still I was firm, although my life for the last six months has been little short of misery.

"A week ago Sir Edward Granville called and asked to see me. I was forced to see him, although I longed to refuse. But to my great relief I found his attitude towards me considerably altered. He said quite frankly that he had been thinking over matters. That he loved me as much as ever, but on his honour as a gentleman he would no longer persecute me. He asked me to trust him.

"I was surprised and grateful, and I said that I would. He then begged for a proof of my trust. He said that he had taken a house on the river at Goring for the season, that he was making up a house party, and that Captain Cunnyngham was to be one of the guests. His special request was that my mother and I should spend a week at Goring.

"I promised. I cannot say whether I was doing right or wrong, but I promised. Mother and I go to Goring on the 1st— that is next Thursday. And, Diana, now for your part in this comedy or tragedy, for Heaven only knows which it will turn out. Sir Edward has sent you a special invitation. It seems that he has met you in the house of a mutual friend. Here is his invitation. You must accept it for my sake."

She tossed a letter into my lap. I opened and read it. It ran as follows:

DEAR MISS MARBURG, Unless you have already made definite plans for your holiday, will you do me the honour of joining my house party at Goring on the 1st? Your friend, Miss Trevor, will be there. She is bringing you this note, and I hope will persuade you to come.— Yours truly, EDWARD GRANVILLE.

"It is very kind of Sir Edward," I said, "but I scarcely know him. What can be want me for?"

"Never mind what he wants you for, Di. Just remember that I want you— that you may be of the most enormous use to me. Come you must. You dare not leave me alone in my present predicament."

"I don't like it," I said, rising and beginning to pace up and down the room. "I wonder you arranged to go. You don't consider poor Captain Cunnyngham, when you allow yourself to be made love to by another man in his presence."

"Sir Edward has promised not to make love. Don't be nasty and spiteful, Di. Say at once that you will come."

As she spoke, the beautiful girl put her arms round my neck, and looked into my face with such pleading in her eyes that it was impossible to resist her.

"Of course I'll come," I answered. "I like you far too well to leave you in the lurch."

"I knew you would not fail me," she exclaimed. "Now I shall be quite happy, and shall be equal to the occasion, whatever it may be."

A few moments later she left me, having arranged that she and her mother would call for me on Thursday morning and drive me to Paddington.

When we were alone, I told Rupert where I intended to spend the first few days of my holidays.

"Do as you like of course, Di," was his answer; "but I wish you were not going."

"Why?" I asked.

"I would rather my sister did not stay in Sir Edward Granville's house."

"What do you mean?" I exclaimed.

"Only this," he said. "Granville is not the sort of man I care about, though I have heard nothing definite against him. Go now, however, as you have promised, and tell me when you come back whether my intuitions are correct or not."

Rupert's words gave me a vague sense of uneasiness; yet I was glad I had promised not to desert Kate in this crisis in her affairs.

On the following Thursday, Mrs. Trevor, Kate and I went down to Goring. Our host met us at the station and gave us all a most cordial welcome. As we drove to the house I watched Sir Edward with considerable curiosity. I had met him before, but until now I had no reason to feel any special interest in him. He was a clean-shaven, spare-looking man, with restless grey eyes and a hard mouth. It needed but a glance to show me that his was the character to carry through his own wishes regardless of pain to others.

Almost by second nature, as these thoughts coursed through my brain, I glanced at his hands, which were ungloved. I noticed the long and broad thumb of an iron will— the spatulate fingers of precision and determination. The man who has these characteristics sticks at nothing to obtain his ends. I have seen them in the hands of great generals and also in the hands of great criminals. I looked from the baronet to Kate, who was talking in her liveliest style and looking more sprightly and bewitching than I had ever seen her.

As it was late in the day when we arrived, we were shown at once to our respective rooms in order to dress for dinner. I had brought my maid with me, and sat to rest for a few minutes while she unpacked my things. In less than an hour I went down to one of the big drawing-rooms, where from twenty to thirty guests were assembled. Amongst them I saw Kate, who, in a very simple white dress with a bunch of lilies in her belt, looked fragile and lovely.

She had the gracious bearing and regal appearance of a young queen, and as she turned to talk to a man who stood near I did not wonder at Sir Edward's infatuation. For something had brought the final touch of beauty to those delicate features, and there was an expression in her eyes which only love itself could awaken. The softness joined to the fire, the timidity joined to the strength, were enough to captivate any man, and Sir Edward, not far off, saw this look directed to another man. I watched him although he did not know it, and I saw him clench one of his hands tightly, while his face turned livid.

Jim Cunnyngham was a young guardsman by profession. He was fair and stalwart and squarely built. I knew him well, having met him before on many occasions; but although at first sight he looked as well and handsome as ever, I soon observed a change in him. Some suspicious crow's feet were beginning to show round his merry blue eyes, his face was thin, and when he was not looking at or talking to Kate, he had the expression of one quite bowed down by care.

I sank into a seat, and my host came up and introduced me to one or two people. Presently he brought Captain Cunnyngham to my side.

"Will you take Miss Marburg in to dinner, Cunnyngham?" he said.

The meal was announced, and we went through the library into the spacious dining-room in a distant wing.

We were scarcely seated before Captain Cunnyngham bent towards me.

"I cannot tell you," he said, "how glad I am that you are here. Have you come with any intention of reading our hands?"

"I have come for rest, not on business," was my reply.

"All the same, I shall beg of you to have a look at my hand," he said. "Your curious profession interests me."

"But have you any real belief in my art, or do you treat it as an amusing pastime?" I said.

"I cannot say that I absolutely believe in palmistry," he said, "but I have sufficient faith in it to treat it with respect, and also to have recourse to it. A fortnight back I had my character and future told me by one of your craft in London, and am anxious to have an independent opinion to see if the two correspond."

"To whom did you go?" I asked.

"Madame Sylvia, in Chester-street."

"May I ask whether she gave you a good character or the reverse?"

"I am quite willing to answer you," he replied, with a grim laugh; "her prognostications were the reverse of pleasant. She said, too, that my hands were most extraordinary; she photographed them and had casts taken, and gave me a long written opinion. I went to see her with Sir Edward. He, apparently, has the greatest faith in her."

Sir Edward must have overheard the last words, for he bent towards me from his place at the head of the table.

"I take the deepest interest in palmistry, Miss Marburg," he said, "and if you will honour me by looking at my hand by-and-by I shall be much obliged."

I replied gladly in the affirmative— I was all too anxious to study Sir Edward's palm.

He resumed his conversation with his right hand neighbour, and I turned to Captain Cunnyngham.

"Have any of Madame Sylvia's predictions come to pass?" I asked.

"Yes, I am sorry to say," he replied; "I had a very bad time lately at Goodwood with Sir Edward, and other things have also gone wrong," he added.

"You mean that you have lost money?"

"Yes, far more than I could afford. I owe at the present moment between twenty-five and thirty thousand pounds, and how I am to pay it, Heaven only knows. I backed Sir Edward's horse for the Cup. He told me it was a certainty. I have lost heavily also at écarté. You don't know, perhaps, that our host is himself a confirmed gambler. But he is one of the lucky ones."

Captain Cunnyngham sighed. After a moment he said again:

"Luck follows his footsteps as certainly as it eludes mine. He has great wealth, and is always adding to his possessions. And the climax of his good luck, Miss Marburg, is— "

"What?" I asked.

"The winning of Kate Trevor."

"You are mistaken," I said, "he has not won her."

"Watch her, and tell me that again," was his answer.

Sir Edward had been obliged to take a married lady into dinner, but he had managed that Kate Trevor should sit on his other side. He was looking at her now as he talked, and she was returning his glance. Bright as stars were her eyes, and her merry laughter reached our ears. Sir Edward was telling her about an ornament of great value which he had in his possession, and I heard him say that he would show it to the entire party after dinner.

When we returned to the drawing-room Kate made her way to my side.

"Now tell me exactly what Jim has been talking to you about," she said.

"He said that Sir Edward Granville is invariably lucky," was my answer, "and that amongst all the treasures which fate and fortune have tumbled into his lap, the greatest of all will soon be his."

She did not affect to misunderstand me— tears filled her eyes.

"Does Jim really think that?" she said.

"I am afraid he does," I replied.

She was silent, the pretty white hand which lay on her white dress trembled— with a sudden nervous movement she broke off one of the lilies at her belt, and began to pull it to pieces.

"I heard you and Sir Edward talking about a jewel," I interrupted— "a jewel or an ornament?"

"An ornament," she said— "a curious thing of great value which Sir Edward has inherited from a gipsy ancestor. He told me that since his great-grandfather married a true Romany the luck of his house has been proverbial. She brought the ornament into the family, and as long as the head of the house holds it he obtains all he wishes in love, war, or business."

"But if it goes?" I said.

"Then he dies, goes bankrupt, or morally ruined."

"And does he believe this nonsense?" I queried.

"As much as you believe in the lines on the human hand," she answered. "But, come, here is Sir Ed ward, and he has brought the ornament with him."

Our host now stood in the centre of the great hall and held what looked like a Maltese Cross in his hand. The ornament measured six inches each way, and was a perfect blaze of diamonds and rubies. None of the stones were particularly large, but their number was bewildering.

Sir Edward looked around him, his eyes met mine, and he suddenly to my surprise put the cross into my hand.

"You would like to examine it, Miss Marburg?" he said.

I looked carefully at the glittering and lovely thing.

"What is it worth?" I asked.

"Considerably over thirty thousand pounds," was his reply.

Then he added, dropping his voice, and speaking as if to me alone, although Miss Trevor and Captain Cunningham heard every word he uttered.

"The miracle is that I have kept this cross so long, for it has a very special market value. One big stone is generally safe, for a thief cannot well dispose of it; but if this were stolen it could be easily broken up and the diamonds and rubies, none of them specially large in themselves, could be disposed of separately. Now I will return it to my safe in the library— but pray wait for me, Miss Marburg, for I have a special favour to ask of you."

He was absent for about two minutes— when he returned he came to my side.

"Will you give us a short séance?" he asked. "I beg for this favour at the request of my guests."

I paused for a moment, then I said quietly:

"I will do so on a special condition— will you allow me to read your hand first of all?"

He coloured, and I saw a look of annoyance in his eyes, but his reply came quickly.

"With pleasure. May I conduct you to the library?"

I seated myself in a chair at the head of the room, and one by one those who wished to consult me entered. Sir Edward was the first. His hand bore out all my ideas with regard to his character. There was obstinacy, which could amount to cruelty; there was a passionate and absorbing selfishness; and, what gave grim significance to those two qualities an overmastering sense of superstition. I mumbled a few words in praise of what small virtues he possessed, and as I saw that he was all too anxious to get the ordeal over, quickly dismissed him.

One by one several of the visitors consulted me, and at last it was Captain Cunnyngham's turn. I bent over his hand with great interest. There was no question that the good qualities in it largely predominated, but I was disappointed to perceive how a certain weakness of character in his face was repeated in his hand. I gave him as fair an estimate as I could of his better qualities, and he left me with a smile of satisfaction on his face. Poor fellow! I pitied him from the bottom of my heart. Beyond doubt he was in Sir Edward's power, and Sir Edward could be cruel to gain his ends.

On the following morning but one I had an insight into the true motive of this house party. Kate Trevor, Captain Cunnyngham, and I had not been invited to meet together in Sir Edward's house without a very definite reason.

The morning in question happened to be a glorious one, and I awoke earlier than usual. I determined to get up and have a stroll by the river's bank before breakfast. Accordingly I rang for my maid, Parker. It was a few moments before she appeared. When she entered the room, her usually placid face was blazing with excitement.

"Oh, miss!" she cried, "such a dreadful thing has happened in the night."

"What do you mean?" I answered.

"The house has been broken into, miss, and Sir Edward Granville's diamond and ruby cross has been stolen."

"Impossible!" I exclaimed. "Why, he keeps it in a safe, which is supposed to be burglar-proof."

"Yes, miss, but the safe was opened in the night and the cross taken. None of the other jewels or plate were touched. For that matter, Sir Edward hadn't much down here. The cross is gone, however, and they say it takes the family luck away with it— Sir Edward is almost off his head."

"How was the theft discovered?"

"The butler thought he heard footsteps early this morning, miss, and he went to arouse Sir Edward, but when they got to the library it was too late, for Sir Edward's desk was broken open, and also the tin box where he keeps the keys of the safe. The safe has been burgled and the thief has escaped."

"Is it known how he got in?"

"That's the strange thing, miss, for neither doors nor windows, as far as we can tell, have been touched. The notion is that someone in the house has done it— but who, is the question. Sir Edward has telegraphed for detectives to Scotland Yard. I never saw a gentleman in such a state. Fit to tear his hair, he is; the local police are with him now."

I hastily dressed and went downstairs.

Several of the guests were standing about in different groups in the hall. Our host was nowhere to be seen. The subject of the robbery was the one topic on everyone's lips.

Who could have done it? and how was it done? were the problems which riveted the attention of each of us at this moment. Presently a door to our right opened, and Sir Edward, accompanied by a police inspector, joined us.

"My dear friends," he said, "you must not let my loss make you all miserable. Do go out and enjoy yourselves. Breakfast will be ready presently."

"But what steps do you propose to take, Sir Edward?" said an elderly gentleman now coming forward. His name was General Raglan.

"I have sent for detectives from Scotland Yard," was Sir Edward's answer. "Until they arrive nothing can really be done."

"When do you expect them?"

"Probably between nine and ten o'clock."

"Then," said General Raglan, glancing round at us all, "I think I speak in the names of everyone present. We should like to be in the house when your detectives arrive— in order to give the police all the help in our power towards the elucidation of this mystery."

"I am very much obliged to you, General Raglan," said Sir Edward, a look of relief stealing over his face. "I did not like to ask you, but it will be best for all of us to have the matter properly investigated."

"That is precisely what I have informed Sir Edward," said the police inspector, now speaking for the first time.

Shortly before ten o'clock the London detective arrived, and at General Raglan's suggestion we all assembled in the hall. We stood about there in groups, and I found myself not far from Captain Cunnyngham. His face was pale and he looked strangely nervous. Once he came close to me and glanced at me as if about to say something, but the next instant he turned aside, evidently unable to disclose what troubled him. His depression was remarked by more than one person present, but strange to say Kate Trevor did not seem to notice it.

Kate was in wonderfully good spirits. There were spots of vivid colour on her cheeks caused by the excitement of the hour. She laughed and talked merrily, and was eager in her conjectures with regard to the nature of the burglary. I saw Captain Cunnyngham glance at her once or twice in surprise, and I must own that her manner troubled me not a little. But after watching her closely, I came to the conclusion that a great deal of her riotous spirits was put on, and that in reality she felt as strangely nervous as the rest of us.

In about half-an-hour Sir Edward joined us. He walked quickly through the hall, and stood on a raised platform at one end. His face looked hard and white, and I never liked his expression less.

"I am extremely sorry, ladies and gentlemen," he said, in a loud voice, "that this most unfortunate affair has happened while you are my guests. It is very kind of you to assemble here to listen to what I have got to say. Inspector Fawcett from Scotland Yard has been with me for the last half hour, and, with the aid of the local police, we have gone most carefully into the matter.

"The inspector and the police have arrived at the unanimous conclusion that the robbery has been effected by some person in the house, or at least by some person in collusion with someone outside. This is abundantly proved by the fact that no windows or doors have been tampered with, that there are no footmarks on the soft grass outside, that there is not the slightest sign of disturbance in any of these directions.

"By a lucky chance Inspector Fawcett has discovered a clue, and this clue he wishes to put to the test at once. Now, ladies and gentlemen, I am put into a most unpleasant predicament. Inspector Fawcett cannot put his clue to the test without your collaboration. But if you refuse to help me I have not a word to say."

"We will help you," said General Raglan. "I speak, I am sure, in the names of everyone present?"

"Certainly," echoed each voice in the hall.

Sir Edward bowed.

"Thank you," he said; "the matter is of great importance to me, and I should like the clue so miraculously afforded to be brought to its just conclusion."

"What is the clue?" asked General Raglan.

"I will tell you. Yesterday afternoon a painter came here to varnish a cabinet in which I keep the billiard balls. This cabinet was put into a cupboard in order not to be used until it was dry. To my certain knowledge no one entered the cupboard between the time when the painter returned me the key and the time of the burglary. At three o'clock this morning my butler drew my attention to the cupboard door. I found that the lock had been forced, and the thief, who had previously broken open my desk and also the tin box where I keep the key of the safe, had entered, opened the safe, and removed the diamond pendant. Having committed the theft, he returned the key to the tin box, which he locked, but he was unable to lock the desk or the door of the cupboard, having no keys for the purpose.

"Now, pray listen. By a remarkable chance it has just been discovered that the thief on entering the cupboard, must have bent down to open the safe, and in doing this rested his hand upon one of the knobs of the newly-varnished cabinet, and, the varnish not being dry, an impression of the palm of his hand has been left upon it."

An audible murmur of sensation ran through the group as Sir Edward made this startling disclosure.

"I have had the knob removed," he continued, "it is now in the possession of Inspector Fawcett. The request I have to make is that each person will in turn go into the library and submit his or her hand to Inspector Fawcett for comparison with the impression on the knob. The same ordeal I shall ask my servants to submit to. I have one thing further to say. Among my guests there is a lady who is specially skilled in the marks of the hand. Miss Marburg, by Inspector Fawcett's request, I have to ask you if you will kindly give your services in the impending examination?"

"Certainly, Sir Edward," I replied.

"We will all gladly submit our hands for examination," said a gentleman present.

The London detective now motioned me to follow him, and the three police officers and I entered the library, and closed the door.

Inspector Fawcett showed me the newly-varnished wooden knob, holding it carefully in his hand as I gazed at it.

The next moment I could have screamed aloud, for the impression of the hand which I looked at I instantly recognised. I knew the markings of the human hand too well to have the least doubt. I was gazing at the reverse impression of the left hand of Captain Cunnyngham, which I had studied so carefully two nights before.

"Do you recognise this impression, Miss Marburg?" said Inspector Fawcett, looking me full in the face.

"I do," I replied instantly, "but if you proceed with the examination you will quickly discover it for yourself."

"You will not say any more?"

"No," I answered, "nothing more at present."

He bowed to me, and then proceeded quickly with his examination.

One by one the visitors filed into the library, one by one their hands were compared with the impression of the hand on the knob— they then retired again. At last it was Captain Cunnyngham's turn. His face was very white, but he entered the room with a firm and steady step. His eyes met mine— something in the expression of my face must have put him on his guard. He looked full at the detective.

"Before you put my hand to the test," he said, "I wish to tell you that I know absolutely nothing of this matter."

Detective Fawcett gave him a quick glance, then looked at me, and then went through the usual examination.

"Will you, Miss Marburg," he said, "give your careful attention?"

We both bent over the Captain's hand, looking carefully at the lines. One by one they corresponded with those on the wooden knob.

"There is no question, sir, that the lines on the knob and the lines in your hand correspond exactly," said the detective. "Is not that your opinion, Miss Marburg?"

"I am sorry to say it is," I answered. "It is not within the bounds of possibility that any other hand could have made the impression which we are now looking at. Line for line, mount for mount, everything precisely corresponds."

"It is enough evidence for my purpose," said the detective. "Captain Cunnyngham, it is my painful duty to ask Sir Edward Granville to give you in charge for breaking open this safe and stealing the diamond and ruby pendant."

Captain Cunnyngham reeled against the wall as the man said these words. It was just as if someone had struck him a physical blow. He did not utter a word, nor attempt to defend himself.

The impression on the knob was horrible in its perfect clearness— the palm of the hand was absolutely distinct.

Inspector Fawcett, who seemed intensely interested, now held the knob in the same position in which it was when on the cabinet, in order to see as far as possible how the thief had held it in order to get the necessary impression. As he did so, the light fell full on the cabinet and I started forward. I saw for the first time something else. This was none other than the clear impression of four finger-tips on the varnished surface of the cabinet just beyond the knob. These finger-tips revealed the exact minutiae of the skin ridges.

I felt myself turning pale as I noticed them, for I saw that, by leaving these marks of the finger-tips, poor Captain Cunnyngham had doubly convicted himself of the crime; as surely, in fact, as if he had confessed it fully. I remembered Professor Galton's well-known and exhaustive researches on finger-prints, the fact which he has abundantly proved being that no two persons in the world have the same skin ridges, and also that these ridges never alter in the most remote degree, except in growth, from babyhood to old age. The evidential value of these skin ridges is so great that where they are brought into requisition no escape is possible. Beyond doubt, the finger tips on the varnish would settle the matter at once without further discussion, and I felt forced to draw the detective's attention to them.

He smiled grimly.

"That is true," he said. "These marks will of course clinch the matter. They are most important evidence."

"Well," I said, "for my own satisfaction will you kindly allow me to take an impression of Captain Cunnyngham's finger tips and compare them with those marked on the cabinet?"

"There is no objection," was the answer.

In a few moments I had melted a square bar of sealing-wax and taken an impression of the finger tips of Jim Cunnyngham's left hand, the hand in question.

"Give me one moment while I make a cursory examination," I said, and, taking out my lens, I began to focus first one finger tip and then the other, and finally to examine the impression on the varnish.

The next instant I uttered a cry, and seizing Captain Cunnyngham by the hand, began wringing it in an ecstasy of delight, for I could not find words to express myself coherently at the moment. Both the Captain and Inspector Fawcett must have thought that I had suddenly gone mad.

"Cleared, acquitted, free!" I almost shouted. "The correspondence of the palm is nothing when we have got this. By what means, or by what hand that impression was made, it is absolutely certain that it is not yours— certain beyond all possibility of doubt— and what is far more important, we have a clue to the identity of the real man, to an absolute certainty, for he has left on that cabinet a sign manual that will differentiate him from every other human being at this moment living on our planet."

As I uttered these words I looked up. Sir Edward Granville had entered the room. He had evidently been startled by hearing my loud and excited tones.

Inspector Fawcett was now closely comparing the finger prints.

"What is all this excitement about, Inspector?" asked Sir Edward.

"A very queer business, I am afraid, sir. There has been some deep game played somewhere. The impression on this varnish corresponds exactly with this gentleman's hand as far as the palm goes, but the finger tips don't fit."

"The finger tips!" cried the baronet. "What do you mean, Miss Marburg? What are you all talking about? There are no lines on the finger tips."

"Oh, aren't there, Sir Edward?" I said, trembling with excitement as a fantastic thought flashed through my brain. "Let me show, you." And I held the sealing wax once more in the flame. "Kindly press the top of your middle finger on the wax, Sir Edward, and I will explain it to you."

"Nonsense!" he cried angrily, drawing back. "What does this mean? Are you mad, Miss Marburg?"

"Mad or sane, I should like you to do it. Inspector Fawcett, will you request Sir Edward to give us the impression of one of his finger tips in this wax?"

"You had better do it, Sir Edward. What the young lady says is quite true. It will be on these finger tips that the evidence will turn. They are the important things, and I shall be obliged to get the impression of all the finger tips of the people at present residing in this house."

"Please give us yours first, Sir Edward," I said, once more warming the wax.

"It is necessary that it should be done, Sir Edward," said the Inspector. "The lack of correspondence between the impression of the palm and the finger tips on the varnish proves that either Captain Cunnyngham had someone else's finger tips, or that someone else had Captain Cunnyngham's palm. Now to counterfeit a palm is comparatively easy by reproduction in india-rubber from a cast— to counterfeit the skin ridges is next door to impossible. The deduction therefore is that someone wished to have Captain Cunnyngham accused of the crime and has counterfeited his palm knowing nothing of the infinitely more important evidential value of finger tips."

"By the way," added the man, turning suddenly to Jim Cunnyngham, "have you ever had a cast taken of your hand?"

"About a month ago in London," was the immediate answer.

"Ah! by whom?"

"Madame Sylvia of Bond Street."

The detective turned to Sir Edward.

"You may as well be the first to have your fingers printed, as you are here," he said.

The baronet instantly obeyed, and as he made the impression on the wax, I saw the three police officers exchange significant glances. They knew quite as well as I did, that they were in the presence of the guilty man.

"Now," said the detective, "we will proceed with the others."

He went to the door which led into the hall as he spoke, and asked General Raglan to come forward. A few words were sufficient to put the General in possession of the new and startling facts which were now before us.

One by one the guests, in a state of great excitement, appeared, and each and all submitted to the new test. Kate Trevor was the last to have the impression of her fingers taken. The detective cleared his throat and looked around him. He asked me to come forward and in silence I looked at the different impressions.

The last of all to be examined was that of Sir Edward Granville, the cores of whose finger tips corresponded exactly ridge by ridge even to the most remote and minute particulars with the impression made on the varnish.

I stood back in silence. The detective and I exchanged one glance.

"Will you explain?" he said to me.

I tried to speak, but no words would come.

"Then I will do it," he said. But before he could speak, Sir Edward Granville came forward. He pushed the detective aside and stood facing his guests.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "it is unnecessary for Inspector Fawcett to explain himself. The news you have to learn can be communicated in a few words. You see before you in the person of your host the guilty man. Why I concocted so desperate a scheme, and why at the last moment, by the most unlooked-for fatality, my guilt has been proved beyond a shadow of doubt, is not for me now to explain, nor will I enter into all my motives for this action. You will, doubtless, none of you, wish any longer to be my guests; carriages will therefore be ready to convey you to the railway station in an hour. I have now but one thing to do, and that is to congratulate Miss Marburg on her marvellous detective abilities."

As he spoke he bowed to me, and turning, without another word, left the library.

Then Sir Edward's guests found their tongues. What they said, how much they wondered is not for me to say.

But I have the happiness to relate that this story aroused such an interest in the fortunes of Captain Cunnyngham that several members of that strange house party put their heads together, and between them managed to extricate the young guardsman from his difficulties. Early in the following spring I had the happiness of seeing Kate Trevor united to the man she loved.

_________________________

3: Sir Penn Caryll's Engagement
Pearson's Magazine, December 1902

SIR PENN CARYLL'S engagement was the talk of all his friends. He was a man of about forty, of good family, fairly rich, and boasting of two nice country seats. He also kept a racing stable and added thereby considerably to his income. Sir Penn was so good looking, so cheery and gay of heart, that he was a great favourite, and more than one eager mother thought of him as an excellent husband for her daughter, and more than one pretty girl looked at him with eyes of favour.

Nevertheless Sir Penn had proved himself impervious to the charms of all fair women, until a certain day when a bright-eyed, Tasmanian girl, who went by the name of Esther Haldane, brought him to her feet. The girl in question was only nineteen, was to all appearances poor, and seemed to have no relations in London, except a brother, who was considered by those who knew best to be a somewhat questionable possession. Karl Haldane was a man without apparent profession, and with no certain income, and there was little doubt that he and his sister lived, before the engagement, more or less as adventurers.

After Sir Penn declared his attachment to Miss Haldane, however, he placed his country seat in Sussex at her disposal, putting her under the charge of his aunt, a certain Mrs. Percival, and going there himself at intervals. The wedding was to take place early in July. Sir Penn received the congratulations of his friends, and Miss Haldane was thought one of the luckiest girls of the day.

The time was the fourth of May. I was dining alone and was somewhat surprised when Sir Penn's card was brought to me with a request scribbled in writing that I would see him without a moment's delay. I hurried at once into his presence. His face was as a rule remarkable for its serenity, and I was startled when I observed the change in it.

"I fear you are not well," I said. "I hope there is nothing wrong."

"I am afraid there is," he replied. "May I tell you the object of my visit?"

I asked him to seat himself, and prepared to listen with attention.

"I have decided to ask you to help me," he said abruptly. "An ordinary detective would be worse than useless. I have been brought into contact lately with the most extraordinary and uncanny phenomenon, and unless matters are put right without delay, I shall find myself in a serious financial difficulty. You may be certain I would not say these things to you without grave reason, and I must ask for the utmost secrecy on your part."

"Of course," I replied.

He bent forward and looked at me keenly.

"Have you ever, in all your experience of occult matters, come across a case of thought-reading in which you were satisfied that imposture was absolutely excluded, and that the thoughts of one person were really conveyed to the brain of another? Do such things exist in this world of reality?"

I paused before replying.

"You ask me a strange question, Sir Penn, and if you want my true opinion I do think such things possible."

"You think so? Who, then, can be safe? Now listen to my own personal experience. You know, of course, that I am the owner of a number of racehorses. Horse-racing is an expensive game, and my expenses are principally met by successful speculation on my horses. Now, of course, there are many secrets in a stable, such as which is the best horse for a certain race, or the capacity of any other horse. These things have to be kept from the outside world. The most important of all our secrets are obtained by what we call 'trials.'

"I will briefly explain. We have, say, half-a-dozen horses, and we wish to know which is the best for a certain distance. The horses are led out and mounted, and the trial gallop takes place. Now the horse that wins the race may not by any means be the best of the half-dozen horses that we wish to prove, for if such were the case anyone watching the trial would at once know our secret. So to keep the matter dark the various saddles are weighted with different weights, giving heavier loads for some horses to carry than others. In this manner we can not only calculate which is the best horse, but can keep the information from outsiders. For a slightly weighted bad horse will beat a heavily weighted good one.

"No one but the trainer and myself know what weights are applied to the saddles, and the whole thing is done just at the last moment before the horses start. After the trial only my trainer and myself know which is the best horse. We then discuss what we will do and which horse I shall support in the betting market. Is that clear to you?"

"Perfectly," I replied.

"You doubtless also comprehend that if these matters were known to an outsider, he could profit immensely by backing my best horse, and could prevent me getting my money on at a good price."

"I understand."

"Then pray listen. For some time I have been certain that secrets with regard to the weights in the saddles have eked out, to my own immense loss and to the great gain of someone else. On looking carefully into the matter, I find that the bookmakers in London, through whom the fiend who is trying to ruin me must execute his commissions, have information with regard to the horses almost immediately after the trial takes place at Lewes.

"Now I will tell you of the last case. A trial took place of my horses on the twentieth of April on the Downs at eleven o'clock in the morning. On that occasion even my trainer did not know the weights that they carried. In order to make things quite safe I kept the knowledge altogether to myself. The people who witnessed the race were my aunt, Mrs. Percival, Miss Esther Haldane, the young lady to whom I have the honour of being engaged, I myself and my trainer. My bay horse Victor won the trial, though he was not first by any means in the race. We four talked the matter over on the Downs; we then walked home quietly all together. On reaching home at twelve o'clock I wired to my agent in cipher to invest heavily on Victor, whose price was twenty to one.

"That same afternoon I received the astounding information that he was first favourite at three to one, a large commission already having been executed. Now this commission was executed at Tattersall's, in London, at half-past eleven, actually within half-an-hour after the trial was known, and also half-an-hour before any of us reached home from the Downs. The thing is astounding, for even if anyone did secretly watch the trial it would be impossible, without knowing the weights, to tell which was the best horse. That knowledge was only known to us four, and to no one else in the world. You have, therefore, this fact to face.  A certain piece of information is known to four people on an open Down in Sussex at ten minutes past eleven, and yet that information is acted on in London twenty minutes later. There is no question of my trainer playing me false, as he could not possibly communicate the information in the time I have mentioned, and I have come to the conclusion that some extraordinary thought-transference is the only thing to fall back upon."

I was silent for a moment, then I said suddenly:

"Do you happen to remember, Sir Penn, if the sun was shining on that last occasion?"

"Why?" he asked, in some surprise.

"Because there would be just the possibility of your trainer heliographing the information."

"That is a clever suggestion," he exclaimed, "but it won't do. It happened to be a cloudy day."

"Then for the moment I see no solution," I replied. "May I ask if you know anyone who has ever threatened to read your thoughts?"

"Certainly I do. Karl Haldane, my future wife's brother, who calls himself a clairvoyant. To be plain with you, Miss Marburg, I have no particular fancy for Mr. Karl Haldane; but there is no doubt he is extremely clever, and Esther is devotedly attached to him. He certainly would be the last man who would try to ruin me. We must try to get at the solution in some other way."

"Nevertheless, may I ask you a question or two?" I said. "Was Mr. Haldane at your house when the affair you have just mentioned took place?"

"No, he had been staying with us, but he left early that morning."

"I should like to see him," I said, after a pause.

Sir Penn's eyes brightened.

"You are wrong in suspecting for a moment that Haldane has anything to do with the matter," he said. "Nevertheless if you like to meet him, you can: I am particularly anxious to introduce you to Esther. I have a big party down at Lewes just now. A trial of my horses for the Derby takes place early next week. Will you come to my place and be present at the trial? Can you do so?"

"Of course I will come. I would throw over any engagement for such an important, and I must say, to me, interesting case."

"Will you come to-morrow? I will meet you by the four o'clock train."

I promised to do so, and after thanking me warmly Sir Penn took his leave. Truly a queer case had now been put into my hands. Sir Penn was regarded amongst all his friends as a practical man; nevertheless, in his difficulties he consulted me, the occultist and believer in thought reading. One thing certainly was evident, either what had happened was a genuine case of thought transference, or a very subtle form of fraud. The latter seemed truly to be impossible.

When I reached Lewes the next day Sir Penn was waiting for me. On arriving at Court Prospect, the name of his beautiful house, I found a large party assembled in the hall. Mrs. Percival, Sir Penn's aunt, was present, and was dispensing tea. I had met her before, and she came forward now and greeted me kindly.

"It is very good of you to come. Miss Marburg," she said, "and I have delighted more than one person present by saying I am sure you will give a séance while you are with us. Oh! of course I quite believe in palmistry, and Mr. Haldane, one of the best clairvoyants I have ever known, will arrive this evening. We shall doubtless have a most interesting time. Have you yet met Mr. Haldane?"

"No."

"Then I shall have the pleasure of introducing two kindred spirits. Ah! Esther, my dear, come here."

A slim, remarkably graceful girl rose from her seat at a little distance. She strolled leisurely towards us. I am tall, but Miss Haldane was half a head taller. Mrs. Percival made the necessary introduction. Miss Haldane looked at me slowly. All her movements were slow. She then opened her magnificent eyes a trifle wider than their wont and held out her hand.

"I am glad to see you," she said in a cordial tone.

She did not utter another word, but went back to her seat. I stood silent where she had left me. I no longer wondered at Sir Penn's infatuation. It was not the beauty of the girl that so impressed me; she was beautiful, for all her features were good; but from a strict standpoint there were prettier girls in the room. No, Miss Haldane's beauty lay in the extraordinary and almost wicked magnetism of her eyes. Those eyes knew too much. I did not think they looked good— they saw too deeply beneath the surface. Even I, callous to most things of that sort, felt my heart beat uncomfortably fast after Miss Haldane's extraordinary and penetrating glance.

"You look tired, Miss Marburg," said Mrs. Percival. "Won't you have some tea?"

She handed me a cup which I took mechanically. I was still thinking of Miss Haldane and her eyes. I felt quite sure that no one could see her without thinking of her eyes alone, the rest of her beautifully moulded face, graceful pose and slim young figure being all forgotten in the effect that the eyes produced.

In the drawing-room just before dinner I was introduced to Miss Haldane's brother. To my astonishment he was in every respect her opposite. He was a fair haired, stoutly built, ugly man. He was not only ugly but his expression was absolutely unpleasant. Nevertheless, he too had his charms. When he spoke you forgot the ugly features, the sunken eyes, the leer round the mouth. His voice was good, nay, beautiful. His intellect was undoubtedly powerful, and he had a sympathising manner which appealed more or less to all those to whom he spoke. He happened to be my neighbour at dinner on that first evening, and before the meal came to an end I had arrived at the conclusion that he was a most remarkable and most interesting man.

On the next day several of the guests took their departure, and Esther Haldane and I found ourselves alone. We went for a walk together on the Downs and afterwards sat in the cosy boudoir where she made tea for me.

"You must allow me to congratulate you," I said suddenly. "You are a very lucky girl."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Need you ask? You have won the affections of Sir Penn Caryll. You are about to marry him. I have known him since I was a child. You are in luck, Miss Haldane. You are going to marry a good man."

She fixed her eyes on me, the pupils dilating until they looked black; then very slowly the lovely eyes filled with tears. She dropped on her knees beside me.

"You are a clairvoyante," she said; "so, for that matter, is Karl. I am afraid of Karl, and very little would make me afraid of you. Will you look at my hand?"

She held it out as she spoke. I examined it attentively. I saw, to my regret, many bad points. The Mount of Mercury was sunken, the heart-line was chained, and Jupiter was remarkable for his absence. All these things proclaimed this girl, according to my creed, to be unscrupulous, even cruel. She did not look cruel, and I had no reason up to the present to doubt her honour. Nevertheless, I dropped her hand with a sigh. It was quite an unusual one for a girl to possess.

"What is the matter?" she asked. "Am I so very bad?"

"I have seen more promising hands," I answered.

"Tell me what you see?"

"Do you really wish to know?"

"Yes."

"Forewarned is forearmed," I said, after a moment's pause. "Your circumstances are happy. Miss Haldane, and there is no reason why you should not lead a good and honourable life to the end of the chapter. Nevertheless, your hand points to a certain unscrupulousness in your character. For instance, I should not care to submit you to a very great money temptation."

"Oh, you are horrible!" she cried. Her face grew very white. "You frighten me; you talk nonsense, and yet, and yet it is nonsense that Karl believes in."

She began to rub the offending palm.

"I am going to my room," she said. "Your words have worried me."

Her manner was somewhat that of a spoilt child. I smiled to myself, but an unaccountable weight of suspicion and dread was hanging over me. Why should I believe anything evil of a beautiful girl like Esther Haldane? What object could she have in injuring the man whom she was about to marry? I felt ashamed of my own suspicions; nevertheless they would not quite go away.

On the next day the trial of Sir Penn's horses would take place, and on that evening just when dinner was coming to an end, Miss Haldane raised her voice and called across to her brother, who was sitting at the other end of the table.

"Karl," she cried, "Sir Penn has been asking if you will not give us a séance this evening. You have been very disagreeable not to do so before. You will oblige, I think I may say, all the company. Will you not consent on this occasion?"

The ladies bowed and smiled, and the men bent forward to watch what Haldane would do. I thought, or was I mistaken? that he gave his sister a sudden glance of understanding. Then he said with that slow sort of drawl which now and then characterised him:

"I shall have much pleasure in doing what the company wish."

Sir Penn expressed his satisfaction, and there was a chorus of approval from one and all.

When we met in the drawing-room Haldane came to the front.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "I have been asked to give to-night a demonstration of thought transference. This I am willing to do on a condition. I want you all to be absolutely satisfied that there is no deception. I will therefore leave the room in company with someone now present, who shall remain with me until I return.

"While I am away, a certain sentence employing intelligible words shall be decided upon by two persons in the room. All the company may know the sentence if they so will, but it is essential that two should do so in order that there may be a witness that my interpretation of the said sentence is correct. The two persons who know the sentence will stand with their backs towards me at one end of the room; I will stand with my back towards them at the other. And if those two people faithfully think of that sentence, and of that sentence alone, I promise to read their thoughts and to sav what it is. Do you all consider that fair?"

"Certainly," said Sir Penn, "and I will bet you ten pounds, Haldane, that you fail."

"Done, Sir Penn," was the answer.

A discussion as to who should be the person to accompany Mr. Haldane outside the room, and to choose the sentence within the room, immediately ensued.

"In view of my wager, ladies and gentlemen," cried Sir Penn, "I think I may claim the right to be one of those to choose the sentence. As to my partner, I will leave the choice to yourselves."

I could see by Sir Penn's manner that he was determined to clear up the terrible suspicion that was haunting him.

"I will be your partner, if I may," said Miss Haldane, and she went up to Sir Penn, and laid her hand on his arm.

He seemed to hesitate for a minute; then he looked into her eyes, and said softly:

"As you wish."

Sir Penn then turned to me.

"Miss Marburg," he said, "may I ask you to accompany Mr. Haldane from the room?"

"With pleasure," I replied. I felt interested and excited, and was determined that no trickery should be played if I could prevent it.

Karl Haldane and I repaired to the library, and in exactly ten minutes' time returned to the drawing-room. There was a dead silence. Sir Penn and Miss Haldane stood at the further end of the room. Karl Haldane at once took up his position, with his back towards them. Being, as it were, in the position of umpire, I determined to watch the experiment with the utmost vigilance, and accordingly I crossed the room to where Sir Penn and Miss Haldane were standing. I stood near them and took care to watch them both. They were absolutely still. Miss Haldane's hands were locked in front of her, her features were as quiet as though she were sitting for her photograph; her face was whiter than usual, and her strange eyes had a staring look. I thought the expression of the eyes unnatural— she looked as though she were about to cry.

Fully five minutes passed, and then Mr. Haldane called out in a clear, musical voice—

"I have received the impression. Judge, please, if I am correct. I presume I must thank Sir Penn for this copybook sentence. It is as follows:—

"'If you are using your powers for fraudulent purposes, beware!'

"Am I right, Sir Penn?"

The Baronet's reply was to come forward, open his pocket-book and hand the clairvoyant a bank-note for ten pounds. There was quite a sensation in the room.

Later that same evening Sir Penn found an opportunity of seeing me alone.

"What do you think of this affair?" he asked.

"I cannot tell you what I think of it at present," was my answer. "I am certain there is an explanatory cause, although what it is I cannot say. Let me think over everything most carefully. Mr. Haldane leaves to-morrow, does he not?"

"Yes, thank goodness, by an early train. I don't like the man and I cannot pretend that I do. I wish with all my heart he were not Esther's brother. But let us turn to something more important. To-morrow the trial of my horses takes place. I propose that you and Mrs. Percival and Miss Haldane and myself go to see it. I have a colt named Fritz, who is in for the Derby, and I think I know what he can do. If the trial goes as I expect, Fritz will be the winner. The result of to-morrow's trial must be kept absolutely a secret until I can operate in the market. If I find that the information again gets out— well, I shall cease to keep racehorses."

"I will do my very best for you, Sir Penn," I answered.

When he had left me I went to my room— there I sat down and prepared to think out the enigma. Hour after hour went by, and my busy brain felt on fire. Each moment I became more and more certain that some fraud was being worked by Mr. Haldane, but he could scarcely manage this without an accomplice, and terrible as the idea was, if there really was foul play, his sister must stand in that position towards him. Her hand betrayed her. What her motive was it was impossible to tell, but her hand made crime a contingency not too remote to contemplate.

As I thought and thought I became certain that if only I could discover the key to that evening's performance, I should have also the key to the entire position. I recalled the scene vividly. Miss Haldane's curious and rigid attitude; the peculiar expression in her eyes. I thought of all the ordinary methods of communication— hand language— lip language. Both were out of the question. Yet the means must have been very sure in order to communicate the exact wording of the sentence.

Through what channel of the senses could it have passed? Was there any movement? I fixed my memory again, centring my whole thoughts upon it. The eyes! Esther Haldane's eyes had always struck me as wonderful— nay. more, as odd. They looked very odd as I gazed at them while the clairvoyant at the other end of the room was thinking out the sentence. She had blinked several times, too, as if about to cry.

I arose from my chair. A strange idea had struck me. I lit my candle and went down through the silent house. I entered the drawing-room. When I got there I quickly examined the exact places where Haldane and his sister had stood. From the place where Miss Haldane stood her eyes by means of a big mirror could be seen by Haldane. As I thought over this fact the dim outline of a terrible plot began to reveal itself. The human eyes are always naturally winking. Only a code, such as the Morse Telegraphic Code, was necessary. A long closing of the lids for a dash, a short one for a dot, and any communication was possible and could not be detected by the closest observer.

I left the drawing-room, and crossing over to the library took down a volume of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," and carefully copied the letter signs of the Morse Telegraphic Code. I then returned to my room.

During breakfast I watched Miss Haldane, and as I did so the simplicity of the wicked scheme, evidently evolved both by her brother and herself, was borne in upon me. She looked particularly handsome this morning, but also nervous and anxious.

The guests who were still staying in the house took their departure after breakfast, amongst those to leave being Karl Haldane. I saw him go up to his sister and kiss her. As he was leaving the room she turned very white, so white that I wondered if she were going to faint.

"Are you ill?" I said. "Does it trouble you so much to part from your brother?"

"We are very much attached," she said, her lips quivering.

"I have remarked that," I answered.

She flashed an excited glance at me.

"Who would not be?" she continued. "Has he not fascinated you? There is no woman who comes in contact with him who does not love him."

At that instant Sir Penn came into the room. He went up to her, and laid his hand affectionately on her shoulder.

"We are due on the Downs at eleven," he said. "Miss Marburg is coming with us."

"Are you?" asked Miss Haldane.

The information certainly gave her no pleasure.

"I should like to see the horses," was my answer.

Nothing more was said. Mrs. Percival came into the room, the conversation became general, and at about a quarter to eleven we four started for our walk. It was a glorious morning, sunny and warm. Nevertheless, our conversation flagged, and we walked on for some time in silence.

At length we reached the racing ground, and Sir Penn showed us a good position to witness the trial, in which some dozen horses were to take part. Mr. Martin, the trainer, and our four selves took up our position at the intended winning post on a little rise amongst some furze bushes. Sir Penn drew out his watch.

"It is exactly mid-day," he said.

"Here they come!" cried Miss Haldane excitedly, and in a few moments, with a thunder of hoofs, the animals galloped past.

"Just what I thought, Martin," said the baronet. "If Fritz doesn't bring home the Blue Riband this year he is certain to be in the first three."

"And if he is, you will be richer than ever," said Miss Haldane, laying her hand on his arm. "Do go, Miss Marburg, to look at the probable winner of the Derby. Take Miss Marburg to see Fritz, won't you, Penn?"

Sir Penn and the trainer moved up to where the horses were being pulled up. As Sir Penn did so he turned to me.

"Will you come?" he asked. "Won't you come too, Esther?"

"No,"' she replied. "I am feeling tired. I will stay with Mrs. Percival."

"Do, my dear," said the elder lady. "We will both sit down on this knoll of grass and wait for you, Penn, and for Miss Marburg."

I slowly followed Sir Penn, but when I had gone a few steps, I turned aside and pretended to be plucking some small flowers that grew on the edge of the common. My heart was beating almost to suffocation. I feared that Miss Haldane would observe me, and that I should lose a possible opportunity. But she had evidently forgotten my existence. Mrs. Percival had opened a newspaper and was beginning to read. Sir Penn and the trainer were more than a hundred yards away. I stood on her left. She rose slowly to her feet and gazed out steadily across the Down in the direction of an old ruined barn some six hundred yards off. I quickly took out pencil and paper and, keeping my eyes fixed on hers, marked the movement of the long and short closure of her lids. That slip of paper I have still, and this is the copy as I took it down:

F R I T Z W O N T R I A L

Without a moment's pause or giving myself time to think I rushed up to her side.

"What are you doing?" I cried.

My voice startled her. She flashed round, fury in her eyes.

"Fritz won trial," I said, as I deciphered the dots and dashes from the code.

She stared wildly at me for one moment, then suddenly falling on her knees she burst into a passion of tears. At this instant Sir Penn came up.

"Esther!" he cried. "Miss Marburg, whatever is the matter?"

I turned to him.

"This is the matter," I answered. "The plot is discovered. Send a couple of stable lads to prevent anyone from leaving that barn, and bring whoever is there here at once."

In a moment the word was given, and Sir Penn turned to Miss Haldane. She still knelt on the grass, her face covered, the tears flowing between her fingers. Sir Penn's face turned white as death. I saw that he guessed the worst. The girl to whom he was engaged, and whom he loved with all his heart, had betrayed him. Nothing else greatly mattered at that moment.

"Look!" I cried.

Two boys on their horses had just headed off the figure of a man who was running with all his might towards the railway station. It was, I could see at a glance, Mr. Karl Haldane. A moment later he was brought to the spot where we stood. His face was also white, but very hard and determined-looking.

"Come, Esther, old girl," he said, speaking in an almost rough tone, and pulling the weeping girl to her feet. "You did your best. We must all fail at times. I presume," he added, "that Esther and I have failed, but will you explain why you sent two men to interfere with my liberty, Sir Penn?"

"I think I can best explain," was my answer.

I then proceeded, in the presence of Esther and Karl Haldane, to give step by step the means I had taken to discover their secret. When I had finished speaking there was silence. After a pause, which was the most impressive I ever endured, Esther Haldane approached Sir Penn.

"You can, of course, arrest both me and my husband," she said.

"Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "Your husband?"

"Yes, Karl Haldane is my husband. I have played you the meanest trick a woman can play a man. I tried first to win your love, secondly to win your money. I succeeded in the first. I failed in the latter. All that I have done I have done for my husband, the only man on God's earth whom I really love. I love him so well that I can even go under for him. You can take what steps you please to punish us both. Come, Karl, our game is up."

__________________________

Other Waifs and Strays

4: Making £10,000

Talbot Mundy

"I HAVE!" said the Honourable William Allison. And he closed his lips so tightly when he had said it, and his merry face looked so comically sorry, that Gladys Powers had no need to guess what the answer was.

"Tell me all about it!" she said promptly. She smiled back at him, but there was concern in her big dark eyes. "First of all, what did you say?"

"Me? Oh, I told him I'd like the deuce to marry you, don't you know, and all that kind of thing—said you were dashed charming girl and so on, and that I thought we'd hit it off together."

"And did you say it offhandedly like that?"

"Why, of course! You didn't expect me to go down on my knees to him, did you?"

She was trembling on the very verge of laughter, and drew out her handkerchief to hide it from him.

"No," she bubbled. "Go on. What did he say?"

"Said he'd no time for hereditary boneheads—dashed if I know what a bonehead is, exactly, but I'll bet it's something rude—and that he wouldn't let his daughter marry one on any terms! Said there were boneheads enough in the States, without coming across the water to find one! He added a lot of tommy-nonsense about the idea of an aristocracy being all wrong anyhow. So I asked him whether he'd have liked me any better if I'd been a brick-layer!"

The dimples began to dance again. She loved this lean, clean-looking Englishman very dearly; but love had not killed her sense of humour.

"Most extraordinary thing, but the mention of bricks seemed to make him positively savage!"

"He made his money building, you know. He's been fighting the brick-layers' union all his life; he says that, from first to last, they've cost him fifteen million!"

"He must be most uncommon oofy, to spend that much money fightin' a lot of brick-layers!"

"Father's not exactly a pauper, you know!"

"Confound him— he called me one!"

"That's exactly what you called yourself when you proposed to me!"

"I know I did. But I didn't mean it as literally as all that! I've got fifteen hundred a year of my own. I said that as his son-in-law I supposed I might amount to something financially some day! But he got awfully red in the face, and said he wouldn't have me for a son-in-law at any price. I asked him whether we couldn't come to some sort of terms. He said no! So I reminded him that as a business man—which he seemed so infernally proud of calling himself— he must realize that there's a way of compromising everything. He thought a little after that. Then he said suddenly that if I'd prove to him that I'm not a bonehead, he'd consider it. By the way, what the deuce is a bonehead?"

"A fool. Go on— what then?"

"I invited him to be a little more explicit. He said, 'Go and make some money, and bring it here and show it to me!' I asked him how much money, and he thought for a minute, and then snapped out, 'Ten thousand!' 'Dollars?' I asked him. You see, I could have borrowed that much, at a pinch, and have brought it round to him this afternoon! But he said: 'No; pounds! Go and make ten thousand pounds within the next six months, and show it to me. Then I'll let Gladys do as she likes about it!' So I bowed myself out."

"And can you do it?" asked Gladys Powers eagerly.

"Not if I want to keep out of jail, I'm afraid! You see, I've had no business training."

Gladys Powers dug the point of her umbrella into the frozen February grass, and frowned.

"I call it mean of father," she exclaimed, "to talk to you that way! He's forever preaching against what he calls 'bucking the other fellow's game,' and now he tells you to go and do it! He knows perfectly well that you're not a business man! Besides, he's bucking somebody else's game himself, and he's seen how futile it is!"

"Whose game's he buckin'?"

"Yours. He's perfectly crazy to get into society over here, and he hasn't been able to do it."

"He'd find himself in society in a minute, if he'd let you marry me!"

Gladys smiled, in spite of herself. She knew that her father would either get what he wanted on his own merits and by his own efforts, or do without.

"Oh, if you could only get the better of him!" she exclaimed. "He'd think the world of you! Won't you try? Do try! It isn't that you're poor—he doesn't mind that; he wants me to marry a man with brains. Beat him! Then he'll have to admit that you've got brains. Try! Won't you?"

And she said "Won't you?" in a way that went straight to the heart of the Honourable William Allison. He stood in front of her for a moment stock-still, gazing straight ahead beyond her.

"I'll have a try!" he said in a low voice. "Tell me—is he really keen on this idea of gettin' into society?"

"He's crazy about it! He's crazy because he's failed! He hates failure, and he means to keep on at it until he's won!"

Bill Allison reflected again for about a minute; he was beginning to look singularly gloomy.

"I don't see how that's goin' to help much," he said, more to himself than to Gladys Powers. "Still,"—and he looked straight into her eyes, and she read resource there, and believed in him and took courage,—"I can but try! We'll see!"

ii

AN HOUR later the Honourable William Allison strolled into one of the most exclusive clubs, and subsided gloomily into a deep arm-chair. It was one thing to say that he would try, but quite another thing to think out a feasible plan on which to act.

"Confound the man!" he muttered savagely.

"Hullo, Bill!" said a pleasant voice beside him; and he started and looked round.

"You, Galloway? Why the deuce didn't you speak before? How long have you been here? Were you here when I came in?"

"Thought I'd watch you, Bill! Dashed interestin', believe me! First time in my life that I ever saw you lookin' gloomy! Been busy wonderin' what's up! Money-lender naggin' you?"

"No. Nothin' to speak of."

"Liver out of order?"

"Never better in my life."

"Some female woman been unkind to you?"

"No."

"Bill—you're in love!"

"Nonsense."

"You can't deceive me, Bill! So she won't have you, eh? Well, you'll get over that all right. There are heaps more women, Bill, and they're all of 'em too good for you and me! Your troubles don't amount to anything—listen to my tale of woe! Trainin' stable all gone to the deuce—eight rotten gee-gees all eatin' their useless heads off—three of 'em lame—two of 'em crocks that couldn't win a sellin' plate to save their lives—an' that brute Souffrière so savage that nobody can do a thing with him! He half killed an unfortunate stable-boy the day before yesterday. The boy's in hospital—at my expense! Takes a sight of the whip to induce any of the other boys to go near the brute. Pity of it is that he's entered for the Grand National—and he could win it, if only I could find a man to ride him!"

"He certainly could win it!" said Bill Allison, with an air of absolute conviction.

"I know he could, Bill! But I've got to sell him; there's nothin' else for it! My stable's been losin' me money for so long that I simply can't stave off my creditors for another week!"

"But why sell the best horse you've got? Why not keep him, and sell the rest?"

"Seen the others?"

"Yes, I've seen 'em."

"Would you buy 'em?"

"Well, speakin' personally, no! Still—"

"Shut up talkin' rot, then! Souffrière's got to go: I'm goin' to sell him next week."

"Is he fit?" asked Allison. An idea seemed to have risen new-born behind his eyes, for they positively blazed as he leaned forward and looked at Galloway.

"He's fit as a fiddle—now. He won't be, though, in a week's time. All he needs is gallopin', and, I tell you, I can't get a man to ride him."

Bill Allison lay back in his chair again, with his tall hat tipped forward over his eyes. His long lean leg, crossed over the other, moved up and down rhythmically, and the fingers of his right hand drummed gently on the arm of the chair.

"Tell me, Sammy." he said suddenly, "are you keen on sellin' Souffrière? D'you want to get out of the racin' game for good?"

"Want to? I should say not! If I could think of any way out of quittin'— "

"I've thought of one!"

"Out with it, then, as you love me! I'd give ten years of my ill-spent life for the right idea!"

"Ten years won't do, Sammy, my boy! We'll have to do this on half shares and hold our respective tongues. Also, we'll have to be singularly— most uncommon— careful!"

"I'm the carefulest young fellow you ever knew, Bill. There's not even a woman can make me talk, when I don't want to!"

They talked together for the next three hours, mysteriously; and every now and then one or the other of them was emphatic.

At the end of that time the Honourable William Allison hurried to his chambers and superintended the packing of his portmanteaus. A little later he took a train into the country. But his friend Sammy Galloway, contrary to his original intentions, remained in town.

iii

THERE was nobody in London with a more varied or extensive acquaintance than Sammy Galloway. He was popular for his sunny disposition and his thoroughly sportsmanlike qualities; and, although his comparative poverty precluded his returning hospitality to any great extent, his presence at all kinds of social functions was in very great demand. So he had no difficulty whatever in securing an introduction to Mr. Franklin Powers.

Sammy was ushered into the largest room of the most expensive private suite in the most up-to-date hotel in London; and he was kept waiting there for fully ten minutes before Mr. Powers appeared. To use his own expression, he was "sweatin' like a horse" when his host finally arrived and demanded, rather brusquely, what he might want.

Mr. Powers had been just long enough in England to realize that letters of introduction from influential sources were seldom guileless when addressed to himself. He had made the discovery that society is as greedy of favours from millionaires as it is chary of extending them. So there was a note of challenge in his voice, and it acted as a tonic to Sammy Galloway. He left off feeling nervous, and displayed true genius by tackling his quarry in the one way that was at all likely to have effect. "I've come to talk business," "he said, as he resumed his seat.

"Good!" said Franklin Powers. "I'm listening!"

"I've been told—and I won't divulge the name of my informant on any terms— that you are anxious to get into the best society over here."

Powers stood up as though a spring had been suddenly released inside him. "Go on!" he said non-committally.

"I can show you the way—on terms."

Powers sat down again, and the two men looked at each other in tense silence for about a minute. Each liked the appearance of the other. There was no gainsaying the rugged strength of the millionaire; he looked like what he was—a born fighter, whom many victories had made self-confident. And Sammy Galloway, who looked the acme of good nature, also looked honest. His introductions, too, were unexceptionable.

"Let's hear all about it!" said Mr. Powers.

"I'm not here for fun!" said Sammy. "There are a lot of things I'd rather do than this. But, as long as you understand, to begin with, that I'm playing my own game as well as yours, we ought to hit it off all right."

Powers nodded. "I hope it's not introductions!" he said. "I've tried 'em— had dozens of 'em. All they ever got me was invitations to charity bazaars, and a pink tea or so now and then!"

"Lord, no!" said Sammy. "You've got to do a thing like this off your own bat! Introductions are all right, of course, to begin with, provided they're the right kind. But a man wants more than that. Nobody cares much where a man comes from; what he's got to do is to be something or do something out of the ordinary. Millionaires are as common as stray dogs! What's wanted is a millionaire who's something else besides; and—and that's where I come in!"

Powers nodded again. "Go on!" he said. "I'm interested!"

"You want to do something big in a social sort of way that'll make the right crowd take notice of you."

"I've given a couple of very expensive parties," said the millionaire. "But that didn't work. Half the people I invited didn't come, and those that did come weren't any good!"

"Exactly!" said Sammy. "Any fool can give a party! Now do something decent!"

The millionaire stared hard at him, not quite certain how to take that remark. "What would you do, for instance?" he asked after a moment.

"Win a classic race!"

"Win a what?"

"Be the owner of a horse that wins the Grand National, for instance."

"The only horses I've ever owned were truck-horses. I don't know a thing about race-horses. My daughter and I use autos. I wouldn't know how to go about it."

"Exactly!" repeated Sammy. "That's where I come in! I own a horse that can win the National, and I've got to sell him. I'm broke, you understand."

Powers got up again and began to pace the room. "How do you know he can win the National?" he demanded abruptly.

"How do you know in advance that you can put through one of your big business deals?" asked Sammy.

"That's different. It's my hand that puts them through. I succeed where another man would very likely fail. I know how!"

"That's my case again," said Sammy triumphantly. "I could sell this horse for enough money, to get me out of debt; but the man who bought him couldn't win the National with him. He needs riding, and I've got the only man in England who can do it. He's a brute of a horse—savage as they make 'em; wants a real man on his back."

"Then you want me to buy your horse? Is that what it all amounts to?"

"Not by a long way! I could sell him, as I told you. There are more than a dozen men I know who would take a chance on buying Souffrière. I'm offering you more than just a horse, and I'm asking more than just the price of him. I'm offering to win the National with him for you, and I'm willing to be paid by results. That horse is worth about three thousand guineas as he stands; they'd pay that price for him for the stud, and anyone you care to ask will confirm what I say. I'm asking you two thousand guineas for him—cash; and in return for that amount I'll transfer him, engagements and all, into your name. If he doesn't win the National, he's yours anyhow, and you'll be able to sell him again for enough to get back the two thousand—together with the expenses of my training-stable, which I'll expect you to guarantee from now until the race comes off. If he wins, I get your check for ten thousand pounds immediately after the race."

"But why do you come to me?" asked Powers suspiciously. "Why don't you go with your offer to one of your own countrymen?"

"I thought I'd be able to make a quick deal with you, for one thing, and I knew you'd got the money. Besides, I've got ulterior motives. When the thing's all over, I've a friend I want to introduce to you; possibly he can put something in your way, too. He'll be able to help you socially better even than I can. But I want you to learn to have confidence in me first. One thing at a time."

"But how is this business of winning the Grand National going to help me socially?"

"Believe me," said Sammy darkly, "there's positively nothing you could do that would help you more!"

Powers drew the stub of a pencil from his pocket, and tossed it up and down on the palm of his hand in a movement that was characteristic of him when he was making up his mind.

"Supposing he wins, who gets the stake?" he asked.

"You do."

"When is the Grand National run?"

"Latter part of March—six weeks from now."

"And this jockey you speak of—are you sure of him?"

"Absolutely! If he doesn't ride the horse, you can call the deal off, and I'll pay you your money back!"

Powers looked hard at him through narrowed eyes. He was still uncertain. The pencil-stub was still dancing on the palm of his hand. This man was certainly a gentleman—his introductions were beyond all question everything that they ought to be. He looked honest and spoke squarely. The proposition was unusual, but—

"Will you give me your word of honour that this proposition's on the level?" he demanded.

"Certainly."

Powers tossed the pencil up and caught it. His mind was made up. "I'll go you, then! How much cash did you say? Two thousand guineas? Two thousand one hundred pounds, eh?"

And Mr. Franklin Powers produced his cheque-book and made out a cheque in favour of Mr. Sammy Galloway for that amount.

iv

SIX weeks later the fashionable sporting crowd put in its annual appearance on Aintree racecourse. It was tall-hatted and fur-coated, and as different from a summer-season racing crowd as could easily be imagined. The people who brave the March winds at Aintree are those who go racing for the love of it, and not just because it happens to be the thing to do.

Galloway, most immaculately dressed, leaned against the paddock railing and talked through it to his friend Allison. Allison was over-coated from ears to heels; he looked thinner than when he and Sammy had talked together at the club, but the glow of health was on him, and he seemed happy as a school- boy.

"What odds are they laying?" demanded Allison.

"Twenty to one!"

"I don't wonder!" said Allison, looking over his shoulder at Souffrière. The big red devil of a horse was being led round and round the paddock at what was intended to be a walk—blanketed until nothing of him was visible except his savage eye, which peeped out through a hole in his hood. As Allison spoke, the brute snorted and squealed and snatched at his leading-rein, and a pitched battle followed between him and the man who led him. Above the buzz and clamour of the crowd came the raucous bellowing of a book-maker: "Twenties, Souffrière! Twenty to one, Souffrière!" But no one seemed anxious to bet on him.

"Have you got the money on?" asked Allison.

"Yes."

"The whole two thousand?"

"Every single penny of it."

"So we stand to win forty thousand pounds, eh?"

"We do—or else lose everything!"

"Don't think of it! How did you keep old Powers out of the way?"

"He and Miss Powers were awfully keen to come into the paddock," said Sammy. "But I told him it wouldn't do. Said I wanted his entrance on the scene to be as dramatic as possible; asked him to wait until the race was over before showing up, and then lead in the winner. He and Miss Powers are sitting in a box right in the middle of the grand stand, and they're both of 'em half frantic for the race to begin. I'd better go over to 'em now, and try to keep 'em quiet. So long! Good luck, Bill!"

"So long, Sammy! Good luck!"

As Sammy Galloway joined the little party in the box, Souffrière's price began to alter in the betting.

"Why, they're only laying fifteen to one against him now!" said Gladys Powers. "Listen! I wonder why that is?"

"Dunno, I'm sure," said Sammy, taking the vacant chair between her and her father. "Unless some one in the crowd's spotted who's goin' to ride him."

"Why, is the jockey so well known? I thought he was just one of your men."

"Oh, he's fairly well known," said Sammy. "Listen! They've shortened him some more!"

"Twelve to one, Souffrière! Twelve to one, Souffrière!" barked the bookies.

"What's the jockey's name?" asked Gladys.

"Bill."

"Bill what?"

"Just Bill. Look! There they come!"

There was a sudden silence, and everybody craned forward to watch the horses coming out. Seventeen of them, prancing and cavorting, filed out, one by one, on to the course. They missed their blankets, for the March wind nipped them; and as they danced on tiptoe in their eagerness to get their heads down and be off, they presented as fine a spectacle as could be witnessed anywhere. The last to come out was Souffrière—seventeen hands of plunging red deviltry; and as he reared on his hind legs and seesawed through the gate, the crowd began to hum again with conversation.

But the bookies were still silent. To a man, they were watching Souffrière through field-glasses. Suddenly one of them closed his glasses with a snap and turned toward the rest.

"It is!" he yelled excitedly. "Tens, Souffrière ! Ten to one, Souffrière!"

The last-minute plungers, who always form a quite considerable percentage of the betting crowd, took that to be an echo of inside information. There was a rush to get on at ten to one, and in a moment the price had shortened down to eights. The bookies bellowed it out above the ceaseless murmur of the crowd.

"He'll be the favourite in a minute at this rate!" said the millionaire, grinning with pleasure that he took no trouble to conceal.

Souffrière was the biggest and by far the finest-looking of the field. He came on to the course sideways, fighting for his head like a mad devil. He seemed the squealing, dancing, plunging, lashing embodiment of energy. His red coat shone like new satin, and his great muscles played up and down beneath it like springs of tempered steel. He was a picture of a horse. Anyone with half an eye could see that he was trained down to the last touch; and the rider who sat him so perfectly, and coaxed and steadied him, seemed as lithe and well trained as the horse.

"That man's face seems strangely familiar!" said Franklin Powers, staring through his field-glasses.

Gladys Powers had thought the same thing; she too was watching closely through her glasses.

"Who did you say his jockey was?" she asked Sammy. "Bill who?"

"Watch, Miss Powers! This'll be worth watching!"

"It looked almost like—"

"Oh, all men look pretty much alike in racing-kit! Watch!"

Every rider excepting Souffrière's gave his horse a trial jump over the first fence on the course. But Souffrière was taken straight down to the starting-point. It seemed better, to the man who rode him, to take the first jump blind than to let the horse have his head yet for so much as a second. He kept him by the starting-gate until the other horses came and lined up on either side of him.

"They're off!" roared the crowd.

It is like the thunder of a big wave on rocks, and the growl of the undertow—that sudden exclamation of the waiting crowd. It thrills even the oldest race-goer. Gladys Powers leaned against the rail in front of her and tried to stop her heart from palpitating by pressing it against the wood. The silence of the dead followed, as the horses raced neck and neck for the first jump. They reached it all together in a bunch. Souffrière rose at it as if it were a mountain, shot over it without touching a twig, and landed neatly in his stride on the far side, half a length in front of the rest. Between that jump and the next he continued to gain steadily.

But the Grand National is a five-mile race, or thereabouts—five miles of the stiffest going in the world. The jumps are prodigious. No ordinary horse could get across them, and none but the stoutest-hearted man dare try to ride him. The pace was a cracker, and Sammy Galloway—gazing through his glasses beside Gladys Powers—grunted and ground his teeth.

"What's the matter?" asked Gladys.

"He's taking it too fast!" He had reached the open ditch already—a misnamed contraption with a guard-rail in front of it and a thumping big fence on the far side; it had been the death of more good men and horses than all the other risks of steeple-chasing put together. As Galloway spoke, Souffrière's rider dropped his hands, and the horse swung his great hind legs under him and leaped over it like a cat. He cleared it without touching, and his rider—his head a little to one side— watched his fore feet critically to see how he placed them when he landed.

"Look at him!" said Sammy. "Ain't he cool! But what's he takin' it so fast for?"

Souffrière was a full length in the lead now—striding along as though he found the going easy, and eating up the distance between jumps with long, easy strides that told of tremendous strength still in reserve. He had a hundred and forty pounds to carry,—twenty-eight pounds less than the top weight,—and he was making nothing of it. The two horses next behind him rose at the open ditch together, cannoned heavily, and fell—one of them with a broken back. The remainder cleared it; but the accident gave Souffrière a lead of two full lengths. The race had still nearly four miles to go, and Galloway, watching through his field-glasses, could see Souffrière's rider looking behind him to see where the others were.

"Take a pull, man! Take a pull!" he grumbled aloud. "There's simply tons of time'"

"Didn't you give him instructions how to ride before the race started?" asked Gladys, who had been reading up horse-racing matters since her father had become an owner.

"Me? Tell Bill how to ride!? I should say not! He's out and away the best horseman in England! Watch him!"

Souffrière, slugging his head against the bit, seemed bent on increasing the lead still further, and his rider seemed quite disposed to let him do it. The great horse was still sweeping along without any apparent effort, and jumping as a cat jumps—carefully. The pace, though, was nothing short of tremendous. It was much too hot to last, and the field was tailing out behind already. As they rounded the turn for home, Souffrière was more than four lengths in the lead. Six other horses were waiting on him, and going strong— one little brown horse, that was running fourth, seeming to go well within himself. They were all six letting Souffrière make the pace for them, and every one of them was clearly to be reckoned with.

As they galloped up toward the grand-stand, though, Souffrière's rider seemed to be cracking on the pace even a little faster. Those who watched him narrowly enough through field-glasses could see him speaking to the horse. Gladys was one of those who watched the rider's face. Suddenly she clutched at Sammy's sleeve and whispered to him.

"Tell me, Mr. Galloway, who's that riding him? It looks from here like—It is! Isn't it?"

"Quiet now, Miss Powers!" said Sammy. "Don't give the game away! Yes—it is! Watch him!"

As Souffrière galloped past the grand-stand, Sammy Galloway found time to scrutinize Mr. Powers' face for a second. The millionaire was watching the horse as though his whole fortune depended on his winning. He had no time to study the rider, and no idea as yet who was on the horse's back; and Sammy heaved a sigh of relief as he turned to watch the race again.

The horses were starting on their second journey round the course, and there was beginning now to be something different in the gait of Souffrière that was noticeable to a close observer—his stride had lost a little of its elasticity. Carefully nursed, he looked good to win the race yet, especially considering the lead he had; but there were more than two miles of wicked country still ahead of him, and he needed riding.

Saving the one question of pace, he was being ridden perfectly; no man could have ridden him better. Jump by jump, his rider schooled him over the fiercest course in England as coolly and perfectly as though he were out for a practice gallop; and, so far, Souffrière had not touched a twig. But the pace was a killer.

A booky voiced the general sentiment. "Ten to one, Souffrière!" he roared. Several people laughed. Nobody ran to bet with him. Then, at the water-jump, Souffrière put a foot wrong as he landed, and stumbled badly.

"He's down!" roared the crowd.

Gladys Powers smothered a scream and clutched at Sammy's sleeve. He was not down, though. The stumble had cost him a good length of his lead, but he was up and going strong.

Now two of the other horses were beginning to challenge Souffrière's lead. Whips were going. Their jockeys moved on them, and the distance between them and Souffrière began to grow gradually less. They gained very little on him between the jumps, for his long, easy strides were in his favour, and he was almost able to hold his own; but at each jump they lessened his lead, for he had begun to pause before taking off, and he was landing clumsily. Each pause, and each mistake, cost him five yards or more.

Then there were only three jumps left to take, and a straight run home of less than two furlongs. He might do it yet, but it seemed very doubtful. Sammy Galloway gripped his glasses, and ground his teeth, and swore beneath his breath. Gladys Powers clutched his arm again, and her father stood up in the box— rigid with excitement.

"Oh, Bill, you idiot!" groaned Galloway. "Steady him, man! Steady! Take a pull, and let 'em pass you! You'll catch 'em again in the straight! Oh, you idiot!"

Even as he spoke, the man he apostrophized took up his whip and sent home three good rousing wallops to Souffrière's ribs. The second horse—the little one that had been running fourth so gamely all the way—was coming up hand over hand.

"Twenty to one, Souffrière!" roared a booky, and a chorus of other bookies echoed him.

Then the horses and their riders caught the intoxicating roar from the stands— the roar of an appreciative crowd, that has turned the heads of contestants ever since the dawn of history and has ruined many a fellow's chances. It was the crucial moment. All of the horses were stretched to their limit.

"My God!" groaned Galloway. Souffrière's rider was flogging like a wild man— or seemed to be. It was the one, absolute, and only thing he should not have done! Just behind him— gaining on him fast, and coming up on the inside—was the little brown horse. He and Souffrière charged at the last hurdle side by side, racing shoulder to shoulder for it, with Souffrière's head only the least bit in front.

Crack! came his rider's whip. Souffrière slipped badly at the take-off, and hit the hurdle hard with both hind legs.

"He's down!" roared the crowd.

This time Souffrière was really down—kicking and struggling like a brute possessed. His rider was still on him, clinging with both hands to his neck, and trying to force his weight backward into the saddle again. Souffrière kicked, and struggled, and rose to his feet. Gladys Powers screamed. Powers swore, and smashed his glasses against the rail in front of him. The third horse rose at the jump, cleared it, and missed Souffrière on the far side by about an inch!

"Now ride!" yelled Galloway. "Ride, man! Ride!"

The man in front had glanced over his shoulder, and, seeing that he was leading by a safe margin, had pulled up a bit to save his horse. There was more than a furlong still of straight going on good green grass, and the race was still to win.

"It's all up!" groaned Galloway; and the millionaire looked toward him and nodded. "Worth it, though!" he said, with a wry smile. "I was never more excited in my life!"

"Thank heaven, he wasn't killed!" said Gladys. She was white as a sheet, and trembling.

"Oh, watch!" said Sammy. "Watch!"

The crowd was yelling and thundering in the stand. They had reckoned without Souffrière and his rider! The big red devil was game to the last kick, and his last kick was not due yet by a long way. It dawned on the brute suddenly that there were two horses now in front of him. That, and the whip, and his rider's spurs convinced him that there was still a fight ahead, and he settled down to catch them in real earnest. He passed the second horse like a flash, and gave chase to the little one in front with his eyes shut and his head slugged against the bit— while the crowd roared and yelled until the grand-stand sounded like the thunder of an army.

"Oh!" yelled Galloway. "Look at that, will you!"

The whip was out again, and Souffrière's rider was putting in all he knew. The whip rose and fell like a flail.

"He's not floggin' him! D'you see that? He's not floggin' him! Oh, Bill, you're the cunnin'est old dog that ever —"

Bill was flogging at his boot. The rider of the first horse heard the whack-whack-whack behind him, and started his own whip going. He flogged his horse, though. The game little fellow changed his feet, and in that second Souffrière caught up with him. Then down came Bill's whip on Souffrière's flank, and he spurted, and the two flashed past the winning-post in a thundering, snorting, sweating, wild-eyed streak—so close together that no one outside the judges' box could tell which was the winner.

Then the roar of the crowd died down to expectant silence, while everybody watched the number-board. A man started fumbling with the numbers, and Sammy saw them even before they were on the board.

"Ten— seventeen— six!" he read off.

Ten was Souffrière!

"Come on, Mr. Powers!" said Sammy Galloway. "You're too late to lead him in, but you can see him in the paddock!" He took Miss Powers' arm, and the millionaire followed them to the paddock at a run. Souffrière was already blanketed again, and was trying hard to eat a stable-hand who was leading him back to his box; and Galloway left them looking at him, while he hurried round to the weighing-room door. There he waited patiently, and presently the Honourable William Allison emerged in jockey-kit—covered with mud and foam, but beaming. "Bill, you idiot, we've won twenty-five thousand pounds apiece, and it's just twenty-five thousand more than you deserve! What, in heaven's name, possessed you to ride the race like that?"

"Point is, I won it, Sammy! Had to ride it that way! Haven't been riding Souffrière in his gallops every day for nothing, you know! I got a line on him right away at the start. If you pull him, he sulks and fights. You've got to let him gallop his worst all the way, and whip the steam out of him at the finish! Got that check for ten thousand yet?"

"Of course not! I can't ask him yet!"

"You must, Sammy! I've got to have it!"

"Better leave it till Monday, hadn't we? Let him settle up like the bookies do; that'll be soon enough."

"No, Sam; I've got to have it now! Go and find him, and make him write it out, while I have a tub and a change. Bring it to me in the dressing-room."

"All right, Bill; I suppose you're running this. I'll ask him. But, I say, I'd feel awfully mean if he tried to kick me! I'm beginning to like the old boy!"

It seemed to Mr. Franklin Powers a little bit like sharp business to be asked for his check almost the instant the race was over. He was beginning to wonder, too, where all the social glamour was that had been promised him; nobody had noticed him as yet. However, he was a man of his word, and he produced his check-book and a fountain-pen, and wrote out a check for ten thousand pounds in favour of Sammy Galloway. "Meet you in the box!" said Sammy, turning to hurry away again. "I'm going to bring something in the society line to introduce to you," he added over his shoulder as an afterthought.

Twenty minutes later Sammy Galloway came back to them; and with him was the Honourable William Allison— quite immaculately dressed, smiling as usual, and perfectly at ease. He raised his hat to Gladys, but said nothing to her. She watched him in absolute amazement, for the contrast between this dandy and the man in silk who had ridden Souffrière was almost unbelievable. Allison walked straight up to the millionaire, and produced a folded piece of paper from his pocket.

"Here's the ten thousand you mentioned, Mr. Powers," he said, smiling affably.

Powers seized the piece of paper and examined it. It was his own check for ten thousand that he had given Sammy Galloway!

"This isn't yours!" said the millionaire. "You're not Galloway!"

"Look on the other side, won't you? You'll see that he's indorsed it over to me!"

"What's the meaning of all this?" asked Powers.

"That's the ten thousand that you told me to go and make! I preferred that it should be ten thousand of your money, that's all!"

"Then you and Mr. Galloway are— er—"

"Accomplices?" suggested Allison.

"And was this talk about getting me into society all bunk?"

"Not a bit of it!" said Sammy, stepping forward. "Allow me, Mr. Powers! This is my friend that I said I'd like to introduce to you afterward. You'll remember, I said he can do more for you socially than even I can!"

"Who thought out this scheme?" asked Franklin Powers— bewildered for almost the first time in his life.

"Bill did!" said Sammy. "I simply obeyed orders! He planned the game, and he rode Souffrière. No other horseman in England could have brought him in a winner. It took a man with brains to win this race and to put through such a scheme. We were both of us broke, and we've each of us made twenty-five thousand, thanks to him—and you!"

"You've got everything you bargained for!" said Allison, trying not to laugh. "As my prospective father-in-law you'll have the entree into society right away. May I take it that your— ah— your objection is— ah— withdrawn?"

"You may! Shake!"

The Honourable William Allison turned to Gladys. "Care to come into the paddock?" he asked her, almost casually.

"I'll go anywhere in the world with you!" she answered.

_________________

5: Acme
John Galsworthy

IN THESE DAYS no man of genius need starve. The following story of my friend Bruce may be taken as proof of this assertion. Nearly sixty when I first knew him, he must have written already some fifteen books, which had earned him the reputation of "a genius" with the few who know. He used to live in York Street, Adelphi, where he had two rooms up the very shaky staircase of a nondescript house. I suppose there never was a writer more indifferent to what people thought of him. He profoundly neglected the press with the basic neglect of "an original," a nomadic spirit, a stranger in modern civilization, who would leave his attics for long months of wandering, and come back there to hibernate and write a book.

He was a tall, thin man, with a face rather like Mark Twain's, black eyebrows which bristled and shot up, a bitten, drooping, grey moustache, and fuzzy gray hair; but his eyes were like owl's eyes, piercing, melancholy, dark brown, and gave to his rugged face an extraordinary expression of a spirit remote from the flesh which had captured it. He was a bachelor, who seemed to avoid women, though he must have been very attractive to them.

The year of which I write had been to my friend Bruce the limit, monetarily speaking. With his passion for writing that for which his age had no taste—what could he expect? His last book had been a complete frost. He had undergone, too, an operation which had cost him much money and left him very weak. When I went to see him that October I found him stretched out on two chairs, smoking the Brazilian cigarettes which he affected—and which always affected me, so black and strong they were, in their yellow maize-leaf coverings. He had a writing pad on his knee, and sheets of paper scattered all around. The room had a very meagre look. I had not seen him for a year and more, but he looked up at me as if I'd been in yesterday.

"Hallo!" he said. "I went into a thing they call a cinema last night. Have you ever been?"

"Ever been? Do you know how long the cinema has been going? Since about 1900."

"Well! What a thing! I'm writing a skit on it!"

"How—a skit?"

"Parody—wildest yarn you ever read."

He took up a sheet of paper and began chuckling to himself.

"My heroine," he said, "is an octoroon. Her eyes swim, and her lovely bosom heaves. Everybody wants her, and she's more virtuous than words can say. The situations she doesn't succumb to would freeze your blood; they'd roast your marrow. She has a perfect fiend of a brother, with whom she was brought up, who knows her deep, dark secret and wants to trade her off to a millionaire who also has a deep, dark secret. Altogether there are four deep, dark secrets in my yarn. It's a corker."

"What a waste of your time!" I said.

"My time!" he answered fiercely. "What's the use of my time? Nobody buys my books."

"Who's attending you?"

"Doctors! They take your money, that's all. I've got no money. Don't talk about me!" Again he took up a sheet of manuscript; and chuckled.

"Last night—at that place—they had—great Caesar!—a race between a train and a motor car. Well, I've got one between a train, a motor car, a flying machine, and a horse."

I sat up.

"May I have a look at your skit," I said, "when you've finished it?"

"It is finished. Wrote it straight off. D' you think I could stop and then go on again with a thing like that?"

He gathered the sheets and held them out to me. "Take the thing—it's amused me to do it. The heroine's secret is that she isn't an octoroon at all; she's a De La Casse—purest Creole blood of the south; and her villainous brother isn't her brother; and the bad millionaire isn't a millionaire; and her penniless lover is. It's rich, I tell you!"

"Thanks," I said dryly, and took the sheets.

I went away concerned about my friend, his illness, and his poverty, especially his poverty, for I saw no end to it.

AFTER DINNER that evening I began languidly to read his skit. I had not read two pages of the thirty-five before I started up, sat down again, and feverishly read on. Skit! By George! He had written a perfect scenario—or, rather, that which wanted the merest professional touching-up to be perfect. I was excited. It was a little gold mine if properly handled. Any good film company, I felt convinced, would catch at it.

Yes! But how to handle it? Bruce was such an unaccountable creature, such a wild old bird! Imagine his having only just realized the cinema. If I told him his skit was a serious film he would say: "Great Caesar!" and put it in the fire, priceless though it was. And yet, how could I market it without carte blanche, and how get carte blanche without giving my discovery away?

I was deathly keen on getting some money for him; and this thing, properly worked, might almost make him independent. I felt as if I had a priceless museum piece which a single stumble might shatter to fragments. The tone of his voice when he spoke of the cinema—"What a thing!"—kept coming back to me. He was prickly proud, too—very difficult about money. Could I work it without telling him anything?

I knew he never looked at a newspaper. But should I be justified in getting the thing accepted and produced without his knowing? I revolved the question for hours, and went to see him again next day.

He was reading.

"Hallo! You again? What do you think of this theory—that the Egyptians derive from a Saharan civilization?"

"I don't think," I said.

"It's nonsense. This fellow—"

I interrupted him.

"Do you want that skit back, or can I keep it?"

"Skit? What skit?"

"The thing you gave me yesterday."

"That! Light your fire with it. This fellow—"

"Yes," I said, "I'll light a fire with it. I see you're busy."

"Oh, no! I'm not," he said. "I've nothing to do. What's the good of my writing? I earn less and less with every book that comes out. I'm dying of poverty."

"That's because you won't consider the public."

"How can I consider the public when I don't know what they want?"

"Because you won't take the trouble to find out. If I suggested a way to you of pleasing the public and making money, you'd kick me out of the room."

And the words: "For instance, I've got a little gold mine of yours in my pocket," were on the tip of my tongue, but I choked them back. "Daren't risk it!" I thought. "He's given you the thing. Carte blanche— cartes serres!"

I TOOK THE gold mine away and promptly rough-shaped it for the film. It was perfectly easy, without any alteration of the story. Then I was faced with the temptation to put his name to it. The point was this: If I took it to a film company as an authorless scenario, I should only get authorless terms; whereas, if I put his name to it, with a little talking I could double the terms at least. The film public didn't know his name, of course, but the inner literary public did, and it's wonderful how you can impress the market with the word "genius" judiciously used. It was too dangerous, however; and at last I hit on a middle course. I would take it to them with no name attached, but tell them it was by "a genius" and suggest that they could make capital out of the incognito. I knew they would feel it was by a genius.

I took it to an excellent company next day, with a covering note saying: "The author, a man of recognized literary genius, for certain reasons prefers to remain unknown." They took a fortnight in which to rise, but they rose. They had to. The thing was too good in itself. For a week I played them over terms. Twice I delivered an ultimatum—twice they surrendered. I could have made a contract with two thousand pounds down which would have brought at least another two thousand pounds before the contract term closed; but I compounded for one that gave me three thousand pounds down as likely to lead to less difficulty with Bruce. The terms were not a whit too good for what was really the "acme" of scenarios. If I could have been quite open, I could certainly have done better.

Finally, however, I signed the contract, delivered the manuscript, and received a check for the price. I was elated, and at the same time knew that my troubles were just beginning. With Bruce's feeling about the film how the deuce should I get him to take the money? Could I go to his publishers and conspire with them to trickle it out to him gradually as if it came from his books? That meant letting them into the secret; besides, he was too used to receiving practically nothing from his books; it would lead him to make inquiry, and the secret was bound to come out. Could I get a lawyer to spring an inheritance on him? That would mean no end of lying and elaboration, even if a lawyer would consent. Should I send him the money in Bank of England notes, with the words: "From a lifelong admirer of your genius?" I was afraid he would suspect a trick, or stolen notes, and go to the police to trace them. Or should I just go, put the check on the table, and tell him the truth?

The question worried me terribly, for I didn't feel entitled to consult others who knew him. It was the sort of thing that, if talked over, would certainly leak out. It was not desirable, however, to delay cashing a big check like that. Besides, they had started on the production. It happened to be a slack time, with a dearth of good films, so that they were rushing it on. And in the meantime there was Bruce—starved of everything he wanted, unable to get away for want of money, depressed about his health and his future. And yet so completely had he always seemed to me different, strange, superior to this civilization of ours, that the idea of going to him and saying simply: "This is yours, for the film you wrote," scared me. I could hear his: "I? Write for the cinema? What do you mean?"

When I came to think of it, I had surely taken an extravagant liberty in marketing the thing without consulting him. I felt he would never forgive that, and my feeling towards him was so affectionate, even reverential, that I simply hated the idea of being wiped out of his good books. At last I hit on a way that by introducing my own interest might break my fall. I cashed the check, lodged the money at my bank, drew my own check on it for the full amount, and armed with that and the contract, went to see him.

HE WAS lying on two chairs, smoking his Brazilians, and playing with a stray cat which had attached itself to him. He seemed rather less prickly than usual, and after beating about the bushes of his health and other matters, I began:

"I've got a confession to make, Bruce."

"Confession!" he said. "What confession?"

"You remember that skit on the film you wrote, and gave me, about six weeks ago?"

"No."

"Yes, you do—about an octoroon."

He chuckled. "Oh! ah! That!"

I took a deep breath, and went on:

"Well, I sold it; and the price, of course, belongs to you."

"What? Who'd print a thing like that?"

"It isn't printed. It's been made into a film—superfilm, they call it."

His hand came to a pause on the cat's back, and he glared at me. I hastened on:

"I ought to have told you what I was doing, but you're so prickly, and you've got such confounded superior notions. I thought if I did, you'd be biting off your nose to spite your own face. The fact is it made a marvellous scenario. Here's the contract, and here's a check on my bank for the price, £3,000. If you like to treat me as your agent, you owe me £300. I don't expect it, but I'm not proud, like you, and I shan't sneeze."

"Great Caesar!" he said.

"Yes, I know. But it's all nonsense, Bruce. You can carry scruples to altogether too great length. Tainted source! Everything's tainted, if you come to that. The film's a quite justified expression of modern civilization—a natural outcome of the Age. It gives amusement; it affords pleasure. It may be vulgar, it may be cheap, but we are vulgar, and we are cheap, and it's no use pretending we're not—not you, of course, Bruce, but people at large. A vulgar age wants vulgar amusement, and if we can give it that amusement, we ought to. Life's not too cheery, anyway."

The glare in his eyes was almost paralysing me, but I managed to stammer on:

"You live out of the world. You don't realise what hum-drum people want—something to balance the greyness, the—the banality of their lives. They want blood, thrill, sensation of all sorts. You didn't mean to give it them, but you have. You've done them a benefit, whether you wish to or not, and the money's yours and you've got to take it."

The cat suddenly jumped down. I waited for the storm to burst.

"I know," I dashed on, "that you hate and despise the film—"

Suddenly his voice boomed out:

"Bosh! What are you talking about? Film! I go there every other night."

It was my turn to say, "Great Caesar!" And, ramming contract and check into his empty hand, I bolted, closely followed by the cat.

________________________

6: Volcano-Mad

Earl Derr Biggers

The Saturday Evening Post, 29 April 1916

"LOVE stories!" the editors cry. "We must have love stories!"

For with love stories alone, they feel, can they send the hot blood coursing— at ten or fifteen cents a course— through the hardened arteries of the circulation department. And so we commercialized authors, about whom you may read so many harsh things in the Sunday newspaper interviews, draw nearer the gold-lined mush bowl and lift the spoon, dear reader, to your panting lips.

And it's easy. We do it in a series of twelve stories— or, if our fingers are tired, a series of six. He— the hero— is tall, straight, clean-limbed. She— the lady— has eyes that remind you of the Mediterranean with the sun upon it. They meet They love. Variety? Oh, plenty of that! They encounter one another in a different place each story. Bermuda, Rome, California, the Subway. Let's see— that's four. Eight more stories to write. Quick, boy— the geography!

This, reader, is a love story. Not one of twelve, or even of six; but let that pass. Someone else will look after you later on. What worries me is, it's not the regular kind.

When I think of Jim Driscoll, my hero, however, I am reassured. Handsome he always was— tall, straight, and I presume clean-limbed, though the bathing facilities at Port St Vincent were never anything to brag about. As for the lady with the Mediterranean eyes, she will be along presently. More—  there will be two of her. Jim Driscoll will hardly look at either of them; he will barely admit they exist. 'Way back in his college days he had already begun to regard girls with contempt But don't let him fool you.

He is a lover, Driscoll, even when the story begins—a truly great lover, who had come to a forgotten corner, of the world to find his beloved. There by her side he had stayed and worshiped, gazing at her soulfully, taking her temperature, writing passionate weekly and monthly reports about her, lyric effusions in praise of her for the popular scientific magazines.

For she was a volcano named Mount Barnabas, standing on a lonely island in the Caribbean, near a bedraggled town called Port St Vincent.

The sixth year after Jim Driscoll graduated from Harvard, his class, according to custom, published a report in which each man described his work in the world; and here again Driscoll's voice was raised in a paean to his love. He wrote:

It is now two years since I obtained my leave of absence from the Middle West college where I was head of the geology department, to come Port St. Vincent and make a permanent record and measurement of the activities of Mount Barnabas. To say that I am enjoying the work is to put it mildly. The island is rather wild and lonely, but Barnabas has a crater that is a constant source of interest. In the two years I have been here observing, many phenomena have come to my notice. Lack of space prevents my recording now any but the most important; however, I cannot omit...

(Here followed several pages of technicalities.)

My job is sleeping near the pit where the lava boils, photographing it, surveying it, measuring temperatures of vapour cracks, keeping a chart of the lake temperatures, and so on. I write weekly and quarterly reports. If any member of our class cares to look me up here, at Port St. Vincent, I can promise him a very interesting visit to the crater; and I think I can tell him some things about volcanoes that will open his eyes.

In spite of this handsome offer, no member of the class broke in upon the tropic silences of that Caribbean town. Perhaps, since they had been out of college six years, their eyes had already been opened. Perhaps they felt that Jim Driscoll would bore them. They remembered him, not as a grind with dandruff on his coat collar, but as a wholesome, red-checked boy with a passion for details. They read his report of his joyous years with queer little smiles.

"Volcano-mad!" they sighed to themselves, and hastily turned the page to find what the football captain was doing.

That his classmates did not visit him worried Driscoll not at all; in fact, he never noticed their failure to come. For he bad Mount Barnabas. In the shack he had built near the summit of the volcano he went on living what to him was an adventuresome existence, his only companion a black boy named Rene Mesa, from the French island of Martinique. Rene was homesick, but he stuck to Driscoll with a loyalty that touched the geologist whenever he could forget his reports and his charts long enough to reflect on it

ONCE OR TWICE a week Driscoll tore himself away from his work and walked the three miles down the mountain to Port St Vincent. To the American, the spectacle of the native cab-men, sleeping open-mouthed in their carriages beneath friendly trees, was symbolic of this, the metropolis of the island. It was a lazy town, a dreaming town, a town where nothing ever happened. Its main thoroughfare, the Street of Immaculate Saints, followed the curve of the sandy, pebbly beach. Here stood Government House, the offices of the exporting firms, the hotel, and all other buildings of note Port St Vincent boasted. From the Street of Immaculate Saints opened at intervals alleys of far-from- immaculate sinners. Driscoll would call at the post office for his mail— mostly bulky scientific books and magazines— chat briefly with any men of his colour who happened to be about, and then flee gratefully to his high, coo! home.

His best friend in Port St. Vincent was Billy Gibson, late of Yale, now of Uncle Sam's diplomatic corps. "Pronounce it corpse and tell no lie!" Gibson had once directed bitterly. This gay youth had begun his career in the service as third secretary of the Embassy at Tokyo, where his duties were mainly tea-drinking and waltzing. From there he had been promoted to the consular post at Port St. Vincent. He did not like Port St. Vincent. Though there are many brilliant butterflies on the islands of the Caribbean, Billy Gibson, of the social variety, was lonely and forlorn.

One Thursday afternoon in the third November of his stay near Mount Barnabas, Driscoll found himself walking along the sandy beach, with all his errands in the town complete, It was deadly hot. The tops of the cabbage palms were as immovable as stone; the sea breeze upon which the town was wont to depend was lost strayed or stolen somewhere out on the glassy surface of the waters. It came to him that Billy Gibson probably needed cheering, and he turned in at the little frame dwelling under the Stars and Stripes.

Unexpectedly, he found Gibson in a happy frame of mind.

"Great doings in New Haven Saturday," said the consul.

"How so?" the geologist inquired. Gibson gave him a pitying look.

"Good Lord! Don't you know? I don't suppose you do, at that You poor old fossil—football! The annual Yale-Harvard scrap. Ever heard of it?"

"Oh—of course!" said Driscoll.

"Gad! Wouldn't I like to be there?" Gibson's eyes glowed, "The old town packed to the doors— everybody in furs— furs, mind you!" He mopped his forehead. "And the girls— the ladies, God bless 'em! Can't you almost see 'em? No use— you can't. But I can. Ever attend a football game, grandfather?"

"Of course I have," laughed Driscoll. "Used to get mighty excited about them. But my researches—"

"Yes, yes. Well, you're coming to my party Saturday night. Don't make a date with a duchess or anything. I've arranged for that yellow boy at the cable office to get me the score— it'll come in about ten o'clock. Bernard Sabin is going to drop in, and those two English planters from over the mountain. Also, to keep the crowd in order, the Padre of the Church in the Bush. I'll depend on you."

Driscoll sighed. He begrudged every moment spent away from his volcano. However, he agreed to come.

"Things are picking up a bit," smiled Gibson. "Looks as though my little party might be the first of a series. Sabin told me the other day he expects his sister and a college friend to drop in here for a visit about next Monday. Doesn't that make your heart beat faster? It does mine— or it would if I wasn't engaged to the nicest girl in New York. No, by George— it does anyhow! And you "

"I'm pretty busy up at the volcano these days," replied Driscoll.

His heart sank. He dreaded the invitations that would no doubt come to him, once these Eves invaded his Eden.

"You make me tired!" said Gibson. "Nearly three years since you saw a real girl, too! By the way, I suppose we'll be losing you soon?"

"In January," sighed Driscoll. "My leave of absence is up then. I suppose I'll have to go back to teaching— for a time at least. I wish I didn't have to. There are three hundred volcanoes in existence."

"Oh, you volcano-lover!" laughed Gibson.

"Do you know," began Driscoll, "I have lately made a most important discovery regarding the vapour streams of Barnabas—"

"I do not," said Gibson; "and I don't intend to know. Remember, our friendship lasts only so long as you keep still about your old volcano. Have a drink? Sabin says his sister's friend is a blonde."

So it happened that Driscoll did not tarry long in the frail building that flew the flag of his country.

SATURDAY NIGHT found him back again, sitting with several other guests on the cool gallery of the Consulate. It was a tense, still, tropic night; Gibson had mixed the "swizzle" with luck at his elbow, and those who drank it sipped with a languid content as men partaking of the lotus. There was the merchant- prince, Sabin, who lived in the finest house of Port St. Vincent, and had grown rich extracting phosphate of aluminium from the rocks west of the town. Also the Englishmen, politely interested in the score of the Rugby-match, or whatever the devil it was. And, silent in a corner, with a lime squash in lieu of swizzle. Padre Forstmann, huge, white of hair, a pioneer in good works and a man of infinite compassion and understanding.

The Padre was—and this statement would not have occasioned a smile in those days— a German.

At ten-thirty o'clock the score of the football game had not yet arrived.

"Delayed in transit," said Gibson. He raised his glass. "May the best team win!" he smiled at Driscoll; "and may we do it by a good big score."

Driscoll looked nervously at his watch.

"Sorry," he said rising. "At eleven o'clock I am due to take the temperature of the crater lake. I'm afraid I can't wait any longer."

"What? You mean you're going— without the score!" Gibson was aghast "Well, I'll be a —— ! Say, this is an event! Make an exception. Forget your volcano. You can feel its pulse and look at its tongue later on."

"Awfully sorry," the geologist repeated. "Haven't missed the eleven-o'clock test once in three years. Can't start now."

Bernard Sabin, red-haired, genial, got up and laid a big hand on Driscoll's shoulder.

"Show some interest in the game," he pleaded. "I'm no college man myself, but I'll bet you a hundred Yale won— just to keep the excitement going."

"You're on!" smiled Driscoll. "But I can't stop. I'll walk down to-morrow and get the score."

And, despite their entreaties, he set out for his shack.

"Man's a mystery to me," remarked Gibson as he returned from saying good-night to his guest. "Fancy not wanting to stay for the score! I tell you he's gone nutty over rocks and roots and volcanoes. Plain nutty!"

"If only men loved God as Driscoll loves God's handiwork!" smiled the Padre.

"Couldn't even interest him in the imminent arrival of the ladies," went on Gibson. "All wrapped up in his darned volcano. You can't tell, though. May have a brainstorm when he sees them."

"Him?" laughed Sabin. "As soon expect it of Mount Barnabas!"

AN HOUR later Gibson crushed a cablegram in his hand.

"Glad Driscoll didn't wait," he said. "Yale lost. Can't see what's the matter with the boys! Sorry, Sabin— you're out a hundred."

"No matter," answered the merchant. "Had to have a little excitement. Well, I'll be saying good-night. Padre, I'll walk along with you."

Up on the summit of Barnabas, Driscoll, having added new figures to his chart, was lovingly turning the pages of three years' reports. He had forgotten football, Gibson, the world—and, it is hardly necessary to add, he had also forgotten the ladies.

ON THE following Monday morning the geologist rose early, by appointment with Mount Barnabas. As he left his shack and turned to climb to the crater's edge, he saw far below him, in the brilliant harbor, a yacht, newly arrived. His first thought, as always, was that perhaps the boat had brought him the latest issue of the American Geology Review. Then he remembered that it was a private craft, carrying no mail, and his disappointment was keen as he climbed to make his regular morning inspection.

It was later in the morning, when he sat, with his pipe, over his thick bundle of records, that he recalled how this yacht affected him and his life. On it had come to Port St. Vincent Sabin's sister and her friend, and they were to remain in the shadow of Mount Barnabas for a full month, while their friends on the yacht visited certain South American points. A month! A month of dinners and dances and excursions, from which he could scarcely, with any grace, escape, even though he pleaded what was undoubtedly the truth— that his pet volcano was demanding more of his time daily. Confound it! Why were there so few white men in the place? Why weren't there battalions of Billy Gibsons?

His boy Réné entered the room, having just returned from early mass at the Church in the Bush. He stepped immediately to Driscoll's trunk and took out a linen suit.

"To-day," said Réné, "I clean the clothes of monsieur— wash them, and iron."

"What's the idea?" growled Driscoll.

"By the slightest chance," said Réné, "I was on the beach when passengers from the yacht boat came ashore. Two ladies fair, of monsieur's race— and of a loveliness beyond all dreaming."

"Not for nothing," smiled Driscoll, "have you lived among Frenchmen."

"On Martinique," said Réné, shaking out the clothes, "are many fair women such as these. And a volcano, often angry. It is an island so beautiful— you should go there, monsieur."

"You're homesick, you rascal! You want to go back."

"When monsieur deserts me I shall go." Réné shrugged his shoulders. "Now I will wash the clothes. Monsieur will, of course, pay his respects to the ladies."

"Can't get out of it," sighed Driscoll. "Going to Sabin's for dinner to-night—have the clothes ready. A confounded nuisance!"

"What is that— nuisance?"

"Bore— trouble— bother— outrage," fumed Driscoll. Réné smiled broadly.

"Monsieur will not say so," he predicted, "when he has seen the ladies."

BUT THE BOY'S prediction did not come true. Monsieur continued to say so— under his breath— after he had met Bernard Sabin's guests. And it was really a matter not at all to his credit, particularly in the case of Helen Sabin. She was tall, dark, beautiful. Moreover, she was interested and intelligent on the subject of the earth's surface. It seemed she had studied geology at college and liked it; and she announced, as she sat down to dinner at Driscoll's side, that she intended to draw him out on his subject. The peal of laughter across the table was supplied by Billy Gibson, who had overheard.

"That's rich!" said Gibson. "Draw him out! Our great trouble has always been to hold him in. Well, good-by, Miss Sabin— a long good-by. You are about to start on a personally conducted tour of the earth's crust. The lecture will be instructive, and I hope you can keep awake."

Gibson's jesting words were more or less justified. In the presence of an intelligent listener, Driscoll poured out his three years' accumulation of facts, theories and deductions. Miss Sabin listened; and though she was somewhat appalled by the flood she gave no sign. Padre Forstmann, gazing at them from his place farther down the table, reflected that here were two people who seemed made for each other.

The Padre and you too, dear reader, are destined for disappointment. Driscoll had found an audience, not an affinity. Though this was the first girl of his own kind he had met in three years, his heart beat no faster as he gazed into her eyes. That she had an entrancing dimple in her chin, a mouth meant for kissing, and a brain not usually found in such company, meant nothing whatever to him.

As for Miss Sabin's friend, Dorothy Clark, the least said about her the better. Her college mates had called her Dotty, with a fine sense of the appropriate. "A little bit of fluff," Billy Gibson had said to himself when he met her. Small, blond, frivolous, she viewed life as the matinée of a farce. If Helen Sabin had a brain, and used it she had used it in selecting her bosom companion; for comparisons always redound to the credit of one party to them. Driscoll had only to glance at Miss Clark and know that his boy Réné was a mental giant beside her.

AFTER DINNER Sabin got out an asthmatic phonograph and Driscoll was forced to yield the floor to the latest dances from New York. Most of the men struggled valiantly to learn; in the case of Billy Gibson the struggle was brief. It was about ten- thirty o'clock when Driscoll found himself on the gallery, practically alone, for only little Miss Clark was with him.

"Oh-h-h— this is wonderful!" the girl had said as they stepped out from the heat of Sabin's drawing-room.

And it is a splendid tribute to the glory of the view that for a moment she was silent. Well she might be! Not far away an unbelievably blue sea was lapping an unbelievably white beach; brilliant green foliage stirred restlessly in the breeze; parrots screamed in the orange trees; and over all the Southern Cross shone as bright as a prima donna's jewels.

"What are those funny trees that look like feather dusters?" asked Miss Clark.

"Those," said Driscoll, "are cabbage palms. Do you remember the salad you had at dinner? It was made of the hearts of those same palms."

"Really?" she said. She laughed. "How nice! I love to devour hearts. Oh, yes— I'm quite a cannibal. Is that your old volcano?"

Driscoll cheered at once.

"That," he announced, "is Mount Barnabas. It may interest you to know that only to-day a scientific phenomenon, which I believe has hitherto gone unobserved—"

"Ugh— it must be lonesome up there!" said Miss Clark.

"On the contrary," replied the geologist, "it is intensely interesting. This phenomenon I speak of—"

"How do you make it fizz?"

"Make what fizz?" asked Driscoll blankly.

"The volcano. Or does it flare up all by itself? I'd love to see it spout. Can't you induce it to spout for me?"

Driscoll muttered something under his breath; then aloud he said:

"I am sorry to disappoint you. The result of my three years' labour has convinced me beyond a doubt that Mount Barnabas will never be active again."

"Then it's nothing but a dead one! What could be duller than a dead volcano?"

"You are quite mistaken. There are constant phenomena—"

"Oh, isn't this a romantic spot? I'm sure Juliet's balcony was nothing like it. All it needs is—"

"If you'll pardon me," said Driscoll, stepping back suddenly lest he seize this creature and throw her through the mosquito netting to the street below, "I must be saying good-night. At eleven I am due to make a few observations and I'm very much afraid I shall be late as it is."

"Three years' living with a dead volcano!" reflected Miss Clark. "You are in a rut, aren't you?"

"Good-night!" said Driscoll sharply, holding open the door for her.

He walked home with the Padre.

"That Miss Sabin now," said the old man— "a truly remarkable young woman."

"Yes."

"Of what are you thinking, my friend?"

"The— other. Why have they let her live?"

"God made both the orchid and the rose," smiled the priest.

An hour later, when Driscoll was saying good-night to his volcano, Miss Sabin and her friend were preparing to retire in the best room of Bernard Sabin's house. The former's eyes were dreamy, thoughtful.

"He's rather handsome, don't you think?"

"Awfully. Too bad they don't transfer him to some other post?"

"I was speaking of—Mr. Driscoll," said the Sabin girl.

"Oh—him!" Miss Clark shrugged her shoulders. "Crazy, I call him. I suppose he's up there now, putting his silly old volcano to bed. I hope I didn't hurt his feelings—I asked him what could be duller than a dead volcano."

"Dear!" reproved her friend.

"I might have been more impolite—I might have told him the answer to my riddle."

"What is the answer?"

"He is!" laughed Miss Clark, diving under the mosquito netting to bed.

IN THE WEEKS that followed Miss Clark must have realized that the answer to her riddle held her in no higher esteem than she held him. All the social diversions that Driscoll had dreaded, and more, too, came to pass. Now and then offering only a mild objection, the geologist attended them all, and so came to know both the young women better than he could have in a year spent in a wider circle of society. Miss Sabin grew more sympathetic, more quick in understanding, daily. Her friend went her frivolous way.

Gibson entertained; the English planters entertained; the Danish governor—for the island belonged to the Danes—opened his house. The time came when Driscoll himself had to make some show of hospitality, and he gave what Miss Clark described as a "crater party." By the side of his beloved he stood and, for the delectation of his guests, orated on her charms. They listened politely—most of them—though the lecture was long. Toward its close two were missing, and it need not be added that Miss Clark was one. The other was Billy Gibson. It took considerable hallooing to bring them back for the noon "breakfast" Réné had prepared. They explained that they feared the little scientific talk was still running.

THE LAST WEEK the two young women were to spend at Port St. Vincent arrived, and with it exciting days for Driscoll. A large volcano on a near-by island was suddenly active, and Port St. Vincent itself was stirred by the tremors of earthquake. Mount Barnabas grew vastly more interesting, though it gave no sign of joining in the fireworks. Of course it could not do that—all the records Driscoll had made proved the contrary.

On the day before Christmas the yacht that was to bear the two girls home stole into the harbor. They were to sail away early Christmas morning, and that night Bernard Sabin gave a final dinner in their honour. Though to leave Mount Barnabas, even to go that short distance, was a wrench, Driscoll came to say good-by to his friends.

The farewell dinner was over and the time for saying the word itself had come. Once more on the gallery, with the Southern Cross bright above them and the waters whispering along that spotless beach, Driscoll and the fluffy little Miss Clark were, alone. She turned up at him a baby stare famous in three states.

"Don't talk of your old volcano," she pleaded, though this was by now an unnecessary request from her. "This is good-by. In an hour we go aboard the yacht and when you rise in the morning the harbor will be empty. You might be really nice just for once—and say it will be very empty."

"So it will," agreed Driscoll, looking down at her. Yes, scientific lingo would be out of place here; he searched his brain for pretty speeches. "Emptier than you think. I shall miss you a lot. You brought an element of—er—romance to this tawdry town."

Might as well be polite to her; she was going very soon to leave him in peace.

"Do you really mean it?" she asked. "I shall think of you—sitting on your mountain-top—with your stupid charts. Oh—I know—they're not stupid to you."

"They're not," he smiled. "But then—I could never make you understand."

"I'm glad you're coming back to the States soon," she went on. "But then—wherever you are—I suppose you will always be on a mountain-top."

"Why not? I like mountain-tops. That's why I like these islands down here. You know they are nothing but the tops of a great range of mountains that sank into the sea long ago."

"Are they? I'm always learning things—when I'm with you—whether I want to or not."

She was silent a moment, staring at the lights of the yacht, which stood so still on the blue floor of the sea.

"I wish you'd come and see me in New York," she said. "We'll try to picture all this again—the harbor, and the stars, and the cabbage palms that have such tender hearts—even Mount Barnabas."

"I will," Driscoll lied. "It's been great to know you." He bad her hand now. "Little lady of the big eyes!"

HE LEFT HER then to find Helen Sabin. As he went he had the feeling that he had been recklessly gay and frivolous. His mind went back to a night in June, a girl in a muslin dress—the door of lilacs above them. He had not always been as old as his volcano.

Saying good-by to Helen Sabin was not so light a task. Her fine eyes were serious as she looked at him.

"I'll always remember." she said, "how interested you were in your work; how it was all of life to you. It's noble—somehow—to give oneself like that."

"It's nothing at all," he murmured.

"Our friends who own the yacht," she went on, "have wondered whether you would care to go home with us. I have told them it is no use—but I promised to invite you. You—you couldn't come away before your time is up, I suppose? We might wait for you to pack."

He smiled.

"You know that is impossible," he said. "I shall leave most reluctantly at the end of another month. But thank you, just the same; and your friends—please thank them for me."

"I will," she said softly. Was there a note of disappointment in her voice?

"I don't believe you will ever realize," said Driscoll, "what your coming here meant to me. I was dying to talk of my work to someone who would understand. No one would listen—then you came. I—I can't tell you—"

"Yes?"

"It—it is hard to say good-by."

"Is it? I wonder!"

"Surely you know it is! I hate that yacht down there because it is to take you away, Helen—"

"Yes?"

"Good Lord!" He had his watch out now. "It's nearly midnight. I have missed the eleven-o'clock observations! However—I don't care. It was to say good-by to you."

"I appreciate your saying that."

"But—I must go now. Thank you for coming—for understanding—for listening.

"Good-by," she whispered. He pressed her hand, and went away.

With wide, thoughtful eyes she stared after him. Please do not pity her. She was beautiful; she was clever; and to the north were many men who adored her. Besides, it was only that she might have cared if he had given her the chance.

JIM DRISCOLL went out into the Street of the Immaculate Saints, It is useless to try to conceal the matter—he was a bit upset. More than he had ever dreamed it could, the coming of these two girls of his own people had affected him. Remember, he had just said good-by. And, though the windows of the adobe houses all about him were wide open, though the breeze came hot from the sea, it was Christmas Eve.

A letter from his mother had been given him that evening and lay still unopened in his pocket. At the corner of the street hung an aged oil lamp, flickering feebly. Though Barnabas was waiting for him, he took out his letter and glanced through it. Brief passages leaped out at him from its closely-written pages:

"Bertha is coming, with her babies, for Christmas. Little Jim is the cutest thing! Have I told you he is beginning to talk? There will be holly and a great dinner—my own mince pies, I wish you might be here, Jim. I miss you terribly—but your work Very cold weather; snow two feet deep, as it used to be when you were a little boy... Many sleighing parties... Remember the time yon ran into that tree on the old Martin Road and broke your new sled? ... And how you came to me with the tears frozen on your cheeks? ... I suppose your volcano takes all your time... Father is reading your article in the magazine as I write this... I wish you could see little Jim!"

DRISCOLL put the letter back into his pocket. Unaccountably before his eyes rose the vision of a great warm house, with snow piled high at the windows and children playing in the nursery. Perhaps there was more in life than volcanoes after all. What was it Helen Sabin had said? He was welcome to go North on the yacht—they would even wait while he packed!

Nonsense! He pulled himself together and started up the mountain.

His path took him within a few feet of the Church in the Bush, and as he neared that lonely little building he heard the fine voice of the Padre boom out in the tropic night. He remembered, then—Christmas Eve and the midnight mass. Inside he knew the negroes had gathered, as they did each year, more for the fried plantains and cocoa with cream and sugar to follow than for the message the priest had for them. Driscoll paused in the clearing outside the church, glanced up at his volcano, then turned and entered the building.

By the candles at the shrine Padre Forstmann stood, his face alight with the story of another Christmas he was telling. Before him was gathered the weirdest congregation any priest had ever faced. They wore their best clothes—the negroes— mostly the cast-off garments of the ruling whites. The black face of one shone beneath a derby hat; another was supremely conscious of a waistcoat, buttoned down his back; still another was resplendent, though perspiring, in a discarded suit of evening clothes that had once decked Billy Gibson. They waited patiently—like animals, Driscoll thought—through this necessary preamble to food.

And their likeness to animals reminded Driscoll of a priest of long ago—Kipling's Eddi of Manhood End, who told the tale of the Manger to an old marsh donkey and a wet, yoke-weary bullock, as they stood patient in his chancel:

And when the Saxons mocked him,

Said Eddi of Manhood End:

"I dare not shut His chapel

On such as care to attend."

Like Eddi, "just as though they were bishops," the Padre preached them the Word. As one who faced the flower of civilization, he spoke in ringing tones. Driscoll gazed at him with reverence; this great and good man, alone and forgotten by his friends, on that obscure island, was a constant inspiration to him. Soon the service ended and Driscoll again climbed the mountain.

HE HAD gone about a hundred yards from the Church in the Bush when a tremor such as the island had not known in his day shook the earth beneath him. In another instant there was a boom, like that of a great gun, above him; and a fountain of steam and hot lava burst from the crater he had thought cold forever.

As to what happened during the remainder of that exciting night, Driscoll could never clearly remember. And this was wholly irksome to him, as a scientist, who should have kept a cool head and observed, observed, observed. It was not a great eruption, burying cities and taking human life—just a slight activity in sympathy with the outbreak on the near-by island. Two lines in the New York newspapers covered the story; a few more than two may cover it here.

Padre Forstmann's congregation had left its Christmas feast and was now in full cry down the mountain. Driscoll ran too; but he ran up, not down. Near the top, in a shower of ashes, he met Réné fleeing to the town; and, promising to follow at once, he urged him on. The wind was coming from the south, and so carrying the lava, fortunately, to the other side of Mount Barnabas. Because of this, Driscoll was able to go to the edge of the crater itself.

The thing that was uppermost in his mind was the shack that held all his possessions— most precious of all, the charts and reports of three years' faithful labour. He came in sight of that dwelling, but he came too late. Even as he looked, a great mass of hot lava fell on it, shattered it, and tore, with the wreckage, down the other side of the mountain to the river that ran in the valley.

Driscoll stood transfixed, while hot ashes rained about him. All that labour of love, all the results of three lonely years of observation, engulfed in a second and forever scattered and buried— and this by the volcano he had made the passion of his life! It came to him suddenly then: it was not the volcano he had loved; it was the papers with queer zigzag lines, the charts, the notes, that told the story of the volcano. As for Mount Barnabas itself, he hated it now with a hatred as hot as its own inconsiderate lava stream.

He ran close to the crater. Somewhere below, in the mists, he heard the lake bubbling angrily. The air was hot and steamy and wet, as in a gigantic laundry— a laundry run by the devil. The earth beneath his feet rumbled and threatened; another boom, and he leaped back as a stream of lava, enshrouded in a tongue of flame, struck up at the sky.

Driscoll gave one last look toward the spot where his shack had stood, and then turned and walked calmly down the mountain.

Padre Forstmann was standing, bareheaded and unafraid, before the Church in the Bush. Driscoll came to him and held out a hand containing gold coins.

"Father," he said slowly, "this ends me. I'm through! All the work of my three years here— gone— wiped out!"

"It is hard, my son," said the old man.

"Pretty tough!" agreed Driscoll. "I—I'm leaving to- night—on that yacht down there in the harbor. I want you to give this money to Réné when you see him; and tell him good-by for me. Tell him to take it and go back to Martinique."

"I'll be glad to do that," said the priest. "The volcano—do you think—"

"I'm not much of a prophet," said Driscoll bitterly. "You know I've been promising it would never erupt again. But this I do know—to-night's outbreak is not serious. If it were I should stay here and see it through. It is merely sympathetic activity—it will be over by dawn."

"Thank God for that!" said the Padre, gazing down at the terrified town.

"Padre," went on Driscoll, "you're a great man, and I'm proud to have known you. Good-by."

"Go back," said the priest. "God never meant you to waste your life here, prying into His secrets. He has shown you that to- night. Go back to your own land; and take my blessing with you."

Driscoll went on to the town. He spoke reassuring words to the Danish governor; but they were not greatly heeded, for his former promises were remembered. He called at the house of Sabin, and found that it was unoccupied save for a few frightened servants. A boatman rowed him out to the yacht.

The first person he met on the deck was Helen Sabin. Her eyes were wide with sympathy; her voice had never been more tender.

"I know what this must mean to you," she said. "They told us your house was destroyed. Your records—  your charts—"

"Gone forever!" said Driscoll.

"You poor boy!" she said. "You understand, don't you, how I sympathize with you?"

He pushed on past her. On the afterdeck he came on Dorothy Clark, dancing for joy and gazing up at the steaming summit of Mount Barnabas.

"Isn't that old volcano the cutest thing you ever saw?" she cried.

He came nearer.

"I think it's just too sweet of Barnabas to stage these fireworks!" she went on. "Our last night here too! It must have known, Don't tell me it didn't know!"

"Do you realize," said Driscoll solemnly, "what this means to me? My three years' work was wiped out to-night— in ten seconds. All my photographs; all my records—"

"What did your old records prove anyhow?" she asked.

He stopped. He had forgotten that.

"Well," he said, "they were valuable to science in many ways. Even though my findings seemed to point conclusively to the fact that Mount Barnabas was forever extinct— that it would never erupt again—"

She stared at him.

"You have proved that?" she inquired.

"Well— in a way—"

"Isn't that a scream?" she laughed.

AND NOW, dear reader, you are waiting for Driscoll to turn hotly on his heel, to hunt out Helen Sabin, to tell her—

Wait a minute! He took a step nearer little Miss Clark.

"I love you!" he said in a voice so filled with sincerity and passion that it moved even her. "Ever since you came I've thought only of you—day and night your face has come between me and my work. You're the one woman—the one in all the world for me!"

She was speechless, overwhelmed by his ardour.

"I want you!" he cried. "Marry me! I'll go back to the States with you on this yacht— I'll stay there— I'll work for you, take care of you, love you while I live. I'm through with volcanoes— it's you now. I'll love you as— as I loved Mount Barnabas. My dear! My dear, will you have me?"

And then, just under the fluffy yellow hair, little Dorothy Clark found a sudden store of sense. She looked at this man and knew that he spoke the truth; that he adored her; that he was her man out of all those she had ever met. So, softly, she whispered:

"Yes."

THEY WERE married at her home in New York, and Driscoll, the happiest of men, went back to his teaching. And, just because I know that you, reader, are turning up your nose at this match and daring me to add "They lived happily ever after," permit me to report one more conversation before the tale ends.

The final bit of dialogue takes place several years later, between Billy Gibson and Padre Forstmann, both of whom seem to have felt the same fear that you who read this entertain. Billy, alas, was still roasting on the grill of Port St. Vincent, the State Department having so many other worries it had not yet thought to transfer him to happier climes. He had just returned to the Port after a trip to the States, which was chiefly for the purpose of persuading the nicest girl in New York to share the Caribbean with him. In the midst of this errand— successful, by the way— he had found time to visit Jim and Dorothy Driscoll in the Middle West city where Driscoll was teaching in a university.

"And are they happy?" the Padre had asked, stopping for a moment on the cool gallery of the Consulate.

"Never a doubt of it!" said Gibson. "Happiness— they eat it! Live in a big warm house— snow at the windows when I was there— two of the prettiest kids you ever saw playing in the nursery. The place fairly breathes happiness! You know: not the kind you gather from the talk at table, and such times— the kind that may be a fake— but the kind you just feel in the atmosphere of the halls, in the little noises outside the bathroom door when you're shaving in the mornings—the whispers and the greetings, and the talk about the milkman not coming, which you aren't expected to hear. Yes, sir— Old Man Content certainly hangs out at their street and number!"

"I'm glad to hear it," said the priest.

"Funny, ain't it?" reflected Gibson. "Him with his ninety horse-power brain, and her with— well, let's be polite. The last couple in the world you'd expect to hitch up— especially with all the girls round who could talk to him about his work, and all that. Blamed funny!"

The Padre smiled.

"It is— funny— as you put it," he said; "but— that funny way— that is the way God meant it to be."

_______________

7: A Royal Dilemma

E. Phillips Oppenheim

The Weekly Telegraph, Sheffield, Nov 16, 1896

THURLOW and I were lounging in great easy-chairs, smoking a last cigar in one of the smaller tête-à-tête rooms of the Hyacinth Club—Bob Thurlow, of the Guards, to his friends—Lord Robert Algernon Marsh Thurlow to the Society papers and the world in general. He was a good fellow, but a trifle democratic in his tastes.

"I wanted you to stop for a bit, Maurice," he remarked, after a quarter of an hour's silence. "I've something to tell you! Draw in your breath! You'll want it all. It is a piece of news concerning myself that'll astonish you!"

But I had an inkling of it since the morning, so I only nodded.

"Fire away," I said encouragingly. "The whisky is good, and my nerves are tough."

He flicked the ash off his cigar.

"I am going to cut the Army!" he commenced slowly.

"Jolly sensible, too," I muttered <I>sotto voce</I>.

"The fact is I'm broke."

"So am I, very nearly," I observed under my breath.

"I'm stone broke," Bob continued, gathering courage from my undisturbed tranquillity. "The fact is, no fellow with less than five thousand a year can keep his head above water in our regiment. There's the drag, and the mess—beastly expensive mess—and no end of things. My pay is £500, and the Gov'nor allows me another £500. It means starvation."

"For your creditors," I ventured softly.

Bob stroked a fair, silky moustache, and refreshed himself with a long drink from the whisky and Apollinaris by his side.

"Don't be rude," he said. "Of course, it has been rather rough upon my creditors, but their patience is about to be rewarded. I'm preparing a surprise for them."

"You are not going to pay them," I exclaimed.

"I am; that is exactly what I propose to do."

I set down my glass and looked at him. Apparently he was quite sober.

"It isn't matrimony, is it?" I inquired with bated breath.

He shook his head.

"No, that or suicide I have always left for a last resource. I'm gong to be more original than that; I'm going into trade."

"The mischief!" I ejaculated.

"I'm going to join a firm of wine merchants," Bob went on steadily. "It is to be Hobbs, Son, and Thurlow. Richard Hobbs, James Hobbs, and Lord Robert Thurlow, you know, in small, black letters up in the corner. They are paying me a good deal for my name, and, of course, I shall draw a salary. I have sent in my papers, and I am going to pay up and make a fresh start, There!"

I held out my hand, which Bob grasped warmly. He appeared both relieved and gratified that I approved of his action. He, doubtless, forgot that I, too, was one of his creditors.

"Good, old man," I said. "You stick to it. Depend upon it, it's a jolly good thing to have something to do. Keeps you out of no end of mischief. I only wish that I had been brought up to a sensible profession."

I sighed meditatively. We had been brothers in arms until an unexpected accession to the family estates had brought about my early retirement. But the prospect before me was by no means cheerful. I was expected to become a politician, and politics in a general way did not interest me.

"The Army is certainly Tommy-rot when there is no service going," Bob remarked.

"But aren't they all as bad?"

"What should you call a sensible profession?"

I threw away my cigar, and leaned against the chimney-piece.

"I should have liked to have been a detective," I said quietly.
Bob looked at me open-mouthed. He was evidently incredulous.

"Don't talk nonsense, Maurice," he exclaimed.

"It is not nonsense," I answered, deliberately. "I can assure you that I am in sober earnest. First of all, let me tell you this - that all your preconceived notions as to the ethics of espionage are utterly wrong. There is nothing sneaking or underhand about it. That, to begin with, is a vulgar error. On the contrary, it is a magnificent profession, or, rather, I should call it a science. There is no pursuit in the world which requires such delicate tact, such fine insight into human nature, such self-control, and such courage. Furthermore, it needs ingenuity, invention, and originality. Now, ask yourself seriously how can a career which makes such demands upon us be a degrading one to follow? It is an absurd prejudice. To be a perfect detective one must be an artist. The lights and shadows of human nature must become a close and constant study. Detecting, as a science is only in its infancy, and the reason is obvious. It is because, up to now, it has only been followed by men of inferior calibre. It should be lifted to a place amongst the fine arts. If I were free to follow my own bent, that should be my mission!"

"Maurice, are you serious? You're such an odd chap, I never know whether you're chaffing or not."

"I never was more serious in my life!" I answered. "If I were not the Earl of Wendover, and had the family name and position hanging round my neck like a millstone, I should be Mr. Wendover, of Chelsea, or the Strand, 'Private Detective.' And let me tell you this," I continued, lighting a cigarette, "I should not be ashamed of it—not one little bit. Of course, when I use the word detecting, I mean the detecting of crime, not the parasitical work of the Private Agent and such gentry. I mean the lightening of the burden from the shoulders of the innocent, and fastening it on the shoulders of the guilty. That is the work no man need be ashamed of. I wish I had the chance—"

"Great heavens!"

The cigarette dropped from my fingers, and lay smoking on the floor. Only a few minutes before I could have sworn that we were alone in the room. But some time or other during our conversation the man who stood before us must have made his noiseless entrance. No wonder that we were startled. The electric light had burned low, and the room was full of shadows. Standing amongst them with his fiercely bright eyes fixed upon us was a man, whose features, in those few moments of half-alarmed surprise, were only vaguely familiar to us. His face was the face of a boy, smooth and beardless, but its intense pallor and the black lines underneath his bloodshot eyes had transfigured him.

His evening clothes were all awry, his white tie had slipped up behind his ear, and the flower in his coat was crushed into a shapeless pulp, his shirt was crumpled, and his clothes were splashed with mud. He stood, a grim, dramatic figure, only a few yards away from our touch, glaring at us like a wild animal face to face with its captors. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked for thirty seconds, and still our lips were sealed. Then Bob rose from his chair, and gasped out his name.

"By God, it's Reggie!" he cried. "What—what, in the name of all that is horrible, is the matter, boy? Are you ill?"

He tottered rather than walked towards us, and stood still, with shaking hands resting upon the little table. He looked first at Bob and then at me, but when he opened his mouth to speak no words came—only a dry, harsh rattle from the back of his throat. He was like a man whom torture had driven to the furthermost bounds of insanity.

I caught up my half-filled tumbler of whisky and Apollinaris, and forced some down his throat. He drank it with a little gasp. I helped him into a chair, and drew it up to the fire. He was still shaking all over, but his appearance was more natural.

"You look a different man now!" I said, quietly. "What's wrong? Tell us all about it. I thought you were thousands of miles away. Are you home on leave?"

He did not answer. Bob came over, and laid his hand heavily upon his shoulder.

"Have you been drinking, Reggie?" he cried. "What the devil is the matter with you, man? Brace up, and tell us, can't you?"

Still there was no answer. The burning light died out of his bloodshot eyes. He sank back wearily in his chair, and without speech. He appeared to be utterly exhausted by excitement and intense nervous strain. Bob and I looked at one another in dismay. It was hard to believe that this was the Honourable Reginald Thurlow, one of the smartest and most debonair of our young foreign attachés.

Bob stood over him with his arm round his neck.

"Reggie, old chap, pull yourself together!" he said kindly. "Make a clean breast of it. Is it anything wrong at headquarters—a row with the chief, eh? Maurice and I will stand by you. You know that! Come! out with it!"

Reggie looked up at us with white face and trembling lips. He caught hold of his brother's hand, and held it.

"Close the door, Maurice!"

I went and closed it. He followed me with his eyes, and then looked searchingly around the room. I began to fear that the boy's brain had given way.

When he spoke again it was to me he turned, and not to his brother.

"Maurice," he faltered, "I was in the room just now—I heard what you said about detecting. You were in earnest. I could tell that! I want a detective—at once—to-night but I dare not go to the police! I dare not trust anyone! Will you help me? For God's sake, don't say no!"

"Of course, I will help you!" I answered, readily. "Tell me all about it!"

"All about it!" He shuddered. "No, I can't do that now!"

"Something has happened at headquarters?" I suggested.

"Yes! I have been robbed. There was a burglary at the Embassy, and I was robbed of some papers."

A light commenced to break in upon me.

"State papers, I suppose?"

He shook his head with a groan. "Worse than that!"

The light faded away. I was more puzzled than ever.

"Worse than State papers?" I repeated vaguely.

"Yes!"

He looked all round the room again. His voice sank to a whisper. He took hold of our hands and drew us to him. I felt his finger- nails burning in my flesh.

"Swear, both of you, you Maurice, and you Bob, upon your honour, your sacred honour, that what I am going to tell you shall never pass your lips—that you will lock it down—deep down—in your memories! Swear!

"Honour, Reggie!" said Bob, softly.

"Honour, Reggie!" I echoed.

His voice sank to a husky whisper. His eyes were afire.

"They were the letters—of a woman—whom I loved—who loved me!"

"A woman!" Bob exclaimed, with visible relief in his tone. Why, Reggie—"

Reggie held out his hand.

"You do not understand! Those letters were mine! They have been stolen from me! It is a plot of her enemies! They were written by a woman who cared for me; they were written impetuously without prudence, signed with her name! I told her that they were destroyed. I lied, for I kept some of them. I could not bear to part with them all! They were precious to me! If I do not get them back at once, I shall blow out my brains! But, God help her! God help her!"

"Have you any idea where they are gone?" I asked. "You have come to England. Do you think that they have been brought here?"

"She has enemies!" he muttered. "My servants must have been in their pay. It must have been he, and he has come to England. I followed, but I cannot find him—I cannot find him!"

"Are they very bad?" I asked; "or are they only indiscreet?"

"They are more than compromising!" he gasped. "But it is not that they are so bad, it is—who she is!"

We were all silent. Reggie's face was ashen. Bob and I looked helplessly at one another.

"If I am to be any use to you, Reggie," I said, "I must know - her name!"

He half rose from his chair, clutching at the arms. His voice was hysterical.

"It is a little packet!" he cried, with a sob. "There are only four letters and a ring! But with them goes the honour of a Queen!"

ii

AT first the same thought flashed into the mind of both of us. We looked at one another questioningly. There could be no doubt about it. The boy was mad.

"This is too serious a matter to be discussing in a club, even with closed doors!" I said, gently. "Come home with me, and let us talk it over. My carriage is waiting. We shall be there in a few minutes!"

He obeyed without hesitation. We drove swiftly through the grey, dawn-lit streets, towards my house in Bruton Street, and, as I leaned back amongst the cushions, gazing with half-closed eyes at Reggie's wan face, a sudden memory rose up before me. I thought of a long visit of his years ago to the capital where he was now attaché, and of certain half-jesting allusions to the beauty of a certain Princess, which Reggie had taken very ill, indeed. There had been a paragraph in a certain Society paper, scandalous, but vague—somebody had shown it to him, and Reggie's language had been awful to listen to. These things came back to me, and dimly suggested others. For years, English society had seen very little of Reggie. His vacations were mostly spent at the capital to which he had taken special pains to be appointed at his entry into diplomatic life. With contemporary history, I was sufficiently well acquainted to know the Princess had become a Queen. Conviction came to me with a rush. He had spoken truth. I felt the perspiration stand out in beads upon my forehead as I recognised his terrible dilemma.

The carriage drew up with a jerk at my door, and, taking Reggie's arm, I hurried him upstairs into a little sitting-room, leading out of my dressing-room. First of all, I made him sponge his face. Then I rang for some sandwiches, and opened a bottle of champagne. He ate them and drank two glasses of wine, one after the other. A faint colour came into his cheeks.

"Reggie," I said, dragging up a chair, and sitting opposite to him. "I want the whole story, please! If I am to be any use to you, I must hear it all! Out with it!"

He began at once.

"It is a packet of letters and a ring which have been stolen from my room. They were kept—"

I held out my hand.

"Reggie, forgive me, but I must know! Were they written before her marriage or after?"

"All, save one, before. I have had some letters since—a few—on my promise that I would destroy them as they came. I kept that promise faithfully until last week. Then I was horribly tempted! I could not see her for several days. A letter came! I was foolish, but the letter meant so much to me!" he groaned. "I kept it for an hour or two, meaning to destroy it at night. It was stolen with the others!"

Bob and I were almost as white as Reggie. The situation was, indeed, horrible.

"Give me full particulars of the theft, Reggie," I said.

"I kept the packet in a safe, let into the wall of my room, and fastened with a cipher Bramah key, exactly the same as the Chief has for the treaty-safe. The letter I speak about I received on Sunday morning. I had it with me all day. At eight o'clock I went out to dine. I left the letter with my other packet in my safe. The key never leaves my person. I have a hollow gold band around my arm, and the key fits in it. When I came home everything was as usual. I opened my safe, meaning to read the letter over, and then destroy it. It was gone, and with it a packet and a ring. I rang a bell. There was no answer. I rushed through the Embassy, shouting for Shalders, like a maniac. He was my servant. No one knew anything about him. At last I heard news. He had been seen to leave the house soon after me, carrying a bag. He left for England by the nine o'clock train. I traced him early to London. At Charing Cross he disappeared. All day long, since early daylight, I have hung about the streets, in and out of public-houses, ransacking every mortal place I have heard him speak of. All in vain! He has vanished! I cannot find him! God help me!"

"That key never left your person! How do you suppose that Shalders opened your safe?" I asked.

"I cannot imagine. All I know is that it was done with a key, and the only other one made has never been out of the Chief's possession, or at any rate out of the Secretary's room. Sir Henry assured me that. How he could have opened the safe, and how he could have guessed the cipher. I do not know. It makes my brain whirl to think about it."

"How long has Shalders been with you? Has he been a good servant?"

"He has been with me for years. I should have trusted him with my life."

"Where were your rooms at the Embassy?"

"On the third floor."

"Anybody else near you?"

"Sir Henry's private secretaries, Dick Colquhoun and a fellow named Harris."

Dick was an old schoolfellow. I passed him by without a thought.

"Harris," I repeated thoughtfully. "Isn't he a connection of the Foreign Secretary's?"

Reggie nodded. "Nephew."

"Were you on friendly terms with him?"

"Not particularly," Reggie answered. "He was not a sociable fellow. He was away on a week's leave, shooting somewhere."

"When was he expected back?" I asked.

"The day I left."

"None else on your floor?"

"Not a soul."

"You had no difficulty in tracing Shalders to London?" I remarked.

"None."

"He did not seem to make any attempt to conceal his destination?"

"No."

"One question more, Reggie. Have you warned her?"

He covered his face with his hands and groaned.

"Yes."

"Is she taking any steps?"

"She has interest with the secret police. They are tracing Shalders."

"Can you communicate with her?" I asked.

"Indirectly, yes. I have had three telegrams from her to-day."

"Any news?"

"None."

"Sit down and write her a telegram."

He obeyed without a word. I placed pen and ink and forms before him.

"Say: 'Is Harris at Embassy?'"

Reggie thought for a moment, turned it into a cipher, and wrote it slowly out. I rang the bell which communicated with the stables and ordered a carriage.

"Go and despatch that yourself, Reggie, and see whether there is any message for you," I directed.

He rose wearily.

"I don't see any object in sending this," he protested. "It is ridiculous to think of Harris in connection with it. He wasn't even there. Shalders took the letters. There is no doubt about that. What I want to do," he concluded, with a little feverish burst, "What I want to do is, to find Shalders."

"Send it, anyway," I answered, "and if you think it is any good, wait for a reply. I suppose your third party will be all right?"

He left the room. Bob and I were alone.

"You think he is in his right mind?" Bob said.

"I am sure of it," I answered gravely. "Have you seen the evening paper?"

Bob turned away to the window. He was fond of his younger brother, and his eyes were dim. He answered me rudely.

"Damn the evening paper."

"By all means," I answered, tapping him on the shoulder, "but read this first."

He shrank back as if he had received a blow.

Not—not yet," he cried. "Not yet, surely."

I handed him The Globe, which I had brought away from the club in my pocket. He snatched it from me eagerly. The paragraph to which I pointed was headed:—

MYSTERIOUS MURDER IN SOHO

Early this morning the body of a man was discovered in a bedroom of No. 19, Francis Street, Soho, under circumstances which are fully described in another column. He had apparently been stabbed in the heart several times with a fine-pointed dagger, which was found by the police in another part of the chamber. The circumstances leave no room for doubt that a murder of the utmost brutality has been committed. The statement of the landlady given to our reporter is as follows:—

About half-past three on Tuesday afternoon, a lady, described as elegantly dressed, and very handsome, speaking with a strong foreign accent, called at No. 19, Francis Street. She engaged the best rooms in the house, which had only been vacated that morning, for her husband and herself, and took possession of them at once, paying a week's rent in advance. Her luggage consisted of one small trunk only. At seven o'clock she changed her dress, and sent for a cab which she ordered to drive her to the Savoy Restaurant. Before leaving she asked for a latch-key, remarking that she might not be home till quite late. About one o'clock she was heard to let herself in, and the footsteps of two men were noticed upon the stairs with her. One of them, however, said good-night on the first landing, and, after a short conversation which seemed to be carried on in a friendly and even in a jovial spirit, he descended the stairs again, and the front-door was heard to open and shut. The presumption is, however, that the woman was a decoy, and that the murder was committed by this man, who remained concealed in the house. The pockets of the murdered man were rifled, but a good deal of loose money was still lying about. Nothing that could lead to his identification was found upon his person, but from a card and other documents discovered in his overcoat pocket it appears that his name was Frederick Shalders, and that he was a valet, either in the present or recent employ of Lord Reginald Thurlow.

Bob read no more. He was trembling with excitement.

"It was Shalders!" he cried. "He was murdered for the letters."

"Doubtless!" I answered. "But by whom, and what was more important, had he parted with them, or were they still in his possession? Supposing that he met this woman at the Savoy at eight o'clock, he would still have been in London long enough to have accomplished the purpose of his journey. I wonder—"

I commenced to drum upon the window pane. Bob looked at me in surprise.

"You are thinking of something else!" he exclaimed, quickly. "What is it?"

I recalled my wandering thoughts.

"I am afraid that this Soho murder will not help us very much!" I said "Let us wait until Reggie comes. He may have some news!"

Almost as I spoke, my horses turned into the north end of Bruton Street and drew up below. Reggie came up the stairs three at a time. He closed the door behind him, and held out two telegrams. His expression was one of blank bewilderment.

"Listen to this!" he cried, holding out one of the telegrams before him. "It has just come!"

TELEGRAM

Your servant, Shalders, discovered in attic at Embassy, gagged and chloroformed, Was attacked in your room on Sunday evening. Cannot identify assailant. Very weak and exhausted, but will probably recover.

Reggie looked piteously at me, holding one hand to his forehead.

"What, in God's name, does it mean?" he cried.

"Read the other telegram," I answered.

He held it out.

"There is nothing in it!" he declared. "It is only about Harris! D-n Harris!"

"There have been wishes," I murmured, softly, "whose accomplishment has been more distant. Reggie, it is six o'clock. We are all going to bed for three hours. Until nine o'clock I will not hear another word about this matter!"

"But, Maurice, how can I sleep?" Reggie protested. But I refused to listen. I bundled them both off.

iii

AT nine o'clock punctually, we three sat down to breakfast. Reggie, who had sent to his hotel for some morning clothes, was quieter and more composed. But we were both shocked to see in the clearer daylight how ghastly a change the anxiety of the last few days had wrought in him. His eyes were set in deep hollows, his cheeks were thin and haggard. However it might end, he would carry these marks of agony to the grave. He made a pretence of eating, but all the time his eyes kept following me. After I was satisfied that he had eaten a little, I set him in an easy chair, and made him light a cigar. Then I placed The Globe in his hand.

"Read that carefully, Reggie!" I said, "and tell me what you think of it!"

He read it with a sort of fierce joy, mingled with amazement. His eyes glittered with an unnatural light. I saw that action of some sort was absolutely necessary for him. He was on the verge of madness.

"Very good! Very good!" he exclaimed. "It is the man who robbed me whom they have killed! Very good! Fancy our own secret service being equal to an emergency like that. Dead, is he? I am glad!"

"Reggie, this means work for you!" I said. "If it is not Shalders, we must know who it is who robbed you, and who has paid the penalty."

He sprang up at once.

"I am ready," he cried. "What shall I do?"

"Go to the Soho Police Station, give your card, and ask to be allowed to identify your servant. If it is Shalders, and your telegram is wrong—well and good—say so! If it is not, be very careful that you show no surprise!"

In five minutes he had left the house. In half-an-hour he was back again. I spent the interval smoking a pipe and reading certain numbers of The Times which Bob sorted out for me.

He came in trembling all over. He looked at me almost with awe.

"I believe you knew," he cried; "you knew who it was!"

I nodded. "It was Harris, I suppose?"

Reggie sank into a chair.

"Yes! it was—Harris!" he said, with a little shudder. "Do you suppose that it was he whom I followed to England? Who stole the letter?"

"Not the least doubt about it!" I answered. "The shooting party was a myth! He came back either with, or without, an accomplice, opened the safe with the Embassy keys, or with a false one, which he could easily have made. He gagged and chloroformed your servant Shalders, and, when he was helpless, got him somehow up into the attic. Then he started for England, giving the name of Shalders to put you off the scent. He was followed by the secret police you spoke of, and the woman with whom he dined at the Savoy, and who took him to her rooms in the Soho, was a decoy in their pay. We know that such things exist even in these days, although we seldom come in touch with them. Now comes the question which is all important to us. Had he your packet in his possession when he was murdered? If he had, you may depend upon it the letters are now on their way back to—to the writer. If he had not, where are they— into whose hands have they fallen? We must know this at once! Do you think that he intended to hold them for blackmail?"

Reggie shook his head.

"He would not dare! The risk would be too great!"

"Neither do I think so! Frankly, Reggie, if Harris has parted with those letters, matters are in a very critical state. Unless we can recover them within the next twenty-four hours. I am afraid that we must give up all hope! There is just one chance, and I am going to follow it out. I want you to describe to me the packet, as carefully as you can."

"It is about eight inches square," Reggie said. "Quite thin, and is tied up with white ribbon. The packet itself is of Japanese white silk, stained a good deal with violets. It was a fancy of mine. I used to keep it smothered with Parma violets. The loose letter was just folded up and slipped underneath the ribbon. The ring is inside, up in the left-hand corner."

I nodded.

"Thanks, that will do. Now, go and telegraph at once. There is just a chance, you know, that the package was recovered with Harris. I am afraid it is a very slender chance, but, at any rate, I should find out. Don't try and find me until one o'clock. I shall be either here or in the Park riding, by that time. If I am in the Park, and you come there, don't speak to me if I am with anyone. Better perhaps, not to notice me at all. I shall be able to tell by your faces which way the news is. You go, too, Bob. Come back here and wait afterwards. I shall be doing my best, and don't despair, Reggie."

It was half-past ten when they left me I had a bath and a pipe, and at twelve o'clock ordered my horse round. Soon afterwards I was riding slowly down the Row. I met a good many people whom I knew, but avoided them all, or exchanged the barest of greetings. I was there for a special purpose, and as time went on I began to grow anxious, and looked at my watch repeatedly. Just as I was turning at the corner, however, I came face to face with two girls, riding slowly, and followed by a groom. The elder one, a dark, moderately handsome girl, but without any special distinction, bowed to me graciously, and to her evident surprise I reined in my horse beside hers.

"Good morning, Miss Ogden," I exclaimed. "I was beginning to think that you had given up your morning rides. You were not here yesterday, were you?"

"Yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that," she laughed. "There are so many people, and you seem to know them all. You can't expect to see everyone, can you? You were riding with the Countess of Appleby yesterday. I think that if I were a man, and riding with the Countess of Appleby, I should not see anyone else. She is very beautiful, is she not?"

"She is my cousin, so I am scarcely a fair judge," I remarked, tuning my horse. "May I come with you a little way?"

They were surprised, but frankly acquiescent. I had the advantage of belonging to a set of which they were not members, and which had the reputation of being at once smart and particularly exclusive. My offer, therefore, especially as my acquaintance with them was of the slightest, was surprising, but obviously welcome. Miss Ogden did not hesitate to admit their somewhat doubtful social position.

"It is quite interesting for us to be with someone who knows everybody," she remarked. "You see this is only our second season, and until last year papa never had a house in town. I suppose that is one reason why we know so few people outside the political set. Politicians may be useful creatures, but they are not amusing."

I laughed softly. Sir James Ogden was a politician, who had worked his way up from the ranks. He had been a provincial manufacturer, Mayor of his city three times, and knighted for a liberal entertainment of Royalty. He had gone into Parliament, and, with the aid of a fluent tongue and a large business capacity, had worked his way into office. His methods were not altogether to the liking of his Party, and he was yet, to a certain extent, unproven. But, on the whole, his success had been remarkable. Unfortunately, he had married early in life, and his social prospects were handicapped by a good-natured, but uneducated, spouse.

It was easy, therefore, to understand the somewhat anomalous position in which his daughters naturally found themselves.

I rode slowly down between the two girls, receiving a good many surprised salutations, and doing my best to make myself agreeable, a task which, under the circumstances, was not difficult. They fully expected, as I could see, that I should be leaving them in a minute or two, but I did nothing of the sort. I answered my cousin's imperious little movement of her whip with a bland smile and an indifferent wave of my hat, thereby offending her grievously, and remained with them until the people began to thin off. Then, as we were riding slowly and talking under the trees, a stout, red-faced old lady rose up from a chair and waved to us. Miss Ogden's cheek flushed, but she reined in her horse.

"It is my mother!" she remarked, with a distinct note of regret in her tone. "I quite forgot she was looking out for us! I suppose we must go to her!"

"By all means!" I answered. "By-the-bye, I have not the pleasure of knowing Lady Ogden. Won't you present me?"

"With pleasure!" she answered, readily. "Come, Cissy!"

We rode up to the railings, and I was formally introduced. If I was something of a snob that morning— well, it was for my friend's sake. It was a matter of life or death. The means were there, and I used them. It happened that I was a somewhat prominent member of a set to which they were exceedingly anxious to belong, and, in short, I traded upon it. When we rode off together, I was engaged to lunch with them, and there was a very becoming sparkle in Miss Ogden's bright eyes. Near Hyde Park Corner we came face to face with Reggie and Bob. A single glance into their faces told me that the news was bad. I rode on, heedless of Reggie's reproachful glance as he heard me talking and laughing to the two girls. I could feel that he and Bob were looking after me in amazement, but I did not even glance over my shoulder. Lady Ogden's carriage was close behind, and it did not suit me just then to know anything of the Honourable Reggie Thurlow.

At luncheon, we were joined by Sir James Ogden, with whom I had already some slight acquaintance. He was a shrewd and keen business man, who, having made a large fortune, had entered Parliament whilst comparatively a young man, and had devoted his undoubted mercantile talents to State affairs. An immense capacity for work, and a fine knowledge of the rudiments of intrigue had helped him on to political success, and in the present Administration he had a somewhat important post. At luncheon, however, I avoided politics altogether, although we were of the same Party, and talked entirely for the benefit of Lady Ogden and her daughters. I promised them cards for certain forthcoming local events (my promise by the bye was kept), and I was able to tell them a good deal that was interesting about the life which was going on around them.

Sir James listened with a somewhat forced air of interest, but, on the whole, I could see that my presence also gratified him. I have never quite forgiven myself for that morning, but at least I have done all that was possible to atone for it. The present social position of Lady Ogden and her daughters is largely owing to my efforts, and if Miss Louise looks at me a little reproachfully when I fail for several mornings to ride over and speak to her in the Park, at least she is frankly grateful for some of the services I have rendered them. Still, I fancy that none of them— except Sir James, who will keep his own counsel—quite understand that morning.

After luncheon—it was protracted as long as possible—Sir James proposed a cigar and a cup of coffee in his room. I took my leave of the ladies, and followed him into the library.

"I have just one hour which I can call my own!" he remarked, wheeling out an easy chair for me. "To me it is always the most pleasant of the day! I am old-fashioned enough to enjoy my luncheon and a smoke afterwards!"

A servant brought liqueurs and coffee, and Sir James produced some cigars. I helped myself, and whilst I sipped my coffee looked around the room curiously. On the table was a black despatch box. Whilst I was lighting my cigar Sir James unlocked it and glanced inside. The match went out in my fingers, and my heart gave a quick beat. I was right, then! A strong perfume of violets floated out from the box into the room.

iv

WITHOUT being in any sense of the word a politician, I had made several speeches in the House of Lords, upon subjects interesting to me, which had been listened to with attention, and one of which had provoked a considerable discussion. Sir James and I being of the same Party, there was no reason, therefore, why politics should be tabooed between us. A chance remark from Sir James paved the way. As carefully as possible I led the conversation up to the subject of our relations with a certain Power.

"If I were a genuine politician," I remarked, "that is to say, if I possessed the requisite ability to become one, I should be interested more than anything in foreign affairs. Diplomacy is by far the most fascinating branch of politics. I was interested by what I heard the other day— you can guess where— about a treaty with the Power in question. There are some peculiar complications, are there not?"

"There have been some very peculiar complications!" Sir James remarked, smoking his cigar with evident relish, and gazing with a faint smile upon his lips into the depths of the open despatch box by his side.

"Well, it's a pity," I remarked. "The advantages of the treaty to us are very obvious just now! Is it permitted to ask you— unofficially— whether the difficulties are insuperable?"

Sir James removed his cigar from his mouth. He leaned a little forward. I could see that he was about to become confidential.

"The whole history of our negotiations will never become really known!" he said. "The fact is, a certain Royal personage— not his Majesty— was very much opposed to the signing of the treaty. All along, we have had to contend with a strong antagonism from— I do not know why I should conceal it from you— from the Queen! Her influence, as you may be aware, is great, and while it remains so our relations are liable, at any moment, to become strained. It is one of the things that we have always had to contend with, of which the public know nothing at all, and for which, of course, make no allowances!"

"The public are hard taskmasters!" I remarked. "By-the-bye, you used the past tense. Is there any chance, do you think, of getting the treaty signed, in the face of such opposition?"

There was a slightly triumphant smile on Sir James's lips as he glanced into the depths of the despatch-box. It was standing at his elbow, and he had been carelessly playing with the lid. The perfume of violets, faint and sweet, seemed to be filling the room.

"The treaty will be signed within a fortnight!" he said, quietly. "I do not think that we shall ever have any trouble again in that quarter. Of course, you will understand that I do not wish this to go any further at present, but I may say that means have come into our hands which will put a summary end, now and for ever, to the opposition I spoke of. I cannot say more, even to you, at present, but the whole affair will be public property before long!"

I leaned back in my chair, and nerved myself for what was to Come.

"I trust not!" I said, slowly.

Sir James let fall the lid of his despatch-box with a bang, and looked up at me in amazement.

"I beg your pardon!" he said. "I do not quite understand!"

"I repeat, that I trust not!" I said. "The means to which you allude"— I looked hard into the despatch-box— "are means of which no use must be made!"

Sir James drew a bunch of keys from his pocket, and calmly double-locked the despatch-box. Then he rose to his feet and turned a frowning face upon me.

"I am utterly at a loss to understand you, Lord Wendover!" he said, coldly. "Be so good as to explain yourself."

"I am here to do so!" I answered firmly. "I am here for no other purpose. The means to which you allude are these! You have obtained possession of compromising letters, written by a certain personage to my friend, Reginald Thurlow. Those letters made public would be the ruin of any woman— even a Queen! You propose to make them public— and to ruin her! It is very simple. You are a patriot, and you would rise another step in the estimation of your country upon the wreck of a woman's reputation."

There was a bright light in Sir James's grey eyes. The lines on his face had contracted and hardened. He remained cool, but he was desperately angry.

"Continue, sir."

"Diplomacy might sanction such use in such a case, if the letters had come into your hands by other means, Sir James," I continued. "They were brought to you the day before yesterday by a young man named Harris, a distant connection of your own, and one of the Embassy secretaries at the capital in question. Now, I know you to be an honest as well as a shrewd politician, Sir James, and I am perfectly sure that you have been misled as to how those letters came into Harris' possession!"

"He found—never mind! I will hear what you have to say, my Lord, first."

"He doubtless assured you that he found them! He did not. His zeal in your service led him further than that. He, or an accomplice, chloroformed and gagged Reginald Thurlow's servant, and abstracted the letters from his private safe, opened with the Embassy keys. In other words, he committed a gross and criminal burglary! It is in your interests I bring the information, Sir James. I think you will admit that such methods are going a little too far!"

Sir James resumed his seat. His hard worn face was puckered up with thought. He was silent for a moment or two. I could see that I was correct in my supposition. What I had just revealed was news to him. Harris' story had been a very different one.

"My nephew's conduct was indiscreet and exceedingly ill-advised," he said, looking up at last. "If necessary he must answer for it. I cannot shield him, nor should I attempt to do so. At the same time, the violence that was offered was within the walls of our own Embassy. That is the crux of the matter. I admit that the means were deplorable, but the end that has been gained is great. I am sorry for your friend, Lord Wendover, at whose instigation I suppose you are here. But in the face of the great national gain, the welfare of individuals must go to the wall. I shall hold to my course"

"Mr. Thurlow has many powerful friends," I reminded him. "They will not let the matter drop. The story will get about. Our methods will be decried by the whole civilised world. You must admit that the letters were stolen. With this knowledge, shall you dare to use them?"

"I am ignorant of the fact that they were stolen," he answered, very coolly. "I have no cognizance of it. It is not necessary. The letters are here. As an officer of the State, I owe no one any explanation as to how they reached me. It belongs to the Secret Service department. I have not investigated or acknowledged any theft. I hold the letters for my purpose—and you will pardon my adding, that I have no more to say to you, Lord Wendover."

He laid his hand upon the bell, but I checked him.

"Then, prepare yourself for a further shock, Sir James!" I said. "Last night your nephew paid the penalty for his over-zealousness. He was murdered in a Soho lodging-house!"

Sir James sank into a chair, pale to the lips. I took The Globe from my pocket, and showed it to him.

"There is a full account of the murder," I said. "I am very sorry to shock you, Sir James, but—"

"The name is Shalders!" he exclaimed, suddenly. "I read this last night! It has nothing to do with Bert!"

"It has everything to do with him!" I answered, gravely. "I suspected that the name was a false one. Mr. Thurlow has been to Soho police station this morning, and identified the body. There is no room for any doubt in the matter!"

"My God!" he murmured to himself, "My God!"

"Your nephew had laid his plans well!" I continued. "He took the name of Shalders when he left for England, and he intended to keep his visit here a profound secret. He had a fortnight's leave from his chief, and was supposed to be absent on a shooting expedition!"

Sir James rose to his feet. He had regained his composure, but he was evidently shaken.

"You have those letters, Sir James," I continued. "Good! Now ask yourself what they have cost you! First of all, a burglary with violence— then a life! The life of your own nephew! If they had been quietly stolen, and the thief was unknown, I admit that you might have used them safely. As it is, I warn you that to use them is to terminate, once and for ever, your career as a politician. We do not live in the days of Richelieu and his school. Such methods as have been used in this matter will never be tolerated by our own country or international opinion!"

"It is impossible to connect me in any way with my nephew's blunder!" he answered. "I was not even the instigator. The letters were placed in my hands. Of this history I am completely ignorant. I shall not give them up!"

"Very well, Sir James," I declared, "your refusal leaves me but one alternative. I have an audience with the Premier at four o'clock. It is now ten minutes to. I shall go to him, tell him all I know, and get him to wire orders that the seals which I have had placed on your nephew's belongings are not disturbed until a special envoy has been through his correspondence. You may not have been his instigator. That is to be proved. In any case, Sir James, your resignation will be demanded within the next twenty-four hours!"

Sir James walked to the window and came back again. Slowly he drew from his pocket a bunch of keys, and unlocked the despatch-box. With the little packet in his hand he lingered for a moment as though even now loth to part with it. Then, with a slight bow, he handed it to me across the table, and the perfume of crushed violets had never seemed so sweet to me!

"You are quite right, Lord Wendover!" he said, drily. "My position is untenable. Present these letters to your friend with my most profound apologies, for the manner in which they came into my hands. You can understand the reluctance with which I part with them, but I would like to assure you of this. I simply advised poor Harris, from time to time, that any means of weakening the Queen's influence would be grateful to me, and would tend to his own advancement. Such means as he adopted were utterly unsanctioned by me. The limit of my instigation I have told you. In justice to myself, I desire to make it clear! Permit me to ring for your carriage!"

We parted without formal leave-taking. I drove rapidly home, and, mounting the stairs, found Reggie and Bob waiting for me. Without a word, I held out the packet. Even now, I sometimes fancy that I can hear the echoes of Reggie's hysterical cry.

Together we watched the flames consume it. Over the ashes we clasped hands.

"It is over, Reggie!" I said. "Promise?"

"On my honour," he sobbed, while scribbling on a telegraph form.

And I believe that he kept his word.

_________________________

C J Cutcliffe Hyne

Author of the Captain Kettle adventures, and many others. These stories were scrounged from on-line newspapers at the Australian National Library, through TROVE. They may or may not exist in collections published by Cutcliffe Hyne, but the prolific author's entire output is not yet digital, and I can't find a detailed bibliography, so they are on-line here at least.

8: The Traitor

Evening Star (Boulder, West. Aust.) 2 Oct 1902

LET ME own up at once that I had  gone into that room where the conspirators had their trial, for nothing more or less a common burglary

It is a horrible thing for a man in a position like mine then was, to have to confess, that I may as well make a clean breast of the truth.

I had been heavily dipped for over two years; it had taken all the cleverness I could think of to keep In the regiment; and a bad race week, and then a regular crashing bad night at poker put the lid on my professional coffin for once and always. I had no choice but to send in my papers, and I came up to town to try and think out, what must come next.

It was the glint of that woman's diamonds in the hotel dining-room which gave me the hint, and although the hare idea of the thing made me shiver with cold at first, the more I thought of it the more it seemed that there was no other road out of the mud.

Now, never mind which London hotel all this happened in; it was one of the big ones In the West-end, and there was some two hundred people, all well dressed, chattering away in the dining room. The woman with the diamonds was at the next table, with her back to me. She was wearing a gown that I'll swear hadn't been out of Paris a week. She'd dark red hair, small ears, and as fine a neck as one could wish to see. And on her neck and in her hair she had great white glittering gems worth perhaps ten or twelve thousand golden sovereigns. Once she turned hall round to look down the room. She was deliriously beautiful. I guessed her age as rising twenty-three.

She was dining with two men, and the trio of them spoke French; but though they rattled out Parisian argot with easy fluency, I came to the conclusion that the language was not their native tongue. After a while I grasped the fact that they were all three Russians. The man with the torpedo heard was named Parloff, and apparently served in the navy, and the clean-shaven fellow with the high-pitched voice was Dimitri something or other. Dimitri seemed by his manner to he a gentleman. He called the lady in the diamonds "Sonia," and they appeared to be on terms of easy familiarity. But Parloff addressed her as "Countess," and seemed instinctively to take the role of social inferior, whether he wished to or not.

It was to the vague Dimitri I owed the hint which turned me from a mere spectator who could covet into the active-fingered burglar.

"By the way," I heard him say, "that isn't paste, Sonia, which you are wearing to-night, I suppose?'

"You are paying a very poor compliment to my diamonds."

"Ah," he went on, "I've been in queer company since I saw you last, Sonia. Our excellent friends here are more noted for their earnestness than their polish. And, moreover, they arc few of them affluent. It would be rather hard to flaunt those stones before them."

"Oh, Dimitri," she said, "how very thoughtless of me! Poor fellows! I know how hard up some of them must be."

"And the passage down to the— er —to our place of entertainment tonight-is quite dark," said Dimitri, "and it would be a pity to tempt the canaille to steal."

"Do not call any of our friends canaille," said the man with the torpedo beard. "The cause makes us all equal."

"Theoretically," said Dimitri, with a laugh.

"You order coffee. and your petits verres," interjected the countess, "and I'll go up to No. 41 and take off these diamonds, and he with you in a couple of minutes. I suppose we needn't leave the hotel for another hour yet?"

She glanced up at the clock. "It is twelve minutes to nine now, and we are not due there till ten."

Dimitri rose to his feet, and picked up her fan.

"It's quite half an hour's drive.  We must leave here by nine-thirty. The business will he over by—"

And that was all I heard. The clatter of the room drowned the rest of his words. and I stared after them stupidly till they had passed out of the room, and a bowing waiter had let the swing-doors close noiselessly upon Parloff's heels.

I ordered another small bottle of champagne, and held a hissing goblet in the grip of my hand. But I did not drink. My mind was in a boil. I was arguing with myself how a man would feel when he had chucked even the rudiments of honour to the winds, and become a common pilferer and a thief.

It opened up a vista of new ideas; since things had been going awkwardly with me, I had conceived various kinds of fall, but never a descent like this: and for the time I felt all crumpled up. I did not drink the wine, and it slopped by degrees over the tablecloth- Once my waiter came and asked me if ho could bring me anything else.

"Yes," I said, "a small-scale map of the infernal regions"—upon which he looked puzzled and left me, and I sat on in my place till the last of the diners had left,  and I had the great room to myself. Then they opened some windows, and the sound came in of the Westminster Clock chiming ten. I let go the wine-glass, and it rolled to the floor and tinkled into fragments. Then with a shiver I rose to my feet and went out into the hall.

A honeymoon couple were whispering on one of the sofas; a man in a silk hat snored from the depths of a big chair; and there was not another soul in the place excepting officials. The hum of London came dimly in through the doors from Northumberland Avenue: but within the great hotel was enjoying one of its lulls.

I strolled all through the public rooms. The Russians were certainly gone, and to myself I pictured them with some certainty as taking part at that very moment in some secret assemblage of Nihilists. I lit a cigar and got into a chair. and tried to think. But no thoughts would come consecutively. All the while the number clanged through my head with maddening reiteration.

I strolled all through the public rooms. The Russians were certainly gone, and to myself I pictured them with some certainty as taking part at that very moment in some secret assemblage of Nihilists.

I lit a cigar and got into a chair and tried to think. But no thoughts would come consecutively. All the while a number clanged through my head with maddening reiteration:

"Forty and one! Forty and one! One and forty!"

Fate and the Countess seemed to be openly playing into my hands. Ten thousand pounds' worth of diamonds...  Empty pockets... "The manager will not be responsible for any valuables lost from the bedrooms."...  No chance of being caught....

ii

THE stair-ways and the corridors were deserted. A light shone from under he door of Number 41. I had made up my mind by that time, and turned the handle firmly, and walked in, and if there had been anyone inside I should have said, "Oh, I beg your pardon," and  walked out again. But of course the room was empty, and I searched it at a glance, and shut the dor behind me. The jewels were not there. I was in a sitting-room, furnished in the ordinary 'big hotel' luxury and bad taste. A door opened off it in the right hand wall; evidently there was a bedroom en suite; and it was there I must look for my treasures.

I crossed the carpet and entered the bedroom. The place was in darkness, and I was fumbling for the electric light switch, when or a sudden my eye caught a gleam of many coloured lights from the dressing-table. What luck ! What stupendous luck! I could have sung aloud with satisfaction.

But I did not do that. I turned and began to walk across the floors but at the end of the first step I halted, and a thing happened which turned all my blood to ice. I heard the outer door of the sitting-room open, and Dimitri's voice say, "Go in first, Sonia, and receive them."

If the means had been at hand, I would have killed myself at that moment to have got away from what appeared to he my certain shame. But I was empty-handed and helpless and I stood in the darkness of that bedroom like a man dazed and looked on through the slit in the doorway.

There were ten men with the countess in the other room. The two I had seen before and two others wore in evening dress; the rest wore ordinary black and tweed, with that something indefinable in the cut which marks off the foreigner. The chatter of their voices rang through my head for full ten minutes without leaving any impression, and then some one rapped a table for silence and spoke.

"Friends," he said, "our ally here, who is in the British Parliament on our behalf, understands no Russian. He has come to-night to see justice done, and it is right that be should appreciate everything that happens. So, if it pleases you, we will conduct our proceedings in French."

The assembly chattered out its cordial consent, and the Englishman thanked them. His accent was vile, but his French was glib enough.

Parloff went on: "I was sorry to drag you away so unceremoniously from our other meeting, but necessity knows no etiquette. News was brought to me that treachery had been done to our cause. Our plans for— you know what— have been betrayed. The whole scheme is totally split for the present. And I make no doubt that more of our friends in Petersburg are at this moment walking off towards Sakhalin. The Czar's gold," he added bitterly, "has once more saved his Imperial hide."

"I'm beginning to admire the Czar," said Dimitri. "His hand is everywhere. He is a man worth fighting against."

Parloff frowned, and waved him to silence. "The traitor is growing alarmed already. He fears the reach of our arm here in London, and has made arrangements to return to St. Petersburg to-morrow. But before he goes he has promised to call at this hotel to make his adieux to the countess, and perhaps we may induce him not to forget the ceremony."

He drew from his pocket a sheaf of papers, and pitched them on the table. The English M. P. and the other man in evening dress took them up to examine.

"There are written proofs of the man's treachery, and again we have to thank the countess here for putting them into our hands and directing vengeance to the right man. It only remains to fix upon his sentence."

"Oh, death, I suppose," said a man with a pock-marked face. "There is no reason for deviating from our general rule that I can see?"

"Except," said Parloff, "the difficulty of carrying it out. I make no doubt that our caller will have a couple of detectives waiting outside till he shall have finished his call. We are all more or less known to them, and if our man is not forthcoming again in this it will go hard with us. We can't afford to sacrifice ourselves for a case like this. The cause has more work for us to do, and we must exact our penalty, and at the same time keep ourselves safe. But I have brought this with me," he said, "from the club," and turned round, and drew from the pocket of his overcoat, which lay on a chair, a short-handled whip with two metal rings in the lash, and a beak-like hook at its end.

Dimitri drowned. "Oh, I say," he protested, "to knout a man is worse than killing him."

"Precisely," said Parloff, and looked at his watch. "He has earned the hardest punishment we can give. Think of the misery he has caused to his associates. And now, friends, please, get ready for this traitor's reception. He named his time, and he will be punctual. He may drop in upon us at any minute. We must cease talking, or our voices will scare him. He thinks there is no one here but the countess."

The men settled themselves on to their seats, and forbore even to whisper. The countess leaned with one white elbow on the mantelpiece, looking into the fire, and biting her lips. The English M.P. went methodically through the sheaf of papers. For myself I stood In a dull agony where I was. I had crept over to the other door of the bedroom and found it locked. And it seemed that my detection was only a matter of time.

Parloff got up, drew a knife from its sheath at his back, and turned the handle. The countess from over by the mantelpiece said "Come in."

The door opened and a tall young fellow stepped the room with a smile on his face, which froze there when he saw who were waiting for him. He tried to retreat, but Parloff had closed and locked the door and stood on guard with his weapon raised; so he thrust his hands into his pockets and looked coolly round. But meanwhile the Countess was staring at him with a face of horror.

"You," she burst out at last, "You! Why you come here?"

"Because you sent for me to make my adieux."

"I did no such thing. Colonel Biene, believe me, I expected someone else. You had better go."

The newcomer looked relieved. "I am in the way it appears. Well, Countess, let it be au revoir, and not adieu. I suppose we shall meet next week in Petersburg. Captain Parloff, I'll trouble you for the key of the door."

"You shall have it after our business is done," said Parloff. "But for the present we shall ask you to stay with us until some formalities have been gone through— Ah—"  Of a sudden the man had been seized from behind, gagged and thrown to the ground.

The Countess came forward, her face as white as paper, her hands stretched out convulsively. "Monsieur Parloff," she said, "Dimitri, Messieurs, take care what you do. This is not the man I expected. He has not betrayed our Cause. It is some other..."

The English M.P. at the table looked up.

"Pardon me, Madame," he said. "But you are mistaken. The proofs are here amongst these papers, in black and white. There is unfortunately no doubt about the matter."

''But Colonel Biene is my friend."

"There is no room," said the Englishman, "for private sentiment in a  question like this. If traitors were not weeded out, the Cause would break up in a week."

Parloff rapped for silence.

"Time is passing," he said, "we have little to waste. The knout has been decided on. I think sixty lashes will suffice."

"My God," cried the Countess, "sixty will kill any man."

"Not a soldier of Colonel Biene's constitution," said the man with the pock-marked face, and he took up the whip and ran the thong with its rings through his fingers. "It has been my unfortunate duty to administer this punishment before, and for the sake of all who are here I will see that it does not kill. But in the next five minutes Colonel Biene shall earn an experience that will last him for the rest of his life."

The countess sank into a chair and buried her face in her hands. The men who had pinned Biene to the floor lifted him to his feet and stripped off the upper part of his dress. Then they reared a sofa on end against the wall and lashed him to it by ropes from the wrists and ankles.

Then they stood aside, the pock-marked roan took up his position, the knout in his hand, and Parloff addressed the prisoner.

"Colonel Biene," he said, "the plan of campaign which this society of ours has made against the Czar of the Russias has been entirely frustrated by the malignant treachery of one of our members. Not only has the credit of our cause been damaged but the severity of the Russian police towards our sympathisers has been immensely increased. To you all this is owing, and by the rules of our association, which you accepted to the full when you first became a member, you have earned the death penalty. You thought to evade us, but our reach is long, even though sometimes it may be hampered. We have seized you here, and you will be given your lesson. Do you acknowledge that it has been earned?"

The man shook his head violently.

"All," said Parloff, "I will give you one more chance, and you will find it profitable to speak the truth. I ask you, Olaf Biene, do you confess this society to the Russian police?"

Again the prisoner shook his head in denial.

"Very well," said Parloff; "then for your obstinacy I add ten more lashes to your sentence, making it now seventy in all. You may got to work."

The pock-marked man stepped back and measured the distance in his eye. Then he threw up his arm and sent the ringed lash of the knout whistling through the air. It fell on the bared muscles of Colonel Biene's shoulders with a sickening splash, but how he took the blow I could not see. The countess had sprung across the room and stood before him.

"This must not go on," she said. "I give you my word Colonel Biene is not. guilty."

"Then yon can doubtless lay your hand on the culprit?"

She looked round the room with wild eyes.

"I could," she whispered. "You mean to say that some one else here betrayed the lot to the Petersburg police?"

She hesitated and then nodded.

"Then you will have the kindness to mention a name and show your I proofs."

She hesitated again, and shuddered violently. She tried to speak, but could not. Then she slowly raised a forefinger and pointed to herself. Dimitri sprang up, facing her.

"My God, Sonia!" he cried. "You! Do you know what this means? You must be dreaming! Sonia, you must be mad! You cannot get Biene off this way; they will knout you in his place."

"I know what I am saying," she answered, huskily, "and I know what it will cost. But I cannot help that now. I have earned it."

Parloff gave an order, and the man was cast off from the whipping-block and given his clothes. They removed he gag from his mouth, but he said not a word. Only one appeal did the countess make.

"Oh," she said, "will you not have mercy on me because I am a woman?"

But Parloff shook his head, and no one lifted a voice for mercy. The pock-marked man came across the floor and laid a hand on the bodice or her dress. She shrank away from him.

"I know what you mean," she said, "but I will not have you touch me before it is necessary," and then before them all she stripped off her upper garments, and of her own accord went and stood against the up-ended sofa.

The pock-marked man came up with the lashings and made her fast, knot by knot. A pink colour rose up under her ivory skin, which deepened as he worked. The fellow finished at last, picked up the knout and stood ready waiting for orders.

Parloff, white to the lips, sat in his chair without a word. No one spoke, no one moved, and the laboured breathing of the countess fell clearly upon my car where I stood behind the gap of the bedroom door. The pock-marked man coughed.

Partoff gave a deep sigh, nodded, shut his eyes, and sank his chin upon his chest. The pock-marked man straightened out the knout with his fingers, threw the lash behind his shoulder, and then swung it with horrid force on to the comely bare back of the woman before him. The metal rings threw up spurts of blood from where they fell, the thongs almost buried themselves in the soft flesh, hut the countess uttered no sound. Her head drooped. She had fainted.

Then a surprising thing happened. Colonel Biene shot out his fist, and the pock-marked man flew backwards across half the room and lay on the carpet like a pole-axed bullock.

Dimitri at the same moment jumped to his feet, and I saw that there was a revolver in his hand.

"I can't stand this," he cried. "It has got to stop, and if there is any one who calls himself a man here he will help me."

The Englishman jumped to his feet with shut fists.

"By God, yes!" he cried. "I'm there too."

Parloff raised his head, wearily. "Do you suppose I like it either?" he asked. "But we are not individuals here. We are simply items in the machinery of the cause. And it is our duty"

The M.P. interrupted him rudely. "Curse the cause!" said he. "This is too much. Brutes who will do that to a woman aren't fit to live, and there's my opinion of the lot of you. Now wade in and murder me if you like."

No one stirred.

"Very well," he said, and opened his penknife. "Now I am going to cut the ropes by which this lady is tied up, and then I shall ring for her maid."

He turned to the sofa, and began to cut the ropes, the other men hurriedly leaving the room, and by the time he had finished, he was hardly ten seconds behind them, and the countess lay insensible on the floor the only occupant of the room.

At any moment the maid might come; but till she arrived the place was empty of any one who could interfere. With a thumping heart I darted across the floor and gained the corridor outside. The last of the Nihilists was just turning down towards the stair. I was a free man still, and a gust of joy should have filled me when I remembered that I had failed to become a thief.

But on my soul I could not help regretting those diamonds which had been left behind. If the countess had not proved herself so monstrous plucky I am sure I should have taken them. But, as it was, I have never seen either her or the jewels since, or even heard of them, because I made another attempt to recruit my vanished funds that night, which compelled me to leave the hotel next morning without beat of drum.

________________

9: Gregory Of Byzantium

Leader (Melbourne), 5 Jan 1935

"DON'T accuse me," said the stout Mr. da Souza, "of being an expert on snake bites, because I am nothing of the sort. But I am an arrowroot and vanilla merchant, and as some dozen people per annum with whom I have business dealings in places varying from the Sapphire Islands to the Magdalena River go out in a hurry because some reptile has punctured them, I have picked up the bare elements of the subject."

"Aren't there serums nowadays," Pellatt asked, "that counteract the poisons?"

"Heaps of them. The Brazilian Government run a production plant, and so does some authority in India. But the number of Brazzis that die from the bite of, shall we say, a Labarri snake does not diminish, and the reason is plain. A peon whose everyday work is in the bush, and who sees a venomous snake once a year, and is only bitten once in thirty, doesn't pack round every day half a hundredweight of assorted injections to make sure he has the right one for the reptile that fancied him. All snakes aren't marked in plain figures, and it isn't everyone who is zoologist enough to spot their names and habits. Besides, snakes are fond of the runaway knock, and it is only once in three times the man sees, the brute that nips him."

"Then one may take it, Mr. da Souza, that people will go on dying of snake bites till snakes die out?"

"That is an allowable summary."

For an instant the fat man's eyes gave a flash that was poisonous. Then they cooled back to their normal velvety softness.

"If you're nervous, I should chuck that trip to the Sapphires you were talking about, and shove one the coloured clerks out of your office on to the job. Some of those islands are fairly lifting with the fer de lance, so they say, and the brutes always go for white men. Well, I must push off for Chateau Belair and do a spot of work. The arrowroot market's gone off its head this last week."

MR. DA SOUZA was a Goanese Eurasian of the darker snuff-and-butter type. He had been brought up in England, and had, enjoyed a Harrow and Keble top dressing. Why he had drifted out to the West Indies, and fetched up at Kingston, St. Vincent, I do not know But he was one of the highlights of the colony when Pellatt arrived to hold down a job in a shipping office near the landing stage, and when Pellatt contemplated the big da Souza house and establishment he wondered why it was that handling arrowroot could be so vastly much more profitable than peddling sea freights.

The funny thing was that the farmers and everybody else connected with arrowroot in St. Vincent told you the whole business was in a disastrous state financially. The green crop, looking like many another green crop, grew luxuriantly enough in the well-watered valleys; the gathered roots, looking much like horse radish, were well up to the average; the pulping mills and the settling tanks were all doing their work accurately; and the resulting dried meal was well up to standard quality.

But buyers were shy; there was a tale of glutted markets; and merchants had their warehouses full, and their capital accounts empty. Farmers and manufacturers had the alternative of working into stock and piling up further unsaleable supplies, or letting fields go out of cultivation and closing down their mills.

Only Mr. da Souza flourished. The legendary green bay tree, so Pellatt announced to himself after, long observation, was nothing to Mr. da Souza. He wondered how that stout, polished Eurasian did it.

JOHN PELLATT was not particularly interested in shipping, but it gave him a living at a time when jobs were few on the ground, and so, being a sensible man, he stuck to it. Further, as shipping, like arrowroot and a score of other interests, was very much under the weather at the time, and staffs were being reduced right and left, John was looking for ways in which to avoid the axe. Rumour reached him that the arrowroot produced in the Sapphire Islands, which up to then had been shipped entirely through his firm, was presently going elsewhere; a Canadian line of fruit boats was going to make Castries In Grand Sapphire one of their regular ports of call; and the steamers that had done the carrying for forty years would be left with so much empty cargo space.

Pellatt pointed out these things about the Sapphire arrowroot to his chief, a lethargic brown man, and suggested that the deal was big enough for him (the chief) to run across and see to it in person. The chief shrugged, said he would think about it, and did nothing. Things drifted, as they do in the enervating west Indian climate, till one day, with thoughts of the da Souza splendour at the back of his mind, Pellatt brought up the subject again.

"We shall lose the whole of that business if we sit tight here in Kingston." said Pellatt. "Good as gone already."

"A spot of talk over a lunch in Castries might turn the trick. Why don't you go?"

"Tied here. Now how's this for a bright thought? You go."

"Right," said Pellatt. "That queer Floradora freak pulls out from the quay when she's finished her loading some time to-night. Ill get a passage by her."

"You home country lads do rush things so," said the brown manager. "That old Flora wreck will certainly founder if a breeze, comes away. Better wait a fortnight for our next."

But Pellatt was not going to risk the brown manager changing his mind, and sailed in the Floradora that night. To his surprise he spotted Mr. da Souza amongst the crowd that watched her cast off her lines from the quay. The chestnut-coloured Eurasian was giving the mate a package, which that officer carried carefully aboard. Pellatt waved to da Souza, but that important person blandly ignored him, and slipped out of sight behind a warehouse as the boat's paraffin engine coughed into smelly life.

Floradora was one of those sea freaks one never finds in home waters. She had started life as a softwood schooner, and had done strenuous business in the lumber trade. She had not, of course, a long life to look forward to, and in her twentieth year was sold to a ship breaker. From him an enterprising West Indian bought her cheap, eliminated her mainsail, built a house for passengers on her after-deck in its place, and installed an oil engine which had been originally designed for a mine pumping plant. Her crew was coloured. Her passengers, with the exception of John Pellatt, were coloured also.

In this queer craft Pellatt called at places he had never heard of, ate food adapted to the African palate, and on the whole enjoyed himself.

Then one night she caught fire. If she had stuck to original schedule she ought at the time to have been about the middle of her longest stretch of open sea, and with one available boat should have put up a tidy disaster. But two of the passengers, who were also owners of parcels of freight, had wished to be deposited at a port off the normal route, and they had delayed things, and when the blaze burst out the decayed schooner had a friendly islet close aboard.

She was beached here, and her people waded ashore, singed some of them, but with no casualties. They spread chattering over the island. It was a fortnight before John Pellatt got a cast across to Grand Sapphire, And during those fourteen days he tried to trace the connection between Mr. da Souza, his parcel, the schooner's dusky mate, and the fire, without any conspicuous success. But a sixth sense told him there was a connection somewhere. He stared round at the hot blue levels of the Carib Sea, but got no inspiration from them.

John Pellatt landed at Castries in Grand Sapphire penniless, unshaven, sun tanned and indecently ragged. He looked the complete beach-comber. He did not report to his firm's agent, but got a job with a builder, and laid bricks in outrageous heat. He was not a conspicuously good brick layer, but his darkie employer was so tickled at having a white man, even though he was only the po' mean variety, as an underling at nigger wages that he put up with moderate competence.

So John was able to size up the untidy little tropical town and its port, and to pick up agricultural gossip about the island districts without, so to speak, showing himself on the sky line. He frequently treated himself to inaudible whistles over the trend of the information which came to him. Most days he saw the plump Mr. da Souza. He was usually riding a lean bay thoroughbred, and every other time he had a girl with him on a roan. The girl was amazingly good-looking in a Spanish sort of way. John noticed that she either went out off her way to take no notice of Mr. da Souza or else was extremely rude to him. For some reason which he couldn't then define this action on the part of the handsome girl was pleasing to John Pellatt.

As all roads at one time led to Rome, so all business trails in Grand Sapphire sooner or later fetched up at the pocket of one, Gregory Paley. You saw by the track side a heap of horse radish-looking sticks the length of lead pencils, and were told that that was arrowroot awaiting transport to one of Mr. Paley's mills. You found these had come from the rich valley soil between two volcanic ridges, and were told that that was a Paley farm. You called on a jolly black agriculturist and his brood in their big, comfortable, untidy home, and were told they were all Paley work folk. Evidences of Paley were on every hand, and John Pellatt, who was a Cambridge man, found them far easier to read than the Paley's Evidences he had to cram for Little-go.

The Sapphires, of course, are English, but there is no official Resident. They are brigaded up with St. Potiphar, which is a seat of Government, and as they behave themselves correctly, they are very wisely not interfered with. About the Lesser Sapphires I do not know much; they are small patches of unfertile land occupied only by a few sponge fishers; but in the rich Grand Sapphire it did not take Pellatt long to discover that Mr. Gregory Paley was really the high justice, the middle and the low, though his name was never mentioned as the supreme island authority.

If a sinner deserved fining or beating, fined or beaten he was without the aid of court house or policeman; if he proved himself an altogether undesirable citizen, he seemed to manage his own deportation, and walked up the gang plank of an outgoing steamship without propelling sticks and without handcuffs. The whole arrangement seemed to John Pellatt feudal government made perfect, and he very much wanted to see its head in the flesh. In the meanwhile he was more and more taken with the charm of the head's daughter, she being the Spanish-looking beauty on the roan; and, so far as a bricklayer can have aspirations in such a direction, wished he could help to ochre Mr. da Souza to a broken neck before the fellow edged himself into the position of Paley's son-in-law. Anna was the lady's name —Anna Paley, which didn't seem to "go well." Now, Ann Pellatt...?

RATS ARE a plague in Grand Sapphire; rats and that particular deadly snake, the fer de lance, and in 1872 a paternal British Government, on the advice of a scientific gentleman who understood about such things, introduced the mongoose to counteract these two nuisances The Gregory Paley of the time— an uncle of the present man— objected in a mild sort of way on the ground that it is always dangerous to upset the balance of nature, but the scientific gentleman said Mr. Gregory was an obstructing old fool, and the mongoose tribe was ordered, and arrived. For some two years they battled with the hungry rats and the deadly snakes, and then— called an armistice. Peace was declared on a live-and-let-live principle, and mongoose, rat and fer de lance have since that date hunted and slept together in perfect amity. A nigger never can abstain from chicken stealing, nor can a mongoose or a rat, so domestic poultry had been eliminated from Grand Sapphire, and the nigger rather unfairly wages war on both mongoose and rat. But the deadly snakes very wisely do not touch sons of the Sapphire soil and so they increase and multiply unchecked, and make the island fatal for immigrants.

Perhaps this is why the British Government officials are so parsimonious with their visits. Whilst he was laying bricks, John Pellatt was moderately free from the fer de lance danger; when he was moving about in the luxuriant tropical vegetation of the island he was fully aware that he was risking his life all the time. He inquired from his dusky employer and others where to get hold of anti-fer de lance serum, and was met with stares. They did not know what he was talking about. If you were bitten, you died, of course. But they themselves were never bitten. Now, touching the proportions of sand and slaked lime in the perfect mortar.

It was rather suggested that if John was seeing snakes he had been too attentive to the rum bottle. In the end, however, he was often in an arrowroot field which he was inspecting with a view to sampling the depth of its soil. The beastly reptile darted from behind some greenery struck like lightning at the back of his hand, and had vanished before he had had more than a glance at its slim beauty. John, who had made up his mind before hand as to the correct procedure, knotted his dirty handkerchief round his wrist, twisted the tourniquet tight with an arrowroot stick, opened his pocket knife and prepared to do some strenuous lancing. A hail stopped him.

"Hi! there! Drop that!" The Spanish-looking Miss Anna Paley came charging through the green crop. She slid off her roan, produced from her pocket a small metal case which contained bottle and syringe, and gave John Pellatt a shot of serum in a vein which roosted in the crook of his injured arm.

"You may slack up the tourniquet," said she. "You'll feel rotten for half an hour, and then be as good as new. After that, Mr. Pellatt, I should feel personally obliged if you'd shave and put on some decent kit. Your firm in Kingston have sent you plenty of supplies to their agent in Castries. You might also stop monkeying with our local architecture. Come up to lunch to-morrow if you've nothing better on."

John Pellatt, however, was twisted by a spasm, and dropped into unconsciousness before the lady got as far as her invitation, and whilst the serum fought it out with the poison the last spark of life was very nearly ejected from him.

Miss Paley and the farmer of the arrowroot field wrought mightily with him throughout all the day, and by nightfall were able to decide he was past the corner, and fit to be moved from his bed in the greenstuff.

In the meanwhile the sick man had one persistent dream. He saw himself back in Barbados, and for reasons he could not tell, walking out to the quiet churchyard of St. John's some 14 miles from Bridgetown. He had gone to stare at a mossy tombstone which was a reproduction of the porch of a Greek temple, and to marvel over the inscription, which ran thus:

Here lyeth ye body of Ferdinando Paleologos, descended from ye Imperial Lyne of ye Last Christian Emperors of Greece. Churchwarden of this Parish, 1655-56. Vestryman twenty years. Died October 3rd, 1676.

The old lettering danced before his eyes in a whole spectrum or colours, and then wove itself into an oval pattern, with a background of green arrowroot tops. In the opening an exquisite portrait appeared of Miss A. Paley in colouring and draftmanship above the art of any known painter.

In fact, damn it, it was Anna Paley, and there she was looking sorry for him.

"I'll always remember," said Miss Paley, "that a swear word was the first thing he spoke. You'll do now, my lad, but it's been a near thing. My stock of serum must be getting staler— or I gave you too big a dose— or too little. That's the first time I ever used the beastly stuff, anyway. The excellent fer de lance doesn't touch the Paleologi or their people, of course, and I've only carried the pickle along since you landed. Macdonald here will have you brought to his farm house before sunset, and I'll send up your kit to you there tomorrow morning. Don't shave clean. Leave on your moustache for the moment, and I'll see how it suits you. You can reap the thing later if I don't like it."

PARK HOUSE, of all preposterous titles, was the name of the Paley dwelling. It had been so christened when it was built in the old slave days, and the main estate round it was Park Plantation. The rest of Grand Sapphire Island had been acquired by the Paleys— or Paleologi, if you prefer the old Byzantine name— subsequently.

From the outside Park House was a solidly respectable Georgian mansion. It might have been in England except that the gardens grew bananas, and papayas, and guavas instead of apples and the homely cabbage.

Indoors one came promptly up against pompous ceremonial. Servants swarmed. They were all in livery, and most of them had the benign air of retired bishops. There was a touch of incense in the air, there were ikons in the corridors, and against the baize-covered door which cut off the north wing, in an enormous gilded porter's chair, sat a huge plum-skinned eunuch.

"I'm sorry, John," said the conductress as she showed him over the house, "but you mustn't go past there at present. Women's quarters, you know, though I'm the only woman the family is troubled with. I suppose you think ritual's rot. But you'll get used to it."

Now, John was very much in love with Anna Paleologus, but was distinctly restless under her quite unconcealed air of proprietorship. He was firmly of the opinion that a proposal of marriage was the perquisite of the male, and was not a bit fond of the idea that even a prospective empress should nominate her own consort. He knew there were precedents; he had read, for instance, those "Letters of Queen Victoria" which related to her Albert.

And anyway, the Paleologi had been out of business in the real imperial line since the Turks took Constantinople. John Pellatt had half a mind to drop the whole thing, and bolt back to St. Vincent, and sit once more at his desk in the shipping office under the perspiring brown manager.

Promptly he found egress from the isle was impossible. It was a good stretch from Park House to Castries, and the sun grilled. He tried in turn for car, horse and farm cart, and could get a lift from none of them. So he walked, and arrived at the little port as wet as though he had been for a swim in his clothes. He went to the office of his St. Vincent firm's agent, and was received with lavish civility. He demanded a sea passage to anywhere, and was met with sardonic grins.

A drink, or several drinks the chuckling agent was delighted to offer, but as regards even deck room on an out-going ship, most emphatically there was nothing doing. By whose orders? The jolly saffron-coloured agent choked, but didn't know. Then (being an elderly man) he patted John Pellatt's arm, and said that if he lived long enough he'd probably find out in time who was his emperor.

It was silly to try and kick over Mont Pelee. Much better step back into the house and enjoy a Sapphire swizzle, guaranteed free from arrowroot. John drank and enjoyed the swizzle— drank three, in fact, during the process of trying to pick up information about the reigning family in Grand Sapphire —and emerged from the cheery agent's house trying without much success to whistle Rule Britannia. The Sapphires were undoubtedly British West Indian Islands, under the Colonial Office in London, and governed locally in the ordinary way by a Resident in the hundred-miles-distant island of St. Potiphar, who happened to be an ex-gunner major.

The whole thing was absolutely plain and above-board, it was preposterous to think that an Oriental emperor, whose family had been kicked out of real power about 500 years ago, should dare to set himself above the stolid British power. John Pellatt whistled "Never, never shall be slaves" three times over to prove it.

Then he stopped. His arm, where the hypodermic needle had jabbed it, gave him a twinge. He had never seen Gregory Paleologus, but one way or another he seemed to be an old gentleman who was extremely thorough in his methods. And after all there was Anna. Damn her thus-I-wish, so-I-order habit most heartily— but after all he had been head over ears in love with the woman ever since he had first set eyes on her being rude to that yellow devil, da Souza.

That reminded him— where was da Souza? He hadn't seen the man for a week. He had asked casually after his whereabouts during his talk with the agent, who with equal casualness had supposed he was "about the island somewhere."

John thought it out. Grand Sapphire Island was not only small, but it contained only one dwelling which would in the least appeal to the fastidious Eurasian, and that was Park House. Even in Castries there was no attempt at an hotel, and the farms, though full of comforts, were crude enough establishments, even when, like that of Mr. Macdonald they belonged to comparatively wealthy men.

So John kept repeating to himself, "Where is da Souza?" and then beckoned to a motor car, and was whisked off to Park House.

As he drove, it occurred to him firstly that for his inland journey he had no trouble in getting transport, and secondly that the nigger driver had smiled dazzling and started off in the right direction without taking the trouble to ask for an order. John noted these points, and again whistled to himself that part of Rule Britannia which deals with our natural reluctance for servitude.

Anna Paleologus was seated in a much-cushioned Madeira chair under the shade of a clove tree. She was looking very Spanish, and amazingly handsome! There was an empty Madeira chair alongside.

"Sit down, John," she said, "and talk. Why do you think I am Spanish?"

"Your looks, my dear."

"They're Byzantine. In the house presently I'll show you fifty miniatures of empresses and emperors' consorts who have ruled in Constantinople, and who have eyes and complexion and hair just like mine. We women of the Paleologi keep to type even though our fathers were Varangians, or Gauls, or merely university-bred Englishmen like you. Looking in your glass, John, don't you think my father in picking you for me acted soundly?"

"I've never seen your father."

"Oh, yes, you have. He doesn't always wear a crown and imperial robes. You sat opposite him once at a dinner in St. Vincent. He decided, as I say, that you would do. He had been trying Mr. da Souza up till then, but admitted, when I pointed it out, that he had made a mistake. So father made arrangements to have you tested, and da Souza got to know, and nearly spoilt the scheme."

"He did get the Floradora burnt then?"

"That was one of his little efforts. Only it came off at the wrong spot. I'm afraid you had a rough time whilst your were being tried out, John, and it was extremely plucky of you to lay all those crooked bricks. Did you hear Mr. da Souza had a most distressing contact with three or our fer le lances? One couldn't have two suitors in a small island like Grand Sapphire, could one? You won't mind if I have your funny walls pulled down again, will you?"

John Pellatt reached out a powerful arm and scooped the contents of the other Madeira chair— the much-cushioned one— on to his lap. "Look here, Ann, I'm made for you, and you know it. Do you care for me?"

"My good idiot, should I let you do this, and say I'm going to marry you if l didn't?"

John gritted his teeth. "All right, put it that way if you like. As long as you do become Mrs. Ann Pellatt, I'm not going to kick about who made the first suggestion."

"I shall not, of course," said the lady, snuggling into his arms, "be Mrs. Pellatt. I shall still be Anna Paleologus, and in due time the Empress Anna. Nor will you remain Mr. Pellatt— except to the farm tenants. You will be the Prince Consort, John. Now you may kiss me, and then I will take you to the sanctuary, and present you to my father, the Emperor Gregory. You will do obeisance. If he gives you benediction, then, John, I will afterwards take you through the baize door, where Basil the eunuch sits on guard."

_____________

10: A Marriage Of Convenience.

Hay Standard, NSW, 4 March 1896

'WELL,' said Verschoyle, with a laugh; 'if you insist upon my describing you candidly, I should say that you were a bit of a curiosity. You are abnormal in more ways than one.'

Miss Van Wheeler reversed her fan and tapped her teeth meditatively with the heel of the sticks.

'I'm inclined to think you are right,' she said: 'though nobody ever put it in so many words before. Still I know I am about the brusquest and rudest person on earth. I can't help it; I must say what I think, or else not talk at all.'

'Come to consider it,' Verschoyle admitted, 'I suppose you have yet rather an unconventional style of speech. But I wasn't driving at that. What chiefly brings you into prominence Is the glorious contempt you have for the male person. You get the best available specimens of him round you; you use him as though you paid for his conversation and his waltzing at so much an hour; and you care just as much, for him as you do for your fan, and infinitely less than you do for your dog. I've watched you now for three days, and I'm quite sure of this.'

'Well?'

'Well, it's a distinctly novel experience from our point of view. Most girls— presentable girls, that is— look upon the said male person as a possible husband either for self or friends. I know there is a shrieking sisterhood who say they hate men; but I've met a good many of them in the flesh— and I know why. You are different to that lot entirely. You aren't ugly, or a school-mistress, or a writer of books; in fact very much the reverse; and, moreover, you dance extremely well. Which reminds me that the music has been going on for two minutes, and you've got this waltz with someone else.'

'Who would probably bore me. You don't; so I shall sit it out here. Go on and talk; tell me about yourself.'

'You want to change the subject, and you pick out the one topic every man can be eloquent upon. If mine were a more reputable record, perhaps I shouldn't mind. But as it is you know quite well what I am— a wanderer and a vagabond upon the face of the earth; a man of no decent means; a mere better class tramp who possesses a portmanteau, and some good dress clothes, and a large bore sporting rifle. The role may fit me comfortably, but that doesn't follow, I'm proud enough of it to swagger to you just now over what I've done.'

'You were talking to the girl next you at dinner about some wild prank you'd been in at. I heard you.'

'Oh,' said Verschoyle, 'I'm not without conceit. To analyse the matter, she took a mild interest in me; and admiration is always a pleasant gift. Besides she was an heiress, and I'm civil to money on principle. One always worships the most distant god.'

Miss Van Wheeler's fan spread its wings and waved indolently through the air.

'So you are going to marry her, are you?' said she.

'To begin with,' replied Verschoyle, 'she'd refuse me promptly if I did ask her, because she happens to be after a title, which is an ornament I don't possess. And to continue, I'm just as likely to propose to her as I am― am to—to you, for instance. Amongst my other bad qualities, I'm not a fortune-hunter.'

'Nor a marrying man?'

'I don't fancy I am.'

'Good. I'm beginning to like you. Also to envy you.'

'In the name of all that's curious, why? In what earthly fashion can I be your highness's Naboth?'

'You're a man, that's what I mean. You needn't marry unless you want to. Nobody twits you with being a bachelor, with throwing away your chances, with verging towards a state which convention covers with scorn and ridicule. I'm different. Every day, every hour nearly, someone is throwing me a hint that I am six and twenty, that I ought to be ashamed of acting in the way I do, that I'm losing my good looks—'

'You—' began Verschoyle, and stopped.

'Yes?'

'Why, I had it on the tip of my tongue to remark that you'd plenty of those last left for all ordinary purposes; but on second thoughts I remembered that you'd probably resent the comment, and so I suppressed it. Didn't retract, you understand. Please go on.'

'I mean that my people are at me from morning to night about getting married. They suggest this man, that, the other; throw me Into men's society whenever they can get a chance; show me they consider marriage should be the one aim of an un-wedded life. When I try to argue against them, they only retort with ridicule, and call me absurd and mad. They can't understand my feelings, and I'm afraid I can't appreciate theirs. Perhaps it is because there's something lacking in me? This desire for marriage is a thing I cannot comprehend. I hear about it in conversations, read about it in novels, but I'm neither interested nor converted. People talk about kissing'— the fan closed with a snap, and its holder shuddered— 'to me the idea is loathsome. I never could stand being pawed about by anybody— even by other girls. Why can't people talk and enjoy themselves, and live their own lives without interfering with one another? I should like to have men for friends, if they would let me.'

'That means Platonics. They've been tried; and they mostly fail'

'Yes, I know. You talk to them for a bit, and get to like them, and then they want to get closer to you, and paw you, and— ugh— ask you to marry them. And afterwards your people hate you, and are unkind to you, because you've missed another chance. You're laughing.'

'I'm sorry, but I couldn't quite help it. You see, it's hard to realise the severity of your sorrows. They are unique amongst the griefs of women.'

'That doesn't make them any the more palatable to me,' said Miss Van Wheeler, sharply. She rose and glanced at her programme. 'Next dance; take me back to the ball-room.'

Verschoyle offered an arm. which she did not accept, and they moved off a dozen steps together. Then he said seriously enough, 'I wish I could help you.'

She stopped, turned, and looked up at him curiously. 'Do you mean that?' she asked.

'Most certainly I do.'

'Then marry me,' was her retort.

ii

VERSCHOYLE'S face grow very set, and the tan on it lightened a shade in tint.

'I don't think I quite understand you,' he said at length.'

'I'm sorry. I can't speak any plainer.'

'Ah, well, we'd better have it out. Come back, and sit again. We must cut our respective partners for this waltz.'

'You might have remembered that we have it together. But you seem flurried.'

'I am flurried.'

'I'm not; I never felt cooler or more business-like in my life. Understand clearly what I offer you; an ordinary companionship to take up when you choose, a smart establishment in any town or village of England to use entirely how you please— neither less than this, nor more. In return, you will give me your name. Then legally I shall be Mrs. Verschoyle, and I think my worries will end: but practically I shall remain Miss Van Wheeler, as before. Come, what do you think of the offer?'

'I fancy,' said Verschoyle coldly, 'that I mentioned to you before that I was no fortune-hunter.'

'Precisely; but I don't see that need apply. My money is in my own right left me by a godfather, I believe there are such things as settlements. If you choose, every penny can be tied to me, and all who care can know. On the other hand, if you had so chosen, I would have freely shared with you in the mere matter of wealth. I'm not expensive. Half would have been plenty for me, and you could have put the rest towards your yachting or shooting expenses, or whatever you do.

'If you took my name—' Verschoyle began, and there stopped.

'Yes?'

'Before the eyes of the world you would be my wife.'

'Naturally.' ' And.' he said, with an effort, ' you would have to behave as such.' 'Before the eyes of the world, yes. Are you hinting that I should do otherwise ? If you think over what you know of me, you will see that I am not likely to disgrace you.'

'No,' he answered thoughtfully, 'I don't think you are. But what am I to get out of this bargain, supposing I close with it?'

'A home to entertain any friends you choose to ask there; and a woman to sit at the head f your table, and to talk to when you please.'

'Is that all?'

'Absolutely. I'm not making my offer through this talked-of love. I like you neither more nor less than twenty other people. I am only taking the step because I am worried out of my life as it now is.'

'I see. You are entirely candid about the matter.'

'Best so. Any misunderstanding might be awkward afterwards. But you have the whole thing clearly now. Can't you decide?'

'I can. I'll do as you wish.'

'Thanks, extremely. And now we'll go back to the ball-room. I feel ever so much happier.'

'I'm delightful to hear you say so. And the next dance, is that to be mine?'

'Not at all; why should it be? I'm engaged— ah, let me see— to a man who was introduced this evening; and as we have got our business over, I don't see why I should cut him.'

Verschoyle smiled grimly.

'By the way,' he said, when they were at the foot of the stairs, 'what is your Christian name? I suppose I ought to know.'

'Why should you?' she asked. 'You won't have to use it. I shall be Mrs. Verschoyle; and till then I'm Miss Van Wheeler.'

iii

SO that marriage took place ; and the lady acted according to her lights, and complications arose, much as Verschoyle had foreseen.

iv

ON THE third anniversary of her wedding day, Mrs. Verschoyle came upon her husband in his own study, testing the trigger pull of a long-barrelled pistol. They were staying in Venice at the time, in the old palazzo lent them by a friend; and through the open window shutters the smell of a pea-green canal came up to them from below— hot, sickly breaths.

Mrs. Verschoyle found the Tauchnitz novel she had come in for; and then, as she was leaving the room, asked casually if her husband was going away somewhere. He nodded, and dropped the pistol carelessly on a divan.

'Shooting, I suppose, as usual?'

He nodded again.

'Away long?'

'Quien sabe ? Upon my faith, I can't say. But why do you ask? You don't care.'

She shrugged her shoulders. 'We won't go into that again, please. I warned you that night in the ball-room at home what you had to expect, and I've kept rigidly to my contract. I am not disposed to give you fresh terms.'

'So you've remarked several times already when I've admitted to caring for you. As I've stated before, I'm about sick of the existing arrangement; though please observe that at the present moment I have not put in my usual plea for fresh conditions. I've an idea that I shall solve the problem in an other way. As you've gathered, I'm off shooting― with another man.'

'Who? Anyone I know?'

'He is an intimate of yours— Baretti.'

'Oh, pigeon-shooting. He won the big match at Monte Carlo last year, didn't he? Going across to the Riviera?'

'No ; somewhere down in the lagoon.'

'Then you are not going for pigeons?'

'No, Madame. To coin a word, I'm off Baretti-shooting.'

Mrs. Verschoyle turned round sharply, and leaned her back against the door.

'Do you mean to say,' she demanded, 'that you are going to be fool enough to fight a duel with that man ?'

'That,' he replied, 'is about the size of it.'

'But you will very possibly be killed.'

'I should say that the betting is about nine to one on that both of us are jugged. I'm a pretty clean shot myself.'

'Why should you want to die ?'

'I don't know that I do or don't. I don't very much care either way. But I've got sufficient curiosity about what comes next not to funk dying. There's only one thing : if I am to cross the Styx, I intended to take Baretti with me. It wouldn't be healthy to leave him behind above the pavement.'

'What are you fighting about?'

'You. He commented upon you at the club last night in a way I didn't like. What he said was entirely true, and that's why I'm going to kill him.'

'Why,' she broke out vehemently, 'do you talk like this? You can't fancy I dislike you. I don't want you to die.'

'Madame,' he said, with an ironical bow, 'you are vastly polite. Perhaps I don't want to die either; but this is a matter which touches mine honour, and I'm going to fight it out. I don't see that as a rollicking widow you'll be one jot worse off than before.'

Mrs. Verschoyle turned and left the room, shutting the door quietly behind her. Verschoyle laughed, and taking up the long pistol, occupied himself again with studying its trigger-pull.

Ten minutes afterwards he heard the light bumping of a gondola against the striped posts in the canal below; and looking out of the window, he saw his wife step on board.

'What a fat lot of interest she does take in me,' he thought to himself. 'By Jove! Baretti and I will have a good shoot. I wonder where he'll get in his lead.'

v

'SIGNORA! you of all people!'

'Yes, Prince. Don't look so inhospitable, I'm going to sit here and talk to you, whether you like it or not. Awkward situation, isn't it ?'

'It is,' said the Italian dryly.

'My husband tells me,' resumed Mrs. Verschoyle, 'that I shall probably be a widow by this time to-morrow.'

'What misfortune!'

'Don't be a hypocrite, Prince. I know that the pair of you intend to fight, and I want to hear if you confirm his forecast of the result.'

'I'm afraid I must. You see, your excellent husband shoots so objectionably well. A worse man I might have crippled: him I must kill at the first fire, to get a chance of life myself.'

'I see. And what did you quarrel about ?'

'He quarrelled. I merely commented.'

'Upon what ?'

'You. He considered what I said to be an impertinence: I knew it to be true, and declined to retract. Hence these tears.'

'And what was your comment, Prince?'

The Italian shrugged his shoulders. 'Signora, if you will excuse me?'

'But I will not. If, as you say, what you told my husband was true, you have no reason to be ashamed, and I insist on hearing what it was.'

'Then, Signora,' said the other icily, 'if you demand to know, I cannot refuse. What your esteemed husband called me out for was this: I told him that I had watched the lives of both of you since you were married, and was sure that you had never loved him for so much as a single hour. I said, that you never would love him. I said, too, that he was a fool not to put his affections else where. On the strength of this he intends to kill me if he can. Did you ever hear anything more unreasonable?'

Mrs. Verschoyle rose from her chair, and began walking up and down the soft mat which covered the marble floor. There was a full five minutes silence between them.

'How can you know,' she asked, 'that I don't love him?'

Again the national shrug, expressive of many things.

'Answer me!'

'Signora. can you deny it?'

'Yes!'

The Italian was a courtly gentleman, but he was also an old acquaintance. At the least, he could not restrain a touch of insolence.

'This is new!' he said, with lifting eyebrows.

She halted suddenly in her walk with cheeks brilliant in pink colour. 'It is; at least, I did not know it before. I never understood what this love they talk of really was till an hour ago. Then I began to see. He told me— Verschoyle, I mean— what was going to happen, and I began to think what losing him meant.'

She sank back into a chair, cooling her face. 'Prince, if you only knew how I have behaved to that man, and how I despise myself for it now.'

Baretti pulled at his moustache.

'This is very irregular,' he said; 'and besides it is rather late in the day. You have said much that, as your husband's enemy, l perhaps ought not to have heard, but you may rely on my honour in keeping it secret. Signora, if you will permit me to meet a pressing business engagement, I will leave you now.'

She stood up again before him, speaking wildly.

'Do you mean that this must go on? Oh, it cannot, it must not.'

'I fear, Signora, that is neither for you nor for me to say. The matter is now in the hands of seconds, and it is for them to act that no-one's honour may be wounded. Personally I do not thirst for your husband's life, and I tell you candidly that I have an infinite dislike to taking his fire. But as matters stand at present I must go in for both these things. He was the challenger, and I certainly have nothing to retract.'

'Then must I,' she asked, with the colour flooding back to her cheek, 'must I go to him and tell him what I have told you?'

'Signora,' said Baretti gravely, 'the affair is out of my hands. l can only counsel you to act exactly as you see fit.'

So Mrs. Verschoyle took gondola back to the palazzo where she was staying; but what she said there is between her and her husband, and not to be profaned by being set in type. There is a certain reticence which that power called delicacy imposes on even the most hardened of us. It may, however, be said that there was no defacing of God's image on any of the islands of the lagoon: but instead, a dinner of three at the cafe of the Quadin, which was both merry and constrained, where a certain Italian prince was toasted by an English commoner and his wife. The Italian, however, left early; and because the Verschoyles quitted Venice soon afterwards, he has not seen them since— which is, of course, quite what might be expected.

And all these things occurred because a certain young woman called Van Wheeler lacked sundry instincts which God decreed as necessary for the bulk of her sex. There is also a moral to this tale; but that is reserved for use elsewhere as a copy-book heading for the young.

___________________

11: A Lottery Duel

Western Mail (Perth, WA), 4 Dec 1896

ANOTHER INSTANT, and he would have turned a somersault into eternity,

The time was maybe an hour past midnight, a tornado was threatening, and the heat below was something terrible. The M'poso was rolling in a heavy sullen swell, and was filled with ghostly creakings. I had gone down to my room an hour before, and had been trying vainly to be rid of the torments of the flesh by sinking off into sleep. I had taken off my pyjamas, and laid down on the spring bed stripped to the buff― "more Africano!"― But in a minute or so the perspiration began to well out of all my body in little streams which tickled horribly. The air of the cabin was absolutely dead and stagnant.

I got wearily up and shifted the windscoop which stuck out of the port. After three or four tries it slewed to the right angle, and a breeze came in which was conjured up by the steamer's passage through the water. But the breeze was hot and unrefreshing, and I lay there and sweated, and cursed the climate, and the M'poso, and Africa, and the British Foreign Office, and everything else within the reach of a multitudinous thought. I was dreadfully tired and I could not sleep, and I thought lo myself that if this was a foretaste of ' what life was going to be at St. Paul de Loanda, the Consular Service was a very much overrated method of keeping out of the workhouse.

At last I gave up sleep as a bad job till after the tornado should choose to come and clear the air, and put on my pyjamas and went outside. In the alleyway Bahrwnie, the purser, and a couple of palm oil traders were playing farthing nap and drinking whiskey and tepid water. They asked me to join them, but I said "No," and went up the companion. The night outside was black dark, and for a whole minute I stood leaning against the doorway listening. ; There was a good deal of noise going on; Captain Image's voice was making itself heard with sultry emphasis in the distance; and the Kroo boys, under the direction of a mate and a quartermaster, were getting in the awnings and making things generally snug, ready for the tornado.

It was just then that a great blue flare of lightning splashed across the heavens, and I saw Vatchell, who was perched on the white iron rail opposite me, in the very act of flinging up his heels.

I did at that moment what was certainly the quickest jump in my life, and I grabbed him by the slack of his raiment just as his head reached the horizontal.

He thumped back on the deck in a disorganised heap, and I stood above him a good deal scared and inclined to give advice. I said it was wrong to sit on a bulwark rail any time when the ship was rolling heavily, and more especially at moments when one was tired and apt to fail asleep. And having blown off some of my steam by discussing thoroughly on this theme, I was beginning to hint that much whisky and the West African climate did not go well together, when of a sudden I broke off, gasping. Another flash of lightning glowed across the sky, and on the deck before me I saw Vatchell emptying a litter of iron bolts from his pocket and dropping them over the steamer's side.

'My God!' I cried, 'then you were going overboard on purpose?'

'Dry up,' he said, 'you fool! Don't bawl out like that, or the whole ship will heal'. And I swear it isn't so bad as it 'looks."

'You were going to commit suicide; there's no getting out of that.'

'Well, I was and I wasn't. I'm due to kill myself, and I was going to do it then. It was a fine chance, and I don't thank you for spoiling it, especially when I've had some trouble in screwing my nerves to the requisite pitch. It was a beautiful chance. There's this tornado coming on, and I shouldn't have been missed till to-morrow morning, and then it would have been set down to accident, and reported as that at home. You needn't expect me to thank you Tollemache. At the present moment I'm damning your interference in a way which would surprise if you could understand all the reasons.'

'I say, old man, said I, 'you're a bit shaken, It's only the heat, you know. It's a devil of a hot night. Come along with me and let's go and rout out the doctor man and get a pick-me-up. I'd like one, too; I believe I had a drop more whisky myself than was good for me in that smoke room.'

Vatchell laughed unpleasantly. 'You are a well meaning sort of fool, Tollemache, but you are on the wrong track. I'm neither drunk nor sunstruck, and if you want to do me a service you'll hold your tongue and go away. I say, old man, though, really don't talk of what you've seen. It will be awfully rough on my people if you do.'

'Then you still intend to― er― go for your swim?"

He nodded.

'Then,' said I, 'that settles it, I'm banged if you shall.'

'You don't understand. I've got no choice about the matter.'

'I may not understand everything: but I do grasp the elementary fact that you are on board at the present minute, and that as I am by far the stronger man of the two, you're going to stay on board for the present. If you're awkward, I'll call Image down now and get him to put you under lock and key; but if you'll give me your word of honour not to try any more further foolishness till, say, to-morrow morning, you may come away to my room and have the spare berth.'

'How do you know what my word of honour's worth?' he said queerly.

'I'll accept it on chance. Come along. Here's the tornado ; we shall be drenched in another ten seconds, and wake up with a dose of fever to-morrow.'

The rain had began to tumble in fat warm drops, like splashes thrown out of a bucket and the thunder started with a bump and a rattle. There was a hiss like escaping steam, which told that a big wind-squall was close aboard of us somewhere; and Captain Image was swearing noisily because the foredeck awning was not yet taken in, and he expected to lose it in a hurry, and have one or two of the passenger boys killed by flying stanchions in the process.

Vatchell blinked at the lightning. 'Do Tornadoes ever kill people?' he asked.

'Not white men on steamers. Tornadoes only wet them, and smash up their tackle, and spoil their tempers, But they occasionally crumple up niggers who travel as deck passengers, and the sight isn't pleasant to look upon; and as we aren't on the M'poso in an official capacity we'll just get below. Come along now, old man; don't be an idiot. The breeze'll come away strong directly and then it'll get cooler.'

'You're a tyrannical brute,' said Vatchell with a rueful grin, and got up and walked to the companion. 'Give me a drink,' he said when he got down to my room. 'I've grazed my shoulder against the― er― the palings of the next world, and I feel a bit chippy.'

I lifted the chatty off the hook where it hung in the breeze of the wind-scoop, and handed it to him. He drank thirstily.

'Ugh!' he said, 'beastly water, ship's water, African ditch-water flavoured with Condy; but it's cool. Thanks. Now what's next? Turn in? I fancy it'll be cool enough to sleep directly.'

'Well,' I said, 'if you don't mind, I'd much like to hear what you propose as your next movements. What you let drop to me above just now is a bit too mysterious to be healthy.'

'I don't see that it concerns you.'

'Probably not. But still you owned up to laying suicide.'

'Well, my life isn't yours, is it? I've a notion it is very much the properly of C. T. Vatchell.'

'Of Eaton Square, and Walborough Castle in Yorkshire? Precisely. The question seems to he, is this Charlie Vatchell here who is attempting to tamper with the said life, or is it―'

'Some other person of unsound mind, as the coroners so neatly phrase it? You may set your head at rest on that point, Tollemache. I'm absolutely and completely sane; brain and body in full working order.'

'I hear you say it.'

'Mark you, Dick, I wish it was anything else. If I was at all off my nut, the thing would be easier, and a vast deal more comfortable. I'm not at all tired of life, and I don't in the least want to chuck it away; but as things are fixed I'm down on this filthy coast under contract to kill myself, and as a man of honour I've got to carry out the bond.'

I rolled a cigarette and lit it. ' If you call this talk a proof of sanity,' said I. 'heaven help your judgment. I flew heard madder twaddle in my life. Here, smoke, and see if that will do you any good.'

'Did you ever fight a duel, Dick ?'

'No,' I said, 'and don't want to. This is the wrong end of the nineteenth century for that kind of foolishness.'

'That's all you know about it. Duels are fought nowadays, and a simple six-pence can be quite as deadly as all the hair-trigger saw handle pistols that were ever turned out of a gunsmith's shop. Now, if you care to know, I've got mixed up in a thing of this sort, and it came tails when I said Queen, and it's left to my honour to wipe myself out of this terrestrial existence. I'd two months to do it in from leaving Liverpool, and there's no shrinking the matter. I know the other man would have stuck to his word if he lost, and I can't do less. There's no choice about it. The story's pretty simple, and if you give me your word to be quiet, you can hear it if you chose."

By this time the tornado had burst in its full power. Above us the artillery of the storm boomed and blazed and roared till the steamer quivered like a kicked biscuit tin. The engines gurgled and raced, and squeals came from the whole fabric of her. The rain hissed upon the sea in sheets and ropes, and the place was lit like day by the flaming sky. I had to take in the wind-scoop and close my port to keep the deluge in its proper place. But the air was no longer stifling, it cleared by visible gradations; and I tied a silk handkerchief about my middle, and sighed in thankfulness.

The tornado was over in twenty minutes, but it was as bad as they are made while it lasted. The M'poso was put nose on to it, but in spite of her ten knots she was blown away like a cork to leeward and underwent more  damage than was ever reported officially. ' But then passenger niggers are cheap, and if only two or three are not forthcoming at the port of delivery, nobody very much minds.

But to the tornado itself I gave very little attention at the time. At the time of its infernal uproar, I was listening to a tale which was making my flesh creep. And yet the story was quite common-place, with the usual woman in it; and the usual tangle worked up by that curious force which they call love. It concerned two strong men, neither of whom would give way to the other, and it skirmished round as finished a little tragedy as one could well come across. And, although when asked by Vatchell at the time, I flatly refused to admit that their solution was at all admissible, and I will freely own in this place I did not see any other possible way out of the difficulty. But what that tale was I am restricted by my promise to Vatchell from repeating here in any detail, and so no more can be said.

'So you see,' said Vatchell in summing up, 'it is merely a question of honour. You can't go and blaze at a man at twelve paces nowadays, because, even if you kill him, you get hanged afterwards yourself; which is a waste of good material. So as there wasn't room for Vane and me above the daisies, we pitched on the only sane way of settling the matter, and each man pledged his honour that if he lost he would contrive not to be in the land of the living seven weeks from the day when we span that unpleasant coin. Nice situation, isn't it?"

'No,' said I, 'it isn't. It's an eminently poor game to commit hari-kari, whichever way you look at it. It's undignified, and lacks both excitement and personal profit. Besides, it's cowardly―'

Vatchell took me up quickly.

'No, I'm hanged if it's that, and I speak there with authority. Anyone can have pluck enough to stand up in front of a gun and be blazed at; you can warm up to the work there. But this other game is different. There's nothing to work you up to the occasion, absolutely nothing, I tell you, Dick, it makes me regularly freeze with horror whenever I am awake to think about it. Here l am, a warm, healthy man this minute, and to-morrow the South Atlantic fishes will be nibbling my carcass, whilst the rest of me is toeing the line and getting roughly spoken to elsewhere. Don't you tell me that a coward would deliberately set off on a cruise like that.'

'It's a beast of a hole for any man to be in,' I admitted.

'It is,' he said― 'By Jove listen to that awful thunder― and I wish I saw any way out of it I'd not stick at trifles. I suppose you will think me horribly contemptible for saying such a thing, but I'd climb down abjectly about the― er― the matter which caused all the bother― I mean I'd give up Laura Conyers now as the price of living. Yes, Dick, it's even come to that. But I haven't got the choice left me. That was expressly stipulated when Vane and I made the bargain, in fact, it was a thing I insisted on myself. There was to be no crying off from the consequences under any circumstances whatever. We quite agreed that the world wasn't big enough to hold the pair of us―'

The roar of the tornado drowned his words, but during the next lull, 'Oh, Lord,' I heard him mutter, 'What a bull-headed fool I have been!'

I leaned across the cabin and tapped him on the knee. 'Look here, Vatchell,' I said, 'why not die theoretically?'

His fingers gave a sudden tremble, which tore the cigarette that he was rolling; but he did not speak at first.

'You heard what I said?'

'Yes,' he answered in a queer voice, 'what do you mean? My God! Dick, you're not hinting that there's a way out of it, are you? Speak, man, tell me what do you mean?'

'It amounts to a compromise with your honour, and it remains for you to say if it will satisfy you. Drop your name, drop all connection with home; in fact, eliminate the C. T. Vatchell completely. Sending Vane written evidence of death was not included in your bond, so leave your death to be presumed. Africa is here close at hand; disappear into the vagueness of Africa, and be swallowed up, and seen no more. You can live there, or possibly you may die,  but, anyway, there will be a fight for existence which will interest you in the meantime.'

Vatchell turned and knelt on the sofa and stared out through the port at the blazing heavens, but he did not answer.

He stayed on so till the tornado had blown itself out, and the M'poso had  ceased to yield cascades from her scuppers, and then he said, 'And you would be the only person who could give me away.'

'Well,' I said, 'you would have to trust me, and I think you will do that, seeing that I've been told so much of the yarn already. Old man, I congratulate you. May you prosper as a white savage in a black continent! Go away now and sleep.'

NOT TILL three weeks after the night of that tornado did I get to the house set apart for me in the Portuguese city of St. Paul de Loanada, and find letters in waiting. They had left London a week after I had sailed from Liverpool, but for once in history the Lisbon mail had proved the faster boat. One of the letters bore a postscript which read thus:

By the way, do you remember my introducing you last year to a man called Featherstone Vane at the Sports Club. He broke his neck hunting yesterday. If you come across Charlie Vatchell, who is down shooting elephants or niggers or something in your savage neighbourhood, you might give him word. He and poor Vane have been great chums ever since Cambridge days.

ii

I WAS returning to Loanada after my first home leave, and was going down the coast by the B. and A. Congo boat, because it wasn't my purpose to go to the Consulate direct. I had a commission to execute en route, which had been delivered into my hands by a Miss Laura Conyers, who I may as well state had, under certain conditions, promised to be my wife.

The Liverpool steamer dropped me at Banana in the Congo mouth, and I stayed there three days as the guest of a hospitable Dane in the pilotage, making exhaustive enquiries. I got to Boina in a coaster belonging to a Dutch factory, and pushed research there, though without result. And then I took advantage of the Free State postal launch which was running up to Matadi, and there for the first time picked up the trail. My man had arrived, it seemed, as coal trimmer on a Hamburg steamer, was seen to be educated and an Englishman, and carried one name on his linen and I another on the ship's books. He was set down as some unfortunate who was under the weather, and for that reason found sympathy and employment as a ganger on the railway works.

He proved himself capable of keeping sober, of driving niggers, and of resisting the climate, and in time might have risen to earning his three thousand francs a year. But one day it seems he saw a man on one of the Liverpool steamers who had known him in London and though, in reality, he remained un-noticed, the meeting scared him, and he threw up the gangership and bolted up the country, while Matadi wondered for a week what his crime had been, and then dropped him out of memory.

By pushing inquiries as far as they would go, and letting it be understood that I was not by any means there as an official of the law, I found out at last Vatchell was in the Kasai district. It appeared that he had gone up into some part of the country where no white man had ever been before, presumably to set up a factory and trade in rubber, ivory, and anything else that might come to his net. But as neither tidings or goods had come down from him since his departure, there seemed a strong probability that he had either died from the disease; of the place, or being knocked over the head and eaten. But I had promised Laura Conyers to find out for certain, and I did not think I could work myself up into telling a circumstantial lie about the matter. So I got carriers and set off to march to the place and see for myself.

I MARCHED five weeks over 6-inch wide roads before I found him. I had been plagued with fever most days, and as the State troops had been raiding most of that district quite recently food was scarce. I was carried into Vatchell's village in a hammock, weak as a fly and for the first eight days made several energetic attempts to die. But after that I began to pick up a bit, and by the time I'd been in the place a fortnight I was able to tell Vatchell my business.

'For,' said I, 'it isn't pleasure that brought me up here.'

'I've gathered that,' said Vatchell.  'When you were off your head you talked: and as I was sitting by, l could not help listening. Laura Conyers appears to be the lady's name. Am I to understand that you've been amusing yourself by telling her how I failed to carry out my bargain?"

'I've betrayed you in no single instance. To anyone who asked, I said you came down coast with me in the M'poso, which was common knowledge already, and then I added that, like all the res of the world, I'd completely lost eight o you?'

'But you didn't know the Conyers before?'

'I came across them quite by accident in a Scotch hotel. It's not an uncommon name, and I didn't guess for long enough that Laura was the girl you had spoken about; in fact, I didn't find out till after I'd asked her to marry me,  and then she told me herself."

'What did she say?'

'She told me that there was some sort of an understanding between you, from which she could not consider herself free till she had either heard you were dead or had given her up. I might have mentioned that I'd heard you state once that you'd resign your claim if you might go back to England; but I felt that I was not at liberty to speak about the matter, and consequently held my tongue.

'Then didn't she ask you if I'd ever mentioned her name?"

'She did, and I'm afraid I had to lie about... the matter. If you remember you made me give my word not to talk.'

Vatchell nodded gravely. 'You could not have done less,' he said, 'if you wanted to respect yourself. And now how do you propose that I should act?'

I shook my head. "That is for you to decide," I said. "I tell yon frankly though that if you go back and claim her she will marry you, if you insist upon it."

'And yet you come to tell me this, and are fond of her yourself?'

'l am thirty-three,' said I, 'and know my own mind. I care for her more than l ever cared for any woman before, and in quite a different way. I could never feel towards anyone else again like I do for her; and I will do anything that she wishes so far as it lies within my power."

'l can conceive you did not come to call upon me here for your own amusement,' said Vatchell, and there broke off and stared moodily down amongst the grass-and-wattle huts of the village, with his chin in the heel of his fist. An air was coming up from the valley which made the split banana leaves flutter like fringes of pale-green ribbon, and the women chattered over their  cooking fires in the middle of the streets. The little pot-bellied children, with their eye sockets blue with antimony, played is the dust, and the chickens picked up their livelihood from the garbage heaps, Vatchell spoke again, without turning his head. "You must love this girl very much.'' '

I felt my cheeks warming. "I never rhapsodise,' I said.

'And if I forgot the fact that I was theoretically dead (to use the expression which you yourself once coined), and went back to claim her, what should you do?'

'I am her Majesty's Consul at Loanada now. Presently my term of service there will be over, and if you go back and take the place I want at home, I shall manage to get transferred somewhere else at a distance, where there is abundance of work.'

'And so forget?'

'Or have no time to think."

'That is the right idea. Work, grow tired, sleep, and then you have no space  left you for old regrets. I do not speak from guesswork there, Tollemache. I know. I came up here, along rivers and through forests where no white man had trampled before. This village suited my fancy. I took a hut and called it a factory. I had with me some small amount of trade; I bought rubber with it, and ivory, and sent it down to a Portuguese factory on the coast, and brought  salt, powder, and Manchester cotton; also American rifles.'

' "Arms of precision!" That's against international law.'

'Consequently, I had to pay the smugglers dearly. But I could not do without them. When the Congo Free State hears of my doing well here, it will send up a ruffian with soldiers to try and set up a factory of the State's own, and enslave my people here to make carriers and troops. And me they would simply oust by a system of duties and rent. But with rifles― and I have men who can handle them like Hausas― are quite able to take care of ourselves against any filthy Belgian sous-officier who may come up here collecting ears;  and my people know it, and they've confidence in me. I'm chief here, and I have fresh people coming into town every week to settle and get protection; We've our stockade, our storehouses, and our water-duct, and I'm in treaty  for a Maxim."

I stared at the man wonderingly. This was a very different Charlie Vatchell from the sportsman of Yorkshire and the dandy of the London clubs. But it was only in his manner that he had altered. Physically he was much the same. He was one of those rare fellows on-whom the pestilential sun- and; climate of Equatorial Africa have no evil effect.

'It's queer, isn't Dick, how I came up here as a trader and lifted into the other thing? But it just had to be; the whole idea brimmed with interest, and I was a man who could not afford to let such a chance slide. It did not take me long to learn the language; you know I had picked up Fiote in Matadi. And then I waded in with my fists and a gun and made myself known as the strong man of the district. I was not light handed; you cannot tackle these cannibals round here with kid gloves; and they respect me all the more because I never shilly-shally. The two punishments they can understand are the butt or a bullet, unless you go in for torture, and I draw the line at that. I'm an absolute despot, and they like it. They all can see that I am doing well by the community, and they have given up trying periodically to assassinate me.  But I have to work like a horse to keep things going.'

'And so you always contrive to keep your thoughts from straying backwards?'

He sighed, and I saw his eyes lift over the mango trees of the village, and look blankly into the deep blue of the African heavens beyond.

'No,' he said, 'I have my lapses.'

'Then you love Laura still?'

'Have I ever ceased to do that? No, Dick, not even when I was all crumpled up on the M'poso, and said I would resign her if I could keep my Iife. She never cared for me as l did (and do) for her, but if I were free I would fight, any claimant for her now, yes, even in the same ghastly way I fought poor Vane, and not shirk the consequences. But I am not a free man― I don't exist, and my honour will not let me shirk out of what has been done already. In Africa I am, and in Africa I stay till the time comes to go beneath it. I am a chief of Kasai cannibals; and you may report at home that G. T. Vatchell died within seven weeks of sailing from Liverpool."

He broke off again,  and once more stared moodily at the hot blue sky. The noises, of the village filled the air like the hum of insects. Then he rose to his feet and turned to me with a queer look. 'If you want a further proof of my bona fides" he said, 'here is one.'

He clapped his hands, and shouted for Leyla.

The word was taken up by the women at the cooking fires, and the naked children ceased playing in the dust and carried the white man's cry amongst the huts, and presently from the further side of the village Leyla came, a pretty up-standing black girl, followed by a knot of curious friends. Vatchell spoke a dozen words, and they answered with shouts of surprise. And then they scampered away, spreading the news through all the gardens and the tree aisles.

"You don't understand the native?' said Vatchell. 'Well, this may interest you. I have just told Leyla that I will marry her."

'Oh, a new wife?' I said lightly.

He frowned. 'I have not followed the usual white man's practice, Tollemache. I have lived all my days in Africa away from the women, in deference to a memory which I could not shake off. But this seems a good time to change the system.

'I shall not marry as the ordinary trader does, by purchase; I shall, wed according to the rites and customs of the tribe', and that, as you know, has been held by English courts to be legal and binding. But I do this, please mark, not through any chivalrous feeling towards you; it is part of my bargain with Vane."

'I don't understand.'

"There is only one draw which could make me forfeit my honour and go back to England, and that is Laura Conyer's. I could not bear to have that temptation hanging over me any longer; but in an hour from this it will be put aside for ever. I shall be a man safeguarded by marriage; you and all the people of this tribe will be witness to the bond.'

IT IS SELDOM that an English gentleman has signed himself , away into savagery with such completeness; and never, should fancy for such a reason. The people of the tribe all assembled, in .the space before the grass and wattle house, and danced to the beating of tom-toms and the jangle of stone and iron. Then Vatchell and the girl stood out in the midst and said the words appointed; and a man fringed with herbs and human bones took two fowls and cut off their heads with a spear-blade, and let the blood flow on Leyla's black bare, limbs and on the white drill of Vatchell's clothes. And next he held their bare arms together and scratched them with the blade, and let the human blood commingle also. Then water was brought and the redness was washed away, and all the marks vanished, but the bond was left. The two were man and wife, and all the courts of the world could not set them free.

Vatchell came to me with a face white and drawn, and bade me go.

'Your bearers are waiting down yonder," he said, "at the rim of the forest. You have seen the end of me, and now you can report in all good faith that I am dead and will never return again. But make no mistake as to why this is done. I've a love for Laura that hums in me like a fire of coals; but my duty to myself and Vane comes first, and so here I have to stay! You are the lucky man.

'You― damn you!' he cried with a sudden flash of rage, 'Go! The sight of you is poison to me. Go, or I shall kill you with my naked hands!'

And I went; and after weary months had passed, came back to England, and my happiness.

____________________

12: Confounded

Muswellbrook Chronicle (NSW) 6 May 1899

"MOST MARRIAGES end in amazement," Mackay observed.

"This will," said M'Nichol with a grin. And the Younger Cautley-Bennet, the only other man in the hoax, lay back in his chair and roared.

They had taken up the idea for the sheer sport of the thing, and, as they said themselves, their sole motive was the pleasure of pulling Scott's leg. Other reward they could expect none, and the labour entailed was heavy; for the smallest literary effort was a heavy pain to any of them. It would be useless to scamp the work; newspaper people proverbially keep their weather eye lifting for a sell.

Still the very simplicity of the thing eased their task. Before he started. Scott had announced his intention or going away for a month, and being a popular sort of man everybody about the town knew it. He had a constitutional hatred for writing letters, and a weakness for wandering into unknown nooks, and so nothing was so natural as his setting off for his month's trip without leaving so much as a Poste Restante address.

The chance was obviously too good to be missed, and the trio congratulated themselves on having had the intelligence to perceive it.

"The only drawback is," Mackay grumbled as he gnawed the end of his pen,  "that we are such infernally bad scribes! This stuff M'Nichol has thrown together is hopeless. I believe he'd make Euclid look unlikely if he was to try writing it out. And yet I have the idea lucidly enough. By the way, what shall we put as the young woman's name?"

"Smith," suggested the Younger Cautley-Bennet, as M'Nichol did not seem inclined to speak.

"Smith sounds possible enough," said Mackay, jotting down a note . "And if we call her Mary Louisa with (Polly) in brackets, that should steer clear of complications. I never," he added thoughtfully, "knew a Mary Louisa Smith  who was called simply Polly by her intimates. And Scott always had a taste for  nicknames. Its an artistic touch. Next, please; where were they married?"

"St. George's. Hanover-square by special license," said M'Nichol.  "Dash into the thing boldly, and it's more likely to go down. If you said they sneaked into holy matrimony in some provincial registrar's office, the newspaper people would very likely be mean enough to wire off and inquire if it was so."

"There is wisdom in that," said Mackay. "Any more tips?"

"Yes," said the Younger Cautley-Bennet, "sent with the rest of the stuff a formal notice for the Hatched- Matched- Despatched column together with the usual fee for insertion.  If the person who signs himself Scott sends exactly the right amount it will point heavily to premeditation on his part. I tell you, men, it's just these small niceties which carry weight in a thing of this kind."

"Precisely," said Mackay, "Only there's such a lot of 'em, that's where the rub comes in. For instance, there's the trivial item of forging Scott's name."

"Bah!" said M'Nichol, "If you stick at that I suppose  you'll see something wrong with pulling off a door-knocker next. Legislation's all against fun in this world, and if you want fun you must elbow the law off the pavement."

"You're an anarchistic historian, observed Mackay, "and you'll probably end your days in gaol for stealing signboards if some bobby doesn't kill you previously. But this isn't doing work, Gentlemen, in this pious cause, I entreat your full attention."

And so they laboured till day shone gray down the cold chimney, and the milkman howled on the pavement without. The wonderful piece of fiction was finished at last, and every circumstance had been balanced to weigh its full authentic value. They smiled gratefully over their masterpiece; to them it seemed without flaw. They had even evaded the trifling question of forgery by representing the "whole as emanating from the pen of a certain fictitious Wilfred Emmerson.

"Scott must have had a best man," said the Younger Cautley-Bennet, "and who so likely for him to choose as his dear old college chum Wilfred? We were all jealous of Wilfred, if you'll recollect."

"And now," said Mackay with weary eyes, "the thing's done; and I'll change, and tub, and have some breakfast, and then run up to London by the morning train to clap it in the post. And. by the way, I'll just add a concluding request that the editor will see to getting the announcement copied into all the ladies' papers. That may come off or it mayn't. If it does, there are more laurel leaves for our triumph; if it doesn't, there's ho harm done. And, anyway, I don't see that we can get dropped on by anybody."

" No," said M'Nicol, "you've made it all most disgustingly safe."

ii

SCOTT, the man for whose amazement all these elaborate preparations wore being made up, was at the period of their making quarters at a small Inn in edge-of-the-world Yorkshire dale. His friends imagined him to be on a walking tour, with knapsack on his shoulders; or, more probable still, content with a tooth brush in his pocket by way of change of raiment. As a matter of more accurate fact, his kit was contained in two portly portmanteaus, which did not wander, and to which he returned every night. And in the fullness of time a paper reached him containing a most graphic account of his recent nuptials at St. George's, Hanover-square.

The natural effect of such a thing upon most men would have been imitation, and as likely as not eloquent profanity. Scott took the hoax in different fashion. He read it through from "Many of our readers will doubtless be surprised to learn" down to the clumsy journalistic joke about having done himself out of a wealth of wedding presents, and pushed away the paper to roar: and then picking it up again, chuckled over the description of the bride "who went to the altar in her travelling dress," and who laughed outright at the mythical Wilfred Emmerson, who double-banked the parts of Best Man and Giver-away of the Bride. And he spotted the enterprising pens which had been used on his behalf without a moment's hesitation.

"Oh, you beauties!" said he, apostrophising the absent trio of acquaintances; "you ingenious beauties, you're shaking hands with yourselves this moment and feeling so proud that your hats are four sizes too small. You think you've scored; you think you've paid the trilling bill between us over that telephone joke of mine; and, by gum, you've scored; you think you've paid three dimensions."

He picked up the paper again and examined the date.

"Delicious. If I'd arranged the thing myself, it couldn't have been put together more circumstantially. The day before yesterday! The only day I haven't called upon her all the time I've been here. As a matter of accurate fact, I was prowling amongst the hills, wondering whether I'd cut my throat or not; but she doesn't know that, and she needn't know it— yet. For the rest"—  here he got serious again— "for the rest, I think this paper will bring matters to a head one way or the other. I believe she cares for me; but I want to end the suspense."

The maid announced, "Mr. Scott, Miss," ushered that individual out of the ante room into the hall, and closed the door at his heels.

Miss Lomax said, "How-de-do," and held out her hand; but Scott gave rather a strained bow and pretended not to see the hand. "You asked me," he said, "where I was the day before yesterday. Perhaps this paper will explain; it seems to have got hold of a good many details which were not intended for publication."

He held out a newspaper arrowed with blue pencil, and Miss Lomax took it and began to read.

Scott was watching her narrowly. The tint of her colour altered in no degree whatever. The only facial alteration which he could perceive was the flicker of a smile which occasionally took hold of the corners of her mouth, but which was quickly smoothed away, as though it had invaded without invitation. When she had finished reading, she laid the paper down on a table and looked up into Scott's face.

"Well," she said, "I suppose you are satisfied now ?"

Scott was feeling rather uneasy. Affairs had not progressed thus far precisely according to his calculation. "How do you mean?" he asked.

"Why the thing's simple enough. You wanted to get married, and married you are. You took your plunge in rather a quaint way; but that is only natural, because you always make a point of doing the unexpected."

Scott was getting still more uncomfortable. Matters were taking a still worse turn.

"By the way," she said after a pause, "I haven't opened my letters this morning yet and now I come to think about if there was a tiny three-cornered parcel amongst them. That I suppose, was a wedge of your wedding cake? Awfully kind of you to think about it. I suppose Miss Smith made you write out a list of all the people you know? Funny that you should call her Polly as well as me. Polly isn't altogether full of charm."

"Look here," said Scott. "I don't believe you think I'm married at all!"

"Why should I doubt it, when the statement's here in black and white?"

"Anyway," said Scott miserably, "you don't care."

Miss Lomax lay back in her chair and laughed. "You are a most odd creature," she remarked.

"I suppose I may as well take up my hat and go for good; but I didn't think this of you, Polly."

"Again I say you are incomprehensible."

"We seem to be talking at cross purposes; but I may as well tell you before I do go that this newspaper thing is all a hoax of those scoundrels, Mackay and the other two. I'm not married at all: and as for the name Smith―"

"It's the one name you dislike, especially when conjoined to Polly."

"Oh, you're quite right to make the most of your chance for laughing at me. I've made a bigger hash of it all than any man above the daisies this minute: but I didn't think you'd have taken it like that. I did hope you cared for me a little, Polly, dear."

" 'And all his hopes were blighted,' " hummed Miss Lomax. "' blighted, blighted: and all his hopes were―'"

"Polly?"

"Yes."

"Is it true then, that you don't care tuppence for me?"

"I never said so— ah, now you're taking a good deal for granted."'

Scott had nipped across the room, and perching himself on the edge of her chair, supported himself there by an arm thrown out round Miss Lomax's waist.

"Then you will marry me?"

"This is rather an abrupt way of putting it; but thanks, yes. Always supposing you don't happen to have a wife already."

"Don't say anything more about that wretched hoax, darling."

"Out of regard for you I won't, as you haven't shone over it."

"You were very cruel."

"There, you are raking it up yourself at once. On the contrary, I was not cruel: you came here with the amiable intention of getting me to make a show of myself for your own purposes. Curious to relate. I turned the tables."

"Then you knew the thing was a sell, from the very beginning ?"

"Why," said Miss Lomax. "I'm afraid I did. In fact, to tell the honest truth. I gave the Younger Cautley-Bennet the necessary hint in the first instance. If you'll remember, M'sieur, I was one of your victims over the telephone joke, and faithfully promised you at the time to have my revenge."

"Then who's to be credited with the cream of the score?"

"I am," said Miss Lomax. "I always like having the last word. Some women are that way."

_________________

13: The Perfumer

Sunday Times (Perth) 8 January 1933

POSSIBLY because I am rather scared of her, plump little Helena Le Plage― or Mrs. Mortlock, as I suppose she is now called― is not a woman I particularly like. But I have a big admiration for her. She has found herself up against hard luck and difficulties all her life; she has always kept cheerful, and never groused; and by sheer pluck and push has emerged smiling from every hole she has been elbowed into, or deliberately explored. Those things go for greatness. But― well, if I were a bachelor, which I am not, I should never have tried to cut out Colonel John Mortlock. I suppose all men are instinctively a bit scared of the ultra-capables among women, even though they be comely and cuddlesome.

The Le Plages had been Jersey land-owners since early Norman days, and had a pretty lurid history at the back of them as fighting men by land and sea, farmers, seigneurs, and politicians. In the past they had a lucrative wrecking business on craft that had got into trouble amongst the reefs and the tide rips of St Ouen's Bay, and two of them, a father and son with a taste for gambling had "gone on the account" in the West Indies and done well financially.

But the blood had grown thin, and the late John Pierre Le Plage had been farming his own land at Petite Cendre, and exporting to Hull potatoes that did not pay. He blamed this on his hired Breton and Norman labour, and the English merchants, and died insolvent. His only son had been killed, and stout little Helena, the heiress, who was holding down a secretarial Job in Hampshire, caught the Southampton boat and blew safely into St Heliers' harbor in a gale of wind by the grace of God and the uncanny skill of a Southern Railway Company's skipper.

Half the Island came to the funeral at the Grande Vingtaine Church, and revelled In the deepest Victorian blacks, and free drinks in the shabby dining-room of the Petite Cendre Manor House. They seemed to bring with them an unusual amount of rather cloying perfumes.

Thereafter tall Mr. Avocat Vaux gave sentence: "Now, Helena, my dear, you've got to take a knock, but I expect you are ready for it. Of course the old man didn't leave a bean."

"And not even a half-open pie of mouldy potatoes. I know that."

"The place is mortgaged up to the chimneys. Bit of an optimist, Roquier, the third mortgagee. If it comes to a sale, he'll get left.''

"I'm glad of that. I hate old Roquier with his scanty shop and his scanty ways."

The lawyer whistled. "I should go slow on those bright modern-girlish remarks m'dear, for the time being, if were you. Monsieur Roquier comes into the scheme later. Question now before the meeting is, what are you going to do? Carry on with secretarying?"

"Can't. My table manners give every satisfaction, but my spelling's weak. The sack has been impending for the last month, and as I bolted for the funeral without leave, it's descended by this morning's post, with a month's screw in lieu. Jolly decent of the old thing to send that cheque, I call it."

"I suppose she wouldn't give you a character for another job―"

"Well, Mr. Vaux, I ask you― Lady-like appearance, can't sew, account keeping weak, and gets away with the men at dinner parties a bit too much Can sail a cutter and is a wonderfully neat hand at asparagus. Send stamp for list of other qualifications."

"Quite so," said Mr. Avocat Vaux, who was a dry, lean man, with small taste for humour. "Secretarying is off. It's a poor game, anyway, judging from what I pay mine. Have you got any other ideas? I tell you frankly, you will have to dear out of Petite Cendre, tout de suite. I don't suppose you're overburdened with cash capital in your purse? I― er―"

"Three bob. I had to borrow couple of quid from the butler for my ticker to Southampton and my steamer fare to Jersey. The old lady's cheque will just about cover that and keep me in cigarettes for the next week. Mr. Vaux. D'you think you could get me job in a shop? I know nothing about saleswomanship, but I'd try to be civil, and I was born obliging."

"I― er― well, Helena, you see, you suggested shopkeeping. I'd my doubts if a Le Plage would come down to that."

"Shop-girl, kennel-maid, charlady― where does the choice come? I'm as you say, the last of the Le Plages, and I'm broke to the wide. It isn't a case of having to dance for my dinner. I've got to break in now for to-morrow's breakfast. I can see you're grinning with some unpleasant scheme. Trot it out, Mr. Vaux. Sit up and look important. Don't mind my feelings. I've put them in cold store till I can afford to wear them again."

"There's nobody you want to marry?"

"I might have had Johnny Mortlock if he'd asked me. But he didn't. He couldn't afford it, and he's at the back of nowhere in Burmah or India. No. Mr. Vaux, you can wash out Johnny, I'm a spinster unattached."

"Then, to get down to the point, m'dear Helena, Monsieur Roquier has the honour to propose for your hand. What about it?"

"Old Roquier, the perfumer? Nitty old bird. About a thousand by his wrinkles. I suppose he's well off? What's it run to a year? Oh, by the way, and you said he was third mortgagee of Petite Cendre?"

"His perfumery business in St Heliers brings in about £2500 a year. I know: he made his accountant show me the figures. If you marry him he'll pay out the other mortgagees of Petite Cendre, and settle the estate on you and any― er― offspring that may occur. They can call themselves Le Plage. And he'll give you £350 a year pin money."

"Sounds all right," said Miss Le Plage. "Tell him it's a deal and say I hate scent. I suppose he's sixty. What's the niffy old bird's Christian name? I suppose I'd better know If there's in marriage In the offing."

So there came into being Mrs. Helena Roquier, with, in due season, a small Paul and still smaller Susanne, who at a later date would have the option of calling themselves Le Plage. After three years of taking his share of these efforts the old perfumer threw a fit one day down at the old harbor when a crane-man let a crate of his bottles slip out of the sling, and fifty hours later took a journey over which he had no control, to a cemetery at the back of Gallows Hill. Requiescat!

The relict accepted widowhood without hypocritical tears, went down to the perfumery works, and promptly stepped on the edge of disaster. The ancient manager, In Jersey French, made pronouncement. Orders were! coming in unexpectedly well; stocks were low: Monsieur had been rather failing― well, what-would-you? Perhaps "slack" was the word― of late. If Madame would go to Monsieur's private locked laboratory and com-pound the secret Ingredients, the dusty manager could do the rest and they could get on with distillation. Spirit? They had enough spirit in stock to carry their trade for another six months. It was the essential oils, mixed in the proper bulks, that were missing. Mourning, the manager politely knew, must take its time. But he begged most respectfully to mention that through the selling out of stocks of their product the business tottered.

Mrs. Roquier felt in a handbag for the bunch of keys that had been bequeathed to her. "Show me this lab. Get your still rigged. I'll have the charge mixed as soon as you're ready to load it"

Our Helena always wore a san upper lip and a cheery smile to camouflage a sinking heart. Old Roquier (whose Christian name I never learned) always held the recipe in Damoclean suspension over his wife's head.

"It is my capital, that recipe, yes, my cherished one. It is what we live on, you and I, Helena, we use up all it earns. Me, I alone know it. If I give it you, another man― this Johnny you talk of in your sleep― might come along, and in confidence you might give it to him, and I find myself with a competitor in more senses than one. So, my sweet cabbage, you will have only one perfumer husband, and that is me. But the recipe, if you are good wife to me, and good mother to Paul and Susanne. I give it to you before I die."

Instead of which, as Helena of the hard-luck habit decided, the old boy had done himself a bit too well of late, and had put in an apoplexy in a fit of naughty temper immediately after a six-course dejeuner. Well, there he was, "dead, and his secret gone with him," as some silly play once said.

In the private laboratory, the widow clanked the stoppers of winchesters full of those fearsome, expensive liquids, essential oils, and rumbled in bins of aromatic gums. Neroli, orange, citron, rosemary, bergamot― she read on the labels. She filled the little den with a tangle of scents so stringent and complicated that first she had to open the door and then go out into the still room and slam the door behind her to keep its clutching doors, so to speak, on the chain.

The desiccated little manager sidled up to her, and chattered in Channel Island French. "If Madame Is not accustomed to using gramme weight! and measuring glasses, perhaps I could help? I served my time as a chemist before I went in for the perfumery."

"Thank you. Monsieur." said Madame. "I can do the whole thing my-self, as soon as I have the materials. As it is we're short of one― er― of the pickles."

"Oh. perfectly, Madame," said the old manager. "I knew we must be nearly run out of neroli and bergamot I have got nothing ready that will spoil. Mr. Vaux said there might be delay."

"What's Mr. Vaux to do with it?"

"Mr. Vaux," said the manager, with a creaky little bow, "besides being avocat, is also extremely interested in the welfare of Madame."

"The devil he is," said the widow to herself. But to the manager of the Roquier perfumery business she merely expressed her gratitude for the kindly interest of Mr. Vaux. Being s bad sailor, and hearing the wind moan in the shabby narrow street outside she asked the manager to be kind enough to book her a cabin in the next morning's Southampton boat. She was not going to trust the secret of the Roquier eau de Cologne to the post. She would go to London for the ingredients they were short of herself.

INSTEAD of journeying to London however, our Helena, preceded by a telegram, made her way to one of the stately houses in Hampshire which, though half shut up owing to death duties and other political rake-offs, was still partly occupied.

Tough old Lady Trout inspected her over the top of steel-rimmed glasses.

"Glad to hear you've a lucrative business to offer me, young woman. You've brains, though you can't spell. You've aged six years in the three since you ceased being secretary to me. Tell me the tale, and don't smoke till you're through. I put in a boring week at your Jersey Government House a year ago. and heard about some of your doings. I should have poisoned that smelly old Roquier if he'd been my encumbrance. Man was always sniffling. Well, get on, young woman."

Then later: "Carried his recipe in his head, did he, this old husband of yours? Very sensible of him, if he thought you'd got Johnny Mortlock in the background. Then he died and took his prescription with him, which was doing the dirty on you. Oh, I admit you played the game with the old fellow. But there it is: you and he lived up to your income, and the income stops with his lamented decease. Can't say I'm very sorry for the extinction of the Roquier brand of eau de Cologne. I'm Victorian all right, and was brought up with the stuff, and always hated it. Two whiffs always gave me the heaves."

"I've hated it, too," said the widow Roquier, "but I've never dared say so till now. That's why I've experimented down other lines. My― er― Monsieur Roquier always said I'd a fine selective nose for scents. I've brought you some that I have made up to try. My scheme is for every woman to have her own special scent― every woman who can afford it, that is. The firm guarantees that the blend will be kept exclusively for her so long as she buys so many bottles per annum. We diagnose from her photograph and description, and then prescribe over and over again till we get the perfect scent to suit the woman's style and temperament."

"Sound scheme that, young woman, it will suit most of the few ladies who are left that can afford it, and the teeming thousands of the not-quite-ladies will leap at it. Count me in for putting up your capital. Run the thing shrewdly. Helena, and, in a couple of years I may be able to open up the west wing here again, unless the politicians do a further steal on the taxes."

THAT TALL lean avocat. Mr. Vaux, committed a technical blunder a month later when he made a cash offer for the Roquier perfumery business and the widow's hand all in one sentence. The Eau de Cologne plant and goodwill she was willing enough to sell on reasonable terms, as for a reason over which she had no control she considered it a wasting security. Marriage, too, she had her own ideas about but not with the tall, lean, stooping Mr. Vaux. So as one offer hinged on the other she refused the brace, also in a sentence.

"Foolish my dear Helena, foolish," said Vaux. "Neroli, bergamot, citron, orange and rosemary essential oils you ought to be using to distil with pure alcohol. You aren't buying any."

"How can you tell?"

"The Customs returns, my dear, are available to the earnest searcher. I've a clerk who's a sailor at the job. You're buying your alcohol from the same gin mill Roquier traded with, but in place of the good old costly oils you're laying in synthetic gas-tar equivalents."

"Wonderful clerk you've got. Mr. Vaux."

"The wholesale trade smelt out the difference, of course, at once, and you cut prices to pacify them. But that can't go on. Quality in Eau de Cologne really tells, and Duparques Bell the genuine liquor. Duparques are cutting out Roquiers with the best big houses, Duparques will get all your trade."

"Sad, isn't it, Mr. Vaux? I suppose you are going to break it to me now that your are Duparques?"

"I have been for years and your husband knew it. We'd a working agreement."

"And you took care of the Roquier recipe?"

"It is in my safe, my dear Helena, at this moment. Monsieur Roquier was always a bit on the mean side. Now I should hand over that recipe for the genuine Eau de Cologne to my wife as a wedding present."

"Sweet of you. And I will send the favoured dame what supply of neroli bergamot and rosemary and the rest that we have In stock. Poor woman, she'll need some sweetener If she's married to a twisty rogue like you. Mr. Vaux. The meeting is now closed. Please don't slam the door."

"My dear Helena, I know this proposal has come to you as a shock Rut besides your own future, you've your two children to think of, and the old Petite Cendre place. Roquiers are going down the hill at a big speed. Duparques, as I've said, are getting a good lot of their business, but I gather this new upstart Jersey Lily firm is getting more― 'We fit you with a personal scent that you'll always be associated with, and retain you as a customer all your life― that's the Jersey Lily slogan. It's a good Idea, and there's a genius in it somewhere. But it's not a firm that's likely to buy poor old moth-eaten Roquiers. Now Duparques―"

"Mr. Vaux, I wish I was in the position of the Jean Le Plage who lived in Petite Cenare in 1569."

"Why, my dear Helena?"

"Because when a Vaux was saucy to him, Monsieur Jean cut off the head of the said Vaux with the cook's cleaver, and spiked it on one of the posts of his front gate. Unfortunately, cant do that to-day, but if you call me 'My dear Helena' again I'll throw this flower vase at your head, you dirty old conger. Do you know who owns the Jersey Lily business?"

"Jews of London, my dear― I mean, it's a Jew firm."

"Jews nothing. Lady Trout and I own it, 60-50 between us, and Colonel Mortlock runs the London end, and points out to all inquirers that the scents are made in Jersey where there is practically no duty on spirits. That's why our prices are so cheap. Business doubles itself every week."

"Mortlock, the chap that was in the Coldstream? Wasn't he broke or something?"

"No. Merely seconded to the 14th Ghurkas. He retired six months ago as colonel. If you like to hint, according to your habit, there was anything shady about the affair, I'll bring him down to see you personally. I should like to watch some of the dust and slime knocked out of you, Mr. Vaux."

"I still," said the tall lean avocat doggedly, "I still press upon you the fact that I should be a useful husband, Helena. I'm a trained lawyer and you are navigating in difficult commercial waters."

"Mr. Vaux, Jersey laws differ from English, but there's a penalty here for bigamy. I believe it's small, but it exists, and I am not entering for the bigamy stakes. Johnny Mortlock is Lady Trout's son by her first marriage. I married him by her imperial command, and his wish, and my wish a month after Monsieur Roquier died. I admit we didn't ask the countryside to the wedding, as the crepe habit of Jersey had to be considered if we were to go on living at the Petite Cendre Manor House. As a point of fact he's stayed between there and his London Club, and looks after the 'Jersey Lily' London end. I use the Roquier house up by the convent in St Heliers here as headquarters. We meet ― when― well, that's no concern of yours, Mr. Vaux. But you can take it from me that Colonel Mortlock and I are very thoroughly and comfortably married. No others need apply."

"Phew!" said the avocat, and drooped his limp shoulders.

"As regards the Roquier business, or your Duparque concern, I will sell or buy either for coppers. They have ceased to matter except, perhaps, for the small item of the addresses of their customers. The 'Jersey Lily' company has all the perfumery trade of these islands which is worth thinking about and Colonel John Mortlock is chairman of the thing. For further details apply to him. If ever you want to talk to me again, Mr. Vaux, please wash the dust out of the wrinkles of your face before you ring the door bell. You've bored me ever since I was a  babe."

DO I personally envy Colonel John Mortlock, late High Lord of a Ghurka regiment, and formerly Major in the Coldstream Guards? He is estate agent at Petite Cendre, and is responsible besides for 46 acres of hired potato and tom (meaning tomato) land leased by Coin Tourcis. He is the farming overseer, packer, shipper. He is manager for London and St. Heliers of the "Jersey Lily" Perfume Co. of which his plump little wife and his mother are the sole and equal shareholders. Officially he has, when in the Island of Jersey, Wednesday and Friday afternoons free for golf at St Brelades, with stand-easies at the club at St Heliers afterwards.

Should I, if I happened to be a bachelor― which I am not― should I have competed with Jimmy Mortlock for the hand of the comely Helena? The answer is in the emphatic negative. She is too infernally competent for my taste. But Colonel Mortlock adores her. Incidentally the "Jersey City" Perfume Co. is making £20,000―£30,000 a year out of the foolishness of females who are vain enough to corner their own particular scents. So the Le Plages-Roquier-Mortlock family have a bit to swing about on.

I hope they do not give too big an allowance to young Paul le Plage, heir apparent to the Petite Cendre estates, who has just quitted his "prep" school for Rugby. He is a nice lad, young Paul, but a bit given to scents and softness. He probably takes after his old father However, I expect Rugby will boot that kind of foolishness out of him. That sort of boot work is the main use of Rugby school.

_____________________

14: The Ship-Breaker's Yard

Chronicle (Adelaide) 21 Jan 1932

THUS wrote Major Thomas Upgeorge to his brother Edward at his lime juice works in Nigeria:—

A comforting smell of wood smoke, frying bacon, and coffee came to me up the stone stairs as I went across to the bathroom, and through the open door which leads to the garden I got a sharp whiff from a border of pinks. I poked my head out. and. surveyed the roses, and saw they were good. The hen blackbird who cannot fly bobbed out from the box hedge, inspected me with a beady eye, approved of my taste in pyjamas, said 'good morning,' and went on with the job of finishing breakfast on items I didn't want. The morning was full of sunshine, and stoked in oxygen, and I was glad to be alive and owner of a country house.

But I didn't get by bath just then. Borthwick clanked up the stone stairs in his nailed boots. I never can get that blighter to wear quiet footgear—

'Telephone for you. sir. Wouldn't give proper name. Lady's voice. Said it was Peter speaking, and you'd know. Also on trunk line, and time running out.'

I turned to the right about and took the stairs at the double, with Borthwick's armour clashing in the rear.

'Where was she speaking from?'

'Trunk, sir,'

said my helpful butler, and when I got to the telephone the blessed thing had gone half dead.

But I picked up Peter's voice, and an S.O.S. to come to her at once, or sooner. Address seemed to be vaguely Morecambe. Reason for call, that beast Arthur John was stifling in mud and every moment likely to be his next.

'Oh, Tommy, dear, do come this very moment, just as you are. Nobody else can save his life. You know Peter's way. Come as you are.' At that point the telephone wire fused, or did whatever it does on these quivery occasions, and the rest was silence.

Well, Peter's S.O.S. was urgent anyhow, but 'come as you are' was a bit beyond me. I wasn't even rigged for repelling a trench raid. I was barefooted, and hadn't one button on my pyjamas. But I was dressed and shaved in five minutes from then, and Borthwick had the car round. I could hear the savage grinding my gears from away up in the dressing room. Gosh! I wish I could make that man cover his feet decently.

My bus on ordinary days can do about forty-two. She's not a genuine antique, but she is past the first blush of decarbonisation. We averaged thirty-eight on that spin, and over Clapham Common touched fifty-five. You see, Ted, you were once in the hot running for Peter yourself, and after you'd got turned down I had a try, and was hard at it when that swine Arthur John cut me out. So the Upgeorge tribe couldn't let Peter down, even though it was to prevent A.J. being smothered in mud, which is the exact thing that'd be good for him. I will own up that during the drive I concluded the brute had been out shrimping, or salmon poaching, or wild-fowling, and had got bogged in one of the usual quick-muds of Morecambe Bay. Peter gave me different news. She hadn't stayed wringing her hands over the place of burial, which was what most girls would have done, but had hoofed it out half-way to Lancaster, and semaphored me with a powder-puff as I swished by. The way I put my brakes on took a month's wear off four good tyres.

'Tommy,' says she, 'you're a dear.'

'I've always known that personally,' said I, 'though you would never recognise the obvious fact. Hop in. Where's Arthur John been drinking?'

'He's been working himself very nearly to death for his beastly paper, and a month ago it went phut, as you know, and he found himself out on Fleet street. He couldn't save, of course, on his scrap of a salary, and if it hadn't been for my bit we should be starving. So he was pretty desperate. Then what he thought was a good thing came into sight, and he's been worrying at it like a madman ever since.'

'New literary venture? Outside my line, Peter.'

'I don't think so. Or theatrical. Or stocks and. shares. Tommy, I don't know a bit what it is. Arthur John said it was better I should stay completely in the dark, and then if there was any hitch I couldn't be squeezed for evidence. See?'

I fancied I did, but you bet I didn't say so. Of course, you and I, Ted, having been at Uppington with the blighter, know what a shifty devil our Arthur John always was. But Peter would never recognise it, and it's no use putting the patient's back up first thing when you're called in as doctor.

'So,' said I. 'Well, cut the cackle, my good girl, and get to the 'osses. Whereabouts is the soup the chap's got into? Lead me to the tureen.'

'I can't, Tommy. I got a grimy wisp of a letter from him, and the only bit I could real was, 'up to my chin in this filthy mud— help quick, or I shall smother.'

'But what's the address? Surely you must know where it was sent from?'

'I don't, Tommy, a bit, except that it comes from Morecambe Bay, or somewhere near.'

'There's a lot of mud in Morecambe Bay, Peter, my dear. Well, at the moment I'm all for breakfast at whatever pub you suggest, and while we're gorging we can do the detective act. But I absolutely decline to go further on an empty tummy.'

Peter looked the better for a meal, but still pretty lean and washed out. We called it brunch, and washed down our bacon and eggs with a half bottle of the Widow, which is a tipple I loathe before the sun is over the yardarm, though I know it is all right for you West Coasters. Still, the only colour she'd got in her face was in the black rings under her eyes, and I tell you, Ted, that brunch bucked me up .to the seriousness of things.

Arthur John could go his own way, but it wouldn't suit the tastes of the Upgeorge gang for Peter to get ruffled in the process. So I made her get out the letter she'd talked about,, but could discover just nothing more out of it except that it was sodden with genuine Morecambe mud, and stank of seawater.

It was on thin, cheap paper, like a cash shop bill, and the pencil writing was squiggley, and for the most part washed out.

'Is A.J. on a treasure hunt?' I asked. 'Did he write this down in a diving bell? There's an under-water touch about it.'

'Haven't the remotest, Tommy,' was all I could get out of her. Arthur John had evidently kept as dark as a coal pit about his Morecambe game, whatever it was. He was always a secretive devil at Uppingham, if you remember.

'Anyway, how did you get this dirty rag of a letter, or whatever you call it?'

'Little girl came up to me on the beach asked if I was Mrs. Walmsley, and when I said 'Yes,' handed me the grubby paper, and said please she was to get twopence for it. I handed the coppers and asked where she'd got it. She said it was from a man, and pointed to a crowd of about four hundred round the bandstand. I asked what kind of a man, but that was beyond her, and she didn't seem to like my looks or my question, because then she bolted off and disappeared into the band crowd. I suppose I ought to have followed and dragged her back by the hair or something. But I didn't, and if you ask me to describe the brat, I couldn't. She was just a grubby, bare-legged, bare-headed seaside kid, and would probably match up perfectly with another thousand that are acquiring mud on their toes and decent air in their lungs on Morecambe beaches this moment.'

'You ought to have frozen on to that babe, Peter.'

'Sorry, Tommy. I see I've made a bloomer. But the dirty paper wad was crumpled into a ball when it was handed over, and I thought someone was having a joke on me and bought up (as I say) for twopence.'

'Peter,' said I, 'I hope your shoes are not full of feet to start with, because you and I are going to parade Morecambe promenades and its mud front till we find that post-girl. When we come upon her we'll either kill her with toffee or pull out her back hair till she spills useful information. Let's start off where she found you.'

'That's just on the west side of the old harbor. Come along.'

I suppose beach children have their pitches like the donkeys or the oyster foundries. Anyway, we found our little sunbeam at the first go-off, and lured her to an ice-cream mill, and started to fill her up. It was really wonderful to see her stoke; it gave me a more optimistic view of human capacity. But description of the man who gave her the note? Nothing doing. She didn't know if he'd a beard or no beard, a black coat or a blazer, knickerbockers or fisherman's big top boots. Maybe her safety valve was choked with ice-cream; maybe she'd the board-school eyes that see not; I can't tell you what was her internal trouble― but, although we wrought mightily with her till she announced it was time to go home to her dinner of useful information neither Peter nor I could extract one syllable. But just as she was starting to squelch off to her lodging I saw her eyeing the tumbled stone mole of the old harbor with the white palings and rusted ship parts beyond it.

'Want to go and play with the pretty cranes?' said I brightly, 'and run a hide and seek game in the old steamers?'

'Naw,' said little sunbeam. 'I was looking at the place where the man as told me how to earn tuppence climbed over that white fence. When I've had me dinner I'll come again and have another ice. I liked that taste you gave me first class.'

Gosh! The babe had absorbed at least a gallon, but she'd given us the tip we were after. Arthur John's letter had something to do with the ship breaker's yard in the old harbor. Entrance to certain parts of the ship-breaker's yard was easy. They'd an old yacht that all the world knew hove up at the head of the basin. Sightseers were admitted at sixpence a head, and trippers tripped to inspect the cabins of the great and the inadequate bathrooms of earlier days.

Peter and I wandered through the jigsaw alleyways, and had a peep at engine room and forecastle. The old girl might have been built in the roaring seventies, but her hull seemed to me as sound as a bottle, and anyway, except for trippers' shoe-castings, she had no mud inside her. So we came out on the old yacht's dingy after deck, and clapped down on a skylight, and surveyed the rest of the derelict harbor's pretty sights.

A big 6,000-ton freighter had that day come into this ship's graveyard, and lay grounded in the jaws of the wall with her rudder just clear of the fairway. Ahead of her, alongside the mole and handy to the cranes, was the lower half of a passenger boat of the humbler class— possibly fruiterer-cum-tourist. Noblemen with acetylene cutters were working on her rusted plating as we watched.

Mud was the popular cover for the harbor floor― plain neat mud of the Morecambe Bay consistency. Mud, if you remember, Ted, was the keynote of Arthur John's sentiment and stationery, and here was mud a-plenty.

'Quite so,' says Peter, although I hadn't spoken. 'But I don't see where it joins up.'

Nor did I, but I wasn't going to say so. 'You wait, young woman, and don't hustle a man so. In the mean while what about pushing across to the Midland and having a small guzzle of tea? Watching that disgusting child soak in iced custard, and prowling through these cabins that can't talk has made me thirsty. So,' says I, 'come along.'

Which we did. Alice, of our previous acquaintance, brought us wet stuffs, . and perhaps because she remembered me favourably, extra special cakes. Peter quite liked the feel of her teeth in one forbidding item called chocolate domino. I laid hold of the muddy letter, and had another go at it with my pocket lens....

up to my chin in this filthy mud ... p ... e fall .' ..nh ... b ...d it ... help quick or I shall smother.

Peter had extracted the guts of it, and I didn't find the balance illuminating. Still if we were right in coupling up Arthur John's mud-bath with the ship-breaking yard in the old harbor, which is the most interesting bit of Morecambe-in-the-Mud, what about the 'nh' being a bit of the word 'manhole?'

'What's a manhole?' Peter asked.

'Aperture in an otherwise solid ceiling, tank, bulkhead, or what not that has a cover which can be unbolted with difficulty to let some poor devil squirm through on an inspection stunt. At present I don't connect up any sort of manhole with Morecambe mud. But you never know. Anyway, Peter, why should Arthur John go manholing?'

'Beyond me. Tommy.'

'Well, my girl, the only way I can make some sense of it, the manhole combination I mean, is that it has something to do with that old fruiter those gents were slicking up with the acetylene cutters. It's a wild guess probably, but there's nothing on offer, and I am going to have a look-see. I suppose the ship breaker people won't kick?'

Then, Ted, my lad, our Peter suddenly got crimson.

'Tommy, dear,' says he. 'I'm quite in the dark about what Arthur John's on at, as I told you. But it may be something— er— confidential. He'd evidently gone— er— wherever it was, on the quiet. He seems to have got into a mess, which has something to do with mud. But if he could have spoken about it openly, don't you think he would have called in the ship-breaker men to help him?'

'Damn Arthur John. I believe you have, guessed right, Peter. I'll do my reconnoitring on the quiet; But the beggar will have to go on enjoying his mud bath till gentle night clouds o'er the scene. You git on here. I'll away into one of Morecambe's centres to buy a couple of electric torches.'

ABOUT ELEVEN o'clock that night I marched out to the end of the old harbor mole, and climbed the paling at the seafront. It was so dark that I couldn't even see the big sheer-legs, and I stumbled badly over the assorted ironmongery cut from dead ships. Two decks of the old fruiter had been shaved away, and the contents landed and sorted, and dispatched to their appropriate bins. The lower part of the hull was grounded, of course, and the tide was lapping noisily against the rusted plating. A gang-plank, greasy with  mud coupled the old wreck to the littered mole, and across that I slithered,. and boarded her

The messenger who had handed Arthur John's chit to the little girl who liked ice-cream, was presumably a brass-fancier returning from a looting expedition; thieves of this kidney; so I gathered, abounded; and for their entertainment a nightwatchman took constant rounds amongst the rusted litter of the yard.

I'd a coyness, about meeting that watchman, so kept my electric torch in my pocket, and spent a. good deal of time fumbling about before I could find a companion-way which led below.

Ship breakers are scientific enough in their breaking, but you can't call them tidy, and the mad crossword puzzle of those holds and 'tween decks would have made Gabriel swear.

The tops of the tanks showed manhole covers whichever way you went, forrard or aft, and the whole place stank of mud, and decayed bananas, and stale sea water. However, you won't want details. I came upon our bloke at last tucked away below one of the engine room bilges. Just the same cantankerous old Arthur John didn't say 'Thank you' in the least, but merely wanted to know why I hadn't come sooner.

The way he got trapped was simple enough. He had found his manhole cover, unbolted it, howked the thing aside, got through, and set about the job he was after. There'd been a leak in the tank caused by a plate getting started when the old craft took the ground, and the space was silted half full of slimy mud. This he'd got to dig through with his hands, and whilst he was at the job one of the kind noblemen I've mentioned, who were working the acetylene cutters above, melted off a big plate before the crane had got hold of it, and the thing dropped edgeways across the manhole hatch.

Arthur John could no more shift it than he could kick up the main engine bedplates. So there he was. He gave up any squeamishness about being caught— poor old Peter was out about that. He bawled for all he was worth. But the ship-breaker crews were all too busy, or too deaf, or too far away to hear him, and if it hadn't been for the brass-thief he'd have stayed in his steel box, and starved, or been smothered by the mud. As it was I found a bar, and hand spiked the plate away, and let him out.

Now as you know, Ted, my lad, we Upgeorges have never been too fond of A. J. Walmsley, and his beastly ingratitude when I retrieved him from that muddy bilge fairly put my back up. So said I, when he was getting his head through, that before I restored him to his friends and relations, I'd like to hear how disreputable the job he'd had in hand really was. Of course he blustered, it was no business of mine, and so on. But when he found his face pressing against my foot he reeled out a tale from which I picked for myself the few bits that were true, and the ones that really mattered.

It came to this. Another bad egg and he had been in partnership over blackmailing a political gent, and the partner had got anxiously wanted by the police for some other activity and had bolted. The stokehold of a fruiter received him, and he took the precaution of taking the documents of the case with him knowing, of course, the crookedness of Arthur John. By way of a safe deposit, he corked them in a bottle and hid them in his steamboat's double bottom. Then the ass must needs get mixed up in a shore row in Liverpool, and  get run in for bashing the police. He was spotted for his other roguery, and given three years. He knew the fruit was due for the breaker's yard, and in desperation got news of his hiding place to Arthur John. Our lad, of course, wanting to carry on the good work of blackmail, did as I've told you.

Well, Ted, I've not much use for politicians, and the one that these two beauties had been skinning was a pretty poisonous specimen. He's a Cabinet Minister, no less. But blackmail sets up my gorge. I wouldn't blackmail Satan; and the long and short of it was I impounded Arthur John's papers— and had to give him a black eye, by the way, before he'd part with them— and sent the wad to my country's hero at the House of Commons. I wrote that they came with H.M. Hangman's compliments. I don't know what kind of lie A. J. told Peter, but I got rather a snotty letter from the dear over the rotten way I'd behaved. However, she'll come round. She always does.

I JUST open this to tell you the quaint news that Arthur John has managed to get run down and killed by a butcher boy on a bicycle. Poor devil, I suppose he was up against it ever since his father went bankrupt during the last year at Uppingham. I can hear by the clank of armoured boots outside that Borthwick's coming to tell me, 'Post's just going, sir.'

Well, Ted. my lad, you'll have a spot of leave from your sunny Nigerian lime-juice foundry in six month's time, and I suppose you'll wade in and snap up Peter for yourself, now. In the meanwhile I'll keep off the grass, and enjoy my garden. The hen blackbird that can't fly walked through the bathroom door this morning.

DO YOU know the Morecambe on the Mud City Fathers want to destroy the works in the old harbor and make the place one dreary desert of tripperisms? If they'd the sense of cockroaches they'd pay the ship-breaker people to stay. But I suppose there's no law to stifle these people who can't think beyond asphalt and switchblade.

_______________

15: The Trinidad Treasure, and How it Was Found.

Hamilton Spectator (Vic) 18 May 1895

THERE MAY be others of the trade practising on this planet, but I don't think it. There are amateurs certainly, and mighty expensive and unprofitable their efforts have proved ; but if there were another professional besides myself, I fancy his operations must have come to my ears. So I take it that I am the only man now living who makes an exclusive occupation of Treasure-hunting, and I am thankful for the monopoly.

Competition wouldn't stimulate me. The excitement of the chase is quite enough to string up my nerves to full concert pitch as it is; and in case of organised competition, I should promptly retire from business. There isn't enough lost and hidden treasure existent to make it worth while for two men to work at it as systematic hunters.

My terms are these: An entirely free hand; all outlay prepaid; and eighteen per cent of the proceeds in case of success.

I was not brought up to the profession. Indeed, I invented it myself. Originally, I was in the wool business; had worked up to the grade of Continental and American traveller in Bradford manufactured goods; and was making fifteen hundred a year when I switched off into the new sphere. Perhaps it isn't so steadily profitable, but it's much more to my taste.

The first client I worked for was a woman, and it was she who first gave me an idea of turning Treasure-hunting into a regular expert business. We met on the Laconic coming East from New York, and it was a tip, the head-steward, and the purser which together combined to change my fate.

For a great wonder, I had no acquaintances on board; but there was a good-looking girl who had caught my eye, and I backsheeshed the head-steward to fix matters so that I might be placed next her at the table— accidentally. It was cheap at two dollars.

Her name was Perugini. We were in easy conversation before the entrées come. It was her first whiff of salt water, the weather was rough, and she was naturally proud of being one of the few to turn up at the first day's dinner. We chummed a good deal, Miss Perugini and I, and she stood in with me over two pools on the run, which brought as in a small matter of fifty dollars; but it was not till we were half-way across that we got on the treasure-hunting tack. Then it was quite by accident.

A Wall Street man, our vis-a-vis, who had that day put in his first appearance at luncheon, brought up the subject of Trinidad. Whilst lying on his back, he had been reading up a parcel of newspapers, and seemed anxious to give us a précis of their contents. He reeled off accounts of several lynchings, and some fires, and a yacht race or two ; and then touched a new topic.

'Another expedition to Trinidad, so I see by the World,' he said. 'The story of that buried treasure from Chili, or wherever it was, is a just elegant bait. The World says this makes the fourth gang of adventurers who have beaten a way out there, and landed through the surf and tried to realise those effects.'

Miss Perugini laughed. 'Four, sir? Say twenty-four, and you'll be nearer the mark. I guess only a few have written a history of their escapade: the majority concluded to go and come incognito. Their reason was mighty obvious. If they were successful, they would have to face the question of getting the treasure across the borders of some civilised State. It wouldn't quite suit their ticket to sail into the Custom-house with such a cargo, and fill in a paper of origin; because Government claims would waltz in; and if the finders were given a few odd nickels for their pains, they might think themselves mighty lucky. On the other hand, if they were unsuccessful, I guess they could do for themselves all the ridicule they'd any use for without the newspapers chipping in to help.'

When we had gone out upon the bridge deck, arid were stowed in a couple of steam-chairs which I had dragged under the lee of one of the boats, I tackled the subject again.

'You seem to know something about this Chilian treasure?'

'Probably more than any person alive, Mr. Clough. But to begin with, the treasure wasn't Chilian at all. It came from Lima, which is in Peru, in the days when Lima was called the City of Kings. At the beginning of this century that country was in revolution against Spain, and loot to the tune of twenty millions of your English pounds was gathered in the cathedral and churches, and shipped from Callo. Most of it fell into the hands of your Lord Cochrane and his squadron. But one schooner managed to give his ships the slip, and she ran south round the Horn, made up-coast, and then got wrecked on Trinidad, a small island seven hundred miles off the Brazilian coast. There her crew buried the treasure. Afterwards, they were taken off by a man-of-war, and because they couldn't give a good account of themselves, they were hanged as pirates. All, that is, with the exception of one boy, who was spared because he was young, but who afterwards became old, and on his death-bed told a Newcastle sea captain about the spot where the treasure was buried. Directly and indirectly that boy is responsible for many fruitless expeditions. Adventurers went to Trinidad at much pains and cost, often looked in the right place, but none of them found the loot. And I guess they'd be pretty tearing wild if they knew why.'

Miss Perugini raised her eyes to the greasy coils of reek which were coming out of the smoke-stack and laughed.

'Wasn't it there?'

'Nossir. I guess every knob had been carefully toted away years before those later heroes put spade into the landslip which they say has swamped the cache.'

'Then do you know where the stuff went to?' I stared at her in a good deal of astonishment, she still watching the smoke which billowed out from the furnaces below. Suddenly she turned her glance down and looked me squarely in the face.

'See here, Mr. Clough; I was warned against steamer-acquaintances; but I believe you're a white. You did well for me in that pool deal, and you're a business man besides. Will you help me in something else? There's pretty nearly half a million dollars' worth of jewels hoarded up for me if I can find them. If they keep hid, I shall be about broke. I ante'd up all I'd left to get a saloon passage over here; and if that hoard doesn't show, I guess I shall have to go back to Virginia and roll cigarettes in Richmond for a living. That's not an unladylike employment; and the cigarette girls usually marry well. But I don't hanker after it: I guess I'd rather you found me that pile— on commission, of course.'

'My dear young lady,' I said, 'as you mentioned just now, I'm a business man, and therefore you mustn't expect me to pin myself to anything in the dark. But if you care to explain further, and if I find that I can help, why, then, I will with all the pleasure in life.'

'That's sense ; and I like you better for not jumping at once. See here, Mr. Clough, I'm going to begin telling you about my affairs right away, and then you can judge whether it's worth your while to stand in.

'Grampa was the first of our crowd to be mixed with the treasure. He grabbed it, and he hid it: Grampa was an Italian, who found it convenient to live in the West Indian Islands because of political complications in other countries. He called himself a sculptor ; but I fancy he wasn't much account at his trade. Father let on to me once he was one of those sculptors who tote round plaster hogs and cathedrals stuck to a soft-wood platform over their heads, and peddle them down sideblocks. That's what Grampa was. You see he was two generations back, so I don't mind telling you. Father's enough ancestry for me.

'Well, to go on; some pirates were hanged on one of the islands—Jamaica, I think it was— and Grampa and some other men got to know where they'd a big hoard put by; and after a bit he and three friends got a slip of a schooner and went over to Trinidad and dug it up. One of the lot was a Spanish padre, and I guess he most have got the secret from a scared pirate in the confessional, and found it too big to carry under his own girdle. But that doesn't matter. Grampa and the other gentlemen shared the news and got the treasure on to their schooner; and then their difficulties began. There was hardly a dollar of it in money; there wasn't a shin-plaster in notes. It was all in gold candlesticks, and jewelled crucifixes, and bars of silver, and gold smiths' 'notions'; and if Grampa and his friends tried to negotiate boodle of that kind at a Custom-house, they knew they might anticipate trouble. You see, they were none of them gentlemen with unimpeachable connections ; they were all more known than respected.

'Each had his own ideas as to the best course of procedure, and each put them forward with warmth. Whilst they were arguing, the padre tumbled overboard, and I fancy he must have had some lead put into him, which made him sink. So there was only three of them left to split the plunder— and, by way of preliminary, they picked all the jewels from their settings. Then they melted up all the saints and the crucifixes and the ewers and other trifles into ingots, which would be far less easily sworn to. By which time, being fairly starved off the high seas, they put into St. Thomas's and revictualled.

'Getting safely out of there, they ran north across the Gulf, heading for Mobile, in Alabama, where Grampa had political friends; but I'm afraid they must have gone at the corn whisky too freely; because one night two of them woke up to find that the other had piled up the schooner. She was hard on a reef of coral near the dry Tortugas at the end of Florida; and as they couldn't get her off, they sat down for a hand of poker to fill in time. The game was slow for a while, but it finished up excitingly, Grampa was lucky enough to deal both his friends fours at one time. That made them raise all they were worth; and when they found he held a royal straight, it was very natural that guns should come out. Grampa wasn't touched himself; but both his friends were hurt; and in consequence, when he took the small boat, with the bundle of jewels inside his shirt, and most of the gold under the floorboards for ballast, neither of them could prevent him leaving them. But they said things as he rowed away which kinder put a scare into him after he'd got ashore, and cramped his future efforts.

'Perhaps that's why he didn't blossom out into a millionaire right away. As it was, he got to Charlotte Harbour, then to Tallahassee, and tried back at his old trade. For the next, two years Grampa sculpted for all he was worth, and he peddled plaster saints and lapdogs till there wasn't an empty bracket left in all Florida or Southern Georgia. He just made that sculpture business boom.

'The dollars he made at this seemed to put confidence into him again; and at the end of those two years he worked North, and began to realise on his ingots. He didn't do it all at once you understand; and he didn't walk at the tail of a brass band whilst he was hawking those melted-up candlesticks and alms-dishes. Nossir; I guess Grampa was the most uncommunicative man in the United States whilst he was getting that gold off his hands. And even when it was gone, and represented only by stocks and shares and bankers' balance, he didn't feel easy. The thought of those two partners he'd left perforated on the schooner kinder haunted him. He felt America was too noisy for his nerves. So he packed his trunks and went to England, where he married and settled down. The gentleman who afterwards became my father was his only child.'

'And in prosaic England,' said I, 'all danger naturally ceased ?'

'Nossir. Grampa thought so, and that's where he made his big mistake. It was thirty years after that argument on the Florida coral reef that those gentlemen called on him; and because he wasn't ready for them, he got killed.

'After that, the rest of the family concluded to try the States. They weren't in very flourishing circumstances, because Grampa had spent up pretty clean all he'd made out of the gold. He'd never realised upon the jewels; but where they were stowed none of the family could discover. After the other gentlemen had knifed him, and he lay on the grass gasping, he tried to tell father all about it; but by the time he'd assured him that the stones were all close by and untouched, he was just through with this life, and couldn't communicate farther. Father hunted, you bet; but the job was too big for him. He couldn't knock the bottom out of that cache; and when funds failed him, he concluded to run over to the States and recuperate. He took on the dry-goods line, but he never got much above clerking, and never had a chance of ferreting out that secret. I guess he wasn't much account at business.

'And now poor father's dead, Mr. Clough, and I'm his heiress, I guess the tangle's a bit to steep for me as well. So I come to you. If you're savvy enough to pull dollars out of an operation on steamer pools, I guess you can make this other mine pan out a good dividend, if you'll only put Try into the workings.'

I shook my head. This story was interesting enough; but she had dropped not the vaguest clue as to where the jewels could possibly be stowed. One could not go and dig up the whole surface of England systematically. To begin with, people live on certain patches of it, and might resent having their castles and acres disturbed. I put this to Miss Perugini delicately.

'If,' she replied dryly enough, 'the loot was to be had for the picking up, I guess, sir, I should have gone and fingered it myself, and not ask anybody's help.'

I laughed. 'That's likely, but still, can't you bring the limits of the search a bit narrower ?'

'Why, yes. I take it that the stones are hid somewhere on the place which my Grampa bought in Lincolnshire. In fact, he said that much before he died.'

'Come, this is better already. And do you still own this estate? And, by the way, where is it ?'

'Dangay Fen, near Boston. But it isn't mine now. Father sold it when he left for the States. He felt he needed capital to start on.'

This was another facer. I'd a very elementary notion of the law of treasure-trove in those days; but I imagined if this hoard did by any chance turn up, it would either belong to the present holder of the soil, or else revert to the Crown. Indeed, so confident was I that the whole thing was a bubble, that I shouldn't have entertained it seriously for a moment ashore. But on an Atlantic steamer one acts differently. Time is apt to drag, and a fixed interest is a distinct boon— especially when there is a remarkably pretty girl linked with it, whose manners are to say the least of them piquant. So I asked her to describe this place which proved to be Dangay Fen, near Boston.

'Describe? I guess I can go better than that. Look here.' She produced a bunch of photographs strapped with an india-rubber band. There must have been eighty of them.

'A gentleman who was touring over in Britain last fall, took these for me.'

Now, to tell the truth, it was these photographs and not Miss Perugini which gave me my first real deep interest in the pursuit. On the run between Queenstown and Holyhead a light began to dawn upon me; and as the pilot took us up through the shipping and shoals of the Mersey beyond, I saw my way to making Miss Perugini a definite proposal of terms. But we had many talks together before it came to that.

Photographs in hand we went over the estate of Dangay Fen inch by inch; and my first client told me how her father had rummaged the whole place from cellar to rafter; had sounded the walls and probed the bureaux; had raised floors and flagstones; had cut down and split the timber of the park; had wrenched the very roof-tiles from their lodgements. He had never— in memory, I suppose, of the Persian monarch— drained the pond round the fountain in front of the house, in the vain hope of finding a concealed treasure-chamber beneath its weedy waters. But the floor of the pond was plebeian mud, and the effort was his last one. At that point he gave up the quest, and sought fortune dry-goods-wise elsewhere; as has been already stated.

Now It struck me that father had been prosecuting his search upon an entirely wrong principle. He felt English himself, and he acted as though his worthy parent were an Englishman, also. A man of England, if he wants to hide something valuable, would very naturally dig in the ground, or delve a hole in a tree, or burrow in the walls of his house, or hoist a particularly heavy hearthstone and grovel out with the tongs his hoarding-place under that. Englishmen are not apt to dabble in the finer niceties of imagination.

On the other hand, the average Italian may be weak when it comes to the technique of secreting, but in the plotting and planning part he will be very much all there. (I used to travel for my firm a good deal in Northern Italy, so I can speak appreciatively.) Moreover, the original Signor Perugini of Trinidad, Jamaica, and elsewhere, was, as his grand daughter frankly admitted, a violent professional conspirator. Finesse was part of his nature.

Having arrived at this conclusion, I began to see my way more clearly. As I proved many a time in my after-practice, it helps one vastly when you can gauge accurately the character of your hider. I worked through the photographs again putting myself in the standpoint of Perugini senior, arguing over each, and discarding one after another. I fined them down to half-a-dozen, then to three, and then, with a start, I found myself holding one of the prints, wondering why ever I had not thought of something before which came before me so vividly then.

We were just making our number to the signal station on Holyhead when I told Miss Perugini that I fancied pretty strongly that I could locate her hidden treasure to a matter of eight or nine inches.

'Say,' she exclaimed, 'you mean that?'

'If things are as they were, and, if the loot hasn't been relooted, I'm going Nap on what I told you.'

'Mr. Clough,' she observed, 'you're just the nicest man I know.'

There was delay after this, because I had to go to Bradford to report on business, and it was a week before I could slip away to Lincolnshire. Miss Perugini was at the Dangay Fen waiting for me; and as we dined together in the growing dark, we saw across the fenland the lamplight kindle in the windows of the Hall.

'There's only a caretaker in charge,' she explained to me. 'We won't disturb him if we can help it. We'll stay here till midnight, and then go.'

'We?' I questioned. 'My dear young lady, it wouldn't be proper at that time of night, and it mightn't be safe. You must stay behind.'

I tried to say more on this point, but it was no use. Miss Perugini was firm— not to use a stronger word— and it ended in her coming with me. We set out like a pair of poachers into a black moonless night, finding our way along the sloppy roads with a bull's-eye lantern.

When it came to the point, excitement notwithstanding, I must confess I didn't like the job one little bit. It smacked so abominably of common midnight burglary. True, Miss Perugini was the real robber-in-intent, and I was only an agent; but that didn't absolve me from being an accessory before the fact. Moreover, I had not her incentive.

At last we came to the dividing dike of the estate, and hushed our voices as we crossed it on a railway sleeper. Gaunt willow-trees whispered around us mournfully, and the ground beneath the coarse grass squelched under foot.

The place had run very much to seed. Through two plantations we made our way, and then across an acre of rank herbage which had once been a trim lawn. Beyond was the house, dark-windowed and silent, amongst straggling elms. Between us and it was a pool, wherein a green-slimed Venus upheld a feebly babbling fountain. It was a photograph of this last over which I had spent so many thoughtful hours on board the Laconic, studying its ill-balanced proportions from every point of view, gazing at it in detail through the magnifying lens of a ship's telescope.

Why was it there, I had asked myself, this monstrous ill-shapen thing? At first the answer seemed to be plain. I remembered the bent of the owner's mind towards statuary, and I remembered also how l had been told that 'Grampa was no account as a sculptor.'

But by degrees I noticed that the chief thing which made the Venus look grotesque, was her pedestal. I drew other pedestals on paper, and set them beneath her: with each she looked many per cent. better. Why, then, had she been set on this skimpy cylinder of stone an inch above the water's brim, which had originally been made to carry a water-pipe and nothing more? Perugini senior, though a bad sculptor, would not be utterly ignorant of effect in statuary. The obvious answer seemed to be that the Venus was put up hurriedly, and never afterwards meddled with for fear of calling undue attention to her. From that point to assuming that the gems were stowed within the goddess's ill-shapen curves was a short step.

Granted this, other matters became plain which were otherwise unexplainable. Where were the jewels stowed during those two years in Florida and Southern Georgia, when the original Perugini went about in daily fear of his injured compatriots! Where were they when he went North, getting rid little by little of these suspicious ingots of precious metal? And how were they smuggled untaxed beneath the eyes of British Custom-house officer! And there were also other points which I will not bore you with, because on the data in these pages you can easily think them out for yourself.

There was no plank to be found near, and I was too scared when it came to the point, to search for one. So I stepped into the slime of the pool, and waded knee-deep across to the middle I grasped the ill-shapen Venus by the neck, and the slop of water from her upraised hands splashed coldly into my face. Then I pulled and pulled, and at last she came reluctantly away, leaving one foot and some leaden tubing behind her. In my arms I carried her to the bank of the pond. Then— there was a tinkle of breaking pottery, and quick withdrawal of a kicking foot, and a blaze of rainbows shone in the glow of the lamplight. The jewels were there before us, reset in a white matrix behind the breasts of the Venus.

On our knees we crouched beside them, and quarried them out till none were left with the gray breaking dawn, we passed the finely powdered dust of the Venus through finger and thumb, to make sure that not so much as a humble sapphire remained; and then we looked at the hoard, which sparkled in my handkerchief amongst the dewdrops of the grass blades. At a very rough guess there most have been the value of sixty or eighty thousand pounds, lying there on the earth between us.

'I'm going to pick only the best diamonds to wear,' said my companion, 'because I'm an American woman and love diamonds. The rest of the stones shall go to Hatton Garden. My! won't I have a just elegant time when I get back to our country. Mr. Clough, I think you're just the cleverest gentleman I ever met, and if you'll come back to the house, I'll hand you over your commission right now.'

Then she picked up my handkerchief by the four corners, and led the way back through the planting and over the railway sleeper to the road. As we walked back to the village, she told me more about Richmond Virginia, but forbore all mention of the cigarette industry. She said the Richmond men were delightful, especially some of those who were of recent English importation, and worse off as regards mere dollars than some of their neighbours. At this point, as we had reached the Inn, I ventured to ask her if she had any particular one in her minds eye; but the brought her back to business at once. We went into the cold smoky coffee-room, and she counted out my commission there and then on the spot.

I have often wondered since, what did happen when Miss Perugini got back to Richmond, in the State of Virginia with her fortune.

___________________

16: A Q.C's Confession

Kalgoorlie Western Argus 27 April 1899

"I ABOMINATE detective stories," said the Q.C., laying down his cue along the corner of the billiard table, and going across to the shelf where the cigar boxes stood. "You see, when a man makes a detective story to write down on paper, he begins at the butt end and works backwards. He notes his points and manufactures his clues to suit 'em, so it's all bound to work out right. In real life it's very different "― he chose a Partaga, looking at it through his glasses thoughtfully―" and I ought to know; I've been studying the criminal mind for half my working life."

"But," said O'Malley, "a defending counsel is a different class of animal to the common detective."

"Oh, is he?" said the Q.C., "that's all you know about it." He dragged one of the big chairs up into the deep chimney corner and settled himself in it, after many luxurious shruggings ; then he spoke on between whiffs at the Partaga.

"Now, I'll just state you a case, and you'll see for yourself how we sometimes have to ravel out things. The solicitor who put the brief in my hands was, as solicitors go, a smart chap. He had built up a big business out of nothing, but criminal work was slightly out of his line. He had only taken up this case to oblige an old client, and I must say he made an uncommonly poor show of it. I never had such a thin brief given me in my life.

"The prisoner was to be tried on the capital charge, and if murder had really been committed, it was one of the most cold-blooded nature. Hanging would follow conviction, as surely as night comes on the heels of day, and a client who gets the noose given him always damages his counsel's reputation whether the counsel deserves it or not.

"As my brief put it, the case fined down to this:

"Two men got into an empty third-class smoking compartment at Addison Road. One of them, Guide, was a drain contractor; the other, Walker, was a foreman in Guide's employ. The train took them past the Shepherd's Bush and Grove Road Hammersmith stations without anything being reported, but at Shaftsbury Road Walker was found on the floor stone dead, with a wound in the skull, and on the seat of the carriage was a small miner's pickaxe with one of its points smeared with blood.

"It was proved that Guide had been seen to leave the Shaftsbury Road Station. He was dishevelled and agitated at the time, and this made the ticket collector notice him specially among the crowd of out-going passengers. After it was found out who he was inquiries were made at his home. His wife stated that she had not seen him since Monday― the morning of Walker's death. She also let out that Walker had been causing him some annoyance of late, but she did not know about what. Subsequently― on the Friday, four days later― Guide was arrested in the West India dock. He was trying to obtain employ as coal trimmer on an Australian steamer, obviously to escape from the country. On being charged he surrendered quietly, remarking that he supposed that it was all up with him.

"That was the gist of my case, and the solicitor suggested that I should enter a plea of insanity.

"Now, when I conned the evidence over― additional evidence to what I've told you, but all tending to the same end― I came to the conclusion that Guide was as sane as any of as are, and that, as a defence, insanity wouldn't have a leg to stand upon. 'The fellow,' I said 'had much better enter a plea of guilty and let me pile up a long list of extenuating circumstances. A jury will always listen to those, and feeling grateful for being excused a long and wearisome trial, recommend to mercy out of sheer gratitude.' I wrote a note to this effect. On its receipt a solicitor came to see me-by the way he was Barnes, a man of my own year at Cambridge.

"My dear Grayson,' said he, 'I'm not altogether a fool. I know as well as you do that Guide would have the best chance if he pleaded guilty, but the difficult part of it is that he flatly refuses to do any such thing. He says he no more killed this fellow Walker than you or I did. I pointed out to him that the man couldn't very conveniently have slain himself, as the wound was well over at the top of his head, and had obviously been the result of a most terrific blow. At the p.m. it was shown that Walker's skull was of the most abnormal thickness, and the force required to drive through even a heavy, sharp-pointed instrument like a pickaxe must have been something tremendous.

"I tell you, Grayson, I impressed upon the fellow that the case was as black as ink against him, and that he'd only irritate the jury by holding out; but I couldn't move him. He held doggedly to his tale― he had not killed Andrew Walker.

" 'He's not the first man who's stuck to an unlikely lie like that,' I remarked.

" 'The curious part of it is,' said Barnes, 'I'm convinced that the man believes himself to be telling the absolute truth.'

" 'Then what explanation has he to offer?'

" 'None worth listening to. He owns that he and Walker had a fierce quarrel over money matters, which culminated in a personal struggle. He knows that he had one blow on the head which dazed him, and fancies that he must have had a second, which reduced him to unconsciousness. When next he knew what was happening, he saw Walker lying on the floor, stone dead, though he was still warm and supple. On the flour was the pickaxe, with one of its points slimy with blood. How it came to be so he couldn't tell. He picked it up and laid it on a seat, then in an instant the thought flashed across him how terribly black things looked against himself. He saw absolutely no chance of disproving them, and with the usual impulse of crude minds, resolved at once to quit the country. With that idea he got out at the Shaftsbury Road station, and, being an ignorant man, and without money, made his way down to the Ratcliffe Highway― beg its pardon, St George's High street. Using that as a centre, he smelt about the docks at Limehouse and Millwall trying for a job in the stokehold; but as this neighborhood is one of the best-watched spots on earth, it is not a matter of surprise that he was very soon captured. That's about all I can tell you.'

" 'I'm afraid it doesn't lighten matters up very much.'

" 'I never said it would. The gist of this is down in your brief, Grayson. I only came round to chambers because of your letter.'

" 'Still,' I persisted, ' you threw out a hint that Guide had offered some explanation.'

" 'Oh, yes; but such a flimsy improbable theory that no sane man could entertain it for a minute. In fact he knew it to be absurd himself. After pressing him again and again to suggest how Walker could have been killed (with the view of exhorting a confession), he said, in his slow heavy way, "Why, I suppose, Mr Barnes, someone else must ha' done it. Don't you think as a man could ha' got into the carriage whilst I was lying there stupid, and hit Walker with the pick and got out again 'afore I come to? Would that do, sir?"

" 'I didn't think,' added Barnes, drily, 'that it was worth following that theory any deeper. What do you say?'

"I thought for a minute and then spoke up. 'Look here, Barnes; if in the face of this cock-and-bull story Guide persists in his innocence, there may be something in it, after all; and if, by any thousand-to one chance we could bring him clear, it would be a red feather in the caps of both of us. Do you object to my seeing the man personally?'

" 'It's a bit irregular,' said Barnes, doubtfully.

" 'I know it's a bang in the teeth of etiquette. But suppose you compromise and you come with me.'

" 'No, I won't do that. My time's busy just now; and, besides, I don't want to run up the costs of this case higher than necessary. But if you choose to shove your other work aside, and waste a couple of hours, just go and interview him by yourself, and we'll waive ceremony. I'll get the necessary prison order, and send it round to you tomorrow.'

"Next afternoon I went down to see Guide in the waiting-room at the Old Bailey. He was a middle-aged man, heavy-faced, and evidently knocked half stupid by the situation in which he found himself. He was, perhaps, as great a fool to his own interests as one might often meet with. There was no getting the simplest tale out of him except by regular question and answer cross-examination. What little he did tell seemed rather to confirm his guilt than otherwise, though, strange to say, I was beginning to believe him when he kept on assuring me, between sentences, that he did not commit the murder. Perhaps it was the solid earnestness of the fellow, in denying the crime, that convinced me. One gets to read a good deal from ,the facial expression when a man has watched what goes on in the criminal dock as long as I have done, and one can usually spot guilt under any mask.

" 'But tell me,' I said, 'what did you quarrel about in the first instance?'

" 'Money,' said Guide, moodily.

" 'That's vague. Tell me more. Did he owe you money ?'

" 'No, sir; it was t'other way on.'

" 'Wages in arrears?'

" 'No; it was money he had advanced me for the working of my business. You see, Walker had always been a hard man, and he'd saved. He said he wanted his money back, he knowing that I was pinched a bit, just then, and couldn't pay. Then he tried to thrust himself into partnership with me in the business, which was a thing I didn't want. I'd good contracts on hand, which I expected would bring me in a matter of £9,000, and I didn't want to share it with any man, least of all him. I told him so, and that's how the trouble began; but it was him that hit me first.'

" 'No, sir― no― no, he couldn't. I thought of that myself since I have been in here, and I said to Mr Barnes that perhaps somebody come into the carriage when I was knocked silly and killed him; but Mr Barnes he said that was absurd. Besides, who could have done it?'

" 'Don't you know anybody, then, who would have wished for Walker's death ?'

" 'There was them that didn't like him,' said Guide, drearily.

"That was all I could get out of him, and I went away from the prison feeling very dissatisfied. I was stronger than ever in the belief that Guide was in no degree guilty. and yet for the life of me I did not see how to I prove his innocence. He had not been a man of any strong character to begin with, and the shock of what he had gone through had I utterly dazed him. It was hopeless to expect any reasonable explanation from him; he I had resigned himself to puzzlement. If he had gone melancholy mad before he came up I to trial I should not have been one whit surprised.

"I brooded over the matter for a couple of days, putting all the rest of my practice out of thought, but I didn't get any forwarder with it. I hate to give anything up as a bad job, and in this case I felt that there I was on my shoulders a huge load of responsibility. Guide, I had thoroughly persuaded I myself, had not murdered Andrew Walker; as sure as the case went into court on its present grounding, the man would be hanged out of hand; and I persuaded myself that then I, and I alone, should be responsible for an innocent man's death.

"At the end of those two days only one course seemed open to me. It was foreign to the brief I held but the only method left to bring in my client's innocence.

"I must find out who did actually murder the man, I must try to implicate some third t actor in the tragedy.

"To begin with, there was the railway a carriage; but a little thought showed me that nothing was to be done there. The compartment would have been inspected by the police, and then swept and cleaned and garnished, and coupled on to its train once more, and used by the unconscious passengers for weeks since the uproar occurred in it.

"All that I had to go upon were the notes and relies held at Scotland Yard.

"The police authorities were very good. Of course they were keen enough to bring off the prosecution with professional eclat; but they were not exactly anxious to hand over a poor wretch to the hangman if he was not thoroughly deserving of a dance on nothing. They placed at my disposal every scrap of , their evidence, and said that they thought that the reading of it was plain beyond dispute. I thought so, to, at first. They sent t an inspector to my office as their envoy.

"On one point, though, after a lot of thought I did not quite agree with them. I held a ghastly relic in my hand, gazing at a it fixedly. It was a portion of Walker's skull― a disc of dry bones with a splintered aperture in the middle.

" 'And so you think the pickaxe made that hole?' said I to the inspector.

" 'I don't think there can be any doubt about it, Mr Grayson. Nothing else could have done it, and the point of the pick was smeared with blood.'

" 'But would there be room to swing such a weapon in a third-class metropolitan railway carriage?'

" 'We thought of that and at first it seemed a poser. The roof is low, and both Guide and Walker are tall men; but if Guide had gripped the shaft by the end, so, with his right hand pretty near the end, so, I he'd have heaps of room to drive it with a sideways swing. I tried the thing for myself; it acted perfectly. Here's the pickaxe; you can see for yourself.'

"I did see, and I wasn't satisfied, but I didn't tell the inspector what I thought. It t was clearer to me than ever that Guide had not committed the murder. What I asked the inspector was this: 'Had either of the two men got any luggage in the carriage?' The Inspector answered with a laugh:

" 'Not quite, Mr Grayson, or you would see it here.'

"Then I took on paper a rough outline of that fragment of bone, and an accurate sketch a of exact size of the gash in it, and the inspector went away. One thing his visit had shown me. Andrew Walker was not slain by a blow from behind by the pickaxe.

"I met Barnes while I was nibbling lunch, I and told him this. He heard me doubtfully.  'You may be right' said he, 'but I'm bothered if I see what you have to go upon.'

"' You know what a pickaxe is like?'  I said.

" 'Certainly.'

"' A cross section of one of the blades would be what ?' 'Square― or perhaps oblong.' 'Quite so. Rectangular. What I want to get at is this it wouldn't even be diamond shape, with angles obtuse and acute alternately.'

" 'Certainly not. The angles would be clean right angles.'

" 'Very good. Now look at this sketch of the hole in the skull, and tell me what you see.'

"Barnes put up his glasses, and gazed attentively for a minute or so, and then looked up. 'The pick point has crashed through without leaving any marks of its edges whatever.'

" 'That is to say, there are none of your right angles showing.'

" 'None. But that does not go to prove anything.' 'No. It's only about a tenth of my proof. It gives the vague initial idea. It made me look more carefully, and I saw this'― I pointed with my pencil to a corner of the sketch. Barnes whistled.

" 'A clean arc of a circle,' said he, 'cut in the bone as though a knife had done it. You saw that pickaxe? Was it much worn? Were the angles much rounded near the point?'

" 'They were not. On the contrary, the pick, though an old one, had just been through the blacksmith's shop to be re-sharpened, and had not been used since. There was not a trace of wear upon it; of that I am certain.'

"Barnes whistled again in much perplexity. At length he said, 'It's an absolutely certain thing that Walker was not killed in the way they imagine. But I don't think this will get him off scot-free. There's too much other circumstantial evidence against him Of course you'll do your best, but―'

" 'It would be more than a toss-up if I could avoid a conviction. Quite so, we must find out more. The question is, how was this wound made? Was there a third man in it?'

" 'Guide may have jabbed him from behind with some other instrument and afterwards thrown it out of the window.'

" 'Yes,' said I, 'but that is going on the assumption that Guide did the trick, which I don't for a moment think is the case. Besides, if he did throw anything out of the window, it would most assuredly have been found. They keep the permanent way very thoroughly inspected upon the Metropolitan. No, Barnes. There is some other agent in this case, animate or inanimate, which so far we have overlooked completely, and an innocent man's life depends upon out ravelling it out.'

"Barnes lifted his shoulders helplessly and took another sandwich. 'I don't see what we can do.' 'Nor I, very clearly. But we must start from the very commencement and go over the ground inch by inch.'

"So wrapped up was I in the case by this time that I could not fix my mind on anything else. Then and there I went out and set about my enquiries.

"With some trouble I found the compartment in which the tragedy had taken place, but learnt nothing new from it. The station and the railway people at Addison-road Kensington, were similarly drawn blank. The ticket inspector at Shaftsbury-road, who distinctly remembered Guide's passage, at first seemed inclined to tell me nothing new I either, till I dragged it out of him by a regular emetic of questioning.

"Then he did remember that Guide had been carrying in his hand a carpenter's straw bass as he passed through the wicket. He did not recollect whether he had mentioned it to the police; didn't see that it mattered.

"I thought differently, and with a new vague hope in my heart packed back to the prison. I had heard no word of the hand baggage from Guide or anyone. It remained to be seen what be had done with it.

"They remembered me from my previous visit, and let me into the prisoner without much demur. Guide owned up to the basket at once. 'Yes,' he said, 'I had some odd tools to carry from home, and as I couldn't find anything handy to put them in I used the old carpenter's bass. I had an iron eye to splice on the end of a windlass rope, a job that I liked to do myself to make sure that it's done safe. I never thought of telling you of that bass before, sir. I didn't see as how it mattered.'

"' Where is the bass now ?'

" 'In the left luggage office at Shaftsbury road station. Name of Hopkins. I've lost the ticket.'

" 'Where did you put your basket on entering the carriage at Addison-road?'

" 'On the seat, sir, in the corner by the window.' And with that I left him.

"Now, thought I to myself, I believe I can find out whether you murdered Andrew Walker or not, and drove back to Hammersmith.

"I inquired at the cloak-room, Yes, the carpenter's bass was there beneath a dusty heap of other unclaimed luggage. There was demurrage to pay on it, which I offered promptly to hand over, but as I could produce no counterfoil bearing the name of Hopkins, the clerk with a smile, said he could not let me have it. However, when be heard what I wanted he made no objection to my having an overhaul.

"The two lugs of the bass were threaded together with a hammer. I took this away and opened the sides. Within was a ball of marline, another of spun yarn, a grease-pot, and several large iron eyes. Also a large marline-spike. It was this last that fixed my attention. It was brand new, with a bone handle, and a bright brass ferrule. Most of the iron also was bright, but three inches of the point was stained with a faint dark brown. From a canal inspection I should have put this down to the marlinespike having been used to splice on tarred rope, but now my suspicions made me think of something else.

"I raised the stained point to my nose. There was no smell of tar whatever. On the bright part of it there was the indefinable odour of iron; at the tip that thin coat of brown varnish had blotted that scent completely.

"I think my fingers trembled when I turned to the bass again.

"Yes; there opposite to where the point of the marline-spike had been lying― it was tilted up over the ball of spun yarn― was a closed-up gash in the side of the bass. The spike had passed through there, and then been withdrawn. Bound the gash was a dim discoloration, which I knew to be dried human blood,

"In my mind's eye I saw the whole ghastly accident clearly enough now. The two men had been standing up, struggling. Guide had gone down under a blow, knocked senseless, and Walker had stumbled over him. Pitching forward, face downward, on to the seat before he could recover, his head had dashed violently against the carpenter's bass. The sharp marline-spike inside with its heel resting against the solid wall of the carriage, had entered the top of the skull like a bayonet. No human hand had been raised against him, and yet he had been killed on the instant, without a struggle.

"Then he had rolled off on to the floor, and the blood from his wound had dripped on to the paint of the pickaxe lying beneath him.

"Now, I know that for a barrister to go about fretting out these items of evidence for himself is a matter open to censure. To begin with, it takes up time which might be used to greater financial profit in other ways. Also, it is undignified. " So I kept my own particular ramblings in this case remarkably quiet, and in court led up to my facts through ordinary cross-examination.

"Mind you, it wasn't a short case, or a simple case when it came up for trial. Counsel for the Crown had anticipated an easy conviction, and when they saw that they were to be fought they thrashed through their briefs like men. Perhaps I did let them have an undue length of tether; but the temptation was too big to be resisted. But at the proper psychological moment I called attention to the shape of the puncture in Walker's skull, and then dramatically sprang the bass and the marline-spike upon them unawares. After that, as the papers put it, 'there was applause in court, which was instantly suppressed.' "

"Oh, the conceit of the man," said O'Malley, laughing. Grayson laughed too.

"Well," he said, "I was younger then, and I suppose I was a trifle conceited. The Crown didn't throw up. They fought through to the finish. And the judge gave the rottenest summing up I ever heard― silly old fool. But the jury chucked us a 'Not guilty' without leaving the box and then leading counsel for the other side came across, and congratulated me on having  saved Guide from the gallows.

" 'Now, I'd have bet anything on hanging that man,' said he."

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17: The Settler-less

Australian Women's Weekly 19 December 1936

THIS IS A TALE of some time ago, and  the character, or heroine, if you like to clap the technical title on her, has been known to the newspapers and police as Jane Andrews, the Hon. Mrs. McClay, Lady J. Rythnott, and possibly as Mrs. E. J. Jane, though I am not sure about this last.

She had bad luck over courtship, marriage, speculation and other things. Pat Johnston, the parson's son that she was engaged to first, got sent down from Cambridge for chucking his junior tutor under the chin after a bump supper, and thereafter disappeared, presumably to that address of so many missing men. The next man she promised to marry died from a hunting accident a week before the wedding. The knight she did marry― a widower― was a bad egg of the worst vintage, and the Oldham cotton concern she put her savings into was taken over by the debenture holders within a week of her purchase. There may have been bad management on Jane's part; probably was, because anyway in those days she had no experience in the ways of the world; but one can grant that her luck was thoroughly bad.

Very well then. Jane felt she was thoroughly up against it, and as (so she felt) the world had done her in the eye, she made up her mind to gouge something worth while out of the world, and not worry about any sort, kind, or variety of squeamishness.

So there you have, in a few words, the mental attitude of Mrs. Jane Andrews, alias Mrs. McClay, alias Rythnott, at the time we first see her gathering whelks, winkles, and sea-crayfish amongst the low tide rocks of St. Gregory's Island.

"Sailing Directions" with its entry about St. Gregory's (which, by the way, it perversely calls by another name) says: Good holding ground in anchorage behind the W. Cape. The Bay at the back is well-protected, except from Sly gales. Wood and water obtainable. Also vegetables and pork if the island is inhabited, but by last report it has been deserted.

It was the "deserted" that attracted Jane. She arrived there out of space in a cutter-rigged ex-ship's lifeboat, which by all the rules of the sea ought to have drowned her eight times over, and except that she was pretty well mad with thirst (and got a pain through over-drinking herself at the stream which runs into the bay) she landed very little the worse for her  voyage.

THE old Portuguese, according to their habit of some 200 years ago, had built a fort to command the bay. and although some forgotten earthquake had laid flat all the main walls, the square keep, or whatever you call it. was so glued together by the splendid mortar of the period that, although it leaned like the tower of Pisa, it was otherwise as sound a dwelling as Windsor Castle.

It was Jane's first piece of carpentry to fell trees, dub them down with an axe into four-inch planks, and build a door for one small door port, of which a Crusader or a Portuguese adventurer of the fifteen hundreds would have entirely approved.

Jane in her shady past had played hockey, polo, tennis; danced, shot, hunted with the Bramham Moor; and had once walked fifty miles in twenty-four hours and won half a dozen pairs of gloves as a bet. She weighed nine stone ten, stood five feet nine, and according to her own theory was built of reinforced rubber. Even during the dreadful epoch of Sir Carlton Rythnott she had always kept in good training.

Also she was a fine natural shot and (in view of St. Gregory's), having specialised with a .380 Hopkins-Allen revolver, could hit the falling half-crown thrown up at a ten yard rise once out of eight. As my own average is none out of infinity so far, I decline to make comparisons.

She wore square-heeled shoes when she landed on St. Gregory's, and a man's white drill trousers and coat, and as she cropped her black hair as close as clippers would do it, she would have passed as a male biped even in a critical crowd.

On St. Gregory's Island she dug in the ruined gardens, planted, weeded, and ran irrigations schemes. A coaster came in for wood and water, and she sold its captain cassava, yams, cabbage and guavas, and held him up at a very steady pistol point when he wanted to pay by cheque on the Bank of the Equator.

"Cash, my good Pedro," said Jane in her best Portuguese. "Or I'll stick up your skull to grin at me from one of the spikes of my battlements, where it will also be a warning to other evil-doers. For another dollar I will throw in that bunch of green bananas which I know you want, and which will ripen by the time you are ready for it if you hang it in the rigging. No? Then hand over six dollars seventy-five. Then you may give the Trades a chance to blow my beach sweet again. Pronto! D'ye here me, Pedro?"

The first recruit to this trading station was a nigger. The Trade Wind was blowing up heavier than usual, and he arrived through the surf a good deal the worse for wear. The fragments of his canoe beat themselves to pulp on the beach.

He was not an attractive nigger, and had not the least desire to work. Also, being a Sierra Leone krooboy, he had an exaggerated idea of the rights of man. But he was a powerful brute, and Jane felt that he had his uses.

So when during their first argument he tried to rush her, instead of shooting him dead she pinked him through the right shoulder and skinned his right hip and men

Honed exactly what would happen if she was called upon to waste another cartridge on him.

Whereupon the nigger became a tractable nigger from then onwards.

He had a gleam of reason in his ounce of brain beside the Sierra Leone political froth aforesaid.

He had already heard it mentioned in Freetown that there were men up and down the world who did not regard the black man as a superior sort of brother. Here, obviously, was one of them, though if he had discovered that Jane was a white mammy instead of (as he thought) a white man, I will admit there still might have been trouble

LEAN, hairy pigs of the razor-back variety roamed the island, and the gentleman pigs at intervals fought, killed, and ate one another. Occasionally Jane got a chop from one of these. With the nigger whipped to heel, Jane had her garden refuse wheeled to one of the old Portuguese stone enclosures, which had been in its day a slave barracoon, and the pigs adopted the habit of the free lunch.

Jane was mannish in rig and other habits, if you like; but she never could rise to those heights of indifference which make the butcheress. However, with the nigger's help, they had pork once a week and set up a salt-pan, and were able to sell bacon to calling ships, which was usually reisty but sometimes a comparatively sound article, still, to a Portuguese coaster who had probably been living for weeks on high baccalhao, when he had been lucky enough to get it. Jane's bacon, even at the ridiculous price of five pence a pound, was food for the good kings they had turned out of Lisbon before presidents were thought of.

Imperfectly dried fish does have that effect on the mariner's appetite, and makes him waste good money on luxuries.

An unclimbable dyke of intrusive volcanic stone thirty feet high cut the island into two parts. There were three navigable gaps in this, and Jane made the nigger wall up two of them; so that there was only one left for egress and regress to the bare peninsula whereon stood her fortress and dwelling-house. The nigger, being a Sierra Leone krooboy with too small a brain to know what was really good for him, had shown one or two signs of niggerishness that were not entirely wholesome. So, when the volcanic wall was mended. Jane pointed out that only during the daylight hours was the peninsula wholesome for niggers, and that she could shoot by dark quite handily.

She gave exhibitions of same, and scalded the nigger's legs with splashes of lead off stones beside the track one evening when he thought that free niggers had as much right to walk where they liked as white gentlemen.

Again, what would have happened if the nigger had discovered she was a mammy and not gentleman, I do not know. However, that does not matter, as the question did not arise.

Joao and Domingo were the two next additions to the colony. They came off in a boat from a becalmed fishing schooner to loot what they
could find, and-well, were detained, r During a convenient rain-squall their boat blew away to sea and got swamped. The schooner picked un the boat, found it empty, and did not go through the formality of making further inquiries, and though within two days Joao got saucy and met with a fatal shooting mishap, Domingo knuckled under and did as he was told.

THE nigger's small brain, too, absorbed the point of the incident, and though he had been getting a trifle out of hand during the previous weeks, he promptly reformed and became a better nigger than before, till once more memory failed and he had to be chidden for selecting the downward path.

Jane's expenses were small. She grew all necessary food, including coffee for drink, together with goats and sugar cane for its trimming. She distilled a liquor out of palm toddy, sugar, and guavas which I thought one of the nastiest tipples I had ever tasted, but which she liked, so nothing further need be said about it. She grew and cured a reasonable tobacco, and acquired the dago knack of rolling cigarettes out of maize husks.

She had to indent on the slopchests of calling ships for white trousers, coats, shirts and shoes; for pipeclay, mosquito bars and Eno; and occasionally for .380 cartridges for the Hopkins-Allen, as the climate of St. Gregory's is not good for powder and misfires play the dickens with prestige. The gossip of the local seas she absorbed as it came. News from Europe and the adjacent islands of Great Britain and Ireland she said bored her stiff, and changed conversations which drifted that way to the more native topic of pig prices.

"Now, captain, can't I tempt you? A nice lean ham, sugar-cured by myself, not a sour bit even near the bone, and weighing, I should say, nearer twenty pounds than seventeen, well-hung and fit to eat pronto or sooner, though you'll have to soak it well first. My tip is boil, and then bake and baste with beer. That gives you the fine brown crisp fat you get in the Ritz and Adelphi and the other best hotels. It would cost you two bob a pound at home, but I'll take one and a penny and let the present weight rip. as it's been maturing so long, and call it a quid. I'm a dead loser, but I want to keep your custom."

So things went on, and one day― or rather one evening― by the light of an island-made rushlight, Jane inspected her banking-account, which she kept under a tilting floor-stone which the old Portuguese had used before her. (It took her over two years' search to find the secret of that safe-deposit, and she was respectably thrilled with the idea of dropping on the usual hidden treasure. What the hole really contained, besides a fusty smell, was a dozen pairs of punctuated woollen stockings and seventeen and a half sets of slave irons.)

"Phew!" said Jane. "Averaging up the various coinages as well as I can, it works out at £3,101/13/2 Phew! I'm quite a little heiress. Good thing I'm wearing trousers, or I should be run after."

And when the next coaster worked up to the anchorage for wood, water, pork and vegetables, Jane's cheeks, jaws, and upper lip showed that she had not shaved for at least two days. Common wood charcoal, properly applied to parts of the face of a black-haired woman, has a very gentlemanly effect.

WHEN Pat Johnston blew into St. Gregory's, Jane had a staff of four working for her, to wit, two blond but hairy Souwegians who answered to the names of Nils and Ole, Domingo and the nigger. The Souwegians, by reason of many years' hard labour in ship's fo'c'sles, thought the island, with its pleasant climate, and its bountiful food supplies, was lotus land, and found gardening merely an amusement. Domingo did as he was told, having noted the wages of mutiny, as earned by the late Joao, was death. And the nigger, being the nigger, had to be basted between whiles― Nils did that now― but on the whole remained a good nigger.

JANE in her tower acquired wealth, and said that being a miser amused her, and kept repeating to herself every Monday morning as she dressed for breakfast that she was not bored.

Pat did not arrive surrounded by dignity and circumstance. He had journeyed down coast, as a matter of fact, in a particularly stinking Canary baccalhao schooner, and made his entrance to the island in a dinghy under threat of the knives of skipper, mate, and two members of the crew.

On rising from the beach to which he had been kicked, he explained to Jane, who had come down as usual to receive visitors, that he had made himself unpopular on the ship and had been marooned as a consequence, and could the lady give him work?

The lady could― for board and lodging, explained curtly that the labourer worthy of his hire lived at the other side of the thirty-foot volcanic dyke; and pointed out that the unworthy got shot neatly but with promptness.

"Mid-day chop will occur in three and a half hours from now," said Jane. "Get across through that gap, find the sugar-cane patch, and ask for Nils. He will find you a job till chop time."

"Thank you," said Pat, knuckling his forehead in the way he fancied fo'c'sle Jack did it, and blessing Allah that Jane hadn't spotted him. As for Jane, she kept a stiff upper lip― a well-charcoaled upper lip and chin and jowl.

"Didn't know me from Eve― Adam, I mean," said Jane to herself. "I feel I look quite the gent."

So Pat Joined what I suppose we may bluntly call the slave-gang, and promptly showed a taste for irrigation schemes which seemed to double the bearing of the gardens every month. Also he introduced the use of kelp as manure. Also, having been bred in a country vicarage, he showed real art in the matter of curing pig.

Pat even kept the nigger in order without his having to undergo his bi-monthly chastisement. Pat, as became his breed, had a way of handling inferior races.

Earthquake and eclipse arrived from without in the shape of Captain Pedro something-or-other and his evil-smelling fishing schooner. Captain Pedro was a mathematician and could put two and two together and make them sum up to the x-to-the-nth as well as the next man

"THAT-A Senhor Jane," said Pedro, translating with his hands as he went along, "he sell-a all the time. He spend-a nothing. Where the money? Ha-in that castle. You hear-a me?"

His crew (and two additional friends) did hear― and took steps.

They arrived in that sleepy hour before the dawn, sprayed Jane's four-inch front door with petrol, and set against it a keg of tar which was already thoroughly lighted.

Jane, who by this time had shipped an iron door inside the wooden one, waited, and for a wonder didn't shoot. It was the down-trodden slaves who swept up to the rescue, headed (I'll trouble you) by the undesirable nigger.

Pat Johnson acquired a bump on the head during the scrimmage which looked like being all he would want in this world, and to him went Jane, and gave herself away with tongue and lips. The nigger said he was blowed, and was kicked to his own side of the volcanic fence by the austere Nils. Pat was taken into the castle, and the door slammed in the face of possible intruders.

"YOU BIG fool," said the gentle Jane later, "to think I haven't known you all along. You're my man and you've got to marry me."

Pat Johnston grinned on the one sound side of his split mouth "That's nice, old lady. But I suppose you'll find out one of these days that the old uncle popped off after the Gov'nor died, and so I get the title and Firbank. The land's gone down, of course, but it's still worth seven to eight thousand a year."

"I think," said Jane thoughtfully, "I mentioned before that I don't care about anything but you."

________________

18: Paradise Coal Boat

Daily News (Perth) 22 October 1938

TO those excellent people who have travelled either largely or less in the mail steamers and the passenger liners of the ocean, Captain Ezra Pollard (as hereinafter set forth) will be a person of much incomprehensibleness.

The skipper of a large passenger boat is a man apart: usually genial, more often than not a speaker of King's English, frequently signing himself R.N.R., and always accurately brass-edged in raiment.

Pollard had none of these qualifications; he could not boast of having either a baronet or a shipowner for second cousin; and he possessed neither a smart uniform nor reputable reminiscences. He had not started in the Conway or any of the other training ships. At the age of 10 a parent had found him a nuisance ashore, and consequently had packed him off to sea as apprentice in a deep-water brigantine; and at sea, with very short intervals, he had remained ever since. He had begun the business of the sea in the days when the spun-yarn winch could be seen in the waist during fine weather, and skippers ran a piggery in a now obsolete craft called a long-boat, which rested on chocks between the masts.

Until he was able seaman, he always signed on ship's articles with a X, his mark; and in his younger days he still came across a man here and there who went to sea with a greasy pigtail dangling over the coat collar. He learned to read, write, and add up tavern accounts in several currencies after this date; but he was 32, and boatswain of a full-rigger, before it occurred to him that there were other heights still within reach.

His wife first put this into his head. He had married a bar-maiden with ambition, and she had mixed enough drinks for seafaring men to understand to a nicety the exact value of the different grades. Ezra did not take rank as an officer at all; and when the first romance of marriage was over, this struck her as bad. So she used some blarney with one of her old admirers, got her husband a berth as third mate, and when she had hustled him off to sea again with a "Norie's Epitome" in his pocket, she went back to a situation herself to earn more money.

A splendid seaman Ezra was already; and passable navigator he had got to be; and to this end she conjured him to save every farthing he could, and inwardly digest "Norie" till, with a little coaching, he could pass his mate's examination.

Now, it is all very well to be a barmaid, because if you have your head screwed on right, you may pick up knowledge from customers upon many points; and moreover, it is an excellent thing to be fired with ambition; but neither of these conditions of necessity make a mathematician out of a deck-hand.

Ezra was willing, but (by reason of his bringing up) he was the veriest bungler with the utensils of navigation. The fingers that could handle a steam winch like a toy were utterly clumsy when it came to working logarithms; and though he could with pains correct a compass and hammer out a day's dead-reckoning with clock and taffrail log, the sextant in his massive hands was always coy and chary about rendering up its secrets.

At the end of a voyage Mrs. Pollard would meet him with a smile, draw his pay and her own, and take him off to some obscure nautical school. And here Ezra would labour with slate, notebook, chart and instrument, to the irritation of his pedagogue and the muddlement of himself. Then the money would come to an end, and the pair of them would go off to their labours to earn more.

It may be understood, then, how it came to pass that Ezra Pollard was forty before he got his master's certificate, and how he found it necessary to serve four years more as mate before anyone saw fit to entrust him with a ship. By this time also Mrs. Pollard had been forced to give up barmaiding, as three children had occurred and these required looking after. They lived in a narrow, ugly street in South Shields, and the home was poor; for one reason because the income was less than £100 a year, and for another because an excellent barmaid does not of necessity make a thrifty domestic manager; and Ezra knew what it was to have terror in his heart lest the supplies should break down altogether.

Consequently when one Gedge offered him command of the Paradise, a screw-collier of 900 tons burden, his joy was almost keen enough to make him faint.

The Paradise was not an ideal craft. She was old and ramshackle. She groaned and complained so much in a seaway that no crew was ever known to sign on for a second run in her. She had coaldust and cockroaches in every fibre of her being, and her load line was so cunningly contrived that, when she had a full cargo, under hatches, and there was anything of a sea running, she showed remarkably little of herself above water save two grimy mast trucks and the top of a brine-whitened funnel. Indeed, it was owing to this little idiosyncrasy that Ezra got command. She had made a vacancy for him by kindly washing her last skipper overboard in a heavy run of sea off Flamboro' Head.

His wife came to see him off. "Good-bye, old fellow!" she said. "Don't forget me and the kids."

"No," said Ezra, "I'll take care of the boat."

And two hours afterwards he was doing it, in a fog like a blanket outside Tyne pier-heads. He carried that fog with him to Dover, and drove the grimy coal-boat at a slow half-speed, and made the wet air hideous with his siren.

Moreover, he kept the upper bridge himself the entire time, and as the Channel also was full of shipping, he did not go below till he had berthed the collier inside Southampton.

He went back in ballast, with the screw racing half its time, and consequently made another very slow passage. He had a foreboding that there would be trouble over the trip, but had no idea of the extent of it. He went up to the grimy Newcastle office with an uneasy mind, and was shown into the owner's private room.

Young Mr. Gedge's face was sour. "Let's see, Captain Pollard," he said, "it's ten pounds a month we're paying you, isn't it, because we thought we'd got a smart man? I'll give you an order for what's due to you at once, and you can get it cashed in the outer office. We shan't want any more of your work after this performance."

Ezra was fairly startled.

"Good God, sir!" he burst out, "you can't mean to sack me?" "We do, though."

"But I don't see how any man could have served you better. I know I've made slow passages, but look at the weather we've had. In Southampton I heard of ten ships reported in collision during the fog, and the Lord only knows what other damage has been done and not spoken about; and coming North again, there was a hard head wind blowing and a hell of a sea. Gedge picked up two newspapers and marked them with blue pencil.

"Look there," she said. "That's what the Susan Potter has done. She cleared two hours after you, she's got a quarter of a knot less speed, she'd take the same time to work cargo at the other end, and she's back here 30 hours ahead of you."

"Then her skipper's been risking his boat, and risking the lives of his crew, that's all I can say."

GEDGE shrugged his shoulders. "I'm not going to argue with you. I'm not a sailor, and I don't understand sailoring, and I don't intend to try. I'm a shipowner, and have to make my living as such. I've pulled in a profit over the Susan Potter— a small profit — and I've lost over the Paradise. I reckon I've lost two days' coal for her, two days' wear and tear, two days' interest on capital, and two days' wages and grub for her manning. That means somewhere about forty pounds. You quite grasp my way of looking at it?"

"Yes, sir," said Ezra, "'and I'm very sorry. I see how it is, and I think I could do better another time. I know I could. I would. I'll drive that coal-boat, sir, full-speed through the thickest fog God ever threw down over the North Sea."

"Yes?" said Gedge. "But the great thing is, you're not going to get that chance. You may take your pay, Captain, and clear out of this office. If you can find another berth I should advise you to climb into it. If you can't you may come back to me in a month's time and give me news of how you look at matters then."

Which, being interpreted, meant that Ezra was given a month's dismissal by way of fine (as under the circumstances there was not the remotest probability of anyone else taking him on), with the vague chance of getting back to his old job if the man who stepped into his shoes did not do it better.

Mrs. Pollard had not much to say when the matter was reported, her looks and her actions being sufficiently expressive. She gave up going to chapel be cause there was no spare threepenny-bit for the collection. The family dinners were reduced in size and quality. The eldest girl, too, was taken away from the Young Ladies' Seminary. Without being directly told so, Captain Pollard distinctly understood that he was taking the bread out of his children's mouths, and cursed himself for a hound accordingly.

At the end of his month he turned up again at the shipowner's office. "Hullo!" said Gedge, "you here again, Captain? Not got command of a nice comfortable passenger boat yet? Anything I can do for you?"

"May I have her back, sir? I'd promise you to make good quick runs if you'd only give me another trial, sir."

"What, is this the Paradise you're talking about? Well, I've got an-other skipper in her now, and I should have to sack him if I gave you the berth. Would you like to have another fellow turned adrift for your convenience, Captain?"

"I've a wife and kids, Mr. Gedge and I've got to think of them first," replied Ezra. "I don't think you'd find a master anywhere to drive your steamboat harder than me."

"You think you could push her along if you had a second try at the job, eh?"

"By God," said Ezra, "I'd go round no corners that weren't land! I'd stick on my course and not budge from it for a battleship. I'd drive her full ahead through any weather that is sent down to cover the sea, and if there's others gets in my road it's their lookout."

Gedge glanced at the man queerly. "That's the right principle; only don't you go away with any reckless idea that I want you to blunder along, and run vessels down, and— bring— the crews back here— to make claims on me."

Ezra mopped with the handkerchief. "I'd like you to make it a bit clearer, sir. I don't think I quite―"

"What I have said is sufficiently clear already. I intend to have my steamers driven. I don't want accidents. And I won't have accidents that they can call me to account for afterwards. Now, it's no use saying you? don't understand. There's the berth waiting for you, and you know what's required."

THAT Captain Ezra Pollard did accept the post, and did understand what was required of him, may be gathered from the statement that when the Paradise ran down an unknown smack, just south of the Spurn, Captain Ezra was in command. The air that night was thick with homing smacks and the other traffic; and the collier, under two black trysails and a full head of steam, was going through it at the best of her speed.

The skipper was not on the upper bridge at the time, but he rushed out of the charthouse at the shock of the collision, and rated his mate most violently for daring to ring off the engines without orders. With his own hand he telegraphed for "full speed ahead," and called the mate a liar for suggesting that cries for help were coming up through the darkness. The mate retorted by calling him a murderer, and in the subsequent scuffle most of the crew took part.

But in the meanwhile the grimy collier had been surging southward across Humber mouth at nine knots, and by the time the matter had been fought through, the cries had died out in the wet, windy night; and though wild threats of reporting were made in the heat of the moment, these were forgotten whilst the steamer waddled up the muddy waters of London river. A sailorman at sea speaks big about the law; on shore he avoids it as much as may be.

Captain Ezra Pollard, however, did not forget the incident; in fact, the memory of it stayed by him so persistently that it took all the sweetness out of his life. But he did not desist from driving the Paradise at her accustomed pace (which was as hard as she could go on a given coal consumption), come sunshine, come fog. He had four reasons for doing this, and they all dwelt in a small house in South Shields. And he was quite satisfied that one deviation from the course he had set down would cause the excellent Mr. Gedge to dismiss him without mercy, and plunge the household in the Tyneside town into destitution. He did not blame Gedge because he quite understood that a ship-owner who has a living to make cannot afford, in any circumstances, to run coal-boats at a loss; but he very much wished that he (Ezra) followed any occupation other than the sea, and (being a sailor) his mind naturally turned on agriculture.

But meanwhile he was kept ferrying coals from the Tyne to London river, between which places there exists one of the best used steam-lanes in the world and his owner decreed that he should not slow down for even the thickest fog that the weather-fields could spin.

Ezra never left port without a sinking beneath his waistcoat and a sense of impending misfortune in every grain of his person. And on thick nights the voices of the smacksmen he had run down off Humber mouth (and not carried home to claim damages) came and chatted to him out of the sea-smoke which drove from the wave-crests.

But though he had many close shaves— some of them desperately close— on the wild, thick nights along that crowded sea-road, for the next six years Ezra managed to keep out of actual collision; and so valuable a servant did he prove, that Gedge increased his pay by one pound a month, making it now eleven pounds in all; on the strength of which Mrs. Pollard clanked whole sixpences into the plate at chapel.

Still, the evil fates could not let so promising a chance slip by for always. A night came, a bleak December night, thick with snow and heavy with gale. The iron lower decks of the Paradise were a mask of ice. On the upper bridge, ashes were strewn twice a watch to give foothold, and the canvas dodgers were thick glistening walls.

IT was not much use looking ahead. With difficulty one could make out the loom of the foremast, and beyond that was a blanket of drifting snow and driving sea-smoke. Ezra had not picked up a light since he left the Tyne pier-heads, and his dead reckoning told him that he would have to port his helm soon to hit off London river. When he got in there and picked up his pilot, then for the first time since leaving home he would be able to go below and turn in.

Of a sudden a row of white lights shone out through the snow clouds, a green light dimly showing above them, a single white light topping all. Then the outline of a great steamer loomed out, and then Crash! and a noise as of 10,000 boiler-riveters all working at once.

The helm of the Paradise had been shoved hard-a-port, the stranger's to hard-a-starboard; the engines of each ship had been rung off, but not yet reversed. The time was too short. The stranger took the Paradise's stem a little aft of midships, and when the two ships broke apart from that horrible wrestle, there was a big passenger liner sinking rapidly in a freezing North Sea gale.

The Paradise backed off and lay to, rolling like a black drainpipe in the trough, and drifting rapidly to leeward. She carried no carpenter, but the skipper himself went forward to inspect, and found that saving for a few plates bent, no damage had been done. It was a wonderful escape and it need never be reported. The skipper returned to deck with a grim, set face. If he steamed on to the river he could slip into dock, and no questions would be asked. The crew could be easily silenced. But if he went back to the assistance of the other steamer, there would be a Board of Trade inquiry; Gedge would be mulcted in damages; he (Ezra) would probably ''lose his ticket," and certainly lose his berth for good and always. And, of course, Mrs. Pollard and the children would taste their due share of the disaster by being permitted either to starve or go to the deuce.

The ghosts of the smacksmen he had drowned off Humber mouth gave him advice from the darkness. "A man can only be damned once," they said "and you've been damned for us already. Think of the missis and the kids, you fool, and shove for her Gravesend at once."

A dead rocket-stick dropped down like an arrow out of the night above, and fell on the ice of the upper bridge at his feet. Ezra apostrophised the absent Gedge.

"No," he said, "curse you l can't do it this time. A smack's different; there's only old sailors on her, who are made to be drowned. But there's women on that blasted steamer, and kids; and I don't believe even you could leave them yourself."

He rung on his engines to "full ahead" once more, and gave the quartermaster a course. And then he indulged in fluent profanity because he was merely the master of a coasting collier, and expected to lose his only means of livelihood; and also he saw in imagination his wife and children first shunned by the congregation of the chapel, and then begging crumbs in the public streets of South Shields.

The siren of the other steamer sent over the charging seas a sound like the bellow of a wounded bull, and Ezra followed it up with a new eagerness.

"One may as well be handed for a sheep as a lamb," says the proverb; and," said Ezra to himself. "If I'm going to crack myself up for good over pulling a parcel of petticoats out of the mess, hang me it I mightn't just as well take off the sailormen yes, even the brutes in the stokehold whilst I'm about it."

So he exhorted the weak crew of the collier in a language, which they entirely understood, and swung his boat-davits outboard as he steamed through the snowy darkness.

THE story of the actual rescuing of the three hundred human lives need not be retold here, as it was printed quite recently, with riotous amplitude of details, by all the newspapers of the civilised globe. Parliament was not sitting at the time; the world was gnawing for a sensation; and they had the story of the rescue served up to them in double-leaded type, with all the unpicturesque details and swear words omitted. They learnt how by savage effort and reckless daring the master of an undermanned coal-boat had saved every soul on a swamping liner during a gale which had already made itself historical for casualties. All that is, excepting the few who out of sheer contrariness chose to die from exposure to the bitter cold.

It was Ezra whom the freakish public set up for its week's hero; and Ezra, when he grasped the fact that ruin might be evaded after all, saw the one chance of his life ahead, and used all the small wit which God had given him to squeeze profit out of it to the uttermost ooze. He could have laughed aloud at the fuss which was being made over the fact that he had risked his life— he who had risked his life a thousand times before without comment. But he remembered Mrs. Pollard, and the children, and the chapel, and he did not laugh. He posed as the massive, modest, guileless shipmaster, and made what he could out of the situation.

The passengers he had picked up gave him a purse of two hundred guineas; the owners of the liner, by way of making a suitable present, gave him a watch which was worth his year's income; the dreaded Board of Trade let him off with flying colours; and, last of all, Gedge did not turn him adrift. On the contrary, he advanced him. The excellent Gedge had recently made a new investment. He had bought one of those delightful colliers that they build by the mile in the Tyneside yards and cut off by the fathom as they are wanted; and (on selling the original of that name to a Norwegian) he christened her the Paradise, and put Ezra in command at the unheard-of wage of thirteen pounds a month. Mr. Gedge knew luck when he saw it, and had a theory that fortunes are made by backing luck or buying its influence when it comes in one's way.

But Mrs. Pollard had less of an eye for details than results. Her increased affluence suggested so many possibilities. She was able to take a tray now when the chapel gave tea-parties, and on Sunday nights was frequently in a position to ask the minister in for supper.

Still Ezra himself was not entirely happy. The new Paradise is a ten-knot boat, and has to be driven as such whatever weather may betide. Moreover, when loaded, there are two thousand tons of her altogether, so that her momentum is large, and the blow she could strike correspondingly heavy. The ambitious Mr. Gedge will hear of extension of time between ports for no reason whatever, come fog, come gale; and Ezra frequently spends fifty consecutive hours on the bridge, so as to be ready to act as circumstances should direct. Gedge warned him on the subject.

"Better not shove luck too hard, Captain," he said, as he handed him over the new command. "It's dangerous having those collisions at all; but it's a heap more dangerous to bring survivors home. Don't get nervous about driving her through. She's well insured."

So the Paradise coal-boat still exists as a danger to navigators along certain tracks in the North Sea. and probably in the due course of events she will some day furnish the news-papers with another "shipping disaster."

____________________

19: Mrs. Seal McIntosh

Sunday Times (Perth) 4 January 1931

FOR Sale: Real Genuine to-goodness British island with harbour, 1 house, farm and buildings, and other conveniences; 35,000 acres...

And so on.

Mrs. Clutterbuck's tired eyes brightened. An island, a far-away island in the Outer Hebrides where one could get away from London, and London's people, and the beastly, law courts, and all the rest of it! How glorious, though of course one couldn't afford it.

Inquiry for further details from the auctioneers would be waste of a stamp, and even stamps had to be counted nowadays, so her solicitors said. However, she economised, and inquired per penny post-card.

The price was put down as £1,000― one thousand pounds― and seemed to include the 36,000 acres (though there was no mention of the fact that most of these stood vertically), the "house" (condition not stated) and apparently all island rights, including the high justice, the middle and the low. There was also decent reticence about the fact that the isle was assessed at a high rate, and the local taxes amounted to some 58 shillings in the pound, and that there was stock to buy at valuation. This, however, would not have affected Mrs, Clutterbuck. As a London flat-dweller she never had paid rates or taxes, and did not intend to start, and this, of course, is the proper attitude tor a resident in the Outer Hebrides.

So Mrs. Clutterbuck bought the 85,000 acre island of Erish, for £1000, and closed the deal with all the promptness she could manage, before the auctioneers could discover the silly mistake they had made in the price. £327 was all the capital she had in the world. She raised the balance on mortgage.

Erish is out in the bleak Atlantic on the western side of Bentigula, where the R.M.S. Chandileer (280 tons) calls regularly every fortnight when she does not miss the appointment. Chandileer, so Mrs. Clutterbuck discovered by correspondence with a Glasgow office, could not depart from her ordinary schedule and call at Erish, even though 10 cwt of cargo were offered, though for proposals over a ton it was suggested the company might strain the Post Office regulations and try it. But in the meanwhile Mrs. Clutterbuck discovered that the well-known-coasting s.s. Bride of Dunvegan, 183 tons, Xenophon Chalmers, master, ran on a more adaptable time-table, and was open to going anywhere between St. Kilda and Iceland, if adequate cargo drew her.

So for 17½ cwt to Erish― at a price― her cargo-space was definitely charterable.

Mrs. Clutterbuck, after one ecstatic exploration, which amongst other tilings disclosed the nakedness of Erish and its house, made arrangements with Captain Xenophon Chalmers, and a month later, was dumped with her penates round her on the Erish beach. She had provided herself with a maid, one of the Gow girls from Bentigula. Oonah― who had seen service in Glasgow, and said she could fry fish and bake scones. There was also a shepherd already on the island, one Alan McIntosh, who was officially supposed to look after the sheep which had been catalogued in the valuation.

As Mrs. Clutterbuck had to wait over a couple of days at Bentigula, whilst that leisurely mariner, Captain Xenophon Chalmers carried out his usual routine of a two-day whisky bout with Andy McIntosh, the island's post-master, potentate, and general merchant, she very naturally got away from the little coaster's smells, and pushed off for the beach. Outside the door of the largest house was a splendid woman who looked like Cleopatra. She was seated on a sheep-cratch, and was occupied with the plucking of a hen.

"I," she said, "am Isabel Fraser, M'em, and am daughter to Andy at the shop. I hear you're for Erish. D'ye know the tale of the island, M'em?"

"I only know I have bought it, in the ordinary way."

"Then if that's all your knowledge, M'em, I'll give you advice. Don't go there to stay."

"In heaven's name, why, my good woman?"

"Because, M'em, it's no' cannie. I'm not talking of what I do not understand. I'm Isabel Fraser― Isabel McIntosh that was, and if you ask amongst the Western Islands you'll get told that Isa Fraser knows. Not that you'll believe me, M'em, you being English, but I feel it due to offer the warning."

"But give it a name! What's the trouble? Small-pox, tidal waves, pirates, or just the King's enemies?"

Isa pulled out a bunch of feathers, picked out two hard ones, and put the balance in the pillow-case sack,

"I don't know, M'em, for cairtain. Seal-men, they say."

"Good lord," said the tired Mrs. Clutterbuck, "if you're meaning anything I wish you would be more definite. What on earth are seal-men?"

The magnificent Isa went on placidly with her featherwork.

"I don't know Me'm, from my own seeing. I'm only telling you what's said in the islands' about Erish, and Alan the shepherd. You'll have had to buy the sheep with your valuation, so I suppose Alan's in your employ. You'll want food to start your housekeeping. Will I sell you a couple of nice-dressed chickens, M'em?"

Alan McIntosh, the shepherd of Erish, was a brown-eyed little man who was amazingly anxious to please Mrs. Clutterbuck. He was sound on sheep, but had none of the ruminative habits common to his profession. He could catch and skin rabbits, tickle trout, hook sea-fish, provide braxy, and occasional grouse and wild geese, and bring in peats. He could not read or write, but in practical affairs of island life was entirely sound, and in personal habits and appearance, as bright as a guardman's button. He also pushed up the lethargic Oonah into 33 ft per. cent more efficiency than her Glasgow Servants' Union said was allowable.

Fifty years ago five families had farmed and made a living out of Erish, but pampering from without has put limpness into the West Highlander's backbone, and the farms, and the fisheries, and the weaving, and the rest of it are going downhill like the Gadarene swine. Of the five island farms the meadows have run back to pasture, the pasture to rough moorland, and the house-places to nettlebeds. One tough, ugly dwelling-house only remained,  and there Mrs. Clutterbuck resided and made herself busy.

Financially, of course, "the monkeys were crawling out of the chimneys," and how the lady laird ever managed a second mortgage, let alone the third and fourth, I cannot tell you. I suppose it was due to the golden quality of her tongue. Learned counsel had already commented on that so many times that it had become a stock phrase In the newspaper reports of her legal exposures.

Bentigula residents, for reasons of their own, avoided Erish, and it was  through the 18-stone Captain Xenophon Chalmers, that tough Orkneyman. that Mrs. Clutterbuck kept touch with the other world that lay beyond the Outer Hebrides, and the stormy Minch and the decaying Western Highlands. The Bride of Dunvegan traded regularly to Oban, and once a month put into Ardrossan, where, as everyone knows most whisky pays duty, and so is too expensive to drink.

Coined money, or even currency notes were not items in the island trade, but Captain Xenophon was an expert at barter, and a Jew for a bargain. This hard-fistedness, he admitted regretfully, had come to him through his father, who, though Orkney-born, had contracted doubtful habits during his life's career as Professor of Greek at Aberdeen University.

So Captain Chalmers bought sheep at half the prices quoted in the Oban Herald, and chickens for threepence a head, paying for them in groceries and so forth on a tariff which his own blunt forefinger pointed out, could not be objected to, as there― and there― and there were the figures in Messrs. So-and-so's very decorative list.

"I've read about you, M'am, and your― shall we say―hobbies in London Law Courts, and so you'll know this store, which must be nearby, as it's also in London. Likely it'll be bigger than Andy McIntosh's in Bentigula, seeing that it prints a catalogue which neither Andy nor the merchants, I fancy, in Oban or Ardrossan do. But you can see for yourself that what I'm charging you for this tin of bristly sardines is fair, although, the large firm does not seem to stock the exact brand. You'll remember I let you reckon those chickens at threepence ha'penny apiece, although you admitted yourself they've legs like herons, and, anyway, I'll nave them to feed all the way down to Oban, and send to my own galley those that want to die on me."

The bulky Captain Xenophon Chalmers might rob his clients personally, but be protected them from other parasites. What we English put down under the general name of "rates" amount to some 50s―58s in the £1 in the Western Highlands, and very naturally nobody makes the least effort to pay them unless he is, so to speak, held up at claymore-point. In the way of business the Bride of Dunvegan was every now and again forced to carry an official to outer islands whose job it was to collect these offensive tolls. As on these occasions he, the skipper, flew his country's red ensign from a poop-staff specially stepped for the occasion on entering port, residents were always "not at home" to the inconvenient callers.

"Give me your business," was Captain Xenophon's motto, "and I'll see you don't get robbed by the other swine."

Still, there were regrettable incidents. Mrs. Clutterbuck made no taxable income, but of course that did not discourage the Income-tax people from sending her in bills in varying colours from buff to red, with demands for payment. She made a habit of using these for cigarette lights. But one lad, new to the job, after various threats of legal processes, raided her. He arrived per the SS Bride of Dunvegan, which flew a brand-new red ensign from her poop-staff to mark the occasion. He left without furniture or other saleable commodities, but with (according to the tally of Mr. Pigbitts, of Goole, the Bride's engineer, who did the extraction) 37 number five shot and a quantity of granular particles that looked like rock salt embedded in his person.

After this 'outrage on Erish'― as the Oban newspaper called it, Higher Authority had to sit up and take notice. H.M.S. sloop Sidon dashed up at eight knots and ejected a landing party of four marines and six blue-jackets under the command of her Sub, who did a little trout-tickling. He reported that the isle was deserted. Also, being urged thereunto by the outraged Civil Arm, he arrested and deported one aged and tuberculous cow under some kind of distress warrant. But as the beast died on the passage to Kyle of Lochalsh, the British Government was down about £1750 on the deal. Sloops like H.M.S. Sidon are expensive to run, and tuberculous cows when landed too much dead, are a drug in the market even in Kyle of Lochalsh, where good prices are quoted for eatable braxy.

During these periods of invasion, Mrs. Clutterbuck and Oonah Gow retired to a sea-cave which was adequately fitted with a rill of water, a dozen boxes of sardines, and a couch of dried heather. Alan with a shot-gun and a pocket of number fives, looked after himself elsewhere. As a rule they returned to their comforts when they heard the roar of the Bride's messenger-chain to her winch, as it induced the clattering windlass to weigh her ancient bay-palm anchor. But after the navy's raid there was no Alan.

For a week the two women looked after the affairs of the lean farm by themselves. Oonah getting visibly more uncomfortable every day. Then one day when Mrs. Clutterbuck was up on the hill, shifting sheep to fresh pastures, she saw Donald Fraser's black whaler cross over from Bentigula, and return, and when she got down to the house there was a scribble on paper to say that that was Oonah's "notice," and a statement that she would forfeit wages due rather than stay on and work it out

There was no boat on Erish, and no way of getting off the isle except with outside help. Yet search heathery glen and grassy flat and rocky mountain as she would, the lairdess could find no trace or sign of her shepherd. But five weeks from the day HMS Sidon steamed tout of the windy anchorage Alan McIntosh reappeared. He did not attempt to explain himself. He was sleeker, and more brown-eyed, and more vivacious than ever, and fitted back into the work of the farm as though he had never dropped it.

That night Mrs. Clutterbuck told herself how vastly she had missed him, and the next morning proposed marriage. Alan accepted it as a matter of course as though, as Mrs. Clutterbuck, who was an authority on these things, said he had won a dozen wives already. After considerable waste of time. Captain Xenophon Chalmers imported a meenister, who in the space of fifteen minutes mated the pair in one of the best brands of Scottish marriage.

"You'd have got hitched quicker if you'd come down with me to Oban," said Captain Chalmers.

"Alan wouldn't come."

"Won't leave the island? Well, he wouldn't― not by boat anyway."

"But why, Captain? I can't get a the reason."

"Maybe you will in time, M'am. Isa told me, but I wouldn't be believed if I  handed on the tale. Well now, if you please, get on with boating off those seven lean old ewes you've landed on me. I want to up-hook, and get on with my voyage. I've put in a tin o' corned beef amongst the other groceries by way of a wedding present."

In due season babies arrived― a little Susan, a Jean, and an Alan― and a these times Mrs. Clutterbuck-McIntosh as she called herself now when she wrote stinging letters to the paper, moved across to Bentigula and the magnificent Isabel Fraser gave he skilled attendance. Alan stayed behind. Possibly the cares of the farm held him. But his wife had an idea the water ferriage scared him

She was an amazingly clever woman in some ways, as many barristers who had had dealings with her in the Law Courts will bear witness, but she was Southern-born, and some of the quaint happenings of the Outer Hebrides were frankly beyond her comprehension, even though they were performed before her eyes not once, but several times.

For instance, every spring Alan disappeared from Erish, just as he had done when the Navy descended, and in a most undisciplined manner tickled trout and eloped with a moribund cow. He made no announcement of departure. He ate his porridge and scone and butter for breakfast just in the ordinary way, and then for a month was not. His wife gave up scouring the isle, to find his hiding place, because she was convinced that he had not got one. And, as I say, he had many times showed his abhorrence for boats, even if Erish had run to a boat, which it did not. So after the first few years of tremors and dreads, the Lairdess carried on with the estate, and the cares of little Susan, and Jean, and small Alan. They were all three sleek-headed children, with bright brown eyes.

They were amazingly quick at picking up anything to do with the countryside, and astonishingly thick at letters. Mrs. Clutterbuck-McIntosh fancied herself as an educationalist, but driving the three R's into the heads of her own progeny seemed as hopeless a job as getting justice in the English Law Courts.

MRS. CLUTTERBUCK-McIntosh got older and showed it, but Alan, her husband, did not to the outward eye. He remained the same bright, quick, agile little fellow that he had been on the first day she saw him He was a hard worker, never seemed to get, tired, even at shearing-time, and had always a cheery smile. As a conversationalist he did not shine, but as his wife did enough talking for three, that didn't matter in an edge-of-the-chart island like Erish.

"She doesn't seem," said Captain Chalmers, "to have got on to what kind of husband she's hitched up with yet."

"If you're talking about that Bentigula fairy-tale," said Mr. Pighills, "that's all very well for your Orkneymen and these idle Highlanders. But I can tell you that yarn wouldn't go down anywhere in Goole. Alan McIntosh is as much ordinary human man as you or me. Skipper."

"Well," said the Coasting Master, heavily, "mind you don't shoot him by accident when you're potting at those things hove up on the rocks you were missing so frequently at Foil yesterday."

THE EXPLOSION that everybody in Ull, and Foil, and Bentingula, had been looking for arrived at last. Mrs. Clutterbuck-Macintosh, hunting for a spare  scythe-blade in a dusty old, loft came across a long and saggy piece of skin. It was covered with sleek hair. It looked like an overgrown, wet black stocking.

She stared at it, was smitten with an idea, and shivered. Then she rolled it up and raced for the kitchen fire.

But before she could thrust the thing on to the glowing peats, it was snatched from her by a violent hand. Alan, the gentle, glared at her with his brown eyes, barked like a dog, and ran out of the house as though he had been stung. That was the last thing she saw of Alan.

It is on record that she ordered a rifle and cartridges the next time the Bride of Dunvegan called, gave up going after grouse and rabbits with a shotgun, and turned into a furious hunter of seals.

"All female ones, you'll notice," said Captain Xenophon Chalmers, who bought the skins.

"But I'm dashed if I swallow, your yarn, all the same," said the stubborn Mr. Pighills, of Goole.

"Perhaps you'll believe that old sea chest full of assorted coins, and jewels, and things obviously out of wrecks that turned up in her ladyship's kitchen the other day was sent down like manna, from above?"

"Probably old pirates' loot she dug up on the island herself."

"Here you mister," said Captain Chalmers, savagely, "if you don't want to go back to your engine-room, get out of my chart-room anyway!".

"RUM THING!" said General Perkins, the Liverpool stockbroker, who takes the Bentigula shooting, about that time to madam his wife. "Praters, the publisher's shares, did a big flop just after I'd unloaded, and I couldn't tell why. Now it's come out. They've lost that copyright case they've been fighting for umpteen years with that noisy Clutterbuck novelist woman, and have got to pay up untold gold. Poor dear, she was right all the time, in spite of her golden clack. Now she's married some Highland farmer up in an island back of Bentigula, and calls herself Clutterbuck-McIntosh."

"Locally," said Mrs. Perkins, "she's better known as Mrs. Seal McIntosh."

"Good lord, my dear, where did you get that?"

"From Isa."

"Well, Isa knows. What's the yarn?"

"Better ask Isa," said Mrs. Perkins. "It sounded a bit steep for me to give out even to you m'dear, at second hand. But just you get the magnificent Isabel at the right moment when she's over-charging in her bill, and wants to talk you off, and ask her what's the latest about Mrs. Seal McIntosh. She says the way that woman's shooting lady seals is a scandal. She says she made her own bed, and shouldn't be vicious about it."

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20: The Men in Stone.

Hamilton Spectator (Vic) 8 June 1895

IT IS NOT ALWAYS a desirable thing to come into possession of a large and beautiful estate. I used to think other wise; but when I came to learn how, by your English laws, landed property could be hobbled by mortgage, and second mortgage, and third mortgage, and other mortgages, then I had to change my opinion.

An active and fatal hereditary curse which I was forced to take up with the rest of the succession also helped in part to warp my mind to this unorthodox opinion. My upbringing had been in the Western States of the American Union; and when I landed in Liverpool, I was as firm a disbeliever and as eloquent a scoffer on the matter of family curses as any man in the Eastern hemisphere. Afterwards, I came to change opinion ; but that was not until I learned how this ban had horribly deprived no fewer than four of my own progenitors of life, and had seen with my own eyes what was left of their mortal bodies, monstrous in death.

My inheritance of the estate was a thing of blank surprise to me. I had almost forgotten its existence, so remote was my collateral relationship to the last owner. But when the lawyer's letter came which announced its succession, I gladly gave up nothing in Seattle, Washington State, and shipped to England, where I fancied a very considerable something awaited me.

I must confess, however, that after landing, my spirits were damped from the outset. The rambling Elizabethan house was gloomy as a cave. The family man of business who received me was a glum old file, whose talent lay in bringing up the darkest side of everything. I thought at first that he resented me as practically a foreigner: looked upon me as an interloper. But this was not so. Dismalness as regards the affairs of the Devlin estate was the man's chronic attribute; and when I came to know more about my predecessors in the holding, I began to understand why this should be so. The lives and the ends of the men who had been before me as heads of that ill-starred family were not conductive to mirth on the part of any one who was paid to overlook them.

We were dining when Mr. Field, the lawyer, gave me a first brief outline of how my ancestors had fared, and I account it that I am stout-hearted when I say that the recital did not take away my appetite. Of nine men who had sat where I sat then, in the high carved chair at the head of the black oak dining-table, no more than three had died peacefully In their beds. Of the rest, one had been slain in a brawl brought on by his own savagery! another had been done to death by some unknown marauder who would have despoiled him of his papers; and of other four, who should say how Fate had dealt with them! They were here to-day: to-morrow, they were not; and no man could say whence they had gone, or of what nature was their end.

'Of all of these unfortunate gentlemen, except one,' said Mr. Field in conclusion, I only know through the hearsay of history. But of the last victim this mysterious ban, Mr. Godefroy Devlin, to whom you, sir, succeeded, I can tell you a little more. I warn you that the little I know is meagre and unsatisfactory; but I think right that you should hear it. Who can say but what, joined to other knowledge which you will acquire from the iron box of family papers marked 'Private', it may help you (in some manner which I myself cannot discern) to avoid the fate which has befallen Mr. Godfrey and so many of his forebears!

'You must know then, sir, that the estate in Mr. Godfrey's time was, as it always had been, desperately encumbered. Mr. Godefroy was a thoughtful man; careful almost to meanness; and deeply impressed with his responsibility of putting the family affairs on a more sound financial basis. To this end he lived with the utmost quietness, and put aside every penny he could spare; I regret to say, without much visible avail. Monetary fortune teemed always against him. He left the estate as he found it fifteen years earlier, still heavily encumbered, as you will discover when to-morrow you go into the accounts.

'Please mark, then, that it was not till after fifteen years of ineffectual struggle— or, to be more precise, fifteen years and four months— that he made up his mind to attempt another course. He did it with a heavy sense of impending misfortune, and nothing but so protracted a series of dismal failures could have nerved him to the essay. And believe me here, sir, that I do not speak without the book. Mr. Godefroy told me all this himself; told me also that he had known of the venture he was now going to put to the test through-out all his period of possession; and nothing short of despair could have shouldered him into it. I sought to restrain him, considering it my duty to do this. He waived my suggestions impatiently aside.

'Mr. Field,' he said, 'I have been a coward now for fifteen years, and have despised myself afresh every morning I woke. Life on these terms is no longer endurable. If I succeed in restoring this estate, why, then, I do succeed; if I fail, I shall have died in an honourable attempt.'

'What you tell me, Mr. Godefroy,' said I, 'is— pardon the comment— vague and mysterious. Surely some practical method could be found of avoiding the danger you so feelingly hint at. We live now in the nineteenth century, and I myself value nothing a wordy curse propounded in the year of our Lord sixteen ninety; and I fancy that most other men are of my way of thinking. I cannot, of course, compel your confidence ; I am speaking in a measure through the dark; but I cannot help thinking that if you shared this gloomy secret of yours with some responsible person, a means might be found whereby the dangers you allude to might be sensibly counteracted.'

He broke out at me passionately. 'Do you imagine,' he cried, 'that I have not already thought this out a hundred score of times myself! Do you think me dolt enough to run into a horrible unknown danger if I could take with me a companion who could shield that danger aside?'

'Yes., sir, those were Mr. Godefroy's very words— 'Horrible unknown danger'; and I judge from them that he was as ignorant of what he felt himself called upon to face as you and I are this moment. But I had no more from him. He curtly informed me that he was shortly about to make his attempt, and that if he disappeared, I was to "presume" his death In the ordinary legal course, and put myself in communication with the next-of-kin.'

The old lawyer prosed on till deep into the night, but I must confess that his droning tones well-nigh sent me into a doze. You see, I was American bred, and thought little then of ancestral curses, and vague dangers that could stand against a pocket weapon of 38 calibre. As I have told you, later on I had my eyes opened; and an inspection of the papers in that iron box. marked 'Private' began the process.

It was with a preliminary feeling of eeriness that I made the key grate through the rusty wards of the strong box's lock. Sooner than let the papers which I was going to view pass into alien hands, one of my ancestors had delivered up life itself. The stiff hinges screamed as the lid swung back, and I was astonished to find the interior was well-nigh empty. It contained but one slim yellow packet, bound about with a thong of leather, and nothing besides, unless one takes account of some gray flue, and a blotch or so of ancient spider's web. The packet was labelled on the outside in a mean cramped handwriting:

'To my son, Anno 1690, Chaucer d'Evlin'; and underneath were dockets by the various holders— 'Read by me, George d'Evlin, 1709.' 'By me, Armytage Devlin, 1723 and so on down, and the signature of Godefroy Devlin, who had made perusal some sixteen years before myself.

Curiosity did not permit me to linger long over the exterior. Unknotting the thong, I dashed at once amongst the contents. Here, however, my haste was stayed. The crabbed old penmanship, the queer dead forms of expression, made a puzzle which I was many a weary hour in disentangling ; and even when the task was completed, and a fair copy of what I judged to be the just translation lay on the desk before me, the import of it bewildering me much.

The letter was merely a long vague rambling statement of fact. About this much-threatened curse there was no more mention than one finds in a table of logarithms.

Paraphrased, the contents amounted to this: The old gentleman who in 1620 put quill to that yellow paper, had by one means and another scraped together a goodly inheritance. But knowing the ways of the world, he foresaw It possible that some of his descendants, either through personal extravagance, or political uproar, or some other cause, might dissipate this, and stand in need. On which account he here spoke of a treasure hidden away, to be broached only in case of the most urgent necessity. To discourage it being unhoarded without due cause, he warned any raider that the approach was a matter of trouble and much personal danger.

This made up the contents of the first two folios. The remaining sheet gave directions for unearthing the booty; and I had a sort of vague fancy that it was in a different hand of writing, as if (perhaps) it had been penned at some subsequent time. The searcher was directed to a certain moor in the neighbourhood (giving the name)―

at a time when a low-flying moon shall cast the shadow of Wild Boar Pike into the fall of Stanton's Ghyll. At the point where the rim of this shadow cuts the midway line be-tween the great stone monuments which uprear from the floor of the moorland, there lies a mossy cleft which receives a runlet of water. Within, this mouth widens, leading to the lip of a prodigious deep pit, which in turn gives entrance to the bowels of the mountain. In the depths below this lies that which if brought to shrewd use shall reset up this my house, which thou (my son) hast made to totter. Yet guard against being overlooked in that thy search, for should human eye espy thee, so surely shall this treasure which is buried for thy maintenance be reft entirely from thee.'

Now it was the very plainness and simplicity of these instructions which troubled me. In this original document there was no mention of curse whatever ; yet current gossip spoke confidently of an active ban, and the mysterious disappearance of those four Devlins (all of whom had read precisely what I read then) seemed to give definite ground for the rumour.

I puzzled over this point for many days, making neither head nor tail out of It, and at last resolved to go the one step farther. Money I must have, or else return to the old drudging life on the Pacific slope. The estate was dipped to the neck, and because of the cursed entail, I could not sell the acreage of a penny piece. I wrote to the next heir, telling him how matters stood. But he did not fell the pinch. He was a sordid fellow, rich himself, and gunmaker in Birmingham ; and he refused to break the entail.

To remain as I was, meant common starvation, neither more nor less. The warning of what had happened to my four predecessors in the quest was grim enough, Heaven knows. But my needs were great, and they rode it down. Too impatient to wait for moonlight, I set out there and then in the fell glare of day for the upper ground. I found a wide upland plateau walled in on either side by steep gray cliffs of limestone.

One of these ran up to Wild Boar Pike, a bare grim crag of stone, that was an eminence for miles round. The Pike made a sky-line running up at a gentle slope from the north-east, till it finished in a little nipple of rock, and then being cut away vertically for a thousand feet as stunt as the end of a house. The fall of Stanton's Ghyll was a patch of noisy whiteness two miles away in a slantwise direction on the opposite hill face; and the 'great stone monuments ' were two jagged outcrops of rock, which sprouted in bare loneliness from the flat floor of the valley. It seemed to me at first blush that old Chaucer d'Evlin's cross-bearings were simple enough to work out, despite the slightly fantastic way in which they were written; and congratulating myself that I had no cause to blunder about the moor In the night time, I hazarded a guess at the course of the shadow, and set about searching for the cleft which received the little stream.

All around me was rough bare brown moorland, patched here and there with pea-green plateaus of bog, and here and there with conical pits, where some cave in the limestone beneath had broken in. The place was noisy with the screams of curlew and the crowings of startled grouse. I searched that day, and the next, and for many days afterwards, but found no trace of entrance to the regions beneath. And then I took to poacher-prowlings by night ; but many a weary black hour passed before a moon threw the Pike's shadow on to the waterfall.

Yet at last a chance was given me. The night was windy and full of noise; cold besides ; and clouds were riding in the heavens at racing pace. The walk was a long and a rough one, and I sat down under the lee of a rock to wait. At times, the ring of the moon glared out with crisp distinctness, crawling along low in the sky below the Wild Boar's haunch. More often, the drift of cloud-banks eclipsed it.

Then in its creeping progress it drew behind the upward slope of the boar's back, and I lost sight of it altogether. I knew only of its presence from now and then a reflected glow from an upper stratum. But as it drew ahead, a fan of light stole out from the vertical wall of the Pike, and spread up the valley ; and as the moon swept on, the edge of this light-fan drifted backwards down the valley, driving the black swathe of shadow before it. At last the creeping shadow of the Pike with the first moon-ray on its heels swung into the little gorge of the water-fall, and the valley floor was ruled in half by a clean line of inky black.

I glanced up. One of the jagged stone 'monuments' was brilliant in moon-light; the other bristled through the gloom behind me like some great uncouth beast; I was standing in the direct line between the two. The mark of the shadow cut this not a score of yards from my feet in the centre of a patch of oozy green.

A cloud drifted over the moon then, and the moorland was filled with cold rustling gloom. But I had learned enough to find out if old Chaucer d'Evlin's words were true. I had marked down the spot, and ran to it, with the dark bog-water squelching over my boots. But in the middle of the patch the water drained away; and listening, I could hear a silvery tinkle which came to my ears between the gusts of the gale. With growing excitement I tore the moss away eager-handed. Beneath was wet shining rock, cleft with a two-foot gash that was floored with pebbles.

Dropping down upon these away from the draught of the gale, I lit my lantern and found before me a gallery sloping gently downwards with the strata. It was partly earth-fissure— partly water-worn; and it led me along for forty yards. Then I stopped, and saw before me evidence of those who had been before. In the rock-floor was a shaft, fluted and smoothed, descending vertically downwards towards I knew not what abysses. It was a formation common enough in limestone, and known as a Pot.

Across the mouth of this was a new-cut beam laid, and from the beam depended a knotted rope which hung lankly and wetly down till my lantern's glow could trace it no farther in the heavy darkness. Down that rope Godefroy Devlin had met his fate; down other similar ropes three of his forebears had preceded him into eternity.

Shall I be written coward if l confess that standing there in that still black silence, a heavy chill came over me as I gazed downwards, which not even the cold of the cave would account for?

Now it seemed to me that if I waited, my courage would ooze still further away. So I made a dash at the attempt with all the blind haste of fright. I had with me a rope, and tied that fast to the beam alongside the knotted rope of Godefroy Devlin, watching with a shudder the snaky coils as they disappeared in the blackness of the Pot. Then I seized the two.

I had descended two man-lengths when I remembered the light. In my hurry and scare I had left it behind. Ascending once more, I tied it to my neck, but finding it inconvenient there, slung it by a string round my ankle. The change saved my life. Fathom after fathom I descended, the smooth stone sides of the shaft always keeping their precise distance— and then a vague dreaminess crept over me— and the candle in the lantern burnt dimmer— and I drew nearer towards sleep— and then the candle went out.

The loss of light roused me. I stopped my descent, sagging the twin ropes back and forwards like a man of lead. My hands weighed tons; my feet and head hundreds of tons. Instinctively I hauled myself upwards again, with perilous slowness at first, faster after wards, with the speed of terror when nearing the top.

I did not faint when my feet were once more on the solid rock. I should have been happier if I had done, for, as it was, my heart was like to have burst an alley through my ribs. Heavy poisonous gas— carbon dioxide— lay in a layer at the bottom of the shaft. If it had not been for the warning lantern, I should have descended amongst it and dropped into death, even as had done those four others who preceded me.

You can be sure I was fit for little else that night besides tottering home wards as best I was able; and I thought never to visit the horrid spot again. But a day or two's rest changed this view, and I transported to the moor a small rotary blower from a portable blacksmith's forge, and a long length of rubber tubing, and exorcised the heavy gas from below till a candle would burn there as clearly as it would in the open. Then I descended again, and instead of the few shattered bones and other poor relics of humanity which I expected to find, saw as wonderful a sight as man's eyes have fallen on through all the ages. Water fell in a small spray from all around, and the lime in it had been deposited on the bodies of the four Devlins who had fallen there. Decay had never commenced. The shell of stone had begun to grow from the very moment of their arrival. The undermost man was a shapeless heap. The next was but a vague outline. Of the third, I could but make out that he had once been human, nothing more. But the last comer had fallen on his back resting against this ghostly pile, and the thin layer of stone which crusted him was transparent as glass. I could trace every fibre of his clothes; every line of his careworn face.

He must have passed into death without pain. His features were more peaceful than those of a man asleep. For a while this rocky horror fascinated me, and then I tore myself away, passing into a great jagged cave, which burrowed amongst the very entrails of the living rock. And here was the Treasure which had been kept so long inviolate, and at such a cost: not jewels or gold, as I had fondly anticipated, but a vein of galena— glittering lead ore— which when after wards I bought up royalties and set on miners to work, made me richer by far than that old D'Evlin who had first discovered it, and had left it so contemptuously as a spare nest-egg for his posterity.

I found, too, something besides which showed how terribly one man's faults may be visited on his descendants, and showed, moreover, how a vengeance may be transmitted with many lethal blows down many centuries. There was a flask on the rock floor beside the sparkling vein of ore, a queer-shaped wine-vessel of glass stoppered with crimson wax. Inside were papers. I drew them out and read then by the shifting light of the lantern.

The hair rippled on my scalp as I spelled through the crabbed sentences. The words were written by one Thomas Field, steward to the D'Evlin who founded my family. They began with a description of the writer's station, and then there followed a list of his woes, and hate glowered from each faded letter.

'In every carnal thing' (so the letter ran) 'has this man, Chaucer D'Evlin, done me wrong. He has gained cattle and horses that I should have possessed, farms that I should have had, and that by rights was mine. He stripped me of moneys till I had no dirt left. He made me his servant who should have been his master, yet these things could have been forgiven. But for one matter wherein he ousted me, the man has earned my hate undying. He won for himself the woman I loved, and made her his wife who should have been mine.

'For this I write here my curse against him and against his till they are worms and dust as he is now. For this I have taken away the last sheet of the writing in the iron box, wherein he told how to draw away the noxious vapours which fill this Pot, and have left in their place other writings which shall form a snare. Hereby I know my soul is damned to all eternity. But I care not. Through Chaucer D'Evlin I have known my hell in this life; and so that this my curse may spread on all his spawn which is to follow, I willingly take the portion of Flames which will be mine in just recompense. Oh Duna, my love, my lost love, through memory of thee alone I do this thing...'

In that weird mysterious cavern I read these words, and the thought of that awful vengeance which Thomas Field's dead hand had carried out bit into me like a knife. My chest grew cramped; my head throbbed; the whispering noises of the place increased, to clamour. It seemed to my frightened nerves that the steward's tortured spirit hovered and gibbered in the black vault above me.

I could not wait there longer. I fled to the shaft, treading on that mound of men in stone, and then leaped up the rope to air and day-light. Dead Duna, your faithlessness— or your coercion, was it!— has been fearfully avenged.

End

Table of Contents

- Diana Marbug: The Oracle of Maddox Street
- 2: Finger Tips
- 3: Sir Penn Carlyll's Engagement
- Unnamed
- 5: Acme / John Galsworthy
- 6: Volcano-Mad / Earl Derr Biggers
- 7: A Royal Dilemma / E. Phillips Oppenheim
- C J Cutcliffe Hyne
- 9: Gregory Of Byzantium
- 10: A Marriage Of Convenience
- 11: A Lottery Duel
- 12: Confounded
- 13: The Perfumer
- 14: The Ship-Breaker's Yard
- 15: The Trinidad Treasure
- 16: A QC's Confession
- 17: The Settler-ess
- 18: Paradise Coal Boat
- 19: Mrs. Seal McIntosh
- 20: The Men in Stone