PAST MASTERS

NINE

Edited by Terry Walker

("Pulpmeister")

(v2) 2020

Contents

1: The Slump In Silver / M. Mcdonnell Bodkin

2: Under His Own Hand / M. Mcdonnell Bodkin

3: Rats in the Belfry / David Wright O'Brien

4: The Lady of the Morass / E. Phillips Oppenheim

5: A Drop of Blood / M. Mcdonnel Bodkin

6: Diamond Cut Diamond / M. Mcdonnell Bodkin

7: Safe Bind, Safe Find / M. Mcdonnell Bodkin

8: Hide And Seek / M. Mcdonnell Bodkin

9: In the Fog / Richard Harding Davis

10: The Sapient Monkey / Headon Hill

11: Cheating the Gallows / Israel Zangwill

12: The Evicting of Grainger / Harold Bindloss

13: The Broken Sword / Francis Henry Atkins

14: Loser Wins All / Richard Connell

15: Man of a Few Words / Richard Connell

16: The Solid Gold Article / Richard Connell

and

Cumulative Index Vols 1-9

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1: The Slump in Silver

M. Mcdonnell Bodkin

1850-1933

Kalgoorlie Western Argus 6 October 1898

"MR SPEAKER, SIR," said Mr Mirabel, M.P., rising and raising his hat, "I beg to ask the Right Honorable the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as head of the Mint, the questions that stand in my name."

These are the questions that stood in his name:

1. "Is the Right Hon. gentleman aware that there is a large and increasing quantity of unauthorised imitations of the silver coins of the realm in circulation in the United Kingdom?"

2. "What steps, if any, have been taken to detect the coiner or coiners and withdraw such counterfeit coins from circulation?"

3. "Is it true that these counterfeit coins are made from pure silver, and in view of this circumstance are the Government prepared to consider the adoption of the principle of bimetallism and free coinage of silver as the only effective preventive?"

Sir Robert Verdon, the handsome and portly Chancellor of the Exchequer, was plainly nettled by the questions. He showed no trace of his customary good humour as he rose to reply.

"Her Majesty's Government," he said, "have had their attention directed to the circumstances mentioned in the question of my Honourable friend. They are taking active measures for the detection of the offender and the suppression of the offence. But it would not be for the interest of the public service to enter into further detail. In reply to the last paragraph of the question of my Honourable friend, the Government are not prepared to propose bimetallism as the alternative to crime."

There was a ripple of laughter below the gangway at the close of the answer, but the men on the front beaches did not join in it. The matter under consideration was too serious. It was well known that a vast system of silver coinage, in which the Mint had no concern, was in process for the last three or four years. It was rumoured that the system had, by some mysterious process, extended over the continent and even to America. But, as it subsequently transpired, even the initiated had but a faint conception of the extent of this gigantic fraud.

About five years before, the persistent slump in silver had brought its price down to under two and six per ounce. The intrinsic value of the metal or the silver coins of the United Kingdom was therefore not quite half the face value guaranteed by the Government; in other words, there was less than sixpence worth of silver in a shilling, and so on with the rest. This slump had, of course, the effect amongst silver owners of intensifying the outcry for bimetallism. But it had another effect more serious. The bright notion struck some enterprising coiner to make false coin in pure silver. The cost of the metal was less than half the value of the coin, and as his workmanship and material were as good as the Mint, detection of the counterfeit was impossible.

The idea caught on and grew to a vast international system. The counterfeit silver coins slipped mysteriously into general circulation. No one questioned them― no one could question. To call them "base coin" would be a clear misnomer. They differed from the genuine coinage only in their place of origin. So vast was the system that the increase of silver coinage and the consequent demand for the metal began to tell on the price of silver bullion. It rose gradually from half-a-crown to four shillings per ounce, though the rise was popularly attributed to other causes. Even financial experts never grasped how largely it was due to this practically free coinage of silver.

No wonder the Chancellor of the Exchequer was annoyed when Mr Mirabel inconsiderately directed the attention of the House of Commons, and worse still, of the public, to this highly inconvenient and embarrassing question. All the same, he began to regret his curtness after a bit. Mr Mirabel, the millionaire banker, was one of the wealthiest, the most generous the most hospitable, and the most popular men in the House of Commons. He seldom spoke, but always to the purpose, yet without that affectation of superior knowledge which is as irritating to the ignorant. He was a sound Liberal, and his vote and cheque book were always at the service of the party. To crown all he was an intimate personal friend of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

On the other hand, Mr Mirabel did not seem the least disconcerted by the snub he had received. About half-an-hour later the division bell rang, and he was sauntering through the "No" lobby with a quizzical smile on his pleasant face, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer, coming behind, took his arm in a friendly way, and drew him into one of the recesses.

"Didn't think me rude, Mirabel, I trust," he said. "The truth is we are terribly perplexed about this infernal business. Ordinary counterfeit coins, however good the die, are of course easily detected by the metal. But now even the experts cannot tell the difference."

He took a handful of loose silver from his pocket, and jingled it in comic perplexity.

"As like as not," he went on, "one half of these have never seen the Mint. I'll be passing bad coin, and defrauding the Exchequer when I pay for my dinner later on."

Mirabel laughed. "So long, Sir Robert, as you will play the game of finance with counters instead of coin you will be liable to this danger. When you make the value of the metal equal to the face value of the coin, you will spoil the clever coiner's little game. You don't find a private coiner operating in gold, for example."

"The remedy would be worse than the disease," retorted Sir Robert a little pettishly, " You cannot fix a State price for silver any more than you can fix a State price for bread. I always wondered how a shrewd chap like you, Mirabel, took up with this fad of the bimetallists. Your theory, it seems to me, reduces itself into an absurdity. 'Let's call half-a-crown's worth of silver three-and-six; and things will be all right.' No, my friend, silver must take its chance with other commodities in the open market. I find it sometimes hard to believe you are serious in this craze."

"Serious! My dear Sir Robert, I am backing my opinion for all I'm worth in the world, and that's a tolerably big stake. I'm engaged in what I suppose you would call 'making a corner in silver.' I believe in the future of the white metal, and I am buying for a rise. The price is beginning to go up pretty quickly as you are aware."

"Then this private coining hasn't hurt you?"

"In one sense, no. It is undoubtedly driving up the value of silver. Now I bought most of my stock when it was at bottom prices― a mere drug m the market― and I could clear out, if I wanted to, at a big profit. But I don't want to. I'm still buying, and the rise in price doesn't suit me. I am not only on the deal here at home, but I have given my orders to my branch establishments in France, Germany and America: 'Buy what silver you can at market prices.' I fancy I am the biggest owner of silver in the world at the present moment."

"But you are driving up the price on yourself by this wholesale purchase."

"That's so. But it cannot be helped. I mean to sell out at a big profit when bimetallism arrives."

"It will never arrive."

"I'll risk that. Meanwhile the price is growing, and I got the first five millions' worth so cheap I can afford to pay a little extra for further supplies."

"Five millions? Surely yon haven't got five millions worth of silver, Mirabel?"

"Nearer to seven millions, Sir Robert, by this time," Mr Mirabel replied coolly.

"Door! Door!" shouted the impatient tellers at this moment. Mr Mirabel and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had to run for it, and they passed out amongst the last stragglers of the division into the passage at the back of the Speaker's chair.

"It's incredible," resumed the Chancellor of the Exchequer, a little out of breath, partly from the run, and partly from amazement.

"Come and see for yourself. The bank is worth seeing for its own sake. It was a big private house you know, with the finest cellars in London. I board all my clerks there, and try and make them comfortable, and stay there myself as often as not. A bachelor, you see, can chose his own home. It's bit off the track of course. I don't care to pay a guinea a foot ground rent. But my customers don't complain; men don't mind trouble when they want money. Come per and lunch with me some day― any day that suits you― and I'll show you over the big silver shop."

"Well, we'll see about it."

"Say 'yes,' and I think I can give you a helping hand with this coinage business."

"That's a tempting bribe. Wait one moment." Sir Robert stepped into the House through the entrance behind the Speaker's chair, lurking in the shadow.

"There's nothing doing here," he said when he came out the next moment. "Come to my room, Mirabel, and we'll talk this over. You have no notion how important it is to us."

"Perhaps not," Mr Mirabel answered, as they walked down the long passage together; " but I know it is very important to me."

"Now tell me frankly," said the Chancellor of the Exchequer when they were alone together with closed doors, "were you serious when you said you could help me to catch my coiner?"

"I cannot myself, of course, but I think I might recommend you the men who can― a detective named Juggins. The Scotland Yard chaps are babies to him, by all accounts."

"Juggins! Juggins! I think I've heard the name before. Why, that is the man the Duke of Southern talks so highly of―"

"And the Duchess raves about― precisely."

"I've a good mind to try him. Do you know where he is to be had?"

"He's in the House at present, if he hasn't left since the division. That's what put his name into my head. I saw the placid face in the Strangers' Gallery, when I got up to ask my question. Shall I send him to you?"

"I will take it as a very great favour."

"All right. Mind that visit is booked," and Mr Mirabel started off in pursuit of Mr Juggins.

Five minutes later Mr Juggins was closeted with the Chancellor of the Ex chequer, who rapidly explained what he wanted.

"I don't conceal from myself or you, Mr Juggins, that it is a most difficult task. Scotland Yard has failed to find the slightest clue, though, of course, we have to put the best face on things for the public. The matter is of urgent Imperial importance, and expense is literally of no account whatever in comparison with success."

"I never bargain," said Mr Juggins, "and I have never had any reason to complain, I'll do my best for the work's sake and take my chance. This present case seems to me to resolve itself into two distinct parts. First; Stop the coining. Second: Catch the coiner. The first half appears simple enough if the people at the Mint Will lend a hand."

"I will give you a letter to Mr Moulton to assist you in every way. You'll let me know from day to day how you get on. You might also communicate with Mr Cecil Mirabel, M.P. He's deeply interested in this matter, and may be able to help you. You know Mr Mirabel, of course ?"

"The Silver King! The biggest private banker in England! The man that is making the Rothschild's take a back seat. Yes, I know Mr Mirabel."

MR MOULTON received Mr Juggins the next day at the Mint somewhat superciliously, but he thawed when he read the warm recommendation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

"Certainly, certainly, Mr Juggins," he said, with as much cordiality as he could assume, but the long thin hand he offered was limp, and the keen cold eyes refused to have any part in his ungracious smile. "Certainly we will assist you in every way in our power."

He would have questioned Mr Juggins, but the other, in a quite masterful way he could assume when occasion required, took the cross-examination into his own hands.

"This rival manufacture has hurt your business?" he asked.

"Somewhat― not so much as it is thought, I should say. It has delayed the issue of silver coinage― that's all."

"Are you going to have a new issue soon?"

"Almost at once; dated the present year of course. It would create suspicion― perhaps panic― to delay it much longer."

"Can I see the press room?" asked Mr Juggins a little abruptly.

"Certainly― this way!"

Mr Juggins examined the row of hugs coining presses with great care. The vast power of each of these big engines he saw was concentrated on the narrow point where the die touches the metal and gives it a new character to wear through the centuries. Then Mr Moulton took one of the dies― a half-crown as it proved― from the steel girdle and handed it to Mr Juggins.

"We cannot tell our own work from his."

"I think I have a plan," said Mr Juggins musingly, "to help you in the future. It's such a silly, simple plan, I'm half ashamed to mention it. But it ought to stop the coining, and perhaps catch the coiner. Couldn't we have a little microscopic private mark on the die, say 'M' for Mint, there on the smooth part of the Queen's neck. It should only be visible, of course, with a strong magnifying glass. The coiner could never suspect; new counterfeit coin could thus be detected at once. When the old coins were gradually called in 'Othello's occupation's gone.' "

Mr Moulton professed himself delighted at the suggestion. "I'll see about it at once," he said.

"Do nothing hastily," cautioned Mr Juggins, "above all keep the secret tight. If you could have one half-crown― only one, mind, made for me with the new mark, as a specimen, by to-morrow, I would call in a few days with further instructions."

Next day Mr Juggins got his specimen, and professed himself delighted with the masterly way his notion had been carried out. The little "M" was quite invisible to the naked eye, and perfectly distinct under a strong glass.

He. called straight away to show it to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but Sir Robert was not to be seen. By sheer good luck, however, Mr Juggins caught Mr Mirabel at the Reform Club. He took the "Silver King" aside, explained his plan to him, and showed him the specimen coin.

Mr Mirabel was unaffectedly delighted. He chuckled over the ingenuity of the plan and congratulated Mr Juggins. "So this is the first coin of the new issue," he said as he examined it carefully through the strong glass Mr Juggins lent him.

"It's quite a curiosity in itself, I declare it will have a historic interest when the great conspiracy is exposed."

"You can keep it if you want to," said Mr Juggins good-naturedly. "It is of no further use to me."

"Thanks," said Mr Mirabel, and he pocketed the half-crown.

A FEW DAYS later came the new issue of silver coinage from the Mint. There was a very limited application for supplies to the banks, so great was the glut of coined silver everywhere. Even Mr Mirabel's bank― the "Silver House," as it was called― took only very small consignment.

The same morning Mr Juggins walked briskly into the Silver Bank and enquired for M Mirabel. Mr Mirabel was expected in about half-an-hour. While he waited Mr Juggins went to one of the compartments at the great circular counter of carved mahogany and changed a five-pound Bank of England note.

"Four sovereigns in gold, the rest in silver," he said; " half-crowns if you have them."

Then he got away to a quiet corner and examined his eight half-crowns carefully through the strong magnifying glass. Yes! there was the miniature "M" in its appointed place, clear and distinct under the glass. Mr Juggins gave a quiet little self-satisfied chuckle when he saw it.

Mr Mirabel came up behind quietly and caught him at work.

"Halloa!" be cried, clapping him on the shoulder. Then more softly: "You are seeing that your trap is properly set, I suppose? Any more news of our money-making mystery ."

"Well, yes," said Mr Juggins, slowly, "I think I am on the right scent at last."

"Bravo!" cried Mr Mirabel, with genuine pleasure in his voice. "The Chancellor of the Exchequer will be delighted . Have you told him yet?"

"Not yet. I've called twice but he was out. It was too ticklish a thing to write about. I want him to have the first news, of course."

"Then you are in luck. He is coming here at half-past two to lunch and look round. Can you stay to lunch? We could talk the thing over afterwards."

"You are very kind," said Mr Juggins.

PUNCTUALLY at half-past two o'clock the, Chancellor of the Exchequer arrived, and was warmly welcomed by Mr Mirabel at the door.

"I've a surprise for you, Sir Robert," cried the banker. " Our prize detective is here. He swears he is on the track of the enterprising coiner."  Mr Mirabel laughed good humouredly as he spoke.

" You don't seem to believe him," said the Chancellor of the Exchequer, laughing in turn.

"Oh! you see those detectives always have clues. I'll wait until he comes out at the other end before I make quite sure."

"He didn't give you any particulars, then?"

"No; he is waiting to open his budget to you. I have asked him to lunch with us; I hope you don't mind."

"On the contrary, I am very glad of it, I'm deeply interested in this coining mystery of course. But apart from that, this Mr Juggins must be a most interesting man from all I have heard of him."

The lunch was perfection, and Mr Mirabel the most gracious of hosts. Mr Juggins was not one bit bashful at sitting down to lunch with a Cabinet Minister and a multi-millionaire. He entirely justified his reputation as an interesting man. He kept both Mr Mirabel and Sir Robert entranced with his stories of "dangers, stratagems, and spoils," modestly told as if he were half apologising for his own part in them.

"Have you had no failures, Mr Juggins?" Mr Mirabel asked.

"I never speak about my failures," said Mr Juggins naively.

"Well, you seem to have been lucky as well as skilful in your cases."

"Much luck and little skill," replied Mr Juggins, with emphasis. "I have always maintained it's a bad thing for a detective to be too clever, particularly when he comes to deal with clever criminals. I remember a story I read when I was a boy, how, by sheer dint of ignorance, a man who couldn't fence at all beat a famous fencer. That's just the way with me. It's always some simple little trick, I find, that throws the very clever man off his guard."

But regarding the case in hand Mr Juggins could not be induced to utter a word.

"One good thing at a time, Mr Mirabel," he protested, "and this lunch is a very good thing if I may say so. The case will come in due course."

At last the lunch drew at an end.

"One more glass of Madeira," said Mr Mirabel.  "There are not fifty bottles of that wine, or its equal, in the world."

He poured the precious liquor into three large goblets of Waterford cut glass, whose faces sparkled like topaz as the yellow glow touched them.

"Here's success, Mr Juggins,"' he said, raising his glass.

"A very generous toast," said Mr Juggins, nodding approvingly as he sipped the priceless Madeira.

Then the two friends, with Mr Juggins following at a little distance, passed through an opening in the mahogany counter, to the back of the great hall, and down a staircase of wrought iron to the vast vaults of which Mr Mirabel was so proud. The way lay at first through a series of small chambers where the books of the bank were kept in safes, ranged round the fire proof walk. They came next on larger safes in which were stored valuables of great price; for Mr Mirabel did a good wholesale pawn broking business amongst the nobility of England.

"There are a great many family skeletons in that cupboard," he said, tapping the door of a huge safe with his walking stick. "I should not like to let you interview them, Mr Juggins. They could tell many strange secrets of people in high places to those who understand their language. I always attend to that portion of the business myself; it's exciting. But here we come now to what I really wanted to show you, Sir Robert. The rest of the show is more or less commonplace, but this is a sight which I flatter myself can be seen nowhere else in the world."

They were standing in front of a huge iron gate with bars as thick as a man's arm, set in a deep archway of solid masonry. Black darkness was between the thick bars. Mr. Mirabel fitted to the lock a little key that hung on his watch chain, and the huge gateway― weighing many tons of solid metal― turned smoothly on its hinges and let them pass. As they stood at the entrance of this dark cavern, they heard the tremendous pulsation of machinery in the distance.

"What sound is that," Sir Robert asked.

"It is the petroleum engine," said Mr Mirabel, "that drives the dynamos and lights the lamps, and works the trolleys and the lifts, and makes itself generally useful; my slave of all work. I'll show it to you presently; this is part of its work."

He turned an ivory knob and a hundred incandescent lamps flashed out from wall and roof, filling the great vault with blinding white light. The whole place was crammed with silver! There were blocks of pure metal in big piles, and plump bags, some of them carelessly tied, with the white coins gushing from the open mouths. Many of these blocks and bags were loaded on trucks that ran on miniature rails down the centre of the vaults, ready to convey them to the upper world.

"The pale and common drudge

'Tween man and man."

Along great spaces of the wall were ranged larger oblong blocks of black metal like peat bricks in an Irish bog.

"What are these?" asked Sir Robert.

"Silver too," Mr Mirabel answered, "pure silver straight from the mines." He struck one of the black blocks with the ferrule of his walking-cane, and there rang out that clear note that is called "silvery", the purest and sweetest of all sounds.

"Truly you deserve your name of 'Silver King,' " said the Chancellor of the Exchequer admiringly.

Fifty feet further, picking their steps all the way through silver, they came, right at the end wall, on the great petroleum engine with whose motion the air throbbed as its piston rods slid smoothly through the cylinders, and the huge fly-wheel whirred. Mr. Mirabel was plainly proud of his big engine.

"It's the strongest made," he said, "ingenious, but simple in principle as a wheelbarrow. Hitch this engine on to an oil well, and it will go while there is a drop left in the well. This one here has gone for a couple of months at a stretch."

Mr Juggins was so much interested and examined the engine so closely that Mr Mirabel called out in alarm.

"Stand back, my friend, and keep clear, or you will come to grief. There was a man had his arm mangled by that wheel the other day as limp as a rope; there was not an inch of solid bone left in it."

Mr Juggins at once stepped back. "Thanks for the caution," he said, "I know all I want to know about it."

"I wish you would let us know all we want to know about that other business, Mr Juggins," said the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

"With all the pleasure in life, Sir Robert, if you and Mr Mirabel can spare me your attention for a moment."

He took from his pocket a couple of the half-crowns he had just got at the bank, and handed them to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with a strong magnifying glass.

"Will you kindly examine the neck of Her Most Gracious Majesty?" he said.

"There is no deception," laughed the Chancellor of the Exchequer, "there's the tiny 'M' you told me about. These coins, I take it are some of the latest issue from the Mint."

"These coins," remarked Mr Juggins quietly, "never saw the Mint, Sir Robert, they are home manufacture; they are the work of the once mysterious money-maker."

"Perhaps you can tell us his name," said Mr Mirabel, smiling.

"Cecil Mirabel is his name," retorted Mr Juggins, and he laid a heavy hand on Mr Mirabel's shoulder.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer was too startled to speak.

"Don't be an ass, man," said Mr Mirabel, and there was more surprise rather than anger in his voice.

"The ass has tripped the fox this time, Mr Mirabel," Mr Juggins answered, placid as ever. "Such a simple trap too. The 'M' on these coins stands for Mirabel, not Mint. There was only one specimen made there!― the half-crown I gave you, because I guessed you wanted it for a model. These were made on the premises."

Mr Mirabel stood silent for one moment in a brown study, like a chess player when "mate" is called; trying vainly to find a way out of it.

"Trick and game for you, Mr Juggins," he said quietly, without an atom of malice in his voice, "and very, neatly taken I must confess, though of course I gave myself away like a fool."

Then, at last, the Chancellor of the Exchequer found his voice.

"Heavens; Mirabel," he cried. "You don't mean to say you are the coiner?"

"Well, you see there is no use denying it now, Sir Robert."

"But how and where, in Heaven's name, did you work this wholesale coining?"

"Ask Mr Juggins."

"Best show him yourself, Mr Mirabel," said Mr Juggins civilly. "It will save time and trouble and― row."

"You know, of course?"

"Of course. I have seen that part of the belting of the machinery runs through the wall at the back; there's another vault inside of this― for private business. As it would take some time and trouble to break through the wall to find the private door, you may just as well show it to us yourself."

"You are quite right, Mr Juggins, you are always right, I believe."

Mr Mirabel stuck the same little key he had used before into what looked like a chink in the wall and opened a cleverly constructed iron door, inlaid― so to speak― with stone and mortar. He stepped through in front of them, and for a moment they heard the sharp click, click of a telegraph machine; the next the electric lights blazed up.

"Just a wire to warn my workmen to say the 'game is up,' " explained. Mr Mirabel, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

This second vault they now found themselves in was bigger than the first, and every appliance of the Mint was there; melters; rollers, and coining presses complete.

Mr Mirabel quietly did the honours of the place. He was as cool as Mr Juggins at his, coolest. It was impossible to conceive him a man suddenly detected in a colossal fraud as he took a cigar-case from his pocket and offered it in succession to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and to Mr Juggins.

Instinctively the Chancellor of the Exchequer selected a cigar, and lit it from the vesta Mr Mirabel held politely to him. Sir Robert was infinitely the more perturbed of the two, finding it impossible to believe that his intimate personal friend was a colossal swindler.

"Sit down," said the proprietor of the private mint courteously. "If I'm not too curious, Sir Robert, I should be glad to know what you intend to do about this?"

"My duty," said the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

"Of course, of course, that goes without saying, but what is your duty?"

"To hand you over forthwith to the police."

"I think not, I am almost sure not. I should get about ten years' penal servitude, I calculate. Personally I would not enjoy that of course, but I don't want to argue the matter from a personal point of view at all. What do you think would be the result of my trial? Can you face the consequences of the discovery that half the silver coinage of this realm― not to speak of other countries― is false? There would be instant panic and failures, culminating in a wholesale commercial crash in which tens of thousands would be ruined― all to give poor me ten years' penal servitude. I don't think the game is worth the candle― do you?"

The Chancellor of the Exchequer was plainly nonplussed.

"Let justice be done though the heavens should fall," he said. When a man can find no argument he falls back on quotations.

"Aye, though the heavens should fall but not the Government.. The theory of punishment is prevention, you know, and it's not wanted here. There is no danger of anyone playing my game again, whatever you do with me. My coinage is as good as yours until it is found out. The only trouble is there's too much of it. You must withdraw it gradually from circulation. That will cost money, of course, but I'll help you to the tune of seven figures at least. You see, ten years of my life is no value to you; but to me it is very valuable and I'm willing to pay for it."

"It would be compounding a felony," murmured the Chancellor of the Exchequer, wavering.

"Not at all. The Executive has a dispensing power. It will be the acceptance of 'conscience money'― that's all. The amount can make no difference in the principle."

"I must consult my colleagues."

" Quite right. I have profound confidence in their common-sense, and regard the matter as settled. Mr Juggins' little 'M' will puzzle the coin collectors of the fortieth century."

"The counterfeit coinage must cease."

"Of course. It would be madness for me to attempt it again. But. I'll give you my word if you think that any additional security."

"I don't know that I should after all that has happened, but I do. We have been good friends Mirabel, and I'm deeply grieved at this discovery. Above all," he went on hesitatingly, for there is nothing a man of the world dreads more than the suspicion of preaching, "I'm deeply grieved to find you callously brazening it out to the last."

"Don't talk nonsense, Sir Robert, like a good fellow," replied Mr Mirabel airily. "I have been a practical bimetallist― that's all. I had the courage of my convictions and practised what I preached― free coinage of silver― and found it profitable, I must say, while it lasted. I've done a lot of good with my money, and mean to do more, besides having my own fun out of it. There is only one thing in the whole business I regret."

"And that is?"

"Having recommended you Mr Juggins."

______________________

2: Under His Own Hand

M. Mcdonnell Bodkin

Broad Arrow Standard (WA) 24 July 1897

A Mr Juggins case

"OH! MR. JUGGINS, you must take my part, now won't you? He's so headstrong about it: our marriage I mean. But I have coaxed a promise from him to follow your advice, and you must advise him to postpone it."

Mamie Coyle was walking impatiently up and down Mr. Juggins's pretty little sitting room while she spoke, and he was sitting deep hack in a huge easy chair, leaning sideways on one of the arms with his hand under his chin watching her, a kindly, whimsical look on his broad face. Now she came close up to where he sat, put a little hand caressingly on his shoulder, and smiled down at him with an entreaty in her bright blue eyes hard to withstand. But Mr. Juggins's face remained immovably placid as before as he leant back and joined his finger tips.

"Oh! I have no patience with you," she burst out, trying to shake him— she might as well try to shake an elephant. "There you sit and sit, saying nothing and trying your best  to look stupid."

"My dear young lady," he said, with gentle amusement at her vehemence, "it's my business just now to hear, not talk."

"You must promise, you must. I have no one I can trust but you."

"Well, then, trust me."

"Oh! I see. You want to hear the― what you call—the facts before you give your advice, and I suppose I must humour you. Only we haven't much time as he will be here in half an hour. I came early to have first word with you. Now where shall I begin―"

"At the beginning."

"Well, that's nearly two years ago. We were all walking— we schoolgirls I mean— two and two in Kensington— and he came riding slowly by on his bicycle, looking at each girl as he passed with a laugh in his eye. Miss Gurdy— our dragon, you know— was just fit to be tied. Some of the girls tittered and I was laughing at Miss Gurdy's starched face, when his eyes looked straight into mine, and sent a little thrill through me that killed the laugh. He raised his hat politely and rode straightaway, and Miss Gurdy called me a bold-faced minx because I blushed. It was very wrong, of course, but I couldn't keep him out of my head for a week nearly till one day . When we were alone in the dormitory little Flossy Burton— you know little Flossy; she knows you any way, you got something or did something for her; something wonderful, but I forget what it was. It was she first, introduced me to you— don't you remember, and you found my diamond bracelet for me, and— where was I?"

"In the school dormitory with Miss Flossy."

"Oh? well she gave me a letter with poetry in it from him, full of praise and love and all that and ending up beautifully— 'I will your faithful lover be, Through time unto eternity.'

"He had met Floss at her uncle's, Mr. Warmington's, and asked her all about our school, and he knew me by the little dimple on my chin, only think! so she told him I was her favourite of all the girls and he sent the letter by her.

"Miss Gurdy would have packed us both out of the school if she only knew— at least she would have sent me packing, but Flossy, you know, is an heiress and has a first cousin a lord, and she can do just what she likes with Miss Gurdy.

"I had three letters from him before I wrote one little line. But he said he would kill himself if I didn't, so I had to, of course. After that I think Miss Gurdy began to suspect something. Flossy wanted to go to the dentist so often, and always insisted on bringing me to hold her hand. One day Miss Gurdy nearly caught us, me and Clive, you know. She came suddenly into the reception-room when we were alone together. But luckily we'd just had a tiff, and he was sitting at the far end of the room, reading a newspaper upside down, and I was looking out of the window. So―" Mamie glanced up at the hands of the clock on Mr. Juggins's mantelpiece and broke off breathless and bewildered by her own haste. "Oh! I have only seven minutes more and I haven't told you one thing yet that I wanted to tell."

"Plenty of time," said Mr. Juggins's soothingly, for Mr. Juggins loved gossip.

"Well, now, I'll just stick to the point. When I left school and went home to live with mamma he called to see her one day and told her he loved me, and quite won her heart. So now we are engaged— properly engaged, you know— and we can go to places together and— and— still he isn't satisfied."

"What more can he possibly desire?" asked Mr, Juggins without a smile.

"He wants me to marry him straight away. He's just twenty-three and a half, and I'll be nineteen my next birthday, and he thinks we are quite old enough to get married, and I agree with him in that, but― Oh! it's terrible—"

"What's terrible?"

"The way he goes on. You see he is an only son—that is to say he was an only son, but his father is dead and his mother too, and I don't trust his Uncle Marmaduke, and I never will, what's more―"

"Now where does Marmaduke come in?"

"Clive lives with his uncle in a beautiful house in Park Lane, but the house is Clive's— that is to say it will be Clive's— and he, that's Clive, has a wonderful property in Kent, with woods and rivers and a great park with deer in it, and oh, such a lovely house. I was all over it last week. But there was a cruel thing put in his father's will that he was not to get the property until he was twenty-five, unless he married before that with his uncle's consent. But if he married before twenty-five without the consent the property was all to go to his uncle.

"The uncle, Marmaduke Meredith, is a big, pompous thing, with an ugly smile that I hate, and I'm sure he'll never give his consent. But Clive says he will, and that anyway he couldn't wait for two years, even for a million. It isn't two years, you know, only a year and a half; and Clive said he'll get called to the bar and earn lots for both. I have a little money of my own that would help us. But it isn't the money I care about, but I'm afraid he'd be sorry afterwards, and that would kill me. Still, if I don't consent he may think it's his property I care for, and not himself. Oh! please do help me, Mr. Juggins, I'm very miserable."

She had been patting Mr. Juggins' shoulder nervously while she spoke; now she suddenly buried her face in her hands and burst into tears.

Mr. Juggins's composure vanished in a moment. He could never bear to see a woman cry. He leapt up from his chair, sat the weeping girl in it, and bent over her, mumbling soothingly in a kindly, awkward attempt to comfort her. It was like a big Newfoundland dog fondling a small child. Mamie kept on crying bitterly, partly because she wanted to, partly because she knew she was one of the few women who look well in tears, but mainly because she knew it was the most effective method with Mr. Juggins.

Suddenly Mr. Juggins turned his back on her and proceeded to fix a lump of sugar between the bars of his canary's cage chirping the while.

"A lover's ear," we know on high authority, "will hear the slightest sound."

But Mr. Juggins' ears were more than human and it was he— not Mamie— that heard that quick, light step on the thick carpet of the stairs. The next moment there came an impatient knock at the door. Mamie leaped from her seat. The sobs ceased suddenly.

"Come in," cried Mr. Juggins, without looking around. Mr. Juggins was more awkward than usual. It was a long minute before he succeeded in fixing the lump of sugar to his liking. When at last he did look around, Mamie was radiant, though a tear still trembled on her rounded cheek like a dewdrop on a wild rose-leaf. A tall handsome young fellow stood close beside her, looking down upon her smiling face with love and longing in his blue-black eyes.

"Well," said Mr. Juggins, after a pause, for they looked shyly at him without speaking.

"Oh! it's all right," cried Clive Meredith cheerily. "Uncle Marmaduke will do the straight thing, I'm sure. He hinted as much to me today. I knew it would be all right when I took Mamie to see him. He fell in love with her, of course, straight away. 'Clive my lad,' he said, 'she is a sweet girl, and I congratulate you; I should not like to stand in your way even for a day, if it can be helped. 'Gather the rosebuds while you may,' says the poet, Tennyson I think it was, or Walter Scott. Of course I have a solemn duty to perform towards your poor father. Still, if— God bless you, my boy; God bless you!' and the poor old chap actually broke down and blubbered. So you see there is really nothing to advise about, Mr. Juggins."

"I don't trust him," broke out Mamie. "He is a crocodile hypocrite. He has some trick in his head. You know he wants money, Clive, you told me that yourself, and there are ugly stories about him. Tell Mr. Juggins what you told me, sir."

"Well," said Clive reluctantly. "It's not his fault, you know if he is hard up, and of course he is dunned and all that. A fellow came about six months ago— an impudent Jew chap. I was out at the time, but he forced his way into the study where uncle was and insisted on payment. It was a big thing—over a thousand, I believe, and uncle paid him and got a receipt. But the Jew swore that uncle's cheque was only a blank when he came to present it at the bank. He brought an action and told his story in court. But he had to admit on cross-examination he saw my uncle fill in the cheque and sign it. That settled the case. The judge gave him a dressing down he's not likely to forget, and the jury found verdict for the defendant and— well that's the whole story."

"Where does your uncle live, Mr. Meredith ?"asked Mr. Juggins, apropos of nothing.

"In our home— that is in Park Lane but I don't see what—"

"Of course you cant see, " broke in he irrepressible Mamie, " but your uncle sees clearly enough. He has the house and he has an allowance under he will. It is throwing away both to give his consent to our marriage. Now ask you, is that likely, Mr Juggins?"

"But I don't mean to get married until I have his consent in writing under his own hand," Clive retorted hotly. "I never thought, Mamie, you were such a prudent little person."

"I'm not prudent, it's for your sake I'm prudent, Clive, dear. You are too confiding. I'm sure he has some dodge in the back of his head."

They were in a fair way for a pretty little lovers quarrel when Mr. Juggins' mild voice fell like oil on the troubled waters. " Can't you wait a little longer, Mr. Meredith?" he asked blandly.

"Do you call two years just a little?" cried Clive impatiently.

"Only a year and a half," murmured Mamie under her breath.

"Two weeks will be enough, I think," said Mr. Juggins, "if you do what I tell you."

Clive beamed delightedly. "I'm entirely at your service Mr. Juggins !"

"In the first place can you give me the name of the man who swore he saw your uncle sign the cheque that had no signature. I want to have a word with him."

"Will it do to-morrow?"

"Quite."

"All right. I'll send it without fail by to-night's post."

"That's settled. Your uncle has a private study of his own in Park Lane, I suppose?"

"Yes, and a Chubb lock and latchkey for the door."

"So I fancied. I think you said he writes a good deal?"

Clive had not said it; but Mr. Juggins knew it. There were few things Mr. Juggins did not know.

The young fellow laughed. "Oh, he writes a lot of articles for the magazines and reviews, but they never get in. There was one accepted years ago, and he has written a hundred at least on the strength of that, and gives himself airs as a literary man."

"There is gas in his study, I suppose?"

Clive nodded, surprised at the question.

"Do you know where he keeps his cheque-book?"

"No," said Clive, more surprised than ever. "I suppose in his desk in the study."

"Nor who is his gasfitter?"

"Oh, Carver and Picton. But really, Mr. Juggins, I don't see at all what this has to do with―"

Mr. Juggins continued quite placidly, without noticing his protest in the least.

"Now, I come to second condition. First the name of the Jew who got the strange cheque— don't forget that. Secondly, I want you to bore a hole in one of the gas pipes in your uncle's study. Can you do it ?"

"I suppose I could if I tried, but in heaven's name, Mr. Juggins, what the―"

Mamie clapped her little hand over his mouth, and shut the word off in the middle and whispered in his ear: "Now, Clive, you mustn't break out like that. Remember you promised to do what Mr. Juggins told you."

"Do you want to blow up the house Mr Juggins ?" asked Clive when he got his lips free again.

"On the contrary. You must at once call your uncle's attention to the leakage, and offer on your way to the club to look into Messrs. Carver and Picton and have the plumber sent over at once."

"Honestly, I don't see how I am to manage it. I am never in the room without my uncle, and I have nothing to bore lead pipes with."

For answer Mr. Juggins opened one of the many doors of a wide mahogany press that almost filled one side of the room. Inside was a miscellaneous collection in pigeon holes, ticketed like a particularly neatly arranged pawnbroker's shop. From one of these pigeon holes he took a round ball of dark wood about the size of a golf ball. On one side a little cork was stuck. Mr. Juggins pulled out the cork for a moment and showed a kind of flat needle about an inch long, very bright and sharp, projecting from the ball.

"That will go through lead like butter," he said simply. "They use it in the trade when business isn't brisk enough."

He replaced the cork as he spoke, and Clive took the little instrument gingerly and dropped it into his pocket.

"You will be here to-morrow about one o'clock for your plumber, do you understand that, Mr. Meredith?"

Clive nodded again a little sulkily. He had a vague notion he was being made a fool of.

"All right then," said Mr, Juggins with unabated good humour. " I'm busy just now and it's quite possible you two may have something to say to each other. Good-bye."

Clive hardly knew whether to be angry or not at this abrupt dismissal. But Mamie kissed her hands beamingly to Mr. Juggins at the door.

"Isn't he just splendid, Clive?" she whispered as they went out together.

"I don't know about splendid. He seems to me rather a dull chap, and not particularly polite, he wants me just to act like a mischievous schoolboy."

"But you'll do what he asks—won't you, Clive?" she asked, looking up in his face in a way that allowed of no refusal.

"Oh! I promised and I'll have to do it right enough. But I don't like the Mamie. He got my back up a bit, I must confess."

But she deftly smoothed the little sulkiness away, and coaxed and pelted him back to good humour. Then they strolled away together through the crowded streets alone amid the bustle and tumult, closed round and isolated by love's rosy cloud— the happiest man and maid in all London.

"THERE'S an awful smell in the room, Clive," said Mr. Marmaduke Meredith next day, looking up from the big open desk where he was writing an article (editor permitting) for the Contemporary.

"I think there is a leakage in the gas somewhere, uncle."

"Egad you're right. It is a smell of gas; phew, it's stifling. Luckily it didn't come at night or the house might have been blown up."

The two men nosed about the pipes for a moment, sniffing like pointers on close scent.

Clive found the leakage first, "Here it is, uncle," he cried in an awkward, shame-faced kind of way, "and a bad leakage too. I can actually feel the gas blowing out cold on the back of my hand."

"I must have the plumber in at once," said Mr. Meredith.

"Don't ring, uncle. I am going down to the club. I'll look in at Carver and Picton's, and get them to send in a man right away."

"Good boy! good boy!"

The uncle laid his hand gently on the nephew's shoulder, and Clive winced under the kindly pressure, feeling unutterably mean.

A tall, portly man was Marmaduke Meredith with light blue eyes and drooping eyelids, and heavy mouth and chin. He was a clever, genial, unpopular man. For in some way the rumour, was vaguely about in the clubs that he was not quite straight. He was a busy man, too, but he spent much money and earned none.

"Thank you very much, Clive," he went on with unctuous affection, still patting his nephews shoulder kindly with one hand while he fingered the heavy links of his gold watch-chain with the other. "You have always been a good and obedient nephew to me, and I hope I won't prove a harsh uncle to you when the time comes. You guess what I mean, eh?"

Clive did guess what he meant and felt meaner than ever. He had not the least notion what was to be the upshot of this trick of Mr. Juggins', but he had some vague idea that his uncle was to be the victim. So he squirmed at this unsuspecting kindness.

"I'm off, sir," he said abruptly to cut the thing short. "I'll have the man back like winking," and he left his uncle vainly attempting to plug the hole in the gaspipe with a tiny pellet of blotting-paper.

Right opposite Mr Juggins door, a young man was lounging with a workman's kit in his hand. He crossed over as Clive leaped out of the hansom, and stopped him before he could ring.

"Mr. Clive Meredith?" he said respectfully enough. He was a strong well set up young fellow, dressed like a decent artisan, but with a broad black smudge on his face.

"Yes," Clive answered, "that's my name,"

"All right guv'nor," said the other. "I'm your man."

"You know what's to be done?"

"I got my orders straight. I'm on to the job."

"You had better drive there."

"Thank ye, sir. The 'bus is good enough for me, and it passes the door. There she goes now. Excuse me sir," and he sprinted down the street and leaped on to a 'bus as it darted round a corner, leaving Clive standing bewildered opposite Mr. Juggins' door.

Mr. Juggins was out he was told when, he knocked, and would not be back for two hours: "Would the gentleman leave his name?"

No, the gentleman would not leave his name, but walked away vexed and perplexed to his club, finding it impossible to make head or tail of the business.

"I'M THE plumber," said the workman to the footman at the door of the house in Park Lane.

"From Carver and Picton. All right! Mr. Meredith is at his lunch. He left orders you should be shown straight to the study where the gas leakage is. It's to be done without delay; the house is all a stiffen' with it."

Once safe in the study the plumber deliberately bolted the door on the inside, and began to search about the room curiously. The writing materials seemed to have a special attraction for him. He examined the paper and blotting paper, the pens and the ink, with the minutest care. There were the two ink bottles on the big mahogany writing table between the windows. He smelt and tested the contents of each in turn and shook his head. Then he crossed over to smaller table of American pattern with revolving lid, tried the handles and found it locked.

"So I thought," he muttered, fitting to the wards a piece of iron wire with some curious twists and turns at the end of it, Twice he tried the lock with a little gentle pressure, feeling his way, and twice with strong fingers he bent the wire into a new shape. Then all at once, as if it mistook the thing for its own key, the facile lock yielded to the gentle pressure, and the revolving lid slid back from the top of the desk, unlocking all the drawers down the sides by the same motion.

Our plumber burglar searched the interior with quick eyes and hands. He paused for a moment at a handsome silver inkstand and set it aside. Then suddenly he pounced upon common penny ink bottle of round brown delph, set back in one of the pigeon holes of the desk, with some papers pushed in front of it. He examined his prize eagerly; he even poured a, few drops of the ink out on a sheet of note-paper, smelt and tested it, smiling a quiet and self-satisfied smile. Then he, wrote with the same ink a brief memorandum on a sheet of paper, waved it until it was dry without blotting and put it into his pocket.

In a quarter of an hour more the ink jar was back in its place, the desk locked, the door unlocked, and the puncture in the gas-pipe repaired. None too soon either. As the plumber came out of the study he met Mr. Meredith in the hall, smiling and good-humoured from a particularly substantial lunch.

"What, done already, my man?" he said pleasantly. "That's quick work. Here's sixpence for yourself."

Mr. Meredith was not, as a rule, generous about tips, and it may be safely said that no sixpence from his pocket was, from his point of view, ever so completely misplaced before.

AFTER DINNER, over his fourth, glass of sound old port, finding Clive shy and distrait, and more or less ashamed of himself, his good uncle kindly approached the delicate subject of the marriage of his own accord

"I am anxious only for your happiness, my dear Clive," he said in the most approved heavy father stage style. (He had a great taste and talent for theatricals). " But you are very young. Are you sure of your own heart— are you quite certain your happiness will be secured by this alliance?"

All that afternoon, in defiance of omens, Mr. Marmaduke Meredith was in the very best of good humour, and whistled softly to himself at his writing, like one with whom the world goes smoothly. Of course Clive was desperately, fervently, vehemently anxious.

"Then I shall be no bar," said his uncle grandly, "you shall have my consent without the asking." Clive started from his chair in a quiver of delight.

"I cannot tell you, uncle," he cried with simple sincerity, " how grateful I am. I shall take care you do not suffer from your generosity."

But his uncle nobly put aside his nephew's protestations and promises.

"I need no reward," he said, "but the approval of my own conscience and the feeling that I have made two young people happy without any weary waiting for their happiness. People think I have been improvident, Clive, but they are mistaken. I have, thanks to your poor father, for many years enjoyed a handsome income, and I have put by enough to keep me in comfort, if not in luxury, for the remainder of my days. But it is not of myself I want to speak. Life is for the young, and may your life, Clive, be full of all happiness."

He paused for a moment apparently overcome by his emotion, and Clive sat silent deeply impressed. Presently Mr. Marmaduke Meredith recovered himself a little. " When a good thing is to be done, it cannot be done too soon," he said softly. " Drink your wine my boy, and come with me to my study."

He unlocked the American desk, spread out 3 sheet of foolscap before him, and dipped a gold pen in the little round brown delph bottle of ink, The bottle was fuller than he expected, and a big drop plopped upon the foolscap. Mr Meredith tore the blotted paper into small bits, threw the fragments into the waste-paper basket and took another sheet.

In a fine large flowing hand he wrote his consent to Clive's marriage, dated and signed it with a flourish.

"Will that do?" he asked, as he handed Clive the paper. " How can I thank you, Uncle ? "

"Don't try."

"Mamie will be so surprised and delighted. I knew I was right all along, but she thought―"

He broke off embarrassed, not wishing to tell his uncle that Mamie regarded him as a "crocodile hypocrite."

His uncle eyed him keenly for a moment, then smiled kindly, taking pity on his embarrassment.

"Poor little Mamie," he said, in his gentlest way, "I suppose she thinks me a wicked monster ; a Babes-in-the-wood kind of uncle. She doesn't know me as you do, and she's very young and believes in fairy-tale monsters. We will give her a little lesson, if you don't mind."

He took the signed paper from his nephew's hand, folded it up and put it into an envelope, which he carefully sealed with a big red seal. " I want to teach her to trust us," he explained.

"Do you mind promising me, Clive, that you won't show her the consent— that you won't even open this envelope till after your marriage? You can bring it to the church and open it in the vestry if you like. But, mind, I have made no conditions. You have my consent anyhow."

"Of course, uncle, I'll do what you wish," Clive answered gratefully. "Mamie will take my word for anything, or," —after a significant pause― "yours either for that matter."

But Mamie was not satisfied when she heard the whole story and was allowed to look with eyes vainly inquisitive at the outside only of the sealed envelope.

" I trust you, of course, dear, but I don't trust him. He's too sweet to be wholesome. I'm sure he means to cheat you."

Then Clive petted and kissed and coaxed her, and she meekly agreed , with him in everything, and— woman-like— had her own way in the long run.

FOR A second time Mr. Juggins was appointed umpire, and they went straight to his house. Mamie was just opening a voluble address for the plaintiff in the case when Mr. Juggins put up his big hand to stop her. "I think I can guess what happened," he said to Clive.

"Your uncle has signed the consent?" Clive nodded.

"Perhaps he volunteered to sign it?"

"How did you guess that?"

"Never mind. I have guessed more than that in my time. After signing it he put it in an envelope, sealed it, and made you promise you would not open it until after your marriage."

Clive was too surprised to answer.

"There I told you so," cried Mamie.

"Mr. Juggins has guessed the trick at the first guess. Of course he changed the paper you saw him sign for a blank sheet."

"Clive's face darkened. "Nonsense, Mamie," he began. " I'm quite sure I saw―"

Then Mr. Juggins quietly interposed. "It's all right, Mr. Meredith," he said, you can get married just as soon as you like."

"I'll get the license to-morrow," cried Clive delightedly, and Mamie the Wilful submitted without a word.

It was to be a very quiet wedding, for neither of them wanted to make a society show of their happiness. They were to start almost straight from the church door for Rome and spend Christmas there. This was the suggestion of Mr. Marmaduke Meredith, who, though he kept a good deal in the background, proved himself so kind and considerate, and was as deeply interested— so he told Clive— in the young people's happiness as if it were his own. Even Mamie was softened by his persistent kindness.

The tenth of December was the happy day. The marriage morning was unclouded as the lovers' joy; the sky clear, the sun bright, and a keen exhilarating snap of frost in the air that made the blood tingle with intense vitality. The little church was brightly lit and gaily decorated with holly, and the best man was up to time in orthodox wedding garments, with hand nervously fingering his waistcoat pocket to make sure the wedding ring was safe. Miss Flossy Burton, the ten-year-old bridesmaid, looked bewitching in a white satin dress and big blue scarf and long golden ringlets down her back, and treated the good-natured best man with such demure disdain that he was tempted to catch her up and kiss her, even in the church.

Away in a corner the bride's mother was crying softly for her lost daughter, her grief tempered by admiration for her new son, and beside her was the bride's bachelor uncle ready to give away cordially the treasure that did not belong to him. Behind the shadow of a pillar knelt Mr. Juggins, on whose presence at the ceremony Mamie had imperiously insisted.

Bride and bridegroom were both popular, and the body of the church was filled with spectators, mostly young people of both sexes for whom the ceremony has the same mysterious attraction that the candle has for the moth.

Ten o'clock, the appointed hour, came and passed, then minute after minute went slowly by, still one guest was missing. Mr. Marmaduke Meredith, who had faithfully promised Clive to attend, had not yet put in an appearance. Clive grew impatient as the minutes dragged slowly on. and a feeling of dismay stole over him. But he was comforted by the feeling of the precious envelope safe in the breast-pocket of his frock coat. Presently he whispered a word or two to the best man who knelt beside him, and who got up quietly and slipped away to the vestry.

In a moment later the vicar came out, white stoled, on the altar steps and the wedding service began.

Clive's responses were clear and firm as befits a man; Mamie's low and sweet as befits a woman. So the mystery was accomplished that bound two lives together, in soul and body. The place was in a quiver of pleasurable excitement, and high over all the little bridesmaid, in the rumpling arms of the  best man, was protesting shrilly against the indignity of being hugged. Mamie Meredith had just written, with trembling hand, the first half of her new name in the registry, when the tramp and whirl of carriage, driven furiously, thundered to the door, and Mr. Marmaduke Meredith, big, red, impetuous, burst upon the company and gazed round him from face to face in angry amazement.

"My god! I'm not late after all," he shouted.

Mamie fell back in open-eyed dismay at the sight of him, but his nephew came forward smiling with outstretched hand.

"Not too late to give us your blessing, uncle," he said, " We waited for you until the last moment." His uncle only stared at him like one dumbfounded.

"Don't dare to speak to me, sir," he cried at last. "What is the meaning of this disgraceful proceeding?"

"Disgraceful proceeding! My marriage! Why, you know you gave your consent to it."

"It's a lie," shouted Mr. Marmaduke Meredith more furiously than ever, losing all control of his temper. "A pretty story truly that I would marry my nephew to a baby and a pauper."

The hot young blood flushed to Clive's face and his fingers clenched instinctively, but Mr. Juggins—who had crept quietly close to him—laid a restraining hand on him.

"Keep cool, he whispered, "the paper."

Clive heard and plucked the sealed envelope from his pocket.

"I have your consent here," he cried, "your written consent under your own hand. "See," he added to the astonished guests who crowded round them, "this will show who's the liar."

He tore open the envelope and held up that all might see— a sheet of white foolscap paper, quite blank. Mr. Marmaduke Meredith laughed out a harsh, jeering laugh.

"Is there any more foolery to be gone through?" he asked scornfully.

"Hold the paper to the fire," whispered Mr. Juggins in Clive's ear. The clear, sharp tone of command was in the whisper.

Stunned and bewildered, Clive mechanically obeyed. Then slowly and in sight of them all the words came out on the paper in the large clear handwriting of Mr. Marmaduke Meredith:

I hereby give my full and free consent to the marriage of my nephew, Clive Worthington Meredith, to Miss Mamie Coyle.

(Signed)

Marmaduke Meredith.

21st November, 1893.

A big final flourish flowed from the last letter of his name. Mr. Marmaduke Meredith's heavy mouth fell asunder and his face grew yellow and mottled like a half ripe strawberry. For a moment in his amazement he struggled in vain for words. Then he broke out.

"What d―― trickery is this?" and made a sudden dash for the paper. But Mr. Juggins's big hand was on his breast like an iron bar.

"Quietly my dear sir," he said in his very gentlest tones. "Keep as cool as you can. You have played your little game for a big stake— and lost it. You had a strong hand but we went one better. I had heard before this, you see, of vanishing ink, and maybe you have heard of invisible ink, Mr. Meredith. One goes out with time, but the other comes in with heat. They make a good blend, and I took the liberty of mixing them in your little brown delph ink bottle when I was doing a plumber's job in your study about three weeks ago; that's all."

__________________

3: Rats in the Belfry

David Wright O'Brien

1918-1944

(As by John York Cabot)

Amazing Stories January 1943

THIS HOUSE was built to specifications that were strange indeed; and the rats that inhabited it were stranger still!

This little guy Stoddard was one of the toughest customers I'd ever done business with. To look at him you'd think he was typical of the mild pleasant little sort of suburban home owner who caught the eight-oh-two six days a week and watered the lawn on the seventh. Physically, his appearance was completely that of the inconspicuous average citizen. Baldish, fortyish, bespectacled, with the usual behind-the-desk bay window that most office workers get at his age, he looked like nothing more than the amiable citizen you see in comic cartoons on suburban life.

Yet, what I'm getting at is that this Stoddard's appearance was distinctly deceptive. He was the sort of customer that we in the contracting business would label as a combination grouser and eccentric.

When he and his wife came to me with plans for the home they wanted built in Mayfair's second subdivision, they were already full of ideas on exactly what they wanted.

This Stoddard— his name was George B. Stoddard in full— had painstakingly outlined about two dozen sheets of drafting paper with some of the craziest ideas you have ever seen.

"These specifications aren't quite down to the exact inchage, Mr. Kermit," Stoddard had admitted, "for I don't pretend to be a first class architectural draftsman. But my wife and I have had ideas on what sort of a house we want for years, and these plans are the result of our years of decision."

I'd looked at the "plans" a little sickly. The house they'd decided on was a combination of every architectural nightmare known to man. It was the sort of thing a respectable contractor would envision if he ever happened to be dying of malaria fever.

I could feel them watching me as I went over their dream charts. Watching me for the first faint sign of disapproval or amusement or disgust on my face. Watching to snatch the "plans" away from me and walk out of my office if I showed any of those symptoms.

"Ummmhumm," I muttered noncommittally.

"What do you think of them, Kermit?" Stoddard demanded.

I had a hunch that they'd been to contractors other than me. Contractors who'd been tactless enough to offend them into taking their business elsewhere.

"You have something distinctly different in mind here, Mr. Stoddard," I answered evasively.

George B. Stoddard beamed at his wife, then back to me.

"Exactly, sir," he said. "It is our dream castle."

I shuddered at the expression. If you'd mix ice cream with pickles and beer and herring and lie down for a nap, it might result in a dream castle.

"It will be a difficult job, Mr. Stoddard," I said. "This is no ordinary job you've outlined here."

"I know that," said Stoddard proudly. "And I am prepared to pay for the extra special work it will probably require."

That was different. I perked up a little.

"I'll have to turn over these plans to my own draftsman," I told him, "before I can give you an estimate on the construction."

George B. Stoddard turned to his wife.

"I told you, Laura," he said, "that sooner or later we'd find a contractor with brains and imagination."

It took fully two months haggling over the plans with Stoddard and my own draftsmen before we were able to start work on the nightmare my clients called their dream castle. Two months haggling in an effort to make Stoddard relinquish some of his more outlandish ideas on his proposed dwelling. But he didn't budge an inch, and by the time we'd laid the foundation for the dream shack, every last building quirk he'd had originally on those "plans" still held.

I took a lot of ribbing from contractors in that vicinity once the word got round that I was building Stoddard's house for him. It seems that he'd been to them all before he got around to me.

But I didn't mind the ribbing much at first. Even though Stoddard was a barrel full of trouble hanging around the building lot with an eagle eye to see that nothing was omitted, I had already cashed his first few payment checks on the construction.

He'd meant what he said about his willingness to pay more for the extra trouble entailed in the mad construction pattern we had to follow, and I couldn't call him stingy with his extra compensation by a long shot.

Financially, I was doing nicely, thank you. Mentally, I was having the devil's own time with Stoddard.

He didn't know a damned thing about architecture or construction, of course. But he did know what he wanted. Good Lord, how he knew what he wanted!

"The basement boiler layout isn't what I had on my plans!" he'd call me up to squawk indignantly.

"But it isn't greatly different the way we have it," I'd plead. "Besides, it's far safer than what you originally planned."

"Is it humanly possible to put it where I planned it?" my troublesome client would demand.

"Yes," I'd admit. "But saf—"

"Then put it where I planned it!" he would snap, hanging up. And, of course, I'd have to put it where he'd planned it.

The workmen on the job also presented a problem. They were getting fed up with Stoddard's snooping, and going crazy laying out patterns which were in absolute contradiction to sanity and good taste.

But in spite of all this, the monstrosity progressed.

If you can picture a gigantic igloo fronted by southern mansion pillars and dotted with eighteenth century gables, and having each wing done in a combination early Mexican and eastern Mosque style, you'll have just the roughest idea of what it was beginning to look like. For miles around, people were driving out to see that house in the evenings after construction men had left.

But the Stoddards were pleased. They were as happy about the whole mess as a pair of kids erecting a Tarzan dwelling in a tree. And the extra compensations I was getting for the additional trouble wasn't hurting me any.

I'LL NEVER FORGET the day when we completed the tiny belfry which topped off the monstrosity. Yes, a belfry. Just the kind you still see on little country churches and schoolhouses, only, of course a trifle different.

The Stoddards had come out to the lot to witness this momentous event; the completion, practically, of their dream child.

I was almost as happy as they were, for it stood as the symbol of the ending of almost all the grief for me.

My foreman came over to where I was standing with the Stoddards.

"You gonna put a bell in that belfry?" he asked.

George Stoddard looked at him as if he'd gone mad.

"What for?" he demanded.

"So you can use the belfry," the foreman said.

"Don't be so ridiculous, my good man," Stoddard snorted. "It will be of pleasurable use enough to us, just looking at it."

When the foreman had marched off, scratching his head, I turned to the Stoddards.

"Well, it's almost done," I said. "Pleased with it?"

Stoddard beamed. "You have no idea, Mr. Kermit," he said solemnly, "what a tremendous moment this is for my wife and me."

I looked at the plain, drab, smiling Laura Stoddard. From the shine in her eyes, I guess Stoddard meant what he said. Then I looked up at the belfry, and shuddered.

As I remarked before, even the belfry wasn't quite like any belfry human eyes had ever seen before. It angled in all the way around in as confusing a maze of geometrical madness you have ever seen. It was a patterned craziness, of course, having some rhyme to it, but no reason.

Looking at it, serenely topping that crazy-quilt house, I had the impression of its being an outrageously squashed cherry topping, the whipped cream of as madly a concocted sundae that a soda jerk ever made. A pleasant impression.

Stoddard's voice broke in on my somewhat sickish contemplation.

"When will we be able to start moving in?" he asked eagerly.

"The latter part of next week," I told him. "We should have it set by then."

"Good," said Stoddard. "Splendid." He put his arm around his wife, and the two of them stared starry eyed at their home. It made a lump come to your throat, seeing the bliss in their eyes as they stood there together. It made a lump come into your throat, until you realized what they were staring at.

"Incidentally," I said casually, figuring now was as good a time as any to get them used to the idea. "The startlingly different construction pattern you've had us follow will result in, ah, minor repairs in the house being necessary from time to time. Remember my telling you that at the start?"

Stoddard nodded, brushing the information away casually.

"Yes, certainly I remember your saying something about that. But don't worry. I won't hold you responsible for any minor repairs which the unique construction causes."

"Thanks," I told him dryly. "I just wanted to make certain we had that point clear."

The Stoddards moved in just as soon as the last inch of work on their dream monster was finished. I paid off my men, banked a nice profit on the job, and went back to building actual houses again. I thought my troubles with the Stoddards at an end.

But of course I was wrong.

It was fully a month after the Stoddards had been in their madhouse that I got my first indignant telephone call from George B. Stoddard himself.

"Mr. Kermit," said the angry voice on the phone, "this is George B. Stoddard."

I winced at the name and the all too familiar voice, but managed to sound cheerfully friendly.

"Yes, indeed, Mr. Stoddard," I oozed. "How are you and the Missus getting along in your dream castle?"

"That," said George B. Stoddard, "is what I called about. We have been having considerable difficulty for which I consider your construction men to be responsible."

"Now just a minute," I began. "I thought we agreed—"

"We agreed that I was to expect certain occasional minor repairs to be necessary due to the construction of the house," Stoddard broke in. "I know that."

"Then what's the trouble?" I demanded.

"This house is plagued with rats," said Stoddard angrily.

"Rats?" I echoed.

"Exactly!" my client snapped.

"But how could that be possible?" I demanded. "It's a brand new house, and rats don't—"

Stoddard broke in again. "The devil they don't. We have them, and it can't be due to any fault but those construction men of yours."

"How could it be their fault?" I was getting a little sore.

"Because it isn't my fault, nor my wife's. And the building, as you observed a minute ago, is practically new."

"Now listen," I began.

"I wish you'd come out here and see for yourself," Stoddard demanded.

"Have you caught any?"

"No," he answered.

"Have you seen any?" I demanded.

"No," Stoddard admitted, "but—"

This time I did the cutting in.

"Then how do you know you have rats?" I demanded triumphantly.

"Because," Stoddard almost shouted, "as I was going to tell you, I can hear them, and my wife can hear them."

I hadn't thought of that. "Oh," I said. Then: "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I am very sure. Now, will you please come out here and see what this is all about?" he demanded.

"Okay," I said. "Okay." And then I hung up and looked around for my hat. My visit wasn't going to be any fun, I knew. But what the hell. I had to admit that if Stoddard and his wife were hearing noises that sounded like rats, they had a legitimate squawk. For I built the house, and no amount of crazy ideas in its design by Stoddard could explain the presence of vermin.

Both the Stoddards met me at the door when I arrived out in the Mayfair subdivision where I'd built their monstrosity. As they led me into the living room, I caught a pretty good idea of their new home furnishings. They hadn't changed ideas, even to the mixing of a wild mess of various nations and periods in the junk they'd placed all around the house.

They led me past an early American library table to a deep Moroccan style couch, and both pulled up chairs of French and Dutch design before me.

Feeling thus surrounded by a small little circle of indignation, I began turning my hat around in my hands, staring uncomfortably at my surroundings.

"Nice place you've got here," I said.

"We know that," Stoddard declared, dismissing banalities. "But we'd best get immediately to the point."

"About the rats?" I asked.

"About the rats," said Stoddard. His wife nodded emphatically.

There was a silence. Maybe a minute passed. I cleared my throat.

"I thought you—" I began.

"Shhhh!" Stoddard hissed. "I want you to sit here and hear the noises, just as we have. Then you can draw your own conclusions. Silence, please."

So I didn't say a word, and neither did mine hosts. We sat there like delegates to a convention of mutes who were too tired to use their hands. This time the silence seemed even more ominous.

Several minutes must have passed before I began to hear the sounds. That was because I'd been listening for rat scrapings, and not prepared for the noises I actually began to hear.

Mr. and Mrs. Stoddard had their heads cocked to one side, and were staring hard at me, waiting for a sign that I was catching the sounds.

At first the noises seemed faint, blurred perhaps, like an almost inaudible spattering of radio static. Then, as I adjusted my ear to them, I began to get faint squeaks, and small, sharp noises that were like far distant poppings of small firecrackers.

I looked up at the Stoddards.

"Okay," I admitted. "I hear the noises. They seem to be coming from behind the walls, if anywhere."

Stoddard looked smugly triumphant.

"I told you so," he smirked.

"But they aren't rat scrapings," I said. "I know the sounds rats make, and those aren't rat sounds."

Stoddard sat bolt upright. "What?" he demanded indignantly. "Do you mean to sit there and tell me—"

"I do," I cut in. "Ever heard rat noises?"

Stoddard looked at his wife. Both of them frowned. He looked back at me.

"No-o," he admitted slowly. "That is, not until we got these rats. Never had rats before."

"So you jumped to conclusions and thought they were rat noises," I said, "even though you wouldn't recognize a rat noise if you heard one."

Stoddard suddenly stood up. "But dagnab it, man!" he exploded. "If those aren't rat noises, what are they?"

I shrugged. "I don't know," I admitted. "They sound as if they might be coming through the pipes. Perhaps we ought to take a look around the house, beginning with the basement, eh?"

Stoddard considered this a minute. Then he nodded.

"That seems reasonable enough," he admitted.

I followed the amateur designer-owner of this madhouse down into the basement. There we began our prowl for the source of the noise. He snapped on the light switch, and I had a look around. The boiler and everything else in the basement was exactly as I remembered it— in the wrong place.

There was an array of sealed tin cans, each holding about five gallons, banked around the boiler. I tapped on the sides of these and asked Stoddard what they were.

"Naphtha," he explained, "for my wife's cleaning."

"Hell of a place to put them," I commented.

A familiar light came into Stoddard's stubborn eyes.

"That's where I want to put them," he said.

I shrugged. "Okay," I told him. "But don't let the insurance people find out about it."

We poked around the basement some more, and finally, on finding nothing that seemed to indicate a source of the sound, we went back up to the first floor.

Our investigation of pipes and other possible sound carriers on the first floor was also fruitless, although the sounds grew slightly stronger than they'd been in the basement.

I looked at Stoddard, shrugging. "We'd better try the second floor," I said.

I followed him upstairs to the second floor. Aside from the crazy belfry just above the attic, it was the top floor of the wildly constructed domicile.

The sounds were distinctly more audible up there, especially in the center bedroom. We covered the second floor twice and ended back up in that center bedroom again before I realized that we were directly beneath the attic.

I mentioned this to Stoddard.

"We might as well look through the attic, then," Stoddard said.

I led the way this time as we clambered up into the attic.

"Ever looked for your so-called rats up here?" I called over my shoulder.

Stoddard joined me, snapping on a flashlight, spraying the beam around the attic rafters. "No," he said. "Of course not."

I was opening my mouth to answer, when I suddenly became aware that the noises were now definitely louder. Noises faint, but not blurred any longer. Noises which weren't really noises, but were actually voices!

I grabbed Stoddard by the arm.

"Listen!" I ordered.

We stood there silently for perhaps half a minute. Yes, there wasn't any question about it now. I knew that the faint sounds were those of human voices.

"Good heavens!" Stoddard exclaimed.

"Rats, eh?" I said sarcastically.

"But, but—" Stoddard began. He was obviously bewildered.

"There's a sort of central pipe and wiring maze up here," I told him, "due to the plans we were forced to follow in building this house of yours. Those faint voices are carried through the pipes and wires for some reason of sound vibration, and hurled up here. Just tell me where you keep your radio, and we'll solve your problem."

Stoddard looked at me a minute.

"But we don't own a radio," he said quietly.

I was suddenly very much deflated.

"Are you sure?" I demanded.

"Don't be silly," Stoddard told me.

I stood there scratching my head and feeling foolish. Then I got another idea.

"Have you been up in that, ah, ornamental belfry since you moved in?" I asked.

"Of course not," Stoddard said. "It's to look at. Not to peek out of."

"I have a hunch the sounds might be even more audible up there," I said.

"Why?"

I scratched my head. "Just a hunch."

"Well it's a dammed fool one," Stoddard said. He turned around and started out of the attic. I followed behind him.

"You have to admit you haven't rats," I said.

Stoddard muttered something I couldn't catch. When we got down to the first floor again, Mrs. Stoddard was waiting expectantly for our arrival.

"Did you discover where the rats are?" she demanded.

Stoddard shot me a glance. "They aren't rats," he said with some reluctance. "The noises, we'd swear, are faint voices and sounds of human beings moving around. Were you talking to yourself while we were upstairs, Laura?"

Mrs. Stoddard gave her husband a surprised look. "Who was there to talk with, George?" she asked.

I had had about enough of this. I was damned tired of trotting around the weirdly laid out floors of the Stoddard home trying to track down rats which weren't rats but voices.

"If there are inexplicable echoes in this building," I said, "it is due to the construction. And don't forget, you wanted it this way. Now that I have proved to your satisfaction that you don't have rats, I might as well go. Good day."

I got my hat, and neither Stoddard nor his wife had much to say as they saw me to the door. Their accusing attitudes had vanished, however, and they both seemed even a trifle sheepish.

It was two o'clock when I left them. I'd killed better than an hour and a half prowling around the place, and another half hour driving out. I was damned disgusted by the time I got back to my office.

You can imagine my state of mind, consequently, some twenty-five minutes after I'd been back in my office, when I answered the telephone to hear Stoddard's voice coming over it.

"Mr. Kermit," he babbled excitedly, "this is George B. Stoddard again, Mr. Kermit!"

"What've you got now?" I demanded. "And don't tell me termites!"

"Mr. Kermit," Stoddard gasped, "you have to come back right away, Mr. Kermit!"

"I will like hell," I told him flatly, hanging up.

The telephone rang again in another half minute. It was Stoddard again.

"Mr. Kermit, pleeeease listen to me! I beg of you, come out here at once. It's terribly important!"

I didn't say a word this time. I just hung right up.

In another half minute the telephone was jangling again. I was purple when I picked it up this time.

"Listen," I bellowed. "I don't care what noises you're hearing now—"

Stoddard cut in desperately, shouting at the top of his lungs to do so.

"I'm not only hearing the noises, Kermit," he yelled, "I'm seeing the people who cause them!"

This caught me off balance.

"Huh?" I gulped.

"The belfry," he yelled, "I went up in the belfry, and you can see the people who's voices we heard!" There was a pause, while he found breath, then he shouted, "You have to come over. You're the only one I can think of to show this to!"

Stoddard was an eccentric, but only so far as his tastes in architecture were concerned. I realized this, as I sat there gaping foolishly at the still vibrating telephone in my hand.

"Okay," I said, for no earthly reason that I could think of, "okay, hang on. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

Mrs. Stoddard met me at the door this time. She was worried, almost frightened, and very bewildered.

"George is upstairs, Mr. Kermit. He won't let me come up there. He told me to send you up the minute you arrived. He's up in the attic."

"What on earth," I began.

"I don't know," his wife said. "I was down in the basement drying some clothes, when I heard this terrible yelling from George. Then he was calling you on the telephone. I don't know what it's all about."

I raced up to the attic in nothing flat, almost knocking my teeth out on the bottom step of the attic stairs.

Then I stumbled into the darkness of the attic, and saw Stoddard's flashlight bobbing around in a corner.

"Kermit?"

It was Stoddard's voice.

"Yes," I answered. "What in the hell is up? It had better be goo—."

"Hurry," Stoddard said. "Over here, quickly!"

I stumbled across the board spacings until I was standing beside Stoddard and peering up at what the beam of his flashlight revealed on the ceiling—a ragged, open hole, which he'd made by tearing several coatings of insulation from the spot.

For a minute, I couldn't make out anything in that flash beam glare. Stoddard had hold of my arm, and was saying one word over and over, urgently.

"Look. Look. Look!"

Then my eyes got adjusted to the light change, and I was aware that I was gazing up into the interior of the crazy belfry atop the monstrous house. Gazing up into the interior, while voices, quite loud and clearly distinguishable, were talking in a language which I didn't recognize immediately. As far as my vision was concerned, I might as well have been looking at a sort of grayish vaporish screen of some sort, that was all I saw.

"Shhhh!" Stoddard hissed now. "Don't say a word. Just listen to them!"

I held my breath, although it wasn't necessary. As I said, the voices coming down from that belfry were audible enough to have been a scant ten or twelve feet away. But I held my breath anyway, meanwhile straining my eyes to pierce that gray screen of vapor on which the light was focused.

And then I got it. The voices were talking in German, two of them, both harsh, masculine.

"What in the hell," I began. "Is there a short wave set up there or—"

Stoddard cut me off. "Can't you see it yet?" he hissed.

The voices went on talking, while I strained my eyes even more in an effort to pierce that gray fog covering the rent in the ceiling. And then I saw. Saw at first, as if through a thin gray screen of gauze.

I was looking up into a room of some sort. A big room. An incredibly big room. A room so big that two dozen belfry rooms would have fit into it!

And then it got even clearer. There was a desk at the end of the room. A tremendously ornate desk. A desk behind which was sitting a small, gray uniformed, moustached man.

There was another uniformed person of porcine girth standing beside that desk and pointing to a map on the wall in front of him. He was jabbering excitedly to the little man at the desk, and he wore a uniform that was so plushily gaudy it was almost ridiculous.

The two kept chattering back and forth to each other in German, obviously talking about the map at which the fat, plush-clad one was pointing.

I turned incredulously to Stoddard.

"Wh-wh-what in the hell goes?" I demanded.

Stoddard seemed suddenly vastly relieved. "So you see it and hear it, too!" he exclaimed. "Thank God for that! I thought I'd lost my mind!"

I grabbed hard on his arm. "But listen," I began.

"Listen, nothing," he hissed. "We both can't be crazy. Those are the voices we kept hearing before. And those two people are the talkers. Those two German (five words censored) louses. Hitler and Goering!"

There, he'd said it. I hadn't dared to. It sounded too mad, too wildly, babblingly insane to utter. But now I looked back through that thin gray cheesecloth of fog, back into the room.

The two occupants couldn't be anyone other than Hitler and Goering. And I was suddenly aware that the map Goering pointed to so frequently was a map of Austria.

"But what," I started again.

Stoddard looked me in the eye. "I can understand a little German," he said. "They're talking about an invasion of Austria, and if you will look hard at the corner of that map, you'll see a date marked— 1938!"

I did look hard, and of course I saw that date. I turned back to Stoddard.

"We're both crazy," I said a little wildly, "we're both stark, raving nuts. Let's get out of here."

"We are looking back almost five years into the past," Stoddard hissed. "We are looking back five years into Germany, into a room in which Hitler and Goering are talking over an approaching invasion of a country called Austria. I might have believed I was crazy when I first found this alone, but not now!"

Maybe we were both crazy. Maybe he was wrong. But then and there I believed him, and I knew that somehow, in some wild, impossible fashion, that belfry on Stoddard's asinine house had become a door leading through space and time, back five years into Germany, into the same room where Adolf Hitler and Hermann Goering planned the conquest of Austria!

Stoddard was taking something out of his pocket.

"Now that you're here I can try it," he said. "I didn't dare do so before, since I felt I couldn't trust my own mind alone in the thing."

I looked at what he held in his hands. A stone, tied to a long piece of string.

"What's that for?" I demanded.

"I want to see if that veil, that gray fog door, can be penetrated," he hissed.

Stoddard was swinging the stone on a string in a sharp arc now. And suddenly he released it, sending it sailing through the grayish aperture in the ceiling, straight into the belfry, or rather, the big room.

I saw and heard the stone on the string hit the marble floor of that room. Then, just as sharply, Stoddard jerked it back, yanking it into the attic again.

The result in the room beyond the fog sheet was instantaneous. Goering wheeled from the map on the wall, glaring wildly around the room. A pistol was in his hand.

Hitler had half risen behind that ornate desk, and was searching the vast, otherwise unoccupied room wildly with his eyes.

Of course neither saw anything. Stoddard, breathing excitedly at my side, had pulled the stone back into our section of time and space. But his eyes were gleaming.

"It can be done," he whispered fiercely. "It can be crossed!"

"But what on—" I started. He cut me off with a wave of his hand, pointing back to the gray screen covering the hole in the ceiling.

Goering had put the pistol back in the holster at his side, and was grinning sheepishly at der Fuehrer, who was resuming his seat behind the desk in confused and angry embarrassment.

The voices picked up again.

"They're saying how silly, to be startled by a sound," Stoddard hissed in my ear.

Then he grabbed my arm. "But come, we can't wait any longer. Something has to be done immediately."

He was pulling me away from the rent in the ceiling, away from the door that had joined our time and space to the time and space of a world and scene five years ago.

As we emerged from the attic and started blinkingly down the steps, Stoddard almost ran ahead of me.

"We must hurry," he said again and again.

"To where?" I demanded bewilderedly. "Hadn't we better do something about th—"

"Exactly," Stoddard panted. "We're really going to do something about that phenomenon in the belfry. We're going to the first place in two where we can buy two rifles, quick!"

"Rifles?" I gasped, still not getting it.

"For that little moustached swine up there," Stoddard said, pointing toward the attic. "If a stone can cross that gray barrier, so can bullets. We are both going to draw bead on Adolf Hitler in the year of 1938, and thus avert this hell he's spread since then. With two of us firing, we can't miss."

And then, of course, I got it. It was incredible, impossible. But that gray screen covering the rent in the attic ceiling upstairs wasn't impossible. I'd seen it. Neither was the room behind it, the room where the belfry was supposed to be, but where Adolf Hitler's inner sanctum was instead. I'd seen that, too. So was it impossible that we'd be able to eliminate the chief cause of the world's trouble by shooting accurately back across time and space?

At that moment I didn't think so!

Our mad clattering dash down the attic steps, and then down to the first floor brought Mrs. Stoddard up from the basement. She looked frightenedly from her husband to me, then back to him again.

"What's wrong?" she quavered.

"Nothing," Stoddard said, pushing her gently but quickly aside as we dashed for the door.

"But, George!" Mrs. Stoddard shrilled behind us. We heard her footsteps hurrying toward the door, even as we were out of it.

"My car," I yelled. "It's right in front. I know the closest place where we can get the guns!"

Stoddard and I piled into the car like a pair of high school kids when the last bell rings. Then I was gunning the motor, while out of the corner of my eye I could see Stoddard's wife running down the front steps shouting shrilly after us.

We jumped from the curb like a plane from a catapult, doing fifty by my quick shift to second gear. Then we were tearing the quiet streets of Mayfair's second subdivision apart with the noise of a blasting horn and a snarling motor.

It was ten minutes later when I screeched to a stop in front of the sports and gun store I'd remembered existed in Mayfair's first subdivision. The clerk was amazed at the wild speed with which we raced in, grabbed the guns, threw the money on the counter, and dashed out.

We must have looked like something out of a gangster movie as we raced back to Stoddard's place.

I was doing the driving, and Stoddard had clambered in beside me, both rifles, and several cartridge packages in his hands. He was rocking back and forth in mad impatience, as if by rocking he could increase our speed. The expression on his face was positively bloodthirsty.

And then we heard the sirens behind us. Shrill, coming up like comet wails in spite of our own speed.

"Oh, God!" Stoddard groaned. "Police!"

I squinted up into my rear vision mirror. We were less than two blocks from the Stoddard house, now, and the thought of being overhauled by police at the juncture was sickening, unbearable even to contemplate.

And then I saw the reason for the sirens. Saw them in the rear vision mirror. Two fire engines, one a hook and ladder outfit, the other a hose truck!

"It's all right," I yelped. "It's only two fire trucks!"

"Thank God!" Stoddard gasped.

We were a block from his place now, with only one corner left to turn before we'd see the mad architectural monstrosity he called him home; before we'd see the crazy belfry which held the salvation of the world in its screwballish, queer-angled lines.

And then the fire trucks and the sirens were nearer and louder, less than a block behind us. At that instant we turned the corner and came into full view of the Stoddard place.

It was a mass of flames, utterly, roaringly ablaze!

I almost drove us off the street and into a tree. And by the time I'd gotten a grip on myself, we were just a few houses away from the blazing inferno of Stoddard's crazy quilt dwelling.

I stopped by the curb, and clambered out of the car onto knees which would scarcely support me. My stomach was turning over and over in an apparently endless series of nauseating somersaults.

Stoddard, white-faced, frozen, stood there beside me, clutching the guns and the cartridge boxes foolishly in his hands.

Then someone was running up to us. Running and crying sobbingly, breathlessly. It was Stoddard's wife.

The fire trucks screeched to a stop before the blazing building at that instant, and her first words were drowned in the noise they made.

"... just drying out some clothes, George," she sobbed. "Just drying them out and turned on the furnace to help dry them. You left like that, and I got frightened. I ran to a neighbor's. The explosion and fire started not five minutes later."

Sickly, I thought of the naphtha Stoddard had piled near his boiler. I didn't say anything, though, for I knew he was thinking of it also.

He dropped the guns and cartridge boxes, and in a tight, strained voice, while putting his arms comfortingly around his wife, said: "That's all right, Laura. It wasn't your fault. We'll have another house like this. So help me God, just like this!"

IT HAS BEEN six months now since Stoddard's architectural eyesight burned to the ground. He started rebuilding immediately after that. I turned over all the drafts my company made from his first crude "plans," and he handed them to the supervisor of the construction company he bought out. You see, he took every dime he owned, sold out his insurance business, and has gone into the building game in dead earnest.

He explained it to me this way.

"I couldn't go on having house after house built and torn down on the same spot, Kermit. It would break me in no time. This way, with my own company to construct the house every time, I'll save about half each time."

"Then you're going to build precisely the same house?" I demanded.

His jaw went hard, and he peered from behind his spectacles with the intense glare of a fanatic. For once he didn't look like Mr. Suburbanite.

"You know damned well I am," he said. "And until it is precisely the same as the first, I'll keep tearing 'em down and putting 'em up again. I don't care if I have to build a thousand to do it, right on this spot!"

Of course I knew what he meant by precisely the same. And I wondered what on earth the odds were he was bucking. Through chance and a mad combination of angles, that time and space door had appeared the first time. But it might have been hanging on the tiniest atom of a fractional difference.

Stoddard has already finished his second house, and although it looks exactly like the monstrosity I first built for him, it can't be precisely like it. For he didn't get the gray shrouded door when he poked a hole in the attic ceiling and looked up into the second crazy belfry. All he saw was the belfry.

Tomorrow he starts tearing down to build another, and pretty soon people are going to be certain he's crazy.

As a matter of fact, they'll soon be pretty sure I'm loony also. For of course I can't help going over there now and then to sort of lend a hand....

___________________

4: The Lady of the Morass

E Phillips Oppenheim

1866-1946

The Windmill, London, April 1899

WROXHAM had just come in, big, self-satisfied, and well-dressed. With a cigarette between his teeth, and his legs a little apart, he was planted in front of my canvas— and I knew very well that he was preparing for me something in the nature of a criticism.

"Not bad, old chap," he said at last, tapping the easel with his riding whip. "Not bad at all. All the same, you've made a mistake."

I nodded, and invited him to proceed. My feelings, I assured him, were hardened. As though Wroxham ever considered anyone's feelings!

"Fairly good subject" he went on amiably. "Young man on the road to ruin— Modern Rake's Progress, or something of that sort you'll call it, I suppose. Young man seems to be stepping into some sort of a morass. Behind him cottage, home no doubt, light in the window, and a shadowy sort of girl, symbolical of goodness, and all that sort of thing of course, waiting for him and hoping he'll come home to tea. Lady emerging from morass appears to be offering different sort of invitation. I don't know how it strikes you, Jack, but I should say the odds were in favour of lady who is winking."

"She is doing nothing of the sort," I expostulated, indignantly.

"Not actually, perhaps," Wroxham continued, calmly, "but morally winking. That's where you've gone a bit wrong, Jack. Your allegory's all right, but you've made it too straightforward. Good woman one side of canvas, wicked woman the other, tempted young man between. People look and pass on. That isn't what you want. You want 'em to stop. They won't"

Now it is possible that I might have shut Wroxham up and changed the subject, but for the fact that something in his words appealed to a vague discontent which I myself felt for the picture. As it was, I strolled to his side and looked over his shoulder. Wroxham was evidently flattered, knowing quite well the usual value I set upon his criticisms.

"I am going to use a hateful word," he continued, cheerfully, "but I use it as a friend. Everything else is good, but you have damned your picture with a distinct note of conventionality."

I was quite humble now. Wroxham was right. I hung upon his words. Would he stumble upon the weak point? He did.

"It is your conception of the lady of the Morass which is at fault," he went on confidently. "You have reverted to a worn-out type. That sort of thing," he waved his jewelled fingers towards the left hand corner of the canvas, "represents wickedness to Tom, Dick, and Harry— for whom you do not paint There is the ordinary superabundance of hair, the heavy-lidded eyes, the sensual mouth, the full swelling limbs, which, as usual, the draperies seem to reveal rather than hide. Quite a wrong idea. The wickedness which fascinates to-day is the wickedness which has the guise of innocence. You wanted a girl for your model, not a woman; slim, dressed in black, with the face of a Madonna, and eyes turned heavenwards. You want to puzzle people by showing them the wickedness of the soul, and contradicting it in your delineation of the body. Quite simple, really— a matter of knack and the right model. Nice picture, but you haven't quite hit it."

"What a blackguard you are, Wroxham," I answered absently.

He shrugged his shoulders, and left soon. Wroxham never liked to be called names. But, late that evening, whilst I was smoking a despondent pipe, I had a note from him.

Hill Street, W.

Good for evil, old chap. I will give you a chance to redeem your picture, and set people's tongues a-wagging. The model you want is dancing every night from 8.50 to 9 at the Walworth Star Music Hall. I haven't seen her, but I know a chap who has.

Wroxham.

Of course I tossed his note into the fire. Equally, of course, I was at the Walworth Star Music Hall a few minutes past eight on the following evening. The place was new, gorgeous with plush and mirrors, reeking with vulgarity and tobacco smoke. I mingled with the crowd, and leaned over a balcony—prices were high, considering the neighbourhood, and I could not aspire to a box. It was a long time since I had been in a place I disliked more heartily. There was none of the cockney fun. Vulgar, perhaps, but with some pretence to humour of the East End Music Hall proper— the performance and surroundings were more like a weak and ghastly imitation of Leicester Square. There were a few sickly-looking youths in evening clothes, a sprinkling of unsexed women, whose weak faces and overpainted cheeks proclaimed an appeal to tastes less exacting than the palaces across the water. The performance of its sort was good enough, but I had no ears for it. It was one of my bad times, and a weariness was upon me. Even a Philistine like Wroxham had been able to lay his finger upon the weak spot of my work. That, surely, was degradation enough.

When the girl came, I was galvanised into a sudden eager interest. There was no mistaking her, or the fact that she was a favourite. She came on plainly dressed in a black evening gown, tall and slim, with a beautiful oval face and sad, wistful eyes. I was amazed at her reception. What had they in common with her, or she with them? These brutish-looking men and women, these dissipated boys, and hard-faced, joyless girls. She sang a little ballad very sweetly and very well. I rubbed my eyes and looked around, wondering more than ever at the air of expectance in all these unwholesome-looking faces, at their moist, weak eyes, and ugly, grinning mouths. She left the stage for a moment. There was a little murmur, and she reappeared, half dressed, shameless, hideously at her ease. She sang a song, to which I, no puritan, closed my ears; she accentuated its pruriency with gestures quick but unmistakable; the knowledge of evil flashed seductively out of her soft eyes up at the rows of applauding men and laughing women. I groped my way out into the streets and wandered away to the river, with the cold night wind cooling my hot cheeks, and the feeling that I had stood for once face to face with black sin. My hands were hot and damp, there were beads of perspiration on my forehead. All that was worst in me seemed suddenly called into life.

NEVERTHELESS, I knew that Wroxham was right, and in a cooler frame of mind I wrote to her. For two days there was no answer. On the third evening I received a short note. She did not quite understand my request. Was it her portrait that I wished to paint, or did I merely wish to introduce her into a picture of my own! If the former, she regretted that she must absolutely decline. If the latter, she had had no experience as a model, but she would not object to consider it if I would give her the further particulars.

I wrote and asked her to come to tea the next day—and she came. When, in response to her knock, I threw open the door of my studio, she walked in. I failed at first to recognise her. She was very quietly and very plainly dressed. Yet she carried herself with a certain elegance of bearing which left no room for doubt as to her antecedents and her past associations. She held out her hand and looked up at me frankly.

"You are Mr. Densham," she said. "I have come to see you about your picture. Is that it? May I look?"

But I stopped her quickly. In fact, my courage was almost gone. How was I to show her my canvas? To explain to her what it was that I required? To the woman who had sung that hideous song at the Star Music Hall I would have explained it with a jest, with all the cynicism indeed of Wroxham himself. But to this girl, whose eyes met mine so frankly, and the very curve of whose lips when she smiled reminded me of one of Guido's Angels— Why, the very idea revolted me.

"Don't look at it now," I said, hastily. "Let us talk first."

Dick's servant, borrowed for the occasion, brought in tea, and we talked together pleasantly of many things. At last, however, she looked at her watch, and rose with a little exclamation of surprise.

"Really," she said, "I had no idea it was so late. You must tell me about your picture now at once, please, Mr. Densham."

She moved towards it, but I stopped her.

"Will you forgive me," I said, "if I plead guilty to having made a mistake. You must remember that I have only seen you upon the stage, and I am sure that I have made a mistake. That is all. If you will let me come and see you sometime I should be so glad."

She looked at me, puzzled at first, and then with a slight hardening of the features.

"I am going to see the picture," she said, and she brushed me aside with a little imperious gesture.

I heard her sweep the covering from the canvas, and I saw her take a quick step backwards. The figure which I desired to remove, for which, indeed, I had desired to substitute her, was only partially obliterated. The coarse limbs, the suggestive droop of the body, the sensuality of the face, were all too readily apparent The girl looked steadily from the canvas into my face, and to have escaped at that moment I would have thrown the picture into the streets and taken my chance of starvation for the next six months.

"I am very sorry," I faltered; "please remember that I knew nothing of you. Of course, my suggestion was an insult You won't forgive me, of course. I don't deserve it. Only, please believe that if I had known you I would never have made so ghastly a proposition."

She was still looking at me in a curious, intent way. Since she had seen the picture there was a distinct change in her. A certain softness and delicacy of voice and appearance seemed to have left her. There was something ominous and unpleasing in the deadly quiet of her manner and her unruffled tone.

"I wonder," she said, "did you see me by chance at the Star, or was it the suggestion of someone else that I might serve to represent for you— that!"

Her hand flashed out with a quick, dramatic gesture to the canvas. I tried to draw her away from it, but she would not move.

"It was at the suggestion of someone else," I said. "Someone who was obviously mistaken in you."

"By no means," she answered, coldly. "I think that your friend showed admirable judgment. I want to know his name."

"I do not think that he had ever seen you," I said. "In fact, I am sure that he had not."

"Nevertheless," she answered, "I want to know his name."

"It was an artist himself," I said, "Philip Wroxham."

If I had not been watching her closely I would have said that the name left her unmoved. But my eyes were fixed upon her, and I saw something that was like a cold shiver pass through her frame, and she half closed her eyes, as though in pain. For several moments she did not speak. I made some stumbling remark, to which she returned no answer.

"I wonder," she said abruptly, "if you mind fetching me a glass of water!"

I left the room in search of it. When I returned she was still standing before the picture, but everything which was strange in her manner had disappeared. She looked round at me with a very sweet smile— she was quite her old self again.

"I am so sorry to have troubled you," she said, sitting down in my easy chair.

"Now, I want you to tell me how much time would you want me to give you, and is the posing very difficult! You must remember that I know nothing about it."

I looked at her with a start.

"You are not going to pose for that," I cried.

"I mean to," she answered, quietly. "I should like it"

I shook my head decidedly.

"It is ridiculous," I said. "I will not have you. You are not suitable."

She rose to her feet, and came over to me. Standing with her hand resting lightly upon her hip, her head a little on one side— just as she had stood before she bad sung that song.

"Am I not!" she whispered.

I pushed her away almost roughly, but she only laughed. The face which had looked into mine was the face of the prima donna of the Star. There was that in it which had driven me out of the place and made me ashamed.

"Am I not!" she whispered again, softly. "I shall be here to-morrow at three."

I PAINTED the picture, and I knew that when once I exhibited it the days of my obscurity were over. I showed it to no one, and I lingered over those last few finishing touches, indulging to the full in a curious reluctance to part with it or to let any other eyes save mine and her's rest upon that terrible figure. And when it was finished I sat down before it, and I felt that I would give years of my life never to have painted it, never to have seen that wonderful face which looked now from my canvas as I had seen her look at the Star Music Hall. I smoked my pipe furiously. I glared at it with frowning face and a curious but very potent sense of guilt. How had I dared to make capital out of a woman's corruption. If she was that, God help her— but I knew another woman, and I longed to believe in that other one. I had done her an evil turn surely to immortalise the blackness of her soul. Somehow I felt that if this work brought me success, as I never doubted but that it would, the fame and the gold would come to me tainted and besmirched—a veritable blood-offering.

Wroxham came in while I sat there. I would have hidden the picture, but I was too late. Already his eyeglass was fixed, he was preparing, I could see, for something elaborate in the way of criticism. I moved aside, and nerved myself to listen to his flow of words.

But none come. When I looked up surprised at his long silence, I saw that he was not capable of uttering any. His eyeglass had fallen and lay shattered to pieces upon the floor. A curious grey pallor seemed to have crept into his face. He swayed for a moment on his feet, and then stood perfectly still. His eyes were dilated and rivetted upon the figure in the painting, and he looked as one who sees those things which it is not good for mortals to know of.

When he spoke, his voice was hoarse, and seemed to have come from a long distance. He spoke without looking at me or moving his eyes from the picture.

"Who is she? Where did you find her?"

"You should know," I answered, bitterly. "You sent me to her. It is the girl at the Star Music Hall."

His white lips murmured a woman's name. "Give me her address," he said.

She came out from behind the screen.

"I am here," she said, calmly.

Wroxham gave a little cry and started back. Then he looked from her face back into the picture.

"Is it my work?" he asked her.

"It is your work," she answered.

He took up his hat and groped towards the door. His knees were shaking, he seemed suddenly to have aged ten years.

"Then may God have mercy upon me," he said, in a dull, stricken tone. "May God forgive me."

She stood by my side, tremulous, a little awed. She looked at herself with horror.

"Am I— like that?" she moaned.

I set my teeth and caught up a knife. In a moment the canvas was in shreds. I flung it upon the floor and set my heel through it.

"You are not like it," I cried, passionately. "You never will be like it again. Promise."

She lifted her eyes to mine.

"I never will," she whispered.

BUT that night she sang her old songs at the Star Music Hall, and a broker's man took an inventory of my few belongings and shared my solitary chamber. Wroxham, I heard afterwards, was the life and soul of a brilliant little supper-party given by himself and half a dozen others to the ladies of the Frivolity Theatre.

____________________________

5: A Drop Of Blood

M. Mcdonnell Bodkin

Age (Melbourne) 8 January 1926

A Paul Beck case

'IS IT POSSIBLE you could come to love a big, dull chap like me?'

'Well, perhaps if he was not too like 'you,' Charlotte Archdale answered demurely, but the blank look in his face was too much for her, and she broke into a ripple of delighted and delightful laughter.

'Well; I suppose I may take this my proposal, and I say, "Yes" without a moment's hesitation.'

The next moment she was in his arms, his lips on hers. She kissed him back and then struggled loose.

'I am not at all sure I should consent to marry you. Do you realise what it means to you ? Your uncle, Sir Ralph Manering, one of the richest men in London, will never forgive you. He will cut off your allowance and inheritance when he hears you are going to be married to me. He just hates my name— of course, you know why?'

'Because your uncle ran off with his wife twenty years ago. He could not be mad enough to hate you for that?'

'He could, and is. I was introduced to him at a bazaar, and he cut me dead.'

A quick frown wrinkled Tom Manering's forehead.

'Well, let him do his worst!' he said. 'I'll have my profession in three months, and I have a couple of hundreds a year of my own. If you are willing to risk it, Lottie, though it is not fair to ask you.'

'Of course not, you darling old goose— an heiress like me with fifty pounds a year and her nurse's certificate. I never in my life heard of such presumption, but I will condescend.'

While they are absorbed in each other we may have a look at them without interrupting the story.

Charlotte Archdale is not so much lovely as loveable. No one could look at her without liking her. She had an oval face with a dimple that came and went as she smiled or was serious, rich brown hair rippled round her forehead and over little ears whose tips peeped out from the ripple. Her brown eyes, soft, bright, reflected her every mood. She looked small beside her big lover, but she was over middle height, and had the figure of a graceful girl just verging on womanhood.

A few words must serve for the man.

Tom Manering (we won't call him Captain because he does not like it) was broad and tall, with black hair and blue-black eyes. He had been through the war and distinguished himself on a staff appointment for the most part, but he had promptly retired when the war ended and resumed his study for the medical profession.

One thing was plain as the lovers sat together on the sofa— that Tom Manering was deeply, reverently in love, half-abashed at his own good fortune in winning the girl he loved. The room was an admirable setting for a love scene— a cosy, comfortable homely room.

'Will you give me tea?' he asked. 'Tea in your flat will make it seem real, I can hardly believe in my good fortune.'

The tea was a delightful meal, delightfully served. 'I am showing you what a housekeeper I will make,' she said. 'Oh, Tom, I think we will be very happy.'

'Hallo, hands up, you two. I have caught you out,' a cherry voice cried, and looked round they saw Manering's cousin, Jim Warrington, in the doorway, with a whimsical smile on his handsome face. Tall, even taller than Manering, and splendidly built, fair-haired, blue-eyed, with a touch of tan on his cheeks, Jim Warrington was one of the best-looking men in London, and the most popular alike with men and women. He had joined up with his cousin and fought through the war with special distinction. The sword with which he had gone through the war he had presented to his uncle, himself an ardent militarist.

'It has earned a rest,' he said. But he himself retained his commission.

Such was the man whom both lovers jumped up to welcome. ? 'Allow me,' said Manering, with mock formality, 'to introduce you to my future wife, Miss Archdale.'

'I claim a cousin's privilege,' cried Warrington. But she slipped to the other side of the table.

'Sit down and be good,' she advised, 'and I'll give you some tea.'

So he sat down and was good, and they made a merry party of three, and Warrington was warm in his congratulations.

THE STORY skips a week, to the library of Sir Ralph Manering in his big townhouse in Belgrave Square.

'The master is expecting you sir,' said Tomlinson, who sat like a stout sentinel in the very at the door of the library.

'I know, I know,' answered Tom Manering, a little impatiently. 'You need not announce me.'

He crossed the long library to the door of a small room at the fur end, where the greater part of Sir Ralph's sedentary life was passed, turned the handle and went in, shutting the door after him. A minute later he burst out into the library with a hoarse cry of 'Murder! Tomlinson,' he cried wildly; 'your master has been murdered. He is lying on the floor, stabbed to the heart. Run for a doctor; run for the police. Why don't you do something, man?'

But Tomlinson stood staring in utter terror and bewilderment. Manering grew suddenly calm and self-collected. 'Pull yourself together, Tomlinson. You must wait here while I go and telephone for the doctor and call up Scotland Yard. Let no one in till I come back.'

There was some delay over the telephone calls, and it was a quarter of an hour before Manering came back. He found Tomlinson at the open door of the inner room still utterly dumbfounded.

On the deep carpet the man lay splashed with blood, his limbs flung about, the hill of a short sword protruding from his left side.

'It's the colonel's weapon,' stammered Tomlinson. 'He always kept it with him. Shall I lift the master on to the couch?'

'No, we must not touch anything till the police come. I think you had better your story, whatever it may be, first to them.'

IT WAS nearly an hour before Inspector Curtis and Dr. Boyd, the prison  doctor, a big man, and a little one, arrived. The inspector was tall, thin, athletic, with alert grey eyes and a reputation for promptitude in the force. More than once he had caught his prey at the first jump. The doctor was shorter, stouter, older; there was a bluff kindliness in his face. Criminals did not seem to be in his line, but he was one of the most skilled analysts in London, and that had led to his present appointment.

'Sorry to be late, Mr. Manering,' said the inspector; 'I was out when you called. Well, doctor?'

The doctor, without speaking a word had knelt on the carpet to examine the prostrate figure.

'Dead,' he said, 'stabbed clean through the heart; died instantaneously.'

'Long dead ?'

'Cannot say; might be anything from an hour to about five. The rigor mortis has not yet set in.'

'Has anything been touched?' the inspector asked Manering.

'Nothing.'

'Then we had better have your story before we search the room.

'Just at four o'clock I called by appointment. Tomlinson was at the far end of the library.  I'd shut the door before I noticed anything. When I saw him lying there I was too stunned to speak or move for a minute or so. Then I came, out and told Tomlinson and telephoned for you and the doctor. That s about all.'

The inspector was scribbling rapidly 'Now your turn,' he said to Tomlinson. 'Where was Sir Ralph to-day ? Who was with him?'

'He was here since breakfast. He wasn't out at all. Just three people saw him in all; Mr. Mannering was the last.'

'Go on. Tell us all you know.'

'The first person that came to see him in the morning, about eleven o'clock, wag Major Folliot; you know him, Mr. Manering. I never cared much for the major myself.' It was the first time Tomlinson had ever expressed an opinion about a visitor, but this was a special occasion. 'He always had a queer, sneaky way with him, to my thinking; seemingly the master did not care much about him, either. I heard low voices, with some word about 'Price,' and after about a quarter of an hour the major came out in a hurry and Sir Ralph after him.'

'Show that gentleman out, Tomlinson,' he said. 'I want a note taken to Colonel Warrington at once. I'm not at home to anybody, no matter who it is, until he comes. You sit at the far door of the library and show him in at once'

'The Colonel did not arrive until about two o'clock. Sir Ralph had a light early lunch in his own room.

'The colonel seemed pleased with himself .

' "Don't stir, Tomlinson," he said, "I can find my own way." I didn't stir. I saw no need for it, and he crossed and opened and shut the door by himself. I heard the mutter of voices for a few minutes. I could not catch the words. It's a big, mahogany door, with a curtain on the inside. But after about a quarter of an hour, or so the door opened and the colonel came out. "All right, sir," I heard him say to the master, as he passed through. "I'll send Manering to you as near four as I can," and he clapped the door behind him. "Tomlinson," the colonel says to me, when he crossed the library to where I sat, "your master is expecting Mr. Manering about four o'clock! You are not to admit any visitors or to disturb him on any account till Mr. Manering comes."

I'll take my Bible oath that no one but myself and them two, the major and the colonel, saw him to-day until Mr. Manering saw him slaughtered.'

'That will do, Tomlinson,' said the inspector.

Tomlinson retired to his niche at the library door. Then the inspector searched the room carefully. For a moment he scrutinised the hilt of the sword with a magnifying glass; The hilt was rough steel, to give the hand a good grip. It was not touched by the

'Didn't expect I would,' he said. 'I don't take much stock of those finger marks of which story books are so full.'

'It's a mystery,' said the doctor.

'Not a bit of it,' retorted the inspector; 'it's plain as a pikestaff.'

'What the mischief do you mean?' asked the doctor.

Manering just stared at him. 'Who, did it? That's what I mean. You don't think it was Tomlinson? Ridiculous.'

'Quite so. Nor Mr. Manering?'

'This is no time for joking.'

'I'm not joking. It was not Tomlinson, and it wasn't Mr. Manering. We are agreed on that. It could not have been Major Folliot because his Ralph had his luncheon after the major left. Then who could it have been? Who was the only other person who saw him to-day? Don't look so dumbfounded. The thing is quite plain. Colonel Warrington was with him for a quarter of an hour, and Sir Ralph was never seen alive afterwards. I take no stock of his calling back into the room. Tomlinson neither saw or heard Sir Ralph.'

'It's impossible!' cried the doctor, 'inconceivable; one of the bravest officers in the army.'

'It's horrible, of course, but not impossible. I will arrest the colonel for the murder.'

Then Manering found his tongue. 'Inspector,' he cried angrily, 'you are misled. My cousin is incapable of such an atrocity.'

'In my business we cannot assume any man is incapable of anything.'

'But there's no motive,' urged Manering. 'My uncle and he were on the best of terms.'

'We have to look up the motive,' persisted the inspector. 'I will arrest Warrington as soon as I can lay hands on him.'

'You'll be a fool for your pains,' retorted Manering. 'I have no more to say. If you want my evidence you know where to find me.'

THAT EVENING Colonel Warrington was arrested for the murder of his uncle, and next morning good-humoured, imperturbable Paul Beck walked into the private office of Inspector Curtis, preceded by his card.

'Forgive me for butting in, Curtis,' said Beck. 'I always seem to be butting in when I'm not wanted.'

'You're wanted here, now,' replied the inspector, as the two men shook hands. They were old friends, and officially and unofficially they had been successful in many cases together. 'I suppose it's about this Warrington business?' said the inspector.

'Hit it first shot. Mr. Manering, captain that was, came to engage me to do what I could for his cousin. He says you are all wrong. Tell me about it.'

The inspector told him all about it, in the clear, crisp language of the force.

'One thing strikes me as queer, Curtis,' Beck said. 'If the colonel was the murderer why did he give such precise directions to Tomlinson to guard the fort until his cousin came to find the corpse, so that suspicion would point directly to himself.'

'That's a difficulty certainly; there is another I forgot to mention. Sir Ralph's gold chain was dangling from his waistcoat, but his watch was not to be found.'

'It is inconceivable that the murderer stole the watch. It must be somewhere in the room. May I have a look ?'

'Certainly. The room is locked, but I have the key, and Tomlinson is constantly on guard. I'll get a taxi, and we will go there straightaway.'

Beck plopped on his knees on the carpet the moment they entered the room and searched, up and down from wall to wall, and a yard at a time.

'Got it!' he exclaimed in triumph, after a quarter of an hour's silent search, and jumped to his feet to exhibit his find. 'I found it tangled up in the tail of the curtain,' he said. 'It might have tolled in. or been tucked in designedly, I cannot say which!'

It was a big gold watch with a white face; the glass was broken, and there was a drop of blood on the white dial.

The inspector's face grew red. 'Well, I am a blithering idiot!' he exclaimed.

'Strong, language,' interposed Beck.

'True language,' retorted the other. 'Just look At the dial. The hands are pointing to 4 o'clock.'

'So I see.'

'Don't you understand what that means? Manering was here at 4 o'clock by appointment. Very likely Sir Ralph had his watch out, waiting for him. It's as plain as daylight.'

'Daylight is a bit cloudy sometimes. Perhaps the watch is just run down and can tell you nothing of when it stopped.'

'I never, thought of that,' said the inspector.

Beck, like a soothsayer of the old days, examined the entrails of the watch. 'The works are badly wrenched,' he said at last. 'The watch was stopped by violence.'

'Stopped, at four o'clock,' commented the inspector, 'when it was struck from the owner's hand.'

'Stopped when the owner was killed, and it got the drop of blood on its face.'

'Comes to exactly the same thing. By jove, Beck, I never for one moment suspected Manering, when I found him there alone with the body. His manner was just perfect, cool as a cucumber. It was a bright idea of his, engaging you to look after his cousin. Curious trick of fate that you should dig up the fatal evidence against himself. He could not have been fool enough to hide the watch.'

'Rather looks as if it had been hidden,' said Beck. 'But, of course, anyone that hid it must have known it would most surely be found.'

'Well,' replied the inspector, 'I have a tough job before me. I don't like it one little bit. However, I must get it over me, and then―'

'You mean release the colonel and arrest Manering?'

'That's about the size of it.'

'I wouldn't carry out the whole of that programme, Curtis, if I were you. Let the colonel out if you like. I suppose you feel you must do that, but don't put the other in just yet. We may get more evidence'.

'Give him a rope to hang himself?'

'Will put it that way if you like. Now I want to make a suggestion to which I attach special importance. First put the watch in the safe in your office; it is vital for the case. Next bring Dr. Boyd here to-morrow to examine the dial? I want him to analyse the blood marks.'

'But why?' asked the puzzled inspector. 'It is blood right enough. Why?'

'To oblige me. if you like. I think it is important. What hour will I find you at your office?'

'Will twelve o'clock suit? All right then. I'm off to see Colonel Warrington.'

'First lock up the watch,' said Beck. 'The office is on your way. I'm off to have a chat with Major Folliot.'

WHEN BECK called next day at the inspector's he found him alone.

'The doctor will be here in a few minutes,' said Curtis. 'He has gone for his apparatus.'

'I have invited a watch maker to our séance. You don't mind?'

'Seems a pretty plain case to me,' said the inspector resignedly.

'And to me,' added Beck, 'but I wanted to make quite sure. How did you get on with the colonel?'

'First class. He's a real decent sort. He laughed when I told him about his cousin. "You are barking up the wrong tree again," he said. "You will be apologising to Manering the day after tomorrow."

'Just as I was leaving I told him about our appointment to-day and having the doctor in to examine the blood stain on the watch. "Cursed tomfoolery!" he snapped. "That Beck is a meddlesome busybody! Let me have a peep at the watch." Unfortunately I hadn't it with me.

'I had a much worse time with Manering. As bad luck would have it, I found him with the girl he is engaged to. She refused to leave the room while I told my business to Manering. Not a pleasant business to tell a chap. The girl was vexed with me for being such a fool as to dream of accusing him, but I could see her presence bucked up her lover tremendously. He saw the serious side of the evidence, of course. I told him that he wasn't bound to say anything. He told me he had nothing to say, except, of course, that he was quite innocent.

' "Would you mind telling me why you called on the old gentleman?" I asked.  For answer he put his hand in his breast coat pocket and handed me this.'

'This' was a sheet of club notepaper which the inspector spread on the table and read:

Dear Tom—

Uncle Ralph is in a devil of a fume; some cursed busybody told him about your engagement to Lottie. He sent for me to know if it was true. What could I say? He swears he will disinherit you if you marry her. He wants to see yourself at four sharp. I hope you will be able to gat him to see reason. With cousinly love to Lottie—

Ever yours, Jim.

'There's the motive all right,' said the inspector.

'I must say it looks bad for Manering. I don't know why he handed me over the letter. His cousin would not give him away, said there was no quarrel between Manering and the old man.'

They were interrupted by the arrival of the watchmaker, who was followed a moment later by Dr. Boyd.

'Now,' said Beck, 'we can get to work. Produce the watch, Curtis. Mr. Brady, will you kindly take off the hands as gently as you can? No, first have a look at the inside. Do you think it was stopped by a fall?'

'I should say not,' the watchmaker answered, 'Seems to me it was deliberately tampered with.'

'The same here. Now off with the hands.'

The hands were delicately detached and laid on a sheet of white paper.

'Now, doctor,' said Beck, 'I want you to test the under-side of the hands for human blood.'

The three sat in dead silence while the doctor when through his analyses. serums, precipitants and all the rest of it. He looked up at last and stretched himself.

'Done,' he said.

'Found any blood on the under-side of the hands?' Beck asked.

'On both, especially on the hour hand.'

'Human blood?'

'Certainly.'

'Was it liquid when it got on to the hands?'

'Must have been; otherwise it could not have spread the way it did.'

'You can swear to all this, Doctor?'

'Every word.'

'There can no longer be the least doubt who stabbed Sir Ralph,' said Beck. 'When he was murdered the watch glass was broken, and that drop of blood fell on the dial.  The murderer put the hands on from two o'clock to four, then stopped the watch as if by a fall, and hid it behind the curtain, where he knew it must eventually be found. This thing is plain as a pikestaff. In no other way could the wet blood have come on to the underside of the hands.

'It was a neat idea of Warrington's,' Beck continued, 'to let his cousin in for the murder and send him that letter to provide the motive. Of course, I suspected from the moment I saw the dial. Yesterday I called on Major Folliot and screwed the truth out of him. Colonel Warrington owed him £400, a gambling debt. He paid him by a forged cheque of Sir Ralph. When the I.O.U. was burned the colonel told Folliot that the cheque was forged, and Folliot promised to keep it dark; but he took the cheque to Sir Ralph, probably thought that he would pay up to save the family name. But Sir Ralph turned him out, kept the cheque, and sent for the colonel. We can guess what happened afterwards, the colonel killed him with the same sword with which he killed so many Germans and laid that ingenious trap for his cousin; glad to put him out of the way and to come in for the fortune.'

He was interrupted by a knock at the door.

A constable entered with a letter.

'For Mr. Beck,' his said.

'Quick work,' said Beck, when he had read it. Its all over. Listen to this:

'Curse you, Beck,' he read. 'When I heard from Curtis that you were on to the bloodstain, of course I guessed that you had caught me out. When I learned later that you had been to Folliot I knew the game was up. The old scoundrel brought it on himself; threatened to have me prosecuted. There was nothing else for it.  But you won't get me alive. Serjeant Death is here to arrest me; I've a revolver on the table as I write, and it don't much matter whether an English or German bullet does the trick.'

'Well, I am a thundering ass,' said inspector Curtis later in the day, when the newspapers in the street were crying out: 'Suicide of Colonel Wirrington.'

'Nonsense, man,' protested Beck; 'You caught your man on the first pounce.'

'Well, perhaps in a way that's so,' admitted the inspector.

SIR TOM MANERING some months later and Miss Charlotte Archdale, seated close together on a couch in the lady's flat where, we first met them, look radiantly happy.

'Oh, Tom,' she murmured softly, 'I was horribly frightened when that policeman, came, though I tried hard for your sake to seem brave.'

'So was I, my darling. It seemed a perfectly clear case, I would have been hanged but for Paul Beck.'

_________________

6: Diamond Cut Diamond

M. Mcdonnell Bodkin

Western Mail (Perth) 3 Dec 1931

A Tale of the Turf

CYRUS Montague was a hawk, and Lord Lovel was a pigeon, and the hawk plucked the pigeon, as was natural. The commonplace performance was, however complicated by the intervention of a new man. Both men had loved Betty Wakefield, the youngest and prettiest daughter of a penniless peer, and Betty had rejected Cyrus Montague and married Lord Lovel. This little incident gave the hawk a keener and more personal pleasure plucking the pigeon.

Now you must not by any means n away with the story that Cyrus Montague was a seedy and disreputable adventurer or that Lord Lovel was a fool. Cyrus Montague, on the contrary, was a very respectable person indeed, a large landowner, a member of Parliament, very wealthy, though not quite as wealthy as Lord Lovel before the process of his plucking began.

If ever a mm got a fair start in the world Harry, tenth Earl of Lovel, was that man. No advantage, real or fictitious, was wanting He was tall, strong, handsome, a noted athlete and proficient in almost every form of outdoor game and sport of high rank in a rank-worshipping county, of enormous wealth whit had accumulated during his minority; owner of one of the most beautiful places in all England, and finally married to the girl he loved and that girl a real good sort what more could the heart of a man desire; "instead of which," to borrow a phrase that has become famous, "he went about the country backing race horses." In four lines of pungent doggerel Rudyard Kipling had described the elegant simplicity of this sport":

The horses run, the jockeys ride,

The "bookies" bet, the owners own,

But there are other things beside.

And that's a game best left alone;

Lord Lovel found it so. He was not dull man; indeed, he was a rather bright man, as perhaps the sequel may show but he started with a touching confidence in human nature― the most expensive commodity he could take with him on the turf. In the first few years he was plucked all round; everyone had a feather out of him. But a bookmaker named Whaller― Sam Whaller― and Cyrus Montague, Esquire, aforesaid, did most of the plucking.

At last through their joint agency he came to utter smash over the Derby. Cyrus Montague's horse High Flyer was first favourite with odds on― such a favourite indeed that all the rest were outsiders, Lord Lovel, who still numbered Cyrus Montague amongst his intimate friends, had the straight tip from the owner and backed the horse recklessly, following him through the shortening odds to a few days before the race.

By Montague's advice he did all his betting with Sam Whaller.

"He's a whale among the minnows," said Cyrus, "and is best able to stand such a heavy knock-down blow as this is going to be. Besides, he is a sure pay, he can afford to part."

But Lord Lovel did not get the chance to test the famous "bookie's" paying capacity. The day before the race High Flyer was scratched, and it was Lord Lovel did the parting to Mr. Whaller to the tune of over fifty thousand pounds. Whether Mr. Cyrus Montague got any share of that huge booty it would be impertinent to inquire. The facts, however, may be stated. High Flyer .was scratched on the grounds that he had not stood training, but as he won the  next big event for which be was entered at big odds it is possible the widespread sneers of the cynical were not wholly unjustified.

Lord Lovel, if not ruined, was on the brink of ruin. His lordship was notoriously a good loser, and to the outside world he made no sign, but be was hard hit, and knew it. One person only he took into his confidence.

"It is a cruel shame. Betty," he said to his wife. "I could kick myself for your sake."

They were breakfasting tête-à-tête in a cosy snuggery in the huge castle which a Lovel had built half a dozen centuries ago, and a score of Lovels. had added to since then. One whole side of the little room was a bow window which looked out over an immeasurable demesne with the rustle of deer through the long green vistas, and a silver gleam far away where a lake lay sleeping amongst the trees in the sunshine.

" 'Tis not you that deserve kicking, Harry dear," his wife said, poising a lump of sugar over the tea she had filled for him and touching it with her lips before she dropped it into the cup. They were honeymooning yet, those two, though they were a year, married and Betty, Lady Lovel, was a mother as well as a wife.

''Oh I know, little woman. It's friend Monty, you mean. He certainly doesn't come well out of it, and I thought him as straight as a die."

"I never did, Harry. Do me that justice, and I always told you so."

"Told you so" is not a pleasant for man from whatever lips it comes, but Lord Lovel didn't wince.

"You were right, little Woman," he said, "you were always right except when you married a silly ass like yours truly. Monty was very gone on you, Betty; sorry, now you didn't have him?"

She crossed the room in make-belief anger, perched on the arm of his chair light and beautiful in her fluffy morning dress as à butterfly on a flower, and boxed his ears playfully; "

"If you say that again I will order you to kick yourself, as you just threatened for my sake." But her playfulness was only on the surface.

"Is it so bad as all that, Harry?" she queried the next moment with an anxiety in her voice she tried vainly to hide,

"Couldn't well be much worse, my pet. I have had many hard knocks lately, this last was a crusher.  The place and land must go. My lawyer says I may be able to scrape a couple of thousand a year out of the ruin for you and the boy. I am sorry, Betty, I'm sorry for your sake and his. I cannot say more than that, can I?"

She was thoroughbred, that slim brown eyed little woman with the girlish curls and dimples. She did not look him in the face, for she guessed the tears were in his eyes. She guessed, too, the bitterness of his thoughts as he faced the prospect of being driven out by his own mad folly, with his wife and child, from the stately home of his ancestors, which be held m such love and pride. At such a time the true woman has no thought of herself.

"If it must be, it must be, Harry dear, and we three can be happy together anywhere. But couldn't you have one more try before you give in?"

"Try at what, my pet?"

"At the turf."

He jumped from his chair in his surprise and lifted her up by the arms till her face was level with his own, looked her straight in the eyes, kissed her and set her down again.

"Why, you wonderful little woman," he cried, "you always warned me against betting and racing. I wish to the lord I had only had the sense to take your advice. You always said you hated it."

"So I did, but―"

"Oh, there's a 'but' is there?"

"I hate even more to think of your being driven out of this by that odious Cyrus Montague and his creature― what's his name?― Whaller. I hate to think of them cheating and ruining you and getting off scot free. Oh, I know how he'll gloat over it. I remember his look and the way he grunted when I threw him over for you. This was his revenge."

"There, I think, my pet, you do the amiable Monty more than justice. I should think a deal the better of him if you were right. Egad! he had reason to hate me, but; I'm pretty, sure it was the money he was after."

"Both, both," cried Betty, Lady Lovel.  "That is the reason he was so civil to you after we were married and sent us that nice present. That is why he took his jilting as you said, like a good fellow and a sportsman. He wanted to keep friends and ruin you..."

"Don't rub it in too hard, Betty. I see now what a silly ass I was."

"Couldn't you manage to get even with him? To try your luck once again against his this time with your eyes open?"

"Egad you are a plucky little woman. ' Are you ready to risk it?"

"Quite. Don't let us sink into middle class respectability, Harry, whatever we do. Let us have a castle or cottage. I'll cook the dinner and make the babies' clothes and my own, and never grumble or growl. Just keep back a hundred a  year and plunge with the rest. I know you will win this time, and I feel it down to my toe nails." Then we won't have to go away after all." She swept out her hands and embraced the whole wide, lovely landscape with a gesture that was a caress.

"I wish there was some sure way of winning," she added irrelevantly.

"But there isn't," he said.

"I am sure there is if we were clever enough to find it out."

"There can't be, my pet. You see there are two people to a bet, and when one man wins another man loses. Suppose now they are both equally clever,' they cannot be both sure of winning except―"

He jumped to his feet again and clapped his thigh with the palm of his hand with a smack like a pistol shot. "Egad, Betty, I have hit on a plan― a most amazing and spIendacious plan. But I doubt if it would be quite fair even with sweeps like. Montague and Whaller."

"Fair!" she cried indignantly. "Anything is too fair for them. They weren't so squeamish about you. I have no patience with a man's silly notion of his 'honour' when he is dealing with rogues. Diamond cut diamond, I say, and you must be the diamond to cut this time, Harry. Tell me your plan, sir, at once, I insist."

Thus commanded, he couldn't help himself. If the truth must out he was keen to have his clever notion appreciated without as yet any serious thought of putting it in practice.

She laughed aloud when he told, her with a frank merriment that reminded him of the time when he first saw her from the stage of a private theatricals. He was playing a queer old woman to the life and fell instantly in love with the bright-faced little girl in the front row that applauded with hands, lips, and eyes.

"It will do splendidly, Harry! It just cannot fail," she cried excitedly. "You were so clever to think of it. Oh, what a pair of fools you will make of them both!"

He still demurred, but he kissed and laughed away his "honourable" scruples, and at last wiled a promise from him.

"I think it is rather neat," he modestly admitted, "isn't it?"

"But whom will you get to help you, Harry?" she asked suddenly. "I only wish I could."

"Oh, that will be all right enough," he answered. "There are lots of chaps will be glad of the job. Only I must find someone I can trust like myself. By Jove―"

"Another idea, Harry?"

"A better one than the last."

"Tell it to me quickly?"

"Not this time, little woman. This is my private property."

"Oh, you think a woman cannot keep a secret?"

"No, but I think a man can, and to prove it I'll keep this."

"Well, keep it, keep it, you nasty thing. But remember to keep your promise, too: I must go and kiss babs now and tell him the good news. Mind, I trust your honour, Harry. You cannot go back on your word to a lady."

SO LORD LOVEL continued to plunge the turf more vehemently than ever, and the same ill-luck persistently attended him. Over and over again his "friend" Cyrus Montague thought he had got a knock-out blow this time, but his lordship came smiling, paying in hard cash on settling day....

It chanced that about this time a new "bookie" loomed up on the sporting horizon. Sam Whaller found he had a formidable rival in Emmanuel Groote. The man was a Jew by his nose and his name but that was all that was practically known of him. He was tall, thin, with a slight stoop, and a long well-trimmed grey beard which he seemed particularly proud. He had very bright eyes and a nose like hawk. He soon made it plain that he had also good money and good information. He was cautious yet bold in his operations, often fixing the odds by his own judgment quite independent of the market, and generally justifying his judgment by the result. He won largely and settled promptly, and Lord Lovel, it was said, gave him a good slice of his very profitable patronage.

"Manny" Groote, as he was familiar called, never attended a race meeting. He sat in his office like a spider waiting for flies. His betting was done by letter, telegraph, and telephone, and he had a large staff of well-paid and competent assistants.

One story that got abroad made him famous. A stone-broke swell on his way New York to try his luck, got a "moral certainty" from a friend when he was hundred miles out to sea. He was just time to send a wireless telegram to Manny Groote an hour before the race, backing the outsider with the last fifty pounds he had in the world. He found a cabled remittance for £1,000 from Manny Groote waiting for him on his arrival in New York.

Lord Lovel went from bad to worse. A chap, it was whispered in club and in betting ring, could stand his unbroken run of ill luck, and those "in the know" all agree that the next big plunge must make a man or a mouse of him, with long odds on the mouse. This time it was a colt of his own that he backed for the Derby, backed him constantly, steadily without flinching or hedging until he ran him into the position of first favourite.

There was a certain method in his madness. "Never Say Die" was undoubtedly a splendid colt― such a colt a rarely turns up in ten years. But this year as Lord Lovel's ill-luck would have it, there was a dangerous rival in "Neck Or Nothing"― Mr. Cyrus Montague's nomination. Mr. Montague kept his horse dark till a month before the race, and got his money on by commission at long odds, while Lord Lovel after his fashion advertised his "good thing" to all the world. Indeed it was due to Manny Groote that his Lordship was able to get a decent price about the colt. Mr. Groote from the first led the opposition to "Never Say Die," taking all comers for any amount.

When his book was made Mr. Cyrus Montague favoured his own  nomination tremendously, and openly laughed at the chances of the favourite. "Never Say Die," he confessed, was a smart colt, but he couldn't stay. Five furlongs was his distance; he would be in trouble a good half mile from home.

Meeting Lord Lovel at Tattersall's he frankly propounded his opinion of the favourite to the owner.

"Ready to back your opinion, Monty?" said Lord Lovel, picking up a little gold cornered note book that dangled at his watch chain.

"To any amount you please, my Lord." said Mr. Cyrus Montague.

"Then," said Lord Lovel, "I'll back my colt for £25,000 at the odds." The odds were two to one at the time.

Even Cyrus Montague was appalled by this colossal bet. He stood silent and amazed, his underlip drooping, till one of the bystanders whispered to another, "Funked, by Jove, Lovel has funked him." Then he spoke out, "Double if you like, Lord Lovel?"

"Thanks no." said Lord Lovel as coolly as ever, "you'll find £50 quite enough to pay, Monty."

A couple of days later it was whispered in the innermost of racing circles that a jockey named "Crooked Jim," the smartest and smallest of his tribe, who had been suspended for foul riding, was found hidden in the hay of the favourite's manger armed with a hypodermic syringe. He was caught, so it was said, by the owner himself, who merely whipped him soundly and sent him howling from the yard.

No-one, of course, guessed the author of this audacious attempt to nobble the favourite; it was merely a coincidence that next day Mr. Cyrus Montague  and Mr. Sam Whaller began to hedge. All the bookies by this time were full up of the favourite except Mr. Emmanuel Groote, who was still willing to give the odds, though he shortened them a trifle when they took him into five figures. Mr. Montague could not quite cover his huge bet with Lord Lovel, but came close to it. Mr. Whaller stood to win in any event. He was to pay £60,000 if the favourite won; but he was to get £55,000 from Mr. Emmanuel Groote in the same event. If the horse lost he landed a big haul.

Derby Day dawned fair and bright, and all London emptied itself out on the downs. Every county in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales sent its contingent to swell the colossal gathering. Across the Channel and over the Atlantic came eager visitors by the thousand. It was a specially exciting Derby. Never before had two such equal and such splendid colts run for the blue ribbon. But it was the dramatic duel between Lord Lovel and Mr. Cyrus. Montague, of which the details had somehow crept abroad, that gave its most fascinating and personal interest to the race.

The two rivals showed up well on the day of the race. Mr. Cyrus Montague was dressed in a perfectly fitting frock coat and a shiny black hat, as sleek and well groomed as his own colt. Lord Lovel was in rough tweed with a twenty guinea Panama dropped anyhow on his fair, curly head.

"The hawk and the pigeon..." muttered more than one voice as the two met and saluted in full view of the grandstand.

The comparison was not inappropriate. Lord Lovel was a tall man for his age, tall and strong, but his face was the face of a handsome schoolboy, with merry  smile and innocent blue eyes. Cyrus Montague was a big man, too, stouter, though not so tall. Lord Lovel, swarthy, keen-eyed, thin-lipped, a man to hold his own and a little more than his own in any company.

Lord Lovel was careless as a schoolboy on a holiday. No one to look at him or to hear him as he flung his smiles and jests around would guess that the  issue of ah hour meant wealth or ruin to him.

It was not quite so with his rival. On ordinary occasions, indeed, Cyrus Montague was imperturbable as a sphinx, and lost and won with the same changeless calm. But the colossal sum now at stake made even his iron nerves twitch. He  puffed hard at an unlit cigar, his hands trembling as he raised his race glasses his eyes.

The fateful moment has come. A bell jangles and silence and strained attention come suddenly on all that mighty crowd. A moment before, the grandstand was quick changing kaleidoscope of colour. Suddenly it settled down to a vast parterre of vivid flowers as variegated but as motionless.

"They're off!"

The words whispered shouted send a shiver of hope or fear through every heart. At the far end of the wide downs the horses burst into sudden motion. At first a mere cloud changing colours. But the racing glasses begin to pick out the horses that fly swift as a bird's flight over the smooth green of the course.

"Neck or Nothing" has got well away and holds the lead. A long raking black, he gallops literally in the French phrase "belly to ground" and seems in going to devour the way. His jockey is a mere red speck perched on his shoulders. Thirty paces behind, shut up in the ruck, gallops the favourite― a dark chestnut, small, compact and clean limbed as a red deer. His rider's light blue jacket is seen or him in gleam or shadow, as other horses pass or drop behind, but he never quickens o slackens his pace by the fraction of a second, never increases or lessens his distance from the leader by a yard.

Half a mile from home! The eyes that watch the favourite so eagerly through ten thousand levelled glasses see the speck of blue begin to move amongst the dots of colour. It slips past a green and yellow. The horses are thick in front but the cleverest jockey in England is on the favourite's back. He glides in and out through the galloping throng, easily, dexterously as a skilful dancer pilots his partner through a crowded ballroom. Now he is clear of the ruck. He is racing on the open sward.

A quarter of a mile from home! The chestnut has challenged the black for the lead, and there is nothing else in the race. Bravely the black answers the challenge; the horses seem to fly― the black head and the chestnut stretched level together, nose to nose. Along the railings they come through rows of spectators, pale and frantic with excitement, while ten thousand voices thunder out their names.

The rider in blue sits still as death; the rider in red lifts his whip and strikes sharp and hard on the quivering flanks bf the black. There is no answering spurt of speed. He shifts the whip to his left hand, and strikes again, but the horse's powers are already strained to the utter-most to hold his own.

A hundred yards from home! The favourite's jockey for the first time in the race calls upon his horse, just tickles his flank with the silk and the call is answered. The chestnut's muzzle shows a thin line in front of the black. The chestnut head follows the muzzle slowly; slowly, though they are racing forty miles an hour; the whole horse slips clear of the black eclipse and is outlined on the green turf, racing alone. Before the pulse can beat or an eyelid wink, the favourite is past the post, a winner by a length. Then from the frenzied crowd his name goes up in one thunderous shout that seems to shake the skies.

Bright and debonair, Lord Lovel steps to his horse's head to lead him to the weighing yard. In that moment of triumph he glances back to where a light blue scarf waves frantically from a corner of the stand and rejoices in his victory for his wife's sake more than for his own.

IT CHANCED on settling day that Mr. Cyrus Montague and Mr. Samuel Whaller walked together to the office door of Mr. Emmanuel Groote. They found an angry and excited crowd surging round the place, and, standing a little aside Lord Lovel, placidly smoking a cigar. In large, bold letters, a wag, probably less hard hit than his fellows, had chalked on the dark green paint of Mr. Groote's office door, the following words:

"The Derby."

1st: "Never Say Die."

2nd: "Neck or Nothing."

3rd: "Carrier Pigeon.

Also ran: "Manny Groote."

Yes. The highly respectable commission agent, Mr. Emmanuel Groote, had run, flown, vanished, melted into thin air, leaving not a track behind. In vain the sporting hue and cry was raised. No trace of him could be found. Books, man and money had utterly disappeared.

Yet Emmanuel Groote was not a common "welsher." A few days later, every man― there were not very many, after all― who won from him, with two exceptions, had a cheque posted in London on a small provincial bank for the full amount of their winnings. There were, as has been said, two exceptions. But these two were far the heaviest winners of the crowd. Of the hundred thousand pounds and upwards they had between them won from Emmanuel Groote, Cyrus Montague and Sam Whaller never realised a farthing.

LADY BETTY LOVEL is seated alone in the snuggery of the stately ancestral home where we first met her― the home once more securely her husband's and her own.

A bright fire blazes in the hearth― a bright electric lamp throws its light on the magazine she is reading.

The door opens softly. She lets the magazine drop and looks up with a cry of surprise.

A man has come into the room-a tall, thin, elderly man with a stoop, a long, well-trimmed beard, very bright eyes and a nose like a hawk.

Lady Lovel recognises Mr. Emmanuel Groote― she had met him twice before, the first time he was the bearer of a line of introduction from her husband.

"Oh! how you startled me!" faltered Lady Betty. "I thought you had disappeared."

"So I had," be answered, softly. "I'm sorry, my lady, to have startled you, but I came to say farewell. Mr. Emmanuel Groote bids good-bye for ever to Lady Betty Lovel."

He plucked off the grey beard and false nose, his back straightened, his shoulders opened as he spoke, and there stood revealed the athletic figure and smiling face of Lord Lovel.

Lady Betty sank back in her chair, dumb and motionless with utter amazement. Slowly at last the words were panted out in a kind of breathless whisper, "Oh, Harry, so it's you all the time!"

"As you wisely observe, Betty," he answered coolly, "so it's me all the time. It always was me and never anyone else. It's a high compliment that you never guessed."

"But―" she began.

"But how was it managed, you want to know. It was as simple as kiss hands." He lifted the little white hand that lay limp in her lap and kissed it. "When Lord Lovel lost, Mr. Groote won, and kindly paid his noble friend's loss out of his own gains. When, at long last, Lord Lovel won, he froze on to his winnings and Mr. Groote vanished into thin air."

"But―" she began again, and again he interrupted her.

"Don't fret little woman. Our departed friend, Mr. Emmanuel Groote, was not wholly a rogue. Not a soul lost a farthing by Mr. Groote's disappearance except that brace of scoundrels, Montague and Whaller."

For a moment there was an angry glint in Lord Lovel's eyes as he said the names but it softened to laughter at the thought of his triumph.

"With them it was clearly a case of diamond cut diamond, the biters bit. Even about them I had a kind of scruple at first. But when that little devil, Crooked Jim confessed they had set him on to nobble 'Never Say Die,' my scruples disappeared. You should have seen their faces, Betty, at the office door when they found the quick-change artist, Mr. Groote, had disappeared. Only you in all the world my dear, know where he went to. You have witnessed his last appearance on any stage. Mr. Groote has abandoned the turf."

He tossed wig, beard, and false nose together into the fire, where they fizzled and flashed up m a sudden blaze.

"Lord Lovel," he added, "Follows the good example"― and he tossed his betting-book into the flames.

"Now, my dear little wife, will you kindly send for the baby. As heir-at-law he will be glad to know the family estates an heirlooms are safe."

____________________

7: Safe Bind, Safe Find

M. Mcdonnell Bodkin

Chronicle (Adelaide) 19 Sep 1929

'WHAT A WONDERFULLY handsome man!'

She was a wonderfully attractive girl as she gazed at a snapshot which she had taken from an old leather pocketbook carelessly thrown on a writing desk.

Bessie Arklow, the famous Shakespearian actress, and Sir Richard Crampton had just finished a simple lunch, sandwiches, and a bottle of sparkling Moselle, in his town house, Ashleigh Lodge.

'Why do you keep his photo?' she asked. 'If it was a beautiful girl I could understand.'

'I have a photo of a very beautiful girl which I stole one fine morning, but I don't let it go about loose.'

'Oh! Here are more photos of my handsome man, all just the same. What does it mean?'

Sir Richard Crampton, newly come into the baronetcy and large estates by the death of his grandfather, was certainly not a wonderfully handsome man, but he was one of those fortunate men who win the goodwill of man or woman at the first look. A little over middle height, well made, strong, and active, with quick brown eyes and a broad forehead, and brown hair with a kink in it that no brush could smooth out. He had done remarkably well at Cambridge in the class-room, the playing field, and the river; had kept wicket for the first eleven and rowed for the University, and finally took his degree with a double first.

Before the late baronet had died, he had said to his grandson—

'I am going to cut off your allowance. I think you ought to go abroad, America or Australia. If you stay here you may be tempted to take it easy. If you run straight I will leave you every farthing, and I can't be very long for this World.'

'The longer the better, sir, so far as my wishes go.'

'Pon my soul, I think you mean it. Well, is it a bargain?'

'When do I start, sir?' he asked.

'As soon as you can. I'll miss you, Dick, but it is for your own good.'

Richard Crampton selected America as his destination, got a job on a New York paper, and speedily advanced to the position of star reporter. Two years later, an urgent message came from Sir Percival to recall him. He had two months' quiet time at Merval Hall while the old man went slowly to his end...

After the funeral he came up to London and met his fate, whilst sitting in the front row in the Traditional Theatre at a revival of 'Much Ado About Nothing.'

The theatre was crowded out to the doors, for all London had gone mad about Betty Bandon as Beatrice. She did not act Beatrice, she was Beatrice, the merry, frolicsome, true-hearted madcap to whom Shakespeare had given life. With her wealth of bright auburn curls, her sparkling blue eyes and bewitching smile, Betty fitted the part to perfection. She was full of life and the joy of life; there was music in her laughter. Her figure was perfect as her face.

Three days after he had first seen her Sir Richard and she were lunching at the Ritz, and it came about that a week after their first lunch at the Ritz they were lunching at his town house.

'I have something I want to ask you,' said Sir Richard.

'Then don't ask it,' she retorted promptly. 'Will you marry me?'

'I don't know―'

'Oh, but you must know; you knew I intended to ask you to-day.'

'Of course I know all that, but I don't know whether I can marry you or not. I like you well enough to marry, if that were all. But I could not give up acting. I find it so entrancing to step out of yourself into someone else. I just love being Beatrice every night— and Betty Bandon next day.'

'You need not give up the stage!'

'But I must, if I am married. Can't we just be friends? Now you have not yet told me who is this awfully handsome man?'

'Sidney Armstrong was not handsome in his doings. But he did quite a lot of people.'

'You didn't like him?'

'Emphatically no.'

'Then why did you keep his photos?'

'As a kind of memento.'

'Who took them?'

'I did. Snapshots.'

'But why, why?'

'It's a queer story, all over and done with.'

'I just love a queer story. Tell it out.'

'Once upon a time, Sidney Armstrong and your very humble servant were members of a rather queer club in New York. There was high play at the club, and your handsome friend was a high player. I'm not a bad poker player; but most of the time I watched the high play in an inner room. Your handsome- friend won, won, and kept on winning. Two headstrong chaps were there, and one of them, who was playing with money that was not his own, afterwards committed suicide. Somehow I got it into my head that Sidney Armstrong cheated.'

'My handsome man; no!'

'Your handsome man, yes! Unaided luck never dealt such cards as he held. I watched with both my eyes, but I could detect nothing. The skilled hand is quicker than the eye. But I heard that the camera is quicker than the hand, so I brought a particularly quick Kodak to the club and trained it on to your friend.

'When I developed the films I got what I wanted. One of the snap shots, you'll find it there, caught him in the act of drawing an ace from his sleeve.

'I showed it to the president and a couple of members of the club, and that night, when the inner room was crowded, and my bold Sidney was engaged in skinning a young chap called Stirling, I suddenly accused him of cheating.

'He whisked out a revolver, but dropped it.

'I'll pay you out for this,' he glared at me. Half a dozen chaps searched him, and they found almost as many cards as the Heathen Chinee, held up his sleeve with neat little rubber clips to let them up and down, all the tricks of the trade. So we just bundled him out, no one ever saw Sidney Armstrong again.'

'Suicide?'

'I don't think. The police got a notion that he was reincarnated in the boldest, most skilful, and most successful burglar New York had ever known. No lock could stop him, and at disguises he was a perfect demon. A murderous devil, too; he killed two men who came upon him at work; stabbed both. His pet name in New York is "The Knifer." But Sidney, if it was Sidney, found time to attend to your humble servant. He had two "goes" at me on Long Island. A man in goggles with his face muffled, nipped a bit off my ear with a revolver shot as he went by in a motor. Another time as I was standing on the quay wall, a push from behind sent me into the sea. The drop was twelve feet and the tide was out― not two feet of water. I should have broken my skull or my neck, but fortunately the one thing in the world I can do well is to swim and dive. I bent my back into a bow and did one of my neatest dives into the shallow water, never even touched the bottom, and got round to the steps, while my backer made off into the woods.

'I was not sorry, I can tell you, when I was called over to England to be made a baronet. New York was not healthy.

'Just before I came away the 'tecs got the thumb-mark of "The Knifer." It was this way. Some chap hit on a dodge of having little splinters of steels as sharp as a razor fastened round the lock of his safe, a dangerous thing to play with for one who didn't know. "The Knifer" must have got cut through his glove. He took it off, I suppose, to suck the cut, and left the glove behind him with a nice red thumb-mark on it. And that's the whole story.'

'I hope not. I have had quite enough of Mr. Armstrong. Won't you change your mind about what we were talking of?'

'Not at present. I cannot desert my friend, Beatrice. I must be off to meet her at a matinee.'

Sir Richard was called away to the country next day.

A FEW NIGHTS later when Annie Merton and Betty Bandon were alone in Betty's dressing-room, Annie asked her— 'Did you happen to notice a wonderfully good-looking, well-got-up man sitting in the front row for the last two nights and staring at you the whole time?'

'Yes,' Betty answered. 'I'm lunching with him to-morrow at the Savoy.'

Walter Mason, with whom Betty lunched next day at the Savoy, was certainly good-looking. Tall, dark, with flashing blue-black eyes and the figure of an athlete, he was a man to please any girl's fancy, and apparently he pleased Betty's, for they got on wonderfully well together. Mason had just come from Australia, where he had 'made his pile,' to have a look around London. He was disposed to be pleased with everything, especially with Betty Bandon.

'Did you ever hear,' Mason had asked her, 'of a man named Richard Crampton, a chap I knew rather well in Australia. He went over to America and later was called over to England from New York. I think it was to take up an old baronetcy and a big fortune. He and I were great pals.'

Betty admitted that she had met Sir Richard Crampton.

Next morning Sir Richard, returning to London and calling at Betty's flat, had a very chilly reception. The girl had no welcome for her pal.

LATER in the day he had a startling adventure in Norfolk-street. A tall, well-dressed woman, whom he was passing, suddenly gripped his arm, turned on him a handsome, frightened face, and screamed, 'Police! Police!'

A zealous constable came running up—

'Do you charge this man?' he said, laying a heavy hand in Sir Richard's shoulder.

'Of course, I do. He has stolen my pearl bracelet. He opened my bag and stole it.'

She flapped an open handbag before the policeman's eyes. 'The clasp was broken and I was taking it to be mended.'

'What have you to say?' he demanded of Richard. 'You needn't incriminate yourself.'

'I say, "Rubbish!" '

'Well, I'll just go through your pockets, if you don't mind?'

The big hand pushed itself into Sir Richard's coat pocket, and the thick fingers closed on a pearl bracelet and drew it out. The clasp was broken.

'How did that get there?'

'I cannot say, unless she put it there; and, 'pon my soul, I don't see how she could. I cannot explain it.'

'Then you will have to explain it to the sergeant at the station.'

Sir Richard proceeded with the constable and his accusing angel to the police-station.

'Well, what have you to say for yourself?' barked the sergeant. 'What's your name?'

'Jonathan Snooks! That good enough?'

'I don't believe you!'

'I didn't think you would.'

'Better keep a civil tongue in your head, my fine chap! Do you charge this man, my lady?'

'Of course I do. That's what I came here for.'

The heroine of the pearl bracelet was tall, stately, good-looking. Her face seemed faintly familiar to Mr. Snooks. The charge was duly recorded in charge-sheet, and Mr. Jonathan Snooks, relieved of his loose change, his gold watch, and the pearl bracelet with broken clasp, was conveyed to the lockup, to be brought up before the magistrate next morning.

But he was not put to the dreaded ordeal of prison fare, for later in the day a parcel arrived at the police-station for Mr. Snooks, containing a big packet of delicious sandwiches, a bottle of light wine, and a thrilling detective story, which the sergeant conveyed to his cell with the remark, 'He's innocent till he's found guilty.'

Next morning he was brought before the magistrate, and, on the application of the police, was remanded for a week for further enquiries. But the parcels of food and the books continued to arrive regularly by messenger boy.

MEANWHILE Betty Bandon and her Australian admirer were constantly together when she was not on the stage. When Sir Richard's valet, Benson, came to tell her of his master's disappearance from Ashleigh Lodge, she only laughed and advised him not to call in the police.

'I am sure your master is quite safe,' she said, 'and will come back all right.'

That afternoon she lunched again with the entrancing Mr. Mason, and when the talk turned on Sir Richard, she mentioned that the baronet had returned to Ashleigh Lodge, but made no allusion to his mysterious disappearance.

Next morning Benson called with a startling story. But when he again proposed to call in the police, she dissuaded him.

'Not just yet,' she said. 'If you don't mind I have a very important lunch at two o'clock which I cannot put off, but I promise faithfully to meet you at four sharp at Scotland Yard, and the whole thing can be gone into.'

At lunch, she and her Australian chatted gaily.

'That's a fine necklace you are wearing,' he said. 'Ought to be,' she replied- 'It is valued at twenty thousand pounds.'

'Are you not afraid to have it stolen? Oh I forgot— great actresses sometimes like to have their diamonds stolen.'

'Not this great actress and she takes very good care they shan't be stolen. I have a plan of my own for baffling the burglars.'

Mr. Mason did not appear particularly interested, but Betty's pride in her plan was not to be repressed.

'All my other jewels are in a safe deposit,' she explained, 'but this necklace I hide every night where no burglar can find it. Mind you don't whisper the secret. It is wonderful how these things get about. Every night I put the necklace into my sponge bap between two sponges. You could not feel it even if you squeezed the bag.'

'A burglar would be sure to take out the sponges and search the bag.'

'I never thought he would be so clever; I won't trust him. I will take the necklace to the bank deposit tomorrow. Do you think it is safe in the sponge bag for to-night?'

'Oh, yes, unless you tell the burglar your plans.'

An hour later Betty met Benson as arranged, and sent in her card to Inspector Gerrard, when she and Benson were promptly brought to his private office. Inspector Gerrard looked a man of about thirty; short and slim, but wonderfully well-made.

'Take a seat. Miss Bandon,' he said. 'Jewels stolen?'

'A burglar is coming for them tonight to my dressing-room.'

'By appointment?'

'Well, yes. The hour is not fixed, but it is some time to-night.'

'He didn't leave his card by any chance? Do you know his name?'

'I can tell you his pet name. In New York, where he has just come from, he is known as "The Knifer".'

" 'The Knifer!" You are not in earnest. Miss Bandon?'

'Never more earnest in my life. Benson, just tell the inspector what happened at Ashleigh Lodge last night. Mr. Benson is Sir Richard Crampton's man, and "The Knifer" has what is known as a "grouch" on Sir Richard, who exposed him as a card-sharper in New York.'

'Well, you see, sir, it is this way,' Benson began deferentially. 'Sir Richard has been missing for the last few days. Miss Bandon advised me not to call in the police.'

'I had very special reasons, Inspector.' Betty interposed.

'Well, anyway, I was uneasy about him,' Benson went on, 'and I never chained up the door lest he might want to come in on the latch. I sleep in the next room to the master. Last night I thought I heard a noise like footsteps in his room. To make sure he had come back I got into my trousers and went to his. door, but it was locked. Then I knocked, and, after a minute or so, I heard the key turn in the lock and a voice told me to come in. But I was no sooner inside the door than someone leaps out at me from behind, claps a towel to me mouth, lifts me as if I was a baby, and throws me on the master's bed. Before you could say 'Jack Robinson, I was tied up hand and foot, and gagged, and there was a big man in a mask leaning over me. He picked up a long, narrow knife from a table beside the bed, and for a minute I thought he was going to run it into me. Then he muttered to himself "Safer not," and with the knife in his hand he went out of the room as silent as a cat. In the morning the chamber-maid came and untied me.'

'Why did you not come at once to the police?' demanded the inspector.

'I asked Miss Bandon, and she said she wanted to come with me. But that she had a very important luncheon to attend to first.'

'Very important,' Betty nodded, in reply to the inspector's look of bewilderment.

'I wanted to arrange with the 'Knifer' about my burglary tonight.'

'The American Knifer!' cried the inspector. 'You are not jesting, Miss Bandon?'

'Quite serious. He lunched with me to-day. He is coming to my flat to see about my jewels to-night. Can you arrange to meet him there?'

'Rather. We have been on the lookout for him since he left America. We got a copy of his finger-marks, and an extradition warrant for him. but not a glimpse of the man himself.'

'Well, you will get a glimpse of him to-night. I will give you the scenario of our little play. There is a dressing room opening off my bedroom, a bathroom opening off the dressing-room, and a sitting-room across the corridor. The diamonds are in the dressing-room, hidden in my sponge bag, and he knows where they are. You can wait for him in the bedroom or bathroom.'

'The bathroom, I think,' said the inspector.

'You would not object to an auger hole through the door?'

'Certainly not, and I will lock my bedroom door, so he cannot get in or out that way. There is electric light on tap, everywhere.'

'Does the window of the dressing room face the dressing-table?'

'It does, and there is a heavy brocade curtain, if that's what you mean.'

'That's exactly what I mean. The one advantage of a small policeman is that he is easy to hide.'

About two o'clock George Mason made a noiseless entry into Betty's sitting room. Locking the door behind him, he tip-toed across the room to try the handle of Betty's bedroom door, and found it locked. Crossing over to the dressing table, he picked up the sponge bag and drew out a string of diamonds that glittered before he dropped it into his waistcoat pocket.

Nimble and noiseless as a mouse, Inspector Gerrard crept out from under the curtain. His strong hands gripped and jerked the ankles of the burglar, who came down with a bump on his forehead. While he lay stunned for a moment the inspector's two assistants broke cover from the bathroom, and when he recovered he found the handcuffs on his wrists and a rope drawn tight round his ankles. 'The Knifer' was nailed at last.

MR. JONATHAN SNOOKS was duly brought up before the magistrates, when his week's remand had expired. The prosecutrix seemed greatly disturbed. It was the expression her face wore as 'Hero' in the marriage scene in 'Much Ado About Nothing,' and Mr. Snooks recognised her as Annie Merton.

'It's a mistake, your worship.' she cried. 'My bracelet was not stolen. I have two bags very like each other. I put it in one and took out the other by mistake. This morning I found it.'

The magistrate looked stern.

'I told you it was a mistake.' said Mr. Snooks. 'I suppose you will take the lady's word for it.'

The magistrate turned to Miss Merton— 'Do you withdraw the charge against the prisoner?'

'Of course I withdraw it.'

'Anything else against the prisoner? Sergeant?'

'Nothing, your worship. We took his finger-marks, of course, not known in the office.'

'Then he must be discharged. Mr. Snooks,' the magistrate grinned; 'you leave the court without a stain on your character. If you have another name you can use it outside.'

'What am I to do with the articles found on his person, your worship? The money, gold watch, and pearl bracelet?'

'Return them to the owner, of course. Good-day, Mr. Snooks.'

THAT EVENING Sir Richard lunched with Betty Bandon, and she told him the startling tale of 'The Knifer.'

'Betty, you are a wonder!' Sir Richard exclaimed. 'If it was not for that silly mistake of your friend, Miss Merton, he'd have got me.' 'He certainly would, only for that silly mistake.'

'But there is one thing still puzzles me. Where did this pearl bracelet come from that the bobby found in my pocket? She hadn't a chance to put it there. I will have to advertise for the owner.'

'You need not advertise. I am the owner, and I can tell how it got into your pocket. I dropped it in the morning you returned to London.'

'You awful girl. Then it was you staged the arrest. You gaoled me?'

'Yes, it was I who gaoled you. I hid you from 'The Knifer' in the best hiding-place I could think of. Safe bind, safe find.'

'Betty, I owe you my life. When will you let me pay my debt?'

'As soon as you please. I am giving up the stage. When I caught sight of that handsome face in the theatre, and guessed what the man had come for, I almost fainted. Then I felt that nothing mattered, except you. I have given up the stage. I shall never play Beatrice again.'

'Oh, but you will,' he cried. 'For many and many a happy year you will play Beatrice to my Benedict, the married man.'

_________________

8: Hide And Seek

M Mcdonnell Bodkin

Australian Star (Sydney) 14 April 1900

A Dora Myrle Case; she was a rival of McDonnell Bodkin's other detective Paul Beck, until they married.

ASSUREDLY Godfrey Morland had at last achieved his triumph. It had come to him after long waiting and much labour. Here was a picture to capture the eyes of the critics and the heart of humanity. It was large and bold, for his genius loved a wide canvas, but withal it was painted with the patient fidelity of a miniature even to the tint on the portal of the primrose and the gleam on the wing of the goldfinch.

No petty rivalries marred the full and rounded harmony of his happiness. His comrades all rejoiced with him in his triumph, and Ernest Beauchamp, his chief and dearest friend, was most hearty of all in his rejoicing. Yet here, perhaps, if anywhere, a little twinge of jealousy might fairly have bean pardoned, for Ernest and Godfrey were brother artists, and had worked together, and Ernest had easily distanced his friend at first.

Nor was Ernest less his rival In love than In .art. It was he who had first found Alice Lyle amid the roses of a country rectory, and he had wooed, her in his own sportive fashion, half jest, half earnest, till Godfrey came and saw and won. But his sunny temper was unruffled. He was loudest In his praise of the great picture, and he insisted that he should be his friend's best man at the approaching marriage.

The picture which still stood in the artist's studio soon grew to be the common talk of the artistic world of London. The dealers flocked to the place as miners to a newly-discovered gold country. Foremost amongst them all came the king of picture dealers, Jacob Goldmirk.

Godfrey had refused all offers for his masterpiece till after the exhibition. In his heart he loathed the thought of parting with it; but Goldmirk had purchased a battle piece which Godfrey had painted just before. It was a fine, bold canvas, a shade smaller than the last, and full of life and power; but the subject, the charge of the Irish brigade at Fontenoy, had hurt the susceptibilities of the British public, and so the picture had hung unsold.

Now Goldmirk purchased It for a fair price. Next morning after breakfast Godfrey started for the country. He was under promise to bring Alice to afternoon tea and a last look at the masterpiece before it went to be framed. He left at eleven. About half-past twelve Mr. Goldmirk called to see him. and was told he had gone to the country. "I'll wait for him," he said, "in the studio."

He threw off his light overcoat, planted a chair opposite his purchased battle piece, planted himself astride on it, lit a huge cigar, and was left smoking. He was smoking still, but had drawn a fat picture catalogue from his pocket and was noting the prices with a stump of lead pencil when Godfrey and Alice came into the studio two hours later.

Goldmirk started from his seat and turned his round, good-humoured face half over his shoulder.

"Halloa, Godfrey!" he cried. "So you have, sent the masterpiece to be framed already. Beg pardon, didn't see you had a lady with you. How d'ye do, Miss Lyle."

But Godfrey Morland did not hear the last words, for one quick glance told him that the easel at the far end of the room was vacant. His picture was gone!

"Heavens! It has been stolen!" he gasped out. Godfrey startled the others by a sudden cry as he came to the window. The fastening was undone. He threw up the sash, and found a knotted rope hanging from the ironwork of the balcony into the street. There was a running noose on the rope, and apparently it had been flung in from the street until it had caught in over the spiked heads of the railing of the balcony.

The method, at least, of the robbery now seemed plain enough. But who was the thief?

A moment afterwards Alice made a still more startling discovery. It was a large, handsome, mother-of-pearl button, which Godfrey instantly recognised as a button from the blown velvet studio jacket of his friend, Ernest Beauchamp. He took it from Alice's hand gingerly.

"What is that?" insisted Alice.

"Only a button from Mr. Beauchamp's jacket," Goldmirk said.

"Oh, no, he didn't do It; he couldn't do It!" cried the girl passionately.

"We'll soon know," added Godfrey, and he sat down to his writing-table and scribbled a note.

"What are you writing?" Goldmirk asked cautiously.

"A note telling Ernest the picture has been stolen."

"Do you think it safe— to warn him?"

"Perfectly. I'd pledge my life he'll come. But I'll write a line to Scotland Yard at the same time."

"One moment, before you stand up," said Alice, glancing over his shoulder. "There is a very clever woman— a lady detective, Miss Dora Myrl. I have heard wonderful stories about her. You might ask her to come."

Godfrey wrote a third note, Alice directed it; and all three were despatched with the servant.

"Take a hansom, John, and lose no time."

While John was away yet another discovery was made, this time by Miss Lyle. In the bottom of an old cupboard she found a pile of strips and scraps of canvas cut small with a sharp scissors, and smeared here and there with paint.

For a moment Godfrey was chilled with the thought that his great picture had been cut to pieces; but a second glance told him that the pile was not a twentieth part of the bulk of the canvas of the picture, and the fragments were let lie without more notice where they were found. Ernest Beauchamp was the first to arrive, pale and wild-eyed with excitement.

"Stolen!" he cried, excitedly. "Impossible! Why, it was here while we were at supper last night. Who was in the studio since then?"

Mr. Goldmirk turned on him angrily.

"I was!" he said, "for two hours. I came about twelve, and I was here when Godfrey returned at two. I never left the place for a  moment, the servant can prove that."

"Who talks of proving?" cried Ernest. "No one suspects that you stole the picture."

"But someone stole it," said Goldmirk doggedly.

"Why, what do you mean?"

For answer Goldmirk pointed to the button.

"That was found on the studio floor," he said. Ernest started and turned pale at the sight.

"Mine!" he gasped out.

"The window was open; there was a rope hanging from the balcony," Goldmirk went on remorselessly.

"You don't believe this, Godfrey? You don't believe this, Alice?" Ernest cried indignantly, with a catch as of a sudden sob in his voice. Before either could reply Inspector Worral from Scotland Yard appeared on the scene.

"Now, If you please," said the Inspector briskly, "we'll go to business."

With methodical, precision he picked up the clues. Mr. Goldmirk, who kept his wits about him, briefly detailed the facts of the supper the night before his visit to the studio that day, and the disappearance of the picture, and setting out in order the various discoveries they had made. He forgot to mention the finding of the scraps of canvas which no one regarded as important. The Inspector shuffled on his feet and coughed an embarrassed little cough.

"I hope it will come all right," he said at last. "I do indeed; but as things stand it is my duty to arrest Mr. Beauchamp on the charge of felony."

He laid his hand on the young painter's shoulder. "You are not bound to say anything," he began, relapsing into the monotonous drone of the customary formula, "but anything you do say may he used―"

"I beg your pardon for one moment, Inspector," interrupted a clear, musical voice from the further end of the room, and a dainty little lady stepped clear of the pictures. She was dressed in a neat tailor-made costume of some dark tartan, softened by a nestling lace frill instead of a hard mall's collar at the throat. She wore a sailor hat with a gay ribbon and feather. The face she turned to the Inspector was full of mocking good humour.

"Miss Myrl?" he cried. The Inspector's voice was civil, almost deferential.

"Precisely," she answered, pleasantly. "I'm a bit late I'm afraid. Your man caught me at home, Mr. Morland." She singled out Godfrey at a glance. "But I had two urgent letters to write first, so I came over after him on my bicycle."

She glanced at the hammer and scissors and turn-screw that were lying on the table together. The button she took in her hand for the fraction of a second. She leant out over the balcony and examined the rope. Straight to the fireplace she went, looking into the ashes, and fished out a few charred fragments of paint-stained canvas. These she examined with such care that Alice was tempted to say timidly:

"I found a lot of other pieces just like those in the bottom of the cupboard."

"Ah!" said Dora sharply; "I heard nothing of that before."

She seemed excited for the first time as she rummaged amongst the pile of canvas which Alice showed her, and finally bundled them all out on the floor of the studio, and set to work fitting them together. Under her deft fingers they began rapidly to assume a regular shape. Presently Alice went down on her knees, too, and helped her without a word, while the four men watched silently. The canvas scraps seemed to have been deliberately hacked to pieces; but the girls' quick eyes and fingers found and lifted the edges and angles. Gradually the pieces took the shape of a large picture frame about three inches deep spread out on the studio floor with two slight gaps in it where the bits of canvas had been half burned. Dora leaped up from her work, her eyes bright with triumph.

"Well," said Inspector Worral, jestingly, "have you found the picture?"

"Yes," she answered with a smile, "I have found the picture!"

They looked round the vacant studio in blank amazement.

"Wait just one moment," she said. "Let us dispose of those things first. This hammer and turnscrew and scissors," she said to the Inspector; "can you suggest why the thief should leave them after him if he got away with the picture himself?"

"You mean when he got away, I suppose, Miss Myrl?"

"I said 'if,' Inspector; but it really does not matter. Now look at the rope. You see the knot at the noose Is quite soft. If a man had gone up and down that rope the knot would be as hard as a nut."

"Then you really think―" the Inspector began, when she cut him short again.

"We are coming to that. Oh! the button is next on the list. You'll appreciate this point," turning to Alice with a smile. "You see, this button has been cut off, not dropped off. The threads are still packed tight in the holes. It was not likely, was it, Inspector, that Mr. Beauchamp would cut off his own buttons for the purpose of shedding them about his friend's studio from which a picture was stolen?"

"Now I come to the canvas. We are getting 'hot,' Inspector, as the children say in their little games. You will notice that somebody besides myself thought those bits of canvas of Importance. There was a vain attempt to burn them before they were hidden in that cupboard. Will yon kindly examine that canvas frame, Mr. Morland, and tell me is it not about the size of the canvas of the missing picture? Remember, I have never seen the picture, though I hope soon to have that pleasure. The outside of the frame seems to me exactly the same size. And the inside? Come, it's not fair to mystify you any further. Will someone kindly hand me that turnscrew and hammer; they must do duty for the second time to-day."

With the tools in her hands she walked across to the big battle piece which Mr. Goldmirk had purchased, sat on Mr. Goldmirk's chair in front of it, and before they guessed what she was at loosened the tacks and tore off the canvas. Underneath the stolen picture showed, neatly stretched on the framework, its edges clipped to make It fit unseen.

"Why," cried Morland in sudden inspiration, "this was Goldmirk's picture; it was to be sent home to-morrow, and mine would have gone with it. Then it was Goldmirk―"

He looked round, but Mr. Goldmirk had, to borrow a Parliamentary phrase, "walked".

__________________

9: In the Fog

Richard Harding Davis

1864-1916

The Windsor Magazine Mar, Apr, May 1902

THE GRILL is the club most difficult of access in the world. To be placed on its rolls distinguishes the new member as greatly as though he had received a vacant Garter or had been caricatured in “Vanity Fair.”

Men who belong to the Grill Club never mention that fact. If you were to ask one of them which clubs he frequents, he will name all save that particular one. He is afraid if he told you he belonged to the Grill, that it would sound like boasting.

The Grill Club dates back to the days when Shakespeare’s Theatre stood on the present site of the “Times” office. It has a golden Grill which Charles the Second presented to the Club, and the original manuscript of “Tom and Jerry in London,” which was bequeathed to it by Pierce Egan himself. The members, when they write letters at the Club, still use sand to blot the ink.

The Grill enjoys the distinction of having blackballed, without political prejudice, a Prime Minister of each party. At the same sitting at which one of these fell, it elected, on account of his brogue and his bulls, Quiller, Q. C., who was then a penniless barrister.

When Paul Preval, the French artist who came to London by royal command to paint a portrait of the Prince of Wales, was made an honorary member— only foreigners may be honorary members— he said, as he signed his first wine card, “I would rather see my name on that, than on a picture in the Louvre.”

At which Quiller remarked, “That is a devil of a compliment, because the only men who can read their names in the Louvre to-day have been dead fifty years.”

On the night after the great fog of 1897 there were five members in the Club, four of them busy with supper and one reading in front of the fireplace. There is only one room to the Club, and one long table. At the far end of the room the fire of the grill glows red, and, when the fat falls, blazes into flame, and at the other there is a broad bow window of diamond panes, which looks down upon the street. The four men at the table were strangers to each other, but as they picked at the grilled bones, and sipped their Scotch and soda, they conversed with such charming animation that a visitor to the Club, which does not tolerate visitors, would have counted them as friends of long acquaintance, certainly not as Englishmen who had met for the first time, and without the form of an introduction. But it is the etiquette and tradition of the Grill, that whoever enters it must speak with whomever he finds there. It is to enforce this rule that there is but one long table, and whether there are twenty men at it or two, the waiters, supporting the rule, will place them side by side.

For this reason the four strangers at supper were seated together, with the candles grouped about them, and the long length of the table cutting a white path through the outer gloom.

“I repeat,” said the gentleman with the black pearl stud, “that the days for romantic adventure and deeds of foolish daring have passed, and that the fault lies with ourselves. Voyages to the pole I do not catalogue as adventures. That African explorer, young Chetney, who turned up yesterday after he was supposed to have died in Uganda, did nothing adventurous. He made maps and explored the sources of rivers. He was in constant danger, but the presence of danger does not constitute adventure. Were that so, the chemist who studies high explosives, or who investigates deadly poisons, passes through adventures daily. No, ‘adventures are for the adventurous.’ But one no longer ventures. The spirit of it has died of inertia. We are grown too practical, too just, above all, too sensible. In this room, for instance, members of this Club have, at the sword’s point, disputed the proper scanning of one of Pope’s couplets. Over so weighty a matter as spilled Burgundy on a gentleman’s cuff, ten men fought across this table, each with his rapier in one hand and a candle in the other. All ten were wounded. The question of the spilled Burgundy concerned but two of them. The eight others engaged because they were men of ‘spirit.’ They were, indeed, the first gentlemen of the day. To-night, were you to spill Burgundy on my cuff, were you even to insult me grossly, these gentlemen would not consider it incumbent upon them to kill each other. They would separate us, and to-morrow morning appear as witnesses against us at Bow Street. We have here to-night, in the persons of Sir Andrew and myself, an illustration of how the ways have changed.”

The men around the table turned and glanced toward the gentleman in front of the fireplace. He was an elderly and somewhat portly person, with a kindly, wrinkled countenance, which wore continually a smile of almost childish confidence and good-nature. It was a face which the illustrated prints had made intimately familiar. He held a book from him at arm’s-length, as if to adjust his eyesight, and his brows were knit with interest.

“Now, were this the eighteenth century,” continued the gentleman with the black pearl, “when Sir Andrew left the Club to-night I would have him bound and gagged and thrown into a sedan chair. The watch would not interfere, the passers-by would take to their heels, my hired bullies and ruffians would convey him to some lonely spot where we would guard him until morning. Nothing would come of it, except added reputation to myself as a gentleman of adventurous spirit, and possibly an essay in the ‘Tatler,’ with stars for names, entitled, let us say, ‘The Budget and the Baronet.’”

“But to what end, sir?” inquired the youngest of the members. “And why Sir Andrew, of all persons— why should you select him for this adventure?”

The gentleman with the black pearl shrugged his shoulders.

“It would prevent him speaking in the House to-night. The Navy Increase Bill,” he added gloomily. “It is a Government measure, and Sir Andrew speaks for it. And so great is his influence and so large his following that if he does”— the gentleman laughed ruefully— “if he does, it will go through. Now, had I the spirit of our ancestors,” he exclaimed, “I would bring chloroform from the nearest chemist’s and drug him in that chair. I would tumble his unconscious form into a hansom cab, and hold him prisoner until daylight. If I did, I would save the British taxpayer the cost of five more battleships, many millions of pounds.”

The gentlemen again turned, and surveyed the baronet with freshened interest. The honorary member of the Grill, whose accent already had betrayed him as an American, laughed softly.

“To look at him now,” he said, “one would not guess he was deeply concerned with the affairs of state.”

The others nodded silently.

“He has not lifted his eyes from that book since we first entered,” added the youngest member. “He surely cannot mean to speak to-night.”

“Oh, yes, he will speak,” muttered the one with the black pearl moodily. “During these last hours of the session the House sits late, but when the Navy bill comes up on its third reading he will be in his place— and he will pass it.”

The fourth member, a stout and florid gentleman of a somewhat sporting appearance, in a short smoking-jacket and black tie, sighed enviously.

“Fancy one of us being as cool as that, if he knew he had to stand up within an hour and rattle off a speech in Parliament. I ‘d be in a devil of a funk myself. And yet he is as keen over that book he’s reading as though he had nothing before him until bedtime.”

“Yes, see how eager he is,” whispered the youngest member. “He does not lift his eyes even now when he cuts the pages. It is probably an Admiralty Report, or some other weighty work of statistics which bears upon his speech.”

The gentleman with the black pearl laughed morosely.

“The weighty work in which the eminent statesman is so deeply engrossed,” he said, “is called ‘The Great Rand Robbery.’ It is a detective novel, for sale at all bookstalls.”

The American raised his eyebrows in disbelief.

“ ‘The Great Rand Robbery’?” he repeated incredulously. “What an odd taste!”

“It is not a taste, it is his vice,” returned the gentleman with the pearl stud. “It is his one dissipation. He is noted for it. You, as a stranger, could hardly be expected to know of this idiosyncrasy. Mr. Gladstone sought relaxation in the Greek poets, Sir Andrew finds his in Gaboriau. Since I have been a member of Parliament I have never seen him in the library without a shilling shocker in his hands. He brings them even into the sacred precincts of the House, and from the Government benches reads them concealed inside his hat. Once started on a tale of murder, robbery, and sudden death, nothing can tear him from it, not even the call of the division bell, nor of hunger, nor the prayers of the party Whip. He gave up his country house because when he journeyed to it in the train he would become so absorbed in his detective stories that he was invariably carried past his station.” The member of Parliament twisted his pearl stud nervously, and bit at the edge of his moustache. “If it only were the first pages of ‘The Rand Robbery’ that he were reading,” he murmured bitterly, “instead of the last! With such another book as that, I swear I could hold him here until morning. There would be no need of chloroform to keep him from the House.”

The eyes of all were fastened upon Sir Andrew, and each saw with fascination that with his forefinger he was now separating the last two pages of the book. The member of Parliament struck the table softly with his open palm.

“I would give a hundred pounds,” he whispered, “if I could place in his hands at this moment a new story of Sherlock Holmes— a thousand pounds,” he added wildly— “five thousand pounds!”

The American observed the speaker sharply, as though the words bore to him some special application, and then at an idea which apparently had but just come to him, smiled in great embarrassment.

Sir Andrew ceased reading, but, as though still under the influence of the book, sat looking blankly into the open fire. For a brief space no one moved until the baronet withdrew his eyes and, with a sudden start of recollection, felt anxiously for his watch. He scanned its face eagerly, and scrambled to his feet.

The voice of the American instantly broke the silence in a high, nervous accent.

“And yet Sherlock Holmes himself,” he cried, “could not decipher the mystery which to-night baffles the police of London.”

At these unexpected words, which carried in them something of the tone of a challenge, the gentlemen about the table started as suddenly as though the American had fired a pistol in the air, and Sir Andrew halted abruptly and stood observing him with grave surprise.

The gentleman with the black pearl was the first to recover.

“Yes, yes,” he said eagerly, throwing himself across the table. “A mystery that baffles the police of London.

“I have heard nothing of it. Tell us at once, pray do— tell us at once.”

The American flushed uncomfortably, and picked uneasily at the tablecloth.

“No one but the police has heard of it,” he murmured, “and they only through me. It is a remarkable crime, to, which, unfortunately, I am the only person who can bear witness. Because I am the only witness, I am, in spite of my immunity as a diplomat, detained in London by the authorities of Scotland Yard. My name,” he said, inclining his head politely, “is Sears, Lieutenant Ripley Sears of the United States Navy, at present Naval Attaché to the Court of Russia. Had I not been detained to-day by the police I would have started this morning for Petersburg.”

The gentleman with the black pearl interrupted with so pronounced an exclamation of excitement and delight that the American stammered and ceased speaking.

“Do you hear, Sir Andrew!” cried the member of Parliament jubilantly. “An American diplomat halted by our police because he is the only witness of a most remarkable crime— the most remarkable crime, I believe you said, sir,” he added, bending eagerly toward the naval officer, “which has occurred in London in many years.”

The American moved his head in assent and glanced at the two other members. They were looking doubtfully at him, and the face of each showed that he was greatly perplexed.

Sir Andrew advanced to within the light of the candles and drew a chair toward him.

“The crime must be exceptional indeed,” he said, “to justify the police in interfering with a representative of a friendly power. If I were not forced to leave at once, I should take the liberty of asking you to tell us the details.”

The gentleman with the pearl pushed the chair toward Sir Andrew, and motioned him to be seated.

“You cannot leave us now,” he exclaimed. “Mr. Sears is just about to tell us of this remarkable crime.”

He nodded vigorously at the naval officer and the American, after first glancing doubtfully toward the servants at the far end of the room, leaned forward across the table. The others drew their chairs nearer and bent toward him. The baronet glanced irresolutely at his watch, and with an exclamation of annoyance snapped down the lid. “They can wait,” he muttered. He seated himself quickly and nodded at Lieutenant Sears.

“If you will be so kind as to begin, sir,” he said impatiently.

“Of course,” said the American, “you understand that I understand that I am speaking to gentlemen. The confidences of this Club are inviolate. Until the police give the facts to the public press, I must consider you my confederates. You have heard nothing, you know no one connected with this mystery. Even I must remain anonymous.”

The gentlemen seated around him nodded gravely.

“Of course,” the baronet assented with eagerness, “of course.”

“We will refer to it,” said the gentleman with the black pearl, “as ‘The Story of the Naval Attaché.’”

“I arrived in London two days ago,” said the American, “and I engaged a room at the Bath Hotel. I know very few people in London, and even the members of our embassy were strangers to me. But in Hong Kong I had become great pals with an officer in your navy, who has since retired, and who is now living in a small house in Rutland Gardens opposite the Knightsbridge barracks. I telegraphed him that I was in London, and yesterday morning I received a most hearty invitation to dine with him the same evening at his house. He is a bachelor, so we dined alone and talked over all our old days on the Asiatic Station, and of the changes which had come to us since we had last met there. As I was leaving the next morning for my post at Petersburg, and had many letters to write, I told him, about ten o’clock, that I must get back to the hotel, and he sent out his servant to call a hansom.

“For the next quarter of an hour, as we sat talking, we could hear the cab whistle sounding violently from the doorstep, but apparently with no result.

“ ‘It cannot be that the cabmen are on strike,’ my friend said, as he rose and walked to the window.

“He pulled back the curtains and at once called to me.

“ ‘You have never seen a London fog, have you?’ he asked. ‘Well, come here. This is one of the best, or, rather, one of the worst, of them.’ I joined him at the window, but I could see nothing. Had I not known that the house looked out upon the street I would have believed that I was facing a dead wall. I raised the sash and stretched out my head, but still I could see nothing. Even the light of the street lamps opposite, and in the upper windows of the barracks, had been smothered in the yellow mist. The lights of the room in which I stood penetrated the fog only to the distance of a few inches from my eyes.

“Below me the servant was still sounding his whistle, but I could afford to wait no longer, and told my friend that I would try and find the way to my hotel on foot. He objected, but the letters I had to write were for the Navy Department, and, besides, I had always heard that to be out in a London fog was the most wonderful experience, and I was curious to investigate one for myself.

“My friend went with me to his front door, and laid down a course for me to follow. I was first to walk straight across the street to the brick wall of the Knightsbridge Barracks. I was then to feel my way along the wall until I came to a row of houses set back from the sidewalk. They would bring me to a cross street. On the other side of this street was a row of shops which I was to follow until they joined the iron railings of Hyde Park. I was to keep to the railings until I reached the gates at Hyde Park Corner, where I was to lay a diagonal course across Piccadilly, and tack in toward the railings of Green Park. At the end of these railings, going east, I would find the Walsingham, and my own hotel.

“To a sailor the course did not seem difficult, so I bade my friend goodnight and walked forward until my feet touched the paving. I continued upon it until I reached the curbing of the sidewalk. A few steps further, and my hands struck the wall of the barracks. I turned in the direction from which I had just come, and saw a square of faint light cut in the yellow fog. I shouted ‘All right,’ and the voice of my friend answered, ‘Good luck to you.’ The light from his open door disappeared with a bang, and I was left alone in a dripping, yellow darkness. I have been in the Navy for ten years, but I have never known such a fog as that of last night, not even among the icebergs of Behring Sea. There one at least could see the light of the binnacle, but last night I could not even distinguish the hand by which I guided myself along the barrack wall. At sea a fog is a natural phenomenon. It is as familiar as the rainbow which follows a storm, it is as proper that a fog should spread upon the waters as that steam shall rise from a kettle. But a fog which springs from the paved streets, that rolls between solid house-fronts, that forces cabs to move at half speed, that drowns policemen and extinguishes the electric lights of the music hall, that to me is incomprehensible. It is as out of place as a tidal wave on Broadway.

“As I felt my way along the wall, I encountered other men who were coming from the opposite direction, and each time when we hailed each other I stepped away from the wall to make room for them to pass. But the third time I did this, when I reached out my hand, the wall had disappeared, and the further I moved to find it the further I seemed to be sinking into space. I had the unpleasant conviction that at any moment I might step over a precipice. Since I had set out I had heard no traffic in the street, and now, although I listened some minutes, I could only distinguish the occasional footfalls of pedestrians. Several times I called aloud, and once a jocular gentleman answered me, but only to ask me where I thought he was, and then even he was swallowed up in the silence. Just above me I could make out a jet of gas which I guessed came from a street lamp, and I moved over to that, and, while I tried to recover my bearings, kept my hand on the iron post. Except for this flicker of gas, no larger than the tip of my finger, I could distinguish nothing about me. For the rest, the mist hung between me and the world like a damp and heavy blanket.

“I could hear voices, but I could not tell from whence they came, and the scrape of a foot moving cautiously, or a muffled cry as some one stumbled, were the only sounds that reached me.

“I decided that until some one took me in tow I had best remain where I was, and it must have been for ten minutes that I waited by the lamp, straining my ears and hailing distant footfalls. In a house near me some people were dancing to the music of a Hungarian band. I even fancied I could hear the windows shake to the rhythm of their feet, but I could not make out from which part of the compass the sounds came. And sometimes, as the music rose, it seemed close at my hand, and again, to be floating high in the air above my head. Although I was surrounded by thousands of householders— 13— I was as completely lost as though I had been set down by night in the Sahara Desert. There seemed to be no reason in waiting longer for an escort, so I again set out, and at once bumped against a low iron fence. At first I believed this to be an area railing, but on following it I found that it stretched for a long distance, and that it was pierced at regular intervals with gates. I was standing uncertainly with my hand on one of these when a square of light suddenly opened in the night, and in it I saw, as you see a picture thrown by a biograph in a darkened theatre, a young gentleman in evening dress, and back of him the lights of a hall. I guessed from its elevation and distance from the side-walk that this light must come from the door of a house set back from the street, and I determined to approach it and ask the young man to tell me where I was. But in fumbling with the lock of the gate I instinctively bent my head, and when I raised it again the door had partly closed, leaving only a narrow shaft of light. Whether the young man had re-entered the house, or had left it I could not tell, but I hastened to open the gate, and as I stepped forward I found myself upon an asphalt walk. At the same instant there was the sound of quick steps upon the path, and some one rushed past me. I called to him, but he made no reply, and I heard the gate click and the footsteps hurrying away upon the sidewalk.

“Under other circumstances the young man’s rudeness, and his recklessness in dashing so hurriedly through the mist, would have struck me as peculiar, but everything was so distorted by the fog that at the moment I did not consider it. The door was still as he had left it, partly open. I went up the path, and, after much fumbling, found the knob of the door-bell and gave it a sharp pull. The bell answered me from a great depth and distance, but no movement followed from inside the house, and although I pulled the bell again and again I could hear nothing save the dripping of the mist about me. I was anxious to be on my way, but unless I knew where I was going there was little chance of my making any speed, and I was determined that until I learned my bearings I would not venture back into the fog. So I pushed the door open and stepped into the house.

“I found myself in a long and narrow hall, upon which doors opened from either side. At the end of the hall was a staircase with a balustrade which ended in a sweeping curve. The balustrade was covered with heavy Persian rugs, and the walls of the hall were also hung with them. The door on my left was closed, but the one nearer me on the right was open, and as I stepped opposite to it I saw that it was a sort of reception or waiting-room, and that it was empty. The door below it was also open, and with the idea that I would surely find some one there, I walked on up the hall. I was in evening dress, and I felt I did not look like a burglar, so I had no great fear that, should I encounter one of the inmates of the house, he would shoot me on sight. The second door in the hall opened into a dining-room. This was also empty. One person had been dining at the table, but the cloth had not been cleared away, and a nickering candle showed half-filled wineglasses and the ashes of cigarettes. The greater part of the room was in complete darkness.

“By this time I had grown conscious of the fact that I was wandering about in a strange house, and that, apparently, I was alone in it. The silence of the place began to try my nerves, and in a sudden, unexplainable panic I started for the open street. But as I turned, I saw a man sitting on a bench, which the curve of the balustrade had hidden from me. His eyes were shut, and he was sleeping soundly.

“The moment before I had been bewildered because I could see no one, but at sight of this man I was much more bewildered.

“He was a very large man, a giant in height, with long yellow hair which hung below his shoulders. He was dressed in a red silk shirt that was belted at the waist and hung outside black velvet trousers which, in turn, were stuffed into high black boots. I recognized the costume at once as that of a Russian servant, but what a Russian servant in his native livery could be doing in a private house in Knightsbridge was incomprehensible.

“I advanced and touched the man on the shoulder, and after an effort he awoke, and, on seeing me, sprang to his feet and began bowing rapidly and making deprecatory gestures. I had picked up enough Russian in Petersburg to make out that the man was apologizing for having fallen asleep, and I also was able to explain to him that I desired to see his master.

“He nodded vigorously, and said, ‘Will the Excellency come this way? The Princess is here.’

“I distinctly made out the word ‘princess,’ and I was a good deal embarrassed. I had thought it would be easy enough to explain my intrusion to a man, but how a woman would look at it was another matter, and as I followed him down the hall I was somewhat puzzled.

“As we advanced, he noticed that the front door was standing open, and with an exclamation of surprise, hastened toward it and closed it. Then he rapped twice on the door of what was apparently the drawing-room. There was no reply to his knock, and he tapped again, and then timidly, and cringing subserviently, opened the door and stepped inside. He withdrew himself at once and stared stupidly at me, shaking his head.

“ ‘She is not there,’ he said. He stood for a moment gazing blankly through the open door, and then hastened toward the dining-room. The solitary candle which still burned there seemed to assure him that the room also was empty. He came back and bowed me toward the drawing-room. ‘She is above,’ he said; ‘I will inform the Princess of the Excellency’s presence.’

“Before I could stop him he had turned and was running up the staircase, leaving me alone at the open door of the drawing-room. I decided that the adventure had gone quite far enough, and if I had been able to explain to the Russian that I had lost my way in the fog, and only wanted to get back into the street again, I would have left the house on the instant.

“Of course, when I first rang the bell of the house I had no other expectation than that it would be answered by a parlour-maid who would direct me on my way. I certainly could not then foresee that I would disturb a Russian princess in her boudoir, or that I might be thrown out by her athletic bodyguard. Still, I thought I ought not now to leave the house without making some apology, and, if the worst should come, I could show my card. They could hardly believe that a member of an Embassy had any designs upon the hat-rack.

“The room in which I stood was dimly lighted, but I could see that, like the hall, it was hung with heavy Persian rugs. The corners were filled with palms, and there was the unmistakable door in the air of Russian cigarettes, and strange, dry scents that carried me back to the bazaars of Vladivostok. Near the front windows was a grand piano, and at the other end of the room a heavily carved screen of some black wood, picked out with ivory. The screen was overhung with a canopy of silken draperies, and formed a sort of alcove. In front of the alcove was spread the white skin of a polar bear, and set on that was one of those low Turkish coffee tables. It held a lighted spirit-lamp and two gold coffee cups. I had heard no movement from above stairs, and it must have been fully three minutes that I stood waiting, noting these details of the room and wondering at the delay, and at the strange silence.

“And then, suddenly, as my eye grew more used to the half-light, I saw, projecting from behind the screen as though it were stretched along the back of a divan, the hand of a man and the lower part of his arm. I was as startled as though I had come across a footprint on a deserted island. Evidently the man had been sitting there since I had come into the room, even since I had entered the house, and he had heard the servant knocking upon the door. Why he had not declared himself I could not understand, but I supposed that possibly he was a guest, with no reason to interest himself in the Princess’s other visitors, or perhaps, for some reason, he did not wish to be observed. I could see nothing of him except his hand, but I had an unpleasant feeling that he had been peering at me through the carving in the screen, and that he still was doing so. I moved my feet noisily on the floor and said tentatively, ‘I beg your pardon.’

“There was no reply, and the hand did not stir. Apparently the man was bent upon ignoring me, but as all I wished was to apologize for my intrusion and to leave the house, I walked up to the alcove and peered around it. Inside the screen was a divan piled with cushions, and on the end of it nearer me the man was sitting. He was a young Englishman with light yellow hair and a deeply bronzed face.

“He was seated with his arms stretched out along the back of the divan, and with his head resting against a cushion. His attitude was one of complete ease. But his mouth had fallen open, and his eyes were set with an expression of utter horror. At the first glance I saw that he was quite dead.

“For a flash of time I was too startled to act, but in the same flash I was convinced that the man had met his death from no accident, that he had not died through any ordinary failure of the laws of nature. The expression on his face was much too terrible to be misinterpreted. It spoke as eloquently as words. It told me that before the end had come he had watched his death approach and threaten him.

“I was so sure he had been murdered that I instinctively looked on the floor for the weapon, and, at the same moment, out of concern for my own safety, quickly behind me; but the silence of the house continued unbroken.

“I have seen a great number of dead men; I was on the Asiatic Station during the Japanese-Chinese war. I was in Port Arthur after the massacre. So a dead man, for the single reason that he is dead, does not repel me, and, though I knew that there was no hope that this man was alive, still for decency’s sake, I felt his pulse, and while I kept my ears alert for any sound from the floors above me, I pulled open his shirt and placed my hand upon his heart. My fingers instantly touched upon the opening of a wound, and as I withdrew them I found them wet with blood. He was in evening dress, and in the wide bosom of his shirt I found a narrow slit, so narrow that in the dim light it was scarcely discernable. The wound was no wider than the smallest blade of a pocket-knife, but when I stripped the shirt away from the chest and left it bare, I found that the weapon, narrow as it was, had been long enough to reach his heart. There is no need to tell you how I felt as I stood by the body of this boy, for he was hardly older than a boy, or of the thoughts that came into my head. I was bitterly sorry for this stranger, bitterly indignant at his murderer, and, at the same time, selfishly concerned for my own safety and for the notoriety which I saw was sure to follow. My instinct was to leave the body where it lay, and to hide myself in the fog, but I also felt that since a succession of accidents had made me the only witness to a crime, my duty was to make myself a good witness and to assist to establish the facts of this murder.

“That it might possibly be a suicide, and not a murder, did not disturb me for a moment. The fact that the weapon had disappeared, and the expression on the boy’s face were enough to convince, at least me, that he had had no hand in his own death. I judged it, therefore, of the first importance to discover who was in the house, or, if they had escaped from it, who had been in the house before I entered it. I had seen one man leave it; but all I could tell of him was that he was a young man, that he was in evening dress, and that he had fled in such haste that he had not stopped to close the door behind him.

“The Russian servant I had found apparently asleep, and, unless he acted a part with supreme skill, he was a stupid and ignorant boor, and as innocent of the murder as myself. There was still the Russian princess whom he had expected to find, or had pretended to expect to find, in the same room with the murdered man. I judged that she must now be either upstairs with the servant, or that she had, without his knowledge, already fled from the house. When I recalled his apparently genuine surprise at not finding her in the drawing-room, this latter supposition seemed the more probable. Nevertheless, I decided that it was my duty to make a search, and after a second hurried look for the weapon among the cushions of the divan, and upon the floor, I cautiously crossed the hall and entered the dining-room.

“The single candle was still flickering in the draught, and showed only the white cloth. The rest of the room was draped in shadows. I picked up the candle, and, lifting it high above my head, moved around the corner of the table. Either my nerves were on such a stretch that no shock could strain them further, or my mind was inoculated to horrors, for I did not cry out at what I saw nor retreat from it. Immediately at my feet was the body of a beautiful woman, lying at full length upon the floor, her arms flung out on either side of her, and her white face and shoulders gleaming dully in the unsteady light of the candle. Around her throat was a great chain of diamonds, and the light played upon these and made them flash and blaze in tiny flames. But the woman who wore them was dead, and I was so certain as to how she had died that without an instant’s hesitation I dropped on my knees beside her and placed my hands above her heart. My fingers again touched the thin slit of a wound. I had no doubt in my mind but that this was the Russian princess, and when I lowered the candle to her face I was assured that this was so. Her features showed the finest lines of both the Slav and the Jewess; the eyes were black, the hair blue-black and wonderfully heavy, and her skin, even in death, was rich in colour. She was a surpassingly beautiful woman.

“I rose and tried to light another candle with the one I held, but I found that my hand was so unsteady that I could not keep the wicks together. It was my intention to again search for this strange dagger which had been used to kill both the English boy and the beautiful princess, but before I could light the second candle I heard footsteps descending the stairs, and the Russian servant appeared in the doorway.

“My face was in darkness, or I am sure that at the sight of it he would have taken alarm, for at that moment I was not sure but that this man himself was the murderer. His own face was plainly visible to me in the light from the hall, and I could see that it wore an expression of dull bewilderment. I stepped quickly toward him and took a firm hold upon his wrist.

“ ‘She is not there,’ he said. ‘The Princess has gone. They have all gone.’

“ ‘Who have gone?’ I demanded. ‘Who else has been here?’

“ ‘The two Englishmen,’ he said.

“ ‘What two Englishmen?’ I demanded. ‘What are their names?’

“The man now saw by my manner that some question of great moment hung upon his answer, and he began to protest that he did not know the names of the visitors and that until that evening he had never seen them.

“I guessed that it was my tone which frightened him, so I took my hand off his wrist and spoke less eagerly.

“ ‘How long have they been here?’ I asked, ‘and when did they go?’

“He pointed behind him toward the drawing-room.

“ ‘One sat there with the Princess,’ he said; ‘the other came after I had placed the coffee in the drawing-room. The two Englishmen talked together and the Princess returned here to the table. She sat there in that chair, and I brought her cognac and cigarettes. Then I sat outside upon the bench. It was a feast day, and I had been drinking. Pardon, Excellency, but I fell asleep. When I woke, your Excellency was standing by me, but the Princess and the two Englishmen had gone. That is all I know.’

“I believed that the man was telling me the truth. His fright had passed, and he was now apparently puzzled, but not alarmed.

“ ‘You must remember the names of the Englishmen,’ I urged. ‘Try to think. When you announced them to the Princess what name did you give?’

“At this question he exclaimed with pleasure, and, beckoning to me, ran hurriedly down the hall and into the drawing-room. In the corner furthest from the screen was the piano, and on it was a silver tray. He picked this up and, smiling with pride at his own intelligence, pointed at two cards that lay upon it. I took them up and read the names engraved upon them.”

The American paused abruptly, and glanced at the faces about him. “I read the names,” he repeated. He spoke with great reluctance.

“Continue!” cried the Baronet, sharply.

“I read the names,” said the American with evident distaste, “and the family name of each was the same. They were the names of two brothers. One is well known to you. It is that of the African explorer of whom this gentleman was just speaking. I mean the Earl of Chetney. The other was the name of his brother, Lord Arthur Chetney.”

The men at the table fell back as though a trapdoor had fallen open at their feet.

“Lord Chetney!” they exclaimed in chorus. They glanced at each other and back to the American with every expression of concern and disbelief.

“It is impossible!” cried the Baronet. “Why, my dear sir, young Chetney only arrived from Africa yesterday. It was so stated in the evening papers.”

The jaw of the American set in a resolute square, and he pressed his lips together.

“You are perfectly right, sir,” he said, “Lord Chetney did arrive in London yesterday morning, and yesterday night I found his dead body.”

The youngest member present was the first to recover. He seemed much less concerned over the identity of the murdered man than at the interruption of the narrative.

“Oh, please let him go on!” he cried. “What happened then? You say you found two visiting cards. How do you know which card was that of the murdered man?”

The American, before he answered, waited until the chorus of exclamations had ceased. Then he continued as though he had not been interrupted.

“The instant I read the names upon the cards,” he said, “I ran to the screen and, kneeling beside the dead man, began a search through his pockets. My hand at once fell upon a card-case, and I found on all the cards it contained the title of the Earl of Chetney. His watch and cigarette-case also bore his name. These evidences, and the fact of his bronzed skin, and that his cheekbones were worn with fever, convinced me that the dead man was the African explorer, and the boy who had fled past me in the night was Arthur, his younger brother.

“I was so intent upon my search that I had forgotten the servant, and I was still on my knees when I heard a cry behind me. I turned, and saw the man gazing down at the body in abject horror.

“Before I could rise, he gave another cry of terror, and, flinging himself into the hall, raced toward the door to the street. I leaped after him, shouting to him to halt, but before I could reach the hall he had torn open the door, and I saw him spring out into the yellow fog. I cleared the steps in a jump and ran down the garden walk but just as the gate clicked in front of me. I had it open on the instant, and, following the sound of the man’s footsteps, I raced after him across the open street. He, also, could hear me, and he instantly stopped running, and there was absolute silence. He was so near that I almost fancied I could hear him panting, and I held my own breath to listen. But I could distinguish nothing but the dripping of the mist about us, and from far off the music of the Hungarian band, which I had heard when I first lost myself.

“All I could see was the square of light from the door I had left open behind me, and a lamp in the hall beyond it flickering in the draught. But even as I watched it, the flame of the lamp was blown violently to and fro, and the door, caught in the same current of air, closed slowly. I knew if it shut I could not again enter the house, and I rushed madly toward it. I believe I even shouted out, as though it were something human which I could compel to obey me, and then I caught my foot against the curb and smashed into the sidewalk. When I rose to my feet I was dizzy and half stunned, and though I thought then that I was moving toward the door, I know now that I probably turned directly from it; for, as I groped about in the night, calling frantically for the police, my fingers touched nothing but the dripping fog, and the iron railings for which I sought seemed to have melted away. For many minutes I beat the mist with my arms like one at blind man’s buff, turning sharply in circles, cursing aloud at my stupidity and crying continually for help. At last a voice answered me from the fog, and I found myself held in the circle of a policeman’s lantern.

“That is the end of my adventure. What I have to tell you now is what I learned from the police.

“At the station-house to which the man guided me I related what you have just heard. I told them that the house they must at once find was one set back from the street within a radius of two hundred yards from the Knightsbridge Barracks, that within fifty yards of it some one was giving a dance to the music of a Hungarian band, and that the railings before it were as high as a man’s waist and filed to a point. With that to work upon, twenty men were at once ordered out into the fog to search for the house, and Inspector Lyle himself was despatched to the home of Lord Edam, Chetney’s father, with a warrant for Lord Arthur’s arrest. I was thanked and dismissed on my own recognizance.

“This morning, Inspector Lyle called on me, and from him I learned the police theory of the scene I have just described.

“Apparently I had wandered very far in the fog, for up to noon to-day the house had not been found, nor had they been able to arrest Lord Arthur. He did not return to his father’s house last night, and there is no trace of him; but from what the police knew of the past lives of the people I found in that lost house, they have evolved a theory, and their theory is that the murders were committed by Lord Arthur.

“The infatuation of his elder brother, Lord Chetney, for a Russian princess, so Inspector Lyle tells me, is well known to every one. About two years ago the Princess Zichy, as she calls herself, and he were constantly together, and Chetney informed his friends that they were about to be married. The woman was notorious in two continents, and when Lord Edam heard of his son’s infatuation he appealed to the police for her record.

“It is through his having applied to them that they know so much concerning her and her relations with the Chetneys. From the police Lord Edam learned that Madame Zichy had once been a spy in the employ of the Russian Third Section, but that lately she had been repudiated by her own government and was living by her wits, by blackmail, and by her beauty. Lord Edam laid this record before his son, but Chetney either knew it already or the woman persuaded him not to believe in it, and the father and son parted in great anger. Two days later the marquis altered his will, leaving all of his money to the younger brother, Arthur.

“The title and some of the landed property he could not keep from Chetney, but he swore if his son saw the woman again that the will should stand as it was, and he would be left without a penny.

“This was about eighteen months ago, when apparently Chetney tired of the Princess, and suddenly went off to shoot and explore in Central Africa. No word came from him, except that twice he was reported as having died of fever in the jungle, and finally two traders reached the coast who said they had seen his body. This was accepted by all as conclusive, and young Arthur was recognized as the heir to the Edam millions. On the strength of this supposition he at once began to borrow enormous sums from the money lenders. This is of great importance, as the police believe it was these debts which drove him to the murder of his brother. Yesterday, as you know, Lord Chetney suddenly returned from the grave, and it was the fact that for two years he had been considered as dead which lent such importance to his return and which gave rise to those columns of detail concerning him which appeared in all the afternoon papers. But, obviously, during his absence he had not tired of the Princess Zichy, for we know that a few hours after he reached London he sought her out. His brother, who had also learned of his reappearance through the papers, probably suspected which would be the house he would first visit, and followed him there, arriving, so the Russian servant tells us, while the two were at coffee in the drawing-room. The Princess, then, we also learn from the servant, withdrew to the dining-room, leaving the brothers together. What happened one can only guess.

“Lord Arthur knew now that when it was discovered he was no longer the heir, the money-lenders would come down upon him. The police believe that he at once sought out his brother to beg for money to cover the post-obits, but that, considering the sum he needed was several hundreds of thousands of pounds, Chetney refused to give it him. No one knew that Arthur had gone to seek out his brother. They were alone. It is possible, then, that in a passion of disappointment, and crazed with the disgrace which he saw before him, young Arthur made himself the heir beyond further question. The death of his brother would have availed nothing if the woman remained alive. It is then possible that he crossed the hall, and with the same weapon which made him Lord Edam’s heir destroyed the solitary witness to the murder. The only other person who could have seen it was sleeping in a drunken stupor, to which fact undoubtedly he owed his life. And yet,” concluded the Naval Attaché, leaning forward and marking each word with his finger, “Lord Arthur blundered fatally. In his haste he left the door of the house open, so giving access to the first passer-by, and he forgot that when he entered it he had handed his card to the servant. That piece of paper may yet send him to the gallows. In the mean time he has disappeared completely, and somewhere, in one of the millions of streets of this great capital, in a locked and empty house, lies the body of his brother, and of the woman his brother loved, undiscovered, unburied, and with their murder unavenged.”

In the discussion which followed the conclusion of the story of the Naval Attaché the gentleman with the pearl took no part. Instead, he arose, and, beckoning a servant to a far corner of the room, whispered earnestly to him until a sudden movement on the part of Sir Andrew caused him to return hurriedly to the table.

“There are several points in Mr. Sears’s story I want explained,” he cried. “Be seated, Sir Andrew,” he begged. “Let us have the opinion of an expert. I do not care what the police think, I want to know what you think.”

But Sir Henry rose reluctantly from his chair.

“I should like nothing better than to discuss this,” he said. “But it is most important that I proceed to the House. I should have been there some time ago.” He turned toward the servant and directed him to call a hansom.

The gentleman with the pearl stud looked appealingly at the Naval Attaché. “There are surely many details that you have not told us,” he urged. “Some you have forgotten.”

The Baronet interrupted quickly.

“I trust not,” he said, “for I could not possibly stop to hear them.”

“The story is finished,” declared the Naval Attaché; “until Lord Arthur is arrested or the bodies are found there is nothing more to tell of either Chetney or the Princess Zichy.”

“Of Lord Chetney perhaps not,” interrupted the sporting-looking gentleman with the black tie, “but there’ll always be something to tell of the Princess Zichy. I know enough stories about her to fill a book. She was a most remarkable woman.” The speaker dropped the end of his cigar into his coffee cup and, taking his case from his pocket, selected a fresh one. As he did so he laughed and held up the case that the others might see it. It was an ordinary cigar-case of well-worn pig-skin, with a silver clasp.

“The only time I ever met her,” he said, “she tried to rob me of this.”

The Baronet regarded him closely.

“She tried to rob you?” he repeated.

“Tried to rob me of this,” continued the gentleman in the black tie, “and of the Czarina’s diamonds.” His tone was one of mingled admiration and injury.

“The Czarina’s diamonds!” exclaimed the Baronet. He glanced quickly and suspiciously at the speaker, and then at the others about the table. But their faces gave evidence of no other emotion than that of ordinary interest.

“Yes, the Czarina’s diamonds,” repeated the man with the black tie. “It was a necklace of diamonds. I was told to take them to the Russian Ambassador in Paris who was to deliver them at Moscow. I am a Queen’s Messenger,” he added.

“Oh, I see,” exclaimed Sir Andrew in a tone of relief. “And you say that this same Princess Zichy, one of the victims of this double murder, endeavoured to rob you of— of— that cigar-case.”

“And the Czarina’s diamonds,” answered the Queen’s Messenger imperturbably. “It’s not much of a story, but it gives you an idea of the woman’s character. The robbery took place between Paris and Marseilles.”

The Baronet interrupted him with an abrupt movement. “No, no,” he cried, shaking his head in protest. “Do not tempt me. I really cannot listen. I must be at the House in ten minutes.”

“I am sorry,” said the Queen’s Messenger. He turned to those seated about him. “I wonder if the other gentlemen—” he inquired tentatively. There was a chorus of polite murmurs, and the Queen’s Messenger, bowing his head in acknowledgment, took a preparatory sip from his glass. At the same moment the servant to whom the man with the black pearl had spoken, slipped a piece of paper into his hand. He glanced at it, frowned, and threw it under the table.

The servant bowed to the Baronet.

“Your hansom is waiting, Sir Andrew,” he said.

“The necklace was worth twenty thousand pounds,” began the Queen’s Messenger. “It was a present from the Queen of England to celebrate—” The Baronet gave an exclamation of angry annoyance.

“Upon my word, this is most provoking,” he interrupted. “I really ought not to stay. But I certainly mean to hear this.” He turned irritably to the servant. “Tell the hansom to wait,” he commanded, and, with an air of a boy who is playing truant, slipped guiltily into his chair.

The gentleman with the black pearl smiled blandly, and rapped upon the table.

“Order, gentlemen,” he said. “Order for the story of the Queen’s Messenger and the Czarina’s diamonds.”

ii

“THE NECKLACE was a present from the Queen of England to the Czarina of Russia,” began the Queen’s Messenger. “It was to celebrate the occasion of the Czar’s coronation. Our Foreign Office knew that the Russian Ambassador in Paris was to proceed to Moscow for that ceremony, and I was directed to go to Paris and turn over the necklace to him. But when I reached Paris I found he had not expected me for a week later and was taking a few days’ vacation at Nice. His people asked me to leave the necklace with them at the Embassy, but I had been charged to get a receipt for it from the Ambassador himself, so I started at once for Nice The fact that Monte Carlo is not two thousand miles from Nice may have had something to do with making me carry out my instructions so carefully. Now, how the Princess Zichy came to find out about the necklace I don’t know, but I can guess. As you have just heard, she was at one time a spy in the service of the Russian government. And after they dismissed her she kept up her acquaintance with many of the Russian agents in London. It is probable that through one of them she learned that the necklace was to be sent to Moscow, and which one of the Queen’s Messengers had been detailed to take it there. Still, I doubt if even that knowledge would have helped her if she had not also known something which I supposed no one else in the world knew but myself and one other man. And, curiously enough, the other man was a Queen’s Messenger too, and a friend of mine. You must know that up to the time of this robbery I had always concealed my despatches in a manner peculiarly my own. I got the idea from that play called ‘A Scrap of Paper.’ In it a man wants to hide a certain compromising document. He knows that all his rooms will be secretly searched for it, so he puts it in a torn envelope and sticks it up where any one can see it on his mantel shelf. The result is that the woman who is ransacking the house to find it looks in all the unlikely places, but passes over the scrap of paper that is just under her nose. Sometimes the papers and packages they give us to carry about Europe are of very great value, and sometimes they are special makes of cigarettes, and orders to court dressmakers. Sometimes we know what we are carrying and sometimes we do not. If it is a large sum of money or a treaty, they generally tell us. But, as a rule, we have no knowledge of what the package contains; so, to be on the safe side, we naturally take just as great care of it as though we knew it held the terms of an ultimatum or the crown jewels. As a rule, my confreres carry the official packages in a despatch-box, which is just as obvious as a lady’s jewel bag in the hands of her maid. Every one knows they are carrying something of value. They put a premium on dishonesty. Well, after I saw the ‘Scrap of Paper’ play, I determined to put the government valuables in the most unlikely place that any one would look for them. So I used to hide the documents they gave me inside my riding-boots, and small articles, such as money or jewels, I carried in an old cigar-case. After I took to using my case for that purpose I bought a new one, exactly like it, for my cigars. But to avoid mistakes, I had my initials placed on both sides of the new one, and the moment I touched the case, even in the dark, I could tell which it was by the raised initials.

“No one knew of this except the Queen’s Messenger of whom I spoke. We once left Paris together on the Orient Express. I was going to Constantinople and he was to stop off at Vienna. On the journey I told him of my peculiar way of hiding things and showed him my cigar-case. If I recollect rightly, on that trip it held the grand cross of St. Michael and St. George, which the Queen was sending to our Ambassador. The Messenger was very much entertained at my scheme, and some months later when he met the Princess he told her about it as an amusing story. Of course, he had no idea she was a Russian spy. He didn’t know anything at all about her, except that she was a very attractive woman.

“It was indiscreet, but he could not possibly have guessed that she could ever make any use of what he told her.

“Later, after the robbery, I remembered that I had informed this young chap of my secret hiding-place, and when I saw him again I questioned him about it. He was greatly distressed, and said he had never seen the importance of the secret. He remembered he had told several people of it, and among others the Princess Zichy. In that way I found out that it was she who had robbed me, and I know that from the moment I left London she was following me and that she knew then that the diamonds were concealed in my cigar-case.

“My train for Nice left Paris at ten in the morning. When I travel at night I generally tell the chef de gare that I am a Queen’s Messenger, and he gives me a compartment to myself, but in the daytime I take whatever offers. On this morning I had found an empty compartment, and I had tipped the guard to keep every one else out, not from any fear of losing the diamonds, but because I wanted to smoke. He had locked the door, and as the last bell had rung I supposed I was to travel alone, so I began to arrange my traps and make myself comfortable. The diamonds in the cigar-case were in the inside pocket of my waistcoat, and as they made a bulky package, I took them out, intending to put them in my hand bag. It is a small satchel like a bookmaker’s, or those hand bags that couriers carry. I wear it slung from a strap across my shoulder, and, no matter whether I am sitting or walking, it never leaves me.

“I took the cigar-case which held the necklace from my inside pocket and the case which held the cigars out of the satchel, and while I was searching through it for a box of matches I laid the two cases beside me on the seat.

“At that moment the train started, but at the same instant there was a rattle at the lock of the compartment, and a couple of porters lifted and shoved a woman through the door, and hurled her rugs and umbrellas in after her.

“Instinctively I reached for the diamonds. I shoved them quickly into the satchel and, pushing them far down to the bottom of the bag, snapped the spring lock. Then I put the cigars in the pocket of my coat, but with the thought that now that I had a woman as a travelling companion I would probably not be allowed to enjoy them.

“One of her pieces of luggage had fallen at my feet, and a roll of rugs had landed at my side. I thought if I hid the fact that the lady was not welcome, and at once endeavoured to be civil, she might permit me to smoke. So I picked her hand bag off the floor and asked her where I might place it.

“As I spoke I looked at her for the first time, and saw that she was a most remarkably handsome woman.

“She smiled charmingly and begged me not to disturb myself. Then she arranged her own things about her, and, opening her dressing-bag, took out a gold cigarette case.

“ ‘Do you object to smoke?’ she asked.

“I laughed and assured her I had been in great terror lest she might object to it herself.

“ ‘If you like cigarettes,’ she said, ‘will you try some of these? They are rolled especially for my husband in Russia, and they are supposed to be very good.’

“I thanked her, and took one from her case, and I found it so much better than my own that I continued to smoke her cigarettes throughout the rest of the journey. I must say that we got on very well. I judged from the coronet on her cigarette-case, and from her manner, which was quite as well bred as that of any woman I ever met, that she was some one of importance, and though she seemed almost too good looking to be respectable, I determined that she was some grande dame who was so assured of her position that she could afford to be unconventional. At first she read her novel, and then she made some comment on the scenery, and finally we began to discuss the current politics of the Continent. She talked of all the cities in Europe, and seemed to know every one worth knowing. But she volunteered nothing about herself except that she frequently made use of the expression, ‘When my husband was stationed at Vienna,’ or ‘When my husband was promoted to Rome.’ Once she said to me, ‘I have often seen you at Monte Carlo. I saw you when you won the pigeon championship.’ I told her that I was not a pigeon shot, and she gave a little start of surprise. ‘Oh, I beg your pardon,’ she said; ‘I thought you were Morton Hamilton, the English champion.’ As a matter of fact, I do look like Hamilton, but I know now that her object was to make me think that she had no idea as to who I really was. She needn’t have acted at all, for I certainly had no suspicions of her, and was only too pleased to have so charming a companion.

“The one thing that should have made me suspicious was the fact that at every station she made some trivial excuse to get me out of the compartment. She pretended that her maid was travelling back of us in one of the second-class carriages, and kept saying she could not imagine why the woman did not come to look after her, and if the maid did not turn up at the next stop, would I be so very kind as to get out and bring her whatever it was she pretended she wanted.

“I had taken my dressing-case from the rack to get out a novel, and had left it on the seat opposite to mine, and at the end of the compartment farthest from her. And once when I came back from buying her a cup of chocolate, or from some other fool errand, I found her standing at my end of the compartment with both hands on the dressing-bag. She looked at me without so much as winking an eye, and shoved the case carefully into a corner. ‘Your bag slipped off on the floor,’ she said. ‘If you’ve got any bottles in it, you had better look and see that they’re not broken.’

“And I give you my word, I was such an ass that I did open the case and looked all through it. She must have thought I was a Juggins. I get hot all over whenever I remember it. But in spite of my dullness, and her cleverness, she couldn’t gain anything by sending me away, because what she wanted was in the hand bag and every time she sent me away the hand bag went with me.

“After the incident of the dressing-case her manner changed. Either in my absence she had had time to look through it, or, when I was examining it for broken bottles, she had seen everything it held.

“From that moment she must have been certain that the cigar-case, in which she knew I carried the diamonds, was in the bag that was fastened to my body, and from that time on she probably was plotting how to get it from me. Her anxiety became most apparent. She dropped the great lady manner, and her charming condescension went with it. She ceased talking, and, when I spoke, answered me irritably, or at random. No doubt her mind was entirely occupied with her plan. The end of our journey was drawing rapidly nearer, and her time for action was being cut down with the speed of the express train. Even I, unsuspicious as I was, noticed that something was very wrong with her. I really believe that before we reached Marseilles if I had not, through my own stupidity, given her the chance she wanted, she might have stuck a knife in me and rolled me out on the rails. But as it was, I only thought that the long journey had tired her. I suggested that it was a very trying trip, and asked her if she would allow me to offer her some of my cognac.

“She thanked me and said, ‘No,’ and then suddenly her eyes lighted, and she exclaimed, ‘Yes, thank you, if you will be so kind.’

“My flask was in the hand bag, and I placed it on my lap and with my thumb slipped back the catch. As I keep my tickets and railroad guide in the bag, I am so constantly opening it that I never bother to lock it, and the fact that it is strapped to me has always been sufficient protection. But I can appreciate now what a satisfaction, and what a torment too, it must have been to that woman when she saw that the bag opened without a key.

“While we were crossing the mountains I had felt rather chilly and had been wearing a light racing coat. But after the lamps were lighted the compartment became very hot and stuffy, and I found the coat uncomfortable. So I stood up, and, after first slipping the strap of the bag over my head, I placed the bag in the seat next me and pulled off the racing coat. I don’t blame myself for being careless; the bag was still within reach of my hand, and nothing would have happened if at that exact moment the train had not stopped at Arles. It was the combination of my removing the bag and our entering the station at the same instant which gave the Princess Zichy the chance she wanted to rob me.

“I needn’t say that she was clever enough to take it. The train ran into the station at full speed and came to a sudden stop. I had just thrown my coat into the rack, and had reached out my hand for the bag. In another instant I would have had the strap around my shoulder. But at that moment the Princess threw open the door of the compartment and beckoned wildly at the people on the platform. ‘Natalie!’ she called, ‘Natalie! here I am. Come here! This way!’ She turned upon me in the greatest excitement. ‘My maid!’ she cried. ‘She is looking for me. She passed the window without seeing me. Go, please, and bring her back.’ She continued pointing out of the door and beckoning me with her other hand. There certainly was something about that woman’s tone which made one jump. When she was giving orders you had no chance to think of anything else. So I rushed out on my errand of mercy, and then rushed back again to ask what the maid looked like.

“ ‘In black,’ she answered, rising and blocking the door of the compartment. ‘All in black, with a bonnet!’

“The train waited three minutes at Aries, and in that time I suppose I must have rushed up to over twenty women and asked, ‘Are you Natalie?’ The only reason I wasn’t punched with an umbrella or handed over to the police was that they probably thought I was crazy.

“When I jumped back into the compartment the Princess was seated where I had left her, but her eyes were burning with happiness. She placed her hand on my arm almost affectionately, and said in a hysterical way, ‘You are very kind to me. I am so sorry to have troubled you.’

“I protested that every woman on the platform was dressed in black.

“ ‘Indeed I am so sorry,’ she said, laughing; and she continued to laugh until she began to breathe so quickly that I thought she was going to faint.

“I can see now that the last part of that journey must have been a terrible half hour for her. She had the cigar-case safe enough, but she knew that she herself was not safe. She understood if I were to open my bag, even at the last minute, and miss the case, I would know positively that she had taken it. I had placed the diamonds in the bag at the very moment she entered the compartment, and no one but our two selves had occupied it since. She knew that when we reached Marseilles she would either be twenty thousand pounds richer than when she left Paris, or that she would go to jail. That was the situation as she must have read it, and I don’t envy her her state of mind during that last half hour. It must have been hell.

“I saw that something was wrong, and in my innocence I even wondered if possibly my cognac had not been a little too strong. For she suddenly developed into a most brilliant conversationalist, and applauded and laughed at everything I said, and fired off questions at me like a machine gun, so that I had no time to think of anything but of what she was saying. Whenever I stirred she stopped her chattering and leaned toward me, and watched me like a cat over a mouse-hole. I wondered how I could have considered her an agreeable travelling companion. I thought I would have preferred to be locked in with a lunatic. I don’t like to think how she would have acted if I had made a move to examine the bag, but as I had it safely strapped around me again, I did not open it, and I reached Marseilles alive. As we drew into the station she shook hands with me and grinned at me like a Cheshire cat.

“ ‘I cannot tell you,’ she said, ‘how much I have to thank you for.’ What do you think of that for impudence!

“I offered to put her in a carriage, but she said she must find Natalie, and that she hoped we would meet again at the hotel. So I drove off by myself, wondering who she was, and whether Natalie was not her keeper.

“I had to wait several hours for the train to Nice, and as I wanted to stroll around the city I thought I had better put the diamonds in the safe of the hotel. As soon as I reached my room I locked the door, placed the hand bag on the table and opened it. I felt among the things at the top of it, but failed to touch the cigar-case. I shoved my hand in deeper, and stirred the things about, but still I did not reach it. A cold wave swept down my spine, and a sort of emptiness came to the pit of my stomach. Then I turned red-hot, and the sweat sprung out all over me. I wet my lips with my tongue, and said to myself, ‘Don’t be an ass. Pull yourself together, pull yourself together. Take the things out, one at a time. It’s there, of course it’s there. Don’t be an ass.’

“So I put a brake on my nerves and began very carefully to pick out the things one by one, but after another second I could not stand it, and I rushed across the room and threw out everything on the bed. But the diamonds were not among them. I pulled the things about and tore them open and shuffled and rearranged and sorted them, but it was no use. The cigar-case was gone. I threw everything in the dressing-case out on the floor, although I knew it was useless to look for it there. I knew that I had put it in the bag. I sat down and tried to think. I remembered I had put it in the satchel at Paris just as that woman had entered the compartment, and I had been alone with her ever since, so it was she who had robbed me. But how? It had never left my shoulder. And then I remembered that it had— that I had taken it off when I had changed my coat and for the few moments that I was searching for Natalie. I remembered that the woman had sent me on that goose chase, and that at every other station she had tried to get rid of me on some fool errand.

“I gave a roar like a mad bull, and I jumped down the stairs six steps at a time.

“I demanded at the office if a distinguished lady of title, possibly a Russian, had just entered the hotel.

“As I expected, she had not. I sprang into a cab and inquired at two other hotels, and then I saw the folly of trying to catch her without outside help, and I ordered the fellow to gallop to the office of the Chief of Police. I told my story, and the ass in charge asked me to calm myself, and wanted to take notes. I told him this was no time for taking notes, but for doing something. He got wrathy at that, and I demanded to be taken at once to his Chief. The Chief, he said, was very busy, and could not see me. So I showed him my silver greyhound. In eleven years I had never used it but once before. I stated in pretty vigorous language that I was a Queen’s Messenger, and that if the Chief of Police did not see me instantly he would lose his official head. At that the fellow jumped off his high horse and ran with me to his Chief,— a smart young chap, a colonel in the army, and a very intelligent man.

“I explained that I had been robbed in a French railway carriage of a diamond necklace belonging to the Queen of England, which her Majesty was sending as a present to the Czarina of Russia. I pointed out to him that if he succeeded in capturing the thief he would be made for life, and would receive the gratitude of three great powers.

“He wasn’t the sort that thinks second thoughts are best. He saw Russian and French decorations sprouting all over his chest, and he hit a bell, and pressed buttons, and yelled out orders like the captain of a penny steamer in a fog. He sent her description to all the city gates, and ordered all cabmen and railway porters to search all trains leaving Marseilles. He ordered all passengers on outgoing vessels to be examined, and telegraphed the proprietors of every hotel and pension to send him a complete list of their guests within the hour. While I was standing there he must have given at least a hundred orders, and sent out enough commissaires, sergeants de ville, gendarmes, bicycle police, and plain-clothes Johnnies to have captured the entire German army. When they had gone he assured me that the woman was as good as arrested already. Indeed, officially, she was arrested; for she had no more chance of escape from Marseilles than from the Chateau D’If.

“He told me to return to my hotel and possess my soul in peace. Within an hour he assured me he would acquaint me with her arrest.

“I thanked him, and complimented him on his energy, and left him. But I didn’t share in his confidence. I felt that she was a very clever woman, and a match for any and all of us. It was all very well for him to be jubilant. He had not lost the diamonds, and had everything to gain if he found them; while I, even if he did recover the necklace, would only be where I was before I lost them, and if he did not recover it I was a ruined man. It was an awful facer for me. I had always prided myself on my record. In eleven years I had never mislaid an envelope, nor missed taking the first train. And now I had failed in the most important mission that had ever been entrusted to me. And it wasn’t a thing that could be hushed up, either. It was too conspicuous, too spectacular. It was sure to invite the widest notoriety. I saw myself ridiculed all over the Continent, and perhaps dismissed, even suspected of having taken the thing myself.

“I was walking in front of a lighted cafe, and I felt so sick and miserable that I stopped for a pick-me-up. Then I considered that if I took one drink I would probably, in my present state of mind, not want to stop under twenty, and I decided I had better leave it alone. But my nerves were jumping like a frightened rabbit, and I felt I must have something to quiet them, or I would go crazy. I reached for my cigarette-case, but a cigarette seemed hardly adequate, so I put it back again and took out this cigar-case, in which I keep only the strongest and blackest cigars. I opened it and stuck in my fingers, but instead of a cigar they touched on a thin leather envelope. My heart stood perfectly still. I did not dare to look, but I dug my finger nails into the leather and I felt layers of thin paper, then a layer of cotton, and then they scratched on the facets of the Czarina’s diamonds!

“I stumbled as though I had been hit in the face, and fell back into one of the chairs on the sidewalk. I tore off the wrappings and spread out the diamonds on the cafe table; I could not believe they were real. I twisted the necklace between my fingers and crushed it between my palms and tossed it up in the air. I believe I almost kissed it. The women in the cafe stood tip on the chairs to see better, and laughed and screamed, and the people crowded so close around me that the waiters had to form a bodyguard. The proprietor thought there was a fight, and called for the police. I was so happy I didn’t care. I laughed, too, and gave the proprietor a five-pound note, and told him to stand every one a drink. Then I tumbled into a fiacre and galloped off to my friend the Chief of Police. I felt very sorry for him. He had been so happy at the chance I gave him, and he was sure to be disappointed when he learned I had sent him off on a false alarm.

“But now that I had found the necklace, I did not want him to find the woman. Indeed, I was most anxious that she should get clear away, for if she were caught the truth would come out, and I was likely to get a sharp reprimand, and sure to be laughed at.

“I could see now how it had happened. In my haste to hide the diamonds when the woman was hustled into the carriage, I had shoved the cigars into the satchel, and the diamonds into the pocket of my coat. Now that I had the diamonds safe again, it seemed a very natural mistake. But I doubted if the Foreign Office would think so. I was afraid it might not appreciate the beautiful simplicity of my secret hiding-place. So, when I reached the police station, and found that the woman was still at large, I was more than relieved.

“As I expected, the Chief was extremely chagrined when he learned of my mistake, and that there was nothing for him to do. But I was feeling so happy myself that I hated to have any one else miserable, so I suggested that this attempt to steal the Czarina’s necklace might be only the first of a series of such attempts by an unscrupulous gang, and that I might still be in danger.

“I winked at the Chief and the Chief smiled at me, and we went to Nice together in a saloon car with a guard of twelve carabineers and twelve plain-clothes men, and the Chief and I drank champagne all the way. We marched together up to the hotel where the Russian Ambassador was stopping, closely surrounded by our escort of carabineers, and delivered the necklace with the most profound ceremony. The old Ambassador was immensely impressed, and when we hinted that already I had been made the object of an attack by robbers, he assured us that his Imperial Majesty would not prove ungrateful.

“I wrote a swinging personal letter about the invaluable services of the Chief to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and they gave him enough Russian and French medals to satisfy even a French soldier. So, though he never caught the woman, he received his just reward.”

The Queen’s Messenger paused and surveyed the faces of those about him in some embarrassment.

“But the worst of it is,” he added, “that the story must have got about; for, while the Princess obtained nothing from me but a cigar-case and five excellent cigars, a few weeks after the coronation the Czar sent me a gold cigar-case with his monogram in diamonds. And I don’t know yet whether that was a coincidence, or whether the Czar wanted me to know that he knew that I had been carrying the Czarina’s diamonds in my pigskin cigar-case. What do you fellows think?”

iii

SIR ANDREW rose with disapproval written in every lineament.

“I thought your story would bear upon the murder,” he said. “Had I imagined it would have nothing whatsoever to do with it I would not have remained.” He pushed back his chair and bowed stiffly. “I wish you good night,” he said.

There was a chorus of remonstrance, and under cover of this and the Baronet’s answering protests a servant for the second time slipped a piece of paper into the hand of the gentleman with the pearl stud. He read the lines written upon it and tore it into tiny fragments.

The youngest member, who had remained an interested but silent listener to the tale of the Queen’s Messenger, raised his hand commandingly.

“Sir Andrew,” he cried, “in justice to Lord Arthur Chetney I must ask you to be seated. He has been accused in our hearing of a most serious crime, and I insist that you remain until you have heard me clear his character.”

“You!” cried the Baronet.

“Yes,” answered the young man briskly. “I would have spoken sooner,” he explained, “but that I thought this gentleman”— he inclined his head toward the Queen’s Messenger— “was about to contribute some facts of which I was ignorant. He, however, has told us nothing, and so I will take up the tale at the point where Lieutenant Sears laid it down and give you those details of which Lieutenant Sears is ignorant. It seems strange to you that I should be able to add the sequel to this story. But the coincidence is easily explained. I am the junior member of the law firm of Chudleigh & Chudleigh. We have been solicitors for the Chetneys for the last two hundred years. Nothing, no matter how unimportant, which concerns Lord Edam and his two sons is unknown to us, and naturally we are acquainted with every detail of the terrible catastrophe of last night.”

The Baronet, bewildered but eager, sank back into his chair.

“Will you be long, sir!” he demanded.

“I shall endeavour to be brief,” said the young solicitor; “and,” he added, in a tone which gave his words almost the weight of a threat, “I promise to be interesting.”

“There is no need to promise that,” said Sir Andrew, “I find it much too interesting as it is.” He glanced ruefully at the clock and turned his eyes quickly from it.

“Tell the driver of that hansom,” he called to the servant, “that I take him by the hour.”

“For the last three days,” began young Mr. Chudleigh, “as you have probably read in the daily papers, the Marquis of Edam has been at the point of death, and his physicians have never left his house. Every hour he seemed to grow weaker; but although his bodily strength is apparently leaving him forever, his mind has remained clear and active. Late yesterday evening word was received at our office that he wished my father to come at once to Chetney House and to bring with him certain papers. What these papers were is not essential; I mention them only to explain how it was that last night I happened to be at Lord Edam’s bed-side. I accompanied my father to Chetney House, but at the time we reached there Lord Edam was sleeping, and his physicians refused to have him awakened. My father urged that he should be allowed to receive Lord Edam’s instructions concerning the documents, but the physicians would not disturb him, and we all gathered in the library to wait until he should awake of his own accord. It was about one o’clock in the morning, while we were still there, that Inspector Lyle and the officers from Scotland Yard came to arrest Lord Arthur on the charge of murdering his brother. You can imagine our dismay and distress. Like every one else, I had learned from the afternoon papers that Lord Chetney was not dead, but that he had returned to England, and on arriving at Chetney House I had been told that Lord Arthur had gone to the Bath Hotel to look for his brother and to inform him that if he wished to see their father alive he must come to him at once. Although it was now past one o’clock, Arthur had not returned. None of us knew where Madame Zichy lived, so we could not go to recover Lord Chetney’s body. We spent a most miserable night, hastening to the window whenever a cab came into the square, in the hope that it was Arthur returning, and endeavouring to explain away the facts that pointed to him as the murderer. I am a friend of Arthur’s, I was with him at Harrow and at Oxford, and I refused to believe for an instant that he was capable of such a crime; but as a lawyer I could not help but see that the circumstantial evidence was strongly against him.

“Toward early morning Lord Edam awoke, and in so much better a state of health that he refused to make the changes in the papers which he had intended, declaring that he was no nearer death than ourselves. Under other circumstances, this happy change in him would have relieved us greatly, but none of us could think of anything save the death of his elder son and of the charge which hung over Arthur.

“As long as Inspector Lyle remained in the house my father decided that I, as one of the legal advisers of the family, should also remain there. But there was little for either of us to do. Arthur did not return, and nothing occurred until late this morning, when Lyle received word that the Russian servant had been arrested. He at once drove to Scotland Yard to question him. He came back to us in an hour, and informed me that the servant had refused to tell anything of what had happened the night before, or of himself, or of the Princess Zichy. He would not even give them the address of her house.

“ ‘He is in abject terror,’ Lyle said. ‘I assured him that he was not suspected of the crime, but he would tell me nothing.’

“There were no other developments until two o’clock this afternoon, when word was brought to us that Arthur had been found, and that he was lying in the accident ward of St. George’s Hospital. Lyle and I drove there together, and found him propped up in bed with his head bound in a bandage. He had been brought to the hospital the night before by the driver of a hansom that had run over him in the fog. The cab-horse had kicked him on the head, and he had been carried in unconscious. There was nothing on him to tell who he was, and it was not until he came to his senses this afternoon that the hospital authorities had been able to send word to his people. Lyle at once informed him that he was under arrest, and with what he was charged, and though the inspector warned him to say nothing which might be used against him, I, as his solicitor, instructed him to speak freely and to tell us all he knew of the occurrences of last night. It was evident to any one that the fact of his brother’s death was of much greater concern to him, than that he was accused of his murder.

“ ‘That,’ Arthur said contemptuously, ‘that is damned nonsense. It is monstrous and cruel. We parted better friends than we have been in years. I will tell you all that happened— not to clear myself, but to help you to find out the truth.’ His story is as follows: Yesterday afternoon, owing to his constant attendance on his father, he did not look at the evening papers, and it was not until after dinner, when the butler brought him one and told him of its contents, that he learned that his brother was alive and at the Bath Hotel. He drove there at once, but was told that about eight o’clock his brother had gone out, but without giving any clew to his destination. As Chetney had not at once come to see his father, Arthur decided that he was still angry with him, and his mind, turning naturally to the cause of their quarrel, determined him to look for Chetney at the home of the Princess Zichy.

“Her house had been pointed out to him, and though he had never visited it, he had passed it many times and knew its exact location. He accordingly drove in that direction, as far as the fog would permit the hansom to go, and walked the rest of the way, reaching the house about nine o’clock. He rang, and was admitted by the Russian servant. The man took his card into the drawing-room, and at once his brother ran out and welcomed him. He was followed by the Princess Zichy, who also received Arthur most cordially.

“ ‘You brothers will have much to talk about,’ she said. ‘I am going to the dining-room. When you have finished, let me know.’

“As soon as she had left them, Arthur told his brother that their father was not expected to outlive the night, and that he must come to him at once.

“ ‘This is not the moment to remember your quarrel,’ Arthur said to him; ‘you have come back from the dead only in time to make your peace with him before he dies.’

“Arthur says that at this Chetney was greatly moved.

“ ‘You entirely misunderstand me, Arthur,’ he returned. ‘I did not know the governor was ill, or I would have gone to him the instant I arrived. My only reason for not doing so was because I thought he was still angry with me. I shall return with you immediately, as soon as I have said good-by to the Princess. It is a final good-by. After tonight, I shall never see her again.’

“ ‘Do you mean that?’ Arthur cried.

“ ‘Yes,’ Chetney answered. ‘When I returned to London I had no intention of seeking her again, and I am here only through a mistake.’ He then told Arthur that he had separated from the Princess even before he went to Central Africa, and that, moreover, while at Cairo on his way south, he had learned certain facts concerning her life there during the previous season, which made it impossible for him to ever wish to see her again. Their separation was final and complete.

“ ‘She deceived me cruelly,’ he said; ‘I cannot tell you how cruelly. During the two years when I was trying to obtain my father’s consent to our marriage she was in love with a Russian diplomat. During all that time he was secretly visiting her here in London, and her trip to Cairo was only an excuse to meet him there.’

“ ‘Yet you are here with her tonight,’ Arthur protested, ‘only a few hours after your return.’

“ ‘That is easily explained,’ Chetney answered. ‘As I finished dinner tonight at the hotel, I received a note from her from this address. In it she said she had but just learned of my arrival, and begged me to come to her at once. She wrote that she was in great and present trouble, dying of an incurable illness, and without friends or money. She begged me, for the sake of old times, to come to her assistance. During the last two years in the jungle all my former feeling for Zichy has utterly passed away, but no one could have dismissed the appeal she made in that letter. So I came here, and found her, as you have seen her, quite as beautiful as she ever was, in very good health, and, from the look of the house, in no need of money.

“ ‘I asked her what she meant by writing me that she was dying in a garret, and she laughed, and said she had done so because she was afraid, unless I thought she needed help, I would not try to see her. That was where we were when you arrived. And now,’ Chetney added, ‘I will say good-by to her, and you had better return home. No, you can trust me, I shall follow you at once. She has no influence over me now, but I believe, in spite of the way she has used me, that she is, after her queer fashion, still fond of me, and when she learns that this good-by is final there may be a scene, and it is not fair to her that you should be here. So, go home at once, and tell the governor that I am following you in ten minutes.’ “ ‘That,’ said Arthur, ‘is the way we parted. I never left him on more friendly terms. I was happy to see him alive again, I was happy to think he had returned in time to make up his quarrel with my father, and I was happy that at last he was shut of that woman. I was never better pleased with him in my life.’ He turned to Inspector Lyle, who was sitting at the foot of the bed taking notes of all he told us.

“ ‘Why in the name of common sense,’ he cried, ‘should I have chosen that moment of all others to send my brother back to the grave!’ For a moment the Inspector did not answer him. I do not know if any of you gentlemen are acquainted with Inspector Lyle, but if you are not, I can assure you that he is a very remarkable man. Our firm often applies to him for aid, and he has never failed us; my father has the greatest possible respect for him. Where he has the advantage over the ordinary police official is in the fact that he possesses imagination. He imagines himself to be the criminal, imagines how he would act under the same circumstances, and he imagines to such purpose that he generally finds the man he wants. I have often told Lyle that if he had not been a detective he would have made a great success as a poet, or a playwright.

“When Arthur turned on him Lyle hesitated for a moment, and then told him exactly what was the case against him.

“ ‘Ever since your brother was reported as having died in Africa,’ he said, ‘your Lordship has been collecting money on post obits. Lord Chetney’s arrival last night turned them into waste paper. You were suddenly in debt for thousands of pounds— for much more than you could ever possibly pay. No one knew that you and your brother had met at Madame Zichy’s. But you knew that your father was not expected to outlive the night, and that if your brother were dead also, you would be saved from complete ruin, and that you would become the Marquis of Edam.’

“ ‘Oh, that is how you have worked it out, is it?’ Arthur cried. ‘And for me to become Lord Edam was it necessary that the woman should die, too!’

“ ‘They will say,’ Lyle answered, ‘that she was a witness to the murder— that she would have told.’

“ ‘Then why did I not kill the servant as well!’ Arthur said.

“ ‘He was asleep, and saw nothing.’

“ ‘And you believe that?’ Arthur demanded.

“ ‘It is not a question of what I believe,’ Lyle said gravely. ‘It is a question for your peers.’

“ ‘The man is insolent!’ Arthur cried. ‘The thing is monstrous! Horrible!’

“Before we could stop him he sprang out of his cot and began pulling on his clothes. When the nurses tried to hold him down, he fought with them.

“ ‘Do you think you can keep me here,’ he shouted, ‘when they are plotting to hang me? I am going with you to that house!’ he cried at Lyle. ‘When you find those bodies I shall be beside you. It is my right. He is my brother. He has been murdered, and I can tell you who murdered him. That woman murdered him. She first ruined his life, and now she has killed him. For the last five years she has been plotting to make herself his wife, and last night, when he told her he had discovered the truth about the Russian, and that she would never see him again, she flew into a passion and stabbed him, and then, in terror of the gallows, killed herself. She murdered him, I tell you, and I promise you that we will find the knife she used near her— perhaps still in her hand. What will you say to that?’

“Lyle turned his head away and stared down at the floor. ‘I might say,’ he answered, ‘that you placed it there.’

“Arthur gave a cry of anger and sprang at him, and then pitched forward into his arms. The blood was running from the cut under the bandage, and he had fainted. Lyle carried him back to the bed again, and we left him with the police and the doctors, and drove at once to the address he had given us. We found the house not three minutes’ walk from St. George’s Hospital. It stands in Trevor Terrace, that little row of houses set back from Knightsbridge, with one end in Hill Street.

“As we left the hospital Lyle had said to me, ‘You must not blame me for treating him as I did. All is fair in this work, and if by angering that boy I could have made him commit himself I was right in trying to do so; though, I assure you, no one would be better pleased than myself if I could prove his theory to be correct. But we cannot tell. Everything depends upon what we see for ourselves within the next few minutes.’

“When we reached the house, Lyle broke open the fastenings of one of the windows on the ground floor, and, hidden by the trees in the garden, we scrambled in. We found ourselves in the reception-room, which was the first room on the right of the hall. The gas was still burning behind the coloured glass and red silk shades, and when the daylight streamed in after us it gave the hall a hideously dissipated look, like the foyer of a theatre at a matinee, or the entrance to an all-day gambling hell. The house was oppressively silent, and because we knew why it was so silent we spoke in whispers. When Lyle turned the handle of the drawing-room door, I felt as though some one had put his hand upon my throat. But I followed close at his shoulder, and saw, in the subdued light of many-tinted lamps, the body of Chetney at the foot of the divan, just as Lieutenant Sears had described it. In the drawing-room we found the body of the Princess Zichy, her arms thrown out, and the blood from her heart frozen in a tiny line across her bare shoulder. But neither of us, although we searched the floor on our hands and knees, could find the weapon which had killed her.

“ ‘For Arthur’s sake,’ I said, ‘I would have given a thousand pounds if we had found the knife in her hand, as he said we would.’

“ ‘That we have not found it there,’ Lyle answered, ‘is to my mind the strongest proof that he is telling the truth, that he left the house before the murder took place. He is not a fool, and had he stabbed his brother and this woman, he would have seen that by placing the knife near her he could help to make it appear as if she had killed Chetney and then committed suicide. Besides, Lord Arthur insisted that the evidence in his behalf would be our finding the knife here. He would not have urged that if he knew we would not find it, if he knew he himself had carried it away. This is no suicide. A suicide does not rise and hide the weapon with which he kills himself, and then lie down again. No, this has been a double murder, and we must look outside of the house for the murderer.’

“While he was speaking Lyle and I had been searching every corner, studying the details of each room. I was so afraid that, without telling me, he would make some deductions prejudicial to Arthur, that I never left his side. I was determined to see everything that he saw, and, if possible, to prevent his interpreting it in the wrong way. He finally finished his examination, and we sat down together in the drawing-room, and he took out his notebook and read aloud all that Mr. Sears had told him of the murder and what we had just learned from Arthur. We compared the two accounts word for word, and weighed statement with statement, but I could not determine from anything Lyle said which of the two versions he had decided to believe.

“ ‘We are trying to build a house of blocks,’ he exclaimed, ‘with half of the blocks missing. We have been considering two theories,’ he went on: ‘one that Lord Arthur is responsible for both murders, and the other that the dead woman in there is responsible for one of them, and has committed suicide; but, until the Russian servant is ready to talk, I shall refuse to believe in the guilt of either.’

“ ‘What can you prove by him!’ I asked. ‘He was drunk and asleep. He saw nothing.’

“Lyle hesitated, and then, as though he had made up his mind to be quite frank with me, spoke freely.

“ ‘I do not know that he was either drunk or asleep,’ he answered. ‘Lieutenant Sears describes him as a stupid boor. I am not satisfied that he is not a clever actor. What was his position in this house! What was his real duty here? Suppose it was not to guard this woman, but to watch her. Let us imagine that it was not the woman he served, but a master, and see where that leads us. For this house has a master, a mysterious, absentee landlord, who lives in St. Petersburg, the unknown Russian who came between Chetney and Zichy, and because of whom Chetney left her. He is the man who bought this house for Madame Zichy, who sent these rugs and curtains from St. Petersburg to furnish it for her after his own tastes, and, I believe, it was he also who placed the Russian servant here, ostensibly to serve the Princess, but in reality to spy upon her. At Scotland Yard we do not know who this gentleman is; the Russian police confess to equal ignorance concerning him. When Lord Chetney went to Africa, Madame Zichy lived in St. Petersburg; but there her receptions and dinners were so crowded with members of the nobility and of the army and diplomats, that among so many visitors the police could not learn which was the one for whom she most greatly cared.’

“Lyle pointed at the modern French paintings and the heavy silk rugs which hung upon the walls.

“ ‘The unknown is a man of taste and of some fortune,’ he said, ‘not the sort of man to send a stupid peasant to guard the woman he loves. So I am not content to believe, with Mr. Sears, that the servant is a boor. I believe him instead to be a very clever ruffian. I believe him to be the protector of his master’s honour, or, let us say, of his master’s property, whether that property be silver plate or the woman his master loves. Last night, after Lord Arthur had gone away, the servant was left alone in this house with Lord Chetney and Madame Zichy. From where he sat in the hall he could hear Lord Chetney bidding her farewell; for, if my idea of him is correct, he understands English quite as well as you or I. Let us imagine that he heard her entreating Chetney not to leave her, reminding him of his former wish to marry her, and let us suppose that he hears Chetney denounce her, and tell her that at Cairo he has learned of this Russian admirer— the servant’s master. He hears the woman declare that she has had no admirer but himself, that this unknown Russian was, and is, nothing to her, that there is no man she loves but him, and that she cannot live, knowing that he is alive, without his love. Suppose Chetney believed her, suppose his former infatuation for her returned, and that in a moment of weakness he forgave her and took her in his arms. That is the moment the Russian master has feared. It is to guard against it that he has placed his watchdog over the Princess, and how do we know but that, when the moment came, the watchdog served his master, as he saw his duty, and killed them both? What do you think?’ Lyle demanded. ‘Would not that explain both murders?’

“I was only too willing to hear any theory which pointed to any one else as the criminal than Arthur, but Lyle’s explanation was too utterly fantastic. I told him that he certainly showed imagination, but that he could not hang a man for what he imagined he had done.

“ ‘No,’ Lyle answered, ‘but I can frighten him by telling him what I think he has done, and now when I again question the Russian servant I will make it quite clear to him that I believe he is the murderer. I think that will open his mouth. A man will at least talk to defend himself. Come,’ he said, ‘we must return at once to Scotland Yard and see him. There is nothing more to do here.’

“He arose, and I followed him into the hall, and in another minute we would have been on our way to Scotland Yard. But just as he opened the street door a postman halted at the gate of the garden, and began fumbling with the latch.

“Lyle stopped, with an exclamation of chagrin.

“ ‘How stupid of me!’ he exclaimed. He turned quickly and pointed to a narrow slit cut in the brass plate of the front door. ‘The house has a private letter-box,’ he said, ‘and I had not thought to look in it! If we had gone out as we came in, by the window, I would never have seen it. The moment I entered the house I should have thought of securing the letters which came this morning. I have been grossly careless.’ He stepped back into the hall and pulled at the lid of the letterbox, which hung on the inside of the door, but it was tightly locked. At the same moment the postman came up the steps holding a letter. Without a word Lyle took it from his hand and began to examine it. It was addressed to the Princess Zichy, and on the back of the envelope was the name of a West End dressmaker.

“ ‘That is of no use to me,’ Lyle said. He took out his card and showed it to the postman. ‘I am Inspector Lyle from Scotland Yard,’ he said. ‘The people in this house are under arrest. Everything it contains is now in my keeping. Did you deliver any other letters here this morning!’

“The man looked frightened, but answered promptly that he was now upon his third round. He had made one postal delivery at seven that morning and another at eleven.

“ ‘How many letters did you leave here!’ Lyle asked.

“ ‘About six altogether,’ the man answered.

“ ‘Did you put them through the door into the letter-box!’

“The postman said, ‘Yes, I always slip them into the box, and ring and go away. The servants collect them from the inside.’

“ ‘Have you noticed if any of the letters you leave here bear a Russian postage stamp!’ Lyle asked.

“The man answered, ‘Oh, yes, sir, a great many.’

“ ‘From the same person, would you say!’

“ ‘The writing seems to be the same,’ the man answered. ‘They come regularly about once a week— one of those I delivered this morning had a Russian postmark.’

“ ‘That will do,’ said Lyle eagerly. ‘Thank you, thank you very much.’

“He ran back into the hall, and, pulling out his penknife, began to pick at the lock of the letter-box.

“ ‘I have been supremely careless,’ he said in great excitement. ‘Twice before when people I wanted had flown from a house I have been able to follow them by putting a guard over their mail-box. These letters, which arrive regularly every week from Russia in the same handwriting, they can come but from one person. At least, we shall now know the name of the master of this house. Undoubtedly it is one of his letters that the man placed here this morning. We may make a most important discovery.’

“As he was talking he was picking at the lock with his knife, but he was so impatient to reach the letters that he pressed too heavily on the blade and it broke in his hand. I took a step backward and drove my heel into the lock, and burst it open. The lid flew back, and we pressed forward, and each ran his hand down into the letterbox. For a moment we were both too startled to move. The box was empty.

“I do not know how long we stood staring stupidly at each other, but it was Lyle who was the first to recover. He seized me by the arm and pointed excitedly into the empty box.

“ ‘Do you appreciate what that means?’ he cried. ‘It means that some one has been here ahead of us. Some one has entered this house not three hours before we came, since eleven o’clock this morning.’

“ ‘It was the Russian servant!’ I exclaimed.

“ ‘The Russian servant has been under arrest at Scotland Yard,’ Lyle cried. ‘He could not have taken the letters. Lord Arthur has been in his cot at the hospital. That is his alibi. There is some one else, some one we do not suspect, and that some one is the murderer. He came back here either to obtain those letters because he knew they would convict him, or to remove something he had left here at the time of the murder, something incriminating,— the weapon, perhaps, or some personal article; a cigarette-case, a handkerchief with his name upon it, or a pair of gloves. Whatever it was it must have been damning evidence against him to have made him take so desperate a chance.’

“ ‘How do we know,’ I whispered, ‘that he is not hidden here now?’

“ ‘No, I’ll swear he is not,’ Lyle answered. ‘I may have bungled in some things, but I have searched this house thoroughly. Nevertheless,’ he added, ‘we must go over it again, from the cellar to the roof. We have the real clew now, and we must forget the others and work only it.’ As he spoke he began again to search the drawing-room, turning over even the books on the tables and the music on the piano. “ ‘Whoever the man is,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘we know that he has a key to the front door and a key to the letter-box. That shows us he is either an inmate of the house or that he comes here when he wishes. The Russian says that he was the only servant in the house. Certainly we have found no evidence to show that any other servant slept here. There could be but one other person who would possess a key to the house and the letter-box— and he lives in St. Petersburg. At the time of the murder he was two thousand miles away.’ Lyle interrupted himself suddenly with a sharp cry and turned upon me with his eyes flashing. ‘But was he?’ he cried. ‘Was he? How do we know that last night he was not in London, in this very house when Zichy and Chetney met?’

“He stood staring at me without seeing me, muttering, and arguing with himself.

“ ‘Don’t speak to me,’ he cried, as I ventured to interrupt him. ‘I can see it now. It is all plain. It was not the servant, but his master, the Russian himself, and it was he who came back for the letters! He came back for them because he knew they would convict him. We must find them. We must have those letters. If we find the one with the Russian postmark, we shall have found the murderer.’ He spoke like a madman, and as he spoke he ran around the room with one hand held out in front of him as you have seen a mind-reader at a theatre seeking for something hidden in the stalls. He pulled the old letters from the writing-desk, and ran them over as swiftly as a gambler deals out cards; he dropped on his knees before the fireplace and dragged out the dead coals with his bare fingers, and then with a low, worried cry, like a hound on a scent, he ran back to the waste-paper basket and, lifting the papers from it, shook them out upon the floor. Instantly he gave a shout of triumph, and, separating a number of torn pieces from the others, held them up before me.

“ ‘Look!’ he cried. ‘Do you see? Here are five letters, torn across in two places. The Russian did not stop to read them, for, as you see, he has left them still sealed. I have been wrong. He did not return for the letters. He could not have known their value. He must have returned for some other reason, and, as he was leaving, saw the letter-box, and taking out the letters, held them together— so— and tore them twice across, and then, as the fire had gone out, tossed them into this basket. Look!’ he cried, ‘here in the upper corner of this piece is a Russian stamp. This is his own letter— unopened!’

“We examined the Russian stamp and found it had been cancelled in St. Petersburg four days ago. The back of the envelope bore the postmark of the branch station in upper Sloane Street, and was dated this morning. The envelope was of official blue paper and we had no difficulty in finding the two other parts of it. We drew the torn pieces of the letter from them and joined them together side by side. There were but two lines of writing, and this was the message: ‘I leave Petersburg on the night train, and I shall see you at Trevor Terrace after dinner Monday evening.’

“ ‘That was last night!’ Lyle cried. ‘He arrived twelve hours ahead of his letter— but it came in time— it came in time to hang him!’”

The Baronet struck the table with his hand.

“The name!” he demanded. “How was it signed? What was the man’s name!”

The young Solicitor rose to his feet and, leaning forward, stretched out his arm. “There was no name,” he cried. “The letter was signed with only two initials. But engraved at the top of the sheet was the man’s address. That address was ‘THE AMERICAN EMBASSY, ST. PETERSBURG, BUREAU OF THE NAVAL ATTACHÉ,’ and the initials,” he shouted, his voice rising into an exultant and bitter cry, “were those of the gentleman who sits opposite who told us that he was the first to find the murdered bodies, the Naval Attaché to Russia, Lieutenant Sears!”

A strained and awful hush followed the Solicitor’s words, which seemed to vibrate like a twanging bowstring that had just hurled its bolt. Sir Andrew, pale and staring, drew away with an exclamation of repulsion. His eyes were fastened upon the Naval Attaché with fascinated horror. But the American emitted a sigh of great content, and sank comfortably into the arms of his chair. He clapped his hands softly together.

“Capital!” he murmured. “I give you my word I never guessed what you were driving at. You fooled me, I’ll be hanged if you didn’t— you certainly fooled me.”

The man with the pearl stud leaned forward with a nervous gesture. “Hush! be careful!” he whispered. But at that instant, for the third time, a servant, hastening through the room, handed him a piece of paper which he scanned eagerly. The message on the paper read, “The light over the Commons is out. The House has risen.”

The man with the black pearl gave a mighty shout, and tossed the paper from him upon the table.

“Hurrah!” he cried. “The House is up! We’ve won!” He caught up his glass, and slapped the Naval Attaché violently upon the shoulder. He nodded joyously at him, at the Solicitor, and at the Queen’s Messenger. “Gentlemen, to you!” he cried; “my thanks and my congratulations!” He drank deep from the glass, and breathed forth a long sigh of satisfaction and relief.

“But I say,” protested the Queen’s Messenger, shaking his finger violently at the Solicitor, “that story won’t do. You didn’t play fair— and— and you talked so fast I couldn’t make out what it was all about. I’ll bet you that evidence wouldn’t hold in a court of law— you couldn’t hang a cat on such evidence. Your story is condemned tommy-rot. Now my story might have happened, my story bore the mark— ”

In the joy of creation the story-tellers had forgotten their audience, until a sudden exclamation from Sir Andrew caused them to turn guiltily toward him. His face was knit with lines of anger, doubt, and amazement.

“What does this mean!” he cried. “Is this a jest, or are you mad? If you know this man is a murderer, why is he at large? Is this a game you have been playing? Explain yourselves at once. What does it mean?”

The American, with first a glance at the others, rose and bowed courteously.

“I am not a murderer, Sir Andrew, believe me,” he said; “you need not be alarmed. As a matter of fact, at this moment I am much more afraid of you than you could possibly be of me. I beg you please to be indulgent. I assure you, we meant no disrespect. We have been matching stories, that is all, pretending that we are people we are not, endeavouring to entertain you with better detective tales than, for instance, the last one you read, ‘The Great Rand Robbery.’”

The Baronet brushed his hand nervously across his forehead.

“Do you mean to tell me,” he exclaimed, “that none of this has happened? That Lord Chetney is not dead, that his Solicitor did not find a letter of yours written from your post in Petersburg, and that just now, when he charged you with murder, he was in jest?”

“I am really very sorry,” said the American, “but you see, sir, he could not have found a letter written by me in St. Petersburg because I have never been in Petersburg. Until this week, I have never been outside of my own country. I am not a naval officer. I am a writer of short stories. And tonight, when this gentleman told me that you were fond of detective stories, I thought it would be amusing to tell you one of my own— one I had just mapped out this afternoon.”

“But Lord Chetney is a real person,” interrupted the Baronet, “and he did go to Africa two years ago, and he was supposed to have died there, and his brother, Lord Arthur, has been the heir. And yesterday Chetney did return. I read it in the papers.”

“So did I,” assented the American soothingly; “and it struck me as being a very good plot for a story. I mean his unexpected return from the dead, and the probable disappointment of the younger brother. So I decided that the younger brother had better murder the older one. The Princess Zichy I invented out of a clear sky. The fog I did not have to invent. Since last night I know all that there is to know about a London fog. I was lost in one for three hours.”

The Baronet turned grimly upon the Queen’s Messenger.

“But this gentleman,” he protested, “he is not a writer of short stories; he is a member of the Foreign Office. I have often seen him in Whitehall, and, according to him, the Princess Zichy is not an invention. He says she is very well known, that she tried to rob him.”

The servant of the Foreign Office looked unhappily at the Cabinet Minister, and puffed nervously on his cigar.

“It’s true, Sir Andrew, that I am a Queen’s Messenger,” he said appealingly, “and a Russian woman once did try to rob a Queen’s Messenger in a railway carriage— only it did not happen to me, but to a pal of mine. The only Russian princess I ever knew called herself Zabrisky. You may have seen her. She used to do a dive from the roof of the Aquarium.”

Sir Andrew, with a snort of indignation, fronted the young Solicitor.

“And I suppose yours was a cock-and-bull story, too,” he said. “Of course, it must have been, since Lord Chetney is not dead. But don’t tell me,” he protested, “that you are not Chudleigh’s son either.”

“I’m sorry,” said the youngest member, smiling in some embarrassment, “but my name is not Chudleigh. I assure you, though, that I know the family very well, and that I am on very good terms with them.”

“You should be!” exclaimed the Baronet; “and, judging from the liberties you take with the Chetneys, you had better be on very good terms with them, too.”

The young man leaned back and glanced toward the servants at the far end of the room.

“It has been so long since I have been in the Club,” he said, “that I doubt if even the waiters remember me. Perhaps Joseph may,” he added. “Joseph!” he called, and at the word a servant stepped briskly forward.

The young man pointed to the stuffed head of a great lion which was suspended above the fireplace.

“Joseph,” he said, “I want you to tell these gentlemen who shot that lion. Who presented it to the Grill?”

Joseph, unused to acting as master of ceremonies to members of the Club, shifted nervously from one foot to the other.

“Why, you— you did,” he stammered.

“Of course I did!” exclaimed the young man. “I mean, what is the name of the man who shot it! Tell the gentlemen who I am. They wouldn’t believe me.”

“Who you are, my lord?” said Joseph. “You are Lord Edam’s son, the Earl of Chetney.”

“You must admit,” said Lord Chetney, when the noise had died away, “that I couldn’t remain dead while my little brother was accused of murder. I had to do something. Family pride demanded it. Now, Arthur, as the younger brother, can’t afford to be squeamish, but personally I should hate to have a brother of mine hanged for murder.”

“You certainly showed no scruples against hanging me,” said the American, “but in the face of your evidence I admit my guilt, and I sentence myself to pay the full penalty of the law as we are made to pay it in my own country. The order of this court is,” he announced, “that Joseph shall bring me a wine-card, and that I sign it for five bottles of the Club’s best champagne.”

“Oh, no!” protested the man with the pearl stud, “it is not for you to sign it. In my opinion it is Sir Andrew who should pay the costs. It is time you knew,” he said, turning to that gentleman, “that unconsciously you have been the victim of what I may call a patriotic conspiracy. These stories have had a more serious purpose than merely to amuse. They have been told with the worthy object of detaining you from the House of Commons. I must explain to you, that all through this evening I have had a servant waiting in Trafalgar Square with instructions to bring me word as soon as the light over the House of Commons had ceased to burn. The light is now out, and the object for which we plotted is attained.”

The Baronet glanced keenly at the man with the black pearl, and then quickly at his watch. The smile disappeared from his lips, and his face was set in stern and forbidding lines.

“And may I know,” he asked icily, “what was the object of your plot!”

“A most worthy one,” the other retorted. “Our object was to keep you from advocating the expenditure of many millions of the people’s money upon more battleships. In a word, we have been working together to prevent you from passing the Navy Increase Bill.”

Sir Andrew’s face bloomed with brilliant colour. His body shook with suppressed emotion.

“My dear sir!” he cried, “you should spend more time at the House and less at your Club. The Navy Bill was brought up on its third reading at eight o’clock this evening. I spoke for three hours in its favour. My only reason for wishing to return again to the House to-night was to sup on the terrace with my old friend, Admiral Simons; for my work at the House was completed five hours ago, when the Navy Increase Bill was passed by an overwhelming majority.”

The Baronet rose and bowed. “I have to thank you, sir,” he said, “for a most interesting evening.”

The American shoved the wine-card which Joseph had given him toward the gentleman with the black pearl.

“You sign it,” he said.

_________________________

10: The Sapient Monkey

Headon Hill

1857-1924

The Million, 22 October 1892

A Sebastion Zambra Case

I WOULD advise every person whose duties take him into the field of 'private enquiry' to go steadily through the daily papers the first thing every morning. Personally I have found the practice most useful, for there are not many causes celebres in which my services are not enlisted on one side or the other, and by this method I am always up to my main facts before I am summoned to assist. When I read the account of the proceedings at Bow Street against Franklin Gale in connection with the Tudways' bank robbery, I remember thinking that on the face of it there never was a clearer case against a misguided young man.

Condensed for the sake of brevity, the police-court report disclosed the following state of things:

Franklin Gale, clerk, aged twenty-three, in the employment of Messrs Tudways, the well-known private bankers of the Strand, was brought up on a warrant charged with stealing the sum of £500― being the moneys of his employers. Mr James Spruce, assistant cashier at the bank, gave evidence to the effect that he missed the money from his till on the afternoon of July 22. On making up his cash for the day he discovered that he was short of £300 worth of notes and £200 in gold. He had no idea how the amount had been abstracted. The prisoner was an assistant bookkeeper at the bank, and had access behind the counter. Detective-sergeant Simmons said that the case had been placed in his hands for the purpose of tracing the stolen notes. He had ascertained that one of them – of the value of £5― had been paid to Messrs Crosthwaite & Co., tailors, of New Bond Street, on July 27th, by Franklin Gale. As a result, he had applied for a warrant, and had arrested the prisoner. The latter was remanded for a week, at the end of which period it was expected that further evidence would be forthcoming.

I had hardly finished reading the report when a telegram was put into my hands demanding my immediate presence at 'Rosemount', Twickenham. From the address given, and from the name of 'Gale' appended to the despatch, I concluded that the affair at Tudways' Bank was the cause of the summons. I had little doubt that I was to be retained in the interests of the prisoner, and my surmise proved correct.

'Rosemount' was by no means the usual kind of abode from which the ordinary run of bank clerks come gaily trooping into the great City in shoals by the early trains. There was nothing of cheap gentility about the 'pleasant suburban residence standing in its own grounds of an acre', as the house-agent would say – with its lawns sloping down to the river, shaded by mulberry and chestnut trees, and plentifully garnished with the noble flower which gave it half its name. 'Rosemount' was assuredly the home either of some prosperous merchant or of a private gentleman, and when I crossed its threshold I did so quite prepared for the fuller enlightenment which was to follow. Mr Franklin Gale was evidently not one of the struggling genus bank clerk, but must be the son of well-to-do people, and not yet flown from the parent nest. When I left my office I had thought that I was bound on a forlorn hope, but at the sight of 'Rosemount'― my first real 'touch' of the case― my spirits revived. Why should a young man living amid such signs of wealth want to rob his employers? Of course I recognized that the youth of the prisoner precluded the probability of the place being his own. Had he been older, I should have reversed the argument. 'Rosemount' in the actual occupation of a middle-aged bank clerk would have been prima-facie evidence of a tendency to outrun the constable.

I was shown into a well-appointed library, where I was received by a tall, silver-haired old gentleman of ruddy complexion, who had apparently been pacing the floor in a state of agitation. His warm greeting towards me― a perfect stranger― had the air of one who clutches at a straw.

'I have sent for you to prove my son's innocence, Mr Zambra,' he said. 'Franklin no more stole that money than I did. In the first place, he didn't want it; and, secondly, if he had been ever so pushed for cash, he would rather have cut off his right hand than put it into his employer's till. Besides, if these thick-headed policemen were bound to lock one of us up, it ought to have been me. The five-pound note with which Franklin paid his tailor was one― so he assures me, and I believe him― which I gave him myself.'

'Perhaps you would give me the facts in detail?' I replied.

'As to the robbery, both my son and I are as much in the dark as old Tudway himself,' Mr Gale proceeded. 'Franklin tells me that Spruce, the cashier, is accredited to be a most careful man, and the very last to leave his till to take care of itself. The facts that came out in evidence are perfectly true. Franklin's desk is close to the counter, and the note identified as one of the missing ones was certainly paid by him to Crosthwaite & Co., of New Bond Street, a few days after the robbery. It bears his endorsement, so there can be no doubt about that.

'So much for their side of the case. Ours is, I must confess, from a legal point of view, much weaker, and lies in my son's assertion of innocence, coupled with the knowledge of myself and his mother and his sisters that he is incapable of such a crime. Franklin insists that the note he paid to Crosthwaite & Co., the tailors, was one that I gave him on the morning of the 22nd. I remember perfectly well giving him a five-pound note at breakfast on that day, just before he left for town, so that he must have had it several hours before the robbery was committed. Franklin says that he had no other banknotes between the 22nd and 27th, and that he cannot, therefore, be mistaken. The note which I gave him I got fresh from my own bankers a day or two before, together with some others; and here is the most unfortunate point in the case. The solicitor whom I have engaged to defend Franklin has made the necessary enquiries at my bankers, and finds that the note paid to the tailors is not one of those which I drew from the bank.'

'Did not your son take notice of the number of the note you gave him?' I asked.

'Unfortunately, no. He is too much worried about the numbers of notes at his business, he says, to note those which are his own property. He simply sticks to it that he knows it must be the same note because he had no other.'

In the slang of the day, Mr Franklin Gale's story seemed a little too thin. There was the evidence of Tudways that the note paid to the tailor was one of those stolen from them, and there was the evidence of Mr Gale, senior's, bankers that it was not one of those handed to their client. What was the use of the prisoner protesting in the face of this that he had paid his tailor with his father's present? The notes stolen from Tudways were, I remembered reading, consecutive ones of a series, so that the possibility of young Gale having at the bank changed his father's gift for another note, which was subsequently stolen, was knocked on the head. Besides, he maintained that it was the same note.

'I should like to know something of your son's circumstances and position,' I said, trying to divest the question of any air of suspicion it might have implied.

'I am glad you asked me that,' returned Mr Gale, 'for it touches the very essence of the whole case. My son's circumstances and position are such that were he the most unprincipled scoundrel in creation he would have been nothing less than an idiot to have done this thing. Franklin is not on the footing of an ordinary bank clerk, Mr Zambra. I am a rich man, and can afford to give him anything in reason, though he is too good a lad ever to have taken advantage of me. Tudway is an old friend of mine, and I got him to take Franklin into the bank with a view to a partnership. Everything was going on swimmingly towards that end: the boy had perfected himself in his duties, and made himself valuable; I was prepared to invest a certain amount of capital on his behalf; and, lastly, Tudway, who lives next door to me here, got so fond of him that he allowed Franklin to become engaged to his daughter Maud. Would any young man in his senses go and steal a paltry £500 under such circumstances as that?'

I thought not, but I did not say so yet.

'What are Mr Tudway's views about the robbery?' I asked.

'Tudway is an old fool,' replied Mr Gale. 'He believes what the police tell him, and the police tell him that Franklin is guilty. I have no patience with him. I ordered him out of this house last night. He had the audacity to come and offer not to press the charge if the boy would confess.'

'And Miss Tudway?'

'Ah! she's a brick. Maud sticks to him like a true woman. But what is the use of our sticking to him against such evidence?' broke down poor Mr Gale, impotently. 'Can you, Mr Zambra, give us a crumb of hope?'

Before I could reply there was a knock at the library door, and a tall, graceful girl entered the room. Her face bore traces of weeping, and she looked anxious and dejected; but I could see that she was naturally quick and intelligent.

'I have just run over to see if there is any fresh news this morning,' she said, with an enquiring glance at me.

'This is Mr Zambra, my dear, come to help us,' said Mr Gale; 'and this,' he continued, turning to me, 'is Miss Maud Tudway. We are all enlisted in the same cause.'

'You will be able to prove Mr Franklin Gale's innocence, sir?' she exclaimed.

'I hope so,' I said; 'and the best way to do it will be to trace the robbery to its real author. Has Mr Franklin any suspicions on that head?'

'He is as much puzzled as we are,' said Miss Tudway. 'I went with Mr Gale here to see him in that horrible place yesterday, and he said there was absolutely no one in the bank he cared to suspect. But he must get off the next time he appears. My evidence ought to do that. I saw with my own eyes that he had only one £5 note in his purse on the 25th― that is two days before he paid the tailor, and three days after the robbery.'

'I am afraid that won't help us much,' I said. 'You see, he might easily have had the missing notes elsewhere. But tell me, under what circumstances did you see the £5 note?'

'There was a garden party at our house,' replied Miss Tudway, 'and Franklin was there. During the afternoon a man came to the gate with an accordion and a performing monkey, and asked permission to show the monkey's tricks. We had the man in, and after the monkey had done a lot of clever things the man said that the animal could tell a good banknote from a "flash" one. He was provided with spurious notes for the purpose; would any gentlemen lend him a good note for a minute, just to show the trick? The man was quite close to Franklin, who was sitting next to me. Franklin, seeing the man's hand held out towards him, took out his purse and handed him a note, at the same time calling my attention to the fact that it was his only one, and laughingly saying that he hoped the man was honest. The sham note and the good one were placed before the monkey, who at once tore up the bad note and handed the good one back to Franklin.'

'This is more important than it seems,' I said, after a moment's review of the whole case. 'I must find that man with the monkey, but it bids fair to be difficult. There are so many of them in that line of business.'

Miss Tudway smiled for the first time during the interview.

'It is possible that I may be of use to you there,' she said. 'I go in for amateur photography, and I thought that the man and his monkey made so good a "subject" that I insisted on taking him before he left. Shall I fetch the photograph?'

'By all means,' I said. 'Photography is of the greatest use to me in my work. I generally arrange it myself; but if you have chanced to take the right picture for me in this case so much the better.'

Miss Tudway hurried across to her father's house and quickly returned with the photograph. It was a fair effort for an amateur, and portrayed an individual of the usual seedy stamp, equipped with a huge accordion and a small monkey secured by a string. With this in my hand it would only be a matter of time before I found the itinerant juggler who had presented himself at the Tudways' garden party, and I took my leave of old Mr Gale and Miss Maud in a much more hopeful frame of mind. Every circumstance outside the terrible array of actual evidence pointed to my client's innocence, and if this evidence had been manufactured for the purpose, I felt certain that the 'monkey man' had had a hand in it.

On arriving at my office I summoned one of my assistants― a veteran of doubtful antecedents― who owns to no other name than 'Old Jemmy'. Old Jemmy's particular line of business is a thorough knowledge of the slums and the folk who dwell there; and I knew that after an hour or two on Saffron Hill my ferret, armed with the photograph, would bring me the information I wanted. Towards evening Old Jemmy came in with his report, to the effect that the 'party' I was after was to be found in the top attic of Little Didman's Fields, Hatton Garden, just recovering from the effects of a prolonged spree.

'He's been drunk for three or four days, the landlord told me,' Old Jemmy said. 'Had a stroke of luck, it seems, but he is expected to go on tramp tomorrow, now his coin has given out. His name is Pietro Schilizzi.'

I knew I was on the right scent now, and that the 'monkey man' had been made the instrument of changing the note which Franklin Gale had lent him for one of the stolen ones. A quick cab took me to Little Didman's Fields in a quarter of an hour, and I was soon standing inside the doorway of a pestilential apartment on the top floor of No. 7, which had been pointed out to me as the abode of Pietro Schilizzi. A succession of snores from a heap of rags in a corner told me the whereabouts of the occupier. I went over, and shaking him roughly by the shoulder, said in Italian:

'Pietro, I want you to tell me about that little juggle with a banknote at Twickenham the other day. You will be well rewarded.' The fellow rubbed his eyes in half-drunken astonishment, but there certainly was no guilty fear about him as he replied: 'Certainly, signor; anything for money. There was nothing wrong about the note, was there? Anyhow, I acted innocently in the matter.'

'No one finds fault with you,' I said; 'but see, here is a five-pound note. It shall be yours if you will tell me exactly what happened.'

'I was with my monkey up at Highgate the other evening,' Mr Schilizzi began, 'and was showing Jacko's trick of telling a good note from a bad one. It was a small house in the Napier Road. After I had finished, the gentleman took me into a public house and stood me a drink. He wanted me to do something for him, he said. He had a young friend who was careless, and never took the number of notes, and he wanted to teach him a lesson. He had a bet about the number of a note, he said. Would I go down to Twickenham next day to a house he described, where there was to be a party, and do my trick with the monkey? I was to borrow a note from the young gentleman, and then, instead of giving him back his own note after the performance, I was to substitute one which the Highgate gentleman gave me for the purpose. He met me at Twickenham next day, and came behind the garden wall to point out the young gentleman to me. I managed it just as the Highgate gentleman wanted, and he gave me a couple of pounds for my pains. I have done no wrong; the note I gave back was a good one.'

'Yes,' I said, 'but it happens to have been stolen. Put on your hat and show me where this man lives in Highgate.'

The Napier Road was a shabby street of dingy houses, with a public house at the corner. Pietro stopped about half-way down the row and pointed out No. 21. 'That is where the gentleman lives,' he said. We retraced our steps to the corner public house. 'Can you tell me who lives at No 21?' I asked of the landlord, who happened to be in the bar.

'Certainly,' was the answer; 'it is Mr James Spruce― a good customer of mine, and the best billiard player hereabouts. He is a cashier at Messrs Tudways' bank, in the Strand, I believe.'

It all came out at the trial― not of Franklin Gale, but of James Spruce, the fraudulent cashier. Spruce had himself abstracted the notes and gold entrusted to him, and his guilty conscience telling him that he might be suspected, he had cast about for a means of throwing suspicion on some other person. Chancing to witness the performance of Pietro's monkey, he had grasped the opportunity for foisting one of the stolen notes on Franklin Gale, knowing that sooner or later it would be traced to him. The other notes he had intended to hold over till it was safe to send them out of the country; but the gold was the principal object of his theft.

Mr Tudway, the banker, was, I hear, so cut up about the false accusation that he had made against his favourite that he insisted on Franklin joining him as a partner at once, and the marriage is to take place before very long. I am also told that the photograph of the 'monkey man', handsomely enlarged and mounted, will form one of the mural decorations of the young couple.

___________________

11: Cheating the Gallows

Israel Zangwill

1864-1926

The Idler, February 1893

THEY SAY that a union of opposites makes the happiest marriage, and perhaps it is on the same principle that men who chum are always so oddly assorted. You shall find a man of letters sharing diggings with an auctioneer and a medical student pigging with a stockbroker's clerk. Perhaps each thus escapes the temptation to talk "shop" in his hours of leisure while he supplements his own experiences of life by his companion's.

There could not be an odder couple than Tom Peters and Everard G. Roxdal— the contrast began with their names, and ran through the entire chapter. They had a bedroom and a sitting-room in common, but it would not be easy to find what else. To his landlady, worthy Mrs. Seacon, Tom Peters' profession was a little vague, but everybody knew that Roxdal was the manager of the City and Suburban Bank, and it puzzled her to think why a bank manager should live with such a seedy-looking person, who smoked clay pipes and sipped whiskey and water all the evening when he was at home. For Roxdal was as spruce and erect as his fellow-lodger was round-shouldered and shabby; he never smoked and he confined himself to a small glass of claret at dinner.

It is possible to live with a man and see very little of him. Where each of the partners lives his own life in his own way, with his own circle of friends and external amusements, days may go by without the men having five minutes together. Perhaps this explains why these partnerships jog along so much more peaceably than marriages, where the chain is drawn so much tighter, and galls the partners rather than links them. Diverse, however, as were the hours and habits of the chums, they often breakfasted together, and they agreed in one thing— they never stayed out at night. For the rest Peters sought his diversions in the company of journalists and frequented debating rooms, where he propounded the most iconoclastic views; while Roxdal had highly respectable houses open to him in the suburbs and was, in fact, engaged to be married to Clara Newell, the charming daughter of a retired corn merchant, a widower with no other child.

Clara naturally took up a good deal of Roxdal's time, and he often dressed to go to the play with her, while Peters stayed at home in a faded dressing-gown and loose slippers. Mrs. Seacon liked to see gentlemen about the house in evening dress, and made comparisons not favourable to Peters. And this in spite of the fact that he gave her infinitely less trouble than the younger man.

It was Peters who first took the apartments, and it was characteristic of his easy-going temperament that he was so openly and naively delighted with the view of the Thames obtainable from the bedroom window that Mrs. Seacon was emboldened to ask twenty-five per cent more than she had intended. She soon returned to her normal terms, however, when his friend Roxdal called the next day to inspect the rooms and overwhelmed her with a demonstration of their numerous shortcomings. He pointed out that their being on the ground floor was not an advantage, but a disadvantage, since they were nearer the noises of the street— in fact, the house being a corner one, the noises of two streets.

Roxdal continued to exhibit the same finicking temperament in the petty details of the ménage. His shirt fronts were never sufficiently starched, nor his boots sufficiently polished. Tom Peters, having no regard for rigid linen, was always good-tempered and satisfied, and never acquired the respect of his landlady. He wore blue check shirts and loose ties even on Sundays. It is true he did not go to church, but slept on till Roxdal returned from morning service, and even then it was difficult to get him out of bed, or to make him hurry up his toilette operations. Often the mid-day meal would be smoking on the table while Peters would smoke in the bed, and Roxdal, with his head thrust through the folding doors that separated the bedroom from the sitting-room, would be adjuring the sluggard to arise and shake off his slumbers and threatening to sit down without him, lest the dinner be spoilt. In revenge, Tom was usually up first on week-days, sometimes at such un-earthly hours that Polly had not yet removed the boots from outside the bedroom door, and would bawl down to the kitchen for his shaving water. For Tom, lazy and indolent as he was, shaved with the unfailing regularity of a man to whom shaving has become an instinct. If he had not kept fairly regular hours, Mrs. Seacon would have set him down as an actor, so clean-shaven was he. Roxdal did not shave. He wore a full beard and, being a fine figure of a man to boot, no uneasy investor could look upon him without being re-assured as to the stability of the bank he managed so successfully. And thus the two men lived in an economical comradeship, all the firmer, perhaps, for their mutual incongruities.

IT WAS on a Sunday afternoon in the middle of October, ten days after Roxdal had settled in his new rooms, that Clara Newell paid her first visit to him there. She enjoyed a good deal of liberty, and did not mind accepting his invitation to tea. The corn merchant, himself indifferently educated, had an exaggerated sense of the value of culture, and so Clara, who had artistic tastes without much actual talent, had gone in for painting and might be seen, in pretty toilettes, copying pictures in the Museum. At one time it looked as if she might be reduced to working seriously at her art, for Satan, who finds mischief still for idle hands to do, had persuaded her father to embark the fruits of years of toil in bubble companies. However, things turned out not so bad as they might have been, a little was saved from the wreck, and the appearance of a suitor, in the person of Everard G. Roxdal, ensured her a future of competence, if not of the luxury she had been entitled to expect. She had a good deal of affection for Everard, who was unmistakably a clever man, as well as a good-looking one. The prospect seemed fair and cloudless. Nothing presaged the terrible storm that was about to break over these two lives. Nothing had ever for a moment come to vex their mutual contentment till this Sunday afternoon. The October sky, blue and sunny, with an Indian summer sultriness, seemed an exact image of her life, with its aftermath of a happiness that had once seemed blighted.

Everard had always been so attentive, so solicitous, that she was as much surprised as chagrined to find that he had apparently forgotten the appointment. Hearing her astonished interrogation of Polly in the passage, Tom shambled from the sitting-room in his loose slippers and his blue check shirt, with his eternal clay pipe in his mouth, and informed her that Roxdal had gone out suddenly earlier in the afternoon.

"G-g-one out," stammered poor Clara; all confused. "But he asked me to come to tea."

"Oh, you're Miss Newell, I suppose," said Tom.

"Yes, I am Miss Newell."

"He has told me a great deal about you, but I wasn't able honestly to congratulate him on his choice till now."

Clara blushed uneasily under the compliment, and under the ardour of his admiring gaze. Instinctively she distrusted the man. The very first tones of his deep bass voice gave her a peculiar shudder. And then his impoliteness in smoking that vile clay was so gratuitous.

"Oh, then you must be Mr. Peters," she said in return. "He has often spoken to me of you."

"Ah!" said Tom, laughingly, "I suppose he's told you all my vices. That accounts for your not being surprised at my Sunday attire."

She smiled a little, showing a row of pearly teeth. "Everard ascribes to you all the virtues," she said.

"Now that's what I call a friend!" he cried, ecstatically. "But won't you come in? He must be back in a moment. He surely would not break an appointment with you." The admiration latent in the accentuation of the last pronoun was almost offensive.

She shook her head. She had a just grievance against Everard, and would punish him by going away indignantly.

"Do let me give you a cup of tea," Tom pleaded. "You must be awfully thirsty this sultry weather. There! I will make a bargain with you! If you will come in now, I promise to clear out the moment Everard returns and not spoil your tête-à-tête." But Clara was obstinate; she did not at all relish this man's society, and besides, she was not going to throw away her grievance against Everard. "I know Everard will slang me dreadfully when he comes in if I let you go," Tom urged. "Tell me at least where he can find you."

"I am going to take the 'bus at Charing Cross, and I'm going straight home," Clara announced determinedly. She put up her parasol in a pet, and went up the street into the Strand. A cold shadow seemed to have fallen over all things. But just as she was getting into the 'bus, a hansom dashed down Trafalgar Square, and a well-known voice hailed her. The hansom stopped, and Everard got out and held out his hand.

"I'm so glad you're a bit late," he said. "I was called out unexpectedly, and have been trying to rush back in time. You wouldn't have found me if you had been punctual. But I thought," he added, laughing, "I could rely on you as a woman."

"I was punctual," Clara said angrily. "I was not getting out of this 'bus, as you seem to imagine, but into it, and was going home."

"My darling!" he cried remorsefully. "A thousand apologies." The regret on his handsome face soothed her. He took the rose he was wearing in the button-hole of his fashionably-cut coat and gave it to her.

"Why were you so cruel?" he murmured, as she nestled against him in the hansom. "Think of my despair if I had come home to hear you had come and gone. Why didn't you wait a moment?"

A shudder traversed her frame. "Not with that man, Peters!" she murmured.

"Not with that man, Peters!" he echoed sharply. "What is the matter with Peters?"

"I don't know," she said. "I don't like him."

"Clara," he said, half-sternly, half-cajolingly, "I thought you were above these feminine weaknesses; you are punctual, strive also to be reasonable. Tom is my best friend. From boyhood we have been always together. There is nothing Tom would not do for me, or I for Tom. You must like him, Clara; you must, if only for my sake."

"I'll try," Clara promised, and then he kissed her in gratitude and broad daylight.

"You'll be very nice to him at tea, won't you?" he said anxiously. "I shouldn't like you two to be bad friends."

"I don't want to be bad friends," Clara protested; "only the moment I saw him a strange repulsion and mistrust came over me."

"You are quite wrong about him— quite wrong," he assured her earnestly. "When you know him better, you'll find him the best of fellows. Oh, I know," he said suddenly, "I suppose he was very untidy, and you women go so much by appearances!"

"Not at all," Clara retorted. "'Tis you men who go by appearances."

"Yes, you do. That's why you care for me," he said, smiling.

She assured him it wasn't, and she didn't care for him so much as he plumed himself, but he smiled on. His smile died away, however, when he entered his rooms and found Tom nowhere.

"I daresay you've made him run about hunting for me," he grumbled.

"Perhaps he knew I'd come back, and went away to leave us together," she answered. "He said he would when you came."

"And yet you say you don't like him!"

She smiled reassuringly. Inwardly, however, she felt pleased at the man's absence.

IF CLARA NEWELL could have seen Tom Peters carrying on with Polly in the passage, she might have felt justified in her prejudice against him. It must be confessed, though, that Everard also carried on with Polly. Alas! It is to be feared that men are much of a muchness where women are concerned; shabby men and smart men, bank managers and journalists, bachelors and semi-detached bachelors. Perhaps it was a mistake after all to say the chums had nothing patently in common. Everard, I am afraid, kissed Polly rather more often than Clara, and although it was because he respected her less, the reason would perhaps not have been sufficiently consoling to his affianced wife. For Polly was pretty, especially on alternate Sunday afternoons, and when at ten PM she returned from her outings, she was generally met in the passage by one or other of the men. Polly liked to receive the homage of real gentlemen, and set her white cap at all indifferently. Thus, just before Clara knocked on that memorable Sunday afternoon, Polly, being confined to the house by the unwritten code regulating the lives of servants, was amusing herself by flirting with Peters.

"You are fond of me a little bit," the graceless Tom whispered, "aren't you?"

"You know I am, sir," Polly replied.

"You don't care for anyone else in the house?"

"Oh no, sir, and never let anyone kiss me but you. I wonder how it is, sir?" Polly replied ingenuously.

"Give me another," Tom answered.

She gave him another, and tripped to the door to answer Clara's knock.

And that very evening, when Clara was gone and Tom still out, Polly turned without the faintest atom of scrupulosity, or even jealousy, to the more fascinating Roxdal, and accepted his amorous advances. If it would seem at first sight that Everard had less excuse for such frivolity than his friend, perhaps the seriousness he showed in this interview may throw a different light upon the complex character of the man.

"You're quite sure you don't care for anyone but me?" he asked earnestly.

"Of course not, sir!" Polly replied indignantly. "How could I?"

"But you care for that soldier I saw you out with last Sunday?"

"Oh no, sir, he's only my young man," she said apologetically.

"Would you give him up?" he hissed suddenly.

Polly's pretty face took a look of terror. "I couldn't, sir! He'd kill me. He's such a jealous brute, you've no idea."

"Yes, but suppose I took you away from here?" he whispered eagerly. "Somewhere where he couldn't find you— South America, Africa, somewhere thousands of miles across the seas."

"Oh, sir, you frighten me!" whispered Polly, cowering before his ardent eyes, which shone in the dimly-lit passage.

"Would you come with me?" he hissed. She did not answer; she shook herself free and ran into the kitchen, trembling with a vague fear.

ONE MORNING, earlier than his earliest hour of demanding his shaving water, Tom rang the bell violently and asked the alarmed Polly what had become of Mr. Roxdal.

"How should I know, sir?" she gasped. "Ain't he been in, sir?"

"Apparently not," Tom answered anxiously. "He never remains out. We have been here three weeks now, and I can't recall a single night he hasn't been home before twelve. I can't make it out." All enquiries proved futile.

Mrs. Seacon reminded him of the thick fog that had come on suddenly the night before.

"What fog?" asked Tom.

"Lord! Didn't you notice it, sir?"

"No, I came in early, smoked, read, and went to bed about eleven. I never thought of looking out of the window."

"It began about ten," said Mrs. Seacon, "and got thicker and thicker. I couldn't see the lights of the river from my bedroom. The poor gentleman has been and gone and walked into the water." She began to whimper.

"Nonsense, nonsense," said Tom, though his expression belied his words. "At the worst I should think he couldn't find his way home, and couldn't get a cab, so put up for the night at some hotel. I daresay it will be all right." He began to whistle as if in restored cheerfulness. At eight o'clock there came a letter for Roxdal, marked immediate, but as he did not turn up for breakfast, Tom went round personally to the City and Suburban Bank. He waited half-an-hour there, but the manager did not make his appearance. Then he left the letter with the cashier and went away with anxious countenance.

That afternoon it was all over London that the manager of the City and Suburban had disappeared, and that many thousand pounds of gold and notes had disappeared with him.

Scotland Yard opened the letter marked immediate, and noted that there had been a delay in its delivery, for the address had been obscure, and an official alteration had been made. It was written in a feminine hand and said: "On second thoughts I cannot accompany you. Do not try to see me again. Forget me. I shall never forget you." There was no signature.

Clara Newell, distracted, disclaimed all knowledge of this letter. Polly deposed that the fugitive had proposed flight to her, and the routes to Africa and South America were especially watched. Some months passed without result. Tom Peters went about overwhelmed with grief and astonishment. The police took possession of all the missing man's effects. Gradually the hue and cry dwindled, died.

"AT LAST we meet!" cried Tom Peters, while his face lit up in joy. "How are you, dear Miss Newell?" Clara greeted him coldly. Her face had an abiding pallor now. Her lover's flight and shame had prostrated her for weeks. Her soul was the arena of contending instincts. Alone of all the world she still believed in Everard's innocence, felt that there was something more than met the eye, divined some devilish mystery behind it all.

And yet that damning letter from the anonymous lady shook her sadly. Then, too, there was the deposition of Polly. When she heard Peters' voice accosting her all her old repugnance resurged. It flashed upon her that this man— Roxdal's boon companion— must know far more than he had told to the police. She remembered how Everard had spoken of him, with what affection and confidence! Was it likely he was utterly ignorant of Everard's movements? Mastering her repugnance, she held out her hand. It might be well to keep in touch with him; he was possibly the clue to the mystery. She noticed he was dressed a shade more trimly, and was smoking a meerschaum. He walked along at her side, making no offer to put his pipe out.

"You have not heard from Everard?" he asked. She flushed. "Do you think I'm an accessory after the fact?" she cried.

"No, no," he said soothingly. "Pardon me, I was thinking he might have written— giving no exact address, of course. Men do sometimes dare to write thus to women. But, of course, he knows you too well— you would have put the police on his track."

"Certainly," she exclaimed, indignantly. "Even if he is innocent he must face the charge."

"Do you still entertain the possibility of his innocence?"

"I do," she said boldly, and looked him full in the face. His eyelids drooped with a quiver. "Don't you?"

"I have hoped against hope," he replied, in a voice faltering with emotion. "Poor old Everard! But I am afraid there is no room for doubt. Oh, this wicked curse of money— tempting the noblest and the best of us."

The weeks rolled on. Gradually she found herself seeing more and more of Tom Peters, and gradually, strange to say, he grew less repulsive. From the talks they had together, she began to see that there was really no reason to put faith in Everard; his criminality, his faithlessness, were too flagrant. Gradually she grew ashamed of her early mistrust of Peters; remorse bred esteem, and esteem ultimately ripened into feelings so warm, that when Tom gave freer vent to the love that had been visible to Clara from the first, she did not repulse him.

It is only in books that love lives forever. Clara, so her father thought, showed herself a sensible girl in plucking out an unworthy affection and casting it from her heart. He invited the new lover to his house, and took to him at once. Roxdal's somewhat supercilious manner had always jarred upon the unsophisticated corn merchant. With Tom the old man got on much better. While evidently quite as well-informed and cultured as his whilom friend, Tom knew how to impart his superior knowledge with the accent on the knowledge rather than on the superiority, while he had the air of gaining much information in return. Those who are most conscious of defects of early education are most resentful of other people sharing their consciousness. Moreover, Tom's bonhomie was far more to the old fellow's liking than the studied politeness of his predecessor, so that on the whole Tom made more of a conquest of the father than of the daughter. Nevertheless, Clara was by no means unresponsive to Tom's affection and when, after one of his visits to the house, the old man kissed her fondly and spoke of the happy turn things had taken and how, for the second time in their lives, things had mended when they seemed at their blackest, her heart swelled with a gush of gratitude and joy and tenderness, and she fell sobbing into her father's arms.

Tom calculated that he made a clear five hundred a year by occasional journalism, besides possessing some profitable investments which he had inherited from his mother, so that there was no reason for delaying the marriage. It was fixed for May Day, and the honeymoon was to be spent in Italy.

BUT CLARA was not destined to happiness. From the moment she had promised herself to her first love's friend, old memories began to rise up and reproach her. Strange thoughts stirred in the depths of her soul, and in the silent watches of the night she seemed to hear Everard's accents, charged with grief and upbraiding. Her uneasiness increased as her wedding-day drew near. One night, after a pleasant afternoon spent in being rowed by Tom among the upper reaches of the Thames, she retired to rest full of vague forebodings. And she dreamt a terrible dream. The dripping form of Everard stood by her bedside, staring at her with ghastly eyes. Had he been drowned on the passage to his land of exile? Frozen with horror, she put the question.

"I have never left England!" the vision answered.

Her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth.

"Never left England?" she repeated, in tones which did not seem to be hers.

The wraith's stony eyes stared on, but there was silence.

"Where have you been then?" she asked in her dream.

"Very near you," came the answer.

"There has been foul play then!" she shrieked.

The phantom shook its head in doleful assent.

"I knew it!" she shrieked. "Tom Peters— Tom Peters has done away with you. Is it not he? Speak!"

"Yes, it is he— Tom Peters— whom I loved more than all the world." Even in the terrible oppression of the dream she could not resist saying, woman-like:

"Did I not warn you against him?"

The phantom stared on silently and made no reply.

"But what was his motive?" she asked at length.

"Love of gold— and you. And you are giving yourself to him," it said sternly.

"No, no, Everard! I will not! I will not! I swear it! Forgive me!" The spirit shook its head sceptically.

"You love him. Women are false— as false as men."

She strove to protest again, but her tongue refused its office.

"If you marry him, I shall always be with you! Beware!" The dripping figure vanished as suddenly as it came, and Clara awoke in a cold perspiration. Oh, it was horrible!

The man she had learnt to love, the murderer of the man she had learnt to forget! How her original prejudice had been justified! Distracted, shaken to her depths, she would not take counsel even of her father, but informed the police of her suspicions. A raid was made on Tom's rooms, and lo! The stolen notes were discovered in a huge bundle. It was found that he had several banking accounts, with a large, recently-paid amount in each bank. Tom was arrested. Attention was now concentrated on the corpses washed up by the river. It was not long before the body of Roxdal came to shore, the face distorted almost beyond recognition by long immersion, but the clothes patently his, and a pocket-book in the breast-pocket removing the last doubt.

Mrs. Seacon and Polly and Clara Newell all identified the body. Both juries returned a verdict of murder against Tom Peters, the recital of Clara's dream producing a unique impression in the court and throughout the country. The theory of the prosecution was that Roxdal had brought home the money, whether to fly alone or to divide it, or whether even for some innocent purpose, as Clara believed, was immaterial. That Peters determined to have it all, that he had gone out for a walk with the deceased, and, taking advantage of the fog, had pushed him into the river, and that he was further impelled to the crime by love for Clara Newell, as was evident from his subsequent relations with her. The judge put on the black cap. Tom Peters was duly hung by the neck till he was dead.

Brief Resume of the Culprit's Confession

WHEN YOU all read this I shall be dead and laughing at you. I have been hung for my own murder. I am Everard G. Roxdal. I am also Tom Peters. We two were one. When I was a young man my moustache and beard wouldn't come. I bought false ones to improve my appearance. One day, after I had become manager of the City and Suburban Bank, I took off my beard and moustache at home, and then the thought crossed my mind that nobody would know me without them. I was another man. Instantly it flashed upon me that if I ran away from the Bank, that other man could be left in London, while the police were scouring the world for a non-existent fugitive.

But this was only the crude germ of the idea. Slowly I matured my plan. The man who was going to be left in London must be known to a circle of acquaintance beforehand. It would be easy enough to masquerade in the evenings in my beardless condition, with other disguises of dress and voice. But this was not brilliant enough. I conceived the idea of living with him. It was Box and Cox reversed. We shared rooms at Mrs. Seacon's. It was a great strain, but it was only for a few weeks. I had trick clothes in my bedroom like those of quick-change artistes; in a moment I could pass from Roxdal to Peters and from Peters to Roxdal. Polly had to clean two pairs of boots a morning, cook two dinners, etc., etc. She and Mrs. Seacon saw one or the other of us every moment; it never dawned upon them they never saw us both together. At meals I would not be interrupted, ate off two plates, and conversed with my friend in loud tones. At other times we dined at different hours. On Sundays he was supposed to be asleep when I was in church. There is no landlady in the world to whom the idea would have occurred that one man was troubling himself to be two (and to pay for two, including washing). I worked up the idea of Roxdal's flight, asked Polly to go with me, manufactured that feminine letter that arrived on the morning of my disappearance. As Tom Peters I mixed with a journalistic set. I had another room where I kept the gold and notes till I mistakenly thought the thing had blown over.

Unfortunately, returning from here on the night of my disappearance, with Roxdal's clothes in a bundle I intended to drop into the river, it was stolen from me in the fog, and the man into whose possession it ultimately came appears to have committed suicide. What, perhaps, ruined me was my desire to keep Clara's love, and to transfer it to the survivor. Everard told her I was the best of fellows. Once married to her, I would not have had much fear. Even if she had discovered the trick, a wife cannot give evidence against her husband, and often does not want to. I made none of the usual slips, but no man can guard against a girl's nightmare after a day up the river and a supper at the Star and Garter. I might have told the judge he was an ass, but then I should have had penal servitude for bank robbery, and that is worse than death. The only thing that puzzles me, though, is whether the law has committed murder or I suicide.

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12: The Evicting of Grainger

Harold Bindloss

1866-1945

Northam Advertiser 19 April 1913

IT WAS A spring afternoon when Grainger sailed the Wyvern into a secluded Scottish bay and declared that it was just the place to paint and refit her in. She was a twenty-four-ton cutter, and he lived on board throughout  the year, partly because he liked it, and also because his income was small.

In winter he shot for the market, in summer he took anybody who would charter him round the coast; and it must he admitted that his prosperous relatives (for the man was what is called well-connected) regarded him and his doings with cold disfavour. He had with him Stainton, an artist of unconventional ideas, and paid-hand Danny, a wild Ulsterman; and in such company the former expected adventures.

Lonely brown moorland rolled down to the water, rent in one place by a deep green glen out of which a river flowed.  Its mouth was lined above high-water mark with clean white shingle, and when Grainger warped the Wyvern into it his satisfaction was only tempered by the sight of an old grey house of imposing appearance standing among the trees. He had had trouble with landed proprietors in various parts of Britain, but that fact did not deter him because, taking things all round, he had generally managed to hold his own. He laid the, boat upon the beach, carried out his moorings, and then paused to look round.

The old house was plain in view now across an acre or two of lawn, and the drive to it led out into a narrow road beside the water's edge. The gates were unusually handsome— the iron grille of chaste design; the tall and rather slender stone pillars deeply-fluted and surmounted by heraldic beasts. Stainton thought they must have cost a good deal of money.

"It's a pity that house couldn't be removed," Grainger remarked. "Still, the folks who live in it mayn't raise any unnecessary difficulties, and we'll get to work."

They carried everything out of the boat as the tide ebbed and set up an unpicturesque encampment on the shingle, making a tent of a tarpaulin, and erecting a rusty stove and a big tar-boiler in front of it. They further adorned the locality with mouldy blankets, and salt-damp clothes hung out on ropes to dry.

By the time this was finished the tide had run out, exposing banks of mire between the shingle and the river-bed, besides long oozy flats, across which several rows of stout poles and nets extended; it was evidently a salmon fishery, and, so Danny said, a remarkably well-constructed one. He sauntered inland to investigate by and bye, and came back in great content.

"Tis a grand sthream for the white trout, an' the meadows behint the glens  just leppin' wid rabbits," he began.

But Grainger checked him. "None of that," he said, severely. "I want to keep the peace as long as I'm able."

Groups of smartly-dressed people had watched the proceedings, apparently with some disfavour, from the lawn. But nothing happened until next morning, when Grainger, going for water to a neighbouring burn, met a young lady desirous of crossing it. The stepping stones were slippery there was a good deal, of water coming down, and he gallantly waded in, holding out his hand to her.

"Thank you," she said, when she was safe across. "In return, I'll give you a piece of advice. It would be wiser to take your boat away as soon as you can."

"Ah!" said Grainger, "I've been favoured with advice of the kind before; hut I haven't always taken it. May I ask you if you have any wishes on the point? Are you a daughter of the house?"

She laughed. "None whatever; I'm merely the governess. But I think you  had better do as I tell you."

"I'm sorry we can't agree," said Grainger. "This is a particularly suitable place to refit my boat in."

"Mr. Finlay is under a different impression," she said as she moved away.

Grainger turned to Stainton, who had accompanied him.

"Smart," he remarked, "and remarkably; pretty. I like the direct way she looks at me."

"Nobody could call you smart, and I don't think she'll reciprocate your favourable opinion, after that speech about her wishes," rejoined Stainton. "It struck me as gratuitous impertinence."

Grainger, who was then attired in soot-stained trousers, ragged deck-shoes, and an old jersey with splashes of tar on it, laughed.

"Anyway," he said, "I'd have cleared out if she'd asked me to."

They went up to a tiny village hidden in the glen, later on, and were sitting in a rude inn when a red-faced gentle-man of middle-age and domineering appearance walked down the street.

"I suppose that's the owner of the house with the pepper-box turrets! He looks like it," Stainton said. "Family has presumably been here for ever."

"Na," replied the Scottish innkeeper, "He bought the estate, an' runs it, as he would tell ye, on strictly commercial lines, including the saumon fishery, which was always let. Yon's his pet hobby."

"He doesn't look genial," Grainger commented.

The Scot smiled sourly. "His grieve is waur than him. Ye'll nae doot be hearing from yin o' them before lang."

They heard nothing for some hours, during which the smoke of the tar-boiler rose in a sooty cloud and drifted across the lawn and the mouldy blankets and garments flapped gaily in the breeze. Then a grim, hard-featured Scot approached the camp, which he regarded with obvious disfavour. Grainger watched him with his paint-stained hands on his hips. "Estate-steward person," he remarked. "His appearance is against him. Doesn't strike one as amiable. I've had to put up with this kind of thing before."

"Mr. Finlay desires ye to remove your boat and camp forthwith, failing which, measures will be taken to eject ye," the grieve began.

"On what grounds?" Grainger asked.

The man included the camp and its occupants with a wave of his hand.

"Ye're a nuisance, and ye spoil the view from the lawn."

"In the first place," said Grainger, "I'd 'like to point out that below high-water belongs to anybody. I'm here to paint my boat. I'm doing, no harm, and I would like to ask you as a sensible man what you think of the matter?"

"If my opinion is o' any value, I've seen gipsies who'd be mair o' a credit to a gentleman's estate," was the sour answer.

Grainger sighed. "Well, I'd sooner have discussed the thing good-humouredly, but you must tell your employer with my compliments that I'll clear out when I'm ready and not a minute before."

"Then ye'll tak' the consequences," said the grieve, as he withdrew.

Danny looked after him with a grin.

"Sure," he said, "the laird's no wise, or he whuld not be afther sending messages like that wan to Mr. Grainger an' me."

After this the work went on without, interruption. The tar-boiler diffused its pungent smoke, the three men were busy with the brush, and paint and oil drums were scattered about, but clouds rolled up on the second evening, and it rained hard all night. It was still wet in the morning, but Grainger set off for a little town to buy some bolts, and while Danny was given a task in the boat's interior, Stainton went fishing.

Having been uncivilly warned off the river, he followed a burn into the moors, and returned, wet and hungry, amidst a thin drizzle, as dusk was closing down, solacing himself with the thought of supper in the tent.

It was almost dark when he approached the beach; but there was no cheerful fire to welcome him, nor any sign of the camp, and breaking into a run, he stopped astonished on the edge of the desolate shingle. The tent had gone; the boat now lay over on her side with her deck nearly perpendicular in the river bed; and a shadowy figure was groping about, apparently engaged in fishing things out of the mud. It approached, miry and dripping, when Stainton hailed!

"What's happened,- Danny?" he inquired.

"When I first came down, it looked like a cyclone; but 'tis only Mr. Finlay's notion av evicting us. Thim"— Danny pointed to a pile of garments soaked in mire and sea water— "is you and Mr. Grainger's shore clothes, but wan as his new sea boots is missing. Where the blankets is I cannot tell, but I'm thinking they've gone out to sea."

"What about the rest of the things?" Stainton asked, hot with anger.

"The stove has a crack across the middle ye could put two fingers in," said Danny.  "The throuble I had in saving her! But they needn't have been throwing your portmanteau up against the tarpot, an' thim little pictures is splathered all river!"

This was too much, and Stainton expressed his opinion of Finlay with fluency, while Danny grinned in appreciation. Then the latter said, in a coaxing manner, "Ye wouldnt be having half-a-crown ye could spare— to buy provisions wid? Thim we brought is spoilt."

Stainton gave him one, though he did not think it would be expended on anything to eat, and he. was angry with the man for deserting his post, which had permitted Finlay to make a clean sweep of the camp; then he sat down to wait for Grainger, and Danny disappeared. It was some time before the skipper arrived, and he listened to Stainton's tale rather quietly, which was not a favourable sign.

"The fellow mentioned something about taking the consequences; it works both ways," he said at length. "First of all, we'll go up to the village and try to. get some more provisions. I think we'll sail to-night.

They met Danny presently, carrying a very small loaf.

"Tis all I could get," he explained, "this an' the morsel of butter that's in me hat."

Stainton pointed out that it was not much for half-a-crown, and the man laughed.

Two-an'-six, is it? An' me conshumed wid indignation! Sure the things were given me for love , an' no money at all. Go on an' see how much either of yez will get."

It proved to he remarkably little. The one shopkeeper in the place refused outright to supply them; the landlord of, the inn declared the fire was out and his wife had gone visiting.

It was clear that. Finlay had laid them under an interdict, and they were returning, after an unsatisfactory meal of oatcake and stoney cheese, when the light from a window fell upon a slender, shapely figure moving up the street. Grainger stopped, and the girl they had already met came towards them.

"I'm sorry— they were laughing about it at the house," she said. "But you wouldn't take advice!"

"No,' said Grainger. "I suppose it was amusing, from their point of view, but I'm riot sure they'll think it such, a joke to-morrow. Anyway, I'm grateful for your sympathy."

"I'd like to make it practical," replied the girl. "You really have been rather badly used."

"We'll get over it, though I don't think Finlay need have tried to starve us into the bargain. Someone acting by his orders, scattered our provisions where the tide spoilt them, and nobody seems willing to sell us any more."

"Oh!" she said, "that's too bad. Now, I wonder—  If one of you went quietly round to the back of the shop in, say, five minutes, I think you would get anything you want."

"No," said Grainger, decidedly. "This is my quarrel, and I can't allow you to be drawn into it. It wouldn't be fair to take advantage of your generosity. Besides— well, since Finlay has declared open war and driven us to live on the country, he can't complain when we do so."

She left them after another word or two, and Grainger turned to Stainton.

"If Mrs. Finlay's like her husband, that girl has quite enough to bear; but you saw how considerate and plucky she was."

"I saw she didn't greet you exactly as a stranger," Stainton replied. "How often have you met her?"

"Only two or three, times― by accident. But what has that to do with you?"

Stainton made no answer. Grainger was rather a handsome man; and he had a reckless, light-hearted air, which won him friends and often disarmed those who did not approve of him.

"Well," said the latter by and bye, "as that fellow has shifted my moorings to swing her off the beach, we must find something to make her fast to; and I expect his gates will serve the purpose. You see, the stream anchor is no use where it is lies— it won't keep her off the big stones higher up the channel— and it's rather big to carry sixty yards or so through soft mud. The light kedge wouldn't hold her in the strong scour on the flood! I want you to observe that all this is Finlay's fault."

They went on to the beach, where Grainger called to Danny.

"You had better go fishing, and get us something to eat. Take this trammel."

"The net, is it?" said Danny. "Bedad, I'd get them quicker wid a knife!"

"You'd leave your mark behind you that way," Grainger replied. "Take the  trammel and be off in the dinghy as soon as there's water. We'll pick you up outside."

Stainton, who knew that it was seldom wise to provoke his companion or Danny unnecessarily, heard their remarks with some uneasiness. It is not permissible to lower a net in the immediate neighbourhood of a salmon fishery; but since he was not sure that Danny would use the trammel that was not the worst. The lines of staked salmon-nets only lead the fish along to a pocket strongly built of poles engirdled with mesh, from which they cannot get out; and the reference to a knife was significant. They, however, waded off to the almost overturned boat, carrying as much of their property as had been recovered to her before the tide made: after which they sat in the well while she slowly righted. It was blowing moderately fresh, and a drizzly dark night— not the one Stainton would have chosen to go fishing in a tiny dinghy.

The lights in the windows of the house went out one by one, it grew cold and lonely, and the wail of the dark trees ashore broke through the gurgle of the tide and the roar of the surf on the shoals outside. Half-seen gulls and whirling  plover flitted screaming over the boat, which began to lift off the ground at last. Then Grainger got over the folding canvas, punt.

"She'll go up with a rush as soon as she's clear afloat," he said. "I don't know if the ropes will hold her, but I'm going ashore with another warp in case its necessary. If she brings up, you had better get the anchor— it wont be far off then; but you can set the staysail to help her up over the tide."

Stainton had no desire to be left alone in a boat he could hardly manage, but Grainger dropped into the punt, and disappeared into the darkness. Ten minutes later the rush of flood tide against the bows suddenly ceased, and the Wyvern drove away violently up-stream. There was a crash in the gloom ashore when she brought up with a creaking and groaning of hard-strained cables; but she only stopped for a moment and then went on again slowly, as if she were trailing something after her. Stainton wondered what had happened, and how long Grainger would be.

By-and-bye she brought up a second tinier, and remained; and after hoisting the staysail he toiled savagely at the winch to heave her up to her anchor. For some minutes she hardly moved; and then, for the tide seemed slackening and the breeze was blowing fresher right off the beach, she crept on very slowly against the stream. Once over the anchor she dragged it out in a stronger blast, and leaving it at the bows, he sprang to the helm. She was heading out to sea, which was more than he had bargained, for, dragging the warps Grainger had let go; and, afraid as he was of ramming her on the steep beach, he could only run on.

Jumping below for a paraffin flare he held it up while the yellow flame blazed into the darkness. There was no signal from Grainger, but he at least secured some attention, for a light blinked in a window of the house; others followed before the flare went out, and almost immediately after this the boat stopped violently and went on again, trailing something after her. Stainton supposed it to be a part of Finlay's salmon net, which he had run foul of, and, dropping the staysail, he waited anxiously.

There were a good many lights in the house now, and one or two more were moving about the grounds; but he could discern nothing else ashore, except the loom of trees.  To seaward, short, white-topped waves surged on into the darkness, and the spray was beginning to fly. There was no sign of either canvas punt or dinghy. By and bye, a shout reached him, and a dark patch became visible on the water. Shortly afterwards the punt ran alongside, and Grainger swung himself on board.

"l always knew you had very little sense, but there was, no occasion to "bring the whole Finlay clan down on me," he said. "I'd some trouble to get. away from them, and they were launching the salmon-boat when I left. But we'll get some sail on her and look for Danny."

They did it in a hurry, and when she was driving through the water Stainton asked: "What was it that went? I heard a bang."

"Finlay's gates," said Grainger, chuckling. "She pulled one post up; and dragged that handsome grille-work some way along the beach. So far as I could see, it disintegrated— but I didn't stop to survey the damage. That didn't seem judicious― l loosened our warps and left."

A few minutes later, a shout rang out ahead, and when they rounded up, the dinghy slid alongside.

" 'Tis half-full she is, but 'tis not all av it wather," Danny announced.

"I think you had better get forward and stow the anchor," Grainger remarked to Stainton. "What you don't see you can't remember."

Stainton remained forward as long as appeared advisable, and from the noise they made it was evident that the others were in the meanwhile stowing something under the floorings of the well. When he came aft to help in hauling the dinghy on deck, Grainger, looking round the tossing light close astern, said briefly, "We'll get out of this."

"Is it get out?" said Danny, in a reproachful tone. "Whin the omadann has brought a light to show us where he is? Now, if ye was to reach her up to windward, we could come down ramping full and run over thim. Wid this breeze behind her, she would go slap through the boat."

"No," said Grainger.  "It strikes me that Finlay Will have cause enough to remember us as it is."

They gave her the reefed mainsail, and the pursuing boat dropped astern; but in another minute or two there was a heavy crash, and she stopped amidst a nest of massive poles that rose from the seething water.

"The big-net pocket! She's in the middle av it!" Danny cried.  The trouble was that, she seemed likely to stay there, and while they hacked at the poles  that bumped and ground against her side the light astern, drew unpleasantly close. It did not appear desirable that Finlay arid his retainers should overtake -them.

"Up topsail!" shouted Grainger, breathless with exertion. "She ought to go through with the boom squared off."

They set the sail in a frantic hurry; and the boat, slanting over until her lee deck was deep in the brine, smashed off some poles and slowly sawed through the rest of the entanglement. When at last she broke clear, there was a good deal of floating wood attached to torn netting tossing about the froth-streaked water; but that was Finlay's affair, and her crew where satisfied to see her leave the light behind.

"A fine pocket; must have cost him lashings av money," Danny remarked. '"Tis luck it wasn't quite ' strong enough for catching yachts in."

"We'll have the topsail down, and you'll get supper afterwards," Grainger answered. "That oatcake wasn't satisfying."

By the time they, were clear at sea the meal was on the table. It consisted of the shoulder of a beautiful red-fleshed fish, and Danny, who took the helm from the skipper, said to him, "Considering the season, it's shillings ye'll be eating."

They ran into an English port late next-day, and Danny, who went ashore, came back beaming with satisfaction. '

"Two-an'-six a pound;" he "said. "Now, although ye promised―"

Grainger checked him, "There'll be no boat-share claimed in this case; the promise stands." He turned to Stainton.

"It's an interesting town, wouldn't you like a walk ashore?"

Stainton, who could take a hint, got Danny to row him to the quay, and asked no questions when he saw a big fish box on the steps. After all, it might not have been intended for anything on board the Wyvern.

They had no further adventures of moment, but the night before the cruise ended Grainger said, "If you'd care for another trip up north, you can come with me when the chartering season is over. I'm going to call at that bay again."

"And brave Finlay?"

"If it's necessary, I'll brave the whole clan.  He'll do nothing in the meanwhile, for several reasons. On the whole, I think we stand even."

Stainton made no comment; but he admitted to himself that the girl they had met had a musical voice and a pretty face. He thought that if Grainger at any time decided to make his home ashore she might be the reason for his doing so.

In this he was correct; but it was some time, before the fact became apparent, when Grainger started a yacht-agency and designer's business.

________________

13: The Broken Sword

Francis Henry Atkins

1840-1927

(as by "Fenton Ash")

Northam Advertiser 18 Feb 1911

IT LAY in a long, narrow glass case, upon a cushion of crimson velvet, ornamented with tassels and filigree work, that once had been golden, but had now turned a dingy, yellowish black. The gold of the hilt was tarnished, and even the precious stones with which it was set had lost their lustre. As to the blade itself— long, slender, tapering— that, too which had doubtless been once bright and polished, was now ingrained with rust. It had been broken off short not far from the hilt, leaving six inches or so now attached, with a jagged end where the fracture had taken place.

The hilt was curiously fashioned. Chased bands of gold and dark crimson plush wound round it alternately, like coiled serpents, and this idea was further carried out by the serpent's head which finished it off. This had for eyes two greenish-yellow emeralds, which looked up at you with that fixed, deadly, baleful glare of the eyes of the rattlesnake itself.

My friend, to whom this ancient curio belonged, smiled as he noted my interested gaze. Though now, an Englishman through and through. Philip Lorenzo Aguila— to give him his full name— was, upon one side, of Spanish descent, as his name, indeed, in some way suggests, and this old sword was one of the relics brought from Grenada years ago, when his family had first settled in England.

"It's funny, Sefton," now said Philip, "how quickly and surely you have scented out that piece of antiquity! I somehow guessed that you would, and I was waiting quietly to see. You are a regular sleuth-hound in whatever savours of the weird or bizarre!"

And as I looked up quickly he went on, in answer to the question he read in my eyes:

"Yes, you are right! There is a story attached to it— and a very queer old yarn, too. Just the sort of thing your antiquarian soul will delight in! I will fish it out for you presently, from the library, and it will help to amuse you while I am absent this afternoon upon the visit I have to pay to our country lawyer in the village."

Thus it came about that I found myself that afternoon in the private room which had been set apart for me, poring over a parchment manuscript which showed every sign of age, and was written in old Spanish. Or, rather, I had put the original aside, and was poring over an English translation of it, which— fortunately for me— some savant had made for the benefit of others less erudite who might come after him.

Outside the window the dull December day was drawing near to evening. I could see across the park in which the house stood vistas of leafless; trees; and beneath them could catch glimpses now and again of the deer which wandered across the snow-covered ground. In my room a bright fire blazed and crackled and hissed as the flames played around the wood logs. In front of it lay the broken sword itself, which I had brought from the museum. I had been giving it a scrub up to see if I could bring out more clearly the mystic characters, which had been engraved upon the hilt and blade; and after doing my best in that direction, I laid it down inside the fender to get it thoroughly dry again. Then I became immersed in the strange story there unfolded; and this is what I read:—

"I, DON FERDINAND de Miebla, knowing that I am to die to-morrow for having killed my best friend in an unfair duel do hereby declare my innocence of the foul and hateful crime imputed to me; and I solemnly swear by the Holy Mother, whose picture stands in front of me as I write, that the following narrative is a true and faithful statement of what took place.

"It is well known among our friends that the young noble, Don Alvarez (whose death is placed to my account) and myself have at all times been as brothers. From the time when we first knew each other— when he was a stripling and I already a grown man— an affection grew up between us such as seldom exists between two men. It is true that there came a time when there was for a while some coolness between us when we were both smitten with the charms of the fair Lady Lucia. But I say that that was but a passing cloud, and one which left no bitterness behind, and Alvarez, could he now rise up and speak, would declare to you all that I tell the truth.

"Ask yourselves— ye who deem me guilty of the atrocious crime— who benefits by it? The Lady Lucia, as is well known, was heiress to great wealth. Had she lived but a few weeks more she would have become possessed of enormous riches. Had she wedded, her husband would have been one of the richest men in all the land. That man might have been Alvarez or myself. I stood aside for his sake; but now he is dead, and the Lady Lucia is dead. She hath died of a broken heart, of grief at the death of her affianced husband, and horror at the thought that I slew him! And who now owns her wealth? Has it not passed into the possession of her guardian, Don Antonio de Magrada? He is, to-day, almost the richest man in Spain; and to-morrow I must die for the tragedy which has been the means of thus enriching him. Yet men believe that I alone am guilty, and that he had no hand in bringing about the catastrophe which hath enriched him. But I declare before Heaven that he had some hand in it; and I do charge to him, before all men, that he brought it about by some devilish witchcraft.

"He did invite us both, Alvarez and myself, to his house that night for the last time before the wedding that was to take place between my friend and Don Antonio's ward. We had a wondrous good repast, with the rarest wines from his cellars, and afterwards there was music performed by a band of hired musicians. Then the Lady Lucia and her attendants retired, and left the three of us alone. And as we sat together in amicable converse Don Antonio began to talk of fencing and swordsmanship, and presently nothing would please him but he must try to bout with the buttoned practice-swords, first with Alvarez and then with me. He showed himself indifferent good, and we both beat him easily. Then he opened a case and drew forth a Toledo sword or raspar, of marvellous workmanship. Its four sides were damascened with wondrous, skill, and the hilt was set .with jewels of great value.

" 'This is for thee, Don Ferdinand,' saith he. 'It is a present from your unworthy servant; I brought it here this night to present to the best swordsman; and that you have shown yourself to be. It is, therefore, yours.

"Now this sounded vastly strange in my ears. I could not understand why he should wish to present so costly a sword to anyone, much less to me, for I never did him any particular service; and, as all men know he has no great reputation for generosity. Apart from that, though I could not but admire the workmanship, yet in some way the sword was not to my taste. There was a serpent's head on the hilt, with emerald eyes which seemed to stare at me with an evil, malicious glitter, which I liked not to look of. So I would have declined the gift; but he would have no denial.

" 'Nay, nay, take it, Don,' said he. 'Try the blade! You will find it bends like the spring of a clock. It is made from, the costliest Toledo steel. No man— above all, no swordsman such as thou art— should refuse such a gift. Try it! Don Alvarez has the button-sword in his hand. Try this against it, and you will know its quality at once by the feel of steel against steel.'

"Now that, of course, is true. Every , good swordsman can quickly and surely tell, by the mere feel, as it were, when his sword clashes against another, which is the best tempered blade. So to please Don Antonio, because he was our host, I took the sword from him; and Alvarez stood up against me with the button-sword. For a minute or, two we played together as practised swordsmen often do, and then a strange feeling began to come over me. As the heat of my hand warmed the hilt of the sword I was holding I felt a most, curious tingling, which grew and grew, and ran up my arm and round my shoulders arid over my body, and soon mounted to my head ; and then an awful feeling came upon me, and I felt as if I were possessed of a devil. At first, in horror, I tried to throw the accursed weapon from me, but found I could not loose .my hold on it. My head grew hot, my brain was inflamed as in delirium. I could no longer see Alvarez. In his place there stood a monstrous shape, some evil being, which seemed to be trying to kill me. I seemed to hear voices which cried in my ear, 'Kill him! Kill him; or he will kill you.' Who it was I was fighting with I knew not; I no longer remembered. I only heard those voices crying to me that I should be killed if I did not kill. Then suddenly I heard a terrible shriek. Someone screamed, 'O God above, have mercy!'; I knew, the voice for that of the Lady Lucia, and at the sound a shock went through me, and the sword dropped from my hand. Then I seemed partially to awake as from a horrible nightmare. I reeled, sick and faint and dizzy, and as I caught sight of a seat, and was staggering towards it, rough hands seized me passed cords around me, and bound me, while I heard the words "Murderer! Murdered! Assassin!" breathed around me by many people. Above all, to my utter amazement, I heard it cried in horror and execration by the Lady Lucia herself!

"Then my brain cleared somewhat more, and my proper eyesight and my senses came back to me, and I looked, and there before me lay my friend Alvarez upon the floor, dead killed, they screamed out at me. by my, hand. The Lady Lucia was kneeling beside him; one moment sobbing out her grief, and the next hurling at me cruel words of hatred and detestation, and calling down curses on my head. Many others were there. They had come in. I afterwards learnt, alarmed at the sound of the furious combat they had heard raging, and, attracted by Don Antonio's shouts for someone to come and help him to separate the two fighters. And they had seen me— so they all declared— with mad hatred and wickedness in my eyes, attacking, with a raspar, a man armed only with a button-sword!

"And then they dragged me off, loaded me with chains, and cast me into this dungeon; and to-morrow I must die!  That, however, troubles me not. Now that my friend is dead — killed by my hand, that much at least is true — I have no wish to live longer. But all the same, I vow and declare, in these my last hours, that I am no murderer. I declare my Solemn conviction that the sword which Don Antonio put into my hand had been obtained by him through some foul bargain with the Evil One, expressly, in Order to bring about what has happened, and thus cause the Lady Lucia's wealth to go to him instead of to the one she had chosen for her husband."

THUS ENDED the translation of the strange manuscript— or, to be exact, that part of it which related to the experience of the hapless Don Ferdinand. The original MS. itself was much longer, and went on, so far as I could gather, to narrate other weird stories connected with the history of the wondrous sword ; but I confess I was not able easily to decipher the old-world Spanish in which it was written. It was also getting too dark to read.

I laid down the MS., and, going over to the fireplace, picked up the hilt; then, seating myself in a luxurious armchair before the fire, began examining it as well as the firelight allowed. The hilt had become so hot from lying in the fender that at first I could scarcely hold it. I rubbed once more at the tarnished metal, and tried again to decipher the mystic characters engraved upon it. This, was a task in which I had had some experience, for I am by way of being a bit of an antiquarian, and the solution of little mysteries of the sort had long been one of my hobbies.

Now, however, my thoughts wandered off to the strange tale I had been reading; and I suppose that the warmth of the fire in front of which I had been sitting must have had a soporific effect, for, without intending it, I somehow dropped off to sleep. And then I dreamt, and strange fancies came to me as I dreamt.

I thought I was in a large chamber, which was in darkness save for the dim gleam of a very feeble lamp and the ruddy glow of a furnace at one end. Upon benches around were glass and earthenware vessels of curious forms and various sizes. From beams and rafters above hung dried, shrivelled forms which I made out to be the dead, mummified bodies of many creatures. There were owls and bats, snakes and lizards, monkeys, toads, and cats, and many more as to which I could only guess at what they had been when alive. There were bundles of dried herbs, too, and instruments of queer shapes' ; which I had never seen the like of before. Looking at these and other things that were unusual, and, in a sense, what we should call uncanny, it was borne in upon me that I was in the workshop or laboratory of some alchemist of old. And a little later, when someone entered who was evidently, the owner of the place, this  idea received full confirmation.

He was a tall, thin, old man, with long grey beard and shrivelled face; whose steps were tottery; yet, when I saw his eyes, I was almost startled at the fire and vigour which seemed to flash from them. How or why he took no notice of me was a matter that did not puzzle me just then. He evidently did not see me, was unaware that I was there (where I was standing I did not exactly, know) watching him. As is often the case of dreams, it seemed quite natural that I should be there, seeing everything yet being myself unseen.

The alchemist— as I felt sure he was— went to the furnace and worked a. bellows, which blew the flames and produced a heat that was almost blinding, so white was it. Into this he plunged a crucible which he- held by means of a pair of long tongs. It was withdrawn and replaced several times, till at last the worker seemed satisfied, for he carried the crucible over to a bench and; poured the contents into a stone mortar. To it he added other things which he brought from various places, and there arose from his mixture such clouds of rose-tinted vapours that for a while I entirely lost sight of both mortar and worker.

When I saw him again he was holding in one hand a sword  a long, slender shining rapier, with a gold hilt set with jewels— and it flashed upon me that this was the sword which I had seen and had been reading about a little while before. I knew that much instinctively, though it did not occur to me that it was in any way remarkable. Then I saw him unscrew the serpent's head at the top of the hilt and there I could distinguish that the handle part, which the hand grasps, was hollow. Now into the mortar he plunged a long, spoon-shaped tool, and proceeded to ladle out the mixture within and push it down into the hole in the hilt. The compound had a powdery appearance, and from time to time he stamped it down, and so continued until the hollow was quite filled. Then he replaced the serpent's head, and laid the sword down in a beautifully-ornamented case, which had been lying open on the bench ready to receive it.

Scarcely had he done this when the door opened and another person entered. The newcomer was a man of imposing presence, so far as his figure and dress were concerned. His dress was that of an old-time Spanish Grandee, and his mien had, at every turn, all the haughty, swaggering insolence which one might expect from such a personage. He strode across the floor with an air of lofty contempt for the place and the man in it. As to the latter, he bowed obsequiously, and handed over the open case with sword lying in it. What was said I could not hear, but the newcomer seemed to clap his hands, and at once two lackeys appeared, bearing heavy bags. Their masters took these from them and flung them superciliously upon the bench beside the worker. As they fell upon it one burst open, and from it there came forth a number of gold coins, which ran about on the bench and rolled off on to the floor.

Then the whole scene became dim and indistinct, and finally faded into nothingness. What followed took the form of a confused phantasmagoria— a shifting panorama of weird, fantastic happenings, which I saw only "as in a glass darkly," but which I knew to be a succession of scenes in the after history of the word. They were scenes of passion, jealousy, greed; revenge, and of murders and killings. That much I, knew; but the details were jumbled; as it were, together, and grew more and more disordered.

Finally, I seemed to be back in my own room, with several people round me calling out to me ; but all was still so confused that I knew not who they were. Then, all suddenly, there appeared from somewhere a horrified shape that seemed I to me like a fiend incarnate from the lower regions. This wild-looking, terrible creature rushed to attack me, as it seemed to me, with murderous ferocity; and I struck out blindly, in self-defence, with the broken sword, the hilt of which I had all this time been holding in my hand.

There was a struggle, during which it was wrenched away from me by main force, and I reeled backwards, helpless and bewildered, against the wall of the room. A mist seemed to pass from before my eyes, and at the same moment I was conscious of great weakness, such as often follows upon a state of undue strain of over-excitement. I heard voices raised in amazement, anger, warning, remonstrance; and as the mist cleared away further I saw that several of the servants of the house were assembled in the room, including old Dunn, the butler, who was bending over someone lying on the floor. At my feet, where it had rolled, lay the hilt of the sword, with the piece of jagged blade attached. Standing close to me, keeping a watchful eye upon my movements, as if fearing I should break away, were two footmen.

Then I saw that the one lying on the floor was Philip Aguila. I caught sight of some blood upon a handkerchief, and a great horror took possession of me. The remembrance of the scene described by Don Ferdinand de Miebla in the manuscript I had read rushed into my mind. There he described how he had awakened from what had seemed a wild nightmare to find that in a frenzy he had killed his best friend. Was it possible that that terrible story had repeated itself here? Had I been seized with a homicidal fit, and, without knowing it, attacked Philip Aguila with the broken sword? To be brief, that is what had actually happened; though, to my unspeakable relief, I quickly learnt that the results were less tragical. For as I called his name in agonised tones, Philip himself rose and came towards me.

"Don't worry, old chap," he said," cheerily. "I am all right! It's only a slight cut!" He was holding a handkerchief to the side of his head ; and I feared that the wound must' be a nasty one, for I could see that it had. bled a good deal.

"B— but― what did I do?" I asked, still bewildered. "I was asleep!" Before replying, Aguila sent the servants out of the room.

"How do you feel now?" he then asked, turning to me.

"I'm all right— er— except that I am a bit flustered, and have an unpleasant feeling that I have somehow made a fool of myself in my sleep. You look at me as though you thought I had had a fit!"

"Something like that," returned Aguila, composedly.

"Good Heavens!" I cried. "I don't understand! Tell me exactly what happened."

"Well, it was this way. I came in here and found you raving and gesticulating, with Dunn and some other servants standing round, staring at you in dismay. You held in your hand that confounded old sword-hilt, and were flourishing it about as though you were defending yourself against an imaginary foe. As I came towards you to inquire what was amiss, you made a sudden rush at me, and gave me such a bang on the head with the hilt that I went down like a ninepin. I think I must have been a bit stunned, for I didn't see exactly what followed. The others, however, wrenched the blessed thing out of your hand, it seems, and by the time I came to my senses I saw that you had come to yours, and were quiet enough. So that's all; except that a corner of one of those stones in the hilt has cut the side of my head."

Well, by way of answer I told him all that had occurred— how I had scrubbed the relic, and put it to dry in the fender, while I read the manuscript; and how I had afterwards fallen asleep with it in my hand and "dreamed dreams."

"Upon my word," I exclaimed, at the end of the recital, "it almost makes me believe that mediaeval old buffer— the luckless Don Ferdinand de something or other— was not far out when he declared that the sword had some diabolical spell in it! How else can one account for the effect the thing had on me?"

Aguila was silent awhile. Then he said, thoughtfully: "It is strange! I have handled the thing myself many times— so have, others—and always without anything unusual happening. You say you laid it in the fender to dry. Did it get warm, think you?"

"Yes, almost too hot to hold. Ha! I think I see your meaning. You think―"

"Why," he answered, slowly, "see here! Without exactly attributing anything to witchcraft,  it seems just possible that something might be concealed in the handle which had, in course of time, lost not its virtue, but very much the opposite— its malignant qualities. But the warming up you gave it might have revived it―"

The recollection of the old alchemist of my dream, and how I had seen him unscrew the end-piece and put something into the hollow, came into my mind like a flash.

"I believe you've hit it, Phil!" I exclaimed. "I believe this 'serpent's head comes off! Let's find out what's inside!"

We set to work at once to unscrew it, but it was not until Aguila had fetched some tools that, we succeeded. Then we could see that the part which the hand grasps was hollow, and that it was filled with a dark green powder which had been converted, in the course of years, into a mass that was almost solid: We picked it all out, and then discovered that the parts underneath the spiral plush band were not of gold— as was the rest of the handle— but strips fitted in between, composed of some strange and, to us, unknown metal, as to which I can only say that it was surprisingly thin.

"There you have it!" cried Aguila, triumphantly. "There's the secret! This stuff we've picked out must have been some vile compound which excites and fevers the blood; and which is so powerful as to turn some men, for the time being, into raging maniacs! The plush band was cunningly placed there to hide the strips of specially thin metal, and the heat of the hand, passing through them, was formerly sufficient to excite the horrid property of the stuff packed inside! But nowadays it has so far lost its' strength as to require a roasting before the fire such as you gave it to revive its dire powers and bring them into action!"

And with that conjecture we had to remain content; for our further investigation suggested no other plausible theory. It cannot be said to be altogether satisfactory, for there is obviously much that remains veiled in doubt and mystery; but it is the only explanation I have to offer of what I have here set down concerning that relic of ancient days, the Broken Sword.

_________________________

14: Loser Wins All

Richard Connell

1893-1949

Australian Worker 17 July 1940

50______, 25_____, 50______, 25_______

The big man behind the big desk wrote down the figures then stared for a moment out into the night which pressed around the deserted office building. With a look of sombre satisfaction on his heavy, hard face, he filled in the blanks:

'50 years old, 25 years in business, 50 shops, $50,000 a year.' Below he wrote:

'As on January 15, 1940. James K. Markwell.'

He got up slowly, went to the window and stood frowning down at the city.

'I got a right to celebrate,' he muttered. 'But how?'

A sound made him turn from the window. In his chair at his desk a man was sitting— a man with white hair and a lean, tan face. In one hand he held, carelessly, a revolver.

'Happy birthday, Jim,' the man said.

'Tom Rolfe?' The name came from Markwell in a gasp.

'Right,' said Rolfe quietly. 'Sit down, Jim. I've come to pay a debt.'

'Now— Tom— don't do anything you'll be sorry for.' Markwell's voice shook as he said it.

'Has success made you soft, Jim?' returned Rolfe. 'You used to say, Never be sorry for anything you've done.'

'That still goes,' growled Markwell. 'I'm not sorry for anything I've done.'

Rolfe laughed without mirth.

'What a man!' he said. 'Remember this gun? It's the one you handed me  twenty-five years ago to-night. Well, I almost took your hint, Jim. My failure hit me hard. Or is failure the word for what you did to me?'

'It was all in the game,' said Markwell sullenly.

'Sure,' said Tom Rolfe. 'You're going big in the chain-shop business, and you're keen to go bigger. You take in a young fellow who is broke and jobless, teach him; trust him, and wake up one day to find he's in and you're out— with nothing but empty pockets and a loaded gun. He tricks it so that you get a bad name in the trade, can get no credit. That's all in the game— the way you play it, Jim.'

'I play for keeps,' said Markwell.

Rolfe smiled a wry smile. '

'You sound just like me in the old days,' he said. 'I was as success-crazy as you. Why, but for the breaks, this might be my desk. But for you, Jim, I might have been you.'

Rolfe's eyes rested on the sheet of paper. He read it; chuckled.

'You never could make out an honest balance, sheet,' he said. 'Why didn't you list your liabilities?'

'Got none worth bothering about.'

'No? How about your health?'

'It's O.K.'

'Yes? Look at you. Too fat by fifty pounds. Look at your colour. It spells too much booze and blood pressure. You're soft, you're short of breath, and you walk like a man carrying a piano on his back. Had much fun in your life, Jim?'

Markwell's reply was a grunt.

'I thought so,' went on Rolfe. 'You stay here at the office and work nearly every night, don't you?'

'Got lots to do,' Markwell said.

'And nowhere else to go,' said Rolfe. 'I know a bit about your private life. Jim. That big house of yours— it's no home; it's a tomb. Your wife lives abroad. Your son lives in trouble. You only see him in the newspapers when he gets into some fresh jam. It's your birthday. You won't get a single present— except what I'm going to give you—'

'Go ahead. Get it over,' muttered Markwell.

'Wait till I correct your balance sheet. How about the people you've hurt, and who hate you?'

'Put 'em' down,' said Markwell, with a flash of defiance. 'All the weaklings and born flops who got in my way: and put your name at the top of the list, Tom Rolfe.'

Rolfe scribbled rapidly on the paper.

'Keep your own books,' he said. 'Here— take a look at mine.'

He passed the paper to Markwell, who read: 'As on January 15, 1940. Thomas Lee Rolfe. Fifty-five years old. Thirty years in business. One shop. Worth $10,000,000.'

'Markwell stared at him, and the fear in his eyes grew.

'I know,' said Rolfe calmly. 'You think I'm mad. Well, then listen, Jim. My assets include my business. I run the general store back in the little village where I was born. That's where I've been all these years, and it's a mighty peaceful, pretty spot, where nobody hurries and nobody cares if I shut up shop and go off to shoot or to fish or have a picnic with my family. I net just enough to live on in the old family house my great-grandfather built.

'You'd say my store— stock, building, fixtures— was worth $2000 and the old house a similar amount. But you wouldn't count the good will, the love of my neighbours; you wouldn't count the joy of sitting in the rose garden I planted, watching the sun set on the river, surrounded by a few friends and a lot of memories.

'Then there's Jessie, my wife. I'll list her at the nominal figure of two millions. That's low. On the right side of the ledger I'll put my two kids. Tom is doing well at the university. My daughter, Dinah, is married to a fine young farmer, and they have a kid named after me. Say $200,000 apiece for my children, and $100,000 for the baby.

'Friends? Dozens of 'em. Say, to be conservative, fifty friends at from $10,000 to $40,000.

'I don't know how to put a figure on the way I feel. Who can say what it is worth to a man to be happy most of the time, to be able to eat well and work well, to sleep at night? So you see, Jim, I can't class myself as a failure. I might have been. I might have been you. The fact that I'm not you certainly belongs among my assets. I don't know how to put a price on it. Nobody can count that high.'

'If you feel that way, why do you hate me?' asked Markwell.

'I don't. I got over that years ago.'

'Then why did you come here to kill me?'

'I didn't.'

'You brought a gun.'

'I did. To give to you.'

Rolfe slid the revolver across the desk to Markwell. 'Happy birthday, Jim,' he said, and strode out of the office.

Jim Markwell sat there staring at the gun.

________________

15: Man of a Few Words

Richard Connell

Australian Women's Weekly 10 February 1940

WITH THE ace of spades gripped in a numb fist, Oliver Wittow, A.B., A.M.. Ph.D., propelled his lank form across the lawn, looking like a ghost late for a hunt. He faded into Cora Cooper Watt dormitory and went to ground in his rooms, where he quivered down into a chair and felt many. If not all, of the sensations of a man beset simultaneously by lock-jaw and mal de mer.

That night at the Faculty Club (gift of Cora Cooper Watt) they had drawn cards to see who should make the speech of farewell to the departing president of the college. Dr. Dwight Lubbock, who had been called, to quote him, "to a sphere of larger usefulness" or, to quote his colleagues, "had talked his way into a soft job as director of radio education for a canned-milk company, and good riddance."

His going left them as sad as it they had been cured of sciatica; but custom ordained that he be given a feast and presented with a piece of bric-a-brac to remind him of men and days he'd prefer to forget. So they chipped in and bought a moderately repulsive grandfather clock and left the choice of an orator to the cards of chance. Oliver Witlow lost.

Deep indigo despair descended on him. It was not that he hated Lubbock, for he hated nobody but himself; but as some men dread disease, debt, death or the devil, Oliver dreaded speaking. He could, if he had to, squeeze out a few simple words in conversation; but to stand up before an audience and emit nouns and verbs he found downright impossible.

Students called him the Learned Clam. Though he had more degrees than a thermometer, he found himself, in the thirties, still holding the humble rank of instructor, which other men, with less lore but better acoustics, were professors.

As he sat, staring morosely at the fatal ace, he thought of joining the Foreign Legion, or perhaps contracting a light case of leprosy, rather than face the ordeal that lay three thin weeks ahead of him.

IN THE Faculty Room there was no gloom.

"I suspect skulduggery," stated Prof. Knipe (Chemistry). "You forced that card on Oliver, didn't you, Mac?"

"I did," admitted Prof. MacKillop (Mathematics) unblushingly.

"Can anyone explain the awful in articulateness of Oliver?" inquired Prof. Knipe.

"I have pieced together a sketchy case history of the Learned Clam," said Prof. Redfern (Psychology) "but I'll be hanged if I can tell whether he is a problem for a psychologist or a plumber."

"Meaning what, if anything? Prof. Storke (Botany), a bit bemazed by beer.

"Oliver's mental pipes seem to be stopped up," said Redfern. "Hi takes in, but doesn't give out. He's stored a lot of golden nuggets in that noggin of his; but when it comes to getting them out he's as helpless as a tramp outside a mint.'

How do you explain it?" asked MacKillop.

"He has a complex," Prof. Redfern said.

"Uncork it," said Storke.

"Oliver, I gather, was born quiet and shy. At thirteen he had an attack of ingrown adolescence in its most acute form. He was a gawky, gangling giraffe of a lad, of uncertain voice and complexion, and, at this critical period of his life, he was dragooned into appearing in a public debate on woman suffrage against a team of girls from Rumford High School. Girls upset him. He wanted to run away from them and toward them at the same time. I dare say you all felt those bittersweet stirrings in your teens―"

"I still feel 'em," stated Storke.

"It was Oliver's debut as a Demosthenes," went on Redfern. "He was overcome with juvenile jitters. However, he dutifully prepared his argument, and committed it to memory. But, believe me, gentlemen, he was a mighty nervous young fellow by the time the big night rolled around. For the occasion he had ordered his first long-pants suit from a mail-order house, a modest, dark blue affair. It did not arrive till the last moment. By mistake they had sent him an outfit intended for a sporting barber, who was smaller in stature than Oliver, but more robust in taste, for his fancy ran to frog green checks, a profusion of pleats and pearl buttons in unexpected places. Oliver had his choice of wearing those giddy garments or nothing."

Prof. Redfern paused for breath and beer, then:

"I have only a rough picture of what happened at the hall," he said. "Rude contemporaries made audible comments about Oliver's clothes. He sat on the platform, waiting his turn.

"After an eternity he heard his name. He shot up from his seat as if he had been drop-kicked, and the chair clattered down to the stage. That started them tittering. He set sail for the centre of the stage. His shoes made sounds like quarrelling mice. He moved toward the footlights like a somnambulist having a nightmare and barged full tilt into the speaker's table, and almost went sprawling. He thrust out a hand to steady himself and rammed it to the elbow in the ice water pitcher. The audience whooped with mirth. Oliver escaped from the pitcher and came to anchor at the footlights.

"He'd been drilled to make three bows: to the audience, to the 'honored judges' and to 'my worthy opponents.' He made the first two bows in par, but when he turned toward the three fair maids from Rumford High, and bent over, his sorely tried trousers succumbed to the strain, and burst like a seed pod in the spring. The audience was treated to a vista of blue under-wear. Oliver spun round and faced them. Presently the guffaws died down and he opened his mouth to speak. His lips moved, but not a single sound of any sort came from him. It looked to the audience as if he were making faces at them. They saw him thump his head violently. He was trying to break the log jam inside it. He could not knock loose a single word. They saw him turn the color of Roquefort cheese, wobble, and keel over in a dead faint."

"And you think that experience tied a knot in Oliver's tongue?" asked Knipe.

"I do," said Redfern. "And here's a strange fact; Oliver never found his lost oration. He has tried, repeatedly, in private, to remember it, but he can't recall a single line."

"Then it's still inside him," said Storke.

"I dare say it is." agreed Redfern.

"Let's talk no more of the Clam," said MacKillop. "I dislike weak, silent men. I want to hear about our new president. You worked under him out West, didn't you, Maxie?"

"That I did," said Prof. Hupfeld (Economics).

"Tell us, what manner of man is Nicholas Porter Potter?" queried Knipe. "I've only met him in the headlines."

"Old Nick is a huge, hairless man with a deep purple voice fit to charm turtles from their swamps," said Prof. Hupfeld. "He's definitely on the pompous side; and gold-getting is his forté. While we're pounding away on the sophomore skulls, he'll be addressing the East Orange Ladies' Bridge and Proust Club on 'Culture, Its Cause and Cure'."

"What is his family like?" asked MacKillop.

"He's a widower, with one daughter, by name Minerva."

MacKillop made a wry grimace. He had a cinematic profile, kept a little red date-book, and was considered the catch of the campus.

"Minerva," he exclaimed. "Goddess of Wisdom! I just know she wears horrible hats, and has teeth like a caribou. Am I right?"

"Wrong," said Hupfeld. "Miss Potter is a comely wench, with a neat figure and a disturbing eye."

"Sounds like my type," said MacKillop. "Happy days are here again."

HAPPY DAYS were not there again for Oliver Wittow. His state of mind was that of a martyr scheduled to be dessert at a lion's luncheon.

It behoved him, he decided, to go into training for the grisly rite, so he became, in spirit, Kenneth Bellingham. By a lucky chance he had met Mr. Bellingham in the pages of a periodical devoted to self-help. Most of the men Herein described were, at one time, so puny and skinny that they were practically translucent; but after taking a course in magnetic muscle-moulding they were able, in an incredibly short time, to pose in leopard-skin shorts, looking as if they had been stuffed with pool balls. But not so Bellingham. There was nothing the matter with his muscles. His difficulty was that when he got up to speak people laughed.

This proved a serious handicap to his career in the tap and the industry until he enrolled in the Universal University of the Spoken Word, located in P.O. Box 369. Coffeyville, Kan. Soon Mr. B. could pound the conference table and bellow with the best of them, and his rise to high place and pay shamed the skyrocket, Oliver wired off the tuition fee and commenced feverishly to master the secret of Bellingham's success.

Each morning, very early, he trudged to a pine grove on the far side of Moonrise Mountain, by night the purlieus of petters, by day deserted, there to do his vocal setting up exercises. These comprised, among other things, holding his nose and humming "n-nun-n" for five minutes, panting and yawning to develop breath control, and a spot of concentrated mooing, guaranteed to strengthen and mellow his voice. He was in specially good voice that morning.

"Moo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o."

He stopped abruptly in mid-moo for his eyes had caught a movement of scarlet against the green back-ground. When he saw it was a girl, he turned as red as the scarlet slacks and sweater she was wearing. She stepped out into the clearing. He saw she was too old to be one of the co-eds, too young to be a teacher.

"Are you ill?" she inquired.

"No," said Oliver.

She surveyed him critically. 'Do you sometimes, perhaps, think you are a cow?"

"No," said Oliver, and to clinch it added another, and louder, "No!"

"No," she said, "you don't look squirrelly. Wait! I have it. You're a zoologist at the college. You're practicing mating calls."

To end the catechism Oliver nodded.

"I'll tell Dad," said the girl. "He likes men who take their jobs seriously. So," she added, "do I."

Oliver said nothing. He wanted to bolt. And yet, somehow, he didn't want to.

"Going back to the college?" the girl asked.

"Yes."

"I'll walk back with you," she said. "I'm none too sure of the way."

They scrambled down the slope.

"I'm an advance scout for Dad," she said. "I came on ahead of him to look the place over and get his house in running order."

Oliver stalked along silently by her side. He had a disquieting suspicion hat he was squirrelly, whether he looked it or not. How else explain to the exigent impulse that swept over; him to seize this total stranger, crush her to him, and kiss her till she liked it?

The girl was chattering on in amiable, friendly fashion.

"I do hope you and the others here will like Dad. He's not a bad old cucumber when you get used to him. But when his ears start to twitch, look out for storms."

At the moment, the infatuated Oliver did not see how the eccentricities of her father's ears concerned him, but he found out presently when they stopped at the door of a sedate Georgian mansion on the town's most elite street.

"Thanks for the walk." the girl said. "Guess I should take it every morning. Fine for the figure. Be seeing you."

She flitted into the house.

Now Oliver knew who she was. For he knew that this was the house that had been taken by the incoming president, Nicholas Porter Potter.

THE WEEK that followed was fraught with bright ecstasy and dark despair. On five divine mornings he met Minerva Potter, by a series of elaborately planned accidents, as she swung along the trails up Moonrise Mountain.

At their fifth meeting she invited him to tea at her house. He went. But MacKillop had discovered her, too, and turned up, all aplomb and persiflage. Oliver retreated to a corner.

"Too bad you won't be here next Saturday," said MacKillop. "Widow is going to deliver one of his celebrated orations."

Oliver murmured that he had some rush work to do, and seeped away

SATURDAY came― and there was Oliver at the speaker's table. Behind him stood the gift clock, muffled in muslin, ready to be unveiled by the twitch of a string, as a dramatic finale to Oliver's remarks.

Oliver, fortified by the example of Kenneth Bellingham, ate his way through the banquet. He was a picture of composure when MacKillop, the toastmaster, introduce him. Slowly Oliver unfolded his six feet three and acknowledged the patter of applause with a civil leer.

"Ladies and gentlemen! As I sat here, sad at the departure of our beloved confreré, yet glad at his success, I was reminded of a little story Mark Twain loved to tell. It seems there were two Irishmen―"

That is what should have come from him. It didn't. Instead there issued from some cavern deep within him a distinct:

"Moo-o-o-o-o-o-o―."

The astonishment of his auditors was as nothing compared with Oliver s.

He clapped his hand over his traitorous mouth. It was the hand that held the unveiling string. The clock burst from its cocoon like a premature butterfly. Lights and faces swirled dizzily before Oliver's eyes. In his mind there was a worse blur. His speech had left him. He began to sway. He surmised he was going to feint, and started on a zig-zag dash in the general direction of fresh air.

The clock teetered drunkenly for a second or so, then pitched forward. The purpose of the meeting was achieved in simple, direct fashion, for Dr. Dwight Lubbock received his memento squarely across his ample abdomen, and the festivities ended in a tangle of springs, wheels, pendulum and ex-president.

WHAT KEPT the Foreign Legion from having a new recruit was the fact that spring vacation started the day after Oliver's debacle, and gave him ten days away from the scene of his shame in which to put blowout patches on his punctured morale. He decided not to return to college, but to seek employment as keeper of an off-coast lighthouse. However, the first day of the new term found him back in his old rooms.

He was surprised, when he stole across the lawns, that nobody mooed at him. unaware that his tragedy had been dismissed as a comic mishap, and that it was generally accepted in academic circles that his behaviour at the banquet was due to a sudden attack of ptomaine or possibly, pip. Moreover, the tongues thereabouts were too busy wagging about a whale to have time for a minnow. Nicholas Porter Potter had swum into their sea, spouting.

In his inaugural address, he pointed out in his own polysyllabic way that theirs was an old college and it was beginning to show its age.

He intimated that Alma Mater needed to have her face lifted and that he was the doctor to do it. There was an excellent chance, he said, that a certain generous friend would bestow on the college a very substantial gift in the near future. He had been working on her, and she was almost up to the point where she was willing to sign on the dotted line.

They knew he referred to Cora Cooper Watt, Class '98, a woman in all ways remarkable. No list of the Ten Greatest Living American Women was complete without her name. The legend that she once fought a crocodile for the sheer fun of it is doubtless apocryphal; but her fight for women's rights is history. She led causes with one hand and made money with the other.

At the end of his address, Nicholas Porter Potter was loudly cheered.

IT WAS an insidious, fancy-turning spring. It steered Oliver Witlow's feet one morning toward Moonrise Mountain

He acted surprised when he met Minerva, taking her constitutional.

"I've missed you, Oliver," she said. They walked on together.

Two hundred yards of silence.

Then:

"Oliver, will you come to dinner Monday?"

"Yes. Thanks."

"Dad wants to see you... Seven-thirty. Black tie."

They walked on.

"Now Oliver, stop looking so scared," said Minerva. "Dad has no shotgun."

The allusion escaped Oliver.

"I happen to know." she remarked, "that Dad is considering you for a piece of work that may lead to a professorship."

"Gee!" said Oliver.

"You rate it. From what I hear, you do most of the work around this kindergarten. You ought to stop the modest violet act and turn tiger lily. Well, you might thank me for boosting you to Dad."

"Oh, I do," said Oliver, fervently.

DINNER done, Oliver was herded into the library by his host. Nicholas Porter Potter came straight to the point.

"You are to deliver the annual Susan B. Anthony Lecture to the Confederation of Club Women of America at their convention here in June," he announced "You're an unknown quantity, Witlow. But my daughter, who is far from a fool speaks of you highly; and Professor MacKillop assures me that when the faculty wants a spokesman it thinks first of you."

Oliver made a mental note to murder MacKillop.

"Between us," said Potter, "much good of a― grumph-ha― practical nature may result from your talk There will be some two thousand ladies present, many of them philanthropically inclined, and the chairman of the convention is our good friend, Mrs. Clara Cooper Watt, Confidentially, Mrs. Watt has almost decided to present the college with five million dollars. I hope to announce the gift on Commencement Day. Have you ever met Mrs. Watt?"

"No, sir."

"A wonderful woman. Witlow, and a proud one. Her viewpoint is in-tensely feministic. It would be well to remember that in preparing your lecture. May I suggest a topic?

"Yes. sir."

"Milestones on the Road to Sex-Equality," declaimed Nicholas Porter Potter. "Or, perhaps, Womanhood Emancipated. If you could contrive to refer to Mrs. Watt as 'a new Lincoln,' I'd consider it a personal favor."

Oliver dismally ogled the rug. He wet his arid lips. "I'll do my best," he said.

"Thank you," said Nicholas Porter Potter. "Shall we join the ladies?"

It was to Join the ladies, in convention assembled, that Oliver set forth that June night. His tranquillity was real. He had found a way out of his dilemma, or, rather, Minerva had pointed it out to him.

At her insistence he had called on her and read her his lecture.

"It's wonderful," declared Minerva. "It'll wow Cora and her pals."

"If I remember it," muttered Oliver.

"Why not read it?"

"Gee!" cried Oliver. "Gee! I never thought of that."

She was only inches away from him on the sofa, within easy pouncing distance. He drew in his breath.

"Minerva," he said, huskily.

"Yes, Oliver?" Her eyes were inviting.

"There's a ladybird on your neck," he said. He got to his feet. "Well, good night," he said. "Time I was in bed."

"Good night," said Minerva frigidly.

He went right home and wrote out a ten-page proposal, and learned it. Next time he meant to be prepared.

SO IT CAME to the night when Oliver must get that beastly lecture off his chest. That is where it was, literally, for the manuscript reposed in the inside pocket of his dinner coat. Almost jauntily, he advanced on the auditorium.

As he passed the Potter residence, MacKillop came swinging along.

"Sorry I must miss your performance," said MacKillop. "But I'm making a speech myself to-night."

He waved a hand toward the Potter house. "To an audience of one," he said. "Suppose I wish you luck and you wish me luck?"

Oliver gave him a glare that was pure potassium cyanide, and plodded on his way.

He was on the platform, embedded in a mass of badge-decked ladies, before the full significance of MacKillop's words hit him. He had muffed his chance with Minerva, and there he sat, losing her, while a chunky lady with a mop of white hair and a hard, humorous face was sounding off about somebody she described as "a brilliant young scholar and orator, and an able champion of our cause." It dawned on Oliver that this was Mrs. Watt and that she meant him.

Mrs. Watt trumpeted his name. The ladies applauded. Oliver thrust his hand into his bosom to make sure his speech was there. It was.

Slowly he stepped to the reading desk, spread out the manuscript, cleared his throat, and made ready to take off. His eyes ran along the first line: "The pancreas, or sweet-bread, is an organ, or gland, in the human body, situated just south of―"

Oliver frowned and compressed his lips. He saw, with horrid clarity, that he had left his lecture at home and brought a physiology paper, and not even a passing one, at that. He stood for a moment, rocking on his heels, his eyes glassy. Suddenly his lips began to move and form words.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, Honored Judges, My Worthy Opponents."

His voice was not his own. It was a boy's voice which began sentences basso profundo and ended them high falsetto.

"The subject of our debate this evening is: Resolved, that women should be given the vote. I take the negative."

He paused to refill his lungs. There was a distinct stir in the audience. He went on:

"I'm against votes for women because running things is a man's work, and if we let women run things they'd only make a mess of it. I guess you've all been reading the papers about these suffragists, like this Mrs. Watt, running round and hollering that women should ought to have a say in the guvment. These women, if you can call them such, claim that they are as smart as us men, and could run the guvment as well as us, or, maybe, better. Well, that makes me laugh."

It seemed to make others laugh, too. On the platform behind him, Oliver heard a sound that might have been a contralto chuckle. There were sounds in front of him, too; whispers, a ripple of titters, and from the balcony a boo or two. But Oliver was wound up tight, and had the ladies bayed like wolves he would have gone right on unwinding.

"If these feminists would stay home and study history instead of gadding around, they'd know that this great and glorious country of ours was started by men, and has been run all right by men. Let me ask you, was George Washington, the father of his country, a woman?

"I just wish this Mrs. Watt was here to-night. I'd say to her, I'd say, 'Mrs. Watt, why do you want to wear the pants?' "

A long lady in the third row cried, "Hear, hear!" That set off a barrage of whoops and chortles. It drowned out Oliver, who was going on doggedly. Mrs. Watt banged with her gavel.

"Order, ladies, please," she shouted. "Don't you want to hear the rest?"

There were loud and enthusiastic cries of "Yes, yes." "Go on." "More, more."

Oliver kept right on going.

"I'd just like to ask this Mrs. Watt and the rest of her kind, what will happen to the American home when all the womenfolks spend all their time hanging around the polling booths? Who will wash the dishes, darn the socks and rock the cradles?"

As per rehearsal, he paused for dramatic effect. He got an effect, but it was not dramatic. The laughter started again. In some parts of the hall it was almost hysterical. It took some vigorous gavel-pounding by Mrs. Watt to get the ladies approximately quiet. Oliver resumed his philippic.

"Lastly," he concluded, "I am glad to say that the vast majority of American women are still womanly enough to be glad to be wives and mothers and so forth and so on, and stay home and mind their children and their own business.

"Mark my words, ladies and gentlemen, twenty-five years from now the Women's Suffrage issue will be as dead as a smoked herring. In years to come when we look back at to-night's debate, we will laugh at ourselves for getting all serious and excited about such a foolish question. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Miss Watt. I thank you."

Oliver finished with a quick, angular bow. There was that instant of silence that follows the fall of a curtain. In it he snapped out of his hypnotic state and realised what he had done, and sensed that in immediate retreat lay his only hope of escaping annihilation at the hands of two thousand outraged club ladies. He forced himself to walk with slow, stiff dignity to the wings. The storm broke behind him. But he was already through the stage door, and sprinting away from the babble and hubbub.

He did not stop running until he reached the Potter house. He did not ring the bell but flung open the front door and exploded into the drawing-room. MacKillop was there, leaning his muscular frame against the mantel, and mentioning some of his merits to Minerva.

"What the devil do you mean, busting in like this?" he bellowed at Oliver.

"Beat it!" said Oliver in a low growl.

MacKillop advanced on him, belligerently.

"Will you get out, or shall I throw you out?" he demanded.

"Neither," said Oliver, and hit him on his cleft chin. The mathematician described a parabola and came to rest on a bearskin rug. Oliver dragged him to the front door and rolled him into the street. Then he strode back into the drawing room.

Minerva had risen from her chair. She seemed more curious than alarmed.

"What's got into you, Oliver?" she asked.

"Nothing," he replied. "Something's got out of me. And I have something to say to you."

The proposal he had prepared was at the tip of his tongue. He knew now that he would not have the slightest difficulty remembering and saying it.

"Ready?" he said. "Shoot."

She came close to him.

"Oh, confound words," he said, and took her in his arms.

She was still there when the front door opened. They did not hear it. They were not aware that Nicholas Porter Potter had entered until he tapped Oliver on the shoulder like a referee signalling two boxers to stop clinching. Oliver unwound himself. He met the president's eyes defiantly.

"I was kissing your daughter," he said.

"My dear fellow, if Minerva doesn't mind, I don't," said Potter. He was bland, almost genial.

"Don't you?" faltered Oliver.

"Not at all," said Potter. "On the contrary."

Outside the house a car door was slammed.

"Ah, that must be Mrs. Watt," said Potter.

"Good night, all," said Oliver, and made for the door. He bumped into Cora Cooper Watt and bounced off her façade.

"Oh, there you are, Professor Witlow," she said.

He backed away.

"Go ahead. Start something," he challenged, hoarsely.

She had turned to fling off her purple velvet evening cloak, and did not hear him.

"I haven't laughed so much in years," she said. "It was a beautiful burlesque."

"What was?" said Oliver.

"Your speech, of course," said Mrs. Watt. "We all loved it. Didn't we, Dr. Potter?"

"Indeed, yes," said Nicholas Porter Potter. "It was a most refreshing way of showing the stupidity Mrs. Watt and her associates had to contend with. Well done, my boy."

He beamed paternally at Oliver.

"It did these old ears good to hear that fatuous drool again," said Mrs. Watt. "People actually talked like that twenty-five years ago. Yours was a perfect imitation. Professor. How did you ever happen to hit on it?"

"Oh," said Oliver, "it just came to me."

_______________________

16: The Solid Gold Article

Richard Connell

Collier’s May 11 1929

HER name, by rights, should be Aggie; but don't you dare call her that. It's Miss Agatha, if you please, or you will get a look from a pair of disdainful blue eyes which will shrivel you like a caterpillar on a hot stove.

Miss Agatha was "in the shirts," which is a technical term and means that from nine to fife-thirty every day she stood in the vicinity of a pile of masculine shirts in the bargain basement of a big store in a big city near the Statue of Liberty, and said to any one who might hover near, "Can I serve you, sir, or madam?" in a polite soprano. It was a cool, pleasant voice, and when she said "shirt" she did not make a rhyme with "quoit." She never chewed gum in her life.

She was twenty-one, her salary was sixteen dollars a week. By all the rules, laws, and conventions, she should have been a forlorn little drudge, dragging her shabbily clad, undernourished body to a cheerless ballroom in the evening, too tired to do anything but rest her aching feet and sob a little over her lot; but if you picture her like that, you are very much mistaken.

Living on sixteen dollars a week in these times is, to be sure, an art; but Miss , Agatha was an Old Master. You learn how when you start as a cash-girl at ten a week, and rise to the position of sales lady and comparative affluence at the rate of a dollar a year.

Over on Third avenue, within walking distance of her store, she shared a room with Miss Maude, who was in the handbags, and was plump, tidy, and wise. They bad two white-iron beds, two chairs, three book's— Mrs. Van Kleeck on Etiquette, Professor Gillespie's Dreams and Their Meaning, and The Prisoner of Zenda— a gas ring, a chest of drawers, a mutual closet, a wicker table; and they were only a short kimono flight from a bathroom.

They call it their "apartment" and paid for it seven dollars a week between them. Breakfast was coffee— made on the gas ring— and a bun or cruller; lunch was a milk-shake and a cream puff at the store's cafeteria; dinner depended on the young man.

When you are young and rawer pretty in face and figure, and have blond hair, and smile easily, and have a gift for repartee, and like to dance, there will always be young men, and you will learn how to manage them with an almost mathematical precision. Within five minutes, you will be able to tell whether it is going to be chop suey in a Chinese place, or a dollar table d'hôte in a Greenwich village cellar, with candles on the table, or perhaps most costly viands in a brown stone house where your escort, to gain admittance, must mutter magic words into a large ear behind an iron door.

You will learn to estimate, too, whether it will be the movies, or a dance hall, or even seats as a show. You will grow export in being able to tell exactly how fresh that particular young man is going to get in the course of an evening, and you will learn how to put him in his place early and firmly. Four or five, or even six times a week, Miss Agatha exchanged her society for a dinner. Otherwise, it was beans and sausages, brewed over the gas ring.

To continue Miss Agatha's economic problems: A quick and efficient job of laundering was done in a bathtub, while the landlady was at the cinema. On Fridays. Miss Agatha had the use of a community electric iron, in which she and five other girls were stockholders. You will see, if you are at all adept at figures, that a neat if not gaudy sum was left each week for clothes, recreation, charity, medical attention, and savings. As the young men provided the recreation, and Nature excellent health, Miss Agatha decided to skip the charity and savings, and concentrate on clothes.

You can look well on a little, if you can sew, and have some taste. The Fifth avenue styles today find their way into the bargain basement tomorrow, and, if the material is not as good, at least it lasts until the style changes. Quite nice things can be bought, too, for a dollar down and a half a week.

So, if you were a man, and saw Miss Agatha tripping to her work in her almost-mink coat, her smart little turban (home-made), and her trim shoes (seconds), you could not, probably, tell whether she was from Third avenue, or Park. A woman could tell, but a fat lot Miss Agatha cared for the opinion of any woman.

Miss Agatha was like the girls of Park Avenue, and on Main street, too, in this respect. She was waiting for the right man to come along. Until that happy moment, it seemed sensible for her to work along as cheerfully as she could, and to have as good a time as possible.

Now Charlie enters this narrative, and the life of Miss Agatha. She met him at the annual dance of the Employes Mutual Benefit Association, whither she had gone, very charming to the eye, in a pink evening dress, copied from one in the window of an elegant shop on Fifty-seventh street, and made, by her own hands, from a remnant of taffeta which had sunk to the bargain basement. She had gone with Mr. Stahl, who was upstairs in the Oriental rugs; not because she held Mr. Stahl in any particular esteem, but because his wan moustache trembled so piteously when, with many a hem and haw, he invited her to accompany him.

It was instantly apparent to her, when Charlie was presented to her, that he was a person of considerably more magnetism than Mr. Stahl. Charlie had athletic shoulders, bold hazel eyes, and masterful chin, and hair like red astrakhan. It was also instantly apparent to Charlie that Miss Agatha was infinitely more captivating than Miss Clara, from the laces, with whom he had come.

Do not feel sorry for Mr. Stahl and Miss Clara, abandoned, as they shortly were, by their partners. Thrown together, they discovered a mutual passion for chocolate ice-cream, cake, and the same screen star, and they are now happily married, and have a bungalow in Leonia, New Jersey.

"Say," returned Charlie, as he whirled Miss Agatha off in a dance, "I've been tingling to meet you ever since I stormed into this joint. You catch the eye, baby. You got this, that, and those."

"Fast worker, 'aren't you?" said Miss Agatha, demurely,

"When I've got something to work for," said Charlie. '"From now on you're the only station on my track."

''Oh, I'll bet you've got lots of girls," said Miss Agatha. She knew what to say.

"Had 'em. Dozens," said Charlie. ''But they're out. The minute I saw you, they were dead. You got a boy friend, honey?"

"Plenty," said Miss Agatha, "and save the 'honey' for your pancakes."

"Follow this," said Charlie. "From now on you've got only one boy friend, and his name is me. I'm the cream in your coffee, and if I catch any skimmed milk hanging around, I'll knock it sour."

"I thought you'd retired, Mr. Tunney."

"Kidder, ain't you? Well, I'm no millionaire pug, or millionaire anything else. I'm just plain Charlie Root, and I make fifty a week fixing radios. And something else, I know class when I see it, and you've got a mile of it. All I want from you is a chance to come around and tell you how wonderful you are."

"I'll put you' down on my list," said Miss Agatha.

"I'll make you forget the rest of them," said Charlie. "I suppose you do meet a lot of fellows who want to show you the town."

"Oh, sure."

"Rich guys?"

"All sorts."

"I could kill 'em."

"Who?"

"These rich society eggs that hang around girls that work. I know their racket. They're just a pack or rounders, that's all. Don't let me hear of you giving them anything but duty looks."

"You talk mighty bossy, Mr. Root. I guess I've got a right to go out with anybody I please."

"Hay, you're not one of the dizzy janes that can't see a fellow who works for a living, but thinks that some day a millionaire will drop in and drag her to the altar in his diamond-studded limousine, are you?"

"Don't you think it," said Miss Agatha. "Of course, I'd like to marry a man with money. I'm no fool. But I'd have to love him. and be mire he loved m<u That's all that counts with me, Mr. Root."

" 'Charlie' to you," said Mr. Root.

The bleating and the booming of the dance band stopped.

"Let's blow this party," said Charlie, "We'll go out for a little ride and talk things over."

Miss Agatha shook her head.

"Take it easy," she said. "You're young yet. I promised a lot of fellows at the store I'd dance with them. I'm going to stay right here."

"You're going out with me tomorrow night, though," said Charlie.

"Who said so?"

"I did. I'll he waiting for you when the store closes. From now on, baby, you're going to see a lot of me, and like it."

In their room Miss Agatha and Miss Maude were comparing notes after the party.

"That was a good-looking young fellow that was giving you such a rush," observed Miss Maude, as she brushed her dark hair.

"Not bad," said Miss Agatha.

"Not bad is good," laughed Miss Maude "Say, I was watching you, and you were melting like an ice-cream cone on July Fourth. Well, good luck to you, if he's the real thing. I'll miss you."

"Slow down, Maude," said Miss Agatha. "I'm not being measured for a white veil and a flat in the Bronx yet a while."

"You like him, though, don't you?"

"Sure. He got off to a good start. But I'm not saying 'yes' or even 'maybe' till I see how he stands up. The way he went to work makes me think he hasn't spent all his time fixing radios."

"Fresh?" queried Maude.

"Yes— but in a nice way," said Miss Agatha.

"What's he do?"

"He's a radio fixer. Steady work. Fifty per.'

"And a swell looker," sighed Miss Maude. "Some people have all the luck."

MISS AGATHA vent with Charles Root to an Italian table d'hôte the following night, and with the antipasto he told her she had beautiful eyes, and with the chicken that he was crazy about her. Afterward they went to a movie, and he held her hand; but she would not let him kiss her good night. She had several moments of regret about this after he had gone.

Now there enters into the scene and the bargain basement Mr. Dexter West, millionaire. He is an authentic, bona fide, blown-in-the-glass millionaire, and his father made the money in copper, if you care to know. With one glance you could tell that he was a millionaire, for you have seen him at Newport, Palm Beach, the Opera, the better prize-fights, and on the screens and in stories. He was about forty, slightly bald, slightly plump, and he wore pale-grey spats and a black, slicked moustache; in between he wore obviously good dark clothes, with a white gardenia in the buttonhole of the coat.

How Mr. West came to be in the bargain basement that day is a mystery, and shall remain one. Certainly he had not come to buy shirts; his were made to order for him in London. The bargain basement of that store was a vast maze, and Mr. West got himself thoroughly lost, and had to pause near the shirts to get his bearings. He was standing there, contemplating without enthusiasm the astonishing values at $1.29, when an attractive voice at his elbow said:—

"Can I serve you, sir?"

He turned to behold Miss Agatha in her simple black dress, wearing her professional smile.

"No, thank yon very much," said Mr. West.

"You're welcome, I'm sure," said Miss Agatha.

Mr. West looked intently at Miss Agatha, and then he said:—

"Come to think of it, I do need shirts. A lot of shirts."

"Size, please?"

"Fifteen and a half.".

"This is the fifteen-and-a-half pile, sir."

"Oh, thanks. Let me see now. Would you advise this blue affair with the pink stripes?"

"It's a very popular number."

"Splendid. I'll take it. And that yellow thing, and this, one, and this one—"

For some twenty-eight minutes Mr. West, assisted by Miss Agatha, selected shirts until he had picked out eighteen.

"Will you send them, please," he said.

"Certainly, sir," . ,

He gave his name, and his address, which was a rather impressive one in the East Sixties.

"Thank you for helping me," he said.

"Glad to be of service, I'm sure," said Miss Agatha.

Shortly after the store opened its doors the next morning, Mr. West came back. Miss Agatha favoured him with a smile of recognition. '

"Anything wrong with the shirts, sir?" she enquired.

"Oh, no, indeed. They're most satisfactory," said Mr. West, who" had , promptly given them to his janitor, "The fact is, I need some more. Quite a few more."

"Fifteen and a half is the size, isn't it, Mr. West?"

"How nice of you to remember."

"Not many gentlemen buy eighteen shirts at a time," smiled Miss Agatha..

"Oh, I see. That's how you did it. You said, 'Here comes the man who bought the eighteen shirts,' " said Mr. West.

Miss Agatha laughed.

"What colours do you want?" she asked.

"Colours? Oh, any colours," said Mr. West. "You see, the fact is, I really came here today to ask a favour of you. I know I'm taking a great liberty, but I wonder if you would have dinner with me?"

Miss Agatha surveyed Mr. West calmly, critically.

"How do you get like that?" he said.

"I'm terribly sorry," said Mr. West. He seemed embarrassed. "I hope you'll forgive me."

"Oh, sure," said Miss Agatha. "It's no insult to be asked out to dinner."

"I'm glad you're not angry with me," Mr. West said. "I suppose you think I'm in the habit of doing this sort of thing, but I'm not, really."

"Oh, no?" said Miss Agatha. "I'll bet you're not. I've seen you before."

"Me? Where?"

"I mean men like you."

"Like me? What do you mean?"

"Oh, I mean the fellows that are rich, or claim they are, and have a wife who doesn't understand them or who understands them too well and lives Paris—"

"You're wrong there," said Mr. West. "I haven't a wife. I never had one. I know the type of man you mean. I'm very sorry if you think I'm that sort. I asked you to dinner because I want a chance to talk to you. I can hardly tell you why. I want to. Well, I'm sorry I bothered you, and I'm sorry you won't have dinner with me "

Miss Agatha had been gazing at him thoughtfully.

"I never said I wouldn't," she said.

"You will then? That's awfully kind of you. I'll call at seven. Where do you live?"

From her post in the handbag trench, Miss Maude commanded a view of the shirt sector, so, at lunch, she remarked to Miss Agatha:

"Well, I see Eighteen-Shirt Eddie was in again."

"You mean Mr. West, I suppose," said Miss Agatha, with as much dignity as one can exhibit who is eating a mocha éclair.

"Say, you're not going out with him, are you?" demanded Miss Maude.

"Sure. Why not?"

"It's taking an awful chance," said Miss Maude.

"A girl can always holler for help," said Miss Agatha.

"I didn't mean that way," said Miss Maude. "I mean on account of Charlie. He'll be as sore as a sunburned nose."

"Let him be," said Miss Agatha, loftily. "It'll do him good. I've only known him a couple of weeks, and already he thinks he owns me."

"Ah, I get the idea now," said Miss Maude. "But, I'm warning you, Agatha. Middle-aged fellows with spats and mustaches are not to be trusted."

"It makes no difference to me, said Miss Agatha, "whether he has spats and a mustache, or rubber boots and whiskers— I guess I can eat a meal with him without trusting him too much. Shall I wear my black evening dress or the pink one?"

"Wear the pink," advised Miss Maude. "It makes you look more innocent."

WEARING the pink one. Miss Agatha went that evening with Mr. West to a sedate and very expensive restaurant on Park Avenue, and saw more hors d'oeuvres and real pearls than she had ever seen in her life, and learned how delicious a sweetbread can be. She enjoyed her dinner, hut as she ate it she was deeply puzzled, Mr. West played the role of millionaire so badly: he did not seem to know his lines at all. He was so inadequate in his part that he did not even call her "girlie." Nor did he tell her about his prowess in Wall Street, but told her, instead, about the little crooked old streets in the Latin Quarter of Paris.

"I'd love to see them," said Miss Agatha. "I'm crazy to go to Paris. Miss Fox, the buyer, goes every year, and she says it's a dandy town."

"You must go some day," said Mr. West.

"I'd have to swim," said Miss Agatha, "and I don't know how."

"Maybe you won't have to swim," said Mr. West.

"I can't fly either," Said Miss Agatha.

"There are still some pretty comfortable liners." said Mr. West.

''When the fare is two dollars, round trip, I'll go," said Miss Agatha.

"Maybe you won't have to wait that long."

"Yes, and maybe they'll move Paris over to Brooklyn."

"It would he fun to show you Paris," said Mr. West. "You're so alive and so interested in things."

"I'll ask Santa Claus to show it to me," said Agatha.

"I'd like to."

"Thanks for calling me up, Lac you've got the wrong number."

"I'm afraid you're a cynic, Miss Agatha."

"If that means watching my step, I am," agreed Miss Agatha. "I've been around long enough to know that all you get in the world is what you pay for and sometimes not that."

"Didn't it ever occur to you," said Mr. West, "that there are still some genuine men left in the world? I mean men who are capable of loving a girl sincerely, and unselfishly, with no thought of exploiting her?"

"Yes and no, but mostly no," said Miss

"Perhaps you are so modern you don't believe in love."

"I hope to tell you I do," said Miss Agatha. "I'm not a hard-boiled egg, and at the same time I'm no poached egg on toast, either. "I'm all for love— but it has to be the solid gold article. What I want most of all is a flat where I can cook steaks, and raise kids to do something better than work in a bargain basement, and I want to have a man who thinks the sun rises on my account, and I want to be able to think the same of him. Anything else gets no sort of tumble from me, Mr. West, and you can put a red ring around that."

"Miss Agatha?"

"Well?"

"Why do you think I wanted to talk to you tonight?"

"Now comes the bad news," said Miss Agatha.

"I don't need twenty guesses— hut go ahead and spring your line. I collect 'em."

"I haven't any line," said Mr. West. "I'm a very simple, direct person, really,  I can only tell you how I honestly feel. When I saw you in the store today, and spoke with you, something happened to me. I was something I have wanted to have happen to me all my life. I fell in love. I mean it. I knew instantly, as clearly and as surely as I ever knew anything, that I wanted to know you and be with you. I'm even surer about it now. I think we could be happy together, Agatha. I'd do my best. Will you give me the chance?"

"Thanks for the compliment, Mr. West, and you've got a good selling talk, but I can't give you an order."

"We could go to Paris, Venice, Nice— all the beautiful places in the world "

"Couldn't you get me in the movies, too? No, Mr. West, it's no use. You'll have to try at another counter. I've got other plans."

"Are you engaged?"

"Practically."

"I see. Well, of course, that's reason enough," said Mr. West. "I hope he's a fine fellow "

"Sure he is. Of course, Charlie will never be able to take me to Paris and those other towns. A ferry ride to Staten Island will be about our speed. We won't be able to eat at swell places like this; but we'll have a home, and maybe kids, and I'm betting we'll be happy."

"I sincerely hope you will be, Agatha. But promise me this: If things don't go right, will you let me know? I want you to feel that I'm your friend."

"Thanks," said Agatha. "I'll remember that. You're all right, Mr. West. You've been nice and polite to me. and I've had a grand time. Now I think I'd better be going, home."

"WHAT was he like?" asked Miss Maude, from her bed, as Miss Agatha cold-creamed her face that night.

"Believe it or not," said Miss Agatha, "he wasn't only a gentleman, but he acted like one. Not a bit of rough stuff, and we came home in his sedan, with a chauffeur."

Miss Maude wagged an incredulous head.

"I kind of liked him, Maude," said Miss Agatha. "He didn't snap his fingers at the waiter, or clown with him, the way Charlie does, and he can talk the way they do in books, and the stories he told were funny. Of course, he did pull the one about giving me a free ride to Paris; but he didn't turn nasty when I told him nothing doing."

"Paris, was it?" said Miss Maude. "You must have busted out laughing.  I know those fellows. They talk Paris, but they mean Atlantic City."

"He isn't so bad looking," mused Miss Agatha, "once you get used to his face."

"You'd better drop him right out of your mind," said Miss Maude, "and think up how you're going to smooth down Charlie. He came. around here tonight, and I had to tell him you were out with a set of pearl studs and a top hat."

"How did he take it?"

"Like rat poison. He nearly bit the door knob off."

"Good," said Agatha. "I'm not worrying. It's about time Charlie and I had a show-down."

MR. CHARLES ROOT was in a not very amiable frame of mind when he took Miss Agatha to dinner at a chop house the next night.

"Open your ears, and don't muff this," he said. "Last night you stepped out with one of those silk-lined buzzards. I warned you against. Don't do that again. If I catch one of those perfumed tramps hanging around you I'll bust him wide open and stuff him with his own high hat."

"Oh, you're always talking about busting people." said Miss Agatha. "That sort of stuff doesn't prove anything. And please stop snapping your fingers at the waiter. It isn't refined."

"Huh— so we're being refined," said Charlie. "That's what comes from running around with Mr. Lah-de-dah."

"He has manners, anyhow."

"Yeah? And morals, too, I suppose. What was his bait? A diamond necklace or your name in lights on Broadway?"

"Now. Charlie, be nice. You ought to know I'm straight, and wise, too. Mr. West is a good scout but—"

"Oh, they're all good scouts at first. That's part of their game. They're clever as sin. Me, I'm not clever. I'm no millionaire or college boy or anything with frills. I'm just an ordinary, hard-working, everyday sort of fellow that doesn't know how to hint around. I guess you know how I feel about you, girlie—"

"You've been telling me," said Miss Agatha, "but it's worth repeating."

"Well," said Charlie, "you've got, me backed against the ropes, woozy,  and out on my feet; I'm so goofy about you I eat my letters and mail my flapjacks, I've fell for girls before— I'll come plead and admit that― but I never fell so far or so hard. Now, look. You and me have been playing around together for nearly a month. You've pulled an Eskimo act on me, and that's been okeh with me, so far.  I never did have much time for the, sort of cutie you can kiss as soon as you've finished snaking hands with her. I've waited, because I'm. strong for you and I think you're strong for me. Ain't that a fact, baby?"

Miss Agatha looked at him steadily. "Yes, Charlie," she said. "It is."

"And now," said Charlie, "the time has come for you and me to stop stalling. I've been looking around, and today I found a place. I won't call it an apartment. I don't believe in four-flushing. It's just a room, but it's nice, and the furniture is almost new. It's over on West Twenty-second street, I took it today, and it's ready for us. What do you say, dearie?"

"Charlie, do you really want to marry me? Have you thought what it will mean, being tied to one girl, and maybe some babies? You like your freedom. You keep saying so. We could manage on fifty a week. I could, anyhow; but you're in the habit of getting all dressed up and going round to places. Getting married isn't just one big picnic, you know."

"You don't want me— is that it?" said Charlie.

"Charlie, you know I do. I'm just trying to be sensible, that's all. I guess I just want you to persuade me that you don't care what happens so long as we get married."

"I want to be sensible, too," said Charlie. "I'm willing to listen to reason. Fifty a week is no fortune, and even if you kept your job we'd be pinched. But let's not think of that just now. Let's hop into a taxi and dash over to West Twenty-second street "

"Charlie, listen. Maybe I'm foolish; but ever since I was a little kid I've always had a dream about the right man making love to me, and then getting engaged with a ring, even if it only cost a dime, and then getting married in a church, all in white, and going somewhere on a honeymoon. I got four days off coming to me at the store, and they can start next Monday, and we can get married Monday morning and "

"Honey," said Charlie, "you've said your piece about the wedding bells; now let me say mine. Why do we have to get married? Why can't you and me go into one of those companionate marriages we read about in the papers?"

"Charlie! What are you trying to put over on me?"

"Nothing, I'm no gold-brick artist like those rich rummies. I'm telling you right out I can't see this marrying mime, with a preacher and a licence and all the rest of that blah. I love you and you love me, and that's all the licence we need. Well, what say?"

"Give me a minute to think, Charlie, please," said Miss Agatha, "I'm sort of confused—"

"Never mind the thinking," said Charlie, "You know how I feel."

"Wait. Please wait. I've got to look at it straight. I've got to see it just the way I would if you weren't Charlie, but maybe some rich fellow that had me out to dinner "

"It's getting late," said Charlie.

"Charlie, when can we get married?"

"I'm off marrying, I tell you."

"Charlie! I know. You're married already!"

"Smart, ain't you? Did I ever say wasn't?"

"Oh, Charlie."

"Don't look like you seen a ghost. My squaw ain't apt to pop in here. She and the kids are out in Flatbush. I could have lied to you about her, but I ain't that kind."

"Are you going to get a divorce, Charlie?"

"How can I? She don't want one, and I can't afford to get one. But that don't matter, does it, honey?"

'Yes, Charlie, it does matter."

Miss Agatha stood up. Her face was very white.

"I'm going home," she said.

"You're going with me," said Charlie, He gripped her wrist,

"Let me go," cried Miss Agatha. "I never want to see you again."

MISS MAUDE opened sleepy eyes.

"Home kind of early, aren't you, Agatha?"

"Yes. What's it to you?"

Miss Agatha hurled her turban— her best one— into a corner. Miss Maude sat up, wide awake now.

"My goodness," she said, "what's the matter? I hope you don't feel as bad as you look.''

"Worse," said Miss Agatha, and began to sob.

"So," said Miss Maude, presently, "that's the sort of dill pickle Charlie turned out to be! Well, the big bum! Never mind, dearie, there are plenty more men. Even if they are all alike."

"That's what I'm crying about," sobbed Miss Agatha.

She stopped crying, suddenly. She went to the mirror and began to remove her tear-stains and restore the complexion. From the corner she rescued her turban and pulled it down over her curls with an air of decision.

"What's the idea?" asked Miss Maude, "Going out again?"

"That's what?"

"It's after ten."

"What of it?"

Miss Maude jumped out of bed and caught Miss Agatha's arm.

"'Don't be foolish," she said.

"It doesn't pay to be anything else," said Miss Agatha.

"You mustn't go to Charlie―"

"That cheap tin-horn! I'm not that foolish. Let go of me, Maude."

"You mustn't do it," wailed Miss Maude. "You mustn't—"

"What mustn't I do?"

"Jump in the river."

"Oh, go back to bed and rest easy. I don't do that while I've got my looks,"

"Where are you going then?"

"Paris," said Miss Agatha, and went out, closing the door firmly behind her.

Now the story should end hero. But it -doesn't, because it didn't.

Miss Agatha went to the corner drug store, extracted a nickel from her imitation lizard-skin bag, and called up Mr. West.

"You said if I ever needed a friend I could call you up," she said. "Well. I need one now. I want your advice. When can I see you?"

"Any time." said Mr. West. "Tonight?"

"If you want to."

"I'll come right up."

MR. WEST met her at the door of his apartment. He looked rather grave.

"I hope it isn't anything very serious," he said.

"Oh, nothing serious, is it," said Miss Agatha.

He showed her into his living room. It was brightly lit and quite the handsomest room she had ever been in.

"Please sit down," he said, motioning her to an easy chair. She sat down.

"Now what is it?" said Mr. West.

Miss Agatha said nothing. She only looked at him. Coming up in the subway, she had decided that that would be enough. But he sat regarding her, with a friendly smile, waiting for her to speak.

"Please tell me," he said. "You know I want to help you, if I can."

"Well, I'm here. I mean, here I am," said Miss Agatha.

"So I see," said Mr. West. "You said you wanted my advice. What about?"

This wasn't the way she had pictured the scene at all. She drew in her breath and said:

"About going in Paris."

"Oh, I see. So you and Charlie arc going to Paris—"

"Not Charlie," said Miss Agatha. "He's through. He turned out all wrong—"

She had not meant to cry.

"You poor child," said Mr. West—and then, "Agatha, do you mean— you'll go with me—''

"Yes. That's what I mean." She had stopped crying. "Maybe you don't want to take me," she said.

"But of course I do." said Mr. West. "All the evening I've been sitting here, thinking about you. I've been hating Charlie, too. Do you know what I decided?"

"What?"

"That I wasn't going, to let him have you. I planned to see you again if I had to buy all the shirts in New York. I planned to do everything I could to make you forget Charlie— and love me instead—"

"Well," said Miss Agatha, in a dull voice. "You've got your wish, all right, about forgetting Charlie. I want to. I'm sick and tired of fighting. When Charlie cracked, so did I. I'm going to chuck out a lot of notions I've been carrying around with me all my life. It's a tough world, so I might as well be tough, too. Charlie offered me a furnished room in West Twenty-second Street. Well, I've seen West Twenty-second Street, and it's not so much. From all accounts, I'd have a better time in Paris—"

"Oh, we'll have a marvellous time in Paris," said Mr. West. "It is at its loveliest in the spring—"

"Spring?" said Miss Agatha, wearily. "It won't be spring for three mouths yet. Oh, well, what does it matter?"

"Agatha?"

"Yes?"

"I don't want us to go to Paris right away," said Mr. West.

"I suppose not."

"I've got a reason," said Mr. West. "I hope you won't think I'm a sentimental old fool; but it's an idea I've always had, and I'm going to ask you to help me carry it out—"

"Anything you say," said Miss Agatha.

"This is what I want to do," said Mr. West. "I want you to let me make love to you. You know I love you, but let me tell you so again and again. I want you to let me take you to dinner, and the theatre, and send you flowers and court you, just the way old-fashioned people used to do. And then, in maybe a month or so, I want you to let me propose to you, and I want us to be engaged, with a regular ring: and then, just before we start for Paris, I want to have a real wedding, with a veil, and a big cake, and at least six bridesmaids—"

"You— mean— get married?" said Miss Agatha.

"Certainly. Why, my dear child, what's the matter?"

The matter was that Miss Agatha for the first and last time in her life was having hysterics.

THE STORY could end here. It won't, because I must tell you that one spring day, the sort of mild bright day which comes only to Paris, I saw, in an open car on the Champs Elysée, Mr. and Mrs. West. They didn't see me. I doubt if they even saw Paris.

End

THE PAST MASTERS  ANTHOLOGY SERIES

CUMULATIVE INDEX

To Past Masters 9

The PAST MASTERS series began as a one-off; to my surprise, I found some more stories, which became MORE PAST MASTERS; since then the number of PAST MASTERS anthologies has kept rising.

This index of authors is to help me avoid duplication (although it has already happened) and to help any future searchers after PD L+70 short stories not otherwise easily found.  I have chosen to use common pseudonyms (e.g. Sapper, Saki) rather than formal names, and if it starts with "de"  or "le" it is a "D" or "L"  in the index, e.g. de Brune, le Queux.  Conan Doyle is under C (the surname was legally double-barrelled, but without a hyphen.) If there is more than one story, the stories are in alphabetical order ignoring "a" or "the".

"Pulpmeister"

(Terry Walker)

The code is:  P= Past Masters; M= More Past Masters; then, logically, 3, 4 etc.

Cleve F. Adams:

Flowers For Violet 4

Forty Pains 4

A.J. Alan:

The Diver 5

My Adventure at Chislehurst 5

The Hair 5

H2, etc. 5

My Adventure In Norfolk  5

Grant Allen:

The Conscientious Burglar P

Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews:

The Butler 6

Alice and Claude Askew:

Aylmer Vance and the Vampire M

The Empty Chair  8

Francis Henry Atkins

The Broken Sword  9

Stacy Aumonier

George M

A Source of Irritation 7

Where Was Wych Street?  8

F Britten Austin

An Affair Of Honour 5

Buried Treasure 5

The Fourth Degree 5

The Inca's Treasure 5

The Other Side 5

W. E. Aytoun

The Glenmutchkin Railway M

John Kendrick Bangs

Mr. Homes Shatters an Alibi  8

Robert Barr

The Great Pegram Mystery M

H Bedford-Jones

The Four Red Circles 4

Gallegher of Beaver 4

The Luck of a Cowboy 4

Earl Derr Biggers

Volcano-Mad 3

Harold Bindloss

The Evicting of Grainger 9

The Tempter 6

M. McDonnell Bodkin

A Bolt from the Blue 7

Diamond Cut Diamond 9

A Drop of Blood 9

Find the Forger  8

Hide And Seek 9

The Matchmaker 6

Murder by Proxy 7

Only a Voice 8

Over-Ruled  8

Safe Bind, Safe Find

The Slump In Silver 9

The Torpedo 8

Under His Own Hand  9

A Wrong Turning  8

Rolfe Boldrewood

Five Men's Lives for One Horse 8

The Mailman's Yarn  8

Max Brand:

The Silent Witness P and 7

Percy James Brebner

The Cobbler 6

The Lady's Glove 6

The Man with the Carnation 6

The Missing Signorina 6

Ellis Parker Butler

The Detective Club 7

Geoffrey's Panklaggephone 6

Christopher Caudwell

Four Friends and Death 5

Arthur Conan Doyle:

The New Catacomb P

Richard Connell

Flash!  7

Loser Wins All 9

Man of a Few Words 9

One-Trip Darling 5

The Solid Gold Article 9

Mrs. George Corbett

Spoofing a Detective 7

Colonel Henry Curties

A Summer Night's Weird 6

Richard Harding Davis

In the Fog  9

Aidan de Brune

The Empty Match Box P

The Gift to See Ourselves as Others See Us  8

Glyn Evans

"The Man Who Was—" 5

J S Fletcher

Comedy of the Grand Canal 8

The Cracksman's Catspaw 7

The Yellow Dog P

R Austin Freeman

The Great Portrait Mystery P

John Galsworthy:

Acme 3

Cosmo Hamilton:

The Silent Witness 5

Headon Hill

The Sapient Monkey  9

Robert J Horton:

The Ninety-Ninth Proposal 4

C J Cutcliffe Hyne:

The Anarchist's Scheme 6

Beauty and the Beast 4

Confounded 3

Gregory Of Byzantium 3

Guaranteed Countess  8

A Lottery Duel 3

A Marriage of Convenience 3

The Men in Stone 3

Mrs. Seal McIntosh 3

Paradise Coal Boat 3

The Perfumer 3

A QC's Confession 3

The Ransom 4

The Settler-ess 3

The Ship-Breaker's Yard 3

The Tragedy of a Third Smoker P

The Traitor: 3

The Trinidad Treasure 3

A. A. Irvine:

The Fountain of Light 5

Edgar Jepson and Robert Eustace:

Mr. Belton's Immunity 7

The Tea-Leaf P

Otis Adelbert Kline:

The Phantom Wolf-Hound 4

Stephen Leacock:

The Prince of Wurttenburg P

William Le Queux:

Sheer Profit P

William J. Makin

Flight From Teheran 8

Four Guests 7

The Horror of the Loch 7

Murder off the Map 7

Supper at Midnight 5

A E W Mason

The Affair at the Semiramis Hotel P

The Ginger King P

L T Meade and Robert Eustace

The Dead Hand 3

The Face in the Dark 7

Finger Tips 3

Sir Penn Carlyll's Engagement 3

Lucy Gertrude Moberly:

Black Paws 6

Talbot Mundy

Making £10,000 3

Edith Nesbit

The Mystery of the Semi-Detached M

William Edward Norris:

The Willingham Van Dyke 6

David Wright O'Brien

The Money Machine M

Rats in the Belfry 9

Owen Oliver

Her Account  6

The Last Laugh 6

A Rapid Conveyance  7

The Specialist 6

E. Phillips Oppenheim

The Lady of the Morass 9

Mr. Senn's Past P

A Royal Dilemma 3

The Tower Ghost 8

Barry Pain

Clubs and Hearts  7

Some Imitations 6

Twelve Minutes 6

Marjorie Pickthall

Mannering's Men 6

C E Bechhofer Roberts:

The English Filter 7

The Last Lap 8

The Man Who Lost His Memory 7

Mrs Carnaby's Dairies 8

Murder of a Matchmaker 8

The Mystery of the Chaffeur's Suicide 7

The Radium Robbery 8

Virgin Snow 7

Morley Roberts

Her Memory 7

The Pedestal 6

Theodore Roosevelt

The Wendigo M

Anthony M. Rud

Ooze 7

Damon Runyon

Tobias the Terrible P

Charles  ('Chic') Sale:

The Specialist M

"Sapper" (H C McNeile):

Will You Walk Into My Parlour? P

Perley Poore Sheehan

Spider Tong M

Tiger Trail 4

Adam Hull Shirk

Osiris 4

Thorne Smith

Yonder's Henry! M

John Philip Sousa

The Conspirators M

Andrew Soutar

The Doctor Takes a Hand 6

F St Mars

There and Back  8

Sir Basil Thomson

The Vanishing of Mrs. Fraser P

Guy Thorne

Puzzle Phyllis 6

Unforeseen 5

E. Charles Vivian:

Locked In P

Other Gods 6

Edgar Wallace

Bill of Scotland Yard  4

Christmas Eve at the China Dog M

A Present for Evans M

The Slane Mystery P

Henry Brereton Marriott Watson

The Devil of the Marsh M

F A M Webster

No Leopards in Surbiton 5

The Schimmel Sets the Pace 6

The Secret of the Singular Cipher 6

Ethel Lina White

Cheese P

Wax Works 7

Fred M. White

According to the Statute M

The Azoff Diamonds P

Oscar Wilde

The Canterville Ghost  8

Valentine Williams

Blind Guess M

C N and A M Williamson

The Dazzle Plot  8

P. C. Wren:

Simple 6

Arthur Leo Zagat

Beyond the Spectrum M

Israel Zangwill

Cheating the Gallows  9

_____________________

Table of Contents

1: The Slump In Silver / M. Mcdonnell Bodkin

2: Under His Own Hand / M. Mcdonnell Bodkin

3: Rats in the Belfry /

4: The Lady of the Morass / E. Phillips Oppenheim

5: A Drop of Blood / M. Mcdonnel Bodkin

6: Diamond Cut Diamond / M. Mcdonnell Bodkin

7: Safe Bind, Safe Find / M. Mcdonnell Bodkin

8: Hide And Seek / M. Mcdonnell Bodkin

9: In the Fog /

10: The Sapient Monkey / Headon Hill

11: Cheating the Gallows / Israel Zangwill

12: The Evicting of Grainger / Harold Bindloss

13: The Broken Sword / Francis Henry Atkins

14: Loser Wins All / Richard Connell

15: Man of a Few Words / Richard Connell

16: The Solid Gold Article / Richard Connell

Unnamed

Cumulative Index Vols 1-9