Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: short stories
Description: A dozen short stories collected directly from magazines and newspapers, by past masters of the pulps: Three by H Bedford-Jones, set respectviely in Upper Michigan, Toureg country, and on a dude ranch in upstate New York; two by C J Cutcliffe Hyne; an Edgar Wallace; two horror/supernatural tales by Otis Adelbert Kline and Adam Hull Shirk, from Weird Tales; two hard-boiled private eye tales by Cleve Adams; and a light romance by Robert Horton. Contents 1: Gallegher of Beaver / H Bedford-Jones 2: Tiger Trail / Perley Poore Sheehan 3: The Four Red Circles / H. Bedford-Jones 4: Bill of Scotland Yar

PAST MASTERS FOUR

Various Authors

2020

Contents

1: Gallegher of Beaver / H Bedford-Jones

2: Tiger Trail / Perley Poore Sheehan

3: The Four Red Circles / H. Bedford-Jones

4: Bill of Scotland Yard / Edgar Wallace

5: The Luck of a Cowboy / H. Bedford-Jones

6: The Ransom / C J Cutliffe Hyne

7: Beauty and the Beast / C J Cutcliffe Hyne

8: The Ninety-Ninth Proposal / Robert J Horton

9: Osiris / Adam Hull Shirk

10: The Phantom Wolf-Hound / Otis Adelbert Kline

11: Forty Pains / Cleve F. Adams

12: Flowers For Violet / Cleve F Adams

_____________________

1: Gallegher of Beaver

H Bedford-Jones

The Sunday Star, Washington. D. C. July 1, 1923

EDDIE "BOWERY”GALLEGHER had come home from his summer’s steam-boating. A big, overgrown boy he was, for all his mate's ticket, with a wide grin and a hearty laugh that would charm response from the sphinx. No one had told him yet about Gisli Gislison— not even his brother, Big Joe, had dared to tell him.

Bowery was in high spirits, and no wonder, having come home to the  loneliest yet most cheerful place on the lakes— Beaver Island. We all sat  around the stove—the McCann boys, old man Dunlevy, Salty Gallegher and  Hughie Big Biddy Gallegher, Tight Gallegher and Willie Boyle, and a few more. There was a drop to drink and the dance to follow, and the perch had begun to run.

“Ye know how scarce jobs were and men laid up?” Bowery leaned forward with his hearty laugh. “I was on the dock when the Menominee come in. and I went aboard her and struck the old man. ‘Give me any' thing from mate to wheelin', but no lookout,’ I tells him. He looks me over, sour and hard, and says: 'Gallegher, hey? I’ll bet you're one o’ them condemned Beaver Island Galleghers that’s holdin’ down berths on half the lake-boats this minute.’ Delany, who was second mate on the Manitou last year, he was standin' by. and he begun to grin. ‘I got two Beaver Galleghers aboard here now,’ says the old man. ‘and I reckon I can stand one more, so git aboard and go to wheelin’.”

Bowery ceased speaking. A queer tension had fallen upon the group of us, and he was quick to sense it. He saw the stranger standing to one side, arms folded— a long, gaunt, flaxen-haired man with a face like molded iron he was; he looked once at Bowery Gallegher, then he turned and went out with a lithe and silent step.

‘Where did that blow in from?' ejaculated Bowery.

Hughie Big Biddy leaned forward and spat into the stove. “Wash’n'ton Island— one o’ them Icelanders from the Wisconsin side,” he said awkwardly. Bowery glanced from face to face, then spoke:

"Well, what is it? You fellers ain’t lettin’ them square-heads run over here?”

Willie Boyle smiled in that queer, knowing way of his. “Goin’ to fish this fall. Bowery?” he asked gently. "With your brother Joe. maybe?"

"Uh-huh. Dad’s goin’ to give us the Eleanor. Joe and I go half on the nets, and we’ll get in on the perch in a couple o' weeks. What’s that feller doing over here? Bayin’ over?”

“Something like that.” said Willie Boyle. “He’s got out trap nets here and there — nobody knows just where. He don’t flag ’em. He just seems to feel where they are."

"Huh?" Bowery stared, frowned perplexedly. “You don’t mean he’s fishin’ over here? Who’s with him?”

"Nobody," grunted Emmet McCann. "The Steelhead is campin’ on Pismire Island; he’s runnin’ his own nets.”

"I'll be blowed!" ejaculated Bowery, staring around. "Everybody got paralysis or something? Does Joe let this feller alone, too?"

A grin flitted about the circle of faces.

"Joe interfered,” said Willie Boyle dryly. "He got laid up for a week and lost a six-hundred-dollar pound net. The two McCafferty boys interfered, and so did them Danes over to Garden Island. They landed on Pismire one night and warned Gislison off. He come over to the dance the next night and cleaned the whole of them— proper! He’s come over for the dance tonight, I guess," said Willie Boyle, who was Mary's uncle. “It’s a free country, ye know, Eddie."

Bowery came to his feet, all the laughing good-humor gone from the face of him. "Any man,” said he, “who camps on Pismire, and fishes lonely, and don’t flag his nets, is 'crazy! I s’pose you buy his fish, James?”

His cousin James nodded. “Being the company’s agent. I play square.  He gets fish too! Eight hundred pound today, a hundred an forty bucks. Uses a net some, but mostly hooks. He has miles an’ miles of the hooks, they tell me.”

"See you later,” said Eddie Bowery, and went stamping out of the store.

There was a space of silence. All were regretting that Bowery had not waited. They had first dwelt upon the good qualities of Gisli Gislison; there were other things to be said.

“Bowery's nobody’s fool.” said Salty Gallegher. “He’s warned.”

Willie Boyle rose. “I'm not missin’ the dance this night," said he, smiling. “I've got ten dollars that says Bowery cleans the Icelander.”

“Which way?” quavered old Dunlevy. "Wid his fists— or wid Mary?”

“Both ways,” said Willie Boyle. “Ten each way. ”

Willie Boyle was ten dollars poorer within the next two hours.

MARY BOYLE lived on her father's farm, four miles out of St. James on the Barney Lake road. Tall and straight was Mary Boyle, deep-eyed, with a laugh In her glance and a sob in her throat when she sang the Irish songs beside her mother's melodeon, and gray witchery under her black brows that had stirred the heart of more than one man.

Back from school had come Mary Boyle to help the sisters teach the youngsters their reading and writing, and she could handle a boat with any  man. or gaff and pull as the motor roared and the lifter brought In the lacy nets and the big whitefish went hurtling into the tub below.

On the white Grand Road came striding Gisli Gislison, and turned in at the gate. Mary came running from  the kitchen. When she saw who it was she paused in the doorway and the sparkle died out of her eyes.

“Good morning.” said Gisli Gislison. He came forward to the veranda and halted by the step.

“Is it my father you’d like to see?” asked Mary with a lift to her brows.

Gisli Gislison smiled at her. “You know well enough, my dear, that it’s not." said he. Have you time to talk a little?”

Mary bade him to a chair. He refused that, but stood by the veranda post and looked at her.

“Mary. I’ve no man helping me.” His voice was smooth and inflexible. "I’ve a few trap nets and a tub of gill nets In the boat, and miles of hooks, which is the only way I can fish alone. But I can feel the fish. That's a living and more, my dear. I can buy a farm on Garden Island from the Injuns―”

"Please!” broke in the girl, pleadingly. “No, no, Gisli—please don’t! You must not."

“And why not?” be asked, ice gleaming in his eyes.

“I—I  don’t love you," she returned.

“Love makes love, my dear.” he said.

The girl shook her head. “No.”

“You will not?”

“It’s impossible. Don’t ask me. ”

“Then I’ll not. I’ll come and take you.”

For a moment she was in shaking dread of him. Then the blood came to her cheeks, and anger.

“How dare you!’’ she flashed out. “If my father heard you he’d take the whip to you―”

“And I’d break Ills neck.” said Gisli Gislison. calmly. “Listen, my dear. All these weeks you’ve walked and Talked and danced with me. and now that your man is home again you  think you can forget it. But you can’t. I’ll come and take, you— like this.”

He put -out a hand to her arm. and his fingers were like a steel band encircling it. And at that she gave him a man’s blow, drawing blood from his lips and cutting her knuckles on his strong white teeth. Gisli Gislison smiled at the blow and nodded.

She shrank.

A FLIVVER rattled to a halt before the farm and Bowery Gallegher jumped out. The car drove on. Gisli Gislison loosed the girl’s arm as Bowery came up to them.

“What’s goin’ on here?” snapped Bowery, seeing the look In Mary's face and the blood on the Icelander’s lip. “Is he botherin’ you, Mary?"

“It’s my affair, Eddie.” she said, quietly. “Gisli, get away from here. I never want to see you again, understand?”

Gisli Gislison smiled and turned to Bowery, who met his gaze with a black scowl. “You heard her," he said. "Get out o’ here!"

"You’re a nice boy,” said Gisli. imperturbably. “But you get mad too easy. Next time you get mad— look out! I’m a better man than you are, and I take what I want. Good-by.”

"Better man than I am, is it?’’ said Bowery. “Off with your coat, then—”

“Enough o’ that!” Old Tom Boyle had come out to the door, and a dour man he was. “You, Bowery! I heard how ye did be fightin’ this felly for an hour until he put ye out wid a kick— and I'll have none of it. You, what’s-yer-name! Git off’n this place and stay off’n it. and keep yer eyes off’n my girl or I’ll be puttin’ a load o’ duck shot into yer carcass. Git!” growled Tom Boyle.

Gisli Gislison smiled a little and walked, away,

"Come up to tell Mary that we got 800 pound yesterday, first trip," said Bowery, and laughed.

“Come in and eat dinner!" said Tom Boyle.

FOR three weeks Gisli Gislison held his lonely camp on Pismire Island.  He was not a good man to bother or disturb. One day a fish tug from Cheboygan came drifting past the  harbor and Emmet McCann went out  to her and brought her in with two battered men abroad, one of them  with four ribs broken. Gisli Gislison had found them at one of his trap nets, robbing it of perch. There was  some talk of getting the sheriff from  the mainland, but nothing came of it.

Bowery and Big Joe made luck with their fishing, and the second September gale was well due to arrive, when Big Joe caught his foot between boat and wharf. On Sunday Big Joe eat with his foot in a chair and a week’s rest ahead.

In the afternoon Bowery was visiting at Tom Boyle's farm, and told of the bad luck.

“It’s not the week’s layoff that I minds but the loss of the gear and a big  haul we’d counted on Monday. We’ve had two traps out for a week up the Garden Island shore, and we left a new gill net out over Sunday, and if a storm comes up we’ll never see that net again. Besides which, some o’ them blasted Charlevoix men set a trap for bass near the wreck on Hog Island, and two boxes of fish from that trap would mean a hundred clear. Not a man to be got to help me, neither.”

"You mind yer eye. Bowery,” growled Tom Boyle. ‘Vishin’ bass is agin the law, and robbin’ other men’s net―”

“They’ve no right in our waters.” said Bowery, “and as for the law, ain’t this Beaver Island” How about you slaughterin’ them mallard two weeks ago?”

Tom Boyle grinned at that and said no more. But after a little Mary spoke up, a flash in her gray eye. 'Eddie, what about taking me to help you? I’ve not been on the lake all summer, and I can handle the boat or haul nets while you gaff’ I'll go tomorrow if you’ll say the word!”

To the cheeks of Bowery crept a rich glow. For well he knew that he had only to speak his heart on the morrow to come home with finer fish than any lying in the tub.

“Done with ye!’’ he exclaimed. “We’ll get off at six, and by noon we’ll be done and go ashore on Garden to have dinner with the Danes.”

That afternoon Bowery Gallegher walked back to town singing at the  top of his voice. At the cross roads he met the priest, who gave Bowery a hard look. “Eddie Bowery.” he said, “is It drunk you are?”

“Mighty nigh it, father.” and Bowery laughed with all his heart.

“When will you give over these wild ways?” said the priest sternly.

“Tomorrow night, praise be!” said Bowery.

That night Bowery told his brother, Big Joe. about taking the boat In the morning. "It's two men’s work," said Joe.

Bowery came to his feet. “And it’s two men’s work to carry the likes of you, ye big elephant!” says he. and stoops over with his two hands to the seat of Big Joe’s chair. Then he came up. and Big Joe with him, and a laugh on his lips.

“If we had Tight Gallegher here to fiddle. I’d do a step with ye,” said Bowery, and set Big Joe on the floor again, and never a puff from him.

At six in the morning Bowery had the Eleanor clean as a whistle when Mary Boyle came down to the wharf. Bowery stood in the boat below.

“Jump for it!” said he, and Mary  jumped. He caught her and swung her down, and seated her in the stern.

“Take her out, while I mind the engine.” and he shoved out, and in two seconds the open boat was heading down the harbor.

A GRAY morning it was, the wind switching from west to south-west and kicking a bad sea up the channel.

“Head for Pismire,” said Joe, when they had cleared the light and were reaching for the Garden Island channel. “We’ll get right over to H ; Island and attend to them bass, then work back under the lee of Garden where our own nets are.”

“It’ll be blowing before noon,” said Mary.

“Let her blow,” and Bowery grinned as he primed the pump. “I’ll give ye some oilskins in a minute— hello! Look who's yonder!”

The girl glanced off to port, where a gray speck was creeping in through the channel toward them. At her question. Bowery chuckled. “It’s the Icelander—he's been over to High Island gettin’ nets in from the blow.”

His pumping done, Bowery brought oilskins for the girl, and took the helm himself. Mary Boyle marveled, for Bowery was sitting beside her,talking and laughing, and hardly taking his blue eyes from her face; yet the boat was like a horse that feels the band of a master on the reins.

Bowery held well out beyond Pismire, which was a mere tree-studded dot of sand, and at the spar buoy came about for the end of Hog Island reef. Two miles north of Beaver was Garden Island, and due east of that was Hog, with Pismire down below and between them. All inside this triangle and outside St here and there was shoal water, studded with bowlders and long reefs, so that a man would have heavy sorrow on his hands if he took a boat hereabout, and he all ignorant of the channels.

The Eleanor was soon past the Hog reef and rounding up for Hog Island, while behind them the Icelander drew in and vanished behind Pismire.

They came into Belmore bay. and Bowery shut off the engine and stood up with the hook, as she drifted before the waves. A heavy sea it was, too, so that the boat pitched high and rolled wide. Down came the hook and pulled up the slimy black net, and over the side leaned Bowery, arms under water as he hauled in until he came to the trip rope, and so loosed it. and the next moment he was at the trap and loosed the cord and had the bass under his fingers.

A box of the big bass they had there, and that was fifty dollars. Mary throwing the small ones back. That was two hours gone and twelve miles behind them, when Bowery threw over the flywheel and pointed west for Garden Island and his own nets. There was a scud of mist and gray slime that hid Garden from sight, so Bowery got out his compass and laid it between the feet of him, and laughed into Mary’s eyes.

“It’ll be storm by afternoon.” said Mary, taking the tiller, her cheeks flushed with the sharp wind.

“Hear the fog whistle from Squaw-Island driftin’ on the gale? Let her blow.” Bowery's rich laugh broke out.

"We’ll be drinkin’ coffee with old Nels,  and if ye don’t like the weather he’ll take you home in his big tug, Mary.”

"Oh, will he?” She laughed back at him. “Speak for yourself, Eddie Bowery! I’m satisfied where I am.”

It was an hour or more before they picked up the Garden shore and Bowery  got his bearings: then there were the nets to be got in, and the traps to be opened, and the line to be knotted again under the water. Because Mary was with him. Bowery had brought boxes for the fish, and he stacked them up forward with the tub of nets atop them.

“Four hundred pound and that's a hundred and twenty," said Bowery, as he took the tiller and headed for the Danes' cove. “Listen to the wind howl outside! It’ll be sweet work crossin' the channel back to Beaver!”

“And you soaked to the waist,” said Mary. “How long will it be, Eddie, before the life will go out of your big shoulders?"

“Never, praise be!" said he, and laughed out. “Dad’s near seventy, he— and has he ever said a word o' rheumatism? Not him. The Galleghers are a tough lot."

Near noon they came into the little cove midway the east side of Garden, where old Nels and his two Sons had held ground for thirty years. There were the three of them mending nets by the ice shed, and their big. fast boat at the dock.

A hearty greeting they had from Nels and Pete and Ole, and all trooped up together to the house under the singing cedars. Now there was laughing of women and killing of chickens, while the good beer that Nels brewed was fetched in, with heady sand cherry wine for the table. Coffee, parched black and made strong, and new bread hot from the oven, and butter golden from the churn; never was a better or more open-to-all table than the Danes set forth when visitors came.

But it was neither beer nor wine that held Bowery Gallegher’ spirits high. When the cigars and pipes were lighted and the dishes cleared off, Mary spoke up.

“My mother wanted me to bring home two of your big red hens and a rooster with them, if you could spare them,” said she.

“Ja, sure!" said old Nels, and rose up from his seat. "Aye see dem birds down to de Ice house—you come?"

So they went out. while Bowery was telling about the fine French barometer that he won from Delaney in a craps game.

IT was a cry from old Nels that brought them out as he came staggering up among the trees, and blood black in his matted whiskers.

“Dot Icelander!” he yelled. “He’s ban take her―’’

Bowery was the first down to the dock, with old Nels and the boys and the women all streaming after him.

The boat of Gisli Gislison was heading out to clear the bowlders, with never a soul showing aboard her.

Once she lurched and yawed about, then righted to her course, and Bowery knew that Mary had done her best In that moment and could do no more.

He stood gazing, while old Nels cried out how the Icelander had leaped on him and struck him down, and had lifted Mary aboard and gone. Bowery crooked his finger at the two boys.

“Give me a hand here,” said he, and the three of them lifted the boxes of fish to the dock. Then Bowery lifted old Nels in his arms, and carried him to the boat, dropping him in the stern.

“Ye’ll not catch him.” yelled Pete. "Nor will we!”

"Go after him, you and Ole!" roared out Bowery Gallegher, throwing off his lines. “Go after him In your own boat, for I’ll stop him or drown doin’ it. ”

The two boys jumped to their big boat, and when Bowery headed out of the cove he looked back to see her following. Then he set the tiller, and laid old Nels against  it, while he poured oil into the engine and screwed down the cups over the bearings.

He peered at the boat ahead, seeing that she was low in the water and steady as a rock.

“He’ll circle into the channel, knowing well that few men would follow him that way,” Bowery muttered.

He came back to the tiller and headed in along the Garden shore. He knew that Gislison must travel two legs of a triangle, so he himself  was taking the third leg across the shoals and through Stony Reef, though it was six years since he had taken a boat that scary way.

BOWERY filled the gas tank, heaved the rest of the spare gasoline overboard and followed It with everything he could tear loose except the lifebelts. Then he came back into the stern.

Under the drive of the spray old Nels had come back to life and was lifting his red dripping whiskers over the rail to see.

"Ye ban fool!" he sang out. “Not wan foot water on de reef!"

"There'll be less than that under us when we get there," said Bowery, as he threw down a lifebelt beside Nels. He took the tiller while Nels got his arms Into the belt and tied the straps.

The slow time dragged along, and now they were past the eastern tip of Garden and heading for Stony reef ahead. Even here in shelter of the reef the waves ran high.

“Ye’ll not catch him!” yelled old Nels.

“He ain’t around Pismire yet— we got him!” sang out Bowery. “Mind the tiller while I con the way."

He went leaping forward to the bow, where he stooped and threw out the lifebelts in a loose mass, then stood up on the prow watching the bowlder-strewn water ahead.

Straight for Stony reef they drove, a long line of shoal running out from Garden island and ending off to the left in two shallow sand spits where the waves burst high.

The Eleanor wallowed over the shoal water, and began to zigzag back and forth, with Bowery standing up on the tossing prow and putting out his arms to right or left, while old Nels shoved his weight against the tiller.

A wild yell came from Bowery as I he sighted the Icelander's boat at last. Back aft came Bowery, pausing at the engine to pour in oil, then jumped to the stem and seized the tiller. He put the Eleanor square at the reef.

“Over with ye!’’ he shouted to old Nels. “Over and make the sand spit—ye can wade it!"

Just then she struck, came free, struck again with a rending smash and stayed where she was. Bowery leaned forward and threw the engine into neutral, then came up and gripped the arm of Nels. “Over, or I’ll throw ye!” he roared.

Nels scrambled outboard and with his weight gone the boat lifted. Bowery threw in the clutch and she began to forge ahead though she was taking in water fast from the crash. Nels gained his footing and scrambled toward the spit of sand, and the boat slid off into deep water and headed out into the channel welter.

Straight south across the bow of the Icelander’s boat Bowery held her, while the waves thundered down, and broke over her with every crashing impact of the bow. Bowery hung a tarpaulin over the engine.

"Better  man than I am. hey?” he yelled. "Prove It, ye yellow-haired devil!”

The larger boat drove straight for him while he still headed down across The only opening aboard her was aft, where Gisli Gislison sat at the tiller.

The two boats held steady, unswerving, while up before Bowery a rose a veil of driving mist as the whirl of the flywheel churned up the rising water. The larger craft hurled down at him, and suddenly above her box appeared the yellow hair of Gislison, he standing with foot on tiller and looking ahead with the ice-cold eyes of him, since from below he could not see under her bow. Not forty feet of water held the two boats apart, and the Icelander’s craft was headed to strike the Eleanor fair amidships, for Gislison would give no warning of his Intent.

Then, holding his upper body unmoving, Bowery slid out his foot through the sloshing water, and when his toes touched the clutch lever, he shoved with all the strength In him. That reversed the engine checking the boat’s speed and pulling her back, and at the same instant Gislison swung tiller with his foot to strike the Eleanor astern and send Bowery under with her.

At that play the Icelander lost. The Eleanor seemed to jump backward  under his very eyes, then the bow of his boat rose above her on a sea and came down upon her gunnel, and the open boat rolled with the crash, but drove her engine into the bow of the other and ripped the planks out.

Bowery Gallegher was not under that bow as the Icelander wanted him, for the crash came forward of his seat, and he was In the air and  leaping for the bow space of the larger boat, forward of her house.

Bowery hauled himself over the rail, and looked up to see the Icelander
whirling at him, with foot upraised. He took the kick, for he had to, and came to his feet with hurt ribs and a fist flung out, a moment the two men stood In that little space of deck and swung at each other, while the boat drifted about in the trough of the sea and rolled under their feet the bow slowly going down Into the water.

"Better man than I am, hey?’ said Bowery,  and laughed as he struck. "Prove it, then!”

A wave burst their feet and legs. Startled by that the Icelander flung up his head, and a fierce look came into his cold face as he saw they were going down, than he sickened Bowery With a cruel blow under the belt, turned, and went leaping toward the stern along the side of the box, and Bowery staggering after him with white lips. By now the rollers were bursting clean over the bow of the craft, and In her lee floated, the scattered life belts from the Eleanor, as Bowery had figured when he loosened them.

GISLISON disappeared under the box and Bowery came at last to the opening. There in front of him was the Icelander and beyond the figure of Mary Boyle, stunned and motionless.

A net spread wide in his hands, Gislison came erect as he made to fling the net over Bowery. The net flew, but wide of the mark, for Bowery let himself go feet first beneath It and kicked the Icelander's legs from under him, himself falling   across the hot cylinders of the engine until his ribs were seared with the heat and he jerked himself clear.

Barely In time was the Jerk, for Gislison was erect and whirling on him, but Bowery kicked the feet from under the man once more and sent him sprawling across the tubs of nets and the long coils of line with the bloater hooks. In that instant Bowery caught at Mary, lifting her with one arm, and scrambled back to the rising stem of the boat. What happened after that he was not sure, for around them swelled a black tide of water.

But as he went he thought of the Icelander down below— and a laugh was on the lips of him.

The Danes' boat came up and they pulled Bowery out of the water with Mary in his arms and a life belt clenched in his fingers, and, letting the boat drift, they rolled the water out of the two. Bowery was the first to come around and he swung himself over, coughing, until he stood on his two feet, "What are ye waitin’ for?" he said to the boys.

"For the Icelander," said Fete, squinting at him.

With that Bowery thought of the man down below and the bloater hooks and the lacy nets spreading out with the water. So he caught up the coiled line that was by him and over the side he went, a laugh on his lips as he vanished.

Mad the boys thought him, and loud they cursed as the boat drifted in the fog and mist and the waves drove them. Then Bowery was up again and reaching for the gunnel. They dragged him in, and he so exhausted that he could only grin at them and  Jerk his hand at the line. They pulled it In. and there was a heavy  weight on the end. and that same was Gisli Gislison.

A full half-hour It was before they brought the Icelander round. Bowery rose and looked down at Mary and saw the flush on her cheek. Then he looked at the boys and his eyes twinkled.

"Off wid ye!" says he. "Turn her over. We'll pick up Nels and go back for them chickens, not to mention a warm fire and a cup o’ hot coffee and a bed for Gisli Gislison. Glory it’s a fine day!"

The boys stared at him. “Crazy Gallegher!” said Ole.

“Sure!" A great laugh bubbled on the lips of Bowery. "Sure! The Beaver Island Galleghers are all crazy! Let’s go. I told the priest I'd be taking the pledge tonight and I’d  not keep him waiting.”

_____________________

2: Tiger Trail

Perley Poore Sheehan

Five Novels Monthly, July 1933

1: Pleasure Tent

HE saw Madame de Gerville again that night. Sight of her gave his heart a little lurch. He was glad now that she was so much older than he was. Although she didn’t look it. Really. Slender, lithe, with a touch of red in her hair and warm, dark eyes. Not a bit mannish. To see her now in her misty evening frock it seemed incredible that this was his lady of the tiger-shoot.

Which would be about the last of what they called in India the Maharajah shoots.

In British India the open season on tigers ran to April— closed then until November. In the native states the tigers were property of the rulers who could, of course, do with them as they would. But even for them, April was about the end. And this was April. Too hot.

Craig took a step toward Madame de Gerville, then hovered. Shri Bahadur also had been quick to see her. The American watched the Hindu make that pretty gesture of salutation called the namaskar— fingertips of the two hands joined and these then brought to lips and forehead.

Just a concession, that was, to some of the other Hindus present— old-timers, a number of them, and gorgeous in satin and tulle, no end of shimmery gems and pale gold.

If Shri had been in London or Newport— he was popular in both— he’d have kissed the lady’s hand. Nor would he have been wearing that picturesque outfit of his own— decked out, as he said himself, like a bird of paradise. Away from home he looked— and dressed and acted— like any other white man. Why not? Oxford, polo, at least two winters at Palm Beach, and that one notable season that Craig’s people, the Brandon Craigs, had entertained him at Newport.

Shri Bahadur was Maharajah of Indarabad. This was his shoot.

Brandon Craig smiled in response to a smile and a wave of the hand from Madame de Gerville. She was one of those women who could tell you things from a distance without need of words.

“Wait for me,” she’d said. “I like you. We understand each other.”

“Indeed we do,” said Brandon Craig to himself, patient and mollified.

The air was heavy with attar of roses.

A dozen long-armed revolving fans overhead kept it in motion. Craig selected the corner of a divan, European style, in pale yellow silk and seated himself.

Silent as a shadow, a barefooted butler looking more like a warrior but dressed in white, salaamed before him and presented a tray of sparkling glasses. Champagne. Craig declined. Another white shadow, replica of the first, salaamed and offered a tray with cigarettes. He accepted.

Shri Bahadur certainly knew how to do things in his Oriental unstinted and overwhelming way. One of the richest men in the East. No one knew how rich. And still unmarried. It was rumored that he’d set his heart on marrying an English or American girl. And Brandon Craig felt some faint qualm of distaste, which he banished— or tried to— as unfair.

He’d known Shri practically from childhood. The old maharajah and the general— Craig’s grandfather on his mother’s side— had been friends, drawn together by mutual interest in Sanskrit and early Aryan art. The general had often brought them, young Brandon and his mother, to Indarabad while the old maharajah was alive.

“And to think,” said Brandon Craig to himself, “that I once punched him on the nose!"

He was looking at the maharajah and Madame de Gerville again. They’d turned away from the other guests. They were strolling off a little apart. There was something subtly peremptory in Shri Bahadur’s manner, a suggestion of resistance about Madame de Gerville. Though nothing overt, nothing even remotely harsh.

Everything smothered in attar of roses, and now a minor swirl and throb of Indian music— vina, viol, drums and a twinkling cadence of little bells.

This was a nautch. The girl who danced was like an anchored cobra. Her feet barely moved. But from her ankles there came that shiver of silver bells as completely controlled as a cobra’s scales.

All this took place in what they called the shamiam, the pleasure, or entertainment tent. Something like one of those big pavilions— the society reporters called them marquees— they used to put up on the lawn at Newport. When everybody still had money. Wired also, up-to-date. With a double canvas roof for added coolness.

But big as a ballroom, this one; with a ballroom floor; and around it no end of pale silk covered furniture and floral hide-outs.

At one end was the gadi, or throne; but Shri Bahadur hadn’t— and wouldn’t  occupy it tonight. It was there, that was all— a sort of gold steamer-trunk raised a foot or so above the floor; and the floor all around it for yards covered by a carpet of tiger skins, sewn together, perfectly matched, head-in.

With a little imagination you could imagine twenty couchant tigers, all of them rajahs of their kind, prostrating themselves before the might and the magnificence which were the Maharajah of Indarabad.

He was, Craig reflected, probably the only person now on earth who’d ever punched the Maharajah of Indarabad on the nose and got away with it. His escape at that had been something of a squeak. Shri had tried to kill him, first with a stick, then by shoving him into the lotus-tank. They’d both been seven at the time— eighteen years ago. And something, somehow, of that old feud had lingered.

Craig felt it as he came to his feet.

Madame de Gerville and the maharajah were drawing near— strolling, chatting lightly. But Craig could see at once that they’d got too close to some hidden fire. Both were too bright eyed, a little flushed.

Craig made the usual motions of respect. Others were watching. Shri Bahadur responded with a smile and a flutter of his hand. Craig also smiled. But he was suddenly and painfully aware that his smile was solely of the lips. He was aware that so was Shri Bahadur smiling only with his lips.

There’d always been an extraordinary speed of comprehension— or of miscomprehension— between them. Perhaps that’s why they’d fought as children, still carried about with them some rankle of that infantile duel— as one, or two, will re member a bit of unfinished business that will have to be finished some time.

“Topping!” said Shri Bahadur pleasantly. “Madame de Gerville tells me you bowled over stripes this morning as if he’d been a hare.”

“Easier,” said Craig. “We had the poor devil at such a disadvantage!” He softened any hint of criticism. “I know now, Your Highness, why—"

Shri Bahadur broke in softly.

“Save the ‘highness’ for strangers, Brandy. Madame’s as good as a member of the family. I’m Shri. Pardon! You were saying?”

“Why all the other kings and potentates,” Brandon Craig went on, “want your invitations when  the tiger-fever gets them. Newsreels and heroics, perfect comfort and—a lovely companion.”

But Craig had lost interest in his own words. What—he was asking himself— had Shri Bahadur meant by that crack about Madame de Gerville being as good as a member of the family? Surely the maharajah wasn’t proposing to marry the lady. Beautiful enough. And English. But also old enough—she’d said so herself— to be his own mother. In the depth of Madame de Gerville’s brown eyes—eyes so brown that they were almost black— he saw moist fire.

Deliberately she held to the matter of the morning. She’d drifted her eyes, not very swiftly, from Craig to Shri Bahadur.

“Sweet of you,” she said, “to have sent Mr. Craig in the same howdah, to sit with me in the same machan.”

Craig remebered that elephant ride vividly, but somehow all that he could remember about it was that Madame de Gerville had been beside him— perfect in her jodpuhrs, he would have sworn, not having seen her before in evening dress. He remembered that the shooting-platform— the machan— was in a cottontree with big, red flowers only because he’d handed her a blossom.

“Sweeter yet,” Craig put in, “for Madame to have let me have the shot.”

“If I’d taken it,” she said, “I might have hit a beater.”

“They’re not all so considerate,” the maharajah laughed. “My guests do pot a couple of my people every year.”

The native music had tinkled off. An European orchestra panted into jazz.

“Dance, you two,” said Shri Bahadur, “and enjoy yourselves.”

He fluttered his hand and strolled away.

Madame de Gerville moaned softly to herself: “No! No! No! Never!”

2: Royal Command

"BY royal command,” said Craig, and put an arm about the lady’s slender waist. Her hand in his was as cool and soft as a flower. Still, he reflected, with proper self-discipline, he wasn’t the only tiger-killer of the two. She’d told him herself that she was about fed up on bowling over creatures that didn’t have a chance.

He recalled other things she’d told him. There were men who had their tigers killed with a trap-gun. The skin looked all the same when you got it home. There were others who caught their tigers or leopards in a sort of stone hut, using for bait a lamb that had had its ear twisted to make it bleat.

Craig wondered why he should be remembering these things now; and why, as he remembered them, he should always be thinking of Shri Bahadur as the sort of man who’d do such things.

He didn’t like it. Shri Bahadur was an old friend. Shri Bahadur was his host.

And there was another twist to his thought as he and his partner came to the end of the room where the gadi was —the raised gold seat with its ring of defeated and supplicant tigers.

“You’re dodging something because you’re afraid,” he was thinking.

It was true. He was poor. He was far from home. This was India, where he had certain work to do— work which depended almost solely on the favor of Shri Bahadur, Maharajah of Indarabad.

He lagged his step, then stopped, aware that this also was the immediate desire of Madame de Gerville.

“‘No, no,’ what?” he asked her softly.

She gave him a melancholy half-smile with eyes and lips. Attar of roses and the lights not in the least garish. At the moment she looked about sixteen. Damn it! Could any man find something better to do than to help a woman? They found a secluded floral bower.

They were barely seated before a barefooted butler salaamed and presented a tray of brimming, bubbling glasses. Nai! The white shadow melted. Another was there. Salaam and cigarettes. Achcha! And Craig held the match. For seconds the smoke of their two cigarettes intermingled like—Craig could feel it— their intertwining sympathies.

“I’ve got a daughter,” Madame Gerville announced at last, like a careful player putting down a card.

“How old?”

She made a mental calculation. “Seventeen.”

“Nothing but a kid.”

“I was no older when I was married— the first time. I was barely nineteen when Grail was born.”

Craig did a mental sum. He was looking at Madame de Gerville’s profile. He
was strongly moved. Ten years older than himself— not much more. Say thirty- six. Ten years was not such an awful gap. Aloud he repeated that oddish name she'd mentioned, not that it was the center of his interest.

“Grail?”

She nodded. Her throat swelled. She tamped out her cigarette. “Let’s get out of here,” she suggested hastily.

Tents and tents. The central shamiana was surrounded by a colony of tents— spacious, multi-roomed, double-roofed and connected by tent corridors— where the maharajah housed his guests.

The corridors were dimly lighted. Everywhere there was a flitting of silent, ghostly servants. Attar of roses, oil of sandalwood, musk— the scents and shadows were like provocative whispers. Craig, for one, was glad when they reached the open air— even when the long drawn sigh of a breeze brought with it a tang of the ancient city beyond the palace gates.

The tang passed quickly enough. In Indarabad, out of doors, it was the jungle that set the mood of the night— that and the sky. Tonight the sky was clear. It might be a month yet before the rains began.

Madame de Gerville stopped and looked about her in the blue dark. Craig took her hand and held it to his lips long enough for at least two breaths.

“That’s what makes me hesitate,” she said.

"What?”

“You’re so fine.”

“Good Lord! If you only knew!”

At that she laughed a little sadly. “I’ve been married twice. Why are we here? Why should I have been tempted to tell you my troubles when it can’t possibly do either of us any good?”

But Craig could tell that she was shaking— not from the cold, because the night was warm. Just to steady her, Craig put his solid arms about her shoulders— lightly enough. He made no attempt to kiss her. She made no attempt to draw away or nestle closer. Her dark head was bowed beneath his face, sending up a faint fragrance that was neither musk nor sandalwood nor attar of roses. Her shaking steadied to a quiet. She appeared to meditate.

Craig was thinking. Ten years older. Mother of a girl— how old did she say— what was her name— Grail was?

Madame de Gerville raised her face, turned it a little to one side. Craig read the prompting and meekly kissed her cheek.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll tell you. But it’s just selfishness now. I’m not afraid any more of—at least one of the things I was before.”

“What’s that?” Craig asked.

“Nothing. You’re a dear kid. You’re all right. She’ll be a lucky girl that ever marries you.”

“Oh, I say!”

“Never mind. May I call you Brandon ?” She caught the fingers of his nearer hand and before he could divine her intention, brushed them with her lips. “Come on, Brandon. Over here. I remember now. There’s a marble bench by the lotus-tank, and we’ll be away from those eavesdropping, those damnable tents.”

Still with his fingers hooked in hers she led him far over to the bench. It was almost as if they were seated away off somewhere in the jungle—shrubs and garden trees around them; frogs, crickets and running water covering over the sounds of music and voices from the tents.

Only once Craig turned to look in the direction of the tents. They gave him a momentary impression of snowy Kinchenjingha and her sister peaks as seen from Darjeeling on a moonlight night.

“I’m still married,” said Madame de Gerville in a small and shuddery voice.

“Still married ? I thought that Monsieur de Gerville—I beg your pardon.”

She nodded. “He died. Fever. In Pondichery. Eight years ago. He’s buried there.” There was a long silence. “It’s pretty terrible,” she said, as though discussing somebody else’s business. “It’s getting worse.”

“What’s getting worse?”

“It was in Pondichery that Grail disappeared.”

“How ?”

“Stolen.”

"Good God!”

“I—I’ve been looking for her ever since.” She turned her delicate face and looked up at Craig. In the starlight it had become a fragile, tragic mask, haggard and mostly eyes, but beautiful. The mask spoke: “She’s been found.”

“Wonderful!”

She nodded. But the tragic stamp of her face merely deepened. Madame de Gerville was like someone fighting for life. She was collecting strength for another attack on some monster that was threatening to kill her. Truth! Truth can be an awful slugger.

“Grail’s with her father. It was he who took her. When he’d found I’d married again.” She was panting out these statements with pauses between. Each statement came like the blow delivered by a game but exhausted fighter. “You may remember his name.” The name came in a sketchy whisper.

But Craig caught it: “Sir Hugh Wulverston!”

And like a sketchy whisper it began to form in his brain. It took on substance. Still in his brain it became a swelling sound. There’d been a time when the name of Sir Hugh Wulverston had made a sound something like that round the whole world. Traffic with the enemy— in time of war. He was supposed to have committed suicide.

Craig held silent. What could he say? But he thought of something he could say to break this crushing silence.

“Where does Shri come in?” he asked.

Before Madame de Gerville could make any answer of her own, Shri Bahadur himself answered from the darkness:

“Here! Right now!”

3: Love and Hate

THERE’D been no mistaking the sort of insolence with which his voice was charged. No “By your leave!” No “Beg your pardon!” Evidently he’d been hearing what was not intended for his ears. He was quite cynical about it. Craig’s thought flamed— Kipling knew: East was East, and West was West.

Craig had come to his feet—somehow, for no particular reason, almost expecting a fight. A throwback in his thought over all of eighteen years. This was the selfsame tank in which the heir to ancient Indarabad had tried to drown him. Not far from here was where he’d hauled off and hit the heir to that golden gadi in there— tigerskins and all— on the nose. He felt like doing it again.

The maharajah came forward lightly through the blue dusk, shining white in his silk and gold. There were massed bushes like a black screen just back of him. The aromatic scent of them awoke another old memory in Craig’s mind. The gardener had once told him the name of these bushes. Hari shringar.

He breathed the English equivalent aloud: “God’s ornament!”

Unintentional— unpremeditated, at any rate; but the bitter sarcasm was there. Shri Bahadur hadn’t missed it. For an instant, through the darkness, Craig felt the blaze of Shri Bahadur’s eyes. It was as if a tiger had given him the stare.

“I am here, perhaps, for the good of us all,” Shri Bahadur said, with only a faint trace of suppressed anger as he seated himself. His voice was smooth and swift—the glide of a snake, the figure occurred to Craig.

Craig also sat down, on the opposite side of Madame de Gerville. Deliberately he took her hand. She let him. They looked at Shri— two against one, no doubt about that.

“You two," said Shri, “were floundering into deep water. Pretty soon you might have been out of your depth. The least I could do was— what I’m doing now.”

“What’s that?” Craig challenged. But a swift pressure of Madame de Gerville’s fingers warned him to ease up.

“Giving you fair warning,” Shri answered sharply.

“That conveys a threat,” said Craig.

“Please! Both you boys listen to me,” Madame de Gerville broke in. “Shri, Brandon— Mr. Craig— doesn’t even know yet what it’s all about. Brandon, Shri  proposes to marry my daughter, Grail.”

“Oh, I seel”

“See what?” Shri Bahadur asked.

Put that way, it was a question that called for an answer—an answer thought out. There was a moment of silence.

“See,” Craig said slowly, with his set jaw vibrating to his words, “what Madame de Gerville was leading up to.”

“Guessing is sometimes dangerous,” said Shri.

“I’ll make one guess anyway,” Craig retorted, “and you can make it as dangerous as you want to, Shri Bahadur. And be damned to you!”

“You forget—”

“I don’t forget. Right now I’m remembering your father. He didn’t threaten his guests.”

“If you bring it on yourself—”

“I’m not talking about myself. I refer to Madame de Gerville. She’s your guest. You’re trying to coerce her to consent to this marriage by threats of some kind.”

Madame de Gerville drew away her hand.

“All right," said Craig. “I suppose it’s better that I leave.”

“Don’t go,” said Madame de Gerville, and put a restraining hand on his arm.

“That’s right, Agnes,” said Shri Bahadur, dropping his elbows to his knees and staring at the ground. “Keep him here. He’d merely be getting himself killed— out in the jungle or somewhere.”

“His Highness might let me hire one of his cars," said Craig.

“Rot!”

Madame de Gerville put out her hand and let it rest on Craig’s knuckles. Craig’s hand was straining at the edge of the bench on which the three of them sat. There was a tense silence.

“I’ll make a statement,” said Shri Bahadur. “Please don’t interrupt me. I need not remind you who I am. I need not remind you where you are. Yet I do. Doing so, I prove that I’m not altogether unmindful of your safety. Call it a threat —say I’ve threatened you already, if you wish. Very well, it is a threat. You two might persuade yourselves that it would be madness for me to hurt either one of you. That is very true. But then, I might actually go mad. Now. Any time. There is madness in my family.”

He was speaking softly, evenly, with his elbows still on his knees, still staring at the ground. But this was the first time that his threats had meant anything.

“I’ve a sort of cousin living up near Nepal,” Shri Bahadur went on. He slowly straightened up, still seated but facing them. “His name is Manju Bahadur. Perhaps you have heard of him. One of the bold, tough hillmen who’ve at least kept Nepal out of the grip of the British Raj. Tried to fight a bear a couple of years ago, when he was going on sixty, with nothing but his kukri — you know, the Ghurka knife. Did for it, too. But not until the bear got his nose and most of one cheek.

“I put it to you straight,” he said. “It’s to be him— or me!”

Craig felt the faint sharp quiver of Madame de Gerville’s hand. He turned to her and asked softly: “Where is this daughter of yours?”

“I don’t know.”

“You know,” said Craig, facing Shri Bahadur again.

“I do.”

“Where?”

“I’ll tell you where. You’re interested in temples. The girl and her father are in a temple— a deserted temple— in the heart of the jungle.”

“There are a hundred thousand deserted temples lost in the jungle.”

"Yes.”

“You said you’d tell me where.”

"If I told you more, America would lose one of its brightest young archaeologists.”

“Come to yourself, Shri. Please do! You’re not yourself. Shri, you are the Maharajah of Indarabad.”

“With power of life and death, and tell that to your friend, the Resident, when you see him next.”

“You don’t even know what the girl looks like.”

"Oh, don’t I though!”

"You’ve seen her?”

“Less than a month ago.”

“And her father?”

"Ask Agnes.”

“He brought me a bracelet I gave Sir Hugh years ago,” said Madame de Gerville.

“With a spoken message, Agnes,” Shri Bahadur prompted. “You are reticent. You’re confusing your new friend.”

Madame de Gerville flamed: “But he would have written—”

It was a cry. She was unable to go on. Openly, with no sense of inhibition,

Craig put his arms about her gently and pulled her to him. He sat there for a  while trying to get a grip on himself. He’d crack— he was sure of it— if he didn’t watch out. Against his breast he could feel the sharp, spasmodic movement of Madame de Gerville’s head and shoulders as she tried to control her sobs.

Across her through the blue and scented gloom Craig looked at Shri. The maharajah returned his look— dim, unguessable, poisonous and rich: India itself.

“What was the message Sir Hugh sent?” Craig asked.

“To that I might answer by saying that it’s none of your damned business.”

“You might. But I shouldn’t, if I were you.”

“Why not?”

“Because—”

In the straining dark and silence each could feel the other thinking thoughts of murder— a sort of silent thunder. Shri Bahadur broke the silence gingerly.

“Sir Hugh wants Madame de Gerville to come for the girl herself.”

“Where does this bear-fighting cousin of yours come in?”

The silence that followed was even more pregnant now than it was before. The silence lasted long. A slow tumult in the mind of Craig took shape and reason. He knew the answer to that question he had asked. The cousin Shri had mentioned, disfigured, old and awful, was to be offered Madame de Gerville as a sort of ransom.

Even as this grotesque horror of a thought-cloud shaped itself, Craig saw confirmation in Shri Bahadur’s face.

It happened in an instant. Craig twisted free. He’d flung himself forward and caught the maharajah by the throat.

4: Dark Labyrinth

AT that, Craig had been barely quick enough. There’d always been that swift reading of intent and secret thought between them. The heir of Indarabad, at the moment Craig was fumbling near the truth, had slipped a hand to the sash that was part of his costume. Craig saw the move and knew the purpose of it almost before it was begun.

As he caught Shri’s throat, Shri brought a small jeweled dagger into
play. He struck Craig twice in the left side. Before he could strike again, Craig released a hand and brought it up in a jolt that toppled the Hindu backward.

Craig went with him, murder in his heart.

Shri had dropped his dagger. The fall of it on the marble bench was almost as loud as any single incident of the fight thus far. There’d been no outcry.

The two of them, American and Hindu, lay across the bench heads down. In the blue dusk of the night, the marble bench was a pallor. On it there was a spreading stain.

All this had happened with such speed, with such an astounding outburst of violence without sound, that Madame de Gerville was as if stunned at first, trying to work reality out of chimera, substance out of nightmare. She’d been flung aside. It was as if she’d been snatched from a dream—or plunged into one.

But she saw the stain on the marble. She’d been to the pitiful school of tragedy so long that fresh tragedy now merely steadied her.

She was around the bench—imploring, working with her hands; but it was all in whispers, all without sound.

At a cry of alarm, there’d be general tumult.

To several million Hindus, many of them near, the Maharajah of Indarabad wasn’t a man; he was an avatar; he was the incarnation of a god.

Madame de Gerville righted the two of them, to some extent—pushed them up to the bench. She’d got Craig to loosen his grip. None too soon. A little more and Indarabad would have been without a ruler. The maharajah lay on his back, eyes staring, mouth open. He wasn’t breathing. There was a click in his throat to make one think of the death-rattle— so often mentioned, so seldom heard.

Craig, staggering a little, went to the tank—there where Shri had tried to drown him as a boy—and scooped up water in his hands. Not much was left by the time he was back, but his hands were gentle as he brushed Shri Bahadur’s face.

Another click and Shri came out of it. Now his lungs became a bellows. It looked at first as if each breath was meant to come back out as a shriek.

Craig brought his face close to the maharajah’s. “Keep quiet now,” he repeated in a whisper. “Don’t yell. If you do. I’ll kill you, Shri.”

Suddenly Shri spoke. “I hear you.”

Madame de Gerville whispered: “Brandon, you’re bleeding. You’ve been stabbed.”

Craig, still watchful over Shri Bahadur, tested his wounded side in various ways. “Nothing serious,” he pronounced, although now that the excitement was over each breath meant a shock of pain. “If he’d stuck me deep enough, he’d have reached a lung.” He took thought. “We’ll have to be moving,” he said. “We’re in a mess.”

“My tent,” Madame de Gerville suggested.

“Good,” Craig told her. “Go see if the coast is clear.”

Before she could leave, Shri Badahur stopped her with a gesture and a muffled word.

“Not those silly tents,” he labored. “You might as well post us up in the market place.”

“Where then?”

“The palace.”

Madame de Gerville, concerned for both of them, started to protest. “But Shri, they’ll see—”

“In the palace,” said Shri, staring and spacing his phrases, “they that see— what they’re not supposed to see— go blind.”

The three of them walked away like pleasure seekers in a park— a man and a woman in evening dress and one in carnival. Revelers. A little tired. A little tipsy.

There was a guest palace at Indarabad. But it was little used. It lay off to the left, dimly seen on the crown of a little hill, dark and sad like a haunted house. And haunted— Shri Badahur said so—  sure enough, by snakes and scorpions, and bats and other things. To such a point that not even the thief and murder castes of Indarabad would use it any more, as a hideout, for their secret meetings.

The maharajah appeared to be talking mostly to himself, yet willing to be heard —the bitter musings of a disillusioned cynic.

His musings would have been funny if they hadn’t been so awful. A maharajah in gala, himself now with a taste of thuggery in his bruised throat.

Secret meetings. Dark cults. Orgies with more than a hint of cannibalism about them.

The way to the palace seemed long— a plaza laid out to the scale of elephants, an expanse of steps reminiscent of Versailles. Back from the terrace above the stairs the palace itself reared its huge bulk.

Craig remembered the building well. His earliest impression— the one stamped into his memory when he first came here as a child with the general, his grandfather —returned to him now. Combination of circus and fort, of prison and county fair. Then—something else. Inside the place, the heir of Indarabad became his guide, had led him through what seemed like a thousand tunnels—dark, sharply angled, mysterious. For his child-mind, bred to the sun and the open air, that dark labyrinth had become a place of growing terror.

A breath of the old nightmare returned to him now.

Madame de Gerville was on his right. Shri Bahadur was on his left. Under the arm of each, Craig had slipped an arm. In his right hand he held the dagger Shri had dropped.

Craig held back and the three of them stopped in a huddle.

“You’d better go back to the tents,” Craig told Madame de Gerville.

“I don’t want to leave you,” she said.

Shri Bahadur broke in: “Then come along. It won’t take long. I’ve plenty of first-aid kit. You can patch him up yourself.”

“I think that would be better,” Madame de Gerville said.

Craig was thinking. A plan was forming in his mind. In any case they’d need the first-aid kit. It was in a dispensary he’d established— Shri Bahadur told them — in a basement of the palace.

“And you may do as you damn well please, so far as I’m concerned,” Shri Bahadur added. "I’m going to bed.”

“I think not,” Craig told him. “You’ll stay with us—right on through.”

“Through what?”

“This business you’ve started.”

As Shri Bahadur glared, Craig lifted the dagger into his line of vision.

They entered the palace by a small door set in the side of a vestibule built out from the side of the building in heavy masonry. Inside the vestibule, set high on a little shelf was a kitchen lamp that looked neglected and burned with a feeble flame.

In the depth of the vestibule, under the shadow of the lamp, two soldiers in dark uniforms and white turbans stood at attention with bayoneted rifles in their hands.

Shri Bahadur spoke softly— at Craig rather than to him. “If I but spoke the word, you may not know it, but you wouldn’t have a chance.”

“You’d die first,” said Craig.

They turned sharply to the left up three steep and grimy steps. Another narrow door, another smoky lamp. Prostrate on the floor an old man lay.

“Huzur,” he announced, “a visitor awaits.”

Shri Bahadur gave a meditative start.

“Let him wait,” said Craig, and he picked up the lamp. “Now, if you please, lead the way.”

Trailing shadows and mining an all- besetting dark, they made their way
through room after room, hallway after hallway, none of them large. Fortress, this was. In case of attack there’d be fighting from room to room. Not all imagination. Death, potentially in every shadow. Had the maharajah already sounded some secret alarm? There was no way of telling.

They were in the dispensary at last— Shri Bahadur, sullen in a corner; Craig stripped to the waist and arms up, but his right hand still holding the dagger  and his eyes on Shri, while Madame de Gerville tamponed his wounds— nothing, after all, but scratches.

The door clicked. The three of them jerked and stared. It was to see an apparition of horror— a face only remotely human; a human face, but one that had been terribly disfigured!

5: Jungle Night

IT was the Maharajah of Indarabad who broke the silence first. He spoke in a frightened whisper—  with breath enough but somehow voiceless.

“Jao! Jao!"

It meant: “Get out! Get out!”

A blur of understanding came to focus in Craig’s mind. The apparition was staring at Shri Bahadur. It let out a sort of wicked laugh and also whispered, but  loudly—a wind in a cavern:

“P eye chi!”

Meaning, “I have found thee!”

Ratification of what Craig thought—  or hoped. There was no love lost between these two.

“Nay,” said Craig— and his knowledge of several vernaculars, though limited, was good. “Come in! Come in! And— kasha moodi — welcome with blessings!”

The visitant turned his one good eye on Craig, and it was hard to tell whether he was laughing silently or was raging. The eye slid over Craig’s bare torso, found interest in the wounds— showing a flash of keen intelligence; then came to Madame de Gerville.

So far, Madame de Gerville had barely moved— “frozen” like a bird dog, and now ready to break. But game. She perhaps felt more courageous with Craig at her back and she repeated like a soft echo Craig’s last two words:

“Kosha moodi!”

The man came in—powerful, agile, attractive when you could forget his face, dressed mostly in khaki and linen. No turban; instead, a little round cap on his grizzled head.

Shri Bahadur had broken out into a vehement, swift flow of words that Craig couldn’t understand—except here and there an oath; but the newcomer stopped him with a most vigorous gesture and continued his study of Madame de Gerville. Since his first glance at her he hadn’t looked away.

“Sit down and rest yourself,” said Craig.

Madame de Gerville sighed as one does when a dentist stops work and says, “That will be all just now.” The man had looked away. He glanced at Craig, then at Shri, then back at Craig again.

“Who’s master here?” he asked.

“I am, O Manju, Killer of Bears,” Craig answered.

Manju Bahadur seated himself on his heels. He had a good, clean rifle in his hands and a cartridge bandoleer across his breast. At his belt hung a strong- bladed knife—the same kukri no doubt with which he’d killed the bear that had disfigured him. He watched absorbed as Madame de Gerville now ran bands of gauze about Craig’s body to complete her dressing of the wounds.

Craig thanked her. He handed her the dagger. He spoke to her in careful Bengali so that Manju would understand.

“Watch Shri Bahadur while I dress.”

Manju grunted a sound like a laugh. “You say well,” he said, “for even a maharajah may prove faithless."

Craig pushed into his shirt. “You speak as one having experience.”

“Shri Bahadur enriched me at least in that respect,” the visitor replied.

“How so?”

“Lo! He promised me this woman. I find her here dressing the wounds of another.”

Shri Bahadur broke in fiercely, halt rising from his chair. But the hillman snorted him to silence.

“How so?” Craig asked. “How could Shri Bahadur have promised you this lady? You talk like a fool.”

Manju looked about him. He may have been going over in his mind something Shri himself had just said. He fixed Craig with his eye. “Is she thine?” he asked.

Craig took the dagger from Madame de Gerville. She was shrinking a little, but merely as a fighting animal might shrink.

“Watch the lamp,” Craig told her in English. “We don’t want to be left in the dark. Watch Shri.” He spoke to Shri, still using English. “Shri, if war breaks out. I’ll try to kill you first.”

Shri pleaded softly, “Unless we trap that brute, he’ll, kill us both and take her anyhow.”

Craig didn’t answer. He looked at Manju. The hillman’s squat had become indefinitely the crouch. If it came to a battle, the rifle would probably be dropped. Even Ghurkas trained for years in the British army prefer the knife.

Craig said to Manju: “You saw the memsahib dress my wounds.”

“Yes.”

“Then you and I have no quarrel.”

"No.”

Craig turned his back and continued his dressing— studs, tie, coat. He listened acutely. Shri and Manju were speaking again, a jerky, throaty murmur that he couldn’t understand. Shri Bahadur was expostulating—that was clear enough; pleading, arguing. His cousin from the hills uttered no more than an occasional murmur.

Craig whispered to Madame de Gerville. "Now’s your chance. Slip out quickly. I’ll hold them here.”

“If you die, I die,” she told him in a breath.

“It’s to save your daughter— get away —tell the Resident—”

The only answer from Madame de Gerville was a sudden cry of warning. Craig pivoted. It was to see Shri Bahadur on his feet with a large bottle of carbolic acid in his hands. The cork was out. He tossed away a little of the liquid. The smell of it filled the room.

"I’ll burn you alive if either of you move,” the maharajah said. He was speaking to Craig and Madame de Gerville—speaking in English. “I’ll give you faces worse than his!” and he indicated his cousin.

He started to walk slowly from his corner, so tense and full of sinister meaning that there was a sort of incandescence about him.

He was headed for the door. He was keeping his eyes on Craig.

Craig had shoved Madame de Gerville back of him. He was restraining her there. In his other hand he held the dagger, poised but useless. He knew that bottle Shri held. He and Madame de Gerville had rejected the acid in it just now as too strong, too dangerous. It was liquid fire.

“Move, damn you!” Shri mocked in a whining whisper. He was too constrained for normal tones of speech. “Who’s master—”

There was a grunt and a lurch just back of him. Manju, the hillman, had thrust out and gripped an ankle.

The maharajah let out a screech and jerked the bottle to a tilt. He fell over a little way. And Craig, who’d jumped at him, striking at him with his dagger—Shri’s own dagger—with intent to kill, felt nothing on the steel but a rip of silk and tinsel. His impetus was such that Craig crashed on—stumbling against the wall.

At that, Shri was free and through the door.

He’d burned and stamped away the hand that had seized him, Manju’s.

Manju had started to his feet. But strange fire was eating an arm, eating one of his legs. He could fight a mad bear in the jungle with nothing but a knife. He couldn’t fight this Shaitan’s magic. Manju was suffering so that for the time he was helpless. A child could have taken his gun and knife.

Straining, straining, like a horse dragging an overload up a hill— a hill of fire for Manju. Then swiftly but gradually, the pain grew less and Manju found that both the woman and the man were anointing him with oil.

They’d heard a distant screech. There was no mistaking it. That was Shri Bahadur’s voice. The voice of a devil gone raving with rage and triumph.

They heard the shriek again—diminuendo.

It was followed almost immediately by a distant clamor of many elements—  shots, drums, the hoot of trumpets.

"Shiva-Vishnu!” said Manju. "And now he'll be cheating me even out of the maiden.”

“What maiden?”

"The one who looks like her,” he replied, indicating Madame de Gerville.

“You two—even the woman—Shri Bahadur will kill. He told me so just now — and the girl—”

“Know you the way out of here?” Craig asked.

“Yes.”

“Can you find it in the dark?”

“Follow!” said Manju. “In the dark, I have the eye of a tiger.” He was listening to the signals of alarm. At the same time wonder touched him as he watched Madame de Gerville pour yet another bottle of oil over his bandaged leg, then over the bandaged arm.

She’d served five years in hospitals during and after the war.

“And in the dark,” said Manju looking at Craig but speaking belike at the woman, “I have a face like yours.”

Two hours later, by ways and cunning they’d never forget— nor understand—Manju had brought them through an entire army and a racing torchlit riot. Tonight they’d heard the voice of a lynching mob. Now the jungle reared its black cruelty about them— and they feared it less.

6: Tiger—Tiger!

EVEN while all this was happening— riot included, with thirteen killed and two hundred other indiscriminate victims, more or less, infecting fresh wounds with unclean rags and filthy lotions— the music and dancing had continued in the shamiana. The butlers went their rounds, barefoot and turbaned— a score of them at least. Salaam and pass I Salaam again!

The wine was chilled and lively, Toujours juste à point! My word, what do they do with all the stuff that begins to lose its sparkle?

The maharajah’s elephants like it.

More nautch. Twelve girls this time. Bayadeers, temple dancers. They must be neophytes, they look so young. But they dance like full initiates. Clever that! The other lights are dimmed. The music goes into a muted, thudding murmur and the girls are a dream of Krishna’s milkmaids as they dance under an artificial moon.

Might as well make a night of it anyway. No more tigers. One of his highness’s aides passes the word around. Advice has just arrived that another of the maharajah’s cousins is— likely to die.

Getting too deucedly hot anyway. But what’s all this talk about a ruction in the streets of Indarabad tonight?

The servants talked. Madame de Gerville had a maid, Kasturi. She’d had her for years. Craig had a factotum, Dost Mohammed, who was a gray heirloom from the general, and after the general, Craig’s mother. Dost Mohammed would be about as careless of Craig’s disappearance as he would of his own head.

Then there was a young Englishman among the maharajah’s guests who would some day be a noble lord.

And it merely happened, of course, that the young Englishman’s chief native servant— the young Englishman had three — was a most efficient but self-obliterative fellow who answered to the name of Hakim. Which wasn’t as a matter of fact, his name at all.

The truth of the matter was that in certain circles this man Hakim was better known by a number. The name might change. The number didn’t. Hakim was a most valued member of the C. I. D. — the Criminal Investigation Department.

Touchy business, fooling with the divertisements of these native rulers. Especially in times like these.

And down from the hills had come various rumors about a certain Manju Bahadur and his cousin, the Maharajah of Indarabad.

Past midnight and Hakim had seen his young Englishman put to bed. There’d been other things than champagne and the boy had sought to drown his grief. He’d been smitten—terribly so, the first noble passion of his life—by a certain Madame de Gerville. And quite obviously she’d passed him completely up for an American. He’d probably wind up by shooting Brandon Craig—if the chappy ever showed up again. Craig and the charming widow had disappeared. Hakim knew—almost before anyone else. He talked, he listened—to Kasturi, Madame de Gerville’s maid; to Dost Mohammed, Craig’s man—and neither of these servants were in the slightest degree of the talkative kind; to many others Hakim talked and listened. And sometime between midnight and dawn, at Hakim’s bidding, one of the obscurer subjects of the Maharajah of Indarabad set out to run the sixteen miles of jungle-road that led to the earest railway telegraph.

There was a local telegraph office also, to be sure; and Hakim used it. But telegrams filed in the stations of some of these native states had a way of arriving one week late or with curious amendations.

Hakim’s runner was practically naked. At no place along his black sixteen miles of jungle road was he safe from snake or leopard, tiger or bear; or bhuts, which are ghosts. But he carried a string of rudraksha beads, supposed to help. He didn’t know. He didn’t care. He had a silver rupee tied in his loincloth. Stepping high and wide, he kept dropping the miles behind him...

What interested Secret Agent Hakim as much as anything in all this was that the maharajah himself had disappeared.

“There’s the long way and the short way, ” Manju had said; “the horse way and the tiger way. Shri Bahadur— I know him— will take the way of rajahs and women. We’ll go the trail of tigers and men. ”

There was a real trail, Craig learned, back into the hills that carried the name of the Tiger Trail. Tigers had their individual rounds. That he knew. A regular schedule, with a great time sense— the striped pointer of a fearful clock, ticking off death toward the allotted hour— a month and half or two months to complete the round of some jungle dial. Then also, these great annual migrations Manju spoke about— like buffalo, like people.

Tigers snarled at rain. They didn’t like it. When the rains began in the lowlands the ablest of the tiger horde— even as did the great ones of the British Raj—  took to the hills.

Two days up from Indarabad, where Manju could be sure of the people about him, he’d stopped to rest. Yet Manju— “In the dark I have a face like yours” — had seen to the comfort, as well as he could, of his sahib-log —Sahib Craig and the memsahib who had oiled his burns.

At the break of the first day, two hill-men—Paharias, dwellers in the hills— had gone down into Indaraba Town.

They returned with certain luggage and ponies and two servants to be vouched for by the sahib-log— the white folks. Dost Mohammed was one of these, and for him Craig vouched— as he would have vouched for father and mother. The other was one Hakim, to take the place of Kasturi, Madame de Gerville’s maid, and for him Dost Mohammed vouched, which made him acceptable. Kasturi had been reassured. She would take all else that belonged to her lady to Darjeeling, where Madame de Gerville had a house.

Beyond this next jungle village there would be no more horse-travel. Then would begin the true Tiger Trail.

The Hindus have a proverb: Let him who has never seen a tiger look at a cat.

As the trail of the cat crosses back fences, the Tiger Trail went up and down over these spurs and gothic butresses of the Himalaya foothills. Not even a palanquin now would do to help the sick, the feeble, or the lazy, along this way of men and tigers. A dandi perhaps—a chair or even a basket on a coolie’s back.

But such was not for Craig, not any of them— not even the woman or Manju, whose burned leg went out of service.

Manju rested at a temporary camp that the dwellers of the hills were building for him one afternoon, when a breathless boy came running into the clearing and announced: “Huzur”— as one might say, “O Presence”— “the tiger has appeared.”

The hand of the tiger-clock had made its round. The small village from which this boy came was one of the figures on the tiger-clock dial. The clock had struck. The tiger had killed this boy’s brother.

“I’ll go,” said Craig.

It was Hakim— Madame de Gerville’s new servant— who suggested that Craig take a shotgun— twenty-bore and loaded with lethal bullets; a better weapon in the dark than any rifle. The shooting would be in the dark.

Curious about Hakim. He seemed to know about everything. Yet serving now in lieu of a lady’s maid.

Yet there was one thing that Hakim hadn’t known nor guessed. Nor Craig himself. Nor the almost omniscient Dost Mohammed. Had Manju? There came, again and again to Craig, as he followed his guide, the last look he’d had f Manju —and Madame de Gerville.

She’d insisted still on being the trained nurse to this hillman whose face had been raked by a bear. Hot water, disinfectant, oil, cotton and gauze— alien flesh burned raw and an alien soul flaming down at her from an eye that was like a star of dangerous omen.

Manju Bahadur had risked his life in a variety of unholy ways when he’d called on his cousin, the Maharajah of Indarabad. In a way, it appeared, Manju himself was a claimant to the Indarabad throne.

Craig caught a mental vision of Manju, back there in his temporary camp, dreaming of taking that throne for himself some day, and having this memsahib as the mother of his heir. “In the dark, I have a face like yours... He’d also said: “None but a maharajah could be comely with a face like mine.”

Without a pause, the boy had turned from the camp to return to the village of the tiger. That was at four in the afternoon. Night fell. Up—they crossed a razorback divide— down— they threaded a thin, hard trail through high grass.

They walked all night. It was just before daybreak that they came to a collection of mountain-huts where everyone was astir and where a hundred voices were murmuring that fateful word— in reproach, it seemed, rather than anger:

“Bagh! Bagh!”

Craig knew they were crying “Tiger! Tiger!”

And a hundred were ready to escort the sahib out to where the Lord of Death had spread his table. They’d not disturbed what was left of the tiger’s victim.

7: Grail

THESE people were goatherds and dealers in jungle produce. They’d fed their lord the tiger without  complaint as long as he selected meat from among their goats. This village was his village. Every fourth moon he’d come to collect his tax. But the time  before this he’d killed a woman, this time a boy.

They’d left the boy where the tiger had put him, which was not very far from the place where he’d made the kill. This was where he would appear again.

In a light so gray that it was nearly dark, they led— yet followed— Craig out through the village and up through a thick tangle of rose bushes to a little plateau. There was a hush as they came to the plateau— an old goat pasture, gnawed to the rock except for an occasional patch of thorn.

The boy who had been Craig’s guide was shivering at his side— not from fear, Craig divined; more like an eager hound in leash. The boy raised a thin, naked arm and pointed. Craig followed the point.

The thing was there.

He could feel that it was there. Yet he couldn’t see it. He could feel the vibration of the villagers fanned out in a wide arc back of him. They also saw it. They were shiveringlike this boy.

Then Craig saw it. He had been seeing it all along. Only he hadn’t been aware that he’d been seeing it.

A disc like a moon. A moon come to earth to slake some awful lunar appetite. Yet wholly aloof from earthly emotion. One of the largest tiger masks he had ever seen—motionless, implacable. Yes, this much the tiger would concede. The man herd pleased him better than the herd of goats....

With no sense of time, yet master of time, Craig raised his gun. He was so tired that he had no shake left in him. So many times had he risked death this night in that endless plod and scramble through jungle depths and over high rocks that fear had been drained out of him completely.

He was in no hurry. He saw the lash of a tail. He had to lower his forward sight a bit as the moon-disc lowered and changed expression. The tiger was going to charge. These people back of him were frightened. He could feel that they were. He fired.

Where the moon had been there was a great eruption. It was as if a horse had reared— but a tiger, its forepaws spread into a clawed and shaggy cross against the mournful dawn.

Dead. He knew it.

But he kept the villagers back until he’d gone forward to make sure, his second barrel ready. He stood there looking down at the striped thing. He’d shot it between the eyes. It was the place he’d aimed at. He felt no pride.

As he turned and started back, the people were already rushing forward, clamoring and wailing and expressing wonder. He shut his eyes and ears against the sight. He wanted to rest. He wanted peace and food. He felt such a poignant melancholy that he had the greatest desire in the world to sit down somewhere and weep.

Mingled with this melancholy somehow, was a loneliness for Madame de Gerville. He was like that tiger he’d just killed back there. The natives had told him that the reason the tiger hadn’t returned to its kill earlier was that it had been off visiting— fighting, probably, courting. He wished that he and Madame de Gerville were tigers—

He raised his eyes. He stopped transfixed.

Heart and brain had stopped, it seemed, for now there was a sense of their humming and throbbing again where before there’d been nothing but a numbness.

A voice inside his brain kept shouting the news that had shocked him so and now was thrilling him. Yet even so, he couldn’t realize it. The truth was too astounding.

A younger, a more haunting Madame de Gerville was standing there in front of him— hair, eyes, mouth, even that subtle hint of telling you things without the need of words. This was Madame de Gerville’s daughter. This was Grail.

“Good morning,” said Craig.

“How strange!” she said.

They stood there looking at each other. Even in those few seconds there was an infusion of pink warmth in the gray dawn. It was as if the dead world were being called back to life.

“That’s so,” said Craig. “It’s strange all right.”

He had no particular idea as to just what he meant, but he felt that it was so. He hadn’t smiled. Grail smiled— fleetingly, with a little toss of her head, as if she were throwing the smile over her shoulder.

“You’re Grail,” he said. “I know your mother.”

“You come from her?"

He meditated briefly. Well, he did come from Madame de Gerville, didn’t he? He answered: “Yes.”

Boots and breeches, he noticed— greatly scuffed and even graceful through long use; a rough, silk shirt, with something vaguely Tibetan about it; an old tweed coat that originally had been meant for a man—or a boy. The collar of the coat turned up a little in the back. A boy in stature and build. Yet the most feminine creature he’d ever seen— in the old romantic, stirring, die-for-you sense, when women were ladies and men were knights.

Her head was bare and her dark hair, wavy and abundant, had tawny weatherings that somehow matched her skin.

“How is mother?” she asked.

“Fine. She’s on her way to see you.”

“And—see father?”

Craig nodded, not so sure. He asked:  “How is your father?”

She paused. He waited. She said:  “Fine!” Not so very sure. She jumped for a certainty and announced it. “We’re not very long back from Tibet,” she said.

"That’s great! Tibet!”

His enthusiasm evidently caused her a little quiet surprise. “If I may ask,” she said, “I’d love to know who you are.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. My name is Brandon Craig.”

“Brandon Craig!” she mused, and for no particular reason, tossed another smile over her shoulder. “I know there was a General Craig. Of the British army?”

Craig shook his head. She’d seen his slight start at her mention of a general. He’d thought she was going to mention General Brandon. Was she going to think now that he was concealing something? There was some sort of a submerged shadow now in her crystal mood.

“Father never sent those arms into Tibet,” she said. “Books were what he sent. You know how heavy books are. And he had to be secret about it because they were meant for the Tashai Lama. You know how jealous of him the Dalai Lama was.”

Craig nodded. The warm, bright eyes of the girl were demanding some sort of acknowledgment. She went on.

“Well, the books were dumped, just as father always knew they must have been, and the machine-guns put in their place—”

Craig was listening. But it was rather as one very often listens to music. His senses were lulled by a flow of liquid rapture. His mind set free. What a peach of a girl! This was spring. Yes, and a perfume, a hue of miracle about all this. He’d thought he was in love with Madame de Gerville. Yes, he did love her. He could confess it now. For here was Madame de Gerville herself begun all over again. The most impossible of all dreams realized. The “might have been” became “it is.”

“Don’t you think so?” Grail asked on a note of tender exaltation.

“Absolutely!” And he wished he’d followed what she’d said.

The wish redoubled under her gentle, serious scrutiny. Presently she told him that she’d “come over” to buy the daily supply of goat’s milk. Two miles, just about— equal to six down on the tarai, the plains below; up here—jungle, rocky, up and down.

“Alone ?”

She nodded.

“You must have started in dark night.”

“I wanted to see you.”

“Me?”

The faintest stain of added color contributed its mite to her smile.

“Well, I heard that someone was coming to kill their tiger. You see, we’ve a tiger of our own. I rather hoped that this one might be ours. But it isn’t. Ours is smaller, a deeper orange. I’ve seen it twice—”

“Good Lordl”

And she was walking these woods alone.

“Father’s set a trap for it. He’s made that much of a concession. You see, he’s a Bhuddist. He doesn’t believe in killing— not even to save his life.”

“Nor yours?”

She shook her head with a wistful look.

8: Jungle Eden

THE Honorable Grail Wulverston, the facts somehow became translucent; daughter of Lord Wulverston of Wulverston. She didn’t blame her father for carrying her off. General Craig, who’d headed the war-time court, had begun by driving her father practically insane. Her father, she surmised, must have been just a little mad anyway. A Bhuddist. A vegetarian. “You understand ?”

“How’d he ever happen to get married?” Craig quavered. He hastily added: “Of course, I’m terribly glad he did.”

“My mother was beautiful. Father loved beautiful things.”

As for the rest, the beautiful world of the Wulverstons blown up, annihilated, when Lord Wulverston was “caught redhanded” shipping arms into Tibet. C’etait la guerre! And everybody— positively everyone— suffering from some sort of shellshock!

Grail bought goat’s milk. So did Craig. On goat’s milk they breakfasted together in a jungle sunrise, under a spreading cedar.

“How long does your father expect to remain in this old temple?” Craig asked.

Grail’s eyes went moist. But she laughed. “He’s waiting for transport. The Maharajah of Indarabad has promised him a hundred ponies and men. It will take that many to get out the books that were dumped there when the arms were substituted. We found out about all that while we were in Tibet.”

Craig asked softly: “How did the Maharajah of Indarabad become interested ?”

She looked away.

“Tell me,” he commanded.

First, she said, they’d been looked over and questioned by a queer and grotesque sort of person who appeared to be the suzerain of all the hills people hereabouts. His people called him the Baloo— the Bear. He’d fought a terrific battle with a bear—

Craig recognized the sketch. Manju.

He said nothing. He didn’t want to interrupt her. Any more than one would have wanted to interrupt the song of a thrush.

But this wasn’t all thrush music. Baloo had offered to buy her. He’d offered her father lands and money. He’d offered a thousand books, none of which would be less than a thousand years old. Just as a sample, he’d brought Sir Hugh a few samples— pages of beaten gold, painted in vivid colors—

Craig’s breast rose and fell. There was the soul of a Lorenzo the Magnificent in that old bandit. Manju Baloo! “In the dark I have a face like yours.” Craig felt vaguely ennobled and at the same time a great distress. He could have killed Manju. Yet if he’d been Manju, he’d have done the same. He was Manju now, in his heart, as he looked at the girl. Having looked at her, how would he ever live without her?

But when Sir Hugh had turned the old Bear out, Manju had applied himself to the girl direct. With stories. With gifts. With threats— against himself, her father, the three of them together.

“And all this time,” said Grail, “he had us absolutely in his power.”

“What held him back?”

“He wasn’t altogether bad. Like a bear. He was like a cave bear. Ravening. But tameable— almost. And I couldn’t get father to leave his precious books.”

“How’d you get here?”

“With a party of Tibetan priests— at the risk of their lives.”

“You might, perhaps, have sent a message. To the nearest thanadar— the chiefs of police are loyal.”

“There was no one to send. These were all his people. Finally I got him to go himself— down to Indaraba. The maharajah came.”

Not until now did Grail show a flame of anger.

“Never mind,” said Craig.

He’d walked all night. He hadn’t slept. He needed a bath. He yearned for a shave. The thought wouldn’t leave him that he felt and looked like Manju Baloo.

He wrote a note to Manju Baloo on a palm-sheath with the point of his knife. It was really to Madame de Gerville. Manju would give it to her to translate:

We wait here. All well. B. C.

He gave the note to a young hillman and bade him take it to Baloo.

And the boy was off at a trot as if he were headed for the corner grocery.

Chains. Collectors of jungle stuff— gums and fruit, snakes and monkeys and birds. Wild as the jungle itself. There wasn’t one but carried a strong knife.

He called for the elders of the caste. Five of them, and two could understand his Bengali.

Baloo, he told them, had nearly been slain by his cousin, the maharajah. The maharajah was now headed up into the hills by the horse trail to take Baloo in a net. Was there not a way to delay the coming of the maharajah until Baloo himself could come and advise them what to do?

Husur!

There was to be a Tiger Feast this night. There was nothing that so gave strength to the already strong. Was there ever a time when Chains could not block a jungle trail? Let the sahib friend of Baloo sleep on both ears. The thing was done.

Yet the sun still almost on a level— slanting a thousand golden bars through the trees wherever the woods were a little open. A morning like that of a perfect June day at home— hardwood, evergreen, drifts of bloom like dogwood and wild cherry; a white girl to walk beside.

“I was afraid,” said Grail, “that you wouldn’t be what you are. Now I’m afraid because you are what you are.”

One of the goatherds had gone on before them with the jar of milk. Grail was walking lightly at his side where a grove of deodars made the going easy. It was as if there were no enemy in the world.

“Say that again,” he said.

She did. He repeated it after her.

Without aforethought, it seemed, they’d
stopped and were looking at each other.

He was down the slope of the hill, so that now she was looking down at him. A curious thing about a look— some looks; and this was one of them. It had begun as nothing. Its transformation into something splendid and unearthly was as swift and soft as that of a falling star.

"Yes,” he said.

She was touched by an agitation.

“Yes, what?”

"I know I look like an awful tramp,” he said.

She shook her head. There could be no doubt about it. She distrusted words just then.

“But, Grail, I tell you reverently, you’re the most marvelous thing God ever made.”

“I— I like you, too,” she said.

“Do you think it would worry your father if we sat down here for say, five minutes ?”

She sat down at once with her arms about her knees and looked away. Still without looking at him, she said in a little voice, “Try to sleep for a moment. You must be nearly dead.”

“I’m nearly dead,” said Craig.

He put down the gun. He stretched himself out on the cushioned, fragrant carpet under the deodars. He closed his eyes, seriously bent on a moment of oblivion. But almost instantly, his eyes came open, meeting hers. She smiled. He noticed the small, white teeth between her sensitive, lovely lips.

Again she looked away. “Sleep!” she lulled.

But he was now invaded by a sudden violence of emotion that brought him up with a jerk to sit at her side—frightening, a little bit, like an unexplained swirl suddenly developed in a quiet pool: an unseen monster, something terrible, unguessed and beyond control.

“But Grail,” he cried, “I can’t sleep. Oh—”

“You’re overwrought,” she said. “I suppose it’s because— well, just that tiger was enough.”

“Not that, Grail. No, not that. I know. Would you mind— it would help a lot, Grail— if I told you really what it is?”

He was watching her. She was gazing at her knees, smiling faintly, with a mystic look. “I promise,” he assured her hoarsely, “it won’t hurt you.”

“All right,” she said, suspended and motionless. “What?”

“Oh, God, I love you so!”

She drew a long, soft breath. "No, that didn’t hurt,” she said. “But I feel as if my heart were breaking.”

He leaned over and touched his lips to her sunburnt hair.

9: Alias, Hakim

CURIOUS, the things the sun could see if the sun were an eye. Take Hakim, for example, valet to Madame de Gerville.

"Chota hazri, Memsahib!”

Little breakfast, early tea; turbaned, barefooted— as a sign of polite respect; freshly immaculate in white, impersonal as a sphinx.

Hakim had the cheek-line of a good bull-terrier; the same sort of hair-trigger steadiness. At home in the jungle. At home in the tent. Neither man nor snake would disturb Madame de Gerville with Hakim around.

Hakim (Number So-and-So in the secret files of the C. I. D.) sent off reports.

Sir Hugh Wulverston had recently recrossed the border from Tibet into India. With his daughter Grail. The mother of the girl, widow of the late Commandant de Gerville, Pondichery, was now on her way to meet Sir Hugh at Bawani Tol.

And with this as a cornerstone, Agent No. — (alias Hakim), as usual at the center of things, revealed to his superiors, the spreading drama of that ruined jungle temple called Bawani Tol.

It was no less a personage than Manju Bahadur, surnamed the Bear, who personally contributed important information to Hakim in this connection.

Dost Mohammed (Craig’s bearer), Hakim, and Manju Bahadur, sat smoking at the bright little fire in their camp the night the message from Craig came back.

“They’ll be awaiting us at Bawani Tol,” said Manju Baloo. “A good place for secret business across the northern border. All the better because difficult of access."

Neither Dost Mohammed nor Hakim spoke. They were not men to spit in the fire or speak out of turn. Otherwise, this fighting elder would not be treating them as equals.

“I learned that the Angerzi, this woman’s husband”— and Manju motioned with his head toward Madame de Gerville’s tent— “was seeking an agent to forward certain cases of books to one of the great ones in Lassa. An agent was found for him. At the same time one who bore my name but who had another face had certain arms requiring shipment. There was transport for only the one or the other.”

Manju reflected bitterly.

“It was great labor to dump the books and use the boxes for the arms. But the work was neatly done. Work that was never paid for and which came to nothing since the arms were seized.”

Just out of politeness, Hakim put in:

“But he who engineered the shipment of arms. He must have paid.”

“With his life,” said disfigured Manju. “And thus the man who bore my name became an ally of the British Raj.”

“Huzur!” both Dost Mohammed and Hakim murmured by way of polite applause.

Manju ate smoke.

“The tale is not yet ended,” he said. “The man who bore my name himself owed a debt—to the husband of this woman. When this husband, although a babu and not a fighting man, was unjustly condemned for shipping arms, it was the man who bore my name who carried the Ingrezi babu into Tibet. Likewise, he who carried back a message for the woman over there. But he was waylaid and stripped by the agents of the British Raj. He was flung into prison and the writing disappeared.”

Manju cocked an ear. From the jungle toward the south there came the weird cry of a frightened jackal— a “Feeanwh-h-h!” ending in a shudder.

“The jackal sees a stalking tiger,” Manju announced simply. “It was to similar music that the man who bore my name, once out of prison, again sought the high passes, this time to tell the Ingrezi babu that his message had never been delivered. And now he bore the babu company coming back. But lo, now, when they found the woman at last she was married to another. So they stole the little girl and they took her away into Tibet.”

Manju laughed. But there was something in that laugh to remind both Hakim and Dost Mohammed of the jackal’s cry.

“You’d think,” he concluded, “that now when they met him— he who bore my name— they’d know him. Him they’ve forgotten. They know only— Manju the Bear... ”

Since they were following the Tiger Trail and moving slowly on account of Manju’s leg, the distance covered by Craig in some twelve or fourteen hours stretched on and on.

Dost Mohammed, supplied with packers by Manju, had hurried on ahead to Bawani Tol, where Craig Sahib would need razor and toothbrush!

Only Manju, Madame de Gerville and Hakim still in camp— apart from the shifting packers and trackers, woodchoppers and headmen who came and went. Not a conscript or an hireling among them. Free subjects, these were, of Manju the Bear. Volunteers.

Hakim heard, saw, interpreted. There’d be a battle of some sort before many days near the ruined temple called Bawani Tol. But a family quarrel. In a native state. It was not one in which the great British Raj could stoop to intervene.

Strange jungle tramps came and went. Hakim found amusement apparently in listening to their strange vernacular. He himself could speak all the languages of the hills. Some tramps left and others came— yogis, exorcisors, cattle thieves, smugglers.

And somewhere a man at a desk— a sort of benign yet dangerous spider at the center of his web— received daily accounts of developments in Indarabad and the neighboring hills.

There’d been a rather unholy odor from Indarabad since the death of the old maharajah. Pretty thick, the things that passed in most of the native states anyway. But their own business, so long as they kept it to themselves. But Shri Bahadur had been rather overreaching. Trying to involve Lady Wulverston! Yes. She’d became Lady Wulverston again, of course, along with vindication for Sir Hugh...

That was one thing though on which Hakim would make no secret report.

"Chota hazri, Memsahib!”

“Achacha, Hakim!”

And Hakim would step into the lady’s sleeping tent at the break of day with a tea service as clean— and no more personal— than himself.

Not a word, not a look, never a smile, the perfect automaton. Yet somehow, Hakim both saw and omprehended. Madame de Gerville felt that he did. They spoke no word of a personal sort even when they were following the rough and dangerous trail. But to Madame de Gerville, Hakim was a support without which she could never have gone on.

She realized this most when she heard Hakim pronounce, at last, a familiar yet incredible name.

She’d been at her familiar evening task of dressing the wounds of Manju Bahadur. The wounds, both on arm and leg, were healing nicely They’d have healed more quickly still had Manju permitted himself to be carried. But—Shiva Vishnu!— did they take him for a woman ?

And scarcely had Hakim pronounced that familiar name before Manju the Bear himself sprang up, almost upsetting Madame de Gerville, who’d been kneeling by the wounded leg.

“Sir Hugh Wulverston!”

How had Hakim known— been so quick and sure? As Madame de Gerville saw that aged and ghostly man coming toward her at the head of a dozen coolies, she felt that she would rather have faced a tiger.

Hugh— her mind ran— sixty now. Looking eighty. It was she who was responsible for those added years. It was an added reproach to herself that she now divined that his fear of this meeting was as great as her own. Greater! She’d caught the gleam of hope in his mild eyes as he saw the horror that was Manju standing there with the bandage slipping from his leg.

“Ah, yes! A work of mercy!”— she could almost hear his voice.

She’d forgotten to move. She was still kneeling on the ground as she heard Manju’s greeting:

“Now behold the joy of my one good eye! My father and my mother! Sahib!”

Lord Wulverston made a slight gesture with his joined fingertips toward his forehead. He was smiling, mild, as he looked at his wife.

“Hugh!” she muttered from her knees.

He put out his hand and helped her to her feet. Both of them were trembling like stage-struck children.

Hakim salaamed. - “I'll serve tea immediately in Memsahib’s tent.”

They’d barely entered the tent before Sir Hugh, after a quick look about him, said: “Agnes, have you and Grail—”

He stopped as he saw her blank look. “Grail!”

“She’s not here?”

“No!”

They stood looking at each other. Their hands met—and clung. They were in each other’s arms, fused as if by some sudden flash of dread.

10: The Trap

GRAIL had started out to meet her mother the day before. The distance was no longer very great. Craig had accompanied her as far as Bawani village— the little jungle hamlet where they first had met. There she’d commanded him to go back. Sir Hugh would be waiting.

There’d sprung up a most responsive and mutually inspiring friendship between Craig and Lord Wulverston— strong because it wasn’t mere sentiment. There was an intellectual bond between them— both engrossed in their kindred specialties of writing and art.

Anyway, Dost Mohammed, carrying a gun, was Grail’s sufficient escort.

Next morning. Dost Mohammed would escort Sir Hugh, shaken but dreaming, to Madame de Gerville’s camp, by which time Grail would have eased the way.

Night passed. Dost Mohammed hadn’t returned. Rather disappointing. But, after all, no occasion for either anger or alarm. Along toward noon, Sir Hugh was on his way— leggings, topi, his least shabby suit, and a quaking heart. Him also Craig accompanied to Bawani jungletown, where Sir Hugh picked up a native escort.

Craig returned alone to Bawani Tol, the temple. Bawani Tol, like so many other temples in this part of the world, had originally been more of a scattered town of buildings than a single structure, although it was the main building where they lived that was known as the temple.

A vast building, of three receding or setback stories, built of stone, partly open and partly enclosed, with a broad vestibule and terrace on the lower floor.

As Craig was just mounting the steps of this terrace, he saw someone lying on the ground at the further end.

It was Mohammed— not dead, but nearly. He’d been beaten and choked. Then left for dead— as the story came out, after Craig had worked on him for an hour or so. Craig with no one to help him. Bawani village far beyond hail.

And Grail?

"Allah take my life for hers!” Dost Mohammed didn’t know. He had been ambushed by twenty men. Grail had been carried off. The only thing he could be certain of was this was the work of that Shaitan’s spawn, Shri Bahadur.

Craig got the old man to at least a comparative state of survival and was off to the village. Not many but the feeble elders and children were left in the village, but he got such help as he could and sent out an appeal for more.

He was half frantic. He couldn’t leave Dost Mohammed to die of neglect. The old man had been a mother and a father to him, as he’d been to his mother’s father and his mother herself.

He was running back to where he’d left Dost Mohammed— it was now coming along toward dark— when he thought he heard a cry...  Grail’s voice!

And it nearly stopped his heart, like the squeeze of a hand, although he became immediately convinced that he couldn’t have heard the cry except in his brain.

He stood there looking out through the ruined and overgrown combination of haunted temples and jungle when he heard a distant thud and a splintering of wood. He stood considering the strangeness of this and holding his breath. Woodchoppers never came to this part of the jungle. They held a universal belief in bhuts — in ghosts. These old temples were haunted.

"Brandon!”

It wasn’t a sound and yet he heard it. It might have been as one hears a voice in his memory. He was remembering other things— the tiger she’d seen—  the tiger-trap her father had devised. He didn’t even know where the thing was, or what it consisted of.

But now that thud and splintering of wood took on significance.

It wasn’t until he’d flung himself against a makeshift door of one of the buildings that it occurred to him that he wasn’t armed. If it occurred to him then.

Then there it was— the picture before him complete.

The building itself was stone with thick walls— a single oblong room about
ten feet by twenty and a high ceiling, possibly eighteen feet. For the last three feet of this height the walls, instead of being solid as they were below, consisted of close-set stone pilasters.

The original purpose of the building flashed on him at once. This had been a burial chamber, and the significance of it was merely some slight contribution to the general horror.

There was the tiger. There was Grail.

Between them there was a sort of wooden screen which Craig recognized at once as the work of a not very experienced or enthusiastic amateur. Grail’s father had built the screen. It completely blocked off perhaps five feet at the end of the chamber. The whole thing had been constructed of saplings and withes. In a lower corner of the screen was a small door similarly constructed and now held shut by twisted withes.

Lord Wulverston’s intention was manifest. He’d intended to bait his trap with a live goat or kid. But instead of allowing the creature to be slain, the lure would be placed behind the screen.

The tiger would be attracted just the same. There’d been the beginning of some sort of a contrivance to close the outer door by the tiger’s own weight,  once the brute had entered.

Then— well, if a native cared to— he could shoot the tiger in safety from those openings above.

So simple. So swift. Revealing yet staggering like a flash of lightning too near.

Other details— with Craig still on the threshold.

Grail, white as a phantom, looking as if she were already dead— not from this present terror but as if this were merely the climax of peril and violence long sustained. Clothes tom. Jungle stains of mud and slime.

Then the tigress, making a game of this.

“He who has never seen a tiger, let him look at a cat.”

The creature— of the deeper orange that Grail had mentioned, lying stretched out on its side. It was an acme of grace and luxurious ease while at the same time displaying such cunning, speed and strength as only a tiger knows.

“Stop it!" roared Craig.

The tiger stopped. While it lay there, it had already got one massive foreleg through the screen. With another it was trying to drag a sapling sufficiently out of line to bite it. One of the great hind legs stroked the saplings like the arm of a harper.

At Craig’s mad shout, the massive beast was up and crouched and facing him as quickly as a snake.

All that luxuriousness now gone from it. Ears flat. Eyes drawn to a sharper
angle and narrowed, Craig saw the claws working at the floor. The floor was stone. He saw a flick of the tail. In an instant he knew, the tiger would spring. Realization of this came to him with a sense almost of levitation— as if a crisping of nerves were actually raising him from the floor.

Nothing could save him. Not even had he wanted to run. But the thought of running away and leaving Grail here— even for minutes— for one minute— never entered his head.

Somehow, enfolded in that purpose that held him here was a memory of the goatherd that had been killed outside Bawani village. If the tiger killed one, it was satisfied. It would feed. It would go away.

Just on the hairline between time and eternity, Grail flung herself down the length of her little prison, she screamed and kicked at the bars.

At least there was no gorgeous intellect inside that gorgeous skull of the tiger. The thought shocked Craig to life again. The tiger had shown another astonishing change at Grail’s rush. It had as if forgotten Craig as it snatched a crashing blow at the barrier. But the green saplings held.

"Grail, darling! Careful!”

“Run! Run!” she pleaded. “I’m all right.”

"I’ll be right back!”

11: Primeval

HE was back quicker than he thought he’d be. Even as he stepped from the little temple that had been transformed into a tiger trap he knew that he could go no further. It was as if he were caught in a paralyzing web—  something physical; he couldn’t go on. Death had him in its clutch— not his own death, necessarily, but Death!

There was a swirling instant of time when time itself escaped all experience. Then he was himself again— master of his nerves— almost calm. Instantly he saw what he had to do. There was a weapon to his hand.

The weapon was leaning there against the wall. It was one of those tough young trees that Grail’s father had cut and trimmed when he was at work on his tiger trap. It was like a wooden spear, ter. or twelve feet long, three or four inches thick, sharpened at one end to a tapering point.

It flashed on Craig that tigers had been killed here in the jungle, many a time, with less effective weapons. All in the same moment he had seized it. The green wood was as heavy as iron—and as strong.

Almost before he could realize what he was doing he was back in the little stone chamber again— his primitive spear poised in both hands. The tiger was reared there with its back to him—l ooming high, occupied with its business of tearing at the barrier that separated it from the girl.

Craig struck. The sharp stake drove into the striped body a little under one of the mammoth squirming shoulders. The wood drove deep.

There was a ripping screech like that of sudden thunder and Craig was caught into a vortex of clawed and strangling battle....

WITH the escape of Grail Wulverston from the band of thugs who had ambushed her— and half-killed Dost Mahommed— other forces had been released. That chase of the thugs to recapture the girl had covered incredible miles— of jungle low and high. No sounding-board like the hills, no hills like the Himalayas.

A girl less trained than Grail— and trained in hills like these, would have
been dead or taken within the first quarter of an hour. Higher and higher the chase had gone, and down into valleys she had never seen before. Yet never running blind. Always knowing where she was. Running, hiding, resting, like a sambur doe. Ever with the singleness of purpose that the wild doe feels when the chase is fierce— to escape and join her mate.

There was a spiritual quality to it, so far as Grail was concerned, and this sustained her through the night. She’d found an earth-god. It was a demonstration of all the old legends. She loved. She was loved....

It wasn’t until long after dawn that she dared work her way back toward Bawani Tol. She could see that the place was surrounded. There were camps everywhere. Yet she must return to Bawani Tol. She was beginning to be afflicted by the killing torment that Craig also might have been attacked— wounded— killed. Yet she didn’t dare precipitate matters by recklessness or impatience.

As a matter of fact, that long chase and gradual tightening of a cordon around the valley of the temples had also been in the nature of a tiger-beat. That richly colored tiger that Grail had seen twice before had also spent an evil day and night.

He was looking for a way out into his game-trail when he saw Grail slip by— as attractive to him as any moving thing is to any cat. He followed her. About this game with which he had never experimented before there was a dread fascination.

Noiselessly, cautiously, he followed.

Grail had almost reached Bawani Tol when a scent rather than a sound made her turn.

There was the tiger, very near. She stood still. The tiger froze. She moved. So did the tiger....

She’d never reach the main building of Bawani Tol. But there was the tiger trap.

She’d helped her father to build it. It was she who had fashioned that wicket gate. Had it been otherwise—

The door pushed open. The tiger had followed her. Almost friendly it had seemed at first. It was only after the first few pulseless seconds that she remembered how cats were friendly with captured mice....

Now, as Craig and the tiger went over into that whirl of a death struggle, the girl forced her way from the broken cage and followed.

Man and tiger had been spun from the small building into the open. There Grail followed them.

Suddenly it seemed to her as if the solitude of Bawani Tol had spawned a multitude.

ALL this time there had been that gradual, yet swift, concentration of other warring elements on Bawani Tol. It was the thing that Hakim had foreseen. This was civil war— one of those endless little wars in the native states of India of which the outside world seldom hears and which are not worth more than a drowsy glance even from the British lion.

First of all, there was the small army that Shri Bahadur had led back into the hills. It had come to Shri Bahadur as a terrific shock when he learned that Grail had escaped from the band of thugs he’d sent to kidnap her. The girl was the only prize the world could offer him that he still desired— the one prize the world had thus far denied him.

Have her he must, whatever the price.

His forces had just reached Bawani Tol and were ready for the rush when they heard that sound of battle from the remote little temple. Shri Bahadur and his followers were tiger-hunters to a man. They could read something of the meaning of that roaring shriek and the noises that followed.

Shri Bahadur cried an order and instantly he was on the run toward the tiger trap with a hundred followers trailing after him.

They weren’t to have the field to themselves.

As the news of Grail’s disappearance had broken in the little camp where Sir Hugh and his wife had met, it was like the cataclysmic unloosing of a landslide.

Manju was the active agent— Baloo, the Bear. From that scarred face of his he’d belled a note like that of a gaur, one of the earth’s largest cattle. It was a roar, a trumpet. And as a crowd might gather out of nowhere on some empty country road in another part of the world the jungle began to spawn a crowd there then— gaining numbers as it swept along — a human spate.

And Manju, his wounds forgotten, at the head of it— informing not only those about him but such wild gods as he might have favored that this thing should never be.

The only child of this woman who had nursed his wounds— mother of this only girl he’d ever seen who was worthy of a throne— lost here in these, his native  hills.

O, Ghosts! O, Rimau Krimat (God of Tiers)! O, Dorje Pamo (the Pig-faced  Goddess)!

Despite his age, the fighting-chief was covering ground. Someone had given him his gun. His army grew. Just as he was beginning to tire, two ragged cutthroats whipped a sort of litter under him and tripped him into it.

Better so. He could roar again. And now others were roaring with him.

“Bande Mataram!”

Spaced and rolled to a tempo of thunder in the mountains. And the “mother”  (mataram) they saluted and bade to live long was Mother Himalaya. The mother herself caught up their rolling shout and enriched it with echoes. The echoes brought recruits.

They also had arrived at Bawani Tol just as the tiger screamed.

Old Manju’s horde— running, carrying him who was their type of what a leader should be. Not beautiful. Not stylish. The sahib business was a curse when mixed with natural appetites.

One thing also was desired by Manju the Bear. He saw his chance to get it at the price of a single cartridge.

While all the others were transfixed and fascinated by the tiger scream, and then what followed, Manju was searching— searching.

He had a comprehension as perfect of his cousin the maharajah’s technique as some old primary teacher has of a child’s sum in arithmetic.

The stunned crowd saw the young sahib catapulted from the door of the tiger trap by a backward-flinging, writhing tiger spitted on a ten-foot stake.

Craig was still clinging to the stake as he and the tiger both rolled. Craig still clung to the stake when he came up to his knees and the tiger’s movements went slower— slower—

Old tiger men, in this gathering, but they’d never seen anything quite like this. For the time being, even the fierce joys of a general fratracidal slaughter were forgotten.

While the attention of all the others was still fixed on the tiger and the white sahib and then the girl, over there at the tiger trap, another sort of drama exploded with the suddenness of a dream.

Shri Bahadur had rushed forward armed with no more than a long knife. Those who saw him thought that he meant to strike a death blow at the tiger. It was at the American he aimed the blow.

Before the blow could fall old Manju— Baloo the Bear— had jerked up his gun and fired. The bullet took the maharajah through the neck— jerking him over sideways, where he lay and kicked. It was a sight that brought a shout of laughter from Manju’s men.

12: Coronation

EVER from the moment that Manju Baloo— he liked that surname of “The Bear” and was going to make it official— registered that perfect shot that killed his cousin, the ruler of Indarabad, was there the slightest doubt in the minds of those there as to who the next maharajah would be. As a matter of fact, you couldn’t have found anyone else who would have taken the job. Not with Manju the Bear as a claimant.

Manju himself had no doubt, either. Gradually, it had penetrated his understanding, probably by direct suggestion from Hakim, that it might be a good investment to dispense a trifle in the way of lead and steel to save the Bahadur family honor.

“I did it,” said Manju. “I not only did it, but I acquired additional merit by saving a good life while disposing of a bad one.”

He was still allowing himself to be carried as he expressed the wish to congratulate the sahib tiger-slayer.

As the tough old mountain-lord looked down at Craig’s work, he shouted loudly that this sahib was a son of his and let no one forget it. Then he took another tack. Practically everyone there knew that he’d made violent play for the favor of this maiden.

“And if you do lose your girl,” he said, “may it be to a man!”

Everyone laughed and cheered.

Craig and Grail got to their feet as Manju stood before them. He was the first to congratulate them on becoming man and wife.

It gave them a shock, but they liked it. Until then they’d never thought of marriage— except in a sort of vague, ethereal way. But Manju was a realist.

“Come ye down to Indarabad,” he said, “and be wed by the maharajah. I’ll give you a wedding to shame a viceroy’s durbar I”

It was nearly that when it did come off. But in the meantime Craig had other things that occupied his mind. He’d been sent out to India by a group of museums interested in ancient Aryan architecture. His grandfather’s old stamping-ground. And he’d counted a lot on such aid as he might receive from the young ruler he’d known and tried to like. It was infinitely better as things were now, in a number of ways.

For one thing, Manju kept after him trying to get Craig to be his prime minister. Manju knew he wasn’t very strong on manners and education. He wanted someone who’d offset his lack in this respect.

“I’d want a lot of reforms,” said Craig. “Schools, hospitals, sewers, a guarded water-supply, lower taxes, better roads, conservation of public monuments and historic sites.”

“I’m for them all,” said the new maharajah.

“All right,” said Craig, “there’s your man.”

And he pointed to his future father-in- law.

Lord and Lady Wulverston had come down from the hills together. They were to be present at the wedding. Lady Wulverston was certainly as beautiful as ever. She was one of those women whose beauty would be slow to fade.

Sight of her beauty, Craig could see, was appealing to the new maharajah now. There’d be consolation of sorts to the Bear to have the lady about— even as the faithful wife of another. Yes, the maharajah was falling, with enthusiasm, for Craig’s suggestion.

The wedding came off after the rains— after there’d been a chance also to refurbish the palace at Indarabad town and train a new lot of servants.

The old servants had been fine— smooth footed and discreet. But there would have always been the danger of one of them forgetting himself and experimenting with poison.

Guests from all over India and not a few out from London and New York this time. The shamiana was twice as big as the old one—it had to be; so was the gadi, or throne— a double-decker now. like one trunk on top of another, both of them gold.

And there was something great in seeing Manju up there— dressed in gold— and his unearthly face grinning with grief. He was like an avatar of one of the mythical old Hindu gods come back to rule in Indarabad.

Only a few months ago, Craig had fallen under the spell of a Madame de Gerville. The air was aswoon with attar of roses, just as it was now. He closed his eyes a moment. He opened them again and looked down at his dancing partner. Yes, here she was again. Named Grail, now, instead of Agnes— but a Madame de Gerville miraculously younger, more beautiful, undeniably and forever his own.

_________________

3: The Four Red Circles

H. Bedford-Jones

Blue Book, Nov. 1924

CORALIE SMITH, like a good many women in these degenerate days, knew too much for her own good, was proud of the fact, and was very attractive to the average man. Certainly Captain Maignan found her so, as she stood in all her trim, alert beauty at the gate of his lonely Saharan outpost and chaffed him about the four red circles. If he had been astonished by her appearance, he was stupefied and astounded by her departure, for Captain Maignan knew very little about her ability. Her mention of the circles, however, drew a swift protest from him.

“Mademoiselle, I beg of you!” he exclaimed in dismay. “Such words must not be heard by my men here, by your own men. Above all, you must not go to Bou Saffra, as the town is called on our maps. It is horribly unsafe, particularly just now—”

“Must not?” Coralie surveyed him with that dazzling smile of hers, thrice dazzling by reason of her starry eyes and golden skin and sun-bleached red-gold hair. She had long since passed the stage of mere sunburn, and was richly tanned.

“You forget, I am a seasoned explorer, and even speak some Touareg; moreover, I am interested in these four red circles which have caused so much consternation in your district. You promised to tell me what you know— all you know— about them. Please!”

Poor Maignan threw out his hands, helpless before such a woman. He swept his glance around the courtyard where the Senegalese of his detachment lounged, looked at the camels which Coralie’s men were loading, wiped his brow, and began his recital.

“No white man has been to Bou Saffra— the Itessan tribe of Touareg live there, as you know, the oldest branch of the Touareg. The family uses four circles as a brand, for all their animals and livestock—”

Coralie laughed. “My dear Captain, I have written two monographs on the Egyptian and Tripolitan cattle-brands! And I know of the four-circle brand— the circles in a line. So, proceed.”

“Yes, in a line,” repeated Maignan. “Men have died, and there has been talk of these four red circles; it is a mystery, even to the manner of death. As you know, here in the A-ir district, the sultan is only a puppet. Each Touareg clan rules absolutely in its own region—”

“You have said that I know all this, and I do,” said Coralie. “Pray come to the point. All the northern tribes are afraid of these four red circles, and there is some singular connection with Bou Saffra and the Itessan family brand. Just what do you know about the place?”

“The Itessan family possesses there a spot which all the Touareg believe to be holy ground, and they admit no visitors,” said Maignan simply. “I know nothing more. Rumor tells how men die and babble about four red circles. That is all. The whole A-ir country is uneasy, and my five-and-twenty Senegalese are very unhappy men.”

“You know nothing about a holy man there named Belkho el Bagdadi?”

“No,” said Maignan, giving her a curious look. She smiled brightly, and gave him her hand.

“My dear Captain, I know more than you do, then. Come, I must leave— my camel is waiting. Thanks for your hospitality, for your kindness—”

“I beg you, wait here only a few days!” implored Maignan. “When that detachment of the camel-corps arrives, it will include many Touareg; I will go to Bou Saffra with you—”

“I am sorry; to delay is impossible,” she returned. “Au revoir, dear monsieur!”

She turned to the gateway. The ten mehari, fine racing camels, were ready; that of Coralie was kneeling. She mounted in approved desert fashion, was neatly pitched into the saddle as the bubbling beast heaved, and waved her hand at Maignan.

He stood watching the line of beasts depart. Six of them bore supplies; Coralie Smith rode the seventh. The other three carried Abdul, a masked Touareg from Ahaggar, and two of his masked slaves. Under escort of Abdul, she was reasonably safe; he was well known to the French, being a prominent noble, and a man of great authority here in A-ir. None the less, Captain Maignan sadly shook his head, for he had served through the local insurrection of 1917, and knew a few things.

“A beautiful creature, and I am sorry for her,” he reflected. “I would give something to know why that woman is going to Bou Saffra! She has one reason in her heart, and announces another reason openly.”

He sighed, as he looked out across the great empty plateau where the caravan route of the central Sahara had worn great tracks ten feet deep in the course of centuries—the immense desert uplands where his tiny tricolor waved above a mud fort.

“A woman always has a reason,” he said; “yet she is always unreasonable. Hélas!"

“THERE is the place, ya lella," said Abdul, pointing. “This is your last chance to turn back; and as Allah liveth, I advise you to turn! These people are not Inghad, of the slave tribes. They are of the Imajeghan, the very noble clans, oldest and most secret of all our people, the Kel Tagilmus.”

Thus the Touareg call themselves, from the veil or tagilmus which hides their fierce Berber faces from all eyes. Coralie Smith, however, appeared not to hear the warning; she gazed down the rocky slope at the valley beyond, her blue eyes bright and eager. Beside her the Touareg’s eyes smote sharply from the slit of his dark blue veil and headcloth; his two slaves, veiled and armed like himself, followed his uneasy glances. One would have said that the white woman was less afraid than were these three riders of the secret tribe.

They looked across a narrow, stony valley set between sharp ridges of rock that formed high walls, abrupt on the opposite side, sloping more gently on this. Although the afternoon was advancing, shadow and sunlight were intensely black and white. Down below in the gorge was a pool of water, motionless as an azure mirror, with a few date-palms and acacias scattered about its verge and drainage; camels, mules and horses were in evidence. Beyond this pool was the village itself, stone-built, consisting of a large flat mosque and several dozen houses. Beside the mosque was a larger house than the others, to which Abdul pointed.

“There lives Belkho el Bagdadi, the holy man, who came from Bagdad bringing to the Itessan family a new Tariq or law of salvation. So, at least, is the report.”

“I thought you said he had been captured as a slave?” asked Coralie quietly.

“Allah alone knoweth all things,” was the grave response, evasive enough.

“You are sure that the name might not have been— for instance, Belcombe?”

“Belkho is a Tamajegh name,” said Abdul, and transliterated it into Arabic and French, as he had done twice before this. Then he glanced at the sun, which was westering. “Do you wish to proceed, or to turn back? I have brought you here as I promised; Allah alone knoweth what the event will be, either to you or to us. I can promise you nothing, for these people are not of my family.”

Coralie smiled. “On!”

ABDUL silently led the way, her camel following his. As she let the beast pick its own trail down the winding, rocky slope, Coralie Smith looked down at the pool and village, and noted carefully the path; yet her thoughts were of the man who had vanished into the Sahara three years previously. The world had given Roger Belcombe up for dead; the army lists had posted Flight Commander Belcombe as missing; but Coralie Smith could never visualize the dead face of the man she loved, the man who had gone away into the empty air of the Sudan and vanished. To think this man dead was impossible.

So she came to Africa, spent long months learning the language, studying the people, and thereafter went on fruitless voyages into the desert. It was now a year since, in the bazaar at Khano, she had one day heard mention of Belkho el Bagdadi; she had been twelve months in tracing down that name, in .reaching this spot in the almost unknown plateau of A-ir, the country of the Touareg. She knew only too well how bitter might be the truth, how unlikely it was that this holy man could be Roger Belcombe; but because Belcombe had served on the Bagdad front and knew his Moslems thoroughly, the clue could not be idly passed by.

Then had come Abdul the faithful, bringing her rumors of this saint. Mystery surrounded him; he dwelt afar in the desert, Allah had endowed him with powers of life and death; the jinn obeyed him, for he had brought from Bagdad the mystic Seal of the great Suleiman, of three triangles interwoven in a star—and so forth.

Nothing definite, but men died and babbled of four red circles, and bazaar gossip linked this with the Itessan family, and the holy saint of Bou Saffra. There was nothing definite, but the French were disquieted, and there was talk of an expedition to Bou Saffra, as the place was mapped, to properly overawe the Touareg before a new Mahdi should arise.

As the ten mehari filed down to the valley floor, sunset was drawing near. The arrivals had been seen and were awaited; a dozen horses were pricking toward them, bearing blue-veiled riders whose lances and rifles glittered in the reddened light. There was no hurry, no confusion. The Itessan riders came forward calmly, others following in smaller groups, without shouting or powder-play. Abdul hastened his beast and presently addressed the Touareg in their own peculiar pre=Arab language. They listened to him, made no response, only wheeled their horses and left him to follow. He made a signal to Coralie Smith and rode on, the mehari trailing behind.

So they came into the village, and from the mosque ascended a quavering singsong voice, the call to sunset prayer. Coralie looked about at the unveiled women, the Touareg dismounting, the thronging children; then these were on their knees, Abdul and his two fellows joining in a short two-bow prayer and adding a ratib for their safe journey. Coralie did not dismount, for she never made any pretensions to being one of “the enlightened,” and usually gained a corresponding respect from the men of the desert. She sat watching, her gaze flickering to the recessed windows of the house where lived the holy man from Bagdad; but those recesses were empty.

Now the prayer was over. Coralie’s camel knelt, and she joined Abdul and his two men. The Touareg thronged about in silence, and she thought that Abdul seemed uneasy before this reception, before the lack of all response to his words. After a little time the door of the house of the saint was opened. From it came a tall man who uttered a few short, sharp words. Abdul replied, and was given a peremptory answer. He turned to Coralie, and spoke in French:

“I have told them that you came to see the man of Bagdad; they say he sleeps now and you must wait until morning. This is the chief of the village. I do not ike the looks of all this, mademoiselle. If there is trouble, mount and ride while we hold them. There has been no threat; yet—”

He shrugged, and at a word from one of his own men, turned. The tall Itessan chief came forward to him and threw back his burnous, then placed something in the hand of the astonished Abdul. Coralie leaned forward to see what it was, and was amazed to behold an ordinary white paper envelope, upon which were scrawled four irregular circles in red, newly done.

The crowd suddenly fell back, leaving the new arrivals in a group. Abdul turned over the envelope, which appeared quite empty, with an air of perplexed dismay. Then, as though coming to a decision, he tore swiftly at one end of the paper, and peered into the empty envelope. It was empty, yes; and yet—

From Abdul broke a wild, sudden cry of unbearable anguish. He clapped both hands to his face, ripped away his veil and headcloth— the greatest shame of a Touareg man—and with a frightful scream plunged into a blind run. He ran only ten steps, then staggered and fell prostrate in the sand, and lay there motionless.

The crowd surged forward, without a word, and weapons slithered out. Abdul’s two slaves tried to fight, but before they could pull trigger were shot down and knifed. Coralie Smith found herself held helpless in the grip of two men, and the tall chief came to her. In that same ominous silence he deliberately searched her, removed her pistol and belt, jerked the watch from her wrist. Then she was bound and shoved into the same house from which the chief had emerged— the house of Belkho el Bagdadi.

Like most real Touareg houses, this one was orientated and had two rooms; unlike most, it had also an upper room, attained by a ladder and trapdoor, situated above the room in which Coralie Smith lay bound upon a mat. And while she lay there waiting for the swift sun to plunge over the rim of the world and draw tropic night in his train, Coralie observed certain things. Her observation was singularly close and accurate.

Fortunately for herself, Coralie was no heroine of fiction— somehow these heroines never observe things on the desert. They do not know that Arabs are keener trailers than any Mohawk; they fail in the knowledge of tremendous trifles, such as the ablutions and the eating-hand of an Arab; they are not alive, in a word, to the realistic side of their desert sojourn. Coralie was fully alive to it. She had seen Abdul die, and his two men murdered at her side, but she was not particularly overcome by horror or hysterics; one never is, in real life, unless the horror goes too far. However, she was keenly sensible of two things; first, her own position, and second, that of the man from Bagdad in the upper room. So, instead of bothering her head about theoretical problems such as that of the four red circles, she concentrated on actualities.

Shortly after her enforced sojourn began, she perceived the chief of the village and two of his men come into the house. These three carried her personal belongings, but none of the provisions or other luggage, and bore them up the ladder. Of the room above, she was unable to see anything. The three men came down again; the trapdoor closed behind them; and they stood conferring in low tones.

Coralie watched them closely, finding something singular in their conversation.

Unable to watch their faces, unable to comprehend their language, which was not like the little northern Touareg she had picked up, Coralie had only their gestures on which to base an opinion; yet she formed one. This opinion was that these three men here stood in active hatred and fear of El Bagdadi up above. Then, presently, the three stood farther apart, drew back from one another. The chief took from beneath his burnous an envelope duplicating that given Abdul— an envelope on which were clearly marked the four red circles. A last word; then, with a sudden air of decision, the chief darted to the ladder and climbed it, thrust up the trapdoor with one hand, and with the other slid the envelope into the upper room. Then he descended, and after a careless glance at the captive woman, all three men left the house.

Coralie waited for a scream, the sound of a fall, from above. None came. She was far from comprehension of the whole matter; yet she had formed an opinion. This in itself was a distinct achievement.

TWILIGHT was gathering when two strapping Touareg women entered and came to her. One set down a bowl of kouskousu while the other untied her arms. When she spoke, they shook their heads and pointed to the bowl; so she began to eat mechanically, her nerves in suspense, her thoughts still busy with what had so recently transpired, as she waited for some sound of death from above. None came. When she had finished the bowl of food, the two women stooped over her to tie her wrists again. Coralie submitted meekly, but held her arms out in front, fists clenched, for the operation. The two women, evidently in high contempt, drew the lashings tight, left her ankles unbound as before, and departed. Darkness, swift night of the desert, was falling.

Coralie smiled slightly. In wandering to and fro across the face of the Sahara, she had picked up a thing or two not found in novels. For example, it is difficult to cast an efficient lashing about one’s arms, short of dislocating them, when they are held out in front with rigid muscles, and her arms had by no means been dislocated.

Coralie fell to work with sharp teeth, and in ten minutes her hands were free. Her sole obvious weapon had been removed, but now she opened the trim khaki shirt below her burnous and bared her bosom to the darkness. Between her breasts, comfortably snug and safe from any but the most careful search, was fastened a tiny, ugly little automatic. She took the pistol from its holster, freed herself of the holster, and then searched her pockets. Nothing remained to her except a few loose French sulphur-matches and a packet of Algerian cigarettes.

For a space she sat in silence, reflecting. Why had that message of mysterious death been given the man in the upper room? From jealousy of his power and sanctity, no doubt; it had not been done by general consent of the tribe, certainly. The furtive movements of the village chief and his two men pretty well explained themselves.

Suddenly, in the silence, Coralie caught a slight sound from above—the
shuffling tread of a foot. So, the man from Bagdad was not dead? She rose, drew her dark burnous tightly about her, went to the ladder. From the village outside came no sound; all was dark, silent, abandoned to the night. She set foot on the ladder and started up. Scrutinizing the trapdoor above, she found no glimmer of light around its edges.

“Boldness is the only possible course,” she reflected, and got out her matches. “Either that man is Roger— or he is not.”

She ascended to the trap. There, listening, she once again heard the faint thud of a footstep, but was certain that the upper room was in darkness. Deliberately she put up one hand, slightly lifted the trapdoor, verified the darkness above; then, coming to the next rung of the ladder, she supported the door on her head and shoulders and scratched a match. She held up the sliver of blue flame into the room above.

She had a glimpse of a tall veiled Touareg figure, whirling about in alarm at the light. Then, under her very hand, at the edge of the opening, she saw the envelope with the four red circles.

“For the love of heaven put out that light!” cried the voice of Roger Belcombe.

“It’s really you— really you!” murmured  Belcombe in a low voice, as he held Coralie against him in the darkness. “I saw you arrive— gad, it’s beyond belief! My dear, my dear, what are you doing here? Why did you come to this place?”

“To find you, of course,” said the girl, and laughed softly. Then, in a few vivid words, she etched for him an outline of the past three years. Belcombe swore under his breath.

“Coralie, you’re wonderful! But you don’t know what—”

“Let me light that candle,” she suggested. He exclaimed sharply, urgently.

“No, no! They must think I’ve been finished off. That rascally chief expects to find me dead in the morning—”

“Suppose you elucidate those four red circles, then,” she said composedly, and touched his cheek in the darkness. Belcombe uttered a low, helpless groan.

“Three years ago! You know, dear, some of these Touareg had flooded over into the Sudan and were making trouble. I was sent to the force driving them back— was sent with a load of grenades and some cylinders of the new NX3 gas. Well, I crashed, and they got me. There was just one slim chance of getting out alive, and I took it. Told ’em that I had come from Bagdad for their benefit, got hold of the chief and outlined things; I was always up on their religion, you know. They brought me here with my load, and I’ve been an emissary of murder for these devils. The chief wasn’t fooled, but the others were; I managed to impose on them with parlor tricks, and one thing or another—”

“But the envelopes?” breathed Coralie. “There’s one here, on the floor—”

Belcombe laughed. “Until recently I kept the thing secret, but the chief finally caught on to the hang of it. He took away the last cylinder of gas and managed to fix up his own. The thing is just an envelope, carefully made air-tight except for one opening; by this opening I inject gas from a cylinder, then seal it over. When the envelope is torn open by anyone, the escaping gas is nearly always deadly—just enough of it. Takes a nice hand to do it rightly, my dear; the four red circles, the tribal brand, is only part of the hocus-pocus. These Touareg don’t rightly understand; they’re superstitious. They’ve kept me a prisoner— I haven’t been outside this room in two years—”

“You poor thing!” said Coralie, and snuggled against his cheek. She perceived that he was on the verge of breakdown; his voice and manner were very shaky. “Get your veil back on, now, and we’ll be going. I have a pistol here.”

“Impossible. There’s always a guard watching the trails, and we’d never get by. Besides, the chief is devilish jealous of me and suspects that I’d make a break. I’ve tried it twice—”

“So much the better. We can get camels or horses at the pool, if the guard is not posted here in the village. What about those grenades? Have you any here?”

“Yes, all my stuff was brought along; but probably they’re spoiled now.”

Coralie nodded to herself. She could understand perfectly that this man had been dispirited, broken down, rendered hopeless. With his wits he had fought for life, but the struggle had left him weakened; the long confinement had shattered his old fine spirit. So she thought, not knowing all the truth.

“You need me, evidently,” she said calmly. “Get some of those grenades and come along. No talk, now! Is the village guarded?”

“No; the approaches to the upper plateau only—”

“Then we’ll get horses, which are faster to get going than mehari. We’ll ride over or through the guard, and go. It’s simple enough.”

In the darkness, a slow laugh broke from Belcombe.

“Yes,” he said bitterly, “it’s very simple. So simple that I have been here considerably over two years.

“Never mind being nasty,” she retorted. “Have you no faith?”

“What I had, I lost long since.”

“Then you’re a fool. Hurry with those grenades, now. Sure you have ’em?”

“Quite. At times I’ve contemplated pitching them out wholesale at the village— have come near to it, in fact, except that it would not have helped me to escape.”

“Never mind being garrulous,” she said curtly, trying to rouse and spur his spirit. “No more time to waste now. Come on.”

Beneath her short speech, she was horribly anxious. She realized only too well that this was not the laughing, efficient Roger Belcombe she had known in earlier days. How this long captivity had sapped his spirit! She must be the man of the two this night. No doubt something of this same thought went leaping to the brain of Belcombe himself, for when he swung up the trap and she told him not to fumble on the ladder, he uttered a low groan.

“Coralie, ha’ mercy on me! You don’t know all— I’m far gone.”

“You poor sweet thing!” For an instant she hugged his face against her breast in a swift, incredible access of motherliness. Then, pulling apart his veil, she kissed his lips twice.

“Now, down with you!”

He went fumbling down the ladder, and presently she was down after him. They went together to the doorway that opened on the village— the house, like all Touareg dwellings, had three openings.

There was no sound, no light, save the soft tinkle of some stringed instrument drifting from some far house, and the flicker of a candle in one window. The night was cold, starry, clear, and Coralie knew that in an hour or two a glorious hunter’s moon would be swinging up the sky to lade their road with peril. It could not be helped.

“Go ahead,” she said softly, and Belcombe obeyed. Ah, that old, free, nervous stride of his! It was good to see. Clutching her pistol, the girl followed.

The open space before the houses, deep in soft sand, gave back no sound of their steps. Coralie’s swift glances found no leaping light, no fierce yell of discovery, no tumultuous figures piling forth in alarm; the escape was, apparently, ridiculously easy. Yet she was not deceived, for with her lingered those sad and hopeless words: “So simple, that I have been here considerably over two years—”

They sluff-sluffed through the looser untrampled sand toward the pool. This hung like a mirror of black bronze under the trees, shimmering back the starlight; animals loosely strung out, not frightened, but inspecting the arrivals incuriously. Belcombe turned and spoke softly in Arabic, not to startle the beasts.

“Mehari or horse?”

“Horses,” said Coralie with decision. “We must get away instantly.”

“Then they’ll run us down tomorrow—” he objected.

“For tomorrow, trust God!”

“W'Allah alim!” he said, bitterly. “Only God knows!”

He sat down on the sand, drew out his knife; there was a sound of ripping cloth. His toughly woven veil and headcloth ran into strips. Bareheaded, he rose, and she saw his profile against the stars; she choked a little sob in her throat, but said nothing. He had changed.

In five minutes Belcombe swung her up to the hollow of a sleek back, and got another beast for himself; holding the cloth-strip reins, tied about the jaws of the horses, they sent the beasts on. No trouble, no discovery, no alarm. It would have been incredible, had not Belcombe known only too well of the guard that was kept on the upper trail.

Coralie, who had carefully conned the descent to the valley floor, led the way up the sloping hillside opposite the village. She attempted no evasion, no concealment, but urged her beast straight on. She could not comprehend the danger. The fact that she had found Roger Belcombe, that he was riding here at her stirrup, filled her world with unrecking delight and happiness, mad exultation. No miracle was impossible, after this!

Then came rude awakening. A voice from above spat forth at them; dark shapes of men thronged the trail ahead. Belcombe made response, in that strange Berber tongue of these folk, and for a moment Coralie thought the path would clear. Then, in the starlight, they saw the bare head of the man from Bagdad. One shrill yell clipped out, and a tall Touareg leaped up with a flash of steel.

Coralie pistoled him.

Yells resounded; the horses plunged; bullets whistled. From the road ahead of them vomited a blinding concussion— a grenade that Belcombe hurled. Coralie shot again and again; somehow she controlled her frantic horse, forced him ahead. The road was clear now, and in five minutes they were galloping side by side along the winding desert trail, where only patches of camel-scrub broke the sandy waste. Gone was the village, gone the valley and the tumult; gone was everything; here were only the desert, and peace, and the white stars.

“Feel better?” asked Coralie after a time.

“Wait for the moon,” he responded grimly.

She laughed, and pointed to the blur of light on the horizon.

“It’s coming!”

“Do you know where you’re going? Which way headed?”

“W’Allah alim —only God knows!” she returned the ever-present Arab ejaculation at him. “Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful! Is not the fate of man written on his forehead?”

She was to remember those words later, and the deep, half-throttled groan which escaped the man; but as yet she scarcely remarked the sound.

They brought down the horses to the swift hand-gallop that could cover untiring miles— not the gallop of desert fiction, but the steady pacing of the real desert horse. The moon came up, a golden disk that imperceptibly became smaller in mounting, and donned a silvery sheen. An hour passed, and another.

“I brought a water-skin,” said Belcombe. “May I have a cigarette, if you have one? It’s against the custom of the Touareg to smoke— especially a holy man.”

They drew up together and plodded along in a walk, smoking, taking a gulp of water from the skin about Belcombe’s waist. She blessed his forethought in bringing it.

“With this moon, they’ll be on the trail now,” said Belcombe. “Those devils can track, I can tell you! Follow a spoor at a gallop.”

“WAllah dim!" said she, and laughed.

It was only half an hour later that her horse put foot in hole and plunged down with a broken leg.

CAPTAIN MAIGNAN, whose Bourbon blood ran still gallantly in sun-dried veins, lighted a cigarette and listened to the report of his scouts, sitting his gaunt mehari with easy grace. The two score men behind him, half of them Touareg, all of them members of the camel-corps which scoured the desert for France, waited immobile, high-strung. The scouts delivered a brief report.

“The firing came from a gully a mile to the left. We could see nothing, for the wadi was a deep one. The rifles, by the after-echo, are Mausers.”

Maignan called up his stalwart, bronzed noncoms and commanded:

“Spread out. Surround. Advance.”

A ripple of excitement passed through the waiting men. Mausers meant Itessan Touareg; these orders meant fight— they were free to fight, in their own fashion!

Sometimes the French are very wise.

The spindle-legged beasts stalked over the daybreak sands, ungainly, awkward, yet eating up the desert as only blooded mehari can. The swaying riders, half in Touareg veils, half in uniforms, spread out in a great crescent. The morning sunlight struck down at them blindingly, insufferably, intolerantly.

“Y’Allah!”

The yell shrilled up, was repeated, the great beasts hurtled forward at redoubled speed, swinging at the spot indicated by the scouts. From the wadi ahead scrambled some veiled figures on foot, then some plunging mehari, then a horse or two. A rifle spoke faintly; a rippling crash broke the morning as a volley thundered. With one wild, fierce yell the riders were into the wadi, plunging across it, firing after those who fled before them. The rifles ripped and crackled, then grew fainter as the mehari mounted the farther bank and raced on. The scream of a dying man died off in a gulp of agony.

Maignan, left alone on the scene, slipped from his saddle and ran forward. Among a cluster of boulders, behind a dead horse, he saw the figure of Coralie Smith, in her hand a grenade. She lowered it to the sand and stood smiling at him, bareheaded, the morning sunlight wiping weariness and pallor from her face.

“Thank the good God, mademoiselle!” he cried out, overjoyed, kissing her hand repeatedly. “I was afraid—afraid! When the detachment came, I brought them along at once. If you had only waited a fqw hours—”

“If I had waited those few hours,” said Coralie, “my errand would have failed.”

Maignan started, glanced around. Behind the dead horse, in the shadow of a boulder, he saw the figure of a man, one arm ripped naked and rudely bandaged. Now this man moved, struggled, opened his eyes and sat up.

“Who is he?” demanded Captain Maignan, meeting vivid gray eyes and starting in surprise.

“Flight Commander Roger Bel—”

A sudden exclamation burst from Maignan, checked the words on the girl’s lips. She too turned to look at Belcombe, who was rising. He came erect, holding on to the boulder, smiling bitterly at them. The French officer swallowed hard, then saluted.

“Monsieur,” he stammered, “Monsieur—”

Coralie was staring, astounded and horrified. It was her first sight of Roger since he had fallen to a Touareg bullet at the dawn. She had held them off, had been too busy with her automatic and the grenades to do more than hastily bandage his arm and leave him. Now her eyes widened.

Across his forehead were branded four small red circles in a line—the brand of the Itessan clan.

“You see it, eh?” Belcombe spoke slowly. “They put their accursed brand on me. You’d better go on, Coralie— leave me here. I’m a branded man.”

She darted forward as he swayed, caught him, held his cheek against her own.

“You darling!” she cried, tears dimming her eyes. Captain Maignan, being a gallant man, turned his back, took out a cigarette, worked his flint-and-steel lighter for a spark.

“A woman always has a reason,” he said to himself, rather mournfully. “I knew it.”

__________________

4: Bill of Scotland Yard

(aka “Bill and the Tappers”)

Edgar Wallace

Clues magazine, Jun 1928

THERE was a very clever detective at Scotland Yard called Bill. Bill was driving through Berkshire on a wet and rather stormy evening and came to a little house that had been built in the midst of a pine wood. It was one of four houses in the neighbourhood that Bill was anxious to see. In this house there lived a florid  man called Mr. Crollin. He sat at the open window of his  dressing-room, for it was a warm evening, and from time  to time he addressed his pretty wife, who was drinking a cup  of tea. “Sooner or later they’re pretty sure to get Wisdom and then it’s you and me for a nice long world voyage, Lou.”

“You and I,” she corrected, being something of a purist.

He was absurdly proud of her erudition and purred gratefully. “That’s so; you and I and me. This Scotland Yard Art isn’t all boneheaded. A fellow in town, Joe Price, the con man told me, they’ve got a whale of a fellow up at the Yard, Bill somethin’. I’ve heard about this fellow from a boy that’s workin’ the Paris hotels.”

“Oh, Bill,” she wailed wearily. “There’s always a Bill somewhere. There was a Bill at the O. and E. so darned clever he couldn’t find his latchkey.”

There was an esoteric jest here. Mr. Crollin laughed heartily. This Lou of his had been an operator on the Oriental and European Telegraph Company when he first met her and introduced her to a wider and more expensive life. She had left ten minutes ahead of the City detective who came to arrest her for utilizing information that came across the wire for her own private enrichment.

She saw Crollin crane his head out of the window. “Saw a car pass the drive,” he explained, “then the engine stopped. Hello!”

Bill was walking carelessly up the gravel drive with an empty petrol can. Lou at her husband’s side saw the intruder. “You’d better go down and see what’s happened.”

Mr. Crollin obeyed. He came back in ten minutes. “Just riun out of petrol, that’s all,” he explained, “and―”

Lou had a small instrument at her ear and now raised a warning finger. “D.H.97 coming through,” she said. “Now for three hours’ hell’s dullness.”

They forgot all about Bill, for at 11.47 that night Mr. John Mortimer onfided his secret to the air.

Scotland Yard had not been concerned when Senator Granite sailed from New York to France, taking with him eighty thousand dollars in negotiable stock. And the European press hardly commented on the circumstances under which he was relieved of his wealth, although it was particularly interesting to the student of criminology. Nobody knew that the Senator carried this money except the Bank of France and Mr. Granite himself. Yet within an hour of his arrival in Paris the money was taken.

When Sir Hubert Loam reached his house in Berkeley Square after a profitable stay in New York, he found a young man waiting to receive a cheque on account of a further deal he had concluded on board the Queen Elizabeth. The cheque was an open one and he handed it without hesitation to the representative of the North and South Land Syndicate. It was presented at the bank and paid. But the money never went to the Land Syndicate, nor had the suave clerk waiting in Sir Hubert’s drawing-room the slightest association with known syndicates of any kind. That was when the English police began to take notice.

There followed almost at once the case of Mrs. Johnson Jones of Pittsburg. She lost exactly ten thousand pounds worth of jewels which she had brought to England to be re-set.

“The whole thing is quite extraordinary,” said Inspector Lander, chief of the Confidence Branch at Scotland Yard. “All these people travelled by sea, but in different ships and by different lines. None of them is talkative, they made no friends on the voyage. Yet in some way the gang that worked the swindles knew everything about them that was worth money. This is a job for Bill.”

TWO MONTHS LATER came John Mortimer, by the s.s. America. The ship was delayed by fog and he arrived on Saturday afternoon. But life was so good and London so homey that business hours did not worry him.

A new passenger had joined the ship at Cherbourg. John noticed him casually at lunch, a grey-haired man with a dark saturnine face; and later when he was finishing his packing the stranger appeared.

“I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. Mortimer....” He handed the confident young passenger a card. “Detective Inspector Lander,” read John. “I joined the boat at Cherbourg,” explained the detective apologetically. “I don’t know whether you have any valuables aboard....” (He gave John Mortimer the impression that he knew very well.) “Well, in any case... we’ve told Bill to keep an eye on you.”

“Thank you.” Mr. Mortimer’s tone was sardonic. He was of the age when taking a dispassionate view of humanity he could find none more efficient than himself.

A FEW HOURS LATER John stood on the stone balcony of his bedroom at the Admiralty Hotel, looking out over the London he had not seen these eight years. Before him lay the broad stretch of the Embankment and beyond that the pageantry of the Thames. The wintry sunset was all rose and russet and the river stared up at him with a reflection of a paling sky. Two tugs abreast swept downstream, their port lights greening the water. A police launch stole from the shadows of moored barges on the farther shore and swung in a wide circle towards its neat pier by Scotland Yard. The buildings were already glittering with lights and against the western sky the clock tower of Parliament was sharply defined.

The telephone rang sharply and regretfully he left the balcony to answer it. “A young lady to see you sir,” said the voice at the other end. “Miss Monica Bradley, from a Mr. Stanford.”

Of course, he had forgotten his secretary. “Ask her to come up to the sitting-room, please,” he said.

He went to the wall safe near the head of the bed. It was hidden behind a sliding oak panel. All the big suites at the Admiralty Hotel had their private safes. That fact was widely advertised and had determined the hotel for many a traveller in John Mortimer’s position. Nine little keyholes ran down one edge of the steel door, but only two locks operated and Mortimer had the two keys in his pocket. With every new guest the combination was changed by one official at the hotel. It seemed an ingenious idea to John Mortimer, who had reason for desiring security. He checked that the bedroom door was securely fastened on the inside and then went into the sitting-room.

Almost immediately there was a knock on the door and he opened it to let in the girl. She was a head shorter than he, and he was pleasantly surprised to discover that she was very pretty. Two grave grey eyes met his.

“So you’re from Mr. Stanford ?” he smiled. “It’s very kind of you. Miss Bradley, to come on Saturday afternoon. I thought English people didn’t work after one o’clock?”

She smiled. “This English person works seven days a week,” she said. She put her handbag on the table and took off her gloves. She was very self-possessed, capable, he imagined, and better dressed than he might have expected.

“I must admit,” he said, “that I had quite forgotten that I had cabled Mr. Stanford for a secretary.” He was very bland, very much the business man. She had met his type before but never observed such obvious qualities. Tall, good looking, immensely confident. She liked him.

He looked at his watch, and she anticipated his question when she said, “I was expecting that you’d wish me to work late, Mr. Mortimer.” She took out a notebook and pencil. “The typewriter will come up later,” she said, and looked at him expectantly.

There was a lot to be done: letters to the Rajah’s representative in Paris, cables which he should have sent an hour ago to announce his safe arrival. Yet he was rather too full of his present emotions to settle down to work. “Mr. Stanford is our agent,” he said. There was a hint of patronage in his tone that went well with his youthfulness. “I haven’t told Mr. Stanford what has brought me to Europe but it’s rather an important matter.”

She nodded. “I know. You’re bringing some emeralds for the Rajah of Rajpuna.”

He stared at her open-mouthed. He was indeed exporting emeralds from New York which might have sounded strange to Hatton Garden. But John Mortimer and his partner had been making this collection for fifteen years, at least his senior partner had, for he was a member of one of the most famous firms of jewellers in New York. Some of the stones had been in the possession of old Colonial families for a hundred years.

“How on earth did you know that?” he asked in dismay.

She smiled again, and she really had a lovely smile. “Probably your partner cabled Mr. Stanford,” she said, and then almost carelessly, “I suppose you have put the stones in a safe place? Eight hundred thousand dollars worth of emeralds are rather a responsibility, aren’t they?”

He looked at her suspiciously. “They are in a very safe place,” he said.

She nodded. “Naturally,” she said. There was something in her tone that was faintly irritating. Before he could properly analyse that particular inflection she went on, “You’re expecting to meet the Rajah’s agent in London, Mr. Konig, aren’t you?”

He was ruffled, some of his pleasant mystery had been dissipated.

“I wrote to him in London and in Paris,” he said shortly, ‘‘but I guess he must be in Paris, for I haven’t heard from him.”

“You will,” she said, her thoughtful eyes fixed on his.

He stared at her. “Of course I shall,” he said with a touch of asperity in his voice.

“Then that’s all right.” Her smile was altogether disarming. She smoothed her notebook flat and looked at him enquiringly, but he was still not in a mood to work. “You rather took my breath away. Then London does that,” he said. “It’s like coming back to a strange world. What a law-abiding little place this is!

It may make you happy to know that Bill is looking after me. I presume Bill is a detective, so if he comes while I’m out you might order some beer for him― if he drinks beer.”

“Bill drinks nothing else,” she said. He was graciously amused.

“I can tell you I shouldn’t have been walking through New York with all those infernal emeralds except I had a Burns man walking on either side of me and another behind. By the way,” he said, “do you know whether Stanford heard from Konig?”

She shook her head. “I’m pretty sure he hasn’t,” she said. “He doesn’t even know that there is such a man.”

Whether it was the exhilaration of finding himself in his native city or from the sheer joy of finding somebody with whom he could talk and who shared his secret, or whether it was for some reason which he could not understand, he babbled on.

“We didn’t tell Stanford; you see, this was rather a big deal and the fewer people who knew about it the better.” And then suddenly his face went blank again. “But how did you know - about the emeralds, I mean? Renstein couldn’t have been so foolish―”

“All men are foolish,” she said quietly.

He felt that if he spoke he would only say something extraordinarily inane.

“You didn’t bring your own secretary, Mr. Mortimer?”

“That seems fairly obvious,” said John as coldly as he could. “I don’t have a woman secretary.”

She was staring through the open French windows on to the murky skyline. “Women are not so efficient, I suppose?” she asked.

“Women talk,” said John crushingly. “When they should be working they― er― are chattering.”

To his surprise she nodded her agreement. “About men,” she said. “That’s strange, isn’t it? Men only talk about themselves.”

He might have said something very sharp if he could have thought of anything to say. Instead he compromized by dictating three cables, two of which were absolutely unnecessary, and two rather dignified letters which contained nothing of what he wanted to say.

He cleared his throat. “I think that will be all,” he said. She put down her pencil and looked up at him.

“I’m afraid I have annoyed you,” she said, “and secretaries who annoy principals come to a very sticky end. You see, I’m not used―” she stopped suddenly.

“You are not used―?” he suggested, and his suspicions grew when he saw how confused she was. Fortunately, the typewriter arrived at that moment and he left her to her work.

She was half way through when the telephone rang in the sitting-room. It was Mr. Konig.

“Yes, I’ve just arrived, Mr. Konig. You got my cable?”

“Coming right along,” said a thick and hearty voice.

“Good. I’m in five-oh-seven,” said John, and replaced the receiver.

“Do you know Mr. Konig?” asked Monica Bradley. Now it is very difficult for a pretty girl to be wholly impertinent. John Mortimer’s intelligence told him that this was a question he might well have answered more or less offensively. The sentimentalist in him produced a fairly coherent reply.

“No, he has never been to America, and I have not met him,” he said a little stiffly. He was a most easy-going young man but he objected to being laughed at, and that this very pretty and capable girl was laughing at him was most obvious to John Mortimer. He wished Stanford had shown a little more discrimination in his choice. An older woman would surely have been more suitable. John Mortimer was in favour of youth, but he was also a man who for seven days had allowed his self-importance to grow in proportion to his responsibility, and this chance-found girl had made him feel most astonishingly small. He was a little alarmed, too. This was not a moment when he required the association of unusual people.

“I suppose you are Mr. Stanford’s confidential secretary?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No, he has never confided anything to me, not even his love affairs,” she said, with such calmness that he almost forgot to be shocked by this outrageous disclaimer.

“I thought Mr. Stanford was an elderly man?” he began.

She had a most exasperating trick of interrupting him.

“Eighty, or possibly ninety. But even quite ancient men have love affairs.” And she returned to her typing before he could think of a suitable admonition.

He retired to the bedroom and closed the door, and he was not in a pleasant mood to receive the lady whom Monica brightly announced by tapping on the door.

“A lady? Who is it?”

“Miss Konig.”

John Mortimer was a little staggered. He had not endowed the Rajah’s agent with a family, and certainly not with as attractive a family as the slim, rather pale, sad-faced girl who greeted him when he came out.

“My father is not here yet.” She spoke with a slightly foreign accent. “He told me he would be here, that I must call at six.” She looked at the jewelled watch on her wrist and was apparently embarrassed. Mortimer noticed that she glanced from time to time at his temporary secretary. Miss Monica Bradley was annoyingly interested in the personality of the visitor and it appeared that the interest was mutual.

“This is my― um― secretary,” introduced John awkwardly.

Miss Konig inclined her head slightly and took a longer look at the girl, who sat with folded hands before her typewriter. And in that glance Mortiner could have sworn he saw half recognition.

“Indeed,” said Miss Konig politely, and then, “Have I not seen you at some time? Did you not call at my house?”

Monica shook her head.

“Somewhere...  a house we had in the country...  I was at the window when you came. My brother saw you.”

Monica shook her head again. “You are mistaken,” she said coolly, and John Mortimer knew that she was lying. He saw the visitor give the typist a searching scrutiny and saw the suspicion that lived and died in her eyes and the slight shrug of her shapely shoulders. And then, before John could speak, there came a rap at the door and he opened it to find the bluff and hearty Mr. Konig.

He was a little man, rather stout and bald. Two humorous blue eyes shone behind the thick lenses of his horn-rimmed spectacles.

“A-a-h! My frent Mr. Mortimer,” he boomed, gripping John heartily by the hand. And then he grinned round at his daughter. “This is the good fellow, eh? He comes to rob your poor father. Worse than the fellows who steal the money from the poor silly peoples who travel on ships.” He drew up a chair with a thump, sat down on it, drew out a big notecase which he slammed on the table. It was, John saw, packed tightly with notes.

“The Rajah comes tonight, by plane from Paris,” he explained. He spoke rapidly. “You understant. I must have my business before he comes or I make no profit. The sum is a hundred and seventy-three thousand, which I pay― ” And then his eyes fell upon the girl typist watching him curiously and John saw his brows meet. “Why, young lady, I think I have met you? Ha!”

“So your aunt was saying,” said Monica genially.

“My aunt―?”

“Your daughter― I’m sorry.” She was very apologetic.

“Did you not call at my house once― for― petrol?” He was going to say something else but checked himself.

“Miss Bradley works for Mr. Stanford, our London agent.”

Konig’s face cleared. “Ah yes, Stanford.” And then quickly, “He is here?”

“He left for Australia last night,” said the girl gravely, and Konig’s jaw dropped.

“Australia?” incredulously. “My dear young lady―” and then he laughed. “You confuse me and make me feel a fool,” he chuckled. He took a gold cigarette case from his pocket. “Indeed you are a remarkable young lady.” He pushed the case towards John, who took a cigarette, and then to the girl who shook her head.

“I never smoke in business hours. Poor Senator Granite had one of your cigarettes and what happened to him? Don’t light that, Mr. Mortimer,” she said sharply, as John was in the act of striking a match.

Konig glared at her for a second and then, turning, ran to the door and flung it open. The two Scotland Yard men who were waiting found him rather a difficult handful, but Miss Konig went quietly in the hands of Monica Bradley....

“YES, I AM BILL,” said Monica demurely, when she saw her employer later that evening. “I suppose you’d call me a detective, but really I only work out odd problems. The oddest problem of all was to discover how this little crowd cleaned up so easily.

“It was really very simple. They have a very powerful radio receiver at a house in Sunningdale, and Lou, alias Miss Konig and many other names, tuned in to the homeward bound trans-Atlantic liners and took down the private messages that were coming through to London. Sometimes she heard and wrote down hundreds without getting any profitable information, but occasionally she and her husband learned secrets which indiscreet people had confided to the ship’s radio. It is a very simple matter to pick up any liner, did you know that? Once you have their code number the rest is simple.

“They got to know Granite was bringing money; they knew Loam was expecting a man to call for a cheque and that a rather wealthy and foolish old lady had radioed to a jeweller in London saying that she wanted her diamonds re-set. It was easy to intercept the message, and, in your case, a simple matter to get the genuine agent out of the way. For instance, Mr. Stanford is now in Paris with the real Mr. Konig, awaiting your arrival. After we, or rather I, located the receiving set at Sunningdale, we arranged to get duplicates of all the messages that were coming through. Naturally we had to guess who was to be the next victim, but that wasn’t as difficult as you’d think. We didn’t know exactly how we were going to deal with your case, but after you radioed for a secretary it was easier.”

Mr. John Mortimer had recovered from his natural annoyance.

“I see,” he said, “and you are the Bill who is supposed to be ‘looking after’ me?”

She nodded. “Well, keep at it,” he said. “I want you to escort me to the Hotel safe when I deposit those infernal stones and then you can take me to a place where we can dine and dance.”

Bill did not demur. Officially she was still on duty.

_________________

5: The Luck Of A Cowboy

H. Bedford-Jones

Mail (Adelaide) 12 November 1949

LAFE Larrigan, top wrangler of the B Bar F dude ranch, was lean and brown and hard, with a humorous twist to his lips and a look in his eyes that made you like him on sight. He turned to his assistant, who lounged beside him at the eate of the stables.

'Tex, you watch yourself!' he drawled. 'The outfit that arrived today is in the big money. The boss tipped me off. He says that anybody making a play for the girl gets his time pronto.'

Tex, whose Angora chaps made his knees itch, scowled and rubbed his chin.

'Yeah, but what if she makes a play for us? If I got to take fool women ridin', I'd be a fool not to marry me a wad of dough.'

'Well, don't crowd your luck,' said Larrigan. 'And you'd better read up on some Western novels in the bunkhouse. Here comes the boss.'

Forbes was approaching from the main house. He was big and burly and genial. Bill and Irma Forbes had made a success of the B Bar F. Forbes walked a bit stiffly. His pants were tucked into the tops of an elegant pair of boots, decorated with gaudy stitching.

'Hi, boys!' he said heartily. 'Lafe, did you get them rattlers planted up the hill trail?'

'Yeah,' Larrigan grinned. 'Plenty of rocks there. Theyll hang round that hillside.'

'Well, don't you boys get too anxious to show off your shooting,' said Forbes. 'Those snakes cost plenty. Make the dozen last the season, see? Show 'em off as you pass along, but don't do any shooting unless you've got an important guest along who wants a skin. It was a swell idea to send out west for the snakes.'

'Okay,' said Tex. 'What's the orders?'

'We've got heavy reservations coming for the week-end; looks like a full house. You'll have a riding party in half an hour. Seven women. I've got three musicians coming tonight from Brooklyn, mouth-harp, accordion, and banjo. Lafe, you see that they get into the proper clothes and so forth. They'll play to the guests in the moonlight.'

'Won't be any moon tonight,' said Larrigan. 'It's right new.'

'Well, then build a fire,' retorted Forbes. 'And never mind about cowboy songs. These guests want their own kind of music, see? Oh, yes! One of the woman riders was champing about having been out west— Arizona or somewhere. She's a Mrs. Parsons. So play her careful.'

He clumped away toward the garage.

'You can handle the Parsons female,' said Tex. 'I ain't sure enough of my western lingo.'

'Okay,' Larrigan said. 'We'd better get the horses saddled up. And say! You're not wearing your deputy sheriff's badge.'

Tex looked down at his faded shirt. 'That's right. Washed my shirt last night and forgot to put the star back. I'll get it.'

For the looks of the thing, Forbes had persuaded the Van Cortlandt county sheriff to make his riders deputies.

Forbes, who had toured the Western regions with his wife and made careful notes, ran this Adirondack dude ranch with a keen eye to both costs and staging. Irma ran the house and ran it well. There was atmosphere in plenty, and whether it was authentic did not matter a hoot. They knew that their customers wanted to be impressed, so they were impressed.

Staid Van Cortlandt county rubbed its eyes, and money rolled in. According to Forbes, the first principle of such a place was to have the stables on the road, to pull in the suckers. So the B Bar F stables, impressively western and decrepit, fronted the highway. Behind lay the main house, the dining shack, garage, swimming pool, and so forth.

The trading post did a hot business all season, selling Indian curios, and souvenirs of all kinds. The big, silver-mounted saddle in the lobby of the main house was just a bit of stage property. Tex was an Alabama boy with a delicious southern accent and a gift for handling horses.

Larrigan despised himself and the place and the suckers who fell for it, but the job paid well. He was the only real thing on the lot, but no one knew it, for he kept his actual background behind closed doors. When things had gone bust for him in Montana it was a complete bust. Another man got his girl and this washed him up. He sold what was left of his business and headed east. Now he was cheating destiny— a drugstore cowboy in a fake stage setting, he told himself, with bitter contempt. Larrigan was not his name, but it was good enough for this place. In half an hour the party assembled, most of the women in jodhpurs, two in breeches.

Mrs. Parsons was a trim, cool blonde who looked like his other girl, Anna Lowry. He and Texas shepherded them off along the flat toward the hill trail, gave them pointers on riding, handed out the usual patter. Larrigan rode with Mrs. Parsons and her companion, mostly. He liked her. She had sense. More and more she reminded him of Anna, and wakened the old hurt within him, the ache he had thought forgotten.

Tex was at his best, voluble and merry; he threw out off-hand memories of how he and Larrigan had punched cattle together. He had done a lot of reading up. Larrigan noticed that Mrs. Parsons listened with an amused air, and when they were strung out on the Squirrel Hollow road, she turned to him with a question.

'Larrigan, that friend of yours is interesting. Do you think he was ever west of the Mississippi?'

Larrigan's lips twitched. Her companion was ahead, out of hearing.

'Yes'm, I guess he was once. In Leavenworth.'

She laughed. 'All right; I'll keep the secret! But you'd better do some coaching. My sister's coming tomorrow, and she's really from the west. And a couple of friends are coming next week who know their stuff.'

Larrigan said: 'What makes you think I could coach him? Me, I'm just a drugstore cowboy myself.'

She She rejoined: 'Anyone can tell with half an eye that you're no fake. But tell Tex not to lay it on so thick.'

'Thanks, I will,' said Larrigan. 'I've noticed your own boot heels were worn down a lot.'

LARRIGAN and Tex were at the main house talking with the guests, helping maintain the free-and-easy atmosphere that Forbes desired, when a car swung in at the entrance and a man got out and came inside. He was heavily built, young, with hot eyes of impatience. At sight of him, Larrigan gaped, then turned his back quickly and stared out the window. In the glass he could see reflected what passed in the room. The newcomer went up to the desk.

'My name's Norton. I'm looking for a Mrs. Parsons— oh, there she is!'

He crossed to where Mrs. Parsons was sitting, near the window. 'Hello, Emily! Run you down at last, have I? May I have a word with you in private?'

'You may not,' she responded with cool hostility. 'I want nothing to do with you.'

'Well, I want plenty to do with you!' Norton's face darkened angrily. 'You and your husband have been hiding my wife out on me long enough! Where's Anna?'

'None of your business,' said Mrs. Parsons.

'Listen, Emily; she's my wife, understand? I've come east to settle this thing, and I mean to do it! I'll find her if I have to go through this place with the police!' Norton glanced round. His eye fell on Larrigan. An oath of astonished recognition escaped him.

'So that's it!' he said significantly. 'That's why you've got her here, is it?'

Larrigan swung round as though on a pivot. He met the hot, furious eyes of Norton, and then he launched himself without a word. He just seemed to uncoil; his fist caught Norton square on the beltline. Norton doubled up and fell backward into the fireplace. Amid the confusion, Bill Forbes charged on the scene.

'What's this?' he roared, facing Larrigan. 'Fighting in here? Striking a guest? You're fired! Pack your duffel and clear out—'

'He'll do nothing of the kind!' Mrs. Parsons intervened. 'This man came in and insulted me. He's my brother-in-law, and he's a dangerous man, and Mr. Larrigan hit him.'

Forbes looked at Norton, who was pulling himself out of the fireplace.

'Out of here, you monkey! Larrigan's a deputy sheriff, and if you show your nose in here again you'll go to gaol!'

Norton went to the door and turned.

'Larrigan! So that's the name he's using, is it? I'll remember that,' he said, and went out to his car and drove off.

Mrs. Parsons looked at Bill Forbes. 'Well? Is Mr. Larrigan fired?'

'He is not,' said Forbes, grinning.

'Then I want him to get two horses and give me a riding lesson,' she said. 'Hurry up, Larrigan!'

They rode off together, and neither of them spoke for a while.

"Well, lets get it over, ' said Mrs. Parsons in her auiet way. 'I couldn't bear to do any talking round that place. What's the answer?'

Larrigan said: 'I thought you looked a lot like Anna Lowry, but I couldn't guess you were her sister. You might as well have let Bill Forbes fire me. I'll have to scram out of here before she comes, anyhow. It's just my Luck.'

'What do you know about it?' she snapped.

'Everything,' replied Larrigan. 'This is the last place in the world anybody from Montana would turn up— and he walks in and knows me right away! And she's coming tomorrow.'

Mrs. Parsons said: 'You've had nothing but bad luck, eh? Since when?'

'Since Anna turned me down to marry that heel.'

'So you're that man, eh? His name wasn't Larrigan; it was Bonham.'

'Larrigan's my name now.'

'And all you think of is your bad luck! From the day Anna married Norton, she's been in misery. He's a secret drinker; liquor makes him insane. I've seen her with her face bruised black and blue from his blows! She's left him twice. The first time he soft-soaped her into going back to him, but never again.' 'I never knew anything like it!'

Larrigan said. 'He beat her up, you say— Anna? Why, a gorilla couldn't do that! She's the sweetest thing that ever lived―' He cut off his words, and added, ―Except maybe her sister.'

Mrs. Parsons said: 'Norton threatened to kill her if she left him. He's tried to kill her, too. That's why she's been hiding out with me. She can't get a divorce in this State, either.'

'So you see why I've got to light out of here,' said Larrigan.

'Why? So she'll have to take her medicine?'

'I don't get you.'

'Norton knows that she loved you all the time.'

Larrigan Jumped.

'You're crazy! She married him!'

'So I believe. Norton's drinking. He believes that she's coming here because you're here. He'll stick round. He'll disgrace her if he can! He'll kill her if he can do it. The man's a homicidal maniac.'

'You can wire her not to come.'

'No. Let her come. You'll be far away and safe.'

Larrigan drew rein.

'Stop prodding me!' he rapped out. 'I'll stay if you'll tell me why you're so set on it.'

She said: 'Bad luck has to change sometime, and this is the time for yours to change. Not that I'm worried about you; it's Anna I'm thinking about. Her luck has been far worse than yours. A dose of bad luck hits you and you run; you make it worse.'

'All right. I'll see it through. But I'll bet you Anna turns and runs when she finds I'm here.'

ANNA AND LARRIGAN met on Saturday morning. Anna was a younger edition of Mrs. Parsons, blonde and pretty as a picture.

'Emily has told me all about it,' she said to Larrigan. 'It's nice to know you're here.'

They went riding together, along the hill trail and on to the Hollow. She had suffered; she was older, graver, steadier, but the girl he had known was still there.

'I'm going back west,' she said. 'I can get a divorce there.'

'Will you let me know when you do?' Larrigan asked. 'There's a whole book of things I'm burning to say to you when that time comes.'

'I'll let you know,' she replied quietly.

They understood each other, without more words.

Larrigan was like a new man; he had a different look in his face, a different spring in his step. He no longer felt that bad luck was logging him. Sunday night there was an exodus, but half a dozen stayed on. Mrs. Parsons and Anna, with friends, remained. Three Brooklyn lads also stayed. They had written a western ballad all about little dogies come on— which they took to be little dogs, but nobody knew the difference.

The Monday morning ride got off to a iate start. While they were on the hill trail, Anna's horse developed a loose shoe, and Larrigan conferred with Tex.

'There's a smith at Squirrel Hollow,' he said. 'I'll cut off with Mrs. Norton from here, make the Hollow road, and get the shoe fixed. You go on with the others.'

'Okay,' said Tex. Anna and Larrigan came into a long straightaway that extended for miles with not a building in sight. Anna exclaimed delightedly.

'Imagine such a wilderness scene in crowded New York State! We might be in the wilds of Montana— no, I take it all back. Isn't that a car under those trees at the right?'

'Yes.'

As they approached the car, a man got out unsteadily and hurled something into the road; it was an empty whisky bottle.

From Anna came a low, frightened cry. Larrigan was slower of recognition, until the man strode out into the road, facing them. Then he knew, and drew rein, and saw the revolver in Norton's hand.

'I been waiting for you two quite a spell,' said Norton. 'Come on, get off those horses.'

'Easy now!' Larrigan pushed his horse ahead of the other. 'Easy, Norton!'

A burst of profanity came from Norton's lips. He raised the gun.

'Pile off!' he cried. 'Off. or I'll shoot the horses as well— cheating on me, eh? I'm going to settle you for keeps. I've got the two of you.'

Anna pulled hard on one rein. Her horse reared wildly and turned in air. Cursing her, Norton fired point-blank.

The bursting report was drowned in a scream from the horse, which plunged sideways and fell, pinning her beneath his weight. At the shot almost under his nose, Larrigan's horse went straight into the air, shied violently to one side, and the sunfishing motion spilled Larrigan out of the saddle. He tumbled into the dust, rolled over, came to his feet, catlike, and stood uncertainly. The gun exploded again, but not at him.

'Stop it!' Anna's voice lifted n frantic desperation and terror.

Larrigan clapped hand to gun, only to find the holster empty. That tumble had kicked tiis gun loose and it was gone.

'First her, then you!' Norion spat out. 'You cheap imitation cowpuncher!'

'Drug-store cowboy is the term,' said Larrigan. 'You burn for murder in this State. Norton. Leave her alone. Only a cheap coward would use a gun on a woman.'

He was moving as he spoke, imperceptibly, carefully. Norton was peering through the thinning dust at Anna. Her horse was kicking spasmodically, but she was pinned by one leg, unable to move. Norton raised the gun and drew back the hammer.

Larrigan poised and tensed for the leap, let himself go. He went at Norton in a dive, one hand outstretched. Norton swung round to meet him. The gun exploded again as they came together, and Norton was dragged down by Larrigan's weight. He fired again. The shock paralysed Larrigan momentarily and he knew he was hit. His hand gripped upon something and he hung on, desperately, grimly. He had Norton by the ankle.

Norton got to his feet. A scream of fury burst from him at sight of Anna, frantically trying to extricate herself from her dying horse. The animal was still lashing out. Norton flung up the gun at her, but Larrigan's weight hung on his ankle, spoiled his shot and his balance, and he toppled forward.

Recovered from his shock, Larrigan pulled himself in. Norton tried vainly to kick him away; he landed a heel in Larrigan's face, but Larrigan same on. Norton twisted about and pulled the trigger. The hammer clicked; the gun was empty.

Then Larrigan was up with him, was upon him. Norton fought like the madman he was; Larrigan knocked the gun from his hand. They scrambled for it, missed it, broke clear and came to their feet, slugging. Larrigan walked into a smash that brought him up short; he recovered, balanced, reached in with a crack to the face that sent Norton reeling away, and set himself for the return rush.

None came. Instead, he heard a dull thudding 'clop' followed by a terrible gasp, and then the dust thinned and drifted off and settled.

Wiping his eyes, Larrigan saw the white face and wide, horrified eyes of Anna, twisting to lift at the weight that held her. Then he saw Norton lying in the road, a sprawling inert thing, under the hoofs of the dying, thrashing horse. A lashing hoof had struck him squarely, crushing his skull.

He got Anna clear and then stood beside her, panting.

'My leg's twisted and hurt, but it doesn't seem broken,' she said. Then, looking up suddenly, she caught her breath. 'But you— the blood—'

Larrigan surveyed himself, incredulously. His shirt was ripped and blood was flowing. That bullet had seared across his chest, breaking the skin but nothing more.

'Talk about luck!' he exclaimed. 'Half an inch deeper and it would have finished me. As it is, it's nothing but a scratch.'

'But where is he— oh!'

She saw Norton's figure.

'The horse kicked him,' said Larrigan. 'You won't need to get a divorce now, Anna.'

Then Anna said: 'The luck's turned. There's no more bad luck.'

'Reckon there never was any, Anna,' Larrigan said. 'It was just a shadow that became real when I ran from it. No more running!'

He sighted distant dust-spurts and nodded.

'There comes Tex and the rest of the crowd. Lucky thing, Anna, I didn't kill this fellow Norton. It's all plain to see how he ended— lucky thing, eh? Want to make the luck all come true, before they can get a clear sight of us?' He leaned down and she lifted her lips to meet his.

_____________________

6: The Ransom

C J Cutliffe Hyne

Twenty-Three Stories by Twenty and Three Authors, 1924

METHUEN WRIGGLED himself into a corner of the hut, rested his shoulders against the adobe wall, and made himself as comfortable as the raw-hide thongs with which he was tied up would permit. “Well, Calvert,” said he, “I hope you quite realise what an extremely ugly hole we’re in?”

“Garcia will hang the pair of us before sunset,” I replied, “and that’s a certainty. My only wonder is we haven’t been strung up before this.”

“You think a rope and a tree’s a sure thing, do you? I wish I could comfort myself with that idea. I wouldn’t mind a simple gentlemanly dose of hanging. But there are more things in heaven and earth, Calvert—” He broke off and whistled drearily.

I moistened my dry, cracked lips, and asked him huskily what he meant.

“Torture, old man. That’s what we’re being saved for, I’m very much afraid. A Peruvian guerilla is never a gentle-minded animal at the best of times, and Garcia is noted as being the most vindictive brute to be found between the Andes and the Pacific. Then if you’ll kindly remember how you and I have harried him, and shot down his men, and cut off his supplies, and made his life a torment and a thing of tremors for the last four weeks, you’ll see he had got a big bill against us. If he’d hated us less, he’d have had us shot at sight when we were caught; as it is, I’m afraid he felt that a couple of bullets in hot blood wouldn’t pay off the score.”

“If he thinks the matter over calmly, he’ll not very well avoid seeing that if he wipes us out there’ll be reprisals to be looked for.”

“And a fat lot,” replied Methuen grimly, “he’ll care for the chance of those. If we are put out of the way, he knows quite well that there are no two other men in the Chilian Service who can keep him on the trot as we have done. No, sir. We can’t scare Garcia with that yarn. You think that because we’re alive still there’s hope. Well, I’ve sufficient faith in my theory for this: If anyone offered me a shot through the head now, I’d accept it, and risk the chance.”

“You take the gloomy view. Now the man’s face is not altogether cruel. There’s humour in it.”

“Then probably he’ll show his funniness when he takes it out of us,” Methuen retorted. “Remember that punishment in the ‘Mikado’? That had ‘something humorous’ in it. Boiling oil, if I don’t forget.”

Involuntarily I shuddered, and the raw-hide ropes cut deeper into my wrists and limbs. I had no great dread of being killed in the ordinary way, or I should not have entered the Chilian Army in the middle of a hot war; and I was prepared to risk the ordinary woundings of action in return for the excitements of the fight. But to be caught, and held a helpless prisoner, and be deliberately tortured to death by every cruelty this malignant fiend, Garcia, could devise, was a possibility I had not counted on before. In fact, as the Peruvians had repeatedly given out that they would offer no quarter to us English in the Chilian Service, we had all of us naturally resolved to die fighting rather than be taken. And, indeed, this desperate feeling paid very well, since on two separate occasions when Methuen and myself had been cornered with small bodies of men, and would have surrendered if we could have been guaranteed our lives, we went at them each time so furiously that on each occasion we broke through and escaped. But one thinks nothing of the chances of death and maiming at those times. There is a glow within one’s ribs which scares away all trace of fear.

“I suppose there’s no chance of rescue?” I said.

“None whatever,” said Methuen, with a little sigh. “Think it over, Calvert. We start out from the hacienda with an escort of five men, sing out our adios, and ride away to enjoy a ten days’ leave in the mountains. The troops are left to recruit; for ten days they can drop us out of mind. Within twelve hours of our leaving them, Garcia cleverly ambushes us in a cañon where not three people pass in a year. The poor beggars who form our escort are all gastados.”

“Yes, but are you sure of that?” I interrupted. “I saw them all drop off their horses when we were fired upon, but that doesn’t prove they were dead. Some might have been merely wounded, and when the coast cleared, it is just possible they crawled back to our post with the news. Still, I own it’s a small chance.”

“And you may divest yourself of even that thin rag of hope. Whilst you were being slung senseless across a horse, I saw that man without the ears go round with a machete, and— well, when the brute had done, there was no doubt about the poor fellows being as dead as lumps of mud. Ah, and talk of the devil—”

The earless man swung into the hut.

“Buenas, Señores,” said he mockingly. “You will have the honour now of being tried, and I’m sure I hope you will be pleased with the result.”

“I suppose we shall find that out later,” said Methuen with a yawn; “but anyway, I don’t think much of your hospitality. A cup of wine now after that ugly ride we’ve had to-day would come in very handy, or even a nip of aguardiente would be better than nothing.”

“I fancy it might be a waste of good liquor,” was the answer; “but you must ask Garcia. He will see to your needs.”

A guard of twelve ragged fellows, armed with carbine and machete, had followed the earless man into the hut, and two of them, whilst he talked, had removed the seizings from our knees and ankles. They helped us to our feet, and we walked with them into the dazzling sunshine outside.

“I’ll trouble some of you for my hat,” said Methuen, when the glare first blazed down on him; and then, as no one took any notice of the request, he lurched against the earless man with a sudden swerve, and knocked his sombrero on to the brown baked turf. “Well, I’ll have yours, you flea-ridden ladron,” said he; “it’s better than nothing at all. Pick up the foul thing, and shake it, and put it on my head.”

The guerilla bared his teeth like an animal, and drew a pistol. I thought he would have shot my comrade out of hand, and by his look I could see that Methuen expected it. Indeed, he had deliberately invited the man to that end. But, either because the nearness of Garcia and fear of his discipline stayed him, or through thought of a finer vengeance which was to come, the earless man contented himself by dealing a battery of kicks and oaths, and bidding our guards to ward us more carefully.

In this way, then, we walked along a path between two fields of vines, and passed down the straggling street of the village which the guerillas had occupied, and brought up in a little plaza which faced the white-walled chapel. In the turret a bell was tolling dolefully with slow strokes, and as the sound came to me through the heated air, it did not require much imagination to frame it into an omen. In the centre of the plaza was a vast magnolia tree, filled with scented wax-like flowers, and splashed with cones of coral-pink.

We drew up before the piazza of the principal house. Seated under its shade in a split-cane rocker, Garcia awaited us, a small, meagre, dark man, with glittering teeth, and fingers lemon-coloured from cigarette juice.

He stared at us and spat; and the trial, such as it was, began.

I must confess that the proceedings astonished me. Animus there certainly was; the guerillas as a whole were disposed to give us short shrift; but their chief insisted on at least some parade of justice. The indictment was set forward against us: We had shot, hanged, and harried, and in fact used all the harshness of war. Had we been Chilians in the Chilian Service, this might have been pardonable; but we were aliens from across the sea; mere freebooters, fighting, not for a country, but each for his own hand; and as such we were beyond the pale of military courtesy. We had earned a punishment. Had we any word to speak why this should not be given?

Garcia looked towards us expectantly, and then set himself to roll a fresh cigarette.

I shrugged my shoulders. It seemed useless to say anything.

Methuen said: “Look here, sir! You’ve got us, there is no mistake about that. It seems to me you’ve two courses before you, and they are these: Either, you can kill us, more or less barbarously, in which case you will raise a most pestilential hunt at your heels; or, you can put us up to ransom. Now neither Calvert here, nor myself, are rich men; but if you choose to let us go with sound skins, we’re prepared to pay ten thousand Chilian dollars apiece for our passports. Now, does that strike you?”

Garcia finished rolling his cigarette, and lit it with care. He inhaled a deep breath of smoke.

“Señor,” he said (the words coming out from between his white teeth with little puffs of vapour), “you do not appear to understand. You fight as a soldier of fortune, and I am merely in arms as a patriot. I am no huckster to traffic men’s lives for money, nor am I a timorous fool to be scared into robbing a culprit of his just dues.”

“Very well, then,” said Methuen, “murder the pair of us.”

Garcia smiled unpleasantly. “You may be a very brave man,” said he, “but you are not a judicious one. To a judge less just than myself this insolence might have added something to your punishment; but as it is I shall overlook what you have said, and only impose the penalty I had determined upon before you spoke.”

He lifted his thin yellow fingers, and drew a fresh breath of smoke. Then he waved the cigarette towards the magnolia tree in the centre of the plaza. “You see that bough which juts out towards the chapel?”

“It’s made for a gallows,” said Methuen.

“Precisely,” said the guerilla, “and it will be used as one inside ten minutes. I shall string one of you up by the neck, to dangle there between heaven and earth. The other man shall have a rifle and cartridges, and if, standing where he does now, he can cut with a bullet the rope with which his friend is hanged, then you shall both go free.”

“I hear you say it,” said Methuen. “In other words you condemn one of us to be strangled slowly without chance of reprieve. But what guarantee have we that you will not slit the second man’s throat after you have had your sport out of him?”

Garcia sprang to his feet with a stamp of passion, and the chair rolled over backwards. “You foul adventurer!” he cried. “You paid man-killer!” and then he broke off with a bitter “Pah!” and folded his arms, and for a minute held silence till he got his tongue in hand again. “Señor,” he said coldly, “my country’s wrongs may break my heart, but they can never make me break my word. I may be a hunted guerilla, but I still remain a gentleman.”

“I beg your pardon,” said Methuen.

“We will now,” continued Garcia icily, “find out which of you two will play which part. Afterwards I will add another condition which may lend more skill to what follows. I will not coerce you. Kindly choose between yourselves which of you will hang and which will shoot.”

My comrade shrugged his shoulders. “I like you, Calvert, old man,” said he, “but I’m not prepared to dance on nothing for you.”

“It would be simplest to toss for exit,” I said.

“Precisely; but, my dear fellow, I have both hands trussed up, and no coin.”

“Pray let me assist you,” said Garcia. “Señor Calvert, may I trouble you for an expression of opinion?”

He leant over the edge of the piazza, and span a dollar into the air. I watched it with a thumping heart, and when for an instant it paused, a dazzling splash of brightness against the red-tiled roof, I cried: “Heads!”

The coin fell with a faint thud in the dust a yard from my feet.

“Well?” said Methuen.

“I congratulate you, old fellow. I swing.”

He frowned and made no reply. Garcia’s voice broke the silence. “Bueno, Señor Methuen,” he said. “I advise you to shoot straight, or you will not get home even now. You remember I said there was still another condition. Well, here you are: you must cut your friend down with a bullet before he is quite dead, or I’ll string you up beside him.”

Methuen let up a short laugh. “Remember what I said about that fellow in ‘the Mikado,’ Calvert? You see where the ‘humour’ comes in? We’ve had that coin spun for nothing. You and I must change positions.”

“Not at all. I take what I’ve earned.”

“But I say yes. It works this way: I took it that the man who was hanging stood a delicate chance anyway, and I didn’t feel generous enough to risk it. But now the Señor here has put in the extra clause, the situation is changed altogether. You aren’t a brilliant shot, old man, but you may be able to cut me down with a bullet if you remember what you’re firing for, and shoot extra straight. But it’s a certain thing that I couldn’t do it if I blazed away till Doomsday. The utmost I could manage would be to fluke a pellet into your worthy self. So you see I must wear the hemp, and you must apply your shoulder to the rifle butt. Laugh, you fool,” he added in English. “Grin, and say something funny, or these brutes will think we care for them.”

But I was incapable of further speech. I could have gibed at the prospect of being hanged myself, but the horror of this other ordeal turned me sick and dumb. And at what followed I looked on mutely.

There was a well at one side of the plaza, and the earless man went and robbed the windlass of its rope. With clumsy landsman’s fingers he formed a noose, took it to the great magnolia tree, and threw the loose end over the projecting branch. The bell of the little white chapel opposite went on tolling gravely, and they marched my friend up to his fate over the sun-baked dust. They passed a thong round his ankles; the earless man fitted the noose to his throat; a dozen of the guerillas with shouts and laughter laid hold of the hauling part of the line; and then a voice from behind fell upon my ear. Garcia was speaking to me. With a strain I dragged my eyes away from the glare of the plaza, and listened. He was smiling wickedly.

“—and so your pluck has oozed away?” he was saying, as the cigarette smoke billowed up from between the white walls of his teeth. “Well, of course, if you do not care for the game, you can throw up your hand at once. You’ve only to say the word, and you can be dangling on that bough there inside a couple of minutes. It’s quite strong enough to carry more fruit than it will bear just now. But it’s rather hard on your friend not to try—

My wits came to me again. “You dolt!” I cried; “how can I shoot with my arms trussed up like this? If the whole thing is not a mockery, cut me adrift and give me a rifle.”

He beckoned to one of his men, and the fellow came up and cut off the lashings from my wrists and elbows; and then, with a sour smile, he motioned to some of the others, who drew near and held their weapons at the ready. “I dare wager, Señor Calvert,” he said, “that if you’d me for a mark you would not score a miss. So I wish to insure that you do not shoot in this direction.” He raised his voice, and shouted across the baking sunlight: “Quite ready here, amigos. So up with the target.”

NOW UP to this point I am free to own that since our capture I had cut a pretty poor figure. I had not whined, but at the same time I had not seen my way to put on Methuen’s outward show of careless brazen courage. But when I watched the guerillas tighten on the rope and sway him up till his stretched-out feet swung a couple of hand-spans above the ground, then my coolness returned to me, and my nerves set like icicles in their sockets. He was sixty yards away, and at that distance, the well-rope dwindled to the bigness of a shoemaker’s thread. Moreover, the upper two-thirds of it was almost invisible, because it hung before a background of shadows. But the eighteen inches above my poor friend’s head stood out clear and distinct against the white walls of the chapel beyond, and as it swayed to pulsing of the body beneath, it burnt itself upon my eyesight till all the rest of the world was blotted out in a red haze. I never knew before how thoroughly a man could concentrate himself.

They handed me the rifle, loaded and cocked. It was a single-shot Winchester, and I found out afterwards, though I did not know it then, that either through fiendish wish to further hamper my aim, or through pure forgetfulness, they had left the sights cocked up at three hundred yards. But that did not matter; the elevation was a detail of minor import; and besides, I was handling the weapon as a game shot fires, with head up, and eyes glued on the mark, and rifle-barrel following the eyes by instinct alone. You must remember that I had no stationary mark to aim at. My poor comrade was writhing and swaying at the end of his tether, and the well-rope swung hither and thither like some contorted pendulum.

Once I fired, twice I fired, six times, ten times, and still the rope remained uncut, and the bullets rattled harmlessly against the white walls of the chapel beyond. With the eleventh shot came the tinkle of broken glass, and the bell, after a couple of hurried nervous clangs, ceased tolling altogether. With the thirteenth shot a shout went up from the watching crowd. I had stranded the rope, and the body which dangled beneath the magnolia tree began slowly to gyrate.

Then came a halt in the firing. I handed the Winchester back to the fellow who was reloading, but somehow or other the exploded cartridge had jammed in the breach. I danced and raged before him in my passion of hurry, and the cruel brutes round yelled in ecstasies of merriment. Only Garcia did not laugh. He re-rolled a fresh cigarette, with his thin yellow fingers, and leisurely rocked himself in the split-cane chair. The man could not have been more unmoved if he had been overlooking a performance of Shakespeare.

At last I tore the Winchester from the hands of the fellow who was fumbling with it, and clawed at the jammed cartridge myself, breaking my nails and smearing the breech-lock with blood. If it had been welded into one solid piece, it could scarcely have been firmer. But the thrill of the moment gave my hands the strength of pincers. The brass case moved from side to side; it began to crumple; and I drew it forth and hurled it from me, a mere ball of shapeless, twisted metal. Then one of the laughing brutes gave me another cartridge, and once more I shouldered the loaded weapon.

The mark was easier now. The struggles of my poor friend had almost ceased, and though the well-rope still swayed, its movements were comparatively rhythmical, and to be counted upon. I snapped down the sights, put the butt-plate to my shoulder, and cuddled the stock with my cheek. Here for the first time was a chance of something steadier than a snap-shot.

I pressed home the trigger as the well-rope reached one extremity of its swing. Again a few loose ends sprang from the rope, and again the body began slowly to gyrate. But was it Methuen I was firing to save, or was I merely wasting shot to cut down a mass of cold dead clay?

I think that more agony was compressed for me into a few minutes then than most men meet with in a lifetime. Even the onlooking guerillas were so stirred that for the first time their gibing ceased, and two of them of their own accord handed me cartridges. I slipped one home and closed the breech-lock. The perspiration was running in a stream from my chin. Again I fired. Again the well-rope was snipped, and I could see the loosened strands ripple out as a snake unwraps itself from a branch.

One more shot. God in heaven, I missed! Why was I made to be a murderer like this?

Garcia’s voice came to me coldly. “Your last chance, Señor. I can be kept waiting here no longer. And I think you are wasting time. Your friend seems to have quitted us already.”

Another cartridge. I sank to one knee and rested my left elbow on the other. The plaza was hung in breathless silence. Every eye was strained to see the outcome of the shot. The men might be inhuman in their cruelty, but they were human enough in their curiosity.

The body span to one end of its swing: I held my fire. It swung back, and the rifle muzzle followed. Like some mournful pendulum it passed through the air, and then a glow of certainty filled me like a drink. I knew I could not miss that time; and I fired; and the body, in a limp and shapeless heap, fell to the ground.

With a cry I threw the rifle from me and raced across the sunlit dust. Not an arm was stretched out to stop me. Only when I had reached my friend and loosened that horrible ligature from his neck, did I hear voices clamouring over my fate.

“And now this other Inglese, your excellency,” the earless man said. “Shall we shoot him from here, or shall we string him up in the other’s place?”

But the answer was not what the fellow expected. Garcia replied to him in a shriek of passion. “You foul, slaughtering brute,” he cried, “another offer like that and I’ll pistol you where you stand. You heard me pass my word: do you dream that I could break it? They have had their punishment, and if we see one another again, the meeting will be none of my looking for. We leave this puebla in five minutes. See to your duties. Go.”

The words came to me dully through the heated air. I was almost mad with the thought that my friend was dead, and that the fault was mine, mine, mine alone!

I listened for his breaths; they did not come. I felt for a heart-throb; there was not so much as a flutter. His neck was seared by a ghastly ring. His face was livid. And yet I would not admit even then that he was dead. With a cry I seized his arms, and moved them first above his head till he looked like a man about to dive, and then clapped them against his sides, repeating this an infinite number of times, praying that the airs I drew through his lungs might blow against some smouldering spark of humanity, and kindle it once more into life.

The perspiration rolled from me; my mouth was as a sandpit; the heavy scent of the magnolia blossoms above sickened me with its strength; the sight departed from my eyes. I could see nothing beyond a small circle of the hot dust around, which waved and danced in the sunlight, and the little green lizards which came and looked at me curiously, and forgot that I was human.

And then, of a sudden, my comrade gave a sob, and his chest began to heave of itself without my laborious aid. And after that for a while I knew very little more. The sun-baked dust danced more wildly in the sunshine, the lizards changed to darker colours, the light went out, and when next I came to my senses Methuen was sitting up with one hand clutching at his throat, looking at me wildly.

“What has happened?” he gasped. “I thought I was dead, and Garcia had hanged me. Garcia——No one is here. The puebla seems deserted. Calvert, tell me.”

“They have gone,” I said. “We are alive. We will get away from here as soon as you can walk.”

He rose to his feet, swaying. “I can walk now. But what about you?”

“I am an old man,” I said, “wearily old. In the last two hours I have grown a hundred years. But I think I can walk also. Yes, look, I am strong. Lean on my arm. Do you see that broken window in the chapel? When I fired through that, the bell stopped tolling.”

“Let us go inside the chapel for a minute before we leave the village,” said Methuen. “We have had a very narrow escape, old man. I— I— feel thankful.”

There was a faint smell of incense inside that little white-walled chapel. The odour of it lingers by me still.

_______________________

7: Beauty And The Beast

C J Cutcliffe Hyne

All Story Weekly, 3 July 1920

THE boat was flung dizzily up on the top of a wave-crest, with the spin- drift slicing over her gunwales, and then sank with a sickening swoop into next sea valley.

A slop of dirty water swished backward and forward in her interior, carrying with it bits of a broken floor-grating, and a baling can, and three straw bottle cases.

A gorgeous silver sunset balanced steadily over the uneasy water ahead, or at least it was silver on Cambridge blue, with French gray fitments. The man in the boat, who was an architect by trade, admired this sunset between spasms of sea sickness. The view astern was blocked in with an assortment of purples, slashed by one streak of lurid red.

It seemed incredibly threatening. He was a nervous man, and he knew that somewhere behind him was the dark and threatening Captain Teach he had escaped from.

The sunset ahead changed. The silver went. The grays increased; dove grays, French grays, lurid grays; some of the and clouds began to mottle with golds and yellows. Astern the purples darkened, and the distant boom of a gun bumped through them dully. Astern, too, the wave tips were neatly gilded by the afterglow, and sugggested to his scared mind smoldering flames.

The man was no sailor, but—solely with the idea of escaping from the neighborhood of Teach— he had got the whale-boat’s mast stepped, and a jib, the only sail he could find, hoisted. He sheeted it slackly, and the jib flopped about as it pleased. Steering with an oar was beyond him. So the boat automatically kept the wind aft and got away to the westward on a reasonable course,

Just as the sunset died— without that opalescent warning one is used to in more northern latitudes— and the tropical night snapped down, the whale-boat rose on one of the giddy wave-crests, and the man caught a glimpse of a small turtle-backed islet, decorated by one small palm tree. Then he slid down again into a trough, and when next he was expressed to a summit, stare how he might, there was no islet in sight. All was blackness, and— for him—  despair.

Then from out of the darkness ahead a crumb of yellow light appeared, hung steadily in place for a moment or two, and then moved away to his left.

The man in the boat refused to draw comfort. “Bahama wreckers,” he told himself, “up to their old games. They think they are going to lure me ashore.”

The man, you gather, had a fine opinion of his own value, for from the look of the boat one would hardly have taken him for a realizable asset. Further, the “luring” part was rather overestimated, as he had no command over the boat whatever.

That any one should be carrying out a piece of ordinary longshore courtesy did not occur to him for a moment because, if the positions had been reversed, he certainly would not have troubled himself to do such a thing.

As a consequence, when the boat, which was a dainty, flimsy yacht’s whaler, did hit the beach, she missed the snug bay where she could have landed handily, and was crushed into match-wood by the surf inside a dozen seconds. The man was lugged out, limp and draggled, by a slim, athletic young woman who wore white satin knickerbockers and bobbed black hair. She dragged him to where she had set her hurricane lantern on the sands.

The man spat out salt water and seaweed, and “What do you want?” he gasped.

The girl stared at him for a moment, and then: “I want to shake you,” said she. “Why didn’t you head up for the harbor when I showed you the way? You’d sail on the boat. You could have done it as easily as not.”

The man blinked at her through the gloom. She might be extraordinarily dressed, but she was a really pretty girl, and bad the tones of a lady. “I’m afraid I’m a duffer at handling a boat. May I ask your name?”

“I’ll learn yours first. Also, what are you doing on my island, please?”

“I’m Halton Ghyll.” He paused there, evidently expecting her to recognize the name. As she showed no signs of doing so, he added, “of Boston. The landscape architect, you know.”

“Ah,” said the girl, and she might have known of his celebrity, or again she might not. “And why is Mr. Ghyll boating in these seas, after dark, when it is possible to catch a chill?”

“I am escaping from the pirate, Teach.”

“Then, after seeing your seamanship, I am sure Captain Teach did not want you, or he would have helped himself.”

“My dear young lady, may I suggest
that your attitude is rather frosty to an unfortunate castaway? I have been down in Florida building a beautiful house for a purse-proud millionaire who doesn’t deserve it, and was coming home on his yacht. Yesterday afternoon a thing like a Hudson River tug came near us, demanded in the name of Teach that we surrender, and promptly began to fire on us.”

“And you fired back, I hope. Are you a good shot?”

“Well, you see, that’s rather the crew’s job, don’t you think? And as you pointed out just now, I’m no sailor. But when the engines got disabled, I did come up on deck and help to lower a boat, and get into it.”

“But why alone? That whaler would have carried ten.”

“The others weren’t quick enough. The boat got swept away from the yacht’s side, and, as I’ve told you, I’m no sailor. I could no more get her back than fly. I suppose there must have been a current or something. And the way she tossed about made me disgustingly squeamish.”

“Anybody else get away besides you?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know. You see, it was all so very confused.”

“Well, was the yacht captured, or was she sunk? You must know that. It would be one or the other if Captain Teach was after you.”

Ghyll stared at her curiously. She was an extremely good-looking girl in spite of her weird clothes, and she seemed defiant.

“That again, I can’t tell you. I drifted away very quickly, and was for the most part lying down in the bottom of the boat. Perhaps I was a little delirious.”

“Afraid of being shot at, I suppose. Whose yacht was it?”

“Ogden Brearley’s Maid of Athens.”

“Phew! The lumber king. My father met him once. And was he on board?”

“He was.”

“Any ladies?”

“No. They went North by train. They shied at Hatteras.”

“Thank God for that. Well, Mr. Ghyll, you may take it, I fancy, that Captain Teach has got hold of Mr. Ogden Brearley and is wringing something valuable out of him. Captain Teach is not the man to kill the goose that puts by the golden egg. I’m not exactly sorry, either. My father, who is in the bent-wood trade, told me the way Mr. Brearley pushed up prices during the war for the stuff we had to use for aeroplanes was a national scandal.

“Now, about you. You’ve come to my island without being invited, and you’ll have to do as you’re told. To begin with, do you want a house?”

“Well, I can hardly sleep in the open, can I?”

“I don’t see why not. I’ve done it myself.”

“May I ask where you-live now?”

“In a house I’ve built for myself out of wreck wood stuff, and I’ve neither room nor inclination for a lodger.”

Mr. Ghyll was pulling himself together. “I think there’s a law in the Bahama cays, Miss—er—er—”

“Miss Bahama.”-

“Bahama? Er— oh, I see. Certainly, if you like. Well, as I was saying. Miss Bahama, there’s a law hereabouts which says that if hospitality isn’t offered to you pleasantly, you help yourself to it; gently, of course, but none the less firmly.”

“May I ask,” inquired this surprising girl, “if you’ve got a pistol on you? A gun, I believe you call it in the portions of your own country you probably affect.”

“No, I haven’t. I told you I came away from the yacht in a hurry.”

“Now, that’s deplorable. Because you won't be able to shoot back at me when I shoot at you.” She drew a line across the wet sand where the lantern light fell upon it, with her bare toe. “Your territory till to-morrow morning, is to the suthard of that line. I live on the north side.

“To-morrow I’ll readjust your boundaries— perhaps. But if you encroach by so much as one yard before breakfast time, Mr. Halton Ghyll, I’ll make you wish you’d never been born. Again, in the film language of your own land, do you get me?”

“I do. But you are very unreasonable. I only wanted—”

“Quite so. I am unreasonable.” The girl picked up her hurricane lantern, and held it up to illuminate the man’s blond, handsome face. “And I grasp what you said you wanted.

“We will now part for the evening. Right about turn. Do you hear me? Right about turn. Quick— march. You may halt before you walk into the Atlantic Ocean, which is deep in places.”

MISS Mary Arncliffe’s residence on the Bahama cay, to which she had given the somewhat unoriginal name of Maryland, owed its site to a wrecked sponge-boat. The ribs of this craft protruded from the sand. The skin and decking, which had been of soft wood, had mostly disappeared.

Mary made up deficiencies in scantling with other wreckage, filled in walls and roof with clumps of seagrass and sea-thistles, and actually achieved a door, which, with its necessary frame, she found flung up above high-water mark. A niggardly skylight the wreck already possessed, and the detail that it lacked glass was no detriment in a climate where ventilation was an urgent necessity. She christened it— with two chocolates— Maryland Manor.

Once built, Mary stood back from her house, with thumbs in armholes, chewing a straw, and saw that her house was good. It even achieved a rusty stove and stovepipe, and though of course cooking indoors was an impossibility owing to the Maryland temperature, there is no doubt that the stove made for hominess.

She built in a narrow shelf for the seagull eggs that she knew to be fresh, and a broad shelf for the might-be’s. Her two chocolate boxes and the mending materials had a shelf to themselves, not because they were mementoes of Captain Teach, but because they were useful.

Captain Teach’s two cases of loot she hid elsewhere, and wondered if he would torture her after the manner of his kind, if he arrived and found them missing.

Be it well understood though, at this time she told herself repeatedly she had thrown Teach off the scent. But then Teach was so detestably clever that you never could be sure.

Three days she had spent on Maryland Cay too busy housebuilding to be either frightened or lonely, and then had arrived Mr. Halton Ghyll.

Now Mr. Ghyll was a good-looking, fair man of rather the barber’s block type, and women liked him. Possibly they liked him for his outward charms, possibly for his little ways, possibly because he was a fashionable architect; I am not analyzing the reason, but merely reporting fact.

As a consequence, he had that assured way with women which those sort of men always acquire. Presumably the bulk of women like it. Mary Amcliffe did not. Mary resented, him from the moment she pulled him out of the surf, where he did so little to help himself.

Ghyll was an architect, certainly, but prided himself on not being a vulgar builder. Consequently, after stumbling about some time in the dark over the sand dunes— he at last sat down and promptly dropped off to sleep.

He awoke with a headache, and a red nose, and blown sand in every fraction of his person. He was savage against Teach, he was savage against Ogden Brearley, but, unreasonably enough, he was most savage of all against the young woman in the white satin knickerbockers and the ragged upper garment who had the impudence to introduce herself to him, of all men, as “Miss Bahama.” With a vast experience at the back of him, he had every intention of teaching her a lesson.

First, however, it was necessary to find her, and as there were no sign posts on Maryland, and he lacked the instinct of direction, this entailed a weary plod among sandy wastes, where resting seafowl resented his intrusion with noisy vigor. A tang of wood smoke in the air gave him the required hint when he was nearly dropping with tiredness.

“This morning,” said Mary Arndiffe, “I will put up the breakfast. Afterward, it will be your job to do the hunting. Also, the wood gathering.

“I shouldn’t bite into that baked egg all at once, if I were you, unless you are fond of chickens. Divide it with your thumbs first, and then you can see if it is likely to be too rich for you.”

“Ugh! ” said Halton Ghyll, and flung the egg violently over a hill of the sand. “Give me that other egg, please, which you were going to eat yourself. I may say, these kids’ tricks do not amuse me.”

“Certainly, Mr. Ghyll. Here’s a second egg; the one, as you politely guessed, I was going to eat myself. And that’s the end of your ration.”

“Unless I want more.”

“If you want more,” said his hostess dryly, “you won’t get it at my table. You’ll have to forage for it yourself at the end of Maryland I assigned to you, and cook it.”

“You’ve eggs there. I shall take what I want.”

“Now, here’s news! ” said Mary Amcliffe. “When.do you propose to begin?”

Mr. Halton Ghyll, it appeared, was a lawn-tennis player of note, and his rush was a quick one. So also was his halt. So also was his retreat.

“You needn’t run away any farther,” Miss Amcliffe informed him, “if you will learn to behave yourself like a—well, shall we say a reasonable member of society?”

“I’m bleeding horribly. You just missed my eye with that stab.”

“Sorry. It was your eye I aimed for. You’ve the weight, you see, Mr. Beast, and I won’t let you come to close quarters.”

“There is a Richardson’s skua’s nest behind you that the owner has ceased to occupy. Please sit in it. Do you hear me, Mr. Ghyll? Sit in that nest, or I'll jab you again.

“Thank you. Just so. And stay there. You are safer at moorings.

“But don’t forget, if you’re feeling evil again, that I’ve my spear quite handy. Here’s your second egg. Catch.”

“It seems,” said the architect viciously, “that I’m out of the frying-pan into the fire. I suppose Teach would have robbed me, but he would have behaved decently over it. Yes, I will say that for Teach, and one way and another I’ve seen a good bit of him. He always behaved like a gentleman.”

“Here’s news! Also, a character for a notorious pirate. Are you speaking the truth by any chance —did you really know Captain Teach?”

“I regret to say he was a member of the Beefsteak, which is my New York club. Don’t know how he got elected; but there he was; and a jolly popular member, too. He was a man who always could be relied on to order the best dinner available, and that, let me tell you, is an art.”

“He once showed us there a portrait by Sir Godfrey Kneller of the original Blackbeard. I honestly believe it was genuine. Fancy bucking about having a pirate for great-grandfather.”

“It isn’t every one who knew what his people were in 1718 .”

“Well, there you are. It’s an infernal pity he’s turned out the way he has. I used to meet him a lot till about a year ago— eras I say till about a year ago. Haven’t seen him since.”

Miss Arncliffe thought a moment, and then: “Why have you ceased going to the Beefsteak for this last year?” said she.

Mr. Ghyll jumped up from his nest as though he had been stabbed a second time. The sticks creaked and crackled as he sank back on to them.

“What have you heard about it? There, I felt all along you knew Mr. Infernal Teach. I’d never have thought he was the man to distort things. Anyway, I don’t care a row of pins what he said.

“The plain truth is, I resigned. What the committee chose to do after I’d ceased to be a member, I can’t say. The whole thing was very damaging to me professionally.

“You see, Teach was so popular with the rest of the members, I felt I shouldn’t have a look-in if it came before the committee. So I resigned.”

“I wish you’d sit quiet, and not talk about things that don’t interest me. You’ve trodden on that second egg— well, I’m afraid it was a rich one. Here’s another. Catch.”

But in spite of her austere proposals to limit Mr. Ghyll’s breakfast, Mary’s natural hospitality went further than her words. The man ate till he was filled, but even then he did not appear decently grateful to his hostess.

His fine-blond face was sullen and lowering. Mary, despite her debonair manner, felt him to be menace incarnate, and kept the thin haft of the spear handy to her fingers.

As a weapon, the spear was new to her. But at school she had learned fencing, and she had kept it up at intervals during her service with the W. A. A. C.’s, and knew how to do that daunting thing, “give the point.” The one item she had to keep in mind was to dart in and out so quickly that he could not get a hit on the frail bamboo shaft and smash it.

She was horribly afraid of Halton Ghyll, but viciously determined to damage him badly if he gave her the least opening. In the meanwhile she wasted no civility on him.

“As you’ve finished your breakfast, you may now go to your own side of Maryland, and gather eggs.”

“I’m fagged out. I’m going to stay where I am— Ough! You little hell-cat! I’ll wring your neck if I get hold of you! ”

“I’m sure you’d try. Now get a move on, or I’ll puncture you again. D’ye hear me, beast? March! Right— wheel!”

MARY DID NOT sleep in Maryland Manor that night, but in a burrow she made for herself, after dark had fallen, and before the moon rose, under the farther side of the wrecked sponge-boat’s ribs. As she expressed it to herself, she “had a feeling in her bones ” that the devilish Mr. Halton Ghyll still imagined himself a power in Maryland.

She lay awake, watching.

The noisy seafowl of the isle dropped the main parts of their arguments at sundown, but kept up a soto voce cluttering throughout the night. Also, the surf bellowed on the weather beaches, and the wind hissed and swished through the sea- grasses and the sea-thistles. So there was plenty of noise to cover the approach of the most clumsy of stalkers. And, of course, the sand muffled all footsteps.

But Gryll had forgotten the moon, and although he made the last advances crawling, he showed his menacing silhouette against a skyline, and Mary was ready for him when he arrived.

But she did not interfere at once. She let him fumble for the handle, and open the door of Maryland Manor, and lower himself into the dark interior before she moved- But she acted then with a vigor.

She reached the door in a couple of jumps, slammed it shut, and wedged it fast with a stiff balk of wreckage. Then jumping on to the roof, she progued downward with, her weapon through the narrow glassless skylight and elicited howls.

I do not blame Ghyll for giving tongue. Anybody would have vented his feelings if he had been punctured so vigorously with an inch of darning needle set at the end of a bamboo rod.

IT was Captain Teach himself— I beg his pardon, Admiral Teach; I. R. N., of course he was by that date— who put an end to the performance. His predatory, hawklike nose, and his ear with the bit clipped out, and his dogged black chin, rose from behind a sand dune, and his voice inquired unpleasantly:

“Mary, what are you doing with a man om this island, may I ask?”

There was a pause, and then: “Please remember I am Miss Arncliffe to you,” came the retort.

“Don’t give yourself airs. What did you let Blausberg, of all creatures, come here for? And what are you doing with him, anyway?”

“I don’t know what it’s got to do with you, Captain Teach—”

“Admiral Teach, please, if you want to be formal.”

“Oh, admiral, if you’re vain enough to want it. I don’t know what it’s got to do with you, but if it interests yob, I’ll admit that I was fighting him. But why Blausberg? The person said bis name was Halton Ghyll.”

“Very likely. He’s a blond beast with many aliases. I understand he was on Ogden Breartey’s Maid of Athens, and had a bad attack of panic when I overhauled her. Sort of thing a dirty card-sharper of that clip would do.

“Drowned about six of his undesirable stable companions at the same time. Well, you get down to my boat, little girl, and I’ll attend to Blausberg.”

“Are you going to kill him?”

“Would you object if I did?”

“Certainly. He’s my— how do you put it?”

“Your meat?” ''

“I suppose so. I’ve been making holes in him with a darning-needle.”

The pirate’s grim dark face relaxed into a grin. “The darning-needle I left for you? That pretty lilac-sprigged organdy muslin seems to have petered out. But you’ve found another use for my darning-needle, have you?”

“Perhaps. Anyway, it’s an efficient darning-needle. Two-thirds of it are pushed into the end of this bamboo, and the other third sticks out. Mr.— er— the blond one, has been punctured by that odd third at least twenty times. It wouldn’t be fair to shoot him after having gone through all that.”

“I wasn’t thinking of wasting a shot on him. There’s one lone, lorn tree on this cay, and we’ve a spare end of rope.

“Now, Mary, dear, you get away on board the launch. You needn’t wait for the rest of the ceremony. I’ll be with you in twenty minutes. Ah, Mr. Pickles, there you are. Brought that bit of line?”

“Yes, sir,” puffed the stout gunner. “But I hope you’ll give me time to splice an eye in the end of it. A bowline knot makes rather a clumsy job of this kind of noose, I always think.”

“Get your line hove over the top of that tree, Mr. Pickles, and don’t waste time. Miss Arncliffe and I want to be off.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said the gunner, running a thick finger round inside his eighteen-inch collar, and taking himself off. “I dare say we’ll make an efficient job of it with the hangman’s knot all the same.”

“Captain Teach?”

“Admiral Teach, as I’ve just told you, please.”

Miss Arncliffe stamped well-shaped toes on the sand. “Admiral, then. Well, I never asked you a favor before, and never shall again. But if you let that beast go unhanged I’ll— you may— well, you’ve tried to call me by my Christian name a lot of times, and I’ve not let you. Now, will that do?”

“I don’t quite see what you’re driving at.”

“I mean you may call me Mary if you want to, when you’ve let him go.”

“Then you are fond of the fellow after a fashion.”

“He’s a beast, and I hate him. But I’ve punished him quite enough, and I’m a sportsman if you are not. I suppose he’s swindled you at cards, and you’re after him for that?”

The pirate’s smile was an ugly one. “I’ve a strong mind to shake you. But nobody ever said I wasn’t a sportsman. Your man doesn’t hang. We’ll leave him on your blessed Maryland to eat gulls’ eggs, or fly away, or drown himself, exactly as he pleases.

“As my excellent great-grandfather would have said, we’ll maroon him. And apropos of that, my dear, I want to take you across to the other cay over there to leeward and show you the very desirable dugout my venerable relative had constructed for himself and Mrs. Blackbeard. You needn’t fear there are any horrors. I’ve tidied it all up.”

“But I can’t go away with you,” the girl gasped.

“I don’t see what other choice you have,” said the pirate grimly. “And ‘once aboard the lugger,’ you remember? Mary, don’t be foolish. You have been about quite enough to know when a man’s madly in love with you. And this man’s not a nobody now.

“All the world is humming with his name. He’s admiral commanding the Irish Republican Navy. And he’s made Ogden Brearley lend the republic two million dollars, free of interest. Think of the delicious mess that lands the English and American politicians into! Just worry it out for' yourself.

“It’s mighty few people who dare to call me a pirate now. I’m a high-minded patriot. They made Morgan, who went pirating, with great-grandfather Black-beard, a knight.

“Pooh! What’s a knighthood these days? I’ll have an earldom, Mary dear, before I’m through with it, and you shall be my countess. Come on now, and I’ll show you now what the story books call the pirate’s lair.”

___________________

8: The Ninety-Ninth Proposal

Robert J Horton

(1885-1934)

All Story Weekly, 3 July 1920

THEY sat on the soft green sward in the lea of a clump of pines overlooking the Sound near Nanny Van Zandt’s home.

“Why won’t you marry me?” asked Billy Knapp for the fifth time.

“We are too young to be thinking of marriage,” answered Nanny, struggling with fifteen or twenty rebellious wisps of hair.

“Now when we are young is just thetime we ought to get married,” argued Billy.

“Your future is still in doubt,” observed Nanny, judiciously.

“I know what you mean,” flared Billy.“Because your people have got oddles of dough and I’m a struggling bank clerk,you might say, you’re afraid to take a chance! ”

Nanny’s pretty face became severe in disapproval.

“Now, Billy, I don’t want you saying things like that because—with me—money wouldn’t count for a cent if I wanted tomarry you; but I’m not ready to get married yet—to anybody, and we would have to think about the future, now wouldn’t we?”

“All right, Nanny, let’s think about it,” said Billy, brightening. “Now look here. I’ve got three hundred and ten dollars in the bank. That isn’t much, but it ’ll start us. It ’ll pay for the honeymoon and everything.”

Nanny laughed in delight. Billy certainly was an enthusiastic young lover, at least.

“Now what’re you laughing at?” he demanded, sitting back and peering at her with a wrinkled brow.

“I was just thinking about that three-hundred-dollar honeymoon,” she giggled.

“Well, what’s the matter with it? Ain’t it enough?”

“I suppose so, only don’t be silly, Billy, and talk about honeymoons—”

“Now, look here,” said Billy, firmly, running his fingers through his thick brown hair which stuck straight up as though with indignation; “I want to talk about honeymoons— our honeymoon. You think that isn’t enough money for a honeymoon, don’t you?

“Well, I wasn’t planning a trip to Europe; I just thought we could take my flivver and run up to the mountains for a coupla weeks, or wherever you want to go— so far as I’m concerned I’d just as soon spend my honeymoon in a catboat or an ash heap so long as I spend it with you! ”

This was entirely too flattering a statement for Nanny to answer readily. It would have been easy to pooh-hoo the idea if Billy hadn’t been so terribly in earnest and so mighty good looking with that pleading look in his eyes. She had known Billy a long time, too; they had grown up together.

“And then—after the honeymoon,” Billy went on, “I’ve got my hundred dollars a month, but they’d probably raise me for a wedding present. I don’t believe that old crab of a president of ours would have the nerve to ask a married man to work for any hundred a month!

“Oh, I’d look after you, all right, Nanny; you’d find me a mighty good provider; I’d never see my wife and children suffer for lack—”

“Billy! Now stop right there! Why, you’re positively the silliest boy I ever saw.”

“Boy! Now, look here, Nanny, I’m twenty-three and I’ve passed the boy stage. I’m an old man right now, in my thoughts; and I want the comfort of a wife and a home!”

“Why, Billy, your folks have a good home.”

“That isn’t the kind of a home I mean,” said Billy in disgusted explanation. “I want my own home, with you in it.”

“But it takes money to have a home, Billy.”

“There you go again—money, money, money; nothing but money! Money ain’t everything, Nanny. Look at the muscle in that right arm! And I’ve got enough with this month’s pay to buy a lot in the new addition, and you know if you have a lot you can get almost anybody to build a house on it for you and pay so much down a month. And you can buy all kinds of furniture on the instalment plan, and a piano; and with you to spur me on I’d make that bank hum and get promoted.

“Why, say! I could maybe get your father’s account for the bank—they’ve been trying to get it for years—and they’d have to promote me—although I detest the banking business.”

Nanny felt herself wavering once or twice during this long speech, almost carried away by Billy’s enthusiasm, but she recovered quickly at the end.

“That’s one trouble with you, Billy, you don’t know what you want to do.”

“I want to be outdoors, that’s all,” Billy asserted.

“Well, why don’t you get an outdoor job then?”

“Why, I’m outdoors all day except the seven hours I have to put in at the bank.”

“That’s the trouble, Billy; you look on your position at the bank as a place to put in seven hours a day and your heart isn’t in the work there. That’s why you don’t get promoted faster.”

“You don’t see many twenty-three-year-old bank cashiers,” he reflected aloud.

“But you’re not even an assistant cashier yet, Billy; and instead of thinking of how to get to be an assistant cashier or something you’re thinking about tennis matches, and swimming records, and automobile races, and rowing, and fishing, and—”

“And you,” he supplied, bringing the conversation back to where it was in the first place. “If you’d just marry me, Nanny, I’d be sure to take more interest in my work.”

He beamed in triumph. Wasn’t it a clincher?

“But I’m not ready to get married,” she said, tossing back her head in defiance.

Billy suddenly remembered something.

“Why, you haven’t ever told me if you ever will marry me,” he complained.

“W’hat’s the use?” she said evasively.

“Why, just this much, that I’ll have to keep on asking you and asking and being more or less worried—and neglecting my work —ah—and you’ve got to marry me some time—”

“Oh, I have, have I? First I knew of it!”

“Well, Nanny, it’s so, isn’t it? You are going to marry me sometime, aren’t you?”

“I’m not going to talk any more about it,” said Nanny, rising. “I’m going home and make fudge.”

“And I’ll come over to-night and help eat It— if you’ll let me.”

“You know you’re always welcome at our house, Billy.”

“Well, I don’t know for sure whether I am or not. I’ve seen your dad hand out some looks that were not as encouraging or cordial as the welcome sign on the doormat! ”.

“Billy! Papa wouldn’t look that way at any one.”

“Well, maybe npt uncordial—but just a little more irritated than neutral. Does he know I want to many you?”

“Of course not! How could he know? Who would tell him?”

“Why—”

And in the instant an idea was bom in Billy’s brain. He grinned to himself. Why shouldn’t he tell Mr. Van Zandt that he wished to marry his daughter? Because it would make Mr. Van Zandt very mad? But suppose Mr. Van Zandt did become very mad, what then?

Why, he would doubtless throw him— Billy— out of the house and tell him to styy out! And he would likely call Nanny in and tell her never to see or speak to him—Billy —again! And he might tell Mrs. Van Zandt to see that his instructions were carried out to the letter and thus put the finishing touches on a great scene.

And then?

Why, he—Billy—would be a martyr. Nanny would feel sympathy for him. They would meet in clandestine fashion—stolen sweets are always sweeter— and eventually he might be able to get her to elope with him. Then Mr. Van Zandt could go to— no, he wouldn’t say it. After all, the man was her father!

“So long, Nanny,” he said at her gate. “Could I whisper something in your ear before you go in?”

“You’re not going to ask me again?” she inquired suspiciously.

“Give you my word of honor,” he said earnestly.

Billy’s word of honor was good and Nanny knew it. She turned up her ear.

“I love you,” he whispered. “Whatever happens, don’t forget that.”

“Whatever happens!” she exclaimed wonderingfy. “Why, what could happen, Billy?”

“You never can tell,” he said mysteriously.

“Billy! You are not going to— you’re not going to do anything foolish, are you?”

She was thrilled at the veiled him of something unusual in Billy’s words. She had a vision of him jumping off Brooklyn Bridge, or slashing his throat with a safety razor blade, or scattering his brains all over the yard with a bullet.

“I wouldn’t call it foolish,” he said.

“Billy, promise me you won’t try to kill yourself or anything.”

Kill himself! He hadn’t thought of that! Well, one thing at a time; but he told himself that he could, if necessary, stick another iron in the fire any time by being caught with a bottle of carbolic-acid or some such thing. He would bear it in mind.

Oh, I promise,” he said with a sigh, as if he only half meant it.

He thought he caught the gleam of Mr. Van Zandt’s eagle eye through a window. Well, Mr. Van Zandt would know all by midnight. And let him do his worst! The harder he blew up the better. More than one irate father had forced his daughter into an unsanctloned marriage without knowing it, and without intending to do so.

“You’ll surely come over after supper?” asked Nanny anxiously.

“I’ll be here,” said Billy.

And he glared defiantly toward the window as he departed.

ii

C. WHITNEY VAN Zandt, Esq., reclined in luxurious ease in a big leather chair before an open fire in his library.

It was his dignified custom to sit thus, of a late evening, with a book in his hands, .ostensibly reading, but really thinking of his numerous investments and real estate holdings and contemplating with quiet satisfaction the fortunate lot of the Van Zandts in life.

The library was his sanctuary. The balance of the house might be given over to the revels of his children or the social functions of his wife, but the library was reserved exclusively for him and this refuge was jealously guarded by Sims, the butler. Thus it was a credit to Billy’s ingenuity and a reflection upon Sim’s efficiency that  that young gentleman was able to slip into the quiet rooms and close the door behind him unobserved. He stood regarding the head of the house of Van Zandt who sat before the fire with the book-shelves and portraits of a large number of past Van Zandts as a background.

Mr. Van Zandt did not hear him come in nor see him after he entered. He was absorbed in the evolution of an excuse for increasing the fares of an electric railway he was interested in— an excuse which would neither arouse patrons to any very high pitch nor irritate the newspapers to any extraordinary extent— a problem worthy of the financial brains inherited from a long line of money-making ancestors.

There were many arguments to support the claim for increased fares. For instance, and to begin with, the item of labor alone—

“Mr. Van Zandt!”

The great man looked up suddenly and blinked with surprise and irritation.

“May I speak with you for a moment, sir?” asked Billy respectfully.

Mr. Van Zandt removed his glasses, wiped them, readjusted them.

“Sit down, Knapp.”

“Thank you,” said Billy with relief, seating himself.

“What is it you wish to speak to me about?”

“I’ll soon puncture that businesslike attitude of his,” thought Billy. Aloud he said:

“Ah—I—I suppose you have noticed me about quite a bit lately?”

“For about twenty years,” said Mr. Van Zandt, disconcertingly; “you’ve lived here that long, haven’t you?”

“Twenty-three years,” corrected Billy. “I was born here.”

“I didn’t think you were quite that old,” observed Mr. Van Zandt.

“Yes, twenty-three,” said Billy stoutly. “Old enough to begin to think about the serious things of life.”

“I’m glad somebody is beginning to think bout them,” smiled the older man.

“But I didn’t mean the fact that you had noticed me merely in the town,” explained Billy. “I meant, hadn’t you noticed me about your house a great deal lately?”

“Sometimes,” mused the other, “I’ve wondered if you were not living here!”

Instead of feeling nonplused at this, Billy accepted it as a favorable sign. Very likely Mr. Van Zandt would welcome the opportunity he was soon to have accorded him to order Billy out of the house forever.

“I suppose you have wondered why I came here so often?”

“On the contrary, considering the kitchen bills, I’ve wondered that you didn’t ask for permission to move in.”

Billy reddened a bit at this. The remark was under the belt—literally and figuratively.

“I don’t come here for food,” he snapped.

“No? Well, I’ve often suspected that you came so often this spring because you were enamoured of my second daughter’s charm— Nanny, I mean.”

“Why, Mr. Van Zandt, you’ve hit the nail plumb on the head!”

“I hope I hit it hard enough to drive it clear through the plank to the other side.”

“The other side?” Billy couldn’t suppress his curiosity.

“Because on the other side there is a stone wall, Billy.”

“Meaning you don’t favor my suit.”

“ou haven’t got any suit; you are merely in some kind of a state of mind.”

“You were in that state of mind yourself once, Mr. Van Zandt.”

“What’s that?” roared the other.

“I say you were in love yourself once, Mr. Van Zandt.”

“Dont’ be impertinent, young man. Who said anything about love?”

Billy thrilled. Nanny’s tears would yet flow in sympathy for Mr. Van Zandt was getting mad. He would goad him on— and with the truth.

“I love your daughter, Mr. Van Zandt.”

The older man closed his book and carefully laid it upon the table under the reading-lamp. He lifted his brows inquiringly.

“I wish to marry her,” continued Billy, awaiting the expected explosion. “Nanny won’t make me wait until I’m getting a hundred a week,” said Billy confidently.

“Well, the fact remains that she’s making you wait on a hundred a month,” said Mr. Van Zandt.

Billy stared at him for several moments resentfully searching his mind for an answer. Thus it was borne in upon him that it now was more essential than ever to get some kind of an answer from Nanny.

His strategy had failed and he was burdened in addition with a goal of extraordinary financial proportions. The Van Zandts thought nothing except money, he told himself bitterly.

“I think this will be all for now,” he said, rising.

“Glad you came in,” said Van Zandt, offering his hand. “Always best to understand these things. Give a little thought to the matter and I’m sure you’ll see there is something to my way of thinking. It costs a lot to live these days in double harness— even when the girl is willing to try the experiment.”

Billy nearly knocked the dignified Sims over as he went out. And he didn’t take the trouble to stop and apologize, either.

iii.

IT IS MARVELOUS how much of a kid a man can be at twenty-three; and even more marvelous, for that matter, how much of a kid he can be at thirty-four!

Nanny, from the heights of her superior mental years— twenty— looked down upon Billy’s material twenty-three years with something akin to pity and amusement. It is within the province of all women that they shall forever tolerate the men. That word never has been better used. It is within their province to tolerate them and their natural duty to look after them. No masculine joy is quite equal to that of being looked after by a woman— providiing it is the right woman. It is instinct.

Even ridiculously young men of twenty-three, say, have this instinct. Billy had it. And whenever Billy wished to be reminded of the right woman in his eyes he had butto look in the back of his watch-case fromwhich position the smiling features of Nanny Van Zandt looked up at him throught he medium of the photographer’s art; although the reproduction was somewhat blurred and faded because of a repeated ceremony of affection which had transferred much of the gloss to Billy’s lips.

Two nights after the interview with Mr. Van Zandt, which was a secret between Billy and Nanny’s father so far as he— Billy— knew, the two young people sat upon the Van Zandt front porch.

“If I was the only man on an island. Nanny, and all the girls in the world were there on the island with me, except you; and if you were on another island miles away—”

“With all the men?” she broke in.

“Nanny, how can you be so downright mean! ” he ejaculated.

It was his eighth proposal that week.

And he had expected it to prove a knockout. He had intended to say that if she had been on another island, miles away, he would have turned his back upon all the other girls in the world on the island with him, to make the attempt to swim to her.

A very pretty thought. Putting over very cleverly, he had hoped, his preference for her to all other girls of this country of any other.

But Nanny’s cynicism of her superior mental years— carrying with it a wreath of girlish humor— had effectively unsaddled his extravagant comparison.

It ended the proposals for that week. Billy now began to set store by methods rather than by words. He prodded his inventive faculties for new and out-of-the-ordinary ways in which to ask Nanny to marry him.

Maybe one of the methods would prove so unusual as to catch her off her guard and draw a favorable answer. Perhaps she could be startled into accepting him without further delay. And isn’t woman suspectible to a persistent suitor? Faint heart, you know, never filled any family cars.

Thus one evening as Nanny walked homeward she looked up suddenly to find Billy hanging by his toes from a branch which arched over the sidewalk. Owing to the position he was in his face was quite red, and also quite near to her own, and she could not fail to catch the words he hissed into her ear.

When are you going to marry me?”

Billy might possibly have had an idea that she would be surprised into saying “When you get down from that tree?” but she didn’t.

Instead she began to giggle in a very undignified way.

However, there is no need to give the details of that absurd argument here. The whole affair, as ridiculous as it was, just goes to prove the once-a-kid-always-a-kid theory.

And eventually Billy found that he either had to get down off the branch or succumb to apoplexy or something, and he chose to get down— still unanswered.

Then followed other subtle methods.

There was the tissue-paper note in the bonbon ― which, unfortunately, was drawn by Mrs. Van Zandt and thus missed fire and queered that particular brand of confections in the Van Zandt household.

The late-at-night telegram, addressed to Nanny, and received and opened by Mr. Van Zandt resulted in nothing more than a record-breaking outburst of severe language from Nanny’s father.

An underwater proposal, unique in itself, also proved unavailing.

Thus it came to a matter of asking her perfunctorily every time he met her— in church, at parties, during dances; and Billy finally realized that it was necessary to cut this out or he would change in her estimation from a lover to a nuisance.

THREE WEEKS passed.

And then there was a party at the Van Zandt home at which some home-made phonograph-records were played. They proved a decided novelty. And the selections by the Crescent Bay Canoe Club quartet, of which Billy was a member, achieved enormous popularity. There were several of these records. And in one of the records each member of the quartet had a line to sing alone.

Great was the sensation then when Billy’s voice was heard singing in its turn: “Oh, when will you marry me?”—which was in every way irrelevant to the balance of the song and was clearly interpolated by Billy for some particular purpose. Regarding the exact nature of that purpose those present had only to glance at Nanny’s face when she heard the words— repeated three times in Billy’s very excellent barytone voice.

It was Mrs. Van Zandt who stopped the machine and took off the record. And it was Mr. Van Zandt who later smashed it into smithereens with an ax. And it was Billy who suffered.

“I was never so humiliated in my life,” sobbed Nanny late in the evening, when Billy had lingered after the others. “Everyone there knew who you meant.”

To do Billy justice he was keenly aware that he had stepped beyond bounds, and he was truly sorry. He said so.

“Sorry!” exclaimed Nanny. “What good does it do to say you are sorry? Everybody will be laughing at me.”

“I don’t think anybody will laugh at you just because I asked you to marry me—”

“In public? It was awful.”

“But, Nanny— I want you so badly I would do anything to get you to tell me at least that you will marry me sometime. I’m desperate— just desperate, that’s all.”

“Don’t you dare ask me again, Billy Knapp. If you’ve asked me once you’ve asked me ninety-eight times and if you ask me again I’ll say no!"

“Oh, you wouldn’t really do that, would you, Nanny?”

“Yes, I would—I will. If you ask me again I’ll say no, no, no!”

And with this warning— a warning that shot straight to Billy’s heart and lodged there with a sickening thud— she fled angrily into the house.

“A nice evening,” said Sims, the butler, who had ventured out upon the porch.

“Oh, is it?” snapped Billy. “Where did you get your information?”

Then the night and despair swallowed him.

iv

A DARK, dreary day dawned for Billy. He rose so early that he was able to get to the bank at nine o’clock sharp, instead of nine-eleven, his usual punctual, if tardy, hour of reporting for work, and thus so startled the other members of the force that they inquired anxiously concerning his health.

All day he thought, and the more he thought, the gloomier he became. The rosy horizon of his dreams was besmudged with gray clouds of hopeless doubt.

Truly, he reflected dismally, his path of true love not only wasn’t running smooth, but it seemed to be beset with barbed-wire entanglements and fortifications behind which loomed three specters: Mr. Van Zandt and his hundred dollar-a-week stipulation, Nanny and her resentment, and his own apparent helplessness.

They talk about the tragedies of seventeen, and the tragedies of sixty—but, oh, my friends, too little is said of the tragedies of iwenty-three!

Billy leaned upon the polished counter and stared out through the wire netting and big windows of the bank to where the bright sun dazzled upon the clean, white pavements of the little Long Island town’s main street. But he saw no dazzle, no warmth. To him the world looked dead and he might as well be dead, too!

The spring, which had blossomed into summer, and now was preparing to wilt into fall, had brought him no lilac wreath of success, but a thorn-studded bouquet of failure. If he asked Nanny again she would say no— he knew in his own heart that she would say no because she had a stubborn streak when aroused.

And if he couldn’t ask her again how was he ever to know if she ever would marry him? And if by some gracious freak of fortune they were to become engaged, would she disregard her father’s wishes?

Billy knew Nanny’s father for a wily diplomat, for that gentleman had in a very subtle way contributed to and aided Billy to accomplish his own downfall.

He remembered, with grim irony, how Nanny had exacted his promise not to kill himself. Little she would care now, no doubt. He started under the whiplash of a dangerous idea.

Why not? There was nothing left to live for—was there? Without Nanny life would be an empty void for him.

It was in this frame of mind that Billy walked aimlessly across town after work and came upon Sam Talbot tinkering with his newest invention in a vacant block. Sam Talbot ran a small garage in a casual way to provide his living expenses and the costs of materials while he pursued his work of inventing.

He hailed Billy gleefully.

“Can you keep a secret, Billy?” he cried. “If I tell you something will you keep it to yourself for a while— will you promise?”

Billy promised. He would have promised almost anything this day.

“My motor kite is a success,” whispered Sam excitedly, pointing at the contraption on the ground. “I started the engine and went up about fifty feet in it to-day without expecting to at all— at all. Then flew right along most the length of this block, too. It just happened there wasn’t anybody around to see me.”

Billy was but mildly interested. Motor kites—bah! There were people in this lovelorn world, then, who had the time and energy to think of such things.

“Yes, sir, Billy,” Sam rattled on, “I was up fifty feet and it was great. What’s the use of airplanes when you can do the same thing with a kite? Gee, I wish I could find somebody else with enough nerve to go up—I’d like to see how it looks and acts off the ground.”

Billy suddenly was very much interested. Here was a chance he was looking for—a chance with death! Why not go up—way up—in Sam’s new invention and if he got back to earth all right he would have had a thrilling experience; and if not—if he fell and was killed—what would he care?

He snapped his fingers. “I’ll go up, Sam; let me try her out!”

“Do you actually mean it?” cried Sam. “By golly, I believe you do! Are you sure you have the nerve?”

“Nerve?” scoffed Billy. “Try me—
show me how to run her and I’ll go up in a second!”'

“It’ll take a couple of days to show you how to operate it,” speculated Sam.

“Say you go up Saturday afternoon. It’ll be the first public demonstration. Will you shake on it?”

“Sure,” said Billy recklessly, as he stuckout his hand. He was ready to take anykind of a chance. And he felt almost happy as he concluded that in view of the performance of some of Sam’s other inventions, the chances were against him!

v

AND THUS it came to be noised about that Sam Talbot’s newest invention— a motor kite— would be tried out on Saturday afternoon and that Billy Knapp would be the daring aviator.

Billy and Sam held many mysterious conferences in Sam’s garage in the next two days, but Billy made no attempt to see Nanny. In fact, he kept out of her way. She would learn— that girl would— that he had no fear of death!

On the other hand, the president of the bank where Billy worked made a few pointed observations to the effect that perhaps at least one young man in his employ was more fitted for ballooning or kiting than for banking. And Billy’s mother’s imprecations had no effect upon him. His decision had been made and was not to be shaken.

Needless to state, there was a vast crowd at the improvised aviation field Saturday afternoon to see the flight.

A movie-theater proprietor, seeing a chance for some effective advertising, gave Billy a ten-dollar bill to carry aloft a sack of cards bearing the title of a coming attraction— these to be dropped from the sack and thus circulated in a unique manner among the crowd.

In due time Billy was strapped to the trapeze bar under the wing of the kite, and with the little motor roaring industriously before him and the propeller whirling behind him, he took to the air amid thundering applause from the assembled spectators.

Sam Talbot was captivated with delight as Billy soared above and the advertising cards came fluttering down.

Then the kite, with its propeller revolving erratically, made several startling figures in the air, turned over on its side and dipped sharply to earth.

Billy landed in a heap with his head thrust unceremoniously through the fabric wing, the motor on top of him, and his feet in the propeller.

“Sheer suicide,” said the spectators with a shudder.

WHEN BILLY opened his eyes again he found himself in bed swathed in bandages. His face, head, neck and arms were encased
in gauze and burned steadily. But he was alive, and he became thrilled with the knowledge.

With a nurse cautioning him to remain quiet, he laid there, and called himself a great many kinds of a fool. What did Nanny Van Zandt think of all this? And what had he been thinking of, himself, for the past few weeks?

“You scraped a great deal of skin off,” explained the nurse with a kindly smile, “but there are no bones broken, and you’ll be all right again when you recover from the shock. Just be quiet.”

As if he cared whether there were any bones broken or not! But— yes, he did care. He had practically tried to kill himself, that was all there was to it.

And what a way to go about anything! His mother tried to cheer him up and next morning Nanny Van Zandt came.

“I didn’t think you would be so foolish as to risk your life to ask me the ninety-ninth time, Billy,” she said, “but I’m not going to say no, as I threatened. I’m going to give you a chance to get your senses back and— and find out the right way to win me, perhaps.”

“But I didn’t—”

“Don’t talk,” she interrupted. “You’ll loosen those bandages. I got one of the cards you dropped, just as you intended I should; see— here it is.”

She unfolded and held up the card, across which appeared the legend:

“Why Not Marry?”

Billy gasped. He had not taken the trouble to ascertain what was on the card. He only knew they were advertising some moving picture and that he received ten dollars to drop them from the sack.

Nanny had thought it a dare-devil proposal stunt. And she hadn’t said no! But when she learned the truth; what then?”

Billy groaned.

“Now don’t be foolish any more, Billy,” said the girl. “Just remember what I said about the future, only take it in the way I meant it.”

She rose to go, then bent over swiftly and kissed the tip of his nose, bandage and all. “There!” she said, as she fled out the door.

Billy was both exhilarated and depressed. Exhilarated because Nanny hadn’t said no, and depressed because he dreaded the result when she learned how the cards came to be dropped.

IT WAS in this mood that Mr. Van Zandt found him when he called that evening.

“That was a fool stunt, Billy— it won’t get you anywhere.”

“But it did—it did!" exclaimed Billy through his bandages.

And then he mumbled out the whole story to Nanny’s father and gave him a detailed account of what she had said and what he feared.

“And what are you going to do?” asked

Mr. Van Zandt.

“I’m going to tell her all about it— and I’m going to ask our president to transfer me into the real-estate department and I’m going to work like the devil for that future—”

“By George, I believe that fool stunt knocked some sense into your head, Billy, and if you’ll do that, I’ll— I’ll—”

“Yes?” prompted Billy.

“I’ll transfer my account down there and help you—”

“To make good! ” cried Billy joyfully.

___________________

9: Osiris

Adam Hull Shirk

(1881-1931)

Weird Tales, June 1923

THE recent and lamentable death of Sir Richard Pannenter, P. R. G. S., is too fresh in the public’s mind to warrant further reference, and were it not that I feel myself capable of throwing light upon the Incidents contributing to the sudden and apparently unnecessary snuffing out of a valuable life, I should refrain from again alluding to It.

ft is well known that the physicians at the time decided that valvular weakness,of the heart must have been responsible for the death of the noted Egyptologist, but the statement of his own doctor that Sir Richard had never theretofore exhibited indications of such weakness, and that he was, to all appearances, in the best of health just prior to his death, caused considerable

I had thought to let the facts remain buried, but, for certain reasons, I shall recpnsider my determination and tell what I know.

I shall always remember the night on which Sir Richard summoned me, as his counselor, to attend liim at his apartments in the Albermarle. It was a night of storm, and the London streets were a mass of slime and slush. A beastly wind had sprung up, and as I left my chambers at the Temple it almost took me off my feet. Therefore, it was with no little satisfaction that I found a cheery log fire awaiting me in the library of my distinguished client’s home, and the nip of brandy he provided was a life saver.

I noted, however, that for all his assumption of cheerfulness, something was preying upon his mind, and I determined to get at the root of the matter without delay.

“How can I serve you, Sir Richard!” I asked, briskly. “I see there is something troubling you.”

“Is it as apparent as that!” he asked, trying to appear unconcerned: but his strong, homely features belied his effort at calmness.

Before I could reply, he went on: “But never mind that: I want you to write my will— now."

“Your will!” My expression of surprise and incredulity was natural, for since I had been retained by him I had marked it as one of his few idiosyncrasies that he had never made his will. When I had mentioned to him the advisability of doing so, he had put it by with a whimsical remark about being superstitious.

“I am in earnest,” he declared, “and it will be very simple— just a brief form, and I’ll sign it with my man as witness.”

“But why the haste!” I said. “Why not wait till I can have the document properly drawn up at my office tomorrow―”

“No; now!" he said, and there was such finality in his tone I had no choice.

My concern for my client, whom I really liked and respected immensely, prompted me to ask:

“You’re not ill, Sir Richard!"

He shook his head, with the ghost of a smile on his rugged face.

“Physically— no. But—”

He paused, and after a moment he again urged me to proceed with the making of the will.

I drew up the document, which was a simple one, leaving the bulk of his large properties to his sister in Surrey, with numerous small bequests to friends and distant relatives, and a handsome sum and his private collection to the British Museum and the Imperial Museum of Egyptology. We had in his man, and the document was duly signed, after which he drew a long breath of relief and, with a return of something like his natural manner, passed me his cigar-case and leaned back in his chair, smoking comfortably.

“I’ve a story to tell you, Madden,” he said between puffs, “and it’s a queer yam, too. You’ll think— but never mind. Listen first, and say what you like afterward. Only—” he glanced about him with an apprehensive expression that fairly set my nerves atingle. “I hope we have time.”

“Time for what!” I asked.

He relaxed again and smiled:

“It’s all right,” he declared. “I’m a bit nervous, I guess, but it’s all right. Have another brandy."

We drank solemnly together. Then he settled, back onee more and I prepared to listen.

“Madden,” said he, “perhaps you’ll smile at what has seemed to me serious enough to warrant the steps I have just taken— making my will, I mean— but, however you look at it, I want you to know it’s true— every word of it

“My last trip to Egypt— from which I just returned a fortnight ago— was to have been my final one, anyway. I’ve made six trips out there in my life, and I’ve collected enough information to fill a dozen volumes. Also, I’ve contributed many fine specimens to the museum and  corrected many mis apprehensions concerning the interpretation of some of the hieroglyphs. So, all in all, I think I’ve done pretty well.

“This last visit was in many respects the most satisfactory, and indeed it witnessed a triumph in my career as an Egyptologist that would be a crowning achievement, were it not for —but we won’t speak of that— yet.

“I wonder, Madden, if you know anything about the ancient Egyptian religious ceremonies and forms of worship! Anyway, I may tell you that the Nile dwellers, as they were called, recognized as their supreme deity, Osiris, lord of the underworld. By some he has been identified with the Sun and, with the forty assessors of the dead, he was supposed to have judged the souls brought before him by Horus in the double halls of truth, after their good and evil deeds had been weighed by Anubis.

“The Egyptians reverenced Osiris with as devout worship as the Chinese give to Buddha, and the high priests of Osiris were regarded with almost as much awe as the deity himself.

“In all our studies and investigations, however, we have never been able actually to identify Osiris, but it is now generally conceded that he was believed to have lived on earth at one time and that it was only after his death that he assumed deific prerogatives. In this respect the modem Christian theology may be said to resemble the more ancient form to some extent.

“Osiris was pictured on many of the tablets as a creature with the head of a bull, though there is some disagreement on this score. In any event, his tomb was said to exist near Heliopolis, and it was to investigate this tradition that I made my last trip to Egypt.”

Sir Richard paused to relight his cigar and listened to the storm which raged without Again he gave that hasty, apprehensive glance about him, then proceeded:

“It would be impossible for me to explain to you, a layman, my inordinate joy at finding— by what means and after what tedious labor, I won’t stop to tell now— a deserted tomb which I knew, from certain hieroglyphic markings I found, was the very one of which I had been in search for the best part of half a year.

“Understand that this whole tradition of the tomb of Osiris was regarded by my fellow scientists as a myth, and if it had been publicly known that I was giving it sufficient credence to spend a lot of time and money searching for it I should have been looked upon as a madman and laughed out of the societies. This may enable you to appreciate more fully my sensations on actually locating at least the tomb. What I should find within, I hardly dared conjecture!

“The tomb of a God! Can you imagine it, Madden!

“And yet, if I had only stopped there! If only I had been content to pause with the knowledge I already possessed, without proceeding further and desecrating with sacrilegious hands that lonely sarcophagus in the desert!

“How I succeeded in penetrating this tomb, of the horrors of bats and crawling things that failed to stop me— of the, almost supernatural awe that came upon me— I can not pause to tell. It is enough to say that I stood at last beside the tremendous coffin of stone, trembling from an unknown dread. And, as I stood there, something white fluttered by me and up through the opening into the outer air. A sacred Ibis— but how it had penetrated there and how it had

“Pour out another brandy, Madden— and throw that other log on the fire, too, if you don’t mind. My, how the wind blows! Did you speak!... Pardon me—I’m nervous tonight as I said before, very nervous.... Where was I! Oh, yes—

“That great sarcophagus stood before me, and on it I saw inscribed the sacred scarabseus and the feather of truth, while in the center was the word— the one, wonderful name— ‘Heseri’— which is the Egyptian for Osiris!

“Insatiable curiosity now took the place of the reverential awe-that should have possessed me, and with vandal hands I forced the stone lid from the casket. One glance I had of a great, bovine face, a living face, whose eyes looked into the depths of my soul— and then I fled as though all the devils of Amenti were at my heels....

“That is all Madden, except that I am nervous— fearfully so. It is so unlike me. You know how small a part fear has played in my life. I have faced the dreaded simoon; I have been lost among savage tribes, I have confronted death in a hundred forms—but never have I felt as I do now. I tremble at a sound; my ears trick me into believing that I am always hearing some unusual noise; my appetite is failing, and I am feeling my age as I have never felt it until.... Good God! Madden! What was that sound!... Oh! look behind you. Madden! Look!...”

AND now I come to that portion ofmy statement that will probably be refused credence by those who read; but, as I live, it is the truth.

As Sir Richard uttered his last words, he fell forward to his full length upon the hearth rug, even as I turned in obedience to his command. The shadows were heavy in the far corner of the spacious room, but I could see a great, bulky something that swayed there, something that was a part, and yet, seemingly, was independent, of the shadows.

I had a vision of two burning eyes and a black shining muzzle— a heavy, misshapen head. A strange, animal-like, fetid odor was in my nostrils.

I shrieked, and, turning, ran madly from the room, stumbled to the stairs and fled into the wind-swept night.

_____________________

10: The Phantom Wolf-Hound

Otis Adelbert Kline

Weird Tales, June 1923

DOCTOR DORP reluctantly laid aside the manuscript on which he had been working, capped and pocketed his fountain pen, and rose to meet his callers.

He was visibly annoyed by this, the third interruption of the afternoon, but his look of irritation changed to a welcoming smile when he saw the bulky form that was framed in the doorway. He recognized Harry Hoyne of the Hoyne Detective Agency, a heavy-set, florid-faced man whose iron gray hair and moustache proclaimed him well past middle age.

The slender, stoop-shouldered individual who accompanied him was a total stranger. He had pale, hawklike features, small snaky eyes that glittered oddly from cavernous sockets, and long, bony fingers that suggested the claws of a bird.

“Hello, Doc,” boomed the detective genially, crushing the hand of his host in his great, muscular paw. “Meet Mr. Ritsky.”

The doctor was conscious of a cold, clammy sensation when he took the hand of the stranger and acknowledged the introduction. Ws it the contrast between those chill fingers and the strong warm ones of the detective that caused this feeling? He did not know; but somehow, instinctively, he disliked Mr. Ritsky.

“I've got a queer case for you, Doc,” said Hoyne, taking a proffered cigar and inserting it far back in his cheek, unlighted. “Just your specialty— ghosts and all that. I told Mr. Ritsky you’d be the only man to unravel the mystery for him. Was over to his house last night and the thing got me— too unsubstantial— too damned elusively unreal. And yet I’ll swear there was something there. I heard it; but it got away and didn’t leave a trace. When it comes to finger-prints and things like that you know I ain't exactly a dumb-bell, but I gotta admit this thing, whatever it is, has got me honswoggled.”

Ritsky declined a cigar, saying he didn't dare smoke because of heart trouble. The doctor seelcted one with care, lighted it slowly, and settled back with a look of eager anticipation in his eyes.

“What happened last night?” he asked.

“Maybe we better begin at the beginning,” said Hoyne. “You sec, there’s quite a story goes along with this case, and Mr. Ritsky can tdl it better than I. Don’t be afraid to give him all the dope, Mr. Ritsky. The doctor knows all about such things—wrote a book about ’em, in fact. Let’s see. What was the name of that book, Doc?”

“ ‘Investigations of Materialization Phenoniena.’ ”

“Righto! I never can remember it. Anyhow, Mr. Ritsky, tell him yonr story and ask him all the questions you want to. He’s headquarters on this stuff.”

Ritsky studied his clawlike hands for a moment, clasping and unclasping the bony fingers. Suddenly he looked up.

“Do animals have immortal souls?” he asked, anxiously.

“I’m afraid you have sadly overrated my ability as a recorder of scientific facts,” replied the doctor, smiling slightly. “Frankly, I do not know. I don’t believe anyone knows. Most people think they haven’t, and I incline toward that belief.”

“Then such a thing as a ghost of a— a hound could not be!”

“I would not say that. Nothing is impossible. There are undoubtedly more things in heaven and earth, as Shakespeare said, than we have dreamed of in our philosophy. However, I would consider a materialization of the disembodied spirit of a canine, or any of the other lower animals, as highly improbable.”

“But if you saw one with your own eyes—”

“I should probably be inclined to doubt the evidence of my senses. Have you seen one?”

“Have I seen one!” groaned Ritsky. “Good Lord, man, I’d give every cent I own to be rid of that thing! For two years it’s turned my nights into hell! From a perfectly healthy, normal human being I’ve been reduced to a physical wreck. Sometimes I think my reason is slipping. The thing will either kill me or drive me mad if it is not stopped.”

He buried his face in his hands.

“This is most strange,” said the doctor. “You say the apparition first troubled you two years ago!”

“Not in its present form. But it was there, nevertheless. The first time I saw it was shortly after I killed that cursed dog. A month, to be exact. I shot him on the twenty-first of August, and he, or it, or something, came back to haunt me on the twenty-first of September.

“How vividly I remember the impressions of that first night of terror! How I tried, the next day, to make myself believe it was only a dream—that such a thing could not be. I had retired at eleven o’clock, and was awakened from a sound sleep some time between one and two in the morning by the whining, yapping cry of a dog. As there were no dogs on the premises, you can imagine my surprise.

“I was about to get up when something directly over the foot of my bed riveted my attention. In the dim light it appeared a grayish white in color, and closely resembled the head and pendant ears of a hound. I noticed, with horror, that it was moving slowly toward me, and I was temporarily paralyzed with fright when it emitted a low, cavernous

“Driving my muscles by a supreme effort of will, I leaped from the bed and switched on the light. In the air where I had seen the thing hanging there was nothing. The door was bolted and the windows were screened. There was nothing unusual in the room, as I found after a thorough search. Mystified, I hunted through the entire house from top to bottom, but without finding a trace of the thing, whatever it was, that had made the sounds.

“From that day to this I have never laid my head on a pillow with a feeling of security. At first it visited me at intervals of about a week. These intervals were gradually shortened until it came every night. As its visits became more frequent the apparition seemed to grow. First it sprouted a small body like that of a terrier, all out of proportion to the huge head. Each night that body grew a little larger until it assumed the full proportions of a Russian wolfhound. Recently it has attempted to attack me, but I have always frustrated it by switching on the light.”

“Are you positive that you have not been dreaming all this!” asked the doctor.

“Would it be possible for some one else to hear a dream of mine!” countered Ritsky. “We have only been able to retain one servant on account of those noises. All, with the exception of our housekeeper, who is quite deaf, heard the noises and left us as a result.”

“Who are the members of your household?”

“Other than the housekeeper and myself there is only my niece and ward, a girl of twelve.”

“Has she heard the noises?”

“She has never mentioned them.”

“Why not move to another apartment?”

“That would do no good. We have moved five times in the last two years. When the thing first started we were living on the estate of my niece near Lake Forest. We left the place In charge of care-takers and moved to Evanston. The apparition followed us. We moved to Englewood. The thing moved with us. We have had three different apartments in Chicago since. It came to all of them with equal regularity.”

“Would you mind writing for me the various addresses at which you have lived?”

“Not at all, if they will assist in solving this mystery.”

The doctor procured a pencil and a sheet of note paper, and Ritsky put down the addresses.

Doctor Dorp scanned them carefully.

“Villa Rogers,” he said. “Then your niece is Olga Rogers, daughter of millionaire James Rogers and his beautiful wife, the former Russian dancer, both of whom were lost with the Titanic?”

'‘Olga’s mother was my sister. After the sudden death of her parents, the court appointed me her guardian and trustee of the estate. ”

“I believe that is all the information we need for the present, Mr. Ritsky. If you have no objection I will call on you after dinner this evening, and if Mr. Hoyne cares to accompany me we will see what we can do toward solving this mystery. Please take care that no one in your home is apprised of the object of our visit. Say, if you wish, that we are going to install some electrical equipment.”

“I’ll be there with bells,” said Hoyne as they rose to go.

ii

SHORTLY after his guests’ departure,  Doctor Dorp was speeding out Sheridan Road toward Villa Rogers.

The drive took nearly an hour, and he spent another half-hour in questioning the caretakers, man and wife. He returned home with a well-filled notebook, and on his arrival he began immediately assembling paraphernalia for the evening’s work. This consisted of three cameras with specially constructed shutters, several small electrical mechanisms, a coil of insulated wire, a flash-gun, and a kit of tools.

After dinner he picked up Hoyne at his home, and they started for the “haunted house.”

“You say you investigated this case last night, Hoyne!” asked the doctor.

“I tried to, but there was nothing to it, so far as I could see, except the whining of that dog.”

“Where were you when you heard the noises?”

“Ritsky had retired. I slept in a chair in his room. About two o’clock I was awakened by a whining noise, not loud, yet distinctly audible. Then I heard a yell from Ritsky. He switched on the light a moment later, then sat down on the bed, trembling from head to foot, while beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead.

“ ‘Did you see it!’ he asked me.

“ ‘See what?’ I said

“ 'The hound.’

"I told him I hadn’t seen a thing, but I heard the noise all right. Between you and me, though, I did think I saw a white flash for a second beside his bed, but I can't swear to it.'

“We won’t trust our eyes tonight,” said the doctor. “I have three eyes in that case that will not be affected by hysteria or register hallucinations.”

“Three eyes! What are you talking about?"

"Cameras, of course."

"But how―

“Wait until we get there. I’ll show you."

A few moments later they were admitted to the apartment by the housekeeper, a stolid woman of sixty or thereabout. Ritsky presented, them to his niece, a dreamy-eyed, delicately pretty school girl with silky golden curls that glistened against the pale whiteness of her skin.

“If you don’t mind,” said the doctor, "we will look things over. It will take some time to install the wiring and make other necessary preparations.”

Ritsky showed them through the apartment, which was roomy, furnished in good taste and artistically decorated. The floor plan was quite simple and ordinary. First came the large living-room that extended across the front of the house. This opened at the right into the dining-room and at the center into a hallway which led through to the back of the building. Behind the dining-room was the kitchen, and behind that the servant’s room. Ritsky’s bedroom was directly across the hall from the dining-room. Then came hisniece’s bedroom, a spare bedroom and a bathroom. Each of the three front bedrooms was equipped with a private bath and large dothes-closet.

The doctor began by installing the three cameras in Ritsky’s room, fastening them on the wall in such a manner that they faced the hed from three directions. After focusing them properly, he set the flash-gun on a collapsible tripod and pointed it toward the bed.

The room was lighted by an alabaster bowl that depended from the ceiling and could be turned on or off by a switch at the bedside. There were, in addition, two wall lights, one on each side of the dresser, and a small reading lamp on a table in one corner. These last three lights were operated by individual pull-cords.

Ritsky procured a step-ladder for him, and, after switching off the drop light, he removed one of the bulbs from the cluster and inserted a four-way socket. From this socket he ran wires along the ceiling and down the wall to the three cameras and the flash-gun. By the time these preparations were completed Miss Rogers and the housekeeper had retired.

Hoyne surveyed the finished job with frank admiration.

“If there’s anything in this room when Ritsky turns the switch those three mechanical eyes will sure spot it,” he said enthusiastically.

“Now, Mr. Ritsky,” began the doctor, “I want you to place yourself entirely in our hands for the night. Keep cool, fear nothing, and carry out my instructions to the letter. I suggest that you go to bed now and endeavor to get some sleep. If the apparition troubles you, do just as you have done in the past— turn on the light. Do not, however, touch the light switch unless the thing appears. The photographic plates, when developed, will tell whether you have been suffering from a mere hallucination induced by auto-suggestion or if genuine materialisation phenomena have occurred.”

After closing and bolting the windows they placed the step-ladder in the hall-way beside Ritsky’s door. Then they obtained a duplicate key from him and  asked him to lock himself in, removing his key so they might gain entrance at any time.

When everything was ready they quietly brought two Chairs into the hall from the spare bedroom and began their silent vigil.

iii

BOTH MEN sat in silence for nearly three hours. The doctor seemed lost in thought, and Hoyne nervously masticated his inevitable unlighted cigar. The house was quiet, except for the ticking of the hall clock and its hourly chiming announcements of the flight of time.

Shortly after the clock struck two they heard alow, scarcely audible moan.

“What was that?” whispered the detective, hoarsely.

“Wait!” the doctor replied.

Presently it was repeated, followed by prolonged sobbing.

“It’s Miss Rogers,” said Hoyne, excitedly.

Doctor Dorp rose and softly tiptoed to the door of the child’s bed chamber. After listening there for a moment he noiselessly opened the door arid entered. Presently he returned, leaving the door ajar. The sobbing and moaning continued.

“Just as I expected,” he said. “I want you to go in the child’s room, keep quiet, and make a mental note of everything you see and hear. Stay there until I call you, and be prepared for a startling sight,”

“Wh—what is it?” asked Hoyne, nervously.

“Nothing that will hurt you. What’s the matter? Are you afraid?”

“Afraid, hell!” growled Hoyne. “Can’t a man ask you a question—”

“No time to answer questions now. Get in there and do as I say if you want to be of any assistance.

"All right, Doc. It’s your party.”

The big detective entered the room of the sobbing child and squeezed his great bulk into a dainty rocking chair from which he could view her bed. She tossed from side to side, moaning as if in pain, and Hoyne, pitying her, wondered why the doctor did not awaken her.

Presently she ceased her convulsive movements, clenched her hands, and uttered a low, gurgling cry, as a white, filmy mass slowly emerged from between her lips. The amazed detective stared with open mouth, so frightened that he forgot to chew his cigar. The filmy material continued to pour forth for several minutes that seemed like hours to the tense watcher. Then it formed a nebulous, wispy cloud above the bed, completely detached itself from the girl, and floated out through the half-opened door.

“Doctor Dorp, standing in the hallway, saw a white, misty thing of indefinite outline emerge from the bedroom. It floated through the hall and paused directly in front of Ritsky’s door. He approached it cautiously and noiselessly, and noticed that it grew rapidly smaller. Then he discovered the reason. It was flowing through the keyhole!

In a short time it had totally disappeared. He waited breathlessly.

What was that? The whining cry of a hound broke the stillness! He mounted the step-ladder in order to view the interior of the room through the glass transom. He had scarcely placed his foot on the second step when the whining noise changed to a gurgling growl that was followed by a shriek of mortal terror and the dull report of the flash-gun.

Leaping down from the ladder, the doctor called Hoyne, and they entered the “haunted” bed chamber. The room was brilliantly lighted by the alabaster bowl and filled with the sickening fumes of flash-powder.

Hoyne opened the windows and returned to where the doctor was thoughtfully viewing Ritsky, who had apparently fainted. He had fallen half out of bed, and hung there with one bony arm trailing and his emaciated face a picture of abject fear.

“My God!” exclaimed Hoyne, “Look there on his throat and chest! The frothy slaver of a hound!"

The doctor took a small porcelain dish from his pocket, removed the lid, and with the blade of his pocket knife, scraped part of the slimy deposit into the receptacle.

“Hadn’t we better try to bring him to?” inquired Hoyne.

After they had lifted him back in bed the doctor leaned over and held his ear to the breast of the recumbent man. He took his stethoscope from his case and listened again. Then he straightened

"No earthly power can bring him to,” he said, softly. “Ritsky is dead!”

iv

THE DETECTIVE remained in the house, pending the arrival of the coroner and undertaker, while Doctor Dorp hurried home with his paraphernalia and the sample of slime he had scraped from the corpse. Hoyne was puzzled by the fact that the doctor searched the house and the clothing of the dead man before departing.

The detective was kept busy at the Ritsky apartment until nearly ten o’clock. After stopping at a restaurant for a bit of breakfast and a cup of coffee, he went directly to the doctor’s home.

He found the psychologist in his laboratory, engrossed in a complicated chemical experiment. He shook a test tube, which he had been heating over a small alcohol lamp, held it up to the light, stood it in a small rack in which were a number of others partly filled with liquid, and nodded cordially to his friend.

“Morning, Doc,” greeted Hoyne. “Have you doped out what we are going to tell the coroner yet?”

“I knew the direct cause of Ritsky’s death long ago. It was fear. The indirect cause, the thing that induced the fear, required careful examination and considerable chemical research.”

"And it was―”

“Psychoplasm.”

“I don’t get you, Doc. What is psychoplasm1”

“No doubt you have heard of the substance called ectoplasm, regarding which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has delivered numerous lectures, or an identical substance called teleplasm, discovered by Baron Von Schrenck Notzing while attending materialization seances with the medium known as Eva.

“While the baron was observing anC photographing this substance in Europe, my friend and colleague, Professor James Braddock, was conducting similar investigations in this country. He named the substance psychoplasm, and I like the name better than either of the other two, as it is undoubtedly created or generated from invisible particles of matter through the power of the subjective mind.

“I have examined and analyzed many samples of this substance in the past. The plate I now have under the compound microscope, and the different chemical determinations I have just completed, show conclusively that this is psychoplasm.”

“But how— where did it come from!”

“I learned something of the history of Ritsky and his ward yesterday. Let me enlighten you on that score first:

“The man told the truth when he said he was appointed guardian of his niece, and also when he said that he had shot a dog. The dog, in question, was a Russian wolfhound, a present sent to the girl by her parents while they were touring Russia. He was only half grown when he arrived, and the two soon became boon companions, playing about the grounds together or romping through the big house.

“Some time after the death of Olga’s parents, Ritsky, then editor of a radical newspaper in New York, took up his abode at Villa Rogers. The dog, by that time full grown, took a violent dislike to him and, on one occasion, bit him quite, severely. When he announced his intention of having the animal shot the girl wept violently and swore that she would kill herself if Shag, as she had named him, were killed. It seemed that she regarded him as a token of the love of her parents who had sailed away, never to reurn."

“Shag! That’s the name!” broke in Hoyne, excitedly. “After that white thing floated out of the room she made noises like a dog and then answered them, saying ‘Good old Shag,’ and patting an imaginary head. She sure gave me the creeps, though, when she let out that growl.”

“The vengeful Ritsky,” continued the doctor, “was determined that Shag should die, and found an opportunity to shoot him with a pistol when the girl was in the house. Shortly after, the faithful creature dragged himself to the feet of his mistress and died in her arms. He could not tell her who had taken his life, but she must have known subjectively, and as a result entertained a hatred for her unde of which she objectively knew nothing.

“Most people have potential mediumistic power. How this power is developed in certain individuals and remains practically dormant in others is a question that has never been satisfactorily explained. I personally bdieve that it is often developed because of intense emotional repressions which, unable to find an outlet in a normal manner through the objective mind, find expression in abnormal psychic manifestations.

“This seemed to be the case with Olga Rogers. She developed the power subjectively without objective knowledge that it existed. One of the most striking of psychic powers is that of creating or assembling the substance called psychoplasm, causing it to assume various forms, and to move as if endowed with a mind of its own."

“Olga developed this peculiar power to a remarkable degree. Acting under the direction of her subjective intelligence, the substance assumed the form of her beloved animal companion and sought revenge on its slayer. We arrived a day too late to save the object of her unconscious hatred.”

“Too bad you were not there the night before,” said Hoyne. “The poor devil would be alive today if you had been on hand with me the first night to dope the thing out.”

“We might have saved him for a prison term or the gallows,” replied the doctor, a bit sardonically. “You haven’t seen this, of course.”

He took a small silver pencil from the table and handed it to the detective.

“What’s that got to do with—”

“Open it! Unscrew the top. Careful!”

Hoyne unscrewed it gingerly and saw that the chamber, which was made to hold extra leads, was filled with a white powder.

“Arsenic,” said the doctor, briefly. “Did you notice the sickly pallor of that girl— the dark rings under her eyes! Her loving uncle and guardian was slowly poisoning her, increasing the doses from time to time. In another month or six weeks she would have been dead, and Ritsky, her nearest living relative, would have inherited her immense fortune.”

“Well I’ll be damned!” exploded

Doctor Dorp’s laboratory assistant, entered and handed a package of prints to his employer.

“Here are the proofs of last night's photographs,” said the doctor. “Care to see them?”

Hoyne took them to the window and scrutinized them carefully.

All showed Ritsky leaning out of bed, his hand on the light switch, his face contorted in an expression of intense horror— and, gripping his throat in its ugly jaws, was the while, mis-shapen phantasm of a huge Russian wolfhound!

______________________

11: Forty Pains

Cleve F. Adams

(1884-1949)

Dime Detective Magazine, July 1941

1: A Shifty Shamus

O’MELVENY watched the lady in the mink coat, and the lady in the mink coat watched the third race at Santa Anita. Elsewhere in Los Angeles or its environs Miss Desiree Dugan, who by an unfortunate circumstance had become O’Melveny’s partner instead of just his secretary, was keeping an eye on the lady’s husband. Both the lady and her husband wanted a divorce, though each was unaware that the other had employed the O’Melveny agency. Even Desiree Dugan was unaware of it. O’Melveny hoped to keep her in this state, for Dee Dugan was a victim of ethics, and regarded playing both ends against the middle as strictly outside the pale. O’Melveny himself was uninhibited.

He was looking rather well today, he thought. His fawn gray suit was a triumph of the tailor’s art, though not exactly a triumph for the tailor. It wasn’t paid for. Neither was the fawn gray Homburg which O’Melveny wore with the air of the true boulevardier. The cane was his own, however, and as though this fact pleased him he twirled it now and again, a rotund, rubicund gentleman about town, but recently parted from his club window for the more exhilarating atmosphere of Santa Anita. The madding throng about him acted as a disguise, like the Homburg which concealed the pink baldness of his scalp, and the pansy beds were bursting with bloom in the infield, and all in all it was a lovely day.

Arabella romped home, a winner by two lengths. The roar of the crowd was like the booming of surf in a cave, and an avalanche of torn-up tickets proved how wrong a race crowd can be. The lady in the mink coat made her unhurried way to the nearest five-dollar window where she proceeded to cash seven ducats for a truly staggering sum. O’Melveny decided he would have Desiree Dugan ask for a more substantial retainer. He followed the lady to a bar and had a quick one while she dawdled over a Collins. He was not too surprised when presently she was joined by a handsome young gent in camel’s hair sport coat, flannel trousers and a rather remarkable polka-dotted scarf. According to the lady’s husband she was addicted to handsome young gents.

The young man clasped the lady’s hands. “Myrna!” he said happily. Her name was Myrna Bogardus. Her husband was the Bogardus of Bog-Vent, the Venetian blind which covered the world’s windows.

The thing that surprised O’Melveny was that Mrs. Bogardus practically emptied her purse and gave all that money to the young man in the camel’s hair sport coat. She did not seem nearly as happy about this as he did. She looked, in fact, a little pale around the gills, and after the young man had turned away she drained her glass thirstily. O’Melveny decided that the young man might be more interesting than Myrna Bogardus. He followed the young man.

This simple device brought him presently to the rail guarding the row of boxes in the lower tier of the grandstand, and more particularly to Number 7. In this box were three men, and the entrance of the young man in the polka- dot scarf made four. O’Melveny retired to the comparative obscurity of a stair exit. For one thing he knew two of the men and they knew him.

One was Dr. Max Schlesinger, a physician who was continually in danger of losing his license, but who had so far managed to outwit the authorities. His practice was confined to the carriage trade. The second man was Tony (the Wop) Maggi. Tony was by way of being the Arnold Rothstein of his time and geographical position. When there were gambling casinos south of the border Tony had controlled them; when there were gambling boats off the California coast Tony had controlled those too. It was rumored that even though both of these sources of revenue had been closed to him, he still managed to make a more or less honest living in the fields of chance. Maggi, it was said, knew the right people. He was a large man, oliveskinned, slow of movement. Beside him the red-headed Dr. Schlesinger looked like a greyhound beside a Percheron. The third man was tall and sleek and dark and had a capacity for utter stillness that was phenomenal. None of the three paid the slightest bit of attention to the blond boy in the polka-dot scarf. They and he, were apparently engrossed in the start of the fourth race.

O’MELVENY, pondering the connection between any or all of these four men and the plump but luscious Mrs. Myrna Bogardus, descended the stairs, intending to become once more that lady’s shadow. He could not find her. This did not, of course, prove that she wasn’t still around. Santa Anita thinks nothing of a hundred thousand paid admissions, and a race crowd is continually in motion. After a time O’Melveny quit looking and took up his position near the five-dollar window the lady had patronized before. The blend boy in the camel’s hair coat and polka-dot scarf might have left her enough money to lay another bet or two, and it was within the realm of possibility that she might again win. She certainly had picked Arabella out of a field of much better horses. O’Melveny’s agile mind worried that fact in relation to Tony the Wop Maggi. Offhand, it looked like the lady was getting her information straight from the feed box, or at least from the inner shrine. Not that it seemed to be doing her much good. Even if she won, somebody came and took the dough away from her. O’Melveny wondered if that could be construed as grounds for divorce.

He was still thinking about that when he felt a hand on his arm. He did not jump. Quite casually, and with a blue eye as naive and innocent as a babe’s, he turned and regarded Detective-lieutenant Bernard Blackburn. “Oh hello, Lieutenant.”

Blackburn was a hatchet-faced man in his late forties, nagged by acid indigestion and the knowledge that younger men had gone farther. He did not like Connor O’Melveny very well. “What are you doing out here?”

O’Melveny hooked his cane over his arm so that he could spread his plump pink hands in an all-inclusive gesture. “What does anyone do at Santa Anita?”

Blackburn’s mouth dropped. “You never bet on a horse in your life!”

“True,” O’Melveny admitted. He sighed. “It’s the spirit of the race, Lieutenant. The perfectly co-ordinated animal pitted against another perfectly coordinated animal.” He lifted his eyes piously. “Money is not everything, you know.”

Blackburn looked at him. “Coming from you, shamus, that’s pretty funny.” Sharp eyes considered the mob coming in from the promenade to form long queues before the pay-off windows. “I see your gal friend Dugan is out here too.”

O’Melveny was startled. “Where?”

Blackburn pointed. There was no doubt that Miss Desiree Dugan was among those present. She was really quite lovely though at the moment a trifle distrait. From long experience O’Melveny concluded that she had lost her subject. She had that sort of look.

Blackburn deduced the same thing. “Who’s she tailing?”

“Nobody,” O’Melveny said rather too hurriedly. In the first place he was somewhat surprised to find that John Bogardus had also chosen this afternoon to attend the races. In the second place he had practically admitted just now that Dee Dugan was not with him, O’Melveny. And in the third place he didn’t want Dee Dugan to discover that the reason he himself was there was to cover Mrs. Bogardus. He excused himself. “Pardon me, I see a friend.”

Precisely at this moment there occurred one of those unforeseen contretemps which can only be labeled as unfortunate. There was a shot unmistakable in spite of the crowd noise, and then there were two more shots very close together. Over by one of the ladies’ restrooms a woman began screaming bloody murder.

Blackburn clutched O’Melveny’s arm firmly. “Come on!”

O’Melveny did not want to come on. Something told him that no matter what else happened he was bound to run into Dfee Dugan. Desiree was the kind of girl to whom shots were like a three-alarm fire. On the other hand, he himself could have no possible connection with the shots, either lethal or otherwise, and consequently had nothing to fear from Lieutenant Blackburn. However, if he tried to shake himself free and make a run for it, the lieutenant was bound to get ideas. O’Melveny bowed his head. “Very well, if you insist.”

They pushed through the mob now assembled about the rest-room doors. The woman was still screaming bloody murder, and some of her sisters had taken up the refrain. Blackburn had to assert his authority. O’Melveny’s eyes dilated with a kind of horror as they followed the pointing fingers of a dozen bystanders. There was a man lying on the concrete pavement and there was no doubt that it was he who had been shot. Blood welled from him in at least three places. But it was not the mere sight of a dead man that prickled O’Melveny’s scalp. It was the man’s identity. He was the blond young man who had so recently relieved Myrna Bogardus of all that money. The one with the camel’s hair coat and polkadot scarf.

DEE said: “You fat slob!” She did not say this lovingly either, as she sometimes did. As a matter of fact, Dee did not look at all like the kind of girl who would call anybody a fat slob. She looked, indeed, like a demure and decent sort of girl, not to mention beautiful, and O’Melveny had hired her, believing that she would lend tone to his office It just went to show how deceitful appearances could be. In no time at all she had taken advantage of a momentary embarrassment and wormed herself into a quarter interest in the business in lieu of the salary which O’Melveny couldn’t pay her. She was, in a word, an opportunist. She took this opportunity to repeat her previous unladylike phrase. “You fat slob!”

O’Melveny was deeply offended. He was cut to the quick. “After all,” he said, “who is better entitled to an afternoon off than I?”

“Connor O’Melveny,” Dee said sternly, “any afternoons you take off are not spent at a race track. You don’t even know how many legs a horse has.” She peered at him from beneath a chic little hat that seemed in danger of obscuring her eye entirely. “You are up to something. I can tell.”

O’Melveny denied this vehemently. He regarded her more in sorrow than in anger. “That I should live to see the day.” He shook his head. “After all I’ve taught you, too. You lost your subject.”

Miss Dugan had the grace to flush a little at that. “Well—”

“You see?” O’Melveny said complacently. “You are like an open book to me. Merely because you yourself are in error you try to find the mote in another’s eye. Mine, to be exact.” He permitted himself a sad but cherubic smile. “Well, there aren’t any.”

At this moment Lieutenant Bernard Blackburn let out a terrific yelp. “Where’s that guy O’Melveny?”

The corpse still lay where it had fallen, and Blackburn and a doctor and a couple of county cops had been huddled over it. Half a dozen track policemen had pushed the crowd back, but unfortunately O’Melveny had been penned within the human fence. He could not get away. The same was true of Miss Desiree Dugan, though Dee probably saw no reason to get away. Neither, for a moment, did O’Melveny. “Right here, Lieutenant.” He twirled his cane with affected nonchalance. “Something I can do for you?”

Blackburn stood up. The expression on his face was not pleasant. “So you don’t know the guy, eh?”

“Certainly not,” O’Melveny said.

Blackburn pounced. “Then how do you explain this?” Like a rabbit from a hat he produced his right hand from behind him. Between the thumb and forefinger there was a card. O’Melveny was suddenly quite ill. The card was one of his own. “I had a hunch!” Blackburn yelled. “I had a hunch when I grabbed you!”

O’Melveny assumed an air of righteous indignation. “A hunch about what? If you remember, you were actually holding my arm when the shots were fired.” He appealed to all within earshot. “I think that rather absolves me of any part in the affair.”

“Like hell it does,” Blackburn said. “What about this card?”

“Cards!” O’Melveny said with a fine disregard of the circumstances. “I have them printed by the thousand.”

Blackburn lifted the card to his nose. “Perfume, by God!” He stared resentfully down at the corpse, “He hardly looks like one of those guys.”

Desiree snatched the card and sniffed at it. “Hmmm!” O’Melveny could feel her eyes on him, speculatively. He wondered uncomfortably if she recognized the scent as that worn by Myrna Bogardus. It had just come to him that Myrna, in giving the money to the young man, might accidentally have given him the card also. The perfume was from the lady’s purse.

Blackburn almost yanked Dee off her feet, getting the card back. “Hey, you!” And then, with a carefully restrained manner: “Recognize the smell, baby?”

Dee shook her head. “No.”

She’s lying, O’Melveny thought. She does too recognize it. He wondered if she were fooling Blackburn. He also wondered what had happened to the money the young man had been carrying. Blackburn hadn’t turned it up. Beside the body there was a little heap of personal property, taken from the young man’s pockets, but aside from some loose change there was no money.

Blackburn thrust out his chin. “I’m not accusing you of killing the guy. Not yet, anyway. I want to know who he is.”

O’Melveny shrugged. “Sorry, Lieutenant. ”

AT THIS moment a quiet voice spoke from the crowd. “I know who the man is, Blackburn.” Everybody turned. The voice belonged to Tony the Wop Maggi. They cleared a little path for him and he came and stood beside the dead man. His olive-skinned face was impassive. “His name is Raoul Dixon. One of my boys.”

Blackburn was startled. “The hell you say!”

“Yes,” Maggi said. For just an instant his inscrutable eyes encompassed O’Melveny and Dee. O’Melveny shivered. He didn’t want any part of the Wop. Pretending an unconcern he did not feel he looked around for the other men who had been in Maggi’s box. Neither Dr. Max Schlesinger nor the dark and quiet man were in evidence. He wished Dee would quit staring at him like that.

Blackburn had partially recovered from his astonishment. He looked at Maggi. “Any ideas?”

“No,” Maggi said. He was not exactly a talkative man

O’Melveny cleared his throat “Well, if you have no further use for me—” He settled his hat, preparatory to departure, and took Dee’s arm.

A sort of low cunning was reflected in Blackburn’s narrowed eyes. “All right, shamus, you can go” He pretended to go into conference with the county cops.

O’Melveny and Dee thrust their way through the crowd. The fifth race was just being announced. No matter who won it, Myrna Bogardus was not going to pay off to the young man in the camel’s hair coat and the polka-dot scarf. Not any more, she wasn’t. O’Melveny wondered idly why she hadn't killed the young man before she gave him the money. It would have been so much simpler.

Dee’s voice was deceptively sweet. “Buy me a drink, Connor?”

“Well—” Sighing, he permitted himself to be led to the nearest bar. It was the long one under the grandstand, and there was quite a crowd. Dee waited till she actually had her martini before broaching the subject nearest her mind.

“That was her perfume, Connor. I smelled it in the office this morning.” “No!”

She eyed him. “That isn’t all that smells about this case, either. You haven’t yet told me what you are doing out here.”

He drank thirstily. “Can’t a man go to the races without signing his life

“Raoul Dixon couldn’t,” she pointed out. She clicked the edge of her glass against her teeth, meditating. “I don’t suppose you were— say— following the luscious Myrna?”

“Certainly not,” O’Melveny said stiffly. “Why should I?”

“Because it would be just like you, you fat slob.” She wrinkled her forehead. “The only thing is, I can’t see—” And then she did see, or thought she did. “Connor O’Melveny, is it possible that—” She caught her breath. “No, it couldn’t be. Even you wouldn’t do a thing like that!”

He looked at her. “Like what?”

She regarded him without love. “Who was the other client you had this morning— the one before I got down to the office? The one who smoked Turkish cigarettes?”

Involuntarily O’Melveny closed his eyes. “That wasn’t a client. That was a— a collector.”

“How odd,” Dee said. “Odd that Mr. John Bogardus smokes Turkish cigarettes too.”

O’Melveny was amazed. “He does?” He waved this aside as being irrelevant and immaterial. “Well, I hardly see the point in—” He was rudely interrupted by a gentleman who was apparently in a very great hurry to get to the bar. “Scotch!” this man ordered. “Make it a double!” Obviously he was laboring under some great emotional strain. He was Mr. John Bogardus.

O’Melveny tried to remove himself from the immediate scene but the crowd was two deep. Not only that, Miss Desiree Dugan jammed a vicious elbow in the Bogardus ribs. He turned then and saw O’Melveny. “O’Melveny!”

O’Melveny affected the surprise of one being accosted by a total stranger. “Pardon me, I’m afraid I—”

Bogardus had a single track mind. “Am I to understand that you followed my wife out here?” He gulped his drink. “She is here now?”

“My dear fellow,” O’Melveny said weakly, “pray control yourself!”

“Well, did you or didn’t you?”

Dee’s voice was positively saccharine. “Certainly he did, Mr. Bogardus.” She arched her eyebrows. “It’s just that he never likes to let his left hand know what his right is up to.” Under her breath she added, “The dirty two-timing dou- ble-crosser!”

2: “Keep Your Nose Clean”

THE interior of the cab was quiet with that palpable silence peculiar to the interim between two claps of thunder. O’Melveny glanced nervously out the rear window. “I think we’re being followed.”

“Don’t try to change the subject,” Dee said. Her usually lovely mouth made a firm, uncompromising line. “Did you or didn’t you hire out to both sides in a divorce case?”

When caught. O’Melveny could be as honest as anybody. “Well, in a way, yes.” He avoided her eyes. “The ultimate good, you know.”

“Ultimate good!”

“Well,” he protested, “they both want a divorce, don’t they?”

Dee regarded him coldly. “Let’s not quibble. ”

He became very angry indeed. “Who’s quibbling? Mrs. Bogardus has been  playing around, and if I can believe you, he has too. You say he had a woman with him this afternoon. ”

“I see,” Dee said. “And just which side did you propose to testify for in court?”

O’Melveny nibbled the head of his cane. “It depends.” He quoted: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.” He savored the sound of that with extreme unction. “That’s what I was trying to find out—which was the guiltiest.”

“Like hell you were,” Dee said. “You were playing both ends against the middle, collecting two fees, and deliberately crossing up not only your clients but me. ” She caught her breath. “Well, there’s only one thing to do. We’ll return their money.”

O’Melveny considered her. “Aren’t you forgetting something, my pet? This is no longer a mere divorce proceeding. It’s murder.” His blue eyes mirrored compassion. “At all cost we must— ah— protect our client.”

“Protect!” Dee said tartly. “You mean blackmail her!”

“That,” O’Melveny stated, “is rank calumny. I never blackmailed anybody in my life—much.” A new angle occurred to him. “Besides, maybe it wasn’t Myrna. Maybe it was her husband.”

Dee was startled. “Connor, you don’t really think—”

“How can I?” he demanded aggriev- edly. “With people—yes, even my own partner—going around accusing me of things.” Again he looked out the rear window. “My God!”

Dee craned her neck. “Who is it— Blackburn?”

“I wish it were,” O’Melveny said. The car behind had pulled out into the center lane now and was coming up very fast. It was much too nice a car for any police job O’Melveny had ever seen. His suspicions regarding it were immediately justified as it drew alongside. The chauffeur was a gorilla, and the guy beside him was a gorilla. In the tonneau was Tony the Wop Maggi. O’Melveny’s hacker let out a yell as the big car deliberately cut in, forcing him to the curb. “Hey, what the hell is this?” There was the screech of brakes.

Dee was outraged. “Right in broad daylight!” She opened the left-hand door. “I’m going to tell them a thing or two.”

O’Melveny hooked his cane around her neck. “You’re going to keep your pretty mouth shut, darling.” He yanked her back in as the gorilla-chauffeur and the gorilla-footman got out and asked the hacker if he wanted to make anything out of it. He said he didn’t. He said this very emphatically.

Maggi rolled his window down. “Come on, O’Melveny, I want to talk to you.”

O’Melveny shuddered. “No, thanks.”

Dee began screaming her head off. A couple of cars slowed up at this, but the occupants, not seeing any dead bodies lying around, apparently considered the business not worth their while and went on. One of the loogans reached in the cab and slapped Dee across the mouth. “Shut up, you!” He looked at O’Melveny. “Coming?”

O’Melveny licked his lips. “Well—” He saw the gun in the second man’s hand then. O’Melveny was deathly afraid of guns. “Well, if you insist.” Somewhat hastily he bridged the gap between cab and the open door of the sedan. The door closed. They went away from there. Beads of cold sweat dotted the O’Melveny brow. He was afraid to reach for a handkerchief to wipe them away, because his gesture might be misconstrued. Furtively he examined the Wop’s profile. “You’re making a big mistake, you know.”

“I make lots of ’em,” Maggi said. And that was all he said for quite a while. They were well within the Pasadena city limits before he spoke again. “Who killed my boy, O’Melveny?”

“I don’t know.”

“Meaning you won’t tell?”

SOME of O’Melveny’s courage had returned by this time. It seemed obvious that if Maggi intended anything really drastic he wouldn’t have left Dee behind. Nor the hacker, for that matter, though hackers were notably forgetful about certain things. “Now, really, Tony—”

“Don’t give me that,” Maggi said irritably. His heavy brows drew down. “Dixon ever come to see you about anything?”

“Certainly not.”

“Then how did your card get in his pocket?” Maggi asked in amenacing tone.

O’Melveny sucked in his breath. At times life was very complicated. “Blackburn asked that one too. I wouldn’t know.”

Maggi’s eyes closed till it seemed he had almost gone to sleep. He hadn’t though. “What did the Bogardus dame want of you?”

If he had hoped to surprise O’Melveny he was a great success. O’Melveny felt his small world crumbling about his ears. “The— the Bogardus dame!”

“You needn’t bother to deny knowing her too,” Maggi said. “I’ve been having her tailed.”

O’Melveny’s curiosity overcame his better judgment. “Why?”

“Because she owes me dough.”

“My God,” O’Melveny said in a stifled voice. This thing was getting worse by the minute. He sat up very straight indeed. “Look, Tony, I don’t want any part of what concerns you. The lady hired me to tail her husband. She wants a divorce. So help me, that’s all I know.”

Maggi looked at him then. “And you were tailing him this afternoon?”

O’Melveny was attacked by a sudden fit of coughing. “Well, no, as a matter of fact it was my— my partner who was on him.”

“She on him all the time?”

“No, she—” For the first time O’Melveny saw where all this was leading. No matter what the reason, this guy Maggi suspected Mr. John Bogardus of knocking off Raoul Dixon. He also suspected O’Melveny and Dee Dugan of trying to conceal that fact and use it to their own advantage.

“Well?” Maggi demanded.

O’Melveny was faced with the necessity for either tossing Bogardus to the wolves or Miss Desiree Dugan. He tossed Bogardus. “She lost him,” he confessed.

“Thanks,” Maggi said. He spoke to the chauffeur. “This is all right, Clem.” The car halted. Maggi looked at O’Melveny. “Out.”

“Now look,” O’Melveny said desperately, “I don’t think Bogardus would have done it. He— he wouldn’t have had any reason.” He wished he could tell Maggi that Bogardus wanted a divorce just as much as his wife did, that he, Connor O’Melveny, knew this to be a fact, because he had been hired by both parties. “All right,” he said heavily. “But just the same you’d better think it over, Tony.”

“Did I say I was going to do anything?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Then— out,” Maggi said. He put the flat of his hand on O’Melveny’s chest and pushed. O’Melveny landed on his bottom in front of Super Market 116. The Wop’s car went away.

A kind old lady and a little boy helped O’Melveny to his feet. “These new cars,” the little boy explained, “they got no running boards.”

The old lady must have seen more of what had actually happened than the little boy. “It’s the younger generation,” she said acidly. “They have no manners.”

O’Melveny resented being mistaken for an older man than the Wop. He lifted his hat stiffly. “Thank you very much, madam.” He went hurriedly into the market and found a phone booth. Three dimes failed to locate Mr. John Bogardus. The best he could do was to leave a warning at each place. “Tell him not to go out, understand? He is not to go out— any place— until he contacts me.” Feeling like the finger man in a murder syndicate he went out and hailed a passing cab.

DEE was sitting in her accustomed chair, apparently without a care in the world, when O’Melveny came in. Indeed she scarcely lifted her eyes from the vanity mirror before returning to the business of smoothing lipstick with a little finger.

“A fine thing!” O’Melveny said. His pinkly cherubic face wore an injured expression. “For all you knew I might be lying in a ditch with my throat cut.”

Miss Dugan was nothing if not practical. “But you aren’t,” she pointed out. She powdered her nose. “What did that lug Maggi want ?”

“A lot you care,” O’Melveny said. He went into his own office and had a drink from the bottle in the lower drawer of his desk. He was as nearly shaken as he had ever been.

Dee came to the communicating door. “I don’t see any cuts or abrasions.”

O’Melveny glared at her. “It’s my soul that is scarred.”

“So you admit it.” She was very beautiful for such an unfeeling wench. “Myma Bogardus called up. I told her you weren’t in.”

O’Melveny regarded her. “That, if I may say so, is the most remarkable piece of understatement I’ve ever heard.” He paled at a sudden thought. “What did she want?”

“I didn’t ask her,” Dee said. “I told her we were returning her retainer.”

O’Melveny was outraged. “Damn it all, Dee—” The phone rang. He snatched it up. “Yes?” His voice became butter mellow. “Oh, how do you do, Mrs. Bogardus ?”

The lady was undeniably agitated. “See here, Mr. O’Melveny, if it’s more money you want—” She caught her breath. “How much is it going to cost me?”

O’Melveny’s eyes blinked, just once. “For what?”

“For keeping your mouth shut!”

“Well,” O’Melveny said, “ordinarily we don’t charge much for just that. But in a murder case—”

“Then you were there this afternoon!”

“Oh, yes,” O’Melveny sighed, “I was there.” He looked at Dee, who was biting her nails in a perfect frenzy. “About the money, Mrs. Bogardus, I understand you are already pretty heavily obligated to— to others.”

There was quite a noticeable pause before she said sharply, “Who told you that?”

O’Melveny had a brief moment of intuition. Was it possible that Maggi was not the only one who had a hold on her? “A little birdie,” he said.

She persisted. “Was it Maggi?”

“Perhaps.” He thought of something. “And speaking of Maggi, Mrs. Bogardus, he’s pretty sore about Dixon. Right now he thinks it was your husband who did it, but he may eventually get around to you. Better stay indoors for a while.” With this sage advice he disconnected. Almost instantly the phone rang again. This time it was the lady’s husband. “My God, O’Melveny, what’s happened?”

O’Melveny pushed Dee away with one hand. Into the phone he said, “Where are you calling from?”

“My club!”

“Then you’d better stay there,” O’Melveny advised him. “A guy named Maggi is looking for you.”

Mr. Bogardus cursed. “In God’s name, why?”

“Because he thinks you shot his boy friend Raoul Dixon.”

“Don’t be silly,” Bogardus said. And then, as though struck by a sudden thought: “Say, that’s an idea, isn’t it? I mean, Myrna chasing around with the guy and all. The jealous husband— unwritten law angle.” He drew a deep breath. “Would it help if I came right out and admitted it?”

O’Melveny’s face wore a Lord-what-next expression. “No,” he said carefully, “no, I hardly think that would help.” He sighed. “You just stay put and let me handle everything.”

“All right,” Bogardus said in a tired voice. He hung up.

Dee was furious. “So you’re going to handle everything, are you?” She stamped her foot. “You’re going to return both those retainers and forget it, that’s what you’re going to do!”

The telephone rang. O'Melveny looked at it as though it might be a coiled rattler. “This seems to be our busy day, doesn’t it?” He put out a tentative hand.

DEE was made of sterner stuff. She snatched up the instrument. “Connor O’Melveny’s office. Miss Dugan speaking.” Quite suddenly she paled. "What? What’s that?” She stared wide- eyed at O’Melveny. “No, he isn’t here right now. Yes, I’ll give him the message.” She had to try three times before she could finally locate the phone base. “Now I wonder who that could be?”

O’Melveny was heavily sarcastic. “One of the twelve prophets, perhaps? President Roosevelt?” He stood up violently. “Let’s play a game. You tell me the message and I’ll guess who it was.”

Dee moistened her lips. “He— he said to tell you to keep your nose clean.”

O’Melveny shuddered. “The Wop?” He answered his own question. “No, it wouldn’t be Maggi.” He thought a moment. “Blackburn, perhaps?”

“It wasn’t Lieutenant Blackburn,” Dee said.

Lieutenant Blackburn himself opened the hall door. “Somebody taking my name in vain?” He came in swiftly, closed the door behind him and shoved his hat far back on his head. His hatchet face was not pleasant. “Now then, you two, I want to know who bumped Dixon.”

“So does Tony Maggi,” O’Melveny said.

Dee stared at him with a kind of horror. You could see she was thinking of what Maggi’s kind was reputed to do to squealers.

Blackburn licked his lips. “That’s a thought, shamus. I guess I’d better have the Wop picked up— for questioning.”

He went to the phone and buzzed headquarters. O’Melveny winked at Dee. Not that he didn’t realize his own danger if Maggi found out; it was just a temporary expedient. With Maggi in jail, everybody concerned, including himself, would be much safer. At least for a little while. He offered Blackburn a cigar, a nickel one from the impressive humidor on the desk. The good ones he kept in his pocket for his own use. “You don’t have to tell this, Lieutenant, but Maggi and a couple of his boys gave me the arm this afternoon. That card, you know. The one that you found on Dixon.”

Blackburn was obviously surprised. “And he let you go?”

"Certainly,” O’Melveny said. “He’s smarter than you are. He had an idea, but he gave it up after he’d talked to me.”

Blackburn was not exactly dumb. “You wouldn’t, by chance, have fingered someone for him, would you?”

“How could I?” O’Melveny protested. He became indignant. “Are you insinuating that I would protect a murderer?”

“If you could make a dime,” Blackburn said. He narrowed his eyes. “I could see you tagging somebody else to save your own neck, and then tagging Maggi to save the other guy’s.” He exhaled noisily. “By God, I wouldn’t put it past you to use the whole police department to pull your chestnuts out of the fire.” He strode to the phone as though intending to countermand his own order.

“Better not,” O’Melveny cautioned him. “If anything happened and Maggi did it—”

Blackburn let go of the phone as though it were red hot. “Yeah.” He looked at Dee. “Who were you tailing this afternoon?”

“Nobody,” she said promptly.

Blackburn obviously knew this for a lie but decided to let it pass for the moment. “Who was the guy you and O’Melveny talked to at the bar?”

O’Melveny’s skin crawled. So Blackburn had seen that too! He affected complete candor. “Well, if you must know, he was from a collection agency. Wanted to know how I could afford the races when I couldn’t pay my tailor. ”

“I see,” Blackburn said. He went to the door, paused with his hand on the knob. “I think I’ll drop over and have a talk with this collector.” His smile was positively wolfish. “For a collector he seems to be doing all right for himself. He’s stopping at the Union League Club.” He went out.

O’Melveny sighed. “Well, I guess that’s that.”

Dee regarded him with the loathing one reserves for something that has just crawled out from under a rock. “You mean you’re not going to call Bogardus and warn him?”

O’Melveny pretended to find a speck of dust on the sleeve of his coat. “Mr. Bogardus will be much safer in jail, my child.”

Dee was furious. “He’s a client and you deliberately threw him to the cops. Sometimes, Connor O’Melveny, I think you’re all the things Blackburn says you are.”

O’MELVENY received this horrible indictment quite amiably. “Mr. Bogardus may suffer a bit of inconvenience, but just think how grateful he’ll be when we get him out. Lieutenant Blackburn is quite happy, thinking he has outsmarted me, and when Bogardus admits he killed Dixon the lieutenant will be even happier." He spread pudgy pink hands. “You see, darling? The ultimate good.”

Dee made an unlovely sound with her lips. “I don’t know what I ever saw in you. You’re as shifty, as unstable as quicksand. ”

“And free,” O’Melveny pointed out. His smile was that of the prophet who is without honor in his own home town.

“You had better go see Myrna Bogardus now, darling.”

Dee stared. “Why ?”

“Because the police may not be as efficient as I think they are. Tony Maggi may still be on the loose.”

Dee paled. “You mean she did it?”

“I don’t know,” O’Melveny said honestly enough. He sighed. “At any rate,

I think it would be nice if you were with the lady when she finds out that her husband has been arrested.” He picked up his hat and stick.

A voice behind him said, “Going some place, chum?”

Dee screamed. O’Melveny turned with elaborate carelessness. The man in the doorway had a gun. He was the tall, dark and quiet man O’Melveny had last seen in Tony Maggi’s box at Santa Anita. “I beg your pardon?” O’Melveny said. His voice sounded a little stifled, even to his own ears. He was acutely aware of the gun.

The man scarcely moved, yet somehow he was inside and the door closed, very gently, very quietly. His quiet was more terrifying than the belligerence of most men. “I passed a dick in the corridor,” he said easily. “What did he want?”

O’Melveny affected a calm he did not feel. “Before I tell you that I ought to know your interest in the matter, hadn’t I?”

The dark man smiled. “Tony Maggi is a friend of mine.”

Involuntarily O’Melveny closed his eyes. This was an unlooked for development. He opened his eyes very wide indeed. “I’ve already told Tony all I know.”

Dee sank tiredly into a chair. After that first surprised scream she hadn’t made a sound.

The dark man considered O’Melveny. “About your card,” he said. “How did Raoul Dixon get it?”

“I don’t know,” O’Melveny said. And then, as the gun lifted ever so slightly: “Now wait a minute, maybe I can guess.” He pretended to think. “A— a client of mine was seen to give Dixon a wad of money after the third race. The card may have been mixed in with the bills.”

“I see,” the quiet man said. “And this client?”

O’Melveny looked at Dee who was making frantic signals. He ignored the signals. “Mrs. Myrna Bogardus,” he said. “A divorce proceeding. Her address is the Westmere Towers.”

Dee said a naughty word. “You dirty double-crosser!”

“Thank you,” the quiet man said. He backed out as quietly and unobtrusively as he had come.

O’Melveny counted up to ten, audibly, before he went to the phone and gave a number. Presently he said, “Mrs. Bogardus? This is O’Melveny. You had better leave your apartment at once. Yes, at once. Miss Dugan will meet you at— say, the Ambassador in ten minutes?” He coughed gently. “In the cocktail lounge.”

Dee clutched his arm. “Why don’t you have her call the police?”

O’Melveny replaced the phone and smoothed the thinning sandy hair over his bald spot. “The police,” he said kindly, “are the last people in the world Mrs. Bogardus ought to see.”

3: In Deeper

THE Westmere Towers was one of those newer apartment hotels which climbed skyward from Sunset Boulevard in the County Strip. It was slightly after five o’clock and darkness had fallen, and the myriad multi-colored signs of Ciro’s and the Trocadero and other such places where the stars congregated, or are supposed to congregate, gave the Boulevard a festive air. Below, dropping sharply away from Sunset and extending to the sea, stretched the vast panorama of Los Angeles at night. Traffic was pretty heavy.

O’Melveny descended from his cab some little distance down from the Westmere’s main portal, paid off and sauntered leisurely along the sidewalk. His appearance was quite in keeping with the best traditions of The Strip. He looked like a producer, or maybe a two-thousand-a- week writer, or even, perhaps, like one of the better-class agents who battqned on both. He swung his cane jauntily.

So far as his bland blue eye could tell, there had been no murders in the vicinity recently. Neither was there any sign of the tall, dark and quiet man. Everything, indeed, appeared as it should be, including the uniformed doorman. O’Melveny lifted his cane in careless salute, waited for the door to be opened for him and strolled inside. The lobby was not a large one, so there was no escaping the clerk’s eye. O’Melveny didn’t even try to escape it. He met it with a stare more supercilious than the clerk’s own, nodded distantly and proceeded to the elevators. His manner said that he knew exactly where he was going, which was a fact. Myrna Bogardus lived on the top floor. O’Melveny hoped that by this time she was at the Ambassador.

He got out and approached the door of an apartment other than hers and pretended to ring the buzzer. The elevator descended. O’Melveny moved rather swiftly then. From his pocket he withdrew what looked like an ordinary pen knife, but what was in reality an instrument known as a gimmick, and for the possession of which he could have been arrested. He was breathing somewhat hurriedly before he finally gained admittance to the Bogardus domicile. He stood there in the darkness of the little foyer, listening while the elevator came up and again descended. There was no sound inside but his own labored breathing. Presently he reached out and found the wall switch and snapped on the lights.

He knew perfectly well what he was doing. He was risking not only his license, but his neck, in an attempt to find out definitely whether Myrna Bogardus had or had not killed the man Raoul Dixon. He felt that he had to know this before proceeding much farther. He was practically sure that she hadn’t— almost as sure as he was that her husband hadn’t— but he had to know. There was little or no doubt in his mind that the lady had an excellent motive for the deed. Being a man of low morals himself, O’Melveny was able to recognize blackmail when he saw it, and he was positive he had seen it in the way Myrna Bogardus had paid off that afternoon. The odd part was that she had gotten nothing in exchange.

Also, there was the little matter of Tony Maggi. The Wop had admitted Dixon was one of his boys. He had also admitted, to O’Melveny at least, that Myrna Bogardus owed him, Maggi, a sum of money. Obviously, if this sum of money were for blackmail, Maggi would not have admitted it. Thus it was almost certain that the money owed was a gambling debt. What, then, had become of the money the lady had paid over to Raoul Dixon? If Dixon had passed it on to Maggi, the Wop wouldn’t have been squawking, would he ? Ergo, Dixon hadn’t passed it over, which seemed to indicate that he was either working a racket of his own, or was holding out on his boss. This last made a very neat motive for Maggi himself to have knocked off his henchman. Provided, of course, he had discovered the hold-out. Against this theory you had the undeniable fact that Tony Maggi had seemed very eager indeed to find Dixon’s killer.

Sighing, because all this had gotten him practically nowhere, O’Melveny began the ticklish business of searching the apartment thoroughly but quickly. His task was made doubly difficult because he had no idea what he was looking for. The gun, perhaps ? It hardly seemed likely that Mrs. Bogardus would still have clung to it. Indeed the gun was just one of the reasons O’Melveny didn’t think the lady had done the job. He had seen her practically empty her purse out at the track and there had been no gun in evidence then. She didn’t look like the kind of gal who would wear it strapped to her thigh, either.

But speaking of thighs and such, O’Melveny ran across an interesting array of scanties in one of the two bedrooms, and underneath them a hypodermic needle outfit. It was quite a beautiful little engine, all silverplated and neatly cased in genuine snakeskin. There was also an unlabeled green bottle with traces of a whitish powder still clinging to the inside. O’Melveny didn’t think the bottle had contained aspirin, but just to be sure he thumped the upended bottle on his palm until he got enough of the powder to taste. It wasn’t aspirin. He began to be very sorry indeed for Myrna Bogardus.

HE DID not find a gun, nor did he find anything of value among the lady’s correspondence. In a pigeonhole of her desk, however, he did discover a receipted bill under the imprint of Dr. Max Schlesinger. All it said was: “For professional services, $25.00.” Deciding that he would have to try elsewhere O’Melveny looked up the address of Raoul Dixon in the phone book. And then, because the phone was right there in front of him, he picked it up and called the cocktail lounge of the Ambassador and asked to have Miss Dugan paged. Dee, when he finally got her, was agitated. “Connor, she didn’t come!”

O’Melveny was not a profane man, but this information evoked a curse even from him. “All right,” he said presently. He thought a moment. “Tell you what you might do. Go out and see Doc Schlesinger. Pretend you’re a hophead.”

Dee sniffed. “And what will that get me?”

“That’s what I’d like to find out,” O’Melveny said. He put out the lights and descended to the lobby via the elevator. He was quite relieved that nobody was waiting to arrest him for breaking and entering. His relief lasted all the way out to the sidewalk, where he was attempting to flag a cab when Tony Mag gi’s limousine rolled up to the curb. The limousine was complete with chauffeur- gorilla, footman-gorilla and Tony Maggi himself. O’Melveny controlled his natural impulse to run. “Oh, hello there, Tony!”

Maggi opened the car door. “Been reporting to Mrs. Bogardus?”

O’Melveny shook his head. “She isn’t in.”

Maggi poked the gorilla-footman in the back. “Go ask the clerk, Joe.” Joe got out and went in past the goggling doorman. Maggi beckoned. “In, sha- mus.”

O’Melveny hesitated. “Now look, Tony—”

“In.”

“Well, if you insist,” O’Melveny said. He got in the car. He wished Lieutenant Blackburn and the rest of the cops were more efficient, or Tony Maggi less so.

Maggi lit a cigarette. The flame of the lighter illumined his heavy, brooding profile. “The cops pinched Bogardus, chum, and they tried to pinch me. You have anything to do with that?”

O’Melveny licked his lips. “Don’t be silly.”

Joe came out of the lobby. “She ain’t in, boss.”

"You see?” O’Melveny demanded. He became indignant. “It isn’t bad enough to have you hounding me, I’ve got to have your friends too.”

Maggi straightened. “Who, for instance?”

O’Melveny described the tall, dark and quiet man. “At least he said he was a friend of yours. He pulled a gun on me in my own office.”

“Kralne?”

“How do I know what his name is?”

Maggi’s brows drew together. “Now what would the Duke be wanting?”

“The same as you and everybody else.” O’Melveny laughed hollowly. “Who killed Dixon, he wanted to know. My God, as if I knew!” He took a sudden vindictive thrust at the big man beside him. “Did you know that Dixon was blackmailing the woman?”

“You’re a liar!”

“Hah!” O’Melveny said scathingly. “Did you get any part of the money he took off of her this afternoon?”

Maggi sat perfectly still for a moment. “You’re making it pretty tough for your own client, shamus. That’s a hell of a good motive.”

“I know it,” O’Melveny said. His face was utterly without guile. “That’s just to prove to you that I’m leveling.” He shrugged. “But don’t ask me what he had on her. I don’t know.”

“All right,” Maggi said, “we’ll skip that for a minute. Who else has been bothering you?”

“Some monkey on the phone,” O’Melveny said tiredly. “Though come to think of it, he didn’t want to know who killed Dixon. Maybe he knew. All he insisted on was that I keep my nose clean.”

Maggi put his face down very close to O’Melveny’s. “And are you keeping it clean, chum?”

“You bet,” O’Melveny said fervently. He thought of a neat motive for his call at the Westmere Towers. “I just dropped around to return the lady’s retainer. I’m through, all fed up.”

“That’s nice,” Maggi said. “That’s a hell of a swell notion, pal.” He jerked  his thumb toward the sidewalk. “Out.”

O’MELVENY got out. The limousine rolled away. O’Melveny discovered that he was sweating copiously, though the night had grown quite cool. He presently hailed a cab and was driven across town to the address given in the phone book as that of Raoul Dixon. This turned out to be the upper half of a modernistic stucco-and-tile duplex on South Rimpau.

Traffic was rather heavy and there were a lot of parked cars at the curbs, but so far as O’Melveny could tell there was nobody particularly interested in the Dixon place. There were no lights, nor were there any in the flat below. Presumably the police had been there and gone, not even leaving a stake-out. Just to be sure, though, O’Melveny strolled past twice before attempting the outside stairs which led to the upper floor. He was not accosted. Indeed, for the moment, he seemed to be the only pedestrian. He went up the stairs, making no effort to be secretive about it, and rang the bell. Under cover of ringing it again he tried the doorknob. The door was not locked. With a quick glance he took in the street below, believed he was unobserved and went inside. Not until then did he discover that the lights were on in two of the rooms. Heavy drapes over the windows had given the effect of a complete blackout.

Half blinded by the unexpected light, O’Melveny just stood there for a moment. Then, as though a shutter had been removed from before his eyes, he saw the tall, dark and quiet man. The quiet man did not see O’Melveny, though his eyes were wide open. Duke Kralne was more utterly quiet than he had ever been. There was a bullet hole in his right temple. He was sitting, almost erect, in a corner of the divan, and on the floor, as though fallen from his lax hand, there was a gun.

O’Melveny sucked in a deep breath. For a long moment he seemed incapable of anything else. There was a tightness about his throat, a kind of paralysis in his legs, and his hand refused to do his bidding and wipe the cold sweat from his brow. He was, in a word, scared stiff.

Presently, on leaden feet, he forced himself nearer the corpse. He did not know why he did this. He didn’t know why Duke Kralne should have committed suicide. He was quite sure that the best place for a dick named O’Melveny was miles away from this particular spot, yet he was drawn by a sort of intangible magnetism. And then, mixed with the faint odor of burned cordite he smelled the perfume. It was quite distinctive— so distinctive that he could almost see Myrna Bogardus herself. His eyes dropped to the gun on the floor. It was not Duke Kralne’s gun, at least not the one the Duke had displayed in O’Melveny’s office. That had been an automatic. This was a revolver.

Like a sleepwalker O’Melveny got out a handkerchief and picked up the weapon. There were four exploded shells. His lips moved silently, counting. Three for Raoul Dixon, out at the track, one for Duke Kralne. He put the gun back exactly as he had found it. The intent was quite obvious. It was meant to be believed that Kralne had killed Dixon, and then, in a fit of despondency over his act, had done the Dutch. Had the gun been Kralne’s own, O’Melveny himself might have believed it. He began to be very angry indeed with Myrna Bogardus. He was not too angry, however, to remember that she was still his client. The gun might somehow be traced to her. He picked it up again, and this time wiped it carefully and thrust it into his pocket.

Quite suddenly, startlingly loud, the telephone rang. O’Melveny stared at it resentfully. He would not, he told himself, answer it. Nobody in his right mind would. It was certainly odd, though, that anybody should be calling a guy after he was dead, and the papers had made it clear to one and all that Raoul Dixon was that way. The phone kept ringing. O’Melveny put out his hand for it, withdrew, finally could not resist its imperative summons. He lifted the instrument and spoke from the corner of his mouth. “Yeah?”

“Connor!” Dee screeched. “Connor, I’m—” There was a terrific bang and the phone went dead.

Behind O’Melveny a hard voice rasped, “Don’t move, O’Melveny!”

O’Melveny had no trouble recognizing the voice. It belonged to Lieutenant Blackburn. The phone dropped from suddenly numb fingers. “Who, me?”

Blackburn slid into sight. His gun was out and his lips were drawn back over yellowed teeth. “Who’s the corpse this time, shamus?” He jerked his head at Kralne’s body.

“I— I really don’t know,” O’Melveny said.

Blackburn spat. “So you just go around killing them without an introduction, eh?”

O’Melveny lips were parched. He wondered if the fact that he couldn’t possibly have killed Dixon would influence Blackburn’s judgment regarding Duke Kralne. He hardly thought so. He wished the gun in his pocket were at the bottom of the ocean instead. A dead guy on the divan, the murder weapon in O’Melveny’s pocket— no, it was asking too much of anybody to believe it wasn’t so. He became very brisk. “I was just calling headquarters.”

"Oh, you were!” Blackburn took two quick steps, scooped up the phone with his left hand. “Police business, Beautiful. Get me a supervisor.”

O’Melveny smacked his cane down on Blackburn’s gun wrist. As the gun dropped and Blackburn involuntarily stooped for it O’Melveny hooked the cane in Blackburn’s vest and yanked. Blackburn fell on his face. O’Melveny removed himself hurriedly from the premises.

4: O’Melveny, Moralist

THE house was a Colonial, with tall white pillars and a broad red-bricked terrace fronting a deep lawn studded with shrubs and rather formal flower beds. On one side of the main house the drive led under a porte-cochere and disappeared around a turn at the back. On the other side, connected with the house in the form of a one-story wing, was Dr. Schlesinger’s office and reception room. There were scarcely any lights showing in the main house, but the office was bright behind drawn shades. A car stood in the drive just short of the porte-cochere, and O’Melveny, descending from a cab, saw by the license plates that it was a physician’s, probably Schlesinger’s own. The scent of night-blooming jasmine was heavy on the air.

O’Melveny went along the brick terrace, not swiftly enough to account for his hurried breathing, and with his cane hooked over an arm lifted the antique brass knocker on the doctor’s office door. He had only to bang it once before the door opened and a broad path of yellow light illumined him, a portly though rather jaunty gentleman whose pink face suggested that he lived rather too well and might have high blood pressure.

Silhouetted against the light, Dr. Max Schlesinger regarded his caller. “I’m sorry,” he said, “office hours are over at four. After that I insist on appointments.” There was no sign that he recognized O’Melveny. He started to close the door.

O’Melveny thrust a foot in the opening. “I have an appointment. I was to meet a lady here.”

“Sorry,” the doctor said, rather more stiffly this time, “I know of no such lady. If you will excuse me?”

“Oh, but I won’t,” O’Melveny said. He poked his cane at Schlesinger’s stomach. He winked. “I understand you’re a sort of silent partner of Tony Maggi. You wouldn’t want Tony to know what you’ve been doing on the side, would you?”

Schlesinger’s mouth made a thin straight line under the red, carefully groomed mustache. “You’d better come in, O’Melveny.”

“That’s what I thought too,” O’Melveny said. He went in past the doctor, apparently without a care in the world. The luxurious reception-room was quite empty. So too was the more austere office beyond it. His eye quickened, however, as he saw the lady’s purse in the waste-basket beside the broad desk. The purse was Dee’s. “I see the lady has been here, anyway,” he observed.

Behind him, Dr. Schlesinger began to laugh. It was not a nice laugh. “You’re such a fool, O’Melveny.” Something that was certainly not a fountain pen poked O’Melveny in the small of the back.

“Stand perfectly still, my friend.” A hand as light and deft as a woman’s patted O’Melveny’s pockets, found the gun, removed it. “There, that’s better.” The hard object was withdrawn from O’Melveny’s kidneys. “That’s much better.” There was the click of a door lock.

O’Melveny turned just in time to see the doctor drop the extra gun into a steel filing cabinet. Not that the doctor was unarmed. He still had the weapon which, as O’Melveny had suspected, was not a fountain pen. It was a black and shiny automatic and there was not much doubt that it had once belonged to Duke Kralne. Also, Dr. Schlesinger was smarter than Lieutenant Blackburn. He knew enough to keep his distance. Schlesinger’s pointed mustache made a V over a smile which resembled nothing so much as a wolf’s. “Were you hoping to blackmail a man of my caliber, O’Melveny?”

O’Melveny forced a feeble grin. “Well, you know how us private dicks are. A dollar here, a dollar there.” He wondered if it hurt much to be shot. He never had been.

Schlesinger said: “You mentioned my partnership with Maggi, my friend. How did you find that out?”

O’Melveny pretended great surprise. “Why, from Tony himself.” He held up two fingers pressed tightly together. “Tony and I are just like that.” He smiled. “Well, perhaps not as close as that, but when I called him up to tell him what had happened to his very dear pal Duke Kralne he was so— ah— startled that he actually answered a couple of questions ! ”

SCHLESINGER himself looked a little startled. “You tell him—” He shook his head. “No, you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t kill the goose you expected to lay the golden egg.”

“Not if the goose laid,” O’Melveny admitted. He looked at the gun in the doctor’s fist. “It seems the goose isn’t going to, though, doesn’t it?”

“You were warned,” Schlesinger said coldly.

“That was my secretary you spoke to,” O’Melveny said. He sighed. “I was afraid you might be a bit difficult.” He looked at the ceiling. “So I asked Maggi to meet me here.”

The clock on the desk ticked loudly. For the space of thirty seconds it was the only sound. O’Melveny leered. “You’ve got about a minute to make up your mind, Doctor. If I’m not mistaken that’s Tony’s car turning into the drive now. ”

Schlesinger stiffened, listening. There really was the sound of a car. He lifted the gun, decided against shooting. You could almost see him decide against it. O’Melveny was relieved. “All right,” the doctor said between suddenly bared teeth, “I’ll make a deal with you.” He moved in closer, gun hanging at his side. “You’ll have to wait in the surgery.”

And then, without warning, or what he thought was without warning, he lifted the gun and attempted to bash O’Melveny’s head in. Only O’Melveny’s head had moved. For such a portly gentleman he acted rather swiftly. He permitted the gun to hit his left shoulder, thwacked his cane across the doctor’s shins, and then, dropping the cane, used a pink and meaty fist to bop the doctor’s chin. He was quite surprised when the doctor fell down and lay still. He went over and unlocked the surgery door. “Desiree?”

From the darkness there were sounds like “Mmph, mmph, glmmph!”

“Oh?” O’Melveny said. He reached in and snapped on the lights. There was not only one woman, there were two. Both were neatly taped, hand and foot and mouth. It was a workmanlike job, as you would expect of a medico of Dr. Schlesinger’s standing. Clucking sympathetically, O’Melveny ripped the tape from Dee’s mouth. “Shame on you,” he said.

Dee cursed him. “I tried everywhere when I heard him coming. Calling Dixon’s place was a long shot, but I had to take it.” She spat. “He caught me just as you finally answered.”

“Very sloppy work.” O’Melveny said critically. “This whole business is sloppy.” He used a scalpel from a glass case to slash Dee’s bonds. “Take care of Mrs. Bogardus, darling. I’ve got company.”

Dee wiped stickum from her mouth. “Who?”

O’Melveny sighed. “Tony Maggi, I think. Blackburn ought to be along presently too. It’s taken him long enough to trace your phone call back.” He went out to answer a thunderous knocking on the door. Dr. Schlesinger was beginning to stir. O’Melveny bent and thoughtfully removed the slugs from the automatic before replacing it by the doctor’s outflung hand. "Just a moment,” he called for the knocker’s benefit.

Dee wobbled to the surgery door. “Connor, in the filing cabinet there are pictures of Mrs. Bogardus.” She colored. “Not nice pictures.”

“Get them,” O’Melveny said.

He unlocked the door. Tony Maggi and his two inseparables came in. The two inseparables ranged themselves on either side of O’Melveny. Maggi looked at him, looked down at Dr. Schlesinger. “Now, what’s this you were telling me?”

O’Melveny shuddered. “It’s not nice,” he said. “Not nice at all. People just won’t tell me things. Mrs. Bogardus wouldn’t, her husband wouldn’t, even you wouldn’t.” He opened his blue eyes very wide. “Now if I had known in the first place that Doc Schlesinger was your partner—”

Maggi crossed the room swiftly and caught Dee by the shoulder. “Hey, what do you think you’re doing?”

Dee waved a flat packet of photographic prints. “Art studies,” she said. “You wouldn’t be interested.”

At this instant Dr. Schlesinger came to life. Unaware that the automatic was empty he snatched it up and menaced the room with it. “We can square this yet, Tony, if you want to be nice.” He jerked his chin. “Have the boys get rid of O’Melveny and the girl.”

Maggi just looked at him. “You killed Kralne. Dixon I wouldn’t care about, but Kralne— well, the Duke was a friend of mine.” He shook his big head. “Besides, I’m not in the smut business.” He moved forward with an utter disregard for the gun in Schlesinger’s hand. Schlesinger squeezed the trigger. Naturally nothing happened. With a bleat of terror he turned to run then, and Maggi caught him and slammed him violently into a chair. “You going to talk, Doc?”

Schlesinger began talking very fast indeed. “You wouldn’t play,” he said. “I knew damned well you wouldn’t.” He moistened suddenly dry lips. “But the setup offered such sweet possibilities for extra gravy. Through the gambling end you could get a line on people who had money, and if you were a doctor—”

“Not me,” Maggi said. “You.”

O’MELVENY moved casually away from the two gorillas and went into the surgery. Mrs. Bogardus was just removing the last of the adhesive from her ankles.

She regarded Connor O’Melveny with frightened eyes. “What— what are you going to do?”

“Nothing,” O’Melveny said. He sighed. “It’s out of my hands now.” Prowling, he discovered a portrait camera disguised as part of the X-ray equipment. “How convenient.” He looked at the lady. “Hadn’t you better tell me things?”

She stood up. “Dixon was bleeding me,” she confessed. “He had a picture of me— with a man. ”

O’Melveny nodded at the camera. "Faked.”

“I didn’t know that.” She shivered. "I’ve been such a fool, O’Melveny. I— I thought that I had gotten drunk, or been on a cocaine party—”

“Bad,” O’Melveny said piously. He went back into the office.

Dr. Schlesinger was just finishing what must have been a very painful recital. “So I caught Dixon holding out on me. That was out at Santa Anita. In the argument he threatened to expose me and I had to let him have it.” His voice broke. “Later, I got to thinking he might have left something in his apartment, something that would have incriminated me—”

O’Melveny was aghast at his own stupidity. “That’s where you ran into Mrs. Bogardus! She went there hoping to find the stuff Dixon was holding over her. And you grabbed her and brought her here.”

“Well— yes,” Schlesinger said. He looked at Dee without affection. “And I ran into this baby prowling in my office.”

O’Melveny was complacent. “I sent her.” He frowned at Miss Dugan. “Not to prowl, but to pretend she was a dope addict in need of assistance.”

“How could I?” Dee protested. “He wasn’t in.”

O’Melveny looked at Maggi. “So when she called me and was so rudely interrupted I had an idea where she was. I got to thinking what a swell setup a doctor would have for blackmail— you know, physical examinations, that sort of thing. And I remembered seeing the doctor in your box out at the track.” He spread his hands. “It all kind of— well, just fitted. All but Duke Kralne.” He sighed. “I still don’t understand Kralne.”

“The Duke wanted to buy in with me,” Maggi said heavily. “I told him I already had a partner.” He looked at Schlesinger. “The Duke was a funny guy. When he had something on his mind he kind of worried it. I guess you and Dixon must have tipped your hand to him, eh, Doc?”

Schlesinger stood up suddenly. “You’ve got me all wrong on that, Tony. I didn’t kill Kralne. Mrs. Bogardus did.”

Everybody was so surprised at this that for a moment they did absolutely nothing. Probably Schlesinger didn’t hope to be believed. All he wanted was the time necessary for him to reach the filing cabinet, get the drawer open and snatch the gun he had taken from O'Melveny. He had actually done all these things and was backing toward the surgery when the door from the ante-room banged open. Lieutenant Blackburn did just what any other cop would have done under the circumstances. He let Schlesinger have two slugs right in the belly. After that it seemed only an instant before the place was full of cops.

Blackburn looked somewhat stupidly at the assemblage. “Well, for crying out loud!”

“Yes,” O’Melveny said placidly. He twirled his cane. “It will all come to you presently, Lieutenant. You will find that the gun in Dr. Schlesinger’s poor dead hand is the one that killed Raoul Dixon and Duke Kralne.” He sighed. “The blackmailer being chiseled, you know.” He winked at Maggi and the two gorillas, who looked as though they would like very much to be somewhere else. “Mr. Maggi has been of inestimable assistance to me in uncovering the foul plot. We all owe him a debt of gratitude.”

Dee and Mrs. Bogardus came to the surgery door. Blackburn scowled. “Who’s that?”

“That,” O’Melveny said, “is a victim of what the psychologists call ‘Forty pains.’ ” He gestured with the cane. “They occur to a lot of married people who have reached— umm— middle age.” He sighed. “These pains make you begin to look for greener pastures, for excitement, anything to escape the dull monotony of being wealthy and married. The lady has suffered them and I am quite sure her husband has also. But in the pinch, each was willing to confess a murder in order to save the other. Do we need to say any more?”

“You’re damned right we need to say more!” Blackburn snarled. “I haven’t forgotten what you did to me, you pot-bellied―!”

“But you will forget, won’t you?” O’Melveny said. He was the epitome of the milk of human kindness. “Just as Mr. Bogardus will forget. He will not sue you for false arrest.”

“But he confessed!” Blackburn yelled.

“Mr. Bogardus.” O’Melveny said, “is a greater man than I.” His blue eyes opened very wide. “I will not confess, Lieutenant.” He smiled. “And if I remember rightly, you have no witnesses.”

____________________________

12: Flowers For Violet

Cleve F Adams

Clues Detective Magazine, May 1936

VIOLET McDADE in a night club is as conspicuous as an elephant in an aquarium. It isn’t altogether her prodigious size, nor is it her atrocious taste in clothes. Rather, it is a combination of these things added to the manner of a precocious child bent on attracting attention. She was attracting it, beyond a doubt.

The floor show at the Green Kitten was pretty good; exceptional, in fact. The crowded supper room didn’t even know it was there. All eyes were centered on that great lummox who is my partner. Or, at least,. that’s the way I felt. I was never so embarrassed in my life.

I said, “Violet McDade, if you ask another man to dance with me I’ll— I’ll scream!”

“Go ahead,” she said. “People will just think you’re drunk.” She waved a pudgy, beringed fist at the second drink I’d had in the last hour, her fat nose crinkled in disgust. “There you go, soppin’ up liquor, spoilin’ the effect of all the swell contacts I’m makin’.”

“Contacts!” I said. “All the contacts we’ve made to-night have been on my feet. I’ve danced with fat men, lean men, in fact every man in the room who has been unfortunate enough to pass our table. I’m sick of it. I’m going home!”

“Trouble with you”— she sniffed— “trouble with you, Nevada, is you don’t realize what contacts mean to a couple of female dicks like you and me. Look, here comes Stephen Wright, the assistant district attorney. I’m going to hornswoggle him into dancin’ with you and after that— well, after that mebbe I’ll go home, too.”

Wright seemed in a great hurry to get back to his table. His cold eyes missed her smirk of recognition and she calmly stuck out a foot, tripped him. He stopped then. Square, granite face aflame with wrath, he righted himself, muttered an ungracious apology.

She beamed. “Think nothin’ of it, Stevie. Meet my partner, Nevada Alvarado. Senator Hymes will wail for you. Fact is, it looks like you’re both waitin’ for somethin’. Couldn’t be your new boss, the district attorney, could it?”

He glared at her, made as if to pass on, thought better of it and pulled out a chair. “Why should you think Alvin Foss is coming here to-night?”

“A little birdie told me,” she said easily. “Or maybe it was a stool pigeon. Tell you the truth, that’s the real reason I’m here myself. I’m kind of keepin’ an eye on Rose Donelli in case her husband gets into trouble.”

Something flamed in the depths of those cold eyes opposite. He said, “Why should Mike Donelli have any trouble with Alvin Foss? The Green Kitten is a licensed club.”

“There’s things upstairs that the license don’t cover, Stevie. Mike’s real business is gamblin’. He’s in the rackets up to his ears, and I got a idea”— she winked owlishly— “I got a idea that a certain state senator’s dough is behind him.”

Wright said, “You’re talking wildly, woman. Perhaps too wildly.” He let that sink in, rose. His eyes on a distant table, where sat State Senator Hymes, he bowed absently. “I’ll bid you ladies a very good evening.” He went away.

MIKE DONELLI, very genial, very hearty, came in through the arch which led to the stairs, paused beside us just as Rosita was announced. Rosita was Rose Donelli. She did a whirlwind number, clad mostly in brilliants, and was the big drawing card of the Green Kitten— the supper room part of it, I mean. I hadn’t known about the other diversions upstairs until just now.

Violet, eyes on Rose, addressed Donelli. “Why don’t you get out o’ the rackets, Mike? Rose is too nice a kid to be mixed up in— well, in things that’ll likely make her a widow before she’s twenty.”

He was watching his wife. His smooth, round face was a little troubled. “You think a lot of Rose, don’t you, Violet?”

“No, you ape, I don’t. I think she’s an empty-headed little tramp. I think she was a sap for marrying a guy like you. But”— Violet’s little greenish eyes got that far-away look which somehow always brought a lump to my throat— “but Rose’s mother was damn white to me back in the old days when she was tops and I was doin’ the fat lady in the same circus. I— I kind of owe Rose somethin’ for that.”

Mike looked at her then. The lines about his mouth softened. “You’re a good egg, Violet McDade. And for your information I’ll tell you that I’m trying to get out. It— isn’t easy.” Dark eyes swept the great, crowded room, dwelt on Rosita’s exit, caught sight of something which made his lips tighten suddenly. He left us hurriedly. Turning, I saw District Attorney Alvin Foss enter the lobby, go directly to Senator Hymes’ table and, ignoring the senator, speak crisply to Stephen Wright.

Violet said, “I better have a word with Rose. Pay the check and I’ll meet you out in the lobby.” She waddled away toward the rear of the orchestra platform.

It was raining outside, not heavily, just enough to freshen the air and I breathed it gratefully after the smoke fog I’d been inhaling for what had seemed ages. The doorman signaled Sweeney, Violet’s diminutive chauffeur, and presently the great limousine rolled up to the curb.

We got in. The door slammed, and I prepared to unburden my mind of several things I’d been meaning to tell the great gooph. I might as well have saved my breath. She was asleep. It was, I think, a little after one when we reached home. I kicked off my mistreated slippers, donned mules and started to mix myself a nightcap before getting ready for bed, had got as far as the ice cubes when the doorbell rang.

Violet, plumped down on the chaise longue, opened an eye sleepily. “See who it is, Mex.”

“See who it is, yourself!” I snapped. The bell rang again, insistently. Violet grunted, got up and waddled into the hall. Surprise, then dismay, registered in the rumble of her voice. The front door slammed, the chain rattled. The elephant returned, ushering in Rose Donelli.

I set my glass down, prepared for anything. Or so I thought at the time.

“Mike Donelli,” announced Violet cheerfully, “has just shot a guy.” She went to the windows, eased one of the drapes aside and peered out into the night. And I? Well, I just stood staring at the girl. Still in her spangles with nothing but a sheer negligee to cover her, feet bare, face pale and hair disordered, she essayed a wan smile in my direction, failed miserably and tumbled in a heap at my feet.

THERE WAS the rasp of gears from the street, sound of a car getting under way. There followed an instant of silence, then the roar of a second motor, coming up very fast. Tires shrieked down the block. And Violet said, “Douse the lights!” She dropped the drape, swiveled, to see me rooted above the prone figure of Rose Donelli.

“Well, for cryin’ out loud, don’t stand there gawking like she was a ghost or something! I said, douse the lights!”

As if in a daze, I moved to the wall switch, clicked it. The dim glow from my bedroom door showed me Violet stooping, lifting the girl as she would a feather. Breathing imprecations against some unknown, the creature strode into my room. I followed.

Violet laid the girl on the bed, said, “O. K., revive her.” Just like that. Busy with smelling salts and a wet towel I watched the lummox pawing through my wardrobe and inquired with exaggerated calm what she was looking for.

“Something for Rose to wear!” she snarled. “You can’t take her to a hotel lookin’ like that!”

“Oh, so I’m taking her to a hotel?”

“Of course. She can’t go back to the Green Kitten ’cause she’s scared Mike’ll kill her, too. She accidentally busted in on this party just after the guy got the one-way ticket. Mike and a couple other bums locked her up, but she got away.”

“And came here. Thoughtful of her. Very. But now she’s here, why can’t she stay here?”

Violet glared at me over a piece of my very best lingerie. “Because, you nit-wit, she didn’t get away as clean as she thought she did. A couple of mugs just went by in a car and likely they’re havin’ a talk with her taxi driver. I’m kind of expecting them back.”

I started to shiver. Since becoming Violet McDade’s partner I’d been led into practically everything except a gang war. It looked as if my education was about to be completed. Rose Donelli chose this moment to sit up.

Violet said, “O. K., kid, everything’s going to be all right. Nevada will rustle you some duds and then we’ll find you a place to sleep.” She left us, went out into the living room again. She didn’t turn on the lights.

I helped the girl as best I could. She said, “Sorry to be such a nuisance, Miss Alvarado. Murders are pretty horrible things, aren’t they? Especially when your own husband commits them.” Her teeth started to chatter. “Mike’s been so darned good to me that I guess I’ve sort of shut my eyes to a lot of things. But to-night, when I actually saw him with that gun in his hands, with that awful look on his face, I— I lost my head. I’m still scared silly.”

“Did you,” I asked, “recognize the dead man? Or the other two who were with your husband? There is no doubt, I suppose, that the man was really dead?”

“He was dead right enough! No one could live with his face shot away, could he?” She got the jitters at that, communicated them to me. After a little: “No, I don’t know who he was, but the other two I’ve seen around with Mike. One had very white hair, I remember.”

“You’re still crazy about Mike, aren’t you?”

Her “yes” was smothered in a sob. And right after that the whole world exploded. The floor rocked, buckled beneath my feet. Numbed, I stood there, watching with a sort of dispassionate interest as window glass shattered, slashed through sheer hangings. The lights went out, blinked on again just long enough for me to catch a glimpse of Rose’s terror-stricken face, then something very heavy— probably the ceiling— crashed down upon us both.

ii

I AWOKE with a terrible roaring in my ears, a hissing, crackling roar that could be but one thing: fire! I opened my eyes, discovered that I was hanging over some one’s shoulder. Fire was licking up at the skirts of the some one, and the stench of smoke was thick in my nostrils. Those skirts could belong to no one but Violet McDade. She was carrying me somewhere. I passed out again.

Fresh air brought me around the second time— fresh air tainted with smoke, but that terrible heat was gone, and the flames. No, the flames were still there, gnawing greedily at the base of a door through which we’d evidently just come. I was lying on the floor in almost pitch darkness, and Violet, cursing under her breath, was tugging at something heavy.

I sat up. The room reeled dizzily, steadied. My eyes picked out Violet’s bulk heaving at a fallen ceiling joist. Lath and plaster littered the floor, what was left of the furniture. And I discovered another form beneath that massive beam. Bridget, our housekeeper!”

“Violet, is— is Bridget dead?”

“Nope. Give me a lift with this damn timber, will you?” Our combined strength managed to raise one end and Violet wedged it with something. She said, “Bridget, can you hear me?”

“Who couldn’t?” The voice was very weak, husky, but it was the sweetest sound I ever expect to hear. “Am I dyin’, Mac?”

“Hell, no,” said Violet grumpily. “Nothin’ wrong with you except a couple of broken ribs and a crack on the dome. Now, look, Bridget, I’ve turned in the alarm and the fire boys’ll be here ’most any minute. In case it gets too hot for you, we’ve raised the timber so you can crawl out. But stick if you can.”

“She’ll do no such thing, Violet McDade!”

“I will too,” said Bridget. “If Mac wants me to stick, I’ll stick. I’d go to hell for her and she knows it!"

“Sure I do,” said Violet. “But this time you don’t have to. All you do is let ’em drag you out and act kind of hysterical, ’cause Nevada and me is buried up ahead in the ruins. Get it?”

I said, “I’ll be no party to it!”

And Violet’s great arms infolded me, lifted me, carried me, struggling and kicking, through a rear dooj. The flames, mounting skyward, cast a lurid glow over the back yard and the limousine waiting in the alley behind the garage, but there was no sign of the neighbors. They must have all been out in front. I opened my mouth to scream and Violet clapped a hand over it.

“Shut up, you sap! Shut up and quit kickin’. You want to catch the lice that done this to us, or you want to give ’em a bigger and better chance? Bridget’s all right!”

SIRENS wailed around the corner behind us. I was suddenly assured of Bridget’s safety; and the promise of vengeance was sweet. I stopped struggling. Little Sweeney opened the car door for us; I got a flash of a huddled figure on the floor of the tonneau; then we were inside and the great car was rolling down the alley, into a cross street.

“Is— is Rose all right, too?”

“Sure.” Violet leaned over, tucked the robe clumsily about the still form. “Still out, but O. K.”

“By the way,” I demanded, “where were you when the bomb landed? I thought you were in the living room.”

“Me, I was out in the garage waking Sweeney, so you and him could take Rose and park her somewhere. Lucky for you I was, too. You and the kid would have been a couple of rbasts by this time if anything had Tiappened to me. Just like I’m always tellin’ you— without Vi McDade you wouldn’t be worth the powder to blow you to hell.”

“I guess you’re right,” I said, and suddenly found myself crying on her shoulder. She patted my knee awkwardly, stopped that as if embarrassed, and began her ominous sleeve-gun practice. Her left arm, flexing up and down, kept digging in my ribs. It hurt like the very devil but I didn’t have the heart to tell her so. Rose Donelli heaved a tremulous sigh, sat up.

“Violet?” she queried. “Violet, is that you?”

“In the flesh.”

“What— what happened?”

“Friends of your dear husband tossed a pineapple through our front window. I told you not to marry that guy.”

Rose covered her face with her hands. Then, with a sudden fierce little gesture said: “Mike never ordered that. Mike wouldn’t—  couldn’t do such a cowardly thing! But there, I’ve been enough trouble to you. Let me out here.” She struggled to rise. “Let me out and forget that you ever saw me!”

Violet lifted her to the seat. “Look,” she said, “look, Rosie, Mike gunned somebody out. You happened to bust in at the wrong time and stumbled into him and his two friends. Naturally, your runnin’ away would, make ’em all kind of nervous. Far as I’m concerned it’s dead open and shut. You can believe Mike’s the curly-haired boy who wouldn’t rub us all out to save his own skin. Me, I’m for not lettin’ you stick your neck out. Not till I’ve paid off a couple of debts I owe, anyway.” She clamped her jaws shut on this last, lapsed into a brooding silence.

Sweeney tooled the car into Wilshire Boulevard, pulled up before the Lancaster. And it wasn’t till we’d actually entered the lobby that I fully realized the enormity of our position. Violet— well, I’ve seen her look worse though her eyes were red-rimmed, her moon face grimed with smoke and soot.

But Rose and I resembled nothing so much as a couple of plasterers after a hard day. There was a bluish welt on my forehead; blood from a nasty cut in my cheek had streaked down, dried in a pool at the base of my neck. Rose’s face and arms were scarred with deep scratches; her dress— my dress, rather— was positively charred all down one side of her.

A full-length mirror in one of the great pillars told me all this— and more. My shoes were not mates. I cursed Violet under my breath for this added indignity, remembered suddenly that she had done exceedingly well to find me any shoes at all, remembered that but for her I’d be beyond the need of shoes.

SHE, the pachyderm, was at the desk, trying to convince the clerks we were respectable. Beside her, the tiny Sweeney in his outrageous uniform looked a solemn, wizened midget. It was no go with the clerks. Even the sight of the enormous roll Violet always carries had no effect. The Lancaster, you see, was our newest, smartest hostelry.

One of the desk men beckoned a house detective, evidently with the purpose of having us ejected. Mortified? I was petrified. And then, wonder of wonders, the dick recog
nized Violet. They fell on each other’s necks like long-lost buddies.

“Hi, Mac!” he cried.

“Hello, yourself,” she said. Then: “Look, Elmer, tell these dumb apes at the counter who I am, will you? Our house just burned down and we got to get a roof over our heads.”

Elmer addressed the chief clerk in an undertone. The fellow eyed Violet with a new respect. Still a little doubtful he finally capitulated.

“How many rooms will you need?”

Violet said, “Four of your best, all in a row.”

He raised an eyebrow, stared hard at Sweeney’s uniform. “Four, madam? Did you say four of our best? We have a servant’s annex, you know.”

Violet bridled. “Sweeney ain’t no servant! Sweeney’s as good as I am and probably a damn sight better. So we want four rooms just like I told you. Servant’s annex!” She snorted.

And I thought of poor Bridget lying back there in the wreckage. A servant undoubtedly. An Irish cook who called her employer “Mac” and was not always civil to me. But a servant ready to risk her very life for Violet McDade. I resolutely put Bridget from my mind and trailed rather forlornly after the others as they were escorted to the elevators.

One thing I’ll say for the Lancaster. They may be snobbish; they may rob you of your eyeteeth when it comes to charges, but you can get almost anything you want, night or day. In half an hour’s time we were all fairly presentable, and Violet was just finishing with her hair when I entered her room.

“What do you intend doing, Violet?”

“Doing?” she snarled. “I’m going to get the two guys that tossed that pineapple and tear ’em limb from limb. Now you, of course, don't mind—now— petty annoyances flike having your cook half murdered your house burned down around your ears, so you can stay here and play nurse to Rose until I get back.”

“Oh, I can, can I? Well, if you think I’ve got any love for Rose Donelli you’re crazy. She’s the one that caused all the trouble. Sweeney can stay here if she has to be nursed. And I’ve got a gun that’s aching for a target as much as yours are! ”

I bethought myself to feel for the little .32 I carry just above my right knee. It wasn’t there. I’d noticed its absence before but had forgotten it.

Violet opened her purse, produced the gun. “I kind of thought you might be wantin’ it,” she said. “After you got the shock out of your system. O. K. then, me proud señorita, we’ll let Sweeney guard Rose while we go gunnin’ for her husband.”

Sweeney demurred. “Gosh, Mac, I ain’t no hand with women. Besides, I’d like to take a cut at them bozos, myself.”

ROSE DONELLI must have heard the argument. She came through the adjoining bath, stared from one to the other of us with suspicion.

“You’re intending to pin that bombing on Mike? You’re— you’re going to hurt him?”

“Not much,” said Violet grimly. “I’m going to put about six slugs in his middle is all.”

Rose was upon her like a raging cat. “You’re not! You’re not! You’re not!” Small fists beat against Violet. “You’ve other enemies! I tell you Mike wouldn’t do such a thing!” Her wild eyes sought the telephone. “I’ll warn him, that’s whaf I’ll do. Let me go!”

Violet calmly slapped her down, said to Sweeney. “Take care of runt. Don’t let any one get to or I’ll skin you.”

We went down to the lobby. The after-theater supper crowd was just breaking up and I realized with a start that it was only a little after two— scarcely an hour since we’d left the Green Kitten. In that short hour our home had been demolished and Bridget, poor old soul, had sus- fayied injuries that might well keep ner in the hospital for months.

My heart crawled up into my throat, jiggled there uncertainly, and then dropped like a plummet at sight of a familiar figure between us and the doors— Lieutenant Belarski! Belarski whom Violet didn’t like and who certainly didn’t like Violet. She’d bested him too many times.

She saw him at the same instant. “Well, for cryin’ out loud! Of all the dicks in the city we would have to run into that rat, Belarski!”

He spotted us, advanced unhurriedly, a sardonic grin on his lean, dark face. “Well, well, well!” he said. “Fancy meeting you here!” His grin vanished. Clutching Violet’s cloak in his two hands, he snarled: “Who did it?”

“Who did what?” she inquired innocently.

“Don’t stall!” he grated. “You know damn well what I’m talking about. Who bombed your house? Why did you run out on your cook, carefully coaching her in a pack of lies before you left? I’ll tell you why, you fat imitation of a female shamus! You were trying to give the law a run around till you could find the mugs that did the job.”

“That’s what you think,” said Violet. “Take your hands off me before I flatten you!” Her voice suddenly lost its belligerence, her shoulders sagged. “O. K., Belarski, you’re a smart dick. I figured we’d got away clean.” She eyed him appraisingly. “Anybody else know we’re still alive?”

He grinned again, wolfishly. “No,” he said. “The cook put it over for the rest of the boys, even for the reporters. They’re still waiting for the embers to cool so they can look for your remains. But it happens that I know you, know that any job you’re interested in smells to high heaven. So I found a neighbor who thought she’d seen you leave the back way, and put a quick check on the hotels. Who tossed that pineapple?”

“O. K.,” she said. “I admit I was goin’ after the mugs, myself. Nobody, I says, is going to do my work for me. I figured that bein’ dead would maybe give us a little edge, see what I mean?”

Belarski’s dark eyes got cunning. “Yes, I see what you mean. With half an eye I could see you’ve got a damned good idea of who you’re looking for. So open up and maybe I won’t take you down to headquarters yet. Maybe I’ll just leave you in your rooms under guard until I make the collar.”

Violet looked relieved. “Now you’re talkin’. That’s what I call bein’ a pal, Belarski. One of the men in the blue sedan that passed our house just before the blow-off—  one of them guys looked like Broken-nose Murphy. You ’member? I helped put him away a few years back.”

“So that’s it!” Belarski positively beamed. “Well, I think I can locate Broken-nose!” He swiveled, signaled to a detective lounging against a pillar. The fellow came up. “Hammel, escort these two— ah— ladies to their rooms. See that they stay there until I get back.”

Violet winked broadly, linked her Wrmf in that of the fat detective. “Sarge, you look like you’re going to be interestin’ company. Come on, Nevada, let’s show the sarge our suite.” We entered an elevator, leaving Belarski staring after us with a look of indecision on his hatchet face.

iii

THE DOOR to my room was flocked. So, too, were all the others. Sweeney evidently was taking no chances. And wrangling voices from within told me that Rose Donelli wasn’t being too docile. Violet knocked, and after a moment Sweeney’s wizened face appeared in a cautious crack.

Violet said, “Open up, you lug, we’ve got company.” She stepped back politely, let the burly sergeant enter first. And the moment the man’s eyes rested on the bound figure of Rose Donelli he knew something was wrong.

“Rosita! Rose Donelli!” He turned accusing eyes on Violet. “So you crossed Belarski, huh? Ten to one Mike Donelli is behind all this, and you sent the lieut kiting after poor old Broken-nose Murphy. Lemme at that phone!”

Violet hit him with a hamlike fist— once. He went down like a poled ox. Violet said, “There, Sweeney, is another charge for you. You ought to be able to take care of two as easy as one.” And as Sweeney looked doubtful, she added: “Well, be seein’ you,” and waddled to the door.

Rose Donelli screamed. Sweeney, a look of long-suffering patience on his face, clapped a hand over her mouth. And Violet came back to stare down gloomily at the figure on the bed.

“Look, Rose, you came to me ’cause you was scared to death of your own husband. Now, like all women, you’ve changed your mind and think he’s a curly-haired angel or somethin’. You want to help him, huh? Well, neither you nor all the Belarskis in the world is going to keep me from gettin’ to Mike Donelli!” She strode to the door.

Under a full head of steam she sailed through the lobby below only to halt before the news stand as if she’d run into something solid. It wasn’t solid, but it was startling. A boy had just deposited a stack of extras on the case. Other boys screamed: “District Attorney Foss Murdered!” A boxed-in account gave the place as an alley near Pico and Central; the time of death as approximately one o’clock, and the cause as a large-caliber bullet which had entered the back of his head and, emerging, practically obliterated his face. I thought of Rose’s description. It fitted. But Pico and Central was a long, long way from the Green Kitten.

WE WENT out into the night and I climbed under the wheel of the limousine. “Violet,” I said, “Alvin Foss was at the Green Kitten at one o’clock. We saw him. Do you suppose he is the one―”

“That Mike shot? Why not? Alvin Foss has been threatenin’ to raise hell with places like Mike’s ever since he was elected. Maybe he got tired waitin’ for Steve Wright, his assistant, to do something. Maybe he decided to do it himself and Mike had to plug him. The only thing is— well, in the back of the head don’t sound like Mike’s way of doing things. And in his own office, too.”

“They could have carried the body away easily enough; planted it in that alley where the rain would obliterate any traces. I mean, the police could never prove that Foss wasn’t killed right where he was found.” I remembered something Rose had said. “Violet, I believe Senator Hymes was there when it happened! Rose said there was a man with white hair.”

“Yeah, and she said there was another guy, too, maybe with green hair. Maybe the two of ’em left Mike Donelli to get rid of the body while they tailed Rose and bombed our house. Which reminds me, I want to find a phone.”

I obediently parked before the first all-night cafe we came to, and she got out, went inside. She emerged presently with a curious look on her moon face. “I located Rose’s taxi driver,” she said.

“You did! What did he say?”

“He didn’t say nothin’, Mex. ’Cause why? ’Cause he’s deader’n a mackerel. Them bozos caught up with him, found out where he’d dumped Rose, and slugged him— for keeps. Why do you reckon they’d do that?”

“I— I don’t know,” I said faintly. “Unless he knew them, would be able to identify them.”

“Or the car they was drivin’, huh?”

“You told Belarski it was a blue sedan!”

She stared at me in disgust. “I must be improving,” she said. “Or you’re dumber than I thought. You think I’d tell that guy the truth about anything?”

We drove on. It was raining again and the street lamps made pale blobs of reflected light against the glistening pavement. The clock on the dash said 2:15 as we approached the neon sign of the Green Kitten. A car was pulling into the curb ahead of us, a tan touring car with a khaki-colored top. It looked like one of the county cars, and as we passed it I saw the familiar insignia on the front door.

Two men got out, nodded to the doorman, pushed on through into the foyer. I parked a little way down the block. Violet, with a prodigious grunt, heaved her bulk to the sidewalk.

“Don’t lock the car,” she said. “We may need it in a hurry. ” She strode away down the curb like a man going to a fire; and, despite her clothes, despite her ridiculous, tent-like opera cloak, she looked like a man, a veritable mountain of a man, masquerading in woman’s garb. I followed as best I could, caught up with her for the sole reason that she’d stopped beside the county car and was deliberately removing her cloak.

The doorman stepped forward. “May I help you?”

“Yeah,” she grunted. “Yeah, you can help me by minding your own business.” She had the cape off by this time and seemed bent on arranging its folds so that they draped over the car’s right door. Satisfied, apparently, by the effect thus obtained she once more donned the garment. Peeling a bill from her roll she tendered it to the man.

“Look, general, the two dicks that just went inside. Were they here before— say, around one o’clock?”

He shook his head.

“Well, then, is Mike Donelli still here?”

“No ma’am,” he said. “Mike came out and got in his car at ten after one. I ain’t seen him since, but he’s sure to be back before closing time.”

“Swell,” said Violet, “my partner will wait for him. Me, I got business down the street a ways.” She gave me an encouraging shove toward the entrance, hunched over against the driving rain, and disappeared in the darkness.

WELL, I managed to get past the check girl with a casual nod, flashed a glance into the main supper room as I passed. State Senator Hymes was still at his table. There were two girls there now. And over against the far wall, partially obscured by the crowd on the dance floor I saw Assistant District Attorney Stephen Wright. With him keije the two men who had gotten out of the tan car.

Wright, I thought, looked worried, but there was no sign of excitement such as should have attended a shooting in the club. And apparently news of the district attorney’s death hadn’t spread this far. Possibly the two detectives had come to notify Wright.

The colored orchestra was blaring away as if nothing had changed. Perhaps it hadn’t— for them. I thought of our house, of Bridget, went up the broad, carpeted stairs hoping, yes, praying that the doorman had lied, that Mike Donelli was in and that I’d get to him before Violet did.

People passed me on the stairs, in the hall above. I was barely conscious of them. The door to the gambling salon stood wide, inviting. I paused there a moment, didn’t see Donelli, and went on to his private suite. As I touched the knob a man stepped from the shadows. “Mr. Donelli isn’t in just now.”

“I know. He’s down below. I’m to wait for him.” He looked at me searchingly, evidently was of two minds. I decided for him and with an assurance I certainly didn’t feel twisted the knob, went in. The great room was empty. I waited, heart pounding, to see if the man would follow me. He didn’t. I went on through into Mike’s bedroom and, beyond that, into what must have been Rose’s. No one there, either.

Back in the combination office and living room, I looked around for signs of the shooting. There were none— or so I thought till I noticed from the impressions in the thick carpeting that the desk had been moved. The thing was very ornate, heavy as the devil. I couldn’t budge it.

Dropping to my knees I crawled about, searching for something, I hardly knew what. And then, just inside the knee hole I found it. A little smear that the left-hand pedestal didn’t quite cover. Unmistakably blood. Not much, but the spot was still moist, sticky and gave me a pretty good idea that there was a lot more under that pedestal. Well, that was that. Rose Donelli had actually seen something.

I HEARD the door open, stood up confusedly. A man came in, his face shadowed by a pulled-down hat brim. It wasn’t the fellow I’d left in the hall. It wasn’t Donelli. It was— yes, it was one of the men from downstairs, from that tan car outside, a county dick.

“I thought this was a private office!” I said. “What happened to the man outside?”

“Why— uh— he was called away on business, ma’am. I just thought I’d” — his eyes, studiously avoiding mine, roamed over the entire room— “that is, I wanted to see Mr. Donelli.”

“Well,” I said, “he isn't here. And when he gets here he’s going to be very busy, so perhaps―” I let the suggestion hang in mid-air. It didn’t hang long. Or maybe it’s hanging yet. I wouldn’t know, because at that moment the door opened again, and in walked Lieutenant Belarski. I nearly passed out.

He closed the door behind him quietly enough, passed the county dick with barely a flicker of recognition, planted himself squarely in front of me. His dark, narrowed eyes were hot and his jaws were clamped so tightly that the skin at the corners of his mouth showed gray. He said nothing for a moment, just stared at me with a glare so baleful, so ominous, that I sagged against the desk, weak with fright.

At last he said, “Well, Miss Alvarado, we meet again.”

I said, “How true.” And even though my voice was quivery I managed a flippant, “And how is Mrs. Belarski?”

His control broke then. “By Heaven!” he rasped. “By Heaven, where is that she-devil partner of yours?” His hands snaked out, clutched my shoulders, dug in hard. “I found Broken-nose Murphy. And you know where I found him? In jail! Right where the McDade woman knew he was all the time. You tell me where that fat fool is or I’ll break every bone in your body!”

“I’m lookin’ at you, Belarski,” said a hoarse voice from the bedroom door. And there was Violet, very composed, very dirty, rust streaks all down the front of her, but her two .45s held unwaveringly on the irate lieutenant. “Yep,” she went on, “I’m here, so mebbe you better unhand the señorita, huh?”

He took his hands away, made a half-hearted movement toward his gun, thought better of it. The county dick, over by the door, was staring at Violet as if she were a ghost.

“You— you mean to tell me, lieutenant, that these two dames are the private dicks, McDade and Elvarado?”

“Not only telling you,” said Belarski. “I’m telling the whole cock-eyed world! But they won’t private dicks much longer. The'll be occupying cells next to runty chauffeur of theirs!”

Violet grunted. “You got Sweeney?”

“I’ve got Sweeney! I’ve got him booked for kidnaping an officer. And that’s what you two will booked for.”

“What happened to Rose Donelli?”

Belarski cursed luridly. “I had her, too, but the little spitfire got away. Oh, don’t worry, we’ll pick her up! And with what we can wring out of the three of you we’ll find out what this case is all about.”

VIOLET SAID, “The guy behind you could mebbe give you the low-down, Belarski, if he would.” The lights clicked out as Belarski whirled. There was a sudden burst of flame, another. I heard a body fall to the floor, the soft thud of hurried feet on the thick carpet.

By the time I had my own gun out, the lights were on again. Violet was at the switch. The county dick was gone. And Lieutenant Belarski lay on the floor, almost at my feet, a thin trickle of blood oozing from under his hat brim.

Violet knelt beside him, lifted the hat. With a vast sigh she replaced it, stood up. “Just a crease, Mex. And that’s about the first lucky thing that’s happened to me tonight. If Belarski had got it for keeps I wouldn’t have a damn thing left to live for.”

I stared. “I thought you hated him!”

“I do, you sap! But a enemy like him keeps you on your toes, keeps you from stagnatin’.” She tilted her had, poised in a listening attitude. There was no sound from without. How had the county dick got away? How, for that matter, had Violet got in? The three-room suite was a solid unit, no other door but the one from the office into the hall.

She read my mind. “The fire escape in Rose’s bedroom, ninny. He knew about it, too, which proves somethin’ or other.” She brushed rather aimlessly at the rust streaks in her cloak, looked down at the prone Belarski.

“Rose escaped by the fire ladder, so did the dick. More’n likely the corpse went down that way, too, the hall and stairs bein’ full of people most of the time. Point is, who helped him?”

“Couldn’t we,” I demanded, “do our wondering in some other place? Belarski isn’t going to stay put all night.”

She nodded absently, took pencil and paper from the desk and scribbled a note. This she fastened with a paper clip to Belarski’s coat lapel. The scrawl said:

Honest, Belarski, I never done it. I never fired a single shot in this room and neither did the Mex. Be seeing you.

iv

SHE tiptoed to the door, opened it cautiously. The man who had accosted me was still missing. We negotiated the corridor, noting no sign whatsoever that the shot had been heard, descended the stairs. The crowd in the supper room was thinning out and a hurried glance through the great archway told me that Senator Hymes had gone; so, too, had the assistant district attorney.

Violet halted, caught the eye of the head waiter. He came over and she whispered to him for a moment. I saw a bill change hands. Impatiently I waited as she was led away, back toward what must have been the kitchens. And then the lummox was waving at me from out on the sidewalk. She’d gone clear around the building!

I went out vowing I’d give her a piece of my mind. But I didn’t. Not then, anyway, for she had again buttonholed the doorman.

“So Senator Hymes and Steve Wright ain’t been out of the club all night till just now, huh?”

“That’s right, miss.”

“Thanks a lot, fella. If you ever get into trouble just look me up.”

I said, “Yes, Miss McDade could give you a lot of new ideas. If we’re not at home, try the county jail.” I departed hastily for our car, fully intending to leave her, but Violet moves rather swiftly at times. She was beside me when I meshed the gears.

“What do you mean, if we’re not at home? We ain’t got no home— nor no housekeeper if we did have a home. We can’t go back to the hotel because Belarski will have that sewed up. Where the hell can we go?”

“You just mentioned one place. I think that’s where we’re pointing!” I found myself weeping. The tears ran down my nose, dripped off onto my hands at the wheel. “Have— have you forgotten that little Sweeney’s in jail?”

“How could I?” she grumbled. “You never let me have a minute’s peace, you cry baby. Like I’m always tellin’ you, when the going gets tough you lay down on me.”

I stopped crying then. I was so furious I could have killed her. “Listen to me, you hippopotamus, you’re everything Belarski ever called you! You’re a menace to society. I’m darned sick of being played for a sucker to help out some of your so-called friends. What did Rose Donelli ever do for you? Why should I take the rap for helping her? Did I ever ask you to help one of my friends?” I shook a fist under her fat nose. “Did I?”

She reached over, steadied the wheel. “Come to think of it, you never did, Nevada. I— I guess maybe I’ve been expectin’ too much of you. But if you didn’t have such damn high-class friends, if ever any one of ’em did get in a jam I expect maybe I’d be around, huh?”

Never a word about going into that flaming room after me to-night; not a hint that she’d saved my life a dozen times in the past. Violet McDade is— well, just Violet Mc-Dade. I suddenly felt very small.

“I’m sorry, Violet. I’m a— a cat.”

“ ’Course you are,” she acknowledged comfortably. “A regular hell-cat. So let’s forget it and concentrate on our problem. You see, Mex, we’re in what they laughingly call a predicament. Havin’ lied to Belarski so I’d get first shot at Mike Donelli; havin’ bopped his helper, the sarge; havin’ left Belarski with a bullet crease in his head; all them things is— now— mere details. The real facts of the matter is that poor Sweeney’s in jail, we’ve lost Rose, and we ain’t yet met up with Mike Donelli. Our results, to date, is null and void.”

“And apt to remain so.” But I was feeling more cheerful for some unknown reason. The tears may have helped. “You’ve stated our position with admirable clarity. Is there supposed to be a solution?”

“They’s always an answer,” she affirmed. “An answer to everything. Maybe you ain’t got it, maybe I ain’t. But it’s there, Mex. ’Member that time we got Sweeney out of jail down in San Juan Batista?”

“Violet McDade, you’re not thinkinging of trying that trick again are you? No, you couldn’t be— not even you!”

“Nope,” she said, “nope, I’m afraid it wouldn’t work in the United States of America. ’Fraid we'll have to use a little— now— finesse in Sweeney’s case. Meantime, let's forget him and think of Rose. Thinking of Rose reminds me that we’d better turn around and go back to the Green Kitten.”

“Belarski,” I reminded her, “is at the Green Kitten.”

“I hope so,” she said. “I hope he’s still there and that Rose runs right into his arms. I’d a lot rather Belarski had her than some others I know.” She cursed the girl under her breath.

I TURNED RIGHT at the next cross street, headed back in the general direction of the Green Kitten. I wasn’t pushing the car too hard. It was still raining, but the rain had nothing to do with my caution. Personally, I was hoping that Belarski had collared Rose and her husband, too. I only got half my wish.

We were just in time to see Belarski escorting Rose out the front door and into his car. I cut the lights, skidded into the nearest alley, halted with my heart in my throat. Belarski’s car passed the alley doing fifty.

Violet grunted, “Well, that’s a relief. Back out and let’s buzz the doorman again.”

The doorman was indignant. “You again! Mike’s been raising merry hell with me about you and one thing and another!”

“Mike’s been here, huh?”

He spat disgustedly. “Yeah, and gone again. He comes busting in, goes upstairs, and right after that comes Rosita,  She goes upstairs too. Couple of minutes later tearing down, cussing somebody about a pineapple job. He's got a rod in his fist, this time, and he offers to slap me down if I don’t tell him all I know. Which is practically nothin’, but―”

“Save it,” Violet advised. “Mike plenty was mad, huh? You know where he was goin’ this time?”

“So help me,” said the fellow earnestly, “if you was to give me another fifty bucks I couldn’t tell you.”

We got back in the car and rode aimlessly for a while, Violet apparently, sunk in a stupor. I should have known better. Presently she straightened.

“Why,’’ she demanded, “why would the bombing of our house make Mike Donelli mad? Because it failed? Why’d he leave Rose to the— now— tender mercies of Belarski, when all the time his main idea must have been to shut her up?”

“You tell me,” I suggested wearily.

“All right, I will!” But she didn’t. For just at that moment I discovered that we were being tailed. My cry of dismay brought a snort from Violet.

“Hell, I’ve known it for fifteen minutes. The only reason we went back to the Green Kitten this last time is because they missed us before. I wanted to give ’em another chance.”

“Who?”

“The mugs that tossed the pineapple, I’m hopin’. This damn rain has rubbed out what little chance I had of pinning the job on anybody. And all the actors are hopping around like fleas. I’m going to let ’em light on me for a change.”

The car was about two blocks behind us. It showed no lights, which
is probably why I hadn’t noticed it before.

Violet said, “Give ’em a few whirls around the block and let’s make sure.” So I did. I turned corners till I was dizzy, wove in and out of dark streets, decided finally that we’d lost our shadow. And was proved wrong the minute we turned into the boulevard again. The car was still there and coming up fast. There were no other machines in sight either way. At this hour in the morning the thoroughfare was as deserted as a county road in the sticks.

“What do we do now, run for it?”

“For a ways,” said Violet, peering back. “Just enough to get ’em going good. When I give you the word, slam on your brakes.”

I fed gas for all I was worth. We might as well have been standing still. That car behind certainly had something under its hood that we didn’t have. In less time than it takes to tell it were were doing seventy, our limit. And the other car crept up on us steadily. I could make out its color now and the fact that it held two men. It was less than fifty yards behind us when Violet said, “O. K.”

WELL, we did have brakes— and good tires. We stopped right now. The shock threw me hard against the wheel; I heard Violet go “Oo-o-m-ph!” The other car slid by us, rocking crazily, brakes grinding. A double burst of orange flame cut across our hood; there was a rattling, tearing sound as metal ricocheted off metal and into glass. The windshield developed a sudden case of smallpox, but held. And the open car righted itself, whirled on two wheels, started back.

Violet grunted, “I expect we’ll be safer outside, Mex. Not that I want to be safe. This is the first sign of action I’ve seen to-night.” Which would have struck me as extremely funny at any other time. She opened the door on the curb side, floundered out. I followed, reaching for my gun. I got it, came up behind the hood just as the touring car slid to a halt.

The driver opened his door. “We must have got ’em, Logan, but we’ve got to make sure this time. Darker than hell, ain’t it?”

I shot him. Shot again and again at that vague blur which was his face. Shot until the hammer of my gun clicked on an empty chamber. I saw him slump, slide into the street. And Violet’s voice, quite calm, said: “Drop the rod, fella. You’re covered.”

She was evidently talking to the man on the off side. I couldn’t see him. I couldn’t see her, either. But he could. Or thought he could for he didn’t drop his gun. He used it. The darkness suddenly became a bedlam of sound, of stabbing tongues of flame that looked two feet long from where I crouched. As swiftly as it had all begun, it was over. Silence descended like a pall, broken by Violet, slightly petulant.

“Where the hell are you, Nevada? I can’t make out what this guy’s sayin’. Must be a Greek or something.”

I rounded the two cars, saw her on her knees beside a huddled form. The man wasn’t a Greek. His voice just sounded that way because of the blood welling from his graying lips. He was one of the two county detectives I’d seen talking to Stephen Wright; not the one who had shot Belarski in the office, but the other.

Violet McDade isn’t much good as a nurse. She can shoot people but after she’s done it she’s rather helpless when it comes to patching them up. Not that any one could have done much for this chap; he was about through. I found my handkerchief, wiped some of the blood away, lifted his head. His eyes opened a little and he coughed, horribly.

Violet said, “You’re the guys that tossed that pineapple. Who gave you your orders?”

He just looked at her. Thick lips curled in a mirthless smile and he said—his words, too, were thick, mushy: “Wouldn’t you like to know?” He died in my arms.

In the near distance now there was the crescendo of sirens; in the other direction headlights were coming up, too close for comfort. Violet said, “Let’s be on our way, Mex.”

A swift look at the driver told us that for once my shooting had been excellent. He was dead. We were on our way. Where, I didn’t know, nor did I care. I was content to go anywhere away from there, grateful for the cool freshness of the rain, for— yes, for being alive instead of lying as were those two behind us. Did I feel badly for having just killed a man? Not then. Perhaps I would later, but now I was pleasantly numb.

v

VIOLET’S VOICE, seeming to come from a long way off, impinged on my consciousness. “I got to make a couple of phone calls, Nevada, if you can tear yourself away from your meditations.”

I sat up straight. “I’m not meditating, you elephant, I’m resting.”

“Rest to-morrow, or next week. If you think we’re through because we rubbed out a couple of blots on the county’s— now escutcheon, you’re silly. Let’s find a phone.”

We found the phone— in a bar that was still doing business. The place reeked, and there were a couple of drunks. I ordered a drink, downed it and immediately felt better. Violet emerged from the phone booth as I was lighting my first cigarette in hours.

“There you go,” she complained. “There you go, carousin’ again. No wonder I can’t get nowhere with drunkards and cigarette fiends for partners.” She led the way outside, climbed under the wheel herself. “Can’t afford to let you drive with the taint of liquor on your breath.”

I actually giggled. “No,” I said, “imagine being arrested for drunken driving with our spotless record. Belarski undoubtedly has forgotten all about the other minor crimes you’ve committed to-night— this morning, rather. Poor Sweeney.”

She said, “Shut up!” and clamped down hard on the accelerator. Fifteen minutes of silence after that, and we wheeled into Gramercy Park Lane. The Lane is pretty exclusive, great stone arches at either end of the block-long street frowning on anything less than a millionaire— or a state senator. I remembered that this was where Senator Hymes lived.

As we whirled through one arch I saw headlights bearing down on the other. Violet, seemingly bent on destruction, hurled the limousine straight into their path. Brakes squealed, not ours, at first.

A thick-set figure detached itself from the coupe, crossed the sidewalk on the run and disappeared into a tree-lined drive. Violet took the turn on two wheels, rocked into the drive and applied the brakes just back of the running man. The front bumper caught him, staggered him, but he didn’t fall. One up-flung arm ended in a gun. He swiveled, cat-like, and I recognized his face in headlights’ glare. He was Mwe Donelli.

“Drop the rod, Mike,” said Violet and as he hesitated, “Drop it,” she urged, very low, almost as if she were afraid of being overheard. “A guy we both know is plenty dead because he didn’t drop his when I told him.” He dropped the gun.

“Come over here, Mike. Over by the left-hand door. You can let your hands down.”

He let his half-raised hands fall to his sides, came slowly around the left front fender. His broad face, always ruddy, genial, looked positively haggard now.

“What is this, a gag, Violet McDade?”

“In a way,” she said. And crowned him with one of her guns. The movement was so swift, so utterly unexpected that even I was stunned. I barely caught the flash of her down-swooping arm before the blow landed. Mike’s eyes crossed, he started to sag. Violet leaned out the window and sup¬ ported him.

“Get out the other side, stupid!” she hissed. “If I let him fall he’ll get all mussed up.”

“You’ve just mussed him considerably,” I said. “And anyway, I thought that was what you intended to do all along. You were, I believe, going to put six slugs in his middle or some such a matter.”

“Don’t argue!” she snarled. “Can’t a lady change her mind?”

I got out, sighing a little, and between us we managed to get him into the tonneau, fixed him nice and comfy. “Do you mind, sweet Violet, explaining your unwonted solicitude?”

“I’m savin’ him,” she said. And led the way majestically up the drive.

SENATOR HYMES answered the bell in person. I thought he was going to faint when he saw Violet.

His long face, bleak as a winter’s lay, under waving white hair, turned a sickly yellow; myriad tiny lines appeared in the skin as if the flesh beneath had suddenly shrunk.

He said, “I— I don’t believe I can see you. I’m— uh— in conference.”

“Right ungrateful, I calls it,” said Violet. “Here I just saved your life― yours and Stevie Wright’s—by stopping Mike Donelli.”

“You—you stopped Donelli! You mean you— killed him?”

“Nope,” said Violet, “just stopped him from becoming a murderer.” She shouldered her way past the agitated Solon, held the door wide.

A voice from down the hall said, “Bring them in, senator, bring the ladies right in. I'm sure we’re both very glad to see them.” Stephen Wright, the assistant district attorney stood in the shadows beside an open door. There was a gun in his hand. He gestured with it impatiently. “This way, ladies. Hurry please. My nerves are not at their best and this gun might go off.”

“Like it did once before to-night, huh? Or did Senator Hymes bump Alvin Foss?”

I felt Hymes sag against me, tremble violently. He said, as Wright lifted the gun, “No, Stephen, not here! Don’t do— don’t do anything you’d be sorry for.”

“My sentiments, exactly,” Violet approved, and waddled toward the man with the gun. “We’re all friends, ain’t we?” She leered at Wright. “You know us private dicks can always be fixed— if the price is right. So let’s talk it over and forget our past mistakes, huh?”

“Mistakes?” said Wright. He stood there, gun poised steadily until we’d entered the room, then followed us in and closed the door.

I rubbed one knee surreptitiously against the other, felt my gun in its holster, realized with a terrible sinking in the pit of my stomach that I’d emptied the weapon into the county detective. I wondered if Violet’s .45s was empty, too.

She was saying: “Yep, it was a mistake to have your two dicks bomb our house tryin’ to get Rose Donelli.”

“My two dicks?”

“Yours. In a way you was smarter than Mike Donelli when Rose got away. You knew she was a friend of mine ’cause I told you so myself. You knew I was a dick and you put two and two together, figured she might run to me. Now Mike, of course, knew of other places she might run and wasted a lot of time lookin’ there first. You, bein’ a very efficient guy, just phoned your office and gave Logan and the other guy their instructions.”

“She knows!” moaned Senator Hymes. “She knows, Stephen! She’s got to Logan!”

“Shut up!” said Wright. “I’ve heard about this she-devil. She’ll talk you into hell if you let her.” His eyes rested with cold malice on Violet. “Why do you think this— ah— Logan was connected with me?”

“Well,” she said, “I’ll tell you. Just after Rose broke the news to me I took a peek out our front window. I thought I recognized one of the county’s cars, but couldn’t be sure because it was travelin’ dark and somebody had, thoughtful-like, tossed a coat over the door insignia. It was just an idea of mine. I couldn’t prove it because again the boys was very thoughtful. They took care of the taxi driver, too, so he’d never mention taking Rose out to our neighborhood.

“Later on one of the lugs stumbled into me and Nevada in Mike’s office, knew the pineapple had failed, reports that sad fact to you, and you tell him to try again. Which he done with a sawed-off shotgun. I called the sheriff’s office later and he says that car was assigned to the district attorney’s office. And that reminds me, Stevie, the death of Foss makes you the new district attorney.”

“I’m the new district attorney,” said Wright grimly. “And I intend to remain in office if I have to kill a dozen, including you.”

“Pshaw!” said Violet. “I never realized how much it meant to you, Stevie. Not until I got to thinkin’ that a guy must be pretty desperate to shoot a man in the back of the head. And only a fella that would do that would resort to bombin’ helpless women without givin’ ’em a chance. Didn’t sound like Mike Donelli, but still you can’t ever tell, I says. Wasn’t really until I find out how surprised Mike is about the pineapple business that I figure him for a— now— innocent bystander. Did he take the gun away from you, or from the senator here?”

“Not from me!” screamed Hymes.

WRIGHT SHOT HIM. Even as the old man started to sag Wright turned the gun on Violet. And Violet just stood there; stood perfectly still without lifting her arms. Her guns must be empty!

“Fortunately,” said Wright, “the family is away. I think that I shall enjoy sending you flowers, Violet McDade.” His finger whitened on the trigger; his lips grew taut. I made a dive for my gun intending to throw it. And Violet, wrist flicking like a striking rattler, shot him just as the door burst open.

Belarski snarled, “You promised, you she-devil! You promised not to kill him!”

“And I didn’t,” said Violet calmly. “He’ll live to hang, but, hell, I couldn’t wait any longer for you. His remark about sending me flowers kind of got me nervous.”

“You mean,” I gasped, “you mean that you sent for Belarski?”

“She phoned me,” Belarski snapped, “phoned me and guaranteed a pinch if I’d forget about Sweeney and Rose and Mike and Heaven knows who else!”

Stephen Wright sat up, stared about the room uncertainly. Then: “I— I guess I won’t be sending you flowers, after all, Violet McDade.”

“You wouldn’t have, anyway,” said Violet gloomily. “You send pineapples. I’m sorry I made the deal with Belarski, sorry I promised not to hurt you— much. There’s a little old lady down in the receiving hospital, an old lady I’m kind of crazy about. The killin’ of Alvin Foss and”— an overlarge foot stirred the limp form of State Senator Hymes—“and this guy don’t mean a thing to me. My family does.” She scowled at Belarski as he clipped the cuffs on Wright. “You sure got the best of the bargain this time, you mug!”

“I suppose,” Belarski said, “that I should send you flowers!”

She brightened. “Now that,” she said, “that would be kind of sweet of you, Belarski!”

___________________

Table of Contents

- 1: Gallegher of Beaver / H Bedford-Jones
- 2: Tiger Trail / Perley Poore Sheehan
- 3: The Four Red Circles / H. Bedford-Jones
- 4: Bill of Scotland Yard / Edgar Wallace
- 5: The Luck of a Cowboy / H. Bedford-Jones
- 6: The Ransom / C J Cutliffe Hyne

- 7: Beauty and the Beast / C J Cutcliffe Hyne

- 8: The Ninety-Ninth Proposal / Robert J Horton

- 9: Osiris / Adam Hull Shirk

- 10: The Phantom Wolf-Hound / Otis Adelbert Kline

- 11: Forty Pains / Cleve F. Adams

- 12: Flowers For Violet / Cleve F Adams