Past Masters seven
Author: Various
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Description: 22 short stories from a selection of writers in the L+70 PD. The stories were collected from magazines and newspapers, and the authors are for the most part represented in the Library by other works already. 1: A Source of Irritation / Stacy Aumonier 2: Flash! / Richard Connell 3: The Detective Club / Ellis Parker Butler 4: Murder off the Map / William J. Makin 5: Wax Works / Ethel Lina White 6: The Man Who Lost His Memory / C E Bechhofer Roberts 7: The Mystery of the Chaffeur's Suicide / C E Bechhofer Roberts 8: The English Filter / C E Bechhofer Roberts 9: Virgin Snow / C E Bechhofer Roberts

PAST MASTERS

SEVEN

2020

Contents

1: A Source of Irritation / Stacy Aumonier

2: Flash! / Richard Connell

3: The Detective Club / Ellis Parker Butler

4: Murder off the Map / William J. Makin

5: Wax Works / Ethel Lina White

6: The Man Who Lost His Memory / C E Bechhofer Roberts

7: The Mystery of the Chaffeur's Suicide / C E Bechhofer Roberts

8: The English Filter / C E Bechhofer Roberts

9: Virgin Snow / C E Bechhofer Roberts

10: The Cracksman's Catspaw / J. S. Fletcher

11: The Silent Witness / Max Brand

12: The Face in the Dark / L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace

13: Mr. Belton's Immunity / Edgar Jepson and Robert Eustace

14: A Bolt from the Blue / Mcdonnell Bodkin

15: Spoofing a Detective / Mrs. George Corbett

16: Ooze / Anthony M. Rud

17: Murder by Proxy / Mcdonnell Bodkin

18: Four Guests / William J Makin

19: Her Memory / Morley Roberts

20: Clubs and Hearts / Barry Pain

21: A Rapid Conveyance / Owen Oliver

22: The Horror of the Loch / William J Makin

(novelette)

__________________

1: A Source of Irritation

Stacy Aumonier

1877-1928

The Century Magazine Jan 1918

Nothing ever happens to old Sam Gates...

TO LOOK AT old Sam Gates you would never suspect him of having nerves. His sixty-nine years of close application to the needs of the soil had given him a certain earthy stolidity. To observe him hoeing, or thinning out a broad field of turnips, hardly attracted one’s attention, he seemed so much part and parcel of the whole scheme. He blended into the soil like a glorified swede. Nevertheless, the half-dozen people who claimed his acquaintance knew him to be a man who suffered from little moods of irritability.

And on this glorious morning a little incident annoyed him unreasonably. It concerned his niece, Aggie. She was a plump girl with clear, blue eyes, and a face as round and inexpressive as the dumplings for which the county was famous. She came slowly across the long sweep of the downland and, putting down the bundle wrapped in a red handkerchief which contained his breakfast and dinner, she said:

“Well, Uncle, is there any noos?”

Now, this may not appear to the casual reader to be a remark likely to cause irritation, but it affected old Sam Gates as a very silly and unnecessary question. It was, moreover, the constant repetition of it which was beginning to anger him. He met his niece twice a day. In the morning she brought his bundle of food at seven, and when he passed his sister’s cottage on the way home to tea at five she was invariably hanging about the gate, and she always said in the same voice:

“Well, Uncle, is there any noos?”

Noos! What noos should there be? For sixty-nine years he had never lived farther than five miles from Halvesham. For nearly sixty of those years he had bent his back above the soil. There were, indeed, historic occasions. Once, for instance, when he had married Annie Hachet. And there was the birth of his daughter. There was also a famous occasion when he had visited London. Once he had been to a flower-show at Market Roughborough. He either went or didn’t go to church on Sundays. He had had many interesting chats with Mr. James at the Cowman, and three years ago had sold a pig to Mrs. Way. But he couldn’t always have interesting noos of this sort up his sleeve. Didn’t the silly zany know that for the last three weeks he had been hoeing and thinning out turnips for Mr. Hodge on this very same field? What noos could there be?

He blinked at his niece, and didn’t answer. She undid the parcel and said:

“Mrs. Goping’s fowl got out again last night.”

“Ah,” he replied in a non-committal manner and began to munch his bread and bacon. His niece picked up the handkerchief and, humming to herself, walked back across the field.

It was a glorious morning, and a white sea mist added to the promise of a hot day. He sat there munching, thinking of nothing in particular, but gradually subsiding into a mood of placid content. He noticed the back of Aggie disappear in the distance. It was a mile to the cottage and a mile and a half to Halvesham. Silly things, girls. They were all alike. One had to make allowances. He dismissed her from his thoughts, and took a long swig of tea out of a bottle. Insects buzzed lazily. He tapped his pocket to assure himself that his pouch of shag was there, and then he continued munching. When he had finished, he lighted his pipe and stretched himself comfortably. He looked along the line of turnips he had thinned and then across the adjoining field of swedes. Silver streaks appeared on the sea below the mist. In some dim way he felt happy in his solitude amidst this sweeping immensity of earth and sea and sky.

And then something else came to irritate him: it was one of “these dratted airyplanes.” “Airyplanes” were his pet aversion. He could find nothing to be said in their favor. Nasty, noisy, disfiguring things that seared the heavens and made the earth dangerous. And every day there seemed to be more and more of them. Of course “this old war” was responsible for a lot of them, he knew. The war was a “plaguy noosance.” They were short-handed on the farm, beer and tobacco were dear, and Mrs. Steven’s nephew had been and got wounded in the foot.

He turned his attention once more to the turnips; but an “airyplane” has an annoying genius for gripping one’s attention. When it appears on the scene, however much we dislike it, it has a way of taking the stage-center. We cannot help constantly looking at it. And so it was with old Sam Gates. He spat on his hands and blinked up at the sky. And suddenly the aeroplane behaved in a very extraordinary manner. It was well over the sea when it seemed to lurch drunkenly and skimmed the water. Then it shot up at a dangerous angle and zigzagged. It started to go farther out, and then turned and made for the land. The engines were making a curious grating noise. It rose once more, and then suddenly dived downward, and came plump down right in the middle of Mr. Hodge’s field of swedes.

And then, as if not content with this desecration, it ran along the ground, ripping and tearing up twenty-five yards of good swedes, and then came to a stop.

Old Sam Gates was in a terrible state. The aeroplane was more than a hundred yards away, but he waved his arms and called out:

“Hi, you there, you mustn’t land in they swedes! They’re Mister Hodge’s.”

The instant the aeroplane stopped, a man leaped out and gazed quickly round. He glanced at Sam Gates, and seemed uncertain whether to address him or whether to concentrate his attention on the flying-machine. The latter arrangement appeared to be his ultimate decision. He dived under the engine and became frantically busy. Sam had never seen any one work with such furious energy; but all the same it was not to be tolerated. It was disgraceful. Sam started out across the field, almost hurrying in his indignation. When he appeared within earshot of the aviator he cried out again:

“Hi! you mustn’t rest your old airyplane here! You’ve kicked up all Mr. Hodge’s swedes. A noice thing you’ve done!”

He was within five yards when suddenly the aviator turned and covered him with a revolver! And speaking in a sharp, staccato voice, he said:

“Old Grandfather, you must sit down. I am very much occupied. If you interfere or attempt to go away, I shoot you. So!”

Sam gazed at the horrid, glittering little barrel and gasped. Well, he never! To be threatened with murder when you’re doing your duty in your employer’s private property! But, still, perhaps the man was mad. A man must be more or less mad to go up in one of those crazy things. And life was very sweet on that summer morning despite sixty-nine years. He sat down among the swedes.

The aviator was so busy with his cranks and machinery that he hardly deigned to pay him any attention except to keep the revolver handy. He worked feverishly, and Sam sat watching him. At the end of ten minutes he appeared to have solved his troubles with the machine, but he still seemed very scared. He kept on glancing round and out to sea. When his repairs were complete he straightened his back and wiped the perspiration from his brow. He was apparently on the point of springing back into the machine and going off when a sudden mood of facetiousness, caused by relief from the strain he had endured, came to him. He turned to old Sam and smiled, at the same time remarking:

“Well, old Grandfather, and now we shall be all right, isn’t it?”

He came close up to Sam, and then suddenly started back.

“Gott!” he cried, “Paul Jouperts!”

Bewildered, Sam gazed at him, and the madman started talking to him in some foreign tongue. Sam shook his head.

“You no roight,” he remarked, “to come bargin’ through they swedes of Mr. Hodge’s.”

And then the aviator behaved in a most peculiar manner. He came up and examined Sam’s face very closely, and gave a sudden tug at his beard and hair, as if to see whether they were real or false.

“What is your name, old man?” he said.

“Sam Gates.”

The aviator muttered some words that sounded something like “mare vudish,” and then turned to his machine. He appeared to be dazed and in a great state of doubt. He fumbled with some cranks, but kept glancing at old Sam. At last he got into the car and strapped himself in. Then he stopped, and sat there deep in thought. At last he suddenly unstrapped himself and sprang out again and, approaching Sam, said very deliberately:

“Old Grandfather, I shall require you to accompany me.”

Sam gasped.

“Eh?” he said. “What be talkin’ about? ’Company? I got these ’ere loines o’ turnips—I be already behoind—”

The disgusting little revolver once more flashed before his eyes.

“There must be no discussion,” came the voice. “It is necessary that you mount the seat of the car without delay. Otherwise I shoot you like the dog you are. So!”

Old Sam was hale and hearty. He had no desire to die so ignominiously. The pleasant smell of the Norfolk downland was in his nostrils; his foot was on his native heath. He mounted the seat of the car, contenting himself with a mutter:

“Well, that be a noice thing, I must say! Flyin’ about the country with all they turnips on’y half thinned!”

He found himself strapped in. The aviator was in a fever of anxiety to get away. The engines made a ghastly splutter and noise. The thing started running along the ground. Suddenly it shot upward, giving the swedes a last contemptuous kick. At twenty minutes to eight that morning old Sam found himself being borne right up above his fields and out to sea! His breath came quickly. He was a little frightened.

“God forgive me!” he murmured.

The thing was so fantastic and sudden that his mind could not grasp it. He only felt in some vague way that he was going to die, and he struggled to attune his mind to the change. He offered up a mild prayer to God, Who, he felt, must be very near, somewhere up in these clouds. Automatically he thought of the vicar at Halvesham, and a certain sense of comfort came to him at the reflection that on the previous day he had taken a “cooking of runner beans” to God’s representative in that village. He felt calmer after that, but the horrid machine seemed to go higher and higher. He could not turn in his seat and he could see nothing but sea and sky. Of course the man was mad, mad as a March hare. Of what earthly use could he be to any one? Besides, he had talked pure gibberish, and called him Paul something, when he had already told him that his name was Sam. The thing would fall down into the sea soon, and they would both be drowned. Well, well, he had almost reached three-score years and ten. He was protected by a screen, but it seemed very cold. What on earth would Mr. Hodge say? There was no one left to work the land but a fool of a boy named Billy Whitehead at Dene’s Cross. On, on, on they went at a furious pace. His thoughts danced disconnectedly from incidents of his youth, conversations with the vicar, hearty meals in the open, a frock his sister wore on the day of the postman’s wedding, the drone of a psalm, the illness of some ewes belonging to Mr. Hodge. Everything seemed to be moving very rapidly, upsetting his sense of time. He felt outraged, and yet at moments there was something entrancing in the wild experience. He seemed to be living at an incredible pace. Perhaps he was really dead and on his way to the kingdom of God. Perhaps this was the way they took people.

After some indefinite period he suddenly caught sight of a long strip of land. Was this a foreign country, or were they returning? He had by this time lost all feeling of fear. He became interested and almost disappointed. The “airyplane” was not such a fool as it looked. It was very wonderful to be right up in the sky like this. His dreams were suddenly disturbed by a fearful noise. He thought the machine was blown to pieces. It dived and ducked through the air, and things were bursting all round it and making an awful din, and then it went up higher and higher. After a while these noises ceased, and he felt the machine gliding downward. They were really right above solid land—trees, fields, streams, and white villages. Down, down, down they glided. This was a foreign country. There were straight avenues of poplars and canals. This was not Halvesham. He felt the thing glide gently and bump into a field. Some men ran forward and approached them, and the mad aviator called out to them. They were mostly fat men in gray uniforms, and they all spoke this foreign gibberish. Some one came and unstrapped him. He was very stiff and could hardly move. An exceptionally gross-looking man punched him in the ribs and roared with laughter. They all stood round and laughed at him, while the mad aviator talked to them and kept pointing at him. Then he said:

“Old Grandfather, you must come with me.”

He was led to an iron-roofed building and shut in a little room. There were guards outside with fixed bayonets. After a while the mad aviator appeared again, accompanied by two soldiers. He beckoned him to follow. They marched through a quadrangle and entered another building. They went straight into an office where a very important-looking man, covered with medals, sat in an easy-chair. There was a lot of saluting and clicking of heels. The aviator pointed at Sam and said something, and the man with the medals started at sight of him, and then came up and spoke to him in English.

“What is your name? Where do you come from? Your age? The name and birthplace of your parents?”

He seemed intensely interested, and also pulled his hair and beard to see if they came off. So well and naturally did he and the aviator speak English that after a voluble examination they drew apart, and continued the conversation in that language. And the extraordinary conversation was of this nature:

“It is a most remarkable resemblance,” said the man with medals. “Unglaublich! But what do you want me to do with him, Hausemann?”

“The idea came to me suddenly, Excellency,” replied the aviator, “and you may consider it worthless. It is just this. The resemblance is so amazing. Paul Jouperts has given us more valuable information than any one at present in our service, and the English know that. There is an award of five thousand francs on his head. Twice they have captured him, and each time he escaped. All the company commanders and their staff have his photograph. He is a serious thorn in their flesh.”

“Well?” replied the man with the medals.

The aviator whispered confidentially:

“Suppose, your Excellency, that they found the dead body of Paul Jouperts?”

“Well?” replied the big man.

“My suggestion is this. To-morrow, as you know, the English are attacking Hill 701, which for tactical reasons we have decided to evacuate. If after the attack they find the dead body of Paul Jouperts in, say, the second lines, they will take no further trouble in the matter. You know their lack of thoroughness. Pardon me, I was two years at Oxford University. And consequently Paul Jouperts will be able to prosecute his labors undisturbed.”

The man with the medals twirled his mustache and looked thoughtfully at his colleague.

“Where is Paul at the moment?” he asked.

“He is acting as a gardener at the Convent of St. Eloise, at Mailleton-en-haut, which, as you know, is one hundred meters from the headquarters of the British central army staff.”

The man with the medals took two or three rapid turns up and down the room, then he said:

“Your plan is excellent, Hausemann. The only point of difficulty is that the attack started this morning.”

“This morning?” exclaimed the other.

“Yes; the English attacked unexpectedly at dawn. We have already evacuated the first line. We shall evacuate the second line at eleven-fifty. It is now ten-fifteen. There may be just time.”

He looked suddenly at old Sam in the way that a butcher might look at a prize heifer at an agricultural show and remarked casually:

“Yes, it is a remarkable resemblance. It seems a pity not to—do something with it.”

Then, speaking in German, he added:

“It is worth trying. And if it succeeds, the higher authorities shall hear of your lucky accident and inspiration, Herr Hausemann. Instruct Ober-lieutenant Schultz to send the old fool by two orderlies to the east extremity of Trench 38. Keep him there till the order of evacuation is given, then shoot him, but don’t disfigure him, and lay him out face upward.”

The aviator saluted and withdrew, accompanied by his victim. Old Sam had not understood the latter part of the conversation, and he did not catch quite all that was said in English; but he felt that somehow things were not becoming too promising, and it was time to assert himself. So he remarked when they got outside:

“Now, look ’ee ’ere, Mister, when am I goin’ to get back to my turnips?”

And the aviator replied, with a pleasant smile:

“Do not be disturbed, old Grandfather. You shall get back to the soil quite soon.”

In a few moments he found himself in a large gray car, accompanied by four soldiers. The aviator left him. The country was barren and horrible, full of great pits and rents, and he could hear the roar of artillery and the shriek of shells. Overhead, aeroplanes were buzzing angrily. He seemed to be suddenly transported from the kingdom of God to the pit of darkness. He wondered whether the vicar had enjoyed the runner beans. He could not imagine runner beans growing here; runner beans, aye, or anything else. If this was a foreign country, give him dear old England!

Gr-r-r! bang! Something exploded just at the rear of the car. The soldiers ducked, and one of them pushed him in the stomach and swore.

“An ugly-looking lout,” he thought. “If I wor twenty years younger, I’d give him a punch in the eye that ’u’d make him sit up.”

The car came to a halt by a broken wall. The party hurried out and dived behind a mound. He was pulled down a kind of shaft, and found himself in a room buried right underground, where three officers were drinking and smoking. The soldiers saluted and handed them a type-written dispatch. The officers looked at him drunkenly, and one came up and pulled his beard and spat in his face and called him “an old English swine.” He then shouted out some instructions to the soldiers, and they led him out into the narrow trench. One walked behind him, and occasionally prodded him with the butt-end of a gun. The trenches were half full of water and reeked of gases, powder, and decaying matter. Shells were constantly bursting overhead, and in places the trenches had crumbled and were nearly blocked up. They stumbled on, sometimes falling, sometimes dodging moving masses, and occasionally crawling over the dead bodies of men. At last they reached a deserted-looking trench, and one of the soldiers pushed him into the corner of it and growled something, and then disappeared round the angle. Old Sam was exhausted. He leaned panting against the mud wall, expecting every minute to be blown to pieces by one of those infernal things that seemed to be getting more and more insistent. The din went on for nearly twenty minutes, and he was alone in the trench. He fancied he heard a whistle amidst the din. Suddenly one of the soldiers who had accompanied him came stealthily round the corner, and there was a look in his eye old Sam did not like. When he was within five yards the soldier raised his rifle and pointed it at Sam’s body. Some instinct impelled the old man at that instant to throw himself forward on his face. As he did so he was aware of a terrible explosion, and he had just time to observe the soldier falling in a heap near him, and then he lost consciousness.

His consciousness appeared to return to him with a snap. He was lying on a plank in a building, and he heard some one say:

“I believe the old boy’s English.”

He looked round. There were a lot of men lying there, and others in khaki and white overalls were busy among them. He sat up, rubbed his head, and said:

“Hi, Mister, where be I now?”

Some one laughed, and a young man came up and said: “Well, old man, you were very nearly in hell. Who are you?”

Some one came up, and two of them were discussing him. One of them said:

“He’s quite all right. He was only knocked out. Better take him in to the colonel. He may be a spy.”

The other came up, touched his shoulder, and remarked:

“Can you walk, Uncle?”

He replied:

“Aye, I can walk all roight.”

“That’s an old sport!”

The young man took his arm and helped him out of the room into a courtyard. They entered another room, where an elderly, kind-faced officer was seated at a desk. The officer looked up and exclaimed:

“Good God! Bradshaw, do you know who you’ve got there?”

The younger one said:

“No. Who, sir?”

“It’s Paul Jouperts!” exclaimed the colonel.

“Paul Jouperts! Great Scott!”

The older officer addressed himself to Sam. He said:

“Well, we’ve got you once more, Paul. We shall have to be a little more careful this time.”

The young officer said:

“Shall I detail a squad, sir?”

“We can’t shoot him without a court-martial,” replied the kind-faced senior.

Then Sam interpolated:

“Look ’ee ’ere, sir, I’m fair’ sick of all this. My name bean’t Paul. My name’s Sam. I was a-thinnin’ a loine o’ turnips—”

Both officers burst out laughing, and the younger one said:

“Good! Good! Isn’t it amazing, sir, the way they not only learn the language, but even take the trouble to learn a dialect!”

The older man busied himself with some papers.

“Well, Sam,” he remarked, “you shall be given a chance to prove your identity. Our methods are less drastic than those of your Boche masters. What part of England are you supposed to come from? Let’s see how much you can bluff us with your topographical knowledge.”

“I was a-thinnin’ a loine o’ turnips this mornin’ at ’alf-past seven on Mr. Hodge’s farm at Halvesham when one o’ these ’ere airyplanes come down among the swedes. I tells ’e to get clear o’ that, when the feller what gets out o’ the car ’e drahs a revowlver and ’e says, ‘You must ’company I—’”

“Yes, yes,” interrupted the senior officer; “that’s all very good. Now tell me—where is Halvesham? What is the name of the local vicar? I’m sure you’d know that.”

Old Sam rubbed his chin.

“I sits under the Reverend David Pryce, Mister, and a good, God-fearin’ man he be. I took him a cookin’ o’ runner beans on’y yesterday. I works for Mr. Hodge, what owns Greenway Manor and ’as a stud-farm at Newmarket, they say.”

“Charles Hodge?” asked the young officer.

“Aye, Charlie Hodge. You write and ask un if he knows old Sam Gates.”

The two officers looked at each other, and the older one looked at Sam more closely.

“It’s very extraordinary,” he remarked.

“Everybody knows Charlie Hodge,” added the young officer.

It was at that moment that a wave of genius swept over old Sam. He put his hand to his head, and suddenly jerked out:

“What’s more, I can tell ’ee where this yere Paul is. He’s actin’ a gardener in a convent at—” He puckered up his brows, fumbled with his hat, and then got out, “Mighteno.”

The older officer gasped.

“Mailleton-en-haut! Good God! what makes you say that, old man?”

Sam tried to give an account of his experience and the things he had heard said by the German officers; but he was getting tired, and he broke off in the middle to say:

“Ye haven’t a bite o’ somethin’ to eat, I suppose, Mister; or a glass o’ beer? I usually ’as my dinner at twelve o’clock.”

Both the officers laughed, and the older said:

“Get him some food, Bradshaw, and a bottle of beer from the mess. We’ll keep this old man here. He interests me.”

While the younger man was doing this, the chief pressed a button and summoned another junior officer.

“Gateshead,” he remarked, “ring up the G.H.Q. and instruct them to arrest the gardener in that convent at the top of the hill and then to report.”

The officer saluted and went out, and in a few minutes a tray of hot food and a large bottle of beer were brought to the old man, and he was left alone in the corner of the room to negotiate this welcome compensation. And in the execution he did himself and his county credit. In the meanwhile the officers were very busy. People were coming and going and examining maps, and telephone bells were ringing furiously. They did not disturb old Sam’s gastric operations. He cleaned up the mess tins and finished the last drop of beer. The senior officer found time to offer him a cigarette, but he replied:

“Thank ’ee kindly, sir, but I’d rather smoke my pipe.”

The colonel smiled and said:

“Oh, all right; smoke away.”

He lighted up, and the fumes of the shag permeated the room. Some one opened another window, and the young officer who had addressed him at first suddenly looked at him and exclaimed:

“Innocent! You couldn’t get shag like that anywhere but in Norfolk.”

It must have been an hour later when another officer entered and saluted.

“Message from the G.H.Q., sir,” he said.

“Well?”

“They have arrested the gardener at the convent of St. Eloise, and they have every reason to believe that he is the notorious Paul Jouperts.”

The colonel stood up, and his eyes beamed. He came over to old Sam and shook his hand.

“Mr. Gates,” he said, “you are an old brick. You will probably hear more of this. You have probably been the means of delivering something very useful into our hands. Your own honor is vindicated. A loving Government will probably award you five shillings or a Victoria Cross or something of that sort. In the meantime, what can I do for you?”

Old Sam scratched his chin.

“I want to get back ’ome,” he said.

“Well, even that might be arranged.”

“I want to get back ’ome in toime for tea.”

“What time do you have tea?”

“Foive o’clock or thereabouts.”

“I see.”

A kindly smile came into the eyes of the colonel. He turned to another officer standing by the table and said:

“Raikes, is any one going across this afternoon with dispatches?”

“Yes, sir,” replied the other officer. “Commander Jennings is leaving at three o’clock.”

“You might ask him if he could see me.”

Within ten minutes a young man in a flight-commander’s uniform entered.

“Ah, Jennings,” said the colonel, “here is a little affair which concerns the honor of the British army. My friend here, Sam Gates, has come over from Halvesham, in Norfolk, in order to give us valuable information. I have promised him that he shall get home to tea at five o’clock. Can you take a passenger?”

The young man threw back his head and laughed.

“Lord!” he exclaimed, “what an old sport! Yes, I expect I can manage it. Where is the forsaken place?”

A large ordnance-map of Norfolk (which had been captured from a German officer) was produced, and the young man studied it closely.

At three o’clock precisely old Sam, finding himself something of a hero and quite glad to escape from the embarrassment which this position entailed upon him, once more sped skyward in a “dratted airyplane.”

At twenty minutes to five he landed once more among Mr. Hodge’s swedes. The breezy young airman shook hands with him and departed inland. Old Sam sat down and surveyed the familiar field of turnips.

“A noice thing, I must say!” he muttered to himself as he looked along the lines of unthinned turnips. He still had twenty minutes, and so he went slowly along and completed a line which he had begun in the morning. He then deliberately packed up his dinner-things and his tools and started out for home.

As he came round the corner of Stillway’s meadow and the cottage came in view, his niece stepped out of the copse with a basket on her arm.

“Well, Uncle,” she said, “is there any noos?”

It was then that old Sam really lost his temper.

“Noos!” he said. “Noos! Drat the girl! What noos should there be? Sixty-nine year’ I live in these ’ere parts, hoein’ and weedin’ and thinnin’, and mindin’ Charlie Hodge’s sheep. Am I one o’ these ’ere story-book folk havin’ noos ’appen to me all the time? Ain’t it enough, ye silly, dab-faced zany, to earn enough to buy a bite o’ some’at to eat and a glass o’ beer and a place to rest a’s head o’night without always wantin’ noos, noos, noos! I tell ’ee it’s this that leads ’ee to ’alf the troubles in the world. Devil take the noos!”

And turning his back on her, he went fuming up the hill.

____________________

2: Flash!

Richard Connell

1893-1949

The American Magazine Nov 1939

Orson Wells' 1938 CBS radio broadcast of the War of the Worlds has a lot to answer for...

"TO the bride and groom!"

In rhubarb wine they toasted Mr. and Mrs. George Philbin on their golden wedding anniversary.

"Well, folks," said Mr. Philbin, "a lot of things have happened since I and Ellie here took the big step back in 1938. Take flying. You youngsters titter at the planes we had then. Guess they must look mighty slow and noisy nowadays when school-kids zip round the stratosphere.

"Or take television. When I was courting Ellie there were only a few crude sets. I said, 'It'll never take the place of radio— though I wish something would. It's bad enough,' I said, 'to have to listen to some of those goofs, let along see 'em.' And now look.

"To-day, the poorest hill-billy, though nobody is real poor now, can sit in his air-conditioned cabin and see on his wall a brown girl in the Fiji Islands doing a hoochie-cooch large as life and twice as natural.

"Lots of times I been asked why I keep my old radio set, and I've always said, 'I'm old-fashioned. I like it. I like to tune In on the few stations that keep going for fogies like me.' But to-night I'm going to break down and confess that I never was a dial-hound. I'm going to tell you the real reason why I an' Ellle keep our old radio."

Mr. Philbin beamed round at his children and grandchildren. "It's taken me 50 years to talk Ellie into letting me tell," he went on. "Only last night she gave me an okay. So here it is: If it wasn't for radio, none of you would be here. Yes, sir, that's fact— hey, Ellie?"

Mrs. Philbin nodded.

"Go right ahead, George," she said, "if you want the children to know what a pair of young fools we were."

"Now, Mother, they won't mind," said Mr. Philbin. "Most things have changed, but young folks in love still act silly. Well, sir, back in '38 I was a hardened bachelor of twenty-two, doing fine in the furniture game, and with no more idea of taking a wife than o£ keeping a hippopotamus, when one spring day Ellie here walks into the store to buy a bridge lamp.

"I took one look at her— at her eyes, mostly— and said to Charlie Burr, the manager, 'Charlie, let me wait on that little lady,' and he said, 'Do you know her?' and I said, 'Not from Eve's aunt; but she's the party I'm going to marry.'

"I sold Ellie one of our three-bulb specials, and she went out, all sore and snooty, because I tried so hard to make her buy a love seat. Later she told me she thought I'd been drinking, and the only thing she remembered about me was that I had the biggest, pinkest, and funniest ears she ever saw.

"When I insisted on delivering the lamp to her dad's house in person, the boys ribbed me raw. 'George,' they said, 'you got termites in your roof if you think a de luxe number like her will ever tumble for a pop-eyed, freckle-necked runt like you.'

"For a long, miserable while I was afraid they were right. Ellie as good as told me that, if her choice of a husband lay between me and a chimpanzee, she'd get ready then and there to live in a tree. Just the same, I kept coming to her house as regular as the milk, till one day she admitted that I might make a better mate than a monkey, though not by much, maybe. We set the date late in the fall, and I made a down payment on that diamond she's wearing, and life was all roses and honey.

"Then Bob Hempel hit town. Bob was one of those handsome, husky, charming fellows that right off give every girl a pain in the heart and every man a pain in the neck.

"He made a play for the prettiest girl in Duluth— quit blushing, Ellie— and she went all limp and dizzy.... You did, too, Ellie.... Well, see, one blue day I crawled round to see her and got the chilly news that I was back in the ape class, ring and all. I sat, a 140 lb. lump of misery, in the living-room. I didn't leave, because I couldn't lift my heart out of the chair and get away from there.

"Then Bob Hempel breezed in. He knew the best way to get rid of me, which was to turn on the radio, and he did so. A crooner was bleating. Then, all of a sudden, a voice boomed out:— 'Emergency flash ! Stand by, everybody! Terrible news! The earth has been invaded by an army of men from Mars! There are millions of them, fierce, one-eyed giants, armed to the teeth. They just destroyed Jersey City and Topolia. Killed every man, woman, and child. Where will they strike next? Flash! Detroit is in flames. So is Buffalo. More and more Martians are pouring from the skies like rain. Flash! They've got Minneapolis―"

Mr. Philbin stopped for breath, then continued: "Well, sir, Ellie began to whiten and whimper, and she turned to cling to Bob, only Bob wasn't there. But I was. I jumped up and grabbed her dad's lodge sword off the wall, put one arm round her, waved the sword with the other, and Ellie claims I hollered, 'Come on, you fiends! Though scorned by her, I'll die in the defence of the woman I love.' Maybe I did. I was upset. Of course, the fiends didn't come. It was all a radio man's idea of a joke.

"We found Bob in the vegetable cellar, trying to hide under some Brussels sprouts. When I gave him a poke in the pants with the sword, he thought I was one of the visiting firemen from Mars, and he tore out of the house, squealing.

"I ran back to Ellie, and she grabbed me, and cried, 'Oh, George, you're the man I want to be near always.' Well, she got her wish. I hope she's not sorry."

Mrs. Philbin smiled.

"Don't be a dope, dear," she said. Mr. Philbin pointed to the corner. "There it sits," he said. "That same little old 10-dollar radio, just as it was except for new valves." He turned it on. From it came the drawl of a comedian:—

"...But when Pat and Mike got to the giraffe's cage, Mike said, 'be jabers, Pat, there ain't no such animile.' "

The littlest grandchildren laughed. Mr. Philbin nodded sardonically. Then a brisk voice barked:—

"Emergency flash! The earth is being invaded by men from Venus! Several thousand have just lit in Central Park. But don't get alarmed. They are fat little creatures with square heads and three eyes. They are unarmed, and seem harmless and friendly. Flash! A swarm of Venusites just came down near Quincy, Illinois. Flash! Another swarm is reported over Racine. Flash!"

Mr. Philbin bounced up and switched off the radio.

"The gall of those guys!" he snorted. "They got a crust trying to pull a whiskery wheeze like that in this day and age. By golly! That finishes me with radio for good and all."

He snatched up the radio set. "Out the window you must go!" he declared. He marched to the window, flung it open, and drew back his arm to cast the set into the night. But he did not throw.

Grinning amiably at him was a squat, plump figure with a square head and three bright green eyes.

I gave Bob a poke with the sword and he tore out of the house, squealing.

_________________

3: The Detective Club

Ellis Parker Butler

1869-1937

Is she or isn't she?

NOW, I AM going to tell this exactly as it happened and then you can decide whether you think Betty Bliss was a clever detective or not.

It began in Betty's living room right here in Westcote, and there were five of us in it. I was there— my name is Madge— and of course Betty was there, and so was Dorothy Carter. The two boys were Dick Prince who lives next door to Betty, and Arthur Dane who lives next beyond Dick. We all live in the same neighbourhood and in Tenth Street, so we had formed the Tenth Street Reading Circle, and we were reading detective mystery stories together. One of us read a chapter, and then another read a chapter, and so on.

So this evening we were reading the last of The Mystery of the Golden Puffin, which is a pretty good story, and Betty Bliss said, “I'd love to be a detective. All my life I've wanted to be a detective.”

This was so. I remembered when Betty coaxed me to go with her to see Mr. Cassidy, the Chief of Detectives in Westcote, and he told us a lot of things about detecting, and Betty said then she wished she could be a detective.

“Yes,” I said, “and I remember when Mr. Cassidy put the handcuffs on us. I was glad when he took them off again.”

“But he did say girls could be detectives— when they grew up,” Betty said. “There are lots of women detectives.”

“Women, maybe,” said Dick Prince scornfully. “But a lot of good, girl detectives would be!”

“How do you know?” Betty Bliss demanded. “Just because there never have been any girl detectives, you say that. I'll tell you what would be fun,” she went on in the enthusiastic way she sometimes does. “A Detective Club. To do real detecting. Just the five of us.”

“Not for me,” said Dick Prince who thinks he is smart. “I don't go into any detective club with girls. If it came to real detecting, you girls would make a mess of it.”

“All right, then,” said Betty Bliss, tossing her head, “you boys needn't come in! We girls will be the Detective Club. We'll make it a sort of Scotland Yard, Madge, like the one in London. I'll be Superintendent, and you and Dot can be Inspectors.”

“We'd better not call it Scotland Yard,” Dot said. “If we solve a lot of cases and get to be famous all over the world, we wouldn't want anybody to think we were the London Scotland Yard, and give that Scotland Yard the credit, would we?”

“Listen to them!” jeered Dick Prince. “Famous! Wow!”

“We can call ourselves Tenth Street Yard,” said Betty, paying no attention to Dick. “That's where we are— on Tenth Street.”

So that was what we decided to call our detective club, and we made Betty Bliss the Superintendent and Dot and me Inspectors, while the boys joked about it. But Betty was in earnest.

“You wait,” she said. “One of these days there'll be a crime in Westcote, and Tenth Street Yard will do some detecting, and maybe you'll be surprised.”

We did not know how soon a crime was to be reported in our very own neighbourhood, or that in a few hours we would be busy studying clues— if any— and working on our first case under the direction of Superintendent Betty Bliss. Although Betty did most of the detecting, I am bound to say.

The crime was discovered the next morning. Betty had asked Dot and me to go over to her house and play croquet. We got there as she was finishing breakfast and we went out of the house together, but the minute Betty saw the lawn she stopped short.

“Oh, piffle!” she exclaimed with vexation. “No croquet this morning, girls.”

The wickets were all pulled up and laid together on a lawn chair because Silas, the man-of-all-work for the block, was just getting ready to cut the grass. He was oiling his mower, but he looked up and saw us.

“I reckon I busted up your croquet game for this mornin', Miss Betty,” he said in his queer whining voice, as he wiped his chocolate-brown face with the back of his hand. “I hates like pizen to spoil folks' fun, but a hard-workin' man's got to work when he's due to work. Anyhow 'twon't be but an hour or so before I gets this lawn trimmed up all nice an' salubrious— an' den you-all kin have dat croquet game.”

“Oh, well, we'll do something else now,” Betty said. “Let's go over and play at Dick's— shall we?”

So we went around through the gates into Dick Prince's yard, and before we reached the back porch where the mallets were kept, we saw Dick and Arthur.

“Betty,” Dick said, “we were just going to get you. If you want to be a detective, here's your chance. Woof is gone. Someone stole him. He's gone as clean as a whistle— not a hide nor hair of him left.”

Arthur Dane pointed to the doghouse, the big kennel to which Woof was always chained.

“He's gone all right,” he said. “We came out to feed him and he was gone. Stolen. And more than one man was needed to steal him— I say it would take three or four men to get away with Woof.”

Betty was already on her way to the doghouse, and Dot and I were close behind her. Betty stopped before she readied the kennel and looked at Dick.

“What have you done about it?” she asked. “You weren't coming for me first, were you? Didn't you tell the police?”

“Yes,” Dick said. “I did that the very first thing. I went in and asked them to send up a cop and one is on the way now. He'll be here any minute. But you talk so much about wanting to be a detective that I thought I'd give you a chance.”

One glance at the big doghouse standing at the side of the Prince garage was enough to show Betty that the splendid Belgian police dog was gone. When he was in the kennel, he always came out to greet Betty and Dot and me because he liked us. He would jump to meet us, pulling at the chain that fastened him and barking his joy, but now there was only the empty kennel. A tin plate with a dog biscuit and a ration of dog food was on the smooth sandy ground, the biscuit and the food untouched, showing that Woof had been gone when Dick and Arthur put the plate there.

Before Betty could make any closer inspection, the policeman came and Dick's mother came from the house. She spoke to the policeman, and he touched his cap and said, “Good morning, Mrs. Prince.” He was the cheery red-faced officer who patrolled our part of town and we all knew him to speak to. He drew his notebook from his pocket, and pushed his cap to the back of his head, and began asking questions, jotting down the answers in the notebook.

“Name of owner?” asked Officer Murphy. “What breed of dog? What colour? Any special marks on him? What is the value of the dog?”

He asked a couple of dozen such questions, and Dick answered them. He said that Woof had cost fifty dollars as a pup, and that he was now full grown and worth over a hundred dollars.

“And that's important,” said Officer Murphy. “The police have no time to chase mutts, but a hundred-dollar dog is a serious matter. A dog worth under fifty dollars would be petty larceny, but one hundred dollars makes it grand larceny, and I shouldn't wonder if the whole detective force would be after the thief.”

“I hope you find him. He's a good dog,” said Dick Prince.

“We'll do our best,” said Officer Murphy, putting his notebook in his pocket, “but these dog stealers is mighty slick. You see how it is— they come in an automobile and pop the dog into it by night, and by mornin' they can be a couple of hundred miles away— and who knows where to look for the dog?”

“Isn't there anything else we can do?” Dick asked, and Officer Murphy turned to Mrs. Prince.

“You might advertise, ma'am,” he said. “Like 'Fifty dollars reward will be paid for the return of a Belgian police dog,' and so on. Dog thieves steal dogs for the money they can get, and they don't care whose. Often if 'No questions asked' is put into the advertisement, it hastens the return of the animal. That's often the best way to get a dog back.”

“But, Mr. Murphy,” asked Betty, “don't the detectives look for clues and follow them and find dogs?”

“Well, young lady,” said Officer Murphy as he prepared to go, “I daresay the detective force does the best it can, but what sort of a clue would there be when a dog is picked up and hustled away? Not any, I'm thinkin'. We do the best we can. So good day to you.”

With that Officer Murphy went away and Mrs. Prince went into the house to telephone an advertisement to the paper, as I supposed, and Betty Bliss turned to Dick and Arthur.

“If you boys want to join the detective club,” she said, “now is your chance. We're not going to play detective, we're really going to detect. We're going to find Woof, and we're going to find who stole him. Do you want to join Tenth Street Yard, or don't you?”

“Yes?” Dick spoke just as scornfully as the night before. “How are you going to do anything? There's nothing to do anything with. Murphy said so. There's no clue to start with— no footprints, or fingerprints, or anything. Art and I will keep out of it.”

Well, there did not seem to be anything to begin with. The empty doghouse couldn't talk, and the dog— where was he? But Inspector Betty Bliss of Tenth Street Yard had already turned her back on Dick and Arthur, and she was examining the empty kennel.

“Look here, Inspector,” she said to Dot. “I want you to look at this chain. It has been cut.”

Dot and I and the two boys went to look at the short piece of chain still hanging from the staple in the doghouse.

“Yes, we saw that,” Dick said. “We saw that, as soon as we saw that Woof was gone. That don't help us; they had to cut the chain to get Woof loose. That staple wouldn't come out.”

“It may not mean anything,” Betty said, “but maybe it might. How would you say the chain was cut, Art?”

Arthur bent down and looked at the severed link.

“You can see it was not filed,” said Betty. “If it had been filed, we could see the scratches a file always makes. I did not think it would be filed— a file makes a noise, and the noise might have awakened someone in the house. The thief would not want to make a noise.”

“You're right,” Arthur said. “It was not filed, Betty.”

“And it was not broken,” said Betty. “You can see that none of the links are worn— it is a new chain and strong.”

“It was cut, Betty,” I said. “Anyone can see that.”

“And cut with nippers, or pincers, or whatever people use to cut chains with,” Betty said. “Don't you think so, Dick?”

“That's right,” Dick admitted.

“So if we could discover who had the nippers, we would know who cut the chain and stole Woof.”

“Sure!” said Dick. “And there are only about five million pairs of nippers in the United States. Ten million, I'll bet you.”

“Well, anyway,” said Betty, rising, “that cuts down the possible suspects about one half, because only a man or a boy would use nippers and cut a chain. A girl or a woman wouldn't.”

“A girl or a woman wouldn't steal a dog— not a big dog like Woof,” said Dot. “If a woman stole a dog, it would be a small dog.”

“Right you are, Inspector,” said Betty. “We must look for a man or a boy. Now, why was the chain cut?”

“Why, to steal the dog, you poor simpleton,” laughed Dick. “Why else would he cut the chain?”

Betty looked at Dick in such a funny way that he coloured.

“I may be a simpleton,” Betty said, “but I seem to remember that there was a snap-hook on the other end of the chain— a hook that snapped into the ring on Woof's collar. All anyone had to do was to unsnap the hook. Now, please tell me why the thief cut the chain close to the kennel when all he had to do was unsnap the hook from the collar? You can tell me that, Inspector Madge.”

“Can I?” I said, but I couldn't.

“The thief wanted the chain,” suggested Betty. “You know Woof, Inspector. You couldn't keep Woof tied with a rope— he chews right through a rope. This thief knew you couldn't tie a big dog with a rope and expect to keep him. So he needed the chain. And doesn't that mean that the thief was not a professional dog stealer such as Officer Murphy was talking about?”

“Why does it?” Arthur asked.

“Because I think that a professional dog stealer would be prepared and have a chain. He would have unsnapped this chain from Woof's collar and snapped on his own.”

“Betty,” I said, “you are a wonder.”

“Please call me Superintendent when you address me, Inspector,” Betty said, and Arthur laughed.

“I'll say you are pretty good, anyway, Superintendent,” he said. “I wouldn't have thought of the snap-hook in a million years. What else do you see, Miss Sherlock Holmes?”

“There's something I don't see,” said Betty. “And sometimes what you don't see is as important as what you do see. I don't see any claw scratches on the ground in front of the kennel. What does Woof do when any stranger tries to take him anywhere, Dick?”

“He drags back,” Dick admitted. “It takes a stout fellow to pull him.”

“And his claws leave scratches,” said Betty. “There are no scratches here, so we must deduce one of two things— either he was carried away, or he went willingly. He couldn't have been carried away by strangers or he would have barked, so he must have gone willingly with someone he knew and was friendly with.”

“Someone could have chloroformed him, Betty,” I said.

“No, Inspector,” said Betty. “No one could have gotten close enough to Woof to chloroform him. He would have barked. Did he bark last night?”

“No,” Dick said. “He didn't bark, and he is the very barkingest dog in this town.”

“My opinion is that he was taken by someone he would follow willingly,” Betty went on. “Now, who knew Woof that well?”

“There's the butcher boy,” suggested Arthur. “He comes every day. He brings a bone for Woof now and then.”

“Jimmy Schluter? He would never steal a dog,” said Betty. “Who else, Dick?”

“There's Ed Dawson, the grocer's boy. And the iceman. And Charlie Wong, the laundryman. And Nick, the vegetable man.”

“No!” Betty shook her head. “I don't believe they'd steal a dog. Anybody else?”

“I can't think of anyone,” Dick told her.

“Then it seems as if we had come to two dead ends,” said Betty gravely. “They don't join. Woof was stolen by someone he knew, but no one he knew would steal him.”

“Betty, you're a scream,” Dot said. “You sound like a book detective. All you need now is to say 'But I could do with a bite to eat, Inspector.' They always say that.”

“I've had my breakfast,” Betty said. She was not in a mood to joke. She stood looking at the doghouse, going over the clues one by one again. “I can't see where I was wrong,” she remarked presently. “There must be someone else who knew Woof and was friendly with him. Try to think, Dick.”

All Dick could think of was some of the boys we all play with now and then, but we knew they would not steal a dog. It did look as if Betty had come to a dead end, and Dick said, “Girl detectives!” in a sort of “I told you so” way, but even that did not fuss Betty and suddenly she said “Ah!”

“Did you think of something?” I asked.

“I think our next step in this investigation will take us some distance from the scene of the crime. Inspector,” Betty said seriously. “Dick, do you think your mother will let you have the car this morning?”

“I'll ask her,” Dick said, giving Arthur a queer smile. “I sort of bent a mudguard yesterday, and Father did not think that was so good; but if you want it for detective work, Mother might let me take it.”

Dick's mother came to the kitchen door when he had spoken to her. She said she did not think we ought to go far in the car, that amateur detectives should be able to do their detecting without running around in automobiles, and I saw that she did not take Betty's detective ability at all seriously. But Dick came to Betty's aid.

“Oh, Mother! Please!” he begged, and Mrs. Prince said, “Very well, but do drive carefully and don't go far.”

So we three members of Tenth Street Yard, and Dick and Arthur, piled into the car, and Dick drove where Betty told him to go. We went across town to the section where a few small houses, that were hardly more than shacks, stood near the swamp.

“Silas's house!” Dick exclaimed. “You're right, Betty; he does know Woof. I never thought of Silas coming to cut the lawn every week. She's some detective, Arthur.”

“Listen!” Betty ordered.

The car made some noise, but even while we were quite a distance from Silas's shack we heard a dog barking— an unhappy dog.

“Woof!” came the deep bark, and then a pause and again “Woof!” and this was repeated again and again. The barking came from inside Silas's shack— a dog saying that he did not want to be shut in, and that he wanted his master.

We piled out of the car as soon as Dick stopped it. Betty did not bother about dignity; she ran to the shack, but its window was too high, so she pulled up a box, and the three girls of Tenth Street Yard climbed onto it and looked in at the window. A dog was there, and a big dog, too, but he was not Woof. He was a huge rough-haired mongrel, tied by a rope to the leg of a bed — not in the least like the stolen dog!

Well, I wish you could have seen Betty's face! She had been so sure that we would see Woof. She certainly was a crestfallen girl. I wanted to say something, but I could not think of anything particularly comforting to say, so we all got into the car again and Dick drove us home.

Now, I suppose every car makes its own special sort of noise. A good detective probably knows that, and almost every dog knows the noise made by its owner's car. Anyway, as we rolled into the Prince driveway, a dog barked in Arthur Dane's father's garage that stood close beside the Prince garage, and there was no mistaking that bark— it was Woof's bark.

Betty said nothing, but Art and Dick laughed. Dick opened the door of the garage and there stood Woof, the chain still attached to his collar, wagging his tail with joy.

I think that Betty, just at first, was almost angry. The red suffused her face, anyway, but Dick calmed her down.

“Don't be sore, Betty,” he said. “We played a trick on you, but you win anyway.”

“I win?” Betty asked.

“You do,” Dick said. “To trick you was hardly fair play. Art and I got Officer Murphy to take part in it, just for a joke. Mother knew, too. But every deduction you made was correct, and just as true of me as it was of Silas. Woof does know me, I did cut the chain, Woof did follow me without being dragged. And—”

“And, after all,” I said, “Betty did discover where Woof was without your telling her, didn't she?”

“Yes,” said Dick. And then, after a moment's pause, he said, “Yes, Inspector,” and Mrs. Prince came to the door with a plate of freshly cooked doughnuts. When he saw the doughnuts, Dick said, just like a real Scotland Yard mystery story, “I think, Superintendent, we could all do with a bite to eat.”

He was right, and we did have a bite to eat. Just like real detectives.

______________________

4: Murder off the Map

William J. Makin

1893-1944

Australian Women's Weekly 6 Mar 1937

A policeman outdone...

"GALLOP!" commanded the khaki clad officer over his shoulder. Grey with the grime of the desert, he urged his own camel along. There was an answering jingle behind him. With piston precision the tireless legs of the scraggy beasts pounded forward. The beat of feet was cushioned in sand.

Out of the purple haze the white-washed walls of a homestead of a cattle farm on the edge of the Kalahari Desert came into view. But the grey mask of the leading rider of the camel patrol did not change its stern fixity.

Lieutenant Brookes, of the Bechuanaland Police, was about to perform a most unpleasant duty. Behind him rode three black troopers. In khaki coats and shorts they swayed easily in the camel saddles. Their black legs were stuck out like charred sticks. Their faces, too, were smeared fantastically with the grey dust of the long trek. But the flash of white teeth in grins revealed the joy of men who had come safely out of one of the worst deserts in Africa.

Desperately tired though they were, men and beasts needed no  urging on that last lap. They passed a small herd of big-horned cattle placidly nosing the desert scrub. A naked herd boy raised a hand in greeting. The black troopers flashed their grins. One of the camels gave a slobbering cry from the depths of its scraggy body. It had scented water.

Five minutes later the camel patrol in a flurry of dust drew up before the aching whiteness of those walls. Stiffly. Brookes dropped from the saddle. He unstrapped a saddle-bag, slung it over his shoulder, and called out.

"Corporal Hendricks!"

Stiffly, the fuzzy-haired native stood before him. Brookes spoke in the native dialect. "Take the camels to the well, and see that they are watered. You had better camp there."

"Yes, sir. Do we go on this evening?"

"Probably."

And with a curt nod in answer to the salute, the lieutenant strode towards the farm.

As he reached the stoep, a man in dirty white ducks, his shirt open to the waist, emerged from the shade.

"Why, Brookes. This is a pleasant surprise!"

"Is it?" murmured Brookes. He apparently did not notice the sun browned hand that was thrust forth in greeting. "Is Mrs. Gordon at home?"

"Sure, Kathleen is at home. But come inside man, and have a drink. Looks as though you've come from a long trek."

"Sixteen days!" grunted Brookes.

The other whistled.

"That must have taken you some way into the desert. Off the map, eh?"

"That's it. Off the map!" nodded Brookes.

"Well, pitch your saddle-bag down and come inside!" urged the other.

The lieutenant was still hesitating.

"Thanks! But, if you don't mind I'll bring the bag in with me."

"Just as you like." With a friendly gesture, the other slipped his sun-browned arm about the lieutenant's shoulder and ushered him into the cool darkness of the farm. The touch seemed to jerk the officer into action. He strode forward.

"Kathleen! Hey. Kathleen!" The cattle-farmer was shouting into the darkness. He was answered by a woman's voice, quiet, but vibrant.

"Yes, Robert!"

"Here's Charlie Brookes come to pay us a call." Already his hand was reaching out for the whisky bottle and glasses. "Of course, you'll stay the night, Brookes? We've just had a small sack of potatoes sent up from the south. Real potatoes! Kathleen will prepare you a dinner worthy of the best hotel in Johannesburg!"

With an easy joviality he put the glasses and the bottle of whisky on the table.

"It's good to see you. Brookes," he went on. "We've not had a visitor for three weeks. Help yourself to the whisky, man. There's plenty more in the store."

The lieutenant put his saddle-bag to the floor, and drew a grimy hand across his tired face. He tried to explain.

"Gordon! I..."

"Hello, lieutenant!"

The woman came out of the darkness, a vision. A beautiful slim hand was outstretched in greeting.

"Hello, Kathleen!"

Brookes took her hand. Kathleen Gordon, whose pale, Irish beauty the blistering sun of the Kalahari had failed to ravish, came to the tired officer like a tantalising mirage. There were times when she seemed too ethereal to be real. But the vision was definite enough now. She was wearing a dainty print frock emphasising her slim figure.

"Sure, but you seem to have come a long way," she said.

"He says he's been off the map," explained Gordon.

Brookes took a deep breath.

"I've been near that gold reef of yours, Gordon," he said.

The words brought a sudden silence. The woman seemed to stiffen. Into her blue eyes came a gleam of fear. But a chuckle from the cattle-farmer dispelled the tension.

"Some day that reef will bring me a fortune," he said. "I've got it all pegged out, reg'lar. Did you, by any chance, find my location. Brookes?"

The officer shook his head.

"No, but I found something else."

"What was that?"

There was fear In the woman's whisper.

"I found the remains of a body," said Brookes bluntly. He faced the cattle-farmer. "I'm sorry, Gordon, but it's my duty to arrest you for the murder of Julius Trenk."

Gordon stared at him blankly. "Man, you're mad!"

"It's not true!" shrilled the woman.

Brookes Jerked his head in the direction of the saddle-bag.

"All that the jackals had left of Julius Trenk-a few bones, some bits of clothing and a pair of boots-is in that bag. The skull shows that he was smashed on the head by a rifle or a stone."

"But:-"

"I have to warn you that anything you say will be used in evidence against you. Everybody knows that you two men went into the desert together to find that gold reef of yours."

"That's a fact."

"You quarrelled on the way back."

"True― but―"

"And you came out of the desert alone."

"I'm not denying it."

Brookes sighed.

"I'm riding into Palapye to catch to-morrow's train south to headquarters at Mafeking. And you've got to go with me, Gordon."

"No, you can't! It's all a ghastly mistake."

Kathleen swayed between the two men. Gently, the cattle farmer held her.

"Steady, Kathleen, steady." He looked up at the lieutenant and nodded. "That's all right, Brookes. And now, hang it, man, help yourself to the whisky. Kathleen, the lieutenant is staying the night. We can easily make Palapye in the morning. I think we'll sample some of those potatoes."

Shrugging his shoulders, the lieutenant uncorked the bottle of whisky, and slopped some into each glass.

"Thank you, Gordon," he said. "You make it easy-and yet difficult."

THE dinner had been amazingly good. Under Kathleen's supervision the black cook had surpassed himself. And she herself, with some feminine sense of flaunting fate, had appeared at dinner in a blue evening frock, which she had not worn for two years. Even if the odour of moth ball still clung to it, and the fashion definitely dated it, it emphasised her strange beauty. Beneath the stark white light of the kerosene lamp she might have been the Greek chorus Interpreting the tragedy that was being enacted amid the tobacco smoke puffed by the two men.

"It was the coloured boy, Johannes, who was your headman on that trek who first came to me with the rumour of murder," remarked Brookes, sucking noisily at his pipe.

"A bad lot," said Gordon. "I found him thrashing a bushman to get out of the poor devil where water was hidden. I threatened him with a taste of his own medicine."

"He'll be the principal witness against you at your trial."

Gordon shrugged his shoulders. "I should worry."

"He knows enough English to understand the gist of the quarrel between you and Julius Trenk," said Brookes, quietly. "And he'll swear that he heard you over the camp fire one night threaten to kill Trenk."

"And so I did!" almost shouted Gordon, striking a match and applying it angrily to his pipe.

Kathleen lifted her head from the knitting in her lap.

"Robert... Robert, be careful what you say."

He took her hand and gave it a rough kiss.

"I'm saying what I shall say at the trial, my dear. I've nothing to hide."

Brookes shifted uncomfortably In his chair. He cleared his throat.

"I want you both to understand," he said, "that I'm your guest tonight. Whatever is said under this roof goes no further. But I don't mind telling you that I wouldn't have ridden in direct from the scene of the crime to arrest Gordon if I hadn't got the most unquestionable evidence of guilt."

"You believe I'm a murderer, eh?" challenged Gordon.

"At the moment I'm sure of it," replied Brookes, quietly.

He stood up and walked to the saddle-bag that lay In a corner of the room. Unstrapping it, his hands fumbled within for a moment. When he reappeared beneath the kerosene lamp, his hands were holding a tattered piece of coat and a pair of boots partly eaten away by white ants.

"D'you recognise these?" he asked.

Kathleen's face was deathly white as she peered at the damning objects. But Gordon did not hesitate. Although the lieutenant was eyeing him keenly, his hands did not tremble as he took hold of the piece of cloth.

"Yes, it's Trenk's coat all right," he admitted. "He wore it a good deal out in the desert."

"And the boots?"

Gordon gave them one glance and nodded.

"Nobody but Trenk would wear those Piccadilly boots. He always worried because nobody wore spats In Africa."

"How did you come to know him?" asked Brookes.

"He walked in on us, complete with silver-knobbed cane, one morning," said Gordon. "Except for the sun-helmet he looked as though he had just stepped out of a taxi from Bond Street. Actually he'd arrived at Palapye by train from the Cape. He'd hired an old car and had himself driven here."

"Why?"

"Said he was a financier from London. Talked a lot about the Kaffir market, and gold-mining shares. Told me that the price of gold was soaring, and that anybody with a mine could make a fortune to-day. Then he asked if he could wash his hands. Very particular about his person was Trenk. D'you know, Brookes, he even carried his own soap, scented stuff, about with him."

"And then?"

"He asked if we could put him up for a week. He wanted to get the lay of the country. Said there was a syndicate worth some hundreds of thousands backing him, and that they'd heard there was gold somewhere in the Kalahari."

"You got to know him pretty well, eh?"

"Too well!" came the vibrant voice of the woman.

"What d'you mean?" asked Brookes, swivelling round upon the knitting woman.

She hesitated. There was no colour in her cheeks. Her fingers manoeuvred the needles, busily.

"He... he tried to make love to me," she said, with bowed head.

"I didn't know of this, of course," Interposed Gordon, hurriedly. "The fellow with his dandified ways, his concern over his shirts and ties just amused me. But I have to confess that his talk of a gold syndicate impressed me. He looked the part of a city financier. And before long I blurted out to him that once, when trekking cattle across the desert, I'd stumbled across a reef of gold and pegged it."

"Gordon's reef!" nodded the lieutenant, a touch of sarcasm in his voice.

The cattle farmer flushed.

"I know lots of you fellows think it a crazy tale. But I've got my specimens and they've been tested in Johannesburg. I showed those specimens to Trenk. He knew gold when he saw it. He had the sort of nose for it. There and then he offered to finance an expedition Into the desert to go with me, and, if I proved my reef, his syndicate would finance mining operations on a big scale."

"I told Robert to have nothing to do with him," said Kathleen.

"Why?" asked Brookes.

Again Gordon interposed.

"Because her feminine instinct was right," he said. "Trenk was a liar and a swine. Yes, I know he's dead and that I'm supposed to have murdered him. But I can't alter my feelings, which, alas, I only realised after we'd located the reef in the desert, mapped it, taken photographs and collected some more specimens."

"So you did find your reef again?"

"Of course I did. I took Trenk at his word, hired some boys and mules and we set off leaving Kathleen to look after the farm. I knew the waterholes, and by good going we reached my reef in six days. Trenk was a bad travelling companion. It was difficult to persuade him not to use the precious water for washing his hands and face with that beastly scented soap. But, apart from that, we got along all right."

"And you showed him the reef?"

"Didn't I tell you he had a nose for gold? He recognised the stuff
at once. Behaved like a greedy little slug, running up and down, picking up specimens. That night he told us our fortunes were made. He even produced a document setting out details of the mine, and arranging a deed of partnership. Yes, Trenk was a business man all right. He suggested we both sign it, there, and then."

"And you did?"

"Yes."

"Was there any clause in it relating to the death of either party?"

Brookes shot out the question. "Yes," nodded Gordon, without hesitation. "In the event of one of us dying, the mine became the sole property of the other. If both of us died, then the mine reverted to the Ranack Syndicate, with which Trenk was associated. I insisted that a clause be inserted giving one-fifth of the profits to our dependants in case of death. I was thinking of Kathleen, you see. I'm not entirely a fool, you know."

"I realise that," said Brookes, dryly, glancing at the saddle-bag.

"And the next day we left," went on Gordon. "Ordinarily, we would have gone straight back to Palapye, but Trenk suggested a detour. It would take us north In the direction of the Victoria Falls. Trenk had a hunch that there might be other gold reefs in that direction. Well, we had plenty of provisions, and there was no sickness among the boys, so I agreed. For the most part we marched at night, camping about eleven every morning when the heat became unbearable. We were heading north-north-west, skirting Ngamiland."

Brookes nodded.

"I followed your camp-fire ashes," he said.

"And it was after the fourth camp-fire that you found..." Gordon hesitated and jerked his head in the direction of the saddle-bag.

"Yes," said Brookes, quietly. "That was the camp where, according to the evidence of the coloured boy, Johannes, you quarrelled with Trenk and threatened to kill him. What happened round that camp-fire, Gordon?"

"Don't tell him, Robert," pleaded Kathleen.

Gordon shook himself In an Irritated, puzzled fashion.

"There's nothing to hide," he said. "I suppose both Trenk and I were feeling the strain of being continually together in that confounded desert. You know what it is. Men thrown together In a wilderness get to hate each other  like poison. You get to know the worst of each other."

"I can understand that," agreed Brookes. "Give me a native patrol rather than a white companion, every time."

"Of course, I'd bottled up my unreasonable rage at Trenk's foppishness again and again. But I knew it would burst out sooner or later. At this particular campfire Trenk was in a bad mood. He began sneering at the way I was
eating out of a tin of sardines. Better improve your table manners when you're dining at the Ritz in London,' he drawled.

" 'Go to the devil!' I said briefly, and reached out for my coffee. But that didn't close his dirty mouth. 'As for that pretty wife of yours,' he went on, 'I think I'll take her in hand myself. Darling Kathleen and I already have a private understanding.'

"At that I saw red and went for his throat. We struggled and fought. I landed him a blow under the jaw and sent him spinning. 'Get away to your own sleeping bag,' I shouted. 'And if you mention Kathleen's name again I'll murder you.'

"He spat out some blood and swore..."

Gordon lapsed into moody silence. With an air of deliberation Brookes filled his pipe. From the bowed head of Kathleen he detected the drop of a tear upon the knitting.

"And what happened then?" he asked.

Gordon stood up and knocked the ashes out of his pipe.

"Nothing," he replied, surprisingly. "It was evening, and we decided to remain where we were. I crawled Into my sleeping bag, and snuggled down for the night. It was already daylight when my boy woke me with a cup of coffee. He told me that Trenk and a boy named Fischon had left camp."

"Yet his sleeping bag was there," pointed out Brookes.

"Yes," admitted Gordon, "it was. I went over and looked at it. It looked as though the fool had walked out on me. At the same time he might be cooling
off somewhere in the scrub. I decided to wait for some hours. I even fired my rifle into the air several times and waited for a response. But there was none."

"Trenk was lying dead, his head smashed in, less than four miles away," said Brookes, in a sombre voice.

Gordon shrugged his shoulders.

"I knew nothing about it. The fact that he'd taken a native boy with him suggested that he was going to trek alone. After waiting at that camp for some hours, I turned and set off direct for Palapye. I reached my farm a little over three weeks ago. I've been waiting here for Julius Trenk to show himself."

Brookes lit his pipe.

"It was left to me to bring back all that remained of Trenk," he puffed.. "There's very little, but what there is, well, it's damning. There's no doubt about foul play. The skull was smashed in, and I think medical opinion will agree that it was done by a rifle."

"And what about Pischon, the native boy who left camp with Trenk?" asked Kathleen, quietly.

Brookes hesitated.

"Until I heard Gordon's story to-night it was the first I had heard about the native 'boy,' " he confessed. "But I ought to tell you that I took with me on patrol one of the best black-trackers in the country. And what we found at that last campfire doesn't altogether agree with the story you told me."

"What did you find?" asked Gordon, anxiously.

"That two white men walked into the scrub away from the campfire. The trail was distinct up to a point where we found the body. The marks of boots. Your native 'boys' were all barefooted. And one of those two white men had retraced his steps back to the campfire after having murdered his companion." Brookes
leaned forward. "Aren't you ready to admit that those footmarks were your own, Gordon?"

"It's a lie... a dammed lie!" shouted Gordon, jumping to his feet.

Simultaneously, the lieutenant and the woman rose. The three figures were tense. Brookes broke the spell with a brief gesture.

"Well, I hope for Kathleen's sake you can prove me wrong," he said. "And now I think we deserve a little sleep. It's a long journey to Mafeking."

Kathleen put down her knitting. There was an air of resignation about her. She went over to her husband and kissed him tenderly.

"I'll pack your best suit of clothes, Robert," she said. "And you'll need some clean linen. Now get off to bed, both of you. I've still some work to do."

Tired and bewildered, Gordon allowed himself to be ushered out of the room. Brookes was following, when Kathleen called him back with a gesture.

"Please book three tickets to Mafeking to-morrow, lieutenant," she whispered. "I'm going with my husband..."

"AND now, men, you will retire and consider your verdict. The court stands adjourned."

As the dry voice of the Judge dismissed the twelve men to their gentle deliberations.

Lieutenant Brookes rose. He glanced round at the court at Mafeking. Sliced by the shafts of afternoon sunshine that I came through the windows, there I was the usual nondescript crowd that attends an African murder trial.

Outside the courthouse Brookes searched in vain for Kathleen.  The frail, pallid woman seemed to have vanished into the sunshine. With a sigh, the lieutenant crossed the dusty square and entered a Greek cafe. He sat himself at a table and ordered a cup of tea. He wished devoutly that he was away from these dusty streets and back In the sun washed spaces of the Kalahari Desert.

"Pleased with yourself, lieutenant?" queried an insinuating voice.

With a scowl Brookes turned to discover the advocate, Hopkins, from Capetown, who had seated himself at the same table.

"No, I'm not," admitted Brookes, bluntly.

"Well, you ought to be," said Advocate Hopkins quietly. "For I think you've got the noose pretty tightly round Gordon's neck. I did my darndest to save him. And even now I can't make up my mind whether he's guilty or not."

"There's only one person who believes In his Innocence," said  Brookes.

"His wife," The advocate nodded. "A fine girl. One in a thousand. I feel terribly sorry for her."

"Not more than I do," said Brookes, bitterly.

He rose abruptly. He had glimpsed the slim figure of Kathleen Gordon hurrying into the cafe. She came straight towards the table where the advocate was seated. Her face was drawn, and there was a twitching at the side of her mouth, a strange, unearthly gleam was In her blue eyes.

She ignored Brookes, and turned to the advocate.

"When are the Jury coming back?" she demanded, wildly.

Hopkins rose, and put a soothing arm about her shoulders.

"Now, Mrs. Gordon," he said, "we must be patient. Everything has been done that can be done. There's still a chance..."

"A chance!" She threw back her head and laughed hysterically. Her hands Jerked to her eyes as though she would thrust back the tears. "A chance!" she cackled. "I like that!" She thrust her head forward and hissed in a wild whisper: "Do you fools realise that the man who is supposed to have been murdered is sitting in the courtroom waiting to hear sentence of death passed upon my husband?"

The two men exchanged a quick glance. The meaning was written on their faces. The suspense had unhinged her mind. Alarmed by this sudden interruption, the Greek proprietor hurried forward.

"Bring another cup of tea," said Brookes, dismissing him.

"You must try to be calm, and brave, my dear," the advocate was saying. "Now sit down, and... ah... here's a cup of tea."

There were real tears In her eyes now, but the same hysterical laughter still convulsed her.

"Of course you think me mad," she nodded. "I thought I must be mad myself when I first saw the leer of his eyes at the back of the court. I know that leer only too well. He was near his triumph. I could see it in his eyes."

"Whose eyes?" asked the bewildered Hopkins.

"Why, Julius Trenk, of course,"  she gabbled.

Comprehension began to dawn upon the lieutenant.

"But if Julius Trenk is alive," he said, "he must be easily recognisable sitting there in court."

Her lips curled as she turned towards him.

"You're clever at finding tracks and a few bones in the desert, but you're not clever enough to detect the real murderer when he's sitting in the same room as you. But he's not the dapper, clean-shaven dandy from London. No, he's no fool. He's the dirtiest of those bearded poor whites sitting at the back of the court."

"But what other proof have you that this bearded poor-white is Trenk?" insisted Brookes.

"What more proof than my instinct do you want?" she asked, contemptuously. "But I did make certain. I sent my houseboy, Tiffin, to sit by him and smell him out. You know, as well as I do, lieutenant, that to the black man white people smell and have their distinguishing odours as much as the black people have for us."

"That's true."

"Well, Tiffin remembered the smell of Julius Trenk. So do I, for that matter. The oily, scented smell. And he found it on the poor-white seated at the back of the court. Even though pretending to be a vagabond, Trenk couldn't resist using his scented soap occasionally."

Brookes regarded the woman closely. Hysterical though she was at her discovery, it was not mere madness inspiring her glib explanations.

The Capetown advocate thumped the table.

"I've got it!" he exclaimed. "The body is that of Pischon, the missing native. It explains everything. I suggested in my address to the jury that Pischon might have murdered the white man. But it never occurred to any of us to suggest that the white man murdered the native. That's what happened, I'll wager. Trenk staged a row with Gordon He gets Gordon into such a state that he threatens to kill. The other natives hear it. The first stage in this clever and almost perfect murder is thus prepared.

"Then, later, he takes Pischon aside and tells the native he is going to slip away in the night and maybe make for the Victoria Falls. It means an adventurous trek across the desert, but he is willing to risk lt. He proposes that Pischon shall accompany him. And to keep the boy silent he says he will give him a good coat and a swanky pair of boots from his own wardrobe. No native boy could resist lt.

"And so, In the dead of night they steal away. Two men wearing boots. That explains away your sand tracker's evidence, Brookes."

"That's a highly imaginative story," pondered Brookes.

"But it fits," said the advocate, feverish at his own theorising. "After all, what does anyone know of Julius Trenk in South Africa? There's nothing easier for him than to sit unrecognised at the trial of a man suspected of murdering him."

"I may as well admit," said Brookes, fingering a batch of cablegrams in his pocket, "that we've learned a lot about Julius Trenk from Scotland Yard. He's known in London as a clever confidence trickster. He slipped away from England for something more than his health. But he stumbled upon Gordon and his gold reef in the desert. He realised that a fortune was in his grasp if only Gordon was dead. But even though the man was a crook, his supposed murder by Gordon couldn't be overlooked by the police."

At this moment the Greek proprietor hurried forward

"Beg pardon, sir," he said to the advocate, "but the jury is coming back into court― I've been told to tell you."

The advocate Jumped to his feet.

"Jove! I've got to stop this. Brookes, are you going to arrest that man?"

"If he's in court, I most certainly will." said the lieutenant leaping to his feet. He turned to the woman. "But how shall I know him?"

"My houseboy, Tiffin, will be sitting next to him," she said, smiling through her tears. "You remember the boy, he gave evidence?"

"I do," nodded Brookes.

"And when you stand behind Julius Trenk I'll nod." said Kathleen.

"See that you get your man," said Hopkins, over his shoulder. Already he was ushering Mrs. Gordon, who was laughing and crying by turns, towards the courthouse.

Two minutes later, the lieutenant lounged casually into the back of the court. He saw the houseboy, Tiffin, sitting and grinning amicably alongside a dirty, tousled poor-white. Quietly, Brookes took up his position.

The Judge was addressing the Jury.

"Gentlemen, have you considered your verdict?"

"We have."

"And do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty."

"We find the prisoner..."

At that moment Brookes had looked across the courtroom at the pale, drawn face of a woman. The face nodded. It brought a suspicious start to the bearded man sitting in front of the lieutenant. But even as he moved, the vice like grip of Brookes was upon him.

"Julius Trenk, I arrest you for the murder of a native named Pischon, and further conspiring to―"

The man let loose the thin screams of a captured beast. Heads were swivelled in their direction. Two policemen moved quickly to the aid of the lieutenant.

"...I beg to suggest that the jury withhold their verdict until real evidence of this murder in the desert is brought before them..." the advocate from Capetown was shouting above the general confusion.

FIFTEEN minutes later the place of Gordon in the dock had been taken by a bearded, dirty-looking man who was answering to the name of Julius Trenk. And before darkness had swept upon the town of Mafeking, Trenk had been found guilty of murder and taken below to the cells after sentence of death had been passed upon him.

With a smile of triumph the advocate from Capetown was closing his brief-case. Kathleen had carried off her husband in triumph to the hotel. Only a forlorn and disconsolate Lieutenant Brookes of the Bechuanaland Police remained.

"Never mind," said the advocate patting him on the shoulder. "The triumph is yours in the end. You got your man."

"It was Kathleen's triumph," sighed Brookes. "I was merely a blundering fool."

"Well, they're happy enough now," mused Hopkins. "And they'll be even happier in the future."

Brookes nodded.

"But there's really one thing I would like to know," he hazarded.

"And that is?"

"What verdict had the Jury reached about Gordon when we got back into court?"

The advocate chuckled.

"I hate to tell you, Lieutenant, but the verdict was― not guilty."

Brookes fumbled for his pipe.

"Thank God, the desert is waiting for me," he grunted.

________________________

5: Wax Works

Ethel Lina White

1876-1944

Pearson’s Magazine December 1930

The author later expanded this short story into the full-length novel "Wax"

SONIA made her first entry in her notebook:

"Eleven o'clock. The lights are out. The porter has just locked the door. I can hear his footsteps echoing down the corridor. They grow fainter. Now there is silence. I am alone."

She stopped writing to glance at her company. Seen in the light from the street lamp, which streamed in through the high window, the room seemed to be full of people. Their faces were those of men and women of character and intelligence. They stood in groups, as though in conversation, or sat apart, in solitary reverie.

But they neither moved nor spoke. When Sonia had last seen them in the glare of the electric globes, they had been a collection of ordinary waxworks, some of which were the worse for wear. The black velvet which lined the walls of the Gallery was alike tawdry and filmed with dust. The side opposite to the window was built into alcoves, which held highly moral tableaus, depicting contrasting scenes in the career of Vice and Virtue. Sonia had slipped into one of these recesses, just before closing time, in order to hide for her vigil.

It had been a simple affair. The porter had merely rung his bell, and the few courting couples which represented the public had taken his hint and hurried towards the exit.

No one was likely to risk being locked in, for the Waxwork Collection of Oldhampton had lately acquired a sinister reputation. The foundation for this lay in the fate of a stranger to the town— a commercial traveller— who had cut his throat in the Hall of Horrors.

Since then, two persons had, separately, spent the night in the Gallery and, in the morning, each had been found dead.

In both cases the verdict had been "Natural death, due to heart failure."

The first victim— a local alderman had been addicted to alcoholism, and was in very bad shape. The second his great friend— was a delicate little man, a martyr to asthma, and slightly unhinged through unwise absorption in spiritualism.

While the coincidence of the tragedies stirred up a considerable amount of local superstition, the general belief was that both deaths were due to the power of suggestion, in conjunction with macabre surroundings. The victims had let themselves be frightened to death by the Waxworks.

Sonia was there, in the Gallery, to test its truth.

She was the latest addition to the staff of the Oldhampton Gazette. Bubbling with enthusiasm, she made no secret of her literary ambitions, and it was difficult to feed her with enough work. Her colleagues listened to her with mingled amusement and boredom, but they liked her as a refreshing novelty. As for her fine future, they looked to young Wells— the Sporting Editor— to effect her speedy and painless removal from the sphere of journalism.

On Christmas Eve, Sonia took them all into her confidence over her intention to spend a night in the Wax works, on the last night of the old year.

"Copy there," she declared. "I'm not timid and I have fairly sensitive perceptions, so I ought to be able to write up the effect of imagination on the nervous system. I mean to record my impressions, every hour, while they're piping-hot."

Looking up suddenly, she had surprised a green glare in the eyes of Hubert Poke.

When Sonia came to work on the Gazette she had a secret fear of unwelcome amorous attentions, since she was the only woman on the staff. But the first passion she awoke was hatred.

Poke hated her impersonally, as the representative of a force, numerically superior to his own sex, which was on the opposing side in the battle for existence. He feared her, too, because she was the unknown element, and possessed the unfair weapon of charm.

Before she came, he had been the star turn on the Gazette. His own position on the staff gratified his vanity and entirely satisfied his narrow ambition. But Sonia had stolen some of his thunder. On more than one occasion she had written up a story he had failed to cover, and he had to admit that her success was due to a quicker wit.

For some time past he had been playing with the idea of spending a night in the Waxworks, but was deterred by the knowledge that his brain was not sufficiently temperate for the experiment. Lately he had been subject to sudden red rages, when he had felt a thick hot taste in his throat, as though of blood. He knew that his jealousy of Sonia was accountable. It had almost reached the stage of mania, and trembled on the brink of homicidal urge.

While his brain was still creaking with the idea of first-hand experience in the ill-omened Gallery, Sonia had nipped in with her ready-made plan.

Controlling himself with an effort, he listened while the sub-editor issued a warning, to Sonia.

"Bon idea, young woman, but you will find the experience a bit raw. You've no notion how uncanny these big deserted buildings can be."

"That's so," nodded young Wells. "I once spent a night in a haunted house."

Sonia looked at him with her habitual interest. He was short and thick-set, with a three-cornered smile which appealed to her.

"Did you see anything?" she asked.

"No. I cleared out before the show came on. Windy. After a bit, one can imagine anything."

It was then that Poke introduced a new note into the discussion by his own theory of the mystery deaths. Sitting alone in the deserted gallery, Sonia preferred to forget his words. She resolutely drove them from her mind while she began to settle down for the night.

Her first action was to cross to the figure of Cardinal Wolsey and unceremoniously raise his heavy scarlet robe. From under its voluminous folds she drew out her cushion and attaché case, which she had hidden earlier in the evening.

Mindful of the fact that it would grow chilly at dawn, she carried on her arm her thick white tennis coat. Slipping it on, she placed her cushion in the angle of the wall, and sat down to await developments.

The gallery was far more mysterious now that the lights were out. At either end it seemed to stretch away into impenetrable black tunnels. But there was nothing uncanny about it, or about the figures, which were a tame and conventional collection of historical personages. Even the adjoining Hall of Horrors contained no horrors, only a selection of respectable looking poisoners.

Sonia grinned cheerfully at the row of waxworks which were visible in the lamplight from the street.

"So you are the villains of the piece," she murmured. "Later on, if the office is right, you will assume unpleasant mannerisms to try to cheat me into believing you are alive. I warn you, old sports, you'll have your work cut out for you... And now I think I'll get better acquainted with you. Familiarity breeds contempt."

She went the round of the figures, greeting each with flippancy or criticism. Presently she returned to her corner and opened her notebook ready to record her impressions.

"Twelve o'clock. The first hour has passed almost too quickly. I've drawn a complete blank. Not a blessed thing to record. Not a vestige of reaction. The waxworks seem a commonplace lot, without a scrap of hypnotic force. In fact, they're altogether too matey."

Sonia had left her corner, to write her entry in the light which streamed through the window. Smoking was prohibited in the building, and, lest she should yield to temptation, she had left both her cigarettes and matches behind her, on the office table.

At this stage she regretted the matches. A little extra light would be a boon. It was true she carried an electric torch, but she was saving it, in case of emergency.

It was a loan from young Wells. As they were leaving the office together he spoke to her confidentially.

"Did you notice how Poke glared at you? Don't get up against him. He's a nasty piece of work. He's so mean he'd sell his mother's shroud for old rags. And he's a cruel little devil, too. He turned out his miserable pup to starve in the streets, rather than cough up for the licence."

Sonia grew hot with indignation.

"What he needs to cure his complaint is a strong dose of rat poison," she declared. "What became of the poor little dog?"

"Oh, he's all right. He was a matey chap, and he soon chummed up with a mongrel of his own class."

"You?" asked Sonia, her eyes suddenly soft.

"A mongrel, am I?" grinned Wells. "Well, anyway, the pup will get a better Christmas than his first, when Poke went away and left him on the chain... We're both of us going to overeat and over drink. You're on your own, too. Won't you join us?"

"I'd love to."

ALTHOUGH the evening was warm and muggy the invitation suffused Sonia with the spirit of Christmas. The shade of Dickens seemed to be hovering over the parade of the streets. A red-nosed Santa Claus presided over a spangled Christmas tree outside a toy shop. Windows were hung with tinselled balls and coloured paper festoons. Pedestrians, laden with parcels, called out seasonable greetings.

"Merry Christmas."

Young Wells' three-cornered smile was his tribute to the joyous feeling of festival. His eyes were eager as he turned to Sonia.

"I've an idea. Don't wait until after the holidays to write up the Waxworks. Make it a Christmas stunt and go there to-night."

"I will," declared Sonia.

It was then that he slipped the torch into her hand. "I know you belong to the stronger sex," he said. "But even your nerve might crash. If it does, just flash this torch under the window. Stretch out your arm above your head, and the light will be seen from the street."

"And what will happen then?" asked Sonia.

"I shall knock up the miserable porter and let you out."

"But how will you see the light?"

"I shall be in the street."

"All night?"

"Yes. I sleep there." Young Wells grinned. "Understand," he added loftily, "that this is a matter of principle. I could not let any woman— even one so aged and unattractive as yourself— feel beyond the reach of help."

He cut into her thanks as he turned away with a parting warning.

"Don't use the torch for light, or the juice may give out. It's about due for a new battery."

As Sonia looked at the torch, lying by her side, it seemed a link with young Wells. At this moment he was patrolling the street, a sturdy figure in old tweed overcoat, with his cap pulled down over his eyes. As she tried to pick out his footsteps from among those of the other passersby it struck her that there was plenty of traffic, considering that it was past twelve o'clock.

"The witching hour of midnight is another lost illusion," she reflected.

"Killed by night clubs, I suppose."

It was cheerful to know that so many citizens were abroad, to keep her company. Some optimists were still singing carols. She faintly heard the strains of "Good King Wenceslas." It was in a tranquil frame of mind that she unpacked her sandwiches and thermos.

"IT'S Christmas Day," she thought, as she drank hot coffee. "And I'm spending it with Don and the pup."

At that moment her career grew misty, and the flame of her literary ambition dipped as the future glowed with the warm firelight of home. In sudden elation, she held up her flask and toasted the waxworks.

"Merry Christmas to you all! And many of them."

The faces of the illuminated figures remained stolid, but she could almost swear that a low murmur of acknowledgement seemed to swell from the rest of her company— invisible in the darkness.

She spun out her meal to its limit, stifling her craving for a cigarette. Then, growing bored, she counted the visible waxworks, and tried to memorise them.

Twenty-one, twenty-two... Wolsey, Queen Elizabeth, Guy Fawkes. Napoleon ought to go on a diet. Ever heard of eighteen days, Nap? Poor old Julius Caesar looks as though he'd been sunbathing on the Lido. He's about due for the melting-pot."

In her eyes they were a second-rate set of dummies. The local theory that they could terrorise a human being to death or madness seemed a fantastic notion.

"No," concluded Sonia. "There's really more in Poke's bright idea."

Again she saw the sun-smitten office — for the big unshielded window faced south— with its blistered paint, faded wallpaper, ink-stained desks, typewriters, telephones, and a huge fire in the untidy grate. Young Wells smoked his big pipe, while the sub-editor— a ginger, pigheaded young man— laid down the law about the mystery deaths.

And then she heard Poke's toneless dead man's voice.

"You may be right about the spiritualist. He died of fright— but not of the waxworks. My belief is that he established contact with the spirit of his dead friend, the alderman, and to learned his real fate."

"What fate?" snapped the sub-editor.

"I believe that the alderman was murdered," replied Poke.

He clung to his point like a limpet in the face of all counter-arguments.

"The alderman had enemies," he said. "Nothing would be easier than for one of them to lie in wait for him. In the present circumstances, I could commit a murder in the Waxworks, and get away with it."

__________________

6: The Man Who Lost His Memory

Bechhofer Roberts

1894-1949

Barrier Miner, 6 April 1940

A.B.C. Hawkes, Amateur Detective, was the creation of writer C E Bechhofer Roberts, and appeared in several novels and short stories.

CROUCHING down, the man stepped hurriedly off the pavement in the narrow, ill-lit street.

A van hurtled round the corner, its lamps dimmed, saw him too late, swerved, flung him back violently on the-pavement, and after a moment's hesitation, drove off at full speed. A woman screamed.

"What's all this?"

A policeman appeared from the High Street.

The man was bleeding from a cut on his head, but P.C. Repp, a proficient first-aider, saw that there was nothing very dangerous about the wound. He bandaged it.

The man's eyes were opening, but his face was puckered with pain.

"Where am I?" he said.

"You're all right," said P.C. Repp. "Just had a bit of a knock-down that's all. See if you can stand up."

He helped the man to his feet.

"That's the style," said the police-man. "Now, we'll just walk round to the police station and we'll fix you up proper."

They got to the. station easily enough, and he was lowered into a chair. The sergeant and a couple of other constables came, and looked at him

"What's your name, mister?" the sergeant asked.

The man looked up at him with a puzzled expression. "My name?" he repeated. He ran his hand across his face. "I can't remember."

"That's funny," said the sergeant. "Can't remember your own name?"

"No," the man groaned. "I can't remember who I am."

"It's the bang on the head," the sergeant explained to his subordinates. "Never mind, mister," he said to the man, "you'll soon get it back. Maybe you've got something in your pocket, a letter or something, which'll remind you."

Much bewildered, the man. turned out his pockets. There were the return half of a ticket from London, a bus ticket from the: local station, a pair of stained gloves, a door key, and, what made the man and the policeman stare with surprise, about £80 in pound notes. But nothing to identify him. There was neither name nor laundry mark on his clothes.

"It's sort of queer, isn't it?" the man said. "I've simply lost my memory. Can't even remember my own name. What's the name of this place?'

The sergeant told him. The man repeated the name. "It sort of suggests something to me," he said. "Something to do with a man; I think I must have come here to see some-body."

"Very likely,'' the sergeant agreed. "Are you married?"

"Me? Married? I don't know."'

The sergeant scratched his head.

"London. What's that, suggest to you?"

"London? Well, what about it?"

"Try to think, of some street you know there. Maybe you'll get your address then."

The man rubbed his forehead miserably. After a while, he said, "It's no good. I can't remember anything about myself.  l keep thinking it's all coming back to me, and. then there's a sort of a— of a blank wall, as you might say."

"Tough luck!" the sergeant, commented. "Well, what are we going to do about you?"

"What are you going to do about who?" a voice at the door asked him ungrammatically.

A short, tubby man in evening dress was standing there, with top-hat perched on one side of a mop of red hair.

"Oh, it's you, Mr. Hawkes," the sergeant said. "Well, perhaps you can help us with this poor-fellow. He's lost his memory."

"Has he? How did it happen?"

A.B.C. Hawkes went over to the man, gave him a professional scrutiny— for, among other things, he was a Doctor of Medicine— and listened, to the. sergeant's and P.C. Repp's account of the accident, and its sequel.

"So, you see, Mr. Hawkes, we're stumped," the sergeant concluded.

"It looks like it, doesn't it?" said A.B.C. "I just looked in for a cup of cocoa and a chin-wag before going home, but it looks as if I'll have to try a little experiment."

The others looked at him expectantly. "What sort of an experiment?" the man asked.

"Well, my friend, we don't know who you are, and you don't, either. But we know that you came here from London today— I'm sure you could trace the time that ticket was issued, sergeant, if you got on to the terminus— and that you meant to go back there. And you say you think you came here to see somebody; And you were crossing that street at— when was it, sergeant ?"

"About five to eleven, sir," P. C. Repp put in.

"Right," said A.B.C.  "Now suppose we take you back there and you have a good look round. Possibly you'll recognise something. What do you think, sergeant?"

"It sounds worth trying, Mr. Hawkes. You better go with them, Repp," said, the sergeant.

They left the police station together. The man was feeling better now, though his memory was still a blank. P.C. Repp led him and A.B.C. to the place where a dark stain on the pavement recalled the accident.

"Now then," said Hawkes. "You were crossing the road here, it seems,  from this pavement. You were in a bit of a hurry. Where would you be going, I wonder?"

"That's easy, sir," Repp. suggested. "He'd be making for the High Street to get a bus to take him back to the station."

"Yes, that's reasonable." A.B.C. was watching the man closely. and waiting for any flicker of returning memory. None had come, so far. "So we can assume that you were coming from the other direction. Let's stroll up there."

They walked along the pavement. None of the spots at which they hesitated seemed to mean anything to the man.

Half a mile on the street lights ended. Soon the pavement, too, ceased.

"Ah!"cried A.B.C., a few minutes later, "he's remembered something."

The man was looking round him in a dazed fashion, balancing uneasily on his feet.

"I sort of feel— is there a path anywhere here?" the man muttered.

They looked round. "Here it is," Repp cried. "Look, there's a stile."

The man climbed the stile. "This seems right," he said. "A stile! Yes, I seem to remember a stile. And the man. I know there was a man."

"You're doing fine, mate," said the policeman sympathetically. He switched on his torch. "Come on, let's go down this path."

The man went first, trying to follow an instinctive lead. The police-man, towering above the diminutive figure of A.B.C., walked slowly behind them.

"Ah, one moment," A.B.C. said. "Look, here's a shoe-mark by this puddle. Hey, mystery man, just step over here, will you, and let's compare it with your shoe? The right shoe,

"It's mine all right," said the man, after he had made the experiment. "Thank goodness, we're on the way all right."

There was a cottage some distance off to the right, faintly, outlined against the skyline in the light of the half-moon. The man stared at it fixedly, his face working as he strained his brain to bring back his memory.

"I think I've seen that cottage before," he said at last. "A man coming towards me— that cottage."

"Looks like we're getting somewhere at last, sir," said P.C. Repp. "Shall we try the cottage, sir? Means waking the occupant up."

"Who is the occupant?"

"He's a gen'leman called Smithson, sir. Rummy sort of gen'leman, if you'll excuse my saying so— a miser."

A.B.C. beckoned to the man who had lost his memory. Do you know anybody named Smithson?" he asked.

It might have been imagination, but a gleam seemed to pass through the man's eyes. Consciously, however, the name meant nothing to him.

"I can't remember," he groaned. "Who is he?"

"The policeman says he lives in the cottage," Hawkes explained;

The man shook his head. "Shall we go and see if he knows me," he said. "I'd give anything to know who I am and what I'm doing here."

"Lead on, constable," A.B.C. cried, and the three of them picked their way along a winding, stony path to the cottage on the skyline.

"I believe I've been here," the man murmured, a new hope in his voice. "Is it a door with a latch?"

"We'll soon see," Hawkes told him, and asked the policeman to shine his torch on the door. There was a latch!

The man's face lit up with a smile. "Thank goodness!" he exclaimed.

The policeman, rang a bell. They waited, but nothing happened. ' He rang again and, after a while hammered on the door with his fist.

"Don't seem to be no answer, sir," the policeman announced unnecessarily.

He tried the latch, and the door opened.

"Well, he must be at home. Shall we go in, do you think, Mr. Hawkes?"

"I think we better," A.B.C. replied.

"Please let's go in," said the man. The policeman flashed his lamp on the narrow passage inside. The man laughed almost hysterically.

"Yes, yes," he cried. "I'm sure this is where I was this evening. There's a door on the right. Look; there it is! On the right!"

A.B.C. turned the handle of the door and shuffled cautiously into the room. There was only the faint moonlight filtering through the blinds.

"What a fool I am!" exclaimed the policeman suddenly. "Of course, Mr. Smithson's got his own lighting plant.  Let me find the switch and we'll have some light on the scene."

He fumbled for the switch. "Must be over there, by that other door," he said, and moved across the room.

The man was talking excitedly to himself. "Door on the right," he said, "and a man inside the room, coming towards me to say, 'Hello, Jim.' Jim! yes, that's my name— Jim!  It's all coming back to me now."

The light went on, and A.B.C. uttered a cry of surprise.

In a far corner of the room a man lay against the wall, sprawled in a heap. There was blood on the floor, on the wall-paper, all over his face. The door of a small wall safe was open behind him.

The mystery man  swayed and his face grew haggard. Then he turned and started back to the passage.

A.B.C. stood in the way. "One moment," he said. "I see you've got your memory back now."

P.C. Repp pulled a pair of hand-cuffs from his pocket, and composed his face to utter the usual warning.

____________________

7: The Mystery of the Chauffeur's Suicide

C E Bechhofer Roberts

Townsville Daily Bulletin, 10 April 1937

A.B.C. HAWKES, a keen gardener at all times, was keenest of all in midsummer when it was time for him to strike cuttings of antirrhinums and to plant new specimens of colchinums (which some people, very misleadingly, call 'autumn crocuses'), these being the two plants in which he specialised.

Nurserymen all over England hoped for his orders for these and other plants, for, even if the money involved was not much, the fact of providing specimens for A.B.C meant considerable kudos in the inner circles of the horticultural business, which is one of the keenest and most competitive trades in the world.

One of the nurserymen who was proudest of A.B.C's. custom was Vice-Admiral Tuckner, who, after retiring from the sea, had taken up gardening as a hobby and, by perseverance and good luck, found himself after a few years the proprietor of one of the most distinguished small nurseries in the south of England. His speciality was colchicums, and he had introduced several new colours which A.B.C. had seized on with delight.

He rang up A.B.C. one July afternoon, and has voice was apologetic.

'I'm awfully sorry. Professor Hawkes—' he began, when A.B.C. interrupted him bitterly.

'Never call me 'Professor,' Admiral, If you want to retain my friendship,' stormed the tubby little man. 'Even though I am one, I hate the beastly title. Do I look like a professor?'

The Admiral sounded more flurried than ever now.

'So sorry, Mr. Hawkes,' he went on. 'The fact is, I wonder if you'd mind waiting another day or two for those colchicums I'm sending you. I don't want to send them by post or out them on the rail, for fear they get bruised; I propose to send them by van as usual. But unfortunately my chauffeur's disappeared, and there's nobody else to drive the van. You know what a small staff I've got here.'

'He's disappeared?' Hawkes asked. 'That good-looking young fellow who drove over in the spring? Dear me, what's the reason?'

'I've no idea. He's just vanished, and he hasn't given any sort of reason. I suppose he'll turn up soon, but I confess I haven't the faintest notion why he's not here today.'

'Well, it doesn't matter about the bulbs,' said A.B.C.  'Give me a ring when I'm to expect you, won't you? Bung ho, Admiral !'

And he turned to his garden.

TWO AFTERNOONS later the Admiral rang up again.

'I say, Prof.— I mean Mr. Hawkes,' he said, and his voice was more agitated than ever, 'I don't like to trouble you, but I wonder if you'd mind driving over here yourself ?'

'I'm really in no hurry for those bulbs,' said Hawkes.

'It isn't that exactly,' the Admiral replied, 'its about that chauffeur of mine. He's turned up at last, but he's turned up dead. It looks like suicide, but I can't understand it. You see, I've known him for years, and he's not that sort of chap.'

'Tell me about it!'

'I'd much rather you came over, if you can spare the time. I know you're interested in cases like this, and, between you and me, I think the local police are barking up the wrong tree.'

'All right,' said Hawkes. 'I shall leave in five minutes, and I shall be with you in another twenty-five— no, maybe twenty-six, now there's a speed-limit in your village.'

In thirty-one minutes precisely A.B.C. was hooting at the entrance gate to the Admiral's nursery. His house lay a few hundred yards up the drive, and between it and the gate was the famous garden in which so many admirable new tulips, colchicums and roses had been raised for collectors and amateur gardeners.

A handsome young woman came out of the lodge by the gate and opened it for him. A.B.C, who claimed that, as a gardener, he was entitled to recognise and appreciate beauty wherever he saw it, smiled at her with obvious admiration and paid her a gentle compliment which brought colour to her pale cheeks. He noticed a wedding-ring on her finger.

'Who's that lovely girl that opened the gate to me?' asked the Professor when he reached the house.

'Lovely girl? Oh, you mean Mrs. Chasemore. She's my gardener's wife, though why on earth she married a grim old fellow like him I don't understand. However, I won't waste your time discussing her. Look at this."

He handed A.B.C. a single sheet of notepaper, on which was written in pencil, in a large sprawling hand:

'I'm fed up with this sort of life, and I've made up my mind to put an end to It at last. If you want me, you'll find me—' A.B.C. turned over and read on the back, 'in the copse down by the stream. Till, then, so long. Jack.'

'Jack's my chauffeur,' the Admiral explained. 'Everybody calls him that. Or rather, everybody called him that. You see, the poor fellow's dead. As soon as I got this note from him, I went down to the copse, and there he was, poor chap, lying among the bushes with half his head blown away. I yelled for Chasemore, the gardener, and sent him for the police. You'll find them down there now.'

A.B.C. and the Admiral went down to the copse, which turned out to be a piece of wild garden beside a little stream. The chauffeur's body lay there, an ugly sight, rain-drenched and disfigured with soil and dirt. A mass of heaped earth and gravel had been thrown about, and the chauffeur's outstretched hands were at the edge of it.

An elderly man touched his hat to them as they approached, and A.B.C. recognised him as Chasemore, the gardener and the husband of the pretty girl at the lodge. Three policemen straightened themselves up.

'That's what he did it with, Admiral,' said one of them pointing to a revolver which lay on a heap of leaves near the corpse. Hawkes picked it up by the barrel and looked at it intently.

'Be careful,' said the Admiral. 'I expect the police will want to find his finger prints on the handle, to make sure it is suicide.'

'No hope of that sir,' said one of the policemen. 'It was half-buried in the soil when we found it. Come to that, this poor fellow looks as if he'd been thrown about a good bit.'

A.B.C. Bent down by the body. 'I wouldn't say he'd been thrown about,' he remarked after a while. 'But it's clear that a good deal of soil has been thrown or blown across him. Tell me, Admiral,' he went on, 'what's the significance of this great heap of earth here?'

'That's what we dug out from the bank over by my house,' the Admiral replied. 'We're making a new lily bed there, and this soil's too sandy to be any use. So I've been having it dug out and carted away.'

'Who chose this place to dump it in?' Hawkes asked. The Admiral negated. The police servant looked across at him queerly.

'I don't really remember, Mr. Hawkes,' the Admiral said at last. 'I suppose the carter suggested it.'

'Oh, no. I didn't,' came a loud voice from behind them, 'Don't you go trying to put the blame on me. Admiral! It was you said, "Dump the stuff here!" '

A tall man in dirty clothes and a cap was standing just outside the group. His trouser-legs were tied with string, and his clothes and hands and feet were stained yellow with clay and

'You're the carter, are you?'  A.B.C. said.

'That's right, sir. And it's no manner of use trying to put the blame for that on me.'

He pointed to the corpse, and then turned upon the Admiral. 'I heard you and him havin' a row last time I was here,' he said, 'and you can't deny it. And he said he knew too much to be sacked, didn't he—'

The Admiral turned very red.

'You've misunderstood our conversation,' he mumbled, 'He didn't mean that at all.'

'He said it, anyways,' shouted the carter, 'and so its you that's got to say what it meant. And, another thing, somebody used my cart on Tuesday evening— that's when I was last here— unbeknownst to me. Who was it? I'd like to know.'

And he explained to his little audience that, having popped up to the village for a cup of tea during the afternoon, when he had been working at tne nursery, he had come back and found that in his absence his cart had been moved, and a load of earth in it thrown out somewhere. Then he had been put on different work.

'That's perfectly correct,' said the Admiral. 'You were away so long in the village that Chasemore and I'— he nodded towards the gardener— 'led the horse and cart across here and tipped off the dirt you'd left in  the cart.'

'And then you put them on different work?' A.B.C. asked.

'Yes, I did,' said the Admiral. 'We'd got all the dirt out of the new lily bed that was necessary, so I put them on to carting gravel for a path. Look here, Mr. Hawkes, you don't mean to say that you think I murdered Jack?'

'I don't mean to say anything,' A.B.C. answered quietly. 'I'm just making a few inquiries. That's why you asked me to come over here, isn't it?'

The Admiral shrugged his shoulders angrily and stamped off to the house.

A.B.C. waited while the police laid the body on a hurdle and carried it off to a shed where Chasemore had arranged a resting-place for it.

The police-sergeant, who knew A.B.C, took him aside.

'What d'you make of it Mr. Hawkes?' he said. 'It's a funny thing what that carter said, isn't it?— that the Admiral had a row with this chap that's dead, and he said the Admiral wouldn't dare to sack him, because he knew too much. Looks like blackmail, don't it?'

'That's a possibility,' A.B.C. agreed.

'And it's a rummy thing that the Admiral should shoot the dirt just here, and one load— the last load without the carter's knowledge.'

'Why?'

'Well, sir, it may be that he'd made up his mind to kill this Jack— I don't rightly know yet what his name is— and wanted somewhere he could hide the body.'

A.B.C. pursed his lips and regarded the policeman sadly.

'Yet he didn't hide the body after all, sergeant, did he?'

'He did and he didn't, sir, as you might say. The body was all covered with dirt, like, even though he wasn't under the main heap of it. And the revolver was all trodden into it, like you say.'

The Admiral came to them.

'Mr. Hawkes.' he said. 'I've been thinking things over, and I realise that they look strange. I promise you that I told the truth about that last cartload of dirt, and I can explain the conversation that the carter overheard between me and Jack. We did have a row; I thought he'd been getting slack lately and making rather a nuisance of himself generally. So I told him that, if he wasn't careful, I'd get rid of him. He said— and I admit that it was my fault for having always let him speak pretty plainly to me that I wouldn't dare sack him because he knew too much. He meant Mr. Hawkes, he knew too much about the work in the nursery, and so he did. He'd been with me ever since I started, and he worked as a gardener as well as a chauffeur. If I'd got rid of him, I'd have had to engage a gardener as well as a driver, unless I was lucky enough to find somebody else who knew both sides of the work. I swear that's true, Mr. Hawkes. and I swear that I didn't kill Jack or have anything to do with it.'

'About that letter you received from him,' he said. 'How did it arrive?'

'It came by post this afternoon. Here's the envelope; I've got it in my pocket.'

Hawkes took the envelope, on which the Admiral's name and address were written in pencil in large capital letters. Then he took out the letter itself, signed by the dead man.

'Do you recognise the writing as his?' he asked. The Admiral nodded.

'Jack wasn't much of a hand at writing. It looks like his style, but I can't be certain of it.'

'Do you suppose you've any specimens of it up at the house?'

'Plenty.'

The Admiral beckoned to Chasemore, the gardener. 'Run up to the bouse and ask the maid to get the order book. Jack used often to write orders down, in it.'

A.B.C. was studying the envelope.

'That's odd,' he remarked. 'Very odd! I wonder why the envelope's written with a different pencil. And I wonder why the writer used block capitals.'

The police sergeant suggested that the dead man might have used a different pencil inadvertently, after reading over his letter, or ne might nave broken the point of the first one. As for the block letters on the envelone, the idea might have been to ensure that the address was legible.

'There's just one thing,' said A.B.C. 'This letter was posted last night: at least, the date-stamp on it say it was. Now assuming that Jack killed himself and wrote this letter to you, Admiral, to tell you where to find his body, how was it possible for him to post the letter two days after his death? I may assure you that the body shows that he's been dead, if not nearly three days, anyhow a good deal longer than since last night. So, unless the postman forgot to deliver it or it stuck in the pillar-box, somebody else must have posted it after Jack's death. Who? Suicides don't usually have kind friends to post letters for them a day or two after their death, do they?'

Chasemore returned then with the order-book, and the Admiral handed it to A.B.C.

'Yes, it's the same writing as in the letter,' Hawkes said, after he had compared them.

'Careful chap, Jack, wasn't he?' he went on.

'Yes, careful, sergeant. Do you notice how he always wrote down the day of the month and even the hour whenever he booked an order for the nursery? And always got the customer to initial the order too? I call that careful: it would stop any customer from complaining afterwards that he hadn't ordered plants when they reached him.'

'I told him to do that,' said the Admiral, 'We'd had some complaints, you know.'

A.B.C. nodded. 'Yes, I dare say you did, and there's no doubt that Jack followed your instructions. If he'd been doing that for several years, sergeant don't you think It'd be second nature for him to put the date on any letter he wrote? I don't say it's certain, but I do say it seems likely.'

'I don't follow you, sir,' said the sergeant.

Hawkes carried the 'suicide letter' out to the light.

'If you look carefully at the top edge of the notepaper, sergeant,' he said, 'you'll notice that it's been snipped off, either with scissors or with a knife.'

He looked at it more closely. 'Ah, yes, a knife. Not scissors, no— a knife! The bit that had the date on it has been cut off. Why?'

The sergeant scratched his head. 'So that It could be posted afterwards, do you mean, sir?' he asked.

'No. That wouldn't mean anything. The date-mark on the envelope gives away the time of posting. No, there must be another reason for cutting away the top of the letter, if it's been done with any special reason.'

The Admiral grunted. 'Might have been to cut away the name of the person to whom it was written,' he suggested. 'Perhaps it was sent to somebody else, and this somebody didn't want his name to appear, so he cut off the top bit and re-directed the letter to me. That would explain why it arrived so late, wouldn't it? Jack may have sent it on to this somebody befare he shot himself and the somebody snipped off the top and put it In a fresh envelope and sent it to me. That explains the different pencil used for the envelope too."

A.B.C. nodded and the sergeant's face took on a kindlier expression toward the Admiral. 'So it's suicide after all,' remarked the sergeant, 'and we've been mugs to think it wasn't.'

'I wonder,' said Hawkes slowly. 'I shouldn't be surprised if the back of the bit that was cut off the letter had something written on it too. If you look carefully at the top edge at the back, you'll see a tiny pencil mark, at If there'd been a line written above.'

'So there is,' the sergeant agreed.

'That certainly makes it more interesting,' said Hawkes. 'Well, we'll meet again at the inquest, I suppose. I'll be getting off now.'

He started to walk towards his car, up by the entrance to the house. The path took him through a rose-garden where lines of standard roses, covered with bloom, made a fine show and scented the evening air. A.B.C. sniffed appreciatively.

Then be stopped and shouted for the Admiral. 'Something odd about these roses, isn't there ?' he said.

'Odd? How odd, Mr. Hawkes? By Jove, yes. How on earth did that red rose— It's a Red Letter Day— get among the Golden Gleams'

'Strayed from the next row, hasn't it, Admiral? And, what's more, I see there's a Golden Gleam got into the Red Letter Days. Tell me something, Admiral; was Jack married or engaged, or did he run after the women?'

'He was a bit gay,' said the Admiral. 'But I don't see what that's—'

'Don't you?' A.B.C. asked grimly. 'I'll tell you what my guess it, and it's for the police to find out if my guess is right. Suppose Jack was carrying on with Chasemore's wife, that pretty girl who opened the gate to me? Suppose he left a note for her, the note you got in the post today? Suppose, at the top of the first-page, the words 'Dear Whatever-her-name-is' were written? Suppose that, at the top of the back page, there was some such line as 'at the usual time'— which would quite alter the sense of the letter? Suppose Chasemore found the letter and went down to the copse where they used to meet, and shot Jack? Suppose he went out that night and buried him In the rose-garden? Suppose he took another look at the letter last night and saw that by snipping off the top line back and front be could make it look like a suicide letter, and sent if to you? Suppose he then exhumed the body last night and threw it into the copse for you to find and, in the dark, put the two roses back in the wrong rows? Of course, he must have spotted the mistake today, but he couldn't very well do anything about it till darkness came, could he?'

_________________

8: The English Filter

C. E. Bechhofer Roberts

The Strand Magazine, March 1926

I AM UNLIKELY ever to forget the visit that my friend, A.B.C. Hawkes, the scientist, and I paid to Rome. "A.B.C," as I always call him, had let only one man know we were coming— his old acquaintance, Professor Castagni, the bacteriologist. We were astonished, therefore, to find at least a hundred people awaiting us at the station.

Castagni introduced many of them, a lengthy business, and I was amused to discover that his instinctive Italian love of pageantry had apparently caused him to marshal representatives of every branch of learning in the city. I found myself, for example, walking to the hotel with an elderly historian on one side, who knew a little French and less English, and delivered himself of an uninterrupted flow of words in both languages, while at the other ear was a still older professor of philosophy who spoke only Italian— of which tongue I am ignorant, although this did not seem to prevent his addressing me in it.

Hawkes, in the inevitable grey frock-coat and sponge-bag trousers, with a rose in his buttonhole, was submerged in an excited crowd, from whom there arose a Babel of welcome and congratulation. Our arrival was a comic triumph.

The moment we reached our hotel, however, they all bowed, shook our hands, and withdrew.

"What a nerve-racking experience, A.B.C," I commented, as my friend and I reached our rooms.

"And, of course, the one man I do want to meet wasn't there," Hawkes replied.

I asked who this was.

"Ribotta, the physicist," A.B.C. said. "He must be an old man now, and, I confess, I had never rated him very highly. But just lately he's published some really very remarkable papers on atomic magnetism. How he's managed to make up fifty years leeway in his work, I don't pretend to know. But that is what I've come to Rome to find out."

There was a tap at the door, and a young Italian entered.

"My name is Dorsi, Professor Castagni's assistant," he said In perfect English. "The professor wishes me to act as your guide here in Rome."

"That is most kind of you both," said Hawkes with assumed gratification. "But really, I mustn't trouble you."

"It is truly a pleasure. I appreciate the honour of coming into contact with so famous a man of science. Of course, if you wish to rest now after your journey, I will wait for you downstairs."

A.B.C. smiled resignedly.

"What my friend Johnstone and I really want," he said, "is an early lunch. I see it's just twelve— perhaps we may indulge our appetites. You will lunch with us, Mr. Dorsi, I trust?"

Our guest proved a sympathetic and intelligent young man. Educated partly in England, he had a sound knowledge of our language and tastes. I could see that Hawkes liked him as well as I did.

"Now, Mr. Dorsi," said A.B.C, as the waiter served the coffee and we lit our cigars. "You tell me that I may expect to be able to pay my formal call on Professor Castagni at three o'clock.  Right! The only other visit I am anxious to make is to Professor Ribotta. His latest work interests me profoundly."

"That will be very simple," said Dorsi. "If you like, we can go there now— he is sure to be in his laboratory. And while you are there, gentlemen, I should advise you to talk to his assistant as well."

"You are trying to tell me something," remarked A. B. C., with a shrewd glance.

The Italian smiled.

"The facts are these, professor," he commenced.

"Holy Darwin! Don't call me 'professor'!" cried A.B.C. "Anything but that! The word suggests all the academic foibles I most detest— vanity, pedantry, untidiness, petty jealousies, and tyranny!"

"You must excuse this outburst, Mr. Dorsi," I laughed. "It is a form of address that always rouses his tempestuous nature."

Dorsi stole a humorous glance at the scientist's flaming red hair and smiled more broadly.

"Well, then, Mr. Hawkes," he began again— ("That's better!" murmured A.B.C.)— "I am perhaps being indiscreet, but your time is too valuable to be wasted. Professor Ribotta— I emphasise the title in this case— is not responsible for the theories you speak of. He takes the credit for them, but it is due to his assistant, Mr. Lavorello. You know the stupid system we have in our Continental universities— promotion goes by seniority, and a position may be held for life, or at least to a very advanced age, by any old man who does not wish to retire on a pension. That is the case of Professor Ribotta. He holds a chair for which, however well he may have filled it thirty years ago, he is to-day quite unqualified. You will see this for yourselves. But Lavorello— ah, there is a young man of the first quality, an experimenter without rival in all Italy, a scientific genius."

"I have heard of such cases before," said A. B. C. "I shall make a point of getting into touch with him. Thank you for your friendly advice. Shall we be going?"

The three of us set out for Ribotta's laboratory, which we found in an old part of the city, near the Pantheon. The entrance was remote from the main portion of the institute, and Dorsi told us that it led to Ribotta's and his assistant's rooms only. The porter inside took off his cap to us and led us into a small room which, Dorsi told me, was the preserve of the laboratory attendant. It was dark and confined; the remains of a meal lay on the table and a couple of dirty overalls hung on a hook on the wall.

We stopped before another door, on which the porter knocked. It was opened to us by Ribotta himself, to whom Dorsi swiftly explained who we were. The professor, an old man with a flowing beard and piercing eyes, then invited us to enter. He greeted

A. B. C. effusively, led us to his desk, and motioned to us to sit down. He leaned forward in his chair, holding a hand to his ear.

"You speak not Italian, I think, Professor Hawkes?" he said in a broken English that I shall not attempt to reproduce exactly. "You do? Well, no matter; I prefer to speak English. Oh, I am very fond of England. Forty years ago I was at Cambridge under your great professors." He mentioned some famous names. "They taught me much— but I see you are too young to know them. I have not been in England since then, but I still have my great love for English things. I have many beautiful English things in my laboratory. I will call my assistant; he shall show them to you. Lavorello! Lavorello! Ah, he does not hear me. No matter, I will send the attendant to him. Carlo!" he called. "That wretched attendant," the garrulous old man went on, "I cannot make him obey me. He attends only to Mr. Lavorello's work; he leaves my laboratory dirty. When he comes, he will hear from me. And now I will call my assistant myself."

He pounded on a door at the other side of the room. We heard a chair pushed back and the slamming of a door. Through an unglazed, barred window that gave on to a corridor— apparently the only ventilation of the room, for all the other windows were tightly closed— we saw a man pass.

Ribotta tittered. "You think it odd, perhaps," he said. "My assistant is in the next room, but he cannot come in through the connecting door. Ah, this is done on purpose. I do not want anybody to come into the room. So I locked that door twenty years ago, and it has remained locked ever since. He must come in the way you came, the only entrance. And that has a Yale lock, so that nobody can come in except myself and the attendant, unless I let them in myself. Only he and I have keys. Even the porter I never allow to enter. I want quiet, and in this way I get it. Ah, there must be Lavorello!"

He motioned to Dorsi, and our guide slipped across to unfasten the door. A young man entered, keen and dark, but very fleshy for his age— a point, we afterwards discovered, on which he was rather sensitive. I looked at him with interest, for he was the brilliant youth whose work had brought Hawkes to Rome.

"Sit down, Lavorello, sit down," cried Ribotta. '"But no, I want you to show my English guests the great things that have come here from their country. First give them a glass of water from my filter."

Without a word the young man went over to a large glass tank, uncovered at the top and with some kind of filter and tap attached. It was one of the most noticeable objects in the peculiarly bare room. He filled a glass from it and brought this to us. Ribotta held it under Hawkes's nose.

"Taste!" he said. "What beautiful clear water! Rome water is not good to drink, but out of my English filter— ah, then one may drink with pleasure and safety. Lavorello, empty this ash-tray and give me some matches!"

Expressionless Lavorello obeyed. Then Ribotta told him to get the cigars out of a drawer, and the old man offered them to A. B. C, Dorsi, and me — we refused them— and lit one of the rank things himself. He did not trouble to offer one to Lavorella, I noticed.

"Now you have seen the filter," he rattled on. "Next you must see the English microscope. Lavorello, bring the microscope and show it to Professor Hawkes."

It was, even as I could see, a very ordinary piece of laboratory apparatus, but the old man gloated over it as if it were a marvel.

"Very interesting indeed," murmured A. B. C; "but have you any new results in your work on magnetism, sir?"

"No, I have not them here at the moment. I do not make the experiments myself these days; I leave them to the young men. Lavorello will show you them in his laboratory. It is good work— I showed him how it should be done. The brains are mine; the hand is his. That is how it should be, is it not?"

For politeness' sake, we agreed.

"Do have another glass of water. Professor Hawkes. No? Ah, but it is good, thanks to my English filter. Your friend, then? Oh, you must! Lavorello, bring another glass of water! Quickly! If you drank more of this water, Lavorello, you would not be so fat! There is no water like this in Rome."

It tasted to me like any other water, but I thought It incumbent on me to express loud admiration.

"We must not take up any more of your time, sir," said Hawkes, rising from his chair. "With your permission, we shall just glance at Mr. Lavorello's work, and then we must be going away."

"Delighted to have seen you, professor," said Ribotta, shaking our hands. "I am always glad to welcome foreign scientists to my laboratory, especially from England. Lavorello, you are to show these gentlemen your work— our work— so that they may see that we old men can still keep pace with the young. Ah, but first give me some more matches."

As we left the laboratory through the little ante-room, the attendant hurried in. He was, I noticed, a sinister-looking fellow, the sort of man one would instinctively avoid on a dark night. He went past us into the professor's room, the door of which he opened with his pass-key, and we heard the old man greet him with a storm of angry words.

The corridor led us round towards Lavorello's room. Dorsi, In a whisper called my attention to the cupboards and bookcases that were placed against the doors leading to the rest of the building— another example of Ribotta's insistence upon isolation. As we passed the barred window, we saw the attendant standing by the desk, gazing at the professor with a malicious glance. The old man was shouting and gesticulating, but, as he heard us go by, he turned and waved.

We reached Lavorello's laboratory, the whole atmosphere of which was very different from the old professor's, and A. B. C. and he were soon bent in eager interest over note-books and curves, with an occasional reference to some proof-sheets that lay on the table.

They forgot all about Dorsi and myself. The subject was far beyond either of us and we passed the time chatting.

"It's pretty clear," Dorsi said, after a long and bitter attack upon the old man in the next room, "with whom Mr. Hawkes finds himself more at home."

I sympathised with his denunciation of Ribotta's selfishness, his ridiculous pride in the very ordinary filter and microscope, and his bullying treatment of Lavorello, but, as a stranger, I thought it best not to be drawn into the expression of an opinion, and I looked round for an opportunity to change the subject.

"Hallo," I said, thankfully, "here is something I do understand a little about."

I walked over to a cabinet in the corner of the room, in which were ranged objects that I recognised as Italian and Greek-Italian antiques. There were coins and little statuettes and rings and toys and other trifles.

Lavorello happened to see us gazing at his collection. He smiled and unlocked the door of the cabinet.

"A hobby of mine," he said to me. "My country— I am a Sicilian, you know— is especially rich in such things."

"What are these?" asked Dorsi, pointing to some small white objects, which were familiar enough to me.

"Knucklebones," answered Lavorello, "with which I suppose our ancestors tised to play. The queer glasses behind them are for another game, cottabos; and those square things on the same shelf are tessera, the counterparts of modern dice."

A. B. C. called him back to the papers and Dorsi and I discussed the customs of the ancients and their survivals in modern times. It was a long time before Hawkes was ready to leave. Then the three of us took leave of Lavorello and tip-toed along the corridor so as not to attract Ribotta's attention, for we had no desire to be called in to hear another harangue. We glanced in through the barred opening, and saw him at his desk, with his beloved filter beyond him underneath the clock. Fortunately he was absorbed in a newspaper and did not notice us pass.

"Shades of Cavendish!" whispered A. B. C. "It's three o'clock already!"

We hurried past the porter's lodge, to whose occupant the laboratory attendant was declaiming fiercely.

"The attendant's opinion of Ribotta," A. B. C. said to me when we got outside, "is not much higher than our own, I'm afraid. If my knowledge of Italian, or at least of the Roman dialect, is not in error, he was expressing a wish that the old professor might be devoured by hungry wolves. He added that, if they or some similar agents of destiny did not perform this necessary action, he himself would have to attend to it. I must confess, after comparing Ribotta's and Lavorello's capacity, I have some sympathy with the attendant's desire."

"Lavorello is a good man, is he?" I said.

"First-rate," said my friend. "A brilliant, ingenious brain with a magnificent grasp of scientific possibilities! If he has a fault, it's tendency to rush at conclusions, to go the short way to a result when a longer and more patient method would be more suitable. But he'll go far! It's a crying shame that he should be held back by that old charlatan. And for the latter to steal the credit of Lavorello's researches is an insult to science."

For a moment Hawkes's round, good-natured face looked quite angry, but his usual smile soon reappeared.

We made a short call on Castagni, and spent the rest of the afternoon in the Forum. Not only did we visit the usual sights there, but, as honoured guests, we were invited to view various collections and excavations not open to the general public. For once I was able to display more knowledge than Hawkes, and, to his mock awe, I traced resemblances between some of the exhibits and various specimens I had unearthed on the more successful of my archaeological expeditions in England. A. B. C. was in his element, however, with some ancient scientific instruments, and his identification of their uses has now, I understand, been officially adopted. I learned from the director of the excavations that Lavorello had performed a similar service at the time of some earlier discoveries.

We were to meet Dorsi for dinner at the "Ulpia," which he recommended as the most picturesque restaurant in the city. We found it in an ancient basilica, whose curved brick walls, arching to the roof, made a curious and sombre background for the bright napery and electric lights. The blend of old and new— so typical af Rome— was carried down to the smallest details; the lamps, for example, were fixed in amphorae of antique form, and the menu was rolled like an old parchment scroll. The place amused us, and we settled down patiently to await our guest.

An hour after the agreed time we despaired of his arrival and decided to begin. At ten o'clock, just as we were about to leave, he came in.

"Forgive my absence," he said, "but a terrible thing has happened. Professor Ribotta has been murdered!"

"Murdered!" I exclaimed.

"He was found poisoned in his laboratory this afternoon," Dorsi went on. A pallid smile flickered on his lips as he added, "The poison was apparently administered in the filter of which he was so proud."

"Who did it?" A.B.C. asked.

"The attendant has disappeared, and the police are in search of him. The chief of police is in the laboratory now, and, as you were among the last people to see the professor alive, he wishes to interrogate you. He was going to send to your hotel, but I volunteered to come here and fetch you."

We called for the bill and left the restaurant in silence. We walked through the warm night to the laboratory, and found it ablaze with lights. A group of men were standing in the dead man's room, among them Lavorello and the porter, both much moved. The body had been removed to a neighbouring mortuary for examination. They told us that the professor had been found sitting upright at his desk, just as we had seen him as we tip-toed out that same afternoon. Tightly grasped in his hand was a glass of water, of which he had drunk perhaps a half; and his eyes were fixed in a rigid stare.

The chief of police asked Hawkes a string of questions, writing the replies in a note-book.

"There seems no doubt," Dorsi said to me, "that the attendant is the villain. We all heard the quarrel and the threats he uttered against the old man. He, the attendant, was seen to leave the building a few minutes after three o'clock; in fact, he did not go back into the laboratory after we left. Lavorello says that at a quarter past five, on his way out to the baths that he visits every afternoon to try to reduce his weight, he spoke to Ribotta through the barred window from the corridor. The porter confirms that Lavorello went out at that time. Now comes the important evidence: at half -past five the attendant came in — not too sober, the porter thinks, and still muttering threats against the old man— and entered his little room, through which alone, as you know, it is possible to enter this laboratory.

"He came out ten minutes later and has not been seen since. At six o'clock, twenty minutes after the attendant went away, the porter knocked on the inner door to give the professor a message. Alarmed at receiving no reply, he went round to the barred window and called to him. When he saw that the old gentleman did not move, he called some students who were passing by. They had, of course, to smash down the door to enter, and they discovered old Ribotta dead with the glass in his hand."

I was considering these facts when a stir outside was followed by the appearance of a couple of policemen with the attendant. The villain was even more unprepossessing than before; he was both drunk and frightened.

The chief of police told him that he was suspected of causing the professor's death, and the man, moistening his parched lips, vehemently denied the charge. Ordered to account for his movements that afternoon, he said the professor had driven him past endurance and he had gone away in a temper. He thought this must have been about three o'clock.

He went to a wine-shop and had some drinks and then made up his mind to go home to his village, a few miles out of the city, but on his way he remembered that he had left some personal belongings in his room and came back to fetch them. After making a parcel of them, he said, he went away again, without entering the laboratory at all. Then he took the tram to his home, where the police had just arrested him. He repeatedly denied that he had gone into the professor's laboratory during his short return. He had, he insisted, stayed in his own little room and made his parcel.

Asked whether he had not uttered threats against the professor's life earlier in the afternoon, he at first said he had not. But, confronted with the evidence of the porter and ourselves, he had to admit that in the heat of his anger he might have done so. His account in other respects certainly tallied with the previous statements. But the damning facts remained that only he and the dead man had keys to the laboratory and that he had admittedly been in the ante-room between the time Ribotta was last seen alive— by Lavorello, at a quarter past five— and the time of his being found dead at six o'clock.

Suddenly the chief turned to the porter. "And you?" he said. "Did you enter the laboratory during that period?" A. B. C. interpreted all this to me.

"The professor never permitted me inside," answered the porter. "And I had no key. No one had a key, not even Signor Lavorello, except the professor and the attendant."

"Perhaps the professor opened the door to somebody else, or the murderer had provided himself with a third key?"

"Even so," was the reply, "my lodge is opposite the door of the ante-room, and I should have seen anyone enter it. Nobody did. There is no other entrance to the laboratory."

The chief went round the room examining it. As he showed us, there was indeed no other entrance than by the door from the attendant's room. The door to Lavorello's room was still bolted, and it was clear that it had not been opened. The dust on the skylight and on the windows proved that they, too, had not been tampered with. As for the window to the corridor, the bars were firmly fixed in the mortar; a baby could not have climbed between them.

"We were asked to accompany the party to the mortuary. A sheet was reverently pulled back and the dead man's face revealed. I watched the attendant. He shuddered and crossed himself surreptitiously. One might have said that his very emotion testified to his guilt.

The unnatural rigidity of the dead man's features seemed to interest Hawkes. He took a glass from his pocket and intently examined the staring eyes for some minutes. Then he entered upon a conversation with the doctors in a corner of the room, where they were working.

"When the rest of us went out, glad to leave the presence of death, A. B. C. did not immediately follow. Dorsi and I waited outside, after seeing the prisoner removed, protesting violently, by the police. My friend came out at last.

"Gentlemen," he said, "you must excuse me. Johnstone, take Mr. Dorsi back to the hotel and entertain him — and Mr. Lavorello too, if he will accompany you. I am going to help with the medical examination."

"What a gruesome idea!" I said.

"My erudite friend," he replied, "you ought to know my interest in the border-line between physics and physiology. Good night."

And he hurried back inside the mortuary.

We walked to the hotel, discussing the terrible event.

"I suppose," I said, "it is certain the poor man was poisoned?"

"Of that there is no doubt," said Dorsi. "The doctors suspected it from the first, and Mr. Hawkes, who seems to know everything, agrees with them. They all think it is a poison of the strychnine class, although probably not strychnine itself."

"It ought to be easy to find where the attendant procured it," I suggested.

"In England it might be," smiled Lavorello, "but not, I fear, in Rome. However, as no one but the attendant could possibly have entered and dropped it in the filter, the question where he obtained it hardly seems to matter."

"Can it possibly have been introduced through the walls or the roof or the windows?" I asked.

"Impossible," said Dorsi. "Stupid and deaf as the old man was, he was very keen-sighted, and, sitting at his desk with the filter right in front of him, he would have noticed any attempt to tamper with it. Besides, how on earth could anyone have done so, when it was in the very middle of the room?"

I had to admit that they were right.

They would not come in with me, and we parted at the entrance to my hotel. I sat in my room for some time, but I saw nothing to shake my conviction that the attendant was guilty. This seemed established beyond the possibility of doubt.

Hawkes did not return all that night, nor was he in the hotel when I left it the next morning to visit St. Peter's and one of the

Vatican galleries. I lunched in a little restaurant near the Cathedral and returned to the hotel in the middle of the afternoon. I found A. B. C. waiting for me. From his look I guessed that he had spent the whole night on his researches.

"Well, what news?" he asked.

"I look to you for that, A.B.C," I replied. "Has the attendant confessed?"

"Not yet; but things are very black against him."

"You look tired," I said. "Why don't you lie down for a while?"

"I am a little fatigued," he admitted. "Between you and me, Ribotta dead presents more scientific interest than he did alive, but he is equally wearying in both states. I fear you will think that remark in bad taste. I don't think I'll lie down, however. What would you say to taking a Turkish bath— a Roman bath, I suppose I ought to call it here? Our full-bodied friend Lavorello patronizes the baths every afternoon, it seems, like the lover of antique Roman customs that he is, and I have arranged to visit one of them with him to-day. I hope you will accompany us."

I readily agreed, and we drove off to the laboratory and picked up Lavorello. We took the opportunity to glance in at the dead man's room, and I confirmed my impressions of the case. Nobody could possibly have entered it except through the attendant's room. The three of us were soon in the baths enjoying the delights that Lavorello, lying on a slab near us, assured us were the daily pleasures of the ancient Romans. His admiration for my friend was so evident, and he addressed his conversation so exclusively to him, that A. B. C. seemed to fear that I was being unduly relegated to the background.

"Cease to emulate the modest violet, friend Johnstone," he smiled. "Discourse to us upon topics suitable to the occasion. An archaeologist like you ought to welcome the society of a fellow- enthusiast like Mr. Lavorello— Professor Lavorello, I suppose his friends will call him now. Expound to us, my able adjutant, the pastimes of antique Roman society in the baths they frequented."

"Surely, A.B.C," I said, "Mr. Lavorello is better qualified than I? His collection shows him to be a specialist.''

"I doubt it," said Hawkes. "He has been too busy, I am sure, adequately to interest himself in the subject; is that not so.

Lavorello?"

"Oh, I don't know," replied Lavorello; "I have found time in my leisure moments to study it with a certain thoroughness."

"Theory, theory, all is theory!" A.B.C. scoffed. "I'll wager for example, that you, Lavorello, couldn't tell me the right way to hold those old knucklebones that are in your cabinet."

"Surely knucklebones are played to-day pretty much as they ever were?" said the Italian. "The simplest and yet the most difficult game is to toss them one after the other in the air and to endeavour to catch the whole set— three or five— on the back of your hand. It is difficult, but after long practice I found I could do it."

"So you have joined practice to theory after all," said A. B. C. "I apologise for my unworthy doubts. Now, Johnstone, I give you one more chance to retrieve your reputation as an archaeologist. Tell me some other game that the ancients played on such occasions as these— and in such prodigious heat as this."

"That's easy," I said. "I was reminded of it yesterday. Mr. Lavorello has the instruments in his cabinet. It is the old game of cottabos."

"Oh, how do you play that, friend Lavorello?"

"I am afraid," replied he, laughing, "my knowledge stops short at knucklebones. As you hinted, I am not a universal genius."

"Now, splendid Johnstone, cover yourself with glory! Tell us how the royal and ancient game of cottabos was played."

"As far as I remember," I said, "the players amused themselves with it at drinking parties. The aim of the game was to throw wine from a specially-shaped glass in such a way that the liquid travelled through the air without scattering. This was done, according to German scholars, who know everything about everything, by a particular twirling movement imparted to the glass. The object was to sink a little metal saucer floating in a sunken tank by casting the wine into it. Isn't that right, Mr. Lavorello?"

Just at that moment Dorsi entered, smiling at the sight of us three in our scanty attire.

"What stifling heat!" he said. "You sent for me, Mr. Hawkes?"

"Yes," said A.B.C. "I wanted you to know that I have discovered the murderer of Professor Ribotta."

"You have?" we exclaimed, in one breath.

"I thought, sir, the police arrested him yesterday," said Dorsi.

"No, dear Dorsi, no. The attendant had no hand in the crime."

"But it was proved―" I began.

"It was proved, my intelligent compatriot, that the attendant entered the building at half -past five for a few minutes. The corpse was not discovered till six, and so it was taken for granted that the man had entered the professor's room and dropped the poison in the filter."

"Exactly," I said.

"But when I saw the corpse," A.B.C. went on, "I was struck at once by the peculiar red discoloration of the eyes. There is a certain obscure poison of the strychnine class which produces this effect. It also produces almost instantaneous death. As you know, the eye is like a camera, with the retina at the back like a sensitive plate, on which the different pictures are continually formed. Now, this poison makes the lens lose its transparency, with the result that no light enters, and the eyeball becomes like a camera with the shutter closed.

"It occurred to me, therefore, that the picture that was cast on the retina at the moment of death might have persisted. Of course, we should not perceive this picture direct. I thought, however, that it might be possible, as it were, to develop the image. The doctors agreed to allow me to try. I will not give you details of the method, for they are not particularly pleasant to hear.

"We were not successful with the first eye; the work was more difficult than I had suspected. But from the second I got a blurred picture— not a studio photograph, perhaps, but sufficient for our purpose. That picture told me all I wanted to know."

"What did it show?" I asked.

"Just the clock on the wall, on which, as I took the trouble to observe this afternoon, the rays of the afternoon sun fall. Now that photograph on the dead man's retina, which was the last thing he saw in this life, showed with clearness that, at the moment of his death, the hands of the clock stood at exactly five o'clock!"

"Five o'clock," cried Dorsi. "Then the attendant had not yet returned!"

"Before he came back on that unfortunate visit to his room," said A. B. C. solemnly, "the professor was already dead."

"But nobody else had entered the laboratory," I objected.

"And nobody had!" said A.B.C. "That's what made me so curious about the game of cottabos. You see, a really skilled player, standing in the corridor with the proper kind of glass, might well throw the poison through the barred window into the filter. It would be difficult, I admit, but a practised hand could achieve it. The professor at his desk would not notice the liquid passing across the room."

A choking sound came from the slab where Lavorello lay. He was gasping as if unable to draw his breath. A.B.C. strode across to him and spoke softly but distinctly in his ear, while Dorsi and I watched with a terrible suspicion in our minds.

"Lavorello," said Hawkes, sternly, ''you understand!"

The young scientist groaned and fought for air. Then a sudden agitation of his body threw him off the slab on to the floor. Dorsi and I rushed to raise him, but A. B. C. waved us back.

"It's too late," he said. "I knew his heart was weak— he was foolish to use these hot rooms. The heat of the bath, the strain of his recent crime, and the knowledge that it had been detected have killed him. I must confess that this was my reason for staging this little scene here. We may now be able to avert a very nasty scandal; whereas, if it had come to a public trial―"

He shook his head. "Yes, he was a great experimenter, was young Lavorello, but his ambition was too great for him. A true scientist should await results, not force them, even when a stupid, vain old man stands in the way."

_____________________

9: Virgin Snow

C E Bechhofer Roberts

World's News (Sydney) 31 May 1941

THE snobbishness of English country life is far too well known for me to pass any observations on it here. It is the same all over the island; the picturesque part of Sussex where A.B.C. Hawkes, the scientist, shared a cottage with me was just as much under the social heel of the "County" as any of the huntin' and shootin' shires.

The only people who participated in a more or less agreeable exchange of visits and amenities were the old families and the rich families; everybody else was practically limited to the company of his immediate neighbors.

A.B.C., whose war-time fame and easy circumstances gave him the unrestricted right of entry to the charmed circle of the "County," loathed them.

My friend, however, made an exception of the acknowledged leaders of our local smart set, Lord and Lady Holmbury, a couple of charming old people whose families had lived and owned property so long in this part of the world that they seemed to have imbibed some of its natural charms.

Imagine, then, our horror when, early one winter morning, our country servant roused us with the news that Lord Holmbury had been murdered in the night. She knew no details except that the old gentleman had been found dead in his dressing-room, with his head battered in by a poker which lay beside him.

While we were taking this in, a maid arrived from Lady Holmbury to ask if we would go over there at once, in order that A.B.C. might assist the local police to discover the murderer and (the note added) to dissuade them from treating every occupant of the house, including the writer, as if they were guilty of the crime.

"It ought not to be too difficult, my friend Johnstone," A.B.C. mused as we went out into the lane and turned towards the Hall. "If my reading of Sherlock Holmes— the early Sherlock, not the degenerate later manifestation— is correct, there is nothing so likely to lead to the detection of the murderer as this otherwise tiresome wintry weather.

"For one thing, any stranger is likely to be spotted by the yokels, since the warm-weather hikers and campers are no longer with us; for another, the snow will have reduced social come-and-go to a minimum and so have contracted the circle of possible suspects. Again, even the most amateur of detectives, such as myself, will be on the look-out for footsteps and cartracks in the snow near the Hall. This is the sort of crime that Dr. Watson must have dreamed of in his more envious moments—and what an envious fellow he must have been! Remember that, Johnstone."

He became more serious when, five minutes later, we came to the lodgegates of the Hall. A policeman touched his hat to us and gave us permission to enter.

"You needn't worry, sir," he replied to a question, "walk anywhere you like on the drive; there wasn't a mark on the snow when we got here this morning. The sergeant's up at the Hall."

A frightened maid let us in and, while A.B.C. went off to try to comfort Lady Holmbury, I discussed the dreadful affair with her daughters, both old friends of ours. The elder, Peggy, a pretty girl of nineteen, told me the main outline of the tragedy.

"It's dreadful, Mr. Johnstone. The sergeant's going rouna. <ts if any of us might be the murderer."

"Suppose you tell me, Peggy, exactly what you know about it .all," I suggested.

"Well," she said, "we were four— five— seven— nine at dinner last night. There was poor father, and mother, and Eileen and myself— that makes how many? Four. Then there was Rodney Pole— that's him in the corner talking to Eileen: they're sweeties, you know. That's five. And then Mr. and Mrs. Poppenthall dined with us, making seven."

"Who are they?" I asked, for the name was unfamiliar.

"Old Pop— that's what we call him, Eileen and I— he's a retired something, a stockbroker or something like that. He's got pots of money. His wife's a funny old thing, but quite decent in her way."

"And who else dined here?" I said.

"Let's see. There was Father Johnson, the Roman Catholic priest from Coppsmere. He's a friend of Old Pop."

"Have they known each other long?" I asked.

"I really don't know," Peggy replied. "I've got an idea they knew each other, or of each other, in some other part of the country before they came down this way. Still, it doesn't matter, does it? They left about ten, and father was alive and well long after that."

"When did it begin to snow?" I asked her.

"That's just what the sergeant's been on about. It started to snow about half-past ten and went on till midnight. I know that because I was reading in bed and saw the first flakes on the window. At midnight I looked out, and the ground was covered, quite a couple of inches deep I should think, and it was still snowing. But it had stopped a few minutes later, because I saw that when I opened my window for the night."

"I wonder if it snowed again afterwards," I said.

"The sergeant says it didn't. He's made inquiries from policemen and roadmen on night duty."

"You've only told me about eight people dining here last night," I said. "Who was the ninth?"

Peggy flushed. "Oh, Jack was here. Jack Stone, you know."

I looked at her intently. "Was that the young fellow I saw you with at the post office yesterday morning?"

"Yes, but please don't drag him into it. Please, Mr. Johnstone!"

She seemed, I thought, rather emphatic.

"In any case he can't have been mixed up in it if he went away before the snow with the others," I said.

"But he did— I mean he didn't," Peggy burst out. "That's just it. He didn't! He stayed on, after the others. He didn't go till nearly midnight."

"How do you know that, Peggy, if you were reading?"

She looked up nervously. "I told you a lie, at least a half-lie. I wasn't reading— at least, not till after he'd gone. We were sitting in the dining-room together, in the dark. He'd had a row with father, and so had I, and he pretended to go away when the Pops went, but he came back again to see me. But Jack didn't do it, Mr. Johnstone; he can't have done it."

"H'm. Well, you won't do him any good by trying to hide the facts, Peggy," I warned her. "By the way, did you tell the sergeant that Mr. Jack Stone came back after he pretended to leave?"

She shook her head, and I thought it better to change the subject. "What about the servants?" I asked.

"It's no use suspecting them," Peggy answered. "They've been with us for years and— oh, dear, I suppose the police will say that Mr. and Mrs. Barber had a motive for killing father. They're our married couple; she cooks, and he does the garden and helps in the kitchen when we've company, like last night. He started by waiting at table, but we stopped him, because mother said he gloated so over the vegetables he'd grown that he seemed to hate us for eating them."

"That's hardly a sufficient motive," I smiled.

"Of course not, but he got drunk last week and was rude to father and he gave them a month's notice. I'm sure they knew they wouldn't have to go; Barber would have apologised and father would have forgiven him. They've been with us for four years, you know."

I kept an open mind on this as on the other information she had given me. "Who did wait at table then?" I asked.

"Ellen, the parlour-maid. She's the girl who brought you mother's note this morning. Good gracious, I suppose you'll say she had a motive, too. Well, if not you, the police may. She'd arranged to go to the fair last night; she's sweeties  with one of the men in it; and, at the last moment, mother remembered that she'd said Ellen could go out, but, of course, she couldn't because we had people to dinner. Ellen was absolutely furious!"

"And nobody else came to the house last night that you know of?"

"Nobody. And, anyhow, you see, father must have been killed after midnight, because mother saw him then; if anybody had left the house after that, the sergeant says, we should see the tracks in the snow. But there were no tracks at all this morning when father was found and mother rang up the police. The sergeant drove here at once with the doctor, and their car was the first to come up or down the drive. And the sergeant looked to see if there were any footprints in the snow, but there weren't— except Jack's, and they were pretty well covered, showing that he must have gone before it stopped snowing."

I felt extremely uncomfortable. "So his were the only tracks leading away from the house. In fact, the only tracks in the snow. And you say he was here with you till after midnight, Peggy."

"I said nothing of the kind," she retorted, jumping to her feet angrily. "He left before midnight, before mother saw father for the last time. I wish I'd never told you he came back at all."

Then the door opened and A. B. C., looking very grim, and the sergeant entered. Peggy made an excuse to leave us, saying that she would go to her mother; and her sister and her sister's young man, Rodney Pole, slipped out after her.

"Reconstructing the crime, Johnstone?" A.B.C. asked me. "Whom do you suspect?"

"So far as motive is concerned," I said, "I should think that suspicion could point to every single person here."

"Really? Tell me all about them."

I began to tick off the list I had scribbled down on a piece of paper.

"Let us begin with Lady Holmbury. Of course, I don't imply that she actually murdered her husband, but it must be admitted that she had the opportunity. She was the last person to see him alive. She admits that he looked into her bedroom at midnight. By the way, where was he going?"

The sergeant answered my question. "To his own bedroom, sir."

"So they occupied different rooms?" I said.

"Now, A.B.C., I wonder if we can find out who benefits under Lord Holmbury's will."

Hawkes nodded. "I've just seen a copy of it," he said. "Lady Holmbury showed it to me. Unless he's made a later one and left it with his solicitor in London, which she doesn't think likely, Johnstone, she gets half the property and the daughters share the rest."

"There's your motive," I said. "If Lady Holmbury is guilty, which I put forward only as a hypothesis, her interest in the will provides a motive."

"But that would apply to the young ladies, too, sir," the sergeant objected.

"They are next on my list, officer," I said. "Not only has each of them, a direct interest in the property, once their father is dead, but each of them, as I have ascertained, has an additional motive. In the case of the younger daughter, Eileen, I venture to suppose that she wishes to marry that young man who was here when you came in, a certain Mr. Rodney Pole. I wonder if I am right in assuming that Lord Holmbury may have felt that she was too young to marry yet."

"You are right, clairvoyant my colleague," A.B.C. broke in. "Lady Holmbury has just told us— hasn't she, sergeant?— that Miss Eileen had an angry conversation with her father on this very subject only yesterday."

"That's right, sir," said the sergeant.

"Well, then," I went on, "that gives us a motive both for Eileen and for Rodney Pole, both of whom spent the night under this roof. But what of Peggy?"

"Yes, indeed," said A.B.C.

"She, too, has her share in the will as a motive," I explained, "and what's more, she's just told me something which I feel it my duty to tell the sergeant here. It seems that her young man, a certain John or Jack Stone, was here last night for dinner and, after pretending to leave the house with the other guests, the priest and the Poppen— whatever their name is— he returned here clandestinely and spent some time with Peggy in the dining-room, leaving only only about midnight."

The sergeant looked up keenly. "So that's who made them, footprints through the snow, them as were half-covered. I wondered who it was."

"So you see, sergeant," I said, "this Jack Stone— whose affection for Miss Pepgy was by no means reciprocated by her father— was obviously the only person who left this house after the snow began to fall."

"You may not be aware, gentle coz, that all the doors and windows were locked or bolted this morning," A.B.C. objected.

"Both bolted and locked, sir," said the sergeant. "You see, Mr. Stone went out by the library window; that's where his tracks begin."

A.B.C. turned to me again. "Continue the list of suspects, friend mine. Whom else do you accuse?"

"We are now left with the servants," I said. "First, there is Mrs. Barber, the cook."

"Has she a motive?" A.B.C. inquired.

"Certainly," I said, "and she shares it with her husband, the gardener and odd man. They were under notice to leave."

"Anybody else?" asked Hawkes.

"Yes," I said, "there remains the only other person who spent the night under this roof, Ellen, the parlour-maid. She had been disappointed in her night out— I mean, she wanted to meet her sweetheart, who is connected with a fair in the neighborhood; and at the last moment Lady Holmbury had forbidden her to go."

"Yet it wasn't Lady Holmbury who was murdered," said A.B.C. "But tell me about the fair. Is it a permanent centre of amusement in these parts? I should have expected to know of it if it were."

The sergeant broke in again. "It isn't that exactly, sir. It's a Wild West show that's touring the country. A Rod-ee-o, they call it. They've been here— leastways, just outside Coppsmere, about a mile off— this last fortnight. Rough lot some of 'em, sir; haven't you seen 'em walking about in their cowboy kit— fur trousers and great big hats and bowie-knives and lassos? This Ellen girl seems to have picked up with one of them."

He invited A.B.C. to go round the house with him, in search of clues to the possible entrance and exit of the culprit. I was not at all surprised when, coming back a few minutes later, the sergeant confessed that there was no sign of a forcible entry and that every window and door was fast, except those which had been opened by one or other of the occupants of the Hall after the discovery of the crime.

A.B.C. looked at us with his head on one side, like a robin. "How many sides has a cube, Johnstone?"

"Why, four— I mean, six," I replied.

"Exactly," said A.B.C., "but so fat we have examined only four sides of this architectural cube, haven't we? What about the other two?"

"You mean the cellars and the roof?" I said. "Of course, there may be an underground passage out into the woods, by which the murderer escaped."

The sergeant said that this was unlikely, since the Hall had no cellars. And, anyhow, he was sure that the suggestion was wrong because the whole of the ground floor was covered with linoleum or parquet, and there were no signs of this having been disturbed. So we went off together to inspect the roof, as the only, remaining side of the house.

It appeared that a loft-ladder (one of those patent contraptions that combine the functions of a trap-door and an expanding stair) did in fact lead to a loft, and so to a flat roof, from the passage just outside the room where Lord Holmbury had been murdered. The sergeant pulled it down and A. B. c. led the way to the roof.

"Look, look," he shouted. "Somebody's been up here. The snow is trampled right from the door to the edge of the roof. But, whoever it is, he has been careful to try to obliterate his tracks."

And, indeed, it was clear that somebody had walked across the flat roof and, turning in his or her tracks, had swept snow over them in such a way as to prevent their being recognised.

"It's a woman by the look of it," observed the sergeant, kneeling down beside the parapet. "Look, gentlemen, here's the mark of a high heel, isn't it?" The print was not very clear, but I was inclined to agree with him.

"Anyhow, gents, this don't get us much further," the sergeant went on. "You can see for yourselves that there's nobody hiding up here; and there's no way down to the ground."

"None the less, observant my sergeant, this must be the track of whoever killed Lord Holmbury— unless, of course, some member of the household took a moonlight stroll on the roof. Hadn't you better inquire?"

The sergeant hurried down the ladder inside the house, and I looked round for further traces of the murderess. There did not seem any way at all by which she could have left the roof.

"They say that nobody's been on the roof, sir. So these marks must be the murderess's," the sergeant said on his return.

A.B.C., meanwhile,, was gazing with some interest at the huge beech-tree.

"Do you notice anything odd about that tree, sergeant mine?" he asked.

"Well, sir, it's a lot too far from here for anybody to think of jumping to it. Twenty-five or thirty feet away I'd say it is."

"And how much higher than the house?"

"That's hard to say; sir. That big broken branch there— the one that's got no snow on it— that's just about the same height as we are. up here. But them little twigs, they go much higher, don't they?"

A.B.C. ran a hand through his red hair. "I wonder why there's no snow on that broken branch," he murmured.

"Oblige me, sergeant." he said, "by going back to the wall of the house and standing as nearly as possible under the spot on the roof where the trail led."

The sergeant went off and stood where A.B.C. instructed him. "And now pace the distance from where you are to the base of this tree, or, rather, to a spot immediately underneath the projecting snowless branch."

The sergeant stepped it out; the distance was exactly thirty feet. "Johnstone, my own," said A.B.C., "how high do you suppose the Hall is?"

I ran my eye up the Whll to the parapet of the roof and suggested thirty-six to forty feet. The others agreed with my calculation.

A. B. C. turned again to the sergeant. ''In that case, my friend, kindly continue to walk in a straight line from where you just left off."

The sergeant paced on and was stopped after half a dozen stens by a clump of rhododendron bushes. "Hallo!" he cried. "Somebody's been in these bushes."

We ran to him and, sure enough, the centre of the rhododendrons was all beaten down as if something heavy had lain or fallen there. A.B.C. cast round and soon reported a trail of steps through the snow. They, too, showed the indentations of high heels.

"It's a woman right enough," I pointed out.

A.B.C. looked at the footsteps whimsically. "A large woman," he said, placing his own foot beside one of the tracks. "At least six feet tall, I should think. Do you know many women of those dimensions round here, sergeant?"

"Even if I did, sir," said the sergeant. "I still don't see how she could jump all this way from the roof. Why, it must be the best part of fifty feet."

A.B.C. snapped his fingers as if something had become clear to him.

"Sergeant, I want to speak to Ellen, the parlor-maid. You'd better be with me when I do." The sergeant went off to the servants' quarters and very soon brought Ellen to us in the drawing room.  She was weeping.

"Don't cry, good my girl," Hawkes soothed her. "I'm quite sure that you have not meant to do any harm. But you may have been misled by others. What is the name of the man in the rodeo who has been courting you?"

She looked at us with frightened eyes. "He's called Kentucky Bill, sir."

"Was he in this house last night?" A.B.C. persisted.

"Well, yes, sir, he was. But we didn't do no harm."

"Of course not, Ellen mine. Tell me exactly what happened."

"He came up about a quarter to eleven, sir, straight from the fair,. all dressed up still. He said he had to say good-night to me. We just held hands in the scullery a minute or two, sir, and he kissed me, and then I went to bed."

"I see," said A.B.C. "Now, how often has Mr. Kentucky Bill been in this house during this last fortnight? Please don't cry, good my girl; nobody is suggesting that you have done anything wrong."

The girl admitted that Kentucky Bill had been to see her at least once a day ever since she had met him at the fair ten days before. In answer to other questions by A.B.C., she confessed that she had once shown him all over the house when there was nobody else at home.

"He said he wanted to know how the gentry lived in England. You see, sir, he's an American and new to this country."

"I wonder," said A.B.C., "I shouldn't be surprised if he turns out to be an old offender, a native of Kennington rather than of Kentucky. But that will be for you to discover, sergeant. Now then, Ellen, another question, and I've finished tormenting you. What precisely does Mr. Kentucky Bill do in the rodeo?"

She stopped snivelling and answered with enthusiasm.

"Oh, sir; he's wonderful. He rides round and round the ring, bare-back and all; and he stands up on the horse when it's galloping; and he lassos things, and―"

"Spare us the rest of the catalogue, good my Ellen. That is all I want to know."

The sergeant turned to him eagerly as the girl went out. "You think it's him that done it, Mr. Hawkes? How d'you work it out?"

A.B.C. shrugged his shoulders. "Let me try to reconstruct the crime, sergeant. I may be right or I may be wrong.

"Let us suppose that Mr. Kentucky Bill is a gentleman who makes a sparetime hobby of burglary. I will assume that he picks out a likely house whenever his company settle down for a time in any district, and worms his way into the confidence of some unlucky Ellen employed in that house. Then, having discovered where the owner's valuables are kept, he breaks into the house at night and steals them.

"We shall never know exactly what happened next, but I take it that Lord Holmbury surprised him at his burglarious work and that Mr. Kentucky Bill murdered the unfortunate gentleman. I take it also that, not being in the habit of committing murders, Mr. Kentucky Bill realised that he was now in considerable danger and must exercise all his wits if he was to escape detection.

"The moon, the roof, the snow and the projecting branch of the beechtree gave him his opportunity. Ellen has told us that he is a handy man with his lasso; doubtless he had often found the rope useful in the exercise of his burglarious hobby. Taking it then, from its hook on his belt— Ellen has told us that he came here 'all dressed up'— he had only to lasso that broken branch and swing himself off. It is not a thing I, myself, should care to do," A.B.C. looked regretfully at his plump figure, "but I imagine that it held no special dread for a man of Kentucky Bill's athletic powers.

"He may have had a slight difficulty in getting his lasso clear from the tree when he was safely on the ground, and this, together with the shaking he gave the branch when he swung, explains why the snow fell off it— a fact to which, vigilant my sergeant, you most sagaciously drew my attention. And there you are!"

The sergeant was enormously impressed. "There's only one thing I don't get, sir," he said after a while. "Why did he want to wear women's boots? But I suppose it was to put us off the scent."

"You shock me, sergeant," said A.B.C. "Haven't you ever read Wild West stories? A cowboy always has high heels to his boots, chiefly, I believe, in order to dig them into the ground when he is at one end of a lasso and a steer is at the other. I happened to recall this detail from my literary cowboy-hood."

_______________________

10: The Cracksman's Catspaw.

J. S. Fletcher

1863-1935

Bundarra and Tingha Advocate, 24 October 1903

What is there about the little brown book?

IN the basement of the police court buildings at Woolford there is a room containing a collection of curious objects, none of which perhaps would appeal to the tastes of an antiquary or a collector of bric-a-brac, but of which every separate specimen has some more of less remarkable history attached to it.

I know the history of most of the remarkable objects collected together in our police museum, which to my mind is one of the most interesting show places to be found in the town.

The fine set of burglar's tools arranged on the table under the window belonged to a noted swell-mobsman who was caught red-handed by myself and another officer. The revolver, hanging against the clock over the fireplace, and looking harmless enough in its present position, is the very weapon with which a famous criminal shot and killed an unfortunate constable who was endeavouring to apprehend him. The knife which hangs near it— But this is not a catalogue of our collection, and I must proceed with my story.

I have said that each of the various objects preserved in our museum has some history attached to it. Some of these histories are commonplace and ordinary; but others are more interesting than many startling piece of fiction. They serve to show the wonderful resource and ingenuity of the habitual criminal, and none more so than that which attaches to the little brown book which stands on the chimney-piece between two pairs of dilapidated handcuffs.

No one who notices it in a casual way would see anything remarkable about it. It is, to all outward appearance, an ordinary copy of The Pilgrim's Progress,  small enough in size to be carried about in the pocket, and apparently possessing no value in any way. Nevertheless, the possession of that pocket edition of Bunyan's immortal work was once worth a large amount of money; and the lucky chance, which threw it into my hands not only brought me a handsome pecuniary reward but secured me my promotion to the rank of inspector.

Ten years ago the town of Woolford was thrown into commotion one fine morning by news of a skilfully planned burglary. It was the early part of November, and the newly elected Mayor of Woolford had celebrated his accession to civic power by giving a grand ball at his private residence, just outside the town. He was an exceedingly wealthy man, and his wife was the fortunate possessor of a very fine set of diamonds. It was popularly understood that these were worth at least ten thousand pounds, and popular opinion in this respect was not far wrong.

On the morning after the ball, however, the Mayoress discovered that her diamonds were missing. Instead of locking them up when she retired to rest, she had carelessly left them lying on her dressing table. When she woke the diamonds had disappeared.

Then followed a fine to-do. Three or four of us, supposed to be the cleverest and sharpest officers in the force, were put in charge of the matter, and told to do our best. Our best, however, resulted in ignominious defeat. We followed the old methods— suspected the servants, examined their rooms and boxes, watched their movements, and finally confessed that they must all be completely exonerated. We invented plausible theories, and could put none of them into practice. In the end we concluded that the diamonds had been stolen by an experienced burglar, who must have been very well acquainted with the house, and who had succeeded in doing his work in the most accomplished fashion. After that there was no more to be done.

The Mayor offered a very handsome reward for the recovery of the missing jewels, and many a man's mouth watered as he read the amount promised. But as there was not even a clew to the thief, the prospect of claiming the reward seemed very far away to every policeman.

As soon as I heard of the burglary I made a guess— mentally of course— at the burglar's mime. It was Jimmy Timble. I felt confident of it. I knew of no local criminal accomplished enough to carry out so daring a theft except Jimmy. And Jimmy had just come home from Portland, where he had spent nearly six years In penal servitude. That was not his first period of incarceration, nor his second.

Jimmy had been a thief from boyhood, and those who knew him felt persuaded that nothing would make him give up his career of crime. It was this belief, coupled with my knowledge of Jimmy's return to Woolford, that made me suspect him of taking the diamonds. When Jimmy was not in prison he worked as a bricklayer's 'paddy,' and made his home at one of the big common lodging-houses in a low part of the town.

Two or three days after the diamond robbery I went one evening towards this house, intending to have an interview with Jimmy, and hear what he had to say for himself. By good fortune I met him just outside the door, and stopped him.

He regarded me calmly and with perfect equanimity. He was at all times a curious little man, dwarfish in stature, very slightly deformed, and always full of a certain quaint assurance, mixed with a sly demeanour which was amusing to everybody. My Interview with, Jimmy threw no light whatever, on the mystery, as he pleaded ignorance of the whole affair.

If Jimmy had got the diamonds, he had done his work so thoroughly that a clew of any description was not yet discoverable. And it was just that want of a clew that persuaded me of Jimmy's guilt. I knew of no other man who could: have done the work so thoroughly.

During the rest two or three days I thought matters over from all points of view, but I could find nothing to warrant me in taking steps against Jimmy . Timble. I wondered if he had been associated with others in the burglary. More than once he had worked in company with his brother Jerry Timble, but it was impossible for him to have had any help from Jerry on this occasion, for the simple reason that the unfortunate Jerry was spending twelve months in the county gaol for stealing. And it appeared to me, upon considering the case still more deeply, that, it being an affair of great magnitude, Jimmy Timble would prefer to work it single-handed. The secret, therefore, rested with him, and there was nothing but patience to be exercised.

As no trace of the diamonds could be found, we thought it well to keep a  watch on two or three suspicious characters in the town, with a view to discovering the whereabouts of the valuables. It seemed to us that the thief or thieves must have planted the jewels in some safe spot, and waited until the agitation had blown over before removing them.

Thus it came about that Jimmy Timble's movements were watched very jealously. His goings out and his comings in were noted, and the eye of the law was constantly upon him. Whether Jimmy was aware of this or not I do not know; but it he was he suddenly did a foolish thing— he allowed himself to be caught, one dusky February evening, in the very act of burglariously entering a dwelling-house; and within an hour he was safely ensconced in the cells of the police court.

There I found him next morning when I went my round. He looked at me with a half-rueful, half-comical expression of countenance.

'Back again, Jimmy,' said I. 'I thought you had turned over a new leaf.'

'So did I, Mr. Burton,' he answered. 'But you fellows don't give us poor chaps a chance; you don't indeed. Just because I wanted to look through the window of a house last night they run me in here. Too bad now, ain't it, Mr. Burton?'

'It'll be another five years' penal, will this, Jimmy,' said I, ' What a foolish man you are! Why don't you reform, and live honestly?'

He smiled knowingly at me.

'Why do birds fly?' said he. ' 'Cos they're used to it. It's nature— that's what it is, Mr. Burton.'

So Jimmy languished in the town gaol for a few weeks, having been committed for trial. Then the assizes came on at Woolford, and he was brought up to stand his very doubtful chance. His trial was little more than a formality, for Jimmy had been caught in the very act of inserting his pocket crowbar in the window-ledge of the house. He was found guilty, and sentenced to five years' penal servitude, and a certain term of police supervision. I went to have a word or two with Jimmy in the cells, as he waited there for removal to his next abiding place. His sentence did not seem to have disturbed his equanimity, and he smiled very placidly as I greeted him.

'Well, you've done it again, Jimmy,' said I. 'We shan't see any more of you for a while.'

'You're right there, Mr. Burton,' he answered. 'And I shan't see any more of you, eh? I don't care— I can do five years on my head. But I'm sorry I shan't be able to see Jerry. He comes out next week.'

'I believe he does.'

'We were always very fond of each other, me and Jerry,' said Jimmy Timble. 'Very fond, we was. We've worked things together many a time.'

'You have, and given us a good deal of trouble with your efforts.'

'I dare say,' answered Jimmy, imperturbable as ever— 'I dare say. But I say, Mr. Burton, you might do me a favour. I've always looked on you us a friend ; and when a chap's got put away for five years he nat'rally looks to his friends, don't be?'

'I suppose he does. Jimmy. Well, what is it you want ?'

'Why, there's two or three things at the lodging-house that I would like given to Jerry when he comes out. There's a knife, and a watch chain, and two or three other little articles— all come by honest. Mr. Burton. Oh, and there's a book, The Pilgrim's Progress— a very interesting book is that. Will you tell the lodging-house folks to deliver them up to Jerry, Mr. Burton?'

'Very well. Jimmy. Perhaps I'd better take charge of them myself, and give them to Jerry next time I see him. I shall be sure to come across him as soon as he comes out.'

'I'll take it real kind if you would,' said Jimmy,'and you might tell him to keep that Pilgrim's Progress 'cos I'll finish reading it when I have done this five years.'

With that we parted, and Jimmy was presently whirled away in the 'Black Maria' to the town gaol. We were rid of his presence for four years at any rate. He was soon removed to Portland, and there, no doubt, made himself perfectly comfortable.

I forgot all about Jimmy's parting request until a week or two later. Then, finding myself one day in the neighbourhood of the lodging-house which had served as Jimmy's home, I went inside, and asked the deputy to hand over the convict's possessions. He did so with an air of scorn, remarking that Jimmy's belongings were not worth twopence to anybody. I thought he was right when I subsequently turned over the contents of the bundle. There was nothing there of any consequence, and I wondered very much that Jimmy Timble should have been so particular about having his little properties handed over to his brother Jerry. The Pilgrim's Progress was the most incongruous object turned out of the blue handkerchief which held Jimmy Timble's belongings. I shook my head perplexedly as I stared at it.

What was Jimmy Timble, thief, burglar, thrice-convicted criminal, doing with the Pilgrim's Progress?  And how was it that that particular work was the only book he possessed? And how did he come to possess it at all ?

I turned the leaves over carelessly, and could see nothing unfamiliar about the book. I finally concluded that Jimmy Timble had picked it up somewhere, and kept it out of curiosity, and with that I tied it up again with the rest of his possessions.

The days passed by, but I saw nothing of Jerry Timble. He had left the county gaol, but be did not present himself at his usual haunts in Woolford. I preserved the bundle for him; and waited, knowing quite well that, if he was in town, we should see him at the police office sooner or later.

It was impossible for either Jimmy or Jerry Timble to keep his bands from picking and stealing. But time passed on, and Jerry did not appear. I began to think that he had removed himself to some other town.

About nine months after Jimmy Timble had gone back to penal, servitude I chanced one day to go into a second-hand bookshop, the proprietor of which was an old acquaintance of mine. Somehow our conversation drifted to the criminal classes, and ere long the shopkeeper mentioned the name of Jimmy Timble.

'He was a queer customer, was Jimmy,' said he. 'He came in here one day, last time he was out of prison and looked around, him as if he wanted something.

' "Now, sir," says I. "what can I find for you?"

' "Give me an old book to read, mister," answered Jimmy.

' "We don't give books here," says I; "we sell 'em." He said nothing to that ; and after a while he pulled out twopence. "What can I have for that?" he asked. "Here you are," says I, "a Pilgrim's Progress,  pictures and all, for twopence." So he walked off with his book.'

That explained Jimmy's possession of the Pilgrim's Progress then lying at my house. I went home and had my supper, and then sat down to have a thorough examination of the book. I was confident that there was something about that book which it, would repay anybody to discover, and I was determined to solve the mystery. But though I went carefully through it page by page, once, twice, and three times, I saw nothing. There was no writing, no hieroglyphic signs, nothing to attract attention.

But at the fourth time of examination I made a discovery. Underneath the first 'the' on the first page there was the plain mark of a pin prick, Just as if the pin had been carelessly jabbed into the paper, and quickly withdrawn. The mark was very faint, but it was there. I assured myself that the pin prick had not penetrated to the second page, and then I came to the conclusion that Jimmy Timble's Pilgrim's Progress concealed some private message from himself to his brother Jerry!

I began what proved a long and weary task. The next pin prick I found was under the letter 'j' on page 8 ; the next under 'e' on page 11 ; the next under 'w' on page 12. Then came pricks under the letters 'e,' 'l,' 's;' all on different pages, and thus; I had spelt out two words, 'the jewels.' I took courage at that, and went on. There was no doubt much to follow.

All that evening I worked away at my task. It was anything but easy. Sometimes the pin pricks were faint and hardly decipherable; sometimes there were several on one page; sometimes the spelling puzzled me; sometimes I seemed to lose the track altogether. But I persevered; and just as midnight struck I had solved the mystery and had written out Jimmy Timble's message to his brother Jerry:—

'The jewels as I got from the mare's wife is berried underneath the lilac tree in old George Atkinson's garden in Lilywood-road. Keep an eye on them, and don't disturb them unless they are goin' to bild on the garden. If they bild dig them up and keep them safe till I come out agen your brother James.'

So there was an explanation of the mystery, or rather of two mysteries. I had been right after all— the burglary at the Mayor's residence was the work of Jimmy Timble. I lost no time the next morning in interviewing Mr. George Atkinson, and in persuading him to let me dig under his lilac tree.

There, sure enough, I found the missing diamonds, carefully wrapped up and put away. Jimmy had hidden them until suspicion had quiet blown over, and he had felt free to resume possession of them. The attempted burglary had spoilt his plans.

I saw Jimmy when he returned from Portland four years later. He smiled knowingly as he met me.

'I reckon you think yourself a clever man, Mr. Inspector, don't yer?' said he. 'But you'd have been made a nice cat's-paw of, if only that fool of a Jerry had turned up in good time, wouldn't yer now?'

I dare say Jimmy was right. But, as events turned out, fortune was wholly on my side in this case.

_________________

11: The Silent Witness

Max Brand

1892-1944

Black Mask, March 1938

How to you like your drinks? With ice?

RIDDLE pressed the Bentley bell and then held the doorknob while he stared through the glass into the downstairs hallway. It had the nakedly expectant look of all entrances to push-button apartment houses. The lock began to click rapidly; it kept on clicking after he had entered the hall and pressed the elevator button.

Everything happened very slowly. He heard the elevator door slam shut above him, a deep-voiced humming began in the throat of the shaft and descended gradually toward him. The lighted elevator slid past the diamond-shaped peephole. It halted. The inner door was pushed clanging back by the ghostly fingers of the machine.

He entered, pressed the button of Number 6, and watched the door slowly roll shut, obeying the electric mind. With a soft lurch the elevator started up the shaft.

At the sixth floor the automatic brake stopped the car softly and the inner door rolled gradually back. This mechanized precision, this mindless deliberation, screwed up Riddle's nerves to a breaking tension. He had to set his lips and his lean jaw and make ready to endure what he knew was ahead of him.

Then the outer door of the elevator was snatched open by Gay Bentley. She leaned against the edge of it with her eyes so big and dark that she looked like a white-faced child. Riddle put his arm around her and closed the door while she clung to him, saying: "Dick... Dick... Dick..."

He took her through the open door into the living-room of her apartment. It was exactly in order, disappointing the horrible expectation with which he had entered. The floor lamps cast two amber circles on the ceiling and two white pools on the floor. The huge litter of a Sunday newspaper lay scattered on the davenport and on the table there was a tall highball glass, almost full.

"Where?" asked Riddle.

She pointed toward the bedroom door. "I'll come with you," she said.

He shook his head. "You sit here. No, lie down."

"I'll go mad if I lie down," said Gay. Her lips began to tremble and her eyes rolled, so he picked her up and laid her on the davenport amid the rustling of the newspaper.

"You be quiet. Will you be quiet? Close your eyes!" commanded Riddle.

She closed her eyes and he crossed the floor with the sense of her light, firm body still making his hands feel strong. He needed that strength of spirit when he entered the bedroom and saw Tom Bentley lying on the bed, far over against the wall with his right arm stretched out, pointing an automatic at his friend in the doorway. But Bentley's half-open eyes were drowsily considering something on the white of the ceiling instead of Riddle, and a spot of deep purple appeared on his temple with one thin, watery line of blood running down from it.

Riddle went back into the living-room where Gay Bentley already was off the couch and sitting on the piano stool with her face in her hands. She started up to face Riddle. He wandered to the table and picked up the unfinished highball. When he tasted it, he found the whisky good but the drink was tepid; it had come to the room temperature.

"The police?" whispered the girl. "Do we have to call the police?"

He sipped the tepid highball again before he put down the glass.

"I want a drink, Gay," he said.

"Take this. It's mine but I don't want it."

"This? This is yours?" he asked, looking suddenly at her.

"Ah, but you like a man's drink," she nodded, unobservant. "I'll make you a fresh one."

She passed him on the way to the pantry, and clung close to him again for an instant.

"Oh, Dick," she whispered, "think what animals we are! When I found him, my mind stopped, and all I could do was to come out here and go through the motions of mixing a drink... Think of that! And then I remembered you. Thank God for you! Thank God for you!"

She went on to the pantry.

"How do you want it?" she called.

"Just like yours," said Riddle. He saw his own pale, thin face in the glass above the fireplace and stared at the gloomy image entranced.

"Just like mine?" she repeated, surprised. "But two lumps of ice, you always take."

"No. Just like yours. One lump. That will do," said Riddle.

She brought the drink back to him, and he sank down into a chair at the table. He put his chin on his fist and stared at nothingness. The girl stood behind him with her hands on his shoulders.

"Poor Tom!" she said. "I know you loved him, Dick, but try not to take it too hard. He was unhappy, you know."

"I knew," said Riddle, "and I kept away from him for a month... Was it money, Gay?"

"No," she answered.

"It had to be debts that drove him to it. There was nothing else," insisted Riddle.

"There was something else," she replied.

"What under heaven?" asked Riddle, jerking up his head so that his face almost touched hers.

"Jealousy, Dick," said the girl.

"Jealousy?" cried Riddle. "Jealousy of you, Gay?"

She made a pause, with her face still close to his, before she answered carefully and gently, as though to a child:

"You know we haven't been so very happy together, lately."

"After a few years, the bubble and zip goes out of most marriages," said Riddle.

"Ah, it was more than that," she answered.

"You mean there was a definite reason for his jealousy?" demanded Riddle. "You mean that there was another man?"

She was silent again before she answered just above a whisper: "Ah, Dick, you blind, blind fellow!"

Riddle reached up and caught one of her hands from his shoulder. "What the devil do you mean, Gay?" he asked.

"He knew I loved someone else," said the girl.

"Who?" asked Riddle.

She pulled to get free. "I don't want to talk about it. I can't talk about it," she said. "Not to you."

Riddle let her hand go.

"You mean that I'm the man?" he said.

She gave him no answer but walked across the room to the window and stood there looking out. A breeze came in from moment to moment and set her bright hair shimmering over the smooth and soft of her neck. She stood there an eternity of minutes. The silence between them—between her beauty and his friendship with the dead man—that silence sang on for minutes.

He tasted her drink on the table then, quickly, took a small swallow from his own glass. After that he glanced at his watch. The silence drew out in length like a dark thread...

"You know that Tom was my best friend?" he asked.

"I know everything," said the girl. "It was because he cared about you so much that I first began to care— too..."

Her voice broke a little. Riddle went to her and took her by the shoulders. He seated her firmly in a chair.

"That's all to be talked about afterward," he told her. Then, walking up and down the room, he said: "Tell me what you know about it."

She lay back in the chair with her head partly turned away from him and her eyes almost closed, and sometimes a smile that was characteristic of her when she talked appeared on her lips. Now, at thirty, wrinkles pinched her eyes a little at the corners but her smile was still very lovely. She talked slowly.

"I went out just before five. I couldn't remember but I thought I had a tea engagement with Martha Gilbert and I couldn't get her on the phone. I didn't find Martha. I ran into Jud Mowbray a little later, and he insisted on cocktails. I didn't want one, but I sort of had to... After a while I left him and got back here at around a quarter to six. And I found Tom—like that; and then I telephoned to you."

Riddle nodded.

"You saw Tom and he was dead—of his own hand. Then you poured yourself this drink and then you telephoned to me."

"What does the drink matter?" she asked, with a sudden curiosity.

"The police always want to know everything," said Riddle. "They eat up every detail. And I'll have to ring them in a moment. You poured yourself this drink about forty-five minutes ago, let's say?"

"Yes. Almost exactly."

He sipped her drink, carefully, and then tried his own. He said nothing—endlessly.

"Then by the time I arrived," he finally said, "your drink hadn't been standing more than twenty minutes, had it?"

"No. Of course not... Dick, what's the matter with you?"

"Nothing," said Riddle, standing up and seeing the white of his face in the glass again. Then he glanced at his wrist. A half hour had come—and gone.

He went to the telephone but paused there for a long moment until she asked: "What's in your mind, Dick?"

"I was thinking of the first days out of college when Tom and I were fighting our way up."

"You fought your way up," said Gay Bentley, "and Tom kept sliding back in spite of all his scratching. He was a derelict before the end and the only thing that drew him along was the towline you threw to him, Dick, darling..."

He picked up the receiver and began to dial.

"I want the police," he said.

"Not so soon, Dick!" cried the girl. "I don't want their dreadful, blunt faces near me. I couldn't stand them!"

"This is One Forty-two East Hargreave Street," said Riddle. "On the sixth floor, apartment D, Thomas Bentley is dead. It is murder..." He hung up.

"Murder? Murder?" cried the girl. "Dick, what are you talking about?"

"About a man I loved, and a woman I used to love, too," said Riddle, "and an alibi rotten all the way through."

He sipped from the glasses on the table, one after the other.

"This drink of mine has been standing here for half an hour, but it's still cold," he said. "It still will be cold when the homicide squad arrives and hears me testify that your glass was room temperature when I came in..."

"Dick, what do you mean?" she gasped. "What crazy idea is in your head?"

"My idea," said Riddle, "is that you were out of the house to collect your alibi, but you poured your drink, here, before you left, and all the time you were away the highball was going ahead like an automatic machine gathering warmth and registering murder. You killed Tom."

She went to pieces, flew at him, beggingly.

"Dick, throw the stuff out of the window! Dick, you wouldn't kill me, would you? Not like a rat; you wouldn't kill me, Dick, would you?" she sobbed to him. "I needed a drink— to do it! But, Dick, because I love you— oh, throw it away!"

He covered the glass with his hand. He could not look at her but he knew she was shrinking away from him now— toward the door. And then that she had slipped out into the hallway, running.

Now she would be pressing the button of the elevator frantically; but he knew with what an unhurried steadiness it would respond.

A siren screamed out of the distance and turned loose its howling in Hargreave Street. Riddle opened his eyes as he listened, and in the mirror the white image stared back at him in astonishment and horror.

______________________________

12: The Face in the Dark

L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace

1844-1914; 1854-1943

The London Magazine, July 1903

The implacable Poltimore...

I AM AN unmarried man with sufficient means to support myself in a quiet way. I enjoy a bachelor's life, am fond of dabbling in literature, write occasionally for the Press, possess a fair knowledge of science, and produce the best photographs of any amateur that I know. I have no present intention of marrying, but I am by no means unsociable. I like the company of my fellow-men, and go a good deal into Society. My name is Laurence Hyne, and I am thirty-two years of age.

In these days of intense living no man who is not a confirmed hermit can shut himself away from strong situations, from moments of danger, or from hours when the world seems more or less to totter beneath him. I, like others, have had my due share of adventures of one sort and another, and the one I am about to tell was by no means the least curious of those that occurred to me.

On the 18th of a very hot June, I went to the reception of some friends of mine, the Sitwells, who lived in Berkeley Square. This was always a brilliant function, and I knew that I should meet many of my friends there. On this occasion there was one in particular, a young fellow of the name of Granby Manners, whom I particularly wished to shake once more by the hand. I had known him as a boy, and as his mother had been my dearest and most valued friend, I took an interest in him. He was an open-handed, unselfish, clever lad, but was also one of the most nervous boys I had ever come across. His ideas were lofty and aspiring, but his serves hampered him, and to such an extent that, when still quite a lad, not more than seventeen, he was ordered abroad, where he had resided under the care of a tutor ever since. Mrs. Manners had been a sort of elder sister to me— she had done me many good turns in life— had assisted me more than once, not only by her advice, but practically, and on her death-bed had charged me most emphatically to look after Granby, and if at any time I could do him a kindness, not to hesitate, for her sake, to do it.

"He is ten years your junior, don't forget that, Laurence," she said. "He knows little or nothing of English life. "When the estate comes to him he will be surrounded by adventurers— help him if you can."

I promised faithfully, and now the time had come, for Granby's mother and father were both dead— the boy inherited the old Croftwood estates, and had come home to attend to business matters.

On the day of the Sitwells's function I received a letter from Lady Willoughby, Granby's aunt. She wrote from Scotland.

"My nephew is in London," she wrote. "Pray find him out and write to me with regard to his appearance, his prospects, his present ideas of life. He was always a strange boy, and not at all a person to own a big estate like Croftwood Hall. I am unable to travel, as you know, but my dear sister told me on her death-bed that you had promised to be good to him. Pray do what you can and let me know."

Accordingly I went to the Sitwells primed in every way to see after young Manners. Mrs. Manners had had an unhappy life— her burden was a heavy one, so heavy that it had sent her to her grave before her time. The facts were these. Her husband was one of the worst of men— a drunkard, reckless, fast, extravagant. There were rumours of even darker vices— of deeds committed that ought never to have seen the light of day. Some people said that the man was half insane. Well, he was dead, and the boy was not in the least like him.

I arrived at the Sitwells in good time. The house was already full of guests and very soon I ran up against young Manners. He had a bright face, a refined, elegant appearance, and an affectionate manner.

"I am glad to see you," he said to me. "This is quite like old times. Where can we go to have a long chat?"

"You must come to my rooms for that, Granby. But here— this terrace is empty for a few moments. Come and stand under this awning and let me look at you."

We went out through an open window and stood on a beautiful terrace screened by an awning and decked with flowers.

"You do look quite a man, Granby," I said. "Why, you must be two-and-twenty. Your hands must be pretty full of business now, my boy, with that big estate, and you the sole person to look after it."

"The fact Is, Hyne," he answered, "I am so harried and rushed about that I have hardly a minute to call my own. I want to come to see you, and will at any hour you like to appoint."

"Here are two chairs," I said suddenly, for as he spoke I noticed the old nervous catch in his voice, and the quick movement of the head that spoke of a highly-strung system. "Sit down, won't you, Granby. You have a big story to tell me. Let's begin to hear it at once."

"Well," he answered, "there's a great deal to say. My father has left things involved, but, of course, they may come all right; I can't say. Sometimes I fear— sometimes I hope. Anyhow, I shall know soon. What day is this— the 18th. I shall know, I must know, before the 24th."

"What do you mean by that?" I asked in astonishment.

"I will tell you presently. I could not in this crowd." He glanced nervously behind him.

"Come and dine with me to-morrow night," was my answer.

His face lit up with pleasure. He was about to reply in the affirmative when some people came on to the terrace. They were two girls, both handsome and total strangers to me. I saw, however, that Granby knew them. His face flushed with vivid colour, and his eyes grew dark with delight. He greeted both girls, and especially the slighter and smaller of the two, with effusion.

"This is good," he said; "I was just talking to a special friend of mine. May I introduce you?"

A moment later I was shaking the hand and looking into the face of the brightest and most capable girl probably in the whole of England. Her name was Angela Dickinson. She was the daughter of a well-known barrister, who would undoubtedly be appointed to a judgeship before long. She had only lately come out— had met Manners when abroad; they were great chums. Oh, yes, it was good to see him again. They smiled at each other, and young Manners and Miss Angela Dickinson went off together; the other girl, whose name was Muriel, fell to my share to entertain.

"I am so glad we have met Mr. Manners and that he looks so well," she said. "When we saw him at Naples he often appeared very much troubled. I am glad he has met an old friend in you."

"Yes," I replied. "I have known Granby since he was a little boy. His mother was one of my best friends. Granby had a sad childhood; his father— I suppose everyone knows about him."

She nodded and looked grave.

"The man is dead," I continued. "Let his ashes rest in peace. It seems to me, Miss Dickinson, that Manners's only fault is that he is extremely sensitive."

"I know that," she replied. "Angela and he are great friends."

I followed the direction of her eyes. The pair were standing closely together at the further end of the balcony.

"There is not a doubt that they care for each other," said Miss Muriel; "but up to the present no word has been spoken— at least to my father. I wish he would speak— his silence puts Angela in a strained position."

Soon afterwards I took my leave, going home to attend to some special business which was occupying me that night. Just as I was going downstairs young Manners bounded after me.

"May I come to-night instead of to-morrow night?" he said. "It doesn't matter about dinner. I want to talk things over with you."

I told him to come in about nine o'clock, and he nodded his acceptance.

PUNCTUALLY to the hour he arrived, looking handsome and gentlemanly in his evening clothes. I offered him a pipe; he sat down and we both smoked in silence for a minute or two.

"Well," I said, suddenly— for I saw that it must be my business to lead the way― "I felt rather anxious about you when we sat together in the balcony; but Miss Dickinson has relieved all my fears. You are all right. Manners— I congratulate you most heartily on your future."

He wrung my hand but did not speak.

"I suppose the engagement will soon be announced?" I said, after a pause.

"Oh, we are not engaged, at least, not exactly. I'd give the world if it could be, but I don't see my way— there are difficulties, and monstrous ones. It is about those I want to talk to you."

"Well, speak up, old chap. I am interested in you from every point of view. Tell me everything and we will take counsel together."

He drew his chair close to mine.

"When were you last at Croftwood?" was his remark.

"Not for some years now— not since your mother's death. I grant that the old place is gloomy, but nevertheless I love it. In your hands it will assume a very different appearance. You can rebuild and redecorate. You can cut down sufficient timber to give the place more air, and not such a crowded-up  appearance. Croftwood Hall will be, I am sure, a lovely place in your reign, Manners, and Miss Angela is the very girl to make you happy there."

"I love the place," he answered— "it has been in our family for hundreds of years. Nevertheless I dread it very much. I had a terrible fright there and have never been the same since. Did you hear of it?"

"No," I answered, puzzled at his tone.

"It happened a long time ago now, and it was on account of that I was sent abroad. My mother and father were away at the time— my mother was ordered to the sea for her health. You know, of course, that the old place is supposed to be haunted?"

"Most old places are," I answered in some heat. "But really, Manners, at this time of day to talk of haunted houses means nonsense. No old family seat is complete without its ghost. But what of that— no one really believes in the unearthly visitant."

"Some people do," he said with a shudder. "Well, let me tell you. My father and mother were both away— my mother wanted me to go to her, but my father refused. You know what a brute he was."

"Hush," I said, "he is dead."

"Dead or alive, I must speak the truth— he was a brute. I dreaded and hated him, but I worshipped my mother. I was terribly put out at being left behind. I was a big lad— fifteen at the time, but I cried myself ill. The house was horribly lonely, and there were only two servants— old Tarring, the butler, who is still there, and the cook. Half the rooms were shut up. The days were terrible and the long evenings were enough to turn one's brain. I had not even a book to read, for my father had locked up the library. I had not a friend to speak to, there was not a young person anywhere within miles. My nervousness, always a big thing, got worse. I lost my sleep— I used to wander about the old house half the night. On one special night I was so bad that I could not eat any dinner, and afterwards I had a fit of shivering and fancied I saw things whenever I looked up. I rang for Tarring at last and begged of him, for God's sake, to keep me company. You know him, of course, a bent old party with a nose like a beak. He came up and looked into my face and said solemnly:

" 'Master Granby, if this goes on you will be mad soon.'

" 'What do you mean?' I asked, looking at him with terror.

" 'You have madness in your eyes, sir, and you inherit it— don't you forget that. There's that gentleman, your great-great-uncle, whose portrait is in the picture gallery. He died in Bedlam. You'd best go and look at his picture and be warned. A young gentleman like you ought to be happy. He should come to his meals with appetite and sleep sound o' nights. Take my advice, sir, think no more about nerves or fancies, or they will be your undoing.'

"He went away, having positively refused to stay with me another moment, declaring that my face gave him the blues and that he preferred cook's company in the kitchen. I thought I would go to bed and drown my terrors in sleep. I covered myself well up with the bedclothes, but I could not rest. You remember the picture gallery at Croftwood, don't you, Hyne?"

"Perfectly well," I replied.

"It is on the ground floor, and occupies almost the whole west wing of the house. It communicates with the chapel at one end and with the dining-hall on the other. I lay with my eyes wide open, my heart beating like a hammer, and my thoughts full of my mad great-uncle. Suddenly I remembered that his name was also Granby Manners. I took an unhealthy desire to look at his face. It could not be combated. I got up, and candle in hand went down through the old house. At last I found myself in the picture gallery. You know those deep embrasures near the mullioned windows?"

I nodded.

"The picture was at the end close to the old chapel. Just as I got up to it, I saw someone standing behind me— someone in black— with a hood on. The whole thing was over in a minute, for I fainted away. But I remember now as distinctly as though it were only just happening, that the figure spoke and with outstretched hands pointed at me and said:

" 'Granby Manners, you will die in this room!'

"My screams must have brought old Tarring. I was taken to my bedroom, the doctor was summoned, and I was in bed in danger of brain fever for many weeks. My mother got better and returned home. When I saw her I told her exactly what had happened. She was full of sympathy and tenderness and love. She took immediate steps and I was sent abroad with a tutor. We went from one sunny land to another, and I began to forget my troubles and grew strong and healthy once again. Then came the terrible news of my mother's death— I should never see my darling more. I was stricken to the earth— I resolved never to return to England. But two years after my father died, and the lawyers wrote and said that I must return home at once. I found the estate terribly involved, in short, the outlook is most gloomy."

"Have you told this strange story to Miss Dickinson?" I asked.

"I have. She knows everything. She knows that we cannot be engaged until things clear up a bit. If they never do, which is more than probable, I must give her up. Yes, I must, however hard it may be. As to the story of my mad ancestor, I do not think much about it. There has not been a second case of insanity in the family— so that goes for nothing; but I cannot ask Mr. Dickinson for Angela when I have no money to support her with."

"Surely that sounds ridiculous," I said. "You, as owner of Croftwood Hall, must have plenty of money."

"That is the point, Hyne," he replied. "The complications are enormous. I will come to that presently; but as we are talking of nerves and fancies, may I tell you something else? You have heard, of course, of the Croftwood Elm?"

I nodded. He was alluding to an enormous elm, of great age, which grew by itself just within sight of the house. There was a superstition in the old place that a branch from this elm always fell before the owner's death.

"I was at Croftwood last week," continued Granby. "The gardeners were clearing away the great branch which had fallen from the elm two days before my father's death."

"Well," I said, "you are not going to think anything of that. It was merely a coincidence. Gales of wind will break off the branches of old trees to the end of time. Come, Manners, I am ashamed that you should pin your faith to such rubbish. But tell me, when are you going to Croftwood again?"

"To-morrow."

"What! To-morrow! May I come with you?"

"Would you come?" His face lighted up with intense pleasure. "That would be splendid," he said. "I can't tell you how I hate these visits. A great deal hangs on what takes place in the next few days. Poltimore will be there. He is the horrible man to whom the estate is mortgaged."

"Croftwood Hall mortgaged?" I cried.

"Yes, and up to the hilt. I shall be awfully glad to tell you. Of course, what I say is in confidence. I don't want the whole world to know that I am a pauper."

"You cannot be that," I answered; "but anyhow, you can trust me."

"I will tell you everything to-morrow," was his answer.

He rose as he spoke, and soon afterwards took his leave.

ACCORDING to my appointment, I met the lad at Waterloo the following day. We reached Croftwood soon after six o'clock. It was a lovely day, bright and not too warm, and as we drove through the park the old trees in their summer greenery restored many memories to my mind.

"Here we are," cried Granby, as the dog-cart put us down at the porch, where the old butler was waiting to receive us.

A more decrepit, bent old man I had never seen. His hooked nose, his distorted, claw-like hands, gave him the appearance more of a bird of ill-omen than anything else. As he glanced with a fixed and by no means amiable expression from Granby to myself, I observed that his eyes were keen, bright, and sharp as a needle. Whatever else had happened to old Tarring, his intellect was still well to the fore. Tarring knew me, although he pretended to regard me as a total stranger, and evidently viewed me with small favour.

"Are there no letters?" asked Manners.

"The post won't be in just yet, sir."

"Well, Tarring, Mr. Hyne has come to stay with me. See that you get a room ready for him. Now, Hyne, let us have a stroll before dinner. Doesn't the place look lovely just now? By the way, you have never met Mr. Poltimore. He was a great friend of my father's. I will tell you how my affairs stand before we see him."

We strolled off through one of the gardens.

"The situation is far worse than you have any idea of," he began. "I will endeavour to explain. No one knows exactly what my father's life was, but there is no doubt that on a certain night he got into a most terrible affair in London. Nobody knows what he did, but it was necessary for him to have twenty thousand pounds in cash that night. It was that or suicide. He obtained the sum, how I don't know, from Mr. Poltimore, who is a rich jewel merchant in the city.

"In exchange for the money my father gave the man a document, all duly attested and witnessed— a sort of mortgage on Croftwood. It is to this effect. That Mr. Poltimore holds the place as security for his money, and the mortgager has to pay 10 per cent, on the loan. There are arrears of interest now amounting to ten thousand pounds. This sum has to be paid on Midsummer day, or according to the mortgage, Mr, Poltimore seizes the property, which is worth not less than a hundred thousand pounds. But there is another and more terrible clause. It is this: even if the interest is paid regularly, I shall only have the place for my life, after that it passes altogether into Poltimore's hands, or into the hands of his heirs. If the arrears of interest can be paid by Midsummer day all will be well as far as I am concerned, but no child of mine can ever inherit the place. You must see for yourself that under such conditions I can't ask Angela Dickinson to be my wife."

"I am not surprised," I answered. "But have you no reasonable hope that your lawyers will raise the money?"

"They say they will do their best. But it is by no means easy."

"Suppose they fail— have you no other means of getting the money?"

"No," he answered. "I once purchased some shares in a gold mine, and I think they will, in time, bring me in a lot of money, but of course it is all a speculation, and I don't suppose anyone would lend on the chance,"

"I see," I replied. "And of course it is very much to Mr. Poltimore's advantage that you should not pay the interest on Midsummer day, for he would then have a place worth one hundred thousand pounds for twenty thousand."

"Quite so," was his reply.

Our stroll had led us by this time to the old elm tree.

"Ah," cried Manners, "look for yourself. Here is the place where the branch fell before my father's death."

We struck off across the grass towards the gnarled old tree.

"I thought they had cleared it away before now, but it is still there. How odd."

We were standing exactly under the tree, and a big branch, looking very fresh and green, lay beneath it at our feet. Granby's face turned white.

"Another branch," he cried. "What does this mean?"

"Nothing, except a fresh gale," was my answer.

"You don't understand," he replied impatiently. "A branch of the old elm always falls before the death of the owner. I am the present owner. What does this allude to?"

"Come away, and don't be nonsensical," were the words which crowded to my lips, but before I could utter them a bass voice, loud and ringing, sounded through the trees.

"Hullo!" it called.

I glanced up with relief at the interruption, and saw a tall, heavily-built man in corduroys approaching us rapidly.

"Hullo, Granby," he cried. "Just come down, eh? How seedy you look— white as a turnip. What's the matter?"

"Nothing, thanks. Let me introduce you to my friend, Mr. Laurence Hyne, Mr. Poltimore."

Poltimore raised his hat. I thought I had never seen a more disagreeable face. He eyed me with small favour and turned again to the boy.

"Is your friend coming to stay?" he asked somewhat pointedly.

"Certainly. As my guest," said Granby, in a low tone.

Poltimore uttered a mocking laugh.

"Your guest, forsooth," he said. "By the way, have you had that letter?"

"No, but it may come by this evening's post."

"You will be out of suspense at least, after you have heard," said Poltimore.

He glanced round with a frown at me, and we turned towards the house. As we entered it. Tarring approached and handed Manners a letter in a blue envelope.

"Ah, here it is," he cried.

He turned aside to open it, his fingers shaking. Poltimore watched him with intense excitement.

"Well," he said impatiently, "what is the news?"

"Good news for you, Mr. Poltimore," said Granby then. "There need be no secret," he continued, and he glanced from me to the other man. "The loan cannot be raised, therefore in four days this house is yours."

Poltimore raised his hand and brought it down again with great force on his thigh.

"It's an ill wind that blows nobody good," he said. "Upon my soul, I am sorry for you, lad, but I can't pretend that I'm not pleased on my own account at the turn events are taking. No offense to you, Mr. Hyne, but when the property comes into my hands I choose my own guests. You understand, sir. Now I'm off to the village. Don't wait dinner for me."

He went away with a great stride, banging the heavy oak door after him.

Manners turned to me. "Isn't he a brute?" he said. "But for my sake you will try to endure him, Hyne."

"My dear lad, Poltimore is nothing to me, nothing whatever, except as far as you are concerned. But show me that letter. I don't believe that the worst can have happened."

"But it has," he answered, and he handed me the letter, the contents of which had so elated Mr. Poltimore. I read it; it ran as follows:—

Dear Sir, —

We regret to inform you that we cannot raise the money. The shares in the mine you hold are of no value as security. The estate will therefore pass to Mr. Poltimore on Midsummer day.

"But surely," I cried, "it would be possible to find twenty thousand pounds in order to let you keep the property. To tell you the truth. Manners, I don't believe in that extraordinary document your father signed. At least, I should like to have a good look at it. The estate is entailed."

"Yes; but he broke the entail."

"How so? How is that possible? He could not do It without your permission, and you were not of age."

"He sent me a paper to sign on my twenty-first birthday. I never even guessed what it was, and signed practically without reading, but now I am certain It was that, and I signed away my birthright."

I could not help feeling a sense of dismay. Manners had no more notion of business than an infant.

I thought hard during the remainder of that evening, and at last It suddenly occurred to me to consult no less a man than Mr. Dickinson, the father of Miss Angela. I determined to tell Granby of my resolution.

"You shan't want a friend at this juncture," I said. "If I had the money I would lend It to you with a hear* and
a half, and think myself well off, too," I added, "for Croftwood Hall is admirable security for any loan. But I have nothing like that amount at my command, so there Is no good wasting time over that thought. The place, however. Is worth saving, even if you had nothing to do with It. We don't want an old family place to get into the hands of a scoundrel of Poltimore's sort. Now I propose to go to London to-morrow, for there is, as you are aware, not a moment to lose, and when there I shall consult Dickinson."

"What?" cried Granby. "Angela's father?"

"The same."

He looked uncomfortable, started up, and began to pace the room. "You — would not surely tell him— about―?"

"You must leave that to me, my boy. Whatever happens, I must have an open hand. You cannot be worse off than you are now, and it would be impossible for Dickinson to despise you for loving his daughter."

The poor fellow covered his face with his hands and groaned.

"I am off in the morning to do what I can," I said. "In the meantime, stay here and await events."

I was sorry afterwards that I had not insisted on taking him with me: but how could I foretell the horrible future. I reached home soon after eleven o'clock, and telephoned immediately to Dickinson to know if he could see me. I had a reply in the affirmative, and went to his chambers soon after noon.

"Come out and have lunch with me," he said heartily, "and then you can tell me what it is all about. Young Manners and the Croftwood estate! But surely that is a fine property?"

"It is if we can rescue it," I replied, "and it is for that purpose I want to consult you."

We lunched in his favourite coffee house off the Strand, and I told Dickinson as much as I thought necessary of the story. He was a middle-aged man, with a staid, reserved face. It was difficult to understand how he could be the sparkling and vivacious Angela's father. He sat quietly after my communication had come to an end, then he said abruptly: "Have you told me everything?"

I looked at him and resolved to trust him. "There is one thing I have left out," I said. "It is this. Young Manners loves your youngest daughter as faithfully and truly as a man can love a woman. He would make her a good husband, and Croftwood is not to be despised."

"That is true," answered Dickinson. "I don't know what can be done, but I will consult my solicitor. If anyone can help you, Wantage is the man. Stay, I will give you a letter to take to him at once. You can explain matters more quickly than I could, and there isn't a moment to lose."

"The worst happens on Midsummer day, and this is the 20th.

"We have only four days."

He gave a low, significant whistle, then dashed off a few words to Wantage and put the letter into my hands.

Wantage was busy in his office in Lincoln's Inn. He was a little red-headed, freckled, elderly man, with a keen face, an observant eye, and manner which expressed nothing. He was very busy, as numerous clerks testified, but Dickinson's letter was Open Sesame, and I was allowed to see him almost immediately.

"A curious case," he said, after we had talked for over an hour. "Will you kindly leave me now, Mr. Hyne, and come back about this time to-morrow. I can give you my answer then— yes or no."

There was nothing for it but to comply. I spent the evening at my club, slept as best I could during the night that followed, and punctually to the moment was back with Wantage in the afternoon of the twenty-first. I was taken at once into his presence. He shut the door and locked it.

"I have not been idle since I saw you," he said to me. "I have been making enquiries with regard to those gold reefs. I have also heard several things by no means to Poltimore's credit. I do not believe that at the worse he can uphold his claim. It is my very firm impression that the law wants him, and sooner than he has any idea of. At any rate, one thing must be done— the cheque must be paid. I will let you have the amount. I heard, on the whole favourable accounts with regard to those gold reefs. Croftwood is worth saving, the young man is worth rescuing. Now, if you
will help me, the thing can be done."

"No fear of my not helping you," I answered cheerfully. "I would almost cut off my right hand to help that boy."

"Thanks, Mr. Hyne," he said, gazing at me critically and almost with a quizzical expression. "You are a good friend."

"His mother was a good friend to me."

"Ah, I respect you, Mr. Hyne. Well, this is your part in the matter. The cheque must be paid to you, and you must pay it to Poltimore. The lad himself must have nothing to do with it. You must accept Poltimore's letter of release. This is a matter for a lawyer, however, and if you are going down to Croftwood tomorrow I shall have pleasure in accompanying you. Poltimore may play tricks with Manners, and possibly also with you; but I do not think he will dare to try them on with me. Will you be ready to accompany me to Croftwood Hall to-morrow?"

"Certainly," I said.

We talked a little longer; matters were finally arranged, and I left in high spirits.

On my way home it occurred to me that I would wire to Granby.

I accordingly sent the following very cheerful message:

All right. Money will be raised. Coming down with solicitor to-morrow. Cheer up.

—Laurence Hyne.

The rest of the day passed as usual. It was not until nine o'clock, just after I had returned from dining at my club, that all of a sudden it flashed upon me what a deadly and dangerous thing I had done in sending that wire to Granby. I sprang from my chair. Manners would, of course, tell Poltimore, and the man would be beside himself with rage and disappointment. Beyond doubt, Poltimore was in a most serious position; his own affairs were so critical that if he did not get relief soon, such as the Croftwood estate would furnish him with, he would go under, how deeply and how far I could not guess; but he would be submerged— ruined. As far as he was concerned, everything depended on whether young Manners was able to pay him by Midsummer day, or— great heavens! there was another alternative. Should Granby Manners die before Midsummer day, Poltimore would be equally safe — Indeed, more safe than if the arrears of interest were paid. Then, beyond doubt, the estate would be his. He would be a rich man. Should Granby die, Poltimore would have attained the utmost height of his ambition. The position was too fearful to contemplate quietly. I, who had hoped to liberate the boy from all his troubles, had, by sending that telegram, in all possibility sealed his death warrant. A desperate and cruel man with no principle would do anything. Then there was that scoundrelly butler, a coward without a scrap of conscience. He had always hated the boy. I saw hatred in his eyes when he greeted us both at Croftwood Hall. Yes; beyond doubt. Manners was In the gravest danger. It was impossible for me to rest. Late as It was, I found myself ten minutes afterwards in a hansom cab.

I had determined to catch the ten o'clock train from Waterloo. Not an instant's delay must keep me from the place. I would wire to Wantage in the morning. He could come down and the necessary business could be transacted. But I, in the meantime, would be on the spot to prevent mischief.

I am not given to nervous fancies, but I must confess that during that railway journey to Croftwood station I had about as bad a time as a man often lives through. There was the lonely deserted house, steeped in all its superstitions; there was the supposed ghost; there was the villain who would stop at nothing; there was his tool, the old butler; and there was the boy himself, nervous, highly strung, innocent.

The train seemed to crawl— it stopped at every station. By the time I reached Croftwood station it was nearly one o'clock. There was no fly to be had — there was nothing for it but to finish my journey on foot. I knew my way well, and struck off along the country lanes at a brisk pace. The night was fine with a high wind. Scuds of broken cloud raced across the moon, giving alternate moments of bright light followed by darkness.

At last I turned up the avenue and finally reached the house. There was no light in any of the windows. I determined not to ring the bell, but to make my way round to the left under some close-growing shrubberies, I thought it extremely probable that I could enter by the old chapel, a place no longer used either for prayer or praise. No one would think of the chapel, or be concerned as to whether the heavy oak door was locked or not. I had observed that it was unlocked when with Granby two days ago. Now it yielded to my pressure. I went straight through the chapel. This led me into the picture gallery, at the further end of which was a secret door by which I could eventually reach Granby's room.

As I walked quickly down the long picture gallery, the greater part of which was in intense darkness, the windows having been all barred and bolted, I suddenly paused and listened. Something had broken the silence. What could it be? It sounded like low guttural breathing. My heart beat fast as I advanced, then it almost stopped, for hanging unsupported, and brought into relief by a long ray of moonlight which fell through a badly-fitting shutter, was a face within a few feet of my own. Oh God!— the face was upside down, while breath passed quickly between the anguished lips. It was the face of Granby. This scene lasted for only a minute; before I could speak everything was changed— a bright light flooded the apartment, and Poltimore, a candle in his hand, approached from the dining hall end. Granby was hanging by his feet. I rushed at the villain— a desperate encounter took place.

"What is this, you scoundrel?" I shouted.

He swung me off with the strength of a man nearly double my size, pushed the old butler towards me and dashed away. The latter I seized.

"Help me at once. Tarring," I cried, "or I'll wring your neck. Save Mr. Granby— what are you about, man? Be quick."

His face was ghastly, but he spoke no word. We worked quietly. A step-ladder stood behind us and a few moments later Manners lay upon the floor, still breathing, but unconscious.

"Go and fetch brandy," I cried.

The man disappeared and soon returned with a decanter and a glass. I poured a little down the boy's throat, and he opened his eyes.

A FEW HOURS LATER Granby was able to tell his own story.

"I got your telegram, and was nearly mad with joy," he said. "Poltimore found me holding it in my hand. He rushed at me, seized the sheet, and read the news. I shall never forget his face. It was just as though I were in Hades, and saw the face of a lost spirit. But before I had time to realise anything he had caught me in his powerful grip. He said something to Tarring, who was not far off and they carried me away with them to the picture gallery. I think I fainted, for when I came to myself I was tied by the ankles to that beam. What I lived through during the next awful hours I can never by any possibility explain."

The doctor when he arrived made it clear that death must have ensued in a very short time. This would have been caused by the enormous congestion of the brain. The cunningness of the mode of murder was made apparent when the doctor further said that after the boy died and the body was lowered down, there would not be the slightest trace apparent to anyone of what had happened. Both Poltimore and Tarring were arrested, and are now undergoing a term of penal servitude.

As to Granby, his friends clustered round him, and the estate was put on a firm basis. He is about to marry Angela Dickinson in a short time. The shares in the gold reef have also turned out trumps, and the owner of Croftwood Hall will once more be a very rich man.

IN THE BRIGHT, calm, handsome fellow, who shows not a trace of fear or nervousness, who is happy of the happy, and gay of the gay, few would recognise the boy whom I was the means of rescuing from the most terrible death.

______________________

13. Mr. Belton's Immunity

Edgar Jepson and Robert Eustace

1863-1938; 1854-1943

The Strand Magazine, Oct 1926

THERE IS LITTLE doubt that, had not Miss Kitty Glentworth quarrelled so furiously with young Mr. Belton and cast him off for ever, he would not have gone on from the 99 Club to the large and beautifully-furnished flat of Mr. Cyril Montgomery— so much more Cyril than Montgomery— and lost two hundred and fourteen pounds at baccarat. It was an action for which he can hardly be blamed severely, because, when a young man knows clearly that his heart is broken for good and all, it is unlikely that his conduct will be directed by that sweet reasonableness so highly lauded by the late Matthew Arnold.

But there it was; he awoke next morning to no mean hangover and to the bitter knowledge that a month of the quarter had still to run and only eleven pounds on which to lead the life remained to him. It was not till the evening, however, that he realized that this was not to be borne. There was only one thing to do; that was to go to his uncle and guardian, Professor Octavius Crowle, and procure an advance on his next quarter's allowance.

It was no use writing to the Professor. That worthy gentleman had fallen into a shocking, but apparently rooted, habit of never answering his nephew's letters. It was the more distressing in that those letters always treated of the same theme, an advance on his next quarter's allowance. On the two occasions on which Mr. Belton had pointed out, reproachfully, that it was a shocking bad  habit, the Professor had made the disingenuous excuse that he was a busy man. This was, however, a fact; and it made it practically certain that if Mr. Belton went to see him and showed distinct symptoms of staying on. Professor Octavius Crowle would cough up the advance, as his nephew phrased it, to get rid of him.

Gloomily, therefore, by reason of his broken heart, but with a cheery little hope of a cheque for a hundred floating about on the top of the gloom, at eleven o'clock next morning Mr. Belton took his way to his uncle's solid house in Bedford Square.

The door was opened to him by Maria Ann, whom he believed to be the prettiest parlourmaid in London, and whom, had his heart not been broken, he would have made a probably successful attempt to kiss. She greeted him with an uncommonly attractive smile; then, at his request, led him straight to his uncle's study with a rather startled air. Was she, she asked herself, losing her charm?

His uncle was sitting at his desk, studying a paper. He looked a busy man and worried. Mr. Belton did not know exactly what his uncle did; he only knew that he was an eminent chemist and toxicologist and worked for the Government.

The Professor looked up, frowning, and said, inhospitably: "How are you, Richard? You always contrive to come when I'm at my busiest."

"Sorry, sir," said Richard. "It's only about a little matter of..."

"I know what it's about," snapped the Professor. "And one of these days you won't get it. Your father left his money to come to you through me in order that you should spend it at a reasonable rate."

"It was just an unfortunate accident..."

"The sixth in two years," said the Professor, coldly; but his eyes softened a little as he gazed at his well-set-up, beautifully-dressed, blue-eyed, and amiable nephew.

"I'll just put the case..."

"You won't. I know what it is, or what it's like; and you'll waste half my morning putting it. How much do you want?" said his uncle; and he began to hunt among the piles of papers on his desk for his cheque-book. "I don't know why we have a Public Trustee if people don't use him," he added, morosely.

"A hundred," said Mr. Belton, and a little of the gloom lifted from his spirit.

His uncle found his cheque-book and began to fill up a cheque. Mr. Belton smiled on him.

In the middle of his timely action his uncle stopped short, and said: "By the way, didn't you tell me once that you were making a study of ciphers?"

Mr. Belton blushed. He had two vices that prevented him from being the complete young gentleman about Town: he was addicted to chess and cryptography. The polite world did not know this.

With an air of shame he said: "Yes."

"Then what do you make of this?" said his uncle; and he thrust at him the paper he had been studying. To it was clipped a piece of parchment on which was drawn a square divided into hundreds of little squares, in each of which was a letter of the alphabet. They were in alphabetical order, alphabet after alphabet, with a Z in each corner square, so that they did not come exactly under one another.

Mr. Belton looked at it for about fifteen seconds; then he said: ''Nothing. And nobody could without the key-word. It must be a chiffre carre."

"But if you had the key- word you could decipher it?"

"Rather," said Mr. Belton, confidently.

The Professor ran his long fingers through the disorderly shock of grey hair and gazed earnestly at his nephew; then he said: "Look here, Dick: would you like to earn some money?"

Mr. Belton's blue eyes opened wide in a certain consternation; he scented an effort to weaken his congenital disinclination to do work of any kind; he shuffled his feet uneasily; he said: "Oh, well, you know, I've got my little bit. It does me very well. And it doesn't seem quite fair to the fellows who like that kind of thing to go buttin' in."

"Yes, yes; a lily of the field," said Professor Crowle, unpleasantly and scowling. "But, after all, it's perhaps just as well. Though the Government will pay a big fee, it's a very dangerous job. The last man who had a shot at it came to a very painful end. But, of course, it was in the service of the country. It was only you being an expert in ciphers and a stout young fellow that put it into my head to suggest it. The Government will have no difficulty in finding someone else."

"Here; steady on, uncle," said Mr. Belton, with a sudden animation. "You say it's a dangerous job and for the good of the country and that sort of thing?"

"It is; and it's very dangerous."

Mr. Belton's ingenuous face darkened with a Byronic gloom; and he said: "Oh, well, I've got nothing to go on living for; I'll take it on."

A shadow of a grin of satisfaction wreathed the Professor's lips, then the gravity of his expression deepened; he said, gravely: "Wait a minute. Did you ever hear of the daboia?"

"No," said Mr. Belton.

"Well, the daboia, as the Hindus call it, is known to science as Russell's viper. It is a very pretty snake about six feet long; and its venom works about four times as quickly as that of the cobra. The odds are that in the course of this affair you'll get a dose of that venom injected into you. We are fairly sure that we can make you immune, but not quite sure. The anti-toxin is uncertain in its working."

"That's all right. I'll chance it," said Mr. Belton, quite cheerfully. "It looks like lively doin's."

A faint, reluctant admiration softened the hard face of the Professor; he said, thoughtfully: "Well, you ought to be able to hold your own. After all, you were a captain in what you called a stunting regiment at nineteen and got the D.S.O. But you'll be dealing with very clever people and you'll need all your wits."

Mr. Belton nodded. He was already looking very much more intelligent.

His uncle went on: "Of course, the Home Office has excellent cipher experts, but none at the moment to handle a dangerous business like this. Either they're not the type, or they have ties which make it unwilling to call on them to take the risk. And only a cipher expert can handle it. Several people are looking for one of the right type, and I'm one of them. I was just  considering how to set about it; and your coming to see me seemed almost providence— one of those curious coincidences, I mean, in which foolish and superstitious people see all kinds of absurdities. Well, the Home Office has seized some documents which should be of the greatest importance. But they're in cipher, this chiffre carre, and it wants the key-word. It knows of only one person in London who knows the key-word— a lady who mixes in Bohemian circles and calls herself the Princess Obrenovski."

"Not Bohemian, uncle— not Bohemian," his nephew protested quickly, in pained accents. "Popsy would never be seen in a Bohemian circle, I give you my word. Only the high life for Popsy— always."

"Popsy! What the devil are you talking about?" said his uncle.

"We always call the Princess 'Popsy.' She looks like it, you know," Mr. Belton explained. "But fancy Popsy being a Bolshi! I knew she was hot stuff; but I never guessed that. Still, you don't mean to say she'll sell the key-word?" He added in a tone of rather grieved surprise: "I always thought she was a sportswoman, Popsy."

"She'd sell it every day in the week, if someone produced the money," said his uncle in unpleasant but assured accents.

"She's sold it once already. But the man she sold it to never got the chance of bringing it to us. He got the key-word, but also he got a dose of daboia venom; and that was the end of him. "We know that it was daboia and not cobra — from the way his blood was clotted. And we know that he was helpless ten minutes after getting it and dead within the half-hour. Whether your friend injected it, or somebody else, we don't know. But his body was found in an empty bungalow at Thames Ditton four days after Princess Obrenovski received the money for selling the key-word to him."

Mr. Belton rubbed his hands together in a positively middle-class manner and said with genuine cheeriness: "Lively doin's! Lively doin's! But you don't mean to say that he parted with the money before he got away with the key-word?"

"He never had the money. You don't suppose he would carry a large sum of money with him into the surroundings in which a Bolshevist agent would sell a secret?" said the Professor with some impatience. "When he had received the key-word and tested it on a passage from one of these documents, he was to sign an order which would enable the Princess to draw the money. And it is practically certain that he was not poisoned, to prevent him getting away with the key-word, till after he had signed that order."

"Astucious," said young Mr. Belton in approving accents. "But I should never have guessed that Popsy had brain-storms like that. Still, she does seem a bit of a snake herself."

"A bit of a snake!" said the Professor with immense asperity.  "A much worse snake than any daboia that ever lived!" He paused, scowling; then he went on: "Well, the Home Office wants that key-word quickly and it will pay you five hundred pounds for getting it — and your expenses. I take it from your paying me a visit that you are very short of money."

"Well, as a matter of fact, you're right, sir. At the moment my name is Beanless Ben," said Mr. Belton, frankly.

"Then I'll give you a cheque for thirty pounds; and you can let me know what your expenses are," said the Professor. "Can you get in touch with the Princess at once?"

"To-night," said Mr. Belton, confidently. "If she isn't at the 99, she'll be at the Forty Sinners."

"And you said that she didn't move in Bohemian circles?" said the Professor, scornfully.

He wrote out a cheque for thirty pounds and gave Mr. Belton the document in cipher with the square clipped on to it. Also he gave him the order, which, once he had signed it, would enable the Princess to draw the money.

Then he said: "The anti-toxin had better be injected at the latest possible moment. I'll send a doctor to your flat at seven sharp to inject it. It'll take you a couple of hours to get over the effects of it; but then you should be immune from daboia venom for a good twelve hours."

"It'll be done, or I shall be done inside eight," said Mr. Belton, cheerfully, as he put the cheque into his note-case. He paused and looked at his uncle and grinned, and added: "If it doesn't work and I don't see you again, I'll just wish you good luck, sir."

The Professor frowned at him in a sudden disquiet, hesitated, and said: "I wish—I wish— oh, it'll work all right. And after all it is of the greatest importance that these documents should be deciphered; and it's time that you did something to justify your existence."

"So it is. So it is," said his nephew, cheerfully, and held out his hand.

The Professor gripped it and wrung it, and then came to the front door with him and let him out and said good-bye. He stood on the step and watched, with eyes full of disquiet, Mr. Belton stride briskly along the pavement and turn the corner, and twice he plucked rather nervously at his chin.

Cheered by the prospect of action, Mr. Belton kept forgetting for as long as eleven minutes at a time that Miss Kitty Glentworth had cast him off for ever. He made an excellent lunch, and with a friend attended a -matinee of the latest musical comedy. He did not think it right to take the risk of passing out of the world without having seen it.

At seven o'clock the doctor, a cheerful, but beavered, man with an uncommonly clever face, arrived at his flat, injected the anti- toxin, and declared, with much more confidence than his uncle had shown, that Mr. Belton was now immune from the venom of Russell's viper for a good twelve hours. Feeling that he would like to know, if someone did contrive to inject a shot of the venom Into him, whether the anti-toxin was really working, Mr. Belton asked him how the venom acted. The doctor said that any not immune person who was bitten by the snake would first be afflicted with nausea and a splitting headache, presently become paralysed, and then fall into a coma from which he would not awake. He stayed on for nearly an hour watching the effects of the anti-toxin. It gave Mr. Belton considerable discomfort in the way of nausea, a headache, twitchings, and a temperature.

At a few minutes past eight, after assuring him that the effects of the anti-toxin had been everything that could be desired, the doctor departed. At nine o'clock feeling better but still rather shaky, Mr. Belton walked up to the 99 Club. He found the Princess Obrenovski, who had come early in order to get some dancing before the room became crowded, dining with another young lady. They welcomed his suggestion that he should join them.

Mr. Belton was not talkative. The anti-toxin was still troubling him. The Princess talked for the three of them. Her chief theme was herself. He kept looking at her with wondering eyes, trying to discover evidence of the serpent in her. He could find none. She was the perfect type of Slav woman with a dash of the Tartar in her. Nature had moulded her with clumsy fingers. Her cheek-bones protruded slightly; her unfinished nose was rather thick, with a rounded, rather protruding tip; her lips were rather thick and shapeless; her black hair was lustreless; her brown eyes were for the most part dull, though they lit up sufficiently when she talked; her figure was clumsy; she was well-meaning but rather heavy in the dance. She had many feelings and always talked about them. She could not be more than twenty-two.

Bearing in mind that this might well be his last dinner, Mr. Belton did himself well and drank plenty of champagne. His young companions did themselves well and also drank plenty of champagne. It was half -past ten before he felt like dancing; then he embarked on a fox-trot with the Princess.

The anti-toxin, or the champagne on top of it, had robbed Mr. Belton of any diplomatic tendency he may have possessed. He came straight to the matter in hand.

He said: "I've been told to push a little money at you, Popsy."

"Push money— at me!" cried the Princess in lively astonishment.

"Yes. It's a little business of a key-word to a cipher," said Mr. Belton in almost jocular accents.

He felt her stiffen against his arm; and she bent backwards to stare at him with incredulous eyes. He had a strange and uncommonly strong feeling that he was an intruder. He was. In the mind of the Princess his activities were confined wholly to her social life; he had suddenly intruded into the political.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she said; but her tone did not carry conviction.

"Oh, it's quite all right," he said in a reassuring tone. "I'm not giving anything away."

He felt her relax. But again she declared that she did not know what he was talking about. They had gone right round the room before she had re-arranged her ideas about him and decided to treat with him. Then she made him give her his word of honour to tell no one anything about it.

Then, with a winning smile and in winning accents, she said: "Have you got the money, Dicky?"

"I have not— only an order to sign when I've got the key-word and tested it," said Mr. Belton.

She looked up at him with a languishing glance and said: "Then it will be all right if I tell you the key-word. You can sign the order at once."

"When I've tested the key-word," said Mr. Belton firmly.

"Don't you trust me, Dicky?" she said haughtily.

"Till all's blue. But instructions are instructions," said Mr. Belton rather more firmly.

She was silent; she appeared to be thinking hard. It was unfortunate that Miss Kitty Glentworth, who was not on in the third act of the play "Driver's Folly," in which she had a moderate part, entered the room just in time to catch the winning smile and then the languishing glance. She had cast Mr. Belton off for what she had been pleased to consider his perfidy in  making himself uncommonly amiable to another lady. They had often quarrelled about his amiability to other ladies. She did not make sufficient allowance for his natural bent. He never could refrain from being amiable to a pretty girl. He was like that. Now he was being amiable to the Princess. She had for some time suspected the Princess of designs. That suspicion was now verified. Of course, it was no longer any business of hers. She told herself that it was not. Nevertheless her beautiful eyes flashed fiercely as she scowled on the unconscious couple; she walked to a table with her head high, trying to rid her face of the scowl.

The Princess came out of her reflections and said with a yet more languishing glance: "But you do think I would deceive you, Dicky."

"Never!" said Mr. Belton, in loud, loyal accents. "I tell you instructions are instructions, and I've got to stick to them."

Undaunted, the Princess spent the next twenty minutes trying to persuade him to disregard those instructions; and her smiles grew yet more winning, her glances more languishing.

Miss Kitty Glentworth observed this softening process with an anger that grew more and more intense. She had not expected Mr. Belton to accept his dismissal without further protest or entreaty, or to recover from it so quickly. She had broken off their engagement deliberately; but she felt that this behaviour of his was outrageous. She was of an uncommonly jealous disposition; she felt, unreasonably enough, that she was being shamelessly robbed; her anger was becoming fury.

It was at last borne in upon the Princess that the political Mr. Belton was a very different person from the social one. She ceased to languish at him. Indeed, she cut the patter, came to the 'osses, and asked in a business-like tone whether he had with him the means of testing the key-word. He said that he had, that she had only to give him the key-word and he would sit down and test it and sign the order inside of five minutes.

"But that is impossible!" she said, hastily. "I am watched— always." She paused, then added: "And you do not suppose that I know the key-word. I know only where it is. I can get it."

Mr. Belton had the strongest feeling that she was not telling him the truth. He looked round the room for those who watched her. He knew everyone in it. No one of them could be watching her. Few of them were capable of watching a child of five. But, of course, there were the waiters. Besides, she must have given the key-word to the man who had been poisoned, or he would not have signed the order; or had she merely put him in touch with the person who knew the key-word? That must be it. He could not see anything of the snake about her; he could not believe that she had had a hand in the actual poisoning.

"Well, let's go and get it," he said.

At the words a pleased light just flickered in the eyes of the Princess. She said: "Not together. My car is parked in Pardon Street. I will go and wait for you in it. Come in five minutes."

"Right-o!" said Mr. Belton.

She emptied her glass and rose and went. Mr. Belton looked at his watch. Agog for action, he kept looking at it. The five minutes passed slowly. Kitty, relieved by the going of the Princess, saw that he kept looking at it. He rose with an uncommonly alert air.

Of a sudden another suspicion seized her: he was going to the Princess! She gave him about two minutes. As she came out of the door of the dancing-room he was leaving the club. She followed him, furious. She wished to make sure, then demonstrate to him triumphantly that he had the shallow and perfidious nature of which she had complained.

"When the Princess came out of the 99, a big, respectably-dressed man, in a bowler hat and No. 11 shoes, who was standing on the opposite pavement, moved down the street, keeping level with her. At the top of Pardon Street he stood still to light a cigarette. A motor-cyclist thirty yards down the street stopped tinkering with his engine and lit a cigarette.

The driver of a big car, sixty yards down the street, turned and said to its occupants, Detective-Inspectors Halliday, Gedge, and Tomkins, and the doctor who had injected the anti-toxin into Mr. Belton: "Here they come!"

The Princess sat down in the driver's seat of her two-seater and fiddled with the gadgets. The motor-cyclist tinkered again with his engine. For five minutes nothing happened. Then Mr. Belton came briskly down the street. As he was stepping into the car of the Princess, Miss Kitty Glentworth came round the corner. The Princess, getting her car out of the line, did not see her; Mr. Belton, talking to the Princess, did not see her. She broke into a little run, sprang into her own two-seater, and came out of the line just ahead of the big car containing the detectives.

It was just before the theatre traffic, and the going was good. In this order the four motor vehicles moved up Regent Street, the motor-cyclist twenty yards behind the Princess, Kitty Glentworth ten yards behind the motor-cyclist, the big car thirty yards behind Kitty. The Princess had not enough of the cunning of the serpent to guess that she was being followed; she had not been followed on that earlier journey to Thames Ditton. At Oxford Circus she turned to the left. The motor-cyclist and Kitty turned after her. Then came the hitch. After Kitty turned, the policeman on point-duty held up the traffic; the big car was held up behind a bus and a taxi. By the time one of the detectives had run to the policeman and way was made for it nearly two minutes had been lost. The motor-cyclist, on the look-out, saw what had happened. When the Princess turned up Orchard Street he pulled up and said a few words to the policeman at the bottom of it. Kitty Glentworth passed him. He bucketed up Orchard Street and passed Kitty.

At the bottom of Upper Baker Street and again at the top of the St. John's Wood Road he stopped to speak to the policeman on duty. The Princess turned into the Grove End Road. There was no policeman at the corner of it. She ran along the Grove End Road and turned into that little cul-de-sac, Mehna Place.

She had slowed down to turn into it; Kitty slowed down also, so that when she turned to follow and saw that it was a cul-de-sac, she was able to switch out of it and come to a stop just beyond the opposite corner, slip out of her car, and peep round. The Princess had stopped nearly at the bottom; she was standing on the pavement talking to Mr. Belton. She went through a door in the wall, leaving him there. He lit a cigarette and stepped back into the car.

The motor-cyclist ran slowly past the top of Melina Place. He saw the car of the Princess; he saw Kitty peeping round the corner. He turned, went back along the Grove End Road about forty yards, dismounted, and began to blow his horn— one long honk and two short ones— again and again and again. When the big car came to the policeman at the bottom of the St. John's Wood Road and learnt that he had not seen him, it would come back.

The Princess came through the door in the wall, hurried up the path of the little garden, went through the front door of the little house at the end of it and into a room on her right. It was panelled; an old oak gate-leg table stood in the middle of it, an older oak armchair, high-backed, with a very thin cushion on its seat, stood on the right of the fireplace, four old oak chairs stood against the walls, a cushioned oak settle in the recess on the left of the fireplace. She crossed the room to the armchair, pulled it to the top of the table, and took the cushion from the seat of it. Then she pressed a button in the back of the chair. Three inches from the edge of the seat, on the left, there shot up the needle of a hypodermic syringe. She pressed another button and the needle sank back into the seat of the chair. Smiling an uncommonly ugly smile, she went to the oak corner cupboard, in the corner on the left of the fireplace above the settle, took from it a pen, an inkpot, blotting paper, notepaper, envelopes, and a small bottle. She set the writing materials on the table in front of the armchair. Then she knelt down beside the armchair, took from under its seat a hypodermic syringe, filled it carefully from a small bottle, and put it back. She rose, a yet uglier smile wreathing her thick lips, and put the bottle back in the cupboard. Then she sat down in the armchair, wrote on a sheet of paper "Paris," and enclosed it in an envelope. With brightly shining eyes she hurried back to Mr. Belton.

"There is no one in the house. I have found the key-word!" she cried in excited accents, waving the envelope at him. "Come along."

Mr. Belton sprang from the car and followed her through the door in the wall.

Another wave of jealous fury surged through Kitty Glentworth. She stood undecided for about twenty seconds, then went briskly down the street. To her surprise she saw the gleam of the key in the lock of the garden door. The unmethodical Slavonic mind of the Princess had caused her, in her excitement, to leave it there. Kitty opened the door a few inches and looked at the dark house. Then, resolved to have all the evidence of Mr. Belton's perfidy before demonstrating it to him, she stepped into the garden and shut the door. The motor-cyclist came quickly to the top of Melina Place, dismounted, and again began to honk a long honk and two short ones. In that quiet neighbourhood the sound would carry half a mile.

The policeman at the bottom of Orchard Street sent the big car up Baker Street; the policeman at the bottom of Upper Baker Street sent it up Park Road; the policeman at the end of Park Road sent it down the St. John's Wood Road. It ran past Grove End Road to Maida Vale. The policeman at the bottom of St. John's Wood Road had not seen a two-seater car, driven by a lady and followed by a motor-cyclist. The big car turned and went back up the St. John's Wood Road slowly. It stopped at the corner of Hanover Terrace and then moved slowly on. Midway between Hamilton Terrace and the Grove End Road the driver heard a motor-horn honking a long honk and then two short ones again and again, away on the left. He drove quickly up the Grove End Road and came to the motor-cyclist.

The three detectives and the doctor stepped out of the tonneau. The motor-cyclist told them quickly that Mr. Belton and the Princess had driven down Melina Place, that a second lady had come in the car standing at the opposite corner, watched them, and gone down Melina Place after them.

''How long can we give them?" said Inspector Halliday to the doctor.

''Anything up to a quarter of an hour," said the doctor; and he looked at his watch.

"That will give the Princess a chance to make her getaway," said Inspector Halliday.

"Just stick the car across the road and block it, Hawkins. It will save a lot of trouble if we collar her on the spot."

THE PRINCESS ushered Mr. Belton into the room furnished with old oak and pushed him into the armchair. She tore open the envelope, looked at the sheet of paper, and said in excited accents: "The word is 'Paris'!"

"Right-o," said Mr. Belton, cheerfully, and took from his breast pocket the document with the square clipped to it and set about decoding it. He worked at it for perhaps four minutes. At the end of the second minute he was frowning. The frown deepened.

Then he looked up and said: "A lemon. My name is not Walter the Human Boo. Cough up the right word, Popsy darling."

"But it is the right word; It is! You humbug me!" cried the Princess.

"Oh, cough it up!" he said impatiently. The Princess stormed and protested for a good two minutes. Mr. Belton, unmoved, preserved an amiable air. The Princess ground her teeth. Then of a sudden she was calm.

"You're too clever, Dicky— much too clever," she said, with a queer laugh that bared her teeth a little. "But you promise that you'll sign the order whatever happens?"

"I've promised once," said Mr. Belton, impatiently.

"The word is 'Popsy'," she said.

"Of course. It would be!" said Mr. Belton; and he took up the pen and got to work again.

The Princess stepped behind the chair and leant over the back, watching him. He could not see that she was scowling, that her nostrils were dilated, that she was breathing quickly. The middle finger of her right hand rested, ever so lightly, on the button which worked the spring.

At the end of the second minute a pleased smile illumined Mr. Belton's face. At the end of the third minute he said, triumphantly: "This time you're right. And now for the reward of— vice."

He took the order from his pocket and signed it. As his pen rose from the completed "n," the Princess pressed the button. The needle ran into his thigh. He sprang up with a sharp howl.

The Princess snatched up the order and was through the door like a knife. She snapped it to, turned the key in the lock, ran out of the house and across the garden to her car. She sprang into it, started it, turned, and came up the street, to find a clumsy chauffeur with his big car, half -jammed, right across the road, trying to back out of it. She shouted to him to clear out of the way and brought her car to a stop ten feet from his. Then, before she knew what was happening. Inspector Halliday had both her wrists in a vice-like grip and was hauling her out of the car.

As the door snapped to, Mr. Belton swore. Then he dashed to it. The house might be old, but the lock on that door was new. He rushed to the window and threw up the sash. It was shuttered with heavy shutters, barred on the outside. He hammered on them and yelled. Someone in the neighbouring houses might hear him. He paused to listen for twenty seconds, then hammered and yelled again.

Kitty heard him hammering and yelling. It increased the astonishment aroused in her by the inexplicable flight of the Princess. She recognized the urgent note in his clamour; but she had no desire to help him. If in the course of the nefarious exercise of perfidy he had got himself into trouble, let him get himself out of it. At any rate, she was not going to help him at once. She was on the opposite side of the house to that at which he was hammering and clamouring; she walked round it and found that the unmethodical Princess had left the front door ajar. She stood hesitating what to do. Of a sudden Mr. Belton's clamouring and shouting stopped.

A sudden wave of nausea had swept through him. The anti-toxin load not worked!

He came away from the window, drew a chair from the wall to the table, sat down on it, and stared in front of him with the dazed air of one who faces the worst, and that worst inevitable. There was no chance of getting to a hospital in time. These devils had only needed to make a prison to hold a man a few minutes and the poison would keep him in it.

The thought that he was going to die, painfully, inside of half an hour gave him a sinking feeling that increased the nausea. He had faced death often enough in the old days; but this was different. Then, at the very worst, there had always been a chance. This was hopeless. He stared at the wall in front of him without seeing it. He saw a hundred things, a hundred scenes. The dancing room of the 99 Club he had just left, the crowded theatre in which he had spent the afternoon came first, then scene after scene.

In nearly every one of them the chief figure was Kitty— Kitty happy, Kitty sad, Kitty angry, Kitty in ballrooms, on the stage, in restaurants, on the river, in the country. He had lost Kitty. He had not really believed that he had lost her when she cast him off. Now he had lost her. He had lost everything. It was not even slipping away; it had gone, absolutely gone. He almost sobbed.

Then he pulled himself together and ground his teeth. A raging desire to balk the devils who had robbed him of Kitty and the bright world surged through him. He would get the key-word to his uncle. But how, with a few minutes of failing powers left, could he? Yet he must. He cudgelled his brains, rejecting device after device. Then the idea came. He took a sheet of notepaper, tore a small square out of it, wrote on it, in big letters and deep, ''The key-word is Popsy," let them dry, rolled it into a ball and swallowed it.

There would certainly be an autopsy.

Another wave of nausea swept through him. He took another sheet of paper and began to write a farewell letter to Kitty. He wrote:

My Dear Kitty,

You were absolutely wrong about Mabel Carruthers. I never did care a scrap for anyone but you, and you....

Someone tried the handle of the door. He turned towards It sharply. The key turned in the lock; the door opened; in came Kitty herself, her eyes still blazing, her face still pale. He stared at her with his mouth open.

"So I was quite right about you," she said in terrible accents. "The Princess now. The very moment you got rid of me! I should like to hear what you have to say for yourself."

"I am Walter the Human Boo," said Mr. Belton in a tone half exasperated, half dismal. "That's what I've got to say for myself. But get to my uncle at once— straight— and tell him that the key-word is 'Popsy.' Don't forget— 'Popsy'."

Kitty stared at him in a blank bewilderment. "What do you mean?" she said. "Are you mad or drunk?"

"Neither, worse luck," said Mr. Belton. In merely dismal accents.

"I let that little devil inject a shot of daboia poison into me— Russell's viper, you know. I came to buy the key-word of a cipher off her. She's a Bolshi agent. The key-word's 'Popsy'— the damned little snake's own name!"

Kitty stared at him with her eyes opened their widest; her mouth went suddenly dry; the anger in her died in panic.

"What d-d-do you mean— d-d-daboia p-p-poison— Russell's viper?" she stammered.

"She fired a shot of it into my thigh. There's a needle in that cushion." He pointed to the armchair. "I'm a goner, old girl," said Mr. Belton quietly; and he rose and took her gently in his arms and kissed her.

His eyes seemed to be devouring her. They would not see her long.

"But there must be something to be done! Can't I— can't I suck the poison out of the wound?" she cried in desperate accents.

"You can't. The damned needle went too far in."

There came a banging on the garden door.

"Here they are! Get out! Lock the door! It's no good bothering about me," cried Mr. Belton. "The key-word — 'Popsy' — is the important thing! Get off! Hide in the garden! Slip out when they come into the house! Get to my uncle with the key-word! And— and— yes— tell— him that you're to have the five hundred quid for bringing it."

"I won't! I won't! I won't leave you!" she cried; and she threw her arms round his neck, and, kissing him, burst into a storm of sobs.

The garden door went with a crash.

"I'm afraid you can't get away now. The devils will get you, too! Oh, why didn't I think to bring a gun!" cried Mr. Belton; and he faced the door with his right arm round her waist. It flew open, and in came Inspector Halliday, followed by the doctor.

"Did they get a jab at you?" cried the doctor anxiously.

"They got it— at least that little devil, the Princess, did. The needle is in the cushion of that armchair. The key-word is 'Popsy'. Don't forget, 'Popsy'," said Mr. Belton.

"Good man!" said the doctor. "How are you feeling?"

"As sick as a cat," said Mr. Belton.

"Then you must have had a devil of a dose! Off with your coat! Quick!" said the doctor; and he opened his bag.

Mr. Belton was quick getting his coat off and opening his shirt; the doctor was quick injecting another shot of anti-toxin. Then he pulled out a flask of whisky, with very little water in it, and made him drink all of it.

"Don't you worry. That'll set you right," he said, cheerfully, and made him lie down on the cushioned settle.

Kitty sat down beside him and took his hand and stared at his pale face with eyes full of anguish.

The other two detectives came in with the Princess. She was snivelling. Inspector Halliday took the cushion from the armchair and gingerly he examined it. Then he ripped the cover off it and spread the stuffing on the table and searched it thoroughly.

"But there isn't any needle," he said, in puzzled accents. "It must have been your imagination, Mr. Belton."

"Imagination be damned!" said Mr. Belton with extraordinary tartness. "My thigh is stinging like the devil. Take a look at the chair— perhaps it's in the chair. I heard a click— two clicks."

The Inspector examined the seat of the chair and found the hole up which the needle shot.

"Try the back. The little devil was leaning against the back," said Mr. Belton, who was still taking notice.

"I was never near the chair! I did nothing! I did not know about the chair!" cried the Princess.

No one took any notice of her. The Inspector found the right button and pressed it. Up shot the needle. He laid the chair on its side, and found, screwed to the bottom of it, a little box that evidently contained the mechanism which raised the syringe and thrust in the plunger and forced the poison out.

"That's fine!" cried the detective. "All the evidence of attempted murder will be in this box— a long stretch for the lady."

The Princess protested shrilly and snivelled louder.

For the next five minutes they were busy taking down Mr. Belton's exact account of what had happened. He signed it. Whether it was the whisky, or whether it was the second shot of anti-toxin, he was feeling no more sick than he had felt. If anything, he was feeling less sick. Kitty sat, still holding his hand and gazing at him with eyes which held a world of passion and despair.

At intervals the doctor felt his pulse and made cheering remarks. The Princess snivelled on. Inspectors Halliday and Tomkins went away to search the house. The minutes passed. A little colour came into Mr. Belton's cheeks; his eyes grew brighter.

Of a sudden he sat up on the couch and said in a tone of satisfaction: "I'm feeling better. That anti-toxin must have caught on."

In her relief Kitty buried her face in her hands and cried in the most unaffected fashion.

Mr. Belton patted her back and said: "Steady on, old girl. There's nothing to worry about now," slipped off the couch, stood up, and shook himself.

"You're right. You'll be all right now," said the doctor cheerfully. "But take it easy for a day or two. And you'd better get home and get to bed. We've got the lady and the chair."

Mr. Belton wasted no time. He thanked the doctor, slipped his arm through Kitty's and marched her out of the house. On the steps she took a tight hold of his arm and supported him carefully all the way to her car. He did not need support, but he appeared thoughtful. She took the driver's seat and started.

Then he said, thoughtfully: "Seeing how you've been— what you've been saying and doing, I don't believe you meant all you said the night before last."

"I was a little beast!" said Kitty, remorsefully. "I didn't mean any of it."

Mr. Belton's method of expressing his relief interfered with her driving.

____________________

14: A Bolt from the Blue

Mcdonnell Bodkin

1850-1933

Journal (Adelaide) 8 February 1919

A Paul Beck case

IT WAS just luck, Paul Beck said, that brought his umbrella all the way from the Hambourg restaurant where he had lost it a few months before the war, to the Haman Hotel, Dublin, where he chanced to be staying for a day on his way to London. The umbrella had been taken by mistake— not stolen— at Hambourg; there had been no name on it, and Mr. Beck had found a newer and better umbrella by a German maker, with a handle almost identical, left in its stead. He could scarcely believe his eyes when he recognised his long-lost friend in the umbrella stand of the Haman Hotel.

But Beck's eyes never lied, and they assured him it was the same, though it had been recovered in the interval, and had got a broad silver collar with the owner's name on it, "Terence O'Flaherty, Cloonfad, County Kerry." Beck did not claim or capture his lost property, but he stood quietly aside when a big blond man dressed in Irish tweed, came out of the coffee room and picked up the umbrella from the stand and walked out into the ruins of Sackville street.

It somehow happened that Beck dined that evening at the same table as the big blond Irishman, and they grew companionable over their punch. Mr. O'Flaherty was also crossing by the morning boat to Holyhead, to have a whack at the Germans.

"We've got to smash those Boche babykillers, sir," he said, bringing his huge fist down with a thud on the table, "and I want to do my bit of the good work."

"The devil is not so bad as he is painted," ventured Beck.

"The devil is a gentleman compared to the Boche," retorted Mr. O'Flaherty.

"Ever been to Germany?" asked Mr Beck innocently. "They say it was a very pleasant place before the war."

"Never, sir, and never will. I always hated the Huns, a curse of God's country, and a curse of God's people. Here's wishing they may get what they deserve. I can't wish them worse luck."

He cooled down a little when he had drained his glass. "Don't let us talk of the beggars any more," he begged, "the very thought of them poisons my punch."

Beck must have taken, quite a fancy to the warm-hearted Irishman who lad denounced the "beastly Boche baby-killers" with such vehemence, for, the moment be set foot on the steamer at Kingstown, he went straight down to Mr. O'Flaherty s cabin. He had to knock twice before the door was unlocked, and, for a second, a look of angry suspicion slowed in the big light blues eyes of the Irishman; only for a second; then with a broad grin of delight he recognised and welcomed his visitor.

"Put the five of them there, old man," he cried, stretching out a huge paw and wringing Beck's hand heartily, "Decent of you to look me up.  I was just starting for breakfast. Come along." Beck had only time before he was hurried away to the saloon to notice that the cabin was scrupulously neat, everything in its place, except a patent, lifesaving waistcoat which was lying loose on the berth.

In the saloon O'Flaherty made short work of his rations. When the two came up together from breakfast they found the deck crowded with passengers, all apparently in exuberant spirits. It was believed that the U-boat menace had been put down— in every sense of the word— no submarine had ventured into those waters for many months, and men, women, and children came and went across the Irish Channel as freely as before the war.

The bell rang, and there was a rush for the gangway. The steamer trembled into motion, and edging its way slowly along the pier slid out past the harbour's mouth into the blue of the summer sea. Beck and his companion leisurely pacing the deck together came on a comely young-woman in nurse's costume, her face alight with health and happiness. By her side one clubby land grabbing her skirt danced a little three-year-old girl, blue-eyed and golden-haired.

The woman cried out as she saw Beck, and stretched both her hands out to him.

"I am so glad to see you," she said; "did you know I was crossing?"

Beck nodded.

"Then you have heard?"

"Of course I lave heard. Every one has heard. Such is fame. Will you allow me to introduce you, Mr. O'Flaherty, my dear friend Mrs. O'Reardon, whose husband has got the V.C. and has been promoted from lieutenant to major, jumping the captaincy. You two Irish people should know each other."

"Congratulate you, Mam," he said in his strong Kerry brogue, "you may well be proud of your husband. It's God's own work bashing these blasted Huns, I beg your pardon, but I can't hold my temper when I think of the baby-killers. I hope to get a stroke at them one of these days. As I was telling my friend Beck, last night, I am crossing to join up. l m just back from the States, but I want to get into an Irish regiment if I can manage it. It's every Irishman's duty to take a hand. I have no use for these skulking Sinn Feiners."

"Oh, I can quite understand," she said; "we want every Irishman we can get. It is Ireland's road to freedom if they would only see it. I'm sure you will do a man's part," she added with an appreciative glance at the huge figure.

"I will do my best," he said modestly.

"Even an Irishman can do no more," commented Beck.

Little Blue-eyes began to think she was left too long out of the limelight. "What have you got for me?" she demanded of Beck, whom she lad captured at the first outset; plainly she relied on Beck as a sure find.

"Hush, darling," cried her mother, "Mr. Beck didn't know―"

"But Mr. Beck did know," he interrupted, "that he was to lave the honour of meeting Miss Norah, and he came with his ammunition ready."

From his capacious pockets he produced a box of chocolates and a picture book.

"Oh, by Jove!" she exclaimed, her eyes dancing will delight as she pounced on the picture book. All three laughed at the exclamation from baby lips.

"Her father," explained the mother; "The imp picks up everything from him."

While Beck listened to the prattling of the little one he had ears for the familiar talk of his two friends who seemed to have taken a sudden fancy to each other.

"Oh, yes, I'm a bit nervous," the lady confessed in an undertone, "though I'm told there's no danger. I don't think so much for myself, but―" her eyes dwelt for a moment lovingly on her little girl, "I have heard such horrible things— men, women, and children all drowned together, while the brutes on the submarines laughed to see them sink. I am all the. more afraid because I am so happy; it seems too good to be true, that in a few hours we will be with my husband."

"Make your mind very easy, my dear, lady," urged O'Flaherty earnestly, "the submarines are down and out; there isn't a smithereen of them left. The deep sea shells settled their hash, invented, I hear, by a Dublin tailor— more power to his elbow. You have heard of the deep-sea shell, mam? No. Well, it's like the ordinary shell, but instead of a fuse it has a bit of the quare stuff that flares up when it touches the water. As the shell goes down the pressure drives in the water; then good-bye to the submarine and every man jack of the crew."

"Horrible," cried Mrs. O'Reardon; "I feel half sorry for the poor wretches."

"Have no pity, mam," cried O'Flaherty fiercely, "for scoundrels that murder women and children like little missy there. Hell is not lot enough to punish the devils."

"I am with you then, O'Flaherty," Beck interposed suddenly. "Between ourselves: I am on the track of one of those scoundrels at present. Lord have mercy on him when I catch him, for I'll have none."

O'Flaherty's face for a second wore a look of blank amazement.

"Mine Gott," he exclaimed. Then as he glanced at Beck's smiling good humoured face his excitement vanished and he laughed incredulously. "Bully for you, old man, I only hope you will nab the scoundrel."

"Thanks," said Beck laughingly, "I mean to," and he turned over the leaves of the picture book for Norah. A moment later he whispered a word in the child's ear and she jumped from his knee and ran to her mother. "Oh, mammy," she cried, "I am so sorry. I forgot," and she offered her open chocolate box, first to her mother then to O Flaherty. The big man beamed on her as he took a sweet from the box, then quietly lifted her, box and all to has knee, and stroked the golden curls softly with a huge hand.

"My Jack-Daddy is the best man in the whole world," she announced again, "the King with a gold crown gave him the Wee See and made him Lord Major. You know;—Here's the Lord Major, here's his two men."

O'Flaherty seemed puzzled at this mysterious formula, and she looked round for her old friend and playfellow Beck to explain. But Beck had dipped quietly away so. she turned again to her new friend.

"Now hoist me," she commanded imperiously, "Jack Daddy hoists me and hoists me, and hoists me. "

At that he caught her tenderly in his strong hands, and swung her high round his head, while her shrill, sweet laughter rang out triumphantly and her golden curls flew wild in the wind of her own swift motion. Tears rose in the mother's eyes at the touching picture, and her heart -warmed to. the chivalrous Irish gentleman.

Meanwhile Beck walked rapidly along the deck towards the Captain's quarters.

"I don't think Kerry-men say 'Mine Gott' just, like that when they are startled," he said softly to himself, "especially Kerry-men who have never been in Germany. Curious!"

Midway along the deck he ran into the captain himself, a smiling middle aged, man, gold-braided and portly.

"Hallo, Beck!" he cried genially; "where did you drop from? Going strong?"

"Very, just at present. Can I have a word with you in private, Captain?"

"A hundred if you want to."

Ten words from Beck after they got into the cabin and the smile vanished From the genial face of the captain. As Beck concluded, his brows came together in a frown, and the hard glint in his steel grey eyes boded ill for somebody.

"But you are quite sure, Beck," he asked, "it seems so little to go on?"

"I am quite sure of my man," Beck answered quietly; "he overdid the part— too much camouflage. Meanwhile I want to have a word with your wireless operator.  May I?"

"Of course; I'll go with you myself."

"Not you— I'm d——d particular; it wouldn't suit me to be seen in such company. You're not class enough for me, captain, that's the truth of it. You may join us later on, when I hope to have more news for you."

On the stairs as he half expected he met O'Flaherty smiling and genial, and to Mr. Beck's eye bulkier than ever.

"Down to my cabin for a cigar," he explained in a tone that invited confidence.

"I want to send a wireless," Beck answered as smilingly, "very important."

O'Flaherty winked. "The German spy?" he asked laughing.

"Right," answered Beck in the same tone, and hummed under his breath as he passed out of hearing,

This elegant youth

He tells the truth

Whenever he finds it pays,

And in this case

It all took place

Exactly as he says.

"Truth always deceives a liar."

He passed O'Flaherty's cabin on his way to the wireless operator's room, and looked in, a little surprised that it opened so easily. Everything as before? No! The lifesaving waistcoat was no longer lying on the berth.

"Curious," muttered Beck a second time, and walked on, a little puzzled. Then suddenly, as if an electric light were switched on his brain, he saw the whole scheme plain and the horror of it halted him in his tracks, his fists clenched, his heart beating hard.

"That's it," he muttered, "the cruel devil is taking no risks."

The spasm of rage had passed. Beck was smiling genially as ever when he walked into the cabin where the one-legged wireless operator kept his court, a spider in midst of his web, whose sensitive, invisible filaments reached out through to the ends of the earth. The operator, seated at his instrument, looked back enquiringly over his shoulder at Beck.

"Wait a bit, my lad," Beck answered, "the captain is coming."

The captain's step sounded in the passage, and as he came in Beck shut the door behind him and locked it.

"Have you found out?" the captain began.

"Everything," Beck answered. "A devilish plot, there is no time to be lost." He whispered in his ear that the man at he instrument might not hear.

"My God!" cried the captain aloud. "That's damnable."

Beck touched his elbow and pointed to the operator, who sat motionless with his back to them.

"Oh, that's all right," the captain said. "Poor chap, he has lost a wife and a child and leg in a torpedo smash. He's death on the Huns. I trust him as I trust myself."

"Good," echoed Beck, "but we cannot too careful. I could send a message if need be. But I prefer the skilled hand. It must go at once."

The captain nodded, and Beck handed the message to the operator.

"You understand?"

The man's lips twitched as he read, but he answered very quietly, "Yes, sir, I understand. I'd give the other leg to set a bit of my own back on  those devils."

As he spoke he was sending Beck's summons out into space. While they waited impatiently for the reply the captain said to Beck, "Why not arrest him at once if you are quite sure, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."

"In the bush, but not in the sea," retorted Beck. "The chap is our alarm clock to wake us up at the right moment; besides, letting him go free is like throwing a sprat to catch a shark, and I believe we will catch our shark all right."

The voice out of space interrupted their talk. The operator wrote and passed the message to the captain. One word—"Coming."

Half an hour at the most," commented Beck.  "Just one thing more, captain, there is a bell from here to the Quarter deck?"

The captain nodded, and Beck scribbled a second message and landed it to the Operator.

"The very second the bell rings send that off. I think I can promise you quite big bit of your own back."

"Just one thing more, Beck," the captain said, fumbling with the gilt button of his jacket, "that's the plain truth. It's a terrible responsibility, with all these women and children on board."

"Safe as on land," Beck answered confidently. "I'd be in a blue funk myself, captain, if it weren't a sure thing. You'll get your warning in good time. That's what our friend is here for. The moment he gives the signal you let her rip. Then we'll see fun."

They parted on the stairs. The captain went on the quarter-deck and Beck, still smiling, sauntered away in search of Mrs. O'Reardon and little Norah. and found them near the prow, leaning over the rails to watch the water that foamed and sparkled as the ship shore through.

"I like your friend, Mr. O'Flaherty," she told him.  "He is so good humoured and comforting.  You must take or he will cut you out with Norah; he promised to send her a big doll when we come ashore."

"Did  he say 'When you come ashore'?" asked Beck, in such a strange tone of voice that she stared at him wonder.

"Why, of course; he couldn't get a doll on board, could he?"

"Of course not. I beg your pardon; so stupid of me. Where has O'Flaherty gone to?"

"Across there to the bench near the corner. He said he smoked a stifling rank cigar, picked up the habit in America and if he didn't get by himself to smoke it the passengers would unite to pitch him overboard.

She pointed across the deck to where O'Flaherty sat placidly smoking with a  big Panama hat perched precariously on the back of his head. He took the cigar  from his lips to wave a salute to Beck when he caught his eye; but apparently he was too comfortable to move.

Beck was among the gayest of the gay; he seemed not to have a care in the world. Seated between Mrs. O'Reardon and her daughter, he made desperate- love to his little sweetheart, while her mother, absorbed in the prospect of meeting her husband, scarcely found time, now, and again, for a word and a smile.

"That O'Flaherty man is no use, Norah," he said, "he doesn't mean to send you that doll; you'd better have one from me. Shut look at him now."

"He does look kind of lumpy," Norah impartially admitted.

Mr. O'Flaherty, having finished his cigar, was reclining awkwardly on his bench, his head sunk on his chest, as he basked in the hot sunshine.

"Swelling visibly," said Paul, "like the lady old Weller saw at the temperance meeting. It's about time I fancy for him to wake up." He laughed as he spoke, but somehow the laugh jarred on Mrs. O'Reardon.

"What's wrong with you, Paul?" she asked, "you seem to have some grudge against poor Mr. O'Flaherty. What does it all mean?"

"Wait and see," said Paul, his eyes fixed on the big recumbent figure. "Hurry there," he added under his breath.

That moment, as if he had heard the whisper, Mr. O'Flaherty lumbered to his feet, apparently half-dazed by his doze. Somehow as he rose his Panama hat fell off and rolled across the deck. O'Flaherty dashed madly after it, struck the rails violently waist high, and somersaulted over with a tremendous splash into the sea.

Instantly there was a tumult on deck. Women screamed and men yelled, and from all sides rang out the startling cry, "Man overboard!"

With a unanimous rush passengers crowded to the rail to watch where he had gone. Almost at once head and shoulders appeared over the water, and he struck out with the vigorous stroke of a practised swimmer; but he seemed. still dazed by his fall, for he swam straight away from the ship, while the frantic "Man overboard, man overboard," rang out louder than ever.

Every passenger on the boat— except one —expected the steamer to stop and a boat to be lowered. They were amazed to feel the deck quiver with an increased speed as the engines raced to the full limit of their power and the vessel drove furiously on, zig-zagging in short curves to left and right, like a hare with a greyhound at his heels. Mrs. O'Reardon clutched Beck's arm convulsively.

"Oh," she cried, "the wretched man. Why don't we stop and save him?"

"You may spare your pity," Beck answered; "our friend Mr. O'Flaherty is safe."

His eves searching the sea caught a sudden glint close to. the surface, about half a mile off. Then something dark like, the fin of a huge shark, showed over the water for a second, and vanished.

"Look there," he said pointing. "Mr. O'Flaherty's friends are waiting for him there."

At the first splash of O'Flaherty in the water a bell rang in the room of the wireless operator, and from the room a cry for help went straight up to the cloudless zenith. From its hiding, place in the depths of the blue the avenger fell like a falling star. The loud drone or its engine shook the still air, caught the ears of the passengers and turned their eyes from the sea to the sky.

Someone cried out:"Seaplane and submarine!" and the crowd along the ship's side, wild with excitement, watched from the front row of a theatre the thrilling conflict between the eagle and the shark. Agile, alert as a seagull, the huge bird skimmed the smooth surface of the water. Twice it circled over the same spot; the second time something dropped from it with a heavy splash and at the same instant it shot up a steep incline into the sky.

A great foam flecked column of water rose into the air, glittered for a second emerald and diamond in the sunshine, and vanished with a crash.

Through his glasses Beck watched a small black speck floating motionless near the centre of the oily patch. Then he put down his glasses and raised his hat.

"Goodbye forever, Mr O'Flaherty," he said.

As he spoke he met Mrs. O'Reardon's eyes brimming over with feminine unreasoning pity.

"The poor wretch," she murmured, "the poor wretch."

"My dear lady," Beck answered gently, "pity is wasted on the devil."

He stopped, took bewildered Norah under the arms and swung her lightly on to his shoulder.

"You will see your Jack-Daddy again, little one," he said.

____________________

15: Spoofing a Detective

Mrs. George Corbett

1846-1930

Telegraph (Brisbane) 10 August 1907

Is this a case of the biter bit?

EVERYBODY who has been to South Africa knows what an I.D.B. is. But those readers whose travels have not been of an extensive nature may not be equally well informed. So it will, perhaps, be just as well to explain that an I.D.B. is. the initiative way of pronouncing the compound word— Illicit- Diamond- Buyer. In the neighbourhood of Kimberley, notwithstanding the extraordinary system of surveillance which exists, there is quite a flourishing community of these illegal traders, and the rewards for their detection are so tempting that many a man makes it his principal private business to look out for them.

The buying and selling of rough diamonds, except by those who are duly licensed, is a punishable offence, the presumption being that unlicensed traders have either stolen the precious gems, or that they are condoning the theft of them by purchasing at a much lower price than they would have to pay in the open market.

As so much of the whole commerce of the district depends upon the marketable value of the diamonds found in the famous local mines, it naturally follows that there, is some bitterness of feeling connected with the losses which legitimate traders undoubtedly suffer through being undersold by the I.D.B., and they have so many enemies to guard against, that they have to work very cautiously indeed.

Amongst those to whom general suspicion was for a long time directed was Mrs. Grote, a hale and vigorous woman of sixty or thereabouts. How the suspicion of being an I.D.B. first attached itself to her nobody could tell. She was of pleasant countenance, comfortable proportions, and cheerful, but discreet of speech. Her house was small, but judiciously, even amply, furnished. Her table bespoke an income that was not at all despicable. And her attire, though in scrupulous good taste, and always of quiet colour, showed her to be by no means one of those whom the relieving officer would consider it his duty to visit.

This was all the more remarkable, seeing that, during her late husband's lifetime, Mrs. Grote had not been too well endowed with this world's goods. Mr. Grote was poor in life, and it was well known that he had no money to leave behind him when he died. Whence came, then, the income upon which his widow now subsisted so comfortably? No wonder her neighbours were suspicious. And no wonder that they watched her with constantly augmenting keenness. Even the servant she kept was pumped and questioned so judiciously that she could not have failed to betray her mistress's secrets if she had known of any.

"Don't you tell me that the widow Grote is independent," said one inquisitive neighbour. "Her husband was as poor as a church mouse, and she doesn't do any work now that he's dead. So where does she get her money, eh, Annchen? And how does she happen to have so much business with niggers, tell me that?"

"Well, I don't know as it's any business of yours, Mrs. Burchett, where my missis gets her money, and where she doesn't. She pays me my wages regular, and she pays her bills to the minute, and that's more than some of her neighbours do. Still, she doesn't make no secret of it, so I don't see that I need to. When she married Mr. Grote, her people didn't like, it, and they wouldn't have nothing more to do with her so long as he lived, for they thought he was after their money, and were determined he shouldn't have it. After he died they forgave her, and they send her a regular income every month. So you see it's as plain as the nose on your face where she gets her money!"

"Who did you say it was that sent her this allowance, Annchen?"

"Why her people— her father and mother, to be sure."

"H'm. She's over sixty, so I reckon her father and mother can't be considered chickens, anyhow. And how do they send the money?"

"Well, I must say that you are very inquisitious, Mrs. Burchett. But if you must know, her nephew brings it regular as clockwork, and a real nice man he is too."

"But you haven't told me about the niggers yet."

"Well, I declare! A body's business won't but be somebody else's business soon! The washing's put out every week, the native woman does it. And the missis puts out her sewing, for she says it helps the poor things that need the work. And there's sometimes messages to bring about the things. Besides that, we have a native to chop the wood and do all sorts of things about the house that it takes a man to do. And now, if there's anything else you want to know, you'd better ask me at once, for I'm busy, and have gossiped enough with you for one day."

"Well, of all the impertinent minxes that ever I came across Annchen heats them," muttered Mrs. Burchett, angrily as she once more sought the shelter of her own domicile. "Fancy the hussy cheeking me like that! And I don't believe a word of her story, either. It's all too straight cut to be true!"

That evening Mr. Burchett introduced to his home and spouse a Mr. Greenacre, a friend whom he had known for several weeks, and to whom he had taken a great fancy. Mrs. Burchett might be somewhat addicted to gossiping and inquisitiveness, but sho was nevertheless a model housewife, and Mr. Burchett was wont to affirm that he had got the best wife in the colony. Without endorsing too extensively the statements of so biased a witness, we can safely affirm that Mr. Burchett never took a guest home with him who was not promptly made welcome and comfortable by the lady of the house. Mr Greenacre was no exception to the general rule appertaining to visitors here, and he enjoyed himself very well. He enjoyed his supper. He enjoyed his pipe. He enjoyed the drinks that followed. And he enjoyed the conversation that accompanied and flavoured everything.

Said conversation turned, in a very natural manner, upon the misdoings of a lot of I.D.U., who were believed to be doing an extensive business. Mr. Greenacre also casually mentioned that nothing would please him better Wan' to be the means of unearthing the whole gang.

"Do you know," said Mrs. Burchett, suddenly, "I believe one of them lives  close to us."

"You don't say so!" exclaimed Mr. Greenacre, rising in great excitement.

"Now, Maria," was Mr. Burchett's query, "are you still on the same lay? Do you actually believe that stupid old woman, who looks as if she couldn't say  boo to a goose, to be engaged in a traffic that requires so much shrewdness and ability as illicit diamond buying?"

"That's just where you always did make mistakes, Isaac. You can't see an inch below the surface. You look at Mrs. Grote's jolly face, and come to the conclusion that bring jolly is all she understands about. But if you will look at that firm chin and mouth of hers, and into her keen grey eyes, you'll believe her capable of a bit of smart, business."

"But what are your reasons for believing this neighbour of yours to be an I.D.B.?" asked Mr. Greenacre. "Grey eyes and a firm mouth are not much proof, you know."

"Listen!" said Mrs. Burchett, and then she entered so minutely into all her reasons for suspecting Mrs. Grote that her hearers ended by believing as she did.

"I feel sure I am on the track of an I.D.B. at last!" cried Mr. Greenacre, gleefully. " And now I have something to tell you, which must travel no further. I am a detective, specially told off for this branch of the business. If Mrs. Grote is proved to be an I.D.B. and arrested, there will be a substantial reward paid, I mean to earn that reward, subject to a share of it to be paid to you for such assistance as you may render me."

The detective's proposal met with no opposition, and before he left the Burchetts that night he was in possession of every useful bit of information they were able to give him.

The next, day a visitor, whom Annchen had never seen before, inquired for Mrs. Grote, and was shown into a curious room, the like of which he had never seen before. It seemed to be but right in the centre of the house, and was fitted up so handsomely as to surprise him. He sat down on a soft lounge, and surveyed the apartment. The walls were almost covered with pictures and drapery, and were intersected by no windows, the place being lighted from above by a very large skylight, which was somewhat closely barred inside.

"And no wonder," thought the detective, "If she keeps many diamonds here, she won't want the place to be too easily robbed."

Two doors opened into the room. The detective had entered by one, and supposed the other to lead to the bedrooms, which were on the ground floor. the whole house being only one storey high.

Presently Mrs. Grote came in, and inquired his business. Without much preamble beyond stating that the kaffir Tom, whom she knew, had told him it was safe to come here, the detective disclosed his ostensible business. He wanted, he said, to sell some fine rough diamonds. Would Mrs. Grote buy them?

There now ensued a good deal of bargaining, during the course of which Mrs. Grote showed herself to ho a good judge of the precious stones, as well as being a woman whom it would be difficult to cheat.

Finally, to the detective's great joy, she bought all the diamonds he had with him. With them in her hand, she went to her bedroom to fetch the money for them, shutting the door behind her with a sharp click.

After Mr. Greenacre had waited some time for her return, he got uneasy and began to explore. The door by which he had entered could not be opened. The other one merely led to a pantry containing some eatables. The window it was impossible to reach, and his shouts and knocks produced no answer. When a full hour after this found him still a prisoner, he began to tear round the room like a madman. But his struggles, cries and ineffectual attempts to escape only exhausted him, and at last he sank back on the couch, with the melancholy exclamation, "Spoofed! By Jove!"

The next morning a miserable and sad-eyed individual was liberated from a confinement that had proved very horrible to him, for he had feared that he might be left here to die of starvation. The Kaffir who opened the door for him also handed him a note, which ran as follows:—

"Sir,— When next you try to catch an I.D.B., don't go so clumsily about it. I was about to leave Kimberley very soon, conceiving myself no longer safe here. Your visit makes it necessary for me to go a few days sooner than I intended. My servant goes with me. Also your fine diamonds, for which you have my thanks. You may have my furniture in payment, as well as the house in which there is so little difficulty in spoofing a detective."

_____________________

16: Ooze

Anthony M. Rud

1893-1942

Weird Tales, March 1923

A novelette

IN the heart of a second-growth piney-woods jungle of southern Alabama, a region sparsely settled by backwoods blacks and Cajuns— that queer, half-wild people descended from Acadian exiles of the middle eighteenth century— stands a strange, enormous ruin.

Interminable trailers of Cherokee rose, white-laden during a single month of spring, have climbed the heights of its three remaining walls. Palmetto fans rise knee high above the base. A dozen scattered live oaks, now belying their nomenclature because of choking tufts of gray, Spanish moss and two-foot circlets of mistletoe parasite which have stripped bare of foliage the gnarled, knotted limbs, lean fantastic beards against the crumbling brick.

Immediately beyond, where the ground becomes soggier and lower— dropping away hopelessly into the tangle of dogwood, holly, poison sumac and pitcher plants that is Moccasin Swamp— undergrowth of ti-ti and annis has formed a protecting wall impenetrable to all save the furtive ones. Some few outcasts utilize the stinking depths of that sinister swamp, distilling "shinny" of "pure cawn" liquor for illicit trade.

Tradition states that this is the case, at least— a tradition which antedates that of the premature ruin by many decades. I believe it, for during evenings intervening between investigations of the awesome spot I often was approached as a possible customer by woodbillies who could not fathom how anyone dared venture near without plenteous fortification of liquid courage.

I know "shinny," therefore I did not purchase it for personal consumption. A dozen times I bought a quart or two, merely to establish credit among the Cajuns, pouring away the vile stuff immediately into the sodden ground. It seemed then that only through filtration and condensation of their dozens of weird tales regarding "Daid House" could I arrive at understanding of the mystery and weight of horror hanging about the place.

Certain it is that out of all the superstitious cautioning, head-wagging and whispered nonsensities I obtained only two indisputable facts. The first was that no money, and no supporting battery of ten-gauge shotguns loaded with chilled shot, could induce either Cajun or darky of the region to approach within five hundred yards of that flowering wall! The second fact I shall dwell upon later.

Perhaps it would be as well, as I am only a mouthpiece in this chronicle, to relate in brief why I came to Alabama on this mission.

I am a scribbler of general fact articles, no fiction writer as was Lee Cranmer— though doubtless the confession is superfluous. Lee was my roommate during college days. I knew his family well, admiring John Corliss Cranmer even more that I admired the son and friend— and almost as much as Peggy Breede whom Lee married. Peggy liked me, but that was all. I cherish sanctified memory of her for just that much, as no other woman before or since has granted this gangling dyspeptic even a hint of joyous and sorrowful intimacy.

Work kept me to the city. Lee, on the other hand, coming of wealthy family— and, from the first, earning from his short stories and novel royalties more than I wrested from editorial coffers— needed no anchorage. He and Peggy honeymooned a four-month trip to Alaska, visited Honolulu the next winter, fished for salmon on Cain's River, New Brunswick, and generally enjoyed the outdoors at all seasons.

They kept an apartment in Wilmette, near Chicago, yet, during the few spring and fall seasons they were "home," both preferred to rent a suite at one of the country clubs to which Lee belonged. I suppose they spent thrice or five times the amount Lee actually earned, yet for my part I only honoured that the two should find such great happiness in life and still accomplish artistic triumph.

They were honest, zestful young Americans, the type— and pretty nearly the only type— two million dollars cannot spoil. John Corliss Cranmer, father of Lee, though as different from his boy as a microscope is different from a painting by Remington, was even further from being dollar- conscious. He lived in a world bounded only by the widening horizon of biological science— and his love for the two who would carry on that Cranmer name.

Many a time I used to wonder how it could be that as gentle, clean-souled and lovable a gentleman as John Corliss Cranmer could have ventured so far into scientific research without attaining small-calibre atheism. Few do. He believed both in God and humankind. To accuse him of murdering his boy and the girl wife who had come to be loved as the mother of baby Elsie—  as well as blood and flesh of his own family— was a gruesome, terrible absurdity! Yes, even when John Corliss Cranmer was declared unmistakably insane!

Lacking a relative in the world, baby Elsie was given to me— and the middle-aged couple who had accompanied the three as servants about half of the known world. Elsie would be Peggy over again. I worshiped her, knowing that if my stewardship of her interests could make of her a woman of Peggy's loveliness and worth I should not have lived in vain. And at four Elsie stretched out her arms to me after a vain attempt to jerk out the bobbed tail of Lord Dick, my tolerant old Airedale— and called me "papa."

I felt a deep-down choking...yes, those strangely long black lashes some day might droop in fun or coquetry, but now baby Elsie held a wistful, trusting seriousness in depths of ultramarine eyes— that same seriousness which only Lee had brought to Peggy.

Responsibility in one instant become double. That she might come to love me as more than foster parent was my dearest wish. Still, through selfishness I could not rob her of rightful heritage; she must know in after years. And the tale that I would tell her must not be the horrible suspicion which had been bandied about in common talk!

I went to Alabama, leaving Elsie in the competent hands of Mrs. Daniels and her husband, who had helped care for her since birth.

In my possession, prior to the trip, were the scant facts known to authorities at the time of John Corliss Cranmer's escape and disappearance. They were incredible enough.

For conducting biological research upon forms of protozoan life, John Corliss Cranmer had hit upon this region of Alabama. Near a great swamp teeming with microscopic organisms, and situated in a semitropical belt where freezing weather rarely intruded to harden the bogs, the spot seemed ideal for his purpose.

Through Mobile he could secure supplies daily by truck. The isolation suited him. With only an octoroon man to act as chef, houseman and valet for the times he entertained visitors, he brought down scientific apparatus, occupying temporary quarters in the village of Burdett's Corners while his woods house was in process of construction.

By all accounts the Lodge, as he termed it, was a substantial affair of eight or nine rooms, built of logs and planed lumber bought at Oak Grove. Lee and Peggy were expected to spend a portion of each year with him; quail, wild turkey and deer abounded, which fact made such a vacation certain to please the pair. At other times all save four rooms were closed.

This was in 1907, the year of Lee's marriage. Six years later when I came down, no sign of a house remained except certain mangled and rotting timbers projecting from viscid soil— or what seemed like soil. And a twelve-foot wall of brick had been built to enclose the house completely! One portion of this had fallen inward!

ii

I WASTED weeks of time first, interviewing officials of the police department at Mobile, the town marshals and county sheriffs of Washington and Mobile counties, and officials of the psychopathic hospital from which Cranmer made his escape.

In substance the story was one of baseless homicidal mania. Cranmer the elder had been away until late fall, attending two scientific conferences in the North, and then going abroad to compare certain of his findings with those of a Dr. Gemmler of Prague University. Unfortunately, Gemmler was assassinated by a religious fanatic shortly afterward. The fanatic voiced virulent objection to all Mendelian research as blasphemous. This was his only defence. He was hanged.

Search of Gambler's notes and effects revealed nothing save an immense amount of laboratory data on karyokinesis— the process of chromosome arrangement occurring in first growing cells of higher animal embryos. Apparently Cranmer had hoped to develop some similarities, or point out differences between hereditary factors occurring in lower forms of life and those half-demonstrated in the cat and monkey. The authorities had found nothing that helped me. Cranmer had gone crazy; was that not sufficient explanation?

Perhaps it was for them, but not for me— and Elsie.

But to the slim basis of fact I was able to unearth:

No one wondered when a fortnight passed without appearance of any person from the Lodge. Why should anyone worry? A provision salesman in Mobile called up twice, but tailed to complete the connection. He merely shrugged. The Cranmers had gone away somewhere on a trip. In a week, a month, a year they would be back. Meanwhile he lost commissions, but what of it? He had no responsibility for those queer nuts up there in the piney-woods. Crazy? Of course! Why should any guy with millions to spend shut himself up among the Cajuns and draw microscope-enlarged notebook pictures of— what the salesman called— "germs"?

A stir was aroused at the end of the fortnight, but the commotion confined itself to building circles. Twenty carloads of building brick, fifty bricklayers, and a quarter-acre of fine- meshed wire— the sort used for screening off pens of rodents and small marsupials in a zoological garden— were ordered, damn expense, hurry! by an unshaved, tattered man who identified himself with difficulty as John Corliss Cranmer.

He looked strange, even then. A certified check for the total amount, given in advance, and another check of absurd size slung toward a labour entrepreneur, silenced objection, however. These millionaires were apt to be flighty. When they wanted something they wanted it at tap of the bell. Well, why not drag down the big profits? A poorer man would have been jacked up in a day. Cranmer's fluid gold bathed him in immunity to criticism.

The encircling wall was built, and roofed with wire netting which drooped about the squat-pitch of the Lodge. Curious inquiries of workmen went unanswered until the final day.

Then Cranmer, a strange, intense apparition who showed himself more shabby than a quay derelict, assembled every man jack of the workmen. In one hand he grasped a wad of blue slips— fifty- six of them. In the other he held a Luger automatic.

"I offer each man a thousand dollars for silence!" he announced. "As an alternative— death! You know little. Will all of you consent to swear upon your honour that nothing which has occurred here will be mentioned elsewhere? By this I mean absolute silence! You will not come back here to investigate anything. You will not tell your wives. You will not open your mouths even upon the witness stand in case you are called! My price is one thousand apiece.

"In case one of you betrays me I give you my word that this man shall die! I am rich. I can hire men to do murder. Well, what do you say?"

The men glanced apprehensively about. The threatening Luger decided them. To a man they accepted the blue slips— and, save for one witness who lost all sense of fear and morality in drink, none of the fifty-six has broken his pledge, as far as I know. That one bricklayer died later in delirium tremens.

iii

THEY found him the first time, mouthing meaningless phrases concerning an amoeba— one of the tiny forms of protoplasmic life he was known to have studied. Also he leaped into a hysteria of self-accusation. He had murdered two innocent people! The tragedy was his crime. He had drowned them in ooze! Ah, God!

Unfortunately for all concerned, Cranmer, dazed and indubitably stark insane, chose to perform a strange travesty on fishing four miles to the west of his lodge— on the further border of Moccasin Swamp. His clothing had been torn to shreds, his hat was gone, and he was coated from head to foot with gluey mire. It was far from strange that the good folk of Shanksville, who never had glimpsed the eccentric millionaire, failed to associate him with Cranmer.

They took him in, searched his pockets— finding no sign save an inordinate sum of money— and then put him under medical care. Two precious weeks elapsed before Dr. Quirk reluctantly acknowledged that he could do nothing more for this patient, and notified the proper authorities.

Then much more time was wasted. Hot April and half of still hotter May passed by before the loose ends were connected. Then it did little good to know that this raving unfortunate was Cranmer, or that the two persons of whom he shouted in disconnected delirium actually had disappeared. Alienists absolved him of responsibility. He was confined in a cell reserved for the violent.

Meanwhile, strange things occurred back at the Lodge— which now, for good and sufficient reason, was becoming known to dwellers of the woods as Dead House. Until one of the walls fell in, however, there had been no chance to see— unless one possessed the temerity to climb either one of the tall live oaks, or mount the barrier itself. No doors or opening of any sort had been placed in that hastily constructed wall!

By the time the western side of the wall fell, not a native for miles around but feared the spot far more than even the bottomless, snake-infested bogs which lay to west and north.

The single statement was all John Corliss Cranmer ever gave to the world. It proved sufficient. An immediate search was instituted. It showed that less than three weeks before the day of initial reckoning, his son and Peggy had come to visit him for the second time that winter— leaving Elsie in company of the Daniels pair. They had rented a pair of Gordons for quail hunting, and had gone out. That was the last anyone had seen of them.

The backwoods Negro who glimpsed them stalking a covey behind their two pointing dogs had known no more— even when sweated through twelve hours of third degree. Certain suspicious circumstances (having to do only with his regular pursuit of "shinny" transportation) had caused him to fall under suspicion at first. He was dropped.

Two days later the scientist himself was apprehended— a gibbering idiot who sloughed his pole— holding on to the baited hook— into a marsh where nothing save moccasins, an errant alligator, or amphibian life could have been snared.

His mind was three-quarters dead. Cranmer then was in the state of the dope fiend who rouses to a sitting position to ask seriously how many Bolshevists were killed by Julius Caesar before he was stabbed by Brutus, or why it was that Roller canaries sang only on Wednesday evenings. He knew that tragedy of the most sinister sort had stalked through his life— but little more, at first.

Later the police obtained that one statement that he had murdered two human beings, but never could means or motive be established. Official guess as to the means was no more than wild conjecture; it mentioned enticing the victims to the noisome depths of Moccasin Swamp, there to let them flounder and sink.

The two were his son and daughter-in-law, Lee and Peggy!

iv

BY feigning coma— then awakening with suddenness to assault three attendants with incredible ferocity and strength— John Corliss Cranmer escaped from Elizabeth Ritter Hospital.

How he hid, how he managed to traverse sixty-odd intervening miles and still balk detection, remains a minor mystery to be explained only by the assumption that maniacal cunning sufficed to outwit saner intellects.

Traverse those miles he did, though until I was fortunate enough to uncover evidence to this effect, it was supposed generally that he had made his escape as stowaway on one of the banana boats, or had buried himself in some portion of the nearer woods where he was unknown. The truth ought to be welcome to householders of Shanksville, Burdett's Corners and vicinage— those excusably prudent ones who to this day keep loaded shotguns handy and barricade their doors at nightfall.

The first ten days of my investigation may be touched upon in brief. I made headquarters in Burdett's Corners, and drove out each morning, carrying lunch and returning for my grits and piney-woods pork or mutton before nightfall. My first plan had been to camp out at the edge of the swamp, for opportunity to enjoy the outdoors comes rarely in my direction. Yet after one cursory examination of the premises, I abandoned the idea. I did not want to camp alone there. And I am less superstitious than a real estate agent.

It was, perhaps, psychic warning: more probably the queer, faint, salt odour as of fish left to decay, which hung about the ruin, made too unpleasant an impression upon my olfactory sense. I experienced a distinct chill every time the lengthening shadows caught me near Dead House.

The smell impressed me. In newspaper reports of the case one ingenious explanation had been worked out. To the rear of the spot where Dead House had stood— inside the wall— was a swampy hollow circular in shape. Only a little real mud lay in the bottom of the bowl-like depression now, but one reporter on the staff of The Mobile Register guessed that during the tenancy of the lodge it had been a fish pool. Drying up of the water had killed the fish, who now permeated the remnant of mud with this foul odour.

The possibility that Cranmer had needed to keep fresh fish at hand for some of his experiments silenced the natural objection that in a country where every stream holds gar, pike, bass, catfish and many other edible varieties, no one would dream of stocking a stagnant puddle.

After tramping about the enclosure, testing the queerly brittle, desiccated top stratum of earth within and speculating concerning the possible purpose of the wall, I cut off a long limb of chinaberry and probed the mud. One fragment of fish spine would confirm the guess of that imaginative reporter.

I found nothing resembling a piscal skeleton, but established several facts. First, this mud crater had definite bottom only three or four feet below the surface of remaining ooze. Second, the fishy stench become stronger as I stirred. Third, at one time the mud, water, or whatever had comprised the balance of content, had reached the rim of the bowl. The last showed by certain marks plain enough when the crusty, two-inch stratum of upper coating was broken away. It was puzzling.

The nature of that thin, desiccated effluvium which seemed to cover everything even to the lower foot or two of brick, came in for next inspection. It was strange stuff, unlike any earth I ever had seen, though undoubtedly some form of scum drained in from the swamp at the time of river floods or cloudbursts (which in this section are common enough in spring and fall). It crumbled beneath the fingers. When I walked over it, the stuff crunched hollowly. In fainter degree it possessed the fishy odour also.

I took some samples where it lay thickest upon the ground, and also a few where there seemed to be no more than a depth of a sheet of paper. Later I would have a laboratory analysis made.

Apart from any possible bearing the stuff might have upon the disappearance of my three friends, I felt the tug of article interest— that wonder over anything strange or seemingly inexplicable which lends the hunt for fact a certain glamour and romance all its own. To myself I was going to have to explain sooner or later just why this layer covered the entire space within the walls and was not perceptible anywhere outside! The enigma could wait, however— or so I decided.

Far more interesting were the traces of violence apparent on wall and what once had been a house. The latter seemed to have been ripped from its foundations by a giant hand, crushed out of semblance to a dwelling, and then cast in fragments about the base of wall— mainly on the south side, where heaps of twisted, broken timbers lay in profusion. On the opposite side there had been such heaps once, but now only charred sticks, coated with that gray-black, omnipresent coat of desiccation, remained. These piles of charcoal had been sifted and examined most carefully by the authorities, as one theory had been advanced that Cranmer had burned the bodies of his victims. Yet no sign whatever of human remains was discovered.

The fire, however, pointed out one odd fact which controverted the reconstructions made by detectives months before. The latter, suggesting the dried scum to have drained in from the swamp, believed that the house timbers had floated out to the sides of the wall— there to arrange themselves in a series of piles! The absurdity of such a theory showed even more plainly in the fact that if the scum had filtered through in such a flood, the timbers most certainly had been dragged into piles previously! Some had burned— and the scum coated their charred surfaces! What had been the force which had torn the lodge to bits as if in spiteful fury? Why had the parts of the wreckage been burned, the rest to escape?

Right here I felt was the keynote to the mystery, yet I could imagine no explanation. That John Corliss Cranmer himself— physically sound, yet a man who for decades had led a sedentary life— could have accomplished such a destruction, unaided, was difficult to believe.

v

I TURNED my attention to the wall, hoping for evidence which might suggest another theory.

That wall had been an example of the worst snide construction. Though little more than a year old, the parts left standing showed evidence that they had begun to decay the day the last brick was laid. The mortar had fallen from the interstices. Here and there a brick had cracked and dropped out. Fibrils of the climbing vines had penetrated crevices, working for early destruction.

And one side already had fallen.

It was here that the first glimmering suspicion of the terrible truth was forced upon me. The scattered bricks, even those which had rolled inward toward the gaping foundation ledge, had not been coated with scum! This was curious, yet it could be explained by surmise that the flood itself had undermined this weakest portion of the wall. I cleared away a mass of brick from the spot on which the structure had stood; to my surprise I found it exceptionally firm! Hard red clay lay beneath! The flood conception was faulty; only some great force, exerted from inside or outside, could have wreaked such destruction.

When careful measurement, analysis and deduction convinced me— mainly from the fact that the lowermost layers of brick all had fallen outward, while the upper portions toppled in— I began to link up this mysterious and horrific force with the one which had rent the Lodge asunder. It looked as though a typhoon or gigantic centrifuge had needed elbow room in ripping down the wooden structure.

But I got nowhere with the theory, though in ordinary affairs I am called a man of too great imaginative tendencies. No less than three editors have cautioned me on this point. Perhaps it was the narrowing influence of great personal sympathy— yes, and love. I make no excuses, though beyond a dim understanding that some terrific, implacable force must have made spot his playground, I ended my ninth day of note-taking and investigation almost as much in the dark as I had been while a thousand miles away in Chicago.

Then I started among the darkies and Cajuns. A whole day I listened to yarns of the days which preceded Cranmer's escape from Elizabeth Ritter Hospital— days in which furtive men sniffed poisoned air for miles around Dead House, finding the odour intolerable. Days in which it seemed none possessed nerve enough to approach close. Days when the most fanciful tales of medieval superstitions were spun. These tales I shall not give; the truth is incredible enough.

At noon upon the eleventh day I chanced upon Rori Pailleron, a Cajun— and one of the least prepossessing of all with whom I had come in contact. "Chanced" perhaps is a bad word. I had listed every dweller of the woods within a five-mile radius. Rori was sixteenth on my list. I went to him only after interviewing all four of the Crabiers and two whole families of Pichons. And Rori regarded me with the utmost suspicion until I made him a present of the two quarts of "shinny" purchased of the Pichons.

Because long practice has perfected me in the technique of seeming to drink another man's awful liquor— no, I'm not an absolute prohibitionist; fine wine or twelve-year-in-cask Bourbon whiskey arouses my definite interest— I fooled Pailleron from the start. I shall omit preliminaries, and leap to the first admission from him that he knew more concerning Dead House and its former inmates than any of the other darkies or Cajuns roundabout.

"...But I ain't talkin'. Sacre! If I should open my gab, what might fly out? It is for keeping silent, y'r damn right!..."

I agreed. He was a wise man— educated to some extent in the queer schools and churches maintained exclusively by Cajuns in the depths of the woods, yet naive withal.

We drank. And I never had to ask another leading question. The made him want to interest me; and the only extraordinary in this whole neck of the woods was the Dead House.

Three-quarters of a pint of acrid, nauseous fluid, and he hinted darkly.

A pint, and he told me something I scarcely could believe. Another half-pint...But I shall give his confession in condensed form.

He had known Joe Sibley, the octoroon chef, houseman and valet who served Cranmer. Through Joe, Rori had furnished certain indispensables in way of food to the Cranmer household. At first, these saleable articles had been exclusively vegetable— white and yellow turnip, sweet potatoes, corn and beans— but later, meat!

Yes, meat especially— whole lambs, slaughtered and quartered, the coarsest variety of piney-woods pork and beef, all in immense quantity!

vi

IN December of the fatal winter, Lee and his wife stopped down at the Lodge for ten days or thereabouts.

They were en route to Cuba at the time, intending to be away five or six weeks. Their original plan had been only to wait over a day or so in the piney-woods, but something caused an amendment to the scheme.

The two dallied. Lee seemed to have become vastly absorbed in something— so much absorbed that it was only when Peggy insisted upon continuing their trip that he could tear himself away.

It was during those ten days that he began buying meat. Meagre bits of it at first— a rabbit, a pair of squirrels, or perhaps a few quail beyond the number he and Peggy shot. Rori furnished the game, thinking nothing of it except that Lee paid double prices— and insisted upon keeping the purchases secret from other members of the household.

"I'm putting it across on the Governor, Rori!" he said once with a wink. "Going to give him the shock of his life. So you mustn't let on, even to Joe, about what I want you to do. Maybe it won't work out, but if it does...! Dad'll have the scientific world at his feet! He doesn't blow his own horn anywhere near enough, you know."

Rori didn't know. Hadn't a suspicion what Lee was talking about. Still, if this rich, young idiot wanted to pay him a half dollar in good silver coin for a quail that anyone— himself included— could knock down with a five-cent shell, Rori was well satisfied to keep his mouth shut. Each evening he brought some of the small game. And each day Lee Cranmer seemed to have use for an additional quail or so...

When he was ready to leave for Cuba, Lee came forward with the strangest of propositions. He fairly whispered his vehemence and desire for secrecy! He would tell Rori, and would pay the Cajun five hundred dollars— half in advance, and half at the end of five weeks when Lee himself would return from Cuba— provided Rori agreed to adhere absolutely to a certain secret program! The money was more than a fortune to Rori; it was undreamt of affluence. The Cajun acceded.

"He wuz tellin' me then how the ol' man had raised some kind of pet," Rori confided, "an' wanted to get shet of it. So he give it to Lee, tellin' him to kill it, but Lee was sot on foolin' him. W'at I ask yer is, w'at kind of a pet is it w'at lives down in a mud sink an' eats a couple hawgs every night?"

I couldn't imagine, so I pressed him for further details. Here at last was something which sounded like a clue!

He really knew too little. The agreement with Lee provided that if Rori carried out the provisions exactly, he should be paid extra and at his exorbitant scale of all additional outlay, when Lee returned.

The young man gave him a daily schedule which Rori showed. Each evening he was to procure, slaughter and cut up a definite— and growing— amount of meat. Every item was checked, and I saw that they ran from five pounds up to forty!

"What in heaven's name did you do with it?" I demanded, excited now and pouring him an additional drink for fear caution might return to him.

"Took it through the bushes in back an' slung it in the mud sink there! An' suthin' come up an' drug it down!"

"A gator?"

"Diable! How should I know? It was dark. I wouldn't go close." He shuddered, and the fingers which lifted his glass shook as with sudden chill. "Mebbe you'd of done it, huh? Not me, though! The young fellah tole me to sling it in, an' I slung it.

"A couple times I come around in the light, but there wasn't nuthin' there you could see. Jes' mud, an' some water. Mebbe the thing didn't come out in daytimes..."

"Perhaps not," I agreed, straining every mental resource to imagine what Lee's sinister pet could have been. "But you said something about two hogs a day? What did you mean by that? This paper, proof enough that you're telling the truth so far, states that on the thirty-fifth day you were to throw forty pounds of meat— any kind— into the sink. Two hogs, even the piney-woods variety, weigh a lot more than forty pounds!"

"Them was after— after he come back!"

From this point onward, Rori's tale became more and more enmeshed in the vagaries induced by bad liquor. His tongue thickened. I shall give his story without attempt to reproduce further verbal barbarities, or the occasional prodding I had to give in order to keep him from maundering into foolish jargon.

Lee had paid munificently. His only objection to the manner in which Rori had carried out his orders was that the orders themselves had been deficient. The pet, he said, had grown enormously. It was hungry; ravenous. Lee himself had supplemented the fare with huge pails of scraps from the kitchen.

From that day Lee purchased from Rori whole sheep and hogs! The Cajun continued to bring the carcasses at nightfall, but no longer did Lee permit him to approach the pool. The young man appeared chronically excited. He had a tremendous secret— one the extent of which even his father did not guess, and one which would astonish the world! Only a week or two more and he would spring it. First he would have to arrange certain data.

Then came the day when everyone disappeared from Dead House. Rori came around several times, but concluded that all of the occupants had folded tents and departed— doubtless taking their mysterious "pet" along. Only when he saw from a distance Joe, the octoroon servant, returning along the road on foot toward the Lodge, did his slow mental processes begin to ferment. That afternoon Rori visited the strange place for the next to last time.

He did not go to the Lodge himself— and there were reasons. While still some hundreds of yards away from the place a terrible, sustained screaming reached his ears! It was faint, yet unmistakably the voice of Joe! Throwing a pair of number two shells into the breech of his shotgun, Rori hurried on, taking his usual path through the brush at the back.

He saw— and as he told me, even "shinny" drunkenness fled his chattering tones— Joe, the octoroon. Aye, he stood in the yard, far from the pool into which Rori had thrown the carcasses—and Joe could not move!

Rori failed to explain in full, but something, a slimy, amorphous something, which glistened in the sunlight, already engulfed the man to his shoulders! Breath was cut off. Joe's contorted face writhed with horror and beginning suffocation. One hand— all that was free of the rest of him!— beat feebly upon the rubbery, translucent thing that was engulfing his body!

Then Joe sank from sight...

vii

FIVE days of liquored indulgence passed before Rori, along in his shaky cabin, convinced himself that he had seen a phantasy born of alcohol. He came back the last time — to find a high wall of brick surrounding the Lodge, and including the pool of mud into which he had thrown the meat!

While he hesitated, circling the place without discovering an opening— which he would not have dared to use, even had he found it— a crashing, tearing of timbers, and persistent sound of awesome destruction came from within. He swung himself into one of the oaks near the wall. And he was just in time to see the last supporting stanchions of the Lodge give way outward!

The whole structure came apart. The roof fell in— yet seemed to move after it had fallen! Logs of wall deserted layers of plywood in the grasp of the shearing machine!

That was all. Soddenly intoxicated now, Rori mumbled more phrases, giving me the idea that on another day when he became sober once more, he might add to his statements, but I— numbed to the soul— scarcely cared. If that which he related was true, what nightmare of madness must have been consummated here!

I could vision some things now which concerned Lee and Peggy, horrible things. Only remembrance of Elsie kept me faced forward in the search— for now it seemed almost that the handiwork of a madman must be preferred to what Rori claimed to have seen! What had been that sinister translucent thing? That glistening thing which jumped upward about a man, smothering, engulfing?

Queerly enough, though such a theory as came most easily to mind now would have outraged reason in me if suggested concerning total strangers, I asked myself only what details of Rori's revelation had been exaggerated by fright and fumes of liquor. And as I sat on the creaking bench in his cabin, staring unseeing as he lurched down to the floor, fumbling with a lock box of green tin which lay under his cot, and muttering, the answer to all my questions lay within reach!

It was not until next day, however, that I made the discovery. Heavy of heart I had re-examined the spot where the Lodge had stood, then made my way to the Cajun's cabin again, seeking sober confirmation of what he had told me during intoxication.

In imagining that such a spree for Rori would be ended by a single night, however, I was mistaken. He lay sprawled almost as I had left him. Only two factors were changed. No "shinny" was left— and lying open, with its miscellaneous contents strewed about, was the tin box. Rori somehow had managed to open it with the tiny key still clutched in his hand.

Concern for his safety alone was what made me notice the box. It was a receptacle for small fishing tackle of the sort carried here and there by any sportsman. Tangles of Dowagiac minnows, spool hooks ranging in size to silver-backed number eights; three reels still carrying line of different weights, spinners, casting plus, wobblers, floating baits, were spilled out upon the rough plank flooring where they might snag Rori badly if he rolled. I gathered them, intending to save him an accident.

With the miscellaneous assortment in my hands, however, I stopped dead. Something had caught my eye— something lying flush with the bottom of the lock box! I stared, and then swiftly tossed the hooks and other impediments upon the table. What I had glimpsed there in the box was a loose-leaf notebook of the sort used for recording laboratory data! And Rori scarcely could read, let alone write!

Feverishly, a riot of recognition, surmise, hope and fear bubbling in my brain, I grabbed the book and threw it open. At once I knew that this was the end. The pages were scribbled in pencil, but the handwriting was that precise chirography I knew as belonging to John Corliss Cranmer, the scientist!

Could he not have obeyed my instructions! Oh, God! This...

These were the words at top of the first page which met my eye.

Because knowledge of the circumstances, the relation of which I pried out of the reluctant Rori only some days later when I had him in Mobile as a police witness for the sake of my friend's vindication, is necessary to understanding, I shall interpolate.

Rori had not told me everything. On his late visit to the vicinage of Dead House he saw more. A crouching figure, seated Turk fashion on top of the wall, appeared to be writing industriously. Rori recognized the man as Cranmer, yet did not hail him. He had no opportunity.

Just as the Cajun came near, Cranmer rose, thrust the notebook, which had rested across his knees, into the box. Then he turned, tossed outside the wall both the locked box and a ribbon to which was attached the key.

Then his arms raised toward heavens. For five seconds he seemed to invoke the mercy of Power beyond all of man's scientific prying. And finally he leaped, inside...!

Rori did not climb to investigate. He knew that directly below this portion of wall lay the mud sink into which he had thrown the chunks of meat!

viii

THIS is a true transcription of the statement I inscribed, telling the sequence of actual events at Dead House. The original of the statement now lies in the archives of the detective department.

Cranmer's notebook, though written in a precise hand, yet betrayed the man's insanity by incoherence and frequent repetitions. My statement has been accepted now, both by alienists and by detectives who had entertained different theories in respect to the case. It quashes the noisome hints and suspicions regarding three of the finest Americans who ever lived — and also one queer supposition dealing with supposed criminal tendencies in poor Joe, the octoroon.

John Corliss Cranmer went insane for sufficient cause!

As readers of popular fiction know well, Lee Cranmer's forte was the writing of what is called— among fellows in the craft— pseudo-scientific story. In plain words, this means a yarn, based upon solid fact in the field of astronomy, chemistry, anthropology or what-not, which carries to logical conclusion improved theories of men who devote their lives to searching out further nadirs of fact.

In certain fashion these men are allies of science. Often they visualize something which has not been imagined even by the best of men from whom they secure data, thus opening new horizons of possibility. In a large way Jules Verne was one of these men in his day; Lee Cranmer bade fair to carry on the work in worthy fashion— work taken up for a period by an Englishman named Wells, but abandoned for stories of a different— and, in my humble opinion, less absorbing— type.

Lee wrote three novels, all published, which dealt with such subjects— two of the three secured from his own father's labours, and the other speculating upon the discovery and possible uses of inter-atomic energy. Upon John Corliss Cranmer's return from Prague that fatal winter, the father informed Lee that a greater subject than any with which the young man had dealt now could be tapped.

Cranmer, senior, had devised a way in which the limiting factors in protozoic life and growth, could be nullified; in time, and with cooperation of biologists who specialized upon karyokinesis and embryology of higher forms, he hoped— to put the theory in pragmatic terms— to be able to grow swine the size of elephants, quail or woodcock with breasts from which a hundredweight of white meat could be cut away, and steers whose dehorned heads might butt at the third story of a skyscraper!

Such result would revolutionize the methods of food supply, of course. It also would hold out hope for all undersized specimens of humanity— provided only that if factors inhibiting growth could be deleted, some methods of stopping gianthood also could be developed.

Cranmer the elder, through use of an undescribed (in the notebook) growth medium of which one constituent was agar-agar, and the use of radium emanations, had succeeded in bringing about apparently unrestricted growth in the paramecium protozoan, certain of the vegetable growths (among which were bacteria), and in the amorphous cell of protoplasm known as the amoeba— the last a single cell containing only nucleolus, nucleus, and a space known as the contractile vacuole which somehow aided in throwing off particles impossible to assimilate directly. This point may be remembered in respect to the piles of lumber left near the outside walls surrounding Dead House!

When Lee Cranmer and his wife came south to visit, John Corliss Cranmer showed his son an amoeba— normally an organism visible under low-power microscope— which he had absolved from natural growth inhibitions. This amoeba, a rubbery, amorphous mass of protoplasm, was of the size then of a large beef liver. It could have been held in two cupped hands, placed side by side.

"How large could it grow?" asked Lee, wide-eyed and interested.

"So far as I know," answered his father, "there is no limit now! It might, if it got food enough, grow to be as big as the Masonic Temple!

"But take it out and kill it. Destroy the organism utterly— burning the fragments— else there is no telling what might happen. The amoeba, as I have explained, reproduces by simple division. Any fragment remaining might be dangerous."

Lee took the rubbery, translucent giant cell— but he did not obey orders. Instead of destroying it as his father had directed, Lee thought out a plan. Suppose he should grow this organism to tremendous size? Suppose, when the tale of his father's accomplishment were spread, an amoeba of many tons weight could be shown in evidence? Lee, of somewhat sensational cast of mind, determined instantly to keep secret the fact that he was not destroying the organism, but encouraging its further growth. Thought of possible peril never crossed his mind.

He arranged to have the thing fed— allowing for normal increase of size in an abnormal thing. It fooled him only by growing much more rapidly. When he came back from Cuba the amoeba practically filled the whole of the mud sink hollow. He had to give it much greater supplies...

The giant cell came to absorb as much as two hogs in a single day. During daylight, while hunger still was appeased, it never emerged, however. That remained for the time that it could secure no more food near at hand to satisfy its ravenous and increasing appetite.

Only instinct for the sensational kept Lee from telling Peggy, his wife, all about the matter. Lee hoped to spring a coup which would immortalize his father, and surprise his wife terrifically. Therefore, he kept his own counsel— and made bargains with the Cajun, Rori, who supplied food daily for the shapeless monster of the pool.

The tragedy itself came suddenly and unexpectedly. Peggy, feeding the two Gordon setters that Lee and she used for quail hunting, was in the Lodge yard before sunset. She romped alone, as Lee himself was dressing.

Of a sudden her screams cut the still air! Without her knowledge, ten foot pseudopods— those flowing tentacles of protoplasm sent forth by the sinister occupant of the pool— slid out and around her putteed ankles.

For a moment at first she did not understand. Then, the horrid suspicion of truth, her cries rent the air. Lee, at that time struggling to lace a pair of high shoes, straightened, paled, and grabbed a revolver as he dashed out.

In another room a scientist, absorbed in his note-taking, glanced up, frowned, and then— recognizing the voice— shed his white gown and came out. He was too late to do aught but gasp with horror.

In the yard Peggy was half engulfed in a squamous, rubbery something which at first he could not analyse.

Lee, his boy, was fighting with the sticky folds, and slowly, surely, losing his own grip upon the earth!

ix

JOHN CORLISS CRANMER was by no means a coward; he stared, cried aloud, then ran indoors, seizing the first two weapons which came to hand— a shotgun and hunting knife which lay in sheath in a cartridged belt across hook of the hall- tree. The knife was ten inches in length and razor-keen.

Cranmer rushed out again. He saw an indecent fluid something which as yet he had not had time to classify— lumped into a six-foot-high centre before his very eyes! It looked like one of the micro-organisms he had studied! One grown to frightful dimensions. An amoeba!

There, some minutes suffocated in the rubbery folds— yet still apparent beneath the glistening ooze of this monster— were two bodies.

They were dead. He knew it. Nevertheless he attacked the flowing, senseless monster with his knife. Shot would do no good. And he found that even the deep, terrific slashes made by his knife closed together in a moment and healed. The monster was invulnerable to ordinary attack!

A pair of pseudopods sought out his ankles, attempting to bring him low. Both of these he severed— and escaped. Why did he try? He did not know. The two whom he had sought to rescue were dead, buried under folds of this horrid thing he knew to be his own discovery and fabrication.

Then it was that revulsion and insanity came upon him.

THERE ended the story of John Corliss Cranmer, save for one hastily scribbled paragraph— evidently written at the time Rori had seen him atop the wall.

May we not supply with assurance the intervening steps?

Cranmer was known to have purchased a whole pen of hogs a day or two following the tragedy. These animals were never seen again. During the time the wall was being constructed is it not reasonable to assume that he fed the giant organism within— to keep it quiet? His scientist brain must have visualized clearly the havoc and horror which could be wrought by the loathsome thing if it ever were driven by hunger to flow away from the Lodge and prey upon the country-side!

With the wall once in place, he evidently figured that starvation or some other means which he could supply would kill the thing. One of the means had been made by setting fire to several piles of the disgorged timbers; probably this had no effect whatever.

The amoeba was to accomplish still more destruction. In the throes of hunger it threw its gigantic, formless strength against the walls from the inside; then every edible morsel within was house assimilated, the logs, rafters and other fragments being worked out through the contractile vacuole.

During some of its last struggles, undoubtedly, the side wall of brick was weakened— not to collapse, however, until the giant amoeba no longer could take advantage of the breach. In final death lassitude, the amoeba stretched itself out in a thin layer over the ground. There it succumbed, though there is no means of estimating how long a time intervened.

The last paragraph in Cramer's notebook, scrawled so badly that it is possible some words I have not deciphered correctly, reads as follows:

In my work I have found the means of creating a monster. The unnatural thing, in turn, has destroyed my work and those whom I held dear. It is in vain that I assure myself of innocence of spirit. Mine is the crime of presumption. Now, as expedition— worthless though that may be— I give myself...

It is better not to think of that last leap, and the struggle of an insane man in the grip of the dying monster.

________________________

17: Murder by Proxy

M McDonnell Bodkin

Pearson's Weekly, 6 February 1897

A Paul Beck case

SQUIRE NEVILLE lay with his face to the wall, only the outline of his strong, hard features visible. The charge of shot had entered at the base of the skull, the grey hair was all dabbled with blood, and the heavy, warm drops still fell slowly on to the carpet.

"But who can have—" Eric gasped out, almost speechless with horror.

"It must have been his own gun," his cousin answered. "It was lying there on the table, to the right, barrel still smoking, when I came in."

"It wasn't suicide— was it?" asked Eric, in a frightened whisper.

"Quite impossible, I should say. You see where he is hit."

"But it was so sudden. I ran the moment I heard the shot, and you were before me. Did you see anyone?"

"Not a soul. The room was empty."

"But how could the murderer escape?"

"Perhaps he leapt through the window. It was open when I came in."

"He couldn't do that, Master John." It was the voice of the gardener at the door. "Me and Master Eric was right under the window when the shot came."

"Then how in the devil's name did he disappear, Simpson?"

"It's not for me to say, sir."

John Neville searched the room with eager eyes. There was no cover in it for a cat. A bare, plain room, panelled with brown oak, on which hung some guns and fishing-rods— old-fashioned for the most part, but of the finest workmanship and material. A small bookcase in the corner was the room's sole claim to be called "a study." The huge leather-covered sofa on which the corpse lay, a massive round table in the centre of the room, and a few heavy chairs completed the furniture. The dust lay thick on everything, the fierce sunshine streamed in a broad band across the room. The air was stifling with heat and the acrid smoke of gunpowder.

John Neville noticed how pale his young cousin was. He laid his hand on his shoulder with the protecting kindness of an elder brother.

"Come, Eric," he said softly, "we can do no good here."

"We had best look round first, hadn't we, for some clue?" asked Eric, and he stretched his hand towards the gun; but John stopped him.

"No, no," he cried hastily, "we must leave things just as we find them. I'll send a man to the village for Wardle and telegraph to London for a detective."

He drew his young cousin gently from the room, locked the door on the outside, and put the key in his pocket.

"Who shall I wire to?" John Neville called from his desk with pencil poised over the paper, to his cousin, who sat at the library table with his head buried in his hands. "It will need a sharp man— one who can give his whole time to it."

"I don't know any one. Yes, I do. That fellow with the queer name that found the Duke of Southern's opal— Beck. That's it. Thornton Crescent, WC, will find him."

John Neville filled in the name and address to the telegram he had already written—

Come at once. Case of murder. Expense no object. John Neville, Berkly Manor, Dorset.

Little did Eric guess that the filling in of that name was to him a matter of life or death.

John Neville had picked up a timetable and rustled through the leaves. "Hard lines, Eric," he said; "do his best, he cannot get here before midnight. But here's Wardle already, anyhow; that's quick work."A shrewd, silent man was Wardle, the local constable, who now came briskly up the broad avenue; strong and active too, though well over fifty yeas of age. John Neville met him at the door with the news. But the groom had already told of the murder.

"You did the right thing to lock the door, sir," said Wardle, as they passed into the library where Eric still sat apparently unconscious of their presence, "and you wired for a right good man. I've worked with this here Mr. Beck before now. A pleasant spoken man and a lucky one. 'No hurry, Mr. Wardle,' he says to me, 'and no fuss. Stir nothing. The things about the corpse have always a story of their own if they are let tell it, and I always like to have the first quiet little chat with them myself.' "

So the constable held his tongue and kept his hands quiet and used his eyes and ears, while the great house buzzed with gossip. There was a whisper here and a whisper there, and the whispers patched themselves into a story. By slow degrees dark suspicion settled down and closed like a cloud round John Neville.

Its influence seemed to pass in some strange fashion through the closed doors of the library. John began pacing the room restlessly from end to end.

After a little while the big room was not big enough to hold his impatience. He wandered out aimlessly, as it seemed, from one room to another; now down the iron steps to gaze vacantly at the window of his uncle's room, now past the locked door in the broad corridor.

With an elaborate pretence of carelessness Wardle kept him in sight through all his wanderings, but John Neville seemed too self-absorbed to notice it.

Presently he returned to the library. Eric was there, still sitting with his back to the door, only the top of his head showing over the high chair. He seemed absorbed in thought or sleep, he sat so still. But he started up with a quick cry, showing a white, frightened face, when John touched him lightly on the arm.

"Come for a walk in the grounds, Eric?" he said. "This waiting and watching and doing nothing is killing work; I cannot stand it much longer."

"I'd rather not, if you don't mind," Eric answered wearily; "I feel completely knocked over."

"A mouthful of fresh air would do you good, my poor boy; you do look done up."

Eric shook his head.

"Well, I'm off," John said.

"If you leave me the key, I will give it to the detective, if he comes."

"Oh, he cannot be here before midnight, and I'll be back in an hour."

As John Neville walked rapidly down the avenue without looking back, Wardle stepped quietly after, keeping him well in view.

Presently Neville turned abruptly in amongst the woods, the constable still following cautiously. The trees stood tall and well apart, and the slanting sunshine made lanes of vivid green through the shade. As Wardle crossed between Neville and the sun his shadow fell long and black on the bright green.

John Neville saw the shadow move in front of him and turned sharp round and faced his pursuer.

The constable stood stock still and stared.

"Well, Wardle, what is it? Don't stand there like a fool fingering your baton! Speak out, man— what do you want of me?"

"You see how it is, Master John," the constable stammered out, "I don't believe it myself. I've known you twenty-one years— since you were born, I may say— and I don't believe it, not a blessed word of it. But duty is duty, and I must go through with it; and facts is facts, and you and he had words last night, and Master Eric found you first in the room when—"

John Neville listened, bewildered at first. Then suddenly, as it seemed to dawn on him for the first time that he could be suspected of this murder, he kindled a sudden hot blaze of anger.

He turned fiercely on the constable. Broad-chested, strong limbed, he towered over him, terrible in his wrath; his hands clenched, his muscles quivered, his strong white teeth shut tight as a rat-trap, and a reddish light shining at the back of his brown eyes.

"How dare you! How dare you!" he hissed out between his teeth, his passion choking him.

He looked dangerous, that roused young giant, but Wardle met his angry eyes without flinching.

"Where's the use, Master John?" he said soothingly. "It's main hard on you, I know. But the fault isn't mine, and you won't help yourself by taking it that way."

The gust of passion appeared to sweep by as suddenly as it arose. The handsome face cleared and there was no trace of anger in the frank voice that answered. "You are right, Wardle, quite right. What is to be done next? Am I to consider myself under arrest?"

"Better not, sir. You've got things to do a prisoner couldn't do handy, and I don't want to stand in the way of your doing them. If you give me your word it will be enough."

"My word for what?"

"That you'll be here when wanted."

"Why, man, you don't think I'd be fool enough— innocent or guilty— to run away. My God! Run away from a charge of murder!"

"Don't take on like that, sir. There's a man coming from London that will set things straight, you'll see. Have I your word?"

"You have my word."

"Perhaps you'd better be getting back to the house, sir. There's a deal of talking going on amongst the servants. I'll keep out of the way, and no one will be the wiser for anything that has passed between us."

Half-way up the avenue a fast-driven dog-cart overtook John Neville, and pulled up so sharply that the horse's hoofs sent the coarse gravel flying. A stout, thick-set man, who up to that had been in close chat with the driver, leapt out more lightly than could have been expected from his figure.

"Mr. John Neville, I presume? My name is Beck— Mr. Paul Beck."

"Mr. Beck! Why, I thought you couldn't have got here before midnight."

"Special train," Mr. Beck answered pleasantly. "Your wire said 'Expense no object.' Well, time is an object, and comfort is an object too, more or less, in all these cases; so I took a special train, and here I am. With your permission, we will send the trap on and walk to the house together. This seems a bad business, Mr. Neville. Shot dead, the driver tells me. Any one suspected?"

"I'm suspected." The answer broke from John Neville's lips almost fiercely.

Mr. Beck looked at him for a minute with placid curiosity, without a touch of surprise in it.

"How do you know that?"

"Wardle, the local constable, has just told me so to my face. It was only by way of a special favour he refrained from arresting me then and there."

Mr. Beck walked on beside John Neville ten or fifteen paces before he spoke again.

"Do you mind," he said, in a very insinuating voice, "telling me exactly why you are suspected?"

"Not in the very least."

"Mind this," the detective went on quickly, "I give you no caution and make you no pledge. It's my business to find out the truth. If you think the truth will help you, then you ought to help me. This is very irregular, of course, but I don't mind that. When a man is charged with a crime there is, you see, Mr. Neville, always one witness who knows whether he is guilty or not. There is very often only that one. The first thing the British law does by way of discovering the truth is to close the mouth of the only witness that knows it. Well, that's not my way. I like to give an innocent man a chance to tell his own story, and I've no scruple in trapping a guilty man if I can."

He looked John Neville straight in the eyes as he spoke.

The look was steadily returned. "I think I understand. What do you want to know? Where shall I begin?"

"At the beginning. What did you quarrel with your uncle about yesterday?"John Neville hesitated for a moment, and Mr. Beck took a mental note of his hesitation.

"I didn't quarrel with him. He quarrelled with me. It was this way: There was a bitter feud between my uncle and his neighbour, Colonel Peyton. The estates adjoin, and the quarrel was about some shooting. My uncle was very violent— he used to call Colonel Peyton 'a common poacher.' Well, I took no hand in the row. I was rather shy when I met the Colonel for the first time after it, for I knew my uncle had the wrong end of the stick. But the Colonel spoke to me in the kindest way. 'No reason why you and I should cease to be friends, John,' he said. 'This is a foolish business. I would give the best covert on my estate to be out of it. Men cannot fight duels in these days, and gentlemen cannot scold like fishwives. But I don't expect people will call me a coward because I hate a row.' "

" 'Not likely,' I said."

"The Colonel, you must know, had distinguished himself in a dozen engagements, and has the Victoria Cross locked up in a drawer of his desk. Lucy once showed it to me. Lucy is his only daughter and he is devoted to her. Well, after that, of course, the Colonel and I kept on good terms, for I liked him, and I liked going there and all that. But our friendship angered my uncle. I had been going to the Grange pretty often of late, and my uncle heard of it. He spoke to me in a very rough fashion of Colonel Peyton and his daughter at dinner last night, and I stood up for them."

" 'By what right, you insolent puppy,' he shouted, 'Do you take this upstart's part against me?' "

" 'The Peytons are as good a family as our own, sir,' I said— that was true— 'and as for right, Miss Lucy Peyton has done me the honour of promising to be my wife.' "

"At that he exploded in a very tempest of rage. I cannot repeat his words about the Colonel and his daughter. Even now, though he lies dead yonder, I can hardly forgive them. He swore he would never see or speak to me again if I disgraced myself of such a marriage. 'I cannot break the entail,' he growled, 'worse luck. But I can make you a beggar while I live, and I shall live forty years to spite you. The poacher can have you a bargain for all I care. Go, sell yourself as dearly as you can, and live on your wife's fortune as soon as you please.' "

"Then I lost my temper, and gave him a bit of my mind."

"Try and remember what you said; it's important."

"I told him that I cast his contempt back in his face; that I loved Lucy Peyton, and that I would live for her, and die for her, if need be."

"Did you say 'it was a comfort he could not live for ever'? You see the story of your quarrel has travelled far and near. The driver told me of it. Try and remember— did you say that?"

"I think I did. I'm sure I did now, but I was so furious I hardly knew what I said. I certainly never meant—"

"Who was in the room when you quarrelled?"

"Only cousin Eric and the butler."

"The butler, I suppose, spread the story?"

"I suppose so. I'm sure Cousin Eric never did. He was as much pained at the scene as myself. He tried to interfere at the time, but his interference only made my uncle more furious."

"What was your allowance from you uncle?"

"A thousand a year."

"He had power to cut it off, I suppose?"

"Certainly."

"But he had no power over the estate. You were heir-apparent under the entail, and at the present moment you are owner of Berkly Manor?"

"That is so; but up to the moment you spoke I assure you I never even remembered—"

"Who comes next to you in the entail?"

"My first cousin, Eric. He is four years younger than I am."

"After him?"

"A distant cousin. I scarcely know him at all; but he has a bad reputation, and I know my uncle and he hated each other cordially."

"How did your uncle and your cousin Eric hit it off?"

"Not too well. He hated Eric's father— his own youngest brother— and he was sometimes rough on Eric. He used to abuse the dead father in the son's presence, calling him cruel and treacherous, and all that. Poor Eric had often a hard time of it. Uncle was liberal to him so far as money went— as liberal as he was to me— had him to live at the Manor and denied him nothing. But now and again he would sting the poor lad by a passionate curse or a bitter sneer. In spite of all, Eric seemed fond of him."

"To come now to the murder; you saw your uncle no more that night, I suppose?"

"I never saw him alive again."

"Do you know what he did next day?"

"Only by hearsay."

"Hearsay evidence is often first-class evidence, though the law doesn't think so. What did you hear?"

"My uncle was mad about shooting. Did I tell you his quarrel with Colonel Peyton was about the shooting? He had a grouse moor rented about twelve miles from here, and he never missed the first day. He was off at cock-shout with the head gamekeeper, Lennox. I was to have gone with him, but I didn't, of course. Contrary to his custom he came back about noon and went straight to his study. I was writing in my own room and heard his heavy step go past the door. Later on Eric found him asleep on the great leather couch in his study. Five minutes after Eric left I heard the shot and rushed into his room."

"Did you examine the room after you found the body?"

"No. Eric wanted to, but I thought it better not. I simply locked the door and put the key in my pocket till you came."

"Could it have been suicide?"

"Impossible, I should say. He was shot through the back of the head."

"Had your uncle any enemies that you know of?"

"The poachers hated him. He was relentless with them. A fellow once shot at him, and my uncle shot back and shattered the man's leg. He had him sent to hospital first and cured, and then prosecuted him straight away, and got him two years."

"Then you think a poacher murdered him?" Mr. Beck said blandly.

"I don't well see how he could. I was in my own room on the same corridor. The only way to or from my uncle's room was past my door. I rushed out the instant I heard the shot, and saw no one."

"Perhaps the murderer leapt through the window?"

"Eric tells me that he and the gardener were in the garden almost under the window at the time."

"What's your theory, then, Mr. Neville?"

"I haven't got a theory."

"You parted with your uncle in anger last night?"

"That's so."

"Next day your uncle is shot, and you are found— I won't say caught— in his room the instant afterwards."

John Neville flushed crimson; but he held himself in and nodded without speaking.

The two walked on together in silence. They were not a hundred yards from the great mansion— John Neville's house— standing high above the embowering trees in the glow of the twilight, when the detective spoke again.

"I'm bound to say, Mr. Neville, that things look very black against you, as they stand. I think that constable Wardle ought to have arrested you."

"It's not too late yet," John Neville answered shortly, "I see him there at the corner of the house and I'll tell him you said so."

He turned on his heel, when Mr. Beck called quickly after him: "What about that key?"

John Neville handed it to him without a word. The detective took it as silently and walked on to the entrance and up the great stone steps alone, whistling softly.

Eric welcomed him at the door, for the driver had told of his coming.

"You have had no dinner, Mr. Beck?" he asked courteously.

"Business first; pleasure afterwards. I had a snack in the train. Can I see the gamekeeper, Lennox, for five minutes alone?"

"Certainly. I'll send him to you in a moment here in the library."

Lennox, the gamekeeper, a long-limbed, high-shouldered, elderly man, shambled shyly into the room, consumed by nervousness in the presence of a London detective.

"Sit down, Lennox— sit down," said Mr. Beck kindly. The very sound of his voice, homely and good-natured, put the man at his ease. "Now, tell me, why did you come home so soon from the grouse this morning?"

"Well, you see, sir, it was this ways. We were two hours hout when the Squire, 'e says to me, 'Lennox,' 'e says, 'I'm sick of this fooling. I'm going 'ome.' "

"No sport?"

"Birds wor as thick as blackberries, sir, and lay like larks."

"No sportsman, then?"

"Is it the Squire, sir?" cried Lennox, quite forgetting his shyness in his excitement at this slur on the Squire. "There wasn't a better sportsman in the county— no, nor as good. Real, old-fashioned style, 'e was. 'Hang your barnyard shooting,' 'e'd say when they'd ask him to go kill tame pheasants. 'E put up 'is own birds with 'is own dogs, 'e did. 'E'd as soon go shooting without a gun very near as without a dog any day. Aye and 'e stuck to 'is old Manton muzzle-loader to the last. ' 'Old it steady, Lennox,' 'e'd say to me oftentimes, 'and point it straight. It will hit harder and further than any of their telescopes, and it won't get marked with rust if you don't clean it every second shot.' "

" 'Easy to load, Squire,' the young men would say, cracking up their hammerless breech-loaders."

" 'Aye,' he'd answer them back, 'and spoil your dog's work. What's the good of a dog learning to down shot, if you can drop in your cartridges as quick as a cock can pick corn?' "

"A dead shot the Squire was, too, and no mistake, sir, if he wasn't flurried. Many a time I've seen him wipe the eyes of gents who thought no end of themselves with that same old muzzle-loader that shot himself in the long run. Many a time I seen—"

"Why did he turn his back on good sport yesterday?" asked Mr. Beck, cutting short his reminiscences.

"Well, you see, it was scorching hot for one thing, but that wasn't it, for the infernal fire would not stop the Squire if he was on for sport. But he was in a blazing temper all the morning, and temper tells more than most anything on a man's shooting. When Flora sprung a pack— she's a young dog, and the fault wasn't hers either— for she came down the wind on them— but the Squire had the gun to his shoulder to shoot her. Five minutes after she found another pack and set like a stone. They got up as big as haycocks and as lazy as crows, and he missed right and left— never touched a feather— a thing I haven't seen him do since I was a boy."

" 'It's myself I should shoot, not the dog,' he growled and he flung me the gun to load. When I'd got the caps on and had shaken the powder into the nipples, he ripped out an oath that 'e'd have no more of it. 'E walked right across country to where the trap was. The birds got up under his feet, but divil a shot he'd fire, but drove straight 'ome."

"When we got to the 'ouse I wanted to take the gun and fire it off, or draw the charges. But 'e told me to go to—, and carried it up loaded as it was to his study, where no one goes unless they're sent for special. It was better than an hour afterwards I heard the report of the Manton; I'd know it in a thousand. I ran for the study as fast as—"

Eric Neville broke suddenly into the room, flushed and excited.

"Mr. Beck," he cried, "a monstrous thing has happened. Wardle, the local constable, you know, has arrested my cousin on a charge of wilful murder of my uncle."

Mr. Beck, with his eyes intent on the excited face, waved his big hand soothingly."Easy," he said, "take it easy, Mr. Neville. It's hurtful to your feelings, no doubt; but it cannot be helped. The constable has done no more than his duty. The evidence is very strong, as you know, and in such cases it's best for all parties to proceed regularly."

"You can go," he went on, speaking to Lennox, who stood dumfounded at the news of John Neville's arrest, staring with eyes and mouth wide open.

Then turning again very quietly to Eric: "Now, Mr. Neville, I would like to see the room where the corpse is."

The perfect placidity of his manner had its effect upon the boy, for he was little more than a boy, calming his excitement as oil smooths troubled water.

"My cousin has the key," he said; "I will get it."

"There is no need," Mr. Beck called after him, for he was half-way out of the room on his errand: "I've got the key if you will be good enough to show me the room."

Mastering his surprise, Eric showed him upstairs, and along the corridor to the locked door. Half unconsciously, as it seemed, he was following the detective into the room, when Mr. Beck stopped him.

"I know you will kindly humour me, Mr. Neville," he said, "but I find that I can look closer and think clearer when I'm by myself. I'm not exactly shy you know, but it's a habit I've got."

He closed the door softly as he spoke, and locked it on the inside, leaving the key in the lock.

The mask of placidity fell from him the moment he found himself alone. His lips tightened, and his eyes sparkled, and his muscles seemed to grow rigid with excitement, like a sporting dog's when he is close upon the game.

One glance at the corpse showed him that it was not suicide. In this, at least, John Neville had spoken the truth.

The back of the head had literally been blown in by the charge of heavy shot at close quarters. The grey hair was clammy and matted, with little white angles of bone protruding. The dropping of the blood had made a black pool on the carpet, and the close air of the room was fœtid with the smell of it.

The detective walked to the table where the gun, a handsome, old-fashioned muzzle-loader, lay, the muzzle still pointed at the corpse. But his attention was diverted by a water-bottle, a great globe of clear glass quite full, and perched on a book a little distance from the gun, and between it and the window. He took it from the table and tested the water with the tip of his tongue. It had a curious, insipid, parboiled taste, but he detected no foreign flavour in it. Though the room was full of dust there was almost none on the cover of the book where the water-bottle stood, and Mr. Beck noticed a gap in the third row of the bookcase where the book had been taken.

After a quick glance round the room Mr. Beck walked to the window. On a small table there he found a clear circle in the thick dust. He fitted the round bottom of the water-bottle to this circle and it covered it exactly. While he stood by the window he caught sight of some small scraps of paper crumbled up and thrown into a corner. Picking them up and smoothing them out he found they were curiously drilled with little burnt holes.

Having examined the holes minutely with his magnifying glass, he slipped these scraps folded on each other into his waistcoat pocket.

From the window he went back to the gun. This time he examined it with the minutest care. The right barrel he found had been recently discharged, the left was still loaded. Then he made a startling discovery. Both barrels were on half cock. The little bright copper cap twinkled on the nipple of the left barrel, from the right nipple the cap was gone. How had the murderer fired the right barrel without a cap? How and why did he find time in the midst of his deadly work to put the cock back to safety?

Had Mr. Beck solved this problem? The grim smile deepened on his lips as he looked, and there was an ugly light in his eyes that boded ill for the unknown assassin. Finally he carried the gun to the window and examined it carefully through a magnifying glass. There was a thin dark line, as if traced with the point of a red-hot needle, running a little way along the wood of the stock and ending in the right nipple.

Mr. Beck put the gun back quietly on the table. The whole investigation had not taken ten minutes. He gave one look at the still figure on the couch, unlocked the door, locking it after him, and walked out through the corridor, the same cheerful, imperturbable Mr. Beck that had walked into it ten minutes before. He found Eric waiting for him at the head of the stairs. "Well?" he said when he saw the detective.

"Well," replied Mr. Beck, ignoring the interrogation in his voice, "when is the inquest to be? That's the next thing to be thought of; the sooner the better."

"Tomorrow, if you wish. My cousin John sent a messenger to Mr. Morgan, the coroner. He lives only five miles off, and he has promised to be here at twelve o'clock tomorrow. There will be no difficulty in getting a jury in the village."

"That's right, that's all right," said Mr. Beck, rubbing his hands; "the sooner and the quieter we get those preliminaries over the better."

"I have just sent to engage the local solicitor on behalf of my cousin. He's not particularly bright, I'm afraid, but he's the best to be had on a short notice."

"Very proper and thoughtful on your part— very thoughtful indeed. But solicitors cannot do much in such cases. It's the evidence we have to go by, and the evidence is only too plain, I'm afraid. Now, if you please," he went on more briskly, dismissing the disagreeable subject, as it were, with a wave of his big hand, "I'd be very glad of that supper you spoke about."

Mr. Beck supped very heartily on a brace of grouse— the last of the dead man's shooting— and a bottle of ripe Burgundy. He was in high good-humour, and across "the walnuts and the wine" he told Eric some startling episodes in his career, which seemed to divert the young fellow a little from his manifest grief for his uncle and anxiety for his cousin.

Meanwhile John Neville remained shut close in his own room, with the constable at the door.

THE INQUEST was held at half-past twelve next day in the library.

The Coroner, a large, red-faced man, with a very affable manner, had got to his work promptly.

The jury "viewed the body" steadily, stolidly, with a kind of morose delectation in the grim spectacle.

In some unaccountable way Mr. Beck constituted himself a master of the ceremonies, a kind of assessor to the court.

"You had best take the gun down," he said to the Coroner as they were leaving the room.

"Certainly, certainly," replied the Coroner.

"And the water-bottle," added Mr. Beck.

"There is no suspicion of poison, is there?"

"It's best not to take anything for granted," replied Mr. Beck sententiously.

"By all means if you think so," replied the obsequious Coroner. "Constable, take that water-bottle down with you."

The large room was filled with people of the neighbourhood, mostly farmers from the Berkly estate and small shopkeepers from the neighbouring village.

A table had been wheeled to the top of the room for the Coroner, with a seat at it for the ubiquitous local newspaper correspondent. A double row of chairs were set at the right hand of the table for the jury.

The jury had just returned from viewing the body when the crunch of wheels and hoofs was heard on the gravel of the drive, and a two-horse phaeton pulled up sharp at the entrance.

A moment later there came into the room a handsome, soldier-like man, with a girl clinging to his arm, whom he supported with tender, protecting fondness that was very touching. The girl's face was pale, but wonderfully sweet and winsome; cheeks with the faint, pure flush of the wild rose, and eyes like a wild fawn's.

No need to tell Mr. Beck that here were Colonel Peyton and his daughter. He saw the look— shy, piteous, loving— that the girl gave John Neville, as she passed close to the table where he sat with his head buried in his hands; and the detective's face darkened for a moment with a stern purpose, but the next moment it resumed its customary look of good-nature and good-humour. The gardener, the gamekeeper, and the butler were briefly examined by the Coroner, and rather clumsily cross-examined by Mr. Waggles, the solicitor whom Eric had thoughtfully secured for his cousin's defence.

As the case against John Neville gradually darkened into grim certainty, the girl in the far corner of the room grew white as a lily, and would have fallen but for her father's support.

"Does Mr. John Neville offer himself for examination?" said the Coroner, as he finished writing the last words of the butler's deposition describing the quarrel of the night before.

"No, sir," said Mr. Waggles. "I appear for Mr. John Neville, the accused, and we reserve our defence."

"I really have nothing to say that hasn't been already said," added John Neville quietly.

"Mr. Neville," said Mr. Waggles pompously, "I must ask you to leave yourself entirely in my hands."

"Eric Neville!" called out the Coroner. "This is the last witness, I think."

Eric stepped in front of the table and took the Bible in his hand. He was pale, but quiet and composed, and there was an unaffected grief in the look of his dark eyes and in the tone of his soft voice that touched every heart— except one.

He told his story shortly and clearly. It was quite plain that he was most anxious to shield his cousin. But in spite of this, perhaps because of this, the evidence went horribly against John Neville.

The answers to questions criminating his cousin had to be literally dragged from him by the Coroner.

With manifest reluctance he described the quarrel at dinner the night before.

"Was your cousin very angry?" the Coroner asked.

"He would not be human if he were not angry at the language used."

"What did he say?"

"I cannot remember all he said."

"Did he say to your uncle: 'Well, you will not live for ever'? "

No answer.

"Come, Mr. Neville, remember you are sworn to tell the truth."

In an almost inaudible whisper came the words: "He did."

"I'm sorry to pain you, but I must do my duty. When you heard the shot you ran straight to your uncle's room, about fifty yards, I believe?"

"About that."

"Whom did you find there bending over the dead man?"

"My cousin. I am bound to say he appeared in the deepest grief."

"But you saw no one else?"

"No."

"Your cousin is, I believe, the heir to Squire Neville's property; the owner I should say now?"

"I believe so."

"That will do; you can stand down."

This interchange of question and answer, each one of which seemed to fit the rope tighter and tighter round John Neville's neck, was listened to with hushed eagerness by the room full of people.

There was a long, deep drawing-in of breath when it ended. The suspense seemed over, but not the excitement.

Mr. Beck rose as Eric turned from the table, quite as a matter of course, to question him.

"You say you believe your cousin was your uncle's heir— don't you know it?"

Then Mr. Waggles found his voice.

"Really, sir," he broke out, addressing the Coroner, "I must protest. This is grossly irregular. This person is not a professional gentleman. He represents no one. He has no locus standi in court at all."

No one knew better than Mr. Beck that technically he had no title to open his lips; but his look of quiet assurance, his calm assumption of unmistakable right, carried the day with the Coroner.

"Mr. Beck," he said, "has, I understand, been brought down specially from London to take charge of this case, and I certainly shall not stop him in any question he may desire to ask."

"Thank you, sir," said Mr. Beck, in the tone of a man whose clear right has been allowed. Then again to the witness: "Didn't you know John Neville was next heir to Berkly Manor?"

"I know it, of course,"

"And if John Neville is hanged you will be the owner?"

Every one was startled at the frank brutality of the question so blandly asked. Mr. Waggles bobbed up and down excitedly; but Eric answered, calmly as ever—

"That's very coarsely and cruelly put."

"But it's true?"

"Yes, it's true."

"We will pass from that. When you came into the room after the murder, did you examine the gun?"

"I stretched out my hand to take it, but my cousin stopped me. I must be allowed to add that I believe he was actuated, as he said, by a desire to keep everything in the room untouched. He locked the door and carried off the key. I was not in the room afterwards."

"Did you look closely at the gun?"

"Not particularly."

"Did you notice that both barrels were at half cock?"

"No."

"Did you notice that there was no cap on the nipple of the right barrel that had just been fired?"

"Certainly not."

"That is to say you did not notice it?"

"Yes."

"Did you notice a little burnt line traced a short distance on the wood of the stock towards the right nipple?"

"No."

Mr. Beck put the gun into his hand.

"Look close. Do you notice it now?"

"I see it now for the first time."

"You cannot account for it, I suppose?"

"No."

"Sure?"

"Quite sure."

All present followed this strange, and apparently purposeless cross-examination with breathless interest, groping vainly for its meaning.

The answers were given calmly and clearly, but those that looked closely saw that Eric's nether lip quivered, and it was only by a strong effort of will that he held his calmness.

Through the blandness of Mr. Beck's voice and manner a subtle suggestion of hostility made itself felt, very trying to the nerves of the witness.

"We will pass from that," said Mr. Beck again. "When you went into your uncle's room before the shot why did you take a book from the shelf and put it on the table?"

"I really cannot remember anything about it."

"Why did you take the water-bottle from the window and stand it on the book?"

"I wanted a drink."

"But there was none of the water drunk."

"Then I suppose it was to take it out of the strong sun."

"But you set it in the strong sun on the table?"

"Really I cannot remember those trivialities." His self-control was breaking down at last.

"Then we will pass from that," said Mr. Beck a third time. He took the little scraps of paper with the burnt holes through them from his waistcoat pocket, and handed them to the witness.

"Do you know anything about these?"

There was a pause of a second. Eric's lips tightened as if with a sudden spasm of pain. But the answer came clearly enough—

"Nothing whatever."

"Do you ever amuse yourself with a burning glass?"

This seeming simple question was snapped suddenly at the witness like a pistol-shot.

"Really, really," Mr. Waggles broke out, "this is mere trifling with the Court."

"That question does certainly seem a little irrelevant, Mr. Beck," mildly remonstrated the Coroner.

"Look at the witness, sir," retorted Mr. Beck sternly. "He does not think it irrelevant."

Every eye in court was turned on Eric's face and fixed there.

All colour had fled from his cheeks and lips; his mouth had fallen open, and he stared at Mr. Beck with eyes of abject terror.

Mr. Beck went on remorselessly: "Did you ever amuse yourself with a burning glass?"

No answer."Do you know that a water-bottle like this makes a capital burning glass?"

Still no answer.

"Do you know that a burning glass has been used before now to touch off a cannon or fire a gun?"

Then a voice broke from Eric at last, as it seemed in defiance of his will; a voice unlike his own— loud, harsh, hardly articulate; such a voice might have been heard in the torture chamber in the old days when the strain on the rack grew unbearable.

"You devilish bloodhound!" he shouted. "Curse you, curse you, you've caught me! I confess it— I was the murderer!" He fell on the ground in a fit.

"And you made the sun your accomplice!" remarked Mr. Beck, placid as ever.

____________________

18: Four Guests

William J Makin

1893-1944

Australian Women's Weekly 4 January 1936

An adventure of the Red-Head of the Red Sea

"WHO'S afraid of ze beeg bad wolf,

Ze beeg bad wolf,

Ze beeg bad wolf..."

So chanted, in an un-musical voice, the excitable Syrian manager of the hotel at Port Sudan. At long last the ditty had reached the shores of the Red Sea. Paul Rodgers, sprawled in a comfortable chair in the lounge, winced at the sound.

"You've got another guest, eh?" he drawled.

The fat Syrian, who was waddling toward his little office, which he always completely filled, stopped short.

"Another guest, Meestair Rocher! Another guest!" His dark eyes lifted rhapsodically. "There are four guests— four, and two Arab servants. Magnificent, hein?"

Red Head of the Red Sea laughed. "It is, as you say, magnificent," he remarked "And who are these four mad people who choose to come to Port Sudan at the hottest time of the year?"

"God knows, Meestaire Rocher. But they come to-day. And one of them is a lady."

He fluttered a radio message before Red Head as he spoke. The lithe figure in white ducks accepted the invitation. He took the message and read.

Radio from s.s. Lobato.

Please reserve four separate rooms, one for lady; also for two Arab servants. Arriving to-day; staying fortnight. KARINSKY.

"THEY are mad," decided Red Head. "Nobody in their sane senses would want to stay in this desert hole by the sea for a fortnight; at least, not at this time of the year."

"But you stay, Meestaire Rocher, hein!" slyly suggested the Syrian manager.

Red Head grinned.

"Because I'm seeking peace and quietness," he replied. "Moreover, you've got the only decent piano between here and Aden."

"Ah, you play exqueesitely, Meestaire Rocher."

"Maybe, but last night Mozart must have turned in his grave when I struck that bad C sharp. It's about time you had it attended to."

"It will be," nodded the Syrian. "Six months hence I expect the piano-tuner from Cairo. Then, Meestaire Rocher, you will see; it will be superb. Also the bad C sharp."

Red Head groaned.

"Even your piano won't keep me here six months."

"I hope so," burbled the Syrian. "There are compositions, surely, without the bad C sharp? But I must to my duties. The four guests—"

And with a polite little bow he hurried away, still humming his optimistic ditty.

Paul Rodgers lit another cigarette and regarded the deserted lounge of the hotel. For the past week he had been the only guest at this caravanserai on the edge of the Red Sea. And because there was something in him of that Kiplingesque type, "The Cat that Walked by Himself," he had been happy.

The desert-dusted piano of the hotel had been his only companion. His slim fingers had conjured from the yellow keys the strange dissonances of such moderns as Stravinsky, Schonberg, and Ravel. They appealed to his mood of exile. His only audience had been the flabby Syrian, apathetically indifferent, and a silent group of natives squatting in the sand outside the hotel. These Somalis and Sudanese found in the sophisticated music of civilisation something that appealed to their own barbaric spirit.

"And now a woman is coming who will probably insist upon playing sentimental waltzes or hysterical jazz," he sighed. "Time for me to leave."

When, at three o'clock in the after-noon, he glimpsed through his binoculars the arrival of a rusty, insignificant tramp steamer, the s.s. Lobato, in the roadstead, his decision to leave Port Sudan wavered. He decided that it might be worth waiting to see the four guests arrive . The woman, of course, was a nuisance. But the three men might be interesting.

"They must be interesting to travel in a filthy steamer of that size," he mused.

He observed a dhow setting forth from the harbor towards the steamer. The ss Lobato was only depositing the four passengers. There was no intention of entering the port. And as he glimpsed through his binoculars a little group clambering down a rope ladder into the dhow dancing on the sun-glistening sea, Red Head began to be curious.

"Who owns the Lobato?" he asked the Syrian over his shoulder.

"I do not know, Meestaire Rocher," replied the manager. "She has never visited Port Sudan before."

"Find out!" snapped Red Head "You've got a Lloyd's list, eh?"

"Certainly, Meestaire Rocher."

The plump manager scurried to obey. Five minutes later he returned.

"It ess an old Spanish ship bought by the Russian Soviet for carrying oil," he explained. "Maybe she comes from the Persian Gulf."

"Maybe," nodded Red Head and continued staring through the binoculars.

Half an hour later a strange procession came ashore from the dhow and walked through the sand towards the hotel. The two Arab servants came first. They staggered and sweated beneath a series of highly-polished boxes with gleaming metal attachments.

"Good lord, movie cameras!" ejaculated Red Head. "Somebody is coming to film Port Sudan." He turned to the Syrian. "You can let them have my room. I've decided to leave."

"There is no train for two days, Meestaire Rocher," warned the Syrian.

"Well, that ship then. I'll take a dhow to her."

"Too late, Meestaire Rocher, she goes."

It was true. The little tramp steamer was already moving into the sun haze of the Red Sea, smearing the white horizon with her filthy smoke-stack. She seemed to be in a hurry to depart.

The procession had reached the steps leading to the hotel. The toiling, panting Arabs were the first to stumble into the shade of the veranda. With a sigh of relief they dumped their burdens. The elder of the two Arabs straightened his back and wiped the sweat from his eyes. It revealed a scar on his cheek.

He glimpsed the white man lounging negligently in a cane chair.

"Aiee!" he muttered in Arabic. "It is the master with the hair that flames."

Red Head's gaze narrowed. Then a smile crossed his face. He also spoke in Arabic.

"Allah be with you, Kazi. You have travelled far from the tents of the black brethren."

He recalled a desert meeting with this Arab. It was during his long duel with the Woman of Antioch. Kazi had ridden with him on lean camels out of the deadly desert of the Rub al Khali.

Kazi also smiled. A rare thing for an Arab.

"The desert is too quiet, master. There is no fighting, and therefore no plunder. And even a Bedouin must live." His face became serious again. "And so I have accepted the shame of work."

"But why must a Bedouin do the work of a camel?" asked Red Head idly.

A queer gleam came into the eyes of the Arab.

"You are still the curious one, brother," he muttered.

Red Head laughed. It seemed to rouse the Arab.

"I have a tale to tell you, master," he whispered, "worthy of the great Scheherazade herself. Allah has granted me a vision, and—"

"Imshi, you lazy devils!" called out a voice in American. "Get those cameras inside or I'll kick your black hides."

As though lashed by a whip, the two Arabs bent down for their burdens and shuffled into the hotel.

Red Head regarded the man who was striding up the steps. The shorts and khaki shirt revealed a powerful body. The big sun-helmet almost hid the face. Only a cruel, determined mouth could be seen.

"Karinsky's my name— Zyg Karinsky," he shouted at the heavy grey stones of the hotel.

The podgy Syrian hurried forth into the sunshine.

"You are welcome, Meestaire Karinsky. Veree welcome."

"You got my radio?" demanded the powerful figure.

"Sure," responded the manager, vainly attempting to emulate the accent.

"And the rooms are O.K.?"

"O.K., sure."

"Then lead us to 'em. And, remember, Orient Productions Incorporated wants the best and will have the best. We're going to shoot this burg."

As he followed the podgy Syrian, he gave Red Head a shrewd glance. But that individual gave no response. He was staring idly out to sea.

Arm in arm there followed a good-looking man and a dark haired girl. They chattered aimlessly in French.

"And we spend a fortnight here, Georges?" she prattled.

The young man nodded.

"It should be finished in a fortnight, Eliza."

"Mon dieu, will this job ever be finished?"

"Taisez-vous!" he whispered warningly.

Finally, there came the fourth guest, a squat, bowed man, who clambered up the steps like a gorilla. An ugly face and lowering eyes. He hesitated a moment on the veranda and stared back at the sea, where the little tramp steamer could only be discerned by the smear of smoke.

"Joe! Where the hell are you?" came a shout from inside the hotel.

The gorilla-like man spat and hurried forward.

For ten minutes Red Head lounged there in the cane-chair. A cigarette smouldered unheeded in his long, thin fingers.

"...And so the Red Sea is going into pictures," he mused. "Interesting!"

He stretched himself, and wandered to the little office occupied by the fat Syrian. He bent over the hotel register. There, in bold handwriting, began the names of this strange party:

Zyg Karinsky

Eliza Bazan

Georges Raymont

Joe Peretz.

And beneath, with a blatant flourish, appeared the announcement:

Of Orient Productions Inc.

"Your departure, Meestaire Rocher; shall I arrange it for to-morrow," asked the Syrian.

Red Head smiled.

"I've changed my mind. I'm going to stay on for a few days longer."

"That ees superb!" chuckled the Syrian. And once again he hummed joyously.

TWO hours later the dark-haired girl entered the lounge. Unfortunately, the lounge was empty except for the inevitable Red Head idly smoking a cigarette. But Eliza Bazan was not entirely disconcerted. She conjured a charming smile for his particular benefit. Red Head smiled back encouragingly.

"I understand, you're in pictures?" said Red Head.

"That's right," she nodded. "We're doing a thrilling drama of the desert and the Red Sea."

"You couldn't have chosen a better spot," ventured Red Head.

"Why, do you know Port Sudan?" she asked.

"I think I know it fairly thoroughly," he modestly admitted.

"Oh, then you must tell me all about it," she smiled eagerly, a little too eagerly.

Red Head shrugged his shoulders.

"For a charming young lady like yourself, Port Sudan possesses little of interest."

"Oh, I should like to see it. Won't you take me to-morrow?"

Red Head laughed. "I'll see what I can do," he promised.

Still in shorts and khaki shirt, the powerfully-built man whom Red Head had seen climbing the steps of the hotel now entered the lounge.

"Zyg!" called the girl. "Come over here. This nice gentleman says he is going to show me over the fort to-morrow."

Zyg Karinsky's cruel mouth let forth a chortle.

"You and your forts," he chaffed the girl. He nodded affably to Red Head. "She's crazy about the darned things. What she sees in 'em beats me."

Eliza Bazan tinkled with laughter. She turned to Red Head.

"This is Zyg Karinsky," she began formally. "I― I don't think you mentioned your name?"

Red Head smiled.

"I must apologize," he bowed. "I'm delighted to meet you, Mr Karinsky. My name is Paul Rodgers."

Eliza Bazan was thunderstruck.

"Mon dieu!"

Zyg Karinsky gave her a swift, lowering look.

"This is indeed a surprise, Mr Rodgers," began the film director. "I had no idea that―"

"I was telling the gentleman― er, Mr Rodgers," broke in the girl hurriedly, "that we are filming a story of the desert, one of the adventures of Red Head of the Red Sea.

"Why, yes," smiled Karinsky, a little uneasily. "That's so, Mr Rodgers. Your adventures are not unknown in Hollywood. No sir. And the public admire a character such as you.  A man with a flair for adventure, eh?"

"You flatter me. This is really very embarrassing," said Red Head quietly.

"Not at all, sir, You deserve it," went on Karinsky boldly, feeling that he was managing the situation magnificently. "This is really great, Mr Rodgers. Fancy us meeting the real Red Head of the Red Sea. I must tell the boys. You will dine with us tonight?"

" Of course I will," chuckled Red Head.

"That's settled then," said Karinsky, rubbing his hands together. "At eight o'clock?"

"Eight o'clock," agreed Red Head and slowly rose from his chair.

"Going for a stroll?" asked the director, still in a forced jovial mood.

Red Head nodded.

"Yes, I thought I'd walk as far as the radio station and chat with a few friends there." He turned to the girl. "There is a wireless station, you know, as well as a fort."

"Is there?" faltered the girl.

THE DINNER was hardly a success. Meeting their hero in the flesh seemed to have damped the whole party of Orient Productions, Inc.

Yet Paul Rodgers enjoyed it. He was the only one who appeared perfectly at ease.

The dark-haired Eliza Bazan rose from her chair at a little after nine o'clock and begged to be excused. Zyg Karinsky dismissed her with a benevolent wave of a paw.

"O.K., Liza. Don't forget I want you on location at eight o'clock sharp in the morning."

She nodded and hurried away with an obvious sigh of relief.

"Liza makes friends wherever she happens to land," explained Karinsky, with an attempt at a jovial smile.

"So I've observed," said Red Head dryly.

There followed a grunt from Joe Peretz, the cameraman.

It was Zyg Karinsky who kept the conversation going, his voice shouting across the dining-room.

Only once did Red Head's politely interested expression change, and that was when the Arab porter, Kazi, passed behind his chair with a whisper in Arabic :

"Master, I will be in your room at ten o'clock, if Allah permits it."

"What's that nigger grunting about?" asked Karinsky quickly.

"I didn't hear," replied Red Head carelessly. "But possibly he was murmuring a prayer from the Koran as he worked. It is the hour of the fifth prayer, you know."

Karinsky's eyes had narrowed suspiciously, but the incident passed.

At five minutes to ten, Red Head vaguely suggested retiring.

"Nonsense, Rodgers," shouted Karinsky. "The evening's young. I don't meet an interesting fellow like yourself every day. Now, come on, let's hear some of your adventures."

"There are really none to tell," replied Red Head modestly. "Just dull days in the desert."

"I don't believe it," insisted the persistent Karinsky. "I just don't believe it. Now, what about that fellow who sold beds in the desert. Le me see, wasn't his name Talata― Josef Talata?"

"Quite right," nodded Red Head. He turned his keen grey eyes towards the film director. "Did you by chance meet him during your wanderings in the Red Sea, Mr Karinsky?"

Karinsky's cruel mouth stretched into a grin.

"Not me. Does he exist?"

"Oh yes, he exists," nodded Red Head, grimly.

His gaze sought the clock. It was exactly ten o'clock.

"Talata must be a tough guy," mused the film director.

"He is very tough," agreed Red Head. "Some day we shall meet again and―"

Somewhere in the distant corridors of the hotel a shot rang out. Red Head instinctively leaped to his feet.

At the sound of that shot the excitable Syrian manager scuttled from his office and began a rapid fire of questioning in Arabic to the servants. There came an echo of frightened replies from the corridor. A chance phrase reached Red Head. He strode toward the portly Syrian and gripped him by the arm.

"Where is it?" he asked abruptly.

"The sound came from number four. The servants say they can taste powder."

"Number four is my room," said Red Head.

He raced along the concrete corridor. His door was locked, but in a few seconds he had inserted the key and entered the room. A crumpled heap of yellowish-white garments was in the centre of the room, and from that heap trickled a thin red stream.

Quickly Red Head stretched out a hand and raised the heap of garments. He found himself staring at the sagging head of Kazi, the Arab porter. The eyes were already glazed, the brown face lifeless.

With an exclamation of bitter disappointment Red Head  let the bundle sink back to the floor. His grey eyes slanted to the open window that led to the balcony outside the room. By that way Kazi had entered the room. From that same window, out of the darkness beyond, the Arab had been shot.

"Gosh! This looks serious," shouted a voice.

Karinsky had entered the room, followed by the fat Syrian.

"It's damned serious," said Red Head. He turned to the Syrian. "Telephone the police, and ask Captain Manners to come over at once," he commanded.

"This is terrible," moaned the Syrian. "Why do these things happen in the most respectable hotel?"

Still moaning and protesting, he hurried away to the telephone. Red Head and Karinsky were left alone, staring at that dead bundle.

"Well, I guess this looks like a real desert feud," hazarded the film director. "You know, Rodgers, I always thought that nigger had something on his mind. I suppose some fellow has been on his trail for months. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, eh?"

Red Head narrowed his grey eyes and faced Karinsky squarely.

"It was nothing of the kind," he said quietly. "I call it cold-blooded murder."

THE Chief of Police had come and gone. The body had been removed. A search in the darkness outside had revealed nothing. No footprints in the sand. No sign of a prowling Arab.

An examination of the body revealed that Kazi had been shot from behind, the bullet passing through his heart. Death had been practically instantaneous. To the inquiries as to why Kazi should have been in his room, Red Head replied with a shrug of his shoulders. He said nothing.

Yet now, at one o'clock in the morning, as he lay on his bed in the darkness, he pondered the problem. He knew from that whisper at the dinner table that Kazi had come to his room with a message. And someone else knew it. Because of that Kazi had been murdered.

The message must have been of deadly importance.

Zyg Karinsky had been voluble but not very helpful in the questioning by Captain Manners. He had picked the Arab from among a crowd in Aden. He claimed to know the desert, and Karinsky had imagined that he would be useful for occasional film work.

"The nigger looked picturesque, but I always thought he had something on his mind," he reiterated.

And there, for the moment, the matter had ended. Asked by the Syrian manager if he desired to change his room, Paul Rodgers shook his head. He had retired, stretched himself on the bed, and lay in the darkness, revolving the problem in his mind.

A strange film expedition this, which arrived out of the haze of the Red Sea. Three men, a girl, and two Arabs. And now one of the Arabs was dead, murdered at the moment when he was bringing an important message to Red Head. Why— why— why? The question impressed itself on Red Head's mind with the rhythmic tread of heavy feet.

Crunch— crunch— crunch! It was the real tread of a white man, some-where outside on the veranda. Red Head slipped from the bed and moved quickly to the window. His grey eyes peered into the darkness. He discerned a big, heavy form moving away from the hotel.

Red Head was used to this queer darkness of the desert. He realised that the big form crunching carefully through the sand was the film director, Zyg Karinsky. And he carried with him into the darkness two cameras. He was moving in the direction of the harbor works, labouring under the heavy burden of the cameras.

Red Head's first thought was that Karinsky was making a bolt for it. With this idea in his mind he turned his back upon the window, opened the door, moved quietly along the corridor, and in less than a minute had entered Karinsky's room.

But the room presented an ordered appearance. There were no indications of an immediate flight by the film director.

Red Head's attention was attracted by a little group of books on a table by the bed. One of them in red binding was a familiar volume. He picked it up. "The Red Sea and Gulf of Aden Pilot." British Admiralty charts and soundings and directions for sailors. Some of the maps were marked in pencil. He whistled softly to himself as he examined them. The other books were Government handbooks to the Red Sea regions. An official Italian chart to Eritrea. A French map of Abyssinia. Notes about Djibouti. Obviously Zyg Karinsky was tremendously interested in the topography of this region

Red Head fumbled for a cigarette in the pocket of the dressing gown he wore. He lit one, and then calmly settled down in a chair to read one of the volumes. He must have sat and smoked for nearly half an hour before the curtain was thrust aside, and Zyg Karinsky, holding the two cameras in his huge paws, entered the room.

"What the hell—" began the film director.

Red Head smiled. He did not rise from his comfortable position.

"Put the cameras down, Karinsky, and take a chair."

"This is my room, eh?"

"It is, and very interesting, too. I've found out a good deal about you, Mr. Zyg Karinsky, since I first saw you step ashore to-day."

"Is that so?"

"I wirelessed to California this afternoon, and, as I guessed, Hollywood has not even heard of you."

"Bunk!"

"I've also discovered, after a little search of your room, that, like your very attractive girl friend, Eliza Bazan, you are interested in forts and guns."

"Go on!" said Karinsky dangerously.

"I will," nodded Red Head. "Just what is your game, Karinsky? You're a Pole, spying on French, Italian, and British fortifications in the Red Sea. Your desert film is a fake. You use your cameras for a much more deadly purpose than filming a romance about my humble self. Well, come on, to whom are you selling this film? Or is it a question of the highest bidder among the interested nations?"

Karinsky puffed his cigar unconcernedly.

"Wouldn't you just like to know?" he sneered.

"I will know," said Red Head sternly, "or else—"

"Or else, what?"

"I'll have you arrested for the murder of that poor devil of an Arab, Kazi, who came to my room to whisper a warning of your game."

Red Head was watching the face of the man in front of him closely. Just for a second he imagined he saw a gleam of satisfaction in the dark eyes as they gazed over and beyond his shoulder. He half-turned, suspecting that another person had entered the room. But he was too late. The blow of a metal instrument came crashing to his head. With a groan, he slid forward from his chair and collapsed.

"Good work, Joe," nodded Karinsky to the gorilla-like cameraman, who had entered from behind the curtains. "You just come in time. This red-headed skunk had discovered the whole game."

"Better finish him off, then," growled Joe Peretz, raising the steel bar again.

"No, Joe," Karinsky rose from the chair and flicked the cigar ash from his knees. "No, we can't have another murder in this desert shack. Shooting that Arab was quite enough for one night. They'll sure suspect something if this fellow is found dead."

Joe spat contemptuously.

"You're not going to nurse him back to health and ask his forgiveness, are you, Zyg?"

The film director shook his head. Then an idea came into his swarthy face. His cruel mouth twisted into a grin. "We said we'd make a film of Red Head of the Red Sea— and so we will. We'll take a private, uncensored film: 'How Red Head Died in the Desert,' eh? Doesn't that appeal to you, Joe?"

He chuckled.

"What's bitten you?" growled the cameraman.

"An idea, Joe. An idea. Did you hire that motor-truck with the mesh covering?"

"Sure. It's parked outside now. The driver's asleep over the wheel."

"Good. Well, help me dump this boob inside the truck and then go and wake the company. Bring cameras and a couple of guns. We're going on location, Joe."

"Right now?"

"Right now!"

Within twenty minutes the business was done. The prone body of Red Head, covered with a heap of sacking, lay on the floor of the truck. The members of Orient Film Productions, Inc., seated themselves in proximity, and with a grinding of gears the motor truck lurched away towards the desert.

In the scorching blast of the morning desert wind, the truck stopped. Zyg Karinsky, a bottle at his lips, smacked satisfaction. He looked out on a wilderness of sand with a few rocks jutting out of the brown sea, and nodded.

"I guess this will do."

A groan came from the prone figure in the truck.

"Water... water."

"Give the man a drink, Zyg," pleaded Eliza Bazan. "It can't do any harm."

Karinsky chuckled, and turned the bottle upside down.

"There isn't a drink for anybody until we reach Port Sudan again. Then I'll stand you all a bottle of the best. Now, tumble out the cargo, Joe."

Without any apparent effort the gorilla-like cameraman seized the bundle that was Red Head and dumped it in the sand.

"Now get to your camera, Joe," commanded Karinsky.

The cruel smile was stretched across his face. He was perched on a stool in the truck, a revolver on his lap. At his side kneeled Joe Peretz, who, with professional skill, was focusing a film camera.

"All set!" he grinned.

The little group in the truck watched and waited until the bundle in the sand showed signs of life. With a groan Red Head raised himself to a kneeling posture. Clotted blood stained his hair where the ugly wound was revealed. In a spasm of pain he closed his eyes. Then he opened them again, his gaze fixed on the callous, grinning Karinsky, seated at the side of the camera.

"Want a drink, eh?" chuckled the film director.

Slowly, Red Head nodded.

"Well, here it is," smiled Karinsky, balancing the empty bottle on the edge of the truck. "Come and get it."

In another spasm of pain Red Head roused himself to a standing position. He swayed in dressing-gown and pyjamas he looked an incongruous object in the desert waste.

Groaning with the effort, Red Head made a step forward towards the truck.

"Camera!" commanded Karinsky.

The whirr of the mechanism began. At the same time Karinsky turned and nodded to the Arab driver.

The engine of the truck came to life and just as Red Head stretched out a weak hand for the bottle the truck lurched forward.

"Run, you red-headed boob!" chuckled Karinsky.

Swaying, stumbling, Red Head waded through the sand after the slowly moving truck. The camera whirred continuously. Those seated in the truck could see the desperate agony in the grey eyes, the tortured throat working convulsively at the thought of the precious drink.

"Stop it, you devil!" shrieked the girl. "Put him out of his misery."

But the film director only laughed and toppled the empty bottle into the sand. Red Head clawed at it desperately and squatted in the sand. The expression on his face as he discovered it was empty was too much for Eliza Bazan. She covered her face with her hands.

Karinsky glanced sideways at the cameraman.

"Got enough, Joe?"

"Sure."

"O.K." He levelled the revolver and fired. A spurt of sand came from the feet of Red Head.

Another shot, and the bottle smashed to atoms.

At that moment the Arab driver shouted and pointed to the distant horizon. What appeared to be a black wall was moving swiftly across the desert.

"A sandstorm!" shrieked the girl.

"Step on it!" ordered Karinsky to the driver, and as the truck lurched forward he levelled the revolver and fired.

The figure in the dressing-gown pitched forward and sprawled in the desert.

"WELL, folks, we've had three days here, and done good work. At midnight a dhow will take us to the good ship Lobato, waiting outside the harbor."

Zyg Karinsky filled each of the glasses in his room from the bottle of champagne that he held in his huge paw.

"Mon dieu, but I shall not be sorry to see the last of this Port Sudan," shivered the dark-haired Eliza.

"You folks all packed?" Zyg hiccupped.

They nodded.

"Well, the Red Sea adventure is finished," he announced. "I think we can say that we've taken a film of international importance." The cruel smile was stretching across his face again. "But I'm going to give you a brief run-through of our last great adventure."

"And that is?" inquired Georges Rayment.

"The death of Red Head of the Red Sea," chuckled Karinsky.

"No, no. This is too much," cried Eliza.

Karinsky gave her a commanding glance.

"You stay here, my girl!" he warned. Then, turning to Raymont, he said: "Switch out the lights, boy."

The room was in darkness. Joe Peretz bent over a small projector. It spurted with light. He focused on the blank, white wall of the room. The film began to click through.

In the darkness came a chuckle from Karinsky. The whole drama of that morning in the desert was repeated. The feeble plunging of the desperate man through the heavy sand after the moving truck, the clawing at the bottle, and, finally, the moment when he pitched prone in the sand.

"And that's the end of Red Head of the Red Sea," chortled Karinsky,

"Not entirely," came the sharp retort of a familiar voice. "Put up your hands!"

Simultaneously, the light in the room clicked on, and the little group saw the figure that a moment ago was on the white wall now standing there with an automatic pistol levelled at them. The familiar red hair was swathed in a bandage, the features blackened by the sun still wore that humorous, ironic expression. And with him were three khaki-clad figures, similarly armed with revolvers.

"This is the little bunch, Manners," nodded Red Head. "Take particular care of Mr. Zyg Karinsky and his cameraman, Joe Peretz. I shan't be happy until I can see them both hanged for the murder of the Arab, Kazi."

"What about the girl, sir?" asked one of the khaki-clad figures.

"She'll be all right," nodded Red Head. He turned towards her. "I'm afraid you won't be able to dance with your naval friends on the sloop Tajura tonight. I should imagine they're just boarding that mysterious steamer, Lobato, now."

"Well, for a guy with nine lives..." sighed Karinsky.

Red Head nodded.

"You forget, Karinsky, that the desert is not entirely a wilderness. A tribe of Bedouins found me more dead than alive, but they pulled me through. I should have hated to die without seeing you once again."

Then he indicated the packed cameras and the books.

"Take care of that pile, Manners," he ordered. "It's worth many thousands of roubles to our Russian friends who are out there in the steamer waiting for it. Incidentally, it contains much useful information for our own Intelligence Service."

"What about this film in the projector, sir?" asked one of the khaki clad men.

Red Head stretched out a hand.

"Thanks. I think I'll claim that for myself. It might amuse me in the evenings."

__________________

19: Her Memory

Morley Roberts

1857-1942

World's News (Sydney) 2 January 1904

THE DAY was a perfect summer's day, and the sun was high in the cloudless heavens. To some the heat might have seemed too great, for the big cliffs heated the quiet, ascending air until it sometimes seemed that there must be a fire below me upon the verge of the sea.

But when one has lived in the tropics, heat in England is a blessed thing. A man seems to live again as he recalls the sunburnt plains of the Austral continent, or remembers high noon upon the great Karroo. I was somnolent, and yet very much alive. My body lived as my mind drowsed in the recurring rhythm of the waters breaking white three hundred feet below me.

For an hour I had watched the herring gulls diving for their prey. Then the fish for which they sought went with the flood, and the cries of the great winged sea-birds faded from my ears. And it grew hotter and hotter still, as the sun moved from the meridian.

This was my first visit to Cornwall since I was a man, and so far I had not entered the sea. Now the cool blue waters, patched here and there with bands of emerald, called to me enticingly. Though the outside sea was calm here, the siren breast of the ocean heaved rhythmically. The shining teeth of rock seemed to bite the sea and break it. Who knew but that the waters there had helped to bear me ten thousand miles away? From those very rocks was a sea-path to all the coasts of the great under-world. I sat up; yearned for the other side of earth, and clambered down into the old path that I had once known so well.

The way was steep and difficult, and in places dangerous to all but those who knew little tricks of hand and foothold. But these came back to me, and, after all, I was limber enough to venture. I dropped from rock to rock until the caves resounded about me, and the sweet, soft thunder of their echoes made me glad and very young. And then, as I came round the last point of rock before the path became easy, I saw that I was not alone. The delight of freedom went out of me; I knew my face put on some stiff mask that I had discarded hours ago, when I left the village. I was no longer a boy, but a man, whose first thought was to return. For I knew well that I had intruded where I had no right. It is possible that if the man who was there before me had been young I should have said "Good-day," looked about me vaguely, and returned. But he was so old that his being there at all was a puzzle to me. How had so white and bowed a creature come down that mighty cliff, which now looked inaccessible? Perhaps my face showed what was in my mind, for when. I looked from him to the cliff and back again the old man smiled and spoke.

"I have climbed it up and down twenty-nine times," he said.

"Lately, sir?" I asked.

He looked away from me at the sea.

"In— twenty-nine years," he answered. "Every summer on this day."

At his feet the white water boiled and broke, and flowered. It subsided with a sharp hiss, and rose again covered with, foam bells. The deep, dark shadows were blue; dull and muffled thunders surged in the dim recesses of the caves.' The tide was at the top of the flood. I sat down beside the old man. He seemed kindly, and in a mood to talk, and did not resent my presence.

"It must he rather hard work for you to do it," I said. "I know many younger men than myself who would shirk such a cliff as this. And some, if they tried, would lose their heads and fall."

He glanced round at the rocks that burnt in the sunlight.

"Yes; and a fall here means death, does it not? There would be little chance, little chance."

"The man who fell would never speak again," I said.

As I spoke, or rather in the moment before I spoke, his mind had drifted from me. He was still strong, I could see; once he must have been powerful. His face was clear and healthy, and yet he might have been over seventy. As I thought and spoke, he answered quickly:

"A woman did."

I knew the place well, and had heard all that had happened since I had been there. There was no record of anyone falling at that spot.

"No one ever fell here, sir."

"A woman fell over here twenty-nine years ago to-day," he said. "Twenty-nine years ago to-day."

It was but 29 years since I had left Cornwall to seek my fortune beyond the rainbow.

"I was a boy here then."

"And never heard of it? No one heard of it but I. And no one hut myself ever knew it till to-day. No one but yourself has ever come here. She fell from the cliff and I found her here."

He touched the flat slab of rock on which he sat.

"I was her lover."

He was her lover still, then, or he would never have been here.

What could I say? I murmured foolishly that I was sorry; that it was a great misfortune.

"Perhaps not," said the old man, "perhaps not. You see we were very unhappy; the world and fate were against us. It is so very long ago that, perhaps, you would not think It as wrong as if it happened to-day. She is dead, and I am very old. Isn't it strange that the world listens very pitifully to the stories of dead lovers of long ago, and yet is so hard on some lovers now? There was Francesca, you know "

He looked at me half-shyly.

"Do you think Francesca a very evil woman?"

"Dante forgave her, did he not?"

"It is a Francesca story," said the old man. "Can I tell it to you? I have never told It, but you look like a man who might be sorry. Perhaps if I told it—"

He was very anxious to speak. I could see that. And I— well. I do not know that I ever needed to wait till blood and tears were dry to pity those who shed them. "What is the difference between Franceses of to-day and Franceses of some far yesterday?

"You see," he said after a little nervous pause. "I was married. It was a pity. And I had some children, three or four. And my wife was a very good woman, one of the good women who are responsible— did you ever meet a good woman who made you want to go out and break all laws that ever were?—well, she was that kind of good woman. And I was in a fine position. I worked for a good company, they paid well, and all the directors were very moral. So everyone said. And all my money went to keep my family and my wife's family, and my own mother. You see. I had a great many responsibilities. And then I fell in love for the first time. I was 35, and had been too busy to fall in love, though I had married. These are the mistakes busy men make very often. And the woman I fell in love with was very sweet. I think she was the kind of woman any man might have made a fool of himself about. For she was not good in the way which made me revolt against goodness. She was very natural. When I was with my wife I sometimes almost prayed for her to be given some quality which I did not admire. It would have relieved my mind. You won't mind my saying such things. They are true, you see. But the other woman had many qualities I didn't admire. It did me good. I used sometimes to make heir laugh by trying to correct a fault. And when she had done laughing, she would kiss me. And when she kissed me I didn't, care what faults she had or what she said. She said things sometimes that would have made anyone laugh, for she was very merry and reckless and bright. That was her real nature. Yet she was married, too. It was all wrong, of course, very wrong; but it happened a long time- ago. Her husband and she were separated. He lived in China, I think, hut it is long ago. Maybe it was India— or somewhere.

"It wasn't often that I could get away. I earned £2000 a year, but the people who paid it saw that they got their money's worth. And I hadn't much to spend on myself. My responsibilities were heavy. Oh, yes; I told you. But sometimes, once or twice a year, I went on a little voyage.

"We came here, always here. I took her name then,, for she had friends and relations in England. That was her trouble. She was always troubled about, any kind of scandal, partly on my account, for she knew that a scandal would mean my losing my position, and partly on her own. It is curious that a woman who was so reckless could care to much about that. I don't think I ever understood it quite. Once she asked me to run away, with her. I wanted to— oh, yes—I wanted to, but there were all my people. They had nothing, and expected me to keep them, and I had to, of course.

ii

"It was the third time, no, the fourth, that we came down here that the end came. She had been very much troubled all the morning, and she said more than once, 'They must never know.' She meant her people. But at noon she was brighter. She was really so well, the picture of health. Her red blood sang to her whenever she closed, her ears to the world. And as I lay on the turf just above the cove she came and stood on the rock above me. The wind blew her dress. Oh, she was very sweet.

And I said:

" 'Do I always see you on some rock far above me?'

"And she would not come down. But she said— I don't know why—

" 'This is our week.'

"And as I lay there I laughed, and said she had no soul. This made her rather angry. But I think sometimes that what people call their soul Is really something born of dissatisfaction and ill-health. It is enough to have a spirit. I told her so, and still she stood on the rock and laughed.

" 'What is the difference?'

" 'But of course one's spirit is the child of hope.' And when I said so she laughed again, and went away for a little walk by herself. I had told her a thousand times to be careful, but that day I said nothing. I lay and read a book for an hour, and then went to meet her as I usually did. And I came here to the cliff above us. We often sat there, looking down, hearing the sea roar, and watching the herring gulls. And as I could not see her, I sat down and waited. Do you know I sat there nearly an hour? It is the cruellest thing I can think of. An hour, almost an hour!

"I don't know what, it was that touched my senses. Perhaps it was not my senses which told me, but I know that I began to be unhappy, and it seemed to me that she called. Yet in the roar of the sea I heard nothing. And presently I saw a little bit of turf broken away in front of me. It made me look over, and down below upon this slab I saw something lying like a dark pile of seaweed. And then my heart stopped beating, and I went blind, for I knew what had happened. I rose to my feet and went down the cliff. It was then two o'clock, for I heard the church town clock strike.

"I got down, how I cannot say. But I came to her at last. A little while ago she had been so strong, and the colour in her face was the colour of a rose, and now she was crushed and motionless, and her face was like wax, or the yellow foam that clings to the rocks after a storm. And yet her face had not been touched; there was not even a scratch on it. But I knew that she was broken in pieces, and a little thin band of blood ran out and from her, and dripped darkly into the white water sucking at the bloody rock. And she was not dead. For she moaned and opened her eyes, and saw me. She knew me. How very little humanity can be thankful for! I was thankful for that, my friend; I was very thankful!"

He paused for quite a long time, as it seemed to me, and the warm, white sea leapt at the rock and flicked foam upon the very slab on which we sat. How glorious a scene lay before us. And yet a little while ago— how few were the years measured by the waste of this strong earth— what a scene had been here.

"Do you know," he said suddenly, "she some times used to say, 'How long would you remember me if we had to part?' And I always said a week or two, or perhaps three, if she would be good and sweet. And she lay, here, crushed and dying, so many years ago. It is yet hardly a day!

"She could speak, this crushed, shattered, broken, dear thing could speak. But her voice was very hollow and fair off like a whisper of the sea in the cave yonder, and it came out of her as if it were pumped up like her blood. And her eyes were wide and startled, wide as the sea, and blue as the sea in opening ice that is covered with snow. I had never known that her eyes were so blue, but I had never seen her the colour of death. Her lips moved, and I bent down over her. And she said things I cannot tell you. For, you see, it we did wrong, she loved me very much, and it is difficult to be good and do just right when there is no happiness anywhere. But she said no one was to know. These women, are they not strange? She thought of that when, God knows, she was like wet pulp beneath her gown, and the blood was draining out of her as water does out of seaweed. And I sat by her with my lips against hers, and the world nowhere, listening to her soul pass, add all the time I was making plans for no one to know. And yet I wanted to go up and get the world to come and see. Then, you know, I could have died, too; and it would have been easy till Duty came and took me by the hair. But she got white and whiter, white as— oh, dreadful— and her eyes became filmed, and then shone out again. She kissed me, and then she shuddered out the rest of her life. And I knew what I had to do for her, and I saw as clear as a lighthouse on a bright night what I had to do for her. I swear now that it was not for myself one jot. For to do it when I was cold and sick and hollow with unutterable despair was harder than any death.

"For what had I lost? It was everything, for she was everything to me then. And yet for all that, I could tell no one, and must let no one know. So when she died, and I knew she was dead, I took hold of her, and slid her broken body into the water. And the tide took hold of her bright hair, and it floated in a golden cloud. Beneath it her face shone, and she went out on the ebb like— the maid of Astolat, is it not? And I sat there holding the hem of her gown, and could not let her go. Once I drew her back, and touched her hand. Then at last I failed, and perhaps, indeed, I was unconscious, and when I knew what I was doing she was gone, sunk in the sea. And all I had of her was the blood that lay upon the rocks.

iii

"I WAS mad, I suppose, but mad or not, I knew what had to be done, and I worked swiftly. I washed the blood off the rock, and I washed my hands and the arm of my coat, and I climbed up the cliff again, and walked five miles in the hot afternoon sunshine to Liskeard. And I knew there was a train to London. But I did not mean to go. At the village I telegraphed to myself in her name, and in the telegram I said that her mother was ill, and that she had caught a train to Lon-don. There she would send me word what to do. And then I sat down and wrote to my clerk in town, telling him to send me three telegrams in succession signed with the name of my wife, which was the dead woman's name, saying that her mother was ill, and that I must come. And I joked with him in the letter, saying that I was staying with people whom I did not like, but that I could make no excuse to get away. Then I walked back to this village. When I reached the place that had been our home they brought me the telegram I had sent, and I threw it to the old woman who let us the rooms. It was a simple explanation. They knew we loved each other; why should they suspect anything? And then I sat and waited for the other telegrams from London. It was a dreadful night— oh, so calm and beautiful. And my life was in the sea, and she was dead and I alone for ever. I didn't sleep. Could I have slept? I walked the cliffs till dark, and now and again I went in and spoke to the people cheerfully. And I could see her all the time, on the rocks and in the water. And in my arms.

"And next day the first of the telegrams came. And I knew how the man who sent it had laughed, not knowing what part he played in a tragedy like this. And again another, and another came, so that at last I showed them to the people, and packed my things and the clothes of the dead woman. They were sorry to lose us, they said, and the old woman complained that the anxiety of my wife's going and this illness of her mother had made me ill. If she and the rest had not been blind and busy, they would have seen that I was nearly mad.

And yet they saw me very little, for all day I sat here, here, where I am now, on the rock where she lay, and I drove away at last for Liskeard, and took a ticket to London. But, of course, I did not go there first. I had to account for her disappearance to those who would have sought her. So in her name I telegraphed at Plymouth to her people that she had gone to a little place on the Dorsetshire coast, where we had once been together. And I went there my self, and took some of her things, a cloak and a hat, and a handkerchief with her name upon it. And these I carried under my coat, and at night I went down to the beach and left her cloak with a handkerchief upon a rock, and the hat I threw into the water. Then I walked back to the railway, where I had left my things and hers, and I went on to town.

"I could not go home at first. That was impossible. To see my wife would have choked me. She would have said and done everything that she ought. So I stayed in town at a hotel, and sent for my clerk, who was the only one who knew I was not upon a voyage. He was old, and always afraid of being discharged, and I knew I could trust him, and what he suspected was nothing to me. And, I did what business needed being done, and read the papers, and on the second day I saw a paragraph about someone having been drowned at Chidiock. Then it was reported as a suicide, and her name was given. But, of course, no body was found, and there was no inquest. And no body knew anything. Yet all the time she was in the tides of the Channel, and my mind was in the tides, and I slept upon them, dreaming of her beneath me in the deep. For a week I lived like this, and now I know I was not sane. For I saw her face hourly, and as I rose in the morning I saw her drifting body, and again this rock. And I sat upon It, holding the hem of her gown. And a thousand times I let her go, and saw her float out to sea beneath the waves. Then at last I broke out of this madness, and went home. This was my punishment. And henceforth I did live a double life indeed; not as I had done. But I was withdrawn from the world, and all I gave it was my brain, just for work. My health came back, for a mad and curious happiness came to me. She was mine always, my mind was hers; and no one but myself knew where she was. That was a great comfort to me. And l heard that her husband in China married again. This made her more mine than ever. And that no one had known I knew her made her utterly mine! I don't know why. And I always came here, for my holidays, always, always. Until this day none knew anything about her. I don't know why I have told you. I don't know why. I don't know why."

His voice trailed off into a whisper, and he sat, quite still, with his hands clasped about his knees.

Then my memory opened, as it sometimes does, and I was a little boy again, and saw two strangers, a man and a woman, walking in our village. He was a tall and powerful man, with a very gentle face, and she was blithe and bright and golden-haired, and yet with some sorrow, some reckless sadness, at the back of all her sweetness. Often and often she had spoken to me, and now as the past opened I stared at him, and saw him grow young again.

"I knew you both," I said; "you lived all those years ago in the little cottage on the cliff with the roses."

"Yes, that is where we stayed," said the old man suddenly, and then he reached out his hands to me. "You— you remember her?"

"She was very kind to me," I answered quietly.

"She was very kind to me, too," said the old man. There was an odd touch of humbleness in his voice

_________________

20: Clubs and Hearts

Barry Pain

1864-1928

World's News (Sydney) 9 January 1904

Love's Labour Lost

THE QUARTERLY dinner of the Proposal Club was drawing to its close.

The club consisted of thirty members, and to-night all were present. Lord Northberry, the president, at the head of the table, was almost the only man who appeared perfectly calm and genial. On most of the other faces there was a look of anxiety, and even of fear. The critical moment of the meeting, the transaction of the club's extremely curious business, was just about to arrive. Dr. Bagshot, the secretary, was already fumbling with his papers. The look of anxiety, was particularly noticeable in Colonel Seventree, a handsome man of fifty, who was chatting over his coffee with his young friend Richard Tower. The Colonel's fingers played petulantly with a menu card, on the cover of which was emblazoned the club symbol, a representation of Curtius leaping into the gulf.

"It's not right, you know," said the Colonel. "It's playing with fire."

"Then, why did you join the club?" said Tower. "Northberry was so confoundedly convincing. You know what he is yourself. Why, it seemed to be almost dishonourable not to join the Club."

The Proposal Club is not to be found in Whitaker, and the secretary, with whom I am personally acquainted, has asked me not to give its address. Its members are all bachelors, and by the rules of the club must be unmarried, sound in health, able to support a wife, and not quite intolerably ugly. At each meeting three names were selected by chance, and those three men were required to make a proposal of marriage before the next meeting. To each member selected was assigned the woman to whom he was to propose, and this woman was always chosen for the improbability that under any other circumstances she would ever receive a proposal at all.

Lord Northberry urged the beauty of it all With great enthusiasm. There was no chivalry, he would say, in loving and protecting a woman whom one wished to love and protect. There was no merit in giving one's heart where it was quite impossible to keep it. But there was merit and there was chivalry in the man who was prepared cheerfully to sacrifice himself for Borne woman to whom Nature or the Fates had not been kind.

"Besides," the Colonel went on, "I am a gambler. It was a brilliant idea of Northberry's to copy the notion of Stevenson's Suicide Club, but to make the stakes rather bigger."

"Bigger?" echoed Tower.

"Certainly. I have never believed that death is the most important thing that happens to one in one's life. Northberry knows it. The punishment committee never kill a man who has broken the laws of the club; they may dishonour him, but they are too clever to kill him. I suppose I've got twenty years or so of life before me. In the course of the next ten min-utes it is easily possible that those twenty years will be arranged for me. I shall be told to propose to a certain woman, and, as you know, the Investigation Committee see that in making the proposal you do your very best to get it accepted. I may be accepted." He leant forward impressively. "Mark my words, Tower; if I'm let off to-night I'll resign. I can't face this again."

"Got your card ready?" said Tower. "I see they're coming round for them." Two servants came down the two sides of the table with salvers in their hands, and each member placed his visiting card on one of the salvers. The cards were then placed in a covered basket be-hind the president's chair. The Colonel's hand shook as be dropped his card on the salver.

"Thank Heaven," he began, "it can't be long now. It's the waiting that—"

The sound of a gong rang through the room. Lord Northberry had risen. The servants passed quickly and noiselessly from the room. The secretary followed them to the door, closed it, locked it, and drew over it a heavy double curtain.

"Gentlemen," said Lord Northberry, "it is time that we proceeded to business. Following my custom, I must point out to you that the business is serious." He lifted a sheet of paper lying on the table and consulted it. "I see here," he said, ''the name of Major Delmay, who was last year a member of the club. It was decided that he should propose to Lady Alicia Stoke. The Committee of Investigation had reason to believe that the proposal either had not been made or had not been made in good faith. Major Delmay's expulsion from all his clubs for cheating at cards, and the ruin which followed upon him, are fresh within the memory of you all. Mr. Archibald Sterne maintained that he had a right to resign after he had been selected to marry Miss Dorothy Grace Euphemia Smiles. It is a rule of the club that selected members have not the right of resignation until they have executed their trust. Mr. Sterne was subsequently elected for South Loamshire, and it will be remarked that he was unseated on a bribery petition, and was by no means held to be personally guiltless. Mr. Ramsey offended us in a more striking manner by deliberately marrying a young and beautiful lady instead of the woman whom the club had allotted him. The subsequent elopement of Mrs. Ramsey with a handsome but far from cultured veterinary surgeon made some sensation at the time. It is not safe, if I may use the phrase, to monkey with the Punishment Committee. I will ask the secretary to read out to us the minutes of the last meeting."

The secretary, in a dry, formal voice, read the names of the three members whom chance had selected at the last meeting, and of the  three women to whom they had been ordered to propose marriage. Two of them, had been accepted, and had ipso facto ceased to be members of the club. The other man had been refused.

The covered basket in which the visiting cards had been placed was how brought forward and the cards shaken up. The president raised the cover sufficiently to admit his hand, and drew out three cards. Two of the members then investigated the remaining cards to see that no member had omitted to put in his own card or had substituted that of another member.

"If I'm let off this time," said the Colonel, "I'll resign to-night; I swear I will. After all, the chances are 10 to 1 in my favour." Again the president's bell interrupted him.

"I will read," said the president, "the names of the three members selected. The first is Mr. Reginald Holt."

Mr. Holt rose rapidly to his feet. He was a wealthy stockbroker, middle-aged, with a tendency to corpulence. He shook all over, but he managed to stammer out: "I shall do my duty."

"The second name," the president continued, "is the Rev. Marcus Leffingwell."

Mr. Leffingwell answered smilingly and readily. He might possibly be going to be a martyr, but he was a sanguine young man, with  a love for lost causes.

"The third name," said the president—he paused and looked in the direction of the Colonel, The Colonel set his teeth and pulled himself together. He sat bolt upright, listening intently. "The third name," the president repeated, "is Mr. Richard Tower."

Tower rose and murmured the formula of acceptance in a low voice. The Colonel wiped the perspiration from his forehead and spoke to Tower. Tower did not hear him. He was thinking about a girl in a red Tam-o'-Shanter. The Colonel touched him on the arm. "You may be all right," he said, excitedly; "the woman may refuse you. One man was refused last time."

"Yes," said Tower, smiling in rather a vacant way, and did his best to talk about some other subject. In the meantime the president had consulted the register kept by the Committee of Investigation of those women to whom it was thought desirable and kind that proposals of marriage should be made. If a member was not acquainted with the woman who had been chosen to be his future wife, the Committee of Investigation were always able to arrange a meeting. The lady who had been chosen for Richard Tower was Miss Agatha Vyse Lamley.

Richard Tower knew her well, and knew that there was very little chance of a refusal. Miss Lamley was a large and energetic lady, who belonged to numerous societies. She wore a pince-nez, and was only passably ill-looking, but she had the most disagreeable voice in London.

"Good-night, Colonel," said Tower, "I'm going to slip off now. I congratulate you on your escape. I suppose you'll be sending in your resignation?"

"I think," said the Colonel, "I must risk one more meeting. It's the feeling of relief afterwards— there's nothing like it. But after next meeting—"

Richard Tower laughed and turned away. Holt was mixing a great deal of brandy with a very little soda-water.

ii

ON THE following night, at another house in the same square, Richard Tower and a remarkably pretty girl crept stealthily upstairs. Below them the music and dance went on. Richard Tower knew the house, and knew that the children's schoolroom upstairs made a very good place in which to sit out a dance. As he switched on the light you could see that the girl was angry.

"I hate mysteries," she said. "First our engagement was to be secret, and I was given no reason; now you tell me that as a consequence of something that happened last night you may be compelled to break off that engagement and marry another woman, whom you say you do not love at all. Again you give no reason."

"It's awfully hard to explain anything when you can't," said Richard, dejectedly.

"Very well," said the girl. "I'm not generally supposed to be an idiot. The engagement is broken off now, and we may as well go downstairs again. I hate you pretty badly."

"You wouldn't if you knew," said Richard. "Do you think I do this because I like it. Do you think I love you a shade less than I did when we were away in the country together? If there was the faintest possible chance that I should ever cease to love you I should be a happier man. The engagement must be broken, as you say. But if I escape— if this other woman refuses me, then I shall come back to you."

"Do, if it amuses you," said the girl. "I shall refuse to see you, of course. Stop where you are, please— I'm going down alone. I'll get somebody to take me home."

Richard Tower was well aware that he was under the close observation of the Investigation committee. It was necessary to satisfy them of one's good faith, or one came in contact with the Punishment Committee, and they had a diabolical cleverness and were not scrupulous in their work. If you broke faith with the club you were punished by being dishonoured. Major Delmay was in fact the most honourable of men, but everybody believed that ho had cheated at cards. The Punishment Committee had arranged it.

So Richard Tower renewed his acquaintance with Miss Agatha Vyse Lamley, and after a fortnight wrote to her a letter expressing in the most fervent terms his admiration of her and proposing marriage. He had no hope at all. Years before she had, in the most delicate manner possible, indicated a preference for him. He remembered it with horror. She would accept. And then?

Then he had decided on some painless form of suicide. Things had changed since Lord Northberry had first persuaded him to join the club. He had, for instance, played golf with a remarkably pretty girl who wore a red Tam-o'-Shanter, and she had quarrelled with him now. He had his last letter to her ready to send, explaining all and trusting that now and then she might have a kind thought for the man who loved her and died for her.

Miss Lamley's reply was brought to him in company with other letters, as he lay in bed. He told his servant to go, and then deliberately opened all the other letters first. This, he felt, was the strong thing to do.

Miss Lamley's letter ran as follows:— "There was a time, though I know you never guessed it, when I should have accepted gladly your declaration of love and your appeal that we should share our lives. But now, touched though I am, I know it can never be. I belong to a society of women— in fact, I am the president of it— who have been struck by the numerical preponderance of our sex over yours, and have agreed to sacrifice themselves for their sisters. In a word, we are pledged to remain unmarried, and the penalties for breaking this pledge are of a kind that I dare not face. My sympathy and my help, if you will have it, will always be yours, but I cannot and I dare not "

Richard Tower stopped reading abruptly. He went round to see a remarkably pretty girl who had said that she would refuse to see him. She might possibly change her mind. One never knows.

_______________

21: A Rapid Conveyance

Owen Oliver (Joshua Albert Flynn)

1863-1933

World's News (Sydney) 6 February 1904

In 1904 a fast motor car was a scary device, but a deal was a deal

"FLINT," said Stone.

"Stone," said I.

We are Flint and Stone, solicitors, of Millbank, England. Local wits call us the Millstones; but this is a jest.

"I have been thinking." I rubbed my hands. "If we had an enemy—"

"No!" I protested.

"A person who entertained feelings of animosity towards us; and with whom we had declined further correspondence?"

He looked at me over his eye-glasses.

"If we had occasion to approach him in the way of business." I suggested, "of course "We should forgive him!"

"Stone," I said, feelingly, "you are a good man.

"Andrew M'Kenzie did not behave well in the matter of that land, but—"

"He is an ill-conditioned person." I shook my head.

"His last letter was scarcely polite."

"Almost offensive. He insinuated we were lacking in truth and honesty!"

"Still we bear him no ill-will."

"None whatever."

"The offer that we made him was most liberal."

"Almost reckless." It was £1700.

"The price he asked was excessive."

"A barefaced attempt at extortion!" I said, warmly. "Two thousand one hundred pounds, indeed!"

"He cannot help being a Scotchman," said my partner, soothingly; "and this is a season of good-will."

It was within a week of Christmas. I nodded approvingly. "If you would like to make him an offer—shall we say £1800?"

"Two thousand one hundred pounds," said Stone, quietly. I looked at him in amazement.

"It is barely worth £2000!"

Stone held up his finger.

"If the Slowdown and Golightly Railway should propose to build a goods station there?"

"Ah!" I said. "Oh!"

"A little bird," he remarked, playfully, "has whispered to me that they do. I fear they will have to give at least £2500." He passed me over a letter from the— ahem!— little bird.

"I should be sorry," I observed, "for M'Kenzie to imagine that we bore him any malice. Suppose we offered him £2000?"

Stone shook his head.

"He would haggle till after Christmas. I— I do not want any weight on my mind at that happy season." He coughed apologetically.

"One must not carry sentiment too far," I reminded him. It is a little weakness of his.

"I was thinking," he remarked, "how people talk over the festive board. If the intention of the company should become known."

"I was wrong to question your kindly instincts, Stone," I admitted. "I had an idea of visiting Slowdown to-day. If I can do any-thing to establish friendly relations, it will be gratifying."

"Highly gratifying, Flint; especially at this season."

I went over by the 11.15 train. M'Kenzie became civil as soon as I explained the object of my visit and assured me that there was no ill-feeling on his part.

"We'll deal with the matter in a generous speerit on b'aith sides," he said. "An' mak' it £2150!" He is a man with no conscience whatever!

"Stone would never agree to a penny more than twenty-one hundred," I declared. "It's out of the question."

"Ye'll mak' it a free conveyance?"

"No, no! But we'll do it cheaply and quickly."

"By the New Year?"

"By Christmas," I promised. So we closed the bargain.

Stone rubbed his hands when I told him.

"We'll take it over for signature on Tuesday," he pronounced.

We had investigated the title during the previous negotiations. I saw to the matter my-self, as Stone was busy trying a new motor— a form of conveyance of which I do not approve. I was reading the document for the last time, on Monday morning, when my partner rushed into our room.

"The conveyance?" he cried.

"Just finished." I held it up. He snatched it from my hand.

"Put on your top-coat and hat and come."

I looked at the clock.

"We're just too late for the train,"

"We'll go on the motor."

"Umph!" I confess that I did not trust it. "I don't see why we need be in such a hurry."

"His brother is going over by the train. He has heard something about the station."

"The meddlesome ass!" I rushed into my coat. "How did he find it out?"

"Some rascally clerk in the company's office. He ought to be dismissed."

"A gross breach of trust," I, agreed, putting on my gloves.

"Come on!" Stone clapped my hat on my head, and we went out.

The motor was at the door, puffing and rattling in an unpleasant manner. I did not like venturing on the thing, but Stone hustled me into a seat. Then he turned a wheel and it bolted forward with a jerk that threw my hat into the road. It was nearly a new hat, and some small boys were playing football with it when we turned the corner.

"Why didn't you stop?" I demanded.

"We've barely time to beat the train."

"I shall catch my death of cold."

"Tie a handkerchief round your head," he suggested.

I commenced knotting my handkerchief at the corners; but Stone turned too sharply at the end of High-street, and we ran against the curb. In catching hold of the car to save myself I let the handkerchief go. Stone's umbrella went also. I will not say that I was glad, but I hoped it would be a lesson to him, and I told him so.

"One must take these little things philosophically," he said. "I've a spare handkerchief that I'll lend you."

It was a large silk one, and made an excellent head-covering; but unfortunately it was bright red in colour, and excited remarks from people we passed.

"It goes," he remarked, with satisfaction.

"I shall be glad when it stops," I replied. "I don't consider it is under proper control."

"My dear Flint, I can guide it to an inch. See me run over that piece of orange-peel and that fragment of paper. Now round that old woman— good Heavens!"

He had overlooked a heap of stones, and we mounted right over them. I turned a backward somersault on the seat, and only saved myself from going out of the car by clasping him round the neck with both legs.

"You've knocked my cap clean off," he complained. "With this cold wind I shall be laid up for a month."

"One must take these little things philosophically, "I reminded him. "You had better make a cap out of another handkerchief!"

"Umph! You'll have to steer while I do it."

"I don't understand the apparatus."

"You just turn it the way you want to go. It's quite easy. The road is wide enough."

"It's wide," I agreed, doubtfully, "but I don't know if it's wide enough!" However, he insisted upon my taking the wheel, while he fumbled with a muffler—a yellow one spotted  with green.

"There's a trap coming," I shouted, in alarm.

"It's a mile off. Mind the boy!"

I tried to mind the boy, but the thing went straight at him. However, he got out of the way somehow.

"Keep to the left. You'll be into the trap!" There was a grating sound, and the men in it pulled up and shouted after us.

"You turned the wheel the wrong way," Stone  explained. "You've smashed the back seat, and—"

"Why don't you finish the cap, and steer yourself?" I demanded.

"It takes all my time to look after you. Where are you going? The right, man, the right! You're going into Breakneck-lane!" He seized the wheel, but we were already in the lane.

"It's the quickest way," I declared,

"Quickest! It's unrideable. Look at the policeman!"

A constable was standing in the middle of the  road, waving his arms and shouting to us to stop.

"Put on the brake!" I cried. Stone grabbed at a lever, but without effect.

"It won't act," he declared. "We shall run him down!"

We rushed upon the policeman like an avalanche. He bolted for the footpath, shouting something about the City Council and ten miles an hour.

"You will be summoned," I warned Stone.

"We shall be summoned," he corrected, "if we are not killed." He made a furious attack upon the brake, but only succeeded in upsetting the steering. We scraped along a wall, snapped off the projecting branch of a tree, and up-rooted a mile-stone. Then we turned an angle of the road upon a narrow bank.

"Hi!" I shouted. "Hi! Get out of the way, man."

The man got out of the way, but he left the barrow. We dashed through a rain of milk and cans. One of the latter hit me in the face, and another blacked my partners eye. I could not see what happened to the barrow. I sup- pose the pieces were too small!

"Carts!" I shouted, warningly. "Any number of them. Blow the— the foghorn!" He blew it, and the carters drew up hastily on one side  of the road, using most shocking language.

"They've escaped from an asylum," cried a lady, as we passed. "Look at their caps."

"We shall never hear the last of this," I reproached Stone. He smiled with a sort of foolish satisfaction.

"If we aren't smashed, we shall beat the train by twenty minutes. It means four hundreds pounds."

"Less damages," I corrected. "If we— oh!"

The car skipped over a rough place, and I nearly went out.

"Hold tighter," he told me.

"How can I?" I asked, indignantly. I was holding as tightly as I could,

It was necessary. The machine was no longer running, but taking leaps, and whenever we turned a corner we went up on one wheel. When we came to Slowdown-road we were  going 40 miles an hour.

"The last half-mile!" he said, cheerfully.

"And the steepest!" I groaned.

"It will bring us almost to his door."

"The cow! The cow!" I shrieked. There was a soft thud, and the remains of a cow were bundled out of the way. "More damages!"

"It has checked us a little," he consoled me. He is of a foolishly sanguine disposition! "It is up-hill when we reach the pond."

Just as we came to Slowdown Green a brewer's van galloped out from the yard of the "Three Keys." Stone turned hurriedly to avoid it, and we reached the pond— at the deep end reserved for swimmers! There was a terrific splash. We were swept from our seats by a torrent of water. I do not remember anything more except a violent explosion, till some clumsy yokel got me out with a pitchfork.

When I had got some of the water— and the fork— out of me, I looked round and saw Stone wringing his garments and his hands.

"The conveyance is ruined!" he wailed.

"Get it out of your pocket," I cried, "before it's too wet!" He stared at me for a moment. Then he pulled it out. It was scarcely hurt at all.

"I had forgotten this conveyance," he owned.

"Come along!" I commanded. "The train isn't in yet."

"Flint!" he said, warmly, "your presence of mind is invaluable.

We toiled up the hill as fast as we could, and reached M'Kenzie's just as the train was whist-ling in the distance.

"Guid Heavens!" he cried, when we entered his room, dripping and breathless. "Weel, weel!"

"We came by motor!" Stone explained.

"I thocht ye'd come by sea!" He laughed loudly. Persons of his nationality have a perverted notion of humour.

"We had an accident. If you will sign the conveyance―"

"Ye'll change first," he suggested, pretending that he was trying not to grin. "Ther's nae sich haste."

"Business before pleasure," I reminded him, trying to laugh.

"Some folk tak' their pleasure sadly!" He laughed, as if he had said something funny.

"I don't see anything to laugh at, Mr. M'Kenzie," said my partner with dignity.

"If ye could see yersels, mon!" he cried, holding his sides. "Luikin' mair lik' a pair o' brigands than honest soleecitors!"

I was about to retort with some asperity upon his looks— he is a great, rawboned, red-headed, and red-bearded man— when Stone waved me aside.

"We want to get back by the 12.40," he said. "If you will call in your clerks to witness the document, we shall be obliged."

"But ye mun hae a wee drap first, tae keep oot the cold," he proposed, affably.

"Afterwards," I said. "Afterwards."

So he called in his two clerks. They were ill-bred young men, and giggled audibly when they looked at us; but we affected not to notice them, and hurried through the business. We had barely concluded when Donald M'Kenzie rushed in.

"Is the conveyance signed?" he demanded.

"It is," we told him.

"You are a pair of thieves!" he roared!

"Thieves!" said Stone, turning to the clerks. "You heard that, gentlemen?"

"Yes," they said, leering idiotically.

"Disreputable, underhand, lying, pettifogging scoundrels!" he shouted.

"And you heard that, gentlemen?" said I.

"We did," they assured us.

"There is such a thing as libel," I mentioned.

"And false pretences," said Donald M'Kenzie. "When you proposed to buy that land—"

"We have bought it," I pointed out, suavely.

"You have heard that the railway company wanted to build there."

We rubbed our hands.

"We keep our ears open," said Stone, blandly.

"I told you this morning that I had heard something about the company and the land."

"We were obliged for the hint," Stone acknowledged, politely.

"Otherwise you would have stayed in Littlebury, and—"

"Kept our ears open," I suggested, jocularly.

He banged on the table.

"If you had, you would have heard that the company have decided to build—" We rubbed our hands— "elsewhere!"

I looked at Stone, and Stone looked at me.

"We will go, Stone," I said.

"We will go, Flint," said he.

The M'Kenzies rose together. "You will go!" they said.

When we picked ourselves up at the bottom of the stairs, Stone was in favour of an action for libel, and I for assault. Ultimately we decided to bring neither.

It is also our endeavour to benefit others. So we would add that the land in question has lately much increased in value, and affords an exceptionally favourable opportunity for investment. The price which we put upon it is merely nominal— £2500, and any offer addressed to us, care the Editor, will receive prompt attention

________________

22: The Horror of the Loch

William J Makin

Truth (Brisbane) 5 July 1936

In the Scottish loch lurks... something!

Prologue

THE creak of the rowlocks sounded eerily through the swathes of mist that covered the surface of Loch Lare. A man, muffled in a scarf, was rowing a small boat into the white curtain. The water into which his oars slid seemed black and treacly. A still, mysterious evening with the little boat creaking over unfathomable depths.

Although it was autumn, and a cool wind came from the sea towards the heather-clad mountains that cupped Loch Lare, the man in the boat was perspiring freely. Beads of sweat glistened on his brow. It was only when his eyes shifted a little that it was apparent that fear, deadly fear, marked his every movement.

"Och! I wish I was ashore," grunted the man. Then, fearing that these muttered words might be heard in the mist, he looked fearfully around. To hear better, he stopped rowing. As the creaking of the rowlocks ceased, a deep and sinister silence seemed to swoop down upon that Highland Loch billowing another cloud of mist in its strange breath. The man in the boat straightened himself. Once again fear gleamed in his eyes. The mist was circling round him, a blind whirlpool which hid mountains and loch side.

Then it seemed that the still surface of those black depths was ruffled. A few ripples spread, as though a breeze was stealing through the mist. The water against the side of the little boat began to cluck-cluck in a loud fashion. The man held himself tense, staring into that grey curtain that surrounded him.

Suddenly he saw it.

Stark terror froze his face into a groping mask that could not utter a sound. A horrible, swirling, sucking noise loomed towards him. The man stood erect in the boat. And. at last, a scream of terror broke from his throat. Scream followed scream. They went wailing through the curtain of mist and were caught, echoing by the hills. Then a wave splashed into the boat. A huge, black something towered in the grey mist. It surged towards him. He plucked feebly at an oar as though to defend himself. But it was a last, puny effort. There was the sound of splintering wood as the boat was crushed In some mighty embrace. A huge, shapeless shadow swirled through the water. A real whirlpool with little eddies was formed on the surface. And into those strange depths the man disappeared with one last, despairing cry. For a brief moment his hand clawed the mist in a vain effort to hold on to his world. Then it disappeared beneath the surface. There was a final lash of water, a streak of foam, and then the same awful stillness. Once again the surface of Loch Lare had a black, treacly appearance. Only a few pieces of splintered wood told of a strange tragedy.

________________

EIGHT p.m. in a newspaper office in Fleet-street. The evening hour that always excites me. There is the rattle and clatter of news coming in from all over the world. The Creed machines tapping in a fury. The ringing of electric bells, the shouts of men to boys, the tearing and scattering of paper, the rush of feet, and perspiring men coming out of telephone boxes as though they have been in a torture-chamber. Down below the depths of the street, shirt-sleeved men are bending over the steel monsters of machines. Polishing, oiling, tapping. Mugs are dipped Into buckets of tea and more shirt-sleeved men materialise like giants refreshed. They are preparing the birth of that folded, ink-stained piece of pulp for which men sweat, talk, write and even die.

"Hayton! The News-Editor wants you." The call came to me across the reporters' room as I was reaching for my hat.

"But I've finished," I protested. "I'm Just going home for some dinner."

The caller looked at me pityingly. "I said the News-Editor wants you," he repeated.

I groaned, put back my hat, and walked along the corridor. A moment later I stood before the desk of the man who controls my life more than priest, doctor or parent could ever do. A grey-eyed, quizzical man, suffering from eternal indigestion and vile temper, from whom one growl or praise can send me into ecstasies for days. Too often, however, it is the growl of disgust that I get from him.

The News-Editor held a telegram in his fingers.

"Hayton, I want you to take the night train to Scotland," he began.

"I haven't got an overcoat," I protested. "You can't send me to Scotland without an overcoat."

"The Daily Courier can send you to hell if it wants a story."

"Maybe, but I shouldn't need an overcoat there."

"Well, buy an overcoat in the Strand— they're cheap enough," growled the News-Editor. "Get it on your way to the station."

"What is the story?" I asked wearily. "Another murder?"

Those grey eyes twinkled at me. "You may be a crime reporter, Hayton, but oven Britain cant provide you with a murder a day. You'll have to go to America for that. In the meantime, I'm sending you no farther than Loch Lare, in the Scottish Highlands."

I laughed. "What! You believe that monster story?"

He ruffled the telegram before my eyes.

"Here's a message from our local man saying that the monster of Loch Lare has claimed a new victim. That's the second man in a month. This fellow who disappeared is a postman named— what is It?"— he grabbed the telegram again which I was rending— "that's it— Thomas Hamilton. He was rowing across the Loch to deliver letters to the owner of a castle, Mr. Martin Benson. The castle, it appears, is built on a little island. There was mist on the loch, but screams were heard by a group of people at the loch-side from the village of— damn it! I can never pronounce these Scottish names— Glenoichric. That's the village you've got to find."

"Where is it?" I asked blankly.

"Buy a map of Scotland as well as an overcoat," snapped the News-Editor. "And get a move on. There's a train from King's Cross about 11 o'clock to-night. Good hunting, my boy, and send us a good story."

"Probably my own death in the Highlands from pneumonia," I replied, despondently, as I turned away.

"That will only be worth a paragraph," was the cynical reply.

I had reached the door when a hail from the News-Editor halted me. "Oh, and by the way, my boy. Are you still living with that old jungle fellow— Jonathan Jow?"

"I am."

"Well, take him along with you. We'll stand expenses. Get him to talk as a big-game hunter."

"If I get him away from St. John's Wood to-night, it'll be a miracle," was my parting reply.

As I passed along the corridor on my way to the street, an ink-grimed man hi shirt-sleeves was carrying a bill to the News-Editor. It announced in bold type:

MONSTER CLAIMS NEW VICTIM!

THE HOUSE at St. John's Wood which I shared with that queer character. Jonathan Jow. seemed to be in a state of pandemonium when I arrived. The white monkey, Blanco, was dancing about in a simian frenzy, while the bewildered negro, Milestone, was packing a huge suitcase.

"What does this mean, Milestone?" I asked.

"The boss, he going away. Master Hayton," said the negro, with the inevitable grin that he gave to all replies. A scream and chatter from the monkey revealed that Blanco also instinctively guessed the meaning of the suitcase.

"Be quiet, Blanco." said a deep voice from the doorway. I turned as Jonathan Jow entered the room. He sprawled his long, lean body in a comfortable armchair. Blanco, the monkey, immediately leaped to his side and squatted there contentedly as the brown fingers began to scratch his head.

"Everything ready, Milestone?"

"Yes, boss."

"Then get that suitcase out of the room and telephone the passenger department at King's Cross to reserve me a seat on the train leaving for the north at 11 o'clock."

"Where are you going?" I asked. He turned those intense blue eyes in my direction, the blueness emphasised by the mahogany, sunburnt features toppled by a main. or white hair.

"I'm going to Glenoichric," he murmured. "Ever heard of it?"

"I heard of it exactly twenty minutes ago." I said.

"Really?"

"And I'm going there myself at 11 o'clock."

"Excellent," he nodded, unperturbed. He turned to the negro. "Book two seats on the train, Milestone."

"Yes, boss."

As the negro staggered out of the room with the suitcase, Jonathan Jow crossed his long legs in familiar fashion, reached out for a cheroot, and said:

"Well, my dear boy, tell me all about it."

I regarded this lounging figure in the snuff-coloured clothes with the joy of companionship in a new adventure.

Jonathan Jow was a jungle man who had come back to civilisation. For many years he had been a game ranger in Uganda, trekking the bush with a rifle under his arm, and keeping such beasts as elephants and lions from raiding the farms of settlers in the districts. Before that he had served as a forest officer in India, wandering the slopes of the Himalayas and living one of the loneliest of lives a white man can experience. For some time he had been settled in this house in St. John's Wood. At the end of the garden he had installed his own private zoo, for he still studied animals and their ways. But London and the big cities were his jungle to-day, and he trekked the streets searching for criminals who, according to his theories, had the instincts of beasts within them.

"Hunting a murderer is rather like hunting a man-eater," he had said to me. "And the odds are against the murderer."

"Particularly when an old hunter like yourself is on the trail," I had nodded.

"I suppose hunting Is in my blood," he sighed, turning the gaze of those blue eyes reflectively towards the ceiling. "And the trail of a criminal is easier to read than the spoor of a beast. Even so. the faces of criminals give them away. I can see the mark of the beast in many of the men and women I meet. Not a pretty sight."

That hunting itch which possessed Jonathan Jow had been of Immense service to me as crime reporter on the Daily Courier. With this white-maned man from the jungle as my companion. I had been able to score several "scoops" which had placed me in a responsible and lucrative position on my newspaper. And this help had been given me by Jonathan Jow with a sort of disinterested aloofness. I was merely a boarder in his house in St. John's Wood.

Why he ever decided to have a boarder in his house I could never fathom. He was possessed of a fairly comfortable pension, lived simply, and the negro Milestone looked after his scanty wardrobe, while an Indian cook. Abdul Aziz, prepared the strangely exotic dishes which his stomach demanded.

"Stay on, my dear Hayton. I like you," was the reply of Jonathan Jow when I had ventured lo suggest, that he might be getting bored with my company.

And so, to the advantage of the Daily Courier and myself, I had remained in the jungle man's house and taken him with me on the curious crimes that the insatiable News-Editor sent me trailing. But here was an occasion when I was forestalled. Jonathan Jow was preparing to go to the monster-haunted loch in the Highlands even while I was discussing the affair with the News-Editor.

"Then you know that there's been another victim." I said, "the second within a month?"

"Yes," he nodded. "I've had a telegram informing me of the fact and including an invitation to stay at a castle in the vicinity."

"May I see the telegram?"

He tossed the buff slip over to me and continued scratching the head of the blissful Blanco. I scanned the missive hurriedly—

"Deeply regret villager drowned in loch stop Ridiculous gossip regarding monster stop Beg you with your wide experience big-game hunting come up here as my guest and examine locality and issue statement to newspapers which will dispel absurd rumours stop Your name recommended me by Professor Lorand of Zoological Society stop Please telegraph acceptance — Martin Benson."

"And you've accepted?"

"Not yet," replied Jonathan Jow. "I'm just about to reply. It will be in the effect that I'll come gladly, providing my young friend, Peter Hayton. of the Daily Courier is also acceptable as a guest."

"That's extraordinary good of you."

"Is it?" He blew a cloud of smoke from his cheroot partly to hided grin. "After all, Martin Benson wants me to issue a statement to the Press. It was the curious command that made me accept his invitation."

"Do you really think there is any truth in this monster theory?" I asked him frankly.

"Monsters are easily created in the imagination," he murmured. "They are much more difficult to discover in reality. I once spent six weeks searching for a monster on Lake Victoria Nyanza. Natives and even white men had told me blood-curdling stories of this monster's habits."

"And did you find it?"

"I did," he smiled. "From my native canoe I saw something huge and slimy roll to the surface of the lake. I fired, and the thing exploded. It was a dead hippopotamus bloated with gas and water."

"But this isn't Africa," I pointed out. "Here is a monster in the heart of the Scottish Highlands, it has been seen by more than a dozen people. Two men have disappeared in the locality. The body of the first man— his name was Angus McBride— was found horribly crushed on the loch side."

"It's queer," admitted Jonathan Jow, filling the room with smoke from the vile cheroot. Even Blanco began to drip tears from his eyes. "I would have liked to examine the body of Angus McBride. It's a queer monster that kills and then leaves his victim."

"So Professor Lorand and Martin O Benson have met?" I asked Jonathan Jow.

"Not in the Scottish island." replied Jonathan Jow: '"As a matter of fact, they met in the prosaic atmosphere of the South Kensington Museum, both peering into the same glass case where there is a reproduction of the plesiosaur, an amphibian that roamed our seas in the Mesozoic period.

"Benson talked prehistoric animals to Professor Lorand, who was equally delighted to find someone interested in his pet subject. They continued to talk of monsters over cups of tea and buns. Finally, Benson left his card and went away. That is all that Professor Lorand could tell me. And now we've just time for a bite, and then Scotland."

"And Mr. Martin Benson," I added. "I'm looking forward to meeting him."

"So am I," said Jonathan Jow grimly.

AS I expected, when we reached King's Cross station, I was not the only newspaper man going north on the monster story. We dumped the luggage in our carriage and Jonathan Jow fumbled for his vile cheroot with which he invariably disinfected new surroundings. I walked back along the platform, exchanging greetings with Fleet-street acquaintances, and—

"Oh, Lord!" I could not resist the ejaculation as I saw her.

Of course, she was wearing the inevitable red hat at a perky, enticing angle. And the rest of her garb was sufficiently colourful to suggest winter sports at St. Moritz. She was Jill Johnson, known as the "sob-sister" (woman reporter) of the Daily Picture.

"Hello, Peter!" she cooed.

"So they sent you on this story," I exclaimed. "Much better if they'd sent you off to another circus."

"Now you're being rude, Peter," she said. "I thought you'd be glad to see me. Do you know, I wouldn't be here if you weren't here."

"What do you mean?"

"Our news-editor said to me: 'There's only one person who can beat Hayton hollow when it comes to a big story, and that's our dear 'sob-sister,' Jill. So get to it, my lass.' "

"That's the most humiliating thing I've ever had said to me," was my reply.

A whistle was blowing shrilly. There was a general scramble for seats. I found Jonathan Jow sitting on the edge of his bunk, smoking another cheroot and reading a book which he had retrieved from the capacious pocket of his snuff-coloured coat. He began to read aloud, and his voice took on the thumpety-thump rhythm of the train as it rushed northwards.

"...monarchs of the Mesozoic seas. The plesiosaurs were water-living reptiles. The body was large and barrel-shaped and there was a small fin probably on the tail. Swimming was done by means of four paddles. These creatures probably came out of the water to lay eggs or bask in the sun. When swimming they must have resembled large shell-less turtles, and no doubt that plesiosaurs sighted and reported every now and then are large turtles. Plesiosaurs hunted the seas and land for their food. They relied on quickness in turning the head and on the sharp, snapping movements of the jaws. They were only secondarily aquatic, being derived from land-living ancestors. They possessed a parietal foramen on the skull, for the third, or pineal, eye and— "

I yawned, stretched out on my bunk. "I'm more interested in Martin Benson," I said.

"Ah, yes, Martin Benson" nodded Jonathan Jow.

"Martin Benson, eh?" growled a voice from the doorway. It was like an echo. I sat up with a jerk. A fat, sallow-faced man in a black suit topped with a black' sombrero stood swaying in the corridor of the express. A smile, which was more like a leer, crossed his face as he blocked the doorway of our compartment.

"Pardon my Interruption, gentlemen," he said huskily. "But the mention of that name, Martin Benson, interested me."

"Come in, won't you," said Jonathan Jow unnecessarily, for the fat, black-covered bulk was already seated on my bunk.

"Perhaps you are friends of Martin Benson?" he asked suspiciously.

"Never met him in my life," said Jonathan Jow, truthfully.

"And you?" he asked, turning on me suddenly.

"I'm anxious to meet him," I said steadily. "He can tell us something of this monster which is haunting Loch Lare and has already claimed two victims."

"Only two victims!" laughed the fat man. "Well, I shouldn't be surprised if there isn't a third, soon."

"I gather you are not exactly a friend of Martin Benson, Mr.— er—" asked Jonathan Jow.

"Oppermann is my name," said our mysterious visitor. "But don't get me all wrong. I know a good deal about Martin Benson. Too much, I expect, for his liking. And I'm making this journey for the benefit of meeting Mister Martin Benson once again."

We stared at him. The scowl on the sallow face twisted into a grin. His fat body seemed to shake with silent mirth.

"I'm not drunk. Not yet, anyway." He turned to me. "You're a newspaper man, aren't you?"

I nodded. "You're good enough for me." he muttered. "Good enough for an alibi."

This roused me.

"Why talk of alibis?" I said. "This Isn't a murder story."

"Isn't It?" he muttered. "Don't be too sure, young fellow. I shall make it my, business to see a good deal of both of you at Loch Lare. And if anything should happen— I'm only supposing, mind— to our mutual, friend, Martin Benson, you'll be able to substantiate my alibi. That's all I wanted to say. Good-night, gentlemen."

As he moved, the black coat was whisked aside and I saw the polished gleam of an automatic pistol in his pocket. A moment later his ponderous bulk was in the corridor. His sallow face leered again as he carefully slid the door.

"That fellow is going hunting," I whispered to Jonathan Jow.

Stretched out on his bunk, he nodded.

"He's a killer," he said quietly.

Nothing more was said. I clicked off the light and the compartment was in semi-darkness. I pondered over the strange events of the evening. Something strange, something sinister was awaiting us at Loch Lare. Of that I was now convinced.

"AND so this is Loch Lare!" mused Jonathan Jow.

"A fitting place for a monster," I shivered. In the late afternoon Loch Lare was anything but inviting.

"There's the hiding place of your host," growled a voice at our elbow. I turned. The fat man, with the black sombrero pulled so that it half hid his sallow features, pointed a finger to a dark mass emerging from the floating mist. Jonathan Jow eyed him keenly.

"Well, we'll tell Martin Benson that you're in the vicinity, Mr.— er—"

"Oppermann," he said. The fat man leered. "He won't thank you for the information. But don't forget what I said about that alibi. If anything should happen to Mister Benson, you'll find I'm at the local public house."

And, with a nod, he stumbled away from the loch towards the village.

We had stolen a march upon the other journalists sent from London, and at two o'clock in the afternoon we had got away while the other journalists were scouring the town for cars. We had given the mysterious Mr. Oppermann a lift to Glenoichric.

"Is it Mr. Benson you're seeking?" asked a red-haired woman in the village post-office. "Then I'm to tell you that a boat will be waiting for you at five o'clock to take you to Lare Castle," she said, slanting her eyes to the clock. "It's a quarter of an hour you'll have to wait."

While we waited she told us the old postman's body had not been found. Then a hatchet-faced man whose buttoned-up black clothes were cloaked In a plaid shawl entered the post-office and demanded a telegraph form.

"These are gentlemen from London, doctor," said the red-haired woman. "They are going to the castle. And they asked me about the monster."

The hatchet-faced man smiled at us. He held out a hand.

"Doctor Andrews is my name," he said in that accented Scottish dialect which I was only now beginning to understand. "I heard from Mr. Benson that two gentlemen were coming up here to dispel all this nonsense about a monster in the loch."

"Shame upon you, doctor," said the post-mistress. "It's no nonsense, and well you know it. Didn't you see the crushed body of poor Angus McBride yourself?"

The doctor chuckled and turned to us. "You see how it is." he said. "These guid folk are really convinced that a monster exists."

"You may have been educated at Edinburgh, doctor," insisted the woman, "but they didn't teach you everything there."

Dr. Andrews shrugged his shoulders. "Thomas Hamilton was probably drowned." he commented. "It's easy enough to upset a boat rowing across this loch in the darkness."

"There was no one better with a boat than Thomas Hamilton, and you know it," muttered the woman.

Jonathan Jow had listened to this conversation, his face smeared by the little cloud of blue smoke that came from his cheroot. But, suddenly, he interposed a question.

"Was the body of Angus McBride really crushed, doctor?"

Doctor Andrews looked a little uncomfortable.

"I admit there was something strange about the poor fellow," he murmured. "The lungs seemed to have burst under some extreme pressure and the face gave the impression that he had been strangled."

"Were there any marks on the body?" asked Jonathan Jow.

"None at all. And the body was washed ashore on the beach just below the village."

"He was caught by the monster and crushed to death, poor Angus McBride," said the red-haired woman. "And you'll see poor Thomas thrown up on the beach in the same fashion."

Doctor Andrews ignored her:

"Crushed to death he certainly was," he admitted. "But for the rest, he had all the appearances of a drowned man."

"Who was Angus McBride?" asked Jonathan Jow.

"One of Martin Benson's servants," answered the doctor. "I believe, he came from Glasgow. He was a stranger to these parts."

"If the dead could speak it would be a strange tale poor Angus would tell," broke in the irrepressible woman.

And that moment the. soft chug-chug of an engine came from the direction of the loch.

"That's Mr. Benson's motor-launch coming for you, I expect,", nodded the doctor. "I suppose I shall be seeing you again very soon."

"Good evening, gentlemen, and may the good Lord bring you safely to the Castle," were the woman's parting words.

Just as I was emerging from the post-office, a car drew up, and there tumbled out of it Jill Johnson. Seated also in the car were the other journalists, Tim Bowles, of the Mercury, Joe Thomas of the Argus, and Slim Simmonds of the Daily Radio.

"Hello, Peter .darling, " cooed Jill Johnson, "Why didn't you ask mc to -take a ride with you?"

"Sorry, I thought you were bound for the winter sports in Switzerland," I replied callously, regarding her colourful jersey, short skirt and Russian boots.

Her nose tilted dangerously.

"I'm beginning to dislike you, Peter."

"Thanks. I was hoping so. Goodbye."

She patted her absurd red hat. "Where are you off to?"

"Just for a little sail on the loch," I said,

"Isn't there room for little Jill?" she asked, with a winning smile.

"There is not," I replied definitely. "Good-bye."

"Au revoir," she cooed. "Don't forget to read the Daily Picture. It'll tell you all about the monster, darling."

"Hey, Hayton!" called the miserable Slim Simmonds from the car; "I've got a story to whisper in your car that will stagger London."

"What is it?" I asked.

Slim leaned out. "I was told that the stock of whisky is very low in these parts. A positive drought, in fact. Can you believe It?"

"I can, now that you've arrived," I said.

"Be a darling, Peter, and take me on the loch," wailed Jill Johnson in farewell. But I was determined to escape that dreadful woman. I only lingered long enough to see her march into the little post-office.

"Good evening" she nodded brightly to the red-haired woman. "I want to send a telegram to my paper in London."

"Well, you can't," was the abrupt reply. "It's five o'clock and the office is closed for the day! Good-night to you!"

I chuckled and hurried to the beach, little dreaming of the astounding things I was soon to witness.

A BIG, powerful man was crouched at the engine in the motor-launch that awaited us. A surly fellow, who was obviously impatient to be off. As soon us I had taken my seat beside Jonathan Jow, he started the engine.

"How deep is this loch?" asked Jonathan Jow of the man. The fellow looked up, displaying a brutal face.

"Folk here say there's no bottom to it," he muttered.

The blue eyes of Jonathan Jow narrowed.

"Yes, but you're not one from these parts."

"No, I'm not." was the reply.

"Where do you come from?"

There was a short pause. "I come from Newcastle," he said reluctantly.

"And, of course, you don't believe the folk tales of these parts."

"I know nothing," said the fellow. "Better ask Mister Benson."

By this time we were in the middle of Loch Lare. It must have been near the spot where Thomas Hamilton was said to have disappeared with a scream of fear.

Five minutes later, the motor-launch grounded gently on a strip of beach. It was the island on which Lare Castle has been built. At first glance it seemed that the old grey stones were floating on the water. After heavy rains, some part of the castle would be under water. The few yards of bench on which our launch had grounded presented the only landing spot. We stepped ashore.

As we hesitated, a figure detached itself from the dark-green background and came towards us. I glimpsed a tall, lithe man, whose keen, almost ascetic face was half masked by the tinted spectacles which he wore.

"Jonathan Jow!" he exclaimed, coming forward with outstretched hand. "This is, indeed, a pleasure. It was good of you to come in response to my telegram."

The brown, sunburnt hand of Jonathan Jow's clasped the soft, white hand of our host.

"It was good of you to invite me," he murmured. "Let me introduce my young friend, Peter Hayton. He's a reporter."

The soft, white hand closed on mine.

"I'm hoping. Mr. Hayton, your stay here will be a pleasant one. But I must warn you In advance— there will be nothing sensational happening. I only desire to dispel these absurd rumours. The truth is .what your newspaper shall have."

"That is all I desire, Mr. Benson," was my response. There was a strange smile on that ascetic face. Mr. Benson was certain mysterious. Yet, there was something disarming about him, something likeable. As a companion. I would prefer Martin Benson to the leering individual, whose acquaintance we had made on the train— Mr. Oppermann.

"It was rather a long journey," I said, rather idiotically. I found myself talking because of a sheer desire to break the awful silence that seemed to enfold the island and its castle. Already Loch Lare was affecting my nerves.

"...And we met a fellow on the train who called himself a friend of yours," Jonathan Jow was saying as he strode alongside Martin Benson.

"A friend of mine? What was his name?"

"Oppermann... Mr. Oppermann," said Jonathan Jow quietly.

The effect was startling. The figure in the tinted spectacles stopped dead.

"Not Sam Oppermann?"

I noticed that the white brow of our host was beaded with perspiration.

"Did he give you any message for me?"

Jonathan Jow stroked his white hair.

"I believe he did, now I come to, think of it. But it was just an offhand remark; something to the effect that he would probably call on you."

And I saw the blue eyes of Jonathan Jow turn towards the figure at his side. But there was no response; spectacles hid all expression with a visor-like sureness.

We began to climb a series of stone steps. They led towards a flagged terrace, which overlooked Loch Lare. and gave one a magnificent view of the surrounding hills. But darkness was already blotting out the scene. Inside the castle, we mounted a fine, timbered staircase. The dank atmosphere was disturbing. We passed along a gallery overlooking the hall. The timbers beneath our feet creaked. We came to a door.

"This is your room, Mr. Jow," he said. "I hope you will find it comfortable." He opened the door as he spoke. "I regret that electricity is still unknown here. But I trust the candles will serve."

An enormous candelabra stood on a table in the room. A fire blazed. The room looked warm and cheerful. He showed me a similar room, a few yards further along the gallery, and then abruptly left us to get our baggage.

THE dinner was excellent. I leaned back in my chair comfortably, and poured out a second glass of the very excellent port which Martin Benson passed to me In a decanter.

"Naturally," our host was saying, "to have two men drowned In the loch was unfortunate."

"Very," agreed Jonathan Jow, quietly.

"And you can understand, therefore," went on Benson, "that the villagers should begin to talk, and very soon the old myth of a monster haunting the loch was revived. An old wives' tale, of course. The devil of it is that it persists."

Jonathan Jow waved aside the cigars offered him. He preferred a cheroot and lit it at the candelabra which stood on the table.

"Why invite an old jungle man like myself down here to prove to the world that such a monster does not exist?" asked Jow.

"A very natural question, my dear Jow," Benson replied, "Perhaps you may think I take my position as Laird here a little too seriously. But I do hate to see these people sinking into superstition and abject with fear. They're scared to death. I want to prove to their very elemental minds that to row a boat on this loch is as harmless as rowing on the Serpentine in Hyde Park."

"Cigarettes?" asked a gruff voice at my elbow.

I turned with a start. A roughened hand was thrusting a box towards me. It was the butler who had waited upon us at table, a big, brawny man with a squint. Anyone less like a butler I had never seen. Martin Benson seemed surrounded by big, powerful men. There were four of them. The first had been the man in the motor launch. Another I had glimpsed from the gallery hammering the huge gong which resounded throughout the whole castle like the stroke of doomsday. A third had watched us as we descended the stairs. The fourth, the butler with a squint, served us at table.

"That will do, Finch," nodded Benson. "You may leave the cigarettes on the table."

The fellow lumbered away.

"It is even difficult for me to get servants to stay on this Island," remarked Benson, as though he had guessed my thoughts. "The villagers are scared to death to work In the castle. I've been forced to go beyond the district to find anyone who will stay here."

"A sailor, isn't he?" asked Jonathan Jow, nodding towards the departing figure.

Those tinted spectacles seemed to dart a keen glance at the indolent, white-haired guest. "I— er— believe he has been a sailor at some time or other. How did you guess?"

"A sailor on land is unmistakable," murmured Jonathan Jow, stretching out a hand for the port decanter. With an indolent desire to change the conversation, he nodded towards an oil painting which hung above the fireplace. "By the way, whose portrait is that? There's something familiar about the face."

Martin Benson swivelled round In his chair, and gazed at the portrait as though he was seeing it for the first time. It showed a heavy jowled man whose glittering eyes seemed to be alive and staring down at us as we sat at the table.

"That! Oh, I believe it's a portrait of the former owner of the Lare Castle. I never met him. He lived here for many years and used to row himself about the loch in a little boat. One night he went out in the midst of a fierce thunderstorm. He never returned. The castle was empty for two years. The portrait was there, but I never troubled to remove it. Do you think it's worth anything?"

"I know nothing about art," murmured Jow. "But I should like to know the name of that man."

"Well, I can tell you that," laughed Benson. "His name was Norway― David Norway."

"David Norway." repeated Jonathan Jow quietly. "That's very interesting."

"Why, did you know him?"

Jonathan Jow smiled. "Have you an atlas here?" he asked. "I would like to look at a map of the South Atlantic."

The tinted spectacles turned towards me. I shrugged my shoulders. Too often I had suffered the meandering mind of Jonathan Jow. But I had learned that there was usually some shrewd reason behind these apparently inconsequential thoughts.

Martin Benson accepted the situation. He rose, and returned In a few moments with a book of maps. Jonathan Jow took it and flicked the pages. Then he dabbed one of his long fingers at a small speck In the blue expanse of the South Atlantic.

"That's the island," he murmured.

We bent over his shoulder.

"What Island?" I asked.

"Kerguelen, where David Norway, Professor David Norway, as he was then, made a strange discovery and ruined his scientific career."

"I don't understand," said Martin Benson. "What was David Norway doing in that lost island?"

"Exactly," smiled Jonathan Jow. "it was a lost island. Except for a few seal hunters, it was never visited, even by seamen. But Professor David Norway had a passion for these out-of-the-way places. He had a desire to develop Darwin's original studies in the origin of the species. Darwin voyaged in the Beagle, observing beasts, reptiles and sea animaculae. Norway went in tramp steamers, fishing vessels, and whalers. But it was not until he come to the storm-wracked cliffs of Kerguelen near the Antarctic that he made his great, mad discovery.

"Mad he certainly was," laughed Benson, "judging by the stories I've heard of him in the village."

"Yes," nodded Jonathan Jow, "even his brother scientists called him mad when he lectured before the Royal Society in London. He produced his discovery, and they laughed; laughed uproariously."

"But what was the discovery?" I asked.

"The preserved eggs of some prehistoric sea-monster which he had discovered In a cave of the Island of Kerguelen. Norway asserted that the cold of the Antarctic had preserved them. In all probability they were the eggs of a plesiosaur. Admittedly nobody could deny it. The members of the Royal Society were sceptical, but nevertheless Interested. It was only when Professor Norway, filled with the enthusiasm of a modern Darwin, expounded his new theory that the scientists began to laugh. Briefly, he suggested that an attempt should be made to hatch out these eggs. He argued that prehistoric monsters could be brought back to the earth."

"By heaven, what a story!" I gasped.

Jonathan Jow looked at me quizzically. "Yes," he mildly reproved me. "That's just what a newspaper man would say."

"But what happened afterwards?" asked Martin Benson. Instinctively, all our eyes turned to the portrait of that heavy jowled man with the glittering eyes.

"Laughed out of scientific circles," went on Jonathan Jow, "the professor disappeared. From what you have told me, I can guess what happened. He came to Scotland, bought this island and castle on Loch Lare and lived here in seclusion."

A curious silence had descended upon us. I found myself unable to drag my gaze from that fiendishly real portrait. The eyes were watching us.

The next moment a gust of wind came against the castle, shaking it. My hands gripped the chair in which I was seated. I heard the lapping of the loch water. I almost felt its cold swirl about my ankles. In terror, I half rose. It was then I heard a queer, sucking noise in the darkness, horrible and beast-like.

"Listen!" whispered the voice of Jonathan Jow.

The sucking sound reached a crescendo. In my imagination I visualised some hungry monster rising from unfathomable depths, water streaming from its slimy, scaly body. Then, above this inhuman sound, came a terrifying scream.

SIMULTANEOUSLY, we all rushed to the terrace. There was something terrifying In the windy darkness of the dining-room. The door leading to the terrace flapped noisily. As I groped my way towards it, my hand touched something soft. My sob of fear changed to one of relief as I heard Jonathan Jow's voice.

"Be quiet! Keep cool! There's nothing to be alarmed about."

I could distinguish the leonine white head in the darkness. At his side was Martin Benson, loudly demanding lights.

"Finch! Where the devil are you? Bring some candles!"

"Coming, sir," growled a voice in the darkness behind us.

A white shaft of light split the darkness. To my astonishment I realised that Jonathan Jow was holding an electric torch, and that its white beam was flashing in the direction of the tangled scrub and the narrow path which led from the little beach on the island to the castle. It flickered for a moment, and then we saw something.

A figure was running, scrambling, tumbling along the path. It came out of the darkness like a badly focussed figure on a cinema screen, and the next moment was starkly revealed in the white light. A woman!

"Jill Johnson!" I exclaimed, and the next moment I was scrambling through the scrub to help her. Even at that instant she collapsed with a whimper. I caught her in my arms. She still wore the ridiculous red hat at an equally ridiculous angle, and the blonde hair was carelessly strewn by the wind. She gazed up at me. The terror that was in her eyes was wiped away by a dazzling smile.

"Oh. Peter, how wonderful of you!" she sighed. She tried that dazzling smile again.

"Did you come here alone?" I asked, angrily.

"Yes. None of those silly superstitious villagers would row me across although I offered them tons of money. So I found a boat and rowed myself across."

By this time lights had appeared in the dining-room again. I heard Martin Benson's voice calling from the terrace. There was a note of anxiety in it.

"What's happened, Hayton? Bring the lady along."

We climbed the steps to the terrace. Martin Benson was waiting for us. His dark eyes searched the girl's face eagerly.

Jonathan Jow, switching off his electric torch, was now In the background fumbling for a cheroot. But I realised that nothing was escaping his intense blue eyes.

"This Is Jill Johnson." I said, non-committally. "Mr. Martin Benson."

"So you know each other?" queried Benson.

There was an annoyed look In Benson's face. "Really, Miss — er — Johnson, I've no desire to receive any more newspaper people. There's been enough sensational gossip about Loch Lare as it is."

Jill Johnson was too clever. She took off the red hat and shook her blonde hair.

"I quite agree with you, Mr. Benson." she said. "But I'm not a sensational journalist. I'm here to establish the truth about this monster, the whole truth and nothing—"

"Exactly what all the journalists have said," replied Benson, his eyes straying to those blonde curls. "But they've all gone away and written accounts which make King Kong seem like a child's fairy story. You'll have to go back."

She stood for a moment in silence on the terrace. A rather pathetic figure. She gave a little shudder.

"I— I couldn't go back to-night." she whispered. "There's something awful in the water there!"

For the first time since Jill Johnson appeared, Jonathan Jow spoke.

"Then it was you who screamed?" he asked quietly. Jill glanced at him and nodded.

"Why?" asked Benson harshly.

"Because I saw something slimy, something horrible, roll silently out of the water like a dead body," she whispered.

"Nonsense," I broke in. "That's the sort of stuff you write for your paper."

She looked pained, but I was roused. "I'm going to row you back to the village myself, see you to the hotel, and then good night," I said.

"Peter, you don't understand."

"I understand only too well," I said, angrily. "You've decided to trail me, get my story and send it to your own wretched paper."

I turned to Martin Benson. "I'm sorry this has happened. I'll take her back in the boat and return when I've seen her to the hotel."

But Martin Benson hesitated. "Under the circumstances, Hayton," he said, "it seems a little harsh to send the lady back to-night. I think we could arrange a spare room which―"

"I'm sure it will save a lot of trouble if I row her back to the village to-night," I suggested.

"No." he said shortly. There was a tone of command in his voice.

JONATHAN Jow sprawled in an easy chair in my bedroom. It was nearly midnight. We had been ushered to our rooms by Martin Benson, he had wished us "good night," and left us.

Jill Johnson had been accommodated with a room next to mine. I could hear her faintly humming some sentimental waltz irritatingly out of tune. I looked up expectantly at this man who could find his way through the labyrinths of crime as easily and surely as he once trekked through the jungle.

"What have you discovered?" I asked eagerly.

"Very little," he admitted. "A queer mixture of people and things which cannot be fitted into a scheme. Let us consider the mixture. It includes eggs from Kerguelen Island, a crack-brained scientist, a body found curiously crushed on the beach, another body that hasn't been found at all, our mysterious confidant of the train, Oppermann, Martin Benson, and a girl's scream in the night."

"Then you think there really is a monster?"

The gaze of his blue eyes wandered towards the ceiling. "I shouldn't be surprised," he said, mildly. "But I'm not sure that it isn't murder," said Jonathan Jow.

I stared at him. "Who is the sensationalist now?"

"What I would like to know is— why sailors?"

"Why— what?"

"Sailors. I've seen three of them since we arrived at this castle. One sailor was in charge of the motor-launch. Another prepared our rooms. Finch, who waited on us at table, is a sailor. Sailors in a castle in the middle of Scotland seem queer to me."

I shrugged my shoulders. "Maybe a whim of Martin Benson's," I suggested.

"But he's not a sailor, my dear boy; he's a crook." Jonathan Jow had spoken confidently. And I saw that the sunburnt features had set grimly in the yellow candle light.

"Are you certain?" I asked.

"I haven't any proof," he replied. "I can only tell the slinking beast of the Jungle when I see it."

"There's one man who could explain something of this mystery," I said.

The leonine white head nodded. "Oppermann, I know. But then, he's a crook, too, And he has some real private reasons for remaining silent. No, we shan't get anything out of Oppermann— yet."

"Finally, I said slowly, "there's the monster."

Jonathan Jow blew a cloud of smoke to the ceiling. "Yes, there's the monster. Once we—" He stopped and bent his head in an attitude of listening.

I held my breath.

"Do you hear anything?" he asked. I rose, intending to go to the window and draw aside the heavy curtains. But Jonathan Jow stopped me with outstretched hand.

"No," he whispered. "Put out the candles first!"

Quickly I obeyed. "Now draw the curtains, slowly."

Again I obeyed. The heavy glass, fitted to withstand Highland storms, gleamed queerly. I listened, Intently At first it was the thumping of my own heart which seemed to resound throughout the room. Then the rhythm of the beat took on a new note.

Chug... chug... chug...

"A motor-launch, on the loch!" I whispered. He nodded and glanced at the gleaming dial of his wrist-watch. "And the time is twenty minutes past midnight. The moon will be up in another quarter of an hour. Then we shall be able to see everything."

"Look!" Something lifted out of the black water, something that gleamed in a strange manner. I saw a gigantic round head, glistening and dripping with water. And goggled eyes turned it began to move towards the shore. I saw a slimy, dripping, grey body begin to lift from the water.

"Goodness!" I cried aloud. And I almost screamed as there came a sudden thundering knock at the door.

"You fool!" snarled Jonathan Jow. That thundering knock came again. A voice called out. "Mr. Jow! Mr. Jow, are you there?"

"Light the candles," whispered Jonathan Jow. Trembling, I hastened to obey. Even as I turned, Jonathan Jow had opened the door .Martin Benson, in pyjamas and dressing-gown, stood there, a candle-stick in his hand. There was anxiety on his face, which disappeared when he saw the familiar, lithe figure of the big-game hunter.

"My dear Mr. Jow," he said. "I'm sorry to disturb you. But I had just entered your room and found it unoccupied. I had a sudden fear that something might have happened."

Jonathan Jow laughed. "Good heavens, no. What should happen?" "Nothing― er― nothing," replied Benson. There was a suspicious gleam in his dark eyes, "But you must be very tired. I think you ought to turn in."

Once again I sensed the suspicion of a command in his voice. But Jonathan Jow had yawned again.

"You're right, Benson. I am tired. And this young man has been keeping me awake with his wild yarns." He nodded casually to me. "Good night, my boy."

"Sleep well," said Benson, the suspicion of a leer on his face. Then the door closed on me:

For over, an hour I lay on my bed unable to sleep. Then the fatigue of the day must have overcome me, for I awoke with a start to find a hand over my mouth in the darkness.

"Don't he alarmed," whispered the familiar voice of Jonathan Jow.

"Is anything wrong?" I whispered.

"Something is wrong," was the quiet reply, "and I'm going to find out what it is."

I slipped off the bed and struggled into my dressing-gown.

"Where are we going?" I asked, as Jonathan Jow cautiously opened the door and listened.

"Downstairs," he whispered back. "And be careful of those creaking boards near the staircase."

I shuffled silently after him as he passed along the gallery. Jonathan Jow moved like a shadow, noiselessly. In the darkness all the old training of the jungle asserted itself. We were now in the dining-room where we had had that strange talk with Martin Benson.

As Jonathan' Jow again stopped to listen I gave a quick glance at my wrist watch. It was just 2 a.m.

Jonathan Jow's hand stretched out and took my arm: I realised that he had memorised the position of every piece of furniture in the room and was piloting me across the floor as confidently as though he was in an African , forest where he knew the position of every fallen tree, every kloof and krantz, every hidden water-hole.

But suddenly the wall loomed up before us. Jonathan Jow seemed to be walking into it. I stopped, but those steel-like fingers dragged me on, relentlessly. It was then I found that we were passing through a doorway hidden by a curtain which I had certainly not noticed when we had been dining in the room a few hours previously. Even as I stepped into the opening, I felt the dank atmosphere of the loch chilling my body. In the darkness I saw Jonathan Jow sinking slowly. The next moment; I realised we were descending a flight of stone steps.

"Quiet!" cautioned Jonathan Jow. "Take off your slippers and walk in your bare feet."

Unhesitatingly, I obeyed. I had experienced too many adventures with Jonathan Jow not to realise, that we were probably on the brink of some strange discovery. But my feet were treading on slimy, dank stones. We were in a narrow passage which seemed at some time to have been flooded by the waters of Loch Lare. For one horrible moment I wondered If we were creeping towards the secret haunt of the monster of the loch.

Ahead of us a yellow beam of light cut the ceiling. In the darkness through which we proceeded cautiously it had an eerie appearance. But Jonathan Jow, padding silently in his bare feet, did not hesitate. He went ahead and stopped within a couple of yards of this beam, or light.

"Whatever you may see," he "whispered to me, "don't speak or cry out!"

And then I noticed that the beam of yellow light was glowing on the leonine head of white hair. The light came from a small square glass window in the wall, and Jonathan Jow was slowly raising himself to peer into the light. I followed his example. My hands touched the wall and I realised that we were facing another door, one which was flush with the wall and tightly closed. The heavy glass window fitted into the door, and through this we both peered at a strange scene.

It appeared to be an hermetically sealed chamber, brilliantly lit with several incandescent lamps. The walls were bare and whitewashed, except on one side where there was a curious array of dials. Three men were grouped in the centre of this room. Their backs were towards us. Occasionally, their heads lifted. and they gazed at the dials facing them on the wall. I saw the black fingers of needles quivering against the white dials, and as I peered in, bewildered at this scene. I became aware of a strange hissing sound. The hissing persisted, softly. I gave a quick glance at my companion. But the features of Jonathan Jow were set grimly and the blue eyes stared tensely through the little glass window.

Once again I turned my. gaze to the scene. It was then that one or the figures straightened and walked towards the wall to get a closer view of the dials. There was no mistaking this figure. It was Martin Benson, still clad in pyjamas and dressing-gown. But as he moved away from the others, I realised what they were bending over. It was the body of a man. His stockinged feet stretched out dumbly towards us. Heavy trousers covered his legs, but from his waist, the man was bare. And he lay as though dead.

THE hissing noise increased. Martin Benson turned away from the dials. He seemed to stare towards the door at our two faces pressed against the heavy glass. Instinctively, I shrank back. Then I realised he could not possibly see us. I looked again.

Another of the figures turned towards me. I saw it was the doctor whom we had met that afternoon at the village post-office, Doctor Andrews. This hatchet-faced man with the buttoned-up black clothes had discarded the plaid shawl about his shoulders. I saw his hands gesture and his lips move. He was commanding tho other figure over the body to do something. But not a whisper of a word reached us. Only that insistent hissing sound.

The third man changed his position. It was as I had guessed— Finch, the butler. He had taken one of the hands of the body, Martin Benson took the other, and they began to move the arms in the circular fashion used to restore a person from drowning. Doctor Andrews was busy massaging the heart. They worked swiftly, desperately, for five minutes. But there was no sign of life in the outstretched body. The doctor produced a stethoscope and listened to the heart.

The other two men stopped their work. I could see beads of sweat on their faces. The doctor shook his head and gazed doubtfully at the needles quivering against the dials. Then he spoke another command to the two men. Finch raised the head of the body. I caught a glimpse of the face and shivered. It was the face of the surly, powerful man who had taken us across the loch in the motor-launch.

But although all life seemed to have gone out of it, there was a look of frozen horror on the surly features. The eyes were wide open and staring. The lips were parted and bloodless. A pillow was propped behind the ghastly mask, and the work on the body renewed. Once again the arms were made to describe a circle and the doctor continued massaging the heart. Sweat began to pour from the three men, and as their efforts seemed without avail, I saw a dawning terror appear in the eyes of Finch. Like dumb actors the three men mouthed at each other.

Then I thought I detected a quiver, a tremble on the face of that staring, horrible mask of the body. I drew in my breath, I felt the fingers of Jonathan Jow close on my arm. No, I was not mistaken. A tremor went through the body. There was a movement of that bare chest. The three workers redoubled their energies. The arms were worked like flails. The hissing sound was dribbling away. And then the whole body quivered.

Abruptly, the body raised itself. The tongue protruded through the bloodless lips. With a desperate effort the arms tried to shake off the sweating workers. The man was shouting, screaming. And yet not a word reached us as we stood outside the sealed chamber.

The horror of the scene was intensified by its dumb show. The man was trying desperately to rise from the prone position in which he found himself, and the other three men were struggling to hold him down., I saw the fist of Finch clench and then brutally strike the man on the jaw. It was sufficient. He fell prone again.

The three men fell away. They were exhausted. I saw Martin Benson take a bottle of brandy and help himself liberally. He drained the drink at one gulp and handed the glass to Finch. The butler also helped himself liberally.

I saw Doctor Andrews busy with a hypodermic and a small bottle. He approached the prone man, dabbed one of the arms with a little iodine, and then plunged the needle into the flesh. A moment later he looked up and nodded. Martin Benson indicated the brandy bottle. The doctor stretched out a hand. It was then I realised that the strange hissing sound had ceased. A heavy silence hung over everything.

I watched eagerly for the next move in this dumb show, but the hand of Jonathan Jow was already dragging me away. Once again we passed through the dining-room, carefully avoiding a patch of moonlight flooding the room. Carefully we climbed the staircase and reached the gallery. A minute later and we were in Jonathan Jow's bedroom. Not a word had been spoken.

Silently, I closed the door.

"...And what, in heaven's name, did all that signify?" I asked, in a hoarse whisper.

The grim features of Jonathan Jow relaxed into a smile for the first time.

"To me," he said, slowly, "it explained a good deal. What do you think of it?"

I shook my head. "It seemed to me like a dumb scene from a Grand Guignol drama," I replied. "I couldn't understand it."

"Not even the hissing sound?" he asked.

"No."

"Or that heap of slime in a corner of the room?"

I recollected something I had ignored because of the human figures in that dumb drama, a slimy grey heap over which Dr. Andrews had placed his plaid shawl. Again I shook my head.

"It baffles me."

Jonathan Jow smiled. "Well, go to bed and sleep on it. We've had mystery enough for one night. But, at any rate, I've got something to think about."

I saw that his blue eyes were losing themselves in the realm of thoughts Instinctively, his hands were fumbling for a cheroot. I knew that there would be little sleep for Jonathan Jow that night. And I doubted very much' whether there would be any for me. I obeyed, however, and shuffled towards the door. "Good night," I whispered.

He did not hear me. Softly, I closed the door and regained my own room.

I WAS ROUSED, in the morning by a knock at the door of my room. I awoke with a start. I had been dreaming in a heavy world of monsters and strange men grappling with each other. As I slipped on my dressing-gown, I glanced at my watch. It was nearly ten o'clock. When I opened the door, Finch, the butler, stood there.

"This telegram arrived for you this morning."

Standing there in my dressing-gown and pyjamas, I slit open the envelope. I gave one look at the telegram and groaned. It was from that irate taskmaster, the news-editor. And there was the lash of the whip in the message. It read:—

" 'Daily Picture' scoops you badly this morning Stop They lead with good story by Jill Johnson who claims seen monster and escaped from it yesternight Stop Are you holidaying — End Message."

"Peter, darling, what a ravishing-dressing-gown!"

The prattle of her voice broke in on my miserable turmoil of thoughts! Jill Johnson! She was fully dressed, and appeared to have come back from a stroll on the beach. I gazed at her reproachfully.

"There's one thing I shall regret all my life," I said at last.

"And what is that, Peter?" she asked, with a tinkle of laughter.

"I shall regret that last night I didn't throw you back into the loch and tell you to swim for the opposite shore."

"Oh, Peter!" It was her turn to look reproachful.

"Do you realise who this is from?" I asked wrathfully.

She shook her curls.

"I never read other people's telegrams, Peter."

"It's from my news-editor." I went on. "He tells me you've been writing a lot of nonsense in that paper of yours."

"Don't tell me that I've beaten you on the story already, darling?"

I tried to look dignified. She only laughed the more.

"What I can't understand," I said, despondently, "is how you managed to get that telegram away to your paper lost night."

"Oh, that was easy," she explained. "The very nice Martin Benson, our charming host, told me that he was sending the launch over to the mainland before midnight. I begged him to let me send a telegram, and, after a little persuasion, he agreed."

"I know your sort of persuasion," I said, grimly. "Go on!"

"And I had already promised a new hat to the red-haired woman at the post-office if she would send a telegram out of office hours for me, and, apparently, the dear thing did."

"So that's how you did it," I muttered.

"Yes, and what d'you think, Peter darling," she went on. "Mr. Benson thinks I'm rather a dear and he doesn't mind in the least if I stay here for a week or so as his guest."

"Oh, gee!"

I strode into my room and slammed the door. But the sound of her laughter followed me.

POLICE-SERGEANT BAKER, writing laboriously in the book at Hampstead police station, London, looked up with a start. A heavy-jowled man with glittering eyes and a completely bald head was standing before him. "Good evening, sergeant," said the man in a quick, fierce voice. With the pen. poised in his hand, the sergeant nodded.

"I've come to explain everything," went on the bald-headed man in that fierce voice. "I am responsible for the murders."

Police-sergeant Baker opened his mouth in surprise.

"Murders! What murders!"

"The murders at Loch Lare," gabbled the old man.

The sergeant heaved a sigh.

"Oh, yes, Loch Lare." he nodded, indulgently. "You mean you've come to tell us the latest about the monster, eh?"

"The murders and the monster," went on tho old man, feverishly. "For the murders have been committed-by the monster."

"First I've heard about murder at Loch Lare," muttered the sergeant.

"It is murder, I tell you," shouted, the bald-headed man. "And I am responsible for it."

He shouted, causing some constables who had Just entered the station to begin night duty to look in his direction. One of them caught the sergeant's eye and tapped his head significantly. The sergeant understood,

"Yes, I understand," he said, soothingly. "There's been murder done at Loch Lare and you've come in here to tell us all about it."

"Murder for which I, and I alone," am responsible," said the man. "I wish to make a full confession, frankly, and of my. own free will."

"Yes, that's how we usually begin the confessions of murderers," nodded the sergeant, more convinced than ever that he had to deal with a madman. He permitted himself a wink in the direction of the openly-grinning constables.

"Please take down my statement, carefully," said the old man, rapping the desk. "It is one of great importance; staggering importance.

With a patient sigh, Sergeant Baker reached for a sheet of paper. Probably it would be easiest to humour this bald-headed madman.

"Name, please?" he began officially.

"David Norway. F.H.S." wheezed the old man.

"Age?"

"Seventy-two."

"Profession, if any?"

"Biologist." Laboriously, the sergeant wrote.

"Where are you living?"

"In a boarding-house less than a hundred yards away— 8, Frosten Hill."

The sergeant dipped his pen in the ink again. "All right. Go ahead with your story."

Like a swiftly flowing stream, gathering speed until it was a cataract of words, the bald-headed man began his strange story.

"Ten years ago I voyaged in a whaler to a lonely island in the South Atlantic known as Kerguelen."

"How d'you spell it?" asked the Impassive sergeant.

"There, one day, during my search of the beach, I discovered beneath a heap of guano, three eggs obviously belonging to some pre-historic monster, long extinct. From a rather superficial examination of them, I came to the conclusion that they were probably the eggs of a plesiosaur."

"Spell it, please."

The story went on.

"These eggs had been wonderfully preserved by the accumulations of guano as well as by the Antarctic conditions that exist on this island. I decided to bring back the eggs with me to England, and by means of a cunning system of cold-storage, I kept them preserved throughout the tropics until the ship landed me in this country. Then, one evening, I lectured before the Royal Society in London and produced the eggs."

"...produced the eggs," repeated the sergeant, still writing. "I suggested to these scientific dunderheads." went on the bald man, fiercely, "that it might be possible to hatch out a monster, at present extinct, from these eggs, given favourable conditions. And what d'you think the mad fools did?"

"I'm sure I don't know."

"They laughed me out of the Royal Society, out of scientific circles. I went away to Loch Lare with my precious eggs, and settled in Lare Castle, to a study of monsters. Pre-historic monsters. I read all the available books and data on the subject. I became the greatest authority in the world on pre-historic beasts.

"But it was during my studies in the quietness of Lare Castle that the great idea dawned upon me. A staggering idea. The world of pre-historic beasts had perished because of the advent of this miserable two-legged creature that called itself man. A fatuous, egotistical monkey incapable of splendid thoughts or splendid deeds."

The sergeant looked up. "Are you making a statement?" he asked, sternly.

"I will be as brief as possible," said the biologist, "but I want you, and the world that must hear this strange tale, to appreciate the magnificence of the idea which came into my brain. I determined to breed a race of men; monsters which would sweep miserable man contemptuously from this planet over which he straddled in cocky assurance. With those three eggs in my possession, I could do it."

He waited until the sergeant nodded.

"I took a boat out on the loch, and, seeking a spot near a rocky cliff honeycombed with caves; I slid the eggs overboard. Then I rowed back to the castle. For weeks, months, nothing happened. I used to row out every night to this spot on the loch and listen.

"Then, one night there came a fierce storm on the loch. Thunder and lightning. Waves lashed against the bench. Something impelled me to go out in my boat. I was tossed about on the water, but I rowed steadily, helped by the flashes of lightning, towards the spot where I had slid the eggs overboard months before.

"Once again I sat and waited, soaked by the slashing rain. Then, as the lightning streaked the sky, I saw something come up out of the black depths. A long, slimy neck, and a barrel-shaped body, from which the water streamed. A plesiosaur! I stood up in the boat and shrieked my delight. I had created a monster. I had brought back the great beasts to the world. I was greater than Frankenstein. From now on, man was doomed.

"Then a feeling of terror took possession of me. I had committed a blasphemous sin. I had challenged the Creator. As that slimy body swirled and disappeared into the depths once more I shivered at the awful thing I had done. Desperately I rowed to the opposite shore. I abandoned my boat, and walked for days through the Highlands, terror-stricken at the thought of that beast in Loch' Lare which would soon begin the war against man."

"What happened to you?" asked the sergeant.

"At last I took a train and came to London. I've been hiding for years in mean streets, hugging my secret and fearing that some day the. monsters would begin their murder of' mankind. And that day has come at last. The end of the world is at hand. I pray to God every day for absolution from the deadly sin I have committed. And now I come to tell you the whole truth . about the monsters of Loch Lare—"

He finished on a screaming, hysterical note.

The sergeant eyed him carefully. He blotted the sheets of paper, and -In a casual manner proffered the pen to the bowed figure.

"Sign your full name at the end, there." With an air of finality, the old man rapidly scrawled his signature.

The sergeant nodded. "And now. thank you, Mr. Norway, you may go home." The glittering eyes opened wide. "But aren't you going to arrest mc, put mc In a cell?"

"Good heavens, no. Go home and sleep on it. We know where to find you If we want you."

And with a friendly gesture from a ham-like hand, he waved the bowed figure away. The old biologist looked crushed. Slowly, he turned on his heel and shuffled to the doorway. For a moment he stood irresolute, staring at the blue-painted lamp over the police-station.

Then, from within the lighted interior he heard shouts of laughter, the. gruff, jovial laughter of the policeman who had been enjoying a good joke. He sensed at once that they were laughing at him.

Fiercely, he turned his eyes blazing with anger.

"They don't believe me. Fools— all of them! Scientific fools and numbskulls! God, what a world! So I must deal with the monster myself."

I MADE a miserable breakfast. In the midst of my miserable meditations over a boiled . egg, Jonathan Jow entered the dining-room. He was obviously In good spirits. The mahogany-like features had a healthy flush, and his white hair had been blown about by the Highland winds.

"As soon as  you've finished your breakfast," he announced, "we'll get over the loch to the village.  I've a telephone call to make."

"And I've got to send some sort of a press telegram," I said; ruefully; showing him the message I had received from London. He chuckled after rending It.

"I guessed that young person was no feminine fool," he nodded. "So she's scooped you, eh?"

"Yes, with her usual tricks— vamping Benson and anybody In the Immediate vicinity."

Jonathan Jow smiled and laid a hand on my shoulder. "Women like that, my boy," observed Jonathan Jow, "know how to get news while others are groping in the dark. She works by instinct, but a woman's instinct is invariably sound."

I smothered my wrath with a cigarette. "Well, I've got to send that news-editor something unique about the monster of Loch Lare if I have to invent It," I muttered. '

"There'll be no need to invent anything," said Jonathan Jow, quietly, "I can promise you a good story once, we get over the loch to the other side."

"That's all very well," I said, "but if you can explain those mysterious happenings last night..."

"Last night!" broke In Jonathan Jow. "I slept like a top, didn't you?"

I stared at him . in astonishment. Then I realised that Martin Benson had filtered the room, silently.

"Yes, I slept quite well," I murmured, taking the-cue.

"So you weren't disturbed by monsters, of any kind," laughed Benson, taking a seat at the table. He looked carefree and jovial. If I had not seen him with my own eyes working desperately in that strange room to bring the body of a man back to life, I would have imagined that he had had a good eight hours' sleep, untroubled throughout the night.

"Hunting mythical monsters all night is not my idea of adventure," smiled Jonathan Jow.

"One leaves that to imaginative women," I added, bitterly.

Martin Benson looked at me queerly. "I don't understand."

"That girl..." I explained.

"Miss Johnson?"

"She's sent a story to her paper, claiming to have seen the monster as she crossed the loch last night."

"Well, she certainly claimed to have seen something," chuckled Benson, reaching out a hand for the toast. "I admit it's very distressing. But does anyone particularly care what an imaginative girl saw?"

"Well," I said. "I'm going over to the other side now to send a message to my paper that will dispel all this nonsense about a monster in Loch Lare."

"Excellent!" cried Benson, waving a marmalade spoon, "That's just what I wanted, Hayton. I'm glad you realise it. Burst this bubble of absurd mystery as quickly as you like."

Nevertheless, there seemed something forced about his joviality.

Jonathan Jow broke in upon the conversation. ,

"I agree, Benson. The sooner we burst this bubble of mystery, the better. If you don't mind, I'll borrow that spare dinghy I saw on the beach this morning, the one used by Miss Johnson to come here, and row my young friend across to the village."

Martin Benson nodded: "By all means. I'm glad there someone in the Highlands who Is not afraid to cross Loch Lare."

Ten minutes later we were in the dinghy which Finch pushed off the shingle into the waters of the loch. Despite my protests, Jonathan Jow took the oars and rowed steadily for a quarter of a mile. Then he locked the oars and lay back resting.

"Of course, we're being observed from Lare Castle," Jonathan Jow said, quietly. "Through binoculars, I expect. I caught the flash of sun upon glass. It's rather annoying, because I wanted to row towards those cliffs." He nodded in the direction of the black cliffs which seemed to fall sheer into the loch about two hundred yards from the island.

"Why the cliffs?" I asked.

"Oh, I expect we should find caves and all kinds of queer things. The thing we saw from the window of my room last night was coming from the direction of those cliffs."

I shuddered at the recollection of that creature with the goggled eyes and the gigantic round head glistening and dripping with water.

"Horrible!" I muttered. Jonathan Jow laughed, and took up the oars again. As he pulled steadily he talked.

"You must admit the thing did look horrible— a real King Kong creation," I said.

"Yes," mused Jonathan Jow, "that is just how a man in a diving suit and helmet would look in the night."

"A man in a diving suit!" I exclaimed.

"Didn't it occur to you? But, of course. It didn't, otherwise you wouldn't have spoiled everything by crying out and giving the alarm to Martin Benson."

"A diver!" I repeated.

"Wading slowly ashore after having been working at the bottom of the loch not far from the island. And that queer, sucking noise you heard— well, that was the air-supply apparatus."

"Then what we saw later on in that queer room—" I cried, the explanation dawning on me.

"Exactly," nodded Jonathan Jow. "It was an air-compression chamber used for divers who have been working at big depths. The fellow whom we saw stretched out was a diver who had met with some sort of an accident. They were bringing him round slowly. The slimy grey thing on the floor over which the doctor had flung his plaid shawl was the rubber diving suit. Simple, isn't it?"

"Simple enough in the sunshine," I laughed, watching the oars as they cut the waters of the loch and came up dripping. "And so I was right In what I was saying to Benson at breakfast— there is no monster?"

"I wouldn't say that," murmured Jonathan Jow, surprisingly, as he bent to the rowing. "But I'm glad you said that to Benson, for he, at least, is convinced that there isn't any monster. But I should imagine that he's the only one in this vicinity."

"But why this mysterious diving in Loch Lare at night, then?" I asked, "Aren't they seeking the monster?"

Jonathan Jow shook his head. "They're seeking something much more important to them than a monster. Something much more valuable, I should say. There's a very strong reason for a man like Martin Benson to buy a castle on Loch Lare, surround himself with experienced marine divers, and work night after night in the vicinity of those black cliffs."

I whistled softly. "And what is the reason?" I asked.

"That's what I hope to find out, after my telephone call," grinned-Jonathan Jow.

At the same moment our boat bumped gently against the beach. We had crossed the loch. We walked to the little post office of Glenoichric. The same red-haired woman welcomed us. To my utter disgust I noticed that she was wearing a new and gaudy hat. Jill Johnson's gift.

"Good morning, Professor," she greeted Jonathan Jow. "I hope Mr. Benson is well."

"Very well, thank you," said Jonathan Jow, with a smile. "And I've come to trouble you. Do you think you could put through a telephone call to Edinburgh for me?"

"Edinburgh!" said the red-haired woman, opening her eyes-wide. "That's a long way, and it'll cost you a lot of money."

"Nevertheless, I'll risk it," said Jonathan Jow.

"Well, I'll hold up my press message until after the call," I said.

"A good idea," he nodded.

I strolled out of the post office into the village street, and walked over to the beach looking across Loch Lare. When I strolled back to the post office, Jonathan Jow was sitting outside lazily smoking a cheroot and enjoying the keen air.

"A. strange story," he mused. "And one which you newspaper fellows have forgotten. But then, newspapers are only interested in happenings of today, This happened eight years ago. They'll tell you in the village here that the loch claims at least one victim every year. On this occasion, eight years ago, it nearly claimed three."

"What happened?"

"I telephoned police headquarters in Edinburgh firstly," said Jonathan Jow. "They told me, what I dimly remembered, that a safe deposit company in that city was burgled eight years ago and the three criminals who arranged it got away with precious stones to the value of over half a million pounds."

"Half a million pounds!" I whistled.

"Yes. The thieves had a powerful car, and they set off northwards. They reached this village. Here they abandoned the car, carried the plunder to a boat in the night and set off to row across the loch. Something happened before they reached the other side."

"Not the monster?" I ejaculated.

Jonathan Jow shook his head. "No. But one of that trio was shot dead. Another was flung into the water and had to swim for his life. The third man rowed the boat somewhere towards those cliffs and toppled the plunder Into the loch."

"Did they tell you that at police headquarters?" I asked breathlessly. Again Jonathan Jow shook his head.

"No, they could only give me the facts of the robbery. But they did give me a brief description of the three men. What happened on the loch is my own surmise."

"And the three men?"

"The leader's description would fit Martin Benson, except for a few changes in eight years," remarked Jonathan Jow, quietly.

"And you think he tried to murder the other two who helped in the robbery?" I asked.

He nodded.

"Good God! What a story!" I exclaimed. This time I would surprise my paper and take that smirk off the face of that woman reporter, Jill Johnson. "Nevertheless," I added, "this is all dangerous surmise. It's got to be proved."

"It will be proved," said Jonathan Jow. "I'm sure of Martin Benson That's why he is engaged in diving operations in Loch Lare: it's worth it. Half a million pounds of precious stones. I checked the details of the plunder by another telephone call, this time to the safe-deposit In Edinburgh."

"But what I can't understand," I said, "is why Martin Benson, a criminal and a murderer, should go out of his way to invite a scientist down to Lure Castle."

"It baffled me," agreed Jonathan Jow. "But I think the explanation Is equally simple. The legend of a monster in Loch Lare has existed for a long time. Up to a point, It suited Martin Benson to let the legend persist. It enabled him to conduct his diving operations at night without any fear of interruption by the scared villagers. And If they saw anything moving near the castle, they would swear it was the monster.

"But one diver was killed during the operations, and when his body was found, the lungs crushed by the depths to which he had descended, Benson began to be afraid. His fears increased when the postman, Thomas Hamilton, disappeared. The story of the monster became more than a local legend. It reached the London newspapers.

"Benson realised that his diving operations in Loch Lare were likely to be discovered. And he had not yet located the loot. He took a bold course, a big gamble. He Invited a scientist to come down to Lare Castle and explode the myth. And even a newspaperman was acceptable."

"Clever," I murmured. "But there's one thing you've forgotten to tell me."

"What Is that?"

"The third man in the boat, the criminal who had to swim for his life?"

Jonathan Jow did not reply. Instead, he rose and stretched himself.

"Good morning, Mr. Oppermann," he said, loudly. "Still worried about your alibi?"

I looked up sharply. Leering down upon us from beneath the black sombrero was the familiar, fat, sallow-faced man whom we had met on the train from London.'

"I BELIEVE in being cheerful," growled Sam Oppermann, with a hoarse throat suggesting he had sampled freely the local whisky. "And so long as our mutual friend, Martin Benson, is still alive— well, my alibi won't matter."

Jonathan Jow nodded.

"That's the spirit." he agreed. "Maybe It would interest you to know that Martin Benson was equally cheerful this morning at breakfast?"

"Was he now?" scowled the sallow-faced man.

"Thoroughly pleased." went on Jonathan Jow placidly. "Just like a man who had found something."

"Found something!" There was a dangerous gleam in the dark eyes of the man before us. "Maybe it's the monster he's found "

"I don't think so," reflected Jonathan Jow, as though carefully considering the point. "For, you see, Martin Benson doesn't believe In the monster."

"No more do I," growled Sam Oppermann, pulling the black sombrero further over his face.

"But there's something in the loch," hazarded Jonathan Jow.

"Yes, there's something," leered the other.

"And I shouldn't be surprised if tonight the real hunt begins."

Sam Oppermann stared at that figure in the snuff-coloured suit, hiding his mahogany features behind a blue cloud of cheroot smoke.

"Then I guess I will worry about that alibi," he said, and he turned abruptly and walked away.

Jonathan Jow chuckled to himself. "We're setting the stage, my boy."

With the affability of a man on holiday with plenty of time to waste, he accompanied me to the hotel where I had decided to write a telegraphic story for my paper. I sat myself at a table and was soon Immersed In work. As I wrote, the humiliation of the morning disappeared. It was certainly going to be a first-class sensation.

As I scribbled rapidly I observed out of the corner of eye that Jonathan Jow was engaged in affable conversation with the manager of the hotel, a rough Scotsman who nevertheless knew how to provide comfort in tills out-of-the-way place among the Highlands. The conversation droned on monotonously about trout fishing and the varieties of fly in use. In the midst of a long, technical disquisition on a certain species of fly, a local village boy entered the hotel and banded a telegram to the manager. The manager searched for his spectacles. He slit the envelope and read.

"Tch-tch!" he muttered. "Another guest coming. 'Reserve me room tonight, urgent.' And I cannot make out the signature. The scrawl of that old woman at the post office gets worse. Maybe you can read the name, Professor?"

Jonathan Jow took the telegram. His blue eyes narrowed. Then he smiled. "You ought to know the name," he remarked to the manager. "It's Norway."

"Not David Norway, the old laird?" asked the manager. "They say he was drowned in Loch Lare."

"So they say," remarked Jonathan Jow, "but his body was never found. David Norway has wandered too much about the world to lose himself in a rainstorm in the Highlands. No, it's the old laird all right."

He glanced across at me, noticed that I had heard the conversation following upon the mention of the name of the old scientist, and nodded. I took an ordinary telegraph form and scrawled an urgent message to my News Editor:

"Suggest you make inquiries regarding David Norway, scientist, now journeying to Loch Lare— Urgent.— HAYTON."

"That'll settle Jill Johnson," I remarked grimly as I hurried toward the little post office with my sheaf of messages.

DINNER at Lare Castle that evening was a hurried and even furtive meal. Finch, the butler, served In the fashion of a restaurant waiter impatient to be off on some private, urgent affair. Martin Benson talked generally with one eye on the clock. Even Jill Johnson, usually irrepressible, was strangely quiet. The only imperturbable person at the table was Jonathan Jow himself, who insisted upon telling a long and rather dull jungle story.

"To-night I must beg you to excuse me," murmured Martin Benson as coffee was being served. "I have to cross the loch and go to the village on business."

"At this hour?" remarked Jonathan Jow.

"I'm afraid so." insisted Martin Benson. "And it is also necessary that I should take Finch with me. Au revoir!"

Five minutes later we heard the chug, chug of the motor-launch as Martin Benson set off across the loch.

"Well Peter. I know you're not going to be amusing this evening," yawned Jill Johnson.

"Nothing annoys me more than to think I am ever amusing." I retorted.

"But you are— often," she smiled. "Not tonight. though. So I'm going to my room."

With a pert smile, she left the room.

Within the next half hour we made our preparations. We emerged from our rooms thickly garbed as a defence against the cold wind. Silently we slipped out of the castle and down to the water's edge. I felt tense and excited as Jonathan Jow led me towards a tangle of weeds and shrubs where he had hidden a small rowing-boat. To-night, I felt, the mystery of Loch Lare was to be revealed. We slid away from the shore and I pulled vigorously at the oars.

That queer brooding silence which came with the darkness hung over the loch. Only the soft gurgle of the oars came to us as we slid over the surface...

Jow gave a swift look over his shoulder and then turned those intense blue eyes towards the swathes of mist that covered the loch. I felt certain that he was peering through them with the uncanny sense that came from long jungle training.

"Bear more to your right," he ordered quietly. "And try rowing softly."

I obeyed. He had given a quick glance at the horizon, where against one hill there seemed, to be a fire burning.

"The moon," he muttered. "It will be up and shining on the loch in another fifteen minutes."

I rowed quietly but steadily for another ten minutes. Then I felt the steel-like grip of Jonathan Jow's hand on mine.

"Ship your oars!" he whispered. "Here comes another boat."

I heard nothing. I brought the oars in and for a few moments our little craft bobbed silently upon the fathomless waters. I listened carefully. But not for half a minute did I hear what Jonathan Jow's acute ears had already discovered. Someone was rowing In our direction. We waited, tense shadows in our little rowing boat. Then the first shaft of moonlight slid across the treacle-like waters. And even as it did so the lone rower in the moving boat crossed its path. He was not more than twenty yards away from where we lay lapping in the darkness. I caught a quick glimpse of a completely bald head. A second later he had passed into the darkness again.

"David Norway!" muttered Jonathan Jow.

It was at that moment that the awful possibility of there being a real monster in the loch suddenly clanged through my mind. Why should this mad scientist with a Frankenstein vision of breeding monsters to overcome the world of man enter upon the scene? Supposing there was a. real monster? Fearfully, I gazed at the black waters.

"What's the matter?" asked Jonathan Jow, quietly.

"Suppose— suppose there is a monster after, all," I faltered. He made no reply. He leaned, forward and made a brief gesture for me to change seats. As I scrambled slowly to the stern of the little boat I realised with a chilling of my spine that I had merely spoken aloud what Jow knew. There was a monster in the loch!

I crouched in the stern while Jonathan Jow rowed quietly but quickly towards that beetling mass of cliffs. Jonathan Jow gave a grunt of satisfaction and pointed. There it was possible to glimpse something that looked like a raft floating on the surface, and two figures standing on it. A motor-launch was. tethered to the raft. As my eyes became accustomed to the queer light I realised that one of the figures on the raft was Martin Benson. The other was Finch. They were taking turns at a wheel on the floating platform.

"They've got a diver down below." whispered Jonathan Jow "They're working the air-pump. Old-fashioned, but useful enough."

"But the diver below," I questioned. "How can he see?"

"Electric torch!" was the nonchalant reply. "They've fixed the spot. It's only necessary to collect the stones from the bottom."

We made a wide circle and, In a few moments, our boat bumped gently against the sandstone cliffs. They seemed to descend sheer into the black waters. There was no possible landing place. Once again the creak of rowlocks was heard I shifted my gaze. So did the two figures on the floating platform. I expected to see the bald-headed scientist again. Instead, there slid on to the scene a long, low craft with three men in it. And a crouching figure in the bows lifted his voice.

"Put up your hands, Mister Martin Benson!"

I recognised the voice at once: Sam Oppermann.

I COULD almost see the sneer on that sallow face as he continued: "A long-deferred meeting. Mister Benson. But you didn't think you could get away with that loot and murder as well, did you?"

"Look here, Sam―" began Benson.

"Keep your hands up," warned Oppermann. His boat had slid alongside the floating platform, and he dexterously stepped aboard from his skiff. One could glimpse the moonlight glistening upon the gun he held in his hand. He faced the two men, Finch also holding his hands above his head. At the same time the two men who had accompanied Oppermann tied their craft to the raft, but remained seated, watching the drama.

It was Finch who broke the curious silence. He motioned with his head.

"Jackson signalling down below," he muttered "Wants to come up."

A gleam of satisfaction crossed the face of Sam Oppermann.

"Got the goods, eh? All right, you get to work and haul him up." he commanded. "And no funny tricks."

As Finch drooped his hands and began working the diving gear again another man clambered aboard the floating platform from the skiff. He also produced a gun and kept watch on Benson, while Oppermann stared into the black deaths out of which a diver was coming.

At long last that same monstrous head which had scared me when I first saw it with Jonathan Jow from the window of Lare Castle appeared. Goggled eyes and a shining dome from which the water trickled. Then the glistening, grey rubber suit appeared. Then the hands, grasping a box.

At the sight of the treasure, Oppermann gave a shout of triumph. He stepped forward and took the box in his own hands. Slowly and painfully the diver clambered aboard the platform. He staggered a little as though dazed by those awful depths to which he had descended. All watched him curiously.

It gave Martin Benson his chance. He suddenly let out a kick at the man with the gun standing before him. The kick caught the man in the stomach and he howled with agony as he went down on the platform. Oppermann swivelled his head, realised what had happened and slung the box into the boat. Then he fumbled desperately for his gun.

But even as he drew it Benson was on him. Under that impact Oppermann went down and the gun slithered away. They rolled one on top of. the other, each fighting for the advantage. The diver, who had seated himself on some gear, stared stupidly at this fight. He was still dazed with exhaustion. Finch, who had begun to unscrew the diver's helmet, stopped. But he felt the gun of the third man of Oppermann's gang in his ribs. He stood irresolute.

I could see that Oppermann was underneath. Benson, filled with fury at this attack In the moment of success, was seeking with his hands to get a grip on the fat throat of the man beneath him. He did not notice that Oppermann's right hand, had stretched out and closed upon the revolver which lay within reach. Jonathan Jow was regarding the scene with a dispassionate aloofness.

"Can't we do something?" I gasped.

"Nothing." he replied, laconically. "It'll be over in a few seconds."

It was. Half-choked though he was, Oppermann brought the revolver quickly into play. The barrel pointed into the stomach of Benson. He fired. Once, twice, three times. With a convulsive groan, Benson flopped to the platform. He raised himself for a second, staggered, and pitched forward into the black waters of the loch.

"Something has happened to Martin Benson," quietly remarked Jonathan Jow, "and our friend. Mr. Oppermann has not fixed his alibi."

The tragedy had been so swift that all on the rocking floatlng platform seemed petrified into attitudes of stupidity. All except Sam Oppermann. He rose, feeling his throat tenderly with his hands Then he staggered to the edge of the platform and gazed into the depths where the shot body of Benson had tumbled. Something he saw there caused a dawning horror in his eyes. He pointed a trembling . finger. The next moment he screamed aloud: "Look! The monster!"

ALL on the platform turned quickly. That scream in the night from Oppermann chilled my spine. I also gazed in the direction he pointed. Something like a huge maelstrom was swirling there, a tumult of waters circled with foam. The black waters were threshed by white. They suddenly parted and a slimy mountain heaved up.

"By heaven, it is the monster!" I yelled.

They heard me on the floating  platform, but they were all staring in terror at the sight. The monstrous head of the beast was appearing. It was scaly, with wicked eyes leering down upon the puny .men on the raft. It was the head of a gigantic turtle.

"A plesiosaur!" muttered the excited Jonathan Jow at my side. Almost instantly there was a deafening report at my side. It was so sudden that I almost pitched into the water. I had not noticed that Jonathan Jow had brought a rifle with him, that he had calmly crouched down in the bows, sighted, and fired at the monster.

There was a tremendous roar and flurry of waters. Obviously, the monster had been hit. Jonathan Jow was a deadly shot. But no ordinary bullet could kill that beast. It raised half its gigantic body out of the water: we saw the arched, slimy back, the barrel-shaped body, and two huge flappers that came into the air and struck the waters with a resounding thwack. The next moment it had dived, leaving only an eddy and circling of the waters.

Jonathan Jow still crouched in the boat, his cheek resting against the barrel of the rifle. Desperately I tried to steady the little boat against the wash of that diving monster as we bumped against the cliffs. I peered anxiously at the black surface, waiting for the monster to break forth again. I was aware that Sam Oppermann had jumped into the motor-launch, grabbed the box of treasure, collected his two accomplices, and was chugging away for the village. Finch was on his knees on the platform, begging desperately to be taken off. The diver, still in his rubber suit, sat there stupidly. But Sam Oppermann was not concerned with the men on the raft. He was only too anxious to save his own skin and the treasure for whom he had murdered.

"Take the oars and get to the floating platform!" commanded Jonathan Jow. There was something in the tone of his voice, that made me scramble to obey...

"What about Oppermann?" I ventured. "He's getting clean away."

"No, he isn't," said Jonathan Jow. "He'll find a very determined police inspector and a posse of police from Edinburgh waiting for him when he reaches the shores of the loch. I arranged for them to be here when I telephoned this morning."

Jonathan Jow had forgotten nothing. And I felt that If anyone could kill this prehistoric monster now scouring the black depths in its agony, it would be this big-game hunter from the jungle. I bent to the oars. In a few minutes we were alongside the floating platform. Jonathan Jow sprang aboard.

"Pull yourself together, Finch!" he snapped. "Get to work and release that diver."

The grovelling man recognised the tone of authority.

"Yes, sir."

Jonathan Jow, rifle in hand, still peered in the direction of the black cliffs from which we had just come. Suddenly, out of the darkness, came a familiar voice.

"Peter darling. Isn't this just going to be the greatest newspaper story ever?"

I swung round. A little rowing boat was crossing the shaft of moonlight. And, there, seated in it, alone, was my rival, Jill Johnson!

"Drat that woman!' I exploded. "She's been following us."

"Tell her to get away, quick!" ordered Jonathan. Jow. "Doesn't she realise the terrible danger?"

I stood on the. platform and yelled. She waved back cheerily. Nothing could deter the woman reporter of the Daily Picture. Although I stormed and cursed, I felt a growing admiration for her pluck, even If It was foolhardy.

"I'll be with you In a moment, Peter, dear," she laughed, and took up the oars again. But even as she was emerging from the shaft of moonlight, the horrible thing happened. Once again, the maelstrom of waters appeared. Jonathan Jow knelt down, the rifle to his cheek.

"Don't fire!" I cried. "You'll hit her."

"Better kill her with a bullet than let the monster get her," he replied coldly.

The slimy back came swirling out of tho water, Jill saw it and screamed. Her screams went echoing among the mountains. Slowly, the head appeared. The wicked eyes mesmerised the girl. She stood upright in the little boat, her mouth open, all power of screaming gone. Instinctively, I realised that Jonathan Jow was about to fire. I lurched against him. But at the same moment he had fired.

"You fool!" snarled Jonathan Jow. But I cared nothing for his anger. I was staring at that pathetic figure in the little boat. The huge turtle like head swirled towards her. A black fin came out of the water and struck at the boat. It was smashed like matchwood. And I saw the monster swirling towards her....

I MUST have collapsed, sobbing, on that swaying platform. I felt the hand, of Jonathan Jow gently on my shoulder.

"I'm sorry, my dear, boy," he said. "I was only doing what I thought best."

I nodded, in dumb misery.

"She was a brave girl," went on Jonathan Jow. "But a fool to risk her life on Loch Lare."

"She was the only girl, so far as I'm concerned," I heard myself saying.

"I know," nodded Jonathan Jow. "I guessed it, even from the beginning."

"And now she's a victim of that awful monster, a madman's experiment," I groaned.

"Yet there might still be a chance," mused Jonathan Jow.

"A chance?" I looked up eagerly. "What d'you mean?"

The water lapped against the floating platform as the man of the jungle talked quietly but with a growing excitement.

"Ever seen a crocodile kill? But then, of course, you haven't. Once; on the Zambezi, I had a native servant loitering near the river bank, suddenly dragged into the water by a waiting crocodile. He gave a shout, but the reptile was away with him before we reached the spot.

"But we knew that reptiles of this kind never like their meat fresh. Crocodiles had a habit of dragging their prey— a buck, a zebra, or whichever it might— beneath the water, and to some cave or lair where the kill was left for future digesting when the meat was high."

"Don't!" I cried miserably, thinking of Jill Johnson.

"In the case of this native boy," went on Jonathan Jow, "we decided to dig for him in a crocodile lair on the opposite bank of the river. And after an hour's work, we brought daylight to a submerged cave where the native lay senseless on a ledge. He was still alive when we dragged him forth." Jonathan Jow paused a moment. "Suppose this prehistoric monster behaved in a similar saurian fashion, eh?"

"By heaven, it's a chance, even though a desperate one," I acknowledged.

Jonathan Jow nodded.

"And I think I know the cave where this monster hides itself," he said, pointing to those horrible black cliffs.

"Then let's get to it," I cried.

During our excited talk, the diver had stepped out of his rubber suit. His face was drawn, and he staggered like a drunken man. I recognised him as the diver whom Martin Benson had been restoring to life the previous evening.

"Jump into one of the boats and row towards the cliff!" ordered Jonathan Jow. "I'll take the other rowing boat. Together, we can row the platform there."

I Jumped into the rowing-boat and bent to the task of towing the platform towards the cliff. Jonathan Jow, in the other rowing-boat, shouted directions. Eventually, the platform was bumping gently against the sheer drop of stone into the black depths. We both clambered back on to the platform.

"I should say we are just over the mouth of this submerged cave," murmured Jonathan Jow. Instinctively, his voice had dropped to a whisper. "I may be wrong, but all the evidence of the strata in these cliffs, as I examined them in the daytime, point to a subterranean cave. And it is highly likely that this is the monster's den."

"There's only one possible way into the cave," said Jow, and he pointed to the black waters.

"Impossible!" I gasped.

He shook his head. I saw his eyes slant to the diving-suit. So did the others on that floating platform. The diver, now recovered, drew away with a little whimper.

"Not all the money in the world will get me under the surface again," he cried.

"Well, Finch? You're a practised diver,"

"You can shoot me with that gun, Mr. Jow, but I'm not going into Loch Lare to-night."

"I'll go."

I saw Jonathan Jow regard me queerly.

"It's brave of you. my boy," he said, "but I couldn't allow it. You're young, I'm old and don't matter very much In this world."

He moved towards the diving-suit as he spoke. But I staggered forward and confronted him.

"I must go down," I cried. "Jill means everything to me." And I began struggling into the wet rubber suit.

Jonathan Jow sighed. For a moment he seemed a very old man. His face was lined and careworn. But he accepted the situation. Ho began to help me Into the diving-suit. Pinch came forward and assisted; so did the diver. They, were all whispering Instructions to me, in the absurd, unhelpful fashion of seconds at a boxing match just before the fight begins.

Five minutes later, I stood up, with the leaden boots weighing me down and the steel helmet being screwed tightly into place. I could not see a thing.   An electric underwater torch was thrust into my hand. Gently, I was led to the edge of the floating platform. A steel rope was indicated. I took it in my hands and the next moment felt my feet going into the black waters of the Loch.  There was a singing In my ears at the waters closed over me.

IT was a cold, blind world into which I slithered. I gulped desperately at the air which was hissing Into my helmet. I, was, Indeed, struggling like a drowning man, and it seemed hours before I discovered that I was still alive and standing on the boulder-strewn bottom of the loch.

Carefully, with one hand outstretched, I plodded away to the right; Then my hand fell away from the rock. I swung the electric torch forward. Dark depths were before me. An opening in the wall. It must be the cave.

Dizzy, with that hissing sound always in my ear, and the heavy thumping of my heart resounding in-the rubber suit, I plunged forward. I stumbled over a boulder. Carefully, I picked myself up and went forward again. Those leaden boots seemed to be dragging at my feet. I began gasping for breath. Then I realised what had happened. I was plodding upwards along a slope.

Suddenly, I was checked. Something tugged at my head. I tried to jerk my helmet away from that tugging force, but the force, whatever It was, seemed irresistible. I seemed to be held a prisoner in that awful subterranean passage.

Then it, dawned on me that the hissing sound in my ears had stopped. There could be only one reason for this. The air-pipe had ceased to function. I must have fouled it in my progress along the passage.

Despite the numbing cold of those depths, I felt the sweat of fear break over my body. Desperately I jerked myself forward. Death could only be a matter of minutes. But that jerk released me, although the air supply was still stopped.

I tried to run through those terrible depths, upwards into a dark hell, with leaden boots clogging every footstep. My head began to sing. My ear-drums were bursting. I felt a sledge-hammer pounding In my brain. I could go no farther. Instinctively, I dragged forward the electric torch to which I had clung throughout. It was then I realised that I was standing in water only up to my chest. I was above the surface of the loch, lost in the Inky blackness of a cave within the cliffs.

Once again, I struggled forward. I felt a wash of the water about my feet, a swirl of dirty wetness. I lifted the torch on high and vaguely discerned that I was standing, in an immense cavern. The walls were slimy and dripping. A gigantic hollow in the cliffs, of which the only entrance was along the bed of Loch Lare. I was hopelessly trapped in it.

The glistening light of my torch emphasised the horrors of that cavern. But as I turned slowly I saw something that caused a sob of fear to break from me. On a slimy ledge, lapped by the inky waters of the loch, lay the body of Jill Johnson.

I cannot describe the next ten minutes. I only know that I struggled and fought to remove the cursed helmet that imprisoned my head. Sweating and shouting futilely, I tore and beat at the steel dome. And then, just when I was giving up in despair, I felt the helmet swivelling round In my hands. A moment later I was free.

A horrible, dank- stench came to my nostrils as I breathed the fetid air of the cavern. In a few minutes I had torn the diver's suit from my body and was leaning over the prone body of Jill Johnson, rubbing her hands and whispering to her in a sort of helpless hysteria. A shudder went through the body. I realised that she was still alive. But, having been dragged through those awful depths, she was half drowned.

Mechanically, I began to work In the fashion that I had seen Martin Benson working in the compression chamber. I raised her arms, brought them over her head. As I worked thus desperately to bring the girl back to life, I realised that Jonathan Jow's awful assumption had been right.

This was the monster's den.

Another shudder rippled through her body, and, to my joy, I saw her eyes flickering.

"Peter!" she moaned; "What has happened?"

"You're safe!" I lied urgently. I felt her arm stretch up towards my neck and curl itself there.

"It's all been a horrible nightmare, hasn't it?"

I nodded.

"Are you badly hurt?"'I asked.

"My body seems numb," she replied.

"Try and stand," I urged her. With her hand over my shoulder, she raised herself from the ledge. She swayed, but I held her close.

"My legs are still numb," she murmured weakly.

I urged her forward a few more paces. Then she sank down upon a boulder. She buried her face in her hands and cried helplessly for some minutes. But soon the weakness was over. She looked up with the ghost of a smile.

"I must look an awful sight," she murmured, in the Inevitably feminine manner.

I tried to smile back. "To see you alive is the most glorious sight of all," I whispered.

"Where am I?" she asked.

"We're in a cave," I said, trying to speak in an ordinary tone.

"In a cave!" There was a puzzled look In her eyes. Then I saw the horror come, rushing back.

"That horrible monster, then—" She dared not go on.

I nodded.

"We've got to find a way out," I declared stoutly. "At the moment I know only one exit— under the water."

I realised that Jonathan Jow could do nothing. When that air-pipe had become entangled and the life-line came drifting up out of the depths, he must have assumed that death had come to me in the depths of Loch Lare. But I knew the old big-game hunter too well to imagine he would have abandoned me. Somewhere on the surface he was planning and thinking how to get into the cave.

"Let's climb away from the water," suggested Jill. "Anywhere out of reach."

It was a desperate business. Every few steps I had to rest my torch and reach down for Jill and hurl her up. We were bruised and bleeding from that terrible climb. But slowly, ever so slowly, we crept upwards.

"I must— rest— a minute," gasped Jill. She lay on a narrow ledge of rook, -panting from the exertion of the climb. I also, smeared with sweat and blood, stretched myself out.

A profound silence enfolded the cavern. Then I heard a stone rattling down from the roof. Another. Then the crunch of footsteps. I started up. Something was crawling towards us. I yelled to Jill to take cover. My voice resounded with a hundred echoes In the cavern. Soon all the walls and grottos were shouting at us. Pandemonium raged. A voice, a madman's voice, broke through those echoes.

"Who are you, miserable humans?" The walls of the cavern took up this madman's voice. "Miserable humans?" echoed the rocks.

I looked up. The electric torch revealed a man with a bald head and glittering eyes, eyes shining with insanity.

"Norway— David Norway!" I gasped.

A cunning leer crossed his face.

"So you know me, eh? Yes, I'm David Norway, the greatest biologist of the age. Where is this monster I've created?"

Dumbly, I pointed to the dark depths below where the loch water lapped gently at the foot of the cavern.

The mad scientist chuckled. "So the first of the plesiosaurs of the twentieth century is waiting there for me, eh? Waiting for David Norway, his lord and creator , ha-ha-ha! I shall go down and talk to him. I shall tell him that the time has come to assume the leadership of the world. The world is to be ruled by monsters. And David Norway will create them.

"And you, miserable humans, are among the first of the victims. Food for. the monster, eh? Human flesh. Pah! What cares a plesiosaur for such paltry food as you? He needs better food."

With a fierce effort I drew myself up. I was about to hurl myself upon the madman when pandemonium again broke out In that huge cavern. There was a thunderous roar and a swirl of waters beneath. I crouched back, terror-stricken at the din. I realised in that awful moment that, the monster of Loch Lare was returning.

Instinctively my eyes sought the dark depths below. But I could see nothing. It was a bottomless pit, in which a beast of prehistoric slime was raising itself out of the waters.

But David Norway screamed with mad delight. Ignoring us, he began scrambling, tumbling, lurching downwards to where the monster was swirling in the velvet darkness. Once again that deafening roar broke out. It thundered throughout the cavern, and the whole cliff seemed to be tumbling in chaos.

Clinging to a rock, I flashed my torch downwards. I caught one glimpse of a dragging mountain of slimy black flesh, shining eyes and a gaping mouth of white flesh. And, lurching towards this horrible monster was the mad scientist, David Norway, laughing and chuckling insanely and calling to the beast as man would to a pet dog.

For one brief moment this vision was caught by light. And then, as I saw the monster reach out hungrily for the scientist, I screamed aloud, and the torch pitched downwards from my terrified hand. I again clutched Jill and began a further desperate climb upwards. With bleeding hands we tore upwards at the rock. Dimly I was aware that the cool night air was coming against my sweating face. And, as though from heaven above, came a calm command: "Steady, my boy. Take it easy!"

It was Jonathan Jow!

A moment later his strong hands were helping us out of the cavern on to the wind-swept heights of the cliff top.

"THERE they come," said Jonathan Jow.

He lay hunched on the terrace of Lare Castle, a pair of binoculars in his steel-like fingers.

Jill and I were sprawled at his side. A few yards away crouched a man in the uniform of the Royal Air Force, head 'phones clamped over his ears. A droning sound in the sky rumbled to a roar. Three seaplanes flying in duck formation crossed the noonday sky. As they soared above Lare Castle they broke formation. Two dived downwards towards the surface of the loch. With the binoculars glued to his eyes, Jonathan Jow was snapping orders to the wireless operator squatting by the Instruments on the terrace.

"Tell him to get as near the cliff as possible!"

"Yes, sir."

"Tell him to loose his depth bomb on the word three!"

"Yes, sir."

I caught one glimpse of a dragging mountain of slimy black flesh and-shining eyes. And lurching towards this horrible monster was mad David Norway." I

"Start counting."

"One— two— three!"

I saw a huge upheaval of water as the seaplane, skimming within a few feet of the surface and banking heavily against the dangerous cliff, let fall a depth bomb. The waters spouted high, drenching the machine as it droned swiftly upwards again. At the same moment there was a flurry of waters and a white streak of foam came from the direction of the cliff.

"The monster! He's out of the cavern!" cried Jonathan Jow.

The second seaplane had seen that trail of white. With the engine snarling defiance in the fierce dive towards the surface of the loch, the pilot swooped downwards and lifted the machine just within a foot or the water. At the same moment he loosed a bomb and sent the seaplane roaring upwards again. Once again a mountain of water leaped towards the sky, like a tail to the machine.

"That's got him!" I cried.

"Not yet," snapped Jonathan Jow. "It'll need, more than that."

Even as he spoke, the third seaplane swooped towards the flurry of waters. The engine screamed. I felt certain that the pilot had lost control.  But miraculously the machine lifted by what seemed inches from the surface of the water. And once again, relentlessly, a dull object dropped into the waters of the loch. The machine was lost in the mountain of spray that was flung up. At the same time, a gigantic black object reared itself out of a maelstrom, a long turtle-like neck , with a horrible head gaped as though it would swallow that droning piece of mechanism that was swooping skywards. But the waters were flecked with red. The monster was dying.

The first machine was returning, to the attack. A roar burst forth from the monster's gaping mouth. It was the last defiance of the monster against civilisation. Another depth bomb fell and there was the crash of explosion and the upheaval of water. It had fallen squarely on the monster. It was the end.

"Call 'em off," murmured Jonathan Jow, and there was something like a sigh in his voice. "It's a massacre, not a big-game hunt,"

"AND OUR FRIEND, Sam Oppermann, and his accomplices are safely in the hands of the police,, who were waiting for them at the loch side as they landed," concluded Jonathan Jow.

"And the treasure?" I asked.

"Also with the police," nodded Jonathan Jow.

"There's been no trace found of. Martin Benson, I suppose?" I asked.

"No. His body lies in the loch with the monster."

"What a story for my paper!" I exulted. "The story of the century!"

A smile crossed the mahogany face. "Well, my dear boy, you'll have to hurry up with it. That bright girl went off half an hour ago in a launch to send a message to her own paper."

"What, Jill?" I exclaimed.

He nodded.

"Dash that girl!" I cried, reaching for my hat. "I'm going after her now. And d'you know what I'm going to do?"

"Marry her," chuckled Jonathan Jow.

And Jonathan Jow was never wrong.

End

Table of Contents

- 1: A Source of Irritation / Stacy Aumonier
- 2: Flash! / Richard Connell
- 3: The Detective Club / Ellis Parker Butler
- 4: Murder off the Map / William J. Makin
- 5: Wax Works / Ethel Lina White

- 6: The Man Who Lost His Memory / C E Bechhofer Roberts

- 7: The Mystery of the Chaffeur's Suicide / C E Bechhofer Roberts

- 8: The English Filter / C E Bechhofer Roberts

- 9: Virgin Snow / C E Bechhofer Roberts

- 10: The Cracksman's Catspaw / J. S. Fletcher

- 11: The Silent Witness / Max Brand

- 12: The Face in the Dark / L. T. Meade and Robert Eustace

- 13: Mr. Belton's Immunity / Edgar Jepson and Robert Eustace

- 14: A Bolt from the Blue / Mcdonnell Bodkin

- 15: Spoofing a Detective / Mrs. George Corbett

- 16: Ooze / Anthony M. Rud
- 17: Murder by Proxy / Mcdonnell Bodkin
- 18: Four Guests / William J Makin
- 19: Her Memory / Morley Roberts
- 20: Clubs and Hearts / Barry Pain
- 21: A Rapid Conveyance / Owen Oliver

- 22: The Horror of the Loch / William J Makin