PAST MASTERS

FIVE

2020

Contents

1: One-Trip Darling / Richard Connell

2: The Fountain Of Light / A. A. Irvine

3: My Adventure In Norfolk / A.J. Alan

4: My Adventure at Chislehurst / A.J. Alan

5: The Diver / A.J. Alan

6: H2, etc. / A.J. Alan

7: The Hair / A. J. Alan

8: Supper at Midnight / William J. Makin

9: The Silent Witness / Cosmo Hamilton

10: No Leopards in Surbiton / F A M Webster

11: Four Friends and Death / Christopher Caudwell

12: The Fourth Degree / F Britten Austin

13: An Affair Of Honour / F. Britten Austin

14: The Inca's Treasure / F. Britten Austin

15: The Other Side / F. Britten Austin

16: Buried Treasure / F. Britten Austin

17: "The Man Who Was—" / Glyn Evans

18: Unforeseen / Guy Thorne

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1: One-Trip Darling

Richard Connell

1893-1949

Australian Women's Weekly 5 September 1942

YES, I'm Darling. I'm the Darling. You've seen my face and name. I'm the Fellow with the Fish, to wit: A. B. Darling, retired of Ashtabula, Ohio.

At times it's tough to be a man. If a woman doesn't like the name she was born with, she can change it. Same with her face. But a man's got to make the best of his.

When I was learning my trade I used to blush when the boss said in front of strangers, "Hand me that wrench. Darling." So, when I set up my own shop, I called myself, "One-Trip Darling, The Plumber with a Conscience." Now everybody calls me One-Trip, even my wife.

On the ninth of last May I finally got to be fifty. I put in a day of work, and I was back in my shop when in marched a large, serious man and said, "I'm from the home office of the Frugality Insurance Company," and grabbed my hand and pumped it as if he were jacking up a car. "Congratulations, Darling!"

I said, "What for?"

"On your retirement," he said.

"When did I retire?" I asked.

"To-day." he said. "I'll bet you're mighty glad you took out one of our retirement annuity policies twenty-five years ago."

"I am now," I admitted, "but there were times when I wasn't."

"When was that?" he asked, and I said, "The first of every month."

He laughed like a man who had taken lessons, and said, "Well, from now on, Darling, we pay you. Yes, sir, fifty dollars each and every week. All you have to do is loaf and fish. Pretty soft for you, hey Darling?"

"It would be softer," I said, "if I liked to loaf or fish."

He said, "Well, then, what is your hobby?" and I said, "Plumbing."

And he laughed again on the company's time. Then he said, "Of course, you won't mind if we hold you up as an example?"

I said, "Of what?"

He said, "Of a man who looked ahead."

I said I didn't see what harm that could do and he whipped out a paper and a fat fountain pen and said, "We're getting up a series of little messages to the men of America, Things Young Husbands Should Know."

"I'm an old husband," I said. "We just want permission to quote you as saying that you think it is a good thing to save money," he said. "Here's where you sign. It's just a formality."

After all my years In business I should have known that, when a fellow says, "It's Just a formality," you ought to lock yourself in the safe till your lawyer gets there; but I felt careless that day because the time had come when I could stop working and not stop eating, though I didn't intend to stop doing either as I am fond of both. I signed.

"And now," this Higby said, "I'd like a picture of you."

"Printing my pan might queer some sales for you," was my reply. "Folks might think that paying your premiums gave me these right-angle ears."

He argued, so I got out the only picture I had, taken in when I had the new front put in my shop. I'm sitting in the window among the fixtures. Higby said no― it did not look very retired. "I'd like a recent one of you in your fishing togs," he said.

"I don't have any fishing togs," I told him.

"How soon are you going home?" he asked. "Not till six," I said. "Ill be back," he said.

Pretty soon he was back with a big bundle. In the bundle were a rod and reel and a complete outfit of fishing clothes― everything from hip boots to a hat with flies on it. "Now, just slip them on," he said, "so I can get a shot of you fishing."

"What? On Main Street?" I said.

"Don't worry about the background," he said. "Just put on this rig and I'll do the rest."

One reason I've made out so well is that I'm obliging. I put on the khaki breeches, and checkerboard shirt. I'm tubby; but the man they were made for was tubbier. Higby got me out into the backyard, boosted me up on a packing box, and began snapping his little camera at me.

I heard some titters. The boys in the barbershop next door were watching through the window. As I'm not a hard-drinking man, they thought I'd gone mad. There I stood, yanking at the rod for dear life, with this Higby yelling, "I'm a big one! Don't give me any slack. Fight me, Mr. Darling, fight me." He had tied the end of the line on his belt.

"Now start reeling me in!" he hollered. I reeled until my thumb got caught in the reel. Then he stopped taking pictures of me. I climbed down off the packing case and out of the clothes and I handed them to this Higby and he said, "Keep them Compliments of Frugality."

I said, "What'll I do with them?" and he said, "Why, wear them when you go fishing," and I said, "I never caught a fish in my life."

He said, "You certainly must have had a lot of bad luck," and I said, "It wasn't so much bad luck as the fact that I've never gone fishing."

He slapped his head as if a thought had bitten him. He said, more to the ceiling than to me, "The man who couldn't go fishing till he was fifty!"

"That's not me," I said. "I could have gone, but I didn't want to."

"Oh!" was all he said, and he gave my hand another jacking and hurried away. I tossed the rod and togs into the stockroom and went home. I thought so little of it I didn't even mention it to Doll. That's my wife.

IT WAS mighty nice, I can tell you, to see that fifty per coming in; but I had plenty of plumbing, so I just put the cheques in the bank and let 'em lay.

Couple of months went by and, one evening after supper, I lit up my pipe and was getting ready to settle down for a quiet evening when there came one of those little home-made thunderstorms which blow up in the lives of all married folks. We haven't had many. Doll and me, in our twenty-five years.

Now, I'm a fellow who likes to be comfortable around the house in the evening; but Doll claims that to see a plump party sitting on his front porch smoking a corncob pipe, with his shoes and coat off, and his socks showing, gives a wrong impression. I tried to please her by doing my sitting on the back porch. She said that was better, but, with her all neat and dainty on the front porch, and me, like a tramp, on the back porch, the neighbours would think we weren't speaking.

This night I refer to we were eating supper and I was telling her about a very tricky plumbing problem I solved that day.

But presently I heard a deep sigh. Doll had a faraway, moony look in her eyes.

I said. "I don't believe you heard a word I said," and she said, "What?" I said. "I bet you've fallen for some other fellow."

Of course, I said it just to tease her. She didn't smile and say, "Where could I find a better one than you, One-Trip?" She looked waspy and said, "I wish you'd take that incinerator where it belongs, Darling."

So I went out on the back porch and sat there puffing my pipe, with my feet on the rail. Pretty soon Doll came out and said: "Sorry I was cross, One-Trip." That's Doll. She don't stay cross. "Let's go to a movie," she said. "It's so nice and cool out here," I said, "and not a single mosquito has come near me."

And Doll said: "They've gone home to get their gas masks." But I let that pass. "Now be an angel and get out the sedan." she said. "There's a wonderful picture at the Bijou-Dream, 'The Loves of a Prince.' "

"Has it got cowboys or Indians?"

"No," she said, "it's the kind of picture I like."

I made a snoot. "I bet Greasy Gus is in it."

She said: "For the last time. Darling. I'm going to ask you not to refer to Ramon Valcour as Greasy Gus."

"I'll try to remember," I said, and got out the sedan.

We started down Clinton Street. "Doll," I said, "I'll have to leave you at the theatre. Meet you after the show. Got to see a guy about a deal."

Doll said: "I know the man; and I know the business. You seem to prefer guzzling beer with Ed Stutz to my society."

I said: "Aw, Doll, I'd much rather be with you, even though Ed is, without a doubt, the second-best plumber in Ashtabula. But," I said, "a lot of good my society does you when you're sitting with your mouth open watching this Toothy Tony making passes at girls which they don't mind from him, but if I tried them I'd get a slap in the kisser."

"Hmm," remarked Doll, "so you want to chase girls― at your age!"

"Now, Doll," I said, "you know perfectly well that from the time I got one look at you I never took a look at any other woman. Though," I said, "I can't deny that I've been looked at once or twice. Little do you know," I said, "what temptations we plumbers have; but I'm no Valcour. I've behaved. Though on some jobs I've had a chance to do otherwise and at one-fifty an hour and time and a half overtime."

"I know you're no Valcour," she remarked.

"I can hardly wait for Thanksgiving," I said. "Aw, now, Doll, let's not battle over that cheap ham."

"Ramon Valcour is a polished aristocrat," she said in a voice fit to freeze a radiator.

"On rye toast with mustard," I said. "What is he but a boiled shirt that blondes get flattened against?"

Doll shuddered and said: "It would be a good idea for you, Darling, to spend more time watching Ramon Valcour than playing duckpins with an oaf like Ed Stutz who sleeps in his underwear."

"And how do you know that, Doretta Phelps Darling?" I barked.

Then we had it hot and heavy. I accused her of this, and she accused me of that, and then we turned off Clinton into West Adams and Doll stopped In the middle of a word and let out a squeal I looked, and there, on a bill-board, is myself. There I am, bigger than life-size, with those fishing togs on my body and a goofy look on my face, fishing away like I liked it.

You'd never guess the picture had been took in my back yard with me on a box and that fellow on my hook. I'm on a rock with paris-green woods behind me and a bright blue lake in front of me, and I'm just yanking up out of this lake a fish of some kind or another which is the size of a fire hydrant. They have given me a tan I never got lying under sinks, and have made words come out of my mouth as follows:

"Brother, I bet you wish you had one of those Easy-Paying Super-Safe Extra-Generous Annuity Policies the Frugality folks get out."

What's more, my name is there. In red letters a foot high, A. B Darling (Retired).

I pulled over to the kerb, too weak to drive in traffic. Pretty soon, Doll's eyes sank back into their sockets, and she said:

"Humph, so you've retired, hey Darling? I see. You've been making out like you were at your plumbing and you've been sneaking off to goodness knows where and fishing with goodness knows who."

I quietly explained that this was a lie. Doll saw my point and by the time we got to the picture show we were friends again. Just to keep peace with her I went in and saw Valcour who, as usual, is some kind of prince in some foreign place where all the gents dress like they was high-ups in some coloured lodge.

As we drove home, I began to kit about me on the bill-board fishing and what a joke it was about me being retired, and Doll said what was so funny about it? What sense, she wanted to know, was there in a man lying on his back under a leaky sink when he could be travelling and broadening himself by seeing the Grand Canyon the Golden Gate, and other points of interest in the West and elsewhere

To quiet her, I said we might, in the fall, go on a little trip; but that did not appease her.

Our house was worse than Congress for a week or so; and then I said all right I'll retire but, I warned Doll, I'd probably wear myself out worrying what to do with all that time on my hands.

Doll was as happy and excited as a schoolgirl. Just to make sure I wasn't retiring with my finger crossed, she got me to sell my business to Ed Stutz.

Between us, the day I handed over to Ed the keys of my shop, I went around to the Dutchman's and go quietly stewed in the back room but I wasn't celebrating. When Dutchy cracked, "Is it easy to quit plumbing, One-Trip, or do you have to wrench yourself away?" I gave him a snarl and dared him to come outside and say that again...

The first piece of retiring I did consisted of a little trip to Chi. We took it slow and easy as we was breaking in the new sedan and we had a nice enough journey, but it would have been nicer if we hadn't passed so many bill-boards on which were I and the fish. Those Insurance fellows had certainly spread themselves― and me― all over the country.

We stayed in Chi just a day and a night. I went to a picture show with Doll. It was the same as the last one.

Next morning we shoved off in the sedan, and before I realised it we were in Hollywood.

Next thing I knew I was walking up and down the Boulevard, and Doll was trying to get a look at some movie stars; but all we see was other folks like us doing the same thing. After a few days this sort of began to pall on yours truly.

"Doll," I remarked, "let's go home."

"One-Trip," my wife replied, "we are home― or very near it. To-morrow we move to our new ranch in the San Fernando Valley. And that's final."

"Since when have we had a ranch in the San Fernando or any other valley?" I inquired.

"Since an hour ago when I signed a lease for one," Doll informed me.

"All right," I said. "But I warn you. Doretta Phelps Darling, I'll be no use at all as a lone cowhand. I never rode a horse in my life and I have no wish, at fifty, to do so."

"This is a walnut ranch," said Doll.

We moved out to the ranch next day. On the way there I bought me a sombrero.

We drove out into the country about nine miles from Hollywood, and stopped at a bungalow and Doll said, "Well, here we are."

"Where?" I asked.

"This is it," she said. "Rancho el Darling."

"It looks like what back home we'd call a big back yard with a few nut trees in it," I said.

"It is called here a junior estate," said Doll. "Now stop standing there gawking and carry in the grips."

I must say that raising walnuts is not back-breaking work. We belonged to some sort of association which planted the trees, took care of them, picked the nuts and sold them and gave us a share in the profits, if any. All we had to do is sit and watch the nuts grow. It seemed to me a rather poor way for an able-bodied man with a born talent for plumbing to spend his time; but Doll seemed so happy I didn't kick.

Next day she had to drive into Hollywood to open a bank account, and I stayed home. I went over the plumbing in the bungalow, hoping it was busted so I could fix it, but it was in good shape. Doll had warned me I must keep dressed up at all times but I sneaked into the greasy old pants I clean the car in, and moped down to the back wall of the ranch, and sat there smoking my pipe. A retired man has a right to have some fun.

I was sitting there, feeling unnecessary, and then I heard, on the other side of the wall, a tap-tap-tap. It was as sweet a sound as I ever heard. Somebody was tapping a pipe with a hammer. Up I jumped and stuck my head over the wall and there was a fellow installing a wash-bowl in a small workshop at the rear of the next property. He was a rough-looking fellow of about my age who needed a shave, a bath, and a clean pair of pants. He looked up at me and grinned. He was sort of shy of hair and teeth.

"HI, neighbour," he said.

"Hi, neighbour," I replied. "Excuse me, but you're trying to put that pipe in upside down. Mind if I give you a hand?"

"Glad to have you help me," he said, with another grin. "Know anything about plumbing?"

"Brother," I said, as I climbed over the . all, "I was born with a soldering-iron in my mouth."

It certainly felt good to have tools in my hand again and the smell of putty in my nose.

"Gosh," he said, as he watched me work, "I wish I had your touch."

"Amateur, ain't you?" I inquired.

"Yep," he said, with a sigh.

"Well, some of this work ain't bad for an amateur," I said, just to cheer him up.

He looked tickled.

"Gimme a fill of that tobacco you're smoking," he said. "It smells grand."

"My wife claims that when I smoke it, nice people think I'm cremating a polecat," I said.

"Nice people give me a pain somewhere," he said and stuffed his pipe, and started to puff. "Thanks―"

"Darling's the name," I told him. "I didn't pick it out myself. Call me One-Trip like they do back home in Ashtabula."

"Shake, One-Trip," he said, and stuck out a paw like a hunk of coal. "I'm an old Ohio boy myself. My name's Ray Johnston; but the folks in Ohio always called me Buster."

"Glad to know you, Buster," I said. "Hand me that wrench."

I did some plumbing, with Buster Johnston watching. He knew enough to appreciate the fine points. I never had a better audience.

"The folks you work for have got a mighty nice piece of property here," I remarked. "That's a swell elegant house. How many bath-rooms has it got?"

"Six and a half," my neighbour said.

I gave a whistle.

"That a lot for a residence of that size," I said. "Offhand, I'd say those folks are over-bathroomed."

"I'm the folks who live there," Buster Johnston said. "I told the builder to leave space for as many bathrooms as possible. I installed the plumbing myself."

"Far be it from me to pass a remark," I said, "but does it work?'

Buster grinned a large grin.

"Nope," he said. "All of 'em get out of kilter at least once a month Only last night I had to bail out my bedroom."

"I'll fix 'em for you. Bus," I said He shook his baldish head.

"I'll do it free, gratis and for nothing," I said.

"Thanks, One-Trip," he said, "but I'd rather let 'em leak. Fixing 'em is the most, if not the only, fun I have these days."

"Don't you get a kick out of your real work?" I asked.

He looked like he had a mouth full of sour caterpillars.

"Not any more," he said. "Same old stuff, day in, day out. I'd rather be a plumber."

"Than what?"

"Than anything," he said, plenty gruff. "So let's plumb."

We plumbed.

"You married, One-Trip?"

"Yep. Pass the putty. Are you?

"Yep. Got a boy of twenty."

"What does he do, Bus?"

"Eats and sleeps," Bus replied. "Mind you, he's not a no-good. Just hasn't clicked yet. Ray, Junior, is handy with his hands and likes to tinker. He's got the makings of crackerjack mechanic, and what d you think his mother is trying t make out of him? An actor!

"Now, mind you," he went on, "I'm not knocking Margie, or the movie or anything. The movies are all right, if you like em, and so are wives. But wives are women, and women just naturally are people who want a man to do something else."

Just then from my nut grove came Doll's voice: "Oh, yooooo-hoooo One-Trip. Come here and help and carry in the groceries."

"See what I mean about women?" remarked Bus.

A lady with a loud voice hollered from his house. "Oh, Ray―Raaaaaaay. It's nearly dinner-time and I bet you need a bath."

"I see what you mean," I said. Bus hollered towards his house: "Be up in a few minutes, Margie."

Then he turned to me and said "Suppose I didn't go?"

Doll paged me some more. "Oh, One-Trip, I know you're around somewhere. I can smell that gin factory you smoke. Come out, come out, wherever you are."

"Suppose," said Bus, in a low, stubborn voice, "neither of us went. Suppose we just set here and 'em wait till we got good and ready."

"I'm game," I whispered back. We smoked a minute, maybe minute and a quarter.

Then I said: "I guess I'd better go. When you got somebody to worry about you it's sort of mean to worry her. Don't you think so?"

"Glad you said it first," said Bas. "Well, guess that was about the shortest sit-down strike in history."

Doll stuck her head over the wall and saw us. "Oh, there you are, you little rascal," she said, playful enough. Then she saw Bus, and looked none too pleased. I said, "Doll, shake hands with my new pal, Buster Johnston."

She said, "Howdodo," without opening her lips.

"Glad to know you, Mrs. Darling," said Bus. His smile was polite but gummy.

I could tell Doll did not care for his looks. He could, too.

"If I'd've known I was going to meet a lady," he said, "I'd've worn my best Sunday suit."

He meant it comical, so Doll smiled; but I've seen bigger, warmer smiles on frozen mice.

"So long, Bus," I said.

"How about coming over here to-morrow morning― 'bout seven― so we can do some plumbing and gabbing before I go to the treadmill?" Bus asked.

Before I could say "Swell," Doll said, "Sorry, but I have some very important work I want my husband to do for me. It will keep him busy indefinitely. Good night."

I shrugged and followed her into the bungalow. "Say, what's the important work?" I asked.

"I want you not to hang around with that frowsy man next door," said Doll. "I don't want our new neighbours to get the idea that you prefer low company, even if you do."

"Mr. Johnston is a well-to-do gentleman with a weakness for plumbing," I retorted. "He may not be a Ramon Valcour, but he's a right guy, and I intend to go over to his house and plumb with him any time I see fit―"

"What do you mean― his house?" said Doll, in a peculiar voice. "Does he live there―?"

"Sure. Him and his wife and his son."

"Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear," said Doll in a sort of long moan. "Oh, dear."

"What ails you?" I asked.

"I should've known him by his eyes," she said.

"Who?" I asked.

"Ramon Valcour."

"Now what has that panty-waist got to do with Buster Johnston?" I asked.

"He is Buster Johnston," said my wife. "Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear."

"That," I said, "is a slander, a libel and a lie."

"I wish it was," said Doll, "but it's true. I know for a fact that that is Ramon Valcour's residence. The real-estate man showed it to me on the map."

Next morning I went over and plumbed some with Buster. I asked him was he really Valcour and he said, with a snarl, "Yeah. Want to make anything out of it?"

I said I didn't, and we laid off the subject.

We had a lot of fun, working together, Bus and me, and then, after a coupla weeks, one night, at supper, Doll said: "You homesick, One-Trip?"

"Sure. Sometimes," I replied. "But not as much as formerly. After all, Doll, you can't expect me to get the old town and the old shop out of my system in a couple or three months―"

"We did have fun in Ashtabula," said Doll, and she hove a sigh.

"Now don't sigh for me," I said. "I'll be hunky-dory."

"But you wouldn't mind going home, would you?" Doll asked.

"Great Caesar's goats, do you want to, Doll?" I exclaimed in considerable, surprise. "I thought living next door to a certain party tickled you pink."

"I'm not ticklish any more," said Doll.

STRANGER in Ashtabula, ain't you, Mister? Well, if it's plumbing you want, you're in the right shop. Yep, I'm back at the old stand and busy and happy as a pup with a slipper. I got a junior partner now. He's still a bit green, but learning fast. He'll be a star some day― in the plumbing world. Hey, come here, young Buster. He'll take care of you, Mister.

I was to go down to the Bijou-Dream and see the first show. It's "King's Kiss, Too," and, say, does Old Buster mow down those blonde mammas! Don't miss it, Mister. I've seen it three times. But I can't get the wife to go.

______________________

2: The Fountain Of Light

A. A. Irvine

1871-1939

Australian Women's Weekly 20 January 1934

MICHAEL INSCOTT, seated on a bright blue chair under a big orange umbrella at one of the little tables on the terrace of the Cafe de Paris, had no doubts about the matter. And then came a second satisfactory thought: she was staying at his hotel, so he would have every opportunity of making her acquaintance.

It was a typical April morning at Monte Carlo. Sunshine poured lavishly from a blue sky. To his left rose the great buff sugar-cake structure of the world-famous Casino; beyond it was visible a patch of azure sea. To his right lay a strip of the Casino gardens, bright green lawns studded with parterres of many-hued flowers; behind them a clustering mass of houses stretching away to a towering range of greyish rock sparsely covered with dark-green olive trees.

Through the spacious square in front of him there ebbed and flowed a constant stream of traffic: lordly cars bearing their plutocratic owners in search of refreshment and diversion towards Nice and Cannes, more commonplace vehicles laden with their less wealthy occupants bound for Mentone, or to view the glories of the Grande Corniche. Up and down the Casino steps surged the customary throng intent on purchasing tickets for the Russian Ballet, discussing the previous night's luck or disaster at the tables.

While he sat leisurely imbibing his iced Martini sec,  Inscott was feeling that the world was a very pleasant place to dwell in. For the past ten years he had borne in the fullest sense of the phrase, the burden and heat of the day as an officer of the Indian Police Service. The unexpected death of an uncle had suddenly put him in possession of a nice little property in England and an income comfortably adequate for its maintenance; so he had promptly bade farewell to the East. After his arrival in London there had followed a few days of stuffy interviews with an aged family solicitor; and then, forsaking the chilly murk of London he had hastened thankfully southwards in cheerful anticipation of his holiday. He had reached Monte Carlo the previous afternoon, and from the moment when he had first set eyes on Joan Varriner at dinner in the restaurant of the Hotel Majestique he had realised that his holiday was commencing auspiciously.

From behind the accommodating pages of the Continental edition of The Daily Mail he studied her closely. This morning she was dressed in soft grey: grey dress, hat, stockings and shoes. And, which was more important, she had grey eyes, chestnut hair, and a smiling oval face. There was about her an air of joyous freshness which made her conspicuous among the crowd of painted women seated around her.

Inscott's gaze rested with less favour upon her escort. A man of about his own age, so he judged; good-looking dark, with a small clipped moustache, rather too immaculately clad in a light tweed suit. Watching him, as he conversed animatedly with his fair companion, Inscott became aware of the feeling that there was something he did not like in the young man's expression. Somehow he did not look the sort of fellow whom one would care to make a pal of. A latent tweak of jealousy set him inwardly inquiring, who was the fellow? Was he the girl's husband or lover or merely an acquaintance?

To his disappointment she did not appear either at lunch or at dinner but he caught sight of her directly he entered the Salles Privées that evening at the Casino. She was standing alone by one of the roulette tables, a tall, slim figure in black with a knot of red carnations on one shoulder. For a time he watched her amuse herself punting with varying success on the even chances; and then, all at once as though impelled by a sudden impulse, she leaned forward and ventured a louis on number twenty. With a tantalising rattle the little ivory ball began to slow down wavered and fell into its destined compartment. Number twenty had won!

There occurred then one of those unpleasant little contretemps which occasionally disturb the serene atmosphere of the gaming-rooms. As the girl gleefully stretched out a hand to gather up the satisfactory pile of counters which a croupier was pushing across with his rake a stout swarthy dame seated in front of her shot forth a heavily be-ringed paw claiming that it was she who had staked on number twenty! The girl hesitated, her face flushed with surprise and annoyance, while a murmur, partly amused, partly indignant arose among the other players. Quite unabashed, the stout lady continued volubly to assert her claims, till Inscott, pushing his way forward, in very tolerable French addressed the chef de partie on his elevated seat in the centre of the table.

"Sir," he said, firmly but politely "Madame is mistaken. It was this lady here"— he pointed to the girl— "whose stake was on that number."

There was a short discussion among the croupiers, and the winnings were handed over to their rightful owner. The chef, in an undertone, addressed a sharp remark to the stout lady, who, picking up her bag, departed violently protesting.

As play was resumed the girl turned to Inscott with a smile of gratitude.

"Thank you so much!" she said "It's so awkward when these things happen."

"Beastly!" he agreed "But that really was a bit too thick, wasn't it? We're in the same hotel, you know," he continued "My name's Inscott. You're Miss Varriner, aren't you?"

The girl nodded. "I am. How did you know?"

Inscott laughed frankly. "Oh, I'm no thought-reader! I looked you up in the hotel register. Tell me, what made you suddenly back that number?"

Joan answered him amusedly: "As good a reason as most gamblers have, I imagine. To-day's my twentieth birthday. Do you come here often?"

"I only arrived last night. I've not been long back from India."

"India?" Joan looked at him interestedly.

"Yes. Have you been out East too?"

"Only as a child. But dad spent many years in business in Calcutta, and still goes out there occasionally. He's joining me here as soon as he can leave London." She threw a questing glance round the other tables. "Do you happen to know Mr Ram?"

Her companion laughed again "India's full of Mr Rams." he replied. "Which one is this?"

"His name is really Lala Sita Ram— but I call him Mr. Ram for short. He's the private secretary of the Rajah of Kalankar."

Inscott's face expressed his surprise. "I know Lala Sita Ram well! I was in the Police in those parts, and often visited Kalankar State. But what is he doing in Monte Carlo?"

"Oh, there's no mystery about it. Like many Eastern potentates, the Rajah wished to pay a visit to Europe. He's taken a gorgeous villa near Nice for a month or two, and Mr. Ram has come on ahead to make all the arrangements."

"Splendid! I'll be glad to see him again! He's a good little chap— with a lot more stuff in him than the average Babu has."

Joan gave a gurgle of amusement. "His quaint Babu-English is too funny for words!" She pointed to a distant table. "Look! There he is— he's caught sight of you."

Lala Sita Ram, private secretary, came towards them, a dapper little figure in faultlessly-cut evening dress. Behind his enormous spectacles his beady eyes twinkled genially in his round, brown face.

"I am verree glad to see you, Mr. Inscott!" he exclaimed, holding out his hand. "And how are you, I ho-oope? Quite well, no doubt, eh? So you have made already acquaintance with this charming miss?"

"We're both at the Majestique," Inscott replied, shaking hands. "I hope you're fit, Lala Sahib? What news of His Highness the Rajah?"

"Revered master will arrive by later boat," explained the secretary, solemnly "You see, there has been unfortunate hitch in His Highness's journey. At Cairo he attended ceremonious collation held by friends in his honour, and acquired a dolouriferous belly-ache due to unripe melons." He turned courteously to Joan. "You will gratify me by imbibing liquid refreshment."

"No, please!—it's my shout!" Inscott protested. He led the way to the bar and called a waiter. "A cocktail, Miss Varriner? Orangeade?"

"Orangeade, please."

"And for me also." requested the secretary,  "though since this morning I have been tempted to submerge domestic grief in stronger liquors!" He grinned ruefully

Inscott said, politely: "I'm sorry. What's wrong, Lala Sahib?"

The Lala Sahib hastened to explain.

"We Hindus, as you know, are always desiring a son. But this morning, at crowcock, I have received telegram from spouse in India informing me that I am become progenitor of a pair of twin female children of the opposite sex. This I am prone to regard as unprecedented catastrophe!" His cheerful twinkle returned again. "After all," he added, philosophically, "such events are on the knee of God, eh? Ergo, it is the part of a wiseacre to confront existence with a simper!... You have mentioned our business to Mr. Inscott?" he asked Joan.

The girl shook her head. "Not yet."

"Oh—but it will be quite safe to tell him," rejoined the secretary, earnestly. "Mr. Inscott was well-known Police official. In case of need he would be helpful."

"I'll tell him then," Joan decided. "Have you ever heard of the 'Chash-ma-i-Nur?' " she asked.

" 'The Fountain of Light?' " Inscott answered, promptly. "The Kalankar State diamond? Rather? I've seen the Rajah wearing it at durbars."

The girl dropped her voice. "Well, it's here! In the hotel safe at the Majestique."

Inscott stared at her in amazement. 'Good Lord! Here? Why, how on earth―?"

"The explanation is quite simple. The Rajah wished to have the setting altered; so my father, who is an old friend of his, brought it back with him on one of his trips. The only other people who knew this were Mr. Ram and myself."

"Well?"

"Well somehow or other, after it had been reset, the knowledge of its whereabouts leaked out. Just before I left England our house was burgled. Fortunately the 'Fountain' wasn't there. The police theory was that the burglary had been the work of a gang of international crooks―"

"That's quite likely!"

"So when we learnt that the Rajah intended visiting the Riviera, we thought it best to bring it over here secretly."

"How did you get it across?"

Joan smiled. "I brought it myself!" she announced, calmly.

Inscott sat up with a jerk.

"You?" he cried. "My hat! But the risk—?"

Joan interrupted him a little stiffly. "Oh, I'm quite capable of looking after myself! Besides, we had talked it over and had come to the conclusion that no one would be in the least likely to suspect me. If you remember, the Cullinan diamond was sent home in an ordinary postal packet."

Inscott began, doubtfully: "That's true! But still—!"

"Well, anyway, it's now in the hotel safe with some of my own things in a quite ordinary case."

"The hotel people know nothing about it?"

"Nothing. And no one can get it out without my written order." She glanced towards the doorway. "Oh, here's Mr. Mackann!"

Joan rose and greeted the new-comer. "I'm quite ready to go," she said. "Mr. Inscott, let me introduce Mr. Mackann— also in our hotel."

The two men shook hands. Inscott recognising Joan's companion of the Cafe de Paris. Then, as Mackann helped the girl on with her cloak, she asked :—

"Any luck to-night?"

Mackann grumbled good-humouredly: "Couldn't do a thing! Tried them all: roulette, 'chimmy,' and trente-et-quarante. So I'm fed up with casinos! How about a sail to-morrow?"

Joan joyfully consented: "Oh, I should love it!... Mr. Mackann," she explained, for Inscott's benefit, "has a topping little yacht lying off Eze."

"I shall be delighted if you'll come, too?" Mackann civilly extended his invitation, as the party made their way out of the Rooms. "And how about you, Lala Sahib?"

The secretary excused himself. "Thank you verree much, but I am not of nautical nature. In fact, from youth upwards I have been fervent addict of terra firma!" So saying, he beamingly took his departure.

Discussing plans for the morrow, the two men escorted Joan back to the hotel, where she bade them good night. Mackann, likewise, on the plea of having letters to write, went off to his room.

It was still quite early, for Monte Carlo; and, not yet feeling inclined to turn in, Inscott settled himself in a comfortable chair in the lounge and rang for a whisky-and-soda. As he sat for a while smoking and idly scanning the pages of "L'Illustration," his glance happened to rest on a man writing at a table in a far corner of the lounge—a burly individual dressed in a dark tweed suit, with a big hooked nose and short brown beard. He had the appearance of a foreigner; and, as Inscott looked at him, there grew in his mind the conviction that, somewhere or other, he had seen this man before— but without the beard. The upper portion of the face, the big nose, the eyes, set unusually close together, seemed to remind him of someone whom he had met in vastly different circumstances. Where could it have been? Ah, well, he couldn't remember.

Whilst he was still pondering the question, Mackann came down the stairs again and, without noticing him, crossed the dimly-lighted lounge to where the bearded man was sitting. He drew up a chair, and, for a space, the pair remained conversing earnestly in undertones.

At length Mackann rose to go. Catching sight of Inscott, he walked over to him, but declined with thanks his offer of a drink.

"I really am off to bed this time!" he affirmed. "After I'd got upstairs I remembered that there was a question I wanted to ask Drukoff about a company I'm interested in."

Inscott was knocking out his pipe. "Drukoff?" he repeated, meditatively. "That's his name, is it?"

"Yes. A Russian, of course. I've only met him here. He's a financier of sorts, and was speaking to me the other day about some shares I purchased recently."

"It's funny!" Inscott went on. "But just before you came down I'd been wondering whether I'd already met him somewhere. Do you know whether he's ever been out East?"

Mackann looked at him sharply "Not that I know of. Oh, wait a minute, though— I think he did once say something about having visited Burma. Business connected with ruby mines, I believe."

Inscott finished up his drink. "Burma? Ah, that wasn't my part of the world. Well― good night."

DURING the next few  days time passed pleasantly. There was more than one excursion on Mackann's trim little yacht, the "Sparhawk," and, much to his relief, Inscott quickly realised that the "Sparhawk's" owner was in no way his rival!

For it had not taken him long to discover that he had fallen in love with Joan Varriner. She was such a dear!—so absolutely splendid! He had always looked forward to some day settling down in a home of his own; and, now that Fortune had favoured him, there was no reason why he should not ask her to marry him. True, he had had no real indication of her feelings; but he could not help thinking that she seemed to appreciate his company!

He hired a car, which he drove himself, and they visited many of the places of interest round about, revelling in the brilliant Riviera sunshine and the glories of blue sky and bluer sea. There were drives to the Old-world village of Roquebrune; to Grasse, the "city of perfumes"; and a wonderful lunch chez Caramello at Cap Ferrat, where the weird little proprietor, in huge horn glasses, skipped about the rooms concocting with his own hands marvellous dishes and burning liqueurs of all colours, according to methods of his own, to accompany each gastronomic creation.

Of Lala Sita Ram they saw but little. He was very busy with his preparations at the villa. Now and again they met him at the Casino, whither he repaired after the day's labours to risk, as he quaintly phrased it, "hard-earned increment on a board of green cloth." And there, one evening, he informed them of the Rajah's approaching arrival.

"You'll both be glad when he's here!" Inscott commented. "It's no joke being responsible for the safety of a gem like the 'Chashma-i-Nur'! So far, I consider you've been very lucky!"

"We have!" Joan admitted "And I shall be thankful when it has been safely handed over. The Rajah will have his own guards at the villa. At the same time, it looks as though the crooks had quite lost track. If they mean to do anything, they'll have to be quick about it!"

AS often happens, the very next night something occurred that disturbed her pleasant feeling of security.

Inscott had driven Joan over to Nice to see the new Luxury-Casino. They dined there, and after dinner spent an hour or two in the Rooms watching the motley crowd collected from all quarters of the globe. At one of the baccarat tables an aged French Marquise, grande dame from the crown of her marvellously-coiffured white head to the soles of her gold-brocade shoes, was losing, with an expressionless face that seemed carved out of old ivory, the last of her chateaux. At another a world-famous dancer was winning a fortune at trente-et-quarante, the great mauve plaques, each worth a hundred pounds, alighting on the table with an opulent thump, as she tossed them carelessly on to red or black.

In order to avoid the traffic on a road which is never too safe, they left it before midnight on their homeward journey. For the next hour or so their route would be more or less deserted, until Monte Carlo commenced to empty of its horde of revellers.

They were halfway to Villefranche, rounding carefully in the darkness the innumerable corners of the road below the cliffs, when, from some distance ahead of them, there came the dull sound of a crash. This was followed, a few seconds later, by a shout, a sharp report, a yell as of someone in pain, and then again all was silence.

Inscott, shouting in reply, trod on the gas and took the corners recklessly.

"There's been a bad smash, without a doubt!" he said to his companion. "We must get along and see whether they need help."

"Didn't you hear a shot?" Joan asked.

"It sounded like it," he agreed. "But it may have been only a tyre-burst. We shall know in a minute."

A few more winding turns and they could see what had happened. At the side of the roadway was a large saloon car, which had crashed at an angle into the cliff wall. Halted alongside it was a second car, which, before they could reach the spot, was restarted and callously driven away.

"The dirty brutes!" Inscott ejaculated, angrily, as he drew up close to the derelict. "Clearing off like that to avoid being spotted!"

Joan was peering through the window into the gloom.

"There's someone lying near the car." she said. "Two men, I think. I saw one of them move."

Inscott sprang out, carrying an electric torch. "There's a brandy-flask and a first-aid packet in that left side pocket," he directed "Bring them along, will you?"

One of the prone figures, dressed in a chauffeur's uniform, rolled over, scrambled unsteadily to its feet, and stood dizzily swaying, its hand on the car-bonnet. Inscott knelt down and flashed the torch on to the face of the motionless form lying behind the rear wheels. Then he called to Joan, his voice harsh with anxiety.

"Good God! It's Lala Sita Ram!"

Joan gave a little cry of dismay. "Oh!— he's— he's not dead?"

Her companion reassured her. "No ― he's breathing. A nasty crack on the head, though. I'll give him some brandy."

After a few minutes, to their intense relief, the Indian sat up and looked about him. Except for a bump on his skull, he did not appear to be much the worse for his adventure. Joan could not help being amused when he began to speak; even in this time of stress his luxuriant verbosity had not deserted him!

"You are a friend in need and god out of a machine, Inscott!" he exclaimed, gratefully, rubbing the back of his head. "This is rotten bad business, eh? But for devilish thick occiput, I should have been now in Abraham's bosom!"

Inscott made up his mind what to do. "We'll take you and your chauffeur straight back with us," he said. "The hotel will fix you both up for the night, and you can tell us how it happened."

The secretary's story was brief. He had been driving back from Monte Carlo towards Nice, when a car had suddenly emerged from a small tunnel ahead and, notwithstanding their shouts, had deliberately borne down upon them, edging them into the cliff side. This had been most skilfully done, though at the moment they had judged it to be the act of a drunken driver. Directly their own car had struck the rock, the other car had been stopped, and two men, their heads almost entirely swathed in cloths, had jumped out of her and rushed at them with iron bars.

"And the shot?" Inscott queried.

"Oh, that was own personal handiwork!" acknowledged the little secretary, proudly. "I must tell you I am by nature a very fearful man! But this was clearly a case of doing and dying, so I shouted and discharged lethal weapon at a haphazard into the brown!"

Inscott clapped him admiringly upon the shoulder. "Good man! Do you think you hit either of them?"

"I am thinking so— for there was most dolourific hullabaloo from the bigger robber. But then I received calamitous blow upon occiput, and do not exactly remember."

During the remainder of the drive home Inscott was pondering deeply.

"The two men may have been mere ordinary robbers," he remarked. "Such cases are not uncommon here— road bandits holding up people for their Casino winnings. However, in the circumstances, I'm inclined to doubt this. It seems more likely that they had got wind of the Rajah's coming, and deliberately made an opportunity to search you in case you chanced to be carrying the diamond."

Lala Sita Ram nodded gravely.

"That also is own personal opinion," he agreed.

Next morning, after breakfast, Inscott sat reading a newspaper in the lounge. Lala Sita Ram had left early with the chauffeur to report to the police and to arrange for salvaging the damaged car.

With the object of avoiding the endless inquiries so dear to the hearts of Continental jacks-in-office, it had been resolved only to report the affair as a car accident, to say nothing about the pair of bandits.

This decision had been come to partly in accordance with the advice proffered by Mackann. He had been very sympathetic, but had enlarged on the trouble entailed by such inquiries, especially in view of the fact that the secretary had admittedly fired a revolver. Moreover, he surmised, the robbers by now were, in all probability, far over the frontier into Italy. They had obviously been after the Lala Sahib's Casino winnings. With this well-intentioned advice he had departed, taking Joan, who was none the worse for her night's experience, for a sail.

Inscott finished reading his newspaper, lighted a cigarette, and looked at his watch. There was time for a stroll on the terrace before dejeuner. As he crossed the lounge, Drukoff emerged from the lift, and, with the aid of a stick, hobbled stiffly across to a writing-table. His face was very pale, and he uttered a grunt of pain as he subsided into a chair, drew out a pocket-book, and began turning over its pages. Inscott casually questioned the lift-attendant, who was quite ready to impart his information. Monsieur, he understood, had slipped on the polished floor of his bedroom and had twisted his knee.

With a cursory glance at the bearded figure huddled in the arm-chair, Inscott passed through the swing-door into the street.

Then, through some trick of memory, there flashed suddenly into his mind recollection! He knew now where it was that he had once before seen this man who was calling himself Drukoff! In spite of the beard he wore, that unusually large nose and the ruthless, shifty eyes set too close together were unmistakable!

In a quiet corner of the sunlit Casino terrace he sat down to consider the problem raised by his discovery. Back to his memory there came a scene of some two years be fore. He visualised again the stifling hot court of a Calcutta magistrate, the motley crowd of native litigants and white-clad officials. A case was dawdling to its close. In the dock were two men, a European and a Chinese, the accused in a matter of cocaine smuggling, with a white girl implicated as the go-between. The Chinese had been convicted and sentenced. The European, with the help of a clever lawyer, had gone free. And the European, without a shadow of doubt, had been the individual now calling himself Drukoff. In court his name had been given as Kallin— no, Karrin, that was it!

And here was this bad hat in Monte Carlo, posing as a financier at a time when a priceless jewel, brought over from an Indian State in the vicinity of Calcutta, was reposing in the hotel safe of the Majestique. There had been one attempt made in England to steal it; there had been the previous night's hold-up of the Rajah's secretary; and this very morning the aforesaid bad hat had come limping into the lounge with a story of having twisted his knee in his bedroom! Of course, as the ex-Police officer frankly admitted to himself, there might be nothing whatever in the theory forming in his mind— but there was certainly a queer look about the affair. Drukoff, or whatever his true name was, might be worth watching!

But, assuming for argument's sake that he was the man injured by the secretary's random shot, who could the second bandit have been? Drukoff, so far as Inscott was aware, kept very much to himself, and appeared to have no acquaintances in the hotel, with the exception of Mackann. There was not the slightest ground for suspecting Mackann; he seemed to be a pleasant, perfectly respectable fellow, with not too many brains, a yacht and plenty of money. Still, there were many brands of international crooks― one never knew! It might be worth while to sound him further as to Drukoff's antecedents. Thank goodness within a day or two, that infernal "Chashma-i-Nur" would be in its owner's keeping, and Joan would be relieved of further responsibility and risk! In a rather perturbed state of mind Inscott walked back to the hotel for dejeuner.

IT WAS shortly after nine o'clock that evening when Lala Sita Ram's urgent message brought him hurrying down from his room.

He sensed immediately that there was something seriously amiss. The Indian's beaming smile was lacking; his face was drawn and lined with anxiety.

"Where is Miss Varriner?" he whispered, apprehensively, as his friend led him to a quiet part of a lounge and offered him a cigarette.

Inscott answered promptly: "At Lady Gradyn's, I suppose. She went there directly after dinner. We had intended dropping into the Rooms, but while we were dining a phone message came asking her to go to Lady Gradyn's villa and make a four at bridge. A car came for her a little while afterwards."

The secretary's countenance became even more worried. "But she is not there—!" he began. He let the unlighted cigarette fall from his fingers.

"For some reason she may have left there early?" his companion suggested.

"No. She has not been there at all, Mr. Inscott. That is the trouble. As soon as I reached the hotel, ten minutes ago. I rang up the villa on purpose to know. They had not seen anything of her."

Inscott's face had grown equally grave. "What made you telephone?" he asked.

"Since last night I have been uneasy," replied the secretary. "The time was getting so short. I felt that our enemies might do something— to get the Miss Sahiba into their power—" He broke off in evident distress.

"You really think—?"

The secretary made a gesture of helplessness. "I do not know what to think. Only—I am verree afraid!"

For a few moments Inscott remained silent, absorbed in thought. Then, with a plan of action forming in his mind, he briefly gave his companion his reason for suspecting the Russian.

"There is one thing we must do at once," he concluded. "We'll go straight up to Drukoff's room and tackle him. If he knows anything, we'll drag it out of him. If he doesn't, well, at any rate, he dare not make a fuss, if I remind him of that little episode which took place two years ago in Calcutta."

At the bureau they learnt that the Russian was upstairs packing. He had given notice that he would be leaving the hotel the following morning.

His room was on the third floor, and, declining the services of the lift attendant, they quickly made their way up the staircase. Inscott knocked on the door, a gruff voice speaking in French bade them enter, and he walked in, followed by the secretary, closing the door behind him.

Drukoff, surrounded by his baggage was standing by the bedside packing a portmanteau. He whipped round and stared at his visitors in astonishment, mingled with alarm.

Speaking English, he demanded angrily "What is the meaning of this?'

Inscott came closer. "You've got to answer a question or two," he bluntly announced, his gaze riveted on the close-set, shifty eyes of the man in front of him. "Where's Miss Varriner?" he suddenly rapped out.

There was the least possible hesitation, and then the Russian blurted out indignantly: "I know not of whom you speak. And I ask, why have you come here?"

Inscott persisted: "You won't tell us? Then answer another question. Why are you calling yourself Drukoff?"

"Because that is my name!"

"That's a lie! Your name's Karrin! Two years ago you narrowly escaped conviction in Calcutta. There's no use your denying it. Question number three: How did you damage your leg?"

Pale with wrath, the Russian retorted savagely: "Why should I answer your questions? How is it your business? I slipped—"

"Oh, you slipped, did you? Shall I tell you what you were doing last night? You helped to hold up a car and got shot in the leg by an automatic—"

The Russian broke in vehemently: "I tell you, I know not of what you speak! But this is an outrage! I will call the manager!"

He stretched out a hand to press the bell-knob, but Inscott intercepted him and seized his arm with a grip of steel.

"You'd better see reason!" he threatened, as Drukoff struggled in his grasp. "Luckily for you we don't want the lady dragged into a scandal, if we can prevent it. But that's your only chance. Now— where's Miss Varriner?"

Beside himself with fury, the Russian contrived to wrench himself free and struck his captor across the face. He was a big man, but almost before he could realise what was happening he was pinned down backwards across the bed, and Inscott was grinding his knuckles into the fleshy, bearded throat.

Gradually the Russian's struggles became weaker. His breath came in laboured spasms and his eyeballs were starting from his head.

"Let— let me go!" he managed to gasp out. "I'll— I'll tell you!"

The grip on his throat loosened, and he sat up groaning on the bed, his pale face twisted with venomous fury.

"She's— she's on Mackann's yacht," he confessed.

Inscott burst out: "My God— if you've harmed her!" He flung the man off and turned to his companion. "Come along. Sita Ram! We've no time to waste!"

Sending the secretary to give orders that the car would be wanted immediately, he hastened to his own quarters to make his arrangements. These were somewhat peculiar. Shedding his evening clothes, he attired himself speedily in a bathing suit, a thick tweed coat and trousers, and an overcoat. In an india-rubber sponge-bag he rolled up tightly an automatic pistol and dropped it into one of his pockets. Then he rejoined his companion below.

A minute or two later the car sped through the brightly illuminated Casino square, and slid down-hill towards the twinkling lights of the Condamine on the road to Eze.

Inscott remarked with grim satisfaction: "We've spiked Drukoff's guns! We sha'n't see him again!"

The Indian's eyes twinkled behind his glasses. "No— you are right! He is even now, I think, like a rat leaving a stinking ship! But what to do next, Mr. Inscott?"

Inscott's jaw was set firm. "Somehow or other, I'm going aboard the yacht! Can you pull an oar, Lala Sahib?"

"Yes, I can do that," Lala Sita Ram answered, confidently, "though I would not boast myself up to form of 'Varsity boat-race. However, Rajah Sahib's dominions include river, and I have sported thereon."

"Good! We'll take one of the small fishing-boats down by the shore ."

ON reaching Eze, the car was run into a nearby garage, and the two men crossed the railway line and made their way to the beach. There was no one about. It was a cloudy night, and they could see, a short distance away, the riding light of the Sparhawk swaying up and down in the darkness.

They selected a small boat lying close to the water's edge, set her noiselessly afloat, and pushed off. Telling his companion to take the oars and pull the boat gently in the direction of the yacht, Inscott climbed forward into the bows and commenced to divest himself of his outer garments.

There came no hail as, slowly, they crept forward. The crew were evidently absent or below. A cable's length from the yacht, Inscott, with a whispered injunction to his colleague to keep the boat within range, lowered himself over the side into the uncomfortably cold water. The rubber bag containing the automatic he gripped between his teeth.

A few dozen strokes brought him alongside the yacht, and he worked his way round her, seeking some means of getting on board. Finally he used the mooring rope, drawing himself up hand over hand until he reached the deck.

His advent remained unnoticed. With infinite caution he crawled to where a faint glow of light shone through the open deck windows of the tiny cabin. Raising his head a little, he peered downwards.

Within arm's reach of him Joan was standing, tensely erect, fronting with a look of mingled contempt and anger the man leaning with his back against the cabin door.

Mackann began speaking, the tone of his voice conveying a mixture of threat and persuasion.

"Just your signature to that bit of paper on the table, Miss Varriner. That's all! You'll have to do it you know; so why make a fuss?"

Then came Joan's answer, full of indignant scorn: "I won't give it! I've told you so already!"

Mackann laughed sneeringly. "I think you'll change your mind! That is, unless you wish to stay here with me indefinitely?" He tried persuasion again. "Come! Be sensible! No one will blame you; you can't help yourself. But if you won't sign—" He broke off, with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Well?"

He laughed again. "Well— we might take a little run across to Corsica and put you ashore there! I've given my men the evening off, but they'll be back very soon."

"Do you imagine the hotel people won't make inquiries?" Joan demanded.

"About you? Oh, yes― to-morrow, I dare say! But that will be rather late! As for myself, they're quite accustomed to my occasional absences on the yacht!"

"And you really believe that the hotel clerk will hand you over the diamond?"

Mackann answered without hesitation: "Certainly! On the strength of your written signature. That absolutely safeguards him, you see! And he's being very highly paid!"

Joan's voice rang out: "You devil! Stand away from that door! I won't do it! Nothing will induce me to sign!"

"Well see about that!" He took a pace towards her. At the same instant the sharp command came from above him:

"Don't move, Mackann! I've got you covered!"

He checked and stared upwards in furious consternation, as Joan uttered a cry of joy. Through the cabin window there protruded a hand grasping an automatic. Behind it he could see the face of the speaker, who crouched on the deck glaring down at him.

He shrank involuntarily sideways, and the order came again: "Damn you! Didn't you hear? Don't move— or I'll shoot!"

Inscott continued quietly: "Take the pistol, please, Joan, I'm coming down. If he lifts so much as a finger, shoot him!"

Joan snatched the automatic which he passed to her through the window. "I'll shoot!" she promised with vicious satisfaction.

Dripping wet, but exultant, Inscott ran down the narrow hatchway and entered the cabin. He looked round him, and opened a door leading into a small pantry.

"Too good a berth for a swine!" he commented. "But it will serve." He turned and addressed the white-faced scoundrel: "Get in there!"

Without a word, Mackann obeyed him. Inscott banged-to the door and locked it.

"I'll leave you on guard." he told Joan, cheerfully, "while I have a rub down and help myself to one of the blighter's suits. Nothing like spoiling the Egyptians!"

A FEW minutes later they stood together on the deck. Inscott's hail brought Lala Sita Ram manoeuvring alongside. His welcome of them was characteristic.

"This, in my opinion, is true paladinical rescue of distressing damsel!" he exclaimed, gleefully. "As for Drukoff and Co., they are learning that as they have buttered their bread, so they must lie on it!"

Seated close to Joan in the stern, Inscott heard her tale, which was simple enough in its details. A bogus invitation to make a four at bridge; a sudden whiff of something squirted into her face, when the driver of the car pretended that a tyre had punctured; and then she had known no more until she had found herself in the cabin on board the yacht.

"You were absolutely splendid!" Inscott assured her; and there was a great deal more than mere admiration in the tone of his voice.

"Ah! but if you hadn't come!" Joan murmured, softly. "I don't know how I can ever thank you enough!"

Inscott laughed and put his fate to the test. "I can tell you that!" he whispered. "Joan! Joan, darling! mayn't I look after you always?"

His arm went round her, and she did not draw away. He glanced at the little secretary toiling manfully at the oars, whose head was screwed round measuring the distance to the shore.

Then, under cover of the darkness, he found Joan's lips.

______________________

3: My Adventure In Norfolk

A.J. Alan

1893-1941

The London Magazine Oct 1927

I don't know how it is with you, but during February my wife generally says to me: "Have you thought at all about what we are going to do for August?" And, of course, I say, "No," and then she begins looking through the advertisements of bungalows to let.

Well, this happened last year, as usual, and she eventually produced one that looked possible. It said: "Norfolk— Hickling Broad— Furnished Bungalow— Garden— Garage, Boathouse," and all the rest of it— Oh— and plate and linen. It also mentioned an exorbitant rent. I pointed out the bit about the rent, but my wife said: "Yes, you'll have to go down and see the landlord, and get him to come down. They always do." As a matter of fact, they always don't, but that's a detail.

Anyway, I wrote off to the landlord and asked if he could arrange for me to stay the night in the place to see what it was really like. He wrote back and said: "Certainly," and that he was engaging Mrs. So-and-So to come in and "oblige me," and make up the beds and so forth.

I tell you, we do things thoroughly in our family—I have to sleep in all the beds, and when I come home my wife counts the bruises and decides whether they will do or not.

At any rate, I arrived, in a blinding snowstorm, at about the most desolate spot on God's earth. I'd come to Potter Heigham by train, and been driven on— (it was a good five miles from the station). Fortunately, Mrs. Selston, the old lady who was going to "do" for me, was there, and she'd lighted a fire, and cooked me a steak, for which I was truly thankful.

I somehow think the cow, or whatever they get steaks off, had only died that morning. It was very— er— obstinate. While I dined, she talked to me. She would tell me all about an operation her husband had just had. All about it. It was almost a lecture on surgery. The steak was rather underdone, and it sort of made me feel I was illustrating her lecture. Anyway, she put me clean off my dinner, and then departed for the night.

I explored the bungalow and just had a look outside. It was, of course, very dark, but not snowing quite so hard. The garage stood about fifteen yards from the back door. I walked round it, but didn't go in. I also went down to the edge of the broad, and verified the boathouse. The whole place looked as though it might be all right in the summertime, but just then it made one wonder why people ever wanted to go to the North Pole.

Anyhow, I went indoors, and settled down by the fire. You've no idea how quiet it was; even the waterfowl had taken a night off— at least, they weren't working.

At a few minutes to eleven I heard the first noise there'd been since Mrs. What's-her-name— Selston— had cleared out. It was the sound of a car. If it had gone straight by I probably shouldn't have noticed it at all, only it didn't go straight by; it seemed to stop farther up the road, before it got to the house. Even that didn't make much impression. After all, cars do stop.

It must have been five or ten minutes before it was borne in on me that it hadn't gone on again. So I got up and looked out of the window. It had left off snowing, and there was a glare through the gate that showed that there were headlamps somewhere just out of sight. I thought I might as well stroll out and investigate.

I found a fair-sized limousine pulled up in the middle of the road about twenty yards short of my gate. The light was rather blinding, but when I got close to it I found a girl with the bonnet open, tinkering with the engine. Quite an attractive young female, from what one could see, but she was so muffled up in furs that it was rather hard to tell.

I said:

"Er— good evening— anything I can do."

She said she didn't know what was the matter. The engine had just stopped, and wouldn't start again. And it had! It wouldn't even turn, either with the self-starter or the handle. The whole thing was awfully hot, and I asked her whether there was any water in the radiator. She didn't see why there shouldn't be, there always had been. This didn't strike me as entirely conclusive. I said, we'd better put some in, and see what happened. She said, why not use snow? But I thought not. There was an idea at the back of my mind that there was some reason why it was unwise to use melted snow, and it wasn't until I arrived back with a bucketful that I remembered what it was. Of course— goitre.

When I got back to her she'd got the radiator cap off, and inserted what a Danish friend of mine calls a "funeral." We poured a little water in.... Luckily I'd warned her to stand clear. The first tablespoonful that went in came straight out again, red hot, and blew the "funeral" sky-high. We waited a few minutes until things had cooled down a bit, but it was no go. As fast as we poured water in it simply ran out again into the road underneath. It was quite evident that she'd been driving with the radiator bone dry, and that her engine had seized right up.

I told her so. She said:

"Does that mean I've got to stop here all night?"

I explained that it wasn't as bad as all that; that is, if she cared to accept the hospitality of my poor roof (and it was a poor roof— it let the wet in). But she wouldn't hear of it. By the by, she didn't know the— er— circumstances, so it wasn't that. No, she wanted to leave the car where it was and go on on foot.

I said:

"Don't be silly, it's miles to anywhere."

However, at that moment we heard a car coming along the road, the same way as she'd come. We could see its lights, too, although it was a very long way off. You know how flat Norfolk is— you can see a terrific distance.

I said:

"There's the way out of all your troubles. This thing, whatever it is, will give you a tow to the nearest garage, or at any rate a lift to some hotel."

One would have expected her to show some relief, but she didn't. I began to wonder what she jolly well did want. She wouldn't let me help her to stop where she was, and she didn't seem anxious for anyone to help her to go anywhere else.

She was quite peculiar about it. She gripped hold of my arm, and said:

"What do you think this is that's coming?"

I said:

"I'm sure I don't know, being a stranger in these parts, but it sounds like a lorry full of milk cans."

I offered to lay her sixpence about it (this was before the betting-tax came in). She'd have had to pay, too, because it was a lorry full of milk cans. The driver had to pull up because there wasn't room to get by.

He got down and asked if there was anything he could do to help. We explained the situation. He said he was going to Norwich, and was quite ready to give her a tow if she wanted it. However, she wouldn't do that, and it was finally decided to shove her car into my garage for the night, to be sent for next day, and the lorry was to take her along to Norwich.

Well, I managed to find the key of the garage, and the lorry-driver— Williams, his name was—and I ran the car in and locked the door. This having been done— (ablative absolute)— I suggested that it was a very cold night. Williams agreed, and said he didn't mind if he did. So I took them both indoors and mixed them a stiff whisky and water each. There wasn't any soda. And, naturally, the whole thing had left me very cold, too. I hadn't an overcoat on.

Up to now I hadn't seriously considered the young woman. For one thing it had been dark, and there had been a seized engine to look at. Er— I'm afraid that's not a very gallant remark. What I mean is that to anyone with a mechanical mind a motor-car in that condition is much more interesting than— er— well, it is very interesting— but why labour the point? However, in the sitting-room, in the lamplight, it was possible to get more of an idea. She Was a little older than I'd thought, and her eyes were too close together.

Of course, she wasn't a— how shall I put it? Her manners weren't quite easy and she was careful with her English. You know. But that wasn't it. She treated us with a lack of friendliness which was— well, we'd done nothing to deserve it. There was a sort of vague hostility and suspicion, which seemed rather hard lines, considering. Also, she was so anxious to keep in the shadow that if I hadn't moved the lamp away she'd never have got near the fire at all.

And the way she hurried the wretched Williams over his drink was quite distressing; and foolish, too, as he was going to drive, but that was her— funnel. When he'd gone out to start up his engine I asked her if she was all right for money, and she apparently was. Then they started off, and I shut up the place and went upstairs.

There happened to be a local guide-book in my bedroom, with maps in it. I looked at these and couldn't help wondering where the girl in the car had come from; I mean my road seemed so very unimportant. The sort of road one might use if one wanted to avoid people. If one were driving a stolen car, for instance. This was quite a thrilling idea. I thought it might be worth while having another look at the car. So I once more unhooked the key from the kitchen dresser and sallied forth into the snow. It was as black as pitch, and so still that my candle hardly flickered. It wasn't a large garage, and the car nearly filled it. By the by, we'd backed it in so as to make it easier to tow it out again.

The engine I'd already seen, so I squeezed past along the wall and opened the door in the body part of the car. At least, I only turned the handle, and the door was pushed open from the inside and— something— fell out on me. It pushed me quite hard, and wedged me against the wall. It also knocked the candle out of my hand and left me in the dark— which was a bit of a nuisance. I wondered what on earth the thing was— barging into me like that— so I felt it, rather gingerly, and found it was a man— a dead man— with a moustache. He'd evidently been sitting propped up against the door. I managed to put him back, as decorously as possible, and shut the door again.

After a lot of grovelling about under the car I found the candle and lighted it, and opened the opposite door and switched on the little lamp in the roof—and then— oo-er!

Of course, I had to make some sort of examination. He was an extremely tall and thin individual. He must have been well over six feet three. He was dark and very cadaverous-looking. In fact, I don't suppose he'd ever looked so cadaverous in his life. He was wearing a trench coat.

It wasn't difficult to tell what he'd died of. He'd been shot through the back. I found the hole just under the right scrofula, or scalpel— what is shoulder-blade, anyway? Oh, clavicle— stupid of me— well, that's where it was, and the bullet had evidently gone through into the lung. I say "evidently," and leave it at that.

There were no papers in his pockets, and no tailor's name on his clothes, but there was a note-case, with nine pounds in it. Altogether a most unpleasant business. Of course, it doesn't do to question the workings of Providence, but one couldn't help wishing it hadn't happened. It was just a little mysterious, too— er— who had killed him. It wasn't likely that the girl had or she wouldn't have been joy-riding about the country with him; and if someone else had murdered him why hadn't she mentioned it? Anyway, she hadn't and she'd gone, so one couldn't do anything for the time being. No telephone, of course. I just locked up the garage and went to bed. That was two o'clock.

Next morning I woke early, for some reason or other, and it occurred to me as a good idea to go and have a look at things— by daylight, and before Mrs. Selston turned up. So I did. The first thing that struck me was that it had snowed heavily during the night, because there were no wheel tracks or footprints, and the second was that I'd left the key in the garage door. I opened it and went in. The place was completely empty. No car, no body, no nothing. There was a patch of grease on the floor where I'd dropped the candle, otherwise there was nothing to show I'd been there before. One of two things must have happened: either some people had come along during the night and taken the car away, or else I'd fallen asleep in front of the fire and dreamt the whole thing.

Then I remembered the whisky glasses.

They should still be in the sitting-room. I went back to look, and they were, all three of them. So it hadn't been a dream and the car had been fetched away, but they must have been jolly quiet over it.

The girl had left her glass on the mantel-piece, and it showed several very clearly defined finger-marks. Some were mine, naturally, because I'd fetched the glass from the kitchen and poured out the drink for her, but hers, her finger-marks, were clean, and mine were oily, so it was quite easy to tell them apart. It isn't necessary to point out that this glass was very important. There'd evidently been a murder, or something of that kind, and the girl must have known all about it, even if she hadn't actually done it herself, so anything she had left in the way of evidence ought to be handed over to the police; and this was all she had left. So I packed it up with meticulous care in an old biscuit-box out of the larder.

When Mrs. Selston came I settled up with her and came back to Town. Oh, I called on the landlord on the way and told him I'd "let him know" about the bungalow. Then I caught my train, and in due course drove straight to Scotland Yard. I went up and saw my friend there. I produced the glass and asked him if his people could identify the marks. He said: "Probably not," but he sent it down to the fingerprint department and asked me where it came from. I said: "Never you mind; let's have the identification first." He said: "All right."

They're awfully quick, these people— the clerk was back in three minutes with a file of papers. They knew the girl all right. They told me her name and showed me her photograph; not flattering. Quite an adventurous lady, from all accounts. In the early part of her career she'd done time twice for shop-lifting, chiefly in the book department. Then she'd what they call "taken up with" a member of one of those race-gangs one sometimes hears about.

My pal went on to say that there'd been a fight between two of these gangs, in the course of which her friend had got shot. She'd managed to get him away in a car, but it had broken down somewhere in Norfolk. So she'd left it and the dead man in someone's garage, and had started off for Norwich in a lorry. Only she never got there. On the way the lorry had skidded, and both she and the driver— a fellow called Williams— had been thrown out, and they'd rammed their heads against a brick wall, which everyone knows is a fatal thing to do. At least, it was in their case.

I said: "Look here, it's all very well, but you simply can't know all this; there hasn't been time— it only happened last night."

He said: "Last night be blowed! It all happened in February, nineteen-nineteen. The people you've described have been dead for years."

I said: "Oh!"

And to think that I might have stuck to that nine pounds!

___________________

4: My Adventure at Chislehurst

A.J. Alan

The Evening Standard Nov 10 1932

TOWARDS the end of last September I went to the Radio A Exhibition at Olympia, and very fine it was, too. I drifted about, and after I'd, so to speak, "done" the ground floor and was going up the stairs to the gallery, I ran into a man I knew. Just at the moment it wouldn't do at all for me to mention his name, so I'll merely call him James, but there's no harm in saying that he was a retired stockbroker and he lived near Chislehurst.

Anyhow, there he was, and he hailed me with glee and insisted on our walking round together. I was rather sorry about this because it's so much more fun wandering about exhibitions by oneself, and not only that, he was evidently starting a bad cold which didn't attract me particularly, but there was no getting out of it without offending him, so I didn't try.

After all, he was by way of being a friend of mine and I'd known him for ages, but we hadn't come across each other for some months, and during this time he'd gone and got married again, unexpected-like. I mean, everyone had come to look on him as a chronic widower, and he'd have probably stopped so if the daughter who kept house for him hadn't got married herself and gone to live in Birmingham. You must excuse these details, but I want you to understand exactly what the position was. At things were, he hadn't seen the catch of running an enormous great house all by himself, so Mrs. James the Second had come to the throne as a matter of course. I had never actually met her, but from all accounts she was a great success.

James was so keen on telling me about how happy he was, and so on, that it was quite a job to make him take any interest in the show, but whenever he did deign to look at or listen to anything he merely said it wasn't a patch on some rotten super-het he'd brought back from the United States. (They'd spent their honeymoon there for some unknown reason.) I naturally wasn't going to stand this sort of thing for long, so I upped and made a few remarks about American super-hets which were very well received by adjacent stall-holders. The remarks themselves weren't, perhaps, of general interest, but they landed me with a challenge. This was to dine with him that evening, hear his set, and incidentally, meet his new wife. I hadn't got an excuse ready, so I said that I should be charmed to meet his wife and, incidentally, hear his new set.

It so happened that my car was in dock for two days and James said he'd call for me at home and run me down. The question then arose as to whether I should dress first or take a bag down with me. That doesn't sound important, I know, but it had a good deal to do with something that happened afterwards. As a matter of fact I decided to change at home. I left James at the Exhibition during the afternoon, he duly picked me up at my place at half-past six or thereabouts, and we got down to Chislehurst just before seven.

We were met by the news that Mrs. James wasn't in. She'd apparently taken out her own car during the morning and gone off to see her mother who lived at Worthing and was a bit of an invalid. As this was a thing she'd been in the habit of doing every two or three weeks it was nothing out of the way, but she usually got back earlier.

At all events, pending her return, we went through the hall into the lounge, where people generally sat, and James began mixing cocktails. While he was doing this I had a look round to see how much had been altered under the new management, as one would. The only unfamiliar object in the room seemed to be a large picture hanging over the mantelpiece. I was just strolling across to get a better view (it was getting a bit dark by this time), when James said: "Half a sec," and he switched on some specially arranged lights round the frame which showed it up, properly. Then he said: "What do you think of my wife?"

Well, I looked at it and said: "Gosh! If that's at all like her she must be one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen," and that's saying a lot. The portrait was by quite a well-known man and he'd painted her exactly full face and looking straight at you. You don't often see that because so few people can stand it. The general effect was so realistic that one almost felt one was being introduced and ought to say something. She was fair rather than dark, a little bit Scandinavian in appearance, and I put her down as a shade over thirty.

James finished mixing the cocktails and gave me mine, and then he took his up with him to dress, leaving me sitting in an arm-chair facing the fireplace—and the picture.

He couldn't have got further than the top of the stairs when the telephone bell in the hall rang and he came running down to answer it. It was evidently his wife at the other end, and judging from what he said, she was explaining that she was stuck at Worthing for the night owing to some trouble with the car. Nothing serious.

(He told me afterwards that she'd first of all had a bad puncture and then found that the inner tube of the spare wheel was perished. The delay would have meant her driving part of the way home in the dark, which she didn't like.)

After that the question of his cold cropped up. She must have asked after it because I heard him say it wasn't any better. They talked about it for a bit and then lapsed into the sloppy type of conversation which one sort of expects between newly married people, but which is none the less averagely dull for anyone else to listen to.

It may have been more than averagely dull in this case because it almost sent me off to sleep. It didn't quite, but I got as far as the moment when the sub-conscious side of the brain begins to take control and you sometimes get entirely fantastic ideas. (Either that or you try to hoof the end of the bed off.) Anyhow, if you remember, I was sitting looking at this brightly illuminated picture of Mrs. James. Well, for an incredibly short space of time, I mean, you've no idea how short, the whole character of it seemed to change. Instead of an oil painting in rather vivid colours it suddenly looked like a photograph, or, to be strictly accurate, a photograph as reproduced in a newspaper. Try looking at one through a magnifying glass (not now— sometime), and imagine it to be four feet by three, and you will get the same effect that I did. There was a name printed under this photograph and my eyes certainly read it, but before my mind could take in what it was the illusion was gone and I was wide awake again.

It was all over so quickly that I just said: "Um, that's funny," and didn't pay much attention to it.

When James came in after a lengthy and idiotic good-bye on the telephone I didn't even tell him. He'd have only made some fatuous joke about the strength of his cocktails.

He was full of apologies about his wife not being able to get home and so forth, and he explained what had happened with yards of detail. I'd gathered most of it already but I had to pretend to listen with interest so as to make him think I hadn't heard some of the other things that had been said. He then went up finally to dress and again left me alone with the picture, but although I tried from every angle, both with and without the lights, I couldn't manage to recapture the peculiar "half-tone" effect, neither was I able to remember the name which had appeared underneath. By the way, it is worth noting that if I'd decided to dress at Chislehurst instead of at home I probably shouldn't have been left alone with the picture at all, and got the jim-jams about it.

James came down in due course and we had a most elaborate dinner. He always did things very well and there was no reason why he shouldn't. People with five thousand a year often do.

At the end of dinner we carted our coffee and old brandy into the lounge, and then he introduced me to his unspeakable wireless set. I hadn't spotted it earlier because it was housed in a tall-boy which had always been there.

Needless to say, the tall-boy was far and away the best thing about it. When he switched it on the volume of distorted noise was so appalling that I can't think why the ceiling didn't come down.

There was a long and terrible period during which we could only converse by means of signs, and then to my great relief one of his transformers caught fire and we had to put it out with a soda-water syphon.

By then it was getting on for eleven and I said it was time to go. That, of course, meant a final whisky, and he was just starting on his, which he'd mixed with milk, by the way, when he put it down and said: "My word! I shall hear about it if I don't take my aspirin," and he went upstairs to fetch some. He was gone three or four minutes, and when he came down he said he'd had the devil's own hunt, as he couldn't find any of his own and he'd been obliged to bag his wife's last three. These he proceeded to take, and then I really had to go as there was only just time to catch my train, and that was that.

Next morning, during breakfast, there was a ring at the bell, and they came and told me that Inspector Soames of Chislehurst wanted to see me, so I went out and interviewed him.

He seemed quite a decent fellow, and he led off by enquiring how I was. I thanked him and said I was very well indeed. He next wanted to know if I'd slept well, and I told him that I had, but even then he wasn't happy. Was I sure I'd felt no discomfort of any kind during the night? I said: "None whatever, but why this sudden solicitude about my health?"

He then said: "Well, you see, sir, it's like this. Last night you dined with Mr.— er— (well— James, in fact). You left him round about 11 p.m., and he presumably went straight to bed. However, at three o'clock this morning groans were heard coming from his room, and when the servants went in they found him lying half in and half out of bed, writhing with pain and partially unconscious. Doctors were immediately called in and they did all they could, but by six o'clock he was dead." Well, this was naturally a great shock to me. It always is when you hear of people whom you know going out suddenly like that, especially when you've seen them alive and well such a little time before.

I asked the Inspector what James had died of, and he said: "Oh, probably some acute form of food poisoning," but it wouldn't be known for certain until after the post-mortem. In the meantime, would I mind telling him everything we had had to eat and drink the night before? Which I did. Actually it was only a check, because he'd already got it all down in his notebook. I dare say he'd been talking to the cook and the maids who'd waited on us. He even knew that I hadn't had any fish, whereas James had, but there was nothing wrong with that as it had all been finished downstairs. I was able to be more helpful in the matter of drinks afterwards, and I didn't forget to mention the final whisky and milk and the three aspirins, all of which he carefully wrote down.

I next enquired after Mrs. James. It had apparently been rather distressing about her. They'd telephoned to Worthing as soon as they'd found how gravely ill James was, and she'd arrived home just as he was dying. No one had had the nous to be on the look-out for her at the front door, and she'd got right up into the room and seen how things were before they could stop her. She had then completely collapsed, which was only natural, and they'd had to carry her to her room and put her to bed. Things were so bad with her that there was talk of a nurse being sent for.

My inspector friend then went away, but he warned me that I should have to appear at the inquest, which would probably be three days later.

I duly turned up but wasn't called. They only took evidence of identification and the proceedings were adjourned for three weeks to await the result of the post-mortem.

I wrote to Mrs. James soon afterwards asking if there was anything I could do, but she sent back a rather vague note about being too ill to see anyone, so we didn't meet.

I had another interview with the police after that, but they didn't ask me any more questions about food, and when the adjourned inquest came on it was perfectly obvious why. The cause of James's death wasn't food poisoning at all. It was fifty grains of perchloride of mercury. In case you don't know, perchloride of mercury is also called corrosive sublimate (it's used in surgical dressings), and fifty grains taken internally is a pretty hopeless proposition. In fact, according to what the very eminent pathologist person said in the witness-box, it must be about as good for your tummy as molten lead. This great man went on to give it as his opinion that the poison must have been administered not more than eight hours before death had taken place. This was allowing for the milk which would have a retarding influence. As James had died at six in the morning it meant that he must have taken his dose sometime after ten o'clock the previous night. As I had been the last person to see him alive, or at any rate conscious, it made my evidence rather important, especially as it covered the first hour of the material eight.

When my turn came I told the Court almost word for word what I'd told the Inspector, right down to the three aspirins.

The Coroner asked me a whole lot of questions about James's manner and health, and I could only say that he had seemed normal, cheerful, and, bar his cold, healthy.

When they'd done with me, Mrs. James was called, and I was able to see her properly for the first time. She was even better looking than her portrait, and black suited her. One could tell that she had the sympathy of everyone. She would. She was popular in the district, and the court was packed with her friends. The Coroner treated her with the utmost consideration. She said that her relations with her husband had always been of the very best and there had never been the ghost of a disagreement. She also stated that as far as she knew he had no worries, either financial or otherwise, and that he could have had no possible reason for taking his life.

After that the Coroner became even more considerate than ever. One could see what he was after; he clearly had the fact in mind that when a rich man dies in mysterious circumstances there are always plenty of people who seem to think that his widow ought to be hanged "on spec," so, although their evidence was hardly— what shall I say?— germane to the enquiry, witnesses were called who proved, in effect, that she had been at Worthing from lunch-time on the one day right up to four in the morning on the next, and there was no getting away from it. Even the mechanic from the Worthing garage was roped in (in his Sunday clothes). He described the trouble with her tyres and the discussion as to whether she could or could not have got home to Chislehurst before dark.

There was a good deal more evidence of the same kind, and it all went to establish that whatever else had happened, Mrs. James couldn't possibly have murdered her husband, and as it seemed unlikely that he had committed suicide the jury returned an open verdict.

Now what was I to do? On the face of it, and knowing what I did, it was my duty to get up and say something like this: "You'll pardon me, but that woman did murder her husband and, if you like, I'll tell you roughly how: She waits till he has a cold coming on and then decides to pay one of her periodical visits to her mother at Worthing. She arranges to get hung up there for the night, but she telephones at dinner-time and, I suggest, makes him promise to take some aspirin and whisky before he goes to bed— a perfectly normal remedy. She naturally takes jolly good care before starting in the morning that there are only three tablets of aspirin that he can get at and these are the— er— ones. The bottle they have been in is certainly a danger if the police get hold of it, but they don't get hold of it because she arrives home in plenty of time to change it for another.

"If things had gone entirely right for her, and I hadn't happened to be dining there that evening, no one would have known about James's dose of aspirin at all, but her technique is so sound that I'm able to watch him take it, and talk about it afterwards without it mattering. I don't suppose she liked it, but it didn't do her any appreciable harm. Then again, even if he forgets to take his tablets she runs no risk. She merely has to wait till he gets another cold. In fact the whole thing is cast iron."

Now supposing, for the sake of argument, that I'd got up, and been allowed to say all this, what would have happened?

I should have had to admit straight off that I couldn't produce a scrap of evidence to support any of it, at least not the kind of evidence that would wash with a jury.

There certainly was James's remark: "I shall hear about it if I don't take my aspirin." That satisfied me who he expected to hear about it from, but there was only my bare word for it that he'd put it that way, and you know what lawyers are. They mightn't have believed me.

Then again, the Coroner was a doctor. He would have asked me how it was possible to fake up perchloride of mercury to look like aspirin, and I should have had to agree that it wouldn't be at all easy. It happens to be a poison which the general public practically can't get, and even if they could, the tablets in which it is sold are carefully dyed blue. Besides which they aren't the right shape. If you walked into a chemist's and asked him to bleach some of them white and make them to look like aspirin he might easily think it fishy, and I doubt whether you would set his mind at rest by saying that you only wanted them for a joke, or private theatricals.

All of this I knew quite well, having taken the trouble to enquire, but there was another fact which I didn't get to know till afterwards which might have made a difference. It was rather strange. For a certain time during the War the French Army medical people had put up their perchloride of mercury in white tablets, not blue, and these did in fact closely resemble the present-day aspirin. Moreover, each tablet contained seventeen grains. Now three seventeens are fifty-one, or almost exactly what James was reckoned to have taken. But all this would have gone for precisely nothing (even if I'd known it and said it), unless any of these convenient tablets could be traced to Mrs. James, and they most definitely couldn't.

The police had searched the house as a matter of routine and analysed every bottle whether empty or full. One might also safely conclude that they had made enquiries at all the chemists where the lady might have dealt. I know they went to mine.

Then there was another thing which made it difficult to accuse Mrs. James, and that was the absence of motive, because the obvious one, money, was practically ruled out. It transpired that she had twelve hundred a year of her own, and the average woman with as much as that isn't likely to marry and then murder some wretched man for the sake of another five thousand. She wouldn't take the trouble. In fact, what with one thing and another, my theory didn't stand a hope, so I thought I'd let it stew a little longer.

The lady left the court without a stain on her character and later on went to live in the Isle of Wight. For all I know she is still there, enjoying her twelve hundred plus five thousand a year, but whether she will go on doing it is quite another thing, because:

A short time ago I was just finishing a pipe before going to bed, when suddenly, apropos of nothing, there came into my head the name I had seen under her picture at the instant it had looked like a photograph. It was a somewhat peculiar name and not the one under which she had married James.

All the same, one doesn't imagine a name for no reason at all, so I worked it out that at some time or other I must have actually seen a published photograph of Mrs. James, and that staring at the picture down at Chislehurst had brought it back to me.

Anyhow, the following day I got my literary agent to send round to all the newspaper offices in Fleet Street and enquire whether a photograph of anyone of this name had appeared during the last few years. They all said "No."

However, my agent is of a persevering nature (he has to be). He went on and tackled the illustrated weekly papers and he struck oil almost at once. About eight years ago one of them had apparently brought out what it called a "Riviera Supplement," and in it was the photograph. I went along and recognised it immediately, but what interested me most of all was the paragraph that referred to it. It said that this Miss What's-her-name had been acting as companion to an old lady who had a villa at Cannes. One day she, the companion, had gone across into Italy to see her mother who lived at Bordighera and was a bit of an invalid.

For some reason or other she missed the last train back and had to spend the night at Bordighera, but when she did arrive back at Cannes next day she was shocked to find that her employer had poisoned herself during the night.

The paper didn't say what poison the old lady took or how much money she left her companion, but I've found out since and I'll give you two guesses.

____________________

5: The Diver

A.J. Alan

FOR SOME REASON or other the B.B.C. are always asking me to tell a ghost story— at least, they don't ask me, they tell me I've got to. I say, "What kind of a ghost story?" and they say, "Any kind you like, so long as it's a personal experience and perfectly true."

Just like that; and it's cramped my style a bit. Not that my personal experiences aren't true. Please don't think that. But it's simply this: that when it comes to supernatural matters my luck hasn't been very good. It isn't that I don't believe in such things on principle, but I do like to be present when the manifestations actually occur, instead of just taking other people's word for them; and, somehow or other, as I've said before, my luck has not been very good.

Lots of people have tried to convert me. There was one young woman in particular. She took a lot of trouble about it— quite a lot. She used to dra— take me to all sorts of parties where they had séances—you know the kind: table-turning, planchette, and so on— but it wasn't any good. Nothing ever happened when I was there. Nothing spiritual, that is. People always said:

"Ah, my boy, you ought to have been here last night. The table fairly got up and hit us in the face."

Possibly very wonderful— but, after all, the ground will do that if you let it.

Well, as I say, they took me to several of these parties, and we used to sit for hours round tables, in a dim light, holding hands. That was rather fun sometimes— it depended on who one sat next to— but apart from that, the nights they took me no manifestations ever occurred. Planchette wouldn't spell a word, and the table might have been screwed to the floor. To begin with they used to put it down to chance, or the conditions not being favourable. But after a time they began to put it down to me—and I thought: "Something will have to be done about it." It's never amusing to be looked upon as a sort of Jonah.

So I invented a patent table-tapper. It was made on the same principle as lazy tongs. You held it between your knees, and when you squeezed it a little mallet shot up (it was really a cotton reel stuck on the end of a pencil) and it hit the underneath of the table a proper biff. It was worked entirely with the knees, so that I could still hold the hands of the people on either side of me. And it was a success from the word "Go."

At the very next séance, as soon as the lights were down, I gave just a gentle tap. Our host said:

"Ah, a powerful force is present!" and I gave a louder— ponk! Then he said:

"How do you say 'Yes'?"— and I said:

"Ponk!" Then he said:

"How do you say 'No'?" And I said:

"Ponk, ponk!"

So far so good. Communication established. Then people began asking questions and I spelt out the answers. Awful hard work ponking right through the alphabet, but quite worth it. I'm afraid some of my answers made people sit up a bit. They got quite nervous as to what was coming next. Needless to say, this was some years ago.

Then some one said:

"Who's going to win the Derby?" (I don't know who said that) and I laboriously spelt out Signorinetta. This was two days before the race. I don't know why I said Signorinetta, because there were several horses with shorter names, but it just came into my head. The annoying thing was that I didn't take my own tip and back it. You may remember it won at 100 to 1 by I don't know how many lengths— five lengths dividing second and third. However, it's no use crying over the stable door after the horse has spilt the milk, and it has nothing whatever to do with the story.

The amusing thing was that when the séance was over various people came round to me and said:

"Now will you believe in spiritualism?"

"What more proof do you want?" and so on and so forth. It struck me as rather rich that they should try to convert me with my own false evidence. And I don't mind betting you that if I'd owned up to the whole thing being a spoof, not a soul would have believed me. That's always the way.

I've told you all this to show that I'm not exactly dippy on the subject of spiritualism— at any rate, not the table-turning variety— very largely because it is so easy to fake your results.

But when something genuinely uncanny comes along— why, then I'm one of the very first to be duly thrilled and mystified and— what not. It's one of those genuine cases I want to tell you about. It happened to me personally. But first of all you must know that there's a swimming-bath at my club. Very good swimming-bath, too. Deep at one end and shallow at the other. There's a sort of hall-place adjoining it, and in this hall there's a sandwich bar— very popular. It's much cheaper than lunching upstairs. Quite a lot of people seem to gravitate down there— especially towards the end of the month. Everything's quite informal. You just go to the counter and snatch what you want and take it to a table and eat it. Then when you've done, you go and tell George what you've had. George runs the show, and he says "one-and-ninepence," or whatever it is, and that's that.

Personally, I usually go to a table in a little recess close to the edge of the swimming-bath itself. You have to go down a few steps to get to it. But you are rather out of the turmoil and not so likely to get anything spilt over you. It's quite dangerous sometimes, people darting in and out like a lot of sharks— which reminds me: a member once wrote in to the secretary complaining that the place wasn't safe— I shan't say who it was, but you'd know his name if I told you; I managed to get hold of a copy of his letter. This is what he says, speaking of the sandwich bar:

"I once saw an enormous shark, at least five feet ten inches long, go up to the counter and seize a sausage roll—itself nearly four inches long—and take it away to devour it. When he had bitten off the end, which he did with a single snap of his powerful jaws, he found that it was empty. The sausage, which ought to have been inside, had completely vanished. It had been stolen by another shark even more voracious and ferocious than himself.

"Never shall I forget the awful spectacle of the baffled and impotent rage of this fearful monster. He went back to the counter, taking the empty sarcophagus with him, and said: 'George, I have been stung!'

"In order to avoid such scenes of unparalleled and revolting cruelty"—after that he is rather inclined to exaggerate, so I shan't read any more—I usually go late, when the rush is over and it's fairly quiet. People come and practise diving, and sometimes they are worth watching—and sometimes not.

That's the sort of place it is, and if you know of anywhere less likely to be haunted I should like to see it. Very well, then.

One day I was just finishing lunch when there was a splash. I was reading a letter and didn't look up at once, but when I did I was rather surprised to see no ripples on the water, and no one swimming about, so I went on with my letter and didn't think any more about it. That was all that happened that day.

Two or three weeks later, at about the same time, I was again finishing lunch, and there was another splash. This time I looked up almost at once and saw the ripples, and it struck me then that it must have been an extraordinarily clean dive, considering that whoever it was must have gone in off the top. One could tell that from where the ripples were— well out in the middle. So I waited for him to come up. But he didn't come up. Then I thought that he must be doing a length under water, and I got up and went to the edge of the bath to watch for him. But still he didn't come up and I got a bit worried. He might have bumped his head on the bottom, or fainted, or anything, and I saw myself having to go in after him with all my clothes on.

I sprinted right round the bath, but there was undoubtedly no one in it. The attendant came out of one of the dressing-rooms and evidently thought I'd gone cracked, so I went to the weighing-machine and weighed myself— eleven stone eight— but I don't think he believed me.

That was the second incident. The third came about a fortnight later. This time I saw the whole thing quite clearly. I was sitting at my usual table and I saw a man climbing up the ladder leading to the top diving-board. When he got up there he came out/to the extreme end of the plank and stood for a few seconds rubbing his chest and so on— like people often do.

He was rather tall and muscular— dark, with a small moustache— but what particularly caught my eye was a great big scar he had. It was about nine inches long and it reached down from his left shoulder towards the middle of his chest. It looked like a bad gash with a bayonet. It must have hurt quite a lot when it was done.

I don't know why I took so much notice of him, but I just did, that's all. And, funnily enough, he seemed to be just as much interested in me as I was in him. He gave me a most meaning look. I didn't know what it meant, but it was undoubtedly a meaning look.

As soon as he saw that he'd got me watching him he dived in, and it was the most gorgeous dive I've ever seen. Hardly any noise or splash— just a gentle sort of plop as though he'd gone into oil rather than water— and the ripples died away almost at once. I thought, if only he'll do that a few more times it'll teach me a lot, and I waited for him to come up—and waited—and waited— but not a sign.

I went to the edge of the bath, and then I walked right round it. But, bar the water, it was perfectly empty. However, to make absolutely certain— I mean that he couldn't have got out without my seeing him— I dug out the attendant and satisfied myself that no towels and—er—costumes had been given out since twelve o'clock— it was then half-past two— and he, the attendant, he'd actually seen the last man leave.

The thing was getting quite serious. My scarred friend couldn't have melted away in the water, nor could he have dived slap through the bottom of the bath— at least, not without leaving some sort of a mark. So it was obvious that either the man had been a ghost, which was absurd— who's ever heard of a ghost in a swimming-bath?— I mean the ideas's too utterly— er— wet for anything— or that there was something wrong with the light lager I was having for lunch.

I went back to my table and found I'd hardly begun it, and in any case let me tell you it was such light lager that a gallon of it wouldn't have hurt a child of six— and— I'm not a child of six. So I ruled that out, and decided to wait and see if it happened again. It wouldn't have done to say anything about it. One's friends are apt to be a bit flippant when you tell 'em things like that. However, I made a point of sitting at the same table for weeks and weeks afterwards, but old stick-in-the-mud didn't show up again.

A good long time after this— it must have been eighteen months or more— I got an invitation to dine with some people called Pringle. They were old friends of mine, but I hadn't seen them for a long time because they'd mostly lived in Mexico, and one rather loses touch with people at that distance. Anyway, they were going back there in a few days, and this was a sort of farewell dinner.

They'd given up their flat and were staying at an hotel. They'd got another man dining with them. His name was Melhuish, and he was, with one exception, the most offensive blighter I've ever come across. Do you know those people who open their mouths to contradict what you are going to say before you've even begun to say it? Well, he did that, among other things. It was rather difficult to be entirely civil to him. He was travelling back to Mexico with the Pringles, as he'd got the job of manager to one of their properties. Something to do with oil, but I didn't quite grasp what, my mind was so taken up with trying to remember where on earth I'd seen the man before.

Of course you all know. You know he was the man who dived into the swimming-bath. It sticks out about a mile, naturally; but I'd only seen him once before in a bad light, and it took me till half-way through the fish to place him. Then it came back with a rush, and my interest in him became very lively. He was an American, and he'd come over to England two months before, looking for a job— so he said. I asked him why he'd left America, and he didn't hear; but it did seem fairly certain that he'd never been in Europe before. So when we got to dessert I proceeded to drop my brick.

I said: "Do you mind telling me whether you have a scar on your chest like this?" And I described it. The Pringles just stared, but Melhuish looked as if he were going to have a fit. Then he pulled himself together and said: "Have you ever been in America?" And I said: "No, not that I know of." Then he said: "Well, it's a most extraordinary thing, but I have a scar on my chest," and he went on to explain how he'd got it.

Funnily enough, he'd gone in for high diving a lot when he was younger, and taken any amount of prizes, and on one occasion he'd found a sharp stake at the bottom of a river. He gave us full particulars. Very messy. But what they all wanted to know was how the— how I knew anything about it. Of course, it was a great temptation to tell 'em, but they'd only have thought I'd gone off my rocker, so I started a hare about perhaps having seen a photograph of his swimming-club in some newspaper or other. They caught on to that idea quite well, so I left them to it.

The whole thing was by way of being rather a problem, and it kept me awake that night. Without being up in such matters, it did occur to me that it might be a warning of some kind. Is it likely that any one— even a ghost— would take the trouble to come all the way from America simply to show me how well he could dive? Of course not, and I sort of thought that a man who was in the habit of going in off the deep end and not coming up again was no fit travelling companion for any friends of mine. I'm not superstitious, goodness knows! Of course, I don't walk under ladders, or light three matches with one cigarette, or any of those things, but that's because they're unlucky— not because I'm superstitious.

Anyhow, in case the Pringles might be, I went round next day and saw them. At least, I saw her— he was out— and told her all about the apparition at the club, and so on. That did it. She fairly went off pop. It was a portent, a direct intervention of Providence; nothing would induce her to travel with Melhuish after what she'd heard—and all the rest of it.

I left her to carry on the good work. I don't know how she managed it, but the fact remains that the Pringles did not start for Mexico, as arranged, and Melhuish did.

And now you are expecting me to say that the ship in which he sailed was never heard of again. But that wouldn't be strictly true. He got to the other side all right. But the train in which he was travelling through Mexico had to cross a bridge over a river. A steel bridge, it was. Now some months previously there'd been a slight scrap between two local bands of brigands, in the course of which the bridge had been blown up.

When the quarrel was patched up the bridge was patched up, too, but not with the meticulous care it might have been. The result was that in the daytime, when the sun was hot and the steelwork fully expanded, it was a perfectly good bridge, but at night, when it was cold and the girders had shrunk a bit— well, it didn't always quite meet in the middle.

It so happened that the train in question tried to cross this wretched bridge at the very moment when it was having rather a job to make both ends meet—and it simply couldn't bear it. The middle span carried away and the engine and two carriages crashed through into the river, and fourteen people were killed. It was very sad about thirteen of them, but the fourteenth was Mr. Melhuish.

There must be a moral to this story, if I could only think of it; but I can't, so perhaps some of you can help me by suggesting one....

___________________

6: H2, etc.

A.J. Alan

I've got a cat. She's a black Persian— a shocking great beast—and she weighs over fifteen pounds on our kitchen scales, but she's awfully delicate. If she stays out too long in the cold she gets bronchitis and has to be sat up with. So, unless it's really hot weather, we reckon to get her indoors by eleven o'clock.

Well, one night not long ago— it was after eleven— in fact ten past twelve, and we were sort of thinking of bed, when my wife said, "I wonder where Tibbins is." Tibbins is, of course, our cat, and at that time in the evening she ought, according to her schedule, to have been lying in a heap with the dogs in front of the fire.

However, the dogs were there but she wasn't. No one remembered having seen her last, so I made a tour of her usual haunts. She wasn't in her basket by the coke stove down in the scullery, where she generally takes her morning nap, neither was she in hell. Hell is a place at the top of the house where the hot-water cistern is. She often retires there in the afternoon. At all events, I drew a complete blank, so we were finally forced to the conclusion that she wasn't in the house at all, and my wife said, "I'm afraid you'll have to go out and meow for her." So I went out and meowed.

I searched our garden, but as she wasn't there I went through the main garden. Perhaps I'd better explain that all the houses in our road have their own gardens at the back, and these have gates into what we call the main garden. This runs right along behind them, and there's one of these main gardens to every eight houses or so, but they are divided off from each other by the side-turnings which run into our road.

I'm afraid it sounds rather complicated. However, our particular main garden is about a hundred yards long and forty yards wide, and it's quite big enough for a black cat to hide in, as I found. I walked round every blooming bush in it and said, "R-r-r-wow," or words to that effect, in what I considered to be an ingratiating manner, but without any success, and I was just going to chuck my hand in when I saw our Tibbins sitting on the end wall. That is to say, the wall which divides the garden from the road.

She let me sidle quite close, but just as I was going to grab her she jumped down on the far side (the road side). Then she skipped across the road and squeezed through the bars of the gate into the next main garden. I said a few things and climbed over the wall and followed her. Of course, I couldn't squeeze between the bars of the gate so I had to scramble over the top. She very kindly waited while I did this and then moved off just ahead. She frolicked about with her tail in the air, as who should say, "Isn't it fun our going for a walk like this in the moonlight?" and I told her what fun I thought it was. I'd already torn my dinner-jacket getting over the gate, but it's no good being sarcastic to a cat.

She continued to lead me up the garden, darting from tree to tree, until we got half-way along, and then she turned off to the right and went into one of the private gardens. Luckily the gate was open and I didn't have to climb over it. The house it belonged to was all in darkness, of course, but when I got to the middle of the lawn the lights suddenly came on in one of the ground-floor rooms. It had a French window and the blinds were up.

Well, this startled the cat and she let me pick her up, so that was all right, but just as I was turning to come away a little old man appeared at the window. He was so close that he couldn't have helped seeing me if I'd moved, so I stood quite still and held Tibbins up against my shirt front. He was a very old man indeed, rather inclined to dodder, and he had on a dark blue dressing-gown. He'd got something white hanging over his arm, I couldn't quite see what it was, but it looked like a small towel.

Anyway, he peered out for a bit and then he drew the bolts and pushed the window open. He came and stood right outside, and I thought, "He's bound to see me now," but he didn't seem to. After a minute he wandered back into the room again, and sat down and began writing a letter.

By the way, this wasn't exactly a sitting-room. It had more the appearance of a workroom. I mean, there was a large deal table which looked as if it was used for cutting out on, a gas-ring for heating irons, and a sewing-machine, and things like that.

I didn't wait to notice any more. While the old gentleman was busy, me and my cat left.

When I got home my wife had gone to bed. I told her about my adventures and what I'd seen and so on, and she said, "I wonder which house it was." I couldn't tell the number from the back, naturally, but I made a rough guess whereabouts it came and she said, "Oh, then, I think I know the old man. He's usually out in a bath-chair. He doesn't look quite right in his head and he's got asthma or something." And I said, "Well, paddling about the garden won't do his asthma any good. What had we better do?"

It was no use trying to telephone because we didn't know the name of the people or their number in the road, so there was obviously nothing for it but to go back and see what he was up to and warn his family that he'd got loose.

You mustn't think that we spend our lives doing good deeds, but we both came to the conclusion that it wouldn't be nice to go past the house in a week's time and find a hearse at the door.

At any rate, at perfectly enormous self-sacrifice I went back, over all the walls and gates and what not, and once again fetched up on this precious lawn. The windows had been pulled to but the light was on and I could see in.

The old josser was still sitting at the table, only I couldn't see his face. It was rather funny, he'd got himself up rather like a member of the Ku Klux Klan. You know, you've seen pictures of them. They wear a sort of tall white head-dress going up to a point with two round holes cut out for the eyes. But what he'd got on wasn't a proper head-dress, it was a pillow-case, and there weren't any holes for the eyes.

I wondered for a moment what he was playing at until I noticed that he'd taken the tube off the gas-ring and shoved it up into the pillow-case. He'd buttoned his dressing-gown round it to keep it from falling out.

I said, "Oh, that's it, is it?" and pulled the windows open (they weren't fastened), and I went in and lugged the pillowcase off his head and turned off the gas.

He wasn't at all dead, but he'd begun to turn grey— well, a silvery colour, and I wouldn't have given much for him in another ten minutes.

The only treatment that occurred to me was fresh air in large quantities, so I rolled him up in the hearthrug and laid him down outside the window. There was a note on the table addressed to the coroner, and I wondered whether I ought to do anything with it, but decided not to.

Next I went through to the bottom of the stairs and set about rousing the house, and you've no idea what a job that was. If I hadn't wanted them to hear me they'd have been yelling blue murder out of the top windows for the last ten minutes. As it was, I called out loudly several times without any one taking the slightest notice.

I was even looking round for the dinner-gong when a door opened somewhere upstairs and I heard whispering going on. It went on for such a long time that I got annoyed. I said, "Will some one please come down at once and not keep me standing here all night." That had an effect. Two middle-aged females appeared. Singularly nasty looking they were, and I loathe boudoir caps at the best of times. They were evidently sisters; I explained who I was and told them that an old gentleman had just done his very best to make away with himself. They said, "Oh dear, oh dear, that's father. How exasperating of him. He's always doing it." And I said, "What are you talking about, 'always doing it,' it's not a thing people usually make a hobby of." (We were out by the window by this time inspecting the culprit.) And they said, "Well, you see, as a matter of fact, it's like this. Father is very old and he suffers from melancholia. Every now and then, when he gets an especially bad fit, he tries to commit suicide like this. We can't stop him because he simply won't be locked in his room. First of all he creeps down here and writes a letter to the coroner" (they'd apparently got several of them), "and then he goes through this performance with the pillow-case and turns on the gas." I said, "Yes, that's all very well, but why doesn't it work? I mean it ought to kill him every time." And they said, "Oh, that's all right, we've thought of that. We always turn the gas off at the main before we go to bed." They had the nerve to tell me that once or twice they'd actually watched through the keyhole and seen it all happen. According to them there was just enough gas left in the pipe to send him off to sleep, and at three or four in the morning he'd wake up and crawl back to bed and forget all about it.

Well, it isn't often that I can't think of anything adequate to say, but I couldn't then. I've never in all my life been so angry with two women at once. It was no use calling them the names I wanted to call them because they wouldn't have understood. I did remark on their unsuitability to be in charge of any one, and I also threatened to run them in, though I don't quite know what for, but it must be illegal to hazard one's parents like that. Anyway, they got rather haughty. They said there was no need for any one to interfere because they'd already made arrangements to send their father to a home in Kent. I said, "Mind you do," and the subject rather dropped. It was a little difficult to know what to do for the best, because they wouldn't hear of sending for a doctor, and I couldn't make them— you can't, you know. Every moment I was expecting them to disapprove my dictatorial attitude. The patient was recovering, but he still looked as if he wanted fresh air, so we decided to give him a few minutes more.

At the same time it wouldn't have done to let him catch his death of cold, so we covered him up with some more rugs.

After that, by way of something to do, I put the india-rubber tube back on to the gas-ring with the idea of boiling some water for hot bottles. When I'd fixed it I just turned the tap on and off to see if it was working, quite forgetting that there oughtn't to be any gas. But there was— quite a lot. It came out with no end of a hiss; and I said, "Oy, you seem to get a better pressure in this house with the main turned off than we do with it on," and I turned the tap on again. You could hear it all over the room. Upon which one of the ugly sisters said to the other, "Agatha, are you sure you turned it off last thing?" And Agatha naturally was absolutely certain. She distinctly remembered doing it. She began to tell us all her reasons for remembering it so distinctly, but I said, "Why argue when we can go and look?" So we went and looked, in the pantry, and, of course, there it was— full on.

_________________________-

7: The Hair

A. J. Alan

I'M GOING to give you an account of certain occurrences. I shan't attempt to explain them because they're quite beyond me. When you've heard all the facts, some of you may be able to offer suggestions. You must forgive me for going into a certain amount of detail. When you don't understand what you're talking about it's so difficult to know what to leave out.

This business began in the dark ages, before there was any broadcasting. In fact, in 1921.

I'd been staying the weekend with a friend of mine who lives about fifteen miles out of Bristol.

There was another man stopping there, too, who lived at Dawlish. Well, on the Monday morning our host drove us into Bristol in time for the Dawlish man to catch his train, which left a good deal earlier than the London one. Of course, if old Einstein had done his job properly, we could both have gone by the same train. As it was, I had over half an hour to wait. Talking of Einstein, wouldn't it be almost worth while dying young so as to hear what Euclid says to him when they meet—wherever it is?

There was a funny little old sort of curiosity shop in one of the streets I went down, and I stopped to look in the window. Right at the back, on a shelf, was a round brass box, not unlike a powder-box in shape, and it rather took my fancy. I don't know why— perhaps it was because I'd never seen anything quite like it before. That must be why some women buy some hats.

Anyway, the shop window was so dirty that you could hardly see through it, so I went inside to have a closer look. An incredibly old man came out of the back regions and told me all he knew about the box, which wasn't very much. It was fairly heavy, made of brass, round, four inches high, and about three inches in diameter. There was something inside it, which we could hear when we shook it, but no one had ever been able to get the lid off. He'd bought it from a sailor some years before, but couldn't say in the least what part of the world it came from.

"What about fifteen bob?"

I offered him ten, and he took it very quickly, and then I had to sprint back to the station to catch my train. When I got home I took the box up into my workshop and had a proper look at it. It was extremely primitive as regards work, and had evidently been made by hand, and not on a lathe. Also, there had been something engraved on the lid, but it had been taken off with a file. Next job was to get the lid off without doing any damage to it. It was a good deal more than hand tight, and no ordinary methods were any good. I stood it lid downwards for a week in a dish of glycerine as a start, and then made two brass collars, one for the box and one for the lid. At the end of the week I bolted the collars on, fixed the box in the vice and tried tapping the lid round with a hammer— but it wouldn't start. Then, I tried it the other way and it went at once. That explained why no one had ever been able to unscrew it— it had a left-handed thread on it. Rather a dirty trick— especially to go and do it all those years before.

Well, here it was, unscrewing very sweetly, and I began to feel quite like Howard Carter, wondering what I was going to find. It might go off bang, or jump out and hit me in the face. However, nothing exciting happened when the lid came off. In fact, the box only seemed to be half-full of dust, but at the bottom was a curled-up plait of hair. When straightened out, it was about nine inches long and nearly as thick as a pencil. I unplaited a short length, and found it consisted of some hundreds of very fine hairs, but in such a filthy state (I shoved them under the microscope) that there was nothing much to be seen. So I thought I'd clean them. You may as well know the process— first of all a bath of dilute hydrochloric acid to get the grease off, then a solution of washing soda to remove the acid. Then a washing in distilled water, then a bath of alcohol to get rid of any traces of water, and a final rinsing in ether to top off with.

Just as I took it out of the ether they called me down to the telephone, so I shoved it down on the first clean thing which came handy, namely, a piece of white cardboard, and went downstairs. When I examined the plait later on, the only thing of interest that came to light was the fact that the hairs had all apparently belonged to several different women. The colours ranged from jet-black, through brown, red, and gold, right up to pure white. None of the hair was dyed, which proved how very old it was. I showed it to one or two people, but they didn't seem very enthusiastic, so I put it, and its box, in a little corner cupboard we have, and forgot all about it.

Then the first strange coincidence happened.

About ten days later a pal of mine called Matthews came into the club with a bandage across his forehead. People naturally asked him what was the matter, and he said he didn't know, and what's more the doctor didn't know. He'd suddenly flopped down on his drawing-room floor, in the middle of tea, and lain like a log. His wife was in a fearful stew, of course, and telephoned for the doctor. However, Matthews came round at the end of about five minutes, and sat up and asked what had hit him. When the doctor blew in a few minutes later he was pretty well all right again except for a good deal of pain in his forehead. The doctor couldn't find anything the matter except a red mark which was beginning to show on the skin just where the pain was.

Well, this mark got clearer and clearer, until it looked just like a blow from a stick. Next day it was about the same, except that a big bruise had come up all round the mark. After that it got gradually better. Matthews took the bandage off and showed it me at the club, and there was nothing much more than a bruise with a curved red line down the middle of it, like the track of a red-hot worm.

They'd decided that he'd had an attack of giddiness and must somehow have bumped his head in falling. And that was that.

About a month later, my wife said to me: "We really must tidy your workshop!" And I said: "Must we?" And she said: "Yes, it's a disgrace." So up we went.

Tidying my workshop consists of putting the tools back in their racks, and of my wife wanting to throw away things she finds on the floor, and me saying: "Oh, no, I could use that for so and so."

The first thing we came across was the piece of white cardboard I'd used to put the plait of hair on while I'd run to the telephone that day.

When we came to look at the other side we found it was a flashlight photograph of a dinner I'd been at. You know what happens. Just before the speeches a lot of blighters come in with a camera and some poles with tin trays on the top, and someone says: "Will the chairman please stand?" and he's helped to his feet. Then there's a blinding flash and the room's full of smoke, and the blighters go out again. Later on a man comes round with proofs, and if you are very weak— or near the chairman— you order one print.

Well, this dinner had been the worshipful company of skate-fasteners or something, and I'd gone as the guest of the same bloke Matthews I've already been telling you about, and we'd sat "side by each," as the saying is. My wife was looking at the photograph, and she said: "What's that mark on Mr. Matthews's forehead?" And I looked—and there, sure enough, was the exact mark that he'd come into the club with a month before. The curious part being, of course, that the photograph had been taken at least six months before he'd had the funny attack which caused the mark. Now, then— on the back of the photograph, when we examined it, was a faint brown line. This was evidently left by the plait of hair when I'd pinned it out to dry, and it had soaked through and caused the mark on Matthews's face. I checked it by shoving a needle right through the cardboard. Of course, this looked like a very strange coincidence, on the face of it. I don't know what your experience of coincidences is—but mine is that they usually aren't. Anyway, I took the trouble to trace out the times, and I finally established, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I had pinned the hair out on the photograph between four and a quarter-past on a particular day, and that Matthews had had his funny attack on the same day at about a quarter-past four. That was something like a coincidence. Next, the idea came to me to try it again. Not on poor old Matthews, obviously—he'd already had some— and, besides, he was a friend of mine. I know perfectly well that we are told to be kind to our enemies, and so on— in fact, I do quite a lot of that—but when it comes to trying an experiment of this kind— even if the chances are a million to one against it being a success, I mean having any result— one naturally chooses an enemy rather than a friend. I looked round for a suitable— victim— someone who wouldn't be missed much in case there happened to be another coincidence. The individual on whom my choice fell was the nurse next door.

We can see into their garden from our bathroom window— and we'd often noticed the rotten way she treated the child she had charge of when she thought no one was looking. Nothing one could definitely complain about— you know what a thankless job it is to butt into your neighbour's affairs— but she was systematically unkind, and we hated the sight of her. Another thing— when she first came she used to lean over the garden wall and sneak our roses— at least, she didn't even do that— she used to pull them off their stalks and let them drop— I soon stopped that. I fitted up some little arrangements of fish-hooks round some of the most accessible roses and anchored them to the ground with wires. There was Hell-and-Tommy the next morning, and she had her hand done up in bandages for a week.

Altogether she was just the person for my experiment. The first thing was to get a photograph of her, so the next sunny morning, when she was in the garden, I made a noise like an aeroplane out of the bathroom window to make her look up, and got her nicely. As soon as the first print was dry, about eleven o'clock the same night, I fastened the plait of hair across the forehead with two pins— feeling extremely foolish, as one would, of course, doing an idiotic thing like that— and put it away in a drawer in my workshop. The evening of the next day, when I got home, my wife met me and said: "What do you think—the nurse next door was found dead in bed this morning." And she went on to say that the people were quite upset about it, and there was going to be an inquest, and all the rest of it. I tell you, you could have knocked me down with a brick. I said: "No, not really; what did she die of?" You must understand that my lady wife didn't know anything about the experiment. She'd never have let me try it. She's rather superstitious—in spite of living with me. As soon as I could I sneaked up to the workshop drawer and got out the photograph, and—I know you won't believe me, but it doesn't make any difference— when I unpinned the plait of hair and took it off there was a clearly-marked brown stain right across the nurse's forehead. I tell you, that did make me sit up, if you like— because that made twice—first Matthews and now— now.

It was rather disturbing, and I know it sounds silly, but I couldn't help feeling to blame in some vague way.

Well, the next thing was the inquest—I attended that, naturally, to know what the poor unfortunate woman had died of. Of course, they brought it in as "death from natural causes," namely, several burst blood vessels in the brain; but what puzzled the doctors was what had caused the "natural causes"—also, she had the same sort of mark on her forehead as Matthews had had. They had gone very thoroughly into the theory that she might have been exposed to X-rays— it did look a bit like that— but it was more or less proved that she couldn't have been, so they frankly gave it up. Of course, it was all very interesting and entertaining, and I quite enjoyed it, as far as one can enjoy an inquest, but they hadn't cleared up the vexed question— did she fall or was she pu—well, had she snuffed it on account of the plait of hair, or had she not? Obviously the matter couldn't be allowed to rest there—it was much too thrilling. So I looked about for someone else to try it on and decided that a man who lived in the house opposite would do beautifully. He wasn't as bad as the nurse because he wasn't cruel— at least, not intentionally— he played the fiddle— so I decided not to kill him more than I could help.

The photograph was rather a bother, because he didn't go out much. You've no idea how difficult it is to get a decent full-face photograph of a man who knows you by sight without him knowing. However, I managed to get one after a fortnight or so. It was rather small and I had to enlarge it, but it wasn't bad considering. He used to spend most of his evenings up in a top room practising, double stopping and what-not— so after dinner I went up to my workshop window, which overlooks his, and waited for him to begin. Then, when he'd really warmed up to his job, I just touched the plait across the photograph— not hard, but— well, like you do when you are testing a bit of twin flex to find out which wire is which, you touch the ends across an accumulator or an H.T. battery. Quite indefensible in theory, but invariably done in practice. (Personally, I always use the electric light mains—the required information is so instantly forthcoming.) Well, that's how I touched the photograph with the plait. The first time I did it my bloke played a wrong note. That was nothing, of course, so I did it again more slowly. This time there was no doubt about it. He hastily put down his fiddle and hung out of the window, gasping like a fish for about five minutes. I tell you, I was so surprised that I felt like doing the same.

However, I pulled myself together, and wondered whether one ought to burn the da— er— plait or not. But there seemed too many possibilities in it for that—so I decided to learn how to use it instead. It would take too long to tell you all about my experiments. They lasted for several months, and I reduced the thing to such an exact science that I could do anything from giving a gnat a headache to killing a man. All this, mind you, at the cost of one man, one woman, lots of wood-lice, and a conscientious objector. You must admit that that's pretty moderate, considering what fun one could have had with a discovery of that kind.

Well, it seemed to me that, now the control of my absent treatment had been brought to such a degree of accuracy, it would be rather a pity not to employ it in some practical way. In other words, to make a fortune quickly without undue loss of life.

One could, of course, work steadily through the people one disliked, but it wouldn't bring in anything for some time.

I mean, even if you insure them first you've got to wait a year before they die, or the company won't pay, and in any case it begins to look fishy after you've done it a few times. Then I had my great idea: Why shouldn't my process be applied to horse-racing? All one had to do was to pick some outsider in a race— back it for all you were worth at about 100 to 1, and then see that it didn't get beaten.

The actual operation would be quite simple. One would only have to have a piece of card-board with photographs of all the runners stuck on it—except the one that was to win, of course— and then take up a position giving a good view of the race.

I wasn't proposing to hurt any of the horses in the least. They were only going to get the lightest of touches, just enough to give them a tired feeling, soon after the start. Then, if my horse didn't seem to have the race well in hand near the finish, I could give one more light treatment to any horse which still looked dangerous.

It stood to reason that great care would have to be taken not to upset the tunning too much. For instance, if all the horses except one fell down, or even stopped and began to graze, there would be a chance of the race being declared void.

So I had two or three rehearsals. They worked perfectly. The last one hardly was a rehearsal because I had a tenner on at 33 to 1, just for luck— and, of course, it came off.

However, it wasn't as lucky as it sounds. Just outside the entrance to the grandstand there was rather a squash and, as I came away I got surrounded by four or five men who seemed to be pushing me about a bit, but it didn't strike me what the game was until one of them got his hand into the breast-pocket of my coat.

Then I naturally made a grab at him and got him just above the elbow with both hands, and drove his hand still further into my pocket. That naturally pushed the pocket, with his hand inside it, under my right arm, and I squeezed it against my ribs for all I was worth.

Now, there was nothing in that pocket but the test tube with the plait of hair in it, and the moment I started squeezing it went with a crunch. I'm a bit hazy about the next minute because my light-fingered friend tried to get free, and two of his pals helped him by bashing me over the head. They were quite rough. In fact, they entered so heartily into the spirit of the thing that they went on doing it until the police came up and collared them.

You should have seen that hand when it did come out of my pocket. Cut to pieces, and bits of broken glass sticking out all over it— like a crimson tipsy cake. He was so bad that we made a call at a doctor's on the way to the police station for him to have a small artery tied up. There was a cut on the back of my head that wanted a bit of attention, too. Quite a nice chap, the doctor, but he was my undoing. He was, without doubt, the baldest doctor I've ever seen, though I once saw a balder alderman.

When he'd painted me with iodine, I retrieved the rest of the broken glass and the hair from the bottom of my pocket and asked him if he could give me an empty bottle to put it in. He said: "Certainly," and produced one, and we corked the hair up in it. When I got home, eventually, I looked in the bottle, but apart from a little muddy substance at the bottom it was empty— the plait of hair had melted away. Then I looked at the label on the bottle, and found the name of a much-advertised hair restorer.

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8: Supper at Midnight

William J. Makin

Australian Women's Weekly 22 Dec 1934

TO do it at all needed a queer sort of courage. It was courage born of an empty stomach, lost pride, and exactly twopence in the pocket. And it happened to be nearly midnight.

With a convulsive sob, Leonard Rogers rushed along the pavement of the side street  in Mayfair, clutched the handle of the door of the limousine, and wrenched it open with a bowed humility.

Even so, he had to fight for the privilege.

"Strewth, wot the 'ell!" snarled the usual opener of the limousine doors, finding himself forestalled.

But the wolfish look on the face of Leonard Rogers warned even the Cockney that this was a dangerous bone for which to scuffle. He fell back with a muttered curse into the darkness while Rogers, clinging to the door of the limousine, was conscious of the perfume of wet violets mixed with the tang of petrol. A hungry man scents keenly.

She swept out of the door on to the pavement, the pale pink of her dance frock clinging to her like a wisp of cloud. But an artificial hothouse cloud drunk with dance hall perfumes and seeing only the false dawns of glowing electric lights.

"Thank you!" she whispered with distant aloofness, and sailed up the steps towards the house.

But another figure was groping out of the limousine, a man. With drooping white moustache and grey, grizzled head he might have been a ghost stepping out of the darkness of the past, an Edwardian type of yesterday's Punch joke. He nodded to the chauffeur, and wheeled upon Leonard Rogers.

"Thank you!" he almost shouted with military distinctness, and as the limousine purred away he felt in his pocket  for a shilling.

With a good deal of hard breathing, his hand emerged holding the blessed shilling and miscellaneous keys, bits of paper and a collar stud. But he dropped the shilling into the half outstretched hand with a triumphant:

"There you are, my man."

"Thank you, sir." The hand closed greedily on the coin, and Leonard Rogers turned away. Then, in a strange mutter he added. "O Benediction, perfect and complete. When shall men cease to suffer and desire."

He laughed harshly and shuffled a few steps.

"Here!"

The old man had halted and was calling to him.

"Yes, sir?"

A pair of rheumy, port-shot eyes gazed curiously at Rogers.

"That's the first time I've heard a beggar quoting Ernest Dawson's poetry," growled the old man.

"Is it?" A smile twisted the pale, hungry face. "Anyhow, it has a bitterness which appeals to a man in the gutter. Good-night, sir."

But the old man did not answer the salutation, for the figure in front of him crumpled up suddenly and dropped to the pavement. The shilling rolled from his hand into the gutter.

"Hey! Diana!"

He called the girl in the dance frock who had already opened the door with a latch key and was silhouetted against the glow of the hall light.

Lifting her dress she came with satin shoes down the steps just in time to see the Cockney pounce upon the shilling and dart away into the night.

"What's the matter, Daddy?"

"Poor devil went down as though he had been shot. Look's as if a decent meal wouldn't be amiss. Give me a hand, my girl!"

The old man bent down and, with surprising strength, lifted the collapsed figure from the pavement. With the help of the girl he carried him towards the steps.

"Daddy! Do you think we ought—" The girl hesitated.

"Don't be a fool!" grunted the old man. "Fellow's starving. Must do something. Up the steps with him!"

In a few minutes they had him inside the hall. Half-carried and half dragged, the burden was dumped into a comfortable chair in a room opening off the hall.

"Mix a stiff whisky and soda! A stiff one," commanded the old man, with a nod in the direction of the sideboard. The girl hastened to obey. They were about to force the contents of the glass through the clenched teeth when a pair of cynical eyes opened, saw the liquor, and shook a head negatively.

"No, thanks... awfully."

"Do you good," growled the old man. Again a shake of the head.

"I daren't. If you've got a sandwich―"

Beneath the electric light the white face of Rogers was pitifully hungry. "Go and forage, my gal."

"Yes, daddy."

There was silence between the two men for a moment.

"Really," began Rogers, struggling from the chair, "this is awful cheek on my part. I think I'd better clear out."

"Sit down," ordered the old man, pushing him back into the chair. "D'you make much of a living, opening the doors of cars?"

A faint smile twisted across the white face.

"It's the first time I tried it."

"Thought so," grunted the other, and then turned as the girl in the pink dance frock appeared carrying a tray on which was part of a cold chicken, half a loaf of bread, and the remains of a fruit pie.

"I'm afraid this is all I could find," she said, addressing herself to the man in the chair.

The blue eyes looked at her, tried to remain cynical, but failed.

"Thank you," he said humbly. The old man interposed.

"Must get rid of these cursed dancing pumps," he growled. "They're crippling my feet. We'll be back in a quarter of an hour. Do your damnedest to the chicken, young man. Come, Diana."

And breathing hard he pushed himself and his daughter out of the room, gently closing the door.

"Decent old buffer!" thought Rogers, and fell to with famished energy upon the food before him.

Fifteen minutes later the old man and his daughter were back again. A box of cigarettes was pushed over to Rogers. He helped himself and breathed the smoke greedily. Through the haze in which he enveloped himself he idly studied those two Good Samaritans of Mayfair.

The old man, with his drooping white moustaches and his carefully brushed evening dress, seemed pathetically lonely in a masculine sense. His daughter, Diana, tall and straight with dark hair streaming back, had all the alert eagerness of that winged Victory of Samothrace at which Rogers had once glanced in an idle half hour in the Louvre.

They in turn were regarding a young man of thirty-two or three, whose shabby tweed coat was buttoned tightly to hide the missing waistcoat. A pair of dirty, flannel trousers and cracked shoes completed the nondescript garb.

But the fellow himself kept his shoulders well back, noted the old man approvingly. And although the fair hair needed cutting and the little moustache was rather ragged there was a disciplined alertness about him.

"Hard hit, hey?" asked the old man sympathetically.

Rogers nodded.

"But I'm only one of dozens," he explained with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Been out of a job long?" continued the old man, lighting a cigarette in turn.

"Out of a regular job for six months," was the reply.

"It's a shame," burst in the girl. "And everyone keeps saying that business is improving."

"So it is," said the man with a flash of his cynical eyes. "But there's rather a slump in my trade."

"What is your trade?" asked the old man.

"Killing," was the disconcerting reply. "I'm a soldier. Or rather I was. Axed from the Indian Army two years ago. Lost my gratuity in a dud speculation. I'm only a misfit in London."

"Was it in the Indian Army that you found time to read a forgotten poet like Ernest Dawson?" growled the old man.

Rogers smiled.

"I spent six months in a fort on the frontier, near Waziristan. The only book I could find to read was a volume of poems by Ernest Dawson. I read him backwards and sideways."

The old man took a silk handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose violently. The girl was about to say something, but her father waved his hand in a command for silence. The old man dabbed his port-shot eyes, stroked his drooping moustaches and replaced his handkerchief.

"There are worse poets," he said gruffly. He placed his hands on his knees, shoved his grey head forward, and challenged the fellow before him.

"Would you like a job, young man?"

"I'd give my soul for one."

The old man nodded and breathed hard.

"I've a small country estate in Norfolk. Going to the devil for want of a decent estate agent. It's worth a country cottage and three hundred a year. Now if you could stick that life, away from the pavements of Piccadilly, well..."

"Daddy!"

The girl interposed with a warning exclamation. Roger's caught the despairing flash in her dark eyes. He understood.

"It's awfully decent of you. sir," he said, rising from his chair. "But, after all, you know nothing about me."

The old man snorted.

"Never made a mistake with a man or a horse in my life," he grunted. "The only things I can't judge are these damned motor cars. They're all alike to me." He turned to his daughter. "Don't interfere, my gal. I know what I'm doing. Here is an estate agent dropped down from— er— heaven, hey?"

"The gutter, sir," warned Rogers.

"Rot!" The old man rose. "I'll go upstairs and look for the file of my estate papers. You'd better see what you're taking on. Mister... er...?"

"Rogers, sir. Captain Leonard Rogers of the Gurkhas."

The old man nodded.

"A good regiment. Used to be in the Indian Army myself. Punjabis, though. Colonel John Masters. Expect they'll have forgotten me in the clubs, now. But they won't have forgotten my son. Lieutenant David Masters. Killed in Waziristan. the young devil. His photo is behind you. Entertain Captain Rogers, my dear, while I dig out those damned papers."

And with a final blow into the silk handkerchief to hide his emotion, the old Colonel shuffled out of the room.

Slowly, Rogers turned in his chair to gaze at the photograph. The face he dreaded stared back at him. Dark, emotional eyes like those of a girl, a weak recklessness about the mouth.

THE LAST TIME he had seen that face it was stamped with terror as the khaki-clad figure bolted towards him in headlong flight from the swarming  Mahsuds on the Frontier. No, they had not forgotten  Lieutenant Masters in the clubs. And Rogers himself, Captain Rogers of the Gurkhas, who was bringing  up the second line of attack against the Mahsuds, would never forget that youth fleeing in terror.

Crouched behind boulders, Rogers had heard the hiss of surprise that snaked through his line of stocky hillmen as they saw the young sahib, followed by his men, pounding in terror towards him. A moment later, and they were on the verge of breaking, also.

It was then that Captain Rogers leaped to his feet, Webley pistol in hand, and yelled to his subaltern,

"Stop! Get back, damn you."

But Masters was beyond such commands. During that day he had seen the tortured remains of a sepoy, all that barbarism had left of a soldier captured by the Mahsuds. Not a pretty sight. The scene had remained, maggot-like, in his brain, and, at the first fierce onslaught by the Mahsuds upon his platoon, had destroyed his nerve. He bolted and was hurling himself pell-mell towards Captain Rogers and the supports.

"For the last time, Masters, get back!" yelled

Rogers, and instinctively levelled the Webley pistol at the fleeing man.

But the voice was unheard by the terrified man. He pounded nearer. In that hot moment the finger of Rogers curved round on the trigger. The pistol barked. There was a sob from the youth, an expression of pained surprise in those dark eyes, and he tripped to the ground at the feet of his superior officer. With horror in his heart, Rogers knelt down and rolled him over. A trickle of blood came from the loose mouth. Masters opened his eyes, smiled sadly for a moment, and croaked out:

"Thank you, Rogers."

Then the eyes closed in death.

Five seconds later the two machine guns of the Gurkhas were swathing the Mahsuds with deadly effect. The wild tribesmen tumbled over their ancient Lee Enfields. And the guttural cheer that went through the ranks of the little squat men launched them into attack.

Ten minutes later it was over. The frontier sortie had been won. They buried Lieutenant Masters where he had fallen. With a cold horror in his heart Rogers had reported his subaltern "killed in action while bravely leading his men."

"Yes, you have every reason to remember him, Captain Leonard Rogers." said a voice bitterly in his ears.

He looked up. It was the girl. The same dark, emotional eyes.

"So you know?" he asked.

She nodded.

"I met the native officer, the subadhar, who was in London for a few weeks. He told me what had really happened in the hills that day."

Rogers drew his breath. In her scorn, as she stood there, she was very beautiful.

"And his father?"

He indicated the door through which the old man had plodded a few minutes ago.

She shook her head slowly.

"He does not know. I kept the news from him. He believes that David died like a hero. It would break his heart if he found out. I hid the truth in my heart."

And her eyes dimmed with tears. Rogers sighed.

"But it isn't the truth," he said quietly.

"Do you deny that you killed David?" she flashed at him.

"No," he said monotonously. "I killed him. But he wasn't running away."

"Not running away!"

There was an hysterical sob in her voice.

"No." went on Rogers, "I only discovered too late that Lieutenant Masters was deliberately retreating in order to draw the Mahsuds into the machine-gun trap that we had prepared. He pretended to run away, and the exultant tribesmen chased him only to be met by our guns. Clever tactics. But Masters paid for it by his death. I was the fool. I was the coward."

He stretched out his hand for his hat. With the tired expression of the eternally damned he shuffled towards the door. He had lied. But he lied because he was half in love with the girl already.

Stricken like the marble statue of Samothrace, she stood and watched him. A light dawning in her eyes, the beginning of real love in a woman.

"It was David's book of poems by Ernest Dawson that you read in those lonely hours," she murmured.

"Yes," he nodded. "I read it after his death. I came to understand him better after that...." He twisted the knob of the door. "Give my respects to your father, Colonel Masters, and say I'm sorry I can't accept the job. Say I was a waster that bolted at the first talk of work. Say, oh, say anything. And thank you for the supper."

He opened the door. Framed in the doorway was the Colonel, a sheaf of papers in his hand.

"Hullo!" he said in a surprised tone. Rogers was about to slip past him. But he halted. The girl's voice was speaking.

"Captain Rogers is going to accept the job, daddy. I've been talking to him. I think he's the very man for you."

The old man chuckled and wiped his drooping moustache.

"Never made a mistake in my life about men."

_____________________

9: The Silent Witness

Cosmo Hamilton

1870-1942

Australian Women's Weekly 10 June 1933

AMONG the many cautions of the old wise men of China there is this: "When a woman discovers that the man she is going to marry possesses the secret of her past she must smile and keep the terror from her eyes. Having for the moment thus disarmed suspicion let her creep forth when the moon is hid and steal it from its place. There are deeds and thoughts in all our lives that should be flung upon the waters of the Swift River that join the Open Sea."

At the moment when George Ringwood picked out an undeveloped roll of film from his brother's goods and chattels which had just arrived and read "Pictures of an angel; Monte Carlo," these words of ancient Chinese philosophy slipped from Ann Riveley's mind so that she left the films in his hand.

"Monte Carlo? The place of my brother's ghastly crash," he said. "There is history in this thing. I have often wondered who the woman was in that bad chapter of his. I'll take it into the village and have it developed at once."

She kept the terror from her eyes in the proper Chinese way, forced a smile and spoke. "I should. Or shall I save you the trouble and take it in myself?" Her heart stopped while she waited for his reply. If, without arousing suspicion, she could so obtain the silent witness to her part in that boy's crash there would be no need to creep forth when the moon was hid and steal it from its place. Its evidence would be destroyed and her complicity wiped out.

"Or perhaps it will be better to give it to him," he said. "He's coming home to-day." He put his arm round the shoulder of the panic-stricken girl. He had pinned his faith upon her bosom like a bunch of violets. "You will help to put my brother on his feet. He will need us both. He loved that woman, you see. If his hand had been steady when he tried to shoot himself—"

Ann shuddered and held her breath. Never could she forget that moment when the rumour had been brought to her of Noel Ringwood's suicide. She had egged him on the night before and laughed at his being broke. She had been making a circus of life among the Gay Young People and had never stopped to think that he had risked his money for her. But off had gone her fool's cap after that frightful shock, and she had left Monte Carlo in a serious frame of mind. Then George, the man who counted, and who immediately won her heart. The discovery of the roll of films and that day's return of Noel threw the shadow of disaster over both their lives.

THEY left that charming cottage in which Noel was to live, and walked through the gardens to George Ringwood's house. She had liked to see the cottage chimneys through the trees. They were a menace now.

They were to separate for an hour or two because George had work to do. Would he remember her offer to take the films to the village or was he determined to give it to Noel? Who could say? She dare not ask for it. She kissed him with fear in her heart. In terror and despair she re-entered the garden of the old house an hour afterwards, heard voices and laughter on the terrace and saw the brothers together, standing arm in arm. A cold douche of cowardice made her want to turn and bolt. But she was seen by George, who called and waved his hand. A sweep of physical weakness held her to her place, but to her intense surprise, Noel held out his hand. He played the part of a stranger, a courteous and interested stranger, predisposed to like her for his brother's sake. She heard almost nothing that was said— introduction congratulations, the usual conventional things. But she did hear, all too clearly, his knife-like cruelty when they were left together by George.

"I would rather see my brother dead than married to you," he said.

"If you've grown out of your idiocy do you suppose that I haven't of mine?"

"You're going to put up a fight?"

"To the last ditch," she said.

"All right. But my immediate job is to rescue my brother from you. Quite simple I find. He has given me the films. I shall develop those snap-shots which show you with me at Monte Carlo, and put them in his hand."

"Are you going to do that merciless thing without giving me a chance? Aren't you going to discover what love has done for me?"

"Love doesn't alter nature, and yours is callous and selfish, as I know so well."

"Give me to-day and to-morrow. Be as fair as you would be to a man. I'll show you that love has changed me— or you can ruin my life."

Once he had loved this girl! "I'll be fair," he said.

Fear and cowardice left her. "I trust in my own soul," she told herself, quoting Browning's lines, "that can perceive the outward and the inward, Nature's good and God's."

Extraordinary hours followed.

They were happy ones to George. The two people who meant most to him were together under his roof. Wearing the mask of friendship, his brother and the woman he loved carried on their fight. Every one of her words and gestures Noel watched. He was sizing her up with deep anxiety so that he might save his brother from falling into a pit. But he could see this girl only as the young and thoughtless creature who had made a fool of him.

Then came Sunday night, and his announcement of a climax which threw her into despair. "Your butler, " he said to his brother, takes photographs, I hear. I'm going to borrow his dark room and develop my tell-tale films."

"A good idea," said George.

Ann sprang to her feet, excused herself, and followed Noel out. "Is there no way by which I can stop you from doing this thing?"

"No." He had never seen her look so lovely as she did.

"There is nothing I can say or do to make you hold your hand?"

"No."

"You're convinced after all these hours that I am unworthy to be George's wife?"

"Yes. Behind your outward devotion I can still see the superficial and merciless person who pushed me into disgrace."

She went to the door, stood for a moment and turned. "Will you give me that film in exchange for my suicide?"

"Are you prepared to do that?"

"Yes. Here. To-night."

"You're far too fond of yourself."

"I swear it before God."

"What would be the use?"

HER voice broke, and there was a tremble on her lip. "It would save George from a disillusion that would be worse than death to me, and prove to you that I've grown out of selfishness under his love." She held out her hand for the film.

But before Noel could answer George appeared at the door.

"Say nothing," said Noel under his breath, "and do nothing until you see me again."

She went into the sitting-room where George drew her to his heart. "When you're mine by law and faith as by spirit you are now"—there was emotion in his voice—"you will come to a home made excellent by effort and harmony. At the end of every day we three will say with confidence, 'Pass night, all's well'."

She threw her arms about him. But she was unable to answer because torture gripped her throat.

"That you and Noel are such good friends is a great delight to me." He paid an unconscious tribute to the self-restraint which those two had succeeded in maintaining during all those tragic hours. What was to be the end?

The talk remained one-sided. All Ann could do was to cling to the man who loved her and whom she loved and wait for the sword to fall. The old clock marked off the brief moments of her reprieve.

AND then Noel came back. With a quick look at his brother and the girl he had tried to win, he went to the fireplace and stood with his back to it.

"Well, now we shall know," said George.

Ann hung upon Noel's words.

"As a matter of fact, we shan't. I was hopeless with a camera in those Monte Carlo days. Not a shot comes out."

"What? There's nothing of that woman?"

"Nothing at all," he said.

George went over to the window. A new moon lay on its back. "Well, let her float on the waters of the Swift River to the Open Sea," he said.

Noel threw the unbroken roll of film into the hottest part of the fire, and bowed with admiration to the girl who had proved her courage and love.

____________________

10: No Leopards in Surbiton

F A M Webster

1886-1949

Australian Women's Weekly 6 July 1935

"THERE are two things I dislike in this district," remarked John Gough, as he sipped his sundowner on the veranda of his homestead. "One is this leopard, which has so far accounted for two native women, three  dogs, and three goats."

"And the other?" asked Susie, his wife.

John shot her a swift glance.

"The other," he said slowly, "is Frank Newton."

"Why?" There was a hint of defiance in Susie's voice. "He's our nearest neighbour."

"You know what the other farmers think about him. They regard him as a shady customer. He's got an unenviable reputation with women, too, and his treatment of natives is not what one would desire in a white man. Besides, he's not all white."

"I don't see that you can talk," retorted Susie. "I've not forgiven you yet for flogging M'nyogi."

"Forgiven!" echoed John. "The fellow used an abominable word to you, knowing that in your ignorance of Swahili you wouldn't understand it. Fortunately you didn't, but I did, and since I allow no man, black or white, to speak to you like that, he was very properly punished for it."

"Very brutally, you mean."

"My dear Susie," John said patiently, "do remember that Kenya is not Surbiton. There is a different set of values out here, to which you must accustom yourself. Frank Newton might be acceptable at home, for he could hide his worst side under a cloak of respectability. Out here he cannot, for a man's life is an open book to his neighbours. I speak from experience, for I've been out here ten years, and you only a bare four months. I know it takes getting used to, but—"

"Here is Mr. Newton," interrupted Susie, as a tall figure rode round the corner of the bungalow.

John Gough rose and went to the top of the veranda steps.

"Good evening," cried Newton. "Good evening, Mrs. Gough."

"Evening," replied John shortly.

Some imp of mischief prompted Susie to defy her husband's wishes.

"Perhaps Mr Newton will stop to dinner," she suggested with a smile.

"Mr. Newton will not stop to dinner," John stated with finality.

Newton's olive face darkened and his eyes flashed angrily. John stood motionless at the top of the steps. With a final furious look Newton wrenched his horse's head round and cantered away.

"John!" cried Susie, her face scarlet, "how dare you speak like that when I had invited him."

"After what I had said, you should not have asked him and, anyway, he had to be warned off."

"You've not got the manners of a bear," his wife cried and, gathering up her needlework, she went into the house.

"Not the manners of Surbiton, perhaps," murmured John with a wry smile.

Dinner that night was a sombre affair. Susie replied to John's conversation in monosyllables, but the way in which she thanked the offending M'nyogi every time he handed her a dish made John seethe with anger.

"Look here. Susie," he said when they were alone, "this silly game has got to stop. That's not the way to treat your house-boy, and you know it. We're two white people in a savage country. We must pull together, and the first principle of life out here is that, right or wrong, the white man must always maintain the prestige of his race."

"Two blacks don't make a white," retorted Susie coldly.

"No, but twenty blacks can play merry hell with two whites if the two whites don't pull together!"

"YOU were very rude to Frank Newton," said Susie, changing her ground with feminine swiftness.

"He's not the sort of man I want my wife to know. You'll pardon me, but—"

"I know," broke In Susie with exaggerated weariness, "you've been out here ten years."

"Exactly," said John unmoved.

"I think you are behaving abominably!" Susie flashed. "You're jealous of Mr. Newton!"

The idea was so fantastical that John laughed aloud.

Susie rose, her eyes blazing. Ridicule, on top of what she considered her humiliation before Newton, was more than she could stand. She ran into the bedroom and slammed the door.

John sighed, and lit a pipe. It was their second quarrel in the five months they had been married. The first had been over the flogging of M'nyogi, which Susie, unused to rough justice, had affirmed was unnecessary brutality.

"Perhaps I'm not making sufficient allowance for the strangeness of life out here," he murmured. "After all, it's pretty raw sometimes."

He recollected how pretty Susie had looked with her fair hair, heightened colour, and flashing blue eyes.

"I suppose I'd better go and eat humble-pie." he added.

But when he tried the bedroom door it was locked.

He frowned and went away. Two hours later, when it was time to turn in, it was still locked. He hesitated whether he should call out, decided not to, and returned to the veranda, where he climbed into a hammock. With no mosquito net he anticipated a poor night, but he hoped that his swollen face might arouse sympathy in Susie's breast the following morning.

But he did not see Susie again for over four and twenty hours. Like many men who spend their lives in the wilds he was a light sleeper, and towards dawn a sound like a saw being driven through wet wood brought him quickly from his hammock. Grasping his rifle, he peered into the grey light just in time to see a lithe, silent-footed animal vanish from sight. This, he felt certain, was the leopard which had been terrorising the district. The opportunity was too good to miss. Pausing only to pull on mosquito boots and grab a handful of cartridges, he set off in pursuit.

He followed the leopard's spoor for two miles, until a cliff face rose before him and for thirty yards in front of it the tick-grass waved eight feet high. John halted. It was a dangerous place to follow big game, but before he could decide whether to take the risk or not, a slight sound made him spin round.

"I didn't know John Gough was so nervous," sneered Frank Newton.

"I've got a leopard in that grass," replied John, ignoring the sneer. "I'm just going to fetch my boys to burn it out."

"You will neither hunt game nor burn grass on my land," Newton retorted.

"Don't be a fool! The brute's already killed two natives! You're not proposing to keep it as a pet, are you?"

"You're very impertinent," commented Newton. "I wonder that charming wife of yours doesn't teach you better manners."

John remembered the quarrel with Susie over Newton, and his anger surged up afresh. He had never liked this shifty half-caste.

"You damned dago!" he cried furiously. "Any more back chat and I'll stop your jaw for you!"

Newton flushed darkly at the insult and bared his white teeth angrily. The next instant he whipped out a knife. Anticipating the thrust, John leapt backwards, only to feel the ground give way beneath him. He felt himself falling for a second or two. Then he came abruptly to a stop. Looking round, he saw he was in a deep pit, with sheer sides. Above him was the roof of branches, the blue sky showing in the gap through which he had fallen.

"Get me a rope, Newton!" John called, but there was no answer.

Presently the gap in the roof was covered over with leaves and branches, and, although John shouted, Newton did not answer. John had been in many tight corners, but none quite so bad as this one. Shut in below ground level he had no means of communicating with anyone outside, for he had lost his rifle in the fall. Natives seldom passed that way and, with the leopard hiding in the thick grass, there was a chance that it, too, might join him in the trap. A light perspiration broke out on John's brow. Newton had left him to die of thirst.

SUSIE AWOKE prepared to forgive her husband now that he had had his lesson, and she was surprised to find him absent. M'nyogi, however, explained that his master was probably hunting as his rifle was missing. All through the long, burning day Susie waited, fearful that some harm had befallen John, yet so inexperienced that she had no idea what to do. People do not go leopard-hunting in Surbiton and fail to return.

When night fell she could stand the loneliness of the farm no longer. Moreover, something serious must have happened to John. Accompanied by two boys with torches, she set out for Newton's bungalow. He welcomed her gladly; almost it seemed as if he expected her. There was something about his neat attire and soft, gentle ways that reminded her of the young men at home. John seemed rough and uncouth in comparison.

Newton pooh-poohed the idea that anything serious had happened to him.

"Probably his hunting has taken him farther than he expected," he suggested. "He's an old hand: no harm will come to him."

Newton attended assiduously to her wants during dinner and was politeness itself. It was not until afterwards, when the house-boy had cleared away the things, that Susie grew nervous. He began to make love to her, and in spite of her protests he grew more and more passionate.

"My beloved," he whispered fiercely, "you have come to me out of the night. You are mine!"

He attempted to embrace her but Susie, who had dealt with amorous youths in Surbiton, slipped away from him.

"I came to you for help and this is how you treat me." she cried. "Call my boys and I will go home. Please behave like a gentleman."

The appeal to their gentlemanly instincts had always quelled the amorous youths at home. But Kenya is not Surbiton, and the youths of Surbiton are not half-castes. Newton sprang in front of the door, and when her eyes roved wildly round the room, seeking a way of escape, he leapt forward and swung her into his arms. Bearing his struggling burden across the room, he kicked open the bedroom door. A low growl sounded and two green eyes blazed out of the darkness.

With a last convulsive effort that upset them both Susie freed herself, but the door slammed shut in the darkness. Subconsciously she remembered certain words John had once spoken.

"When you're up against a lion or leopard, sham dead."

Soft feet padded across the room, and a second later she felt the beast's fetid breath against her cheek. By a great effort of will she stopped the scream that rose to her lips, and lay rigid, her eyes fast shut. The leopard half rolled her over with a paw and then passed on to Newton.

Leisurely it began to lick his cheek. Its rough tongue tearing the skin from his face. At that the man's nerve broke and he screamed like a woman. Immediately the beast sank its teeth into his shoulder and dragged him, screaming and struggling, across the room to the bed, where lay the remains of the dog upon which it had been feeding when Newton had entered.

Until dawn came the leopard crouched over the grisly thing that had been Frank Newton. The floor about the bed was slippery with blood and in a corner lay Susie, whose brain had passed beyond consciousness of fear. With the rising sun the leopard went as it had come, through the window.

Thus, John, who had dug himself out of the trap with his hands and his hunting-knife, discovered Susie an hour later. He had come straight to Newton's farm when he had found her missing from her own home.

As he picked her up, she opened her eyes. At first fear was in them, but when they rested on John's face, she smiled.

"You were right, John," she whispered. "There is a different set of values out here."

John bent and kissed her.

"I know," he said. "There are no leopards to protect you in Surbiton. I don't think," he added, "I want to shoot that beast now."

________________

11: Four Friends and Death

C. St. John Sprigg  aka "Christopher Caudwell"

1907―1937

Australian Women's Weekly 20 April 1935

THE SMALL YACHT floated motionless, mirrored in the calm waters of Vigo Harbor. Her split headsail, tattered pennant, and stove-in dinghy were mute evidence of the storms that had battered the ketch in the Bay of Biscay, three days out from Falmouth.

In the saloon the four amateur yachtsmen were celebrating their successful completion of the trip by a glass each of excellent cognac, which washed down a meal of tinned salmon, tinned peaches, and coffee extract prepared by Dr. Garrett, a well-meaning but indifferent cook.

"Cheerio!" said Dr. Garrett, lifting his glass. "Cheerio!" answered Hopkins, Leathart and Pickering.

Pickering's greeting seemed particularly hearty, yet immediately after drinking the brandy he gave a moan, flung out his arms, and fell prone.

There was a sudden silence in the cabin. Leathart's rubicund face turned pale; he touched Pickering's livid features with a trembling hand, then helplessly loosened his collar.

Hopkins' eyes gleamed behind their pebble glasses, but he made no move. Garrett, with the expert indifference of the medical man, stepped forward, grasped the fallen man's wrist a moment, and then rolled back his eyelid.

"Dead," he pronounced solemnly, straightening himself.

"Good heavens!" stammered Leathart incredulously. "What, why— Has he had a heart attack? Pickering dead! I can't somehow—"

His voice trailed off into silence as he stared at the limp form of that prosperous banker, their host; a moment ago apparently in the prime of life and now stricken down as if by a physical blow.

Leathart was going to say, "I can't somehow cotton on to it..." but there was no evading the ghastly reality, the deadness of that inert mass, which had a moment before been living flesh, joking and laughing.

Hopkins still said nothing. His eyes moved from Leathart to Dr. Garrett who was busy about the body. Now he was prising open the mouth....

Even at a death, Leathart couldn't help thinking, Hopkins is the same Hopkins; the famous novelist, the remorseless psychological observer, noting, watching, and never showing his hand.

His personality had grated a little on Leathart when they had first met; it was alien to the breezy openness of the Yorkshire Turf commission agent; but they had been brought together by a common love of the sea, and in the ten years that followed Leathart had grown to respect Hopkins' qualities. A good man in an emergency!

Dr. Garrett now stood up, and covered the face of the dead man with his handkerchief. He wiped his hands slowly on a table napkin, gazing into space, his saturnine face expressionless, and said:

"No, it's not a heart attack. He's been poisoned."

"Poisoned, Garrett?" exclaimed Leathart. "Oh, come! It's impossible!"

"Poisoned!" repeated Hopkins; saying it slowly; almost as if (Leathart thought) he was savouring the phrase on his tongue. But that must be imagination. Just Hopkins' manner. For Pickering had been his friend....

"Hydrocyanic acid," said Garrett, still gazing away from them. "Prussic acid, as the layman calls it. No post-mortem is necessary; it's the most easily detected of poisons.

"I can smell it on his lips and see its traces on his face." He lifted up the glass of brandy. "And here is the way it was given him."

The full horror of this now struck Leathart. He found himself unable to do more than bleat a few inarticulate sounds.

"Well," said Dr. Garrett, with a trace of impatience, "what are we going to do about it?"

"Yes, what are we going to do about it?" repeated Hopkins, looking at Leathart queerly, almost as if he were amused by this appalling tragedy. But this again could only be Leathart's imagination.

Another long silence followed. The wind had risen and a gentle breeze lapped the ripples softly against the hull; somewhere abeam a siren hooted, as a ship manoeuvred in mid-harbor.

After the buffeting of the Bay, the tension of the incessant pitching and rolling and rattle of the rigging, the scene was a peaceful one ; and the faces of the three living men in the cabin might have been those of men calmly resting after a strenuous voyage.

But actually, behind each expressionless face, the thoughts were racing; and it was perhaps natural that Hopkins' mind, used to reflection on complex trains of events, should come to a decision first.

"It would be foolish," he said quietly, peering for a moment at the dead form, then, his eyes flickering away, at Leathart, "it would be foolish to deny the obvious implications of this distressing event.

"Poor Pickering has either killed himself or been poisoned. I think we must all agree that it is highly unlikely that he killed himself. No one could be more cheery than Pickering has been during the last two or three days.

"In any event it is inconceivable that a man, however depressed, would kill himself, without a word, in the presence of three guests. Therefore he has been poisoned.

"Poisoned," repeated Hopkins, his gaze moving to Garrett, "by one of us."

Leathart gave a gasp, or it may have been a sigh; but said nothing. Garrett nodded gravely

"I am afraid you're right, Hopkins. So here we are, moored in the middle of Vigo Harbor, and one of us a murderer."

His lean, delicate fingers played thoughtfully with an extinguished cigar stub in front of him. "It's not as if we were three casual acquaintances. We've known each other now for ten years, and we've been shipmates together twenty or thirty times.

"We all know what that means: it means we know each other's characters as intimately as it is possible for men to know them. The best and the worst of them."

"By God, you're right!" exclaimed Leathart gruffly. "And, say what you like, I simply can't believe one of us poisoned Pickering!" In spite of himself, his eyes rested again on the dead man with horror.

"None the less," Hopkins reminded him coldly, "one of us did."

"Yes, one of us did," went on Garrett. "We don't know why. Now Pickering was also a friend. We haven't known him as we've known each other, but we've run into him off and on.

"We've chartered his yacht once or twice; and, now, here we are on it; and he's dead, murdered by one of us.

"Sooner or later we've got to turn the thing over to the police. I don't know anything about Spanish police procedure, but even if it's as fair as the English— which I doubt— there's the language, which we don't know; that alone will make things infernally unpleasant.

"We three have pulled through plenty of emergencies alone, and it seems to me that we ought to see if we can't get on top of this one."

"What exactly are you suggesting?" said Hopkins with a trace of irritation.

"I'm suggesting that we hold a little court of inquiry of our own before we turn the matter over to the police."

"And give sentence?" asked the novelist sardonically.

"We may or may not do that," answered Garrett slowly. "Before we decide we must hear what the law calls the mitigating circumstances. After all, we're friends..."

"I see. In other words, let the murderer spill the beans, and if he's got a good excuse we might help him to escape?"

"And why not?" asked Garrett defensively. "I may be wrong, but it does seem to me that there are circumstances in which murder might be excusable."

"You're right," boomed Leathart, so unexpectedly that the others jumped. "Blackmail, for instance!"

"Blackmail, Leathart?" queried Hopkins, a surprised note in his voice. "And what," he went on suavely, "makes you think our dear friend Pickering was a blackmailer?"

There was no answer.

"Supposing that after due consideration this court does not find the circumstances justify a recommendation to mercy?"

"Then," said Garrett soberly, "I should like to offer to any friend of mine, however guilty, the decent way out."

"I see. Leave him alone with a revolver, eh?"

"Well, have you any suggestion to make?" countered Garrett. The tension of the atmosphere had frayed his temper a little.

"I have none. I thoroughly agree with you."

"Yes, and I, too," said Leathart.

"Carried, then!" exclaimed Hopkins. "It seems to me that our brains will work a little more clearly without the fourth member of the party."

Leathart shuddered, and it was Hopkins and Garrett between them who carried the limp form into the fore cabin and laid it on one of the bunks.

"The police will complain of our moving the body," Hopkins reminded his assistant.

"They will have worse than this to complain of before the day's over," replied Garrett grimly.

Silence fell again. Silence utter and unbroken. Each man was weighing the others up to assess which was the more likely murderer.

Or, rather, two of the three were. The murderer could have no doubt, no scruple, no care but the nerve-stretched eagerness to obliterate all traces of guilt from his face.

The most impartial observer might have hesitated long before he could suggest, from a mere scrutiny or even a deep knowledge of their characters, which man was the most likely.

Could one suspect Leathart, for instance— that genial, kindly Yorkshireman, an impulsive forty-year-old child? Here, one would have said, was a transparent nature. All his failings were on the surface. His easily roused temper so soon over. His schoolboyish greed, which had earned the nickname of the Glutton— greed only in matters of food and drink; in money none was more generous. How could such a man poison, out of long premeditation, in cold blood?

And yet... One didn't succeed in the world of racing without a fund of native shrewdness. Even the geniality might be all façade. Leathart was, after all, a man of strong emotions. His entanglements with women were notorious. Perhaps...

BUT then there was Hopkins, with his slow saurian gaze, his complete lack of sentimentality. Wouldn't such a man poison efficiently and ruthlessly?

And yet... Hopkins, by temperament and trade, was a watcher, not a doer. It contented him to stand outside life, peering and prying, and never so much as wetting the soles of his feet in the mud.

It was hard to imagine such a man indulging in the crudity of murder, harder still because he seemed a man capable perhaps of friendship— a thin, attenuated affection— but of nothing so robust as either love or hatred.

What of Garrett— a man to whom the getting of poisons would be easy― efficient, calm, never losing his head? And yet... a doctor, trained to save life, must have a powerful motive to destroy it. What motive could Garrett, in particular, have— he, a successful specialist and famous for his philanthropic activities?

The silence had endured for several minutes now. Outside in the harbor there was the sudden scream of a speedboat, the wail of its exhaust tearing the silence like a piece of linen.

Leathart jumped. "For God's sake, let's do something!" he cried. "What's the good of sitting here like a lot of waxworks not daring to look each other in the eyes?"

His voice was almost hysterical, and Hopkins' eyebrows rose at the tone. "A sound suggestion," he said. "I propose that first of all we find the poison. It must have been in a tube or phial, or something."

Leathart interrupted him, his voice strained. "Look here, isn't the first question to find out how the poison got into the brandy? The four drinks came from one bottle and we've all had ours without ill effects."

"You are doubtless referring," said Garrett, coldly, "to the unfortunate fact that it was I who poured out the brandy and passed the glasses round."

"I just asked," said Leathart stubbornly, not meeting his eyes, "how the poison got in the brandy."

"And I can answer that," replied Hopkins. Four eyes focused on him instantly. "You will remember that, after the brandy was poured out, but before we had drunk it, a four-masted Finnish barque came past us to starboard, reaching out of the harbor.

"Naturally, being what we are, we all jumped up and glued our noses to the portholes for several minutes till she'd passed. During that time, any one of us could have poisoned any glass."

Hopkins' eyes met Leathart's, and a faint, almost imperceptible sigh escaped from between Garrett's lips.

"Right! That clears that up," said Leathart briskly. "What were you saying when I interrupted you?"

"Merely that the phial must be somewhere in the cabin."

"If I had been murdering anyone," interjected Garrett, "I should chuck the bottle or whatnot overboard."

"You would have been unable to do so without leaving the saloon," Hopkins reminded him, "because the port-holes are still screwed up."

"Well," retorted Garrett, "I think it's a silly idea. If the murderer has any cunning he'd plant the phial on an innocent party. So, if we do find it, it will only be misleading. I vote we get on to something more tangible."

"I think you are wrong to be so emphatic," commented Hopkins with the utmost gentleness. His pebble glasses were fixed on the doctor's face, and there was a difficult pause.

"Are you suggesting I'm the murderer, then?" shouted Garrett, suddenly flushing and half-rising from his seat.

"Come, come!" said Hopkins, his lips twitching. "Let us remember we are friends and keep our tempers. What's a murder between friends?"

"Come to that," answered Garrett more calmly, sinking down into his chair again, "you seem to be taking it remarkably calmly!"

"I am. To be perfectly frank, I was not at all fond of Pickering. You knew him as a rich and respectable banker. I— with my usual flair for finding out the worst sides of people― happen to know that his bank is a very shady affair, and his past career shadier still. Mr. Pickering has put over some pretty raw deals in his time on friends of mine."

"In that case, why accept his hospitality?"

"Firstly, because I like this yacht― one of the finest hulls that ever came off Champney's drawing-board. And secondly—"

"Secondly?"

"I find Pickering a most interesting character study... Any more questions? No? Then I suggest the court votes on my proposal. That we now search this cabin to find one missing poison phial, tube, or container."

"Waste of time," grunted Garrett.

"I think we should do it, old chap," said Leathart.

Hopkins got up. "Carried!"

The saloon had many cupboards and lockers, as all well-designed cabins have. Certain of them were for articles used in common— crockery, glasses, cards, books, and so forth.

But at the beginning of the trip two lockers had been offered to each man (and the keys given to him), to stow such private articles as he had— a practice which may sound unfriendly to the uninitiated, but which is carried out by all discreet yachtsmen, for it saves a great deal of argument.

When each man had given up his keys, and the lockers had been searched, an empty phial, smelling strongly of hydrocyanic acid, was found in Dr. Garrett's drawer.

More damning still, they found a receipt from a chemist, screwed up in the sheet of brown paper in which the phial had evidently been wrapped: "½oz. hydrocyanic acid."

"Good heavens! You, Garrett!" exclaimed Leathart, with surprising scorn. "No wonder you were so much against the search!"

Garrett had turned pale. "This is absurd!" he exclaimed. "I know nothing about this!"

Leathart laughed scornfully. "Oh, come, I say! Know nothing about it? In your locked drawer? It's as plain as the nose on my face.

"You doped the glass before we sat down to dinner, put away the phial and locked the drawer, and then poured the brandy into glasses one of which was already charged with poison!"

"It's a lie!" said Garrett furiously.

"Perhaps the Spanish police may have different views!"

"Now, now, Leathart," said Hopkins, reprovingly. "Don't start talking about the Spanish police. Let's hear the mitigating circumstances. If there are any."

"Rot!" said Leathart, angrily. "There's nothing here but a cold-blooded premeditated murder."

Hopkins peered shrewdly at the flushed face of the Yorkshireman. "You seem very indignant about it, Leathart! Amazing display of indignation! After all, we don't know yet (a) if Garrett really did poison Pickering, or (b) if he did, why? He may have had some perfectly good reason— eh, Garrett?"

Garrett glared at him furiously. "All I know is that one of you two is the dirtiest skunk unhanged."

"I feared," said Hopkins, with a sigh, "that we should never be able to discuss this murder without animosity creeping in. However, let us see where we are.

"The poison has been discovered in Garrett's locked drawer. A bad mark against him.

"In defence I should be inclined to urge that no murderer would stow the bottle in his own locker; surely he'd prefer to throw it down anywhere rather than there— particularly as suspicion would be bound to fall on Garrett first through having poured out the brandy."

"That's all very well for a clever devil like yourself, Hopkins," broke in Leathart; "but I'm a plain man, and that argument seems just silly. At that rate the more evidence you discover against him, the less guilty he is."

"Well, I won't insist on the point. I prefer to leave that kind of argument to my learned and subtle confreres, the writers of detective novels. We will just keep it at the back of our minds. Now, Garrett, have you any contribution to make?"

Garrett stared at them both defiantly.

"No. I prefer to watch you. Being innocent, you see, I happen to know one of you is the murderer, and sooner or later he'll give himself away."

"A very proper sentiment," murmured Hopkins. "Our next task, therefore, is to find some motive. Blackmail has been suggested by Leathart—"

"I didn't actually suggest it," interrupted Leathart, uneasily.

"I apologise. You are right; you did not suggest it in this case. You merely mentioned it as a justifiable motive for a murder."

Leathart wriggled, but said nothing.

After a keen look at him, Hopkins continued: "The murdered man (whom, by the way, I consider perfectly capable of blackmail, with his bland smile and his mean mind)— the murdered man, as the crime stories always call the violently deceased, probably had some documents with which to blackmail— letters and so forth We had better search his person and his locker."

"Right," said Leathart, jumping up, "I'll look through his clothes."

"One moment," remarked Hopkins, suddenly shooting out a long arm and laying it on Leathart's shoulder. "One moment. We had better go together. And perhaps Garrett had better come too. He might— he just possibly might— try to make a bolt for it."

They returned with a handful of papers and a wallet. Hopkins read through them. Both watched him with fascinated attention. He made a little noise as if of satisfaction, looked up, and said:

"Well, Leathart, what would you say to this? A letter written to Pickering, in Garrett's own handwriting. And marked 'Confidential.' "

Garrett started as his eyes fell on the document, and he swore. Without looking up, Hopkins read the letter out:

My dear Pickering,—I should be infernally grateful if you could give me another thirty days' grace on that promissory note. I've just had a reminder from Leathart about the heavy bill I ran up with him on last month's racing, and I hardly know where to turn for ready cash. I'm safe enough— you know that half a dozen operations will cover the amount— but I happen to be in a temporary corner.

Yours ever, J. GARRETT.

Leathart gave a slow murmur of astonishment. "So that was it! But why, Garrett, why Man alive, my reminder to you was a joke! If I'd known you were in any real difficulty, so far from running up any bill I'd have lent you all you wanted!"

Hopkins was watching Leathart's face with an unblinking stare. "But Garrett didn't know that, eh? And so, when Pickering refused to renew the note, Garrett killed him to gain time."

Garrett jumped to his feet. Every vestige of self-control had left him. Shaking with anger, he leaned towards Hopkins, his face a few inches from the other man's, and almost spat into his face.

"You rat! You Judas! So this is the little plot you've prepared, sitting there like a spider! God, what a fool I was ever to trust you, you heartless, soulless, gutless devil!

"You killed Pickering. You knew he had that letter on him; he showed it to you, I expect! You hid the poison bottle in my drawer!

"Pickering never refused to renew my promissory note. He told me before we started on this trip not to worry about the note. We were too good friends for him to do anything to embarrass me, he said.

"You told us yourself you hated him. You poisoned him, and wove your slimy little plot, like one of your slimy little stories!"

Hopkins gazed quietly back into the convulsed features of his friend. He seemed to note every line of fury as if he were examining an interesting old picture.

"I understand your fury, Garrett," he said. "I was afraid that once we started murdering each other our happy, our almost ideal friendship would be broken up.

"Believe me, however, I bear you no ill-will." He turned. "Well, Leathart, what do you say?"

"Guilty as blazes!"

"And do you think the circumstances mitigating? Money affairs are very worrying, you know! Almost the most worrying in the world."

"Look out!" shouted Leathart; and Hopkins leaped sideways. Wild with fury, Garrett had sprung at him.

Leathart seized Garrett by the elbows. In the huge Yorkshireman's hands he was like a child, and he was flung sullenly back in his chair.

"Very crude!" remarked Hopkins.

"So, Leathart, you consider there are no mitigating circumstances?"

"None!"

"What shall we do, then?"

"Hand him over to the Spanish police."

Hopkins' eyebrows rose. "Come, come. An old shipmate of ours! Surely we'll offer him a gentleman's way out?"

"No," rumbled Leathart, suddenly. "I wouldn't give him even that, the skunk !"

"I see. Well, well!"

"And what about you, eh, you slimy devil?" said Garrett. "What's your opinion? You lead others on, but you take darn good care never to give away anything yourself!"

"My opinion? Ah, yes, my opinion." Hopkins had been smiling, but now the smile vanished; and, behind his thick glasses, he darted at Leathart a glance of piercing malignancy, of utter and biting contempt.

"My opinion, Leathart, is that you're the meanest skunk it has ever been my lot to meet. I thought I was a judge of human character. I turn out to have been a child, a baby.

"You are a murderer, Leathart. Don't look surprised. I repeat, you are a murderer. You murdered Pickering. You had provocation, no doubt. I don't complain of that.

"But not only are you a murderer; you deliberately attempt to fasten on your best friend the guilt of that murder. You had no pity, you pressed for the last ounce of punishment. You won't even permit him to blow his brains out.

"You! Our inoffensive, childish, sporting glutton! Faugh!"

"I kill Pickering?" exclaimed Leathart at last. "You must be crazy! Why should I want to?"

"I have met you once or twice at Pickering's house," said Hopkins slowly. "I'm an observant devil, you know.

"Mrs. Pickering is a very beautiful woman, isn't she? And ill-treated by her husband, eh? And ready to tell anyone so? And her husband's jealous of your heart-to-heart talks with her, lunches in town, and so forth? Isn't that so?"

"You're mad!" said Leathart, emphatically. "It's true that I felt sorry for Mrs. Pickering. If you like, I'm in love with her. I don't mind admitting it.

"But, as for murdering him! Confound it, you can't accuse me of murder just because of an admiration for a man's wife!"

"Oh, no," said Hopkins; "I happen to have more substantial grounds. I knew you had murdered Pickering the moment he fell dead."

Leathart laughed  aloud, scornfully. "Oh, and whence this certainty?"

"Well, when we were watching that barque go by, I happened to see the cabin behind me reflected on the port-hole glass. I told you I was an observant devil, didn't I?

"And I saw you replacing Pickering's glass, with a guilty air, one eye on our backs to make sure we didn't see you. I wondered what the devil you were playing at... Until Pickering fell down dead."

"You swine!" exclaimed Garrett, glaring at Leathart. "You of all people!"

Leathart had flushed; but he seemed strangely unconcerned as he answered, "Yes, I killed Pickering."

"You confess?"

"No. Oh, no! For I am not guilty. I killed Pickering. And yet Garrett is the murderer. And yet Pickering died by accident."

"Is this madness, Garrett?" asked Hopkins. "Or is he putting it on?"

"No, I'm not mad," replied Leathart. "I feel peculiarly sane. I know exactly what happened. I knew from the moment you found that letter in Pickering's pocket.

"Garrett tried to poison me— me, his best friend— because of a paltry gambling debt. Do you wonder I wanted to see him handed over to the police?

"But then Fate, or Chance, stepped in. For, when your backs were turned, I did a childish thing. Garrett had poured out for Pickering a much larger portion of brandy than for me.

"Half in genuine greed— you know my weakness for cognac— and half in joke, I swapped glasses. When we had drunk I was going to tell you all that I'd swiped the best share after all. What a joke! What a devil of a joke!"

"Did you give Pickering a larger portion, Garrett?"

"I did," admitted Garrett. "As host. But we've only Leathart's word that he swapped them."

"No," said Hopkins. "I told you I'm an observant devil... and as we lifted our glasses for the toast, I remember thinking: trust old Leathart to get the fullest glass!"

"You're both lying!" exclaimed Garrett furiously.

"No," answered Leathart, firmly and quietly. "I am not lying."

A shaft of sunlight lit the troubled faces of the three friends.

Or, rather, former friends. For now they were divided by abysses of hatred, crime, and a sudden welling up of unbelievable possibilities from their hidden hearts.

And then suddenly Hopkins burst out laughing. A hard, dry, cold laugh so that at first they thought he had gone mad. Both the listeners felt their flesh creep.

"For God's sake, what is it, Hopkins?" cried Leathart.

"What fools we've been! What utter fools!" And now they saw that he was waving the crumpled chemist's bill. "Look at the date on that! See? July 13!

"All July 13 we three were at Aintree races, 200 miles from this shop. The poor fool! He left this vital clue! Didn't notice it, I expect, when he tore off the brown paper wrapping."

"But what do you mean?"

"Pickering killed himself!" shouted Hopkins joyously. "He was hoist with his own petard, with a vengeance! He tried to poison Leathart out of jealousy, and he had everything prepared to throw the blame on Garrett, so as to cover his tracks. After doping the brandy, he dropped the bottle in the drawer and locked it with a private key— for, as owner, he would have second keys of all lockers. Meanwhile, he had Garrett's letter, which he would produce at the right moment to prove that Garrett owed Leathart money, and so supply a motive.

"He must have been hatching the scheme months before. Perhaps as soon as he got Garrett's letter he saw how it could be used. He must have invited us to go on this trip for that very purpose— you remember we were all a bit surprised by the invitation.

"And he must have been waiting for the first meal that would give him an opportunity for his diabolical scheme; but, thanks to the weather, it wasn't until we beat into Vigo Harbor this afternoon that we sat down together.

"Then he dropped the poison in Leathart's glass; and our dear old Glutton, with his immortal idiocy, swapped the glasses and made the devil drink his own medicine."

Hopkins' words died away. Leathart gave a strangled groan of relief. Then there was silence for a few moments.

When the wake of another passing ship rocked the yacht, when once again the shaft of sunlight came groping in, it lit the contented faces of three friends and glittered on their upraised glasses, toasting a friendship that had struck dirty weather and come near being cast away, but, at the last moment, had managed to claw off the rocks and make harbor.

___________________

12: The Fourth Degree

F Britten Austin

The Strand Magazine Oct 1924

SEBRIGHT of Scotland Yard sat in our office. He had dropped in, as he often did, unofficially, for a friendly yarn.

"Unpleasant business round at the Foreign Office this morning, Q.Q.," he remarked, as he helped himself to one of the excellent cigarettes which the Chief, though a rigid non-smoker himself, kept hospitably for his visitors. "I suppose you've heard?"

Q.Q. raised his eyebrows.

"No," he said. "What's the trouble?"

"Arbuthnot shot himself."

"Arbuthnot! Shot himself?" The Chief's voice was at once startled and incredulous.

"Yep." Sebright nodded casually, and then savoured again the aroma of the cigarette between his fingers. "First-rate brand, these of yours, Quayne. Where do you get 'em?"

Mr. Quayne ignored this cold-bloodedly irrelevant question He leaned forward across his desk, in a curious sudden alertness of expression that in any other man I should have called excitement. But Q.Q. was never excited Merely that ice-cold brain of his, at the appropriate stimulus, could function with lightning rapidity, leap from analysis to synthesis, from clue to hypothesis, from a seeming normality to the perception of a hidden crime with a swift accuracy that left me, despite his painstaking training, always bewildered. In this case, he had some reason for interest beyond the ordinary. Old Mr. Arbuthnot of the Foreign Office had sat in this room only yesterday.

"My dear Sebright," he said, in a tone that made that gentleman look up, "are you quite sure?"

Sebright nodded again, this time more emphatically.

"Sure," he replied, still professionally nonchalant. "Saw him myself."

"I mean— are you sure he shot himself?"

Sebright stared at him.

"No doubt about it. One of his clerks was passing along the corridor— heard a detonation in his room— opened the door and rushed in— and there was Arbuthnot collapsed in his chair at his desk— bullet-wound through the side of his head— his own revolver lying on the floor, just as it had fallen from his hand. The clerk gave the alarm at once, of course. I was sent for— found nothing had been touched— clear case of suicide. The coroner's inquest may throw some light on the motive— no one at the F.O. could suggest any." He gave these details with a curt definiteness, finally disposing of a question that held no further interest for him.

The Chief pondered a moment.

"On which side of the head was the death-wound, Sebright?"

"The right-hand side, of course."

"You're certain of that?"

"Quite. You know his room— when you come in from the corridor, his desk is just to the left of you, and he sits with his back to the door, facing the window. The wound was on the side of the head visible as you come in— I remember seeing it at once, and accidentally kicking with my foot the revolver lying on the floor. It was the normal right-hand side, right enough."

"H'm!" Q.Q. grunted. "But not normal for Arbuthnot. He happened to be left-handed. It didn't occur to you to make inquiries on that point, I suppose?"

"Of course it didn't. People aren't usually left-handed." Sebright stared, startled, at Mr. Quayne as he made the admission. "Why, you are not suggesting —"

"Murder." Q.Q. uttered the word with a grimly succinct finality.

"But why?" Sebright still stared at him out of a sudden chaos of previously settled convictions. "What makes you jump to this conclusion? Who would want to murder poor old Arbuthnot?"

"My dear Sebright,"— Q.Q.'s tight lips twisted in a faint smile,— "only yesterday Arbuthnot sat in that chair. He had come to see me— privately, unofficially— and he was very much troubled. He was convinced that there was a leakage of secret information from his department. Arbuthnot was a queer old fellow, as you know. His one hobby, I believe, was the solution of acrostics and ciphers. He used to read solemnly through the agony-column of the Times every evening, while his wife sat sewing opposite him, and puzzle out the code-messages of all the illicit lovers who communicate through that medium. The evening before he came to me, he had had a shock. One of the messages he decoded conveyed to some one unknown a piece of highly secret information that could only have emanated from his department. The poor old boy was in a terrible state— he did not want to go to his chief with the news until he could at the same time indicate the culprit— he was of course, like most civil servants in a senior position, extremely sensitive to the honour of his department; it was heartbreaking to him to think it should be indiscriminately disgraced. He came to me for advice. He was to have called again today."

"Phew!" exclaimed Sebright, thoroughly perturbed. "This makes everything look different. I wish to heaven he had come to see me about it at once! I hate these stories at second-hand— I'd give a lot to hear him tell me all about it himself!"

Q.Q. smiled quietly, rose from his chair.

"He shall tell you, my dear Sebright. You shall hear, in his own voice, everything he told me— and we'll see what you make of it." He went across to a cabinet on the farther wall, opened a drawer, returned with a long black cylinder. "When a case is brought to me, I not infrequently allow my informant, unknown to himself, to tell it to the dictaphone at the same time. I have found, more than once, a help to elucidation in listening to it repeated, precisely as it was originally told, when I am sitting here undistracted by his personal presence. One can have the vital points reiterated over and over again ad libitum."

He sat down to his comfortably large desk, slipped the cylinder into a concealed slot, pressed a button which uncovered a long aperture in the side of the desk toward the room, pressed another button. There was a faint whir of a mechanism started into activity, and then:

"One of my clerks must somehow have taken an impression of my key—"

It was the voice— almost startlingly recognizable to me as I sat quietly at my own desk at the other side of the room— of Mr. Arbuthnot. It evoked immediately for me the image of that large-built man with a little pointed gray beard who had, only yesterday, sat in the chair where Sebright was now sitting. Sebright jumped, involuntarily.

"My God, Q.Q.," he said, "it's uncanny to hear him like that! Just as if he were still here!"

Q.Q. smiled quietly as he bent down to the cylinder.

"The needle wasn't quite at the commencement, he said. "We'll let him tell his story again from the beginning." He made the necessary adjustment.

It was indeed uncanny— even to me, accustomed to hear such repetitions from the dictaphone (Q.Q. did not use the usual ear-pieces; he had installed a loudspeaker to which he could listen while he paced up and down the room)— to listen to that dead man's twice repeated with lifelike accuracy in that still room. It was a deep, solemn, booming voice, a voice that would have made a bishop of its owner had he been a parson, a voice that came vibrant with natural authority. And that voice told the story all over again, precisely as I had heard it the day before from the man's living presence, just as Q.Q. had summarized it to Sebright. The record concluded on the energetically uttered phrase: "He shall confess, Mr. Quayne— I am determined on it!"

"Well, Sebright," remarked Q.Q., as he stopped the mechanism, "what do you make of it? You have heard Arbuthnot's own voice."

"I don't want to hear it again," said Sebright with a shudder. "Shut the thing off. It gives me the creeps. Remember, I saw that man lying dead this morning."

"Practice that imagination of yours, Sebright," commented the Chief with his grim smile. "It's essential in this detective business.... Well, what are you going to do on this information? Anything?"

Sebright was thoughtful for a moment, evidently reluctant to open up again a matter on which he had publicly pronounced his official dictum.

"Of course," he said, "Arbuthnot might still have committed suicide— in the distress, the sense of disgrace to his department, caused by his discovery."

"Do left-handed men usually shoot themselves on the right-hand side of the head, Sebright?" asked Q.Q. quietly. "I knew Arbuthnot very well indeed. I am prepared to ask that question at the coroner's inquest."

"That means a public scandal, Quayne— a lot of unwelcome limelight on the F.O."

I dislike private scandals even more," said the Chief. "I regarded Arbuthnot as an old personal friend— and his murderer is certainly going to be found. Remand that inquest, Sebright— and if we present the murderer simultaneously with the coroner's verdict, there will be no scandal. There will be only praise for Scotland Yard."

"But how are we going to find him?" challenged Sebright, in exasperation. "There's not the slightest clue. The revolver is admittedly Arbuthnot's own— one he kept in his desk. The clerk who burst into the room immediately after the detonation found no one but the dead man."

"Who was that clerk?"

"Oglethorpe— the next senior to Arbuthnot. He was passing along the corridor— or so he says." Sebright stopped. "Of course, he might have —"

"What?"

Sebright was suddenly illumined with a theory. "Shot Arbuthnot with Arbuthnot's own revolver and dashed out into the corridor. There's no evidence, one way or the other. The corridor was empty. People in the vicinity heard the detonation, but before they could investigate it, Oglethorpe ran into the room where the other clerks were sitting and told his story."

"H'm!" Q.Q. stroked his jutting chin. "I know Oglethorpe.... How many clerks are there in Arbuthnot's personal department?"

"Six— including Oglethorpe."

"Do you happen to know if the other five were in the room when Oglethorpe entered it?"

"No. There were only three— it came out while I was questioning as to who had seen Arbuthnot that morning."

"Who were absent?"

"Johnson— he was away looking for a file in the Registry."

Q.Q. nodded.

"And the other man?"

"D'Arcy Vaughan— the next in seniority to Oglethorpe. He was out at lunch."

"You are sure of that?"

"Quite. He went to lunch at twelve o'clock as usual. The tragedy occurred at ten minutes past. I saw him when he returned— gave him the first news of it.... No, Q.Q.!" Sebright thumped his fist on his knee in emphasis. "If Arbuthnot was murdered— it could only have been done by Oglethorpe!"

"Why?" Q.Q. lifted his gray eyebrows.

"On his own showing, he dashed into that room immediately after the detonation. If the murderer were someone else, he must still have been there! He could not possibly have got away."

"H'm! " Q.Q. grunted. "I know Arbuthnot's room pretty well. I seem to remember that it has a large cupboard where Arbuthnot used to hang his overcoat. Allow yourself to consider another hypothesis. The murderer hearing Oglethorpe come to the door, might have slipped into that cupboard and dodged out again immediately Oglethorpe had gone to give the alarm."

"Might!" echoed Sebright contemptuously. "All sorts of things might happen. I consider possibilities only after I've dealt with certainties. What is certain is that one of Arbuthnot's confidential clerks was passing out information, that Arbuthnot knew of it and was trying to discover the source of leakage,— did discover it, perhaps,— that Oglethorpe had, next to Arbuthnot himself, the easiest access to secret information, that if Arbuthnot was left-handed he did not shoot himself, and that Oglethorpe was admittedly there in the room so soon after the murder that no murderer could have escaped from it— unless it was Oglethorpe himself, with his plausible story of hearing the shot while passing the door and then discovering the suicide." Sebright rose briskly to his feet "I'm going to check up Mr. Oglethorpe a little, Q.Q.," he concluded. "And unless my intuition is much at fault Mr. Oglethorpe is going to sleep in a police-cell tonight

Q.Q. smiled at him.

"That intuition of yours is positively uncanny, Sebright, he said. "You may be quite right, of course. It may just as well be Oglethorpe as another. That it was one of Arbuthnot's own clerks who murdered him, I feel certain.... Do you mind my doing a little investigation of my own? It won't conflict with yours, and I have a personal interest in the matter."

"You can do what you like— so long as you don't scare away the game," replied Sebright magnanimously. He glanced at his watch. "I'm going to get busy— and I'll let you know directly I slip my handcuffs on the man."

Q.Q. smiled again.

"I'll do the same by you, Sebright," he said. "Well, the best of luck to you!"

The moment the door had closed behind Sebright's back, the Chief took up the telephone and asked for a number.

"Hello!... Yes.... Put me through to Mr. Oglethorpe, please.... Is that Mr. Oglethorpe speaking?...Good. This is Quentin Quayne— of the Q.Q. Agency. Could you manage to snatch a few minutes, Mr. Oglethorpe, and come round and see me here— Piccadilly Circus— as soon as possible? I should be immensely obliged to you.... Yes, it is urgent— very urgent, in fact.... Thank you— that's excellent."

The Chief put down the telephone, looked across to me.

"Coming at once. Oglethorpe knows me well enough to know that when I say 'urgent,' it means urgent. Now I hope we shall learn something."

PERHAPS TEN quiet minutes elapsed— ten minutes in which Q.Q. after leaning back thoughtfully in his chairs for a moment or two, bent forward to his desk and wrote rapidly a long single column of words on a sheet of paper— and then Mr. Oglethorpe was announced.

He came into the room, a thin, worried-looking man of about forty-five years of age, clean-shaven, a little bald, conventionally the higher grade civil servant in his morning-coat, dark trousers, and the silk hat courteously doffed as he entered, conventionally the civil servant, too, in his precise, somewhat pedantic manner. The Chief shook hands with him like an old acquaintance, indicated the chair close to his desk. Mr. Oglethorpe seated himself.

"You want to see me about this terrible business in the office, I suppose, Mr. Quayne?" he said.

"Exactly," Q.Q. smiled at him.

"I have worked with Arbuthnot for twenty years— and I should never have dreamed that he was the man to commit suicide!" exclaimed Mr. Oglethorpe, in a tone of genuine horror at the memory.

Q.Q. continued to smile as he looked straight at his visitor, but there was no humour in that smile.

"Perhaps he did not commit suicide, Mr. Oglethorpe," he said quietly.

Mr. Oglethorpe jumped in his chair.

"What? Did not commit suicide? What on earth do you mean, Mr. Quayne? It must have been suicide— why, I was in the room a fraction of a minute after his revolver went off— I heard it as I passed along the corridor. It couldn't— how could it?— have been anything else than suicide, incredible though it seems!" Mr. Oglethorpe was a picture of puzzled bewilderment— the implication in Q.Q.'s words was plain enough.

"Well, Mr. Oglethorpe," the Chief said in his smoothest tones, "there is a little doubt about it— for reasons which I will not go into. Will you just tell me all you know of the tragedy?"

Mr. Oglethorpe told his story, quite clearly and definitely, just as we had heard it already from Sebright. He was coming along the corridor from another department at ten past twelve when he heard the shot. He had rushed into the room. Arbuthnot was there alone, crumpled in his chair, a wound in the right side of his head. Horrified, he had dashed off to give the alarm. Yes— of course, he knew the cupboard in Arbuthnot's room— he could not say whether the door of it was open or shut— he hadn't given a thought to it. He had seen no one in the corridor, before or after the tragedy.

Q.Q. nodded gravely as he finished.

"Well, Mr. Oglethorpe, there is a possibility— I don't want to enlarge upon it— that Arbuthnot was murdered by one of the clerks in his own department."

"Impossible!" Mr. Oglethorpe was emphatic, all his instincts outraged. "It is a monstrously absurd suggestion, Mr. Quayne, one that— as the temporary acting head of the department and in view of the plain facts— I cannot but resent!"

"Nevertheless, Mr. Oglethorpe, it is a suggestion that has been made— and one that I am bound to probe. You would of course do all you could to assist in finding poor Arbuthnot's murderer— assuming that he was murdered?"

"Of course I should— though, I repeat, I can't for a moment believe it. What do you require of me?"

"I want to submit the six confidential clerks in your department to a little psychological test. It is one which— if I can trust the experience of the Viennese police, and sundry little efforts of my own— can scarcely fail in such circumstances. You have heard of the word-association method?"

"Something to do with psycho-analysis, isn't it? Sheer quackery all of it, in my opinion." Mr. Oglethorpe let it be seen that he was old-fashioned and proud of it.

"Precisely," Q.Q. concurred, with a smile. "It is a method much used by psycho-analysts I put a word to you. You answer as quickly as possible with the first word that rises in your mind in association. I measure the time-interval, in each case, between my question and your answer. In my list of words are one or two which have a direct bearing upon the case. When those words are put to the concealed criminal, he instantly recognizes their danger and instinctively— no matter what his command of himself— hesitates for a safe word to give in answer. It is quite automatic on his part. And accordingly, to those keywords his time-interval of association will show as appreciably longer than his average.... Now, I want you to have the goodness to send your clerks across to me, one by one, this afternoon, Mr. Oglethorpe— and since I want to get as wide a basis as possible for my averages, I should be very glad if you would commence with yourself now."

"I haven't the slightest faith in any of this psycho-analytic charlatanry," said Mr. Oglethorpe, with a superior note of condescending disdain in his voice, "but if you think it will help you, go ahead by all means. Fire away— I'm ready."

Q.Q. drew his sheet of paper in front of him, sat with pencil-point poised.

"Bread!" he said, and his pencil-point began to dot across the paper.

"Butter!" answered Mr. Oglethorpe promptly. Q.Q. stopped dotting at his first syllable, scribbled the word rapidly.

"Sea!"— dot-dot.

"Ship!"

"Horse!"— dot-dot.

"Cart!"

"House!"— dot-dot-dot.

"Room!"

"Desk!"— dot-dot-dot-dot.

"Chair!"

"Table!"— dot-dot-dot.

"Cloth!"

"Cupboard!"— dot-dot-dot

"Bone!" Mr. Oglethorpe gave the answer, an obvious nursery-rhyme memory, almost desperately. The strain of keeping his brain alert he evidently found more difficult than he had anticipated. Q.Q. scribbled down each answer as it was given.

"Carpet!"— dot-dot.

"Floor!"

And so on through a list of about fifty words where, at intervals, I remarked only code, revolver and murder as specially significant.

When he had got to the end, Q.Q. looked up with his quiet smile.

"Thank you, Mr. Oglethorpe," he said. It was impossible to deduce whether or not he had detected any grounds for suspicion in that rapid quasi-schoolchild examination. "I am much obliged by your complaisance. And now will you carry it to the length of sending along your clerks, one by one, in order, let us say, of their seniority?"

Mr. Oglethorpe rose from his chair.

"Very well, Mr. Quayne. However unfounded I may and do consider your suspicions to be, it is my duty to help you probe them. But I'm quite sure you'll find in the end that poor Arbuthnot committed suicide."

"Perhaps, Mr. Oglethorpe." Q.Q. smiled at him. "But I should all the same like to try my little test on your other clerks."

Mr. Oglethorpe departed. Q.Q. did not address a word to me in the interval while we waited for the appearance of the next clerk from Arbuthnot's office. I busied myself on the routine task before me. Q.Q. leaned back in his chair, finger-tips together, frowning in a concentration of thought beyond my guesses.

Mr. D'Arcy Vaughan was announced. He was a younger man than Mr. Oglethorpe, struck a more modern note of smartly tailored, keen-edged efficiency. The little dark moustache on his good-looking face was neatly trimmed; his monocle gave him a touch of aristocratic differentiation from the usual office-worn type; his manner had the self-confident ease produced by the best of public-schools and a university. He smiled affably— with, however, a Foreign Office consciousness of personal dignity— as he approached the Chief.

"Oglethorpe tells me you want to see me about poor Arbuthnot's death, Mr. Quayne." He sank easily and comfortably into the chair Q.Q. indicated to him. "Anything I can do, of course —" He made a gesture of perfect readiness to oblige. "But I'm afraid that's not much."

Q.Q.'s quiet eyes were summing him up.

"So I understand. You were at lunch, I believe, when the tragedy occurred?"

"Yes. I knew nothing about it until I returned and the Scotland Yard fellow told me. It was a shock to me of course, as it was to everyone else. Poor old fellow!— One would never have suspected a suicidal streak in him— some private worry, perhaps."

Q.Q. caressed his chin.

"Did Mr. Oglethorpe tell you precisely why I wanted to see you, Mr. Vaughan?"

"No. He merely said that you wished to talk to me on the matter."

Q.Q. nodded.

"Then I will tell you, Mr. Vaughan— and perhaps it would be as well if you regarded it as in confidence. There is reason to suspect that Mr. Arbuthnot did not commit suicide— but that he was shot by one of the clerks in his personal department— a clerk who had an urgent motive to suppress him promptly."

His eyes were fixed on Mr. D'Arcy Vaughan as he spoke, but Mr. Vaughan manifested only the startled vivification of interest normal in such circumstances.

"You mean murdered?" he gasped.

"I mean murdered." The Chief was impressively specific.

"But— my dear sir!" Mr. D'Arcy Vaughan was obviously much perturbed. It seems to me fantastic— Oglethorpe almost saw him shoot himself— he was in the room a moment later— before any murderer could have escaped!" He paused for a look of utter incredulity at Q.Q. "What grounds have you for such a wildly improbable theory? Who could possibly have shot Arbuthnot? Unless Oglethorpe did it himself— which is grotesquely absurd!"

"That is what we are going to try and find out, Mr. Vaughan," replied the Chief quietly. "I'm sure I can call upon you to give me any assistance in your power?"

Certainly— certainly," said Mr. Vaughan, "of course! But what do you want me to do?"

"I'll explain." And Q.Q. explained to him, precisely as he had explained to Mr. Oglethorpe, the psychological test he proposed to apply to the six clerks. Mr. Vaughan accepted it unhesitatingly. "Of course, there must be no exceptions," he said.

Once more Q.Q. pronounced his list of words, dotted down the time-interval before the associated word came in answer. Mr. Vaughan replied to all with— so far as I could tell— an equally prompt rapidity. He was plainly a quick-brained, highly intelligent fellow.

"Thank you, Mr. Vaughan," said Q.Q. when he had finished— and again it was impossible for me to guess through his quiet normality of tone and feature, whether or not he had discovered the clue he sought for. "And now perhaps you will be good enough to send across the others in order of their seniority. It is unnecessary," he added with a smile, "to tell them of the purpose for which I require them."

Three more clerks followed in due course and succession— Mr. Wainwright, Mr. Turner and Mr. Billmore. All three of them were most improbable murderers, for all three— Q.Q. checked their answers one against the other— had been in their office all the morning, had not left it on any pretext until Mr. Oglethorpe had rushed in with the news of Arbuthnot's suicide. Nevertheless all three of them submitted to the test— and Q.Q. remained quietly smiling and inscrutable as they were successively dismissed.

The next— and last— to present himself was the junior, Mr. Johnson, a tall, nervous but pleasant-looking lad, scarcely in his twenties.

"Sit down, Mr. Johnson," said Q.Q., smiling at him and indicating the chair in which Johnson's predecessors had sat. "You were in the Registry at the time the tragedy occurred this morning?"

"Yes sir." The boy submitted easily to the quiet authority which emanated from Q.Q.'s personality. "I was searching for a file that had been mislaid."

"Between what times— precisely?"

"It was a little before ten to twelve when I left my room, sir. I returned at twenty minutes past." The lad was obviously nervous. He moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue before he spoke.

"So from ten to twelve to nearly twenty past you were in the Registry?"

"Yes sir."

Q.Q. looked at him penetratingly from under his heavy gray eyebrows.

"Very well. It is necessary for me to check all the statements I receive. I will just ring up the Registry and get them to confirm those times." He reached for the telephone.

"Don't do that, sir!" The lad had half sprung from his chair.

"Why?"

"I did not tell you the truth, sir." I saw perspiration on the boy's brow; once more his tongue moistened his lips. He turned away his eyes from Q.Q.'s piercing scrutiny.

"Then please tell me the truth now!"

"Yes sir. I— I did not go straight to the Registry. I slipped out of the building."

"Out of the building? Why?"

"To send a telegram— at the post office across the road in Parliament Street."

"To whom did you send that telegram?"

"I— I'd rather not say, sir."

Q.Q. frowned. I felt suddenly sorry for that lad, horrifyingly suspicious though were the circumstances that so suddenly gathered about him.

"Johnson!" The Chief's voice was sharply stern— a voice it was impossible not to obey. "You will tell me at once to whom you sent that telegram!"

The lad hesitated miserably. I saw his hands clench and unclench themselves, his face go white.

"It was to a money-lender, sir," he burst out after a moment when his voice seemed to have refused to function.

"A money-lender?"

"Yes— yes sir. I— I wanted to keep it a secret. He was threatening to denounce me to my chiefs if I did not pay today— you know what that would have meant sir?" The boy spoke hurriedly now, imploringly. "I had written to my sister, telling her all about it. At a quarter to twelve I received a telegram from her— saying she would help me. Here it is, sir." The lad fished out a crumpled telegram from his pocket, held it out to Q.Q., who took it without removing his eyes from the soul under their scrutiny. "I dashed across to the post office to send a telegram to him telling him that my sister was paying— to take no action." The lad stopped breathlessly, his eyes miserably on Q.Q.'s inscrutable face.

The Chief glanced at the telegram.

"This is not very explicit," he said. "It merely says, 'All right, Vera.' That might mean anything.... Do you grasp the point of this questioning, Johnson?"

"No— no sir," the lad stuttered. "I— I don't think I do."

"The point is that Mr. Arbuthnot was murdered in his room at ten minutes past twelve. On your story, you left the building at ten minutes before the hour. Where were you at ten minutes past?"

"In the post office, sir."

"From ten minutes to the hour to ten minutes past? Twenty minutes?"

"I had to wait in a queue, sir."

"And then you returned to the Registry?"

"Yes sir. I took the file I said I wanted, and went back to my room. It was then I first heard the news about poor Mr. Arbuthnot, sir."

"H'm! Well, the post-office records will prove the truth of your statements. Your telegram will note the time it was handed in. You say that was ten past?"

"No sir. The telegram was handed in at a quarter past. At ten past I was still waiting in the queue."

"Quarter past? How long, Johnson, did it actually take you to run down from the corridor where your room is situated, to the post office?"

"Under two minutes sir."

"And you are sure— quite sure— that it was at ten minutes to the hour— and not just after ten minutes past— that you ran to the post office?" The implication in that question was terribly obvious.

"Yes sir."

"Well, I am going to test the truth of your story. Now listen to me?"

Again the Chief explained the method he was going to employ. "To answer is the only way of clearing yourself from the suspicion that now rests upon you," he said.

"Yes sir. But— believe me, sir— I know nothing about poor Mr. Arbuthnot's death— nothing— I swear to you, sir!" The lad was evidently horribly alarmed. "I was in the post office at the time, sir!"

Q.Q.'s eyes probed him.

"Calm yourself, Mr. Johnson.... And concentrate your mind on putting, as rapidly as possible, an associated word to the word I shall give you."

The boy gulped.

"Bread!"— dot-dot-dot.

"Butter!" He forced himself to the strain of an answer, hit the natural association which all his predecessors had given.

"Sea!"— dot-dot.

"Shore!"

"Horse!"— dot-dot-dot-dot

"Hoof!"

Q.Q. took him right through the list, dotting the intervals of his hesitations, scribbling down his replies. The lad answered irregularly, spasmodically, a perspiration of distress upon his forehead, a look of terror in the eyes that stared as though hypnotized at Q.Q. It was all he could do, evidently, to keep his mind to the focus of what was required of him, and some of his associations were wildly wide— desperately clutched at in his anxiety to give a reply not too long delayed.

The Chief finished his inquisition, examined the paper with the irregular rows of dots, the final answers, compared them with the records of the others.

"H'm!" he grunted, his face inscrutable.

The lad sat staring at him, his hands twitching, scarcely daring— it would seem— to breathe.

The telephone bell rang sharply. Q.Q. took up the instrument.

"Hello?... Yes— Quayne speaking.... Who's that?... Oh, Sebright?... What? You've got your man?... Who is it?... Oglethorpe?" Q.Q. smiled, grimly. "Beware of those clear cases, Sebright. They're often only the mirror of your own ideas. I'm afraid you'll have to release Oglethorpe— with apologies.... Yes. Why? Because I happen to have caught the man, and it isn't Oglethorpe. I'll hand him over to you presently... By the way, Sebright, where are you ringing up from?... The F.O.? Good! Would you mind asking Mr. D'Arcy Vaughan to step round here again as soon as possible? I've something important to speak to him about... Thanks."

Q.Q. put back the receiver.

Young Johnson had sprung to his feet, stood quivering while Q.Q. talked. I watched him narrowly, my muscles tense to leap on him should he offer a sudden violence. There was a wild look in his frightened eyes.

"I— I didn't do it, sir!" he stammered.

The Chief smiled at him.

"I know you didn't," he said.

The boy stared, bewildered.

"Then— then— why have you asked Mr. Vaughan to come here, sir? You're not going to— to tell him about that money-lender?" There was a new and scarcely less acute alarm in his face. "For God's sake, don't, sir! Mr. Vaughan would report me at once!"

The Chief smiled again, more kindly.

"Not that, either. This experience in dealing with money-lenders will suffice you for a lifetime, I trust. That's all I have to say to you, Mr. Johnson." He nodded in dismissal.

Young Johnson still could not quite grasp the situation.

"You mean— you don't want me any more, sir?"

"No. And if you should meet Mr. Vaughan on your way back to your office, say nothing to him. Good afternoon."

Q.Q. turned back to those enigmatic papers which held a secret that tantalized my curiosity to a sudden fever-pitch

"Goo-good-afternoon, sir!" The lad went out of that room, haunted for him by a dreadful ordeal, with a gladly eager haste that was almost a flight.

When he had gone, I looked across to the Chief.

"You've got your man, sir?"

Q.Q. glanced up at me, his face grimly satisfied in its expression.

"Yes."

"It looked bad for young Johnson, sir— and he seemed to stumble terribly when you applied your test." I was, of course, fishing, but it had in fact seemed to me more than once that the lad must be betraying himself, so desperate were his hesitations.

"Pooh! His time-intervals were of course wildly erratic— what one would expect from the strain he was undergoing— but on the key-words he was no more erratic than elsewhere. Now, this record"— he held up another sheet of paper— "is curiously regular— the shortest intervals of any— till we come to those same vital words. And then there is a sudden seventy-five to a hundred-per-cent increase— almost imperceptible while he spoke, but evident enough here. Moreover— automatically in his first quickness he gave the curious association 'hide' to the word 'cupboard'— the only one to do so; after that, recognizing his slip, he was on his guard— a little too much on his guard." He chuckled with satisfaction. "That's the man, Mr. Creighton!"

"Which man, sir?"

"Mr. D'Arcy Vaughan."

"D'Arcy Vaughan!" I echoed the name in astonishment. Mr. Vaughan had seemed to me the most normal of any of those six men who had sat in that chair— his answers unvarying in their glib rapidity. "And— you're going to arrest him, sir? Directly he comes in?" I thrilled with the sense of imminent crisis.

"Not quite as soon as that, Mr. Creighton. What I have here is evidence enough for myself. But it is not legal evidence. I'm going to get that legal evidence. I'm going to get a signed confession." His tone was curt with a confidence I did not share.

"D'Arcy Vaughan— if he's the man, sir— doesn't seem to me the sort of fellow to give confessions easily," I ventured. "He must have immense nerve to behave as he did in this office."

"He has— a phenomenal nerve. But even the strongest nerves can be broken down Mr. Creighton." Q.Q. leaned back in his chair and smiled at me with a grim blandness. "You've heard of the third degree, I suppose? It usually implies some physical pain to the prisoner under examination. We're a little too civilized for that. I'm going to put Mr. D'Arcy Vaughan through what we may call the fourth degree considerably more subtle and quite as efficacious."

"I don't understand, sir. Do I come in on this?"

"You, Mr. Creighton, will merely quietly get up and lock that door behind Mr. Vaughan when he enters, and then you will return to your desk, and get on with your work in absolute silence. You will not utter a word, unless I speak to you."

"Very good, sir." I was utterly baffled to guess what scheme Q.Q. had in his mind, but it was with an intense impatience that I watched the minute-hand slip round the clock. It was close on five. Perhaps Mr. D'Arcy Vaughan would after all smell a rat— not come? A feverish anxiety for his appearance mounted in me, obscured the petty routine task on which I was engaged.

The office telephone-bell rang, startling me in the tension of my nerves. The Chief answered it.

"Mr. D'Arcy Vaughan? Show him in, please." From his tone, he might have been admitting the most casual of visitors, but he smiled— a smile of intimate satisfaction— at me as he put back the receiver.

The door opened. Mr. D'Arcy Vaughan, sprucely elegant, his monocle in place, his good-looking features happily serene, entered the room. I rose, went unobtrusively behind him, locked the door, returned to my place. Mr. Vaughan advanced toward Q.Q.

"Well, Mr. Quayne," he said, in a voice that struck me as oddly cheerful for a man whose office had been the scene of such tragic events, "you've heard what's happened in this terrible business? They've arrested Oglethorpe— poor, queer old Oglethorpe! I would never have believed it possible, but Scotland Yard seems quite certain— and it knows its business, I suppose. Awful! Terrible— terrible!"

"Yes. I had heard," replied Q.Q. coolly.

Mr. Vaughan sat down in the chair, carefully deposited his glossy silk hat on a corner of Q.Q.'s desk, and casually crossed one nicely creased trouser-leg over the other. If he was indeed the man, I could not but admire his perfect aplomb.

"And now, Mr. Quayne," he said, "before we come to whatever you want to see me about, there's a little thing I'm curious to know. Did the results of your pyscho-analytic test by any chance coincide with those of the police?"

Q.Q. leaned back in his chair, tapped his finger-tips together.

"No," he replied, "they did not."

Mr. Vaughan smiled.

"Ah?" His tone politely indicated a previous scepticism that was now justified. "I trust you psycho-analysts will have the grace to acknowledge at least one failure of your magic methods."

Q.Q. continued to tap his finger-tips together as he smiled blandly.

"It was not a failure," he said.

"Not a failure? But— I do not understand— I thought you said?" Mr. Vaughan was all courtesy, a rather malicious courtesy, perhaps, in a gestured sketch of baffled comprehension. He smiled frankly, pleasantly, at his interlocutor.

"It was not a failure." Q.Q. had spoken these words in the quietest, most dulcet of his tones. He rose from his chair, stood erect, spoke in a voice that to me seemed like a thunderclap in its sudden stern vehemence. "Own up, Mr. D'Arcy Vaughan! You're caught!"

The man had sprung up from his chair also in an indignation that, whether real or simulated, was impressive in its apparent authenticity.

"What do you mean?" His voice quivered, but it was with anger. "What are you trying to suggest?"

"I am suggesting, Mr. D'Arcy Vaughan,"— Q.Q.'s tone was sharply explicit— "that you are a spy in your own department that you were betraying official secrets, that Mr. Arbuthnot detected you, called you into his room this morning as you passed on your way to lunch and taxed you with it, that he had the imprudence, perhaps, to threaten you— possibly in self-defence— with his revolver during the altercation, that you seized that revolver and shot him dead, that hearing some one come to the door, you then sprang into the clothes-cupboard and dodged out again directly the coast was clear. Is that definite enough for you?"

Mr. D'Arcy Vaughan looked as though he were going to strike his accuser in the face. I saw his fists clench, the lips go blanched under his little dark moustache. He mastered himself with an effort.

"Mr. Quayne, if you were a younger man, I would thrash you for this outrageous imputation!" he gasped in his wrath. "As it is, you have chosen to utter this monstrous slander before a witness." He jerked his hand in my direction. "You shall hear from my solicitors!" He strode toward the door.

Fascinated, I watched him as he reached it, tugged at the handle, twisted it in vain. Then he swung round again, his face ablaze with fury.

"Open that door at once!" he cried. "What does this mean?"

"It means, Mr. D'Arcy Vaughan," said Q.Q. in his most coldly level tones, "that you are a prisoner in this room until such time as you dictate and sign your confession."

The man glared at him, livid. He could scarcely speak in the rage which choked him.

"This is an outrage— monstrous outrage! You dare, Mr. Quayne— you dare to subject a civil servant of my standing to this gross indignity! To illegal detention! Have a care, Mr. Quayne! You are laying yourself open to an action which I win fight through court after court till I ruin you!"

Q.Q. smiled grimly.

"You may have another case to fight in the courts before that, Mr. Vaughan. It is useless to wrestle with that door. You cannot open it."

Mr. D'Arcy Vaughan had once more switched round to the door, was tugging at it, twisting at the handle in an almost maniacal fury of anger. He faced round again to Q.Q.

"Open it, I say! Open it," he choked, "or—"

"Or nothing, Mr. Vaughan." Q.Q. was smoothly unruffled. "You will do nothing. You will merely in due course, when you are tired of raging at that door, sit down in that chair and dictate your confession." With which, Q.Q. himself calmly resumed his seat, picked up a paper on his desk and apparently gave it his undivided cool attention.

Mr. Vaughan stared at him for a moment, the muscles of his face twitching, his eyes murderous if ever a man's were— and then he strode straight across to me.

"You!" The violence in his voice startled me, half-prepared for it though I was. "Open that door at once— or I charge you as an accomplice in this felony! Felony— you understand! Penal servitude!" Ugly menace looked out of him. I gripped myself, remembered Q.Q.'s orders, remained stolidly silent, bent over my work again. "Do you hear?" My shoulder was violently shaken. "Open that door, or— " He had no threat vicious enough for his anger.

I glanced at him, as coolly as I could,— obviously my cue was to imitate the Chief, at that moment quite unperturbed, apparently engrossed in the perusal of some document,— saw the ferocity in his glare, saw his fingers working— itching for a weapon which, thank Heaven, he did not possess— and remained dumb. Not only dumb, but, as well as I could feign it, deaf! Mr. D'Arcy Vaughan, I could see in the instant before my eyes went down to my work again, could have screamed blasphemies in the extremity of his exasperation. The uncanny completeness of our silence sent a gleam of fright into his eyes. Then once more they went impotently murderous I guessed, even as with an effort of self-command I turned my gaze away from him, that he was speculating whether he would have a chance in a hand-to-hand mix-up with the pair of us.

Apparently he decided that he would not. I felt him remove his presence from over me, glanced up discreetly to see him once more in the centre of the room, facing the Chief.

"Mr. Quayne!" He controlled his voice to a harsh similitude of normality. "Do you mean that you have the insane intention of keeping me a prisoner in this room until I sign a confession of a murder of which I know nothing?"

Q.Q. raised his eyes to him, as though only just again aware of his presence.

"You are begging the question, Mr. Vaughan," he said quietly, turning over a page of his papers while he spoke. "I have all the relevant information. I require only your confession. And it is certainly my intention to keep you here till I get it."

Mr. D'Arcy Vaughan achieved a short scornful laugh.

"Very well," he said. "We shall see who can wait longest." He flung himself into the chair, sat tapping with his foot upon the floor. "You yourselves cannot sit forever in this room. And when we leave it, Mr. Quayne, believe me, you shall rue this outrage!"

Mr. Quayne merely turned over another page of the document he was perusing with such concentrated attention.

His victim glared at him, opened his cigarette-case,— I noticed, maliciously, that it contained only one cigarette,— struck a match, commenced to smoke. The silence of that room, high above the neighbouring housetops, was like the grave. It perpetuated itself, continued until even I felt it a strain upon my nerves. The only sound was the deep breathing of that man in the chair adjacent to Q.Q.'s desk. Unobtrusively I kept a sharp eye upon him, alert to interpose in that sudden panther-spring I felt to be imminent. But none came. Mr. D'Arcy Vaughan sat immobile, his lips pressed tight, smoking with the tiniest of puffs, evidently— I could sympathize with him— trying to economize that one and only cigarette to the last possible moment. And the silence in that room continued, persisted till it seemed to ring in my ears.

I glanced at the clock-hand. It marked half-past five.

Mr. Vaughan stirred.

"Mr. Quayne!"

Q.Q. lifted an eyebrow at him.

"How long is this madness to continue?"

"Until I get your confession." Q.Q.'s tone was quietly acceptive of the situation, was, without the faintest impatience, coolly confident of the final result.

"Pshaw!" The man jumped up from his chair again paced up and down the room in febrile exasperation. Q.Q. had once more reverted to the perusal of his documents did not so much as glance at him. The victim strode once more across to me, evidently on the impulse to make another trial of my subordinate resolution. I forced myself to remain unperceptive of his presence. I could feel the glare of his eyes upon me as I bent my own down to my work, could feel him hesitate over the utility of the appeal— or of the threat. He renounced either. I heard his soft footfalls on the carpet recede away to the centre of the room, heard them go toward Q.Q.'s desk, heard the sudden creak of his chair as he flung himself down into it again.

When, discreetly, I glanced up, I saw him sitting there, his fingers drumming on his knee, the cigarette short between his lips glowing in a momentary forgetfulness of economy.

The silence continued. The ticking of the clock became insistent, an obsession to the ear. Its hands slipped round— six o'clock— a quarter past. Outside, the light began to die out of the sky. Within the room there were already shadows. Long ago Mr. D'Arcy Vaughan had got to the end of his smoke. For what seemed an age he had sat like a statue, utterly motionless. What was he thinking I wondered. And still the silence remained unbroken.

It was shattered suddenly.

"Quayne!" The man paused, waiting for a movement If Q.Q.'s head that did not occur. "I don't know how long this farce is going on— but I'll count it as mitigation if you'll give me a cigarette."

But Mr. Quayne had apparently lost the sense of hearing. He merely picked another from the pile of documents at his hand.

Once more the room relapsed into silence— into a silence that grew haunted, terrifying, vibrant with mysterious unuttered menace as the twilight deepened in the room— a silence that rang and yet was soundless. A sudden mutter from the man in the chair seemed only to intensify it. How long indeed was this going on? I myself grew unnerved with the strain, felt the impulse to use my voice— to break this uncanny hush— rise up in me, almost irresistible. Had I been sitting there with the guilt of murder on my conscience, I could not have refrained from shouting it aloud to get relief at any cost from this intolerable ordeal of soundlessness wherein the stark fundamental outlines of one's soul seemed automatically to emerge. I should have screamed that guilt, in hysteria, long ago. But still the man I could half-see in the gloom sat motionless and silent in his chair. Still, Q.Q. remained, holding up a document to get the last of the light, seemingly oblivious of his presence. For myself, I had given up even the preteens of work. I sat, gripped in that dead hush, and waited— waited— while the shadows thickened.

Suddenly I heard a sound— the faintest little whir; and then —

"He shall confess, Mr. Quayne— I am determined on it!"

The voice came out of the gloom, silent, deep-toned, vibrant with authority— the voice of the murdered Arbuthnot! Even to me, who could an instant later guess its source, it came with a shock to my nerves, uncanny from the formless shadows of the room. To the man in the chair, it came with the full force of a supernatural presence— sternly inexorable in a ghostly omnipotence. He sprang to his feet, stood quivering.

"What was that? Quayne, did you hear that? Arbuthnot's voice! I— I— no— it couldn't be— couldn't be! Quayne,"— his voice was strained with terror,— "let me out of this! I'm going mad! I can't stand it any longer!"

Q.Q. apparently did not hear him. He did not move. One hand still held the document up to the last glimmer of outside light; the other was out of sight beneath his desk. Mr. D'Arcy Vaughan gasped. Once more he turned toward me, and I saw his two hands go slowly quiveringly up toward his head as he stood silhouetted against the window. The man was gripped in a paroxysm of terror at those suddenly vocal shadows all around him— at himself.

"No," I heard him whisper to himself, "no! It couldn't have been! It couldn't have been!"

And then once more came that solemn, deep-toned authoritative voice:

"He shall confess, Mr. Quayne— I am determined on it!"

A choked scream broke from the tortured wretch.

"No— no! Quiet, Arbuthnot! Quiet— for God's sake! I— can't bear it! I— I'll tell— I'll confess! I'll confess! Quayne— Quayne!" His voice came almost in a shriek from the shadows which hid his face. "I'll confess— I'll confess! Take it down— I'll confess!"

Q.Q. laid down his papers.

"Take down what Mr. Vaughan dictates, Mr. Creighton," he said, quietly. "Resume your chair, Mr. Vaughan." He touched the switch by his desk, and the room was suddenly flooded with light.

Mr. D'Arcy Vaughan, no longer the spruce, well-groomed civil servant, but a haggard, wild-eyed wretch,— I was startled at the havoc the ordeal had made in him,— obeyed like a creature drained of volition, dropped heavily into his chair. I took up my pen and wrote as, quaveringly, gaspingly, the utterly unnerved, broken man began his confession. It was a confession of official secrets betrayed sent by agony-column code-messages to a great foreign commercial organization to which they were of immense utility, of— precisely as Q.Q. had divined— Arbuthnot's having stopped him as he went along the corridor to his lunch, taxed him with it, of a wild alarm, a determination to suppress this danger at once, of the beginnings of a murderous struggle in which Arbuthnot had snatched the revolver from his drawer of another snatch at that revolver which had seized it, of the sudden shot, of Oglethorpe at the door, of a spring into the clothes-cupboard and a moment later— when Oglethorpe had dashed out again, horrified at the discovery— a quick rush along the corridor, unobserved, to lunch.

Q.Q. listened, inscrutable, to the end.

"Now sign, Mr. Vaughan," he said in his quiet level voice.

The man got up from his chair, moved toward my desk— stopped suddenly.

"No!" he cried. Obviously he made a great effort to pull himself together, to resume command of himself, seemed to succeed. "No! I won't sign!" He laughed like a maniac. "It's only your word against mine— both of you— and I'll swear it's a fabrication— a tissue of lies! I'm not going to sign away my life because you played a trick on me! How you did it, I don't know— but trick I'm sure it was!"

He stood glowering defiance at Q.Q.

"As you like, Mr. Vaughan," said the Chief quietly. "It makes really no difference whether you sign or not. Just listen a moment!" He bent forward, touched something on his desk. "Another little trick, Mr. Vaughan." He smiled pleasantly.

To my own astonishment there issued into the room startlingly lifelike, Mr. D'Arcy Vaughan's voice in a recapitulated, word-for-word recital of his crime. The first few sentences of it were sufficient— Mr. D'Arcy Vaughan raised his hand. To his first amazement had succeeded a sudden bitterness of comprehension.

"That's enough," he said. "I don't want to hear it over again." He controlled his voice to a cynical appreciation. "A dictaphone, of course?"

"A double-barrelled one, Mr. Vaughan," said the Chief, still pleasantly. "With a blank record waiting for you."

Vaughan glared at Q.Q. in a sudden last flash of ferocity. "Curse you and your infernal cunning tricks!" he said. "All right— I may as well sign." He came across to my desk, scrawled a signature at the foot of the paper I presented to him, turned again with a snarl to the Chief. "Now what are you going to do?"

Q.Q. smiled grimly, took off the telephone receiver, asked for a number.

"Sebright?... Ah, Quayne speaking. Just come round here, will you?... I've got that man for you. Yes? signed confession. He's only waiting for you."

__________________

13: An Affair Of Honour

F. Britten Austin

The Strand Magazine Aug 1923

MAJOR BRUCE, G.S.O. (Intelligence), Headquarters Staff of the strategically important Far Eastern base of Menangpore, was suddenly jerked out of the blissful Nirvana of his afternoon siesta to resumption of his temporarily forgotten identity. The telephone bell was ringing. He slid off his couch, in shirt and breeches, and went to the instrument

"Hello! Yes?" He listened. "Oh, hello, Rolfe! What?— General wants to see me?— Right-o! I'll be along."

A minute or two later, girt once more in the official harness of Sam Browne over white tunic, his pith helmet large over his deep-tanned, efficient-looking features, he emerged from the shutter-darkened cool of his bungalow into the blinding glare of a 4 P.M. sun. He turned along the white road, inadequately shaded between its rows of stiff-fronded palms, which led, beyond the bungalows of the married officers, to Garrison Headquarters. A couple of native soldiers, solemnly stupid with a hose pipe, were getting gloriously wet as they changed its thick dust into mud that dried again behind them before they had moved on a dozen steps.

He frowned. But it was not at the two soldiers that he frowned. Beyond them, at the gate of one of the more distant palm-embosked bungalows, a rickshaw stood in readiness, was at that moment being entered by a lady clad in white from open parasol to shoe-tip. For an instant his pace slackened like that of a man instinctively impelled to turn back on his tracks, then he reaffirmed its briskness.

He and the rickshaw, now in movement, drew near to each other and, although he gazed determinedly in another direction, he had— he knew not how— a glimpse of her face above the bobbing head of the runner. Another moment, and she was abreast of him, the runner immobile at her prettily authoritative order.

"Frank!"

There was no help for it. Common courtesy exacted that he should stop, bring his hand up to his helmet in salute, school his voice to a polite ordinariness, conjure up some sort of smile.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Fanshaw." His eyes rested unwillingly on her face, its fresh young beauty yet unwilted by this tropic furnace. He felt, awkwardly that he ought to say something more. "Isn't it too early for you to be out?" He kicked himself for the instinctive assumption of authority in his tone. "Better an hour later, you know," he added, in attenuation.

"I'm going to tea with the Padre's wife," she said smiling at him, "and it's shade all the way. But I didn't stop you to explain that I'm not as mad as I look. I've already done that to Dick this afternoon. Frank!" her voice went serious, "come here! I want to talk to you."

He took a step nearer the rickshaw. "Well;"

"I've been waiting for a chance of a word alone with you for three months— ever since we came out— and you seem to be the one person I never meet except in a crowd."

"Yes?" he said, with a false innocence. He had seen to it, with a grim thoroughness, that they never should meet except in a crowd. "I've been pretty busy, you know."

Her eyes— such dear, honest eyes, they were!— caught his for a moment, looked into them.

"Frank!" she said. "I want— I've wanted all these three months— to— to ask you to forgive me. I treated you badly, very badly, I know." She hesitated in the embarrassment of this avowal.

"That's all right," he muttered, looking away from her. "The best man won, I suppose."

She flushed a little, stopped herself— he could guess, as his glance came back to her— from saying, on a naïve impulse, how much she and Dick were in love with each other. He did not need her to tell him. He had observed it from his distance on the edge of the crowd, with eyes that could translate, self-torturingly acute, every touch and gesture that passed between her and her husband.

She broke the awkwardness of the pause. "We had no idea Dick and I, when we married," she said, "that he would be sent to this station. He expected India."

"It's not your fault," he said, through his teeth. "It's just one of those little tricks that Fate plays upon people."

Her eyes went sympathetic.

"Perhaps Fate knows best," she said. "Frank— we've been pals even since I was in short frocks— won't you be friends still?"

"Of course," he managed to say, uncomfortably. "Of course."

"You won't bear a grudge? You'll still be the best pal I ever had? Shake hands on it?" Their eyes met, looked into each other's as she stretched out her hand to him. For one moment, as though he measured the gravity of what she asked of him, he looked into the candid beauty of her face, and then he reached up his hand to hers.

"I shake," he said, simply.

"And Dick?" she asked. "You'll be friends with him— real friends?"

He nodded. "If he wants me to."

"No. Whether he wants you to or not. For my sake. I can't be happy if I feel that my one bit of home out here is hostile to him. You promise?" She was exercising her old authority over him, the old authority of her charm that two years ago... He succumbed.

"All right," he said. "I promise. For your sake."

The sudden radiance of her face was— almost— full compensation.

"Thank you, Frank. That's all I want. You never broke your word in your life. You've made me so happy."

"I'm glad," he said. "And now," he smiled, "you've kept the general waiting!"

"Explain to him that you've done your day's kind action, and he'll forgive you. He's the dearest old soul, really. But I release you. You've promised— and you'll come and see us— not in a crowd?"

"I've promised," he said.

He saluted, and the coolie sped off along the white road with her. For one moment he stood looking after her parasol above the back of the rickshaw, and then he resumed his way. He took a deep chestful of the baking air with incomplete relief, found himself quivering oddly. That first meeting, tête-à-tête, which he had so long I dreaded, was over.

He went along the road with his surroundings fading out of reality. He was back in the dusk of an English summer evening, he and she together within the clump of willows that dropped slim fingers to the trout stream up which they had fished all day. He was trembling with the audacity of that utterance which all day he had been trying to phrase to himself with sufficient delicacy of approach, so freshly innocent of even suspecting it she seemed in her boy-like comradeship— that utterance which at last had burst from him, surprising him by its spontaneity, its almost brutal directness.

"By God, Nina— I'm sorry if I offend you— but I love you!"

And she had looked at him, and said nothing— until after he had kissed her, caught tight in his arms. And then she had whispered.

Two years ago! He had left her behind pledged to be his wife, a miracle of newly perceived, almost awesome womanhood, intoxicating in her happy beauty, in her incredible reciprocation of his love, that he could scarcely identify with the little girl he had seen grow up in interval to interval of leave from foreign service. He had come back to Menangpore to count off the days, to live through the three years— or it might be only two, if she came out to him— which he must endure until their marriage, endure with every fibre of his body craving for her, with his whole mind soaked in the thought of her.

They wrote, of course, by every mail— until that mail, eight months ago, which had brought the letter which had stunned him, so that since he had never felt himself really and fully alive. She had made a mistake— it had been that he had always been such a dear, good old pal— she had thought fondness— was— (she had knocked out that line without finishing it)— anyway, it was Major Fanshaw, home on leave from India, whom she was marrying, almost at once. He had seen an account of the ceremony in the Times, a little later. And then, for a supreme and savage irony, the humorously minded gods who whisper in the ears of the clerks of the A.G.'s Department at the War Office had sent Major Richard Fanshaw to join the Headquarters Staff, Menangpore. The same gods, nudging one another, had vetoed Major Francis Bruce's immediate application for a transfer.

Quite apart from this humiliating supersession, he did not greatly like Dick Fanshaw. In fact, no one in the garrison greatly liked him. The newcomer had not the knack of sociability. He was a thin-faced, reserved sort of man, absorbed in his own thoughts, alleged to be studious, efficient at his job, but quite useless on the polo field. It was a mystery beyond Bruce's comprehension how he and Nina had ever become intimate enough for even a proposal of marriage. Yet there was the fact— he had seen it with his own eyes— they were desperately, absorbedly, in love with each other.

Bah! He put the thing out of his mind. He'd promised Nina to be friendly with Fanshaw, and he'd do his best to be decent to him. If Fanshaw ever wanted a pal, he'd be handy— for Nina's sake.

He had arrived at the veranda of the white-painted Garrison Headquarters, and turned on the steps, for a glance at the view from this hilltop, to get another picture in his mind before attending to whatever business it was the general had for him.

Far below him, beyond the palms that framed the view, the deep blue sea stretched away to a heat-misted horizon. In the middle distance, a warship, tiny like a toy, was heading for the harbour. Close in, over the edge of the hill and abruptly diminished by the vertical distance, the stone arms of the new dockyard, untidy with cranes and scaffolding, were white upon the blue water. Native workmen swarmed over it like busy ants. He wondered how many spies were still among that horde. He had pulled out half a dozen of them already, for unadvertised and summary court martial— gallant little officers, for all their coolie rags, who had smiled inscrutably at the firing party. One could not help admiring them.

Restored to a professional frame of mind, he turned and plunged into the comparative darkness of the building, went along the corridor to the door inscribed "G.O.C." tapped and entered. The general, pipe in mouth, was seated at his big desk, signing busily the papers which Rolfe, erect by his side, was presenting to him. Rolfe looked up at his appearance, nodded amicably, a discreet smile on his big pleasant face— good chap, Rolfe, the antithesis of Fanshaw, with a cheery word for everybody, a man who worked hard and played hard, even went the pace a little, despite his weight the most brilliant polo forward in the Garrison— but the general, attending to one thing at a time as was his wont, continued to dash off one signature after another without a glance at him. Only when he had finished the last of the papers which Rolfe now gathered into a sheaf and handed over to a waiting orderly did he lift his head, acknowledge Bruce's prompt salute.

"Don't go, Rolfe," he said, as that officer went toward the door with the orderly. "I want you both. Sit down, Bruce."

The orderly closed the door behind him and there was a moment or two of silence as the general leaned back in his chair and refilled his pipe. Bruce contemplated the strong-jawed face with the iron-gray moustache, whose eyes narrowed themselves in a pause of meditation in which he brought his thoughts to a focus while, deliberately, without hurry, he struck a match and surrounded himself with the smoke cloud of the first few preliminary puffs. It was a familiar enough face to him. In his three years of staff captain to General Sanderson's brigade in the old days in France, Bruce had learned to like as well as respect that grimly efficient personality which, though human enough off duty, would, when the occasion demanded, send men to certain death without a qualm yet never without a precisely achieved purpose that justified the sacrifice. Cunning as a fox he could be, too, as Fritz had more than once learned to his cost. The pause was at an end. The general's steel-gray eyes glanced comprehensively at his subordinates.

"Just see there's no one hanging round that door, Rolfe," he said, "and then sit down." His voice was serious.

Rolfe obeyed, went to the door, returned to take a chair at the side of the general's desk opposite to Bruce. They waited for his next words. They came with a quiet deliberation, between puffs at his pipe: "Can either of you imagine how any unauthorized person could have got at Plan C?"

The two men jumped in their chairs.

"Good Lord, sir— you don't mean to say—" began Rolfe.

Bruce said nothing. He just gasped in the shock. Plan C— he had seen it, of course; the general had explained it to Hathaway, Fanshaw, Rolfe, and him before locking it away— Plan C contained the diagrams of the submarine-mine barrages which would protect this most important base in war-time, together with the combination of cross fire from the batteries now being erected. If the potential enemy had got hold of those plans—! Good God! And only Hathaway, Fanshaw, Rolfe, and himself had been admitted to the secret of their existence. Hathaway was dead, carried off in half-a-dozen hours by fever. But where was Fanshaw? Surely Fanshaw ought to be here also?

These thoughts, which went through him in a flash, were interrupted by the general's grim, quiet voice.

"That's precisely what I do mean to say. Someone has got at Plan C— and, of course, copied it."

"But— are you sure, sir?" said Rolfe, excited and incredulous.

For answer the general got up from his chair, went to the safe behind him, unlocked a heavy steel door with a key chained to his pocket, unlocked yet another door behind that, extracted from an inner drawer, locked by yet another key, a bulky envelope heavily sealed with red wax, brought it forward to them.

"This is a new envelope I sealed the other day," said the general. "Inside is the original." He tore it open, revealed another sealed envelope, ripped along one edge. "I cut it open myself when I found something was wrong. Now, gentlemen, our ingenious spy overlooked one little thing in his haste. Those seals are apparently quite all right. But when I put away that envelope, it had a fine hair tied round it, passing through the centre of the sealing wax. Is there any hair in that seal? There is not. Furthermore, the inner envelope was likewise tied round with a hair, and"— he extracted it— "you can see for yourselves that that hair has likewise disappeared. And for a final proof ——" he pulled out several sheets of thin, blue paper, marked with curved masses of little black crosses and long straight lines that radiated from various points along a charted-out coastline, held it up to the light. "Do you see?" Close up to the edge in each corner was a minute pinhole where the sheet had been fastened out flat, presumably to be photographed. "Each sheet has those same little pinholes. I think that is sufficient evidence." He put back the plans in their envelopes, locked them again in the safe, turned to Bruce.

"Well, what have you to say to that?" he asked, with a grim smile.

"It knocks me over, sir," replied Bruce, "and it makes me feel somehow it's my fault. It's up to me to prevent that kind of thing."

"Precisely," agreed the general. "That's why I sent for you. You can't suggest any possible person?"

"No, sir. No one has any key to that safe but you." The general nodded.

"Quite. But someone has got at my keys, somehow— a whiff of a drug while I was asleep might have done it— these native thieves can get in anywhere— and taken an impression of them. There was that fellow you shot trying to break into your bedroom three or four nights ago, Rolfe, you remember?"

"The brute!" said Rolfe. "I just caught him skipping in through the window like a shadow."

"That's the kind of thing," said the general. "But observe! Only Plan C has been interfered with, and an ordinary native thief would certainly have helped himself to the considerable amount of cash which was much more in evidence than were the plans in the inner drawer. It is wildly improbable that any native could have distinguished one document from another, impossible that he should have picked on Plan C, copied it, and sealed it up again with the office seal. Whoever it was that got hold of my keys, he was only a subordinate agent, employed by someone who knew that Plan C was in that safe. And, apart from myself"— the general's probing eyes rested on each of them successively— "only four men were aware of that fact."

"It couldn't have been Hathaway," murmured Rolfe, screwing up his broad, honest face in cogitation of this problem.

"It could not," said the general. "Hathaway died six weeks ago. One of my little habits is to examine those envelopes every day. That envelope was interfered with just three weeks back."

"Three weeks!" exclaimed Bruce, in surprise.

"Three weeks," repeated the general. "I've been poaching on your preserves, Bruce— trying to do a little intelligence work in the meantime."

He had now seated himself again and relit his pipe, looking at them over the flame of the match. Bruce and Rolfe glanced at each other in uncomfortable embarrassment.

"Don't you think, sir," said Bruce, "that Fanshaw ought to be here too?"

"I did not invite Fanshaw," replied the general, ". . . .purposely."

"Good God!" The exclamation broke from Bruce in spontaneous horror. "Surely, sir you don't think—?"

"Why— it might just as likely be either of us!" said Rolfe.

The general carefully put down his match in the ash tray.

"It might," he said, "and I confess that I gave some thought to that possibility. I went so far as to subsidize a burglar myself— for all three of you— a burglar that you didn't shoot, Rolfe." He smiled at him. "I was curious to know whether any of you had been doing any photography lately— and I took steps to find out within twenty-four hours of that envelope being tampered with. Your camera, Rolfe, I find, has a broken shutter and a thick layer of dust inside— you have evidently given up the hobby. Yours, Bruce, happened to be charged with a half-used spool. I developed those films and find they represent the Gymkhana which took place a couple of weeks before."

"That's where that spool went, then!" exclaimed Bruce, suddenly illuminated.

The general went on quietly: "Fanshaw's camera, on the other hand, a very excellent half-plate Zeiss, had no films in it. But it happened to have its focus adjustment left at three feet and closed up in the folds of the bellows was a certain amount of gray dust which, having once done a little photography myself, I recognized as magnesium ash."

"Good Lord!" said Bruce.

"I kept the camera and the ash as circumstantial evidence, if necessary," continued the general, "and, funnily enough, Fanshaw thought fit to complain to me next day that someone had pinched his apparatus. Only he put the date of its disappearance as the day prior to that on which Plan C was tampered with. Since, however, my very excellent burglar found the camera in his room forty hours after Fanshaw alleged that he had missed it, I'm afraid the alibi won't wash."

"But surely, sir," objected Rolfe, "all this— even if it does look fishy— is very flimsy evidence!"

"Very," agreed the general, imperturbably. "But it happens to be reinforced. How much do you think Plan C is worth to— we won't specify the country?"

"They'd pay anything for it," said Bruce. "Twenty thousand pounds or more.

"Precisely. Or more. Now, Fanshaw was a poor man? I happen to know that he got into debt in India. I cannot discover that he has since come into any inheritance. Would his wife have had any money, Bruce?"

"Sir!"

"This is no time for fine feelings!" The old man crushed him with his sudden, formidable severity. "I know perfectly well that you were engaged to the lady. Did she have any money?"

"No, sir."

"Very well. I have been doing a good deal of private cipher work over the cables these last three weeks— and three days ago the sum of thirty-five thousand pounds was paid in London by bankers' draft from the Asiatic Bank to the London and North-Western Bank for the credit of a new account opened in favour of a certain John Smith by telegraphic instruction from Menangpore."

"Phew!" ejaculated Rolfe, mopping his brow. "Looks ugly!"

"But, sir," said Bruce, "how do you know that this John Smith is —— No, I can't say I like him, but I can't imagine Fanshaw doing it!"

For answer, the general unlocked the drawer at which he sat, produced a telegraph form.

"This is the original, handed in at the cable company's office four days back," he said.

"'London North-Western Bank London please open account with draft Asiatic Bank thirty-five thousand letter follows John Smith Menangpore.'

"This was handed in by a native who has not yet been traced. But note!— the message is typewritten and gummed on to the telegraph form— and it is written on a Yöst machine. There is only one Yöst machine in this garrison, and that happens to be in Fanshaw's office— the one he reserves for his own use. It is true, there are probably other Yösts in Menangpore, but no two machines, even of the same make, write precisely alike. I have personally copied this message again on Fanshaw's machine— here it is." He laid a typewritten slip of paper side by side with the cablegram before them; one looked like a carbon copy of the other. "You see— they are identical, the same weak n and p, the same worn c, the same f out of alignment."

"There is no doubt about it," said Bruce, handing them back after careful scrutiny, "but, sir— this is awful!"

"And the letter that follows," inquired Rolfe, "have you got that, sir?"

"That was stopped in the post last night," replied the general, taking another sheet of paper from his drawer. "Here it is. It doesn't tell us much. It merely confirms the cablegram, gives the specimen of the signature 'John Smith,' and orders the money to be held on deposit pending further instructions. It is typed on the same machine and addressed from the European Club."

"That doesn't mean much." said Bruce. "Everyone goes there. I was there myself yesterday."

"So was I," said Rolfe.

"So was Fanshaw," added the general. He leaned back in his chair, contemplated them grimly. "Well?"

"I don't know what to say, sir," said Bruce. "It is too terrible!"

Rolfe mopped his broad, honest face in evident distress.

"I suppose it means a court martial, sir?" he said.

The general smiled with the faintest twist of his lips.

"My dear Rolfe," he said, "you are sometimes an amazingly simple person. There is no doubt at all that our friend the possible enemy is already in possession of Plan C. Whatever happens, he mustn't be allowed to guess that we know he knows it. Plan C is actually already ipso facto obsolete. He must think it is still our real war plan and we in blissful ignorance of his stolen knowledge. A court martial would give him the hint— you can't keep secrecy over things like that. No. A court martial is out of the question."

"Then— nothing is to be done, sir?" queried Rolfe.

"Oh, yes," said the general, quietly. "We're certainly going to do something. We can't let people play games of this sort with impunity."

"What do you propose, then, sir?" asked Bruce.

The general kept them in suspense for a moment while he relit his pipe. Then he leaned forward, the match alight between his fingers.

"You and Rolfe are going to pay a little friendly call on Fanshaw this afternoon," he said, significantly. He help up the match before them, caught their eyes, blew out the fame. "Traitors sometimes commit suicide in a fit of remorse— and leave a signed confession," he added, in grim elucidation.

Bruce jumped to his feet, found himself trembling violently.

"Sir— I can't do it!"

The general turned on him that gaze which he knew how to make suddenly terrible.

"What do you mean?" he asked, sternly.

Bruce felt himself like an audacious schoolboy under those insupportable eyes. But he nerved himself to confront them.

"Sir— I beg of you choose someone else! It puts me in an impossible— a terrible position!"

The general's voice came at him like a clap of thunder.

"Major Bruce! Since when have you learned to disobey my orders?"

It was the same voice, the same inexorably hard face, aflame with eyes whose sudden blaze of authority annihilated opposition, with which— Bruce found it recalled to him by an odd trick of memory— at Devil's Wood he had ordered forward the remnant of his brigade to certain death over corpses already three deep. When General Sanderson commanded, men obeyed— without question. Bruce had obeyed then, forgetting the shrinking of his flesh in the storm of shells. He surrendered now, wretchedly, long habit of discipline asserting itself.

Wordlessly, eyes fixed on his, the general accepted his submission. He turned to Rolfe.

"Have you any objection to make, Major Rolfe?" he asked, harshly.

Rolfe stood twisting his handkerchief in his hands, his broad, honest face deathly white, perspiration pearling on his brow.

"No— no, sir," he stammered.

The general's face cleared to an expression that was more kindly. He turned to Bruce.

"I'm sorry to ask this of you, Bruce, but it can't be helped. In the first place, it's your job as Intelligence Officer. In the second, only you, Rolfe, and Fanshaw know anything of this business. We can't admit any more to it. Also, you understand, this is unofficial— an affair of honour, between officers and gentlemen. I send Major Fanshaw two of his own rank. I shall expect your report in half an hour. And, remember, a written and signed confession."

Bruce heard him as though he were in a dream. His mind held only one clearly definite thought: Nina! Nina! It hammered in him with every beat of the blood through his suddenly fevered brain. What would Nina think— Nina whom he had just promised— Nina whose happiness he was going brutally to annihilate? Nina! It made him feel sick. He could almost have wished that it were he himself guilty of this unspeakably loathly crime rather than that it should be Nina's husband. Nina's husband! Nina's husband! God!— Nina's husband whom she adored!

It was automatically, as in a dream, that he saluted the general and, with Rolfe, went out of the office; in an unreal dream that he found himself walking across the parade ground, in the blinding glare of the sun, toward Fanshaw's bungalow. Nina!— Nina's husband! He would rather have walked to execution than to the mission on which he was bound.

"Ruddy business, isn't it?" said Rolfe. thickly.

Bruce glanced at his comrade. The broad, normally cheery face was deathly white, beaded with damp. Good old Rolfe! He hated it, too. He was suddenly grateful for his companionship. Rolfe's thorough and well-known decency somehow sanctioned their errand. In his straightforward sense of duty, he had not jibbed at the general's order. It was true that Nina— Nina meant nothing to him, of course.

They were within a dozen yards of Fanshaw's bungalow when Rolfe turned to him.

"Oughtn't we to get our revolvers first?" he suggested.

"No." He could not trust his voice to more than curtness. "Unnecessary."

On the step of the veranda Rolfe clutched his arm, spoke again.

"You— you do the talking," he said. "It's your job. I'll back you up."

He nodded in mute acquiescence, summed all his will to steady the thumping of his heart, to find a voice to talk with.

Bruce pushed aside a mat curtain, saw Fanshaw busy writing at his table. He glanced up at them with his lantern-jawed, tight-lipped, worried-looking face as they came within the threshold.

"Hello, you fellows!" he said, rather ungraciously. "Paying visits? My wife's out— but you'll find the siphon over there." He jerked his pen toward the sideboard while his eyes went down again to the letter he was writing. "Help yourselves."

To Bruce's surprise, he found that he could speak.

"Fanshaw—"

Fanshaw looked up again irritably from the half-written word.

"Yes?" And then he saw the ghastliness of their faces. "Why— what's wrong?" His tone changed sharply to startled concern. "What in the world's the matter? You look perfectly awful, both of you."

Again Bruce found that he could speak.

"Fanshaw," he said, "we've come to talk to you? Rolfe and I. D'you mind if we sit down?" He felt that he must sit or fall.

Fanshaw stared at them.

"You'll find chairs there," he said, shortly. "What is it?"

They seated themselves, confronting him over his writing table. Bruce glanced up to the wall behind Fanshaw where a revolver holster was hanging from a peg.

"D'you mind —" he asked, awkwardly, "d'you mind letting me have your revolver, Fanshaw?"

Fanshaw stared at them, puzzled, and then rose, took the revolver holster from the wall, threw it upon the table rather peevishly. Bruce picked it up.

"Now, then, what's the trouble?" queried Fanshaw as he sat down again. "What do you want my revolver for? I can see by your faces that something is wrong."

Bruce dandled the heavy holster.

"Fanshaw," he said, "we— Rolfe and I— have come on a pretty rotten job. Plan C has been got at and copied."

Fanshaw frowned at him in incredulity. "Plan C?" he echoed. "Good God!"

"Pretty loathsome, isn't it?" said Bruce, between his teeth. He was beginning to hate that thin-faced traitor in front of him— a quite unsuspected fount of deep-drawn instinctive hatred surged up in him— he would dare to try and bluff them, would he? If only he weren't Nina's husband! "Pretty loathsome, Fanshaw," he repeated with grim directness.

Fanshaw put up an amazingly good show of bewilderment— almost impressive, had it not been for the general's coldly logical, step-by-step demonstration.

"Good God! But the general slept with the keys fastened round his neck— he told me so himself!"

Bruce looked him in the eyes, tried to look into the soul of him.

"We don't want to go into that," he said. "We know all about it. The general has sent us, Rolfe and me, to settle the matter without a public scandal."

"What on earth are you talking about?" Fanshaw looked from one to the other of them, his face a study in lack of comprehension.

"You know— perfectly well!" said Bruce. "The game's up, Fanshaw. There's no use bluffing. You're caught out. We've got the evidence."

Fanshaw stared at them.

"You've— got— the evidence?" he said, slowly, in a tone that seemed to try to make it real to himself. "What evidence?"

"More than enough for a court martial to shoot you half-a-dozen times over," replied Bruce, succinctly. "Fanshaw, this is a rotten business. It makes me sick to have to do it. But for the honour of the army— for the sake of your own family— we don't want a scandal. We give you an easy way out. We want a written and signed confession— I give you my word that no one shall see it but the general— no one shall know anything about it— and then"— he drew the revolver from the holster, laid it upon the table, pushed it toward Fanshaw— "we'll leave you with this. You can pretend to have been cleaning it."

Fanshaw stared at the revolver, shrank back from it, looked up again at the two of them, a sudden horror in his eyes.

"You mean ——?" he began.

Bruce pushed the weapon a little nearer to him.

"Precisely what I say, Fanshaw," he said, his words distinct despite the dryness of his mouth. "And no one— not even Nina— shall ever guess." He had used her Christian name unconsciously. "The episode will be buried— with you."

Fanshaw knocked away the revolver, jumped to his feet.

"You must be mad— both of you!" he cried. "Utterly mad!— I'm going to see the general at once!" He took a step toward the door.

Bruce placed himself in front of him.

"I'm sorry, Fanshaw. But it can't be allowed. The general sent us to you. He gave us half an hour in which to bring back your written confession." He glanced at his wrist watch. "Ten minutes of it have gone. You've made a bad break, Fanshaw— but own up, and play out the only decent game open to you. You ought to be grateful for the chance." With a strong arm he thrust him back toward the table.

Fanshaw stood looking at them, trembling suddenly, his face as white as theirs.

"Either you are both mad!" he cried, "or this is an infernal conspiracy to murder me!" He looked into Bruce's eyes with an insulting suspicion. "I can imagine that one of you has a motive," he said, deliberately, "though I should not have thought it of you."

Bruce winced as though he had been slashed across the face.

"Leave that out, Fanshaw," he said. "For just that reason I'd rather be dead than here. I'm obeying orders— don't make it harder for me. Will you write out that confession?"

"Of course not! I know nothing about it. If any one has any charges to bring against me, let them be brought forward in a proper manner— and I'll deal with them." He wrapped himself in his dignity as an officer, spoke with curt contempt.

Rolfe intervened for the first time in this colloquy.

"Fanshaw," he said, thickly. "You know that means a court martial— and I wouldn't give tuppence for your chance."

Fanshaw swung round on him.

"Look here, I've had enough of this! Clear out— both of you! And I'll trouble you, both of you, to meet me in front of the general!"

Rolfe shrugged his big shoulders, looked at Bruce.

"Well," he said, "I suppose if Fanshaw insists on a court martial, we're helpless. We can't compel him to write a confession. The only thing is to report it. We've done our best— and, for my part, Fanshaw, I'm glad of an excuse to be out of a very unpleasant business. Come along, Bruce!"

He took a step toward the door, was checked by Bruce's restraining arm.

"No," said Bruce, his teeth clenched. "We're going to stay here until we've done our job— and there's not going to be any public scandal in this business. Fanshaw!"— he looked him in the eyes— "for the sake of all that was ever sacred to you in the world— for the sake of your old school— the army— for your wife's sake!— play the man and own up decently. You haven't the ghost of a chance before a court martial, and, though they might not shoot you, the disgrace would be worse than death— for you— and"— his voice choked— "for Nina."

Fanshaw's look at him was an insult.

"Major Bruce," he said, "I shall be obliged if you will refer to my wife as Mrs. Fanshaw."

The three men jumped at a bright, girlish voice from the other side of the mat curtain. "Dick darling!— I'm back!— I've escaped!" There was a happy little laugh as the mat curtain was pulled back and Nina stood on the threshold. Her fresh young face lit up in pleasant surprise as she saw Bruce. "Why, Frank!— how nice of you to come so soon!" she exclaimed, coming toward him and stretching out her hand.

Bruce had one glance at her, and something seemed to smite him sharply, viciously, inside him. He turned away his head, omitted to notice her proffered hand. He got his voice somehow.

"Fanshaw," he said, "will you please ask your wife to leave us? This— this is an official matter."

She came nearer, perceived Rolfe, who had turned to stare at a print upon the wall, and now nodded awkwardly to her. Her eyes went round the three men.

"Why— what is wrong?" she cried. "What has happened?— You look ghastly, all of you!"

There was a silence.

"Frank! What is the matter? What have you and Major Rolfe come about?" He did not reply, avoided her eyes. "Dick!" She clutched his arm. "Tell me!"

Fanshaw shrugged his shoulders, smiled unpleasantly at Bruce.

"My dear," he replied, "apparently some important secret plans have been stolen, and it seems that in some way or other it has been made to look as though I had done it. Consequently, Major Bruce and Major Rolfe have come here with the amiable proposal that I write out a confession and then commit suicide." Bruce set his teeth, stifling a groan. The cad! Not to keep it from Nina! Fanshaw went on: "Alternatively, I shall be condemned by a court martial."

She swung round upon Bruce in a flame of indignation.

"Oh!" she cried. "And you can believe this? You could come here to— to—" She made a gesture of horror. "You of all people—!"

He met her eyes— and wished that he were dead.

"I couldn't help myself," he managed to say. "I tried— not to have to do it. It was an order— from the general— to both of us."

"But you believed it! You believed this of Dick!— You— you who promised me to be his friend— you did not tell the general that it was utterly impossible— you did not stand up for him— you— you believed it!" Her contemptuous indignation scorched him.

"I'd have given all I know not to— not to have had to believe it," he said, desperately, "but— but—"

"But what?"

"If I must— the evidence is too convincing!" He cursed himself for saying so much, even as the words were uttered.

"And what is this evidence?"

Bruce turned from her to Fanshaw.

"For God's sake, Fanshaw— I can't stand any more of this— either ask you wife to withdraw— or"— he gestured abandonment to disaster— "we must let matters take their official course."

Fanshaw was the least perturbed person in the room.

"I should like to hear your precious evidence myself," he said, with an unpleasant curtness of tone. "Tell her!"

Bruce looked again at the woman whose happiness was the one thing in the world that mattered to him.

"I insist!" she said. "And I have a right to insist!"

He surrendered to the look of proud authority in her pale face. "I'd infinitely rather not," he said, "but since so much has been said already—" He flashed a glance of scorn at Fanshaw. His face haggard with the long-continued strain, but with a succinct clarity, he told her of the tampering with the secret plan, known to Fanshaw, Rolfe, and himself alone; of the finding of Fanshaw's camera, with the focus set to three feet and flashlight ash still upon the bellows, within twenty-four hours after the plan had been copied and forty hours after Fanshaw had said he had lost it.

"But someone might have stolen Dick's camera, used it and put it back!" she exclaimed.

"They might," he agreed, "but that's not all." He went on to tell her of the banker's draft for thirty-five thousand pounds paid by the Asiatic Bank to the credit of a new account opened in an assumed name by cable from Menangpore and confirmed by letter. "And," he concluded, through his set teeth, "both cablegram and letter were typed on your husband's Yöst machine which he uses personally."

"Good God!" ejaculated Fanshaw, mopping his face with his handkerchief.

She had listened intently. "And is that all your evidence?" she asked.

"It's damnably convincing, Mrs. Fanshaw— though I hate to say it. The man who got at that plan must have been either your husband, Rolfe, or myself. You can't imagine us coming on a job like this if either of us did it. And all the evidence piles up against ——" He broke off abruptly, with a gesture toward Fanshaw. "The whole thing's too ghastly," he finished.

Fanshaw was about to say something when his wife checked him. Her brow was wrinkled with a sudden thought.

"Wait a moment," she said. "What was the name of the bank in London and what name was on the cablegram?"

"The cable was sent by someone signing himself John Smith to the London and North-Western Bank."

"John Smith?" She gave a little cry of triumph. "And who handed in that cablegram?"

"A native who has not yet been traced."

"Then perhaps I can throw some light on it. Four days ago, after dark, when I was sitting on the veranda, a native came wandering up the road and asked me, in broken English, if I had seen a certain officer. I could not understand him very well at first, and as he had a piece of paper in his hand I made him show it to me thinking that it would give the name. That piece of paper was the receipt from the cable company for a cablegram sent to the London and North-Western Bank by John Smith. I didn't know the name, and I asked him if he was sure it was 'Smith' he wanted. He said: 'No— no— Major Sahib Roff— Major Sahib Roff!' And I sent him along to Major Rolfe's bungalow!"

"That's a lie!" Rolfe burst out, furiously, "A stupid lie!"

"Steady, Rolfe!" said Bruce. "You forget you are speaking to a lady."

"She'd tell any yarn, of course, to save her husband— and it is a lie!" Rolfe reiterated.

"That same evening," she went on, coldly ignoring the interruption, "we heard that Major Rolfe had shot a native who was trying to burgle his house."

"That's true enough," exclaimed Rolfe. "I just caught the brute as he was clambering through the window. But the other is sheer imagination. Look here, Bruce, I'm not going to stay here while Mrs. Fanshaw invents red herrings to draw across the trail. She can tell that story to the court martial. I'm going back to the general to report that Fanshaw refuses to sign a confession. Come along!" He took a step toward the door.

"No!" cried Mrs. Fanshaw. She stepped in front of him with a quick movement, blocking the doorway. "You will please wait a little, Major Rolfe!" she said, and then turned to Bruce. "Frank! Supposing— I only ask you to suppose— that Major Rolfe was the one of you three who sent that cablegram, and that he still has the receipt in his pocket— is it safe to let him go out of here and perhaps destroy it? It might be the one piece of evidence that could save Dick."

"Nonsense!" said Rolfe, angrily. "It is a monstrous suggestion! Please let me pass, Mrs. Fanshaw!"

She ignored him, looked at Bruce.

"Frank! I want you to search Major Rolfe before he leaves this room."

Fanshaw interposed.

"My dear, whatever you think— one can't do things like that. You can't expect Bruce to insult a brother officer on your mere supposition. But"— he glanced sharply at Rolfe— "in view of what you have said, we will all accompany him to the general."

She turned to her husband.

"Dick," she said, "you are under suspicion, and anything you say or do may harm you. Leave this to me." She looked again at Bruce. "Frank! Please do as I say!"

Bruce hesitated, glanced at Rolfe who was red with indignation, his hands working irritably, as he stood unable to pass Mrs. Fanshaw without sheer violence to her. It was impossible— fantastic! No man could have come on such an errand if he were himself guilty. He despised himself for even momentarily admitting the suspicion.

"But, Mrs. Fanshaw, what you ask of me is outrageous. Rolfe and I have been friends for years. It is unthinkable that he should have done it. You must have been mistaken about that native."

"I am not mistaken," she replied, doggedly. "Frank things have been made to look black for Dick. He needs a pal— badly. To-day you gave me your word. Are you going to break it?" Her eyes challenged all he had ever felt for her.

He took a long breath, looked at Rolfe— cheery, thoroughly decent Rolfe, who now stood outraged by this diabolical supposition. All the long years of their intimacy rose up in protest. Insult him for that man he had no doubt was guilty, that man he had to keep himself from hating— Nina's husband? Nina's husband! Yes— just because of that! There was just one faint, improbable chance. He had to have it. He turned to Fanshaw.

"Fanshaw, before I insult Rolfe, I ask you— before God— whether you sold that plan?"

"Before God," replied Fanshaw, with sober emphasis, "I did not."

Bruce twisted himself round to Rolfe.

"Rolfe," he said, "I hate to even seem to suspect you of such a horrible thing, but I must ask you to let me go through your pockets."

"Certainly not!" said Rolfe, indignantly. "I have just as much right to search you! Mrs. Fanshaw can make her absurd accusation before the court martial— and the court will decide whether Major Fanshaw is guilty or not. But I'm certainly not going to submit to the indignity of letting you go through my private papers without any authorization whatever!" His broad face was livid with anger.

Bruce placed himself in front of Mrs. Fanshaw, blocking the doorway. For the first time, a real suspicion shot up in him.

"Rolfe," he said, steadily, "I am certainly going to search you— even if I knock you down for it."

"You'd better try!" replied Rolfe, in furious scorn. "I'm going straight to the general— and I advise you to stand away from that door!"

Bruce smiled. The next moment Rolfe had rushed at him, and, rushing, met a straight left from the shoulder. He went with a crash to the floor.

Before he could stir, Bruce was on top of him, one hand on his throat, the other going through the pockets of his tunic. He extracted a letter wallet, held it out to Mrs. Fanshaw. She took it, went to the window, examined it, uttered a sharp little cry.

"Here it is!"

Bruce got to his feet, reached for the revolver on the table, held Rolfe covered.

"What is it?" he asked. "Here, Fanshaw, take the gun and see he doesn't rush."

He went to the window, took the two pieces of paper Mrs. Fanshaw handed to him. One was the receipt from the cable company; the other was covered with evidently practice signatures of "John Smith." He turned to Rolfe, who had also scrambled to his feet and stood sullenly scared and silent under the menace of Fanshaw's weapon.

"Have you got anything to say?"

An ugly word was the only answer.

Bruce addressed himself to Mrs. Fanshaw.

"Mrs. Fanshaw," he said, with a quietly grim politeness, "will you now please leave us. You have played your part. Dick and I will do the rest."

She went straight out of the room. The three men, left alone, stood looking at one another in a pause of silence. It was Bruce who broke it.

"Rolfe," he said, curtly, "I once had the honour of serving under your father. He was a gallant gentleman. For his sake, I give you the chance the general sent us to give Fanshaw." He pointed to the table. "Sit down— and write! And afterward Fanshaw and I will see you as far as your bungalow."

Rolfe stood staring at him, a little foam upon the lips of his broad white face. For a moment he looked into Bruce's eyes, measured the inexorability of that decision, and then, slowly, unsteadily, he walked toward the writing table.

THE GENERAL was still at his desk, leaning back in his chair, blowing meditative smoke rings toward the ceiling, when Bruce entered, saluted.

"And Rolfe?" he asked, as his eyes came down to Bruce's solitary figure.

Bruce stepped forward, handed him a written sheet of notepaper, pointed shakily to the signature at the bottom.

"Here, sir," he said, in a voice that lacked steadiness for all his effort at self-command.

The general contemplated it, shifted his pipe from one side of his mouth to the other, bit upon the stem.

"H'm!" he said. "And afterwards?" He looked up at him.

Bruce blew out an imaginary match.

The general nodded. Methodically, he folded up the paper, put it in an envelope, sealed it, and locked it up in his drawer. Then he smiled grimly.

"A bad hat," he said. "I was pretty sure he was the man, but everything pointed to Fanshaw. Rolfe's frontal defence was as good as impregnable. And we learnt in France, I think, not to make frontal attacks on impregnable defences. There's nearly always a way round."

Bruce stared at him. "Then you guessed, sir?"

The general shrugged his shoulders. "It was one of the two. I knew Fanshaw wouldn't sign if he were innocent, and I sent you to see fair play. The art of war, my dear Bruce, is the art of producing sudden crises and taking measures to profit by them. You can never foresee exactly how you'll do it, but you nearly always get what you want— if you put the right man on the job. In the very special circumstances"— he smiled significantly— "I knew you were the right man."

_________________________

14: The Inca's treasure

F. Britten Austin.

The Strand Magazine Jan 1923

THE LITTLE CROWD in the corner of the Strathmoran's smoking room had been swapping tall stories over their whiskies and-sodas. One of them turned to a grey-haired, sailor-like man who had been listening in silence, absorbed in the enjoyment of his cigar.

"Now then, Walters. It's your turn for a yarn. What with raising ships and one thing and another, you must have had some curious experiences, above and wider water."

"I have," he admitted. "But my most curious experience had nothing to do with a ship. When the steward has given us another peg all round, I'll tell you the story. One of you chaps reminded me of it just now with that yarn about prospecting in the Andes." He touched the bell and paused while the steward fulfilled the order.

"This story is also about Peru," he began, setting down his glass. "It happened 20 years ago. I had been sent on my first job as superintendent to salve the bullion out of a ship sunk in a collision just outside Callao— just off the Island of San Lorenzo, to be exact. I had an assistant with me, a young fellow named Tremayne."

"Alee Tremayne?" queried one of his audience. "Was he salving in New Guinea some 10 years back?"

"That's the man," said Walters. "Did he ever show you that little parlour trick of his?"

"Once," said the man who knew Tremayne. "But be didn't really like doing it. Personally, I thought it was uncanny."

"What was it?" asked one of the others.

"If you gave him any article belonging to some one else— a souvenir from your best girl, or a letter from some one he had never heard of, anything you like— he would put it against his forehead for a moment or two, and then tell you all about that person in detail.  He couldn't tell you how he did it. Said  he just knew somehow—supposed it was the Cornish blood in him."

"Psychometry," remarked one of his interested listeners, who prided himself upon encyclopaedic knowledge.

"That's the word," agreed Walters. "Though I don't know that it explains anything. I took the trouble to read the subject up later on, The theory is that events or emotions in some way impress themselves upon inanimate objects. like a gramophone record, and that people of a particular type can pick up the vibrations and reconstruct the cause just as your mind reconstructs an orchestra or a familiar voice from the vibrations set up by the needle passing over the gramophone disc. It is the theory which is supposed to explain haunted houses. It is incomprehensible, anyway, when you try to think it out. But Tremayne could certainly tell you astonishing things of which he could not possibly have had any personal knowledge."

"He was a good chap," said the man who knew him in New Guinea .

"First rate," said Walters, and continued:

WE WERE great pals. Salving that bullion was a long job, and we had every opportunity of knowing each other intimately. We got to the end of it at last, however, and packed up our diving apparatus and went into Lima to await instructions from headquarters. Our  chief friend there was a Peruvian gentleman, whom everybody called Don José— his surname doesn't matter. He was a wealthy man, about forty years of age, highly cultured, with the perfect manners of the polished cosmopolitan. He had represented the Peruvian Government in several European capitals, and he spoke English like a native. There are few pure blooded Spaniards in Peru, of course, and most of the inhabitants show the Indian strain unmistakably. But there was altogether an uncommon distinction about Don José, and we could well believe that he was, as people said, a descendant of the ancient Incas.

He invited us to dinner that night we had finished with the wreck. It is curious how rarely one has any foreboding of the most startling events in life. Not even Tremayne, for all his uncanny faculties, had any presentiment that we were on the threshold of an amazing adventure. We were merely cheerful with the expectation of a good dinner. We had it. Don José was a bachelor, who cultivated the tat of fine thing to an exquisite nicety. The dining room was like a museum, with its carved Spanish chests, its wonderful antique silver plate, and its age-blackened ancestral portraits. We ate our perfectly thought out dinner in an atmosphere charged with the romance of those old Conquistadores. It was on the female side, of course, that Don José was descended from the Incas. His male progenitor was a companion of Pizzaro's. He told many anecdotes of those far-off times during dinner, pointed to pieces of armour on the walls which had been worn by one or another of the famous captains.

We sat long over our wine in the interest of our host's fascinating conversation― Tremayne with his dreamy Celtic blue eyes fastened upon him, myself listening and talking also, but with my eyes continually attracted by a curious ring upon our host's finger. The impulse to ask him what it was at last became too strong to be resisted. Don José smiled as he slipped it over the knuckle.

"That," he said, passing it to me, "is a ring worn by the ancient Incas."

I turned it over in my hand. It was vert heavy, of pure yellow gold, moulded with an angular geometrical pattern right round it, I passed it to Tremayne.

"You ought to try your little parlour trick with that, Alec," I said half jokingly, half serious.

"Shut up, Jimmy," he said, irritably, "and don't suggest stupid things."

Knowing how he hated doing that trick, I could not well resent the snub.

Don Jose was smiling at us.

"And what, is Señor Tremayne's little parlour-trick, may I ask?" he queried.

I had to tell him.

"It is a thing that I have heard of," he said, "but have never seen. May I beg of Señor Tremayne to show me his very curious faculty?"

Tremayne, of course, could not decently refuse. He made light of his powers, said he could not guarantee anything at all, but consented to try. He sat for a moment or two with the ring pressed against his forehead, his eyes closed.

"I begin to we something,"  he said, at last, while we sat and watched him breathlessly. He paused, and then spoke slowly, as though concentrating for precise vision.

"I see a man— curiously dressed. Round his head is a sort of red ribbon. It is twisted round two or three times, and there is a red fringe which comes down over his eyes. He wears a red plume also and a rich cloak of white and gold. There are people about him— they weep bitterly, with despairing gestures. There are other people— different. They are Europeans, in helmets and breastplates— swords and halberds— the steel seems to frighten me― there is a stake with faggots round it— ah!"

He uttered a peculiar cry, dropped the ring, and clutched with his lingers at his throat. Then his eyes opened. He looked at us and shuddered. "It strange, he said. "It felt as though I were being strangled."

Don José was serious, intensely interested.

"Very strange, he agreed."That ring belonged to Atahualpa, the last independent Inca of Peru. The Spaniards allowed him the favour of being strangled before he was burned.  You described his dress exactly."

He smiled at Tremayne, who handed him back the ring.

"I may have read about it somewhere, Don José, though I don't remember it."

"You may, of course," said Don José. "Will you try again with something of which you cannot possibly know anything?" He felt inside his soft shirt-front, and brought out a little gold crucifix he had evidently worn suspended from his neck and passed it to Tremayne. Once his initial reluctance was overcome, Tremayne was as interested as any one else, and he put the crucifix to his forehead as he had done the ring. His eyes closed, and he sat in an attitude of concentration.

"You really wish me to tell you what I see, Don José?" he said, after an interval.

"Yes," said Don José, in a peculiar tone. The hand which held his cigar was trembling. But Tremayne opened his eyes.

"Don José," he said, "there are tragedies too sacred for strangers to know of. I would rather forget what I saw. But to prove that I did see something I will  remind you of your vow when you received this crucifix and repeat a name— Micaela."

"It is enough," "said Don José, hoarsely, reaching out his hand for the crucifix. Tremayne looked our host in the eyes and his manner was unusually solemn.

"Don José," he said, as he handed it back, "I had a warning is that vision—a message for you. Whatever the temptation, never part with that pledge or talisman, or whatever it is."

"It is both," said Don José, "and the warning is unnecessary. For nothing in the world would I part with it. Thank you, Señor Tremayne."

He was strangely moved under his smilingly controlled manner. He filled our glasses, and we all three sat in silence for a moment or two, each occupied with his own thoughts.

At length Don José rose from the table and went to one of the Spanish chests against the wall. He opened one of the little carved drawers behind the opened doors of the front and returned to us with the object he had fetched. It was a long piece of string, to which other pieces, of string were fastened perpendicularly. These hanging pieces of string were of different colours. They were knotted and looped at intervals along their lengths, and into some of the knots were twisted bits of hair and grass and here and there bits of stone. It was obviously extremely ancient. Don José handled it with care as he laid it on the table before us.

"What is it?" I asked. "I will tell you presently," he replied.

"Señor Tremayne, will you try your powers with this?"

There was a curious repressed excitement in his manner which puzzled me. Tremayne made no objection.

"This is no ordinary piece of string," he said, after a moment. "It is full of intimation. It is like a book— in a language I can't read."

"Try!" said Don José, watching him intently.

"I can't read it. But I see pictures, see gold— a gold statue— heaps on heaps of gold in a dark place— this has something to do with gold. One minute― I must begin at the beginning."

He shifted the string across his forehead. "I see a city —it is among mountains, high mountains. The city is built of stone, of darkish coloured stone in huge blocks— they are just laid neatly on one another, there is no cement. There is a big hill behind it, very steep, with an immense, castle on it, in three circles, built also of those great blocks of stone—it is as if some one were whispering its name— I can't quite catch it― Saxa—Saxa—"

"Sacsahuarman," suggested Don José.

"Sacsahuarman! That's it!"

Tremayne moved the string across his forehead. "A journey— through the mountains— deep ravines— such a dangerous-looking bridge!― just rope—night— more journey—on and on and on— two, three nights I sleep— I can't tell you all of it— a river— there are many rivers, but I stop at this one. I go into it, I wade against the stream"— he was still moving the string across his forehead as he spoke— "someone is whispering to me― to hold my breath— oh!   I am right under the water I go on— walking, groping, still under the water―  there is a dark cavern— I go into it— I mount upwards— ah!" He screamed hideously. "Ah! the jaws!— the jaws!"

His head went down, face forward, on the table with a crash that sent a wineglass to smash upon the floor, and the string fell from his nerveless fingers. He seemed to be in a dead faint, and we had considerable difficulty in bringing him round. I was relieved when at last I saw him sit up and drink a glass of Don José's best brandy, and smile at us, his old self again. He pushed the string away from him with a shudder.

"There's something peculiar about that bit of old junk," he said, "I can't remember now what I saw— but it was horrible— like a nightmare."

"What is it, Don José?" I asked, picking it up and fingering it.

"I will tell you," said our host; but before doing so I will make sure that we are alone."

He went to the doors and out into the patio, satisfied himself that there were no eavesdroppers. Then he returned to the table, filled us each a glass of his priceless cognac.

"Gentlemen, to our miraculous good fortune," he said, raising his glass.

We drank the toast, rather bewildered.

"But what is it?" I asked again.

He picked up the dirty looking knotted strings.

"This, gentlemen, is a quipu. The ancient Peruvians had no knowledge of the art of writing. This was their only means of keeping a record. With such pieces of string as this, the orders of the Inca were transmitted from end to end of his empire, and with other pieces the history of the nation was preserved. There was a high official, the Quipu Ganayu, whose duty it was to keep them in sacred custody. Many of these quipus still remain. But unfortunately the secret of reading them is lost. For more than a hundred years no-one has been able even to guess at their meaning."

"But what was that gold statue that Tremayne talked about?" I remarked.

"I am coming to that. You are certainly aware that the Spanish Conquistadores discovered immense treasures of gold in the country. You may also know that they did not discover them all. The ancient Peruvians hid all they could. To this day people have been digging them out. Searching for buried treasure is almost a national mania in this country. There are men—tapadas, they are called—who do nothing else. I am somewhat of a tapada myself." He smiled again. "But the chief treasure of all— the treasure of the Temple of the Sun— has never been discovered. It was hidden with the gold-plated mummy of Huayna Capac, the greatest of the Incas."

"Is it known to exist?" said I.

"It is certainly known to exist," replied Don José, "but, although the Spaniards tortured ruthlessly every person they imagined might know the secret, and though for nearly four hundred years every likely place has been thoroughly searched, not a trace of it has ever been found."

"Perhaps one of the old Spaniards got away with it and kept it to himself," surmised Tremayne.

Don José shook his head.

"No. There is evidence to the contrary. In 1615 a great revolt against the Spaniards was organized by a cacique named Pumacagua. Pumacagua needed money for this patriotic purpose. In some way he came communication with the guardian of the secret, a poor peasant but the descendant of an ancient priest. After making swear that be would not take more than he needed for the rebellion, the guardian of the secret took Pomacugua many days' journey blindfold through the mountains. At last they came to a river, and all that Pumacagua knew was he waded with water above his head he came to a cavern where was an incredible  profusion of golden vases and of all sorts, together with the golden mummy of Huayna Capac. He took enough for his purpose, and returned, still blindfolded, the way he had come."

"How extraordinary!" exclaimed Tremayne, "I vividly felt myself wading under  water."

"Pumacagua was my ancestor," Don Jose continued. "From his deathbed that guardian of the secret sent his grandson this quipu." He picked it up, looked at its enigmatic knots and loops. "It describes the way to the treasure— if only it could be read."

"Good Lord!" commented Tremayne. "If only it could be read!"

"It can be read, Senor Tremayne," said Don Jose, fixing him with his brilliant  eyes. "You can read it, not perhaps as an ancient Peruvian would read, but well enough for all practiced purposes. You visualise evidently the itinerary on which certainly the man who knotted that quipu was then concentrating his thoughts. That first place you described— the city, the starting point— I recognised it. It is Cuzco, the ancient capital of the Incas. Don't you think that if we started from there and you had this quipu with you, you could describe the journey stage by stage so that I, who know the country well, could recognise it?"

"I might," admitted Tremayne. He looked around at us suddenly, as though testing the credibility of this fantastic thing. We were all three trembling with excitement. "Good Lord," he said, can't believe I'm awake!"

"There is more than wealth enough for three of us," went in Don José, his eyes glittered the lust for gold. "We should all be millionaires many times over. Will you try?"

"Of course I will," said Tremayne. "But I can't be sure that I can read the thing again. It doesn't follow that I can do it just when I want to."

"Try now," said Don José, passing him the quipu.

We watched him with a breathless suspense as he put his powers to that test of repetition at will which meant so much to us.

For a long moment he did not speak. Then once more, slowly but clearly, be recapitulated that several days' journey through the mountains. He did not lose himself in so deep a trance this second time, and when she came to the river he opened his eyes and put down the quipu with an abrupt gesture.

"We'll leave out that underwater bit for the present," he said. "There's a nasty feel about it. Could you make anything of the rest?"

"All that mountain country is so much alike that I cannot map out the way from your general description," said Don José. "But on the spot, with the quipu and your powers to help us, it should be easy to identify the trail."

"I can certainly do it at will. I am confident of it," said Tremayne; "Walters— are you game? I ought to warn both of you that there's some danger in it that I can't quite make out. I feel it strongly."

"There's danger also of dying of starvation in our old age," said I. "I'm your man. But since you two are good enough to count me in, I should like to make my little contribution. It occurs to me that even if we should happen to hit on that river, there's going to he some difficulty in finding the submerged entrance to the cave. It's one thing to be led to it; it's another to grope about, holding your breath under water. I suggest we take the lead off some diving suits, and fit short air pipes on to floats. Then we can explore as much as we like, at our ease."

Don José turned to me.

"Señor Walters," be said, "you may think me superstitious, but it is Destiny that has brought us three together. We three form perhaps the only combination that could unlock the secret. Your diving suits solve the last difficulty."

He filled our glasses again.

"Gentlemen, there are indeed dangers, as Señor Tremayne suggests, I, who am of Inca blood, can vaguely guess at them. But I for one here vow that nothing shall turn me back. Destiny!" he cried, in Spanish, raising his glass, "I embrace thee!" He drank, and dashed his glass sacrementally to pieces on the floor. So might have done his other ancestor, the Conquistador.

WITHIN TEN DAYS, equipped for our expedition, we were in Cuzco. Dominating it was the precipitous hill of Sacsahuaman, crowned with the triple and colossal walls of their ancient fortress. All around were lofty mountains, gashed with deep ravines. There, behind locked doors in an upper room of the dirty inn where we lodged, Tremayne once more psychometrized the quipu, while we watched him with tense and breathless interest. His eyes closed, that length of enigmatic strings passed slowly across his forehead, deliberately and vividly he described a path up a ravine which Don José whispered to me was that of the Huatanac, into the wilderness of the mountains. As he visualized the route, I wrote it down in a notebook. Don José asserted confidently that he recognised every step of the way. About the beginning there was no doubt whatever. We could see from our window the features that Tremayne described.

The next morning we set off at dawn. Naturally, we took no servants with us, and ourselves drove the three mules loaded with our diving suits and other equipment. Our plan was to get the gold out of the river cavern and hide it in some more accessible place, fetching it thence by successive journeys.

All that day we journeyed, and it was uncanny to recognise, in each new prospect in that wild country, the exactness with which Tremayne's clairvoyant faculty had pictured the route. We went on in absolute confidence. That night we camped, many thousands of feet up, on a stretch of thin turf scattered with huge boulders, precisely as Tremayne had seen it.

The next morning, Tremayne, with the quipu to his brow, visualized for us the next stage of our journey, from dawn to nightfall, and once more, among mighty snow mountains, with frightful chasms now on one hand, now on the other, over loose moraines and across torrents, we found the trail hour after hour, precisely as Tremayne had described. Save for the difficulties of the path, it was almost absurdly easy. Tremayne and I were high spirits.

Don José, in contrast to our happy mood, seemed to be obsessed by some apprehension he did not confide to us. We joked him on his fears.

His dark eyes rested upon us with a peculiar expression of private knowledge.

"We defy more powers than you know of," he said enigmatically. "The old gods are perhaps not dead."

It was the Inca strain in him, we thought, but we had to admit to ourselves that so far the old gods had guarded their treasure well.

That night and the next we camped amid mountain summits, but the fourth day the trail led sharply downwards. This, according to Tremayne's vision, should been the last day of our journey, and we were wild with excitement. Unfortunately, whether or not as a result of the fatigues he had undergone, Tremayne's faculty had been weak that morning.

"We'll camp at midday," I said to him, "and then you can rest up a bit before you have another try. Don't lose confidence in yourself, whatever you do. We haven't come so far to be balked now."

But that was just what we had done, camped at midday in a little savannah dense forests clothing the lower of a mountain spur. All around us were torrents foaming over rocky beds . We camped close to one that emerged from that sheer-cut ravine. This was as Tremayne seen it in his last mental picture from quipu, but we had long ago finally lost sign of track. There was absolutely to guide us, except Tremayne's divination of the way, And that now failed utterly.

He rested and tried in vain— still longer and again saw nothing― nothing whatever. His faculty seemed to totally abandoned him. There were tears in his eyes as, after his fifth attempt, with the sun now gone down behind the mountain walls, he turned to us and said, "It's no good, boys. I can't see a thing.  I've lost the gift, I'm afraid."

He handed the quipu sadly back to Don Jose, who put it, for precaution, on his body, fastened round his chest under his shirt in company with his golden crucifix.

"Nonsense," I said. "We'll camp here the night and you'll be all right in the But he wasn't. We couldn't wait for before he tried. And then his mind was an absolute blank. We sat and stared at one another, absolutely paralysed. Tremayne and I were depressed enough. Don José looked ghastly, white and haggard. He had slept badly, he told us.

For three days we were stuck in that accursed spot. A hundred times Tremayne was to psychometrize that quipu, and never did he see any more than you or I could have done. His faculty had completely deserted him. And all the time were tortured by the knowledge that treasure must be somewhere quite close to us— but whether it was a few yards or a few miles it was impossible to say. Without Tremayne's special powers to guide us, we might search till Doomsday.

I shall never forget that encampment, with the three mules browsing peacefully on the herbage, our packed-up diving-suits and other baggage piled near our cooking fire, and Don José pacing up and down, gnawing at his knuckles and muttering prayers to himself.

The lower shadows were beginning to darken on the afternoon of that third day when Tremayne, who had been dozing in a despairful reaction from his last effort, sat up suddenly.

"I think I can do it, boys!" he cried. "I feel like it suddenly. Let me try!"

Eagerly Don José produced the quipu and the pair of us sat on the ground watching Tremayne with thumping hearts as be put that last end of the string to his brow and closed his eyes.

"Yes!" he cried. "I see something. Wait!"

We waited, holding our breath.

"Yes," he repeated, with tense deliberation. "I see something. But it seems to be Cuzco again— there is Sacsahuaman. Ah, now I see clearly! I see a temple— an immense temple high above a river— everything is gold— there are golden trees in the grounds, there is a double row of golden statues leading up to an immense golden sun. There is some ceremony on― I see a throng of people and priests busy in front of the altar. What is this coming? Oh, it is the Inca with the red plume. He goes to the altar. He makes sacrifice of some kind."

"Go on," said Don Jose, "What next?"

"Nothing more," he answered. "I can't get beyond that sacrifice. I can only see that. Oh— and now that's gone," he added, in a tone of disappointment. "There's nothing—nothing at all. I can't see anything. It has all vanished again."

He put down the quipu, looked at us miserably.

"What do you make of that, Don José?" I asked, turning to him.

I was scared at his appearance. The blood seemed to have gone out of his face, his eyes stared as at some affrighting vision of the mind, his lips muttered be something I could not at first catch. Then I distinguished the words, in Spanish: "I knew it— I knew it!"

He seemed altogether oblivious of us, in a private terror or anguish we could not guess at.

"What it is that you knew, Don José?" I asked, irritably. Our nerves were on edge that afternoon. He swung round to us.

"Señor Tremayne, you see nothing more?" Tremayne tried again.

"Nothing, at all," he said, hopelessly.

"But he did see something," I urged. What did that mean?"

"He saw what I have dreamed for the last three nights," answered Don José, almost angrily. The man's manner was altogether peculiar.

"He saw the sacrifice of the Incas in the Temple of the Sun at Cuzco. It means that if we are to go farther, I, the descendant of the Incas, must likewise sacrifice to our ancient god, must renounce—" He broke off with a wild gesture of despair.

It sounded fantastically absurd superstition to me— but there was something in that mountain solitude which inclined one to superstition.

"Well, sacrifice then!" I said, contemptuously. "What shall we do— kill a mule?"

"No!" he said, solemnly. "Only the sacrifice of what is dearest to him can be made by an Inca to his father the Sun."

This was to us a ridiculous position. Haunted by the thought of that treasure so tantalizingly near, we sat and watched him wrestling with temptation. I could not imagine what sacrifice was required of him, but evidently he had no doubt. Fascinated, we saw him open his shirt and unfasten some small, glittering object from his neck. He held it in his hand, gazing at it with despairful fondness. It was the small gold crucifix he constantly wore. He stood there, staring at it, wild-eyed, muttering incomprehensible words. I saw sweat standing out upon his forehead. He turned to us.

"Gentlemen," he said, with a peculiar solemnity, "left to myself, I should renounce this adventure. But I brought you into it— I swore to you— my honour is involved."

He walked quickly to the river bank, flung the crucifix into the torrent with a wild cry: "Adios, Micaela! Adios!"

Then once more he turned to Tremayne.

"Try now," he said, authoritatively.

Tremayne put the quipu to his forehead, and closed his eyes. He uttered a sharp exclamation of amazement.

"Why— we are here!" he cried.  "This is the place— I recognise it— the very spot. This is the river! We go down into it, wade up stream, the water over our heads. It is dark— yes!" he finished, excitedly, "there is the cavern on the right!"

He opened his eyes. "How extraordinary that we should have been at the very spot after all!"

"There is nothing extraordinary about it," pronounced Don José. "The sacrifice was necessary,"

"Well," I said, cheerfully, "let's waste no more time about it. Come along, Alec, and help me get out those diving suits."

Don José helped also, and gradually lost his gloomy melancholy in the contagion of our excitement. The thought of that immense hoard of gold so near at hand worked in us like a fever. In a very short time we stood equipped in the diving suits, from which most of the lead had been removed, electric torches on our breasts, and holding in our hands 30-foot coils of airpipe attached to floats. We looked three weird figures from another world as we waddled clumsily down to the bank.

Just as we got to the stream, Tremayne tapped at my helmet. We put our heads in contact for speech.

"Supposing there's an obstruction?" he said. "What about the dynamite?"

We had brought with us some dynamite left over from those we had been using to break into the hold of the wreck. They were patent things, with long fuses, fired by the spark from a pocket battery with precaution, and lying down at a distance, you could explode them without coming to the surface.

"Good idea!" I shouted in answer, and we waddled back for them.

We cautiously made our way into at least twenty feet of water, and the current was so strong that we had to hold hands, the three of us, to make way against it.

We switched on our lights, for only an attenuated illumination came down to us from the bright crystalline roof of the water surface, breaking in gleaming bubble streams against the rocks, that passed up out of sight info the air. The floats of our air-pipes followed us overhead. Hand-in-hand the three of us groped our way stumblingly over the uneven bottom, flashing our electric lamps, into every cavity of the right-hand bank. Obviously we could not have far to go. The ancient Peruvians who had concealed the treasure could not have held their breath or much more than a minute, say a hundred and fifty yards of distance.

We had perhaps covered half of that when I suddenly saw Tremayne wave his arm and bend down to the pebbly river bottom. The light of our lamps fell upon a golden vase of curious, crude shape. Evidently it had been dropped by one of the hiders of the treasure. I shouted inside my helmet. We were on the right track! It was heavy yellow gold, but in our anticipation of the immensely greater wealth of which this was but an indication, we threw it down as not worth carrying. We went on, flashing our lamps, with swift-darting fish swarming away from us, for yet another fifty yards of progress. Then, with one accord, we stopped. On the right was a dark cavern about the height of a man, and carved over the centre of the arch was a horribly grinning square-faced head— an ancient Peruvian demon, placed there probably to frighten away disturbers of the treasure. It had the reverse effect on us. It was the final proof.

We pushed forward to the mouth of the cave. It was so narrow that we had to enter in single file. We shut off our air-valves, for our floats were being dragged down behind us, and held our breaths. It was only for a matter a seconds. The bottom rose steeply. We clambered up, the roof of water reflecting the light of our lamps. In a moment it like a low ceiling above our heads. In another we had emerged, opened our helmets for a breath of dank air. For yet some yards ahead of us the cave continued as a narrow corridor, but, as our lamps lit up its damp walls, we could see at the end what seemed to be golden statue in a widening of the cavern. About it were heaps of metal that glinted dully yellow. With a joyous shout we pressed forward. We had scarcely taken two or three steps out of the water when, like late echo, our shout came back to us a dreadful roar. Was it echo? We stopped for a moment, in an apprehension we could not define. There was silence, we pushed on again. We emerged into a vast lofty cavern, and such a sight as for a hundred years no man's eyes had looked on.

There in front of us was the gold-plated mummy of Huayna Capac, its twisted features seeming to regard us with a smile of ineffable irony. Its impassive contemplation of our strange appearance— we looked a grotesque trio in our unhuman-headed diving dresses― was oddly impressive. But we were not there as tourists. Tremayne and shook off the eerie fascination of that gilded figure with the twisted smile, and looked about us. Heaped high to the remotest recesses of that huge cavern was an incredible profusion of golden vases, golden figures, golden trees, golden animals, all that fantastic variety of golden objects which I have since read about in the ancient Spanish chronicles as being in the Temple of the Sun. The difficulty was to decide what to begin to take. We turned to consult Don José. To our astonishment, he was kneeling before the mummy of Huayna Capac as though demanding pardon. He took from his finger the ring of the Incas and laid it at his feet with a gesture of profound abasement.

Before we had had time to speculate on the meaning of this superstitious performance, Tremayne grabbed by arm.

"What's that?" he ejaculated.

A peculiar sound filled the cavern— a rustling, slithering sort of sound, as something heavy that dragged itself. It was followed by a loud, dully metallic lashing whose origin we could not even guess at. There was an appalling reverberating roar. We swept our lamps round like searchlights in our alarm, saw three or four pairs of immensely long clashing jaws, armed with fearsome teeth, appear from the dark recesses behind the horribly smiling mummy. They were crocodiles of sort, but bigger than any I have ever seen— prehistoric survivals, perhaps, in this inaccessible cavern. They slithered quickly towards us on their short legs. Tremayne and I dashed for the exit. Don José also saw them. He sprang to his feet, and then stood motionless, with no effort to escape. We shouted to him, but did not move. Was he paralysed by fear, or did he wait for them, superstitious as he was? The result was the same. Our last sight of him was with those monstrous saurians squirming over one another in competition for his body.  Our danger was imminent. In another moment they would be on us also. We would have no chance of escape in that narrow water-passage. Deep-sea diving is profession that inculcates presence of mind. I pulled out a dynamite cartridge, fired the fuse, flung it among them. Then we dashed back to the water, flung ourselves in headlong, with barely time to close the windows of our helmets. We heard a dull roar behind us.

The next thing I knew was when I found myself entangled in the branches of a tree that floated on a large lake. Tremayne, also on a tree-trunk, was waving me from a little distance away. There was no sign of our camp. The whole of that little valley was totally submerged. Night was coming on, but we managed to paddle ourselves ashore, and, having got rid of our diving-suits, to snatch a little sleep on a rock above the still water. Next day, nearly starving, we took a sun-bearing for what we hoped would be civilization. We should have starved if we had not met some natives.

"WHAT happened?" said one of the party, as the old Strathmoran pitched.

"Well," said Walters, "I don't exactly know. But this may help you to guess. Some centuries back the Spaniards discovered an Indian in possession of some antique gold vases. Upon being put to the torture, he confessed that he had discovered an Inca's treasure— they were scattered in different caches all over the country, apparently— and at last consented guide them to it. But he warned them  that if they dug for it water would cover the valley where it was hidden. They did, and the result was an inundation— the lake now called Manan-Chik. Our treasure was presumably in a similar spot, and the detonation of the dynamite caused a subterranean flood."

"And he treasure is still there?" asked someone.

"I guess it's pretty safe," said Walters, with a grim smile.

________________________

15: The Other Side

F. Britten Austin

The Strand Magazine Jul 1917

A DEEP SILENCE brooded over No. 3 Ward, Officers. It was late afternoon in October, but the room was as yet un-illumined from within. The two long lines of windows that confronted one another― the ward was a temporary hut-building― did so in a contrast of lights, the eastern windows, backed by grey obscurity, reflecting broken beams of the glory of gold and purple and fiery red that streamed in from the west. The two lines of beds, the indistinct greys and whites of the ward, were delicately touched by the warm glow where they rose into its radiance. It picked out tie short curves of the turned-back sheet, humped with the recumbent form beneath, in an imponderable caress upon the broken humanity that lay, desperately finite, under the splendour that knows no final setting. A mingled odour of disinfectant and anaesthetic hung in the air, explanatory of the dead quiet, of the heavy breathing that was part of the silence.

This was a ward of the severely wounded, recently arrived. From the utmost climax of human effort, thunderous to the ear, dreadful to the eye, maddening to the soul, whether it exulted triumphant over the menace of instant extinction or shrank appalled and paralysed in the horror of brutal death, from the fierce superiority of the unscathed killer, from the sudden shock, These men had come, many of them unconsciously, by train and ship and train and car, to the white-and-green 'hospital' in the empty moorland, to the hushed, screened peace of the bed-ranked ward.

At the farther end of the ward a medical officer stood in murmured conversation with a sister. He was outlined black against the radiance of the sunset, but on her the glow fell, fully illuminant, rosy upon the starched Whiteness of the coif and apron, touching the pale face into faint colour. Her large, serious eyes rested upon him, attentive to his instructions, glanced away to the patient in the end bed as he spoke.

"Number Ten must be very carefully watched, Sister," he said, the little, smile upon his face, indicative only of his confidence in the quiet young woman before him, in no way minimising the gravity of his words. "I am afraid we are going to have a very hard fight for him. But we mustn't let him slip through our fingers. We'll keep him on this side if we can."

She assented with a nod of the head and a long, deep breath that was clearly a sigh. He scrutinised her sharply.

"You have something on your mind, Sister. No bad news, I hope ?" His voice was very kind. "Captain Hershaw is all right?"

The Sister's engagement was generally known in the hospital. The large eyes opened, revealing a mute, long-suffered anxiety.

"It is more than a week since I heard from him, doctor. I am afraid― horribly afraid," she said, in a low voice. "This terrible fighting!"

"The post is sometimes held up during active operations, Sister. You must not be prematurely anxious. A week is not very long. You must believe in his luck. He has had a charmed life so far."

The M.O.'s kindly smile emphasised his reassuring tone.

"He has― he has. And life always seems so― so vivid in him. I cannot imagine him"― her voice sank almost to inaudibility―"dead."

"Don't!" He smiled, full of sympathy. "Believe in his star." His tone changed to the professional. "Would you like to go off duty, Sister? I will speak to the matron. A car is going into town. Go and look at the shops."

"No― no, doctor, thank you very much. I won't leave my dear boys here. Poor lads! It does one good to fight for them, almost as if―" She stopped, turned away.

"Very well, Sister. Send for me if any change occurs in Number Ten."

The M.O. walked down the warn, throwing little glances at the silent patients, and departed.

For some little time the Sister busied herself noiselessly. Then Number Ten stirred uneasily in his bed.

"Sister!" he called, in a faint voice. She was by his side in an instant.

"A drink, please !"

She gave it to him, looked down on the young, strongly masculine features as he drank, with an interest that was subtly, unconsciously, more than professional. From the moment of his arrival in the ward― even in his silences― Number Ten had been a personality. Though powerless in bed, there was a curious hint of brute force in him.

"Now you must go to sleep again, Captain Lavering," she said, smoothing his pillow.

"I can't, Sister." His eyes closed and opened again in a spasm of pain. "I― I want to feel someone near me"― his voice was very weak―"to get hold of life again. Sister― sit beside me― for a moment, please."

She glanced at him irresolutely, smoothed the hair from his hot forehead with a cool hand, and then acceded to his request, seated herself on the chair by the bed.

"But you mustn't talk," she warned him.

"I won't, Sister" He was quiet for a moment. "Sister, I'm very bad, I know― but I'm not going to die! I won't die― I won't let myself die!"

Despite his weakness, there was intense will power in his tone. "Hush, hush! Of course you are not going to die."

Involuntarily she laid her and upon the bed, as if to transfuse some of her own life-force into him. He reached out a hand, grasped here, resisted her attempt at withdrawal.

"Please― please!" he murmured. "I wasn't to hold on to life― there's so much― " His eyes closed sleepily. "I feel life flowing into me," he said.

The grip upon her hand was tight. For a long time she sat thus, her hand clasped in his. Number Ten slept, with heavy breathing. It seemed to her that his fever diminished. She feared to withdraw herself lest she should awaken him. The long ward was deathly still. Presently there was a noise of footsteps An orderly approached, changing his gait to a clumsy tip-toe in obedience to her gesture.

"A telegram for you, Sister," he said.

She glanced at the. patient, essayed to release her hand. It was firmly held in the sleeper's grasp.

"Open the telegram, Thomson," she said, in a whisper.

The orderly obeyed, handed her the drab piece of paper. She took it, glanced at it, nodded a speechless dismissal to the orderly.

"The War Office reports that Ronald is missing; believed killed.―Hershaw."

The words branded, themselves into her brain as she sat there fixed, immobile. She could hear them in the wailing cry of the widowed mother who had written the telegram, but her own voice seemed to her for ever dumb, never to break this crushing silence. She stared with dry eyes― straight before her. The obsequial lights of the departed sun, framed by the window opposite, were extinguished one after another. She did not stir, was, unconscious that her hand was still in the grasp of the wounded man.

"The War Office reports". It was like staring at a high closed door. An immeasurable time passed before an orderly entered, switched on the electric light, drew the blinds. She roused herself, found the grip upon her hand relaxed. She rose with tight lips and burning eyes, went about her duties.

That evening it was by an effort of will, sternly administered, that she sat at table in the Sister's mess-room. She scarcely ate, was deaf to the feminine chatter around her. One of the Sisters, a notorious flirt, joked her upon her lover-like posture with Number Ten. The orderly had evidently talked. Sister Braithwaite did; not reply. As soon as possible she fled to her little, match boarded cubicle. By her bedside was a photograph of a clean-featured young man, with intellectual eyes, more than ordinarily vivid in their expression. She kissed it passionately.

"Ronald! Ronald!"― the loved name came from the depths of her. The merciful tears fell fast, her bosom heaved.

She slept with a packet of letters pressed tightly to her warm body. She heard her name called: "Mary! Mary!" in a startlingly familiar voice. She heard herself reply: "Ronald!"

It was very dark. Where was she? Ah, by the stream! It seemed queerly natural that she should be by that stream. It was not so dark after all― only twilight. Twilight, with dark woods coming down to the stream.

Her name was called again. "Mary! Mary!" her lover's voice; impatient. Again she heard herself reply, "Ronald! Where are you?"

"Here, dear! On the other side ! You must cross the stream." Of course! She must cross the stream― that was quite natural― and: there was a little footbridge, offering passage. She went over, not daring to look down. On the other side she waited. He was not yet visible. She wondered what suit he would be wearing, wondered why she wondered.

He came towards her, his clothes curiously more conspicuous than his face. He was clad in his old tweed suit, and mysteriously it seemed odd to her. Yet what else should he be wearing? It was the suit he always wore when out for a walk. She glanced at her own clothes with a subtle sense of strangeness, yet it was her old summer frock she wore. This little puzzle about clothes played itself out in cosmic depths of her, receded, or was solved, vanished. Her lover was standing at her side, enfolded her.

"Mary ! I have been so anxious about you!"

She looked up at two eyes that seemed like stars in the twilight.

"I, too, Ronald― I have been worrying about you."

There was a sense of something terrible in the background, imminent, and yet she felt it; it had been with her for a long time. It ceased suddenly.

"But everything's all right now― I have found you."

A little glimmering of something in the depths of her asked why she said that seemed to repeat. doubtfully, "found you" in a long, eternally re-echoing voice. She felt eerie. It was as though her existence was a duplicate imperfectly combined, like the double vision, half running into each other, of badly adjusted binoculars.

"I am so glad you are safe, dear," she heard herself say. "Let us go and hear the nightingales," he said, in the voice, so ringingrly his own. He drew her along the path in the twilight, his arm about her waist. Nightingales? Now? Of course! Why not? The season was early June― what was the silly half-thought submerged beyond the horizon of her mind? She allowed herself to be impelled by the pressure of his arm.

Closely linked, they followed the tenebrous path by the wood, climbed skirting its dark edge. Her lover talked copiously and interestingly as he always did, on a multitude of subjects. He was humorous, satirical, rhapsodic, earnestly eloquent, by turns. How like him it was! She admired the wide range of his mind. Much more easily than usual― she realised it in a little glow of self-flattery― she comprehended him all through a long and intricate disquisition. Yet lurking somewhere in her dream consciousness was the feeling that there was an all-important topic on which he did not touch. A part of her tried to identify that topic and failed. The failure worried her.

He talked of travel, of a trip into Germany through the Black Forest, across Lake Constance into Austria and Tyrol. Of course!. That was to be their honeymoon tour. In the days before― before what?― before something― they had often talked about it. They were not even officially engaged then― she remembered how they used to laugh together over these distant projects that were treated as imminent facts. They had even had a little quarrel over the choice of two alternative stopping places...

She came back to his voice.

"Listen!" he said. "Listen!"

A nightingale was singing with supernatural power. Loud, trillingly resonant under the stars that now powdered the sky, the song welled out to them. Its burden, mysteriously comprehended by them to esoteric depths, was sorrow― the sorrow of all the world, here completely expressed transmuted into so strange a beauty that the listener held his breath. The deep sobs, shudderingly repeated, that threw off the magic runs of crystal sound, pervaded the atmosphere about them with a mystic spell, evoked an immense pity in them. They could have wept.

Suddenly they were conscious of a perfidy in this magically induced compassion― a danger common to both implied in it, imminent. He flung his arms about her to protect her, shielding her from it.

"You are mine, dearest!― mine― only mine!"

His words went ringing through the stars, passed out of hearing, but were not silenced. She felt kisses of intense fervour upon her mouth― responded.

"I am!" she cried. Her words also rolled away endlessly, as though permuted into imperishable brass. "I am yours alone!"

She half-woke in the feeling of a near presence, then sank again into a sleep that remembers not its dreams.

She awoke in the morning obsessed by the baffling sense of an occurrence. she could not recall. Then the memory, the realisation of her loss flooded in on her― harshly predominant in those first empty moments as yet unlinked to the distractions of the day. She wept uncontrollable tears.

"Ronald! Ronald!" she cried, in a low voice, her face buried in the soft pillow. Then she remembered. Her tears were checked. The details of her dream, opened one by one, stirred in her a curious, subtle fear she felt unworthy of her. The vividness of it awoke an atavistic emotion, the shrinking reaction of primitive humanity from the influence of those dead to this world. Yet a more recent growth in her tried to glory in the contact― impelled by an obscure sentiment of duty.

"I do love you, Ronald !" she murmured again to the pillow. "I am yours alone!"  The saying of the words seemed to merge her dream-life into unison with the actual.

There was much to do in the long, freshly-aerated ward that morning. As one by one each bed had its sheets turned back, exposing the gashed, perforated, or fractured bodies of men who winced with pain, the crude other side of war was laid bare. Into strong relief, too, was thrown the complementary phase of the other side of the vast catastrophe where the noblest are proudly conscious of the wounds they inflict. With tender care, the utmost solicitude not to cause one unnecessary pang of suffering, the khaki-clad doctors, the grey-uniformed, white-coifed and aproned nurses, laboured to save and heal.

Sister Braithwaite thrust herself utterly into her daily task of dressing wounds, of soothing pain, of bringing a cheerful smile on to the face of the sufferer. So doing, she eluded for quite long periods the obsession which haunted her.

Number Ten was once more the focus of interest in the ward. His condition had grown worse during the night. To-day he was in a dangerous fever. The doctor was grave. Sister Braithwaite watched over him with unremitting care, found herself passionately fighting off death.

In the early afternoon the crisis passed. He woke from a quiet sleep, looked up to the Sister standing by his bed.

"You have saved me, Sister," he said, in a weak voice. "I could feel it―"

"Hush, Captain Lavering. Go to sleep. We are all trying to get you well."

"It was you," he said, faintly, as his eyes closed once more.

The silence of the ward was suddenly broken by a merry peal of bells floating in through the open windows. In the little village church, tucked away in a nearby hollow of the moor, a wedding was being solemnised. Sudden tears, a strange emotion, surged up in Sister Braithwaite.

A case that had made good progress was removed from the ward a newly arrived, severely wounded man brought in.

"If only it were Ronald!" The neat, prim figure of the Sister, supervising the orderlies busy lifting the casualty into the bed, gave no indication of the desperate agonised prayer. She dreamed.

"Mine at last, my beloved― really mine!" The familiar voice thrilled through her, very close over her head. "Yours! Always yours!" she heard herself murmur.

She took her head from the darkness that obscured her vision― it was his coat against which she had been nestling; She saw the little white touzled-up hairs of the rough tweed ere her gaze stretched to a longer focus. She looked to his face, met his vivid eyes― looked round at her surroundings. They were alone in the first class compartment of a railway train that rocked and roared. His hands were pressed on hers.

"The great day, dearest!" he said. Her mind leaped to the illusion. Their wedding day! They had been married that morning― she could hear still the joyous peal of bells― were going away on their honeymoon. The tweed suit he wore was quite new― something like the old. She was in a travelling dress that he had already admired.

Of course! It all came back to her as if she had just awakened from a little sleep. The train rushed on. She lived through all the cinematograph-like pictures of the journey. A halt and descent― little anxieties about the luggage― then, after an interlude which was vague, another train, another long journey― all was a continuous long experience.

She thrilled at a surreptitious squeeze of his hand― ah, yes, there were other people in the carriage now― rounded her lips at him in a provoking similitude of a kiss, daringly profiting by the inattention of their fellow travellers. A yearning for him― induced by the naughty little act― filled her breast, persisted.

There was bustle, confusion. They were in a throng of travellers who hurried. Hurry! They must not lose the boat! It lay there before them, only its upper works seen, its two great funnels leaning backward, belching black smoke. The black smoke spread over the sky. It was night. They were on board the boat, cradled in an easy motion, sensible of the throb of the engines. On and on they journeyed, linked in a very close communion of eyes that spoke, of hands that squeezed each other. She tasted a thousand little kindnesses. How good he was! How loving!

And still the journey went on. Yet more brains. She must have slept. She woke to a great city filled with innumerable inhabitants, all very busy. They spoke a strange language very rapidly to one another. She could not understand a word. But he, Ronald, understood― conversed with them in their foreign tongue. How clever he was. There was music somewhere― from a lighted cafe that flooded a damp street with radiance. She was bewildered in a variety of new and strange impressions, leaned on him, soul and body. He led her, sure of himself. Her love for him seemed to increase at this revelation of his unfailing self-reliance. Yet she knew that she loved him with all her being, had always loved him so.

"And how do you like Brussels, dearest?" his ringing voice asked.

Brussels? Of course. As though a veil had fallen from her eyes she saw that they were in the middle of the Grand Place, lights playing, Rembrandtesque, on the carved stone work of the ancient buildings. She recognised it at once― how accurate the picture post cards had been. Brussels― the honeymoon journey! She thrilled with happiness, leaning on his strong arm. The dream continued.

All through the next day its vividness haunted her. At times she head to will herself to live in the actual world. She scarcely spoke. The medical officer in charge of her ward stopped her, asking her if she were all right, his eyes searching her farce. He sympathised with her on her loss so kindly and gently that she loved him for it.

Number Ten was still the great preoccupation. He claimed incessant care. But he was in the faint beginnings of a good progress. Strangely, it seemed that when she tended him there was a conflict in some obscure part of her. There seemed to be an inarticulate voice, immensely remote, vaguely minatory, not explicit.

Captain Lavering insisted that she was his rescuer, his eyes more eloquent than his words. It made her feel awkward, curiously shamefaced. His reiteration threw her out of that smile― armoured impersonal professional relation to the patient, which alone makes continuous hospital work possible. She masked her face with a gentle severity.

When he slept she was unreasonably glad. But she liked tending him. The contact with actual life, pain-stricken though it was, obliterated to some extent the haunting memory of that dream-world from which she shrank, vaguely frightened. She forced herself to live only in the long, quiet, bright ward; in the chattering society of the Sisters' mess room when off duty.

Her dream linked itself on to its predecessor. The honeymoon was finished. she looked back down a long vista of travel, of happy days. She had really lived through all those experiences. She picked them one by one from her memory like rare pieces from a jewel case, contemplated them with a smile. Each expanded into a picture.

The day they had walked together down the rugged path of the tiny valley imprisoned in the wooded hills, a fierce little stream outpacing them as it dashed against great boulders, and had come upon a sunny meadow where children garlanded with flowers laughed and danced in a ring; a wonderful blue lake on whose shores were yellow houses with red roofs and ancient cypresses on a green sward near the water's edge― the melancholy reiterated note of a church bell beat like a pulse through the scene; an old, old town with gabled houses leaning in close confidence, rich carvings― the grotesque; in all was a pervading peace rich quiet life that thrives sleepy with well-being from year to year; over all was the ecstasy of mutual love through which they had beheld the world.

Another memory came to her― early morning in the Alps; a sea of wild narcissi all about them, and, beyond, the great white peaks glittering in the sun of a blue sky. They went on and on, up and up. The flowers were left behind― and she remembered she had regretted leaving them, had grudged the effort to climb for the sack of climbing― but he had insisted. They stood at last high up, dazzlingly white snow fields stretching away on every side, a summer sun beating hot upon them. The air was rarefied, induced in them a subtle ecstasy as they stood marvelling at the brilliant austere beauty of the great peaks lifting themselves into the sky, their robes slipping from their rocky shoulders in a miracle of purity. He encircled her waist with his arm, spoke in the voice that stirred mysterious depths in her.

"Dearest," he said. "Not a flower but snow, is the true emblem of love. White as the essential soul how soon on the lower levels it is defiled, disappears! But on the heights it endures stainless for ever, no matter how hot the kiss of the sun."

And she had kissed him, speechlessly.

But all this was past. She was at home now, waiting for him to come back from his work. Their home, the home they had always planned was all around her. The very pieces of furniture they had regarded in shop windows with longing eyes, had calculated the cost of, were there. That quaint table in the centre of the room, half covered with the embroidered open-work white linen laid for tea― how covetously they had once looked on it! How depressed they had been at the dealer's price! But it was there, after all. Ronald had bought it, he who never rested until he attained his heart's desire. How purposeful he was! How strong! How loving kind!

She closed her eyes, leaned back in a swimming ecstasy of love.

There he was! She heard his footstep at the other side of the door. He entered, was radiant, enfolded her in that wonderful embrace where she was a surrendered thing. He had a little parcel, handed it to her. Tremblingly she opened it, certain of delight. It was a framed enlargement of a photograph they had taken that morning in the high Alps. With a little happy cry she gazed once more on the long smooth slopes of snow, stretching up to the dark-patched peaks.

Once more his arm encircled her, his deep voice spoke. "So shall we live, darling, always― ever upon the heights!"

She lay awake in her bed, ere it was day, and understood in a great tremulous awe. In her dreams she and Ronald were living precisely the life they would have lived had there been no war. The honeymoon, their home― all would have been accomplished ere this. Had there been no war. Exactly as she had dreamed they would have travelled together― his arm would have enfolded her― in a long, long happiness they would have lived.

She burst into a passion of tears, stilled in the pillows. Then she turned her head, wondering, feeling as if her heart had stopped. Would this dream continue? Was it in some mysterious way real? Her lips moved in a prayer, but she scarcely knew what she prayed.

She was glad to escape into the busy actual life of the ward, into the cold light of day. From now onwards her life definitely assumed this double phase: In the hospital she was the Sister Braithwaite that all had known, diligent, bravely smiling, conscientious in her duty. Those about her remarked only that there was sometimes a curious stillness in her mein, spoke pityingly amongst themselves of the sad loss of her soldier lover. But death in a hospital is no unfamiliar catastrophe, and none lingered on the topic. There was much to do, a continual stream of new arrivals from the distant conflict, the doubtful fate of many of those already long suffering. There were deaths, recoveries, operations of professional interest.

Number Ten went slowly but steadily towards health. Sister Braithwaite deliberately avoided all contact with him save the professional. When she chatted with a patient in the ward it was not with him. His gaze was reproachful, and she would not see it. Sometimes when she approached him he would, half-jokingly, reiterate that she had saved him. She would not hear. A strange sense of insecurity disturbed her in his presence. She half-divined that he nursed a project. She fled the glance of the steady, resolute eyes in the strong face. When at last he had made such progress that he could be removed to a convalescent ward she was glad at his departure.

At night she passed into another world. There was no war in that life― never had been war. From dream to dream she lived through a continuous existence― the wife of Ronald. It was all vividly real. It was the life they would have led that played itself out now in what to her day-time consciousness was a realm of shadows. Not always did she dream, or rather not always did her consciousness register the events through which she passed. But later dreams had dream memories in them, and the record had no gaps. Time passed in that dream world without relation to the terrestrial days. In one night she frequently lived through long periods. He was always kind to her, always loving. She, too, loved him passionately, with all her soul. But in the daytime her being shrank from that shadow-life. She was afraid― mysteriously, primitively afraid. She could not mourn as she would have liked to mourn.

Sometimes she asked herself whether she was not ceasing to love her dead affianced. She tried to evoke his image―  and often, to her distress, succeeded not. The strongly-masculine features of Number Ten, Captain Lavering, rose before her mental vision, would not be banished. Then she despised herself bitterly. In remorse, she willed herself forward to the night, bade herself not shrink, and when the hour came gave herself to the darkness tremulously, like a slave of the harem who goes into the chamber of her lord. The portal passed she was happy, completely happy― as happy as she would have been the wife of Ronald in the dainty little home that never could be other than the home of her dreams.

With strange, almost terrifying, completeness the shadow-life evolved. The house she lived in she knew in all its details, had its rooms that she preferred, views from its windows that she loved or veiled. The presence of her husband was a reality that filled it. She knew his footstep, heard his voice. (It rang often in her ears when her eyes unclosed in the little matchboarded cubicle suddenly unfamiliar.)

They had long, long conversations together― wonderful little interludes where their always underlying love blossomed into delicate flower. She saw his face clearly; saw that it was changing slightly, growing more set, less boyish. There were difficulties― the difficulties of real life― to be encountered. An anguished struggle with bills and finances that would not meet wrung her soul all one night. She pledged herself to such brave economies. But the difficulties were overcome, the memory of them lost in the embrace of her lover. Rarely was she unhappy until she woke.

And day by day, not keeping pace with her other life, her life of work in the hospital went on. Week linked into week, month into month. The great open moors around changed their hue, were often shrouded in mist. In December the first frosts glassed the pools. Many were the patients who had come and gone. The little cemetery under the hill was fuller. Other sufferers were more fortunate. Captain Lavering was fully convalescent, nearing his discharge.

She san him often at a distance, avoided him when he tried to approach her. She could not have explained why, even to herself. Yet, somewhere, deep down in her, the virility of his aspect set a chord vibrating. She was always extremely, almost painfully, conscious of his propinquity. For many weeks they had not exchanged a word.

THERE CAME a night wonderful above all others. She thrilled with a strange new ecstasy drawn from deep springs. It was the quiet, speechless ecstasy of some mysterious  fulfilment. She was filled with a great tenderness that welled up and overflowed like a source. There was something warm against her heart. She looked down and saw that it was a new-born babe. She was in bed. Then, in a great surge of deeply-flowing joy, she understood. She was a mother― the mother of Ronald's child!

She could have cried for joy that lacked expression. Her fingers stroked thin silky hair on a tiny head. Suddenly she was aware that Ronald was looking down on her. She yearned up to him, but as she did so she was conscious that her allegiance was divided. Not all of her, as heretofore, reached out to him, undividedly his. There was a dumb insistent claim at her breast. She smiled to disguise it. But it seemed that he understood. His face was troubled, the vivid eyes reproachful. He leaned over her.

"Dearest." he said, "I cannot share you. The child must never be more than the symbol of our love. You must be mine― always mine... Promise me that you will be always mine alone!"

His jealousy flattered her. A gush of affection for the strong lover admitting her power, mingled with the mother-craving for protection for self and child, was a fresh impulse revivifying the old allegiance.

"Always yours, dearest― always yours!" He looked at her searchingly, his head seeming like a carven figure of destiny, strangely significant.

"I could annihilate the thing that comes between us," he said, and she was a little frightened at his voice. It rolled away big, superhuman― she harked back, in a flitting thought, to an earlier dream-memory. He turned to a picture on the wall, pointed to it. It was the Alpine scene.

"You and I," he said, "always together― alone upon the heights."

"Yes! Yes!" she said, only half understanding. "Always― always yours!"

She woke with a start, her own voice ringing in her ears. Night was still a blackness in the little cubicle. She put out her hand, touched the matchboard wall to assure herself of her surroundings. When she woke again it was to look through the window and see the world white with snow.

She remembered with some pleasure that she was off duty, had the day to herself. She wanted to be alone. Her head was a whirl of troubled thoughts. The emotions of the dream were still in her blood. Her arms felt vacant, as though an infant had just been taken from them. A new longing came up in her― a craving for motherhood. She linked it to her dead lover.

"Oh, Ronald!" she murmured. "If only we had been married before you went to the war―"

She left the thought unfinished. The craving persisted, apart from his memory. She ached for a real, living affection in this world of men and women. Strange thoughts haunted her while she dressed. As soon as possible she escaped from the hospital, went out upon the moor that stretched in suave contours of dazzling white. A pale blue sky, sank into its mists. A cold wind hurried over it, whirling up little columns of dusty frozen snow.

She walked far into its solitudes, she hardly knew whether to escape from her thoughts or to be alone with them. At last she turned back. She had climbed out of a little hollow, was descending a featureless slope when suddenly she perceived the figure of a man, dark against the snow. He walked towards her quickly. Simultaneous with her recognition of him was the flush of blood to her face, a peculiar nervous thrill. It was Captain Lavering.

She half hesitated. Then she strode forward, an insidiously victorious temptation masquerading as strong will. Why should she not pass him? It was absurd. He might think― She hoped that she was not blushing, or that the keen wind which fluttered her veil would be the self-evident excuse.

They met. He stopped, made a gesture of salute.

"Good morning, Captain Lavering." She was glad to hear her own voice, had been afraid that she could not bring it to utterance. What was there so troubling about this man? She avoided his eyes.

"I'm pleased to see you walking about again." The crisis was successfully surmounted. She made as if to continue her way.

"I saw you in the distance, Sister," he said, bluntly.

She did not find the commonplace remark for which she sought. He blocked her pathway.

"I have been wanting to speak to you for a long time. Sister," he said, as though he knew there was no necessity for the trite beginning. "Ever since you saved my life. You did― we won't discuss that―"

She stared at him, speechless.

"But I have waited until I was sure that I was quite well again. You know what I am going to say. For a long time you have felt what was in my mind. You must be my wife."

He was strong and real― vividly actual. She felt as she did sometimes when her eyes opened from a dream into the solid surroundings of her cubicle. He barred off the other world.

"No― no," she breathed, dodged past him, hurried over the snow. He was by her side, keeping pace easily with her.

"You can't escape me like that," he said. There was obvious brute masculinity in his tone. Though she tried to resent it, it did not displease her, and she was angry with herself that it did not.

"Listen. I am a plain man. There is no fancy romance about me. I don't want illusions. But, I love you." He stated the fact with absolute decision. "I can offer you a good position and all that, but I know that does not affect the matter. The vital thing is that from the moment we set eyes on each other something happened―" For the first time he faltered in his tone. "We both knew it. There it is. I hate being sentimental. But I want you― and I know that you want me."

"No― no!" she said again, almost running. A blind desire to escape, from herself as much as from him, dominated her. "I can't."

"Can't? Why not ? You are free. I know you were engaged. But he is― gone. We live in a real world of flesh and blood. You can't exist on a memory. Besides," the words came like a slave driver's whip― she almost obeyed it, "you never loved him as you love me!"

She revolted, stung to burning resentment against herself equally as against this masterful, crude male. She stopped and faced him.

"Captain Lavering, you talk like a sick man."  She triumphed in the steadiness of her words. "You have insulted me in the most uncalled-for manner. Let that be enough."

His eyes looked into hers, challenged her sincerity, were assured of it. He went red, looked awkward.

"Forgive me," he mumbled.

She went on without a word, ignored the fact that he accompanied her. They breasted an upward smooth slope of snow that stretched up to a crisp outline against the blue sky. He ventured a sidelong glance at her, a little light of primitive cunning in his eyes.

"Quite Alpine, isn't it?" he said. As intended― his tone implied a resumption of ordinary commonplace relationship― the words took her off her guard. But he was ignorant of their esoteric significance. In a flash, in a deep convulsion of the soul, she saw the Alpine picture, vivid with symbolism, of her other life "On the heights!" In the full poignancy of the emotion it unlocked her own vow of fidelity ringing in her ears from another world― she found herself struggling in a man's tight grasp; hot breath upon her face, lips seeking her own.

"You must! You shall!" he muttered, straining forward to her. She stiffened, fought in a frenzy.

"Ronald!" Ronald!" she cried. An icy wind swept down the slope, smote upon them like a breath from the grave, shudderingly cold. Captain Layering uttered a little cry, relaxed his grip, and fell sideways upon the snow. Sister Braithwaite stared at him in horror. A great fear came upon her, an awe in the  presence of unearthly power. She knew! Her soul slipped back into its dream state, confronted the visage of her lover, stern as destiny. The eyes judged her, forgave. Then, weeping hysterically, she ran towards the hospital. It was not far distant.

They brought in the dead man.

"H'm," said the Medical Officer, looking at him. "Cerebral haemorrhage. This intense cold― I was always rather afraid of a lesion. A nasty shock for you, Sister. Well, well, another one finished― very sad, very sad."

An orderly brought Sister Braithwaite her share of the just-arrived post. There was a letter from Ronald's mother. It enclosed one from the War Office.

"Dear Madame," it ran. "It is regretted that no further details have come to hand regarding your son. Officially, he is still posted as 'missing, believed killed.' "

Sister Braithwaite shut herself in her cubicle, talked to the photograph with the vivid eyes, talked to it as primitive woman talks to the lover who has  destroyed his rival. She reached out to the Other Side.

___________________

16: Buried Treasure

F. Britten Austin

The Strand Magazine Oct 1919

FOR THE LAST TWENTY minutes the after-dinner talk of the little group of men in the liner's smoking-room had revelled in the uncanny. One man had started it, rather diffidently, with a strange yarn. Another had capped it. Then, no longer restrained by the fear of a humiliating scepticism in their audience, they gave themselves up to that mysteriously satisfying enjoyment of the inexplicably marvellous, vying with each other in stories which, as they were narrated, were, no doubt, more or less unconsciously modified to suit the argument, but which one and all dealt with, experience that in the ultimate analysis could not be explained by the normal how and why of everyday life.

"What do you think of all this, doctor?" said one of the storytellers, turning suddenly to a keen-eyed, elderly man who had been listening in silence. "As a specialist in mental disorders you must have had a vast experience of delusions of every kind. Is there any truth in all this business of spiritualism automatic writing, reincarnation, and the rest of it? What's the scientific reason for it all? — for some reason there must be! People don't tell all these stories just for fun."

The doctor shifted his pipe in his mouth and smiled, his eyes twinkling. "You seem to find a certain amount of amusement in it," he remarked dryly. "The scientific reasons you ask for so easily are highly controversial. But many of the phenomena are undoubtedly genuine automatic writing, for instance, It is a fact that people of a certain type find their hand can write, entirely independent of their conscious attention, coherent sentences whose meaning is utterly strange to them. They need not even deliberately make their mind a blank. They may be surprised by their hand suddenly writing of its own initiative when their consciousness is fixed upon some other occupation, such as entering up an account book. Always they have a vivid feeling that not their own but another distinctly separate intelligence guides the pen. This feeling is. not evidence, of course. It may be an illusion; probably is.

"The best-analysed reincarnation story is probably that dealt with by Professor Flournoy in his study of the famous medium, Helene Smith, of Geneva. This lady sincerely believed herself to be a reincarnation of Marie Antoinette— and in her trance-state she acted the part with astonishing fidelity and dramatic power. In her normal condition she certainly possessed neither so much detailed knowledge of the life of the ill-fated queen nor so much histrionic ability, She also wrote automatically, and some of her productions were amazing, to say the least of them. Well, Professor Flournoy's psychological investigations proved clearly to my thinking that it was a case of her subconscious mind dramatising, with that wonderful faculty of impersonation which characterises it, a few hints accidentally dropped into it and combining with her subconscious memory, which forgets nothing it has ever heard or read or even casually glanced at, to produce an almost perfect representation of Manic Antoinette. Also he proved that her automatic writing emanated from her own subconscious mind and nowhere else.

"Now, I am not going to say that discarnate spirits do not communicate through this subconscious activity of which one form is automatic writing. I am not going to say that we do not become reincarnated through an endless cycle of lives. I do not know enough about it to assert such a negative— no one does. All I know about the human mind is that we know very little about it. It is like the moon, of which you never see more than the small end. Infinite possibilities lie in the shadow. You are only conscious of a small fraction of your own personality. The subconsciousness― the un-illumined portion of your soul—is incomputably vast. It learns everything, forgets nothing; possibly it even goes on from life to life. When it is tapped by any of those traditional means which nowadays we call spiritualistic one may— or may not — come across buried treasure."

"But you yourself do not believe in the truth of spiritualism as an actual fact, doctor?" queried one of the group, a trace of aggression in his tone.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders. "I accord belief to a very limited number of attested facts, my friend," he said. "That I am sitting here with you, for example. I am ready to adopt provisionally all sorts of hypotheses to explain those varied phenomena of life, the ultimate explanation of which must in any case elude me. They are hypotheses for myself. I do not announce them as dogmas for others. But— if you do not think it is too late— I will tell you a story, a rather queer experience of my own, and you can form your own hypotheses in explanation of it."

There was a chorus of approval. The doctor waited while the steward refilled the glasses at the instance of one of the group, relit his pipe, and settled himself to begin.

IT WAS IN 1883. I was a young man. I had recently finished walking the hospitals, got my degree, and before settling down into practice at home had decided to see a little of the world. So I signed on for a few voyages as a ship's doctor. At the termination of one of them I found my self at a loose end in New York. There I became friendly with the son of a man who in his younger days had been a Californian "Forty-niner," had made a pile, settled East, become a railroad speculator and made millions— William Vandermeulen. Old Vandermeulen had a delicate daughter, Pauline, then about 19 years of age and in the incipient stages of consumption. Under medical advice, he was accustomed to take her each winter for a cruise around the West Indies in his steam yacht. That year, young Geoffrey Vandermeulen persuaded his father to ship me as medical officer. There was nothing alarming in the young girl's condition, of course, or a much older and more experienced man would have accompanied them. She was merely delicate.

We were a small party on board; the old man, his wife— a faded old lady with no personality whatever— Pauline, Geoffrey, and myself. Geoffrey was an ordinary, high-spirited young man, intelligent and a pleasant companion, but not particularly remarkable. His sister was mildly pretty, but utterly devoid of  attractiveness, extremely shy, and given, to sitting in blank reverie over a book.  Although she always had one in her hand, she read, as a matter of fact, very little. It was just an excuse for day-dreaming.

Of this girl the old man, otherwise as keen as a razor and as hard as nails — commercially, I believe, he was little better than a pirate— was inordinately fond. Outside business, she was the absorbing passion of his life. There was no whim of hers that he would not gratify. It was rather pathetic to see that old scoundrel hanging over her frail innocence, all that he had of idealism centred in her threatened life.

The cruise was pleasant but uneventful enough for some weeks. We pottered down through the Bahamas to Jamaica, end then turned eastward with intent to visit the various ports of the Antilles as far south as Barbados.

It was one evening while we were chugging peacefully across the Caribbean Sea that occurred the first of the remarkable incidents which made this voyage so memorable to me. I remember the setting of it perfectly. We were all in the saloon; I suppose because the night was for some reason unpleasant. The weather was calm, at any rate.  Geoffrey and I wore reading. Old Vandermeulen and his wife were playing cribbage. Pauline was sitting at a writing table fixed in a corner of the saloon, entering up the day's trivial happenings in the diary, which she religiously kept. I remember glancing at her and noticing that she was chewing the nail of her left thumb— a habit of which I was vainly trying to break her— as she stared vacantly at the bulkhead, no doubt ransacking her memory for some incident to record. Suddenly she turned round upon us with a startled cry.

"Look mammal I have scrawled all over my diary without knowing that I did it! Isn't that strange!"

We all of us looked up languidly. The mother made some banal remark, but did not withdraw her attention from her cards. The father glanced affectionately towards her without ceasing to count up the score he was about to peg on the board. Geoffrey and I continued our reading.

But the girl had been puzzling over the scrawl, and all at once she jumped up from her seat and came across to us.

"Look!" she said. "Isn't it funny? These words— they're all like the words on blotting-paper — they go backwards and inside out! And there are figures, too!  Whatever could have made me do it? And I don't remember doing it, either, though, of course, I must have done. There was nothing on that page a minute before, I am sure of it!"

There was something curiously uneasy in the girl's manner, a note in her voice that impressed me. I got up, took the open diary from her hand, and there, sure enough, was a large uneven scrawl, two lines of it, diagonally across the page, and, as she said, reversed, as though it had been blotted down upon it. Almost without thinking I held the open page against one of the mirrors panelled in the saloon wall— and I could not repress a cry of astonishment. The scrawl was a decipherable sentence, mysterious enough, but coherent! I'll write it down for you as nearly as I remember it, so as to show you how it looked.

(He produced pencil and paper from his pocket, wrote—

'lucia 1324 N 8127 W katalina sculle point SWbS 3 trees digge jno dawson youre turne.')

There you are— the last two words were added like a postscript and there followed by a rough sketch, an irregular oval over a St. Andrew's Cross, like this:—

I read out what was written, and Pauline stared at me wide-eyed.

"Whatever could have made, me write that?" she exclaimed.

Geoffrey looked up, fraternally scornful.

"It's a thin joke, Pauline! You can't monkey us in that fashion. I suppose you want to pretend that the ghost of some old pirate wrote it down in your book so as to start us off on a Treasure Island hunt?" Stevenson's romance was then in its first success and Geoffrey had just been reading it.  "Of course, you wrote it deliberately—what nonsense!"

She turned round upon him, her eyes filling with tears in the vehemence of her protest.

"Geoffrey, I couldn't! I couldn't write reversed like that if I tried."

"Oh, yes, you could," asserted Geoffrey confidently. "It's easy enough."

"Supposing we all try," said I, curious to test its feasibility. I felt considerably puzzled. Pauline was not at all the sort of girl one would expect to persist in such a pointless sort of practical joke as this, and persistent she was— tearful like a child unjustly accused of a crime of which it protests innocence.

Her mother and father renounced their game of cribbage and bent their heads together over the enigmatic screed, without proffering an opinion. It was evident that they did not wish to hurt their daughter's feelings by open scepticism. They would have humoured her in anything, no matter how absurd. I reiterated my suggestion and it was accepted in the spirit of a parlour game. A line from a book was selected, we all tried— and we all failed hopelessly. None of us got more than two or three consecutive letters right. It is not so easy as it sounds. Try it for yourselves!

At that time, although spiritualism was a great craze in America, and D. D. Home, Eglinton, and other famous mediums were arousing enormous interest and controversy in England, automatic script was an uncommon phenomenon. Table-rapping, levitation, slate-writing, and materialisation were the wonders in vogue— and I had then never heard of the 'mirror-writing' which has since become a frequent form of automatic expression.

Neither, of course, a fortiori, had the young girl who had just produced this mysterious specimen. We all felt puzzled and impressed, at our failure to imitate deliberately the reversed script. Old Vandermeulen picked up the diary and read the reflection of the scrawled page in the wall mirror.

"Well, it's sure strange!" he said in his twangy drawl. "Geoff! You write this down in a straight-away hand, and we'll see if ye can get any sense out of it. I guess there's some meaning in it. Pauline ain't joking."

Geoffrey obeyed, and read out the script again.

lucia 1324 N 8127 V7 katalina sculle point SWbS 3 trees digge jno dawson youre turne

"It's exactly like the directions to a pirate's buried treasure, father!" he added excitedly. "Skull and crossbones and all! But, of course, that's ridiculous. Though I can't understand how Pauline could have written it like she did!"

"And I did not know even that I was writing!" asseverated Pauline, "let alone know what I wrote! It was just as if my hand did not belong to me— it was a sort of numbness that made me look down."

"Tear it up, dear!" implored her mother anxiously, "l am sure it comes from the Devil!'

Mrs. Vandermeulen belonged to a particularly strict little sect and was always ready to discern the immediate agency of the Evil One.

"Devil or not!' said old Vandermeulen, "I guess, if there's any buried treasure lying around here I'm going to peg out my claim on it."

He turned to me.

"Young man, was there ever any pirates about these parts?" The old ruffian was quite illiterate; had never, I believe, read, a book in his life.

"Why, yes,' I replied,  "from the end of the sixteenth century these seas were the chief haunt of the buccaneers, and after them of the pirates, who were not entirely suppressed until well in the eighteenth century. There must be any amount of their hidden treasure buried in these islands."

"You don't say!" he exclaimed, his avaricious old eyes lighting up. "And here have I been running this yacht up and down these parts for five years at a dead loss!" His disgust would have been comic were it not for the ugly, ruthless lust of gold which looked suddenly out of his face.

"Guess I'm going to quit this fooling around right away. I don't know and don't care if it was the devil himself wrote this specification in Pauline's book— I'm darned, sure she didn't write it herself— the handwriting's different, d'you see?"

It was, as a matter of fact, compared with the previous pages, quite another hand— hers was an upright, rounded, schoolgirl calligraphy; this was a cursive, old-fashioned script inclined well forward.

"So as we've got nothing else to start upon, we may as well see if there's anything to it." He tossed Geoffrey's transcription across to me. "What do you make of it, young man?" he asked, with the sneering condescension he accorded to my superior literary attainments.

I took it, rather amused at the old scoundrel's simplicity. That there was an authentic meaning in Pauline's scrawl seemed to me wildly improbable. I was a frank materialist in those days, and had Carpenter's formula of 'unconscious cerebration' glibly ready to cover up anything psychologically abnormal. However, I considered the sheet of paper with attention.

"Assuming this to be a genuine message," I said; "it would appear to give the precise latitude and longitude of some point where it is desirable to dig. I take it that the figures stand for thirteen degrees twenty-four minutes north, eighty-one degrees twenty-seven minutes west. The word 'lucia' puzzles me— unless the island of St. Lucia is meant. What 'Katalina' stands for I do not know— it is evidently a proper name of some kind. 'Sculle point SWbS 3 trees digge' presumably means that one should dig under three trees south-west-by-south of Skull Point— wherever that is. 'Jno dawson' is, of course, John Dawson. Assuming this to be a spirit-message from the other world"— I could not help smiling ironically— "it is possibly the name of the ghost who is communicating— and who desires to indicate to some person that it is his or her turn. He does not specify for what. I may remark that the ghost is either ill-educated or he has an archaic taste in spelling."

"I don't like it," said Mrs. Vandermeulen, querulously timid. "Do tear it up, William! I am sure harm will come of it. It is the devil tempting you!"

"So long as he's serious he can tempt me sure easy!" said the old ruffian in a tone of cool blasphemy which sent the colour out of his wife's face. He rang the bell and the negro-steward appeared.

"Sam! Ask Captain Higgins to step in here for a moment."

Captain Higgins, the skipper of the yacht, was a level-headed mariner of middle-age, whom nothing ever ruffled. He was competence itself.

"Good evening, Captain Higgins," said old Vandermeulen, fixing him with the keen eyes under shaggy grey brows eyes which defied you to divine his purpose whilst they probed yours. "What's the latitude and longitude of the island of St. Lucia?"

"Fourteen north, sixty-one west," replied Captain Higgins, promptly.

Old Vandermeulen turned to me. "Then it's not St. Lucia, young man," he said. He picked up Geoffrey's transcription. "Well, now, Captain Higgins, is there any place thirteen-twenty-four north, eighty-one-twenty-seven west?"

The skipper reflected for a moment. "No place of importance, certainly. I'll get the chart."

He returned with it, spread it out on the saloon table, ran his forefinger across it. "Here you are!" he said. "A small island called Old Providence. It belongs to Colombia."

Geoffrey, who was peering over his shoulder, uttered a startled exclamation.

"And look!" he cried. "There's your Katalina!" He pointed to a small islet just north of Old Providence, a mere dot on the chart. "Santa Katalina! My hat! that is weird!"

It certainly was. From whatever stratum of Pauline's consciousness her writing had emanated, it was an amazing thing that she should have written down the exact latitude and longitude of a tiny island off the Nicaraguan coast and earned it correctly. Even I could not help feeling that it was more than a fortuitous coincidence, that it was uncanny. The others surrendered themselves straight away.

I turned to look at Pauline. She was deathly white; evidently frightened at being made the vehicle of this message from the Beyond. Her mother clutched at her, as though protecting her from unseen dangers. Geoffrey's imagination had caught fire, his eyes were bright with excitement.

"My sakes, Pauline," he cried. ''I believe you now! You couldn't have written that out of your head. I've read of things like this before— I guess you're a medium and didn't know it! Bother! We'll track this message down, wherever it comes from, say now!"

"It comes from the Devil! Tear it up— oh, tear it up!" implored Mrs. Vandermeulen. "William! Tear it up — don't follow it!"

Old Vandermeulen turned to the skipper. His jaw had set hard, his lips were compressed, only the glitter in his eyes, peering in a momentary fixation of triumph from under his bent brows showed that he shared the excitement of his son. So he must have looked in his office when he took the decisions which had made his millions.

"Captain Higgins," he said, curtly ignoring the supplications of his wife, "how long will, it take us to reach that island?"

The skipper put his finger on the chart at a point south of Haiti. "We're here," he said. He measured on the distance.

"At our best rate of twelve knots— about sixty hours' steaming."

"The old man nodded. "Put her about," he said. His harsh tone had an odd ring about it― as though he were secretly conscious of affronting mysterious dangers, was all the more emphatic. "Right now!"

Captain Higgins never queried owners' orders.

"Very good, sir," he replied, stolidly, and walked out of the cabin. '

A minute or two later we felt the yacht swing round. There is always something impressive when a ship on the open sea goes about upon her course, but I never felt it more powerfully than then. It seemed that there was a fateful significance in our deliberate action.

Geoffrey meanwhile was poring over the sheet of paper on which he had transcribed his sister's reversed scrawl.

"It's all perfectly dear," he said, triumphantly. 'We've got to make this island of Santa Katalina, thirteen-twenty-four north, eighty-one-twenty-seven west, try and find a place called Skull Point, look for three trees south-west-by-south of it, and dig! We understand every word of it now!"

"All except the word 'lucia'," I corrected, "and whose turn it is."

"Yes, there's that," he said dubiously. "I suppose every word has some meaning."

"You can bet it has!" I replied, half sarcastically humouring his credulity, half-surrendering myself to an uncritical acceptation of these mysteriously given directions. "I wonder who this John Dawson was— if he existed?"

"He's a sure-enough ghost of some old pirate!" said Vandermeulen, with complete conviction. "And I guess he's putting us fair and good on to his pile!"

I laughed, involuntarily, at this childishness. The old man frowned.

"There's some things that perhaps even you all-fired clever young fellows don't know," he said crushingly. "Tain't the first time I've heard of this sort of thing. A mate of mine in the old days at 'Frisco was waked up one morning by the ghost of a prospector who's died up in the ranges. He told him just where he'd make his strike before his grub gave out. My mate had never heard of the place, but he lit straight away on the trail— and, sure enough, the ghost was telling truth. Old Jim Hamilton, it was— and he drank himself to death on what he got out of it."

The old man looked me straight in the eye as though challenging me to doubt him. Of course, I could say nothing.

He grunted scornfully, and turned again to the chart still spread out on the table.

"It's a nice, quiet, out-of- the-way place," reflected the old ruffian, putting his thumbnail on the lonely island. "Just the location for a cache― guess they'd feel pretty sure of not being interfered with there!"

There was a grim undertone in his voice which was decidedly ugly. He might, himself fave been the reincarnation of just such a pirate as the one whose existence he was postulating. Well, nothing more happened that night. Mrs. Vandermeulen, thoroughly alarmed and uneasy, hustled her daughter off to bed.

Old Vandermeulen and his son sat up in an endless discussion of the mysterious script, referring again and again to the chart which so startlingly confirmed its indications, and speculating optimistically as to the nature and amount of the treasure they were convinced was buried in the designated place. They talked themselves into a complete faith in the supernatural origin of the message, and, father and son alike― it was curious to note the traits of resemblance which cropped out in them— were equally indifferent as to whether its source was diabolic or benevolent. Enormously wealthy although they already were, the prospect of this phantom gold waiting to be unearthed had completely fascinated them.

At last I turned in, wearied with the thousand and one questions they asked me, and to which I could give no answer, disgusted with their avarice, and scornfully contemptuous of their simplicity. I found sleep no easy matter. Sceptical though I was, I could not get Pauline's curious production out of my head, and the more I thought of it the more inexplicable seemed its coincidence with the chart.

The subconscious mind, with its amazing memory, its dramatic faculty, its unexpected invasion of the surface consciousness in certain types, was not then the commonplace of psychology that it is now— or I should probably have referred the whole thing to the combination of a casual, apparently unheeding glance at the chart with a memory of some of her brother's remarks about 'Treasure Island' automatically and dramatically reproduced. As it was I could formulate no explanation that satisfied me— though I utterly disbelieved in the ghost of a piratical John Dawson, of which the two Vandermeulens were now fully persuaded.

THE  next day found us steaming steadily westward. Father and son could talk of nothing else but their fancied buried treasure and their plans for digging it up without taking the crew of the yacht into their confidence. Mrs. Vandermeulen  hovered round her daughter, horribly anxious of she knew not what, but— after having been once silenced by a peremptory oath from her husband— afraid to make further protest.

Pauline herself sat all day in a deck-chair, more silent even than usual, staring dreamily across the empty sea in a reverie which ignored us all. Naturally I watched her closely. But, except that her eyes had a kind of haunting fear in them, she seemed perfectly normal. Evidently the occurrence of the previous night had shocked her profoundly, for once when I casually mentioned it she shuddered and implored me not to speak of it again. The fear of the uncanny in herself stared out of her eyes as she entreated me.

This dreamy absorption in herself continued until supper-time that evening. Throughout the meal I do not think she uttered a single word. She seemed not even to hear the conversation around her, but toyed listlessly with her food, and finally ceased to eat long before the others had finished.

Watching her with a professionally interested observation, I was uneasy. She had leaned back in her chair, was gazing straight before her with wide-open eyes. Suddenly I noticed that they had glazed over. All expression faded out of her face. The arm that rested on the saloon table stiffened into a cataleptic sort of rigidity. Her mother was also anxiously watching her.

"Pauline!" she cried. "Are you ill?"

There was no answer. The girl sat like a statue. Mrs. Vandermeulan glanced at me in wide alarm, silently imploring my intervention. Old Vandermeulen and his son were hotly arguing the desirability or otherwise of informing Captain Higgins of their plans, and took no notice of us. I got up from my seat and went round the table to the girl. I lifted up her lifelessly heavy arm, with my fingers on her pulse. It was normal.

"Miss Vandermeulen!" I said, rather sharply. "Are you not well?"

She turned her head slowly round to one, like a sleep walker, faintly aware of some sound that does not, however, wake her, and stared me full in the face with eyes in which there was not the slightest glimmer of recognition.

"Pauline!" almost screamed her mother, "Don't you know your own name?"

An expression of cunning intelligence dawned into her face— her aspect  changed in some subtle manner, as though another, quite different, personality was emerging in her— she laughed in low, confident tones, utterly unlike her ordinary laugh.

"My name is Lucia!" she said, as though stating a well-known fact. Lucia! To say that we were startled is to understate our astonishment— we were dumbfounded. The first word of the cryptic message! We gazed at her for a moment as at a complete stranger from the clouds — and, indeed, she looked it as she smiled at us with bright, malicious eyes. The diffident Pauline we new had completely disappeared.

"She is possessed!" screamed her mother. "Oh God!— restore her! Restore her!"

The girl stood up suddenly from her chair, passed her hand over her eyes, shook herself as though shaking off sleep. She turned away from us deliberately.

"Oh, John," she said, and there was an odd little foreign accent in her tone; "l have dreamed— such a strange dream! I dreamed― I know not― that I was not Lucia!" She laughed softly in her new low tones. "That strange people were asking me my name. Then I woke— oh, John!" she sidled up in a wheedling manner to what, to far as we could see, was vacant space.

"I am Lucia, am I not? And you love me? You love me?" Her shoulders moved sinuously as though she were putting herself under the caresses a person invisible to us. "You love me— and I love you, although you have only that one terrible eye!"  She still spoke with, that curious foreign accent which leant a certain piquancy to her speech. 'You love me, John Dawson, you Englishman; you love me for ever, say?"

She reminded me of Carmen sidling up to Don José. "You not deceive me— or—" She looked up as into a tall man's face with a sudden expression of feline vindictiveness, her white teeth showing in an ugly little rictus of the mouth, and slid her hand down, stealthily towards her stocking.

"But, no!" She smiled; her hand came up again as though to rest upon a man's shoulder. "You love me— and I love you and"— her voice dropped― "when we have killed the others we go away with the treasure— you promise me John Dawson!"

She appeared utterly aware of our presence. There was a dramatic intensity in her voice and gestures which, thrilled even me, although I had attended some hypnotic experiments in London, and was aware of the complete realism with, which a somnambulist will play a part suggested to him. I had no doubt whatever that she was in a state of hypnosis, accidentally self-induced, and that she was merely acting on the suggestions of the talk she had overheard.

Her mother, however, had no such  consoling certitude. She hid her lace in her hands, groaning, "She is possessed! She is possessed! Oh, God, cast out the evil  spirit!. Cast out the evil spirit!"

Geoffrey was white to the lips, appalled, unable to utter a sound. The old man stared at her, fascinated, a strange gleam in his eyes. The mother turned to mo in despair. "Oh. doctor Do something— do something! Oh, if only we had a minister here! She is possessed by an evil spirit! My Pauline! My Pauline!"

She sank on her knees by one of the swivel chairs, gave herself up to agonised prayer. "Oh, God, cast out the Evil One. Oh, God, cast out the Evil One!"

Thinking that this strange incident had already lasted more than long  enough, I took a step towards the girl with a vague idea (though I .didn't quite know how), of breaking the hypnosis. She stood looking upward still, with a wheedling, diabolical smile, into apparent nothingness.

"We will go together— we two— with the treasure, say, John Dawson?" she murmured, seductively, the very incarnation of a Delilah. "Mansvelt is dead— we will run— away from Simon and go with, my people before they kill us all — they are very many, and you can only hold out two or three days; but we must take the treasure, John Dawson, the treasure you and Simon hid with Mansvelt— Simon, we will kill him— and we will go away and be rich — rich, John Dawson — say?"

Her voice was perfidiously honeyed, her eyes glistened, as she caressed that uncanny empty air.

"What is she talking about?" muttered Geoffrey, in a low, excited voice. "Who are these people— Mansvelt and Simon? Have you heard of them doctor?"

I shook my head. They were utterly unknown to me. For a moment I hesitated, fascinated by the little drama, curious to hear more. The mother moaned.

"Oh, do something, doctor! Do some thing! Save her. Save her! Oh, God, deliver her from the Evil One!"

Her agony recalled me to my professional duty. I started forward, but before I could reach her I was snatched back by a violent hand on my shoulder.

"Stand aside!' commanded old Vandermeulen, in a terrible voice. "Evil spirit or no evil spirit, I guess it knows all about that treasure— and I'm, going to hear what it's got to say!"

Of his normal love for his daughter there was not a trace. The man was completely dominated, to the exclusion of any other sentiment, by the lust for gold, more gold. He looked scarcely human as his eyes glowered upon me, murder in them if I thwarted him.

"If it's the devil himself that's got her— let her talk!"

But the mother sprang up with a wild shriek, and rushed towards her daughter.

"Do you wish her eternal damnation?" she cried, flinging her arms about the girl. "Pauline! Pauline! For the love of God, don't you know me? Oh, say a prayer— say a prayer after me!"

She commenced the Lord's Prayer in a voice that trembled with anguish. The girl stood rigid in her embrace, drawn up away from her, looking down upon her with fixed and hostile eyes. She made one instinctive movement to escape— and suddenly crumpled into a swoon upon the floor.

She came round easily enough under simple restoratives, looking up at us with childish, bewildered eyes― the old Pauline again! Her mother completely broke down, over her, sobbing in almost crazy joy at her restoration. Emotionally infected, perhaps, the girl also gave way to a hysterical passion of weeping which would not be checked, and for which she could give no reason. She seemed not to have the slightest recollection of the part she had just played. Old Vandermeulen, still obsessed by his lust for the treasure, tried to question her. She only started at him. numbly— a vague fear coming into her eyes, but giving no response. I silenced him with all the authority of my professional position, and got the girl into her stateroom, where we left her with her mother.

Throughout the next day neither of the two women appeared. Pauline was utterly prostrated, and she remained in bed. Her mother stayed with her,  under strict injunctions to mention nothing of last night's terrible scene.

Meanwhile, of course, we were steadily drawing nearer to the Nicaraguan coast and the island of Old Providence with its tiny and, to us, fascinating satellite, Santa Katalina. Even I could not help wondering what we should find there. The two Vandermeulens were in a fever of excitement, cursing at every moment the slowness of the yacht. We were, as a matter of facts, due to reach the island early next morning. Some time in the afternoon the old man approached me confidentially.

"Say, young know-all," he said, "what d'you figure out was the meaning of last night's gaff? I guess Pauline ain't got no natural talent for play-acting like that."

Rather foolishly I amused myself with his credulity.

"Of course," I said, concealing a smile, "it may be that in a previous existence your daughter's name was Lucia― the Spanish lady-friend of some of the buccaneers, and particularly of a certain John Dawson, who is now directing her to the treasure they buried together a few hundred years ago."

I regretted my words the moment they were uttered. The man's infatuation needed no fanning from me.

"By heaven, you've hit it!" he exclaimed. "And she's just remembering! I guess she can lead us straight to it!'

"Don't be absurd!" I said pettishly. "I was only joking!"

He glared at me in savage disappointment.

"You're joking with the wrong man!" he said harshly. "Besides, it sure ain't impossible! You don't know what happens to us when we're dead, though you do think you know everything!"

"No— it's not impossible!" I conceded. "But it's improbable."

"That's your opinion," he sneered. "You know nothing about it. I've had them feelings myself— feelings that I've been to a place before when I sure know I haven't. By Jupiter, that's it! Pauline's just remembering coming back to these old pieces— and she'll take us a bee-line to the cache!"

He strode off to impart this illuminating theory to his son, and I saw no more of them until supper-time.

They were, I was sure, concerting some plan for cutting me out of a share in the treasure. They had the furtive look of a couple of conspirators as we three, Pauline and her mother still absent, sat that night at table. Both forced themselves to exhibit a strained politeness to me which obviously concealed some treacherous design. I didn't like the atmosphere at all and was impelled to clear it.

"By the way,' I remarked, casually, "I don't want a share in that treasure— I prefer to work for my living.' As I had mot. the slightest faith in its existence, this renunciation was not difficult. "Supposing your theory to be true, it belongs to Miss Vandermeulen if it belongs to anyone."

"Sure, that's so!" agreed the old man. "It's Pauline's treasure, right enough. Ain't it, Geoffrey?"

"I guess it's no one else's," said Geoffrey, picking up the idea. "I'll see to that."

I could not help smiling at the gratuitous menace in his tone. He might have been sitting on the treasure-chests already.

At that moment we were startled by an appalling scream, a choking cry, from Pauline's stateroom. We rushed in and stood, for a moment transfixed with horror.

Pauline, leaning out of her bunk, was throttling with both hands the life out of her mother, who had been sitting by the bedside. In the flash of my first perception of the scene I saw that the girl had reverted to her trance-personality. It was Lucia who had that deadly grip upon the other woman's throat, Lucia who glared at her with fiendishly triumphant eyes, Lucia who gloated mockingly in her foreign accent:

"Ah, Teresa!— You think you would take the Englishman from me— you think you would go away with John Dawson and the treasure?"

She laughed, cruelly exultant. "I think no, Teresa— I think no— not with the treasure! You can go with that John Dawson, yes! But not with the treasure! You go and wait for him— for your John Dawson— I will send him to you— soon— soon!"

Her low laugh was diabolical. We flung ourselves upon her, but her strength was superhuman. She seemed utterly oblivious of us, as heedless of our struggles as though we were not there. Her eyes flashing, her teeth showing, she continued to jeer at her victim in a foreign voice. "He will come to you, to-night— your John Dawson— as he promised, yea!— I will send him to you!"

Only as we finally tore the almost strangled Mrs. Vandermuelan from her hands did she suddenly cease to speak. She sank back upon the bed, swooning into complete unconsciousness. I drove out the father and son and applied myself to reviving the mother.

I shall never forget the terrible night I had with her after she had resuscitated. At length I had to give her a few drops of laudanum to get her off to sleep.  Pauline slept like a child.

I woke up the next morning to that strange feeling of hushed stillness which pervades a ship when her engines are at rest after a long period of unbroken activity. We were pitching heavily, evidently at anchor, for our upward rose was every now and then suddenly arrested. We had arrived! I went to look at my patients, and found them both suffering from sea-sickness. This vicious plunging of the yacht was more than their weak stomachs could stand, I gave them each a steadying draught, and then, went on deck.

The two  Vandermuelens were on the bridge with the skipper. I ignored them, instinctively avoiding their certain excitement. Upon our port bow was a fairly large island, its rocky shore crowned with a dense tropical foliage. On the other side of us was a small islet, barren save for a few sparse trees scattered over it, surf breaking white upon its beaches. Old Providence and its satellite, Santa Katalina!

Between the two islands a strong current was running, with a heavy groundswell in which we plunged and kicked, straining at our cables. No wonder the two ladies were ill, I thought, as the deck sank sickeningly sideways under my feet. I went into the saloon and found that the Vandermeulens had already breakfasted. As I ate my solitary meal I could hear the heavy tramping of feet on the deck overhead, and guessed that they were hoisting outboard the little steam launch we used when in harbor. When I had finished I went to have another look at Pauline. Her mother was with her. Mentally, she was completely her normal self, with apparently no memory, even of that trance personality which had for the second time surged up in her. But she was feeling very ill in this violent and disturbing motion of the anchored yacht. Old Vandermeulen came in.

"Get up, Pauline, and dress!" he commanded, brutally, as though beating down opposition in advance. "We're going ashore!"

His wife sprang forward.

"Oh, no, no, William!  Don't take her! Don't take her! Don't tempt Providence! Don't go! William! William!" she clung to him in supplication. "She's too ill to go! She's too ill to go, isn't she, doctor?"

The old man shook her ..off.

"Nonsense" he said, roughly. Nevertheless, he turned enquiringly to me. I considered the pros and cons dispassionately for a moment. Of course, the old lady's fears were a mere superstition, and did not influence me in the least.

"Well," I said. "I think that if Miss Vandermeulen feels equal to the effort of dressing, it would do her good to get away from the yacht and walk about on firm land for an hour or two."

"I should like to," said Pauline, all docility. "Besides—"  she smiled, "I  should like to see for myself if there is any truth in that strange writing."

Half an hour later we had, with some difficulty, stowed the ladies— for the mother insisted on coming also― in the sternsheets of the little launch, which rose and fell dizzily under the lee of the yacht. The two Vandermeulens were amidships, ready to give instructions to the helmsman. I noticed that they had a pick and shovel on board. I sat close to  Pauline. She was looking pale, but the sea-sickness was in abeyance for the moment, and a touch of digitalis I had given her had stiffened her up.

We sheered off, set a course over the rolling dark-blue swell towards the islet we could see as we lifted on the waves. We had anchored rather on the Old Providence side of the channel dividing the islands, and the launch was about midway between the two when Pauline, who had been looking around her with some curiosity, uttered a sudden ejaculation.

"That's not the island!" she cried, with a gesture towards Santa Katalina. "It's the other one― the big one!"

She pointed to Old Providence. Then she checked herself, a peculiar look of puzzlement in her face. "I wonder whatever made me say that!" she exclaimed. "One would think l have been here before— but I can't have."

"But that's Santa Katalina!" objected Geoffrey, pointing to the islet. It undoubtedly was.

"Wait!" said old Vandermeulen, who had been sharply watching his daughter for any sign of recognition. "I guess Pauline knows what she is talking about!"

He stopped the engine, and for a few moments we rose and fell idly upon the waves, while the two men stared across to Old Providence

"By Jove, yes!" cried Geoffrey, suddenly. "Pauline's right! Look! There's Skull Point!"

He indicated with outstretched hand a jutting headland whose face had been weather-sculptured into the unmistakeable semblance of a skull.

"Skull Point it is!" said old Vandermeulen. with such an oath as he did not usually let come to his daughter's ears.

In another moment we had gone about and were throbbing quickly towards the headland. All eyes were fixed on it as we approached. Geoffrey had produced a compass.

"Look!" he cried. "The three trees! South-west by south, from Scull Point!"

Sure enough, in the direction designated, three enormous trees, evidently hundreds of years old, raised their heads high above the mass of more recent vegetation. A quarter of an hour later we were running into a little cove on the west side of the headland. A ledge of rock, sheltered from the swell, offered itself as a landing-stage, and we ran alongside and made fast.

Old Vandermeulen ordered the two members of the yacht's crew, who had accompanied us, to remain in the launch. The rest of us started off into the island, Geoffrey carrying the tools. The three trees were at no great distance, at the summit of a slope of broken-down volcanic rock. Geoffrey arrived first.

"No need to worry where to dig, father!" he shouted. "Here it is— plain enough."

Under the centre tree was a cairn of loose stones, more than half buried under the detritus of many years, it is true, but evidently the work of men's hands.

"That's it, sure!" cried the old man. "First time you've seen this place, Pauline?" he queried, with a touch of grim cynicism.

"Of course!" she replied. "What do you mean, father? And yet―" she hesitated, looking around her, "yet I do have a strange sort of feeling as though I had been here before. But I can't have! It's absurd!"

Mother and daughter sat down under the shade of the trees, whilst we three set to work to open the cairn. I was as excited as they by this time, and I helped with a will. The old man, wielding his pick with the skill of an ex-miner, loosened the stones off the surface. I rolled away the big ones, and Geoffrey shovelled away the smaller stuff.

At the end of an hour we had made a pretty deep excavation. We then took it in turns to work with pick and shovel in the hole, from which we threw up the stones.

Suddenly Geoffrey uttered an exclamation. "We're on something!— What's that, doctor?"

He passed me up a long bone.

"That's this tibia of a man," I replied. "I expect you'll find the rest of him there."

"Sure thing!" he said. "Here he is!"

He cleared away one or two large lumps of rock and revealed the grinning skeleton of a man.

"Halloa!' he added, as he bent down to it. "What's this?"

A long thin stiletto was lying loosely between the fleshless ribs of the skeleton. The old man snatched it from him as he plucked it out.

"And by all that's holy!" he cried, "it's got her name on it! Look!"

I took it from him. The dagger was of antique pattern, its steel rusted and corroded, but still resilient enough to make it a dangerous weapon, and on the hilt, still legible, roughly inlaid in silver like the amateur work of a sailor man, was the name— Lucia!

"I guess she murdered him with that!" said the old man, grimly, glancing from the stiletto to the skeleton, grinning up at us from the hole where it had so long lain undisturbed. He turned towards where his daughter sat in the shade or the trees.

"Here, Pauline!" he called to her. "Come and see— your friend the pirate and the knife that killed him!"

The girl jumped up and ran across to us, all excitement. "How wonderful!" she said. "It's like a dream come true!"

At the time, excited as we all were. I did not notice the strangeness of that spontaneous phrase. She stood upon the edge of the excavation and took the stiletto with eager curiosity from her father. She held it in both hands, breast high, the point towards her, to read the name upon the hilt.

"Lucia!" she cried, with a strange look towards us, as though dimly and uncertainly recalling some terrible experience. "Lucia!" She repeated the name with a peculiar, slow intonation — an intonation of puzzled half-remembrance. We stared at her, fascinated. Was our fantastic theory true? Her gaze lost us, fixed itself into vacancy. Her features changed. An expression of vague fear― the fear of the hypnotic shrinking at some invisible danger—came into them. She opened her mouth as though to speak....

She uttered only an inarticulate cry— a cry of fright― as the loose stones of the excavation slipped from under her feet. She fell headlong into the hole,  where she lay oddly―  ominously— still. I jumped down after her, and lifted her up. The rusty old stiletto, caught under her in her fall, had driven straight into her heart― broken off at the hilt!

THE DOCTOR STOPPED, and looked round upon his audience.

"And the treasure?" queried one of them.

"There was no treasure. There was no more digging that day. We took the poor girl's corpse back to the yacht, and I thought  her mother would have died as well— or gone out of her mind. She was screaming to get away from the place. But the old man was not put off his game so easily. The next day, whilst I stayed on board with the distracted mother, he and his son went and dug Again in that tragic cairn. They brought back all they found— the broken lid of a chest, branded with the date 1605, That, curiously enough, was underneath the skeleton, suggesting that the hoard had been robbed before the man, whoever he was, was killed."

"A strange story!" commented another of the audience. "And what's your hypothesis in explanation, doctor?"

The doctor smiled.

"Well you can have your choice," he said. "There is the possibility that in a prior existence Miss Vandermeulen was in fact, Lucia; that she seduced John Dawson into revealing the secret of the treasure; that she murdered him on the spot, and went off with it; and that the vengeful spirit of the old buccaneer, hovering around these latitudes, came into touch with her new reincarnation; and, playing with a fine irony upon that same lust of gold which ma responsible for his murder, but of which she was this time entirely innocent, led her to a death by that same poniard with which she had killed him. Alternatively, there is the hypothesis that  her spontaneous writing and impersonation of Lucia were but an automatic dramatisation by her subconsciousness of hints dropped into it by her brother's reading of 'Treasure Island' and subsequent conversations between her father and his son, and that her death was a mere coincidence."

"An incredibly complete coincidence!" said one of the men.

The doctor shrugged his shoulders.

"There was one other curious thing," he said. "Some years later in a history of the buccaneers I came across a paragraph to the effect that the island called Old Providence since the eighteenth century was known to the buccaneers as Santa Katalina, and that only subsequently was that name transferred to the Islet north of it. So Pauline's subconscious memory was right! Furthermore it stated that the large island, then called Santa Katalina, was seized and garrisoned by the buccaneers in 1664 under the leadership of a man named Mansvelt. He sailed off to get recruits, leaving the island in command of a certain Simon, and died upon the voyage. Simon surrendered the island to the Spaniards, who had besieged it. The date was 1665.

"Of course. Miss Vandermeulen may have read that paragraph and subconsciously retained the names— but, for her it was an improbable kind of reading. At any rate, she had a curious knowledge of an out-of-the-way piece of history. As I said, when you tap the subconsciousness you never know what buried treasure you may find. Well, I leave you to your hypotheses, gentlemen."

He stood up, knocked out his pipe. "Good-night!"

___________________

17: "The Man Who Was—"

Glyn Evans

1901-1940

The Australian Worker 27 Jun 1928

IN his frowsty bed-sitting-room in Bloomsbury, Jimpson sat pounding a jazz obligato on the keys of a battered typewriter. He finished his story with an exultant grin and drew out the final page with a flourish and a protesting squeak from the ratchet. Lovingly he gathered his type-written pages together and fastened them with his last clip. He groped in his pocket of his shabby blue coat and unearthed a sad-looking cigarette-end which he regarded dubiously.

"Oh, well," murmured Jimpson, "I shan't be broke much longer. When this  yarn clicks―"

He lit his crumpled gasper and scanned his story with shining eyes.

"The Man With the Green Face! A darned good title," said Jimpson. "And that twist at the end is better than anything Bill Japp's ever done, curse him!" Jimpson hated Bill Japp with a hatred that went right through him and buttoned up at the back.

He didn't know Mr. Japp. In fact he'd never even seen the star author of that phenomenally popular magazine " 'Tec. Tales." For all he knew, Bill Japp might be the best of good fellows, but it made no difference to Jimpson's hatred. It was Bill Japp who was responsible for the frowsty room; the shabby suit, the crumpled gasper, according to Jimpson. Bill Japp was his hoodoo— his evil genius.

"That's just what he is— and has," thought Jimpson, bitterly. "An evil genius."

There was no doubt about it. Bill Japp could write— and write well. So could Jimpson. Both of them specialised in crime stories, thrilling yarns ingeniously contrived with a brilliant plot and the queer little O. Henry twist at the end which gladdens the editorial heart.

The only difference was that Bill Japp's name appeared in large letters on the cover of  " 'Tec .Tales," while Jimpson's only ornamented the stamped addressed envelope of the returned MSS. Old Jimpson's grouse was legitimate enough.

"Twice armed is he," says the poet, "who has his quarrel just, but better still to get your blow in fust."

That's where Bill Japp scored.

At first Jimpson put it down to coincidence. When the magazine first came out nobody admired Bill Japp's yarns more than Jimpson. Each man's style was very similar, and, curiously enough, Jimpson found that Bill Japp had got the same sort of plot, as he contemplated using.

That was all right to start with. No author can be sure his plot has not been used by somebody else, but the thing went on and on.

When Jimpson turned in his powerful crook story, "The Man Who Died Twice" the editor wrote a kind little letter pointing out that he had already a story in hand by Mr. William Japp with the same theme.

Jimpson cursed, and promptly wrote another yarn, 'The Man, With the Twitching Lip,' and sent it off by return.  The same day, passing a bookstall, he saw the current issue of  " 'Tec. Tales," on the cover of which was the picture of a saturnine individual who seemed to be in the last throes of delirium tremens. Beneath it was the caption, "The Man With the Twitching Lip! Bill Japp's Latest and Greatest Story."

Jimpson saw red after that.  This was more than a coincidence.   He called on the editor and made. rather a fool of himself .

"Our magazine goes to press three months in advance," said the editor coldly. You say you wrote your story last week. The question of plagiarism is ridiculous— and," he added, darkly, "it cuts both ways."

Crestfallen, Jimpson went back and worked out another story, one of the  best ideas he had ever had. It was full of action, the plot was clever, the mystery well sustained to the final chapter.

He posted it to Carmichael, the editor, and waited.  In less than a week "The Man With the Yellow Beard" came back with the editor's regrets that, clever as the story was, Mr. William Japp had already used the same idea for his forthcoming series.

In the months that followed Jimpson had the mortification of seeing Bill Japp's name grow bigger and bigger on the cover of " 'Tec. Tales", and; what was worse, every story was similar in theme, often bearing the same title, as Jimpson's own yarns which never saw print. It was uncanny.

There was absolutely no question of plagiarism or foul play. Even Carmichael, the editor, felt sorry for Jimpson, and admitted it was queer. Jimpson began to, study books on, telepathy. He wondered if there was some sort of a rapprochement between Bill Japp and himself.

He began to brood over the matter. He gave up taking " 'Tec. Tales" because Bill Japp's triumphant name made him sick, and besides he couldn't afford the price of it.

Grimly Jimpson persevered against his hoodoo, and now  "The Man With the Green Face" was his final challenge to the malignant Fate that seemed to dog his footsteps.

He was obsessed with the idea of appearing in " 'Tec. Tales." No other magazine  interested him. He knew his stuff was good. Carmichael had no complaints on that score; but―

Jimpson rose to his feet' and placed his MSS. in a dog-eared envelope. He couldn't afford the postage, and he determined to foot it to Fleet Street.

"The Man With the Green Face" was a Christmas story with a queer, supernatural atmosphere. It was now the end of April— eight months before Christmas.

"Hang Bill Japp!" muttered Jimpson as he donned his hat and let himself out. "He won't beat me to it this time!"

He walked down Kingsway oblivious of everything save his latest story and the possibility of at last beating Bill Japp.

"The Street of Peradventure!" he murmured bitterly in Fleet Street, as he ascended, the steps of the imposing building that housed " 'Tec. Tales" and a score of other periodicals.

A bemedalled commissionaire showed him into the waiting-room. He filled in a slip with his name for the editor, and sat down. A depressed looking artist gloomed before the fire, hugging a shabby portfolio. On the table were spread a dozen brightly coloured magazines.

Impelled by some overmastering urge, Jimpson reached out for " 'Tec. Tales." The lurid cover was in green and black. Across it, in blood red letters, ran the legend:  "The Man With the Green Face. Bill Japp's Great Serial Starts This Month."

"Great Heavens!" gasped Jimpson. "This is the end."

His mouth worked convulsively, and with a frenzied gesture he flung the magazine on the floor, and danced on it. Rage shook him, as he ground his heel into the cover and obliterated the hateful name of Bill Japp.

The depressed-looking artist looked round and blinked.

"Here, go easy, old man. I admit it's a bad cover, but I drew what the editor wanted."

Jimpson did not heed the mild protest.

"Pah!" he ejaculated venomously, "I— I could kill the brute. He's a vampire— sucking other men's brains when they sleep. He's— he's—"

He was getting hysterical, but the commissionaire's quite voice steadied him.

"Mr. Carmichael will see you, sir. Third floor."

Like one in a daze Jimpson entered the lift and suddenly, as he emerged on the third floor, the brilliant' idea flashed into his mind.

"By Heaven! I've got it!" he muttered. "I'm first this time, anyway."

He tapped on the editorial doorway and entered. Carmichael, a grey-haired, dour-faced, man, swung round in his chair and pushed back his green eyeshade.

"Ah, Mr. Jimpson. Sit down. You've written another story, for me, I hear." Jimpson gulped.

"No— that, is— yes, Mr. Carmichael," he floundered. "The fact is I believe I'm bewitched— or that Bill Japp is a clairvoyant or something. Look at that!'

He flung down his MSS and pointed at the title with a trembling finger.

"I haven't seen the magazine for months. I don't know Bill Japp from Adam; and yet he's thought of a man with a green face!"

"Extraordinary!" said Carmichael, scratching his chin. "You really are most unfortunate, Mr. Jimpson. It's a pity, too. I like your style. If you could only hit on some idea that―"

"I have," said Jimpson excitedly. "Thank heaven I'm first in with it. The idea was born two minutes ago in the lift!"

He leant forward, his face alive with eagerness. "I've just thought of doing you a psychological murder story," he began. "Where an author— like me, for, instance — has all his stories anticipated by another author he's never seen.

"He begins to brood about it. It happens again and again, until finally the first man's reason gives way. He believes the other man is a sort of vampire, who— who―"

Carmichael cleared his throat, and tapped his desk with a blue pencil.

"One moment, Mr. Jimpson!" he began, slowly. "I'm very sorry, but―" He paused and took up a neatly-typed manuscript, and handed it to the other.

"This arrived from Mr. Japp yesterday morning," he said with a queer expression in his eyes.

Jimpson stared at it with a dazed look.

"The plot of that yarn is precisely the same as the idea you have just told me," said Carmichael, slowly. "It is certainly queer. That is the last story I'm afraid we shall ever get from Mr. Japp."

"The— the— last story!" echoed Jimpson, and a strange feeling of exultation surged through his veins. "You mean―"

"Haven't you seen the papers?" demanded Carmichael sharply.  He pulled out an early edition of the 'Evening Wire,' and pointed to the headlines:

FAMOUS AUTHOR MURDERED

Tragic End of William Japp

Unknown Assassin.

Jimpson stared at the type with bloodshot eyes. He licked his dry lips and tried to speak; but no sound came. His gaze fell on the last MSS. of Bill Japp, and he laughed queerly as he saw the title: "The Man Who Was Forestalled!"

____________________

18: Unforeseen

Guy Thorne

World's News (Sydney, NSW) 3 Jan 1920

MORRIS GARDEN, the realistic painter, was a very lonely man. He lived in a large, ancient house outside moorland village in Yorkshire. His wife had died many years ago, and his single son, as far as was known in the village, had gone utterly to the bad.

One dull summer's evening, at the conclusion of the war, Garden received a visitor in the big, bare studio. It was a man, still in khaki, and he wore the chevrons of a sergeant in a line regiment.

The painter, an elderly man, with long, grey hair, an aquiline nose, and rather wild eyes, gave his guest tobacco and beer.

"You've come to tell me something?" he asked.

The man flushed, and seemed a little uneasy. "I am afraid that it is nothing you will like to hear, sir."

"Never mind that. I know that you have come about my son. You were with him when he died, were you not?"

"Well, sir," the man replied, "I know all about the circumstances of his death, though I can't say I was actually with him," and here he pulled rapidly at his cigar.

"You knew him well?"

"Very well indeed, sir; he was in my platoon, and I was his sergeant. He told me something about himself, for, in the manner of speaking, we were friends."

"What did he tell you, sergeant?"

"Well, sir, he explained that he had done something or other and had a row with his guv'nor, I beg your pardon. Then when the war began he enlisted, and for a long time he was at the base. I first met him in the trenches near Ypres." The man coughed, and then went on quickly. "What I want to say, sir, is that 'Williams'— that was the name he enlisted under— was as nice a young fellow as you'd want to meet. And what's more, he wasn't a coward in any sense of the word."

"A coward! No. I don't think my son was likely to be that." The stern old face hardened and the wild eyes glowed.

"He sent a message to you, sir, the evening before he died."

"The evening before he died? Did he feel, then, that he was going to be killed?"

The sergeant put down his cigar. "Look here, sir," he said, "your question makes it very hard for me. But I have got to go through with it. Williams wasn't killed in action at all. We were ordered to go over the top early one morning, and for some reason or other— it might happen to anyone— your son got an attack of nerves. It doesn't mean that the man is a coward, sir. It is a bit of bad luck, that's all. At any rate he— he—"

"You mean he ran away; deserted in the presence of the enemy?"

"I'm afraid that is what it was called," said the sergeant, looking down at his boots.

"And then?"

"Why, then, sir, there was a court-martial."

"With the result?"

The man lifted his glass of beer and drank; his throat seemed dry.

"Tell me, please."

"Well, sir, I am sorry to say he was sentenced to be shot at dawn."

Morris Garden got up from his seat and began to walk about the studio. His guest shook a little and looked furtively at him, almost as if he himself had been detected in something disgraceful.

When at last the painter stopped, there was little alteration in his face. It was set and stern, but it had been that before. The eyes gloved more deeply, that was all.

The sergeant was a little relieved. His task had been a hard one. "Everyone was sorry for him," he said. "Sympathy was universal; even the lieutenant in charge of the firing party told me afterwards that he would have given his right arm not to have been put on the job."

Morris Garden started. "Ah! Yes, the lieutenant! What of him? What was his name?"

"Lieutenant Finden-Ritchie, a Yorkshire-man, sir, like yourself and the poor lad that's gone. He was a schoolmaster in civil life."

Again the painter started, but he said nothing.

"As for the message, sir, your son wished me to say that he hoped you would forgive him for all his wildness, and then that he hardly knew what he was doing on that morning when we made the attack."

The two men had a little further conversation, and then, with a five pound note in his pocket, the worthy sergeant was driven back to the station to catch his train for home. Morris Garden locked the door of his studio and denied himself to his servants for many hours.

SOME two miles away, in the little town, there was an old-established school for boys. This school, which enjoyed a considerable reputation in the North, prepared boys for public schools and the Navy. The head master was a certain Dr. Finden-Ritchie, and at the beginning of the war his eldest son, Alec Finden-Ritchie, had just taken his degree at Oxford, and come to help his father.

Morris Garden had little to do with his neighbours, but he occasionally met Dr. Finden-Ritchie, and it was not difficult to get to know him better. There could be nothing quite in common between the two gentlemen, but the schoolmaster, from a neighbourly feeling, was pleased to find the celebrated painter more inclined to come out of his shell, and they occasionally played a game of chess together in the evenings.

Upon one of these occasions, some three months after the sergeant's visit, Dr. Finden Ritchie made an announcement.

"My son," he said, "has been demobilised at last! He is coming home to take up the position of assistant master with me, and I can assure you I shall be very glad indeed to have him."

"I hope to have the pleasure of meeting him," said Garden, with what seemed to the other unusual animation.

"I am sure Alec will be most gratified, Mr. Garden. He takes a great interest in art matters, and he has done a good deal of sketching in water colours himself."

"In that case I shall be very pleased indeed to see him any time at the studio. If I should not come across him at once, perhaps you will tell him that? I should say, however, that I would rather he did not arrive for an other month or so, as I am engaged upon a special picture, which I do not wish to show in an unfinished state. When it is completed, I will let you know, and if Mr. Finden-Ritchie cares to come and see it and have a chat. I shall be delighted.

Three days after this, Garden heard that the young officer had returned. The husband of his housekeeper, who acted as butler and valet, was in the habit of retailing the gossip of the countryside to his master.

"A fine, up-standing young gentleman, I hear," said the valet; "he got the D.S.O. and the Military Cross, sir. But I hear he suffers from shell shock, and his heart is a bit weak."

For the next month Morris Garden worked furiously. He allowed no one, not even the servants, to enter the studio, and hardly seemed to leave the house for the whole period. He was a painter of considerable reputation, though his pictures were more popular upon the Continent than in England. This was owing in a great degree to his choice of subject, for his paintings nearly always represented some scene of gloom, or horror, depicted with extraordinary fidelity to truth. This by no means made for popularity with the British public, but as Garden had large private means, he was able to follow his bent without regard to money.

No one who has ever seen it will easily forget his large canvas representing "The Execution of Mary Queen of Scots"; or the ghastly picture, purchased by an American millionaire, and shown only to friends with strong nerves, of "An Electrocution in the Sing-Sing Prison at New York."

There were not wanting those who said that the lonely man with the morbid and powerful personality was verging upon insanity, but, as his conduct and behaviour were always perfectly normal, his neighbours, at any rate, put him down as an eccentric, with a taste for the bizarre.

One afternoon, about four o'clock, when afternoon school was just over, Mr. Garden's valet brought a little note to Lieutenant Finden-Ritchie, which said that the painter would have great pleasure if the young man would stroll up to his studio, take a cup of tea with him, and look at his pictures.

Garden's house was only a couple of miles from the school, and the lieutenant got on his bicycle and answered the note in person.

An old woman showed him into a large, bare hall. She knocked at a door, and Garden came out to his guest.

"I am very glad to see you," he said, fixing his glowing eyes on the young man's face with a strange, intent expression. "Come into the studio; tea is just ready."

Following his host, Finden-Ritchie found himself in an immense room with a high north light. Dusty canvases littered the walls. There were no rich hangings or artistic pieces of furniture, such as fashionable painters have about them. The place was a workshop pure and simple, and struck a somewhat chill and repellent note.

There was however, a gate-legged oak table and a couple of armchairs in a sort of oasis, and they sat down to tea. The young man very naturally wanted to talk about art, but his host immediately led the conversation to the war, and it was difficult to avoid his questions. The lieutenant, like nearly all men who have been through the black years, was very unwilling to talk about them, but Garden questioned so persistently, that he was drawn into a detailed narrative of his experiences, and soon found himself talking without reserve.

"What you tell me about the different degrees of courage in men interests me extremely," said the painter, "and I can quite understand that the man who is perfectly brave one day may have a strange wave of fear on the next."

"Exactly, Mr. Garden. And the worst of it is, in some extreme cases, this fear absolutely paralyses a chap. It is impossible for him to advance against the enemy, simply— so doctors have told me— a physical impossibility."

"For this, of course, the man has to pay the penalty?"

"It must be so, stern as it seems, otherwise no discipline could be maintained, and the real coward would take advantage of it, and perhaps demoralise the whole platoon."

"Quite so. It is a subject which has engaged my mind a good deal of late. Indeed, I have made it the subject of the picture I am about to show you. From what you tell me, Mr. Finden-Ritchie, and from what I have learnt in other quarters, I believe that this picture of mine will have a peculiar and individual interest for you. If you will wait a minute. I will prepare it for inspection."

His voice seemed very curious; it vibrated and echoed in the bare studio, and the young man heard it with a certain sense of apprehension. Morris Garden seemed so tremendously excited; but perhaps great artists were like that when speaking of their work.

He was thinking thus, when he suddenly heard a movement immediately behind his chair. He half turned, when something heavy, wet, and sticky smacked upon his face. His head was jerked violently backwards, and, as he slid forward helplessly on the seat, there was a sweet, penetrating odour in his nostrils, a sound like the murmur of rising waters, a buzzing, sharp-snapping noise, as of something being broken in his head, and he knew no more.

WHEN HE came to himself, Finden-Ritchie was seated in another chair, his arms and legs were tightly bound with cord, and standing by him was the tall figure of the painter.

The young man was weak and dizzy, but he was beginning an indignant and furious remonstrance, when the words failed on his lips.

"Lieutenant Finden-Ritchie, you commanded a firing party which shot a certain soldier for cowardice, eighteen months ago. The name by which that soldier was known to you was Bernard Williams. It was not his real name. He was my son, Bernard Garden, my only son."

The studio seemed to swing round the lieutenant, and he answered with a tremendous effort, "It was so; I am deeply sorry, but I had to obey orders."

The painter bowed. "That I perfectly understand," he said, "nor have I the least quarrel with you on that account. But my private feelings on the matter are apart from military discipline. I have been some time preparing for your reception, sir, for I design that you should undergo for a few minutes exactly what my son underwent. I speak of the picture that you were to see—here it is!"

Looking up, the young man saw some five yards away an immense canvas confronting him. It was supported upon a high, upright easel, and a black curtain hung before it.

Maurice Garden stepped up to it and drew the curtain aside. For an instant the lieutenant's vision was blurred; then the thing swam into focus, and he gasped. Before him, not five yards away, were five life-sized figures in khaki. Each one of these figures had a rifle at its shoulder, and the five little round muzzles were pointed directly at his heart.

The picture was painted with such extraordinary and brilliant realism that the firing party might have been composed of living men. The illusion was so perfect that Alec shrank away in his bonds for a moment, as the painter watched him, with steady, hawk-like eyes.

"That is what my son saw," he said quietly.

"It is," the young man gasped, "but it is a cruel joke to play upon me, sir. I was not responsible for what I had to do. And you have chloroformed and tied me, your guest."

Garden went on, as if he had not heard him. "You will find it more interesting than you think," he said, in a quiet voice. "With your permission, I am going to wheel you round to the back of the picture."

With a savage gesture, he propelled the chair, which ran on castors, behind the high screen. There was a curious arrangement of woodwork built up from the floor, and, as he stared at it, Alec Finden-Ritchie realised the truth.

Five rifles were supported on the staging, and the barrels ran right through the picture. The round circles which he had observed, and which seemed so singularly real, were actually the muzzle ends of real rifles.

"You will observe that the triggers of the rifles are wired, and can be pulled simultaneously. Each rifle is loaded. The whole apparatus is worked by a simple electrical device, which you will shortly see in operation."

The chair was run back to its original position. Garden placed a small, low table in front of the picture, and on this he put a clock. Then he disappeared behind the screen, and when he came again into view, he was carrying a silk-covered electrical wire in his hand.

"I place the hands of the clock at five minutes to the hour." He suited the action to the words.

"I attach this electrical wire to the mechanism of the clock. I start the clock. At precisely the hour contact will be made, the triggers of the rifles will be pulled, and you, Mr. Finden-Ritchie, will die the death, reproduced in exact detail, that you inflicted upon my son."

TREADING very softly, the painter passed his victim's chair, and disappeared. The lieutenant thought he heard him waiting at the door of the studio, but he could not turn his head and he had other things to think about.

He was a brave man, and had proved it over and over again, but for a full minute his whole soul quailed and shrank within him, as he stared at the five painted figures a few yards away.

Yes! To die in the ardour of the attack was one thing; to wait, bound and in silence, for sharp and sudden death, another. He knew now what the wretched Williams must have felt.

Then the whole horror of being trapped like this descended upon him in a flood. He struggled in his bonds: he shouted aloud, but only the echoes of his own voice answered him. The long hand of the clock had moved nearly three minutes towards the hour....

So it was to be, then! There was no way out of it. Well if that was so, the madman lurking in the background should at least see how a strong man could die. There was no time for a message to his father. The hand of the clock crept on. Sixty seconds more, and then the end.

He closed his eyes, not from fear, but as he had done many times at the beginning of battle, to make his peace with God. Almost immediately a great calm  possessed him, and fear vanished entirely.

He opened his eyes. It seemed that the long hand of the clock was almost touching the XII. There was a slight whirring noise; he straightened himself in his chair, and as he did so, Morris Garden, in the back of the studio, clapped his hands loudly.

Then there was a sharp multiple "click," as the hammers fell in the five unloaded rifles. But as the ghastly and cruel comedy concluded with the loud clapping of the madman's hands. Alec Finden-Ritchie's head sank down, his whole body quivered, and was still. The rifles, which were mere dummies, had sent no leaden messages of death to that still form, but the weakened heart had stopped beating, as surely as if it had been pierced.

A denouement entirely unforeseen by Mr. Morris Garden.

_______________________

Table of Contents

1: One-Trip Darling / Richard Connell

2: The Fountain Of Light / A. A. Irvine

3: My Adventure In Norfolk / A.J. Alan

4: My Adventure at Chislehurst / A.J. Alan

5: The Diver / A.J. Alan

6: H2, etc. / A.J. Alan

7: The Hair / A. J. Alan

8: Supper at Midnight / William J. Makin

9: The Silent Witness / Cosmo Hamilton

10: No Leopards in Surbiton / F A M Webster

11: Four Friends and Death /

12: The Fourth Degree / F Britten Austin

13: An Affair Of Honour / F. Britten Austin

14: The Inca's Treasure / F. Britten Austin

15: The Other Side / F. Britten Austin

16: Buried Treasure / F. Britten Austin

17: "The Man Who Was—" / Glyn Evans

18: Unforeseen / Guy Thorne