The Divinations of Kala Persad
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Short stories; crime
Description: Headon Hill (Francis Edward Grainger, 1857-1924) wrote many novels and short stories, including a variety of rather oddball detective short stories. This extremely rare collection, published in 1894, features the only 4 short stories of Kala Persad, a Hindu diviner who assists private detective Poignand with Delphic utterances; two tales of his best known detective, Sebastian Zambra, and a handful of others stories. 1: The Divination of the Afghan Kukhri 2: The Divination of the Zagury Capsules 3: The Divination of the Vagus Nerve 4: The Divination of the Kodak Films Other stories 5. How The B

THE DIVINATIONS

OF KALA PERSAD
and other stories

Headon Hill

1895

Contents

1: The Divination of the Afghan Kukhri

2:  The Divination of the Zagury Capsules

3: The Divination of the Vagus Nerve

4: The Divination of the Kodak Films

Other stories

5. How The Baby Found The Clue

6: The Face in the Spoiled Negative

7: A Blind Clue

8: The Revelation of the Dark Slide

9. The Secret of the Envelope

10: The Red Lamp in Hoblyn's Alley

____________

1: The Divination of the Afghan Kukhri

THIS IS NOT, properly speaking, a 'detective story', although it deals with the detection of crime past and crime contemplated. That is to say, there is here no impressive professional detective, marching straight to his goal through a labyrinth of scientific deduction. There is here only common animal instinct, existing in a rather low type of human nature, and utilised more or less by chance for the elucidation of the central incident. The subsequent stories of this series will fall more aptly under the popular definition, because they will narrate the achievements of Kala Persad after he was brought to England to exercise his gift under the auspices of a professional agency. But still, in these later cases, it will be found that reason had very little to do with the successes which marked his career in London.

The mixture of serpentine carriage drive and tangled brake that did duty as the Collector's garden stood out clear and distinct to minutest detail under the full moon. Beyond the compound wall twinkled the lights of the cantonment bungalows, and further afield irregular purple blotches on the sky-line showed where the Purundhur hills limited the horizon. Out of the unseen distances came the sounds of the Indian night. Now and again a hyena laughed; then a jackal would howl from the waste land at the back of the police barracks; and at the little village down by the ghat, a mile away, some worthy was beating a tom tom with zeal that never tired.

In the veranda of the Collector's bungalow, looking out over the garden, hung a row of oil lamps, suspended by silver chains; and under the central lamp, outside the dining-room, a wicker table stood, flanked by a few Bombay lounge chairs. Presently the tatty that veiled the window was drawn aside, and two men came out and sat down.

The elder of the two— a man of 45— was very tall, with a pair of dreamy blue eyes and pale thin features, set off by a drooping fair moustache. His manner was marked by an air of boredom, or it might have been after-dinner sleepiness, that was barely kept in check by traditional Anglo-Indian hospitality. This was John Ames. Collector of the district, and wielder of more real power than many people with ten times as imposing titles.

His guest, Mark Poignand, was a short, dark young man of seven and twenty, correctly dressed in evening clothes, and with a style of up-to-date smartness that betokened him not long in the country. As a matter of fact he had arrived from England by the previous mail, and was dining with the Collector as the result of a letter of introduction. Till the red-turbaned 'khansamah' who brought coffee and cheroots had disappeared round the corner of the veranda, Poignand chattered the 'society' jargon which had formed the staple of his conversation during dinner.

Then the two sat in silence for a minute, listening to the jackals and the tom-tom; and at length Ames said: 'I presume, Mr. Poignand, by your bringing me a letter of introduction from Lord Dingwall that there is some special way in which I can serve you. Since you are staying with your friends, the Merwoods, I cannot very tell offer to put you up here; otherwise I should have been delighted.'

Poignand shifted his leg uneasily, and for once was unready of reply. This was the opening for which he had been waiting— which he had come half round the world to seek— but now that it was thrust upon him unawares, he hardly knew how to take it.

'You are right,' he said at length. 'Having friends, or rather connections, in Sholapur, I should not have troubled you with a letter of introduction were there not a special reason. Dingwall thought your aid would be invaluable. To tell the truth, I am here more or less in a detective capacity.'

The Collector smiled coldly. 'Nothing of a political nature, I hope? Perhaps I am the object of your kind attentions? You had better understand, from the start, that we are not very partial out here to persons sent from home on that sort of errand.'

'My business is entirely private and unofficial.' Poignand hastened to reassure him; and, bending nearer, he added, 'I am told you are on terms of some intimacy with Major and Mrs. Merwood. Are you aware that, in the course of the last two months, at least two attempts have been made on my cousin's life?'

The Collector looked sharply at his guest, as though beginning to doubt his sanity.

'My dear Mr. Poignand,' he said, 'surely you have got hold of a mare's-nest? The Merwoods, as you know, are my nearest neighbours; their compound adjoins mine. Reeking of gup as this place is, it would be nearly impossible for such a thing to happen without my hearing of it within the hour. If you knew anything of our life here, you would not expect me to believe that news travels from one bungalow to another via England and an Indian secretary.'

'Nevertheless, it has apparently done so in this case;' replied Poignand, calmly. 'Two months ago Mrs. Merwood was startled in the night by hearing a sound in her bedroom, and awoke in time to see the figure of a man disappearing through the French window on to the veranda. She aroused her husband, who sleeps in an adjoining and communicating room. Although he treated the incident as tending to robbery rather than violence, he promptly searched the grounds, but no trace of any lurker was found. A fortnight later, my cousin Lucy, who had followed her husband's example in treating the matter as of no importance, and had adopted his suggestion that she should say nothing about it, was disturbed by the fall of a china bowl in her bedroom, at two in the morning. This time the nature of the intrusion was more clearly defined. Again Mrs. Merwood saw the outline of a flying figure, gliding not as before directly into the veranda, but into her husband's room, with the object, as she presumed, of escaping through his French window instead of through her own. She leaped from the bed, and followed into the Major's room; but, quick as she was, she was too slow to catch sight of the fugitive. Her husband was sleeping soundly, but on being awoke he made a tour of the premised, with no better result than before. While he was thus engaged, my cousin returned to her own room, and thereupon made the discovery which placed the affair in such a serious light. On the floor, close to the fragments of the broken bowl, she found an Afghan knife— kukhri I think you call it— which she recognised as being one of a collection of weapons hanging on the wall of her husband's sleeping apartment. The impression she immediately formed was that her intending assailant had entered by the same way he had left—through Major Merwood's bedroom —and had armed himself with the trophy en route.'

Poignand stopped, and seemed to wait for comment; but the Collector merely vouchsafed a half-contemptuous 'Well!'

The narrator proceeded: 'On this occasion, as on the last, Merwood exerted himself to allay his wife's alarm, promising at the same time to leave no stone unturned to get to the bottom of the mystery. To assist his endeavours in this direction, he enjoined upon her the most absolute secrecy— an injunction which, judging by your ignorance of the matter, has been pretty closely kept to, My cousin, however, did not consider herself debarred from writ-ting home to her mother a full account of what had occurred; and it is in consequence of fears excited among the family that I have come to look after my relative. My aunt, who is a personal friend of Lord Dingwall, thought it as well to enlist his influence on my behalf; hence the letter of introduction which I had the pleasure of presenting yesterday.'

Poignand's concluding tones showed that he had come to the end of his narrative of facts, and that he desired Ames to take up the running by promulgating theories.

Whatever may have been in the Collector's mind, it became clear that he had no intention of allowing his hand to be forced that way. Tossing the stump of his cheroot among the shrubs, he deliberately lighted another before he replied.

'You must pardon my saying that even now I don't quite see your position. Accepting all you have told me as gospel, I would ask, Does it not strike you— does it not strike the family— that the right person to manage the affair is the lady's husband? There is no man in the station more capable of doing so, seeing that he is cantonment magistrate and knows every budmash for miles around. Have you come out vaguely, trusting to your own acumen to succeed where Major Merwood, with all his facilities, has failed? Or are you moved by some definite suspicion?'

The last plain question told Poignand that his host was too strong a man to allow him to shift the burden of making the first charge. He came to the point at once.

'My cousin's friends have come to the conclusion that it is Major Merwood himself who has designs upon her life,' he said, lowering his voice to a whisper and glancing to the right and left. He had scarcely spoken, when his fear of being overheard caused him to utter an exclamation of alarm; for he caught sight of a movement among the shadows at the end of the veranda.

Ames, on the point of making some reply suitable to the gravity of the accusation, could not repress a smile as he followed the direction of Poignand's glance. To the new arrival the gaunt, upstanding figure, dodging here and there in the blended lamp and moon light, seemed distinctly human, and therefore pregnant with infinite possibilities for spreading scandal.

'Pshaw!' said the Collector; 'there is nothing there to alarm you. It is only my tame ape, Gobind, a fine specimen I brought from the Nilgiris last hot weather. He is chained up there to act as house-watchman. The natives worship monkeys, and give him a wide berth accordingly.'

He stopped, as if glad of the diversion that had saved him the obligation of immediate reply to the grave communication; but Poignand, having taken the plunge, had lost much of his diffidence.

'Do you think there is anything in this theory of ours?' he asked.

'I think there is a good deal in it,' said Ames. 'I think there is in it about the most egregious folly that ever entered into the mind of man. With whom did it originate? With you, I suppose, seeing that you are the active deputy of the others?' He spoke hastily and with some annoyance, and in proportion to the growth of the languid man's heat the natural assurance of his guest reasserted itself.

Poignand smiled exasperatingly as he replied:

'Yes, it was my notion first, but the rest saw it in the same light. You will not be so ready with your reasons, Mr. Ames, when you hear my reasons. There are circumstances which tend to confirm our view.'

'They must be very strong circumstances to convince me,' was the reply. 'I tell you frankly, had not Lord Dingwall committed you and your precious enterprise to my keeping, I should at once inform Major Merwood of the nature of your errand. As it is, I shall most certainly do nothing to facilitate an outrage on an honourable man. What are the circumstances to which you refer?'

Poignand stared at his host in some surprise. The concluding question seemed out of keeping with the refusal to aid, and he began to suspect the Collector of wishing to obtain material for putting Major Merwood on his guard. He rose with as much dignity as a man of his type could assume, saying at the same time— 'You have plainly indicated a determination not to move in the matter. I have nothing to complain of in that; but since you withhold your assistance, you must pardon my saying that the reasons 'which prompt us have no concern for you.'

At his guest's evident intention to depart, the Collector rose also. As the two men stood facing each other, voices reached them from the drive, and at the same moment there sauntered into view a man and a woman, the latter chatting vivaciously and laughing as she came. The lady, who had something of a white, fleecy fabric thrown over her head and shoulders, was young and slim, while her companion was a portly, and rather reserved looking man, of middle age.

'Here are the Merwoods come to fetch you,' exclaimed Ames, recognising the occupants of the next bungalow, 'the devoted couple whom you suspect of internecine intentions.'

'That is hardly the word for it, considering that the attempt, if any, was a one-sided one,' replied Poignand, puzzled, at something like a covert sneer in the words. The Collector turned to greet the new-comers, and it at once became apparent that the friendship between the neighbours was of a triangular mature. This was the first time that Poignand had seen them together; and he at once made the discovery that Mrs. Merwood did not like the Collector, that Major Merwood did, while Ames was cordial enough to both.

'We are not inclined to forgive you for capturing our guest on the second day of his visit,' said Mrs. Merwood; 'please understand that there is a distinct coolness between us. And now, if you have quite done with Mark, we will take him home.'

Ames accompanied the party to the gate, and there bade them good-night, his manner to Poignand having in it a tone of veiled banter, which added to the latter's annoyance. The emissary of the 'family' set such an extremely liberal valuation on his own by no means despicable abilities that he resented opposition to his views, and at once attributed either folly or motive to the opponent. The idea of Merwood's guilt had originated with him, and, consequently, according to his notion, Ames must be a fool or have some reason for pretending to entertain a contrary opinion. The Collector was not the man to impress any one as a fool, and Poignand, therefore, accounted for his conduct by a friendly feeling towards the suspected.

The Merwood's bungalow was almost a counterpart of the Collector's― a square, one-storied structure, with a veranda on three sides of it.

Mrs. Merwood led the way into her drawing-room, and, aided by her husband, sought to win her relative back to good humour by asking his opinion on topics of the hour at home. It was plain, from the young man's demeanour, that his evening had not been a success; though, with the Collector's reputation for good fellowship, neither of his entertainers could understand why.

The fact was that Poignand felt ill at ease in the presence of those whom he was deceiving, and the more so since the rebuff to which he had exposed himself. His mind was so saturated with the secret suspicion, that to-night he especially felt unable to talk naturally about any but the here doubly forbidden subject.

After an ineffectual effort at sustained conversation, the party retired for the night, Poignand going straight to the bedroom allotted to him— an apartment opening on to the veranda which must have been traversed by Mrs. Merwood's midnight assailant.

Without directly referring to the incident he had contrived to gather this much from his cousin; and he had also noted the situation of the bedrooms occupied respectively by husband and wife. There was nothing in the information to shake or confirm the belief which had taken hold of him. The communicating rooms, each with its own exit on to the veranda, offered every facility for just such a crime as that he thought to trace home.

He undressed, and threw himself on the bed— not to sleep, but to review the position. First his mind went back to the reason which had infected him with the germ of 'detective fever,' and which had appeared so cogent to Mrs. Merwood's mother that she had supplied the sinews of war for the expedition. The reason was a very simple one, and consisted of the discovery, picked up from a piece of stray club gossip, that before leaving England Major Merwood had insured his wife's life for £10,000.

The marriage had been brought about after a short engagement during Merwood's last leave, and had been regarded with mixed feelings by the relations of the bride, the Major having no resources beyond his Staff Corps pay. The family was therefore ripe for the theory which, in the excitement of getting himself listened to by a hither to not always appreciative circle, he so sedulously instilled. For the first time in his life the young man about town found himself charged with a definite commission.

The Merwoods received him pleasantly enough, and, if they felt it, contrived to conceal what would have been an excusable wonder that Mark could afford an eastern tour on his modest income of three hundred a year. No reference had been made to the nocturnal intrusions, and it was plain, from the terms on which the couple were ostensibly living, that the first to resent her mother's interference would have been Mrs. Merwood herself. And now, as he tossed from side to side, Poignand saw that with his ignorance of the country and with his lack of confidants he was in a fair way to prove nothing. Ames's refusal to countenance his inquiries had cut the ground from under his feet.

The devotee with the tom-tom was still busy down by the ghat, and what with the unaccustomed din and his own chagrin Poignand recognised that sleep was out of the question. The moon was high, and he decided upon taking a midnight stroll, in the hope of returning refreshed and comforted. Slipping on some clothes, he left the house by the veranda, and skirting the low chunam wall that separated the Merwoods from the Collector's garden, he passed through the entrance gates out on to the highway.

The road stretched away white and deserted in the moonbeams, and having no special object in view, he hesitated for a moment which way to take. The tom-tom decided for him. His cousin had accounted for the uncanny sounds by the festival that was being celebrated at a Hindoo shrine on the river bank. It struck him that the rites and orgies might divert him from his perplexity; so turning his back on the cantonment, he stepped briskly out in the direction of the unaccompanied drum-music.

A few minutes' walk brought him beyond the confines of the station to the open country, where the road ran out into the fair Deccan table-land between the well-irrigated greenery of gram and lucerne fields. Now and again a bullock-cart would plod by with creaking wheels, heavy laden with those close huddled, white-swathed pilgrims of the night who, on Indian highways, are always haunting the hours of darkness.

Twice he was accosted with a cheerful 'Ram-ram Sahib,' by nocturnal pedestrians, who, receiving no answer to their salutations, spat heavily on the ground and went their way. Then at a twist in the road, the rumble of the tom-tom grew louder, and he came in sight of the commotion by the ghat half a mile away. The flare of torches and the hum of many voices borne on the stillness of the night air told him that the festival was at its height, and soon the shapes of countless forms moving antlike across the fitful gleams were clearly visible.

Suddenly, Poignand began to be conscious that the distant scene by the that was becoming blurred by several objects rapidly approaching him along the straight vista of road. As they came into fuller view he perceived that the objects were men running, one being a few paces in advance of the others; but it was not till they were close upon him that he grasped the true meaning of the situation. The first comer was a fugitive pursued by the rest— a trio of as murderous looking cut-throats as ever practised thuggism.

Before Poignand could draw back or realise what was happening, the hunted man was kneeling at his feet, grasping him by the knees and begging protection in such loudly triumphant bazaar English that the enemy, seeing that they had a Sahib to deal with, vanished without more ado across the adjoining fields. The whole episode was over in fifty seconds. It was a queer position for a man imbued with the ethics of London streets to find himself alone on an Indian highroad at dead of night, with a wild-eyed, half-clad figure clasping his legs to impotency, and calling him 'Protector of the Poor.'

'Get up,' said Poignand after a while. 'What's wrong with you? Those fellows have cleared out of sight.'

'Ah, Sahib! They are bad Mahometan budmash,' replied the fugitive, loosing his hold at last. 'They thought to rob and kill Kala Persad on his way from the Pooja. It was foolish to go home all by self. They plenty devils, but they fly before the strong arm of the magnificency. The Sahib is my father and my mother.'

Poignand grinned. He had never before been bespattered with stock Eastern compliments, and he was amused by the ineptness of the last.

He who called himself Kala Persad was a little, thin old man of at least sixty, whose silver-stubbled chin proclaimed that he must have been a grown man as far back as mutiny days. The mainstay of his costume was a tattered blue tunic, through the folds of which, which, twisted round the lean little waist, a dirty white cummerbund was visible. The pair of brown legs, thin almost as match-sticks, were entirely undraped, and the feet were also bare of all covering but their native leather. The face consisted for the most part of a mass of crow's-feet fighting for supremacy with the silver stubble, and of a pair of wonderful dark-brown eyes, bloodshot and yellowed as to the rims, but with pupils that shone like the orbs of a cat in a coal-cellar. The whole was topped by a scanty wisp of red turban. Slung over the skimpy shoulders was a great close-meshed basket, which, judging by the ejaculations hurled at it by its owner, contained something of life.

'You mean, I suppose, that these men Waylaid you because you are a Hindoo and they are Mahometans,' said Poignand, who had heard of the creed jealousies between the followers of Islam and Brahma.

'The Sahib speaks true,' replied Kala Persad; 'but they only make excuse of being Mahometan at season of our Pooja, so they rob and kill. I am only a poor man, Sahib—a very poor samf-walla (snake-charmer). My business to go about barracks and give show to soldiers and Sahab-Log. So I learn to speak English. To-morrow I come to Sahib's bungalow and show snakes free for nothing. Thus will Kala Persad repay so great magnificence— that is,' spoken as an afterthought and with a glance of keenest import, 'that is, if Sahib can spare time from big worry.'

Poignand started. He had noticed the old man's eyes fixed on him curiously, but this diagnosis of his mental condition was a little too much. 'What the devil do you mean?' he asked roughly. The weird being wheezed a laugh which must have had some curious effect on the occupants of his basket, for he shook them up angrily with a muttered 'Chuprao,' before he explained.

'Sahib,' he said, 'Kala Persad can read darker riddles than a man's face. In my own gaum in the hills below Mahabuleshwar my words were much sought by those who wish to learn secrets. When any person killed, or bullock stolen' — he pronounced it 'ishtolen'— 'patel come to me and I give him khabar— news— of the bad man. Plenty people hanged in Tanna Gaol through Kala Persad's talk.'

'How do you do it?' asked Poignand shortly.

'Sinse, sahib, common sinse,' replied the old man. 'what we call the plenty malum. My sinses very sharp, same like i-shnakes. My father was snake-charmer, my grandfather snake-charmer— all snake-charmers for thousand years: People in gaum say we grow like snake ourself.'

'Look here,' said Poignand, struck by a sudden impulse. 'There is a secret I want to find out. If I tell you the facts as far as I know them, leaving out the names, do you think you can read the puzzle? As a reward for saving you just now, you know?'

For answer, Kala Persad moved to the roadside, beckoning Poignand to follow, then slipped the snake basket to the ground.

'Try me, sahib,'' he said.

Without stopping to analyse the wisdom or otherwise of the course he was taking, Poignand plunged headlong into a narrative of the events that accounted for his presence in Sholapur. Adroitly hiding the identity of those interested, he told of the first alarm in his cousin's bedroom, of the second most serious one when the Afghan knife was found, and of the suspicions which had fallen on the husband. He went fully into the reasons which had moved him to this theory, and described the affectionate terms on which the pair wore to outward appearance living. He even confided the rebuff which he had received from the 'high official,' who was his friend's neighbour, and whose aid he had sought, repeating Ames's scornful utterances as faithfully as memory would permit, and alluding to the curiosity evinced by the Collector after withholding all assistance. Finally, he wound up with a reference to the uneasiness which had caused him to leave his bed and to meet with the adventure in hand.

'If you can point me out the man who dropped that knife in the lady's room,' he concluded, 'I will give you a hundred rupees.'

Kala Persad, who had listened with eyes downcast, as though tracing out on the struggling vegetation of the roadside the details related to him, raised his head and looked at Poignand hesitatingly.

'There are one or two things I must know, Sahib, before I can give an answer,' he said. 'Let us go back toward the city, and talk as we go.'

Something half-hearted and halting in his manner disappointed Poignand, who, without attaching any vast importance to the strange consultation, would have been better pleased by a prompt, and positive indication of the criminal. That at least would have given him the excitement of trying to verify the snake-charmer's theory; but this temporising looked like a fizzle-out of the boasted powers. However, he assented to the proposal, and retraced his steps towards the cantonments, allowing the old man to shamble along by his side.

Kala Persad asked two apparently irrelevant questions― one as to the lady's age, and another about the amount of light in her room— and Poignand, inwardly fuming, was beginning to wonder what folly he would ask next, when an unusually long silence caused him to look askance at his companion. His eyes met nothing but thin air. Kala Persad had taken advantage of his preoccupation to slip away into the shadows of the night.

The next morning Poignand sat in the veranda of the Merwoods' bungalow, cursing his luck, and the Collector, and every one, great and small, who, in his opinion, had thrown obstacles in the way of the attainment of his purpose. Above all did he curse Kala Persad for his behaviour, of the previous night, inasmuch as the snake-charmer's defection had made a fool of him in his own eyes. This was an unpardonable offence, which the conviction that the old man had fled owing to a knowledge of his own incompetency quite failed to excuse. Though he would never have confessed it, Poignand was disgusted that he had either trusted to a broken reed, or had given away the secret of his mission to a charlatan who would blab it about the bazaars.

Major Merwood had gone to his office, and his cousin was busy housekeeping, so he had the veranda all to himself. This was the one bright spot on his horizon at present, for the effort of making himself agreeable to his hosts was becoming, under the circumstances, unbearable. As it was, he was half afraid that his cousin suspected some sinister motive in his visit, and it would be a fatal error if his moodiness had the effect of putting Major Merwood on his guard.

He was sitting on the side of the bungalow nearest to the Collector's, where the two gardens were separated by a low wall choked, and in many places hidden, by a mass of tangled undergrowth. In the intervening space the miniature jungle grew so thickly that only here and there through a break in the foliage was Ames's bungalow visible, while between this luxuriance and the veranda there was scarcely room for the drive and a few feet of flower border. Save for the hum of insects and the chirrup of the little grey squirrels under the eaves, there was no sound of life near by. Thus it was, when suddenly there fell upon Poignand the sensation of being an object of interest to unseen human eyes.

He looked this way and that along the deserted veranda; round at the windows, up the carriage-drive in vain, and was beginning to think his instinct was at fault, when his wandering gaze was arrested by a splash of red amid the green shrubbery in front. Looking closer, he saw the face of Kala Persad enframed in a twining cotton bush on the edge of the drive, nodding and mouthing at him with an excitement that only lacked a foaming mouth to suggest possession by the devil. Poignand's first instinct impulse was to break into loud abuse; but seeing the skinny hands held up for silence, he checked himself and went over to the shrubbery.

The snake-charmer waited till he was within whisper-shot, then hissed like one of his own cobras:

'Come with me, Sahib! Make no sound! I show you how kukhri get in Mem Sahib's room. You see everything, only must be quick.'

He turned and glided into the bushes to Poignand's intense astonishment, taking the direction of the Collector's compound wall. Determined not to lose sight of him till he had obtained some sort of satisfaction, the young man followed, making the best of his way through the interlacing growth, and striving to keep up with the sinuous form of his guide. Arrived at the dividing wall, Kala Persad made no halt, but squirming over the obstacle, continued his stealthy course through the shrubs of the Collectors garden. Not till he had gained the shelter of a bunch of feather-grass close to the bungalow did he pause, signing to Poignand to crouch beside him, and whispering:—

'Look! Burra Sahib give lesson. Sahib can see how it was done.'

Letting his eyes follow the direction of the brown forefinger, Poignand saw a sight the true importance of which his natural shrewdness was not slow to fathom. The cluster where they were concealed was close to the open window of the Collector's bedroom, and there a scene was being enacted which, to an outsider, would have meant nothing but eccentricity, but to the watchers spoke with terrible clearness of everything except motive. There were two occupants of the room, Ames and Gobind, the great grey ape of the hills — the same who had startled Poignand the previous night. On the bed in the centre of the room a heap of clothes was disposed so as to resemble a human form, and upon this dummy man and monkey were in turn practising strange antics.

First Ames would go to a peg on the wall, and, taking down a long-bladed hunting knife, would steal softly to the bed and drive the weapon over and over again into the mound of clothes, the ape watching him intently the while. Then the Collector would replace the knife, and go through the motions of escaping through the veranda, after which he would stand aside and motion Gobind forward. Horribly in earnest, the huge biped would imitate every motion his master had made, stealing across the room for the knife, approaching the bed, and using the long blade with unfaltering aim. Three times was the lesson repeated, and then an alteration was introduced. Just as Gobind was half way to the bed in the fourth attempt, Ames let a chair fall clattering to the ground. Immediately the ape sprang forward, and alighted with one mighty bound on the top of its imaginary victim, handling the knife with what would have been effect most deadly.

'See, Sahib!' whispered Kala Persad. 'Monkey not be frightened next time. Burra Sahib teach him what to do if Mem Sahib wake.'

With all his cocksureness, Poignand was very far from being a fool. He saw that this was a ease of nailing his man to the evidence, or of, as likely as not, missing fire altogether.

He stepped up to the window.

'Good morning, Mr. Ames,' he said. 'Thanks to your dress rehearsal, which I have just witnessed, my trip has not been quite so unproductive as you thought it would be.'

Ames was not the man to go to pieces in the presence of his accuser. His complexion went perhaps a shade sallower, but he drew himself up to his full height, stared coolly at Poignand, and chided Gobind, who was gibbering strange noises at the interruption.

Then he said very slowly, and as if weighing each word: 'You have the advantage of me, and will take your own course. I shall take mine. In the meanwhile, to prevent mistakes and without prejudice, please understand that Gobind's intentions were not femicidal, as you supposed, but homicidal. I should be sorry to have it go down that I could plan violence against a lady. Your statement last night that Mrs. Merwood thought she had been assailed came upon me as a surprise. I was under the impression that Gobind had learned his lesson better, but he must have made some stupid jumble about the rooms. It was a tour, you see, upon which he could not well be personally conducted beyond the edge of the veranda.'

'I have a witness to your statement,' said Poignand, pointing to Kala Persad, who stood mouthing at the window.

'Well, you know how to use him,' said the Collector, drily. 'You will find me prepared for anything that comes along,' and he waved his hand, as though to terminate the interview.

Poignand stepped from the room, beckoning the snake-charmer to follow. There was no need for any more creeping and crawling.

'What made you watch him?' he asked, as they proceeded down the drive.

'Sahib,' replied Kala Persad, 'when bad man with no wife live next door good man with young wife, then suspect bad man if bobbery happen. When Kala Persad suspect, he watch, not know why, but always watch. That's the reason of sneak off last night, so follow Sahib, and find out Burra Sahib's name.'

Before further questions could be put, two shots rang out in quick succession, from the bungalow, and together they ran back, Poignand leading. He burst into the room he had just left as Ames's khitmutghar and one or two house-servants entered by the door at the other end. Grasping a pistol in still twitching fingers, the Collector was lying stone-dead across the sweltering body of the ape.

Mark Poignand was discreetly silent as to his having come out on purpose to look after his cousin, and allowed the Merwoods, at least, to suppose that he had stumbled on the secret by merest accident. He managed, however, to elicit from the Major the reasons which prompted him to hush up the entry into his wife's room, and he also satisfied himself with regard to the insurances which gave rise to the original suspicion. Both these points were easily explicable.

Major Merwood had hoped to bring the attempt home to a notorious native robber of the district, add thought best to compass this end by lulling the suspect into a sense of security, while taking due precautions. The insurances were effected for the purpose of rearranging some old debts which his marriage with a well-dowered wife allowed him to place on a more satisfactory footing, with a view to gradual repayment with the aid of her income. The insurance was effected upon her life with her full knowledge and consent, because Merwood had some chronic ailment that prevented his risk being accepted by the company.

The point as to motive will never be quite cleared, but there is little doubt that Ames, who, it transpired, had pressed unwelcome attentions upon Mrs. Merwood to the verge of insult, desired to remove the husband in the hope of succeeding him. By the Merwoods' wish the real facts that led up to the Collector's mysterious suicide were confined to the four who knew them, and as two of these— Mark Poignand and Kala Persad— shortly left for England, there is little fear that the true story will ever filter into the gup of the cantonments.

___________________

2:  The Divination of the Zagury Capsules.

ON THE FIRST FLOOR of one of the handsomest buildings that are rapidly replacing 'Old London' in the streets running from the Strand to the Embankment was a suite of offices, bearing on the outer door the words 'Confidential Advice,' and below, in smaller letters, 'Mark Poignand, Manager.' The outer offices, providing accommodation for a couple of up-to-date clerks and a lady typist, was resplendent with brass-furnished counters and cathedral-glass partitions; and the private room in the rear, used by the manager, was fitted up in the quietly luxurious style of a club smoke-room.

But even this latter did not form the innermost sanctum of all, for at its far corner a locked door led into a still more private chamber, which was never to be entered by any of the inferior staff, and but rarely by the manager himself. In this room— strange anomaly within earshot of the thronging traffic of the Strand— a little wizened old Hindoo mostly sat cross-legged, playing with a basket of cobras, and chewing betel-nut from morning to night.

Now and again he would he called on to lay aside his occupations for a brief space, and these intervals were quickly becoming a factor to be reckoned with by those who desired to envelop their doings in darkness.

Mark Poignand, though the younger son of a good family, possessed only a modest capital, bringing him an income of under three hundred a year, and after his success in the matter of the Afghan Kukhri, he was taken with the idea of entering professionally on the field of 'private investigation.' He was shrewd enough to see that without Kala Persad's aid his journey to India would have ended in failure, and he determined to utilise the snake-charmer's instinctive faculty as the mainstay of the new undertaking.

He had no difficulty in working upon the old man's sense of gratitude to induce him to go to England, and all that remained was to sell out a portion of his capital and establish himself in good style as a private investigator, with Kala Persad installed in the back room. A rumour had got about that he had successfully conducted a delicate mission to India, and this, in conjunction with the novelty of such a business being run by a young man not unknown in society, brought him clients from the start.

At first Mark felt some anxiety as to the outcome of his experiment, but by compelling himself with an effort to be true to the system he had drawn up, he found that his first few unimportant cases worked out with the best results. Briefly his system was this:

When an inquiry was placed in his hands, he would lay the facts as presented to him before Kala Persad, and would then be guided in future operations by his follower's suspicions. On one or two occasions he had nearly failed through a tendency to prefer his own judgment to the snake-charmer's instinct, but he had been able to retrace his steps in time to prove the correctness of Kala Persad's original solution, and to save the credit of the office. It devolved upon himself entirely to procure evidence and discover how the mysteries were brought about, and in this he found ample scope for his ingenuity, for Kala Persad was profoundly ignorant of the methods adopted by those whom he suspected. It was more than half the battle, however, to start with the weird old man's finger pointed, so far unerringly, at the right person, and Mark Poignand recognised that without the oracle of the back room he would have been nowhere.

Some of Kala Persad's indications pointed in directions into which his own wildest flights of fancy would never had led him. It was not till Poignand had been in practice for nearly three months that a case was brought to him involving the capital charge— a case of such terrible interest to one of our oldest noble families that its unravelling sent clients thronging to the office, and assured the success of the enterprise.

One murky, fog-laden morning in December he was sitting in the private room, going through the day's correspondence, when the clerk brought him a lady's visiting card, engraved with the name of 'Miss Lascelles.'

'What like is she?' asked Poignand.

'Well dressed, young, and, as far as I can make out under her thick veil, good looking,' replied the clerk. 'I should judge from her voice that she is anxious and agitated.'

'Very well,' replied Poignand; 'show her in when I ring.'

And the other having retired, he rose and went to the back wall, where an oil painting, heavily framed, and tilted at a considerable angle, was hung. Behind the picture was a sliding panel, which he shot back, leaving an opening about a foot square into the inner room.

'Ho, there, Kala Persad!' he called through. 'A lady is here with a secret. Are you ready?'

As soon as a wheezy voice on the other side had chuckled, 'Ha, Sahib!' in reply, Poignand readjusted the picture, but left the aperture open. Settling himself in his chair, he touched a bell, and the next moment was rising to receive his client— a tall, graceful girl, clad in expensive mourning. Directly the clerk had left the room she raised her veil, displaying a face winningly beautiful, but intensely pale, and marked with the traces of recent grief. Her nervousness was so painfully evident that Poignand hastened to reassure her.

'I hope you will try and treat me as though I were a private friend,' he said, 'if you can bring yourself to give me your entire confidence, I have no doubt that I can serve you, but it is necessary that you should state your case with the utmost fullness.'

His soothing tones had the desired effect.

'I have every confidence in you,' was the reply, given in a low, sweet voice. 'It is not that that troubles me, but the fearful peril threatening the honour, and perhaps the life, of one very dear, to me. I was tempted to come to you, Mr. Poignand, because of the marvellous insight which enabled you to recover the Duchess of Gainsborough's jewel-case the other day. It seemed almost as though you could read the minds of persons you have not seen, and, Heaven knows, there is a secret in some dark mind somewhere that I must uncover.'

'Let me have the details as concisely as possible, please,' said Poignand, pushing his own chair back a little, so as to bring the sound of her voice more in line with the hidden opening.

'You must know, then,' Miss Lascelles began, 'that I live with my father, who is a retired general of the Indian army, at The Briary—a house on the outskirts of Beechfield, in Buckinghamshire. I am engaged to be married to the second son of Lord Bradstock— the Hon. Harry Furnival, as he is called by courtesy. The matter which I want you to investigate is the death of Lord Bradstock's eldest son, Leonard Furnival, which took place last week.'

'Indeed!' exclaimed Poignand. 'I saw the death announced in the paper, hut there was no hint of anything wrong. I gathered that the death arose from natural causes.'

'So it was believed at the time!' replied Miss Lascelles, 'but owing to circumstances that have since occurred, the body was exhumed on the day after the funeral. As the result of an autopsy held yesterday, Leonard's death is now attributed to poison, and an inquest has been ordered for tomorrow. In the meanwhile, by some cruel combination of chances, Harry is suspected of having given the poison to the brother whom he loved so well, in order to clear the way for his own succession; and the terrible part of it all is that his father, and others who ought to stand by him in his need, share in that suspicion. He has not the slightest wish to go away or to shirk inquiry, but he believes that he is already watched by the police, and that he will certainly be arrested after the inquest to-morrow.

'I must go back a little, so as to make you understand exactly what is known to have happened, and also what is supposed to have happened at Bradstock Hall, which is a large mansion, standing about a mile and a half from the small country town of Beechfield. For the last twelve months of his life, or, to speak more correctly, for the last ten months but two, Leonard was given up as in a hopeless consumption, from which he could not possibly recover. At the commencement of his illness, which arose from a chill caught while out shooting, he was attended by Dr. Youle, of Beechfield. Almost from the first the doctor gave Lord Bradstock to understand that his eldest son's lungs were seriously affected, and that his recovery was very doubtful. As time went on, Dr. Youle became confirmed in his view, and, despite the most constant attention, the invalid gradually declined, till, about two months ago, Lord Bradstock determined to have a second medical opinion. Though Dr. Youle was very confident that he had diagnosed and treated the case correctly, he consented to meet Dr. Lucas, the other Beechfield medical man, in consultation. After a careful examination, Dr. Lucas entirely disagreed with Dr. Youle as to the nature of the disease, being of the opinion that the trouble arose from pneumonia, which should yield to the proper treatment for that malady. This meant, of course, that if he was right there was still a prospect of the patient's recovery, and so buoyed up was Lord Bradstock with hope that he installed Dr. Lucas in the place of Dr. Youle, who was very angry at the doubt cast on his treatment. The new regimen worked well for some weeks, and Leonard began to gain ground, very slowly, but still so decidedly that Dr. Lucas was hopeful of getting him downstairs by the early spring.

'Imagine then the consternation of every one when, one morning last week, the valet, on going into the room, found the poor fellow so much worse that Dr. Lucas had to be hurriedly sent for, and only arrived in time to see his patient die. Death was immediately preceded by the spitting of blood and by violent paroxysms of coughing, and these being more or less the symptoms of both the maladies that had been in turn treated, no one thought of foul play for an instant. Discussion of the case was confined to the fact that Dr. Youle was now proved to have been right and Dr. Lucas wrong.

'The first hint of anything irregular came from Dixon, the valet, on Monday last, the day of the funeral. After the ceremony, he was clearing away from the sick room the sad traces of Leonard's illness, when, among the medicine bottles and appliances, he came across a small box of gelatine capsules, which he remembered to have seen Mr. Harry Furnival give to his brother the day before the latter's death. Thinking that they had been furnished by Dr. Lucas, and there being a good many left in the box, he put them aside with a stethoscope and one or two things which the doctor had left, and later in the day took them over to his house at Beechfield. The moment Dr. Lucas saw the capsules he disclaimed having furnished them, or even having prescribed anything of the kind, and expressed surprise at Dixon's statement that he had seen Harry present the box to his brother. Recognising them as a freely advertised patent specific, he was curious to test their composition, and, having opened one with this purpose in view, he at once made the most dreadful discovery. Instead, of its original filling― probably harmless, whatever it may have been— the capsule contained a substance which he believed to be a fatal dose of a vegetable poison— little known in this country, but in common use among the natives of Madagascar― called tanghin. Turning again to one of the entire capsules, he found slight traces of the gelatine case having been melted and resealed.

'I cannot blame him for the course he took. It was his duty to report the discovery, and apart from this he was naturally anxious to follow up a theory which would prove his own opinion, and not Dr. Youle's, to have been right. For if Leonard Furnival had really died by poison, it was still likely that, given a fair chance, he might have verified his, Dr. Lucas's prediction of recovery. The necessary steps were taken, and the examination of the body, conducted by the Home Office authorities, proved Dr. Lucas to be right in both points. Not only was it shown that Leonard Furnival undoubtedly died from the effects of the poison, but it was clearly demonstrated that he was recovering from the pneumonia for which Dr. Lucas was treating him.

'You have stated the case admirably, Miss Lascelles,' said Poignand. 'There is yet one important point left, though. How does Mr. Harry Furnival account for his having provided the deceased with these capsules?'

'He admits that he procured them for his brother at his request, and he indignantly denies that he tampered with them,' was the reply. 'It seems that Leonard was attracted some months ago by the advertisement of a patent medicine known as the "Zagury Capsules," which profess to be a sleep-producing tonic. Not liking to incur the professional ridicule of his medical man, he induced his brother to procure them for him. This first occurred when Dr. Youle was in attendance, and being under the impression that they did him some good, he continued to take them while in Dr. Lucas's care. Harry was in the habit of purchasing them quite openly at the chemist's in Beechfield as though for himself, but he says that before humouring his brother he took the precaution of asking Dr. Youle if the capsules were harmless, and received an affirmative reply. Unfortunately, Dr. Youle, though naturally anxious to refute the poison theory, has forgotten the circumstance, both he and Dr. Lucas having been successively ignorant of the use of the capsules.'

'You say that Lord Bradstock believes in his son's guilt?' asked Poignand.

'He has not said so in so many words,' replied Miss Lascelles, 'but he refuses to see him till the matter is cleared up. Lord Bradstock is a very stern man, and Leonard was always his favourite. My dear father and I are the only ones to refuse to listen to the rumours against Harry that are flying about Beechfield. We know that Harry could no more have committed a crime than Lord Bradstock himself, and papa would have come with me here to-day were he not laid up with gout. And now, Mr. Poignand, can you help us? It is almost too much to expect, you to do anything in time to prevent an arrest, but— but will you try?'

The circumstances demanded a guarded answer.

'Indeed I will,' said Poignand. 'It is not my custom to give a definite opinion till I have had an opportunity to look into a case, but I shall go down to Beechfield presently— it is only an hour's run, I think— and I will call upon you later in the day. I trust by then to be able to report progress.'

At his request, Miss Lascelles added a few particulars about the persons living at Bradstock Hall on the day of the death— besides Lord Bradstock and his two sons, there were only the servants— and took her leave, being anxious to catch the next train home.

Poignand waited till her cab wheels sounded in the street below, then rose hastily, and, having first closed the sliding panel, passed into the room beyond. He looked thoughtful and worried, for he could not, rack his brains as he would, see any other solution to the puzzle than the one he was called upon to refute. It was true that the details of which he was so far in possession were of the broadest, but every one of them pointed to Harry Furnival— the admittedly secret purchaser of the capsules— as the only person who could have given them their deadly attributes. And then, to back up that admission, there loomed up, in the way of a successful issue, the damning supplement of a powerful motive.

The tenant of the back room, he fully expected, would confirm his own impression— that they were called on to champion a lost cause. There was nothing at first sight as he entered the plainly furnished apartment either to reassure or to dash his hopes.

Kala Persad despised the two chairs that had been provided for his accommodation, and spent most of his time squatting or reclining on the Indian charpoy which had been unearthed for him from some East End opium den. He was sitting on the edge of it now, with his skinny brown hands stretched out to the warmth of a glowing fire, for Miss Lascelles's story had kept him at the panel long enough to induce shivering; and there was one thing that made him repent his bargain, it was the cold of an English winter. At his feet, like-minded with their owner, the cobras squirmed and twisted m the basket, which had first excited Poignand's curiosity on the midnight solitudes on the Sholapur-road.

'Well,' said Poignand, 'do you know enough English by this time to have understood what the lady said, or must I repeat it?'

The old man raised his filmy eyes, and regarded the other with a puckering of the leathery brows that might have meant anything from contempt to deep reverence. 'words— seprit words — tell Kala Persad nothing, Sahib,' he said. 'All words together— what you call one burra jumble— help Kala Persad to pick kernel from the nut. Mem Sahib, ish poke many things no use, but I understand enough to read secret. Why!' with infinite scorn, 'the secret read itself!'

Poignand's heart sank within him.

'I was afraid it was rather too clear a case for us to be of any use,' he said. The snake-charmer, as though he had not heard, went on to recapitulate the heads of the story in little snappy jerks.

'One old burra Lord Sahib big estates; two son, one very sick. First one hakim (doctor) try to cure— no use. Then other hakim; no use too — sick man die. Other son bring physic, poison physic, give him brother. Servant man find poison after dead. Old lord angry, says his son common budmash murderer; but missee Mem Sahib, betrothed of Harry, she say no, and come buy wisdom of Kala Persad. You not think that plain enough, sahib?'

'Uncommonly so,' said Poignand dejectedly. 'It is pretty clear that the Mem Sahib, as you call her, wants us to undertake a job not exactly in our line of business. If we are to satisfy her, we shall have to prove that a guilty man is innocent.'

'Yah! Yah-ah-ah-ah!' Kala Pesad drawled, hugging himself, and rocking to and fro in delight. And before Poignand could divine his intention, he had leaped from the charpoy to hiss with his betel-stained lips an emphatic sentence into the ear of his employer, who first started back in astonishment, then listened gravely.

Having thus unburdened himself, Kala Persad returned to the warmth of the fire, nodding and mouthing and muttering, much as when his wizened face had peered from among the bushes in Major Merwood's garden. The old man was excited; the jungle instinct of pursuit was strong upon him, and he began to croon weird noises to his cobras.

Poignand looked at the red-turbaned, huddled figure almost in awe: then went slowly back into his own room.

'It is marvellous,' he muttered to himself. 'As usual, the solution is the very last thing one would have thought of, and yet when once presented in shape is distinctly possible. It is on the cards that he may be wrong, but I will fight it out on that line.'

EARLY IN the afternoon of the same day there was some commotion at the Beechfield Railway Station, on the arrival of a London train, through the station master being called to a first-class compartment in which a gentleman had been taken suddenly ill. The passenger, who was booked through to the north, was, at his own request, removed from the train to the adjacent Railway Hotel, where he was deposited, weak and shivering all over with ague, in the landlord's private room at the back of the bar.

The administration of some very potent brown brandy caused him to recover sufficiently to give some account of himself, and to inquire if medical skill was within the capabilities of Beechfield. He was an officer in the army, it appeared— Captain Hawke, of the 24th Lancers— and was home on sick leave from India, where he had contracted the intermittent fever that was his present trouble.

'I ought to have known better than to travel on one of the days when this infernal scourge was due,' he said; 'but having done so, I must make the best of it. Are there any doctors in the place who are not absolute duffers?'

The landlord, anxious for the medical credit of Beechfield, informed his pest that there was a choice of two qualified practitioners.

'Dr. Youle is the old-established man, sir, and accounted clever by some. Dr. Lucas is younger, younger, and lately set up, though he is getting on better since his lordship took him up at the hall.'

'I don't care who took him up, replied Captain Hawke irascibly. 'Which was the last to lose a patient? That will be as good a test as anything.'

'Well, sir, I suppose, in a manner of speaking Dr. Lucas was,' said the landlord, 'seeing that the Honourable Leonard died under his care; but people are saying that Mr. Harry—'

'That will do,' interposed the invalid, with military testiness; 'don't worry me with your Toms and Harrys. Send for the other man— Youle, or whatever his name is.'

The subservient landlord, much impressed with the captain's imperious petulance, which bespoke an ability and willingness to pay for the best, went out to execute the errand in per son.

The moment the broad back disappeared into the outer regions, Captain Hawke, doubtless under the influence of the brown brandy, grew so much better that be sat up and looked about him. The bar-parlour in which he found himself was partly separated from the private bar by a glass partition, having a movable window that had been left open. The customers were thus both audible and visible to the belated traveller, who, strangely enough for a dapper young captain of Lancers, evinced a furtive interest in their personality and conversation. The first was chiefly of the country tradesmen type, while the latter consisted of the 'E done it, sure enough' style of argument, usual in such places when rustic stolidity is startled, by the commission of some serious crime.

'There was two 'tecs from Scotland Yard watched the Hall all night. 'Taint no use his trying to bolt,' said the local butcher.

'They do say as how the warrant's made out already,' put in another; 'only they won't lock him up till tomorrow, owing to wanting his evidence at the inquest! Terrible hard on his lordship, ain't it?'

'That be so,' added a third worthy; 'the old lord was always partial to Leonard— natural like, perhaps, seeing as he was the heir. But whatever ailed Master Harry to go and do such a thing licks me. He was always a nice spoken lad, and open as the day, to my thinking.'

'These rustic's have got hold of a foregone conclusion, apparently,' said the sufferer from ague to himself, as footsteps sounded in the passage, and he sank wearily down on the sofa again. The next moment the landlord re-entered, accompanied by a stout and rather tall man, whom he introduced as Dr. Youle.

The doctor's age might have been 45, and his figure, just tending to middle-aged stoutness, was encased in the regulation black frock coat of his profession. There was nothing about him to suggest even a remote connection with the tragedy that was engrossing the town. In fact, the expression of his broad face, taken as a whole, was that of one on good terms with himself and with all the world; though it is a question whether the large, not to say 'hungry' mouth, if studied separately, did not discount the value of its perpetual smile. He entered with the mingled air of importance and genial respect which the occasion demanded.

The captain's manner to the doctor differed from his manner to the landlord. Leaving medical skill out of the question, he recognised that he had a gentleman and a man of some local position to deal with, and he modified differed from his manner to the land lord had already told the doctor the history of his arrival, so that it only remained to describe his sensations and the nature of his ailment. The latter, indeed, was more or less apparent; for the shivering was still sufficiently violent to shake the horsehair sofa on which he lay.

'The surgeon of my regiment used to give me some stuff that relieved this horrid trembling instantly,' said the captain; 'but I never could get him to part with the prescription. However, I daresay, doctor, that you know of something equally efficacious.'

'Yes, I flatter myself that I can improve matters in that direction,' was the reply. 'My house is quite close, and I will run over and fetch you a draught. You are, of course, aware that the ague is of an intermittent character, recurring every other day till it subsides?'

'I know it only too well,' replied Captain Hawke. 'I shall be as fit as a fiddle to-morrow, probably only to relapse the next day into another of these attacks. I do not know how you are situated domestically, doctor; but I was wondering whether you could take me in, and look after me for a few days till I get over this bout. I am nervous about myself, and, without any disparagement to the hospitality of our friend here, should feel happier under medical supervision.'

Dr. Youle's hungry mouth showed by its eager twitching that the prospect of a resident patient, even for a day or two, was by no means distasteful to him.

'I shall be only too pleased to look after you,' he said. 'I shall be much occupied tomorrow— rather unpleasantly employed as a witness at an inquest; but, as you say, you will most likely be feeling better then, and not so much in need of my services. If you really wish the arrangement, you had better have a closed fly and come over at once. I will run on ahead, and prepare a draught for you.'

The landlord, not best pleased with the abstraction of his guest, went to order a carriage, and a quarter of an hour later Captain Hawke, with his luggage, was driven to the doctor's residence— a prim, red-brick house in the middle of the sleepy High-street. Dr. Youle was waiting on the doorstep to receive his patient, and at once conducted him to a small back room on the ground floor, evidently the surgery.

'Drink this,' he said, handing the invalid a glass of foaming liquid, 'and then if you will sit quietly in the easy chair while I see about your things, I don't doubt that I shall find you better. The effect is almost instantaneous.'

But the doctor himself could hardly have foreseen with what rapidity his words were to be verified.

He had no sooner closed the door than Captain Hawke sprang to his feet, all traces of shivering gone, and applied himself to the task of searching the room. One wall was fitted with shelves laden with bottles containing liquids, and these obtained the eccentric invalid's first attention. Rapidly scanning the labels, he passed along the shelves apparently without satisfying his quest, for he came to the end without putting his hand to bottle or jar. Pausing for a moment to listen to the doctor's voice in the distance directing the flyman with the luggage, he recommenced his search by examining a range of drawers that formed a back to the mixing dresser, and which, also systematically labelled, were found to contain dry drugs. Here again nothing held his attention, and he was turning away with vexed impatience on his face, when, at the very end of the row, and lower than the others, he espied a drawer ticketed 'Miscellaneous.'

Pulling it open, he saw that it was three parts filled with medicine corks, scarlet string, and searing wax, all heaped together in such confusion that it was impossible to take in the details of the medley at a glance. Removing the string and sealing wax, the inquisitive captain ran his fingers lightly through the bulk of the corks, till they closed on some hard substance hidden from view. When he withdrew his hand it held a small package, which, after one flash of eager scrutiny, he transferred to his pocket.

Even now, however, though he drew a long breath of relief, it seemed that the search was not yet complete; for, after carefully re-arranging and closing the drawer, he tried the door of a corner cupboard, only to find it locked. He had just drawn a bunch of peculiar-looking keys from his pocket, when the voice of the doctor bidding the flyman a cheery 'Good-day!' caused him to glide quietly back to the armchair.

The next moment his host entered, rubbing his hands, and smiling professionally.

'Your mixture has done wonders, doctor,' the captain said. 'I am another man already, and my experience tells me that I am safe for another forty-eight hours. By the way, I was so seedy when they hauled me out of the train that I don't even know where I am. What place is this?'

'This is Beechfield in Buckinghamshire, about an hour from town,' said the doctor. 'An old-fashioned county centre, you know.'

'Beechfield, by Jove!' exclaimed Captain Hawke, with an air of mingled surprise and pleasure. 'Well, that is a curious coincidence, for an old friend of my father's lives, or lived, somewhere about here, I believe— General Lascelles — do you know him?'

'Yes, I know the General,' replied Dr. Youle, a little absently, then added, 'He has a nice little place, called The Elms, a hundred yards or so beyond the top of the High-street.'

'Well, I feel so much better that I will stroll out and see the General, said Hawke.

'I will take care to be back in time to have the pleasure of dining with you— at half-past seven, I think you said?'

'Yes, that is the hour,' replied the doctor, thoughtfully; 'but are you sure you are wise in venturing out? Besides, you will find the general and his daughter in some distress. They are interested—'

'All the more reason that I go and cheer them up. What is wrong with them?' snapped the patient.

'They are interested in the inquest on poor young Furnival, which I told you was to be held to-morrow. It is possible that you may hear me spoken of in connection with, the case, though their view of it ought to be identical with mine— that death was due to natural causes. I believe the whole thing is a cock-and-bull story, got up by an impudent young practitioner here to account for his losing his patient, as I knew he would from the first. The wonder is that the Home Office analysts should back him up in pretending to discern a poison about which hardly anything is known.'

The captain had risen, his face wearing a look of infinite boredom.

'My dear doctor,' he said, 'you can't expect me to concern myself with the matter; I've quite enough to do to worry about my own ailments. I only want to see the general to chat about old times, not about local inquests. Will you kindly show we your front door, and point out the direction I should take to reach The Elms?'

Dr. Youle smiled, with perhaps a shade of relief at the invalid's self-absorption, and led the way out of the room. The captain followed him into the passage for a few paces; then, with an exclamation about a forgotten handkerchief, darted back into the surgery, and, quick as lightning, undid the catch that fastened the window, being at his host's heels again almost before the latter had noticed his absence. In another minute, duly instructed in the route, he started walking swiftly through the shadows of the early winter twilight towards the end of the town.

But apparently the immediate desire to visit his 'father's old friend' had passed away. Taking the first by-way that ran at right angles to the High-street, he passed thence into a lane that brought him to the back of Dr. Youle's house, where he disappeared among the foliage of the garden.

It was a long three-quarters of an hour before he crept cautiously into the lane again, and even then The Elms was not his first destination. Not until he had paid two other rather lengthy visits— one of them to the Beechfield chemist— did he find himself ushered into the presence of General and Miss Lascelles. A distinguished-looking young man, dressed, like father and daughter, in deep mourning, was with them in the fire-lit library, and evinced an equal agitation on the entrance of Dr. Youle's resident patient.

The conversation, however, did not turn on bygone associations and mutual reminiscences. Miss Lascelles sprang forward with outstretched hands and glistening eyes: 'Oh, Mr. Poignand!' she cried, 'I can see that you have news for us— good news, too, I think!'

'Yes.' was the reply: 'I hold the real murderer of Leonard Furnival in the hollow of my hand, which means, of course, that the other absurd charge is demolished.'

DR. YOULE, who was a bachelor, had ordered his cook to prepare a dainty little repast in honour of the guest, and as the dinner hour approached, and 'the captain' had not returned, he began to get anxious about the fish. On the stroke of seven, however, the front door bell rang, and the laggard was admitted, looking so flushed and heated that, when they were seated in the cosy dining-room, the doctor ventured on a remonstrance.

'I have been interested,' was the explanation, 'very deeply interested, by what. I heard at the Lascelles's about this poisoning case— so much so that I was obliged to stay and hear it out. It seems that the stuff employed was tanghin, the poison which the natives of Madagascar use in their trials by ordeal. Have you ever seen a trial by ordeal, doctor?'

It was the host's turn now to be bored by the subject. He shook his head absently, and passed the sherry decanter.

'It is an admirable institution for keeping down the population,' persisted the other. 'Whenever a man is suspected of a crime, he has to eat half-a-dozen of these berries, on the supposition that if he is innocent they will do him no harm. Needless to say, the poison fails to discriminate between the stomachs of good and bad men, and the accused is always proved guilty. It must be a terrible thing to be proved guilty when you are innocent, Dr. Youle.'

Some change of tone caused the doctor to look up and catch his guest's eye. The two men stared steadily at each other for the space of ten seconds, then the doctor winced a little and said.

'What have I to do with Madagascar poisons and innocent men? Tanghin is hardly known in this country, and cannot be procured at the wholesale druggists. I have never even seen it.'

The sound of a bell ringing somewhere in the kitchen premises reached them, and Poignand pushed his chair back from the table as he replied, 'Not even seen it, eh? Strange, then, that a supply of the berries, and a tincture distilled from them, should have been discovered in that corner cupboard in your surgery. Strange, too, that a box of the Zagury capsules, in which vehicle the poison was administered to Leonard Furnival, should have been found among your medicine corks, stamped with the rubber stamp of Hollings, the Beechfield chemist, though he swears he never supplied you with any capsules. Stranger still that Hollings should remember— now that it has been called to his mind— your apparently aimless lingering in his shop on the day before the death, and the fidgety movements now revealed as the legerdemain by which you substituted, your poisoned packet for the one the chemist had lying ready on the counter against Mr. Harry Furnivall's call. It is no use, Dr. Youle; you would have been wiser to have destroyed such fatal evidences. Your wicked sacrifice of a valuable life in order to prove your mistaken treatment right at the expense of your successful rival, is as clear as noonday. Ah! here is the inspector.'

As he spoke two or three men entered the room, and one of them— the detective who had been detailed to watch Harry Furnival— quietly effected the arrest.

The wretched culprit, broken down completely by Mark Poignand's unofficial 'bluff,' blustered a little at first, but quickly weakened, and saved further trouble by a full admission, almost on the exact lines of the accusation.

Knowing, by his previous observations, and from the question asked him by Harry, that Leonard Furnival was in the habit of taking the patent capsules, he had bought a box in London, and, after replacing the original contents with poison, had watched his chance to change the boxes. His motive was to injure, and put in the wrong, the rising young practitioner who had supplanted him, and whose toxicological knowledge, by a curious irony of fate, was the first link in the chain of detection. The tanghin berries he had procured from a firm of Madagascar merchants, by passing himself off as the representative of a well-known wholesale druggist, who, at the trial, disclaimed all knowledge of him and all dealings in the fatal drug.

Poignand's working out of the case was regarded as masterly; but he knew very well that unless he had started on the presupposition of Youle's guilt, he should never have come upon the truth.

When he got back to the office he went straight through to the inner room, where the shrunken, red-turbaned figure was playing with the cobras by the fire.

'Now, tell me, how did you suspect the doctor?' asked Poignand, after outlining the events which had led to a successful issue.

'Sahib,' said Kala Persad, gravely, 'what else was there of hatred, of injury, of revenge in the story the pretty Missee Mem Sahib told? Where there is a wound on the black heart of man, there is the place to look for crime.'

_______________

3: The Divination of the Vagus Nerve

THE YOUNG MAN who had sent in his name as Walter Sergrove sat facing Poignand in the client's chair. He was sturdily built, neatly dressed, and altogether wholesome looking; but his face was drawn and contracted as with the marks of many sleepless nights, or perchance of some great terror. The secret shutter communicating with the inner room was open, and on the other side of the wall a crinkled old ear was pressed against the aperture.

'A matter of life or death, Mr. Sergrove?' Poignand was saying. 'Well, we are used to such here, and I daresay we can help you. Am I to understand that your own life has been threatened?'

'Not much,' said the young fellow. with an effort at a contemptuous laugh. 'In that case I should be taking counsel of my own fists rather than of your head. It is a more precious life than mine which came near to being extinguished last night, and which I rely on your skill to safe-guard— in short, that of my cousin, Lettice Wilmot, to whom I am engaged. She was shot at by some miscreant armed with an air-gun as she sat in the drawing-room. The mystery and the horror of it is that her elder sister, Cicely, was killed with the same kind of weapon under very similar circumstances not quite a year ago.'

'I remember something of that case, though it was before I was professionally engaged,' replied Poignand. 'There was a robbery of valuable curios at the same time, was there not?'

'Yes— part of my father's collection of coins was taken after poor Cicely was murdered into silence,' said the young man. 'By far the most valuable portion was left behind, however, and it almost looks as if the same thief were coming back after the second lot, doesn't it?'

'I shall be better able to judge when you have given me full details of all the attendant circumstances,' replied Poignand. 'Let me have a full and succinct account of the previous crime, as well as this latest attempt, please— with such particulars as to people and locality as may put me in possession of all the facts.'

'I am not used to this sort of thing, so you must pull me up if I wander into irrelevant matters,' said the client. 'I am the only son of Mr. Theodore Sergrove, of the Croft House, near Harrow. I have just completed my course at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, and have received my commission, but have not yet joined. I have been staying at home for the last two months awaiting orders as to the battery to which I am attached.

'Since my mother's death, which took place many years ago, my father has been almost a recluse, and latterly a great invalid. Though far from being a wealthy man, he has always had enough to live upon without doing anything, and it is therefore not surprising that he should have sought to relieve the tedium of idleness by the adoption of various hobbies. Formerly he spent most of his time in studying natural philosophy and medical science; but although he keeps abreast of the times in these and kindred subjects, the fad to which he how chiefly devotes himself is the collection of ancient coins. As a numismatist he has become quite a leading authority, his researches in this direction having gained for him a Fellowship of the Royal Society. I tell you this not out of any particular sympathy with his pursuits, but in order to explain the terrible occurrence of last September.

'Before coming to that, I must refer to the composition of the family at the Croft House and the condition of my father's health. Some five years ago my uncle by marriage, General Wilmot, died suddenly, leaving his two orphan daughters, Cicely and Lettice, to my father's care. The trust was one of very heavy responsibility, for General Wilmot was a rich man, and the girls inherited in equal portions the whole of his funded property. My father has often said that he would never have undertaken it if he could have foreseen the break-down in his constitution which was to occur about two years later. My cousins had been resident at the Croft House about that period when he became subject to cataleptic seizures, which, recurring at intervals, left him utterly prostrate and insensible for hours at a time.

'At four  o'clock in the afternoon, of September 19 last year, my father was taken with one of these seizures. On that date I was at Woolwich, and my younger cousin, Lettice, was away at school at Eastbourne, so that the household at the Croft House only consisted of my father, and Cicely, and the three maid servants. Dr. Lake, of Harrow, who had been in attendance on many previous occasions of a similar kind, was sent for, and by his orders my father was placed upon the sofa in the study where the attack occurred. From former experience it was not expected that he would recover consciousness for many hours, when he would come to in a state of great exhaustion; and as nothing could be done for him till then, the doctor left Cicely in charge of the patient, promising to return the last thing at night.

'The study where my father lay unconscious looks on to the lawn at the rear of the house, and is lighted by two French windows, which were left open by the doctor's orders to allow of the entrance of plenty of fresh air. My cousin Cicely, who I must tell you, was then in her twentieth year, and a very capable manager, sat down to watch the sick man. In these seizures he lies perfectly motionless, and having tended him before many times, she knew that to wait for the first sign of returning sensibility was the only service she could render.

'At half-past six the parlourmaid brought her some refreshment, and lit the lamp on the table. At five minutes to seven the same servant came to answer to the bell to remove the tray, and that was the last time my poor cousin was ever seen alive except by her murderer. When the parlourmaid left the room with the tray, my father was lying in the same condition of deathly unconsciousness on the sofa, Cicely had resumed a book she had been reading before her brief meal, and the French windows were still open. At half-past eight, when Dr. Lake paid his promised call, Cicely was found sitting in the same chair with the book on her lap, but quite dead from a bullet wound that had penetrated the lungs, the horror of the situation being increased by the fact that my father still lay unconscious on the sofa. His bureau had been broken open, and about one-third of his collection of coins, valued at nearly £2000, had been removed.

'As we are now concerned with the more recent event, I will not at present go further into the details of that terrible discovery than to say that the evidence pointed clearly to some miscreant having shot Cicely through one of the open French windows from the lawn. The police worked very hard on the case to find some suspicious character who could have had knowledge of my father's valuable collection, and also of his frequent incapacitating seizures, for it was their theory that the crime was perpetrated by some such person. They were, however, unable to point to anyone coming under this description; and though a keen watch was kept on the usual channels for disposing of coins, no trace of the missing collection has yet been discovered.

'My father did not recover from the stupor till late on the morning after the murder, and so great was the shock of learning what had happened, that for some time his life was despaired of. He had several attacks in rapid succession, and ever since they have been more frequent and severe than formerly. So deeply did he feel the cruel death of his niece and ward that he sent for her sister Lettice from school, and has kept her at home, so that, as he says, the responsibility, of preserving her from harm may be his entirely. But on no account will he permit her to nurse him, or be in the room with him during the cataleptic attacks. A professional nurse was engaged, whose duty it is to attend him exclusively on these occasions.

'I come now to the occurrence of yesterday, and which is the immediate cause of my consulting you. About mid-day my father, who was engaged, as usual when he is in fair health, in his study, was struck down with a seizure. I was out riding at the time, but on my return I found that the customary precautions had been taken. Dr. Lake had been sent for; he had pronounced his stereotyped formula that nothing could be done but wait. The patient had been laid on the sofa in the study, and Mrs. Tickers, the nurse, had been installed m charge.

'I must tell you here, Mr. Poignand, that my father is not a man to inspire much sympathy— I might even add affection— and we at the Croft. House have become so familiar with these recurring fits that perhaps we do not think as much of them as we ought to. I make this confession in order to show you that, apart from the absence of my father from the luncheon and dinner table, the routine of the household was not diverted from its ordinary course.

'I spent the greater part of the afternoon in the grounds with Lettice, to whom after a long attachment I was formally engaged in the spring. We received frequent bulletins of 'no change' from the study, which were confirmed by Dr. Lake on his second visit at five o'clock, when he pronounced the attack to be an unusually severe one, and not likely to yield for many hours. At seven o'clock Lettice and I dined alone together, after which she went into the drawing-room, while I paid my nightly visit to the stable, intending to join her when I had smoked a cigarette and given some instructions to the groom. I was out of the house altogether about twenty minutes.

'The stable yard is at the side of the house, and is approached by a door at the end of a passage leading through the kitchen premises. On emerging from this passage into the hall on my return, I was amazed to see Lettice standing by the hall table as pale as death, and trembling violently— looking, in fact, as though she had been seized with a sudden faintness while making for the study door which was just beyond her. This is exactly what had happened, but I was yet to learn the terrible cause.

'I went close, and she laid her head on my shoulder, pointing at the same time to the shut door of the drawing room on the other side of the hall.

'In there!' she said in an agitated whisper, 'in there! I have been shot at— like Cicely. I was going to see if uncle is safe, but I am frightened.'

'I soothed her as well as I could, and got from her as quickly as possible what had occurred. She had been seated at the piano in the drawing-room— not playing, because there was sickness in the house— but looking over some sheets of new music which had arrived by post when suddenly there was a crashing thud in the wall behind ; her, accompanied by a shower of scattered plaster. For an instant she was too startled to move or think, but the next moment there flashed across her the dreadful circumstances of her sister's death, and she saw the similarity.

'A glance at the wall showed her that a bullet was embedded in the plaster and brickwork, and she rushed from the room lest a second shot should be fired through the open window. Her first thought was to ascertain if all was well in the study, and she was on her way thither when she was overcome with the faintness in which I found her.

'I told her on no account to stir from where she was, and then entered the drawing-room. With the exception of the dent in the wall, in which, the half-flattened bullet was clearly, visible, there was no sign of anything wrong. The lamp burned brightly, and the garden outside the open windows, so far as the rays from the room penetrated, was quiet and deserted. My first thought, now that Lettice was safe, was naturally of my father, and stepping out on the gravel path that skirts between the house and the lawn, I passed alone to the study window. This, too, was open, for the night was hot, and the invalid needed air, and I had an uninterrupted view of the interior.

'The nurse was knitting quietly by the table, and my father was stretched on the sofa, still motionless and unconscious in the clutches of the catalepsy. The occupants of the study had plainly not been molested, or even disturbed, by the dastard scoundrel who had so nearly committed murder a few feet away. Without giving any reason, I merely told the nurse that she had better dose the windows and draw down the blinds. Having seen this properly attended to, I passed, through the study and back into the hall where Lettice was waiting for me. My first impulse was to raise an alarm, send for the police, and institute a hue and cry in the grounds and in the neighbourhood, in case any mysterious lurker should be prowling about. A rapid review of the case, however, decided me against this course. In the first place, the police had absolutely failed to find any trace of Cicely's murderer, though my father had stimulated them with the offer of a handsome reward, and they had had a distinct clue in the missing coins. In this present case the attempt at murder had been unsuccessful, and nothing, so far as I could then judge, and as I have since proved, had been taken away. As I stated just now, the only explicable theory is that the same criminal returned last night for the remaining portion of the collection; but then, again, second thought showed that there was one strong point at least not wholly reconcilable with this. My father's coins— the only thing of portable value in the house— were in the study. Why, then, should a murderous attack have been made on Lettice in the drawing-room? The question was beyond my answering, and I determined to have the advice of an expert. It seemed to me that the principal object to be obtained was not so much the punishment of the criminal as the prevention of further attacks, and that to do this it was necessary to get to the heart of the mystery.

'After inducing Lettice to go upstairs to her bedroom, I took my revolver and patrolled the grounds during the whole of the night. Dr. Lake paid another visit to his patient at ten o'clock and found him in the same condition, but neither to the doctor nor to any one did I mention what had occurred. At eight o'clock this morning the nurse reported that my father was showing signs of returning consciousness; and when I left home an hour later to come here, the doctor, who had looked in again, informed me that he was coming to. hut was very prostrate from the effects of the attack. I think I need only add that to prevent surmises on the part of the servants. I have slightly moved a picture so as to cover the hole made by the bullet in the wall, and that Lettice will keep her own counsel on what occurred till we have skilled advice, though of course my father will have to be taken into confidence when he has sufficiently recovered. Can you come back with me at once?'

So clearly and succinctly had the young man unfolded his narrative that there remained but one question which it seemed necessary to Poignand to put. But it was an all-important one, and required delicacy of treatment, involving, as it might, a reflection on some as yet unmentioned member of the family. He began to put it forthwith, but with a reluctance that could not fail to be noticed.

'Yes,' he replied, 'my presence on the spot will probably be desirable, but before I settle my programme I must get you to enlighten me on one further point. It is based on the question you yourself asked in the course of your narrative just now: "Why was Miss Lettice Wilmot attacked in the drawing-room when the only motive we know of would have made the study the objective?" That seems to be the key-note of the whole situation, and it does you credit to have noticed it. Do you see what it leads to— that there may have been another motive than the robbery of coins?'

Walter Sergrove smiled as he replied with an assumption of great penetration:—

'I see that it leads to a blind wall, as you will be the first to admit when I furnish the further enlightenment you are in need of. You very properly want to know what would happen to Lettice Wilmot's inheritance in the event of her death. Know, then, that it would pass into the hands of my father as next-of-tin, or, in other words, into the possession of the one man in the world who we all know was physically incapacitated from committing both these crimes. At his death I suppose it would come to me. There are no other relatives who would benefit by harm coming to Lettice, and I myself should be a present loser by her death, for before long I shall share her property as her husband. I am putting it practically, you see, for your own convenience. I couldn't expect a gentleman of your profession to believe my bare word that I had not attempted to murder my sweetheart and cousin if my interests lay that way.'

On the whole, Poignand congratulated himself that he had got the information he needed as smoothly as could have been expected. He had the tact not to attempt to justify his curiosity on the point he had raised, and, excusing himself for a moment, he retired into the inner room.

It was fully five minutes before he returned, and when he reappeared he looked so seriously preoccupied that Walter Sergrove, who had been idly turning the leaves of a newspaper, started eagerly to his feet.

'You have formed some theory; you have decided on a plan of action?' he cried.

There was something subdued and almost sympathetic in Poignand's voice as he answered: 'I can hardly say that yet, but I have an idea in which direction to look for further developments. I want to prefer a request, Mr. Sergrove— to make a condition, in fact.'

'If it will in any way assist your inquiry, it is granted already,' said the young man, stoutly.

'Well, in a paradoxical way— yes,' replied Poignand. 'My stipulation is that you assist me by withholding your assistance. It is absolutely necessary, if my crude idea is right, and if we are to secure Miss Wilmot against further attempts, that I should work this case single-handed. What I require is that you leave it, so far as you are concerned, where it is now. Go home and act as if nothing of the kind had happened. Speak to no one, not even to your father, of last night's event, and prevail upon Miss Wilmot to be silent, and to behave as usual also. In that case I think I can promise you results.'

Walter Sergrove looked disappointed. He had been hoping to take a prominent part in tracking his sweet-heart-cousin's assailant, he said. And he did not see how an examination was to be made of the scene of the crime without his aid.

'It is open to you to go to the police― and I frankly tell you that I should prefer your doing so,' said Poignand, 'or to accept my services on the conditions I have named.'

'Very well,' was the reply; 'I will trust to you. You will, begin at once?'

'I shall have travelled a considerable way along the lines that have suggested themselves by this evening,' said Poignand, rising to put an end to the interview. 'One last instruction. In the event of my presenting myself at the Croft House in any other character than my own, do not appear surprised, and, above all, conceal the fact that you know me. Act in every respect as would be natural under the circumstances that will be seen on the surface. Take no umbrage at any thing I may do or say. and remember that I have but one object— identical with yours— the saving of Miss Wilmot from what I believe to be the threatening of a great danger.'

Evidently impressed by the gravity of his manner, Walter Sergrove gave the required assurance and took his leave.

Directly he was gone Poignand put on his hat, and after giving sundry instructions in the outer office, de scended to the street. Calling the first cab be met, he told the driver to take him to an address in Harley-street, which was the residence of his old schoolfellow and friend, Dr. Seymour Griffiths, now a consulting specialist, rapidly rising to the front rank of his profession.

The young physician was busily engaged, but on hearing who it was who wanted to see him so urgently, he gave orders for Poignand's immediate admission. The two friends were closeted together for the best part of an hour, and when Poignand left the house, though his step may have been more assured than when he entered, his brow was darker, his face more sternly set.

He saw his way clearly, but he did not like his task. He meant to go through with it, though.

ON THE afternoon of the same day, Dr. Lake, of Harrow, returned to his house in the High-street from a round of visits, just as the school clock was striking 5. The doctor was a large, slow-moving, slow-thinking, rather pompous man, of the old-fashioned family practitioner type, which, so far as professional knowledge goes, is content to remain pretty much where it was in student days, trusting to personal experience rather than to fresh study to keep its hand in.

Dr. Lake's experience was fairly useful to him so far as it went, for he had a very good practice among the youthful ailments of John Lyon's foundation, and in doctoring hypochondriacal old ladies, but it was hardly of the kind to inspire confidence in a doubtful and intricate case. He seldom had such on his books, and it had long been a cause of wonder in the neighbourhood that old Mr. Sergrove, of the Croft House, never looked further afield for the cure of his catalepsy.

The doctor descended from his brougham and ascended the steps to the front door, which was flung open by a man servant, who had evidently been waiting for him.

'There is a gentleman in the surgery to see you, sir,' said the man. 'I showed him there because he said he had called on business.'

'Quite right, William— a patient, I suppose,' replied the doctor, putting up his gold eye-glasses to read the card the servant handed him.

'Why, no, it isn't,' he added to himself, as he mumbled the name. 'Dr. Seymour Griffiths, of Harley-street. That's the man that's jumped to the front so quickly in the last year or two— a conceited young prig, half my age, who has the impudence to be at the top of the tree. What in the name of all that's unprofessional and wanting in etiquette does he mean by calling on me in this way? A London specialist approaching a general practitioner! A reversal of the usual order of things. indeed! What next?'

The doctor had been pompously crossing the hall, and with the final exclamation he opened the surgery door and entered. His preconceived idea of the unfitness of things received additional force at the sight of his visitor. To know that the quietly dressed, self-assured young man of thirty who rose to greet him had attained the position of a great London specialist was also to know, Dr. Lake thought, that the profession was going to the bad, post haste.

'Dr. Seymour Griffins?' he inquired, with an eloquent elevation of eye brow.

The visitor bowed politely, and resumed his seat in response to his host's curt gesture.

'I have called, Dr. Lake, on a very delicate matter,' he began. 'In fact, its extreme delicacy must be an excuse for what I am, of course, aware would be an unprofessional and most unwarrantable intrusion. Before I broach my business, let me say that I place myself entirely in your hands, and that I shall take no steps in a matter concerning one of your patients without your full sanction and approval. Let me add, also, that you will only be observing the strict rules of etiquette if you withhold both.'

The visitor's implied apology and deferential demeanour disarmed the family practitioner at once. He began to think that if the march of science demanded the services of younger votaries, it would after all be safe in the punctilious hands of such a courteous votary as this.

'My dear sir, I am charmed to be associated with a man of your reputation,' said Dr. Lake, 'a reputation which, if you will allow me to say so, is sufficient warrant that there is a good reason for the slight irregularity. Pray, say in what way I can assist you, and in which of my patients you are interested.'

'You are too flattering,' was the reply. 'The case on which I have been asked to consult with you is that of Mr. Theodore Sergrove of the Croft House.'

'Indeed!' said Dr. Lake. 'I had no reason to suppose that he was otherwise than satisfied with my treatment.'

'Nor is he,' the visitor hastened to explain. 'Mr. Theodore Sergrove knows nothing of my— shall, we call it— intervention in the matter. I am here at the instance of the son, Mr. Walter Sergrove, who desires to relieve his own responsibility by obtaining a second opinion in his father's case. He called on me this morning, and asked me to see you about it with a view to a consultation.'

'That will be rather a difficult matter,' replied Dr. Lake. 'Mr. Sergrove is a very strange man, and the relations between him and his son are not of the most cordial nature. When he hears what Walter has been doing, he will probably turn the young man out of the house and refuse to have anything to do with either of us.'

'I gathered as much from young Mr. Sergrove himself,' returned the specialist promptly. 'He is most anxious that his father should be kept in ignorance of his action, and that is the reason why he induced me to come to yon direct instead of making the arrangement with you himself. He wishes you to introduce me at the Croft House as though it were entirely of your own initiative, and he intends to simulate ignorance of our proceedings. As I said before, I am quite aware of the irregularity of this course, and if you decline to go further in it I am prepared to accept your decision in good part.'

The decision was soon given. The family practitioner felt that his dignity had been carefully respected, and, moreover, he was moved by the consideration of wishing to oblige young Mr. Sergrove. He knew of Walter's engagement to his cousin, and, in the precarious health of the elder Sergrove, it would not do to offend his successor, and so alienate the nucleus of a promising 'family' from the practice.

Dr. Lake gave his consent graciously enough, adding that as there was no time like the present he would drive Dr. Griffiths over to the Croft House at once.

As soon as the two were ensconced in the brougham, they turned of one accord to a discussion of the case— that is to say, the London specialist listened while Dr. Lake described his patient's symptoms.

The fits to which the elder Mr. Sergrove were subject were, in the opinion of his own medical attendant, the result of pressure on the brain caused by his studious habits. They generally supervened in the latter part of the day, and varied in duration from six to twenty-four hours. For instance, the last fit but one, which had occurred about a month previously, commenced at two in the afternoon and was over by ten the same night, while the seizure of the day before had begun about noon, and the patient was not thoroughly him self again till ten o'clock on the following morning. The symptoms were always the same— complete loss of consciousness, a rigidity scarcely discernible from death, and a cessation, so far as was noticeable, of the beating of the heart.

'That is curious,' said the consultant. 'The heart, of course, cannot really cease beating for twenty-four hours and the patient still live.'

'There must be a faint beat, I suppose,' said Dr. Lake, 'but it is so faint that I have often been unable to detect it. I always try the heart the first thing on reaching the patient, and as a rule it is without pulsation. I may tell you in confidence that on the occasion of Mr. Sergrove's first seizure four years ago I was misled by the apparent failure of the heart's action into the belief that he was actually dead. That, however, was a very short attack, and the patient undeceived me by coming to shortly after my arrival.'

'You try the heart several times in the course of a seizure?'

'The number of times depends on the length of the attack. I pay three or four visits on each occasion as a rule, and always try the heart the moment I arrive, and,' added Dr. Lake as an afterthought, 'sometimes before I leave. It is one of those cases in which there is really very little to be done but to wait.'

The London specialist said nothing, but sat back silently as the carriage passed swiftly through the darkening country lanes. At length it turned into a short 'drive,' and pulled up before the front door of a grey stucco house which stood back, ivy-clad and lonely, some fifty yards from the road. Dr. Lake looked at his watch.

'It is past seven,' the said. 'The young people will be at dinner. We shall find Mr. Sergrove in the study alone. He has been much shaken by this last attack, and when I saw him this morning, he expressed his intention of not joining the family at meals for a day or two.'

The bell was answered by a maid-servant, who ushered the two gentlemen into the drawing-room, and went to inform her master of Dr. Lake's call. The moment she had departed with her message, the London specialist, who had been gazing curiously round the old-fashioned-room, brought back his wandering attention from the furniture and the ornaments to the business in hand.

'You have met me so freely, doctor, that I should like to make this as easy as possible for you with your patient,' he said. 'I presume that, you will see Mr. Sergrove alone first. Will it not simplify things all round and do away with any reluctance to admit me if, instead of introducing me as a consulting physician specially called in to examine him, you merely say that you are thinking of taking a holiday, and that I am to act as your locum tenens? You could add that, as it is an important case, you wish to explain it to me personally before entrusting him to my care. It will be easy enough to change your mind about the holiday afterwards.'

Surely never was there, in Dr. Lake's opinion, such an accommodating specialist. The proposal, so thoughtfully and delicately made, was just what he would have put forward himself if he had dared, and would relieve him of all chance of incurring his patient's displeasure at arranging an unexpected consultation. By the time the maid returned to summon him to Mr. Sergrove's presence, it was settled that Dr. Seymour Griffiths was to pose as his assistant, under the name of Brown, lest the cataleptic's researches should have familiarised him with the fame of the visitor.

The moment he was left alone the latter's inquisitiveness reasserted itself tenfold. Rising from his seat, he made a stealthy tour of the apartment; he became deeply interested in the pictures on the wall furthest from the window, his curiosity even leading him to remove one of them and examine the space behind; he walked to the French windows and looked cautiously into the garden, paying particular attention to a laurel bush which grew some five yards away; and, finally, he retreated to the piano and measured with his eye a direct line to the bush. As he finished his survey, Dr. Lake reappeared to conduct him to the patient, who had consented to receive him in the character of a locum tenens. The two were crossing the hall when the dining-room door suddenly opened, and Walter Sergrove was seen holding it for a young lady to pass out. She bowed pleasantly to the family doctor and proceeded up the stairs, and Walter was shutting the door again when his eyes fell on Dr. Lake's companion. He gave no sign of recognition, but, as his eager gaze noted the destination of the colleagues, he grew ghastly white, and would have fallen but for his tightening clutch on the door. He recovered in an instant, and. retiring into the room, shut himself in.

'Not badly acted that, considering that you are here by his invitation,' whispered Dr. Lake, on the threshold of the study.

'He seemed a trifle scared, though, at what he had done. The old man is a regular tiger, you see.'

The specialist nodded gravely, and followed into the presence of the invalid. The study was dimly lighted, but out of the obscurity two bright spots glowed with all the lurid effect of an electrical phenomenon.

Advancing into the room, Dr. Lake's colleague saw that they were nothing more than the burning orbs of a spare, elderly man, who was seated in a large arm-chair with a tray of coins on his knee. He wore a sombre-hued dressing-gown, and his scanty iron grey locks were covered with a black velvet skull cap, The thin, ascetic features were tinged just now with a hectic flush, and the bird-like effect in his general appearance— originally produced by an aquiline nose— was heightened for the moment by the fleshless, talon-like fingers that toyed with the objects on the tray.

'This is Dr. Brown, the gentleman who will take charge of my patients in my absence, Mr. Sergrove,' said Dr. Lake. 'I feel sure you will be safe in his hands.'

The quaint figure in the arm-chair gave a jerky nod, and in a harsh, rasping voice bade his visitors be seated. Dr. 'Brown' walked well forward and sat down on the sofa, which had the effect of placing him almost alongside the patient in such a position that he had a side view of Mr. Sergrove's face, and, by leaning a little to one side, a back view of the nape of his neck. The latter spot seemed to have some strange fascination for him, and all the time his hands kept nervously drumming the sofa.

Wrapped up in his own self-importance, Dr. Lake failed to notice his colleague's fidgetiness. Seating himself on the other side of the patient, he plunged into a description of the case. While the family practitioner prosed on, the glittering eyes of the patient were fixed askance on his new attendant with a furtive but ever-growing interest in the fidgety fingers, and the sidelong lances, and when the catalogue of symptoms was exhausted the rasping voice said—

'You have had prior experience of such a case, Dr. Brown?'

'Not personally,' was the reply; 'but I think I see what is wrong. Allow me for a moment—' and before the invalid could protest or hinder him the specialist sprang forward and lightly passed his fingers over the nape of Mr. Sergrove's neck, withdrawing them almost instantly. The patient started as though a wasp had stung him, then sank back in his chair with, a long, shuddering sigh.

He sat up again in a second, glaring at the strange doctor, and snapped— 'The vagus nerve ?'

'Exactly,' said Dr. 'Brown.'

'What Is your Christian name?' proceeded Mr. Sergrove, with apparent irrelevancy. A slight pause, and the answer came— 'Alfred.'

The patient bowed, and demanded further information.

'Your qualifications?' he asked, still with the shining eyes fixed on his interlocutor. 'M.D. of Oxford and London,' was the reply, given, with a scarce perceptible hesitation.

'The dates?'

'Oxford, 1886; London, 1888,' said 'Dr. Brown' boldly.

'I will put you to the proof,' returned the patient; and taking a book from the table at his side, he ran his long claw-like fingers through the leaves till he came to a certain page. His eyes passed quickly down the lines of print, and he shut the book sharply.

'This is a medical directory of the current year.' he said. 'There is no Doctor Alfred Brown here with the qualifications you mention. You stand convicted as an imposter, sir; but it is no matter. I perceive what your visit— in conjunction with your knowledge of the vagus nerve— portends, and I will satisfy your curiosity when you have enlightened me on one point: Are you a medical man or a detective?'

'My name is Mark Poignand, and I am here to inquire into the attempt on your niece's life last night,' was the answer, which caused Dr. Lake to turn white about the gills.

Upon Mr. Sergrove himself it had no effect whatever.

'Very well, then,' he said: 'as my method appears to be known to you, and you are evidently clever enough to supply the proofs with a little further trouble, I will save you that trouble and end the matter. You will find the air-rifle with which I killed my eldest niece in the false seat of the sofa on which you are sitting. I can see that you already suspected that piece of furniture as the receptacle of the weapon. It is the same rifle with which I made the second and unsuccessful attempt on my youngest niece last night. Before we go further, however, I shall be glad to hear, as a scientific student, how you came to apply such a little-known solution as that of the vagus nerve.'

Dr. Lake essayed to speak, but Mr. Sergrove himself waved him back contemptuously, and Poignand replied—

'My suspicion was directed towards you as the one who would most profit by your nieces' deaths. I went to a medical friend and asked him if it was possible that you could have shammed the catalepsy so as to deceive your doctor, and thus have committed the crimes while you were supposed to be helpless. He said, yes, it was distinctly possible under certain conditions, and he let me into the secret of the vagus nerve. He told me that it has recently been demonstrated by Czermak's experiments that a man having a wen exactly over the vagus nerve at the nape of his neck can stop the beating of his heart at will simply by pressing the wen. The amount of stoppage is regulated by the vigour of the pressure. Seymour Griffiths added— '

'Oh, it was Seymour Griffiths who posted you?' interrupted Mr. Sergrove coolly. 'I declare it is refreshing to be scientifically detected by a scientific man. Well?'

'Seymour Griffiths added that if you had a wen on your neck in the position he showed me, it was likely that you had shammed the major part of your seizures, and, at the advent of the doctor to examine you, had then induced a real fainting fit by stimulating the vagus nerve in the way indicated. The result of Czermak's experiments is not generally known to the faculty, and it would be very improbable that your medical attendant would suspect the cause of your condition. Having discovered the wen and obtained your admission in the pretence, of a witness, of course I have only one way open to me: I must send for the police. I fear it will be bad for the nurse as well, for in this second case— the attempt on Miss Lettice Wilmot— she must have known that you left the room while you were supposed to be lying insensible on the sofa.'

'There you are all at sea,' snarled the terrible old man. 'In justice to the woman, I must remove all doubt on that head. I chose her specially because of her somnolent qualities, and she was asleep when I stole into the garden to fire that ineffectual shot. When I had returned and had replaced the rifle I awoke her by the simple expedient of kicking a book on to the floor. I knew very well that whatever happened she would never own to having been asleep. In every other point you have hit the mark in a really wonderful manner. Poor old Lake here had no notion that, except during the thirty seconds or so while he was feeling my heart, I was lying here a very wide-awake and capable individual indeed. He will have a chance now to study the vagus in its more fatal aspect, for— there! and there! and there!'

As he spoke he. raised one skinny hand to the back of his neck, and the long talons dived under the collar among the iron-grey locks where Poignand's fingers had fumbled before. The last exclamation died away in a gurgling moan, while Poignand stared helplessly at the still more helpless doctor. Lake rose hastily, unbuttoned the murderer's waistcoat, and taking out his watch placed a hand over the region of the heart. It was not till fully two minutes had passed that the doctor said in awe-struck tones—

'He is dead; he must have known how to manipulate that infernal thing to a nicety. Nothing will start the human heart on again after it has ceased beating so long.'

AT ANY RATE Theodore Sergrove's wicked heart never beat again, and Lettice Wilmot's life and wealth were safe for ever from his greedy clutch. The secret of the murder he had committed, and the strange means by which his knowledge had enabled him to provide against suspicion, never became public property, for at Walter's earnest prayer the discovery and the confession were suppressed by the two witnesses.

Dr. Lake was only too glad to have the deception that had duped him concealed, while Poignand— the criminal had escaped through the grim portals— had no scruples in carrying out his client's wishes. It was easy, therefore, to certify Theodore Sergrove's death as due to natural causes, seeing that his 'fits' were notorious in the neighbourhood, and his medical attendant was with him when he died.

The air-rifle and the missing coins, removed as a blind on the occasion of the first crime, were found in the sofa, as stated by the murderer.

And what of Kala Persad? When he was informed of the divination, he crinkled his leathern features into a cunning smile, and pointed to the cobra basket.

'Sahib,' he said, 'from the snakes I got the wisdom which made me point to the man who seemed to slumber on the couch. In my village it is the proverb— 'From the still adder comes the most danger.'

________________

4: The Divination of the Kodak Films.

HIGH UP in the topmost turret of Okeover Castle sat Kala Persad. his leathery face glued to the window, and his eyes blazing like coals of fire at a group upon the terrace a hundred feet below. There were five persons in all who were focussed by those piercing orbs from the point of vantage in the tower. Three of the group had been upon the terrace some time; the other two had come up in succession within the last few minutes. The original trio consisted of an elderly lady, fur-clad and stately, having by her side a sweet-faced girl, so like in feature that they could only be mother and daughter, and of Mark Poignand, who had been slowly pacing up and down with them since breakfast.

To them had come up the stone steps from the park a young lady of dashing carriage and with stylish, tailor-made costume carelessly swinging a Kodak by its leather strap; and she in turn had been followed at the interval of a couple of minutes by a dapper, well-groomed man of five-and thirty, who, despite his short stature, was of distinctly military bearing.

Presently the group separated, and after a brief interval Mark Poignand appeared in the doorway of the turret chamber. Kala Persad was still squatting cross-legged on the chair which he had drawn to the window, but at the sound of his master's footsteps he looked up and thrust forward his silver-stubbled chin in peering curiosity.

'The Sahib has read the riddle?' he asked eagerly.

'No, indeed,' replied Poignand; 'and clever as you are, Kala, I should be very much surprised to hear that you had. Surely you don't mean—?' he continued, as he noted the glitter of the snake-charmer's eye.

'Bah!' interrupted Kala Persad, in the half-contemptuous tone that always irritated Poignand, though it never failed to reassure him. 'Bah! the vultures which perch on the summits of the Ghats sight more prey in an hour than the tigers of the jungle in a whole moon. The hiding-place of the Mem Sahib's jewels is known to thy servant, and it remains but to put forth thy hand to restore them to their owners.'

'Where are they, then?' asked Poignand breathlessly.

'The Sahib must first tell me this— so that by no chance do I go astray,' proceeded Kala Persad leisurely. 'The short Sahib who came on the terrace but now is he who saw and chased the robbers, is he not?'

'Yes, that is Sir Frederick Cranstoun; but for heaven's sake don't keep me waiting; where are the jewels?'

'The Sahib saw a young Missee Baba come from the great maidan (park) with a black box in her hand, swinging it thus? Well, in that box lies hid the secret of our desires. Let the Sahib procure and open that box without delay, and he will discover the so costly jewels which the old Mem Sahib deplores.'

Mark Poignand regarded the old man with half-dubious wonder.

'It is too late in the day for me to go back on your counsels now, Kala,' he said; 'otherwise I should say that you were at fault at last. Miss Hicks is an American lady, well known in society, and of great wealth. What possible connection can she have with the professional burglars who were caught almost in the very act of stealing Lady Hertslet's diamonds. The box she had in her hand is simply an instrument for taking sun pictures— a pastime to which, I have ascertained, she is much given; and, besides, I very much doubt if it would hold all the jewellery that was abstracted from the safe.'

'I have spoken; it is for the Sahib to act,' replied the snake-charmer curtly; and adjusting the folds of his scarlet turban, he turned to contemplate the landscape in dignified silence.

Poignand, knowing his moods, smiled softly, and quietly left the room. Making his way down the winding staircase to the chamber that had been allotted to him in the main wing of the castle, he lighted a cigarette and sat down to think out his follower's strange assertion. The more he gave his mind to it, the more astounding did the old snake-charmer's ultimatum seem.

THE BURGLARY, which was the cause of his presence at Okeover Castle, had been a very commonplace affair, only interesting to the world at large because of the enormous value of the family jewels stolen. Two nights previously the usual little comedy had been played while Lady Hertslet and her guests were at dinner, the servants, as usual on such occasions, being busy in the lower part of the house.

The ladder, which in country mansions seems to be kept ready for the special benefit of cracksmen, had been brought from an out-building, and by this means an entry had been effected through the window of her ladyship's dressing room, where was the safe containing the celebrated Hertslet diamonds. After prudently locking the doors leading on to the landing and into the adjoining bedroom, the burglars lost no time in getting to work. Meanwhile the party in the dining room was making merry in happy ignorance of what was going on upstairs.

Besides the hostess and her daughter, Mildred, there were present that night only the two guests staying at the Castle— Sir Frederick Cranstoun, a captain in the 23rd Hussars, and Miss Stella Hicks, an American heiress, better known in Paris and London than her native New York.

Towards the close of dinner an argument was started between Mildred Hertslet and Miss Hicks as to the height of a certain Swiss waterfall, and on it becoming known that Sir Frederick had a photograph of the falls in question which would decide the point there and then, he was requested to fetch it from his bedroom. The baronet of course complied, and went at once for the picture, his way taking him past the room in which the thieves were at work. As he came opposite the door, his attention was attracted by a gleam of light underneath, which was suddenly extinguished, as though on account of his approach, and, thinking it strange, he went close up and listened.

At first there was dead silence within but after a minute some faint whispering reached him, and he was confirmed in the conviction that something was wrong. Believing himself justified by the circumstances, he turned the handle of the door, only to find the latter locked, and to hear the scuffling sounds of hasty flight His first course was to shout lustily for help, and his second to hurry round through Lady Hertslet's bed chamber, rightly guessing that there would be another door thence into the dressing-room. On finding that also locked, he attacked it with such success that it gave way just as the head of the last burglar was disappearing below the window-sill, and just as the alarmed servants came trooping up the staircase to his aid.

Without a moment's hesitation Sir Frederick plunged down the ladder, and reached ground in time to catch a glimpse of the thieves as they sped across the terrace towards the park. Despite the fact that he was in evening dress, hatless, and lightly shod, the baronet gave chase at once, and pursued the three flying forms right across the moonlit expanse, through a fringe of wood on the opposite side, and into the highroad, which, after a half-mile stretch, led to the railway station in the village of Okeover. Here the burglars ran into the arms of a couple of policemen and a posse of railway, officials, who, owing to the wise foresight of the butler at the Castle in despatching a groom on a fast horse, were ready ambushed in the booking office.

Sir Frederick Cranstoun, who had stuck to the chase with dogged persistency, came up just as the capture had been effected, and a couple of men servants, who had followed in his wake, arrived at brief intervals a few seconds later. The three men were secured and taken to the county town, where they were subsequently identified as notorious metropolitan housebreakers; and the evidence against them was as complete as could be wished for, since Sir Frederick was close on their heels all the way, and sundry implements of their profession were found upon them.

The only thing necessary to general satisfaction that was not found (either on the burglars or anywhere else) was the case containing the Hertslet diamonds. It was not in the broken-open safe: it had not been left in the dressing-room, and the most careful search along the route taken by the flying thieves failed to reveal the slightest trace of it. The box and the diamonds had vanished apparently into the infinities of space. A policeman, and especially a provincial policeman, when he has once got the handcuffs on the undoubted perpetrator of a crime, is apt to look on the case as finished and done with, so far as he himself is concerned.

Lady Hertslet saw at once that if she trusted to the superintendent of the county police to find her jewels she would be in a fair way never to see them again. Without saying so in so many words, the officer allowed it to be seen pretty plainly that he thought it unreasonable of her to expect more from him than the procuring of vengeance on the criminals in the shape of a good rousing sentence. There was small comfort in this, seeing that in the superintendent's opinion the men would be sure to get seven years, and that the best chance of finding the jewels would be in watching them on coming out, when they would probably make for the spot where they had hidden their plunder during their flight.

Lady Hertslet was not the sort of woman to stand official nonsense. Having received the report, evidently intended to be final, of the futile police search along: the ground traversed, she said nothing, but quietly despatched her steward to town for Mark Poignand, whose successes in elucidating mysteries had reached her ears. He had presented himself without delay, but on hearing the circumstances had at once pronounced the case to be outside the limits of his ordinary practice.

'You see, Lady Hertslet,' he said, 'such small reputation as my bureau possesses has been gained in tracking out guilty persons. Here the thieves are. already in custody. There is no mystery to be cleared up. What you wish me to engage in seems to be nothing more nor less than a game of hide-and-seek, and I can lay claim to no particular ability in that line.'

'I only know that my jewels are worth eighty thousand pounds, and that it is a game well worth your playing if you care to undertake it,' was the reply.

Poignand thought for a moment. He had stated his honest conviction that a simple search was not more in his way of business than in anyone else's; but over and above this was the objection that it was not a case in which Kala Persad, from his lair in the Strand, could profitably employ his instinctive faculties. The old man could hardly be expected to point out the whereabouts of a missing jewel case that must be hidden somewhere in a stretch of country he had never seen, even if his talents extended to hitting off-hand on secret hiding-places.

'If I am going to make the attempt, it will be necessary for me to confide in you a private detail of my method,' Poignand said at last. 'I have a very shrewd assistant upon whom I greatly rely in these investigations, and I should require his presence here unknown to the members of your household, for his very existence is one of my trade secrets. The difficulty is that he is a foreigner— a Hindoo— and I do not quite see how to introduce him into the Castle without exciting general curiosity.'

'That can easily be arranged,' replied Lady Hertslet, eagerly. ' My steward is thoroughly to be trusted, and not a soul else need know of your man's presence. He can have the turret room at the top of the west tower, into which no one ever goes, and whence there is a clear view over nearly the whole of the route taken by the burglars on their way to the station. There is a separate door at the foot of the tower, by which he can get in and out after dark should he want to, and he would be able to see pretty well everything that is going on nearer home, if that would be an advantage.'

'We never know in these cases,' replied Poignand, oracularly, and then, having concluded his final arrangements, he returned to town to bring Kala Persad upon the scene.

Late the same evening, which was the one following the burglary, the old snake-charmer was smuggled— a mass of shawls and wraps— into the western tower, where he was safely installed in the turret chamber, Poignand himself being accommodated in the main wing of the Castle with the avowed object of finding the jewels.

Kala Persad's dogmatic assertion with reference to Mrs. Hick's Kodak was made the morning after their arrival.

AS A WELL-KNOWN figure in society, Poignand was received on an equal footing, and he had already taken advantage of this to learn what he could of his hostess and her daughter, as well as of his fellow-guests. Nothing had transpired to suggest any mystery of the kind indicated.

Lady Hertslet was a widow of enormous wealth, which would one day be inherited by her only daughter, and Poignand had not to exercise much of his ingenuity to discover that between Mildred Hertslet and Sir Frederick Cranstoun there existed an attachment which had not yet found favour with her mother. From a worldly point of view this was not, perhaps, surprising when certain stray bits of club gossip came to Poignand's recollection that, for a baronet, Sir Frederick was a poor man.

Miss Hicks gave the impression of being a fair specimen of the American heiress, who is at home everywhere but in her own land. Very sprightly and agreeable, with perhaps a tinge of what in an English girl would be called fastness, but which in ladies from over the Atlantic is allowed to pass as piquancy, she was considerably older than Mildred, and a year or two back had been the heroine of a rumour assigning her in matrimony with an Italian duke, a rumour since falsified by the duke marrying someone else. Her visit to Okeover Castle was the result of a long-standing invitation, the Hertslets having known her in London during several seasons.

Pondering Kala Persad's imputation in the privacy of his chamber, Poignand reflected that the worst he had heard of Miss Hicks was an inordinate desire to marry a 'title', but that was a weakness common to most of her country-women, and one which in no way justified a suspicion of having appropriated her hostess's diamonds. The odds, too, were heavy against her having stumbled by chance on the hiding-place, which a careful police search had failed to reveal. Poignand had not yet commenced the preliminaries of the investigation, and he decided to complete these before definitely following the line laid down for him by the snake-charmer.

The first item in his programme was naturally to interview and closely question the man who had been hot on the trail of the flying burglars, and who might have seen something during that wild career which should throw a new light on the situation. He had intended to get hold of Sir Frederick immediately after breakfast, but the baronet had set out for the stroll from which he had only just returned, and the interval had been spent in examining the broken safe and in hearing Lady Hertslet once again recapitulate the facts as far as they were known to her.

Quitting his room, Poignand set out to find Sir Frederick, and came upon him in the entrance at the foot of the grand staircase, where he was engaged in reading the barometer. He looked up at the sound of footsteps, and nodded coldly. Something in the baronet's manner in the drawing-room on the previous evening had given Poignand an impression of want of sympathy, which he attributed rather to a general dislike of the profession of 'gentleman detective' than to antipathy to his present errand. It was a feeling that he had had to encounter before, and he quite understood it.

'The glass is falling steadily; we are to have rain, I suppose,' said Sir Frederick, in a tone of annoyance.

'I hope not— at any rate, till I have gone over the ground,' replied Poignand. 'It might obliterate possible traces, you see. By the way, I was going to ask you to be good enough to accompany me, so that there may be no chance of my missing the exact course of the chase.'

'Oh, very well,' was the reply; 'I have personally conducted four parties of police and servants from the house over the ground already. One more won't make any difference.'

The antagonistic ring in his voice was so unmistakeable that Poignand's thoughts unconsciously reverted to Kala Persad sitting alone in his watch tower. If, instead of to the American heiress, the old man's finger had pointed to this ill-tempered captain of Hussars, who was so chary of his help, while of all others able to be most helpful, he would have felt more sure of his cue. As it was, he began to think that, after all, there might be lower depths in this apparently simple case.

'In the course of the morning I may avail myself of your assistance,' said Poignand. 'In the meanwhile just a question or two, please. Did you lose sight of the thieves at any point in the pursuit— long enough, I mean, to give them a chance to conceal the jewel case?'

'That's a funny thing to ask,' said Sir Frederick, regarding him with a queer look of suspicion. 'It almost implies that I may have seen them hide the case, and know where it is.'

'Come, come,' said Poignand; 'that is your suggestion— not mine, remember.'

'Well, then,' proceeded the other, 'I had them well in view across the open stretch of park, and in the road leading up to the village and station. In the belt of wood that lies between the park and the road it was different. Without really ever losing them I saw them of course less distinctly, and once or twice may have been guided rather by the sound of their scrunching through the bushes than by sight They never stopped, though. Of that I am quite certain!'

'In that open stretch of park, did you notice the jewel-case?'

'The third man was carrying a square box, which, from Lady Hertslet's description; must have been the case.'

'And when you emerged from the wood into the road, had he it still?' asked Poignand.

'I can only say that I did not see it,' returned Sir Frederick, 'and what more, I haven't seen it since, if, as I believe, that is what you are trying to get at,' he added with a sudden rush of petulance, as he turned into the adjacent billiard-room and slammed the door behind him.

Poignand stood where he was left, whistling softly to himself, and staring round with a vacant gaze that took in nothing of the antlers and the armour and the old oak panelling upon which it rested. The strange behaviour of the baronet filled him with a suspicion which it was hard to reconcile with the probabilities of the case. Had it not been for the obvious desire of Sir Frederick Cranstoun to become connected by marriage with the Hertslets, Poignand would have concluded at once that he knew the whereabouts of the jewels, and meant to preserve them for his own use; but, on the other hand, it was extremely unlikely that a man would want to rob the lady to whose daughter's hand he aspired. Putting it on no higher grounds, he would be taking goods which, if his hopes were realised, would fall into his hand in the ordinary course of events for was not Mildred Hertslet her mother's only child?

Poignand was suddenly delivered from the deadlock in his ruminations by a lively voice at his elbow, and turning he saw the elegant figure of Miss Stella Hicks posed on the bottom stair. She had changed her dress since her stroll in the park, and wore a morning toilette that was one of Worth's happiest efforts. Her gracious smile was in striking contrast to the sulkiness with which he had just been met, and she greeted him with a frank familiarity that was quite refreshing.

'Well, reader of the inscrutable,' she said, 'I suppose it isn't fair to pump you on your all-important quest, but I should dearly like to know — have you got an inkling yet?'

'Not the very faintest,' was the reply. 'I have no more idea of where the jewels are than you have, Miss Hicks. I don't despair, though, for I have not begun my search yet, and it is even possible that it may not take the form of a search in the ordinary sense of the word.'

He watched her narrowly as he said this, and got his reward. She had been leaning idly against the wall at the foot of the staircase, but she started forward now and eyed him keenly.

'Why, how else could you find them?' she asked eagerly. 'I am so interested in anything like detective work,' she added apologetically, as though anxious to furnish a reason for her curiosity.

'Ah! but this is a very uninteresting case, you see,' said Poignand, with intentional levity. 'What you ladies enjoy is the excitement of mystery, and of hunting down and fixing the guilt on some unhappy wretch. That has all been done for me by Sir Frederick Cranstoun, though he might have finished the job while he was about it by not losing sight of the jewel-case.'

'H'm— yes!' ejaculated the fair American, in a tone which made Poignand wonder whether it was only her native drawl or intended to be significant. 'But you haven't answered my question yet: If you ain't going to look for these diamonds, how do you reckon to find them?'

Again he studied her closely as he made answer: 'I am thinking of having a shot at the burglars themselves. It might be possible to induce one of them to split, on the promise of being let down lightly, and, at any rate, it seems worth while getting an order to see them in gaol for the purpose of trying.'

'Oh! that's your plan, is it?' she murmured softly. 'Do you know, I don't think much of it; for if I was a burglar I am quite sure I should keep my knowledge to myself,' and she passed on, rather abruptly, to the morning-room, whence the sound of Mildred's piano floated through the hall.

Poignand stood looking after her with half-closed eyes.

'So you don't think much of my plan, do you, my lady?' he soliloquised. In that case I wonder why that shade of anxiety shot across your fascinating features when I mentioned it. Well, you needn't alarm yourself in that direction, for my plan, as you call it, doesn't happen to be the first item on the programme. There's something in the air that puzzles me, and I'm inclined to believe that, after all, there's more here than a mere hunt among hedgerows and fern coppices. Yes, I'll play old Kala's card first and have a look at that Kodak.'

He turned and retraced his steps up the broad staircase to the main landing, whence to the right and left branched the corridors, flanked by the principal bedrooms. Lady Hertslet, in showing him over the scene of the robbery, had informed him as to the occupation of the different rooms, and he knew that Miss Hacks was accommodated in the first room in the left passage. Lady Hertslet's apartments and those of her daughter opened on to the landing itself, while his own and Sir Frederick's rooms were in the passage running to the right.

Poignand went straight to his own room and stood for a few minutes listening intently inside the open door way. There was no sound audible nearer than the strains of the piano far away on the ground floor. The music had changed to a duet, and he knew that for the present Miss Hicks was safely accounted for. He went out into the passage, and the silence near at hand still prevailed. Looking up and down the length of both the passages, he could see no sign of a living creature, and it became evident that the housemaids having finished their morning work in that part of the house had retired to the regions below. There was no cause for hesitation.

Gliding across the thickly carpeted landing into the further passage, he boldly opened the door of the American's room and entered. Poignand's eyes roved over the dainty luxury of the room, passing by the glittering gold and silver toilet accessories and costly paraphernalia, which stamped Lady Hertslet's guest as a wealthy woman, without fastening on anything in particular till he caught sight of the Kodak.

It stood on a small table at the head of the bed amid a number of requisites for developing and fixing, of which, as the possessor of a Kodak himself, and an amateur photographer of no mean order, he thoroughly understood the uses. In an instant the camera was in his hands, and the briefest of inspections proved that, taken literally, Kala Persad's imputation was unfounded.

There was nothing in the Kodak beyond its own mechanism, and the spool of film on which the pictures were taken.

'No jewels here,' murmured Poignand to himself. 'Strange, too, that there should be absolutely nothing, for the old man is never wholly at fault. By the way, he did not say definitely that I should find the jewels in the Kodak, but only "the secret of our desires." I wonder whether there is anything on this film of a compromising nature. It might be as well to develop it, and see what artistic effects the fair Stella has been after.'

He glanced quickly at the photographic requisites on the table, and found what he wanted in a box of spare film spools. One of these he substituted for the spool in the camera, placing the latter in his pocket. The automatic register on the instrument told him that only one film on this spool had been used, and having readjusted the register at that number, he left the Kodak as he had found it, and quietly regained his own room.

He had brought his own Kodak with him, and was well supplied with the necessary chemicals for developing negatives. All that remained was to shut the shutters, light his portable red lamp, and set to work in the extemporised dark-room to bring into being the as yet latent image secured by the American heiress.

Gradually, under his skilful treatment, the pale cream colour of the film began to change into fantastic shapes, assuming momentary fresh forms and shades which in that dim light gave no idea of the subject beyond an indistinct blur of waving foliage and rustic scenery. But a plunge in the fixing bath soon cleared the cloudiness away, and it was safe to admit the daylight again. Hastily unfastening the shutters, Poignand held the developed film up to the sunny sky, devoured every detail of the negative, and burst into a low chuckle of triumph.

The picture represented a woodland glade. In the centre was an aged, oak, and some ten feet up where the boughs began to branch clung Sir Frederick Cranstoun! He had thrust one arm into a hollow that ran downwards from the fork of the trunk, and there was an agonised expression on his face which said, 'I can't reach it,' as plain as words could speak.

Poignand hastily washed the dishes, hustled the chemicals into a drawer, and taking the negative with him, went downstairs again. The click of balls in the billiard-room and the notes of the piano told him that he might safely leave the Castle without meeting those he wished to avoid, and a couple of minutes later he was speeding across the park towards the belt of wood on the far side.

When he reached the shelter of the trees he went more leisurely, noting the different landmarks and comparing them from time to time with the picture. The wood was about a quarter of a mile broad, and it was not till he came to about the centre that he reached the object of his search, in the form of a large oak tree standing a little apart, in the middle of a clearing. There was no doubt about it; the tree was the original of the one portrayed in the negative.

He went forward and examined the trunk. To his surprise, there were indications that it had been scaled as far as the first fork, not once, but several times, or, at any rate, by several people. The chipping of the bark told that tale unerringly. Looking again, he saw that the height of the hollow from the ground was not so great that anyone passing could not have tossed the jewel-case in with a vigorous heave, and the idea came to him that Sir Frederick must have seen the action. But why had be concealed his knowledge, and, above all, were the jewels hidden in the hollow of the oak still?

Five minutes spent in arduous clambering, and five more in straining to the extremity of his reach, solved the latter question in a triumphant affirmative. Poignand's arms were longer than Sir Frederick's by the necessary couple of inches, and when he touched the ground Lady Hertslet's jewel-case, intact and heavy-laden, was safe in his clutch. His first and obvious duty was to restore it to its owner, but the most difficult part of his task lay in explaining the means by which the result had been obtained.

Though he had solved the main issue, the heart of the mystery was untouched. Sir Frederick's knowledge or suspicion of the burglar's hiding-place, his unwillingness to help, his secret attempt to secure the jewels, and, above all, the strange action of Miss Hicks in following him to indelibly record that attempt, and her concealment of her discovery, all seemed inexplicable.

He recrossed the park, and mounted the steps to the terrace. The Castle was basking in the hot rays of the autumn noonday sun, for the rain which Sir Frederick had feared— doubtless, lest the soft ground should betray his next visit to the oak— still held off.

Poignand was passing along the front of the mansion towards the morning-room, where he expected to find Lady Hertslet, when, on nearing one of the French windows of the billiard room, the sound of voices brought him to a halt. The speakers, Sir Frederick and Miss Hicks, though they conversed in guarded tones, were plainly quarrelling, and the first words he heard thrilled the listener with the prescience of coming revelation.

'You have no proof of my knowledge,' said the baronet, passionately.

'The fact that I have taxed you with it, and that you do not demy it, is proof enough for me,' replied the American, with an emphasis on the last word.

'And, assuming that it is so, you have no proof that it is a guilty knowledge— that I wanted the things for myself,' said Sir Fredericks.

'Don't you fall into any such error,' retorted Miss. Hicks, lapsing into Yankeeism in her excitement. 'I spotted you in the wood this morning and snapped you off with my Kodak. I've got a counterfeit presentment of you groping for those diamonds quite good enough for my purpose, I reckon, when it's developed.'

'Good heavens! woman; and what is your object in all this suspicion and espionage?' exclaimed the baronet, evidently restraining himself with difficulty. 'What is the price of your silence? For anyone who would act as you have acted is to be bought; of that I am very sure.'

'And you are right,' was the reply; 'though the price is not such a very terrible one. What you have to do to secure me as an ally is to give up all idea of marrying Mildred Hertslet and make me Lady Cranstoun. Apart from this awkward fix you've got yourself into, I've got dollars enough to make it quite worth your while.'

Poignand waited breathlessly for the reply. There was a short pause, the sound of a choking sob of rage, and then Sir Frederick said:

'Infamous creature! So the motive of all this is a paltry title. You may ruin my happiness, but you shall never reap the fruits of your scheming. I shall go at once to Lady Hertslet, and tell her the whole truth— how, without being positive, I thought I saw one of the thieves hurl the case into the hollow of the tree as he rushed by; and how, foolishly enough, I conceived the idea of gaining her favour, and furthering my suit, by restoring the jewel case myself into her hands. When, in the evil of your nature, you suspected me of evil design, and followed me into the wood, I was endeavouring to forestall this man Poignand, having been prevented by the police search from making the attempt yesterday. If Lady Hertslet believes me— well and good; if not, I have lost Mildred; but in any case you shall not profit by my folly.'

Every word, every inflection of voice, proved the sincerity of his statement, and Poignand read the situation like a book. The American had thought it possible that Sir Frederick suspected the hiding-place, and either placing her own base construction on his conduct, or, more probably, divining his real motive, had seized the opportunity for getting him into her power and securing the coveted title.

How would she take her defeat? Fiendishly, maliciously, it seemed.

'Don't make any mistake,' she cried. 'When I have circulated my print of the baronet after the jewel-case, or Sir Frederick Cranstoun up a tree, you won't have much reputation left, I guess. Your story may avail with your friends, but the mud will stick in public.'

Poignand walked in through the window and ostentatiously laid the jewel case on the billiard table.

Sir Frederick, who was fuming out of the room, paused in perplexity, and Miss Hicks gave a scream of surprise.

'Yes; I've found the missing jewels,' said Poignand, cheerily. 'And I have also heard the interesting conversation that has just taken place. Miss Hicks, I should advise you to drop it. You have given yourself away in the presence of a witness, you see. You are likely to come off, socially, a good deal worse than Sir Frederick, if I tell of the pretty bargain you tried to make. And I shouldn't advise you to place any reliance on the proof you thought you had, for I am open to prophesy, without making any admissions, that when you develop the film in your Kodak you will find it a failure.'

The beaten woman understood what had happened, and knew that she was helpless. With a stifled snarl of rage she fled from the room, while Sir Frederick came forward and wrung Poignand's hand.

'And now we will take the jewel case to its owner,' said Poignand, when he had briefly explained the origin of his discovery. 'I shall tell her that but for you I might never have been successful, and, after all, that is but the simple truth. It is all that need ever be known of the matter— now that our American heiress has got her claws clipped.'

IT CAME OUT at the trial that the burglars had lain hid in the oak tree to reconnoitre before the robbery, and had then discovered the hollow which in their subsequent flight they used as a cache. As for the process of reasoning by which Kala Persad arrived at his unerring intuition, it never received fuller elucidation than in his own words to Poignand:

'You see, Sahib, Sir Frederick only free man who could be knowing where jewels were. What for Missee American follow him into wood with box if not to do with the secret? When two curious things happen close together, they bound to have to do with each other.'

Profound philosophy which at least had the merit of being right.

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5. How The Baby Found The Clue

NO TRAVELLER passing along the main road that runs from Chalons to Epernay in the fair champagne country will fail to notice the hoary turrets and grim boundary walls of the old Chateau d'Yvol, standing half a mile back from the highway amid the luscious vines, and proudly asserting an uncontested right to be considered the heart and centre of the district. Though mail-clad knights no longer clatter across the drawbridge, eager for fray or tourney; though a century has passed since the last grand seigneur of the soil gave his life with a good heart for expiring monarchy; yet even in these later days the Chateau d'Yvol is something more than a memory of the past.

The peasants still look to it as the mainstay of their existence, and the ancient walls still play an important part in the prosperity of the Department. For the Chateau d'Yvol is the headquarters of the celebrated brandy of sparkling wine that bears its name; here the produce of the sunny vineyards is bottled and stored; and here, too, the vast business arrangements of the proprietors are conducted.

Two men were seated over their dessert in a comfortable apartment on the first floor of the chateau. This was the private dining-room of M. de Goncourt, at that time sole owner of the business. Attired in evening dress of the latest Parisian fashion, and chatting airily of trifles, he was apparently laying himself out for the entertainment of his guest and largest customer— M. Alphonse Laroche, of Laroche Freres et Cle, wine shippers, of Marseilles.

The two gentlemen had turned their chairs to the window which looked down across the vineyards to the beautiful valley of the Marne, beyond which the sun was just setting brilliantly in a cloudless sky.

'And now, my dear friend,' said M. de Goncourt at last, after he had sent his guest into fits of laughter with a broader sally than usual, 'it is time that we ceased this frivolity and got to business if, as you say, you must leave here to-night. Do I understand you to desire to order, on behalf of your most excellent firm, the whole of the grande cuvée of last year's vintage?'

'That is so,' said Laroche. 'We are prepared to take every bottle or it. Only, when I put it that way I do not make it strong enough. "Prepared to take" sounds as if we were doing you a favour in giving you this order, whereas I assure you, my friend, that if you consent to execute it, it is Laroche & Cie who will be under the obligation.'

De Goncourt pondered a moment, and before replying, cast a sidelong look at his customer.

'I do not see how it can be managed,' he said. 'I have half promised a large portion of that special vintage to another firm.'

Laroche waved his hands in earnest entreaty.

'I ask it of you as a favour,' he repeated; 'as a favour to customers who have done business with you for years.'

De Goncourt gave his chair a half turn, and looked Laroche steadily in the face as he answered.

'My friend, in business there are no obligations that need deserve the name long, for the very good reason that when they are repaid they cease to come under that category. You have it in your power to repay this favour, if I grant it, at once. Will you do so?'

'Only tell me how,' said the wine shipper, 'and I will meet you if I can.'

'Listen to me, then, and accept what I say in strictest confidence,' said Goncourt, lowering his voice and laying his hand impressively on his companion's knee. 'I have had great expenses lately, and I am temporarily pressed for money. If you are prepared to pay cash with the order for the grande cuvée of last year's wine, it is yours, every drop of it; if not, why then I must sell it in the best market for ready money— that is all. A mutual obligation, you see, my friend, the matter lies in a nutshell.'

Laroche seized De Goncourt's hand.

'It is a bargain, then!' he cried effusively. 'You shall have cash by all means; we will waive our usual six months' credit with pleasure. But, my friend, you astound me. The wealthy De Goncourt pressed for ready money!'

'It is only temporary— the result of an unfortunate speculation— and will quickly pass away,' answered the other. 'When, then, may I expect—?'

'Say not another word,' replied Laroche; 'as luck would have it, I have enough money by me in notes on the Bank of France to complete the arrangement, here as we at now.'

Drawing a bundle of notes from his pocket, he proceeded: 'Here is a hundred thousand francs which I have been fortunate enough to win at Monte Carlo, whence I came to you. I will recoup my private purse from the coffers of the firm when I return to Marseilles. The amount is somewhere near what the amount of your invoice will be. It can be correctly adjusted afterwards. Take the money, my friend, and write me out a receipt which shall show that the special vintage is now the property of Laroche Freres.'

De Goncourt took the bundle of notes, tied up as they were with the tape, and, after quickly verifying them, transferred them to his breast-pocket With a few words of easy thanks he rose and went to a table in the corner for the purpose of writing a receipt.

When he had finished writing he sat for over a minute wrapped in deep thought, with his eyes fixed on Laroche, who was gazing contentedly over the landscape, happy at having gained his point. Suddenly the fixed expression on De Goncourt's face relaxed into a smile of determination. Throwing down his pen, he took up the receipt and went back to the window.

'There you are, Laroche,' he said, handing the document to his guest. 'You will see that this is made out in proper form. And now,' he went on, 'if you will excuse me for a few moments, I will send for one of my foremen. It will be more satisfactory if I give instructions in your presence to have the grande cuvee held at your disposal.'

As he reached the door of the apartment, De Goncourt paused with his hand on the lock and looked round. 'Move your chair over to this side of the window, Laroche,' he said. 'There, that's right― against the curtain. You get a better view of the valley from that point. It is beautiful in the twilight.'

He quitted the room, leaving the door slightly ajar, and his guest sat on, lazily comfortable, watching the deepening shadows as they crept higher and higher up the valley.

THERE WAS a porter's lodge hard by the main entrance to the Chateau d'Yvol, in which dwelt Jacques Roublot, the foreman, with his daughter Lucille, her husband Pierre Desanges, and their infant son— a fine boy just two months old.

While the gentlemen were busy over their bargain the dining-room of the chateau, the foreman and his family were seated at supper. The old man was a fine specimen of the French workman of the better class, strong in fidelity to his master and attached to the traditions of the house he served, holding both only second in his affections to his beautiful daughter Lucille— the pride and solace of his declining years. It had been a proud day for old Jacques when, little more than twelve months before, his favourite assistant, Pierre Desanges, had joined the family as his son-in-law, and very quickly was it settled that bride and bridegroom should take up their abode under his roof. But even in this united household there was a skeleton, whose grisly bones had always been kept a jealously guarded secret from Jacques Rou-blot.

Pierre and Lucille did not care to endanger their father's peace of mind by telling him that previous to her marriage M. de Goncourt had pestered Lucille with attentions which were odious to her. Since the wedding had given her a stalwart lawful protector in her husband, these attentions had been less marked; but even now Lucille found it necessary to avoid meeting the proprietor of the chateau, so offensive were his demonstrations of mock politeness. As for Pierre, he registered a vow to break every bone in M. de Goncourt's body, employer or no employer, if the latter annoyed his young wife, and then he put the matter from him with the light heartedness of youth till such time should come.

Such was the state of affairs in the porter's lodge on the evening when M. Laroche visited the chateau. The trio made a merry party round the frugal board, while the baby slept quietly in its cradle close to its mother's chair. Suddenly there was a knocking at the door, and being bidden, one of the house servants entered.

'You are to go up to the chateau at once, Pierre,' the woman said. 'Monsieur desires to speak with you about the stock. I was to tell you to go straight upstairs to the dining-room; you will find the gentlemen there.'

Pierre made a wry face; he was only half way through his potage, and the rest would be cold before he could return.

'Very well, Marie,' he said; 'I will follow you directly,' and, as the maid disappeared, he laughingly twitted his father-in-law on his growing importance.

'See, mon pere,' he said, 'it is young Pierre who is sent for nowadays, not the venerable Jacques.'

'Ah, my son, monsieur was always considerate; he would not drag my old bones out so late. It is only to book an order for Laroche et Cie, I expect.' The young foreman chucked his pretty wife under the chin, stooped down and kissed the sleeping child, and went out.

The porter's lodge was barely a hundred yards from the door of the chateau, and Pierre quickly reached his destination. The ground floor of the ancient mansion was used as store rooms and offices, with kitchen and servants' quarters far away at the back, so Pierre made straight for the grand staircase by which his employer's private suite of rooms was reached. At the top of the staircase was a long corridor with rooms on either side. The dining-room was at the far end, and as Pierre approached the door he saw that it was slightly ajar. He gave a knock with his knuckles on the panel, and, as was his custom when summoned by his employer, entered without waiting for a reply.

For a moment Pierre thought that the room was unoccupied, and that the gentlemen, must have gone elsewhere. The room was nearly in darkness now, except for a few expiring gleams of daylight that made the window more conspicuous than the rest of the apartment. It was in this direction that the young man's eyes naturally strayed, and then he saw that his first supposition was a mistake. The room was not unoccupied. There was some one sitting in an armchair facing the window, half hidden by the curtain. Pierre supposed that the gentlemen, having dined well, were indulging in a nap, and advanced into the room with the object of making his presence known. But still the figure did not move.

Nearer and nearer drew the young foreman, but it was not till he was close up to the window that he was able to discern a sight which froze the marrow in his bones. The man in the armchair was lying back dead, stabbed to the heart!

Pierre raised the sunken head from the breast, and a glance told him that the pale features were those of M. Laroche, his master's guest. He could only have been dead a few minutes, for the blood was still spurting from the wound. Horror-struck, Pierre turned to summon aid, and found himself confronted by De Goncourt.

'Villain! murderer! so I have caught you in the act,' cried the proprietor of the chateau. 'You have killed my poor friend Laroche to commit some paltry robbery. Your head shall answer for it, dastard. Move from this spot if you dare,' and he rang the bell violently, supplementing the summons with loud cries of 'Help! Murder!'

'I am not guilty,' said Pierre doggedly. 'I know less than you do of the crime — perhaps not so much. I have no weapon; I could not have done it―'

'Bah!' said De Goncourt, 'you have thrown it through the window into the fish-pond beneath.'

Two or three servants entered hurriedly.

'Bring lights, and send for the gendarmes, and two of you see that this man does not escape. He has murdered my dear, dear friend Laroche,' said De Goncourt to the astonished attendants, who, in a state of wild excitement, proceeded to execute his orders.

That night Pierre Desanges was taken to Chalon Gaol on a charge of murder, and the whole of the way thither five little words were ringing in his ears— words which had been spoken by his master as he was given into the custody of the gendarmes. The words were, 'I saw him do it.'

WEARILY DRAGGED the ensuing days for the inhabitants of the porter's lodge. Poor old Jacques Roublot was well-nigh broken down by the misfortune which had overtaken his son-in-law. He did not believe the young man guilty; but if he was not, who could be? Such was the burden of his oft-repeated plaint as he sat in the sun outside the lodge, utterly unfitted for work. As for Lucille, she was dazed, heart-broken, and defiant by turns. If it had not been for her baby, she would have gone mad during the terrible time after Pierre's arrest. All she could do for her accused husband was done, but that was not much as yet. The time had not yet come for the services of an advocate to be needed; for according to French law, the early days of his imprisonment were spent in private examinations before a juge 'd'instruction, whose duty it was to try to worry a confession from the prisoner.

The only news that reached the stricken father and daughter from the gaol was that Pierre stood firm and maintained his innocence.

e Goncourt's evidence was naturally that which told most heavily against the prisoner. He had entered the dining-room after a short absence, he said, and had seen Pierre Desanges stab M. Laroche over the back of the chair, before he himself had been able to interfere. Surprised in the act, the man hard thrown a knife through the window into the fishpond. The chair in which the deceased was sitting was placed in such a manner that anyone could have approached from the door of the room without being noticed.

M. Laroche had not, up to the time of his death, broached any business matters; he had neither paid any money nor given any orders, though he, M. de Goncourt, thought it likely he might have intended to do business before his departure. The dead man's brother and partner could throw no light on the murder. To the best of his knowledge his brother only had a few hundred francs with him for travelling purposes when he left home, and these, together with his jewellery, were found untouched on his person. Doubtless this would be accounted for by the murderer having been interrupted in his work.

The fishpond was dragged by the authorities, and a knife was found; but this knife rather added to the mystery than otherwise. It was a blunt-edged dessert-knife, and the surgeons were unanimous in doubting if it could have inflicted the wound of which M. Laroche died. The police, however, held an opposite theory, and thus it was that Pierre was finally committed to take his trial at the Assize Court at Chalons.

The day before the trial came at last, and Lucille, tearless in her blank despair, carried her baby to a sunny corner of the courtyard where she could brood alone. The spot she chose was close to an old lean-to shed, built against the high boundary wall, and used, when used at all, for the storage of empty bottles. Here she placed the cradle, and seating herself on a low stool at its side, half unconsciously watched the infantile gambols of her child. Ah, but it was a merry youngster, and a brave— so like the light-hearted father whose love it would never know, slain as he would be in a few short weeks for a crime he had never committed.

How strong and well-formed the baby's limbs were too; with what vigour he kicked his little legs and laughed with childish glee! Ah, that was a higher kick than usual! Why, the young rascal was almost as agile, the poor stricken mother thought with pride, as the strolling acrobats Pierre had taken her to see on a happy saints day during their courtship, now, alas! so many, many weary days ago.

Suddenly a tremendous effort on the part of the baby, which nearly upset the cradle, called Lucille's attention once more.

'Why,' she exclaimed to herself, 'the boy actually takes notice of things, and he so young, too! He has an object in his kicking. It is the piece of tape he wants, and he shall have it, the cherished one, before he sprains his pretty legs.'

It was true enough; the baby's kicks were directed at a piece of coloured tape which was flattering on a bit of broken cask hooping that had been thrown aside as lumber against the wall. The hooping projected over the cradle, making a kind of archway, and the youngster had set his heart on dislodging the tape, which had caught in the top. Lucille had detached the tape in order to gratify the boy with the coveted possession when she noticed some letters in black impressed with a rubber stamp on the yellow tape. Glancing at the words, first with, idle curiosity— to be turned in a moment to intense excitement, hope, joy, and expectation— this as what she read:

'Laroche Freres et Cie, Marseilles.'

Was it, could it be, a clue to the murder? At any rate it should be no fault of hers if the discovery led to nothing. That tape could not have come there by any ordinary means, and at least in clearing up the mystery she would feel that she was doing something.

Lucille carried the baby back to the lodge, and within two hours was telling her story in the police bureau at Chalons.

The officer listened with interest, and agreed that there might be something in it. He did not say what he then suspected, that the clue would probably fix the crime more closely than before on Pierre Desanges, but he gave prompt orders to several of his subordinates—

'Go with madame here, and tho roughly search the spot where this tape was found. Stay, on second thoughts, I wall accompany you myself. It is the unexpected that often happens, and it may be necessary to act.'

Arrived at the chateau, Lucille led the way to the courtyard and pointed out the place where the tape had been found. The police officers at once turned their attention to the old shed close by, and rummaged the place from top to bottom, peering among the empty bottles, and even looking inside them, without success.

At length, just as Lucille was beginning to despair, one of the men called to the officer: 'See, on the ground there, between those two stacks of bottles; the earth appears to have been disturbed.'

'Fetch a spade, then, and dig,' was the prompt reply.

The implement was procured, and a sturdy gendarme set to work. At the depth of a foot the spade struck against a hard substance, and a minute later a long, japanned iron cashbox was brought to light. It was the work of an instant to prize it open, when the contents proved to be a hundred thousand-franc notes on the Bank of France, a business document, and a cruel-looking dagger stained with blood.

The written paper was the receipt which De Goncourt gave for the money handed him by Laroche, duly acknowledging that the whole of the valuable vintage was the property of Laroche Freres. On the handle of the dagger was engraved the inscription, 'Gaston de Goncourt'.

The mystery of the murder was solved. As Lucille fell fainting to the ground, the last words she heard spoken were: 'To the chateau, and arrest the murderer!'

There is little more to be told. De Goncourt, once in the hands of the examining magistrate, made but a poor fight of it, unbuoyed as he was by the innocence which had sustained Pierre. He confessed that he had killed Laroche with the object of recovering the receipt which he had given, so that he might sell the valuable vintage over again, and possess, as clear gain, the money which his victim had paid for it.

The notes, having been won at the gaming-table, would not be likely to be traced, but as a precaution he hid them for a while, together with the dagger which had laid his victim low, and the receipt which, in his hurry on that fatal night he had no means of destroying.

When hiding the box containing the proofs of his crime, he had removed the tape to make the notes fit closer, and on leaving the shed had thrown the tape aside in ignorance that it bore Laroche's name. To lend colour to his accusation of Pierre, he had, after the murder, seized a knife from the dinner table and flung it into the fishpond without noticing that he had selected a dessert knife for the purpose. But in his confession the wretched man made no allusion to the double crime he had attempted— the fearful vengeance he had so nearly wreaked on Pierre for winning the prize he himself coveted. It was only Lucille and her husband who knew that De Goncourt's accusation was something more than a suddenly conceived idea for shielding himself.

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6: The Face in the Spoiled Negative

MY PROFESSION is that of a photographer. It is one which often brings a man into contact with members of the aristocracy under more or less confidential conditions. We of my trade frequently gather a hint of the 'coming engagement' before the keenest of the society papers; it is the photographer who is admitted to perpetuate the unformed features of the day-old baby lordling; and again, it is he who pays the last visit before the coffin is closed, to catch and fix the death-cold lineaments of haughty nobles and famous statesmen. But among all the secrets revealed to me amid such scenes the story of the face on the spoiled negative holds first place.

Listen while I tell it. Every one knows Eaglesham House in Mayfair— the town residence of the Earls of Eaglesham. Though I necessarily alter the names of places and people of whom I write, I will wager that the real Eaglesham House under its proper designation is as familiar by sight or reputation to most of my readers as is the Tower of London.

Strange as it may seem, the history of that noble family is strongly bound up with the apparently insignificant fact, that I— Carl Reuter, of Bond-street— received an order one morning in June to present myself at Eaglesham House without delay in order to photograph the dining and drawing rooms of the stately mansion. The order was dated from Paris, and was signed by Lord Falconet— the Earl of Eaglesham's eldest surviving son. The aged Earl was well-known to be a chronic invalid, spending all his time at Eaglesham Towers, one of their country seats in Buckinghamshire. Having given up all hope of ever being able to reside in London again, the Earl had made over the house in Mayfair to his eldest son— not the Lord Falconet who wrote to me, but his brother, who had died shortly after the arrangement was made. The heir's death had taken place in Egypt, whither he had gone on a yachting trip, accompanied by his younger brother, the present Lord Falconet― then the Honourable Darcy Peregrine.

On the latter's return to England he had naturally succeeded to the honours and prospects of his elder brother, and being now the heir to the vast Eaglesham properties, the Earl had transferred the use and occupation of Eaglesham House to him. As the Honourable Darcy Peregrine, Lord Falconet had borne but an indifferent reputation among men about town. Rumours of unsatisfied gambling debts were rife, and it was said that the Earl had well nigh decided to discard his youngest son altogether. Now, however, all was changed, and with the new career opening out before him, he who was now Lord Falconet seemed to have turned over a fresh leaf. He had cut himself adrift from his shady acquaintances, and had put the seal to his desire for respectability by engaging himself to the wealthy widow of a Manchester manufacturer. Such was the common gossip about the Eaglesham family when the order above-mentioned reached me. It was in consequence of the coming marriage that the photographs were required.

The dining-room and drawing-room at Eaglesham House had been refurnished, and Lord Falconet desired his intended bride to see a picture of the new upholstery. I was also instructed to send copies to the Earl at his country seat in Buckinghamshire. I provided myself with the camera which I generally use for interiors, and set out on my errand, timing myself so as to arrive at Eaglesham House at about half-past eleven in order to take advantage of the noontide light. I was received at the front door by a man-servant, not in livery, who had the appearance of holding a confidential position.

'It is all right, Mr. Reuter,' he said, checking my explanation. 'I have had a letter from his lordship telling me to expect you; step this way, please.'

Following, my conductor, I ascended the splendid staircase to the first floor. Throwing open a door, he ushered me into the drawing-room or rather suite of drawing-rooms, which I was to photograph. 'I will leave you alone,' he said, 'while you get to work. When you have done up here, if you ring the bell, I will come and show you the dining-room, which his lordship also desires to be taken.'

The man retired with the noiseless footfall of a well-trained servant, and I commenced operations. At the end of half an hour I had done all that was necessary to secure a good picture of the drawing-rooms, and was ready for my guide again. In answer to the summons of the bell, he appeared and conducted me downstairs once more to the dining-room on the ground floor.

A truly noble apartment was the dining-room at Eaglesham House. In size it was so large that it almost merited the name of banqueting-hall, and though the contents of the room had been renewed, it still possessed a sufficiency of the ancient furniture to preserve its air of eighteenth century magnificence. As I looked at the rich hangings and dainty carvings, I remembered half-forgotten tales of boisterous dinner parties given here in the wild old regency days, when the future George IV. numbered the then Earl of Eaglesham among his boon companions.

For some unaccountable reason my silent conductor did not leave me alone on this occasion, as he had in the case of the drawing-rooms. He seemed deeply interested in my preparations, and even hazarded several questions on the process. Giving a glance round the room to find the best point of view, I was glad that he had not left me, for my eyes rested on something that required explanation.

Hung on the opposite wall were half-a-dozen picture frames of moderate size, but elaborately moulded in gilt. The strange thing about these frames that puzzled me was that they contained no pictures. Each one of them, as far as I could see, held nothing but a square of rich purple velvet.

'Surely,' I said, 'his lordship does not wish me to take those frames in that condition?'

'Certainly.' 'replied my companion, 'those frames are the most interesting objects in the room, and are greatly prized in the family. They are relics of the days when George IV. used to come here to dinner. His lordship of those times was for ever devising means for pleasing the Prince, and the picture frames were one of his contrivances. Those velvet screens were used as doors, and at a given signal they were drawn back to disclose living pictures— beautiful women in fancy costume, whom his lordship paid to exhibit themselves in this way. The Eaglesham 'living pictures' were a great success, and became quite notorious. You see the subjects could be varied indefinitely every time the Prince came to dinner. You must have the frames in the photograph most certainly.'

I placed the camera in position, focussed to any satisfaction, and was on the point of removing the cap from the lens to make the exposure, when the door behind us opened and a footman in livery entered. He appeared to be labouring under some great agitation, the reason for which he communicated in a whisper to the confidential servant who was with me. The cause of the other's disturbance affected him also, and for a moment he abandoned the calm and almost distant demeanour which he had preserved. Without taking the slightest notice of me, and offering no explanation, he left the room hurriedly with the footman, exclaiming under his breath as he did so, but in a tone which reached me:

'Idiot! why didn't you keep the door locked?'

Evidently some household arrangement had gone wrong, but just as evidently it was no business of mine. What concerned me more was to take the photograph while the light was favourable, and I decided to proceed without waiting for the return of my conductor. From the manner of his departure it seemed doubtful if he would return quickly. I took the cap from the lens, and the exposure commenced.

As everyone who knows anything about photography is aware, the exposure necessary to produce a picture of a dimly lighted interior is a very long one. The circumstances of this case demanded that the plate should be uncovered for the space of seven minutes, so, after removing the cap, I seated myself on a chair near the camera to wait watch in hand, till it should be time to cover the lens again.

I had sat there five minutes or more when suddenly the strange feeling came over me that one experiences when one is the object of the gaze of some unseen person. Instinctively I raised my eyes and looked around the room. One glance was sufficient to tell me that I was still alone, as far as the room itself was concerned; but, looking higher, my attention was drawn by some slight movement to the centre of one of the hitherto blank picture frames.

What was my astonishment to see there, regarding me with a fixed stare of intense melancholy, the face of a haggard young main. I had hardly tune to note the sad expression of his features when he abruptly disappeared from his position, there was a sound of scuffling and muffled cries at the other side of the wall in the next room, and the velvet trapdoor forming the back of the picture frame was sharply shut to.

My wonder at this strange occurrence quickly gave way to a feeling of professional annoyance; I should have to take a fresh negative. I did not know how long the face had been under the focus of the lens— whether or no it had been there long enough to make a distinct expression on the plate; but in any case the negative would be faulty, and useless for my purpose. Even if the face came out perfect in the photograph, it would never do to submit a copy to his lordship containing the likeness of some person who was as likely as not an unwarranted intruder.

I replaced the cap and was engaged in inserting a fresh slide with another plate in the camera, when the head servant who had chaperoned me before re-entered the room. He was hot and flushed, partly it would seem with excitement and partly with physical exertion. He addressed me at once —

'I suppose that fellow will have spoiled your picture,' he said. 'At any rate, of course you will take another one.'

'Certainly,' I replied. 'It will be impossible to tell till after development whether the plate has been blurred in that portion of it where the frame comes in; but whether the image of the man is clear or not, it will not do to submit this one. What was the cause of the rumpus?'

My informant answered glibly enough:

'Only a drunken footman. He has been on the drink for a fortnight, and has had a slight attack of delirium tremens, so I had him shut up in an empty room adjoining the next room to this. You see, he was a favourite with us, and we wanted to get him over his bout without making a fuss. His lordship's absence gave us a chance to screen him.'

'I see,' said I, 'and he broke loose just as I was taking the photograph?'

'Exactly so,' was the reply; 'the man into whose temporary charge I had given him foolishly omitted to lock the door. He made a rush from the room while the other man wasn't looking, and disappeared. We thought he had gone out into the street by the front door, and we went to search for him there, instead of which he had merely run into the next room, where he played the prank that interrupted you. He got on to the platform which was used for the "living pictures" to stand on, and opened one of the frames. However, all's well that ends well; he's safe enough now.'

A very natural explanation, I thought, as I set about photographing the room for the second time. On this occasion there was no hitch, and I had every reason to believe that I had secured a successful negative. After packing up my apparatus. I was escorted to the street door by the confidential man, who took leave of me on the steps, firmly declining my invitation to take a glass of wine at a neighbouring hostelry. Though I could assign no reason for it, he seemed nervous and ill at ease, and my conclusion was that he had been upset by the freaks of his drunken underling.

When I reached my studio, I found a telegram awaiting me with instructions to proceed at once to the north of Scotland, for the purpose of photographing a wedding party on the following afternoon. A glance at Bradshaw told me that I must start at once, if I would reach my destination in time. This was satisfactory in one way, as I am always glad to receive a good order, but it was annoying in another. I had intended to develop and print the Eaglesham House negatives myself, but now I should have to leave the operation to one of my assistants.

I called my best man to me, and handing him the dark slides containing the as yet undeveloped negatives, gave him the fullest instructions in the matter. A proof of each negative— that is, of both drawing and dining rooms— was to be sent both to Lord Falconet in Paris, to the Earl of Eaglesham at the Towers, and to Mrs. Milner, the lady to whom Lord Falconet was engaged. The dark slide containing the spoilt negative I put on one side, intending to develop it myself on my return, just as a matter of curiosity.

My journey to Scotland and back has nothing to do with this story. It was not till the afternoon of the third day that I found myself in Bond-street again.

Once more, on entering the studio, I was intercepted by the young lady in the cash desk, with a telegram which had that moment arrived. Tearing it open, I read: —

To Renter, Bond-street.

Come down to the Towers by next train. Will accept no excuse. Urgent and private.

Eaglesham.

What on earth could the Earl want of me, I wondered. Then it struck me that something was wrong with the proof, which must have been sent him by now. Hurrying to my assistant's room, I asked when the proof had been forwarded, and I was told that it had been sent early that morning. It would have been delivered shortly before the dispatch of the telegram. The other proofs— that for Lord Falconet in Paris, and for Mrs. Milner in Manchester— would not be delivered till next morning. Calling for the negatives, I saw at once what had happened. In the haste of my departure, I had given the assistant the wrong negative to develop. The proofs which had been sent out contained the face in the frame, scarcely blurred by the rapid disappearance of the subject who must have been in position long enough to leave his counterfeit presentment on the plate. There, in life-like resemblance, were the melancholy features of the haggard young man who had gazed at me from the trap in the wall.

When such a personage as the Earl of Eaglesham commands, a professional man must obey, and in five minutes I was on my way to Paddington, to make the best explanation I could. I had no interest in screening the drunken footman, and I had not been much impressed by the appearance of the head servant who had conducted me. There had been a shifty look about his eyes which instilled mistrust, so it was without regret, and only imbued with a desire to explain my share in the transaction, that I found myself ushered into the presence of the aged Earl. He was lying on a sofa in the library and seemed prostrate with excitement. His physician and lawyer were with him, and he held the proof photograph in his shaking fingers.

'That face!' he exclaimed, the moment I appeared; 'that face! How came it there? Speak at once, man, and put an end to the suspense.'

I related the circumstances as briefly as possible, and when I came to describe my interruption by the drunken footman, the Earl stopped me, exclaiming—

'That will do. We only wanted to know if it was a real living face in the frame. That was no drunken footman, Mr. Reuter. It is the face of my eldest son, whom I have been mourning as dead, and who must have been subjected to some wicked plot by his younger brother. When will the latter receive his proof?'

I explained that it could not reach him in Paris till the next morning.

'Very well, then,' the Earl continued, 'my lawyer here, Mr. Dickson, will go to the house this evening and will make arrangements for the rightful Lord Falconet's release. For the honour of the family this scandal must not reach the public ear, though I regret that my misguided son and those who have assisted him will thus escape punishment. Gentlemen, I rely on you; not a word of this anywhere. And now, Dickson, hurry to town and bring my poor Falconet here, what ever his condition. I fear that his mind must be unhinged, or he would not have submitted to such treatment.'

IT WAS NOT for some days that I knew the events which followed. The first I heard was a rumour which found its way into the newspapers to the effect that Lord Falconet, who was supposed to have died in Egypt, had returned to England, and that the previous account of his death had been erroneous. This meagre information, was supplemented by Mr. Dickson, whom I met in the street shortly afterwards. He had proceeded to Eaglesham House with several assistants, and had astonished the miscreant who was in charge by telling him that he knew Lord Falconet— the supposed dead man— was alive and in the house.

Seeing that the game was up, and that he need not fear punishment, he confessed at once how the unfortunate young nobleman had suffered from brain fever in Cairo, and how his brother had conceived the plan of confining him and passing him off as dead, in order to secure the heirship. In this he and his myrmidons had been assisted by the fact that Lord Falconet had suffered from mental aberration since his illness, and it was thus easy to bring him home in the yacht and shut him up in Eaglesham Home, after freely bribing those of the yachtsmen who knew of his presence on board to silence. It had been the younger brother's intention to have him removed to an asylum in France in a few days, and he was engaged in making arrangements for the purpose when the discovery of the 'face on the spoiled negative' luckily thwarted his plans.

Lord Falconet, under the fostering care which was lavished upon him, slowly regained his faculties, and he is now, as Lord Eaglesham, a distinguished member of the Upper House.

The Honourable Darcy Peregrine never returned to England. He was shot, about a year later, in a gambling saloon in Montana.

________________

7: A Blind Clue

IT WAS IN consequence of an urgent telegram from the chairman of the Abbey Steamship Company that I found myself, some two years ago, travelling down to Northpool, the seaport, whence the great liners belonging to the company commence their voyages to New York.

On arrival I went straight to the offices of the Abbey line— a palatial building near the docks— and on sending in my name was at once admitted to the private room of the general manager. With that official were seated two other gentlemen, one of whom proved to be Mr. Delaval, the chairman, while the other— a thickset, weather-beaten man of middle age— was introduced as Captain Seaton, the commander of the crack steamship the Abbey of Bruges.

'I have sent for you, Mr. Cragg,' said the chairman, 'in order to obtain your opinion and advice on the subject of an anonymous letter which has been received by the company. Here it is; you will see that it tells its own story in pretty plain language.'

Thus saying, he handed me a sheet of rather expensive notepaper, on which was written in a masculine hand, bearing evident traces of disguise, the following atrocious threat:

'This is to warn you and all whom it may concern that the steamer Abbey of Bruges will be destroyed during her next voyage in mid-Atlantic, by means of au explosive, which will be conveyed on board in such a manner that detection will be impossible. This letter is not written by a friend, but it is sent in order that you may have the full responsibility for not preventing the ship from sailing in the face of this warning.'

'Not a pleasant document to receive the day before the sailing of a ship, is it?' said Mr. Delaval, when he saw that I had finished the perusal. 'We are all of us more or less under the impression that it is a hoax, but it none the less places us in a very awkward position. You see, if we call in the police and make a fuss, it will get into the papers, and our passenger receipts will suffer accordingly. And yet, supposing by any chance there should be something in it, we should be held accountable if we had neglected to take precautions after getting this letter. I thought it better, therefore, to employ a private detective of known reputation, with a view to keeping the investigation in our own hands, so that if nothing is discovered, nothing need be said about it. I want you to do the best you can for us, Mr. Cragg.'

'I will certainly do that,' I replied. 'You say that you are all agreed that the affair is a hoax, and you must have grounds for that supposition. Will you please inform me briefly what has led you to come to that conclusion ?'

'It is like this,' said M. Delaval, 'when we say we think the letter is a hoax, we do not mean that it is a meaningless practical joke— very far from it— but we are all agreed that there is no dynamite or anything of the kind to be apprehended. The long and the short, of it is, we see in this bit of paper nothing more or less than a dastardly attempt to put a bogus scare on us, and so get us to delay the hour and even the date of the steamer's leaving.'

'Who would be likely to have such an object in view?' I asked. 'Well, there may be a hundred private interests of the kind that we know nothing of. Perhaps it would be hardly fair to particularise,' said the chairman, fidgeting a little uneasily under my eye. It did not require the training of a detective to see that there was something on his mind he was not too ready to impart.

'I must have your whole confidence if I am to undertake this inquiry,' I said. 'I am not a pettifogger. It would not pay me to betray my clients' secrets.'

'Good!' said Mr. Delaval; 'you have rightly divined that I was loth to hint at the suspicion that we hold. At the same time it would be obviously unjust to expect you to go into this matter only half informed. The only persons we can think of who would be benefitted by a delay in the sailing of the Abbey of Bruges are our rivals— the Flower line of steamships. Their boat, the Petunia, is also due to leave for New York to-morrow, and I must tell you that a great deal depends on this voyage, which virtually resolves itself into a race between our boat and theirs. The giving out of the new mail contract depends upon it. We have reason to believe that the Government has been taking the average of the last five voyages of the two lines, and that the ensuing one― the sixth — is to be a sort of deciding heat, the averages so far being equal. If the Bruges reaches New York first, the Abbey Line gets the contract; if the Petunia, the Flower line will have it. It seems impossible that a great company would stoop to such means, but we can account for this letter in no other way. We have had no trouble among our workmen, or strikes, or anything of the sort. We are on good terms with every one but our rivals. There you have it all.'

'It is quite on the cards that the letter may have been sent with the object of getting the Petunia to New York ahead of your boat, and yet, not emanate from those in authority in that line,' I said. 'What is to hinder some adventurer sending it on his own account, and then, if he succeeds in delaying your ship, going to the board of directors of the Flower line, and saying what he had done, and demanding payment for his service after the event? It might be a try-on of that sort.'

'Or a game of some competing shippers who want to have their goods sent by the Petunia delivered before those of another firm shipped by the Bruges,' put in the captain.

'Quite so,' I replied. 'There are endless ways of accounting for the letter other than by treating it as a genuine warning. At the same time, gentlemen, if you want my advice, here it is in a, nutshell. Act in every way as if we believed the letter to be true. Take every possible precaution, and then if nothing suspicious crops up between now and to-morrow, let the ship leave at the appointed hour. By-the-bye, what time is she booked to start?'

'She is due to leave the dock at noon to-morrow,' said the captain.

'Very well,' I said; 'what I propose to do, with your permission, gentlemen, is this. I will take up my quarters on the Abbey of Bruges at once, and I will remain upon her to the last moment, devoting myself to watching the cargo, and the passengers when they come aboard, with exactly the same vigilance as if we were all agreed that an attempt was really going to be made against the ship. It will have to be a clever dynamiter who will smuggle an infernal machine aboard without my finding it before the ship leaves. If no such discovery is made, we can, if you wish it, endeavour to trace the origin of the anonymous letter at our leisure afterwards.'

'Your plan is exactly what I should have suggested,' said the chairman; 'you had better get aboard without delay. Captain Seaton will accompany you and render you every assistance. It is decided, then,' he added, turning to the captain, 'that the Bruges sails to-morrow at scheduled time. If Mr. Cragg finds an infernal machine, there is no reason to detain her; if he doesn't, we don't believe there is an infernal machine on board. Quite my view of what is proper. Good-bye, gentlemen, for the present. I may look down to the dock later on.'

Thus dismissed, Captain Seaton and I took our departure, and made our way through the narrow waterside streets to the dock where the Abbey of Bruges was berthed.

'It would take a tidy dose of dynamite to knock a hole in her, I reckon,' said my companion, as we came in view of the splendid specimen of naval architecture he commanded.

At first sight it certainly seemed hard to believe that the stately mass of iron and wood, lying as big and massive as a cathedral alongside the wharf, could be injured by anything that could be concealed on board. But well I knew that the 'resources of civilisation' are invincible. A brown paper parcel, a foot square, containing the right stuff, would suffice to send that mighty fabric to the bottom in five minutes.

The captain led me across the gangplank, where an officer was busy checking and receiving goods.

'What security is there that an infernal machine is not hidden in one of these bales and cases?' I asked.

'That could not possibly happen without detection,' Captain Seaton replied, confidently. 'These goods are all large consignments from, at the most, three or four well-known shippers, all above suspicion. You see, we do not lay ourselves out to carry much miscellaneous cargo, our business being mostly in the passenger and mail traffic The only person to whom the matter of the letter has been confided besides those you saw at the office is my chief officer here, Mr. Richards. If any cargo was offered for shipment from an unknown quarter, he has my instructions to refuse it till we are satisfied.'

On deck, not far from the gangway, was a range of deck-houses, and in the forward one, which has windows looking all ways, I established myself, at Captain Seaton's suggestion. From this point I had a clear view of the busy scene, and was able to note the appearance and demeanour of everyone whose business brought him aboard.

When the hour for knocking off work arrived I was positively certain in my mind that nothing but legitimate cargo and stores for the use of the passengers had been brought aboard. Nor had any person presented himself at the gangway whose business was not plainly accounted for. The captain had given orders that dinner should be served to me in the smoking-room at half-past seven, by which time the hurly-burly of loading the ship had ceased. Captain Seaton and his chief officer joined me at the meal, and together we discussed the probability of any discovery coming to light.

Both my companions, strongly imbued as they were with a spirit of antagonism to the Flower Line, pooh-poohed the idea of danger, and adhered to the notion that the letter was simply a ruse to delay the steamer's departure. They were both engaged in chaffing me on being employed on a wild-goose chase, when the steward who was waiting on us came and said that the quartermaster on duty at the gangway wanted to see the chief officer. Mr. Richards left the table, but quickly returned and reported that a gentleman had arrived in charge of a coffin containing the corpse of an American millionaire who had died in London. At the desire of the friends of the deceased, the body was to be transported to New York for burial. But the quartermaster, acting on his instructions, would not admit the melancholy consignment without the captain's order.

Captain Seaton glanced at me significantly.

'Here's your chance for a sensational capture,' he said. 'An infernal machine hidden in a coffin; what more do you want?'

I could see that the worthy captain's suggestion arose from facetious incredulity, but at the same time coffins have been used for strange purposes ere now, and I intended the late millionaire to have the benefit of my scrutiny.

'I think we had better interview the gentleman in charge,' I said. 'I will follow you, captain, in the capacity of a shore friend partaking of your hospitality.'

Captain Seaton rose and led the way to the gangway, where a sufficiently impressive sight awaited us. A burly quartermaster was standing in the middle of the plank, so as to effectually bar the passage of a well-dressed man in deep mourning who was expostulating loudly. Behind the latter, on the quay, was a sumptuously furnished coffin borne on the shoulders of four men, and still further in the background there loomed the grim outline of a travelling hearse.

Noting the captain's uniform, the stranger ceased parleying with the quartermaster and slightly raised his hat in the direction of our party.

'Do you command this ship, sir?' he said, addressing Seaton; 'because, if so, I must protest against the discourtesy of your officials. Here I have been kept waiting five minutes, though I have presented my ticket and the freight receipt for my solemn charge. This conduct, under the circumstances, is highly indecent, and I shall see that it is represented in the proper quarter.'

'In any case, we had better bring it on board,' I found time to whisper in the captain's ear, with the result that the quartermaster was bidden to stand aside, and the gloomy procession filed across to the upper deck of the steamer. The gentleman in deep mourning followed close behind the coffin, directing the movements of the bearers, and frequently urged the men to be careful. I think it was the stranger's extreme anxiety lest the coffin should be jarred that first set me wondering whether there could really be any grounds for suspicion in the episode that was taking place.

When the coffin was clear of the gangway the bearers stood waiting instructions where to deposit their load, and the captain, advancing to the stranger, made a rather lame apology for the delay to which the cortege had been subjected. It was a strict rule, be said, to close the ship for all purposes at sundown, though of course an exception could be made in a case like the present. All the time the captain was talking the mourner never took his eyes off the coffin, and once, when one of the bearers made a clumsy movement, he put out his hand to steady it, emitting at the same time a little nervous cry. He was a man of middle age and middle size, with rather a weather-beaten face and crisp curling hair just tending to iron-grey. He merely acknowledged the captain's excuses with a curt bow, and then said abruptly, in a very pronounced American accent: 'Well, now that we are aboard, I reckon you'll have to show us where to stow my poor friend for the voyage. Here is my own passenger ticket— state room No. 57— and here is the office receipt for freight on the coffin. These fellows are undertaker's men; they ain't going.'

Captain Seaton at once arranged that the coffin should be deposited in an empty cabin on the main deck, and together we made our way.

Mr. Phineas B. Madden, as the stranger was described on the passenger ticket, insisted on keeping close to the coffin during the progress. Descending the companion stairs one of the bearers stumbled, and somehow at that moment I chanced to catch Madden's eye. His face was working strangely, and his sunken gaze glared as though he were stricken with a great horror. His countenance quickly changed when the bearer righted himself and the threatened catastrophe was averted, and he excused his obvious nervousness by saying how deeply attached he had been to his departed friend, and how he dreaded any desecration for the remains.

The coffin was safely deposited in the state room, and Madden left the ship to go to the hotel where he had engaged a bed for the night. He would be back again with his own personal luggage, he said, in time to join the steamer before she sailed on the following day. Captain Seaton, the chief officer, and I bade him goodnight at the gangway, and watched him hail a cab at the quay gates and drive off. The moment the cab had disappeared we all three turned and looked at each other, and before a word was spoken I saw that the captain and chief officer were already converts to the suspicion which had as yet barely taken shape in my own mind.

'I don't like the look of that chap,' said the captain at length, 'and, what is strange. I seem to be familiar with his face, though wherever I have seen it, it is not associated with the feeling of repulsion this fellow's presence causes. He appeared precious anxious to have that coffin handled gingerly. What do you think, Mr. Cragg?'

'I agree with you,' I said. 'The man was shaking with fear as we went below, and his eyes were full of intense horror when that lubber stumbled. I shall never forget those eyes.'

'I think I know where you imagine you have seen him before, sir.' said the chief officer.

'He is as like as two peas to Brewer, the pilot— you know, he belongs to No. 7 cutter — barring his eyes. There, there's a difference, very much to Brewer's favour. As like as not, it is Brewer's turn to take us out to-morrow, and then, you will be able to compare the two.'

'That's it,' replied the captain; 'it's one of the Northpool pilots he's like— a coincidence, and nothing more. Well, Mr. Cragg, we are in your hands; do you purpose to probe this matter at all?'

'There are two ways of satisfying ourselves that this Madden is on the square,' I answered; 'one is for me to go up to the hotel and see what I can ferret out about him, the other is a method which perhaps you will hardly approve of.'

'Oh, yes, I shall, though,' said the captain. 'Have the lid off the coffin by all means, if that's what you're driving at. It's what I should have proposed myself.'

I confessed that I had that notion in my mind, and Captain Seaton at once proceeded to put the project into execution. In order to prevent all chance of gossip or false alarm, we did not enlist the services of the ship's carpenter, but set about the work ourselves. Furnished with screwdrivers, we again sought the cabin where the coffin had been placed, and soon removed the massive brass screws from the lid.

Amid breathless excitement we raised the handsome lace coverings, half expecting to disclose clockwork mechanism and the other appurtenances of an infernal machine. Instead of that we laid bare the marble features of a dead man, emaciated and worn looking, and bearing traces of having yielded up life in great suffering and misery. The captain gave a sigh of relief, and at the same time was unable to repress a chuckle at our unfounded suspicion.

I was not so easily satisfied, and the lid was not replaced till I had made a prolonged examination of the interior of the coffin, with the result that the contents proved to be neither more nor less than what they should have been. The only thing which did not quite tally with outside appearances was that the body looked more like a man who had died of penury and want than that of a well-cared-for -millionaire.'

'That settles it, then,' said the captain, when we had returned to the deck smoking-room. 'It is our nerve and not Mr. Madden's that is at fault, you see. I am confirmed in my original idea that the letter was a bogus warning, for the only thing we have found has been a mare's nest.'

And from that minute nothing would convince the captain that any real danger threatened his ship.

I was obliged to admit that so far as Mr. Madden was concerned we appeared to have made a mistake, but all the same I did not relax my own precautions. I did not sleep that night, but spent the hours of darkness in watching the quay and the steamer's deck.

When morning came I was able to report to the chairman, who paid the ship an early visit, that so far all was well. Besides watching the shore communications I had made an exhaustive analysis of the bills of lading, and I was convinced that there was not a suspicious package on board. Towards midday the passengers began to arrive. This was the time when all my vigilance was required, for it was within the bounds of possibility that some evil-disposed person might come on board in the character of a passenger or a passenger's friend, and then go ashore again, after leaving some devilish contrivance on the ship. But no. I was here, there, and every where among the throng, and I was able to satisfy myself those who came were either going in the ship themselves or were the bona fide friends of those who were. Danger was not to be expected from any of these.

More from interest than any lingering remnant of the suspicion that had been dispelled, I looked out for Mr. Madden. He was one of the last to arrive before the hour of departure. He had but little luggage with him— a couple of portmanteaux, which he saw bundled into the hold without any signs of nervousness, a third portmanteau, which was taken to his stateroom, and a large green leather despatch-box, fastened with a shining brass padlock, which he carried in his hand. Thus laden, he made his way to his cabin, and, passing it a little later, I saw through the open door that he was getting his things unpacked for use on the voyage.

I had arranged to prolong my watch to the last possible moment by going down the river in the steamer, and by being put off with the pilot, whose cutter would meet the ship as usual some way out at sea. It was getting on for two in the afternoon when the Abbey of Bruges was warped clear of the dock. The last good-byes had been said, and I felt that my work had come to a satisfactory conclusion, for as far as human skill could effect a certainty my precautions had convinced me that no suspicious sham passengers had gone ashore. The only scare we had had was that of the coffin, and that had been successfully allayed by Mr. Madden remaining on board. He would not blow up a ship on which he was travelling himself. Suddenly, as the noble vessel was steaming down the river, I felt a pluck at my coat-sleeve, and turning, saw Mr. Richards, the chief officer. He was very busy, but he found time to stop and say:

'Look up there. Do you see anything remarkable?'

We were on the hurricane deck, a little forward of the bridge, to which he pointed.

Following the direction of his finger, I saw the captain, and, by his side, engaged at the steering gear, was the pilot. I could hardly believe my senses, for the pilot was, at that distance, the very facsimile of the saloon passenger in charge of the coffin. Mr. Richards hurried away, but I remained gazing at the pilot's face. I saw at length that there was a difference, though the general resemblance was so close. The difference was in the eyes, which in this case lacked the sombre, sunken glare of the man who had brought the body.

If any lingering doubt remained in my mind as to the two being the same, it was dispelled immediately afterwards, for Madden came on deck, and, I saw him and the pilot at the same time. The American wore a long plaid ulster, which enveloped him down to the heels, and he was smoking a large cigar as he walked up and down: Finally he went into the smoking-room, which was just at foot of the steps leading up to the bridge, and I saw him no more.

The sun had just set when, the pilot cutter was descried standing towards us round a distant headland, and soon we were able to make out her small boat pulling rapidly alongside. I had already said good-bye to the captain, before he took up his position on the bridge, so there was nothing to do but to take my departure in the consciousness that I had done my best. I stationed myself at the head of the ladder, and as soon as the boat was made fast I scrambled down into her so as to lose no time, for I had already noticed the pilot shaking hands with the captain preparatory to quitting the bridge. I had hardly taken my seat in the stern of the boat when he followed over the steamer's side, and descending quickly, took a seat close to me. The man who had been holding on let go his boathook and pushed off; the mighty screw of the great steamer began to revolve again, and in another moment we were dancing over the waves to the pilot cutter, while the Abbey of Bruges began to dwindle rapidly into the darkness of the night.

I sat watching her for a minute, and then turned to speak to the pilot — some common-place word of thanks for consenting to put me ashore. Directly I looked at him my breath came quick and my heart seemed to stand still, for the eyes which met mine were not the eyes of the pilot, but the eyes of Madden, the man who had aroused my suspicion, and who had never really freed himself from it till I was assured that he was going in the ship. And now here he was sitting in the boat with me, and the Abbey of Bruges gone beyond recall! In my excitement, I half rose in the boat and an involuntary exclamation escaped me. 'You are not the pilot,' I cried; 'you are Madden, the saloon passenger. What can this mean?'

The man with the sunken eyes made no answer, but smiled sardonically. One of the men from the cutter, however, who was rowing the boat, told me roughly not to be a fool. They had no call to be worried with my gabble, he said, just because I chose to be misled by a chance resemblance. The man, was the pilot, Brewer, right enough; he, the speaker, ought to know, seeing that he was Brewer's own son.

But still I was not convinced, and still those lurid eyes gave the lie to what I would fain have accepted as the truth. We reached the pilot cutter, and the man whose identity I doubted went on board, but I, at my own request, was rowed ashore to a village whence I could get back to Northpool by train. Thence I returned to town full of forebodings.

Days grew into weeks and weeks into months, but the Abbey of Bruges was never heard of again. No mortal eye survived that witnessed the catastrophe which somewhere in the wide waste of the Atlantic must have overtaken her, and the mystery of her fate has never been cleared up, nor has the guilty hand that wrecked her been brought to justice.

The chairman sent for me as soon as the ship was posted at Lloyd's as 'missing,' and swore me to secrecy, lest the company should be blamed for allowing the ship to proceed to sea in face of the warning, and I was certainly the last to be likely to talk of my own failure. But, though I kept silence, I made inquiries which left no doubt, on my mind at least, that the steamer and all on board had been the victims of a deep-laid scheme.

After the ship had been missing a year I made it my business to seek out the crew of the Northpool pilot cutter, to which Brewer belonged, and I learned from Brewer's son, the young man who had spoken to me in the boat, what had happened.

The day before the Abbey of Bruges sailed the man Madden had come to his father, whose turn it was to pilot the shop out, and had offered him, £500 to change places with him on coming down from the bridge to get into his boat. He gave no reason further than that he wished, for business purposes, to have it believed that he had left England, while all the time he was in London. Tempted by the bait, Brewer had yielded, and in the dusk of the evening had managed to put on Madden's ulster at the foot of the bridge steps while Madden himself got into the boat in has place. The pilot had therefore paid the penalty of his cupidity by going down in the doomed ship.

Whether he was ever recognised on board as not being the saloon passenger will never be known, but his loss put the crew of the cutter in a dilemma, which they had to get over by saying publicly that he had retired and gone abroad. Madden was never seen again after he was put ashore, and as every one who knows the circumstances has reason for suppressing them, it is not likely that the truth will ever come out. My failure, and the delusion of others, in this case, all hinged on the 'blind clue' so artfully prepared in the real coffin and corpse conveyed aboard. I am very certain that the letter was written, and the body— probably that of some pauper— procured, in order to point suspiciously to Madden in the first place, because he knew that we should look into the coffin, and that from that moment he would be the only man on board who would not be watched. It is well known both to criminals and to detectives that no man is so safe from suspicion, as he on whom a wrongful suspicion has once been fastened. Thus he had no difficulty in conveying some deadly contrivance— probably concealed, in the dispatch-box I noticed— to his cabin, where no doubt it remained till its fell purpose was achieved.

Whether the scheme was that of a solitary individual actuated by revenge against the company, whether it emanated from rivals, or whether it was directed against some passenger on the steamer, I cannot say. I have merely set down here what actually happened before the Abbey of Bruges steamed away into the Great Unknown.

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8: The Revelation of the Dark Slide

I WAS LOOKING through the daily papers in the general room of the detective department of Scotland Yard, when the chief's bell rang and the messenger entered to tell me that I was wanted in the private room.

'Look here, Jackson, said the great man, 'you have nothing very pressing on hand just at present; I want you to run down to Hinton Bay, in Devonshire— it's what they call a rising sea-side resort— and take a look round. There have been several burglaries there lately, and the local men are in a complete fog about it. My own impression is that there is a London gang at work, but you will be better able to form an opinion on the spot. You had better start at once, and take a few days over it.'

I reached Hinton that same evening, too late to do more than engage a room at the hotel and interview the sergeant, who, with two constables, formed the police force of the little place. I had not been two minutes in the sergeant's company before I saw that my chief's assertion that the local men were completely fogged was not at all beside the mark; and in saying this I do not desire to hint that Sergeant Evans and his colleagues had been either remiss in their duties or stupid in their deductions. On the contrary, they happened to be exceptionally acute and energetic specimens of the rural policeman; they had done all that was possible to get upon the track of the thieves; they had made themselves almost objectionably inquisitive as to the respectability and credentials of every visitor staying in the place; and in coming to the conclusion that the criminals were to be looked for outside the limits of Hinton Bay, they had adopted the only theory which recommended itself at this stage of the proceedings to my larger experience.

Briefly, the particulars of the robberies were these.

In the first case the entry had been made into a large house, taken by a well-known London banker for the season, while the family were at dinner. Footmarks showed that two men at least had been engaged, and it was also clear that the pillars of the portico had been used as a means of approach to the windows on the first floor. In the second case, the house robbed was in the occupation of a widow lady with two daughters, and here the burglars had somewhat varied their plan of campaign by selecting as the point of attack the glass door of a conservatory which gave direct access to the dining-room, in which there was much valuable plate. In this case, again, the footsteps on the soft garden mould left no doubt that two men had been 'on the job.'

Contenting myself for the present with these general outlines, I retired to the hotel for the night. Before turning in, I purposely threw myself in the way of the landlord, and seeing that he was a man to be trusted, I took him into my confidence as to the object of my visit. Over a cigar and a 'nightcap' in his private room we went carefully through the guest-book for the past three months, noting the name and description of every visitor who had stayed in the hotel during that period. There was absolutely no one in the list to arouse any suspicion. As a matter of fact, Hinton, though a small place and little more than a straggling village of large houses, was very exclusive and fashionable, and most of the people who came there were sufficiently prominent to be easily identified.

The landlord and I separated for the night, firm in the conviction that at any rate no queer characters had put up at the hotel. 'Of course,' said mine host, 'there are lodging-houses where such people might have contrived to pass muster as respectable, but somehow I don't think the parties you want have been staying in Hinton. You see, the visitors here are as a rule regular frequenters of the place; most of them come year after year, and thus get to know each other. Any outsiders of peculiar habits would soon excite remark.'

After an early breakfast next morning, I went out to look about me. There was no doubt about it that from a burglar's point of view Hinton Bay was an eligible locality. The houses, which had been built especially for the purpose of being let furnished during the summer season, were all large, and most of them were detached. Very few of them were devoted to the mere letting of apartments, such stray visitors as could not afford the luxury of a house to themselves, or the high prices of the hotel, having to content themselves with a slender choice of lodgings at one or other of the various shops. The season was now at its full height, and the pleasant villas were nearly all tenanted with lively parties of holiday-makers, though here and there a house stood vacant, its tenants not yet having arrived.

I was admiring the proportions of one of these empty houses, which stood in one of the three pretty roads leading down to the beach, wishing that I had time and money enough to take it for the season and forget crime and criminals for a while, when a singular figure caught my eye. It was that of a gentleman, dressed in the noticeable costume of a bishop, who was advancing along the road under circumstances which could not fail to attract a stranger's attention. The prelate was very tall and very portly, and moreover he was laden like a packhorse. One hand was occupied with a stout walking-stick, the other carried a camp stool, under one arm was an air-cushion, and on his back was slung a small photographic camera, complete with its tripod stand and all ready for business.

The moment after I noticed him I saw that the bishop was an invalid, unable to walk more than a few paces at a time. He spread out his camp-stool at the side of the road, placed the air-cushion upon it, and taking a seat, calmly surveyed his surroundings. After he had rested a few minutes he rose again, picked, up his impedimenta, and recommenced his laborious progress in my direction. Although though the distance was short, he stopped twice before he came opposite the house on the gate of which I was leaning, and 'camped out' in the same way as before. At his third pause, however, the bishop, instead of proceeding on his way after resting, unslung his camera and set it up in front of the house which I was admiring. From the direction in which the lens was pointing, I concluded that he was going to photograph the building— a surmise which shortly proved correct. Emerging at length from the focussing cloth, which he had placed over his head in the usual fashion, he hobbled a few paces towards me and spoke in the refined and unctuous accents which are generally associated with churchmen of high degree.

'Pardon me for addressing you,' he said 'but would you be so very kind as to stand quite still for a few moments while I take a photograph?'

'By all means,' I replied; 'but perhaps you would rather I got out of your way altogether?'

'No, indeed, my dear sir,' was the-bishop's polite reply; 'pray do not move; you will make an excellent foreground to my picture. I always like to get as much detail in as possible. I shall really take it as a favour if you will remain while I remove the cap from the lens.'

Of course there was nothing for it but to comply; and as it didn't matter to me one way or the other, I stayed where I was; leaning against the gate, while the bishop photographed the house. When he had finished, I strolled up to the spot on the other side of the road where he was packing up his camera.

'An interesting pursuit,' I remarked by way of something to say.

'Most interesting,' replied the bishop, 'though of course my knowledge of it is only that of an amateur. I am making a collection of all the striking architectural features in this most charming place. Some of the houses here are really very fine.'

'I should hardly have thought,' I said, 'that the house you have just photographed shows any special features. It is pretty enough— in fact, I was admiring it myself when you came up— but it. is a common type of house. Indeed, there are many houses here exactly like it.'

The portly prelate shook has fat finger at me playfully.

'The eye of the Philistine, my dear sir,' he remarked; 'the eye of the Philistine! To the artistic sense there are many beauties perceptible in that building not to be found elsewhere. Besides, you must remember that in the place of exile where my work is situated— the Andaman Islands— I get few opportunities of studying modern architecture. If it was not for my miserable infirmity, I would photograph every house in Hinton.'

'I feared you were an invalid,' I replied sympathetically.

'Creeping paralysis of the spine, my dear sir—a terrible complaint which impedes my locomotive powers, as you see; but I bear it my friend, I bear it—as I trust you would bear an affliction sent you for your sins— with fortitude and resignation.'

The bishop, had by this time got his traps together again, and with a pleasant smile was moving off, while I prepared to prolong my stroll in the opposite direction. For one brief moment however, I stood watching the good man's laborious progress, and as I did so, I noticed that after he had gone a few paces a newspaper fell from one of his pockets. It had evidently worked out while he was stooping to pick up his encumbrances. The bishop did not notice his loss, but trudged on unheeding, so I stepped forward and took possession of the paper, with the intention of restoring it to its owner. I was on the point of calling after him, when my eye was arrested by some blue pencil marks that bore traces of having been recently made at certain points in the body of the journal. Glancing quickly at its title— uncalled-for curiosity is second nature with a detective— I saw that the newspaper was a sporting publication of recent date, and I noticed, further, that the blue pencil marks were placed opposite the names of certain horses which appeared in the programme of that day's racing at a distant turf rendezvous.

One never knows how these impulses take one, but my mind was made up in a moment. Instead of restoring the paper to its owner, I put it carefully away in my own pocket. A colonial bishop stricken with creeping paralysis, and yet so keenly interested in horse-racing as to carry about a sporting paper marked with a selection of the day's ''winners,' was an anomaly which required consideration. The more I thought the matter over, the more puzzled I became.

It is an old theory in the science of detection, that if, in conducting an inquiry on a restricted area, you come across two apparently distinct and isolated mysteries., the chances are that further investigation will prove them to be connected. Here I had found my two distinct mysteries ready to hand— firstly in the series of burglaries committed in the midst of a secluded and irreproachable community; and secondly in a reverend prelate who went about photographing houses, though he could scarcely walk, and who combined an unctuous and priestly manner with a secret penchant for the unclerical sport of horse-racing. Could it be that the bishop was a burglar?

And yet the possibility dwindled to a mere nothing when the arguments on the other side were applied.

First of all he was photographing an uninhabited house, which would be useless to him for the purpose of robbery; there could be no object in his securing a plan of windows and doors behind which no rich plunder was to be found.

Again, it was quite 'on the cards' that a bishop home on a holiday might indulge in a little quiet speculation when he could do so without making an example of himself to his flock. Our profession is one which causes us to be no respecters of persons, and before then I had come across gentlemen in very queer company and engaged in very queer pursuits who would never have been suspected of anything of the kind by their nearest friends. Very likely the bishop had been in the habit of backing his fancy when at college, and wished to renew the sensation just for the fun of the thing.

And, lastly, there was more than one man engaged in the burglary. If my first flash of suspicion was correct, he must have at least one companion, and so far I had only seen him alone.

It was a point easily set at rest, and, with the object of deciding it, I returned to the hotel, preferring to talk the bishop over with my friend, the landlord, to exposing what might turn out to be a very bad hand to the local police. I found the landlord alone in his private room, and told him casually of my curious meeting with the bishop.

'Funny old chap, isn't he?' replied mane host; 'he lodges at Bay Villa, near the post office— been there about six weeks. Pity the poor old man is so shaky on his legs; as he's so keen on photography; it's quite painful to see him trying to get about. He's affable enough. He must have made friends with every man, woman, and child in the place.'

'Is he alone here?' I asked.

'Quite alone. He didn't know a soul when he came here. But that makes no difference to him; he gets into conversation with every one be comes across on the beach, and makes himself at home everywhere.'

'I suppose he takes a good many photographs of the scenery round about— the cliffs and caves, for instance, and snap-shots at the boats and bathers along shore?'

'No; strangely enough, he doesn't care for views. He says he's making a collection of architectural subjects, and he has given Mrs. Newsome, where he lodges, quite a number of his pictures. She wanted him to rent an extra bedroom for a dark room, but Newsome tells me he sends all the negatives up to London to be developed. You see, the poor old fellow is ill, and can't be bothered with working in a stuffy dark room. Why, he goes to bed every night at 9 o'clock.'

The landlord's information pretty nearly knocked my first wild suspicion on the head. The bishop was alone at Hinton; he retired to rest early every evening, and could not, therefore, be engaged on burglarious enterprises; and he evidently made no secret of his fad for photographing architecture. Besides, supposing he was a bad character in disguise, what earthly use would the picture of an empty house be to him? No! I came to the conclusion that his interest in the turf must be a solitary foible, after all, or, what was still more probable, that the sporting paper didn't belong to him, and that the blue pencil 'selections' had been made by some one else.

But it is a moral with me never to drop a theory, however wild, without seeing it through; so I took a walk up the main village street to the little grocer's shop, in a corner of which the post office was situated. There, on a counter on which pieces of bacon and packets of candles were indiscriminately mixed with telegraph and money order forms, I wrote out a cypher wire to Scotland Yard as follows: —

'Please ascertain at once if Bishop of Andaman Islands is at home on leave.'

Leaving word that I would call for the reply in a couple of hours, I went cut and commenced to work my case in the orthodox manner, calling at the houses where the robberies had been effected, examining servants, and questioning the victims as to the stolen property.

The results were absolutely nil. I found out nothing that had not already been ascertained by the local police, and the clue seemed as far away as ever, except that in both cases circumstances pointed to information having been supplied about the habits of the occupiers. The burglars must have been posted up in the hours of dining and going to bed of the two different households, and yet there were no indications that there were traitors in either of the camps.

By the time I had completed the inquiries the reply telegram was about due, and I turned my steps to the post office to see if at had arrived. Stumbling through the lumber of the grocer's shop to the postal counter, I found that the reply had just come through, and that the young woman, who combined the duties of operator with a general knowledge of tea and sugar, was putting it into the envelope. I took the telegram to the front of the shop where there was more light, and tearing it open spelled out the cypher with the help of my code. This is what I read: —

'There is no bishop of Andaman Islands. Any person calling himself such must be a fraud.'

I had barely time to feel a thrill of triumph run over me, when over the tins of lobster and potted meats that decorated the windows, I saw the shovel-hatted, gaitered figure of my morning's acquaintance advancing towards the door of the shop. Quickly turning to the counter, I inquired for the first article I could think of, and strained my eyes and ears to their acutest pitch. The portly invalid made his way laboriously up the length of the shop to the post office counter, where he handed in a small flat package.

'For parcels post, Miss Williams, if you please,' he said in his bland tones; 'kindly be very careful with it. It contains my dark slide and some fresh negatives, which I am sending to London for development. Fourpence-halfpenny? Thank you.'

Pocketing his change, he took up the camp-stool and air-cushion, and trudged away, as far as I could see without noticing me, though he brushed my shoulder as he passed. Glancing towards the postal counter, I saw that the young woman had placed the parcel with a number of others that were awaiting dispatch. Making a quantity of trifling purchases, I gradually moved down towards the pile, and satisfying myself that the end justified the means, transferred the parcel to my pocket without attracting attention.

Within an hour I was closeted with the principal professional photographer at the county town six miles away. The dark slide, divested of its wrapper, which had been addressed to a Mr. Giles, 300 Gower-street, London, lay on the table before us.

'You want these negatives developed?' said the photographer. 'Certainly, I will set about it at once. They will be ready in about half an hour at the outside, if you will be good enough to amuse yourself here in the meanwhile.' It seemed a long time before the photographer returned. When he did it was with a curious smile that he handed me the negatives, one of which portrayed the house which I had seen taken in the morning, while the other, in place of a picture, revealed the following words:

Dear Fred,—

Fourth house on right from one sent herewith. Family dine at 8. Dinner party on Thursday. Servants will be busy. Easy entrance to first floor from roof of washhouse at back. People keep ready cash in house— probably in large front bedroom, also plenty of sparklers. This will about finish up Hinton. Shall move on to Ilfracombe, and notify you by same means from there.

Yours, N. C.

The revelation was complete. The 'bishop' was a burglar's 'agent in advance,' after all, and my first theory was proved correct. The idea of notifying his accomplices on the invisible surface of a dry plate, which would reveal nothing till it was 'developed,' was a novelty in the annals of crime which would probably never have been discovered had it not been for the sporting newspaper. The campstool and the spinal paralysis had also played important parts in the deception, by enabling the sham invalid to sit down unsuspected when spying upon a likely crib; while the early hours he kept and his affable manners precluded even the wildest imagination from connecting him with the burglaries.

The telegraph was set to work, and while I was busy annexing the portly person of the self-styled 'Lord Bishop of the Andamans,' a posse from Scotland Yard paid a visit to 300 Gowers-street, where the two other members of the gang were taken by surprise. I got great credit for the capture; but, between ourselves, I think it only shows how our greatest successes are due to chance.

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9. The Secret of the Envelope

A Sebastian Zambra Case

HUNSTON COURT is a fine old Elizabethan mansion, standing in the heart of the as yet rural pasture land that lies between Willesden and Harrow. It is one of the seats of the Tredennick family, and at the time of which I write was in the occupation of the widow of the thirteenth Baron Tredennick— a lady who had taken as her second husband one Captain Algernon Borradaile, late of the King's Royal Lancers.

Her only son, Herbert, Lord Tredennick, was within six months of attaining his majority, when he would in due course assume the responsibilities of his position. In the meantime Captain Borradaile was acting on behalf of his wife as master of the establishment, and it was in response to a summons from this gentleman that I found myself waiting one morning in the library of the Court, knowing neither more nor less than I have set down above about the family to whose counsels I had been called. No word had reached me through ordinary channels of any crime or disaster in the house, so I was quite in the dark as to the nature of the inquiry.

On approaching the front door I had, however, noticed a young lady and gentleman playing tennis on the lawn, apparently in the best of high spirits, and the sight led to the conclusion that nothing very serious had so far occurred. So it was that when Captain Borradaile entered the library, the communication he had to make took me somewhat by surprise. Lady Tredennick's second husband was a pale faced, well-groomed, unemotional-looking man, having some five-and-forty years of comfortable living behind him, and, if the evident care he took of himself had anything to do with it, as many more to look forward to.

Having chosen the most luxurious chair in the room, he plunged straight into the business in hand; but though the burden of his tale was sufficiently startling, it must not be thought that there was any excitement in his manner of telling it. On the contrary, Captain Borradaile was as cool and collected as though furnishing a report to his colonel in the orderly room.

'It is a case of burglary I wish you to undertake,' he began, fixing me with his rather staring eyes. 'Last night while we were at dinner some thieves obtained access to Lady Tredennick's bedroom by means of a ladder, and carried off the whole of the family jewels, except those she was wearing at the time. It is the old story, I expect, of professional burglars aided by an unsuspected accomplice in the household— and as some of the jewels are of great value. Lady Tredennick and I—'

'Pardon me,' I interrupted, 'this seems to be essentially a police case. I very seldom interfere in such matters unless called in by the police themselves, or after their confessed failure. You have, I presume, given notice to the authorities?'

'I was coming to that,' said the captain, with a gleam of annoyance at the interruption. 'No; I have not communicated with the police, and till we see our way a little clearer I have no intention of doing so. I have also taken measures to prevent reports of the occurrence getting about, and in this course I may as well tell you at once I am acting under the advice of Messrs. Holt and Crowther, of Lincoln's Inn, who have been the solicitors to the Tredennicks for half a century. Mr. Crowther has already been here this morning. The fact is there are very important family interests at stake.'

'That alters the case entirely,' I said; 'so long as the inquiry is of a confidential nature, I shall be pleased to conduct it. Pray proceed with the particulars.'

Captain Borradaile took up the thread of his narrative: 'Last night, after dressing for dinner, Lady Tredennick left her jewels securely locked in an oak chest in her dressing-room. On her maid going to the room at 10 o'clock, ready to attend her mistress for the night, she found the window up and the chest prized open. A hasty glance showed that it had been robbed of its contents.

'The maid, at once raised an alarm, and on going to the outside of the house I found the usual traces of thieves who practise this particular branch. A ladder, that must have been brought from the tool house, was propped against the wall under the dressing-room window, and wires were pegged across the lawn to furnish obstacles in the event of pursuit. Returning to the dressing-room, I examined the window and found that it had been merely opened, not forced in any way; and this point I specially commend to your attention, because both my wife and her maid are prepared to swear that they left the window securely fastened with the patent catch when they left the room before dinner.'

'The presumption being that some one inside the house undid the catch after Lady Tredennick and the maid went downstairs.' I said.

'Exactly,' proceeded the captain; 'you take my point to a nicety. And now comes the embarrassing and unpleasant element in the affair, which has caused us to withhold it from the police. My own-dressing-room is separated from my wife's by the sleeping apartment, all three having doors opening on to thee principal corridor. I was a little late in changing for dinner last night, and as I came out to I descend to the drawing-room, I saw, or am nearly, certain I saw, Miss Lucy Moreton, Lady Tredennick's hired reader and companion, slip out of my wife's dressing-room and follow me downstairs.

'I thought nothing of it at the time, supposing that Lady Tredennick had sent her for something; but on comparing notes after the robbery, my wife disavowed anything of the kind. Anyhow, it is a fact that my wife and my stepson, Lord Tredennick, were in the drawing-room when I entered, and that Miss Moreton, who has been received here on quite too ridiculous terms as an equal and dines with the family, came in immediately after me.'

'You suspect this young lady, I see, of having given access to the burglars by unfastening the window catch?'

'What else am I to suppose?' replied the captain with a touch of impatience. 'She had no possible business in the dressing-room.'

'And you wish to shield her, supposing she is guilty, from the consequences of her complicity in the crime ?' I said.

'That is very kind and lenient, of you.'

'H'm, ah, yes; I suppose it is,' said Captain Borradaile, looking rather perturbed at the charge of philanthropy, 'but there are other reasons as well. The fact is, my stepson Herbert― young Lord Tredennick, you know— who comes of age next March, has been and made an infernal ass of himself with this girl. We only discovered covered about a month back that he had proposed marriage to her, and his mother, who is not half strict enough with, him, has given some sort of tacit sanction to an engagement. This piece of folly has leaked out, with the result that if the young woman is publicly proved to be mixed up in this robbery, every fool in every club in London will be wagging his tongue over Lord Tredennick's engagement to a female burglar.

'Now, a scandal of that kind is out of the question: the interests of the whole family demand its suppression, and Lady Tredennick, who is sadly cut up by the whole affair, consented to my plan of hushing up the robbery. What we propose is to amass, with your aid, sufficient evidence to bring the crime indubitably home to Miss Moreton, as she calls herself. Then we can go and lay it before Tredennick with every hope of inducing him to break with the girl. That is our principal motive, though there is, of course, the secondary one that when she finds she is discovered she may, as the price of her liberty, get her friends to restore the jewellery.'

'But, surely, something is known of Miss Moreton's antecedents?' I said.

'Only what she tells us herself,' replied the captain. 'She was engaged through an advertisement about six months ago, and her story is that she is the orphan daughter of an Indian official who lost his life in Burmah. Of course these people have all sorts of facilities for giving false references.'

'It strikes me very forcibly,' I said, ' that if she is in the business, she will herself relieve you of all uneasiness on Lord Tredennick's behalf by vanishing, now that the purpose of her gaining a footing here has been effected. I had better lose no time in trying to trace her past history.'

'Ah! quite so,' mumbled Captain Borradaile, apparently not much captivated by my proposed mode of procedure; 'it would be as well, too, to pay a little attention to her surroundings here, wouldn't it— her own room, and all that sort of thing, I mean?'

I regarded him thoughtfully for a moment. Had this man, I wondered, some reason for guiding me into a particular course of action which he was loth to avow? More was to be gathered from his actual words and tone than from the impassive, owl-like countenance, in which the great eyes stared motionless. As the best means of solving the riddle, I decided to take him at his word, and overhaul Miss Moreton's room before taking further steps.

On receiving my assent, he rose from his chair with more alacrity than he had yet shown, and bade me follow him. In answer to further questions he told me, as we ascended the fine old staircase, that neither Lord Tredennick nor Miss Moreton had been informed of the robbery. He, Captain Borradaile, had happened to be in the hall when the maid came down with the alarm, and at once recognising the situation, had enjoined complete secrecy. No one but Lady Tredennick and two or three of the upper servants knew that anything was wrong.

At my suggestion I was first shown Lady Tredennick's dressing-room, and the oak case which had contained the jewellery. The latter I saw at once had been subjected to very rough treatment, the rim of the lid over the lock being much lacerated in a manner which did not tally with the possession by the burglars of very delicate tools. Turning to the window, I examined the catch, and found the captain's statement quite borne out by facts. The catch had not been tampered with violently; and had it been fastened it would have been quite impossible for any one to raise the window, or slip the catch from the outside. Miss Moreton's room was down a side passage at some little distance, and thither we now proceeded, Captain Borradaile remaining outside to give warning in case of approach.

The room bore traces of being occupied by a young lady of taste and refinement, who, however, I judged was not too well furnished with 'effects.' There were flowers in every vase in the room, and there were a few photographs on the mantelpiece and table, but there were no costly knickknacks or evidences of extravagance. In fact, there was very little to go upon, unless I decided to overhaul Miss Moreton's wardrobe and chest of drawers, and in going to that length I did not yet feel justified. Suddenly, as my eyes roved round in search of further enlightenment, they fell upon a small brass rack over the fireplace, in which were three or four letters, that had presumably been received by the occupant of the chamber. Making to myself the detective's usual excuse that the end justifies the means, I took down the letters in the hopes that they would throw some light on the' young lady's character and connections, and possibly clear her from the as yet vague suspicions directed at her. The first envelope contained nothing more than a receipt for a small amount from a dressmaker in a not particularly fashionable locality. The second advised the dispatch of two pairs of gloves; but the, moment I opened the third letter I saw that, wherever it might lead, I had picked up the first thread of the mystery. The letter read as follows:—

London, October 4, 1891.

Dear Loo,

Wednesday, the 7th has been fixed upon for the job we have in hand. Your part is very simple, but it is important and must not miscarry. You must, without fail, before going down to dinner, find an opportunity of unfastening the window, so that we may not be delayed or have any trouble in entering. This should be done the very last thing after the old lady and the maid have gone downstairs: All the rest of the programme will be attended to by Yours truly,

Fred.

The envelope bore the London S.W. postmark of the day on which the letter was dated, and the handwriting was the clumsy and laborious effort of one not much used to calligraphy. Restoring the unimportant missives to the rack, I placed the compromising one in my pocket, and left the room.

Captain Borradaile was waiting in the passage. A shade of disappointment crossed his face as he saw that my hands were empty, and the impression already formed grew strongly upon me that he had had his own reasons for wishing me to search the room. I believed that he had been there himself, and had seen the letter, but that he wished to avoid the odium of having prowled and pried in a woman's bedchamber.

'Well?' he whispered, as eagerly as his imperturbability would allow him.

'I have found it,' I answered promptly. He fell into the trap, and gave himself away at once.

'That's good,' he said, 'I thought you—' but here he saw his mistake, and pulled himself up short, just too late.

'But what do you mean by it?' he added. 'You must remember that I have not been in the room, and know nothing of your operations.'

I allowed him to think that I had not noticed his slip. It was no part of my business to rouse his ire.

'I have found a letter.' I said, 'which bears out your suspicions; it will be for you, and, I suppose, for Lady Tredennick. to decide upon the next step.'

With every show of alacrity the captain led the way back to the library, and when the door was shut I put the letter into his hands. I watched him very closely while he was reading it, and again I was impressed with the idea that he had already mastered its contents. The expression of his face denoted rather a settled satisfaction at the fact of the discovery than, as would have been more natural, a growing indignation as he read from line to line.

'Thank you,' he said, handing the letter back to me. 'Whatever may be the ultimate consequences of this affair that letter will, at any rate, convince Lady Tredennick of the unworthiness of her protégé, and enable us to stop Herbert's folly. If you will wait here, I will fetch my wife. When she has heard the fullness of this woman's iniquity, we will make short work of the adventuress.'

He left the room, and I walked to the window, still holding the letter in my hand. On the face of it the case began to look very black against Miss Lucy Moreton, but somehow there were points about it here and there which seemed to clash with the most obvious conclusion. In the first place there was this sleek, luxurious captain's evident anxiety to bring the crime home to the girl, and to no one else; and then there was the position in which I had found the letter. Was it conceivable that any one implicated would have left such a piece of damning evidence hanging on a wall with ordinary correspondence, where the first servant that entered the room would as likely as not find and read it?

I examined the letter again, scrutinised the paper for a watermark, and inspected the envelope, in the hope, of finding on the flap the embossed stamp of the vendor. No information of the kind was forthcoming, and I was about returning the letter to its cover, when certain slight indentations on the inside of the envelope caught my eye. They ran in parallel lines on the reverse side of the address; but I saw at a glance that they were too broad and deep to have been caused by the pressure of the soft quill pen with which the address had evidently been written.

A hurried examination of the address side through a pocket lens caused me to open out the envelope entirely, taking care not to tear it, and there, on the inside, I obtained my real clue to the mystery. It differed somewhat from that which had so readily fallen into my hands. I had hardly restored the envelope to its original shape when Captain Borradaile re-entered, conducting a lady of middle-age and fine presence, but whose weak and vacillating expression suggested a temperament easily led. At the captain's request, I handed Lady Tredennick the letter to read, but I carefully retained the envelope. I did not mean to let that go out of my possession again.

Whatever doubts I may have had in the case of her husband, there was no question about it that Lady Tredennick had never seen the letter before. The moment she had perused it she burst into tears, and for some little time her emotion was so great that she was unable to speak. Her first question, when she found her voice, was to ask me what course I would advise— what I could do to help them out of the dreadful dilemma in which they found themselves.

'I understand that Miss Moreton has been a favourite of your ladyship's?' I said, 'and that you have given a sort of implied consent to the relations existing between her and Lord Tredennick?'

'That is so,' was her reply. 'Of course, it was very far from being the match we should have wished for him from a social point of view; but the girl seemed so good and sweet, and if her account of herself had been correct; she would at least have been a gentleman's daughter, so I gave in— much against my husband's will.'

'Of course, with this matter brought home to her, Lord Tredennick will give her up?' I said.

'Oh, yes, he must,' replied Lady Tredennick. 'With the evidence of that letter before his eyes, what else can he do? Nothing short of that, though, would have moved him, I think.'

'Well,' I said, 'these unpleasantnesses are best settled quickly. My advice to your ladyship, if your object is retribution and the recovery of your jewels; is to send for the police, and let them take up the case where I leave it.'

'There are reasons, I think I told you,' put in Captain Borradaile's harsh voice, 'why we should not take that course at present.'

'Very good,' I replied; 'then my next piece of advice is to send for Lord Tredennick and Miss Moreton, and in my presence tell them what happened last night, and what has since been discovered. Only Captain Borradaile must do the talking, for I wish to have no part in compounding a felony. Perhaps, in the presence of a detective the young people will be more easily persuaded into doing the right thing, and I can supplement the accusation with my own testimony if necessary.

The captain rang the bell and told the butler to ask Lord Tredennick and Miss Moreton to be good enough to step into the library. While we were waiting for their appearance, Lady Tredennick sat quietly sobbing, and Captain Borradaile walked up and down the room, evidently working himself into a proper condition to deliver the 'speech for the prosecution.' It was not long before the young couple entered— the same I had seen at the tennis net on my arrival— looking surprised at their sudden summons and Lady Tredennick's palpable agitation, but neither of them evincing the slightest trace of guilty knowledge. Lucy Moreton's quiet, ladylike demeanour was anything but that of the bold adventuress she had been described. The captain briefly narrated the account of the robbery.

'By George!' exclaimed Lord Tredennick, a fresh-coloured young athlete more likely to do execution at the 'Lords' of St John's Wood than of Westminster— 'by George! don't I wish we had come upon them. I'd have made it hot for the rascals!'

'Perhaps,' said the captain, with a sneer at the youthful sally; 'but in that case you would have made it hot, as you call it, for the friends-very possibly the relations— of that young lady. Read that letter.' Taking the letter from Lady Tredennick, he thrust it into his stepson's hands. Lucy Moreton simply looked as if she did not understand.

'Well, what of this? What has this got to do with Miss Moreton?' blurted the young man, turning very pale, but going over and putting his arm round the girl's waist.

'Only that Mr. Zambra, who is a detective, discovered it just now, among other papers, in her bedroom. It was addressed to her doubtless by her friends, the burglars, on whose behalf she gained entrance here. Show them the envelope, Zambra, and tell them that we can prove this person to have been the recipient of the letter.'

'I can tell them more than that,' I said, waving back Tredennick, who seemed inclined to spring upon his stepfather; 'I can tell them who sent it to her, or rather, who placed it in her room ready for me to find it, for that the young lady has never seen it herself I am assured. Listen to me,' I added peremptorily, as the captain, very yellow about the gills, essayed to speak; 'it is a risky thing to try to make a detective an unconscious instrument for doing a foul wrong. It is playing with edged tools with a vengeance. It might be done perhaps by a very clever man; but you, sir, are not clever, and have bungled sadly. You yourself wrote the letter, and addressed this envelope in a feigned hand.' As I spoke I held up the envelope neatly folded together again, and showing no signs of having been turned inside out.

'Insolent scoundrel!' hissed the enraged man. 'I will make you pay dearly for this. What proof have you got of what you say? Absolutely none. This is too preposterous.'

'Pardon me,' I said, 'I have every proof that you were the person whom this letter reached through the post— not Miss Moreton. See here,' I added, quickly reversing the envelope, 'when this precious missive was posted, it was addressed to you in pencil; here are the indentations easily traceable on the wrong side; I make your name of it quite plainly. That was done in order to get the postmarks on it and the stamp obliterated. Then all you had to do was to rub out the pencilled address and fill in Miss Moreton's address in ink, thus preparing a packet which had all the appearance of having been received by her, first hand, through the post. You were obliged to use a tolerably hard pencil in order to make the address dark enough to secure its reaching you, hence my discovery. If your object was robbery, as well as to injure this young lady, I should strongly advise you to restore the jewels at once, for I tell you frankly I am not going to compound a felony in your interests.'

'It is too true,' groaned poor Lady Tredennick. 'I noticed, Algernon, that two days ago you received a letter addressed to you in pencil in your own handwriting.'

A LITTLE LATER Lord Tredennick walked down to the lodge gates with me. His object was to beg me, for his mother's sake, to hush the whole thing up, for my condition had been observed, and by some mysterious juggling the jewels were put back again in the clumsily burgled chest.

'I'm not rightly clear in my mind,' said the young nobleman, 'whether he really meant to stick to the jewels. Very likely he did, for he's an awful scoundrel, but what he was chiefly after was to separate me and Lucy. You see, we shall be married when I come of age, and then he will have to clear out of this little clover field. I suppose he thought, if he could break it off, he would postpone his own exit indefinitely. There are two things you have not explained yet, though— the ladder and wires across the lawn.'

'Why, of course,' I smiled at his simplicity, 'he put them there himself.'

'Well,' said Tredennick, 'I expect this will be about the finish of Captain Algernon Borradaile. My mother must live with us when we are married, and he shall have a couple of hundred a year to go and kick his heels on the Continent.'

And, as a matter of fact, that was the arrangement eventually come to.

___________________

10: The Red Lamp in Hoblyn's Alley

A Sebastian Zambra Case

UP TWO FLIGHTS of stairs, in a dingy back room at the Charing Cross end of the Strand, sat Sebastian Zambra, the great unraveller of hidden mysteries, engaged for the moment in fathoming nothing more intricate than the depths of a homely teacup. I, too, whose privilege it is to chronicle what follows, was present and similarly engaged. I had dropped in to talk over the mechanical deficiencies in a new photographic thief-detector for use in banks, which we were trying to perfect together, and having discovered the weak point, he had asked me to stay for a general chat.

Our conversation was broken by the shrill cries of two rival newspaper boys working their way westward along the Strand outside. As yet they were so far distant that to my less acute senses nothing was discernible of the purport of their cries but the last two familiar words, 'Speshul edishun.' It was only the tones of their voices that told me that their wares were of a more than usually exciting order that night. Zambra, however, must have heard more clearly, for muttering, 'A murder in Victoria-Street— that's interesting,' he raised his thin, wiry form from the armchair, and, walking to the window, gazed down upon the mud-bespattered throng in the fast darkening street.

I followed my friend to the window, and by looking slantwise could just catch a glimpse of the boys who were causing the commotion. It was a wet and sloppy evening, and the Strand was full of people hurrying homeward from the City; but the unpleasant conditions were not strong enough to counteract the curiosity provoked by the shouts of the vendors, who were surrounded by wayfarers eagerly exchanging their pence for the damp sheets. In another moment, as the boys came a few paces nearer, the light of a theatre transparency falling upon their 'contents bills' translated for me their still unintelligible jargon. The lines in great black letters right across the sheet, and occupying the whole space, read as follows:—

MURDER OF A MILLIONAIRE

IN VICTORIA-STREET

Zambra came back to the fire, and, ringing the bell, sent his servant out for a paper.

'One may as well know what there is to know,' he said, as the woman went away on her errand. 'Scotland Yard has taken to consulting me more freely of late; and if there is any little detail in my line that is puzzling them about the case, it is more than probable that I may be called in.'

'By your line you mean, of course, those nicer minutiae which demand scientific knowledge?' I said.

'Exactly,' replied my friend; 'my aid is only asked in those cases where the ordinary detective's education of tramping about in regulation boots and inquiring at public-houses fails to achieve a clue. But here comes Martha with the 'Globe.' Let us see what has caused all this hurly-burly.'

He unfolded the sheet, and spread it open upon his knees.

'Here we have it,' he said, 'the usual evening paper dodge of much cry and little wool. Tremendous headline had scarcely any information. What do you make of it?' he added, handing me the journal, after running his eye over the announcement.

Leaving out the heading, which was simply a repetition of the contents bill, the item itself was of the briefest, running thus:

Mr. Augustus Lumley, of the well-known firm of Lumley and Stevenson, bullion brokers of Lothbury, was found dead at his flat in the Edinburgh Mansions, Victoria-street, this morning, under circumstances which leave little doubt that a murder has been committed. The police, who have the matter in hand, decline further information at present. Inspector Leggett is in charge of the case.

'Nothing there but bare fact,' I said, 'and very little of that. Do you know anything of the victim?'

'Only the idle tattle that everyone knows,' replied Zambra— 'that he was the head of the largest firm of bullion brokers in the city, and was reputed wealthy. But if I mistake not we shall know more directly. I have had dealings with Leggett before, and know his jerky tread anywhere. That sounds very like him on the stairs. Come in,' he added, in response to a tap at the door.

A tall, loosely-built man in an ulster entered, and, nodding to Zambra, paused on the threshold to usher in two gentlemen in deep mourning. One was a stout, prosperous-looking elderly personage, from whose good-humoured face the shock which he had evidently received had been unable to banish all traces of joviality. In striking contrast to him the third comer was a lean, middle-aged man of melancholy demeanour and almost undertaker-like solemnity of manner. His hands were encased in black gloves, and I noticed that his left thumb was missing.

The first arrival, who was known to us both as Inspector Leggett, of Scotland Yard, introduced his companions— the stout gentleman as Mr. Stevenson, of Lumley and Stevenson, and the other as the Reverend Baxter Lumley, of the First Free Church of Latter Day Saints, Chicago, U.S.A.

One comprehensive glance put Zambra in possession of the situation.

'Glad to see you, Leggett,' he said, after seating his visitors, 'though sorry for the cause of your errand. The names of these gentleman indicate it pretty clearly. You want me to find a clue in this Victoria-street case? I have just been reading the bare announcement.'

'Well, not exactly that,' replied Leggett, with a superior smile― there must always be professional jealousy between the regular and irregular forces of detection— 'not exactly that, for you see I have already got my man— at least, I am tolerably certain that the arrest we have effected will turn out correct. But there is a little matter― quite secondary to the main issue― in which it is thought your speciality in close observation may be useful. These gentlemen are anxious to have everything clear, for the case is a painful one.'

'Secondary matters, as you call them, Leggett, are sometimes converted into primary ones,' said Zambra, who had been lazily taking stock of his visitors in turn. 'But I am at your disposal, whatever it is,' he added more briskly, turning his eyes on the detective from a dreamy contemplation of the Reverend Baxter's black-gloved hands.

'What we want of you is this,' said Leggett, drawing his chair closer. 'The cause of death was strangling. There are distinct marks of the murderer's fingers on the neck of the deceased; and we know one of your specialties is microscopical investigation. These gentlemen have strong reasons for wishing there to be no possibility of mistake on my part, so I suggested that we should get you to examine the marks and compare them with the prisoner's fingers.'

The portly Mr. Stevenson grunted a little, as though in dissent.

'You ought to put it stronger than that, Inspector,' he said. 'You would be nearer the mark if you said that I should be delighted if Mr. Zambra can prove the prisoner's innocence. I don't believe the boy had anything to do with it.'

'My poor brother! my poor nephew!' murmured the Rev. Baxter Lumley.

Zambra glanced at the latter, seemed about to address him, but turned to the police-officer instead, and shortly asked for further details.

'The case lies in a nutshell,' replied Leggett. 'This gentleman, the Rev. Baxter Lumley, arrived in London yesterday after many years' absence in America. His object was to become personally reconciled with his brother, Mr. Augustus Lumley, with whom he had parted in anger on leaving for the States twenty years ago. The reconciliation had been thoroughly effected by letter, but both the brothers, as they were getting on in life, thought they would like to see each other face to face. Mr. Baxter Lumley called on his brother yesterday afternoon, found him in excellent health and spirits, and remained to dinner. Mr. Baxter Lumley left the flat, according to his own evidence, which I may say is corroborated by the deceased's servants and by the lift-attendant, at 10 o'clock, after a thoroughly cordial evening. Jackman, Mr. Augustus Lumley's man, was then summoned, and told by his master that he might go to bed, as he himself expected a late business call from his nephew, Mr. Walter Merrion, and had in addition some writing to do. To take everything in its proper sequence, the lift-attendant testified to having taken Mr. Walter Merrion up to the second floor at 11 o'clock, and, to having seen him descend by the staircase a little later. This morning at 8 o'clock Jackman went to take Mr. Augustus Lumley his shaving water, and found that his bed had not been slept in. The man became alarmed, and hurrying into the dining-room found his master dead in a chair at the writing-table. The deceased's eyes were starting from his head, and there were distinct fingermarks on the throat which suggested that he had been throttled by pressure on the windpipe.'

'Upon which evidence you have arrested Mr. Walter Merrion, the young gentleman who was presumably the last person in deceased's company?' put in Zambra.

'We have arrested him, certainly,' proceeded the official detective, 'but the evidence goes further. We have found the existence of the strongest possible motive. Mr. Baxter Lumley will tell you that deceased, in consequence of the reconciliation brought about that day, was about to alter his will under which the nephew, Walter Merrion, was to have been his sole heir.'

'It is most painful to me to have to say anything which may point to my nephew's guilt,' began he of the cadaverous voice and features, 'but our friend has spoken truly. My brother, during our pleasant intercourse last evening, informed me that he should atone for his past misunderstanding by making me, in the event of his death, residuary legatee. That position in the existing will has hitherto been occupied by my sister's son, Walter. My brother told me that he expected Walter to call after I had left, and he expressed his intention of informing him of his altered prospects.

Here Mr. Stevenson interposed.

'It will be well for me to add, sir, so that you may have everything that tells against the boy before you at the start that he was engaged to be married to my only daughter, Adela, with my late partner's full sanction and approval. Walter held a high position as foreign representative in our firm, and I may add, sir, still further,' said the old gentleman, growing red in the face, 'that I don't believe a word this— this clergyman person has said about my partner cutting Walter out of the will. Poor Gus Lumley and I were the best of friends, and he has often told me it was the wish of his heart, as he knew it was mine, that by this marriage his own wealth and mine would both be kept in the firm.'

'I deplore your uncharitableness,' said Mr. Baxter Lumley, 'and I feel sure you will come to regret it— the more so as my statement is corroborated by what the detective found in my brother's room.'

'That's so,' said the inspector; 'we must make every allowance for Mr. Stevenson's feelings, but there is no getting over that, is there, Zambra?'

He handed my friend a torn scrap of letter paper. Looking over Zambra's shoulder, I saw these words:—

'Under the altered circumstances, you must see that the expectations you have formed cannot possibly be realised. To-morrow morning I propose to—'

'This was found in the room?' asked Zambra.

'Yes— crumpled up on the floor. The other fragments had been removed— presumably by the murderer. This must have been overlooked. My theory is that Mr. Lumley, his nephew perhaps being late for the appointment, was writing down what he intended to say― that the nephew then came in, was told of his uncle's intentions, and committed the crime, afterwards, as he thought, removing the whole of the pieces of the letter which Mr. Lumley must have torn up on his entrance.'

'Very ingenious,' murmured Zambra. 'Well,' he continued, 'I will just put a few things together that I may require, and I will come and have a look at these marks. Meet me in am hour's time at Edinburgh Mansions, Leggett. There will be no need for these gentlemen to be present. I should prefer to conduct the inquiry under circumstances of as little distraction as possible.'

Mr. Stevenson, seeing that the interview was at an end, got up and took his leave, Leggett and the 'Latter Day Saint' also departed; the clergyman, palpably loitering so as to give his late brother's partner a good start.

'You will do your best to clear up this dreadful occurrence— in the interests of my poor nephew, I mean?' were his last words, as he shouldered his lean, gaunt figure out of the doorway in the wake of the inspector.

'Mr. Walter Merrion's friends seem to be divided in opinion about his guilt,' I remarked, when their footsteps had died away.

'Whatever Mr. Baxter Lumley may hope, he evidently believes his nephew to have committed the crime.'

Zambra whistled softly to the fire for quite a minute before replying.

'Mr. Walter Merrion's friends— if you can so describe both the gentlemen who have just visited us,' he said at length— 'are in my opinion in precisely the same mind about his hand in this affair. But come,' he added quickly, seeing that I was about to question his oracular utterance, 'we must be off, if we are to do any good to-night. You can come with me if you like; in fact, I shall be glad of your company.'

Though my original relations with Zambra were simply those of a maker of scientific apparatus with a good customer, I had drifted into an intimacy with him which grew and flourished in spite of his reserved and silent temperament He well knew the keen interest I took in his work, and the enjoyment it gave me to watch his sleuth-hound steps in the track of crime, and he often invited me to join his expeditions. On this occasion I quickly assented to go with him to the rooms of the murdered man. Zambra put some beeswax and one or two powerful lenses in his pocket, and we sallied forth.

'We go to the police station first' said my companion, as we settled ourselves in the cab; 'if these marks on the body are at all definite, an inspection of Mr. Merrion's hands ought to settle the question as far as he is concerned.'

I sat in the cab while Zambra went into the police station. He was gone about twenty minutes. On his return I scanned his impassive face to see what impression he had gained of the prisoner, but I could gather nothing. The firm lips were close set as ever, and the steady light in his remarkable eyes burned with accustomed fire, but there was no sign of what had happened in the cell. I ventured a question: 'Have you discovered anything material?'

'Very material,' he replied. 'If Walter Merrion speaks truly, Mr. Augustus Lumley was already dead when he came to the flat at 11 o'clock.'

'That would narrow the inquiry indeed.' I exclaimed. 'And your opinion of the prisoner?'

'A nice-looking, open-faced specimen of a young Englishman,' was the reply. 'I should be sorry to think he was guilty, but we shall know more directly, for here we are at the Mansions.'

Dismissing the cab, we entered the roomy entrance hall and found Inspector Leggett waiting for us at the foot of the staircase. He was chatting with the lift-man, but came forward on our approach. Zambra, however, passed him and went straight to the lift-man.

'You were pretty busy last night about the time Mr. Merrion came downstairs, I suppose?' he asked.

'No, sir,' said the attendant, 'not for half an hour afterwards. Then I was pretty busy with several of the tenants coming in from the theatres and wanting to go to the upper floors.'

My friend asked him nothing more, and we ascended to the second floor — Leggett and I going by the lift, Zambra preferring the staircase. We had to wait for him nearly two minutes at the top. When he reached the landing he gave a quick glance round. There were two doors, right and left, one opening into Mr. Augustus Lumley's flat, and the other into a suite of chambers belonging, as a brass plate indicated, to a well-known member of Parliament.

'How many floors above?' asked Zambra.

'Two,' replied the inspector; 'the next one is let out in flats like the first floor and this, and the top floor of all is vacant.'

A ring at the bell of the dead man's chambers produced a respectable middle-aged man in black, who was introduced as Jackman, Mr. Augustus Lumley's valet He led us into the dining room, where the body had been found, and where it still lay awaiting the inquest on the morrow.

Zambra gently removed the cloth from the face, and stood for a while looking down at the features, which spoke all too plainly of sudden terror and intense agony. Then he chose one of his magnifying lenses and set to work, going over every inch of the discoloured skin and making occasional references to pieces of wax which he had brought with him. Even without the aid of glasses I could plainly see on each side of the neck the outlined traces of four lithe fingers, while over the windpipe were the deeper indents where two cruel thumbs had done their work. It was to these latter marks that Zambra gave the longest scrutiny. At last he rose and faced us, and I knew by the twitching fingers and quivering nostrils— old familiar signs when he had come to a definite conclusion — that the instinct of the tracker was strong upon him.

'You have got the wrong man,' he said, to Leggett shortly, 'but I may be able to put you on to the right one.'

Then he turned to Jackman the valet, and asked:— 'How many persons slept in this flat last night?'

'Only my wife, who acted as master's cook, and myself, sir,' was the reply. 'Mr. Lumley being a bachelor and much at has club, he kept no other servants.'

'You let Mr. Baxter Lumley out at 10 o'clock?'

'I did.'

'What did you do afterwards?'

'Master said he should not want me again, that I was on no account to interrupt him, and that if any one came to the door of the flat he would let them in himself. I had heard him tell his brother during the evening that he expected Mr. Merrion to pay him a late visit.'

'Well, after finally leaving your master, what did you do?'

'I went to the kitchen, and shortly afterwards I and my wife went to bed.'

'And you were not disturbed afterwards?'

'No, we neither of us heard anything. We must have been asleep long before Mr. Merrion arrived, and our room is right at the end of the flat, round a corner.'

'I see,' said Zambra. 'Well, Leggett' he continued, 'that is all we can do here, I think; but before we leave, I should just like to have a look at the top floor.'

'What, the unoccupied one?' exclaimed the inspector, as we passed out on to the landing; 'what on earth for?'

'I'll tell you presently,' was the reply. 'In the meantime, we will borrow this candle from Mr. Jackman and explore.'

He led the way to the top of the house. Here the doors of the flats on either side stood open, and ready for the inspection of possible tenants, but their dark interiors yawned uninvitingly, and all was very quiet. Zambra chose the right-hand flat for his first examination, devoting his attention chiefly to the floor just inside the entrance. Then he went over to the left side of the landing, and repeated his performance on the other flat. This last time he rose from the floor with a satisfied smile.

'See here, Leggett' he said, 'look at these marks in the dust. This is the shape of a man's boot— and here again. Some one has waited recently just within this doorway. You can see for yourself that they go no further up the passage.'

'I understand,' said Leggett. 'I don't quite see your drift yet; but if this is likely to be important, we had better have the door locked.'

Zambra walked to the well of the lift took a long look down, and then rejoined us. We went down by the stairs, and after returning Jackman's candle, we descended to the ground floor. Here the inspector left us, Zambra promising to report fully in the morning, or earlier if occasion should arise.

We — my friend and I― turned eastwards towards Westminster, and it was not till the inspector's cab had rattled out of sight that either of us broke silence. Zambra was evidently thinking deeply.

At last I said. 'If the Reverend Baxter Lumley had got two thumbs, I should almost be inclined to think he was the right pea. His deformity bars him from suspicion, though.'

Zambra did not reply. He appeared to be absently reading the brass plates, on the doors we passed, occasionally, in the case of the larger mansions, stepping into the halls to examine the boards on which the names of residents were painted. Suddenly, as we were crossing the entrance of Hoblyn's Alley— a narrow thoroughfare running from Victoria-street towards St. James's Park— he paused for an instant, and stood staring at a red lamp which flickered dimly a short way up the alley. It was the kind of lamp which acts as a signboard to the humbler class of medical practitioners. Beckoning me to follow, Zambra turned up the alley and looked at the. plate of the door where the red lamp was suspended. It bore the name of 'Cyrus Plant, Surgeon.'

Zambra rang the bell. 'Be surprised at nothing that I say or do,' he whispered; 'this is only a try-on, but I fancy we are near the end now.'

As he finished, the door was opened by a slipshod servant girl, who, in answer to an inquiry for the doctor, showed us into a shabby den, reeking of stale tobacco and drugs, that I suppose was called 'surgery' by the proprietor. We waited a couple of minutes, and then a red-faced, loud-voiced man in slippers, and very unprofessional attire, entered. Introducing himself as Dr. Plant he asked which was the patient, and what was the matter.

'I am the patient,' said Zambra quietly. 'I want you to cut my right thumb off, please, at the second joint. I have no further use for it.'

The effect was instantaneous. The shabby surgeon staggered as though he had been shot, and passed his hand across his eyes in sheer bewilderment.

'If I did not know I had not had more than three nips to-night, I should think I was drunk,' he gasped at last. 'Why, its only last night a fellow comes in and has his thumb off when there was nothing the matter with it but a hard wart, and now here's another wants a sound thumb lopped off. What is it— a secret society pledged to lose their thumbs, or what?'

Zambra laughed gently.

'It's all right, doctor; I won't trouble you this time. I've got what I want, thank you. You see, gentlemen in your profession sometimes object to talking about their patients, so I employed a little ruse to surprise you into an admission. If you will give me a description of the man whose thumb you amputated last night you shall not be the loser.'

A quarter of an hour later we left the house in Hoblyn's Alley with details which left no doubt that shortly before midnight on the previous date Mr. Baxter Lumley had undergone the amputation of his left thumb. He had paid very handsomely for the operation, and had borne it unflinchingly, even going to the length of having the thumb cauterised, so that the use of the knife might not appear recent. To my mind the manner in which Zambra had worked the case seemed like magic; but it was not till we were back in his room again, after a visit to Scotland Yard en route, that I ventured to press him for an explanation.

'The whole thing was very simple,' he replied, 'When a man has an apparently remote connection with a murder in which thumbs have played a prominent part, and I see that that man is a thumb short, I begin to wonder if his connection with it is not a closer one. You may say that because two thumbs were used in the murder, the solitary thumb is evidence of innocence. Quite so; and that was the plain deduction which the criminal had in view when he sacrificed the missing member. I always go behind prima facie evidence. On seeing young Merrion at the police station, I found that his story fitted in with this long-faced fellow's guilt. Merrion went up to his uncle's flat at 11 o'clock, but on knocking at the door got no answer. He waited a bit and knocked again, but with the same result. He did not knock loudly, because he knew that if his uncle was in and not gone to bed he would hear, and if he had retired for the night he did not wish to disturb him. In the end he came away without gaining admission or hearing any sounds inside. The reason is that his uncle was already dead, and the two servants were asleep in a distant room.

'What happened, I think, was this. Baxter Lumley had come to England in the hope of plunder in some shape. He had been trying in vain to persuade his brother to disinherit their sister's son in his favour. Failing in this, he planned to make a clean sweep of the two by killing the uncle and getting the nephew hanged, by which means, as sole next-of-kin, he would have scooped the pool. When Jackman let him out of the flat, instead of going downstairs he went up to the vacant top floor, and waited there till close on the time he knew Merrion was to call, when he must have returned to the flat and made some excuse which induced Augustus to admit him. Taking his brother unawares, the Latter Day Saint must then have used those fingers of his. While Merrion was knocking at the door, Baxter. was either inside overhauling the victim's room, or had returned to his lair on the top floor, where he waited till he knew the lift attendant was engaged. Then doubtless he ran down the stairs and escaped unseen. The scrap of letter found was doubtless addressed to the murderer, Baxter Lumley, not to Walter Merrion.'

'But the surgeon?' I asked. 'What on earth led you straight to him?'

'Again very simple,' said Zambra. 'On examining the marks on the corpse my lens showed me that they were never made by Merrion's fingers, of which I had taken impressions at the station. Secondly, I saw that one of the criminal's thumbs had had some peculiarity upon the fleshy part near the tip— some hard growth which had left a clear imprint on the skin. When I found myself in the street I put myself in the murderer's place. What should I do if I had killed a man and left a mark like that on the body?

'Why, go to the nearest surgeon who would be likely to do anything and keep his mouth shut for money, and have the thumb off. Baxter Lumley again! The red lamp in Hoblyn's Alley was the first sign of a shady surgeon in a poor way of business to meet my eye. It might have been the same with the criminal. I made for the lamp, and the job came off; that was all.'

WALTER MERRION was released next day without being charged at the police court and the Reverend Baxter Lumley, who was arrested at an hotel next morning, took his place. Zambra's theory, as related, was proved up to the hilt, even to the exact spot where the murderer had waited in the vacant flat, leaving traces in the dusty floor which his boots exactly fitted. The wretched Latter Day Saint, who had been compelled to leave England in his youth owing to frauds on the brother whom he eventually killed, made full confession, after a verdict of 'Guilty' had sapped his last hope. Mr. Stevenson is never tired of taking credit to himself for having insisted on calling in Zambra at the first, and he does his best, as far as his jolly countenance will allow, to imitate the look of horror with which the lantern jawed Baxter had received the proposal.

As for Walter Merrion and his wife, they are among my friend's warmest admirers.

End

Table of Contents

- 1: The Divination of the Afghan Kukhri
- 2:  The Divination of the Zagury Capsules
- 3: The Divination of the Vagus Nerve
- 4: The Divination of the Kodak Films
- 5. How The Baby Found The Clue
- 6: The Face in the Spoiled Negative
- 7: A Blind Clue
- 8: The Revelation of the Dark Slide
- 9. The Secret of the Envelope
- 10: The Red Lamp in Hoblyn's Alley